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The Euxine sea, where Darius now went to war, has nations dwelling
around it, with the one exception of the Scythians, more unpolished
than those of any other region that we know of. For, setting aside
Anacharsis and the Scythian people, there is not within this region a
single nation which can be put forward as having any claims to wisdom,
or which has produced a single person of any high repute. The
Scythians indeed have in one respect, and that the very most important
of all those that fall under man's control, shown themselves wiser
than any nation upon the face of the earth. Their customs otherwise
are not such as I admire. The one thing of which I speak is the
contrivance whereby they make it impossible for the enemy who invades
them to escape destruction, while they themselves are entirely out of
his reach, unless it please them to engage with him. Having neither
cities nor forts, and carrying their dwellings with them wherever they
go; accustomed, moreover, one and all of them, to shoot from
horseback; and living not by husbandry but on their cattle, their
waggons the only houses that they possess, how can they fail of being
unconquerable, and unassailable even?
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