Note 229 — BOOK XIII.

Renown’d for justice and for length of days, Arrian. de Exp. Alex. iv. p. 239, also speaks of the independence of these people, which he regards as the result of their poverty and uprightness. Some authors have regarded the phrase “Hippomolgian,” i.e. “milking their mares,” as an epithet applicable to numerous tribes, since the oldest of the Samatian nomads made their mares’ milk one of their chief articles of diet. The epithet abion or abion, in this passage, has occasioned much discussion. It may mean, according as we read it, either “long-lived,” or “bowless,” the latter epithet indicating that they did not depend upon archery for subsistence.