soever it may happen to be: now it
is the prevailing custom of the Scythians to swear by the hearth of the
king at the times when they desire to swear the most solemn oath. He
then who they say has sworn falsely, is brought forthwith held fast on
both sides; and when he has come the diviners charge him with this, that
he is shown by their divination to have sworn falsely by the hearth of
the king, and that for this reason the king is suffering pain: and
he denies and says that he did not swear falsely, and complains
indignantly: and when he denies it, the king sends for other diviners
twice as many in number, and if these also by looking into their
divination pronounce him guilty of having sworn falsely, at once they
cut off the man's head, and the diviners who came first part his goods
among them by lot; but if the diviners who came in afterwards acquit
him, other diviners come in, and again others after them. If then the
greater number acquit the man, the sentence is that the first diviners
shall themselves be put to death.

69. They put them to death accordingly in the following manner:--first
they fill a waggon with brushwood and yoke oxen to it; then having bound
the feet of the diviners and tied their hands behind them and stopped
their mouths with gags, they fasten them down in the middle of the
brushwood, and having set fire to it they scare the oxen and let them
go: and often the oxen are burnt to death together with the diviners,
and often they escape after being scorched, when the pole to which they
are fastened has been burnt: and they burn the diviners in the manner
described for other causes also, calling them false prophets. Now when
the king puts any to death, he does not leave alive their sons either,
but he puts to death all the males, not doing any hurt to the females.

70. In the following manner the Scythians make oaths to whomsoever they
make them:--they pour wine into a great earthenware cup and mingle with
it blood of those who are taking the oath to one another, either making
a prick with an awl or cutting with a dagger a little way into their
body, and then they dip into the cup a sword and arrows and a battle-axe
and a javelin; and having done this, they invoke many curses on the
breaker of the oath, and afterwards they drink it off, both they who are
making the oath and the most honourable of their company.

71. The burial-place of the kings is in the land of the Gerrians, the
place up to w