Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Various locations for destination: "MIDIA Ancient country IRAN".
Atropatene (Atroparene, Strab. xi. pp. 524-526; Atropatios Media,
Strab. xi. pp. 523-529; Atroparia and Atropatios, Steph. B.; Troparene, Ptol.
vi. 2. § 5; Atropatene, Plin.vi. 13.) Strabo, in his description of Media, divides
it into two great divisions, one of which he calls Megale, Media Magna; the other
he Atropatios Media or he Atroparene. He states that it was situated to the east
of Armenia and Matiene, and to the west of Media Magna. Pliny (l. c.) affirms
that Atropatene extended to the Caspian Sea, and that its inhabitants were a part
of the Medes. Its extent, N. and E., is nowhere accurately defined; but it seems
probable that it extended E. beyond the river Amardus. It seems also likely that
it comprehended the E. portion of Matiene, which province is considered by Strabo
(xi. p. 509) to have been part of Media. It must therefore have included a considerable
part of the modern province of Azerbaijan. It derived its name from Atropates,
or Atropes, who was governor of this district under the last Dareius, and, by
a careful and sagacious policy with regard to the Macedonian invaders, succeeded
in preserving the independence of the country he ruled, and in transmitting his
crown to a long line of descendants, who allied themselves with the rulers of
Armenia, Syria, and Parthia (Arrian, iii. 8, vi. 19, 29; Strab. xvi. p. 523; and
Arrian, vii. 4, 13). The province of Atropatene was evidently one of considerable
power, Strabo (xi. p. 523), on the authority of Apollonides, stating that its
governor was able to bring into the field 10,000 horse and 40,000 foot; nor does
it ever appear to have been completely conquered, though during the most flourishing
times of the Parthian empire it was sometimes a tributary of that warlike race,
sometimes governed by one of its own hereditary sovereigns, descended from Atropates.
(Tac. Ann. xv. 2,31.)
The whole of the district of Atropatene is very mountainous, especially
those parts which lie to the NW. and W. The mountains bear respectively the names
of Choatras, Montes Cadusii, and M. Iasonius, and are connected with M. Zagros.
They were respectively outlying portions of the great chains of Taurus and Anti-Taurus
(at present the mountain ranges of Kurdistan, Rowandiz, and Azerbaijan). Its chief
rivers were the Cambyses, Cyrus, Amardus or Mardus, and the Charindas (which perhaps
ought rather to be counted with the streams of Hyrcania). It had also a lake,
called Spauta (Strab. xi. p. 523), which is probably the present lake of Urmiah.
The capital of Atropatene is called by Strabo (xi. p. 523) Gaza, by
Pliny Gazae, by Ptolemy (vi. 18. § 4), Stephanus and Ammianus (xxiii. 6), Gazaca
(Gazaka). It is described thus by the first: The summer residence of the kings
of Media Atropatene is at Gaza, a city situated in a plain and in a strong fort,
named Vera, which was besieged by M. Antonius in his Parthian war. It has been
inferred from this that Strabo is speaking of two different places; but the probability
is, that Gaza was the town in the plain, of which Vera was the keep or rock-citadel,
especially as he adds, evidently speaking of one place, and on the authority of
Adelphius, who accompanied Antony, it is 2,400 stadia from the Araxes, which divides
Armenia from Atropatene. Colonel Rawlinson has shown, in a very able and learned
paper in the Roy. Geogr. Journ. (vol. x.), which has thrown more light on the
geography of this part of Asia than any other work, ancient or modern, that this
city bore at different periods of history several different names, and that its
real name ought to be the Ecbatana of Atropatene, in contradistinction to the
Ecbatana of Media Magna, now Hamadan.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited October 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Bagistanus mons (oros Bagistanon, Diod. ii. 13; Steph. B.), a mountain
on the confines of Media, at which Semiramis is said to have halted her army on
her march from Babylon to Ecbatana in Media Magna. The description of Diodorus
(vi. 13) is very curious:- Semiramis, he says, having accomplished her labours
(at Babylon) marched upon Media with a vast army; but when she had arrived at
the mountain called Bagistanon, she encamped near it, and prepared a Paradise,
whose circumference was twelve stadia, and which being in the plain, had a great
spring, from which all the plants could be watered. The mountain itself is sacred
to Zeus, and has abrupt rocks on the side towards the garden, rising to seventeen
stadia in height. Having cut away the lower part of the rock, she caused her own
portrait to be sculptured there, together with those of a hundred attendant guards.
She engraved also the following inscription in Syrian (Assyrian) letters:- 'Semiramis
having piled up one upon the other the trapping of the beasts of burthen which
accompanied her, ascended by these means from the plain to the top of the rock.'
In another place Diodorus (xvii. 110), describing the march of Alexander the Great
from Susa to Ecbatana, states that he visited Bagistane, having turned a little
out of his course, in order to see a most delightful district abounding in fruits
and in all other things appertaining to luxury. Thence he passed on through some
plains, which rear abundance of horses, and are called (though incorrectly) by
Arrian (vii. 13) the Nisaean plains, where he halted thirty days. Stephanus B.
speaks of a city of Media called Bagistana; and Isid. Charax (ap. Hudson. p. 6)
of a town called Baptana seated on the mountains, where there was a statue and
pillar of Semiramis. The district around he calls Cambadene. The geography of
this neighbourhood has been of late years very carefullyinvestigated, chiefly
by Col. Rawlinson (Journ. Geogr. Soc. vol. ix. 1839), and by C. Masson (J. R.
As. Soc. vol. xii. pt. 1. 1849). Both travellers assert that they have been able
to verify every position and almost every line of measurement in the route of
Isidorus. Col. Rawlinson points out the coincidence between the name Bagistanon
and the Persian Baghistan - which signifies a place of gardens, and of which Bostan
applied to some sculptures in the neighbourhood is a corruption - and conjectures
that the Baptana of Isidorus may be a yet further corruption of the same name.
Mr. Masson (p. 108) states that Bisitun is the name now popularly
used for the locality. Behistun, the form which Col. Rawlinson has adopted in
his Memoir on the Cuneiform Inscriptions (As. Journ. vol. x.) is derived by Mr.
Masson from Behist-tan, the Place of Paradise or Delight - a more natural derivation,
however, would make it come from Bagistanon or Baghistan. Mr. Masson in his memoir
has pointed out very clearly that the rocks in the neighbourhood contain remains
of four distinct periods. 1. On the upper part of the principal
mass of rock, the whole surface of which has been scarped away, are the remains
of the heads of three colossal figures, and above them are traces of characters.
The heads are in basso-rilievo, and, according to Mr. Masson, who is we believe
the only traveller who has described them, of very early workmanship. 2.
At the N. extremity of Bagistanon, in a nook or retiring angle of the hill, high
upon the rock, and almost inaccessible, is a group of thirteen figures, the one
on the extreme left representing the king, and carved on the face of the rock,
which is cut away horizontally, so as to allow a place to stand on. About the
figures are tablets with inscriptions in the Cuneiform character. These figures
and inscriptions, we now know, refer to Dareius the son of Hystaspes and his victories.
3. Still further to the N., of much later workmanship, is a group
composed originally of five or six figures, but now much mutilated, representing
a person to whom a Victory is presenting a wreath as trampling on a prostrate
enemy. Over it is a Greek inscription in which the name Gotarzes may be detected.
Rawlinson and Masson concur in supposing that this Gotarzes was an Arsacid prince,
who fought a great battle near this spot with Meherdates. (Joseph. Ant. xx. 3.
§ 4; Tac. Ann. xi. 8.) It is worthy of remark that Tacitus (Ann. xii. 13) states
that Gotarzes took up his position on Mt. Sambulos. There is every reason to suppose
that Mt. Sambulos is the same as Bagistanon, it being a generic name for the range
of which the latter formed one projecting portion. If so, Baghistan might have
acquired its name, as that part traditionally connected with the labours of Semiramis.
Tacitus says Mt. Sambulos was sacred to Hercules, probably meaning Jupiter; it
is called by Pliny (vi. 27) Mons Cambalidus, in a passage (super Chosicos ad septentrionem
Mesobatene sub monte Cambalido), which seems to prove that there is a connection
between the names Mesobatene, Baptana or Batana in Isidorus, and the present Mah-Sabadan.
Diodorus, too (l. c.), in describing Alexander's march, speaks of Sambea, a place
abounding with the necessaries of life, which is, no doubt, the Mons Cambalidus
of Pliny, the Cambadene of Isidore, and the present Kirmanshah. 4.
Is a comparatively modern inscription in Arabic, recording a grant of land in
endowment of the adjacent caravanserai.
A peculiar interest attaches to the rock of Baghistan or Behistun,
owing to the successful interpretation within the last few years by Col. Rawlinson
of the Cuneiform inscriptions, which are on the tablets above and beside the thirteen
figures to which we have alluded. Col. Rawlinson has published a complete account
of his labours in the Joiurn. Roy. As. Soc. vol. x. with copies of the inscriptions
themselves, and translations in Latin and English of the original Persian. In
this memoir, he has shown that the standing Royal figure is that of Dareius himself,
and that the figures in front of him are those of different impostors, who had
claimed the throne of his ancestors, and were successively compelled to succumb
to his power. The inscriptions above, in the three forms of the Cuneiform writing,
Persian, Assyrian, and Median, proclaim the ancestral right of Dareius to the
throne of Persia, with the names of the kings of the Achaemenid race who had preceded
him: they give an account of his gradual, but, in the end, successful triumph
over the different rebels who rose against him during the first four years of
his reign. Col. Rawlinson thinks, that, in the fifth year B.C. 516, Dareius commenced
constructing this monument, the completion of which must have been the work of
several years. It is evident, that the Persian monarch took the greatest pains
to ensure the permanency of his record. It is placed at an elevation of about
300 feet from the base of the rock, and the ascent is so precipitous, that scaffolding
must have been erected to enable the workmen to carve the sculpture. In its natural
state, the face of the rock, on which the figures are placed, is almost unapproachable.
The execution of the figures themselves is, perhaps, not equal to those at Persepolis,
but this is natural, as an earlier effort of the artist's skill. The labour, says
Col. Rawlinson, bestowed on the whole work, must have been enormous. The mere
preparation of the surface of the rock must have occupied many months, and on
examining the tablets minutely, I observed an elaborateness of workmanship, which
is not to be found in other places. Wherever, in fact, from the unsoundness of
the stone, it was difficult to give the necessary polish to the surface, other
fragments were inlaid, imbedded in molten lead, and the fittings so nicely managed
that a very careful scrutiny is required, at present, to detect the artifice.
Holes or fissures, which perforated the rock, were filled up also with the same
material, and the polish, which was bestowed upon the entire sculpture, could
only have been accomplished by mechanical means. But the real wonder of the work,
I think, consists in the inscriptions. For extent, for beauty of execution, for
uniformity and correctness, they are, perhaps, unequalled in the world... It would
be very hazardous to speculate on the means employed to engrave the work in an
age when steel was supposed to have been unknown, but I cannot avoid noticing
a very extraordinary device, which has been employed, apparently, to give a finish
and durability to the writing. It was evident to myself, and to those who, in
company with myself, scrutinized the execution of the work, that, after the engraving
of the rock had been accomplished, a coating of siliceous varnish had been laid
on to give a clearness of outline to each individual letter. and to protect the
surface against the action of the elements. This varnish is of infinitely greater
hardness than the limestone rock beneath it. It has been washed down in several
places by the trickling of water for three and twenty centuries, and it lies in
flakes upon the foot-ledge like thin layers of lava. It adheres in other portions
of the tablet to the broken surface, and still shows with sufficient distinctness
the forms of the characters, although the rock beneath is entirely honeycombed
and destroyed. It is only, indeed, in the great fissures, caused by the outbursting
of natural springs, and in the lower part of the tablet, where I suspect artificial
mutilation, that the varnish has entirely disappeared. (Rawlinson, Journ. As.
Soc. vol. x.; Masson, ibid. vol. xii. pt. 1; Ker Porter, Travels, vol. ii.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited October 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Matiana (Matiane, Strab. ii. p. 73, xi. p. 509; Steph. B.; Matiene, Herod. v. 52: Eth. Matianos, Matienos), a district of ancient Media, in the south-western part of its great subdivision called Media Atropatene, extending along the mountains which separate Armenia, and Assyria. Its boundaries are very uncertain, and it is not possible to determine how far it extended. It is probably the same as the Martiane of Ptolemy (vi. 2. § 5). Strabo mentions as a peculiarity of the trees in this district, that they distil honey (l. c.). The Matiani are included by Herodotus in the eighteenth satrapy of Dareius (iii. 94), and served in the army of Xerxes, being armed and equipped in the same manner as the Paphlagonians (vii. 72). Herodotus evidently considered them to occupy part of the more widely extended territory of Armenia.
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
Orontes (Orontes, Ptol. vi. 2. § 4), a mountain chain of Media, which extended
in a south-east direction, passing the Ecbatana of Greater Media (Hamadan). It
must be considered as an outlying portion of the still greater chain of the Zagros.
It is now called the Erwend or Elwend. It is probable that the name is preserved
in the celebrated mountain of Kurdistan, now called Rowandiz. In Armenian geography
this mountain district is called Erovantuni; which is evidently connected with
the ancient Orontes. (St. Martin, Armenia, vol. ii. pp. 363, 429.)
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