Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

bending the bow
their bodies with a shield of wood or leather. But from the seventh century contact
with Persians in Central Asia introduced the nomads to quite different forms of warfare
involving more organized and heavily armed troops, including infantry detachments
as well as cavalry. Later, in Asia Minor, Scythian bands fought with or against
Urartians, Medes, Assyrians, and even confronted Egyptians, and on the Pontic
steppe they came into direct, but largely non-confrontational, contact with Greeks.
In the late sixth century they were again fighting Persians and in the fourth century
they were engaged in struggles with Thracians and Macedonians. From friends and
foes alike they learned much, adopting new types of weapons and armour, though
usually modifying them to suit themselves, and changing fighting tactics wherever
appropriate. They may have come to appreciate the benefit of scale armour from the
Persians, while helmets and greaves were borrowed directly from the Greeks. Against
the forces of Darius they were able to field infantry in addition to their fearsome
cavalry.
The Scythians living around the Black Sea and the Sakā, facing the Persian empire
in Central Asia, were very differently attired to their contemporaries in the Altai
Mountains and yet the ethos of the Scythian horde, men (and sometimes women) at
one with their horses, armed with the same basic weapon sets, was to be found the
length and breadth of the steppe.
Mobility
The horse was an essential part of the steppe nomad’s life and not to have fought
from horseback would have been unthinkable to an aspiring warrior. The burials
at Pazyryk all included horses killed to accompany the dead person to the grave.
Numbers varied, some graves containing as many as fourteen. The majority were
steppe ponies not far removed from the wild breed, but usually there was at least one
thoroughbred averaging 15 hands high comparable to the ‘blood sweating’ horses of
Ferghana so much in demand by the Chinese emperors. Mostly they were bays and
chestnuts. The scientist who studied the Pazyryk horse remains suggested that the
deliberate choice of these colours was because the breeders believed coloured horses,
especially those with white fetlocks, to have weaker hooves. Given that the beasts
were not shod, the quality of the hoof was a prime concern. All the riding horses
found in the elite tombs of Pazyryk and elsewhere in the Altai–Sayan were geldings.
The preference among the Scythians for geldings as opposed to mares or stallions
is also confirmed by the first century bc writer, Strabo (Geog. vii. 4. 8) and continues
today among the Kazakhs.
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