Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Peoples of the empire: The Sogdians

Geographical definition
Sogdia or Sogdiana (O.P. Suguda, Av. Sughdha) was midway along the Zeravshan River, bordered on the northeast by the Massagetae, some ways to the west of Chorasmia and separated from Bactria in the south by the Oxus River.  In terms of modern geography, it roughly occupied the confluences of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

History
The Sogdians appear to have arrived in their historical homeland in the early Iron Age; Macaranda - better known as Samarkand, and the most important city in the area - is believed to have been founded between 650 and 550 (the site had been occupied earlier).  Unlike their immediate northerly neighbors, the Amyrgian Scythians and Massagetae, the Sogdians were settled farmers; they traded crops to the nomads in exchange for livestock.

Étienne de La Vaissière says that Cyrus conquered Sogdia around 540 and established Cyropolis, "the farthest extent of the Persian empire of the northeast."  In the Behistun inscription Darius mentions Sogdia among the lands he ruled, but no mention is made of it rebelling.

Herodotus lists the Sogdians with the Parthians, Chorasmians and Arians as the 16th tax district, assessed at 300 talents yearly.  At Persepolis, they are with and indistinguishable from the Chorasmians; the group brings an akinakes, hammers (I think), loop-shaped things and a horse.  In Darius' Susa palace inscription, he states that the lapis lazuli and carnelian used therein came from Sogdia.  The country did not, apparently, have its own satrap, but was governed from Bactria.

In 494 during the late stages of the Ionian Revolt, the Persians sacked the Apollonic oracle at Didyma in Ionia.  There are claims that the Branchidae (the line of priests who tended the oracle) had medized.  They are supposed to have either been deported to Sogdia at this time, or relocated there when Ionia was retaken by the Greeks (which would indicate their complicity in the temple's destruction) following the failure of Xerxes' invasion of mainland Greece.

In Herodotus VII the Sogdians serve in Xerxes' army as infantry under "Azanes son of Artaeus."  He does not mention which if any battles they participated in.

Events in Sogdia are poorly-known for the rest of the fifth century.  In Arrian's Anabasis III.8 Sogdians fight at Gaugamela under Bessus, who commanded the eastern cavalry.  The satrap of Bactria, the man whom Alexander held responsible for Darius III's death, fled to Sogdia in the face of Alexander's campaign of revenge in 329.  There, his courtiers Spitamenes and Datames surrendered him to Alexander's general Ptolemy after the Greek army managed to cross the Oxus.

In Sogdia, according to Quintus Curtius, Alexander encountered the town of the Branchidae, and had the entire population killed and their town destroyed for their ancestors' perfidy.  There seems to be doubt about the veracity of this event.  Alexander made Samarkand his regional base, and it was there in 328 that he killed Cleitus the Black.

The next significant incident that our ancient sources care to describe is the siege of the Sogdian Rock, a nearby fortress to which Bessus' companion Oxyartes of Bactria had sent his family in the spring of 327.  The Macedonians scaled the fortress' walls with tent pegs at night, and the amazed garrison surrendered peacefully.  It was here that Alexander met his first wife, Oxyartes' daughter Roxana.

The same year, Alexander appointed as the new satrap his general Philip.  According to Diodorus, he retained this position at the 323 Partition of Babylon.  The Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV, an imperial Roman document by the otherwise-unknown Marcus Junianius Justinus, lists a Scytheaus as the Sogdian satrap.  At the Partition of Triparadisus two years later, Sogdia and Bactria were both given to Stasanor of Soli, which is corroborated by both Diodorus and Arrian.

In 305, the region fell to Seleucus Nicator, and remained part of his empire until the Greco-Bactrians declared their independence in the mid-third century.  Traces of Hellenistic-period Greek architecture have been found at Samarkand.  Invasions of nomads caused the collapse of Greek rule in Bactria and Sogdia in the mid-second century.

Sogdia's fortunes fluctuated until the latter half of the first millennium AD, when land reclamation and growing populations made it a dominant civilization in Central Asia.  For a time, Sogdian was lingua franca on much of the Silk Road.

The country seems to have dwindled under the expansion of Turkic cultures from the east and Persian from the west.  Today, Sogdia survives as the province of Sughd in Tajikistan.  A descendant of its language is spoken there by the Yaghnobi, who may be considered modern-day Sogdians.

Language
Sogdian was an Eastern Iranian language, but its written corpus dates to the 1st millennium AD and as such its attested stage must have evolved considerably from the Achaemenid period.

Religion
According to de La Vaissière, the historical religion of Sogdia was "an unreformed version of Zoroastrianism, in which Ahuramazda would never achieve primacy... .  The chief god appears to have been Nana, inherited from Babylon" (I cannot tell whether this references the Sumero-Akkadian love goddess Nanaya, also called Nanâ, or the Akkadian moon god Sin aka Nanna).

However, these references seem to date to some time after the Achaemenid dynasty.  I would venture rather that in our period, religion in the Eastern Iranian cultural spheres was a mix of proto-Iranian polytheism and early Mazdaism.

Clothing
Sogdians are grouped with Chorasmians in Persian royal art and dress the same, in riding coats with bordered edges, loose trousers, low shoes and low-peaked tiaras.  The delegation at the apadana may be viewed here at the bottom left.  Interestingly, the hems of their trousers appear to be gathered, perhaps with drawstrings or blousing bands, and their shoes show no laces, unlike those of the Mede leading them.

Weapons
Herodotus holds that the Sogdians were equipped like the Bactrians, who had "reed bows" and short spears.  Given the region they occupied, I think it likely that they used the gorytos.  The Sogdian at Naqs-e Rostam wears an akinakes.

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