Targitaos

Targitaos (Ancient Greek: Ταργιτάος Targitáos, from Scythian *Dargatavah "whose might is far-reaching"[1]) was the first king of the Scythians[2] according to the Scythian religion.

Mythology

He was the son of Papaios (whom Herodotus equated with the Greek god Zeus) and Borysthenis, daughter of Borysthenes, god of the Dneper River in Scythia (modern Ukraine).[3][4] He had three sons: Lipoxaïs, Arpoxaïs, and Colaxaïs, the youngest.[5]

Targitaos was likely be the same figure as the "Scythian Heracles" who appears in Herodotus' second version and from the Tabula Albana's version of the genealogical myth. He was also probably the same figure as Scythes, the son of Papaios, and was likely assimilated by the Pontic Greeks with the Greek Heracles.[6]

The main feature of this deity which identifies him with Heracles is the cattle he drives, although unlike the Greek Heracles who drove the cattle of Geryon on foot, the "Scythian Heracles" drove a chariot pulled by mares. This cattle-driver aspect of Scythes/Targitaos was likely derived from the motif of cattle-theft of Iranian mythology which is also reflected in the legend of Mithra as a cattle-stealing god.[6]

The Scythian genealogical myth

Five variants of the Scythian genealogical myth have been retold by Greco-Roman authors:[7][6]

  1. Herodotus' recorded two variants of the myth, and according to his first version, the first man born in hitherto desert Scythia was named Targitaos and was the son of Zeus and a daughter of the river Borysthenes. Targitaos in turn had three sons, named Lipoxais (Λιπόξαϊς, from Scythian *Ripaxšaya "king of the soil"[1]), Arpoxais (Ἀρποξάϊς, from Scythian *Arpaxšaya "king of the battle"[1]), and Kolaxais (Κολάξαϊς, from Scythian *Kuraxšaya "young king"[1]), who each ruled a different part of the kingdom. One day four gold objects - a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, a drinking cup - fell from the sky, and each brother in turn tried to pick the gold, but when Leipoxais and Arpoxais tried, it burst in flames, while the flames were extinguished when Colaxais tried. Colaxais thus became the guardian of this sacred gold (which was likely the hestiai of Tabiti), and the other brothers decided that he should become the high king and king of the Royal Scythians whole they would rule different branches of the Scythians.
  2. According to the second version of the myth recorded by Herodotus, Heracles arrived in deserted Scythia with Geryon's cattle. After his mares disappeared during his sleep, he searched for them until he arrived at a land called Hylaia (Ancient Greek: Ὑλαία), that is the Woodland, and in a cave found a half-maiden, half-viper being who later revealed to him that she was the mistress of this country, and that she had kept Heracles' horses which she agreed to return only if he had sexual intercourse with her. After three sons - Agathyrsus, Gelonus, Scythes - were born of their union, she returned his freedom to Heracles. Before Heracles left Scythia, the serpent maiden asked him what should be done once the boys had reached adulthood, and he told her that they should be each tasked with stringing a bow and putting on a girdle in the correct way. When the time for the test had arrived, only the youngest of the sons, named Scythes, was able to correctly complete it, and he thus became the ancestor of the Scythians and their first king, with all subsequent Scythian kings claiming descent from him.
  3. A third variant of the myth, recorded by Valerius Flaccus, described the Scythians as descendants of Colaxes, a son of Jupiter with a half-serpent nymph named Hora.
  4. The fourth variant of the myth, recorded by Diodorus Siculus, calls Scythes the first Scythian and the first king, and describes him as a son of Zeus and an earth-born viper-limbed maiden
  5. The fifth version of the myth, recorded in the Tabula Albana, recorded that after Heracles had defeated the river-god Araxes, he fathered two sons with his daughter Echidna, named Agathyrsus and Scythes, who became the ancestors of the Scythians.

The "Heracles" of Herodotus' second version and from the Tabula Albana's version of the genealogical myth is not the Greek hero Heracles, but a Scythian god, possibly the same one appears in the other recorded variants of the myth under the name of Targitaos as a son of Papaios, and was likely assimilated by the Greeks from the northern shores of the Black Sea with the Greek Heracles. The mother's traits are consistent across the multiple versions of the genealogical myth and include her being the daughter of either a river-god or of the Earth and dwelling in a cave, as well as her being half-woman and half-snake[6]

The Scythian genealogical myth exhibits clear textual and narrative parallels with the Persian story of Fereydun and his three sons - Salm, Tur, and Iraj - from the Shahnameh,[8] and thus ascribes the origin of the Scythians to the Sky Father Papaios, either directly or through his son, and to the anguipede goddess affiliated to Artimpasa,[6] and represented the threefold division of the universe into the Heavens, the Earth, and the Underworld, as well as the division of Scythian society into the warrior, priest, and agriculturalist classes.[8]

Targitaos's sons

The names of Targitaos's sons - *Ripaxšaya, *Arpaxšaya, and *Kuraxšaya - contain the Old Iranian term *xšaya meaning ruler[8] and each were forebearers of tribes constituting the Scythian people:[1]

  • *Ripaxšaya was the ancestor of the Auchatae (Αὐχάται, from Scythian *Auxyatah "the sedentary ones")
  • *Arpaxšaya was the ancestor of the Katiaroi (Κατίαροί, from Scythian *Katiara "the warlike") and the Traspies (Τράσπιες, from Scythian *Trāspya "horse-keeper")
  • *Kuraxšaya was the ancestor of the Paralatai (Παραλάται, from Scythian *Paradata "first created") or Royal Scythians.

The first version of the genealogical myth recounted by Herodotus therefore also explains the division of Scythia into three kingdoms of which the king of the Royal Scythians was the High King, which is a structure also recorded in Herodotus' account of the Scythian campaign of Darius I, where Idanthyrsus was the Scythian high king while Scopasis and Taxacis were sub-kings.[7]

Notes
  1. Harmatta, János (1996). "10.4.1. The Scythians". In Hermann, Joachim; de Laet, Sigfried (eds.). History of Humanity. 3. UNESCO. p. 181-182. ISBN 978-9-231-02812-0.
  2. Herodotus, Histories 4.7.1
  3. Braund, edited by David; Kryzhitskiy, S.D. (2007). Classical Olbia and the Scythian world : from the sixth century BC to the second century AD (1. publ. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780197264041.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  4. Herodotus, Histories 4.5.1
  5. Herodotus, Histories 4.5.2
  6. Ustinova 1999, p. 67-128.
  7. Cunliffe, Barry (2019). The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe. Oxford University Press. pp. 265–290. ISBN 978-0198820123.
  8. Safaee 2020.

Reference

Further reading
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