Who Were the Scythians, and Why Don’t We Ever Hear About Them?

Ancient history is a big topic. When school kids learn about ancient civilizations, there’s only usually time to learn about the ones their educational overlords find to be most significant.

As a civilized society with infrastructure, buildings, and written language, we naturally tend to think that other societies with these traits are the most important. Sadly, this causes us to gloss over some of the most interesting and dominant people in history — the horse nomads. And among the coolest horse nomads of all were the Scythians.

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Where Did the Scythians Come From?

The Scythians lived in the plains and mountains of the Pontic Steppe region from modern-day Ukraine to Eastern Siberia. They were active from around 900 B.C.E. to around 300 B.C.E., after which they integrated with other cultures and lived increasingly settled lifestyles.

Historians disagree on the origins of Eurasian steppe peoples. While many western anthropologists think they emerged when desert-dwelling Indo-Iranians migrated north, others believe they came from areas as disparate as eastern Siberia or northern Turkey. The few genetic studies performed on nomadic mummies point to a middle ground between these hypotheses. Most samples have suggested a “mixture of European-related ancestry from the Yamna culture and an East Asian/Siberian ancestry.”

Herodotus, an ancient historian, gives us some of our most detailed contemporary information about the Scythians. He describes them as having reddish hair and gray or green eyes. He describes at least four separate tribes of horsemen, claiming that each descended from three ruling sons of a great king, recounting these as the “Auchatae, Catiari, Traspians, and the Paralatae (Royals).” The Royals, he says, were a dominant force who oversaw the administration of the full empire.

Ancient artistic representations of horsemen give us a good idea of what they might have looked like. Men are usually depicted wearing tall hats and scale armor with decorative cloth underneath. When armed, they’re typically shown on horses wielding bows or spears:

Decorative comb found in modern day Ukraine

What Do We Know About Scythian Culture?

Though they didn’t leave the kinds of massive, monolithic remains we associate with settled people like the Assyrians, Greeks, or Romans, there is plenty of evidence of Scythian culture in the archeological record. These artifacts, combined with contemporary accounts, tell us a lot about the lives of the ancient plainsmen.

Because they devoted considerable effort toward constructing large burial mounds for their leaders, we know that they held kings and warlords in great esteem. Among the corpses of kings and other highborn men, archaeologists have found the bodies of concubines and animals, as well as intricately decorated objects of gold, bone, and other materials.

Like all good barbarians, the Scythians loved raiding, plundering, and drinking excessively. Drinking vessels and foreign plunder are both common finds in plainsmen's tombs. While Scythians raised cattle, sheep, and millet, they were expert hunters, and many artifacts depict them chasing after deer, hares, and other wild beasts.

Scythians are most certainly metal. Their warriors were the pinnacle of ancient cavalry, and they were absolutely dominant across an enormous territory for more than 600 years. Though ancient sources did tend to exaggerate a bit when describing so-called barbarians, the picture they give us of the Scythians is one of almost unbelievable toughness and martial culture.

To the Greeks, they were savages who collected the scalps of their enemies and drank from cups made from human skulls. To the Babylonians, they were merciless plunderers. To the Assyrians, they were grim reapers spelling doom for an oppressive regime.

Several Accounts Long Dismissed as Myths Have Recently Gained New Evidence

While a lot of the things ancient sources say about Scythians sound too crazy to be true, archeological finds have lent credence to certain long-disregarded myths. Actual skull cups, for example, have appeared in several ancient and later horseman tombs. The few mummified remains of horse-warriors that have survived to the present day show us that tattooing the face and limbs, a classic barbarian stereotype, was likely common.

In 425 B.C.E. or so, Herodotus birthed the myth of Amazonian warrior women. Amazon women, he says, were the enemies of the Scythians who resided in roughly the same geographic area. They were extremely tall women who cut their right breasts to facilitate archery and shunned men for all purposes except for breeding.

For a long time, historians dismissed even the vaguest notions of women horse-archers. Evidence uncovered in burial mounds, however, suggests that some percentage of Scythian women were indeed warriors, as archaeologists have uncovered more than one female corpse riddled with obvious battle wounds. Though there is no evidence that barbarian women of the plains ever cut their breasts or fought with men, something like a third of steppe women may have been experienced in archery from the horse.

Their Behavior May Have Inspired George R.R. Martin — or at Least Shakespeare

Do you remember the scene in Game of Thrones when Walder Frey ate a pie containing his sons? Most people familiar with British history assume that the scene is a callback to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. This may well be true, but the first story of people baking other people and feeding them secretly to kings came well before Shakespeare.

The Scythians and pre-Persians, called Medes, had a troubled history. First, the horsemen blindsided the Medes during an assault on Nineveh, the Assyrian capital city. Later, Cyaxares, the Median king, lured the nomads' leaders to a banquet and slaughtered them. With the insolent steppe leadership done away with, Cyaxares formed an alliance with the remaining horsemen to defeat Assyria for good. In time, as tensions cooled somewhat, the Medes began hiring mercenaries and military instructors from the ranks of the Scythians.

Little has been written about Cyaxares, besides that he was purportedly the greatest of Median kings. According to Herodotus, however, he had a bit of a temper. When he took his anger out on several Scythian archery instructors he hired to train his sons, they took offense, killing one son and feeding him to the unwitting king:

The horsemen, deeming themselves wronged by the usage they had from Cyaxares, plotted to take one of the boys who were their pupils and cut him in pieces, then, dressing the flesh as they were wont to dress the animals which they killed, to bring and give it to Cyaxares as if it were the spoils of the chase; and after that, to make their way with all speed to Alyattes son of Sadyattes at Sardis. All this they did. Cyaxares and the guests who feasted with him ate of the boy’s flesh.

Pretty brutal, even for a bunch of barbarians.

Enaree Mystics Practiced Divination and Worshipped Semi-Greek Elemental Gods

Nomadic horsemen lived a tough life in the wild steppes of Eurasia. As part-time subsistence hunters, they constantly risked starvation when environmental conditions became inclement. Their gods, therefore, reflected this reality. One goddess, named Artimpassa, is depicted in art as a master of animals. Another is simply drawn as a hearth or fireplace. The gods were entirely in charge of the elements, the people, not so much. Performing divination was an essential way to keep everyone alive.

Just like the later Celtic religions had druids as mystics, the Scythians had enaree, some of the world’s first "androgynous” mystics. Historians describe them dressing in gender-neutral attire, speaking in a high voice, and performing women’s jobs. They also performed divination by interpreting split bark and judging fallen objects. Like others of their tribe, the enaree loved partying and probably inhaled excessive cannabis vapors to better envision prophecies of the future.

Besides being mystics, enaree were also respected medical and political advisors, often tending to kings with herbs when they became ill. The few depictions we have of nomadic mystics show them as robed figures carrying staffs, which is probably just about what you expected. Some historians suggest that their differently gendered behavior might have had something to do with riding too long on horses, but we’ll leave that one alone for now.

What Were the Scythians Like in Battle?

It can be hard to figure out what ancient battles were like. To discover how ancient fighters fought, we have to rely on the accounts of others from the same period. Only when accounts from entirely different cultures corroborate one another can we be fairly certain of their accuracy. Here are a few things we know:

Ony a single steppe tribe gave Alexander, perhaps the world’s greatest conqueror, an extremely difficult time.
Though the horsemen weren’t known for executing complicated battlefield strategies, they often feigned retreat to fool enemies into breaking ranks.
Horse archers could perform skillful maneuvers and sometimes rode in “whirlpool” formations or timed the release of their arrows for when all four of their horse’s hooves were in the air.
Northern horse archers played a pivotal role in destroying the brutal Assyrian empire.
Scythians tended to find themselves on multiple sides of major conflicts, suggesting that tribes weren’t entirely united.
The Greeks and Persians both considered the men of the plains to be among the best archers and horsemen in the world, and many cultures of the time commonly hired mercenaries from the plains to augment their mobile warfare capabilities.

What Happened to Scythia?

*Scythian Neopolis in modern-day Crimea*

So Scythians were unparalleled archers and skilled horsemen who dominated the steppes and surrounding territories for hundreds of years. Then what happened to them? Why don't we hear much about them today?

No one knows exactly how it happened, but it seems that they assimilated with neighboring peoples over a long period. From the archaeological record, we know that they became increasingly less nomadic over time, even establishing certain permanent settlements. Plenty of writers in Greece and elsewhere casually mention having Scythian teachers, slaves, and trading partners.

By the time an invading Pontic force captured Scythian Neopolis, a thriving capital city in modern-day Crimea, the plainsmen's dominance had waned beyond return. In subsequent years, peoples from the Alans to the Goths took large swaths of what was formerly Scythia. For the remaining horsemen on the plains, the only option lefft was to integrate and assimilate entirely with the Greeks and Slavs. Perhaps your ancient ancestors were Scythian. That would be cool, wouldn’t it?

Sadly, the Scythians and other ancient tribesmen are criminally under-discussed, especially in literature. If you’re hungry to spend more time with one of history’s most hardcore peoples, check out Kur, a Mesopotamian epic, on Amazon today.