See also: Peoples: Achaemenid Empire; Arsacids; Sasanian Empire
Further Reading
Bivar, A. D. H. “The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3(I), edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 21–99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002.
Colledge, Malcolm A. R. The Parthians. New York: Praeger, 1967.
Cook, J. M. The Persian Empire. New York: Schocken, 1983.
Curtis, John, and St. John Simpson. The World of Achaemenid Persia. London: I. B. Tauris, 2010.
Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh, and Sarah Stewart, eds. The Age of the Parthians. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.
Daryaee, Touraj. Sasanian Iran (224–651 CE): Portrait of a Late Antique Empire. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2008.
Debevoise, Neilson. A Political History of Parthia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938.
Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt. London: Penguin, 2003.
Josephus. The Complete Works. Translated by William Whiston, A.M. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998.
Nameh-ye Tansar. Edited by Mojtaba Minovi. Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1976.
Plutarch. Lives. Translated by John Dryden. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006.
Rawlinson, George. The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy. Tehran: Imperial Organization for Social Services, 1976.
Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. London: William Heinemann, 1930.
Tabari. Tarikh-e Tabari. Translated from Arabic into Persian by Abol Qassem Payandeh. Tehran: Asatir Publications, 1984.
Wiesehöfer, Josef. Ancient Persia. London: I. B. Tauris, 2011.
Xenophon. Oeconomicus. Translated by Sarah B. Pomery. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
Alans
The Alans were an Iranian-speaking people who lived as pastoral nomadic groups along the northern shores of the Caspian and Black Seas, in particular the region between the Volga and Don Rivers in present-day southern Russia. The Alans were most probably part of the larger Scythian and Sarmatian nomadic groups, which dominated the Eurasian steppes beginning in the eighth century BCE. The word “Alan” derives from the Old Iranian word arya, or “Aryan,” and so is related to the word “Iran” (Abaev and Bailey: Alans). A people called the Alani were first mentioned by Roman writers in the first century CE. In these accounts, the Alani are depicted as a bellicose and pugnacious people with an exceptional talent for breeding horses. The Alani are also mentioned in the context of a nomadic invasion of the Parthian Empire in 72 CE. They swept through Parthian territory from the northeast and reached Media in present-day western Iran, capturing the royal harem of the ruling Arsacid monarch, Vologeses I (Valakhsh I). From Media, they attacked Armenia and defeated the armies of Tiridates, who was nearly captured. The Parthians and Armenians were so alarmed by the devastation wrought by these nomadic invaders that they appealed to Rome for urgent assistance, but the Romans declined to help (Frye: 240). Fortunately for the Parthians and Armenians, the Alani returned to the vast steppes of Eurasia after they had collected a large quantity of booty (Colledge: 52). Sometime between 135 and 136 CE the Alani appeared again, this time as allies of the king of Iberia (present-day eastern Georgia in the southern Caucasus), attacking from the north; plundering Armenia, Atropatene (present-day Iranian Azerbaijan), and Media; and pushing as far west as Cappadocia in Asia Minor. The Arsacid monarch Vologeses III (r. 111/112–147/148 CE) dispatched a large force of 20,000, but they could not defeat the invading Alans. Having failed to contain the Alans, Vologeses may have resorted to bribing them. Once again, the Alans returned home without suffering a defeat (Colledge: 166).
Aside from paying bribes, the Romans, Arsacids, and later the Persian Sasanians neutralized the fierce Alan warriors and horsemen by recruiting them as mercenaries or fighting units in their armies. The Sasanians were intimately familiar with the Alans, and the “Gate of Alans” is mentioned in the inscription of the Sasanian king Shapur I at Naqsh-e Rostam near Shiraz in southern Iran. Sometime in the 4th century CE, those Alans who lived along the banks of the Don River broke up into two distinct groups after being attacked and defeated by invading Huns who had crossed the Volga River. Under pressure from the Huns, one group migrated westward, first to Southeast Europe and from there, together with Germanic tribes, to Roman Gaul (i.e., modern-day France, western Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxemburg) and Spain. Branches of the Alans, each ruled by its own king, settled in various parts of Europe and gave their name to the regions they adopted as their new home. Thus, the name of the province of Catalonia in Spain is believed to have derived from the deformation of Goth-Alania or Province of Goths and Alans. The French name “Alain” and the English name “Alan” as well as the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have also been linked to those Alans who settled in Europe (Abaev and Bailey: Alans). The second branch of the Alans settled in the northern regions of the Caucasus on the banks of the Kuban River in present-day southern Russia. In the 10th century CE, as a result of several centuries of activity by Greek and Georgian Christian missionaries, many Alans converted to Christianity, although a minority remained wedded to their pagan beliefs, traditions, and customs.
After the spread of Islam and the formation of Islamic caliphates, the Caucasus region was repeatedly attacked by Muslim armies. In the ninth century CE, the Alans as well as other communities of the Caucasus were impacted by military campaigns organized and carried out by the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad (r. 750–1258 CE). Despite being pressured by Muslims from the south, the Alans maintained their rule over a vast and powerful kingdom, stretching from Daghestan on the western shores of the Caspian Sea to Abkhazia on the southeastern shores of the Black Sea. The anonymous author of the 10th-century Persian geography Hodud ul-Alam min al-Mashriq ila al-Maghrib [The Regions of the World from East to West] described Alania as a vast country with 1,000 large rural communities of Christians and pagans who lived both in the mountains and on the plains (Anonymous, Hodud ul-Alam: 191). In the 13th and 14th centuries, the vast region extending from Central Asia to Iran, the Caucasus, and Anatolia was devastated by two major invasions, first by the Mongols, who destroyed urban and rural communities, and then by the Turkic world conqueror Timur (Tamerlane). In the Caucasus, Timur’s armies dismantled the military and political power of the Alan state, forcing the Alans to split into several groups (Abaev and Bailey: Alans). One group moved west and settled in Hungary. A second group joined forces with the Mongols and participated in their military operations as far east as China. The third group settled in the central regions of the Caucasus, where they live today.
The Ossetian people of the Caucasus region trace their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage to the ancient Alans. Ossetians are divided linguistically into two groups: Ir and Digor (Frye: 40). The more numerous Ironian speakers, who are called Ir or Ironi, live both in North and South Ossetia, while the Digors live only in the western regions of North Ossetia. The territory of North Ossetia came under Russian rule in 1774, while southern Ossetia was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1801. In 1922, the new Soviet government divided Ossetia into two regions. North Ossetia remained part of Russia, and South Ossetia was established as an autonomous region within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. South Ossetia declared its independence from Georgia after the Russia–Georgia War of 2008. The majority of Ossetians are followers of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. A minority of Ossetians, however, are Sunni Muslims.
See also: Peoples: Arsacids; Sasanian Empire; Scythians
Further Reading
Abaev, V. I., and H. W. Bailey. “Alans.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1985, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/alans-an-ancient-iranian-tribe-of-the-northern-scythian-saka-sarmatian-massagete-group-known-to-classical-writers-from.
Alemany, Agusti. Sources on the Alans: A Critic
al Compilation. Leiden: Brill Academic, 2000.
Anonymous. Hodud ul-Alam min al-Mashriq ila al-Maghrib [The Regions of the World from East to West]. Edited by Manoochehr Sotoodeh. Tehran: Tahuri Bookstore, 1983.
Colledge, Malcolm A. R. The Parthians. New York: Praeger, 1967.
De Waal, Thomas. The Caucasus: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Frye, Richard Nelson. The History of Ancient Iran. München: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1984.
Alexander of Macedon (the Great)
The Macedonian king and conqueror who defeated and overthrew the Persian Achaemenid dynasty and established a short-lived empire, which stretched from Greece and Egypt to India. Alexander was born in 356 BCE in Pella in the kingdom of Macedonia. His father was Philip II, who ruled Macedonia from 359 to 336 BCE. Alexander’s mother was Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus, the ruler of Epirus. In 340 BCE, Philip attacked Perinthos in northern Greece with the goal of establishing himself as the master of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. Alarmed by Macedonia’s aggression, the Athenians sent an embassy to the Persian king, Artaxerxes III, and requested an alliance. With support from Athens, Artaxerxes III sent an army that ejected the Macedonians from Perinthos, but Philip persisted nonetheless. He marched with his army against Greece and defeated the armies of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, permanently ending the independence of the Greek city-states. Alexander participated in his father’s campaign against the Greeks as the head of the Macedonian cavalry. In 337 BCE, Philip organized the League of Corinth and declared his goal conveniently as the liberation of the Greek cities, which remained under Persian rule. In 336, Philip dispatched an army to Asia Minor as the first step toward a full-fledged invasion of the western provinces of the Achaemenid Empire. The planned invasion, however, came to a sudden end when Philip was assassinated in July 336.
Upon Philip’s death, Alexander, who was only 20 years old, seized the Macedonian throne. After securing his position in Macedonia and crushing an uprising in Greece, he used his father’s well-trained army to attack Asia. In the spring of 334 BCE, Alexander crossed the Hellespont and began his conquest of Asia Minor with an army of 37,000 men. The new Persian king, Darius III, failed to prepare his armies for a Macedonian attack. The Macedonians could therefore defeat an Achaemenid force at Granicus River in 334 BCE, where Alexander was almost killed. The Macedonian victory allowed Alexander to capture Sardis in western Asia Minor. The next confrontation between the two sides took place in 333 BCE at Issus in present-day southern Turkey near the city of Iskandarun. Darius III was defeated, and the Persian king’s mother, wife, infant son, and two of his daughters “fell into Alexander’s hands” (Arrian: 2.12). Alexander used his victory to turn south, seizing Syria, Palestine, and Egypt by the winter of 332. While Alexander was in Syria, “envoys from Darius came with a request for the release of his mother, wife and children” (Arrian: 2.14). They also delivered a letter from Darius to Alexander in which the Persian king appealed for a restoration of alliance and friendship between the Persian Empire and the kingdom of Macedonia. Alexander refused to release the members of the Persian royal family and rejected a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The armies of Darius and Alexander fought for the last time in the Battle of Gaugamela or Arbela in present-day northern Iraq on October 1, 331 BCE. The Achaemenid army was defeated after Darius III fled the battlefield. The Persian king sought temporary refuge in Ecbatana (modern-day Hamedan), which served as the summer capital of the Achaemenid dynasty. After his victory at Arbela, Alexander moved south and seized Babylon. From Babylon, he marched against the Achaemenid winter capital of Susa, where he captured the large Persian treasury. Alexander’s next target was the province of Parsa (Persis), the birthplace of the Achaemenid dynasty and home to the royal palace complex of Persepolis and Cyrus’s capital, Pasargadae. As he marched toward Persis, Alexander split his forces. His general, Parmenio, “was given orders to proceed by the main road into Persia with the Thessalian cavalry, the allied and mercenary contingents, all the other more heavily armed units, and the baggage trains” (Arrian: 3.18; Quintus Curtius Rufus: 5.3.16). Alexander himself, at the head of a force consisting of the Macedonian infantry, the Companion cavalry, the Agrianes, the archers, and advanced scouts, set off with all speed through the hills (Arrian: 3.18; Quintus Curtius Rufus: 5.3.17). At this juncture, the Persian satrap of Parsa, Ariobarzanes, tried to slow down Alexander’s march to Persepolis on a mountainous track called the Persian Gate (Arrian: 3.18.2). At the Persian Gate northeast of modern Yasuj, the capital of the Iranian province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, the Macedonian units under the command of Alexander “encountered Ariobarzanes,” who “had already built defenses across the pass” and with his force “had taken up a position there to prevent Alexander from getting through” (Arrian: 3.18.2; Quintus Curtius Rufus: 5.3.17–18). Confident of his ability to score an easy victory, Alexander attacked Ariobarzanes and his small army with a force of 10,000 men (Arrian: 3.18.1). Holding a commanding position over the plain, the Persians fought back and defeated the Macedonian army without any loss. The Macedonians “suffered severely from missiles hurled or catapulted from above,” and Alexander was forced to retreat (Arrian: 3.18.3), suffering “agonies, as much of shame as despondency, at his foolhardiness in stranding his army in the gorge” (Quintus Curtius Rufus: 5.3.21). Eventually, prisoners at the Macedonian camp who knew the various passes in the region led Alexander and his commanders under the cover of dark through roundabouts to the rear of the Persian position. At dawn Alexander attacked the small Persian force under the command of Ariobarzanes, while the Macedonian general Craterus attacked the gate from the front. The Persian defenders were mostly killed. According to Arrian (Arrian: 3.18.3–8; 3.23.7), Ariobarzanes escaped the battle with a group of his men, but according to Curtius he managed to break out of the Macedonian siege and reached Persepolis but was barred by its garrison, so he returned and fought to the end (Quintus Curtius Rufus: 5.4.33).
Alexander seized Persepolis and its treasury. In a drunken eruption of rage and revenge, Alexander burned and destroyed the palace complex, which had been built by Darius I and his successors (Arrian: 3.19). While in Persis (Parsa) in southern Iran, Alexander also captured the treasury of Pasargadae, the capital of Cyrus II the Great (Arrian: 3.19). From Parsa, Alexander moved against Ecbatana, the summer capital of the Achaemenid kings in western Iran, with the intention of capturing Darius and the Persian generals who accompanied him. By the time Alexander arrived in Ecbatana, however, Darius and his entourage had already left the city for eastern Iran. They probably planned to connect with loyal units and commanders in the eastern provinces of the empire, particularly Bactria and Sogdiana, and then raise an army and strike back. It is not certain what happened at this point. Some historians maintain that Darius refused to flee any farther, forcing his loyal commanders to imprison him in a wagon. Regardless, by the time Alexander caught up with Darius III, the Achaemenid king was already dead, most probably murdered by the Persian nobles who were fleeing with him. With the death of Darius III in the summer of 330 BCE, Achaemenid rule came to an end.
After Media, Alexander’s next target was Hyrcania, on the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea, and Parthia, a province corresponding with the western region of Iranian Khorasan and the southern regions of present-day Turkmenistan. Alexander crossed the Alborz mountain range; punished the Mardi tribe, which resided in the eastern Alborz; and entered Hyrcania. In Hyrcania, several high-ranking Persian commanders who had served in Darius’s army, including the satrap of Hyrcania and Parthia, Phrataphernes, arrived in Alexander’s camp and surrendered (Arrian: 3.23). Alexander continued with his march, seizing the chief Hyrcanian town of Zadracarta, “the site of the royal palace,” which has been identified by some scholars as modern-day Gorgan (Arrian: 3.23–3.26). From Hyrcania, Alexander marched to Parthia and then to Aria in present-day northwestern Afghanistan. It has been claimed that while in Aria,
Alexander founded a new city called Alexandria of the Arians (modern-day Herat). From Aria, he marched to Drangiana in eastern Iran. From Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 BCE up the valley of the Helmand River, through Arachosia (modern-day Qandahar), and over the mountains past the site of modern-day Kabul. His next target was Bessus, the governor of Bactria, who had raised an army against the Macedonian invaders. After the death of Darius III, Bessus had proclaimed himself king of Asia, “wearing the royal mantle and the cap with the point erect, in royal fashion,” and adopted the royal title “Artaxerxes” (Arrian: 3.25).
Late-Hellenistic marble bust of Alexander of Macedon (the Great) from the Archaeological Museum of Pella, Greece. Alexander’s invasion of the Persian Empire in 334 BCE resulted in the collapse of the Achaemenid dynasty, but Alexander’s own empire disintegrated shortly after the death of the Macedonian conqueror in 323 BCE. (Jupiterimages)
When Alexander marched against Bactria, Bessus did his best to slow Alexander’s advance by laying waste to the country south of the Oxus River. The burning of crops denied Alexander and his army any access to food and fodder. Despite Bessus’s best efforts, however, Alexander continued his march, forcing Bessus to cross the Oxus and seek refuge in Sogdiana, the region north of the Oxus River (Amu Darya) and south of the Jaxartes (Syr Darya). Aside from his own troops, Bessus also commanded fighting units from the armies of two Iranian generals, Spitaman (Spitamanes) and Oxyartes, as well as cavalry units from Sogdiana and the Dahae nomadic units. Before he could engage the Macedonians, however, Bessus was arrested by two of his subordinates, Spitaman and Dataphernes, who contacted Alexander and negotiated the process of handing over the ill-fated governor to the Macedonian conqueror (Arrian: 3.30). According to Arrian, when Alexander saw Bessus, he asked the former Bactrian governor why he had treated Darius III, “his king, kinsman, and benefactor, so shamefully, first seizing him, then hurrying him off in chains, and finally murdering him” (Arrian: 3.30). Bessus reportedly responded that his treatment of Darius “was not his alone: everyone close to Darius at that time had shared in it,” and their objective was simply “to win Alexander’s favor and so save their lives” (Arrian: 3.30). Alexander refused to spare Bessus’s life. Bessus’s “nose and the tips of his ears” were cut off before he was executed (Arrian: 4.7).
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