Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the rise of the pontic steppe scythians
Scythians who were strong enough by the beginning of the second century bc to halt
the advance of the Sarmatians roughly along the line of the Danube. So it was that by
about 200 bc the Scythian world was at an end.
In Perspective
The Pontic–Caspian steppe was, in the first millennium bc, a remarkable melting pot
of different peoples. Underlying it all was the culture of the indigenous population
who, during the second millennium, had developed a pastoral lifestyle supported
by grain growing wherever local conditions allowed. It was into this comparatively
tranquil landscape that bands of nomadic horsemen rode, coming from the
Central Asian steppe in waves: Kimmerians in the ninth century, Scythians in the
seventh century, Sauromatae in the fifth century, and Roxolani in the second century.
It would be tempting to think that this apparently neat periodicity had some
underlying cause. Could it be, at least in part, the result of population pressures in
the Central Asian steppe building up like a volcano and erupting from time to time?
Demographic pressures certainly had something to do with it, but there were other
factors at work as well. Cycles of climatic change may have had the effect of drawing
people to the west. Nor should we forget that the ever-present interference by the
sedentary states living to the south, with their pressing economic imperatives, was a
persistent source of disruption. The military campaigns of Cyrus, Darius, Philip, and
Alexander caused ripples but it was the power of consumerism that had the greatest
lasting effect. By making exotic luxury goods available to the nomad elites to help
them maintain and enhance their status, the civilized world was putting pressure on
the steppe societies to supply ever increasing quantities of grain, furs, metals, and
slaves in exchange. This demand impacted on the lifestyle of the nomads encouraging
slave raiding, which had a destabilizing effect, and agriculture, which demanded
sedentism. And so the creative tensions between steppe and state grew. The Scythian
culture that emerged was an exuberant manifestation of the raw energy of the steppe
people as they contended with the multiple pressures of life.
145