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

V
THE SCYTHIANS AT THE END OF THE FOURTH
AND IN THE THIRD CENTURY B. C.
"VTTTE have seen how the Scythians spread over the South Russian
\U steppes in the seventh century, how they consolidated their
^ empire and extended it westwards as far as the Danube and
even beyond. We are somewhat ill acquainted with their political history,
for they have left no written monuments, and the allusions in Herodotus
and other Greek writers are few and vague. It is a pity that we do not
possess the books of Ephorus in which he related the history of the
Scythians in the sixth, fifth and fourth centuries : all we have is a few
extracts from his description of Scythian manners and customs.
Notwithstanding the meagreness of our information, we can still
trace the general lines along which the Scythian empire evolved. It
was primarily a conquering state. Like the Cimmerians before them,
the Scythians tended to embody in their empire Thrace on the one
hand, and Transcaucasia on the other, so as to have access to Asia
Minor, with which they maintained regular commercial relations
through the Greek cities. This tendency brought them into contact
with Persia, the other Iranian power at this period, which was much
stronger and much more highly civilized than the Scythian state, but
resembled it in its conquering propensity and in its aspiration to
universal empire. The two Iranian movements met in Thrace and
in the Caucasus.
The Scythian world was by no means unknown to the Persians.
Within their own empire, on their north-west confines, the Persians
had to contend with the Sacians and the Scythians of Asia Minor, who
were closely akin to the European Scythians. It was not until about
590 B.C. that the Medes, and after them the Persians, were able to
substitute their own supremacy for the Scythian in Asia Minor.
Even after the final Persian conquest of Asia Minor, there were whole
provinces in which the majority of the population, or at least the
predominant section, was Scythian. I have already mentioned
certain portions of Armenia, Sakasene and Skythene, in which the
Scythians undoubtedly formed the ruling aristocracy. We know that
even in Hellenistic and Roman times the Iranian families constituted