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The appearance of the Abasgians. Arabs, Turks and Greeks called them Abkhazians. West Caucasian tribes, located north of the Colchians, from the Singam River (modern Inguri) to Pitiunt (modern Pitsunda). Their southern branch consisted of the Apsilae tribes.

According to the ancient Roman historian Flavius Arrian in the 2nd century AD, Abasgia was a country subordinate to Rome, whose laws were established by the Roman Caesar. At the beginning of the 6th century, Abasgia absorbed the neighboring principality of Sanigia. From the 4th century, the Abasgian tribes encountered the strengthening tribes of the Apsilae, which forced them to move to the territory of the modern city of Sukhum. Later, Abasgia became part of Egrisi (Lazica), whose ruler appointed the lord of Abasgia. Abasgia supported Egrisi during the Iranian-Byzantine wars. More details.

The Caucasian tribe of the Zidritae appears, located south of the Colchians and Lazi, mainly on the Arcamps River (south of Batumi). More details.

The Zinkhi appear — tribes identified with the Sindians.

The Svannocolchi appear — an ethnonym identified with the name of the Soani (neighbors of the Colchians), located in the mountains of the Western Caucasus below Dioscurias.

In the 2nd century AD, a Roman garrison was also stationed in Pitiunt (modern Pitsunda). Pitiunt also became a place of exile for the first Roman Christians.

Pseudo-Plutarch (late 1st — early 2nd centuries AD) "On the Names of Rivers and Mountains and on Their Products"

V. Phasis

1. The Phasis is a river in Scythia flowing past the city; formerly it was called Arcturus, receiving this name because it flows through cold regions, and was renamed for the following reason. Phasis, son of Helios and Ocyrrhoe, daughter of Oceanus, killed his mother, finding her in the act of adultery; but after this, due to the appearance of the Erinyes, he fell into madness and threw himself into Arcturus, which received the name Phasis from him.

2. In this river grows a vine called leucophyllum; it is sought during the mysteries of Hecate at the very beginning of spring, at dawn with the divinely inspired singing of a paean. Jealous husbands pluck this vine and scatter it around the bridal chamber, thus preserving the purity of their marriage. For if some impious man in a drunken state goes too far in his impudence and enters such a place (where the leucophyllum is scattered), he loses his right mind and immediately confesses before all what he has unlawfully done or intends to do. Those present seize him, sew him into a hide and throw him into the so-called "Mouth of the Impious": this is a round opening resembling a well; after 30 days it throws out the body thrown into it, full of worms, into Lake Maeotis; then suddenly kites fly in large numbers and tear apart the lying corpse; so relates Ctesippus in the II book of the "Description of Scythia."

3. (To the Phasis) adjoins the Caucasian mountain, which was formerly called the "couch of Boreas" for the following reason. Boreas, passionately falling in love with Chloris, daughter of Arcturus, kidnapped her, brought her to a hill called Niphantus, and had with her a son Hyrpacus, who later inherited the throne of Heniochus. Therefore the mountain came to be called the "couch of Boreas," and was named Caucasus for the following reason. After the battle of the Giants, Cronus, avoiding the threats of Zeus, fled to the summit of "Boreas' couch" and hid there, having turned into a crocodile; (but Prometheus), having slaughtered one of the natives, the shepherd Caucasus, and examined the arrangement of his entrails, said that the enemies were not far away.
Zeus, having come here, bound his father with woven wool and cast him down into Tartarus, and renamed the mountain in honor of the shepherd Caucasus, chaining Prometheus to it and forcing him to suffer torment from the eagle that tore his liver for the unlawful act with the shepherd's entrails — so relates Cleanthes in the III book of the "Theomachies."

4. On the Caucasus grows a grass called Promethean; according to the same Cleanthes, Medea, gathering and grinding it, used it to avert her father's hostility.


Materials:

The Great Steppe in Ancient and Byzantine Sources. Garkavets 2005

Appian (2nd century AD) "The Mithridatic Wars"

64. (...) Mithridates, having sailed to Pontus, waged war against the rebellious Colchians and Bosporans. Of them, the Colchians asked him that his son Mithridates be given to them as king, and having received him, they immediately submitted. The king, however, suspecting that this happened through the machinations of his son, who desired the kingdom, summoned him to him, put him in golden chains and a little later executed him.

67. Taking advantage of his leisure, Mithridates subjugated the Bosporus and gave them as king one of his sons, Machares. Attacking the Achaei living beyond the Colchians, who are considered to have wandered off on their return from Troy, and having lost two-thirds of his army in battles, from frost and ambushes, he returned back and sent plenipotentiaries to Rome to sign a treaty (...).

72. : As allies, besides his former forces, there joined him the Chalybes, Armenians, Scythians, Tauri, Achaei, Heniochi, Leucosyri and all those who live on the land of the so-called Amazons around the Thermodon River.

101. Mithridates, driven back with his hypaspists onto steep rocks and fleeing, found himself with a few mercenary horsemen and infantrymen numbering up to three thousand, who immediately followed him to the fortress of Sinoria, where he had much money hidden; he gave gifts and a year's pay to those who had fled with him. Seizing up to six thousand talents, he rushed to the sources of the Euphrates to cross from there to the Colchians. Moving without stopping, on the fourth day he crossed the Euphrates; during three other days, having stopped and armed those with him or those coming to him, he invaded Armenian Hotena, there he drove out the Hoteni and Iberians, who wanted to hinder him with arrows and slings, and reached the Apsarus River. The Iberians in Asia, some consider ancestors, others — colonists of the European Iberians, and still others — only a tribe of the same name. For they have nothing in common either in customs or in language. Mithridates, wintering in Dioscurias, which city the Colchians consider proof of the journey of the Dioscuri with the Argonauts, conceived no small plan, and not one that a man in flight could decide upon, but, having gone around all of Pontus and the Scythians on Pontus and Lake Maeotis, to attack the Bosporus, and, having taken back the domain of his son Machares, who had shown himself ungrateful towards him, to again find himself before the Romans and to wage war from Europe against those in Asia, placing the strait in between, which is considered to have been called Bosporus because Io crossed it when she, having become a cow because of Hera's jealousy, had to flee.

102. Having undertaken such incredible plans, Mithridates nevertheless decided to carry them out and passed through the lands of the Scythian peoples, both warlike and hostile, either negotiating with them or forcing them by strength. Thus, even being a fugitive and in misfortune, he still inspired respect and fear in them. So he passed through the land of the Heniochi, who received him in a friendly manner, but the Achaei he put to flight and pursued; they say that they, returning from Troy, were carried by a storm into Pontus and suffered much from the barbarians as Hellenes; having sent to their native cities for ships and not receiving an answer, they say, they became angry with the whole Hellenic race, and all those Hellenes whom they took prisoner, they began to kill according to Scythian custom, at first all out of anger, over time only the most beautiful of them, then those on whom the lot fell. This is what they tell about the Scythian Achaei. Mithridates, having entered the region of Maeotis, over which there are many dynasts, when all of them, in view of the fame of his deeds and his power, and also because the military force still with him was considerable, received him, let him pass and exchanged many gifts with him, concluded an alliance with them, conceiving other, even more amazing plans — to invade through Thrace into Macedonia and through the land of the Macedonians into Paeonia, and to cross into Italy through the Alpine mountains; to strengthen this alliance, he married his daughters to the most powerful of them. His son Machares, learning that he had made such a huge journey in a short time and through wild tribes and the so-called "Scythian barriers," which had never been accessible to anyone, sent ambassadors to him to justify himself before him, supposedly serving the Romans out of necessity; but learning of Mithridates' extreme anger, he fled to the peninsula in Pontus, having burned the ships so that his father could not pursue him. When Mithridates sent other ships against him, he, having anticipated him, took his own life. Mithridates executed all his friends whom he himself had given him when he left to rule that country, but he released his son's friends unharmed, as those who had served their friend.

103. Such were the affairs of Mithridates. Pompey, immediately after his flight, pursued him to the Colchians. Afterwards, considering that he would never go around either Pontus or Maeotis and that even if he escaped, he would no longer attempt anything important, he set out for the Colchians, interested in the stories about the sojourn of the Argonauts, the Dioscuri and Heracles here, and especially wishing to see the place of suffering where, they say, on the Caucasus Mountains, Prometheus suffered. Many springs flowing from the Caucasus Mountains carry unnoticed golden sand; the neighboring inhabitants, placing long-haired sheepskins in the water, collect the golden sand that adheres to them. Such was probably the golden fleece of Aeetes. So when Pompey was walking through these historical places, some tribes that were neighboring the kingdom of Mithridates let him pass; but Orozes, king of the Albanians, and Artoc, king of the Iberians, with seventy thousand warriors, lay in wait for him near the Cyrus River, which flows into the Caspian Sea through twelve navigable mouths after many rivers flow into it, and the greatest of all — the Araxes. Noticing this ambush, Pompey built a bridge across the river and, having driven the barbarians into a dense thicket (they are very skilled at fighting in forests, hiding and appearing unnoticed), having placed the army around this thicket, he set it on fire and began to pursue those running out, until they all sent hostages and brought gifts. He entered Rome in a triumphal procession, among other things, for this. Among these hostages and captives were many women who had no fewer wounds than the men; and they were considered to be Amazons, either because there is a certain people of Amazons neighboring them, who turned out to have been called to help then, or because in general some warlike women among the local barbarians are called Amazons.


Materials:

The Great Steppe in Ancient and Byzantine Sources. Garkavets 2005

The results of a study using the BATWING method, Balanovsky et al. 2011 ^[1], show that the divergence of the Abkhazian and Ossetian populations began 1800 years ago.

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^[1] Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region. Balanovsky 2011. Supplementary Data. Supplementary Figure 4

Sources:

What DNA genealogy says about Caucasians. Klyosov 2013

The Arsaci appear — inhabitants of the city of Arsaca in Hyrcania. Hyrcania (Ancient Greek: Ὑρκανία from Old Persian: Varkana — "Land of Wolves") — the Greek name for the region along the southeastern shore of the Caspian Sea, in the basin of the modern Gurgan and Atrek rivers, which was part of Persia. Incidentally, Iberia in Ashkharatsuyts. 700 AD. Edition Patkanov 1877 is consonant with the name Virk. More details.

Pitiunt was devastated by the Goths and other Northern Black Sea tribes, but then after the establishment of the Romans on the territory of modern Abkhazia, Pitiunt was restored and turned into a place of exile for Christians of the Roman Empire. At the end of the 3rd — beginning of the 4th centuries, in Pitiunt, on the land of the Abasgians, there was one of the oldest Christian communities in the Caucasus.

Maps of this period.


Materials:

"History of Abkhazia in Dates." T.A. Achugba 2011

The arrival of the Goths in Crimea. They attacked the Bosporan Kingdom. From this time also ceased to exist the Scythian Kingdom as such.


Source: Scythians