The Scythian or Consul (4)

Toxaris addressed him in Scythian. “Are you not perchance Anacharsis the son of Daucetas?” he asked. Anacharsis wept for joy at having found one who spoke his tongue and knew who he was back home in Scythia. “How is it that you know me, my friend?” he asked. “I myself am from your country. My name is Toxaris; no aristocrat, so you wouldn’t recognise it.” “Surely you’re not the same Toxaris as the one who, as I heard, out of love for Greece left his wife and young children in Scythia and went to Athens and now spends his life there honoured by the men of rank?” “I am that man,” he said, “if there is still some word of me at home.” “Well,” said Anacharsis, “you may know that I am

a disciple and a convert to your longing to see Greece. This was why I left home and came on this journey. My adventures among the peoples on the way have been past telling, and if I had not met you I should have gone back again to my ship before sunset as I had decided; I have been in such a state of confusion, with everything so strange and novel to my eyes. Now by our native gods Acinaces [*] and Zamolxis I ask you, Toxaris, to take me with you and be my guide and show me the best of what there is in Athens and then in the rest of Greece—their finest laws, their greatest men, their customs, assemblies, their way of life, their constitution. It was to see all this that you, and I after you, made our long journey. Do not let me go back without seeing it all.”