page_title: History of Tajikistan
section_title: Hellenistic Period (329 BC – 90 BC)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Tajikistan / Antiquity (600 BC – 651 AD) / Hellenistic Period (329 BC – 90 BC)
caption_attribution_description: Map of the Greco-Bactrian at its maximum extent, circa 180 BC. Personal creation.
context_page_description: Tajikistan harkens to the Samanid Empire. The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s. The Basmachi revolt broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was quelled in the early 1920s during the Russian Civil War. In 1924 Tajikistan became an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, the Tajik ASSR, within Uzbekistan. In 1929 Tajikistan was made one of the component republics of the Soviet Union – Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic – and it kept that status until gaining independence 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
  It has since experienced three changes in government and the Tajik civil war. A peace agreement among rival factions was signed in 1997.
context_section_description: After the Persian Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great, Bactria, Sogdiana and Merv, being part of Persian Empire, had to defend themselves from new invaders. In fact, the Macedonians faced very stiff resistance under the leadership of Sogdian ruler Spitamenes. Alexander the Great managed to marry Roxana, the daughter of a local ruler, and inherited his land. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the Hellenistic successor states of the Seleucids and Greco-Bactrians controlled the area for another 200 years in what is known as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. During the time period from 90 BC to 30 BC, Yuezhi destroyed the last Hellenistic successor states and, together with the Tokhari, (to whom they were closely related) created a Kushan Empire around 30 AD.
caption: Map of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26"}