Paropamisadae or Parapamisadae (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Παροπαμισάδαι) was a

satrapy A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...

of the

Alexandrian Empire Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by ...

in modern

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

, which largely coincided with the

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 ...

province of Parupraesanna. It consisted of the districts of

Sattagydia Sattagydia (Old Persian: 𐎰𐎫𐎦𐎢𐏁 ''Thataguš'', country of the "hundred cows") was one of the easternmost regions of the Achaemenid Empire, part of its Seventh tax district according to Herodotus, along with Gandārae, Dadicae and ...

( Bannu basin), Gandhara (

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

, and Taxila), and

Oddiyana (also: ''Uḍḍiyāna'', ''Uḍḍāyāna'' or ''Udyāna'', Sanskrit: ओड्डियान, उड्डियान, उड्डायान, उद्यान; , , mn, Үржин ''urkhin''), was a small region in early medieval India, ...

(

Swat Valley Swat District (, ps, سوات ولسوالۍ, ) is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. With a population of 2,309,570 per the 2017 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa pro ...

). Paruparaesanna is mentioned in the

Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280 is an extinct East Semitic language th ...

and

Elamite language Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite works disappear from the archeological record ...

versions of the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great, whereas in the Old Persian version it is called

Gandāra Gandāra, or Gadāra in Achaemenid inscriptions (Old Persian cuneiform: 𐎥𐎭𐎠𐎼, , also transliterated as since the nasal "n" before consonants was omitted in the Old Persian script, and simplified as or sometimes )Some sounds are o ...

. The entire satrapy was subsequently ceded by

Seleucus I Nicator Seleucus I Nicator (; ; grc-gre, Σέλευκος Νικάτωρ , ) was a Macedonian Greek general who was an officer and successor ( ''diadochus'') of Alexander the Great. Seleucus was the founder of the eponymous Seleucid Empire. In the po ...

to Chandragupta Maurya following a treaty.

Name

''Paropamisadae'' is the Latinized form of the

name ''Paropamisádai'' (), which is in turn derived from Old Persian ''Para-uparisaina'', meaning "Beyond the Hindu Kush", where the

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province ...

is referred to as ''Uparisaina'' ("higher than the eagle"). In the

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...

and

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 ...

, "Paropamisus" Mela, ''

De Situ Orbis Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45. His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less ...

'', Bk. I, Ch. 15, §2. Plin., '' Nat. Hist.'', Bk. VI, Ch. 17, §20. (, ''Paropamisós'') came to mean the

.. In many Greek and Latin sources, particularly editions of

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...

's ''

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

'' where their realm is included on the 9th Map of Asia, the names of the people and region are given as Paropanisadae and Paropanisus. They also appeared less frequently as ''Parapamisadae'' and ''Parapamīsus'' (, ''Parapámisos''), ''Paropamīsii'', etc. The name was also applied to a nearby river, probably the Obi river. The mountain range

Selseleh-ye Safīd Kūh The Paropamisus Mountains
on www.ezilon.com (locally known as Selseleh-ye Safīd Kūh Tabula Nona dAsia

Strabo describes the region as follows: Thus the region was north of

Arachosia Arachosia () is the Hellenized name of an ancient satrapy situated in the eastern parts of the Achaemenid empire. It was centred around the valley of the Arghandab River in modern-day southern Afghanistan, and extended as far east as the ...

, stretching up to the

and Pamir mountains, and bounded in the east by the Indus river. It mainly included the Kabul region, Gandhara and the northern regions such as Swat and Chitral. The nations who composed the Paropamisadae are recorded as the Cabolitae () in the north near modern

; the Parsii (Πάρσιοι) in the northwest, the Ambautae () in the east and the Par(g)yetae () in the south, who were also found in Arachosia. The major cities of the land were the city of Ortospana () or Carura (Κάρουρα), probably identifiable with Kabul,Sir William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
Iabadius-Zymethus
(J. Murray, 1873) p 553. Gauzaca (Γαύζακα), probably modern

Ghazni Ghazni ( prs, غزنی, ps, غزني), historically known as Ghaznain () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana ( gr, Αλεξάνδρεια Ωπιανή), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan ...

, Capissa (Καπίσσα), modern-day Kapisa, and Parsia (Παρσία), the capital of the Parsii.

History

In the ancient

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

texts, the

Mahajanapada The Mahājanapadas ( sa, great realm, from ''maha'', "great", and ''janapada'' "foothold of a people") were sixteen kingdoms or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE during the second urba ...

kingdom of Kamboja compassed the territories of Paropamisus and extended to the southwest of Kashmir as far as

Rajauri Rajouri or Rajauri (; Pahari: 𑠤𑠬𑠑𑠶𑠤𑠮, راجوری; sa, राजपुर, ) is a city in Rajouri district in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is located about from Srinagar and from Jammu city on the ...

. The region came under Achaemenid Persian control in the late 6th century BC, either during the reign of Cyrus the Great or Darius I. In the 320s BC,

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

conquered the entire Achaemenid Empire, beginning the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

. The

name Παροπαμισάδαι or Παροπαμισσός was used extensively in

Greek literature Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...

to describe the conquests of Alexander and those of the kings of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the

Indo-Greek Kingdom The Indo-Greek Kingdom, or Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya), was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of Afghanistan and the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent (p ...

, from the 3rd to the 1st centuries BC. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, the area came under control of the Seleucid Empire, which gave the region to the

Mauryan Dynasty The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until 1 ...

of India in 305 BC. After the fall of the Mauryans in 185 BC, the

Greco-Bactrians The Bactrian Kingdom, known to historians as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom or simply Greco-Bactria, was a Hellenistic-era Greek state, and along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom, the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world in Central Asia and the India ...

under King Demetrius I annexed the northwestern regions of the former Mauryan Empire, including Paropamisus, and it became part of his Euthydemid

. The Eucratidians seized the area soon after the death of

Menander I Menander I Soter ( grc, Μένανδρος Σωτήρ, Ménandros Sōtḗr, Menander the Saviour; pi, मिलिन्दो, Milinda), was a Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek King (reigned c.165/155Bopearachchi (1998) and (1991), respectivel ...

, but lost it to the

Yuezhi The Yuezhi (;) were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat ...

around 125 BC.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* {{citation , last=Eggermont , first=Pierre Herman Leonard , title=Alexander's Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan and the Siege of the Brahmin Town of Harmatelia , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nG0_xoDS3hUC&pg=PA177 , year=1975 , publisher=Peeters Publishers , isbn=978-90-6186-037-2 , ref={{sfnref, Eggermont, Alexander's Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan, 1975 * ''The Greeks in Bactria and India'' by W.W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press

External links