 | Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan: Encyclopedia II - Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan - Achaemenid Rule and rise of Zoroastrianism ca. 550 BCE - 331 BCE
Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan - Achaemenid Rule and rise of Zoroastrianism ca. 550 BCE - 331 BCE
The city of Bactria (which later became Balkh), is believed to have been the home of Zarathustra, who founded the Zoroastrian religion. The Avesta refers to eastern Bactria as being the home of the Zoroastrian faith, but this can be a reference to either a region in modern Afghanistan or northeastern Iran. Regardless of the debate as to where Zoroaster was from, Zoroastrianism spread to become one of the world's most influencial religions and became the main faith of the southern Iranian peoples for centuries. It remained the official religion of Persia until the defeat of the Sassanian ruler Yazdegerd III (over a thousand years after its founding) by Muslim Arab. In what is today southern Iran, the Persians emerged to challenge Median supremacy on the Iranian plateau. By 550 BCE, the Persians had replaced Median rule with their own dominion and even began to expand past previous Median imperial borders. Both Gandhara and Kamboja Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist texts soon fell a prey to the Achaemenian Dynasty during the reign of Achaemenid, Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE), or in the first year of Darius I. According to Pliny's evidence, Cyrus II had destroyed Kapisa in Capiscene (Naturalis Historia, VI, 25, 92) which was a Kamboja city. The former region of Gandhara and Kamboja (upper Indus) had constituted seventh satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and annually contributed 170 talents of gold dust as a tribute to the Achaemenids.
Bactria had a special position in the Persian empire, being the capital of a vice-kingdom. By the fourth century BCE, Persian control of outlying areas and the internal cohesion of the empire had become somewhat tenuous. Although distant provinces like Bactriana had often been restless under Achaemenid rule, Bactrian troops nevertheless fought on the Iranian side in the decisive Battle of Gaugamela in 330 BCE against the advancing armies of Alexander III (also known as 'the Great'). The Achaemenids were decisively defeated by Alexander the Great and retreated from his advancing army of Greco-Macedonians and their Iranian allies. Darius III, the last Achaemenid ruler, tried to flee to Bactria, but was assassinated by a subordinate lord, the Bactrian-born Bessus, who proclaimed himself the new ruler of Persia as Artaxerxes, but was unable to mount a successful resistance to the growing military might of Alexander's army. Fleeing to his native Bactria, Bessus attempted to rally local Iranian tribes to his side, but was instead turned over to Alexander who proceeded to have him tortured and executed for having commited regicide.
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