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Ancient Iranian people of Central Asia

The Dahae, also known as the Daae, Dahas or Dahaeans (; Δαοι; Δααι, ; Δαι, ; Δασαι, ; Dahae; t=大益; Persian: ) were an ancient Eastern Iranian nomadic tribal confederation, who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia.

The Dahae may have been the or people mentioned in the s as one of the five peoples following the Zoroastrian religion, along with the , , , and , although this identification is uncertain. The Iranologist János Harmatta has identified the Dahā with the Massagetae/Sakā tigraxaudā based on ancient Graeco Roman authors' mention of the as living between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, where Arrian also located the Massagetae and the Dahae. The scholars A. Abetekov and H. Yusupov have also suggested that the were a constituent tribe of the Massagetae. The scholar Y. A. Zadneprovskiy has instead suggested that the Dahae were descendants of the Massagetae. The scholar Marek Jan Olbrycht, who has also identified the Massagetae with the , however considers the as being a separate group from the Saka to which the Massagetae/ belonged.

The Dahae initially lived in the north eastern part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, in the arid steppes of the Karakum Desert near Margiana, alongside the Saka groups and the Sogdians and Chorasmians, and immediately to the north of Hyrcania. During late 4th and early 3rd centuries BCE, the Dahae, and especially their constituent tribe of the Parni, had settled along the southern and southwestern fringes of the Karakum desert, and by the mid 3rd century BCE they had moved west and had settled along the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the lands to the north of Hyrcania. Two other Dahae tribes, the Xanthioi and the Pissouroi, lived further east till the regions to the north of Areia.

The name of the Dahae, attested in the Old Persian form , is derived from a Saka language name meaning "man," based on the common practice among various peoples of calling themselves "man" in their own languages. This term is attested in the Khotanese form The Dahae were a nomadic people, and no known sedentary settlement can be attributed to them. The scholar David Gordon White has instead suggested that the name of the Dahae meant "Stranglers," and was derived from the Proto Indo European root , from which he also derived the name of the Dacians.

A splinter might possibly have migrated at an early date across the Iranian plateau and joined the Persian people who lived in its southwestern part, with the Greek historian Herodotus later referring to the as one of the nomadic Persian tribes, along with the Mardians, Dropicans, and Sagartians, although this identification is uncertain. The were in control of the traffic between Chorasmia in the north and Parthia and Hyrcania in the south. According to the Babylonian historian Berossus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus, died fighting against the Dahae. According to the Iranologist Muhammad Dandamayev, Berossus identified the Dahae rather than the Massagetae as Cyrus's killers because they had replaced the Massagetae as the most famous nomadic tribe of Central Asia long before Berossus's time, although some scholars identified the Dahae as being identical with the Massagetae or as one of their sub groups. The oldest certain recorded mention of the is in the Daiva Inscription of the Achaemenid king Xerxes I along with the and the
The fought within the left wing of the Achaemenid army along with the Bactrians and the Saka against Alexander the Great at Gaugamela in 331 BCE. The Dahae may have invaded Margiana and Areia around 300 BCE, and during this invasion they destroyed the towns of Alexandreia and Heracleia located in these respective two countries. During late 4th and early 3rd centuries BCE, the Dahae, and especially their constituent tribe of the Parni, had settled along the southern and southwestern fringes of the Karakum desert, and by the mid 3rd century BCE they had moved west and had settled along the southeastern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the lands to the north of Hyrcania. Two other Dahae tribes, the Xanthioi and the Pissouroi, lived further east till the regions to the north of Areia. During the middle of the 3rd century itself, the Parni had moved into Hyrcania, where they lived along the Ochus river. Their leader, Arsaces, would found the Parthian Empire. During the 2nd century BCE, both the Dahae (大益 ) who still lived in the steppes and the Parthian Empire (安息 ), as well as the Chorasmians (驩潛 ), and Sogdians (蘇薤 ) sent embassies to the Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty which was ruling China.

The lands to the north of Hyrcania where the Dahae had settled in the 3rd century BCE became known as and after them.