Black Sea south of Kertcli, dates back a thousand years before the Christian era and was known to Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny, and the historians and geographers of the Romans, Greeks, and the Egyptians under the name Caff a; afterward as Ardava, which means "the city of the seven gods." This was the capital of the Milesians in the seventh century before Christ, and it was a place of great importance. Scattered throughout the country are tumuli, which are believed to be the graves of kings, and several of them have already been explored with surprising success. Herodotus, the Greek historian, who must have visited Crimea about 375 or 400 B.C., describes the peninsula in considerable detail, and tells about the burial ceremonies of Scythian chieftains. The same customs were followed by the Milesians in Ireland centuries afterward.
He relates that when a king died his body was embalmed and laid in a tomb surrounded by at least one of his wives and several of his servants and his horse, who were strangled for that purpose. His weapons, golden cups, and other articles of daily use were placed beside him in the sepulchre, in order that he might be properly equipped in the next world. Earth was then piled upon the tomb until it formed a miniature mountain. Several of these tumuli have been opened; one, in which Parisades I, who was king of Crimea in the fifth century B.C., was buried, contained the skeletons of his queen, of several attendants, a horse with helmet and greaves, various arms and utensils for eating and drinking, and the bones of a sheep.
In the neighbourhood of Kertch are extensive catacombs similar to those built by the early Christians in Rome. Excavations conducted under the direction of the Russian authorities several years ago disclosed rich ornaments of gold and silver, quaint arms and utensils of exquisite workmanship, which are now in the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, The walls of the catacombs are plastered over and covered with cryptographs and paintings, containing the history of prominent people who are buried near by. They are similar to the inscriptions on the Egyptian tombs, and represent combats, hunting scenes, court ceremonies and various other human activities, with accurate pictures of horses, oxen, dogs, and other animals. The men are usually represented in shirts of mail, wearing trousers supported by belts and conical caps similar to the Turkish fez. These catacombs date back at least twenty-five himdred years, and in several cases the occupants can be identified as the early sovereigns of the Cimmerians and the Milesians.
In the sixth century B.C., a Greek colony from Ionia settled near Kertch and dedicated their city to the god Pan, calling it Panticapaeum. Coins bearing the eflSgy of that divinity have been dug up in the neighbourhood. In the same century the Scythians sent a force of men into Asia Minor to assist in repelling the invasion of Darius. In the year 480 B.C. the king of the Crimea was Archseanax. His successor was Spartacus, who died 438 B. C. The people of the peninsula preserved their independence until 115 B.C., when Parisades, the last native king, surrendered to Mithridates, who was the sovereign of twenty-two nations, and able to converse with the inhabitants of all of them without an interpreter.
From that time on the Crimea was the scene of continual struggles. The Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the
Goths, the Huns, the Genoese, the Venetians, the Byzantines, and other races succeeded one another in control at intervals of a century or two. The Golden Horde of Tartars in the fourteenth century drove out the Genoese and retained control, although compelled to pay tribute to the Turks, until in 1771, when the Tartar khan, Sahym Ghyrey, surrendered to Prince Potemkin and the Crimea became a part of the Russian empire.
One of the early rulers, Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, A.D. 63, was in command of the forces that were whipped by Caesar so easily at the battle of Zelah as to cause him to send his famous despatch to the Roman senate: "Veni! Vidi! Vici!"
Another of the kings of the Crimea, Polemo II, a pagan, married the daughter of King Agrippa of Bible fame and adopted the Jewish faith, which he afterward renounced when his wife deserted him.