Saneunos the Scythian Phillips, E D Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1968; 9, 4; ProQuest pg. 385

Saneunos the Scythian 
E. D. Phillips 

A MONG INVENTORS of various arts mentioned in a summary of 
historical information preserved in POxy. 1241 is Saneunos, a 
Scythian king who is credited by Hellanikos with the inven­

tion of iron weapons. The text of this passage (= FGrHist 4 F 189) is as 
follows: 

col. v 
ato7JP]& OE 

o7TAcx 7TPU)TOS <EM[cx]y[tJK<h- KCX­
TcxaKEvaacxaBcxL cPTJaty EaYfV-

5 YOY EKVBwy OYTCX ,Bcx[aJtM­
CX' 

Admittedly all except the last letter of at07]pa is restoration, but 
Hunt was for accepting Wilamowitz's suggestion of that word because 
arms of bronze have already been mentioned. l It is maintained by 
Rostovtzeff2 that Hellanikos took this over from genuine Scythian 
tradition. Aeschylus3 calls iron weapons Scythian and calls the 
Caucasus 'mother of iron', Hesiod4 mentions a Scythian Delas as the 
discoverer of copper. The celebrated iron-working Chalybes are called 
Scythian in the oldest tradition, which is reported by scholiasts on 
Aeschylus' Prometheus5 and on Apollonius.6 Rostovtzeff suggests that 
the name Saneunos indicates or represents some real historical person. 

The same view is taken by Harmatta,7 who argues that this name is 
genuine old Iranian, comparing its second part with the Aorsian name 

1 The Oxyrhynchus Papyri ed. Grenfell and Hunt, pt. 10 (London 1914) p.lIl, comm. on 
lines v.2-5. 

2 M. I. Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (Oxford 1922) 18, and Skythien und 
der Bosporus I (Berlin 1931) 23. Compare also A. Kleingiinther, IIpwTo, €VP€T~' (Philologus 
Supplbd. 26 Hft. 1, 1933) 127. 

a Sept. 728-30, X&Av{3o, l:KV(JWV CX7TOtKo, ••. aE3apo" and PV 301-02, at3T}pOJL~Topa ••• alav. 
I do not pursue here the confused geography of PV. 

'Hes. Dact.Id. fr.282 M-W. 
6 Schol. ad PV 301-02; T1]v ri), l:KV(JEas XaAVfJtK~V yfjv, €V V ,"PWTOV 0 aE3apos €VPT}Tat, 

~207.25-26 Dindorf). 
6 oi 3i X&AvfJ€, iBvo, l:KV(JtKOV JL€TCt. TOV e€PJLWOOVTa, oi JL'TaAAa atO~pov €.vp6VT€, JLOx(Jovat 

7T€P< T.qV Jpyaatav, schol. ad Ap.Rhod. Argon. 2.373-76a (159.2-4 Wendel). 
7 J. Harmatta, "Mificeskye Severnyie Plemena u Gellanikos" ("Mythical Northern 

Peoples in Hellanikos"), Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 1 (1952) 92-109. 

385 



386 SANEUNOS THE SCYTI-ITAN 

Eunones in Tacitus (Ann. 12.15-20) and with the Parthian royal name 
Vonones, which corresponds to the Avestic vanana 'conqueror'. The 
element san he compares with Saka sana or sani, Sogdian san and 
Ossetian son, all of which mean 'enemy'. A name that meant 'con­
queror of enemies' would certainly suit a king who invented or intro­
duced iron weapons. 

If we take Scythia, as Harmatta does, to include an indefinitely large 
region bounded on the south by the Transcaucasian river Phasis, 
which in some ancient geographers is the boundary between Asia and 
Europe, we find some confirmation for this tradition in the prehistory 
and archaeology of Caucasia. 

According to researches summarized by Sulimirski8 there were 
Scythians in Transcaucasia at an early date, perhaps even in the tenth 
century B.C., long before the great Scythian incursion of the seventh 
century into Western Asia that is mentioned in Herodotos and in 
oriental sources. These Scythians were, like the remainder further 
north, in the stage known as the Srubnaya or timber-grave culture, 
which was at its latter end transitional between a bronze and an iron 
age and covered also the development of mounted nomadism among 
the Scythians. Urartian inscriptions give some idea of these early 
Scythians, who were pastoral tribes organized in small kin-groups and 
weak enough to be harried, plundered and enslaved. This pressure 
from the kings of Urarru forced the tribes to unite in a larger state 
and to form larger military units. The later Scythian invasion of 
Armenia and Western Asia, reinforced by other Scythians from the 
north, was the final result of this phase of development. If the 
Scythians of Transcaucasia learned to make iron weapons from iron­
working peoples of the Caucasus or even further south, this period 
would seem to be right for the appearance of Saneunos, who equipped 
them with iron weapons to defeat their enemies. 

Not all nomads of the Scythian type had iron weapons for some 
time later: Herodotus (1.215-16) mentions nomads of Central Asia 
who still made their weapons of bronze. But in Caucasia and Armenia 
the spread of iron metallurgy, resulting from the collapse of the 
Hittite monopoly during the twelfth century, would have occurred 
sooner than elsewhere. The Transcaucasian Scythians should have 
been the first of their people to learn to work the new metal. 

8 Suiimirski, "Scythian Antiquities in Western Asia," Artibus Asiae 17 (1954) 282-318, esp. 
pp.283, 286, 288-91, 293. 



E. D. PHILLIPS 387 

Before we go further, we should look again at the Greek. First, 
TTPWTO~ tE>">"avLK6S, with TTPWTOS nominative, implies that Hellanikos 
was the first to mention this tradition, which had evidently escaped 
such others as Hekataios and Herodotos. But the sentence also seems 
to imply that Hellanikos said that Saneunos the Scythian first made or 
contrived iron weapons. KaTaaK~vaaaaeaL is a little ambiguous, but 
since it occurs several times in this papyrus in a context of inventions 
it should take on the sense <invent', and this may be meant as the sense 
of the Scythian tradition. But by itself it means only <contrive' or 
<produce' or even 'procure'; this difficulty would not be present if we 
had ~VP~LV or ~vpl.aeaL. 

The Scythians may well have said that Saneunos invented or de­
vised iron weapons. But historically such a king at the date suggested 
would have learned from earlier ironworkers to make them or would 
have made his smiths do so. 

However, if Saneunos may be counted for legend as a culture-hero, 
the inventor of iron weapons, he will be a Scythian culture-hero, be­
lieved by his people to have invented iron weapons without human 
aid. Among Scythians remote from Transcaucasia this idea would be 
natural. If Saneunos began as an historical figure who learned, or made 
his smiths learn, from other peoples how to make iron weapons, he 
could in time become their legendary inventor among the Scythians. 

It may appear odd that a king should practise smithing, which had 
a low social status among many peoples. But even when smiths were 
despised and distrusted as they were among some nomads, they were 
also feared and admired for their mastery of an important and 
mysterious craft. Among some of the AItaic nomads who superseded 
the Iranian nomads as masters of the steppes, skilled smiths had a 
special status, and in legend the smith's craft could carry high or even 
royal rank.9 The smith became, in lay opinion, a sort of magician and 
even priest of the mysterious powers that he commanded or per­
suaded to help him. The smith who could make iron weapons was 
their first owner, and ifhe chose to use them in war, he had power and 
might become king. Thus among the Turks of Northern and Central 
Asia the title tarkhan, which originally meant 'smith', became one of 
high nobility. Among the Mongols famous names were formed from 
the word temur meaning 'iron': Temiijin, the original name of Chingis 

9 See M. de Ferdinandy, "Die nordeurasischen Reitervolker und der Westen bis zum 
Mongolensturm," in Historia Mundi V (Bern 1956) 180--83. 



388 SANEUNOS THE SCYTHIAN 

Khan before he took that title, Temiige the name of his younger 
brother, and Temiiliin the name of his sister; and many names con­
taining the element temur entire. The name Timur, borne by the 
later conqueror, is of the same origin.10 After his death, Chingis Khan 
became in Mongol belief 'the mighty one of heaven, the great smith 
of the universe'.II That those notions of the Altaic nomads may in 
some degree have been anticipated among their Iranian forerunners 
is suggested by our reference to Saneunos. 

THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST 

October, 1968 

10 See P. Poucha, Die geheime Geschichte der Mongolen als Geschichtsqudle und Literaturdenk­
mal (Archiv Orientalni suppl. IV, 1956) 83. 

11 See de Ferdinandy, op.at. (supra n.9) 182.