The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) / Literally Translated, with Notes

by Strabo

The king leaves his palace in time of war; he leaves it also when he goes to sit in his court as a judge. He remains there all day thus occupied, not suffering himself to be interrupted even though the time arrives for attending to his person. This attention to his person consists of friction with pieces of wood, and he continues to listen to the cause, while the friction is performed by four attendants who surround him.

Another occasion of leaving his palace is to offer sacrifice.

The third is a sort of Bacchanalian departure to the chace. Crowds of women surround him, and on the outside (of these) are spear-men. The road is set off with ropes; a man, or even a woman, who passes within the ropes is put to death.

The king is preceded by drums and gongs. He hunts in the enclosures, and discharges his arrows from a high seat. Near him stand two or three armed women. When hunting in the open ground, he shoots his arrows from an elephant; of the women some are in chariots, some on horses, and others on elephants; they are provided with all kinds of weapons, as if they were going on a military expedition.

56. These customs when compared with ours are very strange, but the following are still more extraordinary. According to Megasthenes, the nations who inhabit the Caucasus have commerce with women in public; and eat the bodies of their relatives; the monkeys climb precipices, and roll down large stones upon their pursuers; most of the animals which are tame in our country are wild in theirs; the horses have a single horn, with heads like those of deer; reeds which grow to the height of thirty orguiæ,[391] others which grow on the ground, fifty orguiæ in length, and in thickness some are three and others six cubits in diameter.

57. He then deviates into fables, and says that there are men of five, and even three spans in height, some of whom are without nostrils, with only two breathing orifices above the mouth. Those of three spans in height wage war with the cranes (described by Homer) and with the partridges, which are as large as geese; these people collect and destroy the eggs of the cranes which lay their eggs there; and nowhere else are the eggs or the young cranes to be found; frequently a crane escapes from this country with a brazen point of a weapon in its body, wounded by these people.

Similar to this is the account of the Enotocoitæ,[392] of the wild men, and of other monsters. The wild men could not be brought to Sandrocottus, for they died by abstaining from food. Their heels are in front, the instep and toes are turned backwards. Some have been taken, which had no mouths, and were tame. They live near the sources of the Ganges, and are supported by the smell of dressed meat and the fragrance of fruits and flowers, having instead of mouths orifices through which they breathe. They are distressed by strong-smelling substances, and therefore their lives are sustained with difficulty, particularly in a camp.

With respect to the other singular animals, the philosophers informed him of a people called Ocypodæ, so swift of foot that they leave horses behind them; of Enotocoitæ, or persons having ears hanging down to their feet, so that they lie and sleep upon them, and so strong as to be able to pluck up trees and to break the sinew string of a bow; of others (Monommati) who have only one eye, and the ears of a dog, the eye placed in the middle of the forehead, the hair standing erect, and the breasts shaggy; of others (Amycteres) without nostrils, devouring everything, eaters of raw meat, short-lived, and dying before they arrive at old age; the upper part of their mouths projects far beyond the lower lip.

With respect to the Hyperboreans, who live to the age of a thousand years, his description is the same as that of Simonides, Pindar, and other mythological writers.

The story told by Timagenes of a shower of drops of brass, which were raked together, is a fable. The account of Megasthenes is more probable, namely, that the rivers bring down gold-dust, a part of which is paid as a tax to the king; and this is the case in Iberia (of Armenia).