The remains of the ancient city of Hyrcania ( Old Persian : Verkâna)

 city, monument, ancient, archeological site, ancient civilization, ancient ruins

Hyrcania (Ὑρκανία) is the Greek name for the region, a borrowing from the Old Persian Verkâna as recorded in Darius the Great's Behistun Inscription (522 BCE), as well as in other Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions. Verkā means "wolf" in Old Iranian, cf. Avestan vəhrkō, Gilaki and Mazandarani Verk, Modern Persian gorg, and Sanskrit Vŗka (वृक). See also Warg. Consequently, Hyrcania means "Wolf-land". The name was extended to the Caspian Sea and underlie the name of the city Sari (Zadracarta), the first and then-largest city in northern Iran (Mazandaran, Golestan and Gilan) and the capital of ancient Hyrcania.

Another archaic name, Dahistān (not to be confused with dehestan – a modern Iranian word for "district" or "county") is sometimes used interchangeably with Hyrcania. 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 BCE.[1] Apart from the geographical proximity of the Dahae, their ethnonym may have etymological similarities to "Hyrcanians"; for example, religious historian David Gordon White, reiterating a point made by previous scholars, suggests that Dahae resembles the Proto-Indo-European *dhau "strangle", which was apparently also a euphemism for "wolf".[2]
Hyrcania became part of the Persian Empire during the reign of Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) or Cambyses (530-522 BC). Under the Achaemenids, it seems to have been administered as a sub-province of Parthia and is not named separately in the provincial lists of Darius and Xerxes. The capital and also the largest city and site of the “royal palace” of Hyrcania was Zadracarta.[5] From the Behistun inscription we know that it was Persian by 522. The story is as follows: After the death of Cambyses, the Magian usurper Gaumâta, who did not belong to the Achaemenian dynasty, usurped the throne. The adherents of the Persian royal house, however, helped Darius to become king; he killed the usurper on September 29, 522 BC. Almost immediately, the subjects of the empire revolted. When Darius was suppressing these rebellions and stayed in Babylon, the Median leader Phraortes made his bid for power (December 522). His revolt soon spread to Armenia, Assyria, Parthia and Hyrcania. However the Persian garrison in Parthia still held out. It was commanded by Darius' father Hystaspes. On March 8, 521 BC, the Parthians and their allies, the Hyrcanians, attacked the Persian garrison, but they were defeated. Not much later, Darius was able to relieve his father. This was the first appearance in history of the Hyrcanians.

In the 5th century BC, the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus mentions them several times in his Histories. He has a confused report on irrigation (3.117), which may be compared to the statement of the second-century historian Polybius that the Persians had built large irrigation works (World history 10.28.3). Herodotus also tells us that Hyrcanian soldiers were part of the large army which king Xerxes I (486-465) commanded against the Greeks in 480. The historian notes that they carried the same arms as the Persians.

In the confused years after the death of king Artaxerxes I Makrocheir (465-434), three of his sons succeeded to the throne: Xerxes II, Sogdianus and Darius II. The latter was a satrap in Hyrcania and may have used troops from Hyrcania and the 'upper satrapies' - that is Aria, Parthia, Arachosia, Bactria, and Sogdiana.[citation needed]

Hyrcania makes its reappearance in history when the Macedonian king Alexander the Great (336-323) invaded Asia. Hyrcanians are mentioned during the battle of Gaugamela (October 1, 331), and in August 329, when the last Persian king, Darius III Codomannus, was dead, many Persian noblemen fled to Hyrcania, where they surrendered to Alexander (a.o. Artabazus).

Seleucid era[edit]
After Alexander's reign, his empire fell apart and Hyrcania became part of the new Seleucid Empire. At the end of the 3rd century BC, northeastern nomads belonging to the tribe of the Parni, invaded Parthia and Hyrcania. Although Parthia was forever lost to the Seleucids, Hyrcania was in the last decade of the third century reconquered by Antiochus III the Great (223-187). After a generation, however, Hyrcania was lost again.

Arsacid era[edit]
To the Arsacid Parthians - the new name of the Parni tribe - Hyrcania was an important part of the empire, situated between their Parthian territories and their homeland on the steppe. It is certain that the Parthian kings used a Hyrcanian town as their summer residence. They were also responsible for the 'Wall of Alexander', which is 180 km long and has forty castles. Nonetheless, it was not an uncontested part of their empire; for example, an uprising is known to have started in AD 58 and lasted at least until AD 61, ending with a compromise treaty.[6]

Sassanid era[edit]
Hyrcania (in Middle Persian: 𐭢𐭥𐭫𐭢𐭠𐭭 Gurgān) was a province of the Sassanid Empire until its conquest by the Arabs. It was an important territory in that it kept out inner Asian tribes from invading. Due to this, the Sassanids built many fortresses in the region.[7]

Post-Sassanid era[edit]
After the fall of the Sassanian Empire to Muslim Arab invaders, many noblemen fled to Hyrcania, where they settled permanently. In the 8th century, the caliphate did not manage to conquer Hyrcania. This was mostly because of the geographical location but also due to significant resistance from notables such as Vandad Hormozd, Mâziar, and Babak Khorramdin. Under the leadership of a few remaining aristocratic families such as the Karens and the Bavands, Hyrcania (Persian: گرگان‎‎ Gurgān, in Arabic: جرجان‎‎ Jurjān) remained independent or semi-independent for many years after the collapse of the Sassanids.

Literary references[edit]
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). Virgil, in the Aeneid, had the abandoned Dido accuse Aeneas:

Nec tibi diva parens generis nec Dardanus auctor,
perfide, sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres. (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."

Following its geographical listing by Isidore of Seville in the early 7th century Etymologiae (a standard Mediaeval textbook), the name of Hyrcania became known and taught as far off as Ireland, where it was included in poems such as Cú-cen-máthair by Luccreth moccu Chiara (665 AD), the Auraicept na n-Éces, and Lebor Gabála Érenn (11th century).

Hyrcania is mentioned in the short story "Rinconete y Cortadillo" by Cervantes, and constitutes one of his exemplary stories which were published in 1613. Cervantes uses this reference to portray the illiteracy of Juliana la Cariharta, a member of Monipodio's guild. She is intending to make reference to Ocaña, a provincial town in Toledo, Spain; but she has misheard it and does not realise the difference.

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.[8]

Even in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, the Prince of Morocco also made references to Hyrcania. He said (an excerpt), "The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds/Of wild Arabia are as thoroughfares now."

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. Howard's Conan the barbarian also has various adventures set in this locale, including as a pirate on the inland sea.