Battles between Parthian and Indo-Scythians?

[AqD]

Anyone know the details of the battles fought between Parthians and Indo-Scythians? I read TPC's posts and realized that it seems Parthians' biggest threat was Indo-Scythians, rather than Armenians or Romans. But there is little information I could find on internet...

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

You mean Saka?

[AqD]

Yeah I think.

[The Persian Cataphract]

There are a few important tidbits that are of interest before trying to interpret any form of conflict between two particularly poorly documented cultures. The background is that no battles were technically ever recorded to our current knowledge. But the fact that Graeco-Roman sources often mentioned how Arsacid monarchs needed to go east in order to secure their frontiers, and the fact that some Parthians under the lead of Gondophares went further East into India, securing his position as far as the Mathura corridor according to archaeological evidence such as Indo-Parthian coinage and the enigmatic stone palettes, in the wake of the Indo-Scythian relegation into the Western Satraps and the emergence of the Kushans under Kujula Kadphises, and including the vast number of Parthian-style fortresses from the banks of the Oxus at Merv to the stretches of coastal Gedrosia in Bampûr and Panggûr as well as the intensive fortification works during the Sassanian era are strong indications towards the hugely importance and urgency of protecting the interests there.

Because armies were quite similar between the more settled Saka nobility in the Indus, as well as the Kushans in comparison to the Parthians, the battles must have been particularly gruesome and exhausting, just like the battles between the Diadochoi were prone to have turned into butchery. The situation turned particularly sour for the Parthians when they lost their prime middle-man position to the Kushans as far as the Silk Road was concerned; when the Kushans finally carved for themselves an empire stretching from the Oxus, Ganges and the Tarim, the Arsacid hegemony shrank considerably more than under any Roman influence. For one, they had now no direct access to their Chinese contacts but through the Kushans. It is hard to imagine that no conflict would have ensued as a result of conflicting interests.

This rationale must therefore have been a historic precursor to the later conflicts between the White Huns/Hûnâ and the Sassanians which fortunately are somewhat better documented. We are clearly able to recognize a pattern and therefore make a more reasonably sound assessment on the economical value of the area. This battle-ground was therefore quite easily compared to the conflicts of the Euphrates area. Let me enumerate a list of the principal powers of Central Asia and Bactria in rough terms from post-Alexandrian antiquity to before the advent of Islam:

* The Seleucid empire
* The Mauryan empire
* The Graeco-Bactrian kingdom
* The Indo-Greek kingdom
* The Kangju/Ta-Yuan/Soghdian kingdoms
* The Parthian empire
* The Indo-Scythian kingdom
* The Yuezhi/Tocharii
* The Indo-Parthian kingdom
* The Kushan empire
* The Sassanian empire
* The Indo-Sassanians
* The Chionites/Red Huns/Xîyûn
* The Hephtalites/White Huns/Hûnâ
* The Gök-Türkic confederal Khaganate
* The Indo-Hephtalites
* The Turk and Kâbul-Shâhî kingdoms

Persianates, Hellenistic powers, Indian influences, eventual nomadic incursions and finally the advent of the Turkic tribes. The list is a vast simplification of what actually happened, as power was ceded back and forth sporadically and erratically.

I hope this answered your question conclusively.

[AqD]

Thanks TPC!

[The Persian Cataphract]

You're welcome. While I'm at it, could you please explain this post for me?

We all learn something new, no (You might want to change that passage)

[AqD]

You're welcome. While I'm at it, could you please explain this post for me?

We all learn something new, no (You might want to change that passage)

You mean the hair? That's just what I found on various articles on Internet. And the scythians/dahae depicted in Osprey and basically all pics I have seen on internet have yellow or brown hair. Some are indeed dark but nothing like the black hair in vanilla RTW.

[keravnos]

Well, Surena's hair are NOT like Princess Leyas'.

[AqD]

But the statue is real


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SurenaImage.jpg

[The Persian Cataphract]

What you have failed to see is that the mound of hair on that statue is like a large beetle-shaped mound, facilitated by the tight wrapping of his fillet. If you want something remotely similar to "princess Leia", one could rather look at Sinatruces of Hatra:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For the record, there is nothing effeminate about that hairdo. I'd rather have my do like the Partho-Sassanians, than this post-modern bullshit:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As for prevalence in blondism, I'd like to see these articles in question and investigate them for myself. Colour plates are not peer-reviewed scholarship and indeed, if they were to be taken at such face-value I've seen Achaemenians and Sassanians also portrayed as blondes; now certainly there is blondism, and an amply significant body of individuals with green or blue eyes and tendencies to grow reddish hair, like myself along with a fair complexion, but to suggest that blondism was predominant or that "black hair" (Let's dismiss anthropological factors for now) did not exist amongst the Parthians is to however come to original conclusion which I have not seen before. What do you mean by "Parthian" for instance? The royal Arsacid clan/Pârnî? The ancient satrapy of Parthia itself? The entire empire which consists of several diverse peoples, clients and sub-kingdoms? You have to be very specific about the nomenclature.

Here at EB, we decided to make use of a full spectrum, portraying all from flaxen-haired, fair-skinned to dark-haired and swarthy Parthians, with a mid-range of fair compexion and dark hair being most predominant. If you study Caucasoid features in much closer detail, one will notice that recessive-dominant gene allocation and distribution to hair or eyes, or the skin-pigmentation have relatively little to do with skeletal structures.

Iran's Mandaean population account for one of the country's most ancient minorities with their earliest origins from the Arsacid era, from which the original Judaean diaspora missioned for their creed to attract Chaldaean and Iranic converts. There are reported cases of blondism, reddish hair and blue to green eyes, but the vast majority brandish dark hair, and the complexion of their skins are divided between quite fair to somewhat swarthy. These are not news, Lady E.S. Drower published this study on Iran's Mandaeans over 40 years ago and remarked several times they might hold an anthropological clue that could complement that of the Zoroastrians.

Furthermore, quite recently a few mummified specimen dated to the Parthian era were excavated near an abandoned salt-mining shaft outside of Tehran. Due to a natural bleaching process any preserved hair will come out as flaxen (Mistakenly cited by some as "proof"), but if sampling and investigation of the biological material will prove successful, many fresh clues are bound to be unveiled.

By the way, a word of warning. When you say that you have read "articles" about the subject, I could only fear the worst. If you've bumped into a spamming bloke who goes under the name of Oslonor, there is no more hearty recommendation I can give than to just look somewhere else. It has been established that Iranians have clear distinctions from other "Oriental" cultures such as that of Turks or Arabs, culturally, historically, linguistically and ethnically... But trying to turn them into North-western Europeans just won't cut it for me.

All in all, I don't mind blondism in Parthians at all, in fact it must be highlighted, but certainly not from your original outlook. Diversity, not exclusion.

[Ibrahim]

one other question (since this is a historical thread): how exactly did the banu lakhm equip themselves? I imagine that as arabs in sassanid service, they'd get sassanid weapons and perhpas armor, maybe even clothing. this has implications for the accurate depiction of a lakhmid army that I strive for at IBFD. (I figured you'd know, they were vassals of the shah, no?)

[The Persian Cataphract]

Given the highly Persianized nature of the Bani-Lakhm, and the highly lavish descriptions of their culture (Especially in recited poetry on Hêrt/Al-Hirah) they were accorded estates in a highly similar fashion to the Sassanian nobility, and would therefore too have had a principal corps of cavalry, albeit equipped for conditions in the desert; it is possible that they may have been armed and equipped by Sassanian produce, but as far as Tabari narrates, the reforms of Chosroës I remained firmly in the hand of the standing army (With a recorded number of 70,000 troops, out of which 20,000 were cavalry... Sounds quite meagre, but one must remember that this may not have taken into account allied auxiliaries or the military assets of the nobility); if so, which I think is most likely, the Lakhmids may have rather have used equipment inspired by the Sassanians.

From my understanding the Lakhmid cavalry are foremost known as mounted archers which at some point may have been a similar unit to the Sassanian "universal" horseman. In narrating the Islamic invasions, Tabari makes only little distinction between the Persians and their Christian Arab subjects. The cultural symbiosis could be compared to the Parthian empire and their relationship to the quasi-independent Syrian-Arab clients, Hatra. They retained a strong force of archers and heavy horse, and dressed in a lavishly Parthian manner.

[Ibrahim]

thank allah I was right. thanks TPC for the info, now I can go to sleep knowing the IBFD units I helped maked were right.

one more thing: do you happen to know the tribal color of bani lakhm? I doubt it has come down, but I imagine that if nomads could keep them, why not they?

[The Persian Cataphract]

It is not known. Ironically, a part of why the pre-Islamic Arabian heritage remains obscure is partly due to well-established Islamic dogmas against cultures deemed to be characteristic of "jahiliyyat" ("Ignorance") and partly thenceforth that little energy has been allocated towards unveiling more, through increased efforts on the archaeological front. Little to no literary records have survived to our knowledge, which is very unfortunate, but not at all surprising considering how other literate cultures, and influences equally suffer from the same stigmas. Maybe one should not "thank Allah" so quickly without forethought, considering how one of the Rashidun caliphs ordained, in the same divine name, for innumerable works of writing to be destroyed.

While the tribal colour of the Bani Lakhm may not be particularly well-established, they were anything but a savage tribe. They would certainly sit at the very nexus between the Arabian trading sphere and the industries of Iran. Their access to the shores must have facilitated any trade or military enterprise, and the Lakhmids may have played a key-role in the Sassanian expeditions against the Ethiopians/Abyssinians in Himyar. Due to the Christianized nature of their realm, one can but not help to imagine a brightly coloured and decorated banner with a crucifix or a sacred cross in the centre, not completely unlike the Byzantines, but this is all fantasy: There is simply not enough information to make an assessment besides the sketchiest conjecture. We don't even have any numismatics of them, which truly contrasts the rich hoards of coinage from the Partho-Sassanian era.

One could of course make use of the funerary sculptures of Hatra as some sort of inspirational device, but the gap is at least two-three centuries wide. We see even metallic Roman-style banners which even to the Byzantines seemed more like a relic of the past. Some effort must have been paid to keep Lakhmid horsemen in their best conditional regime and discipline, if the few details left from the battle of Callinicum are accurate.

[AqD]

...........

All in all, I don't mind blondism in Parthians at all, in fact it must be highlighted, but certainly not from your original outlook. Diversity, not exclusion.

Thanks!

[Ibrahim]

[QUOTE=The Persian Cataphract;2055953] Maybe one should not "thank Allah" QUOTE]

context aside, he is my god you know.

but yes, Its quite a waste indeed.
well, thanks for your help.

PS: I thank him that you were here to answer...not because of what a bunch of Arabs decided on 1300 years ago.