Skifo-egipetskaja vojna i mif o skifskoj nepobedimosti

Establishing colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea, the Greeks came into contact with the Scythians. The vision of the Scythian world by the Greeks changed radically over time: initially the Scythians were considered a meek people who lived in contact with nature. Subsequently, after a better acquaintance, the Greeks emphasized the aspects of ferocity and barbarism of this people. At the same time an idea began to take shape among the Greeks that the Scythians were a very strong, militarily invincible people. The first traces of this new vision of the Scythians can be found in Herodotus in the speech of Gobryas to Darius during the Scythian expedition of the Persian ruler. Parallel to the Persian conquest of Egypt probably arises a tradition according to which the Scythians would have been defeated only once in their history, by the pharaoh Sesostris. Probably of Egyptian origin, these tales about the battle between the Scythians and the Egyptians were used to mitigate the weight of the Persian yoke on Egypt. From these tales appeared a real invented tradition in the literature of the classical world which helped to develop the idea that the Scythians were particularly strong, difficult to win or even better invincible. This had profound repercussions in the political and literary fields in many countries of Europe.