The city, whose name is translated from Greek as “beautiful harbor,” arose on the shores of Uzkaya Bay in the 4th century BC. e. By the end of the century, he became dependent on Chersonesos, and in the 3rd century BC. e. - into the sphere of Scythian interests. The strengthening of the Scythians forced the Greeks to significantly update the defensive line of the settlement, building into it a fortress wall with towers near the bay. However, the measures taken did not save the city - in the 2nd century BC. e. it nevertheless passed into the hands of the Scythians. At the end of the 2nd century BC. e. Kalos Limen became part of the power of Mithridates VI, but after his death it returned to the Scythians. The end of the settlement dates back to the 1st century AD. BC: it is believed that it was completely destroyed by the nomadic Sarmatian tribes invading from the northern steppes.

Kulchuk

High relief “Feasting Hercules”, found in 2008 at the Kulchuk settlement. Stored in the Kalos Limen museum in the village of Chernomorskoye

The settlement on the southern coast of the Tarkhankut Peninsula (2.5 km south of the modern village of Gromovo) arose in the 4th century BC. e. and became one of the largest in the Chersonesos state. Like many other Black Sea cities, it was forced to repel constant attacks by Scythian tribes that occupied some areas of the steppe Crimea. During the Greco-Scythian conflicts, Kulchuk changed hands several times, but nevertheless remained a major trading point. The Scythians built their own fortification system here - a rampart and a moat lined with stone. The last owners of the settlement in the ancient era were the Scythians - with them in the 1st century AD. e. life in this place died out, as researchers believe, due to drought and the threat from the Sarmatian tribes. In the Middle Ages, when Crimea was under the control of the Khazar Kaganate, a settlement arose again on Kulchuk, now Khazar.

Belyaus

Another settlement founded in the 4th century BC. e. immigrants from Chersonesus. It was a block of five estates, fenced with stone walls, along which outbuildings were located. At the beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. Belyaus was captured by the Scythians, who, as in Kulchuk, built a rampart and a ditch lined with stone. In the second half of the 1st century BC. e. life on Belyaus was dying out - a few inhabitants reappeared in the settlement only in the 3rd century AD. e. During the Great Migration of Peoples (IV-V centuries AD), the Huns stayed in this place, and the last inhabitants of Belyaus were the Khazars.

Kara-Tobe

Defensive tower

The settlement on the western coast of Crimea was, like many others, founded in the 4th century BC. e. and then included in the Chersonesos state. But, unlike other cities, early Greek buildings were practically not preserved here: the surrounding areas were poor in stone, and therefore the buildings that had served their purpose were immediately dismantled in order to erect new structures. At the beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. the settlement fell into the sphere of influence of the Scythians, and Scythian buildings arose on the site of Greek estates. The Scythians were driven out by the troops of Mithridates VI, but after the death of the Pontic king they returned to the Black Sea settlements, including Kara-Tobe. Around 20 AD e. the settlement died in a fire - the residents left their homes in a hurry, not even having time to save their utensils. After this, life on Kara-Toba was restored, but never reached its previous level. During the confrontation between the Scythians and Rome, which in the third quarter of the 1st century AD. e. came to the aid of Chersonese, the residents left Kara-Tobe without a fight. At the end of the 1st century AD. e. a small village arose there again, but at the beginning of the 2nd century AD. e. the life of the settlement finally died out.

Chersonese Tauride

The polis was founded in 529 BC by immigrants from Heraclea Pontus and existed for a long time as a Greek colony. Over time, it turned into the capital of the state, to which many Black Sea cities submitted. But the problem was the Scythian tribes, with whom Chersonesus was forced to wage constant wars, which caused enormous harm to its economy. In the end, Chersonesus resorted to the help of the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator - and was eventually absorbed by his power. After the death of Mithridates, Chersonesus became part of the Roman Empire, and in the 5th century AD it submitted to Byzantium. However, despite the consistent dependence on three empires, the city of Chersonesos remained the largest political and cultural center of the Northern Black Sea region until the beginning of the 13th century. With the weakening of Byzantium, Muslim and nomadic tribes became more active in the region, who repeatedly plundered the city, until in 1399 the Golden Horde temnik Edigei completely destroyed Chersonesus.

Panticapaeum

Ruins of the prytaneum, a city council in ancient Greece

The city on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus, on the site of modern Kerch, was founded in the 7th century BC. e. came from Miletus. In the 540s BC. e. Panticapaeum led a military confederation that gathered the surrounding Greek city states, which found it difficult to resist the nomads attacking them alone. In the 5th century BC. e. The Archeanactid dynasty reigned in Panticapaeum, and then the Spartokid dynasty, which turned the confederation into the Bosporan state, and Panticapaeum into a huge prosperous city (its territory grew to 100 hectares). At the end of the 2nd century BC. e. The Bosporan kingdom lost its former power and submitted to the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator. However, this did not greatly damage Panticapaeum, which now became the capital of another state. Mithridates annexed a huge territory to his kingdom - in addition to the Black Sea region, it included Asia Minor, Colchis and Greater Armenia - but began to be at enmity with Rome. The wars that began were unsuccessful for him - as a result, fleeing from Roman troops, Mithridates took refuge in his own palace in Panticapaeum and, seeing that enemy troops were approaching the city, committed suicide.

The Cimmerians on the Crimean Peninsula were replaced by Scythian tribes who moved in the 7th century BC. e. from Asia and formed a new state in the steppes of the Black Sea region and part of the Crimea - Scythia, stretching from the Don to the Danube. They began a series of nomadic empires that successively replaced one another - the Sarmatians replaced the Scythians, the Goths and Huns - the Sarmatians, the Avars and the ancestors of the Bulgarians - the Huns, then the Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans appeared and disappeared. The arriving nomads seized power in the Northern Black Sea region over the local population, which for the most part remained in place, assimilating some of the victors. A feature of the Crimean peninsula was multi-ethnicity - different tribes and peoples coexisted in Crimea at the same time. From the new owners, a ruling elite was created that controlled the bulk of the population of the Northern Black Sea region and did not try to change the existing way of life in the region. It was “the power of a nomadic horde over neighboring agricultural tribes.” Herodotus wrote about the Scythians: “No enemy who attacks them can either escape from them or capture them if they do not want to be open: after all, a people who has neither cities nor fortifications, who moves their dwellings from themselves, where everyone is a horse archer, where the means of living are obtained not from agriculture, but from cattle breeding, and homes are built on carts - how could such a people not be invincible and impregnable.”

The origin of the Scythians is not completely clear. Perhaps the Scythians were descendants of indigenous tribes who had long lived on the Black Sea coast or were several related Indo-European nomadic tribes of the North Iranian language group, assimilated by the local population. It is also possible that the Scythians appeared in the Northern Black Sea region from Central Asia, pushed out from there by stronger nomads. The Scythians from Central Asia could have reached the Black Sea steppes in two ways: through Northern Kazakhstan, the southern Urals, the Volga region and the Don steppes, or through the Central Asian interfluve, the Amu Darya River, Iran, Transcaucasia and Asia Minor. Many researchers believe that the dominance of the Scythians in the Northern Black Sea region began after 585 BC. e., after the Scythians captured the Ciscaucasia and Azov steppes.

The Scythians were divided into four tribes. In the Bug River basin there lived Scythian herders, between the Bug and the Dnieper there were Scythian farmers, to the south of them there were Scythian nomads, between the Dnieper and Don there were royal Scythians. The center of royal Scythia was the Konka River basin, where the city of Gerras was located. Crimea was also the territory of settlement of the most powerful Scythian tribe - the royal ones. This territory received the name Scythia in ancient sources. Herodotus wrote that Scythia is a square with sides that are 20 days' journey long.

Herodotus's Scythia occupied modern Bessarabia, Odessa, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk regions, almost the entire Crimea, except for the lands of the Tauri - the southern coast of the peninsula, Podolia, Poltava region, part of the Chernigov lands, the territory of the Kursk and Voronezh regions, the Kuban region and the Stavropol region. The Scythians loved to roam the Black Sea steppes from the Ingulets rivers in the west to the Don in the east. Two Scythian burials of the 7th century BC were found in Crimea. e. – the Temir Mountain mound near Kerch and the mound near the village of Filatovka in the steppe Crimea. In northern Crimea in the 7th century BC. e. there was no permanent population.

The Scythian tribal association was a military democracy with a national assembly of personally free nomads, a council of elders and tribal leaders who made human sacrifices to the god of war together with the priests. The Scythian tribal union consisted of three groups, which were led by their kings with hereditary power, one of whom was considered the main one. The Scythians had a cult of the sword, there was a supreme male god, depicted on a horse, and a female deity - the Great Goddess or Mother of the Gods. The army consisted of a complete militia of all combat-ready Scythians, whose horses had a bridle and a saddle, which immediately gave an advantage in battle. Women could also be warriors. In a Scythian mound near the village of Shelyugi, Akimovsky district, Zaporozhye region, half a kilometer from the Molochansky estuary, the burial of six Scythian women warriors was discovered. Necklaces made of gold and glass beads, bronze mirrors, combs, bone and lead spindle whorls, iron spear and dart tips, and bronze arrowheads, apparently lying in quivers, were found in the mound. The Scythian cavalry was stronger than the famous Greek and Roman cavalry. The Roman historian of the 2nd century Arrian wrote about the Scythian horses: “At first it is difficult to disperse them, so you can treat them with complete contempt if you see how they are compared with a Thessalian, Sicilian or Peleponesian horse, but for that they withstand any kind of work; and then you can see how that greyhound, tall and hot-tempered horse is exhausted, and this short and mangy horse first overtakes him, then leaves him far behind.” Noble Scythian warriors were dressed in armored or scaled sleeve shirts, sometimes in bronze helmets and greaves, and were protected by small quadrangular shields with slightly rounded corners of Greek workmanship. Scythian horsemen, armed with a bronze or iron sword and dagger and having a short bow with a double curvature that hit 120 meters, were formidable opponents. Ordinary Scythians made up light cavalry, armed with darts and spears, and short akinac swords. Subsequently, the majority of the Scythian army began to consist of infantry, formed from agricultural tribes subject to the Scythians. The weapons of the Scythians were mainly of their own production, manufactured in large metallurgical centers that produced bronze and later iron weapons and equipment - the Velsk settlement in the Poltava region, the Kamensk settlement on the Dnieper.

The Scythians attacked the enemy with lava in small detachments on horseback in several places at the same time and pretended to run away, luring him into a pre-prepared trap, where the enemy warriors were surrounded and destroyed in hand-to-hand combat. Bows played the main role in the battle. Subsequently, the Scythians began to use a horse-fist strike in the middle of the enemy formation, the tactics of starvation, “scorched earth.” Detachments of mounted Scythians could quickly make long journeys, using the herds following the army as provisions. Subsequently, the Scythian army was significantly reduced and lost its combat effectiveness. The Scythian army, successfully resisting in the 6th century BC. e. colossal army of the Persian king Darius I, at the end of the 2nd century BC. e. together with its allies the Roxolani, it was completely defeated by a seven thousand-strong detachment of hoplites of the Pontic commander Diaphantus.

Since the 70s of the 7th century BC. e. Scythian troops went on campaigns in Africa, the Caucasus, Urartu, Assyria, Media, Greece, Persia, Macedonia and Rome. 7th and 6th centuries BC e. - These are continuous raids of the Scythians from Africa to the Baltic Sea.

In 680 BC. e. The Scythians, through Dagestan, invaded the territory of the Albanian tribe (modern Azerbaijan) and devastated them. Under the Scythian king Partatua in 677 BC. e. There was a battle between the united army of the Scythians, Assyrians and Scolots with the army of the Medes, the remnants of the Cimmerians and Mannaeans, led by the military leader Kashtarita, during which Kashtarita was killed and his army was defeated. In 675 BC. e. The Scythian army of Partatua raided the lands of the Skolot tribes living on the right bank of the Dnieper and along the Southern Bug, which was repelled. From that time on, grads appeared on the lands of the ethnic Proto-Slavs - small fortified villages, the dwellings of the clan. After this, the Scythian army with Partatua and his son Madius carried out an invasion of Central Europe in two streams, during which, in a battle on the lands of ancient Germanic tribes near Lake Tolensee, the Scythians with King Partatua were almost completely destroyed, and the troops of Madius were stopped on the borders of the possessions of the Skolot tribes .

In 634 BC. e. The troops of the royal Scythians of Madia entered Western Asia along the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, defeated the Median army in a series of bloody battles, and in 626 almost captured the capital of Media - Ektabana. The military power of the Median kingdom was destroyed and the country was plundered. In 612 BC. e. the recovered Medes with King Cyaxares, who managed to conclude an alliance with the Scythians, captured Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. As a result of this war, Assyria as a kingdom ceased to exist.

The Scythian army with King Madius was in Western Asia from 634 to 605 BC. e. The Scythians plundered Syria, reaching the Mediterranean Sea, and imposed tribute on Egypt and the cities of Palestine. After a significant strengthening of Media, whose king Astyages poisoned almost all the Scythian military leaders at a feast, Madius turned his army to the Crimea, where the Scythians were returning after a twenty-eight year absence. However, having crossed the Kerch Strait, the Scythian army was stopped by detachments of rebellious Crimean slaves who dug a ditch on the Ak-Monai Isthmus, the narrowest point of the Kerch Peninsula. Several battles took place, and the Scythians had to return to the Taman Peninsula. Madiy, having gathered around himself significant forces of Scythian nomads, bypassed Lake Meotia - the Sea of ​​Azov - and broke into the Crimea through Perekop. During the fighting in Crimea, Madiy apparently died.

At the beginning of the 6th century BC. e. The Scythians, under King Ariant, finally conquered the kingdom of Urartu, and carried out constant invasions of the tribes inhabiting Eastern and Central Europe. The Scythians, having plundered the Middle Volga region, went to the basin of the Kama, Vyatka, Belaya and Chusovaya rivers and imposed tribute on the Kama region. The Scythians' attempt to cross the Ural Mountains into Asia was thwarted by nomadic tribes living in the Lik River basin and Altai. Returning to Crimea, Tsar Arant imposed tribute on the tribes living along the Oka River. The Scythian army fought through the Carpathian region along the Prut and Dnieper rivers into the area between the Oder and Elbe rivers. After a bloody battle near the Spree River, on the site of modern Berlin, the Scythians reached the coast of the Baltic Sea. However, due to the stubborn resistance of local tribes, the Scythians were unable to gain a foothold there. During the next campaign to the sources of the Western Bug, the Scythian army was defeated, and King Arianta himself died.

The conquests of the Scythians ended at the end of the 6th century BC. e., under the Scythian king Idanfirs. Peace reigned in the Northern Black Sea region for three hundred years.

The Scythians lived both in small villages and in cities surrounded by ramparts and deep ditches. Large Scythian settlements are known on the territory of Ukraine - Matreninskoye, Pastyrskoye, Nemirovskoye and Velskoye. The main occupation of the Scythians was nomadic cattle breeding. Their dwellings were wagons on wheels, they ate boiled meat, drank mare's milk, men dressed in casings, trousers and a caftan, tied with a leather belt, women - in sundresses and kokoshniks. Based on Greek designs, the Scythians made beautiful and varied pottery, including amphoras used to store water and grain. The dishes were made using a potter's wheel and decorated with scenes of Scythian life. Strabo wrote about the Scythians: “the Scythian tribe... was nomadic, ate not only meat in general, but especially horse meat, as well as kumis cheese, fresh and sour milk; the latter, prepared in a special way, serves as a delicacy for them. Nomads are warriors rather than robbers, but they still wage wars over tribute. Indeed, they transfer their land into the possession of those who want to cultivate it, and are content if they receive in return a certain agreed payment, and then a moderate one, not for enrichment, but only to satisfy the necessary daily needs of life. However, the nomads fight with those who do not pay them money. And in fact, if they were paid the rent for the land correctly, they would never start a war.”

In Crimea there are more than twenty Scythian burials of the 6th century BC. e. They were left along the route of the seasonal nomads of the royal Scythians on the Kerch Peninsula and in the steppe Crimea. During this period, Northern Crimea received a permanent Scythian population, but a very small one.

In the middle of the 8th century BC, the Greeks appeared in the Black Sea region and in the northeast of the Aegean Sea. The lack of arable land and metal deposits, political struggle in the city-states - Greek city-states, and an unfavorable demographic situation forced many Greeks to look for new lands for themselves on the coasts of the Mediterranean, Marmara and Black Seas. The ancient Greek tribes of the Ionians, who lived in Attica and in the region of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, were the first to discover a country with fertile land, rich nature, abundant vegetation, animals and fish, with ample opportunities for trade with local “barbarian” tribes. Only very experienced sailors, who were the Ionians, could sail the Black Sea. The carrying capacity of Greek ships reached 10,000 amphoras - the main container in which products were transported. Each amphora held 20 liters. Such a Greek merchant ship was discovered near the port of Marseille off the coast of France, which sank in 145 BC. e., 26 meters long and 12 meters wide.

The first contacts between the local population of the Northern Black Sea region and Greek sailors were recorded in the 7th century BC. e., when the Greeks did not yet have colonies on the Crimean Peninsula. In a Scythian burial ground on Mount Temir near Kerch, a painted Rhodian-Milesian vase of excellent workmanship, made at that time, was discovered. Residents of the largest Greek city-state of Miletus on the banks of the Euxine Pontus founded more than 70 settlements. Emporia - Greek trading posts - began to appear on the shores of the Black Sea in the 7th century BC. e., the first of which was Borysphenida at the entrance to the Dnieper estuary on the island of Berezan. Then in the first half of the 6th century BC. e. Olbia appeared at the mouth of the Southern Bute (Gypanis), Tiras appeared at the mouth of the Dniester, and Feodosia (on the shore of the Feodosian Gulf) and Panticapaeum (on the site of modern Kerch) appeared on the Kerch Peninsula. In the middle of the 6th century BC. e. in eastern Crimea, Nymphaeum (17 kilometers from Kerch near the village of Geroevka, on the shore of the Kerch Strait), Cimmerik (on the southern coast of the Kerch Peninsula, on the western slope of Mount Onuk), Tiritaka (south of Kerch near the village of Arshintsevo, on the shore of the Kerch Bay) arose ), Mirmekiy (on the Kerch Peninsula, 4 kilometers from Kerch), Kitey (on the Kerch Peninsula, 40 kilometers south of Kerch), Parthenium and Parthia (north of Kerch), in the western Crimea - Kerkinitida (on the site of modern Evpatoria ), on the Taman Peninsula - Hermonassa (on the site of Taman) and Phanagoria. A Greek settlement arose on the southern coast of Crimea, called Alupka. The Greek city-colonies were independent city-states, independent of their metropolises, but maintaining close trade and cultural ties with them. When sending colonists, the city or the leaving Greeks themselves chose from among themselves the leader of the colony - an oikist, whose main duty during the formation of the colony was to divide the territory of the new lands among the Greek colonists. On these lands, called hora, were the plots of the city's citizens. All rural settlements of the choir were subordinate to the city. Colonial cities had their own constitution, their own laws, courts, and minted their own coins. Their policy was independent of the policy of the metropolis. The Greek colonization of the Northern Black Sea region mainly occurred peacefully and accelerated the process of historical development of local tribes, significantly expanding the areas of distribution of ancient culture.

Around 660 BC e. It was founded by the Greeks at the southern mouth of the Bosporus of Byzantium, to preserve Greek trade routes. Subsequently, in 330, the Roman Emperor Constantine, on the site of the trading city of Byzantium, on the European shore of the Bosphorus Strait, founded the new capital of the state of Constantine - “New Rome”, which after some time began to be called Constantinople, and the Christian empire of the Romans - Byzantine.

After the defeat of Miletus by the Persians in 494 BC. e. The colonization of the Northern Black Sea region was continued by the Dorian Greeks. Coming from the ancient Greek city on the southern coast of the Black Sea, Heraclea Pontica at the end of the 5th century BC. e. on the southwestern coast of the Crimean peninsula was founded in the area of ​​​​modern Sevastopol, Chersonese Tauride. The city was built on the site of an already existing settlement, and at first there was equality among all the inhabitants of the city - Taurians, Scythians and Dorian Greeks.

By the end of the 5th century BC. e. Greek colonization of Crimea and the shores of the Black Sea was completed. Greek settlements appeared where there was the possibility of regular trade with the local population, which ensured the sale of Attic goods. Greek emporias and trading posts on the Black Sea coast quickly turned into large city-states. The main occupations of the population of the new colonies, which soon became Greco-Scythian, were trade and fishing, cattle breeding, agriculture, and crafts related to the production of metal products. The Greeks lived in stone houses. The house was separated from the street by a blank wall; all buildings were located around the courtyard. Rooms and utility rooms were illuminated through windows and doors facing the courtyard.

From about the 5th century BC. e. Scythian-Greek connections began to be established and rapidly develop. There were also Scythian raids on Greek Black Sea cities. The Scythians attacked the city of Myrmekiy at the beginning of the 5th century BC. e. During archaeological excavations it was discovered that some of the settlements that were located near the Greek colonies during this period were destroyed in fires. Perhaps that is why the Greeks began to strengthen their policies by erecting defensive structures. Scythian attacks may have been one of the reasons why the independent Greek Black Sea cities around 480 BC. e. united in a military alliance.

Trade, crafts, agriculture, and the arts developed in the Greek city-states of the Black Sea region. They exerted great economic and cultural influence on the local tribes, while simultaneously adopting all their achievements. Trade was carried out through Crimea between the Scythians, Greeks and many cities of Asia Minor. The Greeks took from the Scythians primarily bread grown by the local population under Scythian control, cattle, honey, wax, salted fish, metal, leather, amber and slaves, and the Scythians took metal products, ceramic and glassware, marble, luxury goods, cosmetics products, wine, olive oil, expensive fabrics, jewelry. Scythian-Greek trade relations became permanent. Archaeological data indicate that in the Scythian settlements of the V–III centuries BC. e. A large number of amphorae and ceramics of Greek production were found. At the end of the 5th century BC. e. The purely nomadic economy of the Scythians was replaced by a semi-nomadic one, the number of cattle in the herd increased, and as a result, transhumance cattle breeding appeared. Some of the Scythians settled on the ground and began to engage in hoe farming, planting millet and barley. The population of the Northern Black Sea region has reached half a million people.

Jewelry made of gold and silver, found in the former Scythia - in the Kul-Ob, Chertomlyk, Solokha mounds, are divided into two groups: one group of decorations with scenes from Greek life and mythology, and the other with scenes of Scythian life, apparently made according to Scythian orders and for the Scythians. It can be seen from them that Scythian men wore short caftans, belted with a wide belt, and trousers tucked into short leather boots. Women dressed in long dresses with belts and wore pointed hats with long veils on their heads. The dwellings of settled Scythians were huts with wicker reed walls coated with clay.

At the mouth of the Dnieper, beyond the Dnieper rapids, the Scythians built a stronghold - a stone fortress that controlled the water road “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, from the north to the Black Sea.

In 519–512 BC. e. The Persian king Darius I, during his campaign of conquest in Eastern Europe, was unable to defeat the Scythian army with one of the kings, Idanfirs. The huge army of Darius I crossed the Danube and entered the Scythian lands. There were much more Persians and the Scythians turned to the “scorched earth” tactic; they did not engage in an unequal battle, but went deep into their country, destroying wells and burning out grass. Having crossed the Dniester and the Southern Bug, the Persian army passed through the steppes of the Black Sea and Azov regions, crossed the Don and, unable to gain a foothold anywhere, went home. The company failed, although the Persians did not fight a single battle.

The Scythians formed an alliance of all local tribes, a military aristocracy began to emerge, a layer of priests and best warriors appeared - Scythia acquired the features of a state formation. At the end of the 6th century BC. e. joint campaigns of the Scythians and ethnic Proto-Slavs began. The Skolots lived in the forest-steppe zone of the Black Sea region, which allowed them to hide from the raids of nomads. The early history of the Slavs does not have precise documentary evidence; it is impossible to reliably cover the period of Slavic history from the 3rd century BC. e. until the 4th century AD e. However, it is safe to say that over the centuries the Proto-Slavs repelled one wave of nomads after another.

In 496 BC. e. The united Scythian army passed through the lands of Greek cities located on both banks of the Hellespont (Dardanelles) and which at one time covered the campaign of Darius I to Scythia, and through the Thracian lands reached the Aegean Sea and Thracian Chersonese.

About fifty Scythian mounds of the 5th century BC were discovered on the Crimean peninsula. e., in particular the Golden Mound near Simferopol. In addition to the remains of food and water, arrowheads, swords, spears and other weapons, expensive weapons, gold items and luxury items were found. At this time, the permanent population of northern Crimea increased and in the 4th century BC. e. becomes very significant.

Around 480 BC e. the independent Greek city-states of Eastern Crimea united into a single Bosporan kingdom, located on both banks of the Cimmerian Bosporus - Kerch Strait. The Bosporan kingdom occupied the entire Kerch Peninsula and Taman to the Sea of ​​Azov and Kuban. The largest cities of the Bosporan Kingdom were on the Kerch Peninsula - the capital Panticapaeum (Kerch), Myrlikiy, Tiritaka, Nymphaeum, Kitey, Cimmeric, Feodosia, and on the Taman Peninsula - Phanagoria, Kepy, Hermonassa, Gorgipia.

Panticapaeum, an ancient city in Eastern Crimea, was founded in the first half of the 6th century BC. e. Greek immigrants from Miletus. The earliest archaeological finds in the city date from this period. The Greek colonists established good trade relations with the Crimean royal Scythians and even received a place to build a city with the consent of the Scythian king. The city was located on the slopes and at the foot of a rocky mountain, now called Mithridates. Grain supplies from the fertile plains of eastern Crimea quickly made Panticapaeum the main trading center in the region. The convenient location of the city on the shore of a large bay and a well-equipped trading harbor allowed this policy to quickly take control of the sea routes passing through the Kerch Strait. Panticapaeum became the main transit point for most of the goods brought by the Greeks for the Scythians and other local tribes. The name of the city probably translates as “fish route” - the Kerch Strait teeming with fish. He minted his own copper, silver and gold coins. In the first half of the 5th century BC. e. Panticapaeum united around itself the Greek city-colonies located on both banks of the Cimmerian Bosporus - Kerch Strait. The Greek city-states, who understood the need for unification for self-preservation and the implementation of their economic interests, formed the Bosporan kingdom. Soon after this, to protect the state from the invasion of nomads, a fortified rampart with a deep ditch was created, crossing the Crimean peninsula from the city of Tiritaka, located at Cape Kamysh-Burun, to the Sea of ​​​​Azov. In the 6th century BC. e. Panticapaeum was surrounded by a defensive wall.

Until 437 BC. e. The kings of the Bosphorus were the Greek Milesian dynasty of the Archeanactids, whose ancestor was Archeanact, an oikist of the Milesian colonists who founded Panticapaeum. This year, the head of the Athenian state, Pericles, arrived in Panticapaeum at the head of a squadron of warships, traveling with a large squadron around the Greek colonial cities to establish closer political and trade ties. Pericles negotiated grain supplies with the Bosporan king and then with the Scythians in Olbia. After his departure, the Bosporan kingdom was replaced by the Archeanactid dynasty of the local Hellenized Spartokid dynasty, possibly of Thracian origin, which ruled the kingdom until 109 BC. e.

In his biography of Pericles, Plutarch wrote: “Among the campaigns of Pericles, his campaign to Chersonesus (Chersonese in Greek means peninsula - A.A.), which brought salvation to the Hellenes living there, was especially popular. Pericles not only brought with him a thousand Athenian colonists and strengthened the population of the cities with them, but also built fortifications and barriers across the isthmus from sea to sea and thereby prevented the raids of the Thracians, who lived in large numbers near Chersonesos, and put an end to the continuous, difficult war, from which This land constantly suffered, being in direct contact with barbarian neighbors and filled with bandits of bandits, both border and located within its borders.”

King Spartok, his sons Satyr and Leukon, together with the Scythians as a result of the war of 400–375 BC. e. with Heraclea Pontic, the main trade competitor was conquered - Theodosius and Sindica - the kingdom of the Sind people on the Taman Peninsula, located below the Kuban and Southern Bug. King of the Bosporus Perisad I, who reigned from 349 to 310 BC. e., from Phanagoria, the capital of the Asian Bosporus, conquered the lands of local tribes on the right bank of the Kuban and went further north, beyond the Don, capturing the entire Azov region. His son Eumelus managed, by building a huge fleet, to clear the Black Sea of ​​pirates who interfered with trade. In Panticapaeum there were large shipyards that also repaired ships. The Bosporan kingdom had a navy consisting of narrow and long fast-moving trireme ships, which had three rows of oars on each side and a powerful and durable ram at the bow. Triremes were usually 36 meters long, 6 meters wide, and the draft depth was about a meter. The crew of such a ship consisted of 200 people - oarsmen, sailors and a small detachment of marines. There were almost no boarding battles then; triremes rammed enemy ships at full speed and sank them. The trireme ram consisted of two or three sharp sword-shaped tips. The ships reached speeds of up to five knots, and with a sail - up to eight knots - approximately 15 kilometers per hour.

In the VI–IV centuries BC. e. The Bosporan kingdom, like Chersonesos, did not have a standing army; in the event of hostilities, troops were gathered from citizen militias armed with their own weapons. In the first half of the 4th century BC. e. in the Bosporan kingdom under the Spartokids, a mercenary army was organized, consisting of a phalanx of heavily armed hoplite warriors and light infantry with bows and darts. Hoplites were armed with spears and swords, and their protective equipment consisted of shields, helmets, bracers and leggings. The cavalry of the army consisted of the nobility of the Bosporan kingdom. At first, the army did not have a centralized supply; each horseman and hoplite was accompanied by a slave with equipment and food, only in IV BC. e. a convoy on carts appears, surrounding the soldiers during long stops.

All the main Bosporan cities were protected by walls two to three meters thick and up to twelve meters high, with gates and towers up to ten meters in diameter. The walls of the cities were dry-built from large rectangular limestone blocks one and a half meters long and half a meter wide, fitted closely to each other. In the 5th century BC. e. Four kilometers west of Panticapaeum, a rampart was built, stretching from the south from the modern village of Arshintsevo to the Sea of ​​Azov in the north. A wide ditch was dug in front of the rampart. The second shaft was created thirty kilometers west of Panticapaeum, crossing the entire Kerch Peninsula from Lake Uzunla near the Black Sea to the Sea of ​​Azov. According to measurements taken in the mid-19th century, the width of the shaft at the base was 20 meters, at the top - 14 meters, height - 4.5 meters. The depth of the ditch was 3 meters, width - 15 meters. These fortifications stopped the raids of nomads on the lands of the Bosporan kingdom. The estates of the local Bosporus and Chersonesos nobility were built as small fortresses from large stone blocks, with high towers. The lands of Chersonese were also protected from the rest of the Crimean Peninsula by a defensive wall with six towers, about a kilometer long and 3 meters thick.

Both Perisad I and Eumelus repeatedly tried to seize the lands of the ethnic Proto-Slavs, but were repulsed. At this time, Eumel, at the confluence of the Don into the Sea of ​​Azov, built the fortress-city of Tanais (near the village of Nedvigolovka at the mouth of the Don), which became the largest trade transshipment point in the Northern Black Sea region. The Bosporan kingdom in its heyday had a territory from Chersonesos to Kuban and to the mouth of the Don. The Greek population united with the Scythians, the Bosporan kingdom became Greco-Scythian. The main income came from trade with Greece and other Attic states. The Athenian state received half of the bread it needed - one million poods, timber, furs, leather - from the Bosporan kingdom. After the weakening of Athens in the 3rd century BC. e. The Bosporan kingdom increased trade turnover with the Greek islands of Rhodes and Delos, with Pergamum, located in the western part of Asia Minor, and the cities of the southern Black Sea region - Heraclea, Amis, Sinope.

The Bosporan kingdom had many fertile lands both in the Crimea and on the Taman Peninsula, which produced large grain harvests. The main arable tool was the plow.

The bread was harvested with sickles and stored in special grain pits and pithos - large clay vessels. Grain was ground in stone grain grinders, mortars and hand mills with stone millstones, found in large quantities during archaeological excavations in the eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula. Winemaking and viticulture, introduced by the ancient Greeks, were significantly developed, and a large number of orchards were planted. During the excavations of Myrmekia and Tiritaki, many wineries and stone presses were discovered, the earliest of which dates back to the 3rd century BC. e. The inhabitants of the Bosporan kingdom were engaged in cattle breeding - they kept a lot of poultry - chickens, geese, ducks, as well as sheep, goats, pigs, bulls and horses, which provided meat, milk, and leather for clothing. The main food of the common population was fresh fish - flounder, mackerel, pike perch, herring, anchovy, sultana, ram, salted in large quantities, exported from the Bosporus. Fish were caught with a seine and hooks.

Weaving and ceramic production, and the production of metal products have received great development - on the Kerch Peninsula there are large deposits of iron ore, which lies shallow. During archaeological excavations, a large number of spindles, spindle whorls, and weights suspended from threads were found, which served as the basis for tensioning them. Many items made of clay were discovered - jugs, bowls, saucers, bowls, amphoras, pithoi, roofing tiles. Ceramic water pipes, parts of architectural structures, and figurines were found. Many openers for plows, sickles, hoes, spades, nails, locks, weapons - spear and arrowheads, swords, daggers, armor, helmets, shields were excavated. In the Kul-Oba mound near Kerch, many luxury items were discovered, precious dishes, magnificent weapons, gold jewelry with animal images, gold plates for clothing, gold bracelets and hryvnias - hoops worn around the neck, earrings, rings, necklaces.

The second major Greek center of Crimea was Chersonesus, located in the southwestern part of the Crimean peninsula and has long been closely associated with Athens. Chersonesos was the closest city to both the steppe Crimea and the Asia Minor coast. This was crucial for its economic prosperity. Trade ties of Chersonese extended to the entire western and part of the steppe Crimea. Chersonese traded with Ionia and Athens, the cities of Asia Minor Heraclea and Sinope, and island Greece. The possessions of Chersonese included the cities of Kerkinitida, located on the site of modern Evpatoria, and Beautiful Harbor, near the Black Sea.

Residents of Chersonesus and the surrounding area were engaged in agriculture, viticulture and cattle breeding. During excavations of the city, millstones, stupas, pithos, tarapans - platforms for squeezing grapes, curved grape knives in the form of an arc were found. Pottery production and construction were developed. The highest legislative bodies in Chersonesos were the Council, which prepared decrees, and the People's Assembly, which approved them. In Chersonesus there was state and private ownership of land. On a Chersonesos marble slab of the 3rd century BC. e. The text of the act of sale of land plots by the state to private individuals has been preserved.

The greatest flourishing of the Black Sea city policies occurred in the 4th century BC. e. The city-states of the Northern Black Sea region become the main suppliers of bread and food for most cities in Greece and Asia Minor. From purely trading colonies they become trade and production centers. During the 5th and 4th centuries BC. e. Greek craftsmen produce many highly artistic products, some of which have general cultural significance. The whole world knows a golden plate with an image of a deer and an electric vase from the Kul-Oba mound near Kerch, a golden comb and silver vessels from the Solokha mound, and a silver vase from the Chertomlytsky mound. This is also the time of the highest rise of Scythia. Thousands of Scythian mounds and burials of the 4th century are known. All the so-called royal mounds, up to twenty meters high and 300 meters in diameter, date back to this century. The number of such mounds directly in Crimea is also increasing significantly, but there is only one royal one - Kul-Oba near Kerch.

In the first half of the 4th century BC. e. one of the Scythian kings, Atey, managed to concentrate supreme power in his hands and form a large state on the western borders of Great Scythia in the Northern Black Sea region. Strabo wrote: “Ataeus, who fought with Philip, son of Amyntas, seems to have dominated the majority of the local barbarians.” The capital of the kingdom of Atey was obviously a settlement near the city of Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and the village of Bolshaya Znamenka in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine - Kamensky settlement. On the side of the steppe, the settlement was protected by an earthen rampart and a ditch; on the other sides there were steep Dnieper steeps and the Belozersky estuary. The settlement was excavated in 1900 by D. Ya. Serdyukov, and in the 30s and 40s of the 20th century by B. N. Grakov. The main occupation of the inhabitants was the production of bronze and iron tools, dishes, as well as agriculture and cattle breeding. The Scythian nobility lived in stone houses, farmers and artisans lived in dugouts and wooden buildings. There was active trade with the Greek policies of the Northern Black Sea region. The capital of the Scythians was the Kamensk settlement from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BC. e., and how the settlement existed until the 3rd century BC. e.

The power of the Scythian state of King Ataeus was thoroughly weakened by the Macedonian king Philip, the father of Alexander the Great.

Having broken the temporary alliance with Macedonia due to the reluctance to support the Macedonian army, the Scythian king Ataeus and his army, defeating the Macedonian allies of the Getae, captured almost the entire Danube delta. As a result of the bloodiest battle of the united Scythian army and the Macedonian army in 339 BC. e. King Atey was killed and his troops were defeated. The Scythian state in the northern Black Sea steppes collapsed. The reason for the collapse was not so much the military defeat of the Scythians, who a few years later destroyed the thirty thousand army of Zopyrnion, the commander of Alexander the Great, but the sharp deterioration of natural conditions in the Northern Black Sea region. According to archaeological data, during this period in the steppes the number of saigas and ground squirrels - animals living on abandoned pastures and lands unsuitable for livestock - increased significantly. Nomadic cattle breeding could no longer feed the Scythian population and the Scythians began to leave the steppes for river valleys, gradually settling on the ground. Scythian steppe burial grounds of this period are very poor. The situation of the Greek colonies in Crimea, which began to experience the Scythian onslaught, worsened. By the beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. Scythian tribes were located in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and the northern steppe part of the Crimean Peninsula, forming here under Tsar Skilur and his son Palak a new state entity with its capital on the Salgir River near Simferopol, which later became known as Scythian Naples. The population of the new Scythian state settled on the land and the majority were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. The Scythians began to build stone houses using the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. In 290 BC e. The Scythians created fortifications throughout the Perekop Isthmus. The Scythian assimilation of the Taurus tribes began, ancient sources began to call the population of the Crimean Peninsula “Tauro-Scythians” or “Scythotaurs,” who subsequently mixed with the ancient Greeks and Sarmato-Alans.

Sarmatians, Iranian-speaking nomadic pastoralists who were engaged in horse breeding, from the 8th century BC. e. lived in the territory between the Caucasus Mountains, Don and Volga. In the 5th–6th centuries BC. e. a large union of Sarmatian and nomadic Sauromatian tribes was formed, living since the 7th century in the steppe zones of the Urals and Volga region. Subsequently, the Sarmatian union constantly expanded at the expense of other tribes. In the 3rd century BC. e. the movement of the Sarmatian tribes towards the Northern Black Sea region began. Part of the Sarmatians - Siraks and Aorses - went to the Kuban region and the North Caucasus, another part of the Sarmatians in the 2nd century BC. e. three tribes - Iazyges, Roxolans and Sirmatians - reached the bend of the Dnieper in the Nikopol region and within fifty years populated the lands from the Don to the Danube, becoming the masters of the Northern Black Sea region for almost half a millennium. The penetration of individual Sarmatian detachments into the Northern Black Sea region along the Don-Tanais riverbed began in the 4th century BC. e.

It is not known for certain how the process of ousting the Scythians from the Black Sea steppes took place - military or peaceful means. Scythian and Sarmatian burials of the 3rd century BC have not been found in the Northern Black Sea region. e. The collapse of Great Scythia is separated from the formation of Great Sarmatia on the same territory by at least a hundred years.

Perhaps there was a great multi-year drought in the steppe, food for horses disappeared and the Scythians themselves left for fertile lands, concentrating in the river valleys of the Lower Don and Dnieper. There are almost no Scythian settlements of the 3rd century BC on the Crimean Peninsula. e., with the exception of the Aktash burial ground. During this period, Scythians did not yet populate the Crimean Peninsula en masse. Historical events that took place in the Northern Black Sea region in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC. e. practically not described in ancient written sources. Most likely, the Sarmatian tribes occupied free steppe territories. One way or another, but at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. The Sarmatians are finally established in the region and the process of “Sarmatization” of the Northern Black Sea region begins. Scythia becomes Sarmatia. About fifty Sarmatian burials of the 2nd–1st centuries BC were found in the Northern Black Sea region. e., of which 22 are north of Perekop. The burials of the Sarmatian nobility are known - Sokolov's Tomb on the Southern Bug, near Mikhailovka in the Danube region, near the village of Porogi, Yampolsky district, Vinnytsia region. Found in Porogi: an iron sword, an iron dagger, a powerful bow with bone plates, iron arrowheads, darts, a gold bracer plate, a ceremonial belt, a sword belt, waist plates, brooches, shoe buckles, a gold bracelet, a gold hryvnia, a silver cup , light clay amphorae and jug, gold temple pendants, gold necklace, silver ring and mirror, gold plaques. However, the Sarmatians did not occupy Crimea and visited there only sporadically. No Sarmatian monuments of the 2nd–1st centuries BC have been found on the Crimean Peninsula. e. The appearance of the Sarmatians in Crimea was peaceful and dates back to the second half of the 1st - beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. There are no traces of destruction in the found monuments of this period. Many Sarmatian names appear in the Bosporan inscriptions; the local population begins to use Sarmatian dishes with a polished surface and handles in the shape of animals. The army of the Bosporan kingdom began to use more advanced weapons of the Sarmatian type - long swords and pike-spears. Since the 1st century, Sarmatian tamga-like signs have been used on tombstones. Some ancient authors began to call the Bosporan kingdom Greco-Sarmatian. The Sarmatians settled throughout the Crimean Peninsula. Their burials remained in Crimea near the village of Chkalovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, near the village of Netochny in the Dzhankoy region, near the regional centers of the Kirov and Sovetsky districts, near the villages of Ilyicheve in the Leninsky district, Kitay in the Saki region, and Konstantinovka in the Simferopol region. In the Nogaychik kugan near the village of Chervonoye, Nizhny Novgorod region, a large amount of gold jewelry was found - a gold hryvnia, earrings, bracelets. During excavations of Sarmatian burials, iron swords, knives, vessels, jugs, cups, dishes, beads, beads, mirrors and other jewelry were discovered. However, only one Sarmatian monument of the 2nd–4th centuries is known in Crimea - near the village of Orlovka, Krasnoperekopsk region. Obviously, this indicates that in the middle of the 3rd century there was a partial departure of the Sarmatian population from Crimea, perhaps to participate in the Gothic campaigns.

The Sarmatian army consisted of tribal militia; there was no standing army. The main part of the Sarmatian army was heavy cavalry, armed with a long spear and an iron sword, protected by armor and at that time practically invincible. Ammianus Marcelinus wrote: “They travel through vast spaces when they are pursuing the enemy, or they run themselves, sitting on fast and obedient horses, and each one also leads a spare horse, one, and sometimes two, so that, changing from one to another, they can save the strength of the horses, and by giving rest, restore their vigor.” Later, Sarmatian heavily armed cavalry - cataphracts, protected by helmets and ringed armor, were armed with four-meter pikes and meter-long swords, bows and daggers. To equip such cavalry, well-developed metallurgical production and weaponry, which the Sarmatians had, were required. The cataphracts attacked with a powerful wedge, later called a “pig” in medieval Europe, cut into the enemy formation, cut it in two, overturned it and completed the rout. The blow of the Sarmatian cavalry was more powerful than the Scythian, and the long weapon was superior to the weapons of the Scythian cavalry. Sarmatian horses had iron stirrups, which allowed riders to sit firmly in the saddle. During their stays, the Sarmatians surrounded their camp with wagons. Arrian wrote that the Roman cavalry learned Sarmatian military techniques. The Sarmatians collected tribute and indemnities from the conquered settled population, controlled trade and trade routes, and engaged in military robbery. However, the Sarmatian tribes did not have centralized power; each acted on its own, and during the entire period of their stay in the Northern Black Sea region, the Sarmatians never created their own state.

Strabo wrote about the Roxolani, one of the Sarmatian tribes: “They wear helmets and armor made of rawhide oxhide, they wear wicker shields as a means of protection; They also have spears, a bow and a sword... Their felt tents are attached to the tents in which they live. Cattle graze around the tents, from which they feed on milk, cheese and meat. They follow the pastures, always taking turns choosing places rich in grass, in winter in the marshes near Maeotis, and in summer on the plains.”

In the middle of the 2nd century BC. e. The Scythian king Skilur upset and strengthened a city that had existed for a hundred years in the middle of the steppe Crimea and was called Scythian Naples. We know of three more Scythian fortresses of this period - Khabei, Palakion and Napite. Obviously these are the settlements of Kermenchik, located directly in Simferopol, Kermen-Kyr - 5 kilometers north of Simferopol, Bulganak settlement - 15 kilometers west of Simferopol and Ust-Alminskoye settlement near Bakhchisarai.

Scythian Naples under Skilura turned into a large trade and craft center, connected both with the surrounding Scythian cities and with other ancient cities of the Black Sea region. Apparently the Scythian leaders wanted to monopolize the entire Crimean grain trade, eliminating Greek intermediaries. Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom faced a serious threat of losing their independence.

The troops of the Scythian king Skilur captured Olvia, in the harbor of which the Scythians built a powerful galley fleet, with the help of which Skilur took the city of Tyre, a Greek colony at the mouth of the Dniester, and then Karkinita, the possession of Chersonesus, which gradually lost the entire northwestern Crimea. The Chersonese fleet tried to capture Olbia, which became the naval base of the Scythians, but after a large naval battle that was unsuccessful for them, it returned to its harbors. The Scythian ships also defeated the fleet of the Bosporan kingdom. After this, the Scythians, in long-term conflicts, cleared the Crimean coast for a long time from the Satarchean pirates, who literally terrorized the entire coastal population. After the death of Skilur, his son Palak began a war in 115 with Chersonese and the Bosporan kingdom, which lasted ten years.

Chersonesos, starting from the end of the 3rd – 2nd century BC. e. in alliance with the Sarmatian tribes, he constantly fought with the Scythians. Not relying on one's own strength in 179 BC. Chersonese concluded an agreement on military assistance with Pharnaces I, the king of Pontus, a state that arose on the southern coast of the Black Sea as a result of the collapse of the state of Alexander the Great. Pontus was an ancient region in the northern part of Asia Minor that paid tribute to the Persian kings. In 502 BC. e. The Persian king Darius I turned Pontus into his satrapy. From the second half of the 4th century BC. e. Pontus was part of the empire of Alexander the Great, after the collapse of which it became independent. The first king of the new state in 281 BC. e. Mithridates II declared himself from the Persian Achaemenid family, and in 301 BC. e. under Mithridates III the country received the name of the Kingdom of Pontus with its capital in Amasia. In the treaty of 179 BC. e., concluded by Pharnaces I with the Bithynian, Pergamon and Cappadocian kings, along with Chersonese, the Sarmatian tribes led by King Gatal are the guarantors of this agreement. In 183 BC. e. Pharnaces I conquered Sinope, a port city on the southern coast of the Black Sea, which became the capital of the Pontic Kingdom under Mithridates V Euergetes. From 111 BC e. Mithridates VI Eupator becomes king of the Pontic kingdom, having set his life goal to create a world monarchy.

After the first defeats from the Scythians, the loss of Kerkinitis and the Beautiful Harbor, and the beginning of the siege of the capitals, Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom turned to the king of Pontus, Mithridates VI Eupator, for help.

Mithridates in 110 BC e. sent a large Pontic fleet to the rescue with a landing force of six thousand hoplites - heavily armed infantrymen, under the command of Diophantus, the son of the noble Pontic Asclapiodorus and one of his best commanders. The Scythian king Palak, having learned about the landing of Diaphant's troops near Chersonesos, asked for help from the king of the Sarmatian tribe of the Roxolans, Tasia, who sent 50 thousand heavily armed cavalry. The battles took place in the mountainous regions of southern Crimea, where the Roxalan cavalry was unable to deploy its battle formations. The fleet and troops of Diophantus, together with the Chersonese detachments, destroyed the Scythian fleet and defeated the Scythians, who had besieged Chersonese for more than a year. The defeated Roksolans left the Crimean Peninsula.

The Greek geographer and historian Strabo wrote in his “Geography”: “The Roxolani even fought with the generals of Mithridates Eupator under the leadership of Tasius. They came to the aid of Palak, the son of Skilur, and were considered warlike. However, any barbarian nation and a crowd of lightly armed people are powerless against a properly formed and well-armed phalanx. In any case, the Roxolani, numbering about 50,000 people, could not resist the 6,000 people fielded by Diaphant, the commander of Mithridates, and were mostly destroyed.”

After this, Diophantus marched along the entire southern coast of Crimea and, with bloody battles, destroyed all the settlements and fortified points of the Tauri, including the main sanctuary of the Tauri - the goddess of the Virgin (Parthenos), located on Cape Parthenia near the Bay of Symbols (Balaklava). The remnants of the Taurians went to the Crimean Mountains. On their lands, Diaphant founded the city of Evpatoria (probably near Balaklava), a stronghold of Pontus in southern Crimea.

Having liberated Theodosia from the army of slaves besieging it, Diaphant defeated the Scythian army at Panticapaeum and ousted the Scythians from the Kerch Peninsula, taking the fortresses of Cimmeric, Tiritaku and Nymphaeum. After this, Diaphant with the Chersonesos and Bosporan troops marched into the steppe Crimea and took the Scythian fortresses of Naples and Khabaei after an eight-month siege. In 109 BC. e. Scythia, led by Polak, recognized the power of Pontus, losing everything conquered by Skilur. Diophantus returned to Sinope, the capital of Pontus, leaving garrisons in Evpatoria, Beautiful Harbor and Kerkinida.

A year later, the Scythian army of Palak, having gathered its strength, again began military operations with Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom, defeating their troops in several battles. Again Mithridates sent a fleet with Diaphant, who pushed the Scythians back to the steppe Crimea, destroyed the Scythian army in a general battle and occupied Scythian Naples and Habaea, during the assault of which the Scythian king Palak died. The Scythian state lost its independence. The following Scythian kings recognized the power of Mithridates VI of Pontus, gave him Olbia and Tyre, paid tribute and gave soldiers to his army.

In 107 BC. e. The rebellious Scythian population, led by Savmak, captured Panticapaeum, killing the Bosporan king Perisad. Diaphantus, who was conducting negotiations in the capital of the Bosporus on the transfer of power in the kingdom to Mithridates VI of Pontus, managed to leave for the city of Nymphaeum, located not far from Panticapaeum, and sailed by sea to Chersonesos, and from there to Sinope.

Within two months, Savmak's army completely occupied the Bosporan kingdom, holding it for a year. Savmak became the ruler of the Bosporus.

In the spring of 106 BC. e. Diaphantus with a huge fleet entered the Quarantine Bay of Chersonese Tauride, recaptured Feodosia and Panticapaeum from Savmak, capturing him himself. They were destroyed, and Diaphant's troops established themselves in the west of the Crimean Peninsula. Mithridates VI of Pontus became the master of almost all of Crimea, receiving from the population of the Crimean peninsula a huge amount of bread and silver in the form of tribute. Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom recognized the supreme power of Pontus. Mithridates VI became king of the Bosporan kingdom, incorporating Chersonesos into its composition, which retained self-government and autonomy. Pontic garrisons appeared in all the cities of southwestern Crimea, which were there until 89 BC. e.

The Pontic kingdom prevented the Romans from pursuing their policy of conquest in the east. Founded in the middle of the 8th century BC. e. small town at the end of the 1st century BC. e. became an empire, controlling vast territories. The Roman legions had clear management - ten cohorts, each of which was divided into three maniples, each consisting of two centuries. The legionnaire was dressed in an iron helmet, leather or iron armor, had a sword, a dagger, two darts and a shield. The soldiers were trained to thrust, which was most effective in close combat. The legion, which consisted of 6,000 soldiers and a detachment of cavalry, was the most powerful military formation of that time. In 89 BC. e. Five Mithridatic wars with Rome began. Almost all local tribes, including the Scythians and Sarmatians, took part in them on the side of Mithridates. During the First War of 89–84, the Bosporan kingdom was separated from the Pontic king, but in 80, his military leader Neoptolemus twice defeated the Bosporan army and returned the Bosporus to the rule of Mithridates. The son of Mithridates Mahar became king. During the third war in 65 BC. e. Roman troops, led by the commander Gnaeus Pompey, captured the main territory of the Pontic kingdom. Mithridates went to his Bosporan possessions in Crimea, which were soon blocked from the sea by the Roman fleet. The Roman fleet mainly consisted of triremes, biremes and liburnes, the main driving force of which, along with the sails, were oars arranged in several rows. The ships had rams with three points and powerful lifting ladders, which, during boarding, fell on top of the enemy ship and broke its hull. When boarding an enemy ship, the marines rushed along the ladder, which the Romans turned into a special branch of the army. The ships had heavy catapults that threw clay pots with a mixture of resin and saltpeter onto other ships, which could not be filled with water, but only covered with sand. The Roman squadron carrying out the blockade had orders to detain and execute all merchants traveling to the harbor of the Bosporan kingdom. Bosporan trade suffered great damage. The policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, aimed at strengthening the local tribes of the Northern Black Sea region, a large number of taxes imposed by the Pontic king, and the Roman blockade of the coast did not suit the highest nobility of Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom. An anti-Mithridates uprising took place in Phanagoria, spreading to Chersonesus, Feodosia, Nymphaeum and even to the army of Mithridates. In 63 BC. e. he committed suicide. The son of Mithridates Pharnaces II became the king of the Bosporus, who betrayed his father and actually organized and led the uprising. Pharnaces sent the body of his murdered father to Sinope to Pompey and expressed complete submission to Rome, for which he was left by the king of the Bosporus with the subordination of Chersonesus, which he ruled until 47 BC. e. The states of the Northern Black Sea region lost their political independence. Only the territory of the Tauri from Balaklava to Feodosia remained independent until the arrival of Roman military units on the Crimean peninsula.

In 63 BC. e. Pharnaces II concluded a treaty of friendship with the Roman Empire, receiving the title of “friend and ally of Rome,” given only after the king was recognized as the legitimate monarch. An ally of Rome was obliged to protect its borders, receiving in return money, the patronage of Rome and the right of self-government, without the right to conduct an independent foreign policy. Such an agreement was concluded with each new king of the Bosporus, since in Roman law there was no concept of hereditary royal power. Becoming king of the Bosporus, the next candidate necessarily received approval from the Roman emperor, for which he sometimes had to go to the capital of the empire, and the regalia of his power - a curule chair and a scepter. The Bosporan king Cotim I added two more to his name - Tiberius Julius, and all subsequent Bosporan kings mechanically added these two names to their own, creating the Tiberius Julius dynasty. The Roman government, in carrying out its policy in the Bosporus, relied, as elsewhere, on the Bosporan nobility, linking it with itself with economic and material interests. The highest civil positions in the kingdom were the governor of the island, the manager of the royal court, the chief bedroom officer, the king's personal secretary, the chief scribe, the head of reports; by the military - citizen strategist, navarch, chiliarch, lohag. The citizens of the Bosporan state were led by a polytarch. Around this period, a number of fortresses were built on the Bosporus, located in a chain at a distance of visual communication from each other - Ilurat, fortifications near the modern villages of Tosunovo, Mikhailovka, Semenovka, Andreevna Yuzhnaya. The thickness of the walls reached five meters, and a moat was dug around them. Fortresses were also built to protect the Bosporan possessions on the Taman Peninsula. Rural settlements of the Bosporan kingdom in the first centuries of our era were divided into three types. In the valleys there were unfortified villages consisting of houses separated from each other by private plots. In places convenient for the construction of fortifications, there were settlements whose houses did not have personal plots and were crowded one next to another. The rural villas of the Bosporan nobility were powerful fortified estates. On the shore of the Sea of ​​Azov near the village of Semenovka in the first centuries of our era there was a settlement that was most studied by archaeologists. The stone houses of the settlement had wooden floors and roofs made of wicker rods, coated with clay. Most of the houses were two-story, also covered with clay inside. On the first floors there were utility rooms, on the second floors there were living rooms. In front of the entrance to the house there was a courtyard lined with stone slabs, in which there was a room for livestock with a manger for hay, made of stone slabs placed on edge. The houses were heated by stone or brick stoves with an adobe top slab with edges curved upward. The floors of the houses were earthen, sometimes covered with planks. The inhabitants of the settlement were free landowners. During excavations of the settlement, weapons, coins and other items were found that the slaves could not have had. Also discovered were grain grinders, looms, clay vessels with food, religious figurines, locally made molded dishes, lamps, bone needles for knitting nets, bronze and iron hooks, cork and wooden floats, stone weights, twisted cord nets, small iron openers, scythes, sickles, grains of wheat, barley, lentils, millet, rye, wineries, winegrowing knives, grape seeds and seeds, ceramic dishes - containers for storing and transporting grain. Found coins, a red-glazed dish, amphorae, glass and bronze vessels indicate extensive trade ties between the Bosporan cities and towns.

During excavations, a large number of wineries were found, which indicates a large production of wine in the Bosporan kingdom. The 3rd century wineries excavated in Tiritaka are interesting. The wineries, measuring 5.5 by 10 meters, were located indoors and had three nearby pressing platforms, adjacent to which were three tanks for draining grape juice. On the middle platform, separated from the others by wooden partitions, there was a lever-screw press. The three tanks of each of the two wineries could hold about 6,000 liters of wine.

In the 50s of the 1st century in the Roman Empire, Caesar and Pompeii began a civil war. Pharnaces decided to restore the former kingdom of his father and in 49 BC. e. went to Asia Minor to regain the Pontic throne. Pharnaces II achieved significant success, but / August 2, 47 BC. e. In the battle near the city of Zela, the army of the Pontic king was defeated by the Roman legions of Julius Caesar, who wrote his famous words in a report to the Senate of Rome: “Veni, vidi, vici” - “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Pharnaces again submitted to Rome and was released back to his Crimean lands, where in an internecine struggle he was killed by the local leader Asander. Julius Caesar, who won the civil war, did not accept Asander and sent Mithridates of Pergamon to occupy the Bosporan Kingdom, who failed to do this and was killed. Asander married Pharnaces' daughter Dynamis in 41 BC. e. was declared king of the Bosporans. The previous order was gradually restored in the kingdom and a new economic boom began. The export of bread, fish, and livestock increased significantly. Wine in amphorae, olive oil, glass, red-glazed and bronze dishes, and jewelry were brought to the Bosporus. The main trading partners of the Bosporus were the cities of Asia Minor on the southern coast of the Black Sea. The Bosporan kingdom traded with the cities of the Mediterranean, the Volga region and the North Caucasus.

In 45–44 BC. e. Chersonese sends an embassy to Rome led by G. Julius Satyr, as a result of which he receives from Caesar eleutheria - “charter of freedom” - independence from the Bosporan kingdom. Chersonesus was declared a free city and began to obey only Rome, but this lasted only until 42 BC. e., when, after the assassination of Caesar, the Roman commander Antony deprived Chersonesus and other cities in the eastern part of the empire of eleutheria. Asander tries to capture Chersonesos, but is unsuccessful. In 25–24 BC. e. In Chersonesos, a new chronology is introduced, usually associated with the fact that the new Roman emperor Augustus granted the city the rights of autonomy granted to Greek cities in the east. At the same time, Augustus recognized Asander's rights to the Bosporan throne. Under pressure from Rome, another rapprochement between Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom begins.

In 16 BC. e. The economic and political rise of the Bosporan kingdom causes the displeasure of Rome; Asander is forced to leave the political arena and transfer his power to Dynamia, who soon married Scribonius, who seized power in the Bosporus. This was not agreed with the empire and Rome sent the Pontic king Polemon I to Crimea, who, in the fight against Scribonius, hardly established himself on the throne and ruled the Bosporan kingdom from 14 to 10 BC. e.

Aspurgus becomes the new husband of Dynamis and the king of the Bosporans. There are several known wars between the Bosporan kingdom and the Scythians and Taurians, as a result of which some of them were conquered. However, in the title of Aspurgus, when listing the conquered peoples and tribes, there are no Taurians and Scythians.

In 38, the Roman Emperor Caligula transferred the Bosporan throne to Polemon II, who was unable to establish himself on the Kerch Peninsula, and after the death of Caligula, the new Roman Emperor Claudius in 39 appointed Mithridates VIII, a descendant of Mithridates VI Eupator, as the Bosporan king. The brother of the new Bosporan king Cotis, sent by him to Rome, informed Claudius that Mithridates VIII was preparing for an armed rebellion against Roman power. Roman troops sent to the Crimean peninsula in 46 under the command of the legate of the Roman province of Moesia, which existed on the territory of modern Romania and Bulgaria, A. Didius Gallus, overthrew Mithridates VIII, who, after the departure of the Roman troops, tried to regain power, which required a new Roman military expedition to the Crimea. The legionnaires of G. Julius Aquila, sent from Asia Minor, defeated the troops of Mithridates VIII, captured him and took him to Rome. It was then, according to Tacitus, that off the southern coast of Crimea the Tauri captured several Roman ships returning home.

The new Bosporan king in 49 was the son of Aspurgus and the Thracian princess Cotis I, with whom a new Dynasty began, no longer having Greek roots. Under Cotis I, foreign trade of the Bosporan kingdom began to recover in large volumes. The main goods were grain, traditional for the Northern Black Sea region, both locally produced and delivered from the Azov region, as well as fish, livestock, leather and salt. The largest seller was the Bosporan king, and the main buyer was the Roman Empire. Roman merchant ships had up to twenty meters in length and up to six in width, a draft of up to three meters and a displacement of up to 150 tons. The holds could hold up to 700 tons of grain. Very large ships were also built. Olive oil, metals, building materials, glassware, lamps, and art objects were brought to Panticapaeum for sale to all the tribes of the Northern Black Sea region.

From this period, the Roman Empire controlled the entire Black Sea coast, except Colchis. The Bosporan king became subordinate to the governor of the Roman Asia Minor province of Bithynia, and the southwestern part of the Crimean peninsula, together with Chersonesos, was subordinated to the legate of Moesia. The cities of the Bosporan kingdom and Chersonesus were satisfied with this situation - the Roman Empire ensured the development of the economy and trade, and protected them from nomadic tribes. The Roman presence on the Crimean peninsula ensured the economic flourishing of the Bosporan kingdom and Chersonese at the beginning of our era.

Chersonese was on the side of Rome during all the Roman-Bosporan wars, for participation in which it received from the empire the right to mint gold coins. At this time, ties between Rome and Chersonesus strengthened significantly.

In the middle of the 1st century, the Scythians became active again on the Crimean Peninsula. On the western coast, in the steppe and foothills of Crimea, a large number of Scythian settlements fortified with stone walls and ditches, inside which there were stone and brick houses, were discovered. Around the same time, the Sarmatian tribe of Alans, who called themselves Irons, created a union of Iranian-speaking tribes that settled in the Northern Black Sea region, the Azov region and the Caucasus Mountains. From there, the Alans began to raid Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, and Media. Josephus Flavius ​​in “The Jewish War” writes about the terrible invasion of the Alans on Armenia and Media in 72, calling the Alans “Scythians living near Tanais and Lake Meotia.” The Alans made a second invasion of the same lands in 133. The Roman historian Tacitus writes about the Alans that they were not united under a single authority, but were subordinate to the khans, who acted independently of each other and quite independently entered into alliances with the sovereigns of the southern countries, who sought their help in hostile clashes among themselves. The testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus is also interesting: “Almost all of them are tall and beautiful, their hair is brown; they are menacing with the fierce gaze of their eyes and fast, thanks to the lightness of their weapons... The Alans are a nomadic people, they live in wagons covered with bark. They do not know agriculture, they keep a lot of livestock and mainly a lot of horses. The need to have permanent pastures causes them to wander from place to place. From early childhood they get used to riding horses; they are all dashing riders and walking is considered a disgrace among them. The limits of their nomads are Armenia and Media on one side, and the Bosporus on the other. Their occupation is robbery and hunting. They love war and danger. They take scalps from killed enemies and decorate the bridles of their horses with them. They have no temples, no houses, no huts. They think of the god of war and worship him in the form of a sword planted in the ground. All Alans consider themselves noble and do not know slavery in their midst. In their way of life they are very similar to the Huns, but their morals are somewhat softer.” On the Crimean Peninsula, nomads were interested in the foothills and southwestern Crimea, the Bosporan kingdom, which was experiencing economic and political growth. A large number of Sarmato-Alans and Scythians mixed and settled in the Crimean cities. In the steppe Crimea, Alans appeared only sporadically, without assimilating with the Scythian population. In 212, on the southeastern coast of Crimea, probably the Alans built the fortress of Sugdeya (present-day Sudak), which became the main Alan port on the Crimean peninsula. Alans lived in Crimea during the Tatar-Mongol period. The Alanian bishop Theodore, who in 1240 took holy orders and was heading from the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which was at that time in Nicaea to the Transcaucasian Alans through Chersonesos and Bosporus, wrote in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople: “Near Kherson the Alans live as much of their own free will as at the request of the Kherson residents, like some kind of fence and security.” Sarmatian-Alanian burial grounds were found near Sevastopol, Bakhchisarai, in Scythian Naples, in the area between the Belbek and Kacha rivers.

In the second half of the 1st century, almost all Scythian fortresses were renovated. The Sarmatians and Scythians began to seriously threaten the independence of Chersonesus. The city turned to its superiors, the legate of the Roman province of Moesia, for help.

In 63, ships of the Moesian squadron appeared in the harbor of Chersonese - Roman legionnaires arrived in the city under the command of the governor of Moesia, Tiberius Plautius Silvanus. Having driven the Scythian-Sarmatian tribes back from Chersonesos, the Romans took military action in the northwestern and southwestern Crimea, but they failed to gain a foothold there. No ancient monuments of the 1st century have been discovered in these areas. The Romans controlled Chersonesos with adjacent territories and the southern coast of Crimea to Sudak.

The main base of Rome and then the Byzantine Empire in Crimea became Chersonesus, which received a permanent Roman garrison.

On Cape Ai-Todor, near Yalta, in the first century the Roman fortress Charax was built, which became a strategic stronghold of Rome on the southern coast of Crimea. The fortress was constantly home to a Roman garrison of soldiers from the 1st Italian and 11th Claudian legions. Kharaks, who controlled the coast from Ayu-Dag to Simeiz, had two defense belts, ammunition depots and water reserves in a cemented nymphaeum, which made it possible to withstand prolonged attacks. Stone and brick houses were built inside the fortress, there was a water supply system, and there was a sanctuary of the Roman gods. The camp of the Roman legionnaires was also located near Balaklava - near Simbolon Bay. The Romans also built roads in Crimea, in particular the road through the Shaitan-Merdven pass - the “Devil's Staircase”, the shortest route from the mountainous Crimea to the southern coast, located between Kastropol and Melas. Roman warships for some time destroyed the coastal pirates, and the soldiers destroyed the steppe robbers.

At the end of the 1st century, Roman troops were withdrawn from the Crimean Peninsula. Subsequently, depending on the political situation in the region, Roman garrisons periodically appeared in both Chersonesos and Charax. Rome has always closely monitored the situation developing on the Crimean Peninsula. The southwestern Crimea remained with the Scythians and Sarmatians, and Chersonesus successfully established trade relations with the Scythian capital Naples and the local settled population. Grain trade increases significantly; Chersonesus supplies a significant part of the cities of the Roman Empire with bread and food.

During the reign of the Bosporan kings Sauromates I (94–123) and Kotis II (123–132), several Scythian-Bosporan wars took place, in which the Scythians were defeated, not least due to the fact that the Romans again provided military assistance to the Bosporan kingdom and Chersonesos at their request. The Roman Empire under Kotis again gave supreme power in the Crimea to the Bosporan kingdom and Chersonesos once again found itself dependent on Panticapaeum. Roman military units were stationed in the Bosporan kingdom for some time. Two stone tombstones of a centurion of the Thracian cohort and a soldier of the Cypriot cohort were excavated in Kerch.

In 136, a war between the Romans and the Alans, who came to Asia Minor, began, and Tauro-Scythian troops besieged Olbia, from which they were driven back by the Romans. In 138, Chersonese received from the empire the “second eleutheria”, which at that time no longer meant the complete independence of the city, but only gave it the right of self-government, the right to dispose of its land and, obviously, the right of citizenship. At the same time, to protect Chersonese from the Scythians and Sarmatians, a thousand Roman legionaries appeared in the Chersonese fortress, five hundred in the fortress of Charax, and ships of the Moesian squadron appeared in the harbor. In addition to the centurion, who led the Roman garrison, in Chersonesus there was a military tribune of the I Italian Legion, who led all the Roman troops in Taurica and Scythia. In the south-eastern part of the Chersonese settlement, in the city citadel, the foundation of barracks, the remains of the house of the Roman governor and the baths - baths of the Roman garrison, built in the middle of the 1st century, were discovered. Archaeological excavations have attested to Roman monuments of the 1st and 2nd centuries on the northern side of Sevastopol, near the Alma River, Inkerman and Balaklava, near Alushta. In these places there were Roman fortified posts, whose task was to guard the approaches to Chersonesus, control the population of the southern and southwestern part of Crimea and protect Roman ships sailing along the southern part of the Crimean peninsula along the sea route that ran from Olbia to the Caucasus. In addition to guard duty, the legionnaires were engaged in agriculture on lands specially allocated for this purpose and various crafts -

foundry, pottery, production of bricks and tiles, as well as glassware. Remains of manufacturing workshops have been discovered in almost all Roman settlements in Crimea. Roman troops were also supported at the expense of the Tauride cities. Roman traders and artisans appeared in Crimea. In addition to the legionnaires, predominantly of Thracian ethnic origin, members of their families and retired veterans lived in Chersonesos. The stable, calm situation made it possible to significantly increase foreign trade in grain and food, which greatly improved the economic situation of Chersonesos.

After the defeat of the Scythians, the Roman garrisons left the Crimean peninsula, apparently to protect the Danube borders of the empire.

In 174, Tiberius Yuri Sauromat II became king of the Bosporan kingdom. During the period of his reign, the Bosporan kingdom expanded and strengthened its borders. According to an inscription of 193, found in Tanais, Sauromat II “conquered the neighboring Scythian tribes and annexed Taurica by treaty.” The Black Sea was cleared of pirates. From the beginning of the 3rd century, the trade turnover of the Bosporus with the cities of the southern Black Sea region increased, city fortifications and temples were built and renovated. In the Bosporus inscription, King Reskuporid III of Bosporus, who reigned from 210 to 227, is called the king of “the whole Bosporus and Tauro-Scythians,” and in the Scythian burial grounds burials were discovered, performed without observing the usual ritual, as if in haste. Perhaps these are the burial places of the dead defenders of Scythian settlements. The Scythian burial grounds themselves disappeared in the middle of the 3rd century, but monuments characteristic of Germanic tribes appeared. Perhaps these are Gothic burials, although written sources do not say anything about the presence of the Goths on the Crimean Peninsula during this period. One way or another, the Scythian ethnic group in Crimea ceased to exist in the 3rd century. Eastern and steppe Crimea became part of the Bosporus Kingdom, southern and southwestern Crimea were controlled by the Romans.

At the end of the 3rd century, Rome began to withdraw its troops from Crimea. With the legionnaires, the Roman population began to leave the Crimean peninsula.

During the period of the Roman Empire's protectorate over Chersonesus, it became so strong economically, especially in agricultural terms, that it was able to defend its political and economic freedom during the Great Migration of Peoples in the 4th and 5th centuries. A favorable geographical location, constant sales of viticulture products, fish and salt, and developed crafts ensured the stability of the Chersonese economy, and, consequently, the ability to maintain a strong army and have powerful defensive structures. The Bosporan kingdom, which managed to defend its statehood during the Sarmatian period on the Crimean Peninsula, fell under the blows of new nomadic waves from the east and left the historical scene.

The Goths and Huns severed ties between Chersonesos and the Bosporus kingdom with the Roman Empire, but during the reign of Justinian I, the Roman Empire, now Byzantine, again strengthened on the Crimean peninsula.

History of Crimea Andreev Alexander Radevich

CHAPTER 3. CRIMEA IN THE PERIOD OF THE SKYTHIAN RULE. GREEK COLONIAL CITIES IN THE CRIMEA. BOSPORUS KINGDOM. CHERSONES. SARMATIANS, THE PONTIAN KINGDOM AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE CRIMEA VII CENTURY BC – III CENTURY

CHAPTER 3. CRIMEA IN THE PERIOD OF THE SKYTHIAN RULE. GREEK COLONIAL CITIES IN THE CRIMEA. BOSPORUS KINGDOM. CHERSONES. SARMATIANS, THE PONTIAN KINGDOM AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE CRIMEA

7th CENTURY BC – 3rd CENTURY

The Cimmerians on the Crimean Peninsula were replaced by Scythian tribes who moved in the 7th century BC. e. from Asia and formed a new state in the steppes of the Black Sea region and part of the Crimea - Scythia, stretching from the Don to the Danube. They began a series of nomadic empires that successively replaced one another - the Sarmatians replaced the Scythians, the Goths and Huns - the Sarmatians, the Avars and the ancestors of the Bulgarians - the Huns, then the Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans appeared and disappeared. The arriving nomads seized power in the Northern Black Sea region over the local population, which for the most part remained in place, assimilating some of the victors. A feature of the Crimean peninsula was multi-ethnicity - different tribes and peoples coexisted in Crimea at the same time. From the new owners, a ruling elite was created that controlled the bulk of the population of the Northern Black Sea region and did not try to change the existing way of life in the region. It was “the power of a nomadic horde over neighboring agricultural tribes.” Herodotus wrote about the Scythians: “No enemy who attacks them can either escape from them or capture them if they do not want to be open: after all, a people who has neither cities nor fortifications, who moves their dwellings from themselves, where everyone is a horse archer, where their livelihood is obtained not from agriculture, but from cattle breeding, and their homes are built on carts - how could such a people not be invincible and impregnable.”

The origin of the Scythians is not fully understood. Perhaps the Scythians were descendants of indigenous tribes who had long lived on the Black Sea coast or were several related Indo-European nomadic tribes of the North Iranian language group, assimilated by the local population. It is also possible that the Scythians appeared in the Northern Black Sea region from Central Asia, pushed out from there by stronger nomads. The Scythians from Central Asia could have reached the Black Sea steppes in two ways: through Northern Kazakhstan, the southern Urals, the Volga region and the Don steppes, or through the Central Asian interfluve, the Amu Darya River, Iran, Transcaucasia and Asia Minor. Many researchers believe that the dominance of the Scythians in the Northern Black Sea region began after 585 BC. e., after the Scythians captured the Ciscaucasia and Azov steppes.

The Scythians were divided into four tribes. In the basin of the Bug River there lived Scythians - cattle breeders, between the Bug and the Dnieper there were Scythian farmers, to the south of them - Scythians - nomads, between the Dnieper and Don - the royal Scythians. The center of royal Scythia was the Konka River basin, where the city of Gerras was located. Crimea was also the territory of settlement of the most powerful Scythian tribe - the royal ones. This territory received the name Scythia in ancient sources. Herodotus wrote that Scythia is a square with sides that are 20 days' journey long.

Herodotus's Scythia occupied modern Bessarabia, Odessa, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk regions, almost the entire Crimea, except for the lands of the Tauri - the southern coast of the peninsula, Podolia, Poltava region, part of the Chernigov lands, the territory of the Kursk and Voronezh regions, the Kuban region and the Stavropol region. The Scythians loved to roam the Black Sea steppes from the Ingulets rivers in the west to the Don in the east. Two Scythian burials of the 7th century BC were found in Crimea. e. – the Temir Mountain mound near Kerch and the mound near the village of Filatovka in the steppe Crimea. In northern Crimea in the 7th century BC. e. there was no permanent population.

The Scythian tribal association was a military democracy with a people's assembly of personally free nomads, a council of elders and tribal leaders who made human sacrifices to the god of war together with the priests. The Scythian tribal union consisted of three groups, which were led by their kings with hereditary power, one of whom was considered the main one. The Scythians had a cult of the sword, there was a supreme male god, depicted on a horse, and a female deity - the Great Goddess or Mother of the Gods. The army consisted of a complete militia of all combat-ready Scythians, whose horses had a bridle and a saddle, which immediately gave an advantage in battle. Women could also be warriors. In a Scythian mound near the village of Shelyugi, Akimovsky district, Zaporozhye region, half a kilometer from the Molochansky estuary, the burial of six Scythian women warriors was discovered. Necklaces made of gold and glass beads, bronze mirrors, combs, bone and lead whorls, iron spear and dart tips, bronze arrowheads, apparently lying in quivers, were found in the mound. The Scythian cavalry was stronger than the famous Greek and Roman cavalry. The 2nd century Roman historian Arrian wrote about the Scythian horses: “At first they are difficult to disperse, so you can treat them with complete contempt if you see how they are compared with a Thessalian, Sicilian or Peleponnesian horse, but for that they can withstand any kind of work; and then you can see how that greyhound, tall and hot horse is exhausted, and this short and mangy horse first overtakes him, then leaves him far behind.” Noble Scythian warriors were dressed in armored or scaled sleeve shirts, sometimes in bronze helmets and greaves, and were protected by small quadrangular shields with slightly rounded corners of Greek workmanship. Scythian horsemen, armed with a bronze or iron sword and dagger and having a short bow with a double curvature that hit 120 meters, were formidable opponents. Ordinary Scythians made up light cavalry, armed with darts and spears, and short akinac swords. Subsequently, the majority of the Scythian army began to consist of infantry, formed from agricultural tribes subject to the Scythians. The weapons of the Scythians were mainly of their own production, manufactured in large metallurgical centers that produced bronze and later iron weapons and equipment - the Belsky settlement in the Poltava region, the Kamensky settlement on the Dnieper.

The Scythians attacked the enemy with lava in small detachments on horseback in several places at the same time and pretended to run away, luring him into a pre-prepared trap, where the enemy warriors were surrounded and destroyed in hand-to-hand combat. Bows played the main role in the battle. Subsequently, the Scythians began to use a horse-fist strike in the middle of the enemy formation, the tactics of starvation, “scorched earth.” Detachments of mounted Scythians could quickly make long journeys, using the herds following the army as provisions. Subsequently, the Scythian army was significantly reduced and lost its combat effectiveness. The Scythian army, successfully resisting in the 6th century BC. e. colossal army of the Persian king Darius I, at the end of the 2nd century BC. e. together with its allies the Roxolani, it was completely defeated by a seven thousand-strong detachment of hoplites of the Pontic commander Diaphantus.

Since the 70s of the 7th century BC. e. Scythian troops went on campaigns in Africa, the Caucasus, Urartu, Assyria, Media, Greece, Persia, Macedonia and Rome. 7th and 6th centuries BC e. - These are continuous raids of the Scythians from Africa to the Baltic Sea.

In 680 BC. e. The Scythians, through Dagestan, invaded the territory of the Albanian tribe (modern Azerbaijan) and devastated them. Under the Scythian king Partatua in 677 BC. e. There was a battle between the united army of the Scythians, Assyrians and Scolots with the army of the Medes, the remnants of the Cimmerians and Mannaeans, led by the military leader Kashtarita, during which Kashtarita was killed and his army was defeated. In 675 BC. e. The Scythian army of Partatua raided the lands of the Skolot tribes living on the right bank of the Dnieper and along the Southern Bug, which was repelled. From this time on, on the lands of the ethnic Proto-Slavs, cities appeared - small fortified villages, clan dwellings. After this, the Scythian army with Partatua and his son Madius carried out an invasion of Central Europe in two streams, during which, in a battle on the lands of ancient Germanic tribes near Lake Tolensee, the Scythians with King Partatua were almost completely destroyed, and the troops of Madius were stopped on the borders of the possessions of the Skolot tribes .

In 634 BC. e. The troops of the royal Scythians of Madia entered Western Asia along the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, defeated the Median army in a series of bloody battles, and in 626 almost captured the capital of Media - Ektabana. The military power of the Median kingdom was destroyed and the country was plundered. In 612 BC. e. the recovered Medes with King Cyaxares, who managed to conclude an alliance with the Scythians, captured Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. As a result of this war, Assyria as a kingdom ceased to exist.

The Scythian army with King Madius was in Western Asia from 634 to 605 BC. e. The Scythians plundered Syria, reaching the Mediterranean Sea, and imposed tribute on Egypt and the cities of Palestine. After a significant strengthening of Media, whose king Astyages poisoned almost all the Scythian military leaders at a feast, Madius turned his army to the Crimea, where the Scythians were returning after a twenty-eight year absence. However, having crossed the Kerch Strait, the Scythian army was stopped by detachments of mutinous Crimean slaves who dug a ditch on the Ak-Monai Isthmus, the narrowest point of the Kerch Peninsula. Several battles took place, and the Scythians had to return to the Taman Peninsula. Madiy, having gathered around himself significant forces of Scythian nomads, bypassed Lake Meotia - the Sea of ​​Azov - and broke into the Crimea through Perekop. During the fighting in Crimea, Madiy apparently died.

At the beginning of the 6th century BC. e. The Scythians, under King Ariant, finally conquered the kingdom of Urartu, and carried out constant invasions of the tribes inhabiting Eastern and Central Europe. The Scythians, having plundered the Middle Volga region, went to the basin of the Kama, Vyatka, Belaya and Chusovaya rivers and imposed tribute on the Kama region. The Scythians' attempt to cross the Ural Mountains into Asia was thwarted by nomadic tribes living in the Lik River basin and Altai. Returning to Crimea, Tsar Arant imposed tribute on the tribes living along the Oka River. The Scythian army fought through the Carpathian region along the Prut and Dnieper rivers into the area between the Oder and Elbe rivers. After a bloody battle near the Spree River, on the site of modern Berlin, the Scythians reached the coast of the Baltic Sea. However, due to the stubborn resistance of local tribes, the Scythians were unable to gain a foothold there. During the next campaign to the sources of the Western Bug, the Scythian army was defeated, and King Arianta himself died.

The conquests of the Scythians ended at the end of the 6th century BC. e., under the Scythian king Idanfirs. Peace reigned in the Northern Black Sea region for three hundred years.

The Scythians lived both in small villages and in cities surrounded by ramparts and deep ditches. Large Scythian settlements are known on the territory of Ukraine - Matreninskoye, Pastyrskoye, Nemirovskoye and Belskoye. The main occupation of the Scythians was nomadic cattle breeding. Their dwellings were wagons on wheels, they ate boiled meat, drank mare's milk, men dressed in casings, trousers and a caftan, tied with a leather belt, women - in sundresses and kokoshniks. Based on Greek designs, the Scythians made beautiful and varied pottery, including amphoras used to store water and grain. The dishes were made using a potter's wheel and decorated with scenes of Scythian life. Strabo wrote about the Scythians: “The Scythian tribe... was nomadic, ate not only meat in general, but especially horse meat, as well as kumis cheese, fresh and sour milk; the latter, prepared in a special way, serves as a delicacy for them. Nomads are more warriors than robbers, but they still wage wars over tribute. Indeed, they transfer their land into the possession of those who want to cultivate it, and are content if they receive in return a certain agreed payment, and then moderate, not for enrichment, but only in order to satisfy the necessary daily needs of life. However, the nomads fight with those who do not pay them money. And in fact, if they were paid the rent for the land correctly, they would never start a war.”

In Crimea there are more than twenty Scythian burials of the 6th century BC. e. They were left along the route of the seasonal nomads of the royal Scythians on the Kerch Peninsula and in the steppe Crimea. During this period, Northern Crimea received a permanent Scythian population, but a very small one.

In the middle of the 8th century BC, the Greeks appeared in the Black Sea region and in the northeast of the Aegean Sea. The lack of arable land and metal deposits, political struggle in the city-states - Greek city-states, and an unfavorable demographic situation forced many Greeks to look for new lands for themselves on the coasts of the Mediterranean, Marmara and Black Seas. The ancient Greek tribes of the Ionians, who lived in Attica and in the region of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, were the first to discover a country with fertile land, rich nature, abundant vegetation, animals and fish, with ample opportunities for trade with local “barbarian” tribes. Only very experienced sailors, who were the Ionians, could sail the Black Sea. The carrying capacity of Greek ships reached 10,000 amphoras - the main container in which products were transported. Each amphora held 20 liters. Such a Greek merchant ship was discovered near the port of Marseille off the coast of France, which sank in 145 BC. e., 26 meters long and 12 meters wide.

The first contacts between the local population of the Northern Black Sea region and Greek sailors were recorded in the 7th century BC. e., when the Greeks did not yet have colonies on the Crimean Peninsula. In a Scythian burial ground on Mount Temir near Kerch, a painted Rhodian-Milesian vase of excellent workmanship, made at that time, was discovered. Residents of the largest Greek city-state of Miletus on the banks of the Euxine Pontus founded more than 70 settlements. Emporia - Greek trading posts - began to appear on the shores of the Black Sea in the 7th century BC. e., the first of which was Borysphenida at the entrance to the Dnieper estuary on the island of Berezan. Then in the first half of the 6th century BC. e. Olbia appeared at the mouth of the Southern Bug (Gipanis), Tiras appeared at the mouth of the Dniester, and Feodosia (on the shore of the Feodosti Gulf) and Panticapaeum (on the site of modern Kerch) appeared on the Kerch Peninsula. In the middle of the 6th century BC. e. in eastern Crimea, Nymphaeum (17 kilometers from Kerch near the village of Geroevka, on the shore of the Kerch Strait), Cimmerik (on the southern coast of the Kerch Peninsula, on the western slope of Mount Onuk), Tiritaka (south of Kerch near the village of Arshintsevo, on the shore of the Kerch Gulf) arose ), Mirmekiy (on the Kerch Peninsula, 4 kilometers from Kerch), Kitey (on the Kerch Peninsula, 40 kilometers south of Kerch), Parthenius and Parfiy (north of Kerch), in the western Crimea - Kerkinitida (on the site of modern Evpatoria ), on the Taman Peninsula - Hermonassa (on the site of Taman) and Phanagoria. A Greek settlement arose on the southern coast of Crimea, called Alupka. Greek city-colonies were independent city-states, independent of their metropolises, but maintaining close trade and cultural ties with them. When sending colonists, the city or the leaving Greeks themselves chose from among themselves the leader of the colony - an oikist, whose main duty during the formation of the colony was to divide the territory of the new lands among the Greek colonists. On these lands, called chora, there were plots of the city's citizens. All rural settlements of the choir were subordinate to the city. Colonial cities had their own constitution, their own laws, courts, and minted their own coins. Their policy was independent of the policy of the metropolis. The Greek colonization of the Northern Black Sea region mainly occurred peacefully and accelerated the process of historical development of local tribes, significantly expanding the areas of distribution of ancient culture.

Around 660 BC e. Byzantium was founded by the Greeks at the southern mouth of the Bosporus to protect Greek trade routes. Subsequently, in 330, the Roman Emperor Constantine, on the site of the trading city of Byzantium, on the European shore of the Bosphorus Strait, founded the new capital of the state of Constantine - “New Rome”, which after some time began to be called Constantinople, and the Christian empire of the Romans - Byzantine.

After the defeat of Miletus by the Persians in 494 BC. e. The colonization of the Northern Black Sea region was continued by the Dorian Greeks. Coming from the ancient Greek city on the southern coast of the Black Sea, Heraclea Pontica at the end of the 5th century BC. e. on the southwestern coast of the Crimean peninsula was founded in the area of ​​​​modern Sevastopol, Chersonese Tauride. The city was built on the site of an already existing settlement, and at first there was equality among all the inhabitants of the city - Taurians, Scythians and Dorian Greeks.

By the end of the 5th century BC. e. Greek colonization of Crimea and the shores of the Black Sea was completed. Greek settlements appeared where there was the possibility of regular trade with the local population, which ensured the sale of Attic goods. Greek emporias and trading posts on the Black Sea coast quickly turned into large city-states. The main occupations of the population of the new colonies, which soon became Greco-Scythian, were trade and fishing, cattle breeding, agriculture, and crafts related to the production of metal products. The Greeks lived in stone houses. The house was separated from the street by a blank wall; all the buildings were located around the yard. Rooms and utility rooms were illuminated through windows and doors facing the courtyard.

From about the 5th century BC. e. Scythian-Greek connections began to be established and quickly developed. There were also Scythian raids on Greek Black Sea cities. The Scythians attacked the city of Myrmekiy at the beginning of the 5th century BC. e. During archaeological excavations it was discovered that some of the settlements that were located near the Greek colonies during this period died in fires. Perhaps that is why the Greeks began to strengthen their policies by erecting defensive structures. Scythian attacks may have been one of the reasons why the independent Greek Black Sea cities around 480 BC. e. united into a military union.

Trade, crafts, agriculture, and the arts developed in the Greek city-states of the Black Sea region. They exerted great economic and cultural influence on the local tribes, while simultaneously adopting all their achievements. Trade was carried out through Crimea between the Scythians, Greeks and many cities of Asia Minor. The Greeks took from the Scythians primarily bread grown by the local population under Scythian control, cattle, honey, wax, salted fish, metal, leather, amber and slaves, and the Scythians took metal products, ceramic and glassware, marble, luxury goods, cosmetics products, wine, olive oil, expensive fabrics, jewelry. Scythian-Greek trade relations became permanent. Archaeological data indicate that in the Scythian settlements of the 5th–3rd centuries BC. e. A large number of amphoras and ceramics of Greek production were found. At the end of the 5th century BC. e. The purely nomadic economy of the Scythians was replaced by a semi-nomadic one, the number of large cattle in the herd increased, and as a result, transhumance cattle breeding appeared. Some of the Scythians settled on the ground and began to engage in hoe farming, planting millet and barley. The population of the Northern Black Sea region has reached half a million people.

Jewelry made of gold and silver, found in the former Scythia - in the Kul-Ob, Chertomlyk, Solokha mounds, are divided into two groups: one group of decorations with scenes from Greek life and mythology, and the other with scenes of Scythian life, apparently made according to Scythian orders and for the Scythians. It can be seen from them that Scythian men wore short caftans, belted with a wide belt, and trousers tucked into short leather boots. Women dressed in long dresses with belts and wore pointed hats with long veils on their heads. The dwellings of settled Scythians were huts with wicker reed walls coated with clay.

At the mouth of the Dnieper, beyond the Dnieper rapids, the Scythians built a stronghold - a stone fortress that controlled the water road “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, from the north to the Black Sea.

In 519–512 BC. e. The Persian king Darius I, during his campaign of conquest in Eastern Europe, was unable to defeat the Scythian army with one of the kings, Idanfirs. The huge army of Darius I crossed the Danube and entered the Scythian lands. There were much more Persians and the Scythians turned to the “scorched earth” tactic; they did not engage in an unequal battle, but went deep into their country, destroying wells and burning out grass. Having crossed the Dniester and the Southern Bug, the Persian army passed through the steppes of the Black Sea and Azov regions, crossed the Don and, unable to gain a foothold anywhere, went home. The company failed, although the Persians did not fight a single battle.

The Scythians formed an alliance of all local tribes, a military aristocracy began to emerge, a layer of priests and best warriors appeared - Scythia acquired the features of a state formation. At the end of the 6th century BC. e. joint campaigns of the Scythians and ethnic Proto-Slavs began. The Skolots lived in the forest-steppe zone of the Black Sea region, which allowed them to hide from the raids of nomads. The early history of the Slavs does not have precise documentary evidence; it is impossible to reliably cover the period of Slavic history from the 3rd century BC. e. until the 4th century AD e. However, it is safe to say that over the centuries the Proto-Slavs repelled one wave of nomads after another.

In 496 BC. e. The united Scythian army passed through the lands of Greek cities located on both banks of the Hellespont (Dardanelles) and which at one time covered the cold of Darius I into Scythia and through the Thracian lands reached the Aegean Sea and Thracian Chersonese.

About fifty Scythian mounds of the 5th century BC were discovered on the Crimean peninsula. e., in particular the Golden Mound near Simferopol. In addition to the remains of food and water, arrowheads, swords, spears and other weapons, expensive weapons, gold items and luxury items were found. At this time, the permanent population of northern Crimea increased and in the 4th century BC. e. becomes very significant.

Around 480 BC e. the independent Greek city-states of Eastern Crimea united into a single Bosporan kingdom, located on both banks of the Cimmerian Bosporus - Kerch Strait. The Bosporan kingdom occupied the entire Kerch Peninsula and Taman to the Sea of ​​Azov and Kuban. The largest cities of the Bosporan Kingdom were on the Kerch Peninsula - the capital Panticapaeum (Kerch), Myrlikiy, Tiritaka, Nymphaeum, Kitey, Cimmeric, Feodosia, and on the Taman Peninsula - Phanagoria, Kepy, Hermonassa, Gorgipia.

Panticapaeum, an ancient city in Eastern Crimea, was founded in the first half of the 6th century BC. e. Greek immigrants from Miletus. The earliest archaeological finds in the city date from this period. The Greek colonists established good trade relations with the Crimean royal Scythians and even received a place to build a city with the consent of the Scythian king. The city was located on the slopes and at the foot of a rocky mountain, now called Mithridates. Grain supplies from the fertile plains of eastern Crimea quickly made Panticapaeum the main trading center in the region. The convenient location of the city on the shore of a large bay and a well-equipped trading harbor allowed this policy to quickly take control of the sea routes passing through the Kerch Strait. Panticapaeum became the main transit point for most of the goods brought by the Greeks for the Scythians and other local tribes. The name of the city probably translates as “fish route” - the Kerch Strait teeming with fish. He minted his own copper, silver and gold coins. In the first half of the 5th century BC. e. Panticapaeum united around itself the Greek colony cities located on both banks of the Cimmerian Bosporus - Kerch Strait. The Greek city-states, who understood the need for unification for self-preservation and the implementation of their economic interests, formed the Bosporan kingdom. Soon after this, to protect the state from the invasion of nomads, a fortified rampart with a deep ditch was created, crossing the Crimean peninsula from the city of Tiritaka, located at Cape Kamysh-Burun, to the Sea of ​​​​Azov. In the 6th century BC. e. Panticapaeum was surrounded by a defensive wall.

Until 437 BC. e. The kings of the Bosphorus were the Greek Milesian dynasty of the Archeanactids, whose ancestor was Archeanact, an oikist of the Milesian colonists who founded Panticapaeum. This year, the head of the Athenian state, Pericles, arrived in Panticapaeum at the head of a squadron of warships, making a round of Greek colonial cities with a large squadron to establish closer political and trade ties. Pericles negotiated grain supplies with the Bosporan king and then with the Scythians in Olbia. After his departure in the Bosporan kingdom, the Archeanactid dynasty was replaced by the local Hellenized Spartokid dynasty, possibly of Thracian origin, which ruled the kingdom until 109 BC. e.

In his biography of Pericles, Plutarch wrote: “Among the campaigns of Pericles, his campaign to Chersonesus (Chersonese in Greek means peninsula - A.A.), which brought salvation to the Hellenes living there, was especially popular. Pericles not only brought with him a thousand Athenian colonists and strengthened the population of the cities with them, but also built fortifications and barriers across the isthmus from sea to sea and thereby prevented the raids of the Thracians, who lived in large numbers near Chersonesos, and put an end to the continuous, difficult war, from which This land constantly suffered, being in direct contact with barbarian neighbors and filled with bandits of bandits, both border and located within its borders.”

King Spartok, his sons Satyr and Leukon, together with the Scythians as a result of the war of 400–375 BC. e. with Heraclea Pontic, the main trade competitor was conquered - Theodosius and Sindica - the kingdom of the Sind people on the Taman Peninsula, located below the Kuban and Southern Bug. King of the Bosporus Perisad I, who reigned from 349 to 310 BC. e., from Phanagoria, the capital of the Asian Bosporus, conquered the lands of local tribes on the right bank of the Kuban and went further north, beyond the Don, capturing the entire Azov region. His son Eumelus managed, by building a huge fleet, to clear the Black Sea of ​​pirates who interfered with trade. In Panticapaeum there were large shipyards that also repaired ships. The Bosporan kingdom had a navy consisting of narrow and long fast trireme ships, which had three rows of oars on each side and a powerful and durable ram at the bow. Triremes were usually 36 meters long, 6 meters wide, and the draft depth was about a liter. The crew of such a ship consisted of 200 people - oarsmen, sailors and a small detachment of marines. There were almost no boarding battles then; triremes rammed enemy ships at full speed and sank them. The trireme ram consisted of two or three sharp sword-shaped tips. The ships reached speeds of up to five knots, and with a sail - up to eight knots - approximately 15 kilometers per hour.

In the VI–IV centuries BC. e. The Bosporan kingdom, like Chersonesos, did not have a standing army; in the event of hostilities, troops were gathered from citizen militias armed with their own weapons. In the first half of the 4th century BC. e. in the Bosporan kingdom under the Spartokids, a mercenary army was organized, consisting of a phalanx of heavily armed hoplite warriors and light infantry with bows and darts. Hoplites were armed with spears and swords, and their protective equipment consisted of shields, helmets, bracers and leggings. The cavalry of the army consisted of the nobility of the Bosporan kingdom. At first, the army did not have a centralized supply; each horseman and hoplite was accompanied by a slave with equipment and food, only in IV BC. e. a convoy on carts appears, surrounding the soldiers during long stops.

All the main Bosporan cities were protected by walls two to three meters thick and up to twelve meters high, with gates and towers up to ten meters in diameter. The walls of the cities were dry-built from large rectangular limestone blocks one and a half meters long and half a meter wide, fitted closely to each other. In the 5th century BC. e. Four kilometers west of Panticapaeum, a rampart was built, stretching from the south from the modern village of Arshintsevo to the Sea of ​​Azov in the north. A wide ditch was dug in front of the rampart. The second shaft was created thirty kilometers west of Panticapaeum, crossing the entire Kerch Peninsula from Lake Uzunla near the Black Sea to the Sea of ​​Azov. According to measurements taken in the mid-19th century, the width of the shaft at the base was 20 meters, at the top - 14 meters, height - 4.5 meters. The depth of the ditch was 3 meters, width - 15 meters. These fortifications stopped the raids of nomads on the lands of the Bosporan kingdom. The estates of the local Bosporus and Chersonesos nobility were built as small fortresses from large stone blocks, with high towers. The lands of Chersonese were also protected from the rest of the Crimean Peninsula by a defensive wall with six towers, about a kilometer long and 3 meters thick.

Both Perisad I and Eumelus repeatedly tried to seize the lands of the ethnic Proto-Slavs, but were repulsed. At this time, Eumel, at the confluence of the Don into the Sea of ​​Azov, built the fortress-city of Tanais (near the village of Nedvigolovka at the mouth of the Don), which became the largest trade transshipment point in the Northern Black Sea region. The Bosporan kingdom in its heyday had a territory from Chersonesos to Kuban and to the mouth of the Don. The Greek population united with the Scythians, the Bosporan kingdom became Greco-Scythian. The main income came from trade with Greece and other Attic states. The Athenian state received half of the bread it needed - one million poods, timber, furs, leather - from the Bosporan kingdom. After the weakening of Athens in the 3rd century BC. e. The Bosporan kingdom increased trade turnover with the Greek islands of Rhodes and Delos, with Pergamum, located in the western part of Asia Minor, and the cities of the southern Black Sea region - Heraclea, Amis, Sinope.

The Bosporan kingdom had many fertile lands both in the Crimea and on the Taman Peninsula, which produced large grain harvests. The main arable tool was the plow. The bread was harvested with sickles and stored in special grain pits and pithos - large clay vessels. Grain was ground in stone grain grinders, mortars and hand mills with stone millstones, found in large quantities during archaeological excavations in the eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula. Winemaking and viticulture, introduced by the ancient Greeks, were significantly developed, and a large number of orchards were planted. During the excavations of Myrmekia and Tiritaki, many wineries and stone presses were discovered, the earliest of which dates back to the 3rd century BC. e. The inhabitants of the Bosporan kingdom were engaged in cattle breeding - they kept a lot of poultry - chickens, geese, ducks, as well as sheep, goats, pigs, bulls and horses, which provided meat, milk, and leather for clothing. The main food of the common population was fresh fish - flounder, mackerel, pike perch, herring, anchovy, sultana, ram, salted in large quantities, exported from the Bosporus. Fish were caught with a seine and hooks.

Weaving and ceramic production, and the production of metal products have received great development - on the Kerch Peninsula there are large deposits of iron ore, which lies shallow. During archaeological excavations, a large number of spindles, spindle whorls, and weights suspended from threads were found, which served as the basis for tensioning them. Many items made of clay were discovered - jugs, bowls, saucers, bowls, amphoras, pithoi, roofing tiles. Ceramic water pipes, parts of architectural structures, and figurines were found. Many openers for plows, sickles, hoes, spades, nails, locks, weapons - spear and arrowheads, swords, daggers, armor, helmets, shields were excavated. In the Kul-Oba mound near Kerch, many luxury items were discovered, precious dishes, magnificent weapons, gold jewelry with animal images, gold plates for clothing, gold bracelets and hryvnias - hoops worn around the neck, earrings, rings, necklaces.

The second major Greek center of Crimea was Chersonesus, located in the southwestern part of the Crimean peninsula and has long been closely associated with Athens. Chersonesus was the closest city to both the steppe Crimea and the Asia Minor coast. This was crucial for its economic prosperity. Trade ties of Chersonese extended to the entire western and part of the steppe Crimea. Chersonese traded with Ionia and Athens, the cities of Asia Minor Heraclea and Sinope, and island Greece. The possessions of Chersonese included the city of Kerkinitida, located on the site of modern Evpatoria, and Beautiful Harbor, near the Black Sea.

Residents of Chersonesus and the surrounding area were engaged in agriculture, viticulture and cattle breeding. During excavations of the city, millstones, stupas, pithos, tarapans - platforms for squeezing grapes, curved grape knives in the form of an arc were found. Pottery production and construction were developed. Your legislative bodies in Chersonesus were the Council, which prepared decrees, and the People's Assembly, which approved them. In Chersonesus there was state and private ownership of land. On a Chersonesos marble slab of the 3rd century BC. e. The text of the act of sale of land plots by the state to private individuals has been preserved.

The greatest flourishing of the Black Sea city policies occurred in the 4th century BC. e. The city-states of the Northern Black Sea region become the main suppliers of bread and food for most cities in Greece and Asia Minor. From purely trading colonies they become trade and production centers. During the 5th and 4th centuries BC. e. Greek craftsmen produce many highly artistic products, some of which have general cultural significance. The whole world knows a golden plate with an image of a deer and an electric vase from the Kul-Oba mound near Kerch, a golden comb and silver vessels from the Solokha mound, and a silver vase from the Chertomlytsky mound. This is also the time of the highest rise of Scythia. Thousands of Scythian mounds and burials of the 4th century are known. All the so-called royal mounds, up to twenty meters high and 300 meters in diameter, date back to this century. The number of such mounds directly in Crimea is also increasing significantly, but there is only one royal one - Kul-Oba near Kerch.

In the first half of the 4th century BC. e. one of the Scythian kings, Atey, managed to concentrate supreme power in his hands and form a large state on the western borders of Great Scythia in the Northern Black Sea region. Strabo wrote: “Ataeus, who fought with Philip, son of Amyntas, seems to have dominated the majority of the local barbarians.” The capital of the kingdom of Atey was obviously a settlement near the city of Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and the village of Bolshaya Znamenka in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine - Kamensky settlement. On the side of the steppe, the settlement was protected by an earthen rampart and a ditch; on the other sides there were steep Dnieper steeps and the Belozersky estuary. The settlement was excavated in 1900 by D.Ya. Serdyukov, and in the 30s and 40s of the 20th century B.N. Grakov. The main occupation of the inhabitants was the production of bronze and iron tools, dishes, as well as agriculture and cattle breeding. The Scythian nobility lived in stone houses, farmers and artisans lived in dugouts and wooden buildings. There was active trade with the Greek policies of the Northern Black Sea region. The capital of the Scythians was the Kamensk settlement from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BC. e., and how the settlement existed until the 3rd century BC. e.

The power of the Scythian state of King Atey was thoroughly weakened by the Macedonian king Philip, the father of Alexander the Great.

Having broken the temporary alliance with Macedonia due to the reluctance to support the Macedonian army, the Scythian king Ataeus and his army, defeating the Macedonian allies of the Getae, captured almost the entire Danube delta. As a result of the bloodiest battle between the united Scythian army and the Macedonian army in 339 BC. e. King Atey was killed and his troops were defeated. The Scythian state in the northern Black Sea steppes collapsed. The reason for the collapse was not so much the military defeat of the Scythians, who a few years later destroyed the thirty thousand army of Zopynion, commander Alexander the Great, but the sharp deterioration of natural conditions in the Northern Black Sea region. According to archaeological data, during this period in the steppes the number of saigas and gophers living on abandoned pastures and lands unsuitable for livestock increases significantly. Nomadic cattle breeding could no longer feed the Scythian population and the Scythians began to leave the steppes for river valleys, gradually settling on the ground. Scythian steppe burial grounds of this period are very poor. The situation of the Greek colonies in Crimea, which began to experience the Scythian onslaught, worsened. By the beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. Scythian tribes were located in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and the northern steppe part of the Crimean Peninsula, forming here under Tsar Skilur and his son Palak a new state entity with its capital on the Salgir River near Simferopol, which later became known as Scythian Naples. The population of the new Scythian state settled on the land and the majority were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. The Scythians began to build stone houses, using the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. In 290 BC e. The Scythians created fortifications throughout the Perekop Isthmus. The Scythian assimilation of the Taurus tribes began; ancient sources began to call the population of the Crimean Peninsula “Tauroscythians” or “Scythotaurs,” who subsequently mixed with the ancient Greeks and Sarmato-Alans.

Sarmatians, Iranian-speaking nomadic pastoralists who were engaged in horse breeding, from the 8th century BC. e. lived in the territory between the Caucasus Mountains, Don and Volga. In the 5th–6th centuries BC. e. a large union of Sarmatian and nomadic Sauromatian tribes was formed, living since the 7th century in the steppe zones of the Urals and Volga region. Subsequently, the Sarmatian union constantly expanded at the expense of other tribes. In the 3rd century BC. e. the movement of the Sarmatian tribes towards the Northern Black Sea region began. Part of the Sarmatians - Siraks and Aorses - went to the Kuban region and the North Caucasus, another part of the Sarmatians in the 2nd century BC. e. three tribes - Iazyges, Roxolans and Sirmatians - reached the bend of the Dnieper in the Nikopol region and within fifty years populated the lands from the Don to the Danube, becoming the masters of the Northern Black Sea region for almost half a millennium. The penetration of individual Sarmatian detachments into the Northern Black Sea region along the Don-Tanais riverbed began in the 4th century BC. e.

It is not known for certain how the process of ousting the Scythians from the Black Sea steppes took place - military or peaceful means. Scythian and Sarmatian burials of the 3rd century BC have not been found in the Northern Black Sea region. e. The collapse of Great Scythia is separated from the formation of Great Sarmatia on the same territory by at least a hundred years.

Perhaps there was a great multi-year drought in the steppe, food for horses disappeared and the Scythians themselves left for fertile lands, concentrating in the river valleys of the Lower Don and Dnieper. There are almost no Scythian settlements of the 3rd century BC on the Crimean Peninsula. e., with the exception of the Aktash burial ground. During this period, the Scythians did not yet populate the Crimean Peninsula en masse. Historical events that took place in the Northern Black Sea region in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC. e. practically not described in ancient written sources. Most likely, the Sarmatian tribes occupied free steppe territories. One way or another, but at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. The Sarmatians are finally established in the region and the process of “Sarmatization” of the Northern Black Sea region begins. Scythia becomes Sarmatia. About fifty Sarmatian burials of the 2nd–1st centuries BC were found in the Northern Black Sea region. e., of which 22 are north of Perekop. The burials of the Sarmatian nobility are known - Sokolov's Tomb on the Southern Bug, near Mikhailovka in the Danube region, near the village of Porogi, Yampolsky district, Vinnytsia region. Found in Porogi: an iron sword, an iron dagger, a powerful bow with bone plates, iron arrowheads, darts, a gold bracer plate, a ceremonial belt, a sword belt, waist plates, brooches, shoe buckles, a gold bracelet, a gold hryvnia, a silver cup , light clay amphorae and jug, gold temple pendants, gold necklace, silver ring and mirror, gold plaques. However, the Sarmatians did not occupy Crimea and visited there only sporadically. No Sarmatian monuments of the 2nd–1st centuries BC have been found on the Crimean Peninsula. e. The appearance of the Sarmatians in Crimea was peaceful and dates back to the second half of the 1st - beginning of the 2nd century BC. e. There are no traces of destruction in the found monuments of this period. Many Sarmatian names appear in the Bosporan inscriptions; the local population begins to use Sarmatian dishes with a polished surface and handles in the shape of animals. The army of the Bosporan kingdom began to use more advanced weapons of the Sarmatian type - long swords and pike-spears. Since the 1st century, Sarmatian tamga-like signs have been used on tombstones. Some ancient authors began to call the Bosporan kingdom Greco-Sarmatian. The Sarmatians settled throughout the Crimean Peninsula. Their burials remained in Crimea near the village of Chkalovo, Nizhny Novgorod region, near the village of Istochnoye, Dzhankoy region, near the regional centers of Kirovsky and Sovetsky, near the villages of Ilyichevo, Leninsky region, Kitai, Saki region, Konstantinovka, Simferopol region. In the Nogaychik Kugan near the village of Chervony, Nizhny Novgorod region, a large number of gold jewelry was found - a gold hryvnia, earrings, and bracelets. During excavations of Sarmatian burials, iron swords, knives, vessels, jugs, cups, dishes, beads, beads, mirrors and other decorations were discovered. However, only one Sarmatian monument of the 2nd–4th centuries is known in Crimea - near the village of Orlovka, Krasnoperekopsky district. Obviously, this indicates that in the middle of the 3rd century there was a partial departure of the Sarmatian population from Crimea, perhaps to participate in the Gothic campaigns.

The Sarmatian army consisted of tribal militia; there was no standing army. The main part of the Sarmatian army was heavy cavalry, armed with a long spear and an iron sword, protected by armor and at that time practically invincible. Ammianus Marcelinus wrote: “They travel through vast spaces when they are pursuing the enemy, or they run themselves, sitting on fast and obedient horses, and each one also leads a spare horse, one, and sometimes two, so that, changing from one to another, they can save the strength of the horses, and by giving rest, restore their vigor.” Later, Sarmatian heavily armed cavalry - cataphracts, protected by helmets and ringed armor, were armed with four-meter pikes and meter-long swords, bows and daggers. To equip such cavalry, well-developed metallurgical production and weaponry, which the Sarmatians had, were required. The cataphracts attacked with a powerful wedge, later called a “pig” in medieval Europe, cut into the enemy formation, cut it in two, overturned it and completed the rout. The blow of the Sarmatian cavalry was more powerful than the Scythian, and the long weapon was superior to the weapons of the Scythian cavalry. Sarmatian horses had iron stirrups, which allowed riders to sit firmly in the saddle. During their stays, the Sarmatians surrounded their camp with wagons. Arrian wrote that the Roman cavalry learned Sarmatian military techniques. The Sarmatians collected tribute and indemnities from the conquered settled population, controlled trade and trade routes, and engaged in military robbery. However, the Sarmatian tribes did not have centralized power; each acted on its own, and during the entire period of their stay in the Northern Black Sea region, the Sarmatians never created their own state.

Strabo wrote about the Roxolani, one of the Sarmatian tribes: “They wear helmets and armor made of rawhide oxhide, they wear wicker shields as a means of protection; They also have spears, a bow and a sword... Their felt tents are attached to the tents in which they live. Around the tents there are cattle grazing, from which they feed on milk, cheese and meat. They follow the pastures, always taking turns choosing places rich in grass, in winter in the swamps near Maeotis, and in summer on the plains.”

In the middle of the 2nd century BC. e. The Scythian king Skilur upset and strengthened a city that had existed for a hundred years in the middle of the steppe Crimea and was called Scythian Naples. We know of three more Scythian fortresses of this period - Khabei, Palakion and Napite. Obviously these are the settlements of Kermenchik, located directly in Simferopol, Kermen-Kyr - 5 kilometers north of Simferopol, Bulganak settlement - 15 kilometers west of Simferopol and Ust-Alminskoye settlement near Bakhchisarai.

Scythian Naples under Skilura turned into a large trade and craft center, connected both with the surrounding Scythian cities and with other ancient cities of the Black Sea region. Apparently the Scythian leaders wanted to monopolize the entire Crimean grain trade, eliminating Greek intermediaries. Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom faced a serious threat of losing their independence.

The troops of the Scythian king Skilur captured Olbia, in the harbor of which the Scythians built a powerful galley fleet, with the help of which Skilur took the city of Tyre, a Greek colony at the mouth of the Dniester, and then Karkinita, the possession of Chersonesus, which gradually lost the entire northwestern Crimea. The Chersonese fleet tried to capture Olbia, which became the naval base of the Scythians, but after a large naval battle that was unsuccessful for them, it returned to its harbors. The Scythian ships also defeated the fleet of the Bosporan kingdom. After this, the Scythians, in long-term conflicts, cleared the Crimean coast for a long time from the Satarchean pirates, who literally terrorized the entire coastal population. After the death of Skilur, his son Palak began a war in 115 with Chersonese and the Bosporan kingdom, which lasted ten years.