Крайне ограниченные данные источников - как письменных, так и археологических - все еще не позволяют создать достаточно ясную этническую картину города Феодосии и его округи в античное время. Попытка собрать воедино все имеющиеся на сегодняшний день сведения по интересующей нас теме привела к приводимым в статье результатам.
For more than a century Theodosia polis had remained independent in relation to Bosporos. Its foreign relations, first of all commercial offered business competition to Bosporos cities. The import of grain into Greece was of great importance to these relations, polis was in need of arable plowed lands. The extension of its borders was the result of capture Barbarians’ territories. The role of aborigines (the Scythians, Taurus) in economic life of the city and chora was significant. The problem of inerrelations with the nearest neighbours was for Theodosians more relevant than with the Hellenes, related by blood. Having lost its independence, Theodosia and its neighourhoocl became frontier regions on the Western borders of Bosporos state. The way of life in frontier regions, constant threat of war gave birth to some peculiarities, which made these regions different from central ones in militarizing daily life, interrelationships between people, psychology of the population, some elements in culture. In outlying areas of the Bosporos Kingdom the Greeks and Barbarians faced the necessity to solve mutual tasks - to defend their borders and themselves from hostile threats. In the outskirts of Theodosia, on the tops and slopes of mountain ranges, defenders of the western frontiers of the state lived in fortified settlements. They were local inhabitants, descendants of those aborigines, who collided with the founders of Theodosia, and, probably, mercenaries, who served to rulers (the Thracians, Scythians) as well.
