soothsayers to come to him, of whom there were many among the Scoloti. They divined by separating bundles of withes, or by unrolling and rolling up strips of linden bark. Then the three soothsayers named to the king the man who had taken the false oath. If six other soothsayers were of the same opinion, the Scolote mentioned by the first was beheaded. If the six were of a different opinion, fresh soothsayers were examined; and if, in the end, the majority declared against the opinion of the three first, these were bound and placed on a waggon filled with brushwood and yoked with oxen; the brushwood was set on fire, and the oxen driven out into the open country. If the king died, his body was embalmed, and carried round through all the hordes. At all the places to which the body came, the Scoloti shaved off their hair in sign of mourning, and cut out a piece from the ear. They also wounded themselves in the brow and the nose, and pushed an arrow through the left hand. Then, in the land of Gerrhus, the district of the royal tribe on the Borysthenes, a great square sepulchre was excavated, and the dead king placed in the bottom of it, on a bed of brushwood. Lances were thrust into the ground close at hand, and wicker-work placed upon them. One of the wives of the king, his master of the horse, his butler, cook, body-servant, and herald were strangled, and their corpses placed in the grave beside the corpse of the king. The horses of the king also were killed, and thrown with other equipments into the grave. Then the grave was filled up, and a tumulus raised above it to as great a height as possible. But after a year's interval fifty young servants were selected from the retinue of the dead, and fifty horses of the king. These were killed in order to serve as guardians round the tomb of the king. When the soft parts had been removed from the bodies of the horses, and replaced by chaff, the carcases were set upright by means of poles driven into the earth. In the same way the dead youths were fixed upon the horses by poles thrust through the spine.[493]