Wandering tribes in the immense regions north and northeast of the Black and Caspian Seas. They are said by Herodotus to have made an incursion into Southwestern Asia and Egypt, some seven hundred years before Christ; and it was perhaps a fragment of this host, located at Bethshean, which gave that city its classical name Scythopolis. In Col 3:11, "Scythian" appears to signify the rudest of barbarians.

A wandering race of the Indo-European stock who lived between the Danube and the Don, and spread over the territory between the Caucasus and the Caspian. They were a cruel and savage people, of huge build. The Athenians employed them as police. In Col 3:11 they are mentioned as a degree worse than barbarians. The latter word simply connoted those who spoke neither Greek nor Latin.

A. Souter.