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We are those about whom they whispered in the old days,
With involuntary trembling, Hellenic myths:
A people who love violence and war.
The sons of Hercules and Echidna are the Scythians.
In heavy burial mounds, sitting on a horse.
Among the riches, as the grandfathers bequeathed.
Sleep our formidable kings; in a dream
They dream of feasts, battles, victories.
V. Bryusov
Scythia! How much does this beautiful name contain. This is the history of our fatherland, and the land of our ancestors. These are beautiful legends, riddles and secrets.
ORIGIN AND TERRITORY OF SETTLEMENT OF THE SCYTHIANS
The question of the origin of the Scythians is controversial. So far, several versions have been discussed, of which two are the most popular. According to the first, the Scythian culture was formed in the eastern regions of the Eurasian steppes. At the same time, the Scythian genealogical legends emphasize the local origin of the Scythians.
Probably, the reports of Herodotus that all the Cimmerians left the Crimea and the steppes of the Black Sea region and the Scythians occupied an empty country is a clear exaggeration. Of course, a significant part of the Cimmerians was assimilated by the Scythians. This is convincingly evidenced by the continuity of a number of forms of material culture, as well as legends about the origin of the Scythians.
LEGEND: HERCULES AND THE SCYTHIANS:
Hercules pastured a herd of bulls near the Pillars of Hercules. From his mighty shoulders hung the skin of a Nemean lion, he held a club in his hand.
Time passed, and the grass on the pasture melted. Sitting in a chariot, Hercules drove the herd to the east, beyond the Pont Euxinus, where there were vast steppes and a lot of lush grass.
It was cold in the steppe. Wrapped in a lion skin, Hercules lay down on the grass and fell asleep. And when he woke up there were no horses or chariots.
Distressed, Hercules set off in search of the missing chariot. He walked around the entire vast steppe, but did not meet a single person whom he could ask about the loss. Finally he found himself in the mountainous country of the Taurians. In one of the caves, Hercules saw a strange creature: a half-maiden, half-snake.
He was startled, but he didn't show it.
Who will you be? - asked.
I am the goddess Apa, - the snake-footed woman answered.
Goddess Apa, have you seen my runaway horses?
I have your horses and your chariot. But I will return them to you when you become my husband.
Hercules did not want to return on foot to his homeland, to the other side of the world. He agreed and stayed with the goddess Apa. The snake-footed woman was in no hurry to return the chariot and horses, for she fell in love with Hercules and wanted to keep him longer.
This continued until they had three children. Then Apa brought Hercules his horses harnessed to the chariot, and uttered these words:
I do not want to part with you, but you yearn for your homeland. I will keep my word to you. Take your horses and chariot. Just tell me what to do with my sons when they grow up. Send to you or leave in my domain?
Hercules reasoned as follows: he took off his belt with a golden bowl on the buckle, took a bow with an arrow and showed how he pulls the bowstring. After that, he gave the bow and belt to the goddess Apa and said:
When the sons grow up and mature, let them put on a belt and try to string my bow. Which of them will fit my belt, which of them will be able to string my bow the way I do, let him stay. And whoever fails to do this, they moved away.
Years have passed. The sons of Hercules grew up, matured. Then their mother, the snake-footed goddess Apa, gave them their father's belt and bow.
The eldest son Agathyrs and the middle Gelon could not fulfill the father's covenant: the belt was too large and heavy for them, and they did not have the strength to pull the bowstring of Hercules' bow. They were expelled from the country.
And for the third son, the belt of Hercules fit, and he pulled the bowstring like his father. It was the youngest son named Skif. He remained in the country, and a glorious Scythian tribe descended from him, settling in the Taurus and Dnieper steppes, where Hercules once herded bulls.
Trying to find out the origin of the Scythians, Herodotus wrote down the following legend: “According to the Scythians, of all the tribes, their tribe is the youngest. And it arose in this way: the first to appear on this land, which was deserted at that time, was a man named Targitai. And the parents of this Targitai, as they say ..., Zeus and the daughter of the Borisfen river. This was precisely the origin of Targitai. He had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and the youngest Koloksai. During their reign, golden objects dropped from the sky fell on the Scythian land: a plow with a yoke, a double-edged ax and a bowl. The elder, seeing first, approached, wanting to take them, but at his approach the gold caught fire. After he left, a second one approached, and the same thing happened to the gold. The burning gold rejected these, but at the approach of the third son, the youngest, it went out, and he carried him away to himself. And the older brothers after that, by mutual agreement, transferred all the royal power to the younger.
From Lipoksai came those Scythians who are called the genus Avkhats. From the middle Arpoksai came those called catiars and traspians. From the youngest of them - the kings, who are called paralats. All together they are called skolots by the name of the king: the Greeks called them Scythians.
The Scythians are a numerous people who united various tribes that differed in the forms of housekeeping and life. The Greeks called them Scythians, they themselves were called Skolots.
Anthropologically, the Scythians belong to the Caucasoid race. Researchers refer the Scythian language to the Northern Iranian languages of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
Scythian tribes dominated from the 7th century. BC e. in the steppe regions of the Northern Black Sea region, in the Crimea, in the territory of Southern and South-Eastern Ukraine. Herodotus compares the territory of Scythia with a huge quadrangle: “Scythia, since it has a quadrangular shape, and two sides reach the sea, all sides are equal in size: both the one that goes inland and the one that extends along the sea. For from Istra (Danube - ed.) to Borisfen (Dnepr - ed.) ten days of travel, from Borisfen to Lake Meotia (Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov - ed.) other ten; and from the sea inland to the melanchlens living above the Scythians - twenty days' journey.
ETHNIC COMPOSITION AND SOCIAL ORDER
According to Herodotus, this vast territory was inhabited by numerous tribes, the dominant position among which was occupied by the nomadic Scythians and the tribes of the royal Scythians, who considered other Scythians their slaves. The royal Scythians and nomadic Scythians were nomadic pastoralists. They inhabited the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Crimea and further east to the Sea of Azov and Tanais (Don - ed.). In the lower Bug region lived kalipids (Helleno-Scythians), who were mainly engaged in agriculture. To the north were the Alazon tribes. In the forest-steppe part of the Right Bank lived the Scythians-plowmen, on the Left Bank - the Scythians-farmers, among whom Herodotus identifies Gelons and Boudins.
Obviously, by the 7th c. BC e. Scythia represented a rather complex political association headed by the royal Scythians. They considered themselves "the best and most numerous" and constituted the main force during military campaigns. Subjugated tribes paid tribute to them. The dependence of the tribes was far from the same and depended on numerous factors. The degree of ethnic kinship could have a direct impact on the nature of relationships, when tribes close in ethnicity and culture were in a more privileged position than "distant relatives".
Probably, in the early stages of their history, the royal Scythians represented an alliance of tribes, each of which had its own territory and was under the rule of its king. Such a division of the tribes is reflected in the story of the three formations of the Scythian army during the war with Darius I. Moreover, the leader of the largest and most powerful military unit Scythian king - Idan-Firs was considered the oldest.
Subsequently, in the IV century. BC, power over all the Scythian tribes was concentrated in one king - Atey. The concentration of power was important step on the way of turning the tribes into a single nation, united by one ruler. The power of the king was strong enough and was inherited. The Scythians had an idea of the divine origin of the royal family. The kings also performed judicial functions. Disobedience to the order of the master was punishable by death. The closest royal entourage was his team, consisting of the best warriors.
AT social structure The most important role was played by the tribal organization, and the basis of the Scythian society was a small individual family, whose property was cattle and household property. Moreover, the material level of families was different. Some owned herds, but there were also those who could not maintain an independent nomadic economy due to the small number of livestock.
An important role in the management of tribes and their military units tribal elite and elders played. To a certain extent, the power of the king was limited precisely by the institutions of the tribal system. The highest legislative body was the people's assembly - the "Council of the Scythians", which had the right to remove kings and appoint new ones from among the members of the royal family, to solve the most important "nationwide" issues.
EARLY HISTORY OF THE SCYTHIANS
The first mention of the Scythians dates back to the 70s of the 7th century. BC, when they, having defeated the Cimmerians, rush to Asia Minor. Assyrian cuneiform sources report the invasion of the troops of the “king of the country Ishkuz”. To make such long-distance military campaigns was quite within the power of the sons of Great Scythia.
The main occupation of the Scythians, nomadic cattle breeding, allowed a significant part of the male population to be cut off from labor concerns and devote themselves entirely to military affairs. This made it possible to create a huge army, perfectly armed with the best iron weapons, the famous bows. Such an army was a formidable force for any enemy. The Scythians learned to skillfully use weapons from childhood. Born archers and excellent riders, they moved swiftly on horseback and were ideally suited to waging war far from their camps. Leaving everything that burdens a warrior on campaigns (families, property, herds) in the places of their main nomad camps, the Scythian detachments fought lightly. During this period, the offensive of the Scythian army was directed to the south, to the rich states of Transcaucasia and Asia Minor: Urartu, Manna, Lydia, Media, Assyria. The information of ancient authors that has come down to us tells about the swift attack of the Scythians, about their constant warriors, now with one, then with another state. Herodotus noted: “For twenty-eight years the Scythians ruled over Asia, and during this time they, full of arrogance and contempt, devastated everything. For, besides the fact that they took tribute from everyone, which they imposed on everyone, they also, going around the country, robbed from everyone what everyone owned.
The Asiatic epic of the Scythians lasted several decades (according to some researchers, more than 100 years). During this time, the Scythian army reached the borders of Egypt and Palestine. Such a long stay in Western Asia had a great influence on the Scythian society. Communication with peoples at a higher level of development allowed the Scythians to enrich their culture, social processes in the Scythian society began to develop faster. But the completion of this long campaign brought failure to the Scythians.
In 612 BC the troops of Media and the Babylonian kingdom managed to take Nineveh, and a few years later the Assyrian state itself ceased to exist. This allowed the Median king Cyaxares to concentrate his forces against the Scythians. However, fearing their power, Cyaxares, as legend testifies, invited “most of them” (obviously, the leaders of the Scythian tribes) to his place and, after getting drunk, interrupted. After that, at the beginning of the VI century. BC, the Scythians were forced to return to the Northern Black Sea region.
However, the "troubles" for the Scythians did not end there, despite the fact that they were already in their possessions. Herodotus in his “History” reports that the Scythians who returned from Western Asia “expected difficulties no less than the war with the Medes; they found that they were opposed by a considerable army. Let us now turn to one of the legends that eloquently describes these events.
THE RETURN OF THE SCYTHIANS:
Twenty years have passed since the Scythian warriors left their native Scythia. The Scythian wives, exhausted from the long wait and believing that their husbands had all died in battle and would never return, married their slaves. And when the wives heard that their husbands were alive and would soon return home, they were in indescribable horror. What to do? After consulting among themselves, they called together all the slaves, and also their sons, who were adopted with the slaves, and said:
We are all threatened with death at the hands of the avengers. Husbands will not forgive betrayal either to us, their wives, or to you, their slaves, or to you, illegitimate children. So protect yourself as much as you can!
And then the slaves and their sons took picks in their hands and went to where a narrow strip of land connected the Crimean peninsula with the mainland. Having dug a deep ditch, they armed themselves and settled there, deciding to die to one and all, but not to let the avengers through.
Knowing nothing of this, the Scythian warriors, proud and happy from numerous victories, approached their native land.
They looked forward to the joy of meeting their mothers, wives, children, and their excited voices carried far across the steppe.
And here is the isthmus, the only place through which the Scythians can cross the salt lakes to the peninsula to their home. But what is it? A deep ditch, which did not exist before, blocked their way, and some unknown people threatened them with weapons! Furious Scythians fell upon the unknown, and a fierce battle began.
For twenty days blood flowed on the narrow isthmus, for twenty days in a row people fell and died. The strangers fought so desperately as if they were defending their native land and it was impossible to defeat them.
After a twenty-day struggle, the Scythians retreated and retired to a meeting.
And the Scythians found out that they were fighting against their slaves and the sons of their wives, and then they realized that by force of arms they could not defeat the desperate, that they had to act differently.
Again, the Scythian warriors moved to storm the moat, only in their hands they had not swords and arrows, but whips and rods. Approaching the defenders, they unexpectedly showered them with blows, and they, seeing the whip and hearing the whistle of the rods, turned from brave warriors into obedient slaves and, throwing down their weapons, fled in panic ...
After that, the Scythians did not fill up the ditch, but, on the contrary, expanded it, deepened it and built a small fortification nearby. As experienced warriors, they realized that the ditch can be a reliable defense against enemy attacks.
Most researchers admit that the Scythians fought with their slaves in the Crimea. In their opinion, the ditch dug by the slaves could not be located on Perekop, since it is technically hardly possible and pointless to draw it from there to the Crimean Mountains. It was located, most likely, on the Ak-Moinak Isthmus, which separates the Kerch Peninsula from the rest of the Crimea. Traces of this moat have been preserved to this day.
WAR OF THE SCYTHIANS WITH THE PERSIANS
One of the most beautiful and at the same time dramatic events in the early history of Great Scythia is the Scytho-Persian war at the end of the 6th century. BC.
By this time, Persia had become a huge and powerful state. From 521 BC Darius I Hystaspes of the Achaemenid dynasty becomes its king. He manages to consolidate and significantly strengthen the army. Darius I strives to ensure that the whole world around Persia submits.
Around 514 BC a huge and multilingual (there were over 80 peoples in the Persian state) the army of the Persians invaded the territory of Scythia. According to Herodotus, the number of Darius's troops was 700 thousand soldiers, with him was the main strike force of the Persians - the 10,000-strong detachment of "immortals". Obviously, Herodotus significantly exaggerated the number of Darius' troops, but the danger to the Scythians was extremely great.
The reasons for such close attention of Darius to the Scythians among historians are controversial. Most researchers believe that the conquest of Scythia was part of a single strategic plan. Having mastered part of the islands of the Aegean Sea and the Greek cities in Asia Minor, Darius prepared for war with Greece. To this end, he needed to secure his rear, at the same time to take revenge on his old offenders, the Scythians (the memory of the Scythian invasion of Asia Minor was still too fresh). In the event of a Persian victory, Greek cities would no longer receive bread from the Northern Black Sea region.
The impending danger forced the Scythians to join their forces and look for allies among their neighbors: "... in no way remain indifferent and do not let us die, but we will unanimously meet the advancing enemy." However, only "the kings of Gelon, Budin and Sauromat unanimously promised to help the Scythians." Others accused the Scythians of being the first to offend the Persians with their long-standing campaigns in Western Asia and refused to help, saying: “... if the enemy breaks into our land and offends us first, then we will not endure this; but until we see this, we will remain in our land.”
In such a situation, the Scythians used the tactics of retreat and luring the enemy deep into the country. On their way, they filled up wells and springs, destroyed the grass. Small detachments of the Scythians made surprise attacks on the Persians, inflicting significant losses on them.
Having exhausted his strength in fruitless persecution, Darius sent his messenger to the Scythian king with a proposal to stop the retreat and start a battle, or “if you recognize yourself as weaker, then also stop in your flight and come to negotiate with your master with land and water.” The answer of the Scythian king Idanfirs was immediate and stern: “Find out, Persian, what I am: before I never ran away out of fear from any of the people, and now I do not run away from you: now I have not done anything new compared to what is usually they do in peacetime: and why I am in no hurry to fight you, I will explain this to you too: we have no cities, no sown land because of which we would hasten to fight you for fear that they would not be taken or devastated. If it were necessary to speed up the fight at all costs, then we have the graves of our ancestors: just try to find them and destroy them, then you will find out whether we will fight you because of the tombs or not; before we do not fight, if we do not please. It's about the battle; but I recognize only Zeus, my ancestor, and Hestia, the queen of the Scythians, as my masters. And instead of gifts of earth and water, I will send you such gifts as it behooves you to receive; finally, because you called yourself my master, you will pay me.
The "befitting" gifts received from the Scythians were a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows. Darius hoped that these symbolic "gifts" meant that the Scythians submit and give him their land, sky and water. However, his closest adviser Gobrius correctly understood the meaning of the Scythian gifts: “If only you, Persians, do not fly into the sky, turning into a bird, do not hide in the ground, becoming mice, or do not jump into the swamp, turning into frogs, you will not come back, hit by these arrows."
Further events led Darius and his army into even greater despondency. According to Herodotus, when the troops of the Scythians and Persians lined up for a decisive battle, a hare ran between them. The Scythians, not paying attention to the enemy, rushed in pursuit of the animal. After that, Darius was forced to admit: "These men treat us with great contempt, and it is now clear to me that Gobryas correctly said about the Scythian gifts ... it is necessary to think carefully so that our return is safe."
On the advice of the wise Gobrius, the Persians lit fires at night, showing the Scythians that they were staying, and leaving the sick and wounded, they rushed out of the Scythian possessions. A significant part of the warriors of Darius forever "remained" in the steppes of Great Scythia, dying from wounds, diseases and exhaustion. Few returned to Persia. So ingloriously ended the campaign of Darius against the Scythians.
The wise Herodotus was right, stating: “Among all the peoples known to us, only the Scythians possess one, but the most important art for human life. It consists in the fact that they will not allow any enemy who attacked their country to be saved ... ".
Such a brilliant success brought the Scythians the glory of an invincible people, had a huge impact on the consolidation of Great Scythia, established the complete superiority of the Scythians in the North Black Sea region.
ARMY OF THE SCYTHIANS
Already the earliest written sources speak of the Scythians as excellent warriors. The numerous, powerful and extremely mobile Scythian army posed a significant danger to any enemy. It is no coincidence that the most important events in the vast region, from Western Asia to the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region, could not do without the participation of the “kings of the country of Ishkuz”.
The Scythians during this period become literally “heroes” of numerous chronicles: “... the Medes, having entered into battle with the Scythians and were defeated in battle, lost power, and the Scythians took possession of all of Asia”, “from here they went to Egypt. When they reached Syrian Palestine, Psammetichus, the king of Egypt, met them with gifts and prayers, and persuaded them not to advance further.
The long and devastating invasion of the Scythians horrified the inhabitants of Transcaucasia and Western Asia. Biblical sources convincingly testify to this: “And a banner will be raised to the peoples far off, and will give a sign to the one who lives on the ends of the earth, and behold, he will come easily and quickly. He will not be tired or exhausted; not one slumbers or sleeps, and the belt is not removed from his loins, and the belt of his shoes is not broken. His arrows are pointed, and all his bows are taut; the hooves of his horses are like flint, and his wheels are like a whirlwind ... ".
No less terrible is the following information: “Behold, I will bring upon you ... a people from afar, a strong people, an ancient people, a people whose language you do not know, and you will not understand what he says. His quiver is like an open coffin; they are all brave people. And they will eat your harvest and your bread; they will eat your sons and your daughters and your oxen; they will eat your grapes and your figs; they will destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.”
What was such a formidable army, what was its strength? Obviously, the large number and power of the Scythian army was associated with the way of life and the main occupation. Ancient authors primarily speak of the cavalry of the Scythians. And this is no coincidence. The main occupation of the Scythians - nomadic cattle breeding - on the one hand, provided a large number of horses, on the other hand, continuous migrations on horseback "created" an excellent rider, who, if necessary, turned into an equestrian warrior. And despite the fact that the Scythian army had foot soldiers, its basis was always cavalry. Moreover, the heavily armed cavalry was the striking force of the Scythian troops.
The Scythians were considered the best archers, shooting equally well with both hands. The shape of the Scythian bow resembles a slightly stretched Greek letter "sigma" with asymmetrical arms. The ends of the bow were slightly bent outwards. A small (60-70 cm) Scythian composite bow was made from various types of wood, bone, tendons. The ballistic qualities of the Scythian arrows were also excellent, their tips had great destructive power. According to Ovid, they were often smeared with poison so that "the mortal wound of the enemy was twice as deadly."
An obligatory item of military equipment, characteristic of Scythia, was a special case - lit, in which both a bow and arrows were placed at the same time (arrows were also carried in quivers).
The Scythian warriors were armed with short swords - akinaki, battle axes, throwing darts, daggers. Metal weapons were made from the best grades of steel. The most common were akinaki about 50-60 cm long and much less often up to 1 meter. Such swords are extremely effective in all types of combat, both on horseback and on foot.
A reliable means of protection were shields and shells made of wood and rods, covered with leather (iron or bronze plates were sewn onto leather jackets). The head of the warrior was perfectly protected by the Scythian hood, sheathed with metal plates. The warrior's legs were also well protected. The Scythians paid much attention to the protection of the warhorse. The head was covered with bronze forehead plates, and the body was covered with breastplates and blankets made of thick leather, partially reinforced with a metal armor set.
An indispensable accessory of the Scythian warrior was a combat belt, on which he carried essentially the entire set of weapons and equipment: he burns with a bow and arrows, a sword, a dagger, a battle ax, a whip, a grindstone, a bowl. Protective belts sheathed with metal plates were also used.
For a long time, the excellent Scythian weapons were considered a model not only for neighbors, but also for peoples who lived far from the possessions of the Scythians.
Numerous wars with different nations allowed the Scythians to achieve perfection not only in the production of weapons, but also to gain tremendous experience in warfare, tactics and battle.
ECONOMY AND LIFE
The nomadic way of life left its mark on all aspects of the life of the Scythians and, above all, on life and housekeeping. One of the first researchers of the Scythian mounds, I. E. Zabelin, quite rightly notes: “A person’s home life is an environment in which the germs and rudiments of all the so-called great events of his history lie, the germs and rudiments of his development and all kinds of phenomena of his life, social and political or state".
The Scythians were not only excellent warriors, but they were also distinguished by their great industriousness. The historian Justin, noting these qualities, wrote: "They were a people in work - tireless, in soldiers - unbridled, and the strength of their body was extraordinary."
Speaking about economic activity, first of all, one should dwell on cattle breeding, agriculture and home production. For a long time, the main branch of the economy of the Scythians was nomadic cattle breeding. Herodotus noted that the Scythians “found neither cities nor fortifications. But all of them, being horse archers, carry their houses with them, getting their livelihood not from the plow, but from raising livestock. Livestock was of great importance: it was the main means of subsistence. The main concern of the nomads was to preserve and increase the number of livestock. The herds were dominated by animals capable of long migrations: horses, sheep; there were much fewer cattle. This is due to the fact that nomadic pastoralism was based on breeding and year-round keeping of livestock in the open. The Scythians, along with their herds, moved depending on the season from one pasture to another.
Horse breeding played an important role. Scythian horses were small, but distinguished by agility and endurance. In the most difficult time of wintering, horses broke snow with their hooves, extracting the preserved grass for themselves and other animals.
At the end of the 5th - beginning of the 4th centuries. BC. Significant changes are taking place in the economy of Scythia, associated with a number of factors, the main of which is a sharp reduction in good pastures. This was primarily due to economic activity people: pastures were trampled down by numerous herds, and the grass cover did not have time to recover.
In search of a way out of this situation, a transition is being made to semi-nomadic cattle breeding: in winter, cattle are kept in pens and fed with solid fodder. As a result, the number of sheep and even horses in the herds decreases, while at the same time cattle begin to predominate. More and more pigs were raised.
AGRICULTURE
The transition to semi-nomadic pastoralism contributed to the development of agriculture. Keeping livestock in pens in winter required a significant amount of solid fodder. The area of cultivated land is increasing, on which grain crops have begun to be grown, primarily drought-resistant varieties of millet, barley and spelt. Farming technology was low. Most often, the fallow system was used: the herbage was burned on the virgin lands and, after processing with simple tools, they were sown. After two or three years, this site was left for several years and a new one began to be processed. This type of farming was focused primarily on providing solid fodder for the main branch of the economy - cattle breeding.
CRAFT. HOME PRODUCTION
The nomadic way of life of the Scythians influenced the development of handicrafts and home production. In order to provide themselves with everything necessary for housekeeping and everyday life, the Scythians skillfully adapted to the conditions of life and environment. For the manufacture of the necessary things, they used their own raw materials: skins, bones, horns.
From the skins of animals, first of all, they sewed a wide variety of clothes, made felt, numerous equipment for cattle breeding (ropes, harness, belts).
Spinning and weaving were developed everywhere, wool, leather and, obviously, flax served as raw materials for them.
Gradually, the processing of wood and stone reached a fairly high level.
The set of dishes that the Scythians used in the household was also adapted to the nomadic lifestyle. Food from meat and milk was cooked in ceramic dishes. Over time, the Scythians mastered the methods of molding dishes well, making the required amount by firing it on fires.
There is no doubt that weapons, foundries, blacksmiths, jewelry and other workshops existed in the nomads of the Scythians. Their products are widely represented in a diverse composition of objects of Scythian material culture. However, the craft was mainly in the nature of home production.
Fairly well among the Scythians, trade and exchange were developed both within the tribes and with other peoples. Great value had trade relations with the population of the Caucasus and with the ancient world.
Cattle, grain, honey, wax, leather, as well as a huge number of slaves captured in military campaigns were exported from Scythia. They imported wine and olive oil in amphoras, fabrics, various products of Greek crafts, in particular dishes, jewelry.
LIFE
The life of the Scythians was extremely interesting and varied. It fully corresponded to the way of life and was perfectly adapted to the existing conditions, ideally suited to the nomadic way of life. Such perfection, obviously, could delight people leading such a way of life, at the same time, the life of the steppe barbarians aroused astonishment among outside "civilized" observers. It is no coincidence that they were so keenly interested primarily in this aspect of the life of the Scythians.
HOUSING
The type of Scythian dwelling was formed under the influence of an extremely mobile lifestyle. In the poem "Prometheus Chained" Aeschylus writes: "Go forward through the lands unplowed to the nomadic Scythians, who are used to living in tall wicker boxes, on wheels with long-range bows without parting." Indeed, in order to follow their herds over a vast area, the Scythians needed housing made of light building materials. In such a situation, the only possible type of habitation was covered carts, discovered by archaeologists in a number of Scythian burials. An ancient author describes them in sufficient detail: “Here the Scythians live; they are called nomads because they have no houses, but they live in wagons, of which the smallest are four-wheeled, while others are six-wheeled, they are covered with felt around and arranged like houses, some with two, others with three compartments; they are not permeable to water (rain), nor to light, nor to winds. Two and three pairs of hornless oxen are harnessed to these wagons. Women move in such wagons, and men ride horses; they are followed by their flocks of sheep and cows and herds of horses. They stay in one place as long as there is enough grass for the herd, and when there is not enough, they move to another area.
Gradually, a certain territory is assigned to tribes and clans, as a result, the distances of migrations are significantly reduced. Winter huts appear on winter pastures. Subsequently, there is a transition to semi-nomadic pastoralism.
Undergoing changes and housing. “Boxes on wheels” retain their significance, while at the same time, during long stops, the tops of the wagons were used as ground dwellings. Later, settlements appeared from dugouts and semi-dugouts, which had a main room round in plan and a small entrance located to the south or southwest. Such housing was heated with the help of an open hearth, and suspended clay lamps illuminated it. The edges of the semi-dugouts were probably used as beds and benches.
CLOTHES
The clothes and equipment of the Scythians were perfectly adapted to the conditions of nomadic life. Women were mainly engaged in its manufacture, using leather, felt and wool as material.
Scythian clothing was very comfortable - short, tightly drawn leather (with fur inside) caftans, tight-fitting leather pants or wide woolen harem pants, soft half boots (Scythians) tied at the ankle, pointed hoods that protected the head well. The clothes were decorated with embroidery, and the ceremonial attire was embroidered with many gold ornaments.
The basis of women's clothing was a shirt dress with long sleeves, over which a sleeveless cloak was worn. The headdress was in the form of a kokoshnik. Both clothes and headdress were decorated with sewn-on gold plaques. With pleasure, the Scythians wore jewelry such as necklaces, hryvnias, earrings, rings made of gold, silver or bronze, beads.
UTENSIL
The utensils of the Scythians were also closely connected with the way of life and way of life. The quantity and quality of household items directly depended on the social and financial position occupied by the Scythian. This is confirmed by the finds found in the burials. The burial of an ordinary Scythian was accompanied by the following inventory: a tray or a wooden dish with a part of the carcass of a ram or cow, one or two iron knives, and a molded pot. In the burials of rich Scythians, there were much more items and the quality of their manufacture was much higher. They even prepared special household niches for them, in which they put dishes for cooking and eating meat (cauldron, kettle, iron hooks for meat and tongs, various bowls, trays, dishes), dishes for drinking wine (amphora, kanthar or kylix, oinochoe or jug, ladle, strainer), milk or milk vodka (leather, wooden or metal vessels).
With the transition to a semi-nomadic lifestyle (partial settlement), Scythian women begin to master the technique of making hand-made dishes. Most often these were bowls and pots. The quality, form, and design of ceramic products were strongly influenced by the art of ancient Greek masters. On the other hand, Greek dishes and containers are becoming more and more popular among the Scythian environment. Gradually, they occupy a leading place among the goods imported into Scythia.
In the life of nomads, an important role was played by wooden utensils, which were used in the processing and consumption of dairy products. Shallow hemispherical bowls for milk and broth were common. Meat dishes were served on wooden trays.
There were significantly fewer metal utensils. Silver or bronze cups, goblets, kiliks, rhytons were used to drink wine. Of particular importance were huge, cast, bronze cauldrons. Their volume is impressive, reaching 100 or more liters.
FOOD
Without a doubt, the dominant role of nomadic, later semi-nomadic cattle breeding in economic life turned out to be a decisive factor in the food system of the Scythians. The basis of the diet was meat food, especially in autumn and winter (before wintering, old and weak animals were slaughtered, whose meat could be stored longer in winter). In the burials, bones of cattle, sheep, and horses are found first of all; in later ones, bones of a pig. Boiling was the main method of preparing meat. Herodotus described in sufficient detail the preparation of meat during migrations in the open steppe: “Since the Scythian land is completely treeless, they invented the following for cooking meat: as soon as they peel off the skin from the sacrificial animal, they clean the bones from the meat and then put the meat into boilers (if they have them) of local manufacture, most of all similar to Lesbos craters, except for many large ones. Throwing meat into them, they boil it, setting fire to the bones of sacrificial animals from below. If they do not have a cauldron at hand, they put all the meat in the stomachs of the sacrificial animals and, adding water, set fire to the bones. The bones burn beautifully, and the stomachs can easily accommodate deboned meat. And in this way the bull boils itself, and the rest of the sacrificial animals each boils itself.”
To a much lesser extent, plant foods were present in the diet of the Scythians. The Scythians prepared dishes from crushed grains of barley and millet. Sun-dried grain was ground on grain graters and boiled in a small amount of water or milk. The Scythians also knew how to bake bread from unleavened dough. The question of whether they used flour for making them is controversial among researchers.
Gathering replenished the food of the Scythians with garlic, field onions, stalks of oxalis, sorrel. Celery was used as a seasoning for meat. The description of the Pontic onion was preserved by Geophrastus: “... it is obvious that there are many types of onions, they differ in size and color, species and juices. In some areas they are so sweet that they are eaten raw, as, for example, in Tauric Chersonesus.
Close contacts with the ancient world contributed to the spread of Greek wine among the Scythians. At the same time, the "disciples" - Scythians quickly surpassed their "teachers" - Greeks in terms of the scale of drinking this drink. And soon the Greeks have the expression "Scythian", "pour in Scythian", that is, "make the wine stronger." The fact is that even before Greek wine, the Scythians “got acquainted” with alcoholic beverages, such as milk vodka, araki or koumiss. In terms of strength, they are much higher than grape wine, therefore, unlike the Greeks, the Scythians drank wine undiluted.
DAIRY FOOD
Having in their herds a large number of horses, sheep, goats, cattle, the Scythians could not but use dairy products in their food. “They themselves eat boiled meat, drink mare's milk, and eat ippaku (mare's milk cheese),” reports an ancient author.
The Scythians made dry cheese from sheep's milk, which could be stored for a long time. With the transition of the Scythians to a semi-sedentary and sedentary life, the role of cow's milk increased.
Of particular importance was mare's milk, an indispensable product in the manufacture of koumiss. It is rich in sugar and at the same time its fat content is not high. Due to the specific microflora, the fermentation process takes place quite easily in it, as a result of which a drink with a high calorie content, excellent taste and a high content of vitamins is obtained. Herodotus describes the preparation by the Scythians of a drink similar to koumiss: “as soon as milk is milked, it is poured into wooden vessels and, placing blind men (slaves - ed.), froth milk. That part of the milk that rises to the top is removed with a scoop, it is considered more valuable, and the milk that has settled down is considered the worst.
To other ancient peoples who lived in different conditions, the life and many customs of the Scythians seemed strange. In particular, the "Scythian bath" caused great amazement among the Greeks. Herodotus reports: “... the Scythians take the seeds of this hemp, enter under the felts and throw the seeds on hot stones. Such smoke and steam rises from the thrown seeds that no Greek steam bath will surpass this Scythian. The Scythians admire such a bath and howl with pleasure; this replaces their ablution, since they do not wash their bodies with water at all. Their women rub cypress, cedar and lilac wood on a rough stone, adding water to them, and smear their whole body and face with the resulting thick mass; this gives the body a pleasant smell, and when the ointment is removed the next day, the body is clean and glossy.
Yes, much in the life of the Scythians may seem strange and incomprehensible. But this is only until you get acquainted with the history of this amazing people, when you deeply learn the life, culture and way of life of the Great Scythia, you see the wisdom of this people, admire their hard work, vitality, courage and devotion.
RELIGION OF THE SCYTHIANS
Along with the development of society, the religious ideas of the Scythians developed, a religious ideology was created that united numerous tribes. The Scythian civilization was at such a level of development and in such a historical period when the deities were "intermediaries" between man, the surrounding world and society.
Having arisen in the early stages of the development of the Scythian ethnos, religious ideas absorbed the beliefs of their ancestors, neighboring peoples, and subsequently experienced a strong influence of the beliefs of the local population of the Northern Black Sea region, as well as the religions of Greece and Asia Minor. As a result, the Scythians formed a kind of pantheon of gods. Herodotus reports: “They propitiate only such gods: most of all Hestia, in addition, Zeus and Gaia, believing that Gaia is the wife of Zeus, after them Apollo and Aphrodite Urania and also Hercules and Ares. These gods are revered by all the Scythians. Hestia among the Scythians is called Tabiti, Zeus is quite correctly, in my opinion, called Papai, Gaia - Api, Apollo - Goito-sir, Aphrodite Urania - Argimpasa, Poseidon - Tagimasad. It is customary for them to erect neither images, nor altars, nor temples to any of the gods, except Ares. To him they raise up."
It is quite unexpected that the main and most revered deity among the Scythians is Tabiti, Goddess of the Hearth. Indeed, in many religions, the pantheon is headed by male deities. This can be explained by the fact that the fire and the hearth enjoyed special reverence among the Scythians. Tabiti embodied the idea of family and tribal unity. The oath to the "deities of the royal hearth" was considered the greatest oath of the Scythians. The image of Tabiti probably did not exist.
Popeye (Zeus) considered the progenitor of the Scythians. Translated from Iranian, his name means "protector", "father". It is no coincidence that at the very Hard time the Scythians addressed him specifically. According to the legend about the origin of the Scythians, Papai and the daughter of the river Boris-fen became the parents of the first Scythian - Tar-gitai. The Scythian king Indanfirs, in response to Darius during the Scythian-Persian war, proudly declares: “I recognize only Papai, my ancestor, and Api, the queen of the Scythians, as my masters.”
Many researchers believe that the most likely image of Papai is a pommel from the Lysaya Gora tract near Dnepropetrovsk.
Api (Gaia) personifies the wet earth, fertilized by the sky, and in translation from Iranian her name means “water” (“river”), one of the main generative principles. And the marriage bond of Papaya and Api is the union of heaven and earth.
It is very likely that Api was a deity of the local population and was subsequently inherited by the Scythians. In the legend “Hercules and the Scythians”, the progenitor of the Scythians is called the half-maiden-half-snake Api, probably it was her image that was preserved on the horse headband found in the Tsimbalov Mogila barrow.
This triad - Tabiti, Papai, Api headed the pantheon of the highest Scythian deities. According to legend, the ancestors of the Scythians had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Koloksai, which in translation means “Mountain-King”, “Water-King” and “Sun-King”, respectively - the owners of the three main elements of earth, water and sky.
In Goytosir(Apollo) explorers see a cattle keeper, a monster slayer, an archer and a wizard. Obviously, Goytosir was the deity of the sun. He was called to witness at the conclusion of treaties. Those who violated the terms of the contract, he severely punished, striking with arrows from his solar bow or sending madness.
The intercessor and patroness of the human race was one of the most revered goddesses - Argimpas (Aphrodite Urania), i.e. Heavenly. She was considered the mistress of the dead, the great deity of life and death. Argimpasa was depicted as winged, with two griffins or cat predators on the sides.
Ares is the god of war. The bloody cult of this deity played a particularly important role in the life of the Scythians, in accordance with how great was the role of war and the military class in Scythian society. This is clearly evidenced by at least the fact that of all the deities, the Scythians erected sanctuaries to only one - Ares.
What did these shrines look like? And how did the sacrifices take place? Herodotus eloquently writes about this: “All of them, in the districts of their regions, arrange the sanctuaries of Ares in this way: bunches of brushwood are piled up, approximately three stages in length and width, but less in height. At the top, a flat quadrangular platform was made, three of its sides are steep, on the same side it has access. Every year they pile up one hundred and fifty wagons of brushwood. On top of this heap, an ancient iron akinak has been erected in all districts; he is the image of Ares. Small cattle and horses are annually sacrificed to this akinak; in general, unlike other gods, they bring him, in addition, such sacrifices as "no matter how much they capture enemies, they sacrifice one husband out of every hundred ...".
In honor of the god of war, festivities were held annually, at which warriors who especially distinguished themselves in battles were awarded an honorary cup of wine. At such festivities, wrestling and archery competitions were organized.
A number of rituals among the Scythians were associated with agriculture. Annual great festivities were held in honor of the "sacred gifts": a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl that fell from the sky. It was a holiday associated with the awakening of nature. Among the Scythians, a significant place was occupied by the cult of ancestors and the veneration of the dead, based on the belief in the immortality of the soul and the existence of the other world.
The Scythians, like other Indo-Iranian peoples, had many priests. It was a separate social group, certain categories of which occupied a rather high position. Herodotus reports the following about the Scythian priests: “The Scythians have many soothsayers. They prophesy with a large number wicker twigs in the following way: having brought large bunches of wicker twigs, they put them on the ground, separate them and lay out the twigs one at a time, broadcast, uttering prophecies, at the same time collect the twigs again and again put them one by one. They have this art of divination, coming from their fathers, and the Enarei are effeminate men, they say that Aphrodite gave them the art of divination ... ".
The Scythians revered their priests, but if the predictions did not come true, the priests risked a lot, sometimes even their lives. Herodotus very colorfully tells about divination during the illness of the king: “When the king of the Scythians falls ill, he sends for the three most famous soothsayers. They prophesy in the manner indicated; and they most often say the following: as if this or that person falsely swore by the royal hearths, while naming the one of the inhabitants about whom they speak.
Among the Scythians, it is customary most often to swear by the royal hearths, every time they want to take the greatest oath. The person who is said to have sworn falsely is immediately seized and brought in. Soothsayers expose the arrival ... He refuses, arguing that he did not swear by a false oath, and is indignant.
Since he refuses, the king calls on other soothsayers, twice as many as before. And if they, considering what fortune-telling gives, admit that he took a false oath, they immediately cut off his head, and the first soothsayers divide his property by lot among themselves.
If the soothsayers who have come justify this person, then a decision is made to execute the soothsayers themselves, who were called first ... ".
The priests died a terrible death. Herodotus reports: “They are executed in this way: having loaded a wagon with brushwood, they harness bulls to it. Having bound the soothsayers by the legs and tying their hands behind their backs and shutting their mouths, they throw them into the middle of the brushwood and, setting it on fire, drive the bulls, frightening them ... ".
In the beliefs of the Scythians, an important place was occupied by animism - the cult of ancestors and the veneration of the dead, associated with the belief in the immortality of the soul and the existence of the other world.
In a number of cases, original sculptures-steles were installed on the Scythian burial mounds. These are, as a rule, roughly processed granite or limestone slabs on which a Scythian warrior is carved. The eyes, nose, mouth, mustache and beard are marked on the face. Often, a belt was depicted on the stele, to which a lit with a bow is suspended on the left, and a short akinak sword in front.
On the right at the belt is a battle ax and a second long sword. The arms are bent at the elbows. The left hand depicts a rhyton (horn-shaped drinking vessel) raised to the chin. Probably, these stone steles, erected in honor of the ancestors, embodied the image of the divine progenitor of the Scythians.
SCYTHIAN MOUNDS
Numerous attempts to force the Scythians to fight the Persians did not bring success. To Darius' proposal to accept an open battle, the Scythian king Idanfirs replied: "... we have the graves of our ancestors: try to find them and destroy them, then you will find out if we will fight you because of the tombs." The Roman historian Plutarch also speaks of the great veneration of the graves of their ancestors by the Scythians: "The Scythians are proud of their graves."
The real lords of the steppes - the Scythians made migrations over vast expanses. In order not to lose the graves of their ancestors under such conditions, they built mounds over them - barrows.
Their value depended on the social status and material wealth of the deceased. Often the height of such mounds reached 20 meters or more. Quite a lot of Scythian burials are located on the territory of our peninsula. Among them there are mounds in which Scythian leaders and the highest nobility are buried. These include mounds Dort-Oba, Talalaevsky (near Simferopol), Chayan (near Evpatoria). But the mound Kul-oba (“hill of ash”), discovered in 1830 near Kerch, is especially famous. The burial was built of hewn stone, almost square in plan (4.6 x 4.2 m), with an entrance on the north side. A special corridor, the dromos, led to the crypt under the mound.
A wooden ceiling was built in the crypt, resembling a tent, decorated with a canopy with gold plaques. At the eastern wall of the crypt, a noble Scythian, possibly a king, rested on a luxurious wooden bed. The clothes and the headdress of the buried - the hood - are embroidered with gold plaques. The dress was complemented by a beautiful diadem. The neck was decorated with a golden hryvnia with figures of galloping Scythians at the ends, and arms and legs were bracelets with figured endings.
In a special compartment were weapons and ritual objects: an iron akinak with a handle overlaid with gold, burns, covered with a gold plate with the image of animals, a whip braided with a gold ribbon, a touchstone in a gold frame, a gold bowl.
The female burial, located nearby, was not inferior in richness and splendor. In a sarcophagus made of cypress wood and ivory, a woman in a rich funeral dress of the queen rested. She was adorned with an electric diadem with large gold pendants, a gold necklace, a hryvnia, openwork earrings and two bracelets. An electric spherical goblet was placed at the feet, decorated on all sides with images from Scythian life: a Scythian bandaging a comrade's leg, a Scythian pulling a bow on a bow, talking Scythians and two Scythians, one of whom probably plays the role of a "dentist". The images on the goblet are important in that they show with high accuracy the appearance of the Scythians, their “hairstyles”, clothes, armor.
At the southern wall of the crypt, another burial was found, possibly of a squire or bodyguard. In a special recess were spears, bronze greaves and a helmet, arrowheads and bones of a horse, bronze cauldrons, amphorae and so on. Under the floor of the crypt was a cache, which was looted. Later, they managed to redeem a gold plaque in the form of a lying deer from the robbers.
Quite a large number of plaques of various types were found in Kul-Ob. Among them, of particular interest are those that confirm the message of Herodotus about the wonderful rite of the Scythians - twinning. They depict two Scythians leaning against each other, drinking from the same horn. Herodotus reports the following: “The Scythians make an oath agreement with those with whom they conclude this: they pour wine into a large clay ladle and mix the blood of the negotiators with it, making a prick with an awl or a small incision with a knife on the body, then they immerse the sword, arrows into the bowl, ax and dart. At the end of this ceremony, they pray for a long time, and then drink the mixture.
The Scythians had a complex funeral rite, well known from the description of Herodotus and from numerous excavations of barrows.
The body of the deceased noble Scythian was embalmed in such a way that it could be preserved for the period of wires established by custom, which lasted for forty days. The deceased, dressed in luxurious clothes, was put on a chariot and taken to numerous relatives. The funerals of the Scythian kings were especially pompous. The body of the deceased was transported to all subject tribes. As a sign of grief, the Scythians cut off their hair and injured themselves. Then everyone went to the land of Herr, to the remote outskirts of Scythia. In this land was the cemetery of the Scythian kings.
Burials were made in large and deep pits. Together with the deceased, they put his weapons, clothes, food, expensive jewelry. The grave was closed with a log rolling and a barrow was poured over it, trying to make it as high as possible.
SCYTHIAN CULTURE
The peculiar culture of the Scythians was influenced by all spheres of life and activity of this people. The Scythians owned a huge territory, led an extremely mobile lifestyle, had constant contacts (peaceful and not peaceful) with numerous peoples of a significant part of the then world, and Scythian culture, like a sponge, absorbed certain elements, nuances of various cultures. All this was transformed in an extraordinary way by the Scythian world, Scythian beliefs and ideology. As a result, over the course of many centuries, an extremely original, unique, peculiar and extremely deep culture of the Scythians has developed. It caused, and will continue to cause great interest and admiration.
Until now, we have no evidence of whether the Scythians had a written language. However, carefully preserved and passed down from generation to generation, the richest folklore traditions of this people have come down to us. With pride, the Scythians retold epic legends about their origin, about their ancestors, heroes and gods, about beautiful customs and rituals.
Obviously, the Scythians owned various arts, but few examples have survived to our time. Products made of wood, leather and fabrics are almost not preserved. Separate finds speak of a high level of applied art of wood carving, multi-color appliqué made of leather and fabrics, and embroidery.
Most household items made of metal, bone, and also, obviously, wood, fabrics, felt and leather were artistically designed with a certain originality. The motifs of such design were borrowed from the zoomorphic world and were embodied in the images of figurines or some parts of animals, birds or fish. This kind of fine art, which has become a kind of calling card art of the Scythians, was called "Scythian animal style".
At an early stage in the development of Scythian art, images of a deer, a ram, a panther, an elk, and a black goat were favorite. The motifs of the heads of an eagle, a horse, a vulture ram were often used. Usually the animals were depicted in a calm state.
Later, the Scythian style was strongly influenced by Greek art and lost its originality. At the same time, realistic scenes are gaining ground: scenes of the struggle and torment of animals and images of various animals.
Images in the animal style not only met the aesthetic tastes of the Scythians, but also, obviously, contained a deep philosophy and at the same time embodied a certain magical symbolism. They played the role of amulets, amulets, designed to protect their owners from hostile forces and attract the protection and help of benevolent gods.
ANACHARSIS
Great Scythia forever entered into world history not only thanks to the famous military victories, but also to the great industriousness of their people, the highest level culture. The representative of the great Greek civilization Herodotus states: "... there is not a single tribe near Pontus, which was distinguished by wisdom, except for the Scythian."
A brilliant confirmation of the words of the Greek historian is that Great Scythia gave the world one of her best sons, Anacharsis. A large amount of the most diverse and extremely interesting information from ancient authors has come down to us about him. And this is no coincidence, because Anacharsis was recognized as one of the seven sages of the ancient world.
Anacharsis (born circa 638 BC, died 559 BC) lived a colorful and tragic life. The ancient author tells us the following: “Scythian Anacharsis was the son of Gnur and the brother of Kaduid, the king of the Scythians; his mother was Greek; so he was fluent in both languages. He wrote about Scythian and Hellenic customs, about means of cheap living, and eight hundred verses about military affairs. Distinguished by freedom of speech ... ".
A highly educated philosopher, Anacharsis traveled extensively, met the best achievements Hellenic culture. Around 594 BC he visited in Athens the famous Athenian philosopher Solon. Arriving at Solon's house, he ordered one of the servants to report to the owner that Anacharsis had come to him, wanting to look at him, and, if possible, become his guest.
The servant, having reported, received an order from Solon to convey to Anacharsis that the relationship of hospitality (friendship) is tied up by everyone in their homeland. Then Anacharsis said that Solon himself was now in his homeland and therefore he should enter into ties of hospitality. Such a brilliant, witty answer delighted Solon. He appreciated the intelligence and wisdom of Anacharsis, hastened to accept him and made him the greatest friend.
Anacharsis said that the vine brings three brushes: the first - pleasure, the second - intoxication, the third - disgust.
He expressed his surprise that the Greeks compete with artists, but they are not judged by artists.
When asked how one could avoid becoming a drunkard, he said: "If you have before your eyes the ugliness of drunkards."
When he learned that the ship was four fingers thick, he said that those who sailed in it were so far from death.
He called the oil a means to excite rabies because the athletes smeared with it rage at each other.
When asked which ships are safer, he said: "Drawn ashore."
To the question of what is good and bad in people, he said: "Language."
Reproached by one Attic citizen for his Scythian origin, he said: "I am a shame - the fatherland, and you are yours - the fatherland."
He said that it is better to have one friend who is worth a lot than many who are not worth it.
Signed under his image: "Restrain the tongue, stomach, all organs of the body."
Every civilized person should appreciate the depth of the following delightful aphorism: "Speech and words are beautiful only when they are followed by beautiful deeds."
We can appreciate the depth of the philosophical and worldly wisdom of Anacharsis by carefully reading one of his letters:
ANACHARSIS-CRESUS
In their creations, the Greek poets divide the world between the sons-brothers of Cronus: to one they attributed power over the sky, the other over the sea, the third over the underground darkness. Such a division speaks of Hellenic self-interest. Not recognizing any joint use of property, they npunused their vice to the gods. True, they provided the land as an exception for general use. The poets wanted all people to honor the gods and consider them the givers of blessings and the averters of evil. The earth is the common property of the gods, and in ancient times it was the same for people who over time transgressed the law and dedicated the common property for all to individual gods, allocating a special lot to each of them. In return, the gods gave people the corresponding gifts - strife, pleasure and cowardice, a base way of thinking. Their mixing and separation gave rise to all the evil and all the troubles for mankind: plowing and sowing, work in the bowels of the earth and war.
Having sowed much, they reap little. They are engaged in various crafts, but they do not earn a living. They diligently extract the colorful treasures of the earth, causing only one surprise. The first who invented this miserable art is considered thrice blessed, but they do not know that in doing so, like children, they deceive themselves; at first without putting anything into something that was given with difficulty, then they become delighted with the work itself. As I heard from many people, this grief befell you too, and from it all other troubles. After all, neither great wealth nor vast possessions help to acquire wisdom. It is rightly said that the bodies of people, heavily overloaded with various unnecessary ballast, suffer from various diseases. Therefore, those who want to be healthy are advised to quickly get rid of everything superfluous. But if you have doctors for bodies suffering from immoderate pleasures, then you have no healers of souls.
It would be wise to get rid of the pleasures. When rivers of gold flow to you and the glory of the rich man comes, envy and the desire to take this gold from you come after them. If you were cleansed of this filth, you would be healthy and could speak and rule freely. This is the king's health. If these qualities became your inner property, then no one would be surprised that everything else in you is beautiful. But, having seized you without knowing the measure, the disease turned you from free into a slave. But do not lose heart and take as an example the fire that broke out in the forest, which turns into ashes everything covered by it, but feeds on what has not yet had time to burn. So your former vices have passed on to those in whose power you are now, along with your possessions. Be sure that then your torment will pass to them. Now listen to a little story that I myself witnessed. big river flows through the Scythian land. They call her Peter. Once, sailing along it, the merchants ran their ship aground. Unable to do anything, with complaints and weeping they left him. Knowing nothing about the cause of the misfortune, the pirates approached the injured ship on an unloaded ship and dragged all its cargo without a trace to their ship. But along with the load, unnoticed by themselves, they also suffered misfortune. The merchant ship, having lost its cargo, became light and surfaced, and the pirate ship, having accepted someone else's cargo, quickly went to the bottom along with the stolen goods of others. This can always happen to rich people. The Scythians are free from such troubles. All our land belongs to everyone. Everything that it brings by itself, we accept, but we do not strive for what it hides. Protecting our livestock from wild animals, in return we get milk and cheese. We use weapons not to attack others, but in case of need for defense. True, this has not happened yet. For those who would like to attack us, we are both warriors and a reward, but this reward does not appeal to many.
I advise you the same as the Athenian Solon - to keep in mind only the end. What matters is not what you have succeeded at the moment, but what will bring you a glorious end. True, he did not say this openly, since he was not a Scythian. You, if you agree with me, convey my advice to Cyrus and all tyrants, for it will bring more benefit to those who are still in power than to those who have already lost it.
Unfortunately, the return to his beloved homeland turned out to be tragic for Anacharsis. According to Herodotus, Anacharsis did not abandon the Hellenic customs in Scythia, he worshiped the Greek gods, which ruined him. Herodotus writes: “And one of the Scythians, noticed that he was doing this, reported to King Savliy. He arrived on his own, and when he saw that Anacharsis was doing this, he fired a bow and killed him.
These are the basic information about the Scythian sage, one of the greatest sons of Scythia. I would like to end the story about him with the words of Strabo: “Therefore, Anacharsis, Abaris and some other Scythians like them enjoyed great fame among the Hellenes, for they discovered the characteristic features of their tribe: courtesy, simplicity, justice”
THE FALL OF THE GREAT SCYTHIA
Scythia reaches its highest prosperity and power during the reign of the legendary king Atheus in the 4th century BC. BC. History has preserved the name of this king, since he largely personifies Scythia.
According to Strabo, Atey was at the head of all Scythia. All authors speak of him as a stern warrior hardened in numerous battles. The power of Atey is evidenced by the minting of coins with his name, as well as the rather formidable content of his letter to the inhabitants of the city of Byzantium: “King of the Scythian Atey to the demos of the Byzantines: do not interfere with my profits so that my mares do not drink your water.”
Not only military prowess, but also, obviously, the very extraordinary appearance of the powerful king aroused close interest in many. The episode described by Plutarch vividly characterizes Atey as a true Scythian king, deeply honoring the customs of his ancestors, their way of life. Once Atey, while cleaning his horse, asked the Macedonian ambassadors present at the same time if King Philip was doing the same. The same Plutarch describes a very characteristic episode: having captured the Greek flutist Ismenius, who became famous for his playing, the Scythians brought him to Atey. After listening to the wonderful play of the flutist, the king said that the best music for him was the neighing of a war horse. Obviously, this answer aroused great admiration among the Scythians for their king.
The following episode speaks of Atey's excellent leadership abilities, his vast experience as a commander: “when he had to fight with the superior army of the Thracian Triballi tribe, he ordered women and children to drive donkeys and oxen to the rear of the enemy, while carrying raised spears, which forced the enemies who accepted this crowd for reinforcements for Atheus, to retreat.
In 339 BC there was a battle between the Scythians, led by Atheus, and the Macedonian troops, led by King Philip II. The Scythians were defeated, and Atey himself, who at that time was almost 100 years old, died in a cruel slaughter.
However, the power of the Scythians was preserved. In 311 BC they took a convincing revenge on the Macedonians, completely destroying the thirty-thousandth army that invaded Scythia, led by the governor of Alexander the Great, Zopyrion.
However, after such a rapid rise, quite unexpectedly, a deep crisis sets in at the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC. According to many researchers, this is due to a number of unfavorable factors: a sharp change in natural and climatic conditions in this region led to frequent droughts, as a result of long-term grazing by numerous herds, the grass cover in the steppe deteriorated.
At the same time, nomadic tribes of Savromats (Sarmatians) approached the borders of the Scythians, who in the VI-IV centuries. BC. lived in the steppes of the Volga region and the southern Urals. Gradually moving west, towards the end of the 4th c. BC. Sarmatians reached the border of Scythia along the Tanais (Don - ed.). The Scythians stand up to defend their land, their camps and winter camps, their hearths. However, they could no longer stop the numerous enemy and were forced to cede vast territories.
During the III century. BC. the Scythians were forced out of the steppe expanses between the Don and the Dnieper. Diodorus Siculus describes these sad events in this way: the Sarmatians "devastated a significant part of Scythia and, completely exterminating the vanquished, turned most of the country into a desert."
From this moment a new stage begins in the history of Scythia.
SMALL SCYTHIA
Displaced from wide steppe spaces to a relatively small area, most of which was in Taurica, the Scythians were forced to adapt to new conditions. They gradually turned into sedentary farmers and pastoralists living in permanent long-term settlements. Fundamental changes in the economy led to significant innovations in the way of life, in material culture, in social relations and religious beliefs and largely influenced the further history of the Scythians.
Unlike the previous period, once in a "limited space", the Scythians begin to thoroughly develop the territory of the peninsula. They build their settlements within the Outer and Inner ridges of the Crimean mountains in river valleys, on fertile lands with sources. Archaeologists have discovered Scythian settlements in the valleys of the rivers Kacha, Belbek, Alma, Zuya, Western Bulganak, Biyuk-Karasu, Beshterek and Salgir. Since ancient times, these fertile lands have attracted farmers.
Archaeologists have discovered Scythian settlements of various sizes: from very small to a fairly large capital. Thanks to the evidence of Strabo, we know about the four largest and, obviously, strategically important fortified cities of the Scythians on the territory of Taurica: Naples, Khabei, Palakiy and Napit. Among scientists, the information of the ancient Greek geographer caused a long discussion about their location. As a result of archaeological research, significant Scythian settlements were discovered and explored: Kermenchik on the territory of modern Simferopol, Kermen-Kyr near the village of Mirnoye, Bulganakskoye near the village of Pozharskoye, 15 km from Simferopol, Ust-Alminskoye near the village of Pochtovoye on the Alma River.
It can be said with certainty that the Scythian city of Naples was located on the territory of Simferopol. The location of Palakia, Napit and Khabei has not yet been established.
The Scythians began to build their capital in the Crimea - Naples - in the III century. BC e. in the valley of the Salgir River, on the site of modern Simferopol on the plateau of the Petrovsky Rocks.
SKYLUR
Petrovsky rocks steep wall.
Take a look at the city. bird's eye view:
Below Salgir. And stone honeycombs
Domov. And distant mountains are blue.
As a boy, I often ran here,
He looked at the city that was walking on the hills.
And behind the hills I imagined the sea
And ancient cities dreamed.
It's still deserted here now
Only poppies and panicles of wild oats.
Steppe silence. But we'll start from here
Here is a story about the city from these rocks.
... I see sharp cheekbones Skilur,
Felt tent on strong stakes.
From here, from a height, he looked gloomily
On the distant spurs of the Crimean mountains.
He reached the long-awaited place.
Here the city will be bright and beautiful...
He waved his hand. And a thousand hoes
They crashed into dry earth according to.
Slaves shredded gray limestone,
Erasing sweat, looked: at the cliff
Palak fearlessly rode the horse,
One hand barely holding on to the mane.
What were you, holy Neapolis.
Militant rival of Chersonese?
I peer...
/Anatoly Milyavsky/
How the name of the city sounded in Scythian, we do not know. In Greek written sources it is called Neapolis - " new town”, which, obviously, is a translation of the Scythian phrase. In the historical and local history literature, the conditional name was fixed: Scythian Naples.
It must be admitted that the choice of a place for the future capital turned out to be very successful. The political situation on the peninsula and the geographical position. In addition, the Petrovsky Plateau made it possible to create a good defensive system for the future city, which could only be attacked from the south side, since the northern and western ones had very steep slopes, and the eastern one was cut off by a sheer wall. Residents fortified the city from the south side, erecting a fairly powerful defensive wall. Its lower part was made of large limestone blocks, while the upper part was made of raw bricks. The wall was reinforced with several towers.
What was Scythian Naples? Fascinatingly, in the form of a "journey into the past", but relying on archaeological data, the authors B. Chupikov and M. Petrovskaya told us about the capital of Lesser Scythia.
“The way to the settlement is blocked by a high fortress wall with towers. It stretched from the cliffs of the Petrovsky rocks to the Petrovsky beam and further along the beam to a sharp cape, which ends the plateau of Scythian Naples.
We are at the main double gate. Stern, bearded guards in gleaming helmets and scaly shells, rattling their spears in greeting, take hold of the gate rings. Slowly, with a creak, massive banners disperse. Behind the gate we find ourselves in a spacious square. On the other side of the square is a long building with porticos. Bronze statues of gods and kings rise between the columns of the porticos. The front wall of the building is decorated with marble reliefs. Among them we recognize the portraits of Skilur and Palak. They are depicted riding side by side on horseback. Further we see the relief of a matured Palak on a horse with a spear in his hands. Under each statue are carved inscriptions in Greek international language that time.
By the way, Naples also traded mainly with Greece. Greek merchants not only visited the city, but also constantly lived. On this square, they concluded deals for the export of the famous Tauride wheat.
Behind the "building with porticos" stands the palace of the Scythian kings. We cross the threshold of the main hall and stop, admiring the bizarre “vegetative” painting of the room, bright carpets on carved oak benches, hanging weapons, foreign black-gloss dishes standing in deep niches. From the main hall, a door hidden by drapery leads to the residential part of the palace, furnished with no less luxury, but no longer for outsiders to see.
To the west of the palace is another rich house (“building with a basement”). Probably the king's son or one of the people closest to the king. But we will go in the opposite direction, to the square where the sacred fire is smoking. Temples are located here. Let's take a look at one of them. If the green color prevails in the painting of civil premises, then in the temples the main decor is red. The planes of the walls are divided by semi-columns with carved capitals. The decoration of the temples - ritual decorations, statues ...
Tangled streets scatter from the square with temples, where ordinary people of Naples live in modest houses.
His life was not made up of peaceful everyday life. Scythian Naples had enough enemies. First of all, Chersonese is an independent Greek state, eager to spread, if not power, then influence over the entire grain Crimea, in order to concentrate the trade in Scythian bread with Greece in its hands. The Scythians, of course, could not come to terms with such a self-proclaimed intermediary. Wars broke out between the Scythians and Chersonesians. Enemies three times invaded the boundaries of the Scythian state, smashing and burning everything that came in their way, the same fate befell Naples.
It is time for us, however, to complete the imaginary journey through the Scythian capital. Through the echoing, cool tunnel of the gate fortification, we leave the city. Behind them, the gates creaked and slammed shut. We involuntarily slow down the step at the wall of the mausoleum. There, in a stone tomb, lies the tireless warrior Skilur. His hand clutches a short akinak sword. Stripes on a leather robe and a golden wreath at the head gleam.
Closer to the exit from the mausoleum stands the wooden sarcophagus of the Scythian queen, very strange by today's standards: it looks more festive than mourning. The sarcophagus is painted with bright red, blue and gold paints (there is no black at all). The lavish decoration is complemented by plaster statues of mythical beasts.
The white-stone structures of the Scythian capital melted away. Instead, we have a spacious grassy field in front of us, in some places hilly with the remains of buildings covered with earth. Only where the main gate and the mausoleum were, the protected field was opened by archaeological excavations.
At present, it is rather difficult to say when the Scythian capital ceased to exist. In 275 it was thoroughly destroyed by the Goths. However, even after this terrible disaster, life in the city flickered for some time. Probably, only after the invasion of the Huns of Naples did the Scythian disappear.
As already noted, not far from Simferopol, archaeologists discovered and explored two more, fairly large Scythian settlements. One of them, called Kermen-Kyr, is located on the outskirts of the village of Mirnoye, on a hill overlooking the valley of the Salgir River. The second fortification was named Bulganak settlement. It is located on a hill in the valley of the Western Bulganak River near the village of Pozharsky. Both fortresses, obviously, are almost the same age as the Scythian Naples.
There is much in common in these fortresses. They are built on hills bounded on one side by river valleys and on the other two by deep gullies. This arrangement created a natural defense of the settlements. In addition, each fortress had two more lines of defensive structures.
One of the largest settlements of the Scythians, second only to Naples in terms of area, was a settlement on the high left bank of the Alma River at its confluence with the sea. This settlement was named Ust-Alma. It consisted of houses built of stones and mud bricks, as well as semi-dugouts sunk into the ground. Unfortified settlements were located outside the rampart.
Thus, from the III century. BC e. the final period of the history of the Scythians begins. According to Strabo, the territory of the Crimean Steppe, together with the area adjacent to it beyond the Perekop Isthmus, began to be called Lesser Scythia.
As the Scythians strengthened in the flat part of the Crimea, their trade relations with the Greek cities of the Northern Black Sea region, primarily with Chersonese and settlements on the western coast, revived.
Taking advantage of a favorable situation for themselves, the Scythian kings subjugate Olbia, force the Bosporus to pay tribute. They are becoming more and more active foreign policy, seeking to be able to trade directly with the Greek states of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, to get rid of the mediation of Chersonesos. Therefore, the Scythians persistently attack the territory of the Black Sea cities on the western coast of the peninsula.
The onslaught of the Scythians was so strong that Chersonesos had to turn to the Sarmatian queen Amaga for help. She lifts the siege of Chersonese, kills the Scythian king and transfers royal power to his son, obliging him to stop attacks on Chersonese.
However, the Scythians soon manage to restore their power, and in the II century. BC e. Lesser Scythia reaches its highest peak. This happens during the reign of King Skilur, whose name is reported by written sources and epigraphic inscriptions. Sculptural portraits of Skilur and his son Palak have been preserved on a marble relief discovered in Scythian Naples.
Skilurus manages not only to gain a foothold in the Crimea, but also to expand the territory of Scythia Minor, having conquered convenient harbors: Kerkinitida, Kalos Limen and a number of other Greek fortified points. The territory on the Lower Dnieper was reclaimed, including the important trading center of Olvia, where Skilur began to mint his coin. After Skilur's death, his policy was continued by his son Palak, during whose reign relations with Chersonesus deteriorated significantly and soon escalated into open hostilities. The Scythian army laid siege to Chersonese. Unable to resist the enemy on their own, the inhabitants of the city turned to the Pontic king Mithridates Eupator for help. His troops, under the command of the talented commander Diophantus, managed to inflict a serious defeat on Palak and his Roxolani allies, capture a number of Scythian fortresses, and even capture Naples.
Scythia is in decline. At this time, Olbia comes out from under her influence. However, gradually the Scythians managed to restore their strength, and in the 1st century. n. e. they resume their attacks on Olbia, Chersonese and the Bosporus. The Scythians again gained dominance over Olbia, and during the reign of Farzoy and Inismey in 35-45. gold and silver coins were minted here. A number of evidence suggests that during this period there was an economic and political rise in Scythia Minor. A lot of fortified settlements are being built, the Scythian capital Naples is being restored and strengthened with new armored walls. Trade is growing significantly.
During the reign of Farzoy, the Scythians even managed to resume the attack on the possession of Chersonese and win back Kerkinitida and Kalos Limen from him. This time, Chersonesus turned to Rome for help. As a result, the city retained its possessions, but lost its independence, being under the rule of Rome.
The struggle of the Scythians with the Bosporan kingdom continued. However, the latter, having strengthened its borders, was able to push the enemy back, and subsequently inflict defeat. Suffering setbacks, the Scythians increasingly lost their influence. Once Great Scythia was fading away.
Based on the works of G.V. Vernadsky and other historians of the 19th-21st centuries. Southern Russia was first politically organized Cimmerians (1000 - 700 BC), then the Scythians (700 - 200 BC) In the 7th century BC. there is an invasion of the Scythians from Eastern Europe and forever knocks out the Cimmerians from the Crimea ... In Europe, the Cimmerians fought longer. In alliance with the Teutonic tribes, the "Cimbri", as the Romans called them, continued to successfully fight with Ancient Rome for several more centuries. But in 101 B.C. Roman consul Gaius Marius wins the final victory at Vercelli: “more than 65 thousand barbarians were killed, and the rest were sold into slavery” ... This is where the story of Cimmeria ended. Yes, we are Scythians!For many centuries, scientists have been breaking spears, trying to understand the origin of the Russian people. And if the studies of the past were based on archaeological and linguistic data, today even geneticists have taken up the matter. From the DanubeOf all the theories of Russian ethnogenesis, the most famous is the Danube one. We owe its appearance to the chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years", or rather the centuries-old love for this source of domestic academics. The chronicler Nestor determined the initial territory of the settlement of the Slavs by the territories along the lower reaches of the Danube and the Vistula. The theory of the Danube "ancestral home" of the Slavs was developed by such historians as Sergei Solovyov and Vasily Klyuchevsky. From the Carpathian region, according to Klyuchevsky, in the 7th-8th centuries, the Eastern Slavs settled in the East and Northeast to Ilmen Lake. The Danubian theory of Russian ethnogenesis is still adhered to by many historians and linguists. A great contribution to its development was made at the end of the 20th century by the Russian linguist Oleg Nikolaevich Trubachev. One of the most fierce opponents of the Norman theory of the formation of Russian statehood, Mikhail Lomonosov, leaned towards the Scythian-Sarmatian theory of Russian ethnogenesis, which he wrote about in his Ancient Russian History. According to Lomonosov, the ethnogenesis of the Russians occurred as a result of the mixing of the Slavs and the Chudi tribe (Lomonosov's term is Finno-Ugric), and he named the interfluve of the Vistula and the Oder as the place of origin of the ethnic history of the Russians. Supporters of the Sarmatian theory rely on ancient sources, as did Lomonosov. He compared Russian history with the history of the Roman Empire and ancient beliefs with the pagan beliefs of the Eastern Slavs, revealing a large number of coincidences. The fierce struggle with the adherents of the Norman theory is quite understandable: the people-tribe Rus, according to Lomonosov, could not come from Scandinavia under the influence of the expansion of the Norman Vikings. First of all, Lomonosov opposed the thesis about the backwardness of the Slavs and their inability to independently form a state. Scythians - mysterious ancient people |
Riders rush on horseback as fast as the wind, leaving clouds of dust behind them. It is the nomadic tribes returning with the loot. From 700 to 300 BC. e. they dominated the steppes of Eurasia. Then they disappeared, leaving a mark on history. They are even mentioned in the Bible. These were the Scythians .Scythian tribesThucydides (4th century BC) argued that no kingdoms could compare with the Scythians in terms of military strength and number of troops. In Asia, he wrote, there is no people who could stand face to face with the Scythians, if they were unanimous. The military experience of the Scythians was absorbed by the troops of Genghis Khan through the peoples who entered his empire.
For centuries, their tribes, with huge herds of wild horses, roamed the boundless steppes stretching from the Carpathians to what is now known as southeast Russia. By the 8th century BC. e. as a result of a military campaign undertaken by the Chinese emperor Xuan, they were forced out to the west. Having settled in new lands - in the foothills of the Caucasus and on the territory of the Northern Black Sea coast - the Scythians expelled the Cimmerians who lived there. In search of treasure, the Scythians captured and plundered the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. Later, having united with Assyria, they attacked Media, Babylonia and other ancient states. Even the northern part of Egypt was subjected to their raids. The very name of the city of Scythopol (northeast of Israel), formerly known as Beth-San, suggests that, most likely, this city was also once captured by the Scythians. Over time, the Scythians settled in the steppes in the territory now occupied by Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and southern Russia. Such a favorable location brought them a considerable income: they became intermediaries between the Greeks and the tribes of grain growers who lived in the territory that is now occupied by Ukraine and the southern part of Russia. In exchange for grain, honey, fur and cattle, the Scythians received wine, fabrics, weapons and jewelry from the Greeks. So the Scythian tribesamassed a huge fortune. Scythians - life in the saddleThe horse for the Scythian warriors was the same as the camel for the inhabitants of the desert. The Scythians were known as excellent riders. They were among the first to use saddles and stirrups. They ate horse meat and drank mare's milk. It is known that the Scythians sacrificed horses. When a Scythian warrior died, his horse was slaughtered and buried with all honors. Along with the horse, a harness and blanket were also placed in the grave. According to the historian Herodotus, the Scythians had cruel customs, for example, they made drinking bowls from the skulls of their victims. They mercilessly killed their enemies, using iron swords, battle axes, spears and triangular arrows that ripped through the tissues of the body. Scythian graves for eternityWormwood, dusty and
feather grass, Top hiding in the fog
The Scythians were engaged in witchcraft and shamanism, and also worshiped fire and the mother goddess. The graves of the Scythians were considered dwellings for the dead. Slaves and domestic animals were also sacrificed to the deceased master. Jewelry and servants, according to the beliefs of the Scythians, were supposed to "go" after the owner to the "other world". Skeletons of five of his servants were found in the tomb of a Scythian king. Their feet were turned towards their master, as if at any moment these loyal subjects were ready to rise and serve him. When the king died, the Scythians did not skimp on sacrifices, and during mourning they bled themselves and cut their hair. Here is what Herodotus reports: "They cut off a piece of their ear, cut off the hair on their head in a circle, make an incision on their arm around, scratch their forehead and nose, and pierce their left hand with arrows." The Scythians left behind thousands of burial mounds (grave mounds). The things found during the excavations of the Scythian mounds introduce us to the life, way of life and culture of this ancient people. In 1715, the Russian Tsar Peter I began to collect Scythian treasures, and now these masterpieces of ancient art are presented in the museums of Russia and Ukraine. The products, made in the animal style characteristic of the Scythians, depict figures of such animals as a horse, an eagle, a falcon, a cat, a panther, an elk, a deer, a vulture and a griffin (a winged fantastic monster with a lion's body and an eagle's head). Bible and ScythiansThere is only one direct mention of the Scythians in the Bible. In Colossians 3:11 we read, "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all." When the Apostle Paul wrote this letter, the word "Scythians" ceased to have an ethnic character and was applied to uncivilized people. Some archaeologists believe that the name "Askenaz" mentioned in Jeremiah 51:27 is the equivalent of the Assyrian word "Ashkuz", which was used to name the Scythians. According to cuneiform tablets, in the 7th century BC. e. this people, together with the kingdom of Mana, united against Assyria. Before Jeremiah began to prophesy, the path of the Scythians to Egypt passed through the land of Judah, but the Scythians did not cause any harm to its inhabitants. Therefore, for many, Jeremiah's prophecy about the attack on Judah by the people from the north seemed incredible (Jeremiah 1:13-15). Some biblical scholars believe that Jeremiah 50:42 speaks of the Scythians: "They hold a bow and a spear in their hands; they are cruel and unmerciful; their voice is noisy like the sea; they ride on horses, lined up as one man to fight you, daughter of Babylon ". However, these words primarily refer to the Medes and Persians, who captured Babylon in 539 BC. e. The Scythians contributed to the fulfillment of Nahum's prophecy about the destruction of Nineveh (Nahum 1:1,14). The Chaldeans, Scythians and Medes sacked Nineveh in 632 BC. which led to the collapse of the Assyrian Empire. The mysterious disappearance of the ScythiansThe Scythian people disappeared from the face of the earth. But why? "Honestly, this question remains a mystery," says a leading Ukrainian archaeologist. Some researchers are convinced that the Scythians were ruined by their indefatigable love of luxury, and between the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. e. they were driven out by the Sarmatians - an association of nomadic tribes. Other researchers believe that the reason for the disappearance of the ancient Scythians was their tribal wars. Still others believe that the Scythians became the ancestors of the Ossetians. Be that as it may, this mysterious ancient people left an indelible mark on history - even the word "Scythian" itself has long become a household word, synonymous with the word "cruel" |
For almost a millennium, the Scythians dominated the current territory of Russia. Neither the Persian Empire nor Alexander the Great could break them. But suddenly, overnight, this people mysteriously disappeared into history, leaving behind only majestic burial mounds...
Who are the Scythians
Scythians is a Greek word, with the help of which the Hellenes denoted nomadic peoples living in the territory of the Black Sea between the courses of the Don and Danube rivers. The Scythians themselves called themselves Saki.
For most Greeks, Scythia was an outlandish land inhabited by "white flies" - snow, and cold always reigned, which, of course, did not correspond to reality.
It is this perception of the country of the Scythians that can be found in Virgil, Horace and Ovid. Later, in the Byzantine chronicles, Slavs, and Alans, Khazars or Pechenegs could already be called Scythians.
And the Roman historian Pliny the Elder wrote back in the 1st century AD that “the name“ Scythians ”is transferred to the Sarmatians and Germans,” and believed that the ancient name was assigned to many of the peoples most distant from the Western world.
“Oleg went to the Greeks, leaving Igor in Kyiv; he took with him many Varangians, and Slavs, and Chuds, and Krivichi, and Meryu, and Drevlyans, and Radimichi, and Polyans, and Severians, and Vyatichi, and Croats, and Dulebs, and Tivertsy, known as interpreters: these were all called Greeks "Great Scythia".
It is believed that the self-name "Scythians" means "archers", and the beginning of the emergence of the culture of the Scythians is considered to be the 7th century BC.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, in whom we meet one of the most detailed descriptions the life of the Scythians, describes them as a single people, breaking up into various tribes - Scythian farmers, Scythian plowmen, Scythian nomads, royal Scythians and others. However, Herodotus also believed that the Scythian kings were the descendants of the son of Hercules, the Scythian.
The Scythians for Herodotus are a wild and rebellious tribe. One of the stories tells that the Greek king went mad after he began to drink wine "in the Scythian way", that is, without diluting it, as was not customary among the Greeks: "From now on, as the Spartans say, every time when they want to drink stronger wine, they say: "Pour it in the Scythian way."
Another demonstrates how barbaric the customs of the Scythians were: “Everyone has, as usual, many wives; they use them together; they enter into a relationship with a woman by placing a stick in front of the dwelling. At the same time, Herodotus mentions that the Scythians also chuckle at the Hellenes: "The Scythians despise the Hellenes for their Bacchic frenzy."
Struggle
Thanks to the regular contacts of the Scythians with the Greeks, who actively colonized the lands surrounding them, ancient literature is rich in references to the nomadic people. In the VI century BC. the Scythians drove out the Cimmerians, defeated Media and, thus, took possession of all of Asia.
After that, the Scythians retreated to the northern Black Sea region, where they began to meet with the Greeks, fighting for new territories.
At the end of the 6th century Persian king Darius went to war with the Scythians, but despite the crushing power of his army and huge numerical superiority, Darius failed to quickly break the nomads.
The Scythians chose a strategy to wear down the Persians, retreating endlessly and circling around Darius's forces. Thus, the Scythians, having remained undefeated, earned themselves the glory of impeccable warriors and strategists.
In the 4th century, the Scythian king Atey, who lived for 90 years, united all the Scythian tribes from the Don to the Danube. Scythia in this period reached its highest peak: Atey was equal in strength to Philip II of Macedon, minted his own coin and expanded his possessions. The Scythians had a special relationship with gold. The cult of this metal even became the basis for the legend that the Scythians managed to tame griffins guarding gold.
The growing power of the Scythians forced the Macedonians to undertake several large-scale invasions: Philip II killed Atheus in an epic battle, and his son, Alexander the Great, went to war against the Scythians eight years later. However, the great commander failed to defeat Scythia, and had to retreat, leaving the Scythians unsubdued.
During the 2nd century, the Sarmatians and other nomads gradually ousted the Scythians from their lands, leaving behind them only the steppe Crimea and the basin of the lower Dnieper and Bug, and as a result, Great Scythia became Lesser. After that, Crimea became the center of the Scythian state, well-fortified fortifications appeared in it - the fortresses of Naples, Palakiy and Khab, in which the Scythians took refuge, fighting with Chersonesus and the Sarmatians.
At the end of the 2nd century, Chersonese found a powerful ally - the Pontic king Mithridates V, who went to war against the Scythians. After numerous battles, the Scythian state was weakened and bled dry.
Disappearance of the Scythians
In the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the Scythian society could hardly be called nomadic: they were farmers, rather strongly Hellenized and ethnically mixed. The Sarmatian nomads continued to push the Scythians, and in the 3rd century the Alans began to invade the Crimea.
They devastated the last stronghold of the Scythians - Scythian Naples, located on the outskirts of modern Simferopol, but could not stay on the occupied lands for a long time. The invasion of these lands by the Goths soon began, declaring war on the Alans, the Scythians, and the Roman Empire itself.
The blow to Scythia, therefore, was the invasion of the Goths around 245 AD. All the fortresses of the Scythians were destroyed, and the remnants of the Scythians fled to the south-west of the Crimean peninsula, hiding in hard-to-reach mountainous areas.
Despite the seemingly obvious complete defeat, Scythia continued to exist for a short time. The fortresses that remained in the southwest became a refuge for the fleeing Scythians, and several settlements were founded at the mouth of the Dnieper and on the Southern Bug. However, they soon fell under the onslaught of the Goths.
The Scythian war, which, after the events described, was waged by the Romans with the Goths, got its name due to the fact that the name "Scythians" began to be used to refer to the Goths who defeated the real Scythians.
Most likely, there was some truth in this false name, since thousands of defeated Scythians joined the Gothic troops, dissolving in the mass of other peoples who fought with Rome. Thus, Scythia became the first state to collapse as a result of the Great Migration of Nations.
The Huns completed the work, in 375 they attacked the territories of the Black Sea region and killed the last Scythians who lived in the Crimean mountains and in the Bug valley. Of course, many Scythians again joined the Huns, but there was no longer any question of any independent identity.
The Scythians as an ethnic group disappeared in the whirlpool of migrations, and remained only on the pages of historical treatises, with enviable persistence continuing to call "Scythians" all new peoples, usually wild, recalcitrant and unbroken.
As already mentioned, the political organizing power of the Scythians in southern Russia was replaced by the Sarmatians (200 BC - 200 AD),
then followed by the Goths (200 - 370 AD),
replaced by the Huns (370 - 454 AD).
In most cases, the vast majority of the local population, recognizing the political control of the newcomers, desperately clung to their old homes or settled again near their former habitats. In turn, each newly arrived group added a new ethnic touch to the many already existing ones. So, in addition to the initial mass of the local population of Southern Russia, which Nikolai Mar called the Japhetids, an ethnic superstructure of a varying nature gradually formed, but on the whole there was a certain sequence of racial tension. Returning to the Cimmerians, one can accept the opinion that they were only ruling class countries. The problem of their ethnic origin is thus narrower than the question of the ethnic basis of the population of Southern Russia as a whole.
Scythians (Greek Skythai), chipped, Ishkuza
- V. Abaev compared the ethnonym skuta with the Germanic *skut- (archer, to shoot).
- K. T. Vitchak and S. V. Kullanda explain the Scythian self-name as follows: other Greek. Σκόλοτοι< *skula-ta < *skuδa-ta < *skuda-ta (то есть «лучники», с закономерным переходом *d >*l in Scythian). Moreover, the form *skuδa-ta existed in the 7th century BC. e., when the Greeks began to contact the Scythians (that is why other Greek Σκύϑαι). Then the Assyrian campaign of the Scythians took place - that's why the Assyrians. Ašgūzai or Išgūzai. By the 5th century BC e. - the time of Herodotus' visit to Olbia - the transition *δ > *l has already occurred.
The transition of Old Iranian *δ into Scythian *l as a characteristic feature of the Scythian language is also confirmed by other Scythian words.
Language
The Scythian language is included in the northeastern subgroup of the Iranian languages. Very close in language and culture to the Scythians were Savromats (Sarmatians), Saks and Massagets.
Time of existence
Actually the history of the Scythians in the Northern Black Sea region - VIII century. BC e. - IV century. n. e. From the beginning of the war with the Cimmerians to the defeat of the Scythian kingdom by the Goths in the Crimea.
Origin
There are several legends of the origin of the Scythians -
- Among the Scythians, there was a legend that their people were younger than all the others and that in their land, which was deserted, the first man Targitai was born from Zeus and the daughter of Borisfen. Targitai had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Koloksai. Under them, golden objects fell from the sky: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl. The older and middle brothers could not grab these objects: they immediately ignited. Younger son was able to safely take the miraculous gifts of heaven and therefore he was given royal power.
- from the elder brother came the family of Avkhats,
- from the middle - the genera of catiars and traspians,
- from the younger - paralatov.
Here Herodotus says that the common name of the people is chipped off; the Greeks called them Scythians, and the Persians - Saks. It was the part of Scythia from the Danube to Meotida, especially known in Olbia, that was called primordial Scythia. A thousand years passed from Targitai to the time of Herodotus.
- The Black Sea Greeks told Herodotus one more legend. Hercules, driving the cows of Gerion, entered Scythia, then not yet inhabited. When Hercules fell asleep, his horses left the yoke. He found them in Hylaea with a half-woman half-snake who lived in a cave, who agreed to return the mares to him if he marries her. Hercules lived with her for a long time and three sons were born from their marriage. Only after that did the hero get his horses back. Leaving, he left his beloved a bow and a belt, so that one of the sons who could pull this bow and gird himself like a father would remain in possession of the land, and the other two would be removed. The task was completed by the youngest of them named Scythian, the ancestor of the Scythian kings. From the two elders - Agathirs and Gelon - the tribes of Agathirs and Gelons originated. In this myth one can clearly hear the Greek reworking of another native tradition, which differed from the previous one. It clearly refers to the crossing of newcomers (Hercules) and local (snake-footed goddess) beginnings in the Scythians, while in the first the local element sounds stronger, although the newcomer, perhaps, manifests itself in the fact that the future land of the Scythians was empty when they appeared .
- Herodotus points out that there is, however, another story, which I myself most trust. According to this story, the nomadic Scythians who lived in Asia, being pressed by the war from the Massagets, crossed the Arak (Syr Darya) River and retired to the Cimmerian land.
At the moment, there are just three versions of where the Scythians appeared in the Black Sea region.
- Grakov B.N. autochthonous theory. Grakov believed that the direct ancestors of the Scythians were the tribes of the semi-sedentary (shepherd) Srubna culture of the Bronze Age, which penetrated into the Northern Black Sea region from the Volga region. The resettlement took place for quite a long time from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. and the Herodotus migration of the Scythians - this can be said to be one of the last waves of migration. The Cimmerians, whom the Scythians met, are also one of the waves of the Srubnaya culture, but an earlier one, which eventually allowed related tribes to merge, forming a homogeneous ethnic element.
- Artamonov M.I. Anterior Asian theory. Before the arrival of the Scythians in the Black Sea region, a log culture developed there and preceded the Scythian. The Scythians themselves came from Western Asia and were associated with the developed civilizations of that era (as the main element of the Scythian animal style). In his opinion, the Cimmerians are representatives of the Catacomb culture, who were ousted from the Black Sea region in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC.
- Terenozhkin A. I. Central Asian theory. According to his version, there is no ethnic or cultural continuity between the population of the Northern Black Sea region and the newcomer Scythians. The Scythians penetrate the Black Sea region from Central Asia (Mongolia, Altai, East Kazakhstan) in an already culturally formalized form, which is based on the triad - characteristic type weapons, horse harness, artistic animal style.
In turn, their movement to the west was led by the attack of the Massagetae, and they, in turn, were attacked by their eastern neighbors and, most likely, the great drought of 800 BC led to such a chain reaction.
Story
7th century BC. The war of the Scythians with the Cimmerians, which allowed the Scythians to oust the latter from the Black Sea region and occupy their territory.
685 Under the leadership of Spargapif, the Scythians migrate from North Caucasus and Kuban to the Northern Black Sea region. Most likely, Scythia at this time is divided into three regions -
- between the Don and the Volga, the clan of Ishpakaya-Partatua rules.
- between the Don and the Dnieper the genus Spargapif rules,
- between the Dnieper and the Danube, and possibly all of Scythia, Ariant rules.
70s 7th century BC. A series of Scythian campaigns in Media, Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor. As a result of which, the Scythians were able to establish themselves there.
Within the boundaries of Eastern Transcaucasia (modern Azerbaijan and partly Iranian Azerbaijan), on the northern and partly on the southern banks of the Araks River, the state of the Scythians was founded, named in the sources of Ishkuz, which existed until the 6th century BC. BC, when the Scythians were expelled from Transcaucasia by the Medes.
679-674/73 BC. The Scythians under the leadership of Ishpakai (one of the first historically known leaders of the Scythians), in alliance with the Medes, Urartu and the kingdom of Manna, participated in the war against the Assyrian kingdom under the leadership of Assarhadon, during which Ishpakay died.
673-654 BC. Partatua (Prototius) becomes the leader of the Scythians, under whose leadership the Scythians left the anti-Assyrian coalition. According to one hypothesis, this happened due to the conclusion of a dynastic marriage - Partatua married the daughter of Assarhadon.
Dyakonov I.M. | Piotrovsky B.B., Belyavsky V.A., Grakov B.N., Artamonov M.I. |
654-625 BC. Madai (Madiy), probably the son of Partatua, became the leader of the Scythians. At this time, the Scythians make a series of predatory campaigns throughout the Mediterranean - to Syria, Palestine, Egypt. At the same time, they remain true to allied relations with Assyria. 653/52 BC The Scythians, helping Assyria, defeat the Medes. According to the legend of Herodotus, from that time and for 28 years, Media paid tribute to them, while also being subjected to robberies. 645 BC The Scythians under the leadership of Madai in Transcaucasia, again helping Assyria, defeat the Cimmerians. 625 The campaign of the Scythians to Egypt. According to one version, Pharaoh Psammetik I bought them off with gifts, according to another, the Scythians were still afraid to enter into open conflict with the Egyptian troops. After 612 B.C. The Medes are pushing the Scythians out of all the Transcaucasian lands they had previously conquered. This was done thanks to the cunning of Cyaxares, the king of the Medes. After the destruction of Assyria, Cyaxares decided to get rid of the Scythians. He invited the kings of the Scythians to a feast, got them drunk, and then ordered them to be killed. The Scythians left without leaders left Transcaucasia. |
650-584 BC e. The king of the Scythians was Madiy. Long and quite successful campaigns of the Scythians in Transcaucasia and Western Asia begin. 624-585 BC. The reign of Cyaxares. But it is possible that he died earlier at the turn of the century. 616 BC Scythian invasion of Media. 614 BC Siege of Nineveh and Ashur by the Medes. Ashur was taken, the siege was lifted from Nineveh thanks to the Scythians - the allies of Assyria. 612 BC Nineveh was taken by allied forces - the Medes, Babylonians and Scythians, who sided with Media. The Scythians establish their dominance over Media for 28 years. 609 BC The Scythians defeated the Egyptian pharaoh. Turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC. Cyaxares (or his son Aliattes) decide to destroy the Scythians and kill their leaders at a feast. After that, part of the Scythians returns to the Black Sea region, part submits to the Medes. 590-585 BC The war between Media and Lydia, as a result of which peace was concluded, according to which the Scythians, who fought on the side of Lydia, had to leave Transcaucasia. |
650 BC The Scythian leader Ariant conducts a "census" of the population in the Black Sea region. He orders each Scythian to bring a tip. After that, he casts a large cauldron. The description is in Herodotus -
“In this area (near the upper reaches of the Hypanis-Bug) there is a copper vessel, perhaps six times larger than the vessel for mixing wine, which Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, ordered to dedicate to the gods and place at the entrance to Pontus (Black Sea). For those who have not seen this vessel, I will describe it: it can easily hold 600 amphoras, and the thickness of this Scythian vessel is six fingers. According to local residents It's made from arrowheads. One Scythian king, named Ariant, wished to know the number of Scythians. For this, he ordered all the Scythians to bring one arrowhead each and threatened with death to anyone who did not obey. Then the Scythians brought so many arrowheads that the king decided to erect a monument to himself from them: he ordered this copper vessel to be made from the arrowheads and exhibited in Exampey. Here is the information that I received about the number of Scythians.
As previously indicated, there are opinions that Ariant owned the lands from the Dnieper to the Danube, but at the same time he could control Scythia as a whole.
Settlement of the Scythians according to Herodotus (Grakov B.N. Scythians - Moscow State University, 1971, p. 16-17.):
Many hypotheses have also been expressed about them, which, however, break down on the exact localization of the five main rivers: Istra, Tiras, Gipanis, Borisfen and Tanais. This allows us to outline the settlement of tribes in accordance with the data of Herodotus. This is how we see this settlement. From the Danube to the Dnieper, the coast is occupied by the Scythians: their northern border with the neurons is somewhere on the upper Dniester. Gipanis and the Dniester bring their course closer in the land of the Alazons: this convergence begins immediately above Nikolaev. Up along the Bug, Kallippids, otherwise Hellenes-Scythians, are closest to Olbia. Later, in the Olbian decree in honor of Protogenes (3rd century BC), they are called "mixelins", i.e. "mixed Hellenes". This confirms the accuracy of Herodotus' data. Above them lives the Scythian tribe of the Alazons, in the place where the Bug and the Dniester converge. Even higher are the Scythians-plowmen, somewhere in the interfluve of the same rivers. Exampey had their border with the Alazons. The fourth Scythian tribe, the Scythian farmers, lived along the Dnieper and beyond the Dnieper to Pantikap (Ingulets). It must be assumed that the Scythian farmers lived on both banks of the Borysfen, just as the Scythian nomads, who were located behind Panticap and further behind the farmers, obviously partly lived within the right bank. In other words, both tribes to some extent lived interspersed. Scythian nomads on the left bank of the Dnieper lived in the steppes, divided in half by Hypakiris, and reached the river Gerros (Konka). Further to the east and south lived the royal Scythians across the river Gerros. They occupied the steppe to Meotida and Tanais and the northern Crimea to the mountains where wild Tauri lived. Immediately above the Scythians along the Dnieper lived androfagi (cannibals). Herodotus says that they are the only cannibals of all the peoples of Scythia. They wear Scythian clothes, wander, but have their own language, different from the Scythians.
To the north of the Scythian plowmen and androphagi, according to Herodotus, between the fantastic lake from which the Dniester flows, and the Dnieper, the Nevri live immediately to the west of the Dnieper. In other words, the neurons occupied a vast space no longer in the steppes, since the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Bug, as well as the right bank of the Dnieper adjacent to them, are already in the forest-steppe zone. At the same time, they somehow neighbored the boudins located to the east. A lot of amazing things were told about the neurons as werewolves and sorcerers. The neurons, according to Herodotus, had Scythian customs.
To the north of the royal Scythians on the left bank of the Dnieper and further to the east lived melanchlens, that is, people wearing black cloaks. Their eastern border is not clear, but somewhere closer to the Don they must have come into contact with the Boudins and, perhaps, with the Sauromates. This is a special, non-Scythian tribe, but its way of life is Scythian. Perhaps the Melanchlenians are called non-Scythian people because they had their own language, or because they were not part of the Scythian political grouping.
Above the Meotians, who occupied the delta and the very lower reaches of the Tanais-Don, three days' journey from its confluence with the Meotida, fifteen days' journey to the northeast, on the right bank of the river, the Sauromates lived in the treeless steppe. They allegedly originated from the marriages of the sons of free Scythians and warlike Amazon women. Their women were therefore warlike, and their language was spoiled Scythian through the fault of the Amazons who did not understand it. They retained political independence and were pure nomads.
Above the Savromats along the Don, beyond their steppe, but already in heterogeneous forests, that is, in the forest-steppe, lived the Boudins - a very large, according to Herodotus, and nomadic people. Their country, somewhere in the west, adjoined Nevris (the country of the Neuros), since a generation before Herodotus, the Neuros moved to the land of the Boudins. The Boudins spoke their own language. They, apparently, did not border on the Scythians and were, undoubtedly, politically completely independent. In their country there was a large wooden city of Gelon. It was inhabited by certain Gelons, who spoke either Scythian or Hellenic, revering the Greek gods, in particular Dionysus. They were sedentary and engaged in agriculture. Other writers, according to Herodotus, in vain considered the Gelons and Budins as one people.
Con. VII - beginning. 6th century BC e. Gnur, the son of Lik, the grandson of Spargapif, became the king of the Scythians in the Black Sea region.
90-50s 6th century BC. Savliy (Kaduit, Kaduin, Kalvid - in some sources) - the son of Gnur - becomes the king of the Scythians. According to the Herodotus version, the murderer of his brother - Anacharsis - one of the seven wise men.
End of the 6th century BC. The king of the Scythians becomes Idanfirs, the son of Savlius, who participates in the war against Darius I. One of the leaders in this war was Skopasis, whose detachment (most likely, the Azov Scythians and Sauromatians) was the most combat-ready and mobile. Another leader known from Herodotus, Taksakis, led the army of the Gelons and Boudins.
514/12 BC The war of the Scythians with the Persian king Darius I.
Darius gathered a huge army of 700 thousand people - colorful and multilingual, consisting of representatives of 80 peoples. With this army, the Persian monarch passed through Asia Minor, crossed to the European side through the Bosphorus, crossed Thrace. And finally, having crossed the Danube on a bridge of ships built for him by mercenaries (Asia Minor Greeks), he entered the Northern Black Sea region - within the boundaries of Scythia. The trip was planned for two months.
The Scythians, well aware of the actions of the enemy, knew about his colossal numbers. They themselves, together with the allied tribes, could put up no more than 200 thousand soldiers. Realizing the depth of the danger looming over them, the Scythians nevertheless decided to fight to the end. To do this, they developed a general strategic plan for the campaign:
- avoid big battles;
- lure the enemy deep into their territory;
- to attack his supply routes;
- destroy by attacks mobile cavalry detachments and small groups of Persians who are separated from the main forces in search of food and water.
At the same time, retreating, the Scythians filled up wells and springs and burned vegetation - steppe grasses that served as feed for livestock.
The army of Darius with its huge convoy, pursuing the Scythians, managed, according to Herodotus, to reach Tanais (Don) and Meotida (Sea of Azov) in a short time, after which it turned back. From hunger, deprivation, disease and continuous attacks of the Scythian cavalry, the Persians suffered huge losses, without winning a single battle and without capturing any booty. Fortunately for Darius, the Greek mercenaries did not dismantle the bridge on the Danube after the agreed 60 days, and the remnants of his troops and he himself, having escaped death, returned to Persia.
480-460s 5th century BC. Ariapif became the king of the Scythians - the father of Skil, Oktamasad and Orik. During his reign, several important events took place -
- settled relations with the Odrysian kingdom (through dynastic marriage),
- established a protectorate over Olbia (although there is an opinion that this is not so).
He himself was killed by the king of the Agathirs (most likely a Thracian tribe) Spargapif. After the death of the king of the Scythians, Opia, the wife of Ariapif and the mother of Orik, ascended the throne. The question is whether this character is real historical personality, remains debatable.
OK. 465-447/45 BC. After a short reign of Opia, Skil, the son of Ariapif, comes to power. He was the son of a Greek woman and almost completely accepted Greek culture and, after becoming king, settled in Olbia, promoting the commercial interests of Istria. As a result of palace intrigues, he was executed by the Scythians themselves.
50s 5th century BC. Octamasad, also the son of Ariapif, became the king of the Scythians. He was a relative of the king of the Odrysses - Sitalka. Perhaps with his support to power in the Bosporus in 438 BC. came Spartocus. Orik, brother of Oktamasad, most likely ruled Olbia at the same time.
Con. V-beginning 4th century BC. King Atey destroys other kings of the Scythians and usurps power.
Appears Kamenskoe settlement (located near the city of Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and B. Znamenka, Zaporozhye region). From the side of the steppe, the ancient settlement was protected by an earthen rampart and a moat, and from the north and west by cliffs over the Dnieper, r. Konka and Belozersky estuary. In the southwestern corner was the acropolis, where the Scythian nobility lived. The main occupations of the inhabitants were the manufacture of bronze and iron tools, weaving, pottery, as well as agriculture and cattle breeding. Craftsmen lived in dugouts and pillared ground buildings, the nobility lived in stone houses. The settlement was a large craft and shopping mall, closely associated with the Greek colonies of the Northern Black Sea region and the local population of Scythia. At the end of the III century. BC. the territory of the settlement was abandoned (with the exception of the acropolis, where life continued until the 3rd century AD).
358 BC The power of the Scythians is subject to Istria on the Black Sea coast.
344 BC The Scythians are waging a successful war with the Triballi, who lived on the territory of modern Bulgaria.
343 BC Subordinated to Callatis on the Black Sea coast.
40s 4th century BC. King Atey, having eliminated other kings, united the Scythian tribes from the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov to the Danube.
339 BC e. War of the Scythians with Philip II of Macedon. According to legend, it was in this war that King Atey died at the age of 90.
From the source it is known that “both sides were irritated, a battle ensued, in which the Scythians, despite the superiority of their spiritual prowess and numbers, were defeated by the cunning of Philip; 20 thousand children and women were taken (by the Macedonian winners), a lot of cattle, but there was no gold and silver at all, which was the first evidence of the poverty of the Scythians; 20 thousand blood mares were sent to Macedonia to breed the breed” [Justin. Epitome of Pompey Trogus. "History of Philip" (IX, 2-3)].
On the way back, the Macedonian army was ambushed by the Triballi.
331 BC Zopyrion is left by Alexander the Great as governor of Thrace, Pontus (or Scythia). Wanting to prove himself collects 30 thousand. army and goes to war against the Scythians. Most likely, he reached Olbia, but then he had to flee. As a result, he was overtaken by the Scythians, defeated, while losing almost the entire army. He himself dies somewhere in Bessarabia.
313 BC Lysimachus, the ruler of Thrace, inflicted a severe defeat on the Scythians across the Danube.
310-309 BC e. Dynastic war in the Bosporan kingdom. Agar, the leader of the Scythians, supported Satyr, but as a result of the battle on the Fat River, another pretender to the throne, Eumela Bosporus, Satyr's brother, won.
280-260 AD BC. The Sarmatians invade Scythia and in fact completely take over the northern Black Sea region, destroying and driving out the Scythians. Subsequently, part of the Scythians remained at the mouth of the Dnieper and on the Crimean peninsula. The other part crosses the Danube and settles there, the territory is called Lesser Scythia (Istria-Dobruja).
Con. III - beginning. 2nd century BC. Great changes are taking place in Scythia. The pressure of the Sarmatians is intensifying, as mentioned earlier, the Kamenskoe settlement ceases to exist (except for the acropolis, which continues to function) on the Dnieper. Throughout the Northern Black Sea region, archaeologists have noted the change of the Scythian culture to the Sarmatian. At the same time, the Scythians in the Crimea began to settle down, engage in agriculture, fishing, and crafts.
130-114/13 AD BC. The reign of the Scythian king Skilur in the Crimea. He was able to unite the entire territory of the Scythians in the Crimea, up to the mouth of the Dnieper and South. Bug. He turned Scythian Naples (near modern Simferopol) into the capital. To fight against Pontus, he began to attract Sarmatians (Roxalans), led by Tasius. Skilur managed to take possession of Kerkinitida, the Beautiful Harbor and Fortifications, the cities of the western coast of Crimea, which until then were part of the Chersonesos Republic.
114/13-111 BC.(110-107 BC) The reign of Palak, the son of Skilur. In three expeditions, Diophantus successively defeated Palak, conquered the mountain Taurians, occupied the Scythian fortresses of Khabei and Naples in the Crimea, and subjugated the Scythians to Mithridates of Pontus.
Later, the Scythians retreated again and Diophantus again went against them, liberated Kerkinitida and the Fortifications and began to besiege the Beautiful Harbor. Palak moved on him, but was defeated in such a way that, according to the Chersonesos inscription in honor of Diophantus, "no one escaped from the infantry, and only a few escaped from the horsemen." In the spring, Diophantus moved to Khabei and Naples and forced the Scythians to ask for peace.
The Scythians who lived in the Bosporus revolted against Perisades, the last nominal king of the Bosporus from the previous dynasty, who transferred power to Mithridates VI, but retained his title. The uprising was led by the Scythian Savmak, perhaps the foster slave of Perisad. The king was killed, Savmak seized power, but Diophantus liquidated this uprising, subordinating Chersonese, the Bosporus and the Steppe Crimea to Mithridates of Pontus.
Through these wars, Taurus Scythia was divided into several dominions and no longer represented a single kingdom.
Ser. 1st century BC. The Getae under the leadership of Birebista cross the Danube and destroy Olbia. The city ceased to exist. Later, the Scythians persuaded the escaped inhabitants to rebuild the city, but he no longer recovered from such a blow. This had a very serious impact on the very trade of the Scythians with the Greeks.
80 BC The Pontic stateg Mithridates Neoptol defeated the fleet of the Scythians, took Tire and Olbia from them. And a little later, in the Kerch Strait, he also breaks the fleet of the Scythians, and in winter on the ice he defeats the allied forces of the Bosporus and the Scythians. The power and authority of the Scythians have been shaken, but they continue to influence the politics of their region.
1st century BC. - II century. AD According to archaeological data, a strong mixing of the Scythians and Sarmatians begins, since their cultures actually coincide, and it is already quite difficult to separate one culture from another.
257 AD The arrival is ready in the Crimea. They attack the Bospro kingdom. From the same time, the Scythian kingdom ceased to exist as such.
70s 4th century Invasion of the Huns. They sweep away the remnants of the Scythians both in the Crimea and in Istria on the Danube. The Scythians, one might say, completely dissolve in the ethnic environment surrounding them.
social organization
Traces of the presence of the Scythians are also noted in the North Caucasus. The main territory of the settlement of the Scythians is the steppes between the lower reaches of the Danube and the Don, including the steppe Crimea and areas adjacent to the Northern Black Sea coast. The northern border is unclear. The Scythians were divided into several large tribes. According to Herodotus, the royal Scythians, who lived in the steppes between the Dnieper and the Don, were dominant. Nomadic Scythians lived along the right bank of the lower Dnieper and in the steppe Crimea. Between the Ingul and the Dnieper, Scythian farmers lived interspersed with nomads. In the basin of the Southern Bug, near the city of Olbia, the Callipids, or Hellenic-Scythians, lived, to the north of them - the Alazons, and even further north - the Scythians-plowmen. The boundaries of the settlement of individual tribes of Scythia (especially the Scythian plowmen) are unclear (see the map above).
Close relations with the slave-owning cities of the Northern Black Sea region, the intensive trade of the Scythians in cattle, bread, furs and slaves intensified the process of stratification in the Scythian society. It is known about the existence of a union of tribes among the Scythians, which gradually acquired the features of a kind of state of the slave-owning type, headed by the king.
From the end of the 7th century BC e. Scythian society knew different gradations of social status:
- slaves of various origins and exploited in various ways;
- "hippotoxotes" (mounted shooters) - free community members;
- the poor, who had the opportunity to fight only on foot;
- different levels of aristocracy from the heads of wealthy families to nomarchs-skeptukhs;
- kings from local to three leading kings with a senior in position at the head.
By the beginning of the VI century. BC. social stratification reaches large proportions. The grounds for saying so are given by the burials of that era. Grandiose royal mounds with murdered servants and concubines and simple burial pits with a minimum of inventory. Most of the free community members fought on horseback and had some property, but already at that time “octopuses” appeared. These are Scythians on foot who had only a couple of oxen to harness to the wagon, hence the name. There were even poor people who had nothing. Of these, the Scythian infantry was formed, which, over time, grew more and more numerically.
A stratum of slaves, originally foreigners, also appeared. In the legends and descriptions of Herodotus, the slaves were the local population, in the territories captured by the Scythians.
Royal power was hereditary, but there were several kings. This can be seen, for example, from the wars with Assyria, when one or another king could be an enemy and ally of Assyria. We see the same during the invasion of Darius, when the Scythians formed three detachments, each headed by its own king. At the same time, power apparently belonged to one dynasty.
Until the 5th century BC. royal power was limited to a council of kings or a military assembly. In other cases, the power of the king was unlimited. An encroachment on her was followed by beheading, or death at the stake.
Already in the IV century. Atheus ruled Scythia with absolute power, having other rulers in submission, named in one of the Olbian inscriptions as basileus, i.e. kings.
economy
Herodotus indicates that part of the Scythian tribes was engaged in cultivating the land. Wheat, barley, millet, beans, onions, and garlic were grown. Hemp is also indicated, from which the canvas was made and some kind of drug for smoking.
The bulk of the Scythians were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding. It was year round. In winter, tebenevka was common (the cattle themselves got their food from under the snow). Part of the nomads migrated to the Azov region to the estuaries of the rivers, where tall grass was preserved. Felt yurts were on wheels and a pair of oxen were harnessed to them. Such caravans of wagons were accompanied by mounted male warriors.
Judging by the excavations of the Kamensky settlement, the composition of the herds was as follows:
- horses - 40%
- cattle - 40%
- small cattle (sheep, goats) - 18%
- dogs, game game: deer, saiga, beaver - 2%
Interestingly, the Scythians did not breed pigs even in the settled centers of their state.
Accordingly, not only meat was used, but also skins and wool. They sewed sheepskin coats, felt felt, dressed leather. Milk was also used as food; it was not for nothing that the Scythians were called milkers of mares and mammals.
Iron-smelting workshops were found in a large number in the Kamensky settlement. Copper was mined in small quantities near Donetsk, and also, most likely, went along trade routes from the Caucasus and the Southern Urals. Zinc for bronze was mined on the Lower Dnieper, the origin of tin is still unclear.
Iron was in sufficient quantities in the swamps of the Dnieper floodplains. Iron smelting was extremely uneconomical, 40-60% remained in the slag. Judging by the excavations, large patriarchal families were engaged in iron-making - about 900 hectares in the Kamensky settlement were dotted with large houses (150-300 m³ each), in which there were forges for the production of various weapons and equipment.
Next to the metallurgists lived joiners, whose tools (chisels, axes, adzes) were also found in large quantities, both in the settlement and in the barrows. The fact that carpenters were still specialization says that yurts on wheels have many wooden parts. In addition, there were permanent dwellings - winter roads, which also had to be serviced by carpenters.
Pottery was developed. The potter's wheel was little used, the dishes were molded by hand from clay bundles. We find analogies of the Scythian utensils in the Late Srub culture. The utensils are mostly round-sided pots with a vertical, slightly flared neck or with a gently turned edge. They also find narrow-necked dishes with a spherical body.
Weaving was also widespread in the Scythian environment. find a lot of clay and lead whorls. They are found in settlements and as an obligatory element in female burials. The material for the fabric is sheep wave and hemp. In addition to fabrics, mats were woven, and felt and felt were also used.
Starting from the 7th century BC. the trade of the Scythians with the Greek cities of the Black Sea takes on a regular character. The main goods that the Scythians supplied to the markets were bread and slaves. Moreover, the scope of the grain trade was large. Even on the coins of the Scythian kings an ear of wheat was depicted. It was on such trade that the Bosporus kingdom arose (the export of bread accounted for the lion's share of exports). Grain trade was developed until the III century. BC. until the invasion of the Sarmatians, then it began to gradually subside, giving way to the cattle trade. Along with the cattle, furs were also exported, which came from the forest-steppe strip, through the lands of the Scythians. Honey and wax were also exported.
A substantial share in trade belonged to the export of slaves. Starting from the VI century. BC. The names of Scythian slaves appear in ancient inscriptions. At the same time, the Scythians come in large numbers to Greece to participate in wars. In addition to the Scythians, a large number of slaves came from the tribes of the Getae, Triballi, Sarmatians and Meotians. At the turn of III and II centuries. BC. the flow of Scythian slaves weakened.
As for imports into Scythia itself, it is worth highlighting wine, which came in huge quantities from Greece. As a result, Greek dishes are widely used - not only amphorae for wine, but also vessels for incense, ointments, perfumes, which are often found in the graves of rich and simple Scythians.
Fabrics and clothes also came to the steppe - this is reported by Greek writers. Jewelry was in large quantities - mirrors, glass and paste beads, earrings and various jewelry. The Scythians also often acted as intermediaries in trade with the more northern forest-steppe and forest tribes.
Sources
- B.N. Grakov. Scythians. Popular science essay. Moscow: MGU Publishing House, 1968.
- Archeology of the USSR. Steppes of the European part of the USSR in the Scythian-Sarmatian time. M.: Publishing house "Nauka", 1989.
- M.I. Artamonov. Cimmerians and Scythians. L .: Publishing house of Leningrad State University, 1974.
- IN AND. Gulyaev. Scythians: the rise and fall of a great kingdom. 2006
The security department appeared in Russia in the 1860s, when a wave of political terror swept the country. Gradually, the tsarist secret police turned into a secret organization, whose employees, in addition to fighting the revolutionaries, solved their private tasks ...
Special agency
one of critical roles the so-called special agents played in the tsarist secret police, whose inconspicuous work allowed the police to create an effective system of surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included filers - "surveillance agents" and informers - "auxiliary agents".
On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 fillers. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were deployed daily in both capitals.
There was a rather strict selection in place of the filler. The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persevering, cautious." They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.
Snitches were hired for the most part from among doormen, janitors, clerks, passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district warden who worked with them.
Unlike fillers, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be “substantial and useful,” they were given a reward from 1 to 15 rubles.
Sometimes they were paid with things. So, Major General Alexander Spiridovich recalled how he bought new galoshes for one of the informants. “And then he failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. This is what the galoshes did,” the officer wrote.
Perlustrators
There were people in the detective police who did a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perusal. Baron Alexander Benckendorff introduced this tradition even before the creation of the security department, calling it "a very useful thing." The reading of personal correspondence became especially active after the assassination of Alexander II.
"Black cabinets", created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The conspiracy was such that the employees of these offices did not know about the existence of offices in other cities.
Some of the "black cabinets" had their own specifics. According to the newspaper Russian word”for April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in perusal of letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.
According to data for 1913, 372,000 letters were opened and 35,000 extracts were made. This productivity is astonishing, given that the staff of illustrators was only 50 people, who were joined by 30 postal workers.
It was quite a long and laborious work. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, exposed to acids or alkalis in order to reveal the hidden text. And only then suspicious letters were forwarded to the search authorities.
Yours among strangers
For more effective work of the security department, the Police Department has created an extensive network of "internal agents" that infiltrate various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities.
According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to "suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disillusioned or offended by the party."
Payments for secret agents ranged from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on the status and benefits. The Okhrana encouraged their agents to move up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting higher-ranking party members.
The Okhrana, (until 1903 it was called the “Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order”), a local body of political investigation in pre-revolutionary Russia, subordinate to the Police Department. The main task of the security departments was to search for revolutionary organizations and individual revolutionaries. The security departments had extensive special agents of both "surveillance" - snitches, and secret agents (passive informers and active participants in the activities of revolutionary organizations - provocateurs).
With great caution, the police treated those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve as the protection of state order, since there were many random people among them. As a circular from the Police Department shows, during 1912 the Okhrana refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy."
For example, the exiled settler Feldman recruited by the Okhrana, when asked about the reason for giving false information, answered that he was without any means of subsistence and went on perjury for the sake of reward.
provocateurs
The activities of the recruited agents were not limited to espionage and the transfer of information to the police, they often provoked actions for which members of an illegal organization could be arrested. The agents reported the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to detain the suspects.
According to the creator of the CIA, Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised provocation to the level of art. According to him, "this was the main means by which the tsarist secret police attacked the trail of revolutionaries and dissidents." The sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs Dulles compared with the characters of Dostoevsky.
Evno Fishelevich Azef is a Russian revolutionary provocateur, one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and, at the same time, a Secret Officer of the Police Department.
The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef - both a police agent and the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. It is not without reason that he is considered the organizer of the murders of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Minister of the Interior Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1,000 rubles. per month.
A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "comrade-in-arms" Roman Malinovsky. The Okhrana agent regularly helped the police to locate underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in the betrayal of his comrade.
In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to the State Duma, moreover, as a member of the Bolshevik faction.
Strange inactivity
The activities of the secret police were connected with events that left an ambiguous judgment about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin.
On September 1, 1911, at the Kiev Opera House, an anarchist and a secret informer of the Okhrana, Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, mortally wounded Stolypin with two shots point-blank. Moreover, at that moment, neither Nicholas II nor members of the royal family who, according to the plan of events, were to be with the minister.
On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard Alexander Spiridovich and the head of the Kyiv security department Nikolai Kulyabko were involved in the investigation. However, on behalf of Nicholas II, the investigation was unexpectedly terminated.
Some researchers, in particular Vladimir Zhukhrai, believe that Spiridovich and Kulyabko were directly involved in the murder of Stolypin. Many facts point to this. First of all, suspiciously easily experienced Okhrana officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Social Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to get into the theater building with a weapon in order to allegedly expose the alleged killer.
The case of the murderer of Stolypin - a secret agent of the Kyiv security department Dmitry Bogrov.
Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot Stolypin, but also contributed to this in every possible way. Stolypin, apparently, guessed that a conspiracy was brewing against him. Shortly before the murder, he dropped the following phrase: "They will kill me and the members of the guard will kill me."
Okhrana abroad
In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigre revolutionaries. And there was someone to follow: these were the leaders of the People's Will, Lev Tikhomirov and Marina Polonskaya, and the publicist Pyotr Lavrov, and the anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. It is interesting that the agents included not only visitors from Russia, but also French civilians.
From 1884 to 1902, the foreign secret police was headed by Pyotr Rachkovsky - these were the heydays of its activity. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents defeated a large Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of collaborating with the French government.
Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky - Russian police administrator, head of foreign intelligence, organizer of political investigation in Russia.
When the director of the Police Department, Plehve, received a report about Rachkovsky's dubious contacts, he immediately sent General Silvestrov to Paris to check on the activities of the head of the foreign secret police. Silvestrov was killed, and soon the agent who reported on Rachkovsky was also found dead.
Moreover, Rachkovsky was suspected of involvement in the murder of Plehve himself. Despite compromising materials, high patrons from the environment of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.
Taras Repin
The security department appeared in Russia in the 1860s, when a wave of political terror swept the country. Gradually, the tsarist secret police turned into a secret organization, whose employees, in addition to fighting the revolutionaries, solved their private tasks ...
Special agency
One of the most important roles in the tsarist secret police was played by the so-called special agents, whose inconspicuous work allowed the police to create an effective system of surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included filers - "surveillance agents" and informers - "auxiliary agents".
On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 fillers. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were deployed daily in both capitals.
There was a rather strict selection in place of the filler. The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persevering, cautious." They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.
The informers were hired for the most part from among the porters, janitors, clerks, and passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district warden who worked with them.
Unlike fillers, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be “substantial and useful,” they were given a reward from 1 to 15 rubles.
Sometimes they were paid with things. So, Major General Alexander Spiridovich recalled how he bought new galoshes for one of the informants. “And then he failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. That's what the galoshes did," the officer wrote.
Perlustrators
There were people in the detective police who did a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perusal. Baron Alexander Benckendorff introduced this tradition even before the creation of the security department, calling it "a very useful thing." The reading of personal correspondence became especially active after the assassination of Alexander II.
"Black cabinets", created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The conspiracy was such that the employees of these offices did not know about the existence of offices in other cities.
Some of the "black cabinets" had their own specifics. According to the Russkoye Slovo newspaper of April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in reading letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.
According to data for 1913, 372,000 letters were opened and 35,000 extracts were made. This productivity is astonishing, given that the staff of illustrators was only 50 people, who were joined by 30 postal workers.
It was quite a long and laborious work. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, exposed to acids or alkalis in order to reveal the hidden text. And only then suspicious letters were forwarded to the search authorities.
Yours among strangers
For more effective work of the security department, the Police Department has created an extensive network of "internal agents" that infiltrate various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities.
According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to "suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disillusioned or offended by the party."
Payments for secret agents ranged from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on the status and benefits. The Okhrana encouraged their agents to move up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting higher-ranking party members.
The Okhrana, (until 1903 it was called the “Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order”), a local body of political investigation in pre-revolutionary Russia, subordinate to the Police Department. The main task of the security departments was to search for revolutionary organizations and individual revolutionaries. The security departments had extensive special agents of both "surveillance" - snitches, and secret agents (passive informers and active participants in the activities of revolutionary organizations - provocateurs).
With great caution, the police treated those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve as the protection of state order, since there were many random people among them. As a circular from the Police Department shows, during 1912 the Okhrana refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy."
For example, the exiled settler Feldman recruited by the Okhrana, when asked about the reason for giving false information, answered that he was without any means of subsistence and went on perjury for the sake of reward.
provocateurs
The activities of the recruited agents were not limited to espionage and the transfer of information to the police, they often provoked actions for which members of an illegal organization could be arrested. The agents reported the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to detain the suspects.
According to the creator of the CIA, Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised provocation to the level of art. According to him, "this was the main means by which the tsarist secret police attacked the trail of revolutionaries and dissidents." The sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs Dulles compared with the characters of Dostoevsky.
Evno Fishelevich Azef is a Russian revolutionary provocateur, one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and, at the same time, a Secret Officer of the Police Department.
The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef - both a police agent and the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. It is not without reason that he is considered the organizer of the murders of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Minister of the Interior Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1,000 rubles. per month.
A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "comrade-in-arms" Roman Malinovsky. The Okhrana agent regularly helped the police to locate underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in the betrayal of his comrade.
In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to the State Duma, moreover, as a member of the Bolshevik faction.
Strange inactivity
The activities of the secret police were connected with events that left an ambiguous judgment about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin.
On September 1, 1911, at the Kiev Opera House, an anarchist and a secret informer of the Okhrana, Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, mortally wounded Stolypin with two shots point-blank. Moreover, at that moment, neither Nicholas II nor members of the royal family were nearby, who, according to the plan of events, were supposed to be with the minister.
On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard Alexander Spiridovich and the head of the Kyiv security department Nikolai Kulyabko were involved in the investigation. However, on behalf of Nicholas II, the investigation was unexpectedly terminated.
Some researchers, in particular Vladimir Zhukhrai, believe that Spiridovich and Kulyabko were directly involved in the murder of Stolypin. Many facts point to this. First of all, suspiciously easily experienced Okhrana officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Social Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to get into the theater building with a weapon in order to allegedly expose the alleged killer.
The case of the murderer of Stolypin - a secret agent of the Kyiv security department Dmitry Bogrov.
Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot Stolypin, but also contributed to this in every possible way. Stolypin, apparently, guessed that a conspiracy was brewing against him. Shortly before the murder, he dropped the following phrase: "They will kill me and the members of the guard will kill me."
Okhrana abroad
In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigre revolutionaries. And there was someone to follow: these were the leaders of the People's Will, Lev Tikhomirov and Marina Polonskaya, and the publicist Pyotr Lavrov, and the anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. It is interesting that the agents included not only visitors from Russia, but also French civilians.
From 1884 to 1902, the foreign secret police was headed by Pyotr Rachkovsky - these were the heydays of its activity. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents defeated a large Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of collaborating with the French government.
Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky - Russian police administrator, head of foreign intelligence, organizer of political investigation in Russia.
When the director of the Police Department, Plehve, received a report about Rachkovsky's dubious contacts, he immediately sent General Silvestrov to Paris to check on the activities of the head of the foreign secret police. Silvestrov was killed, and soon the agent who reported on Rachkovsky was also found dead.
Moreover, Rachkovsky was suspected of involvement in the murder of Plehve himself. Despite compromising materials, high patrons from the environment of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.