Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

578 S E A —S E A
that Abydus had been retaken by Daurises a little before.
In this connexion the Scythian embassy to King Cleomenes
at Sparta (Herod., vi. 84) to arrange a combined attack on
Asia becomes credible ; for, barbarians though they were,
the Scythians had a political organization and many con¬
nexions with the lonians of the Pontic colonies, so that
their envoys may well have reached Sparta at the same
time with Aristagoras (499) and served as decoys for his
fantastic schemes.1
Our accounts of the Scythians begin to fail after the
time of King Scyles, who affected Grecian habits and was de¬
posed and finally slain for sharing in Bacchic orgies (Herod.,
iv. 78-80); his death fell a little before Herodotus’s visit
to Olbia (c. 456). We read in an unclear context (Diod.,
ii. 43) of a division of the Scythians into two great tribes,
the Pali and the Napse, the former of whom crossed the
Don from the east and destroyed the latter and also the
Tanaites.2 These events seem to point to a change of
dynasty in the royal horde.
The Periplus ascribed to Scylax (346 B.c.) knows the
Scythians as still occupying almost exactly the same limits
as in Herodotus’s time; only in the east there is a small
but significant change: the Sarmatians have already
crossed the Don (§ 68). King Ateas still ruled Scythia
in its old extent (Strabo, vii. 307), but all that we know of
the events of his reign took place south of the Danube,—
wars with the Triballi in Servia, with Byzantium, with the
king of the Greek city of Istrus, and finally with his old
ally Philip of Macedon. Philip defeated and slew Ateas
near the Danube in 339 B.c. He was then over ninety
years old.3
The Scythians appear once more in the region of the
Dobrudja in 313, when they helped the citizens of Callatis
against Lysimachus and were defeated by him (Diod,, xix.
73). All this points to a considerable advance of their
frontier southwards, and in fact Pseudo-Scymnus (Ephorus)
gives Dionysopolis (a little to the west of the modern Bal-
tchik) as the place where the Crobyzian and the Scythian
territories met in his time (334 B.c.).4 This apparent ad¬
vance of the realm contrasts singularly with the distress to
which Ateas was reduced by the king of the insignificant
town of Istrus, an evidence that the Scythian power was
really much decayed. Ateas indeed is sometimes painted
as a rude barbarian lord of a poor but valiant and hardy
race, and Ephorus, who mainly follows Herodotus about
Scythia, yet speaks of the Scythians in contrast with the
fierce Sarmatians as corresponding to Homer’s description
of a just and poor people feeding on milk (Strabo, vii. 302).
But Aristotle, on the contrary (Eth. Me., vii. 8), speaks of
the effeminacy of the Scythian monarchs as notorious ; and
indeed there can be little doubt that the Scythians crossed
the Danube and settled in the Dobrudja under pressure
of the Sarmatians behind them, and that the idyllic picture
drawn by'Ephorus presupposes the fall of their political
system. Diodorus (ii. 43) tells us that the Sarmatians ex¬
terminated the inhabitants of most part of Scythia, and this
must have taken place in the later years of Ateas, between
346 and 339.
At a later but uncertain date the great inferiority of the
Scythians to the Sarmatians is illustrated by the story of
Amage, the warlike consort of a debauched Sarmatian king,
who with only 120 chosen horsemen delivered Chersonesus
1 King Ariantas, whose primitive census is mentioned in Herodotus
{iv. 81), seems to have flourished at this time.
Pliny, H.N., vi. 50; comp. vi. 22, where we must read “Asam-
patas, Palos, ah his Tanaitas et Napaeos ” and, below, “ Satarchseos,
Palasos.”
3 For Ateas, see Frontin., Strateg., ii. 4, 20; Polysen., vii. 44, 1 ;
Aristocritus, in Clem. Ah, Strom., v. p. 239 ; Justin, ix. 2 ; Lucian,
Macrob., 10; Aeschines, C. Ctesiph., 128, p. 71.
Comp. Pliny, H.N., iv. 44, who calls the Scythians Aroteres.
in Tauris from the neighbouring Scythian king, slew him
with all his followers, and gave the kingdom to his son
(Polysen., viii. 56). It is, however, not quite certain whether
these were a remnant of the old Scythians; and it is still
more doubtful whether the powerful Scythian kingdom of
Scilurus, who brought the Greek cities of the Crimea to
the verge of ruin, but was destroyed by Mithradates Eupa-
tor (105), was really a kingdom of Scolots. The last cer¬
tain trace of true Scythians occurs about 100 B.c. in the
Olbian psephisma in honour of Protogenes.5 Here they
appear as a small nation west of Olbia between the Thisa-
matse and Saudaratse, who are anxious to take refuge in
Olbia from the (Scordiscian) Galatians.
Sources. —Herodotus (iv. 1-82, 97-142) and Hippocrates (DeAere,
&c., c. 17-22, in Littre’s ed., ii. 66-82) are alone trustworthy, because
they carefully distinguish the Scythians from the other northern
nations. Ephorus (in Strabo, vii. p. 302 sq., and Scymn., Perieg.,
773-873), Diodorus (ii. 43 sq.), and Trogus (in Justin, ii. 1-3, 5,
1-11, and Jordan., Get., v.-vi., x.) do not do so, and must be used
with great caution.
Helps.-'—Ukert, Creogj. d. Gr. und Rorner, iii. 2 (complete collection
of materials from original sources); Niebuhr, Kleine Schriften, vol.
i. (1828); Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstdmme (1837)—an
admirable discussion, which established the Aryan origin of the
Scythians ; Boeckh, in C. Disc. Gr., ii. 81 sq. ; K. Neumann, Hel-
lenen im STcythenlande (1855)—the best book, in spite of certain
fundamental errors, such as the ideas that great part of the steppe
was once wooded and that the Scythians were Mongols ; Miillenhoff,
“Origin and Speech of the Pontic Scythians and Sarmatians,” in
Monatsb. d. Perl. Ak. (1866). The best account of the trade route
which in the 5th century b.c. passed through a great part of what
is now Russian territory is by K. E. v. Baer, Historische Fragen, &c.
(1873) ; comp, also Grote, Hist, of Greece, iii. 314 sq. (1850), and
Duncker, ii. 430 sq. (5th ed.). There is a class of mere amateurs,
especially in east Germany, who absurdly take the Scythians to
have been Slavs. (a. v. G.)
SEA. Any part of the ocean marked off from the
general mass of water may be called a sea. In geography
the name is loosely applied : for instance, the Arabian Sea
is an open bay, Hudson’s Bay is an enclosed sea. Seas
proper lie within the transitional area which divides the
permanent continental masses from the permanent ocean
basins, and their boundaries are consequently subject to
geological change, and to alteration by subsidence and
elevation occurring in historic times.
Inland Seas are seas entirely surrounded by land (see
Caspian Sea, Dead Sea, and, for general discussion,
Lake).
Enclosed Seas have communication with the ocean re¬
stricted to one opening, which may take the form of one,
two, or more straits close to each other. The best known
are the White Sea of the Arctic Ocean ; the Baltic, Zuyder
Zee, Hudson’s Bay, Gulf of Mexico, and Mediterranean,
with the Adriatic and Black Sea, of the Atlantic; the Bed
Sea and Persian Gulf of the Indian Ocean j and the Yellow
Sea and Sea of Okhotsk of the Pacific.6 They are all cut
off from general oceanic circulation and very largely from
tides, but the result is not stagnation. The Baltic and
Black Sea are but slightly saline on account of the number
of large rivers falling into them, and the fresh surface-water
flows out as a regular current, liable indeed to be checked,
and even reversed for a time, but in the main persistent;
while the salt water flows in uniformly as an undercurrent.
A state of equilibrium is arrived at, so that periodical
fluctuations of salinity do not affect the average of a num¬
ber of years. The water of the Mediterranean and Bed
Sea is much salter than that of the ocean, which therefore
flows in as a surface-current, while the dense very salt
water escapes below. In the case of the Baltic and Black
Sea dilution by rivers, in that of the Mediterranean and
Bed Sea concentration by evaporation maintains a circu-
5 C. I. Gr., ii. No. 2058 ; comp. Zippel, Rom. Herrschaft in Illyrien,
p. 155.
6 The prevalence of colour names for these seas is noteworthy.