The Budini (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

: Βουδίνοι; ''Boudínoi'') was a group of people (a tribe) described by

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

and several later classical authors. Described as nomads living near settled

Gelonians The Gelonians (or Geloni) ( grc, Γελωνοί), also known as Helonians (or Heloni), are mentioned as a nation in northwestern Scythia by Herodotus. Herodotus states that they were originally Hellenes who settled among the Budinoi, and that ...

, Herodotus located them east of the Tanais river (which is usually assumed to correspond with modern

Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

) beyond the

Sarmatian The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

mentions the Budini together with the Geloni and other peoples living around the rivers which drain into the Black Sea from the north. During the

European Scythian campaign of Darius I The Scythian campaign of Darius I was a military expedition into parts of European Scythia by Darius I, the king of the Achaemenid Empire, in 513 BC. The Scythians were an East Iranian-speaking people who had invaded Media, revolted against Dariu ...

, in which the Persian king invaded the Scythian lands of Eastern Europe, the Budini were allies of the Scythians. During the campaign, he captured and burnt down one of the Budini's large fortified cities. The Budini are also mentioned by Classical authors in connection with

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 sub ...

. Both

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

and

Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routle ...

have short accounts – probably based on the same source – of an ox-sized deer species, named ''tarandos'' (τάρανδος), living in the land of the Budines in Scythia, which was able to change the colour of its fur to obtain camouflage. The latter is probably a misunderstanding of the seasonal change in reindeer fur colour.

Herodotus' description

Herodotus gives the following account:

Historicity, origin and location

The definitive origin or the ethnic composition of Budini - if they indeed existed as a singular entity Herodotus and later authors had described - remains unknown. The general consensus is that the Budini correspond to .

Slavic Origin

Boris Rybakov Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov (Russian: Бори́с Алекса́ндрович Рыбако́в, 3 June 1908, Moscow – 27 December 2001) was a Soviet and Russian historian who personified the anti- Normanist vision of Russian history. He is ...

was the first to suggest that Budini correspond to , a view now held by the majority of historians. He considered the latter to be ethnically

proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...

, and, together with

Boris Grakov Boris Nikolayevich Grakov (russian: Борис Николаевич Граков) ( in Onega — September 14, 1970 in Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian archaeologist, who specialized in Scythian and Sarmatian archeology, classical philology, a ...

, further theorised that, considering the probable, relatively large, population numbers of the Budini, which he inferred from the archeological evidence, the Budini must have inhabited a relatively large territory, likely stretching from

Voronezh Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on ...

forest steppe A forest steppe is a temperate-climate ecotone and habitat type composed of grassland interspersed with areas of woodland or forest. Locations Forest steppe primarily occurs in a belt of forest steppes across northern Eurasia from the eastern ...

to Poltava

. However, he also did not rule out a possible relation with proto-Balts. He also suggested the Budini had cults dedicated to Lada, a goddess of Balto-Slavic mythology. On the other hand, , who also argued that they were proto-Slavic, determined their location at the time of Herodotus to be between the middle

Dnepr Dnepr may refer to: *Dnieper, a river flowing through Russia, Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea * Dnepr (motorcycle), a Ukraininan motocycle brand * Dnepr (rocket), a 1999 space launch vehicle *Dnepr radar Dnepr may refer to: *Dnieper, a river ...

and the upper reaches of

Don river The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

stretching further up to the limits of the Volga river basin.

Zbigniew Gołąb Zbigniew Gołąb (16 March 1923, in Nowy Targ – 24 March 1994, in Chicago) was a Polish-American linguist and Slavist. He was described as "one of the world's greatest experts on the Macedonian language and the leading expert on Macedonian– ...

argued that they were a confederation of people who spoke the Proto-Slavic language, from which Greeks inferred their name which was an

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

meaning "tribesmen" in their native language. Several historians and scholars such as

Lubor Niederle Lubor Niederle (September 20, 1865 – June 14, 1944) was a Czech archeologist, anthropologist and ethnographer. He is seen as one of the founders of modern archeology in Czech lands. He was born in Klatovy. He studied at the Charles University ...

and

Pavel Jozef Šafárik Pavel Jozef Šafárik ( sk, Pavol Jozef Šafárik; 13 May 1795 – 26 June 1861) was an ethnic Slovak philologist, poet, literary historian, historian and ethnographer in the Kingdom of Hungary. He was one of the first scientific Slavists. Family ...

believe that the Budini were a Slavic people, and that the etymology stems from the Slavic word for 'water' which is "Voda". Same as Water in English, Votic in Finnish, Vatten in Swedish.

Finnic Origin

The 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica surmises that the Budini were

Finnic peoples The Finnic or Fennic peoples, sometimes simply called Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic (now commonly '' Finno-Permic'') language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of ...

, of the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

branch now represented by the

Udmurts The Udmurts ( udm, Удмуртъёс, ) are a Permian ( Finnic) ethnic group in Eastern Europe, who speak the Udmurt language. In the course of history, Russian-speakers have referred to them as ' (), Otyaks, Wotyaks or Votyaks. Etymology The ...

and Komis. Estonian amateur historian and nationalist Edgar V. Saks identifies Budini as the Finnic

Votic people Votians are the oldest known ethnic group in Ingria. They are probably descended from an Iron-age population of north-eastern Estonia and western Ingria. Some scholars claim they were a tribe of Estonians, who developed a separate identity during ...

, a theory

Urmas Sutrop Urmas Sutrop (born 7 June 1956) is an Estonian linguist. He graduated from high school in 1974 and in 1984 from University of Tartu with a biology degree. The topic of his thesis was "Ardisia crispa A. DC. lehe baktersõlme siseste taimerakkude ...

described as "pseudoscientific". Other theories see in them the ancestors of the

Finns Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...

, or the ancestors of

Mordvins The Mordvins (also Unified Mordvin people, Mordvinians, Mordovians; russian: мордва, Mordva, Mordvins (no equivalents in Moksha and Erzya)) is an obsolete but official term used in the Russian Federation to refer both to Erzyas and Mo ...

Permians The Permians or Perm Finns are the peoples who speak Permic languages, in the Uralic language family, and include Komis and Udmurts. Formerly the name Bjarmians was also used to describe these peoples. Recent research on the Finno-Ugric subst ...

.Péter Hajdú, ''Finno-Ugrian Languages and Peoples'', London 1970, s. 70

References

Sources

*{{cite book , editor-last1 = Boardman , editor-first1 = John , title = The Cambridge Ancient History , volume = 10: Persia, Greece, and the Western Mediterranean , year = 1982 , publisher =

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...