Listed 19 sub titles with search on: The inhabitants for wider area of: "IRAN Country PERSIAN GULF" .
IRAN (Country) PERSIAN GULF
A tribe in the Persian empire, near Bactria.
A tribe in the Persian empire, east of Armenia.
S.E. of the Caspian, their tribute to Persia, in Xerxes' army, at war with Trajan.
Perseus Project Index. Total results on 28/3/2001: 257 for Parthians.
There are many tribes in Persia: those of them that Cyrus assembled and persuaded to revolt from the Medes were the Pasargadae, the Maraphii, and the Maspii. On these all the other Persians depend. The chief tribe is that of the Pasargadae; to them belongs the clan of the Achaemenidae, the royal house of Persia. The other Persian tribes are the Panthialaei, the Derusiaei, and the Germanii, all tillers of the soil, and the Dai, the Mardi, the Dropici, the Sagartii, all wandering herdsmen.
Nomad tribe in ancient Iran, living in the western Elburz mountains,
between the heartland of Media
and the Caspian sea, in the
modern province Zanjan.
According to the Greek historian Ctesias of Cnidus,
the Medes subdued the Cadusians. When the Medes were in their turn subdued by
the Persian king Cyrus the Great (550 BCE), the Cadusians became part of the Achaemenid
empire. However, they are not mentioned in the catalogues of Persian subjects
of the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who is usually reliable when
he quotes Persian administrative texts. This suggests that the mountain tribe
had retained or regained something of its former independence.
At an unknown moment in the fifth century BCE, the Cadusians were
subjected by the Persians. However, in 406, they revolted. A son of king Darius
II Nothus, Cyrus the Younger, was sent against them and was probably successful,
because in 403, the Cadusian chief Artagerses was fighting in the army of the
Persian king Artaxerxes II (who had succeeded Darius). During the battle at Cunaxa,
Cyrus the Younger killed Artagerses.
From then on, the Cadusians were one of the main concerns of the Persian
government. Sometimes, they were loyal, sometimes not. At a later stage of his
reign, Artaxerxes II was forced to invade the country of the Cadusians again.
(One of his officers was Datames.) The Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea
offers a description of the expedition and the Cadusian country.
In his expedition against the Cadusians, Artaxerxes went himself
in person with three hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand horse, and making
an incursion into their country, which was so mountainous as scarcely to be passable,
and withal very misty, producing no sort of harvest of corn or the like, but with
pears, apples, and other tree-fruits feeding a war-like and valiant breed of men,
he unawares fell into great distresses and dangers. For there was nothing to be
got, fit for his men to eat, of the growth of that place, nor could anything be
imported from any other. All they could do was to kill their beasts of burden,
and thus an ass' head could scarcely be bought for sixty drachmas. In short, the
king's own table failed; and there were but few horses left; the rest they had
spent for food.
Then Teribazus, a man often in great favor with his prince for his
valor and as often out of it for his buffoonery, and particularly at that time
in humble estate and neglected, was the deliverer of the king and his army. There
being two kings amongst the Cadusians, and each of them encamping separately,
Teribazus, after he had made his application to Artaxerxes and imparted his design
to him, went to one of the princes, and sent away his son privately to the other.
So each of them deceived his man, assuring him that the other prince had deputed
an ambassador to Artaxerxes, suing for friendship and alliance for himself alone;
and, therefore, if he were wise, he told him, he must apply himself to his master
before he had decreed anything, and he, he said, would lend him his assistance
in all things. Both of them gave credit to these words, and because they supposed
they were each intrigued against by the other, they both sent their envoys, one
along with Teribazus, and the other with his son. All this taking some time to
transact, fresh surmises and suspicions of Teribazus were expressed to the king,
who began to be out of heart, sorry that he had confided in him, and ready to
give ear to his rivals who impeached him. But at last he came, and so did his
son, bringing the Cadusian agents along with them, and so there was a cessation
of arms and a peace signed with both the princes.
[Plutarch, Life of Artaxerxes II 24; tr. John Dryden]
In 358, Artaxerxes III Ochus had to pacify the Cadusians again. During
this war, the future king Darius III Codomannus defeated a Cadusian leader in
a duel. As a consequence, they were on the Persian side during his reign. Commanded
by Atropates, they fought against the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great
in the battle at Gaugamela (331 BCE). They were pacified by his general Parmenion.
The Cadusians were still a recognizable ethnic unit in the first century
BCE, when the Roman general Marc Antony fought against them during his Parthian
campaign. The Cadusians are probably not identical to the Cardusians, who lived
more to the west.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Uxii (Ouxioi, Arrian, Anab. iii. 17; Strab. xi. p. 524, xv. pp. 729, 744), a tribe of ancient Persis, who lived on the northern borders of that province between Persis and Susiana, to the E. of the Pasitigris and to the W. of the Oroatis. They were visited by Alexander the Great on his way from Susa; and their capital town, Uxia (Strab. xv. p. 744), was the scene of a celebrated siege, the details of which are given by Arrian and Curtius. It has been a matter of considerable discussion where this city was situated. The whole question has been carefully examined by the Baron de Bode, who has personally visited the localities he describes. (Geogr. Journ. xiii. pp. 108-110.) He thinks Uxia is at present represented by the ruins near Shikaftohi-Suleiman in the Bakhtyari Mountains, to the E. of Shuster.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MASSAGETES (Ancient country) IRAN
Massagetae (Massagetai), a numerous and powerful tribe who dwelt in
Asia on the plains to the E. of the Caspian and to the S. of the Issedones, on
the E. bank of the Araxes. Cyrus, according to story, lost his life in a bloody
fight against them and their queen Tomyris. (Herod. i. 205-214; Justin. i. 8.)
They were so analogous to the Scythians that they were reckoned as members of
the same race by many of the contemporaries of Herodotus, who has given a detailed
account of their habits and manner of life. From the exactness of the geographical
data furnished by that historian, the situation of this people can be made out
with considerable precision. The Araxes is the Jaxartes, and the immense plain
to the E. of the Caspian is that steppe land which now includes Sungaria and Mongolia,
touching on the frontier of Eygur, and extending to the chain of the Altai. The
gold and bronze in which their country abounded were found in the Altai range.
Strabo (xi. pp. 512--514) confirms the statements of the Father of History as
to the inhuman practices and repulsive habits of these earliest specimens of the
Mongolian race. It may be observed that while Niebuhr (Klein Schrift. p. 362),
Bockh (Corp. Inscr. Graec. pl. xi. p. 81) and Schafarik (Slav. Alt. vol. i. p.
279) agree in assigning them to the Mongol stock, Von Humboldt (Asie Centrale,
vol. i. p. 400) considers them to have belonged to the Indo-European family.
Alexander came into collision with these wandering hordes, during
the campaign of Sogdiana, B.C. 328. (Arrian, Anab. iv. 16, 17.) The Massagetae
occur in Pomponius Mela (i. 2. § 5), Pliny (vi. 19), and Ptolemy (vi. 10. § 2,
13. § 3): afterwards they appear as Alani.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
(Old Persian Daha): nomadic tribe in the south of modern Kazakhstan. The name
is also spelled Daai, Dai, or Daoi.
The Central-Asian steppe has been the home of nomad tribes for centuries.
These nomads roamed across the plains and incidentally attacked the Achaemenid
empire. The Persians called these nomads the Saka, the Greeks knew them as the
Scythians.
One of the tribes was known as the Daha, which is the Persian word
for 'robbers'. This name need not surprise us; nomad tribes often received names
like this from the people in the towns who suffered from their raids. For example,
in the tenth century CE, the Europeans compared the Magyars to the greatest barbarians
they had ever known, the Huns; when the Magyars finally settled, they kept using
this name and their country is still called Hungary. Probably, 'Daha' was a similar
proud nickname.
A memory of these savage days seems to be preserved in the Avestan
legend that the prophet Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrism, was killed by
the Dahae. In fact, this is impossible, because the Dahae and Zarathustra are
separated by at least five centuries. However, it suggests that the atrocity of
this particular tribe was proverbal.
The Dahae are mentioned for the first time in the Daiva inscription
of the Persian king Xerxes (486-465); he mentions them as one of the satrapies
that listened to his orders. Since they are not mentioned in any inscription by
king Darius the Great, we may assume that Xerxes subdued the Dahae.
The Greek researcher Herodotus calls the Dai a Persian nomad tribe:
The Persian nation contains a number of tribes, and the ones which Cyrus assembled
and persuaded to revolt were the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which
all the other tribes are dependent. [...] Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei,
Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder -the Dai, Mardi,
Dropici, Sagarti, being nomadic. (Herodotus, Histories 1.125; tr. by Aubrey de
Selincourt).
If this short catalogue goes back to an authentic list from the days
of Cyrus the Great (559-530), we may assume that the Dahae took part in the rebellion
against the Median king Astyages in 550, but were dependent on one of the main
tribes, i.e. the Pasargadae, the Maraphii, or the Maspii.
Being nomads, the Dahae were not living on one place. In the fourth
century CE, they lived on the lower reaches of the river Syrdar'ya, the ancient
Jaxartes. It is very probable that this was their homestead in Xerxes' days too,
because he mentions the Dahae, the Saka haumavarga and the Saka tigrakhauda in
one breath, and these two tribes certainly lived in this neighborhood. In the
age of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, they lived in the neigborhood
of Hyrcania.
The Dahae were famous for their mounted archers. When Alexander the
Great tried to subject the Achaemenid empire, the Dahae loyally supported the
Persian king Darius III during the battle of Gaugamela (October 1, 331). When
this king was killed by Bessus (a nobleman who wanted to continue the struggle
against the invaders), the Dahae sided with him, and -later- with the Iranian
warlord Spitamenes. Later, they switched allegiance to Alexander, and they played
a very important role in his conquest of the Punjab.
The tribe of the Dahae disintegrated after the fall of the Achaemenid
empire. Older sub-tribal formations became independent tribes, such as the Xanthians
and Pissyri. Another tribe was that of the Parni, who went south in the third
century BCE and founded the Parthian empire. In 155, they subjected what was left
of the 'mother tribe'.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
MIDIA (Ancient country) IRAN
The Median tribes are these: the Busae, the Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti, the Budii, the Magi. Their tribes are this many.
Arizanti (Arizantoi, Her. i. 101), one of the six tribes of ancient Media mentioned by Herodotus. The name is derived from the Sanscrit Arya-Zantu of noble race. (Bopp, Vergl. Gr. i. p. 213.) Chrysantas (Chruantas, Xen. Cyrop. ii. 3. 5) is a name of similar origin and signification.
PARTHIA (Ancient country) IRAN
From whatever country the Parthians may have come, they are represented by almost all ancient writers as Scythians. (Curt. vi. 2; Justin, xli. 1; Plut. Crass. 24; Isidor. Orig. ix. 2)
SELEFKIA EPI TOU EVLEOU (Ancient city) IRAN
Vesubiani a people mentioned in the inscription of the arch of Susa.
The resemblance of name has led geographers to place the Vesubiani in a valley
through which runs a torrent called Vesubia, which falls into the Var. The Esubiani,
who are mentioned in the inscription of the Trophy of the Alps (Pliny, iii. 20)
seem to be the same as the Vesubiani, for the only difference is a V. But D'Anville
places the Esubiani on the Ubaye and the Ubayette, which two streams unite above
Barcelonette in the department of Basses-Alpes.
IRAN (Country) PERSIAN GULF
Greek name of the ritual greeting at the eastern courts.
The first to describe proskynesis ('kissing towards') was the Greek
researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus,
who lived in the fifth century BCE. He writes:
When the Persians meet one another in the roads, you can see whether those
who meet are of equal rank. For instead of greeting by words, they kiss each other
on the mouth; but if one of them is inferior to the other, they kiss one another
on the cheeks, and if one is of much less noble rank than the other, he falls
down before him and worships him. [Herodotus, Histories 1.134]
What Herodotus describes as a gesture he has seen in the streets,
was ritualized at the oriental courts. Depending on his rank, a visitor would
have to prostrate himself, kneel in front of, bow for or blow a kiss to the king.
Actually, it is not certain whether the man on the first picture blows
a kiss; the gesture may mean that he does not want to pollute his royal highness
with the smell of his breath. Magians did the same to protect the sacred fire
from contamination.
To the Greeks prostrating, bowing or kneeling were unacceptable. In
their view, these acts were only allowed in front of a god. Therefore, they thought
that the Persians -the only oriental court they knew- venerated their kings as
god. Seen in this light, the word 'worship' in Herodotus' text becomes logical.
(It is also interesting to note that Herodotus, who was something of a relativist,
does not object to the custom.)
In the summer of 327, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great provoked
great unrest among his courtiers when he introduced proskynesis. By then, he had
conquered the Achaemenid empire, and many Iranians were serving at his court.
If Alexander wanted their support, he had to act like a Persian king, and therefore,
he ordered everybody to behave according to the oriental court ritual.
There was much opposition and it is not clear whether Alexander succeeded.
However, proskynesis was common practice at the courts of his successors. In fact,
we still bow for our kings and queens.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Persian stories of Greek wrong-doing, conquest of Lydia, liberation from the Medes, Persian tribes, customs, hostilities against Ionians, capture of Babylon, campaign against Massagetae, against Egypt, Persians under Cambyses and Darius, Persian judges, freedom of Persia from taxation, its geographical situation, Persian campaign in Scythia, Persians in Libya, General history of Persian doings, origin of Persians, Persian council, armour, Persian and Spartan customs compared, Cyrus' counsel to the Persians, under Xerxes, cross into Europe, at Thermopylae, defeated at Plataea, defeated by Agesilaus, sacrifice horses to the Sun, marble figures of Persians supporting a bronze tripod, marble figures of Persians serving as pillars, `the Persians,' musical air by Timotheus, Persian Artemis, Persian bucklers, Persian Colonade at Sparta, Persian invasion of Greece, Persian law, Persian Lydians, Persian spoils taken by Themistocles to Delphi, Persian war.
Perseus Project Index. Total results on 24/4/2001: 1000 for Persians, 36 for Persae, 13 for Persai.
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