Poseidonius is right in censuring the historians for these assertions, and his conjecture is not a bad one, that the Cimbri, being a piratical and wandering folk, made an expedition even as far as the region of Lake Maeotis, and that also the “Cimmerian” Bosporus The Strait of Kerch (or Yenikale). was named after them, being equivalent to “Cimbrian,” the Greeks naming the Cimbri “Cimmerii.” And he goes off to say that in earlier times the Boii dwelt in the Hercynian Forest, and that the Cimbri made a sally against this place, but on being repulsed by the Boii, went down to the Ister and the country of the Scordiscan Galatae, The Galatae lived between the Ister (Danube) and Morava Rivers on the confines of Illyria. then to the country of the Teuristae Cp. “Tauristae,” 7. 3. 2. and Taurisci (these, too, Galatae), and then to the country of the Helvetii—men rich in gold but peaceable; however, when the Helvetii saw that the wealth which the Cimbri had got from their robberies surpassed that of their own country, they, and particularly their tribes of Tigyreni and of Toygeni, were so excited that they sallied forth with the Cimbri. All, however, were subdued by the Romans, both the Cimbri themselves and those who had joined their expeditions, in part after they had crossed the Alps into Italy and in part while still on the other side of the Alps. Writers report a custom of the Cimbri to this effect: Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; About 120 gallons. and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, Cp. 7. 2. 1. would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise. Of the Germans, as I have said, 7. 1. 1. those towards the north extend along the ocean; Cp. 7. 1. 1 and the footnote on “ocean.” and beginning at the outlets of the Rhenus, they are known as far as the Albis; and of these the best known are the Sugambri and the Cimbri; but those parts of the country beyond the Albis that are near the ocean are wholly unknown to us. For of the men of earlier times I know of no one who has made this voyage along the coast to the eastern parts that extend as far as the mouth See the Frontispiece, Vol. I. of the Caspian Sea; and the Romans have not yet advanced into the parts that are beyond the Albis; and likewise no one has made the journey by land either. However, it is clear from the “climata” and the parallel distances that if one travels longitudinally towards the east, one encounters the regions that are about the Borysthenes and that are to the north of the Pontus; but what is beyond Germany and what beyond the countries which are next after Germany—whether one should say the Bastarnae, as most writers suspect, or say that others lie in between, either the Iazyges, or the Roxolani, Cp. 2. 5. 7 and 7. 3. 17. or certain other of the wagon-dwellers Cp. 2. 5. 26. —it is not easy to say; nor yet whether they extend as far as the ocean along its entire length, or whether any part is uninhabitable by reason of the cold or other cause, or whether even a different race of people, succeeding the Germans, is situated between the sea and the eastern Germans. And this same ignorance prevails also in regard to the rest of the peoples that come next in order on the north; for I know neither the Bastarnae, See 2. 5. 30. nor the Sauromatae, nor, in a word, any of the peoples who dwell above the Pontus, nor how far distant they are from the Atlantic Sea, The same in Strabo as “the Atlantic Ocean,” including the “Northern Ocean.” nor whether their countries border upon it.
 As for the southern part of Germany beyond the Albis, the portion which is just contiguous to that river is occupied by the Suevi; then immediately adjoining this is the land of the Getae, which, though narrow at first, stretching as it does along the Ister on its southern side and on the opposite side along the mountain-side of the Hercynian Forest (for the land of the Getae also embraces a part of the mountains), afterwards broadens out towards the north as far as the Tyregetae; but I cannot tell the precise boundaries. It is because of men’s ignorance of these regions that any heed has been given to those who created the mythical “Rhipaean Mountains” Cp. Pliny 4.26 and “Hyperboreans,” Cp. 1. 3. 22. and also to all those false statements made by Pytheas the Massalian regarding the country along the ocean, wherein he uses as a screen his scientific knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. Cp. 1. 4. 3-5, 2. 3. 5 and 2. 4. 1-2. So then, those men should be disregarded; in fact, if even Sophocles, when in his role as a tragic poet he speaks of Oreithyia, The daughter of Erechtheus, a mythical Attic king. The passage here quoted is a fragment Nauck, Fragmenta , 870) of a play now lost. Cp. Soph. Ant. 981ff tells how she was snatched up by “Boreas” and carried “over the whole sea to the ends of the earth and to the sources of night The west. and to the unfoldings of heaven The east. and to the ancient garden of Phoebus,” Soph. Fr. 870 (Nauck) The south, apparently; and thus Boreas would have carried her to the four ends of the earth. The home of Boreas (North Wind), according to the poets, was in the Haemus (Balkan), or Rhipaean, Mountains, on the “Sarpedonian Rock.” his story can have no bearing on the present inquiry, but should be disregarded, just as it is disregarded by Socrates in the Phaedrus . Plat. Phaedrus 229 But let us confine our narrative to what we have learned from history, both ancient and modern. Now the Greeks used to suppose that the Getae were Thracians; and the Getae lived on either side the Ister, as did also the Mysi, these also being Thracians and identical with the people who are now called Moesi; from these Mysi sprang also the Mysi who now live between the Lydians and the Phrygians and Trojans. And the Phrygians themselves are Brigians, a Thracian tribe, as are also the Mygdonians, the Bebricians, the Medobithynians, The correct spelling of the word is “Maedobithynians.” the Bithynians, and the Thynians, and, I think, also the Mariandynians. These peoples, to be sure, have all utterly quitted Europe, but the Mysi have remained there. And Poseidonius seems to me to be correct in his conjecture that Homer designates the Mysi in Europe (I mean those in Thrace) when he says, “But back he turned his shining eyes, and looked far away towards the land of the horsetending Thracians, and of the Mysi, hand-to-hand fighters” Hom. Il. 13.3ff for surely, if one should take Homer to mean the Mysi in Asia, the statement would not hang together. Indeed, when Zeus turns his eyes away from the Trojans towards the land of the Thracians, it would be the act of a man who confuses the continents and does not understand the poet’s phraseology to connect with Thrace the land of the Asiatic Mysi, who are not “far away,” but have a common boundary with the Troad and are situated behind it and on either side of it, and are separated from Thrace by the broad Hellespont; for “back he turned” generally The other meaning of the word in question ( πάλιν ) is “again.” Aristarchus, the great Homeric scholar (fl. about 155 B.C.), quoted by Hesychius (s.v.), says that “generally the poet uses πάλιν in the place-sense and not, as we do, in the time-sense.” means “to the rear,” and he who transfers his gaze from the Trojans to the people who are either in the rear of the Trojans or on their flanks, does indeed transfer his gaze rather far, but not at all “to the rear.” i.e., “to the rear” of himself. Again, the appended phrase “And of the proud Hippemolgi (mare-milkers), Galactophagi (curd-eaters), and Abii ( a resourceless folk), men most just” Cp. 1. 1. 6. is testimony to this very view, because the poet connected with the Mysi the “Hippemolgi” and “Galactophagi” and “Abii,” who are indeed the wagon-dwelling Scythians and Sarmatians. For at the present time these tribes, as well as the Bastarnian tribes, are mingled with the Thracians (more indeed with those outside the Ister, but also with those inside). And mingled with them are also the Celtic tribes—the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci. However, the Scordisci are by some called “Scordistae”; and the Taurisci are called also “Ligurisci” “Ligursci” is almost certainly corrupt. Meineke is probably right in emending to “Teurisci.” and “Tauristae.” Cp. “Teuristae,” 7. 2. 2.