Derbices

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Derbices were a sub-tribe of Massagetae. According to Bhim Singh Dahiya the Derbices, the destroyers of Cyrus the Great, are the modern Dabas, a part of the Dahiya Jat clan.[1] They were settled in the south-east of Caspian Sea in sixth century B.C.[2] Pliny[3] mentions that this was a tribe, apparently of Scythian origin, settled in Margiana, on the left bank of the Oxus.

Variants

Jat Gotras Namesake

History

The Massagetae were composed of multiple sub-tribes, including:[9][10][11] the Derbices (Ancient Greek: Δερβικες, romanized: Derbikes; Δερβικκαι, romanized: Derbikkai; Δερβεκιοι, romanized: Derbekioi)

Jat History

Bhim Singh Dahiya[12] has identified Derbices with Jat clan Dabas.

Bhim Singh Dahiya[13] writes....There is some doubt about the exact name of the section or clan of the Massagetae against whom Cyrus the Great was fighting when he was killed in the battle. According to Berossus he was fighting against the Dahae while according to some other authorities he was fighting against the people called Derbices/Debices [14] We have identified the latter people with the present Jat clan, called Dabas. Linguistically or otherwise there does not seem to be anything against the identification of Debices with Dabas. This identification is further confirmed by the fact that even today, the [p.137]: Dabas are treated as part of Dahiya clan. Both of them are supposed to be the descendants of a common ancestor and are treated as one; so much so that there cannot be any marriage between a Dabas and a Dahiya. Therefore, we can conclude that Cyrus was fighting against the people who may be called either Dabas or Dahiyas. According to the historians, certain Indian troops from Gandhara area were fighting on the side of the Dabas/Dahae and it was an arrow from an Indian soldier that killed Cyrus the Great. These soldiers from Gandhara belonged to the same stock, and were fighting for a common cause, viz., the 'defeat of the usurpers of their empire'.

Bhim Singh Dahiya[15] writes....85. Dabas - Perhaps they are the same as the Dropice of Herodotus and Derbice of other authors. They were settled in the south-east of Caspian Sea in sixth century B.C. Perhaps they are the Darvas of Indian literature.

Strabo mentions

Strabo mentions about Derbices - Other tribes do not put to death even the greatest offenders, but only banish them from their territories together with their children; which is contrary to the custom of the Derbices, who punish even slight offences with death. The Derbices worship the earth. They neither sacrifice, nor eat the female of any animal. Persons who attain the age of above seventy years are put to death by them, and their nearest relations eat their flesh. Old women are strangled, and then buried. Those who die under seventy years of age are not eaten, but are only buried. [16]

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[17] mentions 'Nations situated around the Hyrcanian Sea.'....the Derbices also,18 through the middle of whose territory the river Oxus19 runs, after rising in Lake Oxus,20....

18 This was a tribe, apparently of Scythian origin, settled in Margiana, on the left bank of the Oxus. Strabo says that they worshipped the earth, and forbore to sacrifice or slay any female; but that they put to death their fellow-creatures as soon as they had passed their seventieth year, it being the privilege of the next of kin to eat the flesh of the deceased person. The aged women, however, they used to strangle, and then consign them to the earth.

19 The modern Jihoun or Amou. It now flows into the Sea of Aral, but the ancients universally speak of it as running into the Caspian; and there are still existing distinct traces of a channel extending in a southwesterly direction from the sea of Aral to the Caspian, by which at least a portion, and probably the whole of the waters of the Oxus found their way. into the Caspian; and not improbably the Sea of Aral itself was connected with the Caspian by this channel.

20 Most probably under this name he means the Sea of Aral.

References

  1. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/Introduction,p.x
  2. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/Jat Clan in India, p.280
  3. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 18, f.n.18
  4. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/The Antiquity of the Jats
  5. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/Jat Clan in India, p.280
  6. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/The Mandas, p.136
  7. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/Jat Clan in India, p.280
  8. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/The Antiquity of the Jats, 303
  9. ↑ Olbrycht, Marek Jan (2021). Early Arsakid Parthia (ca. 250-165 B.C.): At the Crossroads of Iranian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian History. Leiden, Netherlands ; Boston, United States: Brill. ISBN 978-9-004-46076-8., p. 21.
  10. ↑ Dandamayev, M. A. (1994). "Media and Achaemenid Iran". In Dani, Ahmad Hasan; Harmatta, János; Puri, Baij Nath; Etemadi, G. F.; Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (eds.). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. 2. Paris, France: UNESCO. pp. 35–64. ISBN 978-9-231-02846-5., p. 67.
  11. ↑ Smith, William (1854). The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Bostin: Little, Brown and Company. p. Derbiccae.
  12. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/The Antiquity of the Jats,303
  13. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/The Mandas, p.136
  14. ↑ See Persica of Otesias, Ed. Gilmore, pp. 133·35.
  15. ↑ Bhim Singh Dahiya: Jats the Ancient Rulers (A clan study)/Jat Clan in India, p.280
  16. ↑ Strabo, XI.11.7
  17. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 18
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