An introduction to the Scythians

The Scythians are mentioned in different contexts throughout my blog, but they have never been discussed as a people. 

[Picture from World History Encyclopedia.  A map illustrating the expansion of the warrior nomad Scythians between the 7th and 3rd century BC across Asia and Europe. (Simeon Netchev - CC BY-NC-SA)]

We have to go back to Herodotus in the 5th century BC, who mentions the Scythians for the first time. The author concentrates on Ukraine, although his description might well extend to the tribes in Central Asia. When talking about the Scythians, we refer to many different tribes roaming the steppes north of the “civilized” world. Their habitat stretched roughly from the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea (north of Persia) to Central Asia and the desert of Mongolia. At this far easterly end, the Chinese protected themselves from Scythian invasions by building their famous Great Wall. 

Generally living in small bands, they attacked the cities and towns situated south of their extensive east-west frontier. After a more or less sudden devastating incursion, they would withdraw with their booty into their vast nomadic Eurasian steppe lands. Over the years, some tribes settled as farmers, but they were not interested in founding cities of their own. 

In Central Asia and Persia, the Scythians were called Sacae as both tribes shared the same Indo-European language and lifestyle. These Sacae are called Skudat, which the Persians understood as Sakâ. The Greeks, in turn, used the name Skythes or Skythai. No wonder the Scythians show up so often in history under a different disguise. 

The Persians suffered repeated attacks from the Scythians, who, even shortly, dominated the Medes in the 7th century BC. They are also known to have played a significant role in the Sack of Nineveh in 612 BC. 

As a result of Miletus’ colonization, the Kingdom of the Bosporus emerged (see: The Kingdom of the Bosporus). It reached its peak between the 6th and the 3rd century BC. During that period, the new settlers maintained strong cultural and trade relations with the Scythians. Over the centuries, the kingdom with its capital of Panticapaeum became a melting pot of civilizations as the Greeks mingled with neighboring Pontic Scythians. 

An earlier blog, A cast helmet from Central Asia, discussed a helmet found near Maracanda, in the tomb of a Sacae leader. The technique of cast helmets was customary in China, which proves that these nomadic Scythians lived far to the east. This particular helmet dated from the 6th century BC and became obsolete afterward. 

The Massagetai tribe living near the Aral Sea was also Scythian. In 529 BC, Cyrus the Great attacked this tribe, ruled by Queen Tomyris. That happened after Cyrus’ negotiation to marry her failed. She bluntly refused to submit to him. As a result, the king attacked her and her tribe, and she died on the battlefield. 

The Scythians also successfully withstood Darius the Great’s attack at the beginning of the 5th century BC. Later that century, the Pontic Scythians took possession of Thrace. 

In the 5th century BC, the Odrysian Kingdom was founded – merely a union of more than forty tribes that turned Thracia into a powerful state. The Odrysians and the Scythians had reached peaceful relations through their inter-dynastic marriages, which led to establishing the border of their lands at the Danube River. Both peoples mingled and were generally recognized as Scythians. Their agreement, however, was not meant to last as, in the end, southern and central Thrace were divided among the Odrysian kings. Eventually, Philip II conquered their land in 340 BC. The Getae ruled the northeast section. 

Alexander attacked these Getae after his pursuit of the Triballians to the banks of the Danube River in 335 BC. The Triballians had sought refuge on an island. Instead of attacking them in that awkward position, Alexander decided to isolate them and go after the Getae on the other bank of the Danube. He managed to ferry 4,000 infantrymen and 1,500 cavalry across the wide river by night. No wonder the Getae were in shock when they woke up with this army on their land and fled to the hinterland (see: Crossing the Danube River). 

A noteworthy Odrysian Thracian is Sitalces. His true origins remain relatively obscure, but apparently, he was a prince, maybe even the son of King Cersobleptes of the Odrysian Thracians. He joined Alexander’s army and proved to be a competent commander who led the Thracian javelin men on more than one occasion. The Thracians appear again at the Battle of Gaugamela. They were placed with the main body of the Macedonian troops, under the command of Sitalces once again (see: Sitalces, commander of the Thracians). Sitalces was also one of the three generals who, on Alexander’s orders, executed Parmenion in Ecbatana (see: The Philotas Affair – Part II – His judgment and execution). 

Back in Central Asia, we should mention the story of a Scythian chief named Karthasis, who offered one of his daughters – most probably one of those warlike Scythian young women - in marriage to Alexander. The King declined, but the story may well have triggered the tale of the Amazons. 

In 329 BC, Alexander marched north to Cyropolis, a city founded by Cyrus the Great. But Cyropolis was situated about 10 km away from the Jaxartes River. Alexander felt that it didn’t serve his purpose, i.e., to protect the country against the nomads inhabiting the lands beyond the majestic river. He decided to build a city of his own, Alexandria-Eschate or Alexandria-the-Furthermost (Ultima), right on the banks of the Jaxartes – the location of today’s Khodjend in Tajikistan. Shortly after starting his project, a general revolt broke out, and the entire area exploded into armed resistance, making it clear that the Macedonians were not welcome. The Scythians on the opposite shore of the Jaxartes also grew furious. Consequently, Alexander set the crossing of the river in motion. He conceived a flotilla of large rafts made of stuffed leather tent covers, rigged together and covered with a sturdy platform. These rafts could carry a heavy contingent of men and even horses. Besides, Alexander equipped them with long-range catapults, a kind of machine the Scythians would discover for the first time.

When the Scythians recovered from their first shock and surprise, they played their favorite maneuver by riding and attacking in circles. Alexander threw in a mixed force of infantry and cavalry and successfully broke the circle, sending the Scythians to retreat after being hunted down by Alexander for several miles into the desert (see: Alexandria-Eschate and Cyropolis). 

The above gives insight into the Scythians' link between Greece, Persia, India, and China. It may somehow have laid the foundation of the Silk Road as a vast trade network. 

Although the Scythians have no written records, they left us substantial archaeological evidence of their high skills in metalwork. Monumental burial mounts across the Eurasian steppe reveal high-quality jewelry, weapons, vessels, horse harnesses, belts, and other decorative items, mostly made of gold. 

Inevitably, some of these Scythian tribes, such as the Pontic Scythians, settled as farmers, while others kept roaming the vast steppes from Mongolia to the Black Sea area. In the early Middle Ages, the most westerly tribes blended in and mixed with the early Slavs.

First contacts with China

It is generally not mentioned that in the wake of Alexander's expansion, an opening towards China, or Seres as Strabo called the country, was created to the east of Central Asia. After all, in 329 BC, the king founded the city of Alexandria Eschate (very appropriately being Alexandria the Furthest), the later Khojend in modern Tajikistan, where he stopped his march eastwards. 

His Greek settlers in Central Asia were there to stay for the next three hundred years as Seleucos established his Empire, which later became the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. Over time, their kings steadily expanded their power further to the east, and the main force appeared to be King Euthydemus (230-200 BC). This Euthydemus was born in Magnesia, Asia Minor as the son of the Greek general Apollodotus. By 209 BC, as Graeco-Bactria king, he withstood the three-year-long siege of Bactra led by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III. In the end, Antiochus offered one of his daughters in marriage to Demetrius, son of Euthydemus, in exchange for which he received several Indian war elephants. 

Once well settled, Euthydemus went to the lands beyond Alexandria Eschate. As reported by Strabo, he even reached Kashgar in the region of Xinjiang. This may date the first Western and China exchanges to around 200 BC. 

How China looked at the West is a much lesser-known story. Not unlike the Greeks, the Chinese held that they were the center of world civilization and that all other countries were tributaries of China. This implies that the campaign of Euthydemus may have been a significant turning point (see also: Alexander's influence reached all the way to China?)

Around 130 BC, embassies of the Han Dynasty traveled to Central Asia as the Chinese emperor Wudi was interested in the sophisticated civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria, and Parthia, respectively known to the Chinese as Dayuan, Daxia, and Anxi. Since then, numerous embassies left every year to these countries, where they found people living in fixed homes and interested in the rich produce of China. Chinese records reveal that more than ten such missions were dispatched into Parthia, Seleucid Syria (known as Lijian), Chaldea (Tiaozhi), and north-western India (Tianzhu). Allegedly, they even visited Emperor Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD), and it seems hard to imagine Chinese envoys walking in the streets of Rome! 

Roman soldiers also made their way east, although not out of their free will. It has been documented that soldiers captured by the Parthians were dispatched to defend their eastern borders. In 54 BC, Pliny mentioned that after the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC (see: Harran, better known under its Roman name Carrhae), the Parthians sent some 10,000 prisoners to Margiana to man the frontier. Chinese sources report that these soldiers had blond hair and blue eyes. Eventually, these troops were captured by the Chinese to founding the city of Liqian or Li-Chien – a transliteration of Alexandria - it seems, in the region of Gansu in western China. Several inscriptions discovered in the Kara-Kamar caves on the border between eastern Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were written in Bactrian, Greek, Arabic, and Latin. The latter was composed of three lines and was left by the Roman soldiers of the Pannonian Legio XV Apollinaris around the 2^nd century AD. Notably, this cave complex showed remarkable similarities with temples dedicated to the god Mithras, who was featured in killing the bull. This secret male cult started about the 1^st century AD and soon spread with the legionnaires over the entire Roman Empire. 

By the first century BC, Rome started showing serious interest in the precious silk it received through trade with the Parthians. Wearing silk soon exploded, but it was not met with overall approval. Seneca (3 BC-65 AD) complained that silk did not hide the body, not "even one's decency." This led the Senate to issue an edict prohibiting silk-wearing, which the wealthy Roman elite liked to ignore. Besides the moral ground, this edict also had an economic reason, as importing silk caused a massive outflow of gold. 

Yet, business is business, and the trade prospered. Over land, using the Silk Road was a tedious and expensive operation, which was soon to be supplanted by a newly found maritime route. The ships would sail from China, stopping at ports in modern Vietnam, India, and Sri Lanka controlled by the Chinese emperors. The western end of this business route, with stopovers in Egypt and the Nabataean territories, was controlled by Rome. Their merchants traveled on Roman, Indian, and even Chinese ships. 

Best known from this period is the campaign led by the Chinese general Ban Chao, who in 97 AD crossed the Pamir Mountains with an army of 70,000 men to fight the Xiongnu, generally the people living in Central Asia. He even reached the Caspian Sea and the lands occupied by the Parthians. From here, the general sent an envoy to Dagin (Rome). Ultimately, this was Gan Ying, who stopped in Mesopotamia although he intended to sail to Rome via the Black Sea. The Parthian merchants wishing to safeguard their profitable position as the middleman between Rome and China, told Gan Ying that his planned trip would take him two years. In reality, this was two months. This is why the envoy decided to abandon his mission and return home. His merit, to a certain extent at least, was his account of Rome and Emperor Nerva, which he obviously based on second-hand information. However, he correctly reported that Rome was the leading economic power at the western end of Eurasia. The Chinese army settled for an alliance with the Parthians. 

The earliest documented Roman embassy to arrive in China dates to 166 AD. Chinese sources mention that it came from Antun (Antoninus Pius), king of Dagin (Rome). This information must be clarified since Antoninus Pius died five years before, in 161 AD. It is suggested that they meant Marcus Aurelius, who added the name of his predecessor to his own; he came to power in 166 AD. 

This Roman delegation probably arrived by sea and carried presents of rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoise shells originating from Southern Asia. More important, however, is that the Chinese acquired a treatise on astronomy. Roman cartographers knew of the existence of China since the country was mentioned on the map by Claudius Ptolemy in about 150 AD. The booming trade across the Indian Ocean in the 2^nd century AD enabled the identification of Roman outposts in India and Sri Lanka. 

After a lacuna about further exchanges, the next documented account emerged in the 3^rd century AD when the Roman Emperor (possibly Alexander Severus) sent presents of colored glass to Emperor Taitsu of the Kingdom of Wei (reigned 227-239 AD) in Northern China. The last record about an embassy from Rome dates from 284 AD when the envoys of presumably Emperor Carus (282-283 AD) brought "tribute" to the Chinese Empire. 

To summarize, contact between our western world and China lasted at least six hundred years after Alexander opened access to Central Asia. In all its aspects, the Silk Road sank into oblivion until Marco Polo revived this part of history in the 13^th century, i.e., one thousand years later!

We leave no man behind

The phrase and what it stands for hit me the other day when I followed the story of an elite group of British military trying to make it out alive across the Iraqi border into Syria. These men belonged to the Special Forces of the S.A.S. (Special Air Forces) on a rescue operation.

The concept of nemo resideo translated as “leave no one behind” seems to disappear in the dawn of time. However, it may have been revived during recent conflicts like the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No matter when or how it originated, the very core of these words led me to Alexander. It was something he could have initiated if it not already existed.

As I was pondering the matter, I remembered Alexander’s march across the Karakum Desert towards the Oxus River. Over a distance of roughly sixty kilometers, the troops trudged over endless treeless hills dotted with rare green vegetation. In this “pebble desert”, they fell short on water, and some men broke into the wine and oil provisions making their situation far worse. They all struggled to keep moving, and some were maddened by thirst and lost their sense of orientation. When Alexander finally reached the river banks, he ordered to light huge fires to bring those who lost their bearings back on track. Comrades ran back and forth to carry water to the stragglers. With his usual determination, Alexander encouraged his troops to keep going. He wasn’t going to leave anyone behind if he could help it.

But after all, this may not be entirely Alexander’s doing. The bulk of his troops had campaigned with his father, who created the first professional army ever. Most men had been fighting together for ten or twenty years already by the time Alexander took over the general command. They had shared the sores of long marches under all weather conditions. They had shared their food, their sorrows and miseries, as well as their dreams and their secrets. They had cared for each other’s wounds and got drunk together. Most importantly, they had learned to rely on each other. They knew the others as they knew themselves. They were a real band of brothers.

Campaigning with Alexander had tightened that brotherhood as he added ever more years of service to those which his seasoned soldiers had already computed. Marching on with their king, the men always had to be alert of the almost daily dangers. These dangers could take many forms. The men had to face hostile tribes, rivers in spate, scorching deserts, dilluvian rains, thunderstorms, ice and freezing cold, earthquakes, wild animals. The list is endless, so it seems. If the soldiers could not rely on each other, they could not survive. It was as simple as that. They would never leave any of their buddies behind if they could help it. Staying together and caring for their comrades was a matter of pure necessity.

Another event that came to my mind is the ambush set up by Spitamenes in Bactria where Alexander’s troops were caught in a guerrilla war. The confrontation ended in a pure massacre as only some 350 men out of the 2,300 sent on the mission survived. There was nothing Alexander, who was still recovering from his wounds and dysentery in Alexandria Eschate, could have done to rescue them. The king never sent his men on a suicide mission. Loosing so many good men hit him hard but all he could do was to avenge their death. In his anger, he ordered to sweep up the entire valley of the Polytimetus River. His instructions were clear, every house and every village should be taken down, all the crops burnt. The enraged Macedonians didn’t hesitate to execute their orders. Taking revenge was something they understood all too well.

In modern warfare, the US Army personnel are expected to live by what’s called the Soldiers’ Creed. Its last version from 2003 reads as follows:

I am an American Soldier.

I am a Warrior and a member of a team.

I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.

I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America, in close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American Soldier.

Times have really changed for if the concept would certainly have appealed to Alexander and his Macedonians, I’m sure they didn’t feel the need to express it in so many words or to spell it out in writing. They simply knew their duty and what was expected from them and they certainly would give their all under any circumstance.

Some thoughts about mudbrick city walls

Alexander did not go as far west as Khiva when he was in Central Asia but these city walls perfectly illustrate what construction using mudbricks means. In fact, they helped me to understanding how he was able to build the wall around Alexandria-Eschate in only twenty days.

There are many reports of Alexander besieging cities and taking down its walls but till now walls for me were straight vertical constructions made of rocks and stones piled up in such a way that they could withstand the forces of an enemy attack. Yet in Asia, stones were often not available and mudbricks widely replaced them as construction material as seen already in the palaces of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, for instance. Yet I had no mental image of what a city wall made of mudbricks would look like and I could not even imagine how it truly served its purpose – that is, till I saw Khiva.

These huge walls shine in all their glory and are only interrupted by their entrance gates. The first such examples I see is the Tash Gate, which is flanked by two robust but slender towers crowned with a crenellated lookout post. This gate immediately blends in with the clean swept earthen city wall – as imposing as I have ever seen. The wall of Khiva forms a two-kilometers-long square and is ten meters high. The lower part is sloping upwards to the foot of the wall proper which is also slightly tilting inwards. At regular intervals half-round towers strengthen the fortification, one tower in two being thicker and sturdier than the other. I am told that this wall is between five and six meters thick. No picture can compete with the effect it has when standing at the foot of this towering defenses. It makes you wonder how on earth anyone could launch an assault and be successful in the process. Of course, this wall dates from the 17^th century but the foundations go back to the 10^th century, no doubt inspired by similar earlier constructions.

At this point, I remember how Alexander built Alexandria-Eschate in about three weeks’ time according to Arrian. Staring at these walls in Khiva, I am once again in awe for Alexander who rammed and catapulted very similar walls during his years of campaigning.

The city of Khiva is certainly worth a visit although its remains fit in a time-frame far beyond antiquity. Legend has it that Khiva arose around a well that had been dug by Shem, son of Noah but the city started to flourish from the 8^th century onwards as an important stop on the Silk Road to China. Endless caravans of camels loaded with goods passed through these streets from morning till night and this is nicely illustrated on a lovely tiled wall which also mentions Bukhara and Samarkand as major stopovers.

One of the first landmarks along the main street is the grand Minaret of Kalta Minor, a short minaret of remarkable design and shape. It is a little fatso, 30 meters high and 15 meters in diameter at its base but it was meant to be 110 meters tall at the time of its construction in 1855. This minaret is clad with glazed bricks and majolica whose colors are a distant reminder of the walls of Susa’s palace although their design has been replaced by Islamic ones. It seems nobody ever made this link but standing here it is quite obvious how the very idea of glazed brick coatings survived 2,000 years and travelled this far east.

Each building in Khiva has its own rich history to tell: the Madrassa of Muhammad Amin Khan was the largest in Central Asia; the Mausoleum van Sayid Allauddin, a famous saint and Sufi was family of the Prophet Mohammed; the 44 meters high Islam Kodja Minaret covered with bands of glazed bricks, mostly blue and turquoise was the highest construction of Khiva. Another remarkable construction is the Mausoleum of Makhmud Pakhlavan with its glazed turquoise cupola, the only one in town. Even today this is a place of pilgrimage where people come to drink the water from the sacred well. The inside of the burial chamber is entirely covered with blue tiles and women still slide their banknotes under the door of the shrine. This is my first encounter with the typical wooden columns, shaped like elongated teardrops resting on a wooden base, all artfully carved. Amazingly, there are many more such examples around – the grandest collection being at the Djuma Mosque.

The Djuma Mosque or Friday Mosque is quite a peculiar construction without portals or cupolas, without galleries or gardens, but with a forest of columns. It is an impressive rectangular space of 55x46 meters filled with 215 wooden columns supporting a wooden ceiling – a concept that prevailed worldwide some ten centuries ago. This is truly a trip back in time! The oldest columns date from the 11^th-12^th century and combine designs from different periods, including geometrical and organic ornaments with Arabic writing. Some columns are resting on their appropriate decorated base but others are simply studded with a rough block of wood or even concrete. Some columns are shorter or have only partially survived in which cases they are supported by a taller base.  Looking more closely, you’ll see that many of them carry a date, 1316, 1510, 1788, and 1789, probably linked to their restoration. Capitals are almost nonexistent but some columns are crowned with a wooden chiselled circle while other tops are squeezed between two or four digressive blocks vaguely inspired by the bullheads from Persepolis’ columns.

These wooden columns are indeed a far reminder of Persian art since the ceilings of the palaces in Susa and Persepolis were supported by wooden columns that were plastered and painted as well. They rested on a stone base which often is still in situ and were crowned with bulls or lions supporting the very ceiling. Somewhere down the line of time, it seems logical that we end up with the present shape and carvings. Well, this is my own reflection on the matter as scholars claim that the motives in Khiva belong to the Khorezm art going back to 1200 BC but that does not explain the origin of the idea.

The Citadel, the Ashikh-bobo is worth a visit on its own for it offers a grand view of the entire city and in particular over the city walls which fully reveal their unique pattern. From this observation post the entire city lays at your feet with its many mosques, minarets and madrasas. The simple square clay houses of today’s citizens add to the impression that time has come to a standstill.

[Click here to see all the pictures of Khiva]

Another look at the exchange of knowledge and goods between East and West

Although China has come closer to us in recent decennia, the country remained isolated for most of its history. Few people realize that in the wake of Alexander’s expansion beyond the heart of Central Asia, an opening was created. After all, in 329 BC he founded the city of Alexandria Eschate (very appropriately being Alexandria the Furthest), the later Khojend in modern Tajikistan.

Yet, even Alexander and his successors were not the first to penetrate into China or Seres as Strabo calls the country. A few years ago, I learned about prehistoric mummies that were found in the Desert of Taklamakan. These were blond-reddish-haired people and their clothing included tartans, a clear hint of Western European origins. This discovery seems to have remained a fact on its own, as I found no hint to link this migration corridor to historians on which Alexander could have relied, but altogether might have known? As so often, it is not because this fact has not been documented that it did not exist. It sounds rather logical that if people were able to move as far east in prehistoric times, to even doubt about Alexander’s knowledge of this route and destination.

Anyway, putting my thoughts about these Western European people on the side, the Greeks in Central Asia were there to stay for the next three centuries following Alexander’s conquest. Seleucos established his empire in that area, which later on was taken over by the Graeco-Bactrian kings who steadily expanded further eastwards. The leader in this expansion certainly was Euthydemus I (230-200 BC), who even went beyond Alexandria Eschate. He may have gone as far as Kashgar in the region of Xinjiang, as reported by Strabo.

Around 130 BC, it is known that embassies of the Han Dynasty went to Central Asia as the Chinese emperor Wudi was interested in the sophisticated civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria, and Parthia. Numerous embassies left every year to these countries and it has been documented that more than ten such missions were dispatched every year to Parthia, Seleucid Syria, Chaldea, and north-western India.

Ensuing contacts followed when the wealthy Romans became interested in the precious silk that was supplied through the Parthians as early as the first century BC, causing a serious outflow of gold. The Roman historian Florus is one of the few to mention the numerous Chinese envoys who visited Augustus (reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD). The expensive land route, by now appropriately known as the Silk Road, was soon to be supplanted by a prosperous maritime route through China-controlled ports in Vietnam, India, and Sri Lanka on one end, and Roman-controlled countries like Egypt and the Nabataean territories.

Much of this period of history was well documented in China, like, for instance, that of a Roman delegation arriving in China by this maritime route in 166 AD but fewer testimonies have survived in our part of the world, and consequently much of this Silk Road sank into oblivion till it was revived by the tales of Marco Polo.

Alexander's March to Maracanda (Central Asia 8)

[7 - In early autumn of 329 BC, Alexander marched to Maracanda in three days and nights to see Spitamenes vanish in thin air. He re-crossed the Oxus to winter in Bactra. Arrival of reinforcements from Macedonia.]

In early autumn 329 BC, as soon as he could manage health-wise, Alexander marched to Maracanda to find Spitamenes and avenge the recent cruel ambush of his envoys. Alexander was never in for half measures, and he proved it once again, covering a good 180 miles from Alexandria-Eschate to Maracanda in three days and nights, the fastest march of his life (an average of some 45 miles a day!). He must have had an iron constitution to travel at such high speed after suffering the discomforts of dysentery and his recent wounds. The loss of the 2,000 good men in Maracanda must have hit him hard.

Spitamenes, meanwhile, had attacked Maracanda a second time, but as soon as he was informed of Alexander’s approach, he quickly withdrew. Alexander set in pursuit, but his enemy’s lead was too great. In this process, Alexander passed the ghostly battlefield where his troops had lost their lives a few months earlier and arranged for a decent burial. In his anger, he ordered to sweep the entire valley of the Polytimetus River, modern Zeravshan, still running past Samarkand. His instructions were clear: every house and every village should be taken down, all the crops burnt, and any person sympathizing with Spitamenes should be killed. I wonder how many questions the enraged Macedonians bothered to ask before killing…

These measures only put more oil on the fire with the Bactrians and the Sogdians. Most of their towns were now in ruins, the population wiped out, they had nothing to lose, and their only hopes lay with Spitamenes. Personally, I think it is about this time that the new Great King realized that warfare in this part of his empire was entirely different from his well-planned, well-drilled, and well-executed battlefields.

With the fast-approaching winter at his doorstep, Alexander left 3,000 men on guard in Bactria and retired to Bactra, where enough provisions had been stored to sustain the severe winter months. The good news must have been that the highly needed and long-expected reinforcements finally arrived from Macedonia, 22,000 fresh Greek mercenaries sent out by Antipater. A welcome boost to manpower and morale, no doubt.

I just can’t believe I have arrived in Samarkand myself, the Maracanda of the Greeks and the Afrasiab of antiquity! The very name rings like Baghdad, Babylon, or Persepolis, an unknown world as far as I’m concerned, somewhere in the Orient. No wonder that Samarkand is one of the oldest cities in the world, although opinions differ widely when it comes to dating its origins. However, we are sure that the Persian Achaemenids ruled the local tribes from the 6th to the 4th century BC. With the arrival of Alexander the Great in 329 BC, Maracanda occupied a key position and became an important business center thanks to its impregnable citadel surrounded by a more than ten kilometers long city wall, which in later centuries even kept the Arabs out. But the arrival of Islam and the hordes of Genghis Khan could not be stopped. Golden times blessed the city when Tamerlane declared Samarkand the capital of his empire that reached from the Bosporus to the Indus. Today’s treasures of Samarkand are to be found in the mosques, madrassa’s and mausoleums Tamerlane left us, unique beauties that are luckily added to the World Heritage List of UNESCO. Samarkand is also closely linked to the Silk Road, situated on the crossroad of two main routes, one running from Persia in the west to China in the east, the other running south towards India. As I said before, Alexander must have followed these same roads since they ran, in fact, on top of the Royal Roads built by the Great Kings over the centuries to connect their many palaces and to quickly move their armies through this vast empire.

No trace of Alexander is to be found in today’s Samarkand. I’ll have to go to neighboring Afrasiab, constantly inhabited until the Mongols arrived here in 1220 and leveled the proud city upon explicit orders of Genghis Khan. Those who survived these terrors fled the premises and chose to settle at the edge of the foothill, and this is where today’s Samarkand is still shining. I’ll be visiting Afrasiab, of course. [See: Part 10, Afrasiab, ancient Samarkand]

I’m walking along the Zeravshan River, the old Polytimetus River, during my visit to a Natural Reserve in that area. I am told that this is a safe haven for foxes and lynxes, a certain number of birds, but all I see are some apparently unique deer, fenced in like our deer parks. Not exactly what one would expect under the label of a Natural Reserve, but we are probably very spoiled with our western safari parks and the kind. The local guide is willing to take us to the banks of the Zeravshan River; nobody is really interested but me. Yes, of course, Alexander has been here rampaging through the thickets on his reprisal expedition after Spitamenes’ brutal murder of the Greek mercenaries around here. The path is wild and overgrown with lots of spiny plants and branches that scratch you wherever they can; not very inviting, I must say. How Alexander’s men cut their way through these dense thickets and low thorny branches makes you bow in respect because their bodies, arms, and legs must have been covered with scars. I guess these seasoned troopers were used to it, or worse. I can’t take in enough of these wild-grown shrubs and grasses, as if Alexander could dash out of this wilderness anytime before me!

A year later, Alexander is back for another sweep-up along the Polytimetus and its tributaries to demonstrate his power and that of his army. Strangely enough, and in spite of his harsh actions, legends about Alexander still flourish in this part of the country where an Alexander River (Iskander Darya) flows out of an Alexander Lake (Iskander Kül). It is believed that he built a golden dam to create the lake and that gold particles can still be panned further downstream. Another story tells how Alexander and his trusted horse Bucephalus rise from the lake with every full moon to cross the sky (Michael Wood and Frank Holt).

My path stops abruptly at the bank of the Zeravshan, at least five feet above the riverbed. All I see is a charcoal-black muddy surface plowed by deer and cattle that waded through on their way to the water near the opposite side – a shimmering rivulet, nothing more. But then, this time of the year (fall), the rivers around here are at their lowest; they swell in spring after the snow from the surrounding mountains starts melting. The Zeravshan rises at the fringes of the Pamir Mountains, and I crossed on my way from Shahr-i-Sabz and may have emptied into the Oxus in antiquity, although today, it simply peters out in the desert before reaching that far. Alexander must have seen this river also fully swollen, as he repeatedly traveled between Maracanda and Bactra (having to cross the Oxus River each time again). We have no idea of the hardships or distances out here; Samarkand-Balkh, for instance, is roughly 200 miles, almost as far as Los Angeles - Las Vegas or London - Land’s End.

Click here to read Episode 9 of Central Asia.

Alexandria-Eschate and Cyropolis (Central Asia 7)

[6 - In July 329 BC, Alexander was building his Alexandria-the-Furthermost, modern Khodjend in Tajikistan, while taking seven Sogdian cities, including Cyropolis. Alexander was seriously wounded.]

Alexander marched north to Cyropolis, a city founded by nobody less than Cyrus the Great, whom he admired greatly. But Cyropolis was situated about 10 km away from the edge of the Jaxartes River and Alexander felt that it didn’t serve his purpose, i.e. to protect the country against the nomads inhabiting the lands beyond the majestic river. He decided to build a city of his own, Alexandria-Eschate or Alexandria-the-Furthermost (Ultima) right on the banks of the Jaxartes – the location of today’s Khodjend in Tajikistan. Shortly after starting his project, a general revolt broke out and the entire area exploded into an armed resistance counting as much as 20,000 men. It was more than obvious that this Macedonian settlement was not welcome.

The uprising spread rapidly to Cyropolis and the neighbouring towns. An infuriated Alexander struck back and was wounded for the first time since Asia Minor, taking an arrow in his leg that broke his splint-bone. However, determined as always, he sent Craterus to besiege Cyropolis (by far the largest town), while he systematically subdued the other six cities in the area. Arrian mentions that the king took five cities in three days, nothing less. From what I have seen in other places, the walls of these towns, although made of mud-bricks could be quite formidable, yet he razed them all to the ground. Returning to Cyropolis and in spite of his wounds, Alexander was alert enough to notice a stream running under the city walls; that was all he needed to crawl inside and open the city-gates from the inside to let his army in and subsequently subdue the city. Most of the defenders were obviously killed but in such a close-combat many of Alexander’s men suffered severe injuries, and so did Alexander. He fell unconscious when a large stone hit him on the head. He suffered from blurred vision and couldn’t speak for several days. He must have been quite upset with himself for all these injuries combined made it impossible for him to ride his horse, see or speak clearly. He may have been lucky after all, for it was here that Cyrus lost his life during a similar attack in 530 BC.

As if the situation was not bad enough, the king received news that his garrison in Maracanda had been attacked by Spitamenes who had banded up with several other warlords in order to resist Alexander’s decision to settle the area. The tables had turned since the capture of Bessus just a few months earlier, and certainly not to Alexander’s advantage. The Bactrians and Sogdians became true terrorists (although the very word is a modern conception) and Spitamenes was the worst among them. In my eyes, he was the equivalent of the Bin Laden of our times. Nothing seems to have changed in that part of the world …

To settle the rebellion in his back, Alexander sent 2000 mercenaries to Maracanda hoping that the rebels could be talked into peace – a serious miscalculation as he had put this detachment under command of an interpreter instead of a capable general. They were never to be seen again.

In spite of his impaired condition, Alexander pushed on with the construction of Alexandria-Eschate. Within 21 days the city-walls were erected, 5.5 miles long, i.e. the equivalent of a Macedonian camp. A prowess by itself! But the Scythians from the opposite shore of the Jaxartes also grew furious about this new city and they joined the Sogdian revolt, putting Alexandria-Eschate under constant attacks and taunting Alexander to come after them. When the city walls reached a defendable height and the king had recovered well enough from his wounds to fight back, the crossing of the Jaxartes was set in motion. It is one of those exploits that is not stressed enough in our history books!

I have no visual image of the Jaxartes since it was pitch dark by the time I crossed it, but picturing it more or less like the Oxus I cannot be far from the truth. When Alexander decided to attack the daunting Scythians on the opposite bank, he had a solid plan. This was far from the one he applied on the Oxus earlier on because if he had sent his men swimming across the Jaxartes they would have been killed like sitting ducks by the enemy’s arrows. He conceived a flotilla of large rafts (12,000 rafts assembled in three days, according to Curtius) made from stuffed leather tent covers, rigged together and covered with a sturdy platform. These rafts could carry a serious contingent of men and even some horses. Besides, Alexander equipped them with long-range catapults, a kind of machine the Scythians were going to discover for the first time. As the volleys hit the startled nomads, Alexander’s archers, slingers and other catapults kept on firing while the troops, both infantry and cavalry managed to get ashore – nothing less than a modern landing with amphibian tanks! The current was swift and tore at the rafts but they held long enough for every men and horse to land safely. When the Scythians recovered from their first shock and surprise, they played their favourite manoeuvre by riding and attacking in circles, but even here Alexander knew the answer. He threw in a mixed force of infantry and cavalry and successfully broke the circle, sending the Scythians to retreat further inland. Alexander, as a matter of course, set in the pursuit for several miles into the desert before giving up. I read somewhere (but don’t remember where) that this battle took place near Kungur-tao on the northern bank of the Jaxartes but I can’t pinpoint this location. Any suggestions?

King and army then set out to return victorious to Alexandria-Eschate, but many were sick with dysentery as they had drunk foul water. Alexander shared the same fate and on top of all his recent wounds, he now had to be carried on a stretcher. Ancient sources mention that infantry and cavalry quarreled about who would be carrying the very ill king, as both fell entitled to the honour . Alexander settled the matter in person, as dear old Solomon would have done: they should take turns.

Click here to read Episode 8 of Central Asia