Atropatene

Atropatene, also called Media Atropatene, was an Iranian kingdom centred on the Azerbaijan region of what is now north-western Iran. It was founded around 323 BCE by Atropates, a Persian governor who kept his province out of the hands of Alexander's successors. His descendants ruled it for about three centuries, first independently and then as vassals of greater powers, until the Sasanians absorbed it in 226 CE. Its name survives in that of Azerbaijan.

Atropates served the last Achaemenid king, Darius III, leading Median and other contingents at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BCE. After Darius's defeat he went over to Alexander the Great, who made him governor of Media in 328 or 327 BCE. When Alexander died in 323 BCE, his generals divided the empire at Babylon. The larger, southern part of Media went to Peithon, one of Alexander's bodyguards, while the smaller northern part became Media Atropatene under Atropates, who by then was father-in-law of the regent Perdiccas. Soon afterwards Atropates refused to recognise Seleucus, and his land became an independent kingdom. The Greek geographer Strabo later wrote that Atropates had kept this part of Media from being ruled by the Macedonians.

Independence did not last unbroken. In the late third century BCE the Seleucid king Antiochus III attacked Atropatene, and its king Artabazanes accepted Seleucid overlordship while keeping control of internal affairs. In the second century BCE the kingdom lost border districts to Armenia under Artaxias I. As Rome advanced into the east, Atropatene was drawn into the long contest between Rome and Parthia. In 36 BCE the Roman general Mark Antony besieged Phraaspa, one of its main cities, but withdrew with heavy losses. Later, under pressure from Parthia, the kingdom leaned towards Rome, and Ariobarzanes II spent some years there. The list of its kings is incomplete and most of their dates are uncertain.

In the early first century CE the house of Atropates was replaced by a branch of the Arsacids, the Parthian royal family; Vonones II and Pacorus were among its kings. The region suffered when Pharasmanes II of Iberia ravaged it in the 130s. As Parthian power weakened in the early third century, both nobles and peasants of Atropatene sided with the Persian prince Ardashir I against the last Parthian king, Artabanus IV. In 226, after Ardashir had defeated and killed Artabanus at Hormozdgan, Atropatene submitted with little resistance. It became a province of the Sasanian Empire governed by a marzban, a military governor of a frontier region.

The main centre was Ganzak, whose Median name meant "treasury". It stood in fertile land near Lake Urmia, close to modern Miandoab, and was probably where Atropates and his heirs ruled from. Ardabil is also given as a capital. The population of the city and its surroundings was probably largely Iranian, while much of the wider kingdom may not yet have been fully Iranian in language and culture in the third century BCE.

Atropatene held a special place in Zoroastrianism. Apart from the brief period of Alexander, it remained under Zoroastrian rulers without a break from the Achaemenids to the Arab conquest, and under the Atropatid kings it gained a leading position in the religion that continued into Sasanian times. Local tradition even came to place the birthplace of the prophet Zoroaster there, although he is thought to have come from further east. The Old Persian name of the kingdom, Ātṛpātakāna, became Middle Persian Ādurbādagān and, through later forms, the name of Azerbaijan, used for the region of north-western Iran.

Our 323 BCE and 300 BCE maps draw Atropatene in north-western Iran, with parts of the outline in modern Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia. On our 400 BCE map the same lands lie within the Achaemenid Empire.