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But the expanding Roman Empire would ultimately doom the carefree Scythians. And even settling down in places the city known as Scythian Neapolis (near present-day Simferopol) served as the trading center of the Crimean Scythian tribes. Westward, across the steppes of the Crimea and Ukraine, the remaining Scythian tribes survived relatively unchanged for another three centuries, riding and raiding. But, so far as can be determined, he was the last Indo-Scythian king, for soon after his death the Indo-Scythians were overrun by the Kushans and soon after that, the Parthians invaded from the west and the Scythians disappear from Indian records. There they had largely supplanted the Indo-Greeks in the Punjabi and Kashmiri regions by the time of Azes II, c. In the meantime, a collection of Scythian tribes (now known as the Indo-Scythians) under the chieftain Maues migrated southeastwards into Bactria, Sogdiana and Arachosia. Guess horse-warriors didn’t do as well in the mountains as on the steppes. In the aftermath, the encroaching Celts displaced the Scythians from the Balkans. A decade later, however, Phillip’s son Alexander was fighting the Scythians again, winning a “decisive” battle at the river Syr Darya to end their depredations along the frontiers so the Greeks could march south and into glory. According to Strabo, having united all the Scythian tribes between the Danube and the Maeotian Marshes, Ateas soon came into conflict with Phillip II of Macedonia in the ensuring war the 90-year-old Ateas was killed in battle c.

Being masterful horsemen and skilled archers, the Scythian tribes spread out across the region and spent their quality time raiding Macedonian and Persian settlements.įrom archaeological evidence found in the great burial mounds, known as kurgans (about the only permanent structures the Scythians built), around 470 BC it appears that the chieftain Ariapeithes (a Greek moniker who knows what his actual name was) managed to unite a number of the Scythian tribes and proclaimed himself “king.” His successors would rule the confederation until circa 340 BC, when the dynasty was overthrown by the great Ateas (another Greek name). Herodotus states that the Scythians originated in the eastern steppes where they warred with the closely-related Massagetae, but “with ill success.” Therefore, the Scythian tribes migrated west, crossed the river Araxes, and within 30 years displaced the Cimmerians (who themselves migrated into Assyria and raised hell there). Modern scholars note that the term “Scythian” was used by ancient writers to refer to a wide range of horse-warriors from the steppes, otherwise unrelated but sharing a few similarities in life-style and language. They sat astride the Silk Road, grew wealthy from the slave trade, developed a distinctive artistic style, and left civilization legends of centaurs and Amazons … but not much else. At their peak, the Scythians ranged across the whole of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe and beyond, from what is today the Ukraine to the borders of Manchuria. Most of what is known of them comes from a handful of ancient “historians” – the likes of the Greek Herodotus and the Roman-Greek Strabo and a few Hindu texts – and that’s not much. The Scythians were a loose (very loose) confederation of illiterate nomad-pastoralists who wandered about the steppes of Central Asia for about a thousand years. For small formatting suggestions, please contact a content moderator or an administrator. This page is a direct copy of the in-game Civilopedia entry written by the developers.