Citation with stable link: Philip A. Harland, 'Scythians: Athenaios and others on Scythianizing and “Scythian speech” (fifth century BCE on),' Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World, last modified August 4, 2026, https://philipharland.com/Blog/?p=22887.

Ancient authors: Various Greek poets (from the fifth century BCE on) cited by Athenaios (early third century CE), Sophists at Dinner 10.427 (link); Anonymous Judean author (first century CE), 4 Maccabees 10:1-11 (link); Suda lexicon, at eta 11 (link) and at alpha 878 (link).

Comments: Matthijs den Dulk’s recent work (2026) on Stereotypes and the Letters of Paul (pages 155-56) drew my attention again to a number of recurrent Greek verbs and sayings or proverbs that entailed Scythians, and it is worth gathering some of the primary sources here regarding this northern people often located north or northeast of the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine and Russia. First of all, there is the Greek term to “Scythianize” (with either the preposition epi- or apo-) in other words, “behaving like a Scythian.” The most substantial examples are found in Athenaios (or: Athenaeus) of Naukratis in Egypt (early third century CE), where he is collecting a variety of earlier comments in the poets concerning wine-drinking and the dilution of wine. Here Greeks stereotype Scythians primarily as heavy drinkers of unmixed wine (Greeks consistently diluted wine), so to Scythianize here is to drink heavily and improperly. A slightly modified form of the verb (with the prepositional prefix apo- rather than epi-) is found in the Judean story of the death of the brothers, where Scythianizing means “scalping.” We have already discussed Medizing or Persianizing (link), Egyptianizing (link), Carianizing (link), Judaizing (link and another link), and barbarizing in general (link) in other posts. All are terms for practicing, or acculturating to, customs of a particular people.

Secondly, Dulk points to the Greek proverbial phrase “Scythian speech” which meant harsh, confrontational, bold (i.e. hybristic), or very direct speech. There is the early example in Herodotos’ story (late fifth century BCE) about the nomadic military evasions and then the confrontational “Scythian speech” of Idanthyrsos, king of the Scythians, to king Darius refusing Persian domination (Histories 4.125-127 – link). Klearchos of Soloi (late fourth century BCE) further illustrates this notion well in a general way (link). Although not using the phrase, there is Curtius Rufus’ confrontational speech by the Scythian elder lambasting Alexander of Macedon, which may be a less direct allusion to the proverbial idea (link). Below you will also find a blatant explanation of this “proverb” by the Suda lexicon. A passage in the biographer Diogenes of Laertes shows that some in the Cynic sect of philosophy could ironically deploy the phrase in referring to the legendary Scythian (and Cynic stand-in) Anacharsis’ use of direct speech, namely Cynic “bold speech (parrēsia) (Lives 1.101 – link).

Finally, the tenth century CE Suda lexicon refers to yet another proverb, this one derogatory, involving Scythians and a dead donkey (see the final item below). Among the implications are that Scythians are in fact disgusting even though they may appear otherwise.

Works consulted: Matthijs den Dulk, Ethnic Stereotypes and the Letters of Paul (Cambridge: CUP, 2026), pp. 155-156 (open access link).

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Athenaios

[Context of Greek poets’ references about diluting wine with water]

(Sophists at Dinner 10.427) . . . [omitted a series of other examples of Greek opinions on how to properly dilute of wine]. . . And in his play The Bees, Diokles [of Athens or of Phliasos] says: “Speaker A: How should I mix the wine that I am about to drink? Speaker B: Four parts water and two wine.” Actually, this last mixture, since it is contrary to custom, reminded me now of the frequently repeated proverb, “Drink either five or three or at least not four.” Because they say that a person should drink two parts wine to five of water, or one part wine to three of water. Regarding this mixture, the poet Ion [of Chios], in his work On Chios, says: “The diviner Palamedes prophesied that the Greeks would have a fast voyage if they drank three cups of water mixed with one cup of wine.”

However, other people, who adopted a stronger mixture⁠ in their potions, drank two parts of wine to five parts of water. Nikochares [of Athens], for example, alluding in his play Amymone to the name Oinomaos [i.e. the name has “wine” in it], said: “Here, Oinomaos, your health in a five and two! May you and I be drinkers together.” Nikochares also has similar lines in The Lemnian Women. So Ameipsias [of Athens] in Playing the Game of Kottabos: “I am Dionysos [god of wine] for all of you, mixed five of water and two of wine.” Eupolis in Goats says:⁠ “Hail, Dionysos! Do you come with the taste of five and two?” Hermippos in The Gods says: “Again, whenever we drink or are thirsty we pray, to meet the emergency, ‘Now my drinking-horn, turn into wine!’ Then I carry it to the wine-merchants, joking on the way, and soon it has turned into five and two.”

[Scythianizing as drinking undiluted wine, i.e. heavy-drinking]

However, in the poet Anakreon [of Teos in Asia Minor] we have one cup of wine to two cups of water:⁠ “Up then, my boy, and hand us a cup, so that I may pledge a deep draught, pouring in ten cups of water and five of wine, because I want to celebrate Bacchos again in a proper way.” And going on, Anakreon calls the drinking unmixed wine a “Scythian draught”: “Up then once most; let us no longer, amid clatter and shouting, engage in a Scythian draught with our wine, but drink it calmly amid noble hymns of praise.” And so the Lakedaimonians [i.e. Spartans] assert, according to Herodotos in the sixth book [6.84 – link],⁠ that their king Kleomenes, after associating with Scythians, became a drinker of unmixed wine and, as a result of this dissipation, he went crazy. The Lakonians [the larger region in which Sparta was located] themselves, therefore, whenever they want to drink a stronger⁠ mixture, call it “Scythianizing” (episkythisai). Chamaileon of Herakleia [on the Black Sea in Asia Minor], for example, in his book On Drunkenness, writes about them in this way: “For the Lakonians say that Kleomenes the Spartan went crazy from learning to drink unmixed wine after associating with Scythians. Hence, whenever they wish to drink a stronger mixture, they say, ‘Scythianize it!'”  In his satyric drama called Aithon, Achaios [of Eretria], represents the satyrs as indignant at drinking watery wine, and saying: “Speaker A: It can’t be, can it, that the water⁠ was mixed in it too copiously? Speaker B: Why, it isn’t established as a custom for those of our descent group to even lick it. Speaker A: No! It’s good to celebrate with a Scythian drink.”

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4 Maccabees

[Scythianizing the head in the killing of the third brother of a Judean family by the “tyrant” Epiphanes, the Seleukid king]

(10:1-11; NRSV adapted) When the second brother also had endured a glorious death, the third was brought forward, and many repeatedly urged him to save himself by tasting the meat [of the pig]. But he shouted, “Do you not know that the same father begot me as well as those who died and the same mother bore me and that I was brought up on the same teachings? I do not renounce the noble kinship that binds me to my brothers.” Enraged by the man’s boldness, they disjointed his hands and feet with their instruments, dismembering him by prying his limbs from their sockets, and breaking his fingers, arms, legs and elbows. [10:7] Since they were unable in any way to break his spirit, they abandoned the instruments of torture and Scythianized (aposkythisai) the top of his head with their fingernails. They immediately brought him to the wheel, and while his vertebrae were being dislocated by this, he saw his own flesh torn all around and drops of blood flowing from his entrails. When he was about to die, he said, “We, most abominable tyrant [Seleukid king Epiphanes IV], are suffering because of our godly training and virtue. However, because of your impiety and bloodthirstiness, you will face unceasing torments.”

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Suda lexicon

[Definition of the Greek proverb “Scythian speech”]

(eta 11) “Scythian speech” (ἡ ἀπὸ Σκυθω̂ν ῥη̂σις): The proverb (paroimia) is applied to those who sharply tell someone to “go wail!” (oimõzein), seeing that the Scythians responded to Darius the Persian, after he had made an announcement about giving up, telling him to “go cry” (klaiein) [i.e. Herodotos, Histories 4.127 – link].

[Proverb on a “Scythian being coy about the donkey”]

(alpha 878) There is a proverb (paroimia): “a Scythian being coy (akkizomenos) about the donkey.” This is used to refer to those who say they are disgusted but are in fact set on taking action, because someone who had seen a dead donkey (sarcastically) said to a Scythian who was present “Some meal, oh Scythian!” He was disgusted, but later prepared it for eating.

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Source of translations: B. Gulick, Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists, 7 volumes, LCL (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1927-41), public domain (passed away in 1962 and copyright expired), adapted by Harland; 4 Maccabees, NRSV, adapted by Harland; Suda, by Harland.