Sindica or Sindike () was a region and kingdom of the Sindi on the Taman Peninsula and the adjacent Black Sea coast of the northwestern Caucasus. Its population combined an indigenous Maeotian majority, a Sindian ruling class, and Greek colonists, and it became the most heavily Hellenized native country of the northern Black Sea coast. By around 400 BC, Sindica was a kingdom dependent on the Bosporan rulers; it was annexed by the Bosporan Kingdom under Leucon I, probably around 380 BC, and its chief town, the Sindian Harbor, was renamed Gorgippia. Sindica remained a distinct administrative district of the Bosporan state into the Roman period.Tokhtas'ev (2006), pp. 31–33 with nn. 82–83.
Geography and extent Herodotus (completed c. 426 BC) treats Sindica as a region rather than a city, essentially the Taman Peninsula itself: its people are framed as the counterpart of the Scythians of the eastern Crimea, who crossed the frozen Cimmerian Bosporus on the ice to attack them (Herodotus 4.28), and he reckons the widest crossing of the Black Sea from Sindica to Themiscyra on the Thermodon (Herodotus 4.86).Braund (2007), pp. 17–18.
The 4th-century BC Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax (c. 340–330 BC) lists the Sindi and the Greek cities in their territory:
Sindoi. And after Maiotai, the Sindoi nation: for these extend also to the outside of the lake: and there are the following Hellenic cities in them: Phanagoras's city; Kepoi [Gardens]; Sindikos, a harbour; Patous. The final toponym is textually uncertain: Shipley's translation reads "Patous", while the Russian translation of F. V. Shelov-Kovedyaev renders it "Pityous".
Strabo defines Sindica more narrowly as the coastal region of the Taman south of the Hypanis (Kuban), and mentions its royal seat:Braund (2007), p. 17 n. 4, citing Strabo 11.2.10, 12.
"In the Sindian region there is a place called Gorgippia, the royal capital of the Sindi, not far from the sea, and also Aboraka." (Strabo 11.2.10)
Strabo's notice cannot describe the period of Sindian independence directly. The town received the name Gorgippia only in the first half of the 4th century BC, after the Bosporan annexation, and the "royal" residence Strabo mentions is presumably that of the Bosporan rulers, serving also as the seat of their governor of Sindica.Tokhtas'ev (2006), p. 32 n. 82; for the renaming, Avram, Hind & Tsetskhladze (2004), p. 944, no. 696.
The southern extent of Sindica is debated. Most accounts confine it to the Taman Peninsula and the plains toward the Kuban, but burials in the Sukko valley and the cemeteries near Rassvet (over 200 graves of the 6th and 5th centuries BC) have been taken to show that Sindian territory reached the foothills of the northwestern Caucasus on the Abrau peninsula, toward Tsemesskaya Bay.Nikonov, A. A. "Sindian Cleft." In Solovyov, S. L. (ed.), Greeks and Natives in the Cimmerian Bosporus, 7th–1st Centuries BC (BAR International Series 1729). Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007, pp. 95–96, citing the excavations of A. M. Novichikhin; cf. Anfimov (1948), Krushkol (1967).
Population and society
The indigenous inhabitants of Sindica were Maeotians, settled farmers and fishers who lived in earthworks and open settlements on the Taman and along the middle Kuban. Above them stood the Sindi, a people of probably Scythian origin who imposed themselves on the natives as a ruling class; their ethnic and linguistic affiliation is disputed. Greek colonists formed a third element: from the 6th century BC Greek cities were founded on the southern and western coasts of the peninsula, among them Phanagoria and Hermonassa, which later became part of the Bosporan Kingdom.
The gap between rulers and ruled is visible archaeologically. The Sindian elite were buried in richly furnished kurgans, while the Maeotian population used poorly equipped flat cemeteries. The Sindi belonged archaeologically to the Scythian culture. In the second half of the 5th century BC, the Scythians of the Kuban lost ground to the advancing Sarmatian Siraces, and by 400 BC Scythian culture in the region survived only in Sindica, where the ruling class had adopted it. The Greek cities of the Bosporus became centers of production for steppe customers and brought about a marked Hellenization "not only of the Sindian princes, but also of their subjects of lesser rank".
The kingdom Kingship The Sindi had a monarchical form of government (Polyaenus 8.55); Strabo names Hermonassa, Gorgippia and Aborake among the towns of Sindica (11.2.10). Where the independent kings resided is not directly attested: Strabo's description of Gorgippia as the royal seat of the Sindi uses a name the town acquired only after the Bosporan annexation, and probably reflects the later, Bosporan-era arrangement (see below).
Polyaenus preserves a tale taking place in the early 4th century BC which centered on a Sindian king Hecataeus (a Greek name, itself a sign of Sindian Hellenization) and his Maeotian wife Tirgitao (see below).Braund (2007), pp. 18–19, on Polyaenus, Stratagems 8.55. A Greek verse dedication of the early 4th century BC found at the Semibratnee hillfort (the ancient town of Labryta or Labrys, c. 35 km north of Gorgippia) shows the same Hecataeus as "king of the Sindoi" and names his son Octamasades (Oktamasades), who attempted to depose his father and was driven out of the land of the Sindi "through battle and force" by the Bosporan ruler Leucon I (SEG 48 1027).Avram, Hind & Tsetskhladze (2004), p. 947, no. 702 (*Labrys/Labryta), on SEG 48 1027.Tokhtas'ev (2006), pp. 4–5 (text and translation of the epigram), 50 (the usurpation possibly only attempted). Royal power may have been limited by a tribal aristocracy. Polyaenus records that Hecataeus was at one point driven from his throne, but does not say by whom;Polyaenus, Stratagems 8.55 (English translation at attalus.org). Tokhtas'ev attributes the expulsion to this aristocracy, judges that Octamasades' later rebellion "would hardly have been possible without active support from some section" of it, and reads the ΣΙΝΔΩΝ coinage (below) as struck in its name.Tokhtas'ev (2006), pp. 51–52.
The chronology of these reigns can be fixed only approximately. Hecataeus flourished around 400 BC: he was restored to his throne by Satyrus I of Bosporus (reigned c. 433–389 BC), and he was still king when Leucon I intervened against Octamasades early in his own reign, shortly before the annexation of Sindica in the 380s BC.Braund (2007), pp. 19–20.Tokhtas'ev (2006), p. 50; for the date of the annexation, Braund (2007), p. 20. Octamasades is known only from his failed coup. When the kingdom formed is not known. A Sindian monarchy is directly attested only from around 400 BC. Tokhtas'ev takes the 5th-century coinage to imply kings before Hecataeus, but on the mainstream reading of the coins as a civic issue of the Sindian Harbor (the later Gorgippia), they provide no evidence of an earlier royal line.Tokhtas'ev (2006), p. 51, referring to coins struck under Hecataeus "and his predecessors"; for the civic reading of the coinage, Hansen & Nielsen (2004), p. 147.
Coinage
A short-lived series of silver coins bearing the legend ΣΙΝΔΩΝ ("of the Sindians") was struck in the later 5th century BC, and is found predominantly on the Taman Peninsula.Braund (2007), p. 20.Avram, Hind & Tsetskhladze (2004), p. 944, no. 696, dating the issues c. 440–400 BC. On the mainstream view, the issuing authority was not the Sindian tribe itself but the Greek town of the Sindian Harbor (the later Gorgippia), which struck the coins with a regional legend on behalf of the local Sindi: "it is usually believed", the editors of the Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis write, "that the issuing authority in this case was not the Sindian tribe, but the polis Gorgippia". Other interpretations have been proposed: Yu. S. Krushkol took the coins as the coinage of an independent Sindian kingdom, and A. A. Zavoikin and F. V. Boldyrev as an "alliance" issue of the Greek cities of the Taman united against Spartocid expansion, while David Braund suggests an emergency issue minted to pay troops during the warfare that accompanied the extension of Bosporan power. Against the majority view, Tokhtas'ev argues on philological grounds that the legend can only mean that the coins were struck in the name of the Sindian people, in practice the tribal aristocracy that limited the power of the Sindian kings.Tokhtas'ev (2006), p. 51 with n. 140, and pp. 51–52. The dating is also debated: c. 440–400 BC in the standard account, 438/7–425 BC according to V. F. Stolba, while N. A. Frolova has argued for issues beginning in the first half of the 5th century.Tokhtas'ev (2006), p. 51 n. 139, reviewing Frolova's and Stolba's chronologies. The denomination is presumably a lightweight diobol on the reduced Aeginetan standard.D. B. Shelov, "Monetnoye delo Bospora VI–II vv. do n. e." (The Coinage of the Bosporus in the 6th–2nd Centuries BC), Moscow, 1956, p. 71.
Isolated specimens have been found on the Taman Peninsula (Hermonassa) and on the coast of Taman Bay; the most recent find, a silver coin with the head of Heracles, came from excavations at Myrmekion in a layer of the final quarter of the 5th century BC, consistent with the numismatic dating of all three series to the last quarter of the 5th century, perhaps extending into the first years of the 4th.K. K. Gerts, "Arkheologicheskaya topografiya Tamanskogo poluostrova", St. Petersburg, 1898, pp. 44 ff.; M. I. Rostovtsev, "Skifiya i Bospor", St. Petersburg, 1925, p. 281; E. A. Pakhomov, "Monetnyye klady Azerbaydzhana...", issue III, Baku, 1940, p. 11, L 675; issue VII, Baku, 1957, p. 12, No. 1709.
Wars with the Bosporan Kingdom and annexation Tirgitao's war The only extended narrative of internal Sindian history is a "stratagem" of Polyaenus (2nd century AD). The story has a novelistic coloring, and its details cannot be taken at face value, but most scholars think it preserves, in romance form, the events behind the extension of Bosporan power over the Sindi around 400 BC. In the tale, the Sindian king Hecataeus, expelled from his throne, was restored by Satyrus I, married Satyrus' daughter, and was required to do away with his Maeotian wife Tirgitao. Tirgitao escaped to her people, the Ixomatae, and roused the Maeotians to a destructive war against the Sindians and Bosporans; a peace was sealed with Satyrus' son as hostage, broken by a failed assassination attempt, after which Tirgitao resumed the war. Satyrus died "in despair", and his son Gorgippus ended the war by supplication and gifts. Braund concludes that, whatever the tale's embellishments, it reflects "the development of Bosporan rule over the Sindians under Satyrus and his son Gorgippus", within Satyrus' historical reign (c. 433–389 BC).
A destruction layer of around 400 BC has been identified at the site of the later Gorgippia (the Sindian Harbor).Braund (2007), p. 20, citing Alekseyeva (1997), p. 32, and Gaidukevich (1971), pp. 238–239. Braund places the sudden appearance and cessation of the ΣΙΝΔΩΝ coinage (above) in the same period of warfare.
Annexation under Leucon I