Category Archives: Scythians / Pontic peoples (broad category)

Amazons, Tibarenians, and Mossynoikians: Apollonios of Rhodes on a voyage to the Kolchians (third century BCE)

Asian Albanians, Iberians, Mardians and others: Demodamas and Pliny the Elder on peoples in the Caucasus region and further east (third century BCE / first century CE)

Assyrians, Medes and Persians: Ktesias on Persian Matters via Diodoros and Photios (early fourth century BCE)

Babylonian diasporas: Josephos and other Judeans on legends of migration from Babel (first-second centuries CE)

Babylonians and Assyrians: Herodotos on legendary queens and outstanding customs (mid-fifth century BCE)

Barbarian peoples: Hellanikos, Nymphodoros, Nikolaos, and others with collections of “barbarian customs” (fifth century BCE on)

Barbarian wisdom: Celsus and Origen of Alexandria (second-third centuries CE)

Carthaginians: Plato, Aristotle, Polybios and others on their character and communal organization (fourth century BCE on)

Celtic, Indian, and Assyrian wisdom: Polyhistor on Pythagoras’ education by wise barbarians (first century BCE)

Celts, Persians, and Amazons: Smaller statues of fighting and dying “barbarians” associated with Attalos of Pergamon (third-second century BCE / second century CE)

Daans, Kadousians, Hyrkanians, and Sakians: Strabo on peoples east of the Caspian Sea (first century CE)

Egyptian, Phoenician, and Phrygian wisdom: Ephoros on inventors (mid-fourth century BCE)

Ethnic diversity in Alexandria: Dio of Prusa on the cross-roads of the world (late first century CE)

Europeans and Asians: Pseudo-Hippokrates on humoural and environmental theories (fifth century BCE)

Europeans, Asians, and Greeks: Aristotle on hierarchies, slaves, and environmental determinism (fourth century BCE)

Getians, Dacians, and Scythians: Strabo (early first century CE)

Getians, Scythians, and Goths: Jordanes on their supposed origins and achievements (mid-sixth century CE)

Iberians, Albanians and others of the Caucasus area: Strabo (early first century CE)

Indians, Ethiopians, Celts, and Scythians: Ephoros on a four-fold division of the known world (mid-fourth century BCE)

Israelites, Egyptians, Idumeans, Scythians, and others: Origen on ethnic hierarchies and their spiritual equivalents (mid-third century CE)

Judean wisdom: Tatian the Assyrian on the priority of Moses’ “barbarian wisdom” (second century CE)

Judeans, Syrians, Celts, Scythians and others: Plutarch on the “barbarian” origins of fearing the gods, or “superstition” (early second century CE)

Judeans, Syrians, Indians, and others: Porphyry of Tyre on abstinence from meat (third century CE)

Judeans: Hekataios, pseudo-Hekataios and Diodoros on Judean origins and migration with the exodus (first century BCE)

Judeans: Strabo on decline after Moses and banditry (early first century CE)

Kimmerians and Kolchians: Herodotos on other Pontic peoples (mid-fifth century BCE)

Maiotians, Bosporians, Kaukasians, and other Pontic peoples: Strabo on northern Asia (early first century CE)

Medes, Assyrians, Baktrians, and others: Herodotos on the mixed composition of the Persian army under Xerxes (fifth century BCE)

Mediterranean peoples: Claudius Ptolemy on astrological effects on peoples (second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Diodoros, Pliny and Plutarch on Pompey’s subjugation of peoples of the world (mid-first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Pliny the Elder on inventors around the world (first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Polemon theorizes the meaning of physical features (second / fifth centuries CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pomponius Mela on peoples of the known world (mid-first century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Sextus Empiricus engages with ethnographic discourses for philosophical aims (second-third centuries CE)

Northern peoples: Antonios Diogenes’ “Wonders Beyond Thule” and ethnographic fiction (second century CE / ninth century CE)

Northern peoples: Inscriptions on barbarians as bandits (second-third centuries CE)

Panchaians: Euhemeros and Diodoros on a noble people worshipping Zeus on a utopian island (fourth / first century BCE)

Parthians and Scythians: Julius Africanus on barbarian military techniques (early third century CE)

Persian, Babylonian, and Scythian wisdom: Diogenes of Laertes refutes Magian and Chaldean origins for Greek philosophy (early third century CE)

Persians and neighbouring eastern peoples: Ammianus Marcellinus on Persian territories and lifestyles (late fourth century CE)

Persians, Celts, Thracians, and others: Polyainos on “tricky” barbarians (mid-second century CE)

Persians, Hyrkanians, Armenians, Derbikians and others: Curtius Rufus on the mixed composition of the army of Darius III (first century CE)

Persians: Acts of Archelaos on Mani’s foreignness (early fourth century CE)

Persians: Clement of Alexandria [IV] on the elements among Greek philosophers and Persian Magians (late second century CE)

Pontic peoples: Phlyarchos on traits and customs of Thibians and Scythians (early second century BCE)

Romans, Egyptians, Persians, and others: Minucius Felix’s ethnographic defence of the Christian people (early third century CE)

Romans: Dionysios on Roman origins, Italic peoples, and legends of Greek and Pelasgian migrations to Italy (late first century BCE)

Romans: Strabo on Roman superiority and conquest of peoples (early first century CE)

Scythians and Ethiopians: Agatharchides and Diodoros theorize about the effects of climate (second-first centuries CE)

Scythians and Getians: Dio of Prusa on inter-ethnic encounters at Olbia and on Getian Matters (late first century CE)

Scythians and other Pontic peoples: Herodotos on the “most ignorant peoples of all” (fifth century BCE)

Scythians, Amazons, and Hyperboreans: Diodoros on some northerners (mid-first century BCE)

Scythians, Amazons, and Persians: Isocrates on the superiority of the Athenian people (early fourth century BCE)

Scythians, Germans, and others: Pliny the Elder on peoples on the western and northern coasts of the Black Sea (first century CE)

Scythians: Lucian on Toxaris’ and Anacharsis’ differing encounters with Greeks (late second century CE)

Thracians and other Black Sea peoples: Ammianus Marcellinus on their “savage” character and on Roman control (late fourth century CE)

Thracians, Galatians, Daans, and others: Polybios on the mixed composition of the armies of Ptolemy IV and Antiochos III (second century BCE)

Thracians, Getians, Paionians, and others: Herodotos (mid-fifth century BCE)

Thracians, Scythians, and others: Anonymous author on opposing views and the relativity of what is shameful or good (mid-fourth century BCE [?])