The Old and the Restless - The Egyptians and the Scythians in Herodotus' Histories by Robert J. Hagan

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The Old and Stable vs. the Young and Restless
Herodotus sets up a temporal template for his ethnographies by remarking on each
culture's place in time very early in its respective section. In Book Two, the author begins his
ethnography of Egypt with the “bekos” anecdote, entailing Psammetichus' desire to find out who
is world's truly oldest race (2.02). There is no dispute that the Scythians are the youngest people
in the world, as Herodotus notes early in Book Four (4.05).
He follows this information with examples of Egyptian learning and wisdom
accumulated over their many years, as told to him by Egyptian priests. They list their invention
of the 12-part calendar year, one Herodotus believes to be better than the Greek system (2.04).
The priests also tell him that the Greeks got the names and characteristics of the twelve gods
from the Egyptians, who were the first to "assign the gods altars, statues, and temples and to
carve figures on to stones" (2.04). Herodotus accepts the supreme antiquity of the Egyptians,
shown in how readily he accepts the Egyptian claim to have created the Greek pantheon. This is
one of several references throughout the work on how Egyptian culture influenced Greek culture.
According to Herodotus, the shield and helmet also came from Egypt (4.180), and modern art
history shows the influence of Egyptian architecture and art in Greece (e.g. the Greek kouros).
Whereas Herodotus believes that the Egyptians have influenced much of Greek culture
and society, he sees the Scythians as relatively isolated from and impervious to this sort of
exchange; thus the Greeks feel free to project their myths onto this new people, to them a cultural
blank slate. So the Black Sea Greeks tell Herodotus the tale of how Heracles came to what is
now Scythia. In the story, Heracles comes to Scythia on the way to the next of his famous labors,
and encounters a woman, half human and half snake, who takes his horses and prevents him