The Ancient Scythian Kings According to Herodotus

In the fourth book of Herodotus’ Histories, in one of the two legends on the origin of the Scythians, we read the name of the progenitor of this people and his descendants. In the following paragraphs, Herodotus recalls names of other Scythian kings. These data cannot be useful in the traditional sense that genealogies have: they do not contribute in any way to date events or to put order in their sequence. They do not even help us to understand the problem of the transmission of power in strict sense. Nevertheless, they are important to enlighten the “Scythian question” and the aspects of the conservation of traditions in the Scythian society. In this article I examine these last two aspects in the context of Scythian studies from the mid-19th century up to now with a particular attention to the so-called “Scythian question” in Russia.