Amyrgians

Distribution of Central Asian Iranic populations during the Iron Age.
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The Amyrgians (Ancient Greek: Αμύργιοι Amúrgioi; Latin: Amyrgii; Old Persian: 𐎿𐎣𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎢𐎶𐎺𐎼𐎥𐎠 Sakā haumavargā "Sakas who lay hauma (around the fire)")[1][2] were a Saka tribe.

Name

The Greek name for this tribe, Amúrgioi (Αμύργιοι), is the Hellenised form of the Old Persian term Haumavargā (𐏃𐎢𐎶𐎺𐎼𐎥), meaning "who lay hauma (around the fire),"[1] and can be interpreted as "revering hauma."[3] The full name of this tribe in Persians Achaemenid inscriptions is Sakā haumavargā (𐎿𐎣𐎠 𐏐 𐏃𐎢𐎶𐎺𐎼𐎥𐎠), that is the Sakas who lay hauma (around the fire).[1][4]

Identification

The country of the Sakā haumavargā may have been the same place named as Mujavant in Indo-Aryan literature, where it appears in close connection with Gandhāra and Bahlika.[5]

Geography

The Sakā haumavargā were always mentioned alongside the Sakā tigraxaudā in ancient Persian inscriptions, implying that the Haumavargā and Tigraxaudā were neighbours, although it is less certain whether the Haumavargā lived to the east or to the west of the Tigraxaudā. The Haumavargā most likely lived somewhere between the Caspian Sea and the Pamir Mountains, and to the north of the Oxus, near the Bactrians and Sogdians, possibly in the region corresponding to modern-day Tashkent or Dushanbe around Fergana, or across a large region stretching from Margiana to the upper Oxus river, or between the Altai and Pamir mountains, or in the territory corresponding to the modern-day Afghan district of Monjan in the upper Kokcha valley.[1]

Based on Herodotus's list of the units of the Achaemenid army, within which the Amyrgii and the Bactrians together were under the command of Hystaspes, the scholar Willem Vogelsang locates the Sakā haumavargā to the immediate north and east of Bactria.[6][7][8]

Other possible locations of the Sakā haumavargā include the Fergana valley itself,[9] or both the Fergana and Alay valleys,[10] or the region to the north of the Iaxartes.[11]

History

According to the Greek historian Ctesias, once the Persian Achaemenid Empire's founder, Cyrus, had overthrown the Median king Astyages, the Bactrians accepted him as the heir of Astyages and submitted to him, after which he founded the city of Cyropolis on the Iaxartes river as well as seven fortresses to protect the northern frontier of his empire against the Saka. Cyrus then attacked the Sakā haumavargā, initially defeated them and captured their king, Amorges. After this, Amorges's queen, Sparethra, defeated Cyrus with a large army of both men and women warriors and captured Parmises, the brother-in-law of Cyrus and the brother of his wife Amytis, as well as Parmises's three sons, whom Sparethra exchanged in return for her husband, after which Cyrus and Amorges became allies, and Amorges helped Cyrus conquer Lydia.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

Cyrus, accompanied by the Sakā haumavargā of his ally Amorges, later carried out a campaign against the Massagetae/Sakā tigraxaudā in 530 BCE.[18][19] After Cyrus had been mortally wounded by the Derbices and their Indian allies, Amorges and his Saka army helped the Persian soldiers defeat them. Cyrus told his sons to respect their own mother as well as Amorges above everyone before dying.[17]

Legacy

The name of the Afghan district of Monjan in its Farsi (Monjān), Yidgha (Braγ-ayo) and Kati (Mŕùgul) forms might have been derived from that of the Haumavargā.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Schmitt 2003.
  2. ^ Lendering 1996: The Sakâ haumavargâ ("haoma-drinking Sacae") were subjected by Cyrus the Great. Herodotus calls them Amyrgian Scythians.
  3. ^ Dandamaev, Muhammad A.; Lukonin, Vladimir G. (1989). The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran. Cambridge University Press. p. 334. ISBN 978-0-521-61191-6.
  4. ^ Lendering 1996.
  5. ^ Vogelsang 1992, p. 66: "Sanskrit Mujavant may be the name for the land of the Sakâ Haumavargâ. In the Vedic texts, the land of Mujavant is linked to Gandhâra (the Peshâwar valley) and Bahlika (the Bactria of the classical source)."
  6. ^ Vogelsang 1992, p. 108: "The Sakâ Haumavargâ are normally located east or north of ancient Bactria"
  7. ^ Vogelsang 1992, p. 174: "the Sakâ Haumavargâ north and east of Bâxtrish"
  8. ^ Vogelsang 1992, p. 192: "The fact that the Amyrgaean Sakas and the Bactrians were united under one command, namely under a son of Darius and Cyrus's daughter Atossa bearing the name of Vishtaspa, again indicates the close relationship between the Bactrians and the Amyrgaean Sakas."
  9. ^ Abetekov, A.; Yusupov, H. (1994). "Ancient Iranian Nomads in Western Central Asia". In Dani, Ahmad Hasan; Harmatta, János; Puri, Baij Nath; Etemadi, G. F.; Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (eds.). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Paris, France: UNESCO. pp. 24–34. ISBN 978-9-231-02846-5.
  10. ^ Srinivasan, Doris (2007). On the Cusp of an Era: Art in the Pre-Kuṣāṇa World. Brill. p. 58. ISBN 978-9-004-15451-3.
  11. ^ Olbrycht, Marek Jan (2021). Early Arsakid Parthia (ca. 250-165 B.C.): At the Crossroads of Iranian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian History. Leiden, Netherlands; Boston, United States: Brill. ISBN 978-9-004-46076-8. Apparently the Dahai represented an entity not identical with the other better known groups of the Sakai, i.e. the Sakai (Sakā) tigrakhaudā (Massagetai, roaming in Turkmenistan), and Sakai (Sakā) Haumavargā (in Transoxania and beyond the Syr Daryā).
  12. ^ Francfort, Henri-Paul (1988). "Central Asia and Eastern Iran". In Boardman, John; Hammond, N. G. L.; Lewis, D. M.; Ostwald, M. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 4. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6.
  13. ^ Dandamayev, M. A. (1994). "Media and Achaemenid Iran". In Dani, Ahmad Hasan; Harmatta, János; Puri, Baij Nath; Etemadi, G. F.; Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (eds.). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Paris, France: UNESCO. pp. 35–64. ISBN 978-9-231-02846-5.
  14. ^ Gera, Deborah Levine (2018). Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus De Mulieribus. Leiden, Netherlands; New York City, United States: Brill. p. 199-200. ISBN 978-9-004-32988-1.
  15. ^ Mayor, Adrienne (2014). The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. Princeton, United States: Princeton University Press. p. 382-383. ISBN 978-0-691-17027-5.
  16. ^ Kuhrt, Amélie (2013). The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-136-01694-3.
  17. ^ a b c Schmitt, Rüdiger (1989). "AMORGES". Encyclopædia Iranica. 2022-07-08
  18. ^ Francfort 1988, p. 171.
  19. ^ Schmitt 2018.

Sources