The Persian Empire

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  The fall of the Arsacid dynasty in 224 also sealed the fate of the semi-independent kingdom of Elymais. In 221 Ardashir, a Persian vassal who ruled in Fars in southern Iran, revolted against his overlord, the Arsacid monarch Artabanus IV. The last semi-independent ruler of the Elymaeans, Orodes, was asked by the Arsacid monarch to quell Ardashir’s rebellion. When the battle was joined, Ardashir defeated Orodes and occupied Elymais and its major cities. Elymais lost its independence and was incorporated into the newly emerging Sasanian Empire. The new Sasanian monarchy founded by Ardashir reversed the decentralized political system, which prevailed during the long reign of the Arsacid dynasty. With centralization of absolute power in the hands of Ardashir and his successors, semi-independent kingdoms and their ruling families, including Elymais, lost their autonomy.

  See also: K&Q, Arsacid/Parthian: Artabanus IV; Mithridates I; K&Q, Sasanian: Ardashir I; Peoples: Arsacids

  Further Reading

  Diodorus Siculus. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. London: William Heinemann, 1933.

  Hansman, John F. “Elymais.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1998, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/elymais.

  Hansman, John F. “The Great Gods of Elymais.” In Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce, 229–246. Acta Iranica 24. Paris, 1985.

  Hansman, John F. “Coins and Mints of Ancient Elymais.” Iran 28 (1990): 5–10.

  Henning, W. B. “Monuments and Inscriptions of Tang-e Sarvak.” Asia Major (1952): 151–178.

  Justin. The History of the World. Translated by G. Turnbull. London, 1746.

  Kent, Roland G. Old Persian. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1950.

  Sellwood, David. “Minor States in Southern Iran.” In Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 3(I), edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 299–321. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. London: William Heinemann, 1930.

  Fars (Parsa, Persis)

  A region as well as a province in present-day southern Iran that served as the birthplace for two of ancient Iran’s ruling dynasties, namely the Achaemenids (r. 550–330 BCE) and the Sasanians (r. 224–651 CE). The name of the province was Parsa in Old Persian. Before the establishment of the Persian Achaemenid state, much of western Fars was ruled by the Elamites. In the first half of the sixth century BCE, small kingdoms were emerging. One of these was the kingdom of Anshan. In his clay cylinder, Cyrus II the Great did not call himself the king of Parsa or Persia but rather the ruler of Anshan. He also stated that his father Cambyses (Kambujiya), his grandfather Cyrus I (Kurush), and his great-grandfather Teispes (Chishpish) were also all kings of Anshan. During the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, Fars became the home of Iranian groups who gradually displaced the indigenous Elamite population and established their own kingdoms. The kingdom of Anshan, which was ruled by Cyrus II the Great, his father Cambyses I, and his grandfather Cyrus I was located in Fars. These kings of Anshan were the vassals of the Medes who ruled their empire from Hagmatana (Greek: Ecbatana) in present-day western Iran. During the reign of Cyrus II, the Persians expanded their small kingdom and established a powerful state, which came to be known in history as the Achaemenid Empire. In creating this empire, Cyrus defeated the Medes, the Lydians, and the Babylonians. Though he spent much of his reign in military campaigns, Cyrus frequently returned to Fars. He built a capital city for his empire at Pasargadae with palaces, mansions, and gardens. Today, the most well-preserved structure of ancient Iran is Cyrus’s simple and majestic tomb at Pasargadae. Though the Achaemenid king Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE) moved the capital of the empire from Pasargadae to Susa and Ecbatana, the Persian kings returned to their home province on a regular basis. Darius I built a ceremonial capital in Fars, called Persepolis by the Greeks. Darius’s successors added new palaces and audience halls to Persepolis. Achaemenid monarchs also held their investiture ceremony at Pasargadae. The tombs of all Achaemenid kings starting with Darius I were either at Naqsh-e Rostam near Persepolis or at Persepolis itself. Another impressive structure, the tower-shaped Ka’ba-ye Zardosht (the Ka’ba of Zoroaster), was also probably built during the reign of the Achaemenid kings at Naqsh-e Rostam, opposite the royal tombs.

  Fars was invaded and conquered by Alexander the Macedon and his armies, who looted Persepolis and set fire to its magnificent buildings. During the reign of the Seleucid dynasty, which came to rule Iran after 305 BCE, Fars had its own governors, who ruled as the vassals of the Seleucid monarchs and carried the title frataraka. Because the capital of the Seleucid state was Antioch in Syria (present-day southern Turkey), the rulers of Fars enjoyed a great deal of autonomy in administering their province, including the right to mint their own coins. The “two small hoards of coins” found through excavations at Pasargadae “have coins of Seleucus I but no later Seleucids, while the coins from Persepolis have only one Seleucid example but many frataraka coins” (Frye: 159). If we “follow the evidence of coins alone we could say that after Seleucus I, in Persis we find only local dynasts who issued coins” (Frye: 160). In 209, the Seleucid monarch Antiochus III embarked on an eastern campaign to reestablish his authority over Iran. One of the principal goals of this campaign was to neutralize the threat posed by the newly emerging Arsacid state, which had declared its independence in Parthia in present-day northeastern Iran. Antiochus led his army into Iran and attacked one of the capitals of the Arsacid dynasty at Hecatompylos or Sad Darvazeh (City of a Hundred Gates) in present-day Shahr-i Qumis near Damghan in northern Iran. The Parthians made a tactical retreat. They acknowledged Seleucid sovereignty and agreed to withdraw from some of their newly conquered territories. Aside from the Parthians, Antiochus also attempted to neutralize the threat posed by Euthydemus, the ruler of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom based in present-day northern Afghanistan. As with the Parthians, this campaign also resulted in limited success. A Seleucid army failed to capture Bactria, and in return for accepting the nominal sovereignty of the Seleucid king, Euthydemus was allowed to retain his position and title. From Bactria, Antiochus crossed the Hindu Kush mountain range and entered the Kabul Valley in present-day Afghanistan. He then moved on to Arachosia (present-day Qandahar in southern Afghanistan) and, marching through the southeastern Iranian regions of Drangiana (Sistan-Baluchistan) and Carmania (Kerman), reached Fars. Having reestablished a network of vassal kingdoms in Iran, Antiochus assumed the Persian Achaemenid title “Great King.” His Greek subjects honored him with the title “Antiochus the Great.”

  The ancient ruins of Persepolis on the plain of Marvdasht north of the city of Shiraz. Persepolis served as one of the most important ceremonial, political, and administrative centers of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty beginning in the reign of Darius I. (Jasmina/Dreamstime.com)

  The Seleucid rule in Iran came to an end after the Arsacid monarch Mithridates I (r. 171–139/138 BCE) began his ambitious campaign of conquest. First, Mithridates defeated the armies of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom and seized “the satrapy Turiva and that of Aspionus” (Strabo: 11.11.2). Next, Mithridates I pushed westward and conquered Media sometime in either 148 or 147 BCE. The Parthian armies then moved into Mesopotamia and captured Babylonia, including the city of Seleucia, by 141 BCE. The Arsacid forces then continued their military operations in southwestern Iran and southern Mesopotamia, seizing Elymais in present-day southwestern Iran and capturing the important city of Susa, which had served for nearly two centuries as the capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. After converting his Parthian kingdom into an empire, Mithridates crowned himself as the king of kings at Seleucia-on-Tigris. It was most probably during this time that the Parthian capital was also transferred from Nisa in present-day southern Turkmenistan to Ctesiphon, south of today’s Baghdad in southern Iraq. The impressive victories of Mithridates I forced the Seleucid monarch Demetrius II to respond by attacking Mesopotamia and Iran. By this time, however, the power and prestige of the Seleucid state had suffered significantly as a result of continuous campaigns against the Pt
olemaic state in Egypt and the humiliating defeat it had suffered at the hands of Roman armies in 190 BCE. The campaigns of Demetrius II against Mithridates I proved to be disastrous for the Seleucid monarch, who was defeated and captured by a Parthian army in 139 BCE. It was most probably during the reign of Mithridates II that the Arsacids imposed their nominal sovereignty over Fars, which continued to be ruled by its own local kings. The Arsacids allowed the provinces of their empire to be ruled by local dynasts as long as they accepted the suzerainty of the Arsacid king. By the first century CE, the dynasty of fratarakas in Fars had either changed or they had adopted the new title “shah.” The first ruler to have adopted the title “shah” was a certain Darius (Frye: 271).

  In the third century CE Ardashir, the governor of Istakhr, a district in Fars, and a vassal of the ruling Arsacid dynasty revolted against the Parthians. After defeating and killing the last Arsacid monarch, Artabanus IV, on the battlefield, Ardashir founded the Sasanian dynasty in 224 CE. As with the Achaemenids, the Sasanians did not rule their empire from Fars. The capital of the empire was Ctesiphon in present-day southern Iraq. As testified by numerous rock reliefs, inscriptions, and buildings they left behind, however, Fars played an important role in the dynastic identity and ceremonies of the Sasanian kings. Ardashir preserved Istakhr as the most important urban center of Fars province. He built several major buildings in the southern part of the province. The rock relief celebrating his victory over Artabanus IV was also placed in Naqsh-e Rostam next to the tombs of the four Achaemenid kings Darius I, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II. Ardashir’s son Shapur also had his own rock reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam, the most impressive being the relief celebrating his victory over the Roman emperor Valerian. Shapur I also had a long inscription in three languages—Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek—incised on the walls of Ka’ba-ye Zardosht.

  See also: Ancient Cities: Pasargadae; Persepolis; K&Q, Achaemenid: Cyrus II the Great; Darius I; K&Q, Sasanian: Ardashir I; Shapur I

  Further Reading

  Barthold, W. An Historical Geography of Iran. Translated by Svat Soucek. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

  Curtis, John. Ancient Persia. London: British Museum Press, 1989.

  Frye, Richard N. “The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 116–180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Frye, Richard Nelson. The History of Ancient Iran. München: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1984.

  Gropp, Gerd. “Kaʿba-ye Zardošt.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kaba-ye-zardost.

  Hermann, G., and V. S. Curtis. “Sasanian Rock Reliefs.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2002, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-rock-reliefs.

  Kent, Roland G. Old Persian. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1950.

  Markwart, J. A Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Eranshahr: Pahlavi Text, Version and Commentary. Edited by G. Messina. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1931.

  Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. London: William Heinemann, 1930.

  Stronach, David. “Pasargadae.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2, edited by Ilya Gershevitch, 838–855. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

  Stronach, David. Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

  Tabari. Tarikh-e Tabari, Vol. 2. Translated from Arabic into Persian by Abol Qassem Payandeh. Tehran: Asatir Publications, 1984.

  Von Gall, Hubertus. “Naqš-e Rostam.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/naqs-e-rostam.

  Hyrcania

  Hyrcania (Old Persian: Varkana; New Persian: Gorgan or “land of wolves”) was an Iranian-populated region north of the Alborz mountain range on the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea. In classical sources, the Caspian Sea was at times referred to as the Hyrcanian Sea. Because of its strategic location, Hyrcania was viewed as an important region by the dynasties that ruled Greater Iran in the pre-Islamic era. The province consisted of two distinct climatic zones: the rain forest of the Alborz northern slopes and the Gorgan plain, well watered, fertile, and close to the mountains but passing into increasingly arid steppe as the distance from the foothills increases. In his Geography, Strabo described Hyrcania as a large, wooded, and “exceedingly fertile” province that was “traversed by the rivers Ochus and Oxus” (Strabo: 11.7.2–3). The province was “distinguished by notable cities,” among which were “Talabroce, Samariane, Carta, and the royal residence Tape,” which was situated “slightly above the sea and at a distance of one thousand four hundred stadia from the Caspian Gates” (Strabo: 11.7.2). Hyrcania was rich with oak trees, grain, and honey as well as a wide variety of animal species, including Hyrcanian tigers.

  Hyrcania was an important region within the Persian Achaemenid Empire. In his inscription at Bisotun near Kermanshah in western Iran, the Achaemenid monarch Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE) did not list Varkana (Hyrcania) as one of the provinces of his empire, but he mentioned it as a region that had revolted against him, joining Parthia (Old Persian: Parthava), which was listed as one of the provinces of the Achaemenid Empire (Kent: 122–124). This has led scholars of ancient Iran to conclude that Hyrcania was a subprovince of Parthia, a region corresponding with present-day northeastern Iran or, more precisely, the northern and western regions of Khorasan. According to Darius I, Parthia and Hyrcania revolted and joined a certain Phraortes (Fravartish) who had raised the flag of rebellion in Media (Kent: 124). Darius’s father Vishtaspa (Hystaspes), who at the time was stationed in Parthia, fought the rebels in two separate battles and finally managed to suppress them (Kent: 124–127). This passage indicates that Hyrcania was directly influenced by events in Parthia to the east and Media to the southwest. Hyrcanian units fought in the Achaemenid armies. Herodotus mentions the Hyrcanians as one of the groups who fought in the armies of Xerxes I when the Persian monarch invaded Greece. Their commander was a certain Megapanus, “who afterwards became the governor of Babylon” (Herodotus: 7.62). Some Hyrcanian army officers reached the highest post in the Achaemenid army and the Achaemenid court. One Hyrcanian officer named Artabanus, who enjoyed the confidence of Xerxes I and served as the captain of the royal guard, killed his royal master in 465. Artabanus organized the assassination plot with support and assistance from Mithridates, the eunuch “who was the king’s chamberlain and enjoyed his supreme confidence” (Diodorus Siculus: XI.69.1–6). After murdering Xerxes, Artabanus told the king’s second son, Artaxerxes, that his older brother, Darius, had killed their father. Artaxerxes believed Artabanus’s claim and ordered the execution of his brother. Artabanus planned to assassinate the new king and seize the throne for himself, but Artaxerxes I discovered the plot and killed Artabanus.

  Given the strategic importance of the region, Achaemenid kings appointed members of the royal family as governors of Hyrcania. For example, Ochus, who would rule the Achaemenid Empire as Darius II (r. 423–404 BCE), initially served as the satrap (governor) of Hyrcania during the reign of his father, Artaxerxes I (r. 465–424 BCE). Hyrcanian units continued to serve an important role in the Achaemenid armies. Hyrcanian cavalry units are mentioned in the armies of Darius III as he fought Alexander the Macedon. According to Curtius, Hyrcanians “had mustered a total of 6,000 horsemen of excellent quality” in the first battle between Darius III and Alexander at Issus in 333 BCE (Quintus Curtius Rufus: 3.2.6). They were also present at the Battle of Arbela, which was fought between Darius III and Alexander on October 1, 331 BCE, in present-day northern Iraq (Quintus Curtius Rufus: 3.9.5). The Greek author Arrian also mentions the Hyrcanian, Parthian, and Tapurian cavalry units in the armies of Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela or Arbela. These forces were under the command of the governor of Parthia and Hyrcania, Phrataphernes (Arrian: 3.8, 3.11). After the defeat of the Achaemenid army
at Arbela in 331 BCE, Alexander seized Susa and Persepolis. In pursuit of Darius III who had sought refuge in Ecbatana, Alexander advanced to Media, but by the time he arrived at Persia’s summer capital, Darius III had fled the city. Alexander’s next targets were Hyrcania and Parthia. In his account of Alexander’s campaigns, Arrian described Hyrcania as a country that “lies on the left of the road to Bactria,” with one side of it “bounded by high wooded hills” and its plains extending to the Caspian Sea, also called the Hyrcanian Sea (Arrian: 3.23, 5.25). As Alexander entered the province, 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 to the Macedonian conqueror (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 Gorgan, formerly known as Astarabad (Arrian: 3.23–3.26). Alexander was so intrigued by the Hyrcanian Sea (Caspian Sea) that he ordered one of his commanders to build warships from timber in the hills of Hyrcania so he could determine “what other sea it was connected with,” whether “it joined the Black Sea, or whether it was merely a gulf of the great Indian Ocean . . .” (Arrian: 7.16).