To the north, beyond the Scoloti, twenty days' journey, according to Herodotus, from the land of the Tauri, on the west bank of the Tanais, dwelt the Melanchlæni--so called from the black garments which they wore; they had Scythian manners, but were not a tribe of the Scythians. To the west of these lived migratory tribes, without law or justice, of far ruder manners than the Scoloti; they were the only tribes which ate human flesh, and were in consequence called Androphagi. And further yet to the west beside the Androphagi dwelt the Neuri, northwards of the lake from which the Tyras (Dniester) springs, a nation of Scythian manners. Like the Scoloti, the Neuri were the eastern neighbours of the Agathyrsi, through whose land the Maris (the Theiss with the Marosh) flowed down into the Danube.[477] But who dwelt beyond the Neuri, the Androphagi, and the Melanchlæni, and further to the east beyond the Argipæans, who dwelt to the north of the Iyrcae, at the foot of lofty mountains (up to these the land was level), and wore Scythian clothing, and lived on the fruits of trees, and of the Issedones, in the north--of this, Herodotus assures us, no one knew anything more than "the accounts given by the Issedones, the Argipæans, and the Scythians." The Issedones related that beyond them dwelt the Arimaspi, one-eyed men, who took the gold from the griffins which were again further to the north. Aristeas of Proconnesus (550 B.C.), who professed to have been among the Issedones, had celebrated the Arimaspi in verse. He said that "beyond the nation of the Issedones, rejoicing in long hair, towards the north, dwelt the Arimaspi, rich in horses, sheep, and oxen, the mightiest men of all, but each in his full face had but one eye surrounded with thick hair."[478] Æschylus calls the Arismaspi, "one-eyed riders of horses by the gold-flowing stream;" beside them are the griffins, "the sharp-mouthed, mute hounds of Zeus." "Oceanus," the god of the water surrounding the earth, Æschylus represents as passing through the air of the north, on a griffin, "the four-legged bird."[479]