Scythians, a nomad race of Asia known to the ancient writers. The name bore two significations, meaning (1) the Scythians proper or Scolots, (2) all the nomad tribes (Sacæ, Sarmatians, Massagetæ, Scolots) who dwelt in the steppes from what is now Hungary to the mountains of Turkestan. Some modern authorities believe them (the Scythians proper) to have been of Mongolian origin; but the evidence for their having been Aryans, akin to the Sarmatians and to the Thracians, is growing steadily stronger. They inhabited the vast treeless plains that stretch from the Danube north-east and east to the Volga, were nomads, keeping herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, lived in tent-covered wagons, fought with bows and arrows on horseback, made drinking-skulls of the heads of their slain enemies, were filthy in their habits, never washing, and worshipped without images various gods like those of the Aryan Greeks. From the Greek colonies established north of the Euxine they learned something of the arts of civilisation; one of their kings, Anacharsis (q.v.), even went to Athens to learn at the feet of Solon. In the 7th century B.C. the Scythians (i.e. some of the nomad races of the steppes) invaded Media, and were only got rid of after ten years' occupation by Cyaxares making all their chiefs drunk at a banquet, and then slaying them. About the same period (626) certain fair-haired men from the north invaded Palestine and Egypt; these have been identified with the Scythians, and were the same, in all probability, as the riders and bowmen of whom the prophet Jeremiah speaks (chap. iv.-vi.). In 515 Darius crossed the Hellespont and went north over the Danube into the country of the Scythians (Scolots); but the difficulties and dangers of the wholly unknown country compelled him to retreat, suffering heavy losses. Shortly after the middle of the 4th century the Scythians (Scolots) in Europe were subdued and in great part exterminated by the Sarmatians. The Scythians of Asia, however, after about 128 B.C. overran Parthia (Persia), routed several Parthian armies, and levied tribute from the Parthian kings. They founded also in the east of the empire the kingdom of Sacastane, so that that part of Asia was long known as Indo-Scythia. During the first century before and the first century after Christ hordes of Scythians, having overthrown the Bactrian and Indo-Greek dynasties of Afghanistan and India (125-25 B.C.), invaded Northern India; and there they maintained themselves with varying fortune for five centuries longer. Their kings were warm supporters of northern Buddhism; indeed an attempt has been made to show that Buddha was of Scythian descent. The Jats of India, and the Rajputs, have both been assigned the same ancestry. Greek influence told strongly on the Scythian conquerors; Greek was even used as the official language of several dynasties in Bactria and the Pimpab.
See Rawlinson's and Sayce's editions of Herodotus; Mahaffy, The Greek World under Roman Sway (1890); Fressl's Skytho-Saken (1886); Krause, Tuisko Land (1891); Zeuss, Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarstämme (1837); Neumann, Die Hellenen im Skythenlande (1855); Müllenhoff and Cuno, Die Skythen (1871).