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Translated by G. Macaulay.
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Herodotus in Print
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76 pages - You are on Page 41
106. The Androphagoi have the most savage manners of all human beings, and they neither acknowledge any rule of right nor observe any customary law. They are nomads and wear clothing like that of the Scythians, but have a language of their own; and alone of all these nations they are man-eaters. 107. The Melanchlainoi wear all of them black clothing, whence also they have their name; and they practise the customs of the Scythians. 108. The Budinoi are a very great and numerous race, and are all very blue-eyed and fair of skin: and in their land is built a city of wood, the name of which is Gelonos, and each side of the wall is thirty furlongs in length and lofty at the same time, all being of wood; and the houses are of wood also and the temples; for there are in it temples of Hellenic gods furnished after Hellenic fashion with sacred images and altars and cells, [104] all of wood; and they keep festivals every other year [105] to Dionysos and celebrate the rites of Bacchus: for the Gelonians are originally Hellenes, and they removed [106] from the trading stations on the coast and settled among the Budinoi; and they use partly the Scythian language and partly the Hellenic. The Budinoi however do not use the same language as the Gelonians, nor is their manner of living the same: 109, for the Budinoi are natives of the soil and a nomad people, and alone of the nations in these parts feed on fir-cones; [107] but the Gelonians are tillers of the ground and feed on corn and have gardens, and resemble them not at all either in appearance or in complexion of skin. However by the Hellenes the Budinoi also are called Gelonians, not being rightly so called. Their land is all thickly overgrown with forests of all kinds of trees, and in the thickest forest there is a large and deep lake, and round it marshy ground and reeds. In this are caught otters and beavers and certainly other wild animals with square-shaped faces. The fur of these is sewn as a fringe round their coats of skin, and the testicles are made use of by them for curing diseases of the womb.
[104] {neoisi}.
[105] {trieteridas}.
[106] Or, "were driven out."
[107] {phtheirotrageousi}.
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