Toxaris Now listen, my amazing friend, and observe how much more candidly we barbarians judge good men than you Greeks. In Argos and Mykenai there is not even a noble tomb to be seen of Orestes and Pylades, but in our country there is shown a temple raised to them in common, as was natural since they were comrades, and sacrifices are offered to them and all other honors. The fact that they were foreigners, not Scythians, does not in the least prevent their being adjudged good men. For we do not ask whence noble and good people come, and we bear them no grudge for working good deeds, even if they are not our friends. On the contrary we applaud their acts, and adopt them as countrymen on the strength of them. But what we chiefly wondered at and praised in these men was this, that they seemed to us to be the noblest pair of friends in the world, and authorized to lay down for the rest of mankind the principle that friends must share all fortunes, and thus win the reverence of the best of the Scythians.
Our ancestors inscribed an account of their sufferings with each other, or for each other, on a
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bronze pillar and set it up as an offering in the Oresteion, making a law that the earliest training and education of their children should be to learn by heart the inscription on this pillar. The result is that it would be easier for one of them to forget his father's name than to be in ignorance of the deeds of Orestes and Pylades. Moreover, on the wall enclosing the temple there are ancient pictures displaying everything related on the pillar. One shows Orestes sailing in company with his friend; another shows him captured after his ship went to pieces on the rocks and made ready for the sacrifice, with Iphigeneia in the act of beginning the ceremony. On the opposite wall he is seen at the moment when he had burst his bonds and was killing Thoas and a number of other Scythians, and, finally, they are painted sailing away with Iphigeneia and the goddess. The Scythians are vainly trying to stop the ship, which is already under sail, and are hanging in the rigging and trying to board her; but they fail completely and some get wounded, and others, in fear of a like fate, swim off to land.
In this picture we can see best how much tenderness they showed for each other in the struggle with the Scythians. For the artist has depicted each careless of his own opponents, but warding off attacks on his friend, and trying to receive the missiles intended for him, thinking it nothing to
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die in saving his friend and taking on his own body the blow aimed at the other. Such devotion as this of theirs, such partnership in dangers, the faithfulness and good-fellowship and honesty and firmness of their mutual love, seemed to us not to belong to human nature, but to a finer temperament than that of men. For the majority, as long as the wind is favorable, take it ill if their friends do not divide their pleasures with them in equal shares, but if there comes the least breath of adversity they leave them to face danger alone. I will tell you another thing, too, that there is no office of friendship that a Scythian thinks greater, nor anything in which he takes more pride, than helping a friend in trouble and sharing his dangers, so that we think the hardest name a man can be called is "traitor to friendship." This is the reason we honor Orestes and Pylades, who were the best in what the Scythians deem good, and pre-eminent in friendship, which we admire above all things. So we have given them the name of “Korakoi,” which in our language signifies "genii of friendship."
Mnesippos Toxaris, I see that the Scythians have not only been great archers, and better than other nations in warlike pursuits, but are also the most persuasive orators in the world. For though I was of the other opinion a while ago, I now think you are quite right to deify
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Orestes and Pylades. And I had no idea, my dear fellow, that you were a good painter as well. You have brought before me most vividly the pictures in the Oresteion, and the battle of the heroes and their vicarious wounds; but I never should have supposed that friendship was made so much of among the Scythians. I thought that inasmuch as they are inhospitable and wild, they dwelt together in constant feud and passion and anger, and entertained no friendship towards even their next of kin, judging from the things we hear of them, and particularly that they eat their fathers when they are dead.