BOOK VI. Greeks undoubtedly formed their word Scutha: for, as the national identity of the Scuths and the Goths is an historical matter of fact; so we are plainly told, that the people, whom at one period the Greeks called Scuths and at another Getes, always styled themselves Goths. By this latter name they have deservedly made themselves famous in the west: and their proper title has now universally superseded their corrupt Hellenic nomenclature. Thus extending from the high lands of upper India to the very borders of Europe, they were variously distinguished by the Greeks according to their locality. Those, who were the neighbours of the Hindoos, were the Indo-Scythæ: those, who touched upon the Celts or Cimmerians, were the Celto-Scythæ: and those, who roamed with their herds and their flocks over the vast steppes of the intermediate country, were known as the nomade or pastoral Scythians. 2. Their chief settlements in the first instance, when they emigrated from Iran, seem very plainly to have been those three mountainous regions, which were equally designated by the appellation of Caucasus; for so the Greeks wrote the word with the common Hellenic termination. One of these was the Indian Caucasus; which may be viewed as extending far to the north, until it be faintly divided by an indistinct line from the Tartarian possessions of Japhet. In the Sanscrit and in the spoken dialects of the Chasas, the word is expressed Cas-Giri or Cas-Ghar or Cas-Car or Chas-Ghar: and this name, with various other kindred appellations which I shall presently notice, is acknowledged in India to be derived from the national title of the Chasas. Now, in the Sanscrit, Ghar or Ghiri signifies a mountain: Chas-Ghar therefore will denote the mountain of Cash or the mountain of the Chasas. But, in the Persic, Cau or Coh is a word of the very same import as Ghar. Hence, what the Hindoos call Chas-Ghar, the Persians have been accustomed to denominate CauCas and from this name the Greeks, who received much of their oriental information through the medium of Persia, fashioned no doubt their Caucasus. Another of their settlements was the Caucasus to the south of the westerly Caucasus, CHAP. IV, We must however Caspian sea. And the third of them was that most According to such an arrangement, it is most curious to observe, whether we take up an ancient or a modern map, how indelibly the name of Cush or Cuth or Cash or Cath is imprinted upon the entire district: and, as we have just seen, the Hindoos assure us, that all local appellations of this sound have been derived from the national title of the Chasas. In old geography, we find to the north of India Casia and Caspia and Caspatyrus; round the intermediate Caucasus, the Caspii and the Caspian sea and the Caspian passes; and, in the vicinity of the western Caucasus, Cutarus and Cutèa and Cuta. So, in modern geography, we have, in the region of the Indian Caucasus, Cashmir and Castwar and Chasghar and Chatraur and Cuttore and Chatzan and Coten; at the foot of the middle Caucasus, the Caspian sea; and, in the recesses of the western Caucasus 3, the CirCassians while the Caisacs or Cossacs, and their brethren the Kir-Ghis, ramble over the intermediate tract, or fix themselves in Russian Europe on the banks of the Tanais. In these extensive regions, averse from labour, and possessing the most unbounded personal freedom; ever retaining the original military propensity of their family, and (as an homogeneous people) ignorant of the servile 'This region is the Mazenderaun of Persic romance, where Rustam encounters the White giant. 2 This whole range of high land is the Caf of the Persian authors, who not unaptly denominate it the stony girdle of the earth. Here they accurately place their Peris and their Dives; and with good reason, for it was the genuine native country of romance. 3 One of the peaks of this Caucasus is still called mount Chat: the Circassians likewise denominate it Elborus, according to its old name. Clarke's Travels. vol. i. c. xxiii. p. 579. Elborus is evidently the Albordi of the Zend-Avesta; and Albordi is the same name as the Armenian Barit or Baris or Alb-Barit. Pag. Idol. VOL. III. 3 S BOOK VI. distinction into castes; little regarding the wrathful excommunication of the Ionizing Brahmens, and pertinaciously adhering to the old Scuthic worship of the war-god Buddha or Woden: they very soon, as their numbers increased, merited but too well the reproachfully-complaining name of plunderers, which their more civilized brethren of the south bestowed upon the fearless outcasts. II. The general relationship, and western progress, of the Scythic tribes have been so ably investigated, and so undeniably established on the sure basis of direct historical evidence, by a learned modern writer, that nothing more is necessary than to give an epitome of his discoveries. I may however previously remark, that the singularly exact coincidence of his conclusions with the very ancient testimony, which has been adduced from the Institutes of Menu, serves additionally to prove, with how much judgment and accuracy those conclusions have been drawn. At the same time I think it right to state, that, in various instances, Mr. Pinkerton, like Sir William Jones, appears to me to have mistaken a part for the whole: a circumstance, which has occasionally led him to pronounce those to be Scythians, who really seem to be tribes of a different origin under the government of a Cuthic priesthood and nobility. Much the same remark applies to Mr. Bryant; whose researches, in many respects, bear a close affinity to those of Mr. Pinkerton and Sir William Jones. Yet is the general outline of truth very strongly marked by the united labours of these three most able inquirers: for, unless the evidence had been almost irresistible, they could scarcely have been brought by different roads so very nearly to the same point'. As the removal of error is the first step towards the attainment of truth, Mr. Pinkerton demonstrates negatively, by irrefragable proofs, that the Scythians were a perfectly distinct race both from the Sarmatians or Sauromatæ, from the Huns and Tartars, and from the Cimmerians or Celts who were the original occupants of the greatest part of Europe: and he further establishes, by proofs no less incontrovertible, that they assuredly 'Much the same remark is made by Sir William himself. See Asiat. Res. vol. iii. 428. vol. ii. p. 65. P. were not emigrants, according to the wild dreams of Jornandes, from the CHAP. IV. sterile and scarcely peopled regions of Scandinavia'. Having now learned, who, the Scythians were not, and whence they did not come; we have next to inquire, who they were, and whence they did come. 1. In pursuing this investigation, Mr. Pinkerton ascertains that the Scythians came originally out of Asia; and he regularly traces their progress the whole way from the north of present Persia*. Hence it is evident, that they must indisputably have been the same people as those, whom the Hindoos denominate Chasas or Chusas, and who themselves claim to be descended (agreeably to their name) from the patriarch Chusa or Cusha: for they are found to have emigrated from that identical region of the Indian Caucasus, viewed as comprehending the whole mountainous country of Bokhara and Cashgar, which is still inhabited by the Chusas, and which of old was tenanted by the Indo-Scythæ. In Asia, they peopled all the regions between the Euxine and the Caspian: Pontus, Armenia, Iberia, and Albania, were each a Scythic settlement: and, according to the positive testimony of ancient writers, the Alani, the Massagetæ, the Sacæ, the Chatæ, the Arimaspi, the Bactriani, the Sogdiani, the Hyrcani, the Dahæ, the Margiani, and the mountaineer Persians, were alike Scythians by descent. Among the names here enumerated, those of the Saca and MassaGeta were the most prevalent: for Strabo mentions, that such were the general appellations of the Asiatic Scythæ on the east of the Caspian; while Herodotus and Pliny inform us, that the Persians distinguished all those Scythæ by the common title of Saca 3. 2. But the roving humour of the Touranian Scythæ did not suffer them to rest content with their Asiatic possessions, ample as they were. From the east they very soon passed into Europe: and here, during the transit, their first settlement, as might naturally be expected, was on the east, north, and west, of the Euxine 4. (1.) They were now invading the dominions of the Celts or Cimme Pinkerton's Dissert. on the orig. of the Scyth. p. 15, 21-23, 39. 2 Ibid. p. 24-30, 34. 3 Ibid. p. 32-41. • Ibid. p. 34. BOOK VI. rians; who of old occupied a part of Asia, and spread over the whole of central Europe. At this early period, those vast regions must rather have been possessed, than peopled, by the Celtic tribes: and no doubt by far the greatest portion of them must have been one continued forest. Hence no serious impediment, on the part at least of the aboriginal inhabitants, could have been thrown in the way of the intruders. They, accordingly, pushed forward from the west of the Euxine: and, as the north presented but little temptation, they directed their steps towards the more promising districts of the south. The new adventurers were a branch of those Scythians, whom the Hindoos denominate Palli or Shepherds: and the title was perfectly well known and recognized among themselves also. Accordingly, we find them making their first appearance in Thrace under the name of Pelasgi. But we are not to build upon mere similarity of appellations Mr. Pinkerton proves, from the direct testimony of the ancients, that the Pelasgi were undoubtedly Scythians: so that, wherever we find this daring tribe, there we also find a member of the great Scythic family'. Their almost entire occupation of Thrace led the Greek writers to pronounce the Thracians in general Scuths or Getes; and Mr. Pinkerton has followed them in their opinion: I am inclined however to believe, that this country, at the time of the Pelasgic invasion, was already peopled thinly with the children of the Japhetic Tiras; whom Moses places in the isles of the Gentiles, and who seems to have communicated his patriarchal appellation to Thracia or Tirasia". From this country the Pelasgi advanced into the still more southern territories of Javan; where they appear to have met with no effectual resistance. At least they made themselves masters of the whole of Greece: and that at so early a period, that they have not unfrequently been mistaken for the Javanic aborigines 3. The error no doubt arose from their having occupied the country long before the arrival of their brethren, the Ionic Hellenes, from Egypt and Phenicia and their occupation of it was at once so ancient and so complete, that they are described as being the 'Pinkerton's Dissert. p. 58-79. 2 Ibid. p. 52-56. Of this mistake I acknowledge myself to have been once guilty. Dissert. on the Cabir. vol. ii. p. 359, 360. |