From Sagbita to Hagmatāna; The Royal Cities of Medes

When Shamshi-Adad V, the powerful king of Assyria and the successor of Shalmaneser III, overcame his brother's revolt, a new world of people and eastern settlements appeared before him and his army. Among these peoples, the Medes and their royal city, Sagbita, have determined one of the most interesting martial fates in the history of the western plateau of Iran. With the victory over this city, the king of Assyria was able to gain a great territory and thus, after his father, he became the founder of the era of plunder of Median people in the next two centuries. What happened to the royal city of Sagbita in the ninth century BC, and whether there was a connection between it and Ecbatana in the Greek texts and Hagmatāna in the inscription of Darius I in Behistun, is the aim of this research. Also, the relationship between the historical and mythological content of texts related to the emergence of this city is a topic that this study has addressed. The present article shows that although geographically there is no similarity between Sagbita and Bitī-Sagbat with Hagmatāna, the name and memory of the two, as well as the proximity of their geographical boundaries, gave rise to Hagmatāna or Ecbatana in the next century.