Scythian Customs

Among the various customs practiced by the Scythians, those associated with their reputation as fierce warriors made an especially strong impression on the classical Greek world.

The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man he overthrows in battle. Whatever number he slays, he cuts off all their heads, and carries them to the king; since he is thus entitled to a share of the booty, whereto he forfeits all claim if he does not produce a head. In order to strip the skull of its covering, he makes a cut round the head above the ears, and, laying hold of the scalp, shakes the skull out; then with the rib of an ox he scrapes the scalp clean of flesh, and softening it by rubbing between the hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scythian is proud of these scalps, and hangs them from his bridle-rein; the greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves cloaks, like the capotes of our peasants, by sewing a quantity of these scalps together. Others flay the right arms of their dead enemies, and make of the skin, which is stripped off with the nails hanging to it, a covering for their quivers. Now the skin of a man is thick and glossy, and would in white­ness surpass almost all other hides. Some even flay the entire body of their enemy, and stretching it upon a frame carry it about with them wherever they ride.

The skulls of their enemies, not indeed of all, but of those whom they most detest, they treat as follows. Having sawn off the portion below the eyebrows, and cleaned out the inside, they cover the outside with leather. When a man is poor, this is all that he does; but if he is rich, he also lines the inside with gold: in either case the skull is used as a drinking-cup. They do the same with the skulls of their own kith and kin if they have been at feud with them, and have vanquished them in the presence of the king.

source: Herodotus, The History, translated by George Rawlinson, Great Books of the Western World, Vol. VI (Chicago, London, and Toronto 1952), pp. 134-135.

were then processed and sent to Greece. In turn, the Scythians bought from the Greeks textiles, wines, olive oil, art works, and other luxury items to satisfy their taste for opulence.

As a result of these economic interrelations, the Greeks brought to the world the earliest and still the primary information about the Scythians. Herodotus, in particular, left a detailed description of the geography, way of life, and often cruel customs of the Scythians and of the lands under their control. The other source of information about the Scythians, which corroborates much of what Herodotus wrote, is their numerous burial mounds, spread throughout south-central Ukraine and excavated in modern times. These burial mounds (known as kurhany, or bar­rows) have preserved for posterity that for which the Scythians are most famous: their small-scale decorative art, which consisted primarily of finely balanced ren­derings of a host of animal forms in gold and bronze. It is not certain whether this art was produced by the Scythians for themselves, or, more likely, commissioned from Greek artisans living in the cities. Nevertheless, its themes reflect the violence of the world the Scythians inhabited, and its forms show the high level of technol­ogy their civilization was able to foster and appreciate.

Notwithstanding the cruelty to human and non-human animals depicted in their art, the Scythians brought a period of peace and stability to Ukrainian terri­tories which lasted for about 500 years and which has come to be known as the Pax Scythica, or Scythian Peace. During the Pax Scythica, the Scythians promoted trade and commerce with the Greek cities along the Black Sea, which in turn sup­plied Greece with needed foodstuffs and raw materials.

It would be some time before long-term stability like that created by the Pax Scythica was reestablished in Ukraine. Around 250 âñå, nomads related to the Scythians and known as Sarmatians appeared in the Ukrainian steppe. The Sar­matians were typical of the civilizations under discussion in that they were not a homogeneous people, but rather made up of several tribes, each of which led an independent existence. Those most directly associated with developments in Ukraine were the Roxolani and, in particular, the Alans.

At least during the first two centuries of the Sarmatian presence, that is, from 250 to 50 âñå, the relative stability and resultant economic prosperity that had previously existed between the Scythian hinterland and the Greek cities of the coast was disrupted. Pressed by the Sarmatians in the steppe, the Scythian leaders fled to the Crimea, where they were forced to consolidate their rule over a smaller region that included the Crimean Peninsula north of the mountains and the lands just to the north between the peninsula and the lower Dnieper River. This new political entity, which, with its capital at Neapolis, was known as Scythia Minor (Mala Skifna), lasted from about 250 âñå to 200 ce. Initially, the Scythian leadership in Neapolis tried to continue its traditional practice of exacting tribute and goods from the Greeks. But because they no longer controlled the resources of the steppes, they had nothing to give the Greeks in return. The result was fre­quent conflict between the Scythians of the Crimea and the Greek cities along the coast and in the Bosporan Kingdom.

This era of instability, which affected not only the Sarmatian-controlled hinter­land but also the Black Sea cities, came to an end along the coastal region after 63 âñå. Beginning in that year, the Roman Empire succeeded in extending its sphere of influence over the independent Greek cities as well as over those within the Bosporan Kingdom. With the presence of Roman legions and administrators in the region, peace and stability were restored. The new Pax Romana reduced the friction between the Scythians and the Greeks in the Crimea, and the Sarma­tian tribes in the hinterland also realized the advantages to be accrued from some kind of cooperation with the Roman world. Reacting to the stabilizing presence of the Romans, one Sarmatian tribe, the Alans, renewed the Scythian tradition of trade with the Greco-Roman cities. Before long, a Greek-Scythian-Sarmatian hybrid civilization evolved within the Bosporan Kingdom, which itself was revived, this time under the protection of Rome. The resultant trade and commerce between the steppe hinterland and the Mediterranean world brought a renewed prosperity to the Bosporan Kingdom that lasted for over two centuries.

The third century ce, however, ushered in a new era of instability, especially in the steppe hinterland, that was to last until the seventh century. During these four centuries, Ukrainian territory was subjected to the invasions of several new nomadic warrior tribes who were bent on destruction and plunder of the classical world as represented by the Black Sea and Bosporan coastal cities. With few exceptions, the nomads were not interested - as the Scythians and even the Sar­matians had been before them - in settling down and exploiting by peaceful means the symbiotic relationship of the steppe hinterland and coastal cities. Between about 250 and 650 ce, several nomadic groups - the Goths, Huns, Kutri- gurs, Utrigurs, Avars, Bulgars - came and went across parts of Ukrainian territory. It was not until the arrival of the Khazars in the seventh century that stability was restored north of the Black Sea.

The four centuries of strife between 250 and 650 ce began not with the arrival of nomads from Central Asia in the east, but rather with the arrival in the early third century of Germanic tribes known as Goths from the northwest. Originally from Sweden and living in what is now Poland, the Goths moved south into Ukraine, where they broke the Sarmatian dominance of the hinterland. After 250 ce, they captured Olbia and Tiras from the Romans, with the result that during the following century the remaining Greco-Roman cities as well as the Bosporan Kingdom came under Gothic domination.

One branch of the Goths, the Ostrogoths or East Goths, eventually focused their control on the Crimean Peninsula and the remnants of the Bosporan King­dom, which still had potential wealth, to be derived from trade and local artisan works. Ostrogoth rule reached its apogee during the late fourth century under the king Hermanaric (reigned 350-375). Anxious to maintain good relations with the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire to the south, the Ostrogoths even accepted Christianity. In about 400 ce, they received a bishop, the first in a line of ecclesiastics who were to ensure the presence of Christianity among the Ostrogoths for several centuries to come. From their mountain stronghold at Doros, in the Crimean Peninsula (just 12 miles [20 kilometers] east of Chersone­sus), the Ostrogoths, or, as they came to be known, the Crimean Goths, func­tioned during the next four centuries as a protective shield for the Greco- Byzantine cities along the coast against further invasions by nomads from the north.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian hinterland north of the Crimean Peninsula and Black Sea was subjected to a series of invaders: the Huns in the late fourth cen­tury, the Kutrigurs and Utrigurs in the fifth century, the Avars in the sixth century, and the Bulgars in the seventh century. More often than not, the presence of these groups in Ukraine was short-lived. This was because they were in search of the richer sources of booty to be found along the borders of the Roman Empire in central Europe (the Pannonian Plain) or along the trade routes between the Black and Caspian Seas.

The Byzantines and the Khazars

While the Ukrainian steppe and hinterland were experiencing frequent disrup­tions between 250 and 650 ce, the coastal region along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov was undergoing another revival. This time the stabilizing factor was the East­ern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, which reached its greatest territorial extent and political influence during the sixth-century reign of Emperor Justinian (reigned 527-565). Under Justinian, the Black Sea coastal cities received Byzan­tine garrisons, their walls were fortified, and Chersonesus, on the western tip of the peninsula, became the region’s Byzantine administrative center. Byzantine Greek culture in the form of Eastern Christianity also was strengthened, with the result that Chersonesus, with its ten churches and chapels (including St Peter’s basilica in Kruze) and a monastery built in a cave along cliffs at nearby Inkerman, was to become an important center from which Christian influence was subse- quendy to radiate throughout Ukrainian territory and among the East Slavs. Byz­antine influence was also strong at the eastern end of the Crimea, where the Bosporan Kingdom was revived, this time as a colony of Byzantium.

While it is true that direct Byzantine political control over the Crimean cities and the Bosporan Kingdom was frequently interrupted, economic, social, and cul­tural ties in the form of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity were to last until at least the thirteenth century. It was during the era of Roman and Byzantine control of the Bosporan Kingdom, moreover, that Hellenic Jews settled in the region’s coastal cities. And it is from these cities that Jewish contacts across the Straits of Kerch were, by the seventh century, to reach a new nomadic civilization that was beginning to make its presence felt.

Not long after the rise of Byzantine influence along the coast, which began in earnest during the late sixth century, a group of nomads arrived from the east whose presence was to have a profound impact on the region north and east of the Black Sea. These were the Khazars, a Turkic group who originally inhabited the westernmost part of the Central Asiatic Turkiit Empire. Unlike most of their predecessors during the preceding three centuries, the Khazars preferred diplo­macy to war. Soon after their arrival along the Black Sea, they signed a treaty (626) with the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines, ever anxious about their own eastern frontier with the Persians and about potential invaders from the east who might threaten their Black Sea possessions, welcomed the seeming willingness of the Khazars to fit into the plans of Byzantium’s northern diplomacy.

The appearance of the Khazars in the seventh century proved to be of great significance for developments in eastern Europe in general and in Ukraine in par­ticular. The Khazars continued the tradition established by the Scythians (750­250 âñå) and continued by the Sarmatians (50 âñå to 250 ce) whereby nomads from the east would gain control over the sedentary population of the steppe hin­terland, keep in line recalcitrant nomadic tribes, protect trade routes, and foster commercial contacts with the Greco-Roman-Byzantine cities along the Black Sea coast. The age-old symbiotic relationship between the coast and the steppe hinter­land was to be restored under the hegemony of the Khazars. The resultant Khazar peace, or Pax Chazarica, which lasted approximately from the mid-seventh to the mid-ninth century, did in fact cushion the territory from further nomadic inva­sions from the steppes of Central Asia in the east as well as from incursions by the Persians and, later, the Arabs from the south. Because of the Khazars’ role in pro­tecting the eastern and southern frontiers of the European continent, some writ­ers have compared them to Charles Martel and the Franks in western Europe. The Pax Chazarica also provided two centuries of peace and stability during which sedentary peoples living within the Khazar sphere of influence were allowed to develop. Among those peoples, within and just beyond the northwest­ern edge of the Khazar sphere, were the Slavs.