an any other skin. Many also take the skins
off the whole bodies of men and stretch them on pieces of wood and carry
them about on their horses.

65. Such are their established customs about these things; and to the
skulls themselves, not of all but of their greatest enemies, they do
thus:--the man saws off all below the eyebrows and clears out the inside;
and if he is a poor man he only stretches ox-hide round it and then
makes use of it; but if he be rich, besides stretching the ox-hide he
gilds it over within, and makes use of it as a drinking-cup. They do
this also if any of their own family have been at variance with them and
the man gets the better of his adversary in trial before the king; and
when strangers come to him whom he highly esteems, he sets these skulls
before them, and adds the comment that they being of his own family had
made war against him, and that he had got the better of them; and this
they hold to be a proof of manly virtue.

66. Once every year each ruler of a district mixes in his own district
a bowl of wine, from which those of the Scythians drink by whom enemies
have been slain; but those by whom this has not been done do not taste
of the wine, but sit apart dishonoured; and this is the greatest of
all disgraces among them: but those of them who have slain a very great
number of men, drink with two cups together at the same time.

67. Diviners there are many among the Scythians, and they divine with a
number of willow rods in the following manner:--they bring large bundles
of rods, and having laid them on the ground they unroll them, and
setting each rod by itself apart they prophesy; and while speaking thus,
they roll the rods together again, and after that they place them in
order a second time one by one. 67 This manner of divination they have
from their fathers: but the Enarees or "man-women" 68 say that Aphrodite
gave them the gift of divination, and they divine accordingly with
the bark of the linden-tree. Having divided the linden-bark into three
strips, the man twists them together in his fingers and untwists them
again, and as he does this he utters the oracle.

68. When the king of the Scythians is sick, he sends for three of the
diviners, namely those who are most in repute, who divine in the manner
which has been said: and these say for the most part something like
this, namely that so and so has sworn falsely by the hearth of the king,
and they name one of the citizens, who