In the 6th century BCE the lands of present-day Afghanistan were drawn into the first great Persian empire, ruled by the Achaemenid dynasty. Bactria around Balkh, Aria around Herat and Arachosia around Kandahar appear in Persian royal inscriptions as provinces of the empire. For some two centuries they were tied into its roads, taxes, armies and trade.
Provinces named in stone
At the start of the reign of Darius I, his great inscription at Bisotun in western Iran lists twenty-three lands under his rule. Among them are Drangiana, Aria, Bactria, Gandhara, Sattagydia and Arachosia, names that between them cover much of today’s Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Each province, or satrapy, was run by a satrap, and the most important ones were often given to royal princes; according to Herodotus, Bactria was held by Masistes, a brother of Xerxes. Bactria had been joined to the empire under Cyrus in the 6th century, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that its local nobles kept much of the real power.
Three eastern lands
Bactria was the plain between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya, a string of farming oases watered by rivers such as the Balkh river. Its capital, Bactra, lies deep beneath the citadel of today’s Balkh, one reason why so little Achaemenid architecture has been excavated there.
Aria, Old Persian Haraiva, covered the valley of the Hari Rud and was praised by ancient writers as fertile and rich in wine; its later capital became Herat. Arachosia, Old Persian Harauvatish, took its name from its main river, the Arghandab, and its chief city stood on the site of Kandahar.
Tribute, gold and ivory
Bactra commanded the royal road to India, and profits from trade and rich farming allowed Bactria to pay a heavy annual tribute of 360 talents of silver. Darius’s building inscription at Susa lists materials brought from across the empire for his palace: gold from Lydia and Bactria, timber from Gandhara, and ivory from Nubia, India and Arachosia.
Darius also ordered roads linking Susa and Babylon with the provincial capitals. Besides the famous Royal Road to Sardis in the west, a route ran from Babylon through the Zagros mountains and Ecbatana to Bactria and India, carrying caravans, messengers and troops.
Loyal satraps and Alexander’s arrival
The eastern provinces also supplied soldiers. Darius’s own inscription relates that early in his reign the satrap of Arachosia, Vivana, stayed loyal and defeated a rebel army three times. Generations later, Bactrian cavalry fought at Gaugamela against Alexander of Macedon.
After that defeat Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, had Darius III killed and declared himself king. Alexander pressed east, took Herat around 330 BCE, conquered Bactria and made Bactra his base, settling veterans in new colonies. Persian rule in the region ended, but many of its provinces and routes lived on under the Greek rulers who followed.
