Scythians and the Greek Cities of the Black Sea

From the seventh to the third centuries BCE, Pontic Scythians and Greek communities on the northern Black Sea coast were connected by trade, diplomacy, and conflict. The Scythians were an Iranian-speaking people whose power was based in the steppe between the Danube and the Don. Their mobile pastoral economy met the seaborne trade and urban markets of Greek settlements, including Olbia on the Southern Bug estuary and the cities around the Strait of Kerch. These relationships shifted over time: exchange could be mutually useful, but Scythian rulers also used political and military power to influence cities and the movement of goods.

Here, “Pontic Scythians” refers to the people of the northern Black Sea steppe, not to every population later called Scythian. The Saka of Central Asia and the Indo-Scythian kingdoms of South Asia belong to related but distinct regional histories. They were not parts of one continuous Scythian empire.

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Coastal markets and the steppe hinterland

Greek settlers from Miletus founded communities on the northern Black Sea coast during the seventh century BCE. Olbia developed in the sixth century near the Southern Bug estuary, joining sea traffic to river routes inland. The Greeks called the Bug the Hypanis and the Dnipro the Borysthenes. An emporion was a trading settlement or market where goods changed hands.

The coast and the interior supplied different resources. Scythian herders raised horses, cattle, and sheep, and traders also moved animal products, skins, and furs. Farming communities in the forest-steppe produced grain, while fishing and other local production supplied goods for coastal markets. These producers did not all share the same way of life: nomadic pastoralists, settled farmers, Greek townspeople, and local communities all took part in regional exchange.

Olbia illustrates how a coastal city could connect these activities. Its harbor handled exports such as cereals and fish, while docks and artisans’ houses occupied parts of the lower town. Greek-made pottery and other crafted goods reached the city and its Scythian customers. In turn, the city’s traders could gather products from the hinterland and send them by sea to other Greek markets. The city was therefore more than a meeting point between two peoples: it linked local producers and steppe routes to wider maritime commerce.

Goods, traders, and unequal exchange

Wine and vessels used for serving and drinking it were among the Greek goods especially sought by Scythian elites. Wine from the Aegean, including Chios, and imported pottery reached the northern coast. Greek craftsmen also produced metalwork, ornaments, and other desirable objects. These items could mark status at the Scythian court and appear among the goods placed in wealthy burials. Such evidence shows elite consumption more clearly than everyday practice among the wider population.

Grain moved in the other direction. In the early fifth century BCE, Scythian rulers strengthened their authority over parts of the forest-steppe. Settled producers there supplied grain, at times as tribute, which Scythian elites directed toward Greek cities along the coast. The Borysthenes and Hypanis carried produce towards Olbia, while Tyras and Nikonion stood on the Dniester system farther west. Greek merchants could then sell it onward. Scythian authorities thus had influence not only through military strength but also through their position between agricultural producers and coastal buyers.

Trade also involved captives. Greek cities around the Black Sea served as markets and transfer points for the slave trade, but they generally depended on Scythian rulers and other local powers to obtain enslaved people. Some captives came from subordinate communities or from raids. Enslavement was therefore bound up with political control and violence, not simply with the exchange of goods in a port.

Greek workshops supplied goods for both local use and trade, while Scythian producers and craftsmen contributed agricultural products, livestock, and metalwork. The cities issued their own coins, and Scythians used coinage in trade with the Greeks, although coin was not their ordinary means of exchange within their own communities. Commercial relationships consequently combined several kinds of transaction, including barter, payments in coin, tribute, and the movement of goods through elite-controlled networks.

Trade under pressure at Olbia

Commercial ties did not prevent political conflict. In the early fifth century BCE, Scythian kings tried to extend their authority over some Greek settlements and their agricultural territories. Olbia remained a Greek city, but its political relationship with Scythian rulers could be close and unequal. Greek accounts connect King Scyles, who ruled around the middle of the fifth century BCE, with Olbia; reports that he knew Greek and married a Greek woman illustrate the cultural and political connections possible at court.

Scythian pressure could disrupt the countryside on which a city depended. In the early fifth century BCE, some Greek settlements strengthened their defenses as their access to agricultural land became less secure. Later instability weakened Scythian control in parts of the region. Olbia and other cities rebuilt or expanded rural holdings in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE. Control over farms, river routes, and access to markets could therefore change together: a city’s commercial prospects depended partly on the political situation beyond its walls.

The Bosporan kingdom as a trading and political partner

At the Strait of Kerch, Greek cities on the Crimean and Taman peninsulas developed into the Bosporan kingdom, a monarchy centered on Panticapaeum. The kingdom took shape around 480 BCE, and the Spartocid dynasty came to power in 438 BCE. It joined Greek urban communities with local populations and territories. Its rulers used titles such as archon, a Greek term for a magistrate or ruler, in relation to Greek cities, while also ruling as kings over local peoples.

The Bosporan kingdom produced and exported grain from its own territories and received supplies from neighbouring communities. In his fourth-century BCE speech Against Leptines, Demosthenes cited about 400,000 medimnoi, a Greek grain measure, arriving at Athens from the Bosporus. The figure refers to imports from the kingdom, rather than a documented quantity supplied specifically by Scythian farmers to Panticapaeum. Bosporan privileges for Athenian merchants helped secure that commercial relationship.

Scythian-Bosporan relations involved military cooperation as well as commerce. Bosporan rulers employed Scythians as cavalry, and King Leucon I used Scythian horsemen in the conquest of Theodosia in the fourth century BCE. In 309 BCE, the Scythian king Agaros supported Satyros II during a Bosporan succession struggle. Such episodes show that Scythian rulers could be allies, military suppliers, and powerful neighbors. The kingdom’s economic connections with the steppe depended on political arrangements that could be reinforced by force.

Changing powers and distinct regional histories

There was no single, unchanging pattern of Scythian-Greek relations. At some times, Greek settlements benefited from peaceful exchange; at others, Scythian rulers imposed their authority or used control of the hinterland to shape trade. The Bosporan kingdom provided another kind of relationship, joining Greek cities and local populations in a monarchy that relied on both maritime commerce and steppe connections.

From the third century BCE, Sarmatian expansion weakened the earlier Scythian kingdom. Smaller Scythian powers in Crimea continued to deal with Greek cities, including Chersonesus and the Bosporan kingdom. Those local relationships developed through new rounds of trade, negotiation and warfare.

For the wider setting, see Scythian historical context.