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AGATHYRSIANS (Ἀγάθυρσοι, οἱ)

CARLO SCARDINO

Heinrich‐Heine‐Universität Düsseldorf

A Scythian or northern Thracian tribe which lived in the Carpathian Mountains between the upper reaches of the MARIS (modern Mureș) and ISTER (Danube) rivers (4.48.4). Later this people was known as the Dacae (Dacians), with whom perhaps they had merged. The Agathyrsians are a northern neighbor of the SCYTHIANS (4.100.2, 102.2). Although Herodotus does not say so explicitly, they probably stem from the Greek MYTH of AGATHYRSUS, a son of HERACLES and a Scythian snake‐goddess Echidna (4.10; Hes. Theog. 295–318). Herodotus describes their customs as being very similar to the Thracians’ and mentions how the men wear GOLD jewelry and share their women in common, which—as later in Plato’s Republic (462)—has a pacifying effect on the society (4.104). The relationship with the Scythians was not unproblematic: SPARGAPEITHES, a king of the Agathyrsians, was involved in the death of the Scythian king ARIAPEITHES (4.78.2). During DARIUS I’s expedition (c. 513 BCE) the Agathyrsians, together with neighboring peoples, refused to help the Scythians, because they had attacked the Persians on their own and without provocation, as they argue in a SPEECH emphasizing the topic of justice (4.119). When the Scythians flee before Darius, the Agathyrsians rush to defend their own borders and forbid the Scythians from marching through their land (4.125.4–5). Later authors mentioning the Agathyrsians are EPHORUS (BNJ 70 F158) and ARISTOTLE ([Pr.] 920a1); Vergil remarks on their tattoos (Aen. 4.146); Pliny the Elder (HN 4.26) and Ammianus Marcellinus (31.2.14) locate the people further east in the region of Crimea and the Sea of Azov.