Why couldn't The Romans Conquer Scythia? | Who were the Scythians?

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I remember that in Rome: Total War it was pain in the ass fighting the Scythians. They either steamrolled over my smaller armies or they run away from my bigger ones.

I think the misconception about this is that Scythians were not a monolithic people. They were diverse tribes. Greek & Roman authors often lump those various groups into this term: "Scythians" like the way they treat the Germans. Scythia isn't worth conquering. As they were Nomadic people with no uniform civilization. Even the great, Alexander gave up because it isn't worthwhile, when he encountered the Sakka, or one of the Scythian groups. Similar to Tiberius policy of withdrawal of Germania, Scythian will just cause more burden than profit that will downgrade the Roman economy.

Because there’s nothing to conquer.

To be fair to Rome, in the premodern era, the only ones who could conquer steppe nomads for more than a minute were steppe nomads.

Answer: They were focused on other regions and manpower/logistics spread too long.

“Why the romans could not conquer Uranus ?”

'armed with bows on horseback' (c) - well yes, if I'd see a scythian wielding a horse with a bow sitting on top of it I'd be terrified as well

Darius conquered Crimea and most of the northern shores of the Black Sea. A few years ago, a statue of Darius was found around Sochi, Russia. Achaemenians also went to Sicily and had relations with them and supported them against the Greeks

Roman Empire (27 BC - 395 AD) population was 56,800,000 in 25 BC, but only a minority were Romans. The Scythians originated in Central Asia possibly around the 9th century BC. The Scythians arrived in the Caucasian Steppe in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. The Scythians were finally expelled from West Asia by the Medes in the 600s BC, after which they retreated into the Pontic Steppe. The territory of the Scythian kingdom of the Pontic steppe (600 BC - 350 BC) extended from the Don River in the east to the Danube River in the west. Beginning in the late 4th century BC, another related nomadic Iranian people, the Sarmatians, moved from the east into the Pontic steppe, where they replaced the Scythians as the dominant power of the Pontic steppe by the Sarmatians, due to which "Sarmatia Europea" (European Sarmatia) replaced "Scythia" as the name for the region. Claudius Ptolemy in his Geography in 150 AD wrote about Sarmatia Europea between the Dniester and Don Rivers (100 BC - 230 AD), between the Baltic and Black Sea, and Sarmatia Asiatica (350 BC - 370 AD) north of Caucasus, between the Don and Volga Rivers. Around 350 BC, the Don River was a border between Scythians and Sarmatians. Sarmatian conquest of Scythia began in 4th century BC, Donbas if full of mass graves from the 4th century BC ancient battles. One-third of the victims in the Scytho-Sarmatian wars were females.

Eastern Iranians: Scythians Western Iranians: Parthians and Persia Poor Rome😂

Scythia was indeed a hodgepodge of many different tribes, not a uniform, united people

I'm from Kazakhstan. I've been waiting for video about scythians for a long time. I really appreciate this video of yours. Hope to see more content about NOMADS on your channel

No cities, just horse riders who say bye and ride off if they have no arrows left and you are still standing, self sufficient as hunters and herders, with a retreat direction in 270° from west to east minimum, thousands of kilometers to run, in literally nothing but grasslands. Now, try to convince a roman legion, mainly footmen, with logistics depending on mules, oxen, wagons maybe or sea/river access to set march for it. They'll ask if you're drunk.

Cool stuff. The clouds make your maps hard to follow sometimes.

700.000 peoole in an army at that time? Yeah....not happening. 70.000 would already have been a stretch.

If the Romans conquered The Scythians, then they would eventually form a Roman “Golden Horde” during the 2nd/3rd century…

Rome was 753 BC. I enjoy your videos

why would rome invade a nomadic tribe all the way into the black sea when they can't even sail there?

Great video. So wide-ranging, an overview of pertinant facts I didn't know before. Thank you.