herodotus

customary law. They are nomads and wear clothing like that of theScythians, but have a language of their own; and alone of all thesenations they are man-eaters. 107. The Melanchlainoi wear all of themblack clothing, whence also they have their name; and they practisethe customs of the Scythians. 108. The Budinoi are a very great andnumerous race, and are all very blue-eyed and fair of skin: and intheir land is built a city of wood, the name of which is Gelonos, andeach side of the wall is thirty furlongs in length and lofty at thesame time, all being of wood; and the houses are of wood also and thetemples; for there are in it temples of Hellenic gods furnished afterHellenic fashion with sacred images and altars and cells,[104] all ofwood; and they keep festivals every other year[105] to Dionysos andcelebrate the rites of Bacchus: for the Gelonians are originallyHellenes, and they removed[106] from the trading stations on the coastand settled among the Budinoi; and they use partly the Scythianlanguage and partly the Hellenic. The Budinoi however do not use thesame language as the Gelonians, nor is their manner of living thesame: 109, for the Budinoi are natives of the soil and a nomad people,and alone of the nations in these parts feed on fir-cones;[107] butthe Gelonians are tillers of the ground and feed on corn and havegardens, and resemble them not at all either in appearance or incomplexion of skin. However by the Hellenes the Budinoi also arecalled Gelonians, not being rightly so called. Their land is allthickly overgrown with forests of all kinds of trees, and in thethickest forest there is a large and deep lake, and round it marshyground and reeds. In this are caught otters and beavers and certainlyother wild animals with square-shaped faces. The fur of these is sewnas a fringe round their coats of skin, and the testicles are made useof by them for curing diseases of the womb.110. About the Sauromatai the following tale is told:--When theHellenes had fought with the Amazons,--now the Amazons are called bythe Scythians /Oiorpata/,[108] which name means in the Hellenic tongue"slayers of men," for "man" they call /oior/, and /pata/ means "toslay,"--then, as the story goes, the Hellenes, having conquered themin the battle at the Thermodon, were sailing away and conveying withthem in three ships as many Amazons as they were able to takeprisoners. These in the open sea set upon the men and cast them out ofthe ships; but they knew nothing about ships, nor how to use ruddersor sails or oars, and after they had cast out the men they were drivenabout by wave and wind and came to that part of the Maiotian lakewhere Cremnoi stands; now Cremnoi is in the land of the freeScythians.[109] There the Amazons disembarked from their ships andmade their way into the country, and having met first with a troop ofhorses feeding they seized them, and mounted upon these they plunderedthe property of the Scythians. 111. The Scythians meanwhile were not