Боспорское царство: жемчужина Чёрного моря и греческие колонии Приазовья.

Greco Scythian state near Sea of Azov (c. 438 BC–c. AD 527)
The prosperity of the Bosporan Kingdom was based on the export of wheat, fish and slaves. As a result, the Kingdom became the economic center of the Black Sea and is often dubbed the ancient Jewel of the Black Sea. The profit of the trade supported a class whose conspicuous wealth is still visible from newly discovered archaeological finds, excavated, often illegally, from numerous burial barrows known as kurgans. The once thriving cities of the Bosporus left extensive architectural and sculptural remains, while the kurgans continue to yield spectacular Greco Sarmatian objects, the best examples of which are now preserved in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. These include gold work, vases imported from Athens, coarse terracottas, textile fragments, and specimens of carpentry and marquetry.

The whole area was dotted with Greek cities: in the west, Panticapaeum (Kerch)—the most significant city in the region, Nymphaeum and Myrmekion; on the east Phanagoria (the second city of the region), Kepoi, Hermonassa, Portus Sindicus and Gorgippia. These Greek colonies were originally settled by Milesians in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Phanagoria (c. 540 BC) was a colony of Teos, and the foundation of Nymphaeum may have had a connection with Athens; at least it appears to have been a member of the Delian League in the 5th century. with shallow waters and abundant rivers flowing toward it. Most of the kingdom fell in the Pontic Caspian Steppe, a temperate grassland ideal for nomadic pastoralism. The south eastern Crimean coastline is flanked by the Crimean mountains, with the highest peak being Roman Kosh at 1,545 meters (5,069 ft.). Towards the west, the mountains drop steeply to the Black Sea, while to the east, they slowly develop into a steppe landscape. The southwestern coast of the Taman peninsula is bound by the Greater Caucasus half of the Caucasus Mountains.

Greek colonization in the Black sea region dates back into the Greek Dark Ages, from which there is ample evidence of cultural and economic exchange as well as hostility between Greek and local populations, such as the Thracians, Dacians, and later Scythians. Scythian expansion and unification in the fifth century BC led to many of these settlements being wiped out or turned into Scythian protectorates, as was the case in the city of Olbia. It has been suggested that this pressure allowed the Archeanactid dynasty to create the first Bosporan state, lasting from 480 438 BC, at which point it was overthrown by the Spartocid Dynasty, beginning a period of economic expansion. The Black Sea Greeks before this period had dealt largely in goods like animals, slaves, furs, and fish, with grain playing a minor role. Stemming from conditions caused by the Peloponnesian War, the city of Athens had acquired a large demand for grain, and the strain on their empire meant they could do little about Spartocids attacking the city of Nymphaeum, on which they relied on for Black Sea trade. The Spartocids were willing to trade their grain with Athens in exchange for mainland goods and silver, which presumably furthered Athenian decline.

The Bosporan kingdom under the Spartocid kings was heavily influenced by the mixing of local Scythian and Greeks at all levels of society, particularly in the nobility. In an internal conflict between Satyrus II and his brother Emuelus, the royal Bosporan army was said to contain no more than two thousand Greeks, and an equal number of Thracians fighting as mercenaries. The vast majority of the army was Scythian, with ten thousand cavalry and more than twenty thousand infantry reported. Eumelus, allied with the Sirace king Aripharnes, brought twenty thousand Scythian cavalry and even more infantry.

The northern Black Sea underwent what some historians refer to as a "long Hellenistic Age" due to the institutions typically associated with the era occurring independently from the greater Greek world. Their relatively isolated position, and constant contact/conflict with barbarians along their borders, allowed monarchs with traditions rooted in the region to establish independent kingdoms from those of the successor states.

According to Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (xii. 31) the region was governed between 480 and 438 BC by a line of kings called the Archaeanactidae, probably a ruling family, usurped by a tyrant called Spartocus (438–431 BC). While Spartocus was traditionally considered to be a Thracian due to the family name, more recent historians have posited he was likely of Greco Scythian descent, as was typical of the region. Eumelus' successor was Spartocus III (303–283 BC) and after him Paerisades II. Succeeding princes repeated the family names, so it is impossible to assign them a definite order. The last of them, however, Paerisades V, unable to make headway against increasingly violent attacks from nomadic tribes in the area, called in the help of Diophantus, general of King Mithridates VI of Pontus, leaving him his kingdom. Paerisades was killed by a Scythian named Saumacus who led a rebellion against him. the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus.

After the death of Mithridates VI (63 BC), Pharnaces II (63–47 BC) supplicated to Pompey, and then tried to regain his dominion during Julius Caesar's Civil War, but was defeated by Caesar at Zela and was later killed by his former governor and son in law Asander. It is possible that Nero wanted to minimize the power of local client rulers and wanted the Bosporans to be subsumed into the Roman empire. The Bosporan Kingdom was incorporated as part of the Roman province of Moesia Inferior from 63 to 68. In 68, the new Roman emperor Galba restored the Bosporan Kingdom to Rhescuporis I, the son of Cotys I. Following the Jewish diaspora, Judaism emerged in the region, and Jewish communities developed in some of the cities of the region (especially Tanais). The Jewish or Thracian influence on the region may have inspired the foundation of a cult to the "Most High God", a distinct regional cult which emerged in the 1st century AD, which professed monotheism without being distinctively Jewish or Christian. The balance of power among the local tribes was severely disturbed by westward migration in the 3rd–4th centuries. In the 250s AD, the Goths and Borani were able to seize Bosporan shipping and even raid the shores of Anatolia.

There are no known coins from the Bosporan Kingdom after the last ones minted by Rhescuporis VI in 341, which makes constructing a chronology very difficult. Though the kingdom is traditionally believed to have been destroyed at the end of his reign by the Goths and the Huns, there is no concrete evidence for this. There is an inscription by a Bosporan ruler named Douptounos from 483, nearly a century and a half after Rhescuporis VI, which makes it unlikely that the kingdom and its line of kings came to an end in the mid 4th century. Additionally, archaeological data from the time indicate a period with a growing economy rather than societal collapse. Through some means, the Goths appear to have left or been driven away, leading to the resumption of local self rule in the late 5th century under rulers such as Douptounos, who re oriented the kingdom towards the Byzantine Empire as a client state. By Justinian's time, the Bosporus was under a barbarian ruler once more: the Hunnic ruler Gordas. Though Gordas maintained good relations with Justinian, he was killed in a revolt in 527, which led the emperor to send armies to the Bosporus, conquering the lands of the kingdom and establishing imperial control there. The Bosporan cities enjoyed a revival, under Byzantine and Bulgarian protection. The ancient Greek city of Phanagoria became the capital of Old Great Bulgaria between 632 and 665. The town of Tmutarakan, on the eastern side of the strait, became the seat of the Kievan Rus principality of Tmutarakan in the 10th and 11th centuries, which in turn gave way to Tatar domination. Also, in the early 12th century reference is made of the Byzantine Empire's reassertion of control over the Cimmerian Bosporos (Κιμμέριον Βόσπορον).

Although considered rare among collectors prior to the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Bosporan coins are now well known on the international coin markets, hinting at the quantities produced. Several large series were produced by Bosporan cities from the 5th century BC, particularly in Panticapaeum. Gold staters of Panticapaeum bearing Pan's head and a griffin are especially remarkable for their weight and fine workmanship. There are coins with the names of the later Spartocids and a complete series of dated solidi issued by the later or Achaemenian dynasty. In them may be noticed the swift degeneration of the gold solidus through silver and potin to bronze.