Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2
This paper has two principal purposes. First, in section 1, I offer some very general points about how we may best understand Greek treatments of Scythian themes. It is argued that the tendency to stress the difference (even polarity) between Greeks and Scythians should be balanced and at least...
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2018
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| Цитувати: | Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 / D. Braund // Археологія і давня історія України: Зб. наук. пр. — К.: ІА НАН України, 2018. — Вип. 2 (27). — С. 427-433. — Бібліогр.: 24 назв. — англ. |
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irk-123456789-1622712020-01-06T01:25:36Z Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 Braund, D. Археологія і писемні джерела This paper has two principal purposes. First, in section 1, I offer some very general points about how we may best understand Greek treatments of Scythian themes. It is argued that the tendency to stress the difference (even polarity) between Greeks and Scythians should be balanced and at least contextualised by consideration of similarities and analogies too. In the second part, it is argued in detail that the milking of horses was by no means strange to Greeks, even though Greeks made much less use of horse milk, and preferred to consume it in liquid form and not as cheese (hippake). Ця стаття переслідує дві основні мети. По-перше, в розділі 1, я пропоную кілька загальних зауважень про те, як найкраще зрозуміти античні джерела, що стосуються скіфських тем. Стверджується, що тенденція підкреслювати різницю (навіть полярність) між греками і скіфами повинна бути збалансованою і, на крайній випадок, контекстуалізована шляхом розгляду подібностей і аналогій. У другій частині детально розглядається той факт, що доїння коней аж ніяк не було дивним для греків, хоча греки набагато менше використовували кінське молоко і вважали за краще споживати його в рідкій формі, а не як сир (іппаку). З'ясовується, що дуже майстерний опис Геродота в його повідомленні про Скіфію (Herod., 4. 2) за допомогою виробництва іппаки був направлений на воскресіння традиційних грецьких знань (ніби непотрібних) скіфів і, більш конкретно, пов'язаний з моралізуванням і ідеалізуванням частин цього «знання». Порівняння трубочок, які використовуються скіфами (а не осліпленими рабами), щоб змусити коней давати молоко, з авлосами можна зрозуміти як ключ до цього моралізаторського підходу, в який сам Геродот заклав подвійність (особливо Herod., 4. 46). 2018 Article Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 / D. Braund // Археологія і давня історія України: Зб. наук. пр. — К.: ІА НАН України, 2018. — Вип. 2 (27). — С. 427-433. — Бібліогр.: 24 назв. — англ. 2227-4952 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/162271 [904:80]”6383” en Археологія і давня історія України Інститут археології НАН України |
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Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
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Археологія і писемні джерела Археологія і писемні джерела |
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Археологія і писемні джерела Археологія і писемні джерела Braund, D. Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 Археологія і давня історія України |
| description |
This paper has two principal purposes. First, in section
1, I offer some very general points about how we may
best understand Greek treatments of Scythian themes.
It is argued that the tendency to stress the difference
(even polarity) between Greeks and Scythians should be
balanced and at least contextualised by consideration
of similarities and analogies too. In the second part, it
is argued in detail that the milking of horses was by no means strange to Greeks, even though Greeks made
much less use of horse milk, and preferred to consume it in liquid form and not as cheese (hippake). |
| format |
Article |
| author |
Braund, D. |
| author_facet |
Braund, D. |
| author_sort |
Braund, D. |
| title |
Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 |
| title_short |
Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 |
| title_full |
Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 |
| title_fullStr |
Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 |
| title_sort |
analogy, polarity and morality in scythian hippake: reflections on herodotus, histories 4.2 |
| publisher |
Інститут археології НАН України |
| publishDate |
2018 |
| topic_facet |
Археологія і писемні джерела |
| url |
http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/162271 |
| citation_txt |
Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2 / D. Braund // Археологія і давня історія України: Зб. наук. пр. — К.: ІА НАН України, 2018. — Вип. 2 (27). — С. 427-433. — Бібліогр.: 24 назв. — англ. |
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Археологія і давня історія України |
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AT braundd analogypolarityandmoralityinscythianhippakereflectionsonherodotushistories42 |
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2025-07-14T14:47:32Z |
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2025-07-14T14:47:32Z |
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| fulltext |
427ISSN 2227-4952. археологія і давня історія України, 2018, вип. 2 (27)
УДК: [904:80]”6383”
D. Braund
ANALOGY, POLARITY AND MORALITY IN SCYTHIAN HIP-
PAKE: REFLECTIONS ON HERODOTuS, (HISTORIES 4. 2)
This paper has two principal purposes. First, in sec-
tion 1, I offer some very general points about how we may
best understand Greek treatments of Scythian themes.
It is argued that the tendency to stress the difference
(even polarity) between Greeks and Scythians should be
balanced and at least contextualised by consideration
of similarities and analogies too. In the second part, it
is argued in detail that the milking of horses was by
no means strange to Greeks, even though Greeks made
much less use of horse milk, and preferred to consume it
in liquid form and not as cheese (hippake).
Keywords: Northern Black Sea region, Scythia,
Greek, hippake, auloi Herodotus.
1. GENERAL REMARKS
In the study of Scythia and Scythians the usual
gap or «poor fit» between archaeological data and
written evidence is especially troublesome. For,
while archaeology concerns the peoples of the north-
ern Black Sea region in a very direct way, our writ-
ten sources come from a very different environment.
The authors of these texts were not only Greeks
themselves, but (perhaps more important) were also
writing for Greeks. Furthermore, and perhaps most
important of all, they and their intended audiences
were part of a culture that was far removed from the
Black Sea, except in a very few cases. Only rarely did
they have or claim to have any direct experience of
Scythia or even of the Greek settlements around the
Black Sea. This matters enormously, especially be-
cause these writers were therefore engaged in a crea-
tive (and not just descriptive) process which looked,
Janus-like, in two different directions. On the one
hand, such writers sought to understand the Scythi-
an world and show it to their audiences and readers,
in whatever spirit. On the other hand, however, they
had also to create their works in a (broadly Greek
and Mediterranean) cultural tradition in which
Scythia and Scythians already had a reputation
(further, Skrzhinskaya 1998). And that reputation
(which might be simple or complex) had been forged
and established within their Mediterranean culture
(s), often with little or no knowledge or even concern
for Scythian «realities». The Greek creation of Ana-
charsis is a fine example of that process (e. g. Kind-
strand 1981; Ungefehr-Kortus 1996; Schubert 2010).
The striking fact is that when we begin to have writ-
ten texts from Greek culture in the archaic period
(Homer, Hesiod etc.), we find Scythia and Scythians
already embedded in that culture, whether or not
the term Scythia or the like is used.
All this is not doubt very inconvenient, especially
for those who are not willing or prepared to tackle
the many-sided problems of Greek culture. It would
certainly be much easier for scholars if they could
simply cut bits of information, statements and short
sentences from our Greek texts, and then apply
them to Scythia and its archaeology. In fact, that has
often been the method used by archaeologists in all
regions of the ancient world, but there is something
obviously and profoundly unsatisfactory about such
a method, in which enormous care is taken properly
to handle archaeological data, on the one hand, but
little or no such care is devoted to understanding the
texts which are used to explain its significance and
more (my disagreements with Müller 2010 mostly
arise from this issue). At the same time, we must be
very clear that our ethnic terminology is only helpful
and applicable to a limited extent. A familiar problem
in Scythian studies is that the term «Scythian» is ap-
plied to an extraordinary range of different cultures,
across an enormous geographical expanse. Nomad-
ism is often taken to be characteristic of Scythians,
but of course there are many kinds and degrees of
pastoralist activity that may be termed «nomadism», © D. BRAUND, 2018
428 ISSN 2227-4952. археологія і давня історія України, 2018, вип. 2 (27)
археологія і писемні джерела
while the inhabitants of the huge settlements, for ex-
ample, of the wooded steppe (Bel’sk and the rest) were
hardly nomads, but are routinely called «Scythians»,
nevertheless. Geographically, we can hardly be com-
fortable with a terminology which makes Scythians
of peoples who stretch from Centra Europe almost to
Japan, and across Central Asia into the Indian sub-
continent. This terminology is at root the creation of
Greek culture, extended by subsequent scholarship.
Already in the fifth century BC, of course, Herodotus
showed the weakness of this crude terminology and
tried to do better, stressing for example that this was
Greek terminology and that Scythian ethnicity was
something to be tested and contested in the region
itself (Herod., 4. 6 is especially clear). His direct expe-
rience of at least a small corner of the region at Olbia
helps to explain his attempt to create more nuance in
Greek perceptions of Scythia and Scythians. At the
same time, he also knew full well, as we too should
remember, that Greek ethnicity was also a many-
sided and complex issue. Athenians, Spartans and
many more constituted a range of very different ways
of being Greek. Although Herodotus is not much in-
terested in Greeks of the Black Sea (except insofar as
they connect with Scythains, his primary concern in
Book Four of his Histories), he is careful to indicate
when the views and beliefs of Black Sea Greeks dif-
fer substantially from those of Greeks elsewhere, as
notably in their treatment of Heracles (esp. Herod.,
4. 8—10). It is worth stressing that Greeks not only
differed among themselves in very many ways, but
were also prone to mutual disdain and outright hos-
tility, both in the Greek mainland and beyond, as in
the Black Sea itself.
Much of this may seem obvious, but the truth is
that a great deal of scholarship goes about its busi-
ness in complete neglect of these fundamentals.
Complexity may be unwelcome and inconvenient,
but any study of the ancient world that seeks a depth
of understanding must embrace and work with its
reality. The habit of contrasting Greek and Scythian
is almost a founding principle of ancient studies, of-
ten enshrined in institutional and departmental di-
visions. There are good reasons for this, but we must
also be aware that we are reproducing in this sim-
ple, polarised contrast the broadly Greek perception
that was already unsatisfactory (if also inescapable)
for Herodotus, who observes the interplay between
Greeks and Scythians in a range of ways, including
the existence of Greek Scythians (Herod., 4. 17, the
Callippidae) and the gone-native Greeks of Gelonus
(Herod., 4. 108—110). He shows us a world in which
the polarity of Greek and Scythian may be useful for
interpretation and discussion, but which is in reality
an environment of interaction and exchange, even
if that might entail friction (further, Braund 2008).
Famously he shows Scythian hostility to the adop-
tion of the cults of Dionysus and Cybele, apparently
to illustrate a broader Scythian resistance to Greek
culture (Herod., 4. 76). However, it is worth stress-
ing that these were also cults known among Greeks
too (Munn 2006) as dangerous arrivals from outside
(as Herodotus knew). As, for example, Euripides
shows in his Bacchae, resistance to Dionysiac cult
was key to its very identity: this was a god whose
arrival was met with a mixture of suspicion, hostil-
ity and prurience among Greeks, not least because
of the nature of his rites. Here and elsewhere, the
god uses his overwhelming power (which includes
much more than simple force) to undermine, ridicule
and punish the human powers that fail to embrace
him. At Athens, the fact that this and similar tales
(notably about Thracian Lycurgus: Braund 2001;
Shaub 2007) were celebrated at the very festivals of
Dionysus, shows clearly enough how these notions
of human resistance and divine conquest were inte-
gral to Dionysiac cult in the city. At Olbia, this tale
of Scythian resistance was no doubt part of the civic
treatment of Dionysus, as it was in Athens and else-
where across Greek culture (further Braund 2008).
In one sense, therefore, Dionysus’ cult marks a gulf
between Scythians and Greeks, especially as under-
stood at Olbia, but in a way that might be imagined
entirely amomg Greeks (as at Euripidean Thebes),
while, at the same time, the examples of Scyles and
Anacharsis (on Cybele) show how ethnicity need not
be a conclusive factor in human-divine interactions.
Clearly, these very Olbian stories show the impor-
tance (not least for the Olbiopolitans) of the contrast
and distinction between Greeks and Scythians, but
even while they do that they also illustrate the lim-
ited importance of that same distinction. There was
also the considerable extent to which a neglect of Di-
onysus might be much less problematic among non-
Ionian Greeks. The awkward fact is that much-bruit-
ed polarity between Scythian and Ionian (whether
Olbia or Athens) was accompanied by a good deal of
analogy between Scythian and Dorian (as Herodotus
saw: Braund 2004).
2. MORALITY,
THE AuLOS AND hiPPAKe
With these broad problems very much in mind,
we may proceed to the much-discussed phenom-
enon of hippake. It is not my concern here to re-
peat all that we know about the term and the
substance. Instead, I wish to make a single point
about the tendency (ancient and modern) to iden-
tify hippake as a key feature of the polarity of
Scythians and Greeks. In doing so, it is my inten-
tion also to illustrate by this example the limited
value of such polarised thinking as well as the
relevance of what has been called the «Scythian
mirage» (Lévy 1981; Ivanchik 1999).
The Scythians’ special relationship with horses
appears everywhere in Greek ideas and statements
about them. Herodotus, for example, affirms that
Scythian (men) are all mounted archers. There can
be no doubt about his Greek: he specifies that they
are all archers on horseback (Herod., 4. 46). The
claim is a little strange, not only because Scythian
art seems to show us Scythians fighting on foot (as
the famous comb from Solokha, for one example),
429ISSN 2227-4952. археологія і давня історія України, 2018, вип. 2 (27)
Braund, D. Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2
but also because his own account seems to suggest
more than mounted archers, as when he describes
the Scythians fighting the slaves’ sons (4. 3) or
drawn up for battle against Darius (Herod., 4. 134).
Therefore, there is no reason to suppose that Hero-
dotus is simply mistaken in seeing all Scythians as
mounted archers. The more likely explanation is
that he means that Scythians in general have the
ability and potential to fight as mounted archers,
even though (as archaeology demonstrates) they
may fight in other ways too. It is perhaps unrea-
sonable to press our author too hard about his use
of «all», either here or at 4. 2, when his statement
that Scythians blind all their slaves must be un-
derstood with obvious exceptions made, e. g. for
slaves to be sold on to Greeks and others.
It is also likely that Herodotus’ possibly-mislead-
ing statement about equestrianism arises from the
more fundamental contrast between the role of the
horse (and also the archer: Chernenko 1981; Lissar-
rague 1990) in Greek and Scythian society. While
the horse was a central and widespread feature
of Scythian society and economy, in Greek soci-
ety it was the characteristic possession of the most
wealthy and powerful. In short, while every Scythi-
an might have a horse (at least in principle), every
Greek certainly did not and could hardly dream of
it. For Greeks (including Herodotus and his read-
ers) it was a profoundly strange feature of Scythi-
an society that horses were commonplace and not
the markers of privilege, except in the sense that
wealthy and powerful Scythians might have more
and better horses than their poorer counterparts.
Greeks understood the economics of keeping horses,
so that Herodotus does not quite take the trouble
to explain that horse-keeping too was part of what
he presents as the Scythian development of a life-
style that was peculiarly appropriate to the steppe
environment, where horses were also of course
key to the mobility that he does trouble to stress
(Herod., 4. 46). It was obvious enough to any Greek
(and need not be said) that the difference between
Greeks and Scythians in the matter of horse-keep-
ing was a consequence of the different availabil-
ity of grass in the places where these two peoples
tended to live. The Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places
expands at leg on these matters precisely because
of its environment-centred agenda and its tendency
to compare north (Scythia) and south (Libya) with
Greece, on which more below. On the Greek main-
land, good grass — and so food for horses — was in
limited supply and so the preserve of the wealthy
(further, Xenophon, Art of horsemanship), but in
Scythia grass was everywhere. In broad terms (for
we are dealing in generalities), the different social
significance and presence of horses among Greeks
and Scythians was part of a more fundamental
difference in environment (such as stressed in the
Airs, Waters, Places) and in the nature of land-use
and ownership, about which Greeks have little in
detail to say on Scythian practice (though generali-
ties were not rare: e. g. Strabo, 7.3.7).
In Scythia (probably even more than among
Greeks) it was also the decoration of horses that set
individuals apart. This included forms of decoration
that were by no means normal to Greek culture, most
strikingly the suspension of human scalps and even
the conveyance of reconstructed bodies of enemies
(Herod., 4. 7 etc.). We may see such ghastly dйcor
as the display of conquest and power that would be
expressed differently among Greeks, not least in the
public buildings and art which were alien to Scythian
culture. One suspects that the display of victory (and
the status that came with it; cf. Herod., 4. 66) was
all the more striking when the vehicle of display (the
horse) was also the means of victory. At the same
time, however, the important point for the present
discussion is that Greeks were also in the habit of
decorating their horses so as to display their wealth
and status (Moore 2004; Griffith 2006; Mrva-Mon-
toya 2013). In short, Greeks shared in broad tenden-
cies in Scythian society, even though the ways in
which these tendencies manifested themselves were
different, and sometimes very strikingly so. We see
this again in sacrifice, for Herodotus reports that
the horse was the animal most frequent offered for
sacrifice among Scythians (Hdt. 4. 61), while among
Greeks horse sacrifice was also to be found, but far
less commonly (Burkert 1983). We may wonder how
many of the horses sacrificed by Scythians were
for the deity whom the Scythians, it seems, equat-
ed with Poseidon (Hdt. 4. 59). A Greek view of the
horse’s importance among Scythians might very well
include thoughts and interpretation of Scythian be-
lief in terms of Poseidon. For in the Greek context
Poseidon was exceptional as the only one of the prin-
cipal gods to be imagined and depicted on horseback
(among lesser deities, one may consider the Dioscuri,
for example). However, his associations with horses
in Greek culture are much more extensive than that
(Eaverly 1995, s. 56—59). Presumably the Scythian
elite became aware of the Greeks linkage of Posei-
don to the horse, as well as other aspects of nature,
including earthquakes and of course the sea. We are
left to reflect upon the Greek-Scythian interactions
that may lie behind the decision of rich Scythians
to decorate horses and other key possessions with
fish (as with the famous frontal from Solokha; cf,
the shield (?) that bore the fish found in the treasure
at Vettersfelde). Are we indeed seeing here such in-
teraction (clearer with Achilles, for example), or did
Scythians have their own, independent conceptions
of the appropriateness of a fish to a horse, with or
without a deity that looked in some sense like Po-
seidon? We may ask the question, but this is not the
place to go further into Scythians beliefs (further,
Bessonova 1983; 2004).
These are enormous questions and uncertainties,
within which we must try to understand Scythian
culture in its many aspects, as well as Greek per-
ceptions of it. However, even a superficial glance at
these issues provides a useful context for the matter
of hippake not only in Greek perceptions of Scythi-
ans, but also in Greek medical theory and practice.
430 ISSN 2227-4952. археологія і давня історія України, 2018, вип. 2 (27)
археологія і писемні джерела
At the same time, all this tends to explain the ap-
parently strange way in which Herodotus chooses to
approach the Scythians and Darius’ failed attempt
to conquer them. For, after briefly reminding his
audience of earlier events that he had described in
his first book (the short Scythian conquest of Asia),
Herodotus immediately raises the matter of hip-
pake. We are now in a position to understand that
he does this (at least in substantial part) because
the Scythians were known in Greek culture for
their milking of horses, and all that attended that
process. Already in Homer and Hesiod, they are
horse-milkers (Homer does not call them Scythians:
further Ivanchik 1999). By introducing in this way
Scythian culture as a whole (not simply the specific
tale of conquest in his first book), Herodotus began
his lengthy disquisition from a point with which his
Greek audience was broadly familiar, before launch-
ing into a mass of much less familiar and sometimes
appalling detail. Here at 4. 2 Herodotus has brought
together the familiar Scythian horse-milking and
his earlier conquest-narrative by setting slaves at
the centre of his picture, and the reported Scythian
habit of blinding all slaves «because of the milk».
Immediately we recall the cruelty of Scythian rule
in Asia, and the mutilation of slaves may prepare
us also for the dissection to come. Meanwhile we
may (like many scholars) initially be puzzled by
the connection between slave-blinding and milk.
As the text unfolds, however, we find that Herodo-
tus has quietly opened one of his main themes in
his account of Scythia, namely that Scythians are
pastoralists (not agriculturalists) and, by extension,
that pastoralism has different requirements. In this
pastoral world blind slaves are useful in a way that
was hard to predict for an agriculturalist.
To milk a horse is far more difficult than to milk
a cow, sheep or goat, for the animal does not release
its milk easily. Different cultures have developed
their own methods to meet this problem, among
which the use of bone pipes, as described by Hero-
dotus is hard to parallel (West 1999, who rightly
observes that discoveries of bone pipes need have
no link to milking). It seems an awkward method.
Stephanie West has drawn important attention to
the fact that other nomads find it sufficient simply
to blow into the mare, without the use of such a pipe
(West 1999). In Mongolia I have witnessed another
simple method, which entails bringing the foal close
to the horse and letting it feed a little before col-
lecting the bulk of the milk in a bucket, unknown
to the mother. Had Herodotus witnessed the use of
a pipe? Or had he been told of it, perhaps orally in
Olbia, for example, or by some written account. We
can never know, but two considerations may lead us
to doubt that Herodotus had seen the process. First,
the simple fact that, although he had conversations
with Scythians and those who knew of Scythians,
and had also read about the region and its cultures,
he does little to suggest that he had spent much
time among Scythians themselves. There is only
any hint of that in his treatment of Exampaeus,
not so far from Olbia. Second, it may very well be
important that the pipe is compared with an aulos.
Especially so, since the comparison is rather otiose:
there is only one shape that a bone pipe can really
take, so that menton of the aulos is unnecessary.
Moralism may be the key to grasping its inclusion
here. For this musical pipe was the most character-
istic instrument of the Greek symposium. For that
very reason there was a moralistic tendency among
Greeks to reject the aulos as one of the inappropri-
ate aspects of symposium culture (further, Wilson
1999). Scythians were brought into that discourse,
both as examples of a different symposium culture
and as individuals (most often Anacharsis) who ex-
plicitly reject Greek forms of the symposium. We
may recall the tale of the Scythian king Ateas who
preferred the neighing of his horse to the best au-
los melodies (Gardiner-Garden 1989, s. 33). At the
same time, all this may also be understood as part
of the complex Scythian relationship with Dionysus
and wine, which should be understood as more a
matter of sobriety than of drunkenness (Braund
2008). Again these are enormous matters, but the
key point for the present discussion is that Herodo-
tus’ dubious report of the Scythian use of pipes for
milking might have arisen out of the quite common
notion that they rejected Greek symposium culture,
very possibly a (doubtless Greek) claim that Scythi-
ans used their pipes not for entertainment at sym-
posia, but for milking their horses.
A further matters of importance arises from this
opening of Book Four: the use of blind slaves. Both
close attention to Herodotus’ Greek (well expressed
in Russian at SC 1. 10) and a moment’s reflection
on practicalities show that he does not mean — as
many have thought (even Thomas 2000, p. 57—9;
but not West 1999, p. 78) — that blind slaves were
used to insert bone pipes into mares, nor to collect
the milk. To do these jobs the ability to see was
surely crucial: while a congenitally blind person
might manage well, a blinded slave was unlikely to
be sufficiently dexterous to insert a pipe into even
the most docile of horses. Moreover, Herodotus is
explicit: the blind slaves are given the job that fol-
lows, which involves no great skill and a great deal
of mundane and repetitive labour. The Scythians
themselves extract the milk and then place (their
new blindness made movement difficult) the blind
slaves — as if they were machines — in positions
where they can agitate it. It is only these wretched
individuals whom our author describes as blind,
while the Scythians are the milkers. The second
matter of importance is the explanation which
Herodotus seems to attribute to the Scythians. It
has been noticed that their reported explanation of
how inflation helps milking accords with contempo-
rary Greek medical science (Thomas 2000, p. 59).
That should not surprise us overmuch. In Hero-
dotus’ view the Scythian engagement with nature
that has produced the Scythian pastoral lifestyle,
is a matter of intellectual discovery (Herod., 4. 46),
as are particular aspects of that lifestyle, notanly
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Braund, D. Analogy, polarity and morality in Scythian Hippake: Reflections on Herodotus, Histories 4.2
the way in which Scythians can make an ox «cook
itself» (Herod., 4. 61). While Scythians may well
be considered «untaught» (as by Herodotus at 4.
46), it does not follow that they are stupid or intel-
lectually weak. The point is that through experi-
ence they have developed a strong understanding
of nature, especially in the aspects of nature that
matter to them, which include the processing of
milk. Anacharsis himself is nowhere said to have
been taught his wisdom: his is a wisdom that de-
rives from his Scythian culture, which has itself
been developed through intelligent experience of
the natural world of Scythia.
We should also observe that Herodotus does
not talk of hippake. His main concern is not the
processing of the milk into hippake, but rather
the way in which blinded slaves can contribute
to the Scythian economy. We should not infer
that the name hippake was unknown or strange
to Greeks: thanks to an Aeschylean fragment
(fr. 198 N) preserved by Strabo (7.3.7), we know
that the word hippake was used on the Athenian
stage in the Prometheus trilogy that is now plau-
sibly dated around 440 BC on literary and his-
torical grounds. Strabo gives no indication that
the word was explained on stage, so that with
some caution (for we have scant context for the
fragment, and Airs 18 explains the term; cf. De
morbis 4. 51) we may infer provisionally that the
word hippake was well enough known in Athens
of the mid-fifth century. Of course, Athens was
an exceptionally international city, and around
460, some two decades before the play, there was
no doubt a new interest and debate about Scythi-
ans when the democracy decided to establish a
corps of Scythian slaves to enforce public order
under the direction of the appointed magistrates
(further, Braund 2006). In that context it is es-
pecially interesting that the Aeschylean frag-
ment — «eaters of hippake, well-ordered Scythi-
ans» — brings together the Scythian consumption
of hippake and their eunomia, which had already
been brought into a tragedy of Aeschylus in 458
(Eumenides, 703—706; cf. Bäbler 2005). Strabo
was writing many years later, and clearly took
into account much that had intervened since the
fifth century, but we should at least observe that
he builds this fragment into a highly moralistic
model, in which the Scythians’ consumption of
hippake seems to be part of a larger notion of the
Scythians as an attractively simple people (fur-
ther, Lévy 1981). Herodotus makes very clear his
rejection of attempts to idealize the Scythians
(esp. 4. 46), so that, if hippake might evoke such
notions for Greek readers, we may well under-
stand his decision not to use the word: there is
nothing very ideal about this blinding of slaves.
However, there is also the more simple point that
even after the labours of these slaves (his sub-
ject) there was presumably at least a removal and
drying process (by others than the blind slaves)
before the sediment in the milk might properly
be called hippake (as De morbis specifies: quoted
below).
Accordingly, because Herodotus had only a
passing concern with the separation process
at the heart of hippake-production, we find the
most detailed account of that process elsewhere
in Greek literature, in the medical tradition of
the Hippocratic school. Here too, however, the
processing of the milk is not the central concern.
It is very much a means by which the author seeks
to explain what he considers a similar process in
the human body. The fact that Scythian milk-
processing is introduced to give a better access
and understanding to the Greek reader can only
confirm our suggestion that Greeks were broadly
familiar (no doubt to varying extents) with the
Scythian working of milk that created hippake.
The key text is Hippocrates, De morbis 4. 51:
It is like what the Scythians make from horse
milk. For they pour the milk into wooden vessels
and agitate it. The disturbed milk froths and sep-
arates, and the fat — which they call butter (lit-
erally, bouturon = «cow-cheese») — stands apart
at the surface as it is lighter. The heavy and thick
part lies beneath: they take that away and dry it.
When it has formed a solid and dried, they call it
hippake. The whey of the cheese is in the middle.
Thus also in a human, when all the humour in
the body is disturbed…
Scholars have been as agitated as the milk
about the possible linkage between Herodotus and
this passage. We may be sure at least that they
are independent on the principal matter of hip-
pake, for Herodotus envisions two kinds of prod-
uct from the milk, while the more detailed medi-
cal account shows three. The problem is, of course,
that the two texts have very different concerns:
while Herodotus seeks to explain how blinded
slaves may be useful, the medical text seeks to
explain the workings of the human body by ref-
erence to Scythian treatment of milk. Of course
the Hippocratic reference to Scythian practice is
idiosyncratic in any event, but it would be wholly
remarkable but for the fact that (as we have begun
to see) Scythian horse-husbandry and its products
were broadly familiar in Greek culture. Moreover,
among Greeks inclined to the study and practice
of medicine, Scythians had a very special impor-
tance. It was their geographical position that mat-
tered above all. Another Hippocratic text shows us
a geographical model of the world which had three
key locations, namely Scythia in the north, Libya
in the south and (where Delphi might have had
a claim) in the centre Delos (Hip. Prognost. 25).
A glance at the Airs shows the Hippocratic con-
cern not only with the medical issues over climate
in Scytia, but also the counterpointing of Scythia
and Libya, with Greece as a medium position. We
should not be surprised to find there both brief
mention of hippake and a broader interest in the
medical consequeces of the horse-riding that was
key to Scythian society. For the medic interested
432 ISSN 2227-4952. археологія і давня історія України, 2018, вип. 2 (27)
археологія і писемні джерела
in different lifestyles and environments and the
relationships between man and nature therein,
Scythians were of prime interest.
Crucially, however, we must also understand
that the milking of horses and the consumption
of such milk was not alien to Greek culture. The
Scythians were not the only users of horse milk.
Nor was it outside Greek medical practice. As
was stressed in the first part of this discussion,
the difference between Scythian culture and the
cultures of Greeks (whether Athenian, Spartan
or otherwise) was not the simple polarity that
has often been claimed (notably by Hartog 1988),
whereby Scythian culture and practice were the
opposite of Greek counterparts (usually Athenian
in Hartog 1988). Rather the difference may be
more a difference of degree and extent than one
of polarityas was stressed in the first part of this
discussion. As we saw, Greeks knew all about
horses in their own way, while the social signifi-
cance etc of horses was different for them than
for Scythians. We should not be surprised that
Greeks might milk horses, for they did — but not
in the way reported of Scythians by Herodotus
(where explanation suggests an alien method).
The Greek medical tradition mentions the use of
horse milk as a curative, while it also suggests
direct knowledge of hippake, notably by Diosco-
rides (2. 71—2), who notes its nutritious qualities
and sets it beside the cheese made from the milk
of cows, sheep and goats. Dioscorides also shows
some interest in the separation process that occurs
with those other milks, wherein intensive agita-
tion was not usual (ibid.). Meanwhile, Aristotle
includes horse-milk in his exploration of different
kinds of milk, with the isolated detail that horse
milk was added to Phrygian cheese, presumably
before it had formed as cheese (Arist. NA 522a).
Horse milk is recommended for treatment of the
womb (Hippocrates De mulierum affectibus 1—3.
222). The Hipocratics knew that horse and don-
key milk pass through the body quite easily (On
diet 1—4. 41) and they recommend it for internal
problems (de affectionibus interioribus passim).
Most interesting, however, is the Hippocratic rec-
ommendation to drink about a litre of «agitated
horse milk» each morning (de affectionibus interi-
oribus, 3). The terminology repeats the agitation
of horse milk in De morbis, quoted above. How-
ever, there is no suggestion that the agitation-
process goes so far as to create hippake and the
rest. The Scythian process was labour intensive
and was not wanted: the agitated milk was to be
drunk, probably under the name oxygala (Hesy-
chius s.v. hippake, quoting Theopompus, perhaps
with regard to Ateas: Gardiner-Garden 1989).
However, this agitated horse milk among Greeks
takes us strikingly close to the Scythian practice,
even so. The recommendation suggests that a
large quantity of horse milk might be available to
the patient, and agitation of the milk was at least
a step in the direction of the Scythian process that
created hippake. This text, perhaps above all oth-
ers, illustrates how difference between Greek and
Scythian cultures might entail analogy as well
as polarity: again, the distinction is a matter of
degree. Greeks shared with Scythians an aware-
ness of the nutritional and curative benefits of
horse milk. Indeed, there is evidence that Greeks
might regard Scythians as especially wise in mat-
ters of digestion and purging (e. g. Plutarch, Mor.
148c—e). At the same time, however, hippake
was nevertheless a Scythian foodstuff. It may be
that some Greeks made cheese from horse milk,
with all the labour that the Scythians deployed
in the persons of their blind slaves, but there is
no real evidence of that. It was Scythian culture,
we are told, that took the large final step from
agitating horse milk to producing hippake, which
is regularly characterised as a Scythian cheese
(Airs 18; Theophrastus, HP 9. 13; Hesychius s.v.
hippake). Of course, the word hippake is unques-
tionably Greek. But that shows us nothing more
than the regular Greek habit of preferring to use
Greek terms wherever possible. After all, the very
name «Scythians» seems to have been a Greek
preference: Herodotus tells us that the Scythi-
ans themselves did not use the term (Hdt., 4. 6).
It is unlikely that Scythians used the term hip-
pake either, except perhaps in their dealings with
Greeks. It is a pity that we are not told what the
Scythians called their cheese, though Hesychius’
lexicon lists a word — bormos — which we might
take to be of Scythian origin and which some (he
says) understood to mean hippake. Nor are we
told of any trade in cheese between Scythians
and the Greeks of the Black Sea, nor yet trade in
horse milk. Given the medical benefits of these
foodstuffs, some exchange is entirely possible.
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tarch’s Alexander. In: Nielsen, I. (ed.). The royal palace institution
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an archer-police: Speusis and the Eurymedon Vase. Zeitschrift
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before 400 BC. Metropolitan Museum Journal, 39, p. 35-67.
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Cyprus. In: Johnston, J., Probyn-Rapsey, F. (eds.). Animal
Death. Sydney, p. 114-122.
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edlen, weisen Barbaren. Frankfurt am Main.
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Д. Браунд
АНАЛОГІї, пОЛЯРНІстЬ І МОРАЛЬ
У сКІФсЬКОМУ сЮЖЕтІ пРО ІппА-
КУ: ВІДОБРАЖЕННЯ У ГЕРОДОтА,
ІстОРІЯ, 4.2
Ця стаття переслідує дві основні мети. По-перше,
в розділі 1, я пропоную кілька загальних зауважень
про те, як найкраще зрозуміти античні джерела, що
стосуються скіфських тем. Стверджується, що тен-
денція підкреслювати різницю (навіть полярність)
між греками і скіфами повинна бути збалансованою
і, на крайній випадок, контекстуалізована шляхом
розгляду подібностей і аналогій. У другій частині
детально розглядається той факт, що доїння коней
аж ніяк не було дивним для греків, хоча греки на-
багато менше використовували кінське молоко і
вважали за краще споживати його в рідкій формі,
а не як сир (іппаку). з’ясовується, що дуже майстер-
ний опис Геродота в його повідомленні про Скіфію
(Herod., 4. 2) за допомогою виробництва іппаки був
направлений на воскресіння традиційних грецьких
знань (ніби непотрібних) скіфів і, більш конкрет-
но, пов’язаний з моралізуванням і ідеалізуванням
частин цього «знання». Порівняння трубочок, які
використовуються скіфами (а не осліпленими раба-
ми), щоб змусити коней давати молоко, з авлосами
можна зрозуміти як ключ до цього моралізаторсько-
го підходу, в який сам Геродот заклав подвійність
(особливо Herod., 4. 46).
Ключові слова: Північно-Причорноморський ре-
гіон; Скіфія, греки, іппака, авлос, Геродот.
Одержано 15.03.2018
БРАУНД Давид, доктор, професор університету
Ексетера (великобританія), d.c.braund@exeter.ac.uk.
BRAuND David, Doctor, Professor at the University
of Exeter (UK), d.c.braund@exeter.ac.uk.
|