Those accused in this way, if found guilty by several bodies of diviners, were beheaded for the offence, and their original accusers received their property.

It must have been important to keep on good terms with persons who wielded such a power as this.
Such were the most striking customs of the Scythian people, or at any rate of the Scythians of Herodotus, who were the dominant race over a large portion of the Steppe country.

Coarse and repulsive in their appearance, fierce in their tempers, savage in their habits, not individually very brave, but powerful by their numbers, and by a mode of warfare which was difficult to meet, and in which long use had given them great expertness, they were an enemy who might well strike alarm even into a nation so strong and warlike as the Medes.

Pouring through the passes of the Caucasus--whence coming or what intending none knew--horde after horde of Scythians blackened the rich plains of the South.

On they came, as before observed, like a flight of locusts, countless, irresistible--swarming into Iberia and Upper Media--finding the land before them a garden, and leaving it behind them a howling wilderness.