TERTSICHORE. 165

obility, to be without these is a testimony of mean
Lesceilt: the most honourable life with them is a life
• f indolence; the most contemptible, that of a hus-
> andman. Their supreme delight is in war and plun-
lOfs Such are their more remarkable distinctions.

VII. The gods whom they worship are Mars, Bac-
:hu8, and Diana: besides these popular gods, and in
preference to them, their princes worship Mercury.
They swear by him alone, and call themselves his de­
scendants.

VTTI. The funerals of their chief men are of this Rind:
for three days the deceased is publicly exposed; then
having sacrificed animals of every description, and ut­
tered many and loud lamentations, they celebrate a
feast, and the body is finally either burned or buried.
They afterwards raise a mound of earth upon the spot,
and celebrate games of various kinds, in which each
particular contest has a reward assigned suitable to
its nature.

IX. With respect to the more northern parts of this
region, and its inhabitants, nothing has been yet de­
cisively ascertained. What lies beyond the Ister, is a
vast and almost endless space. The whole of this, as
far as I am able to learn, is inhabited by the Sigyna?,
a people who in dress resemble the Medes; their horses
are low in stature, and of a feeble make, but their hair
grows to the length of five digits; they are not able to
carry a man, but, yoked to a carriage, are remarkable
for their swiftness, for which reason carriages here are
very common. The confines of this people extend al­
most to the Eneti on the Adriatic. They call themselves
a colony of the Medes; how this could be, I am not
able to determine, though in a long series of time it
may not have been impossible. The Sigynse are call­
ed merchants by the Ligurians, who lived beyond Mas-
silia: with the Cyprians, Sigynse is the name for spears.

X. The Thracians affirm that the places beyond the
Ister are possessed wholly by bees, and that a passage
beyond this is impracticable. To me this seems alto­
gether impossible, for the bee is an insect known to be
very impatient Of cold; the extremity of which, as I
should think, is what renders the parts to the north