Cercetae

Author: Laxman Burdak, IFS (R).

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Scythian Peoples and Places

Cercetae are an ancient people of Scythia mentioned by Strabo and Pliny the Elder.

Variants

• Cercetæ

Jat Gotras Namesake

• Karkota = Cercetæ (Pliny.vi.5)

Mention by Pliny

Pliny mentions...After passing Dioscurias we come to the town of Heracleium⁶, seventy miles distant from Sebastopolis, and then the Achæi⁷, the Mardi⁸, and the Cercetæ⁹, and, behind them, the Cerri and the Cephalotomi.¹⁰

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6 There were two places called Heracleium on this coast, one north and the other south of the river Achæus: probably the latter is here meant.

7 Probably meaning the "martial people," or the "people of Mars."

8 Said to have been descended from the Achæns or Greeks who accompanied Jason in the Argonautic Expedition, or, according to Ammianus, who resorted thither after the conclusion of the Trojan war.

9 This was the title, not of a single nation, but of a number of peoples distinguished for their predatory habits.

10 This people occupied the N.E. shore of the Euxine, between the Cimmerian Bosporus and the frontier of Colchis. Their name is still in existence, and is applied to the whole western district of the Caucasus, in the forms of Tcherkas, as applied to the people, and Tcherkeskaia or Circassia, to the country.

Mention by Pliny

Pliny mentions...It was with these people (Sauromatæ) that Mithridates¹³ took refuge in the reign of the Emperor Claudius: and from him we learn that the Thalli¹⁴ join up to them, a people who border on the eastern side upon the mouth¹⁵ of the Caspian Sea: he tells us also that at the reflux the channel is dry there. Upon the coast of the Euxine, near the country of the Cercetæ, is the river Icarusa¹⁶, with the town and river of Hierus , distant from Heracleium one hundred and thirty-six miles.

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13 This was Mithridates, king of Bosporus, which sovereignty he obtained by the favour of the emperor Claudius, in A.D. 41. The circumstances are unknown which led to his subsequent expulsion by the Romans, who placed his younger brother Cotys on the throne in his stead.

14 Hardouin thinks that the Thalli inhabited the present country of Astrakan.

15 It was the ancient opinion, to which we shall find frequent reference made in the present Book, that the northern portion of the Caspian communicated with the Scythian or Septentrional ocean.

16 Mentioned only by Pliny. It is supposed to answer to the present Ukrash river; and the town and river of Hierus are probably identical with the Hieros Portus of Arrian, which has been identified with the modern Sunjuk-Kala.

History

They are one of many ancient tribes of the Northwestern Caucasus which are the ancestors of modern Circassians. The name "Cercetae" apparently was the basis of the name of the people that arose later - the Circassians. The ethnonym itself of presumably Iranian origin or derived from the κερκέτηζ, is a kind of "stern oar”, and is the nickname given to them by the Greeks due to their skill in the sea business.

Pliny places them beyond the Amazons and the Hyperboreans, together with the Cimmerii, Cissianti, Achaei, Georgili, Moschi, Phoristae and Rimphaces.

Mention by Strabo

Strabo wrote:

And on the sea lies the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, or the Syndic territory. After this latter, one comes to the Achaei and the Zygii and the Heniochi, and also the Cercetae and the Macropogones. And above these are situated the narrow passes of the Phtheirophagi (Phthirophagi); and after the Heniochi the Colchian country, which lies at the foot of the Caucasian, or Moschian, Mountains. (Strabo, Geographica 11.2)

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