(Pekkanen):The Scythians bordering on the Thracian Crobyzi on the western coast of the Euxine Sea are also known from other sources. An important argument in support of the above assumption of their identity with the Bastarnae is that the elder Pliny in nat. 4, 80 describes them as Scythae degeneres et a servis orti aut Trogodytae, although, as Müller points out,14 he has transferred them together with the Crobyzi,18 mentioned in nat. 4, 82, too far north. The identity of the Scythae degeneres . . . aut Trogodytae with the northern neighbours of the Crobyzi in Nic. 756 is based on the comparison of the following sources, quoted by Müller:
Nic. 756 κροβύζων κα`ι σκυθων . . . ;
Str. 7, 5, 12 κρόβυζοι κα`ι ο´ι τρωγλοδύται . . . ;
Ptol. Geog. 3, 10, 4 τρωγλοδύται . . . κρόβυζοι.
Since the neighbours of the Crobyzi are called alternately σκύθαι and
τρωγλοδύται in these sources, their identity with the group called by Pliny Scythae . . . aut Trogodytae is in my opinion quite indisputable.
****GK: But the "Troglodytae" were not the only Scythians in Scythia Minor (on which see Strabo 7,4,5). More important were those mentioned by Pliny at 4,44: "namque Thracia altero latere a Pontico litore incipiens, ubi Hister amnis inmergitur, vel pulcherrimas in ea parte urbes habet, Histropolin Milesiorum, Tomos, Callatim, quae antea Cerbatis vocabatur, Heracleam. habuit et Bizonen terrae hiatu raptam; nunc habet Dionysopolim, Crunon antea dictam; adluit Zyras amnis. totum eum tractum Scythae Aroteres cognominati tenuere." These were a branch of the "agricultural Scythians" (Herodotus) also known as Aukhata, who held Scythia Minor for the Great Scythian Kings of Central Asia, and also for King Skilur who reigned at the time of Pseudo-Skumnos' composition ca. 133-116 BCE, and whose empire stretched from the Maeoti to the Cro
byzi, and included the Bastarnians (cf. http://www.pontos.dk/publications/papers-presented-orally/oral-files/Zay_neapolisscythia.htm. The "Troglodytae" were the underlings in this system. The "Scythae degeneres" of 4,80 were their kin, and I have discussed them in my posts on Farzoi. They were one of the transplanted populations which controlled the northern shores of the Danube for Farzoi in the 1rst c. CE, and had nothing to do with the Bastarnians. I wonder why P. did not mention that Dio Cassius (38.10.3) also mentions the "Bastarnian Scythians"? In those days, Pliny's explanation applied: "Scytharum nomen usquequaque transiit in Sarmatas atque Germanos" (4,81).****
I disagree with the identification of Sithones with Sidones/Bastarnians. Too far fetched. And Tacitus' misogynist prejudices concerning the Sithones and Peucini are pretty transparent.