People
Sagae Scythae
Sacens Scython
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Where the Caspian Sea opens broadly into the northern Ocean, at the edge of the inhabited world, the name Sagae Scythae stretches across a land with no towns and no roads. The small red dot meant to separate the two words sits one letter too late, so that the second word loses its first letter. The name pairs the Saka with the Scythians, and the Roman writer Pliny explains why: the Persians called all Scythians Sacae, after the tribe nearest to them. The empty land fits, for the geographer Ptolemy describes the Saka as nomads without cities who lived in forests and caves.