Someone was beating a drum in the woods.

The drummer had images of a god fastened about him. He was alone among the trees, carrying out a foreign goddess's rite from beginning to end.

A Scythian saw him and went to tell the king.

The king came himself. He watched, drew his bow, and killed the man with one arrow.

The dead man's name was Anacharsis.

I. The One Exception by the Black Sea

Let me begin with something unkind.

Around the Black Sea, where Darius led his army, the Scythians apart, live the most ignorant peoples in the world. Inside the Pontus I can name no nation known for wisdom, and I know of no learned man born there.

There are only two exceptions: the Scythian nation, and a man named Anacharsis.

I do not admire the Scythians in other respects. I admire one thing only, but it is the most important thing in human affairs: whoever attacks them cannot escape, and if they do not wish to be found, no one can catch them. They have no cities and no walls. Every man is a mounted archer. They live by their herds, not by the plough, and their houses ride on wagons. How could such people be beaten, or even reached?

That is the Scythians' cleverness. Anacharsis had a different kind. He travelled through many lands and showed much wisdom in them.

And it was that other kind of cleverness that got him killed by his own people.

II. What the Scythians Will Not Touch

To tell his story I must first tell you a Scythian rule.

The Scythians, like others, go to great lengths to avoid the customs of other peoples, and Greek customs least of all will they touch.

I have proof of this. Two men show it: first Anacharsis, and later Scyles.

I have found out which gods the Scythians worship. Above all they honor Hestia, whom they call Tabiti; then Zeus and Earth. Zeus they call Papaeus, and in my judgment no name could be more correct. After them come Apollo, Heavenly Aphrodite, Heracles and Ares. The Royal Scythians also sacrifice to Poseidon.

They make images, altars and temples for one god only, Ares. For no other.

Keep that in mind. The man in the woods had images hung on him.

III. The Festival at Cyzicus

Anacharsis had seen a great deal of the world and was on his way home to the Scythians. He sailed through the Hellespont and put in at Cyzicus.

When I told you about Aristeas, the poet who died in a fuller's shop and then vanished, I said I had heard his story in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. Cyzicus lies on the southern shore of that same sea.

When Anacharsis arrived, the people of Cyzicus were holding a festival for the Mother of the Gods, with great splendor.

He watched, and made a vow to that Mother: if he came home to his own country safe and sound, he would sacrifice to her as he saw the Cyzicenes doing, and hold an all-night rite in her honor.

It was a bargain between him and a foreign goddess. She was not among the gods the Scythians worship.

IV. The Woodland

He came back to Scythia.

He did not go back among his people. He slipped into a place called the Woodland.

Cross the Borysthenes and, starting from the sea, the first land you reach is the Woodland. It lies beside the strip called the Race of Achilles. The land around there grows no trees at all, except the Woodland, which is full of trees of every kind.

If you remember, the Greeks of the Black Sea say that when Heracles lost his horses, it was this same Woodland where he found them, in a cave, with the woman who was half snake.

Anacharsis went in to keep his vow.

V. The Drum and the Images

In the woods Anacharsis performed every part of the goddess's festival, leaving nothing out. He held a hand-drum and had images fastened about him.

In Scythia only Ares has images. Now a Scythian, hung with images of another god, was beating a drum among the trees.

He did not hide well enough. A Scythian noticed him, saw what he was doing, and reported it to King Saulius.

VI. One Arrow

Saulius sent no one. He came himself.

He saw with his own eyes Anacharsis doing these things, drew his bow, and shot him dead.

About the moment of his death, this is all I know: a man reported him, a king came in person, and there was one arrow. There was no trial, and no one recorded any last words.

VII. They Say They Never Knew Him

Today, if you ask the Scythians about Anacharsis, they say they do not know the man.

They say this for one reason only: he left his country for Greece and took up the customs of strangers.

A man who travelled many lands and showed wisdom wherever he went came home, and his own people took his name out of their mouths. I heard about him in Greece. In Scythia, no one would tell me.

VIII. The Family Tymnes Told Me About

Still, I heard more from one man.

His name was Tymnes, and he was the agent of Ariapeithes. Ariapeithes later became king of the Scythians as well.

Tymnes told me that Anacharsis was the uncle of Idanthyrsus, king of the Scythians. Anacharsis was the son of Gnurus, Gnurus the son of Lycus, Lycus the son of Spargapeithes.

If Anacharsis really was of that house, then let him know: he died at his own brother's hand. For Idanthyrsus was the son of Saulius, and it was Saulius who shot Anacharsis.

The man who ran to report him probably did not know he was reporting the king's own brother. The king came in person and saw for himself before he drew the bow. That, he could not have failed to know.

IX. The Peloponnesians' Story

I have heard another account, told by the Peloponnesians.

They say Anacharsis was sent by the Scythian king to Greece to learn. When he came back he told the king who had sent him that the Greeks were all too busy for any kind of learning, except the Lacedaemonians, and that only the Lacedaemonians knew how to speak with good sense and listen with good sense.

That story, in my view, the Greeks simply made up themselves.

In that story, Anacharsis goes abroad on orders and brings home what his king wanted. In the account of the Scythians and of Tymnes, he goes on his own and brings home a goddess his king would not accept.

Whatever the truth, the man was killed, as I have said.

X. His Nephew

Many years later Darius crossed the sea and led his great army onto the Scythian steppe. The king of the Scythians then was Idanthyrsus, son of Saulius.

The Scythians would not meet him in open battle. They fell back and fell back. Darius sent a rider to Idanthyrsus: strange man, why do you keep running? Either stand and fight, or come with earth and water and own me as your master.

Idanthyrsus answered that he had never run from any man out of fear, and was not running now. The Scythians had no towns and no farmland that they must rush to fight for, fearing they would be taken or laid waste. What the Scythians did have was the graves of their fathers. Let the Persians find them and try to wreck them, and they would learn whether the Scythians would fight.

He added that the only masters he acknowledged were Zeus, his forefather, and Hestia, queen of the Scythians.

This is what people call "Scythian speech."

Putting these two things side by side is my own arrangement. An uncle beat a drum in the woods for a foreign Mother of the Gods and died at the hands of his brother, the nephew's father; the nephew, facing the Great King of Persia, said he acknowledged only two gods of the Scythians' own.

XI. How the Scythians Guard Their Customs

That is what became of Anacharsis. It was foreign customs and dealings with Greeks that brought him to it.

Many, many years later Scyles, son of Ariapeithes, met a fate much like his. Scyles' mother was a Greek woman from Istria, who taught him the Greek language and Greek letters. He became king, yet secretly put on Greek clothes inside a Greek city. In the end the Scythians deposed him, and he was beheaded beside the Ister.

I will tell Scyles' story properly next time.

This is how closely the Scythians guard their own customs, and this is how they punish anyone who adds foreign ways to them.

The trees of the Woodland are probably still there, and the sea wind probably still blows along the Race of Achilles. The Scythians say they do not know anyone named Anacharsis.

But I remember that there was once a drum there.

Sources, versions, and editorial boundaries

1. Core narrative: Histories 4.46 (the Pontic peoples the most ignorant apart from the Scythians; no learned man known "except the Scythian nation and Anacharsis"; Herodotus admires the Scythians for one thing only, that attackers cannot escape them nor catch them, with no cities or walls, mounted archers, houses on wagons); 4.76 (the Scythians shun foreign and especially Greek customs, as Anacharsis and Scyles showed; Anacharsis travelled widely and displayed much wisdom, sailed home through the Hellespont, saw the festival of the Mother of the Gods at Cyzicus and vowed a sacrifice and an all-night rite; back in Scythia he slipped into the Woodland beside the Race of Achilles, full of trees of every kind; performed the rite with a hand-drum and images fastened on him; a Scythian reported him to King Saulius, who came in person and shot him; the Scythians now say they do not know him because he went to Greece and used foreign customs; Tymnes' account of the family, and "if he was of this house, let him know he died by his brother"); 4.77 (the Peloponnesian story: sent by the king to Greece to learn, he said on his return that all Greeks were without leisure for learning except the Lacedaemonians, who alone could speak and listen with good sense; Herodotus calls it an idle Greek invention; "in any case the man was killed as said before"). Supplementary: 4.59 (Scythian gods and their Scythian names; images, altars and temples for Ares alone), 4.18–19 (across the Borysthenes, starting from the sea, first comes the Woodland; all this land except the Woodland is treeless), 4.55 (the Hypacyris passes by the Woodland and the Race of Achilles), 4.9 (Heracles meets the snake-woman in the Woodland; see no. 28 in this series), 4.14 (the Aristeas story heard in Proconnesus and Cyzicus; see no. 28), 4.120 and 4.126–127 (Idanthyrsus king at Darius' invasion; Darius' message and Idanthyrsus' reply; "Scythian speech"), 4.78–80 (Scyles, son of Ariapeithes, with a mother from Istria who taught him Greek speech and letters; later deposed and beheaded by Octamasades beside the Ister; "this is how the Scythians guard their customs"). Read in A. D. Godley's public-domain 1920 translation (PerseusDL canonical-greekLit TEI, tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng2), with 4.46, 4.59 and 4.76–78 checked in full against the Greek of the same repository (tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-grc2).

2. Levels of evidence: the vow at Cyzicus, the rite in the Woodland and the killing by Saulius are given by Herodotus as proof that the Scythians shun foreign customs (4.76, "ὡς διέδεξαν"); he does not name an informant. "The Scythians say they do not know him" is Herodotus' description of the situation in his day. The family history comes from Tymnes (4.76, "ὡς δʼ ἐγὼ ἤκουσα Τύμνεω"), and Herodotus keeps it conditional ("if he really was of that house"). The Peloponnesian story he heard and rejected (4.77). The story follows these distinctions.

3. Herodotus' own judgments, all in the text: on the Pontic peoples, "ἔθνεα ἀμαθέστατα" and "οὔτε ἄνδρα λόγιον οἴδαμεν γενόμενον, πάρεξ τοῦ Σκυθικοῦ ἔθνεος καὶ Ἀναχάρσιος" (4.46); on the Scythians otherwise, "τὰ μέντοι ἄλλα οὐκ ἄγαμαι" (4.46); on the name Papaeus, "ὀρθότατα κατὰ γνώμην γε τὴν ἐμὴν" (4.59); on Anacharsis' death, "εἰ ὦν ταύτης ἦν τῆς οἰκίης ὁ Ἀνάχαρσις, ἴστω ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀδελφεοῦ ἀποθανών" (4.76); on the Peloponnesian story, "οὗτος μὲν ὁ λόγος ἄλλως πέπλασται ὑπʼ αὐτῶν Ἑλλήνων" (4.77); on Scyles, "οὕτω μὲν περιστέλλουσι τὰ σφέτερα νόμαια Σκύθαι" (4.80).

4. Names and wording: the Mother of the Gods is "ἡ μήτηρ τῶν θεῶν" (4.76); "all-night rite" renders "παννυχίδα"; the hand-drum is "τύμπανον"; "images fastened about him" renders "ἐκδησάμενος ἀγάλματα", and since the Greek gives no size, material or number, the story adds none. The Woodland is Ὑλαίη; the Race of Achilles is "ὁ Ἀχιλλήιος δρόμος", which Godley's note describes as a strip of land about eighty miles long, now broken into islands, between the Crimea and the mouth of the Dnieper. Tymnes is "Ἀριαπείθεος ἐπίτροπος", which Godley renders "deputy"; the story says "agent." In 4.77, "Ἕλληνας πάντας ἀσχόλους εἶναι ἐς πᾶσαν σοφίην" is rendered by Godley "all Greeks were keen for every kind of learning," but ἄσχολος literally means "without leisure"; the story follows the Greek ("too busy for any kind of learning"), and both readings have scholarly support. "σωφρόνως δοῦναί τε καὶ δέξασθαι λόγον" is rendered "speak with good sense and listen with good sense." The rest is paraphrase and abridgment from the English, not word-for-word translation.

5. A later tradition (kept out of the story): Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.101–105 (Hicks 1925 Loeb translation, Perseus 1999.01.0258; Greek 1999.01.0257) makes Anacharsis the son of Gnurus and brother of Caduidas (Καδουΐδας), king of the Scythians, with a Greek mother and so bilingual; cites Sosicrates for his coming to Athens in the 47th Olympiad, under the archon Eucrates (591–588 BC in Hicks' note), and Hermippus for his visit to Solon; and says that back in Scythia, thought to be undermining the national customs, he was shot by his brother while hunting, saying that his words had brought him safe out of Greece but envy had destroyed him at home, adding that "some say he was killed while performing Greek rites." This comes centuries after Herodotus, and the brother's name differs from his; the story does not use it, and it appears here only as later memory. The English Wikipedia "Anacharsis" article calls him a Scythian prince "of uncertain historicity" of the 6th century BC.

6. Time: the Histories give no year for Anacharsis' homecoming or death. Two map times are used. The first, "6th century BC," stands for the general period of his travels and death: Herodotus makes his nephew Idanthyrsus king at the time of Darius' invasion (4.120, 4.126–127), conventionally dated about 513 BC (English Wikipedia "Idanthyrsus" and "Cimmerians"), and the later Sosicrates puts his Athens visit in 591–588 BC (supporting evidence only, not used to fix a date). The second, "5th century BC," stands for the time when Herodotus heard the family history from Tymnes and wrote that the Scythians "now" disown the man (Herodotus was born c. 484 and died c. 425 BC). The exact years of the vow at Cyzicus and the killing in the Woodland are left unresolved.

7. Geography: the site of Cyzicus is on the landward side of the Kapıdağ Peninsula, Balıkesir Province, Türkiye; coordinates from the English Wikipedia "Cyzicus" article (40.3878 N, 27.8706 E). The Woodland and the Race of Achilles lay on the northern Black Sea coast east of the lower Dnieper and west of the Crimea; their exact extent is unknown, so they are not mapped. The Hellespont (the Dardanelles) and the Ister (the Danube) appear only in passing and are not mapped.

8. Fact and literary boundaries: the opening "Someone was beating a drum in the woods" and the first five paragraphs retell 4.76; "saw him and went to tell" narrates "καταφρασθεὶς ... ἐσήμηνε" (noticed and reported), and "he watched" rests on "ὡς εἶδε ... ποιεῦντα ταῦτα" (when he saw him doing these things). "Keep that in mind" at the end of section II, and the contrast in section V ("In Scythia only Ares has images"), are the narrator setting 4.59 beside 4.76; Herodotus does not make the link. The echoes of the Aristeas story in section III and of the Heracles story in section IV are this series' arrangement (see no. 28). "There was no trial, and no one recorded any last words" in section VI means that the Histories record none; the later last words are in note 5. The last paragraph of section VIII ("The king came in person ... That, he could not have failed to know") is the narrator's inference from 4.76 "αὐτὸς ἀπικόμενος ὡς εἶδε"; the text does not say Saulius recognized his brother, and "probably did not know" is likewise inference. The contrast "In that story ... In the account of the Scythians and of Tymnes ..." in section IX is the narrator's summary. Section X sets Idanthyrsus' reply (4.127, paraphrased, not translated line by line) beside Anacharsis' death, and the story says so ("my own arrangement"). Scyles' end in section XI summarizes 4.78–80, with details left for the next story. The closing lines about the trees, the sea wind and "there was once a drum there" are a literary ending, not Herodotus' words.

9. Rights: the ancient work and Godley's 1920 translation are in the public domain; the Greek was checked in short ranges against the open PerseusDL TEI text; Diogenes Laertius was checked in short ranges in the Hicks translation and Greek text on the Perseus Digital Library. The Chinese and English stories are original contemporary retellings by Clio Walker. Wikipedia pages are used only for coordinates and conventional dates.