Res Gestae

They also sometimes fight when provoked, and then they enter the battle drawn up in wedge-shaped masses, while their medley of voices makes a savage noise. And as they are lightly equipped for swift motion, and unexpected in action, they purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, rushing about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific slaughter; and because of their extraordinary rapidity of movement they are never seen to attack a rampart or pillage an enemy’s camp.

And on this account you would not hesitate to call them the most terrible of all warriors, because they fight from a distance with missiles having sharp bone, instead of their usual points,[*](I.e., of metal (bronze or iron).) joined to the shafts with wonderful skill; then they gallop over the intervening spaces and fight hand to hand with swords, regardless of their own lives; and while the enemy are guarding against wounds from the sabre-thrusts, they throw strips of cloth plaited into nooses over their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs and take from them the power of riding or walking.[*](This device was used also by the Sagartian nomads; see Hdt. vii. 85; Val. Flaccus, vi. 132 ff.; etc.)

No one in their country ever plows a field or touches a plow-handle. They are all without fixed abode, without hearth, or law, or settled mode of life, and keep roaming from place to place, like fugitives, accompanied by the wagons in which they live; in wagons their wives weave for them their hideous garments, in wagons they cohabit with their

In truces they are faithless and unreliable, strongly inclined to sway to the motion of every breeze of new hope that presents itself, and sacrificing every feeling to the mad impulse of the moment. Like unreasoning beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the difference between right and wrong; they are deceitful and ambiguous in speech, never bound by any reverence for religion or for superstition. They burn with an infinite thirst for gold, and they are so fickle and prone to anger, that they often quarrel with their allies without provocation, more than once on the same day, and make friends with them again without a mediator.

This race of untamed men, without encumbrances, aflame with an inhuman desire for plundering others’ property, made their violent way amid the rapine and slaughter of the neighbouring peoples as far as the Halani, once known as the Massagetae. And since we have come to this point, it is in place to tell of the origin and dwelling-place of this people also, and to point out the confused opinions of geographers, who after many different attempts to deal with the subject have at last come upon the core of the truth.[*](The passage is fragmentary and the exact meaning is uncertain. Only the general sense can be given.)

The Hister,[*](The Danube.) filled to overflowing by a great number of tributaries, flows past the Sauromatians, and these extend as far as the river Tanais,[*](The Don.) which

Among these the Nervii[*](Cf. xxii. 8, 40; these are the Neuri of Herodotus (iv. 105).) inhabit the interior of the country near the lofty, precipitous peaks nipped by the north winds and benumbed with ice and snow. Behind these are the Vidini[*](The Budini of Herodotus, iv. 108–9.) and the Geloni, exceedingly savage races, who strip the skins from their slain enemies to make clothing for themselves and coverings for their horses in war.[*](See Mela, ii. 1, 14.) On the frontier of the Geloni are the Agathyrsi, who checker their bodies and dye their hair with a blue colour[*](This detail is not mentioned by Herodotus (iv. 101).) —the common people with a few small marks, but the nobles with more and broader spots of dye.[*](Cf. Pliny, N.H. iv. 80; Mela, ii. 1, 10.)

Beyond these are the Melanchlaenae[*](According to Herodotus, iv. 107, they get their name from their black clothing.) and the Anthropophagi, who according to report lead a nomadic life and feed upon human flesh; and because of this abominable food they are left to themselves and all their former neighbours have moved to distant parts of the earth. And so the entire north-eastern[*](Oriens aestivus, north-east (Pliny, N.H. xvii. 105), so called because the sun rises in that quarter in summer. Hibernus oriens for south-east also occurs, and occidens aestivus for north-west (Columella, i. 6, 2); o. h.,, Livy, xliv. 46, 5. Cf. Gesner, Lex. Rusticum, s.v. aequinoctialis oriens. ) tract, until one comes to the Seres,[*](Chinese of Central and E. Asia (see xxiii. 6, 64). The Seres and the Ganges are not mentioned by Herodotus, nor the Halani except perhaps as Massagetae (i. 204).) has remained uninhabitable.

In another part of the country, near the abodes of the Amazons, the Halani mount to the eastward, divided

Thus the Halani (whose various peoples it is unnecessary now to enumerate) are divided between the two[*](I.e., Europe and Asia, in which Africa was often included.) parts of the earth, but although widely separated from each other and roaming over vast tracts, as Nomads do, yet in the course of time they have united under one name, and are, for short, all called Halani because of the similarity in their customs, their savage mode of life, and their weapons.