 | Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan: Encyclopedia II - Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan - Alexander the Great Seleucid-Mauryan rivalry and Greco-Bactrian Rule 330 BCE - ca. 150 BCE
Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan - Alexander the Great Seleucid-Mauryan rivalry and Greco-Bactrian Rule 330 BCE - ca. 150 BCE
It had taken Alexander only six months to conquer Iran, but it took him nearly three years (from about 330 BCE - 327 BCE) to subdue the area that is now Afghanistan and the adjacent regions of the former Soviet Union. Moving eastward from the area of Herat, the Macedonian leader encountered fierce resistance from the local rulers of what had been Iranian satraps which were the early eastern Iranian sub-tribes of the Kambojas (i.e. Aspasio and Assakenoi clans) as well as the ancestors of the Pushtuns. In a letter to his mother, Alexander described his encounters with the eastern Iranians thus: "I am involved in the land of a 'Leonine' (lion-like) and brave people, where every Foot of the ground is like a well of steel, confronting my soldier. You have brought only one son into the world, but Everyone in this land can be called an Alexander.” Local resistance and the difficult terrain made it difficult for Alexander's forces to subdue the region as many invaders have found the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan similar to a maze that often trapped outside invaders. Alexander also met his Bactrian/Sogdian bride, Roxana (who was reportedly born in Balkh), while trying to consolidate his rule over ancient Afghanistan and adjacent regions in Central Asia. Their union reportedly produced one sole heir, Alexander IV, who was later killed in Greece by Cassander. Although Alexander's expedition through ancient Afghanistan was brief, he left behind a Hellenic cultural influence that lasted several centuries.
Upon Alexander's death in 323 BCE, his empire, which had never been politically consolidated, broke apart as his companions began to divide it amongst themselves. Alexander's cavalry commander, Seleucus, took nominal control of the eastern lands and founded the Seleucid dynasty. Under the Seleucids, as under Alexander, Greek colonists and soldiers colonized Bactria, roughly corresponding to modern Afghanistan's borders. However, the majority of Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great wanted to leave the east and return home to Greece. Later, Seleucus sought to guard his eastern frontier and moved Ionian Greeks (also known as Yavanas to many local groups) to Bactria in the third century BCE. During the colonization of Bactria, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and following brief conflict with the Seleucids, an agreement was reached as Seleucus ceded Gandhara and Arachosia (centered around ancient Kandahar) and areas south of Bagram (corresponding to the extreme south-east of modern Afghanistan) to the Mauryans. During the somewhat brief rule of the Mauryans in ancient Afghanistan, Buddhism was introduced and eventually become a major religion if not the dominant faith alongside Zoroastrianism in ancient Afghanistan.
In the middle of the 3rd century BCE, an independent, Hellenistic state was declared in Bactria and eventually the control of the Seleucids and Mauryans was overthrown in western and southern Afghanistan. Graeco-Bactrian rule spread until it included a large territory which stretched from northeastern Iran in the west to the Ganges River in India in the east by about 170 BCE. Graeco-Bactrian rule was eventually defeated by a combination of internecine disputes that plagued Greek and Hellenized rulers to the west, and overly ambitious attempts to extend control into northern India, as well as the pressure of two groups of nomadic invaders from Central Asia - the Parthians and Sakas (perhaps a sub-group of the Iranian Scythians).
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