Ancient Bactria: Hellenistic Glory

Ancient Bactria, nestled between the formidable Hindu Kush mountain range and the flowing Amu Dar’ya River in northern Afghanistan, traces its roots to the 8th and 7th centuries BC. During the zenith of the Persian Empire in the 500s to mid-300s BC, Bactria emerged as a significant province. This region housed a Persian-speaking population and is renowned as the supposed birthplace of Zoroaster, the esteemed prophet of ancient Persia.

Zoroaster, born in the late 7th century BC, likely spent his formative years in Bactria, where Zoroastrianism, the monotheistic faith he founded, may have gained prominence. The presence of this influential figure and his teachings adds a profound layer to Bactria's historical tapestry.

Bactra, the capital city of this ancient province, played a pivotal role in the narrative of Bactrian history. In 585-529 BC, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, incorporated Bactria into the expansive Persian Empire. The nomadic inhabitants of Bactria were assimilated into the empire under the rule of Cyrus, marking a significant chapter in its history.

The tide of Bactrian history shifted in 328 BC when Alexander the Great conquered the region, appointing a Greek governor to oversee it as a satrapy. However, in 312 BC, Seleucus Nicator overthrew this governance, leading to a brief period of Bactrian independence.

A pivotal moment occurred in 254 BC when Diodotus, the Grecian governor, declared independence from Seleucid rule, establishing the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. Under Bactrian Greek rule, the kingdom expanded its territories into the Indian subcontinent, reaching as far as the banks of the Ganges and the frontiers of China by 181 BC. Despite the Greeks constituting a minority in Bactria, their cultural influence on the region remained substantial.

However, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom faced internal challenges in maintaining central control over its vast and diverse territories. The 2nd century BC witnessed a decline in their influence north of the Hindu Kush. Ultimately, in 190 BC, the kingdom succumbed to Roman conquest, marking the end of an era for Ancient Bactria. The rich history of this region, from its Persian roots to its Hellenistic phase, contributes to the broader narrative of ancient civilizations in Central Asia.
Ancient Bactria: Hellenistic Glory

Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BC)

Achaemenid Persian Empire, founded by the Cyrus the Great in 559 BC, was the largest and the mightiest empire the ancient world had ever known. It was the earliest and largest of the known ‘world empires.’

It was emerged after the fall of mighty Median Empire in 550 BC by one of the most brilliant military and political leaders of antiquity, Cyrus the Great.

The empire encompassed within its boundaries people of many different background, speaking diverse languages, worshipping multiple deities, living in tremendously varied environments and practicing widely differing social customs.

The traditional infrastructure in military, politics, governance, administration, culture an economics that the Persian established has had a long-lasting effect on not only Iran but also the entire Near/Middle Eastern government and their administration.

In less than 30 years, Cyrus the Great expanded the Persian Empire from Asia in the East to Eastern Europe and North Africa, including Egypt and most of the Greek territory, in the West.

Under Darius I (521-486 BC), it reached its greatest extent, stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Indus River, from Egypt to the modern central Asian Republics.

In 330 BC, Darius III was murdered by tow Persian nobles one of whom proclaims himself king of Persia in eastern Iran and Bactria.

Between 327 – 325 BC Alexander the Great completes his conquest of the Persian Empire by conquering Achaemenid-held regions of India.
Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BC)

Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia

Modern Macedonia was a part of the ancient Empire of Macedonia, which partly covered territory now in southwestern Bulgaria and northern Greece.

The ancient Macedonians were the people of Macedon on the Balkan Peninsula who created a state in the seventh century BC that lasted until the second century BC. Its most famous ruler was Alexander the Great (356-323 BC).

The name of the kingdom, Macedon, is sometimes cited as Macedonia; it is perhaps derived from the name of a ruler, Makedon or from the Greek word makedos or makednos for ‘tall man’.

Macedon was conquered by the Persian king Darius and remained part of the Persian Empire until the defeat of Xerxes in 480 BC.

Ancient Macedonians were the core of the Kingdom of Macedon, which reach the peak of its might under Alexander the Great in the 4th century. Under King Philip and then his son Alexander the Great Macedon conquered the whole of Greece and went on to add the Persian Empire to its own vast dominion.

In the historical record the Macedonian first entered Egypt in the course of the eastern campaigns of Alexander the Great. In 331 BBC Alexander arrived in Egypt, where he visited Memphis, founded the city of Alexandria.

After his death, like Alexander’s wider empire, Macedon was split between relentless warring factions.

Three Macedonia Wars were fought, leading to Philip’s defeat at Cynoscephalae in 197 and to his son Perseus’ even more catastrophic defeat at Pydna in 168. After Pydna, Macedonia was ruthlessly sacked and the kingship abolished. The region became a full province of Rome in 146 BC.

Following the decline of Roman power, in the 6th century AD the region was settled by the Slav peoples from whom the majority of modern Macedonians are descended. Macedonia was fiercely fought over by the Byzantines, Bulgars and Serbs until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1371.
Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia 

The origin of Bithynia Kingdom

Bordering the Sea of Marmara, the straits of the Bosporus and the southern shores of the Black Sea and situated opposite Constantinople (Istanbul), Bithynia is today part of Turkey.

Bithynia was anciently inhabited by various nations, differing in their manners, customs, and language, namely the Bebryces, the Caucones, the Dolliones, the Cimmerii, and the Mariandyni occupied the northeast part.

Bithynia was named after the Bithynia one of the warlike Indo-European tribes that had emigrated from Thrace during the first quarter of the first millennium.

Bithynia came under Lydian rule in the seventh century. The province was conquered by the Persians in 546 BC and was included in the satrapy of Phrygia. Bithynia was conquered by the Greeks and the Romans and appeared to have attracted so much attention of its roads and strategic position between the frontiers of the Danube in the north and the Euphrates in the southeast.

The land was occupied by Alexander the Great in 334 BC. In 297 BC Zipoetes, a local Thracian chieftain, freed his country fro Lysimachus and assumed the royal title.
 
Nicomedes I (son of Zipoetes) established the first Dynasty of Bithynian kings and rules from 278 to 250 BC. In 264 BC he founded Nicomedia and made it capital.

Bithynia became a separate province in the 4th century AD, and continued to exist into the 8th century when Slav captives were settled there.
The origin of Bithynia Kingdom 

The origin of city state of Susa

By the mid 5th millennium the Susiana plain, some 200 kilometers north of Uruk and the Euphrates, but part of Greater Mesopotamian, already had a large population with no dominant centers. It is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region.

During this period Susa was re-organized as a large city, may be even a center for the country and the communities living there, who are generally known as the Elamites.

Before the end of the millennium Susa had been founded and covered about 10 hectares, with over forty other surrounding sites averaging 1.2 hectares each, thus two distinct levels of settlements, a manual administrative complexity’.

As one of the oldest sites of ancient civilization, Susa began its political and administrative life first as a city state contemporary, then as an empire rivaling Sumer in Mesopotamian and subsequently as the capital of one of the oldest empire of antiquity, Elam, around 3000 BC.

Large temples were erected for the newly unified Elamite tribes and the heads of these temples acted as rulers, guides and leaders.

Elamite Empire was the first Persian experience in empire building and state tradition.
The origin of city state of Susa

Persian Sasanian Empire

The founder of the Sassanid Dynasty of Persia was Ardashir I (reign 224-241) who took the title Sahanshah or king of kings in 225. Ardashir was the son of a priest of the fire temple of the goddess Anahita.

He overthrew the Parthian Empire in224 and crowned himself. At that time Parthian king Artabanus V was occupied with campaigns against Romans.

The Sassanid Empire was predominantly ethically Persian, and its social structure was designed to concentrate power based on ethnicity with a class system determined by birthright with a few rare exceptions.

Ardashir’s son Sharpur I expanded Persian territory but was stopped in 260 when he ventured too far into Anatolia.

In 244, King Sharpur attacks Rome. Many cities were founded by Sharpur settled in part of Christian emigrants from Roman territory. He resumed the military struggle with Rome with considerable success.

The next shahs lost territory to the Romans in the east and the Arabs in the south.

In 633, the Rashidun Caliphate attacked both the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire, and the following year Islamic forces invade Persia, Syria, Egypt and Byzantine territories. The advance of the Muslim Arabs was a fatal to the Sassanids as it was to the Byzantines. In 636, the Arabs capture Ctesiphon and the Sassanid Empire ends.
Persian Sasanian Empire

Persian Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD)

Parthia was originally designated as a territory southeast of the Caspian Sea. It was a satrapy of the Persian Empire from 550 BC when it was subdued by Cyrus the Great until the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.

The Parni, an Aryan tribe with roots in Central Asia, had come to the region of Parthia, east of Media and Persis along the Caspian Sea around 300 BC.

By 247 BC Parni named Arsaces ruled part of the satrapy, and he took control within a decade. This marked the start of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians took their name from the former Achaemenid province of Parthava, which correspond roughly with modern northeastern Iran.

Over the next several decades, Arsaces and the rulers after him took more of Seleucid lands, building a new Persian Empire.

During the reign of Mithridates II and Arodes II, the Parthians conquered all of Iraq, Armenia, eastern Turkey, and eastern Syria.

The Parthian Empire was in the height of its prosperity, one of the most powerful of all the Eastern monarchies. The ancient geographers mention a great numbers of cities in this empire. Ptolemy reckons twenty five.

The Parthian Empire was the enemy of Rome. The Roman Empires fought several fierce battles against the Parthians, from the 1st century BC into the 3rd century AD. These wars were broken by short periods of peace, and the then fighting would begin again.

In 224, during the reign of the Roman Empire Marcus Aurelius Alexander Severus, the Parthian dynasty was displaced by the Sasanid Persian dynasty, founded by Ardashir Shah Papakan.
Persian Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD)

Lydian empire

The Lydians were an ancient people of the Anatolian Peninsula. The Lydians may have migrated from north Africa at an early stage in their history.

They then have emerged for the Luwian-speaking peoples who widespread in western and central Anatolia at the time of the Hittite Empire.

After the collapse of the Hittite Empire, the Lydians regained their independence and gradually became strong.

They established a kingdom centered on the city of Sardis (45 miles inland from the modern Turkish city of Izmir) around 1200 BC.

Izmir was the site of the oldest human settlements in the Mediterranean world, going back to 4000 BC or even earlier.

Lydia had excellent trade routes to the east and west and had its own reserves of gold and silver.

According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to invent coinage.

Lydia was renowned for its wealth in ancient Persian and Greek literature, and King Croesus has passed into legend as a figure of unparalleled wealth.

In 546 BC Lydia fell under the expanding power of Persia, which was reaching for the Aegean.

Lydia was then made a province of the Medo-Persian Empire and never recovered its independence.

Under Persian rule, Lydia remained an important province until it was conquered by Alexander the Great.
Lydian empire