The Amyrgians (
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
: ;
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ;
Old Persian: "Sakas who lay
hauma (around the fire)") were a
Saka
The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...
tribe.
Name
The Greek name for this tribe, (), is the Hellenised form of the
Old Persian term (), meaning "who lay
hauma (around the fire)," and can be interpreted as "revering
hauma." The full name of this tribe in
Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
...
Achaemenid
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...
inscriptions is (), that is the
Sakas
The Saka (Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who histor ...
who lay hauma (around the fire).
Identification
The country of the may have been the same place named as
Mujavant in
Indo-Aryan literature, where it appears in close connection with
Gandhāra
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...
and
Bahlika.
Geography
The were always mentioned alongside the
in ancient Persian inscriptions, implying that the and were neighbours, although it is less certain whether the lived to the east or to the west of the . The most likely lived somewhere between the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
and the
Pamir Mountains, and to the north of the
Oxus
The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...
, near the
Bactrians and
Sogdians, possibly in the region corresponding to modern-day
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...
or
Dushanbe
Dushanbe ( tg, Душанбе, ; ; russian: Душанбе) is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 863,400 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe (ru ...
around
Fergana
Fergana ( uz, Fargʻona/Фарғона, ), or Ferghana, is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km west of Andijan, and less than 20 km fr ...
, or across a large region stretching from
Margiana
Margiana ( el, ''Margianḗ'', Old Persian: ''Marguš'', Middle Persian: ''Marv'') is a historical region centred on the oasis of Merv and was a minor satrapy within the Achaemenid satrapy of Bactria, and a province within its successors, the Se ...
to the upper Oxus river, or between the
Altai and Pamir mountains, or in the territory corresponding to the modern-day
Afghan
Afghan may refer to:
*Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia
*Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity
** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...
district of Monjan in the upper
Kokcha
The Kokcha River ( fa, رودخانه کوکچه) is located in northeastern Afghanistan. A tributary of the Panj river, it flows through Badakhshan Province in the Hindu Kush. It is named after the Koksha Valley. The city of Feyzabad lies alo ...
valley.
Based on Herodotus's list of the units of the Achaemenid army, within which the Amyrgii and the
Bactrians together were under the command of
Hystaspes, the scholar
Willem Vogelsang
Willem Vogelsang (born 1956 in Medemblik) is the deputy director of the International Institute for Asian Studies at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He is also a colonel in the Dutch armed forces as Project Coordinator for Cultural Af ...
locates the to the immediate north and east of Bactria.
Other possible locations of the include the Fergana valley itself, or both the
Fergana
Fergana ( uz, Fargʻona/Фарғона, ), or Ferghana, is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km west of Andijan, and less than 20 km fr ...
and
Alay
(or ''4L4Y'', ', ''Anak Jablay'' or ', ) is an Indonesian pop culture phenomenon.Kasali, Rhenald. 2011. ''Cracking Zone''. Jakarta: Gramedia. Hal. 71. It is a stereotype describing something "tacky" (') and/or "cheesy" ('). The Alay culture phe ...
valleys, or the region to the north of the Iaxartes.
History
According to the Greek historian
Ctesias
Ctesias (; grc-gre, Κτησίας; fl. fifth century BC), also known as Ctesias of Cnidus, was a Greek physician and historian from the town of Cnidus in Caria, then part of the Achaemenid Empire.
Historical events
Ctesias, who lived in the fi ...
, once the
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
Achaemenid Empire's founder,
Cyrus
Cyrus ( Persian: کوروش) is a male given name. It is the given name of a number of Persian kings. Most notably it refers to Cyrus the Great ( BC). Cyrus is also the name of Cyrus I of Anshan ( BC), King of Persia and the grandfather of Cyrus ...
, had overthrown the Median king
Astyages, the
Bactrians accepted him as the heir of Astyages and submitted to him, after which he founded the city of
Cyropolis
Cyropolis (Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ( and , literally "the city of Cyrus") was an ancient city founded by Cyrus the Great to mark the northeastern border of his Achaemenid Empire.
Location
The actual location of this ancient city is cur ...
on the Iaxartes river as well as seven fortresses to protect the northern frontier of his empire against the Saka. Cyrus then attacked the , initially defeated them and captured their king,
Amorges. After this, Amorges's queen,
Sparethra, defeated Cyrus with a large army of both men and women warriors and captured
Parmises, the brother-in-law of Cyrus and the brother of his wife
Amytis, as well as Parmises's three sons, whom Sparethra exchanged in return for her husband, after which Cyrus and Amorges became allies, and Amorges helped Cyrus conquer
Lydia.
Cyrus, accompanied by the of his ally Amorges, later carried out a campaign against the
Massagetae
The Massagetae or Massageteans (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Sakā tigraxaudā (Old Persian: , "wearer of pointed caps") or Orthocorybantians (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ),: As for the term “Orthocorybantii”, this is a translati ...
/ in 530 BCE. After Cyrus had been mortally wounded by the
Derbices and their
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
allies, Amorges and his Saka army helped the Persian soldiers defeat them. Cyrus told his sons to respect their own mother as well as Amorges above everyone before dying.
Legacy
The name of the
Afghan
Afghan may refer to:
*Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia
*Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity
** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...
district of Monjan in its
Farsi
Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken an ...
(),
Yidgha () and
Kati
KATI (94.3 FM), branded as 94.3 KAT Country, is a radio station which broadcasts country music and St. Louis Cardinals baseball. Licensed to California, Missouri, the station serves the Jefferson City
Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, i ...
() forms might have been derived from that of the .
See also
*
Orthocorybantians
*
Indo-Scythians
Indo-Scythians (also called Indo-Sakas) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples of Scythian origin who migrated from Central Asia southward into modern day Pakistan and Northwestern India from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th centu ...
*
Kambojas
Kamboja ( sa, कम्बोज) was a kingdom of Iron Age India that spanned parts of South and Central Asia, frequently mentioned in Sanskrit and Pali literature. Eponymous with the kingdom name, the Kambojas were an Indo-Iranian people o ...
*
Komedes
Komedes is the ethnonym of an ancient people in Central Asia. They were mentioned by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy in ''Geography'' ( CE). Traditional Hindu and Indian spellings included Kumuda, Kumuda-dvipa, and Parama Kambojas; and an ...
*
Sogdia
*
Skudra
Skudra ( peo, 𐎿𐎤𐎢𐎭𐎼 ; grc, Σκύδρα ) was a province ( satrapy) of the Persian Achaemenid Empire in Europe between 510s BC and 479 BC. Its name is attested in Persian and Egyptian inscriptions (an Egyptian record of c. 498– ...
References
Sources
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{{Scythia
Scythian tribes
Tribes described primarily by Herodotus