The Bosphorians undoubtedly received in exchange for their produce, all the manufactured goods which wealth and luxury had brought into vogue in Athens, and it was probably Greek artists who executed all those magnificent objects of art which are contained in the museum of Kertch, and which prove that the agricultural colonists of the Tauris did not fall short of the opulence of their brilliant mother city. Building materials seem to have formed an important item of importation. There is no trace of white marble either in the Crimea or on the northern coasts of the Black Sea; nevertheless, large quantities have been found in the excavations made at Kertch, and there is every reason to presume that the huge masses of cut marble employed in the public and private buildings, were imported ready wrought from Greece.
Despite the dangerous vicinity of the Sarmatians, the kingdom of the Bosphorus enjoyed perfect tranquillity for above three hundred years, and through a steady and rational policy increased in prosperity and riches, until the conquest of Greece by the Romans subverted all the commercial relations of the East. At that period the Bosphorians, attacked by the Scythians, and too weak to resist them, threw themselves into the arms of the celebrated Mithridates, who turned their state into a province of the Pontus, and bestowed it as an appanage on his son Makhares.
After the defeat and death of her implacable enemy, Rome maintained the traitor Pharnaces in possession of the crown of the Bosphorus; but the new prince's sovereignty was merely nominal, and the successors of the son of Mithridates, powerless and despoiled of all the Milesians had possessed on the Asiatic shore of the strait, reigned only in accordance with the caprice of the Roman emperors.
About the middle of the first century after Christ, the Alans entered the Tauris, devastated the greater part of the country, and entirely destroyed Theodosia, which had offered them some resistance. They were followed by the Goths, who in their turns became masters of the peninsula. But far from abusing their victory, they blended their race with that of the vanquished, founded numerous colonies on the vast plains north of the mountainous region, and followed their natural bent for a sedentary life and rural occupations. The Tauric Khersonese now entered on a fresh period of tranquillity and agricultural prosperity. Unfortunately, Greece was at this period rapidly declining under the Roman yoke; Rome having become the capital of the whole world, Egypt, Sicily, and Africa had naturally acquired to themselves the monopoly of the supply of corn; so that with all its efforts the Tauris could not emerge from the depression into which it had been plunged by the political events of the first Christian century.
The remote and inaccessible position of the little republic of Kherson, preserved its independence during all these early barbarian invasions. In Diocletian's time, the Khersonites, whose dominions extended over nearly the whole of the elevated country, had concentrated in their own hands almost all the commerce that still existed between the Tauris and some parts of the shores of the Black Sea.[76] Their republic was the most powerful state of the peninsula, when war broke out between them and the Sarmatians, who had already seized the kingdom of the Bosphorus, and given it a king of their own nation. The struggle between the two rival nations lasted nearly a century, and the Sarmatians having been at last expelled, the Bosphorians again enjoyed some years of freedom and quiet. But the peace was not of long duration. The unfortunate peninsula was soon visited by the most violent tempest that had yet desolated it. The Huns, from the heart of Asia, came down to the Asiatic side of the strait, and soon the terrified Bosphorians beheld those furious hordes traversing the Sea of Azof, which had for a while arrested their progress. The ancient kingdom of the Milesians was then extinguished for ever. (A.D. 375.) The numerous colonies of united Goths and Alans shared the same fate, and all the rich agricultural establishments of the country were reduced to ashes. Still protected by their isolated position, the Khersonites alone escaped the devastation, in consequence of the rapidity with which the torrent of the invaders rushed forth towards the western regions of Europe.