Historical Disputation on Abaris

net, it must be held, according to the opinion of many, that it extended beyond the Danube river, which in ancient times had the name Ister, from the region of Bulgaria (which was once called Moesia and in the present day is divided into Upper Bulgaria or Serbia and Lower Bulgaria or Bulgaria properly so called) all the way to Russia, specifically to the source of the Borysthenes river, and thus encompassed a large part of Poland, Hungary, and Russia. Indeed, Cluverius (η) attempts to show that the ancient Germans, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, and Illyrians were called by the name of Scythians. Strabo (ϑ) teaches that the ancient writers of the Greeks thought that all peoples dwelling towards the north were called Scythians, to which Pliny the Elder (ι) and Isidore (κ) also assent. These European Scythians, however, were further divided into various peoples, writers mention everywhere, among whom they believe the Hyperboreans did not claim the last place for themselves. Although I must confess that there are not lacking those who absolutely deny that a people of that name ever existed, but affirm that all those coming from far distant regions were so named, in whose number Herodotus (λ) is also found, whose arguments Strabo (μ) answers quite prolixly. But Stephanus of Byzantium (ν) reports that Protarchus thought that the Alps and all the peoples who dwelt across the Alps were so called: Protarchus, he says, claims that the Alps are called the Riphean mountains, and that all who dwell beyond the Alpine mountains are named Hyperboreans. Jacobus Perizonius (ξ) says that the Hyperboreans in ancient times were called specifically those who, having moved their residences through the north from Asia and in their wanderings finally penetrated into Greece and established sacred rites there; then, however, all those who lived beyond the northern peoples of Europe, neighbors to and known to Greece.

(η) Bibliotheca Historica, Book II, p. 89 ff., ed. H. Stephanus, 1559, fol.
(ϑ) Geography, Book II, p. 74, ed. Paris, 1620, fol.
(φ) Semestria VIII, ed. Paris, 1611.