A dissertation on the origin and progress of the Scythians or Goths. Being an introduction to the ancient and modern history of Europe / By John Pinkerton.

  • Pinkerton, John, 1758-1826.
Date:
1787
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on the origin and progress of the Scythians or Goths. Being an introduction to the ancient and modern history of Europe / By John Pinkerton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/246 (page 12)
    Qf the Get£B, or Parental Goths, peculiarly fo galled. He lived with Solon, 590 years before Chrift. Menander, the celebrated founder of the new comedy, and whofe drama was called the fchool of wifdom, was a Goth of Getia, as Strabo, book VII. tells us from his works, and gives us the lines, apparently from one of his prologues. JJoins$ [jisv o( ©poiKsg, jj^oiKigrca S’o/ ViTctct 'H/xsig cJTTavroJV, (K(Xi avrog £t;%(5jU,ai 'EKiSiv sivoii TO Fsvog,) ov g(po^^^ sBi^ursi^ For all the Thraciansj but the Getae chief, (From whom I glory to derive my birth,) Have never yet been cold to female beauty, Toxaris, a Scythian, was a learned phyfician, whom Lucian introduces as chief interlocutor in his admirable dialogue entituled Toxaris, or. On Eriendjhip; which is not only the moil virtuous, but the moll: entertaining, of Lucian’s works, be- ing enlivened with many talcs and anecdotes. They who would know the virtues of the ancient Scythians are alfo efpecially referred to it. As to the later Scythians or Goths, who fub- verted the Roman empire, the hiftorian of Englifli poetry, fhewing our miftakes as to their hatred of learning and the arts, well obfervcs, that, ‘ their enemies have been their hiftorians.’ Such learning and arts as were then in vogue were, indeed, worthy of their contempt, as of our’s bow. The Goths knew that a learned king was ufelefs in their then fituation of war: and the foie example that