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

THE
VII
THE GREEK CITIES OF SOUTH RUSSIA IN THE
ROMAN PERIOD
political life of the Greek cities on the Black Sea was
profoundly affected by the appearance of the Sarmatians in the
South Russian steppes.
As long as the^cythiankmgdom held the Sarmatians in check on
the J)anksj3f the Don,- the- political and economic situation of the
Bosphoran kingdom suffered little change. The hard^ times began,
bonier the Scythians and for the kingdom of the Bosphorus, in the
tliird or second century b. c, when the Sarmatians crossed the Don,
penetrated far into the region of the Kuban, and invaded the Taman
peninsula. The-Ssythians were forced to seek shelter in the Crimean
steppes, and consequently began to exert stronger and stronger
pr^sure ontHe^Gre.ek^cities of the Crimea. Chersonesus and the
Bosphorus were compelled to fight the Scythians for their independence,
and at the same time the Greeks of the Bosphorus had to
defend the Greek cities of the Taman peninsula against the advancing
Sarmatians. Life in the Greek cities became more and more precarious
and uncertain. The Greeks tried to resist, they paid heavy
ransom to the Scythian and Sarmatian armies, they mobilized their
citizens and fortified their towns, but the hostile pressure increased,
and the resources accumulated during centuries of prosperity
rapidly diminished. They_still exported corn, leather, fish and slaves,
but, while the land routes became more and more unreliable, the
§ea_routes became quite insecure. Piracy prevailed as at the dawn of
Greek civilization. Athens, enfeebled as she was, and ' allied ' with the
Romans, could offer no remedy. Rhodes, who had policed the seas
in the third and second century b. c, lost her importance at the end
of the second century, and Rome, the new mistress of the world,
engaged in internal struggles of increasing ferocity, had neither time
nor leisure to provide for the security of the Aegean and the Black Sea,
and took not the least interest in the affairs of the Pontic Greeks.
The position became critical at the end of the third century b. c,
when a strong Scythian state was formed in the Crimea under the