The broad term used by Greeks and Romans to characterize the lands to their north and east, roughly from the Danube to the Don, Caucasus, and Volga. Typically, classical writers present Scythia as a chill wilderness, an ‘otherness’ of savages and uncivilized practices (from blinding, scalping, and flaying through tattooing to the drinking of wine unmixed with water). Scythians and Scythian customs were a favourite literary theme from *Herodotus (1) and Pseudo-Hippocrates (see hippocrates(2)) onwards. The historicity of such accounts remains the subject of scholarly debate, but their ideological function has been established beyond doubt. Classical writers were particularly interested in Scythian *nomadism, uncivilized but attractive in its primitive simplicity (see barbarian; nomads). Accordingly, Scythia might be imagined as a source of ignorance: for example, the uncivilized Scythian archer-police-slaves of 5th-cent. Athens as mocked by *Aristophanes (1). But it can also be a source of wisdom, as personified by the legendary figure of the wise Scythian Prince *Anacharsis.
