Hyrcania (/hərˈkeɪniə/; Greek: Ὑρκανία Hyrkanía,[1] Old Persian: 𐎺𐎼𐎣𐎠𐎴 Varkâna,[2] Middle Persian: 𐭢𐭥𐭫𐭢𐭠𐭭 Gurgān, Akkadian: Urqananu)[2] is a historical region composed of the land south-east of the Caspian Sea in modern-day Iran and Turkmenistan, bound in the south by the Alborz mountain range and the Kopet Dag in the east.
Dahistān refers, strictly speaking to the "place of the Dahae": an extinct people who lived immediately north of Hyrcania, as early as the 5th century BC.
[14] By the time of Alexander the Great's invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 334 BC, Hyrcania was reattached to the satrapy of Parthia and administered as a sub-province.
[20] Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, his empire was divided amongst the Diadochi in the Partition of Babylon, which confirmed Phrataphernes' control of Hyrcania and Parthia.
[24] Seleucus II attempted to reassert Seleucid control of Hyrcania and Parthia in 231 BC, but was unsuccessful as he was forced to return to Asia Minor to quell unrest.
[14] In 139 BC, Demetrius II launched an invasion of the Arsacid Empire only to be defeated and captured, following which he was provided a princely residence in Hyrcania and married to Rhodogune, daughter of Mithridates.
[30] In 129 BC, the Saka tribes invaded and pillaged Hyrcania, alongside other eastern provinces, and defeated and killed two successive Arsacid kings.
[38] The rebellion raged until 60 AD when Vologases I hastily concluded a peace treaty with the rebels to allow him to deal with the threat posed by the Romans.
[30] In the time of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161), Hyrcania had made itself independent and was not considered part of the Arsacid Empire.
[41] Hyrcania was annexed to the Sasanian Empire in 225 AD by Ardashir I,[14] after which the provincial centre was moved to Gurgān, which lent its name to the province during this period.
[43] Whilst staying in Hyrcania in 420 AD, Yazdegerd I was assassinated by the nobility who alleged that he had been killed by a white horse that emerged from and disappeared into a stream.
[44] The myth propagated by the nobility led people to believe the white horse was an angel sent by Ahura Mazda to end Yazdegerd's tyranny.
[46] Priests and other nobles who had led the revolt against Yazdegerd II were also deported to Hyrcania where they stayed until they were moved to the city of New-Shapur in Abarshahr in 453 AD.
Vistahm was informed of Khosrow's intentions and rose in revolt, conquering much of the eastern provinces of the Sasanian Empire prior to his death and defeat in battle against Smbat Bagratuni in 596 AD.
[55] According to Paulus Orosius, following the suppression of a revolt in Phoenicia and the conquest of Egypt in 343 BC, Artaxerxes III deported Phoenician and Egyptian Jews to Hyrcania as punishment for opposing him.
[57] In Latin literature, Hyrcania is often mentioned in relationship to tigers, which were apparently particularly abundant there during the Classical Age (though extinct in the area since the early 1970s).
(IV.365-7) "You had neither a goddess for a parent, nor was Dardanus the author of your race, faithless one, but the horrible Caucasus produced you from hard crags, and Hyrcanian tigers nursed you."
Shakespeare, relying on his Latin sources, makes repeated references in his plays to the "Hyrcan tiger" (Macbeth, III.iv.1281) or "th' Hyrcanian beast" (Hamlet, II.ii.447) as an emblem of bloodthirsty cruelty.
In Henry VI, Part 3, the Duke of York compares Queen Margaret unfavorably to "Tygers of Hyrcania" (I.iv.622) for her inhumanity.
[61] The comic book heroine Red Sonja is described as coming from Hyrkania, an imaginary locale bordering an inland sea based loosely on Hyrcania and set in Robert E. Howard's fictional Hyborian Age.