Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in the longue durée
with settled agricultural communities over whom they established some degree
of ascendancy and on their southern border confronted vigorous Greek trading
enclaves. As a result we can see significant changes in the Scythian lifestyle, with
some communities developing as agriculturalists, the better to benefit from the
growing market for grain in the Greek world. Elite life also changed with the adoption
of Greek feasting behaviours and the acceptance of the luxury goods created by
craftsmen working in the Greek Black Sea cities, particularly Panticapaeum. In art,
representations of humans became increasingly common and even the depiction of
predatory beasts began to take on a more Mediterranean guise. The powerful animal
art of the steppe was fast being diluted. Similar cultural borrowings were evident
in Central Asia, where the Sakā adopted stylistic preferences from the neighbouring
Persians and even the communities of the remote Altai were not immune from
cultural influences emanating from India, Persia, and China, though their vigorous
nomad culture continued to flourish.
By the beginning of the fourth century bc the traditional Scythian regions west
of the river Don were beginning to come under pressure from their neighbours, the
Sauromatae, and there is some evidence of conflict. What this actually involved in
terms of population movement it is difficult to say, but it need mean little more than
a Sauromatian elite taking over power on the Pontic steppe, forcing the old Scythian
elites to move westward into the Danube delta region and into the Crimean Peninsula.
The scene was now set for the dramatic changes that were to characterize the
next six centuries.
Power Struggles in the Far East
Early in the second century bc the growing power of the Han dynasty in China began
to destabilize the various nomadic tribes that lay on its northern border. The most
powerful were the Xiongnu of the Gobi region. Between them and the Gansu corridor—
the narrow zone which offered the easiest routes between the plains of China
and the caravan trails around the Taklamakan Desert—were two indigenous peoples,
the Yuezhi and the Wusun. Facing the rising power of the Xiongnu, both tribes
were forced to migrate, there being no option but to move westwards. The first to
migrate, between 176 and 160 bc, were the Yuezhi, their flight taking them along the
northern side of the Taklamakan Desert and through the Tian Shan to the prolific
grasslands around the lake Issyk Kul, an area at the time occupied by the Sakā. This
inevitably had knock-on effects throughout Central Asia.
Hot on the heels of the Yuezhi came the Wusun, who, about 140 bc, forced them
out of the Ili valley and took over the land for themselves. The Yuezhi then moved
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