550-331 BC - Achaemenid Rule
Until the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Persian (538 BC) historians make hardly any mention of Bactria. There is no doubt that Cyrus subjugated Bactria and made it a Persian province; and Darius in his inscriptions includes Bactria as one of the countries tributary to the Achsmenian power. Herodotus enumerates the forces which Bactria contributed to the Persian invasion of Greece. After annexation to the Persian empire by Cyrus in the sixth century, Bactria together with Margiana formed the Twelfth Satrapy.
When Ninus and his Assyrians endeavored to reduce all Asia under their power, the progress of that monarch was long checked by the wisdom and valour of the Bactrians, yet the walls of this capital, and the spirit of its inhabitants, yielded at last to the repeated attacks of their numerous foes, and that kingdom became a province of the Assyrian empire. The Bactrians, as auxiliaries engaged, while their governors were appointed by their conquerors.
In this state of degrading dependency, Bactria remained, till the Assyrian empire was itself overturned by the aspiring spirit and the fortunate arms of Cyrus the Great. Cyrus, who was the founder of the Persian monarchy, set out with a splendidly organised army for the conquest of India, but his campaign was disastrous, for he returned with only seven men, and yet it is known positively that Cyrus advanced the boundaries of the Persian monarchy as far as the banks of the Indus. To conduct that consummate warrior at the head of the confederate forces of Media and Persia, till the ascendency of his genius extinguished the glories of the Lydian and the Assyrian empires on the field of battle, and levelled the walls of Babylon with the ground, belongs to the historian of these nations.
But though the Bactrians might rejoice, that the kingdom which reduced them to bondage was thus reduced to the same humiliating dependency, yet, under the yoke of the Persians, they were still doomed to wear the fetters which the Assyrians had first forged for them, and they soon found that they had changed their masters, but not their state. The names of the governors of Bactria, under Cyrus and his successors, are unworthy of a place in the page of history.
Darius I, kinsman of Cyrus, ascended the throne of Persia towards the close of the 6th century BC, and he strengthened the Persian frontier along the Indus, He also annexed to his monarchy several of the North-Western Provinces of India, and he made of these a 20th satrapy. Wishing to know where the Indus flowed into the ocean, he despatched a fleet under Silaxes to make this discovery. After taking 30 months to reach the ocean, Silaxes brought his fleet again up the river.
During the reign of Darius Hystaspes, according to the most authentic accounts, flourished Zoroaster, the great restorer of that region which bears his name, and which extended its influence, not only over Persia, but over almost all the East. After he had established his opinions in Media, where he first assumed the character of a divine teacher, he migrated into Bactria, and. there propagated his opinions with singular success. It was in the capital of this country that he fixed his chief residence, and consecrated to the worship of fire that magnificent temple to which every true disciple was bound to make a pilgrimage, once in his life, to propitiate the deity which in a peculiar manner resided there.
Having accomplished several journeys into the neighbouring nations for the propagation of his doctrines, he returned to Bactria, where, according to his own institutions, he was principally to reside, and endeavored to convert Argasp, king of the Oriental Scythians, not so much by the force of reason, as by the dread of the arms of Darius. The indignation of that high spirited monarch was roused against a man who thus dared to insult his understanding and his power, and at the head of his native bands he invaded Bactria, slew Zoroaster, and the priests who adhered to him, and destroyed all the temples which he had consecrated. Had he returned to his own country in safety, his triumph would have been complete but before he could reach his dominions, he was overtaken by Darius, and was doomed to behold his forces annihilated by the Persian arms. Darius immediately, by his example and authority, restored the temples, and confirmed the religion of Zoroaster in Bactria.
Bactria remained under the dominion of Persia until the reign of Darius III, surnamed Codomannus. When that monarch beheld his mighty army dissipated, on the plains of Arbela, by the consummate skill of Alexander the Great, and the irresistible valor of his hardy veterans, he fled from the last and the most disastrous of his fields to Media, where, collecting the wrecks of his conquered forces, he resolved to make another effort to prop his falling fortunes. But when he heard that Alexander was advencing to give him battle,, he shrunk from the unequal contest, and determined to retire into Bactria, to augment his army with the brave inhabitants of that province. Bessus, a Persian, nobleman, to whom the government of that province was committed, was then in the army of Darius, at the head of. the Bactrians, consisting of 4000 slingers, and 3000 horse. When he perceived that the spirit and the power of Darius yielded to the rising fortunes of the Macedonian hero, instead of supporting his lord and benefactor, he formed a conspiracy against him, and hoped to rise on his ruins to the empire of the East.
No sooner did the Persian prince set out from Ecbatana, than, dead to gratitude and justice, and regardless of future fame, Bessus seized the person of the unfortunate monarch, and carried him to Bactria. Finding, however, that he was pursued by Alexander, with implacable resentment, he put Darius to death, assumed the sovereignty of the East, and collected an army to defend his throne. But, though to excuse his treason, and to advance his ambition, he had formerly condemned the flight of Darius, and imputed the misfortunes of that monarch to his pusillanimity, yet he now trembled at the approach of Alexander, imitated the most indefensible part of Darius's conduct, detroyed the country through which his enemies had to pass in pursuit of him, transported his army over the Oxus, and, after burning his vessels lest they should fall into the hands of Alexander, fled to Nautaca, a city of Sogdiana, where he imagined he would be secure.
But neither the ravages of Bactria, nor the breadth of the Oxus, nor the bulwarks of Nautaca, could protect the usurper. Bessus was delivered into the hands of Alexander by his own officers when they could no longer defend him; and Alexander, detesting the traitor, though he reaped the harvest of his treachery, yielded him to the revenge of Oxatres, the- brother of Darius, and the regiqide expiated his crimes by a death embittered with every torture which ingenuity could invent, or cruelty execute.
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