Iranians and Greeks in South Russia - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA 67
established with the Black Sea colonies, to foster the colonies, and to
make them relatively independent of their old masters the Scythians.
But the political interests of Athens demanded more : Athens claimed
exclusive control of the export trade, the sole right to dispose of the
Black Sea commodities, to collect them at Athens and distribute
them afterwards among her allies. This- was why the Athenians
colonized Amisos and Sinope in the fifth century, and founded
military colonies, real fortresses, at the most important points on the
straits of the Bosphorus, not in, but beside, the principal Greek cities :
at Athenaeum near Theodosia, at Nymphaeum near Panticapaeum,
and probably at Stratocleia near Phanagoria. Pericles in the year 435,
and Alcibiades later, personally inspected this branch of the Athenian
imperial system.
But the Athenian supremacy was of short duration. Some years
before the expedition of Pericles, a serious change had taken place in
the political life of Panticapaeum. The tradition concerning the
Archeanactids, the first rulers of the city, appears to be the work of
a forger : but it seems that the city had been governed by an aristocracy
and that the government was supplanted by a tyranny, apparently
military ; in 438, the power was seized by a chieftain with the Thracian
name of Spartocos. How can we explain this change and the Thracian
name of the tyrant, who was succeeded by other members of the same
family, some of whom bore Thracian names, such as Pairisades and
Spartocos, others Greek, such as Leucon and Satyros ? It has been
suggested that Spartocos was the leader of a Thracian military force,
engaged by the Panticapaeans for the defence of the town. This is
extremely unlikely. Whence came the Thracians, and what route
did they take } Did they come by sea, with the permission of Athens ?
It would surely have been absurd of Athens to import mercenaries
who might destroy her cleruchies. Against the will of Athens ? No
less impossible, for Athens was mistress of the sea. Did they come
by way of the Russian steppes ? A long and dangerous journey : and
what would the Scythian empire have said to it ? The Thracians were
always enemies of the Scythians. This hypothesis being inacceptable,
only one other remains : I have already indicated it in my third
chapter. The usurpation of Spartocos was a purely internal change :
as in so many Greek cities, a tyranny took the place of an aristocracy
which had become an oligarchy. Spartocos must have belonged to
a native family which had been incorporated into the aristocracy
which governed the town : hence his Thracian name. We have seen
that in the prehellenic period the ruling class at Panticapaeum was
Cimmerian, and that the Cimmerians were Thracians.