Bactria, or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River and north of the mountains of the Hindu Kush, an area within the north of modern Afghanistan. Bactria was strategically located south of Sogdia and the western part of the Pamir Mountains. The extensive mountain ranges acted as protective "walls" on three sides, with the Pamir on the north and the Hindu Kush on south forming a junction with the Karakoram range towards the east.
This article concerns the period 329 BC – 320 BC.
Year 325 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Camillus and Scaeva. The denomination 325 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
A satrap was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. A satrapy is the territory governed by a satrap.
Nearchus or Nearchos was one of the Greek officers, a navarch, in the army of Alexander the Great. He is known for his celebrated expeditionary voyage starting from the Indus River, through the Persian Gulf and ending at the mouth of the Tigris River following the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, in 326–324 BC.
The wars of Alexander the Great were a series of conquests that were carried out by Alexander III of Macedon from 336 BC to 323 BC. They began with battles against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, then under the rule of Darius III of Persia. After Alexander's chain of victories against Achaemenid Persia, he began a campaign against local chieftains and warlords that stretched from Greece to as far as the region of Punjab in South Asia. At the time of his death, he ruled over most regions of Greece and the conquered Achaemenid Empire ; he did not, however, manage to conquer the Indian subcontinent in its entirety according to his initial plan. Despite his military accomplishments, Alexander did not provide any stable alternative to the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, and his untimely death threw the vast territories he conquered into a series of civil wars, commonly known as the Wars of the Diadochi.
Arachosia, or Harauvatis, was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire. Mainly centred around the Arghandab River, a tributary of the Helmand River, it extended as far east as the Indus river. The satrapy's Persian-language name is the etymological equivalent of Sárasvatī in Vedic Sanskrit. In Greek, the satrapy's name was derived from Arachōtós, the Greek-language name for the Arghandab River. Around 330 BCE, Alexander the Great commissioned the building of Alexandria Arachosia as Arachosia's new capital city under the Macedonian Empire. It was built on top of an earlier Persian military fortress after Alexander's conquest of Persia, and is the site of today's Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Gedrosia is the Hellenized name of the part of coastal Balochistan that roughly corresponds to today's Makran. In books about Alexander the Great and his successors, the area referred to as Gedrosia runs from the Indus River to the north-eastern edge of the Strait of Hormuz. It is directly to the south of the countries of Bactria, Arachosia and Drangiana, to the east of the country of Carmania and due west of the Indus River which formed a natural boundary between it and Western India. The native name of Gedrosia might have been Gwadar as there are two towns by that name and a bay in central Makran.
Paropamisadae or Parapamisadae was a satrapy of the Alexandrian Empire in modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, which largely coincided with the Achaemenid province of Parupraesanna. It consisted of the districts of Sattagydia, Gandhara, and Oddiyana. Paruparaesanna is mentioned in the Akkadian language and Elamite language versions of the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great, whereas in the Old Persian version it is called Gandāra. The entire satrapy was subsequently ceded by Seleucus I Nicator to Chandragupta Maurya following a treaty.
Phrataphernes was a Persian who held the government of Parthia and Hyrcania, under the king Darius III Codomannus, and joined that monarch with the contingents from the provinces subject to his rule, shortly before the battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. He afterwards accompanied the king on his flight into Hyrcania.
Media is a region of north-western Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Medes. During the Achaemenid period, it comprised present-day Iranian Azerbaijan, Iranian Kurdistan and western Tabaristan. As a satrapy under Achaemenid rule, it would eventually encompass a wider region, stretching to southern Dagestan in the north. However, after the wars of Alexander the Great, the northern parts were separated due to the Partition of Babylon and became known as Atropatene, while the remaining region became known as Lesser Media.
The Partition of Babylon was the first of the conferences and ensuing agreements that divided the territories of Alexander the Great. It was held at Babylon in June 323 BC. Alexander’s death at the age of 32 had left an empire that stretched from Greece all the way to India. The issue of succession resulted from the claims of the various supporters of Philip Arrhidaeus, and the as-of-then unborn child of Alexander and Roxana, among others. The settlement saw Arrhidaeus and Alexander’s child designated as joint kings with Perdiccas serving as regent. The territories of the empire became satrapies divided between the senior officers of the Macedonian army and some local governors and rulers. The partition was solidified at the further agreements at Triparadisus and Persepolis over the following years and began the series of conflicts that comprise the Wars of the Diadochi.
Maka was a satrapy (province) of the Achaemenid Empire and later a satrapy of the Parthian and Sassanian empires, corresponding to Greek Gedrosia, in the barren coastal areas of modern Pakistan and Iranian Baluchistan. Alternatively, it may have corresponded to modern day Bahrain, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, plus the northern half of Oman.
Ionia, known in Old Persian as Yauna, was a region within the satrapy of Lydia, with its capital at Sardis, within the First Persian Empire. The first mention of the Yauna is at the Behistun inscription.
Carmania is a historical region that approximately corresponds to the current province of Kerman, Iran, and was a province of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empire. The region bordered Persia proper in the west, Gedrosia in the south-east, Parthia in the north, and Aria to the northeast. Carmania was considered part of Ariana.
Skudra was a province (satrapy) of the Persian Achaemenid Empire in Europe between 510s BC and 479 BC. Its name is attested in Persian and Egyptian inscriptions (an Egyptian record of c. 498–497 BC, and a list on the tomb of Darius the Great at Naqsh-e Rustam, c. 486 BC. It is believed to have comprised the lands now known as Thrace and Macedon.
The Seleucid–Mauryan War was fought between 305 and 303 BC. It started when Seleucus I Nicator of the Seleucid Empire sought to retake the Indian satrapies of the Macedonian Empire, which had been occupied by Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, of the Maurya Empire.
Around 535 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great initiated a protracted campaign to absorb parts of India into his nascent Achaemenid Empire. In this initial incursion, the Persian army annexed a large region to the west of the Indus River, consolidating the early eastern borders of their new realm. With a brief pause after Cyrus' death around 530 BCE, the campaign continued under Darius the Great, who began to re-conquer former provinces and further expand the Achaemenid Empire's political boundaries. Around 518 BCE, the Persian army pushed further into India to initiate a second period of conquest by annexing regions up to the Jhelum River in what is today known as Punjab. At peak, the Persians managed to take control of most of modern-day Pakistan and incorporate it into their territory.
Gandāra, or Gadāra in Achaemenid inscriptions was one of the easternmost provinces of the Achaemenid Empire in South Asia, following the Achaemenid invasion of the Indus Valley. It appears in various Achaemenid inscriptions such as the Behistun Inscription, or the DNa inscription of Darius the Great.
The Gedrosian campaign of Cyrus the Great was a military expedition of the Achaemenids in the modern-day Balochistan region against the Hindus or Indians.
