Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

part ii | states
territory of Transoxiana was under the control of the Achaemenid (ancient Persian)
system of statehood, which amounted to an absolute monarchy, under the despotic
and unlimited power of the ‘King of Kings’. The entire territory of this kingdom, often
referred to in historical literature as an empire, was divided into satrapies, which paid
tribute in specific weight units of silver (talents) into the treasury of the Achaemenid
kings. Three of the Central Asian satrapies – Bactria, Sogdia and Khorezm – were
situated wholly or partially in what is now Uzbekistan.
At the same time, according to textual sources, small regions, such as Nautaca,
Xenippa, Paraetacene, which were probably part of larger satrapies, maintained their
autonomy under the rule of Bactrian and Sogdian aristocrats (Oxyartes, Chorienes,
Sisimithres, Catanes, Austan). These possessions had well-fortified centres and
temporary shelters – petraes. In Khorezm, where the Sakas had played an important
role, they were able to establish an independent kingdom in the second half of the 4th
century BC after a prolonged struggle with the Achaemenids.
The arrival of Alexander the Great, who defeated the main forces of the
Achaemenids in 330 BC, caused the collapse of the Achaemenid kingdom. Alexander’s
pursuit of the last claimant to the Achaemenid throne, Bessus, a satrap of Bactria,
cleared his path to Central Asia. The conquest of Central Asia took three years (330–
327 BC), during which time Alexander’s armies met with fierce resistance, especially
from the Sogdians led by Spitamenes.
The fourth period spanned the end of the 4th century BC to the beginning of the
second half of the 2nd century BC – from the conquests of Alexander the Great to
the end of the political domination of the Hellenes and the fall of the Graeco-Bactrian
kingdom. This was a period of the coexistence of two different systems of statehood:
the Hellenistic in Northern Bactria and to some extent in Sogdia, and the Khorezm
and Kangju in other parts of Transoxiana. The appearance of Hellenistic statehood is
connected with the campaigns of Alexander the Great in Central Asia in 330–327 BC,
which covered all of Sogdia and Northern Bactria. However, its formation and
consolidation took place after Alexander’s death in 323 BC, at first under the aegis of
the Greek satraps who were appointed in this region during the so-called war of the
Diadochi. Then, from 306/305 BC, Bactria and Sogdia became part of the Seleucid
state. However, as early as the middle of the 3rd century BC, Diodotus, a Seleucid satrap
in Bactria, rebelled against the centre and created a separate state, known in scholarship
as the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom and sometimes as the Greek State of Bactria.
Hellenistic notions and norms of statehood seem to have been introduced in the
regions that were part of these states. It is possible that some of the major cities were
governed by systems used in the Greek city-states (poleis). Greek political rule in the
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