Scythia

This article is about the kingdom on the Pontic steppe. For other uses, see Scythia (disambiguation).

Scythian kingdom in the Pontic steppe Skulatā
c. 600s BC–c. 3rd century BC
Common languages	Scythian
Religion	Scythian religion Ancient Greek religion
Government	Monarchy
King
• c. 513 BC	Idanthyrsos
• c. 430 BC	Skula
• c. 420 BC	Uxtamazatā
• c. 360s-339 BC	Ateas
• c. 310 BC	Agaros
Historical era	Iron Age Scythian cultures
• Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire	c. 600s BC
• Persian invasion	513 BC
• War with Makedonia	340-339 BC
• Sarmatian invasion of Scythia	c. 3rd century BC
Preceded by Succeeded by Scythian kingdom in Western Asia Agathyrsi Scythian kingdom in Crimea Scythian kingdom on the lower Danube Sarmatians Kingdom of Pontus

Scythia (Scythian: Skulatā; Old Persian: 𐎿𐎤𐎢𐎭𐎼 Skudra; Ancient Greek: Σκυθια Skuthia; Latin: Scythia) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: Σκυθικη Skuthikē; Latin: Scythica), also known as Pontic Scythia or Scythian kingdom in the Pontic steppe, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the western Eurasian Steppe.

History

Background

Origins of the Scythians

The Scythians originated in Central Asia possibly around the 9th century BC, and they arrived in the Caucasian Steppe in the 8th and 7th centuries BC as part of a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe. This movement started when another nomadic Iranian tribe closely related to the Scythians, either the Massagetai or the Issēdones, migrated westwards, forcing the Early Scythians of the to the west across the Araxēs river, following which the Scythians moved into the Caspian Steppe from where they displaced the Cimmerians, who were also a nomadic Iranian people closely related to the Scythians, and conquered their territory, before settling in the area between the Araxēs, the Caucasus and the Lake Maiōtis.

During this early migratory period, some groups of Scythians settled in the North Caucasus and the Caucasus foothills to the east of the Kuban river, where they settled among the native populations of this region, and did not migrate to the south into Western Asia.

Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south along the coast of the Black Sea and reached Anatolia, and the Scythians in turn later expanded to the south, following the coast of the Caspian Sea and arrived in the steppes in the Northern Caucasus, from where they expanded into the region of present-day Azerbaijan, where they settled around what is today Mingəçevir, Gəncə and the Muğan plain, and turned eastern Transcaucasia into their centre of operations in Western Asia until the early 6th century BC, with this presence in Western Asia being an extension of the Scythian kingdom of the steppes. During this period, the Scythian kings' headquarters were located in the steppes to the north of Caucasus, and contact with the civilisation of Western Asia would have an important influence on the formation of Scythian culture.

Arrival in the Pontic steppe

From their base in the Caucasian Steppe, during the period of the 8th to 7th centuries BC itself, the Scythians conquered the Pontic Steppe to the north of the Black Sea up to the Danube river, which formed the western boundary of Scythian territory onwards, although the Scythians may also have had access to the Wallachian and Moldavian plains. This expansion displaced another nomadic Iranian people related to the Scythians, the Agathyrsoi, who were the oldest Iranian population to have dominated the Pontic Steppe, and who were pushed westwards by the Scythians, away from the steppes and from their original home around Lake Maiōtis, after which the relations between the two populations remained hostile.

The westward migration of the Scythians was accompanied by the introduction into the north Pontic region of articles originating in the Siberian Karasuk culture and which were characteristic of Early Scythian archaeological culture, consisting of cast bronze cauldrons, daggers, swords, and horse harnesses. Several smaller groups were likely also displaced by the Scythian expansion. Beginning in this period, remains associated with the early Scythians started appearing within interior Europe, especially in the Thracian and Hungarian plains, although it is yet unclear whether these represent any actual Scythian migration into these regions or whether these arrived there through trade or raids.

Western Asia

The Scythian kingdom in Western Asia at its maximum extent.

In Western Asia, the Scythians would go on to ally with the superpower of the region, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, when their king Pr̥ϑutavā married the Assyrian princess Šērūʾa-ēṭirat.

Pr̥ϑutavā was succeeded by his son with Šērūʾa-ēṭirat, Mādava, who in 653 BC invaded the Medes, thus starting a period which Hērodotos of Halikarnāssos called the "Scythian rule over Asia." Mādava after which hew expanded the Scythian hegemony to the states of Mannae and Urartu, and entered Anatolia and defeated the Cimmerians. Scythian power in Western Asia thus reached its peak under Mādava, with the territories ruled by the Scythians extending from the Halys river in Anatolia in the west to the Caspian Sea and the eastern borders of Mēdia in the east, and from Transcaucasia in the north to the northern borders of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the south.

By the 620s BC, the Assyrian Empire began unravelling, and in 625 BC the Median king ᴴuvaxšθra overthrew the Scythian yoke over the Medes by assassinating the Scythian leaders, including Mādava. The Scythians soon took advantage of the power vacuum created by the crumbling of the power of their former Assyrian allies to overrun the Levant and Palestine till the borders of Egypt, from where they turned back after the pharaoh Psamâṯək I met them and convinced them to turn back by offering them gifts; some Scythian stragglers looted the temple of ʿAštart in the city and their descendants were allegedly afflicted by the goddess with a "female disease," due to which they became a class of transvestite diviners called the Anarya (meaning "unmanly" in Scythian).

The Scythians were finally expelled from Western Asia by the Medes in the 600s BC, after which they retreated to the Pontic Steppe. Some splinter Scythian groups nevertheless remained in Western Asia and settled in Transcaucasia, who by the middle of the 6th century BC had completely assimilated culturally and politically into Median society and no longer existed as a distinct group.

Pontic Scythian kingdom

Early phase

After their expulsion from Western Asia, and beginning in the later 7th and lasting throughout much of the 6th century BC, the majority of the Scythians migrated from the Northern Caucasus into the Pontic Steppe, which became the centre of Scythian power. In the northwest Caucasus, the Scythians were not large in number enough to spread throughout the North Caucasus, and they instead took over the steppe to the south of the Kuban river's middle course.

Between 650 and 625 BC, the Pontic Scythians came into contact with the Greeks, who were starting to create colonies in the areas under Scythian rule, including on the island of Borysthenēs, near Taganrog on Lake Maiōtis, as well as more places, including Pantikapaion and Olbia Pontikē; the Greeks carried out thriving commercial ties with the sedentary peoples of the forest steppe who lived to the north of the Scythians, with the large rivers of eastern Europe which flowed into the Black Sea forming the main access routes to these northern markets. This process put the Scythians into permanent contact with the Greeks, and the relations between the latter and the Greek colonies remained peaceful, although the Scythians might have destroyed Pantikapaion at some point in the middle of the 6th century BC.

During the early 6th century BC, the Pontic Scythians were reinforced by some groups of Transcaucasian Scythians migrating northwards; with the arrival of the Scythians from Western Asia into the Kuban Steppe around 600 BC, the older Novocherkassk culture was replaced by a new Scythian culture which consisted of barrow-graves in the steppe, as well as settlements and earthworks largely in the Kuban valley populated by the indigenous Maeotians: while the Maeotians buried their dead in "flat" cemeteries, the Scythian ruling class buried its dead in kurgans, with these Scythian burials including human sacrifices and burnt horse hecatombs, which were practices adopted by the Scythians from the native West Asian peoples of Transcaucasia and Mesopotamia, and which the Scythians introduced into the Steppe - within the earlier Scythian kurgans of the Kuban Steppe were also buried articles which had been produced by Assyrian and Urartian workshops during the Scythians' presence in Western Asia.

As part of this Scythians' expansion into Europe, one section of the Scythian Sindoi tribe migrated from the region of the Lake Maiōtis towards the west into the eastern Pannonian basin, where they settled alongside the Sigynnai. Another section of the Sindoi established themselves on the Taman peninsula, where they formed a ruling class over the indigenous Maeotians.

Using the Pontic steppe as their base, the Scythians proper often raided into the adjacent regions, with Central Europe being a frequent target of their raids, and Scythian incursions reaching Transylvania, Podolia, and the Hungarian Plain, due to which new objects originating from the steppes started appearing in Central Europe from the end of the 7th century onwards, and which included weapons and horse-equipment. Multiple fortified settlements of the Lusatian culture were destroyed by Scythian attacks during this period.

During this period, the Scythians were ruled by a succession of kings whose names were recorded by Hērodotos of Halikarnāssos:

• Spargapaiϑah
• Lykos, son of Spargapaiϑah
• Gnouros, son of Lykos
• Saulios, son of Gnouros
• Idanthyrsos, son of Saulius

At the time of Idanthyrsos, and possibly later, the Scythians were ruled by three kings, with Skōpasis and Taxakis ruling alongside him.

Persian invasion

Persian soldiers (left) fighting against Scythians. Cylinder seal impression.

Main article: Scythian campaign of Darius I

In 513 BC, the king Dārayavaʰuš I of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which had succeeded the Median, Lydian, Egyptian, and Neo-Babylonian empires which the Scythians had once interacted with, carried out a campaign against the Pontic Scythians, with the reasons for this campaign being unclear. Dārayavaʰuš's invasion was resisted by Idanthyrsos, who led the combined forces of the Scythians and their neighbouring peoples, and by Skōpasis and Taxakis. The results of this campaign were also unclear, with the Persian inscriptions themselves referring to the Sakā tayaiy paradraya (the "Saka who dwell beyond the (Black) Sea"), that is to the Scythians, as having been conquered by Dārayavaʰuš, while Greek authors instead claimed that Dārayavaʰuš's campaign failed and from then onwards developed a tradition of idealising the Scythians as being invincible thanks to their nomadic lifestyle.

Alliance with Odrysians

With the arrival of new nomadic groups into the Pontic steppe from the east between 550 and 500 BC, the material culture of the Scythians underwent significant changes soon after the Persian campaign, which included a notable increase in the number of Scythian funerary monuments.

Names of kings who ruled over the Scythians the 5th century BC are known, although it is unknown whether these kings were ruling only the western regions of Scythia located between the Danube and Olbia Pontikē or over all the Scythians:

• Ariyapaiϑah
• Skula, the son of Ariyapaiϑah by a Greek woman from Istria
• Uxtamazatā, the son of Ariyapaiϑah by an Odrysian Thracian princess, who deposed Skula and replaced him on the throne

The Scythians also became more active and aggressive around this time, possibly as a result of the arrival of these new nomadic elements, or out of necessity to resist Persian expansionism. This change manifested itself through increased Scythian expansionism.

One of the target areas of Scythian expansionism was Thrace: in 495 BC, the Scythians raided the territories far to the south of the Danube, till Khersonēsos on the Hellēspontos, and they seem to have established a permanent presence to the south of the river at an early point, with the Greek cities of Kallatis and Dionysopolis in the area corresponding to the present-day Dobrugea both being surrounded by Scythian territory. The emergence of the Odrysian kingdom in Thrace during the 5th century BC soon blocked the Scythian advances in the south, and the Scythians established friendly contacts with the Thracian, with the Danube river being set as the common border between the two kingdoms, and a daughter of the Odrysian founder king Tērēs I marrying the Scythian king Ariyapaiϑah (the Scythian king Uxtamazatā would be born from this marriage); these friendly relations also saw the Scythians and Thracians adopting aspects of each other's art and lifestyles.

Expansion

Scythian comb from Solokha, early 4th century BC

In the north and north-west, Scythian expansionism manifested itself through the destruction of the fortified settlements of the forest steppe and the subjugation of its population.

In the south, the Scythians tried to impose their rule over the Greek colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea: the Greek settlement of Krēmnoi at Taganrog on the lower reaches of Don river, which was the only Greek colony in that area, had already been destroyed by the Scythians between 550 and 525 BC, and, owing to the Scythians' necessity to continue commerce with the Greeks, was replaced by a Scythian settlement at Elizavetovka which became the principal trade station between the Greeks and the Scythians in this region.

Although the relations between the Scythians and the Greek cities of the northern Pontic had until then been largely peaceful and the cities previously had no defensive walls and possessed unfortified rural settlements in the area, new hostile relations developed between these two parties, and during the 490s BC fortifications were built in many Pontic Greek cities, whose khōrai were abandoned or destroyed, while burials of men killed by Scythian-type arrowheads appeared in their nekropoleis. Between 450 and 400 BC, Kerkinitis was paying tribute to the Scythians. The Scythians were eventually able to successfully impose their rule over the Greek colonies in the north-western Pontic shores and in western Crimea, including Nikōnion, Tyras, Olbia Pontikē, and Kerkinitis.

The hold of the Scythians over the western part of the Pontic region thus became firmer during the 5th century BC, with the Scythian king Skula having a residence in the Greek city of Olbia Pontikē which he would visit each year, while the city itself experienced a significant influx of Scythian inhabitants during this period, and the presence of coins of the king Skula issued at Nikōnion in the Dnister valley attesting of his control over this latter city. This, in turn, allowed the Scythians to participate in indirect relations with the city of Athēnai in Greece proper, which had established contacts in Crimea. The destruction of the Greek cities' khōrai and rural settlements however also meant that they lost their grain-producing hinterlands, with the result being that the Scythians instituted an economic policy under their control whereby the sedentary peoples of the forest steppe to their north became the primary producers of grain, which was then transported through the Bug and Dnipro rivers to the Greek cities to their south such as Tyras, Nikōnion and Olbia Pontikē, from where the cities exported it to mainland Greece at a profit for themselves.

The Scythians were less successful at conquering the Greek cities in the region of the Cimmerian Bosporos, where, although they were initially able to take over Nymphaion, the other cities built or strengthened city walls, banded together into an alliance under the leadership of Pantikapaion, and successfully defended themselves, after which they united into the Bosporan Kingdom.

After Skula, coins minted in Olbia Pontikē were minted in the name of Eminakos, who was either a governor of the city for Skula's brother and successor, Uxtamazatā, or a successor of Uxtamazatā.

Early decline

By the late 5th century BC, the Kuban Scythians progressively lost their territories to the Sarmatians, another nomadic Iranian people, who were migrating to the west, beginning with the territory to the east of the Laba river, and then the whole Kuban territory except for Sindica, where the Scythian Sindoi tribe formed a ruling class over the native Maeotians, and was by around 400 BC the only place in the Caucasus where the Scythian culture survived. By the end of the 5th century BC, the Scythians of the Kuban Steppe had been forced to retreat northwards into the Pontic Steppe, where they destroyed a large number of settlements in the valleys of the steppe rivers during their arrival.

During the late 5th century BC, a new wave of nomads from the east arrived and mingled with the Pontic Scythians, while at the same time there were inner conflicts within the Scythian kingdom, which destabilised it and ended Scythian military activity against the Greek cities of the Pontic shore. Scythian control of the Greek cities ended sometime between 435 and 400 BC, and the cities started reconstituting their khōrai, and Olbia Pontikē regained control over the territory it occupied during the Archaic period and expanded it, while Tyras and Nikōnion also restored their hinterlands. The Scythians lost control of Nymphaion, which became part of the Bosporan Kingdom which itself had been expanding its territories in the Asian side of the Cimmerian Bosporos.

Golden Age

The peak of the Scythian kingdom of the Pontic steppe happened in the 4th century BC, at the same time when the Greek cities of the coast were prospering, and the relations between the two were mostly peaceful; there was high demand for their products such as trade goods, grain, slaves, and fish, due to which the relations between the Pontic and Aegean regions, and most especially with Athēnai, were thriving, although the importation of Greek products by the forest steppe peoples had decreased since the 5th century BC. The rule of the Spartocid dynasty in the Bosporan Kingdom was also favourable for the Scythians under the rules of Leukōn I, Spartokos II and Pairisadēs I, with Leukōn employing Scythians in his army. The Bosporan nobility had contacts with the Scythians, and there might also have been matrimonial relations between Scythian and Bosporan royalty. Although the Greek cities of the coast extended their territories considerably, this did not infringe on the Scythians, who still possessed abundant pastures and whose settlements were still thriving, with archaeological evidence suggesting that the population of Crimea, most of whom were Scythians, during this time increased by 600%. This period saw Scythian culture not only thriving, with most known Scythian monuments date from then, but also rapidly undergoing significant Hellenisation. Rich burials attest of the wealth of the Scythian elite of the 4th century BC, who were progressively buried with more grave goods, relatives, and retainers, such as for example the Chortomlyk mohyla. Despite the pressure of some smaller and isolated Sarmatian groups in the east, the period remained largely and unusually peaceful and the Scythian hegemony in the Pontic steppe remained undisturbed.

The most famous Scythian king of the 4th century BC was Ateas, whose rule started around the 360s BC. By this period, Scythian tribes had settled permanently on the lands to the south of the Danube, where the people of Ateas lived with their families and their livestock, and possibly in Ludogorie as well, and both Crimea and the Dobrugea region started being called "Little Scythia" (Ancient Greek: Μικρα Σκυθια Mikra Skythia; Latin: Scythia Minor); although Ateas still ruled over the traditional territories of the Scythian kingdom of the Pontic steppe until at least Crimea, it appears that he was largely based in the region to the south of the Danube. Under Ateas, the Greek cities to the south of the Danube had also come under Scythian hegemony, including Kallatis, over which he held control and where he probably issued his coins; Ateas's main activities, such as his wars against the Triballoi and the Histriani and his threat of conquest against Byzantion, were centred in Thrace and south-west Scythia, further attesting of the power that the Scythians held to the south of the Danube in his time. Ateas initially allied with Philippos II of Makedonia, but eventually this alliance fell apart and war broke out between Scythia and Makedonia over the course of 340 to 339 BC, ending with Ateas's death.

Although the Scythians appear to have lost some territories on both sides of the Danube due to Ateas's defeat and death, it did not affect their power, since in 331 or 330 BC they were able to defeat an invasion force of 30,000 men led against them and the Getai by Alexandros III's lieutenant Zōpyriōn and which had managed to attain and besiege Olbia Pontikē, with Zōpyriōn himself getting killed.

Decline and end

During the end of the 4th century BC, the Scythians were military defeated by a king of Makedonia again, this time by Lysimakhos in and 313 BC. After this, the Scythians experienced another military defeat when their king Agaros participated in the Bosporan Civil War in 309 BC on the side of Satyros II, son of Pairisadēs I. After Satyros was defeated and killed, his son Pairisadēs fled to Agaros's realm.

Following these setbacks, the Scythians came under pressure from the Thracian Getai and the Germanic Bastarnai. Coinciding with a defavourable period for the Scythians due to climatic changes and economic crises resulting from excessive grazing of pastures, in the aftermath of conflict with Macedon, another related nomadic Iranian people, the Sarmatians, whose smaller and more active groups overwhelmed the more numerous but also more static Scythians beginning in the late 4th century BC and took over the Scythians' pastures, thus depriving them of their most important resource, and causing the collapse of Scythian power. As a consequence, Scythian culture suddenly disappeared from the north of the Pontic sea in the early 3rd century BC.

Meanwhile the Celts and Bastarnai displaced the Scythians from the Balkans during the 3rd century BC, with the Prōtogenēs written somewhere between 220 and 200 BC recording that the Scythians along with the Sarmatian Thisamatai and Saudaratai were seeking shelter from the allied forces of the Celts and the Germanic Skiroi. As the result of the Sarmatian, Getic, Celtic, and Germanic advances, the Scythian kingdom disappeared from the Pontic Steppe, and with the Sarmatians replacing the Scythians as the dominant power of the Pontic steppe, the appelation of "Scythia" for the region became replaced by that of "Sarmatia Europea" (European Sarmatia), while the Scythian kurgans progressively disappeared from the Pontic region.

Aftermath

Main articles: Scythia Minor (Crimea) and Scythia Minor (Dobruja)

The Scythians fled to the Scythia Minors in Crimea and in Dobrugea, as well as in nearby regions, where they became limited in enclaves. The remnants of the Scythians on the Pontic steppe settled down in a series of fortified settlements located along the main rivers of the region. By then, these Scythians were no longer nomadic, and they had become sedentary farmers and were Hellenised, and the only places where the Scythians could still be found by the 2nd century BC were in the Scythia Minors of Crimea and Dobrugea, and in the lower reaches of the Dnipro river.

Scythian kings

The Scythians were monarchical and were ruled by hereditary kings. According to the Scythologists Askold Ivantchik and Mikhail Bukharin, the Scythians had been ruled by at least three dynasties, including that of Pr̥ϑutavā, that of Spargapaiϑah, and that of Ariyapaiϑah. The historian and anthropologist Anatoly Khazanov instead suggested that the Scythians had been ruled by the same dynasty from the time of their stay in Western Asia until the end of their kingdom in the Pontic steppe.

List of rulers

The known kings of the Pontic Scythians include:

• Ariyā̆nta
• Spargapaiϑah
• Lū̆ka
• Gnouros
• Saulios
• Idanthyrsos, ruled c. 513 BC
• Ariyapaiϑah, ruled c. 450 BC
• Skula, ruled c. 430 BC
• Uxtamazatā, ruled c. 420 BC
• Ateas, ruled c. 360s-339 BC
• Agaros, ruled c. 310 BC

Genealogy of the kings of Scythia

Family tree of Spargapaiϑah

Spargapaiϑah

Lū̆ka

Gnouros

Saulios

Anakharsis

Idanthyrsos c. 513 BC

Family tree of Ariyapaiϑah

Teres I 460–445 BC

Sparatokos c. 450-c. 431 BC

Sitalkes 431–424 BC

daughter

Ariyapaiϑah c. 450 BC

Greek woman

Seuthes I

Uxtamazatā c. 420 BC

Hupāyā

Skula c. 430 BC

Varika

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