Key to Easy Latin Stories for beginners/Part IV/I
I.SOME BARBAROUS CUSTOMS.
136.I have been infonned that there are peoples in Asia which use such customs as these. The first of the enemy a man has slain, he drinks his blood. He brings to the king the heads of as many men as he has slain in battle: for on bringing a head, he becomes a sharer in the booty: but if a head is not brought, he gets no share. Moreover, they say that the head is stripped of its skin in this way: they are wont to cat the skin in a circle round the ears, and then to pull it off the head: then, after scraping off the flesh, to work the skin with their hands; and to use it when thus softened as a napkin, and to hang it from the bridle of the horse, when they hunt. For he is thought the bravest, who has most napkins (made) of the skins of his enemies. They also relate that many flay men whole, and carry them about on horses stretched on a log.
Cannibals and other curious people.
137.They also say that the mountains in the land of Scythia are inhabited by goat-footed men: also that beyond these live other human beings who go to sleep for six months. They say, moreover, that the Issedones use customs of the following kind. When any one’s father is dead, all his relations come together to him leading with them cattle. When these have been slain and cut up into joints, they also cut up into joints the man’s dead father, and having mixed up all the flesh, hold a feast. They say that these gild the skull when the hair has been scraped off, and it has been cleaned, and use it as a sacred vessel, when they hold their great sacriflces. The Issedones also relate that there are men with one eye, and griffons, which guard treasures of gold among the mountains.