From Maeotis to the Nile: the War between Egyptians and Scythians in the Traditions of Hecataeus of Abdera and Pompeius Trogus

Abstract

The article considers the evidence on the alleged war between Egyptians and Scythians in Book One of the Library of History by Diodorus Siculus coming back to the work on Egypt by Hecataeus of Abdera (ca. 310s B. C.) and in the works by Justin, Orosius and Iordanes that reproduced the universal history by Pompeius Trogus; it also explores a wide context of these data in the Classical tradition starting with Herodotus’ History. In the author’s opinion, the traditions of Hecataeus and Trogus on this issue are based on a source dating to the 4th century B. C. and telling about the campaign of the great Egyptian king to the Scythian border on the Tanais, on his defeat by the Scythians, on the settlement of a part of Egyptian warriors becoming the ancestors of the Colchi at this boundary, near the Lake of Maeotis, and on the eventual drive of Egyptians by Scythians till the water boundaries and the fortifications of Eastern Delta. This original information was gradually transformed in its transmission (e.g., Hecataeus fully annihilated the motif of the Egyptian king being defeated). Probably, this plot intended to explain Egypt’s loss of its world-dominion and originated earlier than it came to be known to Herodotus. Its version reflected by Hecataeus and Trogus became topical in the 4th century B.C., in the last time of Egyptian independence, when the reflection about menaces to Egypt from outside were much up-to-date. The basis to this plot might be the contaminated memories of the Egyptian encounter with the Hittites and of the wars against the Sea Peoples in the 13th and the early 12th centuries B.C. Its transmission to the Greek tradition of the 5th and the 4th centuries B. C. proceeded from complex contacts of its makers with Egyptian informers, who were probably able to adapt their notions to the Greek cultural lexicon.