Would-be imperialists beware: You gotta be careful when you go to pick a fight with a country possessed of a 5000-year history, for such a nation will inevitably have in its historical record an example of every kind of victory and every kind of loss, and every kind of human triumph and failing in between. In these countries, ideas like a Declaration of Human Rights aren't imports; they're the original products of ancestors and fellow countrymen. Been through a few golden ages, followed by periods of decline and ruin? Check. Dealt with foreign aggressors and internal revolt? Check. Been led by people that history remembers as "the Great," as well as by guys so incompetent that they make George W. Bush look adequate? Check.

Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we'll take a look at Persia in the Classical Age – and find out that Iran's willingness (and ability) to go toe-to-toe with the West's greatest superpowers is not something that first emerged in the Era of Petroleum. As a courtesy to the neo-imps among us, I should give fair warning: We may also find that the Iranian contemporaries of Rome influenced the makings of our modern world far more than might first seem apparent.

Historiorant: The original Persia series was posted shortly after I started posting on DKos, in February and March, 2006, and wound up consisting of seven diaries that were considerably shorter (and less illustrated) than the present incarnation of a History for Kossacks piece. Accordingly, I've decided to commemorate the occasion of my anniversary with a navel-gazing ceremony, retrofitting some of these earlier diaries into the format that evolved in their wake – such was the case with the episode from two Sundays ago, Ancient Persia.

Apologies for last week's hiatus, btw: early in the evening, I was unable to divert my attention from my beloved New England Patriots, and afterwards, I was preoccupied with bemoaning their fate and rending my garments. – u.m.

Ride of the Horse Archers

When last we gathered for an historiorant, a particularly ambitious (and blithely arrogant) Roman named Crassus had just led tens of thousands of men to their doom in The Imperial Surge of 53 BCE. The people who slaughtered the Romans on the dusty plain of Carrhae (in extreme southeastern Turkey) were the Parthians, descendents of the semi-nomadic Parni tribe that had migrated from their homeland east of the Caspian Sea and adopted many of the ways of the people they found already living in the region of Parthia (northern Iran). The blending of military styles, in particular, made the Parthian 2.0 no slouch on the battlefield; expanding behind armies of highly disciplined horse archers and heavily armored cataphract knights, the Parthians at one point (ca. 100 BCE) dominated an area stretching from Armenia to the borders of India.

In time, the Parthians came to think of themselves as the bloodline-bona fide rulers of Persia, claiming descent from Artaxerxes II (r. 404-358 BCE), and by extension, from Cyrus the Great himself. Basing themselves south of the Caspian Sea and north of the Alborz Mountains, the Parthians created themselves a reborn Achaemenid Dynasty (the line of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes from three centuries before), though some aspects of their culture were a bit Hellenistic in flavor owing to the Seleucids – courtiers spoke Persian and wrote in the Pahlavi script, but Greek was used on coins until the 2^rd century CE – whose 150-year hold on power was weakening around the same time as the Parthians were growing in strength.

The Parthian Dynasty (246 BCE-224 CE) – sometimes called the Arsacid, after one of its founders – established its main capitol at Ctesiphon, just across the river from Seleucia on the Tigris (south of Baghdad, on the west bank); from there, the horsemen proceeded to carve up the prostrate empire of the Seleucids. Under Mithradates (Mehrdad) I (171-138 BCE) and especially under Mithradates II (124-87 BCE), who defeated the Scythians (for a time) and added Armenia to the Parthian domain, the horsemen established an empire that basically defined the eastern edge of Rome's sway. Though the next 300 years saw parts of Mesopotamia occasionally fall to the Parthians, and Ctesiphon to the Romans three times in the 1^st century CE alone (Armenia went back and forth), the Parthians remained strong enough to keep the borders of Rome at the west bank of the Tigris (more or less), where the forts and garrisons the Romans were obligated to maintain proved a constant and costly drain on the resources of the Eternal City.

Zhang Qian in the 2^nd century BCE, as potrayed by a 7^th century CE mural

The Parthians fought along their northern borders, as well, eventually capturing several important cities along the Silk Road. This did two things in particular: it cut off from Western contact Greco-Bactria, the last remaining Hellenistic kingdom in Central Asia, and it brought Iran into almost exclusive contact with China. It seems the Chinese took a shine to Parthian horses - in the late 2^nd century BCE, explorer/conquistador Zhang Qian first brought back word to the Han emperors that there were "Heavenly Horses" to be found on the Iranian Plateau; later he arranged for a trade pact between Parthia and China. By the first century CE, Han cavalry was composed largely of Parthian horses, and their battle tactics showed signs (like a modified Parthian shot) of Persian influence. Some Chinese took a shine to another import from Parthia, as well: around 148 CE, a Parthian nobleman/Bhuddhist missionary (the Bamiyan-Buddha-carving Kushan Empire was Parthia's next-door neighbor to the East) named An Shih Kao established temples around the Han capital of Luoyang, and went on to make the first translations of Buddhist scripture into Chinese.

Weird Historical Sidenote: The Chinese thought very highly indeed of Parthian horses – I'm told another name for them, "Soulun," translates to "vegetarian dragon." There's also a rumor that the horses sweated blood, but stories like that (especially the 2000-year-old ones) are notoriously difficult to verify. Something that is a little easier to establish is that the Scythians dug Parthian horses, too – but usually just the chestnuts and bays. So it is that the Russian Don breed (est. 18^th c. CE) preferred by the Cossacks often shows similar coloration even today.

Weird Historio-Political Parallel: The silk for which Rome was willing to pay dearly had to pass through the lands of a mortal enemy first, and the only reason that enemy didn't cut off trade entirely was that their own economy became increasingly dependent upon the commodity. For the life of me, I can't think of a single modern parallel to this situation – can you? ;-)

The Parthian governmental system was comprised of up to 18 vassal states and a Royal Council of 5 client kings with significant authority to check the power of their liege – the Suren clan, for example, had exclusive crowning rights. The decentralized nature of their government both helped and hurt the Parthians: they could (and did) survive multiple falls of their capital by simply relocating, but like all feudal systems, conflicts resulted when lords began to acquire power that rivaled that of the king. Such was the case in the early 3^rd century CE, when the descendents of a priest named Sassan began dethroning and usurping other local lords in the region of Persis (a/k/a Pars; southern Iran).

An Empire of the Old School

Persia proper lay within the domain of the Parthians, but it was administered in the now-traditional satrap-based form of feudalism practiced in this region since Cyrus handed out his first political favor. Like all feudal systems, the Persian satraps had to constantly be wary of the local lords and chieftains who administered the various districts within their satrapy, as a feudal lord's strength is only as great as the sum of his loyal vassals. Turns out that this general rule applied to the Parthians, only they didn't realize it until it was too late.

In 224 CE, Papak (alternate spellings abound), a village leader and the son of Sassan, a priest of the Temple of Anahita, managed to dethrone Artabatus V, ruler of Persia. As Persia was a vassal state to Parthia, this might have caused little concern in Ctesiphon had the ongoing feudal obligations – the ass-kissing, the tax-paying – been met, but neither Papak nor the son who succeeded him, Ardashir, was the sort of guy to content himself with paying tribute to an overlord (actually, Ardashir had an older brother, named Shapur, who probably ascended the throne around 220 CE, but it seems a building collapsed upon him in 222 – u.m.)

For Parthia, the ensuing war was as short as its results were bad; Ctesiphon fell in 226 CE, and the Sassanids assumed the rulership of the empire. They saw themselves as a culture native to Persia, and like the Parthians before them, sought to legitimize their dynasty by claiming descent from the legendary Achaemenian line of Cyrus and Xerxes. From their own past they grabbed the title Shahanshah (“King of Kings)”, and they established their capital upon the site of ancient Gor (modern-day Firouzabad, in southern Iran), which had been destroyed by an Alexander the Great-engineered flood – Ardashir had a tunnel dug through a mountain to drain the lake that still remained.

Historiorant: As I mentioned above, I'm trying to compress those seven earlier diaries into four, so it really doesn't behoove me to be chasing after every shiny historical tidbit that appears along our route, but every once in while, your resident historiorantologist runs into one he can't help but share. Such is the case with Ardashir, founder of the Sassanid Empire – though I'm shortly going to blaze through four hundred years of their rule in just a few paragraphs, the story of their founder is simply too colorful to ignore. It's also quite a work of court history, and will no doubt serve as an invaluable resource after the Bush misadministration is gone and historiogrovelers (the sworn enemy of the historioranter) like Fances Fukuyama seek to tortuously justify the stupid assertions they made at the onset of the Era of Compassionate Conservatism.

The army of the Worm, which had been inside the fortress, completely marched out, and zealously and vehemently struggled and fought with Ardashir's troops, many being killed on both sides. When the army of the Worm came out (of the fortress), it took such a by-road that it became impossible for any of Ardashir's troops to go out (of the camp) or to bring in any food for himself or fodder for his horses, and, (consequently), the satiety of all men and animals was changed into want of food and helplessness.

When Mitrok, son of Anoshepat, an inhabitant of Zarham in Pars, heard that Ardashir was without provision near the capital of the Worm, and obtained no victory over its army; he accoutered his troops and heroes, marched towards the residence of Ardashir, and carried away all the wealth and riches of Ardashir's treasure.

Ardashir, hearing of such violation on the part of Mitrok and other men of Pars, reflected upon it for a while thus: "I ought to postpone the battle with the Worm, and [then] go to fight out a battle with Mitrok." He, (therefore), summoned all his forces back to his quarters, deliberated with their commanders, (first) sought the means of delivering himself and his army, and then sat himself down to eat breakfast.

That very moment a long arrow, dispatched from the fortress, came down and pierced, as far as its feathers, through the (roasted) lamb that was on the table.

On the arrow it was written as follows: "This arrow is darted by the troops of the lord of the glorious Worm; we ought not to kill a great man like you, so we have struck that (roasted) lamb," Ardashir, having observed the state of things, disencamped his army and withdrew from the place.

The army of the Worm hastened after Ardashir, and hemmed in his men again in such a manner that Ardashir's army could not proceed further. So Ardashir [himself] passed [lit. dashed] away singly by the sea-coast.

The Kârnâmag î Ardashîr î Babagân ('Book of the Deeds of Ardashir son of Babag'), Chapter 6

Weird Historical Sidenote: Great story about that "army of the Worm" thing. Seems that once upon time, a maiden found a kerm ("worm") in an apple, and made a pledge to feed and care for it. Since it just so happened to be a lucky worm, this turned out to be a really good decision: soon her father conquered the entire province, which became known as Kerman, or "Worm Province." The family's luck held until Ardashir realized that the worm was their Achilles' Heel, so to speak, and...well, I gotta let The Glory of the Shia World (pub. 1910) and its source, whom the authors describe as no less than the greatest epic poet ever, tell the rest of it:

Consequently he (Ardashir) resolved on a daring stratagem, and, disguising himself as a merchant prince, he presented himself before Haftan Bokht (the King of Kerman) and said, that as he owed all his success in trade to the good fortune of the Worm, he requested the honour of feeding it for three days. This petition was readily granted, and as Firdausi, the greatest epic poet of all the cycles of time, writes:

When their souls were deep steeped in the wine-cup;

Forth fared the Prince with his hosts of the hamlet,

Brought with him copper and brazen cauldron,

Kindled a flaming fire in the white daylight.

So to the Worm at its meal-time was measured

In place of milk and rice much molten metal.

Unto its trench he brought that liquid copper;

Soft from the trench its head the Worm upraised.

Then they beheld its tongue, like brazen cymbal,

Thrust forth to take its food as was its custom.

Into its open jaws that molten metal

Poured he, while, in the trench, helpless the Worm writhed;

Crashed from its throat the sound of fierce explosion,

Such that the trench and whole fort fell a-quaking.

Swift as the wind Ardeshir and his comrades

Hastened with drawn swords, arrows, and maces.

Of the Worm's warders, wrapped in their wine-sleep,

Not one escaped alive from their fierce onslaught.

Then from the Castle-keep raised he the smoke-wreaths

Which his success should tell to his captains.

Hasting to Shahr-gir swift came the sentry,

Crying, "King Ardeshir his task hath finished!"

Quickly the captain then came with his squadrons,

Leading his mail-clad men unto the King's aid.

And in the name of all that's holy, please, please: nobody tell President Bush that the key to conquering Iran lies in finding a gigantic, enchanted worm and pouring molten copper down its throat.

Despite the grandiosity of the title adopted by Sassanid rulers, "king of kings" accurately describes their government, which followed the same basically feudal format as the preceding three Iranian empires. Their aristocracy was an amalgamation of earlier history, too, with nobility comprised of a mix of the leaders of old Parthian clans, Persian aristocratic families, and nobles from subjected territories. The Sassanids imposed a 4-tiered caste system of Priests, Warriors, Secretaries, and Commoners, and sought actively to eradicate Greek influence in Iranian culture. Ardashir, especially, recognized the potent weapon that faith mixed with national pride can be, and he wasn't afraid to play favorites: Zoroastrianism was made the state religion, the Magi were given special privilege, and more than a few marble friezes show Ahuramazda, the supreme deity as spaken of by Zarathustra, conferring the authority to rule upon Ardashir.

The religious fervor of the Sassanids had, as religious fervors tend to, a darker side. . Run-of-the-pew Christians were periodically persecuted – a situation that became worse after Rome converted to Christianity and its practice in the Sassanid Empire became an act of treason. Still, for most of their 4-century reign, the Sassanids practiced religious toleration, bringing their Zoroastrian faith with them as they established trading colonies as far away as India, Vietnam, and Malaysia; other exports include the Cult of Mithras to Rome, where it competed for converts with the early Christians. A notable exception to the general rule of tolerance was made in the case of the prophet Mani,

...who claimed to be both Christ and the Buddha, and was crucified, (ca. 236 CE). Mani preached a Zoroastrian conflict between good and evil, but then (like the Gnostics) regarded matter as evil. Served by a celibate and vegetarian priesthood, Manicheanism spread both East and West. To the East, it was adopted by the Sogdians and Uighurs (under Bugug Khan, 759-780), until the advent of Islâm, and spread all the way to China. Marco Polo's description of a Christian community in China which had actually forgot it was Christian may actually refer to a group of Manicheans.

Media, Persia, Parthia, and Irân

Manicheanism headed West, too, where elements of it can be seen in the religion of the Cathars of southwestern France, whose unique culture and civilization were pretty much wiped out by a deliberate act of genocide emanating from Rome in the early 13^th century.

The Crossroads of Classical Geopolitics

There's not much left of Ctesiphon, the largest city in the world in the 6^th century. Located about 35 km south of Baghdad, people were still fighting one another on the site 14 centuries later: in 1915, the British and Ottomans engaged in a pitched battle amongst the ruins, destroying much of what little remained.

From their position astride the Silk Road, the Sassanids did a masterful job of allowing plenty of trade goods, but precious little knowledge, to pass between Rome and China. They also enriched themselves as middlemen, and availed themselves of all the scientific, cultural, and technological benefits that can accrue to a nexus of world trade. It was during the Sassanid period that close contact with India brought in stories that would eventually find their way into the Thousand Nights and One Night, and there is speculation that the 90-foot spiral Zoroastrian fire altar at Ardashir's new capital was the basis for the design of the Spiral Minaret at the Great Mosque of Samarra. Domestically, the Sassanids were aggressive builders who actively sought to reinvigorate traditional Persian art forms, and cities like Gundishapur, where a university was founded in the 4^th century, were among the greatest centers of learning of their time. As for architecture, the great historiodeity Will Durrant says:

"Sasanian art exported its forms and motifs eastward into India, Turkestan, and China, westward into Syria, Asia Minor, Constantinople, the Balkans, Egypt, and Spain. Probably its influence helped to change the emphasis in Greek art from classic representation to Byzantine ornament, and in Latin Christian art from wooden ceilings to brick or stone vaults and domes and buttressed walls."

Being a neighbor of the Roman Empire wasn't easy for anyone who had the pleasure, but the Sassanids began drawing lines in the sand in the earliest days of their power. Ardashir’s son Shapur antagonized the Romans even further than his father had, by demanding that they relinquish all their territories in Asia – presumably so that the title “King of all Iran and non-Iran” would better fit the new Sassanid ruler – then swiftly invading Mesopotamia. His initial victories were reversed in 243 CE, but the following year, the young emperor Gordian III opened the doors of the Temple of Janus – signifying that Rome was now at war; they'd been closed since 70 CE – for the last time in Roman history, and personally led a disastrous troop surge down the Euphrates. Since I don't want to be accused of mongering conspiracies, I'll defer to Wikipedia for some tidbits on the death of the emperor:

Persian sources claim that a battle was fought (Battle of Misiche) near modern Fallujah (Iraq) and resulted in a major Roman defeat and the death of Gordian III. Roman sources do not mention this battle and suggest that Gordian died far away, upstream of the Euphrates. Although ancient sources often described Philip, who succeeded Gordian as emperor, as having murdered Gordian at Zaitha (Qalat es Salihiyah), the cause of Gordian's death is unknown.

Philip the Arab (r. 244-249 CE), the Praetorian Prefect (recently ascended to his office following the mysterious death of his predecessor), quickly grabbed up the purple robes of the emperor's office, bought off Shapur to the tune of 500,000 denari (he also left behind bunch of legionaries, who were enslaved and compelled to build the city of Bishapur to commemorate the guy who had beaten them), and headed back to Rome to secure his claim in the Senate. Despite Philip's promise of future payments, Shapur soon resumed the war by looting Antioch – which provoked another Mesopotamian troop surge that would end with the first-ever capture of a Roman Emperor in battle.

In 253 CE, Valerian was named Emperor, and he spent the next seven years flitting about the imperial borders, putting out fires where he could. There were Marcomans in the Alps, Visigoths in Thrace, and Sassanids in Syria – and Valerian tried to deal with them all. So it was that in 260 CE, he found himself in Edessa as a Sassanid army surrounded the city. Though he had liberated Antioch (and captured Shapur's harem at one point), things did not turn out so well for Emperor Valerian: he was taken prisoner by Shapur in late 259 or 260 CE, and died without ever again tasting freedom or seeing Rome. Sources vary as to his treatment – some have Valerian being used as a footstool before getting the molten-gold-down-the-gullet treatment, while others say he and his men lived in passable conditions, considering that they'd been enslaved for hard labor, in Bishapur.

Shapur was also busy in the east. He expanded into the Kabul river valley, captured Peshawar, and carried a sacred relic – the Begging-Bowl of the Buddha – back to Istakhr. His son, Shapur II, expanded the empire to the borders of China, then invaded Arabia, prior to settling in for a nice long conflict with the Romans. As one of very few civilizations to whose ruler the Emperor addressed letters "My Brother," the Sassanids were a constant threat on Rome's eastern flank, and over time, their military made adjustments to its composition and tactics based on the Persian threat. The addition of heavily-armored cavalry, for example, was inspired by the cataphracts of Persia – and Roman heavy cavalry is part of what inspired the later development of the European mounted knight.

It Was (mostly) Fun While It Lasted

Bahram Gur and the Indian princess in the black pavilion from a Khamsa (Quintet) by Nizami mid 16th century Safavid dynasty. (Wikipedia Commons)

For three centuries, the Sassanids and Rome parried, with the former enjoying no fewer than two golden ages while the latter succumbed to the inevitable forces of decline and fall. Notable leaders during this long span of time include Bahram V (421-438 CE), who was to go on to enjoy national epic hero status as the lover and hunter Bahram Gur, and Khorsow I (531-579 CE) a/k/a Khosrow Anushirvan (the Just). Treatment of the adherents of non-Zoroastrian faiths varied by ruler, as did the fortunes of war and trade, but the stability imposed the caste system generally helped the subjects of the empire ride out the reign of the occasional poor leader; when the end finally came, it did so during a precipitous quarter-century that saw virtually all of the empires of antiquity knocked back on their heels.

The final war between Rome – now reborn as Byzantium – and Persia started when the Sassanid king (and gargantuan dome-builder; see Ctesiphon pics above) Khosrow II (r. 591-628 CE) invaded Syria and sacked Jerusalem in 614 CE. It is said the Jews there welcomed the Persians, remembering the stories of the wise and merciful Cyrus, and because the Christians in the city were persecuting them. It is also said that the Sassanids carried back to Persia another sacred relic – the True Cross – as plunder from Jerusalem (they give it back in a generation or two). Khosrow went on to take over Egypt and the islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, and even besieged Constantinople for a time, but the slow-moving Byzantine army retaliated forcefully in 627 CE, cutting a broad juggernaut-type swath of destruction through Mesopotamia. Weary of being led by a megalomaniac and humiliated by the advance of Byzantine forces deep into Sassanid territory, the Persian army mutinied and murdered Khosrow in 628 CE.

Notice the dates? Now check them against your Hegira calendar.

After being decisively spanked by the Byzantines, not to mention having their ruler assassinated by his own army, the Sassanids fell into chaos and disunion. They ran through a dozen kings in the last twenty years of the empire, but this was just one of many symptoms of social and economic decline that were ultimately rooted in the vast power of the Zoroastrian state religion. Its rigid system of social stratification was beginning to strain under the weight of taxation – more favors to the priests and the powerful than could be paid for by the plebians – and the common folk were starting to resent the burden. Additionally, since persecution of non-Zoroastrians was sanctioned by the state, the empire could always be counted upon to produce a small-but-virulent undercurrent of seething resentment, just waiting for an opportunity to erupt into rebellion. And finally, that old Persian problem of freedom-minded satraps started cropping up again – the Lakhmids were only the first to assert their independence after the assassination of Khorsow II in 628 CE; other vassal states on the periphery soon followed.

Historiorant:

The original thought was to get all the way through the arrival of Islam in Persia, leaving off at the rise of the Abbasid Dynasty, but that version of the diary wound up at 15 single-spaced pages without pictures. That's a little long, even by my standards – but I gotta think a story like that of Ardashir and the Worm is worth delaying a discussion on the Battle of al-Qadissiyah by a week or so.

Next up, then, will be Islam and Medieval Persia; for this week, let's try'n think of some of the other non-Roman cultures of Classical Antiquity that our Dear Leader has spurned in his tortured interpretation of the historical record – what's the most critical thing he hasn't learned about Han China or Mauryan and Gupta India?, for example. If that seems a little esoteric, then how about this: Had he attended a university whose history professors had sufficient integrity to ensure that he actually earned his degree through study and effort, what lessons about the Parthians and the Sassanids might now be able to inform Bush's decision-making with regard to Iran?

Historically hip entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat can be found at Daily Kos, Never In Our Names, Bits of News, Progressive Historians, and DocuDharma.

Labels: History, History for Kossacks, Iran, Persia, Roman Empire, Silk Road, teaching, Unitary Moonbat, Zoroastrianism

There are two kinds of history going on in the Cave of the Moonbat tonight: that of an ancient Southwest Asian superpower, and the historiography of historioranting itself. I've been doing this pretty-much-weekly history thing for nigh on two years, and with my impending anniversary, I figured now's as good a time as any to go back into the scrolls and update some of those first History for Kossacks – the ones that didn't have any pictures (nor, for that matter, many commenters), were less than half as long as a contemporary HfK, and predate even the word I now use to describe the manner in which I seek to tell tales of the human experience.

So join me, if you will, for a redux of the very first HfK series – a proto-historiorant on Persia, land of the Aryans, now updated to fit the format that evolved in its wake. In addition to new maps, pics, and stage-setting for the impending Islamic invasion in Part II, it never hurts to take a refresher on a land whose history seems to include every major historical figure in the ancient Middle Eastern world, from Alexander to Zoroaster.



Historiorant: The original Persia series was posted on Daily Kos in February and March, 2006, beginning with History for Kossacks: Persia, part I. Though that one looks like it got a decent number of comments, most of them actually consisted of bouts of banter with buhdydharma, so the following 6 installments in the series (with their 7-10 or so comments) were actually more indicative of the real historiorant audience size back then. Thanks to all who've visited the Cave and dropped off recs, comments, mojo, and conversation since those days – no amount of sepia-toned nostalgia makes easier the remembrance of slaved-over diaries plummeting like stones down the "Recent" list, but the kind of support I've received from the community makes all the howling at the wind worth it. Cave-dwellers are the best!


Land of the Aryans

Cast your memory back to high school, to early in your first year of world history. Do you recall your teacher babbling on about the invasion of northern India by a group of tribes known as the Aryans? Or about the Indo-Aryan language they spoke, which became the root tongue of nearly every non-semitic language from India to Portugal? Ever wonder where those guys came from? It might help to reflect on the similarity between the words “Iran” and “Aryan.”
People have been migrating around Central Asia since before the dawn of history (the advance of Writing, if you're playing along on your copy of Civilization IV at home), which by definition makes it really hard to figure out what was actually going on. Adolph Hitler twisted some poor, imperialist-era translations of ancient Indian texts to concoct his take, which included a series of invasions of Dravidian (Indian) lands by Aryans, coincidentally the ancestors of his own culturally superior race. Though much of this theory are still taught today, this article and others like it point out that there is little evidence from the Vedic manuscripts, linguistics, or the archaeology of the Indus River Valley to corroborate Hitler's Nordic myth – and that the Sanskrit word "Aryas" means "noble," not a superior cultural group.

Historiorant: A spokesman for the racist group Aryan Nations had no comment when asked about the common origin of his organization's name and that of a member state of the Axis of Evil.

Regardless of whether they were early Nordic supermen or proto-Hindu pastoralists, the Aryans didn't arrive on the scene until the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, and evidence of settlement in the region we now know as Iran stretches back way further than that. People of different tribal groups and cultures were building houses out of sun-dried bricks, storing their food in pottery, and clearing field for agriculture as much as four thousand years earlier, making Iran literally one of the birthplaces of civilization itself.

(this map is from the CIA Factbook, and can be found at Wikipedia Commons. More great maps and info can be found behind copyright walls at IranMap.com and WorldAtlas.com)

The names on the map above, and their ancient equivalents, ring through the ages as crossroads of cultures and centers of science and learning – and as we've seen in neighboring (and every bit as ancient) Iraq, failing to recognize the historical aspect of the enemies with whom our Decider picks fights can have disastrous consequences, some of which will cause us to be cursed by future generations:

The looting of the Iraq Museum (Baghdad) is the most severe single blow to cultural heritage in modern history, comparable to the sack of Constantinople, the burning of the library at Alexandria, the Vandal and Mogul invasions, and the ravages of the conquistadors.

—The American Schools of Oriental Research, Apr. 16, 2003, via Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2004

May this legacy inform the President's decision-making as he ponders the fate of cities like Qom and Isfahan

“Persia,” like so many other classical nouns, comes to us from the Greeks, who used their name for one province in southern Iran - “Fars” or “Pars” - to refer to the entire land. According to Iransaga, the people of this region have always referred to their land as Iran; the foreign-imposed Persian moniker was dropped once and for all in 1949.


Gimme That Ole-Time Federalism

Greek interaction with the Parsii was still three millennia in the future when the first great civilization began to coalesce in Iran, ironically (or fatefully) right atop the great oil reserves of the modern province of Khuzestan. The torch of civilization began to burn in Susiana, the plains around Susa (about 200 km north of the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf), beginning as early as around 4000 BCE, and certainly by 32-3100 BCE. There, the native Elamites got in on the burgeoning movement toward urbanization through trade with the nearby city-states of Sumer, in present-day Iraq, and (presumably) the far-off cultures of the Indus Valley, in modern Pakistan.



The Elamites developed a federal system of government to administer what was, by ancient Mesopotamian standards, a very large sphere of influence, with colonies extending its influence into the Iranian Plateau and the mountains north and south of Khuzestan proper. From Susa, the Kings of Elam organized trade in natural resources over a dozen or so dynasties and through several distinct ages of growth, decline, and fall – and it seems their solution for how to run a far-flung network of regional industries bears some similarities to our own sovereign-states-under-a-central-authority model. Like the other city-states of the region, those of the Elamites waxed and waned, sometimes exerting power and at other times, having power exerted upon them. As the 3-inch statue at right attests, along the way their artisans developed a unique craftsmanship, the influence of which can be can in the art of the many post-Elamite cultures that called Susa their capital.

The first flourishing of the Elamites came to an end around 2334 BCE, when Sargon of Akkad cast his covetous, empire-building eye upon the ziggurats of Sumer. Marching from his capital – Akkad was about 50 km SW of Baghdad, on the left bank of the Euphrates – Sargon quickly subjugated Uruk, Ur, Lagash, and Umma. He then turned his attention to the Elamites, who had formed a coalition under the leadership of king of Awan. It did them little good; the Elamites were crushed, their cities razed, and their kings made vassals of Akkad.

Historiorant: I have to confess to a guilty pleasure here – I love the way the names in Ancient Middle Eastern history roll off the tongue. Fans of 1- and 2-syllable place names can find plenty more in a pair of diaries pico and I did a while back: my bit on the Sumerians, and his Literature for Kossacks: Gilgamesh


War and More War

The Akkadians were brutal masters of empire, but like many such destroy-and-enslave-type conquerors, their reign of terror was relatively short-lived. Sargon’s grandson Naram-Sin, having ascended the throne after both of Sargon’s sons were assassinated, was obligated to lead much of his military to the vicinity of Mount Ararat, there to quell an uprising being led by a guy named Armen. His people were called the Armeni, so if you were ever wondering how that particular region got its name…

Moving his army to the northern reaches of the empire exposed Naram-Sin to attack from the Guti, who emerged from Iran’s Zagros Mountains and sacked Babylon. It was a blow from which Akkad would never recover. In the resulting confusion, the Elamites captured Susa and re-established it as their capital. For the next few hundred years, the peoples of ancient Iran alternately raided and defended against the peoples of ancient Iraq; the history of this period is replete with destroyed cities and slaughtered populations.

Often the reason for war was either the capture or retrieval of artifacts from rival city-states. Shutruk-Nakhkhunte (ca. 1200 BCE) counted among the fruits of his campaigns the statues of Marduk and Manishtushu, the Stela of Naram-Sin, and the Code of Hammurabi. They sat proudly as trophies in Susa for 100 years, but recovery of the Statue of Marduk would eventually be one of the pretexts for invasion by Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon. Though they did recapture Susa, the Elamites had only one more resurgence left before they went the way of so many other tribes of the Elamo-Dravidian language family; AllEmpires.com makes an interesting observation about this point (ca. 1300-ca. 1100 BCE) in the history of Elam:

It is noteworthy that during the Middle Elamite period, the old system of succession to, and distribution of, power appears to have broken down. Increasingly, son succeeded father, and less is heard of divided authority within a federated system. This probably reflects an effort to increase the central authority at Susa in order to conduct effective military campaigns abroad and to hold Elamite foreign conquests. The old system of regionalism balanced with federalism must have suffered, and the fraternal, sectional strife that so weakened Elam in the Neo-Elamite period may have had its roots in the centrifugal developments of the 13th and 12th centuries.

At some point in here – scholarly estimates vary widely – the prophet Zoroaster founded what may well be the world’s oldest revealed religion. He is referred to as both a Bactrian (which would place his origin near modern Afghanistan) and a Mede, but what is clear is that he was from Iran. Zoroastrianism is also the first religion to postulate a spiritual battle between good and evil; many of its ideas would find their way into later monotheistic faiths. Evidence of the influence of Zoroastrianism can be seen today in the communities of the Paarsi in India, and in the story of the Three Magi (Zoroastrians all) who visited Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the manger.

In the north of Iran, tribes of Indo-European speaking Aryans were migrating from the Caucasus and Central Asia. One group, the Parsa, dispersed in three main regions in the north Iranian Plain and the Bakhtiari Mountains; another, the Medes, established themselves at the site of modern Hamedan, southwest of Teheran, though their influence stretched from Tabriz to Esfahan. A third group, the Scythians, adopted a seminomadic existence based on raiding in the northern Zagros Mountatins, but given what that incurable gossip Herodotus had to say about them, they probably deserve an article of their own...

Noted in antiquity as excellent horsemen in their own right, the Medes were a considerable thorn in the right flank of the Assyrians, who were prosecuting yet another heads-on-poles phase of Fertile Crescent history from their capitol at Nineveh (modern-day Mosul, Iraq). At first, the Medes paid tribute to Nineveh, and their southern neighbors bore the brunt of Assyrian rage – the Neo-Elamites came to a brutal end at the hands of Ashurbinarpal in 647 BCE, as attested by this carving and accompanying script from Wikipedia Commons:

“Susa, the great holy city, abode of their Gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered. I entered its palaces, I opened their treasuries where silver and gold, goods and wealth were amassed...the treasures of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon that the ancient kings of Elam had looted and carried away. I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa. I smashed its shining copper horns. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their gods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings I devastated, I exposed to the sun, and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur. I devasteated the provinces of Elam and on their lands I sowed salt.”

That kind of neocon foreign policy didn't win the Assyrians a great many friends, and in 612 BCE, the Medes led a coalation that broke the Assyrian grip by first capturing Nineveh, then giving the capitol of their hated overlords the Susa treatment. The actions also found the Medes assuming control of an empire that stretched from Afghanistan to Turkey. Among their leaders during this critical period was one Hakamanish, whose name in Greek – Achaemenes – was to make him immortal as the progenitor of the Achaemenid dynasty


Cyrus and Darius: Two Great Guys

In the mid-6th century BCE, a Parsian king (and descendent of Achaemenes) named Cyrus managed to unite the various Persian tribes, and in 549 BCE, he captured the last Median king. Rather executing his vanquished enemy in the Assyrian fashion, Cyrus used the opportunity to unite the kingdoms of the Persians and the Medes under his rule. He then turned his attention outward, and the first target was the powerful kingdom of Lydia – folks so rich they had to invent the idea of coinage – located in modern Turkey.

Historiorant: Those interested in a really detailed look at Cyrus and the Achaemenid army should check out the articles available at IranChamber.com, which unfortunately uses some kind of totalitarian software to keep me from cutting, pasting, and attributing their work (and even the writings of 4th century BCE historioranter Xenophon) here in the Cave.

Though led by the fabulously wealthy Croesus, Lydia was unable to hold back the armies of Cyrus. He went on to conquer the Greek city-states which peppered Asia Minor’s Aegean coast, then secured his northern and eastern borders by expanding his territory and building forts against Central Asian nomads. His reputation as a benevolent conqueror preceded him when he turned westward and set his sights on Babylon; the ancient city put up nary a fight and welcomed him as a liberator. He also earned a couple of Old Testament shout-outs when he ended the Babylonian Captivity of the enslaved Jewish population and allowed 40,000 or so people to return to their homeland. Some even saw Cyrus as an agent of Yaweh:

1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:

2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.

3 I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
...

13 I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness:
I will make all his ways straight.
He will rebuild my city
and set my exiles free,
but not for a price or reward,
says the LORD Almighty."

Isaiah 45 (New International Version)

The pace of nations falling to Cyrus now quickened; Syria and Phoenicia were incorporated into his empire, and plans were being made to invade Egypt, by the time Cyrus was killed in battle with the ancestors of the Afghanis in 529 BCE. He left behind a highly organized state, divided into districts ruled over by satraps (governors) and connected by an excellent system of roads, and bequeathed to his dynasty the beautiful new capitol city of Pasargadae, located in Fars. It was said of the safety and efficiency of the lands ruled by the Achaemenids that through a letter could be sent from the Indus River Valley, at eastern edge of the Empire, to the conquered Greek states in the west, and be received within a week. Given the current situation in the region, it is doubtful one could hope for that level of efficiency today.

Cyrus’ son Cambyses (r. 527-522 BCE) added Egypt to the empire, but found his throne seized in his absence by a usurper. He died under mysterious circumstances shortly thereafter, as did the usurper (a priest named Gaumata), so a distant cousin, Darius (r. 522-486 BCE), ascended to the throne. He is still called Darius the Great in Iran, for he fully embraced Cyrus’ dream of a vast and mighty empire. The Library of Congress has an interesting catalogue of just some of the ways in which we still quote the ancient Persians in our everyday speech:

Darius revolutionized the economy by placing it on a silver and gold coinage system. Trade was extensive, and under the Achaemenids there was an efficient infrastructure that facilitated the exchange of commodities among the far reaches of the empire. As a result of this commercial activity, Persian words for typical items of trade became prevalent throughout the Middle East and eventually entered the English language; examples are, bazaar, shawl, sash, turquoise, tiara, orange, lemon, melon, peach, spinach, and asparagus. Trade was one of the empire's main sources of revenue, along with agriculture and tribute. Other accomplishments of Darius's reign included codification of the data, a universal legal system upon which much of later Iranian law would be based, and construction of a new capital at Persepolis, where vassal states would offer their yearly tribute at the festival celebrating the spring equinox.

Darius built the elegant city of Persepolis and renewed the vigor of Susa, and though it is true that his actions during the revolt of the Ionian colonies would eventually lead to his defeat at Marathon and his successor Xerxes’ losses at Salamis and Plataea, it should be noted that to the Persians, the wars in Greece were at worst disastrous foreign misadventures; they were not desperate wars of defense like the Greek side was fighting.

Historiorant: It should also be noted that, contrary to what 300 would have us believe, neither the ancient Persians nor anyone else ever used rhinoceros cavalry, and Xerxes was definitely not 11 feet tall and androgynous.


Cue the Macedonians

The Persian opportunity to fight for their lives would come a century and a half later, when in 334 BCE Alexander invaded Asia Minor. He defeated the first Persian force sent to greet him at the River Grannicus, then marched across Turkey and stomped the Persians again at Issus, near the modern border with Syria. The Persian king – another Darius – acquitted himself poorly at that fight, fleeing the battlefield when the tide turned against him. Darius returned with the remnants of his army to Persepolis, leaving Alexander free to carve off huge chunks of the western end of the Persian Empire: Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt all fell to Alexander before he again set his sights eastward.

The Persians deployed their last, greatest army on the Plain of Gaugamela, east of Mosul, Iraq, in 331 BCE. They were again defeated by Alexander, with the Persian king again fleeing in disgrace. Though he pursued Darius for a short time, Alexander wanted to make sure to be the first to loot the treasury of Persepolis, so he marched his army to the Persian capitol. Darius would eventually be killed by his own men seeking to curry favor with their new overlord, but the assassins were bitterly disappointed when Alexander ordered them killed for failing to respect the office of their king.

At some point during the next few months, the royal palace at Persepolis was burned, and there is at least some evidence that this act of defilement was committed under orders from a drunken Alexander, who listened a bit too much to the suggestions that the burning of the Acropolis in 480 BCE ought to be avenged. Regardless, there was little the Persians could do about it, and Alexander soon began to march eastward again, spreading Greek culture and cities named Alexandria (Kandahar, Afghanistan, for example, is a bastardization of Alexandria, and is only one of the 70 or so cities Alexander named after himself) wherever he went. Along the way, he adopted Persian dress and married a Persian wife, much to the consternation of his old-school Macedonian troops, who were even more consternated when Alexander ordered his officers and 10,000 of his men to take Persian brides in a mass wedding at Susa, performed in the name of Alexander's dream of a united Hellenistic world.


Seleucus & Son


Alexander died in Babylon in 324 BCE, leaving control of his empire to “whoever was strong enough to take it.” The history of the Diadochi (Gr: “successors”) is predictably complicated and bloody – they fought several wars amongst themselves between 322-301 BCE – but in the end, only four men emerged with claim to the lion’s shares of the prize. On the map above, Lysimachus got the orange lands, Cassander won himself the green, and Ptolomey got both the blue territory and Alexander's claim to the pharaohship of Egypt, establishing a line that would famously end with Cleopatra clasping an asp to her breast 250 years later. In the lands that would eventually become Iran and beyond (depicted in tan on the above map) this meant Seleucus, the former satrap of Babylon, would get a shot at running things.

Sources seem to differ rather widely regarding the rule of the Seleucids, depending – it would appear – on the political bent and national origin of the historian doing the writing (gasp!). Some are glowing:

By 313 BC, Hellenic ideas (disseminated by the conquering Macedonian army's hired philosophers and historians, retired officers, and married inter-racial couples) had begun their almost 250-year expansion into the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asian cultures. It was the (Seleucid) empire's governmental framework to rule by establishing hundreds of cities for trade and occupational purposes. Many cities began, or were induced, to adopt Hellenized philosophic thought, religious sentiments, and politics.

Source: Wikipedia

Some are less so:

The Hellenistic period in Iran began in 331 B.C. and continued until c. 250 B.C. This was the time when the Greeks tried to impose their culture on Asia. During approximately a century and a half of Greek rule in Iran, very little construction took place, and ruins from this period remain few and far between.

Source: Iransaga

Important point: “Hellenic” refers to the culture of Greece – “Land of the Hellenes” – itself, while “Hellenistic” means something more akin to “in the style of the Greeks.” Hellenism often melded local artistic traditions with Greek forms to create something quite unique, as the Nike of Samothrace, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the mind-boggling brain of Archimedes of Syracuse clearly show, though the Wikipedia article cited above also leaves this caveat:

"Synthesizing Hellenic with native cultures and intellectual trends met with varying degrees of success -- resulting in times of simultaneous peace and rebellion in various parts of the empire."

Regardless of the level of credit accorded he and his heirs, Seleucus does seem to have tried, at least in part, to live up to Alexander’s vision of a grand Hellenistic Empire. He married a noblewoman of Iranian origin and had a son, Antiochus, by her, thus establishing a dynasty that blended the races of Europe and Asia. His affection for things Asian did not mean that he would actually spend most of his time in Persia, however, and he was cagey enough to not want to place himself too far from the kingdoms of the other generals who had snarfed up Alexander’s realm. Rather than rule from Persepolis or Pasargadae – too far east – he established the cities of Seleucia in Mesopotamia and Antioch (named after his heir, and which went on to play a major role in Early Christianity as well as the First Crusade) in Syria to serve as his capitals. While this move did allow the Seleucids to play a role in the affairs of Egypt, Asia Minor, and eventually northern Greece, it cost them dearly on their eastern flank.


Never Bring a Hoplite to a Gladius Fight...

East of the Zagros, the nomadic Parni people, who were originally native to the area between the Caspian and Aral Seas, had begun to settle in the satrapy of Parthia. Like many nomads, they were fiercely independent; so much so that, following closely on the heels of the secession of the eastern province of Bactria (northern Afghanistan – and we all know how independent-minded those guys are) in 250 BCE, the Parni led a similar Parthian proclamation of independence. Though the rebel provinces were re-conquered by Antiochus III between 209 and 204 BCE, they had tasted freedom from foreign domination, and it proved a difficult desire for the Mediterranean-obsessed Antiochus to suppress.

Antiochus didn’t do himself any favors, either. The ambitious king was not content with fighting to regain what his forefathers had lost; he wanted to expand Seleucid influence at the expense of the descendents of the other Diadochi. Initially he was successful: in a series of Syrian Wars which ended in 200 BCE, he wrested Palestine from the Egypt-ruling heirs of Ptolomy, then marched across Asia Minor and, in 196 BCE, over the Hellespont and into Greece itself. He added Thrace to his conquests in 194 BCE.

This expansion into Europe put the Seleucids on a collision course with the other rising superpower of the Mediterranean world in the 2nd century BCE, and Rome was all too willing to draw a line in the sand. A Roman army led by Scipio Africanus (he of the defeating-Hannibal-in-the-Second-Punic-War fame) faced off against a much larger Seleucid force commanded by Antiochus himself in 190 BCE, at a place called Magnesia (pronounced Mag-na-see-ah, not the way you’re thinking) near the Aegean coast of Turkey. Hannibal, too, was present on the Seleucid side; since his loss at Zama 12 years prior, he’d basically wandered the Mediterranean, taking advantage of opportunities to kill Romans when they presented themselves.

Though they brought elephants to the party, and camels, and heavy cavalry, and scythe-chariots, Magnesia turned out to be the death-knell for both the Seleucid Empire and the heavy phalanx upon which Greek-styled armies relied. Using fast-moving legions to counter the cumbersome ranks of nearly unmanuverable spearmen, the Romans saw only 300 infantry and 49 cavalry fall, compared to Seleucid losses of some 50,000 infantry, 3000 cavalry, 15 elephants, a captured and looted camp, and 1400 taken prisoner. Antiochus was forced to sue for peace, made to pay an enormous indemnity, and obliged to turn over control of Asia Minor to Rome. This last stipulation has enormous historical importance, for Asia Minor would eventually become the Eastern Empire, which would then morph into what we know as the Byzantine Empire, which outlasted its mother city's glory by 1000 years – and all because Antiochus III didn't know enough about his enemy to show up properly armed.


...Nor Infantry to a Horse Archer Fight

Meanwhile, back east of the Zagros, the Parni took the opportunity to announce the birth of their new Parthian Empire. The Seleucids, now being pursued eastward by the encroaching Romans – always good ones for smelling blood in the water – and with most of their army bleaching in a field north of Ephesus, were unable to do anything about it. They did try, launching invasions on at least three occasions, but with the Maccabees asserting their freedom in the west, Romans pushing toward Mesopotamia, Bactrian hassles in the east, and now the Parthians launching arrows from the north, it is little wonder that the Seleucid king Antiochus VII was forced to plunder his own treasury and use it to hire an enormous mercenary army for a final, pitched battle against the Parthians.

The Parthians had spent the prior winter spreading discontent and rebellion in Seleucid cities in which troops were quartered, and it paid off on the field of battle. Antiochus was killed at Ecbatana in 139 BCE, which gave the Parthians control of all of Iran, ended the Hellenistic period once and for all, and left the Seleucids with an ever-shrinking chunk of Syria. So it was that a dynasty that had sprung from the ashes of Alexander's empire came to a rather ignoble end in 64 BCE, when the Roman consul Pompey made Syria a Roman province and the heirs of Seleucus were powerless to stop him.

The Parthians would remain a check to Roman expansion for the next three centuries, however, and it was the Roman inability to defeat these master horse archers that defined the eastern borders of the empire throughout the Pax Romana. The Parthians also displayed a wee bit of nationalism: they describe themselves as Hellenophiles on their money, but this should probably be read in the context of being anti-Roman (question: given this, what does “In God We Trust” mean?) and not wanna-be Greek. Starting around 150 BCE with the first Parthian king, Mithridates I, the new royalty sought to establish its descent from the native Achaemenian line of Cyrus the Great, and by the end of Mithridates’ reign in 138 BCE, the Parthians had reassembled the core of the empire of Cyrus by conquering Media, Fars, Babylonia, and Assyria, administering their holdings in much the same way as the Achaemenids, while using a native Pahlavi script to record their deeds.

Parthian expansion and their ability to defend their winnings had long-term effects on Iran and the surrounding regions. The Hellenistic, if independence-prone, kingdom of Greco-Bactria was choked off, leaving only fodder for great Rudyard Kipling stories in its wake. The Parthians won control of the Silk Road, and kept their relationship with the Chinese more or less to themselves. Finally, their nomadic roots, fierce independence, and keen sense of when to give battle allowed them to weather occasional defeats – the most important of several Parthian capitals, Ctesiphon (located on the east bank of the Tigris, downstream from Baghdad), fell to the Romans three times in the 2nd century CE alone – and establish what was to become the most stable empire in classical southwest Asia.

Probably the best example of Parthians taking lemons and making Roman blood came during The Imperial Surge of 53 BCE. While Caesar was off conquesting Gaul, a rival of his, one Marcus Licinius Crassus (he of the defeated-Spartacus-twenty-years-ago-and-ain’t-done-nothin’-since fame), decided that he could bring a little glory unto his august self by slicing off a chunk of Parthia for Rome.

Big mistake. Vastly outnumbered, the Parthians nevertheless used their 9000 horse archers to devastating effect, showering the Roman legions with a constant barrage of missiles. Archers were kept resupplied by camels laden with no cargo but arrows. When the Romans tried to form a protective “tortoise” shield-wall, the Parthians sent in their 1000 cataphracts – heavy cavalry – to beat up on the tight formations. When the Romans sent out skirmishers, the horse archers would feign retreat, fire a “Parthian shot” over their shoulders, then wheel and fire again when they were once again outside the enemy’s range. Crassus himself bought it at Carrhae, as did tens of thousands of legionaries, many pinned to the desert floor by the merciless arrows of the nomads.


A Bad Place to Die


Historiorant:

Other important events were transpiring in the south, among the old stomping grounds of the Elamites, but those stories are going to have to wait for the next redux in this series. For now, thanks for accompanying me on this trip down the Memory Hole, and once again for two years (actually, I'm a day short of the two-year anniversary of my first diary) of support for some of the more off-topic – (or subversively on-message? heheheh) – diaries that get run up the flagpole for Kossack approval.

Historically hip entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat can be found at Daily Kos, Never In Our Names, Bits of News, Progressive Historians, and DocuDharma.

Labels: Alexander the Great, History, History for Kossacks, Iran, Iraq, Mesopotamia, Persia, teaching, Unitary Moonbat

At the conclusion of our last historiorant, we left off with the Sassanids in pretty dire straits. It was 636 CE, little more than a decade after they had had their sasses handed to them by the Byzantines in a series of battles across Mesopotamia, and only four years removed from the passing of the Prophet Muhammad. Now fierce men bearing the star and crescent had appeared on the Euphrates; to Yazdgerd III, the last Zoroastrian king of the Persians, fell the task of defending Ctesiphon and the gateway to Iran.

So join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, for a look at the beginnings of a clash of civilizations that continues to the present day, as well as the many Iranian contributions to what would become known as Islam's Golden Age. Along the way, we'll also be taking a contextual side-trip to the Founding of Islam – but only after pausing to read the sign about how, imho, we should be approaching historiographic minefields.



Historiorant: For the past few weeks, I've been updating, re-vamping, and re-publishing the first series I ever did on DKos – to judge by the number of comments received, a pretty obscure one – which was comprised of seven diaries on Persia/Iran. Even at that early date, I wasn't entirely unaware that I was climbing out onto some controversial historical branches in a forest filled with erudite folks in possession of a great deal more specialized knowledge than I, so I took the precaution of explaining my approach to the historical arts at the beginning of the part 3. Alas, since that particular diary has the dubious distinction of generating the lowest number of comments of any I've written, I'm not really sure the message resonated.

Thus, I've decided for tonight's episode to leave in a bit of editorializing that I'd earlier thought to remove. Some of what follows was quoted (by me) in a comment last week, responding to a comment regarding the spelling of Iranian names – in the end, it seemed appropriate to keep the reiteration of historiorantological policy in place as we enter one of those parts of history wherein disagreements over how the story is told can result in everything from ill feelings to war.


Historical Ethics and Controversial Topics – skip ahead if you want to get straight to the narrative

Before we get started, let me be up front about a few things: I'm not a Muslim, nor Iranian, nor of any ancestry or creed related to what I am about to report – and while I'm on a confessional kick, I might as well state that my area of historical expertise is not Ancient Mesopotamia, nor Islam, nor theology. I am an American of European descent and left/libertarian politics, and so carry with me the inevitable biases that that particular combination of cultures is bound to impart. Ostensibly, my history degree should also serve as proof that I have gained at least some skill in BS detection and differentiation, insofar as such skills are applied in the historiographic arts, and that I've learned how to assemble a narrative from disparate sources. You'll just have to take my word that I'm of a personality that seeks to level playing fields and to approach with integrity every project and job I take on, even when following the rules (of debate, or of decorum) works against me.

As an historian, the idea is to transcend all that negative stuff to the greatest degree possible: the task is to gather available data, assess it critically with an historian's eye, and write down what most closely approximates the truth of what happened. For guidance in approaching controversial topics like the one I'm about to go into, I always like to refer to the Greek writer Lucian of Samosata (ca. 125-ca.180 CE), who had the cajones to entitle a book, How History Should Be Written:

The historian should be fearless and incorruptible; a man of independence, loving frankness and truth; one who, as the poet says, calls a fig a fig and a spade a spade. He should yield to neither hatred nor affection, but should be unsparing and unpitying. He should be neither shy nor deprecating, but an impartial judge, giving each side all it deserves but no more. He should know in his writings no country and no city; he should bow to no authority and acknowledge no king. He should never consider what this or that man will think, but should state the facts as they really occurred.

In Last Week's Episode...

In 636 CE, the Sassanid Empire extended to the Euphrates River, which formed a natural border on the western frontier – in modern terms, this means that much of what is now eastern Iraq was traditionally Persian land. This is also the reason why some of the key events in the history of Iran and Shi'a Islam actually occur in Iraq, and why that country factors so prominently in the story of how a Zoroastrian people became Muslim.


The Sassanid Empire at its height, during the reign of Khosrow II around 610 CE.

After being decisively spanked by the Byzantines, and having their ruler assassinated by his own army, the Sassanids fell into chaos and disunion. They ran through a dozen kings (and even a couple of queens) in the last twenty years of the empire, but this was just one of many symptoms of social and economic decline that were ultimately rooted in the vast power of the Zoroastrian state religion. Its rigid system of social stratification was beginning to strain under the weight of taxation – more favors to the priests and the powerful than could be paid for by the plebians – and the common folk were starting to resent the burden. Additionally, since persecution of non-Zoroastrians was sanctioned by the state, the empire could always be counted upon to produce a small-but-virulent undercurrent of seething resentment, just waiting for an opportunity to erupt into rebellion. And finally, that old Persian problem of freedom-minded satraps started cropping up again; the Lakhmids were only the first to assert their independence after the assassination of Khorsow II in 628 – this wasn't wholly unexpected; they'd tried to convert to Christianity, and paid dearly for it, while Khorsow was still alive – and other vassal states on the periphery soon followed.


Meanwhile, down in the Arabian desert…

The Prophet Muhammad led his followers on the Hijrah from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. Since this is event which separates once-and-for-all the umma (community) from those who had rejected the Prophet's word, the hijrah also marks the start of the year 1 A.H. (anno hegira), and the first day of the Islamic calendar. Six years later, after a couple of important battles that I'll have to detail in some future diary – and in the same year as the assassination of Khorsow – Muhammad decided to return to Mecca for a peaceful pilgrimage.

Since he'd also decided to bring around 1500 friends with him, the Meccans thought it best to stop Muhammad at the border. There they concluded a treaty which forbade that year's pilgrimage, but promised to permit one after a one-year cessation of hostilities. The peace held for two years, but when the Meccans violated its terms, Muhammad gathered a force said to number 10,000, including both the Muhajirun ("those that made the Hijrah" or "Emigrants") and the Ansar ("Helpers"; converts gained in Medina) and took the city without a fight. It was at this point that Muhammad entered the Ka'bah, a pagan temple and object of pilgrimage since time immemorial, and smashed the idols contained within; the act impressed 'Amr ibn al-'As, who had the conquest of Egypt in his future, and Khalid ibn al-Walid, the "Sword of God"-to-be, enough that they swore their allegiance to Islam, and set about organizing its rapid expansion. Muhammad died two years later, in 632 CE, the same year the Yazdgerd III ascended the throne of the Sassanids.

Muhammad's father-in-law, Abu Bakr, became the first Khalifa ("Successor"; anglicized as "caliph") of the Muslim community after Muhammad's death, but the succession was not without controversy. According to Shi'a tradition, Muhammad publicly proclaimed his successor to be Ali, husband of the Prophet's daughter Fatima, at a place called Ghadir Khumm. The subsequent appointment of Abu Bakr to the leadership position was denounced by the shi'at 'Ali, or "Partisans (or Party) of Ali," as a conspiracy between Abu Bakr and Umar, another of Muhammad's companions and a later caliph. Sunnis, who trace their heritage through the dynasties which grew out of Abu Bakr's line of caliphs, hold fast to the fact that Abu Bakr's position was freely and duly conferred by the leadership of the community. Though they do honor the descendents of Muhammad, Sunnis do not concur with the Shiite assertion that the rightful leaders of the faith are those related by blood to the Prophet.

Abu Bakr spent the two years of his reign subduing rebel Arabian tribes in a series of small battles which came to be known as the Ridda Wars. He then launched a Muslim invasion of Syria and Palestine as a means of consolidating all the Arabic peoples under one Islamic banner – and in the process became a devastating wildcard in the neverending border wars between the Byzantines and Sassanid Persia. They began butting heads with the Persians early on: In 633 CE, as part of a campaign to bring the recently-independent Lakhmid Arabs into the fold, the Muslims began taking small border towns along the west bank of the Euphrates. They marched against the Sassanids in earnest in 634 CE, but were repelled in a tumultuous fight that came to be known as the Battle of the Bridge.


Every silver lining's got a touch of grey

They were overeager, those Arabs on the western bank of the Euphrates, near modern-day Kufa, Iraq. The Persian camp lay on the other side of the river, and the Muslim general Abu Ubaid thought he might be able to surprise them if he were able to build a bridge of boats and get his army across before being detected. Over the protestations of his advisors, he ordered the bridge built in a single night, and over it his troops surged.

It didn't work out. Sassanid general Bahman (Mardan Shah) had his men put their elephants at the head of the army, which spooked the horses of the Arab cavalry. This left the Muslim leadership exposed, and subsequently martyred, as the Sassanid infantry advanced. The Muslims were trapped with their backs to the Euphrates, and the day turned into a rout as they tried to flee en masse back across the boat bridge. They lost two-thirds of their 9000-man force that day, and were vulnerable in a way that they would never be again. Bahman should have pursued and attacked, but he couldn't – at the very moment of victory, he received an urgent summons to return to Istakhr to put down yet another revolt.

Weird Historical Sidenote: Though not the guy pictured with the great helmet, nor the general who led the Sassanids to victory at the Battle of the Bridge – indeed, he's likely the person who issued Bahram's last-minute retreat orders – Rostam Farrokhzād (sorry about the Wikipedia link; there's not a whole lot out there out there in English on Rostam, who is apparently a prominent figure in some Iranian nationalist circles) is an important military and political figure during this period. Ethnically Persian, he was born into Sassanid aristocracy in Armenia and ascended to the Satrapy of Azerbaijan and Khorassan (nowadays eastern Iran; in ancient times, a significant chunk of Central Asia) when Azarmidokht, one of the post-Khorsow II queens, not only rebuffed a marriage proposal from his father, but had him killed for asking. In revenge, Rostam marched on Ctesiphon, where he blinded and deposed the queen. A couple of years later, after seizing Armenia back from the Byzantines, he got involved in internal Sassanid politics in a big way: together with a brother and an ally, he seems to have been part of a triumvirate formed to support young Yazdgerd in facing the ever-mounting foreign and domestic threats to Persia.

Arab spirits revived when they – with the help of a fortuitous sandstorm – defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmuk (in Syria) in 636 CE, and now-caliph Umar felt comfortable shifting his forces east to reopen hostilities with the Sassanids. At nearly the same time, a Muslim army of indeterminate size (though definitely smaller than the reputed 100,000 on the Persian side) again approached the area of Hilla (specifically, al-Qādisiyyah) on the banks of the Euphrates, but this time it would be over-eagerness on the Sassanid side that would lose the battle. And this time, the attacker would pursue his retreating foe.


Operation Enduring Motif

Rather than waging a defensive war on the east bank of the Euphrates, Rostam, now in personal command of the army, this time crossed over to the Arab side, hoping to crush the smaller force before backup could arrive from Syria. For two days, the Persian elephants wreaked havoc among the Muslim cavalry, and it looked like all might be lost for the foot soldier, too, but on the third day, the Arabs turned the tables on the elephants: they costumed their horses in such a way as to terrify the huge beasts, and when a soldier managed to kill the lead elephant, the other pachyderms panicked, turned, and trampled their way through the Persian army. As the desperately-awaited Syrian troops began to arrive, the Arabs decided to press their advantage, and continued to advance even after night fell; the resultant clashes in the darkness gave the attack its name: "Night of Clangor."

As the day broke, a sandstorm blew up from behind the Muslims and straight into the faces of the Sassanids. The Muslim commander, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, ordered his army forward, and the Persian center collapsed in response. Rostam, caught up in the disorganized retreat, was captured and beheaded by a Muslim soldier as he tried to swim to safety across a canal. The soldier, Hilāl ibn `Ullafah by some accounts, is reported to have held the severed head aloft before the Persian soldiers, shouting, "By the Lord of the Ka'bah! I have killed Rostam!" It was enough to turn the battle into a rout, and though a few Zoroastrians converted to save their skins, most of the Sassanid army that went to Al-Qadisiyyah died there as infidels in the eyes of the victors. From that day forward, those Muslims who had fought in the great victory were accorded privileged status in Iraq and, especially, in its garrison at al-Kufah. Veterans of the battle were thereafter known as ahl-al-Qadisiyyah - kind of like adding "fought at Normandy" to a WWII vet's legal name.

The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah has enormous significance in the Arab world – everything from a public square in Libya to a city in Kuwait to a university in Jordan bear its name. It probably doesn't come as any surprise, but Iraqis hold this memory especially close: they named a province after the battle, and a neighborhood in Baghdad, and a host of schools and clubs. Remember that big cross-sword sculpture that arches over that road in Baghdad? It has two names: "Hands of Victory" and "The Sword of Al-Qadisiyyah." Saddam built it 1989. He also had images of the battle printed on Iraqi money, murals of himself surveying the battle (along with some tanks) painted across a swath of cityscape, and said this about the then-upcoming Iran-Iraq War:

In your name, brothers, and on behalf of the Iraqis and Arabs everywhere we tell those [Persian] cowards and dwarfs who try to avenge Al-Qadisiyah that the spirit of Al-Qadisiyah as well as the blood and honor of the people of Al-Qadisiyah who carried the message on their spearheads are greater than their attempts.

From an April, 1980 speech; excerpted in Religion, Ethnicity and Identity Politics in the Persian Gulf (PDF)

Zoroastrian Persia extinguished

There was a token siege of Ctesiphon before Yadzgerd fled and the Arabs sacked the city. The Sassanids marched eastward, the Muslims in hot pursuit, before turning to launch a major counterattack at Jalula. The ploy was unsuccessful; the Persians were again defeated. Though there were a handful of unsuccessful engagements in Mesopotamia afterwards, Yazdgerd and the bulk of what remained of the Sassanid army retreated east of the Zagros, onto the Iranian Plateau.

Caliph Umar initially felt that the feet of the Zagros would make an excellent border while he consolidated and garrisoned the new lands he had recently acquired, even desiring at one point a "wall of fire" to separate the two empires (interesting choice of metaphor, from a Zoroastrian point of view), but he soon started hearing compelling rationales for continuing the invasion. His generals argued that Yazdgerd, safe behind his mountain barrier, would rebuild an army, while his political advisors warned of the rebel-inducing effect in the newly-conquered territories of allowing any Persian government to survive. Finally, he had a lot of soldiers who were expecting to be paid in land at the end of the campaign, and most of the non-desert land in Mesopotamia was already spoken for.

This and many other very cool satellite maps available vie Petrie, Cameron (2005), 'Exploring Routes and Plains in Southwest Iran', ArchAtlas, January 2008, Edition 3, http://www.archatlas.org/Petrie/RoutesandPlains.php, Accessed: 18 February 2008.

Umar gave in to the pressure and authorized an attack across the Zagros. In 641 CE, at Nihavand (60 km south of Hamadan, Iran), Yazdgerd made one final stand in defense of his dynasty. Again the Sassanids faced the general ibn-Abi-Waqqas, and again the great cavalryman led the star and crescent to victory. His empire shattered, Yazdgerd spent nearly ten years as a fugitive before being captured and executed in the city of Merv in 651 CE. For centuries thereafter, the eastern border of the Caliphate lay in Afghanistan, Transoxania, and the Sind region of India to the west bank of the Indus. By 674 CE, the last vestiges of the Sassanid Empire – heirs to Parthians, heirs to the Seleucids, heirs to the Achaemenians – had fallen under Muslim control. About the only remnant of Yazdgerd's rule still around today is the Zoroastrian calendar (the Wikipedia article is pretty good), which marks time counting from the year he ascended the throne.


What Seems Clear

The conquering Muslims took steps to ensure that their soldiers and settlers didn't "go local." Intermarriage with non-Arabs was forbidden, troops were kept in garrison towns rather than on out-of-sight/out-of-mind estates, and Muslims were forbidden from learning the language and literature of those they had vanquished. They were not averse, however, to incorporating much of the Persian governmental structure, and the ancient Persian systems of court etiquette and imperial administration were adopted by the Arabs, who had previously had little need of either. These customs and courtesies would be learned by Europeans through interactions with Muslims in North Africa and Spain, and the establishment of Outremer during the Crusades, and in so doing became the ancestor of the diplomacy of Versailles and the courtly manners of St. Petersburg (among many others).

Non-Muslims were placed in a separate category for taxation, and were subject to restrictions regarding cultural displays, but they were not forced to convert to Islam. As for Zoroastrians, the relatively-neutral, but dangerously unsourced, Wikipedia entry says:

Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, had made it clear that the "People of the Book", Jews and Christians, were to be tolerated so long as they submitted to Muslim rule. It was at first unclear as to whether or not the Sassanid state religion, Zoroastrianism, was entitled to the same tolerance. Some Arab commanders destroyed Zoroastrian shrines and prohibited Zoroastrian worship; others tolerated the native Persian beliefs. After some dispute, Zoroastrians were accepted as People of the Book. Some authorities identified them as the mysterious Sabeans mentioned in the Qur'an and thus entitled to tolerance.

The Sabeans were actually from Yemen, and exercised dominance over the southern Red Sea from the 19th- to the 7th centuries BCE – u.m.

Many of these dhimmi ("people of the pact of protection") did convert, but the pace was much faster in the cities than in the rural areas. The majority of Iran was not converted until the 9th century, and Shi'a Islam, with which Iran is so intimately associated today, did not become the state religion until the Safavid Dynasty in the 16th century.

For their part, Zoroastrian refugees moved eastward during the time their status as dhimmis was being settled, while others followed in the centuries afterward. A large community settled in Gujarat (northwestern India), and Mumbai, where they became known as the Parsi. Their organizational skills quickly proved valuable; though only a fraction of the whole Indian population, the Parsis made some advantageous early agreements with the British that led to wealth and power so disproportionate to their numbers that even Gandhi commented on it. In the same breath, he also notes the generosity of Parsi philanthropy, calling it "perhaps unequalled and certainly unsurpassed" – and that was years before the one of the more noteworthy Parsis of the 20th century, Freddie Mercury (nee Farrokh Bulsara) was even born.

Traditional Zoroastrian faith faces a lot of challenges in the contemporary world, not the least of which is an unwillingness to accept converts. This, coupled with a commonly-held, very conservative interpretation of just who among their own is eligible to undergo a critical initiation ceremony, has resulted in diminishing numbers – there are currently estimated to "at most 200,000" Zoroastrians worldwide. The major concentration is still in India, where nearly 70,000 Parsis represented .006% of the Indian populace in a 1996 census (when it falls below .002%, estimated to occur around 2020, they'll get reclassified from "community" to "tribe"). Finally, the traditional method of disposing of the bodies of their dead – placing them on the Towers of Silence for birds to consume – is running afoul of modern sensibilities (and views from nearby high-rise apartments).




Now for the (other) Controversial Bit

The subject of how Islam came to Iran is a matter of heated debate among scholars of that part of the world, and a lot of the issues are inseparable from such dissention-causers as nationalism, ethic pride, and religion. Here I will try to present a couple of different views, and ask the reader to make his or her own determination about whether Islam came to Iran in the form of mass epiphany or at the point of a sword.

From a source about 3 centuries removed:

"The residents of Bukhara became Muslims. But they renounced [Islam] each time the Arabs turned back. Qutayba b. Muslim made them Muslim three times, [but] they renounced [Islam] again and became nonbelievers. The fourth time, Qutayba waged war, seized the city, and established Islam after considerable strife….They espoused Islam overtly but practiced idolatry in secret."

Tarikh-i Bukhara, via Wikipedia

From a relatively neutral source:

Many Persians submitted to the invaders when the Arabs demanded less taxes than the Sassanids had, and did not force conversion to Islam. Later, Islam did spread to non-Arab groups, most notably the Persians, who began to convert in significant numbers as Islamic rule over Persia strengthened in the centuries after the initial conquest. However, the Sassanid Empire played a major role in developing a distinct Persian nationalism, which survived the Islamic conquest and mass conversion of Persians to Islam. The Persians and the Arabs would become the leading ethnic groups in the Islamic world, and each soon realised that their cooperation was fundamental to the survival of the empire.

From the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society:

Nothing could be further from the truth than to imagine that the dhimmis enjoyed a secure and stable status permanently and definitively acquired -- that they were forever protected and lived happily ever after.

From a pro-Iranian source:

The shuubiyya literary controversy of the ninth through the eleventh centuries, in which Arabs and Iranians each lauded their own and denigrated the other's cultural traits, suggests the survival of a certain sense of distinct Iranian identity. In the ninth century, the emergence of more purely Iranian ruling dynasties witnessed the revival of the Persian language, enriched by Arabic loanwords and using the Arabic script, and of Persian literature.

And a link to, but no quote from, a really pro-Iranian source: click here if you wish, but don't say you weren't warned that doing so may well cause a little red light to flash on somewhere in the bowels of Fort Meade.

Regardless of the interpretation of its means and ends, the empire which adopted these Iranian traditions and structures was the Abbasid, the founding of which is the stuff of another diary entry. Suffice to say that when they came to power in 750 CE, the Abbasids moved the capitol of the Caliphate to the newly-constructed city of Baghdad, only 20 or so miles away from burned-out Ctesiphon, and subsequently experienced a golden age of culture and learning.


Historiorant:


Sorry about not getting this up at the regular bat-time last night; the weekend got too busy, and the subject matter too delicate, for a hurried job of simply reposting the earlier piece. On a somewhat less auspicious note (given my thought of trying to combine those seven original diaries into four) is that this one covered only the same period as the version from two years ago, only it took four more pages to do it – so apologies, brevity-fans; this "condensing" of the earlier series may wind up equaling it in length.

Next week: The Abbasids, a smattering of short-lived but nevertheless influential regional kingdoms, and the establishment of state Shi'aism under the powerful Safavid Dynasty. For now, perhaps we can discuss some of the other times in history in which two powers, locked in a titanic, mutually-depleting struggle, never saw coming the threat from some hitherto-unnoticed third player.


Historically hip entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat can be found at Daily Kos, Never In Our Names, Bits of News, Progressive Historians, and DocuDharma.

Labels: Unitary Moonbat