The Persian Empire

A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period

Amélie Kuhrt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136017025
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Bringing together a wide variety of material in many different languages that exists from the substantial body of work left by this large empire, The Persian Empire presents annotated translations, together with introductions to the problems of using it in order to gain an understanding of the history and working os this remarkable political entity.

The Achaemenid empire developed in the region of modern Fars (Islam) and expanded to unite territories stretching from the Segean and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and north-west India, which it ruled for over 200 years until its conquest by Alexander of Macedon.

Although all these regions had long since been in contact with each other, they had never been linked under a single regime. The Persian empire represents an important phase of transformation for its subjects, such as the Jews, as well as those living on its edges, such as the European Greeks.

1

The Sources

The material for studying the Achaemenid empire presents particular difficulties, not so much because it is sparse but because it is very disparate. The many different peoples embraced by the empire had their own, often very long-established, distinctive traditions for commemorating the past and of writing, artistic forms, religion, social and political institutions, eating habits and, of course, languages. These were modified in different ways and over time as they interacted with the Persian régime. But the many local traditions and forms did not die out, and this helps to explain some of the great diversity in the evidence available to the historian. A further problem with the material we have is its very uneven temporal and spatial distribution: the bulk of the documentation clusters around the late sixth and early fifth centuries and is throughout, almost exclusively, concentrated on the western, above all the north-western, section of the empire. In this chapter, I delineate the main sources only. Many more will be found in the succeeding chapters, where they are discussed as the need arises. The introduction to each chapter serves to provide a critical assessment of the relevant evidence.

Before excavation and the subsequent decipherment of ancient Near Eastern scripts in the nineteenth century, the Achaemenid empire was primarily known through the works of classical Greek and Roman writers, and some books of the Old Testament. These have combined to create a kind of template of Persia and its rulers, into which other material, as it eventually became available, was fitted or forced to fit (see, particularly, Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989/2002). It is important to be aware of this, because that is not how we can, or should, proceed in trying to understand Achaemenid history and the regime’s undoubted success in holding such a vast and varied territory together over two centuries. The evidence at our disposal does not allow us to fit the various pieces together to produce a complete whole, as in a jigsaw. Rather, we gain a series of overlapping and differing perspectives, which sometimes illuminate or amplify the import of a passage in the Bible or a classical historian, but can also directly contradict such writings. What is crucial, in all instances, is to be aware of the nature of each piece of documentation and to recognise its limitations, which in every instance is directly linked to its context.

(a) Classical Writers

In order to arrive at an outline of Persian political history, we are forced to rely heavily on Graeco-Roman historians, as the Persians themselves did not, in this period, with one exception (5, no.1), write narrative histories. There was an important tradition of historical writing in Babylonia, but only a little covering the Achaemenid period has survived (2, no.10; 3, no.1; 9, nos.55; 67–8; 76; 10, nos.2; 27). This gives us a rather lopsided and one-dimensional view of the empire, of which we need constantly to be aware. At the same time, it is worth remembering that the lives of Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries were intimately bound up with the Achaemenid empire on whose margins they lived. One important writer, Herodotus, was born inside its frontiers; others served at the Persian court as doctors (e.g. 12, no.12, n.2), were called to it as entertainers (12, no.45) or produced fine objects for the king (11, no.30). Uncountable numbers hired themselves out for mercenary service, while embassies made the long journeys to satrapal and royal palaces to try to obtain financial backing for their political ambitions and internecine wars. Thucydides, for example, whose interest lay in analysing the murderous conflict between Athens and Sparta in the last decades of the fifth century, was clearly aware of Greek dependence on Persian support and the interrelations of the two (cf. 6, no.29; 7, nos.67; 75; 81; 8, nos.7, 11, 14; 16–17; 26–8; 30). Thus the various contemporary writers, on whom later authors depended, had a considerable familiarity with some events and aspects of life in the empire. However distorted some of their accounts appear, however much they have suffered from exaggeration, or their accounts been tweaked for dramatic effect, they contain a wealth of potential information. As one scholar has pointed out, what we have to reckon with in these accounts is not invention, but the ‘spin’ that has been put on events (Bosworth 2003). So context, aims of the writer, the setting of events into narrative frameworks must always be remembered, as must their inevitable spatial and temporal limitations. But we can certainly not ignore them.

The earliest surviving and most important of the classical historians is Herodotus writing in the later fifth century (Bichler and Rollinger 2000). His aim was to commemorate the victories won by the mainland Greeks over the Persians in 490 and 480–479, so his valuable information is limited chronologically to the earlier phases of the empire. Although he is unrivalled in his coverage of many areas and aspects, his greatest interest, and the focus for his most detailed discussion, was its north-western frontier (Drews 1974a: 45–96; cf. Briant 1990a). Beyond that, his work is marked by a series of didactic motifs, which shape the way he structured his account: freedom versus servitude; there are dangers inherent in imperial expansion, which inevitably leads to decline; monarchy turns into despotism, which is a corrupt form of power and, hence, brings disaster in its wake; the struggle to liberate one’s homeland results in the conquest of others. Several of these lessons are worked out using the example of the growth of the Persian empire, climaxing in the figure of Xerxes, whose image as a doom-laden ruler had already been fixed by the time Herodotus was writing through Aeschylus’ tragedy The Persians. A further important point to remember when reading Herodotus is that he engaged actively with the intellectual debates of his time (Thomas 2000). He was addressing an informed audience, given that others had already written on Persia or were preparing to do so, i.e. Charon of Lampsacus, Dionysius of Miletus and Hellanicus of Lesbos (FGrH 687b, 687 & 687 a, respectively). It would be wrong to see him as a sort of Christopher Columbus, revealing the strangeness of new worlds; his work fits into contemporary discussions on how to make sense of the world (see further Bakker, de Jong and van Wees 2002).

Among the fourth-century classical writers, the doctor Ctesias of Cnidus is potentially the most valuable (Lenfant). It is usually assumed that he arrived at the Persian court as a prisoner-of-war in the late fifth century, although it is just as possible that he entered the king’s service of his own volition. What is certain is that he was among the medical team attending on Artaxerxes II at the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 (9, Section A), and may have become a particular confidant of the queen-mother Parysatis. A hint that he really was trusted by the king is the fact that, on one occasion, he acted as his messenger (9, no.49). After his return home, he wrote a history of Persia in twenty-three books, including a prelude on Assyria and the Medes (Persica). Further, he composed other works, including one ‘On the products of Asia’ and an ‘ethnography’ on the wonders of India (Indica) – the earliest-known Greek work devoted to the subcontinent. Unfortunately, his work has not survived. We have summaries of the Persica and Indica made in the ninth century AD by Photius, the learned patriarch of Constantinople, and there are numerous citations (some very long) from his works in other writers.¹ For long Ctesias’ work has had a very poor reputation. Felix Jacoby, the eminent scholar who collected all the fragments of Greek historians (FGrH), characterised him as a plagiarist, who drew all his information from earlier historians, such as Herodotus, introducing variants to obscure this and then claiming greater authority for his versions as an eye-witness. While this may well be the case in some instances, it cannot be true of the whole of Ctesias’ work, which covered a much longer period than Herodotus’ Histories (down to 398), and was clearly much fuller given its length – of the twenty-three books, seventeen are devoted to Persian history from Cyrus II to the first years of Artaxerxes II. A scholarly tendency now is to see Ctesias’ work as incorporating a great many Persian oral traditions, offering us glimpses of how various Persians, c.400, viewed their own past (see already Momigliano 1931), of stories circulating about prominent nobles (see, e.g., 13, no.30) and of alternative traditions about their kings (e.g. 5, no.5). Moreover, for events closer to his own time in Persia, his account appears to be reliable (8, nos.20–2). So, while his information may not always be historically ‘correct’, it provides us with a different perspective on the Persian past (see the important reassessment by Lenfant).

The Athenian gentleman-soldier Xenophon (early fourth century) was a prolific writer. He joined the band of men recruited by Artaxerxes II’s brother, Cyrus, in his unsuccessful bid for the throne in 401 (9, Section A). His account of this doomed venture takes the reader through a good part of the western section of the Persian empire, which provides us with some very valuable information, particularly on the Upper Mesopotamian and Armenian regions (see Joanns 1995; Kuhrt 1995b; Zimansky 1995). Quite different is Xenophon’s curious, semi-philosophical work, called The Education of Cyrus (Cyropaedia), a heroic celebration of Cyrus the Great. But its moralising tone, its novelistic style and its aim – to present the founder of the Persian empire as the ideal ruler whose legacy was corrupted by later descendants – mean that historical realities have been subordinated to this larger purpose, so that it is difficult to know how the historian might use it (EncIr VI, 512–14). Nevertheless, some of the institutions Xenophon describes were based on contemporary Persian practices, so that, in a schematic fashion, the treatise can shed light on aspects of Persian social and political life. Xenophon’s Greek history (Hellenica), picking up the story where Thucydides’ work left off, is limited to affairs in the Aegean from c.410 to 360. Because of Greek dependence on Persian money, it allows us to see something of the functioning of Persian government in the north-west and the problems the Achaemenid authorities faced trying to set up a working relationship with the chronically factious Greek states – problems surely encountered by them in other frontier regions.

Two other fourth-century writers wrote on Persian history and customs. Demon (of Colophon (?), fl.330s, FGrH 690) composed Persica in three ‘series’ (Gr. suntaxeis). The first comprised five books; how long the others were is unclear – but it was obviously a fairly substantial work. The Greek historian Ephorus, writing at the end of the fourth century and the main source for Diodorus Siculus (first century BC)² for his fifth-and fourth-century Greek history, made use of him. So, too, did the moralist Plutarch (c.50–120 AD), particularly for his invaluable Life of Artoxerxes (i.e. Artaxerxes II), as well as the erudite Athenaeus (fl.200 AD) in his ‘Learned Banquet’ (Deipnosophistae), at which the diners displayed their knowledge by citing titbits from past writers. The Latin writer Cornelius Nepos (first century BC), whose Lives of the Great Generals includes the story of the Persian noble Datames (13, no.36), certainly relied on Deinon for some passages. Much less known is Heracleides of Cumae, writing on Persia in the time of Alexander the Great (FGrH 689). His Persica were comparatively short – only five books – and he is cited much less frequently than Deinon or Ctesias (see, generally, Stevenson 1997). Writers who compiled curiosities, such as Aelian (c. 170–230 AD) in his miscellany of improving anecdotes (Varia Historia) and extraordinary examples of animal behaviour (De Natura Animalium), and Polyaenus’ collection of military tactics (Strategemata, dedicated to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, 161 – 180 AD), mined these (and other) writers to illustrate their points (see Henkelman forthcoming). In all these cases, of course, we need to be aware of the process of selection exercised by the authors, who were choosing stories that fitted in with their larger purpose. This can give us a very lopsided impression of the nature of the original work of such cited historians (see Lenfant, as well as her study on Deinon and Heracleides, Lenfant forthcoming).

The sources for two further late writers are not always clear. Strabo, a native of Pontus, wrote his remarkable Geography in the Augustan period, gathering material over a considerable time. Books XI to XVII cover Asia, hence much of the territory of the Persian empire. Here it is plain that he is often describing circumstances pertaining to an earlier time, which must reflect his varied sources, primarily writers of the hellenistic period, many of them at home in the regions (Der Kleine Pauly s.v. Strabon). The uncertainly dated Justin (mid-second century to late fourth century AD) made a summary of the Philippic History by Pompeius Trogus. Trogus wrote his universal history in Latin in forty-four books around the same time as Strabo. Of this work, only the prologues and Justin’s epitome survive. What precisely his sources were is uncertain. He probably used Herodotus for the earlier history of Persia, but his source for the account of Darius Ill’s accession, which diverges interestingly from others (10, no.5), is unknown (Yardley and Develin 1994).

Alexander the Great was accompanied during his invasion of the Persian empire by writers charged with celebrating his exploits. None of their works has survived, but they were extensively used by later historians interested in Alexander at the time of the Roman empire. Some of their narratives have survived, such as the long books of Arrian of Nicomedia (second century AD) and Quintus Curtius Rufus (the first two books of his work are lost; possibly first century AD, Baynham 1998). Arrian also made intensive use of the account by Alexander’s admiral Nearchus, who described his maritime survey of the coastline from north-western India into the Persian Gulf to southern Babylonia for his Indica (see Bosworth 1995: 361–5). Nearchus was also used by Arrian for his account of Alexander’s conquest, along with other Alexander generals (Brunt 1976–83: xviii-xlv). Cleitarchus, the son of Deinon, writing around 310, was the source for Diodorus Siculus’ seventeenth book, which was devoted to Alexander’s achievements. Plutarch, too, made use of these accounts for his ‘biography’ of Alexander. Because Alexander moved through almost all Achaemenid territory, such histories of Alexander provide valuable glimpses of conditions in the eastern half of the Achaemenid realm, which were of little immediate interest to earlier Greek writers, who focussed on Greek-Persian frontier conflicts. The inbuilt bias of the Alexander historians is patent, yet the value of their testimony must not be underestimated.

All Greeks who were contemporaries of the Achaemenids were fascinated by the wealth and power of the Persian rulers, so they often recount stories of court-intrigue and the moral decadence that comes from indulging in unlimited luxury. In such anecdotes, the Persian king can appear as an essentially weak figure, a prey to the machinations of powerful women and sinister eunuchs. This is an inversion of Greek social and political norms, with which Europeans have usually identified: the image of the cowardly, effeminate Persian monarch has exercised a strong influence through the centuries, making the Persian empire into a powerful ‘other’ in European Orientalism, contrasted with western ideals of bravery and masculinity (Said 1978; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1983a; 1987b; E. Hall 1989; 1993). It is important to remember this ‘spin’ in studying the Persian empire: in many respect, the popular and widespread impression of its political system based on these writers is inherently flawed (Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1987a). An additional problem, with all the classical material, is our own, often highly selective, reading. We must remember that we can be guilty of operating with an impression rather than what a writer has actually said. A good example is the widespread image of Cyrus the Great as ‘good’ and Xerxes as ‘bad’, whereas there is enough in the pages of Herodotus’ Histories to make the picture considerably less black and white. But when our impression of the ‘good’ Cyrus is reinforced by Xenophon’s hagiographical Cyropaedia and the biblical book of Ezra (see below) and Xerxes’ reputation as hubristic aggressor enhanced through poems and plays, it becomes all too easy to gloss over evidence that runs counter to the stereotype (see Wiesehöfer 1993: 71–89).

(b) Old Testament Books

The Old Testament has bequeathed two divergent pictures of the Persian kings. In Ezra and Nehemiah they appear as restorers of the Jerusalem temple and active supporters of the Yahweh cult, although the historical problems of these texts loom large, with some denying the historicity of the figure of Ezra entirely (cf. Grabbe 1992; 1994; 2004; Garbini 1988). The image is positive because the Persian kings ushered in the period of the ‘Second Temple’, ordering the return of people who had been deported from Judah to Babylonia in 587/6, when Nebuchadnezzar II had conquered this small Palestinian kingdom. As part of this, the Persians allowed the returning exiles to restore the temple and city of Jerusalem, and were certainly thought later to have supported that rebuilding with imperial funds. This positive image of Achaemenid rule is also reflected in the writings of the Roman Jewish writer, Josephus (first century AD). The book of Esther, which, in the form we have it, was almost certainly written in the hellenistic period (second century BC, cf. Bickerman 1967), diverges from this rosy image; here, Persian court-life is presented in a way similar to that found in Greek writers. Several hints in the work make it likely that elements of the Esther story existed much earlier, possibly already in the late fifth century, and circulated orally in Aramaic (Momigliano 1977; Stevenson 1997: 52–5; ABD, s.v.).

(c) Royal Inscriptions

The Persians of the Achaemenid period spoke an early form of Persian called ‘Old Persian’, a member of the Indo-European language family (RLA X, s.v. Persien, Perser. A). Texts in Old Persian were written using a wedge-shaped script, quite distinct from the much older Mesopotamian cuneiform system. Its decipherment began in the early nineteenth century, and advanced rapidly when squeezes were made of the longest Old Persian inscription known, i.e. the text (with accompanying relief) of Darius I (522–486), carved high on t...