How Scythian Nomads Influenced Early Greek and Persian Civilization

Episode 4 Scythians, Greeks and Persians

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

This lecture concerns the Iranian speaking nomads of the western and central Eurasian steppes. The Scythians controlled the latter from Early Iron Age (800 BC) to 300BC. The fifth century BC Greek historian Herotodus, who encountered them in the Greek colony Olbia*, was the first to write about them.

He described the Scythian federation as consisting of Inner (Royal) Scythians and Outer Dependent Tribes. According to Harl, this method of governance dates back to the Bronze Age Yamnaya Proto-Indo-European (steppe) culture (2000-1800 BC). The Royal Scythians summoned the Dependent Tribes when they went to war and also controlled the trade flowing down their rivers.

Some of the Dependent Tribes grew grain along the shore of the Black Sea, which the Royal Scythians sold it to the Greeks. Slaves and flax, timber and amber (all pilfered from from Baltic forest peoples) also featured in nomad trade with the Greeks. Greek elites were also really fond of with intricately worked Scythian jewelry and leather and woodwork. Scythian warriors also served as mercenaries to early Greek kings and successors to Alexander the Great.

These trade routes, later taken over by Turkic speaking Khazars and eventually the Mongolian Golden Horde, persisted until Russia conquered this region in the 16th century.

Herodotus describes in detail (later confirmed by archeological findings) the horse sacrifices that accompanied royal Scythian burials. Fifty horses (and riders) would be sacrificed and stuffed to accompany royal personages to the afterlife. He also describes warrior princesses (the source of the Amazon myth) who interacted freely with male warriors and princes.

The Scythians also interacted with Asia Minor and Mesopotamia from the Bronze Age on. After the Persian** king Cyrus conquered the entire Middle East in the the 6th century (see Prehistory: The Persian Empire Conquers Mesopotamia, Egypt, Libya, Kushan, the Indus Valley, and the Early Greek City States), he mounted a disastrous military expedition against them.

Alexander the Great also engaged in military skirmishes with them following his conquest of Persia. He eventually gave up trying to conquer them and set up Greek-style cities along his northern frontier to regulate their trade and collect taxes.

The Scythian federation collapsed in the third century BC, overrun by the Sarmatians. They had been pushed west by the Xiongu as they were driven west by Han Chinese armies.***

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*Olbia was on the northern shore of the Russian Black Sea.

**According to Harl, the Persians were descended from Iranian-speaking nomads who moved south with their horses and their composite bows to assimilated into the settled Mesopotamian population.

***See How Steppes Nomads Influenced Eartly Chinese Civilization

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984/5694994

The Rise of the Steppe Nomads

Episode 2 The Rise of the Steppe Nomads

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

In this lecture Herl describes the linguistic and archeological research that has allowed historians to trace the origin and migration of various steppe nomads.

Our first evidence of pastoral steppe nomads dates from 6500 – 5000 BC when some Proto-Indo-European speakers shifted from hunting gathering to herding and seasonal nomadism. Historically most wild horses originated from the Eurasian steppes. The first Eurasian nomads domesticated them for food, ie meat, milk and fermented mare’s milk.

By 4200 BC, steppe nomads were riding them bareback, enabling significant expansion of their herds. According to Harl, spoked wheels most likely originated on the Russian steppes. They were used for “gerts.” In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus describes these mobile tents drawn by oxcarts. The steppe nomads also perfect a light chariot for battle around 2100 BC. At this time, they began migrating and spreading their lifestyle north, west and east to European steppes and forests and the Mediterranean.

Those migrating northwest spoke Celtic and Germanic languages, those migrating north spoke Slavic languages and those migrating east spoke Indo-Iranian languages (which evolved into Persian and Sanskrit).

The nomads’ invention of the saddle and composite bow led to another mass migration starting in the 18th century BC, with the Cimerians (Herodotus refers to them as Scythians) launching period raids on the Assyrians and Phrygians.* Harl believes that the Assyrians early adoption of nomad military technology enabled the creation of their vast empire (14th – 7th century BC) . See Mesopotamia and the Rise of the Assyrian Empire

Indo-Aryan nomadic speakers began moving into the Indus and Ganges Valleys around 1500 BC and intermarried with the local population. Likewise their inventions helped enrich early Chinese, Persian, Greek and Roman civilizations.

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*Phrygia was a kingdom in west central Anatolia. The King Midas myth traces back to the Phrygian empire.

 

 

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5694984