Bactria
The name of an ancient country in Central Asia, Bactria was the home of Iranian-speaking people from about the eighth century BCE and is thought to have been the birthplace of Zoroaster, the prophet of Persian religion. Bactria lay between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Dar'ya River, in today's Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its capital city, Bactra, was situated in northern Afghanistan, but since the nineteenth century the site has been no more than a village near the modern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Despite its rugged, mountainous, and desert terrain, Bactria was strategically located on the Silk Road linking Europe and China via Western Asia. To control this lucrative trade and to try to subdue the troublesome nomads inhabiting Bactria, Cyrus the Great (c. 585–c. 529 BCE) incorporated Bactria and the nomadic Bactrians into the vast Persian empire that once stretched from Egypt to India. Alexander of Macedon (356–323 BCE), during his conquest of the Persian empire, took Bactria in 328 BCE and ordered the execution of Bessus (d. c. 328 BCE), the ruler of Bactria. A Persian who had been the satrap of Bactria and Sogdia, Bessus fought with the Persians against Alexander's forces but plotted the murder of the last Persian monarch, Darius III (d. 330 BCE), and tried unsuccessfully to usurp the Persian throne.
Alexander left a small Greek garrison in Bactria and installed a Greek governor, before continuing to India on his campaigns. For the next half-century, Bactria was a province of the Seleucid empire, ruled by Alexander's Macedonian Greek successors, but during the reign of the satrap Diodotus I Soter (reigned c. 256–235 BCE), Bactria revolted and became independent.
Bactria remained an island of Greek culture in Central Asia and during its zenith controlled a significant part of what is now Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Around 135 BCE, however, an invasion of Saka nomads from the steppes overran the country. Kushan nomads, from the eastern steppes, in turn conquered the Saka and introduced their Buddhism to Bactria. By around 55 BCE, Bactria had disappeared as an independent political entity and was home to various nomadic groups whose loyalty did not extend beyond the borders of their lands.
The region of Bactria then became known as Balkh; it fell to the Muslims in the seventh century, and thus Islam spread through the area. The violent history of Bactria, however, even today continues to influence the politics of the region.
Further Reading
Holt, Frank Lee. (1999) Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria. Hellenistic Culture and Society, 32. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Rawlinson, H. G. ([1909] 1978) Bactria, from the Earliest Times to the Extinction of Bactrio-Greek Rule in the Punjab. Reprint ed. Delhi: Bharatiya.
Sarianidi, Viktor Ivanovich. (1985) The Golden Hoard of Bactria: From the Tillya-Tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan. New York: Abrams.
Tarn W. W. (1997) The Greeks in Bactria and India. 3d ed., rev. Chicago: Ares.
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