herodotus

seems is both thick and glossy in appearance, more brilliantly whitethan any other skin. Many also take the skins off the whole bodies ofmen and stretch them on pieces of wood and carry them about on theirhorses. 65. Such are their established customs about these things; andto the skulls themselves, not of all but of their greatest enemies,they do thus:--the man saws off all below the eyebrows and clears outthe inside; and if he is a poor man he only stretches ox-hide round itand then makes use of it; but if he be rich, besides stretching theox-hide he gilds it over within, and makes use of it as a drinkingcup.They do this also if any of their own family have been atvariance with them and the man gets the better of his adversary intrial before the king; and when strangers come to him whom he highlyesteems, he sets these skulls before them, and adds the comment thatthey being of his own family had made war against him, and that he hadgot the better of them; and this they hold to be a proof of manlyvirtue. 66. Once every year each ruler of a district mixes in his owndistrict a bowl of wine, from which those of the Scythians drink bywhom enemies have been slain; but those by whom this has not been donedo not taste of the wine, but sit apart dishonoured; and this is thegreatest of all disgraces among them: but those of them who have slaina very great number of men, drink with two cups together at the sametime.67. Diviners there are many among the Scythians, and they divine witha number of willow rods in the following manner:--they bring largebundles of rods, and having laid them on the ground they unroll them,and setting each rod by itself apart they prophesy; and while speakingthus, they roll the rods together again, and after that they placethem in order a second time one by one.[67] This manner of divinationthey have from their fathers: but the Enareës or "man-women"[68] saythat Aphrodite gave them the gift of divination, and they divineaccordingly with the bark of the linden-tree. Having divided thelinden-bark into three strips, the man twists them together in hisfingers and untwists them again, and as he does this he utters theoracle. 68. When the king of the Scythians is sick, he sends for threeof the diviners, namely those who are most in repute, who divine inthe manner which has been said: and these say for the most partsomething like this, namely that so and so has sworn falsely by thehearth of the king, and they name one of the citizens, whosoever itmay happen to be: now it is the prevailing custom of the Scythians toswear by the hearth of the king at the times when they desire to swearthe most solemn oath. He then who they say has sworn falsely, isbrought forthwith held fast on both sides; and when he has come thediviners charge him with this, that he is shown by their divination tohave sworn falsely by the hearth of the king, and that for this reasonthe king is suffering pain: and he denies and says that he did not