SIGYNNAE (EcyGvvat, Eiyevvoc)  , an obscure people of antiquity . They are variously located by ancient authors . According to Herodotus (v . 9), they dwelt beyond the Danube, and their frontiers extended almost as far as the Eneti on the Adriatic . Their horses (or rather, ponies) were small, with shaggy long hair, not strong enough to carry men, but very speedy when driven in harness . The people themselves wore a Medic costume, and, according to their own account, were a colony of the Medes . Strabo (xi. p . 520), who places them near the Caspian, also speaks of their ponies, and attributes to them Persian customs . In Apollonius Rhodius (iv . 320) they inhabit the shores of the Euxine, not far from the mouth of the Danube . The statement as to their Medic origin, regarded as incomprehensible by Herodotus, is doubtfully explained by Rawlinson as indicating that " the Sigynnae retained a better recollection than other European tribes of their migrations westward and Aryan origin "; R . W .

Macan (on

Herod. v . 9) suggests that it may be due to a confusion with the Thracian Maedi (MatSot) . If the last paragraph in Herodotus be genuine, the Ligyes who lived above Massilia called traders Sigynnae, while among the Cyprians the word meant " spears." The similarity between Sigynnae and Zigeuner is obvious, and it has been supposed that they were the forefathers of the modern gipsies . According to J . L . Myres, the Sigynnae of Herodotus were " a people widely spread in the Danubic basin in the 5th century B.C.," probably identical with the Sequani, and connected with the iron-working culture of Hallstatt, which produced a narrow-bladed throwing spear, the sigynna spear (see notice of " Anthropological Essays " in Classical Review, November 1908) .