Anacharsis

Anacharsis (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx) was a Scythian prince and philosopher of uncertain historicityTemplate:Sfn who lived in the 6th century BC.Template:Sfn

Life

Anacharsis was the brother of the Scythian king Saulius, and both of them were the sons of the previous Scythian king, Gnurus.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Few concrete details are known about the life of the historical Anacharsis. He is known to have travelled to Greece, where he possibly became influenced by Greek culture.Template:Sfn

Anacharsis was later killed by his brother Saulius for having sacrificed to the Scythian ancestral Snake-Legged Goddess at her shrine in the country of HylaeaTemplate:Sfn by performing an orgiastic and shamanistic ritual at night during which he wore images on his dress and played drums.Template:Sfn

The ancient Greek author, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, claimed that Anacharsis had been killed because he had renounced Scythian customs and adopted Greek ones, although this claim was likely invented by Herodotus himself.Template:Sfn The religious rituals practised by Anacharsis instead corresponded more closely to those of the transvestite Anarya priesthood of the Scythians.Template:Sfn

Legacy

An amphora found in the western Template:Transliteration at Pontic Olbia where was located the temple of Apollo Iētros (Template:Lit) recorded the dedication of "paternal honey" to this god by a Scythian named Anaperrēs (), who may have been the son of Anacharsis.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The nephew of Anacharsis, Idanthyrsus, who was the son and successor of Saulius, would later become famous among the Greeks in his own right for having resisted the Persian invasion of Scythia in 513 BC.Template:Sfn

In Graeco-Roman philosophy

Later Graeco-Roman tradition transformed Anacharsis into a legendary figure as a kind of "noble savage" who represented "Barbarian wisdom," due to which the ancient Greeks included him as one of the Seven Sages of Greece.Template:Sfn Consequently, Anacharsis became a popular figure in Greek literature,Template:Sfn and many legends arose about him, including claims that he had been a friend of Solon.Template:Sfn

The ancient Greek historian Ephorus of Cyme later used this image of Anacharsis to create an idealised image of the Scythians.Template:Sfn

Eventually, Anacharsis completely became an ideal "man of nature" or "noble savage" figure in Greek literature, as well as favourite figure of the Cynics, who ascribed to him a 3rd-century BC work titled the Template:Transliteration.Template:Sfn Lucian wrote two works on him, Anacharsis or Athletics (Ἀνάχαρσις ἢ Περὶ Γυμνασίων) and The Scythian (Σκύθης).

Due to the transformation of Anacharsis into a favourite character of Greek philosophers, nearly all of the ancient writings concerning him are about Greek literature, which makes the information regarding the historical Anacharsis himself difficult to assess.Template:Sfn

Sources

• Template:Sfn
• Schubert, Charlotte (2010). Anacharsis der Weise. Nomade, Skythe, Grieche [Anacharsis the Wise. Nomad, Scythian, Greek]. Leipziger Studien zur Klassischen Philologie, volume 7. Tübingen: Narr, Template:ISBN.

External links

• Template:Cite LotEP
• Jean Jacques Barthelemy's The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece (French)