Iran before Islam

Twelve centuries before the Arab conquests. Four empires held roughly the same plateau and each claimed, in different terms, to be continuing the last — Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Sasanian — and around them are the powers that took pieces of it and claimed nothing: a Greek kingdom on the Oxus, and the steppe confederation that broke the Sasanian frontier from the one direction the Roman wars make invisible.

The line below is a time axis. Position on it is date, so concurrency is visible: concurrent polities sit side by side rather than in sequence.

21 sourced edges run between this region and another, to Rashidun Caliphate, Buyid Confederation, Kingdom of Pontus, Hasmonean Kingdom, Nasrids of al-Hira, Byzantine Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, Neo-Elamite Kingdom, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Ptolemaic Kingdom, First Turkic Khaganate, Bavand Dynasty, Kingdom of Greater Armenia, Caucasian Albania, Indo-Greek Kingdoms, Kushan Empire, Kingdom of Iberia, Egypt, Saite Period and Egypt, the Native Restoration. Those are not drawn on this line — a thread that crossed regions would assert a sequence nobody cited — but they are on each polity’s own page.

600 BC500 BC400 BC300 BC200 BC100 BC100200300400500600Median Empire 678 BC – 549 BCAchaemenid Empire 550 BC – 330 BCMacedonian Empire 336 BC – 323 BCMedia Atropatene 323–320 BC to 226Seleucid Empire 312 BC – 63 BCKingdom of Persis 280–220 BC to 224Greco-Bactrian Kingdom 256–246 BC to 145–125 BCParthian Empire 247 BC – 224Adiabene 160–50 BC to 226Elymais 147 BC – 224Characene 141–127 BC to 222Sasanian Empire 224 – 651Hephthalite Confederation 440–460 to 557–561549 BC Achaemenid Empire overthrew Median Empire (contested)330 BC Achaemenid Empire conquered by Macedonian Empire323 BC Media Atropatene partitioned from Macedonian Empire312 BC Seleucid Empire partitioned from Macedonian Empire280 BC Kingdom of Persis seceded from Seleucid Empire256 BC Greco-Bactrian Kingdom seceded from Seleucid Empire247 BC Parthian Empire seceded from Seleucid Empire147 BC Elymais seceded from Seleucid Empire141 BC Characene seceded from Seleucid Empire141 BC Parthian Empire claimed legitimacy of Achaemenid Empire (contested)139 BC Elymais vassal of Parthian Empire100 BC Adiabene vassal of Parthian Empire222 Characene conquered by Sasanian Empire224 Elymais conquered by Sasanian Empire224 Sasanian Empire overthrew Parthian Empire224 Sasanian Empire claimed legitimacy of Achaemenid Empire (contested)226 Adiabene conquered by Sasanian Empire226 Media Atropatene conquered by Sasanian Empire560 Hephthalite Confederation conquered by Sasanian Empire