De aere, aquis, locis

Whoever wishes to pursue properly the science of medicine must proceed thus. First he ought to consider what effects each season of the year can produce; for the seasons are not at all alike, but differ widely both in themselves and at their changes. The next point is the hot winds and the cold, especially those that are universal, but also those that are peculiar to each particular region. He must also consider the properties of the waters; for as these differ in taste and in weight, so the property of each is far different from that of any other. Therefore, on arrival at a town with which he is unfamiliar, a physician should examine its position with respect to the winds and to the risings of the sun. For a northern, a southern, an eastern, and a western aspect has each its own individual property. He must consider with the greatest care both these things and how the natives are off for water, whether they use marshy, soft waters, or such as are hard and come from rocky heights, or brackish and harsh. The soil too, whether bare and dry or wooded and watered, hollow and hot or high and cold. The mode of life also of the inhabitants that is pleasing to them, whether they are heavy drinkers, taking lunch, and inactive, or athletic, industrious, eating much and drinking little.

Using this evidence he must examine the several problems that arise. For if a physician know these things well, by preference all of them, but at any rate most, he will not, on arrival at a town with which he is unfamiliar, be ignorant of the local diseases, or of the nature of those that commonly prevail; so that he will not be at a loss in the treatment of diseases, or make blunders, as is likely to be the case if he have not this knowledge before he consider his several problems. As time and the year passes he will be able to tell what epidemic diseases will attack the city either in summer or in winter, as well as those peculiar to the individual which are likely to occur through change in mode of life. For knowing the changes of the seasons, and the risings and settings of the stars, with the circumstances of each of these phenomena, he will know beforehand the nature of the year that is coming. Through these considerations and by learning the times beforehand, he will have full knowledge of each particular case, will succeed best in securing health, and will achieve the greatest triumphs in the practice of his art. If it be thought that all this belongs to meteorology, he will find out, on second thoughts, that the contribution of astronomy to medicine is not a very small one but a very great one indeed. For with the seasons men’s diseases, like their digestive organs, suffer change.

I will now set forth clearly how each of the foregoing questions ought to be investigated, and the tests to be applied. A city that lies exposed to the hot winds—these are those between the winter rising of the sun and its winter setting—when subject to these and sheltered from the north winds, the waters here are plentiful and brackish, and must be near the surface, hot in summer and cold in winter. The heads of the inhabitants are moist and full of phlegm, and their digestive organs are frequently deranged from the phlegm that runs down into them from the head. Most of them have a rather flabby physique, and they are poor eaters and poor drinkers. For men with weak heads will be poor drinkers, as the after-effects are more distressing to them. The endemic diseases are these. In the first place, the women are unhealthy and subject to excessive fluxes. Then many are barren through disease and not by nature, while abortions are frequent. Children are liable to convulsions and asthma, and to what they think causes the disease of childhood, and to be a sacred disease. Men suffer from dysentery, diarrhoea, ague, chronic fevers in winter, many attacks of eczema, and from hemorrhoids. Cases of pleurisy, pneumonia, ardent fever, and of diseases considered acute, rarely occur. These diseases cannot prevail where the bowels are loose. Inflammations of the eyes occur with running, but are not serious; they are of short duration, unless a general epidemic take place after a violent change. When they are more than fifty years old, they are paralyzed by catarrhs supervening from the brain, when the sun suddenly strikes their head or they are chilled. These are their endemic diseases, but besides, they are liable to any epidemic disease that prevails through the change of the seasons.

But the following is the condition of cities with the opposite situation, facing the cold winds that blow from between the summer setting and the summer rising of the sun, being habitually exposed to these winds, but sheltered from the hot winds and from the south. First, the waters of the region are generally hard and cold. The natives must be sinewy and spare, and in most cases their digestive organs are costive and hard in their lower parts, but more relaxed in the upper. They must be bilious rather than phlegmatic. Their heads are healthy and hard, but they have in most cases a tendency to internal lacerations. Their endemic diseases are as follow. Pleurisies are common, likewise those diseases which are accounted acute. It must be so, since their digestive organs are hard, and the slightest cause inevitably produces in many patients abscesses, the result of a stiff body and hard digestive organs. For their dryness, combined with the coldness of the water, makes them liable to internal lacerations. Such constitutions necessarily make men eat much and drink little; for one cannot be both a great eater and a great drinker. Inflammations of the eyes occur at last; they are hard and violent, and rapidly cause rupture of the eyes. Men under thirty suffer from violent bleedings at the nose in summer. Instances of the disease called sacred are rare but violent. These men are more likely to be long-lived than are others. Their sores become neither phlegmatic nor malignant, but their characters incline to fierceness, not to mildness. For men these diseases are endemic, besides there are epidemic diseases which may prevail through the change of the seasons. As to the women, firstly many become barren through the waters being hard, indigestible and cold. Their menstrual discharges are not healthy, but are scanty and bad. Then childbirth is difficult, although abortion is rare. After bearing children they cannot rear them, for their milk is dried up through the hardness and indigestibility of the waters, while cases of phthisis are frequent after parturition, for the violence of it causes ruptures and strains. Children suffer from dropsies in the testicles while they are little, which disappear as they grow older. In such a city puberty is late.

The effects of hot winds and of cold winds on these cities are such as I have described; the following are the effects of winds on cities lying exposed to those between the summer and winter risings of the sun, and to those opposite to these. Those that lie towards the risings of the sun are likely to be healthier than those facing the north and those exposed to the hot winds, even though they be but a furlong apart. In the first place, the heat and the cold are more moderate. Then the waters that face the risings of the sun must be clear, sweet-smelling, soft and delightful, in such a city. For the sun, shining down upon them when it rises, purifies them. The persons of the inhabitants are of better complexion and more blooming than elsewhere, unless some disease prevents this. They are clear-voiced, and with better temper and intelligence than those who are exposed to the north, just as all things growing there are better. A city so situated is just like spring, because the heat and the cold are tempered; the diseases, while resembling those which we said occur in cities facing the hot winds, are both fewer and less severe. The women there very readily conceive and have easy deliveries.

Such are the conditions in these cities. Those that lie towards the settings of the sun, and are sheltered from the east winds, while the hot winds and the cold north winds blow past them—these cities must have a most unhealthy situation. In the first place, the waters are not clear, the reason being that in the morning mist is generally prevalent, which dissolves in the water and destroys its clearness, as the sun does not shine upon it before it is high on the horizon. In the summer cold breezes blow in the morning and there are heavy dews; for the rest of the day the sun as it advances towards the west thoroughly scorches the inhabitants, so that they are likely to be pale and sickly, subject to all the diseases aforesaid, for none are peculiar to them. They are likely to have deep, hoarse voices, because of the atmosphere, since it is usually impure and unhealthy in such places. For while it is not clarified much by the north winds, which are not prevalent there, the winds that do prevail insistently are very rainy, such being the nature of westerly winds. Such a situation for a city is precisely like autumn in respect of the changes of the day, seeing that the difference between sunrise and afternoon is great.

So much for winds, healthy and unhealthy. I wish now to treat of waters, those that bring disease or very good health, and of the ill or good that is likely to arise from water. For the influence of water upon health is very great. Such as are marshy, standing and stagnant must in summer be hot, thick and stinking, because there is no outflow; and as fresh rain-water is always flowing in and the sun heats them, they must be of bad colour, unhealthy and bilious. In winter they must be frosty, cold and turbid through the snow and frosts, so as to be very conducive to phlegm and sore throats. Those who drink it have always large, stiff spleens, and hard, thin, hot stomachs, while their shoulders, collar-bones and faces are emaciated; the fact is that their flesh dissolves to feed the spleen, so that they are lean. With such a constitution they eat and drink heavily. Their digestive organs, upper and lower, are very dry and very hot, so that they need more powerful drugs. This malady is endemic both in summer and in winter. In addition the dropsies that occur are very numerous and very fatal. For in the summer there are epidemics of dysentery, diarrhoea and long quartan fever, which diseases when prolonged cause constitutions such as I have described to develop dropsies that result in death. These are their maladies in summer. In winter young people suffer from pneumonia and illnesses attended by delirium, the older, through the hardness of their digestive organs, from ardent fever. Among the women occur swellings and leucophlegmasia; they conceive hardly and are delivered with difficulty. The babies are big and swollen, and then, as they are nursed, they oecome emaciated and miserable. The discharge after childbirth is bad. Children are very subject to hernia and men to enlarged veins and to ulcers on the legs, so that such constitutions cannot be long-lived but must grow prematurely old. Moreover, the women appear to be with child, yet, when the time of delivery comes, the fullness of the womb disappears, this being caused by dropsy in that organ. Such waters I hold to be absolutely bad. The next worst will be those whose springs are from rocks—for they must be hard—or from earth where there are hot waters, or iron is to be found, or copper, or silver, or gold, or sulphur, or alum, or bitumen, or soda. For all these result from the violence of the heat. So from such earth good waters cannot come, but hard, heating waters, difficult to pass and causing constipation. The best are those that flow from high places and earthy hills. By themselves they are sweet and clear, and the wine they can stand is but little. In winter they are warm, in summer cold. They would naturally be so, coming from very deep springs. I commend especially those whose flow breaks forth towards the rising—by preference the summer rising—of the sun. For they must be brighter, sweet-smelling and light; while all that are salt, harsh and hard are not good to drink, though there are some constitutions and some diseases which are benefited by drinking such waters, concerning which I will speak presently. Aspect affects spring waters thus. Those whose sources face the risings of the sun are the very best. Second in excellence come those between the summer risings and the summer settings, by preference in the direction of the risings. Third best are those between the summer and winter settings. The worst are those that face the south, and those between the winter rising and setting. These are very bad indeed when the winds are in the south, less bad when they are in the north. Spring waters should be used thus. A man in health and strength can drink any water that is at hand without distinction, but he who because of disease wishes to drink the most suitable can best attain health in the following way. Those whose digestive organs are hard and easily heated will gain benefit from the sweetest, lightest and most sparkling waters. But those whose bellies are soft, moist, and phlegmatic, benefit from the hardest, most harsh and saltish waters, for these are the best to dry them up. For waters that are best for cooking and most solvent naturally loosen the digestive organs the most and relax them; but harsh waters, hard and very bad for cooking, contract most these organs and dry them up. In fact the public are mistaken about saline waters through inexperience, in that they are generally considered to be laxative. The truth is that they are just the reverse; they are harsh and bad for cooking, so that the digestive organs too are stiffened by them rather than loosened.

Such are the facts about spring waters. I will now proceed to speak of rain water and snow water. Rain waters are the lightest, sweetest, finest and clearest. To begin with, the sun raises and draws up the finest and lightest part of water, as is proved by the formation of salt. The brine, owing to its coarseness and weight, is left behind and becomes salt; the finest part, owing to its lightness, is drawn up by the sun. Not only from pools does the sun raise this part, but also from the sea and from whatever has moisture in it—and there is moisture in everything. Even from men it raises the finest and lightest part of their juices. The plainest evidence thereof is that when a man walks or sits in the sun wearing a cloak, the parts of his skin reached by the sun will not sweat, for it draws up each layer of sweat as it appears. But those parts sweat which are covered by his cloak or by anything else. For the sweat drawn forcibly out by the sun is prevented by the covering from disappearing through the sun’s power. But when the man has come into a shady place, his whole body sweats alike, as the sun no longer shines upon it. For this reason too rain-water grows foul quicker than any other, and has a bad smell; being a mixture gathered from very many sources it grows foul very quickly. Furthermore, when it has been carried away aloft, and has combined with the atmosphere as it circles round, the turbid, dark part of it separates out, changes and becomes mist and fog, while the clearest and lightest part of it remains, and is sweetened as the heat of the sun produces coction, just as all other things always become sweeter through coction. Now as long as it is scattered and uncondensed, it travels about aloft, but as soon as it collects anywhere and is compressed into one place owing to sudden, contrary winds, then it bursts wherever the most compression happens to take place. For this is more likely to occur when the clouds, set in motion and carried along by a wind that allows them no rest, are suddenly encountered by a contrary blast and by other clouds. In such cases the front is compressed, the rear comes on and is thus thickened, darkened and compressed into one place, so that the weight bursts it and causes rain. Such waters are naturally the best. But they need to be boiled and purified from foulness if they are not to have a bad smell, and give sore throat, coughs and hoarseness to those who drink them.

Waters from snow and ice are all bad. For, once frozen, water never recovers its original nature, but the clear, light, sweet part is separated out and disappears, while the muddiest and heaviest part remains. The following experiment will prove it. Pour by measure, in winter, water into a vessel and set it in the open, where it will freeze best; then on the next day bring it under cover, where the ice will melt best; if, when it is dissolved, you measure it again you will find it much diminished. This shows that freezing dries up and causes to disappear the lightest and finest part, not the heaviest and coarsest, to do which it has no power. In this way, therefore, I am of opinion that such waters, derived from snow or ice, and waters similar to these, are the worst for all purposes.

Such are the properties of rain waters, and of those from snow and ice. Stone, kidney disease, strangury and sciatica are very apt to attack people, and ruptures occur, when they drink water of very many different kinds, or from large rivers, into which other rivers flow, or from a lake fed by many streams of various sorts, and whenever they use foreign waters coming from a great, not a short, distance. For one water cannot be like another; some are sweet, others are impregnated with salt and alum, others flow from hot springs. These when mixed up together disagree, and the strongest always prevails. But the strongest is not always the same; sometimes it is one, sometimes another, according to the winds. One has its strength from a north wind, another from the south wind, and similarly with the others. Such waters then must leave a sediment of mud and sand in the vessels, and drinking them causes the diseases mentioned before. That there are exceptions I will proceed to set forth.

Those whose bowels are loose and healthy, whose bladder is not feverish, and the mouth of whose bladder is not over narrow, pass water easily, and no solid matter forms in their bladder. But feverishness of the bowels must be accompanied by feverishness of the bladder. For when it is abnormally heated its mouth is inflamed. In this condition it does not expel the urine, but concocts and heats it within itself. The finest part is separated off, and the clearest passes out as urine, while the thickest and muddiest part forms solid matter, which, though at first small, grows in course of time. For as it rolls about in the urine it coalesces with whatever solid matter forms, and so it grows and hardens. When the patient makes water, it is forced by the urine to fall against the mouth of the bladder, and staying the flow of the urine causes violent pain. So that boys that suffer from stone rub and pull at their privy parts, under the impression that there lies the cause of their making water. That my account is correct is shown by the fact that sufferers from stone emit urine that is very clear, as the thickest and muddiest part of it remains and solidifies. This in most cases is the cause of stone. Children get stone also from the milk, if it be unhealthy, too hot and bilious. For it heats the bowels and the bladder, so that the urine is heated and affected as I have described. And my opinion is that we should give to young children only very diluted wine, which heats and parches the veins less. Females suffer less from stone. For their urethra is short and broad, so that the urine is easily expelled. Nor do they rub the privy parts as do males, nor handle the urethra. For it opens directly into the privy parts, which is not so with males, nor is their urethra wide. And they drink more than boys do.

This, or something very like this, is the truth concerning these matters. As to the seasons, a consideration of the following points will make it possible to decide whether the year will prove unhealthy or healthy. If the signs prove normal when the stars set and rise; if there be rains in autumn, if the winter be moderate, neither too mild nor unseasonably cold, and if the rains be seasonable in spring and in summer, the year is likely to be very healthy. If, on the other hand, the winter prove dry and northerly, the spring rainy and southerly, the summer cannot fail to be feverladen, causing ophthalmia and dysenteries. For whenever the great heat comes on suddenly while the earth is soaked by reason of the spring rains and the south wind, the heat cannot fail to be doubled, coming from the hot, sodden earth and the burning sun; men’s bowels not being braced nor their brain dried—for when spring is such the body and its flesh must necessarily be flabby—the fevers that attack are of the acutest type in all cases, especially among the phlegmatic. Dysenteries are also likely to come upon women and the most humid constitutions. If at the rising of the Dog Star stormy rain occurs and the Etesian winds blow, there is hope that the distempers will cease and that the autumn will be healthy. Otherwise there is danger lest deaths occur among the women and children, and least of all among the old men; and lest those that get better lapse into quartans, and from quartans into dropsies. But if the winter be southerly, rainy and mild, and the spring be northerly, dry and wintry, in the first place women with child whose delivery is due by spring suffer abortion; and if they do bring forth, their children are weak and sickly, so that either they die at once, or live puny, weak and sickly. Such is the fate of the women. The others have dysenteries and dry ophthalmia, and in some cases catarrhs descend from the head to the lungs. Phlegmatics are liable to dysenteries, and women also, phlegm running down from the brain because of the humidity of their constitution. The bilious have dry ophthalmia because of the warm dryness of their flesh. Old men have catarrhs because of their flabbiness and the wasting of their veins, so that some die suddenly, while others become paralyzed on the right side or the left. For whenever, owing to the winter being southerly and the body warm, neither brain nor veins are hardened, a northerly, dry, cold spring supervening, the brain, just at the time when it ought to have been relaxed along with spring and purged by cold in the head and hoarseness, congeals and hardens, so that the heat of summer having suddenly supervened and the change supervening, these diseases befall. Such cities as are well situated with regard to sun and winds, and use good waters, are less affected by such changes; but if they use marshy or standing waters, and are not well situated with regard to winds and sun, they are more affected. If the summer prove dry, the diseases cease more quickly; if it be rainy, they are protracted. Sores are apt to fester from the slightest cause. Lienteries and dropsies supervene on the conclusion of the diseases, as the bowels do not readily dry up. If the summer and the autumn be rainy and southerly, the winter must be unhealthy; phlegmatics and men over forty are likely to suffer from ardent fevers, bilious people from pleurisy and pneumonia. If the summer prove dry and northerly, and the autumn rainy and southerly, it is likely that in winter headaches occur and mortifications of the brain, and in addition hoarseness, colds in the head, coughs, and in some cases consumption as well. But if the weather be northerly and dry, with no rain either during the Dog Star or at Arcturus, it is very beneficial to those who have a phlegmatic or humid constitution, and to women, but it is very harmful to the bilious. For these dry up overmuch, and are attacked by dry ophthalmia and by acute, protracted fevers, in some cases too by melancholies. For the most humid and watery part of the bile is dried up and is spent, while the thickest and most acrid part is left, and similarly with the blood. Consequently these diseases come upon them. But all these conditions are helpful to the phlegmatic, for they dry up and reach winter dried up and not flabby.

By studying and observing after this fashion one may foresee most of the consequences of the changes. One should be especially on one’s guard against the most violent changes of the seasons, and unless compelled one should neither purge, nor apply cautery or knife to the bowels, before at least ten days are past. The following are the four most violent changes and the most dangerous:—both solstices, especially the summer solstice, both the equinoxes, so reckoned, especially the autumnal. One must also guard against the risings of the stars, especially of the Dog Star, then of Arcturus, and also of the setting of the Pleiades. For it is especially at these times that diseases come to a crisis. Some prove fatal, some come to an end, all others change to another form and another constitution.

So much for the changes of the seasons. Now I intend to compare Asia and Europe, and to show how they differ in every respect, and how the nations of the one differ entirely in physique from those of the other. It would take too long to describe them all, so I will set forth my views about the most important and the greatest differences. I hold that Asia differs very widely from Europe in the nature of all its inhabitants and of all its vegetation. For everything in Asia grows to far greater beauty and size; the one region is less wild than the other, the character of the inhabitants is milder and more gentle. The cause of this is the temperate climate, because it lies towards the east midway between the risings of the sun, and farther away than is Europe from the cold. Growth and freedom from wildness are most fostered when nothing is forcibly predominant, but equality in every respect prevails. Asia, however, is not everywhere uniform; the region, however, situated midway between the heat and the cold is very fruitful, very wooded and very mild; it has splendid water, whether from rain or from springs. While it is not burnt up with the heat nor dried up by drought and want of water, it is not oppressed with cold, nor yet damp and wet with excessive rains and snow. Here the harvests are likely to be plentiful, both those from seed and those which the earth bestows of her own accord, the fruit of which men use, turning wild to cultivated and transplanting them to a suitable soil. The cattle too reared there are likely to flourish, and especially to bring forth the sturdiest young and rear them to be very fine creatures. The men will be well nourished, of very fine physique and very tall, differing from one another but little either in physique or stature. This region, both in character and in the mildness of its seasons, might fairly be said to bear a close resemblance to spring Courage, endurance, industry and high spirit could not arise in such conditions either among the natives or among immigrants, but pleasure must be supreme... wherefore in the beasts they are of many shapes.

Such in my opinion is the condition of the Egyptians and Libyans. As to the dwellers on the right of the summer risings of the sun up to Lake Maeotis, which is the boundary between Europe and Asia, their condition is as follows. These nations are less homogeneous than those I have described, because of the changes of the seasons and the character of the region. The land is affected by them exactly as human beings in general are affected. For where the seasons experience the most violent and the most frequent changes, the land too is very wild and very uneven; you will find there many wooded mountains, plains and meadows. But where the seasons do not alter much, the land is very even. So it is too with the inhabitants, if you will examine the matter. Some physiques resemble wooded, well-watered mountains, others light, dry land, others marshy meadows, others a plain of bare, parched earth. For the seasons which modify a physical frame differ; if the differences be great, the more too are the differences in the shapes.

The races that differ but little from one another I will omit, and describe the condition only of those which differ greatly, whether it be through nature or through custom. I will begin with the Longheads. There is no other race at all with heads like theirs. Originally custom was chiefly responsible for the length of the head, but now custom is reinforced by nature. Those that have the longest heads they consider the noblest, and their custom is as follows. As soon as a child is born they remodel its head with their hands, while it is still soft and the body tender, and force it to increase in length by applying bandages and suitable appliances, which spoil the roundness of the head and increase its length. Custom originally so acted that through force such a nature came into being; but as time went on the process became natural, so that custom no longer exercised compulsion. For the seed comes from all parts of the body, healthy seed from healthy parts, diseased seed from diseased parts. If, therefore, bald parents have for the most part bald children, grey-eyed parents grey-eyed children, squinting parents squinting children, and so on with other physical peculiarities, what prevents a long-headed parent having a long-headed child? At the present time long-headedness is less common than it was, for owing to intercourse with other men the custom is less prevalent.

These are my opinions about the Longheads. Now let me turn to the dwellers on the Phasis. Their land is marshy, hot, wet, and wooded; copious violent rains fall there during every season. The inhabitants live in the marshes, and their dwellings are of wood and reeds, built in the water. They make little use of walking in the city and the harbour, but sail up and down in dug-outs made from a single log, for canals are numerous. The waters which they drink are hot and stagnant, putrefied by the sun and swollen by the rains. The Phasis itself is the most stagnant and most sluggish of all rivers. The fruits that grow in this country are all stunted, flabby and imperfect, owing to the excess of water, and for this reason they do not ripen. Much fog from the waters envelops the land. For these causes, therefore, the physique of the Phasians is different from that of other folk. They are tall in stature, and of a gross habit of body, while neither joint nor vein is visible. Their complexion is yellowish, as though they suffered from jaundice. Of all men they have the deepest voice, because the air they breathe is not clear, but moist and turbid. They are by nature disinclined for physical fatigue. There are but slight changes of the seasons, either in respect of heat or of cold. The winds are mostly moist, except one breeze peculiar to the country, called cenchron, which sometimes blows strong, violent and hot. The north wind rarely blows, and when it does it is weak and gentle.

So much for the difference, in nature and in shape, between the inhabitants of Asia and the inhabitants of Europe. With regard to the lack of spirit and of courage among the inhabitants, the chief reason why Asiatics are less warlike and more gentle in character than Europeans is the uniformity of the seasons, which show no violent changes either towards heat or towards cold, but are equable. For there occur no mental shocks nor violent physical change, which are more likely to steel the temper and impart to it a fierce passion than is a monotonous sameness. For it is changes of all things that rouse the temper of man and prevent its stagnation. For these reasons, I think, Asiatics are feeble. Their institutions are a contributory cause, the greater part of Asia being governed by kings. Now where men are not their own masters and independent, but are ruled by despots, they are not keen on military efficiency but on not appearing warlike. For the risks they run are not similar. Subjects are likely to be forced to undergo military service, fatigue and death, in order to benefit their masters, and to be parted from their wives, their children and their friends. All their worthy, brave deeds merely serve to aggrandize and raise up their lords, while the harvest they themselves reap is danger and death. Moreover, the land of men like these must be desert, owing to their enemies and to their laziness, so that even if a naturally brave and spirited man is born his temper is changed by their institutions. Whereof I can give a clear proof. All the inhabitants of Asia, whether Greek or non-Greek, who are not ruled by despots, but are independent, toiling for their own advantage, are the most warlike of all men. For it is for their own sakes that they run their risks, and in their own persons do they receive the prizes of their valour as likewise the penalty of their cowardice. You will find that Asiatics also differ from one another, some being superior, others inferior. The reason for this, as I have said above, is the changes of the seasons.

Such is the condition of the inhabitants of Asia. And in Europe is a Scythian race, dwelling round Lake Maeotis, which differs from the other races. Their name is Sauromatae. Their women, so long as they are virgins, ride, shoot, throw the javelin while mounted, and fight with their enemies. They do not lay aside their virginity until they have killed three of their enemies, and they do not marry before they have performed the traditional sacred rites. A woman who takes to herself a husband no longer rides, unless she is compelled to do so by a general expedition. They have no right breast; for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterise it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm.

As to the physique of the other Scythians, in that they are like one another and not at all like others, the same remark applies to them as to the Egyptians, only the latter are distressed by the heat, the former by the cold. What is called the Scythian desert is level grassland, without trees, and fairly well-watered. For there are large rivers which drain the water from the plains. There too live the Scythians who are called Nomads because they have no houses but live in wagons. The smallest have four wheels, others six wheels. They are covered over with felt and are constructed, like houses, sometimes in two compartments and sometimes in three, which are proof against rain, snow and wind. The wagons are drawn by two or by three yoke of hornless oxen. They have no horns because of the cold. Now in these wagons live the women, while the men ride alone on horseback, followed by the sheep they have, their cattle and their horses. They remain in the same place just as long as there is sufficient fodder for their animals; when it gives out they migrate. They themselves eat boiled meats and drink mares’ milk. They have a sweetmeat called hippace, which is a cheese from the milk of mares (hippoi).

So much for their mode of living and their customs. As to their seasons and their physique, the Scythians are very different from all other men, and, like the Egyptians, are homogeneous; they are the reverse of prolific, and Scythia breeds the smallest and the fewest wild animals. For it lies right close to the north and the Rhipaean mountains, from which blows the north wind. The sun comes nearest to them only at the end of its course, when it reaches the summer solstice, and then it warms them but slightly and for a short time. The winds blowing from hot regions do not reach them, save rarely, and with little force; but from the north there are constantly blowing winds that are chilled by snow, ice, and many waters, which, never leaving the mountains, render them uninhabitable. A thick fog envelops by day the plains upon which they live, so that winter is perennial, while summer, which is but feeble, lasts only a few days. For the plains are high and bare, and are not encircled with mountains, though they slope from the north. The wild animals too that are found there are not large, but such as can find shelter under ground. They are stunted owing to the severe climate and the bareness of the land, where there is neither warmth nor shelter. And the changes of the seasons are neither great nor violent, the seasons being uniform and altering but little. Wherefore the men also are like one another in physique, since summer and winter they always use similar food and the same clothing, breathing a moist, thick atmosphere, drinking water from ice and snow, and abstaining from fatigue. For neither bodily nor mental endurance is possible where the changes are not violent. For these causes their physiques are gross, fleshy, showing no joints, moist and flabby, and the lower bowels are as moist as bowels can be. For the belly cannot possibly dry up in a land like this, with such a nature and such a climate, but because of their fat and the smoothness of their flesh their physiques are similar, men’s to men’s and women’s to women’s. For as the seasons are alike there takes place no corruption or deterioration in the coagulation of the seed, except through the blow of some violent cause or of some disease.

I will give clear testimony to their moistness. The majority of the Scythians, all that are Nomads, you will find have their shoulders cauterized, as well as their arms, wrists, breast, hips and loins, simply because of the moistness and softness of their constitution. For owing to their moistness and flabbiness they have not the strength either to draw a bow or to throw a javelin from the shoulder. But when they have been cauterized the excess of moisture dries up from their joints, and their bodies become more braced, more nourished and better articulated. Their bodies grow relaxed and squat, firstly because, unlike the Egyptians, they do not use swaddling clothes, of which they have not the habit, for the sake of their riding, that they may sit a horse well; secondly, through their sedentary lives. For the boys, until they can ride, sit the greater part of the time in the wagon, and because of the migrations and wanderings rarely walk on foot; while the girls are wonderfully flabby and torpid in physique. The Scythians are a ruddy race because of the cold, not through any fierceness in the sun’s heat. It is the cold that burns their white skin and turns it ruddy.

A constitution of this kind prevents fertility. The men have no great desire for intercourse because of the moistness of their constitution and the softness and chill of their abdomen, which are the greatest checks on venery. Moreover, the constant jolting on their horses unfits them for intercourse. Such are the causes of barrenness in the men; in the women they are the fatness and moistness of their flesh, which are such that the womb cannot absorb the seed. For neither is their monthly purging as it should be, but scanty and late, while the mouth of the womb is closed by fat and does not admit the seed. They are personally fat and lazy, and their abdomen is cold and soft. These are the causes which make the Scythian race unfertile. A clear proof is afforded by their slave-girls. These, because of their activity and leanness of body, no sooner go to a man than they are with child.

Moreover, the great majority among the Scythians become impotent, do women’s work, live like women and converse accordingly. Such men they call Anaries. Now the natives put the blame on to Heaven, and respect and worship these creatures, each fearing for himself. I too think that these diseases are divine, and so are all others, no one being more divine or more human than any other; all are alike, and all divine. Each of them has a nature of its own, and none arises without its natural cause. How, in my opinion, this disease arises I will explain. The habit of riding causes swellings at the joints, because they are always astride their horses; in severe cases follow lameness and sores on the hips. They cure themselves in the following way. At the beginning of the disease they cut the vein behind each ear. When the blood has ceased to flow faintness comes over them and they sleep. Afterwards they get up, some cured and some not. Now, in my opinion, by this treatment the seed is destroyed. For by the side of the ear are veins, to cut which causes impotence, and I believe that these are the veins which they cut. After this treatment, when the Scythians approach a woman but cannot have intercourse, at first they take no notice and think no more about it. But when two, three or even more attempts are attended with no better success, thinking that they have sinned against Heaven they attribute thereto the cause, and put on women’s clothes, holding that they have lost their manhood. So they play the woman, and with the women do the same work as women do.

This affliction affects the rich Scythians because of their riding, not the lower classes but the upper, who possess the most strength; the poor, who do not ride, suffer less. But, if we suppose this disease to be more divine than any other, it ought to have attacked, not the highest and richest classes only of the Scythians, but all classes equally—or rather the poor especially, if indeed the gods are pleased to receive from men respect and worship, and repay these with favours. For naturally the rich, having great wealth, make many sacrifices to the gods, and offer many votive offerings, and honour them, all of which things the poor, owing to their poverty, are less able to do; besides, they blame the gods for not giving them wealth, so that the penalties for such sins are likely to be paid by the poor rather than by the rich. But the truth is, as I said above, these affections are neither more nor less divine than any others, and all and each are natural. Such a disease arises among the Scythians for such a reason as I have stated, and other men too are equally liable to it, for wherever men ride very much and very frequently, there the majority are attacked by swellings at the joints, sciatica and gout, and are sexually very weak. These complaints come upon the Scythians, and they are the most impotent of men, for the reasons I have given, and also because they always wear trousers and spend most of their time on their horses, so that they do not handle the parts, but owing to cold and fatigue forget about sexual passion, losing their virility before any impulse is felt.

Such is the condition of the Scythians. The other people of Europe differ from one another both in stature and in shape, because of the changes of the seasons, which are violent and frequent, while there are severe heat waves, severe winters, copious rains and then long droughts, and winds, causing many changes of various kinds. Wherefore it is natural to realize that generation too varies in the coagulation of the seed, and is not the same for the same seed in summer as in winter nor in rain as in drought. It is for this reason, I think, that the physique of Europeans varies more than that of Asiatics, and that their stature differs very widely in each city. For there arise more corruptions in the coagulation of the seed when the changes of the seasons are frequent than when they are similar or alike. The same reasoning applies also to character. In such a climate arise wildness, unsociability and spirit. For the frequent shocks to the mind impart wildness, destroying tameness and gentleness. For this reason, I think, Europeans are also more courageous than Asiatics. For uniformity engenders slackness, while variation fosters endurance in both body and soul; rest and slackness are food for cowardice, endurance and exertion for bravery. Wherefore Europeans are more warlike, and also because of their institutions, not being under kings as are Asiatics. For, as I said above, where there are kings, there must be the greatest cowards. For men’s souls are enslaved, and refuse to run risks readily and recklessly to increase the power of somebody else. But independent people, taking risks on their own behalf and not on behalf of others, are willing and eager to go into danger, for they themselves enjoy the prize of victory. So institutions contribute a great deal to the formation of courageousness.

Such, in outline and in general, is the character of Europe and of Asia. In Europe too there are tribes differing one from another in stature, in shape and in courage. The differences are due to the same causes as I mentioned above, which I will now describe more clearly. Inhabitants of a region which is mountainous, rugged, high, and watered, where the changes of the seasons exhibit sharp contrasts, are likely to be of big physique, with a nature well adapted for endurance and courage, and such possess not a little wildness and ferocity. The inhabitants of hollow regions, that are meadowy, stifling, with more hot than cool winds, and where the water used is hot, will be neither tall nor well-made, but inclined to be broad, fleshy, and dark-haired; they themselves are dark rather than fair, less subject to phlegm than to bile. Similar bravery and endurance are not by nature part of their character, but the imposition of law can produce them artificially. Should there be rivers in the land, which drain off from the ground the stagnant water and the rain water, these will be healthy and bright. But if there be no rivers, and the water that the people drink be marshy, stagnant, and fenny, the physique of the people must show protruding bellies and enlarged spleens. Such as dwell in a high land that is level, windy, and watered, will be tall in physique and similar to one another, but rather unmanly and tame in character. As to those that dwell on thin, dry, and bare soil, and where the changes of the seasons exhibit sharp contrasts, it is likely that in such country the people will be hard in physique and well-braced, fair rather than dark, stubborn and independent in character and in temper. For where the changes of the seasons are most frequent and most sharply contrasted, there you will find the greatest diversity in physique, in character, and in constitution.

These are the most important factors that create differences in men’s constitutions; next come the land in which a man is reared, and the water. For in general you will find assimilated to the nature of the land both the physique and the characteristics of the inhabitants. For where the land is rich, soft, and well-watered, and the water is very near the surface, so as to be hot in summer and cold in winter, and if the situation be favourable as regards the seasons, there the inhabitants are fleshy, ill-articulated, moist, lazy, and generally cowardly in character. Slackness and sleepiness can be observed in them, and as far as the arts are concerned they are thick-witted, and neither subtle nor sharp. But where the land is bare, waterless, rough, oppressed by winter’s storms and burnt by the sun, there you will see men who are hard, lean, well-articulated, well-braced, and hairy; such natures will be found energetic, vigilant, stubborn and independent in character and in temper, wild rather than tame, of more than average sharpness and intelligence in the arts, and in war of more than average courage. The things also that grow in the earth all assimilate themselves to the earth. Such are the most sharply contrasted natures and physiques. Take these observations as a standard when drawing all other conclusions, and you will make no mistake.