Scythian Androgyny and Environmental Determinism in Herodotus and the Hippocratic πϵρὶ ἀϵ́ρων ὑδάτων τóπων

Scythian Androgyny and Environmental Determinism in Herodotus and the Hippocratic peri; ajevrwn uJdavtwn tovpwn Charles Chiasson University of Texas at Arlington According to an account written by one of his generals, the emperor Napoleon realized that his Russian expedition of 1812 was doomed to failure when the Russians set fire to their own capital city in order to force a French retreat. As he watched Moscow go up in flames, Napoleon is said to have exclaimed, “What a frightening spectacle! …What extraordinary resolve! What men! They are Scythians!”1 Napoleon’s testimonial to the determination of his enemy reflects a Scythian ethnographic tradition that is widespread in antiquity and at least as old as Herodotus, who in the fourth book of his Histories describes how the Scythians used similar scorched-earth tactics to frustrate Persian troops led by King Darius. In this essay, I will discuss the relationship between Herodotus’ influential portrayal of the Scythians as indomitable warriors and their roughly contemporary portrayal in the Hippocratic treatise Peri; ajevrwn uJdavtwn tovpwn (henceforth referred to by its Latin abbreviation de aere), which culminates in the startling summary 1 Philippe-Paul Comte de Ségur, Histoire de Napoléon et de la Grande-Armée pendant l’année 18126 vol. 2 (Paris: Baudouin frères, 1825), 49. 34 SYLLECTA CLASSICA description of the Scythians as eujnoucoeidevstatoi … ajnqrwvpwn— “the most impotent (literally, ‘eunuch-like’) people on earth.” The most compelling evidence for this Hippocratic2 judgment is the existence of an androgynous class among the Scythians that has its place in the Histories as well, but a significantly different place: Herodotus represents the androgynes as diviners relegated to the outer limits of a fiercely masculine warrior society, while the Hippocratic author represents them as members of the ruling class—aristocratic poster-boys for the effeminacy that he posits as a characteristic national trait in accordance with his underlying theory of climatic determinism . In assessing the relative ethnographic accuracy of these fundamentally divergent accounts, we shall see that modern anthropological research offers parallels to support Herodotus’ perception of the specifically religious function of Scythian androgyny. We shall also see that while the role of the environment in human nature and affairs is a topic of recurring interest in the Histories, Herodotus’ primary interest—not merely in Scythia, but among Greeks and nonGreeks alike—lies in human achievement rather than the natural or divine conditioning factors that determine or circumscribe human achievement. Although there is a general consensus that the Histories and de aere are roughly contemporary works, scholars continue to dispute the chro2 The question whether de aere was written by Hippocrates himself has been the subject of much discussion. Among those who consider Hippocrates himself the author are Pohlenz (1938), Mansfeld, and Jouanna (1999) 219, who poses the possibility as a rhetorical question. See Lloyd (1991) 194–98 for a rebuttal to Mansfeld and a reaffirmation of the skeptical view he first argued in 1975 (reprinted in Lloyd [1991] 199–223), denying our ability to identify any of the treatises transmitted in the Corpus as the work of Hippocrates. See Jouanna (1999) 56–71 for the most recent discussion of the history of the Hippocratic Question. The question of the authorship of de aere is further complicated by the view that the work consists of two different treatises (chapters 1–11 and 12–24) by two different authors—a view first argued by Edelstein and championed by Diller (1934). For arguments—convincing, in my view—asserting the unitary nature of de aere see, among others, Pohlenz (1938) 27–30 (responding to Diller), Heinimann 171–72, Jouanna (1999) 217. Unconvinced that the author of de aere need be Hippocrates himself, I refer to him as the “Hippocratic author.” CHIASSON: SCYTHIAN ANDROGYNY 35 nological order of their appearance.3 There can be little doubt, however, that the author of de aere offers a consciously revisionist view of the Scythian warrior image as it appears in both Herodotus and some preHerodotean authors.4 It will be convenient therefore to take the Scythians of the Histories as our nominal starting-point, but to proceed in characteristically Herodotean fashion by casting our net as far back as the...