The Scythians, with boundaries perfectly undefinable, but who may be roughly described as the inhabitants of the great Steppe country, now known as Little Russia, and of the districts north of Circassia, for centuries played an important part in the commerce of the ancient world. Though chiefly nomads, they were also, to a great extent, carriers by land, while no inconsiderable section of their population devoted itself to agriculture. Strangely, however, they cultivated, not that they might themselves enjoy the produce, but that they might sell it to other nations. From the same districts, embracing Odessa, and from the ports of the Sea of Azov, vast quantities of corn are still annually imported into England.[146]
Nor was this all: like the modern inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Black Sea, the Scythians were also notorious for their extensive traffic in slaves, the countries situated to the north and east of this inland lake affording then, as now, inexhaustible magazines for this lucrative branch of commerce: they at the same time extended thence their trading operations far into the interior of Asia. “As far as the Argyppæi” (the modern Calmucks), says Herodotus,[147] “the country is well known; and also that of the other nations which we have mentioned before. For it is often visited either by the Scythians, of whom inquiry may easily be made, or by the Greeks of the commercial towns on the Borysthenes [Dnieper] and Pontus. The Scythians who go into these districts usually carry on their affairs in seven different languages, by the assistance of the same number of interpreters.”
Their caravan routes.
The Scythian caravans probably crossed the southern end of the Ural mountains, and passed on, round the Caspian Sea, to Great Mongolia and the Sea of Aral. Travelling with immense herds and numerous beasts of burden, they were able to conduct with advantage the overland trade through Asia Minor; following, during part of their journeys, a road which Herodotus carefully describes and to which reference will hereafter be made.
Herodotus states that their principal trade was in furs, and that it had been carried on from time immemorial. They also probably dealt largely in horses,[148] and other beasts of burden, and exchanged the manufactures of the West for such animals, and for furs and metals of various kinds, including gold, which was apparently to be procured in considerable quantities.
To India, via the Caspian.
These routes, as well as those through Bactra (Balkh) and Maracanda (Samarcand), the two principal marts for Indian merchandise, were all in connection with the Caspian Sea, across which, Herodotus informs us, there existed an organised system of navigation.[149] On this point Heeren remarks:[150] “In the Macedonian period, the productions of India and Bactra were carried down the Oxus to the Caspian Sea; then over this sea to the mouths of the Araxes and Cyrus; after that by land to the Phasis, where they were once again conveyed by water to the different cities on the coast of the Euxine Sea.”[151]
By means such as these, the chief trade between the western shores of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the East was carried on during the earliest periods of history. Babylon, Susa, and Nineveh, on the one hand, with David and Solomon on the other, having been the chief causes alike of its early success and of its vast extension.
FOOTNOTES:
[127] Gen. x. 29.