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

INTRODUCTORY 13
cities and of the natives inhabiting part of the Crimea and of the
Taman peninsula. The Thracian names of the Bosphoran dynasts
show that the native population, or at least the dominant part of it,
was of Thracian stock : it possessed a high and ancient civilization,
and was promptly hellenized. It must be borne in mind that the
straits of Kerch—the Cimmerian Bosphorus, an old and significant
name— ^were the centre of the Cimmerian kingdom, and that the
Cimmerians were probably of Thracian origin. Is it not natural to
suppose that the Bosphoran state was a Greco- Cimmerian state, and
that this alliance gave the new body strength to resist the attacks of
the Scythians and to preserve its independence even against the
imperialism of Periclean Athens ?
We shall follow the political and social fortunes of the Bosphoran
state in our fourth chapter. But before I go farther, I would draw
the reader's attention to one or two important considerations. How
curious, this semi-Greek tyranny which lasted for centuries and
gradually changed into a Hellenistic monarchy with the same characteristics
as Bithynia, Pontus, Armenia, Parthia, and Commagene
hellenized states resting on Thracian, Iranian, Thraco-Iranian, and
Syrian foundations ! How interesting, the mixed religion which
slowly developed in the Cimmerian Bosphorus ! How singular this
prolific art, working mainly for export to Scythian dynasts and the
Scythian aristocracy ! How remarkable, the social and economic
organization, based on great domains methodically exploited, on a
complex system of exportation, and on active and regular commercial
intercourse with the neighbouring kingdoms !
The Scythian kingdom, on which the material prosperity of the
Greek colonies and of the Cimmerian Bosphorus depended, was
succeeded in the Russian steppes by an ascendancy of various Sarmatian
tribes—Iranians, like the Scythians themselves.. The Sarmatians,
as every one knows, played a prominent part in the history of the
Roman Empire. It was they, with the Germanic and Thracian tribes,
who dealt the first formidable blows at the young Roman power on
the Danube. It was they who mingled with the Goths and spread
with them over Central Europe as far as Italy and Spain. What did
we know about the Sarmatians before the recent discoveries in the
Russian steppes } A few lines of Tacitus, of Valerius Flaccus, of
Arrian, a few phrases in Ammianus Marcellinus, the reliefs of Trajan's
column and of the arch of Galerius at Salonica : altogether very little.
The excavations in the Kuban barrows, the great find of Novocherkassk,
the gold plaques from Siberia, the discoveries in the Ural
steppes, showed for the first time that the Sarmatians were by no
—