In the list of the fabulous nations of the north, the ancient Damastes exactly agrees with the Arimaspea of Aristeas.(1173) Beyond the Scythians he places the Issedones, then the Arimaspians, then the Rhipæan mountains, from which the north wind blows, and on the other side of these, on the sea-coast, the Hyperboreans.(1174) Without doubt this geographer placed the Issedones in the districts to the north of the Euxine sea, and rather to the east of Greece.(1175) And indeed neither Issedones, Arimaspians, nor Griffins could be placed in any other region than that which lies to the north of the Euxine sea, as all this tract had become known to the Greeks by means of the Scythians, who dwelt in these parts; it was only in this district that the Greeks heard of Arimaspians. The case is entirely different with respect to the Hyperboreans and Rhipæans. Of the former the Scythians, as Herodotus tells us, knew nothing; and the latter are a mere political fiction of Greece, since they derived their names from _hurricanes_ (ῥιπαὶ), issuing from a cavern, which they warded off from the Hyperboreans, and sent to more southern nations. For this reason the Hyperboreans could also be placed in another part, remote from Scythia; still however they kept their original position in the _north_. Thus Pindar,(1176) and also Æschylus in the Prometheus Unbound,(1177) place the Hyperboreans at the source of the Ister. Now, if, with Herodotus, the Ister is conceived to be a river which runs through all Europe from its _western_ extremity, the Hyperboreans, in spite of their name, must be placed in the regions of the _west_.(1178) But there was in ancient times also an idea that the Ister was a vast stream descending from the extreme _north_;(1179) and this notion was evidently entertained by the two poets just mentioned; thus Æschylus, in the Prometheus Unbound, represented Hercules as penetrating to the place where Boreas rushes from the mountains; and with this the Rhipæan mountains, the Hyperboreans, and the Ister were doubtless mentioned. Sophocles also placed the “_ancient garden of Phœbus_” _i.e._, the country of the Hyperboreans, at the extremity of the earth, and near the dwelling of Boreas.(1180) This natural conception of the Hyperboreans, and agreeing so well with the origin of the legend, is universal among the early poets; it is only in the works of later writers that we find certain traces of a translation of the Hyperboreans to Italy and other western countries, and of a confusion of the Rhipæans with the Alps and Pyrenees.