Histories

They did as instructed. And now there stands beside the image of Apollo a statue bearing the name of Aristeas; a grove of bay-trees surrounds it; the image is set in the marketplace. Let it suffice that I have said this much about Aristeas.

As for the land of which my history has begun to speak, no one exactly knows what lies north of it; for I can find out from no one who claims to know as an eyewitness. For even Aristeas, whom I recently mentioned—even he did not claim to have gone beyond the Issedones, even though a poet; but he spoke by hearsay of what lay north, saying that the Issedones had told him.

But all that we have been able to learn for certain by report of the farthest lands shall be told.

North of the port of the Borysthenites,[*](Another Milesian colony, called by Greeks generally +Izmit [29.916,40.783] (inhabited place), Kocaeli, Marmara, Turkey, Asia Olbia (the Fortunate) or Miletopolis; it was the most important Greek center north of the +Black Sea [38,42] (sea) Euxine.) which lies midway along the coast of Scythia (region (general)), AsiaScythia, the first inhabitants are the Callippidae, who are Scythian Greeks; and beyond them another tribe called Alazones; these and the Callippidae, though in other ways they live like the Scythians, plant and eat grain, onions, garlic, lentils, and millet.

Above the Alazones live Scythian farmers, who plant grain not to eat but to sell; north of these, the Neuri; north of the Neuri, the land is uninhabited so far as we know.