--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> *****GK: The oldest Slavic toponyms and hydronyms are
> found in the area south of the Prypjat'/Pripet, which
> were part of the Scythian state (more precisely of the
> subsidiary kingdom of the Aukhata). The population of
> "northern Aukhatia" was mixed: "Neurian" and
> "agricultural Scythians", the former apparently more
> numerous.*****
>
Aukhat(i)a is a construct of modern scientists. Herodotus speaks
about the Auchatai in connection with the Scythian foundation
mythology (4.5-7), but there was probably not a people called
Auchatai (or a geographic location associated with that name. The
only other instance of the name in antiquity is in the Latin epic
Argonautica of C. Valerius Flaccus (6.132), but he probably relies on
Herodotus.
I suppose that the Auchatai, Katiarai, Traspies and Paralatai were
some sort of phylai, i.e. kinship groups cutting across the ethnic
subdivisions of the Scythians. Cf. G. Hinge, in: The Cauldron of
Ariantas 2003, 55-74 (=
http://www.pontos.dk/Cauldron_Ariantas/BSS1_07_Hinge.pdf).
At any rate, Auchat(i)a as a geographical unit is merely a phantom,
and most scholars would agree on that.