The Crimean Greeks- A Bosporan Kingdom TL

Note from the author: This is my new timeline, the Raphia TL will still continue but it's on a temporary hiatus. For now however I will be focussing on this one. The POD is having Sartyrus the King of the Bosporan Kingdom not die at the siege of Siracena. I want to note about the Siraces on my really bad quality maps, their position on other maps varies but it generally seems to be around the Caucasian mountains so I've placed them around where I have most often seen them.

The Crimean Greeks:- A Bosporan Kingdom TL

Sartyrus II (310-285 BC)

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The Bosporan Kingdom in 310 BC upon the ascension of Sartyrus II

The Bosporan Civil War and the Scythian campaign (310-300 BC)

Traditionally throughout the 9th, 8th and 7th Centuries there was a massive influx of Greek colonization throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. A number of these Greek colonies were founded throughout Thracia, Northern Anatolia, the Caucasus and the Crimea.

Over time the colonies in Crimea began to be steadily united into one Kingdom under the Archaeanactidae and Spartocid Dynasties. The first of these two dynasties lasted between 480-438 BC. But in 438 BC Spartocus I came to power and established the Spartocid Dynasty in the Bosporan Kingdom. Steadily the Spartocid Dynasty continued to increase the strength and size of the Bosporan Kingdom until it was centered around the Sea of Azov. It was during this time that, with the fall of Theodosia, the Bosporan Kingdom began becoming prosperous based around it’s trade with the Athenians and other Greek states.

The Bosporan military was unique in regards to the other Greek states, while they kept up with the traditional Greek style of using hoplites first popularized by the Argives, they made heavy use of Scythian and Sarmatian cavalry as the various nomadic tribes travelled through the areas. It was an agreement by which some members of the nomadic tribes could settle within the prosperous and fertile Bosporan Kingdom on the condition that they would provide their valuable cavalry services to the Bosporan army. This gave the Bosporans an advantage over many other Greek states by giving them the advantage of superior cavalry as well as greater mobility with Horse Archers.

Culturally the Bosporans were a mixture of Greek and Scythian cultures. While they were predominately Hellenized and Greek and still worshipped the Greek gods, their army and culture did show some distinct Scythian and Sarmatian traits and some of ghe best preserved Sarmatian and Scythian artifacts come from the Bosporan Kingdom.

Ultimately the peace and prosperity of the Bosporan Kingdom would be disturbed with the death of King Paerisades in 310 BC. With his death the kingdom was torn apart by a civil war between his two sons: Satyrus, his heir, and Eumelus, his younger son. As with most Bosporan conflicts, the two soon called upon the use of various Scythian or Sarmatian allies. Distinctly Eumelus allied himself with a Sarmatian tribe named the Siraces and Satyrus with the Scythians. The two eventually met in battle at the Thatis River [1] where Saryrus inflicted a heavy defeat on Eumelus. Not to be deterred however, Eumelus retreated with his Siracian allies led by a Siracian named Aripharnes to Aripharnes’ capital at Siracena. [2]

The Siraces were one of the Sarmatian tribes that had become largely Hellenized and had settled South of the Caucasus mountains at Siracena. Saryrus pursued his brother to the city and laid siege to it. After crossing the river they began an assault on the walls of the city, however when his mercenary captain Meniscus was endangered during the siege Sartyrus moved in personally to support him. During this assault he managed to narrowly avoid the spear of an enemy soldier which could have killed him. Finally, after heavy fighting, the few remaining city defenders were overwhelmed and the city fell to Sartyrus’ forces.

Aripharnes was heavily punished for his support of his brother during the civil war as the Siraces faced a heavy war indemnity and were forced to accept vassal status under the Bosporan Kingdom . Meanwhile Sartyrus returned to the city of Panticapeaum where he had his brother executed for his resistance against his rule.

Under Sartyrus’ reign the various cities and ports within the Bosporan Kingdom began to thrive more and more as he began increased trade to the Hellenic states throughout the Black Sea and Mediterranean. In particular the fellow Ionian state of Athens became a valuable trading partner and a large market for Bosporan grain. [3]

What has to be remembered about the Bosporan Kingdom in 310 BC is that while they held the straight of Kerch and the territory constituting the coast of the Sea of Azov that was East of the straight, the Bosporans held very little land in Crimea itself. But Sartyrus’ reign would be defined by the conquest and campaigning both in Crimea and South of the Caucasus mountains. With what effectively amounted to the subjugation of the Siraces South of the Caucasus mountains and the increased Bosporan influence there, there was increased attempts to expand the Bosporan Kingdom there while also expanding in Crimea.

Throughout the campaigning seasons of 309, 308 and 307 BC, Sartyrus led his army to campaign against the Scythians in the Southern portion of the Crimea and managed to extend his power all the way East across the Southern part of Crimea to the city of Chersonese. This gave the Bosporans further Black Sea ports from which they could trade throughout the Black Sea and Mediterranean but more importantly it gave the Bosporans further agricultural land with which they could produce large quantities of grain to trade with.

After his campaign to the East, Sartyrus set about increasing the strength of the pottery industry in Panticapaeum. Within the city, the Bosporans largely produced a type of pottery known as Kertch ware but they were also productive and quite competitive in the field of pottery production even with the producers of pottery in Greece. Ultimately Sartyrus spent the next few years strengthening the agricultural and industrial aspects of the Bosporan economy and trade system. By using the economic returns from this, Sartyrus established further defenses and strengthened the defense of Panticapaeum and other Bosporan cities. Meanwhile Sartyrus also began further trade of timber from the forests which covered the Caucasus as the Bosporans began exporting this timber to various states in around the Mediterranean and Greece. Mostly trade of timber became a big thing in areas where there were fewer trees with which to provide timber. It also became a big market in primary ship-building ports.

Altogether these developments would strengthen Panticapeaum as a primary trading port and location in the Black Sea. Under Sartyrus the Bosporan Kingdom would become steadily richer and more prosperous and an increasing economic power in the Black Sea. But even as the increased trade brought riches and increased prosperity to the Bosporan Kingdom, it brought negative effects in the form of increased piracy. Unlike the Mediterranean itself there was no significant naval power in the Black Sea to prevent piracy and many of the other states in the Black Sea were content to let the pirates damage the rival trade routes and trade vessels. In fact some states around the Mediterranean were even content to allow pirates safe haven in their harbours and a place to sell stolen goods. Steadily the piracy around the Black Sea began to damage the Bosporan trade through the Black Sea, around the Bosphorus region became especially notorious as groups of pirates began to lay waste to Bosporan trade ships. [4]

The Pirate Problem and the Council of Panticapaeum (299-292)

By 299 BC the problem of piracy in the Black Sea had become a major problem as the Bosporan trade began to suffer greatly in the face of increased confidence and power of the pirates in the Black Sea and a Black Sea naval power was desperately needed to combat the pirates. While originally the piracy had mostly targeted the Bosporan ships, other states had begun to suffer. By this point the piracy had gotten out of hand to the point at which states could and would offer refuge to pirates to gain their support against other states. Some pirates had even been elevated to relatively high ranks within some states while others had managed to overrun port towns throughout parts of the Black Sea.

Overall the two states to suffer the most from this were the Bosporans and the Byzantines from the Greek city state of Byzantion. The Byzantines had generally made a lot of money from trade with the merchant ships passing through the Bosphorus and this had formed the backbone of the Byzantine trade network. Therefore the pirates had become a large problem for both states in their attempts to establish strong trade networks.

Therefore in 298 BC Sartyrus met with the King of Byzantion and a few other state leaders from around the Black Sea who had been targeted to find a solution to the problem of piracy. Due to it’s relatively central position and safety from pirates as opposed to Byzantion, the state leaders met in Panticapaeum. The council of Panticapaeum, as it would later become known as, would be a big event in the development of the growing Bosporan Kingdom. The pirate situation had grown out of control and the various state leaders now had to find a solution once and for all.

The solution the council came to was an anti-pirate naval alliance to protect their trade through the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean. Effectively what they planned to do was bring their naval forces together to hunt down the large groups of pirates and drive them to extinction. Once they had been dealt with the Black Sea would be split into various districts which would be looked after by one or more states. Within those districts the state/s were responsible for hunting pirates. In general the various Black Sea states involved in the treaty would provide support to one another and the option to base their fleets in one another’s ports to assist one another in hunting the pirates. [5]

But here Sartyrus ran into a problem, the Bosporan Kingdom didn’t have a sizable naval force, at least not one big enough to properly protect the Bosporan trade routes and administrate protection of the Black Sea against Pirates. Not only that but the military port at Panticapaeum wasn’t big enough to really support large numbers of ships or large ship building operations. Therefore Sartyrus’ first priority was to expand the entire port at Panticapaeum, between 298-290 BC Sartyrus began massively expanding the port at Panticapaeum, this included expanding the shipwright to be able to mass produce ships at a huge rate, the military port and the separate merchant harbour with large warehouses to support more merchant’s ships and their trade goods.

Meanwhile the Bosporan navy had undergone expansion through the extensive use of Caucasian timber to build a fleet of warships. When, in 296 they met with the fleets of the other Black Sea states, they began their sail to the Bosphorus. Between 206 and 203 BC the Black Sea states managed to defeat various large pirate fleets even completely destroying a few of the smaller pirate organizations. But the piracy still continued as the pirates began hiding in friendly ports along the Black Sea coast and making quick hit and run raids on trade vessels. While the original attack on the large pirate fleets had managed to clear up the Bosphorus and make it significantly safer for the various trade ships, there was still a significant threat posed by these hit-and-run attacks.

To an extent it could be argued that these hit and run attacks were actually the most dangerous or at least the most feared. This was because these attacks seemed to take place at random throughout the Black Sea as they prowled on lone ships and fled. Even, a number of times, the pirates managed to sink or capture a warship by surrounding a lone one and closing in on all sides to trap it.

It wouldn’t be until 292 BC that the Black Sea navy would finally divide to begin patrolling the, now agreed, Black Sea divisions. Byzantion and the Bosporan Kingdom possessed the largest navies out of all those involved in the treaty and so were given the largest areas to patrol. Byzantion patrolled the majority of the South-West of the Black Sea along parts of the Thracian and Anatolian coasts. Meanwhile the Bosporan Kingdom patrolled the majority of the North-East of the Black Sea around the Azov Sea and an area West of the Crimea and South of the Azov region. This gave th Bosporans a significant area to patrol to try and hunt pirates. The rest of the Black Sea was split between other states and some regions were devoted to two states to help lower the burden on each individual state.

With the patrols established, the Bosporan trade network could begin operating properly again throughout the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean.

The Bosporan Economic Crisis (290-285)

The past two decades between 310-290 BC had taken a heavy toll on the Bosporan economy, while they had built up a strong treasury from the early trade much of that money was now gone. Sartyrus’ rampant spending on expanding the navy and the massive expansion to the port combined with the lost revenue from trade due to the rampant piracy of the past decade had taken its toll and the treasury was now empty and the kingdom in debt. Not just that but already the costs of maintaining the patrols of such a large portion of the Black sea were coming to haunt Sartyrus and the sheer stretched nature of the fleet in its attempt to keep watch over such a large area had taken it’s own toll on the Bosporan economy as multiple ships had been isolated and destroyed or captured by pirates throughout the Black Sea.

While the return of trade through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean certainly helped provide some revenue to the beleaguered Bosporan economy in the wake of the economic crisis, it wasn’t enough to save it fully from the growing debt. The crisis only worsened in 288 BC when the Northern Scythians launched a large attack on Bosporan territory as part of a major raid on the seemingly rich Bosporan lands. It wouldn’t be ultimately until 286 BC that Sartyrus would be able to get his army to repel the Scythian raiders and not before they had caused a huge amount of damage to Bosporan farms.

With the economic troubles and much of the Crimean lands in flames, Sartyrus’ position seemed dire especially when, in 285,the people began to riot in the streets of Panticapaeum in response to the extreme financial difficulties and the troubles within the rural areas. Refugees had been traveling en masse to Panticapaeum to try and escape the Scythian raiders from the North and the city had begun to suffer from overcrowding as homeless refugees lined the streets hoping to escape their burning farms and homesteads and the ever encroaching Scythian horsemen.

Then, in late 285 BC, Sartyrus died leaving the kingdom to his son Spartacos.

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[1] We don’t know exactly where the Thatis river is located but it is likely somewhere around the Caucasian Mountains.

[2] The Sarmatians are a collective term for a set of tribes who formed a tribal confederation in the 6th Century BC with the invasions of the Massagetae. While by the 4th Century this confederation was gone, the term Sarmatians stuck. While occasionally the names of individual tribes may be used, the terms Sarmatians and Scythians will be used more broadly and much more often.

[3] There is a distinction between Ionian and Dorian culture, during the beginning of the Iron Age there was a migration of a people known to the Greeks as the Dorians. This led to two major groups of people within the Greek peninsula: The native Ionians and the newer Dorians, this led to conflicts between the two cultural groups which culminated in the Pelopponesian war which was largely the Ionan Delian League vs the Dorian Sparta and her allies. However in places where the Hellenic culture mixed with other cultures such as Messalia in Gaul and the Bosporans in Crimea this became less distinct.

[4] The name of the Bosporan Kingdom is not related to the Bosphorus itself between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

[5] Pirates would eventually become a major threat in the Mediterranean itself but only when there was no major power there to counter them. Here with Bosporus’ increased trade and wealth and with there being virtually no major naval power to counter the pirates as well as the various rival states supporting the pirates, piracy has gotten out of hand. This is especially a problem because pirates were a massive threat during this time especially with the later Cilician pirates.
 
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Spartacos III 'The Great' (285-254 BC)
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The Bosporan Kingdom in 285 BC upon the ascension of Spartacos III
Red= Bosporan Kingdom Pink= Vassal state

The Economic Crisis (285-274 BC)

Spartacos was 24 years of age when he inherited the Bosporan Kingdom in 285 BC, he inherited a Kingdom that was bursting at the seams economically and politically. The people were rioting in Panticapaeum and, despite his father's best efforts, the Scythian raiders were once again tearing through the Bosporan territories in the Crimea. The refugees within the cities had started to cause overcrowding and in some cities had even caused outbreaks of plague which only worsened the situation.

In Panticapaeum itself the people were rioting throughout the city and destroying large portions of the city en route to the palace itself.

A Greek Historian describes the riot:
"Their shouts and screams for democracy resonated through the city as the nobles and aristocrats fled and hid within their homes. However there was no refuge for them as the rioters broke into their houses and put them and their families to the sword. Other rebels dragged the nobles out of their homes and began bids to sell them and their families into slavery or even publicly tortured and executed them blaming them for poverty."

Despite the best efforts of the city militia, the rioters broke through into the harbour itself and began laying waste to any ships they could get their hands on. Merchant and naval vessels alike were destroyed in the rioting and many of the warehouses were lost to fire within which lay much of the current export from Panticapeaum.

"The militia made several desperate attempts to prevent the rioters from breaking past them into the port and, although initially successful, they were soon overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. Within the port there were some of the worst atrocities of the riots as the people set fire to the ships so as to burn the crews of the ships alive. The rioters also stood on the shore so as to cut down any crew members who managed to swim back to shore. One of the rioters even ended up setting a fire in one of the warehouses which soon spread throughout the harbour and caused great damage to the port.

In desperation Spartacos began calling the city militia back from elsewhere in the city and began raising any levies he could to fight. He gathered these soldiers at the centre of the city and began making preparations to defend the palace against the incoming rioters. The ensuing fight later became known as the Battle of Panticapaeum and when the smoke cleared there were many dead on both sides. However the rioters had taken the worst of it as the better trained soldiers cut them down in the frenzy. Those who had broken from the riot and attempted to flee were soon cut down by soldiers arriving from the country under Spartcos' brother, Sartyrus.

"Blood ran through the streets of Panticapaeum pooling around the bodied of those who had dared to riot against their King. There, in the smoke of the city, lay the darkest hour for the Bosporan Kingdom."

Here in the ruins of Panticapaeum was where Spartacos would begin the rebuilding effort within the Bosporan Kingdom in an attempt to relieve the economic troubles of the Bosporan Kingdom. But with the economically important farmlands of the rural regions and the industry of the cities greatly damaged Spartacos had very little to rebuild with especially due to his lack of funds. Therefore he turned to the landed nobles who held large estates and began seizing their lands. The riots throughout the Bosporan Kingdom had greatly weakened the nobility as it was but their rural estates remained largely intact especially those which were not located in Crimea itself. Therefore Spartacos soon sent his soldiers out to what remained of the old noble families and began seizing their lands and distributing it out to the landless poor to increase the agricultural output of the Kingdom.

Next he imposed heavier taxes on the nobility that remained and started imposing quotas demanding a certain percentage of the agricultural output of farmers throughout the Kingdom as a temporary measure to increase exports from the Kingdom. In the short term this worked but it led to further riots in the more rural regions of the Kingdom. He also set about re-negotiating the division of the Black Sea with the other members of the Black Sea alliance so as to decrease the burden on the already weakened Bosporan fleet. His negotiations allowed him to divide up the Bosporan patrol region of the Black Sea to allow the re-position of parts of the Bosporan navy so that it wouldn't be so exhausting resource-wise.

Next came the problem of the outlying villages and cities, in some of these territories the town militia had taken advantage of the disruption of the Bosporan state to usurp the town or city and try to establish a new state. This had been a problem mostly East of the Azov sea and most notably at the city of Tanais. This had had an effect on the entire agricultural output of the Bosporan regions because as these outlying territories declared their independence they took with them significant chunks of arable farmland.

Therefore Spartacos consolidated all his soldiers at Panticapaeum and set out East to campaign against the breakaway states. Between 283 and 279 BC Spartacos defeated the breakaway states one by one and subdued them to return the farmland to the Bosporan Kingdom. Once again he set about subduing the nobility while it was weak to distribute their land among the landless poor. Effectively this increased the agricultural output and allowed the Bosporan Kingdom to increase the exports of agriculture massively to start re-building the economy.

Next Spartacos turned his attention back West to Crimea where the Scythian raiders had steadily become more and more of a problem with their raids. While his father had managed to repel them temporarily, Spartacos knew they had to be subdued if the Bosporan Kingdom was to be saved.

Therefore between 278 and 274 BC Spartacos started a new campaign in the Crimea to subdue the Crimean Scythians. This campaign allowed Spartacos to extend the Bosporan border territories North-West to the top of the Crimea. The fighting was hard but steadily Spartacos defeated the Scythians in his own territory in 277 BC and began a counter-attack into Scythian territory. By establishing a set of forts to lock down the vast Scythian steppes, Spartacos managed to slowly push the Scythians back despite the fluidity of the nomadic horse archer armies. By 275 BC Spartacos had managed to defeat the various Scythian tribes as far North as Kerkinitis in the Crimea. There he would establish the new borders of the Bosporan Kingdom in Crimea and began setting up a number of Scythian vassal states throughout the North-West of the Crimea. These vassal states were expected to pay a tribute in both grain and money to the Bosporan Kingdom and were expected to provide soldiers, primarily cavalry, to the Bosporans in the event of a war.

The Crimean Grain Trade and the Caucasian Campaign(274-258)

Until now the Crimean economy had continued to suffer despite the economic developments under Spartocus. But the conquest of the Crimea generated an influx of agriculture from the incredibly arable land which personified the Crimea. The influx of agriculture led to a massive increase in the production of grain and other agricultural foods within the Bosporan Kingdom. Effectively this allowed the Bosporans to steadily increase the export of grain to the other foreign states around the Mediterranean and Black Sea.

From 274 onwards the Bosporan grain market grew massively as the Bosporan merchants began trading as far as Italy and North Africa. By 270 BC the Bosporan grain merchants had become famous throughout the Black Sea and Mediterranean. With the huge growth in the trade of grain and other agricultural foods, there was a jump start to various other economic industries as well. The influx of money from the increased trade allowed Spartocus to start slowly lowering the taxes on the peasantry and scrap the agricultural quotas he had established earlier during the Economic crisis.

By 268 BC the Bosporan economy was really starting to become a bigger powerhouse and this led to further developments in the Bosporan infrastructure. Spartacos began massive renovations on the port at Panticapaeum to make it the centre of Black Sea trade and a port to rival that of Carthage. These renovations allowed for greater merchant capacity and naval deployment around the Black Sea and were paired with the building of further warships.

But as the Bosporan trade network grew and the Bosporan economy flourished, Spartacos became ever more aware of the support the Black Sea pirates were receiving from other states around the Black Sea. Around the Black Sea there were various ports which were still providing refuge and places to fence stolen goods to the pirates who still plied the Black Sea for merchant vessels. With his desire to totally eliminate the piracy in the Black Sea, Spartacos knew that he would have to capture these ports to deprive the pirates of friendly ports in which they could base themselves. Therefore in 266 BC Spartacos began a campaign to subjugate a number of these ports in the Caucasus.

In 266 Spartacos marched South and subjugated the city state of Pityous and used it as a base from which he could continue his subjugation of the rival Caucasian states. Between 265 and 263 Spartacos launched a series of campaigns along the Black Sea coast and managed to subjugate a number of states which had been supporting the piracy in the Black Sea. However he didn't stop there as between 263 and 258 BC he made a number of incursions into in-land Caucasia where he managed to establish a number of vassals and increase the Bosporan hold over the Caucasian mountains and the valuable timber to be found there.

Finally, when he returned to Panticapaeum in 255 BC at the age of 54, Spartacos set about detailing a set of reforms to the Bosporan Kingdom. He also began the construction of a series of new temples throughout the Crimea. But he would never see either of these come to pass before he died in 254 BC at the age of 55 and left his kingdom to his son Leucon.
 
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