AshgabatAshgabat or Asgabat (Aşgabat, ɑʃʁɑˈbɑt; عشقآباد), formerly named Poltoratsk (Полтора́цк) between 1919 and 1927, is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies between the Karakum Desert and the Kopetdag mountain range in Central Asia, near the Iran-Turkmenistan border, and it has a population of 1,030,063 (2022 census). The city was founded in 1881 on the basis of an Ahal Teke tribal village, and made the capital of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924.
BerossusBerossus (bəˈrɒsəs) or Berosus (bəˈroʊsəs; Bērōssos; possibly derived from , romanized: , "Bel is his shepherd") was a Hellenistic-era Babylonian writer, a priest of Bel Marduk and astronomer who wrote in the Koine Greek language, and who was active at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. Versions of two excerpts of his writings survive, at several removes from the original.
Military of the Sasanian EmpireThe Sasanian army was the primary military body of the Sasanian armed forces, serving alongside the Sasanian navy. The birth of the army dates back to the rise of Ardashir I (r. 224–241), the founder of the Sasanian Empire, to the throne. Ardashir aimed at the revival of the Persian Empire, and to further this aim, he reformed the military by forming a standing army which was under his personal command and whose officers were separate from satraps, local princes and nobility.
AtropateneAtropatene (Ātṛpātakāna; Ἀτροπατηνή), also known as Media Atropatene, was an ancient Iranian kingdom established in 323 BC by the Persian satrap Atropates. The kingdom, centered in present-day northern Iran, was ruled by Atropates' descendants until the early 1st-century AD, when the Parthian Arsacid dynasty supplanted them. It was conquered by the Sasanians in 226, and turned into a province governed by a marzban ("margrave").
