Decline and end
During the end of the 4th century BC, the Scythians were militarily defeated by a king of Macedonia
again, this time by Lysimachus in and 313 BC. After this, the Scythians experienced another military
defeat when their king Agaros participated in the Bosporan Civil War in 309 BC on the side of Satyros II,
son of Paerisades I. After Satyros II was defeated and killed, his son Paerisades fled to Agaros's
realm.[41][60][19]
The aftermath of the Scythian conflict with Macedon also coincided with climatic changes and economic
crises caused by overgrazed pastures, producing an unfavorable period for the Scythians, and, following
their setbacks against the Macedonians, the Scythians came under pressure from the Celts,
the Thracian Getae and the Germanic Bastarnae from the west; at this same time, beginning in the late
4th century BC, another related nomadic Iranic people, the Sarmatians, whose smaller, moved from the
east into the Pontic steppe, where their more active groups overwhelmed the more numerous,
sedentary Scythians, and took over the Scythians' pastures. This deprived the Scythins of their most
important resource, causing the collapse of Scythian power and as a consequence Scythian culture
suddenly disappeared from the north of the Pontic sea in the early 3rd century BC.[41][60][19]
During the 3rd century BC the Celts and Bastarnae displaced the Balkan Scythians. The Protogenes
inscription, written sometime between 220 and 200 BC, records that the Scythians and the
Sarmatian Thisamatae and Saudaratae tribes sought shelter from the allied forces of the Celts and the
Germanic Sciri. As the result of the Sarmatian, Getic, Celtic, and Germanic encroachments, the Scythian
kingdom came to an end and the Scythian kurgans disappeared from the Pontic region,[41][19] replaced as
the dominant power of the Pontic steppe by the Sarmatians, while " Sarmatia Europea " (European
Sarmatia) replaced " Scythia " as the name for the region.[60]
Little Scythia
Main articles: Scythia Minor (Crimea) and Scythia Minor (Dobruja)
Remains of Scythian Neapolis near modern-
day Simferopol, Crimea. It served as the capital of the Crimean Scythian kingdom.
Around 200 BC, after their final defeat by the Sarmatian Roxolani, the remnants of the Scythians left
their centre at Kamianka and fled to the Scythia Minors in Crimea and in Dobrugea, as well as in nearby
regions, their population living in limited, fortified enclaves. The settlements of those Scythians
remaining on the Pontic were located in the lower reaches of the Dnieper river. These Scythians were no
longer nomadic, having become sedentary, Hellenised farmers, and by the second century BC, these
were the only places the Scythians could still be found.[41]