Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus and brother of Caduidas, king of the Scythians, but of a Greek mother; wherefore he was also bilingual. He composed eight hundred lines of verse on the customs of the Scythians and those of the Greeks, concerning frugality of life and matters of war. Moreover, because of his outspokenness, he gave rise to the proverb, “the Scythian manner of speech.” Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the forty-seventh Olympiad in the archonship of Eucrates. Hermippus relates that, having arrived at the house of Solon, he ordered one of the servants to announce that Anacharsis was present at his door and wished to see him and, if possible, to become his guest-friend.

​And the servant, having announced him, was instructed by Solon to tell him that people make guest-friends in their own native lands. Thereupon Anacharsis, catching him in his words, said that Solon was now in his own native land, and that it was fitting for him to make guest-friends. Solon, astonished at his readiness of wit, admitted him and made him his greatest friend. After some time, having returned to Scythia and being thought to be undermining the customs of his homeland through his excessive Hellenizing, he was shot with an arrow on a hunt by his brother and died, saying that on account of reason he had been saved from Greece, but on account of envy he had perished in his own home. Some say, however, that he was put to death while performing Greek religious rites. There are also verses of our own upon him:

“When Anacharsis came to Scythia, after wandering much, he strove to persuade all to live by Hellas’ ways. Yet while he still held the unfinished speech upon his lips, a swift winged shaft snatched him away to the immortals.” This man used to say that the vine bears three clusters of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of intoxication, the third of disgust. He also said he wondered how among the Greeks the artisans compete, while those who are not artisans act as judges. Being asked how one might avoid becoming a drunkard, he said, “If one should keep before one’s eyes the disgraceful deeds of those who are drunk.” He also used to say he wondered how the Greeks, while legislating against violent assault, honor athletes for striking one another. Having learned that the thickness of a ship’s side is four fingers, he said that those who sail are that far removed from death.

​He called olive oil a medicine of madness, because athletes, once anointed, rave against each other. “How is it,” he said, “that forbidding falsehood in trade, they openly lie in their taverns?” And he says he wonders how Greeks drink from small cups at the beginning, but from large ones once they are filled. Upon his statues there is inscribed: “Rule the tongue, the belly, the genitals.” Being asked whether there are flutes among the Scythians, he said, “Nay, nor even vines.” Being asked what sort of ships are safer, he said, “Those that have been hauled ashore.” He also said that the most wondrous thing he had seen among the Greeks was that they leave the smoke in the mountains and carry the wood into the city. Being asked which are more numerous, the living or the dead, he said, “Where, then, do you place those who are sailing?” Being reproached by an Attic man for being a Scythian, he said, “Nay, my homeland is a reproach to me, but you are a reproach to your homeland.”

​Being asked what is both good and base among men, he said, “The tongue.” He used to say that it is better to have one friend of great worth than many of no worth. He said that the agora was a designated place for cheating and taking advantage of one another. Being insulted by a youth over wine, he said, “Young man, if being young you cannot carry your wine, when you become an old man you will carry water.” According to some, he invented the anchor and the potter’s wheel for human life. And he wrote as follows: Anacharsis to Croesus “I, O King of the Lydians, have arrived in the land of the Greeks to be instructed in their customs and pursuits. I have no need of gold, but it is enough for me to return to the Scythians a better man. At all events, I am coming to Sardis, setting great store on becoming known to you.”