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The Scythians have an extreme hatred of all foreign customs,
particularly of those in use among the Greeks, as the instances of
Anacharsis, and, more lately, of Scylas, have fully shown. The
former, after he had travelled over a great portion of the world, and
displayed wherever he went many proofs of wisdom, as he sailed through
the Hellespont on his return to Scythia touched at Cyzicus. There
he found the inhabitants celebrating with much pomp and magnificence a
festival to the Mother of the Gods, and was himself induced to make a
vow to the goddess, whereby he engaged, if he got back safe and sound
to his home, that he would give her a festival and a night-procession
in all respects like those which he had seen in Cyzicus. When,
therefore, he arrived in Scythia, he betook himself to the district
called the Woodland, which lies opposite the course of Achilles, and
is covered with trees of all manner of different kinds, and there went
through all the sacred rites with the tabour in his hand, and the
images tied to him. While thus employed, he was noticed by one of the
Scythians, who went and told king Saulius what he had seen. Then
king Saulius came in person, and when he perceived what Anacharsis
was about, he shot at him with an arrow and killed him. To this day,
if you ask the Scyths about Anacharsis, they pretend ignorance of
him, because of his Grecian travels and adoption of the customs of
foreigners. I learnt, however, from Timnes, the steward of
Ariapithes, that Anacharsis was paternal uncle to the Scythian king
Idanthyrsus, being the son of Gnurus, who was the son of Lycus and
the grandson of Spargapithes. If Anacharsis were really of this
house, it must have been by his own brother that he was slain, for
Idanthyrsus was a son of the Saulius who put Anacharsis to death.
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