History of Bactria

By the mid-7th century CE, Islam under the Rashidun Caliphate had come to rule much of the Middle East and western areas of Central Asia.

Tokharistan is an ancient Early Middle Ages name given to the area which was known as Bactria in Ancient Greek sources.

In 663 CE, the Umayyad Caliphate attacked the Buddhist Shahi dynasty ruling in Tokharistan.

In the 8th century CE, a Persian from Balkh known as Saman Khuda left Zoroastrianism for Islam while living under the Umayyads.

Alexander conquered Sogdiana. In the south, beyond the Oxus, he married Roxana, daughter of the defeated Satrap of Bactria, Oxyartes. He founded two Greek cities in Bactria, including his easternmost, Alexandria Eschate.

Bactria was the homeland of Indo-Iranians who moved south-west into Iran and the north-west of the Indian subcontinent around 2500–2000 BC.

The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex or Oxus Civilisation, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC, is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age civilization of Central Asia.

The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age archaeological culture of Central Asia, dated to c. 2200–1700 BC.

The early Greek historian Ctesias, c. 400 BC, alleged that the legendary Assyrian king Ninus had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in c. 2140 BC.

Bactrians were the inhabitants of Bactria. Several important trade routes from India and China passed through Bactria and, as early as the Bronze Age, this had allowed the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth by the mostly nomadic population. The first proto-urban civilization in the area arose during the 2nd millennium BCE.

Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi discovered the remains of a Bronze Age culture in the Karakum Desert in 1976. The culture came to be known as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex.

Ernst Herzfeld suggested that Bactria belonged to the Medes before its annexation to the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century BC.

The first mention of Bactria comes in 520 BCE at the Behistun inscription.

Control of these lucrative trade routes, however, attracted foreign interest, and in the 6th century BC, the Bactrians were conquered by the Persians.

Alexander conquered Sogdiana. In the south, beyond the Oxus, he married Roxana, daughter of the defeated Satrap of Bactria, Oxyartes. He founded two Greek cities in Bactria, including his easternmost, Alexandria Eschate.

Following the conquest of Bactria by Alexander the Great in 323 BC, for about two centuries Greek was the administrative language of his Hellenistic successors, that is, the Seleucid and the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms.

Diodotus I Soter was the first Greek king of Bactria.

The Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, in Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent from its founding in 256 BC by Diodotus I Soter to its fall under the reign of Heliocles II.

Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom when he seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC and became King Diodotus I of Bactria.

Euthydemus I was a Bactrian king and founder of the Euthydemid dynasty.

The kingdom was founded when the Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius I invaded India from Bactria in 200 BC.

Daxia, Ta-Hsia, or Ta-Hia was the name given in antiquity by the Han Chinese to Tukhara or Tokhara the central part of Bactria. The name "Daxia" appears in Chinese from the 3rd century BCE to designate a little-known kingdom located somewhere west of China.

Demetrius I, also called Damaytra, was a Greco-Bactrian king (reigned c. 200–167 BCE), who ruled areas from Bactria to ancient northwestern India.

Agathocles I Dikaios was a Bactrian king, who reigned between around 190 and 180 BC.

Eucratides founded the city of Eukratidia.

Eucratides I was one of the most important Graeco-Bactrian kings.

Menander I Soter was a Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek King (reigned c.165/155 –130 BC) who administered a large territory in the northwestern regions of the Indian Subcontinent from his capital at Sagala.

During the 2nd century BCE, the Greco-Bactrians were conquered by nomadic Indo-European tribes from the north, beginning with the Sakas (160 BCE).

The Greco-Bactrians, also known in Sanskrit as Yavanas, worked in cooperation with the native Bactrian aristocracy. By about 135 BCE, however, this kingdom had been overrun by invading Yuezhi tribes, an invasion that later brought about the rise of the powerful Kushan Empire.

The Yuezhi had conquered Bactria by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian (circa 127 BC), who had been sent by the Han emperor to investigate lands to the west of China.

Heliocles or Heliokles II Dikaios was the last reigning Hellenistic King of Bactria.

By the early 2nd century BCE the Greco-Bactrians had created an impressive empire that stretched southwards to include north-west India.