Topic: ethnography (2)

• SourceHerodotus, The Histories

  Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484 to after 430 BCE) wrote the Histories, the earliest surviving work of history in the Western tradition and the fullest classical account of the Persian empire. Its announced subject is the great collision of Greeks and barbarians that culminated in Xerxes'…

• PeopleThe Saka (Scythians)

  The Saka (Old Persian Sakā), the horse-riding nomad peoples of the Eurasian steppe, were the empire's whole northern and eastern horizon: fought at the frontier, enrolled in the royal armies, carved on the monuments, and never wholly ruled. The name itself is the first problem. "Saka" was the…