Bactrian

Bactriana or Bactria is the ancient Greek name of a historical region of Central Asia, located between the Hindu Kush (Parapamisos or Caucasus Índicus for Greco-Latin authors) to the south, and the Amu Daria River (Oxus) to the north; Its capital was the city of Balh (Bactra or Zaraspa). Today that territory corresponds to several nations, northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Bactriana bordered to the east with the ancient region of Gandhara in the Indian subcontinent, to the west with Drangiana and Hyrcania and to the north with Transoxiana, Sogdiana and the very extensive Scythia (Extra Imaus), to the south it bordered with Arachosia; Among other territories, Bactria included those of Guriana, Bubacena, Parapamisade and the so-called "country of the Marucenes." The classical language of Bactria was an Indo-European language of the Indo-Iranian subfamily, the Bactrian language.

The Bactrians are possibly one of the hereditary lines of modern Tajiks. Some historians believe that the modern name "Tajik" originated from Ta-Hia or Daxia, an ancient Chinese name for the region (in medieval Chinese it was pronounced /datguea/); For their part, the ancient Indians called it Bahlika.

Geography

It was a mountainous country with a continental climate, although in the abundant oases that the territory had in Antiquity, water was abundant and the land was very fertile. Bactria was traditionally considered the place of origin of one of the Iranian tribes. Modern authors have often used the name in a broader sense, as the designation for northern Afghanistan.

History

In these regions of fertile lands in the oases, of a mountainous country surrounded by the Turán depression, since ancient times Bactria was a very important and almost obligatory stage for commercial traffic and communication between the Far East, the subcontinent Indian and the Mediterranean basin. It was in Bactria where the prophet Zoroaster is considered to have preached and gained his first followers. The language in which the Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrianism, is written, was once called "Old Bactrian", although it later changed to Zend.

Cyrus and Alexander

It is not known whether Bactria was part of the Median Empire, but it was subjugated by Cyrus the Great in a campaign carried out probably between 545 and 540 BC. C. Since then, Bactria was one of the main satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire. During the internal wars of 522 BC. C., the satrap Dadarsi, was a valuable ally of King Darius I. Already in the reign of Xerxes I, the satrap Masistes unsuccessfully attempted to start a rebellion. Around 462 BC. C. A revolt against King Artaxerxes I broke out in Bactria, led by his brother Hystaspes (Diodorus Siculus, XI 68) or by a satrap called Artabanus (Ctesias, 35). After Darius III was defeated by Alexander the Great, his assassin Besos, the satrap of Bactria, attempted to organize a national resistance in his domain.

Alexander conquered Bactria without much difficulty; only in Sogdiana to the north, beyond the Oxus, did he encounter strong resistance. Bactria became a province of the Macedonian Empire. In Bactria Alexander met one of her most famous women, Roxana, and married her; Another famous event also occurred in the life of the conqueror: Alexander the Great appointed his favorite Cleitus the Black as the first Greek satrap in 328 BC. C., but during a banquet Cleitus reproached Alexander for certain attitudes, who in response killed him with a spear. After the death of Alexander, Bactria fell—with almost all the Asian territories—under the tutelage of the diadoch Seleucus I Nicator.

The Seleucid Empire

After the death of Alexander, the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator and his son Antiochus I established the Seleucid Empire, and founded many towns in the region of eastern Iran, the Greek language became the dominant language in the region for some time. The paradox that the Greek presence was more prominent in Bactria than nearby Parthia or other areas more adjacent to Greece could possibly be explained by the policy imposed by the Persian kings, which consisted of deporting Greek settlers to the provinces. remotest areas of his great empire. However, the region was very far from the centers of Hellenic civilization and had to survive on its own.

The Greco-Bactrian kingdom

The many difficulties that the Seleucid kings had to fight against and the attacks of Ptolemy II of Egypt, gave the Bactrian satrap Diodotus I the opportunity to become independent (circa 255 BC). The territory covered Sogdiana, Aria and Arachosia, creating the so-called Greco-Bactrian Kingdom.

Diodotus and his successors were able to defend themselves against the continued attacks of the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great, until the Seleucids were finally defeated by the Romans (190 BC) in the Near East.

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was so powerful that it was able to extend its territory to the north of India (or, more accurately, until it exercised hegemony over territories that, for the most part, correspond to current Pakistan and that in ancient times were the core of the Indus Valley culture.

The Indo-Greek Kingdom

The Bactrian king Euthydemus I and his son Demetrius crossed the Hindu Kush and began the conquest of northern Afghanistan and the Indus Valley. For a time they managed a great Greek empire, built far away from Greece, in the East.

But this empire fragmented due to internal dissensions and constant usurpations. When Demetrius advanced towards India, one of his generals, Eucratides I, revolted and took Bactria and Sogdiana from him (around 175 BC).

The Greek possessions were divided between the relatives of Eukratides, who received Bactria, Sogdiana and the western Punjab, and those of Demetrius, who had to settle for the eastern Punjab.

All that is known about them is from their coins, many of which have been found in Afghanistan and India. Due to these internal wars, the dominant position of the Greeks in the region was diminished.

Around the year 150 BC. C., a notable ruler, Menander I came into conflict with the Sunga Empire; He invaded the Ganges valley, up to Benares, conquered Pataliputra (perhaps he reached Patna) and favored the Buddhist religion; This is the only Greek character (in Sanskrit "javana" -Ionian-, a name given to all Hellenes by the ancient Hindus) who appears reliably mentioned in the literature of ancient India, in which his name is transformed into Milinda.. In this way, due to its own economic, cultural and demographic weight, the area of the Indus basin and the upper Ganges was split from the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, thus establishing a new Hellenistic kingdom to the south and east of the Hindu Kush: the rather ephemeral Indo-Greek Kingdom., with capital in Taksila.

Between 80 and 30 a. C., the last Greek princes of Punjab were dethroned by invaders from Central Asia (especially by the group of Tocharians called Kushanas), but Greek culture survived the new domination for hundreds of years.

Contacts with China

Bactria (known as Ta-Hia in Chinese) was visited by the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian in 126 BC. C. Zhang Qian's reports written in the Shiji (‘the archives of the Grand Historian’) by Sima Qian in the 1st century BC. C., describe a very important urban civilization of approximately one million people, who lived in walled cities under the government of petty kings or magistrates.

These contacts immediately led to the dispatch of multiple embassies from the Chinese Empire, beginning the development of the Silk Road, which from Antioch reached the Pamirs, and across the Indian Ocean to the ports of Barygaza and Musiris as well as the remote from Cattigara.

Tocharistan

Later, the area where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom developed, as noted, was occupied by the Kushan Empire (also called Tocharian). For this reason, the region will later be known by its Persian and Arabic name of Tocharistan. Unlike peoples of the same ethnic group who settled in northeastern Xinjiang and strengthened their ethnolinguistic individuality there, the Kushanas quickly Iranianized without leaving a trace of their original identity.

This territory was conquered by the Sassanids. After a brief period under Uighur hegemony, it was conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century AD. c.

Bactra, its capital (present-day Balh) flourished under Arab rule until it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1221. It then partially recovered, but had to leave its place of primacy to Mazari Sharif, a sanctuary city located a short distance to the southeast.. This sanctuary competes, in popular Islam, with the Iraqi city of Najaf for the honor of being the last resting place of Ali (600-661), son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and first imam of the Shiite faith. In more recent centuries, the original Iranian Tokharistan was infiltrated by migrations of Turkic peoples, particularly Turkmen and Uzbeks, to such an extent that the region is also known in modern times as Afghan Turkestan.

Art

The curious Greco-Bactrian art stands out, which represents a variant of the art of Ancient Greece influenced by features of Indian art and Medo-Persian art, merging with the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, as reflected in the colossal Buddhas of Bāmiyān destroyed in 2001.