Histories

Their horses are said to be covered all over with shaggy hair[*](Strabo says much the same of the Sigynni, according to him a Caucasian tribe.) five fingers' breadth long, and to be small, blunt-nosed, and unable to bear men on their backs, but very swift when yoked to chariots. It is for this reason that driving chariots is the usage of the country. These men's borders, it is said, reach almost as far as the Eneti on the +Adriatic Sea [16,43] (sea), Europe Adriatic Sea.

They call themselves colonists from Media. How this has come about I myself cannot understand, but all is possible in the long passage of time. However that may be, we know that the Ligyes who dwell inland of +Marseilles [5.366,43.3] (inhabited place), Bouches-du-Rhone, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France, Europe Massalia use the word “sigynnae” for hucksters, and the Cyprians use it for spears.

According to the Thracians, all the land beyond the Ister is full of bees, and that by reason of these none can travel there. This, to my mind, is not a credible tale, for those creatures are ill able to bear cold. It appears to me rather that it is by reason of the cold that the northern lands are not inhabited. Such, then, are the stories about this region. Whatever the truth may be, Megabazus made its coastal area subject to the Persians.