nomads, cannibis, and foreign policy...

So I was at Gin's tonight, enjoying a roast half-chicken and a slice of chocolate meringue pie with my old friend Herodotus.

Now Herodotus was speaking of a people known as the Scythians who lived in what is now southern Russia and Eastern Europe. The Scythians lived just past the edge of the civilized world. While the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and myriad others built farms and cities, conquered, traded and fell, the Scythians, on the fringe, survived them all. Wave after wave of the armies of civilization fell at the feet of the horsemen from the North. And Herodotus made some interesting observations about these crazy cats:
This greatest thing that they have discovered is how no invader who comes against them can ever escape and how none can catch them if they do not wish to be caught. For this people has no cities or settled forts; they carry their houses with them and shoot with bows from horseback; they live off herds of cattle, not from tillage, and their dwellings are on their wagons. How then can they fail to be invincible and inaccessible for others?

Essentially, people who have none of the constructs of civilization have certain advantages over those who depend on highly organized structures. They have nothing concrete to lose. There are disadvantages as well, but how do you hold up against an enemy who has no home to destroy, no land to invade, and who can disappear into the horizon at will?

Herodotus also says:
The Scythians take the seed of this hemp and, creeping under the mats, throw the seed onto the stones as they glow with heat. The seed so cast on the stone gives off smoke and a vapor; no Greek steam bath could be stronger. The Scythians in their delight at the steam bath howl loudly. This indeed serves them instead of a bath, as they never let water near their bodies at all.

So these folk were hanging out in the steppes, riding their horses, shooting their bows, and getting stoned off their ponies. Every now and again they would roll up on Media or Anatolia, beat down the locals, pillage a bit and enjoy the local fare, and then head back to the homeland for a bit of a cannibis sweat lodge. And yet, for some reason, we have based our civilization on those of the people they consistently plundered.

I'll bet no Scythian kid ever argued with his parents about having to take a bath.