The History of Antiquity Volume V Part 2

28), we have definite information of the pressure of these nations on Parthia, Margiana, and Bactria. When freed from the attacks of the Seleucids on the west, the Arsacids had to defend the east of the kingdom. Phraates II. and Artaba.n.u.s II. fell in battle against the nomads; Mithridates II. succeeded in protecting Parthia, but about the year 100 B.C. the Sacae were able to force a way through Bactria. They possessed themselves of the best land in the east of Iran, the valleys of the Hilmend (p. 7), bequeathed their name to the country (Sikashtan, Sejestan), and from the valley of the Cabul extended their dominion beyond the Indus. The white Huns, or Yuechis, followed the Sacae; and they also reached the Indus. Is there any reason to doubt the Avesta that even before the Medes and Cyrus the princes of Bactria and Sogdiana were occupied with beating back the tribes of the steppes?

In ancient times, as Strabo tells us, the Bactrians and Sogdiani were little removed from wandering shepherds. The Avesta exhibits them in close connection with horses. The names compounded with _acpa_ (horse) are common; Kerecacpa, Aurvatacpa, Vistacpa, Haechatacpa, Jamacpa, Pourushacpa. Of Zariacpa and the Zariacpians we have already spoken. The most important source of wealth must have consisted in horses, for which the mountains supplied ample pasture. The horse-sacrifice is the chief sacrifice of the Avesta. One hundred horses were equal to 1000 oxen, and 10,000 head of small cattle. We found that Bactria could furnish the last Darius with 30,000 cavalry, and the horse was the symbol of Bactria on the coins of the Greek princes of the land (p. 27).

From all these indications we may a.s.sume that when the Arians had settled in Margiana, Bactria, and Sogdiana, and agriculture became of importance beside the breeding of cattle, the necessity of protection against the migratory tribes of the endless plains stretching to the north, created among the Arians a warlike n.o.bility who took upon themselves the duty of defence. The valley of the Zarefshan (Sogdiana), the terrace of Bactria, the region of Merv, became in the hands of the Arians advanced posts of civilisation in the desert. If Western Iran was protected in the north by the Alps of Aderbeijan and the Caspian Sea against attacks from that quarter, Eastern Iran lay open to the nomads of the steppes, and had nothing but arms to defend its cultivated lands.

We have already seen that Bactria even in the sixth century had pa.s.sed beyond the earliest stages of civilisation (p. 24). But even a less degree of prosperity was sufficient to excite the sons of the desert to invasion. Hence we may a.s.sume that the incursions and raids of the nomads of the steppes began with the increase of the flocks and the prosperity of agriculture in the valleys of Merv, Bactria, and Sogdiana.

The increasing severity of these attacks compelled the Bactrian soldiery to collect their forces for more successful resistance, and to place the best warriors at the head of the community. Thus it was not by spontaneous development, but rather by the opposition to the nations of the steppes, that the north-east of Iran first outgrew the tribal life, and became transformed into a larger state. Of this kingdom Aurvatacpa and Vistacpa became the rulers; in the Avesta they are distinguished from the Paradhatas and from Kava Kavata, Kava Uca, and Kava Hucrava, by a new addition to the name and other peculiar traits, and form a third group. The progress of our investigation will show that the formation of this Bactrian kingdom cannot be placed later than 1100 B.C.; the date of Vistacpa must be put about 1000 B.C., and it was the successors of Vistacpa who sent to Shalmanesar II. the tribute of camels with two humps, and yaks (about 850 B.C.), who found themselves menaced once more by the advances of Tiglath Pilesar II. to Arachosia in the year 745 B.C., and at length succ.u.mbed to Cyrus. We shall find that this kingdom was not without its warlike races and priestly families, that Zariacpa and Bactria were the centres of it, and that the sovereigns attained despotic power. Yet the old warlike families must have preserved a certain importance under the monarchy, unless they regained it when lost under the viceroys of the Achaemenids. It was the chieftains of the Bactrians whom Alexander summoned to Zariacpa, and who with the Sogdiani at their side took the lead in resistance. The most powerful of them stubbornly defended their rocky citadels against the Macedonians.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Polyb. fragm. 34 f.; below, p. 26.

[27] Above, p. 6; Vol. III. p. 3, "Zikruti in rugged Media I added to the land of a.s.syria;" _ib._ p. 4.

[28] Vol. III. p. 77.

[29] Herod. 1, 153, 177, 201, 204.

[30] Strabo, p. 517; Arrian, "Anab." 4, 23; Plin. "H. N." 6, 18; Ptolem.

6, 12.

[31] Ctes. fragm. Pers. c. 12.

[32] Behist. 1, 6; Persep. 25; Naksh-i-Rustem, 12-14.

[33] Herod. 3, 91, 92.

[34] Vol. I. p. 285. The amount is about 2096 thalers.

[35] Behist. 2, 14-16; 3, 10-12.

[36] Herod. 7, 64, 82; 9, 113.

[37] Herod. 8, 93.

[38] Diod. 11, 69; Ctes. Pers. ecl. 31.

[39] Arrian, "Anab." 3, 21.

[40] Arrian, _loc. cit._ 3, 29.

[41] Justin. 41, 4.

[42] As was shown in Vol. IV. p. 278, the Vishnu Purana represents the sacrificial horse of Pushpamitra, who sat on the throne of Magadha between 178 and 142 B.C. (Vol. IV. p. 550), to have been carried off by an army of Yavanas on the right bank of the Indus, and then restored.

The dominion of the Graeco-Bactrian princes in the East existed from 200 to 150 B.C.

[43] Strabo, p. 516. I need not prove that [Greek: Iomanes] must be read here for [Greek: Isamos], or that [Greek: Saraostou paralia] is Surashtra; cf. Wilson, "Ariana antiq." p. 281. Apollodotus, Apaladata on the Arian legends of his coins, is no doubt the Bhagadatta of the Mahabharata, just as the Dattamitra there mentioned is Demetrius; Vol.

IV. p. 80, _n_. Among the Indians Menander appears in the form Milinda.

[44] In the year 1843 there were about 1000 Guebre families in Yezd, and a hundred in Kerman. Westergaard, "Avesta," 1, 21: the persecution of 1848 considerably reduced their numbers.

[45] Haug, "Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary," pp. 80, 81.

[46] "Vendid." 1, 73-76.

[47] "Vendid." 1, 46.

[48] "Vendid." 19, 130; 1, 50.

[49] Burnouf, "Jour. Asiat." 1845, pp. 287, 288. It seems to me doubtful whether we should look for Airyana Vaeja on the sources of the Oxus.

The statement in the Bundehesh that Airyana Vaeja was situated beside Atropatene is, however, of very little weight against the fact that the Arians of East Iran are nearest to the Arians of India. I shall return to this point below. The remark in Stepha.n.u.s, "[Greek: Ariania], a nation among the Cadusians," would be of some importance if it were taken from Apollodorus of Artemita, and not from the grammarian of that name. The district of Arran on the Kur may possibly be meant.

[50] "Vendid." 1, 14-18.

[51] "Vendid." 1, 30, 42.

[52] "Vendid." 1, 60.

[53] "Yacna," 9, 4.

[54] "Vendid." 2, 1-21, after Karl Geldner's translation. [Cf.

Darmesteter's translation in M. Muller's 'Sacred Books of the East,'

Vol. IV.]

[55] "Vendid." 2, 21-43.

[56] "Aban Yasht," 9; "Farvardin Yasht," 131; "Bahram Yasht," 40; "Ram Yasht," 23.

[57] "Farvardin Yasht," 131 ff.

[58] "Yacna," 9, 30; "Vendid." 20, 11 ff.

[59] "Vendid." 20; "Yacna," 9, 32, 39; "Ram Yasht," 7, 28; "Farvardin Yasht," 136; "Zamyad Yasht," 41 ff. According to the "Mainyo-i-Khard,"

Kerecacpa, besides slaying the serpent cruvar, slew the wolf Kapod, the water demon Gandarsi, the bird Kamak, and kept back much oppression from the world. West, "Mainyo-i-Khard," c. 27.

[60] Justi, "Handbuch," _s. voc._

[61] "Farvardin Yasht," 131.

[62] "Farvardin Yasht," 132; "Zamyad Yasht," 71.

[63] "Gosh Yasht," 18; "Ashi Yasht," 38.

[64] "Aban Yasht," 49; "Gosh Yasht," 18; "Ashi Yasht," 38; "Afrin Zartusht," 7; "Zamyad Yasht," 77; "Ram Yasht," 32.

[65] "Aban Yasht," 76, 98; "Ashi Yasht," 46; "Farvardin Yasht," 102; "Ram Yasht," 36.

[66] "Aban Yasht," 109, 117; "Farvardin Yasht," 38; "Gosh Yasht," 29, 30; "Ashi Yasht," 50, 81; "Zamyad Yasht," 87.

[67] "Aban Yasht," 104-106; "Farvardin Yasht," 142; "Gosh Yasht," 26; "Ram Yasht," 36.