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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
For over 2000 years views of the Persian empire founded by Cyrus c. 550 B.C. and conquered by Alexander in the space of ten years between 334 and 323 have been constructed on the basis of Greek literary sources (in which I would include historical works, such as Herodotus' histories) and some sections of the Old Testament. Despite the fundamental ‘honesty’ of Herodotus' account, the fact that the focus of his history centered on the Greco-Persian conflict of 480/79 and aimed to explain the unexpected Persian defeat which had such enormous repercussions for Greek political and cultural development, means that his work serves to commemorate for us the ineffectiveness of the Achaemenid style of imperialism and to emphasize its ultimate failure. A failure epitomized at the very end of Herodotus' work (9.122), where Cyrus, the wise ‘father’ of the empire, is made to utter a prophetic warning about the enfeebling dangers of successful imperial expansion particularly when connected with the system of ‘oriental despotism’. The implication, given the detailed descriptions of Xerxes and the huge Persian army's defeat at the hands of a small number of Greeks, is that by the time of the Persian wars the rulers of the empire had lost their former rugged strength and had been seduced by the soft life offered them by the countries they had defeated: the conquerors had been taken captive by their victims and emasculated.
1. Cf. Kuhrt, A., ‘A brief guide to some recent work on the Achaemenid empire’. LCM 8 (10 December 1983) 146–53Google Scholar.
2. Momigliano, A. D., ‘Persian empire and Greek freedom’, in Ryan, A. (ed.), The idea of freedom: essays in honor of Isaiah Berlin (1979) 139–51Google Scholar.
3. Pervasively reflected in the numerous histories of classical Greece that take 479/8 as their chronological starting point, such as Davies, J. K., Democracy and classical Greece (1978)Google Scholar; Hornblower, S., The Greek world, 479-323 B.C. (1983)Google Scholar.
4. Alan Griffiths made the interesting suggestion in a seminar at the Institute of Classical Studies, London (November 1987) that Herodotus' image of Oriental despotism' is menacingly and intentionally darkened by the structural pairing of the story of Candaules and Gyges at the beginning of his work with that of Xerxes and Masistes' wife at the end.
5. Ctesias: cf. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., ‘Decadence in the empire or decadence in the sources? From source to synthesis: Ctesias’, in Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H. (ed.), Achaemenid History I: sources, structures and synthesis (1987) 33–45Google Scholar. Deinon: Stevenson, R. B., ‘Lies and invention in Deinon's Persica’, in Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H. & Kuhrt, A. (eds.), Achaemenid History II: the Greek sources (1987) 27–35Google Scholar.
6. Breitenbach, H. R., ‘Xenophon’, RE IX.A2, 1569–2052Google Scholar; cf. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., ‘The fifth oriental monarchy and hellenocentrism: Cyropaedia VIII viii and its influence’, Achaemenid History II (see above n.5) 117–31Google Scholar.
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8. For a discussion of this overall similarity see Momigliano, A. D., ‘Eastern elements in post-exilic Jewish, and Greek, historiography’, in Essays in ancient and modern historiography (1977) 25–36Google Scholar.
9. For this as an image implicit in ‘Orientalism’ see Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., ‘Exit Atossa: images of women in Greek historiography on Persia’, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (eds.), Images of women in antiquity (1983) 20–33Google Scholar.
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12. The subject of M. C. Root's fascinating study, The king and kingship in Achaemenid art: essays on the creation of an iconography of empire, Acta Iranica 19 (1979)Google Scholar.
13. Translations of the text: Weissbach, F. H., Die Keilinschriften der Achämeniden, VAB 3 (1911) 875Google Scholar; Kent, R. G., Old Persian Grammar, texts, lexicon (1953) 116–34Google Scholar; Borger, R. and Hinz, W., ‘Die Behistun-Inschrift Darius' des Grossen’, Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments Band I: Historisch-chronologische Texte I (1984) 419–50Google Scholar.
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27. Smith, S., Babylonian historical texts relating to the capture and downfall of Babylon (1924) 98–123Google Scholar; Oppenheim, A. L., ‘Texts from the accession of Nabonidus to the fall of Babylon’, in Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament ed. 3 (1969) 305–7Google Scholar; Grayson, A. K., Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Texts from cuneiform sources 5) (1975) no.7Google Scholar.
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34. See above n.27: 117, iii. 12–14.
35. N.27: 121, 1.14.
36. For references see above n.27.
37. Above n.27.
38. Cf. van der Spek, R. J., ‘Cyrus de Pers in assyrisch perspectief’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiendenis 96 (1983) 1–27Google Scholar; Kuhrt, A., ‘Conquest, usurpation and ceremonial: from Babylon to Persia’, in Cannadine, D.N. and Price, S. R. F. (eds.) Rituals of royalty: power and ceremonial in traditional societies (1987) 20–55Google Scholar.
39. Berger, P.-R., ‘Der Kyros-Zylinder mit dem Zusatzfragment BIN II Nr.32 und die akkadischen Personennamen im Danielbuch’, ZA 64 (1975) 192–234CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Kuhrt, A., ‘The Cyrus cylinder and Achaemenid imperial policy’, JSOT 25, 83–97Google Scholar.
40. Cf. above n.30.
41. E.g. Ghirshman, R., Iran (1954) 193–4Google Scholar.
42. Cf. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., Yauna en Persai (see above n.17) 1–47Google Scholar; Cook, J. M., The Persian empire (1983) 148Google Scholar.
43. Cook (see above n.42) 99–100.
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47. Texts from northern Babylonia: McEwan, G.J. P., Late Babylonian texts in the Ashmolean Museum, OECT 10 (1984)Google Scholar, nos. 171, 174, 175, 183, 191, 229. Uruk texts: Kessler, K., ‘Duplicate und Fragments aus Uruk, Teil II’, BaM 15 (1984) 261–72Google Scholar.
48. For a positive assessment of Xerxes' reign which marked a crucial developmental stage of the empire cf. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, , Yauna en Persai (see above n.17) 32–6Google Scholar; Graf, D. F., ‘Greek tyrants and Achaemenid polities’, in Eadie, J. W. and Ober, J. (eds.), The craft of the ancient historian: essays in honor of Chester G. Starr (1985) 79–123Google Scholar.
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50. See, for example, Burn, A. R., Alexander and the hellenistic empires ed. 2 (1951) 159–60Google Scholar; Fox, R. Lane, Alexander the Great (1973) 247–9Google Scholar; Briant, P., Alexandre le Grand ed. 2 (1977) 96–7Google Scholar (but not in ed. 3 of 1987).
51. Work on the Esagila temple, that must have been initiated by Alexander, is mentioned in LBAT 212 r. 14′ (astronomical diary for 322/1 B.C.). Work seems to have continued in 320/19, cf. Grayson, Chronicles (above n.27) no.10, obv. 1. 6. (For later mentions in 311/10, 309/8 and 308/7 see ibid. rev.11. 13, 33 and p. 116, n.6.)
52. Cf. Luckenbill, D. D., Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia II (1927) §§31-5Google Scholar.
53. For the ‘remnants’ from divine meals presented to the king, see Oppenheim, A. L., Ancient Mesopotamia, portrait of dead civilization (1964) 189Google Scholar.
54. Cf. Grayson, Chronicles (see above n.27) no.7, col.iii: 12–19.
55. For detailed arguments, see Kuhrt, A., ‘Alexander and Babylon’, in Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H. and Drijvers, J. W. (eds.), Achaemenid History V: the roots of the European tradition (forthcoming)Google Scholar.
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57. Cf. Ellis, R. S., Foundation deposits in ancient Mesopotamia (Yale Near Eastern Researches 2) (1968) 7Google Scholar.
58. The ‘dynastic prophecy’: Grayson, A. K., Babylonian historical literary texts (Toronto Semitic Texts and Studies 3) (1975) 24–37Google Scholar; cf. for discussion, Sherwin-White, S., ‘Seleucid Babylonia: a case-study for the installation and development of Greek rule’, in Kuhrt, A. and Sherwin-White, S. (eds.), Hellenism in the east: the interaction of Greek and non-Greek civilizations from Svria to Central Asia after Alexander (1987) 1–31 (esp. 10–14)Google Scholar.
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60. See, for example, the forthcoming article by Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H., ‘The personality of Xerxes, king of kings’, Louis Vandenberghe Festschrift (in preparation)Google Scholar.
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