Two conceptions of the tribal geography of the Royal Scythian Empire in classical literary tradition

Abstract

From the late 6th to the late 4th centuries B.C. there existed in the lands between the Danube and the Don a confederation of tribal peoples of various racial and linguistic backgrounds under the overlordship of a nomadic Iranian-speaking tribal group sometimes referred to by the Greeks as the Bασιλήιοι Σϰύϑαι or 'Royal Scythians'. It is necessary to use the word 'sometimes', as the subject of the present research is in fact the varied conceptions in Classical Greek literature of the tribal geography (the distribution and inter-relation of the tribes) of this confederation. For convenience the historical entity will be referred to throughout this paper as 'The Royal Scythian Empire'. It is not however the historical questions related to the birth, development and dis .integration of this Empire which are the concern of this research, but rather historiographical questions: not such questions as how in reality the Empire was organised, but how the Greek writers perceived the Empire to be organised . Show more