- Source
- Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:4.65.1-4.65.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-10
Describes the Scythian custom of fashioning the skulls of their enemies into drinking-cups, decorated with leather or gold depending on wealth, and doing the same with defeated kinsmen to boast of their valor to guests.
ταῦτα μὲν δὴ οὕτω σφι νενόμισται, αὐτὰς δὲ τὰς κεφαλάς, οὔτι πάντων ἀλλὰ τῶν ἐχθίστων, ποιεῦσι τάδε· ἀποπρίσας ἕκαστος πᾶν τὸ ἔνερθε τῶν ὀφρύων ἐκκαθαίρει· καὶ ἢν μὲν ᾖ πένης, ὁ δὲ1 ἔξωθεν ὠμοβοέην μούνην περιτείνας οὕτω χρᾶται, ἢν δὲ ᾖ πλούσιος, τὴν μὲν ὠμοβοέην περιτείνει, ἔσωθεν δὲ καταχρυσώσας οὕτω χρᾶται ποτηρίῳ.
These things indeed are thus customary for them; but as for the heads themselves—not of all indeed, but of their greatest enemies—they do as follows: each man, having sawn off all that is below the eyebrows, cleans out the inside; and if he be poor, he merely stretches a raw ox-hide around the outside and so uses it; but if he be rich, he stretches the raw ox-hide, and furthermore gilding the inside, he so uses it as a drinking-cup.
ποιεῦσι δὲ τοῦτο καὶ ἐκ τῶν οἰκηίων2 ἤν σφι διάφοροι γένωνται καὶ ἢν ἐπικρατήσῃ αὐτοῦ παρὰ τῷ βασιλέι, ξείνων δέ οἱ ἐλθόντων τῶν ἂν λόγον ποιέηται,3 τὰς κεφαλὰς ταύτας παραφέρει καὶ ἐπιλέγει ὡς οἱ ἐόντες οἰκήιοι πόλεμον προσεθήκαντο καί σφεων αὐτὸς ἐπεκράτησε, ταύτην ἀνδραγαθίην λέγοντες.
And they do this also with the skulls of their own kinsmen, if they have had a quarrel with them and if one has overcome the other in the presence of the king; and when guests come to him whom he holds in honor, he brings out these heads and explains how, though they were his kinsmen, they made war upon him, and how he overcame them, calling this manly valor.
- 4.65.1ὁ δὲ
The particle δέ introducing the apodosis after the conditional clause ἢν μὲν ᾖ πένης (apodotic δέ), attached to the demonstrative/article ὁ as subject to emphasize the contrast.
- 4.65.2ἐκ τῶν οἰκηίων
Meaning "from [the heads of] their own kinsmen". The preposition ἐκ indicates the source or material, continuing the idea of fashioning drinking-cups from skulls as described in the previous sentence.
- 4.65.2τῶν ἂν λόγον ποιέηται
A relative clause with the subjunctive and ἄν expressing a general or repeated condition. The phrase λόγον ποιέομαί τινος is an idiomatic expression meaning "to make account of, hold in high regard," governing the relative pronoun τῶν in the genitive case.