The Middle Persian Era

Abstract

In consequence of the victory of Alexander the Great (330–323 B.C.) vast changes were wrought in Iran. Many centuries later Persian tradition still refers to the fall of the Achaemenid kingdom as the greatest catastrophe that ever befell Iran. Alexander abolished the privileged position of the Iranian elements and endeavoured to form a new nobility by amalgamating the ranks of his officers with the Iranian feudal aristocracy who had finally joined forces with him. But after his sudden death (323 B.C.) Iran fell to his capable and energetic general Seleukos and became part of a new Asiatic empire having Syria as its centre. The Greek element penetrated unhindered into the most easterly provinces of this new kingdom; Greek towns arose in the regions between the Tigris and the Indus, Hellenic colonisation spread as far as the Yaxartes. Greek became the language of the ruling classes, the army, the townsmen, the merchants, as well as being employed in treaties, inscriptions and legends on coins. Parsee writers assure us that the Zoroastrian religion was on the decline, that disbelief was rampant and the number of sects on the increase. Iran was ostensibly broken up into 240 lesser princedoms.