Scyles
Σκύλης
(Σκύλης), son and successor of Ariapeithes, king of the Scythians in the time of Herodotus. His mother was a Greek of Istria, who taught him her own language, and imbued him with an attachment to Greek customs and modes of life. The tastes thus acquired he used to gratify at Olbia, a Milesian colony (as its inhabitants professed), at the mouth of the Borysthenes, where he passed a great part of his time, having built a house there, and married a woman of the place. Here he was detected by some of his countrymen in the celebration of the Bacchic mysteries, whereupon they withdrew their allegiance from him, and set up his brother, Octamasades, as king. Scyles, upon this, fled to Sitalces, king of Thrace; but the latter, on the invasion of his kingdom by a Scythian army, surrendered him to Octamasades, who caused him to be beheaded. (Herod. iv; 78-80.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.