Massagetae


The Massagetae or Massageteans, also known as Sakā Tigraxaudā or Orthocorybantians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian Saka people who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia and were part of the wider Scythian cultures. The Massagetae rose to power between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, expelling the Scythians out of Central Asia and into the Caucasian and Pontic Steppes, an event which was to have wide-reaching consequences. The Massagetae are most famous for their queen Tomyris and her alleged defeat and killing of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
The Massagetae declined after the 3rd century BCE, after which they merged with some other tribes to form the Alans, a people who belonged to the larger Sarmatian tribal confederation, and who moved westwards into the Caucasian and European steppes, where they participated in the events of the Migration Period.

Names

Massagetae

The name is the Latin form of Massagétai.
The Iranologist Rüdiger Schmitt notes that although the original name of the Massagetae is unattested, it appears that the most plausible etymon is the Iranian. is the plural form, containing the East Iranian suffix, which is reflected in Greek. The singular form is and is composed of the Iranian and, meaning "fish," derived from Young Avestan . The name literally means "concerned with fish," or "fisherman." This corresponds with the remark made by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus that "they live on their livestock and fish." Schmitt notes that objections to this reasoning, based on the assumption that, instead of, a derivation from Iranian "fish" ) would be expected, is "not decisive." Schmitt states that any other interpretations on the origin of the original Iranian name of the Massagetae are "linguistically unacceptable."
The Iranologist János Harmatta has, however, criticised the proposal of 's derivation from, meaning "fish-eating," as being semantically and phonologically unacceptable, and instead has suggested that the name might be derived from an early Bactrian language name, from an earlier related to the Young Avestan terms , , , meaning "men," with the ending of the name being derived from the East Iranian suffix or from the collective formative syllable from which the suffix evolved. According to Harmatta's hypothesis, the Bactrian name would have corresponded to the name, meaning "men," used by the Massagetae for themselves.
The Old Persian name meant "Saka who wear pointed hats", with the descriptive , meaning "wearer of pointed hats," being composed of the terms , "pointed," and , "cap." This name was a reference to the Phrygian cap worn by the ancient Iranian peoples, of which the wore an unusually tall and pointed form.
The name given to the / is derived from the Latin name, which is derived from the, which is itself the literal translation of the Old Persian name , meaning "wearer of pointed hats.",

Apasiacae

The proposed etymologies for the Massagataean sub-tribe of the Apasiacae, whose name is not attested in ancient Iranian records, include, meaning "Water-Sakas," and, meaning "rejoicing at water," which have so far not been conclusive.
  • The Sanskrit element āpa means “water” and saka means Scythian appears in several Indo-Iranian religious and legal contexts, including terms associated with oaths, rivers, and cosmic order. The name Āpa-Śaka has also been identified in Mahabharata descriptions of sakas. According to the Mahābhārata Bhīṣma Parva 6.10–12 and Mahābhārata Sabha parva 2.29–32 apa sakas are identified. Greek authors such as Strabo and Ptolemy place the Apasiacae in regions dominated by major river systems of Central Asia, which aligns geographically with Indian epic Mahabharata descriptions of Śaka groups associated with water-defined territories.

    Identification

The Iranologist János Harmatta has identified the Massagetae as being the same as the people named by the Persians and by Graeco-Romans. Harmatta's identification is based on the mention of the as living between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, where Arrian also located the Massagetae.
The scholar Marek Jan Olbrycht has also identified the Massagetae with the.
János Harmatta has also identified the / with the Dahae|, with this identification being based on the location of the former between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, where Arrian also located the Dahae. The scholars A. Abetekov and H. Yusupov have also suggested that the were a constituent tribe of the Massagetae. C. J. Brunner suggested that the Daha were either neighbours of the Saka Tigraxauda or that both groups were part of the same people.
The scholar Y. A. Zadneprovskiy has instead suggested that the Dahae were descendants of the Massagetae.
Marek Jan Olbrycht considers the as being a separate group from the Saka, and therefore as not identical with the Massagetae/.
Based on Strabo's remark that the Massagetae lived partly on the plains, the mountains, the marshes, and the islands in the country irrigated by the Araxes river, the Iranologist Rüdiger Schmitt has also suggestive a tentative connection with the , the "Saka of the Marshes, Saka of the Land," mentioned in the Suez Inscriptions of Darius the Great.

Sub-tribes

The Massagetae were composed of multiple sub-tribes, including:
  • the
  • the
  • the
  • The Sanskrit element āpa means “water” and saka means Scythian appears in several Indo-Iranian religious and legal contexts, including terms associated with oaths, rivers, and cosmic order. The name Āpa-Śaka has also been identified in Mahabharata descriptions of sakas.

    Location

The Massagetae lived in the Caspian Steppe as well as in the lowlands of Central Asia located to the east of the Caspian Sea and the south-east of the Aral Sea, more precisely across the large area stretching from the lands around the Amu Darya and Zarafshan rivers up to the steppes and the deserts to the north of the Khorasan mountain corridor, that is in the region including the Kyzylkum and Karakum deserts and the Ustyurt Plateau, especially the area between the Oxus and Iaxartes rivers and around Chorasmia. The territory of the Massagetae thus included the area corresponding to modern-day Turkmenistan and might possibly have extended to parts of Hyrcania as well.
One of the Massagetaean sub-groups, the Apasiacae, lived either on the east coast of the Aral Sea between the Oxus and Tanais/Iaxartes rivers, or possibly along the Oxus in western Bactria, or between the Caspian and Aral Seas"
Another Massagetaean sub-group, the Derbices, lived in the arid area to the north of the Atrek river bordered by the Caspian Sea to the west, by Hyrcania to the south, the Oxus river in the east, and the Balkhan Mountain and the Ochus river and its estuary were in their territory. During the Achaemenid period, some Derbices had migrated to the southwest along the shore of the Caspian Sea and reached central Tabaristan. The Derbices shared the region between the Caspian Sea and the Oxus with the Dahae, who might however have been identical with the Massagetae, and the Derbices might have extended to the east of the Oxus, with the Greek author Ctesias even extending their range up to the borders of Bactria and India.
The imprecise description of where the Massagetae lived by ancient authors has however led modern scholars to ascribe to them various locations, such as the Oxus delta, the Iaxartes delta, between the Caspian and Aral seas or further to the north or north-east, but without basing these suggestions on any conclusive arguments.

History

Early history

The Massagetae rose to power in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, when they migrated from the east into Central Asia, from where they expelled the Scythians, another nomadic Iranian tribe to whom they were closely related. After this, they came to occupy large areas of the region, including the Caspian Steppe where they supplanted the Scythians. The Massagetae displacing the early Scythians and forcing them to the west across the Araxes river and into the Caucasian and Pontic steppes started a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe, following which the Scythians displaced the Cimmerians and the Agathyrsi, who were also nomadic Iranian peoples closely related to the Massagetae and the Scythians, conquered their territories, and invaded Western Asia. There, their presence had an important role in the history of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and Iran.
The had close contact with the Median Empire, whose influence had stretched to the lands east of the Caspian Sea, before it was replaced by the Persian Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC.

Death of Cyrus

During the 6th century BCE, the Massagetae had to face the successor of the Median Empire, the newly formed Persian Achaemenid Empire, whose founder, Cyrus II, carried out a campaign against them in 530 BCE. According to Herodotus, Cyrus captured a Massagetaean camp by ruse, after which the Massagetae queen Tomyris led the tribe's main force against the Persians, defeated them, killed Cyrus, and placed his severed head in a sack full of blood. According to another version of the death of Cyrus recorded by Ctesias, it was the Derbices, who were the tribe against whom Cyrus died in battle: according to this version, he was mortally wounded by the Derbices and their Indian allies, after which Cyrus's ally, the king Amorges of the Amyrgians|, intervened with his own army and helped the Persian soldiers defeat the Derbices, following which Cyrus endured for three days, during which he organised his empire and appointed Spitaces son of Sisamas as satrap over the Derbices, before finally dying. The reason why the Derbices, and not the Massagetae, are named as the people against whom Cyrus died fighting is because the Derbices were members or identical with the Massagetae. According to Strabo, Cyrus died fighting against the Saka, and according to Quintus Curtius Rufus he died fighting against the Abiae.
The Babylonian scribe Berossus, who lived in 3rd century BCE, instead recorded that Cyrus died in a battle against the Dahae; according to the Iranologist Muhammad Dandamayev, Berossus identified the Dahae rather than the Massagetae as Cyrus's killers because they had replaced the Massagetae as the most famous nomadic tribe of Central Asia long before Berossus's time; although some scholars identified the Dahae as being identical with the Massagetae or as one of their sub-groups.