THE SCYTHIANS: THE OTHER OF THE GREEKS

Abstract

The Greeks have a distinctive status in historiography. In fact, some historians declared the Greeks as the "inventor of history" and Herodotus, the Greek historian called as “father of history. Following the Greco-Persian Wars, the Greeks gained self-confidence and described the non- Greek- speaking peoples as “barbarian”. This might be the first “othering” movement in historiography. The Scythians, one of the ancient societies of Turkish history, between the 8th and 4th century BC in history timeline. When the Greek historiography began, the Scythians were the neighbors of the Greek societies. Because of this adjacency, many Greek authors and historians depicted much information on the Scythian society in addition to Persian, Assyrian and Chinese sources about Scythian history. In our study, the Greek historiography was examined in the context of "barbarian and the other", by attributing the inability to be "objective" in historiography. Then, a portrait of the “the other (marginalized) Scythians” was searched in the works of Greek authors and historians. In Greek historiography, it has been observed that the Scythians were marginalized at least as much as the Persians.