From the Danube to the steppe part of the Crimea. Scythians in the Crimea. Life and religion of the inhabitants of Scythia

The Cimmerians on the Crimean Peninsula were replaced by the Scythian tribes, who moved in the 7th century BC. e. from Asia and formed in the steppes of the Black Sea and part of the Crimea a new state - 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 the Huns - the Sarmatians, the Avars and the ancestors of the Bulgarians - the Huns, then the Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans appeared and disappeared. The coming 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 winners. A feature of the Crimean peninsula was polyethnicity - different tribes and peoples coexisted simultaneously in the Crimea. From the new owners, the ruling elite was created, which 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 the nomadic horde over the neighboring agricultural tribes." Herodotus wrote about the Scythians as follows: “No enemy who attacked them can either flee from them or capture them if they do not want to be open: after all, a people who have neither cities nor fortifications, who transfer their dwellings from themselves, where everyone is a horse shooter, where livelihoods are obtained not by agriculture, but by cattle breeding, and dwellings are arranged on wagons - such a people cannot 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 land 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, squeezed out from there by stronger nomads. Scythians from Central Asia could go to 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 Ciscaucasia and the Azov steppes.

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

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

The Scythian tribal association was a military democracy with a popular assembly of personally free nomads, a council of elders and tribal leaders who brought human sacrifices to the god of war along with the priests. The Scythian union of tribes consisted of three groups, which were headed by their kings with hereditary power, one of which was considered the main one. The Scythians had a cult of the sword, they had the highest male god depicted on a horse, and a female deity - the Great Goddess or Mother of the Gods. The army consisted of a total 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, a burial of six Scythian female warriors was discovered. Necklaces made of gold and glass beads, bronze mirrors, combs, bone and lead whorls, iron spearheads and darts, bronze arrowheads, apparently lying in quivers, were found in the barrow. The Scythian cavalry was stronger than the famous Greek and Roman cavalry. The Roman historian of the 2nd century Aprian wrote about the Scythian horses: “They are difficult to disperse at first, so you can treat them with complete contempt if you see how they are compared with the Thessalian, Sicilian or Peleponnesian horse, but for that they withstand any kind of work; and then you can see how that greyhound, tall and hot horse is exhausted, and this small and mangy horse first overtakes him, then leaves him far behind. Noble Scythian warriors were dressed in armored or scaly sleeve shirts, sometimes in bronze helmets and greaves, protected by small quadrangular shields with slightly rounded corners of Greek work. The Scythian horsemen, armed with a bronze or iron sword and dagger, and having a short double-curved bow that hit 120 meters, were formidable opponents. Ordinary Scythians were light cavalry, armed with darts and spears, short swords, akinaks. Subsequently, most of the Scythian army began to be 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 - Belsky settlement in the Poltava region, 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's soldiers 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 exhaustion, "scorched earth". Detachments of equestrian Scythians could quickly make large transitions, using the herds following the army as provisions. Subsequently, the Scythian army was significantly reduced and lost its combat capability. The Scythian army, successfully resisting in the VI century BC. e. colossal army of the Persian king Darius I, at the end of the II century BC. e. together with their allies, the Roxolans were utterly defeated by the seven thousandth 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 B.C. e. 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 Skolots with the army of the Medes, the remnants of the Cimmerians and Manneans, led by the commander Kashtarita, during which Kashtarita was killed and his army defeated. In 675 B.C. e. The Scythian army of Partatua raided the lands of the Skolot tribes, who lived on the right bank of the Dnieper and along the Southern Bug, which was repelled. Since that time, towns appeared on the lands of the ethnic Proto-Slavs - small fortified settlements, dwellings of the clan. After that, the Scythian army with Partatua and his son Madius made an invasion of Central Europe in two streams, during which, in the battle on the lands of the 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 Madius entered Asia Minor along the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, defeated the Median army in a series of bloody battles, and in 626 nearly captured the capital of Media, Ektabana. The military power of the Median kingdom was destroyed, and the country was plundered. In 612 B.C. 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 ceased to exist as a kingdom.

The Scythian army with King Madius was in Asia Minor from 634 to 605 BC. e. The Scythians plundered Syria, having reached the Mediterranean Sea, imposed tribute on Egypt, the cities of Palestine. After a significant strengthening of Media, whose king Astyages poisoned almost all the Scythian commanders 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. There were several battles, and the Scythians had to return to the Taman Peninsula. Madiy, having gathered around him significant forces of Scythian nomads, bypassed the Meotian Lake - the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov - and broke into the Crimea through Perekop. During the fighting in the Crimea, Madiy apparently died.

At the beginning of the VI century BC. e. Under the reign of Ariant, the Scythians finally conquered the kingdom of Urartu, and there were constant invasions of the tribes that inhabited 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 attempt of the Scythians to go beyond the Ural Mountains to Asia was suppressed by the nomadic tribes that lived in the Lik River basin and in Altai. Returning to the Crimea, the king of Aranta imposed tribute on the tribes that lived along the Oka River. Through the Carpathians along the rivers Prut and Dnieper, the Scythian army fought in the interfluve of the Oder and Elbe. After a bloody battle near the Spree River, on the site of modern Berlin, the Scythians came to the coast of the Baltic Sea. However, due to the stubborn resistance of the local tribes, the Scythians failed to fortify themselves there. During the next campaign to the sources of the Western Bug, the Scythian army was defeated, and King Arianta himself died.

The aggressive campaigns 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 moats. Large Scythian settlements on the territory of Ukraine are known - Matreninskoe, Pastyrskoe, Nemirovskoe and Belskoe. The main occupation of the Scythians was nomadic cattle breeding. Their dwellings were tents on wheels, they ate boiled meat, drank mare's milk, men dressed in a jacket, trousers and a caftan, tied with a leather belt, women - in sundresses and kokoshniks. According to Greek models, 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 as follows: “The Scythian tribe ... was nomadic, ate not only meat in general, but especially horse meat, as well as koumiss cheese, fresh and sour milk; the latter, prepared in a special way, serves as a delicacy for them. Nomads are more warriors than robbers, yet they wage wars because of tribute. Indeed, they give 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 in order to satisfy the necessary daily requirements of life. However, with those who do not pay them money, the nomads are at war. And indeed, if they had been properly paid the rent for the land, they would never have started a war.”

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

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, the political struggle in the policies - the Greek city-states, the 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 wide opportunities for trade with local tribes of "barbarians". 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 contained 20 liters. Near the port of Marseille, off the coast of France, such a Greek merchant ship was discovered, 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 the Scythian burial ground on Mount Temir near Kerch, a beautifully painted Rhodos-Miletian vase, made at that time, was discovered. The inhabitants of the largest Greek city-state of Miletus founded more than 70 settlements on the banks of the Euxine Pontus. Emporia - Greek trading posts - began to appear on the shores of the Black Sea in the 7th century BC. e., the first of which at the entrance to the Dnieper estuary on the island of Berezan was Borisfenida. Then in the first half of the VI century BC. e. Olbia appeared at the mouth of the Southern Bug (Gypanis), Tiras appeared at the mouth of the Dniester, and Feodosia (on the shore of the Feodost Bay) and Panticapaeum (on the site of modern Kerch) appeared on the Kerch Peninsula. In the middle of the VI century BC. e. Nymphaeum arose in eastern Crimea (17 kilometers from Kerch near the village of Geroevka, on the shore of the Kerch Strait), Kimmerik (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 ), Mirmekiy (on the Kerch Peninsula, 4 kilometers from Kerch), Kitey (on the Kerch Peninsula, 40 kilometers south of Kerch), Parthenius and Parthia (north of Kerch), in the western Crimea - Kerkinitida (on the site of modern Evpatoria ), on the Taman Peninsula - Germonassa (in place of Taman) and Phanagoria. On the southern coast of the Crimea, a Greek settlement appeared, which was 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 the colonists, the city or the departing Greeks themselves chose from their midst the leader of the colony - the 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 citizens of the city. All rural settlements of the chora were subordinate to the city. Colonial cities had their own constitution, their own laws, courts, minted their own coins. Their policy was independent of the policy of the metropolis. The Greek colonization of the Northern Black Sea region mainly took place peacefully and accelerated the process of historical development of local tribes, significantly expanding the areas of distribution of ancient culture.

About 660 B.C. e. Byzantium was founded by the Greeks at the southern mouth of the Bosporus, to protect the Greek trade routes. Subsequently, in 330, the Roman emperor Constantine founded the new capital of the state of Constantine - "New Rome" on the site of the trading city of Byzantium, on the European coast of the Bosphorus, which after a while became known as 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. Natives of the ancient Greek city on the southern coast of the Black Sea Heraclea Pontic 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 among all the inhabitants of the city - Tauris, Scythians and Dorian Greeks, at first there was equality.

By the end of the 5th century BC. e. Greek colonization of the Crimea and the Black Sea coast 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 emporia 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 Greek-Scythian, were trade and fishing, cattle breeding, agriculture, crafts associated with the production of metal products. The Greeks lived in stone houses. A blank wall separated the house from the street, all the buildings were placed around the yard. Rooms and utility rooms were illuminated through windows and doors facing the courtyard.

Approximately from the 5th century BC. e. Scythian-Greek ties began to be established and rapidly developed. There were also Scythian raids on the Greek Black Sea cities. It is known that the Scythians attacked the city of Mirmekiy at the beginning of the 5th century BC. e. During archeological excavations, it was found that part of the settlements that were 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 could be one of the reasons that the independent Greek Black Sea cities around 480 BC. e. united in a military union.

Trade, crafts, agriculture, and arts developed in the Greek policies of the Black Sea region. They had a great economic and cultural influence on the local tribes, while simultaneously adopting all their achievements. Through the Crimea, trade was carried out between the Scythians, Greeks and many cities of Asia Minor. The Greeks took from the Scythians, first of all, bread grown by the local population under Scythian control, cattle, honey, wax, salted fish, metal, leather, amber and slaves, and the Scythians - metal products, ceramic and glassware, marble, luxury items, 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, as a result, transhumance cattle breeding appeared. Part 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 reached half a million people.

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

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

In 519-512 BC. e. the Persian king Darius I, during an aggressive campaign 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 tactics of "scorched earth", did not enter into an unequal battle, but went deep into their country, destroying wells and burning grass. Having crossed the Dniester and the Southern Bug, the Persian army passed through the steppes of the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Azov, crossed the Don and, unable to fortify anywhere, went home. The company failed, although the Persians did not fight a single battle.

The Scythians formed an alliance of all local tribes, the military aristocracy began to stand out, a layer of priests and the best warriors appeared - Scythia acquired the features of a state formation. At the end of the VI 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 made it possible to hide from the raids of nomads. The early history of the Slavs does not have accurate documentary evidence; it is impossible to reliably illuminate the period of Slavic history from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century BC. e. until the 4th century AD e. However, it is safe to say that for centuries the Proto-Slavs repelled one wave of nomads after another.

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

About fifty Scythian burial mounds of the 5th century BC have been 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 the northern Crimea increased and in the 4th century BC. e. becomes very significant.

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

Panticapaeum, an ancient city in the 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 for building 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 Mitridatova. Grain deliveries from the fertile plains of the 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, 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 is translated, perhaps, as "fish way" - the Kerch Strait abounding in fish. He minted his copper, silver and gold coins. In the first half of the 5th century BC. e. Panticapaeum united around itself the Greek cities-colonies located on both banks of the Cimmerian Bosporus - the Kerch Strait. Understanding the need for unification for self-preservation and the implementation of their economic interests, the Greek policies formed the Bosporan kingdom. Shortly thereafter, to protect the state from the invasion of nomads, a fortified rampart with a deep moat was created, crossing the Crimean peninsula from the city of Tiritaka, located at Cape Kamysh-Burun, to the Sea of ​​Azov. In the VI century BC. e. Panticapaeum was surrounded by a defensive wall.

Until 437 BC. e. The kings of the Bosporus were the Greek Milesian dynasty of the Archaeanactids, the ancestor of which was Archaeanact, the 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 detour of the Greek colonial cities with a large squadron to establish closer political and trade ties. Pericles negotiated grain deliveries with the Bosporus king and then with the Scythians in Olbia. After his departure to the Kingdom of Bosporus, the Archaeanactid dynasty was replaced by the local Hellenized Spartocid 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 (Chersonesus in Greek means peninsula - A.A.), which brought salvation to the Hellenes who lived 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 led fortifications and barriers across the isthmus from sea to sea and thus put obstacles to the raids of the Thracians who lived in large numbers near Chersonesus, and put an end to the continuous, difficult war, from which this land constantly suffered, being in direct contact with neighboring barbarians and filled with bands of robbers, both on the border and within its borders.

King Spartok, his sons Satyr and Levkon together with the Scythians as a result of the war of 400-375 BC. e. with Hercules of Pontus, the main trading competitor, Theodosius and Sindika, the kingdom of the Sind people on the Taman Peninsula, located below the Kuban and the Southern Bug, were conquered. The Bosporus king Perisades I, who ruled 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 Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. His son Eumel succeeded, by building a huge fleet, to clear the Black Sea of ​​pirates who interfered with trade. In Panticapaeum there were large shipyards, also involved in the repair of ships. The Bosporan kingdom had a navy consisting of narrow and long high-speed triremes, which had three rows of oars on each side and a powerful and durable ram on the bow. Triremes were usually 36 meters long, 6 meters wide, and the depth of the draft was about one yard. The crew of such a ship consisted of 200 people - rowers, sailors and a small detachment of marines. There were almost no boarding battles then, triremes at full speed rammed enemy ships and sank them. The ram of the trireme consisted of two or three sharp sword-shaped tips. The ships developed a speed of up to five knots, and with a sail - up to eight knots - about 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 militias of citizens 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, protective equipment consisted of shields, helmets, bracers and greaves. The cavalry of the army was the nobility of the Bosporus 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 built dry from large rectangular limestone blocks one and a half meters long and half a meter wide, closely fitted 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 ​​\u200b\u200bAzov in the north. A wide ditch was dug in front of the rampart. The second rampart 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 middle of the 19th century, the width of the shaft at the base was 20 meters, in the upper part - 14 meters, and the height - 4.5 meters. The ditch was 3 meters deep and 15 meters wide. These fortifications stopped nomadic raids on the lands of the Bosporan kingdom. The estates of the local Bosporan and Chersonese 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 Eumel repeatedly tried to seize the lands of the ethnic Proto-Slavs, but were repelled. At this time, at the confluence of the Don into the Sea of ​​Azov, Evmel built the fortress-city of Tanais (near the village of Nedvigolovka at the mouth of the Don), which became the largest trading point in the Northern Black Sea region. The Bosporan kingdom in its heyday had a territory from Chersonesos to the Kuban and to the mouth of the Don. There was a union of the Greek population with the Scythians, the Bosporan kingdom became Greek-Scythian. The main income was brought by trade with Greece and other Attic states. Half of the bread she needed - one million pounds, timber, furs, leather, the Athenian state received from the Bosporan kingdom. After the weakening of Athens in the III 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 with 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 yielded large grain crops. The main arable implement was the plow. Bread was harvested with sickles and stored in special grain pits and pithos - large earthenware vessels. Grain was ground in stone grain graters, 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, brought by the ancient Greeks, was significantly developed, a large number of orchards were bred. During the excavations of Myrmekia and Tiritaki, many wineries and stone crushers were unearthed, the earliest of which dates back to the 3rd century BC. e. The inhabitants of the Bosporus 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 gave meat, milk, skin for clothes. The main food of the common population was fresh fish - flounder, mackerel, pike perch, herring, anchovy, sultanka, ram, salted in large quantities exported from the Bosporus. Fish were caught with nets and hooks.

Weaving and ceramic production, the manufacture of metal products have been greatly developed - on the Kerch Peninsula there are large deposits of iron ore, which is shallow. During archaeological excavations, a large number of spindles, spindle whorls, weights-pendants for threads were found, which served as the basis for stretching them. Many items made of clay were found - jugs, bowls, saucers, bowls, amphorae, pithoi, roofing tiles. Found ceramic water pipes, parts of architectural structures, figurines. Many coulters for plows, sickles, hoes, spades, nails, locks, weapons - spearheads and arrowheads, swords, daggers, armor, helmets, shields have been excavated. In the Kul-Oba mound near Kerch, many luxury items, precious dishes, magnificent weapons, gold jewelry with animal images, gold plates for clothes, gold bracelets and torcs - hoops worn around the neck, earrings, rings, necklaces were found.

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

The inhabitants of Chersonesus and the surrounding area were engaged in agriculture, viticulture and cattle breeding. During the excavations of the city, millstones, stupas, pithoi, tarapanas were found - platforms for squeezing grapes, grape knives of a curved shape in the form of an arc. Pottery production and construction business were developed. Your legislative bodies in Chersonese were the Council, which prepared decrees, and the People's Assembly, which approved them. In Chersonesos, 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 government to private individuals has been preserved.

The greatest flowering of the Black Sea policies falls on the 4th century BC. e. The city-states of the Northern Black Sea region became the main suppliers of bread and food for most cities in Greece and Asia Minor. From purely trading colonies become trade and production centers. During the 5th and 4th centuries BC. e. Greek craftsmen produce many highly artistic items, some of which are of general cultural significance. The whole world knows a gold plate with the image of a deer and an electric vase from the Kul-Oba barrow near Kerch, a golden comb and silver vessels from the Solokha barrow, a silver vase from the Chertomlytsky barrow. This is the time of the highest rise of Scythia. Thousands of Scythian mounds and burials of the 4th century are known. By this century, all the so-called royal mounds, up to twenty meters high and 300 meters in diameter, will be attributed. The number of such mounds directly in the Crimea also increases significantly, but there is only one royal mound - 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: "Atheus, who fought with Philip, the son of Amyntas, seems to have dominated most of the local barbarians." The capital of the kingdom of Athea was obviously a settlement near the city of Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and the village of Bolshaya Znamenka in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine - the Kamenskoye settlement. From the side of the steppe, the settlement was protected by an earthen rampart and a moat, from 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 XX century B.N. Grakov. The main occupation of the inhabitants was the manufacture of bronze and iron tools, utensils, 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 an active trade with the Greek policies of the Northern Black Sea region. The capital of the Scythians Kamenskoye settlement was obviously from the 5th to the 3rd century BC. e., and how the settlement existed until the III century BC. e.

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

Having broken the temporary alliance with Macedonia due to the unwillingness to support the Macedonian army, the Scythian king Atey with his army, having defeated the Macedonian allies of the Getae, captured almost the entire Danube Delta. As a result of the bloody battle of the united Scythian army and the Macedonian army in 339 BC. e. King Atey was killed and his troops defeated. The Scythian state in the northern Black Sea steppes disintegrated. The reason for the collapse was not so much the military defeat of the Scythians, who in a few years destroyed the thirty-thousandth army of Zopirnion, 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, the number of saigas and ground squirrels, animals living on abandoned pastures and lands not suitable for livestock, significantly increased in the steppes. Nomadic cattle breeding could no longer feed the Scythian population and the Scythians began to leave the steppes for the river valleys, gradually settling on the ground. The Scythian steppe cemeteries of this period are very poor. The position of the Greek colonies in the Crimea worsened, which began to experience the onslaught of the Scythians. 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 formation with a capital on the Salgir River near Simferopol, later called Scythian Naples. The population of the new Scythian state settled on the ground and was mostly 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 later mixed with the ancient Greeks and Sarmato-Alans.

Sarmatians, Iranian-speaking nomadic pastoralists who bred horses, from the 8th century BC. e. lived in the territory between the Caucasus Mountains, the Don and the Volga. In the V-VI centuries BC. e. a large union of Sarmatian and nomadic Sauromatian tribes was formed, who lived from the 7th century in the steppe zones of the Urals and the Volga region. Subsequently, the Sarmatian union was constantly expanding at the expense of other tribes. In the III 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, the other part of the Sarmatians in the 2nd century BC. e. three tribes - Iazygs, Roxolans and Sirmats - went to the bend of the Dnieper in the Nikopol region and for fifty years settled 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 channel began as early as 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 - by 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 separates at least a hundred years from the formation of Great Sarmatia on the same territory.

Perhaps there was a great long-term drought in the steppe, food for horses disappeared and the Scythians themselves went to fertile lands, concentrating in the river valleys of the Lower Don and the 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. The Scythians in this period did not massively populate the Crimean peninsula. Historical events that took place in the Northern Black Sea region in the III-II centuries BC. e. practically not described in ancient written sources. Most likely, the Sarmatian tribes occupied the free steppe territories. One way or another, but at the beginning of the II century BC. e. 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 II-I centuries BC were found in the Northern Black Sea region. e., of which 22 are north of Perekop. The graves of the Sarmatian nobility are known - Sokolova Grave on the Southern Bug, near Mikhailovka in the Danube region, near the village of Porogi, Yampolsky district, Vinnitsa region. In the Thresholds were found: an iron sword, an iron dagger, a powerful bow with bone overlays, iron arrowheads, darts, a gold plate-bracer, a ceremonial belt, a harness belt, belt linings, brooches, shoe buckles, a gold bracelet, a gold hryvnia, a silver goblet , light-clay amphoras and a jug, gold temporal pendants, a gold necklace, a silver ring and a mirror, gold plaques. However, the Sarmatians did not occupy Crimea and visited there only sporadically. Sarmatian monuments of the 2nd-1st centuries BC have not been found on the Crimean peninsula. e. The appearance of the Sarmatians in the Crimea was peaceful and dated to the second half of the 1st - the 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 form of animals. The army of the Bosporan kingdom began to use more advanced weapons of the Sarmatian type - long swords and spears. Since the 1st century, Sarmatian tamga-like signs have been spreading on tombstones. Some ancient authors began to call the Bosporan kingdom Greco-Sarmatian. Sarmatians settled throughout the Crimean peninsula. Their burials remained in the Crimea near the village of Chkalovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region, near the village of Istochny Dzhankoy region, near the regional centers of Kirovsky and Sovetsky, near the villages of Ilyichevo in the Leninsky region, China in the Saki region, Konstantinovka in the Simferopol region. In the Nogaichik kugan, near the village of Chervony, Nizhnegorodsky district, a large number of gold jewelry was found - a gold hryvnia, earrings, bracelets. During the excavations of the Sarmatian burials, iron swords, knives, vessels, jugs, goblets, crockery, beads, glass beads, mirrors and other adornments were found. 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 the Crimea, perhaps ready to participate in campaigns.

The Sarmatian army consisted of a 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. Ammian Marcellinus wrote: “They pass through vast spaces when they are pursuing the enemy, or they themselves run, sitting on fast and obedient horses, and each one also leads a spare horse, one, and sometimes two, in order to change from one to another, to save the strength of the horses, and giving rest, restore their vigor. Later, Sarmatian heavily armed cavalry - cataphracts, protected by helmets and ringed armor, were armed with four-meter peaks and meter-long swords, bows and daggers. To equip such a cavalry, well-developed metallurgical production and weaponry were required, which the Sarmatians had. The cataphracts attacked with a powerful wedge, later called a “pig” in medieval Europe, cut into the enemy formation, cut it in two, overturned and completed the rout. The blow of the Sarmatian cavalry was more powerful than the Scythian one, and the long weapon was superior to the armament of the Scythian cavalry. The horses of the Sarmatians had iron stirrups, which allowed the riders to sit firmly in the saddle. During the stops, 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 for the entire time of their stay in the Northern Black Sea region, the Sarmatians did not create their own state.

Strabo wrote about the poxolans, one of the Sarmatian tribes: “They use helmets and shells made of rawhide bullskin, they wear wicker shields as a protective measure; they also have spears, a bow and a sword… Their felt tents are attached to the wagons in which they live. Cattle graze around the tents, on whose milk, cheese and meat they feed. They follow the pastures, always taking turns choosing places rich in grass, in the winter in the marshes near Meotida, and in the summer on the plains.

In the middle of the II century BC. e. the Scythian king Skilur upset and fortified the city that had existed for a hundred years in the middle of the steppe Crimea and was called Scythian Naples. We know three more fortresses of the Scythians of this period - Khabei, Palakion and Napit. 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-Alma settlement near Bakhchisarai.

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

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

Chersonese, starting from the end of the III-II century BC. e. in alliance with the Sarmatian tribes, constantly fought with the Scythians. Not relying on their own strength in 179 BC. e. 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 B.C. e. 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. declared himself Mithridates II from the Persian family of the Achaemenids, and in 301 BC. e. under Mithridates III, the country received the name of the Pontic kingdom with its capital in Amasia. In a treaty of 179 B.C. e., concluded by Pharnaces I with the Bithynian, Pergamum and Cappadocian kings, along with Chersonesus, the Sarmatian tribes led by King Gatal are also guarantors of this agreement. In 183 BC. e. Farnak I conquered Sinop, a port city on the southern coast of the Black Sea, under Mithridates V Everget, which became the capital of the Pontic kingdom. From 111 BC e. Mithridates VI Eupator becomes the king of the Pontic kingdom, his life goal being the creation of a world monarchy.

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

Mithridates in 110 B.C. e. sent to the aid of a large Pontic fleet with a six thousand landing force of 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 the king of the Sarmatian tribe of the Roxolans, Tasia, who sent 50 thousand heavily armed horsemen. The battles took place in the mountainous regions of the southern Crimea, where the Roxalan cavalry was unable to deploy their battle formations. The fleet and troops of Diophantus, together with the detachments of Chersonesus, destroyed the Scythian fleet and defeated the Scythians, who had been besieging Chersonesos for more than a year. The broken Roxolans left the Crimean peninsula.

The Greek geographer and historian Strabo wrote in his “Geography”: “The Roksolani fought even 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 people and a crowd of lightly armed people are powerless before a properly built and well-armed phalanx. In any case, the Roxolans, numbering about 50,000 people, could not resist the 6,000 people put up by Diaphant, the commander of Mithridates, and were mostly destroyed.

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

Having freed 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 Kimmerik, Tiritaka and Nymphaeum. After that, Diaphantus, with the Chersonese and Bosporan troops, marched into the steppe Crimea and took the Scythian fortresses of Naples and Khabei 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 Sinop, the capital of Pontus, leaving garrisons in Evpatoria, the Beautiful Harbor and Kerkinida.

A year later, the Scythian army of Palak, having gathered strength, again began hostilities with Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom, defeating their troops in several battles. Again, Mithridates sent a fleet with Diaphantus, who pushed the Scythians back to the steppe Crimea, destroyed the Scythian army in a general battle and occupied Scythian Naples and Khabei, during the storming 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 Tire, paid tribute and gave soldiers to his army.

In 107 BC. e. the rebellious Scythian population, led by Savmak, captured Panticapaeum, killing the Bosporus king Perisad. Diaphant, who was negotiating the transfer of power in the kingdom to Mithridates VI of Pontus in the capital of Bosporus, managed to leave for the city of Nymphaeum, located not far from Panticapaeum, and sailed by sea to Chersonesus, and from there to Sinop.

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

In the spring of 106 BC. e. Diaphant with a huge fleet entered the Quarantine Bay of Tauric Chersonesos, recaptured Feodosia and Panticapaeum from Savmak, capturing him as well. The rebels were destroyed, the troops of Diaphant established themselves in the west of the Crimean peninsula. Mithridates VI of Pontus became the owner of almost the entire Crimea, receiving from the population of the Crimean peninsula an enormous amount of bread and silver in the form of tribute.

Chersonese and the Kingdom of Bosporus recognized the supreme power of Pontus. Mithridates VI became the king of the Bosporus kingdom, including Chersonese in its composition, which retained self-government and autonomy. In all the cities of the southwestern Crimea, Pontic garrisons appeared, 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 that controlled vast territories. The Roman legions had a clear control - ten cohorts, each of which was divided into three maniples, which included two centuries. The legionnaire was dressed in an iron helmet, leather or iron armor, had a sword, dagger, two darts and a shield. The soldiers were trained in thrusting, the most effective in close combat. The legion, which had 6,000 soldiers and a detachment of cavalry, was the most powerful military formation of that time. In 89 B.C. 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 ceded from the Pontic king, but in 80, his commander Neoptolemos twice defeated the Bosporan army and returned the Bosporus under 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 Bosporus possessions in the Crimea, which were soon blocked from the sea by the Roman fleet. The Roman fleet mainly consisted of trieres, biremes and libournes, the main driving force of which, along with sails, were oars arranged in several rows. The ships had rams with three points and powerful lifting ladders, which, during boarding, fell from above on the enemy ship and broke its hull. During boarding, the marines burst into the enemy ship along the ladder, which turned into a special kind of troops among the Romans. 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 an order to detain and execute all merchants following in the harbor of the Bosporus 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, the Roman blockade of the coast did not suit the higher nobility of Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom. In Phanagoria, an anti-Mithridatic uprising took place, spreading to Chersonesos, Theodosia, Nymphaeum, and even to the army of Mithridates. In 63 BC. e. he committed suicide. The son of Mithridates Farnak II became the king of the Bosporus, who betrayed his father and actually organized and led the uprising. Farnak sent the body of his murdered father to Sinop to Pompey and expressed complete obedience to Rome, for which he was left the king of the Bosporus with the subjugation of Chersonese to him, which he ruled until 47 BC. e. The states of the Northern Black Sea region lost their political independence. Only the territory of the Taurians from Balaklava to Feodosia remained independent until the arrival of Roman military units on the Crimean peninsula.

In 63 BC. e. Farnak II concluded a treaty of friendship with the Roman Empire, receiving the title of "friend and ally of Rome", given only after the recognition of the king as a legitimate monarch. An ally of Rome was obliged to protect its borders, receiving in return money, the patronage of Rome and the right to 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 the king of the Bosporus, the next candidate necessarily received approval from the Roman emperor, for whom he sometimes had to travel to the capital of the empire, and the regalia of his power - a curule chair and a scepter. The Bosporan king Kotim I added two more names to his name - Tiberius Julius, and all subsequent Bosporan kings mechanically added these two names to their own, creating the Tiberian Julius dynasty. The Roman government, in pursuing its policy in the Bosporus, relied, as elsewhere, on the Bosporan nobility, linking it 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 sleeping officer, the personal secretary of the king, the chief scribe, the chief of reports; the military - the strategist of citizens, navarch, chiliarch, lohag. At the head of the citizens of the Bosporus state was a politarch. Around this period, a number of fortresses were built in 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, Andreevka Yuzhnaya. The thickness of the walls reached five meters, a moat was dug around them. Fortresses were also built to protect the Bosporan possessions on the Taman Peninsula. The rural settlements of the Bosporan kingdom in the first centuries of our era were divided into three types. In the valleys, unfortified villages were located, consisting of houses separated from each other by household plots. In places convenient for the construction of fortifications, there were settlements, whose houses did not have household plots and crowded one next to the other. 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 most studied by archaeologists. The stone houses of the settlement had wooden ceilings and roofs made of wicker rods coated with clay. Most of the houses were two-story, also plastered with clay inside. On the first floors there were utility rooms, on the second - living rooms. In front of the entrance to the house there was a courtyard lined with stone slabs, in which there was a livestock room with a manger for hay, made of stone slabs placed on the edge. The houses were heated by stone or brick stoves with an upper adobe slab with curved edges. The floors of the houses were earthen, sometimes with plank flooring. The inhabitants of the settlement were free landowners. During the excavations of the settlement, weapons, coins and other items were found that the slaves could not have. Grain graters, looms, clay vessels with food, cult figurines, hand-made ware of local production, 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, viticultural knives, grape grains and seeds, ceramic dishes - containers for storing and transporting grain. The found coins, a red-lacquer dish, amphoras, glass and bronze vessels testify to the extensive trade relations between the Bosporan cities and towns.

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

In the 50s of the 1st century in the Roman Empire, Caesar and Pompey began a civil war. Farnak 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 on 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." Farnak again submitted to Rome and was sent 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 Bosporus kingdom, who failed to do this and was killed. Asander married Pharnaces' daughter Dynamis in 41 BC. e. was declared king of the Bosporus. The former order was gradually restored in the kingdom and a new economic upsurge began. The export of bread, fish, and livestock increased significantly. Wine in amphora, olive oil, glass, red-lacquer and bronze dishes, 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, with the Volga region and the North Caucasus.

In 45-44 BC. e. Chersonesos sends an embassy to Rome headed by G. Julius Satyr, as a result of which he receives from Caesar an eleutheria - a "charter of freedom" - independence from the Bosporan kingdom. Chersonese was declared a free city and became subject only to Rome, but this lasted only until 42 BC. e., when, after the assassination of Caesar, the Roman commander Anthony deprived Chersonese and other cities in the eastern part of the empire of eleutheria. Asander tries to capture Chersonese, but unsuccessfully. In 25-24 BC. e. in Chersonese 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 the Greek cities in the east. At the same time, Augustus recognized the rights of Asander to the Bosporan throne. Under the pressure of Rome, another rapprochement between Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom begins.

In 16 BC. e. The economic and political upsurge of the Bosporan kingdom displeases Rome, Asander is forced to leave the political arena and transfer his power to Dinamy, 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 the Crimea, who, in the fight against Scribonius, hardly established himself on the throne and ruled the Bosporus kingdom from 14 to 10 BC. e.

Aspurg becomes the new husband of Dynamis and the king of the Bosporus. Several wars of the Bosporus kingdom with the Scythians and Taurians are known, as a result of which some of them were subjugated. However, in the title of Aspurga, 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 could not 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 Kotis, sent by him to Rome, informed Claudius that Mithridates VIII was preparing for an armed rebellion against the Roman authorities. Roman troops sent to the Crimean peninsula in 46 AD 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 legionaries of G. Julius Aquila, sent from Asia Minor, defeated the detachments of Mithridates VIII, captured him and brought him to Rome. It was then, according to Tacitus, that near the southern coast of Crimea, the Taurians captured several Roman ships returning home.

The new Bosporan king in 49 was the son of Aspurg and the Thracian princess Kotis I, from whom a new dynasty begins, which no longer has Greek roots. Under Cotys I, the foreign trade of the Bosporan kingdom began to recover in large volumes. The main commodities 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 Bosporus king, and the main buyer was the Roman Empire. Roman merchant ships were up to twenty meters long and up to six wide, with a draft of up to three meters and a displacement of up to 150 tons. Up to 700 tons of grain could be placed in the holds. Very large ships were also built. Olive oil, metals, building materials, glassware, lamps, art objects were brought to Panticapaeum for sale to all the tribes of the Northern Black Sea region.

From this period, the Roman Empire controls the entire Black Sea coast, except for Colchis. The Bosporus king passed into submission 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 Chersonese were satisfied with this situation - the Roman Empire ensured the development of the economy and trade, 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.

Khersones was on the side of Rome during all the Roman-Bosporan wars, for participation in which he received from the empire the right to mint a gold coin. At this time, the ties between Rome and Chersonesos were significantly strengthened.

In the middle of the 1st century, the Scythians became active again on the Crimean peninsula. On the western coast, in the steppe and foothill Crimea, a large number of Scythian settlements fortified with stone walls and ditches were found, inside of which there were stone and brick houses. Around the same time, the Sarmatian tribe of the Alans, who called themselves Irons, created an alliance of Iranian-speaking tribes who settled in the Northern Black Sea region, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and the Caucasus Mountains. From there, the Alans began to raid the Transcaucasus, Asia Minor, Media. Josephus Flavius ​​in the "Jewish War" writes about the terrible invasion of the Alans to Armenia and Media in 72, calling the Alans "Scythians living near Tanais and Meotian Lake." 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 Ammian Marcellinus is also interesting: “Almost all of them are tall and beautiful, their hair is blond; they are menacing with the fierce look of their eyes and fast, thanks to the lightness of their weapons ... The Alans are a nomadic people, they live in tents covered with bark. They do not know agriculture, they keep a lot of cattle and mostly 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 horseback riding, they are all dashing riders and walking is considered a disgrace to them. The limits of their nomads are on the one hand Armenia with Media, on the other - the Bosporus. Their occupation is robbery and hunting. They love war and danger. They scalp their dead enemies and decorate the bridles of their horses with them. They have no temples, no houses, no tents. They honor 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 foothill and southwestern Crimea, the Bosporus kingdom, which was experiencing an economic and political upsurge. A large number of Sarmatian-Alans and Scythians mixed and settled in the Crimean cities. In the steppe Crimea, the Alans appeared only occasionally, not assimilating with the Scythian population. In 212, on the southeastern coast of Crimea, probably the Alans built the fortress of Sugdeya (now Sudak), which became the main Alanian port on the Crimean peninsula. The Alans also lived in the Crimea during the Tatar-Mongolian period. Bishop Theodore of Alan, who in 1240 took holy orders and was on his way from the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which was at that time in Nicaea to the Transcaucasian Alans through Chersonese and the Bosporus, wrote in a message to the Patriarch of Constantinople: “Alans live near Cherson as much by their own will as at the request of the people of Kherson, like a kind of fence and protection. Sarmato-Alan burial grounds were found near Sevastopol, Bakhchisaray, in Scythian Naples, in the interfluve of Belbek and Kacha.

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 Chersonese. The city asked for help from its superiors, the legate of the Roman province of Moesia.

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

The main base of Rome and then the Byzantine Empire in the Crimea was Chersonese, 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 Roman garrison of soldiers of the I Italian and XI Claudian legions was constantly in the fortress. Kharaks, who controlled the coast from Ayu-Dag to Simeiz, had two belts of defense, ammunition depots and water supplies in a cemented nymphaeum reservoir, which made it possible to withstand prolonged attacks. Inside the fortress, stone and brick houses were built, there was a water pipe, there was a sanctuary of the Roman gods. The camp of the Roman legionnaires was also located near Balaklava - near the Simbolon Bay. The Romans also built roads in the 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 - 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 appear in Chersonese and Charax. Rome has always closely followed the situation on the Crimean peninsula. The southwestern Crimea remained with the Scythians and Sarmatians, and Chersonese successfully established trade relations with the Scythian capital Naples and the local settled population. Grain trade increases significantly, Chersonesus supplies bread and food to a significant part of the cities of the Roman Empire.

During the reign of the Bosporan kings Sauromat I (94-123 years) and Kotis II (123-132 years), 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 Bosporus kingdom. Khersones at their request. The Roman Empire under Kotis again gave the supreme power in the Crimea to the Bosporan kingdom and Chersonesus once again became dependent on Panticapaeum. For some time there were Roman military formations in the Bosporan kingdom. Two stone tombstones of a centurion of the Thracian cohort and a soldier of the Cypriot cohort were excavated in Kerch.

In 136, the war between the Romans and the Alans, who came to Asia Minor, began, and the Taurus-Scythian detachments besieged Olbia, from which they were driven back by the Romans. In 138, Khersones received from the empire the "second eleutheria", which at that time meant no longer 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, a thousand Roman legionnaires appeared in the Chersonese fortress to protect Chersonesos from the Scythians and Sarmatians, five hundred - in the fortress of Charax, and in the harbor - the ships of the Moesian squadron. In addition to the centurion, who led the Roman garrison, there was a military tribune of the 1st Italian Legion in Chersonese, who led all the Roman troops in Taurica and Scythia. In the south-eastern part of the Kherson settlement, in the city citadel, the foundation of the barracks, the remains of the house of the Roman governor and the baths of the Roman garrison, built in the middle of the 1st century, were found. Archaeological excavations have witnessed 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 protect the approaches to Chersonesos, control the population of the southern and southwestern parts of Crimea and protect Roman ships sailing along the southern part of the Crimean peninsula along the sea route that passed from Olbia to the Caucasus. In addition to guard duty, the legionnaires were engaged in agriculture on specially allocated lands and various crafts - foundry, pottery, brick and tile production, as well as glassware. In almost all Roman settlements in the Crimea, the remains of manufacturing workshops were found. Roman troops were also maintained at the expense of the Tauride cities. Roman traders and artisans appeared in the Crimea. In addition to legionnaires, predominantly of Thracian ethnic origin, members of their families and retired veterans lived in Chersonese. The stable calm situation made it possible to significantly increase foreign trade in grain and foodstuffs, which greatly improved the economic situation of Chersonese.

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

Late Scythians and Sarmatians

Iranian-speaking newcomers - Scythians, who appeared in the Northern Black Sea region as early as the 7th century. BC e., gradually become the new masters of the Crimea, pushing the natives to the foothills. Already in the time of Herodotus, the Scythians in the Crimea gradually settle on the ground, enter into close relations with the inhabitants of the Greek cities. The residence of the Scythian kings from the Dnieper region (Kamenskoye settlement near Nikopol) is transferred to the Crimea: here from the 3rd century. BC e. according to the III century. and. e. there is a state of the late Scythians with its capital in Naples ("New City" - Greek), located on one of the hills within the boundaries of modern Simferopol. The Scythian leaders sought to get closer to the Greek cities of the Bosporan kingdom and Chersonese with their wealth, to make them dependent, to conduct an independent trade in bread, for which they received luxury goods - wine, olive oil, expensive utensils and gold jewelry. Close contact with the Greeks gave the Late Scythian culture a special syncretic character; the Scythian animal style almost disappears, along with the imitation of the Greeks, Sarmatian influences are increasingly manifested, the Hellenistic culture is being barbarized.

The borders of the late Scythian state extended to the Main Range of the Crimean Mountains, in the west - to the coast, in the east they reached Feodosia. The lands of the river valleys of Alma, Kacha, Belbek were especially actively settled in the first centuries of our era, when the Scythians, in turn, began to be crowded out by the Sarmatians. Fortified Late Scythian settlements arose, often in places where the Taurians used to live. They have undergone systematic study relatively recently. Since 1954, the study of the settlement on the left bank of the Alma River, near the village of Zavetnoye - Alma-kermen, began: the remains of a defensive wall and fortifications were preserved here, where residents of an open village took refuge at a time of danger. At the mouth of the Alma, on the very shore of the sea, another settlement of the late Scythians, Ust-Alma, was explored. The well-studied necropolis of this settlement spoke figuratively, so to speak, in the language of funeral rites, about the ethnic diversity of the late Scythian state. The Scythians dug a large and deep crypt, where a corridor led - dromos. The burial chamber with group burials was closed with a large stone slab, and the dromos was filled with stones. With each new burial, the stone blockage in the dromos was dismantled. Near the graves in special pits there are burials of horses. Among the grave goods there are brooches, hryvnias, ornaments made of bronze and occasionally gold. The influx of the Sarmatians is evidenced by a significant number of pit graves characteristic of them: a pit was made along the long side of a narrow grave pit, that is, a chamber where the buried was placed, sprinkling the bottom of the grave with chalk or coal (a cleansing ceremony!), And then covering it with stone slabs, and the entrance the pit was filled with stones. The Sarmatians had a custom of deforming the skull (the head of a newborn was tied with a tight bandage, so that over time it became elongated): hence the abundance of deformed skulls in the Sarmatian burials. There are also slab graves - rectangular pits lined on the sides and covered from above with flat stone slabs, characteristic of the Greeks. Almost every grave of the Ust-Alma necropolis is marked on top with a bunch of stones or one stone without images; at the same time, six tombstones depicting male figures were found at the Alma-Kermen necropolis. The distribution of tombstones depicting warriors is generally characteristic of late Scythian culture.

Written sources testify to the penetration of the Sarmatians into the Crimea, starting from the 3rd-2nd centuries. BC e. This is a nomadic people, mostly Iranian-speaking, who came to the steppes of the Black Sea region from the Volga and Ural regions. The morals of the Sarmatians, whose women played an active role as priestesses and warriors, as well as their relationship with the Scythians, are vividly illustrated by the well-known story of the Roman historian Polien about the Sarmatian queen Amaga; while her husband indulged in drunkenness, she "she herself placed garrisons in her country, repelled the raids of enemies and helped offended neighbors." In response to the request of Chersonesos for help in the fight against the Scythians, Amaga, at the head of a detachment of equestrian warriors, overcame a long distance, broke into the palace, killed the Scythian king and his retinue, returned the country to the Chersonesos, and "I gave the royal power to the son of the murdered man, ordering him to rule fairly ". Although the image of Amagi is most likely legendary, but the morals and the general historical situation are described correctly - Scythia still has its own king, but the leading political role belongs to the newcomers - the Sarmatians.

In the Sarmatian period, a special style of jewelry, called polychrome, spread in the Black Sea region and Crimea: the surface of gold and metal products in general was decorated with multi-colored inserts of colored paste, turquoise, carnelian, almandine, and garnet. They decorated not only rings, earrings, diadems, but also parts of horse harness, gold lining of sword hilts, and vessels. Apparently, items in the polychrome style, developed by Bosporan jewelers, met the tastes of the Sarmatized population of the beginning of our era no less than items from the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e. the tastes of the Scythians.

Later, through the Goths and the Huns, they spread throughout Europe. The growth of the Sarmatian influence is evidenced by tamga-shaped signs on various household items, stone slabs, tombstones. These "mysterious" signs are gradually decipherable: in most cases they are a family or personal brand - tamga - an analogue of a seal or coat of arms.

11. LATER EVIDENCE Vogt's Witnesses. In 2002, Michael Friedrich Vogt, once in his youth the leader of the far-right, in fact neo-fascist, Danubia student corporation in Munich, who later made a good career (he led, in particular, the department for relations with