Talk:Characene

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I remember reading that there was supposed to be a relatively strong Arab presence or connection... AnonMoos 08:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

is Characene

is Characene Arabian kingdom ? if not .. then what is the language of them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.77.3 (talk) 09:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Arabs probably made up a significant proportion of the population (or at least of the ruling elite), according to Colin McEvedy's Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, though the main trade languages and probable languages of administration were Aramaic and Greek... AnonMoos (talk) 15:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Pliny the Elder said the king of Characene and the kingdom were Arabs (Pliniy, Nat. Hist. VI 138-39) -- Udimu (talk) 19:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Map image

The map image is unfortunately quite implausible (contradicts the article text and the 74 B.C. map in The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History by Colin McEvedy. See further commons:File talk:Karte Charakene.png... -- AnonMoos (talk) 02:24, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

How come Pacorus II of Parthia is listed as ruling from 80-102?

Nothing in either this article or his page says he conquered Characene?--JaredMithrandir (talk) 01:26, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Characene was part of the Parthian empire, there was no need to conquer it. In 80-102 Characene was directlty ruled by the Parthians without a local vassal king. -- Udimu (talk) 06:49, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

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Issues

1. Hyspaosines. Iranian, Greek , Arab?

2. Characene's founding:"Characene was founded around 127 BC under Aspasine, known in classical writings as Hyspaosines, a former satrap installed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes." Well, Antiochus IV was dead by 164 BC. So, [Hy]aspasine was installed at Antiochia by Antiochus IV, but clearly not in 127 BC.

• Also, according to McLaughlin(ibid), "When the Parthians conquered the eastern half of the Seleucid realm, the local Greek commander Hyspaosines took the title of king and founded a new Hellenic dynasty at Charax to govern a region call Characene (127 BC). The new kings of Characene accepted Parthian suzerainty, but with a well-defended capital they could assert their independence and challenge outside interests."
• According to Potts, refers to [Hy]Spaosines as satrap at Antiochia. That Spaosines restored Antiochia and named it after himself.
• According to Hansman, "The name Charax Spasinou means "Palisade of Hyspaosines" or "Spasinou", who in ca. 140 B.C. founded the kingdom of Characene."

3. Characene kings' names. According to Eilers(ibid), "All rulers of the principality had Iranian names."

• According to Jan Retso, "We have a list of kings in Characene from 127 BC to AD 116 reconstructed from numismatic evidence. None of the names in it are what we would call Arabic, although the name Attambelos, used by at least five of them, is Semitic." Consequently, on the same page Retso(ibid), states the kings in Charax were not Arabs in any sense of the word.

4. Language(s). Aramaic. Greek?

• According to Kosmin(ibid), "As the editors acknowledge, this inscription is extremely important. In demonstrating the existence of a Characenian administrative district of Tylos and the Islands, it establishes Mesenian royal control of Bahrain from the reign of Hyspaosines (Seleucid satrap from the 160s; independent king from at least the early 120s), i.e. the earliest days of the independent Kingdom of Characene. The stratēģos has a Greek name and dedicates a temple of Greek deities on behalf of the royal couple. The inscription itself demonstrates a Greek-speaking community on the island."

5. Usage of primary(outdated) sources. Al-Tabari, Yaqut al-Hamawi, both need secondary source backing.

6. Generalized source. A History of World Societies. I believe we can find better specialized secondary sources for this article than this. --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:40, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

References

just to the first pointː ː"Characene was founded around 127 BC under Aspasine, known in classical writings as Hyspaosines, a former satrap installed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes."

• Hyspaosines became king about 127 BC, but was installed before that as satrap (Pliny the Elder, nat. VI 139). So there is no problem with king Antiochus IV and the date 127 BC.--Udimu (talk) 21:48, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this talk page section Kansas Bear. This is what I found in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Could be of use:[1]

• "MESENE: from Aramaic Maišān, the southernmost part of Iraq, around modern Basra, basically coterminous with the Seleucid satrapy of the Erythraean Sea, the capital of which was Alexandria-on-the-Tigris (later refounded as Antioch). Following the death of Antiochus (7) VII, Spaosines (Hyspaosines), his former satrap there, restored Antioch, renaming it after himself as Spasinou Charax, ‘City of Spaosines’ (Plin. HN 6. 31. 138; Charax from Aramaic karekā, ‘city’), and establishing the independent kingdom of Characene. The kingdom survived, enjoying varying degrees of independence from Parthia, until it was incorporated into the Sasanid empire by Ardashir around ad 222. From the mid-1st to the late 2nd cent. ad Palmyrene caravans regularly travelled between Charax and Palmyra, transporting goods arriving via the Persian Gulf from the east. In 131 Meredat, king of Charax, employed a Palmyrene named Yarhai as satrapēs Thilouanōn, ‘satrap of the Thilouanoi’, i.e. inhabitants of Tylos (mod. Bahrain)."

- LouisAragon (talk) 23:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

the referenced sources do not support that he was iranian

the referenced sources do not support that he was iranian, so added reliable sources instead @HistoryofIran: Cremlin1 (talk) 23:54, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

• "Both of these names are Hellenized Persian forms, and we may deduce from this that the family of Hyspaosines was of Persian background." - Hansman, John (1991). "Characene and Charax". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. V, Fasc. 4. pp. 363–365.
• "It was here, in the ancient "land of the sea!", that the local prince Hyspaosines, son of Sagdodonacus, and undoubtedly an Iranian" - Eilers, Wilhelm (1983), "Iran and Mesopotamia", in Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3, London: Cambridge UP, p. 487
• "The same may apply to some other persons from the long list of other Iranian officials such as Oborzas, a Persian military commander dispatched to quell a rebellion of Greek or Macedonian settlers, Aribazos, strategos in Kilikia in 246, Omanes, Iranian commander of the Persian garrison at Old Magnesia in 244, Aspianas ‘the Mede’, a high military commander under Antiochos III at Raphia in 217, another Aribazos, governor of Sardis under Achaios in 213, Ardys, military commander under Antiochos III between 221 and 197, Mithridates, another general under Antiochos III in his war against Xerxes of Armenia, Hyspaosines, governor of Southern Babylonia under Antiochos IV, or to Dionysios ‘the Mede’, satrap of Mesopotamia under Demetrios II." Erskine, Andrew; Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd; Wallace, Shane (2017). The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra. The Classical Press of Wales. p. 77. ISBN 978-1910589625.
• "appointed as governor (eparch) of the northern coast district of Mesene/Charakene an Iranian grandee whose name has been recorded as Hyspaosines son of Sardodonakos" Strootman, Rolf (2017). "Imperial Persianism: Seleukids, Arsakids and Fratarakā". In Strootman, Rolf; Versluys, Miguel John (eds.). Persianism in Antiquity. Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 194. ISBN 978-3515113823.

And here's a source that directly opposes the Arab claim;

In Pliny's Natural History we read that Arabia eudaemon begins (excurrit) from the inner part of the Persian Gulf where the town Alexandria was situated. But then he goes on to say that the town was refounded by Hyspaosines as Charax and calls it 'a city of Arabia' (oppidum Arabiae). In another notice Hyspaosines is described as king ofthe bordering arabes (jinitimorum arabum). These notices are taken by Pliny from Iuba's Arabica. Iuba in turn had his information from a work by a Mesenean native, Isidorus of Charax, which was also known to Pliny in its original form. Unfortunately we can never be sure whether Pliny copied his source correctly, and the claim that Hyspaosines was king of Arabs cannot be verified from the Plinian passage alone. Still more unfortunate is that we cannot be certain about the meaning of this notice. Even though the kings in Charax were not Arabs in any sense of the word, it cannot be ruled out that they employed, for example, Arab mercenaries. In that case, these must have come from Alesene/al-ijasa, where we know there were Arabs in the time of Eratosthenes. This cannot, however, be verified by evidence available at present, and the existence of Arabs in the Mesenian kingdom remains uncertain. It is more likely that these remarks in Pliny/luba/Isidorus ultimately go back to the idea that the people along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf were Arabs, a concept we have found originating in the last years of Alexander the Great. Charax was seen as situated on the border to Arabia eudaemon. Hyspaosines is then said to have been king of the bordering Arabs. They must be those living in the part of Arabia stretching along the Persian Gulf, deriving their Arabness from their habitat in Arabia, not from actually being Arabs. The Arabs ruled by Hyspaosines were thus Arabs to the Greeks. - p. 333, The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads, Routledge, Jan Retso

Do not make up false claims again, and do not remove sourced information again, replacing it with cherry picked sources who do not specialize in the topic is WP:Tendentious editing. If you have concerns, use the talk page and reach WP:CONSENSUS. HistoryofIran (talk) 00:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

And another WP:RS by Leonardo Gregoratti, a leading expert on Parthian history: "He appointed as the head of the Mesenian eparchy a skilful new governor, the Irano-Bactrian Hyspaosines," - p. 212, Gregoratti, L.: A Parthian port on the Persian Gulf: Characene and its trade, Anabasis 2, 2011, Studia Classica et Orientalia --HistoryofIran (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2024 (UTC)