Scythia: A Visual History

The Scythians were Iranian-speaking nomads who dominated the steppe from the Danube to the Don, and in a broader sense to the Altai, from about 800 to 300 BC. They drove out the Cimmerians, raided into Assyria and Media in the seventh century, and defeated the invasion of Darius I of Persia around 513 BC by refusing battle and scorching the earth. Their kurgan burials contained spectacular gold work made by Greek craftsmen; Herodotus described their customs, from scalping to cannabis vapour baths. The Sarmatians pushed them into Crimea from the third century BC.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Scythia. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Scythian territory in the Pontic steppe

Timeline of the Scythia

1. 800 BC
   Scythians reach the Pontic steppe
2. 650 BC
   Scythian domination of Media
3. 600 BC
   Driven back north of the Caucasus
4. 513 BC
   Darius's Scythian campaign
5. 450 BC
   Herodotus visits Olbia
6. 339 BC
   Ateas killed by Philip II
7. 300 BC
   Sarmatian advance
8. 200 BC
   Scythians confined to Crimea

Arrival and the Near East

Coming from the east around 800 BC, the Scythians displaced the Cimmerians and pursued them into Anatolia and the Caucasus. For 28 years, Herodotus says, they dominated Media, and Scythian bands fought as allies of Assyria and sacked their way to the Egyptian border before the Medes drove them out around 600 BC.

Darius and Herodotus

Darius I crossed the Danube around 513 BC to punish the Scythians; they retreated ahead of him, sending gifts of a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows, and he barely escaped. Herodotus, who visited the Greek colony of Olbia, described their kings buried with strangled servants and horses, their drinking of enemies' blood, and their pleasure in cannabis smoke under felt tents. Greek colonies on the Black Sea traded grain, wine and gold for slaves and furs.

Decline

King Ateas built a Scythian kingdom in the fourth century that reached the Danube, but Philip II of Macedon killed him in battle in 339 BC. The Sarmatians, related nomads from the east, pushed the Scythians into the Crimea and Dobruja by 200 BC. A Crimean kingdom with a capital at Neapolis survived until the Goths destroyed it in the third century AD. Their name lingered as a Greek and Roman term for any northern barbarian.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Achaemenid Empire (550 BC to 330 BC)
• Median Empire (678 BC to 549 BC)
• Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 609 BC)
• Macedonian Empire (359 BC to 323 BC)
• Indo-Scythian Kingdom (150 BC to 400)
• Urartu (860 BC to 590 BC)
• Xiongnu Empire (209 BC to 93)

Wars of the same era and region

• Wars of Alexander the Great (335 BC to 323 BC)

8 surprising things about the Scythia

1. The Scythians got high by throwing cannabis on hot stones inside felt tents, according to Herodotus, and 'howled with pleasure'; a burial in the Altai contained the equipment.
2. Scythian warriors scalped enemies and used the skulls of hated foes as drinking cups.
3. The frozen tombs of Pazyryk in the Altai preserved tattooed bodies, carpets and a chariot from around 300 BC.
4. The gold pectoral from Tovsta Mohyla, made by Greek craftsmen for a Scythian king, is one of the finest pieces of ancient jewellery.
5. The Amazons of Greek myth may reflect Scythian and Sarmatian women, some of whom were buried with weapons.
6. The Scythians had no writing; everything known comes from Greeks, Persians and archaeology.
7. The Scythian composite bow and mounted archery tactics were copied by every steppe people after them.
8. The word 'Scythian' was used by Greeks and Romans for northern nomads for a thousand years, long after the real Scythians were gone.

Sources

• Scythian Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Scythians Wikipedia
• Scythians World History Encyclopedia
• Barry Cunliffe, The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe (2019) Oxford University Press

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