The Scythians are less known, and some confusion about them existed among ancient historians. Herodotus mentions two peoples of that name; they came into collision with each other in Southern Russia, near the Ural Mountains, the passes of which were the gates of Europe for the invading Mongols and other non-Aryan races. Galenus describes his Scythians as Mongols, Hippocrates gives them all the attributes of Teutons, and recent researches tend to show that Galenus mistook the Scythians he may have seen or heard of, and that Hippocrates was nearer the truth about them. The data given by antiquarians so far suggest that the Scythians were a long-headed race, and had many customs peculiar to the ancient Teutons; they venerated the god of war in the form of a sword, they sought auguries in the interlacing boughs of trees, their legends bore some resemblance to the saga of the Norse-folk, and they indulged in the playful habit of using the skulls of vanquished enemies as drinking-vessels.
It would seem that the Scythians came from the country now known as Silesia and were probably displaced by the Teutons. Those who made this people their special study as did worthy Pomponius Mela, maintain that the Parthians were of the same race, had the same habits, spoke the same speech, and moreover had much the same fashions in dress. The Scythians were clothed à l’Allemande of the period, simply and chastely in shirt and trousers, the latter considered an enormity by earlier Roman historians, who possibly found that the trouser crease of their day was as little in accord with artistic tradition as that of the present day.
One fact emerges from all the profound utterances of authorities on the subject, namely, that the Scythians were not of Mongolian extraction, and should under no circumstances be identified with the Huns.
I have already mentioned the Illyrians, and have got no further in the matter of their descent than have any of the recognized authorities on that important subject. What information does exist about this people is chiefly negative; for instance, that they did not belong to the Indo-German race, but to an older family which after a century or two of genteel poverty went under before the pushing young Aryans.
There appears to be a great deal of doubt as to the date when the Greeks or Hellenes arrived upon the scene in the Balkan Peninsula. Some say that they were the first arrivals, born there, in fact; others that they came wandering down from the north in relays, that the overflowing fount of humans in Northern Europe poured wave after wave of ces gens là over Southern Europe. Be that as it may, it seems nevertheless probable that the Hellenes were akin to the Thracians and had many attributes in common with them. There are the crude paintings still extant, showing Hellenes of the sixth century B.C., and these of men fair-haired and blue-eyed; again, leaving the artistic for the scientific standpoint—the ancients of Hellas were dolichocephalic.
I have followed the fortunes of the Hellenes in another chapter, and must now confine myself to generalities about the Balkan people of all ages.