2.
The Greeks indeed considered the Getæ to be Thracians. They occupied either bank of the Danube, as also did the Mysians, likewise a Thracian people, now called the Mœsi, from whom are descended the Mysians, settled between the Lydians, the Phrygians, and the inhabitants of the Troad. Even the Phrygians themselves are the same as the Briges, a people of Thrace, as also are the Mygdones, the Bebryces, the Mædobithyni, the Bithyni, the Thyni, and, as I consider, also are the Mariandyni. All these people quitted Europe entirely, the Mysians alone remaining. Posidonius appears to me to have rightly conjectured that it is the Mysians of Europe (or as I should say of Thrace) that Homer designates when he says,
“and his glorious eyes
Averting, on the land look’d down remote
Of the horse-breeding Thracians, of the bold
Close-fighting Mysian race....”2604
For if any one should understand them as the Mysians of Asia, the expression of the poet would not be fitting. For this would be, that having turned his eyes from the Trojans towards the land of the Thracians, he beheld at the same time the land of the Mysians, situated not far off from where he was, but conterminous with the Troad, rather behind it and on either side, but separated from Thrace by the breadth of the Hellespont.2605 This would be to confound the continents, and at the same time to disregard the form of the poet’s expression. For “to turn his eyes again,” is more especially to turn them behind him; but he who extends his vision from the Trojans to the people either behind them, or on either side of them, stretches his sight to a greater distance, but not in the least behind him. And this also is introduced as a proof of this very thing, that Homer classes with these the Hippemolgi,2606 the Galactophagi,2607 and the Abii,2608 who are the Scythian Hamaxœci2609 and Sarmatians; for at this day, all these nations, as well as the Bastarnæ, are mixed with the Thracians, more especially with those beyond the Danube, and some even with [Pg 454]
[CAS. 296] the Thracians on this side the Danube; also amongst these are the Keltic tribes of the Boii, Scordisci, and Taurisci. Some, indeed, call the Scordisci the Scordistæ, and give to the Taurisci the names of Ligurisci2610 and Tauristæ.
