Peoples of the empire: The Drangians

Geographical definition
Drangiana (O.P. Zranka, possibly meaning "sea" or "mountain peak," also in Greek Sarangiana or Zarangiana) lay in the Sīstān basin on the border between modern Iran and Afghanistan, south of Aria and southeast of Arachosia.  It is a desert but fertile land may be found on the banks of the Helmand River (Av. Haētumant, "dammed").  Wetlands were found around Lake Hāmūn as recently as the 1990s, though droughts and population pressures at the turn of the 21st century all but destroyed them.

History
The Drangians may have been tributary to the Medes and thus to the Persians who succeeded them.  According to Diodorus (17.81) a Drangian tribe called the Ariaspae (*Aryāspa, “having noble horses”) dwelling on the lower Helmand River rescued Cyrus' army when they ran out of food while marching in the desert.  In return, he exempted them from taxation and named them "the Benefactors" (Euergetai in Greek).

Drangiana is mentioned in the Behistun inscription, but not among the rebellious countries.

According to Herodotus, when Darius reorganized the empire's administration, he placed the Drangians in the district with the Utians, Thamanaeans, Myci and Sagartians (possibly ending the Ariaspae and Cedrosians' tax exemption).  An Achaemenid regional capital called Phráda may be identified with modern Farâh or the archaeological site of Dahan-i Ghulaman near Zabol.  During this time, the nomadic pastoralist Drangians began to settle, taking up farming and tin-mining.  In the days of Strabo, the Drangians lived in a similar manner to Persians, except that they produced little wine.

Drangians participated in the second invasion of Greece under Pherendates, son of the famous general Megabazus.  They are not mentioned among the fighting at Thermopylae or Plataea, and should not logically have been involved at Salamis, since the imperial forces who participated there were the seafaring nations who provided the ships and the Persians, Medes and Scythians who acted as marines.  This being the case, it is possible, as Briant suggests regarding the various levies who go unmentioned in accounts of the war, that the Drangian contingent was included merely as part of the show of imperial might.

Little history is recorded of Drangian history between then and the invasion of Alexander, who arrived in November of 330.  By this time, Drangiana had been combined with Arachosia as a single satrapy under Barsaentes.  It was he who, along with the officer Nabarzanes, actually carried out the assassination of Darius III, but it was Bessus on whom Alexander placed the blame for the great king's death.  Alexander renamed Phráda Prophthasia and replaced Barsaentes with a man named Arsames (I have no word on whether he is the same as the Cilician satrap who fought at the Granicus) who at some point rebelled.  Alexander then sent Stasanor, a Cyprian from Soli, to defeat Arsames in 328.  Stasanor replaced Arsames as satrap of Drangiana and Aria.

Drangian cavalry, along with cavalry from other Eastern Iranian satrapies, made up the royal guards at the mass wedding at Susa in 324.  After Alexander's death, Drangiana was part of the Seleucid empire.  It was seized in 184 by the Graeco-Bactrians, but shortly thereafter taken by the Arsacid empire.  Then, in 128, Scythians took the land and settled there, and the land became part of the historical region of Sakastan, Sīstān in its modern form.

Religion
Like other easterly parts of Greater Iran, Drangiana is associated with early Mazdaism.  It is mentioned in the Avesta (Fargard 1:13) as "the eleventh of the good lands" of Ahura Mazda.  The Sassanid-period Book of Arda Wiraz claims that Zoroastrianism was first reestablished in Sīstān after the chaotic interruption of Alexander's invasion.

Language
I can find nothing about the Drangian language - apparently it is unattested - but given Drangiana's geographical and historical position, it was almost certainly an Eastern Iranian one.

Clothing
Drangians dress identically to Arachosians in Achaemenid art, in simple headbands with the trailing ends tucked in in back, earrings with pointed pendants, pullover tunics and knotted sashes similar to Medo-Persian ones, baggy trousers and knee-high or mid-calf boots with upturned pointy toes and knotted bands around the tops.  (A reminder:  Boots and shoes are heel-less.  Heels are not accurate for any Achaemenid people covered so far.)  Herodotus (who calls the Drangians Sarangai, or Sarangae in Latin-style translations) says that they were "conspicuous in their dyed garments," which presumably indicates that their clothes were unusually brightly dyed even for peoples of the time.

Weapons
Drangians used the akinakes, bows and "Median spears" (Herodotus 7.67), which probably means their spears were generally similar to the six- to seven-foot Medo-Persian spear with a round counterweight.  Bows were likely of Central Asian B-shaped recurve type and carried in a gorytos, though I wouldn't go so far as to speculate which style of gorytos is most appropriate.