East, West, South, North; from Alexandria
Eschate in today’s Afghanistan to the Greek colonies in Spain, and from Massilia to the
Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, the Ancient Greeks settled far and wide. One of the cardinal directions in which they
headed was the cold North, a lesser-known chapter of the history of Greek expansion,
setting foot on the ancient steps of Scythia in modern-day Ukraine and Russia, where the
first Hellenistic States were founded. Welcome to the origin, rise, and obscure end
of the Kingdom of the Bosphorus, the Hellenistic state that would survive as the longest-living
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through our link and get a free 7-day premium account. Like many of the stories on the Hellenics
who settled outside of Greece, our tale begins during the Era of Archaic Greece, between
the eighth and fifth century BC, a time when their expansion into the Mediterranean was
in full swing. Historians have indicated a number of reasons
that Greek colonization began, and as with many historical events the truth usually lies
in a mixture of these, but today we will just take into consideration the city of Miletus. The Ionian city-state was located on the shores
of Asia Minor and was the most important Greek center on the Eastern coast of the Aegean
Sea. Apart from housing some of the first Greek
philosophers, it was also the main powerhouse behind the foundation of cities in the Euxeinos
Pontos, the Black Sea. Plinius the Elder recounts that the Miletians
established 90 colonies in the region, a number that is believed to be close to the truth. The causes for these expeditions were twofold. First was an initial interest to trade in
the area, from where metals, grain, timber, fish, and slaves were imported and which brought
the creation of the first trading posts on the shores that would become the bedrock for
later cities. The second reason which kickstarted the foundation
of these colonies was that Miletus had a growing population that was barely managing to sustain
itself with its own resources. When the city was invaded first by the Lydians
and later by the Achaemenids, they found themselves lacking both land and food supplies, as the
foreign powers confiscated vast swaths of terrain. This forced a number of Miletians to leave
their hometown to found new colonies, a process that started a century later for them than
many other Greek colonies like in Southern Italy. The most important cities that the citizens
of Miletus established on the shores of the Black Sea were Olbia, Sinope, Trabzon, Theodosia,
and Panticapaeum. Now that we have laid out the background for
the formation of the cities, let us take a closer look at the area where the Bosphoran
Kingdom would thrive. The Bosphorus alluded to in the name was not
the famous Thracian Bosphorus that separates Thracia from Anatolia, but instead, the modern-day
Kerch Strait between the Crimean and the Taman Peninsulas, which connects the Black Sea to
the Sea of Azov. Then it was called the Cimmerian Bosphorus,
Bosphorus meaning literally “passage of the ox”, referring to a strait, while Cimmerian
comes from the name of an ancient nomadic people that the Greek historians had assumed
to have originated there. On the west side were located the poleis of
Panticapaeum, Nymphaeum, and Myrmekion, while on the eastern were Phanagoria, Hermonassa,
and Gorgippia. The rest of Crimea was inhabited by the autochthon
people of the Tauri in the south, who gave the name to the peninsula, and the Scythians
in the northern plains. The most important city was Panticapaeum or
Pantikápaion, also referred to as Bosphorus. It is here that the Bosphoran Kingdom started. Historian Diodorus Siculus recounts that a
family called Archeanactidae had held power in the city and a few neighboring towns from
the year 480 BC, where they ruled for 42 years; details, however, are scarce on the Archeanactidae
and it is possible that they ruled before that; it is also unknown if they governed
like monarchs or as a rich family with influence and members in high-ranking positions. In the year 438 BC this family was toppled
by a man named Spartokos, probably a Thracian mercenary who ruled for seven years and established
a dynasty, the Spartokid, that would last for three centuries. It’s believed that he used the title of
Archon, ruler, and probably spent his reign solidifying his power base, but not much more
is known about him. His son Satyros would start to expand out
of Panticapaeum’s borders by annexing Nymphaeum from the Athenians. He also besieged Theodosia, but this campaign
failed as he died during the siege. He seems to have been succeeded by his two
sons Gorgippos and Leukon the First. Gorgippos, who is the most obscure of the
two, ruled over the eastern part of the state, where he expanded into the Kingdom of the
Sindi inhabiting the Taman peninsula, and refounded their old capital calling it Gorgippia. The Sindi were a local population affiliated
with the Meotians, a people living on the shores of the Sea of Azov. The author Polyaenus, recounts an anecdote
with protagonists Tirgatao, a queen of the Meotians, and the kings of the Bosphorus. The story is hard to date as the Spartokids
had recurring names, but it tells us that a certain Gorgippos becomes King of the Sindi;
this expansion over local populations, especially by intermarrying with local chieftains was
a policy that would be used during the history of the kingdom. Meanwhile, Gorgippos’ brother Leukon the
First ruled at least the western side of the kingdom if not all and is regarded as one
of the most enlightened Greek rulers of his time. He managed to take control over the neighbouring
city of Theodosia, which was crucial for exporting goods from the region as its port remained
free from ice all year around unlike the other cities of the peninsula, and he secured the
means of local grain production. He then further supported the development
of agriculture in his domain and pushed back the Scythians, strengthening his central power. Leukon also expanded his power over neighbouring
local tribes, such as the Scythians and the Toretoi, Dandarioi, Psessoi, and Sindi, styling
himself with the title of Basileus of these people, while at the same time retaining the
title of archon for his Greek subjects. We find here a unique dual power structure
that unified two different ideas of monarchy and two different people and fused them into
one unique example which reflected on the multicultural subjects they governed. It symbolized how this dynasty managed to
rule the two cultures simultaneously not unlike the later Diadochi would in the remains of
Alexander’s Empire, and because of this, some historians have called the Kingdom of
the Bosphorus the first Hellenistic state. The aforementioned grain trade was the main
export of the Kingdom and it had an illustrious protagonist [patron?], the orator Demosthenes. The export of grain from the Black Sea towards
the Aegean Sea was already happening in the sixth century, but it is in the fifth century
that this market really expanded. Athens began to become more dependent on these
grain imports during the Peloponnesian War as the great city-state lost influence over
other food-producing areas like Sicily and Euboea. The grain market was also helped by the fact
that when the Aegean region had a bad harvest, the Bosphoran area usually had a good one
for climatic reasons, and vice versa, thus creating a prospering and variable trade relation
between the two macroregions. By the start of the fourth century the Bosphoran
Kings, who controlled the fertile Western Crimea, Taman Peninsula, and Kuban Valley
used these trade relations, and their support given to Athenian exiles following the Peloponnesian
War, to obtain honours, diplomatic friendship, and naval technology; the representative for
their interests was the famous Demosthenes, whose maternal grandfather Gylon had close
relations with the Spartokid dynasty as he had surrendered the city of Nymphaeum when
the Athenians were losing the war and married with a local Scythian woman. Demosthenes used his connections to propel
forward his political career in his early years. In his speech Against Leptines, we find a
passage that speaks of 400,000 medimnoi of grain, approximately 13,000 metric tons, being
imported from the Kingdom to Athens and in another passage he says: “For you are aware that we consume more
imported corn than any other nation. Now the corn that comes to our ports from
the Black Sea is equal to the whole amount from all other places
of export. And this is not surprising; for not only is
that district most productive of corn [...]” Like other areas of the Black Sea, the Bosphorus
Kingdom also exported timber for shipbuilding, fish, as the Sea of Azov was abundant of sea
life, and slaves to Greece, not just Athens, while they imported wine, oil, pottery, and
other Greek manufactured goods, some of which were then further traded to the neighbouring
Scythians. Leukos was succeeded by his sons Spartokos
the Second and Paerisades in 349 BC, the first of which died seven years later. Paerisades continue to expand the kingdom
by annexing Tanais at the mouth of the Don and repelling Scythian attacks; a capable
ruler, he oversaw the hight of his kingdom cultivating the trading relations between
Grece and his jewel on the Black Sea. At the time of his death, in 310 BC a civil
war erupted between his sons; the eldest Satyros the Second inherited the throne, while his
brother Eumulus fled to the neighbouring tribe of the Siraceni, a Sarmatian people, from
where he raised a large army. Diodorus Siculus recounts that a battle took
place on the River Thatis, where Satyros’ army of 30,000 Scythians, 2000 Greek and 2000
Thracian mercenaries beat the 40000 thousand Sarmatians. Satyrus later died while besieging the enemy
capital, and was succeeded by his minor brother Prytanis who took control of the capital and
continued to wage war against Eumelos, but he lost a battle on the shores of Lake Azov. He later failed to stage a coup in Panticapaeum
and was thus executed. Eumelos finally took the throne and was considered
a capable ruler, even rivaling the diadochi Lysimachus of Thracia. The successors of Eumelos were a lot less
successful and the historical sources tell us very little about them. Recurring royal names makes it impossible
to have a coherent list of rulers and it seems that the Bosphoran kings struggled against
the growing Scythians: the kingdom was on a path of slow decline. The last Spartokid king was a certain Paerisades,
who, pressured by the Scythians for more tribute and an ever more hostile population, pleaded
the King of Pontus, Mithridates the Sixth, the same Mithridates that would be the protagonist
of the Mithridatic Wars, for help in exchange of submitting to him. General Diophantus sent by Mithridates to
the Crimean Peninsula in 110 BC defeated the Scythian King Palacus and relieved the Bosphorus
Kingdom and the city of Chersonese from the attackers, obtaining their submission. In autumn 107 however, a Scythian revolt headed
by Saumacus broke out and killed the last Spartokid king. Diophantus escaped from the capital to Chersonese
and raised an army, with which he put down the rebellion the following spring. Following this, the Kingdom of the Bosphorus
became part of the Pontic Kingdom and would have an important role in the subsequent Mithridatic
Wars. Mithridates’ son Macharest ruled there and
rebelled against his father but after he advanced against the kingdom Macharest committed suicide. Then Mithridates took control over the region
and attempted to hold out against the Romans, but the war-weary population instead supported
his son Pharnaces the Second in a rebellion, forcing the old monarch to commit suicide
in the citadel of Panticapaeum in 63 BC. Pharnaces then submitted to Pompey to retain
his kingdom. During this period the kingdom was slowly
transitioning some of its Greek characteristics in favour of Iranian, Scythian and Sarmatians
customs. Pharnaces submission to Pompey started 400
years of nearly uninterrupted Bosphoran clientele to the Roman Republic first and later Empire. The last half of the first century BC was
marred by internal fighting and coups, with Pharnaces being betrayed by his governor Asander
while he was campaigning in Asia Minor against Cesar during the Roman Civil War to recover
his father’s possessions. After having killed the previous ruler in
battle, Asander married his daughter Dynamis, but in the same year a pretender supported
by the Romans, Mithridates, who was another son of the famous Mithridates of Pontus, retook
the Bosphorus only to lose it 2 years later to Asander and Dynamis. When Asander died at the age of 93 around
14 BC Dynamis married a certain Scribonius, who was killed by the locals when the Roman
candidate, the client king of Pontus Polemo, came to the Crimean shores and took the throne
for himself, forcing the Mithridatic queen to marry him. On his death, in battle, he was succeeded
by his rival Aspurgus, son of Asander and Dynamis who put an end to the dynastic chaos
and started a lineage that would rule over the kingdom until its downfall, except for
a short parenthesis during Nero’s reign where the Kingdom was directly annexed by
the Empire until Galba returned its independence. During its time as a vassal state of the Roman
Empire, the Bosphoran Kingdom continued to export wast amounts of grain that helped to
feed the Roman armies and experienced a general recovery following the conflicts of the first
century BC. Contingents of the Roman army were stationed
on the northern coast of the Black Sea to secure their border and support their buffer
state. The descendants of Aspurgus had family ties
with the Julio-Claudian dynasty, who sometimes meddled in the local politics supporting different
candidates on the throne. During the first century AD, we find the first
traces of a cult that worshipped the anonymous Most High God, Theos Hypsistos, and reached
its zenith in the third century. It was believed that this cult was strongly
influenced by the Jewish diaspora, who were present in the Kingdom, but more recent studies
have shown that the god originated more likely in the Iranian/Scythian cultures. Like the Roman empire, the Bosphoran Kingdom
declined during the Third Century. Constant warfare against its neighbors, favoured
a militarized society, while rival members of the royal line clashed for the throne weakening
the state; sources on the kingdom diminish by this time so we know very little about
this period. Around 230 AD the first Germanic people started
to migrate to the region creating instability and attacking both the Romans and the Bosporans,
with some cities like Olbia, Tanais and Gorgippia being destroyed. The last Bosphoran coins we find have the
name of King Rhescuporis VI and are dated around 340, so around this period, the Kingdom
was overrun by the Goths and the Huns, ending its 800-year-old history. More videos on Greek history are on the way,
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