[2861] Also called “Assedones” and “Issedones.” It has been suggested by modern geographers that their locality must be assigned to the east of Ichim, on the steppe of the central horde of the Kirghiz, and that of the Arimaspi on the northern declivity of the chain of the Altaï.
[2862] Now the Don.
[2863] Most probably these mountains were a western branch of the Uralian chain.
[2864] From the Greek πτεροφορὸς, “wing-bearing” or “feather-bearing.”
[2865] This legendary race was said to dwell in the regions beyond Boreas, or the northern wind, which issued from the Riphæan mountains, the name of which was derived from ῥιπαὶ or “hurricanes” issuing from a cavern, and which these heights warded off from the Hyperboreans and sent to more southern nations. Hence they never felt the northern blasts, and enjoyed a life of supreme happiness and undisturbed repose. “Here,” says Humboldt, “are the first views of a natural science which explains the distribution of heat and the difference of climates by local causes—by the direction of the winds—the proximity of the sun, and the action of a moist or saline principle.”—Asie Centrale, vol. i.
[2866] Pindar says, in the “Pythia,” x. 56, “The Muse is no stranger to their manners. The dances of girls and the sweet melody of the lyre and pipe resound on every side, and wreathing their locks with the glistening bay, they feast joyously. For this sacred race there is no doom of sickness or of disease; but they live apart from toil and battles, undisturbed by the exacting Nemesis.”
[2867] Hardouin remarks that Pomponius Mela, who asserts that the sun rises here at the vernal and sets at the autumnal equinox, is right in his position, and that Pliny is incorrect in his assertion. The same commentator thinks that Pliny can have hardly intended to censure Mela, to whose learning he had been so much indebted for his geographical information, by applying to him the epithet “imperitus,” ‘ignorant’ or ‘unskilled’; he therefore suggests that the proper reading here is, “ut non imperiti dixere,” “as some by no means ignorant persons have asserted.”
[2868] The Attacori are also mentioned in B. vi. c. 20.
[2869] Sillig omits the word “non” here, in which case the reading would be, “Those writers who place them anywhere but, &c.;” it is difficult to see with what meaning.
[2870] Herodotus, B. iv., states to this effect, and after him, Pomponius Mela, B. iii. c. [5].