SCYTHIA, an ancient name for the northern parts of Asia, now known by the name of Tartary; and also for some of the north-eastern parts of Europe.

This vast territory, which extends itself from the Ister or Danube, the boundary of the Celts, that is, from about the 25th to almost the 110th degree of east longitude, was divided into Scythia in Europe and Scythia in Asia, including, however, the two Sarmatias, or, as they are called by the Greeks, Sauromatias, now Circassian Tartary, which lay between and separated the two Scythias from each other., Sauromatia was also distinguished into European and Asiatic; and was divided from the European Scythia by the river Don or Tanais, which falls into the Palus Maeotis, and from the Asiatic by the Rha or Volga, which empties itself into the Caspian Sea.

The Asiatic Scythia comprehended, in general, Great Tartary, and Russia in Asia; and, in particular, the Scythia beyond or without Imaus contained the regions of Bogdoi or Ostiacoi, and Tanguti. That within or on this side of Imaus had Turkestan and Mongul, the Usbeck or Zagatai, Kalmuck and Nagaian Tartars, besides Siberia, the land of the Samoiedes, and Nova Zembla. These three last not being so soon inhabited as the others, were, as may be reasonably supposed, wholly unknown to the ancients; and the former were peopled by the Bactrians, Sogdians, Gandari, Sacks, and Massagetes. As for Sarmatia, it contained Albania, Iberia, and Colchis, which now form Circassian Tartary and the province of Georgia.

Scythia in Europe reached, towards the south-west, to the Po and the Alps, by which it was divided from Celto-Gallia. It was bounded on the south by the Ister or Danube and the Euxine Sea. Its northern limits have been supposed to stretch to the fountain-heads of the Borysthenes or Dnieper, and the Volga, and so to that of the Tanais. The ancients divided this country into Scythia Arimaspaea, which lay eastward, joining to Scythia in Asia; and Sarmatia Europeans on the west. In Scythia properly so called were the Arimaspaei on the north, the Getae or Dacians along the Danube on the south, and the Neuri between these two.

It contained therefore European Russia or Muscovy, and the Lesser Crim Tartary, to the eastward; and, on the west, Lithuania, Poland, part of Hungary, Transylvania, Walachia, Bulgaria, and Moldavia. Sarmutia is supposed to have reached northward to that part of Sweden called Feningia, now Finland; in which they placed the Ocenes, Panoti, and Hippopodes. This part they divided from Northern Germany, now the western part of Sweden and Norway, by the Mare Sarmaticum or Scythicum, which they supposed to run up into the Northern Ocean, and, dividing Lapland into two parts, formed the western part of Sweden and Norway into one island, and Finland into another; supposing this also to be cut off from the continent by the gulf of the same name.

Although the ancient Scythians were celebrated as a warlike people, yet their history is too uncertain and obscure to enable us to give any detail which would not prove equally tiresome and uninteresting to the reader. Mr Pinkerton, in a dissertation on their origin, endeavours to prove that they were the most ancient of nations; and he assigns for the place of their first habitation the country known by the name of Persia. From Persia, he thinks, they proceeded in numerous hordes westward, surrounded the Euxine, and peopled Germany, Italy, Gaul, the countries bordering on the Baltic, and part of Britain and Ireland. That the Scythians were of Asiatic origin, cannot, we think, be questioned; and as Persia was peopled at a very early period, it may not improbably have been their parent country. But when our author contends that their empire had subsisted for more than 1500 years before Ninus, the founder of the Assyrian monarchy, and that it extended from Egypt to the Ganges, and from the Persian Gulf and Indian Sea to the Caspian, we cannot help thinking that his prejudices against the Celts, and his desire to do honour to his favourite Goths, have made him advance a paradox inconsistent with the most authentic records of antiquity. His dissertation however is ingenious, and replete with curious learning.