The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China

by Christopher I. Beckwith

A rich, discovery-filled history that tells how a forgotten empire transformed the ancient world

In the late 8th and early 7th centuries BCE, Scythian warriors conquered and unified most of the vast Eurasian continent, creating an innovative empire that would give birth to the age of philosophy and the Classical age across the ancient world―in the West, the Near East, India, and China. Mobile horse herders who lived with their cats in wheeled felt tents, the Scythians made stunning contributions to world civilization―from capital cities and strikingly elegant dress to political organization and the world-changing ideas of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Laotzu―Scythians all. In The Scythian Empire , Christopher I. Beckwith presents a major new history of a fascinating but often forgotten empire that changed the course of history.

At its height, the Scythian Empire stretched west from Mongolia and ancient northeast China to northwest Iran and the Danube River, and in Central Asia reached as far south as the Arabian Sea. The Scythians also ruled Media and Chao, crucial frontier states of ancient Iran and China. By ruling over and marrying the local peoples, the Scythians created new cultures that were creole Scythian in their speech, dress, weaponry, and feudal socio-political structure. As they spread their language, ideas, and culture across the ancient world, the Scythians laid the foundations for the very first Persian, Indian, and Chinese empires.

Filled with fresh discoveries, The Scythian Empire presents a remarkable new vision of a little-known but incredibly important empire and its peoples.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Asia, World History, European History, Middle East

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 17, 2023

About the author

Christopher I. Beckwith is an American philologist and distinguished professor emeritus in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana.

Reviews

[Douglas Davy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I approached this book with great interest, based on Maxwell Carter's rave review in the Wall Street Journal: "simply, dazzlingly original" and "Scholarly depth and breadth rarely meet on equal terms [The Scythian Empire] marries the two to memorable effect." The book promises astonishing insights into the foundations of the Classical world and the rise of empires, monotheism, and philosophy in that time period as influenced by the Scythian Empire that came before. The analysis is more like a thousand miles wide and a centimeter deep. Though draped in dazzlingly elaborate linguistic analyses reaching from Greek to Old Avestan to Tibetan and Chinese, the sweeping generalizations are based on nothing else; no real history of the Scythians or their "empire" (where, what, when, who?); no description of their imperial feudal system and why it is different from every other imperial/feudal system before and after; no analysis of their religion and supposed monotheism--just similarities in words repeated over and over that are leveraged into preposterous connections. Who invented monotheism? The Scythians. Feudalism? The Scythians? Any philosophies of any importance (Greek, Zoroastrian, Chinese, Indian Buddhist)? That's right. Moses' origin myth was borrowed from Scythian foundation myths. The Chinese peoples' first name for themselves is Scythian and the first Chinese empire is hybrid Scythian as is the first Persian empire (Scytho-Median). Both Gautama the Buddha and Lao Tzu were Scythians or had strong Scythian connections. Wow! These judgements are all framed in pious statements about science and "the data" but are almost entirely lacking in information and analysis to back them up. Very disappointing--and Beckwith is a MacArthur fellow. Still, there is a lot of work here in ancient linguistics (I have no idea whether it is correct), no matter how misguided the results. For that reason, the book deserves two stars.

This brings us to the possibly troubling part. The central thread in the entire argument is that the Royal lineage of Scythian rulership is called something like Arya or Aria from Persia all the way to northern China (Harya). The author wields this word like a cudgel to mount "proofs" about the foundationality of the Scythians in Greek Philosophy, Jewish monotheism, Indian Buddhism, and Chinese Taoism. What didn't the Indo-European Arians accomplish? Hmmm.

[Natasha Kvitka · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really looked forward to reading this book, but it came in as a major disappointment. I hoped to find a deep overview of the Scythian civilization that could justify author's claim of its influence over most of the world classic cultures, however, it seems like the entire argument is built solely on the use of one word of Scythian origin, "Ariya" and its variations, in different Eurasian languages.

Author references archeological evidence a couple of times, but never expands on these mentions. Analysis of mythology is scarce (just three foundational myths are provided) and comes down to the usage of word Ariya yet again. While claiming the influence of Scythians as "the world's first empire" (not sure what exactly happened to dynastic Egypt or Mesopotamia in this version of history) author fails to even provide a detailed overview and timeline of the historic development of the Scythes as a nation, and establishment of their culture, language, and religious system.

In this book, it's treated as if it's a common knowledge that the Scythian Empire was world's first superpower that sprouted all the Eurasian and Asian civilizations, and doesn't require any critical review or substantial proof. By the end of the book author simply calls Lao-tzu, Buddha, and Zoroaster Scythians "because they spoke Scythian language" and references himself to prove this point, which again comes down to some similarities in some words in local languages to the "Aria" word.

As someone born and raised near the Dnieper / Dnipro River (that same Borysphenes from the Scythian foundational myth) in the steppes that are said to be Scythians' motherland, I was extremely compelled to find some revelations in the book dedicated to their history and culture. Alas.

[Scipio Africanus · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic book about a people often ignored by academics mainly for current mainstream narratives and post WW2 political ideological reasons. The Scythians are our Aryan forefathers. Their reach across Europe and Asia is astounding and their influence on all aspects of culture is deep rooted. Came across this book watching the video Our Subverted History by Asha Logos on youtube. This book will be a little dry for the casual reader as it gets very heavy into linguistics and minutia at times. Overall I enjoyed it but did find myself zoning out here and there.

Was interesting to learn about all these early monotheistic peoples predating polytheistic european religions and countering the mainstream narrative on religious development (which I have never taken seriously anyway). Def recommend having a map handy if you aren't familiar with ancient middle east.

[Dr G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christopher I Beckwith, the author of The Scythian Empire. Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China is a scholar of linguistics and the history of the ancient near east. Much of his book is taken up with linguistic analyses which are often accompanied by phonetic symbols which reduce the book’s accessibility for the lay reader.
Beckwith’s work is polemical in tone, as can be illustrated by the opening of the first of his endnotes: “The recent popularity of the romantic term Silk Road has been at the expense of the geographical term Central Asia , which is the urbanised south-central core region of Central Eurasia . Much writing on the Silk Road these days omits any mention of Central Asia, not to speak of Central Eurasia, indicating that the writers know very little, if anything, about those regions and their civilizations. Some are confused by continental Europeans’ use of ‘Central Asia’…” His Wikipedia entry notes that “his methodologies and interpretations have been criticized” by a number of eminent scholars. However, the book’s dust jacket also contains enthusiastic pre-publication accolades from several other, also eminent, scholars.
In essence, Beckwith’s theme is that The Scythians were the forerunners of the Medes and the Persians, and were responsible for a number of innovations which have subsequently been regarded as Median or Persian. And that the Scythians have been overlooked too much. In fact, he seems offended by scholars’ neglect of them, and sets out to overturn this.
One of the ways in which he argues that the Scythians were pioneers is in relation to religion. He argues that the Scythians – and then Scythian-related Zoroastrians – were the first to propose monotheism. Now I have never really been convinced by the widely-accepted orthodoxy that monotheism is a more advanced religious perspective than polytheism. However, side-stepping that point for the moment, is it really monotheism when “the One True God” actually operates within an environment which includes several other “minor gods”?
It seems to me that this is twisting the meaning of “monotheism” in order to pursue an argument that monotheism is a superior, more advanced form of religion. I am uncomfortable with the twist, and also with the next step.
Another interesting matter Beckwith raises relates to philosophy. He claims that the first philosophers (four of them) were all either Scythian in origin or had been educated by the Scythians. Thus the trend to classical philosophy arose from the Scythians. My problem with this is again definitional. He acknowledges that a number of earlier thinkers, for example Solon, are often regarded as philosophers. However, he argues, these men were not really philosophers – in, it seems, the modern university Philosophy 101 sense of the word. The earlier thinkers were, in his view, really wise men whose studies related to law or engineering, not philosophers.
Beckwith also attributes feudalism to the Scythians: “Scythians were normally dispersed over a vast territory of steppe, and moved regularly while tending their herds of horse, sheep and cattle. In ruling their thinly spread out realm they developed a new political-economic system, feudalism. It was a loose, hierarchical system in which the king ruled over several oath-bound subordinate lords who each ruled over part of the national territory and in turn ruled over several oath-bound subordinates and their sub-portions of land, all without chattel slavery.” Given that feudalism is generally reckoned to have been a post-Roman system, it would have been helpful if Beckwith had defined more clearly what he meant by the term; he doesn’t, apparently reckoning that a hierarchy without slaves is feudalism. Since serfs, under feudalism, were not too dissimilar to slaves, this casual statement leaves a lot of room for argument.
One finds oneself seeing Beckwith as a member of the scholarly class who regard themselves as iconoclasts, beating down the ill-informed. “Scythian culture did not spread by ‘influence’ or ‘contact’, not to speak of ‘trade’ or commerce along the ‘Silk Road’. These ideas, no matter how popular they may be, do not conform to the data. The zone of Scythian culture did not expand in any of the ways that many now think culture spreads. It spread beyond Scythia as a result of Scythian rule over large frontier areas at the edge of the steppe zone.” and “peoples of the new regional creolized cultures became Scythians, though they often succeeded in retaining the old local name and identity.”
While Beckwith writes frequently of the “data” which substantiates his arguments, the “data” often are referenced by arcane etymologies explained with abstruse phonetic symbols. At other times, there are no data, just bald assertions: “But if such problematic words are not Median loanwords, or Persianized forms of Median words, or inherited Persian forms of Proto-Iranic words, then where did they come from? It has been suggested that the clever Medes invented the words χšãyaθiya ‘King’ and vazãrka ‘(the one) Great’, to flatter Darius, or in obedience to his command. That is unlikely, so we must look beyond Media for the origin of such terms.” I am afraid I must apologize for my spelling of these italicized words but my palette of fonts does not include all of the symbols used in this text. But, why should I accept “that is unlikely”?
In summary, I found a certain amount of material in here that was useful about the Scythians, but much of the book was aggressively argumentative and felt solipsistic, and the heavy reliance on etymological phonetics was beyond me.

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little archeology, some history from written sources, a lot of comparative linguistics.

The comparison between Greek philosophy, Zoroastrism, Buddhism and the Chinese Lao-Tse is laudable, but I have a hard time accepting a Skythian dot Median dot Persian empire, linking the original Steppe Warrior of the Parthian shot contemporarily with Cyrus the Great.

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This review is based on an ARC e-audiobook received for free from Libro.fm. I am not being paid to review this book and what I write here is my own opinion. My rating scale is below.

I picked this book from libro.fm’s advance listener options on a whim because I knew little to nothing about the subject matter and wanted to learn more. As it turns out, my ignorance is not so surprising: there seem to be a very limited number of primary or near-primary sources for researchers to use, and as a result there seems to be only a limited amount of information that can be conveyed with any degree of certainty.

A lot of the same sources are referred to repeatedly, and because I was listening to the book instead of reading in print, the repetition really caught my attention. I heard so much about being aria and seed of an aria. So much. A lot of time is devoted to lineages and the migration of aria/kharia/haria as a word/concept. I genuinely enjoyed these sections, particularly the coverage of dialects and languages and language families, but after hearing “aria/kharia” so many times in quick succession it felt like my brain was a skipping record. That’s probably part of why I struggled to pay attention sometimes. It’s not the narrator’s fault: his voice is pleasant, but unfortunately easy to tune out. I had to go back and re-listen to Chapter 3 twice (which took forever).

This is a dense book, and as an audiobook it is difficult. I occasionally had to refer to Wikipedia to check names and spellings due to narrator Jim Lee’s accent. For instance, it is very strange to hear the name I assume is Darius pronounced “Da-RYE-us.” It wasn’t always the accent, though. Unlike Darius, many of the names were unfamiliar to me, and so I had to look them up to get an idea of how they’re spelled (usually in the most awesome way possible, like Cyaxares, for instance). I also had to look up some of the linguistic terms Beckwith used, because his linguistic analysis is in-depth and assumes a degree of familiarity with linguistics that not all readers will possess.

Overall, this really was a good book, but it’s definitely more for scholars than armchair historians. I would have preferred to read it in print so that I could see the spellings and linguistic tables, but if audiobook is the only way you can read it, it’s still worth reading. Just make sure you have no distractions as you listen.

rating scale
1 star - I was barely able to finish it. I didn't like it.
2 stars - It was okay. I didn't dislike it.
3 stars - It was interesting. I liked it.
4 stars - It was excellent. I really liked it.
5 stars - It was extraordinary. I really hope the author wrote more things.

[Peter Tillman]

New Yorker's short take, 2/8/23 in their online "Best Books We Read This Week":
"Often regarded by historians as a collection of savage tribes, the Scythians emerge as a pivotal force of the ancient world in this monumental history. Although the Scythian Empire, spanning the Eurasian Steppe, was indeed geographically diffuse, Beckwith highlights previously unnoticed connections among its far-flung groups, paying particular attention to linguistic data, which show that a surprising number of familiar words and concepts have roots in Scythian. He likewise traces the ways in which elements of Scythian culture shaped later polities, including the Persian Empire, and claims that the Scythians “effectively produced the great shared cultural flowering known as the Classical Age.”

Maybe? Published January 17, 2023

[Lynnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

His epilogue, which posits Scythian culture and “Scythian philosophy“ as the foundation for both Western and Eastern philosophy and its influence on the Classical Ages, is incredibly interesting. However, there’s an impression of surface, of shallowness, maybe even of naivety, throughout the book. He seems very much to want his argument—for an extended and powerful Scythian empire—to be true, but he never quiteeeee convinced me. Certainly, he brings light where it’s needed on proposed topics such as the Scytho-Medes’ creole and the legitimate cultural influence of steppe civilizations.

I can’t speak to any of his Asian and Chinese history or sourcing, because I am not a Sinologist, but I wasn’t always impressed with his Greek sourcing. In one section, Beckwith casts immense doubt on Herodotus as a source, but later used passages from the Histories as evidence for one claim or another. However, he does catch (if you take him in good faith) a meaningful scribal error in Herodotus that seems to impressively advance his point.

Very mixed bag for me. It’s almost certain to stir up a further Scythian dialogue in the field of linguistics, history, and archaeology, though much archaeological evidence seems to be ignored in this book. (Another point against it.)

[Lauren Huff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was bopping around listening to this on audio, and kept being stopped in my tracks by sentences that made me go "hm, that doesn't sound right." Had to pull out the physical copy and go through the footnotes. Found a lot of strange things: unsupported claims, sloppy citations (this bitch loves to cite a whole work without giving page numbers) and dramatic sniping at other groups of scholars. While there were some interesting things here, I think I will probably try to find a better overview of Scythian history and culture.

[Ryan Schaller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book relies extensively on linguistic analysis of multiple languages. I often felt lost working through those passages, but the inferences and conclusions that Beckwith is able to make from that linguistic evidence is fascinating and, for me at least, was worth the hard to read linguistic passages.

Beckwith has a number of original theories. If you want to see how he arrives at these conclusions, I recommend the book. If none of these ideas interest you, it's going to be a real slog to get through without much of a payoff.

1) Cyrus the Great (Medea) (in the Cyrus cylinder) and Darius the Great (Achaemenid Persia) (in the Bhitusn inscription and a couple others) use a Scythian phrase "aryia of an aryia" to describe themselves. This phrase means they're claiming to be part of the Scythian royal line.
2) The Median and Achaemenid Persian Empires were in fact Scythian Empires. (This argument is really interesting and probably the one with the most evidence)
3) Beckwith uses various sources to try and recreate the language of "Imperial Scythian". He concludes that Young Avestan and the Median language of Cyrus are actual dialects of Imperial Scythian.
4) If Avestan = Scythian, than Zoroaster is most likely Scythian and the root of Monotheism in the Middle East is the Scythians.
5) The drama of Cambyses/Bardiya/Gautma/Darius gets reinterpreted as a battle between Middle Eastern Polytheism and Scythian Zoroastrian monotheism.
6) "aryan" was never intended to be an ethnic or racial designation. The root of the word is Scythian for "royal" and the "aryans" weren't a group of ethnic people who moved into Iran. It refers to the Scythian royal line that ran things.
7) What historians usually call the "Axial Age" in Greece, the Middle East, Persia, India, and China was the direct consequence of the influence of the Scythian Empire that connected all of these peripheral, more traditionally recognized classical civilizations.

Frankly, I'm not smart enough to say whether Beckwith is right or not. I don't understand most of the linguistic analysis. But it is a fun and original idea to read.

[Gabriel Stein · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring, speculative and repetitive

This is, in my opinion, a very bad book. In the first place, it is not, despite its name, a history of the Scythians.

In the second place, it is extremely repetitive and tendentious. The author starts with an assumption. This is that there was once a large Scythian Empire, stretching from China all the way to the borders of Europe. Moreover, this Empire was also the genesis of the Median and Persian and even Chinese cultures, as well as others. The Scythians also invented monotheism and philosophy (Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao-tzu and Anacharsis were all, according to the author, Scythian; and Buddha and Lao-tzu may have been the same person). The early strife within the Persian Empire was a conflict between polytheists (Cyrus the Great, Cambyses) and monotheists (Darius the Great).

This theory is underbuilt by endless repetition of the same linguistic features. The author jumps to conclusions that at least seem unwarranted, along the lines of ‘This wasn’t A, it wasn’t B, so therefore it must be C’ – which reinforces his thesis. I cannot judge much of the linguistic ‘evidence’, although it seems fairly wobbly. For instance, the author categorically states that Chinggis (as in Chinggis, a k a Genghis Khan) means ‘ocean’. It may – but this is only one possible meaning. But on historical points, he repeatedly makes statements that are demonstrably false, e.g., when he claims that the mother of the First Emperor of China was a princess from Chao State. She was not, as any Chinese history will tell you.

Don’t waste your money and time.

[KRZ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haven't read Beckwith's other work, so I won't speak to them. But the world is worse off with this book. It is a net negative to the ambition of human knowledge. A work of philology that belongs in the 19th century. Beckwith could have done great work cooking up crackpot historical theories with everyone who claimed that the Polynesians were Indo-European. The fact that its proposal and manuscript were supposedly greenlit I am absolutely floored by. Waste of time and money.

As others have noted, the mechanisms or even the history of the Scythian Empire are not the focus here, but rather Beckwith's bizarre and hellbent conviction to prove that China (as well as Persians, Greeks, et al) became a conscious entity thanks to the Scythian notion of absolute divine rulership. He proves this by claiming that Qinshihuang was ancestrally Scythian in addition to deploying an ad hoc linguistic methodology equivalent to "girlfriEND, boyfriEND, everything has an END." He compares Scythian to Old Chinese or 21st century Mandarin, depending on whichever is convenient to his argument; looking at the one he doesn't utilize often shatters his connection. X and S are similar enough consonants... maybe Xi Jinping is Scythian as well?

It's been a while since I read this book, so I'm only paraphrasing. Even though it's on the floor beside my bed, I spiritually cannot subject myself to revisiting this schizophrenic bulletin-board conspiracy again just so I can cite everything exactly in a Goodreads review.

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Scythians, a nomadic herding people from the steppes, spread their complex and highly innovative culture into the peripheral Eurasian world of late Archaic Antiquity by directly ruling over parts of it. Its introduction to Southeastern Europe, the Near East, South Asia, and East Asia at the same time and in the same ways effectively produced the great shared cultural flowering known as the Classical Age." (p. 267 this edition)

The Scythian Empire is the best nonfiction I've read so far this year. It's a provocative argument that throws the history of the ancient Middle East, Greece and China into an entirely new perspective, as hinted in the final paragraph of the main text quoted above. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the period without hesitation (I'm set on acquiring my own copy of the work).

One caveat, it's not written with a general reader in mind, and beyond that Beckwith has a tendency to constantly repeat certain phrases and information to excess. On the other hand, the Endnotes are practically a book unto themselves (and that's a positive from my point of view) and the appendix "Zoroaster and Monotheism" is a revelatory perspective on the origins of monotheism.

[W M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The finest part of the book is the origin of philosophy on the Scythian steppe, a flowering that spread both east and west. I find it quite convincing that these Steppe folk were much more fundamental in the foundational moments of what would arise to become Persia, Indian, and Chinese culture.

[Rain Mirage · Rating 2 out of 5]

would be nice to be told exactly what sogdians/medians/avestans/scythians/elamites were before this fellow goes into his chapter-long linguistic analyses that depend on an understanding of what exactly sogdians/medians/avestans/scythians/elamites were

[Rafa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Voy a ser breve. Este libro me ha costado sangre, sudor y lágrimas. Probablemente la mayor parte de la culpa fuera mía porque esperaba otra cosa; un libro de historia al modo tradicional y es más bien un volumen con un poco de arqueología (lo que no suele importarme, es más me suele gustar), un poco de fuentes escritas, mucha opinión más o menos respaldada (más bien menos), algo de mitología y una barbaridad de lingüística comparada la cual me resulta tan atractiva y trepidante como una carrera de 10.000 metros entre caracoles reumáticos.

No obstante, lo que más me ha echado para atrás y más me ha costado es, desde mi punto de vista, su falta de objetividad y su herramienta multiusos, el uso de la palabra “Aria”, “Hariya” “Ariya” por ario para justificarlo todo: alguien usaba arcos, es porque son arios; eran monoteístas, es porque son arios; eran nómadas, es porque son arios, eran sedentarios, es porque son arios; les gustaba la pizza, es que son arios; tenían almorranas, es que son arios… Creo que el Madrid ganó tantas Champions porque es ario.

Otro aspecto destacable es como considera imposible que algunos pueblos desarrollaran algunas tecnologías o comportamientos atribuyendo su existencia al contacto con los escitas, pero si considera que estos pudieron desarrollarlos sin ningún problema, vamos que eran los listos de la clase.

En fin, que me ha gustado entre poco y nada.

[Shyue Chou Chuang · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a central Eurasian history largely derived from linguistics. The book examines roots of the various languages, the dialects and also the creolisation of the languages of the peoples absorbed. Large sections of the book are devoted to linguistics which serves as what Beckwith regards as proof of what he is postulating in the epilogue which essentially states that philosophy is a Scythian invention and also that the diffusion of original Scythian ideas, from philosophy, religion, clothing, political system and more. It is also stated that the Greeks could not have originated the philosophical ideas, likewise, the Chinese and many others. The reasoning is that it was a coincidence that many had the same ideas during the Classical Age, therefore, this is an elephant in the room and it must have been the Scythians given the centrality of their empire. Some of the startling conclusions include Buddha is a Scythian sage, Laotzu is Scythian, Qin Shi Huang is Scythian, and more. The conclusions drawn from the logic or reasoning offered seems far-fetched based on a few root words.

This is not a study of the Scythian people, there is no examination of archaeological evidence of the occupied sites of the Scythians beyond the Persian bas reliefs.

[Justin Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

An honest question: is Christopher Beckwith okay? Can his friends or family get him some help or support? This is a man who is so upset about, well, something?, that he needs to italicize the following sentence: "No one from either people [i.e., the Medians and Assyrians] wears bashlyqs, trousers, etc." (28). Reader, do not doubt the importance of this statement!!!! It shows us that the Scythians invented trousers. Is your world completely upended? Do you feel adrift from EVERYTHING YOUR BAD SPECIALIZED MODERN HISTORY TEACHERS EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT WORLD HISTORY? I know I do.

But more seriously, this is a man who feels so confident in his own judgement that he can complain about the way 'Silk Road' is used as a term, not for the obvious reasons, but because the term has 'succumbed to the forces of Modernism (q.v. Beckwith 2009)' (297) That reference is to Beckwith's earlier book, 'Empires of the Silk Road'. You might think that, in order to bolster your claim about the degrading effects of 'Modernism,' you might want to appeal to a text about, I don't know, 'Modernism,' but that would no doubt be to fall victim to another 'Modernist' heresy, under which 'scholars now work almost exclusively as specialists within one discipline and one region,' and so don't think 'in terms of a sufficiently wide picture, an absolute necessity for study of a continent-spanning phenomenon' (261). Luckily, Beckwith is here to save us from Modernism.

He does so with some SHOCKING NEW REVELATIONS. The Scythians invented: really good ranged weapons--which everyone always knew; trousers--which makes sense for people who are really good at riding horses; 'feudalism'--here meaning something like 'federalism,' which, okay, maybe, or maybe not, but since Beckwith doesn't compare their 'feudalism' to any other political systems, it's impossible to know what he even means; monotheism--although, rather confusingly, they also believe in multiple Gods, e.g., Beckwith tells me that at least some Scythians thought the river Dnieper was a god as well as the sky; the idea of a divine and legitimate 'royal line'--a claim based on Beckwith's own translation of one Akkadian word... and also the kind of thing that Mesopotamian rulers had been saying about themselves for a *long* time; and 'a new language'--meaning, really, that they spoke a language of their own. Multiple pages of this book are taken up with tables of words to illustrate the difference between a dialect and a language. One such page compares the orthography of English, American, and Australian English. You may be shocked to know that they are all the same. Beckwith apparently wanted that point to be so clear that he lists 21 words that are all orthographically the same. Astonishing. We all spell 'sun' s, u, n.

After listing these innovations, Beckwith offers a *lot* of very detailed linguistic work developing the above points at great length, despite the foundational silliness of much of the above points.

To conclude--you might like to sit down for this--Beckwith 'solves' the 'problem' of the Axial Age. Finally, someone has been able to break away from MODERNISM and SPECIALIZATION in order to see the whole continent, from the edge of Spain to the land of the rising sun, and to grasp that the reason 'philosophy' sprang up at the same time in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, south Asia, and east Asia, is because the first philosophers were all Scythians.

Now, in order to properly judge this argument, you'll probably want to know what philosophy is. Let me tell you, Beckwith is not talking about philosophy in any loosey-goosey way, so sir, because this is a man who, quote, will never 'ignore or bury or misrepresent the data' (267; there are *many* references to *data* in this book, which should make you wonder: is someone who thinks 'data' is 'evidence' to 'prove' an 'argument' really the person you want to be defining 'philosophy' for you?). No, Beckwith is talking about 'philosophy in the strict sense, with a capital "P": Philosophy.' (FYI: Beckwith italicises 'Philosophy' here, because you might still think he's talking about ordinary, small-p, regular everyday word philosophy--he is not).

What does that mean? You did PHILOSOPHY if you "criticized and rejected the traditional beliefs and practices of the countries where" you teach (235). (So, okay, that sounds like 'modernism' to me, but I digress). Who invented philosophy, you ask? Four people:

First: Anacharsis, who, despite being called a Scythian by Greeks like Diogenes Laertius, and being discussed as a Scythian in plenty of very accessible books on this region (e.g., the charmingly nerdy and not at all italicized 'Empires of the Steppes' by Kenneth Harl), and being described in the first line of his wikipedia page as, quote 'a Scythian prince and philosopher,' is apparently *not* considered a Scythian, or not considered real, by... I dunno, someone. Anyway, what did Anarcharsis teach? According to Diogenes L, he 'wondered why among the Greeks the experts contend, but the non-experts decide' (236). He was claimed as an ancestor of sorts by the later Cynics. This is, Beckwith says, 'a sceptical comment about the Greeks' quasi-religious political belief in "equality",' 236.

[If one were conspiratorially minded, one might think that an author who rages against 'Modernism,' acclaims those who can 'criticize and reject' the 'beliefs' and 'practices' of the country in which they reside, bases their claims on 'data,' has solved the eternal problem of philosophy, believes that 'the Greeks' had a 'quasi-religious political belief in equality' (which Greeks, I wonder? The slaves?), *and* clearly has a self-image as an outstanding but tragically misunderstood intellectual, *might just* be one small step away from publishing elaborate conspiracy theories about the decline of Western values with Arktos press].

Wait, you say: didn't Anarcharsis live after Thales and Heraclitus and many others, and at roughly the same time as Parmenides, who is well-attested for his extremely capital P PHILOSOPHICAL thinking? Yes. But they're not Scythian, so they can't have invented philosophy. Instead, Thales and Solon are merely 'wise men' or 'lawgivers' or 'natural philosophers,' which is to say, 'engineer or inventor.' Therefore, the data tells us, 'Anarcharsis the Scythian seems to be the earliest actual Greek philosopher' (238).

If you think that's wild(ly irresponsible and unreasonable), just you wait.

Second: Zoroaster. No stretch here. Since the Scythian were monotheists (who believed in many Gods), and since Zoroaster taught monotheism, unlike the polytheists around him in the Ancient Near East, and since the Gathas are written in a language that Beckwith has already used data to show is basically Scythian, Zoroaster must have been a Scythian.

[This also proves that anyone who has a different 'religion' to those around them was a philosopher. Therefore, the earliest philosopher was not Scythian, but Egyptian, since Akhenaten was, strictly speaking, way more monotheistic and contrarian than the Scythians as presented by Beckwith. Akhenaten tried to destroy an entire tradition and build a new one, like, literally, with stone and stuff! In the freaking desert! But I digress. It must be my MODERNISTIC SPECIALIZATION getting in the way of me following the data].

Third: The Buddha. Short version: Sakyamuni means 'of the Scythians,' according to Beckwith. QED. Rather more surprisingly, we're told, the Buddha taught nothing about 'metaphyical topics' or the 'natural, physical world' (243). Instead, he taught that all dharmas are impermanent (quoting the Numerical Discourses iii 134). Now, you might think that sounds awfully metaphysical and physical, since the point is that individual objects do not have permanent identities. But no: according to Beckwith--and contra, like, everyone who writes anything about Buddhism to the best of my knowledge--'dharma' here means 'ethical things'. Pyrrho (you know, the Greek skeptic) describes the Buddha as teaching that 'there can be no absolute difference between true and false' (243). Now, that proves that the Buddha was a skeptic, like Anacharsis. Just follow the data people. There is *no relevance at all in the fact that Pyrrho was a skeptic*, and that all studies of Buddhism understand the Buddha differently here, and that skepticism of this type renders much of the rest of the Numerical Discourses, for instance, utterly unintelligible. Whatever else might not be true or false, it certainly *cannot be true* that Pyrrho, the skeptic Greek philosopher, is understanding Buddha as a skeptic because Pyrrho is a sceptic. No way, nuh uh.

[I can only imagine what Rupert Gethin thinks of being roped in a reference to all of this. Beckwith references Gethin's excellent 'Foundations of Buddhism,' page 187, to support his claim that 'the chief goal of Buddhist practice' remains the insights of the 'three characteristics.' What does Gethin say on page 187? That page is about the four 'divine abidings,' the final stage of 'calm meditation'. He then moves on to 'insight meditation,' which is a *different practice* than 'calm meditation.' Still on page 187, Gethin tells us (accurately) that insight meditation is aimed at our understanding 'three aspects [what Beckwith calls the three characteristics] of the nature of things: that they are impermanent and unstable, that they are unsatisfactory and imperfect, and that they are not self.' I.e., the 'three characteristics' are tied *not* to calmness, but to insight; the 'three characteristics' give us insight into the metaphysical nature of things, not into 'ethical things', and the end of insight meditation is to become an 'arhat' (Gethin, 198), not merely a really chill hang].

Anyway, since the Buddha was a skeptic according to Pyrrho who most definitely a skeptic and so could recognize one when he saw one; and Anarchasis was a skeptic; and Anarchasis was a Scythian (and, therefore, all skepticism is Scythian)... well, the Buddha was a Scythian. Did he teach the exact opposite of what Zoroaster taught? Yes, but they were both contrarian edge-lords, and that's the main thing.

Fourth: Still with me? Because *now* we're getting crazy. Laozi. Entirely mythical author of an astonishingly incoherent text of genius, the Daodejing. Now, 'lao' just means 'old,' so his name means 'old master.' Also, there's a certainly not true story of him leaving China because his thought hadn't taken hold there. So, he was foreign. After all, other Chinese philosophers didn't have nicknames, they had proper names, like 'Kong' and 'Meng' and 'Xun'. So he must have been foreign. Also, I quote, 'before modern times no Chinese would leave home to die' (245). But Laozi left home to die. Therefore, he must have been foreign. [Everything went wrong in modern times]. Having followed this data to reach the true statement that Laotzu was both a) real, contra literally everyone who studies this stuff; and b) foreign, we are free to draw the obvious following conclusions. For instance, 'Lao' was probably pronounced 'k'ao', and sometimes people called Laotzu Laotan, which would obviously have been prono0unced 'kaodan', which 'can be straightforwardly reconstructed for Old Chinese as... a perfect transcription of Gandhari 'Gudama' or Sanskrit 'Gautama', the personal name of the Buddha' (246-7). Now, Beckwith is a responsible scholar, so he is not insisting that 'the Buddha came to China in early Antiquity and wrote the Daodejing,' 247. But this does 'confirm [??!??] that some knowledge of the Buddha and his teachings made their way to China, as suggest by even a cursory reading of the book,' a knowledge that 'could only have been transmitted orally by a living person who actually traveled from the West to China and wrote the *original early core* of the first Taoist classic,' the Daodejing (247). So, he's not *not* saying that the Buddha wrote the Daodejing. Now, a cursory reading of the Daodejing might lead you to think that it's saying the exact *opposite* thing to the Buddha, who said that dharmas have no self, while the Daodejing says that there is a permanent and abiding way that is beyond human comprehension. But never mind that, because the data has already proved to us that the Buddha was a skeptic who didn't care about metaphysics. Now, you might object: the Daodejing postdates Chinese philosophy; we have no evidence that it existed before Confucianism as a system had arisen, and there are other philosophers who aren't Confucians who also predate the Daodejing. You fool. Confucius isn't a philosopher, he's a 'wise man.' 'The first to teach epistemology and serious logic in Chinese is clearly Laotzu,' 250. Thus, Mozi, the inventor of actual logic in China, the first person in China to come up with a system for the judgment of knowledge claims (i.e., an epistemology), is written out of history, because no matter what you say about him--revolutionary who sought to undermine the norms of his society? Check. Contrarian edge-lord? Good lord, yes--he wasn't Scythian. Pour one out for one of the world's greatest thinkers.

In short: yes, there were philosophers before all of these people, but those philosophers weren't Scythians, and so they weren't philosophers. Just follow the data. You have now answered the question of why philosophy, suitably defined, arose at the same time in many places. It's because there aren't really many places. There is only one place: Scythia. It has been shamefully ignored by scholars, for no obvious reason, indeed, perhaps, even, it hasn't been shamefully ignored--see Cunliffe's works, or Benjamin's or whomever. But resentment runs deep, and conspiracy theorists will find evidence for anything, and claim that they're just 'following the data,' and that your feelings and facts, and that if only you better understood the grammar of Akkadian you would see that, I don't know, Modernism is undermining the eternal natural verities or something.

So, I ask once more: is Christopher Beckwith okay? Or has he followed the path of so many other authors of books on the Steppe into paranoia and world-spanning conspiracy theorising? After reading this book, I confess, I was a bit shocked that Lev Gumilev didn't merit a single mention in the bibliography.

Princeton University Press should be ashamed of itself.

[Ozymandias · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is quite a shocking resumption of the ethnographic studies of the late 19th/early 20th century that have been universally discredited for a century. To understand why and what that means a little explanation is necessary. In the 19th century philologists first became aware of core commonalities between languages across Europe and South Asia and identified the Indo-European language family of related languages descended from a shared (reconstructed) language called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). This far is broadly accepted today and languages as diverse as Hindi, Parsi, and most European languages are all listed in the Indo-European family. Being the 19th century with its ethnonationalist ideas of a humanity divided into biologically-defined races with innate cultural traits, the speakers of PIE were quickly identified as members of a specific race. The name of this race was taken by “race scientists” from the (then) earliest known speakers of an Indo-European language: the Aryans.

If you’ve heard that term before you know where this is going. While the actual Aryans were the progenitors of Indian civilization the PIE Aryans became the archetypal white European race who had conquered most of the world in hallowed prehistory through their superior culture and intellect. Soon the ancient Aryans were placed on the top of the racial hierarchy and all worthy ideas or inventions ultimately derived from members of that race. Seriously. Roman Empire? Founded by blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans and collapsed when they interbred too much with inferior subject races. Indians? Briefly flowered with the arrival of Aryan blood before stagnating for two millennia until conquered by the purer Aryan blood of the English. And the same was true of the Egyptians, Chinese, Maya, etc. Who needs evidence, right? If a work of great skill or beauty was discovered that was proof enough that the Aryans had been there as no inferior race was capable of doing what they did. And naturally this “race science” was the entire basis of Nazi education. Himmler even ran an institute for the study of Atlantis (Atlanteans = the original Aryans = Germans).

Why is this background relevant to this book? Because it does exactly the same thing except replaces Aryans with Scythians and tones down or inverts the racial elements. The argument here is that all civilizations were copied from the Scythians. Got a collection of national philosophers/religious leaders with distinct ideas and cultural environments? Scythians. Seriously, all of Greek philosophy comes from the Scythians. Buddha, Zoroaster, and Laozi (who may also be Buddha) are all Scythians. Completely contradictory philosophies and ideas? That just shows you’ve been misled by modern anachronisms. They’re all the same Scythian philosophy. Monotheism? Scythian. Judaism? Scythian, at least in its monotheistic form. Feudalism? Scythian. Divine kingship? A Scythian concept. The first rulers of Persia were Scythians and claimed the right to rule through direct descent from the first divine king. So were the Chinese (both Xia and Qin) and Maurya in India. All Aryans. Just not in a Nazi way (Chinese are Aryans too: Ariya = Aria = Harya = Xia, the first Chinese dynasty).

This is obviously an extreme set of claims that requires a massive collection of evidence in order to refute the traditional narrative with all its data gathered from interconnected fields across centuries. What evidence do we get for this? Just linguistics. It is shocking how insubstantial the evidence was here. I realized this was bunk pretty quick, but I still expected something more complicated than he provides. We get lists of words that are related in Scythian and Persian and Chinese. This is then used as proof that they originated in Scythia, no thought being given to the fact that Persian and Scythian are related and would naturally share words. Particularly given how few Scythian words we actually know, this is extremely dangerous ground and no effort is made to restrain the leaps of fancy that come from this analysis. It really is an open attempt to replace “modernist” evidence-based models with fringe pseudoscientific linguistic theory.

I suppose I should be clear that just because the Nazis discredited something by association doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong. There is always the possibility that revulsion at the Nazis led to overreaction in some areas of study, particularly when the original ideas had been corrupted/distorted to fit the new Germanic master race thesis. But the 19th century theorists who came up with this stuff weren’t great either, spinning massive conclusions out of the flimsiest of linguistic evidence and manipulating all archaeological data to fit a predetermined conclusion of greatness. It was junk science then and it’s even more obviously junk now. I don’t pretend to have the kind of linguistic background he claims here, but linguistic evidence simply cannot be used this way. Linguistic studies can show some things about the societies they come from (for example, PIE must originate among pastoralists as Indo-European branches have no common agricultural terms) but you cannot build an entire culture on the back of word choices, even if the language wasn’t a reconstruction.

The narrowness of this book cannot be overstated. Only books of a philological or linguistic focus appear. The discussion of philosophy is simplistic in the extreme, largely derived from beginner’s guides to philosophy. Anacharsis the Scythian is identified as the first true philosopher despite almost nothing of his beliefs being known. His Greek predecessors Thales, Solon, and Pythagoras are unceremoniously kicked off their perch as merely “wise men” because reasons. Religion is similarly badly done. His views on Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Taoist theology make no sense at all to anyone familiar with the religions. Archaeology is basically absent, an absurd thing to find in a book dealing with what is essentially prehistory. A shame too as I would like to know why the “monotheistic” Scythians produced so many different gods in their art! When such evidence does appear it displays no understanding of archaeological principles. Pretty much the only evidence offered for calling the Medes Scythian is that they are indistinguishable archaeologically, but it has been known for many decades that it is not possible to identify cultures solely on the basis of archaeological remains. Ethnicities are not defined sharply enough for that and just do not map clearly onto material culture. Also, this assumes the Scythians were present in Iran when it is supposed to prove it. A circular argument. Anthropology isn't there either and cultural characteristics are simplistic and often attributed to Scythian influence without evidence or even a firm understanding of what they represent.

There have been a growing number of excellent studies on nomadic cultures over the last decades which reconstruct the nature of steppe society. I had assumed this book would be in that line, but the discussion of Scythian social and political structure (such as it is) seems completely unaware of such studies. Indeed, I could not find any such books in the bibliography. Maybe I missed one, but clearly they were not seen as important (to a specialist of Central Asia!). And the problem with this is that such a steppe culture as he describes would literally be unique in the entirety of history. Steppe monarchy is incredibly brittle, being based on skill in war, and unified empires never last more than a few generations. A long-lived and united empire such as he describes would be literally unheard of. Medes being the actual administrators of Persia (which they weren’t) because they were really Scythian (which they also weren’t) would be equally unique for a steppe people – the Mongols famously relied on sedentary peoples (e.g. Marco Polo) for administrators in agricultural lands because there was no need for such organizations on the steppes. So did the Huns. So did the Xiongnu. Yet elsewhere he rejects Herodotus’ claims that Scythians practiced chattel slavery on the grounds that this was alien to steppe practice (which it wasn’t). I don’t think he has noticed the contradiction because I don’t think he knows there’s a difference. I cannot stress strongly enough how questionable every conclusion that steps away from linguistics is, and I only make that qualification because I don’t know enough about the languages to say whether the linguistics is rubbish too.

There is also an absence of engagement with any works on Near Eastern society and government, or really any political or cultural literature at all. The idea that “feudalism” was a Scythian import is laughable, particularly given that he provides his own definition of this much abused word: “a loose, hierarchical system in which a king ruled over several oath-bound subordinate lords who each ruled over part of the national territory and in turn ruled over several oath-bound subordinates and their sub-portions of land, all without chattel slavery.” Simple as that, though I’m not actually sure how well that would fit medieval feudalism. This, he says, is utterly unlike anything seen before in the Near East. Well, what about all the kings and subkings of Assyria and Babylonia? They owed obedience to their king, swore oaths of loyalty, and had lords and servants beneath them. That seems to describe exactly the political structure mentioned here. There are structural differences between the Persians and the empires that came before (notably the more mobile nature of government), but he seems to know nothing of what they are. Notably there is no evidence in the bibliography of a search for such features. “Feudalism” is enough. As a historian this is shocking. I don’t want to leave any gatekeeping impression – a philologist can certainly write a good book on historical topics. But it requires intellectual curiosity and a willingness to read through the scholarship on areas outside your comfort zone. And I just see none of that here.

I really could go on and on. Every page is filled with dumb claims that are obviously false. For example, the Scythians invented the Western tradition of numbering rulers. Except nobody in Europe actually did that until the later Middle Ages. The Greeks sure didn’t – they gave their leaders nicknames! So how did a “Western” tradition skip 2,000 years? Madness. The scientific method originated in the antilogies of the Scythian steppes. Darius’ takeover of Persia was a holy war where the Scytho-Medes (an absurd term) rejected Cambyses’ polytheism. Actually, the kings and dynasties of Persia and its predecessors are all listed as polytheists or monotheists on the basis of quite literally no evidence. His use of Herodotus is hilarious. Whether the first historian is telling the truth or blinded by prejudice depends entirely on whether he can be distorted into supporting whatever conclusions are desired. At many points he is used as evidence for the exact opposite viewpoint to the one he describes. I have seen authors distort the evidence to make a point before, but never in such extreme form. There is none of the caution that might be expected for such a poorly documented era. It is all deeply disappointing for a topic I was excited about.

It is hard to believe such a book could be published by a respectable publisher such as Princeton University Press. Every word in here should be treated as nonsense barring external evidence to the contrary. That is strong language that I usually avoid, but this book is filled with such an array of delusions, cherry picking, circular arguments, speculation presented as fact, and sheer invention that it is genuinely useless as a work of history. Seriously. You are better off reading nothing on the Scythians than this book as you will spend longer unlearning what you have been told than you would learning it from scratch. Or better still read Barry Cunliffe’s The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe, which I shall have to read next as it seems to at least be based on evidence and build much of its argument around archaeology (with pretty pictures) rather than subjective lines of reasoning spun out of thin air.

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a true philologist, comes off as both brilliant and kind of wacky. His theory is that central Eurasia was home to a civilizational-cultural complex (primarily Scythian in origin) that was highly influential on all the better known societies at its periphery -- namely, Persia, India, China, and Greece.

Beckwith argues for this theory in whole or in part in several of his publications, as can be seen in his most famous book "Greek Buddha". It also reminds me, at least thematically, of "The Shape of Ancient Thought" by Thomas McEvilley, which argues that all the "Liberal Arts" of the classical age developed through direct exchange of ideas between both sides of the Eurasian continent. I find the idea really compelling, and I was really rooting for this book to argue the case.

To get the negatives out of the way, it was unfortunately more technical and less narrative than I anticipated. "The Scythian Empire" is bookended with full explications of Beckwith's theory of the Scythian world and its influence, while the whole middle of the book is composed of (mostly linguistic) presentation of evidence. This left me feeling like I hadn't really gotten to know the Scythians that well, as the great bulk of the book is composed of (often hard to understand) linguistic speculation on the development of Eurasian languages.

This is somewhat inevitable, as all such theories will rely heavily on linguistic evidence. However, since I don't know basically anything about linguistic reconstruction of dead languages, I am sadly forced to take Beckwith's word for it when he asserts that, for example, a Persian name is actually Scythian in origin. Even when he lays his logic out in the manner of the linguist, I (and any general reader) will have no idea whether this logic is sound or not.

The author's passion and confidence in his argument, which I generally admire, can be misleading at times. Whenever the Buddha is mentioned, for example, it is asserted time and again that his title "Sakyamuni" means "Sage of the Scythians". After digging into the issue, it seems that while this is one possible theory (and supported by others too, not just Beckwith), it is not the only theory and definitely not the mainstream consensus. Frankly, "mainstream consensus" means less than nothing to me, but it goes to show that without archaeological evidence, it is probably misguided to assert any theory on the matter as obvious truth. Linguistic reconstruction can be taken in many different directions.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Beckwith's argument, which may go undetected to the general reader, is that a vindication of his theory would simultaneously be a vindication of the "Aryan Invasion" theory that was popularized in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 21st century, this theory has since been rebranded to various "Indo-European Migration" theories in order to avoid the bad PR of the term "aryan". Despite the rebrand, it is still often decried as being racist and an implicit justification for imperialism. Yet the mysterious connection between the "Indo-European" languages, and the philosophies which these cultures simultaneously gave birth to at the dawn of the classical era, seems to cry out for a grand theory of the great Eurasian world civilizations. I commend the author for making a new and original attempt at such a theory for the contemporary world.

[Aleksander · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was... difficult to read.

The main issue is that I feel this book is represented/marketed badly. It seems like a history of the Scythian empire, but really it's an analysis on the impact of the empire using linguistics. If you're not into linguistics, this isn't for you.

Related to that: the writing is weirdly structured/paced. It jumps around in time and geography while over explaining some concepts (we understood the importance of "aria" the first 13 times, thank you) and completely glossing over others (like... basically any actual information about the scythian empire).

All around this book is so hard to get through. I have a history degree and am familiar with a lot of the content of this book, and still found myself confused and bored and skipping entire chapters. This is yet another example of academics not understanding the difference between publishing peer reviewed articles and books.

[Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beckwith makes a lot of out-of-pocket claims here, and though the book is marketed as a broader interdisciplinary history for a more popular audience, this book largely relies on linguistic analysis. Beckwith argues that the Scythians were the common source of culture and politics for classical civilizations like Greece, Persia, and China, and even argues that four major philosophers (including Buddha) were Scythians. Adding to the discomfort is that, well, the Scythians are better known as the "Aryans." Sooo.... take it all with a grain of salt.

[History Today]

This was chosen by Peter Brown, Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History, Emeritus at Princeton University and author of Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History (Princeton, 2023) , as one of History Today’s Books of the Year 2023.

Find out why at HistoryToday.com.

[Harris Bolus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really imaginative and interesting, but the author has an unfortunate habit of accusing other researchers of not following “the facts” and not using “logic,” while basing his history almost entirely on linguistics. There is so little discussion of archaeology and such grand, sweeping claims about people and entire cultures that were secretly Scythian, and I really don’t believe any of it.

[Ayberk Oktay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly etymological approach to Scythian culture. Frequently repeats itself.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essentially a repetitve collection of essays.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrator deserves a medal for getting through the lengthy section on historical comparative linguistics.

[Harry · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is rubbish. Pure, unadulterated trash. Poor reasoning, incomplete—neglectful!—handling of source material, grooming of evidence to suit convictions rather than conclusions developed and emerging from the evidence. Other reviewers have been very polite about this book, perhaps out of deference to the fact that it was, somehow, published by a major academic imprint. That’s nice, but it’s inaccurate. This is of a level with Gavin Menzies conspiratorial ramblings about secret global explorations before Columbus.

Mr Beckwith relies entirely on what’s called “comparative linguistics” to build his argument. There’s not actually anything wrong with that: Jared Diamond and Barry Cunliffe are well-known authors who’ve put comparative linguistics to good use. The problem is that Mr Beckwith uses comparative linguistics and then ignores or refuses to admit anything which could complicate his views. And in the case of “Scythia” there’s a great deal of data to work with beyond the fragments of language that have come down to us.

Mr Beckwith doesn’t deal with archaeology. At all. There’s not a kurgan or a horse-burial to be heard of, in a book on a culture remarkably rich in highly distinctive archaeological remains. There’s nothing much about the written record insofar as it deals with the “Scythians”, who didn’t write much of their own. That’s a challenge for historians, but not an insurmountable one. Source criticism is for figuring out what we can say based on highly partial and incomplete written sources.

Instead, Mr Beckwith uses comparative linguistics. He has discovered that one word—“ariya”—in a variety of forms is used for elites and ethnicities in languages across a vast swathe of Eurasia, and concludes that there must therefore have been some colossal polity of “ariyans” which stretched across the lands from Ukraine past Persia to China. This, he tells us, is the “Scythian Empire”.

It’s striking, in a book from a comparative linguist, that he doesn’t appear to employ the most basic principle of comparative linguistics: that people and languages are different things. My writing in English does not make me English, and certainly doesn’t make me part of some global English superpower concealed from the sight of archaeologists and historians. Many languages used words related to “ariya”; that means the word and language spread a long way, nothing else.

Mr Beckwith also makes missteps common to students lacking basic historical literacy. He announces that there was a Scythian Empire, for instance, on the basis that various Greek writers—who were ostensibly not Scythian—talked about lots of different people under the umbrella of “Scythian”, in much the same way people now talk about “Asians”. Elementary source criticism would of course have told Mr Beckwith that what follows from “the Greeks talked about Scythians” is “the Greeks called a lot of people ‘Scythian’”, not that “Scythian” was a meaningful or even a real category for the actual people in question. We have a tendency to talk about “Asians”, for instance, but our calling people Asian doesn’t tell us anything about Asian people. It only reflects on us and our relative geographical ignorance. Mr Beckwith presumably missed elementary source criticism on the same day he skipped archaeology.

So, Mr Beckwith announces the existence of a polity on the basis of historical texts he doesn’t understand (and doesn’t deign to further consult), then insists on the concrete boundaries of said polity on the basis of linguistic evidence he’s misused, and then refuses to acknowledge the wealth of other information regarding these people which could help to correct some of his mistakes. From there rather than retrench to some defensible position and say something that makes sense, he pushes further: these fantastical Scythians not only built a global secret empire and manipulated geopolitics from China to the Balkans with more longevity and success than the Mongols, they invented civilisation, too! Buddhism, Greek philosophy, monotheism, Daoism, all become products of the industrious and elusive Scythian Empire in Beckwith’s enthusiastic, if incompetent, hands.

This kind of book has always existed. People have fun with history, and that’s okay. It’s disappointing, though, to see this kind of thing come out of a notionally serious publisher.

[Tucker Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a general history of the Scythians, this is not it. This is a detailed history on several fronts. Reading it was stepping (or perhaps steppe-ing) into the middle of argument that I had insufficient context for, and (understandably) was reading only one side.

The book makes a series of arguments which sum up to, essentially, "A Central Eurasian cultural-political package was more or less simultaneously spread to parts of the Eurasian periphery such as China, northern India, Iran, and the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean (including Greece and Anatolia). The mechanism of this spread was a group of Central Eurasians called the Scythians."

Several of the sub-arguments are:
* The Median empire, which the Persians later conquered/couped/hijacked, is better characterized as a "Scythio-Mede" empire.
* The Scythians had a political-cosmological system with the following attributes:
** One primary god (other gods are allowed but in lesser roles, not to be confused with the One True God).
** One royal lineage directly descended from or chosen by the one true god, the Arya/Harya/Ariya, from which all legitimate rulers must be descended.
** One superior ruler, who must be an Arya/seed of an Arya, who is at the top of a pyramidal or feudal ruling structure. He may appoint or designate underlings to rule certain areas (e.g. satraps) but they are lesser, in a way that parallels the difference between lesser supernatural beings and the One True God.
* Etymological evidence, ideological evidence, archaeological evidence, and art history suggest that a distinct Scythian influence can be found in various degrees in a variety of cultures including Chinese, Tibetan, northern Indian, Iranian and other Middle Eastern, Greek, and of course various Central (Eur)Asian cultures.
** In at least some cases, such as Scythian "influence" in what is now Iran, "influence" should be understood as conquest.
* Finally, key philosophers (and Beckwith even argues the entire idea of "philosophy" per se) were either of Scythian origin, members of creole Scythian-other ethnic groups, or highly influenced by Scythians. This includes Zoroaster with a world view focused on antilogies and Buddha with a world view focused on rejection of antilogies (a reaction to Scythian thought).

I don't know enough about the field to assess Beckwith's use of primary and secondary sources. Some post-reading reading suggests that other authors strongly disagree with some of his linguistics and proposed etymologies.

If I do accept all of his arguments and facts at face value, however, I'm left with a few more questions. The most fundamental is this:

The introduction posits a single Scythian Empire based in Central Eurasia. But the evidence he presents does not demonstrate that. He demonstrates a continuum of various acceptances of a package of ideology/cosmology, linguistics/etymology, and material culture such as clothing and weaponry. But continua of acceptances of similar packages can be found in places where there were not, or frequently were not, single political entities like empires, e.g. China before or between its periods of unification, India, and the Mediterranean. The Greeks in particular were famously only rarely united in a single political entity, and when they were it was usually under foreign rule. If we didn't have Greek writing, by the standards that Beckwith is setting, he would be positing a similar single Greek Empire. The main argument that I identified above, and its sub-arguments, simply do not match up with the claims in the book's introduction and title of a full Scythian Empire (I can forgive a title, which is often imposed by a publisher who wants to actually sell the b00k).

It was fun to see some etymologies of words that I know from other contexts, e.g. the Slavic "bog" for god, or Turkic "tanri" or "tengri" for god, with Beckwith proposing Scythian origins or pathways for them. Despite the book's arguments falling short of its main claim, there are plenty of interesting details to think about and connect.

The book is structured so that any one of its chapters can, in theory, stand on its own. This means it repeats itself a fair amount, but honestly that was fine for me since I have no background in this topic and I did need things repeated for me occasionally.

[Andres Felipe Contreras Buitrago · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro es algo difícil de leer, el autor no describe mucho la historia de los escitas, más allá de unas cuantas generalidades, pero, plantea nuevas tésis, con mucho sustento y con gran cantidad de fuentes, en lo que concluye que este pueblo tuvo un gran impacto en la antigüedad, algo que no se había tenido muy encuenta, no reahonda en lo que ya se ha dicho de los escitas sino que propone algo novedoso.

En la introducción, hace unos 2700 años los escitas crearon el primer imperio estepario, aunque durante mucho tiempo ha existido una imagen negativa hacia este pueblo ver al verlos como unos bárbaros, lo cierto es que estos, sí crearon como tal un imperio y su impacto en El Mundo es importante, todo esto lo es lo que nos habla el autor en la introducción. En el prólogo el autor menciona que los escitas desarrollaron varios elementos importantes: la primera, es la creación de un nuevo tipo de arco corto con el cual se podía apuntar mejor el arco desde un caballo, también desarrollaron puntas de flecha con bronce, este arco corto era mejor que el largo para tirar desde el caballo, sus armas también contaban con hachas y espadas cortas que usaban desde sus monturas, la segunda innovación fue el desarrollo del feudalismo ya que dentro de los reinos escitas habían divisiones, la tercera, es la creación de una nueva filosofía religiosa, la cuarta es una línea real, la quinta, es que los escitas dividieron el Ejército en lanceros, arqueros y caballería, su gran Ejército por ejemplo derrumbaría el imperio asirio el último de estos grandes aportes de citas fue la ropa ajustada para montar a caballo, por último mucha de la lengua escita, fue llevada a otros lugares por medio de la conquista.

El primer capítulo el autor afirma que los escitas fueron el primer pueblo móvil, estos crearon un mito fundacional nacional que sería muy característico de los pueblos esteparios, este pueblo tenía centros comerciales para conseguir oro por lo que lograron un gran dominio de Eurasia central, con ello el autor nos menciona las versiones sobre su mito fundacional. Los escitas ante todo eran monoteístas, la forma de su estado era una feudal en la que había vasallos del Rey los cuales juraban lealtad hacia, no había esclavitud entre este pueblo como sí ocurría entre griegos y chinos, otro gran impacto de los escitas fue la cuestión de los sátrapas persas, la amistad era muy importante entre los escitas al punto de hacer un juramento, por ello era importante el oro para enterrar a sus amigos.

La vida de los escitas se basaba en él pastoreo y el cuidado de los animales domésticos, producían muchos productos lácteos y solo iban a la guerra sí alguien les debía tributo, estos tenían caballos, vacas y ovejas, eran expertos en la metalurgia y contrario a lo que se cree si tenían ciudades, estos tenían una rica literatura épica oral por lo que muchos bardos posteriores fueron parientes cercanos de estos escitas lo cual contribuyó a crear el cuento del Rey Arturo.
Los escitas dominaron los pastos por toda Eurasia que iba desde Ucrania hasta China, las primeras descripciones de los escitas están en el bando de los asirios con los cuales lucharon muchas veces a favor y en contra, los escitas por medio de estos conquistaron media, es aquí donde surge Ciaxares, este fue criado como un escita, por lo que al derrocar a los gobernantes citas que había en media, existió una continuidad política y cultural de los anteriores pueblos. Es importante destacar que los medos conquistaron a Siria y eran terribles enemigos para los nuevos emperadores babilónicos, los medios siempre tuvieron grandes innovaciones gracias a su pasado escita, por lo que la posterior dominación de Ciro segundo fue más una continuación de los escitas y no una conquista como tal ya que los persas a lo largo del libro demuestran que tuvieron muchos elementos propios de los escitas.

Una de las grandes innovaciones que empezó con el Ejército de Ciaxares, fue el dividir a la caballería de otras unidades ya que esto genera conflicto al ser la caballería muy veloz y otras unidades muy lentos, como lo menciona el autor en el tercer capítulo los persas continuaron con el imperio medo y solo cambiaron aspectos religiosos ya que mucho del linaje de los persas residía desde los escitas, por lo que no se puede hablar de un nuevo reino persa sino una continuación del pasado de cita. Con ello el autor menciona que tanto el rey Ciaxares como Ciro tenían una clara ascendencia escita e inclusive el propio Ciro era miembro real de los escitas y medos. Con ello el autor menciona que tanto Ciaxares, Ciro y Darío, continuaron el modelo escita.

El autor también sostiene que las rebeliones contra los persas no se debía a temas políticos sino a temas religiosos la cuestión es que desde el gobernante Ciro se llevaron a cabo políticas politeístas en donde los rebeldes en su mayoría eran miedos que practicaban el monoteísmo por eso las campañas de Darío se basaban en él monoteísmo, por lo que a este emperador persa se le atribuyó la adopción de un solo asterismo temprano, el mismo Ciaxares, también tenía elementos propios del zoroastrismo temprano, importante a destacar que la madre de Ciro era escita, por mucho tiempo los medos y persas se vieron como pueblos hermanos, puesto que para los persas eran importantes los medos ya que estos controlan gran parte del poder persa, para terminar es importante mencionar que el sistema jerárquico feudal escita, no mantuvo muchos cambios desde los medos hasta Darío.

El linaje real que hizo Darío para legitimarse tenía claras raíces escitas, el lenguaje es cita real era usado entre los administradores reales persas, la corte imperial persa era dirigida por medios e inclusive en los ojos tristes usaban una droga escita, por lo que se puede ver hubo una gran influencia de este pueblo estepario en los ámbitos administrativos y religiosos del imperio persa. También la nueva lengua persa toma prestada mucha del lenguaje escita, por ello el autor rastrea muchas de las palabras que tienen su origen en este pueblo estepario, muchos de los textos zoroastristas, tuvieron una gran deuda con los escitas.

El autor así nos lleva muchas palabras persas que tienen préstamos escitas y con ello menciona que hubo un dialecto de este pueblo en Oriente la cual se vio en los pueblos sogdianos y xiongnu, por ello la autor mantiene la tesis de que estos dos anteriores pueblos eran estrictamente escitas, el capítulo 7 menciona que ya existían los escitas en China desde hace mucho tiempo y esto se vio reflejado en el pueblo Chao, el cual combinaba las prácticas esteparias de los pueblos nómadas y las agrícolas propias de China, este pueblo vestía como los euroasiáticos y muchas de las palabras tenían una clara influencia escita, es por ello es importante mencionar que la clase dominante es cita dominaba este pueblo Chao aunque tenía cierta resistencia de los pueblos conservadores chinos, es importante mencionar que los escitas también introdujeron elementos propios como el caballo y el arco en chino. El autor con esto sostiene que el futuro primer emperador de China nació en una capital escita, este nuevo emperador lleva a cabo muchas políticas propias de este pueblo estepario como la de los gobernadores y el feudalismo, por lo que es innegable que el primer emperador chino tuvo influencia es cita y tuvo una continuidad hasta la dinastía Han.

El capítulo 8 menciona cómo las conquistas escitas ayudaron a nombrar nuevas ciudades que llevaban el mismo nombre, alguna de estas tenía edificios con placa de oro y plata y la misma capital Chao era fundada por escitas, la Fundación de ciudades se debió a su interés por el comercio a larga distancia, con ello el autor concluye en que los escitas ayudaron a construir tanto el imperio persa como el imperio chino.

En el epílogo menciona que la filosofía es cita influyó en él surgimiento de la filosofía clásica, 1 de los primeros filósofos de Grecia Anacarsis era un príncipe cita que llegó A Grecia y fue un gran escéptico y un auténtico filósofo en la época, Zoroastro también era un escita que hablaba su idioma y perfeccionó las creencias de los pueblos esteparios, Por su parte el Buda rechazó mucho de las enseñanzas escritas pero sí abrazó ciertos ideales propios de este pueblo, el desarrollo del taoísmo también se debió como una reacción a las enseñanzas escitas, con ello el autor sostiene que este pueblo contribuyó en la filosofía de verdadero versus lo falso, y continuó mucho tiempo el desarrollo de la filosofía en Asia central como se vio en posteriores pensadores, con todo ello el autor concluye que este pueblo introdujo grandes cambios en toda la edad clásica y una de sus grandes contribuciones fue el pensamiento monoteísta importante para muchas culturas que van desde Grecia hasta China.