Abstract
Were-wolves and Scythian invasions in Asia Minor : the warrior-dogs Polyen's account (VII, 2, 1) of the Cimmerian defeat at the hands of « valiant dogs » and similar narratives (Ael., VH, 14, 46 ; Pollux, V, 47 ; Pliny, NH, VIII, 61, 143) are compared with evidence from a number of Indo-European traditions. Warriors were frequently compared with or seen as dogs and wolves in these traditions. Similar notions including initiation rites (for instance "bal", military expeditions taken by young men) existed among the Scythians and their modern descendants, the Ossetes. As a result of their defeat by the Scythians, the Cimmerians disappeared from Asia Minor. The classical tradition presumedly preserved a distorted fragment of a Scythian epic which qualified Scythian warriors as « valiant dogs ».
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