Androphagi

 ( Scythian Tribes ) 

The Androphagi were an ancient Scythians tribe whose existence was recorded by ancient Greco-Roman authors. They were closely related to the Melanchlaeni and the Budini.

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Name The name is a Latinisation of the ancient Greek name (), which means "man-eaters." This name is a descriptive one based on their reported practice of cannibalism; how they called themselves is unknown.

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Location The Androphagi lived in the region to the east of the middle Dnieper river, especially in the valley of the Sula and some smaller rivers. Their neighbours were the Neuri to the west and the Scythians proper to the south.

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History The Scythians originated in the region of the Volga-Ural steppes of Central Asia, possibly around the 9th century BC. Over the course of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, they migrated into the Caucasian and Caspian Steppes in several waves, becoming the dominant population of the region. The section of the Scythians from whom the Androphagi originated participated in this migration and had established itself in North Caucasus around 800 BC.

Beginning in the later 7th and lasting throughout much of the 6th century BC, the majority of the Scythians migrated from the North Caucasus into the Pontic–Caspian steppe, which became the centre of Scythian power. In the region of Donets-Kramatorsk, the Vorskla and Sula-Donets subgroups of the Scythian culture emerged. Of these, the Donets group corresponded to the Melanchlaeni, the Sula group to the Androphagi, and the Vorskla group to the Budini, with all of these groups remaining independent of the Scythians proper.

When the Persian Achaemenid king Darius I attacked the Scythians in 513 BC, the Scythian king Idanthyrsus summoned the kings of the peoples surrounding his kingdom to a meeting to decide how to deal with the Persian invasion. The kings of the Budini, Gelonians, and Sarmatians agreed to support the Scythians against the attack, while the kings of the Agathyrsi, Androphagi, Melanchlaeni, Neuri, and Tauri refused to help.

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Society and culture The ancient Greek author Herodotus described the Androphagi as wearing Scythian-type clothing, and speaking a "peculiar language." This might have been a Scythian language or dialect different from that of the Pontic Scythians.

The Androphagi were largely engaged in agriculture and farming, and hunting was of lesser importance among them. Trade relations between them and the ancient Greek colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea had been established in the 6th century BC.

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Cannibalism According to Herodotus, the Androphagi ate human flesh, while the surrounding peoples did not. Human bones of seventeen individuals were indeed found along with cut and broken animal bones in the kitchen refuse of seven Androphagi earthworks. However, traces of similar ritual cannibalism are recorded from seven earthworks of the Melanchlaeni and Budini, as well as in the Smiela kurgan 15, which was one of the earliest burials of the Tiasmyn group of the Scythian culture.

The Sauromatians who lived in the Urals and the lower Volga and the Massagetae and Issedones to the east of the Urals practised similar ritual cannibalism, suggesting that various early Scythic peoples of the Central Asian steppe had customs and beliefs leading to cannibalism, in contrast to Herodotus's statement that the practice existed only among the Androphagi.

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Archaeology The Androphagi archaeologically belonged to the Scythian culture, and they corresponded to its Sula group, which was the largest Scythian culture group of the eastern European forest steppe zone.

The Donets, Sula and Vorskla groups of the Scythian culture, respectively corresponding to the Melanchlaeni, Androphagi, and Budini, are sometimes grouped the Zolnichnaya (that is "Ash-Mounds") culture because of the presence of several (зольник), that is ash mounds containing refuse from kitchens and other sources, near dwellings. The three groups of the Zolnichnaya culture were closely related to each other, with the Vorskla group nevertheless exhibiting enough significant differences from the Sula and Donets groups that the latter two are sometimes grouped together as a Sula-Donets group distinct from the Vorskla group.

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Sources

• Roger Batty (2026). 9780198149361, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198149361
• Marek Jan Olbrycht (2026). 9788371883378, Księgarnia Akademicka. ISBN 9788371883378
• Tadeusz Sulimirski (1985). 9781139054935, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139054935
• (2026). 9781139054294, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139054294

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