Spitamenes

As the Achaemenid empire fell

Almost everything known of Spitamenes comes from the Greek and Roman historians Arrian and Quintus Curtius Rufus; his year of birth is unknown. A Sogdian noble, he was an ally of Bessus, the satrap of Bactria who proclaimed himself king after the fall of the Achaemenids. In 329 BC, once Alexander had crossed the Amu Darya, Spitamenes and other Sogdian lords seized Bessus and handed him over to the Macedonians. Soon afterwards, while Alexander was founding a new city on the Syr Darya, Spitamenes raised Sogdiana in revolt and besieged the Macedonian garrison at Maracanda (Samarkand).

The Polytimetus and the final years

A force sent by Alexander was ambushed on the Polytimetus, today's Zeravshan, and almost wiped out — Arrian puts the Macedonian losses at no fewer than 2,000 infantry and 300 cavalry, one of the worst defeats of Alexander's campaigns. Spitamenes then allied with Massagetae and Saka nomads and waged two years of mobile warfare across Bactria and Sogdiana. Late in 328 BC, after losing a battle at Gabae to the general Coenus, he was killed by his nomad allies, who sent his head to Alexander; Curtius says his own wife killed him — the sources differ.

Legacy

His daughter Apama married Alexander's general Seleucus in 324 BC and became queen of the Seleucid dynasty; several cities named Apamea honoured her. In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan Spitamenes is celebrated as a symbol of the fight for independence, and novels and plays have been written about him. The ruins of Afrasiyab in Samarkand, ancient Maracanda, set the scene of these events.