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 client state of the Roman Empire.
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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.
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