Description
The Bactrian plain is to the west of the Hindu Kush in what is now Afghanistan. It first enters records of antiquity through Ctesias, a Greek historian (circa 400BC), who falsely claimed that the Assyrian King Ninus defeated the Bactrians in 2140BC. A fertile and developed land, Bactria was prosperous and so, during the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire, it inevitably drew the interest of the newly crowned Cyrus the Great. Under the Achaemenids, Bactria enjoyed the special privilege of being ruled by the crown prince, or heir-apparent to the royal line. It has been suggested that before the Persians, however, Bactria was ruled by the Median Kingdom before they, too, fell to the expansionist Achaemenids. Like many other Persian satrapies, Bactria attempted to rebel against its overlords in the wake of Darius III's defeat by Alexander the Great, only to be subdued by the victorious general.
