Book 4
They say that this makes their children quite healthy. In fact, the Libyans are the healthiest of all men whom we know; whether it is because of this practice, I cannot say absolutely; but they certainly are healthy. When the children smart from the pain of the burning, the Libyans have found a remedy; they soothe them by applications of goats' urine. This is what the Libyans themselves say.
The nomads' way of sacrificing is to cut a piece from the victim's ear for first-fruits and throw it over the house; then they wring the victim's neck. They sacrifice to no gods except the sun and moon; that is, this is the practice of the whole nation; but the dwellers by the Tritonian lake sacrifice to Athena chiefly, and next to Triton and Poseidon.
It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same.
And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.”The aegis is the conventional buckler of Pallas. Probably the conservatism of religious art retained for the warrior goddess the goatskin buckler which was one of the earliest forms of human armor.
Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chantThe ὀλολυγή (says Dr. Macan) was proper to the worship of Athena; a cry of triumph or exultation, perhaps of Eastern origin and connected with the Semitic Hallelu (which survives in Hallelu-jah). first originated in Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots.
The dead are buried by the nomads in Greek fashion, except by the Nasamones. They bury their dead sitting, being careful to make the dying man sit when he releases his spirit, and not die lying supine. Their dwellings are constructed of asphodel stalksAsphodel is a long-stalked plant. The name has acquired picturesque associations; but Homer's “asphodel meadow” is in the unhappy realm of the dead, and is intended clearly to indicate a place of rank weeds. twined about reeds; they can be carried here and there. Such are the Libyan customs.
West of the Triton river and next to the Aseans begins the country of Libyans who cultivate the soil and possess houses; they are called Maxyes; they wear their hair long on the right side of their heads and shave the left, and they paint their bodies with vermilion.
These claim descent from the men who came from +Troy [26.2833,39.9167] (Perseus) Troy. Their country, and the rest of the western part of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya, is much fuller of wild beasts and more wooded than the country of the nomads.
For the eastern region of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya, which the nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts.
In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the dog-headed and the headless men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous.
But in the nomads' country there are none of these; but there are others, white-rumped antelopes, gazelles, hartebeest, asses, not the horned asses, but those that are called “undrinking” (for indeed they never drink), the oryx, whose horns are made the horns of the lyre (this is a beast the size of a bull),
foxes, hyenas, porcupines, wild rams, the dictys, jackals, panthers, the borys,The dictys and borys are not identifiable. (But there is a small African deer called the Dik-dik). land crocodiles sixty inches long, very like lizards, and ostriches and little one-horned serpents; all these beasts besides those that are elsewhere too, except deer and wild boar; of these two kinds there are none at all in Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya.
There are in this country three kinds of mice, the two-footed,Clearly, the jerboa. the “zegeries” (this is a Libyan word, meaning in our language “hills”), and the bristly-haired, as they are called. There are also weasels found in the silphium, very like to the weasels of Tartessus. So many are the wild creatures of the nomads' country, as far as by our utmost enquiry we have been able to learn.
Next to the Maxyes of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya are the Zauekes, whose women drive their chariots to war.
Next to these are the Gyzantes, where much honey is made by bees, and much more yet (so it is said) by craftsmen.cp. Hdt. 7.31, where men are said to make honey out of wheat and tamarisk. It is certain that they all paint themselves with vermilion and eat apes, with which their mountains swarm.
Off their coast (the Carthaginians say) lies an island called Cyrauis, twenty-five miles long and narrow across, accessible from the mainland; it is full of olives and vines.
It is said that there is a lake on this island from which the maidens of the country draw gold-dust out of the mud on feathers smeared with pitch. I do not know whether this is true; I just write what is said. But all things are possible; for I myself saw pitch drawn from the water of a pool in +Zakinthos [20.9,37.783] (inhabited place), Nisos Zakinthos, Zakinthos, Ionian Islands, Greece, Europe Zacynthus.
The pools there are numerous; the greatest of them is seventy feet long and broad, and twelve feet deep. Into this they drop a pole with a myrtle branch fastened to its end, and bring up pitch on the myrtle, smelling like asphalt, and for the rest better than the pitch of +Pieria [22.416,40.25] (department), Macedonia, Greece, Europe Pieria. Then they pour it into a pit that they have dug near the pool; and when a fair amount is collected there, they fill their vessels from the pit.
Whatever falls into the pool is carried under the ground and appears again in the sea, which is about a half a mile distant from the pool. So, then, the story that comes from the island lying off the Libyan coast is like the truth, too.
Another story is told by the Carthaginians. There is a place in Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya, they say, where men live beyond the Pillars of Heracles; they come here and unload their cargo; then, having laid it in order along the beach, they go aboard their ships and light a smoking fire. The people of the country see the smoke, and, coming to the sea, they lay down gold to pay for the cargo, and withdraw from the wares.
Then the Carthaginians disembark and examine the gold; if it seems to them a fair price for their cargo, they take it and go away; but if not, they go back aboard and wait, and the people come back and add more gold until the sailors are satisfied.
In this transaction, it is said, neither party defrauds the other: the Carthaginians do not touch the gold until it equals the value of their cargo, nor do the people touch the cargo until the sailors have taken the gold.
These are all the Libyans whom we can name, and the majority of their kings cared nothing for the king of the Medes at the time of which I write, nor do they care for him now.
I have this much further to say of this country: four nations and no more, as far as we know, inhabit it, two of which are aboriginal and two not; the Libyans in the north and the Ethiopians in the south of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya are aboriginal; the Phoenicians and Greeks are later settlers.
In my opinion, there is in no part of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya any great excellence for which it should be compared to Asia (continent)Asia or Europe (continent)Europe, except in the region which is called by the same name as its river, Cinyps.
But this region is a match for the most fertile farmland in the world, nor is it at all like to the rest of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya. For the soil is black and well-watered by springs, and has no fear of drought, nor is it harmed by drinking excessive showers (there is rain in this part of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya). Its yield of grain is of the same measure as in the land of Babylon [44.4,32.55] (deserted settlement), Babil, Iraq, AsiaBabylon.
The land inhabited by the Euhesperitae is also good; it yields at the most a hundredfold; but the land of the Cinyps region yields three hundredfold.
The country of Shahhat [21.866,32.833] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, AfricaCyrene, which is the highest part of the Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya that the nomads inhabit, has the marvellous advantage of three harvest seasons. The fruits of the earth are ripe for reaping and picking on the coast first; when these have been gathered, the middle region above the coast, which they call the Hills, is ripe for gathering;
and no sooner has this yield of the middle country been gathered than the highest-lying crops are mellow and ripe, so that the latest fruits of the earth are coming in when the earliest are already spent by way of food and drink. Thus the Cyrenaeans have a harvest lasting eight months. Enough of these matters, then.
Now when the Persians that Aryandes sent from Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt to avenge Pheretime came to +Al Marj [20.833,32.5] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Barce,The story broken off in Hdt. 4.167 is resumed. they laid siege to the city, demanding the surrender of those who were guilty of the murder of Arcesilaus: but the Barcaeans, whose whole people were accessory to the deed, would not yield.
The Persians besieged +Al Marj [20.833,32.5] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Barce for nine months, digging underground passages leading to the walls, and making violent assaults. As for the tunnels, a blacksmith discovered them by the means of a bronze shield, and this is how he found them: carrying the shield around the inner side of the walls, he struck it against the ground of the city;
all the other places which he struck returned a dull sound; but where there were tunnels, the bronze of the shield rang clear. Here the Barcaeans made a counter-tunnel and killed those Persians who were digging underground. Thus the tunnels were discovered, and the assaults were repelled by the townsfolk.
When much time had been spent and many on both sides (not less of the Persians than of their enemies) slain, Amasis the general of the foot soldiers devised a plot, knowing that +Al Marj [20.833,32.5] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Barce could not be taken by force but might be taken by guile: he dug by night a wide trench and laid frail planks across it, which he then covered over with a layer of earth level with the ground about it.
Then when day came, he invited the Barcaeans to confer with him, and they readily consented; at last all agreed to conditions of peace. This was done thus: standing on the hidden trench, they gave and accepted a sworn assurance that their treaty would hold good while the ground where they stood was unchanged; the Barcaeans promised to pay a due sum to the king, and the Persians to do the Barcaeans no harm.
When the sworn agreement was made, the townsfolk, trusting in it and opening all their gates, themselves came out of the city, and let all their enemies who so desired enter within the walls. But the Persians broke down the hidden bridge and ran into the city. They broke down the bridge that they had made, so that they might keep the oath which they had sworn to the Barcaeans: namely, that this treaty would hold good for as long as the ground remained as it was; but if they broke the bridge the treaty held good no longer.
When they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most guilty of the Barcaeans and set them impaled around the top of the wall; the breasts of their women she cut off and planted around the wall in like manner.
As for the rest of the Barcaeans, she told the Persians to take them as their booty, except those who were of the house of Battus and not accessory to the murder: to these she turned over the city.
The Persians thus enslaved the rest of the Barcaeans, and went home. When they appeared before the city of Shahhat [21.866,32.833] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, AfricaCyrene, the Cyrenaeans let them pass through their city, so that a certain oracle might be fulfilled.
As the army was passing through, Badres the admiral of the fleet was for taking the city, but Amasis the general of the land army would not consent, saying that he had been sent against +Al Marj [20.833,32.5] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Barce and no other Greek city; at last they passed through Shahhat [21.866,32.833] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, AfricaCyrene and camped on the hill of Lycaean Zeus; there they regretted not having taken the city, and tried to enter it again, but the Cyrenaeans would not let them.
Then, although no one attacked them, panic seized the Persians, and they fled to a place seven miles distant and camped there; and while they were there, a messenger from Aryandes came to the camp asking them to return. The Persians asked and received from the Cyrenaeans provisions for their march, after which they left to go to Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt;