The Archaeanactids and urbanization
The article is devoted to the Archaeanactids who were ruling at Bosporus in 480-438 BC. The author analyzed different points of view which concerns with their rule and puts forward some arguments against its attribution as hereditary monarchy - the idea which again has recently appeared in some works of modern scholars. He asserts the polis character of Archaeanactids' rule and denies the idea about the Bosporan symmachia which could have been created on both sides of Cimmerian Bosporus under their supervision. The author draws attention to active building activity in the cities of European Bosporus, caused by transformation of dugout and semi-dugout houses to surface buildings, which coincided with the Archaeanactids' coming to power. At the same time the Bosporan Greeks started to create the agrarian periphery and it was going side by side with setting of the former Scythian nomads along with a part of forest-steppe agrarian population on land in the Kerch peninsula. As a result some Scythian nobles, interested in commercial and economic links with the Hellenic cities, set down to live in Nymphaeum and Panticapaeum as the local barrows shows. This process was a part of transformation the former apoikiai into poleis and it stimulated social and economic contradictions in Panticapaeum as well as in other cities, precipitating the local urbanization. It helped the rich families - outcomers from Miletus - to seize power in Panticapaeum and among them were the Archaeanactids who also were of Ionian origin. They supported craft, trade and agriculture and were particularly concerned with building activity in Panticapaeum which was turned into one of the greatest cities on the Strait already in late 6 th century BC. Eager to get more income, the Panticapaeum polis aristocracy began to enlarge the rural possessions of the city, having seized the neighbouring Myrmekion, Porthmion, Parthenion and Tyritake, which took place in the early 5 th century BC. By analogy with process of polis creation in other parts of the Greek world the author concluds that the Archaeanactids' ruling was actually oligarchic and took place exclusively in frames of the Panticapaeum polis state.