Herodotus, Volume 3 |
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Page 331 - Darius was at his wits' end; hereon the Scythian princes, understanding how matters stood, despatched a herald to the Persian camp with presents for the king: these were, a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. The Persians asked the bearer to tell them what these gifts might mean, but he made answer that he had no orders except to deliver them, and return again with all speed.
Page 131 - Thus and with teams so harnessed the Indians ride after the gold, using all diligence that they shall be about the business of taking it when the heat is greatest; for the ants are then out of sight underground. Now in these parts the sun is hottest in the morning, not at midday as elsewhere, but from sunrise to the hour of market-closing. Through these hours it is hotter by much than in Hellas at noon, so that men are said to sprinkle themselves with water at this time. At midday the sun's heat...
Page 127 - These Indians wear clothes of rushes ; they mow and cut these from the river, then plait them crosswise like a mat, and put it on like a breastplate. 99. Other Indians, to the east of these, are nomads and eat raw flesh ; they are called Padaei. It is said to be their custom that when any of their countryfolk male or female are sick, a man's closest friends kill him, saying that they lose his flesh by the wasting of the disease ; though he denies that he is sick, yet they will not believe him, but...
Page 213 - This Aristeas, being then possessed by Phoebus, visited the Issedones ; beyond these (he said) dwell the one-eyed Arimaspians, beyond whom are the griffins that guard gold, and beyond these again the Hyperboreans, whose territory reaches to the sea. Except the Hyperboreans, all these nations (and first the Arimaspians) ever make war upon their neighbours ; the Issedones were pushed from their lands 1 The name survives in
Page 305 - Virgin goddess as I will show: after the first rites of sacrifice, they smite the victim on the head with a club; according to some, they then throw down the body from the cliff whereon their temple stands, and place the head on a pole; others agree with this as to the head, but say that the body is buried, not thrown down from the cliff. This deity to whom they sacrifice is said by the Tauri themselves to be Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. As for the enemies whom they overcome, each man cuts off...
Page 269 - Then those that receive the dead man at his coming do the same as do the Royal Scythians ; that is, they cut off a part of their ears, shave their heads, make cuts round their arms, tear their foreheads and noses, and pierce their left hands with arrows. Thence the bearers carry the king's body on the...
Page 309 - ... same. 109. The Budini are native to the soil ; they are nomads, and the only people in these parts that eat fir'cones ; the Geloni are tillers of the soil, eating grain and possessing gardens ; they are wholly unlike the Budini in form and in complexion. Yet the Greeks call the Budini too Geloni ; but this is wrong. All their country is thickly wooded with every kind of tree ; in the depth of the forests there is a great and wide lake and* marsh surrounded by reeds ; otters are caught in it,...
Page 143 - I cannot with certainty say how the gold is got ; some will have it that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffins. But this too I hold incredible, that there can be men in all else like other men, yet having but one eye.
Page 107 - Herodotus1 about Democracy. Nothing can be more foolish and violent than a useless mob; to save ourselves from the Hybris of a despot by changing it for the Hybris of an unbridled Demos — that were unbearable indeed. Whatever the despot does, he does with knowledge; but the people have not even that; how can they have knowledge, who have neither learned nor for themselves seen what is best, but ever rush headlong and drive blindly onward, like a river in spate? Let those stand for Democracy who...
Page 115 - ... forthwith snorted and whinnied. 88. So Darius son of Hystaspes was made king,1 and the whole of Asia, which Cyrus first and Cambyses after him had subdued, was made subject to him, except the Arabians ; these did not yield the obedience of slaves to the Persians, but were united to them by friendship, as having given Cambyses passage into Egypt, which the Persians could not enter without the consent of the Arabians. Darius took wives from the noblest houses of Persia, marrying Cyrus...