Note 455 — Chapter XVII · LYDIANS. — MEDES. — CIMMERIANS. — SCYTHIANS.

Herodot. iv, 100-101. See, respecting the Scythia of Herodotus, the excellent dissertation of Niebuhr, contained in his Kleine Historische Schriften, “Ueber die Geschichte der Skythen, Geten, und Sarmaten,” p. 360, alike instructive both as to the geography and the history. Also the two chapters in Völcker’s Mythische Geographie, ch. vii-viii, sects. 23-26, respecting the geographical conceptions present to Herodotus in his description of Scythia.

Herodotus has much in his Scythian geography, however, which no comment can enable us to understand. Compared with his predecessors, his geographical conceptions evince very great improvement; but we shall have occasion, in the course of this history, to notice memorable examples of extreme misapprehension in regard to distance and bearings in these remote regions, common to him not only with his contemporaries, but also with his successors.