People
Sagae Scythae
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Sagae Scythae is written twice on the map, at the far north-eastern edge of the known world beyond the Caspian Sea, a repetition that stresses how vast the lands of these nomadic Scythians, the Sacae, were. For Greek and Roman writers the region stayed unknown territory into late antiquity. Unusually for a people, the name stands in black. Ancient writers described them as nomads without cities who lived in woods and caves, and the geographer Ptolemy placed them on the border between Scythia and the land of the Seres, the silk people. Indian sources call them the Shaka, and in 136 BC they conquered the kingdom of Bactria.