Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the rise of the pontic steppe scythians
wealth of exotic goods made available through the ports of the Bosphorus, luxuries
such as wine from Sinope and Greek tableware from Rhodes. Other displaced Sauromatians,
as we have seen, moved westwards across the Don into the land of the
Scythians; these may have been the Syrmatai (above, p. 120).
Greeks and Scythians
The establishment of Greek trading colonies along the Scythian shore of the Black
Sea began towards the end of the seventh century as an enterprise driven largely by
the Ionian city of Miletos (above, pp. 35–9). Since the principal aim of the early settlers
was to develop trade with the natives, the locations of the port cities were carefully
chosen to have a safe approach and good docking facilities and to command major
routes into the hinterland along the major rivers. One of the earliest trading enclaves
to be established was on the island (then perhaps a peninsula) of Berezan commanding
the entrance to the wide inlet into which flowed the two great rivers, the Dnieper
and the Bug. From its foundation in the mid seventh century and throughout the
sixth century Berezan flourished but was gradually eclipsed by Olbia, sited further
inland on the River Bug where the latter is still 6 km wide. One hundred kilometres or
so to the west lay the mouth of the Dniester offering another ideal location and here,
on a headland overlooking the estuary, the trading post of Tyras was founded.
A vital route node, but of a rather different kind, was the Strait of Kerch, known
in antiquity as the Kimmerian Bosphorus—a fast-flowing stretch of water between
the Kerch and Taman Peninsulas linking the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea. The particular
attraction of the location was that it commanded access both to the River Don
and also to the exceedingly rich reserves of fish that gorged themselves in the nutrient-rich
waters of the Sea of Azov. The Strait of Kerch provided a magnet for Greek
settlement. The most important city was Panticapaeum, founded in the seventh century.
Others soon followed until there were about a dozen clustering within 50 km
of the Strait. More Greek colonies were founded around the coasts of the Crimean
Peninsula, but their success depended more on the agricultural produce of their chora
than on the throughput of high volumes of trade goods.
The importance of the north Pontic colonies to the Greek world changed dramatically
in the middle of the fifth century when the advance of the Persians into Egypt cut
off the grain supplies upon which the Greek city-states had depended. Athens, now
playing a leading role in Greek affairs, began to look to the Pontic region to increase
its grain output. So vital were Pontic grain supplies to the well-being of Greece in general,
and Athens in particular, that the Athenians decided to establish new, strongly
defended colonies close to the old Greek cities: Nymphaeum near Panticapaeum, Ath-
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