Page images
PDF
EPUB

went into Scythia and learned that art.

Amphyction was grandson to Deucalion, who was a Scythian, and hence the connection.

"The Scythians having at different times very remote possessed various parts of Asia, their colonies having frequently changed their names, many lost the remembrance of their origin. Masters of all the countries situated between Caucasus and Egypt, they extended to the Eastern ocean, on the borders of which are situated the Chinese; and Japan is the greatest island on its coasts.

"Scythopolis in Palestine was also called Scythica Nyssa. There was likewise a Nyssa in Caucasus and one in Arabia on the confines of Egypt: it appears, therefore, the Scythae gave this name of Nyssa (boundary) to those countries where they rested and left the use of money with whatever people they conquered. This may be proved by the tributes they imposed before the reign of Ninus ; for those distant nations that could not furnish tribute in kind, were obliged to pay in money; the resemblance of the forms of the ancient coins of the Arabs, Japanese, Chinese and Greeks probably was given them by the Scythians.

66

Money was in use in Arabia when the book of Job was written, of which Moses is supposed to have been the translator; for in Job mention is made of a species of money called Kesitah.* The feminine termination of this word in Hebrew, according to Bochart, implies a female lamb; but he clearly shows it was a piece of money, as is proved also from other sources.

"The invention of coin, or the sort of money discovered by king Indus in Scythia must therefore have been prior to the Scythian conquest of Asia and 1500 years before the reign of Ninus, the beginning of which is commonly placed 2110 years before the Christian era; consequently the Scythian money was current in Asia 3610 years before the birth of Christ.

"The date to which this inquiry carries us back of the existence of money precedes the institution of an astronomical period of the Persians by four centuries only; and at the period here mentioned the Persian kings were tributary to the Scythians; that period commences 3209 years before the Christian era (M. Bailly, Hist. de l'Astrom.). Astronomy was almost as early known to the Chinese, who preserve the use of the obolar coin invented by the Scythians to this day.

* The word for money in the Persian is Keeseh; in the Irish Keesh, Keesta, or Keesda. It is supposed the root is Ceas, ore, or metal, whence Co-Ceas or Caucasus, remarkable for its mines.

"Herodotus tells us that when Scolotis or Scythes was presented with a bow by his father, he also gave him a girdle, with a clasp, ornamented with a vase or phiala of gold.

"This historical fact presented by so many Scythian nations, by people so very remote from each other, as some of them were, confirms the truth of the tradition. It is a demonstration that before the time of Scythes his countrymen were expert in the casting and working of metals and many other arts dependent thereon. History does not furnish another example of this kind at that period. The discoveries lately made by Mons. Pallus of golden ornaments, utensils and symbolical figures in those countries formerly inhabited by the Scythians, corroborates the assertion of Herodotus. With these phiala they made their libations to their Gods. Xerses used one, when he made his libation to the god of the waters, casting it into his bosom at the conclusion of the ceremony.

"The serpent, the representative of the generative Being, was a remarkable symbol of the Scythians. Hence the story of Scythes being begotten by a god in connection with a woman half human, half serpent. This emblem they carried with them into China and Japan; hence those monstrous figures of dragons and serpents we see on the Chinese paintings and on their edifices; hence the Chinese story of Fo-hi or Fo-ki, their first founder, prince and legislator having been half human, half serpent.

"In memory of their common origin all Scythian nations bore the serpent (which, according to Rabbi Moses, is the meaning of the word Yavah), as their ensign armorial. From them Arrian informs us the Romans borrowed it and gave to their Standard bearer the title Draconarius. Of this name we have formed dragoon, signifying a soldier who fights on horseback or on foot after the manner of the Scythians.

"The Sacae or Scythians were a wise and politic people; having conquered Asia they imposed a tribute, so light, that it was rather an acknowledgement of their conquest than an impost. Asia was then a fief depending on Scythia: It was the first state governed by this kind of constitution and here may be discovered the origin of the Feudal system, brought into Europe by the descendants of these very Sacae.

From these Sacae are descended the Japanese. They still preserve the name in Sakai, one of their principal cities. The towns

Nang-saki, Amanga-Saki, mark the origin of this nation; as do the names of many mountains, rivers, provinces and etc.*

The Sacae were the inventors of arms and military dress. The short sword called Sahs by the Saxons, signified the sword of the Sacae: as with us bayonet and pistolet denote the species of arms invented at Baionne and Pistoia. The Sacae, by some called Sagae, being the inventors of religious emblems and the first that offered horses in sacrifice, gave birth to the words sacrum, sacrificium, sacerdos. Hence the Greek Earn, whence Earua, the shield and the bag to carry it in, hence also Zayos, Sagum, the name of a military dress with many nations; hence Sagitta, a dart, an arrow; hence Scuthae, archers; - Scythes, qui primus arcus, sagitta rumque usum invenisse dicitur. (Pliny).

If as warriors the Sacæ invented arms and military dress, so as Shepherds, at their leisure, they were the authors of music and musical instruments; the Lazadtov of the Greeks derives its name from them," and doubtless the Sacca-bouche or Sackbut of the Old Spaniards; to which may be added the Clar-Seac, or harp of the ancient Irish. "But these Sace, when they left Arm enia, seem to have changed the mildness of their ancient manners; they were no longer the upright and just people so celebrated by the poet Choerilus; they now imitated the Treres and Cimmerians, who in the time of Midas, towards the 21st Olympiad ravaged Asia. These people of the same origin with the Sace were the Scythae of the branch of Agathyrsus. These Sacae, following their example, descended from Armenia into Cappadocia and seized upon that part of Pontus nearest to the Euxine Sea (Strabo Geog.). Here they armed vessels and became pirates as their neighbors had done before.

"Our author then goes on to prove that the mythologies of the Egyptians, Brahmins, Chinese, Japanese and all other oriental nations had that of the Sacae as their basis."

THE SAXON CHRONICLE AND OTHER AUTHORITIES.

Well acquainted with the Britains after they had subdued them and become acquainted with their history, the Saxons, in their Chronicle assert that the first settlers of Britain came from Armenia; and that they seated themselves in the southwest of the island. The same * Scheuchrer's Hist. of Japan and Vall. Vindication of Irish Hist.

Chronicle speaks of Ireland as being settled by the Scotti about the same time. It next records the arrival of the South Scythians by Sea also, in long ships, whom the Armenian Scythians would not suffer to land and they then went to the Scotti in Ireland, who also declined receiving them, but advised their settling in North Britain, which they did; and afterwards the Scotti of Ireland intermarried with them, governed them and gave their name to Scotland; which is legendary and not historical.

The Chronicle brings the Bolgae from the continent to the British Isles and says it was this tribe who first gave Julius Cæsar information of those isles, which is so completely puerile as not to be worthy of notice. Julius Cæsar, as well as other intelligent Romans, was doubtless not only versed in the geography but in the internal affairs of those isles from boyhood up.

Lloyd considered it proved by the topographical nomenclature of South Britain that the Irish possessed that country at a time prior to its possession by the people called Britains, whom they call Armenian Scythians. But, independently of all other existing historic monuments the language and mythology of the ancient Irish snfficiently prove them to have descended from those Armenian Scythians who conquered and ruled in Egypt, on the Pontus Euxinus, &c., and in Spain whence they came to the British Isles.

Le langue d'une nation est tonjours la plus reconnnoisable de ses monumens: par elle on apprend ses antiquitez, on decuvre son origine. (M. Fourmont, Mem. de literat.)

"The language of a people is always the most recognizable of its monuments: by this one apprehends its antiquity, one discovers its origin." Such is the opinion of that great historian and linguist, Fourmont.

Father Georgi, during his residence in Thibet, finding their mythology was Egyptian and that the Thibetans were descended from the Southern Scythae, accounts for it as follows: "Scythae in Sacris Egyptiarum instructi ab exercitu Ramsis, qui jam annos ante Sesostrim circiter centum, Libya, Ethiopia, Medis, Persis, Bactris ac Scythis politus dicitur." "Scythians were instructed in the sacred things of the Egyptians by the army of Rameses, who already about one century prior to Sesostris is said to have acquired possession of Libya, Ethiopia, the Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Scythians," but lest objection should be made to this assertion he

adds: “fuerunt Colchi Scythae, Egyptiorum coloni:"" the Colchians were Scythae, colonists from Egypt.'

A BRIEF COMPARATIVE VOCABULARY OF SOME OF THE MOST ANCIENT LANGUAGES.

The Gaelic or Irish being one of the most ancient languages now extant in the world, I will in the following tables give an exhibit of some of its words, placed in juxtaposition with some of the same or of kindred meaning in other very ancient languages, which may, first, serve to indicate some lines of descent of that ancient people; and secondly, to show that the phenomena of the varieties of human speech presents no opposition to such idea of the unity of the human race as is given in the Bible.

"The Pehlvi dialect of the Persians prevailed chiefly around the Caspian Sea and in the more mountainous dependencies of the empire; it continued to the reign of Behram Gur, in the fifth century, when it was prescribed in a formal edict, and soon after ceased to be a living language." (Richardson's Diss.)

"There were three different dialects of the Chaldaic, according to Abulfarage. That of Mesopotamia, i.e., Aram or exterior Syria; that of interior Syria, spoken at Damasc, and all that country between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, called the Palestine dialect; and the third, the Nabathæan, spoken by the mountaineers of Assyria and the province of Irak or Chaldaea; and this was the most ancient, and that Abraham and his ancestors spoke, and in which the books of Zoroaster, named the Zend, Pazend and Avesta have been written with a mixture of the ancient Persian or Pehlvi." (D'Herbelot.)

The following vocabulary of those Eastern languages is largely drawn originally from the collection made by Anquetil:

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »