Western and Central Eurasia

TOURAJ DARYAEE

It is a daunting task to define the pre-modern Eurasian world between the second millennium bce and the first millennium ce. One has to traverse systems and empires stretching from the Oxus and the Indus, and beyond the Taklimakan Desert through the oasis cities to the Iranian Plateau.

From there the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus lie to the north and the Persian Gulf across the desert to the south. Mesopotamia, the fertile land often called the “Cradle of Civilization,” appears after passing the Zagros Mountains. The Mesopotamian land is fed by two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which travel south from the arc of the Fertile Crescent into the Persian Gulf.¹ In Mesopotamia to the south, much like the oases of Central Asia, trading towns prevail, while its center faces a desert. It is through the northern fertile zone, south of the Caucasus, that one can travel to the Eastern Mediterranean.^{^[363]} ^{^[364]} To the north is the Black Sea, another economic hub.^{^[365]} The Mediterranean brings North Africa, the Near East, and Southern Europe into convergence. Unlike the oases and desert settlements, or the mountainous regions, the Mediterranean Sea defines a cultural sphere which has from time to time been unified, first in the second century bce by the Romans, but much longer as an economic zone.

Around 1200 bce, changes began to occur in the Afro-Eurasian world that can be attributed to both technological innovation and the coming of invaders, commonly called the Sea People. The Assyrian Empire was able to bring a significant part of the Eurasian world together as the first imperial system of antiquity. Two millennia later, around 900 ce, the Abbasid Caliphate, based on the former Sasanian Persian and Eastern Roman empires, created a similar commonwealth along the Mediterranean, but which now extended all the way to the River Oxus and Central Asia.

The Abbasids were thus the conclusion of the aspirations to world empire that characterize the period between the second millennium bce and the end of the first millennium ce. So, both geographically and politically, there are ways we can imagine and provide some basic outlines, contours, structures, and major eras of rupture in the history of the region.

Around 1200 bce three important events brought major changes to the Eurasian world. The first was climatic changes that climaxed around 1200 bce with a severe drought in the Eastern Mediterranean region. By 1200 bce, at the end of this warming period, people living alongside lakes were forced to leave, and water levels began to rise in certain regions.^{^[366]} This climatic episode brought about major population movements that included Libyans, Israelites, Aramaeans, Phrygians, and the Sea People.^{^[367]} This change is thought to have contributed to a period of chaos and disorder that ushered in the “Dark Age” and the end of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, and Syria.^{^[368]} This movement of people, such as the Sea People who displaced the organized sedentary ruling elites, led to the weakening of states such as Egypt during the reign of Ramesses III, to Aramaean incursions in the Near East (Assyria and Babylonia), and of Mycenaeans into Greece, and finally the total collapse of the Hittites in Anatolia. It appears to have been climate changes, then, that propelled various groups, possibly nomads, to move into the more centralized states and bring about their decline.

Innovations in metal use and warfare technique are another indication of these changes. For example, the use of chariots became popular in Eurasia in the second millennium bce. Archaeologists note that the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-Europeans had already ascended onto the Iranian Plateau and the Indian subcontinent because of the domestication of horses and the use of chariots.

It was the chariot in the second millennium bce that enabled these people not only to begin to move (notably Indo-European speakers such as Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Italic, Celtic, Armenian, and Phrygian) over long distances but also to dominate the areas they entered. The chariot was used in the Near East all the way to Mycenae in Greece and also Egypt. The Vedic hymns of the Aryan invaders of India and the Iliad of the Greekworld offer the poetic memory of such traditions.^{^[369]} Robert Drews, in criticizing the prevalent theories about the reasons for the major changes in 1200 bce, has completed the picture by suggesting that changes in military technology brought about the end of the Bronze Age. He believes that the people who were on the move were able to overwhelm the centralized states using chariots in Libya, Palestine, Israel, Lycia, northern Greece, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and a few other places, and by simply employing javelins and a large number of infantry in direct battle.^{^[370]} The last major innovation/change was the use of iron instead of bronze. This change impacted both the military and the religious practices of the people in Eurasia. Swords became stronger, and dedicatory objects that were once inscribed on bronze withered away.

Assyria: the “Mesopotamian Core”

In Assyria, the rule of the Middle Assyrian Empire, which rose out of the ashes of the Mitanni Empire, continued throughout the twelfth century. At the same time that Merneptah was dealing with the Sea People and the Libyans, the famed Assyrian emperor Tukulti-Ninurta I (the possible model for the biblical Nimrod)^{^[371]} was expanding his empire at the expense of the remnants of the Hittite Empire. He also temporarily removed the Kassite ruler of Babylonia and carried him in chains to Assyria, naming himself the “King of Sumer and Akkad,” the traditional title of the rulers of Babylonia.

Assyria was still largely in control of the trade routes in eastern Anatolia, while the control of the Syrian trade routes guaranteed access to the Mediterranean.

Internal strife among the descendants of Tukulti-Ninurta amounted to a problem of succession, and less than thirty years later, another Assyrian reformer, Ashur-Dan I (1179-1133), managed to stabilize the empire during his long reign. Among his achievements was gaining control of much of northern Babylonia after the demise of the Kassite Dynasty, which had ruled Babylonia for over 300 years. This action put Assyria in direct, and quite hostile, contact with the rising power of the Middle Elamite Kingdom under one of its most powerful rulers, Shutruk-Nahhunte, who eventually came to control Babylonia and Lower Mesopotamia after the disappearance of Kassite power.^{^[372]} ^{^[373]} The Code of Hammurabi, the statue of the great Mesopotamian deity Marduk, and other valuables were all carried by the Elamites to Susa in the southwestern Iranian Plateau as a sign of victory.11

The Dark Ages in the Near East

The period after 1050 bce is often called the DarkAges in Near Eastern history, mainly because the dearth of records leaves the period rather dark for historians. Common Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions disappear in this period, and little else can be found to provide us with a narrative of the history of the period. In the Levant and Anatolia, the situation is similar, although occasional Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions, providing standard accounts of events in the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of Cilicia and eastern Anatolia, are exceptions to this general rule. Additionally, the evidence of the Old Testament, despite its focus on the history of Judea and Israel, is of some use, as it does provide some information about the formation of Aramean polities such as the kingdom of Damascus, or Judea/Israel itself.^{^[374]}

This is, probably not coincidentally, also the period that the archaeological records point toward as the time of Iranian, and larger Indo-European, migrations. Iranian-speaking tribes, later to be divided and identified as Medes, Parthians, and Persians, appear to have moved to the Iranian Plateau around 1000 bce, or have become distinguished from their Indo-Aryan brethren.

This is also the approximate date of the composition of the earliest part of the Avesta, the Gathas of Zoroaster, which linguistically are put around 1000 bce.^{^[375]} ^{^[376]} It would, however, take a few centuries for the first effects of the Iranian-speaking tribes on Middle Eastern affairs to be felt.1⁴

The Urartu kingdom and the Assyrians

Urartu was a largely highland kingdom that controlled the mountain passes and trade routes on the eastern Taurus region. Grand fortresses and other military installments gave it an air of military domination, which in the face of Assyrian threats is probably not a wrong assumption. From the time of Sarduri and his later descendants, Urartu spread from Lake Van to Lake Urmia in the ninth century bce. However, Urartu certainly had a strong economic function as well, particularly in its control of the mines in the Taurus and northern Zagros, but also intensive cultivation and hydraulic works.^{^[377]} By all accounts, it was a rich kingdom that provided a real challenge to Assyria in the ninth and eight centuries bce, and culturally had an enormous effect on its successor polities, both the Medes and the Armenians.

Meanwhile, Assyrian rulers Ashurnasirpal (883-859 bce ) and Shalmaneser III (859-824 bce) consolidated and established Assyria's direct control over its territories, integrated eastern Anatolia and northern Syria into Assyria proper, established direct control over Babylonia, and defeated the remaining forces of Egypt and its allies at the battle of Qarqar on Orontes in 853 bce. Shalmaneser's successors faced some internal turbulence in their empire, but managed to successfully control their possessions and exert power over much of the Near East and Iran, even reducing the enduring power of Elam. Major construction of monumental buildings using extensive human and material resources now took place in specific locations. The building of Kalkhu (modern Nimrud) included a 4.2-mile-long wall.

At Khorsabad and Nineveh the same pattern of monumental structures and human effort is documented where thousands of workers were involved. But these major constructions finally brought ruin to the original Assyrian Empire and led to its collapse.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire

In the late eighth century, however, a series of conqueror-builder kings took Assyria to the height of its power and ushered in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Startingwith Tiglath-Pileser III and continuing with Sargon II, and Sennacherib, these kings expanded the Assyrian territory even further to the end of Anatolia, confronting the nascent Greek states that were emerging from their own Dark Ages. They also completely subdued the tribes of the Zagros region, including the Manneans and the Medes in Iran, and absorbed the remains of the Urartan power in 743 bce, which was destroyed by the Cimmerian invasions from the Caucasus. The Neo-Assyrian Empire stretched from Susa in Iran to Thebes in Egypt,^{^[378]} thus constituting an Afro-Asiatic empire in the eighth century bce.

Internally, realizing the limitations of the cultic center of Ashur, these kings embarked upon creating a series of new capitals, most importantly the city of Kalhu, already an important urban site in the Middle Assyrian period, but also completely new foundations such as Dur-Sharrukin whose impressive remains at Khorsabad display the Assyrian glory even today. It appears, however, that Nineveh, another Middle Assyrian site, was to be the last enduring capital of Assyria, established by Esarhaddon, another prolific emperor of the early seventh century. A final push to expand Assyria, including a direct invasion of Elam and the destruction of Susa under Ashur-banipal (669-627 b c e), however, seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

By the time of Ashur-banipal, Assyria was the undisputed master of the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and western Iran. However, its economic basis on the agriculture of Assyria, supplemented by the booty from the conquered lands and tributes, was stretched quite thin, as the local farming community could no longer feed gigantic urban sites such as Ashur, Kalhu, Nineveh, or Dur-Sharrukin. Supplies of food had to be brought in from Syria, Babylonia, and Anatolia, which by necessity could not have been reliable. At the same time, a rural Aramean population, which spread across the land and over the borders of Assyria proper and into Babylonia, Syria, and Anatolia, entertained ideas of a better political presence than submission to the Assyrians. In the south, the newly formed Chaldean kingdom of Babylonia used the occasion of a fight between Ashur-banipal and his brother, the viceroy of Babylonia, to rise in rebellion. Nabopolassar, a Chaldean chief, then managed to unite most of Babylonia, except Nippur, against Assyria, and, for the first time in over two centuries, establish an independent Babylonian dynasty. Egypt, another Assyrian possession since Esarhaddon’s time, also managed to create its own local dynasty and thus gain independence.

Assyria’s military class too was quite stretched and could no longer be maintained purely by the local population. Mercenaries, as well as integrated soldiers from among the Cimmerins and Medes, were a common presence in the Assyrian army, in effect controlling many of the mid-level positions of the officer corps. A conspiracy, partly managed by Cyaxares, a local chief of the Medes, but largely orchestrated by Nabopolassar of Babylonia, resulted in a major coup d’etat against Sin-sharr-ishkun, himself an Assyrian usurper, in 616 bce. Median corps from inside the Assyrian army started to take control of the military, while a joint Babylonian-Median army started to systematically invade and sack Kalhu and other Assyrian cities.^{^[379]} A protracted war lasted for several years from 627 bce and ended up with the invasion of Nineveh in 612 bce, essentially ending the power of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire at the hands of the Medes and the Babylonians.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire (612-539 bce)

This major reconfiguration of the political scene of the Near East essentially left a substantial vacuum in regional politics. Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 bce) was the longest ruling and strongest of Chaldean rulers of Babylonia. The reign of Nebuchadnezzar is known to us mainly through the Old Testament’s account of the sack of Judea and the mass deportation of its population to Babylonia, the event often known as the “Babylonian captivity.”^{^[380]} The sack of Judea in fact was part of Nebuchadnezzar’s larger campaign to bring the Phoenician citystates and Aramean states such as Damascus under his rule, and to check the efforts of Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis. The latter was trying to re-create a puppet version of the Assyrian Empire in order to limit the expansion of Babylonia. Judea, located on a major route from the Levant to Egypt, was then an important crossroads that needed to be secured.

The mass deportation of population, such as the case of Jews from Judea to Babylon, was in fact the continuation of an older practice by the Assyrians. Since the ninth century, Assyrians had undertaken this action in order to achieve both economic and strategic gains. The removal of population guaranteed that a hostile area would be cleared of its unfriendly population, while the deported population, completely at the mercy of the empire, acted as useful menial and skilled labor in the areas where they were needed. This is evident in the case of the exiled Jewish population, some of whom, even after the granting of freedom by Cyrus the Great, chose to remain in Babylonia and in fact became some of the most prolific agriculturalists and urban merchants of the region.

Nebuchadnezzar II, following the tradition of Assyrian emperors, undertook many building projects in Babylon itself. The famous Gate of Ishtar, as well as the processional street leading to Esagila, the sacred temple of Marduk, was his obvious effort to return the glory of yore to Babylon.^{^[381]} His reputation for building is also at the root of his fame as the founder of the great Hanging Gardens of Babylon, possibly a copy of Shalmanasscr's botanical and zoological gardens in Kalhu. The story of his marriage to a Median princess, in light of the new evidence about the absence of an actual Median kingdom, might be a myth,^{^[382]} but certainly shows his close connections to the eastern states. Nebuchadnezzar's reign, in short, constitutes the brief glorious period of the already brief Neo-Babylonian Empire.^{^[383]}

In 556, Nabonid (or Nabonidus in Greek sources), a maternal grandson of Ashur-banipal from the city of Harran, the last stand of Ashur-ubalit II, murdered Labashi-Marduk, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. Probably on account of his association with Harran, and as a result of the propaganda of the Babylonian priesthood, his name has been best associated with the cult of the god Sin, the moon god of Assyria. Based on the largely hostile accounts, such as that of the Cylinder of Cyrus, he is represented as a negligent king who was more concerned with promoting the cult of Sin and neglected the cult of Marduk, the official cult of Babylonia, and also largely left the empire to his son and regent, Belshazzar. The dissatisfaction with the rule of Nabonidus, then, led to the invasion of Cyrus, the king of Anshan, and the end of the Babylonian Empire.^{^[384]}

The Afro-Eurasian world united: the Achaemenid Persian Empire

The Achaemenid Empire was an example of a successful attempt to establish a socio-economic and political world system whose influence dominated the region for at least the thousand years that followed its disappearance from the historical narrative, and even up to the present. The institutions that the Achaemenid system managed to install in their Iranian territories guaranteed the continuity of historical progression for millennia to come. The Achaemenid system, based on the political dominance of a centralized power, exploitation of economic peripheries, and the central processing and distribution of economic resources, was indeed a world-system in its basic form. The Achaemenid Empire, unlike the empires before it, was not based on the political oppression and economic destruction of conquered regions, but rather on a well-designed system of political support for economic production and expansion throughout the whole empire and a localized, non-franchised taxation system which was at the same time directly dependent on the central power. In this system, the imperial center, as a major consumer but also the focal point of all economic activity, was indeed the core of the system, while the economic production and consumption of outlying areas related to and depended on the economy of the center and both fed the center and was manipulated by it.

The Achaemenid Empire (550-330 bce), from its origin as the result of conquests by Cyrus II of Persia (later known with the eponym “the Great”) and his son Cambyses to the complicated administrative and financial power that it became under the rule of Darius I (again “the Great,” and quite deservedly so) and Xerxes I, was a true “world empire” and a political unit that deserves to be studied for its effects on subsequent world history. In a sense, one could also argue that the Achaemenid Empire was the culmination of c. 3,000 years of civilization and about 2,000 years of exercise in empirebuilding in the Near East. No one could claim that the Achaemenid Empire was a newcomer to world history, as no entity could have existed without strong ties to what came before it. However, despite being a continuation of the imperial systems that preceded it, the Achaemenid Empire was also something quite new, indeed an innovator in humanity's continuous efforts to organize its affairs.

Cyrus II, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, is a great example of what the empire embodied and how it saw and defined itself. Cyrus was the local ruler of a city well known in ancient history, the city of Ansan/Anzan, long famed as the “highland” capital of the Elamite state. It was from here that the Elamites often descended upon the Susiana Plain to form strong kingdoms and oppose the Babylonians and Assyrians, and to these same highlands they often retreated when their opponents gained the upper hand. Cyrus, in this sense, was the ruler of an ancient city with ancient traditions and well-established administrative and hierarchical systems.

Cyrus' conquests of Anatolia, another old seat of civilization, one based on seafaring and agriculture, as well as the heavily agricultural civilization of Mesopotamia, were the first steps in realizing what the Achaemenids ultimately came to represent. The Assyrians had also tried to take advantage of the resources offered by the Anatolian highlands,^{^[385]} and, as we have seen, they, along with the Babylonians, must also be credited with the first attempts at conquering and controlling the rest of West Asia in this case.

However, the conquest by Cyrus of Anatolia and Babylonia, as well as the rest of the Iranian Plateau, represents a dramatic change of tone and direction for this heir of the ancient Near Eastern empires. Cyrus, or shortly after him Darius, put the newly conquered lands under a firm and well-organized imperial system in which the territories were divided into semi-autonomous provinces ruled by local administrators. At the same time, the empire had a visible presence in each province (or Satrapi, from Old Persian xsathrapaiti) via its agents, tax assessors, and garrison commanders. But what is unique in Cyrus' empire is not the administration, something that would be perfected by Darius I, but rather his remarkable success in achieving what had not been done before: a largely peaceful union of the ancient rival civilizations of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Elam, and the Iranian Plateau. This is evident from Cyrus' own statements and propaganda as to his deeds and actions in comparison with earlier Assyrian and Babylonian narratives and their views of the conquered people.

Darius (521-486 bce) is called “great,” not, like Cyrus or Alexander, because of his conquests, of which he had a few, but because he was effectively the founder of the system which remains the basis of state administration in the world even today. He perfected the provincial system of Cyrus, appointing local rulers closely watched by the “Great King's Eyes and Ears.” The taxation system was truly reformed, creating a more effective and economically encouraging system unprecedented up to the time. The safety of the empire was guaranteed by the establishment of local garrisons responsible only to the Great King himself. In this way, Darius took central responsibility for the basic role of the government, protecting its citizens, while at the same time removing the threat of rebellion by the local rulers.^{^[386]}

Darius' creation of a Royal Road system, some 1,400 miles long, was a major achievement. The construction of a royal artery with its station (stathmoi) and guard stations (phylakteria) created one of the safest and quickest avenues of communication, with inns (katagogai) and caravanserais (kataluseis).^{^[387]} But again, like Cyrus, his greatest achievement, and what distinguishes the Achaemenid Empire particularly, is the fact that under Darius' rule, the great ancient hydraulic civilizations of the Nile, Mesopotamia, and Indus were united under the same political system that was also shared with the Iranian Plateau and Anatolia as well.

Darius created an imperial system that was very much mindful of its economic function. In this system, roads and waterways were constructed and opened for trade and communication. It is during Darius I's rule that the first version of a canal connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea was constructed, where ships could actually navigate the waterways from Africa to Asia.^{^[388]} The Chaluf cuneiform text suggests that Darius wanted to connect the waterways of the empire, creating further connections between Egypt and Iran.^{^[389]}

Agricultural production, one of the most important sources of income for the empire, was given equal attention through the construction of a major canal system, as well as an innovative system of qanats (Arabic: a water storage system used in arid and semi-arid regions) which broadened the possibility of cultivation from Egypt to Arabia, and Persia.^{^[390]} Thus, cultivation was made possible not only at the river basin but also at the in-between arid regions through this ingenious innovation. These operations were meant to create an economic system on a scale the Eurasian world had not experienced before.

For the people of Afro-Eurasia, the Achaemenid system represented and provided several things. In its remarkable uniformity, the empire offered a consistency that could assist larger enterprises beyond subsistence-level production. In this aspect, mostly reflected through taxation, the state allowed the producer to plan for profit making, eventually causing a form of specialization that naturally resulted in higher production reflected by an observable improvement of living standards. In its tolerance and flexibility, the empire allowed for localization, leaving the Aegean or Phoenician merchants to roam the seas and look for profits where they were, while allowing the nomadic pastoralist to raise his cattle and the farmer to utilize all his resources.

The same lasting effect can be observed in Achaemenid cultural policies. It is remarkable that a word translatable to “multicultural” (Old Persian vispazananam) was used in an inscription of Darius at Naqs-e Rostam to describe the empire.^{^[391]} The Achaemenid administration is famed for having adopted, and indeed cultivated, the Aramaic language and script, as its uniform means of communication.

In terms of its political view, the Achaemenid Empire embodied the idea of justice and order. The Old Persian term used for this concept is arta, which carries the cosmic notion of order amidst chaos. The king's law was established to do justice to Ahuramazda's benevolent creation where there would be “good horses, good men,” and there would be no “(enemy) army, nor crop failure nor Falsehood.”^{^[392]} The King of Kings was also one who administered justice and his (Old Persian) data- “law” was held supreme. He, in fact, upheld the democratic institutions for the Greek-inhabited cities on the Ionian coast and the tradition of other Satrapies, while the Persian monarchy upheld an allencompassing law that did not interfere with the local tradition.^{^[393]}

Alexander and the Hellenistic Age: from India and Afghanistan to Macedonia and Egypt

In the fourth century bce, a new powerful force from Macedonia changed the political map of the Afro-Eurasian world and reconfigured its cultural and developmental make-up. Philip of Macedon, followed by his son Alexander the Great, conquered the Greek city-states and with a new military composed of Greco-Macedonians, using new military equipment and tactics, began their invasion of the Afro-Eurasian world. Three major battles were fought between 334 bce when Alexander crossed the Hellespont and 330 bce when his main opponent, Darius III, died. The battles of Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela brought the Macedonian king closer and closer to the unification of the Eastern Mediterranean and Afro-Asiatic world. By 331 bce, after the last battle, Alexander was proclaimed as the “King of Asia,” and in Babylon he was called the “King of the Universe.”^{^[394]} This symbolically signaled the changing of the guards in terms of power and rulership between the Persians and Greco-Macedonians. The conquest also led to colonization of the Afro-Asiatic world by the conquerors. The further consequence of this change of power was the movement of money and wealth from Asia to the Mediterranean; the sacking and pillaging of the Persian capital Persepolis alone added some 2,500 tons of gold to Alexander's treasury. While this was the greatest capture of wealth in antiquity, it was one of the many hoards that Alexander was able to get his hands on to finance his further conquest in Asia.

After defeating Darius III, Alexander marched into Bactria, roughly equated with modern Afghanistan, and through alliance with the local king cemented his power. Through this union, among others he had with the daughters of Darius III, Alexander attempted to establish his power in Asia and promote himself and his heirs as the legitimate heirs to the Persian Empire. He even found religious and supernatural justification through his visit to the Oracle at Siwah, deep in the Egyptian desert. There he was told that he was in fact the Son of God and that he was destined to be the Pharaoh. Thus, Alexander found moral and religious justification for his conquest of Asia through Africa and became master of both, however briefly. As king of Asia and son of Ammon, and as a great military commander, Alexander was able to bring the Afro-Eurasia world zone closer than ever before. There are even speculations that Alexander was very much aware of his aim, which sometimes is romantically called the “Unity of Mankind.”^{^[395]}

When Alexander died in Babylonia in 323 bce, the Afro-Eurasian world might have appeared to be unified, but it was soon plunged into further crisis and warfare, something that the region did not recover from for almost a century.^{^[396]} Already major cities such as Tyre, Sidon, and Persepolis had been destroyed, but the war over who was the true heir of Alexander brought about incessant struggle and destruction. The major generals who took over the short-lived empire of Alexander the Great included Seleucus Nicator, who ruled over much of (West) Asia and the largest portion of the former Achaemenid Empire, from Samarkand in Central Asia to Sardis in Asia Minor.^{^[397]} At the time the Seleucids looked more like ancient Near Eastern rulers in terms of ritual and the idea of kingship.^{^[398]} From early on, Seleucia-on- the-Tigris in Mesopotamia and Babylon itself became the centers of activity, and in many ways the old Achaemenid tradition continued in terms of political and administrative structure. In time the Seleucids moved westward and made Syria, with Antioch-on-the-Orontes, their main center of power until their demise.

Ptolemy I was able to hold on to Egypt, where Hellenism now left deep impressions on the ancient civilization of that land. The empire controlled the economy, exporting cereals that made Egypt the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world. Egypt also became an important center of learning that brought the Hellenic and Egyptian traditions together, although it became increasingly pharaonic. The other major center was Macedonia, which was ruled by Antigonus who attempted to hold it as a once great center of power, from where the house of Alexander had arisen. There were then three centers of power, which kept something of a sense of equilibrium through to the third century bce. Thus, the once centralized empire of the Achaemenids gave way to what has been called a polycentric empire in the Hellenistic period.

The civil war between these powers and other generals and minor kings was a cause of constant instability in the ancient world. But what spread throughout all of these empires was Hellenistic culture and civilization, coexisting with the local traditions. Alexandria in Egypt and Ai Khanum in Afghanistan are the two most notable examples at the opposite ends of this Afro-Eurasian world, where many cities were established either by Alexander the Great or by his generals. Amphitheaters, gymnasiums, Greek literature and way of life became common. At Ai Khanum, Iranian deities became represented through Hellenic artistic expression. Greek deities became part of the Asian religious tradition, while commemoration and the veneration of the ruler and his ancestors was practiced.^{^[399]} Linguistically, Greek appears to have become the second lingua franca in world history, after Aramaic in the eighth century bce. Histories and anthropological observations on India, Afghanistan, Iran, Levant, and other places were written in Greek by and for the local population.

Still, new empires or kingdoms were created as a result of the struggle between the Seleucids and other inheritors of Alexander's empire. The outstanding example is the Mauryan Empire (321-187 bce), which was formed through a long historical process.^{^[400]} Darius I in the sixth century bce conquered and in effect unified northern India, and Alexander was able to defeat local and greater potentates, such as Porus. The result was the appearance of King Chandragupta Maurya from Pataliputra (321-297 bce). He challenged the power of the Seleucids in the east during the reign of Seleucus Nicator, resulting in the exchange of gifts and marking of new boundaries. This local development was to cause wider significant changes in the history of religions when Ashoka (268-231 bce), who expanded the Mauryan Empire to its largest extent, proclaimed Buddhism as his religious and philosophical preference. In his inscription at Sarnath, his edict signified the existence of the older tradition of the Indo-Iranian world, by having it written in the Aramaic script, the imperial script used by the former Persian Empire. By promotion of non-violence and Buddhism as a result of his gruesome conquest of the state of Kalinga, Ashoka also facilitated the expansion of Buddhism beyond his empire, spreading dharma to Kambojas (i.e., the Iranians) and the Yonas, the Greeks.^{^[401]} One consequence of this was the movement of Buddhism northwards to modern Afghanistan, where until only a decade ago, the two tallest standing Buddhas were to be found at Bamiyan. In the eighth-ninth century ce, Buddhist influence on Islamic civilization came from the same region in the guise of the Buddhist Barmakid family (from Sanskrit paramukha), who were the most powerful political clan in the early Abbasid Caliphate, as viziers or advisors, and were powerful and wealthy patrons of art and literature. Buddhist notions also influenced Islamic mysticism, which took form in the eastern lands of the Abbasid Caliphate. So these changes were not to be short-lived then, but rather had a long-term effect on the people and religious traditions of Asia.

Not only the civil wars within each Hellenistic kingdom but also, more importantly, new forces within the region gradually eroded Hellenistic power from both the eastern and western sides. The Greco-Bactrian kingdom on the eastern borders of the Seleucid Empire, between the Jaxartes and Oxus rivers, had broken away in c. 250 bce, led by the former Seleucid Satrap Diodotus (c. 250-230 bce). By the time of Demetrius I (200-190 bce), Sogdiana was also taken, and the Hindu-Kush mountains as well. This was only a minor loss compared to the impact of the nomadic Iranian Arsacids, otherwise known as the Parthians. Moving from the east of the Caspian Sea southward, Arsaces I conquered the province of Parthia, which lay east of the Caspian Sea, and crowned himself king in 247 bce. This was the beginning of a long process of attrition that culminated in 147 bce when the central Iranian Plateau was conquered and the Seleucids were pushed back into Syria by Mithridates 1.^{^[402]} Ultimately it was the Romans, and in particular Pompey, who brought an end to the Seleucid Empire that by then survived only within the city of Antioch and the surrounding region.

Parthia: a world empire between Rome and China

(C. 200 BCE- C. 200 CE)

Through the second and the first centuries bce, Arsacid Parthia, Rome, and Han China became the three main regional powers in the Eurasian world. They connected the Mediterranean in the west with the Iranian Plateau in the center, and Chinese Han Empire in the east, bringing the vast Afro-Eurasian world zone into closer contact than ever before. There were also smaller kingdoms and empires that were in between and that acted in the same way and in cooperation with them, notably the Kushan Empire (explored elsewhere in this volume). However, this section of the chapter focuses on the Parthians. It is this region and ruling power that has been missed in the coverage of world history, as Rome and China have been the main focus for world historians.

The Arsacids established the Parthian Empire in the third century bce to the east of the Roman Empire and the west of the Han. From east of the Caspian Sea, the nomadic Parni tribes moved onto the territory of the former Seleucid Empire, annexing their eastern holdings province by province. An early capital of the Parthians was Nisa in modern-day Turkmenistan, but later it became a necropolis for the royal household. Arsaces crowned himself in what is modern Quchan in Iran in 247 bce and for 400 years ruled over Iraq, the Iranian Plateau, part of the Caucasus, and parts of Central Asia. The early Parthians, under the influence of Hellenistic culture, seemed very much part of the Greek cultural sphere, but as time went on, the Mesopotamian and Iranian heritage of the Achaemenid Empire was emphasized. By the rule of Mithridates I (171-131 bce), when the eastern Caspian through Mesopotamia came under Parthian control, the old Persian title of King of Kings had become a staple of Parthian royal titulature.^{^[403]} With this came the Zoroastrian ideological tools of legitimation, such as the adoption of the idea of Kingly Glory, similar to the Roman fortuna. Its artistic representation was inherited and portrayed on coinage, through Hellenistic artistic tradition.

The King of Kings and his princes stood at the top of the court and Parthian society. The empire was divided into eighteen provinces headed by shahrdars, or governors. The noble houses lived in large landed estates (dastkirt) similar to the Roman landed estate known as the Iatifunda, and they could muster a military fighting force when needed from the lower nobility (azats). Those in towns and villages were protected by the landed nobility and also supported the empire when in need of a fighting force. This new form of political structure and economic system was somewhat similar to European feudalism.^{^[404]}

The Parthians came into conflict with the expansionist Romans, especially in Mesopotamia. In 53 bce the Parthian general Surena annihilated the Roman legions at Carrhae, and from then Romans and Parthians came to an understanding where they acknowledged their equality in power and right to rule in the east. Silk Roads trade made the Parthians rich, not only as middlemen between trading world empires but also for their own commodities and wealth. Trade was designated at the border towns between the two empires, and this trend continued into late antiquity. Towns in Armenia and Mesopotamia were significant, and the two sides forbade merchants from crossing over to the other side for trade.

Armenia was one of the small kingdoms that were important for both empires and, as a consequence, was regularly fought over by Parthia and Rome. At issue was access to new roads, also natural resources including gold, horses, and fighting men. Armenia could stay nominally independent only by manipulating both sides, which it did successfully from time to time. The Parthians also made inroads into Arabia and gained power at a few places on the Persian Gulf. This was done for military but, more importantly, economic purposes. A first-century bce text by Isidore of Charax, the Parthian Stations, describes in detail the commodities and the vibrant port life throughout the duration of the Parthian Empire, from Mesopotamia to Central Asia.^{^[405]} Thus, now the Persian Gulf trade with the Indian Ocean and its connections to Mesopotamia became important for long-distance trade. This period also witnessed the rise of oasis towns that became part of the trade routes, from Palmyra to Hatra to Babylon, Seleucia, and finally to Spasinu Charax and Mesene. Parthians mostly controlled these towns, and many lived there, including one named Manesus, the son of Phraates, who has left us much information; he was the tax collector and the governor in charge of Mesopotamia, as well as an arabarch (provincial governor).^{^[406]}

The Parthians were less interested in the promotion of religion, although their adherence to Zoroastrianism became important. In the first two centuries ce, when Jews and Christians came into conflict with the Roman Empire over the worship of the emperor, many of them moved to the heartland of the Parthian Empire, i.e., Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia was one of the most cosmopolitan regions in the world, where pagans, Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Baptists, and others lived side by side. Jews even served in the Parthian military and from time to time attempted to free their Jewish brethren in Palestine. In time, the sizable Jewish community living in Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau became responsible for the latter codification of Jewish law under the Babylonian Talmud.

The Parthians were also instrumental in the maintenance of the Silk Roads. During the rule of the Parthian King of Kings, Mithridates II (123-88 B C e), and that of his near contemporary the Han emperor Wudi (140-87 bce), contacts were made between the Parthians and Chinese to facilitate their common interest. It seems that both lands enjoyed vast cultivation of rice and wheat, but the Parthians also had enormous vineyards. The large number of cities with many merchants and the silver Parthian coin were recognized by the Han. The Parthians became, in effect, not only consumers of Han export commodities but also the middlemen in the new trans-regional trade between China and the Roman world. Chinese sources are clear that the Parthians wished to trade directly with the Chinese, especially Chinese silk. This strategy prevented the Romans, until the end of the second century, from accessing China for silk directly.

To the east of the Parthian Empire stood the kingdom of Kushans. The early Kushans were descendants of a tribal confederacy known as the Yuezhi in the Chinese sources.^{^[407]} According to these sources, sometime in the midsecond century bce the aggressive movement of the Xiongnu into Yuezhi territory forced the migration of the Yuezhi further west into Transoxiana. The Kushans eventually created their own enormous empire that flourished until the rise of the Sasanians after c. 220 c e, events explored elsewhere in this volume.

The Sasanian Empire: a late antiquity empire

The third century ushered in important changes in the Afro-Eurasian world, where two important empires faced challenges and consolidated their power. Both began to gravitate toward communal religions, establishing imperial apparatuses that outlived their lives and created a new period in world history. The Mediterranean region was dominated by the Roman Empire, which from the third century c e began to break off into two separate political and administrative entities. The Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, held Anatolia, Palestine, Egypt, and parts of Syria and Mesopotamia. Further east stood the Sasanian Empire, which claimed ownership over the land from the Oxus to the Euphrates River and beyond.

The Sasanian Empire came to power in the third century CE by dislodging the Parthian Empire. The founder of the Sasanian state, Ardashir, was a brilliant military leader who used religion to bring together a new vision of empire. Zoroastrianism, or the cult of Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda), appears to have been the preferred religion of the empire from the very beginning. On coins and rock reliefs the kings were shown receiving the diadem from Zoroastrian deities such as Ohrmazd or Anahita. The former Parthian nobles along with the neighboring kingdoms were brought into the fold under the name of Iranshahr (Empire of the Iranians). Despite early overtures to the universalist religion of Mani, and the gnostic-oriented Manichaeism, the empire's priestly class soon turned to establishing an imperial religion in the form of Zoroastrianism. Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and Buddhists were persecuted while the Zoroastrian religious institutions were taking shape.^{^[408]}

Wars with the Eastern Roman Empire made the Romans understand that the Sasanian Empire was a very different power from that of the Parthians. Ardashir and Alexander Severus fought one another for the control of Mesopotamia, and the Euphrates became the nominal border between the two empires, where fortifications were built. This war also brought about the decline of the caravan cities of Dura-Europos, Palmyra, and others in the third century. The second Sasanian ruler, Shapur I, defeated, killed, and held captive three successive Roman emperors. The Kushan Empire to the east also came under the control of Sasanian kings, where the Kushano-Sasanians were established as a cadet branch of the Sasanian royal family. South Central Asia then remained under Sasanian control until the Hephtalites came to displace them in the fifth century ce.

By the fifth century, when Shapur II had ruled for some seven decades, Zoroastrianism had become the imperial state religion from Oxus to the Euphrates. The Magi, Adurbad Mahrspandan, by going through an ordeal, established the truth of his words and interpretation of the Good Religion.^{^[409]} At the same time that Zoroastrianism gained state favor and what may be called the creation of a Zoroastrian “orthodoxy,” Christianity became a threat to the Sasanian Empire, and it was seen as the fifth column of the Romans. In the early fourth century ce, Constantine had claimed to be the ruler of all the Christians, and this made the position of Christians precarious with the Sasanian Empire.^{^[410]} Shapur II, ironically, fought and defeated the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, but he himself also persecuted Christians, the objects of Julian's intense hatred. Many martyrologies of the Persian Christian martyrs were written as a reaction to these persecutions.

Campaigns of the Sasanians in the Caucasus once again brought Georgia, Armenia, and Albania into the conflict between the Sasanians and the Romans. Raw materials, roads, and skilled laborers, along with its strategic location, gave the Caucasian polity important economic advantages, which made it a region of contention between the two empires until the fall of the Sasanians in the seventh century and the establishment of definitive control of the region by the nascent Islamic Empire. The Silk Roads remained an important land route, but now the seas became an even more important avenue for trade. The disruption of land trade due to incessant wars between the Sasanians and the Romans brought the Arabs in Southern Arabia into prominence.^{^[411]}

By the fifth century, the Sasanians had established a Christian Church of Persia, with a catholicos living at the capital of the empire in Ctesiphon. The Sasanian capital was a cosmopolitan center, one of the largest and most populated cities of the late antiquity world, on a par with Constantinople. The Sasanians kept control of the markets in the east, especially silk, the highest quality of which was still produced by the Chinese. The Sasanian merchants famously bought all the silk on the Indian Ocean in order to control the prices and the supply of the commodities. Even the Sogdians, who were the most important traders between Persia and China, attempted to gain access directly to the Iranian Plateau and then to the Romans. The Sogdians appealed to the Persian king, but he would not allow them to have direct access and be in control of Persian silk markets. Cosmas Indicopleustes gives us first-hand report on the cargoes of silk coming from the east to the Sasanian Empire. By taking over Southern Arabia in 568 ce, the Sasanians attempted to control the maritime route for silk headed to the Byzantines as well, to raise the prices.^{^[412]}

Eventually Arabia also came under direct Sasanian control in the following century, allowing the Sasanians to control the trade across the Arabian side of the Indian Ocean, as well as providing direct access to copper mines. However, both the Sasanians and the Romans, while in a state of relative peace, had to face another new nomadic power on their borders, namely the Huns, who established a sedentary power on the Eurasian steppes.^{^[413]} The Huns and Turkic nomadic tribes had begun their movement from inner Asia into the Sino-Iranian world. While walls were built by both the Chinese and the Sasanians in an attempt to slow the nomadic incursions into the sedentary zone, ultimately the Turks would have a decisive effect on the history of Eurasia.

In the sixth century the Turks moved out of their Altai homelands and pressed westward, forcing the Hephthalites and Kidarites to move into Sasanian territory, leading to wars. By the rule of Khusro I, the Turks were in direct contact with the Sasanian Empire and became an ally, but through the Sogdians and because of silk trade the Byzantines became their eventual collaborators. The Turkic delegation reached Constantinople in 563. In four centuries the Turkic tribes became the de facto power, from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. Just as they had become king makers with the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the seventh century ce, so they became important for the Abbasid Caliphate. Between the fifth and the seventh centuries ce, they became a major trading partner with both the sedentary empires, but also the Sogdian merchants who traversed between China and Central Asia to the border of the Sasanian Empire in Bactria.^{^[414]}

During the reign of Khusro I in the sixth century, the king was able to undertake major reforms throughout the empire and then depose the revolutionary Zoroastrian priests. By then the coinage, administration, system of taxation, and the military had all been reformed and had rejuvenated the Sasanian Empire. Zoroastrian doctrine was put into its final form and the Avesta, the sacred hymns, were codified and written down. Fire-temples were established around the empire, the most holy of them being that of Adur Gushnasp in northwestern Iran.

The Arch of Khusro, the highest standing building in the Near East, was built in Ctesiphon, one of the largest cities of the late antique world, as a symbol of power of the King of Kings. Thus, in the sixth century and during the reigns of Justinian in Byzantium and Khusro I in Iran, the empires reached their zenith. The Sasanians paid for the fortification of their cities, but also built long walls along their northern borders, along the west and east of the Caspian Sea to protect the Romans and themselves from the nomadic invasions. The Wall of Gorgan, the longest continuous wall in antiquity, was 196 kilometers long and had some thirty-six garrisoned barracks.^{^[415]} The Sui and the Tang empires of China also enjoyed closer contact with the Sasanians between the fifth and seventh centuries ce.

Thus, towards the latter part of late antiquity, Afro-Eurasian empires had expanded from the Mediterranean Sea to the Yellow Sea, with the Byzantine, Sasanian and the Sui and Tang empires, and the in-between kingdoms in contact and conflict with them. These smaller kingdoms, nomads, and traders included Armenians, Laz, Arabs, and the important Sogdians in the Caucasus, Arabia, and Central Asia. However, the three major centers of power in the world of late antiquity were Constantinople, Ctesiphon, and Chang'an, with their emperors and kings and their opulent court rituals and ceremonies.^{^[416]} The Arabs, clients of both the Byzantines and the Sasanians,^{^[417]} the Armenians, their kingdom divided between the two empires, and the Turkic khaganates allied themselves with one or other of the three empires, and this arrangement constituted the Eurasian world system of late antiquity.

The Romans and the Sasanians symbolically adopted each other's princes and acknowledged their equality; Khusro II thought of the world being illuminated by two eyes, the kingdom of the Romans and the Sasanian Persians.^{^[418]} For almost a century there had been nominal peace, but things had changed when the Byzantine Phocaus had the rightfUl emperor, Maurice (593-602 ce), assassinated and usurped the throne. Khusro II, who had been under the protection of Maurice during his youth, invaded the Eastern Roman Empire. Meanwhile Heraclius had been proclaimed the new emperor of Byzantium, but the Sasanians did not stop and took over Palestine and Egypt and then laid siege to Constantinople. The True Cross and the Holy Grail were taken back to Iran, which brought shock and despair to Constantinople and Christians throughout the empire. Heraclius was able to strike back and, with the backing of the Church and its funds, invaded the Sasanian Empire. This may be called a proto-Crusade, two decades before the Muslims even came onto the scene of Near Eastern politics. Heraclius promised Heaven to those who would die at war against the Persians and take back the True Cross.^{^[419]} By 628 ce, the Sasanian Empire and its King of Kings, Khusro II, had been defeated and deposed.

From 628 ce to the death of the last Sasanian ruler, Yazdgerd III in 651 ce, the Sasanian Empire was plunged into chaos, with a quick succession of emperors. Finally, the Muslims were able to defeat the Sasanians in three successive battles and fully conquer Iranshahr. A new era in the Near East had begun which was in line with changes in the Eastern Mediterranean. It could be argued that Khusro II, by destroying the old world order where the Romans and Sasanians ruled the Southwest Asian world, had disrupted this binary outlook and balance of power.^{^[420]} Through this disruption the Sasanians, for a short time, attempted to control most of Southwest Asia and turn themselves into an even more formidable Afro-Eurasian power.

The Islamic commonwealth (650-900 ce)

It was in this prevailing world system of late antiquity that Islam appeared, establishing new patterns and allegiances.^{^[421]} The Afro-Eurasiatic world, engulfed in a bitter conflict in the early seventh century, was soon to be overcome by a new power from the edge of empires. The Prophet Muhammad, who had watched the conflict between the Roman and the Sasanian empires unfold along the Red Sea and Arabia where Christian Ethiopian and Jewish Arab clients fought for dominance for each empire, was poised to step in as the victor.^{^[422]}

Geographically, Islam came to existence in a commercial hub, that of Mecca, at the crossroads of the South Arabian trade routes to Syria and the path of connection from east and northeastern Arabia to the Red Sea. Forceful military attacks at Qadisiyya in 637 ce (against Sasanian Persia), Yarmuk in 636 ce (against the Byzantines), and other places spread Islam,^{^[423]} but the establishment of the system was largely due to its familiarity and flexibility, emulating the established systems whenever it came into contact with them. The Sasanian and Byzantine administrative systems were left untouched for many decades, and their best parts were even handpicked for creating an “Islamic” system toward the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth century.

The Umayyads, as the first dynasty of Islam, sometimes called the “last ancient empire,”^{^[424]} came to unite and integrate most of the conquests of Islam, establishing themselves in Damascus where they had pre-Islamic family ties. They, however, acted largely in the spirit of a late antiquity empire, quickly trying to establish a central, authoritarian figure reminiscent of the Byzantine emperor and the Sasanian King of Kings, rather than the hybrid spiritual leader and administrator that Muhammad and his immediate successors (the Caliphs) had been. Despite their obvious abilities in administration, including the creation of an Islamic currency based on a dual goldsilver standard as well as regulating the taxation, the Umayyads proved unable to control the overstretched Islamic Empire. Their failure to pay attention to the disenfranchised eastern provinces, as well as their attempts at isolating the elites of the Islamic society, finally led to their downfall from the edge of the empire in 750 ce.

The new administration, the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, achieved power by utilizing the military strength of Central Asia and eastern Iran, the so-called Greater Khorasan, which, since the late Sasanian period, had been on the rise both politically and economically. The disenfranchised segments of the Islamic elite, including the family of the Prophet and the descendants of his closest followers, used this power successfully in order to topple the Umayyads.

The Abbasid Empire established another Afro-Eurasian empire. The extreme west of the empire, the regions of Maghrib and Iberia, were left in the hands of a cadet branch of the Umayyads, while various regions of North Africa never quite submitted to the Abbasid power. The eastern fringes, including the Greater Khorasan (eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan) itself, despite their initial role in assisting the Abbasids to power, slowly moved toward local autonomy. The golden age of the Abbasids, the late eighth and the early ninth centuries, saw the efflorescence of intellectual activity, mostly represented through large-scale translation projects from all the conquered late antique people and empires, namely from Syriac (Near East and Levant), Greek (Byzantine), and Middle Persian (Sasanian). The position of Arabic as the lingua franca, essentially ending over 1,500 years of Aramaic role in the same position, was one of the greatest achievements of the stability that came with the Abbasid rise to power. The world of the Eastern Mediterranean, divided among different political powers since the fall of the Seleucid Empire, was once again united under the same power, allowing the exploitation of both commercial and production economies of the region.

The peace established by the Abbasids allowed for a continuation of the economic growth that dates back to the period of late antiquity. The agricultural rise of Syria and its unity with Egypt and Mesopotamia created what is sometimes called a Medieval Green Revolution, signs of which can be seen as far east as Khuzistan and in the adoption of new seeds (cotton, sugar cane, rice) and agricultural methods.^{^[425]} This agricultural revolution was maintained through the long Near Eastern tradition of water maintenance with irrigation canals feeding to the fields. These canals were constantly looked after, especially in Mesopotamia which was perhaps the richest region in the world.^{^[426]} The prosperity associated with the agricultural growth, as well as the wealth brought in via the trans-Saharan and cotton trade in Iran and Central Asia, was primarily what allowed for the cultural growth of the Abbasid Golden Age.^{^[427]} The Abbasids controlled the caliphate through their armies composed of abna al-dawla, or “sons of the revolution,” who were from Khorasan and now settled at the seat of the power in Baghdad.

This increased prosperity, however, tested the Abbasid administrative abilities and stretched their resources to a maximum. Local administration, taking advantage of occasional weaknesses in the central government, would find reasons to exploit the incoming wealth for gaining local power. This, indeed, was the case for Greater Khorasan, as well as North Africa, Egypt, and even parts of Syria, where local governors quickly managed to gain control of their region. The rise of internal fighting between Arab, Sogdian, Persian, and Turkish soldiers and mercenaries also gave opportunities of individual power grab to the officers and administrators. The Abbasids used the system of iqta “fief’ as an institution to enable the military men to collect tax revenues from a specific district, while keeping the Baghdad treasury intact. The downside was that the bureaucracy that ran the caliphate was weakened and partially eliminated.^{^[428]} While culturally quite strong and vibrant, the Abbasid Empire at the end of the ninth century was on the brink of political disintegration. The rise of the Tahirids in Khorasan, the Saffarids in Sistan, and the Samanids in Central Asia and Transoxiana, at around 900 ce, brought to an end any semblance of an all-powerful caliph in Baghdad.^{^[429]} As this chapter noted at the beginning, a critical factor in the decline and disintegration of the existing world system may have been climate changes. According to a recent study, the Near East experienced a big chill at the beginning of the tenth century, which led to a decline in agricultural production from which the region did not recover for a long time.^{^[430]}

Conclusion

The world of West and Central Asia during the Iron Age and up to the rise of independent states of the Islamic Empire shows an interesting pattern of political, cultural, and economic development. The empires of the Bronze Age were replaced by smaller polities, the result of incoming populations of Arameans and other Semitic tribes, as well as Indo-Iranians. Old states such as Assyria, and for a short while Babylonia, managed to control the situation by forcefully uniting these polities, but they were incapable of checking the cultural change in the region. Aramaic quickly became the common language of the Levant, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia, and the vehicle through which the political culture of Assyria and Babylonia was diffused in the incoming Achaemenid Empire. The Iranian language group, of which the Achaemenid mother tongue of Persian was a member, despite the cultural dominance of Elam over the Iranian tribes, itself managed to replace many other languages and become the native tongue of much of the population of the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia. Achaemenid control of Mesopotamia and Syria allowed for the spread of Syro-Mesopotamian culture, the culmination of over 2,000 years of Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, and Aramean cultures, to become widespread, all the way from the central highlands of Iran to North Africa.

The entry of Alexander and his Hellenized Macedonians added a new ingredient to this Syro-Mesopotamian culture. Hellenism essentially codified much of the culture of the region and gave it a convenient Greek literary form, the means through which it spread as far east as Bactria and Transoxiana. But Greek, despite its importance, did not manage to topple Aramaic, and the language of the empire of Ashur-banipal, by becoming the language of Christianity, remained the unifying tongue of the region, influencing anything from Middle Persian and Sogdian to Greek itself.

The world of late antiquity, the fragmented world of the post-Hellenistic West Asia and Iran, had a renaissance under the unifying force of Christianity and even influenced the essentially isolationist Zoroastrian religious institutions. Sasanians and Romans, despite all their conflicts, could not live without each other, and they certainly could not ignore each other either. Their efforts in controlling the whole of West Asia dragged them through 400 years of warfare, with fascinating periods of peace. The situation in West Asia was matched, or even surpassed, only by that of Central Asia, where Sasanians tried for many centuries to fully control the remnants of the Bactrian kingdoms of the Macedonians and the Kushans, and unite them with their rule of the Iranian Plateau and Mesopotamia. This was never to be, however, as subsequent waves of nomadic invaders from the steppe proved, depriving the Sasanians of any control in the region toward the late sixth century. The Huns, Hephthalites, and finally the Turks were the important actors from the edge of the sedentary empires.

Islam, the new force of the Near East, finally appears to have achieved the impossible. It dethroned Aramaic as the common and literary language of the region, initially promoting Arabic and eventually Persian in the eastern parts of the empire. It also united both sides of the political divide in the Levant and, for a short while, even managed to unite Central and West Asia. This

TO URAJ DARYABB

was the Universalist vision of many of the empires that have been discussed in this chapter. Some, like the Neo-Assyrian, the Achaemenid, and the Seleucids, came close to achieving this vision of Afro-Eurasian expansion, while the Parthians and the Romans and then the Sasanians and Byzantines clashed for the realization of such a dream. Ultimately, it was the nomads from the edges, namely the Arabs from the south and then the Turks from the east, who were able to achieve unification.

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