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The Bosporan Kingdom – Greeks of the Crimea

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The Bosporan Kingdom – Greeks of the Crimea 053: The Bosporan Kingdom – Greeks of the Crimea The Black Sea is an oft-neglected area when it comes to the broader framework of the ancient world, and at the same time it can provide us with “unusual” case studies that prove to be extremely interesting. The Bosporan Kingdom, centered along the modern Strait of Kerch, was a curious mixture of cultures and peoples. During the Hellenistic period, it was largely settled by Greek colonists, ruled by a dynasty of Thracians known as the Spartocids, and was closely tied to the nomadic steppe tribes like the Scythians and Sarmatians. In some ways the Bosporians can be considered among the first examples of a Hellenistic society, largely isolated from the affairs of the Successor Kingdoms until their independence came to an end in the 1st century BC. In this episode we will talk about the history of the Bosporians and Spartocids, their relations with the wider Greek and Hellenistic world, and end our miniseries on Asia Minor and the Black Sea. The Black Sea region was something of a Wild West, a frontier land inhabited with dangers both real and imagined. Sailing the “Euxine Pontus” could be quite treacherous, and while it translates to “the Friendly Sea”, this was more of an ironic name bequeathed upon the Black Sea after it had been tamed by Greek settlers.1 Exploration was originally limited to heroes of legend such as the strongman Heracles or the unfaithful Jason and his Argonauts, who had to deal with monsters and wild women like the Amazons or the witch Medea.2 Besides the realm of myth, there were actual barbarian tribes living along or near the coastline that performed human sacrifice and turned skulls into drinking cups.3 Yet by the 6th century, a large number of expeditions organized by Ionian Greeks planted colonies (apoikiai) around the Black Sea, and its northernmost part would be where the seeds of the Bosporan Kingdom would be laid. To clear up any possible confusion, in antiquity there were two Bosporuses: there is what we generally classify as the Bosporus, the strait which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara in western Turkey. Then there is the “Cimmerian” Bosporus, named after the nomadic steppe peoples of the early Iron Age, which is equivalent to the modern Kerch Strait.4 The strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, known in antiquity as Lake Maeotis, and separates the eastern Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine from the Taman Peninsula in Russia5. It also gets problematic when Bosporus is often interchanged for “Bosphorus”, so I am going to stick with “Bosporus” from this point on and refer to the kingdom as the “Bosporan Kingdom”. Colonization of the Cimmerian Bosporus began in the first half of the 6th century BC on the initiative of the prominent Ionian city of Miletus, which already had past success in settling the Pontic region.6 The reasons for doing so tend to vary depending on the author, some arguing that it was for more arable land, some due to political turbulence in the mother cities, and some arguing that they wanted to take 1 Strabo, Geography, 7.3.6 2 See Ivantchik, A. “The Greeks and the Black Sea: The Earliest Ideas about the Region and the Beginning of Colonization” in “The Northern Black Sea in Antiquity: Networks, Connectivity, and Cultural Interactions” Pgs. 7-25 3 Strabo, Geography, 7.3.6 4 Herodotus, Histories, 4.12; Strabo, Geography, 2.4.8, 11.2.5 5 The Crimea has recently been contested between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, with both claiming ownership (though most countries recognize the claims of Ukraine). 6 Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 12.26; advantage of the trading opportunities of the Northern Black Sea. It is generally assumed that there were three waves of colonization: in the first half of the 6th century due to the expansion of the Lydian kingdom, in the second half following the conquests of the Persian Empire, and in the first quarter of the 5th century due to the failure of the Ionian Revolt and the subsequent destruction of Miletus.7 The reverence of the Bosporians towards their Milesian origins could still be seen on their coinage centuries later, which bore the image of a lion’s head in a similar style to that of their mother city.8 Among the most important settlements founded during this period were Nymphaeum, Hermonassa, and Panticapaeum [PAHNT-TI-KA-PIE-UM] (the modern city of Kerch).9 Instead of bearing the appearance of a classical or Hellenistic Greek city, these early colonies were rather modest and built with local materials instead of stone. Several of these dwellings were also partially subterranean, a local adaptation to the region’s sometimes brutal winters.10 But the Greeks were not the only major cultural presence within the northern Black Sea area. There were the native inhabitants just bordering the Sea of Azov, peoples like the Maeotians to the North and the Sindian kingdom to the East.11 Some of the tribes proved to be particularly annoying like the Taurians, who were avid pirates and would routinely sacrifice prisoners and shipwreck survivors to their gods.12 Still, a much more significant presence could be seen with two groups. The first are the tribes of the steppes, the nomadic or semi-nomadic horse-rearing peoples that lived along the grasslands directly bordering the Bosporus, a region known as the Pontic-Caspian steppe. We discussed them in considerable detail in episode 051, so do check that out if you haven’t already. The nomads had long dwelled in this region: the first major tribe being the Cimmerians who were eventually driven off or settled thanks to the Scythians, who had begun to arrive in greater numbers during the 6th century.13 Strabo claims that the Greeks had been responsible for driving out the Scythians settled on the Bosporus, though some modern scholars question the existence of a stable native population in this territory.14 It was also posited by a later Byzantine writer that the city of Panticapaeum was a gift to the Greeks from a Scythian king.15 While some tribes raided and were met with hostility, others preferred to maintain a strong commercial relationship. The Scythians and other nomads could provide large amounts of prisoners to feed the ever-constant demand for slaves by Bosporan traders, who could 7 Zinko, V. and Zinko, E. “Greek colonization of the European Bosporus” in “The Danubian Lands Between the Black, Aegean and Adriatic Seas: (7th Century BC-10th Century AD)” Pgs. 109-117; 8 Hind, J. “The Bosporan Kingdom” in “The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 6: The Fourth Century BC, 2nd edition” Pg. 486; Compare this 4th Century Bosporan coin (https://www.beastcoins.com/BosporusKingdom/C1762.jpg) to those of Miletus (http://rg.ancients.info/lion/miletos.html) 9 Hind, J. “The Bosporan Kingdom” in “The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 6: The Fourth Century BC, 2nd edition” Pg. 484 10 Zinko, V. and Zinko, E. “Greek colonization of the European Bosporus” in “The Danubian Lands Between the Black, Aegean and Adriatic Seas: (7th Century BC-10th Century AD)” Pgs. 110-112; Herodotus, Histories, 4.28; Strabo, Geography, 7.3.18 11 Strabo, Geography, 11.2.1; Tsetkshladze, G.R. “Black Sea Ethnicities” in “A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean” Pg. 315 12 Herodotus, Histories, 4.103; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 20.25 13 Melyukova, A.I. “The Scythians and Sarmatians” in “The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia” Pgs. 97-100; “Cimmerians and Scythians, Herodotus reconsidered” in Ancient World Magazine. (https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/cimmerians- scythians-herodotus-reconsidered/) 14 Strabo, Geography, 11.2.5; Zinko, V. and Zinko, E. “Greek colonization of the European Bosporus” in “The Danubian Lands Between the Black, Aegean and Adriatic Seas: (7th Century BC-10th Century AD)” Pg. 115 15 Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, P501.13 command a considerable price from the slave markets of the Mediterranean.16 The Bosporians would later establish the port of Tanaïs at the mouth of the Don River to help facilitate the exchange of goods between them and the tribes.17 Cleoboule, the mother of the 4th century Athenian orator Demosthenes, was said to be of Bosporan Greek and Scythian descent, suggesting that there might have been some degree of social mixing between the nomads and the settled societies18 The Bosporus was abundant in its natural resources: fish and salt were among its top exports, along with other agricultural products like honey and livestock which could often be exchanged in order to import vast amounts of wine.19 However, the most important commodity of the Northern Pontic region was its grain, produced in considerable amounts by both the Bosporan Greeks and the peoples ruled over by the Scythians in nearby Olbia just off the Dnieper River.20 The grain trade probably began by the early 5th century BC and the Bosporian’s most famous customers would be Athens, which created strong ties that would likely dominate the foreign policy of the North Pontic Greeks throughout the 5th and 4th centuries.21 Despite the economic and social links between the two communities, it is possible that the threat of nomadic attack inspired a massive political change among the various colonies of the Bosporus. In the late 6th century, some of the cities of the Kerch Strait had organized themselves into a singular political body with Panticapaeum at its head, forming the prototype for the Bosporan state.22 Unfortunately, the history of this region is very poorly documented, as the sources only mention the Bosporus either at glance or when it is directly relevant with the wider Mediterranean/Greek world.
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