“I am Kimmerian and Sunless.”
-Ioannes Tzetzes, Histories
Myth vs History
If you are familiar with the Conan series by Robert E. Howard, you may know that Conan the Barbarian was a Cimmerian. Of course, the books are not an accurate depiction of the historical people of the same name, but it demonstrates how much “Cimmerian”, like “Scythian,” represents the quintessential barbarian in both the ancient and modern mind, overlaid with all our darkest fears and desires. Cimmerians seem especially alien because, from the moment they enter the historical record until the moment they disappear from it, they are entirely shrouded in mystery.
Their first mention in a Western text (that we still have possession of) is in Homer’s Odyssey:
§ OD.11.11
The sails were stretched as she moved on the sea all day,
and the sun went down, and all the ways were dark.
She reached deep-flowing Ocean's boundary.
The kingdom and the city of Cimmerian men are there,covered in mist and cloud. And the shining sun
never looks down on them with his rays,
neither when he goes to starry heaven
nor when he heads back from heaven to the earth,
but pernicious night spreads over wretched mortals.
It was believed that Cimmerians lived across the Oceanus river encircling the earth at the entrance to the Kingdom of Hades in near-perpetual darkness, which made them semi-mythological, monstrous creatures to their Greek counterparts, like so many barbarian peoples. Where Greeks lived in the sunshine and light, “wretched” Cimmerians, their antithesis, were doomed to live in shadow.
Aristeas of Proconnesus, in his lost poem Arimaspaea (ca. 550 BCE), provides the first surviving evidence of the Cimmerians as a historical people of the Pontic Steppes, driven from their homeland by the Scythians. But, even when their historical deeds were acknowledged, they also seemed to be tinged with mythological elements. Herodotus, reporting on the coming of the Scythians into the Pontic Steppe region (north of the Black Sea) and the fate of the Cimmerians who had previously dominated there, tells us:
There is however also another story, which is as follows, and to this I am most inclined myself. It is to the effect that the nomad Scythians dwelling in Asia, being hard pressed in war by the Massagetai, left their abode and crossing the river Araxes came towards the Kimmerian land (for the land which now is occupied by the Scythians is said to have been in former times the land of the Kimmerians); and the Kimmerians, when the Scythians were coming against them, took counsel together, seeing that a great host was coming to fight against them; and it proved that their opinions were divided, both opinions being vehemently maintained, but the better being that of their kings: for the opinion of the people was that it was necessary to depart and that they ought not to run the risk of fighting against so many, but that of the kings was to fight for their land with those who came against them: and as neither the people were willing by means to agree to the counsel of the kings nor the kings to that of the people, the people planned to depart without fighting and to deliver up the land to the invaders, while the kings resolved to die and to be laid in their own land, and not to flee with the mass of the people, considering the many goods of fortune which they had enjoyed, and the many evils which it might be supposed would come upon them, if they fled from their native land. Having resolved upon this, they parted into two bodies, and making their numbers equal they fought with one another: and when these had all been killed by one another's hands, then the people of the Kimmerians buried them by the bank of the river Tyras [modern Dniester] (where their burial-place is still to be seen), and having buried them, then they made their way out from the land, and the Scythians when they came upon it found the land deserted of its inhabitants. (Herodotus, Histories, 4.11 - ca. 430 BCE )
Whether one reads this as a heroic and noble last stand of fearless leaders or the senseless folly and hubris of martial pride, it is a picturesque story and certainly a romantic misrepresentation. One wonders why this particular version of events was important to tell, and I try to provide a possible answer in Peace Weaver, Volume III of The Steppe Saga.
Curiously, it also neglects to tell where the remnant of these leaderless Cimmerians went.
According to records found among Assyrian archives, some pushed southward and crossed the Caucasus, where they made forays into Colchis, Assyria, and Urartu and conquered Lydia and Phrygia in Anatolia, only to be eventually overthrown. However, some may have settled in the region permanently, as Cappadocia south of the river Halys is called Gamirkʿ in Armenian, which some believe is named for them. The Assyrians referred to them as “Gimmerai,” which became distorted and personified as “Gomer” in the Bible. (Was good old Gomer Pyle named indirectly for the Cimmerians?) Interestingly, in this biblical interpretation which seems to preserve the chronology of steppe migrations, Gomer was the father of Ashkenaz, which derived from the Assyrian Askuzai, from Scythian Skuða, from Indo-European skeud-o (“shooter, archer”), which also gives us our English word “shoot.” Sadly, we have no agreed etymology for “Kimmerioi.”
While many displaced Cimmerians were occupied with seeking new lands abroad, others crossed the narrow Isthmus of Perekop, a 4-mile-wide strip of land connecting the Crimean peninsula with the mainland.
Taurica
In ancient times, the peninsula that jutted from the northern shore of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) became known by the name of the dominant Cimmerian tribe who dwelled there, the Tauri. Taurica was, in many ways, the last refuge of the Cimmerians into the historical period, and they left their mark on it with several place names, structures, and settlements.
And there are at the present time in the land of Scythia Kimmerian walls, and a Kimmerian ferry; and there is also a region which is called Kimmeria, and the so-called Kimmerian Bosphorus. It is known moreover that the Kimmerians, in their flight to Asia from the Scythians, also made a settlement on that peninsula on which now stands the Hellenic city of Sinope; and it is known too that the Scythians pursued them and invaded the land of Media, having missed their way; for while the Kimmerians kept ever along by the sea in their flight, the Scythians pursued them keeping Caucasus on their right hand, until at last they invaded Media, directing their course inland (Herodotus, Histories, 4.12 - ca. 430 BCE )
Along with the people who made them, these monuments and the region lent their name to the peninsula. Filtered through time and the tongues of many languages, we get in “Crimea,” a distorted version of “Cimmeria.” Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few decades, you’ve probably heard of Crimea, perhaps in reference to its being a part of Ukraine now annexed by Russia. What’s so special about this weird little peninsula that drives nations to military action over it?
That’s a complicated question, but also a simple one. Despite the aspersions cast by Homer on the Cimmerian homeland, Crimea is strategically located in a historically significant region and also something of a paradise in an otherwise hostile climate. In the north lies the Crimean Lowland, a continuation of the Ukrainian steppe, suitable for animal husbandry and agriculture. Many kurgans, or burial mounds, were constructed across the Crimean Steppe. In the south, the Crimean Mountains are a low range covered in forests and high pastures, which provided hunting, timber, and summer pastures. A Temple of Artemis is said to have stood in the western reaches of the mountains. In some versions of the sacrifice story, Iphigenia is rescued by Artemis and taken to the Taurians, where she becomes a priestess of the temple. (Other versions claim she was brought to nearby Leuke to fulfill the betrayed promise of her false betrothal and be wed to the immortal spirit of Achilles.) Below the mountains stretch the southern shore, which, sheltered from the cold northern air masses by the mountains, has a surprisingly Mediterranean climate and is suitable for growing fruits, including grapes and olives.
The Crimea also has good natural harbors and sits between the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azov), controlling access through the Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Strait) and the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea). This position connects it with all the region’s major rivers and ports.
Greeks took advantage of the natural harbors and mild weather to establish colonies beginning in the 7th c. BCE, the most prominent of which were Chersonessus, then Panticapaeum, and Theodosia. Likewise, the Bosporan Kingdom made Panticapaeum its capital, and from the 5th c. BCE through the 4th c. CE controlled eastern Crimea.
Who were the Cimmerians?
We know very little for sure about the Cimmerians. Despite some speculation that they were proto-Celts who would migrate westward and become the Cimbri, recorded names suggest that they spoke an Indo-Iranian language closely related to Scythian, which both belong to the family of languages that include Sanskrit and Avestan. At least their ruling classes were probably Iranian people from the broader Kurgan Culture. However, there may be some truth to the idea that Cimmerians and Celts eventually became one people, as did Cimmerians and Thracians, when the former migrated westward due to pressures from the Scythian expansion. They may have been assimilated into these other populations as they sought new lands.
They have also been challenging to locate definitively in the earlier archaeological record. While acknowledging much of the Classical tradition to be mythologized, archaeologists essentially identify any remains in the region pre-dating the arrival of the Scythians as Cimmerian. Cimmerians are said to have originated in the Pontic Steppe, becoming first identifiable around the 12-10th c. BCE. However, archaeologists have difficulty agreeing on which earlier cultures from the region do and do not qualify as “Cimmerian.” It’s tricky to put a historical name to an assemblage of artifacts or remains of settlements and burials without more context. I await more evidence before drawing a conclusion. And still, such data will never be able to tell us when they began thinking of themselves as Cimmerian, if ever…
As for later findings contemporary with Greek colonization and the Scythian migration-invasion, the scant evidence of the material culture attributed to them suggests that they had a semi-nomadic or nomadic lifestyle similar to the Scythians. However, they seem also to have built settlements, particularly after fleeing their homeland for new circumstances. Interestingly, once settled in Taurica/Crimea, they seem to have adapted the tradition of cattle raiding common among Indo-European peoples to their new environment surrounded by the sea and Greek merchant colonies. Much like Vikings would do centuries later, they took to the sea and ships for their raiding. Though the Greeks and their barbarian neighbors had a strange symbiotic relationship and often lived, traded, and intermarried with each other, they never seemed to lose sight of who had the upper hand, and most of the colonies were eventually heavily fortified.
What became of them?
One of the proposed etymologies of Cimmerian comes from Hungarian linguist János Harmatta, who derived it from Old Iranian Gayamira, meaning “union of clans”—a kind of ancient E Pluribus Unum. There may be some validity to this, as the legend related by Herodotus notes how there were two factions within the Cimmerians who perceived their interests in the face of the Scythian invasion very differently. When the bonds of their union were ultimately tested, they fractured under the pressure. They could not agree on a common course of action, so they fought amongst themselves and split apart to go their separate ways and meet their separate fates.
This they seemed to have actually done. Though their expeditions south of the Black Sea mainly ended in defeat, and they subsequently disappeared from the historical record, the tribes that remained in Taurica seemed to have thrived for a while longer. But the curse of the Pontic Steppe seems to be the westward push of migrants ever eager for its greener pastures. The Scythians who had ousted the Cimmerians now found themselves, centuries later, faced with the same threat from neighboring Sarmatian tribes. Suffering much the same fate they’d dealt the Cimmerians, the Scythians eventually fled before the encroaching Sarmatians and, by the 3rd–2nd c. BCE had also established a refuge on the Tauric steppe, making their capital at Neapolis (Simferopol). At this point, Scythians and Cimmerians intermixed, and the last of the Cimmerians faded into obscurity, never again to be a distinct or independent people. It is a cycle that would repeat itself again and again.
The mysterious Cimmerians—their language, culture, and history—have all vanished, scattered in every direction of the wind, washed away in the tides of relentless migrations. Yet, they left a small but indelible imprint on the land they sprang from. Despite all their successors, their ancient name continues to be spoken, even if in half-remembered forms, a testament to their existence, to the awe they inspired in those who encountered them, and to those who continued to conjure their enigmatic barbarian spirit, sunless and strange. Is theirs a lost lesson in courage, a cautionary tale of disunity, a pragmatic story of survival, or just the eventual fate of all our tribes, sooner or later?
Read More:
The Ancient Geography of Ukraine—Introduction
Borysthenes, Underworld River—Ancient Geography of Ukraine: The Dnieper River
Leuke, Island of Heroes—The Ancient Geography of Ukraine: Snake Island
Taurica, last refuge of the Cimmerians
I really enjoyed this essay. I went to Indiana University, which has a rather well-known Central Asian Studies department (used to be called “The Department of Uralic and Altaic Languages”). I never studied any of the languages in the department, but took a few of the history courses and had several friends affiliated with it. My best friend from that time studied Uzbek and Chaggatai (sp?) and now teaches at the University of Winnipeg. I went to all of the public lectures from visiting scholars that were offered, but had to sneak out of one because it was in Russian.
I grew up reading the Conan novels, including the ones written by the likes of Lin Carter. At the time the world of Conan seemed historically accurate to me, but I learned later that it was a sort of hodgepodge of cultures and histories spanning thousands of years. But that didn’t diminish my interest in the imagination that went into building that world. I didn’t realize until I was in grad school that Howard had such a tragic history. I believe there was a low-budget Indie film about him made in the 1990s that goes into his story.
One of the novels that I really enjoyed that I feel does a good job re-creating the Near East, India, and China of the 6th century BCE is “Creation” by Gore Vidal. I’ve read it twice. The other book that I really enjoyed that is set in the Middle East about that time is “The Persian Boy” by Mary Renaud. I feel like there aren’t a lot of well-written historical novels set on the Central Asian Steppes, so I applaud you for filling that gap!!!!
This was such an interesting read. I really like your analysis and how clearly the information is conveyed. I didn’t know anything about the Scythians or Cimmerians before reading your Substack.