Legends of the Scythians. Legends about the Scythians. Legends of Crimea Legends and myths of the Scythians

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Skoloty (ancient Greek Σκόλοτοι) is the self-name of the Scythians according to Herodotus. Almost 25 centuries ago, Herodotus used it in the following context:

According to the stories of the Scythians, their people are the youngest. And it happened this way. The first inhabitant of this then uninhabited country was a man named Targitai. The parents of this Targitai, as the Scythians say, were Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes (I, of course, do not believe this, despite their claims). Targitai was of this kind, and he had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and the youngest, Kolaksai. During their reign, golden objects fell from the sky onto the Scythian land: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl.

The elder brother was the first to see these things. As soon as he approached to pick them up, the gold began to glow. Then he retreated, and the second brother approached, and again the gold was engulfed in flames. So the heat of the flaming gold drove away both brothers, but when the third, younger brother approached, the flame went out, and he took the gold to his house. Therefore, the older brothers agreed to give the kingdom to the younger.

So, from Lipoxais, as they say, came the Scythian tribe called the Avchatians, from the middle brother - the tribe of the Katiars and Traspians, and from the youngest of the brothers - the king - the tribe of the Paralats. All the tribes together are called skolots, that is, royal ones. The Hellenes call them Scythians

Herodotus. Story. IV.5 - 6

At the same time, other fundamentally important evidence of Herodotus is often ignored

IV.7. This is how the Scythians tell about the origin of their people. They think, however, that from the time of the first king Targitai until the invasion of their land by Darius, only 1000 years passed (approximately 1514-1512 BC; commentary). The Scythian kings carefully guarded the mentioned sacred gold objects and revered them with reverence, making rich sacrifices every year. If someone at a festival falls asleep in the open air with this sacred gold, then, according to the Scythians, he will not live even a year. Therefore, the Scythians give him as much land as he can travel on horseback in a day. Since they had a lot of land, Kolaksais divided it, according to the stories of the Scythians, into three kingdoms between his three sons. He made the largest kingdom where gold was stored (not mined). In the region lying even further north of the land of the Scythians, as they say, nothing can be seen and it is impossible to penetrate there because of flying feathers. And indeed, the ground and air there are full of feathers, and this is what interferes with vision.

8. This is how the Scythians themselves talk about themselves and their neighboring northern countries. The Hellenes who live on Pontus convey it differently (claiming a deeper memory: commentary). Hercules, driving the bulls of Geryon (usually cows), arrived in this then uninhabited country (now it is occupied by the Scythians). Geryon lived far from Pontus, on an island in the Ocean near Gadir behind the Pillars of Hercules (the Greeks call this island Erythia). The ocean, according to the Hellenes, flows, starting from sunrise, around the entire earth, but they cannot prove this. It was from there that Hercules arrived in what is now called the country of the Scythians. There he was caught by bad weather and cold. Wrapping himself in a pig's skin, he fell asleep, and at that time his draft horses (he let them graze) miraculously disappeared.

9. Having awakened, Hercules went throughout the country in search of horses and finally arrived in a land called Hylea. There, in a cave, he found a certain creature of a mixed nature - a half-maiden, half-snake Goddess with snakes (the ancestor of the Scythians is known from a number of ancient images: commentary). The upper part of her body from the buttocks was female, and the lower part was snakelike. Seeing her, Hercules asked in surprise if she had seen his lost horses somewhere. In response, the snake woman said that she had the horses, but she would not give them up until Hercules entered into a love affair with her. Then Hercules, for the sake of such a reward, united with this woman. However, she hesitated to give up the horses, wanting to keep Hercules with her as long as possible, and he would gladly leave with the horses. Finally, the woman gave up the horses with the words: “I kept these horses that came to me for you; You have now paid a ransom for them. After all, I have three sons from you. Tell me, what should I do with them when they grow up? Should I leave them here (after all, I alone own this country) or send them to you?” That's what she asked. Hercules answered this: “When you see that your sons have matured, then it is best for you to do this: see which of them can pull my bow like this and gird himself with this belt, as I show you, let him live here. Anyone who does not follow my instructions will be sent to a foreign land. If you do this, then you yourself will be satisfied and fulfill my desire.”

10. With these words, Hercules pulled one of his bows (until then, Hercules carried two bows). Then, having shown how to gird himself, he handed over the bow and belt (a golden cup hung at the end of the belt clasp) and left. When the children grew up, the mother gave them names. She named one Agathirs, the other Gelon, and the younger Scythian. Then, remembering Hercules' advice, she did as Hercules ordered. Two sons - Agathirs and Gelon could not cope with the task, and their mother expelled them from the country. The youngest, Skif, managed to complete the task and remained in the country. From this Scythian, the son of Hercules, all the Scythian kings descended. And in memory of that golden cup, to this day the Scythians wear cups on their belts (this is what the mother did for the benefit of Scythians).

11. There is also a third legend (I myself trust it most). It goes like this. The nomadic tribes of the Scythians lived in Asia. When the Massagetae ousted them from there by military force, the Scythians crossed the Araks and arrived in the Cimmerian land (the country now inhabited by the Scythians is said to have belonged to the Cimmerians since ancient times). As the Scythians approached, the Cimmerians began to hold advice on what to do in the face of a large enemy army. And so at the council, opinions were divided. Although both sides stubbornly stood their ground, the kings’ proposal won. The people were in favor of retreat, considering it unnecessary to fight so many enemies. The kings, on the contrary, considered it necessary to stubbornly defend their native land from invaders. So, the people did not heed the advice of the kings, and the kings did not want to submit to the people. The people decided to leave their homeland and give their land to the invaders without a fight; The kings, on the contrary, preferred to die in their native land rather than flee with their people. After all, the kings understood what great happiness they had experienced in their native land and what troubles awaited the exiles deprived of their homeland. Having made this decision, the Cimmerians divided into two equal parts and began to fight among themselves. The Cimmerian people buried all those who fell in the fratricidal war near the Tiras River (the grave of the kings can still be seen there to this day). After this, the Cimmerians left their land, and the Scythians who arrived took possession of the deserted country.

12. And now in the Scythian land there are Cimmerian fortifications and Cimmerian crossings; There is also a region called Cimmeria and the so-called Cimmerian Bosporus. Fleeing from the Scythians to Asia, the Cimmerians, as is known, occupied the peninsula where the Hellenic city of Sinope is now. It is also known that the Scythians, in pursuit of the Cimmerians, lost their way and invaded the Median land. After all, the Cimmerians constantly moved along the coast of Pontus, while the Scythians, during the pursuit, stayed to the left of the Caucasus until they invaded the land of the Medes. So, they turned inland. This last legend is conveyed equally by both Hellenes and barbarians.

Herodotus. Story. IV.7 - 12

The absence, in particular, of “gold” in the legend about the origin of the Scythians from Hercules indicates its greater antiquity compared to the legends of the Scythians themselves about the times of Targitai. Moreover, according to one version, the Scythians existed before Hercules, who was taught archery by the Scythian Tevtar.

According to a number of modern linguists, “skolote” is a form of Iran. *skuda-ta- “archers”, where -ta- are an indicator of collectiveness (the same meaning of -тæ- is preserved in modern Ossetian). It is noteworthy that the self-name of the Sarmatians “Σαρμάται” (Sauromatæ), according to J. Harmatta, had the same meaning.

Before talking about the animal style of the Siberian Scythians, it is necessary to note the features of the mythology of these peoples as a whole. The author conducted research on the characteristic features and life of the Siberian Scythians, which will show us what caused the appearance of the famous animal style.

The mythology of the Scythians has not reached us completely. Only a few myths and legends are known, told by Herodotus and some other ancient authors. Some legends and the meaning of names can be established with the help of comparative historical linguistics.

Legends of the origin of the Scythians

The Scythians worshiped seven gods, like many other Iranian peoples. Tabiti was revered as their supreme goddess. Besides him, the pantheon included Papay, Api, Oytosir (Goytosir), Argimaspa, and 2 more deities whose names have not been preserved. Tabiti was the goddess of fire and hearth. She was called the "queen of the Scythians."

Herodotus mentioned that the most advanced Scythian tribe - the "royal Scythians" - worshiped Poseidon, or Tagimasad, as they called him.

According to Herodotus, the Scythians believed that they were descended in a desert land from a first man named Targitai, whose parents were the daughter of the Dnieper River (Borysthenes) and the Scythian god of thunder, corresponding to the Greek Zeus. Targitai had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpaksai and Kolaksai. From the first came the Scythian-Avhatians, from the second the Katiars, and from the third the Scythian-Paralata. Their common name was put together. Let us note right away that all these names are clearly Turkic in nature and are easily explained from the Karachay-Balkar language and other Turkic dialects and dialects. And the word “chipped off,” certainly distorted by the Hellenes, originally sounded like “skhylts” in the language of the Scythians themselves, which in Karachay-Balkar means the social elite of society. After all, these three tribes traced their origins to the progenitor of all Scythians - Targitai

Herodotus also heard another tradition or legend that the Scythians descended from the marriage of Hercules with a half-maiden, half-snake, whose upper body was female, the lower part was that of a snake.

However, Herodotus continues to describe the origin of the Scythians: “There is, however, another story, which I myself trust most. According to this story, the nomadic Scythians who lived in Asia, being pressed by war from the Massagetae, crossed the Araks River and retired to the Cimmerian lands. Indeed, the country now occupied by the Scythians originally belonged, they say, to the Cimmerians. Here it must be said that the ancient authors called Araks not only the modern Araks, and not so much this river, but the Syr-Darya. Consequently, the Scythians could have been pressed by the Massagetae from the Aral Sea steppe, where the ancient Proto-Turkic culture once arose.

Herodotus reports three legends about the origin of the Scythians:

5. According to the stories of the Scythians, their people are the youngest. And it happened this way. The first inhabitant of this then uninhabited country was a man named Targitai. The parents of this Targitai, as the Scythians say, were Zeus and the daughter of the river Borysthenes, the goddess Api. Targitai was of this kind, and he had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and the youngest - Kolaksai. During their reign, golden objects fell from the sky onto the Scythian land: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl.

6. The elder brother was the first to see these things. As soon as he approached to pick them up, the gold began to glow. Then he retreated, and the second brother approached, and again the gold was engulfed in flames. So the heat of the flaming gold drove away both brothers, but when the third, younger brother approached, the flame went out, and he took the gold to his house. Therefore, the older brothers agreed to give the kingdom to the younger. So, from Lipoxais, as they say, came the Scythian tribe called the Avchatians, from the middle brother - the tribe of the Katiars and Traspians, and from the youngest of the brothers - the king - the tribe of the Paralats. All the tribes together are called skolots, that is, royal ones. The Hellenes call them Scythians.

7. This is how the Scythians tell about the origin of their people. They think, however, that from the time of the first king Targitai to the invasion of their land by Darius, just 1000 years passed. The Scythian kings carefully guarded the mentioned sacred gold objects and revered them with reverence, making rich sacrifices every year. If at a festival someone falls asleep in the open air with this sacred gold, then, according to the Scythians, he will not live even a year. Therefore, the Scythians give him as much land as he can travel on horseback in a day. Since they had a lot of land, Kolaksais divided it, according to the stories of the Scythians, into three kingdoms between his three sons. He made the largest kingdom where gold was stored (not mined). In the region lying even further north of the land of the Scythians, as they say, nothing can be seen and it is impossible to penetrate there because of flying feathers. And indeed, the ground and air there are full of feathers, and this is what interferes with vision.

8. This is how the Scythians themselves talk about themselves and their neighboring northern countries. The Hellenes who live on Pontus convey it differently. Hercules, driving the bulls of Geryon (usually cows), arrived in this then uninhabited country (now it is occupied by the Scythians). Geryon lived far from Pontus, on an island in the Ocean near Gadir behind the Pillars of Hercules (the Greeks call this island Erythia). The ocean, according to the Hellenes, flows, starting from sunrise, around the entire earth, but they cannot prove this. It was from there that Hercules arrived in what is now called the country of the Scythians. There he was caught by bad weather and cold. Wrapping himself in a pig's skin, he fell asleep, and at that time his draft horses (he let them graze) miraculously disappeared.

9. Having awakened, Hercules went throughout the country in search of horses and finally arrived in a land called Hylea. There, in a cave, he found a certain creature of a mixed nature - half-maiden, half-snake (the Goddess with snakes, the ancestor of the Scythians, is known from a number of ancient images). The upper part of her body from the buttocks was female, and the lower part was snakelike. Seeing her, Hercules asked in surprise if she had seen his lost horses somewhere. In response, the snake woman said that she had the horses, but she would not give them up until Hercules entered into a love affair with her. Then Hercules, for the sake of such a reward, united with this woman. However, she hesitated to give up the horses, wanting to keep Hercules with her as long as possible, and he would gladly leave with the horses. Finally, the woman gave up the horses with the words: “I kept these horses that came to me for you; You have now paid a ransom for them. After all, I have three sons from you. Tell me, what should I do with them when they grow up? Should I leave them here (after all, I alone own this country) or send them to you?” That's what she asked. Hercules answered this: “When you see that your sons have matured, then it is best for you to do this: see which of them can pull my bow like this and gird himself with this belt, as I show you, let him live here. Anyone who does not follow my instructions will be sent to a foreign land. If you do this, then you yourself will be satisfied and fulfill my desire.”

12. And now in the Scythian land there are Cimmerian fortifications and Cimmerian crossings; There is also a region called Cimmeria and the so-called Cimmerian Bosporus. Fleeing from the Scythians to Asia, the Cimmerians occupied the peninsula where the Hellenic city of Sinope is now. It is also known that the Scythians, in pursuit of the Cimmerians, lost their way and invaded the Median land. After all, the Cimmerians constantly moved along the coast of Pontus, while the Scythians, during the pursuit, stayed to the left of the Caucasus until they invaded the land of the Medes. So, they turned inland. This last legend is conveyed equally by both Hellenes and barbarians.

Herodotus. Story. IV.5 - 12

Tribes of Scythia

The main area of settlement of the Scythians is the steppes between the lower reaches of the Danube and Don, including the steppe Crimea and areas adjacent to the Northern Black Sea Coast. The northern border is unclear. The Scythians were divided into several large tribes. According to Herodotus, the dominant ones were royal Scythians- the easternmost of the Scythian tribes, bordering the Don with the Sauromatians, also occupied the steppe Crimea. To the west they lived Scythian nomads, and even further west, on the left bank of the Dnieper - Scythian farmers. On the right bank of the Dnieper, in the basin of the Southern Bug, near the city of Olvia, they lived callipids, or Helleno-Scythians, north of them - alazons, and even further north - Scythian plowmen.

Ancient sources mention a number of other tribes that lived in Scythia or adjacent territories, both related to the Scythians and foreign: Boruski, Agathirs, Gelons, Neuroi (Nervii), Arimaspi, Fissagetae, Iirki, Budins, Melanchlens, Avhatians (Lipoxai), Katiars (arpoxai), traspia (arpoxai), paralates (koloksai, scolota), issedons, taurians, argippea, androphages

Story

Emergence

Scythian culture is actively studied by supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis. Archaeologists date the formation of the relatively generally recognized Scythian culture to the 7th century BC. e. . There are two main approaches to interpreting its occurrence:

§ according to one, based on the so-called “Third Legend” of Herodotus, the Scythians came from the east;

§ another approach, which can also be based on legends recorded by Herodotus, assumes that the Scythians by that time lived in the Northern Black Sea region for at least several centuries, having separated from the successors of the Timber-frame culture.

Heyday

The beginning of the relatively generally accepted history of the Scythians and Scythia is the 8th century BC. e., the return of the main forces of the Scythians to the Northern Black Sea region, where the Cimmerians had ruled for centuries before. The Cimmerians were forced out of the Northern Black Sea region by the Scythians by the 7th century BC. e. and the Scythian campaigns in Asia Minor. In the 70s of the 7th century BC. e. The Scythians invaded Media, Syria, the Kingdom of Israel and, according to Herodotus, “dominated” in Western Asia, where they created the Scythian Kingdom - Ishkuza, but by the beginning of the 6th century BC. e.were forced out of there. Traces of the presence of the Scythians are also noted in the North Caucasus.

Close relations with the slave-owning cities of the Northern Black Sea region, the intensive trade of the Scythians in cattle, grain, furs and slaves strengthened the process of class formation in Scythian society. It is known that the Scythians had a tribal union, which gradually acquired the features of a unique state of the early slaveholding type, headed by a king. The power of the king was hereditary and deified. It was limited to the union council and the people's assembly. There was a separation of the military aristocracy, warriors and priestly stratum. The political unity of the Scythians was facilitated by their war with the Persian king Darius I in 512 BC. e. - the Scythians were led by three kings: Idanfirs, Skopas and Taxakis. At the turn of the V-IV centuries BC. e. The Scythians became more active on the southwestern borders of Scythia. Expansion into Thrace intensified under King Ataeus, who probably united Scythia under his leadership. This caused a war with the Macedonian king Philip II. However, Justin does not report that Philip crossed the Danube during the campaign against Ataeus, but says that Philip sent ambassadors ahead to inform Ataeus that he was heading to the mouth of the Istra (modern Danube) to erect a statue of Hercules. Based on this, the question of what territories Atey owned remains debatable.

In 339 BC e. King Atheus died in the war with the Macedonian king Philip II. In 331 BC e. Zopyrion, the governor of Alexander the Great in Thrace, invaded the western possessions of the Scythians, besieged Olbia, but the Scythians destroyed his army:

Zopyrion, left by Alexander the Great as governor of Pontus, believing that he would be considered lazy if he did not carry out any undertaking, gathered 30 thousand troops and went to war against the Scythians, but was destroyed with the entire army...

An archaeological study of the Kamensky settlement (with an area of about 1200 hectares) showed that during the heyday of the Scythian kingdom it was the administrative, trade and economic center of the steppe Scythians. Sharp changes in the social structure of the Scythians by the 4th century. BC e. reflected in the appearance in the Dnieper region of grandiose burial mounds of the Scythian aristocracy, the so-called. “royal mounds”, reaching a height of more than 20 m. The kings and their warriors were buried in them in deep and complex funeral structures. The burials of the aristocracy were accompanied by the burial of slain wives or concubines, servants (slaves) and horses.

Warriors were buried with weapons: short akinaki swords with gold sheath linings, a mass of arrows with bronze tips, quivers or goritas lined with gold plates, spears and darts with iron tips. Rich graves often contained copper, gold and silver dishes, Greek painted ceramics and amphorae with wine, and a variety of jewelry, often fine jewelry work by Scythian and Greek craftsmen. During the burial of ordinary Scythian community members, basically the same ritual was performed, but the grave goods were poorer.

Great Goddess Tabiti - Vesta- the main deity of the Scythians. The subject of Scythian worship is the elements. Tabiti-Vesta among the Scythians was considered the goddess of fire and, as researchers suggest, animals. She is the only one that appears in their art. They took vows to her. She presided over communion, as well as the anointing of the leaders.

Researcher Rostovtsev discovered that in the south of Russia she was worshiped long before the Scythians appeared here. Figurines depicting the Fire Goddess Tabiti-Vesta were widespread in the Bronze Age throughout the territory that lies between the Dnieper and the Ural Mountains. A great similarity was found between the figurines discovered in the indicated territory and the images of the deity found in Elam, a state that was located on the territory of southwestern Iran, as well as in Babylon and Egypt. The figurines of the Great Goddess found in Crimea date back no earlier than the 9th century BC. This goddess was depicted standing with a child in her arms. She personified the Goddess of fertility and motherhood among the Scythians. The Scythians considered her their protector.

This cult was also widespread in the Caucasus. There Tabiti Vesta was revered as the protector of the seafaring tribes, whom the Greeks called Argonauts. These peoples, and the Scythians from the Taman Peninsula in particular, were outraged by the invasion of strangers on their shores and found it necessary to sacrifice to their Great Goddess all the sailors from Ionia whom only they managed to capture. And in their art she is sometimes depicted as a half-snake woman, sometimes standing or sitting between her totem animals - a raven and a dog, and sometimes conducting a conversation with the leaders who accompany her.

If you pay attention to the fact that the Scandinavian god Odin also has a wolf and a raven as totem animals, then we can assume that at a certain stage men did not want to have the ancient Woman Goddess as their supreme Deity and replaced the female image with a male one. At the same time, many details of the faith were inherited from the Goddess Vesta to the male God. Surely, if we delve deeper into the study and comparison of the cults of different peoples, many details will begin to overlap, and this will tell us about a single source of knowledge. But let's leave that to the experts.

And the Scythians, in addition to the Great Female Goddess, also worshiped Papias-Jupiter, the god of air, Api-Phellus, the goddess of the earth, Geitosir-Apollo, the god of the sun and Argimpas-Venus, the goddess of the moon.

In addition to the named deities, the royal Scythians revered the water god Tamumas-Neptune and, as Herodotus suggests, sacrificed cattle to Mars and Hercules. And they also account for every hundredth prisoner.

According to Herodotus, he was surprised that the Scythians did not have images of gods, as well as temples dedicated to them. There were only modest acropolis, and those were found only in the late period in Scythian cities. In any case, it has not yet been possible to find places of worship or objects associated with religious ceremonies.

Instead of temples and shrines, the Scythians lavished incense. They fumigated the graves of their dead with incense, and so deeply revered and cared for the burials that, like the Chinese, they were even ready to pay with their lives if this was required to preserve the peace of the dead.

However, despite this, there were always many hunters to plunder the rich Scythian burials. And there were few graves that were not robbed.

Mythological images in Scythian-Sarmatian culture

Images of Scythian deities.

Since the Scythians apparently did not have their own written language, we are forced to turn to ancient sources, the most important of which is the 4th book of Herodotus’s “History,” which lists the seven deities of the Scythian pantheon and sets out two versions of the legend about the origin of the Scythians - the only Scythian myth that has survived entirely. A version of the same myth was also given by Diodorus Siculus. "According to Herodotus, the pantheon included seven deities, which reflects the ancient Indo-Iranian tradition. At the highest level of the hierarchy is Tabiti, at the middle level are Papai and Api, at the lowest level are Oitosir (Goytosir), Argimpasa (Argimpasa) and two deities whose Scythian names Not named by Herodotus. All these gods are identified by Herodotus respectively with Hestia, Zeus and Gaia, Apollo, Aphrodite Urania, Hercules and Ares. According to Herodotus, the most powerful and numerous of the Scythian tribes - the so-called Royal Scythians - also worshiped Poseidon, who they called it Tagimasad (Tagimasad).

<...>Deities of the middle and partly lower level also appear in the so-called. legend about the origin of the Scythians. This myth is most fully presented by Herodotus in the first version. In the uninhabited land, which later became known as Scythia, the first man, Targitai, is born from the marriage of Zeus and the daughter of Borysthenes (Dnieper). His three sons become the ancestors of various parts of the Scythian people<...>With the sons of Targitai, golden objects fall from the sky - a plow with a yoke, an ax and a bowl. When the two older brothers try to approach them, the gold ignites, but as the younger brother approaches, the fire goes out, and Kolaksai takes possession of the sacred attributes. This is taken as a sign. Kolaksai and his descendants become the rulers of Scythia. Kolaksai divides Scythia into three kingdoms between his sons, and the largest of them contains sacred gold, to which the Scythian kings annually make sacrifices. According to Herodotus, some kind of ritual is associated with these relics, reproduced at the annual Scythian festival: a person who fell asleep with them in the open air inevitably died in less than a year.<...>According to Diodorus, the wife of Zeus is an earth-born maiden with a serpentine body below the waist. Among the descendants of their son Scythians, brothers Pal and Nap are named<...>This myth is presented differently in the second Herodotus and in the epigraphic versions. The main character, identified with Hercules, comes to Scythia after performing a series of feats. According to Herodotus, the tired hero falls asleep, and at this time his horses disappear. Going on a search, Hercules discovers a cave in which a fantastic creature lives - a half-woman, half-snake. She reports that the horses were stolen by her, and agrees to return them only on the condition that the hero enters into a marriage relationship with her. From this union three sons are born - Agafirs, Gelon and Scythian, the ancestors of the peoples of the same name who lived in the Black Sea region. Hercules, leaving Scythia, leaves his wife one of his two bows and a belt with a bowl attached to it and sets the condition that when his sons reach maturity, they try to pull this bow and girdle themselves with this belt.<...>The winner in this test is the younger brother Skif, from whom they descend. 1997. Scythian kings." (Myths of the Peoples of the World. Vol. 2, pp. 446 - 447). The identification of Kolaksai with Hercules indicates that the ancestor of the Scythian kings belongs to the type of Culture Hero.

These literary sources can be supplemented by magnificent Scythian art. It went through several stages of its development. D.S. Raevsky gives the following periodization of Scythian art: 1) the era of the great campaigns in Western Asia - 8th - 7th centuries. BC e.; 2) the era of independent development - 6th - 5th centuries. BC e.; 3) the era of Greek influence - from the 5th century. BC e.

The initial period is characterized by the appearance of the first anthropomorphic images in Scythian art (under the influence of Middle Eastern civilizations). These are decorations of a sword sheath from the Melgunovsky mound - winged geniuses near trees (a typically Mesopotamian plot) and a Kelermes silver rhyton. The latter is of particular interest to us. Here a centaur is depicted carrying on his shoulder a tree with a deer carcass tied to it (ill. 36.a). This motif is present in the folklore of modern Iranian-speaking Ossetians, where the ability to carry the largest tree with a deer carcass on one’s shoulder acts as an indicator of the hero’s physical strength. Surprisingly, we find a similar plot in the art of the Etruscans as a decoration for a vase (ill. 36.b). On the Kelermes rhyton, the centaur is adjacent to a hero fighting a lion (Hercules?). The Etruscan vase also shows a man with an arrow, apparently attacking from the rear of a two- or three-headed dog (Cerberus?), which in turn either gives a paw to the centaur, or attacks him. Another similar centaur is being tormented by a lion from behind. Both Kelermes and Etruscan centaurs are similar even in details.

It is interesting that some Etruscan frescoes and tombs in Campania (Fig. 36.c) depict a winged sphinx tormented by a lion in exactly the same way. Here it is appropriate to remember that “Mares, the forefather of the Ausonids, whom Aelian, along with many authors, considered to be the autochthonous, ancient people of Italy, was a centaur-like creature (Etruscans and the Mediterranean, 1990, 123). Among the Italians, Mars, or rather Mamers (Marmar, March ) was a very significant deity. Judging by the Iguvin tables of the 3rd - 2nd centuries BC, he initially patronized agriculture and had nothing in common with the Greek Ares. "The custom of ver sacrum ("sacred spring"), attested, was associated with his cult among the Piceni, Frentani, Sidicines, Apulians, Vestini, Peligni, Marrucini, Marsi, Umbrians, Volscians, Aequians and Hernicians (Plin. Nat. host. 3 - 110; Strab. 5 - 4.2; Verg. Aen.7 - 750 ): in times of threatened danger, the tribe made a vow to Mamers (Mars) to sacrifice young livestock or babies to avert disaster. Infants, unlike young animals, were not killed, but upon reaching adulthood they were evicted outside the territory of the tribe. They were called Sakrans (from ver sacrum), or Mamertines (on behalf of Mamers)" (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1998. vol. 1, p. 578). The young people evicted in this way were, naturally, forced to use the sword to earn their place in life. That is, we see the path following which the agrarian deity of growth and fertility turned into a military one. (By the way, the Mamertine mercenaries played a significant role in the pre-Roman history of Sicily.) However, for a long time, the Italics retained the original understanding of Mamers as the God of Earthly Powers. The Samnites are the main opponents of Rome in Italy, they minted a coin with the image of a bull - the sacred animal of Mamers, trampling underfoot a Roman she-wolf (an interesting example of the inversion of the popular iconographic scheme of tormenting a herbivore by a predator for political purposes). This reflected the memory that the wolf is the eternal enemy of the God of Earthly Powers and minion of the God of Thunder.The Romans, as is known, put Jupiter in first place in their ideology, who, although he was the God of the Clear Sky, (like similar deities of a number of Mediterranean peoples - the Etruscan Tin, the Greek Zeus) merged with the God of Thunder into a single image. The Samnites, on the contrary, revered Mamers more and went into battle wearing helmets with the image of the horns of a sacred bull (remember the ritual horned helmets of the peoples of the Bronze Age, as well as the Celts and ancient Germans). The Celts supported them in this fight. Perhaps we were talking about two different paths of development of ancient Europe.

The Etruscan version of Mamers was called Maris, but apparently he was not horned but was represented in the form of a centaur or sphinx - an ancient image that the ancestors of the Etruscans - the Pelasgians and Tyrrhenians - brought from the Eastern Mediterranean. Perhaps this is another iconographic version of the God of Earthly Powers, which is indirectly confirmed by the Greek myth of Chiron. The pious centaur Chiron was the educator of many heroes (Theseus, Jason, Dioscuri), the god of healing Asclepius and a friend of Hercules and Prometheus, being in opposition to Zeus (this collision corresponds to the close relationship between the God of Earthly Powers and the Cultural Hero). Also noteworthy are the winged bull-shaped creatures with human heads, presented on the “Propylaea of Xerxes”. According to K.V. Trever (which is supported by many researchers), here are images of Gopatshah - a demigod, patron of cattle and the legendary king of ancient Iranian mythology (Trever, 1940, vol. 2). The Scythians could have borrowed the image of the centaur-sphinx from the same place as the ancestors of the Etruscans and ancient Persians - in the art of Western Asia, during the great Western campaigns. Hence the amazing iconographic similarity, which formed a common Indo-European ideological basis.

After the cessation of campaigns in Western Asia, which was caused by the creation of the great Persian monarchy there, a period of relatively independent development of Scythian art began. It is characterized by the almost complete disappearance of anthropomorphic images and their replacement by “animal style”. Raevsky believes that this was due to the cessation of contacts with eastern civilizations, while Greek cities on the Black Sea coast were just emerging. In addition, animal images are easier to rethink and bring into line with their mythological system. (Raevsky, 1985, 104-106). "...Animals for a long time served as a kind of visual paradigm, the relationships between the elements of which could be used as a certain model of the life of human society and nature as a whole (primarily in the aspect of fertility and cyclicity)." (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1998, vol. 1, 440). According to A.I. Shkurko, out of 843 images from the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. of the animal style of the forest-steppe zone, ungulates (deer, mountain goat, ram, horse) are represented 537 times; predatory animals (mainly cats) - 103 times; birds (mostly raptors) - 162 times. (Shkurko, 1975, 9). The fact that a beast of prey was often replaced by a bird of prey is associated with the idea that the other world is located simultaneously in the sky and underground (Raevsky, 1985). This idea of Raevsky reinforces the above-mentioned considerations of A. Golan that the ruler of the underworld, having the appearance of a predatory beast, rose into the sky to his wife, the Great Goddess in the form of an eagle. As the present study shows, both the eagle and the beast in later times are associated with the Thunderer.

“It deserves attention that the griffin in the interpretation of Greco-Scythian art is a creature combining the features of a bird of prey and a lion, i.e. zoomorphic personifications of both other worlds - the upper and lower<...>"this" world, the world of mortals, symbolized by ungulates, opposes the "other" world, the world of death in its various forms." (Raevsky, 1985, 150). Consequently, we can interpret numerous images of the torment of herbivores by predators in Scythian art as a reflection of the same collisions of the struggle between the God of Earthly Powers and the Thunderer (through the features of the latter the ancient image of the ruler of the underworld shines through).

The deer played a special role in the works of the animal style (ill. 37.). “The deer with bent legs, dedicated to the Great Goddess, received an independent meaning and was interpreted as an image of the Scythian totem” (Chlenova, 1962, 195). Chlenova speaks of the spread of deer motifs far to the east from the 6th to 5th centuries. BC e., connecting it with the Scythian influence, and noting that in the post-Scythian era, images of deer again almost completely disappear in this space (see ibid., pp. 194-195). Indeed, the Minusinsk Basin and Altai provide interesting material. In the first Pazyryk mound (Altai steppes), one of the buried horses wore a mask topped with deer antlers made of leather. The horse replaced the deer, but the idea that the latter should accompany a person to the afterlife remained. (Remember Golan). Both the totemic meaning of the deer and its role as a guide to the afterlife are all extremely important and confirm the interpretation of this image as the embodiment of a Cultural Hero. According to V.I. Abaev, the Scythians interpreted the deer as their totem animal, which explains its popularity in art. V.I. Abaev compares the term “Saki” with the Ossetian “sag” - “deer” (from the Iranian Saka - “Fork”, “branch”, “bough”, “horn”. Another hypothesis, however, connects the ethnonym Sakas (close relatives Scythians) with the Indo-Iranian "kshatra" - a designation of the warrior class). A striking example of deer totemism is the Sami legend about Mändash - a man-deer. One should remember both the deer antlers of Cernunnos and the Hittite "god on a deer" Rund.

It is curious that stone sculptures of deer made by the ancient Iberians were found on the southeastern coast of Spain, all in the same sacrificial pose - with legs bent. (Images of sphinxes were also found there - the religion of the Iberians belonged to the Mediterranean circle).

From the end of the 5th century. n. e. the image of a person reappears in Scythian art, reaching in the 4th century. BC e. widespread (which Raevsky rightfully associates with the growing Greek influence - Raevsky, 1985). Let us note that at the same time the anthropomorphic art of Thrace, and somewhat earlier, of Etruria, flourished. The generally beneficial influence of Greece became a catalyst for the expression of neighboring barbarian peoples of their own (but genetically related) ideas. However, the Scythians simply ordered some things from the Greeks, such as an electric vessel from the Kul-Oba mound (ill. 38.), or a silver vessel from the Chastye mounds (ill. 39.). The Greek craftsmen undoubtedly completed the work with a deep knowledge of not only ethnography, but also the worldview of the Scythians. Here we return to the Scythian genealogical legend about the test bequeathed by Hercules to his sons. “There is a hypothesis that the myth about this test is represented on ritual vessels from Scythian burial mounds: on a vessel from Kul-Oba the consequences of each brother’s attempt to draw his father’s bow are depicted, and on a vessel from Chastye Kurgans - the presentation of the father’s bow to the youngest of the sons as a symbol of power and expulsion of the two elders." (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1998, vol. 2, 448). Of interest is a plate from Sakhnovka, which shows, according to D.S. Raevsky, the following - an episode of the myth that has not been preserved in the records: the Kolaksai brothers drink from the same rhyton and swear to destroy it. (Raevsky, 1977, 116). The famous comb from the Solokha mound, also made by Greek craftsmen, in this case, demonstrates the ending of the legend. A horseman together with an infantryman (exiled brothers) fight with a lone Scythian (Kolaksai), under whom his horse was killed (ibid., p. 117). Raevsky deduces the inevitability of Kolaksai’s death from the following considerations. Firstly, the already mentioned Scythian ritual. “It seems completely justified, the opinion of M. I. Artamonov and J. Dumezil, that the character who falls asleep with golden relics, and then is doomed to a quick death, is a person who replaces the real Scythian king in the ritual. Consequently, the events that happen to him imitate that "What was "in the beginning" - the fate of the first owner of the sacred gold, Kolaksai." (Ibid., p. 111). (Here we see a ritual that goes back to the authentic ritual of the murder of the sacred king, beautifully described by J. Frazer in his famous “Golden Bough”. It should be added here that the scene depicted on the ridge is, as it were, an anthropomorphic version of the theme of “torment”).

Secondly, Raevsky draws a logical analogy with the plot from the Persian epic "Shakhname". (Ibid., p. 115). Faridun, the founder of the legendary dynasty of Iranian kings, gained power by killing the three-headed tyrant Zahhak. As he grew old, he divided the kingdom—in fact, the world—between his three sons. Salm got Rum and the west, Ture - Chin and Turan. The younger Iraj received a better share - Iran and Arabistan. Then his older brothers killed him out of envy (the ideological basis for the enmity between Iran and Turan).

Here it is appropriate to remember that the Middle Persian “Faridun” in the more ancient Avestan tradition sounded like “Traetaona”. And in the first Herodotus version of the genealogical legend, the ancestor of the Scythians was Targitai. In addition, the Greeks could have distorted the pronunciation of the Scythian name, which in the original was probably more similar to “Traetaon”.

The Avestan Traetaona is very close to the Vedic Trita. (At the same time, in the “Avesta” there is also Trita’s own - as a result of the splitting of the once unified image. This Trita was a great healer who expelled illnesses from the world. He was the third to squeeze out the golden juice of haoma - a sacred plant and his mighty son Kersaspa, the “club-bearer” was born, conquered many dragons and demons (Cancer, 1998, 214 - 215). The Vedic Trita is ancient. Some fragments of myths provide interesting information about this mysterious Indian deity. Here Trita, being at the bottom of a deep well, calls for help. Or he takes upon himself " another world" due to the fault of the brothers. (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1998. vol. 1, 530 - 531). The third defeats the triple - the ancient Indo-European mythologeme (ill. 40). It adds a lot to our understanding of the mythology of the Culture Hero.

It is no coincidence that Targitai was replaced by Hercules in the second Herodotus version. Hercules also defeated three-headed monsters - Cerberus, the three-body giant Geryon. Perhaps the hero defeated the latter before he met the Snake-legged Goddess. At least according to Herodotus, Hercules came to Api while driving the bulls of Geryon.

The snake-footed goddess with whom Hercules married is identified with Api of the Scythian pantheon. The fact that in the first version of Herodotus she (under the name Borysthenes) becomes the wife of Zeus - Popeye and the mother of Hercules should not be surprising. Incestuous relationships are typical of Iranian mythologies (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1998, vol. 2, 447). But in a broader sense they are characteristic of the Great Goddess, the Scythian version of which is undoubtedly Api. We can see her snake-legged figure on a horse forehead from the Great Tsymbalka mound (ill. 41.). And here again we cannot help but turn to the Etruscans. On their funerary reliefs the Great Goddess , under the name of Skilla, is depicted with the most complete understanding of her dual, heavenly-earthly nature - snake legs and bird wings (ill. 42.).

The Scythians also revered another great female deity - Tabiti. M.I. Artamonov identified her with Api. But in Herodotus these goddesses are mentioned separately, and also compared: the first with Hestia, the second with Gaia. “The Hellenic world preserved indications of two “options” of the veneration of Hestia, most likely reflecting two chronological stages in the development of her cult. In the classical era, this goddess acquired the specialized appearance of the deity of the hearth<...>Literary sources retain the memory of an earlier stage of development, when she acted as the eldest among the gods, the goddess of fire, whose various functions were the roles of the deity of the hearth, the sacrificial fire (and, therefore, prayer), and finally the personification of the unity of a certain social organism " (Raevsky, 1977, 90). A scene on a golden plaque from the Chertomlyk mound (4th century BC) depicting a goddess with a mirror and a man with a rhyton as a rite of marriage of a mortal (king) with a goddess. (Ibid., p. 98 - 101).It should be added that the points of view of Artamonov and Raevsky do not fundamentally contradict each other and both of these goddesses can represent two sides of the Great Goddess - earthly and heavenly.

Little is known about Api's divine consort, Popeye. His identification with Zeus-Jupiter seems to say that he was the God of Heaven. The name Popeye is interpreted by most researchers as “father” and the function of “paternity” in a broad sense brings him closer to such characters as the Indian Dyaus, the Baltic Dievas, and the Slavic Diy. But he could also be the God of Earthly Powers. This is supported by the origin of Targitai, the cultural hero of the Scythians, from Papayus, as well as the fact that the latter revered a special god, identified by Herodotus with Ares.

Huge brushwood altars were dedicated to the Scythian Ares. At the top of such an altar was placed an ancient iron sword-akinak, which served as a symbol of the deity. Horses, cattle and prisoners were sacrificed to him. The sword as we saw was the characteristic weapon of the Clear Sky God.

We examined Scythian art according to the periodization proposed by Raevsky. But there is one group of images that does not obey it (and the scientist himself writes about this - Raevsky, 1985, 135). These are stone idols installed on top of the mound. They come in two types: standing and as if sitting on a horse (ill. 43.). Idols have been made since the 7th century. BC e. and this process continued even when the animal style dominated in Scythia, completely displacing anthropomorphic motifs from all other spheres of art. There are different interpretations of these images. B. A. Rybakov considers them to be statues of Goitosir-Dazhdbog. (Rybakov, 1987, 68 - 70). D. Berchu interpreted the idols of southwestern Scythia as manifestations of Thracian culture, with which the cult of the patron deity of the dead is associated. N.B. Elagina believed that Scythian idols were images of the deceased king with symbols of royal power. (Elagina, 1959. p. 195). P. N. Schultz said that the early sculptures showed the hero-progenitor with signs of male strength, the middle ones - the military leader basileus, the later ones - portraits of the deceased as a receptacle of his vitality. Finally, A.I. Terenozhkin directly calls the Scythian idols images of Kolaksai. (after Olkhovsky, Evdokimov, 1994). All of the above judgments do not contradict each other and fit well into the five-member scheme proposed in this work.

Fantalov Alexey

CULTURE OF BARBARIAN EUROPE: TYPOLOGY OF MYTHOLOGICAL IMAGES

Specialty 24.00.01 - theory and history of culture

Dissertation for the scientific degree of candidate of cultural studies

Legends about the Scythians

Herodotus gives two different legends about the origin of the Scythians. According to one (book IV, chapters 5 - 7), this youngest of all tribes descended from Targitai, the son of Zeus and the daughter of the river god Borysthenes. He had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Kolaksai, of whom, as always in fairy tales, the youngest eventually became king. From each of them various Scythian tribes allegedly originate. But a few chapters later, the historian cites the stories of the Scythians themselves (chap. 8 - 10): as if Hercules, driving the bulls of King Geryon, arrived in places later inhabited by the Scythians, and here he found in a cave a maiden of a serpentine appearance who had captured his horses. She promised to return them to Hercules only if he agreed to cohabit with her. And from Hercules she had three sons: Agathyrs, Gelon and Scythian. And of them, again according to the fairy tale law, only the youngest turned out to be worthy of his great father, and from him all the Scythian kings descended.+

V. Klinger in his excellent study “Fairy-tale motifs in the history of Herodotus” (Kiev. Univ. Izv. 1902, No. 11, pp. 103-109) with a detailed analysis of this second legend proved its closeness to the tales of ancient and modern peoples, and F. Mishchenko in the article “On the legends of the royal Scythians in Herodotus” (Journal of Min. Nar. Prosv. 1886, Jan., 39-43) correctly contrasted the first Scythian legend with purely native names with the Greek origin of the second with Hercules (chap. 8 - 10 ), and although the first explains the origin of all Scythians, and the second, as F. Mishchenko noted (p. 43), “concerns only the Scythian rulers, not at all referring to those Scythian peoples who were revered as slaves,” it is clear that in the end one excludes the other, and therefore it is appropriate to raise the question of what made Herodotus place a second one after the first legend.

To correctly assess its main meaning, in my opinion, we must start from the image of Hercules. The desire to emphasize their connection with the nobles could make him the ancestor of the Scythians. After all, no matter what Yu. Beloch objects (History of Greece. Vol. I, p. 98, translated by M. Gershenzon), Hercules c'est la personificftion de la race dorienne (Dictionary of Duremberg and Salio, Vol. III, p. 80 ), but the connection between the nobles and the Greek colonization of Scythia is too weak (Yu. Kulakovsky. The Past of Taurida. Kiev, 1914, p. 6) for Herodotus to especially emphasize it, although in his native Halicarnassus he could hear this interpretation, flattering for the pride of the nobles . But from the complex appearance of Hercules one can choose other features, and here, first of all, one recalls the desire of the ancients to present Hercules as a hero, who everywhere replaced the previous barbarism with more cultural and human conditions of life. Thus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus says about him (A.R. I 41): “if where there was a painful dominion, deplorable for the subordinates, or a city that boasted and insulted its neighbors, or settlements of people with a rude way of life and lawless extermination of foreigners, Hercules eliminated this, establishing a legal royal power, consistent with the morality of the way of government and life, benevolent morals that meet the requirements of community life.” Therefore, Horace (Odes III, Z.9) sets Hercules as an example to Augustus, as the universal instiller of culture and morality, and Lucretius glorified Hercules, along with Ceres and Dionysus, as the liberator of humanity from the original savagery.

The legend makes Hercules marry a serpentine maiden. The connection of the snake with the earth is well known (W. Klinger. Animal in ancient and modern superstition. Kyiv, 1911, pp. 155-175), thus, this marriage, according to fairy-tale symbolism, should mark the victory of the culture brought in the person of Hercules by the Greeks over the primary native savagery; it portrays the Greeks as noble organizers of barbaric Scythia. At the same time, this legend also reveals another intention: it is known how diligently the ancient historiographers of purely political types tried to emphasize the tribal kinship of the Italians with Greece. This was served by the entire legend about the arrival of Aeneas in Italy from Troy, which dates back to Stesichorus and Hellanicus, but then received special development under the influence of political considerations.

If this legend about the Trojan origin of Rome connected Greece with internal ties to the new state formation in the West, then Herodotus’ legend about Hercules, the father of the Scythian kings, served the same purpose, bringing a large eastern region under a common origin with the Greeks. At the same time, such legends were supposed to greatly facilitate the work of Greek colonization in Scythia, reconciling the natives with the newcomers and eliminating at least partially those frictions and discontent of the native population regarding the penetration of everything Greek into local life, which led, for example, to the death of someone who was too friendly with the Greeks Scythian king Skila (Herodotus. IV ch., 78-80).

Photos of Crimean nature