The city began as a Greek colony settled in the Crimean peninsula around 528-572 B.C. by settlers from Herakleia Pontica and the island of Delos. It was called Chersonesos then was run by democratic principles. As it grew, it extended throughout the Heraclean Peninsula and became a political and cultural venue in that desolate region. Later it became a dependency of the classical Bosporian Kingdom and with that powers decline became a loyal subject of Rome.

Cherson's loyalty to Rome was seemingly unshakeable. A story is told by Constantine VII in his De Adminstrando Imperio in the tenth century A.D. of how in the reign of Diocletian, the Sarmatians invaded Iberia and the Pontic, Constans, the future emperor and father of Constantine the Great, was sent to block them. Constans did his best but his troops could only stop them from crossing the Halys River, so Constans sent word to the Chersonites that they were to attack the Sarmatian homeland from the rear. Willingly the Chersonites did, and they captured many families causing Sauromatos, the Sarmatian leader, to withdraw defeated. As a reward, the Chersonites were granted freedom and immunity from tribute by Diocletian. Another anecdote is also told by Constantine of how the Scythians revolted under Constantine the Great and of how the Chersonites were sent in to crush the rebellion, which they did and were rewarded with perpetual freedom, golden rings to stamp letters with, and a golden statue to beatify their city.

What these two stories demonstrate whether we believe them or not, is the rise of the Chersonite Senate and its privileges. The basic facts of the stories are true. The Chersonites were indeed granted eleutheria (Greek for freedom) sometime in the second century A.D. With Constantine's pledges, Cherson was transformed from a simple dependency to a semi-autonomous city with a will of its own. Finally, these requests demonstrate that the garrison and army of Cherson must have been of some size to put down a revolt and attack a dangerous barbarian tribe.

But how fragile life there could be, due to the city's remoteness and another factor, which was the barbarian tribes who more than once would see this rich city as a source of plunder. There is also another story told by Constantine VII of Byzantium of this jealousy. Some time after the two stories previously described, one Lamachos was chief magistrate and primate of the city when a Bosporian King proposed a marriage alliance between the two. Lamachos' daughter Gykia would marry the King's son to ensure some measure of peace between the two. The real reason behind the king's proposal was so his son could spy on the Chersonites, to find their weaknesses, and exploit them. And soon, Lamachos, beloved by the people of Cherson, died and Gykia was saddened by the loss, so she proposed a celebration of him every year where the people of the city would come and drink at her expense. Finally the spy found that he had the means to destroy the Chersonites, so he sent word to his father and homeland they would soon have Cherson.

Every so often, the Bosporians were to send him ten to twelve men on the pretext of bringing him gifts, but t really those men were to be hidden by the spy in Gykia's vast mansion for when the celebration took place and then the spy would loose them on the unprepared city. Finally, after about two years of collecting the men, the spy found that he had around two hundred and with the approaching celebration of Lamachos, he thought the time was right. But to his unknown misfortune, one of his wife's maids accidentally discovered the Bosporians and reported it to her mistress who then gathered the chiefs of her city and told them her own plan. They were to collect wood in preparation for the celebration and then that night drink moderately and return to her mansion with the wood some time after pretending to retire and then at the prepared at her signal, they were to burn down the mansion. And so on that night, Gykia to hide the fact she was not drinking at all used a purple cup and her husband was fooled and when they retired she crept away and made for the assembled men and they burned the mansion to the ground along with her husband and all the men. And later the burned rubble was to be called by the people the Spy Tower of Gykia.

Later in its history, Cherson would not be so lucky. In the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the Huns arrived on the scene and ravaged much of the land surrounding the city but only recently, it has been discovered that they did very little damage to Cherson itself. And then it was the turn of the Khazars who caused much more concern and even managed to force the Chersonites to accept a khagan "governor" for a time.

However, to Byzantium, the city was a valuable asset for many reasons. One of which was its usefulness as an eye on the barbarians of the north, the other was its remoteness for a place of exile. Some of its more important exiles were the Popes Martin and Clement, and even the emperor Justinian II himself. Now Justinian had by this time become universally hated throughout his Empire for his cruelty and crippling taxation, and was deposed by the usurper Leontios and exiled to Cherson were he quickly made himself so unpopular so the people were ready to return him to the emperor, but Justinian fled to the Khazars and then returned and used the city as his launch pad for his restoration. After this Justinian sent an expedition to punish the city, the city resisted and supported the usurper Phillupiccus Bardanes who then deposed Justinian and became emperor. Perhaps it was the memory of this revolt and Cherson's growing independence that caused Constantine VII in De Adminstrando Imperio to advise his son to deal harshly with the city if it ever revolted.

Later in 839, Theophilos sent a nobleman named Petronas Kamateros to take direct control of the city probably due to the above and to save it from the barbarians who threatened it. From this time on Cherson became part of the Byzantine theme system, but that could not save it from Vladimir of Kiev who took the city to remind the Emperor Basil II Bugaroktonos that he was tardy in sending his sister Princess Anna as a bride. This was a critical moment in Cherson and Russia's history because when Basil finally sent his sister the two were married there and Vladimir was converted to the Orthodox faith, which paved the way for the conversion of Russia to the Christian faith.

Later in 1204, Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade and Cherson passed to the Byzantine successor state of Trebizond. But Cherson was allowed to become more and more distant from Byzantium because of Turkish pirates and the long distance of the sea. The other threat to the rule of Byzantium in the Crimea was the Genoese who rapidly began to take over the Crimea for their own commercial interests. By the middle of fourteenth century, almost all the peninsula was in Genoese hands. However Cherson's death blow didn't come from these traders, but from the barbarians the city had always fought against in the form of the armies of the Golden Horde who finally took the city in 1399 and completely destroyed it to the point that it was never again resettled. All that remains of this venerable city is a few ruins in the suburbs of the modern city of Sevastopol.

Bibliography

Vitaly Zubar and Leonid Marchenko, "Chersonesos-Kherson-Korsun". http://www.day.kiev.ua/290619?/idsource=267502&mainlang=eng (June 6, 2005)

Constantine VII Porphyrogentus, De Adminstrando Imperio . Gk text with Eng. translation by R.J.H Jenkins. Washington 1969