SIGYNNAE (EcyGvvat, Eiyevvoc)

This article appears in Volume V25, Page 84 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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SIGYNNAE (EcyGvvat, Eiyevvoc) , an obscure people of antiquity. They are variously located by ancient authors. According to

Herodotus

HERODOTUS (c. 484-425 B.C.)

(v. 9), they dwelt beyond the

Danube

DANUBE (Ger. Donau, Hungarian Duna, Rumanian Dunarea, Lat. Danubius or Danuvius, and in the lower part of its course Ister)

, and their frontiers extended almost as far as the Eneti on the Adriatic. Their horses (or rather, ponies) were small, with shaggy

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

hair

HAIR (a word common to Teutonic languages)

, not strong enough to carry men, but very speedy when driven in

harness

HARNESS (from O. Fr. harneis or harnois; the ultimate origin is obscure; the Celtic origin which connects it with the Welsh haiarn, iron, has phonetic and other difficulties; the French is the origin of the Span. arnes, and Ger. Harnisch)

. The people themselves wore a Medic costume, and, according to their own account, were a colony of the Medes. Strabo (xi. p. 520), who places them near the Caspian, also speaks of their ponies, and attributes to them Persian customs. In Apollonius Rhodius (iv. 320) they inhabit the shores of the Euxine, not far from the mouth of the

Danube

DANUBE (Ger. Donau, Hungarian Duna, Rumanian Dunarea, Lat. Danubius or Danuvius, and in the lower part of its course Ister)

.
The statement as to their Medic origin, regarded as incomprehensible by

Herodotus

HERODOTUS (c. 484-425 B.C.)

, is doubtfully explained by Rawlinson as indicating that " the

Sigynnae

SIGYNNAE (EcyGvvat, Eiyevvoc)

retained a better recollection than other European tribes of their migrations westward and Aryan origin "; R. W. Macan (on

Herod

HEROD
HEROD (surnamed THE GREAT)

. v. 9) suggests that it may be due to a confusion with the Thracian Maedi (MatSot). If the last paragraph in Herodotus be genuine, the Ligyes who lived above Massilia called traders

Sigynnae

SIGYNNAE (EcyGvvat, Eiyevvoc)

, while among the Cyprians the word meant " spears." The similarity between Sigynnae and Zigeuner is obvious, and it has been supposed that they were the forefathers of the modern

gipsies

GIPSIES, or GYPSIES

. According to J. L. Myres, the Sigynnae of Herodotus were " a people widely spread in the Danubic basin in the 5th century B.C.," probably identical with the Sequani, and connected with the iron-working culture of Hallstatt, which produced a narrow-bladed throwing spear, the sigynna spear (see notice of " Anthropological Essays " in Classical

Review

REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)

, November 1908).

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