Historical Dissertation on Abaris

it must be held, according to the opinion of most, that it extended beyond the river Danube, which in antiquity had the name Ister, from the region of Bulgaria (which was once called Moesia and in our day is divided into Upper Bulgaria or Serbia and Lower Bulgaria or Bulgaria properly so called) as far as Russia, specifically to the source of the river Borysthenes, and thus comprehended a great part of Poland, Hungary, and Russia. Indeed, Cluverius $(η)$ tries to show that the ancient Germans, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, and Illyrians were called by the name of Scythians. Strabo $(\vartheta)$ teaches that the ancient Greek writers thought that all peoples living toward the north were called Scythians, to which also Pliny the Elder $(ι)$ and Isidore $(κ)$ agree. Writers report in many places that these European Scythians were further divided into various peoples, among whom they think the Hyperboreans claimed not the last place. 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 distant and remote regions were so called, in whose number also Herodotus $(λ)$ is found, to whose arguments Strabo $(μ)$ responds quite prolixly. But Stephanus of Byzantium $(ν)$ reports that Protarchus thought the Alps and all the peoples who lived beyond the Alps were so called: "Protarchus," he says, "says that the Alps were so called the Ripean mountains, and all those who lived beyond the Ripean mountains were called Hyperboreans." Jacobus Perizonius $(ξ)$ says that the Hyperboreans in most ancient times were called those who, having moved their settlements through the north from Asia, eventually penetrated into Greece and established sacred rites there; and then, after that, all those who lived beyond the northern peoples in Europe adjacent to and known to Greece.

$(τ)$ Library of History, Book II, p. 89 seq., ed. H. Stephanus 1559, fol.
$(v)$ Geography, Book II, p. 74, ed. Paris 1620, fol.
$(φ)$ Semestria VIII, ed. Paris 1611.