Histories

Across the Gerrus are those lands called Royal, where the best and most numerous of the Scythians are, who consider all other Scythians their slaves; their territory stretches south to the Tauric land, and east to the trench that was dug by the sons of the blind men, and to the port called The Cliffs [*](Apparently on the west coast of the Sea of +Azov [39.433,47.1] (inhabited place), Rostov, Rossiya, Russia, Asia Azov; cp. Hdt. 4.110.) on the Maeetian lake; and part of it stretches to the +Azov [39.433,47.1] (inhabited place), Rostov, Rossiya, Russia, Asia Tanaïs river.

North of the Royal Scythians live the Blackcloaks, who are of another and not a Scythian stock; and beyond the Blackcloaks the land is all marshes and uninhabited by men, so far as we know.

Across the +Azov [39.433,47.1] (inhabited place), Rostov, Rossiya, Russia, Asia Tanaïs it is no longer Scythia (region (general)), AsiaScythia; the first of the districts belongs to the Sauromatae, whose country begins at the inner end of the Maeetian lake and stretches fifteen days' journey north, and is quite bare of both wild and cultivated trees. Above these in the second district, the Budini inhabit a country thickly overgrown with trees of all kinds.