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

FOURTH AND THIRD CENTURIES B.C. 99
was never so flourishing as at this time. Even Olbia, which passed
through many anxious hours, remained rich, although weahh passed
more and more into the hands of one or two families, like that of
Heroson and Protogenes : these families succeeded in equipping a
fleet which was sufficiently large and powerful to give them the monopoly
of the Scythian trade. Read the inscription of Protogenes, and
similar inscriptions from the Greek cities on the western shore of the
Black Sea, and you will be astonished by the great wealth of certain
families, and by the poverty of the city itself, crushed by debts and
exactions.
It is therefore not surprising that in this period of political decay,
the Scythian tombs are full of gold and silver, of superb works of art,
of jewels and of precious stones. Apart from the sixth century, the
Scythian tombs were never so rich as in the fourth and third centuries
B.C.
These graves are not essentially different from the Kuban graves :
the same type of nomad chieftain's tomb, the same stately ritual, the
same heavy profusion of gold, silver, and other precious objects.
There are modifications, however, due to various geographical and
economic causes. First of all, the structure beneath the tumulus is no
longer of wood : it is replaced by a chamber or chambers dug in virgin
soil inside the walls of the sepulchral trench (figs . 1 , 1 12). The change
was undoubtedly occasioned by the lack of forests in the immediate
neighbourhood of the steppes adjoining the Crimea. Again, horses
are no longer slaughtered in great numbers. It is clear that owing to
agricultural development in the riverine and coastal districts it became
more difficult to keep large herds of horses : their value increased,
and oxen were preferred for the purpose of sacrifice. It was now
considered sufficient, to slaughter the horses which drew the funeral
car, and the dead man's parade horses : in the poorer graves, the
sacrifice was merely simulated, by the interment of the horse's bridle.
Lastly, under the single tumulus, not one, but two sepulchral chambers
were made, one subsequently to the other, the second always after
the construction of the tumulus. The second chamber sometimes
accommodates a woman :
but by no means regularly. In the Solokha
kurgan, the additional chamber was reserved for a man, who was
buried with enormous wealth beside him (figs. 11-13).
With these exceptions, the funerary ritual remains the same. The
funeral cars, the canopies with poles crowned by rattles and figures
of animals and deities, the bells on the canopies, the funeral repast,
the sacrifice of servants and of horses : all these are found on the
Dnieper as on the Kuban.