The Ancient History of Afghanistan
—Jason
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Afghanistan has traditionally been one of the most difficult regions for invaders to occupy. From attempts by Alexander the Great in 336 BCE to the twenty-first century, the people of Afghanistan have resisted attempts to be assimilated by both local as well as foreign leaders. The region has been rocked by civil wars, foreign interventions, and the actions of terrorist organizations operating within its borders for the past half a century.
The peoples of Central Asia have long been stuck in a cycle of being unwillingly pulled into the orbit of stronger, more organized kingdoms. The Silk Road trade route passed through the region and connected ancient China and India with the Near East and Europe. This thriving long-distance trade network ensured that exotic goods, technology, religion, literature, and science from the Far East were available to the elites of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, and Europe. Control of Central Asia ensured the stability of the Silk Road and the revenue generated by this trade could bolster an empire’s finances.
The region of modern Afghanistan was called Bactria or Sogdiana during the Achaemenid Persian Dynasty (beginning in 500 BCE) and was a contentious territory to control. Moving large armies from Persepolis or Pasargadae, the twin Persian capitals, was no easy feat. The Persian king Darius I attempted to ease the administrative and military strain of his vast empire by dividing it into twenty-six districts, or satrapies, each with their own local leader and army. Rebellions by local leaders were not an uncommon occurrence and the distance of the region compared to the Persian heartlands made enforcing Achaemenid rule difficult at the best of times. While the Persian Royal Road existed in the western regions of the empire, there was nothing on this scale heading further east across the Iranian Plateau.
Whether the region is called Bactria, Sogdiana, or Afghanistan, the people living in the area identify themselves into small tribal and family groups rather than as a unified nation state. This has led to a dizzying array of constantly shifting alliances being created to ensure that the trade routes were not pillaged and loose fealty to the dominant foreign state maintained. Large urban centers like, those found in Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, and Europe were not common; rather, the population was scattered into smaller settlements in fertile mountain valleys.
The difficult terrain that dominates the region varies between towering mountains, plateaus, river valleys, and deserts resulting in areas where rebels or others not wishing to be part of larger society could easily disappear. Local communities, as well as warlords, have used these features for both settlements and refuges against hostile neighbors.
Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian Empire (334 and 326 BCE) again placed the people of Bactria and Sogdiana within a state not of their own. Following the death of Darius II and Alexander’s accession to the Persian throne, the Macedonian, as well as Persian, soldiers found themselves forced to repeatedly subdue peoples who fought guerilla-style tactics with no centralized leadership to defeat. Alexander decided that a diplomatic marriage with Roxana, the daughter of a Bactrian or Sogdian chief named Oxyartes, could potentially integrate the conquered people with their Macedonian overlords. He also founded several Hellenistic colonies throughout the region to intermingle the locals with Macedonian veterans and civilian settlers.
Alexander’s death in 323 BCE ended the expansive single entity Macedonian Empire. Within days of his death, his generals fragmented into the Diadochi, or Successors, Cassander ruling Macedon and Thessaly, Lysimachus ruling Thrace, Antigonus ruling Asia Minor, Syria, and Phoenicia, Seleucus ruling the eastern provinces and Ptolemy ruling Egypt and Cyprus and each claimed parts of the sprawling kingdom. This division subsequently resulted in nearly three hundred years of bitter warfare between the Successor States before they were conquered by either the Parthians or Romans.
The Seleucid dynasty was an important superpower during this time. It ruled parts of Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia in the west, along with Persia, Bactria, and Sogdiana in the east all the way to the borders with the Maurya Empire in India. In 321 BCE, Seleucus, later Seleucus I Nicator, “Victor,” became the satrap of Babylon. Then following the deaths of the brothers Peithon and Eumenes, satraps of Media and Bactria, Seleucus found himself at odds with Antigonus “the One-Eyed.” This war resulted in Seleucus being in control of not just Babylon, but the entire central and far eastern Hellenistic Kingdoms.
Seleucus tried his hand at expanding his domains deeper into the Indian subcontinent through an unsuccessful military campaign. He was by all accounts defeated by Chandragupta, the Mauryan emperor, and a peace treaty signed in 303 BCE transferred the territories of the Indus Valley to the Mauryan Indians while Seleucus received five hundred war elephants in exchange and a secure border in the east. Bactria and Sogdiana eventually broke free of the Seleucids while the latter was fully engrossed in the Diadochi Wars in the ancient Near East, Egypt, and Greece.
However, this did not necessarily mean that the Greek colonies and local peoples were free from outside domination. Parthia, the region to the west of Bactria and Sogdiana, soon became a great power. The Parni, later identified as Parthians, were a nomadic Eastern Iranian people who lived near the Caspian Sea. Around 247 BCE, the Parni leader Arsaces I took advantage of the chaos created by Andragoras, the Seleucid satrap of the region. Rebellions by the eastern Seleucid governors were quite common and often dragged on for years before being put down. Andragoras, however, died sometime around 238 BCE and the Parni were able to seize control of the entire satrapy. Arsaces laid the foundations for a new Persian state: Parthia.
Arsaces I and his descendants absorbed territory that encompassed much of the former eastern domains of the defunct Achaemenid Empire. Bactria and Sogdiana were quickly conquered to ensure that the Parthians controlled the Silk Road. Once their eastern border was anchored along the Indus River and Himalayan Mountains, the Parthians turned their attentions west. Their mounted warriors were able to quickly overwhelm enemy opposition. A mixture of horse archers and traditional mounted cavalry formed the core of the Parthian army, and these proved to be formidable against the Roman armies they confronted.
The Roman Republic, and later Empire, and the Parthian Empire were the major powers of the ancient Near East between 66 BCE and 217 CE. As each of the Hellenistic Kingdoms along the eastern Mediterranean fell, the Romans and Parthians came closer and closer to each other. Each state wanted to control the regions of Syria, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula as well as the trade routes that crisscrossed them. A series of fierce wars pitted Roman legionaries against the Parthian mounted soldiers: in many cases the Parthians came out as victors.
Despite the success in pushing the Romans, and their allies, out of Mesopotamia, the Parthians and Romans fought bitter wars for control of Armenia. The Parthians established a new capital city at Ctesiphon along the bank of Tigris River. Ideally, this brought the court closer to the most heavily populated regions under Parthian control, but it came with disadvantages: they were closer to the Roman army and further from other Persian tribes in their east. Ctesiphon was sacked several times, though the royal family always escaped. But it was the rebellion of the Sassanids that doomed the Arsacid dynasty.
While two claimants to the Parthian throne fought a civil war, Ardashir I, the local Iranian ruler of Pars, conquered the surrounding territories. Ardashir was able to either win over or conquer the surrounding tribes. By the time Artabanus IV, victor of the civil war, was able to move against the rebels it was too late. In 218 CE, Ardashir crushed the Parthians, killed Artabanus, and declared himself Shahanshah, or king of kings, of the new Sassanid Persian kingdom, which included Bactria and Sogdiana.
The Sassanids and Romans again fought a vicious series of wars between 224 and 651 CE. They each delivered crushing defeats against each other and devastated lands and peoples of Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, the Levant, and Anatolia. Each power wanted the resources, people, and trade routes these territories controlled. Local rebellions or ambitious governors switched allegiance on a regular basis which resulted in Roman and Persian armies marching against each other.
The dominant religions the Romans and Persians also were a further point of conflict: Christianity and Zoroastrianism were the official religions of their respective states. Once Christianity was adopted as the state religion of Roman it opened the door for conflict not only with Persia, but also amongst different sects. The Nicene, or Orthodox, version of Christianity was officially the only legal version to be accepted: all others were considered heretical, meaning those who worshiped one of the prohibited versions could been taxed, stripped of property, or expelled by Rome or Constantinople. This created a situation where Roman Christians were potentially at each other’s throats while the Persians slightly more unified.
The Sassanids and Romans had both courted the various Arab tribes that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula as allies and buffers during this period. These groups served as auxiliary soldiers, border guards, and unofficial raiding forces both states could use. At times, these tribes conducted unauthorized raids and assassinations against one another resulting in their larger patrons having to intervene. This situation became increasingly more turbulent in the sixth and seventh centuries. As the Roman and Sassanids weakened each other, a new power was rising in the Arabian Peninsula.
These Arab tribes were also split in their religious practices: some were pagan, and others were Christian, Jewish, or Zoroastrian. Between 610 and 636 CE, a new monotheistic religion, Islam, was founded in Mecca. Although the Prophet Muhammad and his followers had been forced to flee Mecca to neighboring Medina in 622, the Muslim community did not disappear but rather expanded and flourished. A war fought between Mecca and Medina resulted in Muhammad’s capture of Mecca and cleansing of the Ka’ba.
Within only a short time of ensuring the safety of his followers, Muhammad died in 632. He was followed by the Rashidun, or Rightly Guided, Caliphs who expanded Muslim influence across North African, the Middle East, to the Indus Valley, including Bactria and Sogdiana, by 750 CE. What would come to be called Afghanistan was now in the hands of yet another foreign power.