ON THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF THE CRIMEA.
The Cimmerii—The Tauri—Connexion of Greece with the
Black Sea—Digression on the Crypts of the Crimea—B.C.
600: The Scythians—The Greek colonies, B.C. 650—Milesian
emigration—Dorian emigration—Trade of these early
times—Mithridates, reigned B.C. 120-63—A.D. 62: The Alans—A.D.
100-200: The Goths—A.D. 376: The Huns—Second attack of the
Huns—Justinian, reigned A.D. 527-565—A.D. 679: The Khazars—A.D.
900-1000: The Petchenegues—About 1204: The Comans—1226: The
Tatars—The Genoese—1473: Kaffa taken by the Turks—The Black Sea
then shut up to European nations—Mixture of races in present
inhabitants of Crimea.
Having had occasion to mention various nations who have occupied the
Crimea, it will perhaps be useful to bring together in one succinct view
the numerous revolutions which the peninsula has undergone, and the order
in which the various races of its inhabitants succeeded one another from
the earliest times.
First of all come the Cimmerians, who belong partly to history and
partly to fable. The story in the ‘Odyssey’ describes them as dwelling
beyond the ocean stream, plunged in darkness, and unblest by the rays
of Helios (the sun). According to Herodotus, they originally occupied
the Steppes of Southern Russia, or the country between the Borysthenes
and the Tanais, and being expelled from their country by the Scythians,
skirted the shores of the Euxine, and devastated, for a number of years,
the highly civilized countries of Asia Minor. The poets of that age
lament the destruction of every exquisite production of Greek genius by
this barbarian people, who were nomadic “milkers of mares,” like the
Scythians, and wandered in tents over their grassy Steppes. They had
already disappeared in the time of Herodotus, at which time the tombs of
their kings were shown near the Dniestr. They left their name in the
Cimmerian Bosphorus, while the darkness in which they were supposed to
have lived has perpetuated their memory down to our own times—
“In black Cimmerian darkness ever dwell.”
There was another people mentioned as early as the time of Homer, who,
being mountaineers, were able to preserve their nationality for a very
long period of time. These were the Tauri, who appear to have been a
people of a most savage and unamiable character.
It has been already said that they sacrificed to a cruel goddess all
shipwrecked mariners, and they sometimes not only made offerings but
feasts of human victims. These habits have procured them an immortal
infamy in the writings of the Greeks and Romans, and, through the story
of Iphigenia, have made the Crimea associated with one of the most famous
legends of the Greek mythology. Her history and that of her fate-urged
family, connected with great events, abounding in scenes of concentrated
action, laid in mysterious and wild countries—contained much matter
calculated to rouse the passions, and have made it a favourite subject
for poets both in ancient and modern times.
The works of almost every great poet of antiquity contain allusions to
the tragic history of the Atridæ, and the fate of Iphigenia has occupied
in modern times the pen of Racine and Göthe. It was also a popular
subject with ancient painters, and Timanthes, having represented her just
about to be sacrificed, after exhausting all his art in depicting the
grief of the other bystanders, drew a veil over the face of her father as
the best means of representing his inexpressible anguish.
The story of Iphigenia is not an isolated instance of the attention which
the most ancient Greeks seem in numerous cases to have directed to the
East, and the expeditions of Phrixus and Helle, of the Argonauts, the
long wanderings of Ulysses on the coasts of Colchis, the Crimea, and the
Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Achæans, who were said, in returning from
Troy, to have settled on the Circassian coast,—all have the same tendency.
In the time of Herodotus the Tauri occupied the hill-country of the
Crimea, and were in all probability the people who formed the numberless
dwellings and towns cut in the solid rock, which are found in many parts
of the country. The chalk or green-sandstone formation, easily wrought,
homogeneous, with few fissures, and horizontal beds, was peculiarly
adapted for this purpose; and wherever it crops out of the soil, there
are sure to be found these subterranean dwellings.
These crypts are the most curious remains of antiquity in the Crimea,
and abound chiefly in the south-western parts, forming perhaps the only
relics of its most ancient inhabitants. Not that the use of crypts was
confined solely to the most ancient times, for many Christian churches
are found in them, and they must therefore have been inhabited at least
down to the fourth or fifth centuries of the Christian era, when the
inhabitants of the Crimea were converted to Christianity. Although there
are few countries of the world in which they exist in such great numbers
as in a portion of the Crimea, still this habit of living in subterranean
dwellings was very common among ancient nations, and instances of it are
familiar to all. The crypts are the only relics of those ages in the
infancy of the world, when, according to mythic legends, men dwelt in
caverns and were nourished on acorns.
A large portion of the populations of Asia, when they became fixed, began
by burrowing out holes for themselves in the rocks. Caverns were then
used as their temples and their sepulchres.
The rock temples scattered over various parts of India are some of them
imperishable monuments of times on which history is silent.
Persia has its crypt tombs and cities, that have called forth the
admiration of all travellers. Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia began by
crypts, and the rock temples, palaces, and immense necropoleis (which
were at first towns for the living) attest the art and industry of one of
the most remarkable of ancient nations. The traditions of Greece point
back to a time when caverns were common dwellings. In Sicily the rocks
are pierced with crypt towns of very ingenious workmanship. In Magna
Græcia and Etruria crypt tombs are common, and the labyrinth of Crete was
the theatre of some of the earliest Greek myths. In Asia Minor, and even
in Thrace, the same sort of works may be found.
Notices of them are also frequent in the Bible. The Kaphtorians or
Phœnicians came from the southern coasts of the Red Sea, and disembarked
at its northern extremity under Edom, who gave his name to the country,
so that it is no wonder that we find the Idumæans or Edomites dwelling
in caves down to a late period. The antique towns in the valley of the
Jordan and the Dead Sea are crypt towns, like those of the Crimea, but
executed by a people in a higher state of civilization. The Edomites or
Phœnicians played a great part, before the arrival of the Hebrews in
Egypt, and their commerce embraced the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
They extended their mercantile relations as far as Sidon and Tyre, and
carried at the same time to the foot of Mount Lebanon their custom of
excavation. The northern valley of the Jordan, the Ard el Hule, is
pierced with crypt towns, of which the most remarkable are Hatsor and
Bostra. Their inhabitants were proud of their dwellings in the rocks,
which they regarded as impregnable, which made the prophet Jeremiah
exclaim, ch. xlix. v. 16, “Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the
pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock,
that boldest the heights of the hill, though thou shouldest make thy nest
as high as the hill, I will bring thee down, saith the Lord.” Every
reader is familiar with the caves of Makeda, Adullam, and Engeddi, in
the patriarchal history, and Jerusalem itself was surrounded with crypt
tombs. In the country of Tubal, the modern Georgia, the ancestors of that
ancient and chivalrous people dwelt in subterranean dwellings, such as
are now to be seen at Ouphlitsikhé and Armasi. In Armenia, which enjoys
the high privilege of having been the first Christian nation, and of
having suffered more than any other for its faith, the art of the crypt
has always been in great favour, and innumerable specimens are to be seen
at Hrachegapert, and at the monasteries of Airivauk, Kieghart, and other
places.[146]
On the banks of the Upper Kour, in Imeritia, a country adjoining on
Georgia, there are many places, such as Vardsic and others, where these
dwellings are to be found, and the termination “kvabi,” or cavern, in the
names of places always indicates their existence.
In Mingrelia, the ancient Colchis, there are an infinity of grottoes on
the banks of the Upper Phasis (modern Krivila), and one whole district,
Semokvákana (the high dwellings), takes its name from them.
Lastly, in the centre of the Caucasus, in the valley of the Kouir, and
near Kislavodsk and other places, are to be found the dwellings of the
Troglodytes of Strabo.
Thus it appears how largely the crypt enters into the early history of
mankind, and how much of human labour has been expended upon a species of
dwelling which is so widely spread over the Crimea.[147]
Even among the modern Tatars in that country their habitations are seldom
wholly detached from the rocks. They generally choose some shady sloping
place for their villages, and supporting two sides of their houses by
walls of brick or mud, with a little verandah in front, they let the
other parts rest either in a niche cut in the earth, or against the
side of a precipice. In Georgia it is often dangerous riding from the
subterranean villages formed in the sloping sides of hills, the flat
roofs of which look just like the common earth, and a person unused to
the country might easily sink into the midst of an astonished family,
did not the wreath of smoke generally prove a warning of the treacherous
nature of the soil.
Returning from this digression to the history of the Tauri, I will only
further remark that, from a similarity of manners, and other causes, they
are considered to belong to the Tchud or Finnish race of nations, and
thus to be related to the Lesghins and Tchetchens of the Caucasus, and
the famous Finnish pirates who infested the shores of the Baltic down to
the tenth and eleventh centuries.
The resemblance of the Virgin goddess of the Greeks and the cruel
divinity of the Tauri, perhaps may arise from the fact of the Greek
nation itself being composed of the two elements of an Indo-Germanic
graft upon a primitive Finnish stock. When the Indo-Germanic wave of
population rolled towards the West it drove the earlier races before it,
or forced them aside into the mountains as the only secure resting-place.
Thus the mountain chain of the Crimea played on a small scale the part
of the Caucasus, and served as a refuge for the remnant of the Finns
against the Indo-Germanic races who surrounded them, of which the most
ancient known to us were the Kimmerians. The word Tauri probably means
mountaineers.[148]
In B.C. 600 the Scythians, who were also a nation of Finnish origin,
invaded the Crimea, and mixing with the Tauri formed the nation of the
Tauro-Scythians, whose principal seat was in the valleys to the north of
the Tauric chain.
A short time before the Scythian invasion, about B.C. 650, the Greeks,
who, as I have said, had been before connected with these countries,
began to plant colonies about which we have definite historical
information. The Milesians first established themselves on the peninsula
of Kertch, an open country of easy cultivation. Their agricultural
prosperity was quickly known in Greece, and new and important emigrations
took place. Theodosia, Nymphæum, Panticapæum, and Myrmékium quickly
raised their heads on the shores of the little peninsula, and served as
ports for the rich establishments of the colonists.[149]
Stimulated by the success of the Milesians, the Heracleans endeavoured
on their side to found some colonies in the Crimea. They turned to
the western part of the peninsula, and disembarked not far from the
celebrated Cape Partheniké, and, having beaten and driven back into the
mountains the savage Tauri, they fixed themselves in the Heracleotic
Chersonese. Thus was founded the celebrated republic of Kherson, which,
conquered for a moment by a Grand Duke of Russia in the tenth century, as
has been related, became the point of departure of that great religious
revolution which completely changed the character and destinies of the
Russian Empire.
While the Heracleans were consolidating their power by their manufactures
and commerce, the Milesian establishments on the Bosphorus were rising
with extraordinary rapidity, and spread to the Asiatic side, where the
towns of Phanagoria, Hermonássa, and Cépos were founded. At first,
independent one of the other, all these different Milesian colonies
were influenced by an inevitable chain of events, and, 480 B.C., their
political union gave rise to the kingdom of the Bosphorus. As has been
said, agriculture was the essential basis of the public wealth of the
Milesians, and the attention of the new government was directed specially
to this branch of employment.
As soon as Leucon ascended the throne he released the Athenians from
the thirtieth, which they had hitherto paid as an export duty on grain.
By this liberal measure the exportation of it increased enormously, and
the Cimmerian or Panticapæan peninsula became the granary of Greece, and
merchants flocked for grain to Theodosia and Panticapæum, where they also
bought woollen cloths, furs, and the salted fish which still forms one
of the staples of Southern Russia. The imports are little spoken of in
history, but it is evident from the late excavations at Kertch that they
must have consisted of articles of luxury.
The Bosphorians, then, no doubt received in return for their productions
all the manufactured articles which luxury and riches had introduced into
usage at Athens, and it is probably to the artists of Greece that are due
the magnificent works of art which are admired in the Museums of Kertch
and Petersburg, which prove that the agricultural colonists of the Crimea
were not behind their kinsmen of the brilliant metropolis of Athens in
their love for the arts and the refinements of civilised life. Materials
for building must also have formed an important part of the imports.
There is no trace of white marble in the Crimea, nor on the northern
shores of the Black Sea, although immense quantities of it are found in
the excavations at Kertch, and there is every reason to believe that the
enormous pieces of sculpture which were employed there in the public and
private buildings were brought ready worked from the quarries of Greece.
Notwithstanding the dangerous neighbourhood of the Sarmatians, the
kingdom of the Bosphorus enjoyed perfect tranquillity for more than three
hundred years, and, thanks to a policy as firm as it was intelligent, it
increased in riches and prosperity up to the moment when the conquest of
Greece by the Romans upset all the commercial relations of the East.
At this epoch the Bosphorians attacked by the Scythians, and too feeble
to resist them, threw themselves into the arms of Mithridates, who made
their state a province of Pontus, and gave it as an appanage to his son
Macharés.
After the defeat and death of her implacable enemy, Rome preserved to
the traitor Pharnáces the crown of the Bosphorus; but the sovereignty
of the new prince was only nominal, and the successors of the son of
Mithridates, without power, and despoiled of their possessions on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, depended on the caprice of the Roman
emperors.
In the sixty-second year of our era the Alans ravaged the country, and
attacked the Tauri even in their mountains. They devastated the country,
and utterly destroyed Theodosia, which offered them some resistance.
They continued masters of the country, without changing their vagabond
life, till they were conquered by the Goths in the middle of the second
century.[150] The Goths, although they have undeservedly gained a bad
reputation in Europe, were the only people who brought the germs of
peace and civilization to this much-disputed peninsula; and they kept
possession of it longer than any other people, for the remnant of them,
and its name of Gothia, remained to it more than a thousand years—till
nearly the end of the sixteenth century. They mixed intimately with the
vanquished people, founded many colonies in the vast plains situated
to the north of the mountains, and quickly gave themselves up to their
taste for a sedentary and agricultural life. Then there began for the
Crimea a new period of tranquillity, which might also have been one of
agricultural prosperity; but, unfortunately, Greece, conquered by the
Romans, was at this period rapidly falling, and Rome, become the capital
of the world, was supplied with grain by Egypt, Sicily, and Africa. The
Crimea, notwithstanding its efforts, could not rise from the obscurity to
which it was condemned by the great political events which signalized the
first century of the Christian era. In the midst of the first invasions
of the barbarians, the little republic of Kherson, protected by its
remote and inaccessible situation, preserved its independence. In the
reign of the Emperor Diocletian, the Khersonites, who possessed nearly
all the high country, had centered in themselves the commerce which
existed between the Crimea and some parts of the shores of the Black Sea,
and their republic was the most powerful state in the Crimea, until a war
broke out between them and the Sarmatians, who had seized the kingdom
of the Bosphorus, in which they were defeated. The struggle between
the rival nations at the Bosphorus lasted nearly a century, until the
Sarmatians were driven out, and the Bosphorians again enjoyed some years
of liberty and internal prosperity.
This peace, however, was of short duration, and like a calm before
a terrible tempest. After a few years, the Huns poured down from
the interior of Asia, and at first occupied the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus; then, crossing the Sea of Azof, they annihilated for ever the
ancient kingdom of the Milesians, A.D. 375. The numerous colonies of the
Goths, united with the Alans, were overcome, and all their agricultural
establishments were reduced to ruins. Protected by their western
position, the Khersonians alone escaped.
Fortunately for the Goths of the Crimea, the Huns only passed through
the country, for they were attracted to the banks of the Dniestr and the
Danube by the great events which were there taking place, after the death
of Ermanrich the Ostrogoth, which had just removed the only obstacle
to their progress. The Goths of the Crimea, who had yielded to the
torrent and retired to the mountains, again spread themselves over the
country. After the death of Attila the Huns again appeared, and this time
Kherson was threatened, and implored the assistance of the Greek emperor.
Justinian hastened to accede to their demand, and, being also friendly to
the Goths, built long walls to protect their country against the nomades
of the Steppes, and two fortresses, Aloushton and Gorzubita (Alouchta
and Oursouf), on the southern coast of the Crimea. He built no towns or
fortresses to the north of the mountains, because the Goths did not like
to be shut up within walls, but to live freely in the open country.
They had at this time the reputation of being excellent warriors,
laborious husbandmen, and the most hospitable of mankind towards
strangers. They then occupied both sides of the Cimmerian Bosphorus,
and, becoming converts to Christianity, they sent four deputies to
Constantinople to ask the emperor to send them a bishop in the place of
their autistes, who had died.[151]
Near the end of the seventh century, A.D. 679, the Crimea was invaded by
the Khazars, whose hordes at first accompanied the Huns, and afterwards
established themselves in Lithuania (Bersilia), and constituted a
kingdom independent even of Attila. The apparition of these new
conquerors, already masters of a vast territory, made such a sensation at
Constantinople, that the sovereigns of the East sought their alliance,
and the court of Byzantium even asked in marriage the daughter of the
Khakan, as the chief of the nation was called, for the son of the Emperor
Leo.
The forebodings of the imperial government about the Khazars were quickly
realized, and in the short space of 150 years, this people, who had given
their name to the peninsula of the Crimea, founded a vast monarchy, the
limits of which reached in Europe to the Danube, and in Asia to the foot
of the Caucasus, while even the Caspian was known in the middle ages as
the Sea of the Khazars.
After the Khazars, whose fall was in part hastened by the attacks of
the Russians, and who then disappeared completely from history, the
Petchenegues, or Patzinates, their conquerors, who are constantly
mentioned in the annals of Constantinople and the early Russian history,
succeeded to their dominions, with the exception of Kherson, which was
incorporated in the empire of Constantinople. Under the rule of this
people, who also came from Asia, the commerce and manufactures of the
Crimea revived,—its relations with Constantinople increased, and its
ports furnished to the merchants of the Greeks, purple, fine stuffs,
embroidered cloths, ermines, and leopard skins, furs of all kinds, pepper
and fine spices, which the Petchenegues bought on the south of the Kuban,
and in the Trans-Caucasian countries, which extend as far as the Cyrus
and the Araxes. Thus recommenced for this unhappy country, which had
been so often devastated, the new era of a prosperity, which it had not
enjoyed for several centuries. The empire of the Petchenegues lasted
for about 150 years, and then they had to deplore similar calamities to
those which they had inflicted on the Khazars. Attacked by the Comans,
whom the extension of the Mongol power in Asia had expelled from their
territory, they were vanquished in the struggle which ensued, and forced
to retire into Asia. The Comans, a warlike people, took possession of
the Crimea, and made Soldaya (Soudak) their capital. They had, however,
hardly consolidated their power, when they were obliged to yield to other
conquerors, and seek a refuge in more western countries.
With the expulsion of the Comans ceased all those temporary invasions,
which for ten centuries desolated the Crimea. To all these different
hordes, of whom the greater number have left no trace but their name,
there succeeded two remarkable nations. One of these, the conqueror of
Asia, was just founding the most gigantic empire of the middle ages; and
the other, issuing from a merchant city of Italy, was destined to make
Khazaria the centre and the point of junction of the commercial relations
between Europe and Asia. In 1226 took place the memorable invasion of
the Mongol Tatars, a notice of which has been already given, and from
that moment the establishment of peace and security was sufficient to
develope the great natural resources which this celebrated country
possessed. Soldaya, taken from the Comans by the Tatars, and given back
to the Christians, quickly became the most important port on the Black
Sea, and a principal station in the commercial route between Europe and
Asia. Soldaya, however, had but a short duration, and another people, as
intelligent, and active as the Greeks, and endowed with a still bolder
mercantile instinct, was, at this epoch, destined to enjoy a greater
commercial grandeur than any since the time when the Milesians founded
their first colonies on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Already masters of the
important factories at Constantinople, the Genoese had long been able
to appreciate the position of the Black Sea, and the immense resources
which it placed at the disposition of enterprising men, who might there
centralize the relations of Europe with Russia, Persia and the Indies.
The rivality which then existed between them and the Venetians
accelerated the execution of their projects, and in 1280, after having
acquired, partly by stratagem and partly by force, the territory
of ancient Theodosia, they laid the foundation of the celebrated
Kaffa, which secured to the republic the empire of the Black Sea and
the exclusive command of its commerce. With the Genoese, the Crimea
saw revived one of the most brilliant epochs of its history. Kaffa,
by its size, its population, and its opulence, became the rival of
Constantinople, and soon its consuls of Cerco (Kertch), Soldaya
(Soudak), and Cembalo (Balaclava), rendered themselves masters of all
the southern coast of the Crimea. At a later period, they gained, beyond
the peninsula, other conquests, not less important. The galleys of the
republic penetrated into the Sea of Azof, and Tana, situated at the
mouth of the Don, was taken from the Tatars; a fortress was erected at
the mouth of the Dniestr, in Modern Bessarabia, and numerous factories
rose in Colchis and the shore of the Caucasus, while the imperial town
of Trebizonde itself was obliged to allow the establishment there of one
of the largest factories of the republic in the Black Sea. The Genoese
colonies thus became a general entrepôt for the rich productions of
Russia, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Indies, and during more than two
centuries monopolising to their profit all mercantile exchanges between
Europe and Asia, they presented a wonderful spectacle of prosperity and
riches. The term of all this glory at last arrived. In 1453 the standard
of Mahomet was displayed on the dome of St. Sophia, and the relations
of the Crimea with the Mediterranean were broken. The destruction of
the Genoese establishments became inevitable, and the republic itself,
despairing of preserving, decided upon abandoning them to the bank of St.
George on the 15th November, 1453. This cession, by politically detaching
the colonies from the metropolis, naturally led to fatal results. A
general discouragement took place in the colonies, each man thought only
of himself, and the consular government, formerly so remarkable for its
integrity and virtue, instead of making friends of the Tatars to defend
them from the Porte, completely alienated them by their want of good
faith, and by selling their assistance for gold to the various parties
who at that time were desolating the Crimea. So many faults were followed
by a fatal catastrophe. On the 6th of June, 1473, Kaffa was obliged to
surrender at discretion to the Turks, and some months later, all the
points occupied by the Genoese fell successively into the power of the
Ottomans. After the disaster of the Genoese colonies, the great lines
of communication with the Trans-Caucasian countries, the shores of the
Caspian Sea, and those down the Volga, the Don, and the Kuban, deprived
of their support, were broken up, and all commercial relations with
Central Asia were momentarily suspended. The Venetians, who had obtained
from the Turks the right of navigating the Black Sea, on the condition
of paying 10,000 ducats a-year, endeavoured without success to take the
place of their rivals. They were in their turn expelled, the passage
of the Bosphorus was interdicted to the nations of the West, and the
Ottomans, with the Greeks of the Archipelago, subjects of the Porte,
had alone the right of navigating the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof.
The commerce of the East then found for itself new débouchés by way of
Smyrna, and the discovery of Vasco de Gama produced a complete revolution
in the trade.
A slight sketch of the Crimea when it formed the seat of government
of the khans of Little Tatary has already been given, and during all
that period the Black Sea was unfrequented by the European nations. The
English, however, always had the nominal right of navigating it; there
are some vestiges of our having had a footing there in the days of
Queen Elizabeth or James I., and when we ceased to frequent it is not
ascertained. In the treaty made in 1675 between England and Turkey by Sir
John Finch, there is an express article giving a general permission of
ingress and egress into the Black Sea, “to enable English merchants and
all under their banner to go by the way of the Tanais into Moscovia, and
also to and from Persia, and to traffic by land and by sea through all
their confines.” There is even a provision for the protection of English
vessels should they be forced by stress of weather into Kaffa.[152]
This permission, however, remained a dead letter until the beginning of
the present century, when our right to navigate the Black Sea having been
claimed afresh and allowed, an active trade sprung up, which has been
yearly increasing in importance.
It might naturally be expected, after so many different nations had
occupied the Crimea, that its population would be of a very mixed
character, and such indeed is the case. It is not, however, in the
plains, which are inhabited chiefly by Nogai Tatars of late date, nor in
any of the towns, that the remnants of the ancient inhabitants of the
country are to be sought. The mountains are in every country the refuge
of the oppressed, and it is in the mountains of the Crimea, among the
so-called Tatars, who are, however, a very different race from those of
the plains, that a people is to be found of very mixed origin.