Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

2 .3
Bactria, Parthia and Khorezm. They were headed by satraps appointed on the
personal instructions of the Achaemenid ‘king of kings’. The largest of these satrapies
was Bactria, whose satrap was usually a son of the king, confirming its unique and
very important role.
During the Achaemenid period, besides satrapies, smaller administrative units
ruled by rulers from the local aristocracy, such as Sisimiphras, the ruler of Nautaca
province, or rulers of the small provinces of Paracetene and Gabaza also existed in
Central Asia. However, the local titles for these rulers are not available in written
sources.
With the conquest of the southern regions of Central Asia by Alexander the Great
and the installation of the Seleucid and then Graeco-Bactrian kings here, from the
mid-3rd century BC until the end of the 1st or the early 2nd century AD, exclusively
Hellenic titles were being used: basileus for ‘king’ and basileus basileon for ‘king of
kings’. With regard to the local titles of rulers, it appears that at this time in Central
Asia there were no states, apart from those of Greek origin mentioned above, whose
status corresponded to that of kingdom-like states. The only exception seems to have
been Khorezm, whose ruler, Pharasmanes, or Phrataphernes as he is also known,
came to Maracanda to see Alexander the Great with a proposal of friendship and
cooperation. In Greek texts he is referred to as basileus, i.e. ‘king’ (Arrian. IV, 15, 4).
Freed from Seleucid domination in the middle of the 3rd century BC, the Parthian
kings nevertheless retained the Greek title for ‘king’ and corresponding epithets, at
least on coin legends.
The creation of titles in other historical and cultural areas of Central Asia, in
particular in Transoxiana, which had broken free from Greek domination, followed
a different process. Some, regions, like Sogdia and Bukhara, had probably already
broken free by the beginning of the 2nd century BC. Others, like Northern Bactria,
did so at the beginning of the second half of the 2nd century BC. However, the titles
used to designate their rulers evolved differently, depending on the prevailing role of
particular cultural influences or on ethnic factors.
The main source of information for this period is coins minted in imitation of
Graeco-Bactrian coins from the 2nd–1st centuries BC, with legends in the language
of Khorezm, Bactria and Sogdia appearing at a particular point bearing the titles of
rulers of various possessions in Transoxiana. The most distinctive features of these titles
are of Aramaic and Yuezhi-Kushan origin, and hence this phase in the development
of rulers’ titulature can be described as the Aramaic-Kushan period. For example, the
linguist W. Henning discovered that the coin inscription on imitations of Euthydemus
tetradrachms, which had been circulated and minted in Bukhara as early as the 2nd
century BC, contained the Aramaic ideogram MR’Y (pronounced mrai). The original
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