Untitled

i
The Oxford History of the Ancient

Near East
ii
The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East

Editors: Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts
This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully

illustrated history of Egypt and Western Asia (the Levant, Anatolia,
Mesopotamia, and Iran), from the emergence of complex states to the
conquest of Alexander the Great. Written by a highly diverse, interna
tional team of leading scholars, whose expertise brings to life the people,
places, and times of the remote past, the volumes in this series focus
firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities
of the ancient Near East. Individual chapters present the key textual and
material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, paying par
ticular attention to the most recent archaeological finds and their impact
on our historical understanding of the periods surveyed.
Volume 1: From the Beginnings to Old Kingdom Egypt and the Dynasty
of Akkad
Volume 2: From the End of the Third Millennium bc to the Fall of
Babylon
Volume 3: From the Hyksos to the Late Second Millennium bc
Volume 4: The Age of Assyria
Volume 5: The Age of Persia
iii
The Oxford
History of the
Ancient Near East
Volume V: The Age of Persia
z
Edited by
KAREN RADNER
NADINE MOELLER
D. T. POTTS
1
iv
1
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© Oxford University Press 2023
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CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–0–19–068766–3
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.001.0001
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

v
Contents
Preface vii
Time Chart xiii
The Contributors xvii
Abbreviations xxiii
49. Saite Egypt (Alexander Schütze) 1
50. The Neo-Babylonian Empire (Michael Jursa) 91
51. The Kingdom of Lydia (Annick Payne) 174
52. The Southern Levant and Northern Arabia in the Iron Age
( Juan Manuel Tebes) 231
53. Early Saba and Its Neighbors (Norbert Nebes) 299
54. The Persian Empire under the Teispid Dynasty: Emergence

and Conquest (Matt Waters) 376
55. The Persian Empire under the Achaemenid Dynasty, from

Darius I to Darius III (D. T. Potts) 417
vi
vi Contents
56. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Persia and Elam

(Gian Pietro Basello) 521
57. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Media and Armenia

(Giusto Traina) 556
58. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Asia Minor: Lydia,

Caria, Lycia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia (Hilmar Klinkott) 592
59. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Babylonia and Assyria

(André Heller) 649
60. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Ebir-nari/Syria

(Peter R. Bedford) 689
61. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Egypt

(Damien Agut-Labordère) 737
62. The Northeastern Regions of the Persian Empire:

Bactriana, Sogdiana, Margiana, Chorasmia, Aria, Parthia,
the Sakas, and the Dahae (Michele Minardi) 784
63. The Southeastern Regions of the Persian Empire on the

Indo-Iranian Frontier: Arachosia, Drangiana, Gedrosia,
Sattagydia, Gandhara, and India (Pierfrancesco Callieri) 837
64. The Persian Empire in Contact with the World

(Robert Rollinger) 887
65. The Persian Empire: Perspectives on Culture and Society

(Maria Brosius) 949
Index 1015
vi
Preface
The fifth and final volume of the Oxford History of the Ancient
Near East deals with the Persian Empire and its immediate predecessor
states: Saite Egypt, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the kingdom of
Lydia, as well as the kingdoms, chiefdoms, and tribal alliances shaping
the political geography of the southern Levant and northern and south-
ern Arabia, the roots of many of which go back to times covered by the
previous volumes in this series. The areas covered include Egypt, Nubia
and Ethiopia, the Caucasus, Anatolia and the Aegean, the Levant and
the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia and Iran, and for the first time in
the series, Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands in what are
today Afghanistan and Pakistan. The chronological scope of the volume
extends from the second half of the seventh century bc until the cam-
paigns of Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 bc) brought an end to the
Achaemenid Dynasty and the Persian Empire.
This book’s cover depicts the fifth and final specimen in our col-
lection of beautiful cylinder seals selected from different parts of the
Near East to grace the individual covers of the Oxford History of the
Ancient Near East. The brown chalcedony seal from the collection of the
Morgan Library & Museum, New York (accession number 0837) shows
a solitary, striding zebu bull (Bos indicus). Acquired by Pierpont Morgan
between 1885 and 1908, the seal shows an animal most often associated
with South Asia, where the easternmost provinces of the Persian Empire
were located. By the fifth century bc, however, when this seal was prob-
ably manufactured, the zebu was found across the Near East, and was
thus no longer unfamiliar or exotic to the peoples of the region.
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viii Preface
The fourth volume of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East
closes with the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and some of its contem-
porary states, including the kingdom of Phrygia in central Anatolia and
the kingdom of Mannea in northwestern Iran, and the formation of its
successor states, most importantly the Median kingdom, the kingdom
of Lydia, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and a reunited and independent
Egyptian state under the Saite Dynasty (in Manetho’s sequence, the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty). While the short-lived and poorly documented
Median kingdom is covered in the fourth volume (chapter 43) as a
coda to the discussion of the history of the Median chiefdoms in the
shadow of the Assyrian Empire, the present volume starts with chapters
dedicated to the other three states that contributed to and/or benefited
from the end of that empire. They are joined by a chapter on the king-
dom of Saba centered on what is today Yemen and a chapter on the
tribes and chiefdoms of the southern Levant and northern Arabia that
successfully carved an existence out of the harsh desert environment
and made an essential contribution to the long-distance trade and com-
munication network that linked the Mediterranean coast, the southern
regions of the Arabian Peninsula, and southern Mesopotamia. Whereas
the chapters on Saite Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire draw on
a wealth of locally produced textual sources in the traditional writing
systems of the core regions, those on Lydia and the desert-dwelling
polities rely to a much greater extent on archaeological information,
and frequently also on much more recent texts. In the case of Lydia this
means the works of classical writers, and for the southern Levant and
northern Arabia, the Bible. On occasion, the alphabetic scripts used in
these areas were used for monumental inscriptions on durable materials
(see figure 51.4 for an example of a Lydian inscription and figure 53.3 for
a South Arabian example) but most of the written documentation was
recorded on organic surfaces and materials that have not survived. As a
consequence, these first chapters illustrate a wide range of approaches
to history-writing as enabled, constrained, or demanded by the avail-
ability of sources and their respective challenges and advantages.
Such drastically different approaches also characterize the group of
twelve chapters dealing with the Persian Empire, which was created by
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Preface ix
two members of the Teispid Dynasty: Cyrus II (the Great; 559–530 bc)
and his son and successor Cambyses II (530–522 bc), and consolidated,
after a succession conflict that brought the young state to the brink
of collapse, by Darius I (the Great; 522–486 bc) and his descendants,
who constituted the Achaemenid Dynasty. Two chapters are therefore
dedicated to the two constituent dynasties of the Persian Empire. The
next eight chapters have a regional focus. The first six of these deal with
the core region of the Persian Empire (Parsa and Elam); the moun-
tainous regions shaped by the Zagros and the Caucasus (Media and
Armenia); Asia Minor (Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia);
Mesopotamia (Babylonia and Assyria); Syria and the Levant (known
as Ebir-nari, “Across-the-River,” referring to the Euphrates); and Egypt
with Nubia and Libya. With the next two chapters, we enter areas
that have not enjoyed prominence in any of the previous volumes of
the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: eastern Iran and Central
Asia (Bactriana, Sogdiana, Margiana, Chorasmia, Aria, Parthia, and
the steppe-dwelling Sakas and Dahae) and the Indo-Iranian border-
lands (Arachosia, Drangiana, Gedrosia, Sattagydia, Gandhara, and
Hinduš/“India”). Depending on the region, a diverse range of textual
sources stand in the center of the narrative that engender very different
approaches: from the careful consideration of a region’s climatic and
geographical characteristics, to the study of various text genres recorded
on stone, clay, papyrus, and wood (for an example, see figure 64.3), to
the analysis of diverse expressions of material culture such as seals, coins,
or pottery, to the interpretation of monumental, domestic, and funerary
architecture. The final two chapters of the volume focus on the cultural
and social history of the Persian Empire, on the one hand, and its inter-
action with the wider world, on the other hand, thus continuing a format
already used in previous volumes for the most influential of the ancient
Near Eastern states.
The following time chart presents a concise overview of the chrono-
logical coverage of this volume. The earlier parts of this chart may be
consulted together with the time chart given in the fourth volume of the
Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, as there is some chronological
overlap.
x
x Preface
Our editorial work on the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East
was supported by the Center for Advanced Studies of LMU Munich
(CASLMU), which awarded fellowships to Nadine Moeller and Dan
Potts in July 2016, 2017, and 2018, and again in 2020 and 2021, although
these could not be taken up because of the impact of the still ongoing
COVID-19 (Sars-CoV-2) pandemic on travel and all forms of physical
interaction. However, the weeks spent together in Munich in 2016–2018
enabled us to lay the groundwork that underpins this volume, in par-
ticular structuring the book and recruiting the scholars who would take
on the individual chapters. Just as the previous volumes of the Oxford
History of the Ancient Near East did, this book combines the talent and
expertise of distinguished scholars from across the globe, each a recog-
nized expert in their subject area, in order to offer new and often also
complementary perspectives on the history of northeastern Africa, the
eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Central Asia from the sev-
enth to the fourth century bc. We are fortunate that these scholars have
made space in their busy schedules to contribute the seventeen chap-
ters that constitute the present volume, covering “The Age of Persia.”
Draft manuscripts for the chapters were received between May 2019 and
August 2021. All of the joint editorial work on the chapters of this fifth
volume had to be accomplished without the ability to meet and discuss
issues in person. That the process was nevertheless productive and invari-
ably smooth is owed to our joint GoogleDrive folders and our WhatsApp
group, and to the trust and solid routines we have established in the five
years since we started working on this large-scale publication project in
2016 at the behest of our friend and editor at Oxford University Press,
Stefan Vranka.
In transcribing Egyptian proper nouns, we follow the conventions
of The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw (OUP 2004,
rev. ed.). We do not use hyphenation to separate the components of
Greek, Persian, and other Indo-European personal names, but we fol-
low normal practice in marking the individual words within Akkadian
proper nouns (e.g., Bel-uṣuršu; Nabû-tattannu-uṣur). Whenever a per-
son or place is widely known by a conventional spelling, we use that
(e.g., Nabopolassar instead of Nabû-aplu-uṣur, Nebuchadnezzar instead
of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur, Cutha instead of Kutiu). We do not use long
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Preface xi
vowels in proper nouns, including modern Arabic and Farsi place names.
The abbreviations used for classical authors and their works follow The
Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony
Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow (OUP 2012, 4th ed.).
We are very grateful that the generous funding of the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, granted in the form of the International Award
for Research in Germany to Karen Radner in 2015–2020 and, since
2020, funds made available by LMU Munich, afforded us the help of
several individuals whose expertise and attention to detail greatly facili-
tated the editing of this book. At LMU Munich, Denise Bolton carefully
and cheerfully language-edited most of the chapters; Thomas Seidler
checked and consolidated the chapter bibliographies, as well as standard-
ized the references to classical authors; Philipp Seyr (now Liège) harmo-
nized the Egyptian names and spelling; and Dr. Andrea Squitieri created
the cartography for the individual chapters. The index was again expertly
prepared by Luiza Osorio Guimarães da Silva (Chicago), who was also
instrumental in harmonizing proper nouns across chapters and volumes.
On this final volume and on all others before it, our editor Stefan Vranka
supported our work at every step. To all of them, and also and especially
to our authors, we owe heartfelt thanks for contributing to the realiza-
tion of this book, despite the various challenges to our personal and pro-
fessional lives that so many of us experienced especially in 2020 and 2021.
During the final stages of proof reading, Amélie Kuhrt died on
January 3rd, 2023, aged 78 years. The doyenne of modern research on the
Persian Empire and a pioneer in the comprehensive study of the ancient
world from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, her work is referenced in
almost all chapters of the present book. The five volumes of The Oxford
History of the Ancient Near East survey the history of Egypt, the Levant,
Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran, and the neighboring regions, from the
emergence of complex states to the conquests of Alexander the Great,
and thus share the geographical and temporal scope of Amélie’s ground-
breaking The Ancient Near East, c. 3000−330 BC (Routledge, 1995). As
an analysis offered by a single scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge,
a clear vision and a distinct voice, her work remains unsurpassed. A bril-
liant, generous and inspirational scholar and human being, Amélie is
greatly missed.
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xi
Time Chart
Mesopotamia Anatolia /Aegean Iran South Arabia
Egypt
Assyria Babylonia Lydia Media Persia Saba
...
Sargon II (721–705) Yiṯa‘’amar Watar
700 BC Sennacherib (704–681) Karib’il Watar
Dynasty 26 (664–525) Esarhaddon (680–669)
Nekau I (672–664)
Ashurbanipal (668–631) ...
Psamtek I (664–610) Gyges
Ardys /Alyattes II
Aššur-etel-ilani (630–627)
Sîn-šarru-iškun (626–612) Nabopolassar (625–605) Sadyattes Cyaxares
(624–585)
Nekau II (610–595) Aššur-uballiṭ II (611–609) Alyattes III /Walwates
600 BC Nebuchadnezzar II Croesus
(604–562)
Psamtek II (595–589) Astyages
(585–549)
Apries (589–570)
Ahmose III /Amasis (570–526)
xvi
Amel-Marduk (562–560) ...

Neriglissar (560–556) Cyrus II (559–530)
Labaši-Marduk (556)
Nabonidus (555–539)
Psamtek III (526–525) Cambyses II (529–522)

Bardiya /Smerdis (522)
Petubastis IV Nebuchadnezzar III Darius I (521–486)
500 BC Psamtek IV Nebuchadnezzar IV
Xerxes I (485–465)
Inaros Artaxerxes I
(464–424/423)
Xerxes II (424/423)
Sogdianus (424/423)
Cyrus the Younger Darius II (423–405)
Artaxerxes II
(404–359)
xv
Dynasty 28 (404–399)
400 BC Amyrtaeus /Psamtek V
(404–399)
Dynasty 29 (399–380)
Nepherites I (399–393)
Achoris /Hakor (393–380)
Dynasty 30 (379–343)
Nectanebo I /Nakhtnebef
(379–361)
Teos /Tachos /Djedhor
(361–359)
Nectanebo II /Nakhthorheb Artaxerxes III (358–338)
Macedon
(359–343)
... Artaxerxes IV (337–336)
Alexander III (336–323) Darius III (335–330)
xvi
xvi
The Contributors
Damien Agut-Labordère is a permanent researcher at the Centre

National de la Recherche Scientifique and a member of the Archéologies
et Sciences de l’Antiquité (ArScAn) team based in Nanterre (France).
Since 2017, he heads the Programme Achemenet (http://www.acheme
net.com/), a digital resource offering a wide range of tools, publications,
and sources for the study of the Persian Empire. His research focuses
on Persian Egypt and on the history of the Egyptian Western Desert
in the first millennium bc. His numerous publications include Le
sage et l’insensé: la composition et la transmission des sagesses démotiques
(Champion, 2011); L’Égypte des pharaons: de Narmer à Dioclétien, 3150
av. J.-C.–284 apr. J.-C. (Belin, 2016; with Juan Carlos Moreno García);
and Les vaisseaux du désert et des steppes: les camélidés dans l’Antiquité
(Camelus dromedarius et Camelus bactrianus) (MOM éditions, 2020;
with Bérangère Redon).
Gian Pietro Basello was appointed Associate Professor of Elamite
Language at Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” in 2020, after
having taught there since 2010. Together with Javier Álvarez-Mon and
Yasmina Wicks, he edited the volume The Elamite World (Routledge,
2018). Since 2003, he has participated in the Iranian–Italian joint proj-
ect “Digital Achaemenid Royal Inscription Open Schema Hypertext”
(DARIOSH). Beyond Elamite and Achaemenid studies, his research
focuses on ancient calendars and systems for recording time.
Peter R. Bedford (PhD University of Chicago) is John and Jane Wold
Professor of Religious Studies at Union College, New York. He has
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xviii The Contributors
published on the history and economy of imperial regimes in ancient

Western Asia in the first millennium bc, and on Jewish history in the
Achaemenid Persian period. His current research focuses on the politi-
cal theology of imperial rule in ancient Western Asia and its effects on
concepts of governance among subjugated peoples.
Maria Brosius was Associate Professor at the Department of Near
and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto, from
where she retired in 2019. Her research focuses on the history of pre-
Islamic Persia, especially the Achaemenid period, as well as on the
cultural, intellectual, and religious connections between Greece and
the eastern Mediterranean. Her interest in the role of Persian women
is reflected in many articles and especially her monograph Women in
Ancient Persia (559–331 bc) (Oxford University Press, 1996, reprinted
2000, 2002). Further books include A history of ancient Persia: The
Achaemenid Empire (Wiley-Blackwell, 2021); The Persians: an intro-
duction (Routledge 2006); and the edited volume Ancient archives and
archival traditions: concepts of record-keeping in the ancient world (Oxford
University Press, 2003).
Pierfrancesco Callieri is Professor of the Archaeology of Ancient Iran
at the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna’s
Ravenna Campus. His work concerns Iran and the Indo-Iranian border-
lands in the historic, pre-Islamic periods, with a particular focus on these
regions’ seals and ceramics. After taking up fieldwork in Pakistan in 1977
with the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Swat (Istituto italiano per
il Medio ed Estremo Oriente), he initiated in 1984 the excavations at
Barikot, now acknowledged as an archaeological key site for the north-
west of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Since 2005, when he was invited
by Iran’s Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization to
undertake fieldwork in the Fars province, he has served as the Italian
co-director of the Iranian-Italian Joint Archaeological Mission in Fars
(University of Bologna and IsMEO) whose main activities concern the
Achaemenid period, most importantly with the excavation of the gate
complex of Tol-e Ajori near Persepolis.
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The Contributors xix
André Heller (PhD University of Erlangen-Nürnberg 2010, Habilitation

University of Bamberg 2020) is a Lecturer at the Julius-Maximilians-
Universität at Würzburg. The author of Das Babylonien der Spätzeit
(7.–4. Jh.) in den klassischen und keilschriftlichen Quellen (Verlag Antike,
2010), a study comparing the image of Babylonia in the Greco-Roman
sources with the cuneiform tradition, his research focuses on the Ancient
Near East in the first millennium bc and its cultural exchange with the
Greek world, the Hellenistic kingdoms (especially the Seleucids), and
the history of the Roman Empire.
Michael Jursa is Professor of Assyriology at the University of Vienna and
a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His principal research
interest is Babylonian socioeconomic history. His numerous publica-
tions include Neo-Babylonian legal and administrative documents: typol-
ogy, contents and archives (Ugarit-Verlag, 2005); Aspects of the economic
history of Babylonia in the first millennium BC: economic geography, eco-
nomic mentalities, agriculture, the use of money and the problem of eco-
nomic growth (Ugarit-Verlag, 2010); and Letters and documents from the
Eanna Archive (Yale University Press, 2011).
Hilmar Klinkott (PhD University of Tübingen) is Professor of
Ancient History at the Christian Albrechts University at Kiel. His
research focuses on Greek and Ancient Near Eastern history, and he
has published monographs on the administration and history of the
Persian Empire (Der Satrap: ein achaimenidischer Amtsträger und seine
Handlungsspielräume, Verlag Antike, 2005), as well as of Alexander the
Great and the Hellenistic monarchies (Die Satrapienverwaltung der
Alexander-und Diadochenzeit, Franz Steiner, 2000).
Michele Minardi (PhD University of Sydney) is Assistant Professor
of Iranian Archaeology at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. He
is Field Director of the Karakalpak-Australian Expedition to Ancient
Chorasmia (since 2010) and of the IsMEO / Ca’ Foscari Italian
Archaeological Mission in Pakistan (since 2020). As a grantee of the
White-Levy Program for Archaeological Publications, he is currently
working on an archaeological reappraisal of Old Kandahar, based on
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xx The Contributors
unpublished data from the British excavations conducted from 1976

to 1978.
Nadine Moeller (PhD University of Cambridge) is Professor of Egyptian
Archaeology at Yale University. Her research focuses on ancient Egyptian
urbanism, on which she has published the monograph The archaeology of
urbanism in ancient Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2016). She has
participated in numerous fieldwork projects in Egypt and since 2001, she
has been directing excavations at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt.
Norbert Nebes (PhD LMU Munich), recently retired Professor of
Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies, is Head of the Research Center
Ancient South Arabia and Northeast Africa at the Friedrich Schiller
University of Jena. His main areas of research are Classical and Ancient
South Arabic. Working on the language, society, and culture of pre-
Islamic South Arabia, he has regularly been involved as an epigraphist in
the excavations and expeditions of the German Archaeological Institute
in Yemen and Ethiopia. His recent publications, such as Der Tatenbericht
des Yiṯa‘’amar Watar bin Yakrubmalik aus Ṣirwāḥ (Wasmuth, 2016), deal
with the political history of South Arabia in the early first millennium
bc, as well as the immigration of Sabean populations to the northern
Horn of Africa.
Annick Payne is a Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern languages at the
University of Bern as well as an associated researcher of its Center for
Global Studies. Her research focuses on Anatolian languages and writ-
ing systems, especially Anatolian hieroglyphic and alphabetic writing.
She is the epigrapher of the excavations at Sirkeli Höyük and Adana-
Tepebağ. Her books include Hieroglyphic Luwian texts in translation
(SBL Press, 2012); Hieroglyphic Luwian: an introduction with original
texts (Harrassowitz, 2014); and Schrift und Schriftlichkeit: die anatolische
Hieroglyphenschrift (Harrassowitz, 2015).
Daniel T. Potts (PhD Harvard University) is Professor of Ancient
Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the Institute for the Study of
the Ancient World, New York University. A Corresponding Member
of the German Archaeological Institute, he has worked in Iran, the
xxi
The Contributors xxi
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Armenia, and the Kurdish
Autonomous Region of Iraq. His numerous books include The archae-
ology of Elam: formation and transformation of an ancient Iranian state
(Cambridge University Press, 2015, 2nd ed.) and Nomadism in Iran: from
antiquity to the modern era (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Karen Radner (PhD University of Vienna) holds the Alexander von
Humboldt Chair of the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at
LMU Munich. A member of the German Archaeological Institute and
the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, her numerous books
include Ancient Assyria: a very short introduction (Oxford University
Press, 2015) and A short history of Babylon (Bloomsbury, 2020), as well as
editions of cuneiform archives from Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Robert Rollinger (PhD University of Innsbruck) is Full Professor at
the Department of Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
of the Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck since 2005. From 2011
to 2015, he also served as a Finland Distinguished Professor at the
Department of World Cultures of the University of Helsinki. He cur-
rently holds a Visiting Professorship at the University of Wrocław as part
of the NAWA Chair 2020 Programme “From the Achaemenids to the
Romans: contextualizing empire and its longue-durée developments,”
funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA)
from 2021 to 2025. His main research interests are Greek historiography,
the history of the first millennium bc, and comparative empire studies.
Alexander Schütze (PhD University of Leipzig) is currently
Akademischer Rat auf Zeit at the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology
at LMU Munich. His research focuses on the administrative, legal, and
economic history of Egypt in the Late Period. He has published on the
administration of Persian-period Egypt and contributes to the publica-
tion of the finds from the excavations at Tuna el-Gebel in Middle Egypt.
In his ongoing Habilitation project, he is investigating the administra-
tion of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, based on the titles held by the officials.
Juan Manuel Tebes specializes in the history and archaeology of
the southern Levant and northwestern Arabia in the Iron Age. He is
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xxii The Contributors
Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the Catholic University of

Argentina and Researcher at the Argentinian National Research Council
(CONICET). A former editor-in-chief of the journal Antiguo Oriente,
he is co-editor of the Society of Biblical Literature’s Ancient Near East
Monographs series. He was a visiting professor at Université Paris 1
Panthéon Sorbonne and has held fellowships at the Albright Institute of
Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, the American Center of Oriental
Research in Amman, the Maison de l’Archéologie et de l’Ethnologie in
Paris, the University of Sydney, New York University, the University of
Michigan, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
München, Université Toulouse, and at the Stellenbosch Institute for
Advanced Study.
Giusto Traina is a Professor of Ancient History at Sorbonne Université
in Paris, editor-in-chief of the Revue internationale d’Histoire militaire
ancienne (Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté) and joint editor of
the journal Iran and the Caucasus (Brill). His research interests focus on
Armenian history and philology, as well as the military history of the
ancient world. He is currently preparing a comprehensive political his-
tory of the kingdom of Greater Armenia.
Matt Waters (PhD University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia) is Professor
of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Wisconsin-
Eau Claire. With his research focusing on the ancient Near East and
Greece, Waters is the author of A survey of Neo-Elamite history (The
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2000); Ancient Persia (Cambridge
University Press, 2014); Ctesias’ Persica and its Near Eastern context
(University of Wisconsin Press, 2017); and King of the world: the life of
Cyrus the Great (Oxford University Press, 2022), as well as several dozen
articles and related publications.
xxi
Abbreviations
AAE Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy

ABADY Archäologische Berichte aus dem Yemen
ACSS Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia
ADAJ Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan
AfO Archiv für Orientforschung
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures
AMIT Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan
AnSt Anatolian Studies
AoF Altorientalische Forschungen
ARTA Achaemenid Research on Texts and Archaeology
ASAE Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte
AWE Ancient West and East
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BIFAO Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale
BMSAES British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
BSFE Bulletin de la Société Française d’Égyptologie
CdE Chronique d’Égypte
CRAIBL Comptes-rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres
HS Historische Sprachforschung
IrAnt Iranica Antiqua
JAC Journal of Asian Civilizations
JANER Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
xvi
xxiv Abbreviations
JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JNSL Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages
JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
MDAIK Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
Abteilung Kairo
NABU Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires
OJA Oxford Journal of Archaeology
OLZ Orientalistische Literaturzeitung
PSAS Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies
RA Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale
RdÉ Revue d’Égyptologie
RlA Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen
Archäologie
SAAB State Archives of Assyria Bulletin
SAK Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur
SHAJ Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan
TA Tel Aviv
UF Ugarit-Forschungen
WdO Die Welt des Orients
ZA Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische
Archäologie
ZAR Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische
Rechtsgeschichte
ZÄS Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde
ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft
ZOrA Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
The abbreviations used for classical authors and their works follow The Oxford
Classical Dictionary, edited by S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 4th ed.).
Ael. VH Aelianus, Varia Historia

Aesch. Pers. Aeschylus, Persae
xv
Abbreviations xxv
App. Syr. Appian, Syriaca

Ar. Eq. Aristophanes, Equites
Archil. Archilochus
Arist. Pol. Aristoteles, Politica
Arist. Rh. Aristoteles, Rhetorica
Arr. An. Arrian, Anabasis
Arr. Ind. Arrian, Indica
Ath. Athenaeus
Bacchyl. Bacchylides
Callim. Aet. Callimachus, Aetia
Cic. Flac. Cicero, Pro Flacco
Curt. Q. Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni
Democr. Democritus
Diod. Sic. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica
Diog. Laert. Diogenes Laertius
Dion. Halic. Dionysius Halicarnassensis
Eur. Bacch. Euripides, Bacchae
Euseb. Chron. Eusebius, Chronica
Eust. Il. Eustathius, Ad Iliadem
FGrH Numbers according to Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der
griechischen Historiker. Berlin: Weidmann, 1923− and
Worthington, I. (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby. Leiden:
Brill, 2006−. Retrieved from https://referenceworks.
brillonline.com/browse/brill-s-new-jacoby
(last accessed January 16, 2021).
Harp. Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators
Hdt. Herodotus, Histories
Hieron. Hieronymus
Hom. Il. Homer, Iliad
Hsch. Hesychius
Isid. Isidorus
Isoc. Isocrates
Joseph. AJ Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae
Just. Epit. Justinus, Epitome (of Trogus)
Luc. Alex. Lucan, Alexander
Lyd. Mens. Lydus, De Mensibus
Nep. Nepos
Nic. Dam. Nicolaus Damascenus
Paus. Pausanias, Hellados Periegesis
xvi
xxvi Abbreviations
Phot. Bibl. Photius, Bibliotheca

Pind. Ol. Pindar, Olympian Odes
Pl. Leg. Plato, Leges
Pl. Resp. Plato, Respublica
Plin. HN Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia
Plut. Cim. Plutarch, Cimon
Plut. De Is. et Os. Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride
Plut. De Pyth. or. Plutarch, De Pythiae Oraculis
Plut. Mor. Plutarch, Moralia
Plut. Quaest. Graec. Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae
Plut. Vit. Ages. Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae: Agesilaus
Plut. Vit. Alc. Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae: Alcibiades
Plut. Vit. Alex. Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae: Alexander
Plut. Vit. Artax. Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae: Artaxerxes
Plut. Vit. Them. Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae: Themistocles
Poll. Onom. Pollux, Onomasticon
Polyaenus Strat. Polyaenus, Strategemata
Procop. Pers. Procopius, De Bello Persico
Ps. Arist. Oec. Pseudo Aristotle, Oeconomica
Ptol. Geog. Ptolemaeus mathematicus, Geographia
Steph. Byz. Stephanus Byzantius, Ethnika
Str. Strabo, Geographika
Suda Greek Lexicon formerly known as Suidas
Tac. Ann. Tacitus, Annales
Theophr. Hist. pl. Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum
Thuc. Thucydides, Histories
Val. Max. Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia
Varro Rust. Varro, De Re Rustica
Verg. Aen. Virgil, Aeneid
Vitr. Vitruvius, De Architectura
Xen. Ages. Xenophon, Agesilaus
Xen. An. Xenophon, Anabasis
Xen. Cyr. Xenophon, Cyropaedia
Xen. Hell. Xenophon, Hellenica
Xen. Oec. Xenophon, Oeconomicus
1
49
Saite Egypt
Alexander Schütze
49.1. Introduction
The Saite period is the period of ca. 130 years between the reunification
of Upper and Lower Egypt in Year 9 of Psamtek I in 656 bc and the con-
quest of Egypt by the Persian imperial forces in Year 4 of Cambyses in
526 bc when the Saite Dynasty controlled Egypt (figure 49.1). The city of
Sais, situated in the western Nile delta and the hometown of Psamtek I,
the dynasty’s founder, gives the dynasty and the respective period its
name.
The Saite period is regarded as a phase of great prosperity for
Egypt, concluding a time of political turmoil and foreign rule that had
lasted almost four centuries: the so-called Third Intermediate Period
(chapter 35 in volume 4). After the New Kingdom came to an end in
1069 bc with the death of Rameses XI (1099–1069 bc; see chapter 27 in
volume 3), Egypt initially disintegrated into two political regions, with
Tanis as the center in the north and the Theban Gottesstaat in the south.
Over time, powerful Libyan clans came to form ruling dynasties of their
own in Lower and Middle Egypt. By the eighth century bc, when the
Kushite rulers of Nubia (chapter 36 in volume 4) had conquered Egypt
from the south, the land along the Nile had disintegrated into a multi-
tude of local principalities. In the seventh century bc, after a series of
Alexander Schütze, Saite Egypt In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Karen
Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0049
2
2 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East
Figure 49.1. Sites mentioned in c hapter 49. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri

(LMU Munich).
invasions starting in 672 bc, the Assyrian Empire succeeded in extend-

ing its sphere of influence into Egypt and installed local princes as cli-
ent rulers. During a period of political instability for both the Kushite
and Assyrian states, Psamtek I of Sais was able to extend his influence
decisively into Lower and Middle Egypt, eventually integrating the terri-
tory under his control with Upper Egypt. Thus, Egypt was again unified
3
Saite Egypt 3
and ruled by one king of local extraction. In the service of reintegrating

the lands on the Nile, the Saite kings undertook an extensive temple-
building program all over Egypt, and especially in the Nile delta. They
also significantly expanded their traditional residence of Sais, now the
state capital, whereas the southern city of Thebes, which had continued
to play an important role under Kushite rule (chapter 36 in volume 4),
increasingly lost its influence under the Saite rulers.
In the course of his extraordinarily long reign, Psamtek I (664–
610 bc) succeeded in consolidating his power in Egypt and was able
to break the influence of the remaining local dynasts. Not only did he
secure Egypt’s borders, but in the last years of his reign, he proved able
to expand his territory into the southern Levant. After the collapse of
the Assyrian Empire from 612 bc onward (chapters 38 and 39 in volume
4), Egypt competed with the Neo-Babylonian Empire (chapter 50 in
this volume) for control over the lands on the eastern Mediterranean
coast, losing its hold on the Levant under Psamtek’s son and successor,
Nekau II (610–595 bc). However, when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
(604–562 bc) attempted a conquest of Egypt, this initiative thoroughly
failed.
Against the eastern threat posed first by the Neo-Babylonian Empire
and later the Persian Empire (chapters 51 and 64 in this volume), the Saite
rulers, and Amasis (Ahmose III; 570–526 bc)1 in particular, organized
an extensive network of diplomatic relations with the Greek world. In
addition to trade agreements, the recruitment of mercenaries was central
to these efforts. The founder of the dynasty, Psamtek I, had already relied
on Ionian and Carian mercenaries to secure his power in Egypt and later
in the southern Levant. Greek contingents were an important part of a
campaign to Nubia under Psamtek II (595–589 bc) and later played a
decisive role in the dynastic conflicts between Apries (589–570 bc) and
the eventual usurper Amasis.
During the Saite period, Egypt underwent extensive administrative
reforms. Under Psamtek I, a new cursive script was introduced, which
is today called Demotic. A new elite formed by the highest officials of
1. For the first two rulers called Ahmose, see chapter 24 in volume 3.
4
the central administration emerged, with its members exceptionally

well attested by numerous monuments, such as their tombs, as well
as hundreds of temple statues. On the other hand, the Saite period
was characterized by an intensive preoccupation with the legacies of
Egyptian culture. Monuments of earlier eras were copied, and religious
texts were collected and recompiled. In sculpture, the outstanding crafts-
manship in evidence in tomb reliefs and temple statues testifies to the
high level of artistic creation in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The Saite
period served not only as a model for the Thirtieth Dynasty founded by
Nectanebo I (399–383 bc; see c hapter 61 in this volume), but some of
the institutions established by the Saite Dynasty survived intact into the
time of the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Ptolemaic period
(332–30 bc).
After briefly discussing the primary sources (section 49.2), this chap-
ter focuses on different aspects of the foreign and domestic policies pur-
sued by the various Saite kings from reunification until the eve of the
Persian conquest (sections 49.3–49.10) and outlines the key features of
their strategies vis-à-vis the temples (section 49.11), before considering
the significance of the Saite Dynasty and the “Renaissance” associated
with it within Egyptian cultural history (section 49.12).
49.2. The sources for the Saite period

The reconstruction of the political history of Egypt under the Twenty-
sixth Dynasty relies to a large extent on non-Egyptian sources, including
the Assyrian annals, the Babylonian chronicles, and the Bible, as well as
classical authors, most notably Herodotus, who devoted an entire book
of his Histories to Egypt, including the history of the Saite period.2
In contrast to this wealth of outside sources, the number of avail-
able Egyptian royal inscriptions is limited. The so-called Adoption
Stele of Nitiqret, as well as the so-called Victory Stele of Amasis, were
2. For recent overviews, see Perdu 2010; Forshaw 2019; Leahy 2020; Payraudeau
2020: 227–274; also Kienitz 1953 is still valuable. On the chronology of the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty, see Depuydt 2006.
5
Saite Egypt 5
commissioned by Psamtek I and Amasis with the explicit intent to mark

key milestones in Egypt’s political history. Military successes such as
the campaign of Psamtek I in order to subdue a Libyan rebellion and
the campaign of Psamtek II against Nubia are attested in steles erected
to commemorate these events.3 Recent discoveries, such as the Victory
Stele of Apries at Tell Defenna,4 demonstrate that our picture of the
political history of the Saite period gains greater nuance as new finds
become available. But for many events, such as the engagement of the
Saite kings in the Levant, we are entirely dependent on non-Egyptian
sources, which are shaped by their authors’ perspectives on these events
and in whose narratives Egyptian agency plays a marginal role at best. To
give an example, the Bible refers to the Saite kings only with regard to the
fate of the kingdom of Judah (section 49.5).
Herodotus’s book on Egypt in the Histories offers a coherent narra-
tive of the political history of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and is there-
fore especially relevant in this context.5 Herodotus presumably traveled
through Egypt in person in the mid-fifth century bc, when the Nile
region was under Persian imperial rule. He therefore was in a position to
incorporate Egyptian narratives into his work, and indeed, specific ele-
ments in Herodotus’s account, such as the description of King Amasis’s
legendary boozing or Psamtek II’s campaign against Nubia, find echoes
in the available Egyptian sources. While events such as the coronation
of Psamtek I seem to have been narratively reshaped and information
about his successors is sporadic in Herodotus’s writing, he dedicated a
huge part of the narrative to Amasis, the penultimate Saite king.6 To
some extent, this may be the case because Amasis was particularly well-
known in the Greek world due to the complex diplomatic relationships
he entertained there. Indeed, Greek involvement in Egypt during the

3. For the royal inscriptions, including those mentioned here, see Jansen-
Winkeln 2014a.
4. Abd el-Maqsoud and Valbelle 2013.
5. Hdt. 2.152−182; see Lloyd 1975–1988; also De Meulenaere 1951.
6. Müller 2006: 189–224.
6
Saite period is a recurring theme in Herodotus, who primarily addressed

a Greek audience. There was much material to draw on, as Greek mer-
cenaries had played a central role in establishing Psamtek I’s rule over
Lower and Middle Egypt, routinely participated in military campaigns
of the Saite kings, and had been intimately involved in the dynastic con-
flicts between Apries and Amasis.
In addition to the Egyptian royal inscriptions, various genres of
hieroglyphic texts play a role in the reconstruction of not only Saite
Egypt’s political history, but also the religious politics of its rulers, as
well as more generally the administration and society of the Twenty-
sixth Dynasty. Apart from a few exceptions, such as a freestanding shrine
(naos) in the sanctuary of Banebdjedet at Mendes in the western Nile
delta or the temple of Amun in Siwa oasis, hardly any extant temple
buildings bear witness to the extensive temple-building projects pursued
by the kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. This is due to the fact that
many monuments were reused in later constructions or, as in the case of
Sais or Heliopolis in the Nile delta, were dismantled and transported to
other sites for reuse—and in some cases, even were taken to Rome during
the time of Egypt’s integration into the Roman Empire. Extant temple
blocks, however, indicate that the focus of the kings’ building works
lay firmly on the Nile delta, while new edifices at Thebes in the south
are scarce, and dedicated to local forms of the god Osiris in particular.
Furthermore, increased building activity is also evident in the oases of
the Libyan desert.
A further important source for the relationship between crown and
temples are the so-called donation steles, which document royal dona-
tions of agricultural lands and other production facilities to Egyptian
temples.7 In the Saite period, officials increasingly appeared to act as
intermediaries between the crown and the temples, stressing especially
in their biographical inscriptions how they had supported the Egyptian
cults.8 At the necropolis of Saqqara near Memphis, the steles installed
7. Meeks 1979; 2009.

8. Otto 1954; Heise 2007; Bassir 2014.
7
Saite Egypt 7
on behalf of Saite kings as well as officials and priests in the Serapeum,

where they were set up in the galleries of the burial place of the Apis bulls
that had been built under Psamtek I, represent a separate group (dubbed
the “Serapeum steles”) and document the biographies of the individual
Apis bulls.9
Quantitatively by far the largest body of Egyptian sources of
information at our disposal are the several hundred temple statues of
Egyptian officials and, to a lesser extent, of priests.10 While in the early
Saite period, such temple statues were often originally located at Thebes,
where many were found in a hoard (cachette) at the Karnak temple com-
plex, the sites of such monuments shifted noticeably northward during
the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and particularly to Sais and Memphis.11 The
officials also built the largest known, non-royal tombs, initially mainly in
the form of temple tombs at Thebes and later monumental shaft tombs
in the Memphite necropoleis of Giza, Abusir, and Saqqara, and to a
lesser extent also at Sais and Heliopolis.12 The officials’ tombs contained
mostly religious texts drawing on the large corpora of Egyptian funerary
literature. However, there are a number of temple statues that combine
traditional texts such as offering formulas, appeals to the living, or the
so-called Saitic Formula with biographical inscriptions, some of which
are relevant for our reconstruction of Egypt’s political history.13 Their
placement is primarily connected to the donations made to Egyptian
temples, which are frequently mentioned in these inscriptions.14 Most
importantly, these monuments provide the basis for the reconstruction
of the administration in the Saite period.
There are relatively few administrative sources available, and these are
of little importance for the reconstruction of the political history and
9. Vercoutter 1962; Malinine et al. 1968; see also Devauchelle 2011.

10. Cf. the non-royal documents in Jansen-Winkeln 2014a.
11. Coulon 2016a (Karnak cachette); El-Sayed 1975 (Sais).
12. For overviews, see Eigner 1982; Stammers 2009; Wagdy 2020.
13. Jansen-Winkeln 2008; 2016a.
14. Spencer 2010.
8
administration of Egypt in the Saite period. Although the official script

of Egypt had been fundamentally reformed by Psamtek I, Demotic may
not have replaced the old Abnormal Hieratic script at Thebes until as
late as the reign of Amasis. Only a handful of Abnormal Hieratic and
Demotic papyri are known, and these are mainly attributable to the
activity sphere of the local Theban funerary priests (choachytes), offering
insight into this social group.15 Among the Theban documents, the so-
called Saite Oracle Papyrus stands out. An extensive text dating to Year
14 of Psamtek I (651 bc), it documents a group of more than fifty persons
with priestly functions, among them such notables as Montuemhat, the
mayor of Thebes.16 No less unusual is Papyrus Rylands 9 (written after 513
bc), a petition by a temple scribe from el-Hiba in Middle Egypt, presum-
ably addressed to the Persian satrap of Egypt, that recounts his family
history over several generations, back into the time of Psamtek I.17 At
the heart of the petition are the priestly prebends that an ancestor of
Petiese had obtained under Psamtek I and that the family subsequently
had lost under Psamtek II; since then, the family had pursued all pos-
sible legal processes in order to regain them but had remained unsuc-
cessful. This petition not only offers unique insights into the history of a
priestly family, but also constitutes an important source for the adminis-
trative history of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, as it mentions a wide range
of administrative officials such as the “harbor master,” the “overseer of
the antechamber,” and the “planner,” as well as local officials such as the
governors, generals, or overseers of the fields in action. Moreover, it is the
only extant source of information about Psamtek II’s campaign to Syria
(section 49.7).18
15. E.g., Donker van Heel 1995; see also Vleeming 1995.
16. Parker 1962; see also De Meulenaere 1997.
17. Griffith 1909; Vittmann 1998; see also Hoffmann and Quack 2007: 22–54, 331–
333; Agut-Labordère and Chauveau 2011: 145–200, 332–341; Vittmann 2015.
18. Due to the literary qualities of the petition (which are admittedly debatable), its
character as a legal document has been questioned in recent times; see, e.g., Jay
2015. However, this tends to overlook the fact that the petition was not only part
of an archive of legal documents but is itself genuinely documentary in character.
9
Saite Egypt 9
Research on the Saite period has been greatly advanced in the last
two decades by a number of important publications. Foremost among
these is Karl Jansen-Winkeln’s systematic survey of the hieroglyphic
inscriptions of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, which provides the indispens-
able foundation for any research on the textual evidence of that period.19
New discoveries have only added a few new texts to the known corpus
of royal inscriptions in recent years, with the most prominent example
being the afore-mentioned Victory Stele of Apries from Tell Defenna.20
Studies of temple-building activity in the delta, the oases of the Libyan
desert, and the Osiris chapels at Karnak in particular, have allowed us to
develop a more nuanced understanding of the Saite kings’ involvement
in Egyptian religious practice.21 The vast majority of available sources
for the Twenty-sixth Dynasty are monuments commissioned by officials,
and to a lesser extent priests, scattered now across many museum col-
lections, and these individuals have been the subject of several studies.22
The architecture of the monumental tombs of the high officials of the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty at Thebes, as well as the necropoleis of Memphis
and Heliopolis, have been studied in some detail, although reliable edi-
tions of the funerary texts of these burials are still largely lacking.23 In
addition, there are a number of recent studies on sites in the Nile delta
that were of prominence in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, notably Sais,
19. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a; for Psamtek I, see also Perdu 2002a.

20. Abd el-Maqsoud and Valbelle 2013.
21. Leclère 2008 (Nile delta); Kaper 2012; 2018; Darnell et al. 2013 (oases of the
Libyan desert); Coulon 2016b; Coulon et al. 2018 (Osiris chapels at Karnak).
22. On Sais, see El-Sayed 1975; on Thebes, see Vittmann 1978; Graefe 1981; 2012;
Broekman 2012; on the military, see Chevereau 1985; 1990; on the administra-
tion in general, see Pressl 1998; also Agut-Labordère 2013; and on Psamtek II, see
Gozzoli 2017.
23. Eigner 1984 (Thebes); El-Sadeek 1984; Zivie 1991 (Giza); Bareš 1999; Bareš and
Smoláriková 2008; 2011; Coppens and Smoláriková 2009 (Abusir); Bickel and
Tallet 1997; Wagdy 2020 (Heliopolis). For an overview, see Stammers 2009.
10
Naukratis, and Tell Defenna;24 but due to their generally poor state of
preservation, many questions must remain unanswered.
49.3. The unification of Upper and

Lower Egypt
In 664 bc, when Psamtek I was installed as ruler of Sais and Memphis
by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668–631 bc), Egypt was divided
into various principalities that were either under Kushite or Assyrian
control.25 During the long reign of the Kushite king Taharqo, the local
princes of Libyan origin in the Nile delta had become increasingly inde-
pendent of Kushite rule. After a first failed attempt to conquer Egypt,
Esarhaddon of Assyria (680–669 bc) finally conquered Memphis in
671 bc and even captured some members of the Kushite royal family,
while Taharqo managed to escape to his capital of Napata.26 Esarhaddon
allowed the local princes to continue to govern in their traditional
domains, including Nekau I, ruler of Sais and father of Psamtek I,
and Montuemhat, the mayor of Thebes.27 Two years later, in 669 bc,
Taharqo recaptured Memphis, but it was taken back by Ashurbanipal
in 667 bc, while Thebes surrendered without a fight during this new
Assyrian invasion.28 After the Delta princes unsuccessfully revolted
against the Assyrian domination, many of them were executed, whereas
Psamtek I, the son of Nekau I of Sais, was appointed lord of Athribis.
When Taharqo’s successor Tanutamani reconquered Memphis, Nekau
I was killed in a battle against the Kushite king and Psamtek I fled to
24. For an overview, see Leclère 2008.

25. Yoyotte 2012; Moje 2014.
26. Grayson 1975: 85–86; Leichty 2011: no. 98: rev. 37–50; no. 103; no. 1019; see also
Spalinger 1974a; Onasch 1994: 16–60; Kahn 2006; Radner 2008.
27. On the predecessors of Psamtek I, see Perdu 2002b; Ryholt 2011b.
28. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 2: iii 6–iv 1´, no. 3: i 48–i 90, no. 4: i 38–75, no. 6: ii
4´–2´´, no. 7: ii 1´–19´´, no. 8: ii 1´–32´, and no. 11: i 52–117; see also Spalinger
1974b; Onasch 1994: 147–154.
1
Saite Egypt 11
the Assyrian court at Nineveh.29 Ashurbanipal returned to Egypt and

recaptured Memphis in 664 bc, sacked Thebes, drove Tanutamani per-
manently out of Egypt, and installed Psamtek I (figure 49.2) as ruler of
Sais and Memphis.
In his first eight years of reign, Psamtek I achieved dominance over
the Nile delta, as more and more local princes recognized his rule or
were replaced by loyal governors. In Sebennytos, the “great chief and
commander” Akanosh (B) had already recognized Nekau I; and under
Psamtek I, his successor Akanosh (C) only held the titles of “count and
governor.”30 This was also true of Pamu, the governor of Busiris, whose
predecessor Sheshonq (F) had still called himself “great one of the Ma”
(a Libyan tribe). In Year 8 of Psamtek, a “great chief and commander” is
attested for the last time in Pharbaitos, whereas the holder of the title
“great one of the Ma” seems to have only had responsibility for policing
duties in Year 31 of Psamtek.31 Pamu, the governor of Busiris, was eventu-
ally replaced by a governor appointed by the Saite ruler, and this was also
the case for Leontopolis.32
In the enforcement of Psamtek I’s rule over the Nile delta, Greek and
other mercenaries from Asia Minor played a decisive role. The inscrip-
tions of Ashurbanipal of Assyria record that Gyges of Lydia sent troops
to Psamtek after the Assyrian Empire refused to support the Lydian king
with troops against the Cimmerians,33 and the role of Ionian and Carian
mercenaries is very much emphasized in Herodotus’s narrative concern-
ing the rise of Psamtek I.34 In the course of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty,
29. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 3: ii 5b-24, no. 4: ii 1–11´, no. iii 18´b-57´, no. 7: iii
1´-15´, no. 9: i 34–54, no. 11: ii 22–48, and no. 12: ii 7´-14´a; see also Onasch
1994: 154–158.
30. Perdu 2004.
31. Papyrus Rylands 9: 11; see Ritner 1990.
32. Perdu 2006.
33. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 11: ii 112a–115a; see also Spalinger 1976; Lloyd 2007.
34. Hdt. 2.151.
12
Figure 49.2. The colossal statue of Psamtek I, recently found at Heliopolis,

as digitally reconstructed by Christopher Breninek. Courtesy of the Heliopolis
Project, Leipzig University.
these mercenaries would play a key role in the fortunes of the Saite kings
(section 49.9).
In 656 bc, his ninth regnal year, Psamtek I integrated Upper
Egypt into his domain by causing the ruling God’s Wife of Amun,
Shepenupet II, to adopt his daughter Nitiqret (also known as Nitocris)
as her appointed heir. This event is attested in detail in the inscription
of the so-called Adoption Stele of Nitiqret from the Karnak temple
13
Saite Egypt 13
complex.35 By doing so, Psamtek made use of a strategy that had previ-
ously been successfully employed by the Kushite kings, namely the close
involvement of members of the royal family in the cult of the God’s
Wife: Shepenupet II, e.g., was the daughter of the Kushite king Taharqo.
The appointment of Nitiqret was presumably the fruit of a long-standing
strategy; as early as during the time of Nekau I, the Saite clan had man-
aged to have one of their princesses included in the cult of the God’s
Wife.36
As the last monument of the Kushite king Tanutamani in Egypt dates
to 657 bc, his eighth regnal year,37 it was presumably at that time that
the nominal rule of the Kushites over Upper Egypt officially ended. It
is disputed whether Nitiqret’s appointment was a purely political devel-
opment or perhaps even the result of a military coup. What is certain
from the stele is that Nitiqret sailed south with a large fleet led by the
harbor master and general Sematawytefnakht to take up her new posi-
tion, and the extensive contributions made from all parts of the country
to the cult of the God’s Wife illustrate that this was considered an event
of transregional significance.38 Nitiqret and her successor as God’s Wife
of Amun, Ankhnesneferibra, both erected a series of new buildings at
Thebes, especially Osiris chapels.39
The prominent role played by local rulers such as Sematawytefnakht,
the harbor master and governor of Herakleopolis, and Montuemhat,
the mayor of Thebes, in the Nitiqret Adoption Stele illustrates that in
his first years of rule, Psamtek I very much depended on their coop-
eration. Montuemhat had already held the office of mayor of Thebes
under Kushite rule and was listed among the petty rulers of Egypt in
35. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 53.28; see Caminos 1964; Ritner 2009: 575–582.
36. Coulon and Payraudeau 2015; Jansen-Winkeln 2018.
37. Ritner 2009: 573–574.
38. Blöbaum 2016.
39. On the institution of the God’s Wife of Amun, see Ayad 2009; Koch 2012;
Becker et al. 2016.
14
the Assyrian royal inscriptions.40 The high priests of Amun of Thebes

also remained in office after Psamtek’s takeover and are listed alongside
Montuemhat as late as Year 14 (651 bc) in the Saite Oracle Papyrus
among the more than fifty individuals acting as witnesses when a member
of the priesthood was transferred from one Theban temple to another.41
However, the status quo in Thebes changed by the time Nitiqret eventu-
ally succeeded Shepenupet II to the office of God’s Wife of Amun, which
probably coincided with the installation of Ibi as the God’s Wife’s chief
steward in Psamtek’s Year 26 in 639 bc. In the biographical inscription
on a statue, Ibi related how the king had appointed him to this office in
order to restore the institution of the God’s Wife, which had fallen into
disrepair over time as its resources had been misappropriated.42
In fact, the chief steward of the God’s Wife of Amun now took over
tasks that had traditionally been part of the remit of the vizier of Upper
Egypt, an office that had still fulfilled these functions under Kushite rule
(Twenty-fifth Dynasty; chapter 35 in volume 4).43 The office of vizier
was the highest administrative post in the Egyptian state, and since the
time of the Old Kingdom, there had been a vizier for Upper Egypt and
another for Lower Egypt (chapter 5 in volume 1). This apparently changed
early during the time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty: Nespakashuti (D),
who was buried in a rock tomb in the Theban necropolis during the
reign of Psamtek I, was the last Upper Egyptian vizier to be attested
under the Saite Dynasty, whereas viziers of Lower Egypt continue to
be attested until the reign of Amasis.44 That the viziers of Upper Egypt
served not only as administrators of the institution of the God’s Wife,
with her rather modest resources, is made clear by such additional titles
40. Leclant 1961; Blöbaum 2020; on the tomb, see Russmann 1994; Gestermann
et al. 2021.
41. Parker 1962; see also Vittmann 1978; Broekman 2012.
42. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 59.47; Graefe 1994; Ritner 2009: 591–592.
43. Vittmann 1978; Graefe 1981; 2012; 2017; Pressl 1998; Broekman 2012; Koch
2019; see also Jansen-Winkeln 2014a (vol. 2).
44. Pischikova 1998.
15
Saite Egypt 15
as “Overseer of Upper Egypt,” an office that had experienced a revival

under the Twenty-fifth Dynasty and had formerly been held by the
members of the family of Montuemhat, the mayor of Thebes. When
Montuemhat died around 648 bc, only a few years after the unification
of Upper and Lower Egypt under Psamtek, he bequeathed important
offices such as that of “mayor of Thebes” and “overseer of Upper Egypt”
to his son Nesptah (B). However, when Nesptah disappears from the
available sources around 639 bc, apparently without having appointed a
successor,45 the office of mayor of Thebes was taken over by Khonsuirdis,
the mayor of Edfu, while the position of “overseer of Upper Egypt” fell
to Ibi, the chief steward of the God’s Wife of Amun, and his successors
Pabasa, Padihorresnet, and Ankhhor.
The importance of the chief stewards of the God’s Wife is also
expressed by the monumental tombs built for them in the Theban
necropolis. Following in the tradition of dignitaries of the late Twenty-
fifth and early Twenty-sixth Dynasties such as Montuemhat, mayor of
Thebes, the chief steward of the God’s Wife Harwa, and the chief lec-
tor priest Padiamenope, Ibi was the first of several chief stewards who
constructed a monumental tomb for himself in the Theban necropolis
in the Asasif region, on the western bank of the Nile.46 These large com-
plexes, still very well visible from afar, correspond in form to the temple-
tombs of the Ramesside period (chapter 27 in volume 3): a widely visible
upper structure with an entrance pylon and three courtyards behind it,
an atrium reached via a side entrance, and a series of underground rooms
leading to the actual burial chamber and further underground enclosures,
sometimes imitating the tomb of the god Osiris. This type of temple-
tomb is also attested in Memphis where, during the reign of Psamtek I,
the Lower Egyptian vizier Bakenrenef had a monumental tomb built in
Saqqara that was architecturally very similar to these Theban tombs.47
45. De Meulenaere 2008.

46. Eigner 1984; Kuhlmann and Schenkel 1983; Graefe 1990 (Ibi); Bietak and Reiser-
Haslauer 1978 (Ankhhor); Graefe et al. 2003 (Padihorresnet).
47. Bresciani et al. 1983.
16
In Middle Egypt, we can observe a similar development as in Thebes

toward stronger control by the crown. At the beginning of the reign of
Psamtek I, Middle Egypt was ruled by a “harbor master,” who resided
in Herakleopolis. The office of harbor master is only attested from
the beginning of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and according to Papyrus
Rylands 9, its holder was responsible for the collection of taxes in Upper
Egypt. This position may have been equivalent to the synonymous
Assyrian office (rab kāri) that concerned similar duties and it may there-
fore have been introduced into Egypt during the period of Assyrian
domination.48 Sematawytefnakht, who probably succeeded the harbor
master Petiese shortly before playing a prominent role in the unifica-
tion of Egypt, held several additional offices such as “overseer of the
Herakleopolites” and “great overseer of the troops,” as well as numer-
ous local priestly offices.49 He thus combined administrative, military,
and religious functions in one person, just like the Libyan local lead-
ers in the Nile delta had done before Psamtek’s rise. Like his contem-
porary Montuemhat at Thebes, Sematawytefnakht also held the title
of “overseer of Upper Egypt” and left monuments throughout Egypt
testifying to his sphere of influence. However, after Sematawytefnakht
had held it, the title of harbor master is no longer attested, and his
successor Paakhraef moreover only held the office of “overseer of the
Herakleopolites,” but no longer that of “great overseer of the troops,”
although he was “overseer of the Royal Fleet.”50 A further indication
that the Saite rulers were increasingly seeking to implement a separation
of powers in Middle Egypt is provided by Papyrus Rylands 9. While
the harbor master Sematawytefnakht still appears in Psamtek I’s Year
31 in a position of local judicial authority in Herakleopolis, in Year 4
of Psamtek II, and still in Year 15 of Amasis, it was the “chief of the
Herakleopolites” who assumed that role.
48. Leahy 2011: 216.

49. Leahy 2011; Pope 2015.
50. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 53.333.
17
Saite Egypt 17
49.4. Securing the borders of Egypt

Shortly after the annexation of Upper Egypt into his domain, Psamtek I
undertook a campaign against some rebellious Libyan tribes who seem
to have advanced into Egyptian territory over a wide region stretching
from northern Middle Egypt up to the Mediterranean coast. This is evi-
denced by a fragmentary stele dated to Year 11 of Psamtek I (654 bc) that
was found together with other steles of that king at South Saqqara, where
they presumably served as boundary markers.51 Whether the insurgents
were Libyan local princes from the Nile delta, as the historian Diodorus
Siculus suggested much later,52 cannot be confirmed by contemporary
sources. In any case, establishing secure borders must have been a key
priority of the Saite king once he had gained control over Upper and
Lower Egypt.
Herodotus reports that Psamtek established garrisons at Marea in
the west, Daphnae in the east, and Elephantine in the south, and the
last two still existed in Persian imperial times.53 About the Saite fortifi-
cation of Marea (modern Kom el-Idris), nothing is known archaeologi-
cally,54 and our knowledge about a garrison on the border with Libya
is therefore based solely on textual sources. Under Amasis, the inscrip-
tion on his statue mentions an “overseer of the Gate of the Foreigners
of Tjehenu” named Sematawytefnakht Wahibramen, who was at the
same time “overseer of the Asiatics,” an archaic term for peoples from
the Levant, i.e., at that time Phoenicians, Arameans, and Judeans.55 The
presence of Arameans on the western frontier of Egypt is also attested by
a stele with an Aramaic inscription that dates to the Persian period,56 and
the situation is similar for Elephantine on the southern frontier of Egypt,
51. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 53.22–23; Ritner 2009: 585–587.

52. Diod. Sic. 1.26.
53. Hdt. 2.30.
54. On Saite fortresses in general, see Smoláriková 2008.
56. Vittmann 2003: 106, 110 fig. 47.
18
where the existence of a Persian-period garrison manned with Aramean

and Judean troops at Elephantine/Syene is well attested from finds
of Aramaic papyri and ostraca (chapter 61 in this volume). In his bio-
graphical inscription on a statue, Neshor, the “overseer of the Gate of the
Southern Foreigners,” reports a revolt of the “Bow Peoples,” “Asiatics,”
and “Greeks” at Elephantine in the reign of Apries,57 and it is therefore
certain that contingents of foreign mercenaries were stationed on Egypt’s
southern border already under the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Many Judeans
had probably come to Egypt after the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 bc during the reign of Apries and had
been settled across the country.58 However, as the Saite-period headquar-
ters in Elephantine were replaced at the beginning of the Persian period
by new quarters for the Judean garrison, archaeological evidence for the
garrison in Saite times is lacking.
Securing Egypt’s southern border was not only necessary in
Elephantine. As early as during the reign of Psamtek I, the general
Djedptahiufankh undertook a campaign to Nubia, and a mission to
the south of a more diplomatic character was possibly undertaken by
Sematawytefnakht after the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.59
Further evidence for the Egyptian presence in Nubia exists in the shape
of the Nile island fortress of Dorginarti at the northern end of the Second
Cataract, long associated with comparable Middle and New Kingdom
frontier forts in Nubia because of its wedge-like shape.60 However,
Greek, Levantine, Egyptian, and Nubian pottery, as well as numerous
Phoenician amphorae, suggest that the fortress was in use from the
mid-seventh century bc to the end of the fifth century bc and that it
was therefore probably founded by Psamtek I and was still in use under
Persian imperial rule (see also c hapter 61 in this volume). The continuing

58. Cf. Jer. 44.1: Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and Pathros (i.e., Upper Egypt); see
below in this section and section 49.7.
59. Djedptahiufankh: Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 53.334; Sematawytefnakht: Jansen-
Winkeln 2014a: no. 53.31; Perdu 2011.
60. E.g. Heidorn 2013; 2018.
19
Saite Egypt 19
interest of the Saite kings in the region of south of Egypt is later demon-
strated by the well-documented campaign of Psamtek II (section 49.7),
as well as a number of “overseers of the Gate of the Southern Foreign
Lands” under Apries and Amasis.61
To return to Herodotus’s list of Saite border fortifications, the local-
ization of Daphnae on the eastern border of Egypt is rather difficult.
The biblical book of Jeremiah mentions Tahpanhes among the places
to which Judeans—among them Jeremiah himself—had fled after the
destruction of Jerusalem,62 and it also mentions a royal palace there.63
This agrees with later Demotic literary sources in which a royal palace
plays a role, as Psamtek I supposedly started his campaign into Syria
there and died just east of Daphnae while launching another campaign
into Syria.64 In 1886, W. M. F. Petrie excavated an enclosure of ca. 640 ×
385 m at Tell Defenna, as well as two casemate buildings measuring 43
× 43 m and 21.75 × 22.75 m, respectively, in which he excavated Greek
pottery as well as metal weapons.65 Finds in the foundation deposits
suggest that the complex was founded by Psamtek I, and Petrie there-
fore identified the archaeological site with both the fortress of Daphnae
and the “camps” (stratopeda) mentioned by Herodotus, where the same
ruler had installed Greek mercenaries in the eastern Nile delta (section
49.9).66 Consequently, Petrie also interpreted the casemate buildings
in the south of Naukratis, as well as in Memphis, as camps of Greek
troops. It is unlikely, however, that Daphnae and the stratopeda are one
and the same place, for according to Herodotus, the former was appar-
ently still in use in the mid-fifth century bc, while the latter had already
been abandoned. More recent investigations have instead highlighted
the Egyptian character of Tell Defenna: the larger casemate building
61. Neshor and Wahibra; see sections 49.8 and 49.10, respectively.
62. Jer 44:1.
63. Jer 43:9.
64. Smith 1991; Chauveau 2011.
65. Petrie 1888; see also Leclère 2008: 628–636.
66. Daphnae: Hdt. 2.30; stratopeda: Hdt. 2.154.
20
has been compared in its dimensions to structures found in Egyptian

temple precincts at Naukratis (54 × 55 m) and Tell el-Balamun (61 × 54
m), and the enclosure wall has parallels at temple enclosures at Memphis,
Hermopolis Magna, and Karnak.67 This new interpretation thus sees Tell
Defenna as an Egyptian temple complex, not least because of a temple
discovered there in 2009.68
Finally, a further fortress in the eastern border region of Egypt is
Migdol (Aramaic “Tower,” a very common toponym; Greek Magdolos),
which is mentioned by Herodotus,69 the Bible,70 and also Aramaic
sources of the Persian period. Which archaeological site should be
identified with this place is still unclear. Israeli archaeologists of the
North Sinai Expedition discovered Tell el-Kedwa (Qedua) on the
Pelusiac branch of the Nile, a massive fortress characterized by a mud-
brick enclosure of 200 × 200 m that is surrounded by a wall with a
width of 13.5–17.5 m.71 Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, and Cypriot pot-
tery, metal objects, and remains of metal production were found within
the fortress. Later excavations seemed to confirm that the fortress was
built around 640–630 bc, during the reign of Psamtek I, and that it
was destroyed by fire in the second half of the sixth century bc, presum-
ably in the course of the Persian conquest.72 More recently, however,
the dating of the fortress has been questioned; in particular, the Greek
pottery is now dated to the second half of the sixth century bc, i.e.,
to the later Saite period or the early Persian period.73 In the Persian
period, another fortress was built at Tell el-Herr, situated to the south-
east of Tell el-Kedwa, which remained in use until Roman times and is
67. Cf. Muhs 1994; Spencer 1999; see also Leclère 2008: 627–640.
68. Leclère and Spencer 2014: 1–40.
69. Hdt. 2.30, 2.159.
70. E.g., Jer 44:1.
71. Oren 1984.
72. Redford 1998.
73. E.g., Defernez 2011: 122–123; see also Redford 2000.
21
Saite Egypt 21
certainly identified with the Migdol of contemporary Aramaic sources

(chapter 61 in this volume).
49.5. The territorial expansion into the

Levant and its subsequent loss
After Psamtek I’s Libyan campaign in 654 bc (Year 11), there are no fur-
ther indications of Saite campaigns abroad for a long time. It appears
that the king concentrated on the consolidation of his rule over Upper
and Lower Egypt and the securing of the national borders, while his for-
mer overlord Ashurbanipal of Assyria only undertook campaigns against
peoples on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Levant but never retaliated
against the former Egyptian client. Eventually, in the 610s, the Assyrian
Empire had to contend with the attacks of Median and Babylonian
forces (see chapter 43 in volume 4 and chapter 50 in this volume), but
already from 639 bc onward, Egypt is no longer mentioned in the extant
Assyrian sources.
Psamtek I took advantage of this situation to turn his atten-
tion to the Levant. A Demotic ostracon from Thebes attests that the
king made preparations to move against Syria from Daphnae in 637
bc (Year 28),74 and this might be linked to Herodotus’s remark that
Psamtek besieged Ashdod for twenty-nine years during his fifty-four-
year reign.75 Herodotus himself seemed to doubt the length of that
siege, which indeed has no parallels, and it has therefore been plau-
sibly suggested that it was not a siege lasting twenty-nine years, but
instead a siege in Psamtek’s Year 29 (636 bc).76 Ashdod’s conquest by
the Egyptian forces can be correlated with archaeological findings.
Two phases within the identified archaeological stratigraphy are note-
worthy: Stratum VII shows some Assyrian influences, while directly
74. Chauveau 2011; the ostracon was originally dated to the time of Ptolemy I.
75. Hdt. 2.157.
76. Lloyd 1988: 148.
2
above it, Stratum VI is characterized by a number of Egyptian and also

Greek finds.77
Ashdod is a principal stop on the way along the Levantine coast and a
key hub that brought together several important trade routes (especially
from the desert; see c hapters 52 and 53 in this volume). The city must
therefore have been a prize of great strategic and commercial importance
to the Egyptians, and this was also true for the nearby city of Ekron
(modern Tel Miqne), situated further inland.78 That Ekron was a depen-
dency of Egypt not only under Nekau II but already under Psamtek I is
illustrated by the Aramaic letter of Adon of Ekron, which probably dates
to the time after 605 bc.79 At Ashdod, Egyptian scarabs and amulets, as
well as the characteristic lentoid-shaped New Year’s bottles, indicate the
permanent presence of Egyptians there, and to its south at Ashkelon,
even Egyptian cult objects have been excavated, which strongly suggests
the existence of an Egyptian enclave there.80 Egyptian occupation levels
are also attested at several other sites in southern Palestine.81
According to Bernd Schipper, the archaeological evidence at
Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron demonstrates that Psamtek I succes-
sively established a system of client states in the southern Levant around
640–630 bc, which by the end of his reign included also the kingdom of
Judah, as suggested by the circumstances of the death of its king Josiah.82
In his eastern activities, Psamtek probably continued to make use of his
Greek mercenaries, as indicated, e.g., by finds at the fortress of Mezad
Hashavyahu. Located on the Mediterranean coast near Ashdod, this for-
tress was founded in the last quarter of the seventh century bc accord-
ing to its excavators, but already abandoned around 600 bc.83 While the
77. Dothan 1971.

78. Gitin 1998; see also Moriconi and Tucci 2015.
79. Porten 1981; Vittmann 1999.
80. Stager 1996.
81. Oren 1993.
82. Schipper 2010: 204–212; 2011.
83. Naveh 1962; Fantalkin 2001.
23
Saite Egypt 23
architectural features of the fortress appear to have been modeled on

Egyptian examples, the presence of Greek domestic ware suggests that
the fortress was inhabited by Greek mercenaries.84 Greek pottery has
also been excavated at Ashkelon and Ekron.85 However, the dating of
Mezad Hashavyahu, and also other forts such as at Ashkelon and Ekron,
remains controversial. Most recently, Peter James has suggested dating
it to the sixth century bc, linking the foundation of the fortress to the
maritime politics of the later Saite period.86
That such a network of Levantine client states already existed in the
last years of the reign of Psamtek I can be inferred from his stele in the
Serapeum at Memphis, erected on the occasion of the burial of the Apis
bull in 612 bc, in his fifty-second regnal year.87 The text reports that the
coffins of the Apis bull were made of timber that was sent as regular lev-
ies by Levantine princes who were subject to the palace and supervised
by royal officials.88 A possible confrontation between Psamtek I and the
Scythians, which is only described in Herodotus, could also be seen in
the context of the Egyptian expansion into the Levant.89 According
to this narrative, the Saite king anticipated the arrival of the Scythian
forces in Palestine, as they were moving toward Egypt, and successfully
persuaded them to turn back. It is difficult to determine when, or even
whether, this event took place, especially since there is a lack of further
inscriptional or archaeological evidence.90
In any case, Saite rule over the southern Levant provided the launch-
ing pad for further northward advances in the final years of Psamtek I’s
84. Niemeier 2001.

85. Wenning 2001; 2004; Fantalkin 2006.
86. James 2015.
88. The statue of Petiese, son of Api, a messenger of Canaan and Palestine, often cited
as another piece of evidence, probably dates to the Twenty-second Dynasty; see
Vittmann 2003: 57.
89. Hdt. 1.105.
90. Spalinger 1978; Jansen-Winkeln 2019.
24
reign, about which we are informed by the Babylonian chronicles.91

According to this evidence, Egyptian forces moved as far as Gablini
(Qablinu) on the Euphrates river (exact location unclear) in order to
support the Assyrians in their struggle against the Babylonian forces
in 616 bc. However, this assistance could not prevent the fall of the
Assyrian Empire, as the Babylonian and Median armies subsequently
conquered Assur in 614 bc and Nineveh in 614 bc. In 610 bc, the
Egyptians rushed a second time to Syria, this time to the city of Harran,
whereto the last Assyrian ruler Aššur-uballiṭ II had retreated, but they
were driven out by Babylonian and Median forces.92 In the same year,
Psamtek I died.
In 609 bc, his son and successor Nekau II advanced with his troops
to the Euphrates in order to support the Assyrian ruler in his attempt
to retake Harran. In the process, Nekau encountered Josiah of Judah at
Megiddo and killed him, and then went on to the Balikh river to lay siege
to Harran.93 The circumstances leading to Josiah’s death have been the
subject of much controversy. The Book of Chronicles seems to suggest
a warlike confrontation at Megiddo,94 but this is highly unlikely since a
fight with the Egyptian forces would certainly have been futile for the
Judean army in the first place. The expansion of Judah toward Samaria or
a possible alliance of Judah with the Babylonians have been postulated
as reasons. Dan’el Kahn argued that Judah would have already been an
Egyptian client for several years under Psamtek I, when Josiah rebelled
against Egyptian rule or failed to deliver tribute after the defeat of the
then-crown prince Nekau at Harran in 610 bc and was therefore pun-
ished by death.95 Nekau’s further dealings with Josiah’s successors also
suggest that Judah was an Egyptian client state: Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son,
91. Grayson 1975: 91; Glassner 2004: 218–219.

92. Grayson 1975: 95–96; Glassner 2004: 222–223.
93. 2 Kgs 23:29–30.
94. 2 Chr 35:20–25.
95. Kahn 2015.
25
Saite Egypt 25
who had been chosen as their king by the Judeans, was deposed by Nekau
after only three months of rule, deported to Egypt, and replaced by his
half-brother Jehoiakim (Eliakim), who had initially been passed over in
the succession.96
When Nabopolassar occupied the city of Kimuhu (Kummuh), situ-
ated to the north of Carchemish, in 606 bc, the Egyptian army suc-
ceeded in recapturing the city and forcing the Babylonian troops into
retreat.97 The following year, however, the Egyptians were soundly
defeated at the Battle of Carchemish by Babylonian forces led by the
crown prince Nebuchadnezzar, and the remaining forces were routed at
Hamath.98 In the succeeding years, Nebuchadnezzar secured Babylon’s
control over Syria- Palestine and destroyed Ashkelon, among other
places. The already mentioned Aramaic letter of Adon, prince of Ekron,
which was found at Saqqara, probably dates to the following years, as it
asks an unnamed pharaoh for military assistance against the approaching
Babylonian army (see above in this section).
Eventually, Nebuchadnezzar campaigned against Egypt itself but
retreated without success, after both sides had suffered great losses.99
While the Babylonian chronicles do not name the battlefield, according
to Herodotus, fighting took place at Magdolos (Migdol; section 49.4),
which is usually if not univocally identified with the fortress of Tell el-
Kedwa in the eastern Nile delta. Subsequently, Nekau II captured the
city of Kadytis (i.e., Gaza).100 Probably because of Nebuchadnezzar’s
defeat, Jehoiakim, king of Judah, revolted against Babylonian rule. As a
result, the Babylonian forces returned and laid siege to Jerusalem, which
after his death surrendered without a fight under Jehoiachin, the son and
96. 2 Kgs 23:31–33.

99. Grayson 1975: 101; Glassner 2004: 228–229; see Kahn 2018.
100. Hdt. 2.159; see Katzenstein 1994; Quaegebeur 1995.
26
successor of Jehoiakim.101 Jehoiachin was deported, and Nebuchadnezzar

installed Zedekiah as king of Judah.
There are no other sources on Nekau II’s military engagements in the
Levant, apart from a biographical inscription mentioning a campaign
to Asia in which the monument’s owner, the general Amasis, partici-
pated;102 he later undertook a campaign to Nubia under Psamtek II (sec-
tion 49.7). According to Herodotus, the king established a fleet in both
the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and began construction of a canal
that would connect the Nile with the Red Sea.103 While textual sources
attest that this canal was not completed until the reign of the Persian
king Darius I (521–486 bc), the foundation on the bank of that canal
of Tell el-Maskhuta around 600 bc indicates that its construction was
already underway during the reign of Nekau II.
The canal-building project certainly fit in with the Saite king’s inter-
est in the lands located to the south of Egypt. Another reflection of this
interest is found in Herodotus’s report that Nekau II commissioned a
Phoenician fleet to sail around Africa.104 A stele found at Tell Defenna,
which cannot be dated precisely, reports an expedition to Punt, during
which the Egyptian troops were saved by a miracle of rain.105 Also a frag-
mentary stele of Nekau II from Elephantine mentions a fleet of ships as
well as insurgents, although the details of this expedition remain entirely
unclear.106
49.6. A new administrative state elite

From the time of Nekau II, Psamtek I’s successor, only a few officials are
known by name, as certain officials who already had served under Nekau II

102. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 54.76; see Redford 2000.
103. Hdt. 2.158−159; see Lloyd 1972; 1977; 2001.
104. Hdt. 4.42; see Moje 2003.
27
Saite Egypt 27
evidently changed the royal cartouches on their monuments in favor of

his successor Psamtek II.107
The best known of these officials is the “overseer of the antecham-
ber” Horiraa, with the secondary name Wehemibranefer (“Wehemibra
[i.e., Nekau II’s throne name] is perfect”; later Neferibranefer,
“Neferibra [i.e., Psamtek II’s throne name] is perfect”), who is known
from a number of temple statues erected in various parts of the coun-
try, as well as the shaft tomb (and pieces of its funerary equipment) at
Saqqara, where he was buried during the reign of Apries.108 Horiraa
was the educator of the king’s children, including Nekau’s designated
successor Psamtek II, and some of Horiraa’s statues were commissioned
as an expression of gratitude by these royal children. Their inscriptions
emphasize Horiraa’s extraordinary closeness to the king and moreover
provide insights into the practice of erecting temple statues during the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The office of the “overseer of the antechamber”
is attested throughout the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and also mentioned
in Papyrus Rylands 9.109 In the time of Amasis, Petiese (III) petitioned
the “overseer of the antechamber,” who then directed the overseer
and general of Herakleopolis to arrest some priests who had wronged
Petiese’s family. The anonymous “overseer of the antechamber” was
probably Iahmessaneith, who is well attested by several monuments
dating to the reign of Amasis.110 When combined, Papyrus Rylands 9
and the monuments of officials such as Horiraa or Iahmessaneith show
that the “overseer of the antechamber” can be described as a court sec-
retary who controlled access to the king, had his own official apparatus,
and was in a position to give instructions to officials and military offi-
cers. The holder of this office was also predestined to be the educator of
the king’s children.
107. Gozzoli 2000; 2017: 80–91.

108. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.94, 55.109–111, 55.123–124; see, e.g., Jansen-
Winkeln 1996; Perdu 2016; on the tomb, see Grallert 2020.
109. Vittmann 1998: 656–657; 2009: 99–100; Agut-Labordère 2013: 973–974.
110. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 57.215, 57.257–264.
28
From Psamtek II’s short reign, an above-average number of court

officials are known, some of whom are very well attested indeed.111 In
addition to their proper name, many of them bore a secondary name
that referenced the king (“basilophorous name”) and was presumably
granted by the king personally as a sign of special distinction.112 While
this practice is also attested under his predecessor Nekau II, as the
example of Horiraa Wehemibranefer shows, almost every high official
serving under Psamtek II had such a secondary name that referenced
the reigning king—a practice that declined again under kings Apries
and Amasis. An example is the lector priest and chief Nakhthorheb
Hormenekhibnakht (meaning “Horus Menekhib [i.e., Psamtek II] is
strong”), who is known from a number of statues from across the coun-
try that are more notable for their size than for the originality of their
inscriptions (figure 49.3).113 While Nakhthorheb is dated to the time of
Psamtek II based on his secondary name Hormenekhibnakht, prosopo-
graphical considerations suggest that he may have been the uncle of the
chief physician Psamtekseneb.114 Psamtekseneb is the first known holder
of the title of chief lector priest in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, a position
which continued to be held by the chief steward Peftjauneith (serving
under Apries and Amasis) and, under the Persian kings Cambyses (529–
522 bc) and Darius I, by Udjahorresnet. The biographical inscription of
Udjahorresnet, who previously served as overseer of the royal kebenet
ships under Amasis and Psamtek III, suggests that he must have been
not only a personal physician but also a close advisor to the king, who,
among his other duties, created the royal titulature for Cambyses.115
111. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.87–135; Gozzoli 2017: 177–215.

112. De Meulenaere 1966: 27–34; see also De Meulenaere 1981; 2002; Gozzoli
2017: 32–37.
113. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.91, 55.99, 55.125–127.
114.
Jansen-
Winkeln 2014a: no. 60.100; On the prosopography, see De
Meulenaere 1983.
115. Agut-Labordère 2013: 972–973; for Udjahorresnet, see also chapter 61 in this
volume.
29
Saite Egypt 29
Figure 49.3. Statue of the lector priest and chief Nakhthorheb

Hormenekhibnakht, from the reign of Psamtek II. Found at Tell el-Baqlieh.
Louvre, A 94. Courtesy of the Louvre, Paris.
The office of chief physician was not the only one to be attested under
the rulers of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty for the first time under Psamtek
II. This was also the case for the “overseer of the scribes of the council,”
which, as Olivier Perdu has shown, was not a legal but a financial office,
30
as the known bearers of this title were accountants.116 For the “overseer
of the scribes of the Great Entrance Hall”—also first attested under
Psamtek II—it can be demonstrated that some office holders were royal
heralds.117 Both titles are still attested under Apries and Amasis, being
used, e.g., by the overseers of the royal fleet Tjanenhebu and Hekaemsaf,
and the overseer of the royal kebenet ships and the later chief physician
Udjahorresnet. As in the case of the title of “overseer of Upper Egypt,”
which had already experienced a revival under the Kushites (Twenty-
fifth Dynasty), archaizing administrative titles were deliberately chosen
in reference to older periods but held real power.
Changes in the administration under Psamtek II can also be detected
in southern Egypt, where the spheres of power of the chief steward of
the God’s Wife changed (section 49.3):118 in the period when Psamtek
II had his daughter Ankhnesneferibra adopted by the ruling God’s
Wife of Amun Nitiqret, the chief steward Padihorresnet was replaced
by Ankhhor, who apparently had previously had a career as mayor of
Memphis, Oxyrhynchus, and the Bahariya oasis. Therefore, in contrast
to his predecessors, he did not come from the circle of the God’s Wife.119
Ankhhor’s successors who served under Apries and Amasis no longer
held the title of “overseer of Upper Egypt.”
In the second half of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, high officials were
preferably buried in a new type of tomb in the Memphite necropo-
leis.120 The tombs consisted of a 10 × 10 m wide and 30 m deep shaft,
at the bottom of which lay the burial chamber that was entirely filled
by the sarcophagus.121 The actual burial took place via a side shaft, with
116. Perdu 1998.

117. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 55.112 (Harbes Psamteknefer), no. 60.265 (Horudja
Psamteksasekhmet).
118. Broekman 2012.
119. The adoption of Ankhnesneferibra is mentioned on a stele from Year 4 of
Apries: Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 56.54; Leahy 1996.
120. For an overview, see Stammers 2009; and also Bareš 1999.
121. Gestermann 2006.
31
Saite Egypt 31
surrounding niches allowing the deposition of grave goods. The shaft

and side shaft were then filled with sand for protection against grave
robbers. Such shaft tombs are found in large numbers in the Memphite
necropoleis of Saqqara, Abusir, and Giza, often in clusters along proces-
sional routes or near older burial structures. For example, a group of shaft
tombs of high officials from the reign of Amasis, including the chiefs of
the royal fleet Tjanenhebu and Hekaemsaf, the chief physician Psamtek,
and the royal seal-bearer Padienaset, who all appear to be related to each
other, have been uncovered in the vicinity of the Old Kingdom pyra-
mid of Unas at Saqqara.122 In some of these tombs, the burial equipment
was still found intact, e.g., in the tomb of Tjanenhebu: in addition to a
monumental limestone sarcophagus, an anthropoid sarcophagus made
of basalt and the gilded mummy, canopic vessels were found in the
niches, and more than 400 servant figures (shabtis) were found flanking
the entrance to the tomb.123
49.7. The campaigns against

Nubia and Syria
Psamtek II is known above all for his active foreign policy. The cam-
paign against Nubia in 593 bc, his third regnal year, is exceptionally well
attested in the royal inscriptions, in Greek and Phoenician graffiti at Abu
Simbel, and in Carian inscriptions at Buhen and elsewhere, as well as
through archaeological finds.124
Different royal inscriptions provide accounts focusing on dif-
ferent perspectives and events. In the text of a stele from Shellal, the
king is described as passing through the floodplain of the Nile valley
when news reached him that the army he had dispatched to Nubia had
reached Pnubs (i.e., Kerma) and that the Nubians had subsequently
122. Bresciani et al. 1977 (Tjanenhebu); Gestermann 2001 (Psamtek); see also
Schütze 2020; Hussein 2020.
124. Gozzoli 2017: 45–71.
32
risen up against him.125 Thereupon, Psamtek joined his army, crush-

ing the insurgents and taking 4,200 prisoners. According to a stele
from Tanis, the king was busy restoring temples in his third regnal year
when word reached him that the land of the Nubians was planning an
attack.126 In consequence, Psamtek II sent out an army, which presum-
ably reached Napata, the capital of Kush at Gebel Barkal, where the
Egyptian forces defeated his enemies and burned the Nubian king in
his residence.
Psamtek II’s campaign probably took place early in the reign of the
Kushite king Aspelta, who ruled over Kush for many years afterward.
Psamtek may have taken advantage of a period of political instability,
as Kushite sources suggest that Aspelta’s rule was not without contro-
versy.127 The campaign was accompanied by the destruction of royal
monuments in Kush, and it is thus possible to reconstruct how far
the Egyptians penetrated the Kushite territory. At Gebel Barkal, vari-
ous buildings were set on fire, probably including the royal palace, and
the same holds true of the so-called treasury of Aspelta at Sanam in
the south of Napata; these buildings were later rebuilt.128 The statues
of Kushite kings including Taharqo, Tanutamani, Semkamansken, and
Aspelta were smashed at Gebel Barkal, Dokki Gel (a part of Kerma),
and Dangeil (located to the south of the Fifth Cataract), and later bur-
ied in hoards (cachettes).129 The destruction of monuments dedicated to
Kushite kings such as Shabaqo and Taharqo also continued in Egypt.
At Athribis, Memphis, and especially at Thebes (namely in the temple
complexes of Karnak, Luxor, and Medinet Habu), as well as at other
Upper Egyptian sanctuaries, the names of these kings were erased and
partially replaced by that of Psamtek II; and at Philae, blocks from a
125. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 55.63; 2016b; see also Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos.
55.47, 55.64.
127. Valbelle 2012; Gozzoli 2017: 52–55.
128. Gozzoli 2017: 59–60.
129. Gozzoli 2017: 51–52; Valbelle and Bonnet 2019.
3
Saite Egypt 33
monument commissioned by Taharqo were reused for new building

work.130
In the following year of 592 bc, Psamtek II undertook an expedi-
tion to Syria. This enterprise is not attested in the extant Egyptian royal
inscriptions, or by Babylonian or biblical sources, but is only known
from a reference in Papyrus Rylands 9, a petition from the early Persian
period that we have mentioned above (sections 49.2−49.3 and 49.6).131
In it, Petiese, a scribe at the temple of Amun of el-Hiba, describes how
his grandfather and namesake had been sent by the priests of Amun of el-
Hiba on a royal expedition to Syria in order to deprive him of his priestly
prebends. The petition provides no further background on this expedi-
tion, as this was not relevant to Petiese’s cause. It does, however, men-
tion that the king fell ill a short time later and was unavailable when his
grandfather requested to have the lost prebends restored to him.132 The
exact nature of this expedition has been a source of some controversy.133
Since Papyrus Rylands 9 does not explicitly describe it as a military ven-
ture, it has often been assumed to have been a peaceful enterprise, such as
a diplomatic mission or a visit to Egyptian sanctuaries in Syria. However,
it seems unlikely that Psamtek II went into potentially hostile territory
without armed support. Most recently, Kahn argued again that Psamtek
II undertook a military campaign,134 postulating that he took advantage
of the time between 597 and 588 bc, when the Babylonian forces under
Nebuchadnezzar no longer posed any significant threat in the southern
Levant.
The expedition probably served the purpose of persuading the
Levantine client states to foreswear their allegiance to the Neo-
Babylonian Empire, because a short time later, Zedekiah, who had
been appointed king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon,
130. Gozzoli 2017: 61–66; see also Koch 2014; Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: 297–323.
131. Papyrus Rylands 9: 4.26–22.
132. Hdt. 2.161.
133. Gozzoli 2017: 71–76.
134. Kahn 2008. For a different view, see Fantalkin 2017.
34
rebelled.135 Previously, around 594 bc, Zedekiah had received delega-

tions from Edom, Moab, and Ammon, as well as the Phoenician cities
of Sidon and Tyre, presumably in order to plot the revolt against the
Babylonian overlord.136 The effort was thwarted by Nebuchadnezzar,
who summoned Zedekiah to court.137 When Zedekiah rebelled once
again, he could not have foreseen that Psamtek II would die after only
six years in office in 589 bc. An ostracon from Lachish documents
that a Judean delegation went to Egypt shortly before the Babylonians
besieged Jerusalem.138 According to the Bible, Psamtek II’s succes-
sor Apries tried unsuccessfully to break the Babylonian siege of the
city.139 Jerusalem was conquered after a three-year siege lasting from
589 to 586 bc, the temple of Yahweh was destroyed, and parts of the
population were deported. As a result, many Judeans fled to Egypt and
were probably settled as mercenaries in various parts of the country,
such as Migdol (perhaps to be identified with Tell el-Kedwa; section
49.4), Tahpanhes (Tell Defenna), Memphis, and Pathros (i.e., Upper
Egypt).140
After 586 bc, Apries continued to try to establish a foothold in the
Levant. A stele recently excavated at Tell Defenna reports that an army
composed of Egyptian and foreign troops crossed the Sinai in Year 7
of Apries’s reign (583/582 bc) in order to repel a putative Babylonian
attack, which is not attested in the extant but fragmentary Babylonian
sources.141 Herodotus reports that Apries sent the Egyptian fleet against
Tyre and an army against Sidon in the course of his reign, and this may
have taken place following the Babylonian conquest of Tyre around 574
135. 2 Kgs 24:20–25:7.

136. Jer 27:1–11; Kahn 2008: 152–153.
137. Jer 51:59.
138. Albright 1969: 322.
139. Jer 37:5–11.
140. Jer 44:1; see also Holladay 2004.
141. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 56.28; Abd el-Maqsoud and Valbelle 2013.
35
Saite Egypt 35
bc, after a thirteen-year siege.142 An exact reconstruction of these events

and their chronology is not possible at present.
49.8. Amasis and the Greek world

Herodotus provides the only information currently at our disposal
regarding the last years of Apries’s reign.143 The expanding Greek colony
of Cyrene, led by Battias II, posed an increasing threat to the Libyan
tribes, who therefore requested military assistance from Apries. For good
reasons, the Saite king sent his Egyptian troops against the Greek colony
rather than his Ionian and Carian mercenaries. The Egyptian troops,
however, were defeated and subsequently rebelled against the pharaoh.
As a result, Apries sent his general Amasis to mediate with the Egyptian
troops, but he too rose up against his king.
In addition to Herodotus’s account, the Victory Stele of Amasis pro-
vides us with information about the first years of the usurper’s reign.144
According to Herodotus, Apries disposed of over 30,000 Ionian and
Carian mercenaries, but was defeated by Amasis and his Egyptian army
at Momemphis (Kom el-Hisn).145 Amasis’s Victory Stele also reports on
the first battle between Apries and Amasis in what turned out to be the
usurper’s Year 1, in which Apries had the support of Greek troops aboard
seafaring ships. In Year 4, a further battle took place when Apries, this
time with the assistance of Babylonian forces, attempted to regain con-
trol over Egypt. This campaign is also attested in Babylonian sources for
the year 567 bc,146 and it constituted the last confrontation between
Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Little else is known about any other military engagements during
Amasis’s long reign, although a Demotic papyrus mentions a campaign
142. Hdt. 2.161.2; see Lloyd 1988: 169–173.

143. Hdt. 2.161.
144. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 57.97; 2014b.
145. Hdt. 2.169; Diod. Sic. 1.68 locates the battle at Marea.
146. Wiseman 1956: 94–95; see also Leahy 1988.
36
against Nubia, and Herodotus concludes the second book of his

Histories with the remark that Amasis conquered Cyprus.147 Sometime
before that kingdom was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great
(559−530 bc) in 547 bc, he also entered into a treaty with Croesus of
Lydia (chapter 51 in this volume).148
This Saite ruler certainly pursued an extremely active policy of forg-
ing alliances, especially with Greek city-states, and this was unparalleled
among his predecessors.149 It is likely that shortly after his accession, he
formed an alliance with the Greek colony of Cyrene in the west and
married the Cyrenian lady Ladike, perhaps a daughter of Battias II.150
Amasis’s diplomatic strategy included offering rich gifts to various Greek
city-states, and he thus donated to Cyrene a golden statue of Athena as
well as a painted image of himself,151 and contributed a large amount
of alum for the completion of the temple at Delphi.152 Furthermore,
he presented two stone statues and a linen breastplate to Athena of
Lindus on Rhodes,153 two wooden royal statues to Hera of Samos,154
and another linen breastplate to Sparta.155 Apart from Amasis’s dedica-
tions to the sanctuary in Lindus, which are confirmed by the Lindonian
Chronicle, these details are based solely on Herodotus.156 Late in his
reign, Amasis formed a friendship with Polycrates of Samos, who
147. Hdt. 2.182; on the Nubian campaign, see Zauzich 1992.

148. Hdt. 1.77.
149. Lloyd 2007: 40–48; Agut-Labordère 2012a: 223–226.
150. Hdt. 2.181.
151. Hdt. 2.182.
152. Hdt. 2.180.
153. Hdt. 2.182.
154. Hdt. 2.182.
155. Hdt. 3.47.
156. Lloyd 1988: 236–237; 2007: 46 n. 25; see also Kousoulis and Morenz 2007. On
the discussion of Egyptian votive gifts to Ionian sanctuaries, especially to Hera
of Samos, see, e.g., Bumke 2012; Hölbl 2014.
37
Saite Egypt 37
possessed an enormous fleet of 150 triremes and enjoyed great military

success.157
In addition to providing mercenaries and shipping crews, the Greeks
constituted an important trading partner for Saite Egypt. The city of
Naukratis, situated on the Canopic branch of the Nile, just 14 km west
of Sais, played a central role as a trade emporium.158 Herodotus cred-
ited Amasis with the transformation of Naukratis into a Greek trading
center, listed the Greek cities involved, and also described the religious
topography of the city:
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which

he did for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt
the city of Naucratis to live in; and to those who traveled to the
country without wanting to settle there, he gave lands where they
might set up altars and make holy places for their gods. Of these
the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cit-
ies of Chios, Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities
of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus, and Phaselis, and one Aeolian
city, Mytilene. ( . . . ) The Aeginetans made a precinct of their
own, sacred to Zeus; and so did the Samians for Hera and the
Milesians for Apollo.159
The archaeological site of Naukratis (modern Kom Geif ), first investi-

gated by W. M. F. Petrie in the early twentieth century ad, is now sur-
rounded or overbuilt by modern settlements.160 The northwestern part
of the archaeological site (the “great pit”) was the target of intensive
157. Hdt. 3.39−40.

158. E.g., Lloyd 1988: 222–231; Möller 2000; Höckmann and Kreikenbom 2001;
Villing and Schlotzhauer 2006; Agut-Labordère 2012b; Masson-Berghoff and
Thomas (eds.) 2019.
159. Hdt. 2.178; translation after Godley 1921.
160. Petrie 1886; Leclère 2008: 118–127; for the more recent investigations, see
Spencer 2011; Thomas and Villing 2013; Thomas 2015.
38
sebakh excavations in the nineteenth century, and the corresponding

depression was until recently a lake covering the Greek sanctuaries and
part of the Hellenion.161 The ancient city exhibits an organic structure
dominated by temple precincts, as in other cities in the Nile delta; typi-
cal Greek institutions, on the other hand, are absent. The residential
architecture was characterized by tower houses with casemate foun-
dations typical of the Late Period, and there was also evidence of craft
workshops (in particular a workshop for the production of faience scar-
abs).162 The city was therefore not a purely Greek foundation but had an
important Egyptian element within it, even though the city can only be
traced back to the late seventh century bc through archaeological finds,
which in turn show that Greeks did not first settle in the city under
Amasis. Herodotus thus described not a new foundation but a reorga-
nization of the city under this pharaoh,163 which is confirmed by the fact
that pottery in the main sanctuary of the Greeks, the Hellenion, cannot
be dated to before the second quarter of the sixth century bc, i.e., the
early reign of Amasis.
In the southern part of Naukratis was the Egyptian quarter, cen-
tered on the temple district of Amun-Ra of Baded (the so-called Great
Temenos), which is attested for the first time in a donation stele from
the reign of Apries, but may well be older.164 Not far northwest of the
temple of Amun-Ra, a sanctuary of Aphrodite was discovered. It may be
one of the oldest Greek sanctuaries at Naukratis, because Archaic pot-
tery from Chios that is dated to the late seventh and sixth centuries bc
has been found around the sanctuary.165 A workshop for faience scar-
abs, dated to the early sixth century bc, was located immediately east
of the sanctuary. The scarabs produced there were probably intended
161. See Thomas and Villing 2013.

162. See Spencer 2011.
163. Hdt. 2.178.
164. Leclère 2008: 118–120; see also Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 56.114.
165. Leclère 2008: 122–123.
39
Saite Egypt 39
for export, as such items, which were also produced on Rhodes, circu-
lated throughout the eastern Mediterranean at the time.166 About 200 m
north of the temple of Aphrodite, the three sanctuaries for Apollo, Hera,
and the Dioscuri were situated in a row, while to the east of these shrines
stood a large temple complex that has been identified with Herodotus’s
Hellenion, as votive pottery dedicated to a variety of Greek deities has
been found there.
That the Egyptian trade with the Greek cities mentioned by
Herodotus did indeed take place is clear from pottery finds hailing from
Chios, Samos, and Miletos; in addition, pottery from Athens, Corinth,
and Laconia is attested.167 While the Greek cities that had participated
in the founding of Naukratis provided their own local overseers, the city
was presided over by an “overseer of the Gates of the Foreign Lands of
the Mediterranean.” The first attested office holder was Neshor, who
was later appointed to the role of “overseer of the Gate of the Southern
Foreign Lands.”168
Also, later sources indicate that trade must have been Naukratis’s
main purpose. An Aramaic customs record, dating to ca. 475 bc, docu-
ments duties on Greek ships importing wine, wood, metals, and textiles
into Egypt, and in particular, the export of natron salt.169 In turn, the
so-called Naukratis Decree of Nectanebo I (380–362 bc) records that
one-tenth of all customs duties collected in Thonis at the mouth of the
Canopic Nile and all taxes on goods produced in Naukratis were donated
to the temple of Neith of Sais.170 Already under Amasis, Nakhthorheb,
the “overseer of the Gates of the Foreign Lands of the Mediterranean,”
had restored the temple of Neith of Sais as part of his duties.171
166. Villing 2015.

167. Bergeron 2015; see also Villing and Schlotzhauer 2006.
169. Briant and Descat 1998.
170. von Bomhard 2012; see also Robinson and Goddio 2015.
171. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 57.210; see also Posener 1947.
40
49.9. Ionian and Carian mercenaries

in Egypt
The history of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty was marked not only by its
rulers’ foreign policy that opened up Egypt and the Nile to the Greek
world, but also by the active recruitment of Greek and other mercenaries
from Asia Minor.172 These mercenaries had already played a crucial role
in the consolidation of Psamtek I’s rule in the Nile delta between 664
and 656 bc. Contemporary Assyrian sources mention how Gyges, the
king of Lydia, had sent troops to Psamtek I to support him against the
Assyrians after the Assyrian Empire had failed to provide Lydia with help
in the fight against the Cimmerian invaders (section 49.3; also c hapter 51
in this volume).
Two centuries later, Herodotus reported the story that Psamtek I,
following the advice of an oracle at Buto, had engaged the service of
Ionian and Carian mercenaries who, after being shipwrecked off the
coast of Egypt, were plundering the coast, and with their help, he proved
successful in subjugating the other rulers in the Nile delta.173 Afterward,
Psamtek gave the mercenaries land on the Pelusiac arm of the Nile below
Bubastis.174 There they would have remained, had not Amasis moved
them on to Memphis; Herodotus claimed to have seen the remains of
the original Greek settlement (“the camps”; Greek stratopeda), together
with the towpaths for their ships.
Extensive Egyptian textual evidence attests to the presence of Greek
mercenaries in Egypt under Psamtek II. During his campaign into
Nubia in 593 bc, the foreign troops that formed a separate branch of the
Egyptian armed forces left Greek, Carian, as well as Phoenician graffiti
on the colossi of Rameses II (1279–1213 bc) at Abu Simbel.175 The longest
172. Pernigotti 1999; Haider 2001; Vittmann 2003: 194–

235; Agut-
Labordère
2012c; Pasek 2018.
173. Hdt. 2.152.
174. Hdt. 2.154.
175. Bernard and Masson 1957; see also Hauben 2001.
41
Saite Egypt 41
available Greek inscription states that the foreign troops were led by
Potasimto, and the Egyptian troops by a certain Amasis. These two men
are well known from hieroglyphic sources: Potasimto (or Padisematawy,
with the basilophorous name Neferibranebqen: “Neferibra [i.e., Psamtek
II] is the lord of strength”) bore among other titles that of “overseer of
the recruits,” “overseer of Haunebut” (i.e., Aegeans/Greeks), and “direc-
tor of the foreigners”; Amasis (or Ahmose, with the basilophorous name
Neferibranakht: “Neferibra is strong”) was “overseer of the recruits” and
“overseer of the Gate of the Northern Foreign Lands.”176 The inscription
on the statue of Hor-Psamtek from the reign of Psamtek II shows that he
also held the titles “director of the foreigners of Haunebut” and “overseer
of the royal fighting ships in the Mediterranean.”177
The combination of these two titles for Hor-Psamtek points to the
fact that the recruitment of Greek mercenaries must be seen in the con-
text of the Egyptian interests in the Mediterranean and in particular
the Saite fleet-building project. Herodotus attributed the building of a
fleet consisting of Greek trieres to Nekau II.178 However, this cannot
be verified on the basis of the few available contemporary sources. At
least, the fact that Nekau II donated his garment to the oracle of Apollo
of Didyma near Miletos after preventing the Babylonian invasion of
Egypt demonstrates that Greek troops were already in the employ of
this pharaoh.179 Although several Twenty-sixth-Dynasty command-
ers of royal ships are known, the titulary indicates only in the case of
Hor-Psamtek clearly that he was the admiral of an oceangoing fleet.180
Finally, the Victory Stele of Amasis mentions Haunebut (i.e., Greeks)
who sailed the sea in oceangoing kebenet ships on behalf of Apries.181
176. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.101, 60.197–200 (Potasimto); nos. 54.76–77,

56.123 (Amasis).
177. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 55.103; Price 2017.
178. Hdt. 2.159; see Lloyd 1972; 1977; 2001.
179. Hdt. 2.159.
180. Goyon 1969; Agut-Labordère 2013.
181. See section 49.8; on the kebenet ships, see Darnell 1992.
42
Udjahorresnet, who was later appointed chief physician by the Persian

king Cambyses II, was “overseer of the royal kebenet ships” under Amasis
and Psamtek III, and according to an inscription in his tomb, he also
held the title of “overseer of the foreigners of the Haunebut” (chapter 61
in this volume).
The Saite kings engaged a considerable number of Ionian and Carian
mercenaries; according to Herodotus, there were more than 30,000
men in service under Apries.182 Some of them were also stationed at the
southern border of Egypt, as the above-mentioned biographical inscrip-
tion on the statue of the Overseer of the Gate of the Southern Foreigners
Neshor/Psamtekmenekhib shows. This inscription refers to rebellious
mercenaries and thus illustrates that potential sources of conflict resulted
from the settlement of foreign mercenaries at the borders of Egypt.183
Amasis also recruited Greek mercenaries, and this is the primary context
of his many alliances with partners including Cyrene, the Greek city-
states in Asia Minor, and most notably Polycrates of Samos, especially
after Lydia had fallen to the Persian Empire in 546 bc.184 While the
deposed king Apries was still alive, the usurper was in dire need of new
alliances in order to recruit Greek mercenaries that had not already been
in the service of his predecessor.
Although such large numbers of mercenaries are said to have been
in the service of the Saite kings, there is relatively little archaeological
evidence for this population group from Egypt itself. Many Greeks even-
tually returned to their homeland, in some cases with a veritable fortune,
as illustrated by a block statue found at Priene in Caria that was owned
by a former mercenary named Pedon, who was also said to have received
a golden bracelet and an entire city for his bravery from a King Psamtek,
either the first or the second ruler of that name.185 That Greeks could
ascend to the higher ranks of Egyptian society and come into the sphere
182. Hdt. 2.163.

184. Carty 2015: 165–166.
185. Masson and Yoyotte 1988; dating uncertain.
43
Saite Egypt 43
of the king himself is attested only in one case: Wahibraemakhet, who

was born to the Greek parents Alexicles and Zenodote and who bore a
basiliphorous name that celebrates either Psamtek I or Apries.186
Among all the foreigners residing in Egypt, it is the Carians who
stand out most clearly in the archaeological evidence. In addition to the
graffiti at Abu Simbel mentioned above in this section, there are other
such graffiti, such as in the tomb of the mayor Montuemhat in Thebes,
as well as votive offerings to various Egyptian cults and especially some
seventy steles with Carian inscriptions, exhibiting various degrees of
assimilation to Egyptian culture.187 Architectural elements such as false
doors and decorative motifs such as depictions of the Apis bull indicate
very specific influences that are not otherwise found on contemporary
Egyptian funerary steles. Most of the Carian steles were found in second-
ary use in the animal necropoleis of northern Saqqara. They originally
belonged to a Carian necropolis located somewhere between Saqqara
and Abusir, or had perhaps been placed in chapels on the way up to the
Serapeum.188 Herodotus too highlighted the openness of the mercenar-
ies to Egyptian customs.189 Ionians and Carians were still mentioned in
Aramaic documents from the fifth century bc in the context of shipping
and navigation under Persian imperial rule, and at that time, some of
the Carians living in Memphis were relocated to Babylonia, where they
continued to be deployed in armed service.190
49.10. The reforms of Amasis

The high cost of hiring foreign mercenaries and shipping crews, as well
as of procuring building materials, was certainly a key reason for the
186. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: 60.693; Villing 2018; dating uncertain.

187. Masson 1978; Kammerzell 1993; Ray 1998; Vittmann 2001; Adiego 2007: see
also Vittmann 2003: 155–179.
188. Jurman 2010.
189. Hdt. 2.61; see Iancu 2017.
190. Waerzeggers 2006.
4
financial reforms initiated by Amasis.191 Herodotus reported a census

of all the inhabitants of Egypt that required every Egyptian to report
the amount of his livelihood to the local governor (nomarch).192 While
only a few documentary texts can provide actual information about these
reforms, the introduction of new offices is the clearest indication of the
administrative changes under Amasis.
One high administrative office first attested under Amasis was that
of the “planner” (senti) who also played a role in Papyrus Rylands 9
(sections 49.2−3 and 49.6–7). Monuments of the earliest office-bearers
attested so far date only to the reign of Darius I of Persia (521–486 bc).193
But since the brother of one of these officeholders already held his
appointment during the reign of Amasis, this may have applied to his
brother, the “planner,” as well. Other new offices are also attested in
Persian-period sources. Thus, in a correspondence between Pherendates,
the Persian satrap of Egypt, and the priests of Khnum of Elephantine, a
“chief of the Inundated Lands” is described as overseeing the appoint-
ment of a temple administrator (lesonis).194 Both offices appear to be
innovations of Amasis’s reign, as the first official with the title “chief
of the Inundated Lands” was the general Wahibra, also “overseer of the
Gate of the Foreigners,” who is exceptionally well attested by several
monuments and especially statues erected in Sais.195 In Papyrus Rylands
9, the lesonis first appears in Year 15 of Amasis, when the “overseer of
the fields” went to el-Hiba in the course of inspecting Egyptian tem-
ples. While the “overseer of the fields” is already attested earlier in the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty, the inspection trip by this official may be another
191. Agut-Labordère 2013: 994–995; Monson 2015.

192. Hdt. 2.177; cf. Diod. Sic. 1.95.
193. Yoyotte 1989; Chauveau 2009: 127–128; Vittmann 2009: 100–102; Agut-
Labordère 2013: 1000–1002.
194. Martin 2011: 288–294.
195. Yoyotte 1989: 75–76; Chauveau 2009: 127–128; Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos.
57.188–203.
45
Saite Egypt 45
indicator of Amasis’s desire to have better control over the arable lands
cultivated by the temples.196
Administrative texts illustrate the comprehensive reform of legal
instruments in their own way. In the course of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty,
a new chancery script, the so-called Demotic, spread from Lower Egypt
throughout the rest of the country, replacing the Abnormal Hieratic used
in Upper Egypt (section 49.2).197 By the time of the Third Intermediate
Period (chapter 35 in volume 4), different cursive scripts and respective
legal traditions had developed in Upper and Lower Egypt, with only
Abnormal Hieratic deeds being documented in Thebes. The formulary
of Demotic deeds is first attested in the inscription of a Hieratic stele
dating to Year 8 of Psamtek I (657 bc), which probably originally came
from Saqqara.198 The first Demotic legal documents on papyrus, Papyrus
Rylands 1 and Papyrus Rylands 2, date to Year 21 of Psamtek I’s reign
(644 bc) and come from the same archive at el-Hiba in Middle Egypt
as Papyrus Rylands 9 with the petition of Petiese (sections 49.2–49.3
and 49.6–49.7). At Thebes, Demotic legal documents are attested only
from the reign of Amasis onward, where Demotic rapidly supplanted the
local chancery script of Abnormal Hieratic.199 Cary Martin convincingly
linked this process to the reforms of Amasis, who presumably wanted
to introduce a uniform formulary for legal documents valid throughout
Egypt.200
Early Demotic legal documents on papyrus exhibit several differ-
ences from contemporary Abnormal Hieratic documents.201 They are
characterized by their wide format and they use a modified date formula
(figure 49.4). Oaths were no longer part of Demotic legal documents,
196. Agut-
Labordère and Gorre 2014: 24– 28; see also Yoyotte 1989: 75–
76;
Chauveau 2009: 128–129; Agut-Labordère 2013: 999–1000.
197. Martin 2007.
198. Louvre C 101: Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 53.122.
199. Donker van Heel 1994.
200. Hdt. 2.177; see Martin 2007: 29–31.
201. Vleeming 1981; Lippert 2008: 136–178; see also Malinine 1953–1983.
46
Figure 49.4. Early Demotic land lease from the archive of Iturodj at Thebes,
dated to Year 35 of Amasis (536 bc). Papyrus Louvre 7836. Courtesy of the
Louvre, Paris.
and witnesses only signed on the deed directly instead of repeating the
entire text of the legal document, as was common in the often very
lengthy Abnormal Hieratic deeds. Sale documents no longer included
the purchase price and served mainly to record the transfers of property
rights but were no longer formulated as reciprocal transactions. Unlike
Abnormal Hieratic documents, Demotic deeds feature a standardized
form for frequent transaction types such as sales and leases. This new
convention was certainly promulgated through the use of templates, as
47
Saite Egypt 47
known from legal codices from the Hellenistic period, which presum-
ably date back to older compilations.202 The steadily growing numbers
of published Demotic legal documents, especially from Thebes, pro-
vide insights into the economic situation of population groups such
as the choachytes who are otherwise not attested in the sources, allow-
ing insight into new forms of social organization such as these cultic
associations.203
49.11. The Saite kings and

the Egyptian temples
With a few exceptions, there are only a handful of monuments still
standing today that bear witness to the cult policies of the Saite kings.
In addition to one of originally four naoi in the temple of Banebdjedet
in Mendes and the temple of Amun in the Siwa oasis, the Osiris chapels
in Thebes are especially important. The temple of Nekhbet at Elkab suf-
fered a massive loss of its architectural elements in the nineteenth cen-
tury ad when they were removed, and a similar fate affected sites such
as Naukratis, Sais, and Mit Rahina at Memphis with the so-called Palace
of Apries.
Blocks from buildings constructed during the Saite period were
already being reused in antiquity for new temple constructions, notably
during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Especially in the case of Sais
and Heliopolis, architectural elements were carried off for the construc-
tion of the new capital city of Alexandria, or later still for reuse in Rome.
Despite these circumstances, the various known temple blocks with the
cartouches of kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty allow us to sketch the
outlines of their policies vis-à-vis the temples, with a particular emphasis
on the Nile delta but also on the oases in the Western Desert.204
202. E.g., Codex Hermopolis: Lippert 2010; 2017.

203. See, e.g., the archives of Djekhy and Iturekh: Donker van Heel 1995; 2012;
Agut-Labordère 2012d; 2013: 1009–1026; Muhs 2016: 173–210.
204. For an overview, see Arnold 1999: 63–92; Zivie-Coche 2008.
48
49.11.1. Sais
The temples in the Nile delta were at the center of the Saite kings’ build-
ing activities, most notably in their residence city of Sais, located in the
western Nile delta. However, we have only limited information about
the royal residence of Sais due to its poor state of preservation, despite
recent investigations.205 The ancient city lies underneath the modern vil-
lage of Sa el-Hagar and is difficult to access archaeologically.
Sais is representative of the fate shared by other cities in the Nile
delta, such as Memphis, Tanis, and Naukratis, which all suffered from
extensive destruction due to sebakh digging, the practice of remov-
ing decomposed mudbricks from archaeological sites for use as a fer-
tilizer. Stone monuments like temple blocks or obelisks were brought
to Alexandria as early as the Ptolemaic period and also reached Rome
in the Roman period. In the early nineteenth century ad, travelers to
Egypt could still see a large mudbrick complex within a massive mud-
brick enclosure wall, the so-called Northern Enclosure, to the north of
the modern village of Sa el-Hagar, as well as another settlement mound
(kom) to the south of this complex (figure 49.5). By the end of the nine-
teenth century, the mudbrick structures within the Northern Enclosure
had been severely eroded, and the southern kom had suffered destruction
due to the removal of its decomposed mudbricks in order to be used as
fertilizer for agriculture.206
Due to the lack of any significant building remains at Sa el-Hagar,
which had been deprived of its monuments in antiquity and later lost
a massive amount of its archaeological remains in the nineteenth cen-
tury ad, the most important sources for reconstructing the topography
of ancient Sais are hieroglyphic inscriptions, namely temple blocks with
royal cartouches, biographical inscriptions of high officials, and donation
steles, as well as the accounts of classical authors.207 Herodotus described
the new buildings of the Saite kings in the city in some detail, and these
205. Wilson 2006: 233–272; Leclère 2008: 159–196; see also Wilson 2019: 345–351.
206. For the Great Pit, see Petrie 1886.
207. El-Sayed 1975.
49
Saite Egypt 49
Figure 49.5. The ruins of Sais, as seen by the expedition of Karl Richard
Lepsius in 1842. Reproduced from Lepsius 1849: Blatt 56.
must have still made a significant impression in the mid-fifth century

bc, long after the Persian conquest. The royal palace, which Herodotus
attributed to Apries,208 as well as the temple of the goddess Neith, were
probably located within the Northern Enclosure. The mudbrick com-
plex within the enclosure measures 300 × 100 m and has some similari-
ties to known contemporaneous palace buildings at Memphis (“Palace
of Apries”), Naukratis, Tell Defenna, and other Delta cities (section
49.11.2). According to Herodotus, the royal burials were located within
the temple of Neith, with the tomb of Amasis situated in front of the
other tombs.209 That the kings were indeed buried in Sais is confirmed
by surface finds from the site, such as royal servant figurines (shabtis),
although the actual structures have not yet been identified.210 The
208. Hdt. 2.163, 169.

209. Hdt. 2.169−170.
210. Wilson 2016.
50
custom of including royal burials within the main temple precinct of the
royal residence follows a tradition that was already established at Tanis
during the Third Intermediate Period under the rulers of the Twenty-
first and Twenty-second Dynasties (chapter 35 in volume 4), and later
taken up again at Mendes by the rulers of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty
(399–380 bc).211 A necropolis with elite tombs was located northeast
of the Northern Enclosure, as shown by finds of stone sarcophagi of
Egyptian officials at Kawady.212 In the area of the so-called Great Pit,
there must have once stood some larger temple buildings, as suggested by
the extant remains of stone walls, but a more precise localization of the
temples known from the inscriptions is not possible at present.
The meager surviving monuments indicate clearly enough that Sais,
with its royal residence and its temples, was at the center of the Saite
kings’ building activities.213 Only a few blocks have survived from the
time of Psamtek I, including screen walls from between columns that had
once belonged to a temple of Amun at Sais. According to Herodotus,
Psamtek was the first Saite king to be buried within the temple precinct
of Neith, and his successors followed his example (see above in this
section). Quartzite blocks again attest to a large building constructed
under Nekau II, which had several entrances. The overseer of the ante-
chamber Horiraa Wehemibranefer (later called Neferibranefer; section
49.6) erected two obelisks on behalf of the king and later undertook
extensive restoration work in Sais for the sed festival of Psamtek II.214
A naos for the sanctuary of Neith is known from the time of Apries,
and scattered quartzite blocks are all that remain of a monument that
was built in order to commemorate the king’s sed festival. Apries also
constructed a building with Hathor columns, as well as two obelisks
for the Osiris sanctuary (Hutbit), which were later moved to the Iseum
in Rome.
211. Stadelmann 1971; Quack 2006.

212. Bakry 1968.
213. For the following, see El-Sayed 1975; Wilson 2006; Leclère 2008: 168–173, 178.
51
Saite Egypt 51
In addition, Herodotus reported that the palace of Apries at Sais was

still standing in the Persian period,215 and furthermore describes that
Amasis had a large porch built for Athena (i.e., Neith) at Sais, which
included large statues (kolossoi) as well as sphinxes and stone blocks that
had been brought downstream on the Nile from the quarries at Memphis
(Tura) and Elephantine.216 Herodotus describes in detail a naos with a
height of more than 10.5 m that was brought down from Elephantine and
placed in front of the temple. This recalls that Amasis had a whole series
of larger as well as smaller naoi erected in Lower Egyptian sanctuaries
(section 49.11.2).
49.11.2. Lower Egypt

In the temple precinct of Amun at Tell el-Balamun in the northeastern
Nile delta, Psamtek I built a second temple, the so-called Temple C.217 In
addition to its foundation deposits, some stone blocks were found, some
of which were decorated with scenes from the sed festival.218 The temple
precinct was surrounded by a massive enclosure wall and included in the
southern corner of the precinct a large casemate construction measuring
54 × 61 m, with a 63.5-m-long ramp in front of it. It is comparable in
layout and dimensions to similar mudbrick buildings found at Naukratis
and Tell Defenna.219 Blocks from the temple of Amun were taken from a
kiosk built by Psamtek I at Tanis, the old royal capital of the Twenty-first
and Twenty-second Dynasties located in the eastern Nile delta. Later,
Apries renovated the temple of Mut at Tanis and extended it with a por-
tico, of which some blocks have survived. Foundation deposits attest that
Tell Defenna was founded by Psamtek I (section 49.4).220 Furthermore,
215. Hdt. 2.163, 169.

216. Hdt. 2.175–176.
217. Spencer 1996: 46–50; Leclère 2008: 288–293.
219. Cf. Muhs 1994; Spencer 1999; see also Leclère 2008: 627–640.
52
Psamtek’s building efforts are attested by architectural elements as well as

donation steles in several other delta cities.221
In Athribis (Tell Athrib) in the southern Nile delta, where Takhout,
the wife of Psamtek II, was buried, the king endowed a naos, and Amasis
later followed suit by endowing several naoi and erecting a temple to
Osiris there.222 Located in the western Nile delta was the sanctuary of
the goddess Wadjet at Buto, as described in some detail by Herodotus,223
and extant stone blocks found there attest to the building activities of
Psamtek II and Amasis, while a large enclosure wall extending over an
area of 220 × 250 m that surrounds several larger mudbrick buildings
dates to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty.224
Among the most spectacular legacies of the Saite kings in the Nile
delta are the four, ca. 8 m high naoi at Mendes, which Amasis had built
on a massive foundation for the bas of the local god Banebdjedet, one
of which is still in situ today (figure 49.6).225 In addition, Amasis had
larger and smaller naoi erected in Lower Egyptian sanctuaries including
Athribis and Buto, as well as in the temple of Ptah at Memphis.226
In the course of the construction of the canal from the Nile to the
Red Sea, as initiated by Nekau II, Pithom (modern Tell el-Maskhuta)
was refounded around 600 bc.227 According to Herodotus,228 the canal
was only completed during the reign of Darius I, which is confirmed by
the Persian ruler’s multilingual steles that were erected around the settle-
ment of Patumos/Pithom (chapter 61 in this volume).
221. Cf. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: 1–28.

222. Leclère 2008: 243–246.
223. Hdt. 2.155−156.
224. Hartung et al. 2003; Leclère 2008: 205–212.
225. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 57.25–26; Leclère 2008: 324–329.
226. Zecchi 2019; on the temple-building programme of Amasis, see Graefe 2011.
227. Naville 1903; Holladay 1982; Leclère 2008: 551–556.
228. Hdt. 2.158.
53
Saite Egypt 53
Figure 49.6. One of the originally four naoi in the temple of Banebdjedet
at Mendes. Photograph by Dietrich Wildung. Courtesy of the Munich Digital
Research Archives, LMU Munich.
49.11.3. Memphis and Heliopolis

At Mit Rahina, the ruins of ancient Memphis, the so-called Palace of
Apries is noteworthy. It is characterized by a monumental mudbrick
building measuring 100 × 130 m, built on a 14-m-high casemate platform
that was first excavated by W. M. F. Petrie at the beginning of the twenti-
eth century. The palace stood within a 410 × 540 m enclosure located to
the north of the Ptah temple district.229 The platform was accessible from
the south via a massive, 90-m-long ramp. The building had large court-
yards or porticoes, and the interior stone facings were still partly in place
when Petrie excavated the site. In some pits to the south of the building,
the excavator found stone blocks dating to the late Saite Dynasty. The
decoration of a doorway showing King Apries at the sed festival, which
229. Petrie 1909; Petrie et al. 1910; Kemp 1977; see also Leclère 2008: 65–69.
54
was clearly influenced by the corresponding scenes from the tomb of

Djoser at Saqqara (chapter 4 in volume 1), deserves special attention.230
Finds such as sealings and plaques with Aramaic inscriptions confirm
the subsequent use of the building in Persian times (chapter 61 in this
volume).
Nevertheless, the exact function of this palatial building complex is
difficult to determine. Its dimensions exceed those of comparable mud-
brick buildings at Naukratis, Tell Defenna, and Tell el-Balamun, which
were also located within large enclosures. Petrie had interpreted the
northern enclosure, in which the palace is located, as a military camp
and equated the palace with the “White Walls” (leukon teikhos) men-
tioned by Herodotus, but it is more likely that this is in fact the temple
district of Neith, north of the temple of Ptah, which is also attested in
hieroglyphic inscriptions.231
Herodotus describes the building activities of Amasis at Memphis in
some detail,232 describing how statues of the king with a height of over 22.5
m stood in front of the temples of Hephaistos (Ptah) at both Memphis
and Sais. The description of these colossal statues is reminiscent of the
not quite so large but still colossal statues of Rameses II (1279–1213 bc),
which were discovered lying on the ground at Mit Rahina, but the recent
discovery of fragments of a colossal statue of Psamtek I with an original
height of 10.5 m at Heliopolis proves that such monumental sculpture
was also created during the Saite period (figure 49.2).233
Moreover, Amasis constructed a temple dedicated to Isis at
Memphis,234 but as the well-known temple of Isis at Mit Rahina had
existed already since the Ramesside period, this may perhaps refer to a
temple for the mother of the Apis bull, as the first burials in Saqqara of
those sacred cows that had given birth to the Apis bull date to the end
230. Kaiser 1987.

231. Leclère 2008: 65–66, 69.
232. Hdt. 2.176.
233. Ashmawy and Raue 2017; Ashmawy et al. 2019.
234. Hdt. 2.176.
5
Saite Egypt 55
of the sixth century bc.235 According to Herodotus,236 Psamtek I added

an entrance hall to the temple of Ptah at Memphis and decorated the
courtyard where the bull of Apis was kept with 6-m-high statues; nei-
ther structure has yet been archaeologically identified in the ruins of
ancient Memphis at Mit Rahina. However, blocks reused in the Apis
bull embalming hall of the Thirtieth Dynasty attest to corresponding
building activities of the Saite kings.237
The burial place of the Apis bulls, the Serapeum of Saqqara, has
been well known since its discovery by Auguste Mariette in the mid-
nineteenth century ad.238 In his Year 21, Psamtek I had overseen an Apis
bull burial in the petits souterrains, this being the underground gallery
used for the burials of Apis bulls since the Ramesside period. Later, he
created another large underground gallery with side chambers (dubbed
grands souterrains), where a first Apis bull was buried in Psamtek’s
Year 52. Beginning with the Year 23 of Amasis, the Apis bulls were buried
in massive stone sarcophagi, some of which still survive in situ today.
The new gallery extends over more than 300 m and was used as a burial
ground for the Apis bulls until the Ptolemaic period. These burials were
commemorated by royal steles, which also give the dates of important
events in the lives of the sacred animals, such as their birth and corona-
tion dates, thus providing important data for the Apis cult.239 In addi-
tion, priests, officials, and members of the royal family were involved in
the funerary ceremonies and donated steles.240 For example, Amasis’s
crown prince Psamtek, later crowned as Psamtek III, provided an impres-
sive description of his participation in the burial ceremonies for an Apis
235. Dodson 2005: 89.

236. Hdt. 2.153.
237. Leclère 2008: 63–65.
238. Mariette and Maspero 1882; see also Devauchelle 1994; 2011; Dodson 2005;
Markovic 2015; 2017.
239. Apis bull burials: Year 16 of Nekau II, Year 12 of Apries; Year 4 or 5 of Amasis;
see Malinine et al. 1968.
240. Vercoutter 1962.
56
bull.241 As discussed above (section 49.9), the resident Carians took an

active part in the festivities surrounding the Apis cult, as shown not only
by Herodotus’s descriptions, but also by the Carian steles, which fre-
quently made references to the Apis bull.
The cult of the Apis bulls, as the incarnation of the god Ptah, was par-
ticularly promoted by the Saite kings, but the monumental expansion of
the Serapeum is also representative of the growing importance of animal
cults in general, which reached a first peak during the Saite period when
burial sites for sacred animals that were seen as incarnations of local dei-
ties were created throughout Egypt.242
The importance of Memphis as the residential city of the Saite kings
is further illustrated by the numerous monumental tombs of high offi-
cials in the Memphite necropoleis of Giza, Abusir, and Saqqara.243 Lastly,
a stele from Year 29 of Apries records restoration works in Memphis after
a great flood.244
49.11.4. Thebes and Upper Egypt

At Thebes, it was the God’s Wives of Amun and their chief stewards
(section 49.3) who built cult structures during the Saite period, espe-
cially chapels dedicated to the local forms of Osiris.245 Under Psamtek I,
Nitiqret built two Osiris chapels in the north of Karnak that have been
archaeologically identified, while a third one is attested in the biographi-
cal inscription of her chief steward Ibi, which also mentions the palace
of Nitiqret.246 Under Nekau II, two further chapels were erected along
the processional way to the temple of Ptah, one along the northern side

242. On the animal cult in general, see Kessler 1989; Ikram 2005; Fitzenreiter 2013.
243. See also Jurman 2007.
245. Koch 2012; Coulon 2016b; Coulon et al. 2018: 278–283; see also Coulon and
Defernez 2004; Leclère 2010.
246. Christophe 1951; Coulon and Laisney 2015; also section 49.4.
57
Saite Egypt 57
of the temple precinct of Amun and one in North Karnak. In addition

to other buildings, he had an Osiris tomb built in the east of the Karnak
temple precinct for the khoiak festival. Psamtek II mainly usurped the
monuments of the Kushite rulers of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty at Thebes,
among them the Osiris chapel of Taharqo (section 49.7). Psamtek II’s
daughter Ankhnesneferibra, Nitiqret’s eventual successor as God’s
Wife of Amun, built two additional Osiris chapels for Osiris Wennefer
Nebdjefau and Osiris Wennefer Nebneheh along the processional route
to the temple of Ptah and in North Karnak, during the reigns of Amasis
and Psamtek III, respectively.247 Ankhnesneferibra extended the palace of
the God’s Wife that had been begun under Nitiqret at North Karnak.248
Like their Kushite predecessors, the Saite God’s Wives of Amun
erected their funerary chapels within the enclosure of the mortuary tem-
ple of Rameses III (1181–1150 bc) at Medinet Habu.249 Nitiqret com-
pleted the funerary chapel initially built by her predecessor Shepenupet
II and had another built for herself; the latter was extended by another
funerary chapel dedicated for her mother. Ankhnesneferibra also built
her own funerary chapel, next to the buildings of her two predecessors,
although her sarcophagus, which was found in Deir el-Medina, appar-
ently remained unused.250
The construction of Osiris chapels at Karnak, as well as an Osiris
tomb for the khoiak festival under Nekau II, seamlessly followed the
building practices of the Kushite rulers, among whom Taharqo in partic-
ular had built a whole series of chapels, and reflects the steadily increas-
ing importance of the Osiris cult in the course of the first millennium
bc.251 This is also demonstrated by the design of the monumental tombs
located in the Asasif, with their distinct Osirian areas (section 49.3).
247. Coulon and Defernez 2004; Traunecker 2010.

248. Coulon 2014; Coulon and Laisney 2015.
249. Hölscher 1954.
250. Wagner 2016; see also Koch 2017.
251. Coulon 2010; 2013; see also Smith 2017.
58
At the same time, the building activities of the Saite kings, or rather
their local representatives, the God’s Wives of Amun, at the sanctuary
of Amun-Ra at Karnak, are modest when compared with those of the
Kushite rulers, and this seems to indicate the dwindling importance of
the Theban cult of Amun and its priesthood. The fact that after Psamtek
I’s long reign, the Theban priests are rarely attested by temple statues
(as previously well known, e.g., from the Karnak cachette; section 49.2),
also fits into this picture. Instead, it was now the God’s wives and their
chief stewards who were almost exclusively commemorated in the
form of monuments.252 The Saite kings probably consciously set them-
selves apart from their Kushite predecessors, for whose claim to power
over Egypt the cult of Amun at Thebes had been of central impor-
tance. This anti-Kushite policy supposedly reached its climax when
Psamtek II usurped Kushite-built sanctuaries of Thebes on a large scale
(section 49.7).
Elsewhere in Upper Egypt, the Saite kings seem to have conducted
only a modest building program when compared to their much more
abundant activities in Lower Egypt. However, the works of Psamtek I are
attested by temple blocks at numerous Upper Egyptian sanctuaries.253
At Elkab, this king built a temple dedicated to the goddess Nekhbet,
which was later usurped by Amasis.254 Psamtek II built a kiosk on Philae
and decorated the temple of Khnum at Elephantine, whereas Amasis
expanded the temple of Satet in that city.255
Despite the growing importance of the Osiris cult, relatively little
evidence is known from Abydos, the traditional Upper Egyptian sanc-
tuary of Osiris.256 In addition to temple blocks with the cartouches
252. Vittmann 1978; Broekman 2012; see also Jansen-Winkeln 2014a (vol. 2).
253. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 53.25–37.
254. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 53.20. The temple was still standing in the nine-
teenth century ad; building activities of Amasis are also attested in its Lower
Egyptian counterpart, the Wadjet temple of Buto.
255. Cf. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.59, 55.67, 57.95.
256. Klotz 2010.
59
Saite Egypt 59
of Apries and Amasis, the biographical inscription of Peftjauneith is

particularly noteworthy, as he claims to have restored the temple of
Khentimentiu under Amasis and endowed it with a thousand aroura of
land, and according to a passage that seems to highlight the civil-war-
like conditions during the chaotic change of government from Apries to
Amasis, he also restored the temple funds which the local governor had
misappropriated.257
49.11.5. Oases of the Libyan Desert

Evidence of temple-building activities under the Saite kings has been
found not only in the Nile Valley but also in the oases of the Western
Desert.
The new construction of the temple of Amun-Ra at Hibis in the
Kharga oasis, with its decoration completed only under Darius I of
Persia, later underwent numerous extensions, and was—just like Qasr el-
Ghueita—presumably initially built under the Saite Dynasty (chapter 61
in this volume). Eugene Cruz-Uribe’s postulation that it was founded
during the reign of Psamtek II is now considered controversial, as Olaf
Kaper instead proposed the longer reigning kings Apries or Amasis.258
In the Dakhla oasis, the situation is clearer. Several temple blocks
attest to the building activities of Psamtek I and II in the temple of Seth
and Amun-Ra at Mut el-Kharab, as well as of Psamtek I, Nekau II, and
Psamtek II in the temple of Thoth at Amheida; eventually, Amasis built a
new temple there.259 In the Bahariya oasis, Apries is attested in the temple
of Amun at el-Qasr;260 and the local governor Djedkhonsuiufankh built
chapels at Ayn el-Muftella under Amasis.261 Finally, the local governor
257. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 57.287; see also Jelinkova-Reymond 1957.

258. Cruz-Uribe 1988: 196; Kaper 2012: 174.
259. Kaper 2012; 2018; see also Hubschmann 2019.
260. Fakhry 1950: 1–5.
261. Colin and Labrique 2002; see also Labrique 2004; 2007.
60
Sethirdis constructed the temple of Amun at Aghurmi in the Siwa oasis

after Amasis had seized the region.262
The involvement of the Saite kings, or of their local governors at the
oases of Bahariya and Siwa, in the construction of temples in the oases of
the Western Desert illustrates their geopolitical interests in this border
region.263 The military security of the western frontier had certainly been
a focus since Psamtek I led his campaign against the rebellious Libyans
(section 49.4). Later, Apries supported the Libyan king Adikran against
the growing influence of the Greek colony of Cyrene, whereas his succes-
sor Amasis, on the other hand, entered into an alliance with the Greeks
by taking the Cyrenean Ladike as his wife (section 49.8).
Temple building in the Western Desert reached a climax under
Amasis, who expanded Egypt’s influence as far as the Siwa oasis, and
whose temple-building activity is attested in all great oases except for the
Kharga oasis. The oases of the Western Desert also remained in the focus
of Persian interests, as both the narratives of Herodotus and the decora-
tion of the temple of Amun-Ra at Hibis in Kharga oasis impressively
illustrate (chapter 61 in this volume). In addition to defending Egypt’s
western border, securing trade routes in the Western Desert played a sig-
nificant role both under Saite and Persian rule.
49.12. The “Saite Renaissance” and Egyptian

cultural traditions under the Saites
While royal sculpture from the Saite period is virtually unknown, with
only one example of monumental sculpture known as the result of the
recent discovery of the colossal statue of Psamtek I at Heliopolis (figure
49.2),264 hundreds of statues of high officials and priests that were origi-
nally erected in various temples across Egypt attest to the quality and
262. Kuhlmann 1988; Colin 1998; Bruhn 2010: 47–82.

263. Kaper 2012; 2018; Darnell et al. 2013: 16–20.
264. Myśliwiec 1988: 46–66; Josephson 1992.
61
Saite Egypt 61
prevalence of contemporary sculpture in the round.265 During the early

reign of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, various traditional statue types expe-
rienced a revival, such as standing statues, seated statues, or stelophoric
statues (i.e., depictions of a person holding a stele). Stylistic elements
from different periods were adopted, as well as some previously exclu-
sively royal attributes such as the shendyt kilt.266 Notable examples are the
statue programs of Montuemhat, Padiamenope, and Bakenrenef. Later
in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, the repertoire of statue types was reduced
considerably, with a clear preference for naophoric statues (i.e., depic-
tions of a person holding a shrine), theophoric statues (i.e., depictions
of a person holding a deity), and block statues, as illustrated, e.g., by the
statue programs of officials such as Nakhthorheb or Wahibra (sections
49.6 and 49.10). These monuments can be dated to the Saite Dynasty
not only because of their stylistic characteristics, but also because of
their preferential use of dark, brightly polished stones, especially gray-
wacke from the Wadi Hammamat. As far as the placement of these stat-
ues is concerned, the general trend matches that of the monumental
tombs: Thebes plays an increasingly less prominent role, while Sais and
Memphis, the royal residence cities in the north of Egypt, become the
favored locations.
The time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty was characterized by the pro-
ductive engagement with the millennia-old cultural heritage of Egypt,
which is manifested on different levels; e.g., the Saite royal inscriptions
imitated models of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom in
format and language,267 and officials used phrases in their biographical
inscriptions that are known from Middle Kingdom tombs (chapter 22
in volume 2).268 Ancient architecture and reliefs were also copied and
reproduced on a large scale: e.g., the scenes from the “Palace of Apries”
in Memphis that show the king during the sed festival can be directly
265. Bothmer et al. 1961; Josephson 1997; see also Perdu 2012; Russmann 2010.
266. Price 2019.
267. Der Manuelian 1994.
268. Kahl 1999: 314; 2014.
62
traced back to corresponding reliefs from the Djoser district of Saqqara

dating to the Old Kingdom (section 49.11.3). As Luise Gestermann has
shown, the subterranean tomb complex beneath the step pyramid of
Djoser at Saqqara probably served as a model for the new shaft tombs.269
A 60-m-long gallery, which provided access to the burial shaft and coffin
chamber of Djoser from the south, and the square-grids on the under-
ground reliefs testify to the contemporary interest in this ancient funer-
ary monument. The subterranean complex was probably identified with
the tomb of the Memphite god of the dead, Sokar.270
The penchant for archaism is particularly evident in the funerary
culture of the Saite period.271 The decoration of the monumental tombs
of the chief stewards and highest officials in Thebes borrows style and
scenes not only from private tombs of the Old Kingdom (chapter 7 in
volume 1), but also from Theban tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty of the
New Kingdom (chapter 26 in volume 3). The monumental shaft tombs
of the Memphite necropoleis are yet again based in their architecture on
the already mentioned Djoser district. At the same time, the elite tombs
at Thebes and Memphis contained texts from the three major corpora
of ancient Egyptian mortuary literature, namely the Pyramid Texts, the
Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead, as well as funerary texts from
New Kingdom royal tombs such as the Amduat.272
The most dazzling example is undoubtedly the monumental tomb,
with a size of 90 × 110 m, of the chief lector priest Padiamenope, who was
in office at the end of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty or the beginning of the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty. His tomb represents a veritable library of ancient
Egyptian funerary literature. In addition to excerpts of the Pyramid
Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead, it also contained royal
funerary literature of the New Kingdom such as the Amduat, the Book
269. Gestermann 2006; see also Quack 2009a.

270. Gestermann 2006.
271. Smoláriková 2010; for the term “archaism,” see Kahl 2010.
272. E.g., Gestermann 2005 (Coffin Texts); Morales 2015, 2017 (Pyramid Texts).
63
Saite Egypt 63
of Gates, and the Book of Caves, as well as ritual texts such as the sacrifi-
cial ritual, the hourly guards, and the mouth-opening ritual.273
It was during the Saite period that the Book of the Dead was given
its canonical order (today known as the Saitic Recension) as well as its
characteristic illustrative vignettes.274 The conscious study and copying
of monuments from earlier periods, as well as the collecting and compil-
ing of older religious literature, should certainly be understood as a con-
scious reaction to the more than four centuries of political disintegration
in Egypt, combined with the rule of Libyans, Kushites, and Assyrians,
and the concomitant experience of the transience of traditional Egyptian
culture and society. The traumatic experience of foreign rule was in par-
ticular expressed by the systematic damnatio memoriae of the Kushite
kings in Egypt, and in Nubia, under Psamtek II, and also found its echo
in the narrative literature, especially in the compositions about the prince
Inaros, which are thought to reflect the prehistory of the Saite Dynasty
under Assyrian rule.275 In the Petition of Petiese, as contained in Papyrus
Rylands 9, the period of Assyrian rule is described, not without reason, as
the “bad time” during which Egyptian temples were robbed of their rev-
enues and religious centers such as Thebes were plundered. How aware
and how proud the Egyptians of that time were of the age of their own
culture is shown not least by the Hecataeus episode in Herodotus, in
which Egyptian priests pretend to be able to trace their history back over
345 generations.276 At the same time, stories about historical kings of the
third millennium bc such as the Old Kingdom rulers Khufu, Khafra,
and Menkaura were circulated, as these stories have been handed down
through Demotic narratives as well as Herodotus’s Histories.277
As we have seen above (sections 49.8−9), the influence of Saite-
period Egyptian culture reached as far as Greece, with which it
273. Traunecker 2014; Werning 2019.

274. Quack 2009b.
275. Ryholt 2004.
276. Hdt. 2.143; see Moyer 2002; also Schwab 2020.
277. Spiegelberg 1926; Wildung 1969; Quack 2013.
64
cultivated an intensive exchange. The best-known examples are the stat-

ues of young men (Greek kouroi) that probably first appeared in the late
seventh century bc. These large-scale statues—the so-called Kouros
of Samos, e.g., reached a height of 4.75 m—were directly modeled
on three-dimensional Egyptian sculpture, more precisely on the type
of the striding figure attested since the Old Kingdom.278 The private
sculpture of the early Twenty-sixth Dynasty as well as the monumental
royal statues were impressively described by Herodotus, and an example
has recently been found in situ at Heliopolis; such artifacts certainly
served as contemporary models for the Greek kouroi.279 In addition to
monumentality and proportion, also the choice of stone may be traced
back to Egyptian influence, and the typical smile of Saite-period sculp-
ture is echoed by the so-called Archaic smile. Greeks such as Pedon,
who served in Egypt and later returned to their homeland (section
49.9), may have acted as mediators of Egyptian culture back home. As
the emergence of the kouroi in the late seventh century bc indicates,
Egyptian influence on Greek art dates back already to the time of the
first generation of Greeks to serve in Egypt. Because of the known great
age of its culture, the Greeks regarded Egypt as the cradle of many cul-
tural achievements, such as Solon’s Laws, as illustrated by the stories of
Herodotus.280
49.13. Epilogue
In the course of the lengthy reign of Amasis, the Persian Empire expanded
westward and ended the supremacy of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the
Near East and the eastern Mediterranean. Cyrus the Great conquered
the kingdom of Lydia in 547 bc and Babylon in 539 bc. Previously, the
Babylonians made their final attempt to conquer Egypt in 567 bc. The
278. Levin 1964; Richter 1970; Höckmann 2007; see also Mendoza 2015: 406–410.
279. For a long time, large-scale sculpture of the New Kingdom, as still found today
at Memphis, was assumed to be the model.
280. Hdt. 1.30, 2.177.
65
Saite Egypt 65
Saite king’s intensive policy of forging alliances with Greek city-states in

Asia Minor, especially with Polycrates of Samos, must therefore always
be seen against the background of this threat from the east. However,
even Amasis’s great diplomatic network could not prevent Egypt’s con-
quest by the Persian Empire, as only six months after this Saite king’s
death, Cyrus’s son and successor Cambyses conquered the lands on the
Nile (chapter 61 in this volume).
The Twenty-sixth Dynasty served in many respects as a model for
the Thirtieth Dynasty (360–343 bc), whose kings practiced a temple-
building program that clearly echoed that of the Saite kings. They
erected large enclosure walls, some of which surpassed even those of the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty (notably at Tell el-Balamun) and expanded tem-
ples that had been newly constructed in the Saite period, e.g., the temple
of Amun at Hibis.281 High officials serving the rulers of the Thirtieth
Dynasty again held titles such as “vizier” or “overseer of the antecham-
ber” that are well known from the time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty,
but had no longer been used under Persian rule.282 Some offices, such as
that of the “planner” (Greek dioiketes), which had first been introduced
in the late Saite period, were attested into the Ptolemaic period.283 In
their self-presentation, these officials followed the conventions of the
late Twenty-sixth Dynasty, e.g., by depicting themselves wearing the so-
called Persian robe and the typical stylistic patterns in their biographical
inscriptions.284 Officials even had themselves buried in the monumen-
tal tomb monuments of their predecessors in office: e.g., the Thirtieth-
Dynasty vizier Padineith in the tomb of his predecessor Bakenrenef from
the time of Psamtek I.285 Others, however, merely restored the monu-
ments of their predecessors; e.g., a Thirtieth-Dynasty “Overseer of the
281. Arnold 1999: 105–136; see also Forgeau 2018.

282. Vittmann 2009; see also Schütze 2013.
283. Yoyotte 1989; see also Klotz 2009.
284. Agut-Labordère 2019.
6
Antechamber” rebuilt the burial chapel of Iahmessaneith, his predeces-

sor in this office during the late Twenty-sixth Dynasty, commemorating
this in an inscription.286
Certain high officials of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (sometimes still
active in the subsequent Persian period), such as the “planner” Horudja
or the “chief physician” Psamtek (section 49.6), played an important role
in the narrative literature of the fourth century bc.287 The Saite kings
themselves also had their firm place in such works, as best illustrated by
some Demotic tales. The kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty undertook
campaigns to Syria (Psamtek I) or Nubia (Amasis), and this may have
provided the foil for the mythical kings of the narrative literature such
as Senusret, who not only confronted the Scythians and persuaded them
to turn back (as did Psamtek I), but even defeated them.288 Nekau II
experienced a worthy afterlife as the wise king Nechepsos.289 Important
works of Demotic literature, such as the Tale of Amasis and the Skipper,
the Brooklyn Wisdom Text, or the Teachings of Chasheshonqy, can be
dated to the Saite period, not least because of the references to kings of
the Twenty-sixth Dynasty or because of their setting, e.g., at the royal
palace of Daphnae, even if the extant manuscripts are of more recent
date.290
The notoriety of certain rulers of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty was
echoed also in some of the stories transmitted by Herodotus in the mid-
fifth century bc, in which Amasis in particular occupied a large space,
notably his legendary drinking (as also evidenced by the Demotic Tale
of Amasis and the Skipper).291 In turn, this illustrates how well-known
Amasis in particular was in the Greek world, thanks to his intensive
286. Jansen-Winkeln 1997.

287. Tait 1977: 28–33; Quack 2018.
288. Obsomer 1989; Quack 2013; cf. Hdt. 2.103, 2.110.
289. Ryholt 2011a.
290. Cf. Hoffmann and Quack 2007; Agut-Labordère and Chauveau 2011.
291. Quaegebeur 1990.
67
Saite Egypt 67
diplomatic efforts, to the extent that a distinct literary tradition sur-

rounding this king was developed there.292
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Zauzich, K.-T. 1992. Ein Zug nach Nubien unter Amasis. In Johnson, J.H.
(ed.), Life in a multi-cultural society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine
and beyond. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago,
361–364.
Zecchi, M. 2019. The naos of Amasis: a monument for the reawakening of Osiris.
Leiden: Sidestone.
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Zivie-Coche, C.M. 1991. Giza au premier millénaire: autour du temple d’Isis,

dame des pyramides. Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts.
Zivie-Coche, C.M. 2008. Late Period temples. In Wendrich, W., et al. (eds.),
UCLA encyclopedia of Egyptology. Los Angeles: UCLA. Retrieved from
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/30k472wh (last accessed February
14, 2021).
91
50
The Neo-Babylonian Empire

Michael Jursa
50.1. Introduction
Born in 626 bc out of a local revolt in southern Babylonia against
Assyrian rule and restricted to this area for the first years of its existence,
the Neo-Babylonian state (figure 50.1) was the dominant force in much
of the Near East from around 600 bc until 539 bc. It controlled lower
and upper Mesopotamia, much of modern Syria and the Levant, as well
as, at least temporarily, parts of Jordan and southwestern Iran. Owing its
ascendency to the void left by the fall of the Assyrian Empire (chapters
38–39 in volume 4) at the hands of a Babylonian-Median coalition, the
Neo-Babylonian Empire was in turn defeated by the rising power of the
Persians under Cyrus the Great (chapter 54 in this volume).
The short Neo-Babylonian period is thus chronologically bracketed
by the two great empires of the Near East in the first millennium, the
Assyrian and the Persian empires. Nevertheless, the Neo-Babylonian
Empire was more than a short-lived conduit of some imperial tradi-
tions from Assyria to the Persians. Significant political, intellectual, and
socioeconomic transformations in the region were directly or indirectly
associated with it and ensured its long-lasting legacy. Unfortunately,
though, drawing a balanced portrait of this empire that highlights both
its similarities to, and differences from, its Assyrian forerunner and its
Michael Jursa, The Neo-Babylonian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Edited
by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0050
92
Figure 50.1. Sites mentioned in chapter 50. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri (LMU Munich).
93
The Neo-Babylonian Empire 93
Persian successor is a challenging task owing to the nature of the avail-

able sources.
50.2. The sources

Quantitatively, texts in Babylonian written in the cuneiform script
outnumber by far all other types of sources for the Neo-Babylonian
Empire. The most important non-cuneiform source is the Hebrew
Bible. It narrates the fall of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians under
Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 bc; in Babylonian, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur,
“O Nabû, protect my progeny!”) and the subsequent deportation of
Judeans to Babylonia leading to the “Babylonian Exile.” This account was
decisive for shaping the legacy of the Babylonian Empire, even though
the Hebrew Bible’s contribution to the actual reconstruction of the per-
tinent historical events is quite uneven. Other textual sources include
some passages in the writings of Greek historians, such as Herodotus and
Berossus, and a few other Greek and Aramaic texts.
The Babylonian text corpus originated in southern Mesopotamia,
i.e., from the heartland of the empire. Museums house tens of thousands
of clay tablets containing administrative and legal content dated to this
period, and around 18,000 texts are published or at least accessible to
researchers.1 These texts allow us to reconstruct the society and econ-
omy of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in its core in considerable detail
and thereby demonstrate the economic consequences of imperial rule.
They are less informative for the political history of the period, especially
with regard to the imperial periphery in the west. What remains of the
Neo-Babylonian state archives is not comparable to the plethora of texts
recovered from Assyria that shed light on the Neo-Assyrian court and
state bureaucracy: a few hundred administrative records dealing with
the provisioning of royal palaces in Babylon have survived, and there is
a small group of royal letters dealing mostly with minor administrative
1. For a survey of the (then) known archives and text groups, see Jursa 2005; impor-
tant new material includes Pedersén 2005b; Pearce and Wunsch 2014.
94
matters that were preserved in the archives of the receiving (temple)

institutions.2
For the chronological framework and many events of the empire’s
political history, especially with regard to its westward expansion, we are
dependent on a small number of so-called chronicles: texts listing politi-
cal and military events year by (regnal) year. In modern scholarship, these
compositions were frequently considered “objective,” dispassionate his-
toriography, but more recent research clarified their origins in the social
concerns of propertied priests in the cities of Babylon and Borsippa.3
The numerous royal inscriptions (figure 50.2) might be expected to be a
major source of information on political history as well as on royal ideol-
ogy, but in actual fact their range of content is limited. They focus mostly
on the kings’ building activities, in particular on temple building, but
also on the construction of palaces, city walls, and canals. Their aim was
to establish royal legitimacy by focusing on the principal religious duty
of the Neo-Babylonian kings, namely their obligation to act as guaran-
tors of the cult of the main deities of Mesopotamia.4 Military events are
rarely touched upon in the royal inscriptions. Only inscribed royal rock
reliefs in the empire’s western periphery (known from modern Lebanon,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia) have a direct bearing on political history
by their very locations—although not so much by the content of the
inscriptions themselves.5 Internal political events are also largely absent
from these texts, with the exception of some compositions written in the
2. The fragmentary palace archives excavated in Babylon by the Deutsche Orient-

Gesellschaft prior to the First World War are catalogued in Pedersén 2005b—
but the bulk of the material in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin remains
unpublished. For pertinent documentation recovered from other archives, see
Jursa 2014a. The state archives of the Assyrian Empire, as published in the volumes
of the series State Archives of Assyria (available also online at http://oracc.mus
eum.upenn.edu/saao/corpus; last accessed February 12, 2021), remain invaluable
for the reconstruction of the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s origin.
3. Waerzeggers 2012a. For the editions, see Glassner 2004.
4. For a survey of the inscriptions, see Da Riva 2008; for editions, see Schaudig 2001;
Da Riva 2012; 2013a; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020.
5. Da Riva 2012; 2015; 2020; Hausleiter and Schaudig 2016.
95
Figure 50.2. An example of a Neo-Babylonian royal inscription: the so-

called East India House Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II from Babylon.
British Museum, BM 129397. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Creative
Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC
BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
name of the empire’s last king, Nabonidus (555–539 bc). His inscriptions
reflected his particular religious preferences and the resistance he met in
certain segments of the priesthood, albeit in abbreviated, oblique ways.6
6. E.g., Beaulieu 2007.

96
Archaeology fills some, but not all, of the gaps left by the textual
sources. Large-scale surveys in the Babylonian heartlands allow us to
place the demographic and economic developments under the Neo-
Babylonian kings into the longer continuum of Iron Age settlement
history.7 Excavations of Babylonian cities focused mostly on the cen-
tral prestige buildings, the palaces, and temples, and the remarkable
achievements of the Neo-Babylonian period in this respect have been
investigated in detail.8 While private dwellings and general urban
archaeology, beyond palaces and temples, have attracted less interest,
pertinent studies do exist.9 Archaeological information from other,
peripheral parts of the empire is often hard to identify as specifically
relevant for the brief period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s rule over
the region. The identification of traces of the Babylonian imperial pres-
ence beyond destruction levels is frequently contentious (in fact, this is
also true for some of the evidence for destruction that has been attrib-
uted to the Babylonians). Therefore, it is difficult to gauge the impact
of Babylonian control over Syria and Palestine when our analysis
largely relies on archaeological data. A comprehensive synthesis unit-
ing the results of regional approaches with limited focus from modern-
day Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan (to name the most important)
remains to be written.10
50.3. A sketch of the Neo-Babylonian

Empire’s political history
The first three centuries of the first millennium bc saw a weak Babylon-
based monarchy with a quick turnover of ruling families, and a resulting
7. Adams 1981.
8. E.g., George 2008; Pedersén 2021.
9. In general, see Baker 2012; 2013.
10. For Israel, see Lipschits and Blenkinsopp 2003; Lipschits 2005; Faust 2012;
Dugal et al. 2020; for the Khabur region in Syria, see Kreppner 2016. More per-
tinent studies are summarized and analyzed by Blattner 2020.
97
fragmentation of the political landscape.11,12 Some Babylonian cit-

ies were ruled by de facto, or nearly, autonomous “governors” and/or
city councils.13 New population groups appeared: (originally) nomadic
Arameans settled in the Tigris area, and Chaldeans along the Euphrates
and in the far south of Babylonia. The latter quickly adopted urban life-
styles and, to some extent, Babylonian traditions, while apparently keep-
ing their “tribal” identity.14 Throughout most of this period, Chaldeans
competed for the throne in Babylon against Babylonian pretenders, and
for a while kingship may have rotated among the three major Chaldean
tribes of Bit-Dakkuri, Bit-Amukani, and Bit-Yakin.15 Urban life, the
traditional mainstay of Babylonian society, was constrained by the
tribal communities’ control over much of the cities’ rural hinterland.
Beginning in the second half of the eighth century, Assyrian expansion
increasingly threatened Babylonian independence and statehood, and
the country was neither sufficiently powerful nor united to mount an
effective resistance. Indeed, Babylonia’s eastern neighbor, the kingdom
of Elam, also profited from Babylonian weakness by occasionally attack-
ing the country.16
In the late eighth century, Babylonian history entered a new phase
characterized by its conflict with the Assyrian Empire.17 A series of
energetic and successful Assyrian kings more or less continuously
11. Von Voigtlander 1963 is still the only book-length treatment of the political his-
tory of the Neo-Babylonian Empire; other surveys of its history can be found in
Vanderhooft 1999; Beaulieu 1989; Schaudig 2001: 9–27; Da Riva 2008: 2–19;
and, most recently, in Beaulieu 2018: 219–249.
12. Brinkman 1968, with important additions by Cole 1996a; 1996b; see also van
Driel 1998 and chapter 41 in volume 4.
13. Barjamovic 2004.
14. Brinkman 1968: 260–288; 1975; 1984: 12–15; Cole 1996b: 17–34; Lipiński
2000: 416–422; also several contributions in Berlejung and Streck 2013.
15. Brinkman 1984: 176.
16. E.g., Glassner 2004: 196: no. 16: ii 38–45.
17. For this period, until the fall of the Assyrian Empire in the late seventh century
bc, see Brinkman 1984; Frame 1992.
98
waged war against Babylonia. The political center of gravity in the

country shifted to the south, to the Chaldean heartland; the north
would only recover in the sixth century, under the Neo-Babylonian
Empire. Assyrian aggression against Babylonia peaked for the first
time in 689 bc, when King Sennacherib (704–681 bc) ordered that
Babylon and its temples be sacked and destroyed. Sennacherib’s suc-
cessor Esarhaddon (680–669 bc) ushered in a comparatively peace-
ful phase of Assyrian-Babylonian relations; Babylon was rebuilt, but
the country remained under Assyrian control. Esarhaddon passed the
throne in Babylon to his son Šamaš-šumu-ukin, who, however, was
expected to accept the sovereignty of his brother Ashurbanipal, the
king of Assyria (668–631 bc). This arrangement was unsuccessful, as
Šamaš-šumu-ukin caused most of Babylonia to rise in rebellion against
Ashurbanipal—a rebellion (652–648 bc) that was brutally crushed by
the Assyrians.
Ashurbanipal’s siege of Babylon and the subsequent sack of the city
mark the nadir of Babylonia’s fortunes in the first half of the first mil-
lennium bc. All of Babylonia suffered: the rebel cities at the hands of
the Assyrians, and the cities that remained loyal to Ashurbanipal at the
hands of the rebel coalition. After the final defeat of the rebels, Babylonia
was ruled for the Assyrians by the puppet-king Kandalanu. The first signs
of an economic recovery appeared; Babylonia experienced a phase of rel-
ative stability and peace.
After the deaths of Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu, a new period of
upheaval and war began in 627 bc. Intra-Assyrian strife destabilized
the Assyrian hold on Babylonia, and the final blow to Assyrian domi-
nation came from inside the Assyrian government. Nabopolassar (in
Babylonian, Nabû-aplu-uṣur, “O Nabû, protect the heir!”), who insti-
gated a rebellion against the Assyrians that began in 626 bc in southern
Babylonia and eventually became the new king of Babylon (625–605
bc), can with some plausibility be identified as the Assyrian governor of
the southern city of Uruk. He was the descendant of a locally important
family that had traditionally served the Assyrians and owned land and
temple offices in Uruk. In his own inscriptions, Nabopolassar claimed
to be the “son of nobody”: this would be owed to his need to not draw
9
attention to his family’s history.18 Additional circumstantial evidence

may suggest that this family was Dakkurean, that is, of Chaldean tribal
origin, at least in the eyes of contemporaries from northern Babylonia.19
The war that ensued from Nabopolassar’s uprising lasted a decade.
We know its outline from two Babylonian chronicles.20 In its first years,
the rebels were several times on the verge of defeat. On one occasion,
Nabopolassar was only saved by the fact that the Assyrian king was forced
to divert his forces to crush a rebellion in Syria. Even the original base of
the rebellion, Uruk, fell into Assyrian hands for a few years. The turning
point did not come until the year 620 bc. The Assyrians were defeated
in a battle that perhaps took place close to the city of Cutha, in central
Babylonia, and thereafter the fighting shifted northward. Other parties
joined the fighting: the Assyrians were able to draw on Egyptian support
after ceding the western parts of the empire to Egypt, and a stalemate
resulted. Nabopolassar was only able to overcome Assyrian resistance
from 615 bc onward, after having entered into an alliance with the (prob-
ably superior) Median forces from northwestern Iran that had indepen-
dently begun to attack the Assyrian heartland (chapter 43 in volume 4).
In 614 bc, the Medes destroyed Assur, and the capital Nineveh fell to
a joint Median-Babylonian attack in 612 bc. The theater of operations
shifted yet again to the west, where Egyptian support allowed a pocket
of Assyrian resistance to gain a foothold around the city of Harran. This
final bastion of the Assyrian empire was defeated by the Babylonians in
610 bc. A likely Egyptian attempt to re-establish it in 609 bc failed after
a promising beginning. However, this Egyptian involvement shows that
Nabopolassar had definitively been drawn into the struggle for the con-
trol of the western part of the fallen empire at this point.21
In 608 and 607 bc, the Babylonians campaigned in the Harran
area and elsewhere in northwestern Syria, in the territory of the former
18. Jursa 2007a.

19. Jursa 2006: 161, but see the doubts voiced by Fuchs 2014: 63–64.
20. Glassner 2004: nos. 21 and 22.
21. Fuchs 2014.
10
Urartian state.22 Nabopolassar led his army in person only on the first
of these campaigns; thereafter he remained in Babylon and left the
command in the hands of his son and crown prince, Nebuchadnezzar.
The conflict with Egypt over the control of western Syria and the
Euphrates valley escalated. In 606 bc a major clash at the Euphrates
crossing at Carchemish ended with an Egyptian victory, but in 605 bc,
Nebuchadnezzar had his revenge. He inflicted a heavy defeat on the
Egyptian army and subsequently gained control of the Euphrates bend
and the Orontes valley around Hama. Then, news of his father’s death
reached him, forcing him to put his campaign on hold and hurry home
to Babylon to secure the throne.
As for the preceding period, a Babylonian chronicle provides the
outlines of the political and military events for the first years of the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 bc).23 The westward expan-
sion of Babylonian rule toward the Mediterranean Sea continued. For
several successive years, the Babylonian army campaigned in Western
Syria and the Levant, sacking cities such as Ashkelon, taking booty or
receiving tribute from the local rulers who were quick enough to sur-
render. Throughout the southern Levant archaeological evidence, such
as destruction levels associated with the distinctive type of arrowheads
used by the Babylonians or their Median auxiliaries, attest to the wide-
spread destruction wrought by these Babylonian raids—they cannot be
termed attempts at permanent conquest, given the absence of consistent
investment in local garrisons and other institutions of stable imperial
rule.24 The Babylonians harvested the resources of the region by coerc-
ing the local rulers to cooperate, but they did not necessarily challenge
them directly for control over their territory. If there was an overarch-
ing strategic interest, it was directed against Egypt, whose claim of the
resources of the Levant (and indeed of Western Syria) was one that
22. Glassner 2004: no. 23.

23. Glassner 2004: no. 24.
24. For Babylonian arrowheads, see Dugaw et al. 2020. For Babylonian strategies for
controlling the western periphery of the empire, see Vanderhooft 2003.
10
Babylon could not accept. Indeed, the one setback the Babylonians suf-
fered in this period happened in 601 bc when a major battle between
Egyptian and Babylonian forces ended at best (from the Babylonian
point of view) with a draw, but more likely with a Babylonian defeat: in
the subsequent year, the king “stayed home (and) refitted his numerous
horses and chariotry.”25
Threatened from two sides, the local kings and kinglets of the Levant
found themselves compelled to decide where their best interest lay. An
Aramaic letter found in Egypt documents one Levantine ruler’s appeal
to the Egyptian pharaoh for help against the approaching forces of
Nebuchadnezzar.26 The case of the kingdom of Judah is analogous, but
implies something more momentous. Judah’s king, Jehoiakim, sided with
the Egyptians against the Babylonians, but ultimately the latter proved
stronger and in 598 bc Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonian army.
Jehoiakim having died, his son Jehoiachin was deported to Babylon,
together with his family and a number of dignitaries, where the hostages
are mentioned in ration lists recovered from Nebuchadnezzar’s palace.27
Nebuchadnezzar placed Zedekiah, a brother of the deceased king, on
the throne, apparently with the hope of being able to control him. But
the new king rebelled just as his predecessor had, and Nebuchadnezzar
launched a punitive expedition against Judah from his base at Riblah on
the Orontes river. The second Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 or
586 bc ended with the conquest and sacking of the city, the destruction
of its temple, and further and much more widespread deportations of
Judeans to Babylonia. The end of the kingdom of Judah and the begin-
ning of the “Babylonian Exile” marks a watershed in the biblical nar-
rative of the fortunes of the people of Israel and thus in the religious
history of not only the Middle East. No Babylonian sources exist for
this second siege, but some texts attest high-ranking officers who are
25. Grayson 1975: 101. On the conflict between Egypt and Babylonia, see, e.g.,
Fantalkin 2017; Kahn 2018.
26. Vanderhooft 2003: 240.
27. Alstola 2020: 58–78.
102
named as participants of the siege in biblical sources in other contests

and thus lend credence to the biblical account. Clay tablets written in
Babylonian document the daily life of the deported Judeans, not only in
Babylon itself, but particularly also in the rural and relatively underde-
veloped areas of Babylonia where they were settled.28 In Judah, archaeo-
logical surveys reveal widespread destruction and a massive reduction of
population density.29 According to the biblical account, the remainder of
the Judean polity, at first under the governor Gedaliah, remained under
close Babylonian supervision.
Even after the cataclysmic events of 587/586 bc, conflict in the south-
ern Levant continued. There may have been a third wave of deportations
from Judah,30 and Egyptian and other sources (including the much later
Jewish historiographer Josephus and indirect information that can be
gleaned from Babylonian tablets) suggest continued conflict between
Egypt and Babylonia in the Levant. This possibly even included an
unsuccessful attempt by Nebuchadnezzar to invade Egypt in 567 bc.31
It is certain that the southern Levant remained a contested area and that
Babylonian control over the region was at best unstable. The location
of some monumental rock reliefs in the western part of the empire that
represent Nebuchadnezzar (and later Nabonidus) and are accompanied
by lengthy inscriptions is indicative: they are found in Lebanon and
southeast of the Dead Sea, in Edom. These ensembles of text and royal
image were literally intended to guard important communication routes,
passes, and borders, just as apotropaic figures at the gateways of palaces
might do. In Nebuchadnezzar’s own words:
I let the inhabitants of the Lebanon mountains lie in safe pas-

tures, I did not permit anyone to harass them. So that nobody
28. Alstola 2020 is the most recent comprehensive survey of these data.
29. Faust 2012.
30. Alstola 2020: 13, according to Jer 52:30.
31. Kahn 2018: 72–78.
103
might harm them, I installed an eternal image of myself as king

(to protect them).32
The territory defined by these images and the underlying strategic rea-
soning did not include the southern Levant; as a border region, scorched-
earth tactics were apparently thought to be more appropriate there.33
In contrast, Nebuchadnezzar clearly did attempt to gain tight control
over the prosperous and powerful Phoenician coastal cities in modern
Lebanon. Tyre, Sidon, and Arwad contributed to palace-building work
in Babylon, according to an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar datable to
his seventh year (598/597 bc): their rulers had submitted to Babylonian
suzerainty.34 In the case of the major power in the region, Tyre, this sub-
mission was temporary, however: later in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
the city rebelled, probably in response to renewed Egyptian attempts to
re-establish their control over the Levant. It was besieged for a lengthy
period by the Babylonian army, until some sort of compromise was
reached and the siege was lifted. Even after the end of the siege there
was a stable presence of Babylonian troops and perhaps even some kind
of Babylonian colony in the region.35 Together with Carchemish on
the Euphrates, Riblah on the Orontes river, and perhaps Harran on the
Balikh river, Tyre was thus one of the few urban centers upon which the
Babylonians based their control of the region.36
For the rest of the (north)eastern Mediterranean seaboard and its
hinterland, evidence for a Babylonian presence exists, but is scarce. In
the Amuq valley for instance, Neo-Babylonian seals and other small
finds were recovered from Chatal Höyük, and the important site of Tell
Tayinat displays a destruction level that can plausibly be connected with
32. Da Riva 2012: 62: ix 43–52.

33. On the setting of the rock reliefs, see, e.g., Da Riva 2015; 2020. For the most
important inscriptions, see Da Riva 2012.
34. Da Riva 2013b.
35. van der Brugge and Kleber 2016.
36. Levavi 2020: 62.
104
the Babylonian campaigns in the area in the early sixth century bc.37
Further to the northwest, in Cilicia, there is very little archaeological
evidence for a Babylonian presence, or indeed for destruction that might
reflect Babylonian military activity in the region. Textual evidence from
Babylonia possibly refers to deported Cilicians and sometimes to Cilician
iron, the region’s principal resource. It is likely that the region’s polities
submitted formally to Babylonian dominion in the beginning of the
sixth century.38 The episode in Herodotus which describes a conflict that
had broken out between the Lydians (from Asia Minor) and the Medes
in 585 bc and was settled by Babylonian diplomatic intervention belongs
to the same context; the Babylonians clearly were the dominant power
in the region at the time.39 The peace was not to last, however: during the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s (indirect) successor Neriglissar (559–556 bc),
the ruler of Pirindu, in Rugged Cilicia, attacked the Syrian lowlands,
prompting a Babylonian counterattack that, according the chronicle,
defeated the Pirindians and led to the destruction of several cities in the
area.40 Soon after, the last Babylonian king Nabonidus also campaigned
in the area. It is certainly no coincidence that from this time onward
“Cilician iron (ore)” is frequently attested in Babylonian texts.41
While the Neo-Babylonian Empire ended up the undisputed (if
incidental) heir of the Assyrian Empire in the Levant, in Cilicia, and
probably all along the Syrian Euphrates, the situation is less clear for the
Syrian Jezirah, the plain between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The issue
is to which degree, and for how long, the region might (also) have been
under control of the Medes. In the area of Harran in the Balikh valley,
the last remnants of Assyrian power had been defeated by Nabopolassar
at the end of the seventh century. It is likely that the Babylonian king
occupied the city of Harran and made it one of his urban bases in the
37. Blattner 2020: 102–114.

38. Joannès 1991.
39. E.g., Beaulieu 1989: 80–82.
40. Glassner 2004: no. 25.
41. Sandowicz 2020: 168–169.
105
western periphery of his realm. Some fifty years later, the last Babylonian
king Nabonidus undertook the ambitious project of restoring the local
temple of the moon god, commissioning two important inscriptions
to describe and justify his activities in the city. In these inscriptions, he
claimed that the temple had lain in ruin owing to destruction wrought
by the Medes who had controlled the area since the fall of Assyria. This,
however, was probably a fiction intended to hide the inconvenient fact
that previous Babylonian kings had not given the moon god’s temple the
attention it deserved.42
In the Khabur valley further east, the best evidence of Babylonian
control from the late seventh century onward comes from the site
of Tell Sheikh Hamad, the old Assyrian city of Dur-Katlimmu. In a
palace-like residence that was in use from late Assyrian times into the
Neo- Babylonian period, cuneiform tablets written in the Assyrian
language and in an Assyrian format, but dated to the second and fifth
years of Nebuchadnezzar, have been recovered: in the area, at that time,
Babylonian control was based on the collaboration of the local, Assyrian
elites. Within a few years, however, these Assyrian traditions of writing
and administration were replaced by Babylonian counterparts, as shown
by texts from Dur-Katlimmu or from Guzana (modern Tell Halaf ),
likewise in the Khabur region.43 Around the mid-sixth century, the
Babylonian crown promoted the establishment of rural enclaves in this
area: temples in the Babylonian heartland received land grants on the
Khabur on the condition that they invest in the development of these
estates by sending men, animals, and other resources. Such planned
“colonization” must imply not only the availability of space, but also the
perception of a pressing need to fill this space, given its significant cost
and the fact that the Babylonian heartland was also short of manpower.
This need was political and/or military, as references to “the enemy” in
42. Rollinger 2003: 291–305.

43. For Dur-Katlimmu, see Radner 2002: 16–19, 41–42, 61–69; Kreppner 2016;
Levavi 2020: 67–72. For the Guzana texts and other Neo-Babylonian material
from northern Syria, see Jursa 2005: 151 note 1172.
106
the “colonization” dossier show.44 The Khabur area was a border region
in which Babylonian claims clashed with those of the Medes (and later
the Persians), who controlled the northern mountain regions.45
The old Assyrian heartland on the Tigris likewise ended up under
Babylonian control after the fall of Assyria, but this may have been a very
loose control. The Babylonians did install an administrative structure
with a governor, and some limited building activity can be documented
in some of the old cities, but overall, the area apparently experienced
little development during the roughly sixty years of Babylonian rule.46
Elam, Babylonia’s old rival, with its urban center Susa in the Western
Iranian lowlands, had suffered possibly as much as Babylonia in the
wars against Assyria. Unsurprisingly, Nabopolassar may have sought
Elamite support right at the outset of his uprising against his Assyrian
overlords, but it is not clear whether this was successful.47 Subsequent
relations between Babylonia and its eastern neighbor are unclear. There
were definitely tensions, and finds from Susa and the presence of Elamite
prisoners in Babylon suggest a Babylonian presence; this has been inter-
preted as evidence for a (temporary?) Babylonian conquest, most likely
by Nebuchadnezzar, although this scenario remains uncertain.48
We are on more secure ground with a final area into which the Neo-
Babylonian Empire expanded, which incidentally was the only region
where it did not follow in Assyrian footsteps: north Arabia, including
the Transjordanian kingdom of Edom/Udummu (chapter 52 in this vol-
ume). Gaining control of this vast area was the major political goal of the
last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Nabonidus.49 He spent ten of
44. Jursa and Wagensonner 2014.

45. On other Neo-Babylonian archaeological data from the Khabur valley, see
Blattner 2020: 122–162.
46. Curtis 2003.
47. Fuchs 2014: 48–49.
48. Glassner 2004: no. 24: rev. 16′–20′; Potts 1999: 289–302; Gorris and Wicks 2018.
49. Beaulieu 1989: 149–184.
107
his seventeen years as king campaigning in the region, without returning

to Babylonia. In his own words:
me, however, (the moon god Sîn) caused to stay far from my city
Babylon, he made me travel between Tayma, Dadanu (=Arabic
Dedan), Padakku (=Arabic Fadak), Hibra (=Arabic Khaybar)
and Yadihu and as far as Yatribu (=Arabic Yathrib), and for ten
years I did not return to my city Babylon.50
All these places lie in the northern part of the Arabian peninsula and
are today situated in Saudi Arabia, with Yatribu/Yathrib corresponding
to modern Medina. The text then goes on to speak of the Arabs who
attacked Babylonia and whom Nabonidus subsequently forced to sur-
render. The main objective of the campaign was clearly military, and at
least in part defensive, or a response to past aggressions.
He based himself on the oasis of Tayma, where numerous traces of
Babylonian presence have been recovered, including the palace erected
for Nabonidus—the construction of which is referred to in the texts,
which describe vast funds being brought to the king to Tayma for the
purpose. Finds from the region also include a stele of the king and graf-
fiti in sites in Saudi Arabia mentioning some of his followers, officers,
and soldiers,51 as well as a rock-relief with a fragmentary inscription from
Edom, in modern Jordan.52
Nabopolassar’s conquests had followed the logic of the war against
Assyria. Leaving aside Nabonidus’s conquests in northern Arabia, the
Neo-Babylonian Empire was therefore essentially of Nebuchadnezzar’s
making. Some of his inscriptions give insights into the Babylonian
view of the empire’s geographical subdivisions. Leaving aside for the
moment the Babylonian heartland (divided into the Sealand in the
far south and the land of Akkad), these texts circumscribe with some
50. Schaudig 2001: 489 1 i 22–27; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 47 i 22–27.
51. Müller and al-Said 2001; Hausleiter and Schaudig 2016; Sandowicz 2020: 171–172.
52. Da Riva 2020.
108
precision only northern Mesopotamia, which fell naturally within

the conceptual horizon of the Babylonian scribes. North and east of
Akkad (=Babylonia), along the Tigris, was the land of Assyria, which
included the cities of Arraphe and Lahiru. Beyond the traditional
boundaries of Mesopotamia, the vision of Nebuchadnezzar’s inscrip-
tions becomes vague. We hear of the “kings on the other side of the river
[Euphrates], the governors [pīhātu] of the land of Hatti [i.e., northern
Syria]” and of “kings in distant regions” in the midst of the Upper and
the Lower Sea (i.e., the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf ).53 This
matches the view, set out earlier in this section, of the periphery of
Nebuchadnezzar’s empire as a network of regions (“provinces”) under
direct Babylonian administration and of semi-independent, tribute-
paying vassal states. Some evidence suggests that perhaps late in his
reign, and certainly under Nabonidus, some effort was made to achieve
more direct control over at least parts of the periphery, the case of the
Khabur region being the best example. And of course, Nabonidus,
with his foray into the Arabian peninsula, had changed the empire’s
geographical and geopolitical focus. This inchoate process of transfor-
mation abruptly ceased when it was conquered by Cyrus, the king of
the Persians.
50.4. State structure: a view from the center

Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia was the heartland of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire, the region where it was born, where the forces that
shaped it resided, and where the spoils of war and tribute extracted
from the periphery of the empire were taken. The region, and thus the
empire as a whole, drew on three distinct institutional traditions.54 The
first was that of the Babylonian monarchy, with its strong focus on the
capital city of Babylon (figure 50.3) and the cult of the god Marduk,
the main deity of the city and therefore also of the country as a whole.
53. Da Riva 2008: 19–23.

54. Jursa 2014b: 126–127.
109
Figure 50.3. Map of Babylon in the sixth century bc. Adapted by Karen
Radner from Van de Mieroop 2003: 262, fig. 4.
The second tradition, closely linked to the first but still distinct, was
that of the non-Babylonian Semitic tribal groups that had been settled
in southern Mesopotamia since the late Bronze Age and the early Iron
Age: Chaldeans, Arameans, and to some extent also Arabs.55 The third
was the Assyrian imperial tradition, which not only carved out most of
the geographical space the Neo-Babylonian Empire came to dominate,
as its partly fortuitous or opportunistic heir; it also bequeathed on the
later empire some of its governmental institutions.56
55. Beaulieu 2013.

56. Jursa 2014b.
10
Nebuchadnezzar’s inscriptions just cited outline the geographical

subdivisions of Babylonia: the Sealand in the south comprised the delta
region of the Euphrates and Tigris, i.e., the core area of Chaldean settle-
ment, which also included the old Babylonian cities of Ur, Uruk, and
Larsa.57 The land of Akkad consisted of central and northern Babylonia,
including regions east of the Tigris. It included some tribal regions
(Aramean Puqudu and Chaldean Bit-Amukani) and the most impor-
tant old cities, Babylon, Borsippa, Kiš, Nippur, Cutha, and Sippar, whose
elites preserved part of their old semi-autonomy (or at least its memory)
and claimed special treatment from the crown based on the religious
importance of their city cults.58 After the monarchy, the tribes and the
cities with their institutions were the most important political factors in
the Babylonian heartland.
At first glance, the institutions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s core
are not fundamentally different from that of the other Ancient Near
Eastern monarchies of the Iron Age. As elsewhere, the supreme political
power was vested in the king who derived his legitimacy from the fact
that he acted as the gods’ vicar on earth. However, there are substan-
tial differences in royal ideology in comparison to the Assyrian image
of the king in the Sargonid era. A Neo-Babylonian king wanted to be
seen “not as conqueror, administrator, or provider of social justice but
as religious leader and teacher of wisdom.”59 Royal inscriptions do not
promote an expansionist ideology that would have prompted kings to
seek legitimacy by expanding the realm subjected to the authority of
Marduk: instead, devotion, or humble attention to the supreme god’s
(inscrutable) designs was a primary royal virtue.60 Another particular
facet of the Neo-Babylonian interpretation of royal legitimacy is the
great weight given to historical tradition, and to the establishment of
connections to prestigious kings of bygone periods through the study of,
57. Jursa 2010a: 91–92; Levavi 2018: 151–152.

58. Da Riva 2008: 19–23.
59. Beaulieu 2007: 142.
60. Beaulieu 2018: 226.
1
and reference to, ancient texts and practices: antiquarianism as an instru-

ment for establishing royal legitimacy.61 This image was projected by the
royal inscriptions and the curriculum of the scribal schools that focused
strongly on the figure of the king and the greatness of Babylon:62 it was
clearly intended for an urban Babylonian audience. A slight variant of
this royal image is found in the iconographic language of Babylonian
rock reliefs in the recently conquered western parts of the empire. These
drew on Neo-Assyrian precedents and thereby implicitly claimed the
legitimacy of the Babylonians’ Mesopotamian imperial predecessors.63
The “urban,” tradition-bound, and specifically Babylon-centric focus
of the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s ideology as expressed by cuneiform
texts quite likely masks the plurality of influences that actually shaped
the Neo-Babylonian polity. It is certain that the bias of the available
documentation toward a Babylonian urban milieu does not allow us to
fully appreciate the role played by the Chaldean and Aramaic tribes in
Babylonia in the sixth century bc: the Assyrian state archives of the sev-
enth century that prove the decisive role taken by the tribes in Babylonian
politics in that period have no later counterpart. It is inconceivable that
such important groups should have disappeared within the span of a few
decades after the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian empire: the importance of
the tribes also in the sixth century can be considered a given.
The best supporting evidence for this a priori reasoning comes from
a unique source which will here be used to provide a snapshot of the
political structure of the Neo-Babylonian Empire shortly after its cre-
ation: the Hofkalender, a building inscription of Nebuchadnezzar dating
to 598 bc.64 The inscription provided an account of the construction of
a palace, and the traditionally used modern designation of Hofkalender
(German for “court diary”) is actually a misnomer. It enumerates—in an
unfortunately damaged and incomplete section of the clay prism bearing
61. E.g., Schaudig 2003.

62. Frahm 2011: 360–361.
63. Da Riva 2010a: 179.
64. Da Riva 2013b.
12
the inscription—the chief dignitaries of the state who had (symboli-

cally) contributed to the construction of the palace in question. These
dignitaries are divided into: palace officials, that is, the men forming the
king’s entourage; governors of provinces and tribal areas; and officials in
charge of the Babylonian cities of the alluvium. Thus they represent the
crown, the tribes, and the cities, the three principal political stakeholders
in Babylonia.
The Hofkalender starts with the chief palace officials, that is, offi-
cials working in the immediate vicinity of the king, and moves on to
palace officials of secondary rank. From this list (with some additions
based on other sources) an outline of the state administration under
Nebuchadnezzar can be deduced.65 Some titles are ceremonial, with lit-
eral meanings that bear no relationship to the actual duties attached to
the office, while other titles do circumscribe the function of the office
precisely. Some officials worked principally within the palace, in close
proximity to the king, and had duties related to the administration of the
king’s household, while others were concerned with state administration
beyond the immediate sphere of the royal household.
• “Chief baker” (rab nuhatimmī): in charge of the royal table and pro-
visioning the royal household;
• “Palace superintendent” (ša pān ekalli): in charge of the palace estab-
lishment and in particular the construction and maintenance of the
huge palace buildings themselves;
• “Major domus” (rab bīti): responsible for the royal estates;
• “Commander of the royal guard” (rab ṭābihī, literally “chief
butcher”): possibly also the commander- in-
chief of the non-
Babylonian mercenaries forming the standing core units of the
military;
• “Chief chamberlain” (rab ša rēši, literally “chief of courtiers”): the
overall commander-in-chief of the Babylonian army;
65. The following is principally based on Jursa 2010b: 80–91; 2017; for military com-
manders, see also Joannès 2000: 64–66 and Gombert 2018.
13
• “Chief . . . ” (rab mungi, no translation possible): high military com-

mander, perhaps in charge of the chariotry;
“Chief . . . ” (rab ummi, translation uncertain): probably responsible
•
for military recruitment;66

• “Chief supervisor of irrigation installations and public works”
(mašennu): also in charge of agrarian taxation;
• “Chief treasurer” (rab kāṣirī, literally “chief tailor,” a ceremonial
title): responsible for the king’s non-agricultural revenues;
• “Royal secretary” (zazakku): possibly the chief accountant;
• “Chief judge” (sartennu).
Under these top officials came some slightly lower-ranking office-

holders with practical or ceremonial responsibilities: e.g., the “chief
of (royal) flocks” (rab būli), the “chief singer” (rab zammārī), or
the “chief of (royal) merchants” (rab tamkarī; to judge from his
name, a man of West Semitic—probably Phoenician—origin under
Nebuchadnezzar).
Many of these titles were originally Assyrian, and the tasks assigned
to these offices were the same in both court systems; structurally, the
Neo-Babylonian court was built according to an Assyrian model.67
However, there was one important difference in the conceptualization
of the administration between Assyria and Babylonia. In Babylonia, the
highest-ranking palace officials were not at the same time in charge of
important provinces, in contrast to Assyrian practice. Local power was
more decentralized. It tended to lie, not in the hand of officials directly
beholden to the king, but with dignitaries of local, particularly tribal ori-
gin. Lacking a position at court, these provincial magnates did not neces-
sarily spend much time in the capital, in the king’s presence. Therefore,
the Babylonian court was not as efficient a means for binding the state’s
elites to the person of the king through offices, gifts, and physical prox-
imity as it might have been.
66. Discussed by Gombert 2018: 106–107.

67. Jursa 2010b: 97–99.
14
In the Hofkalender, the list of men in charge of the empire’s terri-

tories beyond the direct control of the crown follows the list of palace
officials: they were the “magnates of the land of Akkad” (using an archaic
designation for Babylonia). First came the more important “magnates,”
most of whom were leaders of Chaldean and Aramean tribes from the
fringes of Babylonia: the governor of the Sealand in the far south of
Babylonia; the simmagir, the governor of a large province east of the
Tigris; the governor of the region of Ṭupliaš, likewise in the east; and
the heads of the most important Aramean and Chaldean tribes, includ-
ing Puqudu and Gambulu (Aramean) and Dakkuru and Amukanu
(Chaldean). Following this group, and thus clearly holding a less promi-
nent position within the overall hierarchy, came the officials governing
the old Babylonian cities in the central floodplain: royal commissioners,
city governors, and the chief priests. The list concludes with seven vas-
sal kings from the Levant, among them the kings of Tyre, Gaza, Sidon,
Arwad, and Ashdod (a king of Judah was not mentioned).
The political edifice put in place by Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar
was unstable. The chronicle tradition explicitly mentions one rebellion
for Nebuchadnezzar’s tenth year,68 and most likely another in his third
year.69 Although this source material is preserved only for a short part
of the seventy-odd years of the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s existence, all
other available sources also imply instability. As expected, the major
political fault lines lay between the crown and the tribes, on one hand,
and the crown and the Babylonian cities, on the other. Conflicts were
often played out at court.
Conflicts between tribal leaders and/ or between tribal leaders
and the crown touched upon the foundation of the empire because
the tribes almost certainly formed its military backbone and because
at least some (and possibly all) the kings had a tribal background.70
As Nabopolassar (626–605 bc), the founder of the Neo-Babylonian
68. Grayson 1975: 102.

69. Tyborowski 1996.
70. Jursa 2014b: 131–133.
15
Empire, certainly came from Uruk or its closest surroundings, where he

probably held office for the Assyrians before the uprising (section 50.4),
he may have been a Chaldean of the Dakkuru tribe that had its seat close
to Uruk.71 His son Nebuchadnezzar (604–562 bc) and his grandson
Amel-Marduk (561–560 bc) continued his line. Amel-Marduk may
have come to the throne despite the resistance of an influential group
of dignitaries at court.72 Neriglissar, the fourth Neo-Babylonian king
(559–556 bc), toppled Amel-Marduk after a brief period of contentious
rule. Neriglissar had been in charge of a large province east of the Tigris
(known as the bīt simmagir) and was the son of the chief of the Aramean
Puqudu tribe; he was one of the leaders of the Babylonian army at the
siege of Jerusalem.73 His family’s political intermarriages allow deep
insight into his extraordinarily prominent social standing. According to
the later historian Berossus, a well-informed Babylonian priest of the
third century whose writings were transmitted in Greek, Neriglissar was
Amel-Marduk’s brother-in-law.74 This is entirely plausible: such a union
would have been an attempt by the royal house to harness the power
of the Puqudu—without success, as it turned out. Neriglissar himself
gave his daughter in marriage to the chief priest of the important city
of Borsippa. This union is unparalleled and thus obviously politically
significant: the new king, of Aramean origin, sought the loyalty of the
Babylonian urban elite.75
The royal line changed again when the last Neo-Babylonian king,
Nabonidus (555–539 bc), aided by his son, toppled Neriglissar’s son and
successor, the child Labaši-Marduk, in 555 bc. Nabonidus was the son
of an Aramean woman of high status from Harran in Syria, and he was
71. Jursa 2010a: 103–104.

72. Finkel 1999.
73. Beaulieu 1989: 68; van Driel 1998–2001: 228; Jursa 2010b: 85.
74. De Breucker 2012: 266: F10c.
75. On the problematic implications of this union within the priestly circles’ hyper-
gamous system of marriage, in which women were supposed to marry “up,” see
Waerzeggers 2010: 72; Still 2019: 62–63.
16
born before the Babylonian conquest of that area.76 His father, to whom
Nabonidus in his inscriptions gave the same titles (“grandee” and similar
expressions) that Neriglissar in his inscriptions attributed to his father,
an Aramean tribal leader, is more difficult to identify. Nabonidus’s fam-
ily has its origins in the city of Harran, going back to Assyrian times, and
was clearly affiliated to the house of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar.
The most plausible hypothesis is therefore that Nabonidus’s father was an
Aramean tribal leader who came to Babylonia in service to the Assyrian
government but joined Nabopolassar’s revolt: a renegade, like the new
king himself.77 Nabonidus is attested at court and as a high-ranking
military commander under Nebuchadnezzar.78 Thus, Nabonidus,
assisted by his son Belshazzar, was able to usurp the Babylonian crown
based on their military background, their family’s history of service to
Nebuchadnezzar (and perhaps before him, his father Nabopolassar), and
their family’s likely tribal affiliations; in fact, these three points may well
be interconnected. The names of several important men of their circle,
and hence their possible co-conspirators, are known, with some hav-
ing connections to Neriglissar’s household. This is suggestive in light of
Nabonidus’s positive view of that king, but the precise details of the coup
remain unknown.79
Apparently, the crown was never fully in control of the political
dynamics of its relationship to the tribes, judging from what we see
through the lens of the changes in the royal house. The second major
arena of inter-Babylonian politics, the relationship between the royal
establishment and the Babylonian cities and their civic and temple insti-
tutions, played out more clearly in the crown’s favor, and here we also
have a more detailed picture. We owe this to the information provided
by the vast tablet archives of two Babylonian temples, in the peripheral
76. Schaudig 2001: 9–14; Beaulieu 2018: 238.

77. Jursa 2014b: 132–133.
78. Jursa 2014b: 133; Beaulieu 2018: 238; Jursa and Gordin 2018: 63–64; Levavi
2018: no. 167.
79. Sandowicz 2020: 170–171.
17
cities of Sippar in northern Babylonia and Uruk in the far south, and by
the archives of propertied urban families, most often either priests with
a temple affiliation, or entrepreneurs working at the interface of temple,
palace, and “private” economy.80
Judging from the Hofkalender, where they were enumerated near the
end of the list of the empire’s dignitaries, officeholders in urban institu-
tions were of lower overall rank than palace officials and tribal chiefs.
However, they still commanded important resources owing to the eco-
nomic and demographic potential of the cities and to the high cultural
prestige of the temples in which they served. The temples were a focus
of local administration: the highest-ranking priests always took a central
place. Only in larger cities was their power balanced by city governors
who, like priests, were recruited from the families of local elites: thus
large cities had a priestly šatammu (“bishop”) and a šākin ṭēmi (“city gov-
ernor”), whereas smaller cities had only a šangû (“chief priest”).81 This
system was an expression of a hierarchical network of interdependent
cities: temple cities with a šangû were analogous to minor temples with a
šangû located in larger cities that had both a city governor and a šatammu
in the main temple. Such minor “temple cities” were considered princi-
pally as ceremonial centers of significant religious importance, but they
were economically and administratively dependent on a major city in
their region.82 Overlying these regional networks, the economic and reli-
gious centrality of Babylon and its main temple, Esagil, created a signifi-
cant bi-directional flow of people, including artisans of the priestly class,
and goods.83
These local authorities acted on their own or in combination with
local assemblies (puhru) in which some discretionary power could be
80. For Babylonian temple and private archives, see Jursa 2005.
81. E.g., Bongenaar 1997 for the city of Sippar; Kleber 2008 for the city of Uruk. The
translation “bishop” for šatammu reflects the mixture of religious and adminis-
trative duties that came with the office, and is also adequate given the etymology
of the translation (from the Greek word for “overseer”).
82. Beaulieu 2019.
83. Jursa and Gordin 2019.
18
vested. During their heyday in the seventh century bc, these institutions
might have been true citizen assemblies, representing all the heads of the
(free) households in a particular city, but it is more likely that even then,
they were dominated by an oligarchy of powerful local families.84
A significant part of the political process that can be seen in the
Babylonian archives of the sixth century bc concerns the increasing
domination of these organs of local power by the central royal govern-
ment. Following an Assyrian tradition, a loyalty oath (adê) imposed
on officeholders (presumably of all ranks) was the principal articula-
tion of the royal administration’s need to control the activities and the
power of local elites and their family networks which formed the local
power bases.85 By swearing this oath of allegiance to the king, digni-
taries accepted the obligation to serve the king as a moral or religious
duty—infringements of the duty toward the king were concomitantly
phrased in terms carrying strong religious and moral connotations (such
as hīṭu, literally “sin”).86 Ultimately, even the chief priests and city gover-
nors, regardless of their local connections, were appointed by the king.
Still, it was considered necessary to keep them in check by the constant
presence of royal commissioners (qīpu, bēl piqitti) placed by the central
government in key positions: local administrations typically depended
on close interactions between local dignitaries of Babylonian origin and
outsiders brought in by the king. Given the sometimes opposing inter-
ests of these parties, it is not surprising that they often failed to inter-
act with each other smoothly.87 The royal officials were often “courtiers”
(ša rēši), men who owed their principal allegiance to the king. Socially
they were different from the class of urban landowners and priests from
which local officials invariably were recruited. Often they were not even
Babylonians, but Arameans or Chaldeans.88 In fact, from at least the reign
84. Barjamovic 2004.

85. E.g., Sandowicz 2012: 81–82; Levavi 2018: 67.
86. Magdalene et al. 2019.
87. Levavi 2018.
88. Jursa 2011a. Some of these men were demonstrably bilingual; see Jursa 2012.
19
of Nebuchadnezzar onward, the royal administration tended to favor

Aramaic over Babylonian, while local administration in the Babylonian
cities, and in particular the temple administrations, continued to write
almost exclusively in Babylonian, using the cuneiform script.89
The principal goal of the royal administration vis- à-
vis the
Babylonian cities was political control over the cities’ resources—which
included the temples, their estates, and their personnel. By the end of
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, the crown had sufficient power to harness these
resources for its own purposes with very few constraints. Sources from
temple archives from this period and from the reign of Nabopolassar,
particularly those from Uruk, allow us to trace the many steps by which
the royal administration achieved this goal: a process of centralized
institution-building increased the power of the crown at the expense of
the cities.90
Nabopolassar began his rebellion in Uruk. But owing to Babylon’s
religious and political centrality, it was this city’s capture that provided
the foundation for the new state’s political project. Nebuchadnezzar
emphatically continued his father’s approach. His focus on the capital
found expression in an ambitious building program (for more on which
see section 50.5). On the intellectual level, priests of the Marduk temple
in Babylon began a systematic project of gathering astronomical and
other divinatory data. These data were intended to serve as the basis
for decoding the meaning thought to have been hidden by the gods in
recurrent, potentially cyclical phenomena in the heavens and on earth.
It reflects the remarkable ambition of the ruler to launch an attempt to
place the age-old Babylonian art of divination on a completely new foun-
dation and thus gain a more privileged window into the future than any
previous ruler had ever enjoyed.91 This concentration on the capital city
implied an ever more centralized interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s
89. Jursa 2011b; 2014a: 97.

90. The following draws on Jursa and Gordin 2018; 2019; see also Beaulieu 2019.
91. Haubold et al. 2019 for the Astronomical Diaries and their intentions; Jursa
2020: 336–337 for their relationship to Nebuchadnezzar’s reforms and institu-
tion building activities.
120
kingship. In turn, this entailed curbing the tendencies toward local

autonomy and self-government in all other cities of Babylonia, which
had undermined the power of the kings in the time prior to the Assyrian
domination and which had continued to flourish during the seventh
century bc with its periods of anarchy. From the late seventh century
onward, the kings encouraged the movement of prosperous families
from the capital toward provincial centers such as Uruk, Ur, or Sippar,
where they were settled and given high offices, including priestly posi-
tions, even though many of these families were not originally from the
priestly class. These newcomers clearly profited from royal backing at the
expense of the local elites, and must be seen as agents of the kings’ cen-
tralizing, Babylon-centric politics.
There were cultic reforms that promoted the imperial gods of
Babylon and its twin city Borsippa within the local panthea:92 the new
priestly class clearly acted in the crown’s religious and political interest.
Nevertheless, in Uruk and in Sippar (the two cities that provide suffi-
cient evidence for studying these matters), this system can be shown to
have run into difficulty more or less contemporaneously, around 580
bc. Especially in Uruk, it is clear that the leading family from Babylon
that had come to dominate in the Urukean Eanna temple lost royal sup-
port and was removed from its position at the center of local power.
Concomitantly, the principal priestly office of šatammu (“bishop”)
was at least temporarily reduced in rank.93 A similar shift happened
also in the main temple of Sippar.94 At the same time, a process began
that brought ever more royal officials, especially “courtiers” (ša rēši) and
scribes working in Aramaic rather than in Babylonian (sēpiru), into all
levels of local temple administration.95 The royal attempt to control
local administrations by appointing priests from outside apparently had
failed, and administrative professionals with unquestionable loyalty to
92. Sandowicz 2012: 45.

93. Jursa and Gordin 2018.
94. Jursa 2021.
95. Pirngruber 2018: 27 (with further references).
12
the king were brought in. Thereafter the crown had a tight hold over
temple resources (section 50.5).
A similar curbing of local autonomy to the benefit of a centralized
institution began in the same phase of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign in the
realm of law. Maintaining the internal stability of the realm and guaran-
teeing the rule of traditional law were essential duties of all Babylonian
kings.96 Characteristic of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was the impor-
tant role held by royal judges from the third decade of Nebuchadnezzar’s
reign onward.97 Courts of law could be presided over by the king himself,
in important cases, and in theory any subject could appeal directly to
the monarch. Other law courts were presided over by high-ranking royal
officials, in particular by the chief judge (sartennu) and his colleague,
the sukkallu. Local affairs were generally settled by local courts drawn
from citizen assemblies and headed by chief priests and/or city elders.
Such courts were thus backed by the highest religious authorities at the
city level; nevertheless, they had to yield to royal judges when they were
called in. These royal officials wielded an authority that was indepen-
dent of their own personal status, arising instead from their office. They
worked from a centralized court of law (bīt dīni) in Babylon, which was
created around the same time.98 This period also saw the introduction
of a standard oath formula sworn by the gods Bel and Nabû and by the
king, as well as the introduction of centralized record-keeping through
notaries.99 The latter was linked to the crown’s interest in monitoring
property transfers in order to tax them: the state’s reach into local soci-
ety increased significantly in the second half of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.
The intensification of the crown’s control over the Babylonian cit-
ies’ resources under Nebuchadnezzar resulted in more centralized power
wielded by the monarchy. The urban elites who dominated the cities and
the temples resented, and to some degree resisted, these developments,
96. E.g., Oelsner, Wells and Wunsch 2003: 915–921.

97. Sandowicz 2019: 188.
98. Sandowicz 2009.
99. Sandowicz 2012: 39–49.
12
and as a consequence, the crown took further steps to secure the king’s
hold over the temples. Beginning in the last years of Nebuchadnezzar’s
reign, outside contractors were frequently brought into the temples
to manage (in the entrepreneurial, income-farming sense) their agrar-
ian affairs, including livestock farming.100 These contractors, especially
on the highest level, were often royal protégés, and their appearance,
beyond the possible economic effects produced by the more streamlined
administration of complex agrarian affairs, represented a decline in the
traditional urban elites’ hold over temple and urban resources. Rent-
farming as a means of establishing royal control reached its apogee under
the last Neo-Babylonian king. During Nabonidus’s reign, many of the
tensions simmering at the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s core reached a new
and final climax.
The reign of Nabonidus is perhaps the most complex chapter in
the internal history of Babylonia in the sixth century bc, owing in part
to the explicit and implicit contradictions in the relatively abundant
narrative sources, all of which have their own agendas.101 In addition
to the king’s own inscriptions,102 there are two chronicles, of which
the Royal Chronicle is distinctly favorable to Nabonidus,103 whereas
the Nabonidus Chronicle is at best ambiguous.104 The Nabonidus
Chronicle and arguably also the Royal Chronicle were composed during
the Seleucid period and reflect the concerns and historiographic priori-
ties of that time, which obviously limits their usefulness as a source for
Nabonidus’s reign.105 We also have a literary text known as the Verse
Account of Nabonidus, which is polemically critical of the king,106 as
100. Jursa 2010a: 193–206; Wunsch 2010; Janković 2013; Kozuh 2014: 153–214.
101. Beaulieu 1989; 2007; 2018: 238–243; Schaudig 2001; 2002; 2003.
102. Schaudig 2001.
103. Glassner 2004: no. 53.
104. Glassner 2004: no. 26.
105. Waerzeggers 2015; 2018.
106. Schaudig 2001: 563–578.
123
well as the Cyrus Cylinder, a piece of pro-Persian propaganda which

obviously also depicts Cyrus’s defeated enemy Nabonidus in a negative
light.107 The Cyrus Cylinder was written shortly after the fall of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire, and the Verse Account was probably also composed
not long after this event.108
After the coup that brought him to power, Nabonidus represented
it in one of his early inscriptions as an act of necessity: Labaši-Marduk
had claimed the throne “against the will of the gods,”109 while Nabonidus
received approving dream messages from Nebuchadnezzar himself.110
Following his successful coup, Nabonidus lost little time in asserting his
power outside the capital.111 Information related to this was found in
two major temples: the Eanna in Uruk and the Ebabbar in Sippar, and
in both institutions, he replaced the major officials. In Uruk, he installed
two of his protégés to manage the temple’s agricultural land. This entailed
a massive upheaval in the administration of the temple’s agricultural
income, with the flow of resources now directed toward the crown.112
A similar case is known from Sippar, and slightly later in his reign, a doc-
ument was drawn up that served as a model contract for arrangements
between temples and entrepreneurial managers. It particularly focused
on standardizing and safeguarding the various dues that accrued from
temple transactions to representatives of the royal administration. The
text contained references to the estates of Esagil, the temple of Marduk,
the main god of Babylon, but the one extant copy is known from the
archive of Eanna, the temple of the goddess Ištar in Uruk, where it must
have been sent as a template to follow.113
107. Schaudig 2001: 550–556; Curtis 2013.

108. Kleber 2007; Waerzeggers 2012b.
109. Beaulieu 1989: 106.
110. Beaulieu 1989: 111.
111. Beaulieu 1989; Kleber 2008.
112. Janković 2013: 158–199.
113. van Driel 1987/88.
124
In the early phase of his reign, Nabonidus also promoted the stan-
dardization of cultic practice, using Esagil as a model. He directed his
royal seal-bearer (rab unqāti) to inform the chief official of Eanna that
certain offerings and related payments were to be made “as during the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar” and “as is done in Esagil and Ezida” (the lat-
ter being the main temple of Babylon’s twin city Borsippa).114 And yet
another official, in this case a representative of the Esagil temple itself,
gave paradigmatic instructions to Eanna officials about various standards
to uphold in cultic contexts:
Regarding the beer which the brewers present (for the offer-
ings): they shall measure (and take) three times that amount of
barley. In addition, as for the takkasû-bread offerings, as much as
the bakers present (for the offering), they shall measure (and take)
four-times (that amount). . . From one mina of finished (dyed
wool), half a mina of red or purple wool is the (weaver’s) preben-
dary income.115
The king’s involvement in the cultic affairs of the temples was sometimes
astonishingly detail oriented and, literally, hands-on. In the context of an
investigation into the proper use of certain sacred garments in the cult of
Ištar of Uruk that took place later in Nabonidus’s reign, it was said that in
the king’s first year he had been approached by a messenger of the Eanna
temple in the matter. He had then ruled to follow the practice estab-
lished by Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar, beating up the messenger in
the process, presumably because he considered the suggested deviation
from the accepted custom as scandalous.116
It seems that, just as in the realm of agricultural contracting, cultic
common standards were insistently imposed throughout the country in
114. Frame 1991: 55–59.

115. Jursa and Gordin 2019: 46–48.
116. Beaulieu 1989: 119–120, but reading the verb in line 35 of the text cited there as
ṭerû, “to beat.”
125
this period in an attempt to safeguard what was considered best practice—

de facto the model followed in the Esagil temple, sometimes with refer-
ence to the golden age of Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104 bc; chapter 41 in
volume 4) or other prestigious earlier kings. There is even one text that
describes a “normative” type of incense from Babylon that was sent to
other temples.117
Nabonidus’s policy in administrative matters, at least in the first
phase of his reign, can be convincingly explained as an active continu-
ation of the policies adopted by his forerunners to strengthen the royal
administration’s hold on the Babylonian cities and their temples, acting
against the interests of the Babylonian urban landholders who tradition-
ally controlled city-based institutions.118
Soon, however, the king’s acts and interests began to deviate from
older models. His early inscriptions express what might be inter-
preted as a sense of mission to restore venerable, but abandoned cults.
A recurring theme in his texts referring to temple restoration and
reconstruction is the search for foundations and foundation deposits
left by previous kings. His inscriptions mention and even cite some
of these antiques, although some of the objects housed in museums
that bear the subscripts of his scribes or that can be associated with
his building activities are actually forgeries made to satisfy the king’s
interest in antiquities while furthering the case of the local priest-
hood that stood to gain from the king’s investments. In a particularly
spectacular case, the learned priests and scribes based in Ebabbar, the
temple of the sun god in Sippar, presented Nabonidus with a very
convincing Old Akkadian inscription intended to lend credence to
certain claims made by the Ebabbar in the context of his building
activities there.119
The king gave particular (but by no means exclusive) attention to the
cult of the moon god. In his second year, he also directed his attention
117. Jursa and Gordin 2019: 49–50.

118. Kleber 2008: 344–348.
119. Schaudig 2003. For the Sippar case, see Finkel and Fletcher 2016.
126
to the main sanctuary of the moon god in Babylonia, Ur. The king’s
principal account of his activities survives in an inscription of which
a single copy was found in Ur.120 Additionally, the episode appears in
the Royal Chronicle.121 It is characteristic of Nabonidus’s engagement
with religious matters and will be narrated here at great length for this
reason. The primary theme of all related sources is the king’s decision
to reinstate the office of high priestess (entu) of the moon god in Ur,
an office with a venerable tradition that had long fallen into oblivion.
In doing so, Nabonidus was responding, according to the inscription,
to a lunar eclipse, taking the celestial event as a sign sent to him by the
moon god to announce his “wish to have a high priestess.”122 The king,
anxious to correctly interpret the god’s wish, sought to corroborate the
unsolicited astrological omen by repeated “controlled” extispicy: the
interpretation of the signs that could be read in the entrails of a sacrificial
sheep. This yielded a confirmation of the general message, but two nega-
tive responses when Nabonidus proposed specific women from his fam-
ily as priestesses. Only on his third attempt, when he suggested his own
daughter, did he receive divine confirmation: he therefore proceeded
with the consecration of his daughter. For the occasion, she was given
a new ceremonial name in Sumerian: En-nigaldi-Nanna, which can be
interpreted as meaning “High priestess, (fulfillment of ) the moon god’s
desire.” The Royal Chronicle embellishes this narrative by providing the
details of the gods’ oracular responses and pointing out that it was only
the king who knew how to interpret the astrological omen correctly123—
this explicit claim that a king was able to draw his own conclusions on
the basis of the evidence, in opposition to priestly expert opinion, is
unusual in Babylonia in general, but can also be found in other texts that
refer to Nabonidus.
120. Schaudig 2001: no. 2.7; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 34.
121. Glassner 2004: no. 53
122. Schaudig 2001: 373: i 7; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 34 i 7.
123. Glassner 2004: no. 53: iii 2′–4′. Reading with Schaudig 2001: 591: iii 5′–6′, pace
Beaulieu 1989: 128.
127
The next difficulty was that knowledge of the correct rituals, vest-
ments, and paraphernalia of the entu priestess had been lost. So it was
very convenient that not only a stele of such a priestess, bearing an
inscription of the famous Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104
bc), turned up on the site and was brought to the king’s attention, but
also clay and wax tablets that contained the pertinent rituals! The local
priesthood surely had a hand in that fortunate discovery. The inscription
then proceeds to narrate the (re)construction of the temples dedicated
to the moon god and his cult in Ur; more old inscriptions were found,
and the temple reconstruction precisely followed the ancient models.
The inscription’s final section, excepting the wish for the blessing with
which the text closes, details the king’s donations to the cult of the moon
god and his munificence toward his priesthood:
I provided (the moon god’s temple) Ekišnugal richly with prop-

erty and provisions. So as to have the food offering (called)
“exquisite bowl” perfectly in order and to preclude the occurrence
of ritual mistakes, I have canceled all the work-obligations for the
state and freed for the service of (the moon god) Sîn and (his
spouse) Ningal the priesthood of Ekišnugal and of the other tem-
ples (of Ur), of (every) high priest, purification priest, exorcist,
diviner, priestly cook, miller, gardener, builder, courtyard cleaner,
head gate-keeper, temple attendant, lagar priest who presents
the offerings, and singer who brings joy to the gods’ heart, the
entire priestly college as they have been listed here.124
This clarifies the motivation that led to the “discovery” of the stele and
the accompanying written documentation. Whether Nabonidus was
conscious of the fact that he was presented with forgeries or whether he
wished to believe what he was told must remain tantalizingly unclear.
A project particularly close to the king’s heart was the reconstruction
of the temple of Sîn in the city of Harran, where Nabonidus’s mother
124. Schaudig 2001: 375: no. 2.7: ii 19–28; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020:
no. 34: ii 19–28.
128
Adda-g uppi’ had lived and cultivated a particular devotion to the moon
god. Blaming the derelict state of the temple there on the fecklessness of
the Medes, whom he portrayed as barbarous enemies, Nabonidus had the
temple rebuilt during the second half of his reign, as also commemorated
by a stele erected in Harran (figure 50.4). The narrative in his inscrip-
tions is quite elaborate: the king claimed to have had a dream in which
he received divine orders to rebuild the moon god Sîn’s temple in Harran
specifically from Marduk, the traditional head of the Babylonian pan-
theon, and from the moon god himself.125 In his dream, when Nabonidus
objected to Marduk that the might of the Medes might preclude such a
venture, the god predicted their imminent fall. As the inscription then
continues, this indeed came to pass: within three years, the gods
made Cyrus, the king of Anšan, his humble servant (arassu ṣahru)
rise against him (i.e., against Astyages, the king of the Medes),
and he (Cyrus) scattered with his few troops the vast hordes of
the Medes, captured Astyages, the king of the Medes, bound him
and took him to his country.126
The momentous news about Cyrus’s rebellion against his Median over-
lord, which would eventually lead to a change in the entire political land-
scape of the ancient world (chapter 54 in this volume), appears also in
the Nabonidus Chronicle, for the king’s sixth year (550 bc). There it is
said that Astyages had actually been overthrown during a revolt by his
own troops. It was only when the rebellious troops delivered Astyages
to Cyrus that he had the opportunity to take and sack the Median capi-
tal, Ecbatana.127 Even though there are good grounds to assume that the
Medes never had stable control over the city of Harran and its region,128
125. Schaudig 2001: 409–440: no. 2.12; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 28.
126. Schaudig 2001: 417: no. 2.12 (I): i 27–
29; Weiershäuser and Novotny:
no. 28: i 27–29.
127. Glassner 2004: 234.
128. Rollinger 2003.
129
Figure 50.4. The stele of Nabonidus from Harran, now in the Şanlıurfa
Archaeology and Mosaic Museum. Photograph by Stephan Procházka.
130
this passage gives an insight not only into the religious interests of the
Babylonian king, but also into his overall political views. He had cam-
paigned in the northwest at the very beginning of his reign, and would
also have been familiar with the situation in Syria from his time as a mili-
tary man under Nebuchadnezzar. He would have keenly watched as a
new geopolitical status quo unfolded in the north, as indeed is also sug-
gested by the Nabonidus Chronicle, which duly recorded the next step
in Cyrus’s rise: his conquest of the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor in
Nabonidus’s ninth year (547 bc).129 The Babylonian Empire was there-
after effectively surrounded by territory under the Persian king’s control,
which stretched from southwestern Iran to northern Syria and hence
far into Asia Minor. In a short period of time, the Persian Empire had
become the most powerful state in the entire Middle East and was on its
way to world dominion.130
The sources mentioned so far depict Nabonidus as a king whose
activities and biases were perhaps in some aspects unusual, but whose
overall policies and activities fell within the “normal” range of behav-
ior for Babylonian kings. This changes when we shift our focus to the
Cyrus Cylinder and the Verse Account of Nabonidus, two composi-
tions that were written after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and
are extremely hostile to Nabonidus. They use the same motifs we have
already seen, but interpret them very differently. The Royal Chronicle
emphasized the king’s decisiveness when he faced the doubts of his
expert priests and diviners. This is mirrored in the Verse Account, but
here it is presented as incompetence and insane hubris, and instead of
Nabonidus’s willingness to follow the precedents laid by the venerable
kings of the past, which is consistently referenced in his inscriptions, he
is described as baselessly self-aggrandizing and obstinate:
He stood in the assembly and praised himself: “I am wise, knowl-

edgeable, I have discovered what is hidden. I may not know
129. Glassner 2004: 236.

130. Briant 2002 is the best extant monographic portrait of the Persian Empire. For
the period of conquest and consolidation, see chapter 54 in this volume.
13
cuneiform writing, but I still have discovered what is secret. The

moon god made me see (it in a dream), he explained everything
to me. I am much wiser than (the compilation of astrological
wisdom) ‘Uskar Anu Enlil’ created by (the ancient sage) Adapa.”
And still he would mix up rituals, confuse divine signs, and on
the occasion of the exalted rites he would just say what came to
his mind.131
Beyond the general impression of the king’s narcissistic personality that

the priestly authors of this text wished to create, there are clear refer-
ences here to the issue of the interpretation of the celestial omen that
prompted the re-creation of the office of high priestess of the moon god
and the appointment of Nabonidus’s daughter to this function—but
where Nabonidus’s own inscription sees a competent decision made by
the king, the Verse Account takes the view of the priestly counselors who
were overruled and presents the king’s stance as folly.
Similarly, Nabonidus’s major building project in Harran, the restora-
tion of the moon god’s temple, is cast as the ultimate hubris: the Verse
Account claims that the king strove to emulate the splendor and prestige
of Esagil, Marduk’s temple in Babylon. The resulting building is desig-
nated an outrage and an abomination.132 Later in the text, Nabonidus is
even said to have, either intentionally or inadvertently, misunderstood
Esagil’s religious symbolism and claimed Marduk’s temple for the moon
god, implicitly ousting Marduk from his preeminent position in the
pantheon.
Immediately after its condemnation of the construction of the
Harran temple building, the verse account goes on to condemn the
one major military undertaking of Nabonidus’s reign, his ten-year
sojourn in Arabia. It states that Nabonidus entrusted “the troops of
the (non-Babylonian) lands”133 to his first-born son (Belshazzar, as
131. Schaudig 2001: 569–570: v 8′–15′.

132. Schaudig 2001: 568: ii 16′–17′.
133. Schaudig 2001: 568: ii 19′: ummān mātitān, contrasted with emūq māt Akkade
“the Babylonian troops.”
132
known also from the biblical tradition), while he took the Babylonian
troops on an expedition to far-away Tayma, whose king he killed and
whose populace he slaughtered. Then, drawing on resources from
Babylonia, he built himself a palace to match the one in Babylon. This
is portrayed as an abomination analogous to his attempt to replicate
Esagil in Harran, for the preeminence of Babylon could, and should,
not be rivaled.
The Verse Account of course reflects the political views of its authors,
who were—or were forced to be—supporters of Persian rule. Still, it
is clear that not all was well when Nabonidus left for Arabia, entrust-
ing Babylonia for a decade to his son Belshazzar, whose regency is well
documented in the contemporary archival record.134 In his inscription
recounting the rebuilding of the temple in Harran, which was written
probably after Nabonidus’s return from Arabia in his thirteenth year, the
king was quite explicit:
The people of Babylon, Borsippa, Nippur, Ur, Uruk, Larsa, the

priests and the population of the temple cities of Babylonia sinned
against (the moon god’s) great godhead . . . they forgot their
(proper) rites, spoke lies and deceit, like dogs they tore each other
up, and brought disease and famine upon themselves: (thereby)
he (the moon god) culled the number of people in the land. Me,
however, he caused to stay far from my city Babylon.135
These are strong words, but in fact nothing in the archival sources,
which are remarkably rich and varied for the period in question, sug-
gests anything like the widespread unrest and multifaceted catastrophe
evoked here (even though there is some evidence for a famine in 545/544
bc136). The testimony of the inscription should probably be considered
134. Beaulieu 1989: 185–202.

135. Schaudig 2001: 488–489: no. 2.7 (1): i 14–23; Weiershäuser and Novotny
2020: no. 34: i 14–23.
136. Dougherty 1920: no. 154.
13
hyperbolic; it was based on tensions between a faction of the Babylonian

elites— certainly from Babylon, certainly including the Marduk
priesthood—and the king, owing to the latter’s preference for the moon
god. While his earlier inscriptions were more conventional and gave
the other gods their due, his later inscriptions consistently placed Sîn in
too prominent a position to be acceptable within the traditional theol-
ogy of Marduk: “Sîn, lord of the gods and goddesses,”137 or even “Sîn,
lord of the gods of heaven and earth, the king of all the gods, god of the
gods.”138 This assumption is consistent with the general picture drawn by
the later Verse Account and the Cyrus Cylinder. Concrete contempo-
rary evidence for this conflict is scarce, however. The best evidence comes
from archival sources that show that the king replaced numerous temple
officials and modified their hierarchy upon his return from Arabia, but
some of this can actually be interpreted as a partial reversal of changes
that Nabonidus himself had introduced at the beginning of his reign.139
The fact that while in Arabia the king did not celebrate the New Year
Festival in Babylon would certainly have been resented, but it is not clear
whether it would have been considered as problematic as the authors
of the Nabonidus Chronicle—Marduk priests in Hellenistic Babylon
who considered the New Year Festival the focal point of their political
theology—implied.140 Nothing in any of the contemporary sources sug-
gests that the king actually went as far in his support for the moon god as
the Verse Account suggests.
Not much is known about the final years of Nabonidus’s reign
between his return from Arabia in his thirteenth year, 543/542 bc, and
the fall of his empire at the hands of Cyrus, in his seventeenth year, 539
bc. The narrative framework on which the few certain facts can be hung
137. Schaudig 2001: 449: no. 2. 7 (1): i 31′; Weiershäuser and Novotny
2020: no. 27: i 29.
138. Schaudig 2001: 351–352: 28–29; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: 162, with
note to i 24 and ii 5.
139. E.g., Kleber 2008: 17.
140. Debourse 2020.
134
depends on the weight given to the Cyrus Cylinder and the Nabonidus
Chronicle.
The Cyrus Cylinder was specifically composed to present the new
ruler, Cyrus of Persia (chapter 54 in this volume), as favorably as possible
to the Babylonian elites. For this purpose, the composition adopted the
traditional rhetoric of Babylonian royal inscriptions. It builds its argu-
ment on a condemnation of Nabonidus, especially of his religious politics.
Nabonidus established “unacceptable rituals” and “unceasingly did evil
toward his city (Babylon).”141 Marduk, therefore “found a just prince . . . ;
he pronounced the name of Cyrus . . . , he then called him to rule as sov-
ereign over all.”142 When Cyrus turned toward Babylon at Marduk’s
command, the city fell “without combat or battle,” and Nabonidus was
captured.143 Cyrus was received joyfully by the populace: “the people of
Babylon, all of them, . . . lords and governors, all bowed before his roy-
alty, their faces were radiant with joy.”144 A frequently adopted argument
builds on this text and suggests that intra-Babylonian strife, namely a
rift between Nabonidus and the influential priesthood (in particular the
priests of Marduk), was the reason for the weak Babylonian resistance to
the Persian attack.145 However, this reconstruction of the events is prob-
lematic in that it is largely based on propagandistic texts whose purpose
was to create this very image. Archival sources closer to the events sug-
gest that, in fact, the empire’s institutions and power structures were sta-
ble until the very end.146 Resentment among the priesthood is possible,
141. Schaudig 2001: 551: 6; 552: 8.

142. Schaudig 2001: 552: 12–13.
143. Schaudig 2001: 552: 17.
144. Schaudig 2001: 552. The Verse Account, toward its end, presents a similarly
favorable image of Cyrus.
145. E.g., Liverani 1988: 888–893. Pertinent studies, with partly contradictory
results, include: Beaulieu 1989; Kuhrt 1990; Braun-Holzinger and Frahm
1999: 150–151; Michalowski 2003; 2005: 177–178; Kleber 2008: 345–347; Da
Riva 2010b: 59–60 and most recently Beaulieu 2018: 243; for further refer-
ences, see Schaudig 2001: 9–23.
146. Jursa 2007b.
135
even likely, but what is known about the political economy of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire does not suggest that Babylonian priests, even those
of Marduk, wielded sufficient independent power to have been able to
seriously challenge the king’s power.147
After a gap in the text, the Nabonidus Chronicle resumes its narra-
tive in the middle of the buildup to the final clash with Cyrus’s forces in
539 bc.148 It describes how the Babylonians brought the divine statues
of the major gods of several cities to Babylon, obviously with the inten-
tion of safeguarding them and profiting from their aid and protection
in case the capital was besieged. This information is confirmed by archi-
val texts that refer to the complex logistics of moving a divine image
and its paraphernalia and priestly attendants from Uruk in the south to
Babylon.149 Open war was clearly expected. At about this time, a letter
sent to the city of Sippar from one of the Ebabbar temple’s estates in
the Khabur valley in northern Syria speaks about the presence of “the
enemy”—without feeling the need to explain who that enemy was—
making it necessary to speed up the grape harvest.150 Most likely enemy
forces were built up all around the northern and eastern borders of the
empire.
When it finally took place, the attack came from the northeast and
was directed at the city of Opis, which guarded the Tigris crossing and
was the major center in northern Babylonia, providing access for the
imperial army to the northeast, and to the west, toward Syria.151 Cyrus
defeated the Babylonian army in the battle, and according to the chroni-
cle, sacked the city. A few days later, first Sippar (on October 10, 539 bc)
and then Babylon (on October 12)152 opened their gates to the Persian
army’s advance force, which was led by “Ugbaru, governor of Gutium,”
147. Jursa 2013a; and see section 50.6.1.

148. Glassner 2004: 236–238.
149. Sandowicz 2015.
150. Jursa and Wagensonner 2014: 115.
151. Jursa 2010a: 80–84.
152. Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 13.
136
possibly a leader of a Median contingent in the service of Cyrus.153

Nabonidus fled, but returned later for an unstated reason (perhaps to
organize a resistance) and was captured. A few days later, Cyrus for-
mally entered the city, and hostilities ceased. The Nabonidus Chronicle,
reflecting the interests of its authors in priestly agency and priestly resis-
tance to political power,154 especially notes the fact that religious services
in Eanna were not interrupted at any point, the presence of Median sol-
diers in the sacred precinct notwithstanding, and that a priest apparently
did not allow Cyrus’s son to participate in a rite owing to his “Elamite
dress.”155 It does not relate the eventual fate of Nabonidus. According
to other sources from the Hellenistic period, he was exiled—perhaps to
somewhere in southern Iran, according to a fragment from the work of
the Babylonian historian Berossus transmitted by Josephus; in a variant
of this narrative, Nabonidus was even said to have been given the gover-
norship of the region.156
The available sources and their particular focus on Babylon and
Esagil distort the image of the war between Nabonidus and Cyrus. It was
almost certainly longer than just a few weeks, and the information we
have suggests that the Babylonians may have offered a fiercer resistance
leading up to the battle of Opis, and perhaps even after.157 On the other
hand, the documentary record shows quite clearly that the social and
economic life in Babylonia was hardly interrupted at all by the conquest,
and most of the officials who had been in place during the last phase of
Nabonidus’s reign retained their offices under Cyrus and, in some cases,
also under his son and successor, Cambyses. The first phase of Persian
rule over Babylonia (for which see chapter 59 in this volume) was marked
by continuity. Structural change came at first only gradually, and then
ever more rapidly, culminating in the major disruptions around and after
153. Jursa 2003: 174 note 31; but see De Breucker 2012: 552 n. 84.
154. Jursa and Debourse 2020.
155. Glassner 2004: 238.
156. De Breucker 2012: 264, 266, 554–555.
157. Briant 2002: 40–43.
137
the Babylonian rebellion against Xerxes in 484 bc. Only then did the
institutional legacy of Nebuchadnezzar’s and Nabonidus’s empire come
to an end in the Babylonian heartland.
50.5. The Neo-Babylonian Empire’s

political economy
To understand the Neo-Babylonian Empire—or any empire—requires
that we understand its ideologically driven means of elite integration and
identity formation, and its coercive power.158 For the former point, the
previous section established the ideological primacy of the monarchy as
sanctioned by Marduk (at least until Nabonidus) and the limited suc-
cess of elite integration, in that the tribes continued to be an element of
instability. The present section deals with the second point.
“Coercive power” is interpreted here as the means for levying man-
power and extracting material resources. The Neo-Babylonian Empire,
like every ancient Near Eastern empire that preceded and followed it,
was at its base a tributary empire: it was essentially founded on the con-
quest and control of vast agrarian domains and on the surplus they pro-
duced.159 This surplus could be taken either directly from the producers,
or indirectly by targeting local, urban elites who had already accumu-
lated the surplus produced by peasant labor in their respective regions;
or it could be extracted using violence, or through some form of regu-
lated and predictable taxation (based, in the final count, on the threat of
violence). The empire’s organizational choices and agency were limited
to the field of possibilities circumscribed by these four poles. A princi-
pal distinction must be made between the empire’s core—essentially
Babylonia—and its periphery. There is a plethora of data for the former,
but it is impossible to draw a detailed image of the empire’s impact on its
northern and western regions.
158. Goldstone and Haldon 2009.

159. E.g., Bang and Bayly 2011: 5–7.
138
Taxation was the principal source of state revenue in Babylonia. The

yields from land in the royal domain went into provisioning the royal
household, but seem to have been less important overall than tax-based
sources of income.160 The bulk of the evidence concerns urban society.
Direct taxation of (agrarian) income, as well as the extraction of labor
and military service, is attested in three forms, for three distinct catego-
ries of social agents or groups: the temples; recipients of royal land grants
encumbered with tax and service obligations; and landowning urban
households.
Taxes levied on the income of temple estates were collected by a royal
official attached to the Esagil temple in Babylon. The principal temple
of Babylonia served as a collection point for this type of agricultural
income; it probably served as the empire’s treasure house in general. The
tax amounted to between 2.15 and 8.3 percent of the temples’ income. It
was collected either in kind or (probably less frequently) in silver money.
The kings also drew on temple resources by requisitioning manpower
for royal building projects and for the army, and foodstuffs for provi-
sioning the royal palaces. The demand for manpower was particularly
significant, labor being probably the most sought-after resource in the
Neo-Babylonian Empire in general. The royal requirements for workers
were met by the temples partly by drawing on their own funds and their
reservoir of dependent labor, and partly through passing their obligation
on to free members of the temple community, such as priests (and gen-
erally to the heads of private urban households?) in the form of service
obligations or obligations to pay for substitute labor. For this purpose,
tax units of ten (or more) households were formed, which typically paid
for one soldier or corvée worker.
Estates granted by the crown to soldiers or workers, often of for-
eign extraction such as the deported Judeans, were generally situated
in zones that had suffered demographic and economic decline in the
seventh century, certainly as a consequence of the Assyrian wars. The
new settlers were expected to reclaim these areas, and they owed the
160. The following summarizes Jursa 2013b, with references to additional

information.
139
state their military service in addition to the payment of taxes. Thus,

the “land-for-service system” integrated foreign groups into the fab-
ric of the state and extended the range of state-controlled agriculture
into otherwise under-exploited areas. The best evidence comes from
the Persian period, but we also know of settlements of, e.g., people
from Egypt and Gezer in Palestine, people from Hindanu on the
Middle Euphrates, and Arabs and Judeans from the period of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire.161
The urban population of Babylonia was perhaps the most important
domestic tax base in the empire: a large part of the population lived in
cities,162 and urban landowners were the only stratum of society, apart
from the institutional households and royal officials, that could poten-
tially dispose of a substantial taxable surplus. Urban households were
grouped into tax units.163 The principal burden imposed on these tax
units was always conceptualized as a service obligation rather than a
straightforward tax. Invariably, substitutes were hired for the fulfillment
of these service obligations. Some professional soldiers served their (pri-
vate) employers on such a basis over a considerable length of time.164 The
most important type of land ownership, on which taxation was based,
consisted of shares in fields (called hanšû, literally “fifty,” referring to
the standardized, narrow width of these elongated field strips that faced
the irrigation canals) in the hinterland of the cities. This land had been
reclaimed late in the seventh or early in the sixth century bc through
state intervention and then shared out to the urban elites, who in turn
were required to accept certain tax and service obligations.165 Taxation
could also be levied on the basis of urban residence, organized in distinct
161. E.g., Zadok 2003; Magdalene and Wunsch 2011: 115–117; Gombert 2018;
Zilberg 2019 (with this volume also serving as a kind of index for the numerous
contributions by Ran Zadok); Alstola 2020.
162. Adams 1981; Jursa 2010a: 39–41.
163. For a recent synthesis, see Gombert 2018: 314–467.
164. Jursa 2010a: 650–652.
165. Still 2019: 64–87.
140
“city wards” (bābtu). Furthermore, tax units formed by professional

colleagues (priests) are known from Borsippa during the Achaemenid
period, but probably existed earlier.
Direct taxes paid in cash were rare, as was the direct taxation of the
agricultural income of the population at large: the main commodity
extracted by the state was manpower. There was, however, considerable
indirect taxation via gate, bridge, and harbor taxes and other transport
dues, as well as through various fees, e.g., for real-estate sales. Collection
was often leased out to tax farmers.
Taxation in Babylonia continued to develop throughout the Neo-
Babylonian period and after the Persian conquest of Babylonia in 539
bc; the foregoing survey roughly reflects the level of development
the system had reached under Nabonidus. Diachronic changes in the
system in the first half of the sixth century mirrored the continuous
extension of the state’s grip on society’s resources. A particularly infor-
mative case regards agricultural dues in the Eanna temple in Uruk. An
Urukean document from the ninth century bc shows that the temple’s
chief scribe received a certain percentage of the temple’s income and
also a (smaller) percentage of the turnover in the temple’s storehouses.
This share was considered his income. He profited personally from it
and paid other scribes in the administration. In the sixth century, from
the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar to Nabonidus, first the chief scribe’s
share in the temple’s income was converted into a state tax and thus
siphoned off by the crown; subsequently the same happened for his
share in the turnover at the storehouses. Both these dues were then col-
lected by Esagil. The Marduk temple served the interests of the crown,
allowing the latter to tighten its control of the provincial temples
and maximize the resources it could extract from them: from patri-
monial households enjoying a considerable degree of independence,
the temples were increasingly turned into extensions of a centralized
bureaucracy.166
The army that the Neo- Babylonian Empire financed with the
resources it extracted was a composite body. The sources are scarce,
166. Jursa and Levavi 2021.

14
however.167 One good starting point is the Hebrew Bible, which describes
Nebuchadnezzar’s army (as it marched against Jerusalem) as including
troops (gdūd) of “Chaldeans” (which can mean the Chaldean tribes
in the strict sense of the word, as well as more generally Babylonians),
Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites168—in other words, Chaldean
and Aramean tribal contingents, Babylonian units, and units composed
of natives of western vassal or client states or provinces.169
There was no mass levy on the population of Babylonia for military
expeditions in other parts of the empire: the logistical and financial
problems would have been insurmountable. Babylonian cities contrib-
uted to the army through specific taxes exacted from the temples170 and
with the men paid for by the tax and service units composed of the
propertied urban households. Also village communities seem to have
had the obligation to contribute a quota of men to the king’s service.171
These militia-like levies composed the infantry. The Babylonian term
is “archer,” which designates the most common type of foot soldier.
In addition to bows and arrows, with their distinctive “Babylonian”
or “Scythian” arrowheads found in Levantine destruction levels of
this period,172 these men were typically each furnished with a dagger.
The only other weapon mentioned with any regularity was the lance.
Uniformity was achieved by the issue of standardized clothes: soldiers
received leather shoes (which ordinary temple workers often lacked); a
thick, perhaps padded, woolen tunic; and most importantly, a poncho-
like blanket to both wear and sleep in.173 Occasionally, the record sug-
gests the existence of less impressively equipped units, as in the case
167. For a comprehensive survey, see Gombert 2018 .

168. 2 Kgs 24:2.
169. Joannès 2000: 67.
170. Kleber 2008: 198–235; MacGinnis 2010; Gombert 2018: 30–312.
171. Jursa 2010a: 57 note 253; 649–650.
172. Dugaw et al. 2020.
173. Kleber 2014; Gombert 2018: 280–312.
142
of a mixed unit of twelve workers and three guards stationed locally

in Babylonia, who altogether were issued with only “ten arrows, three
bows, and three daggers.”174
Undoubtedly, the urban militias we find documented in the cunei-
form record did not form the backbone of the army. Babylonian kings
also relied on substantial numbers of mercenaries, who were hired either
on an individual basis or in collectives, in which case the boundary
between straightforward employment and more or less forced “con-
scription” was likely to have been fluid. The documentation is sparse,
but sufficiently clear. We have seen that the post-Neo-Babylonian Verse
Account makes a distinction, which is certainly correct, between the
“forces of Akkad (=Babylonia)” that followed Nabonidus to Arabia and
the “troops of the (other) lands” that remained in Babylonia under the
command of the Crown Prince.175 Taking native troops out of the coun-
try and leaving non-Babylonian mercenaries and deportees to secure
Babylonia is an expected precaution in Nabonidus’s case, as he clearly
feared malcontent during his absence. Collectives of non-Babylonian
extraction received land grants in order to support themselves, as we have
seen. In Nebuchadnezzar’s palace, large groups of foreign specialists,
mostly from the west (e.g., Phoenicians and “Ionians”) were present;176
such men would also have been employed elsewhere. On the other hand,
Greek literary evidence that was long thought to document the presence
of a Greek mercenary in Nebuchadnezzar’s army177 has recently been
deconstructed; it is now suggested that this evidence says nothing of
the kind (but rather refers to a Greek in Egyptian service fighting the
Babylonians).178
174. Princeton Theological Seminary, inventory no. PTS 3129; available online at
https://cdli.ucla.edu/P471221 (last accessed February 16, 2021).
175. Schaudig 2001: 568: ii 16′-17′.
176. Pedersén 2005a.
177. Joannès 2000: 67; Rollinger and Korenjak 2001: 327.
178. Fantalkin and Lytle 2016.
143
The Chaldean and Aramean tribes were the third and most important
source of men for the Babylonian army.179 Their importance is masked
by the lack of written evidence, but it is suggested not only by the some-
what unimpressive nature of the Babylonian militias, but also by the fact
that the tribes had been the backbone of Babylonian resistance against
Assyrian domination throughout the seventh century. Tribal chiefs, as
largely autonomous heads of strongly patrimonial communities, could
levy forces more easily than the kings could call up urban militias through
the bureaucratic means discussed above (this fact also explains the
absence of pertinent written documentation). The career of Neriglissar,
tribal chief and general turned king, can be taken as confirmation of the
military power of the tribes. Also Nabonidus’s career and background as
a military commander who achieved kingship may be of relevance here,
as there is a distinct probability that he also had an Aramean background.
Moving the discussion of the empire’s political economy outward,
it is obvious that the army was the foremost tool of resource extrac-
tion in the imperial periphery. Syria and the Levant, by and large, expe-
rienced the first phase of Neo-Babylonian expansion as a sequence of
violent incursions by the Babylonian army that pillaged the conquered
cities or extracted tribute from those places and regions that were fast
enough to submit to the Babylonian king. Once a network of vassal or
client kingdoms and a rudimentary administrative structure based on a
few central cities—Carchemish and Riblah, and probably also Harran
and Tyre—had been established, the expectation was that regular trib-
ute would flow to the center without the necessity of sending troops
every spring or summer to enforce compliance. The example of Judah
demonstrates both the general principle and the possible consequences
when client kingdoms did not conform to Babylonian expectations. This
regime has been called “superficial domination”180—but only in the sense
that the Babylonian apparatus of supervision and control was minimal
and normally quite remote from the centers where tribute was extracted.
179. Cf. Joannès 2000: 67.

180. Levavi 2020: 62.
14
Reprisals for non-compliance were anything but “superficial.” The evi-

dence of “colony-building” in the Khabur valley and perhaps in the region
of Tyre shows that this model was not followed consistently everywhere
and throughout the entire period of Neo-Babylonian domination,181 but
as a general pattern the model sketched here predominated.
Royal inscriptions, while far less detailed regarding the tribute
expected from the imperial periphery than their Assyrian forerunners,
are still the best direct textual evidence for the flow of the spoils of empire
into Babylonia. Nabonidus claimed in one of his inscriptions to have
given over three tons of silver and about 160 kilograms of gold to the three
main temples of Babylonia, those of Babylon, Borsippa, and Cutha. The
gift was part of the “gift of submission taken from the riches of the lands,
the property of the mountain ranges, the possessions of all the cities and
the gifts of homage made (to me) by (vassal) kings.”182 Similar statements
can be found in other inscriptions.183 The inscriptions are unfortunately
even less informative about what was perhaps the most valuable resource
Babylonia could hope to find in its newly conquered territories: man-
power. The previously quoted Nabonidus inscription also mentions the
dedication of 2,850 prisoners from Cilicia to the same three temples, but
it is an exception.184 Overall, indirect sources are a better guide to the
volume and impact of the material and human resources flowing into
the imperial center as a result of Babylonia’s expansion westward. The
evident transformation of Babylonia under the Neo-Babylonian Empire
would not have been possible without a significant input of outside
resources: the fruits of the empire collected from the imperial periphery.
It was one of the principal religious duties of Babylonian kings to
provide for the gods of Babylonia through temple-building programs
181. Levavi 2020.

182. Schaudig 2001: 521: no. 3.3a: ix 11′–30′; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 3: ix
11′–30′.
183. E.g., Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: 124: ii 44–46; for Nebuchadnezzar, see,
e.g., Langdon 1912: 95, 141, 153.
184. Schaudig 2001: 521: no. 3.3a: ix 31′–41′; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 3: ix
31′–41′.
145
and similar investments in infrastructure: by erecting huge public build-

ings, the kings carried out the gods’ will, and were seen doing it. Neo-
Babylonian kings had unprecedented resources to accomplish these
duties, and consequently built on an unprecedented scale indeed. Less
obviously spectacular than other undertakings, but perhaps of greater
consequence, the royal land allotment schemes of the late seventh and
early sixth centuries provided the initial impetus for the reclamation
of the barren or underused land surrounding the cities after decades of
war and unrest, and thus started a process of economic expansion and
growth that had no equivalent in Babylonian history. Spanning several
decades, a canal-building project north of Sippar that was sponsored first
by Nabopolassar and then continued by his successors, eventually con-
nected the Euphrates and the Tigris and opened up a significant part
of northern Babylonia to intensive agrarian expansion, demonstrably
tripling the agricultural output of the region.185 Likewise in the country-
side, Nebuchadnezzar attempted to improve the country’s defenses by
having two massive, cross-country walls erected to the south and north
of the capital.186 But it was in the cities where the most notable trans-
formations took place. A catalogue of building inscriptions by the Neo-
Babylonian kings187 lists dozens of buildings, and archaeological research
adds even more: the most frequently built structures were temples, but
palaces and city walls were also erected.
The majority of projects were situated in Babylon and, to a lesser
degree, in Babylon’s twin city Borsippa, but other cities were by no
means neglected: royal building work was undertaken in Sippar,
Akkad, Kiš, Cutha, Dilbat, Marad, Isin, Kissik, Uruk, Larsa, and Ur.
To this should be added Nabonidus’s controversial buildings outside of
Babylon: the Sîn temple in Harran, and the palace in Tayma. Essentially
every major city in Babylon was represented, with the exception of the
economically deprived city of Nippur, which was possibly marginalized
185. Jursa 2010a: 326–334.

186. E.g., Da Riva 2010c; 2012b.
187. Da Riva 2008: 109–113.
146
Figure 50.5. The Ištar Gate in Babylon. Reconstruction drawing by Alfred

Bollacher. Reproduced from Koldewey 1918: pl. 20.
(both economically and politically) because of its long history of loy-

alty to the Assyrians in the late seventh century bc.188 In this period,
the large-scale building projects mounted by the Neo-Babylonian kings,
especially Nebuchadnezzar, created the grand architectural layout in the
city of Babylon that was later rediscovered and made world-famous by
the German excavations under Robert Koldewey.189 New constructions
included Nebuchadnezzar’s massive North and South Palaces, the city
walls, Esagil and its tower, Etemenanki (the model for the biblical tower
of Babel), and the celebrated processional way leading to the monumen-
tal Ištar Gate (figure 50.5).190
188. Jursa 2010a: 414–417.

189. Koldewey 1990.
190. The two exhibition catalogues edited by Marzahn and Schauerte 2008 and
Finkel and Seymour 2008 offer lavishly illustrated introductions to the city of
Nebuchadnezzar. For the Babylonian scholars’ views on the capital, see George
1992. The full publication of the results of Koldewey’s excavations and of the
finds now mostly held in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin is still incom-
plete, but see for now Pedersén 2021.
147
Figure 50.6. Only a fraction of the mudbricks used for the gigantic build-
ing projects realized by Nebuchadnezzar II were fired, and of these, only a
small part was inscribed with the king’s inscription, as is this example that also
bears a short inscription in Aramaic, identifying the brick supplier by name.
Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC
The investment of resources and manpower in these constructions

was vast by any scale. One example may suffice: roughly 126 million mud-
bricks (figure 50.6) were needed to construct the city wall of Babylon’s
Osthaken (German for “eastern corner”), the part of the temple tower’s
brick structure that has been certainly connected to Nebuchadnezzar,
148
and the western Vorwerk (German for “barbican”) of the South Palace.
Babylonian texts show that three men produced 11,000 bricks per
month, so 126 million bricks roughly represent the labor of 1,031,000
man-days, or one thousand brick-makers working constantly for three
years.191 Thousands of men were employed on these large building sites
at any given time—and thousands of others must have labored to feed,
clothe, supervise, and possibly also guard them. By no means was all
labor compelled; many, sometimes most, laborers on these building
sites were demonstrably free local men who were paid wages in silver.
Local institutions, temples, cities, and citizen bodies organized much of
the work, and the crown supervised and paid. In this way a major part
of the spoils taken from the west was put into local circulation. While
the Neo-Babylonian kings wrought havoc in their imperial periphery
by extracting resources and manpower, they transformed the economy
of the core imperial region by reinvesting those very same resources
and manpower. The depredations in Judah and elsewhere in the west
were intimately connected with the economic growth in Babylonia
(section 50.6.2).
50.6. Society and economy in the

Babylonian heartland
50.6.1. Ethnic and social groups
The population of sixth-century bc Babylonia was multiethnic and to a
significant percentage multilingual, with Aramaic and Babylonian being
spoken side by side. Babylonians, Arameans, and Chaldeans had shared
the country for centuries, and under imperial rule other groups increas-
ingly arrived too, either by their own volition, as was the case for many
Arabs, or by the will of the state, as in the case of deportees from the
west, such as the Judeans who arrived after the fall of Jerusalem.192 The
rich documentary record from this period, however, does not shed equal
191. Jursa 2010a: 680.

192. Zadok 2003; Zilberg 2019; Alstola 2020.
149
light on all strata and sectors of this society. To explain this unequal
distribution of information, we must distinguish between two types of
sources: private archives, mostly of urban landowning individuals and
families; and temple archives, which had a wider social reach. Both of
these types of sources came from the Babylonian sector of society. At the
same time, we should distinguish between urban contexts and sources
that originated in the hinterland, or “rural” areas. The resulting pattern
of attestations for the most important ethnic and socioeconomic groups
is set out in table 50.1.
Table 50.1 Socioeconomic and Ethnic Groups and the Frequency

of Their Appearance in Different Types of Sources and Contexts
Social Groups Sources and Contexts
Private Archives Temple Archives
Urban Rural Urban Rural
Urban Babylonian non- ++ ++ + -
priestly landowners
Urban Babylonian priests ++ ++ ++ +
Urban Babylonians ++ + ++ -
without land
Babylonian rural - ++ + ++
landowners
Babylonian rural -- + ++ ++
population groups without
land
“Local” West Semitic– - * * *
speaking population groups
Non-local West Semitic– -- - * *
speaking population groups
Others -- -- - -
Note: ++very frequent; +frequent; -rare; --very rare. Cells with * mark the limited
range of contexts for interaction between Babylonians and West Semites.
150
The Babylonian part of the population can be broken down into

three socioeconomic groups or strata: landowners who were priests;
landowners who were not priests (while priests who did not own land
were a negligible minority); and non-landowning Babylonians. The
latter group appeared in both urban and rural settings, but these two
subgroups probably did not mix very much. Landowners, on the other
hand, usually had interests in both the city and the countryside. “Local”
West Semites include Arameans or Chaldeans; non-local West Semites
are primarily made up of deportees or descendants of deportees from
the west. “Others” is a much smaller category that includes mostly
Elamites, Egyptians, and Anatolians, with some Iranians and some
non-Semitic-speaking populations from the Levant (e.g., Philistines):
these were individuals or groups whose presence in Babylonia was most
often the result of warfare, deportation, or some other type of imperial
intervention.193
Ethnic divisions had important political as well as social impli-
cations for the Neo-Babylonian Empire. On the social level this is
apparent from the considerable care with which urban Babylonians
kept themselves segregated from the surrounding Arameans and
Chaldeans, rigorously so on the level of marriage and lineage, and less
distinctly but still noticeably, on the level of economic interchange.194
These ethnic divisions are also discernible in the few settings where
West Semites appear with some frequency in the Babylonian archives
according to table 50.1: most often in the countryside, and generally
more frequently in temple documents—administrative documents
that reach beyond the perspective of city-based archives of propertied
Babylonians.
Legally, society was stratified along traditional Mesopotamian
lines.195 The logic of legal thinking about social status was that of a
193. Zadok 2003; Beaulieu 2013; Zilberg 2019 (whose focus lies on the Achaemenid
Empire, but who also presents data from before 539 bc).
194. Zadok 2003: 484.
195. Kleber 2011; Wunsch and Magdalene 2014.
15
patrimonial society: the distinctive characteristic of the various estates

resided in the hierarchy within a household and in which way (if at all)
an individual was subjected to the will of the head of a household, who
had almost completely unrestricted power over the other household
members. Each individual’s rights were only of relative weight when con-
fronted with the will of the sovereign who was conceived in the context
of a monarchy set within a patrimonial system as the “father of all.” The
king’s rights and agency were constrained not so much by law, but by the
force of custom and tradition.
The status designation mār banê means “free man,” and the etymol-
ogy of this term implies a value judgment that suggests it is best translated
as “gentleman.” A mār banê was technically the head of a household in
his own right; when it was occasionally applied to the sons of a mār banê
who were not yet emancipated from their fathers, the term also served to
designate a future “free man.” Only in exceptional circumstances could
women head their own households, and thus be legally “free.” For most
women, the norm was to transition from the father’s household to that
of their husband. Additionally, because of the difference in age between
husband and wife (perhaps five years),196 many widows were subject to
the authority of their eldest sons.
Large groups of people were dependents, either of the crown or of
one of the temples. The temple dependents are the better-known group
and were designated as širku, meaning “oblate; person gifted to the tem-
ple.” Širku lived in family groups and could own property. Potentially,
they could move freely in society, but only with their temple’s permission
as, at all times, their socioeconomic and legal choices could be narrowly
constrained by the wishes of the temple. They are best understood not
as temple slaves, but as unemancipated “children of the temple”; while
the temple institution held permanent discretionary power over them,
they could not be sold—in contrast to slaves, who were subject to prop-
erty law and were therefore technically “things.” Presumably, the legal
status of crown dependents (literally “slaves of the king”) was perceived
as analogous to that of temple dependents.
196. Jursa 2010a: 37–39.

152
Apart from individuals, Babylonian law also recognized temples and

businesses as legal persons. Economically, temples were large complex
households with their own workforces and their own means of produc-
tion (in the city and the countryside). Their rights were legally conceived
of as lying with the temple’s chief deity; socially, these rights were tra-
ditionally in the hands of oligarchic priestly elites, but during the Neo-
Babylonian period they increasingly fell under the control of the crown
(section 50.4).197 Businesses were independent legal entities created for
commercial purposes by one or more investors. Their property was kept
separate from that of the investors; investors could be indebted to their
own companies.198
Socially, the picture is much more nuanced than the broad-brush
legal distinctions suggest. A comprehensive portrait of Babylonian
society in the sixth century bc remains to be written, but at least for
propertied, city-dwelling families the outlines of a complex system can
be discerned clearly enough.199 A significant part of urban society, and
especially of the upper classes, was made up of clans: kin groups who
claimed descent from a common, sometimes fictitious, ancestor who
could be designated by name (“Nur-Sin”) or by profession or title (e.g.,
“Salt Merchant”).200 Within the clans, individual lineages cultivated an
even tighter-knit sense of identity based on affiliations with “ancestral
houses” (bīt abi, literally “father’s house”)—both in the figurative sense
and concretely, in that the ancestral house was typically also a prestigious
urban residence.
The roots of this clan system lay in the Late Bronze Age, and by
the seventh century bc, it was almost ubiquitous in Babylonian cities.
Based on the occupational terms used as clan names, and also on trends
in the actual socioeconomic profiles of clan members (the clan name
197. E.g., Bongenaar 1997; Kleber 2008; Waerzeggers 2010, to name but a few perti-
nent studies.
198. Jursa 2010c.
199. Most recently, Still 2019.
200. Nielsen 2011; Wunsch 2014.
153
and the preferred occupation of clan members did not need to coin-
cide), three broad categories can be distinguished among these urban,
upper-class groups: military clans (e.g., the Scout clan), priestly clans
(e.g., the Gatekeeper clan), and artisanal or commercial clans (e.g., the
Smith clan). The second and third category are well known, but the
military clans are much less well-attested due to the lack of large private
archives that are associated with such families.201 At least originally, the
military clans had a close relationship to the crown, even if the increas-
ingly strong Chaldean and/or Aramean presence in the palace may have
loosened this connection to some degree by the sixth century. There was
some crossover between military and artisanal/commercial clans, but as
far as we can tell, the priestly clans retained their separate identity for the
most part.
It is these priestly clans, well-documented by temples and large pri-
vate archives, that offer the best insights into the functioning of the sys-
tem.202 Priests were specialized personnel who were almost exclusively
men. They were involved in the highly regulated cult of the divine image
who resided in their temples, with roles that ranged from gatekeepers
to bakers of sacrificial bread to singers of ritual laments. Priestly offices
were defined principally by profession and period of service for a spe-
cific deity or temple. Such offices were prized family heirlooms and on
par with real estate for the prestige they conferred and the income they
entailed. The right to hold a priestly office was conferred upon a candi-
date by a ritual of initiation (“shaving”). Eligibility depended on physi-
cal fitness, relevant training, and most of all, on demonstrable descent
from an initiated priest—hence the paramount importance attributed
to lineage in priestly circles. Not surprisingly, priestly clans practiced
group- specific endogamy: priests married the daughters of priests.
Individual clans, however, were not endogamous; on the contrary, the
norm was marriage outside one’s own clan, according to a system by
which women always married “up,” meaning that they were married into
201. Still 2019: 82–85.

202. The most incisive pertinent study is Waerzeggers 2010.
154
a more prestigious clan. Status within the priestly group was thus closely
monitored and continuously re-negotiated through such hypergamous
marriage bonds.203 The pervasive necessity to preserve ritual fitness
(“purity”) and to affirm and defend status determined all social choices
made by the priestly clans, as well as their economic outlook. Indeed,
in later periods, particularly in Hellenistic times when their members
alone maintained a traditional Babylonian outlook on life, the impor-
tance of purity pushed them close to becoming what might be called a
self-enclosed “caste.”
In the sixth century bc, the social values of the priestly clans were
still shared (albeit probably to a lesser degree) by the other sectors
of the urban upper classes, the military and the artisanal/commer-
cial clans.204 Indeed, the preoccupation with status and its symbolic
expression permeated the language. Thus, Babylonians were expected
to address their betters not directly, but indirectly: “May my lord . . . ,”
and letters, arguments, and expressions of politeness were carefully cal-
ibrated to express the perceived differences in rank between senders
and addressees.205 Status could break the constraints of gender barri-
ers: high-status women could be addressed as “lord” (bēlu), with a mas-
culine appellative rather than with the expected feminine equivalent
“mistress” (bēltu).206
Only two factors regularly softened, or even subverted, socially pre-
scribed distinctions of status: age and economic prosperity, and it is in
these subversions that the principle is most apparent outside the priestly
clans. The prestige conferred by age was stronger than gender differences
and, to a certain degree, it could even trump a slave’s expected defer-
ence to his master.207 Prosperity also granted social mobility even in, and
into, the priestly sphere, where the basic rules of the community were
203. Still 2019: 27–63.

204. A comprehensive study is still missing.
205. Hackl et al. 2014; Schmidl 2019.
206. Schmidl in Hackl et al. 2014: 55–58.
207. Jursa in Hackl et al. 2014: 95–96, 98–99.
15
predicated on (religiously determined) stability and immutability. On a

few occasions, entrepreneurial non-priests managed to marry into estab-
lished priestly houses—invariably because of the latter’s financial diffi-
culties.208 Memories were long, though, if the deference shown by such a
man’s letter to his wife from a priestly clan is representative:
By the grace of the gods the king is favorably disposed towards

me. I am awaiting his order, so I can’t leave. Were I to leave, it
would be a catastrophe. Get some ten shekels of silver from some-
where and send them to me. When I come home I will pay it all
back to you; should I have to invest your money, I will pay you
back more than you gave me. I am ashamed to ask anyone else
here. Actually I would need much more money. . . . You know
I have no one else to whom I could write these things.209
Money could even subvert the value at the core of Babylonian society,
the deference owed to a father: when suffering hardship, parents could
be forced to beg for help from a son: “I know you have helped me many
times, but please do so again.”210
Property-owning Babylonians belonging to a clan with a surname
produced the bulk of the written documentation that has survived
from private contexts. Since they rarely mixed with people outside their
social circles, the social structures outside these upper classes are less
well known. Men in royal service often belonged to this wide group; in
fact they were probably specifically recruited from outside the “urban
bourgeoisie” in order to avoid the frequent conflicts of interest between
the crown and the urban oligarchies;211 in this segment of Babylonian
208. E.g., in the case of the Šamaš-bari family: Jursa 2005: 108–109. In this case, the
well-heeled groom did not even come from a recognized clan, as he bore no
clan name.
209. Hackl et al. 2014: no. 71.
210. Jursa in Hackl et al. 2014: 97–98.
211. Jursa 2017.
156
society, there is further evidence for social mobility.212 Restrictions on

marriage were less strict, and among temple dependents, single moth-
ers were frequent; but on the other hand, adultery clauses in “lower
class” marriage documents threaten the adulteress with death, which
does not occur in “upper class” marriages.213 Most importantly, there
is far more evidence for interaction with non-Babylonian elements of
the population for this segment of Babylonian society. The process
that led to the eventual disappearance of the Babylonian language and
Babylonian culture toward the end of the first millennium began here.
On the other hand, there is clear evidence for the “assimilation” of West
Semites who arrived in Babylonia during the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
The archives of the deported Judeans are in Babylonian, and one fam-
ily of (probably) prosperous royal merchants of Judean descent eventu-
ally forged a bond of marriage with a Babylonian non-priestly clan.214
Indeed, identifying traces of non-Babylonian social and legal traditions
in the written documentation dealing with deportees to Babylonia is
difficult.215
50.6.2. Economy
The economy of the Babylonian heartland was predominantly agrarian,
based on irrigation agriculture with a double focus on barley and the
more labor-intensive, but also more productive, cultivation of dates.216
Sheep breeding, especially for the production of wool, was the third
principal agrarian activity. Within this traditional framework, the inter-
play of ecological, demographic, and political factors caused signifi-
cant structural economic change in the period of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire. By the eighth century bc, the phase of particularly arid climate
212. Jursa 2010a: 766.

213. An observation that I owe to Caroline Waerzeggers (Leiden).
214. Alstola 2020: 79–101.
215. E.g., Abraham 2015.
216. This section is principally based on Jursa 2010a (with full references).
157
that had thrown the Near Eastern world into turmoil before and around
the turn of the millennium had come to an end. The climate grew wetter,
the river system in the flood-plain of Babylonia stabilized, and the pre-
conditions for agricultural production improved. Nascent demographic
expansion coincided with a phase of increasing urbanization: by the sixth
century, close to half of the population lived in cities of more than ten
hectares.217 Politically, Nabopolassar’s success ended an extended period
of unrest and war. At the center of an empire dominating the entire Near
East, Babylonia soon began to reap the benefits of peace and imperial
domination.
A bird’s-eye view of the macro- economic development of the
Babylonian economy under the Babylonian empire reveals the follow-
ing:218 population growth and urbanization coupled with royal invest-
ment in the agrarian infrastructure and the indirect effects of royal
building projects setting a positive feedback cycle in motion.
The crown shaped the institutional, administrative, and techni-
cal foundations of Neo-Babylonian agriculture. Canal-building and
land-reclamation schemes extended the cultivated area. Agricultural
production also intensified qualitatively; seeding rates were higher and
furrows were more narrowly spaced than in earlier periods. On average,
cereal farming in the sixth century bc produced about 25 percent higher
returns than in the Middle Bronze Age. Moreover, many fields were
turned into palm gardens: a long-term investment leading to even higher
overall returns.
The basic dynamics of agrarian development manifested themselves
in different forms for the three types of landholding that are characteris-
tic of the period: royal and temple (i.e., institutional) estates; land held
by individuals, often city-based; and estates granted to collectives by the
state in return for military service and taxes.219 Institutional estates were
large, but frequently under-staffed and under-exploited by their forced or
217. Adams 1981.

218. Jursa 2014c.
219. van Driel 2002; Jursa 2010a: 171–205, 316–468.
158
paid labor or by mostly-free tenants. Land grants were cultivated by the

recipients of the grants, or by free tenants. Private landholding was the
most innovative sector of Babylonian landholding in this period. Small-
scale date gardening on private estates led to an overall intensification
of agrarian production, increased outputs, and drove agrarian change.
Plots owned by urban landholders were mostly rented for relatively short
terms. The wide possible range of economic relationships between ten-
ants and landlords reflected the interplay of economic and social forces
on the rental market. Overall, agricultural production was increasingly
geared toward markets; regional specialization and a significant inter-
dependence between rural producers and urban consumers were the
consequence. At this interface, opportunities for entrepreneurial activ-
ity opened up: agrarian management, especially in the institutional sec-
tor: wholesale trade in staples; tax farming, and other similar activities.
For large-scale operations, the crown tended to favor its own clients.220
The Neo-Babylonian kings’ extensive building projects brought huge
quantities of silver—uncoined silver money—into circulation. This sil-
ver had been extracted from the imperial periphery in the form of trib-
ute and booty. As a consequence, many urban unskilled laborers could
subsist largely on monetary wages because they could find employment
for much of the year. For comparative purposes, the average wage of the
period can be expressed in terms of wheat wages, i.e., the quantity of
wheat that could be purchased for the average daily wage of an unskilled
free worker. Throughout most of antiquity and the pre-modern period,
the average wheat wage was between 3.5 and 6.5 liters, but Babylonians
under the Neo-Babylonian Empire earned wheat wages between 9.6 and
14.4 liters—significantly more than their counterparts in the late third
and early second millennium bc (4.8–8 liters). In other words, average
salaries—in terms of purchasing power—not only reached a level unseen
in Babylonian history, they were high by any comparative standard.221
One may conclude that “Keynesian” royal spending on (in economic
220. Jursa 2010a: 193–206; also Wunsch 2010; Janković 2013; Kozuh 2014: 153–214.
221. Jursa 2010a: 811–816.
159
terms) unproductive prestige buildings stimulated the economy, con-

tributing to sustained economic growth and increased prosperity for a
significant portion of the population.
As a consequence of the huge influx of silver into the economy,
exchange became more strongly monetized. Inflation caused the value
of silver to fall to about a third of what it had been in the second millen-
nium bc, allowing silver to function as an all-purpose currency for the
first time in history. Monetization was further accelerated by the royal
demand for (cash) taxes and by the outsourcing of Babylonian urban
households’ labor and military service obligations to hired men: will-
ingly or unwillingly, taxpayers were forced into the monetary economy.
The crown furthered the practicability of this transition, by introduc-
ing a variety of means for safeguarding the quality of silver, and also by
attempting to set fixed interest rates.
Money changed the character of labor, too. There was not only sala-
ried mass-labor for public building (next to equally substantial numbers
of compelled workers, of course); hired labor made its appearance in all
walks of life, from the rural economy to increasingly specialized artisanal
production within an urban context. This increased complexity in craft
production was mirrored by increased consumption. Household inven-
tories, dowry lists, and similar textual sources (as well as the archaeologi-
cal record) not only document the presence of substantial quantities of
precious metals in private households, they also show a complex material
culture characterized by a greater variety of objects owned by well-to-do
Babylonians than had been the case in earlier periods.222
Not all social strata and sectors responded equally to this economic
transition, or profited in the same way from it. In the well-known temple
sector, an extensive restructuring of the traditional household economy
is apparent. Rather than being essentially autarchic, temples were heav-
ily dependent on silver-based exchange and the market: part of their
production—of dates, grain, or wool, as the case may have been—was
increasingly specialized and geared toward the market. Cash income
222. Jursa 2010a: 806–811.

160
was hoarded only in part; a large percentage was spent to make up the
shortfall in labor that all the temples we know sufficiently well suffered
from. Finally, the process by which the crown brought temple institu-
tions under its ever-tightening control involved the placement of royal
protégés as managers of large sectors of their economic affairs. This led to
a deeper integration of individual temple economies into the state appa-
ratus as a whole.
The urban populations in the most dynamic parts of the country—
the cities along the southern course of the Euphrates, from Sippar in
the north across to Babylon and Borsippa to Dilbat and on to Marad
and Uruk—probably profited the most from this new “imperial” eco-
nomic regime. Manual workers found profitable work on construction
sites, and the urban propertied commercial and artisanal clans made the
most of the opportunities that opened up, engaging in trade, agrarian
management, and other entrepreneurial activities. Social mobility in this
sector of the urban population was quite high. This was equally true for
those individuals and families who joined their fortunes to the state and
its administration. Also here profits (and also risks) were considerable.
Most priests, on the other hand, cultivated an archetypical rentier men-
tality. Their overriding concern was to maintain and manage their family
property portfolios: fields and (more frequently) date orchards, houses,
and priestly offices. In economic terms, this sector of urban society was
the least dynamic that we know of—but maintaining the status quo was
of course a core value of priestly society.
Finally, the economic life of the non-Babylonian parts of the popula-
tion remains only sketchily documented. The life of deportees who were
settled in the countryside, especially in the underdeveloped regions of
central Babylonia around Nippur, where the crown undertook a proj-
ect of “internal colonization,”223 must have been very different from the
experience of others who had been brought to cities on the Euphrates,
especially to Babylon.224
223. Alstola 2020: 102–163.

224. Alstola 2020: 58–101.
16
50.7. In conclusion: an accidental empire

The birth of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and its early development is a
result of the vicissitudes of Assyrian rule over Babylonia and the fate of
the Assyrian Empire in general. The rapid rise of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire was owed to the fact that it could fill the void left by the fall of
Assyria at the hands of the Babylonians and Medes, without necessarily
taking over the Assyrian institutions that had survived in the west. The
empire then underwent a consolidation phase. Apart from a few regions
that saw sustained investment and attempts at colony-building, the
Neo-Babylonian kings maintained superficial control over the empire’s
periphery at best, basing their power on certain strategic cities and a net-
work of client polities whose elites were cowed into cooperation by the
regular appearance of the Babylonian army. In the case of rebellion, pun-
ishment was harsh, as the example of Judah shows.
In the heartland of the Babylonian empire, Nebuchadnezzar in par-
ticular promoted a clearly intentional policy of institution-building
and centralization that aimed to strengthen the power of the crown
and the importance of the capital city Babylon at the expense of other
Babylonian cities. Integration of the single most potent political force
in the country, the Chaldean and Aramaic tribes, seems to have been less
successful. The frequent changes to the ruling families should certainly
be attributed in part to them, as well as to the military. Still, while the end
of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and of Babylonian independence, came
quickly with the defeat of its still partly enigmatic final king Nabonidus
at the hands of the Persians, it is not evident that structural weakness or
systemic internal strife had brought about, or hastened, the collapse of
the empire.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire merits close historical attention not
only for its brief role in the “succession of empires” in the ancient Near
East, but also for its role in bringing about the monumental watershed
in the history of Judaism that was the “Babylonian Exile.” The Neo-
Babylonian Empire’s core experienced a distinct flowering of Babylonian
culture, and intensive scribal, scholarly, and literary production. As a
direct result of its position at the heart of an empire, it experienced a
remarkable socioeconomic transformation. The material benefits of
162
empire were substantial: cities were changed probably beyond recogni-

tion by royally sponsored building programs, and the economy expanded
both quantitatively and qualitatively, allowing Babylonia to experience
a phase of unprecedented prosperity—a prosperity that the periphery
suffered to maintain, of course. After the fall of the empire, this prosper-
ity was harvested by the new Persian rulers, and Babylonia began a new
transformation.
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51
The Kingdom of Lydia

Annick Payne
51.1. Introduction
The ancient kingdom of Lydia was an important seat of power in west-
ern Asia Minor in the first millennium bc.1 Stories of Lydia still reso-
nate today, for two main reasons: first, because of the association of the
kingdom with great power and wealth, and the invention of coinage—
a cultural and technological achievement that is still of fundamental
importance; and second, because of the role played by Lydia in the writ-
ings of the Greek historian Herodotus, who used the realm as a nega-
tive example of un-Greekness in Book One of his Histories, employing
stories about Lydian kings to highlight non-Greek qualities as a prelude
to the Greco-Persian conflicts. Modern concepts of Lydia are still pro-
foundly shaped by his eloquent descriptions.
1. I would like to thank David Sasseville and Jorit Wintjes for comments on the
draft, and Karenleigh Overmann for editorial support. The chapter was language-
edited by Denise Bolton. The following additional abbreviations are used in this
chapter: LW =text numbers in Gusmani 1964–86; TAM V.1 =Hermann 1981;
TAM V.3 =Petzl 2007.
Annick Payne, The Kingdom of Lydia In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Karen
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0051
175
The Kingdom of Lydia 175
51.2. Territory
In geographical terms, Lydia (figure 51.1a, b) can be broadly defined as
a landlocked territory of western central Anatolia in the region of the
rivers Hermus (modern Gediz) and Cayster (modern Küçük Menderes).
Lydia’s rivers and mountain ranges are generally oriented in an east-west
direction. The capital city of Sardis was located in the foothills of the
Tmolus mountain range, at the southern end of the central Hermus river
plain. North of Sardis lay the burial mounds (tumuli) of the royal cem-
etery at Bin Tepe, and the Gygean Lake, which was also known as Lake
Koloe (modern Marmara Gölü).
The Cayster river plain, with the Messogis mountains, formed the
southern part of the core territory of Lydia. The area further south,
between the Messogis range and the valley of the Meander river (mod-
ern Büyük Menderes), was attributed to either Lydia or Caria in different
sources. Lydia shared boundaries with Ionia in the west, Mysia in the
north, Phrygia (see chapter 45 in volume 4) in the east, and Caria in
the south. These boundaries might have been flexible zones rather than
linear borders,2 and certainly shifted through time.
The ancient geographer Strabo judged his sources on Lydian geog-
raphy to be difficult and insufficient to describe the Lydian territory
with any great precision,3 and this situation has not improved much for
modern scholars. At its largest extent, the kingdom of Lydia under King
Croesus (ca. 561–547 bc) may have stretched as far east as the river Halys
(modern Kızılırmak). Croesus famously started the war that would lose
him his realm when he crossed the Halys at the city of Pteria,4 which can
possibly be identified with modern Kerkenes Dağ, some 750 km north-
east of Sardis (section 51.10).
2. Roosevelt 2009: 36–40.

3. Str. 13.1.3.
4. Hdt. 1.76.
176
Figure 51.1a. Sites mentioned in chapter 51. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri (LMU Munich).
17
Figure 51.1b. Detail map.
51.2.1. Natural resources

Parts of the Hermus and Cayster river valleys were known in antiquity
as extremely fertile regions, and Lydia was famous for its wine, figs, and
olive oil.5 Cereals, nuts, and fruit were cultivated in the river valleys
throughout the Tmolus and Messogis mountain ranges, while the foot-
hills offered ideal conditions for olive trees and the production of timber
from pine, cedar, and oak.
Lydia’s wine from the volcanic Catacecaumene region was deemed
“not inferior to any of the kinds in repute” by Strabo,6 and the large
5. Str. 13.4.10–11; Xen. Cyr. 6.2.22.

6. Str. 13.4.11.
178
number of specialized wine-drinking vessels discovered in Lydian houses

and graves attest the importance of wine-making. The excellent reputa-
tion of Lydian viticulture can be seen in the fact that the Greek wine god
Dionysus was strongly associated with Lydia; he is said to have grown
up there, and it was the location of the first Bacchanalia.7 His cognomen
Bakchos shares the same linguistic root and may thus be derived from
the name of his Lydian counterpart, the god Paki.
The valleys of the northern Lydian Temnus mountains likewise con-
tained fertile stretches and forest, but their soil was less well suited to
crop cultivation, and they were thus mainly used as pastures for livestock.
The border area with Phrygia was even less fertile, and may initially have
only supported semi-nomadic population groups.
Resources included both precious and common metals, and other min-
erals used for cosmetics and medicines, or in the production of colors. In
addition to gold and silver, iron, lead, and copper were available. The tradi-
tional view that the river Pactolus (Sart Çayı) was a source of electrum (a nat-
urally occurring alloy of gold and silver) has been recently disproven, after
analysis determined the alluvial metal to be pure gold.8 Minerals include
mercury in the form of cinnabar and yellow ochre, used as pigment. Sulfur,
found at hot springs, was used to soften wool. The art of dyeing fabric was
supposedly invented at Sardis, using local plants such as woad to create a
blue dye; all of this contributed to the fame of the Lydian textile industry.9
Timber, used for fuel or as a building material, was widely available.
Pine, cedar, and oak were grown in Lydia.10 The most important local
building stone was marble, often showing a white or gray color with
grayish-blue banding.11 Marble is found in the Tmolus range, in the
Messogis mountains and in the mountains toward the Ionian coast, but
7. Lyd. Mens. 1.3–4; cf. also Eur. Bacch. 72–82, for identifying Dionysus as a foreign
(Lydian) god.
8. Cahill et al. 2020.
9. On Lydian textiles, see Spantidaki and Tzachili 2018.
10. Hanfmann and Mierse 1983: 6–7.
11. Roosevelt 2009: 54.
179
also near the Gygean Lake. While evidence for ancient quarries is ample,
it is generally not possible to date them with any precision. Limestone
was widely used as a building material and also for monumental inscrip-
tions. Other stones included chalcedony, jasper, onyx, green serpentine,
and rock crystal.12 Lydian touchstone (Λύδιος λίθος), used to determine
the purity of gold, was particularly famous. Local clay was used to create
pottery, roof tiles, and water pipes.
51.2.2. Fauna
Herodotus records that Croesus’s son Atys was accidentally killed during
a wild boar hunt.13 While the historicity of this episode may be doubted,
it attests to both hunting as an elite sport,14 and to the regional presence
of wild boar. Hunting is also confirmed by its representations in con-
temporary art, including a bronze model of a boar found on the Sardis
acropolis,15 the boar head embossed on Lydian coinage,16 as well as scenes
depicted on the Kufawa monument17 and on an Attic black-figure cup.18
Deer, wild goat, hare, and various birds were certainly hunted as well,
and these animals too were depicted in Lydian art, as were geese.19 Snakes
are also found in Lydian art; possibly they represented an attribute of the
goddess Kufawa (Kubaba), and they featured prominently in the depic-
tion of the divine “Mistress of Animals” (Potnia Theron).20
12. Hanfmann and Mierse 1983: 9; Roosevelt 2009: 56.

13. Hdt. 1.34–45.
14. However, the relative scarcity of bones from wild animals in domestic areas of
Sardis suggests that hunting played no significant part in the everyday diet; see
Hanfmann and Mierse 1983: 6.
15. Hanfmann and Mierse 1983: fig. 81.
16. Wallace 2006: 44.
17. Discussed in Hanfmann 1983.
18. Cahill 2010: 485, no. 104.
19. Cahill 2010: 576, no. 221; cf. also Hom. Il. 2.459–463.
20. Cahill 2010: 437, no. 34; 439, no. 36.
180
Fish were abundant in the Hermus and Hyllus (modern Demirci-

Dümrek) rivers as well as the Gygean Lake,21 and the discovery of bronze
fish hooks confirms that fishing was practiced there in antiquity.22 Fish
were also featured as decorative elements on pottery, and a mythologi-
cal story attributed to the Lydian historian Xanthus has a Lydian called
Moksos23 capture both the goddess Atargatis (popular in Syria) and
her son Ichthys (which is Greek for “fish”), and throw them into a lake
near Ashkelon, where they are eaten by fish.24 Hanfmann interpreted
this story as reflecting a historical event during which a Lydian named
Moksos defeated a town and sanctuary at the Gygean Lake (transposed
in the myth to the similar sounding city of Ashkelon in the southern
Levant), which had a tradition of sacrificing humans to a man-eating
fish.25
A particularly prominent wild animal in art and literature was the
lion. As the symbol of the royal house of Lydia, lions were depicted on
Lydian coinage. Associating this ferocious animal with political power
had a long tradition in Anatolia, and is well attested for the Hittite
kingdom (e.g., at the famous Lion Gate at the capital Hattusa; see
chapter 30 in volume 3) and in the lion sculptures attested in various
post-Hittite states of the Iron Age (chapter 46 in volume 4). Among
the Lydians, the royal connection was also featured in a foundation
myth of the city of Sardis. According to this myth, an early king of
Sardis, named Meles, made the city walls impenetrable by carrying a
lion cub—born to him by his concubine—around the city walls, at the
recommendation of the priest of Apollo at Telmessus. Sadly, he missed
21. Cf. Hom. Il. 20.389–392.

22. Hanfmann and Mierse 1983: 6.
23. The name is attested in Greek as Μόξος; Greek tradition also knows several
persons called Mopsus (Μόψος). The name is traditionally associated with the
Cilician ruler called Muksas/MPŠ in the Luwian/Phoenician text versions of the
bilingual inscriptions KARATEPE 1 (Ho./Hu. §21; §58; see Cambel 1999) and
ÇİNEKÖY (§1; see Tekoğlu and Lemaire 2000: 968).
24. Ath. 8.346e.
25. Hanfmann 1958: 73–74.
18
a part of the wall that he deemed unscalable, and it is said that the
Persians scaled the walls in this very spot.26 The lion was also the sacred
animal of the Lydian goddess Kufawa (Kubaba). Her altar in the gold-
refining area of Sardis was originally designed with four lion sculptures,
two and a half of which survive. Her monument in the shape of a small
temple likewise features scenes with lions, while a votive stele preserves
an image of the goddess carrying a lion. Lions were also popular as dec-
orative motifs for a multitude of objects, including seals, jewelry, and
painted pottery.
Excavated animal remains from Sardis attest to the butchering
of sheep, cattle, and pigs, all of which would have formed part of the
Lydian diet. The rearing of cattle and sheep dates back at least to the
Bronze Age.27 Bulls were prominently depicted on Lydian coinage,
together with lions, and were also used in decorative scenes on seals and
other objects.28 Artistic representations of recumbent lambs, made of
gold and silver, are considered characteristic for Lydian art.29 The promi-
nent role of sheep as livestock is confirmed by a fragment of the Greek
poet Archilochus, which explains that “he [the Lydian king Gyges?]30
has power over sheep-rearing Asia.”31 Evidence for goat herds is available
in the shape of goat-wool textiles discovered at Sardis;32 a local version
of the so-called Wild Goat style on pottery is noteworthy.33 Pigs were
raised at the latest by the early Roman period, as the skeleton of a piglet
is attested from that time. As it was found underneath a room at Sardis,
26. Hdt. 1.84.

27. On his campaign to Arzawa (later Lydia), the Hittite king Hattusili
I took Arzawan cattle and sheep as booty; see Güterbock 1960: no. 1: obv. 10;
no. 2: i 22–23.
28. Cf., e.g., Cahill 2010: 431–433, nos. 28–32; 498, no. 121; 500, no. 125; 527, no. 161.
29. Cf., e.g., Cahill 2010: 508, no. 136; 510, no. 140; 545–547, nos. 184–187.
30. Cf. Flower 2000: 68 n. 14.
31. Archil. fragment 227 W.
32. Roosevelt 2009: 53.
33. Cf. Greenewalt 1970.
182
presumably it was sacrificed as a ritual offering.34 Pigs were reared not

only for their meat but also their hides, and chickens for both meat and
eggs.35
A series of puppy burials dating to the sixth century bc, in which
the bones also show cut marks and are accompanied by plates, knives,
cups, pitchers, and cooking pots or similarly shaped vessels, has raised the
question whether the Lydians would also have eaten dogs. However, the
complete lack of comments on such a custom in the extensive Greek and
Roman sources on Lydia, as well as the ritual context of the burials, sug-
gest otherwise. It is more likely that the burials were offerings for ritual
dinners, possibly addressing the god Hermes.36
Indirect evidence connecting Hermes as the recipient of dog offer-
ings with Lydia is provided by a Greek fragment that invokes “Hermes,
the dog-throttler, in Maeonian (Lydian) Kandaules.”37 The Lydian king
Alyattes took fierce dogs into battle against the marauding Cimmerians,
yet this single passage does not provide enough information to decide
whether this was a spontaneous, isolated deed or whether dogs were
actively bred for military purposes.38 War or hunting dogs survive in
depictions on Lydian terracotta friezes and painted vases.
Horses were bred and trained in Lydia, and the Lydian cavalry
enjoyed a formidable reputation.39 Among the famous Lydian horse-
men, the legendary Pelops must be mentioned; he inspired the Olympic
34. Cahill 2015: 419.

35. Roosevelt 2009: 53.
36. Greenewalt 1978: 31; 2010: 239–240.
37. Hipponax fragment F1–2 Degani =F3–3a West. The Lydian term “Kandaules,”
the name of the last king of the Heraclid Dynasty, has been convincingly ana-
lyzed as related to cuneiform Luwian handawad(i)-and Lycian xñtawat(i)-
“king” (Högemann and Oettinger 2018: 70 with further literature), so that
“Kandaules” cannot be a translation of the Greek term κυνάγχης “dog-throttler”
but presumably represents a functionally similar deity or deified ruler.
38. Polyaenus Strat. 7.2.
39. Cf. e.g. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F44.10; F62; Mimnermus fragment 14; Aesch. Pers.
44–47; Hdt. 1.27; 1.79.3.
183
games with a chariot race.40 Horsemanship is the subject of Lydian

painted wares and sculpture, including a marble panel from Bin Tepe
cemetery. Material remains from Sardis include bridle attachments
and horse bones, although the actual breed of horse is still unknown.41
Regarding other beasts of burden, excavators have also found donkey
and camel bones—the latter find calls into question Herodotus’s story
that Lydian cavalry horses ran away from the Persian camel corps of
Harpagus because they were unfamiliar with the smell;42 this is also not
the behavior one would expect of a professionally trained cavalry operat-
ing in a closed formation.43
51.2.3. Food and drink

With its fertile river valleys, Lydia was a country rich with diverse agri-
culture.44 Olives, nuts, and cereal crops were Lydian food staples, but the
country was most famous for its vineyards which grew in the volcanic
Catacecaumene mountains, and the Messogis and Tmolus mountain
ranges.45 Surviving drinking vessels show that the Lydians drank not only
wine but also beer. They might have also enjoyed other fermented and
mixed drinks,46 and non-alcoholic water or dairy-based beverages such
as yogurt drinks or herbal teas. Fruit cultivation included figs, apples,
and pomegranates.47 Among nuts, one must name both the walnut and
the “Sardian acorn,” i.e., the chestnut.48
40. Pind. Ol. 1.

42. Hdt. 1.80.2–5.
43. Payne and Wintjes 2016: 42.
44. Confirmed by pollen analysis; see Sullivan 1989; cf. also Xen. Cyr. 6.2.22; Hdt.
5.49.5; Str. 13.4.15; Cic. Flac. 71.
45. Str. 14.1.15; Vitr. 8.3.12.
46. Ath. 2.38–39.
47. Cf. Ath. 3.76; Varro Rust. 1.41.6.
48. Plin. HN 15.25; Ath. 2.53–54.
184
Of the vegetables and cereals grown in antiquity, we know of a white

“Sardian” onion,49 a type of gourd,50 garlic, chickpeas, lentils, wheat, and
barley. Food production in Lydia was probably self-supporting, despite
the story about an early famine in Lydia,51 the result of unknown causes
but most likely related to warfare or drought.52 The archaeological record
preserves both hearths and ovens, as well as a multitude of cooking and
serving utensils, including cooking pots and baking trays. The fact that
almost every Lydian house had a terracotta baking tray suggests that
bread formed an integral part of the Lydian diet. The famed variety of
Lydian breads continues an Anatolian tradition for which, in an earlier
age, the Hittites were renowned.53
Lydian cuisine was considered luxurious.54 Athenaeus records a sauce
made of blood and spices called karyke (καρύκη), which was included in
several ancient cookbooks. The classical tradition preserves several ver-
sions of a delicacy named kandaulos, kandylos, or kondylos (κάνδαυλος/
κάνδυλος/κόνδυλος).55 The variety of ingredient lists for this dish sug-
gests very different, sweet or savory meals, made of, e.g.:
• boiled meat, grated bread, Phrygian cheese, aniseed, thick broth;56 or

• milk, animal fat, honey;57 or
• hare, olive oil, milk, cheese, honey.58
49. Theophr. Hist. pl. 7.4.9; Plin. HN 19.32.104.

50. Ath. 2.59b.
51. Hdt. 1.94; see section 51.6.
52. For later practices of this type see Xen. Hell. 1.2.4; Diod. Sic. 14.80.1.
53. Greenewalt 1978: 38; cf. Ath. 3.112b–c.
54. Cf. Hdt. 1.71.
55. For the sources and the preparation of the dish, see Kokoszko and Gibel-
Buszewska 2011.
56. Ath. 12.12.
57. Phot. Bibl. s.v. κάνδυλος.
58. Hsch. s.v. κάνδυλος.
185
These ingredients might be cooked into a stew or—with an additional

pastry topping—offered as a pie. Already in antiquity, it was thought
that its name was derived from the Lydian king Kandaules.59 This dish
was much appreciated by the Greeks, sometimes was ascribed aph-
rodisiac properties, and generally was considered so tasty that one
would nibble one’s fingers to the bone.60 The city of Callatebus (near
modern Sarıgöl) was famous for a sweet made of tamarisk-honey and
wheat.61
51.3. Lydian prehistory

The region had a settlement history dating back millennia, and we will
briefly summarize conditions in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1200
bc) as a background for the eventual emergence of the Lydian state in
the first millennium bc. Some key questions remain unresolved, namely
when speakers of Lydian first arrived in the area, and whether the tran-
sition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age was determined by a
continuity of population groups, a disruption through the arrival of new,
incoming groups, or a mixture of both.
During the Late Bronze Age, the wider area was occupied by sev-
eral polities belonging to the confederacy of Arzawa (chapter 31 in
volume 3), as attested in Hittite-language sources: from the Egyptian
archives of Tell el-Amarna (ancient Akhetaten), two letters survive
from the Egyptian state correspondence with Arzawa. Written in the
Hittite language, they preserve correspondence between the Arzawan
king Tarhundaradu and the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388–
1350 bc), and discuss a marriage alliance between the pharaoh and an
Arzawan princess.62 In the mid-fourteenth century bc, Arzawa was at
59. For Kandaules and the etymology of this name, see sections 51.2.2 and 51.7.
60. Eust. Il. 4, 180, v. 16–23; cf. Kokoszko and Gibel-Buszewska 2011: 133.
61. Hdt. 7.31.
62. For a translation of the letters EA 31 and EA 32, see Moran 1992: 101–103,
nos. 31–32.
186
the height of its power, extending as far as Tuwanuwa (classical Tyana;

modern Kemerhisar) in the Hittite Lower Lands. This power was
reduced and finally broken by the campaigning of two Hittite kings. The
first was Suppiluliuma I, who liberated the Lower Lands. The second
was his son Mursili II, who in ca. 1306/1305 bc conquered Arzawa, and
installed loyal princes as vassal kings of smaller principalities, namely in
Mira-Kuwalliya, the Seha River Land, and Hapalla; their treaties sur-
vive in the Hittite archives of Hattusa (modern Boğazköy). Both Mira,
with its capital at Apasa (Ephesus), and the Seha River Land, with a
likely capital at Kaymakçı,63 occupied territory that would later belong
to classical Lydia: Mira in the Meander and Cayster river valleys cor-
responding roughly to the southern areas, Seha in the Hermus River
Valley to the core of Lydia.
The language spoken by the inhabitants of the Arzawa kingdoms is
commonly assumed to have been Luwian, as suggested by the alternation
of the toponyms Luwia and Arzawa in different versions of the Hittite
Laws, and the Luwian personal names of the Arzawan kings. Moreover,
four monumental inscriptions in hieroglyphic Luwian survive from this
territory. The inscription AKPINAR on Mount Sipylus (modern Spil
Dağı) comes from the Seha River Land, while the texts KARABEL (fig-
ure 51.2), TORBALI, and SURATKAYA marked the borders of the land
of Mira.64
The country name “Lydia” has recently been explained as derived
from an earlier “Luwiya,”65 thus bridging the gap between the region’s
Luwian and Lydian history. However, it still does not answer the ques-
tion of the relationship between earlier Luwian and later Lydian speakers,
and two possible scenarios are envisaged: either a group of newcomers to
the country assumed the local name after their arrival in Lydia,66 or they
63. Cf. Roosevelt et al. 2018: 648.

64. Edited in Ehringhaus 2005: 84−94; Oreshko 2013.
65. Independently, Beekes 2003; Gérard 2003; Widmer 2004.
66. This could be reflected in the tale of the Meiones changing their name to Lydians
(Hdt. 7.74).
187
Figure 51.2. View of the Hittite relief at Karabel. Author’s photograph

(2017).
18
were already there.67 The excavations at Sardis provide evidence for some
cultural continuity from the Late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age, and
an even greater level of continuity between the early Iron Age and the
levels dating to the final phases of the kingdom of Lydia in the early sev-
enth to mid-sixth centuries bc.68
51.4. The Lydians

Before addressing the question of when Lydian history began, it is nec-
essary to define who the Lydians were. Traditional scholarship defines
the Lydians by their shared language and common cultural practices.
Classical sources suggest a level of identification between “Lydians” and
“Maeonians,”69 a people traditionally located in northwestern Anatolia
in the second millennium bc. Homer mentions two Maeonian lead-
ers,70 whom he associated with Lydian territory, describing them as the
children of the nymph of the Gygean Lake, who gave birth to them
beneath Mount Tmolus—a location that could refer to the city of Sardis.
Diodorus Siculus implicitly stated that the Lydians were formerly called
Maeonians,71 and the Miletian poet Hipponax used the designations
“Lydian” and “Maeonian” interchangeably to refer to the local lan-
guage.72 The name Μαίων was clearly also used within the country, as
attested by a Greek inscription from Lydia dating to the first century
ad.73 The terms “Lydian” and “Lydia” survive in the Greek λυδός and in
the Assyrian texts’ reference to the country as KUR.lu-ud-di. A Lydian
counterpart does not survive in native inscriptions, which only refer to
67. Yakubovich 2008: 94.

68. Roosevelt 2010: 58.
69. Str. 13.4.5.
70. Hom. Il. 2.856.
71. Diod. Sic. 4.31.5; cf. also Hdt. 1.7.3.
72. Cf. e.g. Hipponax F1-2 Degani =F3-3a West; cf. also Hdt. 1.7.
73. Keil and von Premerstein 1911: 84 (=TAM V.3 1540).
189
the city Sardis (Lyd. sfar-) and its inhabitants.74 Several scholars recently
argued that the Lydian term should have been *lud-, deriving via lūda
< lūya from the term luwiya- “Luwian”; phonetic proximity to Indo-
European *lukwos-“wolf,” meanwhile, can only be considered meaningful
in folk etymology.75
Another entirely different question is how the speakers of the Lydian
language defined themselves, and how their identity or plurality of iden-
tities related to any political entity. Sadly, not enough information has
come to light to answer these questions at present. The presence of con-
temporary inscriptions in Lydia in other languages such as Greek already
cautions against too rigid an equation between territory, political orga-
nization, and any single language spoken.
51.4.1. The Lydian language

Lydian belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European lan-
guages. Its exact position within this group, however, is disputed, as
Lydian shows some unique features that are interpreted as either archa-
isms or innovations.76 The language is attested through a corpus of
inscriptions on stone, short writings on pottery, and legends on coins
and seals; it is also known from glosses in Latin and Greek. The Lydian
corpus is small, and its few inscriptions are limited in genre (section
51.4.2). Lydian writing survives from a period of about three centuries,
with the oldest inscription dating to the late eighth or early seventh
century bc. Sadly, few inscriptions of any great length have been found
74. This is due to the small size of the surviving text corpus and does not suggest the
lack of an indigenous name for the country.
75. Cf. Beekes 2003; Gérard 2003; Widmer 2004.
76. E.g., Melchert 2003; Rieken 2017; Högemann and Oettinger 2018: 68. Repeated
attempts to establish a connection between the Lydian and Etruscan languages
are unconvincing (cf., e.g., Neu 1991; De Simone 1997); one should therefore
question Herodotus’s tale of the Etruscans’ Lydian origin (Hdt. 1.94); cf. also
section 51.6.
190
in the past half century.77 The small size of the text corpus impedes our
modern understanding of the language, as many subjects are simply not
covered by the surviving material, and limited contexts further curtail
our understanding. Comparison with related Anatolian languages is
therefore an important tool for furthering our knowledge of the Lydian
language. Somewhat ironically, given the difficulties of modern schol-
ars in understanding Lydian, the royal inscription of Ashurbanipal of
Assyria (668–631 bc) that reports the reception of a Lydian messenger
at his court emphasized how problematic communication was, as “there
was no master of his language; his language was different and his speech
could not be understood.”78
Speakers of Lydian would have had contact with speakers of other
languages such as Phrygian and Carian in neighboring territories, as well
as Greek, which may have been spoken in Sardis as early as the twelfth
century bc.79 The importance of Greek was fostered by close contacts
with the Greek world, and after the conquest of Alexander the Great,
Lydia was quickly Hellenized. Monolingual Greek inscriptions abound
in Lydia, while there are only a few short bilingual Lydian–Greek inscrip-
tions. Interestingly, a large number of surviving Lydian inscriptions date
to the period when Lydia was a satrapy of the Persian Empire, and it is
during the Achaemenid period that one also encounters Aramaic as an
official language at Sardis. An unknown language attested only once, in
the so-called synagogue inscription, still remains a puzzle.80 Recorded
in an alphabetic script, it may be the only testimonial for another local
language such as Maeonian or Torrhebian.81 Whether the decrease of
Lydian as a written language reflects a contemporary decline in the spo-
ken language is unprovable.
77. Longer inscriptions (of more than five clauses) include LW 1–3; 10–14; 22–24;
44; 80.
78. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 1: vi 11′-13′ (Prism E1).
80. Gusmani 1975: 115–132.
81. Gusmani 1975: 131.
19
However, one may assume that Lydian continued to be spoken for

some time longer. Among the latest evidence for the use of the Lydian lan-
guage is a reference by Strabo, dated to the first century bc; he stated that
the citizens of Kibyra (near modern Gölhisar, and thus outside of Lydia
proper) used four languages, including Lydian, but that there was no trace
of this language left in Lydia.82 This statement seems to be contradicted
by the even later record of a Lydian term in a Greek funerary inscription
from Iulia Gordus (modern Gördes) in Lydia. The text in question is dated
to ad 47/48 and includes the passage ἡ μάμμη τὸ καμβειν, “the mother
[greets] her little one,”83 with kambein classified as a Lydian word.84
51.4.2. Lydian inscriptions

The earliest recovered and correctly identified Lydian writing is a short
graffito, which was discovered in the winter of 1892/1893 by Archibald
Henry Sayce near Gebel el-Silsila (Silsilis) in Upper Egypt.85 One eve-
ning, Sayce happened to moor his boat on the Nile underneath a rock
overhanging a sandstone quarry, and the following morning he discov-
ered a Lydian inscription incised on that rock. Sadly, it has since been
lost. Sayce correctly identified the writing as Lydian, and connected it
with a short inscription recovered from the Artemis temple at Ephesus,
which had been published in 1876 by Sir Charles Newton, who classified
it as of “unknown character.”86 Sayce explained the presence of Lydians
in Egypt as follows:
We learn from the inscriptions of Assur-bani-pal (=Ashurbanipal)

that the foreign forces with whose help Psammetichos (=Psamtek
I) revolted from Assyria, were sent to him by Gyges of Lydia, and
82. Str. 13.4.17.

83. TAM V.1 706.
84. Neumann 1961: 61; Högemann and Oettinger 2018: 93.
85. Sayce 1895.
86. Newton 1876.
192
consequently though Herodotos mentions only Karians and

Ionians, there must have been Lydians among them.87
At the beginning of the twentieth century, further examples of Lydian

writing on stone and coinage became known, discovered both dur-
ing travels and in the context of excavations. The decipherment of
Lydian began in earnest with the discovery of the first Lydian-Aramaic
bilingual inscription at Sardis in 1912. Only five years later, the Czech
scholar Bedřich Hrozný, who found fame as the decipherer of the
Hittite language, claimed that Lydian was, in fact, an Indo-European
language, related to Hittite—an assertion that was largely ignored.88
By the time Enno Littmann published the first corpus of Lydian
inscriptions in 1916, 34 inscriptions and inscription fragments had
been found by the American excavation team at Sardis; and William
H. Buckler’s second corpus of 1924 contained 51 inscriptions. Almost
a century has passed since then, and the growth of the Lydian text
corpus has slowed down, so that the corpus currently numbers only
120 entries.89
The surviving Lydian text material consists largely of short funerary
inscriptions on stone, dating at most from the late eighth or early sev-
enth century to the second century bc, although the majority of texts are
from the fifth and fourth centuries bc.90 Other text genres include con-
tracts and dedications, statements of ownership, juridical-religious texts,
and lists of persons, and one must also mention coin and seal legends.
Entirely lacking from the surviving material are historical records such
as annals or diplomatic correspondence; likewise missing is narrative
87. Sayce 1895: 42; cf. Hdt. 2.154.

88. Hrozný 1917: 191–193.
89. After Littmann 1916 and Buckler 1924, the main text editions are Gusmani 1964–
86. However, these works do not provide photos or drawings of the inscriptions,
or even translations. A complete, modern edition of the Lydian text corpus is still
lacking.
90. For a list of Lydian texts according to genre, see Gérard 2005: 29, table 5.
193
literature. Surprisingly, a few inscriptions using poetic language survive,

which allow us some insight into Lydian rhyme and meter.91
Part of the reason why so few Lydian texts are extant lies in the
materiality of writing. We must assume that originally the main writ-
ing materials were perishable, such as wooden boards covered with wax,
or one might imagine the use of wooden sheaves, parchment, or papy-
rus inscribed with ink. Those inscribed items that have survived were of
more durable material: stone, metal, or pottery. Yet their very materiality
suggests that items such as funerary markers, coins, or ceramic vessels
were the more expensive, exceptional counterparts to ordinary writing
on less durable materials, now irretrievably lost. As almost all texts origi-
nated from Sardis, or its vicinity, it is impossible to judge whether local
variations in writing existed within Lydia. Outside of Lydia, texts in the
Lydian language and script are extremely rare.92
51.5. Sources for Lydian history

Any reconstruction of Lydian history must be based on diverse, het-
erogeneous material which leaves many questions open. For a start, the
longest, coherent ancient text source, Herodotus’s “Lydian Logos” offers
only an outsider’s view, and its narrative was not intended to provide a
history of Lydia but centers on the figure of Croesus and his interactions
with the Greek world. However distorted this source may be, it none-
theless offers the most complete ancient assessment of Lydia. Despite
its limited size, and our still incomplete understanding of the texts in
question, the Lydian language text corpus provides a counterbalance to
Herodotus’s story.
A few more references to Lydia can be found in other Near Eastern
text sources, including inscriptions of Yariri of Carchemish (late ninth–
early eighth century bc; c hapter 46 in volume 4) and Ashurbanipal of
91. Cf. Eichner 1978; 1986; Bachvarova 2004.

92. Known find spots include Gebel el-Silsila (Silsilis) in Upper Egypt, and in Asia
Minor Pergamum, Aphrodisias, Dascylium and Kerč.
194
Assyria (668–631 bc; chapter 38 in volume 4), a chronicle text docu-

menting the reign of Nabonidus of Babylon (555–539 bc; chapter 50 in
this volume), as well as some administrative tablets from the Persepolis
Fortification archives (chapter 55 in this volume). But the majority of
text references, even outside of Herodotus, stem from the Greek world.
Two important treatises on Lydia sadly only survive as fragments, namely
the Lydiaka of the historian Xanthus,93 a native Lydian, and the history
of Nicolaus of Damascus, which included long passages on Lydian his-
tory.94 Xanthus’s Lydiaka, presumably organized in four books, included
not only historical events and mythological tales, but also geographical
and linguistic material, and might well have been known to Herodotus.
Another, also very fragmentary source, the History of Persia by Ctesias
of Cnidus, seems to preserve a tradition that differs from the account
given by Herodotus. While we can reconstruct the existence of many
more ancient works that focus on Lydia, they have not survived, save for
a few fragments.
Strong ties between the Greek world and Lydia are also attested by
the interest shown for Lydian people and themes by the Greek epic and
lyric poets. For instance, Homer’s Iliad features among the Trojan allies
the Maeonians,95 the inhabitants of what we would now call Lydia. The
iambic poet Hipponax of Ephesus included Lydian citations in his writ-
ings, and his work may have shaped the Greek perception of Lydians
as softened by luxury and sensuality.96 Individual Lydian glosses are
also preserved in other classical works, most notably in the lexicon of
Hesychius from Alexandria. Other Greek poets roughly contempo-
rary with the kingdom of Lydia include Archilochus of Paros, Sappho,
Alkaios of Mytilene, Mimnermus, and Callinus of Ephesus. However,
93. Xanthos FGrH 765.

94. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90. Nicolaus would have used Xanthus as his source—most
likely not the original but a shortened Hellenistic version; either way, his account
is dependent on Xanthus.
95. Hom. Il. 2.864–866.
96. Cf. Högemann and Oettinger 2018: 71–72.
195
this Lydian-Greek connection was not one-directional. Two poets from

Sardis are still known today because of works they wrote in Greek: the
choral lyric poet Alcman and Aesop, the inventor of the narrative genre
of fables.
Outside of the written tradition, the archaeological exploration of
Lydia offers a different view of Lydia’s history, one based on the material
record that thus arguably represents a Lydian perspective. For much of
its history, which began in 1750 when Robert Wood unearthed the first
column of the Artemis temple (figure 51.3), the archaeology of Lydia has
centered on the capital city of Sardis.
Several further expeditions took place in the mid-to late nineteenth
century. The Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, after initial cam-
paigns that ran during 1910–1914 and again in 1920, has been ongoing
since 1958 to the present day. Currently under the direction of Nicholas
D. Cahill, the main results of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis
team are published in the series Sardis, the Archaeological Exploration
Figure 51.3. View of the remains of the temple of Artemis at Sardis. Author’s
photograph (2017).
196
of Sardis monograph series, other individual volumes, and the ongoing

annual campaign reports.97
Research in recent years has considerably broadened the scope of
archaeological work outside of Sardis, taking the wider geographical
and chronological dimensions of ancient Lydia into consideration and
balancing the earlier focus on that city. For instance, in 2000 and 2001,
a survey on tumulus sites and the examination of museum finds were
combined in a project dedicated to the identification of settlement
patterns in greater Lydia during the Lydian and Persian eras.98 During
2005–2013, the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey, under the direc-
torship of Christina Luke and Christopher H. Roosevelt, extended
the radius of archaeological investigation, studying a region of ca. 350
km2 around the Gygean Lake in the Hermos River Valley, with a focus
on the interaction between cultural dynamics and then contemporary
environmental conditions.99 One of the successes of this survey was the
identification of a network of citadels. The biggest of these at Kaymakçı
consisted of a fortified area of 8.6 hectares, with further settlement
areas and a cemetery extending well beyond that, making Kaymakçı
more than four times the size of Troy during the occupation of Levels
VI–VII (2 hectares). Since 2014, the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project,
also directed by Luke and Roosevelt,100 has studied this site’s role as a
regional center with the aim of illuminating the emergence of a network
of monumental Lydian citadels in the Middle and Late Bronze Age
(ca. 2000–1200 bc), and of investigating the role that the region then
played between the Hittite and Mycenean power spheres (chapters 30
and 31 in volume 3).
97. For the publications of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, many of

which have been made available online, see https://sardisexpedition.org/en/
publications (last accessed February 21, 2021).
98. Roosevelt 2006.
99. E.g., Luke and Roosevelt 2009.
100. Roosevelt and Luke 2017.
197
51.6. The Atyad Dynasty

Few facts are known about the formation and early history of the Lydian
state, yet there seems to be general agreement in the surviving sources
that the Lydian kingdom was ruled by a succession of three dynasties: the
Atyads, the Heraclids, and the Mermnads. The last dynasty is the best
recorded of the three, while our knowledge of the Heraclid Dynasty
shows large gaps, and stories about the Atyads tend toward the mythical
rather than the historical. The Greco-centric view of the available sources
further distorts the picture. Note that because of the prominence of this
outside perspective, the names of Lydian kings are generally transmitted
in a Grecized form.101
A recent proposal suggests that the Atyad Dynasty can very plausi-
bly be identified with the Late Bronze Age rulers of Mira (fourteenth
to twelfth century bc), who had their capital at Apasa (Ephesus).102
According to Herodotus, Atys, the founder of the Atyad Dynasty,103 was
the son of Manes.104 Manes claimed that he was the offspring of Zeus and
Gaia,105 and this can be compared to the stories about the divine descent
of other heroes and founding fathers in the Greco-Roman tradition and
might therefore be attributed to a Greek rather than a native Lydian tra-
dition.106 The fact that the dynasty was named after Atys likewise puts a
question mark on the historicity of Manes.
101. If their Lydian names are known or can be reconstructed, this is duly noted in
the present chapter.
102. Held 2021.
103. His namesake was the son of Croesus, who marks the end of the Lydian crown,
as the last heir to a throne he would never be able to claim for himself.
104. Hdt. 1.94. Note that other sources claim slightly divergent dynastic sequences;
cf. Dion. Halic. 1.27–28; Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F15; also Hdt. 4.45.
105. Xanthus FGrH 765 F19.
106. Manes is a commonly attested name in Lydian inscriptions (LW 4a; LW
4b; LW 55; LW 56; LW 73; restored: LW 21; LW 25; LW 101) but also in
Phrygian texts. However, the form “Manes” of Dion. Halic. 1.27 given in
modern text editions is the consequence of Sylburg’s emendation from the
manuscript’s original “Masnes” so that it would correspond to Herodotus (von
198
Herodotus relates that under Atys’s reign, a famine plagued Lydia

to the point that Atys decided to split the Lydian population into two
groups, one to remain, the other—led by his son Tyrsenos—to migrate;
settling in Umbria, this second group called itself Tyrsenoi (Etruscans)
after their leader.107 This story gave birth to the (still popular today)
legend that the Etruscans originated in Lydia. Linguistically, this claim
cannot be upheld, as the two languages do not belong to the same lan-
guage group: Lydian is Indo-European, whereas Etruscan is one of only
three extant languages from the Tyrsenic language family. Rhaetic and
Lemnian, both classified as Pre- Indo-European or Paleo- European,
are the other two. Even the direction of a possible Etruscan migration
remains hotly disputed.108 Importantly, the much-cited mtDNA similar-
ities between modern Anatolian and Tuscan people109 have been shown
to result from a migration process that was several millennia earlier than
any Etruscan arrival in Umbria or the origin of Etruscan culture there.110
Atys’s son Lydus is credited as the eponymous founding father of
the Lydians,111 but the modern etymology of the ethnonym Lydia (sec-
tion 51.4) exposes this story as an invention. Yet the renaming event at
its core might be based in historical reality if understood as referring to
a “Lydianization” (in name at least) of a people once called by a differ-
ent name. One candidate for such a renaming are the Maeonians,112 a
Wilamowitz-Möllendorff 1899: 222). The name Masnes might reflect Luwian

massan(i)-“god” and thus, rather than signifying the name of a real person,
could reflect the story of the dynasty’s divine origin (contra Högemann and
Oettinger 2018: 84–85).
107. Hdt. 1.94.
108. For a westward movement, see Beekes 2002: 221–226; for an eastward move-
ment, see Högemann and Oettinger 2018: 85–86.
109. Achilli et al. 2007; Brisighelli et al. 2009.
110. Tassi et al. 2013.
111. Xanthus FGrH 765 F16, F19; Hdt. 1.7.3. Already in antiquity, Lydus was associ-
ated with the biblical Lud, son of Shem (Gen 10.22).
112. On a derivation from the Hittite country name Masa, as first suggested by
Goetze 1924, see Högemann and Oettinger 2018: 107–108.
19
people located by Homer in Eastern Lydia, between Mount Tmolus and

the Gygean Lake.113 An identification of Lydians with the Maeonians
rests on the interchangeable use of the terms “Lydian” and “Maeonian”
dating back to antiquity,114 because, as Herodotus stated, “the Lydians
were formerly called Maeonians.”115
The patchy and mythical record for the rulers of the Atyad Dynasty
further preserves a reference to a king called Alcim(i)us, who was said
to have brought prosperity to Lydia because of his piety,116 a frequent
literary topos in both the Greco-Roman and Anatolian traditions.
Another ruler named Aciamus was credited with founding the city of
Ashkelon.117 This story cannot be reconciled with the archaeology of
that site, which attests to an occupation as early as the Neolithic period.
As noted earlier, a royal ritual reported by Herodotus as having been
conducted in order to make the fortifications of Sardis impenetrable,
with King Meles carrying a lion cub along the city walls on the advice of
Telmessian priests, seems suspect, serving as it does the narrative purpose
of providing an explanation in hindsight for later events: Meles’s hav-
ing missed the exact spot where the Persian army would scale the walls
led to the fall of Sardis.118 The topos of royal piety took an unpleasant
turn for the inhabitants of Crabus (presumably a settlement located in
Syria) whom Meles’s successor, the usurper Moxus, had drowned in a
lake because of their disrespect.119
113. Hom. Il. 2.864–866, 3.401, 10.431, 18.291; Str. 8.625.

114. Cf. Hipponax F1–2 Degani =F3–3a West.
115. Hdt. 7.74; likewise Diod. Sic. 4.31.5, who further claims an eponymous King
Meion for Phrygia and Lydia (3.58.1).
116. Xanthus FGrH 765 F10; Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F44.10.
118. Hdt. 1.84.4–5.
119. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F16. In Lydian, one would expect a stem *muksu-for this
name, which instantly recalls the Luwian royal house of Muksas (attested in the
Luwian inscriptions KARATEPE 1, §21, §58; see Cambel 1999; and ÇİNEKÖY,
§1; see Tekoğlu and Lemaire 2000: 968), the Phrygian Muksos (Brixhe and
Liebhart 2009: 147–149), and an even earlier Hittite Muksu (the so-called
20
Meanwhile, the story of the Atyad king Cambles easily surpasses any
of the preceding tales in its colorful details. According to the Lydian his-
torian Xanthus, Cambles was such a glutton that, one night, he devoured
his own wife. Waking up the following morning, and appalled at finding
only her hand remaining and sticking out of his mouth, he took his own
life;120 a different account placed the blame for his suicide on dark magic
wielded by a certain Iardanus.121
51.7. The Heraclid Dynasty

The subsequent Heraclid Dynasty emerges only a little further into the
light of factual history. If one accepts the identification of the Atyad
Dynasty with the royal house of Mira (section 51.6), the following sce-
nario is plausible: during the mid-eleventh century bc, Ephesus fell to
the Greeks, and the original inhabitants of the city moved further inland,
where they conquered Sardis and founded the Heraclid Dynasty.122 Its
early history and chronology in literary sources, aligned with important
Greek events such as the first Olympiad and the fall of Troy, are not reli-
able, and accounts vary widely. A minor, common thread links the Greek
hero Heracles with Lydia in the following manner: having come to the
country to atone for killing Iphitus of Tiryns, Heracles fathered a son
of uncertain name with a Lydian woman, and the dynasty was called
“Heraclid” on the basis of this parentage.123
Madduwatta Text; see Goetze 1926: no. 1 rev. 75); while not yet attested in the
Lydian textual record, the name Moxus remained popular at Sardis until at least
the Hellenistic period: four Sardians of this name are attested in a Greek sacrilege
inscription from Ephesus (Wankel 1979: no. 2). On important carriers of this
name in the Greek and Anatolian traditions, cf. Oettinger 2008; Schürr 2019.
121. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F22. The name Iardanus is encountered again in the con-
text of the early Heraclid Dynasty (Hdt. 1.7.4.).
122. Held 2021.
123. Widely differing names are preserved, cf. Hellanicus FGrH 4 F102; Scholia
in Il. Ω 616; Hdt. 1.7.2; Apollodorus Mythographus 2.165; Paus. 2.21.3; Diod.
201
Nothing is known about the Heraclid Dynasty accession to the

throne of Lydia, and if the sparse account of Herodotus is accepted,
the first Heraclid king was a man called Agron.124 While the history
of this dynasty is marginalized by this author,125 a much more detailed
treatment was offered by Nicolaus of Damascus, which only survives in
fragmentary form. From this, we learn about King Adyattes, who was
succeeded by his twin sons Cadys and Ardys.126 Their joint rule was cut
short by an evil plot devised by Cadys’s wife Damonno and her lover
Spermes. Having killed Cadys, Damonno installed her paramour on the
throne and ousted the co-regent Ardys; we are informed that he went in
exile to Cyme, where he worked as a cartwright and ran a public house.
Assassination attempts by the usurpers failed, and as their reign proved
unpopular, two years later, Spermes was killed and Ardys was restored
to the throne of Lydia. His reign was described as peaceful and just, and
his cavalry is said to have numbered 30,000 men. While the historical
value of this story may not extend much beyond the suggestion of an
inter-family power struggle, his exile to Ionian Cyme—if true—would
mark the earliest recorded instance of Greco-Lydian relations within the
political sphere.
It is at this point in time that the Mermnad family first appears on
the scene. Toward the end of Ardys’s reign, much power was given to a
member of this family: Dascylus, son of Gyges. Out of fear that Dascylus
might seize the throne, Ardys’s son Adyattes secretly had him killed.
Not knowing who had committed this crime, Ardys publicly cursed the
killer. Dascylus’s pregnant widow fled to Phrygia, where a son, also called
Dascylus, was born.127 Whether Adyattes ever profited from his deed
Sic. 4.31.8; Palaephatus 44; Scholia in Il. Σ 219. The mother might have been a
woman of the royal house, Omphale, or a slave girl called Malis.
124. Hdt. 1.7.2.
125. Hdt. 1.7.4.
126. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F44. As a royal name, Ardys reappears in the Mermnad
Dynasty; see section 51.8.2.
127. Whether the Carian city of Dascylium was indeed named after this Dascylus
remains uncertain (cf. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Dascylion).
20
and succeeded his father is not known. This story marks the beginning
of a power struggle between the Heraclids and Mermnads, which would
culminate in the usurpation of the throne by Gyges, son of the Phrygian-
born Dascylus. But before this event, three more Heraclid kings came
to power.
During the reign of Meles, Lydia suffered a severe famine, which the
auguries declared a divine punishment for the murder of Dascylus. In
response, Meles decided to exile himself to Babylon for three years for
atonement, offering recompense to Dascylus’s son and namesake if he
came to Sardis. But the latter declined. The vacant Lydian throne was
entrusted to Sadyattes, son of Cadys, who acted as regent but vacated
the throne again on Meles’s return.128 Despite the fact that much of this
story sounds fictional, this episode emphasizes how unstable the late
Heraclid claim to power had become, characterized by the repeated exile
of its rulers, and the transfer of power between different noble families,
both peaceful and otherwise. The choice of Babylon as a place of exile
shows that beyond their relationship with the Greek world, Lydia also
interacted with the kingdoms in the east, thus capitalizing on its position
at the crossroads between different cultural spheres. It is in this context
that one should also place the later interaction between Gyges and the
Assyrian Empire.
Relations between the Heraclids and Mermnads remained strained,
as Dascylus suspected the following king, Myrsus, of plotting his death;
as a consequence, he left Phrygia for Pontus on the Black Sea, where he
married a local woman and his son Gyges was born.129 Nothing further is
known about Myrsus, whose son was to become the last Heraclid ruler.
There is some confusion in the surviving texts as to the final Heraclid’s
name: Nicolaus of Damascus called him both Adyattes and Sadyattes,130
128. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F44.10.

129. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F46.
130. Possibly by conflating an earlier Adyattes of the Heraclid Dynasty with
Sadyattes of the Mermnad Dynasty. Sadyattes may represent Lydian
*sadwet-(< Hittite saiu-for a wild animal of unknown species); see Högemann
and Oettinger 2018: 369. Such an analysis would place the name in semantic
203
while Herodotus spoke of Kandaules but also Myrsilus, thus switch-

ing between a title (Kandaules corresponds to Lydian word *kantawlas
“ruler”; see section 51.2.2) and a personal name, Myrsilus.131
Under Sadyattes, as we will call him in the following, the request
for Dascylus’s return from Pontus to Sardis was granted, thus allowing a
powerful member of the Mermnad family to rejoin the court. Dascylus
again refused to come, but he sent his son Gyges, who was then a young
man. Gyges was initially well received by the king, who appointed him to
his bodyguard. With his exemplary completion of dangerous tasks set by
the king, he soon dispelled any lingering doubt about his loyalty. But the
rise of the young Mermnad’s star caused trouble with Lixus, a member of
the noble Tylonid family competing for power at the royal court.
The story of how Sadyattes met his death at the hands of Gyges sur-
vives in several accounts, each relating different details and motivations—
and, of course, different dramatis personae. In the less-embellished
version of Nicolaus of Damascus, Gyges killed Sadyattes to prevent his
own death, as he had fallen in love with and tried to force himself on
the Mysian princess Toudo, Sadyattes’s bride.132 Herodotus cast the story
in a different light and shifted the blame onto the king himself.133 The
king attempted to show off his (unnamed) wife’s beauty to an unwilling
Gyges, forcing him to watch her undress while hidden behind a door.134
However, the plan misfired when the queen noticed Gyges. Summoning
him the following day, she offered him the choice of either being killed
for his crime or killing the king and marrying her, thus restoring her
slighted honor. The outcome is predictable: Gyges killed the king, mar-
ried the queen, and ascended the throne.
proximity to that of Walwetes (rendered in Greek as Alyattes; see sections 51.8.3

and 51.9).
131. Myrsilus equates to Mursili, the name of several Hittite kings; and is also the
name of a tyrant of Mytilene.
132. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F47.7.
133. Hdt. 1.8–13.
134. This narrative element turns into a fairy tale in Plato’s version, where Gyges finds
a ring that has the power to render its bearer invisible: Pl. Resp. 2.359a–360d.
204
Interestingly, both Herodotus and Nicolaus record that Gyges’s

usurpation was not undisputed and caused violence in Sardis.135
A volatile political situation, with recent kings potentially weak and
sometimes even exiled, may well have fueled rival claims to power and
competition among several noble families. The situation was resolved by
the Delphic oracle that decided that Gyges should remain king, while
simultaneously prophesying that the Heraclids would be avenged on the
fifth generation of the Mermnad Dynasty. Having received this initially
favorable oracular support, the house of Gyges became a generous bene-
factor at Delphi.
51.8. The Mermnad Dynasty

Gyges and his descendants formed the final ruling house of the king-
dom of Lydia during the seventh and sixth centuries bc. Their family,
the Mermnad (μερμνάδες) clan, has been identified by its Lydian name
as mλimna-.136 The clan name can be analyzed either as toponymic or
patronymic, with the use of Carian attested mno-“son; descendant”;
the first syllable would thus refer to either a place or person.137 Our key
source is an inscription from Sardis (LW 22; figure 51.4) that documents
an agreement between the citizens of Sardis and the Mermnads,138 and its
dating to the fifth–fourth century bc suggests that even after the loss of
independent rule in Lydia, and specifically after the fall of the Mermnad
Dynasty as its ruling house, this family continued to exert some, albeit
limited, influence at Sardis. In fact, the family left traces at that city as
late as the first century bc.139
135. On a possible civil war, see Plut. Quaest. Graec. 45.

136. As first suggested by Buckler 1924: 41; see also Yakubovich 2017.
137. Cf. Schürr 1997: 206–207; Yakubovich 2017: 288–289.
138. Yakubovich 2017.
139. Recorded in a Greek inscription from Sardis; see Buckler and Robinson
1932: 115, no. 124.
205
Figure 51.4. Marble stele from Sardis, from a row of such monuments at the west end of the temple of the goddess Artemis. Its
inscription (LW 22) is one of the best preserved and most important documents in the Lydian script. As only recently confirmed
by Yakubovich (2017), the inscription also preserves the Lydian name of the Mermnad Dynasty, previously only known from
Greek historians. Metropolitan Museum, New York (accession no. 26.59.7; Gift of The American Society for the Excavation of
Sardis, 1926). Public Domain (CC0).
206
The first Mermnad ruler Gyges seems to have had a connection to

Caria, as he had a Carian mother according to Herodotus,140 and like
the name of his clan, also his own name can be analyzed as Carian (quq-
“grandfather”).141 As Herodotus identified an exile from Sardis called
Dascylus as Gyges’s grandfather, the eponymous ancestor or the ances-
tral place of the Mermnad Dynasty, as referenced in its name, must date
back to a more distant time. As Nicolaus called this man Dascylus, son of
Gyges,142 might this namesake and great-grandfather of our Gyges have
provided the clan’s Carian roots?
51.8.1. Gyges/Guggu/Kukas
The fact that accounts of the history of the Mermnad Dynasty
largely survive in Greek sources shifts the focus onto Lydian-Greek con-
flicts, thus leaving a sizable lacuna in our knowledge of Lydian history.
Meanwhile, the oldest extant attestations for the Mermnad ruler Gyges
come from the Assyrian royal inscriptions.
Ashurbanipal of Assyria (668–631 bc) described how in ca. 666/
665 bc, “Guggu of Luddu,” a king from an unknown, distant place,
sought his help against the Cimmerians.143 A Lydian messenger arrived
via the sea route in Assyria, where he appeared as the strangest of strang-
ers, whose language no one could understand. Thankfully, the Lydian
mission was well prepared and included an interpreter. With skillful
diplomacy, the Lydians told an imaginative story that cast their plea for
help in a light that protected their own sense of pride, yet was bound
to appeal to the Assyrian king. The god Aššur, they said, had appeared
140. Hdt. 1.92.

141. Adiego 2007: 334–335.
142. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F44a.
143. Several inscriptions dated between 648 and 636 bc; cf. Pedley 1972: 82–83,
nos. 292–295; and Novotny and Jeffers 2018: 16 Table 2 s.v. Lydia 1 (events of
ca. 666–665 bc), 18–19. For an analysis of the contacts between Lydia and the
Assyrian Empire, see Fuchs 2010. See also chapter 38 and 43 in volume 4.
207
to the Lydian king in a dream, and had promised to defeat his enemies,
the Cimmerians, if he would go and become a vassal of Ashurbanipal.
The Lydian messenger was well received, and returned with what he
took for promises of aid. However, the Assyrian king never intended
to send troops to Lydia, and technically had only agreed with Gyges’s
dream vision, according to which the god would help him defeat his
enemies. When Gyges later sent gifts to Assyria, namely booty from a
successful campaign against the Cimmerians, the Assyrians considered
their obligations fulfilled by divine assistance. However, the Lydian
view on the lack of Assyrian military aid was less favorable, and Gyges
took his revenge by sending auxiliary troops to Egypt after the pharaoh
Psamtek I (664–610 bc) had broken free of Assyrian vassalage in ca. 656
bc (chapter 49 in this volume). On hearing this, Ashurbanipal cursed
Gyges, demanding that the god Aššur would cause him to die a miser-
able death in battle against his enemies; these events date to about 645
bc.144 While the Assyrian account reads as if divine judgment happened
immediately, the curse would take many years to be fulfilled, during a
later Cimmerian invasion.
No Lydian inscriptions can be assigned to Gyges, but coin legends
confirm that his Lydian name was Kukas.145 That we nevertheless refer
to him as Gyges is another demonstration of the dominance of the
Greek tradition. Herodotus relates how Gyges attacked Ionian Greek
cities in an attempt to enlarge his sphere of influence and gain control
of naval trade routes,146 a policy which would continue under his suc-
cessors. The cities he attacked included Magnesia, Miletos, Smyrna, and
144. Only attested in Prism A (Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 11: ii 111–125), which
is dated to the eponym year of Nabû-da’’inanni (corresponding to 644, 643,
or 642 bc); see Novotny and Jeffers 2018: 16 Table 2 s.v. Lydia 2 (dating these
events to ca. 645–643 bc), 222 (on the date of Prism A).
145. However, these coins do not date to the reign of Gyges but to that of Alyattes
or Croesus, thus necessitating the existence of a homonymous person, possibly
also a member of the Mermnad Dynasty, in charge of minting these coins at a
later date. On the kukalim coin series, see Browne 2000.
146. Hdt. 1.15.
208
Colophon, but only the latter was conquered.147 His attempts to sub-
jugate his neighbors bore more fruit in the north, where he conquered
the Troad.148 References in the Assyrian royal inscriptions confirm that
Gyges was in contact with the powerful, distant kingdom of Assyria,
and also with Egypt of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (chapter 49 in this
volume). This suggests that Lydia was in a position to not only build but
also maintain a network of long-distance diplomatic contacts, though
sadly, no correspondence survives that would elucidate this. Gyges’s
troubles with the nomadic Cimmerians were sporadic but would even-
tually lead to the sack of Sardis and to his death. Surviving texts do not
relate the details of Gyges’s struggle with, and death at the hands of,
the Cimmerians ca. 645 bc,149 yet the fact that his son succeeded him
on the Lydian throne speaks against any lasting Cimmerian presence at
Sardis.
51.8.2. Alyattes (II)/Ardys and Sadyattes

We know very little of the following two Mermnad rulers. The name
of Gyges’s son is alternatively given as Alyattes (II)150 or Ardys.151 Still
pressed by the Cimmerians, he attempted once more to court the
Assyrian Empire’s favor in ca. 644 bc, but, like his father, he did not
receive any concrete help: this seems to have marked the end of Lydian
interaction with Assyria. Alyattes-Ardys successfully repelled a second
Cimmerian invasion152 and continued to attempt to conquer Ionian
147. The defense of Smyrna was famously celebrated by the poet Mimnermus in a
work that is now lost (cf. Paus. 9.29.2).
148. Str. 13.1.22.
149. On the date of Gyges’s death, see Cogan and Tadmor 1977; Ivantchik 1993: 104–
105; Bichler 2001: 232.
150. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F63.1.
151. Hdt. 1.15.
152. Cf. Parker 1997: 73 arguing against a second sacking of Sardis, as seemingly
recorded by Str. 14.1.40.
209
cities. He was unsuccessful in the case of Miletos, but possibly success-

fully sacked Priene.153
His son Sadyattes was portrayed by Nicolaus of Damascus as a great
warrior of questionable ethics: he is said to have raped and married his
own sister, who bore him Alyattes (III); yet there is no outside confirma-
tion for this, not even in Herodotus, who would have appreciated such
gossip. Thus, there are few solid facts about Sadyattes’s reign, but he seems
to have continued the campaigns against the Ionian cities. Whether the
choice of his name, recalling that of the last Heraclid ruler, was a deliber-
ate attempt to integrate the Mermnad Dynasty into a continuous Lydian
royal narrative remains unknown.
51.8.3. Alyattes (III)/Walwetes

More information is available for the reign of Alyattes (III) who would
have been known to his contemporaries under the Lydian name of
Walwetes, as attested by the legends of his coins (section 51.9). His mili-
tary campaigns once more focused on the western coast of Anatolia.
Herodotus described how he fought a long war against Miletos, then
under the rule of the tyrant Thrasybulus.154 Frequent Lydian invasions
into Miletian territory failed to capture the city, while the Lydians were
not successfully ousted after two battles. Unable to capture Miletos,
Alyattes attempted to starve the city, and in the final year of the war, he
burned down the temple of Assesus (modern Mengerevtepe, ca. 7 km
southeast of Miletos).
Herodotus tells us that after falling ill, Alyattes sought advice from
the Delphic oracle, who refused to help unless he rebuilt the sanctu-
ary.155 To undertake this, it was necessary for Alyattes to make peace
153. Diog. Laert. 1.83; Hdt. 1.15.

154. Hdt. 1.16–17.
155. A column fragment inscribed with the dedication “For Athena” ([τ]ῆι
Ἀθη[ναίηι]) is dated to a period of about one or two generations after Alyattes;
cf. Payne and Sasseville 2016: 79 with n. 19.
210
with Miletos. On the advice of Periander of Corinth, the Miletian tyrant

used this opportunity to trick Alyattes into believing that the city still
had plentiful food reserves, and invited him to a sumptuous feast using
the last of their supplies. While this episode cannot be verified, there is
no doubt that Miletos had been the focus of Lydian aggression since the
reign of Gyges but had offered steady resistance.
Alyattes’s campaigns against other Ionian cities were only partly suc-
cessful. It is possible that he forced Colophon into some kind of alliance,
but he failed to establish any lasting hold over Clazomenae or Priene. His
destruction of Smyrna is widely reported,156 and while details vary, the
event can be related to an archaeological destruction level dating to ca.
600 bc.157 It is also possible that he campaigned against the Cimmerians,
but whether this contributed to their ultimate expulsion from Asia
Minor is unknown.
Outside of his struggles with Ionians and Cimmerians, Alyattes
also engaged in a five-year war against the Medes, an Iranian people.
The reason for their conflict, according to Herodotus, lay in the chang-
ing loyalties of Scythian nomads,158 although it may have been sim-
ply that their respective expansionist ambitions were incompatible.
Herodotus’s account relates that the war ended suddenly because of a
solar eclipse, famously predicted by Thales of Miletos,159 and that the
conflict was put to rest with a dynastic marriage between Alyattes’s
daughter Aryenis and the Median prince Astyages. Modern scholars
have made many attempts to date this eclipse, causing much contro-
versy, and have even reinterpreted it as a lunar eclipse. Only one solar
eclipse would have been visible in Asia Minor during Alyattes’s reign,
in the year 585 bc.
While no details of Alyattes’s death are known, his tomb monu-
ment survives to this day, and closely matches the description given by
156. Str. 14.1.37; Hdt. 1.16.2; Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F64.2.

157. Cf. Cook 1985.
158. Hdt. 1.73.
159. Hdt. 1.74.
21
Figure 51.5. View of Bin Tepe from Karnıyarık Tepe, looking toward Sardis
and the Tmolus mountain range. © Archaeological Exploration of Sardis /
President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Herodotus.160 It belongs to the (approximately) 130 tumulus tombs at

the royal cemetery, located south of the Gygean Lake and north of Sardis
at Bin Tepe (Turkish for “Thousand mounds”; figure 51.5).
The cemetery is dominated by three particularly large tumuli, the
largest of which (Koca Mutaf Tepe) has been identified as the tomb of
Alyattes. It can be dated to shortly after Alyattes’s death with the help of
objects found within the tomb, and is thus the oldest datable tumulus in
this cemetery. The inspiration for this type of burial place may have come
to Alyattes during his Median campaign, when he would have encoun-
tered similar royal tumuli in Phrygia.161 The tomb is 70 m high and mea-
sures 361 m in diameter, almost equal in volume to the pyramid of the
160. Hdt. 1.93.

161. Roosevelt 2006: 67.
21
Old Kingdom pharaoh Khufu at Giza.162 The tomb’s large rectangular

burial chamber housed a single interment, which was looted in antiquity,
so that neither the human remains nor any burial goods have survived.
Herodotus describes the five marker stones that were placed upon the
tomb monument. They recorded the contributions to the tomb made
by different groups, including tradespeople, artisans, and prostitutes (as
according to Herodotus, all Lydian girls prostituted themselves to earn
their dowries—a claim that cannot be substantiated). Only one such
marker stone still survives on top of the tumulus, and it is uninscribed.
While further marker stones may once have existed, the accuracy of
Herodotus’s knowledge of these and especially their inscriptions must be
doubted.163 It seems more plausible that the royal tomb would have been
accompanied by a Lydian inscription of the same type surviving from
other tombs (either in Lydian or in bilingual form in Lydian and Greek).
51.8.4. Croesus
The fifth, and last, Mermnad king was Croesus, son of Alyattes. Despite
his prominence in classical text sources and the strong traditions associ-
ated with his name—he is still known today as the epitome of wealth—
there was no trace of him to be found in the native text record, until
a recent proposal suggested that Croesus be identified with Qldañs, a
name attested in four Lydian language inscriptions as well as on a coin
and a seal.164 If accepted, these sources show him to be the recipient of a
posthumous cult, sharing a ritual precinct with the Artemis of Ephesus at
Sardis. This close connection between the Lydian king and the Ephesian
goddess is supported by the role played by Croesus as a benefactor of
the Artemis temple at Ephesus (see below in this section). In fact, the
connection might date back to the Late Bronze Age and originate in the
162. Roosevelt 2009: 144.

163. Cf. his reading of the hieroglyphic Luwian KARABEL inscription (for a mod-
ern edition of which see Hawkins 1998); see Hdt. 2.106.
164. Euler and Sasseville 2019.
213
arrival of displaced people of the kingdom of Mira in the core Lydian

lands.165
Before Croesus ascended the throne, he served as governor of
Adramyttium (modern Edremit) and Thebe Hypoplacia during his
father’s reign. When he was unable to muster sufficient troops for a cam-
paign against Caria, ca. 570 bc, Croesus attempted to procure a loan
from a rich Lydian called Sadyattes but was refused. Instead, an Ionian,
Pamphaes from Priene, provided him with the necessary funds and
Croesus vowed that Sadyattes’s estate would go to the goddess Artemis,
should he become king; he did, in fact, fulfill this promise and he also
amply rewarded Pamphaes.166
That narrative also states that Croesus had been denounced to his
father the king because of his lavish lifestyle, and one may conclude
that Croesus’s accession to the throne was not without opposition, as
there may have been an attempt to assassinate him during his father’s
reign,167 and there seems to have been support for his younger half-
brother Pantaleon’s claim to the throne.168 Competition between several
members of the royal family for the crown provides the background for
Herodotus’s account of the Delphic oracle’s prophecy that the mur-
der of Sadyattes-Kandaules would be revenged on the fifth generation
after Gyges, which Herodotus reports in full hindsight knowledge of
Croesus’s eventual fate.
However, after removing his political adversaries,169 Croesus’s reign
appears to have proceeded unchallenged. He continued the now well-
established Lydian expansionist course. He proved considerably more
successful than his predecessors against the Ionian cities, capturing
165. Held 2021.

166. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F65; cf. also Ael. VH 4.27.
167. Plut. De Pyth. or. 16, tells the colorful story of how Croesus’s stepmother pro-
vided his baker woman with poison, to be kneaded into his bread. The baker,
however, revealed all, and Croesus was saved. A grateful Croesus subsequently
dedicated a golden statue of this lady at Delphi (Hdt. 1.51).
168. Hdt. 1.92; cf. also Plut. De Herodoti malignitate 18 (858 E).
169. Cf. Plut. De Herodoti malignitate 18 (858 E).
214
Ephesus and deposing its ruler Pindarus, a relative. This was strategi-
cally sensible, since Pindarus or his descendants might potentially have
posed a threat to Croesus’s rule as rival claimants for the throne at Sardis.
Ephesus, with its close ties to Sardis, as attested by the interconnected
Artemis cult in both cities, was without doubt a particularly impor-
tant Ionian city from a Lydian point of view.170 A colorful—but not
necessarily factual—story is told about the surrender of Ephesus: with
the fall of the city imminent, Pindarus connected the city walls to the
nearby Artemis temple with a rope, so that the goddess might protect
the city thus gifted to her. Croesus is said to have appreciated this tactic,
and having no wish to offend the gods, demanded only the removal of
Pindarus but spared the city. Even if the details can be questioned, it is
beyond doubt that Croesus greatly benefited the sanctuary of Artemis
at Ephesus during his reign, financing much of the reconstruction work
dating to this period. Beyond satisfying religious obligations, such
acts may have generated support for Croesus as the city submitted to
Lydian rule.
In the wake of his success at Ephesus, more—possibly even all—
Ionian cities were subjugated by Croesus, and a policy of spending
some of his fabulous wealth in these places may have contributed to
the lasting success of these conquests. Anecdotal evidence suggests that
Croesus even wanted to build his own fleet, but was deterred from this
course when it was pointed out to him that his military strength lay in
other areas.171 The veracity of this account has been doubted,172 yet it
is unlikely that Croesus did not capitalize on his access to portal cities,
using the available naval infrastructure. Even without control over these
cities, his ancestor Gyges managed to send emissaries to Assyria by sea
and to ship troops to Egypt.
Even in antiquity, Croesus was associated with great wealth, yet fab-
ulous riches were attributed to not only Croesus but also other Lydian
170. Following Held 2021, the capture of Ephesus may be nothing less than the
recapture of the former Lydian capital.
171. Hdt. 1.27.
172. Payne and Wintjes 2016: 36 with n. 42.
215
rulers.173 In fact, the availability of gold deposits, including alluvial gold

from the river Pactolus, and access to gold mines, e.g., between Atarneus
and Pergamum, date to the much earlier prehistoric period.174 Most likely,
the beginning of prospecting and mining was the reason Lydian gold pro-
duction increased under Gyges,175 and it is hard not to connect this to the
invention of coinage.176 Other natural resources, including other precious
metals such as silver, and the successive increase in Lydian-controlled
territories would have also supported Lydia’s coffers nicely. Last but
not least, trade and commerce were important Lydian concerns,177 and
Sardis’s location at the intersection of trade networks from the Greek and
Near Eastern worlds allowed control over long-distance trade routes. The
subjugation of the Ionian cities also increased access to the Aegean.
51.9. Lydian coinage

While money had existed in a variety of forms, as attested by standard-
ized weights and prizes, the Lydians are credited as the inventors of
coinage (figure 51.6). This new form of money first appeared in western
Asia Minor some time before ca. 630 bc.178 While it is not possible to
173. Str. 14.5.28 also names Gyges and Alyattes.

175. Cf. Hanfmann and Mierse 1983: 8. That Gyges, in particular, was associated
with gold is borne out by a contemporary Greek poet, who stated that he “did
not care for the gold riches of Gyges” (Archil. 15).
176. An exact chronology is not possible but the earliest, motif-less electrum coins
date to the second half of the seventh century bc, thus toward the end of
Gyges’s reign, or slightly after.
177. Herodotus calls the Lydians the first tradesmen (κάπηλοι, Hdt. 1.94). This was
no compliment, as a later episode shows: when Croesus advises Cyrus on how
to keep the conquered Lydians from revolting, he describes καπηλέυειν, “sell-
ing,” as an emasculating practice (Hdt. 1.155).
178. The date depends on the foundation deposit of the Artemis temple at Ephesus,
which included a large number of Lydian electrum coins. On the basis of this,
the first Lydian coinage was minted, at the latest, at the time of Alyattes (II),
but could plausibly date back as far as the reign of Gyges.
216
Figure 51.6. Lydian Gold stater from Sardis (ca. 560–546 bc), showing on
the obverse the foreparts of a lion (on the left) and a bull (on the right), facing
one another. The two incuse squares on the reverse demonstrate that the coin
image was created by a punch. Metropolitan Museum, New York (accession
no. 26.59.3; Gift of The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis, 1926).
date all early coins or ascribe them to a specific mint,179 the belief that it
was a Lydian invention dates back to antiquity, and there is no reason to
doubt it. The earliest coins were made of electrum, an alloy of gold and
179. Coin legends using the Lydian alphabet and punch marks linked to these coins
offer conclusive evidence for a Lydian origin. However, the overall number of
mints and issuing authorities remains unknown.
217
silver. Current research on early electrum coinage has challenged many

established beliefs, and has already shown that the motivation for mint-
ing electrum coins cannot lie in the natural occurrence of electrum in
the river Pactolus.180 Visually, coinage is closely linked to seals in the use
of motifs and/or legends on a round or oval surface,181 but the original
motivation for the production of coins remains unclear: modern schol-
ars have offered widely differing hypotheses such as the facilitation of
trade, the payment of soldiers or military equipment, or a religious con-
text of votive offerings.182
Lydian electrum coins adhered to the Milesian weight standard, the
lightest of three standards common in Western Asia Minor. The Lydian
stater (from Greek στατήρ, “weight”) weighed ca. 14 g, and derived frac-
tions included coins down to 1/192, weighing just 0.08–0.04 g. How
valuable a stater must have been can be shown by the equation of the
1/24 stater to the value of a sheep, or a bushel of grain. Stater and half-
stater coins are thus rare finds, with 1/3, 1/6, and 1/12 stater coins being
more frequent. The quality of Lydian coinage is attested by the fact that
even the smallest coins show almost no variation in weight. Neither do
the coins show signs of cutting, a common test to ascertain the quality
of the material used.
The earliest electrum coins had plain or striated faces, whereas later
Lydian coinage was decorated with motifs, most famously the lion
as the symbol of the Lydian royal house. An earlier issue favored the
so-called nose-wart lion (in the first half of the sixth century bc)—a
modern misnomer for the solar symbol depicted above the lion’s nose.
Later silver and gold coins dated to the period of King Croesus show
180. Cahill et al. 2020. In fact, it is unknown whether electrum coins were ever made
out of naturally occurring electrum. For the theory that an alloy was used to
enable the circulation of a currency with a higher value than its component
materials, cf. Cahill and Kroll 2005: 609.
181. Cf. Payne and Wintjes 2016: 91–92.
182. Cook 1958: 259, 261; Price 1983; Stingl 2000–2001: 47; Keyser and Clark
2001: 116–117; Cahill and Kroll 2005: 590; Kroll 2010: 148 and n. 10; see Arist.
Pol. 1257a–b and Hdt. 1.94.
218
a lion-and-bull motif. Coins could also carry a legend, mainly limited

to a single name, taken to be the issuer of that particular coinage. In
one instance, this issuer would have been the king himself, as the leg-
end walwet abbreviates the Lydian name Walwetes (corresponding to
Greek Alyattes).183 The existence of other names,184 if correctly inter-
preted as referring to the issuing authority, proves that the minting of
coins was not the exclusive right of the current ruler. The reverse sides
of coins did not carry a motif but were marked with one or several
square punch holes; linking these marks allows the reconstruction of a
relative chronology of Lydian coins and mints. Originally, these marks
would have shown that the coin was solid and not coated, thus proving
its value.
Ancient sources credit King Croesus with gradually replacing
electrum coinage with gold and silver coins.185 The reason for this is
unknown. Artistically, the lion-and-bull motif used on these coins is sep-
arated into two distinct phases, characterized by a more natural (Phase
I) and more stylized (Phase II) depiction of the animals; after the fall of
Sardis, the latter style continued to be used by the Persian administra-
tion until ca. 520 bc. During phase I, the weight of the gold stater was
lowered from 10.7 to 8.06 g. According to one theory, both standards
can be related to the preceding electrum coinage: the heavier weight
seems to have reflected the exchange rate of the previous electrum stater,
while the lighter standard corresponded to the actual gold content of
electrum staters.186 Archaeologists have proven the existence of a gold
refinery precinct at Sardis, with installations of furnaces and cupels used
to separate electrum into pure gold and silver that dates to the reign of
Croesus.187
183. Browne 1996: 51.

184. The legend kukalim “of Kukas (Gyges)” postdates the historical ruler and thus
probably refers to a different person; see Browne 2000; Wallace 2006: 44.
185. E.g., Poll. Onom. 3.87.
186. Konuk 2012: 50. But cf. also Wallace 2001: 128–129; Cahill and Kroll 2005: 613.
187. Ramage and Craddock 2000.
219
51.10. The fall of the kingdom of Lydia

Building on the successes of his father Alyattes, Croesus’s expansion-
ist campaigns assured that Lydia became firmly established as the most
powerful western Anatolian kingdom, its realm of influence extending
from the west coast of Anatolia to the river Halys. However, Croesus’s
final major campaign against the Persians found a different end. Greek
sources emphasize the role of oracular advice in Croesus’s decision to
march against the Persian army, describing in detail the Lydian king’s
presents to, and testing of, the oracles.188 The Oracle at Delphi was
considered to be the most reliable, and her proclamation that by cross-
ing the river Halys, Croesus would destroy a great empire,189 was natu-
rally understood to indicate the destruction of the Persian kingdom.
Croesus was said to have been motivated to undertake this campaign by
his desire for revenge on Cyrus of Persia for overthrowing his brother-
in-law, the Median king Astyages (chapter 54 in this volume), his trust
in oracular advice, his expansionist ambitions, and also his participa-
tion in a broader anti-Persian alliance led by Nabonidus of Babylon
(555–539 bc).190
Strategically, it is convincing that Croesus might have wanted both to
avenge Astyages and use the power vacuum created by his fall to extend
his own dominion eastward in order to keep Persian influence at bay.
A closer examination of the anti-Persian coalition, however, particu-
larly the details regarding the participating nations and the number of
soldiers named, casts doubt on this part of the story.191 Croesus’s army,
meanwhile, consisted of troops gathered from throughout Western Asia
Minor, including Greek hoplites from the Ionian coast, and possibly
even mercenaries recruited from the mainland.
188. Hdt. 1.46.2–55.

189. Arist. Rh. 3.5.4. Croesus allegedly later complained about this proclamation to
the oracle (Hdt. 1.90–91).
190. Hdt. 1.73.1; Xen. Cyr. 2.1.5.
191. Cf. Payne and Wintjes 2016: 39.
20
The starting point of Croesus’s campaign was the famous crossing of

the river Halys, near a town called Pteria.192 He besieged and captured
the town, enslaved the survivors, and then proceeded to conquer most of
the nearby villages.193 Rather than meeting Croesus on the battlefield,194
Cyrus sent envoys to the Ionian cities, in an unsuccessful attempt to
incite them to revolt. Croesus’s initial success was such that even some of
Cyrus’s vassals from Armenia withheld their tribute.195
One ancient report stated that Cyrus initially tried to avoid open
conflict, instead offering Croesus the position of Persian satrap of Lydia
should he submit.196 What followed is not quite certain, as the main nar-
rative is hardly convincing: according to Herodotus, a battle near Pteria
resulted in a draw, and Croesus decided to return to Sardis to supple-
ment his troops there.197 Strategically, such a retreat should have been
avoided at all costs, and seems to indicate that Croesus suffered heavy
losses; indeed, a different source describes a defeat in a second battle as
the reason Croesus chose to withdraw from Cappadocia.198
A final battle took place—presumably in the following spring—
on the plain east of Sardis, near a town of uncertain location called
Thymbra.199 Two main accounts of this battle survive; however, their
192. Suggested locations for Pteria include Kerkenes Dag, Eğrikale, the Kayseri
region, the Black Sea region, and the former Hittite capital at Hattusa; cf.
Przeworski 1929; Radke 1959; Högemann 1992: 250; Summers 1997; Tuplin
2004: 238–242.
193. Hdt. 1.76.2.
194. The reasons for this are unclear. Iustinus claimed that he was engaged in battle
with the Babylonians (Iust. 1.7), but this does not fit the chronology of the fall
of Sardis; see Payne and Wintjes 2016: 40.
195. Xen. Cyr. 2.4.12.
196. Diod. Sic. 9.31.4.
197. Hdt. 1.76.3–77. The subsequent account of Cyrus’s surprise winter campaign
against Croesus (Hdt. 1.79.2) is also implausible, as the cost of maintaining
an army in winter on foreign territory would have been a major detriment
to Cyrus.
198. Polyaenus Strat. 7.8.
199. Xen. Cyr. 6.2.11; Hdt. 1.80.1.
21
details are questionable.200 Stripped of unrealistic embellishments, their

gist suggests that while the Lydian army outnumbered the Persian, the
Lydian infantry broke rank and their cavalry was put to flight.201 Croesus
fled to Sardis, with Cyrus in hot pursuit. The Persians lay siege to the
city, and eventually captured it—either using the ruse of decoy soldiers
painted on wooden boards to attract Lydian attention away from the
actual army, or simply by scaling the city walls in a place thought by the
Lydians to be unscalable;202 this would have been the spot that the myth-
ical king Meles neglected to protect when he carried the lion cub along
the walls.
Sardis fell after a siege of only two weeks, and Croesus was captured.
The many accounts of his subsequent fate disagree with one another,
and are additionally suspect for their reliance on supernatural elements.
The dominant narrative is Herodotus’s account of how Croesus was
sentenced to be burned on a pyre.203 By the time Cyrus reconsidered
this punishment, the fire was already too great to be doused. Divine aid
arrived in the form of rain sent by Apollo, saving the day and the Lydian
king. After this narrow escape, Croesus became a valued advisor at the
Persian court, and was put in charge of raising Cyrus’s son, Cambyses.204
Xenophon, too, saw Croesus spared and returned to his household;205
while according to the Greek poet Bacchylides, Croesus was carried
off by Apollo to the land of the Hyperboreans.206 Essentially, Croesus’s
fate remains unknown, but the continued presence of members of the
200. Xen. Cyr. 7.2.25–48; Hdt. 1.80.2–5.

201. Whether this happened because the horses were frightened by the unfamiliar
smell of Cyrus’s camel corps (Hdt. 1.80.2–5.) is doubtful.
202. Polyaenus Strat. 7.6.10; Hdt. 1.80.
203. Immortalized in an early fifth century bc Greek vase painting by Myson, now
in the Louvre (G 197).
204. Hdt. 1.84–87; 1.207. This story is largely supported by Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F68.
205. Xen. Cyr. 7.2.10–14.
206. Bacchyl. 3.23–62.
2
Mermnad clan at Sardis until well into the first century ad suggests that
at least his wider family circle was spared.
The date of the fall of Sardis is one of the bigger controversies in
modern scholarship. It rests on the reading and interpretation of a single
broken clay tablet, the so-called Nabonidus Chronicle, dating to the late
sixth century bc. Because of breaks in the text, the question of whether
this text relates to Cyrus’s campaign against Lydia is hotly debated in cur-
rent scholarship. The relevant passage reads:
In the month Ayyaru (II), he (Cyrus) [mar]ched to the country

x[ . . . ]. He defeated its king, seized its possessions, and set up his
own garrison there.207
Only traces of the first cuneiform sign of the country name remain,
and scholars disagree on which sign it is. If the proponents for lu are
followed, the country name could feasibly be restored to lu-ud-du, thus
“Lydia.” However, this is far from certain, and without further new evi-
dence, is unlikely ever to be resolved. This questionable and uncertain
restoration of “Lydia” in this passage would provide a suggested date of
547/546 bc for the demise of the kingdom of Lydia.
After the fall of Sardis, Lydia’s history as an independent kingdom
came to an end. But Sardis continued to hold an important place in
world history, first as the westernmost satrapal city of the Persian Empire,
marking the end of the famous royal road, later under Hellenistic and
Roman rule.
Sardis was not destroyed, but a Persian garrison under the leadership
of Tabalus was installed there.208 A first revolt against Persian rule, led by
the Lydian Pactyes, happened soon after the end of the Lydian kingdom
but was unsuccessful, and may have led to the deportation of citizens
207. The translation following van der Spek 2014: 256 n. 184, with omission of the
country name. A recent collation by Selim Adalı (personal communication)
supports the reading of the first sign of the country’s name as lu. For previous,
divergent collation results, see Rollinger 2008: 56 (with further literature).
208. Hdt. 1.153.3.
23
from Sardis to Nippur.209 As a satrapal seat, Sardis was of great impor-

tance, and possibly even offered too much power to the resident satrap.
It may be for this reason that the satrap Oroetus was killed by the new
Persian king Darius I shortly after 522 bc.
Sardis was targeted and suffered fire damage during the Ionian revolt
of 499 bc;210 when the revolt failed, Sardis was treated with great leni-
ency by the satrap Atarphernes. Yet the failed revolt marks an increase in
Achaemenid influence, possibly the result of a greater Persian presence
in Lydia. However, the native Lydian element remained strong, and the
Lydian language and writing system flourished under Persian rule.
The success of this administration can be seen in the fact that Lydia
did not take part in the widespread rebellions against Achaemenid rule
starting in 370 bc. But in the spring of 334 bc, Alexander the Great
defeated the satrapal forces of Western Asia Minor at the battle of the
Granicus river (modern Biga Çayı). By summer, he had reached Sardis,
and the city opened its gates to him. After his death in 323 bc, Sardis
first fell to Antigonus Monopthalmus, then to Lysimachus, and finally,
in 281 bc, to the Seleucid Empire. In the wake of large numbers of Greek
settlers, Sardis was quickly Hellenized, and epigraphic evidence of the
Lydian language decreased rapidly during this period. It is difficult to
judge to what degree Lydian elements survived from this point onward.
In 188 bc, Lydia fell under the rule of the kingdom of Pergamum, and
eventually became part of the Roman province of Asia in 133 bc. Despite
changing political affiliations, Lydia continued to prosper and defend its
status as one of the wealthiest regions in Western Asia Minor.
R ef er en c es
Achilli, A., Olivieri, A., Pala, M., Metspalu, E., Fornarino, S., Battaglia, V.,
Accetturo, M., Kutuev, I., Khusnutdinova, E., Pennarun, E., Cerutti N.,
Di Gaetano, C., Crobu, F., Palli, D., Matullo, G., Santachiara-Benerecetti,
A.S., Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Semino, O., Villems, R., Bandelt, H.J., Piazza,
209. Cf. van der Spek 2014: 256 n. 185.

210. Hdt. 5.101.
24
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52
The Southern Levant and

Northern Arabia in the Iron Age
Juan Manuel Tebes
52.1. Introduction
The first half of the first millennium bc constituted a breaking point for
the societies living in the southern arid margins of the Levant and north-
ern Arabia (figure 52.1a, b).1 In archaeological parlance, this constitutes
the Iron Age.2 For the first time in history, the local peoples organized
themselves into independent polities such as Edom, Tayma, Dedan,
and the Arabian tribal confederations. True, these entities were highly
diverse with respect to social complexity (comprising states, chiefdoms,
tribes, and city-states), and they were unstable and vulnerable to outside
1. My thanks go to Nathan Morello (Munich), who systematically checked and

updated the references to Akkadian texts and their editions. The chapter was
language-edited by Denise Bolton.
2. Due to the lack of local written sources for most of this period and the absence
of firm synchronisms with the history of Mesopotamia and Egypt, scholarship
on ancient northwest Arabia still uses, with some exceptions, Syro-Palestinian
archaeological periodization. Thus, the second millennium bc broadly constitutes
the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, while the late second and early first millennia
bc—the era of Assyrian and later Babylonian hegemony over the region—are con-
sidered the Iron Age; see Sharon 2014.
Juan Manuel Tebes, The Southern Levant and Northern Arabia in the Iron Age In: The Oxford History of
the Ancient Near East. Edited by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, Oxford University Press.
© Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0052
23
23
The Southern Levant and Northern Arabia 233
forces. Nevertheless, they were recognized as self-governing communi-

ties by the imperial powers of the day. What is more, for the first time,
these societies were incorporated into the Near Eastern economic sys-
tem, as millennia-old trade routes linked them to regions separate from
their traditional commercial networks (southern Arabia: chapter 53 in
this volume). For the most part, they constituted economic peripher-
ies, supplying mineral resources (copper) and agrarian goods to the more
complex economic metropolises, but they also acted as intermediaries
in one of the most lucrative commercial circuits ever seen, the south
Arabian aromatics trade.
Despite its broken topography and ethnically diverse populations,
the vast area comprising the Negev, southern Transjordan, and the
Syro-Arabian desert shared similar social realities, was economically
well-integrated, and by the mid-first millennium bc in many respects
constituted a single cultural province. This chapter will analyze these
communities, highlighting their shared features by providing a review of
234
current literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence and by bringing

discussions on the major socioeconomic trends of the period up to date.
52.2. The environmental, social, and

economic background
A rapid perusal of any satellite map highlights the most prominent fac-
tor affecting human habitation in the area: aridity. Except for restricted
areas in the loess soil valleys of the northern Negev and in the higher alti-
tudes of the central Edomite highlands in southern Transjordan, most
of this area receives little or no precipitation at all, and is located south
of the 200 mm isohyet that represents the minimum amount of rainfall
needed for dry farming.
52.2.1. The economic base: nomadic semi-pastoralism

and limited agriculture
It is therefore of no surprise that, beginning in the Late Neolithic, humans
developed a distinct subsistence system of mobile semi-pastoralism
based on sheep, goat, and cattle herding.3 Archaeological evidence for
the practice of pastoralism appears everywhere in the region and is seen
especially in the preponderance of sheep and goat bones in archaeo-
zoological assemblages4 (accompanied by camel bones beginning in the
Iron Age: section 52.2.2) and in livestock dung analyses.5
Like any society based on nomadic pastoralism, the economy of
the local peoples was not autarchic and depended to a great extent on
exchange with nearby agricultural areas in order to obtain foodstuffs not
available locally. This led to cycles of increasing and decreasing human
settlement along the desert margins, the most significant of which
occurred during the second millennium bc (Middle to Late Bronze
3. Rosen 2017: 110–130.

4. Grigson 1994.
5. Shahack-Gross et al. 2014.
235
Age), when no permanent settlement is known in the Negev or south-

ern Transjordan.6 Following this long period of depopulation, a sud-
den increase in the number of permanent settlements occurred in the
Early Iron Age. This process began in the northern Negev and rapidly
expanded into the central Negev Highlands and the Edomite plateau.
Recently, archaeological evidence of urban habitation in the Hejazi oasis
towns of Tayma and Qurayyah during the second millennium bc has
been found.7
Agriculture was practiced only in those areas with a regular water
supply. Limited precipitation (125–200 mm average annual rainfall) per-
mitted dry farming in the loess soil valleys of the northern Negev and
the highlands of Edom, although yields varied considerably from year
to year.8 Despite some scholarly hesitation,9 it is generally accepted that
during the Iron Age, runoff and floodwater farming—channeling the
water flows of hill slopes and wadis—was practiced in the central Negev
and the Faynan lowlands of southern Transjordan, where average annual
precipitation was only about 125–175 mm per year. Soil samples from
ancient terraced agricultural fields from Horvat Haluqim in the central
Negev Highlands submitted for phytolith and spherulite analyses have
been radiocarbon dated to the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age.10 On the
other side of the Arabah, dense concentrations of Iron Age sherds within
walls and field enclosures in the Wadi Faynan reflect their use in a runoff
farming regime.11
The oasis towns of the northern Hejaz survived in an arid desert
climate that saw only 30–60 mm of precipitation annually.12 Seasonal
6. Rosen 2017: 216–218.

7. Hausleiter and Zur 2016.
8. Bruins 2012: 32–36.
9. Shahack-Gross and Finkelstein 2017.
10. Bruins and van der Plicht 2017.
11. Mattingly et al. 2007: 282–285.
12. Kürschner and Neef 2011: 30.
236
floodwater was diverted through retaining walls or canals to irrigate

fields, or was stored in cisterns or basins, while underground aquifers
were tapped by wells and subterranean, gravity-driven galleries known
as qanats.13 Grape and fig pollen records demonstrated that agricul-
ture began in the oasis of Tayma around 3000 bc, probably during a
period of long-term aridification.14 This does not mean, however, that
the remains of hydrological features that can be seen today date to
that period. Recent studies of enclosed agricultural fields and canals
at Qurayyah have demonstrated that they were in operation in the
third millennium bc, whereas the canals at Tayma were built in the
third–second millennia bc.15 Qanat technology developed much
later and was probably invented by the Persians between the tenth
and eighth centuries bc, and then was introduced to Mesopotamia,
Syria, the Levant, and Egypt during the era of Persian supremacy.16
Recent evidence indicates the existence of this system of irrigation in
southeastern Arabia around 1000 bc,17 although the earliest remains
of qanats from the southern Levant and northern Arabia are later, dat-
ing to the Persian imperial period in the Arabah Valley and Dedan,18
and to the late Byzantine period in Ma’an and Udhruh in southern
Transjordan.19
52.2.2. Copper mining and incense trade

Long before this time, local peoples exploited the rich mineral resources
of the area. Apart from unverified claims that gold was mined in the
13. Wellbrock et al. 2012.

14. Dinies et al. 2016.
15. Wellbrock et al. 2018; Hüneburg et al. 2019.
16. Lightfoot 2000.
17. Magee 2014: 215–222.
18. Lightfoot 2000: 218; Scagliarini et al. 2001–2002.
19. Abudanh and Twaissi 2010.
237
Hejaz in the first millennium bc,20 most of our evidence concerns the
exploitation of copper in the Wadi Arabah and Wadi Faynan in the
lowlands of southern Transjordan and the Timna valley in the south-
ern Negev, beginning in the Chalcolithic period. After a long gap dur-
ing the second millennium bc, Egyptians resumed operations in Timna
between the fourteenth and twelfth centuries bc, carrying out annual
expeditions to the mines with the help of local workers.21 Evidence of
post-Egyptian exploitation at Timna in the tenth century bc is slowly
emerging.22 The reasons for this sudden interest in mining in the Wadi
Arabah are unclear, although it has been linked to the end of contacts
with Cyprus, an important copper supplier for both Egypt and the
Levant during the second millennium bc.
However, the Timna operations were overshadowed by the larger
and more complex mining and smelting enterprises in the Faynan dis-
trict, the largest source of copper ore in the southern Levant, located 60
km south of the Dead Sea.23 Semi-pastoral peoples began extracting cop-
per ore in Faynan as early as the eleventh century bc, if not before. By the
tenth–ninth centuries bc, operations were of such magnitude that large,
fortified sites, such as the one excavated at Khirbet en-Nahas, were con-
structed to oversee and control the working population. Copper min-
ing at Faynan finally stopped or was reduced to a minimum level by the
late ninth or early eighth century bc, probably following the renewal of
intense trade with Cyprus, although there is evidence of a later Edomite
presence at two small fortresses at Ras al-Miyah (probably associated
with the nearby Edomite center of Busayra) and at Rujm Hamrat Ifdan.24
Beginning in the first millennium bc, the predominantly semi-
pastoral economy was expanded by the introduction of the dromedary
(Camelus dromedarius, the Arabian one-humped camel) and its use, first
20. Heck 1999: 381.

21. Rothenberg 1972.
22. Ben-Yosef et al. 2012.
23. Hauptmann 2007. See also chapter 48 in volume 4.
24. Levy et al. 2014.
238
for its meat and milk, and later as a beast of burden. Early archaeozoolog-
ical data from Timna were initially interpreted as evidence that the earli-
est domestication of this species in the arid southern Levant took place
during the twelfth century bc.25 Subsequently, this evidence has been re-
dated to the tenth century bc.26 Thanks to osteological data and ceramic
figurines from Tell Abraq and Muweilah in the United Arab Emirates,
southeastern Arabia has emerged as the original center of camel domes-
tication ca. 1000 bc.27 Travel across the desert was revolutionized by the
use of the dromedary, an animal famed for its ability to tolerate shortages
of water and well-suited to covering long distances across arid terrain.
The exploitation of the dromedary gave pastoral groups greater auton-
omy vis-à-vis their sedentary neighbors. Regions like central and south-
ern Arabia, which had been traditionally excluded from regular contact
with the great centers of consumption in Mesopotamia and Egypt, could
now be connected through caravan trade. In addition to the use of the
dromedary for travel, the increase in the trade in south Arabian aromat-
ics is also due to the rapid growth of the consumption of these substances
among the elites in the lands of the ancient Near East, and both factors
invested the arid southern Levant and northern Arabia with strategic
importance, but also brought them to the attention of the neighboring
imperial powers.
This trade revolved around frankincense and myrrh, aromatic resins
obtained from trees growing in southwestern Arabia (modern Yemen)
and Somalia. Both precious commodities were widely used in ancient
religion, medicine, scents, and cuisine.28 The history of the trade in aro-
matics by the Egyptians dates back to the third millennium bc, but the
most detailed account of it dates to the fifteenth century bc, when queen
Hatshepsut sent a fleet to Punt, a legendary land most probably situated
near the Horn of Africa on the Somali coast or on the southern coast of
25. Grigson 2012: 87.

26. Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef 2013.
27. Magee 2014: 197–231; 2015.
28. Hoyland 2001: 103–107. See also chapter 53 in this volume.
239
the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen), to obtain foreign luxury goods, most

importantly incense. These royal expeditions, which were organized on
a regular basis, mainly followed the sea route along the western Red Sea
coast.29
However, intense overland trade contact with southwestern Arabia
only began several centuries later. Mesopotamian sources mention
camels in the second millennium bc, but these references are prob-
lematic, or they refer to Bactrian camels. The first artistic representa-
tions of camels being used for transport and war from Syria and Assyria
attest to their use in the late tenth–early ninth centuries bc.30 Among
them is a low-relief from Guzana (modern Tell Halaf ) in northeastern
Syria, variously dated between 900 and 800 bc, showing a person rid-
ing a dromedary on a cushioned saddle. Although its dating is more
problematic (between the late tenth and early ninth centuries bc), a
limestone plaque from Carchemish in Syria depicts a person riding
a dromedary. Broadly contemporary, the famous bronze reliefs that
adorned a set of gates commissioned ca. 850 bc by Shalmaneser III
of Assyria (858–824 bc) at Imgur-Enlil (modern Balawat) in north-
ern Iraq depict a person leading a dromedary with a pack. When
Shalmaneser III confronted a Syro-Palestinian coalition at Qarqar
in 853 bc (chapter 39 in volume 4), an enemy leader referred to as
Gindibu the Arab summoned an army with 1,000 camels to battle (sec-
tion 52.3.3). These sources, although of enormous significance as the
earliest attestations of the dromedary’s use for transport and war, do
not necessarily reflect trade with Arabia. However, mid-eighth-century
bc evidence of caravan trade with Arabia is provided by a report of a
raid on a caravan of “people of Tayma and Saba” by the ruler of Suhu
on the Middle Euphrates (sections 52.3.3−52.3.4). According to an oft-
cited study of dromedary bones from Tell Jemmeh in the northwest-
ern Negev, a spike in their number after the eighth century bc, which
29. Tallet 2013.

30. Bulliet 1990: 57–86; Heide 2010; Magee 2014: 208–210; 2015.
240
reached a peak in the seventh century bc, reflects the increasing use of
camels in the Arabian trade networks.31
The small southern Arabian states such as Saba (chapter 53 in this
volume), enjoying a quasi-monopoly in the provision of aromatics akin
to modern luxury fragrance brands, rapidly developed a reputation for
being a fabulous region of great riches, epitomized by the biblical tale of
the opulence of the Queen of Sheba (i.e., Saba),32 and the name by which
the region was known in classical times: Arabia Felix (“Happy Arabia”).
It is paradoxical that south Arabian sources provide so little information
about the incense trade, and most of the ones that do offer information
are relatively late in date.33 A recently discovered Sabean bronze inscrip-
tion, dated to ca. 600 bc and referring to a trade expedition to the “cities
of Judah (Yehud)” is our only direct allusion to commercial relationships
with the Levant.34
Although data for determining the exact trade routes in this early
period are missing, two main roads departed from the northern Hejaz.
One headed north to southern Transjordan, where it divided into
two branches, one passing through Transjordan (the biblical “King’s
Highway”) to Syria and beyond, and another going northwest through
the Negev to the Mediterranean outlets. Another road departed from
Tayma to southern Mesopotamia via the oasis town of Adummatu in
the Jawf region.35 Given that direct traffic from the Hejaz to southern
Mesopotamia did not exist until the Neo-Babylonian period, camel
caravans could only traverse the desert roads of Western Arabia and the
southern Levant.36 Oasis towns, tribes, and chiefdoms situated along the
way, such as Edom, Tayma, and Dedan, acquired substantial sources of
revenue from the provision of services and the imposition of tolls. In
31. Wapnish 1981; see also Jasmin 2005.

32. 1 Kgs 10.
33. Robin 1997: 41–48.
34. Bron and Lemaire 2009.
35. Potts 1988: 128–131.
36. Byrne 2003.
241
his oracles against the nations, Ezekiel famously recounted the peoples
doing business with the soon-to-be-doomed city of Tyre, including
“Dedan [who] traded with you in horse cloths. Arabia and even the
sheikhs of Kedar were all your clients; they paid in lambs, rams and he-
goats. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah traded with you; they sup-
plied you with the best quality spices, precious stones and gold.”37 The
magnitude of this newly acquired prosperity did not pass unnoticed by
Near Eastern powers such as Assyria and Babylonia and even petty states
like Judah, and much effort was spent in attempting to control the desert
routes or at least to co-opt the tribal chiefs.
With trade came the sort of two-way cultural exchanges between
Arabia and the southern Levant that are archaeologically recognizable.
Beginning in the late eighth century and peaking in the seventh century
bc, objects such as cuboid altars and stone stoppers of Arabian origin,38
similar decorative patterns between the “Edomite” ware and the Hejazi
al-‘Ula/al-Khuraybah pottery,39 and a few short inscriptions in Arabian
script found in southern Transjordan and the Negev40 attest to wide-
spread contact between the two regions.
52.2.3. Tribes and chiefdoms

During the last decades, the historiography of the Iron Age in southern
Transjordan and Negev has stressed the predominantly tribal nature of
the societies living in these arid fringe areas. The study of the few writ-
ten sources that have survived from this period gives us a glimpse at the
local world of tribes and tribal confederations. Tribes are character-
ized as localized groups that had kinship (and in some cases territory)
as the main idiom of association, and segmentation as the fundamental
37. Ezek 27:20–22.

38. Singer-Avitz 1999; Hassell 2005.
39. Tebes 2015: 261–277.
40. van der Veen and Bron 2014.
24
principle of organization.41 Segmentary organization provided nomadic

communities with a highly flexible social framework, which helped to
sort out issues of ecological diversity, problems of transportation, diver-
sity of political conditions, and access to distant pastures (and prospec-
tive brides!) to groups moving throughout discontinuous territories.
Some of these features can be glimpsed in an extraordinary source, the
Stele of Mesha, a royal inscription of King Mesha of Moab in central
Transjordan, dating to ca. 850 bc (chapter 48 in volume 4). This inscrip-
tion paints an idealized picture of the kingdom of Moab, composed of
units defined by territory rather than descent and forming a clear four-
tiered hierarchy. At the upper level stood larger units denoted with the
phrase “land (’rṣ) of X,” such as “land of ‘Atarot” or “land of Madaba”;
this level also incorporated regions and cities; lower-level segments were
identified with the expression “men (’š) of X,” such as “men of Sharon”
and “men of Maharoth.”42 Much of this terminology is likely colored
by Mesha’s agenda, but the descriptions of social organization broadly
match the kinship terms and political language used in the Hebrew
Bible. Although formed from a diversity of textual types compiled at dif-
ferent periods, the biblical text presents an ideal Israelite society where
the basic unit was the family (byt ’b, “father’s house”)—the nucleus upon
which stood larger territorial units defined as “tribes” (šbṭ or mṭh) and
“clans” (mšpḥh).43
Unfortunately, the majority of our sources, whether royal annals,
prophetic texts, commercial transactions, administrative records, or
votive inscriptions, do not exhibit similar levels of complex terminology.
We know next to nothing about the Qedarites, one of the most impor-
tant tribal organizations of northern Arabia and the Negev in the Neo-
Assyrian and Persian imperial periods (see also chapter 40 in volume 4
and chapter 60 in this volume), except that they had kings (and queens?)
41. LaBianca and Younker 1995; Routledge 2000; Bienkowski and van der Steen
2001; Bienkowski 2009; Porter 2004.
42. Routledge 2000: 235–239.
43. Wolf 1946; van der Toorn 1996: 190–205; Perdue et al. 1997.
243
and at least one (and probably two) sources mention a royal male line of
descent with the phrase “son (br or bn) of X” (section 52.3.3). Analysis of
the Idumean ostraca, a treasure trove of more than 2,000 documents dat-
ing to the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, reveals a complex society
based on large clans, but the texts are restricted to the usual formulae
“of/from the sons of ” (lbny, mn bny) or “of/from the house of X” (lbyt,
mn byt).44
Whatever their significance, tribes were not static entities, and
while they provided a cohesive framework for the daily life of mobile
semi-pastoral groups, they were also very unstable and easily affected
by the influence of neighboring states, dissolving as quickly as they
emerged. They were also prone to developing social inequalities, and
given the right combination of circumstances they could become what
we may term “chiefdoms,” i.e., polities led by “chiefs,” “sheikhs,” or
“kings.” Therefore, the political history of the southern arid margins of
the Levant and northern Arabia in the first millennium bc is but the
history of successive cycles of formation and dissolution of tribes and
chiefdoms.45 Roughly speaking, two main phases of this sort can be
identified; not surprisingly, these phases were related to the two min-
ing and trade “booms” that impacted the local societies. The first cycle
occurred between the eleventh and ninth centuries bc and was char-
acterized by the emergence, and later collapse, of chiefdoms in Faynan
and the northern Negev, whose economy was based on the revenues
from the exploitation and trade of the Arabah copper mines. The sec-
ond cycle extended between the late eighth and the sixth centuries
bc and was characterized by the growth of oasis towns, tribal confed-
eracies, and chiefdoms along the south Arabian trade routes passing
through northern Arabia, southern Transjordan, and the Negev. This
last phase is the theme of the second part of this chapter.
44. Yardeni 2016: xxvii.

45. Tebes 2013a: 39–51.
24
52.3. Local polities during the Assyrian,

Babylonian and Persian periods
In this section, we will survey the local histories of Edom, the Negev, and
the oases of Tayma and Dedan.
52.3.1. Edom
Located in the central plateau southeast of the Dead Sea, the land of
Edom has, in every respect, always been a frontier zone. Human occu-
pation during the third and second millennia bc was sparse and always
restricted to the particular ecological niches that allowed a combination
of sheep and goat herding and dry farming (the central highlands) or
that contained copper mineral ores ready to be exploited (the Faynan
lowlands). New Kingdom Egyptian texts refer rarely to the toponyms
Edom and Seir (place names that will reappear centuries later in the
biblical and Assyrian sources), although it is unclear whether they refer
to southern Transjordan or the Negev. These same sources describe the
presence of nomadic groups called shasu (akin to our term “Bedouin”),
displaying the whole range of prejudices that settled peoples have often
had of nomads. Thus, a royal account from the reign of Rameses III
(1181–1150 bc) referring to the “Seirities, the clans of the shasu,” reports
the destruction and pillaging of their tents and livestock.46 But the phar-
aonic rhetoric hid more peaceful relationships, usually in the context
of interactions with nomadic groups moving across “the desert and the
sown.” A well-known report written by a border official who guarded the
access to the Nile delta recounts a trivial event that must have occurred
thousands of times:
We have finished with allowing the shasu clansfolk of Edom to

pass . . . to keep them alive and to keep alive their livestock.47
46. Papyrus Harris I: 76: 9–11; see Kitchen 1992: 27. See also c hapter 28 in volume 3.
47. Papyrus Anastasi VI: 51–51; see Kitchen 1992: 27.
245
By the Iron Age I period, our evidence comes mostly from excavations in
the Faynan district that revealed the complex mining and metallurgical
operations that were carried out by the local population. The founding,
in the tenth–ninth centuries bc, of fortified structures along the wadi
banks, such as those excavated at Khirbet en-Nahas and Khirbet al-
Jariya, surrounded by specialized buildings and large mounds of copper
slag, required a high level of managerial skill and organization. It is likely
that they indicate the presence of a chiefdom-level polity that controlled
the entire Faynan district. Archaeologists excavating these remains have
suggested that they constitute the early beginnings of the later Iron Age
II “kingdom” of Edom.48 Whether this polity was connected with Edom
or not is of less importance than the demonstrable cultural continu-
ities with the Iron Age II, particularly with respect to the similarities in
morphology and decoration between the pottery unearthed at Khirbet
en-Nahas and the posterior “Edomite” ware.49 The Faynan chiefdom
ceased to exist around the late ninth or early eighth century bc, and
the reference to Edom (Assyrian Udummu) in a list of subjugated Syro-
Palestinian peoples in an inscription of Adad-nerari III of Assyria (810–
783 bc)50 is likely an allusion to the still existent Faynan polity, now a
tributary of the Assyrian Empire.
Little is known about the origins of Edom in the Iron Age II. Late
biblical texts depicting the existence of kings in Edom “before a king
ruled the children of Israel,”51 and during the time of the Israelite
Exodus from Egypt,52 cannot be considered valid sources for early
Edomite history. The same is true of biblical allusions to the subjugation
of Edom by the Israelites in David’s time and the story of the Edomite
Hadad’s flight into Egypt,53 followed by Edom’s subjugation under the
48. Levy et al. 2014.

49. Tebes 2013a: 100–102.
50. Grayson 1996: no. A.0.104.8: l. 12; cf. Millard 1992: 35 and chapter 38 in volume 4.
51. Gen 36.
52. Num 20:14–20; Deut 2.
53. 2 Sam 8:13–14; 1 Kgs 11:15–16.
246
reign of Jehoshaphat54 and the posterior “independence” from Judah.55

Although it is obvious that these texts betray their redaction in a later
period when “kings” were known in Edom, there can be some histori-
cal kernel in them, maybe related to distant memories of the Faynan
chiefdom.
Another source of knowledge about Edom comes from sparse refer-
ences in the Assyrian sources, most of which are interested in Edom’s role
as a tributary country. Three “kings” of Edom are known by name, all
dating between the late eighth and the mid-seventh centuries bc: Qaus-
malak/Qa’uš-malaka during the time of Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria
(744–727 bc); Aya-rammu during the time of Sennacherib (704–681
bc), and Qaus-gabri/Qa’uš-gabri during the reigns of Esarhaddon (680–
669 bc) and Ashurbanipal (668–631 bc). Only one seal impression
found in Umm el-Biyara refers to “Qos-gabr, king of Edom” (qwsg[br]/
mlk ’[dm]), probably identical with the Qaus-gabri/Qa’uš-gabri of the
Assyrian inscriptions.56 No other inscriptions of these kings are known.
From the little that these Assyrian texts say, it can be established that
the Assyrian Empire never conquered or occupied Edom, as it certainly
did Edom’s Levantine neighbors such as the kingdom of Israel. The only
time Assyrian armies were probably ever present in Edom was during
Ashurbanipal’s Arabian wars, when military operations against the Arabs
included actions throughout Syria and Transjordan (section 52.3.3). One
of Ashurbanipal’s inscriptions (known as the “Rassam Prism”) recounts
the march of the Assyrian armies across these regions together with some
place names along the way:
At the command of Aššur and Ištar, my armies (I moved) in the

girâ (road?) of Az/sarilu, Hirataqaz/saya in Edom (Assyrian
Udume) . . . in Bit-Ammani (=Ammon) . . . in Moab (Assyrian
54. 1 Kgs 22:47.

55. 2 Kgs 8: 20–22. For an analysis of the biblical allusions to Edom from a tradi-
tional perspective, see the classical study of Bartlett 1989.
56. Millard 1992.
247
Muʼaba), in Seir (Assyrian Saʼarri) . . . his massacre, abundant,

I executed, countless times I imposed his defeat.57
Although the two place names mentioned as situated in Edom,

Hirataqaz/saya and Az/sarilu, cannot be located with certainty, they
show a highly Aramaized and Arabianized toponymy.58
Two of the three known names of the Edomite “kings,” and possi-
bly the Assyrian toponym Hirataqaz/saya, contain the theophoric ele-
ment Qos, the name of the main Edomite deity (or at least the deity
most associated with the monarchy). Although the name Qos has an
old pedigree (appearing in topographical lists on temple walls as early
as the thirteenth–twelfth centuries bc in New Kingdom Egypt), much
of what has been written about its origins is conjecture. The name has
been related to an Arabic etymon qaws (“bow”) and thus the god Qos
is usually identified as a martial or weather deity,59 but this interpreta-
tion is not without problems.60 Whatever his origins, worship of Qos
was introduced into (or originated in?) the northern Negev in the Iron
Age II, where his cult would become very popular in the Persian period
and later (section 52.3.2).
Excavations of Iron Age II sites in the Edomite highlands have
revealed a two-tier settlement pattern consisting of one large, com-
plex site (Busayra) with all the material attributes commonly found in
Levantine urban sites, and clusters of small sites located close to agri-
cultural areas or in mountain locations with restricted access. The site
of Busayra is located on an easily defended spur 30 km southeast of the
Dead Sea, with access to the ancient “King’s Highway” in the east and
close to the copper-production area of Faynan to the southwest.61 Like
the Assyrian and Levantine cities of the same time, the city layout was
57. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 11: vii 107–116; cf. Tebes 2017: 72.
58. Tebes 2017.
59. Knauf 1999
60. Lipiński 2006: 403.
61. Bienkowski 2002.
248
divided into an upper (official) and lower (domestic) town. The upper
town contained monumental buildings built on a deep fill or mound,
identified as a “palace” and a “temple” complex, and structures similar
to the “open courtyard” buildings that were common in Assyria (e.g.,
at Assur and Dur-Šarrukin, modern Khorsabad), Syria, and the Levant
(Megiddo, Hazor, Lachish) in the same period.62 Some scholars have
interpreted the visible foreign influence in the architecture of Busayra as
evidence that the Assyrians established administrative centers in Edom
as they had done in other places in the southern Levant.63 However, the
Assyrian textual sources clearly see Edom as a tributary state where the
Assyrian military presence was, at best, sporadic. The architectural pecu-
liarities at Busayra can be better interpreted as an emulation of building
designs imported from the centers of civilization of that time, especially
Assyria. This is supported by the large quantities of so-called Edomite
pottery found in Busayra (also known as “Busayra painted ware”64 or
“Southern Transjordan-Negev pottery”65), a distinct group of decorated
wares, within which fine carinated bowls that clearly imitate the so-called
Assyrian Palace Ware, popular in the Assyrian provincial centers of Syria
and the Levant, stand out.66 Like the modern upper classes captivated
by French haute cuisine and imitating French ideas about urbanism and
architecture, the ruling class in Busayra associated the use of their fine
wares with the drinking rituals of the Assyrian provincial elites.
What is striking is the uniqueness of Busayra within the Iron Age
II sites in the Edomite highlands, characterized by small, single-phase
villages or farms, like Tawilan and Ghrareh, or mountain communi-
ties, such as Umm el-Biyara and Sela (as-Sila) (figure 52.2).67 These sites
contained domestic buildings and storage structures and, in some cases,
62. Bennett 1982: 184–187; Bienkowski 1995: 139–141; Routledge 2003.

63. E.g., Finkelstein 2013: 23.
64. Bienkowski and Sedman 2001: 319–320.
65. Tebes 2011.
66. Tebes 2011: 88–90.
67. Hart 1989: 9–20; Bennett and Bienkowski 1995; Bienkowski 2011; Da Riva 2019.
249
Figure 52.2. View of Sela (as-Sila), Jordan, a typical Iron Age II Edomite mountain site. Photograph by Rocío
Da Riva.
250
cisterns and the remains of walls and towers (for defense or use as animal
pens?), while the material culture was very simple, and included undeco-
rated versions of the ceramics found at Busayra.68 A noticeable exception
to this pattern is the large fortress founded at Tell el-Kheleifeh (perhaps
biblical Ezion-Geber), close to the Gulf of Aqaba69 and probably a mili-
tary post designed to control the lucrative traffic of Arabian goods that
crossed the area.
It is clear from the archaeological data reviewed in this section that
Edom cannot be included in the category of state-level societies that
were typical of the ancient Near East, including the small neighbor-
ing states such as Judah and Moab. New scholarly approximations
have tackled the problem of the absence of archaeological evidence
of statehood by stressing that tribalism was the most important fac-
tor in Edomite society. Thus, Edom has been variously identified as
a “tribal kingdom” or a “segmentary society”—a polity composed of
tribes and tribal confederations loosely linked with a supra-tribal mon-
archy based in Busayra.70 However, these studies cannot explain the
lack of evidence of a single polity unified under a Busayra elite. On the
contrary, the archaeological data found in the Edomite sites indicates
that local populations had a high degree of autonomy from Busayra.71
According to a minimalistic interpretation of the available evidence,
Edom can be better interpreted as a chiefdom polity centered on
Busayra, whose “kings” certainly claimed sovereignty over the entire
Edomite highlands but in reality were limited to Busayra’s hinterland.
The remaining Edomite communities were probably organized along
tribal lines, and their relationships with Busayra were based on recipro-
cal exchange and gift-g iving of luxury goods, as well as on competition
and military assistance.72
68. Tebes 2013a: 125–130.

69. Pratico 1993.
70. Bienkowski and van der Steen 2001; Porter 2004; Bienkowski 2009.
71. Lindner and Knauf 1997.
72. Tebes 2014: 16–19.
251
Little is known about the end of Edom as an independent entity,

partly because of the dearth of textual sources bearing witness to this
event and of material data marking a clear break in the archaeological
record, and partly owing to the existence of post-Babylonian epigraphic
sources reflecting the continuation of an Edomite identity in Cisjordan.
Scholars agree that Edom was one of the main targets of Nabonidus of
Babylon’s (555–539 bc) campaign to Transjordan and northern Arabia,
which probably took place in 553–551 bc (section 52.3.3). The so-called
Nabonidus Chronicle records a campaign against [U]‌dumu (almost
certainly a reference to Edom),73 and Ruqdini (probably a reference to
Reqem, the Semitic name for Petra).74 The fragmented text does not
allow us to reconstruct details, but the presence of a badly preserved
relief of Nabonidus with the legible inscription “I am Nabonidus, king of
Babylon [...]” found in Sela (as-Sila), northwest of Busayra (figure 52.3),75
is clear confirmation of Babylonian suzerainty over Edom.
Although the Babylonian conquest is probably reflected in destruc-
tion layers found in the acropolis of Busayra, Tawilan, and Tell el-
Kheleifeh,76 there is no marked break in the archaeological record, while
the few post-Babylonian epigraphic sources and material remains sug-
gest the continuation of settled life during the Persian period. This is
certainly true for a cuneiform tablet found at Tawilan dated to the acces-
sion year of “Darius,” but it is difficult to know whether it refers to the
Persian king Darius I, II, or III. Finds of Attic and Hellenistic potsherds
at Busayra attest occupation in the site, although on a reduced scale, as
late as the late third century bc.77 Recent studies have attempted to close
the “gap” between the Edomite and Nabatean settlement cycles, and
while it is possible that in some places they overlapped with each other,78
73. Grayson 1975: Chronicle 7: 17, cf. Crowell 2007: 78.

74. Grayson 1975: Chronicle 7: 19; see Lipiński 2006: 420.
75. Dalley and Goguel 1997; Da Riva 2020; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 55.
76. Crowell 2007: 83–84.
77. Bienkowski 2013: 29–31.
78. See the recent excavations at the Qasr al-Bint in Petra: Renel and Mouton 2013.
25
Figure 52.3. Inscription of Nabonidus of Babylon at Sela (as-Sila), Jordan.

Photograph by Rocío Da Riva.
by the Nabatean period an independent Edomite polity had long been

gone in southern Transjordan. Yet the Edomite identity was well and
alive in the lands to the west, the Negev region and Idumea.
52.3.2. The Negev

Although the Negev during the Iron Age never constituted a unified
independent polity with the complexity of Moab or Edom, the region
enjoyed a strategic location that connected the Arabian trade networks
with the Philistine outlets in the Mediterranean coast, thus attracting
the interest of the imperial powers (Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt) and
Levantine states (Israel, Judah, Philistines) struggling for power in
the north.
253
After a hiatus of settled habitation during most of the second mil-

lennium bc, small sites such as Tel Masos, Tel Beersheba, and Tel ‘Arad
began to be established in the northern Negev during the eleventh and
tenth centuries bc. In early treatments, scholars postulated that this wave
of settlement was initiated by an Israelite population migrating from the
northern central highlands.79 However, later interpretations have high-
lighted the role of local populations in the settlement and sociopolitical
development of this area.80 Much of this discussion is centered on cur-
rent debates over the chronology of ancient Israel and Judah and is of no
concern here, but readers should keep in mind that the archaeology of
the Negev is in constant flux.
The chiefdom of Tel Masos can serve as a representative example for
the early development of autochthonous polities in the northern Negev.
This polity briefly monopolized the Faynan copper trade in the Iron
Age I and early Iron Age II periods, before its power was eclipsed by
the growing influence of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (chapter 48
in volume 4).81 From the late tenth century until well into the seventh
century bc, the small, unwalled villages of the northern Negev grew into
complex settlements of walled towns (Tel Beersheba, Tel ‘Aroer, Tel ‘Ira,
Tel Malhata, Tel Masos) and fortified posts (Tel ‘Arad, Horvat ‘Uza,
Horvat Radum) under the aegis of Judah, profiting from the Arabian
trade and the local agro-pastoral economy.82 Fortifications were estab-
lished in strategic locations on the desert roads to the south, such as the
fort at ‘En Hazeva in the northern Arabah Valley and Kadesh Barnea
(Tell el-Qudeirat) on the Sinai-Negev border.83 About 350 such settle-
ments, variously identified as fortified posts, towers, farms, or corrals,
were established in the central Negev Highlands during the Iron Age
79. Herzog 1994.

80. Finkelstein 1995: 103–126.
81. Tebes 2014: 10–12.
82. Aharoni 1973; Fritz and Kempinski 1983; Herzog 1984; 2002; Beit-Arieh 1999;
2007; Thareani 2011; Beit-Arieh and Freud 2015; Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2016.
83. Cohen and Yisrael 1995; Cohen and Bernick-Greenberg 2007.
254
II period,84 although their dating (eleventh–early tenth centuries bc,

or tenth–eighth centuries bc) is debated, as is the local Iron Age chro-
nology more generally. What is clear is that this wave of settlement was
short-lived, with few if any of these sites being occupied after the tenth–
ninth centuries bc, with the exception of some occupation during the
Persian period.
During the late ninth and most of the eighth centuries bc, Israel,
now under the umbrella of Assyria, enjoyed an unprecedented period
of hegemony over Judah. Given Judah’s subservient status, Israelite
trade interest extended into the arid south. The site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud
in the northeastern Sinai, variously identified as a cultic center, fortress,
or caravanserai, was an enterprise of the Israelite monarchy strategically
located at the crossroads of the Dharb el-Ghazza road, and controlled
traffic between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Mediterranean Sea. Cultic
practices at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud were highly hybridized, drawing from the
cultic heritage of Israel, Judah, Egypt, and the desert populations. Most
famously, drawings and inscriptions on walls and large jars (pithoi) attest
the ritual activities performed there; they included allusions to “Yahweh
of Samaria and his Asherah” and “Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah.”85
Barrels of ink have been poured over the meaning of these inscriptions,
which seem to point to veneration of Yahweh of Samaria (the patron
deity of the Israelite monarchy), and Yahweh of Teman (probably an
allusion to a temple of Yahweh in the Negev), and the associated draw-
ings depicting two figures, most likely the Egyptian deities Bes and
Beset.86 What is clear is that the decorated pithoi were used in libation
rituals, as votive and dedicatory gifts, and for incense burning and ritual
meals, while visitors to the site would have inscribed personal graffiti on
them to commemorate their visit and secure the protection of the local
gods, among them Yahweh in several manifestations.87
84. Cohen and Cohen-Amin 2004.

85. Meshel 2012.
86. See Beck 1982; Barkay and Im 2001; Na’aman 2012a; Thomas 2016.
87. See the useful study of Schmidt 2016: 15–122.
25
Worship of Yahweh is also attested at the mid-eighth-century bc

small tripartite temple excavated in the fortress of Tel ‘Arad, even though
the military correspondence invoking Yahweh admittedly dates to
later.88 Central for this cult was one or more standing stones (biblical
maṣṣebot) erected in an innermost niche,89 which served as an aniconic
symbol of the god’s presence at the site and provides evidence for the
noticeable influence the desert cults had on the Yahwistic practices in
the arid south.
If the construction of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud can be associated with the
efforts of the Israelite monarchy to oversee the desert trade routes,
its abandonment and the establishment of large fortresses at Tell el-
Kheleifeh and ‘En Hazeva can be attributed to the replacement of the
Dharb el-Ghazza road with the Edom-Beersheba Valley road as the main
artery for Arabian trade traffic.90 Judean control of this area was carried
out via a network of state officers and military personnel appointed to
fortified posts. Epigraphic finds from Tel ‘Arad and Horvat ‘Uza pro-
vide precious information regarding the extent of Judah’s involvement
in the Negev and of the level of literacy within its middle-rank officers,
demonstrating how they handled daily matters of military organization,
economic administration, and trade affairs.91 One such document is an
ostracon letter from Tel ‘Arad with an order to dispatch supplies to a
high commander in Beersheba:
To Eliashib: And now, give from the wine 3 bath-jars, for

Hananiahu commands you to Beersheba with a load of a pair
of donkeys. And you shall pack with them dough or [br]ea[d]‌.
Calculate (the amount of ) the wheat and the bread and take for
yourself from [the store?].92
88. Herzog 2002.

89. Bloch-Smith 2015.
90. Finkelstein 2013: 21–23.
91. Na’aman 2011; 2012b; 2015.
92. ‘Arad Letter 3; see Na’aman 2011: 84.
256
Except for Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Kadesh Barnea in the Sinai-Negev bor-
der area, the central and southern Negev regions were de facto a no man’s
land between the northern polities struggling to profit from the emerg-
ing trade routes and the security imposed by the Assyrian Empire. Most
of what we know comes from Assyrian inscriptions describing the sev-
eral military campaigns carried out in the southern Levant since the late
eighth century bc. These sources name some of the kings of the local
city-states and the Arabian chiefs of the northwestern Negev with whom
the Assyrian kings dealt. The Assyrian interests in the Negev were two-
fold: to turn the region into a buffer zone with Egypt, and to retain their
trade supremacy by establishing trade posts near the Egyptian border
and controlling the desert routes used for Arabian trade.
The terminus for Arabian trade in the Negev was the important city
of Gaza and the series of city-states situated along the two main wadis
draining into the Mediterranean, among them Tel Sera‘ (Ziklag) and
Tel Haror (Gerar) along the Nahal Gerar, and Tell el-Far‘ah (Sharuhen),
Tell Jemmeh (Arza), and Tell el-‘Ajjul (Shirhon) along the Nahal Besor.93
To the degree that these cities paid tribute to the Assyrian Empire, they
preserved a degree of independence that was ruthlessly suppressed in
cases of revolt. In 734 bc, Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria (744–727 bc)
campaigned against Gaza, resulting in the flight of its king Hanun to
Egypt. In 720 bc, Sargon II of Assyria (721–705 bc) suppressed a second
revolt by Hanun of Gaza with Egyptian aid: Hanun was taken into cap-
tivity, and Sargon destroyed the city of Raphiah and deported more than
9,000 people from the area. Years later, in 679 bc, Esarhaddon of Assyria
(680–669 bc) plundered the city of Arza (Tell Jemmeh), deporting its
king Asuhili and his court to the Assyrian heartland.94 The Assyrians
established fortified posts and palatial administrative centers in key
locations along the roads connecting the Levant with Egypt, remains of
which have been excavated at Tel Ruqeish and Blakhiyah (Anthedon)
93. Chambon 1984; Oren 1993a; 1993b; Tufnell and Kempinski 1993; Ben-Shlomo
and Van Beek 2014.
94. Na’aman 1979: 68–72.
257
in Gaza, Tell Jemmeh, Tel Haror, and Tell Abu Salima in the coast of
northeastern Sinai.95
Assyrian encounters with the local Arabs were restricted to the
northwestern Negev; they are portrayed not only as fully integrated into
the Mediterranean trade networks, supplying the logistics and security
for commerce, but also some of them appear to have lived in or ruled
over urban centers.96 According to his royal inscriptions, during his
Levantine campaign in 734–732 bc, Tiglath-pileser III subjugated and
received tribute from Siruatti the Me‘unite “whose (territory) is below
Egypt,” appointing him as supervisor (Assyrian qēpu).97 After his second
campaign, he appointed Idibi’lu “to the position of warden (Assyrian
atûtu) of the border with Egypt.”98 Tiglath-pileser III also relates that,
after conquering Gaza, he “counted the city of Gaza as a custom-house
(Assyrian bīt kāri) of Assyria.”99 Years later, in ca. 720 bc, Sargon II set
exiles “on the border of the City of the Brook of Egypt” (Assyrian Nahal
Muṣur; probably the Nahal Besor100) and delivered them to the supervi-
sion of the sheikh (Assyrian nasīku) of the city of Laban.101 According
to another of his royal inscriptions, Sargon II opened “the sealed-off
harbor (Assyrian kāru) of Egypt” and mingled Assyrians and Egyptians
together, making them trade with each other.102 These harbors or trad-
ing stations presumably functioned as custom-houses to collect duties
on the commercial traffic that passed through the area. In 669 bc,
95. Ben-Shlomo 2014: 80–82; Thareani 2016: 92.

96. For the following see Na’aman 1979; Eph‘al 1982: 81–111, 137–142; Retsö
2003: 129–153, 158–161.
97. Tadmor and Yamada 2011: no. 48: ll. 22′-23′; cf. Eph‘al 1982: 30 and Potts
2010: 46.
98. Tadmor and Yamada 2011: no. 42: l. 34; no. 44: l. 16′; no. 47: rev. 6′; cf. Eph‘al
1982: 28, 29, 32.
99. Na’aman 1979: 83.
100. Na’aman 1979: 77.
101. Frame 2021: no. 63: ii 6′-7′; cf. Eph‘al 1982: 37.
102. Frame 2021: no. 74: iv 46–49; cf. Eph‘al 1982: 38.
258
Esarhaddon advanced southward into the Sinai with the help of the local
Arabs: “Camels of all the kings of the Arabs (šarrāni Aribî) I g[athered
and goatskins I l]oaded on them.”103
Biblical allusions to the Arabs of the Iron Age Negev are sparse and
late, and they should be treated with extreme caution. In some places they
appear to be located to the south of the Philistines.104 Some tribal names,
or the places where the local peoples lived, are provided, such as “the Arabs
that dwelt in Gurbaal and the Me‘unites,”105 although their relationship
with the Me‘unites of Tiglath-pileser III’s times is not all clear.106 The bibli-
cal text also contains memories of the efforts of the Judean kings to open
a port in the Gulf of Aqaba.107 There is also one allusion to the slave trade
between Edom and Gaza/Tyre,108 and some information about the trade
traffic of Edom and Arabia with Tyre.109
One of the most interesting phenomena of the last century of the
Iron Age II period is the growth of an ethnically heterogeneous com-
munity in the northern Negev, evidenced by a range of diverse textual,
epigraphic, and material data. It is true that, owing to the daily interac-
tions with desert tribal peoples and trade with Egypt and Arabia, the
Judean sites in the northern Negev had never been totally culturally
homogeneous, but since as early as the late eighth century bc, a mate-
rial culture related to southern Transjordan starts to be archaeologically
visible. The most noticeable of the new archaeological traits is the pres-
ence of large quantities of “Edomite” pottery within the Judean sites,
including the fine Assyrian-influenced decorated bowls that figured so
103. Leichty 2011: no. 34: rev. 1–2; cf. Eph‘al 1982: 137–138.
104. 2 Chr 21:16–17.
105. 2 Chr 26:6–7.
106. Retsö 2003: 138–144.
107. 1 Kgs 22:49; 2 Kgs 14:22.
108. Amos 1:6, 9.
109. Ezek 27:15–16, 21–22.
259
prominently in Busayra.110 Although most of these constituted locally

made wares, within the “Edomite” pottery found in the Negev cook-
ing pots manufactured in southern Transjordan or the northern Arabah
Valley stand out,111 suggesting a flow of people and goods between Edom
and the Negev.
The question of “Edomite” pottery and Edomite material culture
in general in the Iron Age II Negev reflects changing notions about the
nature of Judah’s presence in its southern flank and its relationship with
the local peoples. Early analyses understood this material culture as evi-
dence of an Edomite conquest of the Negev.112 These interpretations
played an important role in the literal reading of (mostly later) biblical
prophetic texts that negatively characterize Edom’s role during the fall
of the Judean monarchy to the Babylonians in the 590s−580s bc, either
as an agent of destruction or as a rejoicing witness.113 While the violent
images in these texts are exceedingly explicit and likely reflected the feel-
ings of hatred and revenge toward Edom that were typical of Persian-
period Yehud,114 they never make explicit allusions to the usurpation of
Judean land during the monarchic period.
Similar weight has been given to two ostraca letters found in Iron
Age II Tel ‘Arad naming Edom within what has been interpreted as mili-
tary contexts. One of the letters was sent by the commander of a fortified
post to the main fortress at ‘Arad, and although some of the text is miss-
ing, there are two allusions to Edom:
And behold you knew [about the letters from] Edom (that)
I gave to [my] lord [before sun]set (. . .) The king of Judah
110. Singer-Avitz 2014.

111. Freud 2014.
112. E.g., Beit-Arieh 1995b.
113. Obad 11–14; Ps 137:7; Amos 1:11; Joel 4:19; Ezek 25:12; 35:5; Lam 4:21–2; Isa
34:5–14. See Glazier-McDonald 1995.
114. Tebes 2019.
260
should know [that w]e cannot send the [. . . and th]is is the evil
that Edo[m has done].115
The second letter is a little bit more specific, sending orders to dispatch
reinforcements from Tel ‘Arad to Ramat-Negeb; it ends thus:
I have sent to warn you today: [Get] the men to Elisha’ lest Edom
should come there.116
While Edom clearly emerges as a hostile entity in these letters, recent

discussions have emphasized that the conflicts can also be interpreted
as mere quarrels over sheep-stealing and grazing rights, rather than ref-
erences to military confrontations.117 An interesting letter, written in
Edomite and found at Horvat ‘Uza, shows that a certain quantity of
grain transported to the fortress was cultivated by an Edomite:
Message of Lamilk; Say to Blbl: Are you well? I bless you by Qaus!
And now, give the grain, which with ’Ahi’ummih is damaged [?]‌
and may ‘Uzzi’il offer [it] on the al[tar of . . .] [thereby ad]ding[?]
a homer-measure of the grain.118
This document not only demonstrates that trade existed between Judah
and Edom along the Beersheba valley, but also that relations between
the two were at times peaceful. In sum, the combined archaeological
and epigraphic data suggest a steady flow of people and goods across the
Arabah valley, following the Arabian trade routes and the itineraries of
the nomadic groups seeking pastures in the more fertile valleys of the
northern Negev.
115. Arad Letter 40: ll. 9–10, 13–15; see Aharoni 1981: 70–74.
116. Arad Letter 24: ll. 19–20; see Aharoni 1981: 46–49.
117. Guillaume 2013.
118. Horvat ‘Uza Letter 7; see Na’aman 2012b: 214–216.
261
The Qos blessing from Horvat ‘Uza leads us straight to the question
of Edomite—or better Edomitizing—cultic practices associated with
the god Qos in the Negev. Apart from the Horvat ‘Uza ostracon, per-
sonal names with Qos as theophoric elements were found at Iron Age II
Tel ‘Arad, Tel ‘Aroer, and Horvat Qitmit.119 These Qos names are found
in locations that were unquestionably administered by Judah, and thus
reflect the multiethnic milieu of the Negev population.
The probable exception is Horvat Qitmit, a small road-shrine estab-
lished away from any settlement in the late seventh or early sixth century
bc, although close enough to be seen from Tel ‘Arad, Tel Malhata, and
Tel ‘Ira. The shrine was a blend of two architectural traditions: the south
Levantine urban tripartite-room temples and the open-air courtyard
desert shrines. It comprised two covered, multi-room structures with a
rectangular open courtyard, containing a platform, altar, and standing
stone as focal centers of worship. Two elliptical, open enclosures with
standing stones and benches were located nearby.120
Owing to the epigraphic finds in Edomite script or with references
to Qos found at Qitmit, initial interpretations unsurprisingly identi-
fied the site as an “Edomite” shrine. It is true that the architecture and
material culture from Horvat Qitmit differs strongly from what was
popular in Judah; however, the shrine was located within sight of (and
was probably controlled by) Judean sites. Most importantly, there is no
equivalent cultic context in Edom to compare with it. In fact, the rich
cultic paraphernalia—including a deity head with facial features and
horns, bearded anthropomorphic statues holding swords (the warlike
god Qos?), and pottery appliques and figures with animal imagery—
reveals a very eclectic style with influences from diverse areas, particu-
larly Ammon and Moab.121
Similar cultic statuary was found smashed in a pit with a cultic deposit
(favissa) a few meters outside the walls of the seventh–early sixth-century
119. Porter 2004: tables 1–2.

120. Beit-Arieh 1995a.
121. Beck 1995; Daviau 2001.
26
Figure 52.4. Reconstruction of the “Edomite” open-

air shrine at ‘En
Hazeva. Author’s photograph.
bc fortress at ‘En Hazeva, buried within and beneath several unworked

stones. Later work reconstructed the assemblage based on its similari-
ties to the Qitmit collection; the cult objects included chalices, bowls,
pomegranate-shaped vessels, perforated cups, incense burners, limestone
altars, and anthropomorphic statues.122 According to the excavators, the
standing stones originally formed the walls of an “Edomite” elongated
U-shaped shrine open on one side, accompanied by stone benches and
altars (figure 52.4).123 However, this reconstruction and any alleged
“Edomite” connection must wait until the site is finally published.
The cultic sites at Horvat Qitmit and ‘En Hazeva (regardless of how
they are reconstructed) were roadside shrines established next to major
trade routes and visited by the passing caravans and local semi-pastoral
122. Ben-Arieh 2011.

123. Cohen and Yisrael 1995.
263
groups.124 They represent the legacy of the late seventh century bc, a
period of relative peace under the hegemony of Assyria and of increased
road security under the surveillance of the Judean state administration.
This period of prosperity was short- lived, however, cut short
by the Babylonian military campaigns and the final fall of Judah.
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (604–562 bc) twice attacked Judah and
Jerusalem, once in 597 bc when he captured the Judean king Jehoiachin
and exiled large numbers of the aristocracy, and again in 587–586 bc
when he destroyed the walls of Jerusalem and its temple, executed king
Zedekiah, and exiled the remaining elite to Babylon, thus literally put-
ting an end to Judah’s independence. These events were highly traumatic,
and archaeological remains of the ensuing devastation can be seen in the
destruction levels at Jerusalem and other sites.125 However, evidence of
destruction in the Negev is not uniform. Some sites, such as Tel ‘Arad,
Tel ’Aroer, Tel ‘Ira, Tel Masos, Tel Malhata, ’En Hazeva, Kadesh Barnea,
and the fort of Horvat Tov, are said to have been destroyed, but others
seem to have been abandoned without any apparent destruction, such as
Tel Beersheba, Horvat Qitmit, and the forts of Horvat ’Uza and Horvat
Radum. Non-Judean sites in the northwestern Negev suffered a similar
fate; Tel Haror came to a violent end, but the evidence from Tel Sera‘
and Tell Jemmeh is less clear. The Iron Age phase at all three sites was
followed by a period of Persian occupation.126 Rather than an abrupt
collapse of state and military organization in the northern Negev, the
evidence seems to point more to the gradual disintegration of Judah’s
authority in the area. Most of the sites were abandoned during the sixth
century bc, but the area was hardly devoid of people, as recent epigraphic
evidence has shown.
The collapse of the state administration in the Negev accelerated
some of the long-term social trends that were already operating in the
late Iron Age, allowing diverse ethnic groups to gain the upper hand
124. Finkelstein 1995: 139–153.

125. Lipschits 2005: 206–257; Dever 2009.
126. Lipschits 2003: 335–336; 2005: 227–228; Dever 2009: 31*–32*.
264
in the local affairs. The number of Edomite inscriptions increased

from earlier periods and started to be concentrated in lands north of
the Beersheba and Arad valleys, extending as far north as Hebron. At
some point in time this area began to be known as Idumea, either at the
end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century bc, when it was a
Persian administrative unit,127 or in the early Hellenistic period,128 when
Diodorus Siculus attests the existence of the “hyparchy” or “satrapy” of
Idumea.129 Diodorus’s use of the two terms was not technical and should
be understood as indicating a minor district, smaller than a satrapy, and
dominated by one ethnos.130 The boundaries of Idumea were more or less
clear in the north, as it bordered with Yehud/Judaea along a line stretch-
ing between ‘En Gedi on the Dead Sea and Tel Sochoh to the west, but
they were more imprecise in the west, where it bordered Philistia, and
the south, where it probably incorporated the majority of the sites in the
Beersheba and Arad Valleys, including Tel ‘Aroer, Tel ‘Ira, Horvat ‘Uza,
and Horvat Radum.131
Data from the approximately 2,000 Aramaic ostraca from Idumean
sites (some excavated, some without certain provenance), including
Lachish, ‘Arad, Beersheba, Maresha, and Khirbet el-Kom (Makkedah),
show a vibrant, multiethnic community where people of different eth-
nicities lived side by side, intermarried, and conducted business together.
The vast majority of the ostraca date from the final decades of Persian
rule and the early Hellenistic period, and thus bear witness to the final
stages of long-term demographic changes that began centuries earlier.132
They primarily contain administrative and commercial records related
to the delivery of products and workers, lists of land parcels and of other
127. Eph‘al 1982: 199; Kloner 2015.

128. Levin 2015.
129. Diod. Sic. 14.95.2; 14.98.1.
130. Marciak 2018: 881–882.
131. Kloner 2015: 177–178.
132. See, among others, Eph‘al and Naveh 1996; Lemaire 2002; Porten and Yardeni
2014; Levin 2015: 195–198; Yardeni 2016.
265
kinds, and letters.133 Most ostraca are short and often fragmentary; a
typical example recorded that “[o]‌n the 28 [or 29] of Elul, qwshnn from
the sons of b‘[l]rm, who is in Makkedah, [gave/received] straw, a bundle/
basket.”134
Onomastic studies of the ostraca have revealed the different ethnic
backgrounds of the population of Idumea, including the presence of
theophoric elements such as Qos (the most common deity name, indi-
cating an Edomite “identity”), El, Ba‘al, YHW(H), and others. One sta-
tistical analysis of some 1,300 names found a high percentage (32%) of
Arabian names, followed by Idumean (27%), general Western Semitic
(25%), Judean (10%), and Phoenician (5%) onomastics.135 Although this
was a society based on a few large clans identified by the name of the fam-
ily head, ethnic boundaries were not rigid; on the contrary, few people
maintained their progenitors’ ethnic onomastics.
South of Idumea lay the vast expanses of the central Negev and the
Sinai, inhabited by Arab nomadic tribes who controlled the desert routes
of the caravan trade, and about whom we still have very little informa-
tion. Herodotus, writing in the mid-fifth century bc and our best source
of historical geography for this area, located an “Arab district” that was
exempt from paying taxes to the Persian administration, extending
between Kadytis (Gaza) and Ienysus in the northeastern Sinai.136 This
state of affairs probably began when the “king of the Arabs” supplied the
Persian army with water in the Sinai desert before Cambyses embarked
on his invasion of Egypt in 525 bc.137 Thus it is likely that the Persians,
like the Assyrians before them, outsourced the complicated logistics of
travel and trade in the desert to the Arabian tribes. This does not mean
that no permanent posts were established in the area. The central Negev
highlands, an area that, with the exception of nearby Kadesh Barnea
133. Yardeni 2016: 21–31.

134. Yardeni 2016: no. 72 (ostracon in the Jeselsohn Collection).
135. Stern 2007.
136. Hdt. 3.5.91.
137. Hdt. 3.4–9.
26
(Tell el-Qudeirat), was devoid of permanent settlements during the Iron

Age II period, was now overseen by a network of fortifications estab-
lished during the Persian period.138
Some epigraphic finds, difficult to date and hard to interpret,
can be related to local Arabs in the Persian period. The first are four
votive inscriptions dedicated to the Arabian goddess Han-’Ilat written
in Aramaic on silver bowls found at Tell el-Maskhuta near the border
between Egypt and the western Sinai. One of them reads: “That which
Qaynu son of Gašmu, king of Qedar (br gšm mlk qdr), brought in offer-
ing to Han-’Ilat.”139
The name Qedar recurs in the Assyrian royal inscriptions of the eighth
and seventh centuries bc as a tribal organization with its own kings (sec-
tion 52.3.3). The name gšm also appears in an inscription found near al-
‘Ula (Dedan): “In the time of gšm bn šḥr and ‘bd governor of Dedan, in
the reig[n of . . .].”140 Both names have been related to the “Gešem the
Arab” who intrigued against Nehemiah141 and, if the fifth-century dating
of the Tell el-Maskhuta silver bowls stands, both individuals could have
been contemporaries, if not the same person. Numismatic evidence from
the Persian-period Levant provides a few similar names, with Athenian-
style coins of Arabian derivation bearing the legends GŠM and ŠḤRW,
analogous to the name and his patronym in the Dedan inscription, and
the theonyms ‘ZZ and mnwt (in Aramaic), the names of the Arabian
deities al-‘Uzza and Manota (al-Manat).142 Other Arabian names have
been found on ostraca from the Negev, Idumea, and Sinai, including Tell
el-Kheleifeh, Tel ‘Arad, Tel Beersheba, Tell el-Far‘ah (south), Lachish,
Maresha, Khirbet el-Kom, and Tell Abu Salima in the Sinai.143
138. Meshel 2009.

139. Dumbrell 1971: 36.
140. Jaussen and Savignac 1909–1914: no. 349 (Lihyanite inscription); cf. Eph‘al
1982: 212.
141. Neh 6:1.
142. Graf 2015: 293–298.
143. Levin 2015: 191.
267
Although the Qedarites seem to have been an Arabian tribal orga-

nization which controlled the northwestern Negev during the Persian
period, and which was powerful enough to produce and issue its own
coinage, there is no evidence to assume, as some scholars have done,144
that a large Qedarite kingdom extended throughout the arid southern
Levant and northern Arabia.
52.3.3. The Syro-Arabian Desert

Contrary to common understanding, the Arab peoples who lived in
the Syrian steppe and the northern Arabian Desert were not always
nomadic; they also lived in oasis towns and had an economy that was
very much integrated into the fabric of the urban societies of Syria and
Mesopotamia. Central to their income was their participation in the
trade of expensive Arabian goods. The earliest attestation of this activity
appears in a text from the mid-eighth century bc, when Ninurta-kudurri-
uṣur, the ruler of Suhu in the Upper Euphrates region, boasts of having
raided a caravan of “people of Tayma and Saba, whose own country is far
away” and then capturing “their 200 camels, together with their loads—
blue-purple wool . . . wool, iron . . . stones, every kind of merchandise.”145
Although it is clear that the people of the town of Tayma in the north-
ern Hejaz (section 52.3.4) and Saba in southern Arabia were involved in
mercantile activity (note also the reference to the camels), neither the
origin of the goods they carried, nor the direction they were traveling,
is known. The goods listed in the spoils did not originate in Arabia but
probably in the Levant, and therefore the caravan was either on its way
back to Arabia or they were buying and selling goods along the way.146
When analyzing the Mesopotamian documents that refer to the
Arab peoples (chapters 38 and 40 in volume 4 and chapter 50 in this
volume) it is necessary to keep in mind that these sources repeatedly
144. E.g., Dumbrell 1971.

145. Frame 1995: no. 2: iv 27′; see Na’aman 2008: 233; chapter 53 in this volume.
146. Holladay 2006: 319–321; see also Liverani 1992.
268
exhibit a classic bias against the “primitive” societies who lived in the
barren desert—rhetoric that usually invited military interventions.
Not surprisingly, the earliest attestation of the Arabs in the cunei-
form sources appears in a military context: Shalmaneser III’s list of
the leaders who opposed the Assyrian army at Qarqar in 853 bc. One
of the leaders was “Gindibu the Arab” (Assyrian Arbaya), whose army
mustered 1,000 camels.147 Although the center of Gindibu’s power is
unknown, the location of Gindibu’s partners—among them the kings
of Damascus, Israel, Hamath, and Ammon in Transjordan—and the
site of the final battle suggest that his base was in the Wadi Sirhan
area.148 It is obvious from these sources that the Assyrian military oper-
ations against the Arabs were only part of a larger strategy aimed at
subjugating the Levantine states that controlled the terminal points of
the Arabian trade.
As in the case of the “kings” of Edom, the Assyrians interpreted the
political realities of northern Arabia according to their own political
categories, identifying as “kings” the different kinds of chiefs and rulers
they encountered along the way. Beginning in the late eighth century
bc, the Assyrian sources start to report the existence of Arabian queens,
identified by the Akkadian term šarratu. The royal annals of Tiglath-
pileser III (738 bc) record the tribute of Zabibe, identified as “queen
of the Arabs” (Assyrian Aribî) and “queen of the Qedarites” (Assyrian
Qidrî), among the leaders of Damascus, Israel, Tyre, and other kings in
southern Anatolia, Syria, and Phoenicia. Subsequently (probably in 733
bc), Tiglath-pileser III defeated Samsi “queen of the Arabs” at Mount
Šaqurri (location unknown, but possibly in the Hauran region), taking
a large booty consisting of captives, camels, sheep, and “500 [bags] of all
kinds of spices.” He then appointed a qēpu (the same office he awarded
to Siruatti the Me‘unite: section 52.3.2) over her. The nature of the mili-
tary operations against the Arabs can be seen in the fragmentary reliefs
from Tiglath-pileser’s palace at Kalhu (modern Nimrud), where the
147. Grayson 1996: no. A.0.102.2: ii 94; see Eph‘al 1982: 75–76; Retsö 2003: 126.
148. Retsö 2003: 127.
269
battle scenes depict two camels with riders; at least one of them rides
on a cushion saddle,149 a piece of equipment that increased the camel’s
performance in battle.150
During the reign of Sargon II, the Assyrian royal inscriptions started
to record the subjugation of Arabian peoples not directly located on
the periphery of Syria-Mesopotamia, such as the Ephah, Thamud,
Marsimani, and Ibadidi, “the distant Arabs dwelling in the desert
who knew neither overseers nor officials and had not brought their
tribute to any king.” These tribes were said to have been settled in the
newly conquered region of Samaria. Sargon II also described the king
of Egypt, Samsi queen of the Arabs (again), and Itʾamar, the Sabean,
“the kings of the seashore and the desert,” as submitting tribute to him,
including gold, precious stones, ivory, horses, camels, and “all kinds of
perfumes.”151 If taken at face value, this would indicate that Assyrian
rule had extended to a large portion of northwestern Arabia, which
seems unlikely; rather, Sargon’s claims can be interpreted to mean the
sending of gifts by these and other Arabian groups, which the Assyrian
chose to see as tribute.
But most of the conflicts between Assyrian and Arabs during the
late eighth century and throughout the seventh century bc were not
located in the desert hinterlands but in the southeastern border region
of Mesopotamia, where a sizable Arab population existed. The records
of the first campaign of Sennacherib of Assyria against Babylon (703 bc)
show the name of Basqanu, brother of Iati’e, king of the Arabs (Assyrian
Aribî), among the captured enemy chieftains. Years later, probably in
691–689 bc, Sennacherib defeated Te’elhunu “queen of the Arabs, in the
midst of the desert” and Haza’il, who is called “king of the Arabs” in
inscriptions of Sennacherib’s successor Esarhaddon and “king of Qedar”
in inscriptions of Ashurbanipal. Sennacherib chased them to the city of
149. Eph‘al 1982: 81–92; Retsö 2003: 129–136.

150. See Bulliet 1990: 78–86.
151. Frame 2021: no. 1: ll. 120–125; see Eph‘al 1982: 105–111; Retsö 2003: 149–150;
also chapter 53 in this volume.
270
Adummatu, capturing Te’elhunu along with thousands of camels and

divine images.152 While the queens are only called “queens of the Arabs,”
the relationship between the designations “king of Qedar” and “king of
the Arabs” is difficult to discern, especially as the Assyrian sources iden-
tify Haza’il and his sons one way or the other. The titles certainly seem to
have a connection but are not interchangeable.
Although our sources mention the existence of towns in the Syro-
Arabian desert, we simply do not know whether any of them were the
base of power for the Arab tribes or their allies. One of these towns
was Adummatu, called “the fortress of the Arabs” in a report from
Esarhaddon’s reign, most probably corresponding to biblical Dumah
(modern Dumat al-Jandal), some 280 km northeast of Tayma. It was the
main oasis town in the Jauf depression in Wadi Sirhan and was the most
important gateway for the Arabian trade into Mesopotamia in ancient
times.153 Recent excavations in the area have unfortunately still not
reached the Iron Age levels.154
The importance of the Syrian desert for the Assyrians is reflected in
Esarhaddon’s appeasement policy toward Haza‘il, to whom he returned
the divine statues of Attar-samayin, Daya, Nuhaya, Rulda’u, and Attar-
quruma that had been seized by Sennacherib and which Esarhaddon
repaired. He also installed the princess Tabu’a, who had been deported
to Nineveh and raised in the Assyrian court, to the position of “queen
of the Arabs,”155 although the relationship between her (and previously
Te’elhunu) and Haza‘il is unclear. After the death of Haza’il, Esarhaddon
made his son Iauta’ king. Iauta’ can be considered a “puppet king” for
all purposes, as he needed Assyrian intervention (between 676 and 673
152. Inscriptions of Sennacherib: Grayson and Novotny 2012: no. 1: l. 28 (Basqanu);

no. 35: rev. 54′ (Haza’il); of Esarhaddon: Leichty 2011: no. 1: iv 1 (narrating
Sennacherib’s capture of Adummatu); iv 6 (Haza’il); and of Ashurbanipal:
Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 3: vii 77 (Haza’il); see Eph‘al 1982: 112–125; Retsö
2003: 153–155.
153. Leichty 2011: no. 1: iv 1; see Loreto 2016.
154. Charloux and Loreto 2016.
155. Leichty 2011: no. 1: iv 10–16.
271
bc) when a certain Uabu tried to topple him.156 That this Assyrian sup-
port did not come for free can be seen by the heavy tribute he paid to
Esarhaddon, consisting of 10 minas of gold, 1,000 choice gems, 50 cam-
els, and 1,000 bags of spices.157 This might be the reason why Iauta’ him-
self later revolted against Ashurbanipal,158 probably when the Assyrian
army was busy conquering Egypt. The Arab king was defeated and fled,
while his gods were again taken as booty.
Esarhaddon also embarked on a campaign to the land of Bazu, a dis-
tant “arid land, saline ground, a waterless region” probably located in
Eastern Arabia, defeating and killing six kings and two queens.159
The Arabian wars during the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon,
while significant, were only the prologue for the far wider conflicts that
erupted during Ashurbanipal’s reign and which included a civil war
in Babylon and battles as far as southern Transjordan. Although the
reconstruction of Ashurbanipal’s Arabian wars is difficult and scholars
disagree over their main course, three main phases can be discerned.160
During the first phase, which must have concluded before 652 bc, Iauta’,
king of Qedar (Assyrian Qidru), was reinstalled as king and the Assyrians
returned (again!) the image of god Attar-samayin. In a pattern that by
this time seems standard for the relationship between the Assyrians and
Arabs, sometime later Iauta’ revolted, was defeated, and fled to the tribe
of the Nebayot. His allies suffered the same fate: his wife Adiya queen
of the Arabs (Assyrian Aribî) was taken captive,161 and Ammu-ladin,
king of Qedar, was defeated by Kamas-halta, king of Moab, an Assyrian
ally.162 Typically, Iauta’ was replaced by another chief, this time Abiyate,
156. Leichty 2011: no. 97: ll. 14–18.

157. Leichty 2011: no. 2: iii 6–8.
158. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 3: vii 77–89.
159. Leichty 2011: no. 1: iv 54–77; see Eph‘al 1982: 127–137; Retsö 2003: 158–161.
160. See Weippert 1973/74; Eph‘al 1982: 142–169; Gerardi 1992; Retsö 2003: 161–171.
161. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 8: ix 1′′–6′′.
162. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 3: viii 32–42.
27
king of Qedar, and equally typically did the latter revolt.163 The second
phase, between 652 and 648 bc, involved the war between Ashurbanipal
and his brother Šamaš-šumu-ukin, king of Babylon, who was supported
by Arab allies including Abiyate, king of Qedar, and Uaite’, king of
Šumu’il (perhaps corresponding to biblical Ismael164).165 Both Arab
chiefs were eventually captured and sent to Nineveh. During the third
phase (641–638 bc), a second campaign was waged against the Arab
tribes in the Syrian desert; the Assyrians, now with the backing of the
Nebayot, defeated them again. A glimpse at the ferocity of these wars
can be seen in the wall decoration of Ashurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh,
where the Arab soldiers are shown in battle mounted on camels, while
the Assyrian soldiers are depicted committing atrocities against their
defeated enemies, including the slaying of Arab women (figure 52.5 and
figure 52.6).166
For the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, our information about
the Syro-Arabian region is meager. For the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
II, the Babylonian Chronicle only reports that in his sixth year, in
599/598 bc, Nebuchadnezzar’s armies “took much plunder from the
Arabs, their possessions, animals and gods.”167 The context suggests that
Nebuchadnezzar’s Arabian campaign was part of an effort to subju-
gate the states of Syria, the Levant, and, ultimately, Egypt. It is against
this historical backdrop that we should understand the allusions to the
Qedarites—jointly with the poetic synonym “sons of the East” (bene
Qedem)168—in Jeremiah’s oracle against the Arabs, together with their
tents, flocks, and camels.169
163. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 3: viii 25–32.

164. Knauf 1989: 1–9.
165. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 23: l. 111.
166. Dubovsky 2003.
167. Grayson 1975: Chronicle 5: rev. 9–10; see Eph‘al 1982: 171; Retsö 2003: 176.
168. Attested also in Ezek 25:4, 10.
169. Jer 49:28–29.
273
Figure 52.5. Assyrian soldiers assaulting an Arabian camp, as depicted on

a wall relief from Ashurbanipal’s North Palace at Nineveh (Room L, Panel
9). British Museum, London. © Trustees of the British Museum. Creative
The most important case of an ancient Mesopotamian power

involving itself with Arabian affairs was Nabonidus’s famous cam-
paign to Syria, Edom, and northern Arabia from 553−551 bc and the
establishment of his residence in the oasis town of Tayma for ten years
(553−543 bc; chapter 50 in this volume). Nabonidus claimed to have
conquered six oases in northwestern Arabia: Tema (Arabic Tayma),
Dadanu (Arabic Dedan), Padakku (Arabic Fadak), Hibra (Arabic
Khaybar), Yadihu (Arabic Yadi‘a), and Yatribu (Arabic Yathrib, mod-
ern Medina).170 A recently discovered relief and cuneiform inscription
170. Schaudig 2001: no. 3.1: i 22–25; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 47: i 22–
25; see Eph‘al 1982: 180–181 and Retsö 2003: 182–183.
274
Figure 52.6. Assyrian soldiers pursuing Arabian forces mounted on camels, as depicted on a wall relief from Ashurbanipal’s
North Palace at Nineveh (Room L, Panel 12). British Museum, London. © Trustees of the British Museum. Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
275
at al-Hait, some 260 km southeast of Tayma, with the figure of a king

holding a staff and a text mentioning king Nabonidus and the place
name Padakku (Arabic Fadak, probably the ancient name of al-Hait),
gives credence to Nabonidus’s account.171 The reasons for Nabonidus’s
move to Arabia have been much debated, and include political factors,
religious motivations, and an alleged illness.172 However, if we look at
the actual consequences of Nabonidus’s campaign beyond the contem-
porary sources’ stark political-religious rhetoric, the fact is that the list of
conquered Arabian cities aligns with the north-south running Arabian
trade routes. Even if only briefly, Babylon directly controlled the Arabian
overland trade without the intermediation of local powers such as Edom
and Tayma.
Although the Neo-Babylonian Empire proved short-lived and rapidly
fell to the armies of Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 bc (chapter 54
in this volume), little is known about the extent of Persian involvement
in Arabia. The inscription of the so-called Cyrus Cylinder from Babylon
claims that “all the kings of the West Land living in tents, brought their
heavy tributes and kissed my feet in Babylon,”173 but this is the usual
royal rhetoric we have already seen in the Assyrian and Babylonian
sources. Most of what we know is related, as previously discussed, to the
mutually beneficial relationship established between the Persian Empire
and the Arabs living in the Negev and Sinai, which was probably initi-
ated during Cambyses’s Egyptian campaign in 525 bc. A similar situa-
tion may have occurred with the Arabs living in Syria, northern Arabia,
and especially Mesopotamia. Private letters from Nippur, Sippar, and
Uruk, dating to the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods, attest
the presence of Arabs living in these Mesopotamian cities and engaging
in a variety of economic activities.174 That one settlement located in the
Nippur region had the name “city of the Arabs” (ālu ša Arbaya) is further
171. Hausleiter and Schaudig 2016; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 54.
172. Schaudig 2001: 19.
173. Schaudig 2001: no. K2.l: ll. 28–30; see Eph‘al 1982: 201.
174. Eph‘al 1982: 188–191; Retsö 2003: 190–191.
276
evidence of the level of integration Arabs attained into the daily life of
urban Mesopotamian societies after a long process that started during
Assyria’s heyday.
52.3.4. Tayma
While most of the population of northern Arabia during the first mil-
lennium bc lived by nomadic pastoralism, our main material evidence
comes from the urban centers that grew in the local oases. The best
known of these is Tayma, located next to a seasonal lake (sabkha) and
palm oasis between the Hejaz mountains and the Great Nafud Desert,
some 400 km southeast of Aqaba. The ancient town was encircled
by an 18.2-km-long wall system with additional walled compounds,
enclosing an area of approximately 9.5 km2 that was never entirely
occupied.175 Contrary to early archaeological interpretations that saw
the growth of Tayma as starting in the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age,176
current excavations have revealed evidence of sedentary occupation
from the end of the fourth millennium bc. The settlement seems to
have expanded substantially around the mid-second millennium bc,
providing itself with a massive enclosure wall of mudbricks and sand-
stone. Although no buildings have been found from this period, cir-
cular “warrior burials,” with weapons as funerary objects, have been
excavated in the nearby area of al-Nasim. They have been provision-
ally dated to the second millennium bc but probably extend to the
mid-first millennium bc. One of the buried weapons was a fenestrated
axe typical of the urban societies of Syria and the southern Levant in
the late Early Bronze Age and early Middle Bronze Age, showing con-
tacts with the north.177 These finds are consistent with the evidence of
human occupation since the early part of the Late Bronze Age from the
175. For a general history of Tayma, see Hausleiter 2010; Hausleiter and
Eichmann 2018.
176. Parr 1982.
177. Hausleiter and Zur 2016.
27
oasis settlement of Qurayyah, 280 km northwest of Tayma, although

so far the archaeological vestiges are restricted to pottery production;
we have no architectural remains.178
Firm archaeological evidence, including monumental architec-
ture, only appears in Tayma in the Early Iron Age (twelfth–tenth/
ninth centuries bc), most of which is related to the period of Egypt’s
hegemony during the Ramesside period (chapter 28 in volume 3). The
most impressive of these remains is a rectangular building excavated
in the town section known as Qrayyah (Area O), enclosed by at least
one row of pilasters and containing a paved forecourt area. It has been
identified as a temple based on the cultic items found within, includ-
ing Egyptian votive figurines, vessel fragments, and a human-headed
faience scarab.179 A rock inscription with a cartouche of Rameses III
was recently discovered west of Tayma, similar to rock inscriptions of
this pharaoh engraved in central Sinai and the southern Negev on the
desert routes to the mines of Serabit el-Khadim and Timna; it confirms
the presence of a royal Egyptian expedition into northern Arabia, but
nothing more can be said about it.180 Egyptian interests in the area of
Timna and the Sinai were related to royal mining expeditions with the
aim of extracting copper and turquoise. The inscription at Tayma, how-
ever, would be the first indication of an attempt to use a land route and
participate directly in the long-distance trade in south Arabian aromat-
ics without the need for middlemen.181 The discovery of large quanti-
ties of north Arabian Qurayyah-type decorated pottery at the Timna
copper smelting sites, brought by the north Arabian people working
there,182 suggests that the Egyptians were aware of the mining oppor-
tunities in Arabia.
178. Luciani and Alsaud 2018.

179. Hausleiter 2013: 314–317.
180. Somaglino and Tallet 2011.
181. Somaglino and Tallet 2011: 515–516.
182. Rothenberg and Glass 1983.
278
The end of the mining “boom” of the Early Iron Age is probably the
reason behind the absence of monumental architecture during the suc-
ceeding centuries. Most of the later evidence comes from cemeteries in
the environs of Tayma, particularly those at Sana’iye and Tal’a, dated
between the ninth and fifth centuries bc. These cemeteries consist of
rectangular burial structures, some of them collective, with mortuary
assemblages attesting to some social stratification, including in partic-
ular faience objects in the style of the Egyptian Twenty-sixth Dynasty
(chapter 49 in this volume), including a scarab and an Udjat eye. Small
funerary steles with carvings and inscriptions referring to the deceased
in Taymanitic (so the modern designation for the local script)183 were
associated with some of these graves.184 A local pottery known as Tayma
Painted Ware, decorated with geometric motives that probably derive
from the Qurayyah pottery of the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age, is typical
for this period.185
Coinciding with the growth of the Arabian incense trade, Tayma
appears for the first time in the textual sources of the eighth century bc.
In an Anatolian hieroglyphic inscription from Carchemish, dated ca.
800 bc, the regent Yariri boasted that he knew twelve languages and at
least four scripts (chapter 46 in volume 4), among them the Taimaniti
script—almost certainly a reference to the script used in Tayma or the
alphabets of Arabia in general.186 We do not know the context of the
relationship between Tayma and Mesopotamia until the mid-eighth
century bc, when the ruler of Suhu plundered a camel caravan of the
“people of Tayma and Saba” (sections 52.2.2 and 52.3.3), clearly an indica-
tion of the central role played by Tayma in the interregional trade of that
time. Decades later, the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon
II of Assyria describe the Taymanites, alongside other peoples includ-
ing the Sabeans, as bringing gold, silver, all kinds of aromatic plants, and
183. Macdonald 2010.

184. Hausleiter and Zur 2016: 140–142.
185. Tebes 2013b: 323–324; 2015; Hausleiter 2014: 414–418.
186. Macdonald 2010: 42.
279
camels.187 From this time on, Tayma appeared in the Assyrian inscrip-
tions of the eighth and seventh centuries bc in the context of trade or
military operations.188
Tayma’s most famous historical period was when the Babylonian
king Nabonidus resided in the city for ten years between 553 and 543
bc (chapter 50 in this volume). As already indicated, Nabonidus’s army
traversed southern Transjordan and subdued Edom, after which the
Babylonian texts indicate that Nabonidus killed the king of Tayma and
built a palace “like the palace in Babylon.”189 Paradoxically, Nabonidus’s
residence in Tayma still cannot be linked to any building, although local
inscriptions attest his presence in the area. On a fragment of a stone
stele with a typical Mesopotamian rounded shape which was found in
the rubble of a Lihyanite temple in Area E (see below in this section),
the name of the king and regnal year have disappeared, but the stele has
stylistic characteristics that are unique to the monuments of Nabonidus,
particularly the engraved symbols of the moon god Sîn (lunar disk and
crescent; a deity particularly favored by Nabonidus), the sun god Šamaš
(sun disc), and the goddess Ištar (the star of Venus). The arrangement
of the inscription, which the badly preserved text identifies as a votive
dedication naming Babylon’s deity Marduk and his wife Zarpanitu, is
comparable to the rock-relief of Nabonidus at Sela (as-Sila) in Edom
(section 52.3.1). Nabonidus’s name appears in a cuneiform inscription on
a disc-shaped object found in the same context, presumably the pedes-
tal on which the king’s stele was once placed.190 To this, we must add a
group of Taymanitic inscriptions found in the outskirts of Tayma. They
were written by officials who served Nabonidus, and were probably of
187. Tiglath-pileser III: Tadmor and Yamada 2011: no. 42: l. 27′; no. 44: l. 9′; no. 47: rev.
3′. The inscriptions of Sargon II mention Sabeans, but not Taymanites: Frame
2021: no. 1: ll. 120–125; no. 43: l. 20. See chapter 53 in this volume.
188. Eph‘al 1982: 87–89; Schaudig 2013: 514.
189. Schaudig 2001: no. P1: ii 24′–29′ (Verse Account); cf. Eph‘al 1982: 180.
190. Eichmann et al. 2006: 169–174; Weiershäuser and Novotny 2020: no. 56
(stele); no. 57 (pedestal).
280
Arabian origin, with titles such as “mrd the servant of Nabonidus, the
king of Babylon” (mlk bbl) and “’nds, the overseer of the king of Babylon”
(mlk bbl).191
After the fall of the Persian Empire, Tayma’s significance declined
in parallel with the ascending importance of the Lihyanite dynasty of
Dedan in the south. We do not know much about this transfer of power,
but rock inscriptions in the environs of Tayma record “wars” between
Tayma and Dedan, Massa and Nabayat. This resulted in a considerable
diminution in the size of the site, a process that can be seen in the con-
struction of the inner wall surrounding the ancient center of Qrayyah
and the abandonment of large areas south and southwest of the settle-
ment. Another consequence of Tayma’s decline was the shift of the burial
grounds toward the settlement, which resulted in the new burials cover-
ing the Early Iron Age temple remains.192 Tayma seems to have fallen
under the hegemony of Dedan, to judge from the artifacts found in the
Qrayyah area which probably came from an excavated building identi-
fied as a temple (Tayma, Area E); these artifacts include four inscriptions
of King Tulmay of Dedan and fragments of large royal statues identi-
cal to those found at al-Khuraybah (ancient Dedan; section 52.3.5).193
These finds seem to mark the end of Tayma’s heyday and the beginning
of Dedanite hegemony.
Most of the little we know about the cults of Tayma comes from
inscriptions in Aramaic, complemented by excavations at three local
temples. The most important source is the so-called Tayma Stone, a
stele with a representation of a king standing beneath a winged disk
and, below him, a priest standing before an altar with a bull’s head. The
associated Aramaic inscription records the introduction of the new cult
of the god Salm (slm)—a deity also mentioned in other local sources.
Two other “gods of Tayma” are mentioned: Asima (‘sym) and Sangila
(sngl). These deities were not Arabian, but Aramaic, and were probably
191. Hayajneh 2001; Al-Said 2009b.

192. Hausleiter and Zur 2016: 161–162.
193. Hausleiter 2013: 311–314; Hausleiter and Eichmann 2018: 36.
281
introduced as early as the Neo-Assyrian period, when trade relation-

ships with Syria were at their peak.194 We have already mentioned the
excavations at the Early Iron Age temple in Area O and the post-Persian
period temple in Area E. A third temple is an elongated building known
as Qasr al-Hamra, located to the north of the settlement; although origi-
nally believed to date to the Babylonian period, it was possibly occupied
later. Excavations at the site discovered several cultic objects. One was
the so-called al-Hamra stele, containing an Aramaic inscription with a
dedication by a person probably connected with the dynasty of Lihyan
mentioning the deities Salm, Sangila, and Asima and featuring carved
divine astral symbols. Another was the al-Hamra Cube, a pedestal/altar
containing ritual scenes with astral and bull symbols.195
52.3.5. Dedan
We can only speculate about the processes by which Dedan achieved
ascendancy over Tayma from the few Lihyanite objects and inscriptions
found there, and even less is known about the early political history
of Dedan.
Ancient Dedan was situated some 135 km southwest of Tayma in a
narrow but very fertile valley surrounded by mountains, at an important
intersection of the route leading to Mesopotamia via Tayma or Syria
and the route to Egypt via Edom. This location was key to its success
in trade with Arabia. Like Tayma, settlement at Dedan was apparently
geographically scattered across different sites along the valley and on
the surrounding mountains, but unlike Tayma, no evidence of city walls
encircling any of the sites has been found.
The archaeology of Dedan is in its early stages and fieldwork is cur-
rently underway in several locations, so the following comments should
be considered provisional.196 The area of al-‘Ula, in the southern part of
194. Maraqten 1996; Hausleiter 2013: 299–302.

195. Hausleiter 2013: 304–310.
196. See Bawden 1979; Al- Zahrani 2007; Al- Said 2010: 266–
268; Al-
Hasan
2010: 274; Rohmer and Fiema 2016; Al-Said et al. 2018.
28
the valley where the modern town is located, was probably a residen-
tial area, with remains of house foundations and walls. The site of al-
Khuraybah, about 3 km to the northeast, is the most promising area,
containing a group of tombs, of probably Lihyanite date, cut into the
mountain. Current excavations have revealed the remains of a rectan-
gular temple, surrounded by corridors, dedicated to the Lihyanite deity
Dhu-Gabat, with several cultic objects including fragments of statues of
kings of Lihyan and sacrificial tables. This was not the earliest settlement
in the area, because below the Lihyanite structures lies a building dating
to the Dedanite period. Jebel Dedan, to the east of al-‘Ula, is another
important site featuring Lihyanite tombs cut into the mountain cliff
with decorated entrances, including tombs for members of the south
Arabian Minaic community who lived in Dedan.
Other sites north of al-‘Ula include: Ikmah, with several religious
inscriptions; Tell al-Kathib, where a religious structure has been exca-
vated; and Khief el-Zahrah, which has evidence for having been an agri-
cultural center and has remains of irrigation installations. To judge from
the recent discovery of a sherd of the al-‘Ula/al-Khuraybah type in the
earliest levels of Madain Salih, situated some 22 km to the north of al-
‘Ula, this site was probably part of the Dedanite kingdom, although it
is most famous because of its later Nabatean remains. The local pottery
known as al-‘Ula/al-Khuraybah pottery is very difficult to date; it con-
sists of painted wares with geometric decorations, although plain wares
have also been found. It has been suggested this decorative style derived
from the painted motifs in “Edomite” pottery, although this sort of dec-
oration formed part of a larger pan-Hejazi pottery tradition, including
the earlier Qurayyah and Tayma wares.197
Dedan was justly famous for its wealth from trade. In the Bible,
Dedan is associated with mercantile activity in conjunction with Qedar,
Sheba, and Raamah.198 The biblical references to Dedan alongside the
Sabeans were not random, because Dedan was, in fact, an important
197. Tebes 2013b: 326–327; 2015.

198. Isa 21:13; Ezek 27:15, 20–22; 38:13.
283
juncture for south Arabian traders. As early as the late fifth or early fouth
century bc, a colony of south Arabian Minean merchants was estab-
lished at Dedan. Several Minean inscriptions found at the capital city of
Ma’in (ancient Qarnawu) record marriages between Minean individuals
and foreign women, among them nine women from Dedan (in second
place after Gaza). Minean inscriptions engraved at Jebel Dedan attest
their presence and their commercial activities.199
The history of Dedan is traditionally divided into two periods: a
still poorly known Dedanite period with local rulers and a succeeding
period under a Lihyanite dynasty. That there were kings there is clear
from Nabonidus’s claim to have defeated a “king of Dedan” (šarru ša
Dadana),200 but few are known by name in the local inscriptions in
Dadanitic (the designation for the local script).201 A gravestone inscrip-
tion from al-‘Ula mentions a certain Kabir’il, son of Mata‘’il, who is
called “king of Dedan” (mlk ddn), while another one refers to Mata‘’il,
son of Dharah’il, possibly his father.202 A newly discovered inscription
found in a secondary context close to the main temple at al-Khuraybah
mentions the name of another king, “Asi, king of Dedan” (‘sy mlk ddn),
and has a dedication to the god Tahlan.203 Probably dating to the time
of the Persian Empire is the previously discussed inscription found near
al-‘Ula which reads “gšm bn šḥr and ‘bd governor of Dedan,” although
its relationship with Nehemiah’s adversary Gešem the Arab and Gešem,
king of Qedar of the Tell el-Maskhuta silver bowl, is uncertain. At some
point between the fifth and fouth centuries bc and continuing well
into Hellenistic times, the kingdom of Dedan was succeeded by a line
of Lihyanite kings.204 From the several Lihyanite inscriptions found at
199. Farès-Drappeau 2005: 49–51; Al-Said 2009a: 97.

200. Schaudig 2001: no. P4: v 20 (Royal Chronicle); cf. Eph‘al 1982: 181.
201. Macdonald 2010.
202. Jaussen and Savignac 1909–1914: no. 138 (Dedanite inscription); cf. Potts
2010: 44.
203. Al-Said 2011.
204. Al-Hasan 2010.
284
al-‘Ula, we know some eight names, who are identified by the title “king”
(mlk) and “chiefs of the society” (kbr h-š‘t).205
Local inscriptions attest Dedanites deities such as Gadd and ‘Ara‘il
and early Lihyanite deities, including Dhu-Gabat, Ba‘al-šamin, Han-
‘Uzzai, and ‘Aglibun.206 Worship of these deities took place in the many
temples excavated at al-Khuraybah, Ikmah, and Tell al-Kathib.
52.4. In conclusion
The peoples of northern Arabia, and to a lesser extent those living in
the arid belt of the Levant, once considered backwaters, are now firmly
placed in the history of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations. The com-
bined historical and archaeological data allow us to paint a broad, albeit
sketchy, picture of the development of these local societies during the
Iron Age.
There is a consensus that the majority of the local peoples relied on
nomadic pastoralism as their major economic pursuit, complemented
with limited agriculture in circumscribed ecological niches such as the
Edomite and central Negev highlands, and the northern Hejazi oases.
It is true that our data indicate wider engagement in other economic
activities—particularly copper mining in the Arabah Valley beginning
in this period and mediation in the trade in south Arabian aromatics
extending into later times; this did not of course mean less involvement
in nomadic pastoralism, which for all purposes constituted the main
subsistence strategy for the whole period.
However, the rise of local polities in the arid southern Levant and in
northern Arabia during the Iron Age constituted a clear break from pre-
vious periods. Even if our knowledge of their development is still very
much dependent on outside textual sources from neighboring regions,
the almost contemporary developments observable for Edom in south-
ern Transjordan, for the tribes and tribal confederacies in the Negev
205. Farès-Drappeau 2005: 100.

206. Farès-Drappeau 2005: 79–96; Potts 2010: 47.
285
and the Syro-Arabian Desert, and for Tayma and Dedan in the north-
ern Hejaz, make it clear that these polities and communities responded
to comparable external influences and internal forces. External influ-
ences include the tribal groups that controlled key trade infrastructures
such as the south Arabian overland routes and natural resources such as
the local copper mines, as these resources allowed them to expand their
sphere of influence, either by military conquest or by financial means.
Among the internal forces at play, population growth and the restricted
availability of key resources led to the increasing complexity of social
hierarchies.
Lastly, it should not be forgotten that, even if our sources suggest a
coherent pattern of successive political hegemonies—from Edomites to
Qedarites, from Taymanites to Dedanites to Lihyanites—the informa-
tion available to us is incomplete, and certain social developments and
political events may be entirely unknown to us.
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29
53
Early Saba and Its Neighbors

Norbert Nebes
53.1. Introduction
In contrast to much of the Arabian Peninsula, southwestern Arabia is a
self-contained cultural area that, despite numerous external influences
and internal dynamics, retained its cultural, political, and linguistic inde-
pendence from its historical beginnings in the early first millennium bc
until the end of Late Antiquity in the sixth century ad (figure 53.1a, b).1
Already by the beginning of the first millennium bc, highly devel-
oped communities (polities) with writing and monumental architecture
and associated social and religious institutions emerged in the wadi del-
tas that drain the Ramlat as-Sab‘atayn on the desert edge of the Rub‘
al-Ḫali in what is today the Republic of Yemen (figure 53.2).
The most important of these was Saba (Sabaic sb’). Its core comprised
the region of Marib and Ṣirwaḥ, but it extended into a large part of the
northern highlands. To the northwest of Marib, in the large Wadi al-
Jawf, numerous cities began to emerge contemporaneously with the
1. I would like to thank Iris Gerlach (Berlin) and Helen Wiegleb ( Jena) for their
critical review of the manuscript. The chapter was translated from German into
English by D. T. Potts. In contrast to other chapters in this series, diacritics have
been retained in the spelling of South Arabian toponyms and other names.
Norbert Nebes, Early Saba and Its Neighbors In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Edited
by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0053
30
Figure 53.1a. Sites mentioned in chapter 53. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri

(LMU Munich).
first historical beginnings in the Sabean area. Eventually, Qarnawu

(modern Ma‘in) and Yaṯill (modern Baraqiš) merged to form what was
later known as the kingdom of Ma‘in. To the southeast of Marib, in the
wadis Ḥarib and Bayḥan, lie the Qatabanian heartland and its main city
Timna. The Qatabanian kings and their allies, the Walad ‘Amm, the
latter of whom settled in the southern highlands with Radman and its
capital Wa‘lan as its core, controlled an area which extended southwest
301
Early Saba and Its Neighbors 301
to the Jebel al-‘Awd, not far from Ẓafar, the later capital of Ḥimyar, and
to the Bab al-Mandab on the Red Sea. To the east lay the funnel-shaped
entrance to the great wadi Ḥaḍramawt, on the southern edge of which
was Šabwat, the ancient capital of Ḥaḍramawt, considered the real start-
ing point of the Incense Route.2
The livelihood of these polities was based on highly developed irri-
gation agriculture. Precipitation brought twice a year by the monsoon
rains over the extensive mountain ranges of Yemen was intercepted
by structurally complex irrigation systems on the mountain edges and
distributed to the oases, making several harvests per year possible. The
wealth of the Sabeans and their neighbors was based not only on their
ability to transform desert into fertile, cultivated land, but also to a large
2. Müller 1978: 723.

302
Figure 53.2. Southern Arabia in the first millennium bc, with the Incense Route from Šabwat to Nagran indi-
cated. Adapted by Karen Radner from Nebes 2016: 118: Karte 2.
30
extent on the trade in incense and other spice plants native to southern
Arabia, to which authors of Greco-Roman antiquity referred when they
wrote of the legendary wealth of the Sabeans.3 As early as the eighth cen-
tury bc, the Sabeans sent their caravans to Gaza on the Mediterranean
and to Mesopotamia. Around the middle of the first millennium bc, the
Mineans took an active role in overland trade by establishing a settle-
ment at Dedan (modern al-‘Ula) in northwestern Arabia. Their mer-
chants traded as far away as Egypt and Mesopotamia and even left their
inscriptions on the Greek island of Delos.
At the latest, with the occupation of Egypt by the Romans in the thir-
ties of the first century bc and the associated rise of the Ḥimyar, much
of this overland trade shifted to the sea route, as a result of which the few
ports on the southern Arabian coast, such as Qani’ (modern Bi’r ‘Ali),
founded in the first century bc, and Samarum (modern Ḫor Rori), the
Indian port of Ḥaḍramawt, located not far from Salala, gained in impor-
tance. The second and third centuries ad were marked by warlike con-
flicts between the northern highland dynasties that succeeded the kings
at Marib and the Ḥimyar in Ẓafar. In these campaigns the Abyssinians,
who had established themselves on the western Yemeni lowlands, in the
Tihama, to the north at Nagran, and in the southwestern core of the
peninsula, intervened in mutual coalitions. Toward the end of the third
century, Yemen was unified by the Sabean-speaking Ḥimyar, who con-
verted to Jewish-influenced monotheism in the mid-fourth century.
The focus of the following account is on the Old Sabean period.
This begins with the start of continuous epigraphic documentation in
the Sabean region in the eighth century bc and extends to the begin-
ning of the fourth century bc, when the Sabeans lost their dominance
over southern Arabia and ceded it to their northern and southern neigh-
bors, the kings of Qataban and Ma‘in.4 Due to the nature of the written
sources, political history is the focus of this chapter.
3. For the reason why authors such as Strabo associated the name Arabia eudaemon/
Arabia felix with southern Arabia, see Müller 1978: 734; for the use of this name
by classical writers, see Retsö 2000.
4. For further history, see the overview in Robin 2015 and Avanzini 2016.
304
53.2. The written testimonies and their

historical significance
In addition to a large number of historical sites and archaeological
remains, the study of which has made significant progress in recent
decades,5 a characteristic of ancient South Arabian cultural landscapes
is their abundance of epigraphic documents. These provide detailed
insight into the history, society, and culture of Saba. The corpus, cur-
rently comprising about 12,000 inscriptions, is written in four language
varieties, under the generic term “Epigraphic South Arabian” (ESA).6
The most important of these is Sabaic, which, with over 6,500 inscrip-
tions, not only has the most textual evidence compared to neighbor-
ing Minaic, southeastern Qatabanic, and eastern Ḥaḍramitic, but also
had the longest period of use, over 1,400 years, from the ninth century
bc to the sixth century ad. The individual idioms that correlate with
the above-mentioned political entities are characterized by significant
linguistic differences, and by just as many similarities. Depending on
whether the similarities or differences in grammar and lexicon are given
greater weight, a closer or more distant linguistic relationship is assumed
among these idioms in each case.7 In addition, they all used a common,
monumental, alphabetic script consisting of twenty-nine consonants.
The texts were carefully carved in stone by professional stonemasons, cast
in bronze, or carved on bronze objects.8 The monumental writing style,
characterized by its reduction to simple geometric forms, was designed
for public display, which determined, to a large extent, the content of
these inscriptions (figure 53.3). They were placed in public spaces, mostly
5. See, e.g., Müller 2001a; 2014.

6. Overview of written sources in Avanzini 2016: 23–33.
7. Compare most recently Stein 2020: 338–340, according to whom Sabaic is to
be distinguished linguistically and historically from Minaic and Ḥaḍramitic,
and who no longer speaks of ESA but of Sabaic versus non-Sabaic languages in
this space.
8. Jändl 2009.
305
Figure 53.3. The inscription documenting the deeds of Yiṯa‘’amar Watar inside the ’Almaqah temple in Ṣirwaḥ.
Photograph courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Irmgard Wagner.
306
in sanctuaries.9 They were attached to city, temple, and house walls, to

tombs and altars, to wells and irrigation works, as well as to prominent
places on rock outcrops. According to their content, they have been
assigned to particular text groups, such as dedications,10 building,11
tomb,12 and legal inscriptions.13 In addition, there are many fragments
and a large number of graffiti which, as in northwestern Arabia, consist
of only personal names.
The texts are bound to certain forms, and their language is standard-
ized. In the choice of linguistic means of expression they are sober, rigid,
and limited to the communication of the essential facts. Despite these
limitations in both linguistic form and communicated contents, the
texts can be very detailed and extensive, and they provide, despite their
highly variable numbers across space and time, the basic information for
the reconstruction of the history of the Sabeans and their South Arabian
neighbors. They provide insight into the organization of the various pol-
ities and their economic and legal foundations; they convey a differenti-
ated picture of social groups, beginning with the early Sabean rulers who
called themselves Mukarribs (Sabaic mkrb), to kings, tribal leaders, and
functionaries, down to simple tribal members and numerous client asso-
ciations. Additionally, they document a diverse world of their own dei-
ties, which clearly differed from the rest of the Ancient Near East. Last
but not least, the inscriptions are an invaluable source of information on
the history of political events and historical topography, for example in
the case of the deed reports of the early rulers from the early first millen-
nium bc (see below, section 53.8) or the dedications of kings and their
tribal leaders from the first three centuries of the Christian era, on the
basis of which the course of entire military campaigns can be traced.14
9. Nebes 2022: 17–25.

10. Multhoff 2011.
11. Nebes 2011b.
12. Stein 2011.
13. Nebes 2004.
14. Beeston 1976; Nebes 2005a.
307
Figure 53.4. Palm leaf rib with minuscule Sabean inscription. Reproduced
from Stein 2010a: pl. CLXXIX (X.BSB 188).
Another type of written evidence, the first examples of which only

came to light in Yemen during the 1970s, has a completely different
value as a historical source.15 These are so-called minuscule inscriptions
carved on palm leaf ribs, 20–30 cm long, and on lengths of other types
of wood (figure 53.4). These were written in a cursive script character-
ized by rounded lines, which bears little resemblance to the contempo-
raneous monumental script. Of the roughly 870 published specimens,
15. Ryckmans et al. 1994; Stein 2010a; Maraqten 2014.

308
only about 350 have been translated.16 This is due to the ambiguity of
individual letter forms and the new, still largely unknown vocabulary.
In contrast to the monumental inscriptions, this type of writing was not
designed for public display, but for rapid notation and archiving. This is
reflected in the content of the texts. In addition to an extensive corpus of
letters, there are documents from everyday legal and economic life, such
as accounts, receipts, obligation certificates, and the like, as well as writ-
ing exercises and a few cult-related records.17 As a means of expression
of written communication in everyday life, this text genre is comparable
to the clay tablets of Mesopotamia or the papyri of Egypt. For regional
economic and social history, as well as for the history of writing and writ-
ing practice in southern Arabia, it provides valuable insights, but the his-
tory of political events has not yet been significantly represented in the
minuscule inscriptions. Compared to the monumental inscriptions on
stone and metal, however, the wooden sticks have the advantage that cer-
tain early periods can be chronologically delimited by the radiocarbon
method (see below, section 53.4).18
Finally, with their legends and iconography, coins minted from the
fourth century bc until the unification of Yemen under the Ḥimyar
toward the end of the third century ad also provide information on the
history of rulership in southern Arabia.19
53.3. External sources

The first references to the Sabeans outside southern Arabia appear in
Akkadian cuneiform texts. Around the middle of the eighth century
bc, Ninurta-kudurri-uṣur, the ruler of Suhu on the Middle Euphrates,
reported a raid on a caravan consisting of people from the northwest-
ern Arabian oasis city of Tayma and from Saba, listing among the booty
16. Stein 2019a: 336–337.

17. Stein 2010a: 35–39.
18. Stein et al. 2016.
19. Robin 1996: 1201–1204; Munro-Hay 2003; Stein 2010b.
309
200 dromedaries, as well as alabaster from southern Arabia.20 A few years

later, inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria (744–727 bc) from
his palace in Kalhu (modern Nimrud) named Saba as a tribute bringer
among a number of northwestern Arabian population groups.21 It is
assumed that the Sabeans in this context were a Sabean trading settle-
ment in northwestern Arabia, similar to the Minaeans at Dedan/al-‘Ula
a few centuries later.22 Of importance especially for the early first millen-
nium bc and thus for the period under consideration here, is the men-
tion of two Sabean rulers by name in the annals of the Assyrian kings
Sargon II (721–705 bc)23 and Sennacherib (704–681 bc),24 which pro-
vides important clues to the chronology of this period (section 53.4).
20. Frame 1995: S.0.102.2: iv 27′–37′: “With regard to the people of Tayma and
Saba, whose own country is far away, whose messengers had never come to me,
and who had never travelled to me, their caravan came near to the water of the
well Martu and the well Halatu, but passed by and then entered into the city of
Hindanu. I heard a report about them at midday in the town of Kar-Apladad
and harnessed my chariot. I crossed the river during the night and reached the
town of Azlayanu before midday the next day. I waited in the town of Azlayanu
for three days, and on the third day they approached. I captured one hundred
of them alive. I captured their 200 camels, together with their loads—blue-
purple wool, . . . wool, iron, pappardilû-stones, every kind of merchandise. I took
abundant booty from them and brought it into the land of Suhu.” Cf. Liverani
1992: 112.
21. Tadmor and Yamada 2011: no. 42: ll. 27′-33′ (with parallel passages in nos. 44
and 47: “The people of the cities of Mas’a and Tayma, the Sabeans, the people
of the cities of Hayappa, Badanu, and Hatte, and of the Idiba’ilu (tribe), who are
on the border of the western lands, whom none (of my predecessors) had known
about and whose countries are remote, heard about the fame of my majesty and
my heroic deeds, and they beseeched my lordship. As one, they brought before
me gold, silver, camels, she-camels, and all types of aromatics as their payment,
and they kissed my feet.”
22. Robin 1996: 1118.
23. Frame 2021: no. 1: ll. 123–124: “I received as tribute from Pir’û [i.e., the title pha-
raoh], king of Egypt, Samsi, queen of the Arabs, and It’amar [i.e., Yiṯa‘’amar] of
Saba, kings from the seashore and desert: gold, ore from the mountains, precious
stones, elephant ivory, seeds from ebony trees, every kind of aromatic, horses,
and camels.”
24. Thus in inscription from Assur, dated to ca. 683 bc: “While laying the foun-
dation of the New Year festival house (in the city of Assur), the audience gift
310
Of much less significance are the reports in the Bible. First and
foremost is the legendary report of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to
Solomon, who is said to have carried large quantities of gold, aromatics,
and precious stones.25 The epigraphic sources from the early first millen-
nium bc contain no references to diplomatic missions (section 53.8), nor
are women rulers attested either at this date or later. The Old Testament
knows the Sabeans as a merchant people and supplier of incense, gold,
balsam, and precious stones,26 which can be regarded as evidence of trade
relations between southern Arabia and Palestine already at that date.27
Information becomes more concrete after the campaign of
Alexander and then in Roman and late Roman times, when southern
Arabia increasingly came into geopolitical focus as the maritime hub
of the sea route to India. Writing in the third century bc, the author
Eratosthenes, as recorded by Strabo, distinguished the four major south-
ern Arabian ethnic groups, named their capitals, and had an idea of the
Qatabanian dominion, which rose to regional supremacy in southern
Arabia, as confirmed by epigraphic evidence from this period.28 Strabo
provides a detailed account of the campaign of the second prefect of the
Augustan province of Egypt, Aelius Gallus, who in 25/24 bc arrived
with two legions at the Sabean capital Marib, which he unsuccessfully
besieged.29 Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus and later Pliny and others pro-
vide detailed descriptions of the South Arabian incense and other aro-
matic plants native to the ancient world.30 The seafaring manual Periplus
of Karib-il, king of the land Saba—pappardilû-stone, choice stones, and fine

aromatics—was presented to me and from that audience gift I laid stones and
aromatics in its foundation.” (Grayson and Novotny 2014: no. 168: ll. 48–51).
For the historical context, see chapter 39 in volume 4.
25. 1 Kgs 10:1–13, 2 Chr 9:1–12.
26. Incense: Jer 6:20, Isa 60:6; gold: Ps 72:15; balsam and precious stones: Ez 27:22.
27. Knauf 1994: 118–122; Müller 2001b: 387–388.
28. Str. 16.4.2.
29. Str. 16.4.23−24.
30. Müller 1978: 715–722.
31
maris Erythraei, written by an anonymous author in the first century

ad, informs us about the topographical and political situation on the
South Arabian coasts and their hinterland.31 Philostorgius’s Ecclesiastical
History provides a brief glimpse of the religious-political upheavals of the
350s, when the kings of the Sabean-speaking Ḥimyar professed mono-
theism.32 Finally, the Byzantine historiographer Procopius described the
religious-political conflicts near the Bab al-Mandab in the first quarter of
the sixth century, when the Christian Ethiopians intervened in southern
Arabia and put an end to the rule of the southern Arab tribal elites led
by the last native king to profess Judaism, Yusuf ḏu Nuwas of the Arab
tradition.33
53.4. Chronology
The earliest appearance of archaic South Arabian letters occurs on
painted pottery from the temple complex of Raybun in the Wadi Daw‘an
in Ḥaḍramawt, dating to the late second millennium bc on the basis of
the radiocarbon-dated archaeological context from which they derive.34
Another early date, no later than 900 bc, was obtained via radiocar-
bon dating for a minuscule inscription incised on a wooden stick.35 The
inscriptions on the pillars of the Five-Pillar Building at Ṣirwaḥ also date
from this period (section 53.5).36
For the majority of the epigraphic finds from South Arabian archaeo-
logical contexts are missing, and, when they exist at all, only a few can
be connected to concrete historical events. As for the monumental
inscriptions, which primarily contain historical information, only a few
reasonably secure dates are available for the first millennium bc. One
31. Periplus Maris Erythraei, §21−§26.

32. Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica 3.4.
33. Procop. Pers. 1.20; see Gajda 2009: 73–109; Nebes 2010a.
34. Sedov 1997: 43–47.
35. Stein 2013: 191; Drewes and Ryckmans 2016: 14–15.
36. Gerlach 2013: 265; Gerlach and Schnelle 2016: 114; Nebes 2016: 51.
312
absolute date exists from the end of the first millennium bc. It comes
from a Nabatean-Sabean bilingual inscription, found in the sanctuary
of the main Sabean god, ’Almaqah, at Ṣirwaḥ, and is a dedication to the
Nabatean deity ḏu Ġabat dated to the third year of the Nabatean king
Arethas IV, corresponding to 7/6 bc. It was probably placed there by a
Nabatean merchant in the aftermath of the Aelius Gallus campaign.37
Two dedications, one from Marib, the other possibly from ancient Našq
(modern al-Bayḍa’) in the Jawf, both of which are addressed by individu-
als from eastern Arabia to their deity Šams, date to the second and sev-
enth years of Seleucus, respectively. This is likely to have been Seleucus
I Nicator, and thus both inscriptions may have been composed around
300 bc.38
The most important data for the Old Sabean period of the early first
millennium bc and thus for the period under discussion here are pro-
vided by two monumental deed reports from the ’Almaqah sanctuary in
Ṣirwaḥ, set up by the Sabean rulers Yiṯa‘’amar Watar and Karib’il Watar.
A whole series of reasons suggests that these two Mukarribs, as the rul-
ers of the Old Sabean period called themselves, were the Sabean rulers
mentioned as It’amar and Karib-il in the annals of the Assyrian kings
Sargon II and Sennacherib, respectively (section 53.3).39 On the basis of
the dates 715 and 685 bc obtained from this, a relative chronology can be
established using paleographic criteria, as developed by Herrmann von
Wissmann,40 starting from the synchronism Karib’il//Sennacherib and
drawing on the paleography of Jacqueline Pirenne.41 It can be observed
particularly clearly that the development of writing and writing style was
strongly determined by the political situation in southern Arabia. For
the Old Sabean period, which is characterized by the dominance of the
37. Nebes 2006: 10. Cf. Robin 2019: 244, according to whom the inscription proves
the presence of a Nabatean garrison at Ṣirwaḥ.
38. Robin and Prioletta 2013: 162–163, 167.
39. Nebes 2007; 2016: 54–56.
40. von Wissmann 1982.
41. Pirenne 1956.
31
Sabeans, after an early phase from 900 bc with partly still archaic let-
ter forms, the classical expression of writing was reached in the period
of the deed reports. In the reign of Karib’il, that is, in the early seventh
century bc, when the Sabeans were at the height of their power, the clas-
sical letter forms were established and became the standard throughout
southern Arabia.
The loss of Sabean supremacy in the fourth century bc was also
accompanied by a modification of the written forms in South Arabian.
In the Middle Sabean period, which, after a transitional period, began
in the first century bc and ended around the mid-fourth century ad
with the abandonment of the temples, the strict geometry of the writ-
ten forms, characterized by rectangularity, circularity, and propor-
tionality, was abandoned, along with the alternating directionality of
successive lines—boustrophedon—and replaced by acute angularity,
serifs, and other characteristics, as well as a uniform, right-to-left writ-
ing direction. Politically, this period was one of upheaval. In the late
first century ad, the traditional dynasty in Marib was replaced by the
northern highland dynasties, which subsequently provided the kings
of Saba and dominated the political map of Yemen for more than two
centuries in warlike confrontations with the Ḥimyar. The chronology
of this period, and that of subsequent centuries, is no longer based on
paleographic criteria, but is well documented by dates. The inscrip-
tions of the Ḥimyar are dated according to a fixed era, which began in
110 bc.42
The last phase of Yemen’s pre-Islamic history, the Late Sabean period,
which is characterized by the unification of Yemen under Ḥimyarite rule,
the abandonment of the temples, and the conversion to monotheism,
also found expression in a particular script form. An essential charac-
teristic of the inscriptions from this period is their letterforms. These
were generally carved out in relief and thickened, and have a compact
appearance.43
42. Most recently, Robin 2010: 360–362.

43. For a summary of the development of writing, see Stein 2013: 188–191.
314
Even if the periodization of the individual epochs of Sabean history,

which mutatis mutandis also applies to the other South Arabian poli-
ties, is divided on purely external, i.e., paleographic, features into Old,
Middle, and Late Sabean, these terms are not mere formal criteria, but
also reflect the political situation and, in particular, changing power rela-
tions in South Arabia. Furthermore, they are reflected in the archaeo-
logical finds and other archaeological features of each period.
53.5. The Sabean heartland: Marib

and Ṣirwaḥ
The oasis of Marib (Old Sabaic mryb; in later times mrb) lies about 135
km east of the present capital Sanaa in the dry delta of the Wadi Ḏana
(Sabaic ’Aḏanat/’ḏnt) on the eastern foothills of the northwestern cen-
tral Yemeni highlands (figure 53.5). The oasis is surrounded by the lime-
stone cliffs of Jebel Balaq to the southwest, by lava fields to the north,
and by the Ramlat as-Sab‘atayn to the southeast, the pre-desert of the
great Rub‘ al-Ḫali. The course of the wadi divides the 10,000-hectare
oasis into a northern and a southern half, which are first mentioned in
the late eighth-century bc deed report of Yiṯa‘’amar as Yasran (Sabaic
ysrn) and ’Abyan (Sabaic ’byn) .44 The Qur’an preserves an awareness of
this when it speaks of the Sabeans’ dwellings as a fertile land (Arabic bal-
datun ṭayyibatun) with two gardens to the left and to the right (Arabic
ǧannatāni ‘an yamīnin wa-šimālin).45
The ancient city itself is located in the southern part of the north-
ern oasis on what is now the northern bank of the wadi. Surrounded
by a 4-km-long, partially still standing city wall, up to 14 m thick in
some places, which encloses a trapezoidal-shaped area of almost 100
hectares, Marib is one of the largest ancient city complexes in south-
ern Arabia. Although, from the late 1970s until 2006, only prelimi-
nary investigations were conducted by the German Archaeological
44. Nebes 2016: 10, 13 (DAI Ṣirwāḥ 2015–50/1).

45. Qur’an, Surah 34:15.
315
Figure 53.5. Map of the oasis of Marib. Adapted by Karen Radner from Seipel 1998: 180.
316
Figure 53.6. The city of Marib. Photograph courtesy of Deutsches

Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Iris Gerlach.
Institute (DAI), the settlement history of the site can be traced back
to the early second millennium bc. Individual functional areas can
also already be identified within the city complex, for example in the
south, where magnetometer surveys have revealed a residential zone
with houses of different sizes covering an area of 7 hectares. A larger,
open area with individual sacred buildings, but without recognizable
residential development, which is accessible via three city gates, served
as a storage area for trade caravans and as a transshipment point for
goods.46 A large mound with its tower-like, modern mud houses, which
until a few years ago formed the visible, picturesque skyline of Marib
(figure 53.6), does not, however, represent an ancient tell, as long sus-
pected, but a buildup of sediments and organic material from the last
500 years. Actual ancient settlement remains are buried here beneath
46. Eichmann and Hitgen 2003: 58.

317
12 m of sediment and a 1.5-m-thick layer of sand.47 Immediately to the

west, at the foot of this large hill, on an ancient ground level, stands an
imposing temple complex with a courtyard and eight propylon pillars,
which was converted into a mosque in Islamic times.48 As shown by half
a dozen inscriptions,49 this is the great city temple Ḥarun, dedicated to
the main Sabean god, ’Almaqah.
Despite the fact that approximately 700 inscriptions are known from
the Marib oasis, not counting the hundreds of texts from the ’Awam,
the main temple of ’Almaqah, only a few inscriptions can be linked to
the construction and architectural history of the city, in contrast to the
situation at neighboring Ṣirwaḥ. The multi-phase construction history
of the city wall, which spanned centuries,50 is documented by several
inscriptions, the oldest of which dates to the eighth century bc and
informs us that a certain Mukarrib built a particular section of the wall.51
A fragmentary deed report from the sixth century bc, which was prob-
ably erected by Yiṯa‘’amar Bayyin, a builder of the southern part of the
Great Dam (section 53.11), states that he built the two gates of Marib, in
addition to reinforcing the city wall with towers.52 And finally, a whole
series of identical inscriptions by the Sabean king Yada‘’il Watar from the
late first century bc, some of which are built into the northern struc-
ture of the Great Dam as spolia, attest to a final phase of construction
on the ancient city wall.53 The royal palace Salḥin or Salḥum,54 as it was
called in Old Sabean times, has not yet been located. Possibly it must be
47. Eichmann and Hitgen 2003: 56.

48. Finster 1986a; Gerlach and Schnelle 2013: 212 n. 23.
49. Multhoff 2021: 29–38.
50. Finster 1986b.
51. von Wissmann 1982: 104; Müller 1991: 559; Multhoff 2021: 230.
52. Müller 1991: 560; Nebes 2005a: 332–335; Multhoff 2021: 275–277.
53. von Wissmann 1976: 32–33; Multhoff 2021: 219–230.
54. Müller 1986a: 145–147; 1991: 561.
318
sought under the Great Mound. Karib’il mentions in the second part of
his account of his deeds that he added an upper story to the palace,55 so
that the building must have existed by the early seventh century bc. The
palace played a special role as a symbol of legitimate succession and rule
for the later kings who reigned after the traditional dynasty in Marib at
the end of the first century ad.56 The palace, which in later times was a
complex of buildings (Sabaic ’bytn/slḥn), probably also housed the royal
mint.57 It was destroyed in the course of the Ethiopian invasion in 525.
According to a fragmentary inscription from Marib written in Ge‘ez,
the Ethiopian king Ella Atzbeha reported that he burned the “palace of
Saba.”58
A processional road, attested by inscriptions59 but not yet archaeo-
logically, led from the city temple Ḥarun to the ’Awam temple, 3.5 km
to the southeast, the main sanctuary of ’Almaqah in Marib and the larg-
est temple complex in southern Arabia (figure 53.7). This sanctuary, now
known as Maḥram Bilqis, is spectacular not only because of its dimen-
sions. Excavations by the American Foundation for the Study of Man
(AFSM) in the early 1950s brought to light an archive of over 300 stone
documents,60 on the basis of which Yemen’s political history of the first
three post-Christian centuries can be reconstructed in outline.61 These
were placed or reused in the pavement of the peristyle hall, where excava-
tions by the AFSM were resumed in 1998. The peristyle hall is also the
main entrance to a huge courtyard, surrounded by an oval enclosure wall,
which has not yet been excavated over a large area. The enclosure wall
was built, if not in its entirety then to a large extent, in the mid-seventh
55. Nebes 2016: 82, 85 (R 3946/5).

56. Korotayev 1996: 99–100.
57. Müller 1991: 561; more cautiously, Munro-Hay 2003: 31.
58. Müller 1972: 62–63, 68 (DJE 1+2/18); Nebes 2010a: 49.
59. Maraqten 2004.
60. Jamme 1962.
61. Beeston 1976; Nebes 2005a.
319
Figure 53.7. Aerial photograph of the ’Awam temple with the necropolis.
Photograph courtesy American Foundation for the Study of Man /Zaydoon
Zayd.
century bc,62 as confirmed by the monumental inscription of Yada‘’il

Ḏariḥ (see below in this section), copied by Eduard Glaser when he vis-
ited Marib in 1888,63 on an ashlar block in the outer wall.64 According to
epigraphic evidence, the peristyle forecourt appears to have been built a
century earlier, and it underwent several more construction phases after
the seventh century bc.65
Directly adjoining the temple wall to the south is a necropolis cov-
ering ca. 1.5 hectares, which has a ground plan similar to a city plan. In
mausoleum-like buildings, which were excavated in selected areas by
62. Zaid and Maraqten 2008: 328–330.

63. von Müller and Rhodokanakis 1913: 137.
64. von Wissmann 1982: 183–187; Zaid and Maraqten 2008: 328–330.
65. Zaid and Maraqten 2008: 333, 337.
320
the DAI between 1997 and 2001, the dead were presumably placed in
flexed positions on several floors.66 Numerous inscriptions adorn the
outer façades of the tomb buildings, which, as is customary for any
form of building in southern Arabia, bear a name. Notably, however,
these are not the sort of funerary inscriptions usually known from pre-
Islamic Arabia, naming the deceased and his family and placing the
tomb and the deceased within it under the protection of a deity. Rather,
they are acquisition deeds in which not only the minute shares of often
several buyers, who may well belong to different clans, are noted, but
even the previous owners of the grave shares are named.67 However,
importance was attached to the identification of the dead by name. This
was done simply by means of a ceramic sherd attached to the deceased
on which his or her name was carved, or in more elaborate form on
the grave steles with an alabaster head inserted and the name of the
deceased inscribed (figure 53.8).68 Estimates have shown that, given the
total estimated area of the cemetery, about 20,000 men, women, and
children were buried during the course of over 1,000 years from the
eighth century bc to the fourth century ad.69 Even if only a few per-
sons are identified as functionaries so far, the buried belonged to the
leading clans in the oasis for whom this form of burial was reserved, as
their names show.
Not far to the west of the ’Awam temple we encounter another
’Almaqah sanctuary in the southern oasis, which is one of the few tem-
ple complexes in southern Arabia that has been fully excavated and is
therefore the best studied to date (figure 53.9). The Bar’an temple had
several predecessors, the oldest of which dates back to the tenth cen-
tury bc.70 The main components of the monumental building complex
66. Gerlach 2002.

67. Nebes 2002a.
68. Gerlach 2003: 92–94; 2017: 356–363.
69. Gerlach 2003: 89.
70. On the excavations in the Bar’an temple undertaken by the DAI, see Vogt et al.
2000; Vogt 2003.
321
Figure 53.8. Funerary stele of ‘Umaymum from the ’Awam necropolis (find
number AW98 A 2344). Photograph courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches
Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Johannes Kramer.
visible today date to the end of the Old Sabean period in the sixth–fifth
centuries bc and consist of a temple podium with a pillared propylon
and a staircase in front, as well as a rectangular courtyard with gallery.
The well in the courtyard was constructed much earlier, according to the
foundation inscription in the seventh century bc, and the massive mud-
brick enclosure wall, which was intended to shield the temple from the
continuous rise of irrigation sediments, was erected shortly before the
32
Figure 53.9. Bar’an temple. Photograph courtesy of Deutsches

Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Iris Gerlach.
Christian era. On the one hand, the epigraphic evidence confirms the
construction history, according to which the wall of the inner courtyard
as well as the gallery with its large alabaster reliefs on the side walls and
numerous altars were donated or erected by high-ranking clan members,
and by members of Marib clans not identified by a title. On the other
hand, it also documents about a millennium of dedicatory practice right
up to the third century ad, from numerous dedications of persons and
land to the temple, to dedications of individual statuettes in the Middle
Sabean period.71 Finally, some texts also provide insight into the admin-
istrative organization of the temple, according to which a community of
temple administrators exercised overall supervision of the site and was
responsible for its security and protection.72 The complete absence of
early royal inscriptions as part of the construction history of the complex
is conspicuous. Inscriptions and statuette dedications commissioned by
71. Nebes 2005b.

72. Nebes 2004: 306–307; Multhoff 2021: 130–131.
32
kings only appeared in the sanctuary’s latest phase of use, in the third
century ad.
Shortly before the beginning of the Christian era, the sanctuary was
destroyed and probably also looted. It has long been suspected that this
was directly related to the campaign of Aelius Gallus in 25/24 bc. The
apparently unsuccessful siege of Marib (according to Strabo) affected
both the Bar’an temple and large parts of the oasis. After repair work
and the reopening of the temple, a re-dedication of the sanctuary was
performed. Dedications were no longer addressed to “’Almaqah, the
lord of Bar’an,” but to “’Almaqah, the lord of Maskat and who dwells in
Bar’an.”73
In addition to the temples of the main Sabean god ’Almaqah,74 the
oasis also contained the cult centers of other deities. However, these are
attested only epigraphically and have not yet been identified archaeo-
logically. For example, a brief foundation inscription from the late eighth
century bc reports the construction of the temple of the deity Hawbas
by Yiṯa‘’amar.75 The Nagran-based camel breeders’ association of the
’Amir, with its dependencies on the inner South Arabian stretch of the
Incense Route (section 53.8), attested as early as the eighth century bc,
maintained the temple Watar in the oasis for its deity ḏu Samawi.76 In a
temple called Nafaq, the deity Saḥr, depicted with a dragon head sym-
bol,77 was worshipped and is associated with the clan in the oasis of the
same name.78
Well-known far beyond Yemen and famous in antiquity, the Marib
dam complex is located about 10 km west of the settlement (figure
73. Nebes 2005b: 116–117.

74. On ’Almaqah and his sanctuaries both inside and outside the Sabean heartland,
see Robin 2018: 96–102.
75. Nebes 2016: 80–81.
76. Nebes 2002b: 135.
77. Grohmann 1914: 71–72.
78. Nebes 2009: 273 fn. 15.
324
Figure 53.10. The southern building (“Südbau”) of the Great Dam of Marib.
Author’s photograph.
53.10).79 The basic principle of the system may be briefly explained, even
if the details of the functions of its individual components are much
more complex. After the narrowing of the Balaq Mountains, the ’Aḏanat
wadi is closed off where it exits onto the plain by a 680-m-long, 20-m-
high earthen dam connected to the two outlet structures set into the
rock on the north and south banks of the wadi. The floodwaters from
the twice-yearly rainfall (Arabic sayl), which are generated by the sum-
mer monsoon over the mountains, are led directly into regulating basins
via the massive outlet structures set in stone and from there flow into
two main channels, from which they are led out of the wadi to the fields
via a highly dispersive distribution system. In this way, sufficiently moist
and, thanks to the alluvial load, fertile soils are obtained, permitting the
cultivation of various crops.80
79. Most recently, Gerlach 2010.

80. Brunner 1983: 94–106.
325
Research has shown that the full closure of the valley was not
achieved until the sixth century bc. This is confirmed by the inscriptions
of the two Mukarribs Sumuhu‘ali Yanuf and his son Yiṯa‘’amar Bayyin
on the southern structure81 and is also referred to in a fragmentary deed
report presumably set up by the aforementioned Yiṯa‘’amar Bayyin.82
However, massive irrigation facilities had already been constructed fur-
ther downstream at the edge of the wadi bed,83 possibly those referred to
in the second part of the account of Karib’il’s deeds.84 The earliest writ-
ten evidence of an irrigation structure dates from the late eighth century
bc, the essential components of which are mentioned by the builder, a
chief of the tribe residing at the headwaters of the wadi, in several rock
inscriptions from the southern edge of the Qibli and surrounding area.85
The overall system required constant maintenance. Individual com-
ponents became increasingly vulnerable, especially due to the continu-
ous sedimentation of the oasis by sayl irrigation. Maintenance demanded
both human resources and suitable political conditions in the oasis in
order for repair work to be carried out quickly and effectively before
the arrival of the next season’s rainfall. Major dam failures in 454/455
and 547,86 reported in the inscriptions of the Ḥimyarite king Šuraḥbi’il
Ya‘fur87 and Abreha, the Ethiopian viceroy in Yemen, respectively, attest
to the immense human and logistical resources and, not least, the feats
of engineering required to quickly restore the system’s functionality. For
the three-month-long repairs that he undertook, Abreha, who had the
north sluice rebuilt on top of Šuraḥbi’il’s previous building,88 not only
81. Müller 1988: 637–638; Multhoff 2021: 204–206.

82. Nebes 2005a: 334.
83. Herberg 1986.
84. Müller 1986b; Nebes 2016: 83, 85 (R 3946/6).
85. Nebes 2015.
86. Müller 2010: 107–117; Gajda 2009: 130–135; Nebes 2005a: 363–367; Multhoff
2021: 262–275.
87. Müller 2010: 68–73, 75–76; Gajda 2009: 62–63; Multhoff 2021: 252–261.
88. Vogt 2007.
326
gathered the tribes from the region but also deployed his Abyssinian
troops. With the end of the Ethiopian interregnum of Abreha and his
sons in the 570s the political authority needed to initiate increasingly
necessary repairs was lacking. The final breach of the dam and the tem-
porary abandonment of the oasis occurred only a few decades later in
the early seventh century ad and was an event that had repercussions far
beyond Yemen, even leaving its literary traces in the Qur’an.89
About 40 km to the west of Marib, on the way to the highlands, lies
Ṣirwaḥ, the second urban center of the Sabeans. Connected with Marib
by a road laid out in ancient times,90 Ṣirwaḥ is strategically located on a
rocky expanse in the middle of an oasis, the fields of which are irrigated
by the highland sayl and are bordered by the eastern foothills of the
Ḫawlan Mountains.91 The city complex was surrounded by a wall before
900 bc,92 as attested by about three dozen, short identical inscriptions
of Yada‘’il bin Ḏamar‘ali, who is also the earliest datable Sabean ruler.93
Ṣirwaḥ covers ca. 3.8 hectares and is thus considerably smaller than
Marib. Unlike Marib, however, Ṣirwaḥ has been extensively investigated
archaeologically.94 The area within the city fortifications is dominated
by sacred and administrative buildings (figure 53.11). Settlement, how-
ever, is attested archaeologically to the northeast of the city and may be
related to the settlement policy of the Sabean kings in post–Old Sabean
times.95 Two impressive buildings in the urban area—one a palatial-
administrative building from the Old Sabean period,96 the other an
89. Qur’an, Surah 34:16.

90. von Wissmann 1982: 346–349.
91. Schnelle 2007: 45–47.
92. Schnelle 2021: 66 with n. 12.
93. Nebes 2016: 58 n. 219.
94. Schmidt 2007; Gerlach and Schnelle 2016; Gerlach 2021: 39–41 and 39, n. 1, with
further literature on the excavations undertaken by the DAI in Ṣirwaḥ.
95. Gerlach 2021: 40–41; Nebes 2004: 298–300.
96. Gerlach 2021: 40 with n. 8, fig. 1 (Building B).
327
Figure 53.11. The sacred precinct of Ṣirwaḥ. Adapted from Gerlach and Schnelle 2016: 110.
328
administrative building from the second century bc97—confirm that

Ṣirwaḥ played an important role as a transshipment point for trade
goods. That it was also involved in intra–South Arabian overland trade
in later times and was an important station on the route through the
Ḫawlan to the highlands is shown by the aforementioned Nabatean-
Sabean bilingual, which was erected by a Nabatean merchant in the
’Almaqah temple at Ṣirwaḥ shortly before the turn of the Christian era
(section 53.4). As can be seen from a legal document written a short
time later, the merchants of Ṣirwaḥ maintained trade relations with
Qataban to the southeast as well as the highlands around Sanaa to the
west.98
Particularly striking is the large number of sacred buildings within
the limited urban area, for which Ṣirwaḥ has been considered, not with-
out reason, an early religious center of the Sabeans. In addition to the
great temple of ’Almaqah, there are four sacred buildings,99 two of which
can be identified epigraphically. A square, poorly preserved building on
the north side of the courtyard complex is probably the Raḥab temple of
the female deity ‘Aṯtar Šayimim, who is also mentioned throughout the
centuries in the final invocations of the dedications from Ṣirwaḥ.100 The
other, smaller temple, named Maḥliy, is dedicated to the goddess ’Aṯirat,
a native of the Qatabanian pantheon101 who corresponds to the bibli-
cal ’Ašerah.102 Epigraphic information on construction history, however,
is found only in the ’Almaqah Temple, the largest sanctuary in the city
complex. A fundamental remodeling of the sanctuary took place in the
mid-seventh century bc under Yada‘’il Ḏariḥ, who had already emerged
as a temple builder at the ’Awam temple in Marib. Next to the temple
propylon with its six monolithic pillars, he erected the peribolos wall,
97. Japp 2019; Gerlach 2021: 40 fig. 1 (Building C).

98. Preliminary Nebes 2016: 32 with n. 128.
99. Schnelle 2021: 67–69.
100. Gerlach 2021: 41 fig. 2 (Building B); Schnelle 2021: 69 fig. 2 (Building B).
101. Gerlach 2021: 41 fig. 2 (Building E), 48 fig. 7.
102. Stein 2019b.
329
Figure 53.12. The ’Almaqah temple in Ṣirwaḥ. Photograph courtesy of

Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Johannes Kramer.
which is preserved to a height of 10 m. Simultaneously, as part of the

city’s fortifications, it replaced an earlier building from the tenth cen-
tury103 which is attested by several identical monumental inscriptions on
the inner and outer sides of the perimeter wall.104
What makes this sanctuary stand out within the diverse South
Arabian city and temple landscape is the installation of two monumen-
tal inscriptions, parallel to each other, inside the temple in the cultically
most important area (figure 53.12).105 The left-hand limestone block,
over 7 m long and weighing 7 tons, is the deed report of Yiṯa‘’amar
Watar (figure 53.3);106 on the two right monoliths, one above the other
and inscribed on both sides, is that of Karib’il Watar (section 53.8). The
103. Gerlach 2021: 42.

104. Most recently, Nebes 2018.
105. Gerlach and Schnelle 2016; Gerlach 2021: 45–46.
106. Nebes 2016.
30
lifetime achievements of the two rulers are recorded in these reports.

After the mandatory references to sacrifices to the Sabean divine triad
‘Aṯtar, ’Almaqah, and Hawbas,107 most of the text is an enumeration
of military campaigns which are meticulously described. There follows
mention of the acquisitions and purchases of cities, of entire land-
scapes, and even of individual fields within and outside the Sabean
heartland by the two Mukarribs. Likewise, the enclosing of cities by
walls, the agricultural development of the oasis of Marib through irri-
gation works, and other construction projects, in the case of Karib’il,
are discussed in detail. These texts, which were written during the
reigns of the Assyrian kings Sargon II (721–705 bc) and Sennacherib
(704–681 bc), not only represent the longest and most important his-
torical sources for southern Arabia in the first millennium bc, they also
reveal something about the self-image of the Sabeans and their rulers at
that time. They show us the Sabeans at the height of their power, fully
justifying the central position given to these inscribed stone monu-
ments, which stood for over 1,000 years, flanking both sides of the area
where the altar stood.
53.6. The formative phase

The formative phase, by which is meant the period before the appearance
of urban cultures in southern Arabia, i.e., before the tenth century bc, is
still largely unknown and can only be sketched in a hypothetical fashion.
The Bronze Age cultural landscapes of the Yemeni highlands, both the
maritime-oriented Sabir culture near Aden and the Bronze Age settle-
ments in Ḫawlan and near Ḏamar, have been researched intensively in
recent decades,108 but they cannot be considered direct precursors of the
South Arabian urban polities that arose in the oases, at least if we con-
sider architectural criteria as an indicator. Recently, archaeologists have
favored endogenous development, according to which the Sabean urban
107. Robin 1996: 1155–1161.

108. Most recently, Buffa 2007 (with earlier literature).
31
formations ultimately derive from proto-urban sites, which would have

developed around irrigation systems in the dry deltas.109
Another hypothesis is that cultural contacts played a special role
in the formation of the South Arabian polities and provide a possible
explanation for the appearance of cities. With the Levant, these contacts
began in the Neolithic110 and intensified toward the end of the Late
Bronze Age via the Incense Route after the domestication of the drom-
edary. Thus, one of the alphabetic scripts circulating in the northwestern
Semitic region in the fourteenth century bc reached southern Arabia
via the Incense Route, where it formed the basis of early monumental
inscriptions in a graphically modified form.111 It is also possible that
impulses toward significant constructional and architectural innova-
tions, which were essential prerequisites of South Arabian urbanism and
are difficult to find in an exclusively endogenous process of development,
reached southern Arabia along this route.
It is still unclear in what particular way these and other technologies
were transmitted. This may have been via trade relations on the Incense
Route, as assumed for the alphabetic script.112 However, another form
of cultural transfer, which cannot be completely ruled out, may have
occurred via immigration of limited population groups that introduced
new ideas and skills into the oasis cultures and thus contributed mean-
ingfully to the formation processes, which culminated in the appearance
of cities.113 A distant and later parallel is provided by the documented
emigration of Sabeans from Marib and the central Yemeni highlands
to Tigray in the northern Horn of Africa, where a massive transfer of
109. Mouton and Schiettecatte 2014: 171.

110. Buffa 2007: 302–303.
111. Hayajneh and Tropper 1997.
112. Knauf 1989.
113. For a discussion, see Avanzini 2016: 46–49, who, however, argues for an exclu-
sively endogenously determined development. In contrast, immigration of cer-
tain population groups from the Northwest Semitic region is considered likely
for comparative linguistic reasons by Nebes 2001; Kottsieper and Stein 2014.
32
culture and technology from southern Arabia took place in the tenth
century bc (section 53.10).
The formative phase was concluded by the tenth century bc at the
latest. In the Sabean heartland we can chart this in innovations in build-
ing technology and architecture at Marib and Ṣirwaḥ. For example, the
Five-Pillar Building at Ṣirwaḥ was constructed around 900 bc with a
new type of stone-working and backfilling technique using ashlars and
a hybrid of wood and stone masonry, which made multistory buildings
possible for the first time.114 The monumental city wall of Ṣirwaḥ was
constructed before 900 bc.115 In situ inscriptions confirm that it was
built by Yada‘’il bin Ḏamar‘alī, the earliest datable Sabean ruler. The
inscriptions here and on the pillars of the Five-Pillar Building show that
the development of monumental writing in the Sabean heartland was
already largely complete by this time.
53.7. The early cities in the Jawf

The valley of the Jawf River northwest of Marib played an important
role in the development of the emerging South Arabian polities.116 From
northwest to southeast, the largest wadi there, the Wadi Maḏab, extends
for over 100 km and offers ideal conditions for sayl irrigation and inten-
sive agricultural use thanks to an abundant supply of seasonal rainfall
and a low gradient. In no other wadi in Yemen do we find so many towns,
often only a few kilometers apart. Most of them are still unexplored
archaeologically, but from many of them we possess an amazingly rich
epigraphic record from the eighth and seventh centuries bc, written in
an early form of Minaic, which began toward the end of the ninth cen-
tury bc at a time when contacts in long-distance trade via the Incense
Route began to intensify. The role of these cities is twofold: on the one
hand, they form the gateway for cultural imports from the Levant and
114. Schnelle 2014: 381 with n. 66.

115. Gerlach and Schnelle 2016: 112.
116. For the following, see also Schiettecatte 2011: 44–95.
3
Mesopotamia to the north, passing them before arriving at Marib and

the other urban centers of Qataban, ’Awsan, and Ḥaḍramawt to the
south and southeast; on the other hand, they are of eminent strategic
importance. They form a corridor that controls the northern stretch of
the inner South Arabian caravan route that southern neighbors, first
and foremost the Sabeans, had to cross on their way north. Našq (mod-
ern al-Bayḍa’),117 Naššan (modern as-Sawda’),118 Kaminahu (modern
Kamna),119 Haram (modern Ḫaribat Hamdan),120 Qarnawu (modern
Ma‘in),121 and Inabba’,122 to name just the most important cities from
northwest to southeast, generally cover an area of up to 10 hectares each,
surrounded by massive masonry walls.123
Already at this early period, each of these cities was the center of an
autonomous polity, with the social organization as well as the political
and religious institutions that we encounter in the Sabean region and
in later southern Arabia, albeit in modified form in the following cen-
turies.124 The sociopolitical foundations of these polities are tribe, ruler,
and deity. The tribe is always territorially bound to a certain area or city.
In it, the leading clans set the tone, and were subdivided into individual
families. At the top of the social pyramid stood the ruler; in the cities
of Wadi Maḏab this was a king (mlk) who ruled over the tribe and its
associated city. He built the temples of the main deities, the city wall, and
irrigation structures for the community; he waged war, made alliances,
and presided over the main rites of the individual deities. He was assisted
by a legislative council made up of the tribal elite. Directly subordinate to
117. Schiettecatte 2011: 81–85.

118. Arbach and Rossi 2011; Schiettecatte 2011: 74–80.
119. Arbach and Rossi 2014; 2015: 16–27; Schiettecatte 2011: 70–73.
121. Schiettecatte and Arbach 2020; Schiettecatte 2011: 58–64.
123. Breton 1994: 99–113.
124. For the following, see also Avanzini 2016: 88–98.
34
him were tribal members (‘bd), personal confidants (mwd), and admin-
istrators (qyn).
Each of these early cities had a pantheon of a handful of deities
and a main deity with whom the city tribe was particularly associated.
Worshipped by all southern Arabian communities, ‘Aṯtar appears in
both male and female form elsewhere in the ancient Near East. Like
’Almaqah at Marib and Ṣirwaḥ, ‘Aṯtar had various epithets, depending
on the place and region in which he was worshipped. These epithets
often correspond to the name of his sanctuary, such as the extra muros
temple of ‘Aṯtar ḏu Riṣaf at Naššan which, according to radiocarbon
data, was built around 830 bc by Ab’amar Ṣadiq, the first attested ruler
of the city.125 The majority of the other deities worshipped in South
Arabia were specific to the region and, like ’Almaqah, were without
parallel elsewhere in the Near Eastern world. The main god of Naššan
was ’Aranyada‘; of Kaminahu, Nab‘al; of Haram, Yada‘sumuhu; and of
Inabba’, Hawar. Characteristic of the sanctuaries in this region and in
this early period is a common iconographic program. Thus, on the pillars
of the extra muros Riṣaf temple at Naššan (as well as on those of other
sanctuaries at Haram, Našq, and Qarnawu), are depicted—in addition
to ornamental decorations and images of ibex, antelope and bulls—
standing female figures, carved in bas-relief and in frontal view, who are
identified as “daughters of ’Il” (Minaic bhnt/’l)126 and referred to in the
secondary literature as the Banāt ‘Ād motif (figure 53.13).127 Scholars dis-
pute whether these acted as female mediators between the deities and
the cult community,128 or were merely female cult personnel129 who, in
later times, played an important role in the cult. Another scene of cultic
activity is depicted on a pillar in the ‘Aṯtar temple at Qarnawu130 where a
125. Arbach and Rossi 2011.

126. Robin 2012: 72.
127. Avanzini 2016: 90.
128. Robin 2012: 72.
129. Antonini 2003: 26; Antonini de Maigret 2012: 27–31.
130. Robin 2012: 77; Antonini de Maigret 2012: 40–41.
35
Figure 53.13. A pillar from Naššan /as-Sawda’, decorated with the so-called
Banāt ‘Ād motif. Drawing by Rémy Audouin. Reproduced from Avanzini
2016: 92.
36
row of male processionists with boomerang-shaped cult objects in their

right hands follow a larger person holding a staff in his right hand.131
This type of figural representation, which is also found on fragments
from Ṣirwaḥ, Marib, and elsewhere, disappeared at the latest with the
Sabean domination of Karib’il.132
The fact that the Sabeans were already deeply involved in the poli-
tics of the region at this time is not only evident from the slightly later
account of the deeds of Yiṯa‘’amar, but can also be proven archaeologi-
cally and iconographically. On the pillars of an intra muros temple at
Naššan, discovered in the course of a French survey in 2004, several reg-
isters placed one above the other depict, each in profile, two males fac-
ing each other or sitting on stools in the style of a ruler with long robes
and beards, an iconography strongly influenced by Syro-Mesopotamian
norms.133 Above each of these figures is the name of the main god of a
city in the Jawf. It is uncertain whether the figures are representations of
city gods or kings. If the former suggestion is correct, then these would
be the earliest evidence of anthropomorphic divine representations in
southern Arabia,134 which are completely lacking during the Old Sabean
period and only appeared when Hellenistic-Roman influence began to
be felt around the turn of the Christian era. The political implications,
on the other hand, are clear. In two reliefs, the figure assigned to the
city of Naššan by the city god ’Aranyada‘ sits opposite its counterpart
identified as ’Almaqah (figure 53.14).135 The iconographic ensemble on
the two pillars visualizes a political program in a cultic context: the alli-
ance between Naššan, Qarnawu, Haram, and Inabba’, with the Sabeans
as a powerful neighbor to the south allied with Naššan, underscoring its
leading role among the cities of the Jawf.
131. For a possible interpretation, see Robin 2012: 76–78.

132. Antononi 2003.
133. Arbach and Audouin 2004.
134. In this sense, Robin 2012: 70–72; Avanzini 2016: 95–97. In contrast, Gerlach
and Schnelle 2013: 209; Gerlach 2021: 47–48 express skepticism.
135. Arbach and Audouin 2004: fig. XII no. 3, fig. XIII no. 3.
37
Figure 53.14. Detail of the decoration of a pillar from the temple of the god
’Aranyada‘ in Naššan /as-Sawda’, depicting ’Aranyada‘ and ’Almaqah. Drawing
by Rémy Audouin. Reproduced from Avanzini 2016: 97.
53.8. The era of the Mukarribs’ deed reports

The monumental reports of the deeds of Yiṯa‘’amar and Karib’il pro-
vide, albeit only for the period from the late eighth to the early seventh
century bc, a coherent historical scenario, which in its basic features is
also valid for the following centuries.136 The conflicts of the Sabeans, as
reflected in the two deed reports, arose from the geographical location
of their capital. To the north, the cities of the Jawf restricted their free-
dom of movement along the Incense Route. To the south and southeast,
the proximity of their neighbors Qataban and ’Awsan posed a potential
136. For recent translations or partial translations with exhaustive bibliographical

references of Karib’il’s deed report (R 3945 +R 3946), see Müller 1985: 651–
658; Robin 2015: 118–122; Avanzini 2016: 261–304; Nebes 2016: 81–86. For a
translation and adaptation of Yiṯa‘’amar’s deed report (DAI Ṣirwāḥ 2005-50),
see Nebes 2016: 9–38; for what follows, also Nebes 2016: 60–72.
38
threat to Marib and the Sabean heartland, especially in the case of the
directly adjacent polity of Qataban. The main adversaries, as is clear in
both deed reports, were the kings and their cities in the south and south-
east, who challenged the Sabeans’ claim to power as the dominant factor
in the South Arabian political arena (figure 53.15). The proximate cause
of Yiṯa‘’amar’s campaign against his southern neighbors was a series of
violations of their alliance. Whether this was also preceded by concrete
acts of war that affected the Sabean heartland is unknown, but the possi-
bility cannot be excluded. Thus, the beginning of Yiṯa‘’amar’s deed report
states that he retaliated on behalf of his father Yakrubmalik, as well as
Marib and the oasis. In contrast to the cities in the Jawf, epigraphic evi-
dence with usable information from this period is lacking from the south
and southeast in all but a few cases.137
Neither from Timna nor from Hajar Yahirr, the urban centers of
Qataban and ’Awsan and the main adversaries of the two Mukarribs,
are inscriptions from the eighth century bc extant that shed light on
the period immediately prior to this conflict. This may be due to insuf-
ficient research, particularly considering the fact that Timna, a city
covering 23 hectares, has seen only very limited archaeological explo-
ration. The Italian excavations of Timna show that the settlement was
founded around 900 bc,138 and epigraphic evidence attests to the pres-
ence of many sanctuaries, both intra and extra muros.139 However, writ-
ten sources there only begin to appear increasingly around the mid-first
millennium bc. This is also true of the cities and sanctuaries in the rest
of Wadi Bayḥan, as well as in the neighboring Wadi Ḥarib. Yita‘’amar’s
deed report, on the other hand, clearly proves that Timna was already
one of the urban centers on the fringe of the Ramlat as-Sab‘atayn by the
late eighth century bc. Moreover, Qataban had already entered into an
alliance with the southern highland tribes at this time which, unlike
137. Avanzini 2004: 26, who does not place the few examples in question (see
Avanzini 2004: 50–52) before 700 bc for paleographic reasons.
138. de Maigret 2003: 263–264; Schiettecatte 2011: 149, 137–153 (summarizing).
139. Most recently Robin 2018: 107–113.
39
Figure 53.15. The military campaigns of Yiṯa‘’amar, ca. 715 bc. Adapted by Karen Radner from Nebes
2016: 119: Karte 2.
340
the cities in the Jawf, were unified religiously through the worship of
‘Amm as their main deity.140 The alliance of Qataban with the highland
tribes, who called themselves “sons of ‘Amm” (wld/‘m), lasted for cen-
turies until Qataban’s decline at the end of the millennium and was one
of the reasons for its rise in the second half of the first millennium bc.
The campaigns of Yiṯa‘’amar were directed against the Walad ‘Amm and
later against their allies in the hinterland. After Timna was captured and
the surrounding countryside devastated, including Wa‘lan, the capital
of Radman and center of the Walad ‘Amm in the southern highlands,
Yiṯa‘’amar’s report states as a result of his first campaign:
He (i. e., Yiṯa‘’amar) killed Naw‘um, the king of Timna, ‘Ammrata‘,

the king of Yanhagu, ‘Ammkarib, the king of Radman, Ḥimaśum,
the king of Yaḥir, Kabirhumu, the king of Yuhanṭil, Abyafa‘, the
king of the (inhabitants) of Wusr. He killed Qataban, Radman,
and the Walad ‘Amm, 3,000 in all.141
Many of these landscapes and the places mentioned in the monumental

reports can still be located today (figure 53.15). What is of particular inter-
est here, however, is the political undertone of this passage: thus the first
of the kings killed is identified not as king of Qataban but merely as king
of Timna, and the last is given the title king of the inhabitants of Wusr,
by which is meant the great Wadi Marḫa, the valley neighboring the
Wadi Bayḥan to the east, and the heartland of ’Awsan. From the Sabean
point of view, the two kings mentioned were usurpers, as implied in the
pejorative titulature. This is made even clearer by the subsequent actions
of the Sabean Mukarrib. He installed over Timna, whose destruction he
forbade, a king who was allied with the Sabeans and therefore legitimate.
The unnamed king of ’Awsan, in turn, was given back his territory, which
had been annexed by Qataban, because of his loyalty to the alliance.
Only a few decades later, under Karib’il, the political situation in
the southeast had changed fundamentally (figure 53.16). Saba’s main
140. On this deity and its shrines, most recently Robin 2018: 102–116.
141. Nebes 2016: 10 (DAI Ṣirwāḥ 2005-50/2).
341
Figure 53.16. The military campaigns of Karib’il, ca. 685 bc. Adapted by Karen Radner from Nebes
2016: 121: Karte 5.
342
opponents this time were not Qataban and the Walad ‘Amm, who, like
Ḥaḍramawt, were now allied with the Sabeans, but ’Awsan in the Wadi
Marḫa which, in the meantime, had brought under its control a vast
area extending from the western edges of the southern Ḥaḍramawt pla-
teau in the east, across large parts of the southern mountainous region,
including the coasts, as far west as the area north of Aden. In terms of its
dimensions, this conflict does not easily find a parallel in the centuries-
long history of southern Arabia, which is rich in accounts of war (section
53.2). On the Sabean side, the war was waged with bitter harshness. This
was due in no small part to the fact that Karib’il’s predecessor, Yiṯa‘’amar,
supported ’Awsan in their conflict with Qataban and the Walad ‘Amm
and helped it regain some form of political autonomy. Nor was the out-
come of the conflict quickly decided. Rather, it took three extended cam-
paigns before ’Awsan was defeated and its extensive territory annexed by
Saba or returned to its allies.
The ancient name of ’Awsan’s capital, presumed to be Hajar Yahirr,
the largest tell of the Wadi Marḫa, on the southern, lower reaches of
the wadi, is unknown.142 Apart from field surveys, including some mag-
netometer prospecting, and aerial surveys, the wadi is archaeologically
unexplored.143 A large number of sites, of which Hajar Yahirr has the
largest dimensions with 15 hectares,144 as well as an irrigated area of
nearly 7,000 hectares around Hajar Yahirr alone,145 demonstrate con-
clusively that ’Awsan was a formidable rival to the Sabeans. Eventually,
Karib’il’s adversary Muratta‘ was defeated in the Wadi Marḫa, but the
report is silent on his fate. The leaders of ’Awsan’s tribal elite were killed
and Maswar, Muratta‘’s palace, was destroyed. Following a widespread
ancient Near Eastern practice in warfare, the inscriptions there and in
the temples were obliterated. The entire wadi was depopulated, as 16,000
142. The line in question is destroyed in the place where the ancient name may have
been included.
143. For a summary, see Schiettecatte 2011: 154–161.
144. Bosshard 1996: 66; Brunner 1999.
145. Brunner 1997: 75.
34
enemies were killed and 40,000 prisoners taken. That these figures are
probably not inflated is suggested by the fact that ’Awsan never recovered
from this blow. Hajar Yahirr as well as the irrigation system around it
were abandoned, and settlement shifted up the wadi.146 ’Awsan disap-
peared from the scene as an independent political entity and only reap-
peared a few centuries later in the extensive titulature of the Qatabanian
rulers. It experienced a brief renaissance with its own kings in the second/
first century bc, when Qataban lost control over the Wadi Marḫa.147
The situation in the Jawf at the end of the eighth century bc, on
the other hand, posed no immediate threat to the Sabeans. Saba had a
political presence there. Naššan was a favored ally, whose leading posi-
tion among the rival cities in the Jawf received a lasting boost from
the Sabeans. When Kaminahu, only a few kilometers away, challenged
this position, campaigned against Naššan, and conquered it, Yiṯa‘’amar
intervened, besieging and defeating Kaminahu. On Yiṯa‘’amar’s express
orders, Kaminahu was not destroyed. Rather, the status quo ante was
restored through the restoration of the territories annexed by Kaminahu.
Yiṯa‘’amar dedicated an imposing bronze altar to the Naššanite city god
Aranyada‘ in his temple, the inscription on which refers to the events
described in the account of his deeds, and renewed the alliance with
Malikwaqah, the king of Naššan, by returning the cult image of the god
Aranyada‘, which had been carried off by Kaminahu, to its temple.148
A few decades later, the political situation had changed here as well.
The opponent was no longer Kaminahu, but Naššan. Under Labu’an,
with whom another genealogical line took power in Naššan, the alliance
between Saba and Naššan continued to be affirmed in the latter’s build-
ing inscriptions. Even under his son Sumuhuyafa‘, who later became
Karib’il’s main adversary in the Jawf, the relationship with the Sabeans
was at first friendly when Naššan participated as a confederate in the great
campaign against ’Awsan. The two campaigns that Karib’il undertook
146. Brunner 1997: 82–83.

147. Avanzini 2016: 201.
148. I. Gajda in Caubet and Gajda 2003: 1225–1233; Nebes 2016: 78–79 (AO 31929).
34
against Naššan after the defeat of ’Awsan therefore come as a surprise,

since neither violated their sworn covenant of loyalty, and other hostili-
ties on the part of the smaller partner were not mentioned in the deed
report. The reason behind their eventual rivalry, however, may have been
Naššan’s increasing power and territorial control over large parts of the
Jawf, for which the Sabeans were themselves partly responsible since, as
explicitly noted in Karib’il’s deed report,149 they promoted Naššan’s ter-
ritorial expansion. It is also likely that Sumuhuyafa‘’s father’s fortification
of Našq,150 Naššan’s nearby sister city, was interpreted by the Sabeans as a
defensive, and hence, unfriendly act. In any case, Sumuhuyafa‘ controlled
the entire middle and upper course of the Wadi Maḏab up to the forti-
fied city of Manhiyat,151 at the entrance to the wadi, which he lost, along
with the other cities and territories he controlled, as a result of Karib’il’s
second campaign.
The conflict with Naššan was more protracted than expected and
was only decided by a three-year siege of Naššan and Našq, during which
time Karib’il surrounded both cities with a siege wall. The measures
taken against Naššan after its conquest were recorded in detail: Naššan’s
royal palace ‘Afraw was destroyed; the city walls razed; tribute payments
were imposed; select people determined by oracular decree, presum-
ably from the tribal elite, were executed; and Sabeans were settled in
the city. Sumuhuyafa‘, whose life was apparently spared, was ordered
to erect a temple of ’Almaqah intra muros but, on Karib’il’s explicit
orders, the city itself was not burned. The large irrigation systems, which
extended beyond Naššan, were given to Naššan’s rivals and loyal Sabean
confederates, such as Yaḏmurmalik, king of Haram, and Nabaṭ‘ali, king
of Kaminahu. Formerly an opponent of Yiṯa‘’amar and now an ally of
Karib’il, Kaminahu was given the canal system that Kaminahu’s old rival
Malikwaqah, king of Naššan, had built. Našq was taken over entirely by
the Sabeans at this time and for centuries remained a Sabean enclave in
149. Müller 1985: 657 (R 3945/14-15).

150. I. Gajda in Caubet and Gajda 2003: 1233–1236.
345
the Jawf. Thereafter, Naššan retained some autonomy and was integrated
into the Minean kingdom around the middle of the first millennium bc.
The last of eight campaigns led Karib’il far to the north, to Nagran (in
modern Saudi Arabia) in the northernmost part of Arabia Felix, which,
at the junction of the Incense Route, was of particular importance for the
long-distance trade of southern Arabia.152 From there, a route branched
off to the northeast, passing through what would later become Qaryat al-
Fa’w, the great oasis city of the Kinda, through the Wadi Dawasir to the
Persian Gulf. The main route continued north via Yathrib (Medina of the
Prophet Muhammad) and Dedan (modern al-‘Ula) to Gaza, the staging
area for Arabian goods entering the Mediterranean network. With its
ancient capital Ragmat (biblical Ra‘ma),153 the Wadi Nagran is a fertile
oasis that was home to two great tribes, the Muha’mir and the ’Amir. The
’Amir were a camel-breeding association that maintained its dependen-
cies on the intra–South Arabian trade route and established a presence
in the territory of the Walad ‘Amm and south of Marib by the late eighth
century bc. Yiṯa‘’amar’s relationship with the ’Amir was apparently neu-
tral, at least commercially. Among other things, he acquired from them
a city and adjacent lands in the Wadi al-Juba, the neighboring valley
immediately to the south of Marib, which attests to this tribal federa-
tion’s extensive commercial relations with South Arabian actors even at
this early date. With the conquest of Nagran, the Sabeans secured this
important crossroads to the north. In addition to taking 12,000 pris-
oners, the Sabeans captured 200,000 head of cattle, camels, donkeys,
sheep, and goats. Despite this enormous bloodletting, the oasis must
have had immense resources since Karib’il imposed additional tribute on
it. Nagran remained, it seems, under Sabean control even after Karib’il’s
reign, and for over a century it was not again attacked by the Sabeans.
Even if Karib’il’s campaigns and, to a lesser extent, those of his pre-
decessor Yiṯa‘’amar were not concentrated solely on the cities along the
Incense Route and their hinterland but were much more wide-ranging,
152. Schiettecatte 2011: 296–308.

153. Knauf 1994: 115–117.
346
both Mukarribs achieved an essential goal through their actions. The

main intra–South Arabian route of the Incense Route was firmly in
Sabean hands or under Sabean control. To the east, Ḥaḍramawt, with
its capital Šabwat, which, according to Yiṯa‘’amar’s deed report, was not
yet involved in these conflicts, was an ally of Karib’il. ’Awsan, with its
capital Hajar Yahirr, was defeated and depopulated. Karib’il returned the
territories previously annexed by ’Awsan to Yada‘’il, king of Ḥaḍramawt,
and Waraw’il, king of Qataban. Qataban, with its capital Timna, and the
Walad ‘Amm, formerly enemies of the Sabeans, became the allies of the
two Mukarribs. The cities of the Jawf were either allied with the Sabeans
or under Sabean control. And, finally, with the conquest of the Nagran
oasis, the way north was clear for the Sabeans.
A number of measures served to secure this territory or access to it.
In addition to the fortification of cities, one characteristic measure of
Sabean expansionist policy at this time was their purchase. Thus, strate-
gically important places and cities outside the Sabean heartland, such as
Kutal154 and Kuhal,155 the logistical bases of the Sabeans of Marib on the
way to the Jawf, were acquired by Yiṯa‘’amar and surrounded by massive
city walls by Karib’il.156 In the neighboring valley to the south of Marib,
the Wadi al-Juba, a number of towns and cities were acquired by both
Mukarribs from the tribal leaders there and were walled to protect the
flank of the Marib oasis, which is open to the south.
53.9. The concept of rule of the

early Mukarribs
At the end of Karib’il’s reign, Sabean supremacy over southern Arabia
was consolidated. It extended from Nagran in the north to the Gulf of
Aden in the southwest, from there eastward along the coast, as far as the
western foothills of the Ḥaḍramawt plateau. Thus, at an early stage in

156. Breton 1994: 79–81, 83–84.
347
their history, the Sabeans’ area of rule and influence reached dimensions
that would not be seen again until 1,100 years later under the Ḥimyar,
from their capital Ẓafar. That the Sabeans had been the dominant
power in southern Arabia even before Karib’il is evident not only from
Yiṯa‘’amar’s account of his deeds, but also from their presence on the
northeastern end of the Incense Route. This is evidenced by the raid on a
caravan on the middle Euphrates by the local ruler Ninurta-kudurri-uṣur
around the middle of the eighth century bc, involving the Sabeans—but
not one of their southern Arabian neighbors—and the inhabitants of
Tayma in northwestern Arabia (section 53.3). Moreover, the dominance
of Saba and its importance beyond southern Arabia is manifested in the
diplomatic contacts that Yiṯa‘’amar and Karib’il established with the
Assyrian rulers Sargon II and Sennacherib at Dur-Šarrukin (modern
Khorsabad) and Nineveh, respectively.157
This dominance was based on an extensive system of alliances under
the direction of the Sabeans (Sabaic ’ḫwt), to which reference is made
not only in the deed reports but also in the final invocations of building
and other inscriptions from the non-Sabean area. We do not know how
these covenants were arranged in detail. It will certainly have made a dif-
ference whether a Sabean ally (Sabaic ḏ-’ḫw) was a regional power such as
Qataban, ’Awsan, or Ḥaḍramawt; a small kingdom on the Jebel al-‘Awd;
or a city in the Jawf. The allies will have been largely guaranteed their
territorial and political autonomy, as shown by the restitution of land by
Yiṯa‘’amar and Karib’il to their allies after a successful campaign. On the
other hand, the Sabeans naturally demanded allegiance, as in the case of
the great conflict with ’Awsan, in which the cities of Naššan and Haram
participated on Karib’il’s side.158 However, this form of indirect rule159
was challenged and called into question whenever an ally formed a bond
with another to the exclusion of the Sabeans or, from the Sabeans’ point
157. Nebes 2007: 25–26.

158. Avanzini 2016: 117–118, 121–122.
159. See Fuchs 2020: 129–130, who compares the Sabean and Neo-Assyrian con-
cepts of rulership.
348
of view, a regional power or a city tribe annexed foreign territory, thereby

severely upsetting the balance of power in the region which had been
carefully constructed in favor of the Sabeans. This called the Mukarrib
to the scene and provided the justification for a new military campaign.
The covenant system finds its expression in the covenant formula,
which, in addition to Yiṯa‘’amar and Karib’il, is attested in the reigns of
two other early Mukarribs and took the following form: “When he [i.e.,
the Mukarrib] commanded over every tribal community of a god and a
divine patron and a covenant and treaty.”160 Even if the individual com-
ponents of this formula are not yet entirely transparent, it is clear that it
was aimed at all the tribal organizations of southern Arabia over which
the Mukarrib claimed sovereignty. The act of covenant-making itself was
ritually sanctioned. It was performed in a special location, at Jebel al-
Lawḏ, 85 km as the crow flies northwest of Marib, in the temple of a
manifestation of the god ‘Aṯtar, who was worshipped equally by all com-
munities of southern Arabia. Covenant-making entailed certain ritual
acts such as a common ritual meal and a fire sacrifice.161
53.10. The Sabeans in Ethiopia: Di‘amat

At the latest by the beginning of the first millennium bc, and thus well
before the time of the events described in Yiṯa‘’amar’s account of his
deeds, Sabeans migrated to the northern Horn of Africa (figure 53.17).162
Their presence is attested not only by impressive monumental buildings
and other archaeological remains, but also by a small corpus of inscrip-
tions written in the Old South Arabian alphabet.163
Following the intra-African trade routes, the Sabeans’ sphere of influ-
ence extended from the port city of Adulis on the Red Sea, across the
160. Most recently, Nebes 2016: 71–72.

161. Robin 1996: 180–181; Avanzini 2016: 113–115.
162. Gerlach 2013.
163. Bernand et al. 1991: 67–209 (RIÉ 1–179), Drewes 2019: 19–150 (RIÉ 1–179);
with additions in Nebes 2021: 317 n. 2.
349
Figure 53.17. The distribution of Ethio-Sabean sites in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Map courtesy of Deutsches
Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Victoria Grünberg, with labelling adapted by Karen Radner.
350
Figure 53.18. The Great Temple of ’Almaqah at Yeha. Photograph courtesy

of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Klaus Mechelke.
Eritrean and Ethiopian highlands via the later royal city of Aksum in the
west to the far south to ‘Addi ’Akawiḥ near Wuqro, north of the present-
day Tigrayan capital of Mekelle (see figure 53.17). Their religious and
administrative center was Yeha, 35 km northeast of Aksum. Due to its
geographical location at the junction of several overland routes as well as
its favorable natural conditions, Yeha was an ideal site, a fact confirmed
by the astonishing density of sacred and secular buildings there.164 Of
these, the Great Temple of ’Almaqah, built around the middle of the sev-
enth century bc by Sabean stonemasons,165 with its 14-m-high masonry
still standing today, is the tallest surviving sacred building from the first
millennium bc in northeastern Africa or southern Arabia (figure 53.18).
The outer masonry of the temple consists of 1,000 m3 of limestone
blocks brought from a quarry near Wuqro, more than 90 km away as
the crow flies.166 Alabaster from quarries near Marib and Ṣirwaḥ—and
164. Gerlach 2014: 47–52 with n. 63.

165. Schnelle 2012: 396 n. 64; most recently, Nebes 2021: 323.
166. Weiß et al. 2012.
351
Figure 53.19. The palace of Grat Be‘al Gibri in Yeha. Photograph courtesy of
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Außenstelle Sanaa /Irmgard Wagner.
thus over 700 km away—was imported by land and sea for the cult
inventory.167
The palatial administrative building Grat Be‘al Gibri, 200 m to the
northwest of the Great Temple, dates from 150 years earlier, i.e., around
800 bc. With its 65 × 60 m floor area and numerous stories, it has no
comparanda, either in South Arabia or Northeast Africa (figure 53.19).168
Both structures are closely based on South Arabian models. The Great
Temple at Yeha employs the same construction techniques as the
’Almaqah Temple at Ṣirwaḥ. Its ground plan follows an ancient spa-
tial schema common in southern Arabia.169 Both the architectural fea-
tures and the hybrid construction technique of the Grat Be‘al Gibri,
167. Weiß et al. 2015.

168. Schnelle 2013.
169. Schnelle 2021: 78–81.
352
combining wood and stone masonry, closely parallel the Five-Pillar

Building in Ṣirwaḥ (section 53.5).
Cultural transmission from the Sabean region to the Horn of Africa
extended beyond architecture and stonemasonry, reaching far into the
sociopolitical, religious, and cultic spheres. Even before the erection of
the monumental structures at Yeha, an Ethio-Sabean polity had formed,
the organizational and logistical structures of which made it possible to
carry out such construction projects. Its essential institutional and reli-
gious parameters, about which the written source provides some, albeit
limited, insight, were Sabean in character. At the top of the power struc-
ture was the “king who casts down [the enemies]” (mlkn / ṣr‘n), a title
held by all five rulers known to date from epigraphic sources.170 In addi-
tion to this title, some, such as Radi’um, the father of the temple builder
Wa‘ran, referred to themselves as Mukarrib of Di‘amat or Mukarrib of
Di‘amat and Saba (Sabaic mkrb/d‘mt/w-sb’). Here Di‘amat refers to the
Ethio-Sabean polity, and Saba in all likelihood refers to the transplanted
Sabeans in Africa. It is particularly noteworthy that the regulatory prin-
ciple of rule of the Sabean Mukarribs, which is articulated in the cove-
nant formula, was adapted in a modified form to the political conditions
in the Ethio-Sabean area. The “Di‘amat formula” ran as follows:
When he (i.e., the Mukarrib) ruled over Di‘amat, (namely) over

its east and west, over its Sabeans and its resident population, and
over its people of red and black skin.171
The similarity to the Sabean covenant formula is striking. While the

Sabean Mukarribs, in keeping with South Arabian conditions, used the
formula to lay claim to rule over the autonomous tribal communities,
the above formula was tailored to political conditions in Di‘amat. The
political entity designated by Di‘amat is defined geographically, socially,
and ethnically. At the same time, however, the statement is formulated
170. For the following, see Nebes 2010b.

171. Nebes 2010b: 230–231, with the variants listed there.
35
in a much less specific manner, explicitly addressing the contrast between

Sabeans and non-Sabeans. This contrasts with the covenant formula
which conveyed a clear idea of the tribal associations of southern Arabia
and conceived of them in terms of religion and covenant politics. The
analogy to the Sabean model goes even further, however, insofar as the
ruling formula of the Ethio-Sabean Mukarrib is only applied if the ruler
also identified himself in his inscription as a Mukarrib (mkrb) and not
merely as a king (mlk).
The Sabean character of the pantheon is clearly evident in the wor-
ship of ’Almaqah, to whom, in addition to the Great Temple at Yeha,
four other sanctuaries are known. Some of these are accompanied by
the building dedications of Sabean stonemasons and can be identified
archaeologically.172 The other principal divinities of the Sabean pan-
theon were also worshiped.173 These included ‘Aṯtar, worshipped by all
South Arabian communities; the deity Hawbas, with a temple not far
from Aksum; the female deities ḏat Ḥamyim and ḏat Ba‘dan, interpreted
as two manifestations of the sun goddess; and Wadd, worshipped along
with other deities in the Jawf.174 All appear in the final invocations of the
dedications of the Ethio-Sabean kings, albeit in somewhat phonetically
altered forms such as ‘Astar (‘str), Hobas (hbs), and ḏat Ḥamen (ḏt/ḥmn),
which forms reflect the indigenous idiom. Other, probably indigenous
deities include the rarely mentioned ṢDQN and ŠYḤN, among oth-
ers.175 They, however, only played a minor role, at least in the epigraphic
cult documentation discovered to date.
Even though the Ethio-Sabaic inscriptions, first and foremost those
of the kings, largely follow the Old Sabean model in script, language, and
form, a number of significant divergences can be noted in phonology,
morphology, and lexicon.176 These differences can be attributed to the
172. Nebes 2021: 322.

173. Robin 1996: 1156–1163.
174. Nebes 2011a.
175. Müller 2007: 157.
176. C.J. Robin in Robin and de Maigret 1998: 783–787.
354
indigenous idiom, which is not attested until many centuries later in the
inscriptions and literary tradition of ancient Ethiopian Ge‘ez. However,
traces of the indigenous population are not limited to linguistic substrate
influences, but can also be found in other areas, such as iconography and
approaches to indigenous artistic production.177
The indigenous presence is also expressed in royal titles, which are
structured differently than their Sabean counterparts. These differ sig-
nificantly in the expression of filiation. In addition to the king’s father,
grandfather, or ancestor, Ethio-Sabaic expressions of filiation include
the matrilineal line in the form of the mother, grandmother, or ances-
tress. That the naming of the matrilineal line is most likely an indigenous
phenomenon is also indicated by the epithet ‘arkitan (‘rkytn or ‘rktn),
“female companion,” which is found in this and similar meanings in later
Ge‘ez and in other Ethio-Semitic languages, but not in the pre-Islamic
idioms of the Arabian Peninsula (figure 53.20).178 From the beginning,
the inclusion of the matrilineal lineage in royal titulary lends a pro-
nounced, indigenous character to the construction of rulership, even if
we do not know in detail how this functioned.
In any case, interaction between immigrant and indigenous popula-
tions at the beginning of the first millennium bc resulted in a profound
change in many domains, triggered and fueled by social and technologi-
cal innovation179 on the part of the Sabean immigrants. Whether this
interaction was peaceful or bellicose is difficult to say. At least the inte-
gration of the matrilineal indigenous lineages into the concept of ruler-
ship of the Ethio-Sabean kings points to the former, especially when one
considers that the sites all lack protective city walls, in contrast to south-
ern Arabia, where the Sabean Mukarribs immediately secured the cities
they acquired through conquest with fortification walls.
What led to the end of the Ethio-Sabean political and cultural regime
is unclear. What is certain is that around the mid-first millennium bc
177. Detailed Gerlach 2018: 236–237.

178. Detailed in Nebes 2010b: 218–219.
179. On the latter, see Gerlach 2018: 233.
35
Figure 53.20. The “throne” of Hawelti, as seen from the front and from the
sides, possibly depicting the representation of a “female companion” called Rafaš.
Reproduced from de Contenson 1962: 68, fig. 2.
there was a broad horizon of destruction across the region that affected
the palatial administrative building and other public structures at Yeha
and a number of other sites in the region.180 The temporal coincidence
with the Sabeans’ loss of dominance in South Arabia is striking. This is
also astonishing insofar as we have sufficient evidence of the Sabean pres-
ence in Ethiopia, but in the much more numerous sources from south-
ern Arabia we have no evidence of contact between the South Arabian
Sabeans and their emigré cousins.
53.11. Saba after Karib’il

The period of Sabean expansion ended with Karib’il, and the decades
that followed were a period of consolidation. Yada‘’il Ḏariḥ, a successor
of Karib’il, implemented a number of building projects, for example at
180. Gerlach 2018: 230 with n. 6.

356
Marib and Ṣirwaḥ, where he emerged as a temple builder (section 53.5).

In al-Masaǧid, not far south of Marib, he erected a third, large ’Almaqah
sanctuary181 and used the walled city of Marda‘ (modern Hajar ar-
Raḥani) in the Wadi al-Juba to secure Marib’s southeastern border with
Qataban.182
A third account of deeds, the first lines of which are lost, comes
from Marib and was clearly written later. The unknown Mukarrib
who authored it, whose war campaigns and construction activities are
reported, was most likely Yiṯa‘’amar Bayyin, son of Sumuhu‘ali Yanuf,
who is dated to the mid-sixth century bc and, together with his father,
built the southern structure of the Great Dam (section 53.5).183 This doc-
ument is the last inscription of a Sabean ruler for many centuries, whose
res gestae provide a condensed view of the political situation. With a
few exceptions, the genre was only revived in post-Christian times by
the Sabean kings and their tribal leaders in modified form and in quite
deliberate imitation of the deed reports of their famous predecessors.184
The dangers facing the Sabeans in the sixth century bc were compa-
rable to those in the times of Yiṯa‘’amar and Karib’il. Saba’s opponents
came from the same geographical areas as before, even if the political
conditions there had changed. In the south and southeast, Qataban and
its allies in the southern highlands were once again the enemy against
whom the Mukarrib campaigned. In the north, too, the situation was
different than it had been. The antagonists this time were Ma‘in and
Nagran, which had presumably entered into a trade coalition against the
Sabeans, and this apparently called the Sabeans to the scene.185 References
181. von Wissmann 1982: 208–218.

182. von Wissmann 1982: 182; Nebes 2011b: 382–383 with n. 217.
183. Detailed by von Wissmann 1982: 269–274. In contrast, Avanzini 2016: 133 pro-
posed a date in the second half of the seventh century bc. Schiettecatte and
Arbach 2020: 245 date the inscription to the late seventh/early sixth century
bc. For translations of the inscription (R 3943), with further literature, see
Nebes 2005a: 232–234; Multhoff 2021: 275–277.
184. Nebes 2005a: 335–338.
185. Schiettecatte and Arbach 2020: 245.
357
to Ma‘in are relatively terse in this regard. Ma‘in was defeated. However,
no details were reported about individual strikes against Ma‘in’s capital,
Qarnawu. Rather, Yaṯill, a former Sabean ally located a few kilometers
to the south, which had merged with Qarnawu to form the kingdom of
Ma‘in and which now controlled the Sabeans’ access to the Jawf, is men-
tioned. This city, which Karib’il fortified with a city wall, is adorned with
immense, later masonry still visible today.186 Just as his famous predeces-
sor did with Naššan and Našq, the unnamed Mukarrib surrounded Yaṯill
with a siege wall. Unable to conquer, the Mukarrib had to be satisfied
with destroying the hydraulic management structures in the two wadis
of Yaṯill.
The Sabeans were more successful in their campaign against the two
large tribal units in the oasis of Nagran, the Muha’mir and the ’Amir.
Ragmat, the capital of the Muha’mir, and the great oasis of Nagran with
its villages were destroyed and burned. We learn the name of their king,
Li‘aḏr’il, although there is no mention of his being killed. In addition to
prisoners taken, considerable numbers of camels, cattle, donkeys, sheep,
and goats were captured, as in Karib’il’s campaign against the Muha’mir.
This deed report clearly shows that the balance of power in southern
Arabia had already begun to shift and that the old mechanisms of rule
were no longer effective. The Sabeans could certainly hold their own
against their neighbors, but unlike their predecessors, they no longer
enjoyed the degree of power and influence required to maintain indi-
rect rule over large parts of southern Arabia. They lost the essential ele-
ments of securing rule that had established Saba’s dominance in earlier
centuries. The guiding principle of forging alliances that bound the
opposing side exclusively to the Sabeans as sole allies no longer func-
tioned, nor would it in the succeeding centuries. On the other hand,
important building programs were undertaken at this time and a little
later. In addition to the construction of the southern structure of the
Great Dam, the deed report mentions the construction of a whole series
of central water management facilities in the oasis of Marib, as well as
186. Breton 1994: 109–113; Schiettecatte 2011: 51–57; and in detail Antonini and
Fedele 2021.
358
construction work on the city wall, including the erection of two gates,
and the erection of several sanctuaries for various deities outside the
Sabean heartland.
53.12. At the end of the Mukarrib Period

The era of the Mukarribs ended quite unspectacularly. The last Sabean
Mukarrib attested was Yada‘’il Bayyin, son of Yiṯa‘’amar Watar,187 a hom-
onym of the Yiṯa‘’amar of the deed report.188 This Yada‘’il, who refers
to himself in his building inscriptions as Mukarrib of Saba, is known
from a number of other inscriptions found at various sites that provide
insight into the political situation of the Sabeans toward the end of the
Mukarrib Period, in the early fourth century bc.189 With the one dif-
ference that their control over the southern highlands was lost in the
conflict with Qataban, the Sabeans under Yada‘’il were in a situation gen-
erally similar to that of his predecessors. The Jebel al-‘Awd in the south-
western highlands, whose kings had been allied with the Sabeans since
the reign of Karib’il, was lost to Qataban, which subsequently expanded
its domain westward to the Bab al-Mandab.190 In the north, however, the
Sabeans still played an important role, although there, too, the situation
had shifted to their disadvantage. The Minaeans, whose caravans were
still being harassed by the Sabeans at this time,191 extended their trade
activities far to the north and established settlements in the oasis towns
of northwestern Arabia. They also maintained close trade relations with
Saba’s enemies, Qataban and Ḥaḍramawt.192
187. von Wissmann 1982: 329–339.

188. On the names of the Mukarribs, see most recently Avanzini 2016: 56.
189. For a compilation of the inscriptions for this period, see Stein 2019c: 259–262.
190. On the content of the large inscription from Jebel al-‘Awd (R 3858), see
Avanzini 2016: 134–135; on dating, see Stein 2019c: 259.
191. Multhoff 2019.
192. Avanzini 2016: 165–166, 182–185.
359
Yada‘’il developed Našq, the sister city of Naššan, into a Sabean

enclave in the Jawf. The city, which had been conquered and fortified
by Karib’il and re-settled with Sabeans, was strengthened with new city
walls by Yada‘’il.193 Leading clans from Marib and Ṣirwaḥ were repre-
sented in the city, cultivating their landholdings in not only the oasis of
Marib but also the oasis of Našq. From Našq comes the bronze statue of
Hawtar‘aṯt, which was erected in the temple of ’Almaqah, “the lord of the
(Sabean) settlers of Našqum” (figure 53.21).194
Contemporary with this monument is the famous bronze statue of
Ma‘dikarib from Marib, dedicated in the ’Awam temple, which also men-
tions the reign of Yada‘’il Bayyin and the dedicant’s landholdings in Našq
(figure 53.22).195
Dating to the reign of the same ruler is a bronze inscription with fig-
ural representations, the content of which is of overriding historical inter-
est as it refers to a war “between Chaldeans and Ionia” (see figure 64.5 in
chapter 65).196 Widely divergent dates have been proposed for this war,
and the discussion of it is by no means settled.197 Nevertheless, based
on a number of criteria, the inscription may be dated to the late fifth/
early fourth century bc.198 As a kind of “report of deeds in miniature,” it
briefly summarizes noteworthy activities of the dedicant during his life-
time, such as warlike and other undertakings in which he was involved or
which he carried out on behalf of his king. At the same time, it stands at
the beginning of a genre found everywhere in the Middle Sabean period
of the first three post-Christian centuries, and especially in the ’Awam
temple. This written type of detailed self-representation was no longer
reserved for the ruler alone, but was adopted in later times by tribal lead-
ers and other functionaries, who used dedicatory inscriptions as a vehicle
193. Von Wissmann 1982: 333–336; Breton 1994: 95–97.

194. Gajda 2010.
195. On YM 262 and J 400, see Jändl 2009: 153–154.
196. For the reassessment of the inscription, see Multhoff 2019.
197. Summarizing Stein 2017: 99 with n. 30.
198. Stein 2019c: 260.
360
Figure 53.21. Bronze statue of Hawtar‘aṯt from Našq /al-Bayḍa’. National

Museum of Yemen in Sanaa, YM 23206. Reproduced from Mille et al. 2010: 11,
fig. 4.
to report on the perilous undertakings from which the deity had rescued
them. The contents of the plaque are also noteworthy for another rea-
son. The donor came from one of the leading clans of Marib but also
identified himself as an inhabitant of Našq. In addition to a raid on a
Minean caravan and a military campaign against cities in Ḥaḍramawt,
361
Figure 53.22. Bronze statue of Ma‘dikarib from Marib. National Museum of

Yemen in Sanaa, YM 262. Reproduced from Seipel 1998: 286.
which increasingly appeared on the political scene during this period, he

mentions numerous diplomatic missions to northern Arabia, including
to the Liḥyan, on behalf of his king Yada‘’il Bayyin. The passage preced-
ing this narrative states:
And when he engaged in trade and departed on a (commercial)

expedition to Dedan, Gaza, and the cities of Judah, and when
(everything) he had sent from Gaza to Kition (Cyprus) remained
362
sound and safe during the war (between) the Chaldeans and
Ionia.199
The passage shows the great spatial distances over which South Arabian
long-distance trade extended, reaching far beyond Gaza (ġzt) to the “cit-
ies of Judah” (’hgr/yhd) and into the Mediterranean world to Kition (kty)
on Cyprus. In this case, however, it was not the Minaeans who traveled
so far north as traders, but Sabeans. This is unusual in that the monu-
mental documentation of mercantile activities, as attested in the Minean
inscriptions, generally did not play any role in Sabean self-expression
and indeed ran counter to the self-image of the Sabean tribal elites who
adopted this text genre.
After Yada‘’il Bayyin, the Sabeans finally forfeited their dominant
position in southern Arabia. This was also accompanied by other, non-
political changes. Sabean rulers now used the title king (Sabaic mlk/
sb’) instead of Mukarrib (Sabaic mkrb/sb’). Furthermore, the post–Old
Sabean period at Marib and Ṣirwaḥ witnessed a notable decline in the
density of epigraphic documentation. The few self-reports of Sabean
kings are, above all, legal documents issued together with legislative
bodies.200 At this time the tribes in the north-central Yemeni high-
lands, west of Ṣirwaḥ, appear increasingly on the political stage, and
in post-Christian times they played a decisive role in the resurgence of
the Sabeans at Marib. As early as the time of Yiṯa‘’amar and Karib’il,
the northern highlands belonged to the immediate sphere of influence
of the Mukarribs. Not only Sabeans but presumably also prisoners of
war from various campaigns (section 53.8) were settled here. Among
the tribes represented there, not all consistently worshipped the main
Sabean god ’Almaqah.201 Other deities were venerated by tribes such as
the Sum‘ay, north of Sanaa, who were closely allied with the Sabeans but
199. Multhoff 2019: 256.

200. See, e.g., Müller 1983: 271–273; Nebes 2004: 298–300.
201. Al-Salami 2011: 146; for the later period, see Robin 1982: 48–67; note the map
in Robin 2018: 101.
36
who were ruled by their own kings in Karib’il’s time.202 Even when the
Sabeans lost their supremacy, the kings of Sum‘ay continued to recognize
Sabean authority.203 This is manifested in the realm of cult and religion.
In the great rock inscription of Ta’lab, the tribal god of Sum‘ay, from the
early third century bc, which records the regulations for pilgrimage to
the god’s sanctuary, it is explicitly stated that pilgrimage to ’Almaqah in
Marib was obligatory for Sum‘ay.204
Altered political circumstances are also reflected in other areas. For
example, the classical script style with its geometric forms and fixed pro-
portions, which had become established throughout southern Arabia
under Karib’il, was increasingly abandoned.205 With the loss of their
supremacy over their southern Arabian neighbors, the Sabeans gradu-
ally lost the role of “cultural model”206 for large parts of southern Arabia
and Ethiopia which they had enjoyed since their historical beginnings.
Qataban, whose kings assumed the title of Mukarrib for some time,
extended its domain over the entire southern highlands as far as the
Bab al-Mandab.207 The kingdom of Ma‘in, formed by the merger of the
cities of Qarnawu and Yaṯill, maintained close ties with Saba’s adversar-
ies, Qataban and Ḥaḍramawt, and controlled trade along the northern
stretches of the Incense Route with its outposts.208 Ḥaḍramawt, which
rose to become the leading regional power in the first century bc,
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capital Šabwat, to the southern Arabian coast, where it founded the city
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202. Arbach and Schiettecatte 2012: 55–57; Robin 2013: 246–247.

203. Avanzini 2016: 153–154.
204. Müller 1997.
205. Stein 2013: 190.
206. Robin 2015: 94.
207. Avanzini 2016: 172–181; Mazzini 2020: 25–28.
208. Schiettecatte and Arbach 2020: 248–269.
364
the frankincense trade.209 With political autonomy on a local or regional

scale, the neighbors of the Sabeans increasingly developed their own cul-
tural identities, reflected not least in their own iconographic tradition
and an extensive written text corpus in the later first millennium bc.
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376
54
The Persian Empire under the

Teispid Dynasty
Emergence and Conquest
Matt Waters
54.1. Introduction
Cyrus the Great founded the Persian Empire in roughly 550 bc; by the
time of his death in 530 bc it was far and away the most expansive empire
to date (figure 54.1).1 From its core in Parsa (modern Fars; Greek Persis:
chapter 56 in this volume), it encompassed at its height most of the
known world west of the Hindukush and the Indus Valley and east of
the Greek peninsula and Libya.2 We continue to rely on Greek sources,
1. The following additional abbreviations are used in this chapter: CMx for the
alleged inscriptions of Cyrus the Great from Pasargadae; DB for the Bisotun
inscription of Darius I; DNc for one of Darius’s inscriptions from Naqš-e Rustam;
XPf for an inscription of Xerxes I from Persepolis. Persepolis Fortification Seals
(PFS) are cited by publication or inventory number and, if inscribed, with an
asterisk (for the numbering, see Garrison and Root 1996).
2. The most extensive and important treatment of the history of the Persian
Empire remains Briant 2002. Shorter historical overviews include Wiesehöfer
1996; Brosius 2006 (both of which cover Persian history through the Sasanian
period); Waters 2014a; and Brosius 2021. Kuhrt 2007 is an essential tool
Matt Waters, The Persian Empire under the Teispid Dynasty In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East.
Edited by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, Oxford University Press.
37
378
especially Herodotus, for a narrative account of early Persian history,

but important historical details therein are often difficult to disassociate
from literary tropes or sensationalized elements. This phenomenon is, of
course, not unique to Greek sources. While Near Eastern documentary
sources are of different types, they too contain formulae and thematic
elements that also must be assessed for their reliability. For the Teispids,
a term here applied to Cyrus, his family, and his predecessors, there is
relatively little contemporary data that shed light on political history:
Babylonian inscriptions from Cyrus the Great’s reign and the reign of his
predecessor as king of Babylon, Nabonidus (555–539 bc; chapter 50 in
this volume); the Bisotun Inscription of Darius I (522–486 bc; chapter
55 in this volume); the archaeological remains of the city of Pasargadae;
and a variety of cylinder seal impressions dating from the later seventh
through the sixth centuries bc.
The disparate evidence for the period testifies not only to an underly-
ing Elamite-Iranian acculturation for the rise of the Teispid dynasty in
Fars but also to a mixture of influences from Greater Mesopotamia, espe-
cially Assyria. A common current is a purposeful, but eclectic, hybridity
that underscores the system of royal ideology implemented by Cyrus the
Great and his successors, a system both indebted to its predecessors for
inspiration and unique in its manifestation. The phenomenon may be
traced, in general terms, from the finds of the tomb of Arjan to the mon-
umental grandeur of Pasargadae and the Persepolis terrace to the tab-
lets and sealings of the Persepolis Fortification archives: a sophisticated
bureaucratic apparatus encoded with the cultural fusion of Elamites and
Persians at all levels from conscripted workers to the king.3
containing English translations and accompanying discussion of textual sources

for the Persian Empire’s history.
3. Scholars agree on the importance of Elamite-Iranian acculturation even though
its precise meaning remains elusive. De Miroshedji 1985; 1990 offers seminal treat-
ments on what is termed an Elamite-Persian “ethnogenesis” during the formative
period of the mid-seventh through sixth centuries in Fars. For a useful survey
of the phenomenon, note also Henkelman 2008: 1–63; for the Arjan tomb, see
Álvarez-Mon 2010; and for an overview of the Persepolis Fortification archives,
see Stolper 2014.
379
The Persian Empire under the Teispid Dynasty 379
54.2. The terms “Achaemenid” and “Teispid”

The term “Achaemenid” is both a dynastic and a periodizing label. It is
generally applied to the kings from Cyrus the Great to Darius III, whose
death in 330 bc marked for all intents and purposes the end of the rul-
ing Achaemenid line. A long-running debate in modern scholarship has
concluded that Cyrus the Great was not an Achaemenid per se, certainly
not in the same sense that Darius I considered himself one. The dynastic
label “Achaemenid” stems from the Old Persian Haxamaniš, the epony-
mous ancestor from whom Darius I traced his lineage in the Bisotun
Inscription: a victory monument and an avowal of Darius’s legitimacy
in both dire and dubious circumstances. As such, it is a crucial piece of
evidence in assessing the relationships of the kings of the first two gen-
erations of the Persian Empire.
Two inscriptions, in multiple copies from Palace S and Palace P of
Cyrus’s capital Pasargadae, have clouded the question of Cyrus’s dynastic
origins. The inscriptions are labeled CMa and CMc, based on the standard
nomenclature to refer to Achaemenid-era inscriptions, and in this case based
on their initial attribution to Cyrus: upper-case letters for king (Cyrus) and
for provenance (Murghab, the modern name for Pasargadae), and a lower
case letter to distinguish discrete inscriptions from the same location:
CMa: “I am Cyrus the King, an Achaemenid.”

CMc: “Cyrus the Great King, an Achaemenid.”
CMc is extant only in Elamite and Akkadian versions, on the garment

folds of one of the figures from Palace P, but it is generally assumed that
there was an Old Persian version as well, in parallel with the trilingual
CMa (figure 54.2). These two inscriptions label Cyrus simply as “king”
or “great king” and as an “Achaemenid.” They are as straightforward in
translation as they are not in authenticity.4
4.
Another inscription from Pasargadae (CMb) consists of roughly thirty
fragments—probably from more than one inscription—that are not able to be
confidently joined. CMb as a single inscription is often attributed to Darius I; see
Borger and Hinz 1959 for an attempt at reconstruction.
380
Figure 54.2. Anta from Palace P in Pasargadae, inscribed at the top with the
inscription CMa. Courtesy of David Stronach.
There are three main reasons why scholarly consensus, with few
exceptions, considers these inscriptions dubious, commissioned not by
Cyrus but by Darius I as one component of his efforts to link Cyrus’s
lineage to his own. First, construction of Pasargadae was not completed
381
until well into Darius I’s reign; since reliefs and their accompanying
inscriptions were among the final touches, CMa and CMc were not
inscribed until the 510s bc. Second, Darius himself claimed that he cre-
ated the Old Persian cuneiform script (DB §70), a claim that itself is
controversial but one that is generally accepted on the weight of the evi-
dence.5 Third, a comparison of the genealogical claims made by Darius
I does not match up with the one inscription that contains Cyrus’s lin-
eage, commissioned by Cyrus himself, the Cyrus Cylinder from Babylon
(figure 54.3).6
The Cyrus Cylinder is an important piece of evidence for under-
standing Cyrus’s dynastic line and his conquest of Babylonia; the lat-
ter will be considered in more detail below. For the purpose at hand,
we need to focus only on Cyrus’s own genealogy given in line 21, in
which Cyrus relayed that he is the son of Cambyses, the grandson of
Cyrus, and the great-grandson (or, in some translations, “descendant”)
of Teispes.7 Cyrus did not mention Achaemenes in this text, a surpris-
ing omission if Achaemenes resonated in his own royal lineage. Darius’s
lineage, traced explicitly father-to-son, has only one member in common
with Cyrus’s: Teispes, who in Darius’s version is a son of Achaemenes;
thus, in descending order: Achaemenes, Teispes, Ariaramnes, Arsames,
Hystaspes, and Darius himself.8 Faced with a choice of explaining why
5. This issue has a long history in modern scholarship; see, e.g., Nylander 1967;
Stronach 1990; 1997; Huyse 1999. For the spurious inscriptions of Arsames and
Ariaramnes, see Briant 2002: 16, 877; Lecoq 1997: 126; for a counter perspective,
see Vallat 1997.
6. For recent translations of the Cyrus Cylinder, see Kuhrt 2007: 70–74; Finkel
2013; Schaudig 2019.
7. Darius I mentions the same Teispes, labeled in literal, genealogical terms as his
great-great-grandfather in DB §2 (DB =Bisotun inscription of Darius I; for a
translation, see, e.g., Kuhrt 2007: 141–158, no. 5.1). That iteration supports the
translation of “great-grandson” for liblibbu in the Cyrus Cylinder with regard to
Cyrus’s genealogical relationship with Teispes. On varying nuances of Akkadian
liblibbu, see Waters 2019: 31–32.
8. DB §2.
382
Figure 54.3. The Cyrus Cylinder, from Babylon. British Museum, BM 90920. © Trustees of the British Museum. Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
38
Cyrus did not bother to mention Achaemenes or of assuming that Darius

co-opted Cyrus’s lineage via Teispes, scholars have generally chosen the
second option, especially since it fits other evidence.
Our other main source in considering this puzzle is Herodotus, for
whom the term “Achaemenid” was a clan designation. In his rehearsal
of the Persian tribes, Herodotus noted that all Persian kings came from
the Achaemenid clan of the Pasargadae tribe.9 That attribution is his way
of expressing the importance of the label “Achaemenid” as a dynastic
marker, which, although from a different viewpoint, echoes the ideologi-
cal message of Darius I’s royal inscriptions. During the dramatic debate
about whether to invade Greece, set at the Persian court, Herodotus
effectively welded the two lines through Xerxes’s rehearsal of his lineage:
May I be no son of Darius, son of Hystaspes, son of Arsames, son

of Ariaramnes, son of Teispes, son of Cyrus, son of Cambyses, son
of Teispes, son of Achaemenes.10
Herodotus thus took the distinct lineages of Cyrus and of Darius and
strung them together, with an extra Teispes included; it is likely not a
coincidence that Herodotus made Darius the ninth king in his line, as
Darius himself claimed he was.11
9. Hdt. 1.125.
10. Hdt. 7.11.
11. DB §4. Herodotus noted that the Pasargadae were foremost among the Persian
tribes, but makes no mention of Cyrus’s capital of that same name. The other
Persian tribes that Herodotus mentioned were classified either as agriculturists—
the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii— or as pastoralists— the Dai, Mardi,
Dropici, Sagartii. Historians have yet to reconcile Herodotus’s list of tribes with
the geopolitical situation that can be gleaned from the documentary sources for
the sixth century, although some of the tribal names may be tracked in Elamite
administrative documents; note Kuhrt 2007: 55–56 for references and Briant
2002: 18–19 for discussion. For Darius as the ninth king, see Rollinger 1998 and
Waters 2014b; for Hdt. 7.11, note especially Harrison 2015.
384
54.3. Cyrus, Cassandane, and

the Achaemenids
Darius claimed that Cyrus’s son and successor Cambyses was a member
“of our family.”12 In order for this claim to be credible, Darius’s rela-
tion to Cambyses must be considered in the sense of extended fam-
ily.13 Herodotus recounted that Cambyses was the son of Cyrus and
a certain Cassandane,14 the daughter of Pharnaspes, an Achaemenid.
Whether or not Cassandane was Cyrus’s first wife, we may assume she
was his primary one, especially when her son Cambyses became the
crown prince. Royal women were generally not named in Near Eastern
royal inscriptions, but a passage in the Nabonidus Chronicle refers to
the death of Cyrus’s unidentified wife a few months after his conquest
of Babylon:
In the month x [tablet illegible here] the wife of the king died.
From the twenty-seventh of the month Adar to the third of the
month Nisan [there was] [an official] mourning in Akkad. All the
people bared their heads.15
Herodotus’s account is quite similar:
Cassandane had died before Cyrus himself; Cyrus had mourned

greatly for her and instructed all his subjects to do likewise.
Cambyses, then, was a son of this woman and Cyrus.16
12. Old Persian amaxām taumāyā; DB §10.

13.
Brandenstein and Mayrhofer 1964: 145: “Geschlecht, Sippe, Familie,
Nachkommenschaft.” The Akkadian phrase is ša zērīya “of my line (literally
‘seed’)” and the Elamite NUMUN.MEŠ nukami “of our line.”
14. Hdt. 2.1; 3.2.
15. Nabonidus Chronicle: iii 22–24; see Grayson 1975: 110–111 (Chronicle 7); Kuhrt
2007: 51.
16. Hdt. 2.1.
385
This conjunction is unlikely to be incidental, although there are lingering

questions as to Herodotus’s reliability with regard to kinship affiliations
among the Persian nobility.17 The tethering of these strands of evidence
allows us to envision the union of Cyrus and Cassandane as a diplomatic
marriage that bound two powerful dynastic lines, the Teispid and the
Achaemenid.18 Such a bond may have significantly amplified Cyrus’s
military power in Iran and underpinned his rapid conquests of the mid-
sixth century over three major powers: the Medes (chapter 43 in this
volume), the Lydians (chapter 51 in this volume), and the Babylonians
(chapter 50 in this volume).
Darius’s father Hystaspes held an important post in Parthia, or at the
least was in command of forces there in 522/521 bc.19 If this appointment
was a carry-over from the time of Cambyses or Cyrus, it demonstrates
the importance of the Achaemenids, especially Darius’s own family, in
the early decades of the empire’s expansion. In Herodotus’s narrative,
Hystaspes was a satrap, who had accompanied Cyrus on the campaign
against the Massagetae.20 But Cyrus tasked Hystaspes to return to Parsa
to watch over his son Darius, after Cyrus’s portentous dream of Darius’s
eventual dominion:21 an image of Darius with wings upon his shoulders,
one wing covering Asia and the other covering Europe—a direct ana-
log of the winged disk with figure symbol so prominent during Darius’s
reign. Darius himself was a spear-bearer of Cambyses; this was clearly
a position of high honor, as is evident from the portrayal of Gobryas
17. Briant 2002: 110–113 for the example of Otanes (among others) and for addi-
tional nuances of the label “Achaemenid.” Waters 2004 for fuller discussion of
the marriage of Cyrus and Cassandane and its ramifications.
18. Brosius 1996: Chapter 3 for royal marriages among the early Persians. It may have
been one of several such marriages, in parallel with several other rulers in history.
The marriages of Philip II of Macedon offer an instructive, parallel case study
two centuries later.
19. DB §35–§36.
20. Hdt. 3.70.
21. Hdt. 1.209−210.
386
on Darius I’s tomb relief, where Gobryas is given the same epithet (Old
Persian arštibara).22
The Achaemenids were linked closely with eastern Iran and the
Mazdaean (later Avestan) tradition. Darius’s frequent invocation of
the preeminent deity in that tradition, Auramazda, is the most obvi-
ous manifestation.23 Darius’s father Vištaspa (Greek Hystaspes) had the
same name as Zoroaster’s patron. The name of Cyrus’s daughter Atossa
is usually interpreted as of Mazdaean and eastern Iranian origin as well.
Zoroaster’s homeland was located in eastern Iran, and Zoroastrian tradi-
tion points to eastern Iran as the ancestral homeland of the Iranians.24
Darius and the Achaemenids’ links to the Mazdaean tradition and east-
ern Iran were not coincidences; these eastern elements played a foun-
dational role, both cultural and geopolitical, in the emerging Persian
Empire.
For much of twentieth-century scholarship, the “two kingdoms” the-
sis was applied to early Persian history: Cyrus the Great’s predecessors
ruled in the region of Anšan, and Darius’s predecessors ruled in the region
of Parsa. On that model, Teispes divided the rule between his sons Cyrus
I and Ariaramnes into two kingdoms. This was an attractive solution to
reconcile the divergence, despite enduring suspicions that Darius was
trying too hard to link his own lineage to Cyrus’s. Arguments in modern
scholarship have persisted over which of the two lines was considered
legitimate. The issue resolved itself in antiquity when the two lines were
unified by Darius I. However, if Darius’s line was as legitimate as Cyrus’s,
22. Hdt. 3.139 (Greek doryphoros); DNc for Gobryas the arštibara.
23. The god Auramazda is a new introduction to the royal corpus with Darius I,
though a curious entry of Assara-Mazash (with a divine determinative preceding
both elements of the name) occurs in a gods list from the reign of Ashurbanipal
of Assyria (668–631 bc); see Gaspa 2017: 145–146 for discussion. We know
nothing certain of Cyrus’s or Cambyses’s adherence to a Mazdaean tradition,
although much is speculated; see Daryaee 2013.
24. These too are all well-debated subjects; see the seminal works of Gnoli 1989 and
Vogelsang 1992 and more recently the contributions to Henkelman and Redard
2017; also Tavernier 2007: 22–23 (for the etymology of Vishtaspa); 212 (for
Atossa).
387
why then did Darius’s father Hystaspes or grandfather Arsames—both

living at the time of Darius’s accession25—not assume the kingship? All
that aside, when it was established that the geographic terms Anšan and
Parsa (corresponding to Assyrian Parsumaš) were synonymous, the “two
kingdoms” thesis became much more problematic to maintain.
The Teispid Dynasty, if that label is to be used, then should include
Cyrus the Great’s forebears from Teispes through Cyrus’s offspring
Cambyses (his heir, ruled 530–522 bc), Bardiya (ruled in 522 bc for
approximately six months), Atossa, and Artystone. We do not know
the identity of the daughters’ mother; it is commonly assumed that it
was Cassandane. The empire that Cyrus founded continued after the
death of the last (male) member of that line, Bardiya, and was recon-
stituted, consolidated, and expanded further by Darius I. He incorpo-
rated the Teispid dynasty into his own by combining his genealogy with
Achaemenes’s as well as by completing the founder’s capital at Pasargadae,
especially including the inscriptions in Cyrus’s name proclaiming him
an Achaemenid. Darius’s successful incorporation of the Teispid line
went beyond, with apologies to English syntax, Cyrus’s epithetized
Achaemenidness. Most importantly, Darius’s marriages to Cyrus’s daugh-
ters Atossa and Artystone (along with Parmys, a daughter of Bardiya
and thus Cyrus’s granddaughter) irrevocably linked the families.26
Atossa became the mother of Xerxes. In this way Darius ensured that
every one of his successors was able to trace a direct bloodline to Cyrus
the Great.
54.4. The kings of Anšan

The title “King of Anšan” implies rule of both the city and the wider
region of southwestern Iran that shared this name. The region had been
an Elamite territory for centuries, and through much of the second mil-
lennium was part of a more expansive, centralized Elamite kingdom
25. XPf §3; see Kuhrt 2007: 244, no. 7.1.

26. Hdt. 3.88. For Parmys, see Garrison and Henkelman 2020: especially 58.
38
(chapter 42 in volume 4). The city of Anšan (modern Tell-e Malyan)

was apparently abandoned by the year 1000 bc.27 From the late eighth
century bc to the early period of the Persian Empire, Anšan occurs in
the sources sporadically. In Elamite royal inscriptions, it is part of the
traditional Elamite royal title “king of Anšan and Susa,” which had been
used for centuries prior to and during the Neo-Elamite period as attested
in royal inscriptions of the kings Šutruk-Nahhunte II (717–699 bc) and
Atta-hamiti-Inšušinak (regnal dates uncertain). Assyrian accounts of
a major confrontation in 691 bc against the Elamites at Halule, along
the Tigris River, imply that a centralized Elamite kingdom, at that time
under the rule of Humban-menanu, controlled both regions—Susiana
and Anšan—into the early seventh century.28
In the decade after the Assyrian victory against Te’umman at the
Battle of Tell Tuba in 653 bc, Elam as a geopolitical entity underwent
a stunning collapse. It is precisely during this period that we find ref-
erences to Persians (Parsumašians) in Assyrian royal correspondence
reporting on the increasingly volatile situation. Two letters in particu-
lar include dire warnings about Persians raiding the area around the
Elamite city of Hidali, as well as skirmishes between Elamite and Persian
forces. One writer urges Ashurbanipal of Assyria (668–631 bc) to send
assistance.29 Based on the time frame of these activities, it is tempting
to trumpet the appearance on the scene of Teispes himself during the
first stages of Persian expansionism: a harbinger of the Persian armies
under Cyrus conquering on a worldwide scale. Aside from any such
speculation, though, these Persian military activities clearly disrupted
Assyrian attempts to stabilize Elam (chapter 38 in volume 4), and they
27. Scholars debate the lack of evidence for settlement at the site of Tell-e Malyan
and its significance; see Potts 2011.
28. For overviews of Neo-Elamite history, see Stolper 1984: 44–53; Waters 2000;
2013; Potts 2005; 2016: 249–306; Gorris and Wicks 2018; Gorris 2020, and cf.
chapter 42 in volume 4.
29. For editions of these letters, see Parpola 2018: no. 116: obv. 8–15 and De Vaan
1995: 311–314: ABL 1311+: ll. 17–27; for discussion, see Waters 2019: 29–30.
389
may be considered a backdrop for Ashurbanipal’s encounter with Kuraš

of Parsumaš.
Tracing Cyrus the Great’s predecessors in the historical record is a
tricky business, or at least a convoluted one. An average reign of forty
years for both Cambyses I and Cyrus I is necessary to identify Cyrus
I with Kuraš of Parsumaš. This identification is followed here, but there
is no agreement on this issue. Many scholars favor lower dates for Cyrus’s
predecessors to ease the chronological discomfort that results from a
series of long-reigned kings.30 In the end, any regnal dates for Cyrus the
Great’s predecessors are, to put it kindly, approximations; more realisti-
cally, they should be labeled complete guesswork. A review of the evi-
dence delineates the problem, if no definitive answer.
A passage from Ashurbanipal’s annals, written in 639 bc, recorded
the obeisance of one Cyrus (Kuraš) of Parsumaš, the Assyrian name for
the kingdom of Elamite Anšan or Old Persian Parsa:
Cyrus, the king of Parsumaš, heard about my victory. He became

aware of the might that I wielded with the aid of Aššur, Bel, and
Nabû, the great gods my lords, with which I leveled the whole of
Elam like a flood. He sent Arukku, his eldest son, with his tribute
to Nineveh, the city of my lordship, to pay homage to me. He
implored my lordship.31
It is uncertain to which victory Ashurbanipal referred in the passage,

but most scholars identify here Cyrus the Great’s grandfather, i.e., Cyrus
I. If so, that would make Arukku the uncle of Cyrus the Great, although
30. E.g., the chart in Kuhrt 2007: 879 (table 1) is based on thirty-year reigns. There
are multiple examples from Near Eastern history of kings who ruled for more
than forty years, and the Persian period provides two examples in Artaxerxes
I (465–424 bc) and Artaxerxes II (405–359 bc).
31. Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 12: vi 7′–13′ (Prism H2). An inscription from the
Ištar temple in Nineveh relays this same episode, but that version does not men-
tion Arukku: Novotny and Jeffers 2018: no. 23.
390
nothing else is known of Arukku.32 Royal hostages—i.e., the exchange

of royal children—are a well-attested phenomenon in the ancient Near
East, but we may only speculate on the impact of this experience on
Arukku and, by extension, his family and home. In this writer’s view, the
exposure to, and contacts generated by, a Teispid prince at the Assyrian
court was a crucial means of transmission that helps to explain the mas-
sive imprint of Assyrian royal ideology and imperial administration on
the Achaemenids.
The identification of the early Teispids in the historical record is
also compounded by the issue of throne names. Were the names Kuraš
(Cyrus) and Kabujiya (Cambyses) birth names, or throne names?33
Throne names were common in the ancient Near East, even if they were
not always used (or used only in shortened form) and are demonstrable
for many of Cyrus’s successors, but not explicitly so until Darius II.34
That “Cyrus” was a throne name is suggested by the later, unverifiable
testimony of the Greek geographer Strabo:
There is also a river Cyrus, flowing through so-called “hollow”

Persis near Pasargadae, from which the king took his name, tak-
ing the name Cyrus in place of Agradates.35
32. Schmitt 1998: 134–135 provides an Iranian etymology for the name Arukku, but
this is not a settled issue.
33. Everything about these names remains in dispute, including the orthography
of the original forms, whether or not they are hypocoristica, and whether of
Elamite or Indo-Iranian etymology. Most scholars now consider the name Kuraš
(Old Persian Kuruš) to be Elamite in origin, meaning “He who bestows care” or
similar; note especially Tavernier 2007: 528–530 for discussion and references,
including other attestations of the name; cf. Schmitt 2000. For Teispes (Elamite
Zišpiš, Old Persian Čišpiš), see Tavernier 2007: 519; and for Cambyses (Elamite
Kanbuziya, Old Persian Kabujiya), see Tavernier 2007: 18–19.
34. On the throne names of the Persian kings, see Schmitt 1982 and chapter 55 in
this volume. Esarhaddon of Assyria’s mostly unused throne name may offer an
instructive parallel, as he preferred his given name Aššur-ahhe-iddina to the
throne name Aššur-etel-ilani-mukin-apli; see Radner 1998: 194.
35. Str. 15.3.6.
391
Figure 54.4. Line drawing of the design of the cylinder seal of “Cyrus, the
Anšanite, son of Teispes” (PFS 93*) from Persepolis. Courtesy of the Persepolis
Fortification Archive Project /Persepolis Seal Project.
In his discussion of Cyrus’s youth, Herodotus noted that Cyrus was

called something else before he discovered his identity;36 it is unclear
whether Herodotus was referring to the name his (adoptive) shepherd
parents called him or, reading further into it, whether he had a different
birth name before he took the name Cyrus.
A striking piece of important evidence for the Teispid line is the seal
PFS 93* from the Persepolis Fortification archives. The seal was inscribed,
in Elamite, with the inscription “Cyrus, the Anšanite, son of Teispes”
(figure 54.4).37 We do not know the identity of the person who used the
seal, but its Assyrian style—with close parallels to Assyrian seals of the
later seventh century bc, to which period PFS 93* is dated—matches
it with a handful of others from the archive associated with elite mem-
bers of the Persepolis bureaucratic hierarchy with close ties to the royal
family. It was clearly a prestige item, an heirloom. The sealing’s image
portrays a rider running through an enemy who holds a broken bow,
a common symbol of defeat and humiliation in the ancient Near East.
36. Hdt. 1.113−114.

37. For an extensive discussion of this seal impression, see Garrison 2011; for the
inscription, see Henkelman 2011: 601–604; Waters 2011: 290–292.
392
The rider is presumed to be the Cyrus of the Elamite inscription, itself a

vivid reminder of the Elamite milieu in which Cyrus’s family established
their kingdom. The Cyrus of PFS 93* has found more ready acceptance
in his identification with Cyrus I, though why the epithet “king” or even
“crown prince” is not included in the inscription remains curious.
Of Cyrus the Great’s father we know nothing certain other than the
name. Cambyses I is attested as Cyrus’s father in the Cyrus Cylinder
and likewise referenced in a royal inscription from Ur in southern
Babylonia.38 Similarly, we have no confident information about Cyrus’s
upbringing, although a rich trove of embellished material survives from
the Greek tradition. Herodotus prefaced his Cyrus story by noting that
he was aware of three other versions,39 an acknowledgment of what
we would suspect of an individual of such historical import and who
employed such an effective propaganda machine in antiquity. The ver-
sion Herodotus chose to relay stems from a tradition whose main pur-
pose was to legitimize Cyrus in the Median dynastic line: therein Cyrus
was grandson of the last Median king Astyages (called Ištumegu in the
Babylonian tradition; chapter 43 in volume 4).
Ctesias of Cnidus, writing ca. 400 bc, also linked Cyrus to the
Median dynastic line, by way of marriage to Astyages’s daughter (whom
Ctesias names Amytis) after Cyrus’s victory over her father. Despite the
divergence in details between Herodotus’s and Ctesias’s accounts, both
versions are plays on the so-called Sargon Legend, named after Sargon
of Akkad of the twenty-third century—the tale of the hero exposed at
birth, or alternatively of humble upbringing, beloved and chosen by the
gods, who achieves his destiny of kingship.40 Another version of Cyrus’s
upbringing is relayed by the Athenian Xenophon, but the Cyrus of his
Cyropaedia is even more imaginative than that of either of the others.
38. For the Ur inscription, see Schaudig 2001: 549; Kuhrt 2007: 75; Waters
2019: 35–37.
39. Hdt. 1.95.
40. For the Sargon Legend as folklore, apparent in many stories from antiquity, see
Lewis 1980. For Cyrus’s place in these traditions, see Kuhrt 2003 and Waters
2017: 63–65.
39
The point of Xenophon’s work, however, is not history but a treatise

on ideal leadership. He chose Cyrus the Great as his paradigm not only
because of his interests in Persian history and culture but also because of
his close acquaintance with, and admiration for, the empire’s founder’s
great-great-great grandson: Cyrus the Younger. The Cyropaedia contains
much of use regarding an insightful Greek aristocrat and soldier’s take on
the Persian Empire ca. 400 bc, but it is rarely consulted for details of the
historical Cyrus the Great.
54.5. The conquest of the Medes

Cyrus conquered the Medes by 550 bc; according to the available records,
the first major conquest of his reign. The Medes remain enigmatic,
despite a wealth of material in the classical tradition. Based on the lack
of any indigenous or contemporary testimony to substantiate a Median
Empire, as the term is generally understood, that the Medes should be
classified as an empire is now doubted, if not rejected.41 Reassessments
of the Medes have been based on a model that reflects their contempo-
rary status in the Neo-Assyrian period, i.e., as chiefdoms of the Zagros
Mountains, rather than on the model of the Persian Empire into which
they were subsequently absorbed and on which the classical traditions
are based. Median archaeological sites such as Nush-i Jan, Godin Tepe,
and Baba Jan Tepe indicate a floruit in the late eighth and early sev-
enth centuries and a decline in the first half of the sixth: at the exact
time that we would expect to find evidence—both documentary and
archaeological—for a Median Empire (see also chapter 43 in volume 4).
The Medes whom the Assyrians encountered lived in fortified settle-
ments throughout the central and northern Zagros Mountains. Assyrian
annals describe such settlements as ruled by a “city lord” (Akkadian bēl
āli), a term that suggests a limited scope of power. This representa-
tion is consistent through the mid-seventh century, at which point the
Assyrian annals do not have much more to say about them. There is a gap
41. See especially the contributions in Lanfranchi et al. (eds.) 2003.

394
of roughly three decades in the historical narrative before Babylonian

chronicles describe Median forces attacking Assyria in the later 610s.
There is no indication how the Median king Umakištar, the Cyaxares
of classical texts, assembled a Median army that, with assistance from
their Babylonian allies, became the architects of Assyria’s downfall.
The relatively few Babylonian characterizations of the late seventh and
early sixth centuries also lack any reference to a centralized, Median
state.
In the Sippar Cylinder of Nabonidus of Babylon, a text dated to the
year 553 bc, Nabonidus described a dream-omen that came to him near
the beginning of his reign (chapter 50 in this volume). The Medes posed
a threat to Nabonidus’s efforts to rebuild a temple to the moon god in
the city of Harran, which had been destroyed during the overthrow of
Assyria. In the dream, Nabonidus expressed concern about the Median
threat, but Marduk assured him:
“The Umman-manda of whom you speak, he, his land, and the
kings who go at his side, are no longer a threat.” In the third year,
they (the gods) caused to rise Cyrus, the king of Anšan, his young
servant, with his small army he scattered the vast Umman-manda.
Cyrus seized Ištumegu (Astyages), the king of the Umman-
manda, and took him captive to his land.42
Nabonidus’s dream introduces Cyrus the Great as the divine agent who
will overthrow the Babylonians’ main rivals, the Medes. This passage
has received much scrutiny, not least because of its literary and reli-
gious connotations, but also for what it intimates about Babylonian-
Median relations and, of primary concern here, Cyrus and the Medes.
For much of twentieth-century scholarship, the “his” of the phrase “his
servant” in the quoted passage was understood to mean that Cyrus was

42. For an edition, see Schaudig 2001: 417 and Weiershäuser and Novotny
2020: no. 28; for a critical discussion of the passage and its historical context, see
also Rollinger 2003: 291–305.
395
Astyages’s servant. In both Assyrian and Babylonian documents, such

phrasing is typically applied to an agent who was the god’s servant,
in this instance, Marduk’s. Interpreted this way, nothing in the text
implies a relationship between Cyrus and Astyages, so Herodotus’s
story linking Cyrus to the Median house by blood remains to be
corroborated.
Another Babylonian text, the so- called Nabonidus Chronicle
(see figure 59.3 in chapter 59), provides additional information. The
Nabonidus Chronicle is a terse year-by-year rendering of major cultic,
political, and military events, and it survives only as a fragmentary copy
from roughly 400 bc or later.43 For the year 550/549 bc, the text indi-
cates that Astyages marched against Cyrus, was betrayed by a revolt
among his troops, and was delivered to Cyrus.44 Cyrus then marched
upon Ecbatana and took its plunder back to Anšan. The chronicle’s
dating of this event is roughly three years after the date of the Sippar
Cylinder discussed above. Whether this implies a three (or more)–
year conflict, or represents a conflation in the tradition, has not been
determined. Extant Near Eastern sources do not preserve the other
particulars of Cyrus’s progression from king of Anšan to the conqueror
of the Medes. The Nabonidus Chronicle parallels Herodotus’s account
of Median treachery, but it offers no details to elucidate Herodotus’s
colorful tradition. Internal troubles in Media may have contributed to
Astyages’s downfall, as suggested by his troops’ revolt, but it is unclear
why disaffected Median elements would have linked their fortunes
with Cyrus.
Herodotus preserves a much more detailed, but mostly embellished,
account of Cyrus’s war with the Medes.45 Cyrus’s victory over Astyages
43. It is currently impossible to establish whether some or all of the extant chron-
icle was based on a sixth-century original, as is generally assumed. Doubts
about its original composition and its agenda have put into question the
chronicle’s assumed accuracy and objectivity; see especially Zawadzki 2010;
Waerzeggers 2015.
44. Nabonidus Chronicle: ii 1–4; for an edition, see Grayson 1975: 106–107
(Chronicle 7).
45. Hdt. 1.108−130.
396
is a rather anticlimactic end to what was clearly, in Herodotus’s view,

the much more interesting backstory of Cyrus’s rise: the portents asso-
ciated with his birth, his planned exposure in the wild but rescue by a
shepherd, the discovery of his true identity when he was boy, and the
first stages of the rebellion encouraged by the Mede Harpagus, the very
individual charged with exposing the infant Cyrus. Ctesias’s version is
entirely different and even more fantastic, though similarly replete with
omens and portents. Armies of hundreds of thousands battled near
and around Pasargadae, with the Persians eventually emerging victori-
ous. After Cyrus’s victory, Astyages’s subjects, including the Hyrcanians,
Parthians, Scythians, and Bactrians, submitted to Cyrus.46 This detail
recalls Nabonidus’s Sippar Cylinder and the phrase “kings going at his
side” (i.e., at the side of the king of the Umman-manda). An image of
a Median king of kings, who commanded the allegiance of extensive
forces, fits an image of the Medes as a formidable power formed out
of a loose, unifying leadership.47 Passages in the Book of Jeremiah that
refer to Median “kings” in the plural reinforce this portrayal,48 as does
Herodotus’s description of Median rule: “The Medes ruled all together
and (directly) those living nearest; and these, further, ruled their neigh-
bors, and so again in turn, they theirs.”49
54.6. Cyrus and Anatolia

A fragmentary passage in the Nabonidus Chronicle recorded that in
April of 547 bc, Cyrus’s army crossed the Tigris south of Arbela and
won a victory the following month. The name of the defeated king is
46. Ctesias FGrH 688 F8d §45–§46 (apud Nic. Dam.; see Lenfant 2004: 108
and Stronk 2010: 308–311). Ctesias FGrH 688 F9 §1–§3 (apud Phot. Bibl.; see
Lenfant 2004: 108–110 and Stronk 2010: 312–315) indicated that the submission
of the Bactrians and Scythians was not without battle, the latter even inflicting a
defeat upon him.
47. Note especially Liverani 2003.
48. Jer 25:25–26 and 51:27–28.
49. Hdt. 1.134.3.
397
not preserved, and the reading of the toponym is disputed. Most com-
mentators restore “Lydia” at that spot in the tablet, others “Urartu” (see
also chapters 52 and 57 in this volume); a crack in the tablet makes the
reading uncertain.50 That Cyrus conquered eastern Anatolia (where the
Urartian heartland is situated) before Lydia in western Anatolia seems
reasonable enough; but the modern historian studying Cyrus is gener-
ally faced with the fact that more battles were fought than there are data
that recount them. Herodotus and other Greek sources are, unsurpris-
ingly, much more verbose about Cyrus’s conquest of Croesus’s Lydia
(chapter 51 in this volume), not least because most of the earliest Greek
historians came from Ionia, an area that had been subject to Lydia before
it fell under Persian control.
Herodotus cast Croesus’s gambit against Cyrus as hubris based on his
misinterpretation of an omen and his desire to augment his territory.51
Croesus was additionally motivated by his relationship to the Median
royal family: Croesus’s sister Aryenis had been betrothed to Astyages by
their respective fathers after the Battle of the Halys river, also known as
the Battle of the Solar Eclipse, in the early sixth century.52 When Croesus
asked the oracle at Delphi whether he should attack Cyrus, the response
came that if he did so he would destroy a mighty empire. Croesus did just
so: but it was Cyrus who defeated him, and the mighty empire Croesus
destroyed was his own.
Croesus marched out to engage Cyrus and en route conquered the
city of Pteria (location uncertain, but presumed to be somewhere in
50. Nabonidus Chronicle: ii 16; for an edition, see Grayson 1975: 107 (Chronicle
7). For discussions of the reading of the toponym, see Rollinger 2008; Zawadzki
2010: 146–147; Rollinger and Kellner 2019; and also chapter 51 in this volume.
Independent of the reading of the toponym, the end of Urartu is usually dated
earlier than the mid-sixth century bc on the basis of archaeological evidence; see
Khatchadourian 2016: 88, 222 (with references) and chapter 44 in volume 3.
51. Hdt. 1.75−91.
52. Hdt. 1.73−74. The marriage alliance was part of the peace made after the battle,
one mediator of which was purportedly Nabonidus (whom Herodotus calls
Labynetus). These historical ties have not been confirmed by any Near Eastern
sources.
398
northern Cappadocia), where Cyrus’s army met him. The subsequent

pitched battle was inconclusive, and Croesus withdrew to his capital,
Sardis, to gather reinforcements. These were to include contingents
from otherwise-unattested alliances with Egyptians, Babylonians, and
Spartans. Cyrus, however, behaved unexpectedly by pursuing Croesus to
Sardis. The forces met on the plain outside the city before any reinforce-
ments arrived, and Cyrus employed a stratagem to disperse Croesus’s
cavalry: he positioned pack-camels at the front of his forces, causing
the Lydian horses to flee. After another fierce fight, the Lydians were
overcome and withdrew into the city, where they remained besieged
for two weeks before a Persian force assayed a supposedly unassailable
cliff to access the city, leading to a Persian victory. Croesus was spared,
in Herodotus’s version at least, and became a wise advisor to Cyrus.53
The latter took possession of the Lydian kingdom but delegated mop-
up operations in Anatolia to Median lieutenants, while Cyrus himself
returned to Ecbatana.54
54.7. The conquest of Babylonia

There is a significant gap in the sources for the remainder of the 540s bc,
regardless of precisely when the conquest of Lydia took place. Herodotus
chose to pass over Cyrus’s numerous conquests throughout “inland
Asia”55 to focus on his conquest of Babylon,56 a seriously conflated pas-
sage that is of little use in reconstructing the events.57 In the same year
53. An ode dating to the first half of the fifth century by the Greek poet Bacchylides
implies that Croesus was killed; translation in Kuhrt 2007: 65–67 (with refer-
ences). Ctesias’s account (FGrH 688 F9 §4–§5; see Lenfant 2004: 110–111 and
Stronk 2010: 314–315) matches Herodotus in relaying Croesus’s miraculous res-
cue but contains marked differences in the particulars.
54. Hdt. 1.153; and cf. Hdt. 1.157.
55. Hdt. 1.177.
56. Hdt. 1.178−191.
57. Herodotus focused on queens Semiramis and Nitocris, especially the latter’s
building works in Babylon itself. Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon echoes that of
39
(547/546 bc) that the Nabonidus Chronicle recorded Cyrus’s army’s

crossing the Tigris en route to Anatolia, it noted also the presence of
Nabonidus’s son, the crown prince Belshazzar, and an army stationed at
an outpost called Dur-karašu along the bank of the Euphrates northwest
of Sippar (chapters 50 and 59 in this volume). No details are given as to
the purpose of Belshazzar’s presence there, but it is difficult not to view
this as a safeguard or a warning to Cyrus, who was crossing what was for-
mally considered Babylonian territory.58 Beyond this oblique reference,
if there were tensions between Persia and Babylonia during the late 540s
bc, which would not be the least bit surprising, they are not obvious in
the sources.
When the Nabonidus Chronicle touched on Persian affairs again
in 539 bc, the Persian-Babylonian conflict was in medias res. Several
Babylonian cities’ gods (i.e., the divine statues) had been removed
to Babylon for safety, an action that Cyrus later cast as impious on
Nabonidus’s part.59 A major battle was fought at Opis in early October
of 539 bc, which paved the way for Nabonidus’s capture and Cyrus’s cer-
emonial entry into Babylon later that month. The chronicle emphasized
the army’s presence guarding the main temple of Marduk (Esagil), so
that no important rites or ceremonies were missed. Over the subsequent
four months, the divine statues from other cities were returned to their
homes (i.e., their temples).
The Cyrus Cylinder touches on many of these same ele-
ments: Cyrus’s entry into Babylon unchallenged, accompanied by
Marduk; the capture of Nabonidus; the rejoicing of the people; the
Sardis, a pitched battle that the Persians won and then a short siege of a suppos-
edly impenetrable city, accessed by diverting a river (in this case the Euphrates).
One of Herodotus’s favorite themes was the Persian kings’ transgressions of rivers
and other natural boundaries.
58. For an intriguing reconstruction of this period, including the possible defec-
tion of the Babylonian governor Gubaru (Gobryas) to Cyrus, see Beaulieu
1989: 197–202.
59. The Nabonidus Chronicle: iii 11–12 specifically notes that the gods of Borsippa,
Cutha, and Sippar did not enter Babylon, but it does not indicate why; see
Grayson 1975: 109 for an edition.
40
maintenance of proper rites; the return and re-establishment of the

divine statues to their proper cities along with the restoration of
their temples. The Cyrus Cylinder text opens with the vilification
of Nabonidus, part of a longer apologia of Cyrus’s own legitimacy.
Nabonidus was inept and impious; he interfered with the sanctuar-
ies and was indifferent to the burdens he imposed upon the people
of Babylon. Cyrus was chosen by Marduk to put a stop to these out-
rages: the divinely selected king who would correct previous wrongs
and reinstitute proper forms was an age-old theme in Mesopotamia.
This same theme is expounded in a curious, mostly broken, text called
by modern scholars the Verse Account of Nabonidus, which goes to
much greater lengths to vilify Nabonidus.60 Cyrus, abetted by mem-
bers of the Babylonian priesthoods on his behalf, spared no effort to
rewrite the history of Nabonidus’s reign.
The Cyrus Cylinder refers to the return of gods to their sanctuaries
and of peoples to their settlements. The most well-known consequence
of this act was the end of the so-called Babylonian Diaspora, the depor-
tation of the Jewish population to Babylonia after Nebuchadnezzar II’s
sack of Jerusalem in 587/586 bc. This partly explains why Cyrus was
lionized in the Bible—positive press followed him in almost every
tradition—where Cyrus was termed a messiah (“The Anointed”),61 and
was credited for the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem (chapter 60
in this volume).62 Cyrus’s magnanimity in releasing subject peoples
and their gods served as the locus for a renewal of local traditions in
Judah and elsewhere. It was also a shrewd strategic move that ensured
Cyrus the loyalty of subjects throughout Greater Mesopotamia and
Syro-Palestine.
60. For translations of the Cyrus Cylinder, see Kuhrt 2007: 70–74; Finkel 2013;
Schaudig 2019. For the Verse Account, see Kuhrt 2007: 75–80 for a translation,
and note also Waerzeggers 2012.
61. Isa 44:28−45:7.
62. E.g., Ezra 1:1−4. Scholars debate the extent to which Cyrus was involved in the
logistics of the new Jerusalem temple, other sources point to the time of Darius
I; note Fried 2004: 156–233 for discussion and references.
401
54.8. Cyrus’s capital: Pasargadae

In the midst of building an empire, Cyrus founded a new capital, one
with aspirations that matched his far- flung conquests. Pasargadae
(Elamite Bakratataš) is located in Fars, on a plain roughly 1,900 m above
sea level and surrounded by high mountains. Archaeological work there
has revealed the grandeur of the site, though the excavated remains make
up only a portion of the whole settled area.63 The main features include a
central formal garden with various multi-columned, freestanding build-
ings around the edges (often termed palaces or gates in the modern lit-
erature); elaborate irrigation systems; and Cyrus’s tomb. The chronology
of Cyrus’s building activity there is uncertain; as noted above, the capital
was far from complete when Cyrus died, and construction continued
there into the reign of Darius I. The remains at Pasargadae testify to
Cyrus’s intentional adoption and adaptation from both his predecessors
and from contemporary peoples throughout the empire: encompassing
discrete elements that supplemented an emerging Persian royal ideology
of universal empire.
54.9. Cyrus’s death

Babylonian economic documents indicate that Cyrus died some-
time in August of 530 bc. Cyrus ruled twenty-nine years according
to Herodotus,64 thus his reign is assigned to the years 559–530 bc. We
do not know exactly where or how Cyrus met his end. Xenophon sets
Cyrus’s death at home surrounded by family and friends,65 while both
Herodotus66 and Ctesias67 indicate that he died on campaign in the
63. The main publication is Stronach 1978, for which see discussion and references of
earlier excavations there. Note also Boucharlat 2014; 2019.
64. Hdt. 1.214.
65. Xen. Cyr. 7.7.
66. Hdt. 1.205−214.
67. Ctesias FGrH 688 F9 §7–§8; see Lenfant 2004: 112–113 and Stronk 2010: 316–317.
402
northeastern regions of the empire, beyond the Jaxartes River (mod-

ern Syr Darya), still acquiring territory. All three pictures are idealized,
which does not mean that they are implausible. Herodotus is generally
considered the most reliable among these sources, and he himself iden-
tified the tale of Cyrus’s campaign against the Massagetae as the most
trustworthy of the many stories that he had heard of Cyrus’s death.68
That assessment may be juxtaposed with his justification for relaying the
most plausible of four versions of Cyrus’s story.69
54.10. Cyrus’s son and successor: Cambyses II

In the historical record, Cambyses II first appears in the Cyrus Cylinder,
in line 35 near the end of the text in a benediction for himself and Cyrus.
An intriguing passage in the Nabonidus Chronicle for March of 538 bc
placed Cambyses at the center of the action in anticipation of the New
Year festival in Babylon.70 The text is broken at key points, but it appears
that Cyrus entered the scene dressed in Elamite attire and accompanied
the crown prince (i.e., Cambyses) to the Esagil temple for observation
of the proper rites. That the chronicler noted Elamite attire is telling,
but opinions differ on what this observation actually tells: Was it a vari-
ant descriptor of Persian attire? A forceful reminder of Babylon’s capture
by a foreign power? Cyrus’s assertion of his family’s origins as kings of
Anšan?71
Several Babylonian economic documents from 538 bc were given
the date formula “Cambyses, king of Babylon, and Cyrus, king of lands”
instead of the usual notation of both titles with one king. The joint for-
mula is a striking variation, but it was also a short-lived one, as it seems
to have been used only that one year. Some scholars take it as evidence
68. Hdt. 1.214.

69. Hdt. 1.95.
70. Nabonidus Chronicle: iii 24–28; for an edition, see Grayson 1975: 11.
71. This is a much debated passage; see George 1996: 380–381 for the reading of
the text.
403
for co-regency, but the episode remains perplexing.72 This co-regency,

if that is the correct understanding, is an anomaly in Achaemenid
history; whatever this arrangement was supposed to accomplish had
apparently done so within a year—or had not done so and was jetti-
soned. While the impetus for this experiment is unknown, the idea of a
co-regency finds a parallel in Assyrian tradition: in 673 bc, Esarhaddon
implemented an ill-fated scheme by naming his son Ashurbanipal as
the heir-designate for the crown of Assyria, and Ashurbanipal’s brother
Šamaš-šumu-ukin as the heir-designate for the crown of Babylon, the
two brothers superficially of equal status but in reality leaving no doubt
that the former was politically preeminent. After Esarhaddon’s death
in 668 bc, this arrangement lasted until the bitter civil war of 652–
648 bc, which resulted in the sack of Babylon. A co-regency between
father (Cyrus) and son (Cambyses), with the son designated for sole
rule upon the father’s death, seemed a safer bet, and had been success-
fully modeled by the Egyptians. The Babylonians would have had bitter
memories of Esarhaddon’s disastrous experiment and Cyrus’s own fam-
ily, with their direct knowledge of Assyria, were likely to have remem-
bered it too.
For Cambyses, we have no royal inscriptions extant save those
from Egypt, all in hieroglyphs and dating sometime after his invasion
of that country in 525 bc. The first five years of Cambyses’s reign are
thus mostly a blank, during which it may be assumed that among his
other activities he consolidated his father’s conquests and prepared to
invade Egypt. As part of those preparations Cambyses built a royal
navy, for which he relied mainly on his Phoenician and Ionian sub-
jects. There is continuity between his reign and that of Darius I, despite
the upheavals of the year 522 bc. But Cambyses’s specific contributions
are elusive, and treatments of the early empire thus tend to empha-
size Cyrus and Darius I. The occasional snippet has been discovered.
A text from the Eanna temple at Uruk recorded Cambyses’s request
to view the steles of previous kings’ stored in that immense complex,
72. The cuneiform evidence is collected and discussed in Peat 1989.

40
a welcome confirmation that reinforcing the continuity of traditions

from Mesopotamian kingship was of continuing interest to the Teispid
dynasty kings.73
Cambyses’s conquest of Egypt dominates all discussions about this
king (chapter 61 in this volume). Herodotus’s account, based on informa-
tion from Egyptian priests and other sources during his visit to Egypt,
is the main narrative source for the events.74 The campaign lasted three
years, and presumably Cambyses was absent from Persia (i.e., Parsa) for
this entire time. That fact alone (or, rather, that assumption) leads to
questions about how the empire was governed in the meanwhile. Was
there a regent (perhaps Cambyses’s brother Bardiya), or did Cambyses
delegate power through various governors? Nabonidus’s governing the
Neo-Babyonian Empire through his son, the crown prince Belshazzar,
while he himself resided in the Arabian oasis of Tayma, could have served
as a recent model. Whatever the case at the empire’s core, the Persians
were victorious during the first engagement at the Pelusiac mouth of the
Nile delta, the easternmost branch, and they subsequently invaded the
Nile valley. Following a siege, Persian forces captured the Egyptian king
Psamtek III (526–525 bc) in Memphis.
Once Egypt itself was in his possession, Cambyses campaigned fur-
ther both west and south. These campaigns were not simply exercises in
expansionism but efforts to secure volatile borderlands that had been
a source of concern to Egyptian rulers for centuries prior. Control of
the Libyan oases meant control over strategic western trade routes. The
installation of a Persian garrison at Elephantine—an island in the Nile
near modern Aswan—demonstrates the strategic importance of this area
at Egypt’s southern boundary with the kingdom of Kush. Cambyses’s
expeditions against the oasis of Ammon (modern Siwa) in the west and
against Nubia and Ethiopia in the south ended badly, if we can believe
Herodotus. The army dispatched to Libya was swallowed in a sandstorm.
Cambyses himself led the expedition against Nubia and Ethiopia, but
73. The text dates to the third year of Cambyses; see Jursa 2007: 78.
74. Hdt. 3.1−38. For Cambyses’s tour through Babylonia before the Egyptian inva-
sion, see Joannès 2021.
405
abandoned it en route when desperate straits culminated in cannibalism

among the troops.
Herodotus was more interested in the fantastic elements of these
events, fitting them into his themes of hubris and nemesis: thus he created
a case-study of the “mad Cambyses,” a portrayal that still shapes modern
assessments of this king. Cambyses purportedly ordered that tombs be
opened, Amasis’s mummy be desecrated, and cult statues mocked;75 he
slew both his brother Smerdis (Bardiya) and one of his sisters whom he
had wed and who was also pregnant.76 Cambyses’s alleged slaying of the
Apis bull,77 a sacred bull considered the earthly embodiment of the cre-
ator god Ptah, and closely connected to the ideology of ancient Egyptian
kingship, was the greatest outrage of all. It may be the case that Cambyses
was an unstable despot, but there is no corroborating material outside
the Greek tradition to substantiate it.
Herodotus’s account of Cambyses’s slaying of the Apis bull does have
a check in Egyptian sources. Egyptian inscriptions portray Cambyses as
active in, and respectful of, Egyptian traditions, more in keeping with
the portrayal of Cyrus in Babylonian inscriptions than the arch-villain
marauding through Herodotus’s Book 3. A sarcophagus from an Apis
bull buried during Cambyses’s reign was engraved with Cambyses’s own
inscription in traditional Egyptian format (chapter 61 in this volume). In
this inscription, Cambyses assumed traditional Egyptian royal titles such
as king of Upper and Lower Egypt. This Apis is understood to have died
during Cambyses’s sixth regnal year, and Cambyses took responsibility
for its proper burial and cult in the typical manner. The hieroglyphic
inscription on a votive statue of Udjahorresnet, a Persian collaborator,
also serves as a counter to Herodotus’s account—but one that must also
be considered biased. The inscription refers to Cambyses with typical
Egyptian titles and relays that Cambyses restored the order and respect
75. Hdt. 3.16; 3.37.

76. Hdt. 3.30−32. Herodotus (3.30) recorded two versions of how Smerdis was
murdered by Prexaspes, at the order of Cambyses. The name of the sister is not
recorded.
77. Hdt. 3.27−29.
406
afforded to religious sanctuaries.78 While the Egyptian evidence reminds

us not to take Herodotus at face value, the changes that took place in
the aftermath of the Persian victory were not necessarily smooth or wel-
come. For example, a reduction in support for some Egyptian temples
may be at the root of the negative stories about Cambyses—a bitterness
kept alive in the tradition until Herodotus’s time. Parallels may be sought
in the Marduk priesthood’s complicity in the vilification of Nabonidus
(chapter 50 in this volume), or the antipathy directed at Xerxes (485–
465 bc) by some members of the Babylonian elites after the failed rebel-
lions there in 484 bc (chapters 55 and 59 in this volume).
Various sources indicate that Cambyses was returning to Persia to
deal with a rebellion when he died, sometime in April of 522 bc. His
brother Bardiya ruled for roughly six months, until he was supplanted
by Darius I. The circumstances of this rebellion, presumed to have been
initiated by Bardiya, are murky. Outside the Babylonian documents that
are dated to his reign, Bardiya is mentioned only briefly in Darius I’s
Bisotun inscription.79 There we learn three key points about him: the
apparently incidental, but important, detail that Bardiya was Cambyses’s
full brother, having the same mother and the same father; that Cambyses
secretly murdered Bardiya; and that the people did not know about it.80
Darius’s account then continued with Cambyses’s departure for Egypt,
without clarifying the time frame of Bardiya’s murder. This information,
notably part of Darius’s justification for his seizure of the throne, underlay
the literally fantastic tale that follows.81 A magus, whom Darius named
Gaumata, claimed to be Bardiya, usurped the throne, and initiated a
78. Kuhrt 2007: 117–24 for translations of the Egyptian inscriptions. The issue is
confused by gaps in our understanding of the sequence from the birth of a suc-
cessor bull to the death of the Apis referenced in Cambyses’s inscriptions; see
Depuydt 1995: 119–126 and cf. Briant 2002: 55–57, 60–61, 887–888.
79. DB §10.
80. All three inscribed versions use a word that may also be translated as “people” or
“army”: Old Persian kara, Elamite taššup, and Akkadian uqu; here it is reasonably
translated in context as “people.”
81. DB §11–§14.
407
rebellion. Darius stated obliquely that Cambyses “died his own death”
after the rebellion began.82 The impostor Gaumata’s rebellion, indeed the
entire Bisotun Inscription, is cast in a dualistic, Mazdaean conceptualiza-
tion: Truth (embodied by Darius) stands against the Lie (embodied by
the impostor-king Gaumata).
The tale of the impostor-king is picked up in both Herodotus and
Ctesias, testimony to the reach and staying power of Darius’s version of
events. Herodotus situated the rebellion with two brothers who were
also magi, named Patizeithes and Smerdis. The second, who had the same
name as Cambyses’s brother, also looked exactly like him,83 which proved
convenient when Patizeithes proclaimed that his brother Smerdis was
the real Smerdis (son of Cyrus) and installed him as king. Herodotus
placed Cambyses’s death en route from Egypt to deal with the situation,
an expanded novella based in broad outline on Darius’s terse account.84
In Ctesias’s version of events, the murder of Cambyses’s brother and
rebellion were also spurred by a magus, although Ctesias deviated from
Herodotus in significant details, including the names of Cambyses’s
brother and the magus, respectively Tanyoxarkes and Sphendadates.85
The crisis of 522 bc brought to an end the ruling Teispid line. Every
aspect of this transitional period remains subject to much debate: the cir-
cumstances around Cambyses’s death and Bardiya’s short reign in 522 bc,
the resulting series of rebellions and wars across much of the empire, and
Darius’s preposterous tale of the impostor Gaumata. That Darius I was
82. For more thorough accountings of the events and associated problems of his-
torical interpretation, see Briant 2002: 97–127; Kuhrt 2007: 135–177; Waters
2014a: 52–72. Cf. Stolper 2015 for the significance of the oblique phrasing “died
his own death”—it does not indicate suicide, as assumed in much of the ear-
lier literature. Evidence suggests that the tomb of Cambyses lay southeast of
Persepolis near modern Niriz, with indications of a royally sponsored cult simi-
lar to that associated with Cyrus’s tomb, but this is not a settled issue. For a full
discussion, see Henkelman 2003.
83. Hdt. 3.61.
84. Hdt. 3.61−87.
85. Ctesias FGrH 688 F13 §11–
§16; see Lenfant 2004: 118–
121 and Stronk
2010: 322–327.
408
not a Teispid, in the sense of being a direct descendant of Cyrus, is plain

enough. The distinctions in the dynastic origins are significant, as discussed
above, but in the end moot. In his Bisotun inscription, Darius co-opted
the male members of Cyrus’s lineage into his own family and through his
marriages he collected Cyrus’s surviving female descendants: his daugh-
ters Atossa and Artystone and a daughter of Bardiya named Parmys.86
54.11. Cyrus’s daughters: Atossa

and Artystone
Atossa looms large in Herodotus’s Histories and the classical tradition
(e.g., also in Aeschylus’s Persae), of course as queen in her own right and,
as is typical in such portrayals, through her roles as daughter (of Cyrus),
wife (of Darius), and mother (of Xerxes). She was given outsized politi-
cal influence in several examples; in a notable anecdote from Herodotus,
and in a setting no less than the bedroom she shared with Darius, she
convinced him to attack Greece.87 Artystone has a more subdued role
in Herodotus’s account, noted mainly as Darius’s favorite wife and the
mother of his son Arsames,88 who was named after his great-grandfather.
The Greek evidence is more appropriate for the study of Greek lit-
erary tropes than for Persian politics and court, and the queen’s place
therein. The influence and power of royal women is manifest in more
reliable sources, however, as the Persepolis Fortification archives pro-
vide a window into their activities. The most prominent royal woman in
these archives was Irdabama, presumably a wife, or perhaps the mother,
of Darius, who is not found in other sources. The other is Irtašduna, a
much more compelling individual than her Herodotean counterpart
Artystone. Both she and Irdabama had large retinues of staff and servants,
controlled significant landholdings, managed their own private business,
and went on long journeys. Irtašduna’s seal (PFS 38; figure 54.5) is one
86. Hdt. 3.88.

87. Hdt. 3.134.
88. Hdt. 7.69.
409
Figure 54.5. Line drawing of the design of the cylinder seal of Irtašduna
(PFS 38) from Persepolis. Courtesy of the Persepolis Fortification Archive
Project /Persepolis Seal Project.
of the most elaborate attested in the archive, laden with Assyrianizing

features.89 Scholars have long hoped to find Atossa—Cyrus’s presumably
eldest daughter and the mother of Darius’s heir Xerxes—prominent in
the archive, but only recently has she been attested in more than a hand-
ful of texts. References in the Persepolis Fortification archives under
the name Udusa (i.e., the Elamite form of Greek Atossa) testify to her
status and influence as well, although there are many more references
to Irdabama and Irtašduna in that corpus.90 Of course, the Fortification
Archive—which continues to expand our knowledge—is only one
archive of many that remain undiscovered or lost.
54.12. In conclusion
There is much more to learn about Cyrus himself and the other members
of the Teispid line. The possibility of new discoveries always holds out
89. For full treatment and references, see Garrison and Root 2001: 85–83.
90. Note the important discussion in Stolper 2018, with references to earlier lit-
erature, including references in the Persepolis Fortification archives to other of
Darius’s wives mentioned by Herodotus: Parmys and Phratagoune.
410
hope for advances in our understanding of this period, but even so, the
situation is hardly static. New insights continue to be mined from com-
parisons with Persia’s imperial predecessors (primarily Elam, Babylonia,
and Assyria) and from study of numerous archival sources, for example,
Babylonian archives that traverse Cyrus’s and Cambyses’s reigns, as
well as the Persepolis Fortification archives from the reign of Darius
I (chapter 55 in this volume).
By 500 bc, the Persian Empire encompassed the known world from
the western spurs of the Himalayas and modern Kazakhstan to the
Sahara Desert and modern Libya and Sudan, from the Indus Valley to
the Balkans. Cyrus the Great laid the foundations of a world system by
conquering most of this territory, including three major powers of his
time: the Medes in northern Iran, the kingdom of Lydia in Anatolia,
and the Babylonian Empire that encompassed Greater Mesopotamia as
well as much of the Levant. Cyrus’s military and organizational accom-
plishments were without rival in world history to that point, and seldom
surpassed since. His impact as a transformational figure in world history
remains to be fully appreciated. Nonetheless, his name bears mention in
any shortlist of leaders who fundamentally changed their times, such as
Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, and Genghis Khan. That Cyrus
was able to conquer so much territory, and yet receive almost universally
positive press as an individual and as a ruler in both contemporary and
later sources, is a powerful testimony to his legacy.
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417
55
The Persian Empire under the

Achaemenid Dynasty, from
Darius I to Darius III
D. T. Potts
55.1. Introduction
In 522 bc, rulership over the Persian Empire (figure 55.1) passed from the
short-lived Teispid dynasty (Cyrus, Cambyses, Bardiya), named after an
eponymous ancestor called Teispes (chapter 54 in this volume), to Darius
I (521–486 bc), whose descendants have been known collectively, since
antiquity, as the Achaemenids (table 55.1), a term derived from the name
of an eponymous ancestor called Achaemenes (Haxāmaniš).1
1. For the Achaemenid royal inscriptions cited in this chapter, the following abbrevi-
ations are used: A1Pa-b, Artaxerxes I, Persepolis inscriptions; A2P =Artaxerxes II,
Persepolis inscriptions; A2S =Artaxerxes II, Susa inscriptions; A3P =Artaxerxes
III, Persepolis inscriptions; A3S =Artaxerxes III, Susa inscription; DB =Darius I,
Bisotun inscription; DNa =Darius I, Naqš-e Rustam inscription a; DPh =Darius
I, Persepolis inscription h; DZa-f =Darius, Suez inscriptions a-f ; XEa =Xerxes
I, Mount Elvand (Alvand) inscription; XPa-s =Xerxes I, Persepolis inscriptions;
XSa-e =Xerxes I, Susa inscriptions; XVa =Xerxes I, Van inscription (for trans-
lations, see Schmitt 1991; Lecoq 1997; Kuhrt 2007; Schmitt 2009). For transla-
tions of the numerous Ctesias fragments cited in this chapter, see Lenfant 2004
D. T. Potts, The Persian Empire under the Achaemenid Dynasty, from Darius I to Darius III In: The Oxford
History of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts,
Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0055
418
419
The Persian Empire under the Achaemenid Dynasty 419
Figure 55.1b. Detail map A.
The absolute chronology of the reigns of the Achaemenid rulers is

a complex topic involving Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek calendrics
and dating conventions. Discrepancies between the results derived from
each of these bodies of evidence, while certainly important, have little
(French); and Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010; Stronk 2010 (English). Michael
Alram, Margaretha L. Folmer, Mark B. Garrison, Michael C. A. Macdonald, John
Steele, Jan Tavernier, Bert van der Spek, and Matt Waters all provided important
clarifications on diverse matters. Bruno Jacobs kindly supplied the photo of Mount
Bisotun that appears as figure 55.3. Sidney Babcock and the staff at the Morgan
Library kindly provided the images of seals that appear as fi gures 55.7−55.8.
Needless to say, any remaining errors are solely the responsibility of the author.
420
Figure 55.1c. Detail map B.
bearing on the main focus of this chapter, which is the overarching his-
tory of the Achaemenid Dynasty (table 55.2).2
The Achaemenid kings3 are only rarely referred to by their birth
names (table 55.3), and never in the royal inscriptions. Darius, Xerxes,
2. Among the more important studies of Achaemenid absolute chronology, see, e.g.,
Depuydt 1995a; 1995b; 1995c; 2006; 2008; Walker 1997; Ossendrijver 2018. The
reconstruction of Parker and Dubberstein 1956 has been shown to be flawed in
a number of respects due to assumptions made in it regarding different scribal
approaches to dating regnal years, which did not always commence on the day of
accession but in some cases began on the following spring equinox.
3. It seems linguistically inconsistent to call Achaemenid rulers “kings” while simul-
taneously referring to the lands over which they ruled as an “empire.” Nevertheless,
such is the convention. One would expect to find Achaemenid kings ruling a king-
dom, and Achaemenid emperors ruling an empire, but as also in the case of the
Assyrian Empire, this is not common usage. Cf. the British Empire, which was
421
Table 55.1 The Rulers of the Achaemenid Dynasty
Ruler Reign (years bc)

Darius I December 22, 522–November 486
Xerxes December 1, 486–August 465
Artaxerxes I December 465–February 423
Xerxes II [45 days]
Sogdianus [6½ months]
Darius II February 423–December 404
Artaxerxes II June 404–November 359
Artaxerxes III November 359–November 338
Artaxerxes IV November 338–November 336
Darius III November 336–autumn 330
Artaxerxes V Winter 330
and Artaxerxes are Old Persian throne names which “express some
religious-political program or motto”:4
Darius (Dāraya-vauš) “Holding firm/retaining the good;”

Xerxes (Xšaya-ṛšan) “Ruling over heroes;”
Artaxerxes (Ṛta-xšaça) “Whose rule is through truth.”
Additionally, some Achaemenid rulers had bynames or epithets

which are attested in Greek and Latin sources. These include Artaxerxes
ruled by kings and queens. Even Queen Victoria bore the title “Empress of India,”
not of the British Empire. See Vance 2000: 213. Exceptionally, some authors do
refer to Achaemenid rulers as “emperors.” See, e.g., Trotter 2001: 114; Silverman
2019: 208.
4. Schmitt 2021: 64, also for the etymologies of Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. On
Achaemenid birth names and throne names in Babylonian sources, see also Sachs
1977; van der Spek 1993: 95.
42
Table 55.2 Major Events in Achaemenid History
Ruler Date (bc) Event

Darius I 522/521 Death of Bardiya I and other rebels; accession
to the throne
520–518 Carving of the Bisotun monument and
inscriptions
519 Campaign against Skunkha the Pointed-
Capped Scythian
518 Foundation of Persepolis, Indian campaign
514 Invasion of Scythia, northern Caucasus and
the Black Sea, annexation of Thrace
509–493 Persepolis Fortification archives
499–494 Ionian revolt
490 Persian defeat at Marathon
487–484 Rebellion in Egypt
486 Death of Darius I
Xerxes I 486 Accession to the throne
485 Suppression of rebellion in Egypt
484 Suppression of rebellion in Babylon
480 Invasion of Greece, Persian victory at
Thermopylae, defeat at Salamis
479 Persian defeat at Plataea
465 Assassination of Xerxes I by Artabanus
Artaxerxes I 465 Accession to the throne, Persian defeat at the
Eurymedon
464–457 Rebellion of Inaros in Egypt
449 Peace of Callias between Persia and Athens
423
Table 55.2 Continued

424/423 Death of Artaxerxes I (between December
24, 424, and January 7, 423 bc)a
Xerxes II 424 Accession to the throne
423 Assassination of Xerxes II, after a reign of
45 days
Sogdianus 423 Accession and assassination after a reign of
six and a half months
Darius II 423 Accession to the throne
412/411 Treaties with Sparta
405 Loss of Egypt
Artaxerxes II 404 Accession to the throne
401 Rebellion of Cyrus the Younger and his death
at Cunaxa
Secession of Egypt from the Achaemenid
empire
394 Spartan defeat by a Persian fleet at Cnidus
386 Peace of Antalcidas (also known as Peace of
the King)
366–359 Satraps’ revolts
Artaxerxes III 359 Accession to the throne
355 Athens obliged to recognize independence of
Byzantium, Chios, and Rhodes
343 Reconquest of Egypt
338 Assassination of Artaxerxes III
(continued)
42

Artaxerxes IV 338 Accession to the throne
336 Assassination of Artaxerxes IV
Darius III 336 Accession to the throne
334 Persian defeat at Granicus
333 Persian defeat at Issus
331 Persian defeat at Gaugamela
330 Assassination of Darius III by Persian nobles
Artaxerxes V 330 Bessus proclaims himself king
329 Bessus executed by Alexander
a
Kuhrt 2007: 312–313; Hackl and Oelsner 2018: 694, n. 33.
Source: modified after Lenfant 2011: 421–422.
I Macrochir (Makrocheir) or Longimanus (“Long-Handed,” because his

right hand was longer than his left),5 less commonly Longibracchius;6
5. Plut. Vit. Artax. 1.1, “because he had a right hand which was bigger than the other.”
Cf. Zimmer 2005: 298. Poll. Onom. 2.15.1 offered a different explanation: “either
because he had a right hand which was bigger than his left or other people’s hands,
but they [other writers?] (say) that he had extended (his) power to the great-
est extent.” Cf. Hdt. 8.140, in which Alexander Amyntas, sent by Mardonius to
Athens, said, “the power of the king is superhuman, and his hand overlong”; or
Ovid, Heroides 17.166, “know you not that monarchs have far-reaching hands?”
Note also the discussion of the epithet in Binder 2008: 83–84. As Zimmer
2005: 298 observed, “It seems as if the Greek historians had used the by-name in
order to distinguish this king [Artaxerxes I] from his grandson and great-grandson
who bore the same name, but other epithets, viz. A. Mnemon (=A. II, reg. 405/
4-359/8) and A. Ochos (=A. III, reg. 359/8-338/7).” See also the discussion in
Rung 2018.
6. Lat. bracchium, “arm,” thus Longibracchius is “Long-Armed” rather than “Long-
Handed”; see Zimmer 2005: 299. A comparable Avestan term meaning “whose
arms are long,” as Zimmer 2005: 300 noted, “is used to characterize a person of
range, i.e. of greater sphere of action or influence.” Thus, in the Avesta (Yasht
425
Table 55.3 Birth Names and Throne Names of the

Achaemenid Rulers
Throne Name Birth Name Sources

Artaxerxes I Kuraš (Cyrus) Joseph. AJ 11.6.1
Darius II Umakuš (Ochus) Ctesias FGrH 688 F15 §50
Val. Max. 9.2 ext. §6
Artaxerxes II Arsaces/Arsicas/ Ctesias FGrH 688 F15 §51, §55, §57
Aršu (Arses) Dinon FGrH 690 F14, p. 526, 32–34 J
Plut. Vit. Artax. 1.4
BM 33478 (Sachs and Hunger
1988: 58–61 [no. −440])
BM 36742 (Hunger and van der
Spek 2006)
Artaxerxes III Umakuš (Ochus) Diod. Sic. 15.93.1
Val. Max. 9.2 ext. §7
Hieron. Commentary on Daniel
2.7.5
Hieron. Chronicle p. 120, 19–20
Ael. VH 6.8
Artaxerxes IV Aršu (Arses) BM 36316 (Hackl and Oelsner
2018: 690–691)
von Weiher 1998: no. 307 (Oelsner
2001: 484; Hackl and Oelsner
2018: 692–693)
Theis 2008: fig. 1–2
Darius III Artašata BM 36761+BM 36390 (Sachs and
Hunger 1988: 179 [no. −330]; van
der Spek 2003)
Artaxerxes V Bessus Arr. An. 3.25.3
Curt. 6.6.13
426
Darius II Nothus (“Bastard”);7 Artaxerxes II Mnemon (“The

Rememberer,” because of his extraordinary memory);8 and Darius III
Codomannus.9
10.104) it is said that Mithra’s long arms seize those who speak falsely. See
Narten 1986: 244, n. 175. The connotation of “far-reaching power” is evident in
Shakespeare’s Henry VIth, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 7, where we read, “Great men hav-
ing reaching hands.”
7. The translation “bastard” is misleading since nothus was not a term of reprobation
for a child born out of wedlock, but, as Isidore of Seville (560–636 ad) stressed,
it described “the child of a noble father and ‘ignoble’ mother,” such as a concu-
bine, in contrast to spurius, which was a child produced by a noble mother and
lower-ranking father, or a widow and an unidentified father. Hence, this is what
the French call a mésalliance. The identification of Darius II as a nothus is also
found in the Chronicle (A.M. 3548 [4896]) of the Venerable Bede (672/673–735
ad), for which see Giles 1845: 248. Bede’s source may have been St. Jerome’s brief
summary of the Achaemenid Dynasty in his Commentary on Daniel 7.5, “Darius
surnamed Nothos (‘Bastard’);” see Archer 1958: 74 and the discussion in Sancisi-
Weerdenburg 2011 and McDougall 2017: 29–31.
8. Plut. Vit. Artax. 1; Hieron. Commentary on Daniel 7.5; cf. the discussion in Binder
2008: 84–85. Dandamaev 1989: 274 translated the epithet as “the mindful one.”
Oppert 1879: 229, n. 1, suggested the term was a translation of Old Persian *abi-
ataka, pointing to a gloss in Hesychius, “abiataka: mnémona. Persai.” The sugges-
tion of Arjomand 1998: 245 that “Mnemon can and should be taken as a Greek
translation of the theophoric name, Vahuman (New Persian Bahman), which he
[Artaxerxes] assumed as a sign of his devotion to Vohu Manah (‘Good Thought’),
the second of the Zoroastrian Amesha Spentas (‘Holy Immortals’),” is not tenable;
see Schmitt 2011b; Adhami 2002: 197; Briant 2001: 117. As Shannahan 2015: 307
noted, “it wasn’t just a name: Plutarch tried repeatedly to characterise Artaxerxes
in terms of his mindful nature, which served as a contrast against his Orientalist
traits (Art. 2, 4.3–4, 5, 22, 26.6).”
9. Just. Epit. 10.3. No explanation was given for his byname. Cf. the extensive discus-
sion in Badian 2000: 246 who took it for a hapax legomenon: “In fact, Codomannus
was his original name, never heard of again after his rise to prominence.” Badian
stressed that, whereas Nothos/Nothus and Mnemon had real meaning in Greek,
Codomannus did not and was thus unlikely to be a byname of the same order.
He concluded, “There can be no doubt that the name Codomannus (as trans-
literated by Greeks and rendered into Latin) was Darius’ ‘birth-name,’ which he
later dropped.” Hence Badian considered the appellative Darius III Codomannus
something of a non-sequitur since the latter name was, in his view, no longer
used once the former one was adopted. In the end, Badian 2000: 247 opted for
a West Semitic, probably Aramaic, etymology, pointing to qdmwn, “from the
East, Easterner.” This was viewed skeptically by Briant 2015: 534, who suggested,
427
55.2. Darius I
55.2.1. Origins and family
Few details are known of the early life of Darius I. According to
Herodotus, he was about 20 years old when Cyrus the Great (559–530
bc) died in 530 bc,10 implying that he was born ca. 550 bc. He died
in November 486 bc.11 According to an inscription on the façade of
his tomb at Naqš-e Rustam (DNa), Darius I was the son of Vištaspa/
Hystaspes,12 an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, of
Aryan descent. In DB I 3–6, Darius set out a much more detailed
genealogy in which he named his father Vištaspa/Hystaspes, grand-
father Aršama/Arsames, great-grandfather Ariyaramna/Ariaramnes,
great-great-grandfather Čišpiš/Teispes, and great-great-great grand-
father Haxamaniš/Achaemenes. This has been viewed almost univer-
sally as a none too subtle artifice, indeed a fabrication, by which Darius
contrived— without naming Cyrus the Great himself— to establish
a familial tie, via descent from Teispes and Achaemenes, to the great
following Rüdiger Schmitt and János Harmatta, “Codomannus may very well
have been . . . a nickname given to Artašata, comparable to the case of Bardiya/
Smerdis, also known in Xenophon by the name ‘Tanyoxarkes,’ which (perhaps like
Codomannus) refers to his physical strength.” Schmitt 1982: 90, n. 34, noted that,
in a 1969 article published in Hungarian, Harmatta traced Codomannus “back to
an Old Iranian or even OP [Old Persian] *Katu-manah-‘of warlike mind’ (con-
taining the noun *katu-‘fight’, proven for several Iranian languages), though there
are serious phonological difficulties in the representation of *katu-” by the Greek
and Latin forms K/Codo-. Moreover, Iranian manah-becomes Greek -manes ( Jan
Tavernier, personal communication in August 2021), making the etymology pro-
posed by Harmatta even less plausible.
10. Hdt. 1.209, 1.214.
11. Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 17 (latest text dated according to his reign from
Borsippa, date numeral damaged, November 486). A fragment of Ctesias pre-
served by Photius (Bibliotheca 72) says that Darius died after an illness of thirty
days, in his seventy-second year, after a reign of thirty-one years, but this latter
figure is clearly incorrect.
12. Hystaspes became a military commander in Parthia, according to DB ii 92–98, iii
1–9. According to Herodotus, Darius had three brothers, viz. Artaphrenes (Hdt.
5.25−35, 5.100, 5.123), Artanes (Hdt. 7.224) and Artabanus (Hdt. 7.66−67, 7.75,
7.82); see also Scott 2005: 491.
428
conqueror, thereby incorporating Cyrus within the Achaemenid descent

group and establishing his own legitimacy.13 It would be wrong, how-
ever, to view Darius’s genealogy as a case of pitting genetic or biological
“truth” against a tendentious, downright falsehood promulgated by an
ambitious social-climber seeking to justify his claim to the throne. As
anthropologists have long stressed, genealogies are not historical records
but post-facto, jural constructs that are retrojections of genealogical
data, rearranged “to bring them into line with changes in the existing
pattern of legal and political relations within and between lineages.”14
To expect otherwise is to misapprehend the functions of genealogies in
many societies all around the world. The case of Darius I is no different.
According to Herodotus, before seizing power Darius was a spear-
bearer (doryphoros) of Cambyses’s (529–522 bc) during his campaign of
Egyptian conquest.15 His first wife, whose name is unknown, was a daugh-
ter of Gobryas, son of Mardonius, a staunch ally and brother-in-law of
Darius.16 She bore three sons, the eldest of whom was Artobazanes,17 and
another of whom was Ariabignes.18 After becoming king, Darius took at
least five additional wives: Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus previously married
to Cambyses and the magus Gaumata, who became the mother of Xerxes,
Achaemenes, Ariamenes, Hystaspes, Mandane, and Masistes; Irtašduna/
Artystone, a previously unmarried daughter of Cyrus, who became the
13. See also the discussion in chapter 54 in this volume where, as noted, Darius I’s
son Xerxes expounded a genealogy that fused Achaemenid and Teispid descent,
according to Herodotus (Hdt. 7.11).
14. Fortes 1953: 28.
15. Hdt. 3.139. According to Ael. VH 12.43, Darius was Cyrus the Great’s quiver-
bearer (pharētrophoros), but here Cyrus may be an error for Cambyses, according
to Swoboda 1901: 2185; see also the discussion in Briant 2002: 771.
16. Schmitt 2012. Gobryas appears as Darius’s spear-bearer on the Bisotun relief; see,
e.g., Luschey 1968: 68–70.
17. Hdt. 7.2−3. For the name, see Schmitt 2011a: 121–122.
18. Hdt. 7.97, 8.89; Just. Epit. 2.10.1−10. According to Plut. Mor. 488d−f, the name is
Ariamenes. Ariabignes went on to command the Ionian and Carian contingent
in the Persian fleet. For the name, see Schmitt 2011a: 82–83. Cf. the discussion in
Stoneman 2015: 123.
429
mother of Aršama/Arsames19 and Gobryas;20 Parmys, a daughter of

Cyrus’s son Bardiya (Smerdis), who became the mother of Ariomardos;21
Phaidymie, a daughter of Otanes, one of Darius’s close allies, who had
previously been married to Cambyses and the magus Gaumata; and his
niece Phratagoune, the only daughter of Darius’s brother Artanes, who
became the mother of Abrocomas and Hyperanthes.22
Artystone/Irtašduna, the favorite wife of Darius according to
Herodotus, is well-attested in the Persepolis Fortification archives,24
23
where she is also referred to as the “royal woman.”25 Her landholdings

in Persis were considerable, and she had her own court and “table.” Her
movements, as reflected in administrative texts from Persepolis, some of
which are sealed with her personal cylinder seal,26 show that she and her
entourage or royal household moved around, e.g., between Persepolis,
Susa, and Ecbatana.27
55.2.2. The elimination of rivals

The conflicting and often confusing testimony surrounding the
alleged murder of Cambyses’s brother Bardiya; Cambyses’s own death;
the actions of the alleged imposter Bardiya I (Smerdis or Gaumata,
19. He became an immensely wealthy satrap with estates in Egypt. A portion of

his correspondence with two overseers of his Egyptian estates has survived; see
Tuplin and Ma 2020.
20. Hdt. 7.69, 7.72.
21. Hdt. 7.78. For the name, see Schmitt 2011a: 88–89.
22. Hdt. 3.68, 3.88, 7.224; see the discussion in Lenfant 2019: 34. For the name
Abrocomas, see Schmitt 2011a: 63–64.
23. Hdt. 7.69. Herodotus claimed that Darius had a golden statue made of her.
24. Hallock 1978: 111.
25. Schmitt 2011a: 129.
26. Root 2021.
27. For a discussion of Artystone/Irtašduna, see Henkelman 2010: 668, 679, 683,
692; 2017: 122–123, 134, 196–199, 201.
430
depending on which source one uses); the revolts of Nebuchadnezzar III

and IV of Babylon; and Darius I’s eventual triumph over his adversaries
have all been touched upon elsewhere in this volume.28 How this played
out over the course of 522–521 bc is becoming increasingly clear thanks
to a number of recent studies,29 and it is necessary to review the develop-
ments that led up to Darius I’s accession.
According to DB, Bardiya I, presented in the narrative as an imposter
posing as the brother of Cambyses, rebelled on March 11, 522 bc30 while
Cambyses, in the eighth year of his reign, was returning from Egypt.31
However, the latest cuneiform text dated at Babylon according to the
reign of Cambyses is from April 18 (Nisannu 23) 522 bc,32 and the first
text dated to the reign of Bardiya, a debt note from Babylon, comes from
the following month (Ayyaru), hence some days or weeks later.33 This
suggests that Cambyses’s death preceded Bardiya’s accession, and that
news of Cambyses’s death traveled fast, as shown by the short interval of
time at Babylon between the latest date formula referring to Cambyses’s
28. See c hapters 54, 56, 57, 59, 62, and 63. For the highly embellished account in
Herodotus, see Rollinger 2012. There are strongly folkloric aspects of the account
in which Darius emerges as one of seven conspirators against the false Smerdis.
29. Zawadzki 1994; 1995a; 1995b; 1995c; Joannès 1982; 2020; Lorenz 2008;
Bloch 2015; Schwinghammer 2021; see also the summary of evidence for
Nebuchadnezzar III and IV in Streck 2001; cf. Poebel 1939.
30. DB i 35–37; Schmitt 1991: 51.
31. The site of his death is unknown. For the possibility that a tomb intended for
him was constructed at Narezzaš (modern Neyriz, Fars province) in Iran, see
Henkelman 2003: 159.
32. Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 14; Graziani 1991: xvi.
33. Graziani 1991: 2–3; Bloch 2015: Table 1. The text is dated simply to the month of
Ayyaru in Year 1 of Bardiya’s reign, without specifying the exact day. Note also
that a text dated according to Bardiya’s reign, from April 14, 522 bc, was written
at Humadešu, an unlocated site in Iran, hence some days or weeks before the
earliest text from Babylon mentioned above. For the text, see Graziani 1991: 8–
9. This could suggest, first, that Bardiya’s accession was acknowledged earlier at
Humadešu than at Babylon; and second, that Cambyses died before April 14 but
that the news was not received until some days or weeks later by the scribes of
Babylon, who continued to date texts according to his reign as late as April 18.
431
reign and the earliest one referring to Bardiya. This, in turn, casts doubt
on the veracity of Darius’s version of events in the DB narrative. To begin
with, according to Darius, Cambyses only died after Bardiya’s corona-
tion on July 5, 522 bc,34 whereas the cuneiform evidence implies that
Cambyses’s death had occurred almost three months earlier. Moreover,
Darius dated the start of Bardiya’s rebellion to March, yet the fact that
the scribes at Babylon recognized Bardiya’s reign only after they had
ceased using Cambyses’s regnal years for dating purposes strongly sug-
gests that Bardiya was not an illegitimate usurper, as alleged by Darius,
but the rightful successor of his elder brother, and that his was an orderly
succession that followed hard on the heels of Cambyses’s death. In fact,
scholars have been suspicious of Darius’s entire narrative since the nine-
teenth century,35 raising the very real possibility that Cambyses’s brother
Bardiya I was not, contrary to Darius’s claim, murdered by Cambyses
prior to setting out on the conquest of Egypt; that as a son of Cyrus
and as a full brother of Cambyses (with the same father and mother,
Cassandane, according to Herodotus),36 he succeeded Cambyses after
the latter’s death; and that the entire story of a magus named Gaumata
who posed as the real Bardiya, whom Cambyses had allegedly murdered,
was a fabrication on the part of Darius, who also manipulated the chro-
nology of the last months of Cambyses’s reign and the first of Bardiya’s,
to mask his own coup d’état.
Thirty-six cuneiform texts from Babylonia are dated to Bardiya’s
reign,37 the earliest to April 14, 522 bc, as noted above, and the latest
34. DB i 32–43. Schmitt 1991: 51; Joannès 2020: 80.

35. See, e.g., Briant 2002: 99–102; Kuhrt 2007: 136–138; Schwinghammer 2021.
Zawadzki 1994: 129 made the point that Bardiya/Gaumata was said by Darius
(DB i 36) to have been a priest (magus), even a Median one (according to the
Babylonian version of DB), but that the relief at Bisotun does not depict him
in this way, suggesting that the relief belies the rhetoric of Darius’s account.
Needless to say, the same skepticism applies to the embellished account of the
conspiracy and Darius’s rise to power in Herodotus’s account.
36. Hdt. 2.1, 3.2.
37. Graziani 1991: 11. The texts come from Babylon, Borsippa, Humadešu, Nippur,
Sippar, and Uruk.
432
to September 20 (Tašritu 1).38 Yet two texts from Kutha, from August
30 (Ululu 10) and September 1 (Ululu 12), were dated in the first reg-
nal year of a Babylonian rebel named Nidintu-Bel, son of Ainara, who
took the throne name Nebuchadnezzar III,39 showing that a revolt had
commenced by this date. By mid-October, the scribes at Babylon had
begun to date their texts to Nebuchadnezzar III’s first regnal year as
well, and one can only presume that Bardiya’s rule had effectively come
to an end.40 Whether Bardiya was captured and killed by Darius I on
September 29, as DB would have us believe,41 is somewhat immaterial
since Nebuchadnezzar III had now replaced him, at least in Babylonia.
Nevertheless, Bardiya I’s death was clearly significant because in the DB
account, it functions as a trigger for Darius’s assumption of kingship.
Thus Darius proclaimed,
I slew him. I despoiled him of the kingship; by the favor of

Auramazda I became king; upon me Auramazda bestowed the
kingship.42
On December 13, according to DB, Darius defeated Nebuchadnezzar III

in battle somewhere near the Tigris,43 and the next day, at Uruk, saw the
last cuneiform text dated according to his brief reign.44 According to the
38. Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 15; Bloch 2015: Table 1. According to DB i 57−58,
“Gaumata the magus [Bardiya] and the men who were his foremost followers”
were killed in Media by Darius and “a few men” on September 29, 522 bc; see
Schmitt 1991: 53.
39. Lorenz 2008: 121–122; Bloch 2015: 3–4, n. 13; Joannès 2020: Table 2.
40. Bloch 2015: Table 1. For his reign, see Streck 2001; Lorenz 2008.
41. DB i 55.
42. DB i 59−60. Hinz 1942: 326 considered this the start date of Darius’s “violent
seizure of power.”
43. DB i 89. Cf. Streck 2001. As Klinkott 2020: 49 stressed, the triumph over
Nebuchadnezzar III is the most extensive treatment of the defeat of an enemy,
even though details of the battle are omitted, in the entire DB narrative.
44. Bloch 2015: Table 1.
43
DB narrative, Darius defeated Nebuchadnezzar III again on December

18,45 and four days later, the scribes of Babylon began dating their texts
according to his first regnal year.46 This was not, however, the end of
the rebellions faced by Darius, nor could he yet sit undisturbed on the
Persian throne.
55.2.2.1. Year 1 of Darius I

The chronology and major events of Darius I’s Year 1 have been exam-
ined by numerous scholars.47 One can, of course, debate exactly when
that year began, but if one considers the period from the first defeat
of Nebuchadnezzar III on December 13, 522 bc (day 26, month 9), to
the restoration of Darius I’s name in the dating formulae of Borsippa—
December 25, 521 bc,48 and the defeat of Frada in Margiana by Darius’s
vassal Dadaršiš on December 28, 521 bc (day 23, month 9)49—then the
interval is indeed essentially one year.50
45. DB i 96.
46. Bloch 2015: Table 1.
47. See e.g. Poebel 1938; Hallock 1960; Shahbazi 1972; Borger 1982: 115–122;
Vogelsang 1998: Table 1; Schmitt 2013; Kosmin 2019 with exhaustive discussion.
49. DB iii 19. For discussion, see Borger 1982: 118–122; Schmitt 1991: 63, n. 18. See
also Table 55.4 and the chronological table in Poebel 1938: 143–147. Note that
the order of events in the text is not strictly chronological, nor does the line-up
of the nine “liar kings” plus Skunkha the Scythian (section 55.2.2.2) correspond
to the chronology of the military campaigns undertaken to subdue Darius I’s
adversaries.
50. As Borger 1982: 123 noted, the interval amounted to one year and two weeks, in
the Julian calendar, or one year minus three days according to the Babylonian
and Old Persian calendars. As Schmitt 2013 noted, “the accession year of Darius
I had, as we know from other evidence, an intercalary month, and thus lasted
from 27 March 522 to 13 April 521 B.C.” If, instead, one dates the beginning
of his effort to seize the Persian throne from his capture of Bardiya I in late
September 522 bc, then roughly three more months must be added to that fig-
ure. Note that Hdt. 3.152–159 ascribed, for what it’s worth, over twenty months
for Darius’s second siege of Babylon, i.e., when he defeated Nebuchadnezzar IV.
This is clearly at variance with the chronology established in DB and by the dated
cuneiform texts from Babylon. Kosmin 2019: 238 has suggested that, “By limiting
43
As the Bisotun relief and inscriptions inform us, having eliminated

Bardiya I, Nebuchadnezzar III, and an Elamite rebel named Assina,51
Darius went on to vanquish six more opponents, as well as deploying
forces that engaged in five battles against the Armenians (table 55.4).52
The severity of these rebellions varied, as did the personal involvement
of Darius himself; the role of vassal commanders and provincial forces;
and the number of enemy casualties.53 After completing his round of
campaigns, Darius claimed, “This (is) what I have done by the favor of
Auramazda in one and the same year, after that I became king: Nineteen
battles I have fought.”54 In the following year, the second of his reign, a
third rebellion, led by Athamaita, occurred in Elam, which was put down
by Gobryas.55
his nineteen dated victories to a single year unit . . . Darius rounded them into a
garland. . . . Accordingly, the DB narrative contained the potential . . . of estab-
lishing a recurring cycle of historical victory anniversaries, of eternalising these
foundational moments of Darius’ new kingship. Darius’ chronographic con-
struction permitted the subjects of Persia to pace the ground of his accession
year, from chaos to restored order, battlefield by battlefield, year after year.”
51. DB i 74.
52. For the Armenian campaigns, see Potts 2006–2007; Dan 2014; Daryaee 2018.
53. For an overarching, synthetic treatment of this “imperial crisis” with earlier liter-
ature, see Briant 2002: 114–123 and Schwinghammer 2021. The Babylonian and
Aramaic versions of DB give many precise figures (some not completely legible),
often in the thousands, for enemy forces killed and captured in Persia, Media,
Parthia, Margiana, and Armenia. See the convenient table in Briant 2002: 118
and the detailed presentation in Hyland 2014: 177–179.
54. DB iv 2–6. As many scholars have noted, only eighteen battles are enumerated in
the Bisotun narrative. Borger 1982: 130 pointed out that, in addition to the defeats
of the “liar kings” and the Armenians, the Aramaic version of DB iii 40–49 also
refers to the defeat of one of Bardiya II’s (Vahyazdata) commanders as a battle. This
then would represent the nineteenth battle missing in the Elamite, Babylonian, and
Old Persian texts at DB. The Aramaic version of DB is known only from a papyrus
scroll excavated at Elephantine in 1906–1908, and written perhaps a century after
Darius I’s reign, under Darius II. For the text, see Greenfield and Porten 1982.
55. DB v 1–20. The rebel’s full Elamite name was probably Atta-hamiti-Inšušinak; see
Schmitt 2011a: 75, n. 5, Potts 2016: 316 (with earlier references), and chapter 42 in
volume 4.
435
Table 55.4 The Chronology of Darius I’s Early Reign
Date (bc) Event (Old Persian names as in DB OP Relief

DB)
522 March 11 Rebellion of Gaumata (Smerdis / I 37
Bardiya I)
July 1 Coronation of Gaumata I 42–43
(Smerdis/Bardiya I)
September 29 Death of Gaumata (Smerdis/ I 56–57 1
Bardiya I), seizure of
throne by Darius
undated Death of Assina of Elam I 81–83 2
December 13 Victory over Nadintabaira I 83–90
(Nebuchadnezzar III/
Nidintu-Bel)
December 18 Victory over Nadintabaira I 3
(Nebuchadnezzar III/ 90–96
Nidintu-Bel)
December 29 Victory over Bardiya II III
(Vahyzadata) by Vivana, 53–64
satrap of Arachosia
December 31 First victory over the Armenians II
by Vaumisa (Omises) 49–57
521 January 12 Victory over the Medes by II 17–19
Hydarnes
February 21 Second victory over Bardiya III
II’s forces by Vivana, satrap of 64–69
Arachosia
March 8 Victory in Parthia by Hystaspes, II
Darius’s father 92–98
May 8 Victory over Fravartiš II 4
(Phraortes) of Media by Darius 64–70
(continued)
436
Date (bc) Event (Old Persian names as in DB OP Relief

DB)
May 20 Victory over the Armenians by II
Dadaršiš 29–37
May 24 Victory over Bardiya II III
(Vahyazdata) by Artavardhya 28–40
undated Death of Martiya of Elam II 8–11 5
May 30 Second victory over the II
Armenians by Dadaršiš 27 –31
June 11 Second victory over the II
Armenians by Vaumisa (Omises) 57–63
June 20 Third victory over the Armenians II
by Dadaršiš 42–49
July 11 Second victory in Parthia by III 1–9
Hystaspes
July 15 Victory over Cissantakhma II 6
(Tritantaechmes) of Sagartia by 78–91
Takhmaspada
Second victory over Vahyazdata III 7
(Bardiya II) of Persia by 40–49
Artavadhya
November 27 Victory over Arakha III 8
(Nebuchadnezzar IV) by 83–92
Intaphernes
December 28 Victory over Frada of Margiana III 9
by Dadaršiš 10–19
520 ? Victory over Athamaita of Elam V 1–14
by Gobryas
519 ? Victory over Skunkha the Pointed- V 20–30
Capped Scythian by Darius
Source: after Borger 1982: 128–129.
437
55.2.2.2. Darius I and Skunkha

.
In the spring of 519 bc, Darius marched with an army to “Scythia,” where
the Scythians who wore the pointed cap (Old Persian Sakā tigraxaudā)
were defeated, their leader Skunkha captured, and their lands annexed.56
This may be considered his first, extra-territorial campaign after the
consolidation of his rule. Skunkha was captured but not executed; he
was deposed and replaced, and his lands annexed. Unlike the nine “liar
kings” depicted at Bisotun, who all appear bareheaded, Skunkha was
shown wearing his headgear. This has been viewed as a privilege or sign
of respect conferred on Skunkha by Darius I, who viewed him, according
to some scholars, as a vanquished enemy, but not a rebel “liar king.” This
is at odds, however, with the notion that Darius I was only compelled to
56. DB v 20–30. For an overview, with earlier bibliography, see Tuplin 2010: 303,
n. 3. The location of these lands has been greatly disputed. Several scholars have
identified Skunkha and his followers with the Massagetae, against whom Cyrus
lost his life, e.g., Herrmann 1941: 319; Hinz 1942: 339. Weissbach 1940: 69–
70 located them to the east of the Oxus river, on the far side of Sogdiana and
beyond the southern end of the Aral Sea, while Jacobs 2010: 3 placed them in
southern Kazakhstan (Transoxania; see chapter 64 in this volume). Weissbach
1940 located the scene of the campaign close to the Aral Sea; Genito 2006: 90,
n. 19, placed them “on the ancient lower reaches of the Amu-Dar’ja,” the ancient
Oxus River. On the other hand, after a long discussion of the different Scythian
groups mentioned by Herodotus and the iconography of the delegations shown
in the Apadana reliefs at Persepolis, Schmidt 1970: 115 concluded that Skunkha
and his people were “European Sakā,” not Central Asian. Cf. Schmitt 1991: 76,
who stressed that, according to the DB narrative, Darius said, “the Scythians
who wear the pointed cap, these came against me, when I had come down to
the sea,” noting that, Old Persian “/drayah-/signifies the ‘sea’ (and especially
the Sea of Marmora . . . perhaps lakes, too, but certainly not rivers; so that the
River Oxus or Iaxartes cannot be meant here).” Schmitt 1972: 526 noted that
the Old Persian term is also used with reference to the Ionians (Yaunā), where
the Mediterranean is obviously meant, and, in Darius’s Suez inscription (DZc),
the Suez Canal on “the sea, that comes from Persia,” i.e., the Red Sea and/or
the Persian Gulf–Indian Ocean (Erythraean Sea) feeding into it. On this basis
neither the Aral Sea, nor even the Caspian, can be excluded as possibilities. If the
etymological connection of the name Skunkha, Elamite Iškunka, with Ossetic
sk’uänxun, “to distinguish oneself,” and sk’unxt, “excellent” (Tavernier 2007: 563)
is correct, then one might be inclined to look toward the Caucasus, except for
the fact that Ossetic itself is closely related to Sogdian (Palunčić 2019: 311–312),
suggesting that an easterly origin for Skunkha cannot be ruled out.
438
act against Skunkha because, after the death of Bardiya I, he had sought
independence from Persian overlordship.57
55.2.3. The reign of Darius I

55.2.3.1. Generalities
Darius I (521–486 bc) reigned for thirty-six years.58 That period was
bookended by the defeat and capture of Darius’s opponents, described
in DB, and the eruption of a rebellion in Egypt,59 shortly before Darius’s
death (table 55.2). The Persian Wars, begun under Darius I and continued
by his son Xerxes I and grandson Artaxerxes I, are often considered the
defining thread that ran through the reign of Darius and indeed the first
century of the Persian Empire, but this view is one born of generations of
Western readers whose grasp of Persian history was acquired largely via
Herodotus.60 As scholars have frequently stressed, Herodotus provides
a historical narrative, albeit one that is patently written from a Greek
perspective,61 whereas the Achaemenid royal inscriptions are largely
unconcerned with historical events (DB is the obvious, if certainly not
unbiased exception) and the texts from the Persepolis Fortification
57. Thus Jacobs 2010: 2 suggested that the death of Bardiya I had triggered the rebel-
lion of Skunkha, thus necessitating Darius’s campaign of 519 bc to bring his peo-
ple and territory back under his control, but this scenario contradicts his own
assertion that Skunkha was an enemy but not a rebel and hence was captured and
deposed, but not put to death, and therefore depicted differently on the Bisotun
relief than the other rebellious leaders whom Darius vanquished.
58. Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 17 (latest text dated according to his reign from
Borsippa, date numeral damaged, November 486). A fragment of Ctesias pre-
served by Photius (Cod. 72) says that Darius died after an illness of thirty days,
in his seventy-second year, after a reign of thirty-one years, but this latter figure is
clearly incorrect.
59. Wijnsma 2019.
60. Stronk 2020: 72–73; Rollinger and Degen 2021: 430–431.
61. As Stronk 2020: 73 emphasized, the Greek sources on Persia and Persians “seem
to have been determined by their authors’ fascination for rather than by their
knowledge of and/or genuine interest in their subject.”
439
and Treasury archives (see below, section 55.2.4.5) mostly concern local
administrative matters, as opposed to larger historical issues.62 The
Babylonian Astronomical Diaries, some of which contain incidental
nuggets of historical information,63 are largely irrelevant for the reign
of Darius I, while contemporary archival texts from Sippar, Borsippa,
Babylon, Kiš, Nippur, Dilbat, and Uruk, of undoubted value for the eco-
nomic, social, legal, and cultic history of Babylonia,64 are not concerned
with contemporary matters in the wider world.
55.2.3.2. Military encounters

The history of the reign of Darius certainly involved foreign policy tri-
umphs and defeats. These included his Scythian campaign of 514 bc,
which took him to the Caucasus and the area of the Black Sea, and led
to the annexation of Thrace and the submission of Macedon as a vassal
kingdom;65 his suppression of the Ionian revolt following the burning
of Sardis by a joint force of Athenians and Ionians (499–494 bc); his
campaign against Eretria and Athens, which led to the Persian defeat at
Marathon (490 bc); and the long-running rebellion in Egypt (487–484
bc),66 which distracted Darius from satisfying his desire for revenge on
Hellas.67 Only the death of Darius brought an end to a career of what
may seem like over three decades of total war, beginning with the initial
coup d’état that brought him to power when he was only about thirty
years old. Like Nader Shah or Alexander the Great, much of Darius’s life
was clearly spent in the saddle, or with sword or spear in hand, but he
partook of another kind of history as well.
62. Note the discussion in Klinkott 2020.

63. van der Spek 1993: 95–96.
64. Jursa 2021: 111. The accident of discovery also plays a role, e.g., most of the archival
texts from Babylon happen to date to the reign of Darius I; see Jursa 2021: 104.
Importantly, some of the smaller archives demonstrate “business as usual.”
65. Balcer 1972.
66. Hdt. 7.1−7. Wijnsma 2019; Colburn 2021: 288.
67. See the discussion in Ruffing 2021.
40
Figure 55.2. Archers from the glazed brick frieze in the palace of Darius
at Susa. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Generic License.
55.2.4. Non-military achievements

Some of the most important achievements of Darius’s reign did not occur
on campaign, but may be considered part of his “peacetime” history.
The construction of a palace with glazed brick decoration at Susa
(figure 55.2); the commissioning of the great relief and panels of trilin-
gual inscriptions at Bisotun; the commencement of the construction of
the royal residence and associated buildings on the monumental terrace
at Parsa (Persepolis); the excavation or dredging of a preexisting canal in
41
Egypt connecting the Nile and the Red Sea; the institution of an extraor-
dinarily efficient system of bureaucratic administration and control; and
the introduction of coinage are all important elements of his historical
legacy.
55.2.4.1. Bisotun
Scholars have been so intent on analyzing the implications of the Bisotun
texts and the iconography of the associated relief that they tend to forget
what an extraordinary sculptural tour de force the monument represents
(see figure 59.4 in chapter 59). Carved into the side of a mountain peak
forming the last portion of a range bordering the northern side of the
Kermanshah plain, Mount Bisotun rises to a height of over 500 m (figure
55.3).68 At its base is a spring, accessed by a well-worn caravan track. The
baseline of the 5.48-m-tall,69 3-m-wide relief sits 66.05 m above ground
level, while the bottom of the text sits at 61.80 m above the same point.
The entire ensemble of relief and inscriptions occupies an area 7 m high
and 18 m wide. A narrow ledge, ca. 1.5 m long and only 0.45–0.60 m
wide,70 runs beneath the Old Persian text but, as H. C. Rawlinson found
when he copied the inscription in 1835–1837, the ledge is so narrow that
standing a ladder on it to reach the uppermost parts of the inscription
cannot be done without risking life and limb, while the Babylonian and
Elamite texts are even less accessible.71
68. Diod. Sic. 2.13.1 called it Bagistanon, a name derived from Old Persian *Bagastana,
“place of the god(s),” which became in Middle and New Persian Bahistun, “with
good columns,” and, folk- etymologically, Bisitun/ Bisotun/
Bistun, meaning
“without columns;” see Schmitt 1991: 17.
69. The individual figures vary in height as follows: Darius, 1.72 m; Gobryas (spear)
and Intaphernes (bow), his attendants, 1.47 m; the “liar kings,” 1.17 m; Skunkha,
1.80 m (with his pointed cap); and Auramazda, 1.27 m; see Luschey 1968: 68.
70. For the dimensions, see Rawlinson 1851: 74; Luschey 1968: 67–68; Schmitt
1991: 17.
71. Rawlinson 1851: 74 wrote, “When I was living at Kermanshah fifteen years ago,
and was somewhat more active than I am at present, I used frequently to scale
the rock three or four times a day without the aid of a rope or ladder: without
any assistance, in fact, whatever. During my late visits [1847] I have found it more
convenient to ascend and descend by the help of ropes where the track lies up a
42
Figure 55.3. A view of Mount Bisotun, from the east. Photograph courtesy of Bruno Jacobs.
43
The carving of both the relief and inscriptions at Bisotun probably

began in early 520 bc, but was only completed in 518 bc following the
addition of the figure of Skunkha and the fifth column of text. The Old
Persian text alone comprises 414 lines, each containing on average 45
signs, composed of 3–5 wedges, for something on the order of ca. 55,000–
93,000 individually carved wedges.72 The space between each line of text
is ca. 3.8 cm. The individual wedges of the Elamite and Old Persian texts
are a minimum of 2.8 cm in height and stand on a lightly incised line.
Differing line heights and sign variations suggest that no fewer than
eight different masons carved the Babylonian DB text. Graphic vari-
ants in the spelling of names like Armina (Armenia) and Nabukudracara
(Nebuchadnezzar) suggest that more than one mason carved the Old
Persian text as well.73 The entire history of the evolution of the three
versions, beginning with the Elamite, followed by the Babylonian, and
finally the Old Persian, has been discussed by a number of authors.74
The logistical difficulties of executing such a large, multi-paneled
inscribed text and accompanying relief should not be underestimated.
precipitate cleft, and to throw a plank over those chasms where a false step in
leaping across would probably be fatal. On reaching the recess which contains
the Persian text of the record, ladders are indispensable in order to examine the
upper portion of the tablet; and even with ladders there is considerable risk, for
the foot-ledge is so narrow, about eighteen inches or at most two feet in breadth,
that with a ladder long enough to reach the sculptures sufficient slope cannot
be given to enable a person to ascend, and, if the ladder be shortened in order
to increase the slope, the upper inscriptions can only be copied by standing on
the topmost step of the ladder, with no other support than steadying the body
against the rock with the left arm, while the left hand holds the note-book, and
the right hand is employed with the pencil. In this position I copied all the upper
inscriptions, and the interest of the occupation entirely did away with any sense
of danger.” Cf. also Haupt 1889: 58: “The sculptures are placed at a dizzy height,
reaching in their upper portion an elevation of about 500 feet above the plain,
and are so difficult of access that MM. Coste and Flandin, who were sent out
by the French Government with express instructions to copy the inscriptions
[1839–1841], returned with their mission unaccomplished, declaring the sculp-
tures to be absolutely inaccessible.”
72. Modified from Justi 1896–1904: 432.
73. Schmitt 1991: 20.
74. See Schmitt 1991: 18 (with earlier references).
4
Words have been used to describe the sculpted portraits of George

Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore
Roosevelt carved by Gutzon Borglum (1867–1941) on Mount Rushmore
in the United States between 1927 and 1941 which resonate with the
meaning and intent of Bisotun. The protagonists depicted have been
called “men whose achievements represent the founding, expansion,
preservation, and conservation,” of their country, and the monument as
a whole has been termed “not a thing of today but of the ages.”75 Much
the same could be said about the commemorative function of Bisotun;
its service as a monument proclaiming Darius’s re-foundation of the
Persian Empire, its salvation, and its expansion; and the intention that it
should hover, high above the human fray, for all eternity, in conformity
with the charged religious rhetoric of both the texts and the relief. At
Mount Rushmore, an aerial cable car was erected to bring equipment up
the mountainside; a wooden stairway was built, and
work each morning started with a forty-story climb of 506 steps,

interrupted at intervals by forty-five platforms and ramps. . . .
Hand winches were installed for raising and lowering specially
designed sling seats suspended from cables.76
We do not know exactly how the work at Bisotun was conducted, but
even an imperfect comparison with Mount Rushmore may help one
appreciate what a tremendous undertaking it was for a team of masons
and sculptors in the late sixth century bc to create such a lasting monu-
ment on the face of a mountain far above the surrounding plain.
55.2.4.2. Persepolis
The Persepolis landscape is spread out over some twenty square kilome-
ters of the Marv Dasht plain and contains myriad structures—residential,
palatial, military, hydrological, agricultural, and funerary.77 Yet the
75. Curlee 1999: 8, 16.

76. Curlee 1999: 20–21.
77. Boucharlat 2013: 512.
45
massive building complex begun there by Darius I was not entirely with-
out precedent. Excavations at Tol-e Ajori, located ca. 3 km from the site
chosen by Darius I, have revealed parts of a monumental gateway with a
glazed brick façade, showing bulls and mušhuššu-dragons, much like the
Ištar Gate of Babylon, and fragmentary cuneiform signs pre-dating the
reign of Darius I (chapters 56 and 57 in this volume). Construction may
have already begun in 520 bc,78 but was certainly not completed during
Darius I’s lifetime. Rather, the architectural ensemble that today greets
visitors to Persepolis represents a collection of structures built over the
course of almost two centuries by four Achaemenid sovereigns: Darius
I, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Artaxerxes III. Individual structures, or
modifications of earlier ones, may be attributed to each of these rulers
thanks to the inscriptions that both adorn and identify them. These texts
employ a vocabulary of native terms in Elamite, Babylonian, and Old
Persian to identify different types of structures, although the semantic
range of these terms is not always clear.
Most of the Persepolis complex stands atop a massive, 450 × 300
m terrace79 occupying 12 hectares and rising 14 m above the plain, the
construction of which involved the quarrying of an estimated 125,000
m2 area of the nearby Kuh-e Rahmat mountain outcrop.80 This was nec-
essarily the earliest construction at the site.81 An Elamite inscription
(DPf ) engraved on a 7 × 2 m stone monolith in the south wall of the
78. Most scholars follow Olmstead 1948: 173, who wrote, “Once the revolts at the
beginning of the reign had been suppressed, work was begun on the terrace.” Cf.
Schmidt 1953: 39; Frye 1984: 125; Mousavi 1992: 206; Silverman 2019: 272.
79. The architectural history of Persepolis presented here has been simplified. In
fact, there were originally three main terraces and a fourth, intervening one. See
Kleiss 1998: 239, which describes an “upper terrace” between the columned hall,
tačara, and hadiš (see footnotes 97 and 157), a terrace on which the columned
hall stood, and a third terrace near the Kuh-e Rahmat and its royal tombs.
80. Schmidt 1953: 40; Mousavi 2012: 10.
81. Calmeyer 1990: 18 suggested a four-stage sequence of construction under Darius
I at Persepolis: A. the terrace; B. the upper terrace; C. start of the tačara and his
own grave in the face of Kuh-e Rahmat; and D. the columned hall and comple-
tion of the tačara.
46
terrace refers to the construction of a halmarraš, a fortress or fortifi-

cation82 “upon this place,” where formerly there had been none. “And
I built it secure and beautiful and adequate, just as I was intending to
do,” wrote Darius, “by the grace of Auramazda.”83 In fact, there are exten-
sive fortifications associated with the terrace at Persepolis, e.g., the two-
story casemate fortifications to the northeast where most of the so-called
Persepolis Fortification Tablets (section 55.4.4.5) were found, as well as a
tower known as the Mountain Fortification.84
Access to the terrace in the time of Darius was from the south,85 via a
stairway leading to the Treasury86 and a building thought to have been an
armory for troops stationed at the site. Dated to the reign of Darius I on
the basis of certain distinctive architectural features,87 this hypothesized
82. See the exhaustive discussion in Rossi 2010. Although the conventional defini-
tion of the Elamite term halmarraš is fortress or fortified place, Lecoq 1997: 229
translated it as “palace” in his French translation of the Achaemenid royal inscrip-
tions. As Henkelman 2013: 539 noted, “Structures referred to as halmarraš, lit.
‘fortified place, fortress,’ seem to have included a function as storage center.” Cf.
the discussion in Mousavi 1992: 206. Tamerus 2016: 267, n. 132, noted that, in
the Persepolis Treasury texts, the term “seems to describe Persepolis—or perhaps
rather the administrative center specifically—itself,” as in “Parsā, the halmarraš.”
83. Translation by George G. Cameron in Schmidt 1953: 63. Cf. Mousavi 2012: 14.
84. For the defensive system of Persepolis, see Schmidt 1939: 7–15; Mousavi 1992.
For the Mountain Fortification, see Mousavi 2012: Fig. 1.
85. Tilia 1978: 3; Calmeyer 1990: 7; Kleiss 1998: 239.
86. On the contents of the so-called Treasury, see Razmjou 2010: 242–243. Scholars
since Schmidt 1953 have suggested that the Treasury was the first building con-
structed on the terrace. Following Schmidt, Mousavi 2012: 204 suggested that its
construction and that of the fortification walls went hand in hand: “Parsa was
the depository of the Imperial Treasury and the Crown Jewels. . . . Aside from the
defensive fortifications and the military headquarters . . . the building of the main
Treasury was probably the first to be completed on the platform of Persepolis. . . .
Thus, not only could the Imperial Treasury be immediately safeguarded, but also,
in the early phases of the construction, the building could be used as the admin-
istrative centre of the city itself.” Roaf 1983; Calmeyer 1990: 17 suggested that it
was in fact one of the later constructions of Darius I at the site, post-dating the
Ionian revolt.
87. Schmidt 1939: 19: “All floors of rooms, as far as preserved, bear on the surface,
above plaster and fill, a red wash which we always find in structures of the time of
47
staircase must have gone out of use when Xerxes I constructed the
impressive double-stairway along the northwest side of the terrace.88
A building identified in Old Persian as a tačara, in inscriptions
engraved on the east and west sides of the door frame of the southern
entrance (DPa) and on all windows and niches of the main room and the
portico (DPc), names Darius I as its builder. Rüdiger Schmitt, however,
has pointed to the unusual grammatical constructions used in the text
which suggest instead that Xerxes I was their author.89 The term tačara
has no satisfactory etymology and its semantic range has been much
debated. Although originally considered a term denoting the private pal-
ace of Darius, the small dimensions of the building make this unlikely.90
However, although it has been sometimes considered one of several
generic terms for “palace,” it has also been suggested that it was applied
more narrowly to interior areas or columned spaces, including porticos,
forming part of a larger complex, which may have been designated hadiš
in Old Persian.91 Several cognates, including Old Armenian tājār and
Georgian tadzari, both of which denote sacred places or temples, raise
the alternative possibility that tačara denoted a temple or sacred space
within the larger palace complex of Darius I.92
The most impressive monument on the terrace from the reign of
Darius was the enormous columned hall, conventionally called the
“Apadana,”93 consisting of a 60 × 60 m hall flanked by three porticos,
Darius, the founder of Persepolis. The ‘Darius type’ of column base also persists
throughout this complex.” Impressions of Darius’s seals were also “found in the
court complex;” see Schmidt 1939: 21.
88. Mousavi 2012: 16.
89. Schmitt 2009: 114. Roaf 1983: 138 had previously suggested that the building
“was started by Darius and completed by Xerxes.”
90. Razmjou 2010: 233. The term also appears in Xerxes inscription (XPj).
91. For a full discussion of all the possibilities, see Filippone 2019.
92. Razmjou 2010: 240–242.
93. For why this building should not, contrary to common usage, be termed an
“Apadana,” see Razmjou 2010: 231–233.
48
each containing six rows of six columns, standing over 18 m high, the
whole set on a 2.5 m high platform. The rooftop of this building towered
37 m above the plain below. The attribution of this imposing structure
is confirmed by two pairs of identical silver and gold foundation tab-
lets with trilingual inscriptions (DPh) calling for his blessing on Darius
and his descendants and naming “the kingdom which I hold, from
the Scythians who are beyond Sogdiana, thence unto Ethiopia; from
Sind, thence unto Sardis,” all of which was bestowed upon Darius by
Auramazda.94 Although one of the coins from the so-called South-East
Deposit, a double siglos of Cypriot manufacture (PT7 364), possibly
from the mint at Lapethus, found together with the foundation tablets,
has been used as an argument in favor of a dating to the early fifth cen-
tury bc, hence providing a date late in the reign of Darius I for the con-
struction of this building,95 more recent numismatic studies reject this in
favor of a date ca. 520–500 bc.96
Finally, an inscription (DPj) on part of the door frame of the entrance
to another building identifies it as the work of Darius, yet the building is
better known by the Old Persian inscriptions of Xerxes I (XPc, XPd) on
the east and west wings of the northern portico and on the east and west
entrances, which refer to it as a hadiš. This term has generally been trans-
lated as “palace,” although the meaning is probably closer to “seat, dwell-
ing place, abode,”97 and is linked to the Avestan name of the Household
God.98 It is also used in the so-called Foundation Charter from the
94. Mousavi 2012: 17.

95. Schmidt 1957: 110, 114, no. 39; Roaf 1983: 139.
96. As Kagan 1994: 39 argued, “The hoard evidence as it now stands leaves us with
no basis for placing any of the Cypriot coins after 500 and reasonable grounds
for dating them all before that. This is consistent with the other coins in the
deposit . . . the five Greek silver coins from Persepolis provide just the sort of
mixed group one would expect to find circulating in the Persian Empire in the
last decades of the sixth century bc”; cf. Meadows 2003: 343.
97. As Henning 1952: 517 wrote, “Skt. sādana, OPers., Av. hadiš-. . . sēdēs, etc.
From . . . ‘seat’ a wide variety of meanings opens out; it certainly includes ‘man-
sion,’ ‘dwelling,’ ‘home,’ and ‘residence.’ ”
98. Filippone 2016: 69.
49
presumed audience hall of Darius I (DSf ) at Susa, where he proclaims,

“This is the hadiš that I built at Susa.”99 Ever since its discovery, DPj has
puzzled scholars because, previously, the structure had been assigned
exclusively to Xerxes I, and was considered his “palace.” The possibil-
ity has been raised that the construction of the building, intended for
Xerxes I’s use, may have been initiated by Darius I.100
55.2.4.3. Susa
Although it was formerly suggested that Darius I moved into
Nebuchadnezzar II’s palace at Babylon (chapter 50 in this volume) after
the city’s subjugation, and subsequently began construction on a pal-
ace of his own,101 such a scenario must be considered unlikely in view
of the fact that the fragmentary Old Persian inscriptions found in the
“Persian Building” (German Perserbau) at Babylon102 date to the reign
of Artaxerxes II.103 Nevertheless, the influence of the decorative glazed
brick used at Babylon is palpable in the architectural program at Susa,
where Darius I built a palace complex. While some scholars have sug-
gested that Darius I brought Babylonian craftsmen who had fashioned
the glazed brick decoration at Babylon to Susa and began construction
there in 521 bc,104 other dates have been suggested, and it is difficult to
be precise on this point.105
99. Schmitt 2009: 130.

100. Calmeyer 1990: 16.
101. E.g., Olmstead 1948: 162. Cf. Haerinck 1987: 141–142; 1990: 162.
102. For a general description, see Koldewey 1913: 126–129.
103. Curtis 2020: 15. For the texts, see Schmitt 2009: 25, 186. Nevertheless, as Kleber
2021: 911 stated, “Texts from the reign of Darius I . . . mention a ‘New Palace,’
which may refer to the western part of the South Palace with the adjacent
‘Perserbau.’ ”
104. Olmstead 1948: 167.
105. See the discussion in Potts 2016: 326–327 (with earlier references). Suggestions
have ranged from 520 to 510 bc, and, according to Briant 2013: 8, “the first proof
of existence of the royal palace (ulhi sunkina) can be detected in a Persepolis
450
In any case, although the environs of Susa, in the Khuzestan low-

lands, lacked the ready supply of building stone available at Persepolis,
it had an almost inexhaustible supply of soil and water for brickmaking,
and as a site that had been occupied continuously since ca. 4000 bc,
it afforded elevation lacking at Persepolis, where it had to be artificially
created. On the so-called Apadana mound, where the remains of much
more ancient Elamite and prehistoric occupation were found, an enor-
mous quantity of river gravel was distributed in order to level the surface,
enough to cover the entire surface with a 30–60 cm thick layer. Here a
palace and columned audience hall were built on a platform covering 13
hectares that stood in places up to 18 m high. The palace alone covered
3.8 hectares, or 38,130 m2 (246 × 155 m), while the audience hall, mea-
suring 109 m on a side, covered 11,881 m2, or 1.18 hectares.106 The glazed
brick decoration, which has been displayed in the Louvre since its dis-
covery in the late nineteenth century, includes files of men armed with
bows and lances who have sometimes been identified as members of the
royal bodyguard (“Immortals”).107
Twenty-four inscriptions attributable to Darius I have been found at
Susa. In DSf, Darius describes his construction of a hadiš, convention-
ally translated here as “palace,” boasting that the materials used were
brought from far and wide. Babylonians made the mudbrick; Assyrians
transported wood (cypress or cedar?) from the Lebanon Mountains
as far as Babylon, whence Carians and Greeks conveyed it to Susa; sis-
soo (Pakistani rosewood) was brought from Gandara (northwestern
Pakistan) and Carmania (Kerman); gold was imported from Lydia and
Bactriana; lapis lazuli and carnelian from Sogdiana; other semi-precious
stones from Tukriš and Chorasmia (near the Aral Sea); silver and ebony
Fortification Tablet dated 500/499 bc,” referring to the unpublished text PF-
NN 1573, but the allusion to a palace at Susa, as opposed to one at Persepolis,
is not absolutely certain; see Briant 2013: 24, n. 39 (referring to a personal com-
munication from W.F.M. Henkelman). Pillet 1914: 56 proposed that the con-
struction dated to ca. 500 bc.
106. See the discussion in Potts 2016: 329.
107. Hdt. 7.82−83. For the conjecture that members of this elite corps are illustrated
at Susa, see, e.g., Olmstead 1948: 238.
451
from Egypt; pigment from Ionia; ivory from Kush (Nubia; modern
Sudan), India, and Arachosia (the area of Kandahar); and finally, the
stone used for columns was quarried at Abiraduš in Elam. The ethnic
identities of different types of craftsmen are also specified in the text: the
stone masons were Ionians and Lydians; the goldsmiths were Medes and
Egyptians; the woodworkers were Lydians and Egyptians; the brickmak-
ers were Babylonians; and the decorators of the fortification walls were
Medes and Egyptians.108 In addition to displaying the enormous range
of Darius I’s control, the enumeration of lands and peoples in DSf recalls
other lists of subject peoples and lands in Darius I’s inscriptions (e.g.,
DNa, DB, DPe, DSe, DSaa), which have been the subject of extensive
discussion.109
55.2.4.4. The canal leading from the Nile to the Red Sea
Darius I rehabilitated the Saite canal leading from the Nile to the Red
Sea (chapter 61 in this volume), a major feat of engineering that itself
was renovated and continued in use after the Arab conquest of Egypt.110
The ancient Greco-Roman sources dispute whether or not the canal was
completed—although DZc claims that ships from Egypt sailed through
the canal to Persia111—and modern scholars dispute whether Darius
I was himself in Egypt during the work, after its completion, or not at
all.112 In any case, more than half a dozen epigraphic sources, some of
which are no longer extant, attest to the canal’s completion. Six of these
(DZa-f ) have entered the corpus of Achaemenid royal inscriptions. The
exact nature of the work done is difficult to determine but, according to
108. Schmitt 2009: 131–133.

109. To these may be added XPh. See, e.g., Cameron 1973 for a discussion of the
distinction between lands, satrapies (in the sense of Hdt. 8.78ff.), and peoples,
and Rapin 2018 for a discussion of the organizing principles behind these lists,
with earlier references.
110. Sanderson 1898: 15, “after being again choked, the passage was cleared and made
serviceable for boats after the Arab conquest of Egypt.”
111. Schmitt 2009: 150.
112. See Hinz 1975; Tuplin 1991 (with earlier references).
452
the poorly preserved hieroglyphic text of the Kabret Stele (also known
as Chalouf Stele), it seems to have entailed the dredging of the earlier
Saite canal, which had become silted up and no longer contained flowing
water, over the course of ca. 80–100 km.113 This may have been an exag-
geration designed to cast the Great King in a great light, yet it is entirely
conceivable and, given the scope of work carried out at Persepolis and
Susa, entirely feasible given enough conscripted labor.
55.2.4.5. Administration, silverization, and monetary matters

Perhaps no aspect of Persian imperial history has received as much
attention in recent years as the administrative system in the Persian
heartland, the details of which are preserved in the ca. 15,000 tablets,
mainly written in Elamite, from the Persepolis Fortification archives.114
It is a truism that conquering territory and laying claim to a kingdom or
empire are one thing, but governing it and holding on to geographically
disparate provinces are another. The extraction of wealth in a system-
atic, recurring fashion for the maintenance of the ruler’s estate, in the
broadest sense, and the civil and especially military units that protect,
expand, and maintain imperial order are essential to the longevity of
any state.
It is tempting to wax eloquent on the philosophical and religious
precepts that a particular ruler fulfilled, so that human rule over one’s
subjects on earth mirrored divine rule over humanity, as evil demons
were conquered, the “Lie” rejected, and cosmic order established and
maintained.115 Yet there is a more brutal, Realpolitik side to matters
as well, involving the use of crushing force to bring rebels to heel, as
Darius I showed on many occasions. Cosmic order may be an aspiration
expressed in royal inscriptions, but this was a post-facto gloss on the bru-
tal treatment of rebellious provinces and their leaders.
113. Tuplin 1991: 247. For an exhaustive discussion of the Suez Canal steles and their
contents, see Wasmuth 2017: 125–199.
114. Hallock 1969; 1978; Henkelman 2010; 2013; 2017; 2021; Jacobs et al. (eds.) 2017.
115. Skjærvø 2013: 554–556. Cf. Shayegan 2012.
453
It seems clear that, having once obtained control over a vast number
of culturally, linguistically, and topographically diverse lands extending
from Thrace to the Indus Valley, Darius had no intention of adopting a
laissez-faire attitude toward their ongoing control and exploitation. As
a study of correspondence between Aršama, satrap of Egypt during the
reigns of Artaxerxes I and Darius II, and his estate managers in Egypt,
revealed, “The multi-ethnic empire is thus run to the profit of a particu-
lar group,” and indeed the fact that “the Achaemenid order is institu-
tionalized so openly to the profit of a class of Persians lords” may seem
shocking, but is undeniable and hardly without parallel in the case of
more modern states and empires in the region.116
By virtue of his conquest of the entirety of literate Western Asia,
from Egypt and Asia Minor to Elam, Darius I and his counselors could
draw upon almost three millennia of bureaucratic praxis and prece-
dent in devising their own system of fiscal control. Virtually all aspects
of bookkeeping were well developed by this point in human history.
Although the distribution of administrative texts is restricted, given how
far-flung the empire was, excavations at Persepolis yielded an archive
in the Fortification, dating to Years 13–28 of Darius’s reign (April 509–
March/April 493 bc),117 of roughly 15,000 tablets, and in the Treasury,
dating from Year 30 of Darius to Year 7 of Artaxerxes I ( July/August
492−January 457 bc), where nearly 750 tablets were found, 138 of which
are published.118 Study of this material is ongoing (see figure 56.3), and the
Fortification and Treasury collections relate only to parts of the broader
administration of Persepolis and its hinterland,119 not to the empire in its
116. Ma and Tuplin 2020: 7.

117. The texts from Persepolis are not, however, evenly distributed across these
years. Certain types of texts cluster in some years, e.g., over 70 percent of the
travel ration texts published by Richard T. Hallock date to Years 22 and 23; see
Hallock 1969: 41.
118. For the dates, see Henkelman 2013: 531, 534; 2021: 882. By comparison, it is
interesting to consider the distribution of Babylonian archival and astronomi-
cal diary texts by year throughout Darius’s reign in Walker 1997: 23.
119. Although many toponyms appear in the Fortification Archive, most cannot
be located with certainty, making it difficult to estimate just where the limits
45
totality, except insofar as they concern travelers to or from some of the

distant areas of the empire. In brief, the Fortification texts are the records
of a highly organized bureaucratic administration charged with book-
ing the receipt, storage, and disbursement of a wide range of naturalia
(foodstuffs, wine, beer, crops, livestock, fodder) to pack animals, travel-
ers, messengers, laborers, officials, nobility, members of the royal family,
and deities (in the form of offerings). The Treasury texts, on the other
hand, record payments in foodstuffs and uncoined silver.120
From a bureaucratic point of view, the texts fall into diverse catego-
ries, including records of single transactions, letter-orders, and journals
(summaries or registers). Some sectors of the local economy are absent—
textile production, for example121—which highlights the fact that the tab-
lets recovered, where they had been stored, because they were no longer
needed for regular consultation by the scribes or overseers concerned in the
transactions recorded, constitute only a slice of the Persepolis bureaucracy
which was “part of a larger mosaic of sources.”122 The names of a number
of administrators occur regularly in the Persepolis texts, most notably the
director Parnakka (Greek Pharnaces), who sat atop the bureaucratic pyra-
mid, answering directly to Darius I, and the deputy-director Ziššawiš.123
of the Persepolis administration lay and where that of another center, such as
Susa or Ecbatana, may have begun. Nevertheless, Henkelman 2021: 885–886
judged that the “purview of the Persepolis administration was roughly located
between Ram Hormoz or Behbehan in the northwest and Niriz in the south-
east,” and “was divided into at least three districts defined by the use of ‘regional
seals’. . . They are the Persepolis (southeast), Kamfiruz (center), and Fahliyan
(northwest) regions . . . the PTA [Persepolis Treasury archive] pertains only to
the Persepolis region.” This is an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
120. Tamerus 2016: 245. Hence, the regular practice of making silver payments
attested in the Treasury text is nonetheless not a sign of an increasingly mon-
etized economy. According to present evidence, such payments date exclusively
to the latter half of Darius I’s reign. This may, of course, change in the future.
121. Henkelman 2008: 84; Tamerus 2016: 244.
122. The present discussion draws largely on Henkelman 2021: 882–883; cf. in
greater detail Henkelman 2008: 126–162.
123. For their involvement in the organization of cultic feasts, see, e.g., Henkelman
2011a: 100. Most of the letter-orders in the archive were issued by Parnakka.
45
Cyrus II’s conquest of Lydia in the 540s bc brought the coinage

of Croesus (chapter 51 in this volume) to the attention of the Persian
elite, and it has been suggested that the gold coinage of this king, long
known as Croesids, continued to be minted for several decades fol-
lowing his death, perhaps because the new Persian overlords sought to
express a commitment to continuity vis-à-vis the recently conquered
Lydians.124 Of equal if not greater importance, however, was the fact
that Lydia’s monetary system was the most advanced in the world,
and any damage inflicted on either it or Lydia’s economic position
in Asia Minor would have been detrimental to the finances of Darius
I.125 From ca. 515 bc, however, Croesids, decorated with lion and bull
iconography, ceased to be struck. In their stead, Darius I introduced,
first, silver sigloi, with the image of the Great King bearing a bow and
arrows, wearing a crenellated crown and long, pleated garment, based
on the standard used by Croesus of 5.375 g (figure 55.4), and later the
gold Dareikos stater, or “daric,” weighing theoretically 8.36 g.126 Darius
I’s monetary reform probably began, at the latest, by 510 bc.127 The lim-
ited circulation of this coinage, beyond western Asia Minor, however,
and the absence of evidence of monetization in the Persian heartland
For the evidence of their personal seals at Persepolis, see Garrison and Root
2001: 531, pl. 285e–f (Parnakka); Garrison 2017: 333–375 (Ziššawiš).
124. Hoernes 2021: 797.
125. Alram 2012: 63.
126. Alram 2012: 64; Corfù 2012: 45. For the development of their iconography,
see Corfù 2011 with earlier references. The standing figure was gradually trans-
formed into the running-kneeling archer with lance. The garment, although
often referred to in the numismatic literature by the Greek term chiton, is more
complex; see Thompson 1965: 123–125.
127. Alram 2012: 65. Cf. Root 1988: 12 and Pl. 1, who first noted that a cuneiform
tablet from the Persepolis Fortification archives (PF 1495), dated to early 499
bc (November 2–December 3 =Month 12, Year 22 of Darius I’s reign; see
Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 30 for the date conversion), was impressed with
a Type II daric. On this basis, Type I is likely to have been issued, at most, only
a decade or so earlier.
456
Figure 55.4. Silver siglos (5.35 g, 15 mm) from Sardis, Xerxes I or Artaxerxes I.
Yale University Art Gallery, The Ernest Collection in memory of Israel Myers,
2007.182.319, with kind permission.
during the reign of Darius I128 raise serious questions about the nature
of this coinage.129
With regard to the silverization of the Persian economy,130 Herodotus
reported fabulous amounts of tax paid in silver to the Achaemenid
128. Only seven darics and thirteen sigloi have ever been found in Iran, out of the ca.
3,700 darics and 30,000 sigloi.
129. See, e.g., Nimchuk 2002; Corfù 2011: 108–109; 2012: 45. As Alram 2012: 66
noted, a propos the daric used to seal PF 1495, “that a type II archer coin was
used as a seal on an administrative document at Persepolis demonstrates that its
introduction also had a certain influence for the Iranian heartland, where these
coins normally did not circulate.” It is interesting to note that PF 1495 records
an allocation of flour to a group of men engaged in transporting “the baziš of
Udana . . . from Barrikana to Susa.” The term baziš has been interpreted here as
“a more personal form of tribute,” rendered by Persian nobility and/or senior
bureaucrats to the crown; see Henkelman 2017: 165. Its Old Persian equivalent
(bāji) is understood as “share (of the king)”; see King 2019: 196. Is it coinciden-
tal that a daric was used to seal this document?
130. As opposed to true “monetization”; see van der Spek 2011; Tamerus 2016;
Hoernes 2021: 797.
457
treasury in the reign of Darius I: 228 tons, 30 of which came from

Babylonia alone, as “uncoined silver became the main currency in taxa-
tion.”131 This was part of the alleged tax reforms of Darius I described
by Herodotus, according to whom monetary taxes replaced payments in
kind.132 The reality of this, however, has been challenged, largely because
the “tax” extracted from Babylonia consisted largely of labor and mili-
tary service and, therefore, the amount in silver as related by Herodotus
is likely to have been an approximation of the monetary value of wage
payments in silver, not specie that was physically transported to and
deposited in the Achaemenid treasury.133 That some silver was collected
and hoarded by the imperial treasury, however, is certain. It is confirmed
by Persepolis Fortification texts recording the transport of silver,134 and
implicit in accounts of Alexander’s conquest, when gold and silver in the
amount of 180,000 Euboean talents, or ca. 45,000 tons, were seized from
the Persian treasury.135
55.3. Xerxes I
55.3.1. His accession
Xerxes I (485–465 bc) was the first-born son of Darius by his second
wife, Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great. He was younger than Darius
I’s eldest son, Ariobazanes or Ariaramnes, by his first wife, the daughter
of Gobryas. Herodotus says that Darius named Xerxes to be his succes-
sor prior to his death.136 According to Justin, Xerxes himself justified
131. Hdt. 3.92, 3.95; cf. van der Spek 2011: 403–404, 411.
132. Hdt. 3.89−97; cf. Jursa 2011: 431.
133. See the discussion in Jursa 2011: 443–444. Hence, for bookkeeping purposes,
such a figure may have been registered as tax paid, but in reality much of the
amount probably never left Babylonia and represents an equivalence in the
sense of an accounting entry after the fact.
134. Tamerus 2016: 258–261.
135. Diod. Sic. 19.56.5; van der Spek 2011: 404.
136. Hdt. 7.2−3.
458
his father’s choice of him as crown prince and successor on the grounds
that his elder brother, although obviously older, was born when their
father was merely a subject, whereas he himself was born after Darius
had become king. He argued that, whereas his elder brother deserved
to inherit Darius’s private property from his pre-regal life, he, Xerxes,
was entitled to inherit the throne, and even if one considered their rights
equal, he, Xerxes, ought to prevail because he was descended from Cyrus
and Cyrus’s daughter.137 In this case, it seems clear that Xerxes’s claim
was staked upon the fact that his own mother’s birth and her lineage
were nobler than his elder brother’s, since Gobryas, although a leading
personage and ally of Darius as well as his brother-in-law and father-in-
law,138 was lower in rank than Cyrus.139
55.3.2. Revolts, insurrections, and reprisals

Darius I died while making preparations for a campaign against Hellas,
probably in November, 486 bc,140 and was buried in a rock-cut tomb
at Naqš-e Rustam, near Persepolis.141 The following month saw the
scribes of Borsippa date their tablets according to the reign of Xerxes
I.142 When he came to power, the rebellion in Egypt that had erupted
during the last years of his father’s reign was still raging,143 and in Xerxes’s
137. For the text, see Kuhrt 2007: 245–246.

138. According to Herodotus, not only was Darius married to a daughter of
Gobryas, but Gobryas in turn was married to a sister of Darius (Hdt. 7.5.1).
139. For a discussion of Xerxes I’s succession, see Brehm 2009: 53, who emphasizes
that by choosing a grandson of Cyrus the Great, Darius I was bolstering his
claims to legitimacy.
141. Schmidt 1970: 80–90.
143. Despite the fact that it is “attested by only a handful of papyri,” Herodotus
noted that Egypt’s tax burden was increased as Xerxes “laid Egypt under a
much harder slavery than in the time of Darius” (Hdt. 7.7); see Rollinger and
Degen 2021: 440.
459
second year a short insurrection (September–November 484 bc), prob-

ably prompted by high prices and an increase in taxes, and led by dis-
gruntled elites including Bel-šimanni and Šamaš-eriba, broke out in
northern Babylonia and led to harsh reprisals.144 Although concentrated
principally in Babylon,145 Borsippa, Kiš, and Dilbat, northerners living
in southern Uruk may have become involved as well, and in crushing
the rebellion, many families fell out of favor with the Achaemenid gov-
ernment,146 just as those with ties to the regime enjoyed new privileges.
Xerxes’s decisive action in Babylonia was followed a few years later by
his invasion of Greece, in fulfillment of Darius I’s plans. Here, too, the
issue of punishment for transgressions, in the form of a “necessary cam-
paign of retribution upon a rebellious state on the periphery,”147 is para-
mount, and the ideological justification is clearly encapsulated in one
of Xerxes I’s most famous inscriptions from Persepolis (XPh). There,
Xerxes maintains that, when he became king, one or more lands in the
empire were in open rebellion, and of these, there was one that had previ-
ously worshipped false gods (daivas).148 Therefore, according to the will
of Auramazda, Xerxes destroyed these places of demon worship (daiva-
dāna).149 Whether this was truly a case of religious transgression and the
144. Waerzeggers 2018; Kleber 2021: 916; see also the texts cited in Oelsner 2007.
145. Whether or not Xerxes’s retributive actions at Babylon included his inflicting
damage on the city’s famous ziggurat has been hotly debated; see, e.g., George
2010; Waerzeggers 2018: 2–5 (with earlier references).
146. Waerzeggers 2018: 6–7 (with earlier references); see also Rollinger and Degen
2021: 439.
147. Waters 2016: 101.
148. As Kent 1937: 300 noted, this was the first attestation of Old Persian daivā, a
term already known in Avestan (daēva), “false god, demon,” cf. Sanskrit deva-
and Latin deus. Although the rebellious land has sometimes been identified
specifically with Athens, this is rejected by some scholars, e.g., Briant 2001: 117.
Frye 2010: 19 speculated that the false gods in question were specifically Iranian,
e.g., Mithra and Anahita. Hence, XPh would reflect the imposition of greater
Zoroastrian orthodoxy on the Iranian peoples than had been the case under his
father, Darius I. For a discussion of the diverse interpretations of the text and
the history of its discovery, see Abdi 2010: 279–282.
149. For the text, see Schmitt 2009: 164–169.
460
worship of “pagan” idols, or of embracing the “Lie” (Old Persian draṷga-)

and breaking oaths of allegiance under the guise of a religious justifica-
tion for punitive action, is debatable.150
Xerxes I’s ongoing entanglements in the Aegean, involving the
Hellenic, Delian, and Peloponnesian Leagues, have been studied for
generations,151 and after the defeat at Plataea in 479 bc, Xerxes seems
to have understood that, given the severe check his army and navy had
experienced in the western periphery of his empire, it was time to “con-
centrate more on how to maintain what had been conquered than on
how to subdue further enemies.”152
55.3.3. Xerxes the builder

It has long been acknowledged that Xerxes’s defeats in the Hellenic sphere
have tainted his image in Western sources since antiquity, and that “the
weakling monarch, dominated by his eunuchs and remembered chiefly
for his insane attack on European Greece,” stands in stark contrast to the
fact that, when he came to the throne, “Xerxes was in the prime of life,
about thirty-five years of age, and . . . trained as successor to the throne”
whose work, particularly at Persepolis, brought several buildings begun
by his father “to completion and initiated most of the others.”153
Xerxes’s work at Persepolis is, like that of Darius I, well documented
epigraphically. The structures he built include the monumental “Gate of
All Nations” (XPa); the famous Apadana (eastern and northern) stair-
cases (XPb; XPg); parts of the tačara begun by Darius I (XPc; XPk);
most of the hadiš (XPd-e ; XPp-r); the so-called Harem, the function
of which is unknown154 (XPf; XPj; XPo); and a garrison or barracks
150. Skjærvø 2013: 555; Waters 2016: 101–102.

151. For general orientation, see Briant 2002; Rollinger and Degen 2021: 440–443.
152. Rollinger and Degen 2021: 437.
153. Olmstead 1948: 230.
154. See the discussion in Razmjou 2010: 243–244. No name or term used to iden-
tify the building appears in XPf or XPj.
461
(XPh).155 In addition, according to the inscribed text on a column base

found there (XPm), the so-called South Palace, ca. 500 m southwest of
the southwestern corner of the Persepolis terrace, was the work of Xerxes.
An inscribed column base fragment (XPs) was also found near the so-
called frataraka-Temple, ca. 200 m north-northwest of the Persepolis
terrace, but probably pre-dates that structure, which is almost certainly
post-Achaemenid.156
Xerxes was also active at Susa, where inscribed column bases attest
to his work in the main palace (hadiš)157 and on the monumental gate-
way,158 both of which were begun by Darius I (XSa-b ; XSd). In addition,
Xerxes had a number of inscriptions carved into the faces of rock out-
crops, e.g., at Mount Elvand, in the Ganj-nāma pass (XEa), and at Van,
in eastern Turkey (XVa). In contrast to DB, which is impossible to read
from the ground in front of the rock face on which it is carved, or the
inscriptions of both Darius I and Xerxes I within the palatial settings,
broadly speaking, of Persepolis and Susa, access to which was always
highly restricted, Xerxes’s Elvand and Van inscriptions were placed in
publicly accessible areas. Certainly the Mount Elvand inscription could
have been seen and read by literate visitors,159 though the Van inscrip-
tion, set on a massive rock outcrop, would have taken considerable effort
to reach, even if remains of stairs cut into the living stone suggest an
155. A copy (XMa) found in a secondary context (in a drainage channel) at

Pasargadae contains the same text; see Schmitt 2009: 20.
156. Boucharlat 1984: 131. Achaemenid architectural elements were reused in the
building’s construction, and five limestone slabs found there are inscribed with
the names of Greek deities; see Callieri and Askari Chaverdi 2013: 699.
157. XSc reports work on a palace (hadiš) begun after its author’s accession, but the
text is so fragmentary that an attribution to Xerxes I remains uncertain; see
Schmitt 2009: 179–180.
158. XSd states that the gateway, according to the will of Auramazda, was built by
Xerxes’s father, Darius I. It is unclear whether this inscription was added to an
already completed structure, or whether Xerxes himself completed or put the
finishing touches to it. For the text, see Schmitt 2009: 180.
159. An accompanying inscription known as DEa, in the voice of Darius I, may
have in fact been carved in Xerxes’s time; see Schmitt 2009: 10 (with earlier
references).
462
ancient access route.160 It is not surprising that both of these inscriptions,

which seemingly address the heavens more so than mortal readers, begin
with a paean to Auramazda. Whereas the Elvand inscription identifies
its author Xerxes by a string of titles, ending with a statement of filiation,
“son of Darius, of the King, an Achaemenid,”161 the Van text adds that
the spot on which the inscription was carved had previously been chosen
by Darius I for the display of a text, an aim that was never achieved, after
which Xerxes gave orders for it to be carved.162
55.3.4. Xerxes’s deadly end

According to an Astronomical Diary from Babylon (BM 32234), Xerxes
I was assassinated in his bed-chamber by Artabanus, the Hyrcanian com-
mander (hazarapatiš, “chiliarch”)163 of his bodyguard,164 on August 4,
465 bc.165 In Ctesias’s account, Xerxes’s assassination was carried out in
conjunction with a eunuch named Aspamitres. Artabanus then told
Xerxes’s son Artaxerxes that the murderer was in fact the crown prince,
Darius, prompting Artaxerxes to kill his own brother. After Artaxerxes
160. Discovered by Friedrich Eduard Schulz in 1828 ad, the inscription and its set-
ting were described by him in detail in the posthumously published Schulz
1840: 265–268. For Schulz’s career, see Potts 2017.
161. Schmitt 2009: 152.
162. Schmitt 2009: 182.
163. Literally “chief of the thousand,” i.e., the royal bodyguard. Briant 2002: 262
suggested that this was an elite corps within the 10,000 immortals, but von
Gall 1972: 266 proposed that members of this elite unit were outside the com-
mand structure of the 10,000, hence the exceeding importance of the office
of hazarapatiš. Cf. Diod. Sic. 18.48.4−5, “the post and rank of chiliarch had
been brought to fame and glory under the Persian kings. Afterwards, under
Alexander it again gained great power and honor when he became an admirer
of all other Persian customs.” For a thorough discussion of the term and its
meaning, see Charles 2015.
164. For an exhaustive discussion of all of the relevant sources, see Stoneman
2015: 195–209; Thomas 2017: 25–28.
165. The question over the date given in Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 17 has been
resolved; see Stolper 1999: 6 (with earlier references); Kahn 2008: 428.
463
I’s accession, Artabanus believed he had a pawn on the throne, but when
he decided to remove him and seize power himself, or when Artaxerxes
I learned of Artabanus’s treachery, through his brother-in-law, the general
Megabyzus, Artabanus was seized and executed, along with his sons.166
Xerxes I was buried in a monumental, rock-cut tomb at Naqš-e Rustam
(figure 55.5; for a detail of the “throne-bearers,” see figure 57.2 in chapter 57).
55.4. Artaxerxes I
55.4.1. Succession, rebellion, and diplomacy
Xerxes’s only wife, according to the available sources, was Amestris,167
and she was the mother of Cyrus (Kuraš) or Artaxerxes I (464–424/
423 bc), who enjoyed a reign of over forty years. The earliest text from
his first regnal year dates to the third month ( June 11−July 11) of 464 bc
and comes from Uruk.168 Almost immediately after his accession, how-
ever, rebellion erupted on two widely separated fronts: Bactriana and
Egypt. According to ancient accounts of the upheaval surrounding the
execution of Artabanus and his sons, Bactriana’s revolt was led either by
their satrap, “another Artabanus,”169 or by Artaxerxes I’s elder brother
and, hence, claimant to the throne, Hystaspes,170 but, if Ctesias is to be
believed, the revolt was short-lived.171
166. According to Arist. Pol. 5.1311b, Artabanus killed Darius himself, prior to
Artaxerxes I’s accession. For discussions of all the variants of the story, see
Briant 2002: 564; Thomas 2017: 25–26.
167. Hdt. 7.61, 7.114 and 9.109, the daughter of Otanes. According to a fragment
of Ctesias, however, she was the daughter of Onophas (Ctesias FGrH 688
F13.24); see also Lenfant 2019: 35.
168. Contra Parker and Dubberstein 1956: 17–18; see Stolper 1999: 7 (with earlier
references).
169. Ctesias FGrH 688 F14.35.
170. Diodorus noted that “he happened to be away from home at the time, since he
was administering the satrapy of Bactria” (Diod. Sic. 11.69.2).
171. Ctesias FGrH 688 F14.35. Lenfant 2004: 266, n. 542, suggested that when
Ctesias called the rebellious satrap of Bactria “another Artabanus,” he was not
46
Figure 55.5. The tomb of Xerxes I at Naqš-e Rustam. Author’s photo-

graph, 2002.
465
The Egyptian rebellion, led by Inaros, son of Psamtek, was more seri-
ous. Ctesias is clear in asserting that the Egyptian troubles only began
after Bactriana had been reconquered by Artaxerxes I.172 According to
Diodorus Siculus,
when the inhabitants of Egypt learned of the death of Xerxes and

of the general attempt upon the throne and the disorder in the
Persian kingdom, they decided to strike for their liberty.173
By 462 bc, the rebellion had engulfed all of Egypt, not just the Nile delta
as was previously thought.174 The gravity of the situation is clearly shown
by the fact that Darius I’s son and Artaxerxes I’s uncle, Achaemenes, pre-
viously satrap in Egypt under Xerxes I, was dispatched to Egypt with an
expeditionary force. He was, however, defeated and killed in battle.175 In
their defense, moreover, the Egyptians were aided by the Athenians, to
whom the Egyptians had earlier appealed for assistance. The Athenian
deployment of a strong naval force numbering some two hundred ships
prompted a determined reaction from Artaxerxes I who, the following
year, sent out yet another army which foregathered in Phoenicia and
Cilicia, and requisitioned warships from Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Cilicia.
A Persian diplomatic overture to Sparta, seeking the support of an anti-
Athenian ally, was unsuccessful.176
naming him, but rather characterizing Hystaspes’s behavior as similar to that of

Artabanus the Hyrcanian who had assassinated Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes is said
to have personally led the campaign to bring Hystaspes to heel and defeated
him in two battles, the first of which was more of a stalemate, and the second of
which occurred the following year after Artaxerxes returned to Bactriana with
a stronger army. Hystaspes’s fate is not recorded; cf. the exhaustive discussions
in Neuffer 1968; Kuhrt 2007: 315.
173. Diod. Sic. 11.71.3.
174. Kahn 2008: 431 (with references).
175. Hdt. 3.12, 7.7; Diod. Sic. 11.74.1−4.
176. Thuc. 1.109.2.
46
Nevertheless, after invading Egypt, the Persian forces prevailed, and

by 460 bc, the rebellion was largely snuffed out, although the final sur-
render of the Egyptian forces did not occur until 458/457 bc.177 While
Inaros was captured and crucified, according to Thucydides, another
rebel named Amyrtaeus continued to control parts of the Nile delta.178
Two years after Inaros had been neutralized, the Athenians again inter-
vened on Amyrtaeus’s behalf, seemingly eager to cause more trouble for
the Persians. Ultimately, their goal was to seize control of Cyprus, and
weaken the Persian grip on Cilicia and Phoenicia. The Athenians pur-
sued this objective after signing a treaty with Sparta (454 or 451 bc) and
were in mid-campaign when their general Cimon died179 and Pericles
came to power, ushering in a new policy of détente with Persia, which
resulted in the Peace of Callias.180 According to this treaty, each side
agreed not to intrude upon the other’s sphere of influence—Athens
would abstain from meddling in Cyprus and Egypt, while Persia would
refrain from attacking Athens’s allies, the Greek cities of Asia Minor and
not come down within a three-day’s journey from the sea. . . .

And if these terms are fulfilled by the king and his satraps, the
Athenians are not to invade those lands of which the king is
ruler.181
Earlier in his reign, Artaxerxes I received both Argive and Athenian

ambassadors at his court in Susa,182 and although neither embassy was
fruitful, it may have shown him that Athens was amenable to a peace
177. Kahn 2008: 433, with details.

178. Thuc. 1.112.
179. Plut. Cim. 5.18–29.
180. For the full treatment of this, see Beckman 2017. The treaty is named after the
chief Athenian negotiator, Callias, son of Hipponicus.
181. Diod. Sic. 12.4.5; cf. Kahn 2008: 438; Beckman 2017: 6.
182. Hdt. 7.151; see in general Hofstetter 1972. For the possibility that a marble
statue of Penelope, excavated at Persepolis, represents a diplomatic gift brought
to Artaxerxes I by Athenian envoys, see Hölscher 2011: 58.
467
treaty, and that he could manipulate matters, particularly with respect

to Spartan-Athenian relations, to his advantage.183 Artaxerxes I thus
showed that he was adept at pulling the levers of diplomacy, not just at
wielding the hammer of brute military force.
In the aftermath of the Egyptian revolt, Artaxerxes I’s brother-in-law
and general, Megabyzus, repaired to “his land,” i.e., his satrapy Ebir-nari
(Syria), allegedly because the execution of Inaros and some of the Greeks
who fought on his side had violated the guarantees of safety which
Megabyzus had given to them.184 The rebel force of 50,000, not counting
cavalry, twice defeated those sent by Artaxerxes I to subdue Megabyzus,
after which the Great King and his general were reconciled.185 According
to Ctesias, Megabyzus later fell foul of Artaxerxes during a lion hunt.
When a lion began bounding toward the king, Megabyzus hurled his
lance at it and killed it, saving the king from potential death but in the pro-
cess enraging Artaxerxes, who issued an order for Megabyzus to pay for
his presumptuous behavior with his head. Megabyzus was spared through
the intercession of Artaxerxes’s mother, Amestris, and his sister (and
Megabyzus’s wife), Amytis, but he was exiled to Kyrta in the Erythraean
Sea.186 Five years later he returned, dressed as a leper, and once more, after
Amestris and Amytis intervened, he and Artaxerxes were reconciled.187
55.4.2. Signs of stability and subterfuge

With Egypt once more under Persian control, Artaxerxes I appointed a
satrap named Aršama,188 who continued to serve in this position into the
183. Beckman 2017: 13.

184. Ctesias FGrH 688 F38−40. According to Ctesias, the impetus to exact revenge
on Inaros came from Artaxerxes I’s wife, Amestris, because her son Achaemenes
had died trying to subdue Inaros and the Greeks.
185. Ctesias FGrH 688 F14.40−41.
186. For the use of banishment to islands in the Persian Gulf as places of internal
exile in the Persian imperial period, see Potts 2019: 388–391.
188. Ctesias FGrH 688 F14.38 called him “Sarsamas.”
468
reign of Darius II.189 Much is known of his dealings, thanks to an archive

of letters sent by Aršama while he was in Babylonia190 to his estate man-
agers, a military commander and another high-ranking Persian official.191
In the Persian heartland, Artaxerxes I, like his father and grandfather,
was a builder, though he was much less well represented in the corpus
of Achaemenid royal inscriptions than his ancestors. This is particularly
surprising given that he reigned for over four decades. A fragmentary tri-
lingual inscription (A1Pa) on the north staircase of the building known
as Palace H has been tentatively ascribed to Artaxerxes I. The text reports
that its author completed the palace begun by his father Xerxes. Similarly,
a foundation text inscribed in Babylonian on a stone tablet in the monu-
mental Hall of One-Hundred Columns (A1Pb) proclaims that Artaxerxes
the king completed the palace, the foundations of which had been laid
by Xerxes, his father.192 Artaxerxes I is thought by many scholars to have
removed a relief depicting his father Xerxes and one-time crown prince
Darius— killed by Artaxerxes’s own hand— from public display and
deposited it in a courtyard of the Treasury with limited exposure. Such a
gesture is hardly surprising given the fact that Artaxerxes was duped into
slaughtering his own brother, the rightful heir of his father, Xerxes I.193
In addition, at least six inscribed stone vessels and vessel fragments,
and four silver vessels, bear the name of Artaxerxes (VA1a-g ).194 Although
189. Ma and Tuplin 2020: 3.

190. Aršama is attested in cuneiform sources, principally the Murašû archive, from
430/429 to 403/402 bc; see Pirngruber 2020: 304.
191. As Ma and Tuplin 2020: 5 noted, the Aršama letters “offer a vivid snapshot of
social, economic, cultural, organizational, and political aspects of the empire as
lived by a member of the Achaemenid elite and his entourage . . . these aspects
include multilingual communication, epistolary rhetoric, accountancy-culture,
land tenure, satrapal remuneration, enforced labour, cross-regional ethnic
movement, fiscal processes, storage and disbursement of resources for state use,
military systems, long-distance travel, the employment of skilled craftsmen, reli-
gious language and belief, and iconographic projection of ideological messages.”
192. Schmitt 2009: 23, 182.
193. Abdi 2010; Thomas 2017: 29–32 (with earlier references).
194. Schmitt 2009: 30– 31. There are additional vessel fragments bearing the
name Artaxerxes, but the attribution to a particular Artaxerxes is not easily
469
most of these are of uncertain provenience, a diorite vessel is known

to come from Babylon. It, as well as four other vessel fragments, have
quadrilingual inscriptions. Whereas the monumental Achaemenid royal
inscriptions at Bisotun, Persepolis and Susa were generally trilingual—
Elamite, Babylonian, and Old Persian—the quadrilingual examples are
distinguished by the addition of a text in Egyptian hieroglyphs, attesting
to the importance of Egypt in the Persian Empire and the constant traf-
fic that linked it to the heartland.
55.4.3. Life and death

According to Ctesias,195 Artaxerxes I was married to Damaspia, the
mother of Xerxes II. The concubines of Artaxerxes I are said to have
given him a further seventeen children. At least three of these concu-
bines were Babylonian: Alogune, who was the mother of Sogdianus;196
Cosmartidene, the mother of Arsites and Ochus (later Darius II); and
Andria, the mother of Bagapaeus and Parysatis, the later wife of Darius
II.197 According to Ctesias, after his mother Amestris died, Artaxerxes
ascertained. This applies to a fragment found in 1971 during construction work

outside of Orsk, near Orenburg, in the southern Urals; see Schmitt 2001: 197;
and chapter 64 in this volume. Balakhvantsev 2012 interpreted this as a “royal
gift [from Artaxerxes I] to one of the Dahaean military leaders who par-
ticipated in the subdual of Inaros’ revolt in Egypt in 456–454 bc.” Similarly,
Schmitt 2001: 199 suggested that such vessels were used as gifts from the Great
King to those who had performed some important service for him.
196. Although Ctesias gives the name as Sekyndianos, this is certainly to be under-
stood, like the Latin nickname Secundianus or Secundus, as denoting the
“second” born. By contrast, Diod. Sic. 12.71.1 gives Sogdianus, while Paus. 6.5.7
calls him Sogdios, and Schmitt 2006: 275 has demonstrated that the latter rep-
resents the Aramaic name Sugdiya (sgdy), attested on a seal from Dascilium
(Daskyleion), the Old Persian form of which would have been *Sugd-iya-. Thus,
Pausanias’s testimony and the form Sogdios (Sugdius) preserves the birth-
name. The name is unrelated to the toponym Sogdia/Sogdiana; see Schmitt
2008: 274 (with earlier literature).
197. Schmitt 2011b; Lenfant 2019: 35.
470
I, having sat on the Achaemenid throne for forty-one years,198 followed

suit.199 The next day, if we believe Ctesias, his wife Damaspia died as
well.200
55.5. Xerxes II
According to Ctesias, Xerxes II (424/423 bc) was the sole legitimate
son of Artaxerxes by his wife, Damaspia, and as such he was his father’s
successor.201 His first regnal year is not attested in the dating formulae
of any Babylonian texts and, according to Ctesias, he was assassinated in
his palace forty-five days after Artaxerxes I’s death, with the result that,
among other things, the corpses of both father and son were transported
together to Persepolis for burial (figure 55.6).202
55.6. Sogdianus
The assassins of Xerxes II were his half-brother Sogdianus (son of
Alogune and Artaxerxes I), the eunuch Pharnacyas, Bagorazus,
Menostanes, and “several others,” according to Ctesias. Menostanes, a
nephew of Artaxerxes I, was an experienced soldier and became the chief
(hazarapatiš) of the usurper’s bodyguard.203 Bagorazus accompanied
198. The figure of forty-one years is based on the cuneiform evidence. On the com-
plex issue of determining the date of Artaxerxes I’s death, or the latest date on
which Babylonian scribes dated their tablets according to his reign, and rec-
onciling Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian sources, see Stolper 1983; Depuydt
1995d (with earlier literature). The latest tablet dated in Artaxerxes I’s reign is
from his forty-first regnal year and dates to December 24, 424 bc, while the
earliest tablet dated according to the reign of Darius II Ochus is from February
13, 423 bc; see Stolper 1983: 226–227.
203. His father Artarios, the brother of Artaxerxes I, had been satrap of Babylonia.
Menostanes, who appears in the Murašû archive as Manuštanu, had
471
Figure 55.6. The tombs of Darius II (left) and Artaxerxes I (right) at Naqš-e
Rustam. Author’s photograph, 2003.
the escort sent to Persepolis with the corpses of Artaxerxes I and Xerxes
II, but when he returned, according to Ctesias, he was executed by
Sogdianus, on account of long-standing enmity between the two.204
commanded one of the armies sent against Megabyzus; see Stolper 1985: 90;
Lenfant 2004: 271, n. 594.
204. The fact that Bagorazus, rather than Sogdianus, accompanied the corpses of
Artaxerxes I and Damaspia—“his father and mother” (Ctesias FGrH 688
F15.43) to Persepolis has given rise to the suggestion, nowhere stated in an
ancient source, that he was Xerxes II’s rightful heir, i.e., next in line of succession
and hence Sogdianus’s elder brother; see, e.g., Klinkott 2008: 229. As Oppert
1902: 7 noted, Bagorazus may have feared that the same fate awaited him, as he
had meted out to his brother Xerxes II, if he had remained in Babylon and not
472
This, however, did not go down well with the army, who had supported
the usurper.205
When his half-brother Ochus, who had been summoned several times
by Sogdianus, finally arrived from Hyrcania, where he was then satrap,206
he had brought with him a sizable army. In short order, both the chief
of Sogdianus’s cavalry, Arbareme/Arbarius, and the powerful satrap of
Egypt, Aršama, deserted the usurper.207 In addition, the Paphlagonian
eunuch Artoxares, who had served Artaxerxes I but had been exiled
to Armenia for speaking up in favor of Megabyzus,208 returned to sup-
port Ochus. Together, they deposed Sogdianus and “against his will,”
according to Ctesias, Ochus became king, taking the throne name
Darius II.209 Spurred on by his wife and half-sister, Parysatis, Darius II
managed to capture Sogdianus, despite the warnings he had received
from Menostanes not to trust his half-brother. According to Ctesias,
Sogdianus was burned and/or suffocated to death by being made to fall
into a pit of ashes. His reign had lasted six and a half months.210
gotten himself out of harm’s way by going to Persepolis. On the other hand, as
the legitimate heir, he may have been obliged to perform the obsequies for his
father and brother in the Persian heartland. Kuhrt 2007: 332, n. 2 suggested
that the juxtaposition of Bagorazus’s name and that of the eunuch Pharnacyas
(Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.48) “may imply that Bagorazos, too, was a eunuch”; cf.
Waters 2017: 30. This seems incompatible with his status as the deceased king’s
son. Stolper 1985: 115 called Bagorazus “commander of the guard,” i.e., in Xerxes
II’s palace, in which case his accompanying the corpses of the deceased king
and queen to Persepolis could be seen simply as fulfilling an order to provide a
military escort. This, too, is incompatible with Ctesias’s statement to the effect
that Artaxerxes I and Damaspia were Bagorazus’s parents.
209. As noted above (section 55.1), his epithet Nothus refers to the fact that he was
the son of a concubine, rather than the acknowledged queen, Damaspia.
210. Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.50. Cf. Lenfant 2004: 272, n. 601, citing Valerius
Maximus, who wrote, “In fact, he (Ochus) filled a high-walled enclosure with
ash; on a beam protruding over it, he placed those who had been drawn out
473
55.7. Darius II
55.7.1. Origins and family
Although nowhere stated in an ancient source, it has been suggested that
Xerxes II; Aršama, the satrap of Egypt; and Darius II were all full broth-
ers, and hence sons of Artaxerxes I and his legitimate wife Damaspia.
If this is correct, and Aršama was in fact older than Ochus/Darius II,
then he appears to have voluntarily renounced his right to the throne,
following the death of Xerxes II,211 perhaps because his position as satrap
of Egypt was both highly lucrative and more secure.212 Darius II was
married to a half-sister named Parysatis (Paurušātiš) who had a differ-
ent mother.213 Babylonian scribes began dating their texts according to
the reign of Darius II between very late December 424 bc, and mid-
February 423 bc.214
with generous food and drink; and overcome by sleep, from this (beam) they
fell into that treacherous pile” (Val. Max. 9.2 ext. 6; translation from Holm
2008: 92). Cf. the account in 2 Macc 13:4–8 describing how the Seleucid king
Antiochus V Eupator (r. 164–161 bc) put to death Menelaus, high priest in
Jerusalem, at Berea (a town near Jerusalem for which there are multiple candi-
dates): “Now there was in that place a tower of fifty cubits high, full of ashes,
and it had a round instrument which on every side hanged down into the ashes.
And whosoever was condemned of sacrilege, or had committed any other griev-
ous crime, there did all men thrust him unto death.” Wines 1895: 63 presumes,
in the case of ash-filled pits or enclosures, that death was caused not by heat or
flames, but by suffocation. Binder 2021: 459 warns that, in the absence of any
Babylonian sources on either Xerxes II or Sogdianus, the historicity of Ctesias’s
account is highly suspect.
211. Klinkott 2005: 59.
212. Examples of this kind of behavior are well-known. When Tsar Alexander I of
Russia died in 1825 ad, it was discovered that Grand Duke Constantine, next
in the line of succession, had renounced his right to the throne two years earlier,
largely because of his marriage to a Polish noblewoman and his strong attach-
ment to Poland. Hence his younger brother Nicholas succeeded to the throne.
213. Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.47; see the discussion in Lenfant 2019: 35.
214. Stolper 1985: 118. As Depuydt 1995d: 96 noted, “quantifying the powers held
by each of the three known protagonists, Xerxes, Sogdianus, and Darius, at
any given time in the months of turmoil presumably following Artaxerxes’
death . . . is a speculative endeavor.”
47
55.7.2. Trouble in the satrapies

Once installed on the Persian throne, Darius II (423–405 bc) set about
exacting revenge and rewarding loyalty. In the Nippur region he seized
estates belonging to Menostanes and other allies of his half-brother, and
made them over to the eunuch Artoxares (Artahšar), who had come
to his aid from Armenia, as well as his own wife Parysatis.215 A rebel-
lion, possibly begun in Syria, was led by Darius II’s brother Arsites, who
was aided by Artyphius, son of Megabyzus. According to Ctesias, who
preserves many details of the episode,216 Darius II sent an army led by
Artasyras against the rebels, whose ranks were strengthened by Greek
mercenaries. After suffering two defeats, Artasyras resorted to bribing the
mercenaries and, once Artyphius was left with the support of “only three
Milesians,” he surrendered. Despite the fact that Darius II was burning
to put Artyphius to death, Parysatis convinced him to hold off, using
Artyphius as bait to attract Arsites. The ploy worked and, like Sogdianus,
the two rebels were given the “ash treatment” of which Darius II seems
to have been so fond. Ctesias also links the deaths of the previously men-
tioned accomplices of Sogdianus, Pharnacyas, and Menostanes, with the
deaths of Arsites and Artyphius. Whether Ctesias has telescoped several
unrelated executions under one narrative is unclear.217
In any case, the power of the nobility, and their potential to be
kingmakers, threatening the order of succession according to primo-
geniture or imperial fiat, was becoming more and more evident, and
satrapal revolts bedeviled Darius II’s reign. According to Ctesias, the
powerful eunuch Artoxares, who functioned much as Menostanes had
for Artaxerxes I, harbored pretensions of his own to the throne, was
denounced, turned over to Parysatis, and summarily executed.218 The
latest cuneiform text relating to the land and estates granted to him by
215. Pirngruber 2017: 62; cf. Lewis 1977: 75–76.

217. As Stolper 1985: 66, n. 73, noted, the chronology of these events is imprecise.
475
Figure 55.7. Carnelian cylinder seal (23 × 10 mm) showing two “Greek” cap-
tives and a standing soldier, armed with shield, spear, and crested, open-faced
helmet, wearing a chiton, right, with an Achaemenid warrior distinguished by
his headgear and dress in the middle. The Morgan Library & Museum. Morgan
Seal 833, with kind permission.
Darius II dates to January 418 bc, suggesting that he had probably died
by this time.219
Around 413 bc, the grandson of Darius I and satrap of Sardis,
Pissouthnes, launched a rebellion in Asia Minor. According to Ctesias,
an army under Tissaphernes, Spithridates, and Parmises was sent to quash
the rebellion (figure 55.7).220 Like Arsites and Artyphius, Pissouthnes
was sustained by Greek mercenaries, but their commander, Lycon of
219. Lewis 1977: 21, n. 107; Stolper 1985: 91–92; Schmitt 2006: 141.
220. The seal shown here depicts three enemy combatants, one bound around the
neck by a rope; another kneeling; and a third still fighting. He is equipped like
a Greek “light hoplite” with a large shield (aspis), short tunic (chiton), spear,
and Peloponnesian-style pilos or Attic-style crested, open-faced helmet. This is
typical of the late fifth century bc. The headgear and dress of the central figure
identify him as a Persian warrior. Cf. Ma 2008: 244–245 and n. 7. The seal is
inscribed in Aramaic with four letters. These have been read as the name Krtyr,
i.e., Iranian *Kṛtayara-(Tavernier 2007: 234) but this “depends on taking what
looks like a blemish between the last two letters as a y which at the period rep-
resented by the other letter forms should be a z with a horizontal line through
the middle and of the same size as the other letters” (personal communication,
M.C.A. Macdonald in August 2021).
476
Athens, sold out his patron for silver, leading to the capture of the rebel-
lious satrap and his execution in an ash pit. As he had previously done
in Babylonia, Darius II rewarded Lycon for his treason with land and
estates and, by the winter of 413/412 bc,221 had conferred the satrapy of
Sardis on Tissaphernes as Pissouthnes’s replacement.222
At an uncertain date, a rebellion, led by Darius II’s son-in-law,
the satrap Terituchmes, also erupted much closer to home, in Media.
Ctesias describes a close-knit web of marriage alliances whereby first,
Arsaces, the son of Darius II and the future king (better known by his
throne name Artaxerxes II), was married to Stateira, the daughter of
Hydarnes/Idernes, satrap of Media; and second, Hydarnes/Idernes’s
son, Terituchmes, was married to Darius II’s daughter, Amestris. Upon
the death of Hydarnes/Idernes, Terituchmes succeeded him, rebelled,
and, in a dramatic turn of events, had his wife thrown into a sack
and stabbed to death by 300 fellow rebels.223 Darius II sent a certain
Udiastes, who had influence with Terituchmes, with a letter, pleading
for his daughter Amestris’s life, but Udiastes ended the crisis by instead
attacking and killing Terituchmes. When Udiastes’s son, Mitradates,
who had been Terituchmes’s squire but was away at the time, learned
of this, he himself rebelled, seizing the town of Zaris which he held in
the name of Terituchmes’s son.224 Upon learning of this, Parysatis had
the mother, brothers, and sisters of Terituchmes rounded up and exe-
cuted. Only Darius II’s personal intercession saved the life of Stateira,
Terituchmes’s sister and his son Arsaces’s wife.225 After suppressing the
221. Lenfant 2004: 273, n. 618.

222. Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.53. On Tissaphernes see in general Schmitt 2011d.
223. Allegedly because Terituchmes had fallen madly in love with his half-sister
Roxane and wanted Amestris out of the way; see Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.55 and
the discussion in Bigwood 2009: 325.
224. See the discussion in Tuplin 2011: 453, where the scale of these events is que-
ried: “a battle or just . . . a putsch within the insurgent’s satrapal palace”?
225. Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.56. According to Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.2, it was Arsaces’s
own intercession that saved Stateira’s life.
47
rebellion in Media, the forces of Darius II are said to have campaigned

against the Cadusians, mountain dwellers in the Elburz range, near the
Caspian Sea.226
One satrap who enjoyed more success and the favor of Darius II
was the Babylonian Belšunu, known to Xenophon as Belesys (cf.
chapter 60 in this volume).227 Mentioned in over a dozen cuneiform
texts, Belšunu was a wealthy man involved in a variety of business deal-
ings. Between 421 and 414 bc he served as a district official at Babylon
under two successive satraps, Artareme/Artaeus (in Artaxerxes I’s
reign) and Gobryas/Gubaru (in Darius II’s reign), before being named
satrap of Ebir-nari (Syria), where he is attested between 407 and 401
bc.228 It is striking that, whereas so many Achaemenid satraps were
Persian, Belšunu, son of Bel-uṣuršu, was clearly Babylonian. His pro-
motion is likely to have been directly related to support tendered to
Darius II during the coup d’état and counter-coup that saw him come
to power.229
With respect to the epigraphic corpus, Darius II is represented by an
inscription, in Old Persian, on a golden tablet, allegedly from Ecbatana
(mod. Hamadan) (D2Ha), and by three or four inscribed column bases
and column base fragments from Susa, two of which have Old Persian
texts (D2Sa, D2Sc), and only one of which (D2Sb) has a trilingual
inscription.230 Finally, the impression of a single seal with an Old Persian
inscription naming Darius, found in the palace of Memphis in Egypt,
has been cautiously attributed to Darius II (SD2a).231
226. Xen. Hell. 2.1.13.

227. Xen. An. 1.4.10.
228. Stolper 1987: 400.
229. See the discussion in Klinkott 2005: 268–270; 2008: 230.
230. Schmitt 2009: 24. It is unclear whether D2Sd should be attributed to Darius
I or Darius II.
231. Schmitt 1981: 33–34 (with earlier references).
478
55.7.3. Death and succession

Darius II reigned for nineteen years,232 from 423 to 404 bc. The lat-
est cuneiform text dated to his reign is from April 404 bc. Prior to his
death at Babylon, apparently of sickness,233 he took steps to ensure an
orderly succession in favor of his eldest son, Arsaces, better known by
his throne name Artaxerxes II, who was made co-regent.234 As in the
case of Xerxes I’s succession, however, Arsaces was born before his father
became king, whereas his brother Cyrus was the first-born of Parysatis,
who favored him235 after Darius II’s accession to the throne.236 By way
of compensation, Cyrus was sent to Asia Minor in 407 bc, where he
was given control over an enormous region comprising the satrapies of
Cappadocia, Greater Phrygia, and Lydia, as well as the position of mili-
tary commander (karanos) of the maritime provinces.237
55.8. Artaxerxes II
55.8.1. Accession, rebellion, and consolidation
The beginning of Artaxerxes II’s long reign (404–359 bc) is attested in
a cuneiform text from Ur dating to the twenty-fifth day of the second
month of the first year of his reign ( June 3, 404 bc).238 It was over-
shadowed by two rebellions: Egypt, perhaps as early as 404 bc, which
resulted in the loss of the satrapy (chapter 61 in this volume); and that of
232. For whatever reason, Ctesias FGrH 688 F16.57 attributed a reign of thirty-five
years to Darius II.
234. Xen. An. 1.1.2; Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.3; see the discussion in Klinkott 2008: 230 and
n. 151.
235. Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.3 =Ctesias FGrH 688 F17. According to Ael. VH 6.39, Cyrus
and his mother harbored an “evil love” for each other.
236. Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.4−5; Xen. An. 1.1.3; Diod. Sic. 13.108.1; Just. Epit. 5.11.1−2.
237. Klinkott 2008: 230; Binder 2021: 460.
479
his brother Cyrus, known in the literature as Cyrus the Younger to avoid
confusion with Cyrus II (the Great). Cyrus’s appointment to the super-
satrapy of Cappadocia, Greater Phrygia, and Lydia (chapter 58 in this vol-
ume) set him on a collision course with Tissaphernes, the status of whose
position as satrap of Sardis was thereby diminished. Moreover, while
Tissaphernes had tried to maintain the diplomatic equilibrium of Persia
with both Sparta and Athens, Cyrus wanted none of it.239 According to
Ctesias, when Artaxerxes II was preparing to undergo an initiation rite240
in a temple at Cyrus the Great’s former capital, Pasargadae, Tissaphernes
found Artaxerxes with a magus who had previously been Cyrus the
Younger’s tutor, and who was particularly aggrieved at his not having
been anointed as Darius II’s chosen successor. Tissaphernes accused the
magus of plotting an assassination attempt on Artaxerxes, in collusion
with Cyrus, who had hidden himself in the sanctuary where the rite was
to take place. Arrested and condemned to death, Cyrus was saved by the
intervention of his powerful mother, Parysatis, and allowed to return to
Asia Minor.241
Far from rejoicing at his escape from what probably would have been
a gruesome death, Cyrus wasted little time in launching an all-out rebel-
lion against his brother.242 With a force of Greek mercenaries,243 among
239. Xen. Hell. 1.5.8−9; see the discussion in Lenfant 2004: 276, n. 641.
240. According to Plut. Vit. Artax. 3.2 =Ctesias FGrH 688 F17, the rite took place
in the shrine of a warrior goddess comparable to Athena. There, the king-to-be
was to take off his clothes and put on those worn by Cyrus the Great when he
became king, and then eat a fig cake, chew on some terebinth/turpentine, and
drink a cup of sour milk. See the discussion of this as “wholly characteristic of
Zoroastrian observance” in Boyce 1982: 14.
241. Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.3−6 =Ctesias FGrH 688 F17. Binder 2021: 460 warns that
the entire account “should be treated with the greatest caution” and further
suggests that Cyrus’s retention of his important position in Asia Minor implies
that the accusations against him could not be proven.
242. The literature on this topic is voluminous; see Briant 1995; Tuplin 1999; Lee
2016; Rop 2019 (with earlier references).
243. Notwithstanding Xenophon’s testimony, the size of this force is not universally
accepted as 10,000. Other estimates—e.g., 12,000 (Lee 2016: 103) and 13,000
(Binder 2021: 460)—can be found in the literature as well.
480
whose number was Xenophon, the chronicler of their service and subse-
quent overland return to Greece in his famous Anabasis or “Retreat of
the Ten Thousand,” Cyrus invaded Babylonia,244 but was defeated and
killed on the battlefield at Cunaxa, ca. 80 km north of Babylon. Ctesias
preserves a long and detailed account of the personal fortunes in battle
of Cyrus; Artaxerxes II; Artagerses, the commander of Artaxerxes II’s
6,000-strong corps of bodyguards245 and leader of the Cadusian moun-
taineers from the Elburz range near the Caspian Sea;246 and several
other commanders, describing how Cyrus eventually met his death.247
Artaxerxes II himself sustained wounds on the battlefield which were
treated by his court physician, the chronicler Ctesias.248
Although Cyrus’s death resolved one crisis, others were brewing. In the
first few years of the fourth century (400–394 bc) Sparta proved a formi-
dable adversary under two successive generals, Thibron and Dercylidas.
Despite a Spartan victory at Pactolus in 395 bc, Persian subsidies to Sparta’s
244. The number of combatants varies greatly in the ancient sources. Plut. Vit. Artax.
13.3 =Ctesias F 22 claimed that Artaxerxes II had an army of 400,000. Of these,
9,000 were said to have died, although the corpses of 20,000 could be seen on
the battlefield. Xen. An. 1.7.12, on the other hand, put the size of Artaxerxes II’s
force at 900,000. The discussion on this topic has produced a voluminous body
of literature. See, e.g., Bigwood 1983 with more moderate estimates, although
these are little more than “commonsense” estimations of what seems reasonable
to imagine in light of a variety of logistical and other factors.
245. Xen. An. 1.7.11.
246. Plut. Vit. Artax. 9 =Ctesias FGrH 688 F19. On the Cadusians, see Syme
1988; Potts 2014: 108–109. For Artaxerxes II’s own two campaigns against the
Cadusians in 385–384 and 369 bc, one of which was led in person by him, see
Sekunda 1988: 38–39; Moysey 1992: 159; and van der Spek 1998: 252–253.
247. Plut. Vit. Artax. 9.11−13 =Ctesias FGrH 688 F19–20.
248. Xen. An. 1.8.26 =Ctesias FGrH 688 F21. Cf. Schmitt 2011c. As Wiesehöfer
2011: 505 emphasized, however, regardless of the unparalleled access to the
inner workings of Artaxerxes II’s court afforded to Ctesias by virtue of his med-
ical duties, he was interested in all things sensational, dramatic, and imbued
with pathos, not with the sorts of organizational, structural, and historical ques-
tions of concern to modern historians. Cf. the summary of hyper-critical com-
ments on Ctesias’s value in Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010: 26. Among the
many relevant contributions on Ctesias, see those in Wiesehöfer et al. (eds.)
2011; Waters 2017; and the extensive commentary in Lenfant 2004.
481
enemies, such as Corinth, Athens, Thebes, and Argos, may have tilted
matters in Artaxerxes II’s favor, and helped curtail the Spartan campaign
in Asia Minor. Between ca. 395 and 386 bc, during the Corinthian War,
Persia again rendered aid to the enemies of Sparta, and a Persian fleet com-
manded by Conon of Athens249 enjoyed a major victory over the Spartan
fleet, destroying it in a sea-battle off the Carian city of Cnidus.250 With
that, the Spartan threat to Persian hegemony in Asia Minor was effectively
extinguished.251 In the ensuing treaty known as the King’s Peace or Peace
of Antalcidas, read to the Greeks by the general (strategos) Tiribazus,252
Artaxerxes II emerged as an important mediator and powerbroker. The
status quo ante of 479 bc was recognized, restoring the gains made by the
Athenian League and enshrining Persian claims in Asia Minor.253
Cyprus and Egypt, however, remained flashpoints. From 390 bc,
Evagoras, king of Salamis on Cyprus, had sought to free himself from
the Persian yoke.254 In this he initially received material support from
Athens, though this was terminated according to the terms of the King’s
Peace, by which Persia’s claim to Cyprus was recognized. Artaxerxes II
ordered Tiribazus, satrap of Ionia, and Orontes, satrap of Armenia, to
take care of the situation. Coins minted by Tiribazus at Tarsus, Soli,
Mallus, and Issus help track the Persian reconquest of the region, but even
with Persian forces on Cyprus—Evagoras never controlled the Persian
naval base at Kition—Evagoras remained a threat at sea until a defeat
and the loss of a portion of his fleet forced him to retreat to Salamis.
Having escaped to Egypt on a quest for assistance, Evagoras returned in
382 bc to his besieged city,255 and eventually submitted to negotiations
249. Nep. Conon. Cf. March 1997; Schmitt 2011e.

250. Modern Tekir on the Datça peninsula, southwest coast of Turkey.
251. See the discussion in Binder 2021: 461.
252. Xen. Hell. 5.1.30−31; see the discussion in Shannahan 2016: 43–44.
253. Binder 2021: 462.
254. For the earlier part of his reign, see Costa 1974.
255. Events here may be telescoped. According to Isoc. Panegyricus 141, the siege
lasted six years. As Isocrates wrote, “humble as is the power of Evagoras, the
482
with Tiribazus and, later, Orontes. While he was allowed to retain the
title “king of Salamis,” he nevertheless recognized Artaxerxes II’s over-
all authority.256 Egypt, however, was another matter, and Artaxerxes II’s
repeated attempts to reimpose Achaemenid control over the satrapy in
393–390 or 385–383 bc,257 374–368 bc,258 and 359 bc (or earlier)259 were
futile (chapter 61 in this volume).260
king has not the power to conquer it in war, but has already frittered away six
years in the attempt; and, if we may conjecture the future by the past, there is
much more likelihood that someone else will rise in revolt before Evagoras is
reduced by the siege—so slothful is the King in his enterprises.”
256. For his career, see Isoc. Evagoras; cf. the discussion in Sørensen and Geus
2019: 199–202 (with earlier references). A probable, though fragmentary, refer-
ence to the end of the war appears in a Babylonian astronomical diary dated to
Months 7−12 of the twenty-third year of Artaxerxes II’s reign, i.e., September
2, 382—April 26, 381 bc. For the date and an exhaustive discussion of the entire
war, see van der Spek 1998: 240–251.
257. Isoc. Panegyricus 140, “Take first the case of Egypt: since its revolt from the
King, what progress has been made against its inhabitants? Did he not dispatch
to this war the most renowned of the Persians, Abrocomas and Tithraustes and
Pharnabazus, and did not they, after remaining there three years and suffer-
ing more disasters than they inflicted, finally withdraw in such disgrace that
the rebels are no longer content with their freedom, but are already trying to
extend their dominion over the neighbouring peoples as well?” The protago-
nists here are Abrocomas, satrap of Syria; Pharnabazus, satrap of Dascylium
(Daskyleion); and Tithraustes, the Persian hazarapatiš (chiliarch). According
to Nep. Conon 3.2−3, Tithraustes “held the highest power next to the king. . . .
As a matter of fact, no one is admitted to the royal presence,” without going first
to Tithraustes.
258. Under Datames, a former member of Artaxerxes II’s palace guard (Nep.
Datames 1), whom, for his capture of the Paphlagonian rebel Thuys, Artaxerxes
“rewarded . . . munificently and sent him to the army which was then being
mustered under Pharnabazus and Tithraustes for the war in Egypt, giving him
equal authority with the two Persians. In fact, when the king later recalled
Pharnabazus, the chief command passed to Datames”; see Nep. Datames
3. On Datames’s role in the Egyptian campaign, see also Sekunda 1988: 40–41;
Schmitt 2011f.
259. George Syncellus, Ecloga Chronographica, ed. Dindorf 1829: 486–487; see
Hirschy 1909: 33 and the discussion below (section 55.9.2).
260. The chronology here follows McKechnie 2018: Table 2.1; cf. Klinkott 2005: 492
(with references).
483
Although Artaxerxes II was wary of “another Cyrus” appearing

on the scene, with pretensions to the throne, his subsequent troubles
in Asia Minor, subsumed under the rubric of the “Great Satraps’
Revolt,”261 persisted. Diodorus Siculus is the main source for the insur-
rections led by
Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia . . . and Mausolus, overlord of

Caria . . . and, in addition . . . Orontes, satrap of Mysia, and
Autophradates, satrap of Lydia. Apart from the Ionians were
Lycians, Pisidians, Pamphylians, and Cilicians, likewise Syrians,
Phoenicians, and practically all the coastal peoples. With the
revolt so extensive, half the revenues of the King were cut off
and what remained were insufficient for the expenses of the
war.262
The severity of these revolts has long been questioned, and they clearly
did not rise to the level of Cyrus the Younger’s audacious attempt to top-
ple his brother. Moreover, although Diodorus Siculus says that the rebels
chose Orontes as their leader, he also acknowledged that any semblance
of unity vis-à-vis the forces sent by Artaxerxes II to put down the rebel-
lion disintegrated and was replaced by infighting, treason, and defection
to the imperial forces.263 Thus, any attempt at coordination seems to have
261. Weiskopf 1989; see also the observations of Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1992; Binder
2021: 462.
262. Diod. Sic. 15.90.1−4, “the inhabitants of the Asiatic coast revolted from
Persia, and some of the satraps and generals rising in insurrection made war
on Artaxerxes. . . . When the general uprising against the Persians reached such
large proportions, the King also began making preparations for the war. For at
one and the same time he must needs fight the Egyptian king, the Greek cit-
ies of Asia, the Lacedaemonians and the allies of these,—satraps and generals
who ruled the coastal districts and had agreed upon making common cause
with them.”
263. For the older view, see, e.g., Judeich 1892. As Hunger and van der Spek 2006: 10–
12 discuss, the revisionist view is itself a matter of debate. Nevertheless, as they
point out, Plut. Vit. Artax. omits any mention of the revolts.
48
been doomed from the outset. Although the threat to the empire was
more than competently managed by Artaxerxes II’s generals, the Great
King nevertheless took steps to shrink the size of the areas under satra-
pal governance and to ensure that only loyalists held these important
posts.264
A very different window on Artaxerxes II’s reign is provided by the
Book of Ezra. Reference is made there to the provision of resources from
the Achaemenid Treasury to the temple in Jerusalem; to an injunction
not to tax temple clergy; to the appointment of judges in Ebir-nari, of
which Yehud ( Judah) formed a part (chapter 60 in this volume); and
to teach God’s law in the satrapy.265 Scholars are deeply divided over the
issue of whether the so-called Artaxerxes rescript (Ezra 7:11–26) should
be ascribed to Artaxerxes I or II, but an attribution to the latter, and a
date of ca. 398 bc (Year 7 of Artaxerxes II’s reign), when Ezra is said to
have gone from Babylon to Jerusalem,266 is followed here.
Given Artaxerxes II’s long reign, it is not surprising that a number
of inscriptions, albeit often fragmentary, have survived from it.267 These
come from Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). A text
from Persepolis, once attributed to Artaxerxes II, has been reassigned to
Artaxerxes III. One of the texts on a column base from Hamadan (A2Hb)
proves that Artaxerxes II constructed a palace there. At Susa, he restored
the palace of Darius which had burned during the reign of Artaxerxes
I (A2Sa) and erected a new palace of his own, to the west of the main
264. Klinkott 2008: 231; Binder 2021: 462; cf. the discussion in Mildenberg
1999: 201, who claimed, “Good government and lasting peace did not exist in
the time of Artaxerxes II because of the king’s incompetence and weakness as
a ruler,” and quoted the ancient historian Ernst Badian who wrote, “Artaxerxes
II was a disaster.” In the opinion of Mildenberg 1999: 202, “The foundations of
the empire must have been strong indeed to endure such a ruler for nearly half
a century.”
265. Ezra 7:20−26; cf. the discussion in Janzen 2000: 620; Blenkinsopp 2010;
Knoppers 2015: 2, n. 2; Leuchter 2017: 250, n. 3 with bibliography on those
identifying the Artaxerxes mentioned in Ezra as Artaxerxes I and those favor-
ing Artaxerxes II.
266. Knoppers 2021: 411, n. 10.
267. For the texts, see Schmitt 2009.
485
mounds of Susa, where bulldozing in 1969 revealed part of a columned

hall.268 The main scholarly interest in these texts, however, derives from
the deities mentioned in them. In A2Ha, Artaxerxes says that he built his
palace in Ecbatana269 according to the will of Auramazda, Anahita, and
Mithra, whose protection he asks for as well. In A2Hb, Artaxerxes seems
to ask only for the protection of Mithra. A2Hc and A2Hd, on the other
hand, invoke only Auramazda, “the great god.” A2Sa and A2Sd, from
Susa, invoke all three deities. According to a late tradition, preserved by
the Babylonian historian Berossus (early third century bc), the Persians
and Medes “did not believe in wooden or stone images of the gods but in
fire and water like the philosophers.” Later, Berossus says, they began to
worship “statues in human form,” naming “Artaxerxes, the son of Darius,
the son of Ochus,” as the instigator of this practice:
He was the first to set up an image of Aphrodite Anaitis in Babylon

and to require such worship from the Susians, Ecbatanians,
Persians and Bactrians and from Damascus and Sardis.270
The identity of the Iranian goddess Anahita as “Aphrodite Anaitis” is

clear in this case, but whether one should conclude that Berossus was
correct in singling out her veneration by Artaxerxes II, who always men-
tioned Auramazda and Mithra as well, is doubtful.271
55.8.2. A foiled plot, death, and succession

Artaxerxes II was originally married to Stateira, the daughter of
Hydarnes/Idernes, satrap of Media.272 Following her death, he is said to
268. Boucharlat and Labrousse 1979.

269. For the fragmentary column bases that formed part of this structure, see
Boucharlat 2018.
270. Burstein 1978: 29.
271. For a thorough discussion of this testimony, see de Jong 1997: 271–272.
486
have married two of his own daughters, Amestris and Atossa.273 Aspasia
of Phocaea was one of his allegedly 360 concubines.274 According to
Justin, Artaxerxes fathered 118 sons, three of whom were the products of
“lawful wedlock,” and the other 115 those of his concubines.275
Of the “lawful” sons, Artaxerxes II chose Darius as his heir. Not
content to await his father’s demise, Darius launched a rebellion, aided
by Tiribazus who, according to Deinon, objected to Artaxerxes’s mar-
riage with his own daughters, one of whom had been promised to him
in marriage, while Darius, allegedly, felt injured because he had wanted
the concubine Aspasia, who had been promised to him by his father, for
himself.276 Needless to say, all of this may be pure fiction.277 Be that as it
may, Darius was put to death.
According to Plutarch, Ochus convinced an elder brother named
Ariaspes, described as “mild and straightforward and humane,” that
their father intended to have him executed too, prompting Ariaspes to
take his own life.278 Another half-brother named Arsames, apparently
273. Plut. Vit. Artax. 23.3−7, 27.7−9; see the discussion of the sources (Heracleides
and Deinon) used by Plutarch, and their suspicious similarity to Herodotus’s
account of Cambyses’s love interests, in Bigwood 2009: 326.
274. Plut. Vit. Artax. 26.5, 27.2.
275. Just. Epit. 10.1.1. These numbers, although large, are not outside the realm of
possibility and may be compared with several of the much more recent Qajar
rulers and princes of nineteenth-century Iran. For example, Fath ‘Ali Shah (r.
1797–1834 ad), who had four lawful wives and 154 concubines or secondary
wives, fathered 265 children. The mortality rate was high. Only 106 of his off-
spring reached maturity, while 159 died in infancy. Of the 101 children who out-
lived their father, 55 were sons and 46 daughters. Fath ‘Ali Shah’s sons fathered
another 670 children; see Anonymous 1873: 714–715.
276. Plut. Vit. Artax. 26.5−27.5; see also the discussion in Bigwood 2009: 326–327.
277. Moysey 1992: 161 argued, “The import of this internal struggle for understand-
ing the satrapal revolt is that it reveals a weakness within the central govern-
ment of an aged and harassed Persian monarch which has not previously been
appreciated and taken into account. . . . Whether the rather complex web of
harem intrigue woven by Plutarch and his source or sources is completely accu-
rate or not, it is clear that Ochos did eventually succeed in eliminating Dareios
and two elder half brothers.”
278. Plut. Vit. Artax. 30.2; cf. the discussion in Almagor 2011: 8.
487
favored by Artaxerxes though his mother was a concubine, was poisoned

on Ochus’s orders by Arpates, son of Teribazus. All of this, according to
Plutarch, hastened Artaxerxes II’s death at the age of ninety-four, appar-
ently from “grief and despair.”279 Whether a rebellion in Babylonia in
Artaxerxes II’s forty-second year (363–362 bc) had anything to do with
the tumultuous events recounted by Plutarch is impossible to say.280
Against this narrative, however, is the fact that Diodorus Siculus
makes no mention of any such murderous intrigues and gives no hint
of any irregularity at the time of Ochus’s succession.281 That Ochus was
trusted by his father is suggested by the fact that, in 359 bc or earlier,
according to the Ecloga Chronographica of the ninth-century Byzantine
historian George Syncellus, “Ochus campaigned into Egypt while his
father Artaxerxes still lived.”282
55.9. Artaxerxes III

55.9.1. Accession and elimination of potential rivals
Ochus, who took the throne name Artaxerxes III, succeeded his father
sometime between late November 359 bc and April 358 bc.283 He was
279. Plut. Vit. Artax. 30.5. Historical appraisals of Artaxerxes vary widely. Some
scholars, impressed by the length of his reign, take this as a strong indication that
he must have been competent. Ottoman and Qajar examples from eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century Turkey and Iran, however, show that even inept rulers
may enjoy long reigns. Nöldeke 1887: 75, felt that Cyrus the Younger was fully
justified in despising the “effeminate King,” a trope about which much has been
written, rejecting the Hellenocentrism of the sources and exposing the ideo-
logical biases that often informed them; see, e.g., Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1987.
280. Hunger and van der Spek 2006.
281. Thus Binder 2021: 463 observed, “Despite Plutarch’s account, Ochus/
Artaxerxes III appears to have succeeded his father without any notable
conflict.”
282. Ruzicka 2012: 270, n. 1, citing Dindorf 1829: 487; cf. McKechnie 2018: 34;
Mildenberg 1999: 204 and n. 18; Binder 2021: 464. The chronology of this epi-
sode is, however, disputed and the statement may relate to events after Ochus’s
accession as Artaxerxes III; see Clinton 1824: 292; Judeich 1889: 21–26.
48
married to a niece who was the daughter of his sister Atossa. Atossa was
eventually subjected to great cruelty by her half-brother and husband,
who buried her alive, head-first in the ground, according to Valerius
Maximus.284 According to Curtius, Artaxerxes III (whose reign is con-
ventionally dated to 358–338 bc) later had another wife who was a
daughter of Oxathres.285 It is unclear if he was polygamous, or had these
wives in sequence.286
Whether or not Artaxerxes III’s accession was as peaceful as some
scholars suppose, his reputation for ruthlessness, even mass murder,
became enshrined thanks to the works of Curtius, Valerius Maximus,
and Justin, who wrote that the new king,
dreading a similar conspiracy [to that perpetrated against his

father Artaxerxes II], filled the palace with the blood and dead
bodies of his kinsmen and the nobility, being touched with com-
passion neither for consanguinity, nor sex, nor age.287
According to Curtius, this massacre involved 80 cousins and an uncle,

his father’s brother Ostanes.288 Valerius Maximus, on the other hand,
says that Artaxerxes III’s own sister, mother-in-law, uncle (Ostanes),
and over 100 children and grandchildren, presumably of Artaxerxes II,
were rounded up in a courtyard and shot dead by archers, on account
of their virtue,289 which he clearly could not abide. At first glance, such
numbers may seem wildly exaggerated, but in 1725, when Iran’s Safavid
dynasty was in the process of being extinguished by the Afghan usurper
Mahmud, some 300 Safavid nobles and their children or, according to
another account, 105 nobles as well as three uncles and seven nephews
284. Val. Max. 9.2 ext. 7.

285. Curt. 3.13.13.
286. See the discussion in Lenfant 2019: 36 and n. 63.
287. Just. Epit. 10.3.1.
288. Curt. 10.5.23.
289. Val. Max. 9.2 ext. 7.
489
of Shah Soltan Hoseyn, were herded together in Isfahan and killed in a

single day.290
55.9.2. Satrapal rebellions and the reconquest of Egypt

Asia Minor remained a flashpoint of instability, “a cauldron of sedi-
tious activities”291 that dogged the beginning of Artaxerxes III’s reign.
Previously, his nephew Artabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia
(chapter 58 in this volume), had rebelled, been captured, and was released
by Artaxerxes II. When asked by Artaxerxes III to explain himself, he
refused and, with Athenian support, again rebelled in what is sometimes
referred to as the “Second Satrap’s Revolt.”292 Even when the Athenians
withdrew that support, fearing retribution from the Great King,
Artabazus succeeded in enlisting Pammenes of Thebes and his men, and
the conflict dragged on from ca. 356 to 352 bc. When the Thebans finally
deserted him, he fled to the court of Philip of Macedon together with
his brother-in-law, the Rhodian general Memnon. Asia Minor was, for a
time at least, pacified.293
Between ca. 354–353 and 350 bc, Artaxerxes III mounted a series
of unsuccessful expeditions to finally reconquer Egypt.294 The effort
was stalled, however, by events in Phoenicia. In 345 bc, while prepara-
tions were being made for the campaign against Egypt that Artaxerxes
III led himself in 343 bc, an insurrection arose at Sidon in Phoenicia.
According to Diodorus Siculus, the Sidonians resented the insolent
290. Lockhart 1958: 198.

291. Moysey 1992: 162.
292. Moysey 1975: 165; see the criticism of this phrase, comparable to that leveled at
the term “Great Satrap’s Revolt,” in Briant 2002: 1003.
293. Hirschy 1909: 27; Binder 2021: 464. The main source for this history is Diod.
Sic. 16.7.3−4; 21.1−22.2.
294. Pompeius Trogus, Prologue 10; Diod. Sic. 16.44.1−51.3; Demosthenes, On
the Liberty of the Rhodians 11−12; Isoc. To Philip 5.101; see McKechnie
2018: Table 2.1.
490
way they were treated by the Persian satrap and his generals, and conse-
quently cut down and destroyed the paradeisos (“plantation”)295 of the
Persian satrap; burned the horse fodder meant for use by the Persian
cavalry intended for the campaign in Egypt; and “arrested such Persians
as had committed the acts of insolence and wreaked vengeance upon
them.”296 The severity of the insurrection should not be doubted. Tyre
and Aradus joined in; 4,000 Greek mercenaries were sent by Nectanebo
of Egypt by way of support; and Mizaeus, satrap of Cilicia, and Belesys,
satrap of Syria, who had been sent to quell the rebellion, were defeated
by Tennes, the king of Sidon, and Mentor, the Rhodian commander of
the Greek mercenaries.297
It required Artaxerxes himself, with a large force from Babylonia, to
finally pacify the situation, and even this was only accomplished thanks
to the treachery of the Sidonian king Tennes. If Diodorus Siculus is to
be believed, some 600 leading Sidonians, 100 of whom accompanied
the traitor Tennes and 500 of whom approached Artaxerxes with olive
branches, were executed summarily before Artaxerxes even reached the
city. Upon learning of the disaster, the Sidonians themselves torched
their fleet and burned their own city to the ground, causing the deaths
of 40,000 inhabitants.298 Diodorus’s report has been disputed on the
grounds that coins were struck there in the late 340s bc and, when
Alexander the Great entered the city in 332 bc, no mention was made of
its having suffered in a terrible conflagration.299
The resolution of the Sidonian crisis paved the way for the re-
conquest of Egypt. As Diodorus Siculus writes,
295. For a full discussion of the term and its connotations, see Canepa 2017.
296. Diod. Sic. 16.41.4.
297. Diod. Sic. 16.42.1−2; see the discussion in Hirschy 1909: 29–30; Binder
2021: 464.
298. Diod. Sic. 16.45.1−6. According to a Babylonian chronicle, Sidonian prisoners
of war were brought to Babylon and Susa in October/November 345 bc; see
Kuhrt 2007: 412.
299. Mildenberg 1999: 205.
491
Figure 55.8. Chalcedony cylinder seal (32 × 15 mm) showing a bearded

hero, wearing a crenellated crown and Persian court robe, facing left, arms out-
stretched, holding two inverted lions by their tails, and standing on the heads of
two winged, bearded, human-headed lions. The figures are flanked by date-palms
with winged ring-in-disks hovering above. The Morgan Library & Museum.
Morgan Seal 824, with kind permission.
After the capture of Sidon and the arrival of his allies from Argos
and Thebes and the Greek cities in Asia, the King of the Persians
assembled all his army and advanced against Egypt.300
With the reconquest of the country, sometime between November 340

and the summer of 339 bc, over half a century of Egyptian independence
came to an end (figure 55.8).301 The punishment meted out to Egypt by
Artaxerxes III was severe, if Diodorus Siculus may be believed:
Artaxerxes, after taking over all Egypt and demolishing the walls
of the most important cities, by plundering the shrines gathered
a vast quantity of silver and gold, and he carried off the inscribed
records from the ancient temples.302
300. Diod. Sic. 16.46.4−5.

301. Hirschy 1909: 34–35; McKechnie 2018: 34–36; Binder 2021: 465. For the date,
see Depuydt 2010.
302. Diod. Sic. 16.51.2.
492
According to Aelian, Artaxerxes III killed and ate the holy bull of Apis,
while at the same time worshipping an ass.303 In fact, this story embodies
an ancient Egyptian belief in the struggle between Osiris, closely allied
to Apis, who was killed and dismembered by his evil brother Seth, associ-
ated with the wild ass (onager) and considered the divine manifestation
of evil. In this way, it is a perfect metaphor for Artaxerxes as the destroyer
of Egyptian divine order, and functions as an ideal vehicle for the expres-
sion of “anti-Persian propaganda.”304
Some scholars have viewed Artaxerxes III’s apparent rapaciousness
as perfectly normal, given the circumstances, and credited him with
outstanding organizational and tactical acumen in achieving what so
many generals before him had failed to do, aided by the capable Bagoas,
Artaxerxes’s “comrade-in-arms and trusted, highest dignitary.”305
55.9.3. Non-military matters

While Artaxerxes III’s presence at Susa is attested by an inscribed lime-
stone block (A3Sa), he is much better known from four identical, partially
damaged inscriptions on the north stairway of Palace H (A3Paa, c, d) and
the west staircase of the tačara at Persepolis (A3Pab). After a recitation
of his genealogy, Artaxerxes confirms that he built the stone staircase(s)
on which the text was inscribed. He concludes by requesting the
303. Ael. VH 6.8; Plut. De Is. et Os. 355cd, 363cd; cf. Almagor 2011: 37.
304. Henkelman 2011b: 131. Cf. the story of Cambyses who cut the haunch of the
Apis calf with his dagger and then ridiculed Egyptian religion, saying to the
priests in Memphis, “are these your gods, creatures of flesh and blood that can
feel weapons of iron?” after which “Apis lay in the temple and died of the blow”
(Hdt. 3.27−29). As Mildenberg 1999: 205 observed, “The simple fact that the
stories about Ochus and another, much earlier, Persian king who conquered
Egypt, namely Cambyses, are to a large extent identical, though the events are
separated by nearly two centuries, should be enough to unmask the Egyptian
priests as the inventors of this evil accusation against Ochus.”
305. Thus Mildenberg 1999: 211, “Ochus undoubtedly prevailed because of his
vision, determination and, above all, his capacity to create and lead a team.” On
Bagoas, see below (section 55.9.4).
493
protection of Auramazda and Mithra,306 making no mention of the god-

dess Anahita.
The labels identifying the throne-bearers in a relief on one of the
royal tombs (V) carved in the face of the Kuh-e Rahmat (A3Pb), which
take the form, “This (is) the Egyptian,” “This (is) the Lydian,” and so
forth, are attributed to Artaxerxes III, even if scholars have long been
divided over the assignment of the tomb itself to Artaxerxes II or III.307
In broad economic terms, it has been suggested that Artaxerxes
III’s reign was one of economic prosperity. The numismatic evidence is
abundant. The number of mints had multiplied considerably by the mid-
fourth century bc, and the monetization of the empire appears to have
been complete. Issues from Artaxerxes’s reign are spread far and wide,
from Egypt and the Aegean to the Black Sea and the Arabian desert.
A variety of different denominations and a high metallic value, as well
as a large number of fractional divisions in silver and bronze, all attest
to the ubiquity of coined money reflecting “the accommodating coinage
policy of the Achaemenids,” and the fact that Artaxerxes’s “restoration of
the authority of the state, achieved equally through military and political
means, spurred remarkable economic growth.”308
Another indication of economic and administrative activity dur-
ing the reign of Artaxerxes III is provided by eight letters in Aramaic,
written on leather, dating from 353 to 348 bc, sent by one Akhvamazda,
who may have been the satrap of Bactriana, to a local governor named
Bagavant.309 As several scholars have noted, these letters reveal a bureau-
cratic structure and management strategy that is fully in harmony with
what can be seen at Persepolis, in the Fortification Archive, and in Egypt,
in Aršama’s letters.310
306. Schmitt 2009: 197.

307. See Schmitt 2009: 27 (with earlier references).
308. Mildenberg 1999: 215. For more details, see also Mildenberg 1998.
309. For the texts, see Shaked 2004; Naveh and Shaked 2012. For general discussion
of the Aramaic documents from Bactriana, see Gzella 2021.
310. Henkelman 2008: 85, n. 191; Briant 2009: 151.
49
55.9.4. Death and succession

According to Aelian,
Artaxerxes, known also as Ochus, was the victim of a plot planned

by the Egyptian eunuch Bagoas.311 They say he was killed, cut to
pieces and fed to the cats. Someone else was buried in his place
and laid to rest in the royal mausoleum. [Ochus is said to have
committed a number of acts of sacrilege, especially in Egypt.] But
Bagoas was not content with killing Ochus; he even made knife
handles out of his thigh bones, displaying in this way his murder-
ous instincts. He hated him because, like Cambyses before him,
he had killed Apis during a visit to Egypt.312
For Aelian, Artaxerxes III’s death, like Cambyses’s alleged madness, repre-
sented the ultimate price for his sacrilege. This happened in 338 bc, but it
is striking that the astronomical diary in which Artaxerxes’s death is men-
tioned simply says, “Umakuš [i.e., Ochus] (went to his) fate; Aršu, his son,
sat on the throne,”313 prompting some scholars to doubt the entire story
of Bagoas’s involvement.314 Although Babylonian texts refer to Bagoas
311. Clearly not an Egyptian. Bagōas is the Greek form of an Iranian name
*Bagāvahyā; see Tavernier 2007: 141, who also notes Bgwhy, the Aramaic form
of the name of another Bagoas, the Persian governor of Jerusalem in 407 bc,
who may have been a prince since he is addressed as one of the bny byt’, “sons of
the house”; see Schaeder 1936: 743. He is also attested in the “memorandum of
Bagoas and Delaiah” in the Elephantine archive; see Cowley 1923: 123, no. 32;
Greenfield 1986: 290. Bakumania, the Elamite form of the name, appears in the
Persepolis Fortification archives; see also Stolper 1992: 126, n. 11, for an individ-
ual by this name who managed a grant of crown land near Dilbat, in Babylonia,
during the reign of Darius II. Bagoas is not to be confused with a eunuch
bearing the same name who was given as a gift to Alexander the Great after
Darius III’s death; see Berve 1926: 98–99; Badian 1958; Shayegan 2007: 104;
Dandamaev 2011; Charles and Anagnostou-Laourides 2018.
312. Ael. VH 6.8. Cf. Diod. Sic. 17.5.3−6.
313. For the text, see Walker 1997: 22; Kuhrt 2007: 423.
314. Kuhrt 2007: 420 suggested the story “should be taken with a pinch of salt.” See
also Thomas 2017: 33; Hackl and Oelsner 2018: 690.
495
as ša rēši, which may mean either “high royal official” or “eunuch,”315

Diodorus Siculus identified him as the chiliarch (hazarapatiš). He is said
to have “killed Ochus with poison by means of a certain doctor, and pro-
moted Arses, the king’s youngest son, to the kingship.”316
55.10. Artaxerxes IV
In Diodorus Siculus’s account, the poisoning of Artaxerxes III and the
elevation of Arses also entailed the murder of an unspecified number
of the new king’s male siblings, “in order to isolate the youth and make
him easier to control.”317 Two texts from Uruk, in neither of which the
month name is preserved, display double-dating: the first and eighteenth
day of an unidentifiable month in Year 21 of Artaxerxes III and the acces-
sion year of Artaxerxes IV (whose reign is conventionally dated to 337–
336 bc). The dates must therefore fall between April 338 and April 337.318
Additionally, two texts from Babylon, also with only partially preserved
date formulae, were written in November/December 337 and April 337–
March 336 bc.319
In the third year of his reign, according to Diodorus Siculus,
Artaxerxes IV was assassinated by Bagoas. In his telling, Diodorus
Siculus makes it sound as though the murder of his brothers was the
cause of anger toward Bagoas, which led to Artaxerxes IV’s own demise:
But the lad was angry at these outrages and made it clear that he
would punish the perpetrator of the crimes, so Bagoas anticipated
his plan and killed Arses together with his children while he was
still in his third year of reign.320
315. van der Spek 2003: 297, col. V.5.

316. Diod. Sic. 17.5.3−4.
317. Diod. Sic. 17.5.4.
318. Hackl and Oelsner 2018: Tab. 1.4.
319. Hackl and Oelsner 2018: Tab. 2.
320. Diod. Sic. 17.5.4.
496
If this is literally true, unlikely in the case of Diodorus Siculus, it would

imply that Artaxerxes IV had been ignorant of Bagoas’s role in the deaths
of his brothers and that he only became aware of this later, presumably
during the third year of his reign. An echo of Bagoas’s deeds appears in
the so-called Dynastic Prophecy, a Babylonian literary composition,
according to which a king “for two years,” sat on the throne until “a
eunuch” (ša rēši) murdered him.321
55.11. Darius III

According to a fragmentary passage in the Dynastic Prophecy, after the
assassination of Artaxerxes IV, “a certain [rebel?] prince will set out and
[seize] the thr[one]. Five years [he will exercise] king[ship].”322 Diodorus
Siculus says that, after the deaths of Artaxerxes IV and his children,
The royal house was now bereft and there was no one to succeed
to power by right of birth. So he (i.e., Bagoas) picked one of the
friends called Darius and helped to set him up as king.323
Diodorus further identifies Darius, whose birth-name was Artašata

(table 55.3), as a “son of Arsanes, son of Ostanes, who was a brother
of Artaxerxes who had been the Persian king,” and reports that, when
Bagoas tried to poison him, the plan came to the attention of Darius
who, instead, forced Bagoas to drink the deadly liquid.324
Diodorus’s reference to Darius III’s origins among the “friends”
of Artaxerxes IV has led to the suggestion that, notwithstanding the
321. van der Spek 2003: 316: col. v 5. The Dynastic Prophecy is a text “attributed to
a Babylonian scholar at the Assyrian court prophesying the downfall of Assyria
and the subsequent history from Nabopolassar to Alexander the Great”; see
van der Spek 2003: 297.
322. van der Spek 2003: 316: col. v 6−8.
323. Diod. Sic. 17.5.6−8.
324. Diod. Sic. 17.5.9−10.
497
genealogical particulars provided, he was only a distant relation.325

This negative estimation is, however, too harsh. Darius III’s grandfa-
ther, Ostanes/Uštana, was the brother of Artaxerxes II. His mother,
Sisigambis, was probably Ostanes’s daughter and hence she was a grand-
daughter of Darius II and a first cousin of Artaxerxes III.326 Darius III
(335–330 bc), therefore, was of royal blood on both sides of his family.
Nor was he completely unknown. In Artaxerxes III’s first Cadusian
campaign, Artašata’s bravery in single- combat was noted,327 for
which, according to Justin, he was rewarded by being named satrap of
Armenia.328 Plutarch’s opaque description of Darius as “a slave and cou-
rier of the king” has been a subject of great speculation.329
To say that Darius III’s five-year reign is today remembered princi-
pally because it marked the last gasp of the Persian Empire is an under-
statement, notwithstanding attempts to rehabilitate Darius’s image.330 It
is almost inevitable that this will remain the case, however, for the very
obvious reason that Darius III did, indeed, preside over the empire’s
demise, although the contribution of Bagoas to the annihilation of
Achaemenid rule, thanks to his assassination of Artaxerxes III, has also
been seen as a contributing factor.
It is pointless to debate whether or not the Persian Empire, given its
enormous resources,331 or Darius III himself, should have been able to
325. Badian 2000: 245; cf. Strabo, for whom the Achaemenid line ended with
Arses/Artaxerxes IV (Str. 15.3.24) and to which, consequently, Darius III did
not belong.
326. Neuhaus 1902: 617.
327. Diod. Sic. 17.6.1.
328. Just. Epit. 10.3.3; cf. Klinkott 2005: 452.
329. Plut. Mor. 326E; see, e.g., Charles 2016: 52–58 on the interpretation of the term
“slave” in this context, and Badian 2000: 250, who speculated that Darius occu-
pied a high position in the imperial postal service.
330. E.g., Seibert 1987; Nylander 1993; Briant 2009; 2015; Badian 2000.
331. For the state of the empire on the eve of its conquest, see Jacobs 1992. For the
prelude to Philip of Macedon’s first threatening moves, and the Achaemenid
reaction to them, see the discussion in Hirschy 1909: 35–37; Seibert 1998;
498
counter the Macedonian invasion.332 The death of his general Memnon

compelled Darius to take the field himself. As one scholar wrote, “Fortune
deprived Darius of his only able commander when he had just begun to
trust and use him.”333 The claim that Darius “sleepwalked” into disaster is
probably not an overstatement. Plagued by advisers who seem not to have
appreciated the threat posed by Alexander, Darius suffered a major defeat
at Issus in a battle he should never have fought, on ground unsuited to his
cavalry, and thereby was not only compelled to flee, but to learn of the
capture of his wife and (half-)sister Stateira, as well as his son Ochus.334
At Gaugamela, in the autumn of 331 bc, his fate, like that of the
empire, was sealed.335 Darius fled to Ecbatana and from there followed
the high road to the east, while Alexander occupied Babylon, Susa, and
Persepolis. According to Arrian, by the time Alexander advanced on
Ecbatana to join Darius in battle in May 330 bc,336 the Persian king had
already fled toward Hyrcania, east of the Caspian Sea, with a force of
only 6,000 foot-soldiers and 3,000 cavalry.337 Before long, Darius found
himself the prisoner of Bessus, satrap of Bactriana;338 Barsaentes, satrap of
Bloedow 2003; and of course the lengthy exposition and analysis from a variety
of angles in Briant 2002. For eighteen records of “debt or receipt of unnamed
goods,” written in ink on wooden tally sticks dating to the third year of Darius
III’s reign, see Henkelman and Folmer 2016; Gzella 2021: 961.
332. For the many and varied motivations that underpinned the Macedonian inva-
sion, see Seibert 1998; Bloedow 2003.
333. Badian 2000: 256.
334. Plut. Vit. Alex. 30.3−5; Arr. An. 2.11.9, Just. Epit. 11.9.12; see the discussion in
Badian 2000: 256. Darius also had at least one other wife who was a sister of
Pharnakes; see Diod. Sic. 17.21.3 and Arr. An. 1.16.3. Cf. Lenfant 2019: 37.
335. For the battle, see Rollinger and Ruffing 2012; Bichler 2020. For references
to it in contemporary Babylonian sources, see, e.g., Boiy 2004: 104; Visscher
2019: 240.
336. For the detailed chronology of Alexander’s pursuit of Bessus and the events
that followed, see Zolling 1875: 108–110. See also chapter 62 in this volume.
337. Arr. An. 3.19.5.
338. He may be attested on one of the leather documents from Bactriana (C1)
published by Naveh and Shaked 2012 as Text C1, where the name bys, perhaps
49
Arachosia and Drangiana; and Nabarzanes, the commander of Darius’s

cavalry.339 While Alexander and a small force were still pursuing the fugi-
tive, they learned
that Bessus had been given the sovereignty in place of Darius and
had been saluted as leader by the Bactrian cavalry and the other
Persians who had fled with Darius, save Artabazus and his sons
and the Greek mercenaries.340
When Alexander had nearly caught up with the imprisoned Darius and
his jailers, “Nabarzenes and Barsaentes wounded him and left him where
he was, themselves escaping with six hundred horsemen. Darius died of
his wound soon after, and before Alexander had seen him.”341
55.12. Artaxerxes V
When Bessus seized power, he “assumed regal attire” and gave “orders
that he should be called Artaxerxes,”342 i.e., Artaxerxes V. His pursuit
across the Oxus (Amu Darya) river by Alexander is recounted in almost
cinematic detail by Curtius, but before the Macedonians caught up
with him, he was betrayed by his associate Spitamenes who, with several
henchmen, apprehended him, “tearing from his head the royal tiara and
rending the clothes which he had put on from the spoils of the murdered
king.”343
*Bayasa or *Bayaça, appears; cf. Henkelman and Folmer 2016: 135. The text is
dated to the ninth month of the first year of a king named Artaxerxes. If bys is
indeed Bessus, then this must refer to Artaxerxes IV and implies the regnal year
337–336 bc; see Henkelman and Folmer 2016: 137–139.
339. Arr. An. 3.21.1.
340. Arr. An. 3.21.4.
341. Arr. An. 3.21.10. For an overview of Alexander’s conquest, see Nawotka 2021.
342. Curt. 6.6.13.
343. Curt. 7.5.24. For a full discussion of the entire episode of Bessus’s apprehending
and death, see Jamzadeh 2012: 91–98.
50
When Alexander and his men finally arrived in the vicinity, Bessus
was handed over, “not only bound, but stripped of all his clothing,”
according to Curtius,344 or “bound, naked, and wearing a wooden col-
lar,” in Arrian’s text.345 The manner of his death varies in the sources: he
was whipped and then sent off to Bactra to be executed, according to
Arrian,346 but Curtius says he was “bound to a cross after his ears and
his nose had been cut off,” so that he could be shot full of arrows: “But
Alexander postponed his execution, in order that he might be slain in
that very place where he had killed Darius.”347
55.13. Conclusion
Stability in empires may be measured in many ways. The sheer temporal
duration of an empire may be impressive, even if the internal turmoil
of its history suggests anything but stability. On the other hand, dynas-
tic regularity and orderly succession may be a sign of durability and an
ability to navigate court, as well as foreign politics. Yet corrupt rulers,
frequent turnover in high bureaucratic office, and intermittent assassi-
nations have all, from time to time, plagued world empires, and these
factors do not necessarily conspire to bring about their downfall. The
weight of bureaucracy and bureaucratic praxis, of tax-gathering, of per-
quisites that buy solidarity with a régime, are all significant.
Empires are able to insulate themselves from shock through a highly
resilient web of appointments, marriage alliances, and emoluments that,
woven tightly together, form an extraordinary safety net, cushioning the
empire from periodic upheavals and attacks, both internal and external.
Breaking this down can prove extraordinarily difficult, as the case of the
Ottoman Empire illustrates so well. In the early eighteenth century ad,
344. Curt. 7.5.36.

345. Arr. An. 3.30.3.
346. Arr. An. 3.30.5.
347. Curt. 7.5.43.
501
numerous Western observers expressed the opinion that the Ottoman

Empire was on its last legs and must collapse “any day now,” so corrupt
and inefficient did it seem to them. Yet, as we know, that took another
two hundred years to come about.
Thus, the Persian Empire, and the Achaemenid Dynasty founded by
Darius I, should not be judged by the number of palace slayings, satraps’
revolts, wars, and other seemingly enormous challenges that ought to
have brought it down long before Alexander the Great arrived on the
scene. Like many empires that followed in world history, the weight of
its institutions, strongly inscribed on a vast landscape extending from
India and Bactriana to Thrace and Egypt, were not to be gotten rid of
simply because a few kings were assassinated, power changed hands
often, nobles were stripped of their lands, and corruption, indifferent
leadership, and a shortage of critical acumen at court, at least to Greek
eyes, seemed endemic. The sheer length of the reigns of Artaxerxes II
and III is no guarantee of the competence of those rulers, any more than
it is in the case of any number of Ottoman sultans. But the weight of the
empire lay heavily on Western, Central, and South Asia, and was not
likely to be shifted had it not been for the explosive career of Alexander
the Great. On so many levels, the Achaemenid Dynasty was strong and
resilient, whatever the shortcomings of its individual members may
have been.
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(Vahyazdāta)? NABU 1995: 47 (no. 54).
Zawadzki, S. 1995b. Chronology of the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar III and
Nebuchadnezzar IV. NABU 1995: 48 (no. 55).
Zawadzki, S. 1995c. BM 63282: the earliest Babylonian text dated to the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar IV. NABU 1995: 49 (no. 56).
Zimmer, S. 2005. Indo-European poetics and mythology: Old Irish lámƒada
“longhand,” its background and parallels. Journal of Indo-European Studies
33: 291–306.
Zolling, T. 1875. Alexanders des Grossen Feldzug in Central- Asien: eine
Quellenstudie. Leipzig: Hartknoch. 2nd ed.
521
56
The Satrapies of the

Persian Empire
Persia and Elam
Gian Pietro Basello
56.1. Introduction
The satrapies of Persia and Elam were at the core of the Persian Empire
(figure 56.1a, b).1 Each revolved around an iconic center of power: the
monumental complex of Persepolis (Parsa in Old Persian, modern
Takht-e Jamshid) and the ancient Elamite royal city of Susa (Çusa in
Old Persian, modern Shush). These sites are the sources of most of the
extant royal inscriptions and administrative documents. The ethno-
linguistic connotation of the Persians as Iranians was so prevalent in
nineteenth- and twentieth-century ad historiographical narratives that
1. The references provided here are mainly to the most recent treatment of a topic,
where exhaustive references to previous literature can be found. The abbreviations
of the royal inscriptions follow Schmitt 2009, where the Old Persian texts with
German translation can be found. English translations of some of the inscriptions
are available in Kuhrt 2007: 902–903 (index of texts). For French translations of
the extant corpus, see Lecoq 1997. On DNf, discovered after Schmitt 2009, see
Delshad and Doroodi 2019.
Gian Pietro Basello, The Satrapies of the Persian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East.
52
523
The Satrapies of Persia and Elam 523
it has only recently become apparent that Persia had been called Elam
and was ruled by Elamite kings for at least two millennia before the
appearance of the Teispid and Achaemenid Dynasties (chapter 42 in
volume 4). It was there that the acculturation of Elamite and Iranian
elements, and thus the ethnogenesis of the Persians, took place.2
Persia comprised the highlands around the ancient Elamite city of
Anšan (modern Tell-e Malyan),3 which was located in the same plain
where Persepolis would later be established. At Susa, on the other hand,
the Elamite administration was acquainted with various groups of
Persians during the late seventh century bc, i.e., before the political rise
2. Henkelman 2008. See already Potts 2016: 307–347 (whose first edition appeared
in 1999).
3. Potts 2005.
524
of the Teispid Dynasty (chapter 54 in this volume) and the Achaemenid

Dynasty (chapter 55 in this volume).4 The Persian Elamite heritage is also
reflected in the use of the Elamite language (together with Old Persian
and Babylonian) in the royal inscriptions and the state administration
(together with Aramaic). The rulers who rebelled against Darius I (521–
486 bc) in Elam (according to the Bisotun inscription; section 56.7) and
the state sponsorship of traditionally Elamite gods (in the Persepolis
Fortification archives)5 are also witnesses to the intertwining of these
two ethnic components, which are perhaps accentuated more in modern
historiographical terminology than they were in antiquity.6
56.2. Physical and demographic premises

Persia corresponded roughly to the modern Fars province in Iran, and
Elam to Khuzestan province; both probably encompassed parts of
the modern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad in between.
In physical terms, the usual distinction between lowland Susiana and
highland Persia is inadequate to explain the variety of livelihoods
and the economic, social, and cultural characteristics of these lands.
Perhaps a better distinction is between lowland Susiana; the few but
vast intermontane plains; the dozens of elongated small intermontane
plains; and the higher mountain recesses. With respect to settlement
patterns, the first two are quite similar, so that the greatest intermon-
tane plains deserve to be integrated into the historical discourse, as the
amount of evidence coming from them has grown exponentially. From
west to east, along the road connecting Susa with Persepolis, a traveler
encounters the plains of the plains of Ram Hormoz (ca. 150 m above
sea level), Behbehan (ca. 300 m above sea level), Fahlyan (figure 56.2) and
its subsidiary plains in the Mamasani region (ca. 800–900 m above sea
4. Henkelman 2003: 211–213: §II.2.6.

5. Henkelman 2008; 2012b.
6. Henkelman 2011a.
52
Figure 56.2. The fertile plain of the river Fahlyan, where the Persian palace
of Qale Kali lies, seen from the rock ledge of the Kurangun relief. Author’s
photograph.
level), and Marv Dasht with Tell-e Malyan and Persepolis (ca. 1600 m
above sea level).
To a hypothetical time traveler, the most obvious difference between
ancient Persia and modern Fars would be more in terms of settlement
than in technology. This chapter (and indeed this volume) deals with
a period in the history of mankind when the world population is esti-
mated to have been ca. 100 million people, i.e., only one-eightieth of the
8 billion people expected to inhabit the planet in 2024. Compared to
today, the human presence in the natural landscape of Fars was less dense,
and many factors (resources, workforce, settlement, social and cultural
interaction, wealth and welfare) must be considered in the framework
of demography. Moreover, settlement in the area was uneven. The Marv
Dasht plain, where Persepolis is located, was much more populous in the
period of the Persian Empire than it was in the 1920s. The agricultural,
industrial, and urban spread that can be seen today from the platform of
Persepolis began only later. Today’s view is probably much closer to that
of the Persian imperial period than the bare expanse, lacking any signs
526
of human habitation, seen in the photos made by Ernst Herzfeld in 1923

before beginning his excavations at Persepolis.7
56.3. Written sources from Persia and Elam

As is the case for many other satrapies of the Persian Empire, useful
information about Persia and Elam can be gleaned from classical authors,
especially Herodotus, and later the historians documenting the life of
Alexander the Great.
The indigenous sources consist of royal inscriptions and administra-
tive documents. This second group has been increasingly exploited since
2008,8 but further qualitative and quantitative studies are required.9 The
royal inscriptions are often considered repetitive and irrelevant for his-
torical reconstruction. In fact, it is not so much that they are repetitive
(especially if one recognizes the variety of their text carriers and their
purposes), but that they are more relevant for the study of royal ideology
and the chronology of the buildings on which they appear. The admin-
istrative tablets come mainly from Persepolis and comprise two groups
based on their findspot and content.10
The roughly 15,000 tablets of the so-called Persepolis Fortification
archives (figure 56.3), mostly written in Elamite, are internally dated
from 509 to 493 bc, i.e., Years 13–28 in the reign of Darius I.11 Of these,
6,000–7,000 are still partially legible and meaningful. Short Aramaic
epigraphs are attested on 259 of the ca. 6,200 Elamite tablets and frag-
ments examined to date,12 while ca. 800 tablets are monolingual texts in
7. Herzfeld 1929–1930.
8. Briant et al. 2008.
9. For an example of methodology and results, see Potts and Henkelman 2021.
10. Henkelman 2013; Basello and Giovinazzo 2018: 489–494.
11. Henkelman 2021: 882 (citing M.W. Stolper).
12. Azzoni and Stolper 2015: 1–5.
527
Figure 56.3. One of the tablets of the so-called Persepolis Fortification

archives, kept in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran. The fingers and the back-
ground are provided for scale. Author’s photograph, courtesy of the DARIOSH
Project and the National Museum of Iran.
Aramaic.13 These show that the administration used different languages,

not only across the empire, but also in a single administrative center.14
The tablets of the Persepolis Fortification archives were found between
March and July 1933 in a bastion of the fortification wall running along
the north side of the platform of Persepolis. Unfortunately, Herzfeld
did not record the archaeological context of the tablets accurately. They
were found in a small room, the (alleged) entrance to which had been
walled up, and on the steps leading to a loophole just outside the blocked
13. Azzoni 2008.

14. Tavernier 2017.
528
entrance to the room.15 The fact that this room had been sealed with a
secondary wall suggests it was used as a dump, but it is difficult to explain
the presence of tablets outside the room. One possibility is that they
derived from a second story, where they had been archived. The collapse
of this upper floor could account for the physical dispersal of some tab-
lets outside the lower, walled room.
Even if the primary or secondary deposition of these tablets remains
undetermined, the consistency of their contents strongly suggests that
it was an archive, probably discontinued by the end of Darius I’s reign.
Except for one tablet,16 the commodities dealt with in the Persepolis
Fortification archives were edible products for both human and animal
consumption. They reflect the state system of food rations, and reveal
the way in which people who worked for the state, either willingly or by
coercion, were compensated.17 It is likely that documents related to other
administrative branches (e.g., those overseeing textile or metal produc-
tion) were also produced and archived in Persepolis. It can be expected
that similar documents corresponding to the Persepolis Fortification
Tablets will be brought to light at regional administrative centers,
especially along the road network centered on Persepolis. The focus of
the Persepolis Fortification archives was on administrative accounting
(quantities and commodities) and accountability (officials) but, to ful-
fill this aim, scribes also had to record the names of the people involved
(often referring to them by their occupation, ethnicity, and/or supervi-
sor), locations (allocation centers, origins, and/or destinations of trav-
eling parties), and dates (allocation periods and registration dates). For
this reason, the tablets are a gold mine of essential data, not only for the
reconstruction of an effective (if sometimes idiosyncratic and faulty)18
administrative system, but also of its economic (production, workforce)
and social (hierarchy, income, and estates) dimensions.
15. Basello 2018: 220–225.

16. Basello 2011: 75–78.
17. Henkelman 2011b; Basello 2021; Matarese 2021: 179–183.
18. Stolper 2017.
529
Another archive of records of silver payments, dated from 492 to

457 bc, that is, from the thirtieth regnal year of Darius I to the seventh
regnal year of Artaxerxes I (464–424/3 bc), was found in the so-called
treasury,19 and is thus known as the Persepolis Treasury Archive. The
distribution of the ca. 200 complete tablets and largest fragments con-
stituting this archive suggests that it was kept on the upper floor of the
building and fell down when the structure was destroyed by fire. In addi-
tion, ca. two-thirds of some 269 green chert plates, mortars, and pestles
bear inventory notes in Aramaic, written in ink.20 They attest to a well-
organized institution which omitted nothing from its control via count-
ing and registration.
Unfortunately, no administrative archives dating to the time of
the Persian Empire are known from Susa, but a stray tablet similar to
the Persepolis Fortification texts suggests that they must have existed.21
The discovery of tablets resembling those of the Persepolis Fortification
archives as close to Persepolis as Qasr-e Abu Nasr (near Shiraz),22 and
as far away as Old Kandahar in modern Afghanistan,23 suggests that
the administration of the empire was quite uniform, a fact reflected in
administrative conventions and phraseology. This also applies to texts
written in languages other than Elamite, such as the Aramaic docu-
ments from Bactria,24 in which the same formulae used in the Persepolis
Fortification Tablets appear in Aramaic. Moreover, the vocabulary of
the Bactrian documents contains several loanwords from Iranian lan-
guages, a feature shared with the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, so
that a scholar like Ilya Gershevitch suggested that the Elamite texts
were alloglottographies representing Old Persian texts, i.e., Elamite
19. Probably a storage and management facility: Razmjou 2010: 242–243.

20. Henkelman 2012a: 949–950.
21. Basello and Giovinazzo 2018: 494.
22. Henkelman et al. 2006.
23. Fisher and Stolper 2015.
24. Naveh and Shaked 2012.
530
was used to write Old Persian according to a more or less fixed set of
correspondences.25
The royal inscriptions of the Persian Empire are usually consid-
ered a single textual category even if, just like the royal inscriptions in
Mesopotamia, such texts served multiple purposes. One can distinguish,
e.g., between the Bisotun inscription (DB) with its historical narrative;
foundation documents (e.g., DPh and DSf ); ownership inscriptions
(e.g., CMa and DPc); and labels on rock reliefs (e.g., CMc and XPe).
Outside Persia and Elam, Old Persian royal inscriptions were used to
mark political boundaries and military conquests, following a tradition
which was already well established in the chancelleries of the Assyrian
Empire (e.g., the rock inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser I and Shalmaneser
III at the source of the Tigris)26 and of Urartu (e.g., the rock inscriptions
of Argišti II in Iranian Azerbaijan).27 Persian examples have been found
at places like the Van citadel (XVa) and the Elvand pass (DEa and XEa).
Most of these were trilingual (Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian).
Outside Persia and Elam, indigenous languages sometimes appear. It has
been increasingly recognized that it was not the king speaking in these
texts, but the royal chancellery, a well-developed and highly structured
institution. Moreover, the environmental and/or architectural setting of
these texts must be taken into account, not simply the texts themselves.
Furthermore, the texts in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian must be
seen as a whole, since the differences between and nuances in the three
versions of a text often provide important details. The term “inscription”
usually refers to a textual unit which often represents a multilingual set,
with each language corresponding approximately to the others in mean-
ing, structure, and wording. This term points therefore to the notion of
an abstract text embedding different epigraphic exemplars into a whole.
In many cases an inscription is attested in multiple exemplars. The actual
25. For a reassessment, see Rossi 2006.

26. Radner 2009. On the Assyrian royal inscriptions, see chapters 38–40 in volume 4.
27. Salvini 2008: 542–544: nos. A11-4 to A11-6. On Urartu, see c hapter 44 in vol-
ume 4.
531
number of exemplars is not always relevant, and may reflect, e.g., the
number of door or window frames or columns in a room.
Most of the extant royal inscriptions come from Persepolis and Susa.
In the following count, a certain approximation is due to the existence of
fragmentary texts. From Persepolis, ten inscriptions are in the name of
Darius I, nineteen in the name of Xerxes I (485–465 bc), and two each
in the name of Artaxerxes I and Artaxerxes III (358–338 bc). From Susa,
twenty-five inscriptions are in the name of Darius I, five in the name of
Xerxes I, three in the name of Darius II (423–405 bc), and five and one,
respectively, in the names of Artaxerxes II (404–359 bc) and Artaxerxes
III. Other places with inscriptions in Persia include Naqš-e Rustam, with
the inscriptions on the tomb of Darius I (DNa-f ), and Pasargadae, with
four inscriptions in the name of Cyrus II (559–530 bc, generally assumed
to have been written retrospectively; see chapter 54 in this volume), and
one each in the name of Darius I and Xerxes I.
56.4. Persia and Elam in the written sources

Persia is Parsa in Old Persian, a term used as a loanword in Elamite
(Paršan/š) and Babylonian (Parsu).28 The same term was given to both
the site of Persepolis and Persia as a whole, underlining the representa-
tive and symbolic role of the first (see section 56.6). Elam is Uja in Old
Persian, while the endonym Ha(l)tamti was used in Elamite and Elam
in Babylonian. Greek sources render these as Persis and Elymais, with
the usual Greek derivative suffix. Uja is generally connected to the later
name of the region, Khuzestan, and probably referred also to the people
known in Greek sources as Uxians.29 Classical authors used the Greek
term Susiana to refer to what is here called Elam.
The relevance of Persia and Elam in the ideological topography of
the empire is made evident in the royal inscriptions by the lists of various
ethno-political entities or “nations” (Old Persian dahyu-, plural dahyāva;
28. Vallat 1993: 207–211.

29. Schmitt 2014: 263, s.v. Ūja-1.
532
for a discussion of the term, see c hapter 62 in this volume). These lists can
be categorized according to their immediate purposes:
• lists of entities bringing tribute: DNa §3, DSe §4, XPh §3 (all trilin-
gual), DPe §2 (Old Persian only);
• lists of entities governed by the Persian king: DB §6 (trilingual),
DSab 5a-b (hieroglyphic), as well as the labels on the royal tombs, i.e.,
DNe on Darius’s tomb at Naqš-e Rustam and A3Pb on the southern
tomb at Persepolis (both trilingual). In these labels, the entities are
personified;
• list of entities that brought construction materials or fashioned such
materials for royal building projects: DSaa §4 (Babylonian only).
This category includes not only the synthetic list in DSaa, but also
a descriptive treatment of these entities and materials in DSf (trilin-
gual) and DSz (Elamite only).
Persia (or its personification) is either listed first, or it is not listed at

all. In lists from the first category, the Persian entity is always omitted
because Persia, as noted by Herodotus,30 did not pay tribute. The Persian
entity is always listed first in the second category, emphasizing the tie
between the king and his own people, the first to be subjected to him.
Within the third category, Persia is present in the list but omitted in the
descriptive treatments, so the specific Persian contribution to these proj-
ects is unknown. This reminds us that the ultimate purpose of these lists,
beyond their immediate justification as expressed in the textual context,
is an ideological one.31 Persia, its people, and its army always occupy a
relevant place, as in DPd §2 and DPe §2.
In DB §6, the Elamite entity is listed in second place, after Persia.
This corresponds to first place in the tributary list DPe §2, where Persia is
omitted and Media follows. Elsewhere the Elamite entity occupies third
place. In DSab 5a and the label inscriptions DNe and A3Pb, it is preceded
30. Hdt. 3.97.1.

31. The ideological effectiveness of the lists resided in the mere enumeration and in
their length; see Eco 2009.
53
by the Persian and Median entities, corresponding to second place in the

tributary lists DNa §3, DSe §4, and XPh §3, where Persia is omitted and
the Elamite entity follows Media.
A relevant comparison, even if focused on the amount and kind of
tribute, is afforded by a passage in Herodotus where, in a discursive con-
text, the political entities (peoples, regions, and/or cities) bringing trib-
ute to the Persian king are enumerated.32 Herodotus called the twenty
tributary districts nomoi (collectively also called archai, “provinces”), but
he noted that the Persians called them satrapies (satrapeias).33 The name
Elam is not used, but the eighth district consists of “Susa and the other
parts of Cissia” that paid 300 talents of silver.34
56.5. Regions and boundaries

Because our knowledge of the terrain, based upon modern cartography
and satellite imagery, does not correspond to the perceptions and naming
practices of the ancients, the precise boundaries of the satrapies cannot
be traced on a modern map, except when rivers (whose bed, in flat areas,
has surely moved over time) were used as borders.35 Furthermore, even if
satrapies were administrative regions, they were linked more to the human
populations inhabiting them than to a mapped bit of territory.36 From
an administrative perspective, the primary demographic distinction was
between urban settlements of a certain size and the rest, represented by
villages, farms, and mountainous territories with a scattered population.
32. Hdt. 3.90−94.

33. Hdt. 3.89.1.
34. Hdt. 3.91.4.
35. For an exhaustive archaeological survey of the Persian Empire’s territories, see
Boucharlat 2005 and Henkelman 2012a.
36. Cf. Jacobs 2011: “The provinces were defined territorially, as is proved not least
by the fact that one of the satrap’s duties was to measure their land.” It is possible
that the reference to Hdt. 6.42.2 provided to support this statement referred spe-
cifically to Ionia, i.e., a particularly urbanized region. The imperial administra-
tion was flexible in dealing with different ethno-political entities.
534
Beyond Susa and Persepolis, lowland Susiana and the intermon-

tane plains were key production areas for crop farming, fruit grow-
ing, and livestock breeding, as documented in detail by the Persepolis
Fortification Tablets.37 The Marv Dasht plain was intensively settled and
cultivated in the Persian imperial period, in order to service the needs of
Persepolis. It must have been dotted with craft-production centers, live-
stock stations, fortresses, storehouses, plantations, and farms, the exis-
tence of which can be inferred from the administrative tablets, even if
they have left only rare traces in the landscape, due to the fact that many
structures were built of sun-dried, unbaked bricks.38 These facilities were
part of an administrative landscape that resulted from the multiple exi-
gencies of production, storage, logistics, and control. Members of the
royal family held vast estates in the hinterland. Thus, Darius’s “favorite
wife,” Artystone, owned at least three estates in Matannan, Kugnaka,
and Uranduš, according to the texts.39 There is convincing evidence that
Susiana, Dashtestan, and the area of Isfahan, although mentioned in the
Persepolis Fortification Tablets (respectively through the major centers
of Susa, Taukan, and Gabaš), were outside the control of the Persepolis
administration, which was concerned only with the central part of the
satrapy of Persia.40
According to classical authors, the western limit of Susiana was the
river Tigris.41 To the east, Susiana bordered the region of the Uxians, who
in turn bordered Persia.42 The boundary between Susiana and Uxians
was the river Pasitigris,43 identified with the modern Karun.44 According
37. See also, e.g., Diod. Sic. 17.67.3.

38. Henkelman 2008: 120–121.
39. Henkelman 2010: 698–703.
40. Henkelman 2013: 535.
41. Ptol. Geog. 6.3.1.
42. Curt. 5.3.3. See also Str. 16.1.17.
43. Arr. An. 3.17.1.
44. Potts 1999[2002]: 36, n. 4.
53
to Arrian,45 there were two kinds of Uxians, those inhabiting the plains
(pedion) and those of the mountains (oreios). Only the first were subject
to the “satrap of the Persians,”46 while those living in the mountainous
recesses were independent and collected a toll when the Persian king
crossed their land. Susians and Uxians served together at the battle of
Gaugamela,47 suggesting that the Uxians of the plains belonged to the
satrapy of Elam. The area between Susa and Persepolis is sometimes
referred to by scholars as Elymais, which is actually the Greek name of
Elam.48 It is likely that imperial control in this area was limited to the
Susa−Persepolis road, its main branches, and the settled areas along
them. In the mountain areas, people were organized in gentilic or ethnic
groups, as attested also in the Susa Acropolis tablets.49
The southern border of Susiana and Persia lay along the Persian Gulf
coast. In recent years the historical importance of the Dashtestan area,
in the satrapy of Persia, has become apparent. This is a fertile plain rich
in date palm plantations, ca. 40 km from the Persian Gulf coast around
the modern city of Borazjan (ca. 200 km from Shiraz) and not far from
Bandar-e Bushehr, where Liyan, the only Elamite site archaeologi-
cally documented on the coast, is located. The area to the northwest of
Dashtestan remains poorly known.50 Geomorphological research in the
lowland area of Khuzestan confirms that, in antiquity, the coastline was
further north than it is today.51
45. Arr. An. 3.17.1.

46. Probably to be intended as “the Persian satrap,” not “the satrap of Persia”; see
Potts 2016: 344.
47. Arr. An. 3.8.5.
48. Salaris 2019: 106, Appendix B.
49. On mountain peoples and their relationships with state powers, see Potts
2014: 88–119; Balatti 2017. On the Susa Acropolis tablets, see Basello and
Giovinazzo 2018: 488–489.
50. Gorris 2019.
51. Heyvaert et al. 2013.
536
The northern limits of Elam and Persia, and the eastern boundary of
Persia, are more elusive. The northern limit of Elam, probably encom-
passing the modern province of Lurestan, bordered upon Media. This
area already had political relationships with the administration of Neo-
Elamite Susa, according to the combined evidence of the Susa Acropolis
tablets and the so-called Kalmakarra Hoard.52 The northern and eastern
limits of Persia should be evaluated in light of the territory under the
purview of the Persepolis administration. The eastern extent of Persia
included at least the area of modern Neyriz (ca. 200 km east of Shiraz),
probably attested in the Persepolis Fortification archives as Narezaš, to
which Carmania (corresponding to the area of modern Kerman, ca. 600
km east of Shiraz), further east, should be added. Although not men-
tioned in the lists of ethno-political entities in the royal inscriptions,
Carmania is considered a major administrative district (minor satrapy)
belonging to the satrapy of Persia.53
56.6. Dynastic centers

Key dynastic centers in Persia were Persepolis and Pasargadae, today both
UNESCO World Heritage sites (respectively from 1979 and 2004).
It is usually assumed that the construction of Persepolis began in the
first years of Darius I’s reign. Whether there was anything there earlier
(e.g., an open-air sanctuary like Kurangun on the rock outcrop above the
Fahlyan River, a tributary of the Zoreh River) is unknown. The Marv
Dasht plain was not chosen for this construction by chance, and the shift
of the center of power from one side of the plain (Anšan was close to
the western limit, probably opposite the entrance to the mountain road
leading to Susa) to the other (Persepolis is on the eastern limit, close to
the wide passage leading to Pasargadae) perhaps reflected a change in the
geopolitical balance. Probably the exact spot on which the platform was
built was dictated by the fact that in this spot the mountain protruded
52. G.P. Basello in Salaris 2019: 99–105.

53. Jacobs 2011. See also Str. 16.1.17.
537
over the plain with a rock outcrop that could be leveled with the least
possible effort and the stone used as a foundation for the platform and its
buildings. At the same time, the elevated position of the Persepolis plat-
form and the buildings upon it conferred an obvious military advantage,
creating a landmark visible from a distance. The Old Persian toponym
Pārsa is attested in Xerxes’s inscription on the “Gate of All Nations”
(XPa) and in the texts of the Persepolis Fortification archives. In Old
Persian, Parsa refers to both Persepolis and Persia, and at the same time
means “a Persian.” As with many other ethno-political entities, the Old
Persian choronym is morphologically distinguishable from the ethn-
onym only in the plural, where it can be only a plural ethnonym.
The oldest inscriptions at Persepolis are probably DPd−g, in the
name of Darius I, carved on a monolithic slab on the southern cladding
of the platform (figure 56.4). These constitute a unitary inscription in
four columns, two in Old Persian (DPd−e), one in Elamite (DPf ), and
the last in Babylonian (DPg). The text in each language does not convey
the same message but complements the others.54 DPf is focused on con-
struction activities.55 The key word is Elamite halmariš, attested also in
the Persepolis Fortification Tablets and usually translated as “fortress.”56
This refers to the buildings above the platform (Elamite mur, usually
translated as “terrace” in this context, elsewhere “earth, ground, terrain”)
as a complex. In DPf, the chancellery attributed to Darius, speaking in
the first person, the construction of the halmariš which previously had
not existed. DPd−g was close to the original stairway leading up to the
platform,57 which was later walled up and replaced by the currently vis-
ible monumental stairway, built during the reign of Xerxes I according
to the inscription XPa, that brings one up onto the platform just in front
of the “Gate of All Nations.”
54. Filippone 2012.

55. Romagnuolo 2012.
56. Rossi 2010.
57. Tilia 1978: 11–24.
538
Figure 56.4. The southern cladding wall of the platform of Persepolis, with the monolith slab bearing the royal
inscription of Darius I dubbed DPd−g (under the protective roof ). Author’s photograph, courtesy of the DARIOSH
Project.
539
Persepolis today appears to be a city of stone. In fact, stone was used

only selectively, e.g., for door and window frames, columns, and stair-
ways. Most of the no longer extant architectural elements were made of
brick,58 now obliterated by the passage of time and by archaeologists,
who in some cases excavated the mudbrick walls down to a very low
height, believing that this method led to easier preservation (by encas-
ing them in a skin of modern mudbrick and packed mud or pisé) while
still displaying the buildings’ layout. Wood was also employed, e.g., for
the ceiling beams supported by the stone capitals of the hypostyle halls
(figure 56.5) and for the slender columns of the Treasury. Persepolis was
a ceremonial complex that celebrated the king and displayed his power.
However, in recent years, much research has been devoted to the site,59
and it is now clear that the monumental complex was served by a large
settlement,60 which included craft areas,61 as suggested by the Persepolis
Fortification Tablets and dictated by the needs of the population on the
platform.
Some 3 kilometers from Persepolis is the site of Tol-e Ajori, where a
joint Iranian-Italian archaeological mission has unearthed a monumental
gate decorated with glazed bricks strikingly like those of the Ištar Gate in
Babylon.62 A dating before the reign of Darius (i.e., proto-Achaemenid)
has been suggested on several grounds, including the palaeography of
bricks inscribed with Elamite and Babylonian signs.63
Pasargadae, probably mentioned as Pašargadaš in the Persepolis
Fortification Tablets, is situated ca. 60 kilometers (via the gorge of Tang-
e Bolaghi in the valley of the Polvar River, a tributary of the Kor River)
58. Callieri 2018.

59. Called polis in Diod. Sic. 17.70.1 and 17.70.16, in addition to its name in Greek
(Persepolis), which means “Parsa- the-city,” not “city of the Persians”; see
Henkelman 2013: 528.
60. Boucharlat et al. 2012.
61. Askari Chaverdi and Callieri 2017.
62. Askari Chaverdi and Callieri 2020.
63. Basello 2017.
540
Figure 56.5. A rare view, taken from the top of the “Gate of All Nations,” of the great hypostyle hall (the so-called
Apadana) at Persepolis. Author’s photograph, courtesy of the DARIOSH Project and the Parsa Pasargad Research
Foundation.
541
to the north of Persepolis, positioned in another intermontane plain (ca.

1850 m above sea level). Like Persepolis, most of the archaeological site
visible today is a complex of monumental buildings. Here, too, recent
investigations have identified an urban settlement to the north of the
fortified palace known as Tol-e Takht.64
The modern capital of Fars province, Shiraz, was already a city in the
Persian imperial period, and is probably attested in the administrative
tablets from Persepolis as Širaziš (spelled also with an initial sign ti).65
In Dashtestan, at least three palaces have been partially exca-
vated: Charkhab, Bardak-e Siah, and Sang-e Siah.66 These architectural
remains, together with a few inscribed fragments of royal inscriptions
from Bardak-e Siah,67 confirm an imperial presence in the area and along
the road connecting Persepolis to the Persian Gulf.
West of Persepolis, along the road leading to Susa, a palace was exca-
vated at the site of Qale Kali, in the Mamasani area (not far from the
much older rock relief of Kurangun).68 Sometimes described as a pavil-
ion (i.e., a royal shelter in a park or garden), it is likely to constitute both
an administrative center and a road station for use of the king and the
court when traveling.
Surrounded by a fertile plain, the key dynastic center in Elam was
Susa, ca. 100 km from Ahvaz, the current capital of Khuzestan. An
entire mound, perhaps the site of the earlier Elamite royal palaces, was
occupied by the palace of Darius I, which was at least partially burned
during the reign of Artaxerxes I and restored under Artaxerxes II
(according to A2Sa, the first inscription to be discovered at Susa, by
W. K. Loftus).69 Due to a lack of stone in the area, the palace was built
64. Gondet 2018: 193–197.

65. Hallock 1969: 762 s.v. Tirazziš; Vallat 1993: 282–283 s.v. Tiraz(z)i(š); Henkelman
et al. 2006: 4.
66. Zehbari 2020.
67. Basello 2018: 243, n. 153.
68. Potts et al. 2009.
69. Perrot 2010.
542
Figure 56.6. The great hypostyle hall of the palace of Darius I at Susa with
the extant gigantic column bases. The stone foundation of the columns is vis-
ible where a base is missing. Author’s photograph, courtesy of the DARIOSH
Project.
largely of baked (especially in the first courses of walls) and unbaked

mudbrick. Stone was reserved for column foundations (since there was
no bedrock, only alluvial soil), column bases, and, of course, the col-
umns and capitals of the great hypostyle hall (figure 56.6). The great
efforts of the Persian king as a builder are celebrated in three inscrip-
tions (DSf, DSz, DSaa) listing the provenance of the materials used in
the palace(s),70 together with their workers: e.g., the bricks were fash-
ioned by Babylonian people (DSf §8). Bricks stamped with a walking
lion were found both at Susa, in the Shaur palace of Artaxerxes II built
on the plain to the west of the city, and at Babylon, confirming that
the mobility of specialized personnel was one of the keys to success in
architectural projects.71
70. Rossi 2003; Tuplin 2021.

71. Basello 2014: 202. On the mobility of workforces, see Matarese 2021.
543
56.7. Political events: The beginnings

The dates of the political takeover of the Teispid dynasty in Anšan and
the conquest of Susa are unclear. According to Cyrus the Great’s gene-
alogy in the cylinder inscription from Babylon,72 the founder of the
dynasty, Teispes, was “king of the city of Anšan” (line 21), just like Cyrus
himself (line 12), and must have reigned in the second half of the seventh
century bc. It is not clear what role the city of Anšan had at the begin-
ning of the Persian rule. Archaeological investigations suggest that Tell-e
Malyan was already abandoned by this time, implying that the title borne
by Cyrus in the Mesopotamian sources was an archaism or symbolic title.
However, the site has been excavated only to a minimal extent, so it is
conceivable that in the future it may be possible to identify occupation
in the Teispid, or proto-Achaemenid, period.73 It is usually believed that
Susiana was conquered by Cyrus the Great on his way to Lydia (540s bc)
or Babylon (539 bc), but this was not necessarily the case. The very lack
of sources documenting this event may point to the fact that an actual
conquest did not occur, but rather a seamless transfer of power.
A letter from the Assyrian state correspondence is particularly rel-
evant since it shows that a group referred to as Persians (Paršuaš) was
present precisely in the area between Susa and Anšan in 653 bc, a few
months after the alleged defeat of the Elamites at Til Tuba by the forces
of Ashurbanipal of Assyria (668–631 bc). Written by the elders (šibutu)
of Elam to the Assyrian king, the letter laments the plundering of cat-
tle by Persians in Hidali and Yahdik.74 While Yahdik is attested only
here, Hidali is well known and can be located in the Mamasani area “in
the middle of the mountains” along the later Susa−Persepolis road.75
According to François Vallat, the country of Elam, originally located
in the highlands, shifted toward the west, becoming coterminous with
72. For recent translations of the Cyrus Cylinder, see Kuhrt 2007: 70–74; Finkel
2013; Schaudig 2019.
73. Potts 2011.
74. Parpola 2018: no. 116.
75. Gorris 2020: 159–160, §2.2.3.1.
54
lowland Susiana in the Persian imperial period, as a consequence of the

political and cultural shift brought about by the Persians in the east.76
Little is known about specific events in the history of the satrapies
of Persia and Elam, apart from the circumstances related to Darius
I’s accession to the throne and Alexander the Great’s conquest. The
Bisotun inscription of Darius I (DB) reports several revolts, three of
which involved Elam and one Persia. The first revolt after the killing
of Gaumata was led by Assina, qualified as an Elamite in the Elamite
and Babylonian versions (not so in the Old Persian text), who rose up
in Elam in late 522 bc, declaring himself “king in Elam,”77 and causing
the Elamites to rebel (DB §16). Darius sent a messenger to Elam and, as
a result, Assina was captured and brought to him as a prisoner (DB §17).
Assina is depicted on the Bisotun relief as the first of the nine standing
rebel kings. His name has been explained by scholars as being etymologi-
cally either Elamite or Iranian,78 while his father’s name, Upad(a)rama,
is clearly Iranian.79
A series of revolts, involving Babylonia, Persia, Elam, and several
other countries, reached a climax in December 522 bc. The second
revolt in Elam was led by Martiya, whose home, Kugnaka, was in Persia.
According to the Bisotun inscription (DB §22), he revolted in Elam,
declaring himself Imaniš, “king in Elam.”80 Imaniš was probably a ren-
dering of the royal name (Umaniš) of an Elamite king. This time the
Elamites themselves seized and executed Martiya (DB §23). His name,
meaning “the man,” is clearly Iranian, while his father’s name, Cincakhri,
remains etymologically unclear.81 In the same period, Vahyazdata, one
of Darius’s major opponents, revolted in Persia, claiming, like Gaumata
before him, to be Bardiya, the son of Cyrus II the Great (DB §40). He
76. Vallat 1993: CXLIII–CXLIV.

77. Rendered as “I do the kingship for the Elamites” in the Elamite version.
78. Tavernier 2007: 12, no. 1.2.1.
79. Schmitt 2014: 265, s.v. Upad(a)rama-.
80. Rendered as “king of the Elamites” in the Elamite version.
81. Schmitt 2014: 157, s.v. Cincaxri-.
54
was definitively defeated and executed later, in July 521 bc, at Uadaicaya,
a city in Persia (DB §43). On the Bisotun relief, Martiya appears as the
fourth standing king and Vahyazdata as the sixth.
The third revolt in Elam occurred later, in 520 bc, and its account is
an addition found only in the Old Persian text (DB §71– §72). Its leader
is qualified as an Elamite and bore an Elamite name, Athamaita, which
some scholars have compared with the name of the late Neo-Elamite
king Atta-hamiti-Inšušinak.82 The Elamite rebels were called “untrust-
worthy” (arīka) and in the end “the country (of Elam), became mine (=
of Darius).” Athamaita is not depicted on the Bisotun relief since there
was no space for him, even though in the end the branch of the royal
chancellery in charge of planning this kind of monument found some
space to carve Skunkha the Scythian chief, the other rebel leader men-
tioned in the Old Persian addition.
56.8. Satraps
Very few satraps of Persia and Elam are named in the sources.83 Justin
states that Cyrus the Great put a certain Sybares in command of Persia.84
Hystaspes, the father of Darius I, perhaps served as satrap of Persia dur-
ing the reign of Cambyses II (529–522 bc), since Herodotus states that
he was “hyparch [i.e., a governor of a subregion below the level of satrapy]
of the Persians” when his son Darius became king.85 The Bisotun inscrip-
tion states that Hystaspes was in Parthia in 521 bc (DB §35), which might
suggest that he acquired a new position after his son became king.86 In
the Persepolis Fortification Tablets a certain Karkiš is qualified both as
82. Gorris 2020: 84.

83. Petit 1990: 255 (Annexe 2).
84. Just. Epit. 1.7.1.
85. Hdt. 3.70.3.
86. Petit 1990: 77–79. Cf. Jacobs 2011: “Herodotus’s statement . . . is . . . likely to be
an error.”
546
satrap (Elamite šakšapaua) and as a Carmanian (karmania). Thus, he has

been considered a satrap of the minor satrapy of Carmania.87
Thanks to Alexander the Great’s historiographers, we know the
names of the satraps under Darius III. In his review of Persian army con-
tingents at the battle of Gaugamela,88 Arrian identified Oxathres, son of
Abulites, as commander of the Uxians and Susians.89 According to both
Diodorus Siculus90 and Curtius,91 Abulites was the satrap of Susiana
in 331 bc, when he surrendered the city of Susa to Alexander. Clearly
Abulites was too old to command the army.92
The satrap of Persia in 331 bc was Ariobarzanes, who led the opposi-
tion against Alexander.93 Arrian and a fragment of Nearchus mention a
governor of an island in the Persian Gulf, perhaps Qeshm (the largest
island of the gulf, close to the Strait of Hormuz).94 This hyparchy was
probably part of the satrapy of Persia.
56.9. Political events: The end

Classical authors report information and political events in the satrapies
of Persia and Elam connected to Alexander the Great’s conquest. While
Abulites, the satrap of Susiana (section 56.8), surrendered the city of Susa
to Alexander, and retained his position afterward, Ariobarzanes, the
satrap of Persia, led the last opposition to the Macedonian army at the
Persian Gates in January 330 bc.95 The Persian Gates are now identified
87. Henkelman 2010: 704–707.

88. Kuhrt 2007: 877, fig. 17.14.
89. Arr. An. 3.8.5.
90. Diod. Sic. 17.65.5, where Abulites is spelled Abuleutos.
91. Curt. 5.2.8, where he is called praefectus.
92. Potts 2016: 311–312.
93. Arr. An. 3.18.2: “satrap of the Persians.”
94. Petit 1990: 214; Potts 2019: 391.
95. Arr. An. 3.18.2−9.
547
as a defile to the east of the modern city of Yasuj,96 along the branching of
the Susa−Persepolis road entering the Marv Dasht plain opposite Tell-e
Malyan. In the aftermath, Alexander captured Persepolis and its riches,
establishing there a new Persian satrap, loyal to him. Subsequent events,
as briefly related by the Alexander historiographers, led to the conflagra-
tion of the royal palaces (basileion, used in the plural97).98 The governor
of Pasargadae, a certain Gobares, surrendered the city (urbs) founded by
Cyrus to Alexander.99
In modern and contemporary historiography, it is natural to look for
the origins and causes of major events that led to major political changes
and therefore to what can later be defined as a new historical period, in
the broad range of years belonging to the previous historical period (e.g.,
the decades covering World War I and the interwar period in searching
for the causes of World War II). The converse is also true, i.e., the under-
standing of a historical period can be improved by analyzing continu-
ities and changes in what followed. So too can the Persian Empire be
investigated in light of subsequent history, i.e., the Seleucid and Arsacid
kingdoms and, from a cultural point of view, Hellenism. More relevant
to this chapter, the history of what contemporary scholars call Elymais
is particularly helpful for trying to understand the political, economic,
and social dynamics of the satrapies of Elam and Persia, e.g., in the role
and achievements of the mountain peoples on the fringes of the Persian
Empire.100
In coming years, many historiographical voids in the representation
of the empire between the cores of the two satrapies, Susa and Persepolis,
will be filled thanks to new archaeological discoveries and an effective
use of the sources already available. This process has already begun with
the reassessment of the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, the surfacing of
96. Speck 2002: 161–169.

97. Arr. An. 3.19.11.
98. Briant 2002: 1047.
99. Curt. 5.6.10.
100. Potts 2016: 348–406.
548
documents like the Aramaic texts from ancient Bactria, the archaeologi-
cal surveys in plains like Marv Dasht, Mamasani, and Dashtestan, and
the discovery of Tol-e Ajori.
In the end, what does it mean to be “Achaemenid,” besides the obvi-
ous identification with the kings and dynastic centers of the Persian
Empire? Was there some unifying element that characterized the impe-
rial presence in Persia, Elam, and the other satrapies? In its deliberate
immutability, imperial ideology is tangibly represented in imperial art,
and this constitutes one such unifying element. Alongside ideology, the
administrative system can be considered a sign of the empire’s presence.
Seen in this light, references to the practices of the Persian imperial chan-
cellery in the Bible can be better understood.101
The Persian imperial period, which created new possibilities of move-
ment and contact foreshadowed by Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian depor-
tation policies, also had a great impact on the transfer of knowledge and
the development of science, as illustrated by, e.g., the management of
time, where calendrical reform was perhaps prompted by administrative
needs,102 and mathematical operations involved in astronomy and astrol-
ogy.103 These fields, in addition to the more trodden paths, like the study
of Achaemenid art and architecture, will surely attract scholarly effort in
years to come.
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ally “on the hand,” echoing Elamite kurman and Aramaic l-yd) of the treasurer
(gezbar, elsewhere gizzavar, a Persian loanword) who counted them out to the
prince of Judah according to Ezra 1:8; see Basello 2013: 37–40, 66–68.
102. See Ossendrĳver 2018 (mainly based on contemporary Babylonian scholarship).
103. See Potts 2007 (with earlier literature).
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56
57
The Satrapies of the Persian Empire

Media and Armenia
Giusto Traina
57.1. The Persian conquest of Media and Armenia

and its direct aftermath
When Cyrus the Great conquered Media and Armenia (figure 57.1) in
the mid-sixth century bc,1 Media was an established kingdom that had
taken advantage of the fall of Assyria and Urartu.2 A Babylonian text
known as the Nabonidus Chronicle and several classical sources give evi-
dence of Cyrus’s defeat of Astyages, the last king of Media. After about
three years of war, the Persians seized the Median royal residence of
Ecbatana (modern Hamadan); and according to Ctesias, Cyrus eventu-
ally married Amytis, a daughter of Astyages.3
1. The following additional abbreviation is used: DB =Bisotun inscription of Darius

I; see Kuhrt 2007: 141–158, no. 5.1. The chapter was language-edited by Karen
Radner.
2. Cf., e.g., Dandamayev and Medvedskaya 2006; Stronach 2007; and c hapter 43 in
volume 4.
3. Ctesias FGrH 688 Fragment 9; see Briant 2002: 33–34.
Giusto Traina, The Satrapies of the Persian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East.
57
58
The historiographical tradition assigns to Media a major role within

the Persian Empire, but modern scholarship strongly challenges the
historical veracity of these accounts.4 However, Media seems to have
retained a certain prominence in the empire, and is habitually listed in
second place after Persia in the lists of the imperial holdings. According
to Pierre Briant,
It is likely that after the conquest of Ecbatana Media retained spe-

cial prestige among the conquered countries, perhaps because of
ancient political and cultural links between Persians and Medes.
But at the same time, it is clear that our perspective is somewhat
skewed because of propaganda.5
Media was integrated as a satrapy into the imperial administrative sys-

tem. While its local political powers did not disappear entirely,6 we have
no evidence about any specific Median satrap.
The situation in the Armenian highlands is even less clear, especially
prior to the conquest by Cyrus the Great.7 After the kingdom of Urartu
(chapter 44 in volume 4) disintegrated, the resulting power vacuum may
have allowed for the emergence of local polities,8 even if one espouses the
idea of a partial “survival” of Urartu (the Reststaat imagined by Robert
Rollinger) until the time of the Persian conquest.9 In any case, there is
no need to maintain the traditional view that a “Median Empire” should
have existed between the fall of the Assyrian Empire and the emergence
4. For the current state of discussion, see Gelder and Rollinger 2020.
5. Briant 2002: 81–82.
6. Cf. Briant 2002: 77.
7. For a synthesis, see Messerschmidt 2021: 672.
8. For the evidence of the new excavations in Erebuni, see Deschamps et al. 2019.
9. Briant 2002: 25–26; Rollinger 2008: 60–61. See further below in this section on
the contested reading of a fragmentary toponym in the Nabonidus Chronicle as
either Urartu or Lydia.
59
The Satrapies of Media and Armenia 559
of the Persian Empire, or to argue that the Medes would ever have con-
trolled all the Armenian highlands, even for a limited period.10
Later traditions seem to connect the beginning of the Armenian eth-
nogenesis with the period of the Persian conquest under Cyrus.11 Our
best sources are Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (compiled in the fourth century
bc) and the much younger History of Armenia of Movsēs Khorenats‘i
(allegedly compiled in the fifth century ad). The narrative of Khorenats‘i
shares several points with that of Xenophon, which he openly acknowl-
edges as he states that his sources include “the four rhapsodies of that elo-
quent and wise man, indeed the wisest of wise men.”12 The information
provided by these two authors is not included in the works of Herodotus
or Ctesias.
According to the testimony of Xenophon and Khorenats‘i, Cyrus
waged war against the kingdom of Armenia by order of his sovereign
and maternal uncle Cyaxares, the king of Media, after the Armenian trib-
ute due to Media had been withheld; he attacked the region from the
plains while his lieutenant, the Persian noble Chrysantas, captured the
Armenian king in his mountain refuge.13 Xenophon had direct know
ledge of Armenia due to his own march through the region in 400 bc,
and in the narrative of the Cyropaedia, he emphasizes the geographical
position of Armenia at the edge between the wilderness of the mountains
and the civilization of the highlands and plains. The captive Armenian
king was eventually submitted to trial and accepted Cyrus’s authority.
According to Xenophon:
On the following day, the Armenian king sent guest-presents to

Cyrus and all his army, and he commanded those of his men who
were to take the field to present themselves on the third day; and
10. Cf. Stronach 2012; Jacobs and Stronach 2021: 213–214; and chapter 43 in vol-
ume 4.
11. Mari 2016.
12. Movsēs Khorenats‘i 1.20. For an English translation, see Thomson 2006.
13. Xen. Cyr. 2.4.32.
560
he paid Cyrus double the sum of money that he had named. But
Cyrus accepted only the amount specified and returned the rest.
Then he asked which of the two was to go in command of the
forces, the king himself or his son. They both answered at the
same instant, the father saying: “Whichever you command”; and
the son: “I will never leave you Cyrus, not even if I have to accom-
pany you as a camp-follower.”14
The son of the anonymous Armenian king was Tigran (Greek Tigranes),
with whom Cyrus was already acquainted, as Tigran had been his hunt-
ing companion.15 Later, Tigran helped Cyrus to seize rule of Media
from Cyaxares’s successor Astyages,16 whose Armenian name Aždahak
recalls the usurper Aži-dahaka of the Vedic and Avestic tradition and
the evil Ẓaḥḥak of the later Persian epic tradition.17 In the narrative of
Khorenats‘i, Tigran is more an ally of Cyrus than a vassal, and the epic
tones of the story highlight his bravery:
The Armenian king gathered [troops] ( . . . ) and marched with all

his host to the borders of Media. The danger then forced Aždahak
to oppose the Armenian with no less a force. ( . . . ) When the bat-
tle was joined, with his lance Tigran split Aždahak’s iron armor
like water; the point of the lance ran right through him, and as
he drew it back again, he brought out with his weapon half of
his lungs. The combat was magnificent, for heroes were facing
heroes, and not straightaway did they turn their backs to each
other. Therefore, the struggle was drawn out over long hours. But
the death of Aždahak brought it to an end. And this feat, added
to his good fortune, increased Tigran’s glory.18
14. Xen. Cyr. 3.1.42.

15. Bichler 2020: 79–80.
16. See Adontz 1946: 335–344.
17. Skjærvø et al. 1987: 204–205 (s.v. IV. Armenian Aždahak).
18. Movsēs Khorenats‘i 1.29.
561
What is the historical background of these stories? The Babylonian

evidence may hint that Cyrus campaigned in southern Armenia in
547 bc, although the reading of the crucial toponym is debated (with the
options being Urartu or Lydia).19 According to the so-called Nabonidus
Chronicle, the Persian king
crossed the Tigris downstream from Arbela and, in the month of

Ayyaru (=April/May), [march]ed to U[rartu (?)]. He defeated
its king, seized its possessions, and set up his own garrison there.
After that, the king and the garrison resided there.20
If the toponym should indeed be read as Urartu, was this anonymous

king the ruler of a post-Urartian rump state (Rollinger’s Reststaat),
or of an early Armenian kingdom? Even if the toponym actually refers
to Lydia, it would have been necessary to achieve control over the ter-
ritories in the Armenian highlands before launching the Persian attack
against the kingdom of Lydia. Although the traditional chronology gen-
erally dates the capture of the Lydian capital Sardis to November 547 bc,
it is also possible that the Persian forces first campaigned in Central Asia
(chapter 62 in this volume) before commencing their final strike against
Lydia.21 In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Armenia is presented as the first in
the long series of Cyrus’s conquests, followed by Scythia, Assyria, Lydia,
Babylon, and finally Media.
Some years after Cyrus’s conquests, revolts took place both in Media
and Armenia. These uprisings were connected to the usurpation attempt
by the pretender Gaumata, possibly a Mede, who claimed to be Bardiya,
son of Cyrus and brother of Cambyses (530–522 bc). This Gaumata—the
“false Smerdis” of Herodotus—plotted a rebellion while Cambyses, who
19. See c hapter 51 in this volume, where the contested toponym’s reading as Lydia is
favored.
20. Grayson 1975: 107–108: Chronicle 7 ii 16–17; for the reading the toponym as
Urartu, see Rollinger 2008: 56 (quoting autopsies of the text by Joachim Oelsner
in 1997 and Matt Waters in 2005).
21. Briant 2002: 38–39.
562
had succeeded his father Cyrus to the Persian throne, was engaged in a
war in Egypt, where he died in July 522 bc. Gaumata claimed the throne
but was quickly overthrown by a coalition of seven Persian nobles; their
leader eventually took the crown as Darius I (522–486 bc) and promptly
marched against the rebels.
According to Herodotus, one of the seven Persian nobles was
Hydarnes,22 a Greek rendering of the Old Persian name Vidaṛna.23 As
one of Darius’s generals, he later waged war on his behalf in Babylon, as
Darius’s trilingual inscription at Bisotun (DB) attests. According to that
source, another of Darius’s generals called Vaumisa fought Armenian
rebels in Assyria at the end of December 522 bc; and two weeks later,
Hydarnes, after achieving victory in Babylon, also defeated the rebel
forces in Media.24 Subsequently, Darius established his headquarters in
Media at the city of Ecbatana in order to fight the Median rebel leader
Fravartiš (Greek rendering: Phraortes), who was attempting to extend
the uprising to Parthia and Hyrcania; there, his forces were defeated by
Hystaspes, Darius’s father. On May 8, 521 bc, Darius himself defeated
Fravartiš, who fled but was captured at Rhagae (modern Shahr-e Ray)
in mid-May; Darius ordered the Mede’s execution as soon as he was
brought before him after his capture. For several months, Darius had to
coordinate military operations on several fronts: the Armenian rebellion
was still active in June 521 bc, despite several victories won by Darius’s
generals.
But not all Medes and Armenians entertained anti-Persian feel-
ings. During these uprisings, several nobles supported Darius, who
could count on a mixed Persian-Median army and on generals like the
Mede Takhmaspada, who defeated the Sagartian rebel forces,25 or the
22. Hdt. 3.70.2; Hydarnes is called Idernes in Ctesias FGrH 688 Fragment 13.16.
23. Schmitt 2004.
24. DB §24–§32. A good synthesis can be found in Jacobs 2011; see also Rollinger
2008: 61.
25. DB §33.
563
Armenian Dadaršiš, who fought for Darius in Armenia and in the east,
as we learn from the Bisotun inscription:26
Darius the king proclaims: An Armenian called Dadaršiš, my

subject, I sent him to Armina. I spoke to him thus, “Go! That
rebellious army, which does not call itself mine, smite it!” Then
Dadaršiš marched away. When he arrived in Armina, the reb-
els gathered together, marched against Dadaršiš to join battle.
A village called Zuza (?)‌, in Armenia—there they joined battle.
Auramazda helped me; by the favor of Auramazda, my army
utterly defeated that rebellious army. Nine days of the month
Thuravahara had gone by (May 31, 521 bc); then they fought the
battle [the Babylonian and the Aramaic versions report the num-
ber of the killed rebels and of the prisoners].
Darius the king proclaims: For a second time the rebels gath-
ered; they came out against Dadaršiš to join battle. A fortress
called Tigra in Armina—there they joined battle. Auramazda
helped me; by the favor of Auramazda, my army utterly defeated
that rebellious army. Nine days of the month Thaigarci had gone
by ( June 21, 521 bc); then they fought the battle. Afterwards,
Dadaršiš waited for me until I arrived in Media.
Darius the king proclaims: Afterwards a Persian called
Vaumisa, my subject, I sent him to Armenia. I spoke to him
thus: “Go! This rebellious army, which does not call itself mine,
smite it!” Then Vaumisa marched away. When he arrived in
Armina, the rebels assembled. They came out against Vaumisa to
join battle. A region called Izala, in Assyria—there they joined
battle. Auramazda helped me; by the favor of Auramazda, my
army utterly defeated that rebellious army. Fifteen days of the
month Anamaka had gone (December 31, 522 bc), then they
fought the battle.
Darius the king proclaims: For a second time the rebels gath-
ered; they came out against Vaumisa to join battle. A region
26. Briant 2002: 121.

564
called Autiyara, in Armina—there they joined battle. Auramazda

helped me; by the favor of Auramazda, my army utterly defeated
that rebellious army. On the last day of the month Thuravahara
( June 11, 521 bc)—then they fought the battle. Then Vaumisa
waited for me until I arrived in Media.27
Finally, Darius’s inscription at Bisotun proclaims:
These are the nations who obey me; by the favor of Auramazda,
I was their king: Persia, Elam, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt,
those of the sea, Lydia, Ionia, Media, Armenia, Cappadocia,
Parthia, Drangiana, Areia, Chorasmia, Bactriana, Sogdiana,
Gandara, Scythia (Saka), Sattagydia, Arachosia, Maka: in all
twenty nations.28
Although the geographical order in this list is rather chaotic, it is worth

noting that the peoples of Media and Armenia are mentioned together.
It appears from the Bisotun inscription that the death toll was consid-
erably higher in Media than in Armenia. The Aramaic version of the
Bisotun inscription records a sum of 12,000 (combining killed enemies
and prisoners) for Armenia, whereas for Media, it mentions “innumer-
able” dead and 18,000 prisoners. As Touraj Daryaee argues,
it appears that Armenians, by working with Darius, were not only

able to crush the Medes but were also able to crush the Urartians
in Armenia. Hence, the old powers, the Medes and the Urartians,
gave way to the new powers in the region, the Persians and the
Armenians.29
27. DB §26−§28.
28. DB §38.
29. Daryaee 2018: 41. On the Bisotun inscription as the evidence for the Armenians,
see also Potts 2006–2007.
56
Although the evidence is scarce and less than clear,30 this might explain
why we hardly find any individuals of obvious Median origin among the
empire’s highest dignitaries, despite the fact that Media continued to
retain its prominent position in the list of the territories subject to the
Persian king. This could also explain why the delegates from Armenia
and Cappadocia wear Median dress in the reliefs of the royal tombs at
Naqš-e-Rustam (figure 57.2) and Persepolis.
But this does not necessarily testify to a “Median/Scythian upper
class of local rulers,” as Vogelsang claimed.31 After all, Strabo observes
that the costumes of the Medes
are very similar to those of the Armenians, given the proximity

of the territory. They say, however, that the Medes taught the
Armenians and, before that, the Persian rulers, who had taken
their place in the control of Asia.32
Strabo further specified that Armenians, Medes, and Persians also had
religious rites in common.33
57.2. The internal organization of the satrapy

of Greater Media and its subunits Media
and Armenia
Although the sources on the satrapal organization of Media and
Armenia are contradictory and not fully reliable, a partial reconstruc-
tion is possible.34 Cyrus the Great seems to have created a “great satrapy”
30. Briant 2002: 740.

31. Vogelsang 1992: 138, 313.
32. Str. 11.13.9 (very likely derived from Posidonius).
33. Str. 11.14.6. However, we cannot exclude that Strabo was biased against the
Armenians and their claims to a distinct identity; see Traina 2017: 96.
34. Briant 2002: 117; on the archaeological evidence, see Jacobs and Stronach 2021.
56
Figure 57.2. The two upper registers of the “throne-bearers” on the depiction on the façade of the royal tomb attributed to Xerxes
I (486–465 bc) at Naqš-e Rustam (see figure 55.5 in c hapter 55), showing the peoples of the Persian Empire supporting the king’s
throne. According to the labels accompanying these figures on the parallel depiction on the tomb of Darius I, the second man from
the left in the first register is a Mede, and the sixth man in the second register is an Armenian. Image by A. Davey, CC BY 2.0, via
Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73682194).
567
of Media that held a special position within the empire. This satrapy
of Greater Media included Media itself, Armenia, and the territory of
the Cadusii (located in the Gilan Province of Iran, on the southwestern
shore of the Caspian Sea). According to Reinhold Bichler, this fits the
perception that a close affinity existed between the Armenians and the
Medes; while references to natural boundaries such as rivers and moun-
tain ranges are largely absent in the Cyropaedia, Xenophon’s reshaping
of Cyrus’s military operations “seems to convey the idea of clearly drawn
borders between Medes and Persians, Medes and Armenians as well as
Medes and Assyrians.”35
According to Xenophon,36 Cyrus chose his first-born son Cambyses
as his successor and appointed as satrap of Greater Media his second son,
Tanyoxarkes (“Bardiya” in Darius’s inscription at Bisotun; “Smerdis” in
Herodotus); from this, too, we can assume that this office was consid-
ered honorable and the satrapy important. Moreover, the inscriptions
of the Persian rulers regularly name Persia together with Media, pos-
sibly because of their ethnic and linguistic closeness,37 and the classical
sources frequently use the terms Media, Mede, and Median as synonyms
for Persia and Persian.
An Elamite administrative text from the Persepolis Fortification
Tablets mentions a certain Ukbateya “who carried a sealed docu-
ment of Miturna”38 in the twenty-third and the twenty-fourth year of
Darius I (498–497 bc). Miturna is the Elamite rendering of the name
Hydarnes. Pierre Briant considers Miturna/Hydarnes to have been the
satrap of Media around 499 bc.39 Wouter Henkelman is slightly more
cautious in his assessment and considers him the “central administra-
tor in Media, empowered to issue travel authorisations,” while stating
35. Bichler 2020: 80; 83.

36. Xen. Cyr. 8.7.11.
37. Briant 2002: 180.
38. Hallock 1978: no. 18 (=PFa 18).
39. Briant 2002: 136; 737–738.
568
that such authority “normally would indicate that he was satrap of that
region.”40 But many questions remain: Was Miturna/Hydarnes the
ruler of a minor satrapy, or the satrap of Greater Media? And should
we identify this man with Darius’s general Hydarnes (see above, section
57.1)?
As stated before, the satrapy of Greater Media was subdivided into
two main satrapies, Media (Old Persian Mada) and Armenia (Old
Persian Armina). The former comprised the minor satrapies of Media,
Media Minor (called Media Atropatene after the conquest of Alexander
the Great), and Paraetacene. The satrapy of Media bordered in the north
on the Elburz mountains, in the east on the satrapy of Parthia, in the
west on the territory of the Cadusii (part of Media Minor), and in the
south on the Elymais (Elam). The territory of the satrapy of Media Minor
consisted of the regions southwest of the Caspian Sea. The third satrapy
was Paraetacene, which consisted, according to Strabo, of the territory of
“the Paraitakenians, who adjoin the Persians and also are mountaineers
and brigands.”41
In the lists of the empire’s territories in the royal inscriptions,
Media continued to hold a very prominent place, mentioned after
Persia and before Elam and thus forming the central regions of the
empire. A passage in one of Darius’s inscriptions at Persepolis refers
to the territorial power given to the king by the god Auramazda in
these words:
the kingship in this wide earth of many lands, among (them)

Persia, Media and other lands of another tongue, of mountains
and plain, of this near side of the sea and that far side of the sea,
of this near side of the waterless desert and that far side of the
waterless desert.42
40. Henkelman 2017: 132–133.

41. Str. 11.13.6.
42. For Darius’s inscription from the south wall of the Persepolis terrace wall (DPg),
see Kuhrt 2007: 483, no. 11.3.
569
Possibly, “the scribe imagined the center of the empire as Persia and
Media, surrounded by the other lands with other tongues.”43 The
administrative center of the satrapy of Media was Ecbatana (modern
Hamadan), located on an important royal road.44 While we know that
military colonies of Median soldiers were stationed in garrisons in the
empire’s periphery, we have no evidence regarding Median dignitaries
and on the role of the Median aristocracy within the Persian Empire.45
If we now turn to the second main satrapy of Greater Media,
according to Thierry Petit’s assessment, the satrapy of Armenia (figure
57.3) included all of the sub-Caucasian areas from the Black Sea to the
Caspian, and possibly also a large part of Cappadocia (a region that is
discussed in chapter 58 in this volume).46 We may assume that the impe-
rial administration was established at an early stage, possibly at the very
beginning of Persian rule over Armenia. The later Armenian literary tra-
dition records a list of kings dating from the time of Cyrus to Alexander;
but at the same time, we also have evidence for several satraps of Armenia.
The establishment of a dahyu (the technical term for “satrapy” in Old
Persian, better understood as “nation”) did not necessarily imply a total
lack of autonomy. As Lori Khatchadourian argues, we can “point to signs
of disengagement, evasion, and ambivalence vis-à-vis the spaces of the
complex polity.”47 On the basis of Armenia, Khatchadourian developed
the concept of the “satrapal condition,” which highlights the fragility of
imperial hegemony, and her approach may be generally helpful when
evaluating Persian imperial power in Media and Armenia.
According to Herodotus,48 when Aristagoras of Miletos, the leader
of the Ionian revolt, went to Sparta to ask for help, he showed King
43. Delshad 2019: 581.

44. Briant 2002: 180. On the rather scanty archaeological evidence, see Boucharlat
2018; Jacobs and Stronach 2021: 215–216.
45. Briant 2002: 180; 740.
46. Petit 1990: 214–215, 273 (map).
47. Khatchadourian 2016: 127.
48. Hdt. 5.49.7.
570
Figure 57.3. The sub-satrapy of Armenia, with survey regions indicated: (1) Tsaghkahovit Plain survey;
(2) Bayburt Plain survey; (3) Ijevan survey; (4) Doğubeyazıt survey; (5) Erciş survey; (6) Lake Sevan sur-
vey; (7) Lake Urmia surveys; (8) Muş Plain survey. Reproduced from Khatchadourian 2016: 124 (map 3).
571
Kleomenes a bronze tablet “on which the survey (periodos) of all the
earth was engraved,” possibly originating in the geographical work
Periodos Ges (“World Survey”) of Herodotus’s compatriot Hecataeus of
Miletos. Aristagoras’s intentions in introducing the wealthy nations of
Asia Minor to the Spartans was to convince them to attack the region
and become masters over all of Asia. In this periodos, the Armenians were
“another people rich in flocks,” located next to the Cilicians and a peo-
ple called Matienoi (with Matiene being located between Lake Urmia
and the headwaters of the Lower Zab).49 After mentioning the periodos,
Herodotus continued with a description of the royal road traversing
those regions:
The boundary of Cilicia and Armenia is a navigable river whereof

the name is Euphrates (Euphretes is the Ionian variant). In
Armenia there are fifteen resting-stages, and there is a fortress
here. From Armenia the road enters the land Matiene, wherein
are thirty-four stages, and a hundred and thirty-seven parasangs.
Through this land flow four navigable rivers, that must needs be
passed by ferries, first the Tigris, then a second and a third of
the same name, yet not the same stream nor flowing from the
same source; for the first-mentioned of them flows from the
Armenians and the second from the Matieni; and the fourth
river is called Gyndes, that Gyndes which Cyrus parted once into
three-hundred and sixty channels.50
In his list of Persian satrapies, Herodotus divided the territory of

Armenia between two different satrapies: “the thirteenth, the Pactyic
country and Armenia and the lands adjoining thereto as far as the Euxine
sea,” and “the Matieni, Saspiri, and Alarodii were the eighteenth, and two
hundred talents were the appointed tribute.”51 This is now considered
49. Branscome 2010.

50. Hdt. 5.52.
51. Hdt. 3.90–94.
572
a misunderstanding, as the Alarodii seem to have been the inhabitants

of the province of Ayrarat (a toponym that derives from Urartu).52 But
Herodotus’s knowledge of Armenia was generally poor, as is best dem-
onstrated by his placing the river Araxes in Central Asia; he clearly con-
fused it with the Oxus (modern Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (modern Syr
Darya).53 Xenophon repeated Herodotus’s error in his Anabasis, when
the Ten Thousand crossed the Araxes without recognizing the river as
such; instead, they believed it to be the river Phasis (possibly misled by
the Armenian toponym Basean). Xenophon’s list of the satraps states
that Tiribazus ruled “the Phasians and Hesperites.”54
Xerxes I presented an expanded list of the imperial territories in
his trilingual inscription from Persepolis, and here, Armina (Armenia)
is listed rather oddly between Arachosia and Drangiana (on these, see
chapter 63 in this volume).55 The etymology of Armina is not com-
pletely explained: a possible connection with the early Urartian ruler
Aramu (the Aram of the Armenian tradition) seems linguistically
difficult, and according to Rüdiger Schmitt it is best explained as an
Iranian name, possibly with the meaning “Deserted Land.”56 Gregory
Areshian recently suggested another possible Urartian connection,
namely that Armina may be an exonym created by the Medes using
the personal name Erimena, the son of the Urartian ruler Rusa III (or
Rusa IV).57
Roberto Dan appropriately highlighted a key question, to which we
currently do not have an answer: How extensive (if at all) were the con-
tacts between the Persian kings and Urartu? As Dan stated,
52. Hewsen 1984: 357; Schmitt 1986.

53. Hdt. 1.202; 4.40. For the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, see c hapter 62 in this volume.
54. Xen. An. 7.8.25 (possibly interpolated); see Müller 1997: 101–
102; Traina
2017: 96–97; 2018a.
55. For Xerxes’s inscription from the Persepolis garrison quarters (XPh), see Kuhrt
2007: 304–306, no. 7.88.
56. Schmitt 2008; see also Areshian 2019.
57. Areshian 2019: 7.
573
it is not possible to exclude the hypothesis that some cultural fea-

tures that are generally believed to have been Urartian and to have
fed into Achaemenid culture really originated from other cultural
areas such as Assyria, Babylonia or Elam.58
Imperial contacts with Urartu, or at least polities formed in its former

central region, would have most likely taken place during the reigns of
Darius I and Xerxes I. Several Urartian sites were reoccupied during
the Persian period, including Argištihinili (near the Persian-period and
Hellenistic site of Armavir)59 and Erebuni (modern Arin Berd; a founda-
tion of Argišti I of Urartu in the early eighth century bc; see chapter 44
in volume 4). There may have been also new foundations in the region,
such as the palatial structure at Beniamin near Gyumri,60 although the
archaeological evidence published hitherto is rather unclear.61 It is cer-
tainly worth emphasizing that the toponyms do not indicate any conti-
nuity from Urartian times.62
The main satrapy of Armenia was subdivided into two minor satra-
pies: Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia, in a division that seem-
ingly dates back to the beginning of Persian imperial rule, although
the historical roots of this dichotomy are unclear. The region’s internal
division is already apparent in Darius’s inscription at Bisotun, where
we learn of several victories over rebellious Armenians that took place
while Fravartiš was simultaneously leading a larger revolt;63 Darius
58. Dan 2015: 8. Note the citadel at Tille Höyük (Dan 2020) and also the fortified
structure at Solak-1 /Varsak north of Erevan, which was built during Urartian
rule in the first half of the 8th century BC and later became part of a series of for-
tifications used by the local Orontid dynasty in Persian imperial times (Petrosyan
et al. 2016 [2020]).
59. On Armavir, see Tirac‘yan 1998–2000.
60. Ter-Martirossov et al. 2012.
61. Gondet 2017.
62. Schmitt 2019.
63. DB §18–§29.
574
eventually dispatched one army against Western Armenia and another

against Eastern Armenia.64 The division is also implied by Xenophon;
and Curtius features the anachronistic division into Armenia Maior
and Armenia Minor, corresponding to Eastern and Western Armenia,
respectively.65
The borders of Western Armenia were formed by the Caucasus, the
Euphrates, and the Black Sea. As for Eastern Armenia, its southern bor-
der was the river Kentrites (modern Botan Çayı),66 and the Euphrates
marked the border with Cilicia in the west,67 whereas the northern and
the eastern borders are less clear. The two areas correspond more or less
to the territories of the independent kingdoms of Greater Armenia and
Sophene, as established in the third century bc.
The main satrapy of Armenia included also one additional minor
satrapy: Colchis on the Black Sea, which was captured during Darius’s cam-
paign against the Scythians in 513–512 bc. The region possibly recovered
its independence following the failure of Xerxes’s war against Greece.68
We are not certain where the administrative center of the satrapy
of Armenia was located, but the most likely candidate is arguably the
ancient Urartian capital at Van Kalesi, which is especially suggested by
the trilingual inscription that Xerxes I (486–465 bc) had carved into the
cliff of the fortress facing Lake Van (figure 57.4).69 This is a rare example
of a Persian royal inscription found outside of Persis; this text is therefore
of particular importance.
As Briant argues, this is the only piece of evidence for a royal Persian
presence in Armenia and therefore “[p]‌erhaps this inscription expresses
the specific importance of the (capital?) district within the satrapy.”70
64. DB §26–§30.
65. Curt. 4.12.10–12.
66. Xen. An. 4.3.1.
67. Hdt. 5.52.
68. Jacobs 2006.
69. For Xerxes’s inscription from Van Kalesi (XV), see Kuhrt 2007: 301, no. 7.86.
70. Briant 2002: 742; see now Daryaee 2018: 42–43.
57
Figure 57.4. The inscription of Xerxes I (486–465 bc) at Van Kalesi.

Photograph by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (http:// bjornf
ree.com/
galler
ies.
html), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.
org/w/index.php?curid=8296178).
Khatchadourian considers the execution of this inscription as “brand-

ing” the mountain, a symbolic act of appropriating the territory, and also
as a sort of assimilation of the local reality into the order of imperial
political norms, in the same way that the hypostyle halls excavated at
Altıntepe (near Erzincan) and Erebuni have been traditionally identi-
fied as a reflection of the Apadana in Persepolis (although this is by no
means certain at all).71 While Dan stresses that the inscription of Xerxes
is the only clear evidence for a Persian imperial presence at Van Kalesi,
he also emphasizes that the fortress was continuously occupied until 1915
and has been only partially excavated and investigated.72 It is noteworthy
71. Khatchadourian 2013: 137; cf. Herles 2017: 139; Deschamps et al. 2019: 195;
Knauss 2021: 300 (with further references).
72. Dan 2015: 13.
576
that Xenophon mentioned a “royal residence” (basileion) in Armenia,

where the satraps resided, located in a “large village” where “most of the
houses were surmounted by turrets.”73 It is considered unlikely that he
was describing Van Kalesi, as he made no mention of Lake Van.74 There
is presently no evidence for any royal or satrapal residences, which typi-
cally would have included a garden (paradeisos; see c hapter 65 in this
volume).75
57.3. The Medes and the Armenians until the

conquest of Alexander the Great
The frieze with the procession of “tribute-bearers” at the Apadana at
Persepolis, possibly planned by Darius I but realized by his successor
Xerxes I, depicts all the tributary peoples of the Persian Empire. The
procession consists of twenty-three delegations, and the first group are
the Medes, all wearing their typical cloaks. However, only their leader
wears the typical Median round cap. The frieze shows two delegations
on the northern stairway and on the eastern stairway that are usually
assumed to be Armenian, although there are slight differences in their
depictions.76 They seem to hold a less important position in the frieze,
and this likely attests to their less prominent role in the organization of
the empire. Their dress is similar to that of the Medes, and they lead a
horse and carry a (presumably precious) vessel (figure 57.5), symbolizing
the tribute paid by their region to the Persian king.
Evidence that Armenian horses were sent to the king as dasmos (“the
king’s part”) can also be found in Xenophon and Strabo. Xenophon
recorded a conversation with a komarkhos (“village official”) who
was asked
73. Xen. An. 4.4.2.

74. Zimansky 1995: 258.
75. Tirac‘yan 1981: 155.
76. Khatchadourian 2016: 19–21.
57
Figure 57.5. A delegation of (alleged) Armenians, as depicted on the eastern

stairway of the Apadana at Persepolis. Courtesy Photographic Archives of the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; detail of photograph Orinst. P 28997.
through their Persian-speaking interpreter, what this land was. He

replied that it was Armenia. They asked him again for whom the
horses were being reared. He answered, as tribute for the king.77
Meanwhile, Strabo reported that huge numbers of young horses were

sent from Armenia to the Persian king:
The country is so very good for horse-pasturing, not even infe-

rior to Media, that the Nesaean horses, which were used by the
Persian kings, are also bred there. The satrap of Armenia used to
send to the Persian king twenty thousand foals every year at the
time of the annual festival of Mithra (tois Mithrakinois).78
Strabo also remarked on the similarities between Media and Armenia. In

his account of Media, he stated that
77. Xen. An. 4.5.34.

78. Str. 11.14.9.
578
[r]‌eports about the tribute agree with the size and power of the
country, for Cappadocia paid each year to the Persians, in addi-
tion to a tax on silver, 1,500 horses, 2,000 mules, and 50,000
sheep, yet the Medes paid almost twice as much,79
and that
the herbage which constitutes the chief food of the horses (i.e.,
the alfalfa) we call peculiarly by the name of Medic, from its
growing in Media in great abundance.”80
As for the villages, Tirac‘yan suggested:
It can be regarded as proved that the villages of Armenia in the

Achaemenian period were village communities, about the exis-
tence of which there are several data also with Xenophon him-
self . . . the villages in the estates of the satrap and the hipparchos
in Armenia, with some reservations, resemble mostly the villages-
estates of Parysatis at river Chalos in Syria, given to the queen “as
a present.”81
On the other hand, Herodotus gives a different account of the ethnic

identity of the Armenians. In his narrative on the Persian Wars, he stated
that Xerxes summoned the “Matienoi” and the “Armenians” to take part
in the war operations against Greece. The first were teamed up with the
Paphlagonians as well as with other Pontic peoples, the second with a
Phrygian corps under the command of Artochmes:
The Phrygians had equipment very similar to that of the

Paphlagonians, with minimal differences ( . . . ). The Armenians
79. Str. 11.13.7.

80. Str. 11.13.8.
81. Tirac‘yan 1981: 156.
579
were fitted out like the Phrygians, given they are Phrygian
colonists.82
Armenia was also known as a place of exile, as it was for the eunuch
Artoxares, a Paphlagonian who had been relegated there by Artaxerxes
I (465–424 bc) but left the region later, in 424/423 bc, in order to
support Darius II (423–405 bc).83 Valuable information comes from
Xenophon’s Anabasis, the account of the expedition of a group of Greek
mercenaries, the “Ten Thousand” recruited by Cyrus the Younger for his
rebellion against his brother, King Artaxerxes II (405–359 bc). After
Cyrus’s defeat at the Battle of Cunaxa in Mesopotamia, the Greek army
crossed Anatolia and Armenia on their way home. As we have discussed
above (section 57.2), Xenophon’s narrative confirms the administrative
division of the region into Eastern and Western Armenia, and the more
important role of Eastern Armenia.
Xenophon’s Armenia was “the large and prosperous province of
which Orontas was ruler.”84 Later Armenian traditions, although com-
plicated by contradictions and anachronisms, indicate that the Armenian
highlands were ruled by the dynasty of Eruand (the Armenian variant of
Persian Arvanda and Greek Orontas/Orontes). According to Strabo, the
kings of Sophene and Greater Armenia descended from Orontes, him-
self a descendant of Hydarnes, “one of the Seven.”85 Schmitt argued that
“he seems to have been rewarded by the Great King as quasi-hereditary
satrap of Armenia.”86
82. Hdt. 7.72–73.

83. Ctesias FGrH 688 Fragment 15.43; 15.50.
84. Xen. An. 3.5.17.
85. Str. 11.14.15. Strabo’s passage is usually translated, “the Persians and the
Makedonians held Armenia, and afterward those who held Syria and Media.
The last was Orontes, the descendant of Hydarnes, one of the seven Persians.”
As a matter of fact, Strabo’s Greek text presents a syntactic non sequitur in the
expression translated “the last was Orontes,” and we therefore cannot rule out the
possibility of a gloss; see Traina 2018b; 2021.
86. Schmitt 2004.
580
According to the so-called Pergamon Chronicle, from the sec-

ond century ad, Orontes was a native of Bactria.87 This connection
may be also confirmed by the Greek inscriptions found at the site of
the tomb-shrine (hierothēsion) of King Antiochus I of Commagene
(69–36 bc) on the mountain of Nemrud Dağı. The first Orontid
is also mentioned in both versions of Stele 6 from the western and
the eastern terraces of Antiochus’s shrine, which list the genealogy
of the king. In the list of his ancestors, Orontes can be identified
with Aroandes, son of the “king’s eye” Artasyras, who was married
to Rhodogune, a daughter of Artaxerxes II. Although a connection
with the Achaemenid Dynasty was claimed by various other local rul-
ers during the same period,88 it is noteworthy that, also according to
Xenophon, Orontas was a son-in-law to Artaxerxes II.89 The genea-
logical list at Nemrud Dağı also mentions Orontes’s son, another
Aroandes.90 Orontes may be identified with the figure depicted on
the silver rhyton (drinking horn; figure 57.6) found in 1968 at the
foothill of the citadel of Erebuni.91
During the passage of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand through eastern
Anatolia, Orontes and the Persian general Artouchas sent an army of
cavalrymen to prevent them from crossing the Armenian border, formed
by the river Kentrites (modern Botan Çayı); these troops “consisted of
Armenians, Mardians, and Chaldean mercenaries.”92 In 387/386 bc, that
same Orontes seems to have held a major diplomatic role during the
occasion of the “King’s Peace.”93
87. Dittenberger 1903: no. 264.

88. See Schottky 1989: 76–80, criticized by Chaumont 1995: 332–333.
89. Xen. An. 2.4.4; see also Plut. Vit. Artax. 27.4.
90. Facella 2009: 387–389.
91. Facella 2006: 131–135; also Dan 2015: 16; Treister 2015: 63–64 (who is more cau-
tious about this identification).
92. Xen. An. 4.3.4.
93. Osborne 1973: 525.
581
Figure 57.6. A silver rhyton, as displayed in the Erebuni Museum at Yerevan,

Armenia. Photograph courtesy of Roberto Dan; adapted by Karen Radner.
Both the dynasties of Commagene and Greater Armenia claimed

Orontid heritage. This is shown by the Aramaic inscriptions engraved
in the boundary steles of Artašes, a governor of the Seleucid king
Antiochus III (222–187 bc) and after 188 bc, the first king of Greater
Armenia. These steles were found in several sites in the modern Republic
of Armenia.94 Their use of the Aramaic language may be considered,
94. For a list and distribution map of the steles, see Khatchadourian 2007: 48–55.
582
as Khatchadourian argues, “an overt alignment with the Achaemenid

past,”95 or in other words, a conscious rupture with the Seleucid power.
One of the Greek inscriptions found at the citadel of Armavir provides
further evidence for the Orontid Dynasty’s royal status. This inscription
is engraved into natural rock (figure 57.7) and starts with the following
greeting formula: basileus Armadoeirōn Mithras Orontēi basilei khairein
(“Mithras, king of Armadoeira [= Armavir], greets King Orontes”).96
Although we can ignore the content of the letter documented by this
inscription in the present context, the source highlights the relationship
between a local ruler and an imperial satrap, both of whom call each
other “king.” Usually, the epigraphical dossier of Armavir is dated to
the time from the end of the third century to the mid-second century
bc, and the Orontes greeted by Mithras in the uppermost inscription
is therefore commonly identified with the last Orontid.97 However, this
is not entirely certain, as the inscriptions may not all date to the same
period, and we do not necessarily need to identify this Orontes with the
last Orontid; he could be any one of the other Orontid rulers. The prom-
inent position of the rock inscription may indicate that it was considered
the most important document of the “local dossier,” and perhaps also the
most ancient text; in any case, it was certainly a source that highlighted
the prominence of the ruler of the region.
Xenophon’s account of the march of the Ten Thousand provides
firsthand information about western Armenia in 400 bc. The minor
satrap (called hyparchos) was Tiribazus, who some years later became a
general and played an important role in the relationship between Athens
and Sparta in 393–391 bc. According to Xenophon, Tiribazus was “a
friend of the king . . . the only man permitted to help the king to mount
his horse,” and who, as we have already seen, ruled “the Phasians and
the Hesperites.”98 The villages were administered by local notables, and
95. Khatchadourian 2007: 52.

96. Canali De Rossi 2004: 12: 1–4; and note my corrections in Traina 2018b: 297.
97. Traina 2018b: 300.
98. Xen. An. 4.4.4.
583
Figure 57.7. A Greek inscription documenting a royal letter, as incised into the natural rock at the fortress of Armavir.
Author’s photograph.
584
Persian was spoken and understood even in the remotest settlements.

Xenophon also reports that dwellings were built to withstand the harsh
winters and were built partly underground: such a house, dating back to
the fifth century bc, has been excavated at the village of Beniamin, south
of the modern city of Gyumri in northern Armenia. Khatchadourian,
noting similarities with the earth-sheltered dwellings in Tsaghkahovit, a
site on the slopes of Mount Aragats, has argued that
this mode of life obtained in other regions of the dahyu, as the

excavations at Beniamin and Xenophon’s account make plain,
semi-subterranean affiliates may have created common affects of
attachment to mountainous lifeways that could have cross-cut
immediate group allegiances.99
Records of Armenia are scarce until the last quarter of the fourth cen-
tury bc; yet we know that in 368 bc, during the late reign of Artaxerxes
II, a corps of ten thousand Armenians was part of the contingent of
Autophradates, the satrap of Lydia, who was dispatched by the king to
repress the revolt of the satraps headed by Datames the Carian.100
According to Justin, “Codomannus,” the future king Darius III (336–
330 bc), was rewarded by Artaxerxes III “Ochus” (359–338 bc) with the
governorship of the Armenians, or both Armenias.101 We do not have
any further insight into the territorial power bestowed on the future
Darius III or into his relationship with Orontid Armenia.102
If we now turn again to Media, the evidence is much poorer. In the list
of local rulers at the end of the Anabasis (possibly a later interpolation),
99. Khatchadourian 2016: 170. On the archaeology of the Aragats region, see
Badalyan et al. 2003; Khatchadourian 2016: 153–193. On the site of Beniamin,
see Knauss 2021: 304.
100. Nepos Datames 8.
101. Just. Epit. 10.3.4: praeficitur Armeniis; this can either be the dative of Armenii or
of Armeniae.
102. Briant 2015: 162–163 shows no interest in the information provided by Justin,
and simply considers it evidence for Darius’s profile as “a heroic warrior and an
active, energetic, and effective ruler.”
58
Xenophon records the passage of the Ten Thousand from Babylon to

Armenia through Media, ruled at that time by Arbakas.103 Is he the same
man as the “Arbakes” who fought in Artaxerxes’s army at the Battle of
Cunaxa?104 Any answer to this question is complicated by a passage
from Plutarch,105 which states that Artaxerxes had punished Arbakes for
his cowardice in that battle. How likely is it that the king would have
rewarded him with a satrapy afterward? At any rate, Greek tradition rec-
ognized this name—shared also by the general Arbakes, who rebelled
against Assyrian rule and destroyed Nineveh—as Median.106 We may
therefore conclude that the Arbakas mentioned by Xenophon was a
minor satrap of Median origin.107
During Alexander’s campaign, the Macedonian troops crossed Median
territory but did not pass through Armenia. In 331 bc, Alexander sent
the Persian noble Mithrenes from his court at Babylon to Armenia “as a
satrap.”108 At the Battle of Gaugamela in 330 bc, the Median contingent,
which also included Cadusians, Albanians, and Sacesinians, was led by the
Median general Atropates (who afterward went on to found the kingdom
of Media Atropatene),109 while the Armenian and the Cappadocian cav-
alry formed the right wing of the Persian forces.110 According to Arrian,
Alexander appointed the Persian Oxydates as satrap of Media, but later
replaced him with the afore-mentioned Atropates.111 In Diodorus’s list of
satrapies after Alexander’s conquest, Hyrcania is followed by
103. Xen. An. 7.8.25.

104. Xen. An. 1.7.12.
105. Plut. Vit. Artax. 14.3.
106. Ctesias FGrH 688 Fragment 1.24; Diod. Sic. 2.23–28.
107. Schottky 1989: 35–36; Podrazik 2017: 283.
108. Arr. An. 3.16.5.
109. Str. 11.13.1.
110. Vogelsang 1992: 224, 242 claims that this part of the army reflected a “Medic/
Scythic” tradition, with “a strong admixture of Scythian blood.”
111. Arr. An. 3.20.2; 4.18.3; 6.3.3.
586
Media, which embraces many regions with distinctive names

and is the greatest of all the satrapies. Armenia, Lycaonia, and
Cappadocia, all having a very wintry climate, are next.112
Media’s importance is confirmed by the fact that during Alexander’s

campaign in India a Median usurper named Baryaxes wore the “upright
tiara” and proclaimed himself “king of the Persians and Medes.”113
As for Armenia, it seems that the Macedonian general Neoptolemus
caused considerable turmoil there.114 A man called Orontes was a satrap
in 317/316 bc, according to Diodorus.115 When Strabo states that
Armenia was under Macedonian control,116 it is important to stress that
he referred to the general overlordship of the Seleucid Empire: this does
not diminish the power held by the Orontids as the local rulers.
57.4. In conclusion
Research on the satrapy of Greater Media and its sub-satrapies very
much remains a work in progress. In order to fill the gaps in our knowl-
edge that result from the scarcity of literary and epigraphical materials at
our disposal, more archaeological evidence and a regional approach will
be helpful.
As far as we can see, there is no evidence that the satrapal organi-
zation would have ever been reconfigured from the region’s integration
into the Persian Empire in the sixth century bc to the fourth century bc.
However, there can be little doubt that in the course of the last century
of the Persian Empire’s existence, the ethnogenesis of the sub-Caucasian
peoples changed the geopolitical order in that region and prepared the
ground for its separation into the independent kingdoms of Armenia
112. Diod. Sic. 18.5.4.

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58
The Satrapies of the Persian

Empire in Asia Minor
Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Phrygia, and
Cappadocia
Hilmar Klinkott
58.1. Introduction
When Cyrus II the Great (559–530 bc) attacked the Lydian king Croesus
from the east,1 he took possession of the territory of Urartu (chapter 44
in volume 4), the region later known as Cappadocia, as well as the lands
of the kingdom of Lydia (chapter 51 in this volume) after the Battle of
Pteria, sometime between 547 and 541 bc.2 Through Cyrus’s victories,
1. The following additional abbreviations are used in this chapter: A3Pb for an
inscription of Artaxerxes III (358–338 bc) from Persepolis; DB for the Bisotun
inscription of Darius I (522–486 bc); DNa for one of Darius’s inscriptions from
Naqš-e Rustam; DPe for one of his inscriptions from Persepolis; DSe for one of
his inscriptions from Susa; XPh for an inscription of Xerxes I (486–465 bc) from
Persepolis. The chapter was language-edited by Denise Bolton and Karen Radner.
2. For the date of the conquest of Urartu, see Rollinger 2008: 53–61; Michels
2011: 694–700; Mitchell 2020: 199–216. For the history of the Lydian kingdom,
see Mellink 1991: 643–655.
Hilmar Klinkott, The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Asia Minor In: The Oxford History of the Ancient
Near East. Edited by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts, Oxford University Press.
593
The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Asia Minor 593
these lands became parts of the emerging Persian Empire.3 While this
must have set in motion a process of political and administrative incor-
poration, specific details are unknown for the period of the Teispid
Dynasty (chapter 54 in this volume).
It is clear that the subsequent administrative reform of the Persian
Empire under Darius I (522–486 bc; chapter 55 in this volume) must
have been a cornerstone of this process of incorporation, establish-
ing regular administrative procedures such as the annual and fixed tax
and tribute payments for the Anatolian satrapies (figure 58.1a, b).4 The
Histories of Herodotus are one of the most important sources of infor-
mation about this reform, not least by presenting a list of tax districts.
However, he called the administrative units nomoi,5 not satrapies, and
states that tribute was paid according to population level.6 The com-
position of the tax districts, their relationship to a satrapal order, and
the historicity and origin of Herodotus’s information have to be scru-
tinized.7 Thus, Cappadocia is not mentioned as an individual unit, but
is subsumed under the ethnic terms “Mariandyni and Syrioi” in the
nomos of the Hellespontians.8 In a similar way, Ionia, Caria, and Lycia
are listed as parts of the so-called First Nomos,9 although they are known
to have belonged administratively to the Lydian satrapy (section 58.2).
Nevertheless, Herodotus’s list reflects Lydia’s importance as the most
prosperous district in Persian-period Asia Minor.
Against the background of Herodotus’s list, the question arises of
whether the fiscal, tax-paying units were identical to the satrapies as
fixed administrative entities, or whether they should be differentiated
3. See Mitchell 2020: 199–216.

4. The reform is also visible in Babylonian tax records; see Jursa 2011: 431–448.
5. Hdt. 3.90−100.
6. φόρος κατὰ ἔθνεα; see Klinkott 2005: 87–109; West 2011: 264–265.
7. For the discussion, see Klinkott 2005: 92–96.
8. Hdt. 3.90: καί Μαριανδυνών καί Συρίων. For the Syrioi as Cappadocians near
Mazaka, see Marek 2010: 206, 700 n. 19.
9. Hdt. 3.90.1.
594
59

596
from the overall jurisdiction of the satrapal officers. Many details about
the administrative structure and hierarchy are still unclear.10 The term
“satrapy” is generally problematic because it does not come to us from
Old Persian texts, but is a loan word. It is an abstract term borrowed
from the Old Persian title xšaθrapāva-, “Guardian of the realm,” as used
in the Bisotun inscription of Darius I.11 There is, in fact, no certain proof
that this abstract term was ever used for an administrative unit in Old
Persian sources. This has prompted the idea that “satrapies” should not
be understood as topographically defined and clearly limited admini
strative units, but as areas of responsibility of an authority, namely the
respective satrap.12 Although the title “satrap” is also used for officials in
Asia Minor,13 descriptions of the Persian administration in Asia Minor
are only attested in the Greek literary sources, using on the one hand the
Persian loanword satrapeia and on the other hand synonymous terms,
notably arche and nomos. The exact distinctions are unclear, particularly
as the administrative structure of the Persian Empire, with its interlink-
age of imperial and local levels, was quite complex, regionally flexible,
and not known in every detail.
The problem of terminology can easily be illustrated by an exam-
ple: the satrap’s deputy is called hyparchos in Greek sources, but this “sub-
administrator” is not attested (or at least his title has not been identified)
in Old Persian, Aramaic, Akkadian, or Elamite sources. Furthermore,
Greek sources occasionally also use this term as a synonym for “satrap.”
Similarly, the Akkadian LÚ.(EN.)NAM = (bēl) pīhāti /pāhāti clearly
possessed the specific meaning of satrap and also more generally
10. The key study is by Tuplin 2017: 613–676.

11. DB §38, §45.
12. For this idea, see, e.g., Marek 2015: 13–14; Ruffing 2017: 330.
13. For the epigraphic evidence for Rhoisakes as a Lydian satrap, see Gusmani and
Akkan 2004: 139–150; for Struses/Struthas as satrap in Ionia, see Dittenberger
1915: no. 134; for Autophradates, see Kalinka 1901: no. 40d, no. 61; for Mausolus
as a satrap, see Blümel 1987: no. 5; for Idrieus as a satrap, see Böckh 1843: no. 2919;
Hornblower 1982: 41–43; Canali De Rossi 2004: 240; for Pixodarus as satrap of
Caria and Lycia, see Metzger et al. 1979; Kottsieper 2001: 196–198.
597
indicated other (local) officers of lower rank. Further Persian officials

in the administrative hierarchy must be assumed;14 but they are rarely
attested in action, nor is it possible to precisely define their titles or their
particular territorial and administrative responsibilities.15 Consequently,
it seems problematic to unquestioningly use the different titles and terms
from the Greek sources, or to accept the references to certain individu-
als identified by their personal names only as descriptions of satraps
performing their official functions. The correct designations must be
considered because it is difficult to show that Greek literary sources, and
certainly epigraphic texts, used various terms synonymously by accident.
Likewise, it is worth considering that Persians in Asia Minor are illus-
trated by many different sources and activities. Because it is well known
that various official functions were merged for specific individuals, it
is necessary to differentiate between the specific areas of responsibil-
ity, especially when the definition of satrapy is derived from its office-
holder. In particular, Lydian satraps are also attested as commanders of
imperial forces (strategoi). They held military positions simultaneously
with their administrative function as satrap. Privileges, authority, and
fields of action explained by a specific royal order might have justified
the amalgamation of military and financial authority, limited by a par-
ticular objective, time frame, and royal control.16 This is evident when
Herodotus refers to the end of the Ionian revolt in 492 bc: “But at the
beginning of spring, the other generals (strategoi) being now deposed
by the king from their offices, . . . .”17 While this may reflect the size
and importance of the former kingdom of Lydia, the satrap of Lydia
provides an excellent example of how one such imperial official could
unite several different areas of authority in his person. In addition to
granting him extraordinary military power, Darius II (423–405 bc)
14. For Persians in Asia Minor, see Sekunda 1991: 83–143.

15. Thus, Garrison 2020: 224–253 carefully speaks of “satrap-level administrators”
when discussing the evidence of the Persepolis Fortification Tablets.
16. For the definition of Achaemenid strategoi, see Klinkott 2005: 281–283.
17. Hdt. 6.43.1.
598
appointed his son Cyrus the Younger as satrap of Lydia, Greater

Phrygia, and Cappadocia, each of these constituting a separate satrapy.18
Therefore, Greater Phrygia must have already been a separate satrapy in
the reign of Darius II, distinguished from Lydia in the west and from
Cappadocia in the east. As a result, the administrative separation of the
former Lydian kingdom into several satrapies must have occurred ear-
lier. Furthermore, Cyrus the Younger is known to have held the title
of karanos, a position that may have been combined with the satrapy
of Lydia and which included trans-satrapal military power. Xenophon
described the title karanos of “all (peoples) by the sea”19 as designating a
strategos who was in command of all armed forces mustered at the plain
of Castolus.20 An overview of the strategia over “the peoples by the sea”
illustrates that this particular office was routinely connected with the
government of the Lydian satrapy.21 At the same time, the specific con-
stellation illustrates, on the one hand, the fact that other administrative
units existed that overlapped with the structures of the satrapies; and
on the other hand, it shows that such extensive power could be granted
in addition to the position of satrap, particularly with the prestigious
satrapy of Lydia.
However, the military superiority of Persians as strategoi and satraps
is not an indication per se of a hierarchy of satrapies. This is important
for the attempt to reconstruct the geographic extension of satrapies
and their regional inclusivity through the issue and distribution of so-
called satrapal coins. In view of the fact that Persians like Tissaphernes,
Datames, Pharnabazus, and others are mentioned as both satraps and
18. Xen. An. 1.9.7; Diod. Sic. 14.20.1; compare Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.3. See Hyland
2018: 107.
19. Xen. Hell. 1.4.3−4.
20. Xen. An. 1.1.2; 9.7. See Debord 1999: 123; Briant 2002: 340; Klinkott 2005: 320–
330; Hyland 2018: 98, 107.
21. For the strategia from the time of possibly Cyrus the Great but certainly Darius
I until the period of Alexander the Great, see Klinkott 2005: 325. Compare also
Hdt. 5.30 on Artaphernes as satrap in Sardis and commander over the people at
the sea.
59
strategoi, the use of personal names on coins does not justify generally
categorizing these coins as “satrapal.”22 Only against the background of
a precise identification of each coin type with its intrinsic function as a
mintage by the authority of either the satrap or the strategos can deduc-
tions be made about the administrative structure of the particular satrapy
or a grouping of several satrapies.23 It is equally difficult to reconstruct
administrative, explicitly satrapal, structures using archaeological mate-
rial, in the absence of literary evidence.24
58.2. Lydia
Lydia was certainly one of the most important satrapies in Asia Minor,
enjoying a high level of prestige, at least as the descendant of the for-
mer Lydian kingdom conquered by Cyrus II, and as a political center at
the western periphery of the Achaemenid empire.25 Unfortunately, the
process by which the Lydian kingdom was transformed into a satrapy
within the Achaemenid empire is little understood because of the dearth
of sources for the period of Teispid rule. The example of Pythios under
Xerxes I (486–465 bc) illustrates both the presence of the Lydian royal
family within the Persian Empire and its social and economic impor-
tance.26 Even Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is partly unreliable as a historical
source because of its specific literary character as a kind of “Mirror of
Princes” (German Fürstenspiegel), although it certainly does contain
22. Casabonne 2000: 33–34. For this discussion, see also Mildenberg 2000: 9–10.
For comprehensive surveys of the relevant coinage, although without a precise,
functional distinction between the coins of satraps and of strategoi, see Bodzek
2011; 2014a: 1–10; 2014b: 59–78; Shannahan 2016: 41–57.
23. Mildenberg 1993: 58–60, 74; 2000: 9–20.
24. Khatchadourian 2016: especially 1–25.
25. For a useful overview of the kingdom of Lydia, see Marek 2010: 152–159 and
chapter 51 in this volume.
26. See Dusinberre 2003: 154; for Pythios as a supposed member of the former royal
family, see Lewis 1998: 185–191; Thomas 2012: 241; Rung 2015: 20 n. 35. On
Sardis, see Greenewaldt 2011: 1116–1122.
60
much factual information.27 Therefore, the size, structure, and organiza-

tion of the early satrapy are questionable. During the reign of Cambyses
(530–522 bc), the governor in Sardis, the Persian Oroites,28 tried to
invade and conquer Hellespontine Phrygia.29 Indirectly, this indicates
that Lydia and Hellespontine Phrygia were administratively distinct dur-
ing the time of Teispid rule. However, Oroites’s position is unclear: he
seems to have acted in his capacity as satrap, although his actual title
is not attested.30 One should bear in mind that the later inscription of
Droaphernes from Sardis illustrates an “official” use of the term hyp-
archos as a title that clearly did not also mean the satrap of Lydia, but
referred to a subordinate official.31
From the reign of Darius I onward, information on the satrapy of
Lydia becomes more reliable. That the territory of the former kingdom
was reduced to the size of the satrapy is conceivable, but this remains
hypothetical. Bordered by Hellespontine Phrygia in the north and
neighboring Greater Phrygia in the east, the satrapy of Lydia encom-
passed not only the region of Lydia itself,32 but also Ionia, Caria, and
Lycia. According to Herodotus, the border between Phrygia and Lydia
was marked by an inscribed stele, which had been erected near Kydrara
by Croesus, the last king of Lydia, and which Xerxes passed on his march
to Sardis in 479 bc.33 However, both the location of this city and whether
Croesus actually installed such a monument are uncertain.34
27. See Tuplin 2012: 67–90; Degen 2020: 197–240.

28. Hdt. 3.120.1: Σαρδίων ύπαρχος Όροίτης άνήρ Πέρσης.
29. Hdt. 3.126.
30. Hdt. 3.120.1; 3.127.1 only refers to him with the Greek term hyparchos, which
might be understood as a synonym for “satrap.”
31. Pleket and Stroud 1990: no. 1071; see Gschnitzer 1986: 45–54; Briant 1998b: 205–
226; Debord 1999: 367–374; Klinkott 2005: 277.
32. Dusinberre 2013: 22–24.
33. Hdt. 7.30.
34. Rookhuijzen 2020: 48–50.
601
The Lydian satrapy was the richest in Asia Minor because of its nat-
ural resources, its advanced urbanization (especially in the case of the
Ionian poleis), and its infrastructural interconnectedness, all of which
contributed to its great economic potential.35 The Aegean coastline with
Ionia and Caria constituted an economic, military, and diplomatic hub
in a highly dynamic political and cultural contact zone.36 It connected
the major maritime routes to mainland Greece, to the Black Sea area in
the north, but also to the Greek islands, Crete and Cyprus,37 and finally
to Egypt.38 At the same time, the Ionian poleis and Sardis were the final
points of the royal road originating in the Persian heartland, thus linking
long-distance maritime and terrestrial routes.39
Ionia never formed a stand-alone satrapy, although it might have
been understood as a special region within the Lydian satrapy, with its
own administrative, cultural, and political characteristics. According
to Herodotus, Oroites, the satrap of Lydia, resided in Magnesia on the
Meander during the reign of Cambyses.40 A younger inscription from
Miletos twice mentions one Struses as “satrap of Ionia,”41 and in all
35. For the natural resources of Lydia, see Bürchner 1927: 2129–2138. For urbaniza-
tion processes on the west coast of Anatolia, see Marek 2010: 160–169.
36. See Rop 2019: 23; Dusinberre 2013: 25–26. For these hubs in a maritime network,
see Malkin 2011: 157–162.
37. Wiesehöfer 2004: 295–310.
38. Close economic contacts between Caria and Egypt are attested in an Aramaic
papyrus from Elephantine that constitutes a tax register; see Porten and Yardeni
1993: 282–295: C.3.7; XX–XXI; Hyland 2020: 249–269. For an Aramaic papy-
rus from Saqqara that discusses Ionian and Carian ships, see Segal 1983: 732–733,
no. 26. Both these sources are discussed by Briant and Descat 1998: 65–66, 93–
95; compare also Fried 2020: 278–290.
39. On the royal road system of the Persian Empire, see Graf 1994: 167–189;
French 1998: 15–43; Marek 2010: 209–211; Dusinberre 2013: 47–49; Almagor
2020: 147–185. For the intensive contacts between Mesopotamia and western
Asia Minor, see Briant 1991: 67–82.
40. Hdt. 3.122.
41. Dittenberger 1915: no. 134: Fragment A, ll. 2–3: ἐξαιτρ[άπεύσας τῆς Ἰωνίης
Στρού]σης; Fragment B, l. 30: Στρούτης [ . . . ] ἐξαιτράπης εὢν Ἰωνίης; see
602
likelihood this man should be identified with the Struthas that several
literary sources identify as satrap of Lydia.42 Ionia’s privileged adminis-
trative standing inside the Lydian satrapy seems to be expressed in the
designation “satrapy of Lydia and Ionia.”43 One reason for this promi-
nence can be seen in the essential contributions made by the harbors of
the Ionian poleis to the royal navy.44 Thus, the tyrants of Ionian poleis
equipped Darius I’s navy with ships for his Scythian campaign.45 A con-
sequence of this military and financial burden on the cities, the outbreak
of the Ionian revolt from 499–493 bc jeopardized not only the inner
stability and security of the Lydian satrapy, but also the maritime con-
tact zone of the Achaemenid Empire in the Aegean, as well as Persian
expansion to the west in general.46 The Ionian army, with the assistance
of Athenian and Eretrian troops, marched from Ephesus through the
Kaystros valley and across the Tmolus mountains to Sardis, where they
destroyed the satrapal residence as well as the temple of Cybele.47 While
the satrap Artaphernes defended the fortress of Sardis, the Persian army
“of the nomoi this side/within the Halys river” started to put down the
uprising.48 All this resulted in Ionia being subjected to the Lydian satrapy
and integrated into its administration. The Lydian satrap Artaphernes
ordered that the territory of the Ionian cities be surveyed and registered
to calculate their economic value, while the strategos Mardonius replaced
Briant 2002: 495; especially for this satrap’s judicial power, see also Ehrhardt
2017: 255–266.
42. Xen. Hell. 4.8.17; Harp. P. 280.16; Suda, s.v. Στρούθης.
43. Xen. Cyr. 8.6.7.
44. On Darius I’s campaign against the Scythians, see Tuplin 2010: 281–312. On the
importance of the Ionian navy contingents, see Wallinga 1987: 70; and on the
financial burden for the poleis, see Wallinga 1987: 51–52; 2005: 14.
45. See Hdt. 4.89.1, 97.2, 138.1–2.
46. On the Ionian revolt: Walter 1993: 257–278.
47. Hdt. 5.99−102. On a Cybele altar at the gold refinery of Sardis near the Pactolus
river and its pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid use, see Dusinberre 2003: 64–68;
2013: 234.
48. Hdt. 5.102.1: οἱ ἐντὸς Ἅλυος ποταμοῦ νομοὺς ἔχοντες.
603
the former tyrannic administration of the poleis with an at least notion-

ally democratic self-government.49
From then on, Ionia remained a part of the Lydian satrapy, although
with administrative and political peculiarities. The only other attempted
insurrection against the Achaemenid administration took place follow-
ing Xerxes I’s defeat at Salamis in 479 bc, and was unsuccessful.50 Ionia’s
specific status is also made clear by the fact that it was handed over to the
retired Lydian satrap Tissaphernes as private property.51 With this gift,
Tissaphernes gained important territorial and economic control of both
the rich Ionian harbor cities with their Aegean connections and Ionia’s
influential sanctuaries. For example, the Artemision in Ephesus had reg-
ular close contact with its dependent temple of Artemis at Sardis.52 The
temple of Apollo at Didyma, the temple of Apollo at Delphinios, and
the Panionion at Miletos had always been financially important, as they
fulfilled the functions of banking houses.53 The privileged status held by
such local sanctuaries, protected from satrapal interference, is reflected
in the so-called Gadatas Letter inscription from Magnesia (figure 58.2),
even if its historical character as an Achaemenid document has been jus-
tifiably questioned.54
However, all Persians named as satraps of Ionia in Greek sources
are known to have simultaneously acted as officials/satraps of Lydia.55
Military control of the satrapy, and in particular of Ionia, was ensured by
settling foreign soldiers in Lydia, in a strategy that was comparable to the
49. Hdt. 6.42−43; see Klinkott 2005: 178–187; 2007: 263–267, 270–274, 284–285.
On the Lydian satrap Artaphernes’s use of catasters for the chora of Ionian poleis,
see Diod. Sic. 10.25.4; cf. Klinkott 2005: 214.
50. Briant 2002: 534.
51. Xen. An. 1.1.6. On Tissaphernes, see Westlake 1981: 257–279.
52. Wankel 1979: no. 2; see Dusinberre 2013: 226–230.
53. See Klinkott 2005: 151–167.
54. Kern 1900: no. 115; see Gauger 2000: 205–212; Briant 2003b: 107–144; Fried
2004: 108–118; Tuplin 2009: 155–184.
55. Klinkott 2005: 471.
604
Figure 58.2. The so-called Gadatas Letter, written by Darius I (522–486 bc)
to Gadatas, the satrap of Ionia, concerning the management of a royal garden
(Greek paradeisos). Inscribed on a marble stele that is dated to the first century
ad, due to the shape of the Greek letters used in the inscription, which was
found in 1886 near Magnesia ad Maeandrum. Louvre, MA 2934. Photograph
by Jérémy Jännick, via Wikimedia Commons & Louvre-Lens (https://comm
ons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23023928), Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license.
605
kurtaš system attested in Babylonia.56 As Strabo said when describing a

region in the Hermus valley:
Contiguous on the east to the Cayster Plain, which lies between

the Messogis and the Tmolus, is the Cilbian Plain. It is extensive
and well settled and has a fertile soil. Then comes the Hyrcanian
Plain, a name given it by the Persians, who brought Hyrcanian
colonists there (the Plain of Cyrus, likewise, was given its name
by the Persians).57
These colonists were also known as Hyrcanean cavalrymen, as confirmed

in 334 bc in the battle at the Granicus river under the command of
“Spithrobates, satrap of Ionia,” who was perhaps the same person as the
contemporary Lydian satrap Spithridates.58
The insurrection of Cyrus the Younger and the revolts of the 360s
bc certainly demonstrated the need to limit the power of the indi-
vidual satraps in Asia Minor,59 and this was realized by regulations on
the employment of “private” mercenaries and by splitting up the larger
satrapal units. Thus, in order to restrict the power of the Lydian satrap,
Caria and Lycia were removed from his administrative responsibility,
to be instead administered locally by autochthonous dynasts,60 similar
56. For kurtaš, see Tuplin 2008: 317–318. Compare Jursa 2011: 435–437, whose state-
ment that “the reign of Darius did not constitute a caesura” ( Jursa 2011: 437) is
only appropriate for the situation in Babylonia. For the details of the “land-for
service” system in Babylonia, see Stolper 1985: 70–103. From Darius onward, the
system was introduced to other parts of the Persian Empire, particularly in the
context of military colonists.
57. Str. 13.4.13.
58. Diod. Sic. 17.19.4. See also Livy 37.38.1; compare Bürchner 1914: 526. On
Hyrcaneans settled in the Caicus valley, see Tuplin 2016: 22; for their organiza-
tion in hatru units, see Tuplin 1987: 192–194.
59. Weiskopf 1989; Briant 2002: 615–630; for the historical events in Asia Minor, see
Debord 1999: 233–256; for the political consequences in western Asia Minor, see
Hyland 2018: 123–133.
60. For Caria, see Hornblower 1982: 12–34. For Lycia, see Debord 1999: 186–188;
Kolb 2018: 114–504. Compare also Dusinberre 2013.
60
to the autonomous cities (poleis). As Lycia had originally been part of

the Lydian satrapy, it also remained under the authority of the acting
satrap in Sardis when an autochthonous administrative system of local
dynasts was put in place. This relationship is documented in the pillar
inscription of Xanthus,61 which refers to Tissaphernes as acting satrap,
and the so-called Payava Tomb, also from Xanthus, which includes a
depiction of the Lycian dynast Payava in an audience with the satrap
Autophradates (figure 58.3).62 Such perspectives reveal the heteroge-
neous structures of the inner-satrapal, regional, and local adminis-
tration systems.63 When Mausolus, king of the Carian league, was
installed as satrap of Caria (despite the fact that he had been involved
in the local revolts of the 360s bc),64 he was able to use the power of
his new satrapal position to bring Lycia and its local dynasts under his
control.65
Because of their constant, intensive political contacts and diplomatic
exchange with Greece (Athens and Sparta), the satraps of Lydia are well
known (table 58.1). The great prestige associated with ruling the Lydian
satrapy is clearly visible during the time of Cyrus the Younger. Not only
was the satrapy of Lydia often governed by members of the royal family,
but typically the satraps were princes of the highest rank. Cyrus was born
after his father Darius II unexpectedly became king, following the suc-
cession conflicts of 424/423 bc that cost his elder brothers Xerxes II and
Sogdianus the crown and their lives. This royally born son could there-
fore be seen as having a better claim to succeed his father than the crown
prince Arsicas (later crowned as Artaxerxes II) who had been born at a
61. Kalinka 1901: no. 190, 44c.

62. For both sources, see Jacobs 1993: 63–64; Debord 1999: 147, 186–188; Briant
2002: 670–673. On the Payava Tomb, see Hoff 2017: 83–90 with pls. 33–34; for
Autophradates as satrap of Lydia, see Theopompus FGrH 115 F 103.4; cf. Debord
1999: 256.
63. For details, see Briant 2002: 608–610.
64. Hornblower 1982: 137–182; Weiskopf 1989: especially 65–68; Debord 1999: 342.
65. Hornblower 1982: 119–121, 181–182; Weiskopf 1989: 65–68; Debord 1999:
130–149.
607
Figure 58.3. Autophradates, the satrap of Lydia, as depicted on the relief decoration of the Payava Tomb from Xanthus. British
Museum, GR 1848,1020.142. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
608
Table 58.1 The Satraps of Lydia
Satrap of Lydia Persian King

Tabalus Cyrus the Great
Chrysantas Cyrus the Great
Oroites Cambyses
Gadatas Darius I
Artaphernes I Darius I
Artaphernes II Xerxes I
Pissouthnes Artaxerxes I /Darius II
Tissaphernes Darius II
Cyrus the Younger Darius II /Artaxerxes II
Tissaphernes Artaxerxes II
Tithraustes Artaxerxes II
Tiribazos Artaxerxes II
Struthas /Struses Artaxerxes II
Artimas (?) Artaxerxes II
Autophradates Artaxerxes III
Rhoisakes Artaxerxes III
Mentor Artaxerxes III
Spithridates Darius III
Mithrines Darius III
Assandros Alexander the Great
time when Darius, as the third youngest son of Artaxerxes I, had been
unlikely to ever sit on the Persian throne. Darius tried to compensate
Cyrus for relinquishing his claim to the throne by giving him the satrapy
of Lydia with an enlarged jurisdiction. Cyrus the Younger was also given
the satrapies of (Greater) Phrygia and Cappadocia (sections 58.4.1 and
609
58.5),66 not as regions integrated within the Lydian satrapy, but as sepa-
rate administrative units.67
In addition to its military and economic importance, the satrapy
of Lydia traditionally shared a close connection with the Great King
at his residences in Persia. Ionian and Lycian craftsmen who traveled
to Persepolis are attested in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets,68 and
stonemasons from these regions can be demonstrated to have worked at
Persepolis and Pasargadae by their marks, tools, and building techniques.69
The influence of Lydian architecture is evident at Pasargadae, particularly
in the grave monument of Cyrus the Great.70 Archaeological findings at
the royal and satrapal residence in Sardis, on the other hand, prove the
impact that Persian aristocratic members in Lydia had on art and archi-
tecture (figure 58.4).71 During Xerxes I’s campaign against Greece, Sardis
served as the Persian king’s residence for more than one year,72 and as a
consequence, royal and satrapal palaces and gardens (paradeisoi), a for-
tress with garrison, a treasury, as well as various depots and perhaps even
an archive, are attested at the Lydian capital by literary sources.73
66. Xen. An. 1.9.7; Diod. Sic. 14.20.1; compare Plut. Vit. Artax. 2.3; see Debord
1999: 122; Briant 2002: 620; Klinkott 2005: 303.
67. Tissaphernes, the successor of Cyrus, regained Lydia in its original size after the
battle of Cunaxa: Xen. Hell. 3.1.3; Diod. Sic. 14.26.4; see Klinkott 2005: 303.
68. For the Ionians, see Rollinger and Henkelman 2009: 331–351; for the Lycians, see
Hallock 1969: 28, nos. 857–862; Bryce 1986: 23.
69. Nylander 1970; Boardman 2003: 25–103.
70. Dusinberre 2003: 128–145.
71. For details, see Dusinberre 2003; on the Persian colonization of Lydia, see
Sekunda 1985: 7–30.
72. March to Sardis in 479 bc: Hdt. 7.26; departure from Sardis to Susa in 478
bc: Hdt. 9.108.
73. For palaces, see Xen. Hell. 1.6.7.10; 4.8.17; Xen. Cyr. 7.2; Str. 14.4.5; Paus. 3.9.5;
cf. Dusinberre 2003: 73–74. For royal gardens (paradeisoi), see Xen. Oec.
4.20−25; Plut. Vit. Alc. 14.5; Str. 13.1.17; Ath. 12.540−541; for evidence that the
parardeisos of Sardis was named Ἀγκών γλυκύϛ “Sweet Embrace,” see Dusinberre
2003: 70–72; for paradeisoi as “power statements,” see Dusinberre 2013: 54–56.
610
Figure 58.4. The Pyramid Tomb at Sardis, a good example for the influence
of Persian imperial architecture on local building projects. Conjectural recon-
struction (scale 1:100). Sardis architectural drawing T-43. © Archaeological
Exploration of Sardis /President and Fellows of Harvard College, with kind
permission.
For the fortress, see Diod. Sic. 17.21.7; Arr. An. 1.17.3, 6 (and for Miletos, see Arr.
An. 3.22.3−4). For the garrison, see Tuplin 1987: 195–196, 236–237; 2016: 15–
27; Dusinberre 2013: 110–111. For the treasury, see Diod. Sic. 9.33.4; Arr. An.
1.17.3. For the indirect evidence for an archive, see Klinkott 2005: 408–411. For
the urban structure of Sardis in the Persian period in general, see Dusinberre
2003: 46–77.
61
From the beginning, Lydia and its capital Sardis were the main
hotspots for trans-Aegean diplomacy on the western fringe of the Persian
empire. In 506 bc, the Lydian satrap Artaphernes supposedly was the
recipient of an Athenian embassy.74 After Xerxes’s campaign, too, Lydia
and its capital Sardis remained foci of trans-Aegean diplomacy, in par-
ticular during the Peloponnesian war. In 412/411 bc, the Spartans out-
lined three drafts of a treaty with Darius II, and Tissaphernes, the satrap
of Lydia, is the only official who is personally named in all three drafts as
overseeing the negotiations.75
58.3. Caria and Lycia

The historicity of Xenophon’s remark in the Cyropaedia, that Adousius
served as the first satrap by the explicit wish of the Carians,76 is doubtful
in both the specific quality of the source in general and the fabulous con-
text of the story in particular. From the time he was appointed the suc-
cessor of the Younger Cyrus in Lydia until his death in 395 bc, Caria was
included in Tissaphernes’s satrapal responsibilities.77 A Greek inscrip-
tion of ca. 396/395 bc tells us that Caria was an independent jurisdiction
with its own satrap; Hyssaldomus was probably the earliest named indi-
vidual to hold that particular title.78 Because there is no direct evidence
of Hyssaldomus’s successor Hecatomnus, a proper satrapal administra-
tion of Caria, including Lycia, under Hecatomnid control is only certain
74. Hdt. 5.73.

75. Thuc. 8.18, 37, 58; see Bengtson 1962: 138–143.
76. Xen. Cyr. 7.4.7; 8.6.7.
77. Xen. Hell. 3.4.25. For Tissaphernes’s possession of a Carian οἶκος see Xen. Hell.
3.2.12; see Hornblower 1982: 7, 35 with n. 3 (for the discussion on a “second
Idrieus” as satrap of Caria).
78. Robert 1937: 571–572; for the fragmentary inscriptions and the problems
obstructing a clear identification of Hyssaldomus as satrap, see Hornblower
1982: 36 n. 6.
612
from Mausolus onward.79 According to Diodorus, Mausolus took up the

satrapal position in 377/376 bc.80
From that time until the conquest of Alexander the Great, Carian
satraps typically acted in unison with their Lydian counterparts, although
their official relationship within the underlying administrative hierarchy
remains unclear to us. It is worthwhile to point out that the categorization
into great, central main, central minor, main, and minor satrapies (used,
e.g., in chapter 57 in this volume) remains a modern construct without
any terminological confirmation in the ancient sources.81 Although the
Lydian and Carian satrapies do not seem to have differed in their admin-
istrative practices, they certainly differed in territorial size and economic
power, and thus in the political influence and prestige of their officehold-
ers as defined by their degree of proximity to the Persian king.
Nevertheless, the Carian satrapy became an independent administra-
tive unit only from the time of Artaxerxes II (405–359 bc), as attested
by its sudden appearance in literary and epigraphic sources. Its creation
must be seen as a consequence of Cyrus the Younger’s insurrection
and Tissaphernes’s military failure against Agesilaus II of Sparta,82 and
79. For critical and stimulating remarks on the definition and understanding
of a “satrapy” and the “satrapal status,” see Marek 2015: 1–20; also Klinkott
2005: 466–467, 511–512; Jacobs 2019: 47–54.
80. Diod. Sic. 16.36.2; see Hornblower 1982: 38.
81. For this model in general, see Jacobs 2011. On its application for Caria, see Jacobs
2003: 316–327, emphasizing the supposedly static administrative conditions
from the conquest of Caria by Cyrus the Great in 546 bc to the conquest by
Alexander the Great in 334 bc, a period of more than two centuries. Every piece
of information that is inconsistent with this assumption is made to fit by assign-
ing it to the hypothetical system of differences in satrapal status: “central main
satrapy (Lydia),” “central minor satrapy (Lydia),” “greater satrapy,” and “minor
satrapy”; cf. Jacobs 1994; 2011, for which no equivalent terminology is attested
in the ancient sources. According to Jacobs 2003: 326, this system’s existence
is confirmed by several hundreds of attestations in the ancient sources (“durch
einige hundert Belegstellen in der antiken Literatur Bestätigung zu finden”), but
he fails to present the concrete evidence; compare the critical review of Jacobs
1994 by Wiesehöfer 1999: 233–234.
82. On Cyrus the Younger, see Westlake 1981: 264–268; Briant 2002: 592–597, 600.
For the creation of the Carian satrapy between 395–392 bc, see Hornblower
1982: 35–38; Briant 2002: 637–645.
613
Table 58.2 The Satraps of Caria
Satrap of Caria Persian King

Hyssaldomus (?) Artaxerxes II
Hecatomnus Artaxerxes II
Mausolus Artaxerxes II /Artaxerxes III
Artemisia Artaxerxes III
Idrieus Artaxerxes III
Ada I Artaxerxes III /Darius III
Pixodarus Darius III
Orontobates /Aroantopata Darius III
Ada II Alexander the Great
is clearly informed by the perceived necessity to limit the power and

responsibilities of the satrap of Lydia.
It is an indication of the new administrative unit’s special character
that a local dynast was appointed as satrap of Caria and given the privi-
lege of making this a heritable position of the Hecatomnid clan.83 The
known satraps of Caria are listed in table 58.2.
In this list, Orontobates is the only satrap who was neither a member
of the Hecatomnid dynasty nor a Carian dynast; he was an aristocratic
Persian.84 In fact, he controlled the satrapy through his troops, although
not every local fortification is proven to have had a satrapal garrison.85
However, Caria was important for the control of southwestern Asia
Minor, as well as for trans-Aegean diplomatic contacts, as the marriage
negotiations between Philip II of Macedon and Mausolus for Ada II of
83. See Hornblower 1982: 137–170; Klinkott 2009: 157.

84. See Klinkott 2005: 466–467, 511.
85. See Dusinberre 2013: 111–112. For fortresses in Caria: Tuplin 1987: 210, 237–238;
for royal and satrapal authority: Tuplin 1987: 228–232.
614
Caria make apparent.86 This role is also discernible in the inclusion of

the Carians (Old Persian Krka) in the lists of lands and peoples in the
Persian royal inscriptions.
As shown by the phoros payments registered in the Athenian tribute
lists, Caria was a member of the Attic League.87 Not only politically, but
also economically, Caria was at the interface of the Attic League and the
Persian Empire. An important section of the royal road took its depar-
ture there, connecting the harbor cities along the Carian coastline with
the heartland of the Persian Empire.88 An Aramaic tax papyrus from
Elephantine in southern Egypt recorded the names of Carian and Lycian
captains of registered “Ionian” ships,89 while another Aramaic papyrus
from Saqqara in northern Egypt demonstrates the regular, tax-exempt
traffic of Ionian and Carian ships to Egypt.90
It was Mausolus who transferred the capital of the satrapy from the
old dynastic center at Mylasa to Halicarnassus.91 As a result, the city was
strengthened with a new fortification system, and saw the construc-
tion of a (satrapal) palace,92 as well as of the famous Mausoleum, as
Mausolus’s tomb was known, thus coining a new name for a burial place
86. Hornblower 1982: 49, 220–222.

87. Καρικὸς φόρος; see Merritt et al. 1949: 40: A1; 1950: 11.
88. For the southern route of the royal road in Asia Minor: Graf 1994: 178–180, espe-
cially for Caria: Graf 1994: 180. For the Mylasa-Halicarnassus road: Hornblower
1982: 4.
89. See for the text: Porten and Yardeni 1993: 282–295: C.3.7; XX–XXI; for the
names of the captains: Briant and Descat 1998: 65–66; see also Wiesehöfer
2004, 300–301.
90. Text: Segal 1983: 732–733, no. 26; for discussions of the text, see Yoyotte 1994–
1995: 669–682; Briant and Descat 1998: 93–95. For trade connections from Asia
Minor to Egypt in general, see Kaptan 2020: 172–192.
91. On Mylasa and its importance as an old cultic center, see Hornblower 1982: 68–
69, 78–79; Carstens 2011: 120–131; on the new Hecatomnid tomb at Mylasa
(probably constructed for Hecatomnus himself ), see Rumscheid 2010: 69–
102; Işik 2019; on the verse inscription of King Hyssaldomus, see Marek and
Zingg 2018.
92. Diod. Sic. 15.90.3; 17.23.4.
615
that combines an underground tomb with an overground structure.93

These building projects were clearly elements of a strategy designed to
shape, or perhaps reshape, the local, political, and cultural identity of
Caria and the Carians.
(Pseudo) Aristotle informs us that under the rule of Mausolus, the
hyparchos Condalus collected all tolls (taxes, tribute, and gifts) in Caria
on a fixed date.94 In this case, the hierarchic relationship and the respec-
tive responsibilities are clear: Condalus was the satrap’s subordinate and
was delegated responsibility for a specific, concrete duty.95 (Pseudo)
Aristotle also stated that Condalus was required to collect the special tax
due from the male heirs of Lycian households, which he converted into
a silver payment.96
Lycia, formerly under the purview of the Lydian satrap, was part of
Caria by the time it was administered by Mausolus and his hyparchos
Condalus.97 In general, the government of the region was organized
locally by cities, traditional Lycian institutions, and local dynasties in a
comparable manner to Caria.98 In the west, Telmessus and the Xanthus
valley, including Xanthus (figure 58.5), Patara, Pinara, and Tlos, were
ruled by local dynasts, mainly the dynasty of Harpagus with the rul-
ers Xeriga, Xerẽi, and Erbbina. Central Lycian dynasts controlled
Tymnessus, Kandyba, Phellus, Zagaba, and Myra, and eastern Lycian
dynasts governed Limyra/Zimuri, Rhodiapolis, and Korydalla.99
93. On Hecatomnid architecture, see Hellström 2009: 267–290; specifically for

tomb architecture, see Carstens 2009: 377–395; for the garrison in Halicarnassus,
see Dusinberre 2013: 111; and for the palace of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, see
Pedersen 2009: 315–348.
94. Ps. Arist. Oec. 2.2.14.
95. For Condalus, see Hornblower 1982: 76.
96. Ps. Arist. Oec. 2.2.14.
97. For the political relationship between Caria and Lycia, see Tietz 2009: 163–172.
On the activities of the Lydian satraps Tissaphernes and Autophradates in Lycia,
see Debord 1999: 147, 186–188; Briant 2002: 670–673.
98. Briant 2002: 609, 670–671.
99. Marek 2010: 208; for details, see Zimmermann 1992; Keen 1998.
61
Figure 58.5. A satrap giving an audience. Detail from the relief decoration of
the so-called Nereid Monument at Xanthus. British Museum, GR 1848,1020.62.
© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Again and again, individual local dynasts succeeded in gaining trans

regional power. Examples include Kuprlli in the fifth century bc,100 or a
certain Perikle from Limyra/Zimuri, who called himself “king” (Lycian
χñtawata) and expanded his rule as far as Telmessus.101 Perhaps not
by accident, Perikle of Limyra expanded his local position at the same
time as Mausolus was strengthening his local influence on the satrapal
administration of western Asia Minor.102 Obviously, under Hecatomnid
control, the system of local dynasts was abandoned in Lycia, and a new
administration led by an epimeletes and two archontes, who resided at
Xanthus, was established.103 Therefore, the famous trilingual inscription
from the Letoon Stele of Xanthus, which features text in Greek, Lycian,
and Aramaic and dates to the time of the Carian satrap Pixodarus, docu-
ments the installation of the Lycian officials and the decision made by
100. Keen 1998: 112–124.

101. Hornblower 1982: 120, 181–182; Marek 2010: 208; Kolb 2018: 79, 147–524.
102. Hornblower 1982: 120, 181–182.
103. Hornblower 1982: 119; Bryce 1986: 114.
617
(the citizens of ) Xanthus and its synteleis (i.e., the people living in the
surroundings of the city).104
58.4. The two Phrygian satrapies

There were two Phrygian satrapies in the Persian Empire. Hellespontine
Phrygia, with its capital in Dascylium, may correspond to the Old Persian
dahyu- of the “Ionians (Yauna) at the sea” (Yau̯nā tayai̯ drayahyā), as
mentioned in the royal inscriptions,105 whereas Greater Phrygia (or sim-
ply Phrygia) is only known from classical sources.
58.4.1. Hellespontine Phrygia

The city of Dascylium (or Daskyleion) constitutes the center of the
satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia in northwestern Asia Minor, and the
so-called Daskyleion Bullae originated there.106 All that remains of this
administrative archive are the sealed lumps of clay once fastened to the
now perished documents, which were written on organic materials, pre-
sumably leather. The seals are in the Persian imperial style, and frequently
have inscriptions (figure 58.6). The satrapal residence itself should prob-
ably be sought at the archaeological site of Hisartepe, located near the
village Ergili at Bandirma on the shores of Lake Manyas (or Kuş Gölü),
which is identified with Lake Dascylitis of antiquity.107
The satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia was of key importance for the
command of the imperial navy in the west.108 The Aeolian harbor city

104.
For the text, see Metzger et al. 1979; for discussions, see Briant
1998a: 322–325; 2002: 706–709; Fried 2004: 140–153; Marek 2013: 241–242;
Kolb 2018: 709–722.
105. Schmitt 1972: 522–527.
106. For the Daskyleion Bullae, see Kaptan 2002.
107. For excavations at Dascylium/Hisartepe, see Nollé 1992; Bakır 1995: 269–285;
2011; Tuna-Nörling 2001: 109–122; on the architecture, see Ateşlier 2001: 147–
168; Bakir 2001: 169–180; Erdoğan 2007: 177–194.
108. Klinkott 2005: 330–342.
618
Figure 58.6. One of the so-called Daskyleion Bullae (Erg. 5) with the partial
impression of a cylinder seal in the Persian style, and a reconstruction drawing
of the scene and the Old Persian cuneiform inscription (“I am Xerxes, the king.”)
engraved on that seal (DS 3), assembled from its fragmentary impressions on 147
clay bullae. © Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten/Deniz Kaptan, with
kind permission via Achemenet.com (http://www.achemenet.com/fr/item/?/
2461758).
of Cyme was one of the satrapy’s most important naval bases and was
controlled by its own hyparchos.109 Closely connected with the cities of
Atarneus, Thebe Hypoplacia, Adramyttium, Antandrus, and Ilion/Troy,
Abydos was the bridgehead for crossing the Hellespont to its counter-
part at Sestus.110 The satrap of Dascylium therefore controlled the most
important maritime route through the Hellespont.
The satrapal residence of Dascylium was characterized by a palace with
a treasury and storage facilities,111 gardens (paradeisoi),112 a fortress, and
various infrastructure connected with the long-distance royal road sys-
tem.113 Xenophon provides a detailed description of the satrapal residence
109. Hdt. 7.914; see Briant 2002: 562.

110. Briant 2002: 562; Rookhuijzen 2020: 61–86.
111. Hdt. 3.120.2; Xen. Hell. 4.1.15; 4.1.32. For the storage facilities in Dascylium, see
Xen. Hell. 4.1.15; Xen. An. 4.4.2−12.
112. Xen. Hell. 4.1.15; 4.1.32; for gardens as characteristic parts of satrapal residences,
see Klinkott 2005: 418–420; compare also Dusinberre 2013: 54–56.
113. According to Xen. Hell. 1.4.1−2, the Athenian delegation traveled to the
Persian king, escorted by the satrap Pharnabazus, and in Gordion encountered
619
of Pharnabazus and describes a palace (τά βασίλεια),114 which may be iden-

tified with some large-scale architectural remains found in Dascylium,115
huge gardens (ἐν περιειργμένοις παραδείσοις) that were fenced in some
areas and open to the wilderness in others, as well as many rich villages
(κῶμαι) that provided for the palace. Because of its famous fishing and
bird-hunting grounds, Agesilaus II of Sparta decided to encamp his army
there for the winter of 396 bc during his campaign to Asia Minor.116
The cultural impact of the Persian Empire in this region is most
visible in the form of the sarcophagus from Çan in the Granicus val-
ley, as well as in the burial steles and the freestanding tomb building at
Dascylium.117
According to Xenophon, the regions of Aeolia, Phrygia (in this
specific context, clearly the region in the northwest of Asia Minor118)
and Troad were governed by the satrap Pharnabazus and were thus
parts of the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia.119 The Hellespontine
satrap usually also controlled Mysia. Xenophon wrote that
Pharnabazus, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, installed the lady
Mania as “mistress of the country” (κυρία τῆς χώρας) after the death of
her husband Zenis of Dardanus, one of Pharnabazus’s subordinates;120
Xenophon emphasized that Pharnabazus gave Mysia to her, so that
“a woman ruled as satrap” (γυναῖκα σατραπεύεıν). Regardless of the
the Spartan embassy returning to the coast after its encounter with the Persian
king. For the network of interregional and local routes, see Briant 1991: 73–
80. For the royal road as an instrument of the imperial infrastructure, see
Debord 1995: 89–98; Kuhrt 2014: 122–127. For the royal road as attested in the
Persepolis Fortification Tablets, see Potts 2008: 275–302.
114. Xen. Hell. 4.1.15.
115. Bakır 2007: 172.
116. Sarikaya 2015: 199–219.
117. Nollé 1992; Dusinberre 2013: 174–175; for the tomb building at Dascylium, see
Karagöz 2007: 195–214.
118. Compare Xen. An. 6.4.24.
119. Xen. An. 5.6.24.
120. Xen. Hell. 3.1.12−14.
620
discussions surrounding the historicity and reliability of this particu-

lar piece of information,121 Xenophon clearly indicated that Mysia was
within the administrative responsibility of the Hellespontine satrap.
Nevertheless, Mania obviously governed Mysia with economic auton-
omy, as confirmed by the fact that she maintained treasuries in Skepsis
and Gergis.122
Furthermore, Xenophon wrote that under Artaxerxes II, Bithynia
(which is the adjoining region to the north) was not part of the satrapy
of Hellespontine Phrygia.123 Pharnabazus’s (military) responsibility
seems to have ended at Bithynia, although the satrapy had no fortified
frontier.124 The protection of the border was organized by the nearby city
of Byzantium, and enhanced by a network of fortified farmsteads that
were closely connected to nearby satrapal garrisons.125
The administrative relationship to the Hellespontine satrapy of
Paphlagonia remains uncertain because of a lack of sources. Xenophon
explicitly stated that Cyrus the Great did not install satraps in
Paphlagonia, Cyprus, and Cilicia,126 although this could be explained
as an assumption predicated on the conditions prevailing in Xenophon’s
own time. During the reign of Artaxerxes II, Paphlagonia was autono-
mously ruled by local dynasts. Hence, when the Spartan king and com-
mander Agesilaus II garrisoned his troops in the Hellespontine satrapy,
he marched to the border with Paphlagonia in order to start negotiations
121. Xenophon calls Zenis also “satrap.” For a discussion of this title, see Debord
1999: 173, 175; Briant 2002: 562, 596; Klinkott 2005: 472–473; Marek 2015: 7–8.
122. Xen. Hell. 3.1.15; 3.1.28. However, Xen. Hell. 3.1.27 makes it clear that the trea-
suries of Mania originally were in the possession of Pharnabazus, the satrap in
Dascylium.
123. Xen. An. 6.4.24; 7.1.1.
124. Xen. An. 6.4.24.
125. For Byzantium, see Xen. An. 7.1.1; for the villages at the border, see Xen. An.
6.4.24; 6.4.26; 6.5.1. Compare also the Thracian attack of Seuthes (Xen. An.
7.3.40−41) and the fights in Mysia (Xen. An. 7.8.8−15).
126. Xen. Cyr. 8.6.8.
621
with its ruler Kotys.127 Paphlagonia may have always had this semi-
independent status, or it may once have been part of the satrapy of
Hellespontine Phrygia. After Alexander the Great’s death, Paphlagonia
was absorbed into Cappadocia (section 58.5), as mentioned in the satra-
pal register of the diadochi.128
Hellespontine Phrygia was one of the most important and presti-
gious satrapies in western Asia Minor. It was exclusively governed by
Persian satraps, particularly by the aristocratic clan of the Pharnakids,
and the sequence of known satraps is comprehensive (table 58.3).129
The military and economic importance of Hellespontine Phrygia
was due to its dense urbanization and its control of the Hellespont,
which provided access to Thrace and Macedon, as well as by sea to
the Black Sea region. However, no satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia
was explicitly mentioned in the reports of Xerxes I’s crossing of the
Hellespont in 480 bc; Herodotus only names Artayktes as the hypar-
chos who defended Sestus in 479 bc.130 However, Oibares is attested
as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia during the reign of Darius I,131 and
Megabates and Artabazus as the satraps under Xerxes,132 and there is
therefore little doubt that Hellespontine Phrygia constituted an inde-
pendent satrapy at the time.
Two further officeholders cannot be convincingly identified
as satraps. The Epizyes mentioned by Plutarch as “satrap of Upper
Phrygia”133 may be identified with the “Persian of the coast” who, accord-
ing to Thucydides, escorted Themistocles to the Great King Artaxerxes
127. Plut. Vit. Ages. 11.1.

128. For these lists in detail, see Klinkott 2000. For the transition from the Persian
Empire to the Hellenistic monarchies in Asia Minor, see Briant 2017: 556–589.
129. For the sources, see Klinkott 2005: 508–509.
130. Hdt. 7.78; 9.116.1.
131. Hdt. 6.33.3; Polyaenus Strat. 7.45.2.
132. Thuc. 1.129.1, Suda s.v. Διεξφίσω 929; scholia on Ar. Eq. 781 b2; c2 (Dübner 1842).
133. Plut. Vit. Them. 30.1.
62
Table 58.3 The Satraps of Hellespontine Phrygia
Satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia Persian King

Pharnuchus Cyrus the Great
Mithrobates Cambyses /Darius I
Oibares Darius I
Artayktes (uncertain) Xerxes I
Megabates Xerxes I
Artabazus I Xerxes I
Epizyes (uncertain) Xerxes I
Pharnabazus Xerxes /Artaxerxes I
Pharnakes II Artaxerxes I /Darius II
Pharnabazus II Darius II /Artaxerxes II
Ariobarzanes Artaxerxes III
Artabazus II (only attested indirectly) Artaxerxes III
Arsites Darius III
Calas Alexander the Great
I.134 Second, the satrapal position of Artabazus (II) has been assumed
based on his actions during the so-called satrapal revolt in 366–360 bc
as successor of Ariobarzanes. However, the only title given to Artabazus
is strategos, not satrap.135
The continuing importance of the satrapy is made clear by Alexander’s
attack; at the Granicus river in the Hellespontine satrapy, the first orga-
nized defense of Achaemenid Asia Minor was brought by satrapal and
royal forces.136
134. Thuc. 1.137.3; see Klinkott 2005: 459.

135. For details, see Weiskopf 1989: 50–64.
136. Seibert 1985: 30–35; Briant 2002: 818–821; 2003a: 287–289.
623
58.4.2. Greater Phrygia (or simply Phrygia)

Details about the administration of Phrygia, or Greater Phrygia, are
limited and fragmentary. The Persian royal inscriptions do not mention
Phrygia as a “nation” (Old Persian dahyu-, plural dahyāva; for a discus-
sion of the term, see c hapter 62 in this volume) of the Persian Empire,
and Phrygians are also not attested in the Persepolis Fortification
Tablets. However, Herodotus states that Oibares, the satrap of Lydia,
also governed Phrygia during the reign of Cambyses but competed for its
control with Mitrobates, the hyparchos of Dascylium.137 Perhaps because
it had formerly been part of the Lydian kingdom, Phrygia was under
the control of the Lydian satrap,138 but was clearly distinguished from
Hellespontine Phrygia.
Later, Cyrus the Younger governed Phrygia as the satrap of Lydia.
While this seems to follow earlier administrative traditions, Xenophon
very much stressed that Cyrus the Younger did not take over a huge
Lydian satrapy that included Phrygia and Cappadocia, but that his father
Darius II (423–505 bc) personally appointed him to be satrap over each
of these separate administrative units.139 In consequence, we may assume
that Phrygia was separated from Lydia as a distinct administrative unit at
some time between the reigns of Cambyses and Darius II. The satraps of
Phrygia from the time of Darius II onward are listed in table 58.4.
In addition, Polyaenus described a certain Arsames who possibly
functioned as a satrap of Phrygia during the reign of Xerxes I, although
the historicity of this information is questionable.140
Beyond listing the holders of the satrapal office, the size and bound-
aries of the satrapy of Phrygia are hard to determine. The satrapy’s basic
location was central Anatolia, namely west of the great bend of the Halys
137. Hdt. 3.120.2−3.126.2.

138. For the conquest of Phrygia by the Lydian king Alyattes, see Wittke 2004: 221–
225; Marek 2010: 148, 154. Herodotus describes the Halys river as the border
between the Lydian and the Median kingdoms (Hdt. 1.72).
139. Xen. An. 1.9.7: σατράπης Λυδίας τε καὶ Φρυγίας τῆς μεγάλης καὶ Καππαδοκίας.
140. Polyaenus Strat. 7.28.2.
624
Table 58.4 The Satraps of Greater Phrygia
Satrap of Greater Phrygia Persian King

Ariaios Artaxerxes II
Ariobrazanes Artaxerxes II
Artakamas Artaxerxes II /Artaxerxes III (?)
Mithropastes Darius III
Atizyes Alexander the Great
river. In the west, Phrygia bordered on Lydia and Hellespontine Phrygia,

and in the east on Cappadocia and Cilicia. Herodotus noted that a strong
fortress on the Halys secured Phrygia’s border with Cappadocia,141 and
he reported an inscribed stele erected by Croesus of Lydia that would
have marked the border between Phrygia and Lydia near Kydrara;142 not
only is the historical accuracy of this information unclear, but so is the
location of this city.
The regions of Paphlagonia and Lycaonia were clearly under the con-
trol of the satrap of Cappadocia (section 58.5), and it was only after his
conquest that Alexander the Great assigned Paphlagonia to the satra-
pal administration of Phrygia.143 It remains unclear to which imperial
administrative unit of the Persian Empire the regions of Pamphylia
and Pisidia were assigned.144 The name of the city of Gazena in Pisidia,
located on the royal road on the way from Phrygia to Cilicia, is clearly
141. Hdt. 5.52. Compare also Strabo, for whom the Halys constituted the border
between Cappadocia and the western “countries on this side of the Halys”: Str.
12.1.3. For the border function of the Halys, see Rookhuijzen 2020: 40–42.
142. Hdt. 7.30.
143. Arr. An. 2.4.2; Curt. 3.1.24.
144. Good evidence for the Persian Empire’s material impact on Pamphylia is pro-
vided by some bowls from the necropolis of Karaçallı, located 9 km south of the
city of Perge; see Çokay-Kepçe and Recke 2007: 83–96.
625
derived from the Old Persian word for “treasure” (ganza) which may
indicate that it housed an imperial treasury.145
However, the administrative center of the satrapy of Phrygia is dif-
ficult to determine. One candidate is Gordion, the former capital of the
kingdom of Phrygia on the Sangarios river (chapter 45 in volume 4). The
city still held a prestigious position in the Persian Empire, as also con-
firmed by Alexander’s famous visit in 333 bc.146 Gordion was an impor-
tant stop on the royal road and frequently hosted Greek delegations that
were headed east on diplomatic business.147 The city’s representative
architecture, as attested in the shape of the so-called Mosaic Building
from the mid-fifth century bc, has all the characteristics of a satrapal
residence: the extended building complex features a large stone-paved
forecourt, a porch paved with the famous mosaic, and several palatial
suites of rooms.148
On the other hand, satrapal and royal palaces are also attested for the
city of Kelainai, which the Greek tradition associated prominently with
King Midas of Phrygia and his fabulous treasures.149 After the Battle
of Salamis, Xerxes founded a palace and a fortress near Kelainai, thus
adding to the importance of the city as an administrative center.150 The
royal palace was located directly on the bank of the river Marsyas, which
145. Ptol. Geog. 5.2.26; see Briant 1982: 210–211; Sekunda 1991: 123–124.
146. See Wittke 2004: 235–236, 218–219, 278–280; Marek 2010: 145–147. For
Alexander’s visit to Gordion and the city’s location at the Sangarios river, see
Curt. 3.1 and also Plut. Vit. Alex. 18.
147. According to Xen. Hell. 1.4.1−2, Pharnabazus, the satrap of Hellespontine
Phrygia, stayed in Gordion with the Athenian delegation that he was escorting
to the Persian king during the winter of 409/408 bc. There, in the spring of
408 bc, they encountered a Spartan embassy traveling to Greece on their way
back from the Persian king.
148. For details, see Dusinberre 2013: 60–61.
149. Xen. An. 1.2.7−8. For the city of Kelainai during the time of the kingdom of
Phrygia, see, e.g., Plut. Mor. 306; Callim. Aet. 47.
150. Xen. An. 1.2.9. For Xerxes on his march to Greece, with a short description of
the city in Hdt. 7.30, see Rookhuijzen 2020: 42–48.
62
cut through the city and the royal gardens (paradeisoi).151 The fortress
of Kelainai was taken by Alexander in 333 bc.152 However, Herodotus
referred to Kelainai only as “a great Phrygian city,”153 and Xenophon used
the same epithet to describe Kelainai and Kolossai (another Phrygian
city situated at a distance of three days march) as merely “a wealthy and
great city.”154
Both Gordion and Kelainai were located on the stretch of the royal
road that ran through Phrygia and which connected the western satra-
pies of Lydia and Hellespontine Phrygia with the system of transregional
routes that led to the imperial residences in Babylonia and Persia.155
A famous cylinder seal from Gordion with an Aramaic inscription (“Seal
of Bn’, son of Ztw . . .”; figure 58.7)156 provides a clear indication that a
multilingual administration was active in Phrygia.157
While the strong local traditions of Phrygian art and craftsmanship
survived throughout the Persian Empire period until Hellenistic times,158
the testimony of the wooden planks from a tomb chamber at Tatarlı,
located close to Kelainai, indicates that the Persian Empire’s cultural
151. Xen. An. 1.2.7.

152. Xen. An. 1.2.8. For Alexander’s siege of the citadel, see Arr. An. 1.29.2; Curt.
3.1.6; see the discussion in Seibert 1985: 55–56.
153. Hdt. 7.30.
154. πόλιν οἰκουμένην καὶ εὐδαίμονα καὶ μεγάλην: Xen. An. 1.2.6 (Kolossai); 1.2.7
(Kelainai).
155. On the traditional routes controlled by Gordion and many citadels yet forti-
fied in the Hethite time: Wittke 2004: 279. But because of the uncertainty of
the archaeological dating, it remains unclear if these fortresses were still used
in Persian imperial times. For Gordion at the royal road: Hdt. 5.52−53;
Arr. An. 2.4; Curt. 1.1.3; Plut. Vit. Alex. 18.
156. For the seal with the inventory no. Gordion 2342/SS100, see Dusinberre
2005: no. 33; 2008: 87–98; 2013: 60–62 with fig. 34; 243 with fig. 146.
157. For multilinguality and multiethnicity in the kingdom of Phrygia since the
early ninth century bc, see Wittke 2004: 237; for the Phrygian administration
during the Persian imperial period, see Maffre 2007: 225–246 (although com-
bining the evidence from Hellespontine and Greater Phrygia).
158. Dusinberre 2013: 210–212.
627
Figure 58.7. Cylinder seal with Aramaic inscription (Gordion 2342/SS100).

© Penn Museum and the Gordion Archaeological Project (https://www.penn.
museum/sites/gordion/seals-at-gordion/), with kind permission.
traditions also impacted local artistic expression, as these were painted

with Persian-style depictions of battle and funeral scenes (figure 58.8).159
58.5. Cappadocia
In the royal inscriptions of the Persian kings, Cappadocia (Old Persian
Katpatuka) is usually featured in the dahyāva list, a selection of imperial
regions and peoples.160 The Greek toponym is probably derived from the
Old Persian designation, which in turn seems to go back to a Luwian
place name with the meaning “Lower Land.”161
Prior to its integration into the Persian Empire, Cappadocia had
seemingly not been part of the kingdom of Lydia. Xenophon described
it as an autonomous kingdom that fought the Persian aggressor in alli-
ance with Croesus of Lydia,162 whereas Herodotus thought Cappadocia
159. Summerer 2008: 265–

299; also Summerer 2007: 131–
158; Dusinberre
2013: 178–179.
160. DB §6; DNa §3; DPe §2; DSe §4; XPh §4; A3Pb.
161. Hdt. 1.72.1; 5.49.6; for the etymology, see Schmitt 1980: 399–
400;
Yakubovich 2014.
162. Xen. Cyr. 2.1.5.
628
Figure 58.8. A painted wooden beam from the tomb chamber of Tatarlı, depicting a battle scene. Photograph and drawing ©
Latife Summerer, with kind permission.
629
to have been part of the Median Empire after its western expansion.163
After Cyrus the Great conquered Cappadocia, processes of transition and
integration must have started, but the details are entirely unclear, and the
later phases of the Cappadocia’s history under the Persian occupation also
remain completely unknown. It is evident that a satrapal administration
was in place in Cappadocia, possibly since as early as the time of Cyrus but
certainly from the reign of Darius I onward,164 although our knowledge is
very fragmentary. Consequently, the satrapy’s size, frontiers, and internal
organization remain unclear because precise information is lacking, and
even that the region was secured by garrisons and fortresses can only be
conclusively demonstrated from the early Hellenistic period onward.165
The available sources leave the internal organization and the satra-
pal administration of Cappadocia almost completely unclear. However,
Cappadocia seems to have enjoyed a prominent status within the Persian
Empire. Xenophon names the otherwise unknown Cappadocian king
Aribaius, who fought against Cyrus the Great during his conquest.166 In
the Hellenistic memory of the Cappadocian kingdom, the royal dynasty
went back to Anaphas, one of the “Seven Persians” who participated in
the assassination of Gaumata/Smerdis, led by the usurper Darius I;167 and
as a reward, the new king granted his co-conspirators and their houses
special privileges within the Persian Empire, as documented also in the
Bisotun inscription.168 According to Diodorus, Anaphas was able to
secure a tax-exempt status for his satrapy Cappadocia while it remained
under the rule of his dynasty.169 The Greek-Aramaic bilingual inscription
163. Hdt. 1.72; see Rollinger 2003: 305–313.

164. Concerning the problems of defining the region and administrative unit of
Cappadocia under Persian imperial rule, see Casabonne 2007: 103–106.
165. Tuplin 1987: 214.
166. Xen. Cyr. 2.1.5.
167. For details, see Wiesehöfer 1978.
168. DB §68–§69. For the privileges of the “Seven Persians,” especially with a view
to Herodotus’s report, see Gschnitzer 1977: 14–22; compare also Henkelman
2020: 208.
169. Diod. Sic. 31.19.2; see Wiesehöfer 1989: 187.
630
from Ağaca Kale probably names a certain Ariyaramna/Ariaramnes and

his son Haryuka/Aryurat as satraps of Cappadocia, and the sequence of
father and son seems to confirm the principle of dynastic succession in
this satrapy.170 Cappadocia’s privileged status may also be visible in the
fact that Alexander the Great installed a Persian called Sabiktas as satrap
after his conquest of Tauric Cappadocia.171 In view of the hereditary
privileges that we know the Cappadocian satraps enjoyed, it is clearly
necessary to be very cautious about using it as an analogy for administra-
tive structures in other parts of the empire.
Cappadocia was bordered by Greater Phrygia in the west and
Armenia in the east. According to Xenophon, Lycaonia, the adjoin-
ing region in the southwest, was assigned to the administration of the
Cappadocian satrap,172 in contrast to adjacent Pisidia, which had a
semi-autonomous status.173 Despite the campaign that Datames waged
together with Ariobarzanes, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia,
against the Paphlagonian dynast Thuys, it is problematic to conclude
that the Cappadocian satrapy would have included Paphlagonia.174
On the one hand, Xenophon mentions a semi-autonomous status for
Paphlagonia.175 On the other hand, Pompeius Trogus named Datames
170. Lemaire 2000; Dusinberre 2013: 64.

171. For the conquest of Tauric Cappadocia, see Seibert 1985: 62–64; on Sabiktas,
see Arr. An. 2.4.2.
172. Xen. An. 7.8.25; compare also Xen. An. 1.2.19−20.
173. If Nep. Datames 4.1−5 is considered reliable. Nep. Datames 4.1 is clear in stat-
ing that Datames as strategos received an order from the Persian king to embark
on a military campaign against rebellious Cataonia in order to defeat the insur-
rection led there by Aspis. For a different position, see Sekunda 1988: 43–44,
postulating that Datames would have been responsible because of his position
as satrap (for which there is no proof ).
174. The impact of the Persian Empire on Paphlagonia is certainly visible in the
archaeological record, but remains unclear in relation to administrative condi-
tions; see Summerer and von Kienlin 2010: 195–221.
175. Xen. Cyr. 8.6.8. Compare also Paphlagonia’s administration by local dynasts
according to Xen. Hell. 4.1.3; Xen. An. 5.6.8; 6.1.14.
631
as praefectus Paphlagoniae,176 possibly describing a satrapal administra-

tion unit. However, Trogus’s information may well have been influenced
by later administrative conditions, as demonstrated by literary traditions
about the distribution of the satrapies that took place in Babylon after
the death of Alexander in 323 bc.177 In any case, it is important to dif-
ferentiate between satrapal responsibilities and the military activities of
individual strategoi acting on the direct command of the Persian king.178
It is unclear whether the later distinction between two administrative
units, namely Pontic Cappadocia and Tauric Cappadocia, as indicated
by Strabo,179 was already valid during the time of the Persian imperial
administration, and if so, from what time onward. Cappadocia’s assign-
ment to Cyrus the Younger’s jurisdiction might be seen as an indication
of a possible division into two satrapal districts. However, a titular speci-
fication for the region under Cyrus the Younger’s rule is unknown, and
we do not know about a second Cappadocian satrap who would have
been in power at the same time. On the other hand, when Cappadocia
was involved in the satrapal rebellion of the late 360s bc, the activities of
Mithradates and Datames would seem to indicate the existence of two
Cappadocian districts.180 There is no evidence for the administrative or
explicitly satrapal responsibility over two distinct Cappadocian satrapies
or satrapal districts, and it is therefore more sensible to assume that it
existed as a single administrative unit. For this satrapy of Cappadocia, a
number of Persian imperial officeholders are known, although the rela-
tionship between them is sometimes uncertain (table 58.5).181
176. Just. Epit. 10.

177. For the problem of the literary construction of the list of satrapies mentioned
during the distribution of territories at Babylon, see Ruffing 2017: 321–333; also
Klinkott 2000: 40–47.
178. For a detailed discussion of this problem, see Klinkott 2005: 463–466.
179. Str. 12.1.4, 7.
180. For details, see Weiskopf 1989: 58–61.
181. For the literary sources and their discussion, see Klinkott 2005: 462–466,
510–511.
632
Table 58.5 The Satraps of Cappadocia
Satrap of Cappadocia Persian King

Artabatas Cyrus the Great
Anaphas Darius I
Ariaramnes Darius I
Udiastes Darius II
Mithradates Artaxerxes II
Kamisares Artaxerxes II
Datames Artaxerxes II /Artaxerxes III
Ariarathes Darius III /Alexander the Great
Furthermore, the Persepolis Fortification Tablets document a certain

Tuk(k)urra/Šukra (probably the father of Otanes and grandfather of
Anaphas, for whom see below in this section) in a close relationship with
Cappadocia and Cappadocian workers.182 However, as there are currently
no attestations of Tuk(k)urra/Šukra with the title of satrap, the proposed
identification as satrap of Cappadocia should be treated with caution.183
Because the route taken by Xenophon’s ten thousand Greek merce-
naries (figure 58.9) circumvented the satrapy of Cappadocia, we know
very little about the lay of the land during the Persian period. Even the
locations of the satrapal residence(s) in the pre-Hellenistic period remain
unknown. Strabo informs us of several possible locations for these resi-
dences: While the palace in Amaseia seems to date to the Hellenistic
period, a fortress and a palace that probably date to the Persian impe-
rial period at Ikizari are mentioned.184 Alexander the Great conquered
182. Henkelman 2020: 208.

183. For Tuk(k)urra/Šukra in the context of the Aršama letters and identified as
satrap of Cappadocia, see Henkelman 2020: 208, 210.
184. On Ikizari, see Str. 12.3.38; 15.3.2; on Amaseia, see Str. 12.3.39.
63
Figure 58.9. The route of Xenophon’s “Ten Thousand” through Asia Minor. Map reproduced from Briant 2002: 367,
map 3, with kind permission.
634
only those parts of Cappadocia along the river Halys which he passed
through on his way to Cilicia, and he probably marched to Mazaka spe-
cifically to bring that city under his control as a residence.185 In any case,
Mazaka seems to have been an important center on the northern route
of the royal road through Asia Minor,186 and it was there that Alexander
installed a Persian called Sabiktas as his satrap, thereby setting up a prec-
edent that he would follow on many future occasions.187
In addition to the fortress at Ikizari, there are also attestations for
other citadels and garrisons.188 The best source is Xenophon’s Anabasis,
which frequently mentions local fortresses in the region of Pontic
Cappadocia between Gymnias and Kotyora, sometimes within calling
distance to each other.189 This is also true of the Cappadocian fortifica-
tions of Akalan near the ancient city of Amisos and Kerkenes Dağ.190
According to Xenophon, only local troops manned these garrisons, with-
out the presence of any Persian troops, commanders, or organizational
structures. In the same way, the storage facilities of the Mossynoikoi seem
to have been for local supply only, rather than constituting part of a satra-
pal administration.191 A (royal) treasury may have been present in the
185. See for this assumption: Seibert 1985: 63 with Str. 12.2.7–8; compare, too,
Hammond 1981: 89. For Mazaka as “the seat of the lieutenant governor,” cf.
Briant 2002: 711–712.
186. Graf 1994: 177.
187. Arr. An. 2.4.2; see Seibert 1985: 63.
188. For unnamed fortresses in Cappadocia, see Polyaenus Strat. 7.29.1 and Nep.
Datames 10.2; see Dusinberre 2013: 112.
189. In the country of the Drilai, the principal settlement (metropolis) had a for-
tification consisting of a palisade and towers according to Xen. An. 5.2.5; for
the fort, see Xen. An. 5.2.13, and for the castle, see Xen. An. 5.2.20. There was
another fort near the principal settlement of the Mossynoikoi; see Xen. An.
5.4.16, 23, 26; and the forts of Mossynoikoi were situated at a distance of ca. 80
miles from each other; see Xen. An. 5.4.30−31. For forts in the mountainous
hinterland of Kerasos, see Xen. An. 5.7.13. For Trapezunt, see Xen. An. 5.2.2−27.
190. On the archaeological context, see Summerer 2005: 125–139 (with further
literature).
191. Xen. An. 5.4.27.
635
residence of the Cappadocian satrapy.192 Nevertheless, the Persian impe-

rial impact on Cappadocia is visible in the cult of the god Auramazda
and the ritual activities of the Magians.193
58.6. In conclusion
According to the Greek sources, satrapies constituted the Persian
Empire’s main administrative units in Asia Minor. However, their pre-
cise topography is difficult to define because the sources typically do not
discuss size or borders, but mainly reported the actions of the officials in
charge. After the conquest of the Lydian kingdom by Cyrus the Great,
Asia Minor became part of the newly forged Persian Empire. Reliable
information on the satraps—and thus also on the satrapies—is available
only from the reign of Darius I onward.
From this data, Lydia emerges without any doubt as one of the
wealthiest and most prestigious satrapies in Asia Minor, and in the entire
Persian Empire. Located at the western edge of the empire’s holdings, the
Lydian satrapy originally included Ionia, Caria, and Lycia; throughout
its existence, it constituted an important hub for the empire’s dynamic
diplomatic, economic, cultural and military activities in the Aegean.
From the early fourth century bc, Caria was a confirmed separate
satrapy, under the control of the Carian dynasty of the Hecatomnids.
Having freed Lycia from the control of the Lydian satrapy, the Carian
satrap Mausolus reorganized the local dynastic self-government in that
region by encouraging new administrative structures that functioned in
close connection with his satrapy. Together with Lycia, Caria remained a
separate administrative unit until the conquest of Alexander the Great.
192. Based on Nep. Datames 5.3, where Pandantes as gazae custos regiae warns
Datames.
193. For the cult of Auramazda according to the Aramaic inscriptions from
Cappadocia, see Dusinberre 2013: 235–237; for Magians in Cappadocia, see
Str. 15.3.15 and note the imagery on a stone altar: Dusinberre 2013: 238, fig. 139
(left). For the religious impact of the Persian Empire on Anatolia in general, see
Tuplin 2007: 291–297, and note also the Persian-period finds from the sanctu-
ary on Dülük Baba Tepesi; see Schachner 2019: 70–72 with figs. 8–9.
63
This satrapy was very well integrated into an economic and political net-
work that also encompassed Greece and Egypt.
Lydia’s original relationship with the satrapy of Greater Phrygia is
not clear, but this region was certainly a separate administrative unit
from the reign of Darius II onward. Hellespontine Phrygia was a distinct
satrapy from the reign of Cyrus the Great onward and held great impor-
tance in the Persian Empire due to its control of the Hellespont and the
connected maritime and overland routes to Thrace and Macedon.
Turning to Cappadocia, whose satraps very clearly enjoyed a privi-
leged status within the Persian Empire starting with the reign of Darius I,
the extent, organization, and administrative structure of this satrapy are
almost entirely unknown. Nevertheless, it seems evident that Cappadocia
was never part of the Lydian satrapy, but always was governed as a sepa-
rate administrative unit. Darius II’s influential son Cyrus the Younger
was appointed both satrap of Lydia and satrap of Cappadocia, and that
a separate title for this satrapy was retained further suggests its impor-
tance and prestige within the realm. The Cappadocian satrapy was situ-
ated between Phrygia in the west and Armenia in the east and probably
included both the Pontus and Taurus areas, which constituted separate
administrative units in post-imperial times.
The Persian imperial administration of Asia Minor found its reflec-
tion in the Greek sources as a system of “satrapies,” mainly defined by
the responsibilities and powers held by specific named officials, mostly of
Persian origin. These satraps formed the link between the local popula-
tions and their political bodies on the one hand, and the Persian king and
his imperial apparatus on the other hand. While safeguarding the stabil-
ity and security of the Persian Empire, the satraps of Asia Minor gave
plenty of leeway to the local authorities and thus allowed the continuing
existence, as well as the further development, of their regions’ political
and cultural particularities.
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59

Persian Empire
Babylonia and Assyria
André Heller
59.1. The sources on Babylonia and Assyria

under Persian rule
The sources on Babylonia and Assyria under Persian rule (figure 59.1) are
rich, but not evenly distributed in time and content.1 The indigenous tra-
dition, written in cuneiform, covers mainly economic and social aspects,
but occasionally also historical events, while the classical authors furnish
the historical outline, but they are often superimposed with stereotypes.2
The most important Greek author is Herodotus of Halicarnassus
(ca. 485–ca. 425 bc) whose nine-volume Histories narrates the causes
1. The following additional abbreviations are used: DB =Bisotun inscription of

Darius I; see Kuhrt 2007: 141–158, no. 5.1; XPh =Persepolis inscription of Xerxes;
see Kuhrt 2007: 304–306, no. 7.88. The chapter was language-edited by Denise
Bolton.

2. Kuhrt 2007 provides a corpus of translated sources for the Achaemenid
Empire. On Babylonia, see Oppenheim 1985; Kuhrt 1988; Stolper 1994; Heller
2010: 237–354.
André Heller, The Satrapies of the Persian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East.
650
651
The Satrapies of Babylonia and Assyria 651
and course of the Greco-Persian wars (490–479 bc). The first book’s
last section is devoted to Babylon and its conquest by Cyrus. However,
he treats mainly Babylon’s magnificent buildings, such as the fortifi-
cations, the temple of Belus/Marduk (Esagil), and the temple tower
(Etemenanki). His detailed account of the country’s nature, the people’s
customs, and their way of life primarily emphasizes the “otherness” of
the Babylonians.3 Although it is unlikely that Herodotus actually vis-
ited Babylon, his seemingly authentic depiction influenced later authors
and also shaped the imagination of travelers and artists since the Middle
Ages; even archaeologists considered him an authority.4
Ctesias of Cnidus (ca. 440–ca. 390 bc), who earned his living as a
personal physician at the Persian court, wrote a twenty-three-volume
Persian history (Persika) that spanned from the beginning of the
Assyrian Empire to his own time, which unfortunately survived only
in fragments preserved by later authors, such as Plutarch of Chaeronea
(45–120 ad), and one excerpt preserved by the ninth-century patriarch
of Constantinople, Photius. Although Ctesias is often inaccurate and
sometimes fictitious, he provides information about the royal court (viv-
idly embellished with numerous intrigues) and remains a valuable source
for Persian history of his lifetime.5 Ctesias’s contemporary, Xenophon
of Athens (ca. 430–ca. 355 bc), partook in the famed “March of the Ten
Thousand” (401–399 bc), a description of which he published much
later in the seven-volume Anabasis. Its first three books deal with the
advance of Cyrus the Younger’s army into Babylonia and the subsequent
retreat by the Greeks to Armenia, making it an important source for
Babylonia and Assyria around 400 bc.6 In his eight-volume Cyropaedia,
Xenophon portrayed Cyrus the Great as an ideal king, which consider-
ably limits its historical accuracy.
3. Hdt. 1.178–200; cf. the critical study by Rollinger 1993 and see Kuhrt 2002.
4. Cf. Seymour 2014.
5. Over the last decade, Ctesias (FGrH 688) increasingly moved into the focus of
ancient historical research: e.g., Wiesehöfer et al. (eds.) 2011; Waters 2017; and
several annotated translations in English and French.
6. Joannès 1995; Reade 2015.
652
In early Hellenistic times, the local historian Berossus, a member of

the priesthood of Esagil (and according to later tradition an astrologer),
wrote a three-volume history of Babylon (Babyloniaka),7 for which he
exploited cuneiform documents, but was also influenced by Greek his-
toriography and its methodology.8 Regrettably, the readership of the
Babyloniaka was limited to a few persons with antiquarian interests, so
that only some longer fragments, handed down by Jewish and Christian
authors, bear witness to the content.9 At least, a section about Nabonidus
and Cyrus is still preserved today.
From Berossus the path leads to the cuneiform texts. The Cyrus
Cylinder (discovered in Babylon in 1879 and now on display in the
British Museum) is a clay cylinder whose shape corresponds to that of
a foundation deposit.10 As a historical document, the cylinder is prob-
lematic because it praises Cyrus (559–530 bc) as an ideal king and por-
trays his actions as determined by the god Marduk. Its identification as
an official proclamation is evidenced by a fragment of a tablet (stored
in the British Museum) with a colophon that gives the copyist’s name.
Since Cyrus proclaims the freedom of the populace and the return of
deportees, the cylinder is sometimes regarded—albeit wrongly—as the
first declaration of human rights, which is why a copy is exhibited at
the UN headquarters in New York. In the Bible, too, Cyrus is simi-
larly portrayed as Yahweh’s instrument, whereby the Jews were released
into freedom after the conquest of Babylon (chapter 60 in this vol-
ume). Likewise, the Verse Account of Nabonidus,11 probably intended
for public recitation, and the Dynastic Prophecy,12 composed in early
Hellenistic times, portray Nabonidus (555–539 bc) negatively and
7. For Berossus (FGrH 680), see now Haubold et al. (eds.) 2013.
8. Tuplin 2013.
9. Cf. Madreiter 2013a; Schironi 2013.
10. Schaudig 2001: 550–556; Kuhrt 2007: 70–74, no. 3.21; Finkel 2013.
11. Schaudig 2001: 563–578; Kuhrt 2007: 75–80, no. 3.23.
12. van der Spek 2003: 311–324 (text 5).
653
Cyrus as his positive counterpart. The Verse Account’s date of publica-

tion and its addressees are controversial, but it could have been written
immediately after Nabonidus’s fall, in order to legitimate the actions
that Cyrus directed against his predecessor,13 or during Darius’s first
years (e.g., after the suppression of the Babylonian revolts),14 with the
former being more likely.
In Darius’s Bisotun inscription, placed over a mountain pass near the
present-day village of Bisotun (chapter 55 in this volume), Darius I (521–
486 bc) bore witness to his triumph over the “liar kings” who challenged
his rule. The text, written in Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite, was
accompanied by a rock relief depicting the events in a pictorial sequence.15
Darius had the proclamation distributed throughout the Empire, as
illustrated by a fragmentary Aramaic textual copy from the Nile island
of Elephantine,16 and by fragments of a stele with the Babylonian version
found in the main castle of Babylon (Kasr; figure 59.2).17
The so-called Babylonian Chronicle series is a valuable source for
the Neo-Babylonian period (chapter 50 in this volume),18 but unfortu-
nately the subsequent Late Babylonian chronicle series is nearly entirely
lost (making the fragmentary condition of Berossus’s text all the more
deplorable). The Nabonidus Chronicle covers this king’s reign and
breaks off with Cyrus’s first full regnal year.19 After that, there is only
a short section from the time of Artaxerxes III and fragments from the
period around 330 bc.20 The copy of the Nabonidus Chronicle preserved

14. Kleber 2007.
15. DB =Darius’s Bisotun inscription; see Kuhrt 2007: 141–158, no. 5.1.
16. Greenfield and Porten 1982.
17. Seidl 1999a; 1999b; Tolini 2012: 273–276.
18. Grayson 1975: 8–14.
19. Grayson 1975: 21–22; 104–111 (Chronicle 7); see also Kuhrt 2007: 50–53, no. 3.1.
20. Chronicle of Artaxerxes III; see Grayson 1975: 114 (Chronicle 9); cf. Kuhrt
2007: 412–413, no. 9.76; for two chronicle fragments referring to Arses and
654
Figure 59.2. A reconstruction drawing of Darius’s victory stele at Babylon.

Adapted from Seidl 1999b: 304, fig. 4 by Karen Radner.
today dates only to either the Hellenistic or Parthian period, although

it is very likely that the original was written some twenty years after the
events. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that Nabonidus’s image has
been falsified afterward in favor of the winner.21
Alexander as well as Darius III and Alexander, see van der Spek 2003: 300–309
(texts 2 and 3).
21. Zawadzki 2010; Waerzeggers 2015b: 96.
65
The so-called Astronomical Diaries22 provide, among other things,

data on star constellations, prices, water levels, and sometimes histori-
cal events,23 and thus enable the investigation of the development of
commodity prices.24 Of utmost importance for Babylonia’s economic
and social situation and the relations between temples and royal admin-
istration are the institutional and private archives.25 From the Neo-
Babylonian period onward, the administration wrote their documents in
Aramaic, which brought about a change in the medium of writing from
clay to leather or parchment. During the Achaemenid period, this trend
increased so that the number of texts written on clay tablets diminished.26
59.2. The topography of Assyria

and Babylonia
In the first half of the first millennium, the Assyrian Empire from the
ninth to the late seventh century bc (chapters 38–40 in volume 4) and
the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626–539 bc; chapter 50 in this volume)
ruled over the regions of the Fertile Crescent. In 539 bc, Cyrus’s con-
quest of Babylon brought the territory of the Neo-Babylonian Empire
under Persian control. This vast territory was administered as a single
provincial entity by a satrap until the first years of Xerxes’s reign, when it
was divided into two provinces.
The Assyrian heartland consisted of the Tigris Valley between the
Upper Zab and Lower Zab rivers and the area to the north with the
residential cities of Assur, Kalhu, and Nineveh. To the east, where
Arbela was the most important city, the Zagros Mountains confined
the Assyrian heartland. In the west, Assyrian influence stretched to the
22. Sachs and Hunger 1988.

23. For a fragmentary diary on military operations from the year 363 bc, see Hunger
and van der Spek 2006.
24. Jursa 2014; Pirngruber 2017; 2018; Monerie 2018: 53–79.
25. For a survey of the known Neo-and Late Babylonian archives, see Jursa 2005.
26. Cf. Pearce 1999; Bloch 2018.
65
Upper Euphrates with regional centers such as Dur-Katlimmu/Magdala

(modern Tell Sheikh Hamad) and Harran, both situated on its tributar-
ies Khabur and Balikh, respectively.
Babylonia was an alluvial plain shaped by the meandering courses of
the mighty Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The Euphrates especially, swol-
len by snowmelt from the Armenian mountains, flooded the Babylonian
steppes every spring, causing the river to often shift its course. Despite
the low level of rainfall, numerous canals that discharged the water of the
Euphrates allowed an extremely productive agriculture with high yields
(e.g., barley, sesame, date palms, fruit cultivation),27 while the less agri-
culturally usable steppes in the north served for livestock farming (sheep
and cattle). Where the water could not run off, swamps formed, the larg-
est of which was in southern Babylonia (the so-called Sealand), where
the Euphrates and Tigris flowed into the Persian Gulf. In antiquity, the
Sealand was connected by the navigable Karun River (Pasitigris) to Elam
and its capital Susa. Babylonia was densely populated and renowned for
its impressive urban landscapes, with cities like Sippar, Babylon, Borsippa,
Cutha, Nippur, and Uruk. During the Persian period, the Diyala region
gained importance, as numerous settlement mounds (Arabic tell) discov-
ered by modern surveys show.28
59.3. The social structure of Babylonia

The Assyrian Empire’s downfall resulted in the plundering and complete
destruction of its residential cities by a Median-Babylonian coalition
(chapters 38, 39, and 43 in volume 4) so that, unlike Babylonia, only a
few written sources and scattered archaeological evidence have survived
to provide information about the administrative and social structures
under Neo-Babylonian and Persian rule.29
27. This is also known to ancient authors (e.g., Hdt. 1.193; Curt. 5.1.12); cf.
Ruffing 2014.
28. Adams 1965.
29. Cf. Curtis 2005: 176–178; Hauser 2017: 230–231.
657
Life in Babylonia was shaped by four ecological zones: the city itself,
its hinterland, the steppe regions, and the swamp regions, and it was in
these different contexts that administration, as well as crafts, agriculture
and horticulture, livestock breeding, hunting, and fishing took place.
The central building of a Babylonian city was the temple of the
city god (chapter 50 in this volume). Above all, a deity’s popular-
ity was reflected in its occurrence in personal names, since these were
often constructed as a short sentence with a theophoric element; e.g.,
Nebuchadnezzar’s name, in the correct Babylonian form Nabû-kudurri-
uṣur, means “Nabû, protect my oldest son!” In the most important sanc-
tuaries, the temple district consisted of a low temple and a high temple,
which was constructed of a terraced compound with successively reced-
ing stories or levels (Akkadian ziggurratu, “stepped temple tower”). On
the one hand, such sanctuaries were considered the gods’ dwellings, and
on the other hand, they were economic institutions of great importance.
Their activities are well attested by the archives of the temples themselves
and of the parties who dealt with them (viz., the king’s palace and the
members of the urban upper class).
Nominally, the head of the temple was the deity, who was also con-
sidered the owner of the land belonging to the temple,30 but in reality
its administration was carried out by functionaries whose titles varied
from city to city and who could also perform cultic tasks (but not to
the extent that the often-chosen translation of “dean” or “chief priest”
would suggest). Subordinate to these functionaries were other adminis-
trative personnel, such as supervisors and scribes, cult specialists, such as
diviners, exorcists, and ritual singers, and (specialized) craftsmen, such
as bakers and brewers, goldsmiths and jewelers. The higher echelons of
administrators and craftsmen belonged to the urban elite, who indicated
their ancestry by the use of a family name, and were often supplied by
the temple’s prebendary system. The agricultural workers were mostly
dependent on the temple, while those working for the temple were sup-
plied with or paid through rations. The craftsmen, who were also able to
work commercially, were provided with the necessary materials. Due to
30. Cf. Arr. An. 7.17.3.

658
the general lack of natural resources, precious metals and other luxury
goods had to be procured through merchants. Because of the great eco-
nomic importance of the temples, which included participation in royal
building projects, the king closely controlled their activities.31
Babylonia was one of the central satrapies of the Persian Empire, not
only economically but also militarily. The Great King mustered his army
there on several occasions, and Babylon remained one of the royal resi-
dences. One way to cultivate land was to assign it to colonists of mostly
foreign origin, not as individuals but as a group. In return, they were
obliged to pay taxes, but more importantly they were also obligated to
render military and corvée service.32 Military service could be compen-
sated by payment in silver, enabling the Persians to hire mercenaries.
The “villages of the Carians”33 around Borsippa are well known, as is the
settlement of the Sattagydians (from Eastern Iran) in the Diyala region
(Sittace);34 both fought at Gaugamela for Darius III.35
59.4. Assyria under Persian rule

A substitute, albeit a meager one, for the lack of indigenous sources are
the few notes by classical authors. Herodotus considered Assyria to be
synonymous with the Neo-Babylonian Empire, regarded Babylon or
“the Babylonian country” as part of Assyria, and stated that Babylon
succeeded Ninus/ Nineveh as the royal residence.36 Babylonia’s
absence as a territorial entity is also a conspicuous feature in Ctesias,37
31. For a more detailed discussion of Babylonian economy and society, see
Jursa 2004: 39–63. For Babylonian kingship in the Persian period, see
Waerzeggers 2015a.
32. Stolper 1985: 70–103.
33. Diod. Sic. 17.110.3; 19.12.1; see the discussion in Potts 2018.
34. Kessler 2002b. Xen. An. 2.4.13 first named Sittace a “large and prosperous city.”
35. Arr. An. 3.8.5.
36. Hdt. 1.178.1; cf. Str. 16.1.1; 16.1.16; Arr. An. 7.21.6.
37. Madreiter 2013b.
659
while Xenophon, who marched with the “Ten Thousand” up the

Tigris through the former heartland of the Assyrian Empire,38 did not
know the term “Assyria” at all,39 instead calling the area Media.40 In
doing so, he most likely reflected an Achaemenid provincial division,
which split the Assyrian heartland into the satrapies of Assyria and
Media (west and east of the Tigris, respectively).41 Particularly strik-
ing are his descriptions of the former royal cities that he passed with
his army and whose names he obviously did not know. He describes
Assur as Caenae (“large and prosperous city,” where the Greek mer-
cenaries obtained food), Kalhu becomes Larissa (“large deserted
city”), and Nineveh is Mespila (“large stronghold, deserted and lying
in ruins”).42 Even more surprising is his silence on Ninus/Nineveh,
the only Assyrian metropolis known to classical authors. However, to
conclude from Xenophon that those residences had totally perished
and were no longer inhabited is erroneous.43 Many later sources still
show knowledge of toponyms such as Aturia (“Assyria”) or Calachene
(“Territory around Kalhu”).44
Although they never regained their former importance, archaeo-
logical finds demonstrate the continuity of settlement on a modest
scale.45 At Kalhu, there was a humble repopulation in some areas of
38. Cf. Reade 2015.

39. Xen. An. 7.8.25—a list of governors of the territories that the “Ten Thousand”
traversed—is odd and most probably a later gloss. In this text, Belesys (cf. Xen.
An. 1.4.10) is the satrap of Syria and Assyria, while Rhoparas governs Babylonia.
While a satrapy “Syria and Assyria” was clearly impossible at that time, Rhoparas
never appears in the Anabasis.
40. Xen. An. 2.4.27; 3.5.15.
41. Parpola 2000: 4–5.
42. Xen. An. 2.4.28; 3.4.7–12. Caenae’s identification with Assur is not beyond
doubt; see Curtis 2005: 187.
43. Kuhrt 1995: 243; Hauser 2017: 231.
44. E.g., Str. 16.1.1.
45. Cf. Kuhrt 1995: 247–250; Hauser 2017: 231–236.
60
the city soon after its devastation.46 The same was true in Assur47 and
Nineveh,48 although none of the finds can be dated with certainty to
the Persian period. According to the Cyrus Cylinder, Cyrus had the
dwelling places of the gods rebuilt and their statues returned to their
ancestral seats.49 Assur is mentioned second, which may indicate res-
toration work there.50 The various Alexander historians do not men-
tion any of these places either,51 but consider Arbela to be the central
place of Assyria;52 its great importance is not reflected in the avail-
able archaeological evidence because of continuous settlement until
today.53 Accordingly, while Darius I’s Bisotun inscription does not
name a rebel king for Assyria, it perhaps features one for the Arbela
region.54
Letters from the Egyptian satrap Arsames (Aršama; c hapter 61 in this
volume) to his subordinate Nehtihor, which date to the years around
410 bc and describe a route along the royal road starting in Assyria,
confirm the survival of administrative structures in the former Assyrian
heartland.55 For southern Assyria, the Anabasis refers to the villages
46. Cf. Curtis 2005: 179–184; for the rich cuneiform sources referencing the city, see
MacGinnis 2014.
47. Cf. Curtis 2005: 187–189.
48. Cf. Dalley 1993; Curtis 2005: 184–185.
49. Kuhrt 2007: 72, no. 3.21: 30–32; according to Finkel 1997, the restoration of the
illegible first place name as Nineveh can be excluded with certainty.
50. Radner 2017: 77, 85–90.
51. The term “Alexander historians,” as used here and elsewhere in this chapter, refers
to the chief authors of antiquity who wrote histories of Alexander the Great,
falling into three categories: contemporary writings lost or surviving only in frag-
ments; later writings surviving in fragments; and complete but noncontempo-
rary accounts from antiquity. See, e.g., Stoneman 2010.
52. Arr. An. 3.15.5; Curt. 4.9.9; 4.16.9.
53. Cf. Curtis 2005: 189.
54. DB ii 33.
55. Cf. Kuhrt 1995: 243–245.
61
of the queen mother Parysatis, which were a four-day march south of

Caenae.56 Xenophon also mentions a royal residence (basileion), prob-
ably near modern Zakho (in the Kurdish region of Iraq), surrounded by
villages.57 Therefore, the fertile Northern Tigris region was still impor-
tant during the Persian period because of its rich agricultural resources
and its location on the royal road.
59.5. Cyrus’s conquest of Babylonia

In 539 bc, Cyrus attacked Babylonia directly (chapters 50 and 54 in this
volume), but already in 547 bc, as the Nabonidus Chronicle reported,
a Persian army under his command had crossed the Tigris above Arbela
toward an unknown country.58 This permits the conclusion that Assyria,
and thus the northeastern edge of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, was
already under Persian influence, or even control, at this time. Generally,
the extent of actual Babylonian control over Assyria after 610 bc is largely
unclear.59 In the year before the decisive attack on Central Babylonia
(and maybe as early as 547/546 bc),60 there had been a Persian assault on
Southern Mesopotamia, if the interpretation of a badly damaged passage
of the Nabonidus Chronicle is correct,61 but there was no occupation of
Uruk and its environs.62
56. Xen. An. 2.4.27.

57. Xen. An. 3.4.24; 3.4.30–31; Curtis 2005: 192.
58. Grayson 1975: 107: Chronicle 7: ii 15–16 (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 50). The land in the
lacuna is most probably Urartu, not Lydia; cf. Rollinger 2008a: 56–63, but see
59. Kuhrt 1995: 241; Hauser 2017: 230.
60. Von Voigtlander 1963: 194–195; Zawadzki 2012: 47–48 n. 5 (on Grayson
1975: 108: Chronicle 7: ii 22).
61. Grayson 1975: 108: Chronicle 7: iii 1–4 (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 51); this now widely
accepted reading was first proposed by Von Voigtlander 1963: 194–195 (cf. Kuhrt
1988: 121).
62. Zawadzki 2012: 47–48 against the argumentation of Fried 2004: 28.
62
The sources for Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon can be categorized into

“historiographical” and “theological,” depending on their perspective.63
Their essential difference lies in their accounts of the conquest: either
the city fell as the result of a trick, although there was also a (Greek)
tradition that mentioned fighting within Babylon, or Cyrus’s entry took
place peacefully. First, the cuneiform sources and the Old Testament
(prophecies contained in the Book of Deutero-Isaiah and the Book of
Jeremiah) should be cited. Both, roughly speaking, belong to the second
category.
The Nabonidus Chronicle (figure 59.3) offers the most detailed ver-
sion: in October 539 bc, a battle took place between the Babylonian
and Persian armies at Upi (Opis in Greek), during which the Persians
inflicted a heavy defeat on the Babylonians, who subsequently retreated.
Afterward, the Persians “carried off the plunder and slaughtered the
people of Akkad.” On October 10, Sippar was taken “without a battle,”
whereupon Nabonidus fled and was captured in Babylon shortly there-
after. Only two days later, the Persian army entered Babylon “without
a battle” under the command of Gubaru (or Ugbaru), a general under
Cyrus.64 After that, the Persian forces ensured that “the gates of Esagil
were surrounded, but there were no interruptions of the rites.” It was
another seventeen days before they marched into Babylon (October
29), where Cyrus was solemnly received by “filling the harû vessel in
his presence,”65 proclaimed peace, “spoke greetings to all of Babylon,”
and appointed the victorious commander-in-chief as the new governor
of Babylon. Before leaving the city, he had the statues of the gods that
Nabonidus had escorted to Babylon returned to their ancestral temples.66
63. Cf. Vanderhooft 2006; for a critical survey of the sources, see, e.g., Kuhrt 1987;
Kratz 2002.
64. In the Cyropaedia, he is called Gobryas and becomes Cyrus’s ally and friend and
accompanies him during the Babylonian campaign (e.g., Xen. Cyr. 4.6.1–11;
7.5.24–30).
65. Text and translation follow Kessler 2002a (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 51).
66. Grayson 1975: 109–110: Chronicle 7: iii 12–20 (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 51).
63
Figure 59.3. Column iii of the so-called Nabonidus Chronicle, describing

the events of 539 bc. British Museum, BM 35382. Courtesy the Trustees of the
British Museum. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
The other cuneiform texts, the Cyrus Cylinder, the Verse Account,
and the Dynastic Prophecy, focus solely on Cyrus’s role as liberator of
the Babylonians from the hardships imposed on them by the vicious
king Nabonidus. In the Cyrus Cylinder, the king acts as the chosen one
and as Marduk’s instrument, after the god had “searched through all
countries . . . for a just ruler” to liberate his people. Therefore, Marduk
“without battle and fighting let him enter Babylon” and “handed over to
him” the impious Nabonidus. Finally, Cyrus returns the divine statues
64
to their temples.67 Nabonidus’s arguably thoughtful behavior toward the

gods, intended to prevent the destruction or abduction of their images
by invading enemies, was cast as a sacrilegious act in the pro-Persian texts
composed after his downfall.
The partially fragmentary Verse Account vilifies Nabonidus and his
actions (especially his worship of the moon god Sin and his neglect of
Marduk) and celebrates Cyrus as Babylon’s liberator and benefactor.
Finally, the Dynastic Prophecy accuses Nabonidus of being a “rebel
prince . . . of the dynasty of Harran . . . who will plot evil against Akkad,”
against whom Cyrus campaigns and who “will remove him from the
throne”—although Cyrus may also be characterized as an unjust ruler.68
In the Book of Jeremiah, Cyrus appears as Yahweh’s instrument for
overcoming the Babylonians in order to enable the Jews to return from
Babylonian exile.69 Nabonidus’s image as a mad king remained influ-
ential during the Hellenistic period. This is evidenced by the Prayer of
Nabonidus, found in Cave 4 at Qumran, which shows knowledge of the
Book of Daniel’s account of the sick king70 and other texts such as the
Verse Account.71
Among the classical authors, Herodotus’s report stands out as the
most detailed:72 Cyrus marched along the Gyndes River (Diyala)73
and crossed the Tigris at Opis, where the Babylonians confronted him
and retreated after their defeat. However, since their king Labynetus
67. Kuhrt 2007: 71, no. 3.21: 11–18; 33–34; cf. Tolini 2012: 260–268.
68. Kuhrt 2007: 80, no. 3.24: ii 11–24. The exact meaning of “he will be stronger
than the land” for Nabonidus’s and Cyrus’s rule is disputed (cf. van der Spek
2003: 319), as it could indicate oppression or, more neutrally, the successful sei-
zure of power.
69. Jer 50–51 (=Isa 41–42; 44–45; cf. Kuhrt 2007: 82–84); cf. Vanderhooft
2006: 362–368.
70. Dan 4:26–34.
71. Cf. Waerzeggers 2017.
72. Hdt. 1.188–191 (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 85–86); see Vanderhooft 2006: 354–360.
73. On his advance, Cyrus diverted the Gyndes into 360 channels: Hdt. 1.189.
65
(=Nabonidus) had piled up supplies, Cyrus was forced to lay siege to

Babylon. Cyrus finally succeeded in conquering Babylon by diverting
the Euphrates into a lake, allowing his soldiers to enter the city through
the dry riverbed. Moreover, the celebration of a festival at this time is
said to have facilitated the conquest (a typical folkloric narrative ele-
ment).74 Xenophon’s novelistic narrative focuses largely on the siege
and Cyrus’s actions, but makes reference to the killing of the Babylonian
king.75 Berossus’s account is consistent with the cuneiform tradition: fol-
lowing his defeat, Nabonidus went to Borsippa (probably a scribal error
in the manuscripts for Sippar), where he was captured, while Cyrus
was welcomed graciously and eventually banished the former king to
Carmania76—a detail, albeit without place name, corroborated by the
Dynastic Prophecy.77
All available sources attempt to explain how the Neo-Babylonian
Empire and its capital became such easy prey for the Persians. While
the majority of the cuneiform texts argue “theologically,” depicting
Cyrus as a liberator on a divine mission, the Greek tradition, beginning
with Herodotus, presented Cyrus as a skillful strategist. None of them
was, strictly speaking, historical, but depended on a particular perspec-
tive or literary genre, and any attempt to harmonize them is mislead-
ing.78 Herodotus’s narrative may reflect a Babylonian fear of invasion
via rivers or canals. Furthermore, the diversion of canals did play
a role in warfare (e.g., by flooding the enemy camp).79 Nevertheless,
such a method for conquering the city is hardly compatible with the
chronological framework of the Nabonidus Chronicle. Herodotus
also needed to offer his readers an explanation for how a city, whose
74. Hdt. 1.191; Xen. Cyr. 7.5.15; cf. Jer 51:39.

75. Xen. Cyr. 7.5.1–36; 7.5.33.
76. FGrH 680 F9a: 150–153.
77. Kuhrt 2007: 80, no. 3.24: ii 20–21.
78. Cf. Kratz 2002: 145; Vanderhooft 2006: 361.
79. Cf. Vanderhooft 2006: 357–360.
6
massive fortifications he had described, could fall without a prolonged

siege.80 The Nabonidus Chronicle addressed both aspects: describ-
ing Nabonidus’s impious actions on the one hand, but on the other
hand not concealing Cyrus’s military operations. It remains somewhat
unclear how and why the Babylonian cities changed sides. The state-
ment that Esagil had been surrounded by the “shield(-bearing troops)
of the Gutians” on the orders of the Persian general suggests that he
expected looting or was reacting to previous unrest.81 The designa-
tion of the soldiers as “Gutians” is interesting because in the literature
they were the “archetypical sackers of cities.”82 The remarkably long
time between the opening of the gates of Babylon and the ceremo-
nial entry of the victorious king could be a sign that not everything
went off smoothly and peacefully. The time gap could also have been
due to negotiations between Babylonian generals and Cyrus,83 which,
however, did not find their way into the tradition. It cannot be com-
pletely ruled out that dissatisfaction with Nabonidus’s rule favored the
Persian campaign, and any possible resistance to it quickly collapsed as
a result. The relatively smooth transition from Nabonidus to Cyrus is
confirmed by the dating formulas in the cuneiform documents, which
show no overlap between rulers.84
Since the date of Cyrus’s entry into Babylon made the traditional
investiture as “King of Babylon” during the New Year festival (Akkadian
akītu) impossible, the filling of the harû vessel served as a coronation
ceremony. As the “King of Babylon,” Cyrus promised to submit to and
80. Cf. the second capture of Babylon by Darius: Hdt. 3.150–159.

81. Cf. Oppenheim 1985: 542–543; Dalley 1996: 528 suspects that the Babylonians
may well have interpreted Gubaru’s premature death eight days after Cyrus’s
entry as divine punishment for misconduct toward Babylon. Fried 2004: 29
takes “surrounded” literally and speaks of a siege lasting fourteen days, which
ended with the surrender of the priesthood.
82. Dalley 1996: 528.
83. Tolini 2005: 10.
84. Cf. Petschow 1987.
67
preserve the traditional order.85 Interestingly, Berossus provides infor-

mation inconsistent with the concept of an ideal king, as Cyrus had
Babylon’s outer city wall razed to weaken its defenses.86 At the beginning
of the following year (March 27, 538 bc), Cyrus’s son Cambyses received
the “scepter of the land” in the temple of Nabû, while Cyrus, dressed
“in Elamite attire,” “picked up spears and quivers,” then, accompanied by
his son, went to Esagil and offered a libation. Because of its fragmentary
character, this passage from the Nabonidus Chronicle was previously
misinterpreted as a description of Cambyses’s sacrilegious behavior in
performing this ritual.87 It now appears that Cambyses became “King
of Babylon” by handing over the scepter, thus establishing a kind of
co-regency of father and son in Babylonia. Some northern Babylonian
cuneiform tablets from Cyrus’s first year (538/537 bc) refer to Cyrus as
“King of the Lands” and to Cambyses as “King of Babylon,” indicating a
dual kingship in the region of Babylon.88 This formal joint rule, which,
for unknown reasons was soon abandoned, seems to have been no more
than a provisional arrangement to secure the transition of power to the
Persians. However, Cambyses remained in Babylonia, as cuneiform texts
attest the presence of several royal officials, such as a steward, a scribe-
interpreter, and the crown prince’s estate managers. When Cyrus under-
took a campaign against the Massagetae, he officially appointed his son
as co-regent.89 This arrangement is confirmed by cuneiform records from
the end of 530 bc, in which both are dubbed “King of Babylon, King of
the Lands.” When Cyrus died a few months later, his son succeeded him
on the throne.
85. Cf. Kuhrt 1987: 48; Tolini 2012: 268–270.

86. FGrH 680 F9a: 153; Hdt. 3.159.1 attributes the razing of the wall and gates to
Darius I.
87. Grayson 1975: 111: Chronicle 7: iii 24–28 (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 51); George 1996: 379–
380 furthered the passage’s reading and understanding.
88. Cf. Peat 1989; Zawadzki 1996.
89. Hdt. 1.208.
68
59.6. Continuity and change in Assyria and

Babylonia after Cyrus’s conquest
The Cyrus Cylinder embedded the new king within ancient
Mesopotamian tradition, bestowing upon him the venerable titles “King
of the Totality, Great King, Mighty King, King of Babylon, King of
Sumer and Akkad, King of Four Quarters” and evoking “the eternal seed
of kingship,” a formula that dates back to the First Dynasty of Babylon
(chapter 14 in volume 2). In form and content, the Cyrus Cylinder fol-
lowed Babylonian models, but there are also references to Assyria when
Cyrus returned a statue of a deity to Assur and, more importantly,
boasted of having discovered a foundation document of the Assyrian
king Ashurbanipal (668–631 bc).90 The search for royal foundation
documents (Akkadian temmēnu) when renovating temples was a kind
of standard formula in such texts. Nabonidus, who was very interested in
the past, carried this search to extremes, which has earned him a modern
reputation as an “archaeologist on the throne.”91
Cyrus’s deliberate decision to associate himself with the Assyrians
may well express a personal touch, for the scholar who wrote the text
on behalf of the new king would surely have chosen to have him dis-
cover a Babylonian royal inscription. The choice is odd, as the Assyrians
represented foreign rule, even oppression, since the Assyrian king
Sennacherib (704–681 bc) had sacked Babylon in 689 bc and proudly
claimed to have razed the city to the ground. However, Nabonidus’s
inscriptions already contained Assyrianisms92 and references to
Assyrian kings. The preference for Assyrian over Babylonian kings
may have contributed to their neglect in the Greek historical records,
as is vividly shown by Herodotus and Ctesias, in whose works Assyria
was equated with Babylonia.93 This is all the more surprising since the
90. Cf. Schaudig 2019.

91. Schaudig 2003.
92. Schaudig 2001: 307–309.
93. Madreiter 2013b.
69
Neo-Babylonian kings, especially Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 bc),

had beautified Babylon with numerous buildings, as the local historian
Berossus pointed out;94 but Berossus’s effort to correct the Greek tradi-
tion in this respect was in vain.
Although Cyrus had been “King of Anšan” since 559 bc, he began
counting his regnal years anew upon his entry into Babylon, adopting the
Babylonian dating system that reckoned the time from enthronement to
the year’s end as an accession year. Until 536 bc, his titles in the cunei-
form texts vary: “King of Babylon” or “King of the Lands” or, in a com-
bination of both, “King of Babylon and the Lands” or “King of Babylon,
King of the Lands.” From 536 bc until Xerxes’s first regnal years, “King
of Babylon, King of the Lands” became the official title. However, Cyrus
neglected the duties of a good ruler: Except for the Cyrus Cylinder, only
a few inscriptions from Uruk and Ur testify to construction work on
temples.95
The year 535 bc marked a turning point in Babylonia’s administra-
tion, for the “governor of the country [i.e., Babylonia]” (Akkadian šakin
māti), Nabû-ahhe-bullit, who had previously held this office under
Nabonidus, is attested for the last time.96 Thereafter a new administra-
tive unit was created, which received the designation “Babylonia and
Across-the-River” (pīhāt Bābīli u Ebir-nāri) and comprised Babylonia,
Assyria, Northern Mesopotamia, and the lands west of the Euphrates
(“Across-the-River”; see c hapter 60 in this volume), i.e., the entire former
Neo-Babylonian Empire.97 At the local level, the Persians retained the
administrative structures and offices in the districts, cities, and temples.
The functionaries and the entrepreneurs who acted on royal order, e.g., in
the agricultural sector, largely remained in office. Only the tenant farm-
ers of Uruk and Sippar, who had been appointed by Nabonidus, fell out
of favor, although the system was eventually revived under Cambyses.
94. FGrH 680 F8a: 139–142 (criticizing the Greek historians).

95. Schaudig 2001: 548–549; Kuhrt 2007: 74–75, no. 3.22 i–ii.
96. Dandamayev 2006: 374–375.
97. Katzenstein 1989: 67; Dandamayev 2006: 376–377.
670
The fact that there were no major changes at the local level contributed
significantly to the smooth transition of power.
59.7. Darius’s rule over Babylonia

In July 522 bc, Cambyses died in Syria under dubious circumstances
and Bardiya ascended the Persian throne. However, Darius (one of
Cambyses’s spear-bearers and a distant relative of Cyrus the Great)98
claimed that Cambyses had secretly murdered his brother Bardiya
and an imposter named Gaumata had staged a rebellion in the guise
of Cambyses’s brother.99 After Darius killed Bardiya with the aid of
six co-conspirators, he became ruler of the empire (September 29).100
Darius’s coup d’état plunged the realm into severe turmoil, as nearly
every territory sought independence (chapter 55 in this volume). In
Babylonia, one Nidintu-Bel declared himself “King of Babylon” under
the name “Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus,” recalling the heyday of
the late Neo-Babylonian Empire. Modern scholarship refers to him as
Nebuchadnezzar III (figure 59.4: A).
The short interval between Bardiya’s death and Nebuchadnezzar’s
first appearance (October 3) might even suggest that the insurrec-
tion was planned well in advance to topple Bardiya. Two months later,
Darius personally led his army against Nebuchadnezzar. On December
13, he defeated the insurgents near the banks of the Tigris and again five
days later, in a second battle at Zazannu near Sippar. Shortly thereafter,
Darius captured the fugitive Nebuchadnezzar and impaled him and his
followers in Babylon.101 The documentary evidence from Babylonia sup-
ports this chronology: The usurper’s last text was issued on December
16, and Darius was first recorded six days later. Over the following few
months, Darius remained in Babylon, while his generals defeated several
98. Hdt. 3.139.2.

99. DB i 10–15; Hdt. 3.30; 3.60–79 (cf. Kuhrt 2007: 158–170).
100. DB i 13.
101. DB i–ii 16, 18–20.
671
Figure 59.4. The Babylonian rebel kings Nebuchadnezzar III (Nidintu-Bel =A) and IV (Arakha =B), as depicted on the relief
accompanying Darius I’s trilingual inscription at Bisotun. Photograph of the Bisotun monument by Hara1603, via Wikimedia
Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1090932); detail photographs by Leen van Dorp (Livius.org),
via Wikimedia Commons (A = https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75788011 and B = https://commons.wikime
dia.org/w/index.php?curid=75789176), all provided by Creative Commons Universal Public Domain Dedication (CC0 1.0).
Composite by Karen Radner.
672
insurgents to retrieve Persian control. Yet, when Darius left to quell a

rebellion in Media, Arakha, a man of Armenian descent, adopted the
name “Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus” (known in modern scholar-
ship as Nebuchadnezzar IV; figure 59.4: B). His title “King of Babylon,
King of the Lands” might indicate an ambition to exceed his namesake.
Due to the similarity in their names, the Babylonians simply conflated
the regnal years of the two Nebuchadnezzars.102 The first document
attesting Nebuchadnezzar IV dates from May 17, 521 bc (issued at
Sippar).103 Nevertheless, Darius’s rule was recognized only four months
later (September 8) in the same city. Although Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat
by the Persian general Intaphrenes did not occur until November 27,
he had already lost control of parts of Babylonia several weeks ear-
lier (last mentioned in a document from Sippar on November 3). On
November 18, the statue of Ištar, which the usurper king had brought
to Babylon, as Nabonidus had done two decades earlier, returned to
Uruk. This means that by this time Darius had re-established firm con-
trol over most of Babylonia, although the first record issued in his name
dates from December 6.104 Later, Nebuchadnezzar IV was captured and
impaled, along with 2,500 of his followers.105 These events are echoed in
Herodotus’s highly embellished account of Darius’s second conquest of
Babylon, which the Persian Zopyrus achieved by trickery after a twenty-
month siege.106
While there was no sign of unrest in the Assyrian heartland, a cer-
tain Tritantaechmes (Cissantakhma), purportedly from the family of the
Median king Cyaxares, claimed kingship in Sagartia, but was defeated,
mutilated, and later impaled at Arbela.107 The location of his execu-
tion suggests that Sagartia refers to the area around Arbela. However,
102. For a survey of the available sources, see Lorenz 2008.

103. Zawadzki 1995.
104. Beaulieu 2014.
105. Cf. Hdt. 3.159.1.
106. Hdt. 3.150–159.
107. DB ii 33.
673
his pretended ancestry and the rebellion’s position in Darius’s Bisotun

inscription makes the vicinity of Media more likely.108
Darius ensured that his suppression of these “liar kings” and his suc-
cessful restoration of imperial unity was widely advertised throughout
the empire. As Darius maintained the unbroken title of “King of Babylon,
King of the Lands,” it seems that these uprisings had little impact on the
Babylonian state. The “end of the archives” at Uruk, beginning in the year
520 bc, is best explained as the result of administrative restructuring. The
Eanna temple, whose archive also broke off at that time, functioned until
early in the reign of Xerxes. But already under Cyrus, new administra-
tive offices emerged, whose Persian designations underline the increas-
ing influence of the new lords: ganzabāra (treasurer), umarzanapāta or
uppadētu (city administrator), and databāra (judge). The primary task
of these new positions seems to have been to enforce the “king’s law”
(data ša šarri). It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the officeholders all
bore Persian names. Herodotus’s statement that Darius reorganized the
tax system and introduced regular payments109 is not confirmed by the
cuneiform tradition, although new forms of payment, such as in kind, in
silver, or by labor, were introduced.110
59.8. Babylonia in turmoil under Xerxes

When Darius I died in 486 bc, he was succeeded by his son Xerxes, who
had resided in Babylon as heir to the throne.111 During his first regnal
year, Xerxes changed the titles he bore and considerably expanded them,
calling himself “King of Babylon, of the Lands, the Persians, and Media.”
Under his reign, Babylonian documents attest two attempted rebellions
by Bel-šimanni and Šamaš-eriba, who, unlike the kings of 522/521 bc,
108. DB ii 24–34; cf. Rollinger 2008b.

109. Hdt. 3.89–97.
110. Jursa 2011.
111. For Xerxes and Babylonia, see the contributions in Waerzeggers and Seire
(eds.) 2018. See also chapter 55 in this volume.
674
retained their individual names. Their exact chronology was the sub-
ject of controversy for a long time, since neither king reigned beyond
their accession year ( July–October, four documents in the name of Bel-
šimanni, thirteen for Šamaš-eriba), with a partial overlap in the months.
Therefore, the conclusion was drawn that the insurrections must have
occurred in two different years (e.g., 484/482 bc),112 which seemed to
be confirmed by the classical sources. According to Ctesias, Xerxes had
to put down an uprising in Babylon before he left for his Greek cam-
paign,113 while Arrian puts this after his return.114 Hence, the rebellions
should be dated to the years 481/479 bc.
However, recent research now suggests that both men initially ruled
simultaneously before Šamaš-eriba apparently eliminated his rival and
extended his rule to the south. However, by October 484, Xerxes seemed
to have regained control over Babylonia. This chronological scheme
is deducible from the so-called end of the archives in Xerxes’s second
regnal year, when a total of twenty-five archives, both institutional and
private, in the Northern Babylonian cities of Babylon, Borsippa, and
Sippar suddenly break off.115 The fact that it was mainly this region and
the families associated with the temples that were affected suggests that
the “network of resistance” had its most influential supporters there.116
Only a few archives have survived this date,117 e.g., that of the Borsippa-
based Tattannu family,118 and many of the important later archives, such
as that of the Nippur-based Murašu family or of the Babylonian satrap
Belšunu (Xenophon’s Belesys),119 deal with agriculture and show a close
112. de Liagre Böhl 1962.

113. FGrH 688 F13: 26; F13b.
114. Arr. An. 7.17.2.
115. Waerzeggers 2003/04.
117. Waerzeggers 2018: 129.
118. Jursa 2005: 94–97.
119. Xen. An. 1.4.10; 7.8.25; Jursa 2005: 61.
675
connection with the Achaemenid administration. In Uruk, too, the

Eanna temple lost its preeminence around this time.120 Furthermore, the
increase in personal names with the celestial god Anu as a theophoric
element shows a clear break in the connection between Uruk and the
cities of Northern Babylonia, whose gods had dominated before.121 On
the administrative level, the huge satrapal entity “Babylon and Beyond
the River,” whose last satrap was attested in 486 bc,122 was split into
“Babylonia” (Babiruš), which probably comprised “Assyria” (Athurā),
and “Syria” (Ebir-nāri, literally “Across-the-River”; see chapter 60 in
this volume).123 It seems highly attractive to draw a connection between
these two phenomena.
It must be emphasized that there is no evidence for military action
against the usurpers, nor are there archaeological traces of the destruc-
tion of any temples or residential areas in Babylon.124 An inscription
of Xerxes enumerating the territories under Persian rule speaks of a
rebellion in an unnamed country and the elimination of the worship of
“false gods” (daiva),125 but this is too vague to refer to Babylonia. Greek
authors, on the other hand, charged Xerxes with sacrilegious acts or the
destruction of temples. According to Herodotus, Xerxes had a statue
(andrias) removed from the temple of Belus, which his father Darius is
said to have contemplated doing earlier, and killed a priest who offered
resistance.126 Regardless of whether andrias means the statue of a god
or a man,127 neither Herodotus nor Ctesias speak of the destruction of
120. Cf. Kessler 2018.

121. Kessler 2004.
122. Stolper 1989.
123. Cf. Kessler 2008: 40–41; for a list of satraps, see Klinkott 2005: 505–508, 516.
124. Heinsch et al. 2011.
125. XPh 13–39; see Kuhrt 2007: 304–306, no. 7.88.
126. Hdt. 1.183.3.
127. Under Xerxes, the worship of a statue of Darius is attested in Ebabbar; see
Waerzeggers 2014.
67
the Esagil temple.128 In Ctesias’s version, the Babylonians murdered the

satrap Zopyrus, but his son Megabyzus managed to recapture the city.
Before that, however, Ctesias narrates that Xerxes visited the tomb of
Belitanas, but could not fill his glass sarcophagus with oil.129 Arrian and
other authors, however, reported that Alexander the Great gave orders
to rebuild the temples destroyed by Xerxes.130 A note about the Persian
destruction of the wall of the “City of the Hipparenes” lacks any chron-
ological reference.131 It is striking that only the Alexander historians
explicitly associated Xerxes with the destruction of Babylonian temples,
which stands in obvious contrast with their portrayal of Alexander. Their
image of Xerxes as a sacrilegious despot was based on Herodotus, whose
portrait of the Persian king, however, has been significantly revised by
scholarly opinion since the 1980s.132
It is also possible that it was the Babylonians themselves who pre-
tended that Xerxes had destroyed their temples in order to convince
Alexander to restore the temple district, which had been decayed by the
ravages of time.
59.9. Babylonia from Artaxerxes

I to Alexander’s conquest (465–331 bc)
The Babylonian documents indicate a smooth transition of power from
Artaxerxes I to Darius II (end of 424 bc), but Ctesias names the late
king’s legitimate son, Xerxes (II), as his successor. Xerxes (II) was assas-
sinated forty-five days later by his brother Sekyndianos/Sogdianus, who
in turn was murdered by Darius, whom the Greeks nicknamed “Bastard”
128. Cf. Henkelman et al. 2011.

129. FGrH 688 F13: 26 (cf. Hdt. 3.151–159); F13b; for the Mesopotamian back-
ground of the Belitanas story, see Henkelman 2013.
130. Arr. An. 3.16.4; 7.17.2; Diod. Sic. 17.112.3; Str. 16.1.5.
131. Plin. HN 6.30.123; the Hippareni are probably the inhabitants of Sippar or, less
likely, Nippur.
132. Cf. Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1987; Kuhrt 2014.
67
(nothos).133 Around this time, the Murašu archive shows a drastic rise
in mortgages, which points to the disturbances that followed these
struggles134 as the Babylonian domains of Menostanes, who according
to Ctesias had supported Sekyndianos, passed to Artoxares, who had
helped Darius to the throne.135 The phrase “when the gate is opened” in
a text dated to 407 bc from Uruk may indicate the end of a siege in that
city. However, the context of this text remains unclear.136
When Darius II died in Babylon at the turn of the year 405/404
bc, his firstborn son Artaxerxes II succeeded him. However, Artaxerxes
II’s younger brother Cyrus, who was born during their father’s reign,
laid claim to the throne with the support of his mother Parysatis, and
a fratricidal war soon broke out. While Cyrus assembled troops in Asia
Minor in the spring of 401 bc, reinforced by 14,000 Greek mercenar-
ies, Artaxerxes amassed his army in Babylonia. In September, Artaxerxes
defeated his brother at Cunaxa north of Babylon;137 although the
Greeks on the right wing were victorious, Cyrus was fatally wounded.138
Artaxerxes, who also sustained some slight injuries, retreated to Babylon,
leaving the further proceedings to his trusted general Tissaphernes,139
who arranged a treaty with the Greeks. The Greek commanders then
decided to continue onward to the Tigris at Opis, where they crossed
the river using a pontoon bridge.140 From there they advanced north-
ward along the Tigris. In order to supply the Greeks and prevent pil-
laging in the regions they crossed, Tissaphernes opened the markets to
133. FGrH 688 F47–50; see Zawadzki 1995/96.

134. Stolper 1985: 91–92, 114–124.
135. FGrH 688 F49–50.
136. Kuhrt 2007: 345, no. 8.36.
137. The toponym is only recorded in Plut. Vit. Artax. 8.2 and the place may cor-
respond to modern Tell Kuneise.
138. Xen. An. 1.7–10 (differing versions in Diod. Sic. 14.22.5–24.6 and Plut. Vit.
Artax. 9–11, probably obtained from Ctesias); cf. Rop 2019: 30–63.
139. Diod. Sic. 14.26.4.
140. Xen. An. 2.4.24.
678
them (except in the villages of Parysatis, who was to be punished for her
support of Cyrus). North of Assur, Tissaphernes managed to lure the
Greek commander-in-chief Clearchus and other generals into his camp
under the pretext of negotiations.141 Instead, he took them prisoner and
delivered them to the Great King, who had them executed at Babylon.142
But instead of surrendering, the “Ten Thousand,” now led by the Spartan
Cheirisophus and the Athenian Xenophon, marched further upstream
along the Tigris to Armenia (finally returning home along the Black Sea
coast).
In the next decades, the sources allow only glimpses of Babylonia.
Garbled pieces from the Astronomical Diaries mention fighting in
Mesopotamia in 367 bc,143 and four years later there was unrest around
Sippar.144 For October 345 bc, an extract from a chronicle notes the
arrival of prisoners of war from Sidon in Babylon, and some of the women
prisoners were brought to the palace.145 In the broken Babylonian King
List, an unknown king “whose other name is Nidintu-Bel” preceded
Darius III. This hardly constitutes evidence that a period of uncertainty
followed Artaxerxes IV’s death (336 bc); it is more likely that a scribe
erroneously associated the name of the rebel king under Darius I with
the wrong Darius.146
In 334 bc, Alexander of Macedon attacked the Persian Empire.
Following his victory over Darius III at Issus (333 bc) and the subjuga-
tion of Egypt, he returned to Syria. At Thapsacus, Alexander crossed
the Euphrates over two bridges that the satrap of Syria, Mazaeus, had
141. Cf. Xen. An. 2.5.

142. FGrH 688 F27: 69.
143. Kuhrt 2007: 400–401, no. 9.68; van der Spek 1998: 254–255 connects this
to the so-called Great Satraps’ Revolt against Artaxerxes II, when the satrap
of Cappadocia, Datames, crossed the Euphrates to invade Mesopotamia
(Polyaenus Strat. 7.21.3).
144. Sachs and van der Spek 2006.
145. Grayson 1975: 114: Chronicle 9; see Kuhrt 2007: 412–413.
146. Kuhrt 2007: 425–426, no. 10.4 ii; cf. Stolper 1994: 240.
679
left unguarded147 and then forded, again unimpeded, the Tigris near
Nineveh.148 Darius mustered his army in Babylonia149 before advancing
toward his adversary, who, however, inflicted a decisive defeat on him at
Gaugamela (October 1, 330 bc). The Great King fled hastily via Arbela
to the Iranian Plateau,150 so Babylonia fell to the victor as a prize of war.
Complementing the Alexander historians, an Astronomical Diary, bro-
ken into two parts which do not join, recorded the battle and Alexander’s
letters to the Babylonians (figure 59.5).151
59.10. Epilogue: Alexander and Babylonia

Alexander, like Cyrus two hundred years earlier,152 was ceremonially wel-
comed in Babylon and sacrificed in the temple of Belus,153 making him
“King of Babylon.” He installed Mazaeus as Babylonian satrap (figure
59.6) and, after a stay of just over a month, moved on to Susa.
Alexander did not return to Babylon until eight years later, dying
there on June 10, 323 bc, before the start of the Arabian campaign.154
Despite his promise, the temples of Babylon had not been rebuilt upon
his return, which meant that Alexander, like Cyrus before him, had not
sufficiently fulfilled the duties of a “good king.” Two passages concern-
ing Babylon, however, contradict this impression: Strabo reported that
Alexander wanted to rebuild the pyramid (by which he must have meant
Etemenanki), for which the soldiers had already cleared the foundation,
and Diodorus described the funeral pyre of Alexander’s beloved friend
147. Arr. An. 3.7.1.

148. Diod. Sic. 17.55.1–3.
149. Curt. 4.9.2.
150. For Alexander’s route, see Marciak et al. 2020.
151. van der Spek 2003: 297–300 (text 2).
152. Cf. Tolini 2012: 277–289.
153. Arr. An. 3.16.3–5; Curt. 5.1.17–23.
154. For Babylonia during Alexander’s reign, see Heller 2010: 355–442.
680
Figure 59.5. Astronomical Diary for the year 331/ 330 bc, mentioning
Alexander the Great’s entry into Babylon in 331 bc. British Museum, BM 36761.
Courtesy the Trustees of the British Museum. Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
Hephaestion, who had died at the beginning of 323 bc, as a pyramid.155

In this context, it is worth mentioning a recent thesis that Etemenanki
had never been rebuilt after its destruction by Sennacherib of Assyria.156
If Alexander planned to rebuild the temple tower, this would be evidence
that he wanted to make Babylon the capital of his empire. However, his
155. Str. 16.1.5; Diod. Sic. 17.115.1–5.

156. Allinger-Csollich 2011.
681
Figure 59.6. Tetradrachm of Mazaeus, Alexander’s satrap of Babylonia,

minted at Babylon. The obverse depicts the god Bel (Marduk) enthroned, hold-
ing a scepter and facing left, while the reverse shows a lion walking towards
the left. Photograph by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (http://www.cngco
ins.com), via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?curid=76631676), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
(CC BY-SA 3.0) license.
sudden death prevented the realization of his plans. Thus, Babylon was
freed from Persian rule, but never recovered its former greatness. Those
times were irretrievably over upon Alexander’s death.
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60

Persian Empire
Ebir-n ari/S yria
Peter R. Bedford
60.1. Introduction
The Akkadian designation Ebir-nāri (corresponding to Aramaic ‘abar
naharā’ or ‘abar naharāh and Hebrew ‘ēber hannāhār) means “Across-
the-River,” and this is the name used in the time of the Persian Empire
for the territory west of the Euphrates, including the Levantine coast
(figure 60.1a, b). Descriptions of this coast and its settlements in the
Persian period are offered by Herodotus (ca. 425 bc) and Pseudo-
Scylax (mid- fourth century).1 Herodotus’s account of the “fifth
satrapy” is commonly held to refer to Ebir-nari.2 Herodotus defines
the “fifth satrapy” as bounded by Cilicia in the north and Egypt in
1. On Herodotus, see Rainey 2001; on Pseudo-Scylax, see Lipiński 2004: 267–335.

Elayi 1982 offers a still useful overview of the archaeology of the coast; see also
Jigoulov 2010: 179–201.
2. Hdt. 3.91, using the term nomos, “tributary district”; although in Hdt. 3.89, the
terms satrapēiē, “satrapy,” and ’archē, “government,” are used.
Peter R. Bedford, The Satrapies of the Persian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East.
690
Figure 60.1a. Sites in the northern Levant mentioned in chapter 60. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri (LMU Munich).
691
The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Ebir-nari/Syria 691
Figure 60.1b. Sites in the southern Levant mentioned in chapter 60.

Prepared by Andrea Squitieri (LMU Munich).
the south. His brief description focuses on the coast, saying nothing
of the region’s eastward extension, and he expressly excludes “Arabian
territory” and includes Cyprus. Herodotus identifies regions within
this domain, such as Syria, Phoenicia, and also Palestine, as a section
692
of Syria. These are geographical terms, not administrative ones, and

internal divisions marking various provincial districts or sub-
provinces within Ebir-nari are difficult to determine from the avail-
able sources, as are their number and names. Where it is possible to
identify them, in the southern Levant, they largely conform to those
established under the earlier Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires
which, even allowing for the redrawing of borders under the Persian
imperial administration, reflects strong continuity across successive
imperial regimes.
The geographical term “Across-the-River” was introduced in the
Neo-Assyrian period and had currency into the Neo-Babylonian and
Persian periods. Initially a geographical designation under the Assyrians
and Babylonians, in the Persian period the region began as part of a larger
political unit “Babylon and Across-the-River” which divided—exactly
when is debated (section 60.3)—into two satrapies: Babylon and Across-
the-River. Taken together, Babylon and Across-the-River constituted the
former Neo-Babylonian Empire that was taken over by the Persians after
Babylon’s conquest by Cyrus II (559–530 bc) in 539 bc.
By this time the small independent kingdoms that had character-
ized the political organization of the Levant in the first half of the
first millennium bc no longer existed, the Neo-Babylonian Empire
(chapter 50 in this volume) having completed a process of provincial-
ization begun under the Assyrian Empire (chapters 38–40 in volume
4). The Neo-Babylonian Empire was less interested in resettling peo-
ples in territories that had undergone deportation and was willing to
make use of local elites in leadership positions in the process of pro-
vincialization, in comparison to the earlier Assyrian Empire’s direct
rule of provinces under non-indigenous Assyrian governors and the
resettlement of depopulated territories with peoples from elsewhere
in the empire. Under Persian administration, the use of local elites in
governing at the sub-provincial level was generally retained in con-
texts of semi-autonomous rule (Phoenician city-states and Arab ter-
ritories; see chapter 47 in volume 4 and c hapter 52 in this volume)
and direct rule (sub-provinces of Judah and Samaria; see c hapter 48
in volume 4).
693
60.2. The region of Ebir-nari

The geographical location of Across- the-
River linked Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, and Egypt, and its ports connected it to the wider
Mediterranean world. The region was thus important to the Persian
Empire strategically and economically. Phoenician cities played a con-
tinuing crucial role, with their ships serving as the empire’s navy and
operating a lucrative sea-borne trade.3 The incorporation of Cyprus into
the empire strengthened its maritime orientation and gave it a firmer
footing in the eastern Mediterranean in its ongoing confrontation with
the Greeks. The southern Levant’s proximity to Egypt, control over
which proved difficult for the Persians to maintain, made it alternately a
staging ground for invasion or a bulwark against spreading unrest. Most
of the population of Across-the-River, and therefore its economic activ-
ity, was concentrated on the coast. The route of the royal road traveled
down the coast (via maris, “Way of the Sea”). Coastal areas experienced
reinvigoration of settlements, investment in infrastructure, and popula-
tion growth. This made for a striking contrast with the inland areas of the
Levant during the Persian period.
The interior regions generally evidence lower levels of urbanism,
population, and economic activity in comparison with the coast. In the
northern Levant this trend arguably started well before Persian rule,
when the Aramean kingdoms in Syria lost their political autonomy
under the Assyrians. Many Persian period coastal and inland sites in the
northern Levant display continuity of settlement or re-establishment
after destruction.4 The inland sites (for example, Tell el-Hajj, Neirab,
Tell Deinit, Tell Mardikh, Tell Tuqan, Tell Afis, Tell Qarqur, Hama),
are modest agricultural villages that saw a qualified level of economic
renewal. A new feature in some inland villages was a large building with
a central courtyard, which is interpreted to indicate a limited central-
ized administrative function, arguably a multipurpose military, agricul-
tural, and commercial function, for village communities in rural areas,
3. On Aegean-Levantine commodity exchange, see van Alfen 2015.

4. Mazzoni 1991–1992 (with map on p. 60).
694
for example, Tell Mardikh or Tell Tuqan.5 Few could be characterized

on the basis of archaeological finds as “fortresses.” Similar buildings are
attested elsewhere in the province, commonly in rural settings. We will
discuss examples in the southern Levant below (section 60.4).
This model of a central fortified or administrative building as part of
a settlement presiding over agricultural lands is seen also in the Persian
“paradise” (paradeisos). There were such dedicated estates belonging to—
and named after—Persian nobles in inland northern Syria, for example,
of Pharnake in the Ghab plain of the Orontes valley (known as Apameia
after the conquest of Alexander the Great), of the queen Parysatis (the
mother of Cyrus the Younger) at the Chalos river (modern Queik river),
and of the satrap Belšunu (Greek Belesys) at the springs of the Dardas
river (modern Nahr ed-Dahab).6 A “paradise” was also outside Sidon
(a park that had perhaps been established already by the Assyrians in
the seventh century bc).7 Further to the east, agriculture gave way to
pastoralism, and beyond the Euphrates in the areas of the Balikh and
Khabur rivers and the Syrian Jezirah (territory belonging to “Babylon”
rather than “Across-the-River”), former agricultural lands were sparsely
inhabited.8
Northern inland villages were economically integrated with the
coast, but the coastal sites were dominant. Wares manufactured at
coastal sites, Mediterranean pottery, including Athenian fine wares, and
other goods passed through coastal ports to inland settlements, while
local pottery workshops in inland Syria were unable to compete in inter-
regional trade.9 Many northern coastal settlements were also modest in
size (for example, Ras al-Bassit, Tell Daruk, Ras Shamra, Minat al-Baida,
5. Mazzoni 1984: 87–99; Baffi 2013; 2014. On the purpose of the buildings, see
Mazzoni 1991–1992: 64–67 and Rossi 2006: 572.
6. Mazzoni 1991–1992: 64–67; Rossi 2006: 570–571. On Persian “paradises,” see
Tuplin 1996: 80–131.
7. Elayi 1990: 141; 2009: 128–129.
8. Lyonnet 2005.
9. Lehmann 1998: 23–27, 30, 32; 2005: 24.
695
Ras ibn Hani, Gabala, Tell Sukas, Baniyas, Amrit, Tell Kazel), exploit-
ing the fertile coastal plains for agriculture.10 Many were ports, or associ-
ated with ports, which were trading the agricultural surplus of the plains
(grain, wine, oil, as well as timber and other products) by sea or along the
north-south coastal road. Economic interactions with the inland were
less robust than these other trading connections. There were also larger
towns, such as al-Mina on the mouth of the Orontes, the main port for
goods entering northern Syria and also being traded on to Mesopotamia;
it was a town with a likely mixed population of Greeks, Phoenicians,
and local Syrians.11 Myriandos, further north on the gulf of Iskenderun,
served a similar role as an emporium for goods traded through Cilicia.12
Arwad became the leading urban center on the north coast, controlling
the whole northern region up to al-Mina, if the distribution of coins
from Arwad reflects not only commercial connections but also its politi-
cal reach.13
On the central coast there were a number of notable Phoenician
settlements: Tripoli (in Lebanon), Byblos, Berytus (Beirut), Sidon,
Sarepta, and Tyre. Since the main Phoenician cities—Arwad, Byblos,
Sidon, and Tyre—did not form a unified polity (see chapter 47 in vol-
ume 4), they operated independently in regional trade and at some level
vied with each other over trade, territorial influence, and favored status
with the Achaemenid Persian court.14 Tensions should not be overstated
since, according to Diodorus, residents from Arwad, Sidon, and Tyre
coexisted in Tripoli in different neighborhoods,15 and Stern suggests
10. Lund 1990 offers an overview of evidence from some twenty sites.
11. Lehmann 2005: 26. On the problems in identifying Greek residents in Phoenician
sites, including determining whether they were merchants, mercenaries, or arti-
sans, see Elayi 1992.
12. Herodotus probably considered Myriandos to lie north of Across-the-River,
while Xenophon placed it “in Syria” on the border with Cilicia (Xen. An. 1.4.5).
13. Lund 1990: 29–30; Elayi 2000.
14. On Arwad in the Persian period, see Elayi and Elayi 2015: 127–160; on Byblos,
see Elayi 2009: 51–183; and on Sidon, see Elayi 1990.
15. Diod. Sic. 26.41.
69
that something similar may have been obtained in areas elsewhere on

the southern coast that fell under Sidonian or Tyrian control.16 Tyre had
been besieged twice by the Babylonians (ca. 585–573 and 564–563 bc)
and briefly had its kingship abolished.17 It had lost Carthage and west-
ern Mediterranean settlements to Carthage’s independence, and after
submitting to Cambyses II (529–522 bc), it lost Persian support when
it refused to participate in his planned expedition against Carthage.18
In the Persian period, its leading position in the Levant was supplanted
by Sidon, until the Tennes rebellion (348–345 bc) reversed Sidon’s
fortunes.
Areas of the southern coast of the Levant, as well as some inland
regions, fell under Tyrian or Sidonian control.19 Tyre likely controlled
the coastal area south to Tel Shiqmona, which may have also included
Tel Achziv, Nahariya, Akko, Tell Abu Hawam, as well as sites such as Tel
Kabri, Beit Ha-‘Emeq, Tell Keisan, and Gil‘am situated on the coastal
plain.20 Further south, Sidon under King Ešmun-azor II (figure 60.2)
was endowed, probably posthumously by Darius I (521–486 bc), with
additional territory from Dor to Jaffa along with the cultivated lands of
the Sharon Plain, which may have included many other settlements in
a densely populated area (including Tel Mevorakh, Tel Mikhmoret, Tel
Michal, and Tel Qasile).21 South of Jaffa, in the area known as Philistia,
evidence suggests that Tyre was involved in the re-establishment of
coastal settlements such as Ashkelon in the late sixth century and Sidon
16. Stern 2001: 387. On Tripoli, see Elayi 1982: 91–92; Lipiński 2004: 284–287.
17. Elayi 2018: 199–210.
18. Hdt. 3.19; see Katzenstein 1979.
19. Although dated in some respects, Stern 2001 and Betlyon 2005 still offer use-
ful overviews of the archaeology of the southern Levant in this period; see also
Tal 2005.
20. Stern 2001: 379–385.
21. The date of the grant is contested; for the text and discussion, see Briant
2002: 490. Note that Elayi 2018: 231–232 dates it to the reign of Cambyses. On
Jaffa and its environs, see Fantalkin and Tal 2008: 247–253.
697
Figure 60.2. Sarcophagus of Ešmun-azor II, king of Sidon, from Sidon.

Louvre, AO 4806. Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) /
Raphaël Chipault.
698
with the re-establishment of Dor in the early to mid-fifth century

bc.22 In any case, Phoenicians moved into Philistia in some number, as
reflected in the material culture at sites such as Ashdod, Nebi Yunis, and
Ashkelon, among others.23 The Shephelah, a fertile strip inland from the
southern coast, also saw a number of agricultural settlements (e.g., Tell
es-Safi, Tel Zippor, Tel ‘Erani, Tell el-Hesi), some of which were con-
nected to seaports (e.g., Yavneh with Yavneh-Yam).
Town planning was a feature of a number of coastal sites in the
Levant. For example, al-Mina, Tell Sukas, Sarepta, Berytus, Byblos,
Tel Shiqmona, Tel Megadim, Dor, Tel Michal, Tell Abu Hawam, and
Ashkelon show signs of organization of urban blocks, formation of dis-
crete neighborhoods, zoning of areas for public structures, and regular
layout of streets, in many cases after abandonment or destruction in the
Neo-Babylonian or Persian periods. Not every site displays all these fea-
tures, and “planning” following a specific paradigm, such as the Milesian
Hippodamos suggested for some sites, is likely overstated.24 Other invest-
ment in infrastructure at Phoenician sites includes harbor development,
temples, and other public buildings, reflecting the increased wealth of
these communities.25
Similar to northern inland regions, the inland southern Levant evi-
denced few large settlements and was generally less populated and less
economically vibrant than the coast. Inland from the southern Phoenician
coast, Upper Galilee saw an increase in agricultural settlements, and exca-
vated sites display a strong Phoenician material culture (for example, Tel
Qedesh, Ayyelet Ha-Shahar, Hazor, Sa’sa’, and Mizpe Yammin, which
housed a Phoenician sanctuary). This suggests that this region fell under
Phoenician control, and most likely under the control of Tyre given its
22. Nitschke et al. 2011: especially 141–142 (with a discussion of this dating in rela-
tion to the inscription on Ešmun-azor II’s sarcophagus); Martin and Shalev 2022.
23. Stern 2001: 407–412, 416–419.
24. Rossi 2006: 572; Shalev and Martin 2011; Nitschke et al. 2011: 139–141.
25. E.g., Rossi 2007 on Byblos; Oggiana and Xella 2009 on Sidon; and Khries
2017: 90–92 on Sidon and Byblos.
69
proximity to the Tyrian coastal zone of influence.26 Similarly in the Jezreel

valley, Tel Yoqne‘am, Tel Qiri, Tel Shimron, Tell Abu Shusha, Megiddo,
Tel Ta‘anach, Beth-Shean, and numerous other small settlements identi-
fied through surveys highlight the recovery and growth in settlements in
this region. Agriculture in this region may have supplied the large coastal
towns or may reflect Persian imperial control of the agrarian economy;
witness, e.g., the cemetery at Tel Qiri whose burials are likely of Iranians.27
In the southern hill country, the sub-provinces of Samaria and Judah
(whose official name was Aramaic Yehud under Persian rule) were simi-
larly agriculturally based. The town of Samaria was the largest settlement
in the southern inland Levant and served as the capital of its sub-province.
The impact of Assyrian deportations and resettlements on Samaria was
not as great as previously thought and continuity in material culture is
evident. Population growth in the Persian period is seen in an increased
number of settlements in northern Manasseh, west of Samaria, and in
valleys around Shechem and Gerizim.28 Judah lacked an urban center
and remained sparsely populated overall, experiencing a drop in settle-
ments of over 80 percent (estimates run from 60 percent to 90 percent of
its population being depleted) due to the Neo-Babylonian invasion. The
territory of Benjamin (north of Jerusalem and bordering Samaria) and
the area between Bethlehem and Beth-Zur (south of Jerusalem) display
continuity in their small settlements across the Babylonian and Persian
periods.29 The seat of the governor of Judah was at Ramat Raḥel, south
of Jerusalem.30 Jerusalem was a small cultic site; Gerizim played a com-
parable cultic role in Samaria.
Further to the east in Transjordan, the territories of the former
kingdoms of Ammon and Moab were also de-urbanized. Their status as
26. Herbert and Berlin 2003; Berlin and Frankel 2012; Lemaire 2015: 31–33; Katz
2022: 219−220.
27. On Tel Qiri, see Ben-Tor and Portugali 1987: 27–28, 31–33.
28. Zertal 2003; Hensel 2016: 91–102.
29. Carter 1999; Lipschits 2003.
30. Lipschits et al. 2012; Lipschits 2019: 205–206.
70
sub-provinces is unclear (on which see section 60.3). Areas of Ammon,

such as the Umayri-Hisban region, Tell Deir Alla, Tell Jalul, and other
sites, show evidence of continuous settlement, while some sites display
settlement gaps and reoccupation in the Persian period, such as Tell
Mazar and Tell as-Sa‘idiya.31 The territory of the former Edom with the
southern Judean hills, the southern Shephelah, and the Negev (which
had been settled by Edomites in the Neo-Babylonian period and was
no longer part of provincial Judah) was controlled by Qedarite Arabs.32
This was an agricultural and pastoral region, but it also incorporated
the significant trade route from Arabia that terminated at Gaza on the
southern coast.33 There were other settlements such as Lachish, Arad,
Maresha, and Beersheba which were notable as local administrative
centers or storehouses, with numerous extant ostraca, largely from the
late Persian period.34 There were also a number of forts built, perhaps in
response to an Egyptian insurrection, although the exact date is difficult
to establish (mid-fifth century or ca. 400 bc): for example, Tell Jemmeh
near the coast, and Horvat Ritma, Horvat Haroa, Horvat Mesora, and
Be’erotaim in the Negev highlands.35 This region may have been inde-
pendent of the satrapy Across-the-River.
Cyprus was a collection of small kingdoms with a largely unified
material culture across its three different linguistic groups: Phoenician,
Greek, and “Eteocypriot.” Copper mining, timber, and maritime trade
were important elements of the economy, and Cyprus also supplied ships
for Persian naval fleets. In the Persian period, the Greek city of Salamis
31. For a brief outline of the evidence, see Lipschits 2004: 41–
43; Betlyon
2005: 17, 20.
32. On the changes to Judah’s borders during the Neo-Babylonian period, see
Lemaire 2003: 290–291; cf. Levin 2020. On the impact on settlement patterns of
drier regional climate conditions over the sixth–third centuries, see Langgut and
Lipschits 2017.
33. For Gaza under control of “the king of Arabia,” see Hdt. 3.5; cf. Briant
2002: 716–717.
34. For an overview of the ostraca, see Lemaire 2015: 101–122.
35. Balandier 2014: II 121–143; Faust 2018: 40–41.
701
and the Phoenician city of Kition, on the eastern and southeastern sides
of the island, respectively, were prominent and significant actors in the
relationship with the Persian administration in the fifth century. Cyprus
was part of Herodotus’s fifth satrapy in the list of nomoi for taxation pur-
poses,36 having come under Persian control during the reign of Cambyses
(ca. 525 bc).37 It is uncertain, however, whether it formed part of Across-
the-River or the kingdoms were “autonomous” or “client states.”38
Since coastal areas of Across-the-River were wealthier, more devel-
oped, and better connected to the wider Mediterranean region than
inland areas, they were drawn more directly into Achaemenid Persian
imperial politics and international affairs. Phoenician fleets were
involved in key naval battles against Egypt, Cyprus, Ionia, and Greece,
including Salamis (480 bc) and Knidos (394 bc).39 Success in such
engagements could bring substantial reward, as with the land grant
received by Ešmun-azor II after the invasion of Egypt; but they could
also result in extreme punishment if unsuccessful, as when Xerxes
(485–465 bc) executed the Phoenicians held responsible for the defeat
at Salamis.40 Phoenicians represented Persian interests in Cyprus (e.g.,
after the rebellion of Evagoras of Salamis) and also acted as intermedi-
aries with the Greeks (for example, Abd-Aštart I of Sidon in the 360s
bc).41 Phoenician cities not only generated great wealth from trade in
the Persian period, they also expended it in preparing and manning their
naval fleets.42 They were also on occasion the focus of direct attack. Thus,
36. Hdt. 3.91.

37. Hdt. 3.19; Hdt. 3.34: “Egypt and the sea,” the latter referring to Cyprus, and com-
pare Darius I’s Bisotun inscription: “Egypt (and) those of the sea” (DB §6; see
Kuhrt 2007: 141 with n. 6); see Zournatzi 2018.
38. Zournatzi 2011; Iacovou 2014: 812–815; Körner 2016.
39. For an overview of Phoenician naval actions, see Elayi 2018: 223–224, 234–241,
254–255, 258.
40. Hdt. 8.90.
41. Elayi 2018: 260–264.
42. Hyland 2018: 23–28.
702
the Athenian attack of 459 bc may account for the destruction layers at
some of the sites on the north coast, e.g., al-Mina,43 whereas in ca. 387
bc, Evagoras of Salamis captured Tyre (or, as its island situation made
Tyre itself practically unconquerable, perhaps only its mainland settle-
ment Ushu) and possibly also other areas of Phoenicia.44 The only native
Phoenician insurrection against Persian rule was the Sidonian Tennes
rebellion, with the support of Cypriot, and perhaps other Phoenician,
cities, in 348–345 bc, occasioned by the failed Persian Egyptian cam-
paign of 351/350 bc. The Sidonians resisted Persian demands to fund
the rebuilding of their fleet for a renewed campaign, and encouraged by
Egyptian successes they expected Egyptian support for their rebellion.45
It was put down by armies led by Belšunu (Belesys) and Mazaeus from
Syria and Cilicia, respectively.
60.3. The administration of Ebir-nari

Three governors of the large satrapy Babylon and Across-the-River are
attested for the period from 539 bc (beginning of Cyrus II’s reign) to
486 bc (end of Darius I’s reign). After Cyrus’s capture of Babylon in 539
bc, he appointed an Iranian, Gubaru (Greek Gobryas), as governor of
“Babylon and Across-the-River” (chapter 59 in this volume). Gubaru is
attested in Babylonian legal texts as holding this office from 535 to 525
bc, and likely served until the rise of Darius I.46 The title “governor of
Babylon and Across-the-River” is a “political neologism” which perhaps
reflected the claim to dominion over the territory west of the Euphrates
rather than the actual control of it.47 It has been suggested that while
Cyrus immediately incorporated Babylonia into his empire, it took long-
er to fully integrate Across-the-River, delayed perhaps until Cambyses
43. Eph‘al 1988: 144; Meiggs and Lewis 1989: no. 33.
44. On the rebellion of Evagoras, see Körner 2016: 36–40; Elayi 2018: 256–259.
45. Ruzicka 2012: 164–173; Wiesehöfer 2016.
46. Stolper 1989: 290 with note c.
47. Stolper 1989: 296–297.
703
passed through the region ca. 525 bc on his way to invade Egypt. The
record of Cyrus’s repatriation of Judeans from Babylonia to Judah in
538 bc in Ezra 1:2–4 (likely a later interpretation of the order) and Ezra
4:5–6 (considered more likely to be original, but it allows only temple
rebuilding and does not explicitly mention repatriation) points to a level
of Persian control of the southern Levant at this time, and so one might
assume also areas further north.
The Iranian Uštanu, known from Babylonian legal texts dated
521–516 bc, served as governor of Babylon and Across-the-River under
Darius I.48 Uštanu is also mentioned in cuneiform texts dated to 512–
511 bc from Al-Yahudu, a rural village in south-central Babylonia where
deported Judeans were resettled after the destruction of their kingdom
in 587 bc. “Uštanu of Across-the-River” in these texts is taken to refer
to him. Laurie Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch, the editors of the texts,
contend that the scribes have omitted the title “governor” and this is
possibly a type of shorthand to refer to Uštanu’s administrative responsi-
bility over the region.49 However, it is known that Tattenai (Babylonian
Tattannu) was “governor of Across-the River” ca. 520–502 bc, and
assuming he served for some eighteen or more years in this position, he
must have been subservient to the “governor of Babylon and Across-the
River” since that large political unit could not have been divided before
486 bc (on which see below in this section). Yigal Bloch contends that
“Across-the-River” should be understood to refer to the Judeans men-
tioned earlier in the sentence: “the fields of the Judean šušānus, under the
authority of Uštanu, of Across-the River.”50 They are Judean šušānus (a
type of dependent worker settled on crown-owned land) of Across-the-
River. He noted that this interpretation was supported by another ref-
erence: “the fields of the Judean šušānus of Across-the-River” (whereas
Pearce and Wunsch insert after šušānus “<under the authority of Uštanu
48. Stolper 1989: 290 with note d.

49. Pearce 2015: 17–18.
50. Pearce and Wunsch 2014: no. 18: 6–8; no. 19: 2–4; no. 20: 2–3.
704
the governor>”).51 In short, while open to debate, it is arguable that

Uštanu was still governor of Babylon and Across-the-River as late as
511 bc.
The Iranian Huta[ . . . ]’, son of Pagakanna, also served as governor of
Babylon and Across-the-River under Darius I. Since his office is known
from a Babylonian legal text dated 486 bc, it is clear that the separation
of Across-the-River from the larger Babylon and Across-the-River could
not have taken place under Darius I, whatever else Herodotus’s so-called
Satrapy List might relate.52 The actual date of the separation of the two
regions into distinct satrapies is difficult to determine. It looks to have
taken place before 420 bc since Babylonian texts attest to a Gubaru with
the title “governor of the land of Akkad” (with no mention of Across-
the-River), who was the provincial governor of Babylonia at that time.53
It is now broadly accepted that the separation of the two satrapies should
not be connected to Xerxes’s response to the Babylonian rebellion of 484
bc, even if he undertook reprisals.54
As already noted, Tattenai apparently served as governor of Across-
the-River as part of the larger satrapy Babylon and Across-the-River from
ca. 520 to 502 bc,55 and he is also attested with that title in 502 bc in a
Babylonian debt note.56 The nature of his relationship to the governor
of Babylon and Across-the-River remains unclear. While according to
Ezra 5, he reported the Judeans’ temple rebuilding activities in Jerusalem
directly to Darius I, this is not evidence of administrative independence
since such direct reporting was likely part of his remit.57 Tattenai’s seat was
51. Bloch 2017; similarly and independently, Levavi 2019. For the text, see Pearce
and Wunsch 2014: no. 21: 2–3.
52. Hdt. 3.89–95.
53. Stolper, 1989: 290, 297–298.
54. Stolper 1989: 294–296; Kuhrt 2014; on potential reprisals, see Waerzeggers 2018.
55. Ezra 5:6, 6:6.
56. Stolper 1989: 291 with note n.
57. Stolper 1989: 299 discusses the role of the b‘l ṭ‘m “chancellor” in Ezra 4:7–8, who
writes directly to Artaxerxes, but this is relevant also for the office of governor.
705
perhaps in Damascus, although other sites have been suggested for the
residence of the governor of Across-the-River at different times: Tripoli
in Phoenicia, Thapsacus in northern Syria (exact location unclear),
and Sidon. His full name was probably Nabû-tattannu-uṣur, and he is
attested as a wealthy Babylonian estate owner and businessman.58 In this
regard he is similar to many other higher-ranking officials in the admin-
istration, including Belšunu, a later governor of Across-the-River.
Megabyzus might have been the satrap of Syria (=Across-the-River)
ca. 465 bc, although it is unclear from Ctesias’s account.59 He may well
have held estates in Syria and been resident there after leaving the court,
without actually holding this office.60 At that time, Across-the-River
could still have been within the larger satrapy Babylon and Across-
the-River. Belšunu, son of Bel-uṣuršu, is documented in Babylonian
texts as holding the title “governor of Across-the-River,” serving 407–
401 bc (reigns of Darius II to Artaxerxes II), after its separation from
the larger satrapy.61 He is the Belesys mentioned by Xenophon as “the
ruler of Syria” who had a “paradise” and palace in northern Syria,62
which Cyrus the Younger destroyed in the summer of 401 bc. Before
serving as governor of Across-the-River, he was the district governor of
Babylon, attested from 422 to 415 bc.63 Given his name, he was, similar
to Tattenai, likely to have been a Babylonian and was also “a member of
a propertied commercial class,” some of whose dealings we know from
an archive of Babylonian legal texts.64 Matthew Stolper considers that
58. Jursa 2005: 95–97; Jursa and Stolper 2007.

59. Ctesias FGrH 688 §34−§43; especially §40.
60. Briant 2002: 577–578.
61. Stolper 1987: 390–391; 1989: 290−291 with note o.
62. Xen. An. 1.4.10.
63. Stolper 1987; 1989: 290−291 with note l. Note that the office of the district gov-
ernor of Babylon—that is, of the city itself and perhaps also its environs—is an
office distinct from, and at a lower administrative level than, that of the provin-
cial governor of Babylon (that is, the satrapy).
64. Stolper 1995: 217.
706
while his governorship took place after Across-the-River was separated

from Babylon and Across-the-River, he was not the political equal of the
Iranian satrap of Babylonia since the political status of Across-the-River
was not necessarily equal to that of Babylonia.65
Abrocomas may have replaced Belšunu/ Belesys as governor of
Across-the-River in 401 bc. According to Arrian,66 Cyrus the Younger,
in his rebellion against Artaxerxes II (404–359 bc), marched against
Abrocomas on the Euphrates. He is described, although not named,
in Diodorus as “a certain satrap of Syria.”67 Later he participated in the
unsuccessful attempt to reconquer Egypt in 389–387 bc.68 At issue here,
and also in the following in regard to a proposed second Belesys as satrap
of Across-the-River, is the exact referent of the title “satrap.” It may refer
to someone holding an office other than the head of the satrapy, and this
is potentially the case with Abrocomas.69
A second Belesys may have served as governor of Across-the-River
under Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III (358–338 bc), or only under
the latter. Diodorus wrote of Belesys, “satrap (satrapēs) of Syria,” when
Mazaeus was “governor (archōn) of Cilicia,” both of whom participated
in suppressing the Tennes rebellion in 345 bc.70 A Babylonian letter-
order mentioning “Belšunu the satrap (ahšadrapanu)” is cited by Israel
Eph‘al as evidence that the Belesys in Diodorus’s narrative must have
been governor of Across-the-River in 369 bc, identifying the Artaxerxes
of the letter-order as Artaxerxes II.71 It would mean that he was governor
for over twenty years (369–ca. 345 bc). Stolper proposes that Artaxerxes
I was the more likely context for this letter-order, setting its date at 429
65. Stolper 1989: 298.

66. Arr. An. 1.3.20.
67. Diod. Sic. 14.20.5.
68. For the discussion, see Briant 2002: 623–624.
69. Note Rainey 1969: 66–67, defending the idea that Abrocomas was satrap.
70. Diod. Sic. 16.42.1.
71. Eph‘al 1988: 154. For the text, see McEwan 1982: no. 48.
70
bc, and that the “satrap” here is the same Belšunu who later served as
district governor of Babylon and then as governor of Across-the-River
(that is, Belšunu, son of Bel-uṣuršu; see above in this section).72 The title
ahšadrapanu does not signify the specific office he held, since this title
can denote offices at the satrapal and sub-satrapal level and, further, the
location where the office was held is not identified in the text. There are
other titles attested in the sources that, like ahšadrapanu, were used to
designate different levels of office. Aramaic pḥh and pḥw’ /Hebrew pḥh
(peḥâ) /Akkadian LÚ.(EN.)NAM = (bēl) pīhāti/pāhāti, all commonly
translated as “governor,” can denote the governor of a province/satrapy
(governor =satrap; e.g., the governor of Across-the-River), or the gov-
ernor of a sub-province (as is used, for example, to denote the governors
of Judah and Samaria: Nehemiah, the governor of Judah; Sanballat, the
governor of Samaria) or, in Babylonia, a lower-level administrator, such
as the already mentioned Belšunu, son of Bel-uṣuršu, serving as (district)
governor (LÚ.NAM) of Babylon, or an official in charge of canals, or
an official in charge of an ethnic group/settlement, or the head of a vil-
lage.73 As with Abrocomas, this Belesys’s office in Syria is uncertain. Why
Diodorus designated Mazaeus as “governor” and Belyses as “satrap” is
also unclear.
Mazaeus (Aramaic Mazday) is attested as governor of Across-the-
River from 343/342 to 332 bc (from the reigns of Artaxerxes III to
Darius III). As governor of Cilicia, he participated with Belyses in mili-
tary operations against Sidon during the Tennes rebellion, after which
Across-the-River was annexed to Cilicia. An undated Cilician coin bears
the Aramaic inscription “Mazaeus who is over Across-the-River and
Cilicia.”74
The duties of the satrap related to organizing and commanding the
military, diplomatic matters, administration of law, and the collection
72. Stolper 1987: 398–400; 1988: 150–151; 1989: 290, 291 with note r.
73. Tuplin 2017 presents evidence for a number of such titles from across the Persian
Empire. For Babylonian examples, see Stolper 1987: 396 n. 35; Dandamaev
2005: 377–378.
74. Briant 2009: 160−162; Elayi 2018: 265–266.
708
of tribute and taxes. Organizing the military would have included the
establishment of garrisons located in fortifications. In the southern
Levant, identifying the archaeological traces of these garrisons and
how they might be related to the defense of the satrapy is a contested
issue. While a number of buildings are identified as forts on the basis
of their placement in strategic locations along the coastal highway or at
key junctions and their common square design, often with corner tow-
ers (e.g., Ashdod; Tell Jemmeh; Horvat ‘Eleq and Nahal Tut near Dor;
Horvat ‘Eres near Jerusalem; and Horvat Ritma and Horvat Mesora in
the Negev), there are also a number of sites in the former kingdom of
Judah that have been considered forts.75 Their construction is seen as a
response by the empire to the Egyptian revolt of Inaros (ca. 464–454
bc), or as a means to mark the border of the sub-province of Judah, or in
response to the Egyptian revolt of 404 bc (chapter 61 in this volume).76
Their various locations and the difficulties in determining their dating
allow for a number of possible explanations. It might be asked, how-
ever, what in Judah was being protected, either from a putative Egyptian
incursion or from neighboring sub-provinces, since Judah was lightly
populated, lacked urban centers, and was not economically significant.
As was suggested for such buildings in the inland northern Levant, they
75. For the sites, see Balandier 2014: I 82–107, 113–141; II 97–119; Fantalkin and
Tal 2012: 153–163; Faust 2018. On Horvat ‘Eleq near Dor, see Peleg-Barkat and
Tepper 2014. On Horvat ‘Eres near Jerusalem, see Mazar and Wachtel 2015, argu-
ing that it was built on local initiative rather than by the empire (p. 241).
76. On Inaros, see Hoglund 1992: 203–205; on his revolt, see Briant 2002: 573–
577; Ruzicka 2012: 30–32. On the border marking, see Stern 2007: 23. For the
Egyptian revolt of 404 bc, see Lipschits and Vanderhoof 2007: 86–89; Fantalkin
and Tal 2012: especially 163–167. Note also Balandier 2014, who plots the shift-
ing imperial reactions to the political conditions impacting Across-the-River, as
reflected in the fortifications. Initially, there were articulated maritime and forti-
fied strongholds under Cambyses and Darius I, then after setbacks against the
Greeks, the coastal cities were strengthened, whereas no defensive works were
built inland. Only later, Artaxerxes I had a system of forts constructed, both on
the coast and also inland, in order to protect internal communication routes. In
reaction to rebellions in Cyprus and Egypt, Artaxerxes II then strengthened the
fortifications in the southern and coastal Levant.
709
could have served as district centers for the collection of produce as

well as for administration.77 More likely, suggests Avraham Faust, is that
while some of these structures might be related to administration, most
were in fact estates belonging to nobles or high officials or in private
hands.78
Consideration of administrative roles for such structures raises
another of the responsibilities of the satrap, namely, the collection of
tribute/taxes. This matter can be considered in concert with the inter-
nal organization of the province since the collection of taxes would have
devolved to those holding administrative authority at various levels
below the satrap. What is known of this administrative organization and
those who served in it? It is evident that the Persian Empire employed
various mechanisms for incorporating subjugated peoples and their ter-
ritories by taking into account local political and cultural traditions and
forms of socioeconomic organization. This served the interests of the
empire as efficient means of extracting tribute/taxes and other resources,
maintaining control over territories and peoples, and generally lowering
the costs of running the empire.
For example, by permitting Phoenician city-states a level of auton-
omy under the leadership of indigenous dynasties (chapter 47 in vol-
ume 4), the empire benefited from the Phoenicians’ ongoing pursuit
of their Mediterranean-wide trading interests, their development of
settlements along the Levantine coast, their provision of ships and men
for the Persian navy, and their annual remittance to the imperial trea-
sury.79 Similarly, the areas controlled by the Qedarite Arabs (chapter 53
in this volume) were not constituted as a formal sub-province. They too
were led by traditional leaders, maintained trading routes to Arabia,
acknowledged the empire’s sovereignty, and supported Persian use of
their region against neighboring Egypt. Their annual payment to the
treasury of one thousand talents of frankincense was not classified as
77. Lipschits 2006: 29–30.

78. Faust 2018.
79. Elayi 1997.
710
taxes but rather as “gifts,” as they were exempted from the phoros tax
placed on other subjugated peoples, reflecting their peculiar status
within the empire.80
The indigenous leaders of the Phoenician cities and the Qedarite
Arabs nonetheless operated as functionaries within the provincial admin-
istration. Their quasi-autonomy was probably not without oversight
from the central administration. In a cuneiform text from Sippar dated
to the reign of Darius I, a Babylonian named Rikis-kalamu-Bel is attested
with the title “governor of Byblos,” which marks him as a representative
of the central administration.81 As noted before, this title (Akkadian
LÚ.NAM = bēl pīhāti/pāhāti “governor”) can denote a functionary at
a number of levels within the administration and does not demand that
he hold a position either over or equal to the king of Byblos.82 While
the nature of his responsibilities is unknown, he may have acted as
a liaison between the king of Byblos and the empire in respect to the
payment of tribute and any commercial matters.83 In the time of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire (chapter 50 in this volume), the Eanna temple
in Uruk had entertained commercial connections with Tyre, so it is con-
ceivable that the Ebabbar temple in Sippar, to which Rikis-kalamu-Bel
gave a donation according to the afore-mentioned cuneiform text, could
have had a similar connection with Byblos, which fell under this official’s
purview.84 The question of whether there was a “governor’s residence”
or “palace” at Lachish highlights the issue of the relationship between
such an officer and the ruling Qedarite Arabs in whose territory that city
80. Hdt. 3.91, 97. See Eph‘al 1988: 161–164.

81. Dandamaev 1995; Fried 2003; Grainger 1992: 7–8 postulates that the Persian
“governor of Phoenicia” was resident at Tripoli which he, following Galling,
identifies as a suburb of Sidon; see Elayi 1982: 91 for a critique of this identifica-
tion, cf. Elayi 2009: 128 holding that Sidon was the temporary residence of the
satrap Mazday.
82. Jigoulov 2010: 48–49.
83. Elayi 2009: 127–128.
84. Levavi 2020: 72–74.
71
was situated,85 as does an inscription from northern Arabia that lists the
names of Gešem ben Šahr and ‘Abd governor of Dedan (fḥt ddn) in an
area known to be ruled by the king of Lihyan.86
Sub-provinces such as Samaria and Judah had governors who were
appointed by the central administration. There is evidence to suggest
that Persian authorities tended to appoint members of the local eth-
nic groups to these positions. This is the case with governors attested
in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Judean and Samarian
governors mentioned there—Sheshbazzar (538 bc), Zerubbabel (520
bc), Nehemiah (445–433 bc) for Judah; and Sanballat (c. 445 bc) for
Samaria—had roots in their respective sub-provinces. Other Judean gov-
ernors are attested in inscriptions, papyri and coins: Elnatan (late sixth
century bc), Aḥiab (formerly read Aḥzai; mid-sixth–mid-fifth centuries
bc), Bagavahya (408 bc), Yeho‘ezer (late fifth century bc or later), and
Yehizkiyah (fourth century bc; probably already under Hellenistic rule);
and these were all likely to have also had such an affiliation.87 Unlike
Phoenician cities, hereditary succession was unlikely to have been per-
mitted since these were strictly administrative positions, and therefore
claims that the Samarian governorship was hereditary should be viewed
with due caution.88
The governors of Judah mentioned in the biblical texts all came
from the eastern diaspora (Babylonia and the Persis), which highlights
85. On the building, see Stern 2001: 468–469; Ussishkin 2014: 391–401. Fantalkin
and Tal 2012: 135–148 redate the building to ca. 400 bc and suggest that only at
this time were the borders between Arab territories (the emerging Idumea) and
Judah starting to be fixed.
86. On the “king of the Arabs,” see Eph‘al 1988: 163; Lemaire 2015: 99–101. Note that
Lemaire 1990: 52–53 considers Batis, the Persian general who resisted Alexander’s
attack on Gaza (Diod. Sic. 17.48.7), to have been its resident governor.
87. On the list of governors, see Fitzpatrick-McKinley 2015: 157–164, as well as earlier
treatments by Williamson 1992: 81–86; 1988. On specific officials see Lipschits
and Vanderhooft 2011: 85–87 (Aḥiab), 193 (Yeho‘ezer). On the Hellenistic dating
of the coins of Yehizkiyah, see Gitler and Lorber 2008.
88. For the suggestion of a hereditary succession in Samaria with the Sanballat line,
see Dušek 2007: 516–549 (with discussion of competing reconstructions of the
succession); Lemaire 2015: 83.
712
the continued connection of these Judean communities to their home-

land.89 Evidence from Neirab in northern Syria and from Tel Qedesh
in Upper Galilee attests to similar sustained connections on the part
of other deported peoples from Across-the-River. The Neirab archive
was brought back by returnees from the region of Nippur in southern
Babylonia and documents their economic dealings there during the
period from Neriglissar of Babylon (560–556 bc) to Darius I.90 A bulla
found at Tel Qedesh is interpreted as having been stamped with a seal
manufactured in Nippur, where Tyrians are known to have been settled
after the Babylonian siege of Tyre under Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562
bc); the seal would have reached Tel Qedesh with Tyrian returnees who
relocated there.91
One might assume that there were other sub-provinces in Across-
the-River, although they prove difficult to verify. Evidence for Ammon
as a sub-province is a set of Persian period jar-handles found at Tall al-
Umayri stamped with a personal name and the toponym Ammon (‘mn),
which seems to parallel the provincial authorities’ well-attested use of
stamps with the toponym Yehud in Judah (figure 60.3).92 The jars’ con-
tents likely belonged to the provincial administration and can be associ-
ated with tax collection.93
Some scholars have reconstructed the political geography of the
southern Levant in the Persian period to include a number of sub-
provinces in areas that came to be under Phoenician control. Ephraim
Stern, for example, holds that much earlier Assyrian provincial struc-
tures still existed at least at the outset of the Persian period.94 If so,
89. Bedford 2002; Southwood 2015.

90. Tolini 2015.
91. Brandl et al. 2019.
92. For the Ammon stamp, see Herr 1999: 233–234. For the Yehud stamps, see
Lipschits and Vanderhooft 2011.
93. Stern 1982: 205–206; Lipschits and Vanderhooft 2011: 80, 762–764.
94. Stern 2001: 352–460 (archaeological overview of these regions); 370–371 (on
the perseverance of provincial structures). Lemaire 1990 is generally support-
ive of the idea of the existence of many sub-provinces in the southern Levant
713
Figure 60.3. Ancient impressions of two Yehud seals, stamped onto the
leather-hard surface of pottery vessels. Line drawings courtesy of David
Vanderhooft; photographs courtesy of Oded Lipschits. Composite prepared by
Karen Radner.
this is evidence for the Persian administration’s adaptable approach

to the organization of territories within the satrapy. These areas
could not have remained sub-provinces, given that sections of Upper
Galilee (from the earlier Megiddo province), all of Dor, and Ashdod
appear to have come under Sidonian or Tyrian control. Rather than
(with Dor starting out as one, but the grant to Ešmun-azor II of Sidon changed
its status). Lemaire 2006: 426–427 contends that there was a province around
the city of Ashdod in the late Persian period (second half of the fourth century
bc), while Lemaire 1990: 54–56 dated this province’s existence to earlier in the
Persian period.
714
sub-provinces, with a governor appointed by the Persian administra-

tion, they might be construed as districts supervised by Sidon or Tyre
in the charge of officials appointed by them. There is no direct evi-
dence to support this contention. However, it is suggested by Oded
Lipschits’s model for the internal administrative structure of Persian-
period Judah which, in a region that was economically impoverished
compared with the Philistian coast and the Shephelah, was organized
into five districts, each with a local center, over which “Ramat Raḥel
became both the seat of the governor and the main administrative
center for the collection of taxes.”95 While Sidonian and Tyrian elites
would no doubt have reaped financial rewards from their control of
territories in Upper Galilee and on the southern coast, they would also
have accepted responsibility for tax gathering and must have put a local
administrative system in place to achieve that. The available evidence
does not permit a description of the Phoenician administrative system
in the southern Levant, although it would include attention to such
elements as settlement patterns which related coastal cities to inland
settlements, settlement foundation and development, and support for
Persian military infrastructure.96
The minting of coins (figure 60.4) has been viewed as signaling a
level of political autonomy within the administrative system, although
its exact import cannot be determined. It certainly need not reflect
rebellion against Persian rule if Phoenician cities are a guide, and Persian
motifs were often used on the coins, as were Athenian and Egyptian
motifs, which could be viewed as cultural imitation. The symbolic value
of minting coins was arguably more important than their economic util-
ity in this period, although the matter is debated. The Phoenician cities of
Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos, all semi-autonomous polities, produced
coinage relatively early (for the Levant), whereas Judah, Samaria, Gaza,
Ashkelon, and Ashdod produced coinage at the earliest toward the end
95. Lipschits 2015: 258; cf. also Lipschits 2019: 196–205.

96. Grabbe 2004: 41–42; Tal 2005: 74–81 (“central place” settlement hierarchy);
Shalev 2018 (not “central place,” but “dendritic systems stretching eastward from
the coast, each governed by a main city”).
715
Figure 60.4. Selected coinage from Across-the-River. (A) Half shekel from
Sidon, issued by king Ba‘al-shillem I or Baana, ca. 425–401 bc: on the left, a
Phoenician galley (pentekonter), a common motif on Sidonian coins, in front of
the city wall, above a pair of lions; on the right, the Persian king holding a lion by
its mane. (B) Dishekel from Sidon, issued by satrap Mazday, ca. 360–334 bc: on
the left, a Phoenician galley (pentekonter) above waves; on the right, the Persian
king (likely) on his chariot, followed by an attendant on foot, perhaps the king of
Sidon. (C) Quarter shekel from Tyre, ca. 450–410 bc: on the left, dolphin above
waves; on the right, an owl, head facing (an Athenian motif ), with crook and
flail (an Egyptian motif ). (D) Quarter shekel from Byblos, 450–410 bc: on the
left, sphinx with the double crown of Egypt; on the right, the lightning bolt of
the god Ba‘al-Haddad. (E) Drachm from Gaza, late fifth to mid-fourth century
bc: on the left, head of the goddess Athena; on the right, an owl (both Athenian
motifs). (F) Half gerah (hemiobol) from Judah, ca. 375–332 bc: on the left, head
of the Persian king (likely); on the right, a falcon or eagle with wings spread. All
photographs courtesy Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (http://www.cngcoins.
com). Composite prepared by Karen Radner.
of the Persian period.97 Judah and Samaria were already sub-provinces;

did their mintings reflect a sense of increased political autonomy at the
97. See Tal 2019 for an overview; Altman 2016: 95–105 on the rise of coinage and
its role in the Persian imperial economy, 168–177 on Judean coinage; Elayi and
Elayi 2009; 2014; Elayi 2015: 171–212 on Phoenician coinage; Wyssmann 2019 on
Samarian coinage; Gitler and Tal 2006 on Philistian coinage.
716
end of the Persian period, or did they, like Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod,
seek some greater repute from the undertaking? Or were they attempting
to develop a more monetized economy?98 With coins of small denomi-
nation and generally only local circulation, it is difficult to see them join-
ing a regional monetized economy.
We should expect that taxes imposed in Across-the-River were simi-
lar to those in other satrapies.99 This included, for example: taxes on agri-
cultural and animal produce; poll tax; military and corveé labor services
(including the demand for naval vessels and crews from Phoenician and
Cypriot cities); customs imposts; natural resources, such as timber from
Phoenician settlements with access to the forests of Lebanon; and “gifts”
to the Great King, such as those seen in the reliefs on the staircases of
the Apadana, all related to the economic productivity of the satrapy.100
Some taxes would be paid in kind, some paid in silver. A portion of
taxes paid both in silver and in kind would remain in the satrapy or a sub-
province in local storehouses or satrapal treasuries to supply the military
and the needs of administrative officials locally.101 What percentage of
taxes were delivered in silver is unknown. The fifth nomos was assessed
at 350 talents of silver annually, which may be an attempt to measure
the value of the total tax contribution rather than the amount paid in
silver over and above payments in kind.102 To the extent that some taxes
were remitted in silver,103 a local mechanism must have been in place
in the predominantly agricultural economy to facilitate the exchange
98. On monetization of the economy during that time, see Manning 2018: 195–202;
on the circulation of coinage in the southern Levant, see Ariel 2016.
99. On the Persian tax regime, see Tuplin 1987: 137–157; Briant 2002: 390–406
(including a discussion of Herodotus’s nomoi); Klinkott 2007.
100. For an overview of the Persian imperial economy in the Levant, see Altmann
2016: 135–158.
101. Ezra 7:21–22.
102. Hdt. 3.91; see Briant 2002: 406–408.
103. Note that Neh 5:4 states that Judeans were borrowing silver to pay “the king’s
tax” (middat hammelekh).
71
of produce for silver (cf. the business operations of the Murašu family
which undertook such exchanges in Babylonia).104
The exact nature of “the king’s tax” is unclear since, if one accepts that
the term is related to Akkadian mandattu,105 it could refer to an assort-
ment of taxes.106 It can be distinguished from two other taxes with which
it appears in the Book of Ezra:107 belo is thought to be a poll tax (although
this is far from certain), and halākh is related to Akkadian ilku, a land tax
whose assessment must have involved administrative officials and per-
haps a land register. These taxes were due to the empire. A further tax
imposed to support local administration in Judah was “the food allow-
ance of the governor,” which Nehemiah, as governor, had the authority
to revoke.108 Nehemiah also had the authority to demand corvée labor
for rebuilding Jerusalem’s city wall.109 There were also payments (annual
tithes) to the Jerusalem temple to support the temple personnel; as
governor, Nehemiah also enforced these annual dues,110 although their
payment may have been self-imposed by community members, together
with other temple-related imposts.111 Regarding satrapal taxes, and per-
haps specifically Judean tax commitments, note that Yigal Bloch has
contended that the service obligations fulfilled by Judean šušānus at Al-
Yahudu in Babylonia were being credited to Judah/Across-the-River.112
That some portion of taxes was kept in satrapal treasuries alerts us to
the fact that the satrap was supported by a cadre of bureaucrats. Some
offices can be identified and their responsibilities delineated, while others
104. Stolper 1985.

105. Cf. Ezra 6:8: “the royal treasures of the tribute (middat) of Across-the-River.”
106. Tuplin 1987: 146; Briant 2002: 385, 405, 441, 462.
107. Ezra 4:13, 20.
108. Neh 5:14–15.
109. Neh 3.
110. Neh 13:10–13.
111. Neh 10. For a discussion of the taxes in the Book of Nehemiah, see Altmann 2014.
112. Bloch 2017; similarly and independently, Levavi 2019.
718
are less clear or hold titles that admit a variety of tasks. Some offices sup-
port the sub-satrapal governor and answer to him. Christopher Tuplin
addresses an extensive list of “lower-rank officials” across the empire, of
which only a few are extant in sources pertinent to Across-the-River.113
There were doubtless more offices in this satrapy than the ones recorded
in our available sources. Here are the most readily identified lower-rank
(excluding sub-satrapal governor) officials:
• “Satrapal treasurer/accountant”: Aramaic gzbrya (corresponding to

Old Persian *ganzabara) in Ezra 7:21.114
• “Chancellor”: Aramaic b‘l ṭ‘m (corresponding to Old Persian
*framānakara) in Ezra 4:8; attested as writing official correspondence
to the Persian king.115
• “Judge”: Aramaic dyn in the Wadi Daliyeh papyri (Samaria) and Ezra
7:25; Aramaic špt in Ezra 7:25 (cf. Old Persian *tipāti and *gaušaka);
attested as witnesses to slave sales and to a contract (Wadi Daliyeh
papyri) and as officials authorized to undertake investigations and to
make judgments (Ezra).116
• “Keeper of the royal park”: Hebrew šmr hprds in Neh 2:8.
• “Official”: Aramaic pqyd in the Elephantine papyri; attested as offi-
cials serving Arsames, the satrap of Egypt, in Damascus.117
• “Scribe”: Aramaic spr in Ezra 4:8; 7:21 (cf. Greek grammatistēs in
Hdt. 3.128); according to Stolper, “In effect, it describes functionaries
of various ranks, in various organizations, who knew how to manage
business affairs and make appropriate records of them,” which is apt
for Ezra 4:8 but probably not for Ezra 7:21.118
113. Tuplin 2017, including references to the primary sources.

114. Stolper 2000.
115. Stolper 1989: 299; Tuplin 2017: 626, 634.
116. Dušek 2007: 132, 148, 152, 168–169, 242–243, 247; Tuplin 2017: 631, 636.
117. Porten and Yardeni 1988: no. A6.9.2; Tuplin 2017: 622–623, 632 (pqyd provi-
sions travel rations), 636.
118. Stolper 1989: 298–299.
719
• “Noble” (?): Aramaic and Hebrew sgn in the Wadi Daliyeh papyri
(Samaria) and in Neh 2:16; 5:7, 17; 7:5; attested as witnesses to a
slave sale and perhaps another transaction (Wadi Daliyeh papyri)
and as persons recognized in Judah has having social standing
(Nehemiah).119
• “(Military) officer” (?): Hebrew śr in Ezra 9:1 (non-military?); śr ḥyl
in Neh 2:9 (military officer); śr hbrh in Neh 7:2 (officer in charge of
fortress); śr plk in Neh 3:18 (supervisor of a district).120
• “Envoy” (?): Aramaic ‘aparsatkay (perhaps from Old Persian *frasaka,
although this is “very speculative” according to Tuplin) in Ezra 5:6;
6:6.121
• Note also Rikis-kalamu-Bel, the governor of Byblos, and ‘Abd, the
governor of Dedan (although technically, the latter was probably
active outside Across-the River), as discussed above in this section.
The administration of law was another responsibility of the satrap.

Citing examples from Egypt, Asia Minor, and Across-the-River, Peter
Frei has argued that the central administration authorized local legal
traditions of various subjugated peoples throughout the empire as
a means to shore up their status within the imperial system.122 Such
actions conformed with the Persians’ general support for local political
traditions and the use of local ethnic leaders in appropriate positions
within the administration. The implications of Frei’s position have been
much discussed:123 one much-debated subject is the question of how
much the administration was actually involved in the oversight of local
legal affairs.
119. Dušek 2007: 215–216; 254, 263–264; Tuplin 2017: 619, 636–637, 646.
120. Tuplin 2017: 627.
121. Tuplin 2017: 651.
122. See, e.g., Frei 1996; 2001.
123. Among the many studies, see Wiesehöfer 1995; Kuhrt 2001; Lee 2011; and the
collection of essays in Watts (ed.) 2001, and Knoppers and Levinson (eds.) 2007.
720
To cite just two of Frei’s examples, it is possible to position at one

end of a spectrum the broad scope of the satrapy-wide codification of
Egyptian laws under Darius I,124 while at the other end of the spectrum
there is the evidence of the trilingual inscription from Xanthos in Lycia
in Asia Minor (mid-fourth century bc), in which the local citizens peti-
tion the satrap Pixodarus to permit them to establish (or perhaps to
guarantee the financial arrangements for) the cult of Caunios, a Carian
deity; this is clearly a legal matter of civic and religious importance but
of very pronounced local interest.125 An obvious difference here is that in
Egypt, the “codification” of laws is attested for the entire satrapy, whereas
in Xanthos, it was a ruling (or guarantee) regarding a very specific local
matter.
Furthermore, the codification in Egypt was ordered by the central
administration (that is, it was “top down”) while in Xanthos, the matter
was raised with the satrap by the local community (that is, it was “bottom
up”). This may reflect an ad hoc approach to recognizing and supporting
local legal traditions on the part of the imperial administration rather
than the organized implementation of a specific policy. In Babylonia, for
example, there is no evidence for the administration’s codification of that
satrapy’s laws.126
60.4. The case of Judah

Across-the-River offers a rather different example of imperial support
for local legal traditions. According to Ezra,127 a firman in Aramaic from
Artaxerxes (thought widely to refer to Artaxerxes II) appointed Ezra,
who is described as a priest, a scribe, and “a scribe of matters concerning
124. Frei 1996: 47; Lippert 2010: 158–164; 2014: 1–5.

125. For the text and discussion, see Frei 1996: 39–47; Lee 2011: 136–152.
126. There is “the law of the king” evidenced in Babylonia in the Persian period. It
is not codified law, but rather directions to judges regulating their decisions
regarding (in the extant examples) tariffs, compensation, penalties, deposits;
see Kleber 2010.
127. Ezra 7:12–26.
721
the commandments of Yahweh and his ordinances for Israel,”128 to travel

from Ahava (in Babylonia?) to Across-the-River, where the Great King
commissioned him to “inquire about Judah and Jerusalem according to
the law of your God which is in your hand.”129 Ezra was instructed to
appoint magistrates and judges who will judge all the people in
Across-the-River, all who know the laws of your God; and those
who do not know you will instruct. Whoever will not obey the
law of your God and the law of the king, let exact judgment be
executed on him, whether for death, banishment, confiscation of
property, or imprisonment.130
This firman does not appear to enjoin the central administration to cod-
ify Judean law, nor does it identify a discrete, specific legal matter. It is
focused on Judean legal traditions,131 and seeks to ensure that Judeans
living throughout Across-the-River,132 not just in Judah,133 conform to
them, although how it would have been possible to situate judges and
magistrates over Judeans living in other sub-provinces or in Phoenician
cities is unclear and, on the face of it, unlikely. It may have been the deci-
sion of a later editor to emphasize that Judean law was considered bind-
ing on Judeans wherever they resided. One must of course rule out that
the firman instructed that Judean laws be taught to, and implemented
over, the ethnically and religiously diverse peoples of Across-the-River.134
128. Ezra 7:11.

129. Ezra 7:14.
130. Ezra 7:25–26.
131. Ezra 7:25: “All those who know the laws of your God.”
132. Ezra 7:25.
133. Ezra 7:11.
134. Some commentators see these as clear signals, among others, that the firman
itself is a fiction, as is the person of Ezra, and that the text simply reflects later
Hellenistic Jewish views of Persian munificence toward Judeans; so Grätz
2004; 2018. For more positive estimations of the authenticity of the remit, see
Williamson 2008; Lee 2011: 214–235.
72
What “instruction in the law” amounted to is also unclear and has no

obvious parallel in the other examples cited by Frei, although one would
expect codified Egyptian law to become a work of reference. The so-
called Passover Papyrus from Elephantine in Egypt (dated 419 bc) is evi-
dence that Judeans (or Judeo-Arameans) in Elephantine received advice
(but unlikely instruction they were bound to follow on pain of punish-
ment)135 from outside their own local community regarding the religious
matter of determining the correct date and manner of observance for
Passover.136 The Hananiah who wrote the letter was not given any title
or office, although since he was familiar with a letter (on this matter?)
written from Darius to Arsames/Aršama, the satrap of Egypt (chapter 61
in this volume), he was probably a person with some official standing.137
The Passover Papyrus is devoted to a religious matter, and most com-
mentators have supposed that Ezra’s law was some version of the Torah,
focusing on religion and touching on other aspects of law (including tort
law). It could be construed as a body of codified law, even if that work was
undertaken by Judeans themselves rather than at the behest of the central
administration. But given that Ezra 9–10 is dedicated to the dissolution
of marriages between Judeans and non-Judeans in Judah, relationships
characterized here as forsaking or breaking divine “commandments,”
and that Ezra’s actions in Ezra 10:7–8 sound much like those decreed
in Ezra 7:25–26, it is likely that Ezra’s “law of God” pertained more nar-
rowly to practices concerning “mixed-marriages” and was enforceable in
Judah only. Restrictions on interactions with foreigners is a feature of
Ezra−Nehemiah, and was a concern that arguably developed during the
eastern diaspora and was introduced into Judah as local Judean tradition
under Persian auspices.138
Artaxerxes’s firman raises another issue pertinent to the adminis-
tration of the sub-province of Judah, namely, the role of the temple in
135. Cf. Ezra 7:25–26.

136. For the text, see Porten and Yardeni 1988: A4.1.
137. On the identity of Hananiah, see Tuplin, 2017: 656–659.
138. Bedford 2002.
723
its economic and political organization.139 The firman’s financial and

political support for the Jerusalem temple and its cult and personnel—
reprising similar assistance offered by Cyrus II140 and Darius I141—as
well as the temple’s great wealth,142 has given rise to the contention that
the Jerusalem temple was important not only to the religious life of the
Judean community, but it also functioned as a central economic and
political institution in the sub-province. The temple served as the reposi-
tory of the sub-province’s taxes, and in so doing ensconced both the
temple and its personnel within the imperial administrative system, with
analogies sometimes drawn to contemporary temples in Babylonian cit-
ies. As managers of the temple, the priests, and in particular the high
priest, must have wielded considerable authority in political and eco-
nomic affairs within the sub-province. According to some, Judah was
governed by a diarchy of a Persian-appointed governor and a high priest
with the requisite genealogy, emphasizing that in some respects (perhaps
more, perhaps less) Judah was constituted as a temple state or cultic com-
munity (or that a temple state or cultic community was embedded in the
sub-province). As the Achaemenid imperial administration was support-
ive of local political traditions, the contention is that this arrangement
was ratified by them.
This understanding of the administration of Judah has a number of
flaws. First, from archaeology it is known that Jerusalem was small and
sparsely settled and so could not have been the administrative or eco-
nomic center of Judah. Ramat Raḥel, not Jerusalem, was the collection
point for the sub-province’s taxes, and the building and exotic garden
there show it to be the seat of the governor. Second, the book of Ezra’s
representation of Persian largesse overstates the imperial administration’s
support for the temple. It did not fund the temple’s reconstruction or
139. For what follows, see the discussions, with further literature, in Bedford 2001;
2007; 2015; Lipschits 2019; Knoppers 2019: 154–169.
140. Ezra 1:1–11.
141. Ezra 4–5.
142. Ezra 1:4–11; 7:15–16; 8:24–30.
724
ensure that it was rebuilt. Regarding Artaxerxes’s firman, no Achaemenid

ruler would have effectively given unrestricted financial support to the
temple of a subjugated people, and especially not in a minor sub-province
such as Judah. Third, the priesthood had no role in respect to taxation in
Judah; indeed, they were even unable to maintain income for the temple.
In the book of Nehemiah the local governor had oversight of the temple,
its precincts, and personnel, and he acted to ensure that income for the
temple was regularized. The temple did not operate as an independent
institution. Fourth, related to point three, there was no diarchy in Judah.
Diarchy was not a Judean political tradition, and arguments from puta-
tive parallels or Persian conduct toward other subjugated peoples prove
unconvincing.143 The minting of a coin with the name and office of the
Jerusalem (high?) priest (yḥnn hkhn) probably took place in the early
Hellenistic period rather than the mid-fourth century as had been pre-
viously thought. Accepting the earlier dating, the coin may reflect an
increased status for the temple at the end of the Persian period, although
the available archaeological evidence does not support an improvement
in Jerusalem’s material conditions.144 Fifth, contemporary Babylonian
temples do not offer pertinent parallels to the economic role of the
Jerusalem temple since they differ in scale, range of activities, control of
land, modes of extracting income, economic importance, and close inter-
action with the crown. More apt temples for comparison are the Judean
temple in Elephantine or the neighboring Samarian temple at Gerizim,
neither of which served as an economic or administrative center.145
The development of Judah as a temple state and the rise of the politi-
cal authority of the high priest took place only in the Hellenistic period.
If antecedents lie in the Persian period, they prove difficult to detect.
The interests of the Persian Empire were best served through the office
and authority of the sub-provincial governor. The appointment of a
143. In addition to Bedford 2001: 185–

207, see also Rooke 2000: 125–
239;
Fried 2004.
144. For the coin, see Barag 1985; on its dating, see Gitler and Lorber 2008: 69–70.
145. On Elephantine, see Rohrmoser 2014: 153–185; on Gerizim, see Knoppers
2019: 169–175.
725
Judean to that office, as with the appointment of a Samarian governor in

Samaria or a Tyrian ruler in Tyre, should be viewed as part of an admin-
istrative strategy whose pragmatic goal was, as with all empires, to keep
subjugated peoples politically quiescent and remitting their taxes to the
imperial treasury.
60.5. In conclusion
The satrapy “Across-the-River” was strategically important to the Persian
Empire as it connected Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Egypt, serving as
the thoroughfare through which Persian military forces and trade trav-
eled. Its ports linked the empire to the wider Mediterranean for trade
and served to harbor its navy. Phoenician and Cypriot cities provided
the naval vessels and sailors, as well as the merchant fleets, so their eco-
nomic and military significance grew. Sidon and Tyre’s political influ-
ence in the southern Levant was substantially enhanced under Persian
rule. Overall, the coastal region became more urbanized, saw increased
population, and generated more economic activity, while the inland
region, by contrast, languished in comparison.
The satrapy was ethnically and religiously diverse. Its administra-
tive organization shows the imprint of earlier empires’ incorporation
of the Levant’s various polities into an imperial system. In comparison
with Egypt (chapter 61 in this volume), the satrapy “Across-the-River”
was politically quiescent, which might reflect the success of the Persian
administrative practice of making use of local elites and recognizing
various local political, religious, and legal traditions within the satrapal
structure.
No doubt this was instrumental in the Persians’ successful co-opting
of the Phoenician cities and ethnic groups such as the Judeans and
Samarians, as well as the Arab tribes that technically were located out-
side any satrapy. An illustration of this success are the Judean texts from
the late Persian period, namely the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah,
which are overwhelmingly positive in their appraisal of life under Persian
rule. One legacy of this approach, in the southern Levant at least, appears
to be the strengthening of emerging ethno-political identities, reflected
726
in ongoing tensions among neighboring peoples over political boundar-

ies, political interference, and cultural influence ( Judah/Samaria; Judah/
Tyre; Judah/Idumea), which continued to play out in the Hellenistic
period.
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61
The Satrapies of the Persian

Empire in Egypt
Damien Agut-Labordère
61.1. Introduction
The period of Persian domination over Egypt (figure 61.1a, b) consti-
tuted a profound rupture in the region’s long history.1 For the first time,
all of Egypt was permanently integrated into a vast, multi-continental
empire. Persian imperial rule from 526 to 404 bc had little in common
with the ephemeral effects of the Assyrian invasions in the first half of
the seventh century bc (chapter 38 in volume 4). However, conquering
and ruling Egypt, a land with a millennia-long history and a strong cul-
tural identity, and that was situated in a remote position in relation to
1. The past decade has been marked by a significant increase of studies concerning
the Persian domination of Egypt, with Klotz 2015a and Lippert 2019 providing
very useful introductions to the topic. Several recent monographs are dedicated to
Persian Egypt: Ruzicka 2012 (focusing on international relations); Wojciekowska
2016 (on the period of Egyptian independence between the first and second
Persian domination); Wasmuth 2017a (on royal ideology); and Colburn 2019
(on archaeology and economic history). The Egyptian hieroglyphic sources are
presented in Vittmann 2011 and Sternberg-el Hotabi 2017. Despite all this recent
work, the classic study by Posener 1936, although outdated in many respects,
retains its value. The chapter was language-edited by Karen Radner.
Damien Agut-Labordère, The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Egypt In: The Oxford History of the Ancient
738
739

740
the center of the Persian Empire in faraway Iran, provided a number of

formidable challenges for the Persian invaders. Therefore, Egypt’s inte-
gration into their state can certainly be seen as one of Persia’s greatest
political achievements.
The conquest of Egypt by Cambyses (530–522 bc; chapter 55 in this
volume) in 526 bc marked the beginning of the first period of Persian
domination, corresponding to the Twenty- seventh Dynasty in the
scheme of the Hellenistic historiographer Manetho. Persian rule was
interrupted at the very end of the fifth century bc by a period of Egyptian
independence. During the six decades from 404 to 342 bc, Egypt was
ruled by local dynasties, designated by Manetho as the Twenty-eighth,
Twenty-ninth, and Thirtieth Dynasties. Afterward, Egypt was again
brought under Persian domination, but this second period of Persian
rule turned out to be short-lived, as it was abruptly interrupted only a
decade later by the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 bc.
The Persian dominion over Egypt included also the Cyrenaica,
the Western Desert, and perhaps parts of Lower Nubia. It is uncertain
whether the Nile valley was ever the sole focus of Cambyses’s conquest.
Herodotus claimed that Cambyses was nurturing a much grander
African project, and according to his assessment, the Persian conqueror
planned
three expeditions, against the Carchedonians (=Carthaginians),

against the Ammonians, and against the “long-lived” Ethiopians,
who inhabit that part of Libya that is on the southern sea.2
Whether Cambyses held ambitions to extend his empire further across

the continent or not, the geography of the African part of the Persian
Empire was limited to the area of influence previously held by the Saite
rulers (section 61.2 and also chapter 49 in this volume).3 Moreover, a
closer examination of the political chronology of the Persian rule attests
2. Hdt. 3.17.1−2.
3. Briant 2002: 54.
741
The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Egypt 741
to the difficulties encountered in maintaining control over the African

holdings (section 61.3). In spite of, or perhaps because of, these difficul-
ties, Egypt appears to have been a province that was administered with
a firm hand (section 61.4) and whose people and culture were present at
the very heart of the Persian Empire (section 61.5).
61.2. The African regions of the

Persian Empire
Within the list of the twenty provinces (nomoi) that Herodotus attrib-
uted to Darius I (522–486 bc), Egypt appears in the sixth position.
It is associated with “the neighboring parts of Libya, and Cyrene and
Barca.”4 It must be stressed that Herodotus’s description excludes Nubia,
which contradicts some of the lists of imperial regions provided by the
Achaemenid royal inscriptions.5 While these lists routinely mention
Egypt, Nubia (i.e., Kush) and Libya are only attested in the longest of
these inscriptions.6 However, Egypt, Libya, and Nubia appear, in that
order, at the end of the list of submitted peoples on the base of the statue
of Darius I discovered in Susa, mentioned just before Maka and Hindu,
the ultimate confines of the Persian Empire.7 In the depictions of the
procession of the tribute-bearers on the staircases of the Apadana in
Persepolis, the Egyptians are shown delivering folded textiles (perhaps
byssos, the famous fine Egyptian linen) and a bull to the Persian king,
whereas the Nubians (Kushites) are depicted as bringing a small chest
(probably containing gold), elephant tusks, and a large mammal of
uncertain species (perhaps a giraffe).8
4. Hdt. 3.91.2.
5. Briant 2002: 175–177.
6. For Darius I’s inscription from Naqš-e Rustam (DNa), see Kuhrt 2007: 502,
no. 11.16.
7. Yoyotte 2013: 278–279.
8. Wasmuth 2017a: 30–44.
742
To the Persians, Egypt was Mudraya, a toponym derived from the

well-attested Semitic root MṢR, which means “country,” “region,” and
most significantly, “border”; this corresponds to the older Assyrian
and Babylonian designation for Egypt. The way in which the Persians
referred to Egypt reflects the fact that the Nile valley was clearly per-
ceived as a border of their empire. This is illustrated also by an anecdote
attributed to the Greek historian Deinon, who, according to Plutarch
in his history of Persia, remarked on the fact that the Persians saw the
Nile as a river that demarcated the extent of their dominion (just like the
Danube river on the northwestern edge of the empire):
Deinon says that the Persian kings had water also brought from
the Nile and the Danube and stored up among their treasures,
as a sort of confirmation of the greatness of their empire and the
universality of their sway.9
Deinon mentions another royal “gift from the confines,” namely “ammo-
nium salt”: this is the natron extracted from Wadi Natrun, located at the
western end of the Nile delta.10 This recalls another mineral offered as
a gift from Egypt, the alum extracted by the priests of the Siwa oasis.11
The areas of origin of these gifts testify that the whole Western Desert
had entered the Persian orbit. The increasing use of dromedaries allowed
a more intensive human occupation of the Libyan Desert during the
Persian period, as confirmed by the archaeological material found along
the desert roads.12 Correspondingly, this time also saw a revival of activ-
ity along the long and ancient trail linking Nubia to Middle Egypt: the
Darb el-Arbain, or Forty Days Road.13
9. Plut. Vit. Alex. 36.2.

10. Briant 2002: 385, 930.
11. Arr. An. 3.4.3−4.
12. The Libyan caravan roads during the first period of Persian domination are dis-
cussed by Liverani 2000 and Agut-Labordère 2018.
13. Morkot 1996; Riemer and Förster 2013.
743
In the north, the Western Desert was connected with the

Mediterranean world through the coastal region of Cyrenaica, today
part of Libya. According to Herodotus, its main cities Cyrene and Barca
belonged to Egypt.14 At the time of Cambyses’s conquest, the Libyans,
the Cyreneans, and the Barceans had surrendered without fighting and
brought gifts and tribute (phoros) to the Persian conqueror,15 but he
refused these because their amount had not been negotiated with the
Persian authorities in advance.16 Conflicts regarding the tribute payments
of the cities of the Cyrenaica might be at the root of the military expe-
dition launched by the satrap Aryandes soon after the initial conquest.
When Arkesilas III of Cyrene, a member of the local Battiad Dynasty,
was assassinated during an internal revolt that was instigated and sup-
ported by Barca, his mother Pheretime found refuge in Egypt, where
she received the support of the satrap Aryandes. Soon after, the Persian
forces captured Barca and returned Cyrene to the Battiad Dynasty. Thus
Libya and the Cyrenaica were brought back under Persian control.17
The sources from the heart of the Persian Empire do not fully elu-
cidate the political situation of Nubia (to the Persians, Kush; and to
the Greeks, Ethiopia).18 In the foundation inscription of Darius I from
Persepolis (DPh), the land of Kush is mentioned as the diametrical coun-
terpart to Sogdiana (on which see chapter 62 in this volume),19 while on
the relief decoration of his royal tomb at Naqš-e Rustam, Kush is one of
the subjugate nations, depicted as men supporting the Persian throne.
This matches the already mentioned depiction of the tribute-bearers of
14. Hdt. 3.91.

15. Hdt. 3.13.
16. Briant 2002: 69.
17. Hdt. 4.167; 4.204; see Mitchell 1966: 99–104.
18. The Greek toponym Ethiopia derives from the Greek word aithops, used for an
individual whose face has the “color of fire.”
19. For Darius I’s foundation inscription from Persepolis (DPh), see Kuhrt
2007: 476–477, no. 11.1.
74
the Apadana in Persepolis, which includes at the very end of the above-
mentioned procession three Kushites.
All this indicates that under Darius I, Nubia—or at least Lower
Nubia—was considered part of the Persian Empire. Indeed, according
to Flavius Josephus,20 Nubia (“Ethiopia”) was one of the empire’s twenty-
seven provinces in the third year of the reign of Artaxerxes I (465–424
bc).21 The testimony of Herodotus further clarifies the political status
of Lower Nubia, as according to him, the “Ethiopians” under Darius
I were, like the Colchidians and the Arabs, people “on whom no trib-
ute was laid but who rendered gifts instead.”22 From Nubia, the Persians
also recruited men for their armies. In the long passage that Herodotus
devoted to the description of Xerxes’s forces in the plain of Doriskos
during the Second Persian War, the “Ethiopians” are described as having
painted their bodies in such a way that they seemed to be divided into
two halves.23 Such patterns are attested for tribal population groups in
the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan,24 which might indicate that the
Nubian warriors fighting in the Persian army did not necessarily come
from the parts of Nubia closest to Egypt.
Historical sources concerning the diplomatic relations between the
Persian Empire and the kingdom(s) of Middle and Upper Nubia are
extremely tenuous. According to Herodotus, Cambyses dispatched an
embassy to the “king of the Ethiopians,” who in return sent him a bow,
advising that the Persians
will be able to attack the long-lived Ethiopians when (they) can

draw a bow of this length as easily as I do; but until then, to thank
20. Joseph. AJ 11.184.

21. Cf. also Esth 1.1: “Now in the days of Ahasuerus (=Xerxes), the Ahasuerus who
reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.”
22. Hdt. 3.97: “Two choenixes of unrefined gold, two hundred blocks of ebony, five
Ethiopian boys, and twenty elephants’ tusks, meaning that Nubia did not have a
regular imperial tax upon them.” See Morkot 1991: 326.
23. Hdt. 7.69.
24. Cabon et al. 2016: 172–173.
745
the gods who do not incite the sons of the Ethiopians to add
other land to their own.25
While the final part of the Ethiopian king’s statement would seem to
suggest that the Nubian rulers did not pursue expansionist strategies in
the direction of Egypt during the Persian period, their diplomatic rela-
tions with the empire and the Mediterranean more generally seem to
have been limited. A rhyton vessel signed by the Greek painter Sotades
was discovered in the superstructure of a pyramid in Meroe,26 and this
object provides rare material evidence for some sort of elite exchange
with the northern regions. Also the trade in less prestigious products
seems limited. Lisa Heidorn notes the rarity of Greek and, more broadly,
Mediterranean pottery in all of Nubia from the end of the sixth century
to the end of the fifth century bc, in clear contrast to the situation in
Egypt during the same period.27 All this seems to indicate a significant
reduction in trade and other types of exchange between Persian Egypt
and Nubia, compared to previous periods. In light of this, Herodotus’s
entire narrative concerning Cambyses’s Ethiopian War should be read
with caution.28
This is also due to the fact that the evidence provided by the inscrip-
tion on the stele of the Nubian ruler Nastasen can no longer be seen
as independent confirmation of Cambyses’s activities in this region.
A certain Kmbsdn is named as an adversary of Nastasen according to
the inscription on the latter’s stele, which was taken by some to stand
for Cambyses.29 Apart from the fact that Nastasen’s text mentions that
25. Hdt. 3.21.

26. Begarawiya no. 24; see Török 2014: 26. The vessel is now kept in the Museum of
Fine Art, Boston (inventory no. 21.2286).
27. Heidorn 2018: 197.
28. Hdt. 3.25; see Török 2014: 40–53.
29. Stele Berlin ÄS 2268. Alternatively, Kmbsdn has been interpreted as a reference
to the ephemeral pharaoh Khababash; for both views, see the detailed discussion
of Morkot 1991: 330–331.
746
he seized the lands and herds that belonged to Kmbsdn (which hardly
matches what would have happened in the case of the defeat of the ruler
of the Persian Empire), it has now been established that Nastasen ruled
in the 340s bc, which invalidates the identification of Kmbsdn with
Cambyses.30 It is therefore more likely to assume that Kmbsdn was a
Nubian chieftain based in Lower Nubia.
The Nubian ruler Harsiotef may have been Nastasen’s father and
predecessor. The inscription of his stele dates to his twenty-third regnal
year and suggests that Lower Nubia was a politically gray zone where
his opponents could find refuge.31 The text mentions an expedition that
aimed to crush the rebellion of two governors called Baraqo and Sa’amise,
who were active in the vast area from the Second Cataract to Aswan for
which no Persian, or Egyptian, presence was mentioned. This impression
of a political vacuum in this region is confirmed by the excavations at the
Nile fortress of Dorginarti, built in the eighth century bc to secure the
region of the Second Cataract. As the ceramic evidence dates the fort’s
end to around the time of the Persian conquest of Egypt, it is very likely
that the stronghold was emptied of its garrison at the end of the Saite
period (corresponding approximately to Dorginarti Level II), and that
this reflects the joint disinterest of the Persians and Nubians for Lower
Nubia.32 All this indicates that Aswan and the First Cataract region were
the southern frontier of the Persian satrapy of Egypt, although some of
the population groups between the First and Second Cataracts sought to
align themselves with the Persian Empire.
In conclusion, whereas the strategy of the Persians was largely inher-
ited from Amasis and the Saite rulers of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty with
regard to the Cyrenaica and the Western Desert, the Persian Empire was
much less active in Nubia and did not attempt to emulate the offensive
example of Psamtek II of Sais (cf. chapter 49 in this volume).
30. Cabon et al. 2016: 183.

31. For the Harsiotef Stele, see Grimal 1981: 40–61.
32. Heidorn 2013: 293; 2018: 197.
74
61.3. The challenges to Persian rule

over Egypt
We do not know why the Persians did not expand their empire toward
Nubia, but it is possible that such pusillanimity originated in the diffi-
culty in maintaining control over Egypt. Just like Babylonia (chapter 59
in this volume), Egypt had a strong political tradition that had been
established over the course of three millennia. This was embodied by the
Saite political elite, whose members had been able to impose their influ-
ence throughout the eastern Mediterranean.33
The history of Persian Egypt does not begin with the victory of
Cambyses over Psamtek III in the year 526 bc, but with Cambyses’s
stay in Babylonia from July 528 to March 527 bc, where he gathered
and equipped a vast army.34 The conqueror may well have waited for the
death of Psamtek’s predecessor and father Amasis (570–527 bc), which
eventually took place in the last quarter of the year 527 bc, to launch his
troops toward the Sinai. All this implies that the military phase of the
Persian conquest occurred between January and March 526 bc.35
From the earliest years of its existence, the political history of the
satrapy of Egypt is marked by rebellion. The first known Egyptian rebel
leader was Petubastis IV. His reign was recently re-evaluated as a result
of Olaf Kaper’s discovery at Amheida in the Dakhla oasis of the remains
of a temple, which has his royal name engraved upon it. This major find
indicates that Petubastis IV found strong support among the people of
the Western Desert. Opinions differ on the chronology of Petubastis
IV’s reign. Most historians see him as one of the “liar-kings” mentioned
by Darius I in his victory inscription at Bisotun.36 However, Olaf Kaper
recently proposed that the beginning of Petubastis’s reign be traced back

34. Joannès 2021: 222.
35. This would be more than a year before the traditional dating; see Quack 2011. On
the entire Egyptian campaign, see Cruz Uribe 2003.
36. On this revolt, see Wijnsma 2018.
748
to the time of Cambyses’s conquest. According to his interpretation, it

was the Dakhla oasis that the detachment sent by Cambyses “against the
Ammonians” would have targeted.37
A new rebel leader, designated as Psamtek IV, appears in Demotic
papyri from the Theban region at the end of the reign of Darius I.38
Uzume Wijnsma, who recently discussed the date of this second revolt,
proposed to retain its dating to 487–484 bc, which is based on the testi-
mony of Herodotus,39 and stressed the interesting fact that a part of the
Egyptian population remained loyal to the Persians, demonstrating that
the hotbed of Psamtek IV’s revolt was Upper Egypt.40
A third great revolt began in 463/462 bc, a few years after the death
of Xerxes I in August 465 bc. Dan’el Kahn managed to elucidate both
the chronology and the course of events.41 According to the testimony
of Thucydides,42 the revolt began at Marea in the western reaches of the
Nile delta and was led by a man called Inaros. A Demotic ostracon dated
to Inaros’s Year 2 was unearthed in Ayn Manawir in the Kharga oasis.43
In this document, Inaros does not bear royal pharaonic titles but is called
“prince of the Bakales,” referring to a Libyan tribe centered on the city
of Tocra in the Cyrenaica, situated at only a short distance from Barca.
As we have seen above (section 61.2), this city had previously caused the
overthrow and the murder of Arkesilas III of Cyrene, who had recog-
nized the Persian authority on Libya after Cambyses’s conquest.44 The
ostracon from Ayn Manawir, combined with the information from
37. Hdt. 3.25; see Kaper 2015.

38. Papyrus Hou 4, 7 and 8; see Pestman 1984; Vleeming 1991; Wijnsma 2019: 54–55.
39. Hdt. 7.1−7; 7.20.
40. Wijnsma 2019: 33–44.
41. Kahn 2008.
42. Thuc. 1.104.1.
43. Ostracon Man. 5446; see Chauveau 2004; also available online at http://
www.achemenet.com/en/item/?/textual-sources/texts-by-regions/egypt/ain-
manawir/ostraca-from-ain-manawir/1573140 (last accessed February 14, 2021).
44. Winnicki 2006. On the Bakales tribe, see Marini 2018: 27–28, 46–47.
749
Thucydides, indicates that the rebellion led by Inaros quickly pros-

pered in the Western Desert. Inaros also managed to solicit the support
of Athens, who dispatched the large fleet which had previously fought
Cyprus, in support of the Egyptian rebels. With such assistance, Inaros
was able to defeat the Persian forces at Papremis, a city of unknown loca-
tion in the western Nile delta, to kill the satrap Achaemenes and lay siege
to Memphis in 462/461 bc.
Only two years later, after long preparations, the Persians dispatched
an army that eventually broke the siege of Memphis in 460/459 bc. The
rebels and their allies were pushed back to the island of Prosopitis in
the Nile delta and were in turn besieged by the Persian forces. After the
surrender of the Athenians, the rest of the rebel troops were crushed and
“Inaros ( . . . ), who had been the originator of the whole movement in
Egypt, was taken by treachery and impaled.”45 A decade later, Amyrtaeus,
another rebel leader active in the western Nile delta, provoked a new
revolt which again received naval support from Athens in the form of its
triremes.46 According to Diodorus, these events took place in 450/449
bc.47 Despite the fact that the island of Prosopitis was, once again, at the
center of the fighting, the rebellion of Amyrtaeus must be considered
entirely separate from the previous revolt led by Inaros.48
After these years of conflict and unrest, the second half of the fifth
century bc is characterized by an easing of the tensions surrounding
Persian rule and by a decline in secessionist movements. Indeed, Egypt
did not seem to experience any further trouble until the Persian domina-
tion came to an end in 400 bc. In order to explain Egypt’s sudden exit
from the Persian Empire, it has often been assumed that a new “nation-
alist” revolt was led by Amyrtaeus of Sais, the one and only king of
Manetho’s Twenty-eighth Dynasty, who took the crown under the name
45. Thuc. 1.110.

46. Thuc. 1.112.
47. Diod. Sic. 12.2−3 (during the archonship of Euthydemus).
48. Kahn 2008: 437–438.
750
of Psamtek V.49 However, there are no extant sources that confirm that
any such unrest occurred in Egypt toward the end of the fifth century
bc. On the other hand, Aramaic papyri from Elephantine and Demotic
ostraca from the village of Ayn Manawir in the Kharga oasis confirm that
until 400 bc, the regnal years of Artaxerxes II (404–358 bc) were used
side by side with those of Psamtek V. The Egyptian population of Ayn
Manawir and the Judean garrison at Elephantine therefore did not per-
ceive the advent of the Twenty-eighth Dynasty as a complete political
break. Perhaps we should abandon the idea of an Egyptian war of libera-
tion and give preference to reconstructions that assume a smoother path
to independence?50
However, once Nepherites (399–393 bc), who had overthrown
Psamtek V and taken the crown of Egypt as the founder of the Twenty-
ninth Dynasty, agreed to provide 100 triremes and 100,000 measures
of wheat in order to aid Sparta against the Persian Empire,51 the politi-
cal rupture between Egypt and Artaxerxes II is clearly visible.52 Further
hostilities between Egypt and the Persian Empire are mentioned by
Isocrates for the 380s bc during the reign of Hakor (Achoris; 393–380
bc), the most prominent ruler of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty.53 This
conflict was part of a much larger war in which the Persian Empire was
faced over three years by a coalition that brought together city-states on
Cyprus (including Salamis) and in the Levant (Tyre) with Cilicia and
Lydia in Asia Minor.
But the fact that the Persians waited for two decades before deci-
sively attempting to reclaim Egypt shows that the region’s independence
did not in itself pose a particular problem for the empire. However, the
Persians rightly feared the ability of an independent Egypt to contrib-
ute to an anti-Persian coalition in the eastern Mediterranean (as it had
49. Chauveau 1996: 44–47.

50. Agut-Labordère and Chauveau 2021: 1–4.
51. Diod. Sic. 14.79.4−7.
52. Briant 2002: 637.
53. Isoc. 4.140.
751
previously in the sixth century bc under the Twenty-sixth Dynasty pha-

raoh Amasis: c hapter 49 in this volume) and to provide its allies with the
essentials of war, including troops and food provisions.
The advent of the Thirtieth Dynasty did not change this inher-
ently hostile situation. In 374/373 bc, during the reign of Artaxerxes III
(359–338 bc), Pharaoh Nectanebo I (Nakhtnebef;54 379–361 bc) faced
a meticulously planned invasion led by the Persian Pharnabazus and
the Athenian general Iphicrates, for under Persian pressure, Athens had
withdrawn its support for Egypt by recalling Chabrias, the general who
supported Nectanebo. The course of the campaign is well known thanks
to Diodorus’s testimony.55 The Egyptian forces fortified the eastern Nile
delta and put up a formidable defense, which seems to have ruined the
unity between the invading forces as Pharnabazus and Iphicrates pur-
sued different strategies. Stuck in the eastern Delta, the Persian army was
eventually forced to withdraw in the face of the rising Nile flood at the
end of the summer. It is likely that it was the cost of mounting such mili-
tary defenses, which involved the extensive use of foreign soldiers and
military experts, that caused Nectanebo to strengthen his alliance with
the Greek world (particularly with Athens) in the first place and also to
substantially raise taxes, especially on the temples.56
Around 359 bc, Teos (Tachos, in Egyptian Djedhor; 361–359 bc), the
son and successor of Nectanebo I, launched a large-scale military cam-
paign directed against the Persian presence in the Levant.57 According
to Diodorus, the operation involved 200 ships, 80,000 Egyptian fight-
ers, and 10,000 mercenaries recruited for the occasion. In addition, a
Spartan expeditionary force led by King Agesilas joined the Egyptian
troops. The Athenian general Chabrias was also present, but only as a
private individual since the citizens’ assembly of Athens had previously
54. Note that the Greek sources do not distinguish between Nakhtnebef (Nectanebo
I) and Nakhthorheb (Nectanebo II).
55. Diod. Sic. 15.41−42; see Kahn and Tammuz 2008: 63.
57. Diod. Sic. 15.90−93; Xen. Ages. 2.28.
752
refused to support the Egyptian offensive against the Persian Empire.

After some initial successes, the Egyptian attack failed. This was prob-
ably linked to the usurpation attempt mounted back in Egypt by Teos’s
uncle Tjahapimu on behalf of his son Nakhthorheb, who fought along-
side Teos in the Levant.58 Teos was forced to take refuge with his former
adversary Artaxerxes II, while Nakhthorheb returned to Egypt to claim
the crown as Nectanebo II (359–343 bc), after having defeated another
pretender from Mendes.59
Diodorus briefly mentions a renewed attempt by Persian forces to
invade Egypt,60 which can be dated to the year 351 bc. Later, in 343
bc, the Phoenician cities revolted against the Persian Empire, with reb-
els destroying the royal “paradise” and the warehouses of the Persian
administration, and Nectanebo II dispatched an expeditionary force
from Egypt to assist these insurgents. The Phoenician and Egyptian
forces defeated the armies sent by the Persian satraps of Cilicia and
Syria, and Artaxerxes III decided to get personally involved in the con-
flict. After having gathered his army in Babylonia, he marched on Sidon,
and from there he launched a new campaign against Egypt. Diodorus
described the Persian strategy in detail.61 Pelusium was put under siege
while another part of the royal army advanced further south into the
Nile delta. Defeated, Nectanebo II fled and took refuge in the capital,
Memphis. His reaction was certainly the main reason for the subse-
quent military debacle with the Egyptian forces. The Persian troops
took Pelusium and Bubastis, while Nectanebo II left Memphis to flee
to Upper Egypt, and then to Nubia. Thus began the second period of
Persian domination.62
58. Engsheden 2006: 62–68.

59. Diod. Sic. 15.93.2−6; Plut. Vit. Ages. 38.1.
60. Diod. Sic. 16.48.
61. Diod. Sic. 16.46.4−51.3.
62. Note that Depuydt 2010 proposed to shift the date of the second Persian con-
quest of Egypt from 342 bc to 340/339 bc by increasing the period of rule of the
Thirtieth Dynasty, but this is not convincing.
753
The short period of renewed Persian rule over Egypt from 342–332
bc is poorly documented. It is difficult to properly date the reign of
the ephemeral pharaoh Khababash, who is attested on the so-called
Satrap Stele.63 In its initial phase, which corresponded to the remaining
years of Artaxerxes III’s reign, there seem to have been severe repercus-
sions, particularly for the Egyptian temples, while the short reign of
Darius III (336–330 bc) appears to have been marked by a desire for
appeasement.64
61.4. Egypt under Persian domination

The great majority of Egyptian texts written during or after the Persian
domination designate the Persians as “Medes” (metiu). Unlike the
Assyrians, the Persians were not routinely perceived as negative in
Egyptian historical memory.65
Modern scholars have traditionally addressed the question of how
Persian power over Egypt was legitimized by drawing on two sources:66
a passage in Herodotus that gives the reasons that led Cambyses to
invade Egypt,67 and the inscription on the statue of Udjahorresnet,
a high dignitary of the Saite state who submitted to the new Persian
overlord (figure 61.2).68 As reported by Herodotus, Cambyses was
thought to have been the son of the pharaoh Apries,69 and this detail
63. Egyptian Museum Cairo, inventory no. CGC 22263; see Schäfer 2011.
64. Agut-Labordère 2021: 179–180.
65. Agut-Labordère 2017a. Note also Papyrus Carlsberg 555 verso, a fragmen-
tary Demotic papyrus from the Roman period that belongs to a group of his-
torical narratives preserving traditions about a conflict between Persians and
Egyptians: Ryholt 2012.
66. For an extensive discussion concerning the legitimization of the first Persian rul-
ers over Egypt, and the sources for this subject, see Wasmuth 2017a: 221–238.
67. Hdt. 3.1−3.
68. Museo Gregoriano Egizio, Vatican Museums, inventory no. 22690.
69. Hdt. 3.2.
754
Figure 61.2. The statue of Udjahorresnet. Museo Gregoriano Egizio, Vatican

Museums, Vatican City; inventory no. 22690. Photograph by Gary Todd, via
Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=
101236391); Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0.
75
may perhaps have originated from a story that was intentionally dissem-
inated by the Persians in order to claim the conqueror’s descent from
Psamtek I, the founder of the Saite Dynasty. Another important ele-
ment in making Cambyses palatable to the Egyptians as their new ruler
was his adoption of an Egyptian royal titulature, which Udjahorresnet
took credit for composing. For the following period of Persian rule,
we know only of a full pharaonic titulature for Darius I, whereas it is
uncertain that the succeeding Persian kings ever took on a complete
pharaonic name.70
Further insight concerning the legitimization of Persian power
in Egypt is provided by the inscription carved on a statue of Darius I
from Egypt but discovered in Susa (figure 61.3).71 The god Atum orders
Darius to conquer Egypt, while the goddess Neith entrusts him with her
bow to destroy his enemies. Moreover, the text states that “Atum, lord
of Heliopolis, chose (Darius) to be master of all that is circumscribed
beneath the solar disk,” indicating that the king holds the world empire
by virtue of the will of the Egyptian god.
Just like Cambyses, who held the name “Born of Ra” (mesuti Ra),
Darius’s solar name mentioned the sun god Ra: “Image of Ra” (setut Ra).
To Ivan Ladynin, these epithets suggest that the sacrality attached to the
first two Persian rulers over Egypt was not incorporated in their person,
but was derived from the Egyptian deities that they temporarily embod-
ied.72 A stele that depicts Darius (probably the first ruler of that name)
as assimilated to the falcon god Horus provides a very good example
of this hypostatic conception of kingship,73 as does a graffito from Apa
Tyrannos on the western bank of the Nile, near Hermonthis: here, the
name of the god Amenheb is carved in a royal cartouche which is part of
70. The only complete titulature of Darius is engraved on the temple of Hibis;
see von Beckerath 1999: 220.
71. Yoyotte 2013.
72. Ladynin 2020. On the deification of Darius I, see also Wasmuth 2017a: 245–249.
73. Stele Berlin ÄS 7493; see Vittmann 2003: 139–140.
756
Figure 61.3. The Egyptian statue of Darius I from Susa. National Museum of
Iran, Tehran, inventory no. 103 (2103). Photograph by ‫ درفش کاویانی‬/National
Museum of Iran, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/
w/index.php?curid=27933887); Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY
3.0) license.
75
Darius’s titulature, thus assimilating the main deity of the Kharga oasis
to the Persian ruler.74
Turning to the practical aspects of the Persian control over Egypt,
the region was entrusted to a Persian governor, a “satrap” (Old Persian
xšaçapāvan). However, in the Egyptian documentation, this title is only
attested after the conquest of Alexander the Great.75 In Demotic texts
of the Persian period, the governor is designated by a paraphrase, for
example: “He to whom Egypt is entrusted.”76 The earliest reference to
the province of Egypt comes from a cuneiform tablet from Sippar in
Babylonia, which is dated to February 523 bc.77 The first governor of
Egypt was probably Aryandes, who was appointed to this position by
Cambyses before being executed by Darius I, probably in 519 bc;78 he
was then replaced by Pherendates. Later, Xerxes appointed to this office
his own brother Achaemenes, who was killed in 462/461 bc at Papremis
during the revolt led by Inaros (section 61.3). The position then fell to a
certain Aršama, who is attested in a number of Demotic and Aramaic
texts dated from Year 30 of Artaxerxes I to Year 17 of Darius II, that
is, the period from 435–407 bc. Aršama therefore seems to have ruled
Egypt for most of the second half of the fifth century bc.79
There is abundant administrative documentation available for the
period when Aršama ruled Egypt as satrap. These documents deal with
the daily functioning of the satrap’s administration, which was prob-
ably based at the palace of Apries, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty ruler, in
74. Apa Tyrannos graffito no. 5, see Di Cerbo and Jasnow 1996: 37–38; Vleeming
2015: 98, no. 1437.
75. Chauveau 2009: 126.
76. Papyrus Berlin 13540 and 13539; see Kuhrt 2007: 852, no. 17.30i; 853, no. 17.30ii.
77. Strassmaier 1890: no. 344 (“Camb. 344”); (available online on http://
www.achemenet.com/fr/item/?/sources-textuelles/textes-par-publication/
Strassmaier_Cambyse/1681422; last accessed February 14, 2021); see MacGinnis
1994: 210 n. 66; Briant 2017: 887.
78. Hdt. 4.166; see Briant 2002: 409–401, 935. For a list of the satraps of Egypt, see
Jacobs 1994: 163–174.
79. Martin 2019: 179; cf. Tuplin and Ma (eds.) 2020.
758
Mit Rahina and elsewhere in the nearby capital city of Memphis.80 The
earlier Egyptian state administrative system was overturned by the cre-
ation of the Egyptian satrapy.81 The satrap’s administrative offices were
supervised by “Investigators” (Old Persian *patifrāsa; Aramaic ptyrps /
ptprs; Demotic pṱprs).82 Some of the high-ranking titles used during the
preceding Saite period disappeared completely, such as “overseer of the
Scribes of the Council” (imi-ra seshu djadjat)83 or “overseer of the Royal
Ships” (imi-ra hauu nesu),84 while other titles are still attested under the
rule of Darius I, such as the rather enigmatic official called senti,85 or the
“overseer of the Treasury” (imi-ra perui hedj).86
As during the preceding Assyrian and Babylonian empires, Aramaic
was the administrative language of the Persian Empire,87 and modern
scholars assume that there was an Aramaic school in the satrapy’s capi-
tal city Memphis.88 Demotic also continued to be used also under the
Persian administration, but this language seems to have been reserved
for specific purposes, such as correspondence with Egyptian temples and
management of the royal agricultural domains.89
80. Hdt. 3.14.1: τεῖχος τὸ ἐν Μέμφι. The palace of Apries was captured together with
the city of Memphis in 526/525 bc. On the archaeology of this building, see
Leclère 2008: 65–69; Trindade Lopes 2010. On Memphis in the Persian period,
see Colburn 2019: 27–81.
81. Vittmann 2009: 99–100.
82. Porten and Yardeni 1986–1999: no. A4.2, ll. 3 and 12; Porten et al. 2011: 127–
129: B1; Smith and Martin 2009: 24–28, no. 2 front x +6.
83. Perdu 1998.
84. Goyon 1969.
85. Yoyotte 1989; Vittmann 2009: 101–102.
86. Attested as the title of Ptahhotep on his quartzite statue (Brooklyn Museum,
New York, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, inventory no. 37.353); see Colburn
2019: 176.
87. Schütze 2017.
88. Mitchell 2017: 146
89. Vittmann 2009: 102–103; Agut-Labordère 2017b.
759
The administrative geography of Persian Egypt is characterized by

the existence of a vast southern region called Tšetres (“Southern dis-
trict”: Aramaic tšṭrs; Demotic ta shedit resit). At least during the first
decades of the fifth century bc, this region was overseen by a gover-
nor, a Persian named Farnava.90 The administrative unit of the district
(Greek nomos, Aramaic tš) seems to be connected to the local police
forces (Demotic gel šer, conventionally called kalasiris);91 and in the
Western Desert, the nome of Dush was associated with a tax on agri-
cultural production (Demotic sheti en tesh). At a more local level, indi-
vidual cities were entrusted to Persian officials bearing various titles: at
the end of the fifth century bc, the Persian Vidranga held the title of sgn
at Elephantine, while the city of Coptos was controlled by Athiyawahi
“sārīs of the Persians, Noble of Coptos” (Egyptian seres en Peres repat
Gebtiu) during the reign of Xerxes (486–465 bc). Local authority could
be shared between a civilian administrator and a military official: in
Herakleopolis, a complaint written in Demotic concerning the sacred
ibis bird passed through the hands of a general (Demotic mer mesha)
before reaching the offices of a certain Arsekhen, probably the “mayor”
of the city.92
Within Egypt, the Persian army at first played the role of occupation
troops. The most important garrison was certainly the one in Memphis.
Even if the limited archaeological excavations undertaken there have not
identified clear remains of Persian period military buildings, Herodotus
mentions the furnishing of “hundred and twenty thousand bushels of
grain to the Persians quartered at the White Wall” as part of the tribute
90. Papyrus Berlin 13582: ll. 2–3, see Kuhrt 2007: 706, no. 14.14.
91. Pestman 1994: 89; Fischer-Bovet 2013: 213–215. In Thebes, the female choachyte
Tsenhor was responsible for the funerary cult of the “kalasiris of the nome
Nespaser son of Teos and his children” (Papyrus Turin 2127, no. 16). An ostracon
from Ayn Manawir contains a list of local notables gathered in 382 bc in order
to attend a “public proclamation” (shar), among them the “kalasiris of Dush”
(Demotic pa gel-sher en Gesh): Ostracon Man. 5489 (available online on http://
www.achemenet.com/fr/item/?/sources-textuelles/textes-par-regions/egypte/
ayn-manawir/ostraca-d-ayn-manawir/1573500; last accessed February 14, 2021)
92. Chauveau 2000.
760
that Egypt had to fulfill annually.93 This amount of grain, correspond-

ing to 62,200 hectoliters, would have fed 20,000 people for a year;
assuming that provisions for the families of the soldiers were included in
this figure, it can be estimated that 5,000 soldiers were stationed in the
Memphis area. Part of the Memphis garrison may have been established
in the stronghold of Kheraha (Babylon) near Heliopolis.94
Elsewhere, Aramaic-speaking soldiers were apparently settled in
the Mareotis region in the northwestern Nile delta,95 whereas a forti-
fied military establishment was excavated at Tell el-Herr in the east-
ern Nile delta.96 In the deep south of Egypt, the largest garrison after
that of Memphis was located at the Nile island of Elephantine. Here,
2,500–3,000 Judean soldiers kept watch at the southern border of the
Persian Empire.97 Daily life in this “military colony” is well known from
hundreds of papyri and ostraca (figure 61.4).98 Each soldier received a
salary (Aramaic prs), and some of them were allocated a small agricul-
tural domain by the king. This type of remuneration (prefiguring the
Ptolemaic clerouchia) seems also to be attested for the kalasiris police
forces.99 The supervision of the military was typically in the hands of
officers bearing Persian and sometimes also Semitic names,100 but there
are also some officials with Egyptian names attested: the name of an
Egyptian “general” (Demotic mer mesha) called Ankhwahibra is known
93. Hdt. 2.91.3.

94. Aja Sánchez 2008: 378–380.
95. Stele Berlin ÄS 7707 (destroyed during the Second World War). Dated to 482
bc, the inscription mentions a place called Khastemeh (khaset-tjemehu) that
can be located in the Mareotis; see Vittmann 2003: 106, 110, fig. 47.
96. On the settlement areas, see Marchi 2014; on the so-called palace, see Defernez
et al. 2017.
97. Vittmann 2017: 239 (with references).
98. Schütze 2016.
99. In the form of small fields between 0.5 and 1.5 hectares; see Smith and Martin
2009: 44–46, no. 8; Martin 2019: 182–183.
100. For the Akkadian and Aramaic names, see Vittmann 2017: 239.
761
Figure 61.4. An example of a papyrus from Elephantine: the Aramaic ver-

sion of the Bisotun inscription of Darius I. Photograph by Jona Lendering /
Livius.org, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?curid=43201091); Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
(CC BY-SA 4.0) license.
from a papyrus from Hermopolis,101 and a stele from the Serapeum at

Memphis mentions a certain Ahmose, son of Paiuenhor, “chief of the
troops” (Egyptian heri mesha), who was in charge of supervising the
burial of a divine Apis bull under Darius I.102 As the local police forces
101. Chauveau 2000.

102. Posener 1936: 41–46, no. 6. Troops based in the capital were led by a “Garrison
Commander” (Demotic heri heṱekh), see Smith and Martin 2009: 49–50,
762
were in Egyptian hands, Ahmose may have been a chief of the police
troops rather than a military commander.
Their administrative and military hold on Egyptian society allowed
the Persian authorities to challenge the traditional power of the Egyptian
temples. At the very beginning of the first period of Persian domination,
Cambyses issued a decree canceling or reducing the royal donations to
these ancient institutions,103 and this was at the root of his reputation
for impiety among the Egyptian population. It was also during his reign
that we can observe the disappearance of the steles of land donations that
were traditionally erected by the king or by private persons.104 Although
the “Great Text of the Edfu Donation” records large donations of royal
land to the god Horus Behedeti during the reign of Darius II (423–405
bc),105 it seems that for most of the Persian period, Egyptian temples
received limited funding from the crown.106 This spending policy seems
to have been particularly directed against the temples of Upper Egypt,
especially the temple of Amun at Thebes, where for example, the institu-
tion of the Divine Worship seems to have been discontinued.107 However,
the weakening of Amun of Thebes may have benefited the clergies at the
temple of Horus at Edfu and also the shrine of Amun of Hibis, the most
important religious institution of the Kharga oasis (figure 61.5).108
On the other hand, in Lower Egypt, Cambyses exempted at least
three temples in the Memphis region from his harsh economic policies,
namely the shrines of Ptah and presumably also Apis.109 The temple of
no. 11. In addition, a Persian senior officer (Demotic pa heri (en) pa mesha)
appears in a fragment of a Demotic letter discovered on the Saqqara Plateau,
see Smith and Martin 2009: 49, no. 10.
103. Agut-Labordère 2005; Kuhrt 2007: 125–127, no. 14c.
104. Meeks 1979: 653–654.
105. Kurth 2004: 402.
106. Agut-Labordère 2016; Lippert 2019.
107. Ayad 2001.
108. Ohshiro 2008.
763
Figure 61.5. A: The temple of Hibis in the Kharga oasis. Photograph courtesy Gaelle Tallet. B: The cartouche of Darius I on the
propylon of the Hibis Temple at Kharga oasis. Image by JMCC1, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?curid=15617961); Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) license.
764
Ptah in Memphis seems to have been particularly favored by the Persian

administration. It continued to enjoy the monopoly on the certifica-
tion of weighted money previously granted by the Saite kings.110 In this
context, the story of the murder of the divine Apis bull by Cambyses, as
reported by Herodotus,111 must be regarded with the utmost suspicion,
especially as a stele in the Serapeum testifies to the burial of a sacred bull
in Cambyses’s Year 6.112 However, with the accession of Xerxes (486–
465 bc) to the throne, the documentation related to the burial rites of
the sacred bulls is interrupted for more than eighty years.
The satraps also interfered with the financial affairs of the Egyptian
temples. In April 493 bc, the satrap Pherendates sent a letter to the
priests of Khnum in Elephantine castigating them because their new leso-
nis priest (who was in charge of the temple’s finance) had not received
his prior approval.113 In Thebes, a sale document for land in the domain
of Amun of Thebes, dated to 510 bc, attests that a “Representative in
Thebes” (Demotic red en Nἰut) collected on behalf of the temple a trans-
fer duty of 10 percent;114 this could mean that the Persian administration
had managed to divert part of the taxes levied by the temples to its own
coffers. More broadly, the Persian administration’s tighter economic
supervision over the Egyptian temples is likely attested by the progres-
sive adoption of the artaba, a Persian unit of volume of about 30 liters, in
lieu of the Egyptian khar.115
On the other hand, the Persian authorities do not appear to have con-
cerned themselves with matters of worship. In this context, the so-called
110. Agut-Labordère 2014: 80.

111. Hdt. 3.27−29.
112. Louvre, inventory no. IM 4133. On Cambyses’s and Darius I’s interactions with
the Egyptian clergy of Memphis on the occasion of the burial ceremonies of the
divine Apis bull, see Marković and Ilić 2018: 87.
113. Papyrus Berlin 13572; see Kuhrt 2007: 853, no. 30ii.
114. Papyrus Louvre E7128; see Vleeming 1992.
115. Chauveau 2018. The marrish, another Persian unit of measure, is still attested
during the Hellenistic and Roman periods; see Briant 1997: 83.
765
Passover Letter from Elephantine should not be over- interpreted.

Dated to 418 bc, this document reports on the mission of a certain
Hananiah who delivered an order from the Persian king to the commu-
nity of Judean soldiers residing at Elephantine;116 in the letter, Darius II
endorsed the organization of the Passover festivities in accordance with
the recommendation of the Jerusalem authorities. Similarly, the inter-
vention of the Persian authorities in the conflict between the clergy of
the Egyptian god Khnum and the clergy of Yahweh at Elephantine seems
to have been motivated by the desire to respect the right of ownership
of land.117 Apart from a profession of faith toward the god Auramazda
translated into Archaizing Egyptian on the Kabret Stele,118 there is no
other example of the Persians’ desire or even willingness to make their
own religious beliefs known to their Egyptian subjects. There is no indi-
cation that the Persians ever included a deity from any of the imperial
provinces in the pantheon of the Persian heartland,119 and this exclusion
was equally applied to the Egyptian gods.
The policy of austerity imposed by the Persian authorities on the
Egyptian temple institutions most certainly resulted in the complete
halt of any temple construction or renovation after the reign of Darius
I. It is hard to imagine that these restrictions did not have a very negative
impact on the income of those members of the Egyptian elite who held
priestly offices. This impoverishment could explain the increasing rarity,
even the almost disappearance, of private statues, tombs, and funerary
materials, but also, and even more significantly, of monetary treasures
dating to the fifth century bc.120
116. Grelot 1972: no. 96; Porten and Yardeni 1986–1999: no. A4.1; Briant 2002: 488,
586; Kuhrt 2007: 854–855, no. 17.31.
117. Briant 1996; 2017: 13; von Pilgrim 2003: 314–317; Kuhrt 2007: 855–859,
no. 17.32.
118. Posener 1936: 63–81.
119. Kuhrt 2013: 161.
120. On tombs and funerary materials, see Aston 1999. On private statues, see Agut-
Labordère 2019b: 211–213; Colburn 2019: 134–152. On monetary hoards, see
Duyrat and Agut-Labordère 2020.
76
Do we have to assume an increase in taxation? The scarcity of docu-

ments, in particular tax receipts, concerning the taxes levied in Persian
Egypt prevents us from answering this question conclusively. However,
it should be noted that according to Diodorus,121 the great Egyptian
revolt of 460 bc began with the expulsion of the Persian tax collectors,
indicating that the taxes levied by the imperial authorities were badly
tolerated by their Egyptian subjects. Among the scarce sources available,
there is a receipt among the papyri from Elephantine concerning two
debens by a certain Teos who wished to succeed his father to a priestly
office at the local temple of Khnum.122 In Ayn Manawir in the Western
Desert, Egyptian farmers paid a “tax on the village harvest.”123 Some
of the Persian-period tax documentation was written in Aramaic; this
was certainly the case for the customs levies attested in the register of a
sea customs office in the Nile delta, presumably at Thonis.124 The goods
levied on the boats entering Egypt were sent to royal warehouses called
“king’s houses.”125
However, taxation was not the only domain where the Egyptian
population was confronted with the Persian administration. In con-
quering Egypt, the Persian rulers inherited the judicial power previously
exercised by the Saite pharaohs. To help his non-Egyptian officials to
fulfill this task on his behalf, Darius I set up a commission to compile
a collection of legal rules, thus producing the first known codification
of Egyptian law. This Codex Darianus was bilingually recorded in the
Year 19 in Demotic and Aramaic script,126 and while this law collection
has not survived in the original, it is the basis for the Hellenistic-period
121. Diod. Sic. 11.71.3.

122. Papyrus Berlin 13582; see Kuhrt 2007: 706, no. 14.14.
123. Demotic shemu en demἰ in Ostracon Man. 5583 (available online on http://
www.achemenet.com/fr/item/?/sources-textuelles/textes-par-regions/egypte/
ayn-manawir/ostraca-d-ayn-manawir/1574160; last accessed February 14,
2021); see Agut-Labordère 2019a: 126–127.
124. Porten and Yardeni 1986–1999: nos. C1.1–2.
125. Briant and Descat 1998: 85–87.
126. Lippert 2017.
76
Codex Hermopolis.127 Information on the courts of law is contained in the

Elephantine papyri, according to which justice was dispensed by royal
judges (Aramaic dyny mlk’), by royal officials and also by military offi-
cers.128 Furthermore, two Aramaic papyri from Saqqara mention a cat-
egory of judges whose title derived from the Old Persian term *dātabara,
formed with the word dāta “law; regulation.”129
61.5. Egypt within the Persian Empire

When discussing the relationship between the Persian authorities and
their Egyptian subjects, it is necessary to avoid a simplistic reading
according to which all Egyptians were moved by a fierce nationalism.
The cases of Udjahorresnet and Ptahhotep testify that a part of the
Egyptian population certainly supported Persian rule, even at the height
of the revolts of the fifth century bc.130 On the statues of these Egyptian
collaborators, their allegiance to the Persian king is signified by the torcs
and bracelets that they wear in the typical imperial style.131
On the other hand, some Persians settled in Egypt were well inte-
grated into Egyptian society. Just like later in the case of Greeks and
Macedonians during the Hellenistic period, this rootedness in Egypt was
evidenced by the adoption of Egyptian nicknames by some Persians,132
127. Lippert 2008: 85, 192.

128. Wiesehöfer 1991. Specifically, Vidranga, the head of the Elephantine garrison,
presided over a trial (Porten and Yardeni 1986–1999: no. B2.10: l. 4; Porten
et al. 2011: 195–198, no. B32); a clause in an Aramaic money loan stipulated that
no complaint can be filed “before the sgn or the judge” (Porten and Yardeni
1986–1999: nos. B3.1: ll. 18–19; Porten et al. 2011: 202–204, no. B34); and there
is a reference to an intervention by the Persian court (Porten et al. 2011: 495, no.
B5.1-4); see also de la Vallée Poussin 2008: 62 with n. 17.
129. The presence of *dātabara is also attested in Babylonian documentation, as well
as in the texts of Persepolis, see Briant 2002: 510–511; Kuhrt 2007: 851–852,
nos. 17.28–29.
130. Wijnsma 2019: 44–45, 58.
131. Qahéri 2014: 180–184.
132. A certain Aryavarta was also called Djedhor, see Posener 1936: 128, no. 33; 178.
768
and by marriages between Egyptians and Persians. According to the

inscription on the funerary stele of Djedherbes from Saqqara (figure
61.6),133 the father of this man bore the Persian name Artama while his
mother was named Taneferether, which is a typically Egyptian name.
This monument is emblematic of the Egyptian-Persian Mischkultur that
flourished during the Persian period. The stele’s upper register shows a
scene in the traditional Egyptian funerary iconography: the mummy
of Djedherbes lies on a bed accompanied by the gods Anubis, Isis, and
Nephthys. In the stele’s lower register, Djedherbes appears as a Persian
dignitary dressed in Persian robes (kandys), seated on a throne, his feet
on a stool and holding a bowl in his right hand and a lotus flower in the
other. Hence, a portrait of the deceased that was in keeping with the
imperial iconography, as attested in the Persian heartland, was included
in a monument that otherwise stood in the tradition of Egyptian funer-
ary iconography.134
The strength of the bond that connected Egypt to the center of the
Persian Empire manifested itself also in more concrete ways, as Egypt was
integrated into the imperial road network. An Aramaic “travel voucher”
was issued by the satrap Aršama to Nehtihor, his Egyptian representative
(Aramaic pyqd). This document was presented as a letter addressed to the
stewards of various imperial relay stations along Nehtihor’s route from
Elam to Damascus, and finally onward to Egypt. These officials were
to provide Nehtihor with food from Aršama’s domains in the different
satrapies that he traversed.135 Parallel to the overland road leading into
Egypt, the Persian authorities also renovated the Saite canal connecting
the Pelusiac branch of the Nile with the Red Sea.136 The work under-
taken by Darius I is documented by three steles discovered on the east-
ern terminal of the waterway, at Tell el-Maskhuta, at Kabret, and in the
133. Published in Mathieson et al. 1995; see also Wasmuth 2017b.

134. Vittmann 2009: 104–105, fig. 7. See also chapter 65 in this volume.
135. Grelot 1972: no. 67; Briant 2002: 448–449, 596–597.
136. Hdt. 4.44; see Briant 2002: 384, 949.
769
Figure 61.6. The funerary stele of Djedherbes from Saqqara. Egyptian

Museum Cairo, inventory no. JE 98807. Photograph © National Museums of
Scotland, with kind permission via Achemenet.com (http://www.achemenet.
com/fr/item/?/2503400).
70
vicinity of Suez.137 The mention of “Sabeans” in the Egyptian text carved

on the steles suggests a circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula. The
Persian ships would have reached the northern shore of the Persian Gulf
at the location of the port of Tamukkan.138 The Egyptian statue of Darius
discovered at Susa stood originally at Tell el-Maskhuta, at the entrance to
the wadi along which the canal had been dug.139 The king’s image was
therefore an element of the huge transport infrastructure.
It is not completely clear why the Persians invested so much in having
maritime access to the Red Sea from the Nile delta. Should we assume
that the tribute from Egypt reached the heart of the empire by sea? As we
have seen above, the 120,000 bushels of grain mentioned by Herodotus
did not leave Egypt. On the other hand, the Greek historian also men-
tions the payment of 700 silver talents (a little more than 1.8 tons). But
it is hard to imagine that the Persians took the risk of transporting such
a quantity of silver by ship. On balance, it is therefore much more likely
that the canal was used primarily to control and tax the traffic between
the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean.
The Persian rulers held agricultural estates in Egypt, and the Demotic
administrative documentation mentions “Pharaoh’s fields” (Demotic na
ahu en Per-aa).140 Part of the royal estates could be gifted to members
of the Persian nobility, as was the case for Aršama. In his Aramaic cor-
respondence, the satrap designated his estates as “my house” (Aramaic
byt’ zyly) or “my domain” (Aramaic bqy’ zyly). On the death of the
recipient, the fields reverted back to the crown.141 Cary J. Martin has
recently described the contents of a group of unpublished papyri kept in
the British Museum that relate to the management of such agricultural
estates, which presumably belonged to Aršama.142
137. Wasmuth 2017a: 125–115.

138. Klotz 2015b.
139. Yoyotte 2013: 256.
140. Smith and Martin 2009: 59, no. 16.
141. Briant 2002: 444–445.
142. Martin 2019: 180.
71
The previously mentioned Udjahorresnet, who served first Cambyses

and then Darius I (section 61.4), is an example of an Egyptian noble who
used the Persian domination to his advantage and succeeded in forging
a career at the heart of the empire.143 Appointed to the position of “chief
physician” to the two first Persian kings, Udjahorresnet’s career prefig-
ures that of his fellow Egyptian and fellow physician Sematawytefnakht,
who was also appointed “overseer of the wab priests of [the goddess]
Sekhmet” by one of the last Persian rulers of Egypt, very likely Darius
III.144 As Ivan Ladynin pointed out, this unique intervention in the inner
workings of the Egyptian clergy highlights that the Persian rulers were
personally involved in organizing this priestly corporation.145 The priests
of the goddess Sekhmet were physicians specialized in the treatment of
injuries caused by poisonous animals.146 The apparent importance of
these specialists to the Persian overlords can be connected to a discov-
ery made in Susa, where an Egyptian magical object of a category called
“Stele of Horus on the Crocodiles” (designed to protect and heal the
wounds caused specifically by snakes and scorpions) was excavated.147
The discovery of a fragmentary Egyptian sarcophagus in the area of the
“Donjon” at the imperial residence of Susa attests that individuals living
at this cosmopolitan royal court could be buried according to Egyptian
funerary rites.148
Despite its geographical remoteness, Egypt was therefore fully inte-
grated into Achaemenid imperial culture, as also testified by the strong
Egyptian influence discernible on imperial art and architecture.149
143. On Udjahorresnet, see most recently the contributions in Wasmuth and

Creasman (eds.) 2020.
144. Perdu 1985.
145. Ladynin 2014: 405.
146. Clancier and Agut 2021.
147. National Museum of Iran, Tehran, inventory no. 103 (2103); see Qahéri
2020: 98.
148. Qahéri 2016.
149. Wasmuth 2017a: 49–65.
72
Egyptian elements were prominently integrated into what has been

called the “International Achaemenid style.”150 The strong impact of
Egyptian traditions on imperial culture is especially clear from the adop-
tion of Egyptian tableware at the royal court of Persepolis.151 On the
other hand, the discovery of carinated bowls with a typical Near Eastern
shape in the village of Ayn Manawir in the Kharga oasis highlights the
persuasive influence of the empire’s cultural traditions in Egypt.152
There is no doubt that the owner of the Egyptian sarcophagus dis-
covered at Susa belonged to the upper echelons of the Persian court.
Attested at a lower level of society are the skilled Egyptian workers men-
tioned in the tablets of the Persepolis Fortification archives, demonstrat-
ing a strong specialization of Egyptian workers as goldsmiths, but also,
and perhaps more surprisingly, as woodworkers.153 Among the Egyptians
at Persepolis were also painters, stonemasons, and brewers. Some docu-
ments attest the movement of Egyptian craftsmen not only to Susa, but
also to the port of Tamukkan on the Persian Gulf. In Babylonia, the abun-
dant cuneiform documentation preserved on clay tablets (chapter 59 in
this volume) reveals the existence of Egyptian slaves and workers at the
temples and within the Persian administration.154
The presence of Egyptians in various administrative contexts of the
Persian Empire is quite remarkable, all the more so since the practices of
Pharaonic Egypt had developed completely independently from those
of the Near East, which in the first millennium bc came to rely on the
Aramaic language and script (section 61.4). It is in this context that one
should interpret the few Demotic signs recently discovered on some clay
tablets from Persepolis.155
150. Defernez 2011: 303–306.

151. Qahéri 2020.
152. Defernez and Marchand 2006; Yarmolovitch and Chepel 2019. More broadly
on the Persian-period drinking vessels in Egypt, see Colburn 2019: 205–215.
153. Henkelman 2017.
154. Hackl and Jursa 2015.
155. Azzoni et al. 2019.
73
Egyptians also had a strong presence in the Persian armed forces.

According to Herodotus’s review of the naval army formed by Xerxes
during the Second Persian War,156 Egypt provided the second largest
naval contingent, just behind that of the Phoenicians, with no less than
200 ships. Later, an Egyptian contingent under the command of the
satrap Sabaces fought against Alexander in Issus.157
61.6. In conclusion
The regular attestations of Egyptian soldiers in significant numbers in the
Persian army is one of the clearest indications of Egypt’s importance to
the Achaemenid imperial project and to the region’s integration within
the empire. On the other hand, the difficulty that the Persian admin-
istration experienced in maintaining control over Egypt required that
they exert greater administrative and military force than was employed
in the other parts of the empire. As a result, the mechanisms of Persian
domination over the provinces are uniquely well attested and highly vis-
ible in Egypt. It is not by coincidence that Pierre Briant defined his con-
cept of the “dominant ethno-class” (ethno-classe dominante) to describe
the noble Persian families who controlled the imperial provinces on the
basis of Egyptian evidence.158
This leads us to propose two conclusions. The first concerns Egypt’s
place in the historiography of the Persian Empire, as Egypt should not
be considered a remote and exotic province. On the contrary, the con-
stant efforts made by the Persians to keep Egypt within the empire and
the richness of the Egyptian documentation should encourage us to rou-
tinely use sources from Egypt (and of those, not only sources written in
Aramaic) in the same way as those from the Persian heartland or from
more centrally located satrapies like Babylonia when reconstructing the
history of the Persian Empire. The second conclusion regards the role
156. Hdt. 7.96.1.

157. Arr. An. 2.11.8; Diod. Sic. 17.34.5; Curt. 3.11.40; 4.1.28.
158. Briant 1988.
74
of Persian Egypt in the wider history of Egypt and of the Hellenistic

period. The time of Persian domination cannot be simply summed up
as a “dark period.” On the one hand, the integration of Egypt into the
Persian Empire changed the relationship between the temples and the
ruler (thus prefiguring the religious policy of the subsequent Ptolemaic
Dynasty), but on the other hand, it also caused Egyptian culture to rede-
fine itself. More fundamentally, Persian rule accustomed the people of
Egypt to the hitherto hugely unpopular notion that supreme political
authority could rest in foreign hands. In this regard, the Persian domi-
nation ushered in, and enabled, the Hellenistic and Roman periods of
Egyptian history.
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62
The Northeastern Regions of the

Persian Empire
Bactriana, Sogdiana, Margiana,
Chorasmia, Aria, Parthia, the Sakas,
and the Dahae
Michele Minardi
62.1. Introduction
The territories that are grouped together in this chapter as the northeast-
ern holdings of the Persian Empire (figure 62.1) had different patterns
of socioeconomic development prior to the Persian period.1 Before the
Persian Empire’s expansion in the east, complex societies and sedentary
economic structures had been successfully established in some of these
territories that afterward continued their existence within the new state
context. Most prominently, this is the case with Bactriana. In some other
areas, such as Chorasmia, polity formation occurred only at a later time,
1. The following additional abbreviations are used: DB for the Bisotun inscription
of Darius I; DNx, DPx and DSx for the various inscriptions of Darius at Naqš-e
Rustam, Persepolis and Susa; XPh for Xerxes I’s inscription from the Persepolis
garrison quarters. The chapter was language-edited by Karen Radner.
Michele Minardi, The Northeastern Regions of the Persian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient
785
The Northeastern Regions of the Persian Empire 785
Figure 62.1. Sites mentioned in chapter 62. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri

(LMU Munich).
seemingly as the effect of external impulses, and quite possibly of the

Persian Empire (mediated through a Central Asian agent).
Furthermore, the area of imperial political influence in Central Asia
is hard to define, as we know only what the Persian kings believed to
be “theirs” (figure 62.2). Outside the empire’s eastern and northeastern
geographical borders, there were the pastures of the eastern Scythians,
the semi-nomadic Sakā of the Persian sources (called Sakas in the fol-
lowing). To these regions’ great socioeconomic and environmental vari-
ability from semi-arid plains to mountains and steppes, and from urban
to semi-nomadic contexts, the Persian rulers seemed to have responded
with specific solutions, ranging from the exercise of direct political and
786
Figure 62.2. The extent of the northeastern regions of the Achaemenid

Empire, with the hypothetical extension of its borders and of its hegemony
at the time of Darius the Great marked with the bold dashed line. The extent
according to the Achaemenid inscriptions is marked with the thinner line of
short dashes. Author’s drawing.
administrative control over preexisting organized communities, to the

agricultural “colonization” of new lands, to the implementation, as dic-
tated by need, of those relation mechanisms (warfare, trade, and diplo-
macy) deemed necessary to control, influence, and utilize the forces of
the mobile groups beyond their borders.
Given that the Persian domination over its vast Central Asian ter-
ritory lasted for more than two centuries, we would expect a wealth of
explicit archaeological evidence, especially from those sedentary areas
which were under direct (and persistent) imperial administrative con-
trol. But this is not the case: most of the extant Persian-period mate-
rial comes from the steppes, from the burial mounds of the Sakas, with
whom the Persian Empire had generated a two-way pattern of fruitful
exchanges that left its most detectable traces in the arts and crafts of the
78
time and some echoes beyond. Much is yet to be done in this field, espe-
cially as data is virtually nonexistent for all satrapal seats in the east.
What we do know is that in the eastern regions of the empire, the
effects of the Persian domination (or in the case of the Sakas, of its
proximity) seem to have been remarkable for certain areas. But in other
regions, despite their centrality in the economic and administrative sys-
tem implemented by the conquerors, such outcomes are far less tangi-
ble; in such lands, continuity seems to have been the norm. The Persian
imperial presence imposed, with military force, the mechanisms of terri-
torial and political control as implemented across their vast empire, and
the reflections in the archaeological record are still the subject of much
debate due to a lack of incontrovertible archaeological evidence for the
Persian imperial presence, accompanied by the meagerness of the histori-
cal sources.
However, it remains a fact that the political aegis of the Persian
Empire from Cyrus the Great (559–530 bc) to Darius III (335–330
bc)—and administratively, since Darius I (521–486 bc)2—in Asia must
have been significant. As has been recently recognized thanks to the pub-
lication of a handful of administrative documents from a satrapal archive
of Bactriana (unfortunately without archaeological context) and from
Old Kandahar in Arachosia, this aegis is not completely intangible. Such
evidence, together with the ongoing study of the archives of Persepolis,
is helping to lay important groundwork for future archaeological inves-
tigations in Central Asia and paint a vivid image of a dynamic imperial
administration, capable of managing people and resources in all the
regions of their world.
62.2. Avestan geography and the traditions

about Cyrus’s conquests in Central Asia
Before entering recorded history, most of the future Persian holdings in
Central Asia were already part of that oral patrimony that the Avesta
has handed down to us in two Young Avesta lists: that of the “Aryan
2. Briant 2009.
78
countries” created by Ahura Mazda (Vd 1), and the list contained in the
hymn to the yazata Mithra (Yt 10).3 Both lists include only toponyms
located beyond western Iran proper, to the east and northeast of the ter-
ritories of modern Iran.
The geographic horizon of the Young Avesta includes most of the ter-
ritories that are grouped together in this chapter as the northeastern ter-
ritories of the Persian Empire: Margiana, Aria, (Gawa and) Sogdiana and
Chorasmia (Yt 10); and (Gawa and) Sogdiana, Margiana, Bactria, and
Aria (Vd 1). The two catalogues do not match, possibly due to the particu-
lar regional patriotism of their composers, who lived before the mid-sixth
century bc.4 Bactria in Vd 1 is described (like Arachosia) as “beautiful,
with uplifted banners.” From the written sources of the Persian Empire,
mainly from the corpus of royal inscriptions from the Persian heartland
in the Persis, we know that these territories were under the effective con-
trol of the empire since at least the time of Darius I (522–486 bc). About
the time before this ruler pursued the empire’s consolidation and reorga-
nization, the literary sources at our disposal can provide some informa-
tion, albeit entangled with the legendary. Hence the banners of Bactra
and perjaps of Old Kandahar, described in the Avesta, were supposedly
captured by Cyrus II (ca. 600–530 bc) before his accession to the throne.
Ctesias of Cnidus, who served as a physician at the court of
Artaxerxes II (404–358 bc) from 404 to 398/397 bc, is the author of
several works on Persia and India and also dealt with the legendary figure
of the Assyrian king Ninus and his wife Semiramis, discussing Ninus’s
military involvement in the east.5 After his conquest of Babylonia, Ninus
was seized with a powerful desire to subdue all of Asia that lies
between the Tanaïs (i.e., Volga and Syr Darya)6 and the Nile ( . . . ).
3. Grenet 2015.
4. Grenet 2005; 2015.
5. Ctesias FGrH 688 F1b (apud Diod. Sic. 2.2.1−2). For recent editions of the frag-
ments of Ctesias’s Persika and Indika, see Lenfant 2004 (in French); Llewellyn-
Jones and Robson 2010 (in English).
6. Minardi 2015: 30–37. See below, section 62.4 with fn. 100.
789
Consequently, he made one of his friends the satrap of Media,

while he himself set about the task of subduing the nations of
Asia, and within a period of seventeen years he became master of
them all except the Indians and Bactrians.7
According to this tradition, Ninus’s conquests in Asia were successful;

the lands he subdued, from Parthia to Chorasmia, are (anachronisti-
cally) a match with the maximum extension of the Persian Empire as
we know it, with the sole exception of Bactria, where the king’s efforts
were initially fruitless. But Ninus, after a withdrawal to his homeland
of “Assyria,”8 embarked on a second campaign against Bactria,9 dur-
ing which he conquered a series of cities and thus isolated its capital.10
Bactriana is described by Ctesias as a country with “many large cities for
the people to dwell in,”11 and with the most famous of all, Bactra, seat of
the king Oxyartes, whom Ninus eventually defeated.12 Later Semiramis,
after her husband’s death, once she had “put in order the affairs of
Ethiopia and Egypt,” decided to campaign against India from a base of
operations in Bactra.13 In their sequence and narrative structure, these
legendary events are similar to the scant information reported by Ctesias
and Herodotus about Cyrus II, the founder of the Persian Empire.14
7. Diod. Sic. 2.2.1−2.

8. Diod. Sic. 2.2.4.
9. Diod. Sic. 2.4.1; 2.5.3.
10. Diod. Sic. 2.6.4.
11. Diod. Sic. 2.6.1−8.
12. Xen. Cyr. 5.1.3 mentions that Abradatas, the king of Susa under “Assyrian” rule,
was in Bactra when his city was taken by Cyrus; could this be an indication of the
existence of diplomatic links with the western regions that predate the Persian
Empire?
13. Diod. Sic. 2.16.1.
14. As there is no indication whatsoever that the Assyrian Empire ever targeted
Central Asia, perhaps these stories echo a possible Median authority over
the region. For the links of the Medes, Elam, and Persia with Central Asia in the
790
Ctesias hints at the fact that also Cyrus initially failed to conquer Bactra
and that success came only after a second attempt when the Bactrians
surrendered, following his defeat of the Median king Astyages.15
In the fragments surviving of Ctesias’s narrative, we also find some
information about Cyrus’s campaign against the Sakas, led by a king
named Amorges (and by his wife Sparethre, who was capable of defeat-
ing the Persian king to rescue her husband), and on his clash with the
Indians and the Derbikes.16 Notwithstanding the fact that in Ctesias’s
narration, this enterprise would eventually prove fatal to Cyrus, the land
of the Derbikes “surrendered to Cyrus” thanks to the help of the recently
acquired ally, the Saka king Amorges (who also supported Cyrus with
the conquest of Sardis). On his deathbed, Cyrus appointed his eldest son
Cambyses as king and made his younger son Tanyoxarkes (=Bardiya)17
the “master of the Bactrians, Choramnians [=Chorasmians], Parthians,
period prior to the formation of the Persian Empire and their legacy in the Persian
period, see Curtis 2005; Genito 2005; Briant 2010; Álvarez-Mon and Garrison
2011; Potts 2014: 59–87; Álvarez-Mon et al. 2018; Rollinger 2020. On the excava-
tion of the Central Asian “Median” site of Ulug-depe, see Lecomte 2013.
15. Ctesias FGrH 688 F9 (apud Phot. Bibl. 72 p. 36a 9–37a 25). Note that Ctesias
FGrH 688 F8d (46) (apud Nic. Dam.) specifies that once Astyages had been
defeated, first the Hyrcanians, and then the Bactrians, Parthians, and Sakas sur-
rendered to Cyrus. On the textual sources for Cyrus and Astyages, see Briant
1996: 25–26, 41–45.
16. At some point in time, the Derbikes may have dwelled in the steppes north of
Hyrcania; see Minardi 2015: 50–51. For other hypotheses about their location,
see Potts 2014: 99–102 (with references). In any case, the described events appear
to be located in the Indo-Iranian borderlands.
17. Possibly this Tanyoxarkes was the successor of Cambyses, or the impostor
Gaumata mentioned by Herodotus and by Darius I in his Bisotun inscription
(DB §11–§16); see Briant 1996: 109–118; Vogelsang 1998 (with references). In
Xen. Cyr. 8.7.11, he was appointed by Cyrus as satrap of Media, Armenia, and
Cadusia. The centrality of Bactriana and of its satrap, who was a member of the
royal family (contra Jacobs 1992, with specific reference to Bessus), is confirmed
by episodes in which Bactra is at the center of dynastic disputes, namely during
the times when Xerxes and later Artaxerxes I (464–424/423 bc) ascended to
the throne (sources discussed in Briant 1996: 540–541; 581; 587; see also Petit
1990: 202–203).
791
and Carmanians, allowing him to have these lands exempt from trib-
ute.”18 Furthermore, Cyrus appointed other members of his family as
“satraps” and he “made Amorges their friend ratified with a handshake
and pledges of good faith.” Thus, according to Ctesias and his sources,
Cyrus was held responsible for the first thrust of the Persian expan-
sion toward the east, up to India on the footsteps of the fabled Ninus.
According to Pliny,19 Cyrus also destroyed during his campaigns in the
east a city in the region of Capisene, presumably referring to Kapisa
(modern Begram in Afghanistan).20
Cyrus’s desire to subdue the Sakas and Bactrians in the east is also
reported by Herodotus: while still in Ionia, the king already planned to
personally lead his army against these countries (and in the west, against
Babylon and Egypt) and thus decided to leave the Ionian affairs to one of
his generals.21 In Herodotus’s version of events, Cyrus marched eastward
after the conquest of “Assyria and Babylonia” (with Babylon being taken
in 539 bc),22 but this narrative omits the war in Bactria (about which
Herodotus remains silent until his much later discussion of the satrapies
established by Darius I).23 Instead, the focus lies on the campaign(s)
against the Massagetae, a Saka population that was led, after the death of
her husband, by a queen named Tomyris, who would eventually defeat
the Persians (comparable to the above-mentioned Saka queen Sparethre
in Ctesias’s narrative); and in this version, it is this woman who kills the
18. A similar list of countries is given for Ninus: “Cadusii, Tapyri, Hyrcanii, Drangi,
of the Derbici, Carmanii, Choromnaei, ( . . . ), Borcanii, and Parthyaei” (Diod. Sic.
2.2.3).
19. Plin. HN 6.25.
20. Or an earlier city with the same name. Note that Darius I’s Bisotun inscription
(DB §45) mentions the fortress of Kapiškani (on this toponym, see Bernard
1974), where the rebel leader Vahyzadata fought Vivana, the Arachosian satrap
or ally of Darius (a former Bactrian general according to Vogelsang 1998: 217).
Cf. the above-mentioned passage about Ninus besieging cities in Bactria.
21. Hdt. 1.153.
22. Hdt. 1.178−201.
23. About Herodotus’s silence on Bactriana, see Briant 1996: 49–50.
792
Persian ruler. Herodotus therefore followed a story of Cyrus’s demise

that is different from that used by Ctesias.24
The ethnonym “Massagetae” was diachronically employed in a
generic meaning as a (sometimes archaizing) designation for the pop-
ulations who dwelt in the steppic area between the Caspian Sea and
the Jaxartes river (modern Syr Darya).25 When adopted in the west,
it can encompass in certain cases the Chorasmians who dwell south
of the Aral Sea on the lower reaches of the Oxus river (modern Amu
Darya). The Massagetae were “neighbors” of another macro-group of
Sakas, the Dahae, who are mentioned by the Persian kings for the first
time in an inscription commissioned by Xerxes.26 Concerning Cyrus’s
death, Berossus followed a tradition similar to that of Herodotus and
recorded that the king died at the hands of the Dahae.27 Herodotus also
mentioned the Dahae in a short list of “nomadic Iranians” in connection
with Cyrus’s rise to power.28 In the western sources, generic ethnonyms
such as Dahae, which the ancient authors sometimes subdivided into
lists of sub-groups,29 were often confused with each other, or even more
frequently considered equivalent to each other, due to limited knowl-
edge about the steppic areas of Central Asia beyond the Jaxartes river
and the Aral Sea.
Our brief survey of the available sources on Cyrus’s military advances
in the east highlights the fact that the king focused on the polity con-
trolled by Bactra. But this was clearly not the exclusive focus of his
actions, as his efforts were also directed toward extending his influence
24. As well as Xen. An. 8.7, according to whom the king died in his bed at an advanced
age. On Cyrus’s death, see Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1985.
25. Minardi 2015: 32–44.
26. For this inscription of Xerxes from Persepolis (XPh) known as “Daiva
Inscription,” see Kuhrt 2007: 304–306, no. 7.88.
27. Berossus apud Euseb. Chron. 5.5.
28. Hdt. 1.125.
29. E.g., Str. 9.8.1−2; on the Dahae, Massagetae and Saka contingents at the Battle of
Gaugamela, see section 62.3.1.
793
over the Sakas of the steppes beyond the Jaxartes to the northeast of his
realm, and apparently over some “Indians” (perhaps east of Arachosia).
Reading Ctesias, it also appears that already at that time, Saka horse-
men played a fundamental role in the imperial army, and the story of
Amorges, who metamorphosed from a defeated enemy to a key ally, may
therefore reflect some degree of historicity.
The foundation of the outpost of Cyropolis (“City of Cyrus” in
Greek), located at the gates of the Fergana valley and possibly to be
identified with modern Kurkat in Tajikistan,30 should probably be
linked with the establishment of a defensive, albeit porous border with
the Saka populations; this border was settled and therefore productive
(as evidenced by the choice of the river valley).31 Chorasmia, an “oasis”
projected toward the steppes, might have been taken during the same
campaigns for the same strategic reasons: Cyrus’s endeavor to control
the semi-nomadic populations beyond the Jaxartes river and the Kara
Kum and Kyzyl Kum deserts (figures 62.1 and 61.2), by establishing agri-
cultural outposts capable of sustaining stable garrisons and defensive
stations.
Xenophon wrote that Cyrus “ruled also over Bactria, India and
Cilicia; and he was likewise king of the Sacians.”32 It is difficult to iden-
tify historical facts in the legends about Cyrus’s life and his possible death
in Central Asia, and it is futile to attempt a precise reconstruction of his
30. Grenet and Rapin 2001.

31. Cf. Arr. An. 4.1.3: After the demise of Bessus, Alexander “was himself planning
to found a city on the Tanais (i.e., the river Jaxartes) and to give it his own name.
For in his view the site was suitable for the city to rise for greatness, and it will
be well placed for any eventual invasion from Scythia and as a defense bastion of
the country against the raids of the barbarians dwelling on the other side of the
river.” See also Briant 1996: 766–768. Alexander, seizing the control of the border
fortresses of the Persian Empire, evidently tried to control the Sakas beyond the
Jaxartes river by following the Persian example (contra Briant 1996: 767, who sees
a “rupture” in Alexander’s strategies compared to that of the Persian Empire).
Archaeological and epigraphic material show that the Sogdians later (before
the second or early third century ad) colonized Chach, the territory north of
Fergana, specifically to the detriment of the “nomads”; see Grenet et al. 2007.
32. Xen. Cyr. 1.1.4.
794
Central Asian military operations. But a few general observations can

be made. The key point that all available textual sources make concerns
Cyrus’s resolve and eventual success in conquering the eastern regions.
This conquest was centered on the twofold necessity of subduing and
controlling the Saka population groups, and of establishing a strong base
in Bactriana (and Arachosia), a polity with a developed infrastructure
and rich in natural resources,33 strategically located between India and
the semi-nomadic populations dwelling on both sides of the Jaxartes and
north of the Oxus. Later, Darius I pursued similar strategies of conquest
and consolidation (section 62.3.1). Importantly, Cyrus’s resolve and suc-
cess were well-known to Alexander the Great, who sought to emulate his
Central Asian conquest.34
62.3. The Persian Empire’s northeastern

holdings under Darius I and his successors
Cambyses II (530–522 bc), the eldest son of Cyrus the Great, did not
campaign in the east, but his eventual successor Darius I devoted much
energy to securing Central Asia for his empire. In modern discussions
about the Persian presence in the region, Darius holds a much more
prominent role than Cyrus. This is because more textual sources are
available: Darius’s own testimony as recorded in the royal inscriptions,
including the accounts of various military campaigns he conducted in
order to consolidate his claim to the throne. At that time, the Persian
Empire’s authority extended over a large and heterogeneous entity made
33. Most importantly, precious metals including copper, silver, and gold, as discussed
by Ctesias in his Indika (FGrH 688 F45, apud Phot. Bibl. 72 p. 45a 21–50a 4) and
also in one of Darius’s inscriptions from Susa (DSf; see Lecoq 1997: 234–237 and
Kuhrt 2007: 492–495, no. 11.13 (i)).
34. Once in the area of Gedrosia and Drangiana, Alexander met the Arimaspians,
whose ancestors had helped Cyrus fight the “Scythians” (Arr. An. 3.27.4; cf.
Diod. Sic. 17.81.1). Then he moved against Bactra (Arr. An. 3.28.1). According
to Arrian’s sources (Arr. An. 4.24.3), Cyrus had also fought in Gedrosia with the
intention of invading India.
795
of peoples, or “nations” (Old Persian dahyāva, singular dahyu-),35 of

whom Darius portrayed himself as the proud master.
62.3.1. The testimony of the royal inscriptions and

the classical sources
Of the foremost importance is the victory relief with its trilingual
inscription that Darius had carved into the rockface of Bisotun (DB;
chapter 55 in this volume).36 It celebrates the king’s triumph over the
usurper Gaumata (according to Darius, an impostor posing as the
prince Bardiya) and other rebel leaders (522/521–519 bc). The text of
the inscription contains a full list of all the “nations” (dahyāva) subject
to the Persian Empire, including Parthia, Aria, Chorasmia, Bactriana,
Sogdiana, and “Scythia.”37 Furthermore, the Bisotun inscription pro-
vides some details about the organization of these northeastern regions.
Among those “nations” whose revolts Darius had to suppress after his
accession to power were the Parthians (and Hyrcanians), the Margians,
and the Sakā tigraxaudā (“Sakas with Pointed Hats”). According to
Darius, Parthia was then governed by his own father Vištaspa, evi-
dently the satrap of the region who also had jurisdiction over Hyrcania;
35. As Jacobs 2011 argued, rather than “satrapy,” it is the Old Persian word dahyu-
that is the most appropriate term to define the administrative units of the Persian
Empire, as the word can signify “district” or “land” in a general sense, as well as
more specifically “province.” Following Basello 2013: 52, who also considers the
Elamite translation of the term (cf. also Lecoq 1993; 1997: 188), better still would
be to translate this word as the compound “people-nation” (in Italian, popolo-
paese). In my rendering of dahyu-as “nation,” between quotation marks, I follow
Schmidt 1970.
36. Schmitt 1991; 2000; Lecoq 1997: 83–96; 187–214; Vogelsang 1998 (with ref-
erences). For an easily accessible translation of Darius’s Bisotun inscription in
English, see Kuhrt 2007: 141–158, no. 5.1. For the modern designation of the
Persian inscriptions as, e.g., DB for Darius’s Bisotun inscription, see c hapter 54
in this volume.
37. Sakas are here generically categorized as, and perhaps grouped with, the western
Scythians. In the Babylonian version of the Bisotun inscription, they are consid-
ered akin to (or confused with) the Scythians of Cimmeria; see Kellens 1987: 677;
Lecoq 1997: 188 n. 6; and cf. Hdt. 7.63: “The Persians call Saka all the Scythians.”
796
Margiana appears to have been under the authority of Dadaršiš, the

Persian satrap of Bactriana. In Parthia, Vištaspa was deserted by part of
his army as some of his troops pledged their loyalty to the Median rebel
leader Fravartiš; Darius did not intervene personally, but instead sent
reinforcements to the contingents still loyal to his father. In the case of
the rebellion in Margiana, Darius declared that he left matters entirely
in the hands of the satrap of Bactriana, to whom he nevertheless gave
the order to act. Darius personally led the military expedition against
the “Sakas with Pointed Hats” who dwelled beyond the Jaxartes river.38
Their ruler Skunkha was eventually captured. His depiction as the last in
the line of the chained rebel leaders on Darius’s monument at Bisotun is
very distinct, as he sports a tall, pointed headdress. In his stead, Darius
appointed another member of the “Sakas with Pointed Hats” as their
leader and so, as he states in his inscription, they “became mine.”39
In addition to attesting to the existence of the Bactrian and Parthian
satrapies (and of the sub-districts of Margiana and Hyrcania that are oth-
erwise missing from all the other lists of regions in the Persian inscrip-
tions), the account of the Bisotun inscription also elucidates how a Saka
“nation” was kept under the Persian Empire’s control (figure 62.3), by
balancing warfare and diplomacy, through imposing loyalty oaths and
tribute payments, also in the form of the obligation to provide military
assistance to the imperial forces. This aside, Sakas may have served as
mercenaries in the Persian Empire’s army.
The Bisotun inscription was the first inscription commissioned by
Darius, and indeed the first royal inscription by which the Persian kings
left testimonies of some of their activities and information on the exten-
sion of their vast realm.40 Another important example is the inscription
38. Minardi 2015: 29–32 (with references). In two other inscriptions of Darius (DH
and DPh, see Lecoq 1997: 218–219 and Kuhrt 2007: 476–477, no. 11.1), the Sakas
are described as the easternmost of Darius’s subjects, “dwelling beyond Sogdiana”
(see below in the present section).
39. Schmitt 1991: 76; Lecoq 1997: 214.
40. For a French translation of the Persian inscriptions, see Lecoq 1997; for their
German edition, see Schmitt 2009. The most important texts are available in
English translation in Kuhrt 2007.
79
Figure 62.3. Cylinder seal, and its modern impression, depicting an alle-
gorical scene of battle between the Persian king and two Sakā tigraxaudā; a rep-
resentative of possibly another eastern “nation” is shown as the king’s captive.
that celebrates the construction of Darius’s palace in Susa (DSf ).41 In this
text, Darius stresses the efforts necessary to erect the palace and men-
tions several “nations” of the empire as suppliers of exotic and precious
materials, in some cases together with specialist craftsmen. The three
easternmost “nations” (DSf §7) are grouped together with the western
satrapy of Lydia in Asia Minor (DSf §9): the Bactrians and the Lydians—
conceived as antipodal regions at the empire’s northeastern and north-
western edges42—supplied gold, the Sogdians lapis lazuli and carnelian,
and the Chorasmians turquoise.43 This serves to highlight in a concise
41. For Darius’s palace inscription from Susa (DSf ), see Lecoq 1997: 234–237 and
Kuhrt 2007: 492–495, no. 11.13 (i). The terminus ante quem of this text’s compo-
sition is 512 bc; see Jacobs 2017.
42. In parallel position to “Ethiopia” (Kuša) in the empire’s southwest and India-
Arachosia in its southeast (DSf §10), which both supplied ivory for the palace.
43. In the inscription DSaa (see Lecoq 1997: 245–246 and Kuhrt 2007: 497,
no. 11.13 (iib)), a shorter variant of the inscription DSf, Chorasmia, Bactriana,
798
manner the vast extent of the empire,44 while the Bisotun inscription
gives a full catalogue of all “nations” that the king had under his control.
With small variations, this list is attested in other of Darius’s inscriptions,
namely from Susa (DSe)45 and Persepolis (DPe),46 and from his rock-cut
tomb at Naqš-e Rustam (DNa)47 whose façade was also decorated with
a complex relief that included allegorical depictions of the “nations” as
throne-bearers, identified with individual captions (DNe; see section
62.3.2).
By interpreting the arrangement of these lists, it is possible to gain
a better understanding of the geographical conception of the Persian
Empire and the spatial distribution of its “nations.”48 From the center
of the empire with its heartland Persis, Media, and Elam, space seems
to have been conceptualized as radiating along four distinct axes. In the
earliest list in the Bisotun inscription, the sequence of the “nations” was
shaped also by the concept of a circular route passing through all the
territories of the empire.49 The directions of the four main vectors could
be changed according to the areas that were meant to be emphasized.
For instance, the list of “nations” in Darius’s inscription from Persepolis
(DPe) differs from that in his Naqš-e Rustam inscription (DNa) in that
the southeastern axis leads toward Maka (modern Oman)50 rather than
Drangiana. However, the northeastern axis of Darius’s texts always linked
and Sogdiana are listed in exactly this sequence after the mention of Parthia and
Aria. The precious materials associated on the base of DSf with these “nations”
are gold, silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and carnelian.
44. Cf. DH and DPh: from India (instead of Bactriana) to Lydia, from the Sakas
“beyond Sogdiana” to Ethiopia.
45. For DSe, see Kuhrt 2007: 491, no.11.12.
46. For DPe, see Kuhrt 2007: 486, no.11.7.
47. For DNa, see Kuhrt 2007: 502–503, no. 11.16.
48. On this subject, see Dan 2013; Minardi 2015; Rapin 2018 (with further literature).
49. For this reason, the northeastern axis in the Bisotun inscription follows an ideal
path through Parthia, Aria, Drangiana, Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Bactriana, and
Gandhara.
50. On Maka (modern Oman), see Potts 2010.
79
Bactriana, Sogdiana, and Chorasmia.51 Parthia preceded Aria, and Aria

preceded Bactriana in all these lists, despite differences in detail (with
the Sagartians preceding Parthia in DPe, and Drangiana preceding Aria
in DPe and also in the Bisotun inscription, with Maka as the final entry
in these two texts). While the general arrangement of these lists seems to
shift during the time of Darius’s son and successor Xerxes (486–465 bc),
in his so-called Daiva Inscription from Persepolis (XPh),52 Parthia, Aria,
Bactriana, Sogdiana, and Chorasmia are still listed in this sequence and
therefore continue to be seen as spatially and conceptually connected.
Geographically, their locations follow one of the main routes of the royal
road toward the east.
In these lists of imperial “nations,” the mention and position of the
lands of the Sakas show a much greater degree of variability. This seems
to reflect the different relationship and also levels of knowledge of the
Persian Empire toward these semi-nomadic population groups.53 In the
lists of Darius’s Bisotun inscription and Persepolis inscription (DPe),
there is only a generic mention of the Sakas without any specific refer-
ence to the “Sakas with Pointed Hats,” despite the fact that they figure
so prominently in the account of Darius’s wars in the Bisotun inscrip-
tion. In his inscriptions from Susa (DSe) and Naqš-e Rustam (DNa), on
the other hand, the Sakas are divided into several distinct groups: in the
east, the already familiar “Sakas with Pointed Hats” and the “Haoma-
Drinking Sakas” (Sakā haumavargā),54 and far away in the west beyond
the Danube, the “Sakas beyond the Sea” (Sakā paradraya). Skunkha and
his “Sakas with Pointed Hats” appear in the Bisotun inscription as an
51. So in DSe, DPe and DNa. However, in the Bisotun inscription, Chorasmia
seems isolated from Bactriana and Sogdiana, as it is listed before Sogdiana; see
Minardi 2015: 163; cf. also Dan 2013: 93.
52. For XPh, see Kuhrt 2007: 304–306, no. 7.88.
53. Note also that the Dahae are mentioned only once (XPh §3), as are the Sagartians
(DPe §2).
54. The botanical identification of haoma, a plant or mushroom from which a ritual
drink was prepared, is uncertain and the subject of much debate; for the hoama
drink and the rituals associated with it, see, e.g., Taillieu and Boyce 2003.
80
addendum for the year 419 bc (cutting into the Elamite version of the
text);55 this demonstrates that Saka was a generic term that could be fur-
ther specified if the imperial authorities gained a more precise under-
standing of these population groups.
In Darius’s Hamadan inscription (DH) and also in another inscrip-
tion from Persepolis (DPh),56 where the main concern was to exem-
plify the enormous extent of the empire without the need to list all
its “nations,” the only Sakas mentioneed are as those living “beyond
Sogdiana” (in the Babylonian version, “on the other shore of Sogdiana,”
i.e., beyond the Jaxartes river). Furthermore, the Sakas, and in particular
the “Haoma-Drinking Sakas,” are in these lists typically positioned close
to Gandhara and the Indian territories; the “Haoma-drinking Sakas”
seem to have been located south of the “Sakas with Pointed Hats,” who
resided north of the Pamir and east of Sogdiana.57 Persian evidence orig-
inally from Egypt further confirms the variability in labeling the Saka
groups: while featuring the usual cluster of “Aria, Parthia, Bactriana, and
Sogdiana,” the list of “nations” in the inscription incised on the pedes-
tal of the statue of Darius, created in 514 bc in Egypt but discovered in
Susa, mentions “Sakas of the Marshes and of the Plain,” which may be an
alternative designation for the “Sakas with Pointed Hats” and “Haoma-
Drinking Sakas” in Darius’s other texts.58 Moreover, Chorasmia is listed
just before these Sakas after the people of the Indian lands, pointing
perhaps to a recent reorganization of that region within the imperial
administration.59
Should we consider all these dahyāva to have been individual satra-
pies? In other words, had every one of the northeastern “nations” a
55. Lecoq 1997: 86.

56. For DH and DPh, see Lecoq 1997: 218–219 and Kuhrt 2007: 476–477, no. 11.1.
57. Tucci 1977.
58. Known as DSab; see Kuhrt 2007: 477–482, no. 11.2; Yoyotte 2010; and see
59. Minardi 2015: 166. Cf. Chorasmia’s position in Darius’s Bisotun inscription,
where it seems isolated from Bactriana and Sogdiana.
801
satrapal seat within its territory? This is certainly not the case, because
some of these “nations” were not actual polities with defined borders and
also were not perceived as such by the imperial authorities. This is evident
in the case of the Sakas: the specifications attached to the generic label
clearly reflect an increase in geographical knowledge about Central Asia
as a consequence of contacts with the Persian Empire. Not only can we
observe an incremental differentiation between various semi-nomadic
groups in the east, but this also occurs in the west with the addition of
the Skudra and the “Sakas beyond the Sea” in Darius’s Naqš-e Rustam
inscription (DNa). As William Vogelsang stressed on the basis of the
works of the Alexander biographers, the Persian satraps clearly admin-
istered large areas that included various dahyāva, and it would therefore
be incorrect to identify all the dahyāva as satrapies.60
According to Herodotus, the satrapies created by Cyrus were inher-
ited by Darius, who expanded their number to twenty.61 Herodotus’s cata-
logue groups the Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, and Arians together
into the sixteenth satrapy, while Bactriana constitutes the twelfth satrapy,
and the Sakas with the Caspians made up the fifteenth satrapy. But, as
underlined by Bruno Jacobs, “Herodotus had no authentic source at
his disposal” and his catalogue “is as incompatible with the lists of the
Achaemenid inscriptions as with those of the Alexander historians or
with the numerous attestations of the Greek and Latin authors.”62
A good example is a passage about a plain “once belonging to the
Chorasmians,” at the border of their country and that of Hyrcania,
Parthia, Sarangia (Drangiana), and the land of the Thamaneans.63 The
plain is described as a valley that is “encircled by mountains” and crossed
by the river “Akes” with its five tributaries, all streaming down from
the mountains. Although the general description brings the valleys of
60. Vogelsang 1990.

61. Hdt. 3.89.
62. Jacobs 2011. According to the assessment of Jacobs 1994; 2011, the Persian Empire
was organized in “great satrapies” with main and minor constituent parts; for a
critical reaction, see Briant 2020: 30–31.
63. Hdt. 3.117.
802
Fergana and Swat to mind, such a large valley simply does not exist in the
area in question.64 However, the importance of this passage does not lie
in the geographical information offered by Herodotus, but in the mean-
ing of the anecdotal episode attached to it: the valley had once belonged
to the Chorasmians, but since the subjugation of the area (an allusion to
the Persian conquest of this land) it was in the possession of the Persian
king. The king exerted his control over the population of the valley
through the management of its water (building dams, not canals), which
was necessary for the cultivation of “sesame and millet.” According to
Herodotus, the satrapies involved paid the revenue from these hydrau-
lic works and subsequent water management in addition to their yearly
tribute.
Another list in Herodotus mentions the northeastern “nations” of
the Persian Empire in the description of Xerxes’s army after crossing the
Hellespont in 480 bc,65 where the contingents appear arranged accord-
ing to ethne (“ethnicity”). Grouped together with the Persians and
Medes and others who all carried an akinakes dagger (section 62.3.2)
were the Hyrcanians, mustered under the command of Megapanos, the
future governor of Babylonia. The contingent of the Bactrians and of
the “Amyrgian” Sakas, described as wearing a pointed kyrbasia (corre-
sponding to the “Haoma-Drinking Sakas” in the Persian inscriptions),
was under the command of Xerxes’s brother Hystaspes (who was not
the satrap of Bactriana).66 The Parthians and the Chorasmians were also
led by a single commander, as were the Gandharans and the Dadicae
(perhaps to be identified with the Dards),67 while the Sogdians and the
64. This passage, in association with a fragment of Hecataeus (FGrH 172, apud Ath.,
apud Steph. Byz.) in which “cities” of the Chorasmians are said to lie east of
Parthia, fueled misguided speculations about a “Great Chorasmian” kingdom
that should have existed in Central Asia before the time of Cyrus. On the defi-
ciencies in Herodotus’s information on Central Asia, see Minardi 2015.
65. Hdt. 7.59−99.
66. Masistes, another brother of the king, was governor of Bactriana (Hdt. 9.113) and
a commander of higher rank (Hdt. 7.62).
67. Tucci 1977.
803
Arians were each organized under separate command. According to

Herodotus, these latter contingents were commanded by Persian gener-
als and all were equipped like Bactrian fighters, with “short spears” and
bows.68 Although the reliability of this list can be called into question,69
one might still suggest that at the time of Xerxes, the Chorasmians, the
Dadicae, and the Sakas may have served in this roster as auxiliary troops
at a sub-satrapy level.
This catalogue can be compared with the roster of armed forces gath-
ered 150 years later by Darius III in order to face Alexander at Gaugamela
in 331 bc.70 Arrian described not only the composition of the army mus-
tered by the king,71 but also the battle array set up to counter the attack-
er’s forces.72 Bessus, at that time satrap of Bactriana, commanded both
the Indians “bordering on the Bactrians”73 and the Sogdians, in addition
to the Sakas “who came, not as subjects of Bessus, but on the basis of an
alliance with Darius,” and who had their own leader.74 Considering that
we have already seen the Bactrians and the Sakas fighting side by side in
68. On the allegorical representations of these dahyāva as throne-bearers on the

façade of Darius’s tomb in Naqš-e Rustam, and their riders’ gear, see section
62.3.2.
69. Minardi 2015: 28–29.
70. The army roster reported for the Battle of Issus is far more generic (Curt.
3.2.1−12) and features different contingents: for logistical reasons, the Bactrians,
Sogdians, and “Indians” are absent, but the army is supported by Hyrcanians and
other Central Asian “nations,” including the Derbikes who dwell around the
Caspian Sea. Note that is possible that the Derbikes mentioned by Ctesias (sec-
tion 62.2) are an entirely different group; cf. Francfort 1985 who identified them
with the Dards.
71. Arr. An. 3.8.3−6.
72. Arr. An. 3.11.3−7.
73. This is also confirmed by documents from the Persepolis Fortification archives;
see Henkelman 2018: 234, with reference to Briant 1984: 73.
74. This episode is about the relations between Saka leadership and the Persian
crown. It should be compared with the episode regarding the pact between the
Saka ruler Amorges and Cyrus (section 62.2), and Darius’s appointing a new
Saka leader of his choice after the defeat of Skunkha (see above in the present
section).
804
Xerxes’s army, this grouping seems important. We can perhaps assume

that the authority over the neighboring semi-nomadic populations had
been delegated to Bactriana, or that the region was held responsible for
marshaling these as troops serving the imperial army. Be that as it may, it
seems that the control of Bactriana was a key concern that occupied the
Persian king himself.
Arrian’s description continues with the contingents of the Arians and
the Parthians, led by their own satraps Satibarzanes and Phrataphernes,
who also commanded, respectively, “Indian hillmen” and Hyrcanians.
At this point, there is no mention of the Chorasmians or of the Dahae.
However, the Dahae appear in the second detail within the battle array
and are described together with the Bactrians and the Arachosians as
forming the “left wing” of the army. Once again, the Bactrians and the
Sakas were deployed together “in advance on the left wing.” We may
thus consider that in the first passage, the Dahae were tacitly included
with the Sakas. On the right wing, there were, among other contingents,
the Parthians, the Hyrcanians, and again the Sakas.75 The deployment
strategy for these Central Asian troops may not have been primarily
organized according to their “nationality,”76 but according to military
purposes, while making sure that they were still connected to their own
commanders.
The one northeastern dahyu- known from the Persian sources that
is missing from this roster is Chorasmia, a region that may have been
conflated with other designations. In Arrian’s account, the Chorasmians
may have been subsumed under the generic label of the Sakas, or they
may have been confused with the Dahae, who were in turn on several
occasions conflated with the Sakas. Curtius, whose description of the
army generally agrees with Arrian, provides some additional details: on
the left wing of Darius’s army, he positioned the Bactrian cavalry with the
Dahae (and the Arachosians), who were followed first by scythed chari-
ots and then by Bessus and other Bactrian horsemen with a rear guard of
75. Led by the general Mazaeus according to Diod. Sic. 17.60.5.

76. Cf. Arr. An. 2.8.8; Diod. Sic. 17.58.1.
805
“Massagetae” (possibly in this case corresponding to the otherwise miss-

ing Chorasmians).77 However, that Chorasmians served in the armed
forces of the Persian Empire is beyond doubt and also well documented
by sources from Egypt and Babylonia.78
62.3.2. The allegorical representations of the

northeastern “nations”
In addition to the Persian inscriptions, there are also depictions of the
dahyāva constituting the Persian Empire. Under Darius I, a standardized
allegorical depiction of the constituent “nations” was developed, in the
form of man bearing the king’s throne (“throne-bearers”) in a character-
istic “Atlas pose.” Although deliberately stereotypical, these representa-
tions give us an indication of the Persian perception and classification of
the populations subject to the empire’s rule.79
Rendered on the reliefs of the façades of the rock-cut royal tombs
at Naqš-e Rustam and at Persepolis (chapter 55 in this volume), these
throne-bearers are aligned in two rows that are placed one above the
other, and are depicted as physically and metaphorically displaying
their support for, and subjection to, the Persian ruler.80 Thanks to
the captions inscribed on the individual throne-bearers on Darius’s
tomb (DNe), we know their identity and that their sequence follows
77. Curt. 4.12.6−7.

78. In Egypt, Chorasmians are attested at the Persian garrison at Syene (modern
Asuan) in 465 bc: Porten and Yardeni 1986–1999, nos. B2.2, B2.3 and D3.39b;
see also Becking 2017. Chorasmians are also mentioned in Babylonian docu-
ments from the time of Cyrus to that of Darius; see Dandamaev 1992: 67–68,
130, 132, 145, 164–165. The Babylonian documentation also records the pres-
ence of Arians and Bactrians as well as Sakas (“Cimmerians”); see Dandamaev
1992: 162–164. Note that as of now, there are no references to the Chorasmians
in the Persepolis Fortification archives of the time of Darius I (on which see
Henkelman and Stolper 2009; Henkelman 2018).
79. The imperial interest in the ethnicity of the various population groups constitut-
ing the realm is also apparent in the documents of the Persepolis Fortification
archives; see Henkelman 2018: 224.
80. Root 1979: 147–171.
806
the order of the list in Darius’s Naqš-e Rustam inscription (DNa): for
the northeastern regions, we have a Parthian, an Arian, a Bactrian, a
Sogdian, a Chorasmian, a “Saka with Pointed Hat,” and a “Haoma-
Drinking Saka.”81
These depictions were given specific features that were clearly
selected in order to represent and distinguish each of them according to
the Persian point of view. However, as Erich Schmidt stressed, despite
their individuality, the representatives of the various “nations” may share
elements of dress and gear and even their general appearance with each
other.82 Thus, there is a strong resemblance between the Parthian and
the Bactrian (Schmidt’s “East Median group”); between the Sogdian, the
Chorasmian, the “Saka with Pointed Hat,” and the “Haoma-Drinking
Saka,” which are almost identical (Schmidt’s “Scythian group”); and
between the Arian, the Drangian, and the Arachosian (Schmidt’s “East
Iranian group”); whereas the Median representative is depicted with
characteristics that place him halfway between the members of “East
Median” and “West Median” groups.83 On the other hand, the charac-
teristics of the members of the “East Iranian group” are quite similar to
those of the Bactrian and Parthian: only the boots, and thus also the fit of
the trousers, differ. Evidently, Bactrians and Parthians were perceived as
similar to the Medes in both appearance and equipment, while Sogdians
and Chorasmians were perceived (or just shown) as akin to the Sakas.84
81. Minardi 2015: 20–22. Note that the delegations depicted in the procession at the
Apadana of Persepolis are not explicitly identified, and their identification must
therefore be considered in some cases speculative.
82. Schmidt 1970: 108–118 with figs. 39–53.
83. According to Schmidt 1970: fig. 41, the Median representative forms the “West
Median group” together with the Armenian and the Cappadocian because of the
distinctive headgear with a tassel on the back (although the Mede’s tassel is much
longer than that of the Armenian and Cappadocian, and his longer beard more
closely matches those of the Parthian and Bactrian).
84. As postulated by Negmatov 1994: 443–444, this might be a further indication
of the chronology of the Chorasmians’ inclusion in the Persian Empire’s sphere
of influence (perhaps already at the time of Cyrus; see Minardi 2015) and could
be considered an indication of the effects that imperial control had on their
807
But each “nation” was differentiated by distinctive details from its look-
alikes: for example, the Chorasmian’s hood (perhaps the kyrbasia of
the Greek sources) was mounted with a “coronet” rather than pointed
like the Sogdian’s headgear;85 and the tip of the hood of the “Haoma-
Drinking Saka” differed in its orientation from that of the Sogdian.
The depictions of all the throne-bearers from the northeastern
territories of the Persian Empire had one piece of equipment in com-
mon: a distinctive dagger (akinakes) that they wore strapped to their
right thigh. This dagger is characterized by the shape of its scabbard
and a suspension system, which were specifically designed for horse-
men.86 More generally, carrying such a weapon is common to the depic-
tions of all “trouser-wearing nations” (figure 62.4).87 When riding, the
Persians too wore trousers and carried such daggers.88 Moreover, these
weapons are also depicted among the objects carried by members of
certain delegations in the procession of tribute-bearers at the Apadana
in Persepolis.89 This type of dagger certainly signified a certain status,
and the Greek sources mention golden akinakes daggers as honorary
originally semi-nomadic cultures; see also Minardi 2015: 61–64 (with references).
In a fragment of Ctesias (FGrH 688 F12, apud Steph. Byz. s.v. Χωραμναῖοι),
the Chorasmians are said to be savages belonging to the “Persian ethnos,” with
famous hunting skills.
85. Thus on the relief of Tomb II (after the classification of Schmidt 1970; assigned
to Xerxes); see Minardi 2018 (with references to comparable objects found in the
“Oxus Treasure”).
86. On the akinakes dagger, see Potts 2014: 69–73; Minardi in Betts et al. 2016;
Minardi 2020. An ivory scabbard for such a weapon, possibly of Bactrian work-
manship and carved in a style heavily influenced by Persian imperial art, was
found as part of the “Oxus Treasure” together with other dedicatory offerings;
see Litvinskij and Pičikjan 1999.
87. Including the Skudrians, except for the depiction of this “nation” on Tomb V.
88. Hdt. 7.61. On the riding costume of the Persians, see Stronach 2009.
89. E.g., Apadana delegation nos. 1 (perhaps Medes) and 17 (generic Sakas; on the
debated identification of this delegation, see Potts 2012). Note that the mem-
bers of Apadana delegation no. 2 (Elamites) carry “Persian daggers” instead. Cf.
Gropp 2009.
80
Figure 62.4. Details of the relief on the façade of Tomb II at Naq Attristam, showing all the representatives of “nations” that are
equipped with an akinakes dagger and wear trousers. Top row: the “nations” in the upper register; lower row: on the left, the king’s
weapon bearer and, on the right, the “nations” in the lower register. Author’s photographs.
809
gifts bestowed by the Persian ruler,90 who himself wore this type of
weapon.91
Both the trousers and the akinakes dagger were strongly associated
with horse-riding. As those throne-bearers that do not wear trousers
also carry other weapons, it seems obvious that in the depiction on
the royal tombs, all the representatives of the northeastern territories,
as well as the Medes, Armenians, Cappadocians, Skudrians, Scythians,
Arachosians, and Drangians, were implicitly portrayed as mounted
horseback warriors. Although they would arguably have fought also with
other weapons,92 the tomb reliefs do not show this, and only the Persian
king is depicted as an archer.93 To put emphasis on the nature of certain
“nations” as horseback riders may not have been a comment on their cul-
tural identity, even less so on their ethnicity;94 from the imperial point of
view, this may have served to highlight that these were the regions that
provided contingents of horsemen in response to the empire’s demand.
A different visual rendering for the Persian Empire’s constituent
“nations” was employed on the pedestal of Darius’s Egyptian statue.
Here, using an ancient Egyptian motif, the allegorical representations
90. E.g., Xen. An. 1.2.27; 1.8.29.

91. Curt. 3.3.18, describing the dagger as hanging from a belt. Note that Arr. An.
6.29.5 mentions that Aristobolus saw in the tomb of Cyrus, among other pre-
cious objects, “Median trousers” and akinakes daggers. Curt. 3.3.6 mentions also
an obscure project of Darius III who, at the beginning of his reign, ordered the
reshaping of the scabbard of the Persian akinakes (the “Persian model”?) after the
fashion of the Greeks.
92. The equipment of the Sakas appears to have been different, as they are shown in
other Persian-period depictions as carrying war picks, both as weapons (for an
example from a cylinder seal, see figure 62.3) and as tribute (in Delegation no. 17
at the Apadana of Persepolis); for further references, see Bernard and Inagaki
2000: 1400–1401; Summerer 2007; Wu 2010; Potts 2012; Tuplin and Ma 2020.
Cf. Hdt. 7.64.
93. On the Persian king as an archer, see Root 1979: 164–169. The king’s spear-holder
is depicted as a Persian who carries his own bow, while the king’s quiver-bearer is
depicted as a Mede wearing an akinakes dagger. For the identifying labels DNc
and DNd on Darius’s tomb, see Lecoq 1997: 224–225.
94. Cf. Vogelsang 1992; 1998; also Brentjes 1993.
810
were all depicted as men kneeling on the ground, raising their arms
in a gesture of worship.95 Once again, the Saka, the Sogdian, and the
Chorasmian wear a hood: plain in the case of the Chorasmian, pointed
in the case of the Sogdian and the Saka, but with differences in orienta-
tion and design of the tip. The Parthian wears a sort of turban, while
the Arian is dressed similarly to the Mede, with a cloak (kandys) thrown
around his shoulders and a headgear similar to that worn by the Persian.
62.4. The satrapy of Bactriana and its

relationship to the Sogdians, the
Chorasmians, and the Sakas
Western historical accounts written after the end of the Persian Empire
about the resistance mounted against Alexander the Great are an impor-
tant source of information about the empire’s northeastern regions. They
elucidate the relationships between Bessus, the last satrap of Bactriana,
and his Central Asian allies, and therefore more generally the organiza-
tion of the imperial regions under their control. It appears that in the
aftermath of the defeat of Darius III at Gaugamela in 331 bc, all the east-
ern regions of the empire were involved in the war against the western
invaders. While we do not know much about Parthia, an early conquest
of Alexander’s, Aria certainly fought alongside Bactriana.
Pierre Briant hypothesized the central role of the satrap of Bactriana in
exercising imperial authority over a large part of Central Asia, including
Sogdiana.96 Bactriana was certainly at the center of the “Upper Satrapies”
of the Persian Empire, and its satrap likely also had jurisdiction over
Margiana (at least in Darius’s times) and possibly over Chorasmia: in
general, the local elites of these regions (hyparchs, as they are often called
by classical authors) were subordinate to the satrap.97 As emerged from
95. Yoyotte 2010: 286–296.

96. Briant 1984: 71–75.
97. Briant 1984: 103; 2020: 39: “It is entirely possible that hyparchs held a mixed
status of the sort known throughout Achaemenid history, of local dynasts who
81
our previous discussions in section 62.3.1, Bactriana served also as the

main contact for managing the empire’s relations with the Sakas who
lived east of the imperial territories, beyond Sogdiana and the Jaxartes
and north of Gandhara.98 The Hellenistic sources, principally gathered
by Curtius and Arrian, confirm the close relationship between Bactriana,
Sogdiana, the Sakas, and Chorasmia.
According to Curtius,99 after having declared himself the new Persian
ruler under the name Artaxerxes V, a drunken Bessus, “terrified” by
Alexander’s swift advance toward Bactriana, discussed at a war coun-
cil with his “friends and commanders of the troops” (i.e., the Persian,
Sogdian, and Bactrian leadership) his plan to withdraw to the land of
the Sogdians, beyond the Oxus. He planned to use the river as a defen-
sive line (“wall”) while awaiting the arrival of auxiliary troops from
the “neighboring peoples” of Bactriana. According to Curtius, these
included: Chorasmians, Dahae, and Sakas, Indians and “Sakas beyond
the Tanais” (that is in this case, the Jaxartes river),100 i.e., the very same
contingents that had previously served under his command at the Battle
of Gaugamela. Although in this specific case, we cannot exclude the pos-
sibility that the expected help were hired mercenaries, such auxiliaries
may have well been under Bessus’s control because he was the satrap of
Bactriana, or perhaps he could expect their support due to his new posi-
tion as king of the Persian Empire. But not all in Bessus’s war council
agreed with his plan, presumably because his royal prerogatives were not
recognized by all (exemplified by the figure of Gobares the Mede), and
when he eventually crossed the Oxus he did so with only a handful of
were in a relationship of subordination with respect to the satrap, but who

nonetheless preserved broad autonomy within their own territory, which they
managed as they saw fit, under condition of paying tribute and sending contin-
gents of horsemen in response to satrapal requisitions.”
98. Briant 1982: 203–226; cf. Francfort 1984.
99. Curt. 7.4.
100. Curt. 7.4.15: “An army from the Tanais river.” Note that the classical sources
confuse and conflate the Volga =Tanais and the Syr Darya =Jaxartes, which
were thought to be one river that separates Europe from Asia.
812
allies, as most of the Bactrians had deserted him and returned to their
own estates.101
Arrian’s narrative about the same episode is much less detailed:102
Bessus and the Bactrians, with the support of some Persians and
Dahae,103 prepared to resist Alexander’s advance. Then Bessus with-
drew beyond the Oxus to Sogdiana and set up camp in Nautaca (pos-
sibly Shahrisabz in southern Uzbekistan), where he received Dahae and
Sogdian reinforcements, led by the Sogdian leader Spitamenes, but
was deserted by the Bactrian cavalry (that had previously already left
the satrapal capital Bactra almost defenseless).104 As soon as Alexander
crossed the Oxus, Spitamenes and Dataphernes (possibly a Bactrian in
the Sogdian leader’s entourage) betrayed Bessus and handed him over
to the invaders.105 Spitamenes then became the leader of the resistance
against the invaders, which initially may have centered on Cyropolis on
the Jaxartes, the main stronghold on the frontier and difficult to seize,106
as well as having strategic importance for the relations with the Sakas
(section 62.2).
How Chorasmians, Sakas, and Dahae were involved in the events
following Bessus’s capture and eventual death is unclear. The classical
sources are generally poorly informed about the semi-nomadic popu-
lations living beyond the Syr Darya and about the densely populated
and heavily fortified region of Chorasmia beyond the Kyzyl Kum and
101. Curt. 7.4.20−22. This parallels the actions of the commanders of Darius III
after the defeat at the Battle of Gaugamela.
102. Arr. An. 3.28.5−9.
103. In this passage, Arrian seems to distinguish between Dahae “who live on this
side of the Tanais” and Dahae “from the Tanais.” Quite possibly, he used the
ethnonym Dahae as a generic designation in order to avoid the even less specific
term Sakas.
104. Arr. An. 3.29.1. For an analysis of this episode and an assessment of its use for
reconstructing the inner organization of the satrapy of Bactriana, see Briant
1996: 768–770.
105. Arr. An. 3.29.6; cf. Curt. 7.5.21, who mentions a further conspirator, the Bactrian
Catanes.
106. Curt. 7.6.15−22; Arr. An. 4.1–4.3.5.
813
Kara Kum deserts. However, it seems that these “nations” were now
freed from any previous oath of allegiance to the Persian king and/or
the satrap of Bactriana. Although Alexander established a new author-
ity in Bactra, Spitamenes was still fighting the invaders, and it seems
that at first the Chorasmians, Sakas, and Dahae did not desert his cause.
We may infer that in the aftermath of Bessus’s death, the Sogdians of
Spitamenes still had some support from the Sakas.107 After campaigning
in eastern Sogdiana, and after the siege of Cyropolis and its refounda-
tion,108 Alexander continued to have trouble in Marakanda (modern
Samarkand) that was caused by Spitamenes,109 who was supported by
Dahae troops and/or Sakas;110 and the Macedon invader was forced to
lead a campaign across the Jaxartes in order to contain the Sakas,111 bat-
tling and pursuing them into the desert.112 As a result of this, the Sakas
beyond the Jaxartes sent an embassy to Alexander to “surrender,”113
and Alexander was finally free to march toward Samarkand, whereas
Spitamenes retreated to “the royal residence of the Sogdians.”114 The fact
that the captive Bessus’s nose and ears were mutilated at this point in
the narrative and that he was now sent to Ecbatana to be executed115
107. Arr. An. 4.3.6; 4.4.2; Curt. 7.7.16−17.

108. Arr. An. 4.4.1; Curt. 7.6.25.
109. Curt. 7.7.24.
110. Dahae: Curt. 7.7.32; Sakas: Arr. An. 4.6.1.
111. Arr. An. 4.4.5; Curt. 7.8.5.
112. Arr. An. 4.4.8−9; cf. Curt. 7.9.13.
113. Curt. 7.9.17−18; Arr. An. 4.5.1. Considering the difficulties endured by
Alexander’s army up to this point (as reported both by Arrian and Curtius),
it seems more likely that a deal was struck with the Sakas in order to avoid a
military confrontation while the invading force was still active in Bactriana and
Sogdiana.
114. According to Curtius, Spitamenes fled to “Bactra.” Following Rapin 2018: 286,
“the royal residence of the Sogdians” was likely Gabae (modern Koktepe), but
it might also have been a city further down in the Zeravshan valley in the area
of Bukhara.
115. Arr. An. 4.7.3; Curt. 7.10.10.
814
is perhaps linked to the continuous resistance of the Sogdians and

Bactrians.116
At this crucial point,117 the “European Scythians” (apparently the
Sakas beyond the Jaxartes), with whom Alexander had previously clashed,
offered “friendship and alliances,” and at the same time, Pharasmanes, “king
of the Chorasmians,” arrived in Zariaspa (possibly Marakanda, modern
Samarkand)118 with a retinue of 1,500 horsemen;119 Alexander sent the
Chorasmian ruler to Artabazus “the Persian,” “to whom he had entrusted
affairs in Bactria,” and rather vaguely, also “to all the other neighboring
satraps.” Curtius also reports two embassies received by Alexander sent
by the Sakas and by Phrataphernes, the “governor” of the Chorasmians,
“a neighbor to the Massagetae and the Dahae,” who had “sent messengers
to promise his obedience.”120 These events are also mentioned by Justin as
the “surrender” of the Chorasmians and the Dahae to Alexander.121
At this point, Curtius and Arrian’s narratives concerning the last
actions of the Sogdian leader Spitamenes diverge slightly.122 According
to both authors, as well as Strabo, Spitamenes had his last base and ref-
uge beyond a desert, in the land of his Saka allies—according to Arrian,
the Massagetae; and according to Curtius, the Dahae,123 whereas Strabo
specified that
116. E.g., Arr. An. 4.1.1.

117. Arr. An. 4.15.1−4.
118. For the proposed identification of Zariaspa with Marakanda, see Rapin 2018.
119. For comparison, note that the Bactrian cavalry was composed of 8,000–9,000
units at the Battle of Gaugamela, according to Curt. 4.12.6.
120. Curt. 8.1.7−9.
121. Just. Epit. 12.6.18.
122. Minardi 2015: 37–44.
123. Minardi 2015: 41. In Arr. An. 4.6.6, after Spitamenes’s second siege of
Samarkand and before the mutilation of Bessus, the Sogdian leader was
pursued by Alexander along the valley of the Polytimetus river (modern
Zeravshan) to where “there is nothing but the desert,” i.e., the Kyzyl Kum des-
ert. Already Daffinà 1967: 55 suggested that Spitamenes’s flight may have ended
in Chorasmia.
815
belonging to the tribe of the Massagetae and the Sacae are also the
Attasians and the Chorasmians, to whom Spitamenes fled from
the country of the Bactrians and the Sogdians.124
Spitamenes was eventually betrayed and killed by his Saka allies,

who were “frightened” of Alexander,125 and it is rather likely that the
Chorasmian and Dahae embassies were sent to Alexander only after
Spitamenes’s demise and after Bessus’s captivity in Bactra had come to an
end, before the conqueror began his march toward India.126 Although
the rulers of the Chorasmians and Sakas (and as we have seen, probably
also the Dahae) controlled territories that were not subject to Alexander,
they still pledged their obedience and recognized the new authority.127
Strabo recorded that
Alexander did attempt to lead an expedition against these [i.e.,

unidentified Saka populations dwelling north of Sogdiana] when
he was in pursuit of Bessus and Spitamenes, but when Bessus was
124. Str. 9.8.1.

125. Curt. 8.3.16; Arr. An. 4.17.17.
126. A Chinese source confirms the geopolitical connection between these two
“states” at the end of the first millennium bc, as the Chorasmians and Dahae
sent an ambassador to the Han court around 110 bc, following the example of
the Arsacids; see Minardi 2015: 57–58 (with references). On Chorasmia and the
Dahae, see Minardi 2015: 45–47 (with references) and also Olbrycht 2015. At
that time, some of these Dahae may have dwelled in the delta of the Syr Darya;
see Vainberg and Levina 1993; Minardi 2015: 83.
127. Minardi 2015: 41. This is clear from both Arrian and Curtius’s narratives. Thus,
Arr. An. 4.15.1−5 writes, “The purpose of the embassy was to express the readi-
ness of the Scythians to do whatever Alexander commanded”; and that the
king of the Sakas “would also come to visit Alexander if summoned, and hear
Alexander’s command from Alexander himself.” According to these and other
sources, the Sakas were not defeated and conquered and Chorasmia was never
reached by the invaders, therefore remaining terra incognita; see Minardi 2013;
2015: 125. However, later in his narrative, Arr. An. 7.10.5−11 reports a speech
made by Alexander to encourage his soldiers that included Chorasmia in a list
of conquered regions, alongside Parthia and Hyrcania.
816
captured alive and brought back, and Spitamenes was slain by the
barbarians, he desisted from his undertaking.128
It is unclear whether Spitamenes was indeed a traitor or whether the

story of his betrayal was a literary construct to discredit the defeated
enemy.129 Especially the portrayal of Bessus as a usurper of the Persian
crown may have been partially or even entirely constructed in order
to justify Alexander’s actions, designed to portray him as the rightful
successor to the Persian Empire.130 In any case, news of Bessus’s execu-
tion seemed to be one of the causes for Spitamenes’s downfall and the
surrender of his supporters. Bessus apparently continued to serve as a
catalyst for the local resistance against the invaders, and for that reason,
Alexander seems to have made the timely decision to execute the last
satrap of Bactriana and self-proclaimed last king of the Persian Empire,
who had been held prisoner in his former satrapal capital until then.
After the mutilation of his nose and ears by order of Alexander, Bessus
was sent to Ecbatana,131 where he was publicly displayed and then exe-
cuted.132 Hence, Bessus was treated and punished as a traitor in accor-
dance with Persian customs.133
For our purposes, the most important point is the very obvious polit-
ical supremacy of Bactriana vis-à-vis the neighboring “nations” (with
a clear preeminence of Sogdiana among those), and of its satrap as an
128. Str. 11.11.6. Cf. also Arr. An. 4.4.8 (see above in this section).
129. With Darius III being betrayed by Bessus, and Bessus betrayed in turn by
Spitamenes.
130. Cf. Briant 2003: 199, 345–346. It was only after Spitamenes’s revolt had been
suppressed that Alexander made his attempt to introduce proskynesis (on which
see c hapter 65 in this volume), “the quintessential act of homage to the Persian
king”; see Bosworth 1996: 109, with note 55.
131. Curt. 7.10.11.
132. Arr. An. 4.7.3.
133. Cf. Darius I’s Bisotun inscription, describing the rebel leaders’ mutilation and
public execution (DB §32–§33); cf. also Hdt. 3.69. As indicated by Arrian (Arr.
An. 4.7.3), Alexander was conscious of this Persian custom.
817
agent of the Persian king. At the time of Alexander’s conquest, the com-
plex relationship between Bactriana and its satellites was rooted in over
two centuries of Persian hegemony in Central Asia, which the Greek
commentators found impossible to grasp in all its nuances. The varying
titles given to the Chorasmian leader (“governor,” “king”) and the incon-
sistent use of labels such as “Massagetae,” “Sakas,” and “Dahae” are clear
examples of the difficulty they had in codifying the organization and
hierarchies of those regions, especially when outside their own firsthand
experience.
Recently published Aramaic documents from Bactriana (but unfor-
tunately without any known archaeological context)134 confirm and
reveal how the Persian authorities from one end of the empire to the
other “installed identical hierarchies and administrative procedures,”
rendering obsolete all those “theories about the peripheral character of
Bactriana-Sogdiana in the Empire.”135 However, the general shortage
of primary sources for the northeastern regions of the Persian Empire
makes it extremely difficult to say more than this.
What evidence there is, however, allows some firm conclusions.
Most importantly, just like Parthia and Aria (see below in this section),
Bactriana was a satrapy, with its satrapal seat at the city of Bactra (modern
Balkh/Tepe Zargaran), while there were no satrapal seats in Sogdiana,
in Chorasmia, among the Sakas beyond the Jaxartes, or in the lands of
the Dahae. Politically, all these “nations” all orbited around Bactra, as
confirmed by both Persian sources and later texts commenting on the
Persian period. Their cultural patterns were diverse: while the deserts
and steppes were inhabited by semi-nomadic populations, the region
of Chorasmia was by the second half of the fifth century bc culturally
fairly homogenous and, just like Sogdiana, a polity of sedentary people,
although the classical authors were unaware of this. According to these
same commentators, the Dahae dwelled on the steppe belt stretching
134. For the edition, see Naveh and Shaked 2012.

135. Briant 2020: 36–37. Two fragmentary Elamite tablets from Old Kandahar,
published by Fisher and Stolper 2015 and reconsidered in a broader context by
Henkelman 2017, confirm this also for Arachosia.
81
from the northeast of the Caspian Sea toward the east.136 From the
Chorasmians, the Dahae were separated geographically in the west only
by the arid Ustyurt Plateau, and as has been suggested repeatedly in this
chapter, it is very likely that the classical sources sometimes conflated or
confused the two groups, and also other semi-nomadic confederations.137
Bessus’s struggle against the invading forces not only involved the
“nations” subject to his own satrapy, but also other nearby satrapies,
including Aria and Arachosia. After the demise of Darius III and after
Alexander’s sojourn in Zadracarta (of unknown location; perhaps
Sari), “the greatest city of Hyrcania,” “the place where the palace of the
Hyrcanians was,” the Macedonians moved toward Aria with the inten-
tion of invading Bactriana, by passing through the satrapy of Parthia.138
Reaching Aria, Alexander met in the city of Susia (modern Tus) with
Satibarzanes, the satrap of Aria, who surrendered to him (perhaps rec-
ognizing him as the new ruler) and was thus kept in office.139 In Arrian’s
narrative, it is at this precise moment that Bessus proclaimed himself
the new Persian king under the regnal name of Artaxerxes V. So it was
perhaps not coincidentally, that when Alexander left Aria to advance
on Bactriana, Satibarzanes rebelled against the Macedon and gathered
his forces in his capital Artacoana (modern Herat).140 It is plausible to
136. Str. 11.8.1−2; and cf. also Plin. HN 6.19 who uses more, and far more randomly
chosen, ethnonyms.
137. Minardi 2015: 45–47. Cf. Curt. 8.1.7−9, who describes the Chorasmians as
“neighbors” of the Dahae and Massagetae. The wealth of mentions of the Dahae
by Roman historians dealing with sources on Alexander the Great is probably
due to their renown in Roman times, when they became part of a literary
topos: e.g., Tac. Ann. 2.3, 11.8; Luc. Alex. 2.296, 7.429; Valerius Flaccus 2.157;
Verg. Aen. 8.727−728; and cf. Appian, who lists in the army of Antiochus III
(222–187 bc) the “mounted archers of the Dahae, Mysia, Elymais, and Arabia,
who, riding on swift camels shoot arrows with dexterity from their high posi-
tion, and use very long thin knives when come to close combat” (App. Syr. 32).
138. Arr. An. 3.25.1. Alexander traveled along one of the royal roads of the Persian
Empire, on which see Briant 2010; 2012.
139. See also Diod. Sic. 17.77.5.
140. According to Arr. An. 3.25.5, “where his palace was.”
819
assume that once a credible candidate to continue the dynastic line of

the Persian Empire had emerged in the shape of Bessus, the satrap of
Aria would have joined his side rather than stay loyal to the invader.141
However, at the news that Alexander planned to retaliate and lay
siege to Artacoana instead of continuing his march toward Bactria,
Satibarzanes was abandoned by most of his men and fled.142 Alexander
then appointed Arsaces, a Persian, as the new satrap of Aria and resumed
his march eastward. However, Satibarzanes was not yet defeated and
returned to reclaim his former satrapy with the assistance of Bessus,143
and Phrataphernes, the satrap of Parthia, who had remained loyal to
Alexander, was sent alongside Macedon troops to subdue Satibarzanes
in Aria. But before Alexander had crossed the Oxus in order to challenge
Bessus, Arsaces was removed from his post for treason, and again, a new
satrap of Aria was appointed.144
These events highlight once again the regional prominence of
Bactriana, or of Bessus himself who, after the collapse of the central
imperial administration, still continued to muster forces able to resist
the invaders: assessing military obligations and mobilizing troops is
among the basic powers of any ruler. Bessus’s claim to the Persian throne,
together with the impressive military support that he was able to harness
(not only Bactrian forces, but also Saka and Indian auxiliaries and/or
mercenaries), seems to have renewed belief in the viability of the empire’s
survival in the satraps of Aria and Arachosia, who initially surrendered
141. Arr. An. 3.25.5: “He (Satibarzanes) had decided, on learning of Alexander’s
advance, to go from there (i.e., his palace) with his troops to Bessus and join
him in attacking the Macedonians.” Cf. Curt. 7.3.2; Diod. Sic. 17.78.1−2.
142. Arr. An. 3.25.7. Note that Barsaentes, satrap of Arachosia and Drangiana (Arr.
An. 3.21) and “one of those who had joined in attacking Darius,” was, according
to Arrian, a traitor to Darius III but an ally to Bessus. In Arrian’s narrative, he
subsequently fled eastward, and this may have been a strategic retreat, although
the flight of the various protagonists of the imperial leadership (Bessus,
Spitamenes, Satibarzanes, and Barsaentes) to the lands of their “barbarian”
allies is clearly a literary topos.
143. Arr. An. 3.28.2; Curt. 7.3.2; Diod. Sic. 17.81.3.
144. Arr. An. 3.29.5; 4.7.1.
820
to the invader after the defeat of Darius III at Gaugamela.145 Bessus’s

authority was strong enough even to appoint his own satraps, such as
Barzanes as satrap of Parthia in opposition to Phrataphernes, who had
pledged allegiance to Alexander.146 However, much of the power rela-
tionship at play in the northeastern territories of the Persian Empire is
distorted by the classical sources, which only ever depicted the satraps
and other leaders of the Persian Empire as loyal and capable when they
were allied to Alexander; if they maintained their original alliances, they
were portrayed as traitors and cowards.
62.5. The archaeology of the northeastern

regions of the Persian Empire
The written sources at our disposal indicate that a Bactrian polity existed
already prior to the conquest of Cyrus and the incorporation into the
Persian Empire. Once integrated into the emerging imperial structures
in the sixth century bc, Bactriana gradually extended or perhaps con-
solidated its influence over the adjacent territories until the arrival of
Alexander the Great in the late fourth century bc, including over those
areas inhabited by the semi-nomadic Saka peoples. The disproportionate
amount of data about Bactriana in comparison to all the other regions in
the northeast of the Persian Empire should not be considered accidental,
but the direct result of its prominent political role. While data about
Parthia is scant prior to the Arsacid (“Parthian”) period from the mid-
third century bc onward (which is beyond this chapter’s scope), simi-
lar processes of imperial integration can be envisaged for Aria and also
Arachosia (chapter 63 in this volume). Hyrcania, it seems, had a more
significant role during Cyrus’s time than it held in the later phase of the
Persian Empire and the time of Alexander’s invasion.
145. According to a Babylonian chronicle, the troops of Darius III deserted him
after the Battle of Gaugamela and went back to their homes; see Bernard 1990
and also Rollinger 2016 (on the ideological bias of this composition).
146. Arr. An. 4.7.1.
821
Chorasmia is the only settled region of Central Asia without any early
proto-urban development. In the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, this area
was occupied by different cultural groups with a steppic background, and
the shift toward a state organization was apparently prompted only by
the impact of the Persian Empire.147 The region became a frontier zone
of the Persian Empire, at the edge of its settled areas and at a considerable
distance from any of its main centers, the closest being Samarkand. At
the site of Kyuzeli-g ȳr (in the north of modern Turkmenistan),148 a forti-
fied settlement was established, and there is clear evidence for irrigation
works and thus extensive land exploitation, increased social complexity,
and a new material culture characterized by the adoption of a Yaz III-
derived ceramic typology, which during the fifth century bc was wide-
spread in all the areas irrigated by the lower reaches of the Oxus. Bactrian
agency in the imperial strategies in Chorasmia is likely.
Under the Persian Empire, the preexisting political structures of all
the lands discussed in this chapter likely underwent some reconfigura-
tion, but concrete information is currently wanting in the absence of
data: even for the main centers of Central Asia, such as the cities of
Bactra (modern Balkh/Tepe Zargaran) and Margu (modern Merv/
Erk-kala),149 we still lack basic archaeological knowledge concerning
the pre-Persian and Persian periods.150 The societies within the empire’s
northeastern regions, from the settled regions along the river valleys with
147. Minardi 2015; 2018; 2021.

148. See Minardi 2020.
149. On the limited excavations of the Persian-period settlements in Merv/Erk-kala
(modern Turkmenistan) and in Balkh/Tepe Zargaran (modern Afghanistan),
see Vidale et al. 2008: 195; Cerasetti 2008: 35–36; Lhuillier 2018: 266.
150. On the archaeology of the Persian period in Central Asia, see Francfort and
Lecomte 2002; Francfort 2005; Briant and Boucharlat 2015; Lhuillier 2018;
Rapin 2021 (with further literature). On Bactriana in particular, see Lyonnet
1997; Bernard et al. 2006; Besenval and Marquis 2007; Fouache et al. 2012;
Marquis 2018; Lhuillier et al. 2021; on Sogdiana, see Rapin and Isamiddinov
2013; Rapin 2017; on Chorasmia, see Minardi 2015; 2020; on Margiana, see
Gubaev et al. 1998; Cerasetti 2008; Salvatori and Tosi 2008; on Parthia and
Hyrcania, see Jacobs 2021; and on Aria, see Vogelsang 2003.
82
their relatively high population density and developed agriculture to the

semi-nomadic population groups in the steppes, would have entertained
a range of different relationships with the imperial authorities and also
with each other, which certainly developed and changed throughout the
two centuries of Persian domination.151 Once in a while, the scarce mate-
rial evidence at our disposal from the Central Asian territories receives
important additions, such as the two recently published, fragmentary
Elamite clay tablets that were excavated at Old Kandahar,152 or the
Aramaic documents from Bactriana (which appeared on the art market,
very regrettably without archaeological context).153 However, even this
material is hardly sufficient to comprehensively address the key questions
of the degree of imperial interference and of the efficacy of the imperial
administration, e.g., in directly controlling the local economy, and these
matters continue to be debated.154
Archaeologically speaking, the imprint left by the Persian Empire
in the northeastern territories is scarcely visible, as it is “hidden” by the
strong local continuities in settlement, material cultures, and traditions,
which in Central Asia are exemplified by the widespread Iron Age Yaz
II/III typological ceramic group. To quote Johanna Lhuillier,
In the current state of research, the Persian presence itself is visible

only through some fortresses likely hosting some military contin-
gents and acting as administrative centres, located on some strate-
gic points to control the territory. Following Cattenat and Gardin
(1977), Askarov and Al’baum (1979), and Lyonnet (1990), we con-
sider that these elements indicate the autonomous development
151. E.g., in relation to the management of labor and military force and workers of
the administration; see Briant 2012.
152. Fisher and Stolper 2015.
153. Naveh and Shaked 2012.
154. Briant 2001: 162–165; 2020 (with further references); and also Genito 1998b;
Henkelman 2017: 150. On the case of Margiana, see Genito 1998a; Cerasetti
2008: 34–36; and note the more cautious points of view expressed by Vidale
et al. 2008: 195; Cattani 2008: 146.
823
of the local society, a part of which acted as a relay to the political

and administrative Achaemenid power, under the Persian rule.155
But, to paraphrase a question posed by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg,

what kind of empire are we trying to find?156 The elements listed by
Lhuillier all concern key aspects of socioeconomic control. That the
Persian Empire exercised a systematic centralized control and manage-
ment over Central Asia is confirmed by the above-mentioned docu-
ments from Bactriana and Old Kandahar, and also the texts from the
Persepolis Fortification archives concerning the eastern populations.157
For nearby Arachosia, a Persian-period weight found in the region of
Bust (in the Helmand province of Afghanistan) adds to the evidence for
imperial economic control.158 Arsacid Parthia and Chorasmia exhibit a
strong cultural legacy of the Persian Empire, as the Aramaic script that
had been introduced there by the imperial chancelleries159 was used to
convey the local Middle Iranian languages centuries after the empire’s
demise.160 In this regard, also the economic and cultural legacy left by the
Persian Empire’s hold over India has to be taken into account.161
According to the explicit mentions of the Alexander biographers,
the satraps and the local elites lived in palaces that were located in their
capital cities. Satraps were, as in the case of Bactriana, members of the
royal family. Court life, with its etiquette, customs, and art—and thus
its ideological imprint,162 certainly mirrored the practices of the imperial
155. Lhuillier 2018: 267.

156. Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1990.
157. Henkelman 2017.
158. Trousdale 1968.
159. Bader 1996: 252; Livshits 2003 (with references).
160. On the Sogdian language and script, see Grenet et al. 2007; and on the
Kandahar bilingual, see Émile Benveniste in Schlumberger et al. 1958: 35–48;
also Briant 2009.
161. Iori 2019. See also chapter 63 in this volume.
162. On this subject, see Basello 2013.
824
court (for which see chapter 65 in this volume). But just as details of
local administration are unknown, we lack basic data on the lifestyles
of the Central Asian elites of the Persian period. An important indica-
tor for the influence of imperial court culture is arguably the so-called
tulip bowls that have been discovered in archaeological contexts in the
widespread regions under the aegis of the Persian Empire, from Sardis
in Lydia (chapter 51 in this volume) to Barikot in Pakistan (chapter 63
in this volume). Although such ceramic forms were also created and
used after the end of the Persian domination, the results of archaeologi-
cal fieldwork seem to indicate that, at least in certain areas of Central
Asia, the “tulip bowls” were originally a cultural hallmark of the Persian
Empire. Found at various sites across the region,163 the use of such bowls
is certainly a reflection of the acculturation of local elites to Persian court
culture, probably through the agency of regional centers about which we
sadly lack data.164 Certain echoes of Persian-period culture in Central
Asia can also be traced in the arts and crafts and to some extent in the tra-
ditional religious practices of later periods.165 An important element is
arguably the Zoroastrian liturgical calendar as adopted in Central Asia,
which originated in the Persian Empire.166
To control the landscape, the primary means of wealth production
in this fundamentally agricultural world, was to control the societ-
ies and economies of the subject territories, which the Persian Empire
achieved in its northeastern regions through a system of larger and
163. For finds of “tulip bowls” from Old Kandahar, see Fleming 1996; Helms 1997;
from Chorasmia, in particular the site of Dingil’dzhe, see Minardi 2015: 91–92;
2020; from the Sogdiana, in particular the site of Kyziltepa, see Wu 2018 (who
considers the area to be northern Bactria; cf. Rapin 2013: 74–78); from Parthia,
see Lhuillier and Bendezu-Sarmiento 2018. Comparable pieces are known from
Sardis in Asia Minor (see Dusinberre 1999), the island of Bahrain (see Højlund
and Andersen 1997), and Pakistan (see Petrie et al. 2008; Iori 2019; Olivieri
and Iori 2020; Olivieri 2021: 316–318; and chapter 63 in this volume). See also
Magee 2004: 80–81.
164. Minardi 2016 (with references).
165. Minardi 2020 (with references).
166. de Jong 2015.
825
smaller administrative centers and subordinate fortresses. The intercon-

nection of territorial expansion, imperial control, and wealth generation
in Central Asia during the Persian period seemingly meant an increase
in agricultural exploitation and the necessity for the construction of
new settlements and irrigation works, as assumed, e.g., at Kyziltepa
in the upper reaches of the Oxus (now in the extreme east of modern
Uzbekistan).167 Only further fieldwork in Central Asia will be able to
clarify whether such projects were directly spearheaded by the Persian
authorities or the result of local initiatives that connected themselves
to preexisting or imperial infrastructures.168 Intensified archaeological
research may also result in the recovery of additional written documents,
as the case of Old Kandahar has so promisingly shown. We can reason-
ably hope that new material will emerge that will either prove or disprove
the currently held assumptions about the northeastern territories of the
Persian Empire.
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Iranica XII/2: 205–206. Retrieved from https://iranicaonline.org/
articles/herat-ii (last accessed January 29, 2021).
Wu, X. 2010. Enemies of empire: a historical reconstruction of political con-
flicts between Central Asians and the Persian Empire. In Curtis, J., and
Simpson, St.J. (eds.), The world of Achaemenid Persia: history, art, and soci-
ety in Iran and the ancient Near East. London: I.B Tauris, 545–563.
836
Wu, X. 2018. Exploiting the virgin land: Kyzyltepa and the effects of the
Achaemenid Persian Empire on its Central Asian frontier. In Lhuillier, J.,
and Boroffka, N. (eds.), A millennium of history: the Iron Age in Central
Asia (2nd and 1st millennia BC). Mainz: Zabern, 189–214.
Wu, X., Miller, N.F., and Crabtree, P. 2015. Agro-pastoral strategies and food
production on the Achaemenid frontier in Central Asia: a case study of
Kyzyltepa in southern Uzbekistan. Iran 53: 93–117.
Yoyotte, J. 2010. La statue égyptienne de Darius. In Perrot, J. (ed.), Le palais
de Darius à Suse: une résidence royale sur la route de Persépolis à Babylone.
Paris: Presse de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 256–299.
837
63
The Southeastern Regions of the

Persian Empire on
the Indo-Iranian Frontier
Arachosia, Drangiana, Gedrosia,
Sattagydia, Gandhara, and India
Pierfrancesco Callieri
63.1. Introduction
The reconstruction of the territorial organization of the Persian Empire
by Bruno Jacobs proposes a conceptual hierarchy that stretches from
“minor satrapies,” through “main satrapies,” to “great satrapies.”1 Jacobs
was able to resolve the frequent contradictions in the available sources
that prevented a coherent assessment of the administrative structure
of the Persian Empire thanks to his recognition of the flexibility of the
imperial system, which accepted fluctuating boundaries.2
1. Jacobs 1994. The following additional abbreviations are used in this chapter: DB
for the Bisotun inscription of Darius I; DPh for one of his inscriptions from
Persepolis; DSf for one of his inscriptions from Susa; XPh for an inscription of
Xerxes I from Persepolis.
2. Jacobs 2003: 315. For a critical view of this approach, see chapter 58 in this volume.
Pierfrancesco Callieri, The Southeastern Regions of the Persian Empire on the Indo-Iranian Frontier In: The
Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts,
Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0063
83
The southeastern territories of the Persian Empire (figure 63.1) cov-

ered by this chapter—Harauvatiš/Arachosia (section 63.2), Zranka/
Drangiana (section 63.3), Maka/Gedrosia and Oman (section 63.4),
Thataguš/Sattagydia (section 63.6), Gandara/Gandhara and Hinduš/
India (section 63.7), as well as the region occupied by the Akaufačiya
people (section 63.5)—correspond in Jacobs’s reconstruction to differ-
ent degrees and concepts of administrative geography, and the available
documentation differs greatly. On the other hand, a common denomina-
tor did exist between these different areas, given their position at the
edge of the Iranian world and on the border of the Indian world, south
of the Hindukush: this common denominator thus makes it possible to
bring these satrapies (with the exception of Drangiana) together under
the name of the “Indo-Iranian frontier,” using an adjective, Indo-Iranian,
that brings to mind the cultural and religious affinities of ancient Iran and
ancient India, which were originally much closer to each other in culture,
religion, and language than the Iranian and Mesopotamian worlds were.
Historical events, however, led the first great Iranian empire known with
certainty to gravitate more toward its western neighbors than toward
its eastern ones, for which, moreover, written sources are much rarer,
shrouding the area with doubts and uncertainties that archaeological
research has not been able to completely overcome.
Persian royal inscriptions, the administrative clay tablets from
Persepolis and other textual sources (mainly later Greek ones), provide
data on the variety of relationships that existed between the center of
the empire and the Indo-Iranian frontier.3 The Persian kings’ political
relationships with this area probably began as early as during the reign of
Cyrus the Great (559–530 bc), given that in the oldest genuine Persian
royal inscription found in Persia, the Bisotun inscription (chapter 55 in
this volume), we find Drangiana, Gandhara, Sattagydia, Arachosia, and
Maka among the countries which Darius I (522–486 bc) inherited at
the time of his accession to the throne,4 and unlike with Cyrus, there is
3. Weber and Wiesehöfer 1996: 614–616. Also Schmitt 1984; 1986; Vogelsang
2000a; Jacobs 2011; 2017.
4. DB §6 (i 12–17); see Kuhrt 2007: 141, no. 5.1.
839
Figure 63.1. Sites mentioned in chapter 63, with the names of Bronze Age sites in italics. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri
(LMU Munich).
840
no report in any available source on military engagement by Cambyses

(530–522 bc) in the east. During the violent revolts of 522–521 bc
described by Darius in the Bisotun inscription, the satrap of Arachosia
was Vivana, who faced and defeated the army that the Persian rebel
Vahyazdata had sent against Arachosia three times: at the Kapišakaniš
fortress, in the Gandutava district, and at the Aršada fortress.5
In Herodotus’s Histories, we read that the “Sarangians” (i.e., the
inhabitants of the satrapy that later Greek sources call Drangiana,
Old Persian Zranka) were included in the Fourteenth District of the
Persian Empire; the Sarangians paid a tribute of 600 talents together
with the peoples of a region that stretched from Sagartia in central-
eastern Iran down to the southern regions, which included the lands
of the Sarangians, the Thamaneans, the Outioi, the Mykoi, and the
inhabitants of the islands in the Persian Gulf.6 The Sarangians and the
Thamaneans also feature in the Histories in a story of a legendary nature
that reflects the key theme of imperial control over water resources,7 of
fundamental importance in southeastern Iran. Some Iranists trace the
ethnonym Thamanaios back to Sāma,8 a character of Avestic mythology
and the ancestor of Kərəsāspa and other heroes of Sistanic myths that
take place between Drangiana and Arachosia; this geographical loca-
tion could indicate a possible connection between Herodotus’s source
and Iranian myth.
Herodotus included “the Sattagydians, Gandarans, Dadicae, and
Aparytae” in the Seventh District and has them pay an annual tribute of
170 talents to the Persian king.9 “The Indians, who are more numerous
than any other nations known to us,” formed the twentieth satrapy which,
according to Herodotus, paid the heaviest tribute of all the satrapies, 360
5. DB §45 (iii 54–64); see Kuhrt 2007: 147, no. 5.1.

6. Hdt. 3.93.
7. Hdt. 3.117.
8. Marquart 1905: 176; Herzfeld 1938: 128; Daffinà 1967: 27; cf. Maniscalco
2014: 53–55.
9. Hdt. 3.91.
841
The Southeastern Regions of the Persian Empire 841
talents of gold, equivalent to 4,680 silver talents.10 Therefore, Hinduš

must have been the largest of the southeastern territories of the Persian
Empire. Surprisingly, Herodotus does not mention Arachosia in his lists.
Gandara and Hinduš are mentioned in Darius’s so-called Foundation
Charter from Susa as the places of origin of, respectively, the yakā wood
(Dalbergia sissoo roxb.) and the ivory used to construct the new palace.11
Elamite tablets from the Persepolis Fortification archives record the names
of Gandharans, Indians, and Arachosians at Persepolis and of officers of
the Persian king sent to the east, to whom food provisions were allotted.12
Extremely useful for a characterization of the cultural and geographi-
cal variety of the regions of the empire, especially those whose locations
or extent are uncertain, are iconographic sources, namely the represen-
tations of the dahyāva (singular dahyu-), i.e., the peoples or “nations”
who populated the imperial regions and who were depicted as differ-
ent archetypes in Persian imperial art (see also chapter 62 in this vol-
ume). The ideology of the universal empire on which the inscriptions
of the Persian rulers insisted was reflected in the sculptural reliefs with
dahyāva that were placed along the stone walls of some imperial Persian
monuments. The first category of depictions included those classifiable
as “gift-bearing delegations,” e.g., at Persepolis along the stairways of the
Apadana of Darius I and the partially reconstructed stairway of the pal-
ace of Artaxerxes I (465–425 bc),13 while the second category were those
classifiable as “throne-bearers,” e.g., on the façades of the royal tombs of
Naqš-e Rustam and Persepolis, but also on the jambs of the tripylon of
the “One-Hundred-Column Hall” (or Throne Hall) built by Xerxes
(486–465 bc) and his son and successor Artaxerxes I.
Due to the difficulty of distinguishing between different peoples
from the same geographical areas of the empire, who often share simi-
lar customs and hairstyles, the only absolutely certain identifications are
10. Hdt. 3.94.

11. DSf §9 and §11; see Kuhrt 2007: 492, no. 11.13.
12. Vogelsang 1990: 101; Seibert 2002: 22.
13. Tilia 1972: 293–308.
842
those of the throne-bearers on the tomb of Darius I and on the southern

tomb of Persepolis attributed to Artaxerxes II (404–358 bc),14 thanks to
the short inscriptions with their identities engraved above the figures. As
the same scene is also repeated on the other four royal tombs, which have
corresponding legends, it is nevertheless possible to use these tombs, in
particular Tomb II attributed to Xerxes, to aid in the identification of
the subject peoples: in the depiction on this tomb, the sculpted part of
interest for our discussion is better preserved than on the other tombs.
On the façade of the tombs, the right-hand upper register of throne-
bearers is dedicated to the Indo-Iranian frontier and includes, from left to
right, three bearers from Eastern Iran—an Arian (Old Persian Haraiva),
a Drangianian (Old Persian Zranka), and an Arachosian (Old Persian
Harauvatiš), and then four bearers from northwestern India and the
Indian Ocean—a Sattagydian (Old Persian Thataguš), a Gandarian (Old
Persian Gandara), an Indian (Old Persian Hinduš), and a Mačian (Old
Persian Maka). The Iranian characterization of the first bearers (Erich
F. Schmidt’s Group III) is made evident by the belted “Median” coat,
worn with short baggy trousers, high boots, and a short akinakes dag-
ger on the side, while the Indian origin of the second group (Schmidt’s
Group V) is shown by the fact that the figures have bare chests and legs,
wear skirts and sandals, and have a long sword suspended from their left
shoulders.15 Thus we learn from these images that Sattagydia belongs to
the Indian subcontinent rather than to the Iranian plateau.
This is, however, not the case according to the depiction of a rep-
resentative of Sattagydia on the base of the Egyptian statue of Darius
I found at Susa, on which twenty-four male figures are rendered in the
Egyptian style as subjects of the ruler and are accompanied with car-
touches that identify them in hieroglyphics; the steles of the Suez Canal
are decorated with the same number of figures. On the Susa statue
base, we have the representatives of Arachosia, Drangiana, Sattagydia,
India, and Maka (Gedrosia/Oman). In this figurative document, the
14. Davis 1932.

15. Schmidt 1953: 117 (table). For a discussion of the akinakes dagger, see c hapter 62
in this volume.
843
representative of Arachosia (no. VIII) is placed in the series dedicated to

the Iranian world on the left side of the base, and wears a long robe with
wide, short sleeves similar to those worn by the Persian and the Elamite.
He is followed not only by the representative of Drangiana (no. IX),
wearing a characteristic feathered headdress, but also by the representa-
tive of Sattagydia (no. X; Egyptian Sadagudj), both wearing a garment
that Jean Yoyotte considers similar to the one worn by the representative
of Media according to the canons of Egyptian art.16 Finally, the represen-
tative of India (no. XXIV; Egyptian Hndwy) is the last on the right side
of the base, preceded by the delegate of Maka (Egyptian Mag(a)); both
these men wear robes that leave the right shoulder uncovered, a style that
according to Yoyotte is typical for depictions of people from Maka.17 In
the latter case, Sattagydia seems to be related more to the Iranian world
than to the Indian one. Yoyotte rightly speculates that it seems implausi-
ble that the Egyptian artist could have observed these representatives of
twenty-four regions in person, and that he must therefore have relied on
whatever Persian representations were available to him;18 perhaps this
led to the mistaken characterization of the representative of Sattagydia.
Like Ernst Herzfeld and others before him, Schmidt proposed an
identification of the ethnic groups to which the delegations in the pro-
cession scenes of gift-bearers at Persepolis would belong: twenty-three
delegations are depicted on the two stairways of the Apadana,19 while
thirty delegations are shown on the stairway of the palace of Artaxerxes
I (graphically reconstructed by Ann Britt Tilia).20 According to Schmidt,
the Apadana delegation no. 7 would be Arachosians, no. 14 Gandharians,
no. 18 Indians, and no. 22 Drangianians.21 Numerous other interpre-
tations have been proposed, often in relation to the lists of regions
16. Yoyotte 2010: 290; cf. Roaf 1974.

17. Yoyotte 2010: 296.
18. Yoyotte 2010: 286.
19. Schmidt 1953: 85–90.
20. Tilia 1972: 243–316.
21. Schmidt 1953: pls. 33, 40, 44, 47.
84
mentioned in the royal inscriptions and in Herodotus:22 a complex mat-

ter, made even more difficult by the unreliability of one criterion that
had frequently been used for identification, i.e., that the items offered to
the Persian king would be the best and most typical products of the indi-
vidual satrapies.23 The gifts brought by members of different delegations
are often the same and must therefore be considered motifs of imperial
court art.24 But we must bear in mind that, as Pierre Briant has pointed
out, neither the lists in the inscriptions nor the representations consti-
tute administrative catalogues, and that “Darius and his successors are
neither archivists nor historians.”25 The message that can be drawn from
these documents, therefore, is primarily of a political-ideological nature.
As regards the archaeological sources, even on the Iranian plateau, it
is difficult to define a material culture that can be said to represent the
Persian Empire in the face of the great strength of local Iron Age tradi-
tions. If we move toward the Indo-Iranian frontier regions, the material
manifestation of an imperial presence becomes even more difficult to
discern, as the analysis of the available information in this chapter shows.
It should be remembered that, as in any other satrapy, Persian impe-
rial domination exerted a rather limited influence on the local material
culture, one decidedly weaker than what was to come later under the
Seleucid Dynasty and their successors. As the modern expectations were
too high and the parameters employed unsuited to the type of presence
that the imperial authorities exercised, it was long considered doubtful
whether regions like Bahrain26 and Central Asia27 had in fact been part
of the holdings of the Persian Empire.
22. Cf. Gropp 2009: Table 1.

23. Jamzadeh 1993.
24. Tourovets 2001: 224. Identifications of the different peoples on the Apadana
reliefs are frequently considered to be as secure as those on the tombs with cap-
tions, forgetting that the former are in any case hypothetical.
25. Briant 1996: 189.
26. Callieri 2013.
27. Gardin and Cattenat 1977; Lyonnet 1990.
845
In this survey of the east and southeast of the Persian Empire,

we start with Arachosia (section 63.2) and then discuss its constitu-
ent parts, including Drangiana. Corresponding to the Sistan Basin
between Iran and Afghanistan, this is a region that—despite its
geographical marginality with respect to the Persian heartland—
constitutes one of the nuclei for the religious and cultural traditions
of ancient Iran (section 63.3). The analysis focuses on identifying
physical evidence for the administrative structures of imperial power,
possible because the region’s material culture is fully integrated into
the known articulation of Persian craft production. After discussing
some areas of uncertain localisation (sections 63.4–6), we turn with
Gandara and Hinduš to regions located beyond the Iranian world
(section 63.7). Defining the spatial dimension of these administrative
units in the Persian Empire is challenging, as is identifying elements
that would confirm the written sources’ testimony on their inclusion
into the imperial structures.
63.2. Harauvatiš =Arachosia

Arachosia (Harauvatiš) was the main administrative unit for the south-
eastern part of the Persian Empire.28 The available sources allow us to
postulate, with Bruno Jacobs, that Arachosia was a “great satrapy,”
within which several important “main satrapies” were located, includ-
ing Drangiana (Zranka: section 63.3), Gedrosia (Maka: section 63.4),
Sattagydia (Thataguš: section 63.6), Gandara and India (Hinduš:
section 63.7), as well as central Arachosia. When discussing his first con-
tact with Arachosia, the sources on Alexander the Great also mention
interventions in Drangiana and Gedrosia, as well as in India.29
A careful analysis of the available sources allowed Paul Bernard to
show that Arachosia’s capital was located at the site of modern Kandahar,
28. Vogelsang 1985: 78–89; 1990: 100, 107; cf. Eggermont 1975: 9, 17, 63.
29. Jacobs 1994: 266.
846
more precisely at Shahr-e Kohna, a fortified settlement on the east-

ern flank of Qaitul Ridge, which is unfortunately almost completely
destroyed within the clearly visible traces of the ancient fortifications
and citadel (figure 63.2).30 As the royal inscriptions cite three loca-
tions (Kandara, Aršada, and Kapišakaniš), in addition to that of the
satrapy (Harauvatiš), it is uncertain which of these three names apply
to this city, which Alexander refounded around 329 bc as Alexandria
or Alexandropolis and which in 303 bc Seleucus ceded to Čandragupta
Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan Empire in India (ca. 324–187 bc).
The role of the ancient capital of Arachosia as the main center of the
southeastern part of the Persian Empire is well illustrated by a series of
events linked to the revolts against Darius I in 522–521 bc,31 as well as by
the discovery of two fragments of Elamite administrative clay tablets in a
secondary find context during the British excavations at Shahr-e Kohna.
The use of the Aramaic language in the inscriptions of the Indian ruler
Aśoka Maurya (ca. 268–232 bc) is undoubtedly linked to the previous
regional presence of a Persian imperial administration, and the Aramaic
inscriptions on the Arachosian green chert mortars, pestles, and trays
found in the Persepolis Treasury were likely to have been written in
Arachosia before the vessels were dispatched to Persepolis (probably as
tax payments);32 all these texts attest to the existence of a local adminis-
tration similar to that of Persepolis, as well as centralized craft centers.33
The mechanisms of these administrative structures probably continued
to function in the Hellenistic period, allowing scribes to convey the
content of edicts orally to the local population, who spoke an Iranian
language.
From a cultural history perspective, Arachosia has been included in
the homelands of Zoroastrianism on the basis of religion,34 as well as
30. Bernard 1974.

31. Fleming 1982.
32. Bowman 1970: 21, 82; Bernard 1972; Naveh and Shaked 1973; King 2019: 196–198.
33. Henkelman 2017: 106–109.
34. Hoffmann 1979: 89–93; Gnoli 1984: 120–124.
847
Figure 63.2. The citadel of Old Kandahar. Courtesy of Michele Minardi /Old Kandahar Project.
84
language.35 Similarly, the use of excellent ancient Greek as the second

language of the bilingual inscriptions of Aśoka attests to a deep-rooted
Hellenization as the result of the Macedonian conquest, confirmed also
by two important inscriptions in Greek verse.36
The most significant manifestations of the presence of Greek-
Hellenistic culture of the highest literary and philosophical levels, as
well as of the cultural interaction between this cultural sphere and
the Indian world, were concentrated in that very land during the
Hellenistic period,37 and this also confirms Arachosia’s role as the main
administrative center of the so-called Indo-Iranian frontier of the
Persian Empire. The level of this cultural environment was high enough
to characterize Old Kandahar, the main center of the satrapy, as one of
the great metropolises of the ancient world, and a companion to the
city of Bactra (modern Balkh) in the Bactriana, in its relationship to the
easternmost territories of the Persian and then Hellenistic empires.38
It was the Persian rulers who made Arachosia the gateway to India,
linking it to the satrapy of Hinduš.39 The last Persian governor of the
region, Barsaentes, whom Arrian called “satrap of the Arachosians and
Drangians,”40 took refuge with the Mountain Indians who were part
of the province of Hinduš, indicating that the latter must have been a
“main satrapy” of Arachosia. And it is no coincidence that in Darius’s
so-called Foundation Charter of Susa, Arachosia is mentioned as a
source for ivory, together with India and Ethiopia;41 or that according
35. Maniscalco 2014: 17–20.

36. Fraser 1979; Oikonomides 1984; Bernard et al. 2002; Bernard 2005.
37. Maniscalco 2014 (with references).
38. Henkelman 2017: 152.
39. Jacobs 1994: 32–35. A different view, which however seems to be based only on
the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, is that of Petrie and Magee 2012: 6, where
the connection of Harauvatiš to Hinduš is downplayed, also suggesting that the
main routes did not directly connect the two regions but passed further south.
40. Arr. An. 3.21.1.
41. DSf §11; see Kuhrt 2007: 492, no. 11.13.
849
to Isidore of Charax, the Parthians called Arachosia “White India” in

the first century ad.42
The British excavations in Old Kandahar by an archaeological mis-
sion of the Society for Afghan Studies from 1974 to 1978, directed first
by David Whitehouse and then Svend Helms, were enormously impor-
tant. Numerous trenches were dug on the walls and in the heart of the
vast site built not far from the Qaitul mountain ridge on an artificial
hill, which still rises to a height of 35 m. These excavations represented
a unique episode in the history of twentieth-century archaeology, as the
British archaeologists, in order to obtain a statistically reliable ceramic
sequence to be used for the whole site, adopted a particular strategy,
which was of dubious merit in respect to the duty of preserving the heri-
tage of a foreign country of which the mission was a guest: in a 5 × 5
m sondage in Site D, all structures found were removed, including the
considerable remains of a monumental building from the Indo-Parthian
period with semi- circular projecting towers.43 The benefit of this
approach was the ability to document all the occupation phases within
the same areal extension and therefore without the progressive reduc-
tion of the excavatable area (and consequently of the documentation)
that typically occurs when structures are encountered in the stratigraphy
that must be preserved. The excavation stopped at an artificial platform
of pressed earth (pakhsâ) that was built according to a tradition com-
mon in the Iron Age and also attested in Old Kandahar for Period I,
i.e., the initial period of the entire site, but here assigned to Period II on
the basis of ceramic finds. The stratigraphically secure corpus of ceramic
forms from this part of the excavation was assigned to the period of the
Persian Empire (not so much on the basis of comparisons with other
sites but because of the absence of coins, which were locally introduced
by the Greco-Macedonians) and constituted the reference framework of
the relative chronology for all the other trenches dug at the site.44
42. Isid. Parthian Stations §19.

43. Ball 1996: 67.
44. Fleming 1996: 366.
850
From the point of view of architectural evidence, the initial phase of

the late Iron Age settlement (Period I) attests to Old Kandahar’s fortifica-
tions with an earthen wall built on an area with traces of previous occupa-
tion: the wall was 14.6 m thick and was protected by a moat, which ran
along the present eastern wall. Characteristic of the later Period II are the
“casemated massive walls,” built from the late sixth century bc onward in
pakhsâ with mud plaster, which comprised a series of rectangular rooms
connected by corridors within the interiors of the walls.45 In the ceramic
material of Period II, a characteristic that marks a decisive break from Period
I is the standardization of many of the forms, especially the jars, which were
evidently mass-produced in workshops that belonged to a non-individual
production system.46 The carinated bowls, as also attested in material from
the adjacent Indian subcontinent, were predominantly marked by a flared
profile above the carination, thus clearly closer to material from the Iranian
West. These are not “Achaemenid ceramics,” but certainly ceramics of the
period of the Persian Empire, which show markedly Iranian features even
though they were found at the gateway to the Indian subcontinent.47
In terms of evidence for an actual Persian imperial presence, the
most significant finds from Old Kandahar are perhaps the two frag-
ments of clay tablets inscribed in Elamite language and cuneiform script
that are closely comparable to the Elamite ledgers from the Persepolis
Fortification archives. These texts attest to the existence of an office of
the imperial administration that compiled information from other texts
in order to prepare durable ledgers, just like in Persepolis. It was therefore
a provincial administrative unit monitored by the central institution, a
relationship that is also attested by about sixty texts from the Persepolis
Fortification archives.48 Unfortunately, the two fragments, which were
retrieved after the looting of the Kabul Museum,49 were found in a
45. Whitehouse 1996: 24; Wightman and Ball 1996.

46. Fleming 1996: 366.
47. Fleming 1996: 370.
48. Henkelman 2017: 154.
49. Fisher and Stolper 2015; Henkelman 2017: 159.
851
secondary context: the filling of a well whose ceramic materials date it to

the period between 700 and 300 bc.50 The hypothesis that these docu-
ments did not come from afar, but from the citadel of Old Kandahar,
is entirely plausible; this assumption also informs the proposal that the
toponym Gandara(š) in the documents from the Persepolis Fortification
archives not be identified with Gandhara, but instead with Old Kandahar,
which therefore would have already existed as the capital of the Persian
satrapy of Arachosia.51 However, there are sufficient arguments for rul-
ing out the identification of Gandara(š), which is attested both in royal
inscriptions and administrative records, with Old Kandahar, especially
given the fact that the term always refers to a satrapy in the northwest of
the subcontinent.52
63.3. Zranka =Drangiana

The region of Drangiana (Old Persian Zranka) comprises the land
around Lake Hamun and the Helmand river, corresponding to the
Sistan Basin that is today divided between eastern Iran and southwestern
Afghanistan. The names of two cities of Drangiana, Korok and Parin, are
recorded by Isidore of Charax, writing in the first century ad. Korok is
identified with Karkushah (the site of a fire temple near the modern vil-
lage of Karkuyeh, at a distance of 25 km from Zabol), while the second
name is corrected to Zarin, a city mentioned by Ctesias in the context
of events that occurred at the end of the fifth century bc and that can
be connected with the archaeological site of Dahan-e Gholaman (also
spelled Dahane-ye Gholaman).53
The Sistan region is deeply connected to the main cultural develop-
ments of the Iranian world, both from a historical-religious point of
view and from a literary perspective. Josef Marquart therefore described
50. Helms 1997: 101.

51. Fisher and Stolper 2015: 19–20.
52. Bernard 1974; Henkelman 2017: 154–155.
53. Daffinà 1967: 90; Schmitt 1995.
852
it as “a second center of eastern Iranian culture before the Persian con-

quest.”54 Few regions of the Iranian world show such clear indications
of the deep connection between human settlement and climatic and
environmental conditions.55 In addition, there is an abundant quantity
of different sources that illuminate the long period from prehistory to
the Islamic Middle Ages. The excavations on the large Bronze Age site
of Shahr-e Sokhta have yielded ample evidence for the existence of a
sophisticated urban civilization.56 Later, historiographic sources from
the Hellenistic period allow us to follow the stages of the transformation
of the Persian Empire’s Zranka satrapy57 into Sakastan and then Sistan,
following the arrival of the Sakas (for these populations, see c hapter 62
in this volume).58 Zoroastrian tradition assigns tremendous importance
to Zoroaster’s homeland of Haetumant, and the delta region where the
Helmand river flows into Lake Hamun was therefore identified with
Vourukaša (“Luminous Sea”) and Lake Kąsaoya of the Avestan tradition,
from whose water the savior was to be born.59
The Sistan Basin is one of the archaeological regions where evidence
for a Persian imperial presence is most evident, in both in epigraphic
sources and architectural and material evidence. After first investigations
by various European travelers and especially by Aurel Stein and Ernst
Herzfeld, the two great explorers of the early twentieth century, modern
archaeological research in the region commenced in the Iranian part of
the Sistan Basin through the work of an Italian archaeological mission of
54. Marquart 1938: 11; cf. Gnoli 1967: 2. The Iranian epic tradition that informed
the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi includes an entire series of stories dedicated to the
Sistanian heroes.
55. Sajjadi 2000: 565.
56. Tosi 1983; Kavosh et al. 2019.
57. The region’s link with the Persian Empire is also reflected in the tradition of the
Ariaspai, whom the Persian kings supposedly called euergetai because they had
helped Cyrus in his war against the Scythians; see Gnoli 1967: 48.
58. Daffinà 1967; Gnoli 1967.
59. Gnoli 1967: 41–51; 1980.
853
the Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (IsMEO). In 1960,

this team began exploring the Parthian-Sasanian sanctuary of Kuh-e
Khwaja, and the results led to the proposal to date the structural phase
discovered in the excavations below the floors of the two best-preserved
architectural phases to the Persian imperial period.60 However, subse-
quent excavations demonstrated that the pottery from the first phase of
Kuh-e Khwaja cannot be attributed to that period, but instead to the
Parthian period.61
One of the most important archaeological sites of the Persian impe-
rial period, not only in Sistan but all of Iran, is Dahan-e Gholaman,
which provides ample evidence for architecture and urban development.
To date, Dahan-e Gholaman is the only known settlement of the Persian
imperial period that deserves to be described as a “city,”62 and the site
is identified with ancient Zarin (or Zranka), the center of the imperial
administrative unit known as Zranka. The excavations undertaken by
the IsMEO team from 1962 to 1965 brought to light several buildings
with public and private, and secular and religious purposes, and more-
over allowed the reconstruction of the settlement’s layout, as it was pos-
sible to track the mudbrick city walls because of the saline deposits in
these areas.63 This layout is characterized by the placement of buildings
(some clearly with an official function) along an axis that seems to have
corresponded to a canal. Building QN3 (figure 63.3) is one of the very
few monumental constructions known from this era that had an estab-
lished religious function.64 The architecture of the buildings exhibits
clear parallels to the monumental imperial architecture of the Persian
heartland, despite the marked differences in the climatic conditions of
Zranka compared to those of Parsa.
60. Gullini 1964.

61. Tucci 1966; Boucharlat 1984: 130.
62. Scerrato 1966b; Genito 2012.
63. Genito 2012: 370–376.
64. Scerrato 1966a; 1979; Boucharlat 1984: 132–133.
854
Figure 63.3. Axonometric reconstruction drawing of Building QN3 at

Dahan-e Gholaman. Courtesy of the Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo
Oriente.
An Iranian team resumed excavations at Dahan-e Gholaman between

2000 and 2006,65 and subsequently also organized a series of geophysical
surveys between 2008 and 2012.66 Additionally, a program of archaeo-
logical surface surveys was conducted between 2007 and 2010 in north-
ern and southern Sistan: with the exception of Dahan-e Gholaman, a
65. Sajjadi 2007.

66. Mohammadkhani 2012.
85
complete absence of traces of the Persian imperial age was observed in

the first area, while in the second area, centered on the ancient delta of
Rud-e Biyaban (or Ram Rud), 110 sites were identified for this period.67
The recent proposal to shift the dating of Dahan-e Gholaman to the
post-Achaemenid period on the basis of the presence of Hellenistic style
fish plates (French plat-à-poisson)68 must be assessed in relation to other
evidence for the settlement’s secondary occupation.
Turning to the Afghan part of the Sistan Basin, the most important
site is the mound of Sorkh Dagh, which is part of the archaeological site
of Nad-i Ali. Here, in 1936, a French expedition excavated structures
built on top of a massive mudbrick platform that were assigned to two
periods. The earlier phase was dated to the first half of the first millen-
nium bc, while the later phase was thought to date to the time of the
Persian Empire, based on the presence of baked bricks with a painted
decoration in white and blue. Roman Ghirshman saw a link between
these bricks and the glazed bricks of Achaemenid tradition.69 A US team
later explored Sorkh Dagh during a reconnaissance mission in Afghan
Sistan and confirmed Ghirshman’s chronology.70 In 1968, a second US
mission resumed excavating, and their results suggested that both struc-
tural phases could be assigned to a mid-imperial date.71 The year 1994
constituted a turning point in the interpretation of the site of Sorkh
Dagh, when Roland Besenval and Henri-Paul Francfort recognized a
large jar inserted into the masonry of the second phase as a product of
the so-called Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC; also
Oxus Civilization), dating to from the end of the third to the beginning
of the second millennium bc.72 However, it has been noted that in the
second phase, an engraved motif is attested on pottery that is found on
67. Alaeyi Moqaddam et al. 2016: 118; cf. Maresca 2019: 142–144.
68. Zehbari et al. 2015: 255.
69. Ghirshman 1959: 47.
70. Fairservis 1961: 45–52.
71. Dales 1977: 104.
72. Besenval and Francfort 1994.
856
many vessels from Dahan-e Gholaman, and that other elements typical
of Persian imperial period are also present at Sorkh Dagh.73
A British survey in the middle and lower valley of the Helmand river,
corresponding to parts of ancient Drangiana and Arachosia (section
63.2), identified and documented forty-five sites, out of which only two
sites in Drangiana yielded potsherds that can be attributed to the Persian
imperial period.74
The ceramics of the Sistan region have been the subject of some in-
depth studies, thanks also to the important assemblage of potsherds
resulting from the excavations at Dahan-e Gholaman, which is cur-
rently in the process of being published. The presence of typical ceramic
forms, such as carinated bowls and certain types of jars, and the afore-
mentioned architectural parallels and the presence of sealings and metal
ingots75 throw some light on the effects of the region’s inclusion into the
orbit of the Persian Empire. However, the scarcity of data on Iron Age
ceramics from the Sistan Basin, due to the lack of identified sites from
this period, is a significant obstacle in assessing how strong the impact of
the region’s inclusion in the Persian Empire was.76
63.4. Maka =Gedrosia and Oman

The Old Persian name of the dahyu- of Maka appears in the Bisotun
inscription of Darius I, as well as in the documentation of the Persepolis
Fortification Tablets.77 According to the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, the
region belonged to the Persian Empire due to its “colonization” by Darius I.78
Old Persian Maka has been interpreted as an equivalent to the top-
onym Makkan in the cuneiform texts of the third and early second
73. Maresca 2019: 132.

74. Hammond 1970.
75. Genito 2012: 377.
76. Maresca 2019: 144; cf. Mehrafarin et al. 2013.
77. de Blois 1989.
78. Schiwek 1962: 18.
857
millennium bc, traditionally identified with Oman (chapter 10 in vol-

ume 1).79 Thus, it has been suggested that Maka should also be identi-
fied with Oman.80 The identification of Maka with the coastal region
of Balochistan now known as Makran is based on the interpretation of
that toponym as derived from Maka-karāna, “Coast of Maka.” In this
case, according to Stephanos of Byzantium, the intermediate passage of
Makarene was an alternative Greek name for the region, used in addi-
tion to its better-known designation of Gedrosia.81 Based on Stephanos’s
definition of the lemma Makai as “a population between Karmania and
Arabia,”82 it has been proposed that the people of Maka settled on both
sides of the Persian Gulf;83 given the ease of connection between the two
shores, this interpretation is certainly worth considering. Finally, the eth-
nonym Mačiya, which is thought to be derived from Maka,84 is consid-
ered equivalent to the Greek ethnonym Mykoi, mentioned by Herodotus
among the peoples in the fourteenth satrapy of the Persian Empire.85
We do not have much information on the Maka region during the
time of the Persian Empire, but for those who see Maka also (or only)
as Gedrosia, Arrian provides a vivid description of the region in the
final days of the empire in his account of the passage of Alexander the
Great’s army through the hinterland as it returned from India to Susa,86
and his account of the coastal navigation from the mouth of the Indus
to the northern end of the Persian Gulf by the Macedonian fleet led by
Nearchus.87 From these detailed narratives, we learn that the coast was
79. Eilers 1983: 106–108.

80. Potts 2019; cf. also Eilers 1983: 102–104.
81. Eilers 1983: 109–111.
82. Steph. Byz. FGrH 364 F 39: ethnos metaxu Karmanias kai Arabias.
83. Schiwek 1962: 14; Eilers 1983: 104, 108–109.
84. Eilers 1983: 101.
85. Hdt. 3.93.
86. Arr. An. 6.22−26.
87. Arr. Ind. 20−42.
85
inhabited to the east by the Orites, further west by the Ichthyophagoi

(Greek “Fish-eaters”), while the hinterland of this region was inhabited
by the Gadrosi.88 The royal residence (ta basileia) of the Gadrosi was
located in a place called Pura.89 It was here that Alexander, after dismiss-
ing the satrap he had previously put in charge of the region, entrusted the
area to Sibirtios, the satrap of Arachosia.90
After the climatic and environmental changes that took place at the
end of the second millennium bc, the inland areas of southeastern Iran
were transformed into an arid zone, and the resumption of settlement
in the eighth century bc was related to the introduction of the system
of underground canals called qanat, which were first developed in the
southeast of the Arabian Peninsula.91 From Arrian’s narratives, it emerges
that despite the difficult environmental conditions, the entire coast was
inhabited by people clustered in small settlements. Even if they were not
able to feed the Macedonian fleet, these settlements were evidently able
to support themselves thanks to the presence of water that allowed agri-
culture. One of these settlements (whose name is not indicated) is even
said to have been surrounded by walls.92
During the Persian imperial period, the resumption of settlement
that took place from the second half of the first millennium bc onward
is documented at the site of Miri Qalat, near the modern city of Turbat
in Pakistan; this site had flourished between the fifth and third millen-
nium bc but was later abandoned.93 New data collected by French and
Italian archaeological missions enabled Roland Besenval to subdivide his
“Zangian Period” into Periods V, VI, and VII, representing the Iron Age
88. Arr. Ind. 26.1.

89. Arr. An. 6.24.1.
90. Arr. An. 6.27.1.
91. Magee 2013: 496–497.
92. Arr. Ind. 27−28.
93. Didier and Mutin 2015: 297. The most important archaeological research proj-
ects in the Makran region are those of a French mission for the protohistoric
period and of an Italian mission for the Islamic Middle Ages.
859
to the Indo-Sasanian period.94 Typical of Period V, which spanned from

the Iron Age until the time prior to Alexander’s conquest, is the assem-
blage from Durrah-i Bast, which includes ceramics defined as Appliqué
Ware, Rope Ware, and Ghul Painted Ware, as also found in a survey at
the eastern edge of Pakistani Balochistan in the Kanrach valley.95 These
new data have also clarified the chronological relationship between the
Appliqué and Rope Wares, which are attested at Miri Qalat in Period V,
and the Londo Ware (in the earlier Red-Slipped Londo and later Buff-
Slipped Londo varieties, as defined by Beatrice de Cardi),96 which are
attested at Miri Qalat in Period VI.97 However, materials with clear con-
nections to the Persian Empire are missing in the results published so far
from Miri Qalat.
63.5. The Akaufačiya people

The Old Persian term Akaufačiyais a designation for a population group
of the Persian Empire that appears only once in an inscription of Xerxes
from Persepolis. They are mentioned between the Thracians and the
Libyans and thus not in a position that would suggest their location.98
However, the name has been interpreted as the source of the Middle
Persian ethnonym Kōfēč (> New Persian Kūfeč > modern Qofs), which
designates a population group living in the Bašakerd area of southeast-
ern Iran.99 On this basis, the Old Persian term has also been attributed
to a population settled in that region,100 and this is why we include
Akaufačiyapeople in this chapter.
94. Besenval 1994: 523–525.

95. Franke-Vogt et al. 2000: 205.
96. de Cardi 1983: 14.
97. Besenval 1992: 106.
98. XPh §3; see Kuhrt 2007: 305, no. 7.88.
99. Schmitt 1984.
100. Schmitt 1984; Lecoq 1997: 138.
860
There is one further point that might strengthen the idea of locating
the Akaufačiyapeople in southeastern Iran: the region of Bašakerd is one
of the few places in Iran where Dalbergia sissoo roxb. grows, an extraordi-
narily drought-resistant plant that is commonly identified with the yakā
wood of the Persian sources. According to Darius’s Foundation Charter
of Susa,101 yakā wood was supplied to the builders of the royal palace
there not only from Gandara (sections 63.1 and 63.7), but also from
Carmania, the province into whose territory the Bašakerd region falls.102
63.6. Thataguš =Sattagydia

Many identifications have been proposed for one of the major subunits
of Arachosia, the satrapy of Sattagydia—mostly in the form of hypoth-
eses based only on an interpretation of the written sources. These sug-
gestions oscillate between the Iranian and Indian worlds, starting with
the name Thataguš (Θataguš) itself, which, as Pierre Lecocq reminds
us, can be interpreted as an ancient Iranian designation: *sata/Θata
“one hundred” and gu-“cow,” hence “the land of one hundred cows”;
but also as an ancient Indian word: sapta “seven” and gudu/sindu “river,”
hence “the land of seven rivers.”103 But archaeological evidence from the
region south and southeast of Kabul,104 to the Gomal river basin south of
Peshawar,105 and from the area of Multan in the Punjab,106 to the Punjab
more broadly,107 does not support any of these hypotheses.
On the basis of an overall consideration of all the available sources, in
1982 David Fleming proposed that Sattagydia was located in the region
101. DSf §9; see Kuhrt 2007: 492, no. 11.13.

102. Poodat 2018; cf. Eilers 1983: 116–117.
103. Lecoq 1997: 146.
104. Foucher 1938: 346; Vogelsang 1992: 129.
105. Bivar 1988: 200.
106. Vogelsang 1992: 227–228.
107. Jacobs 1994: 269–272.
861
Figure 63.4. The settlement mound of Akra. Courtesy of C.A. Petrie /

Bannu Archaeological Project.
of Bannu in the southern part of the Pakistani province of Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa.108 This has been accepted by Pakistani and British archae-
ologists working in the Bannu area, where the excavations at the site
of Akra, characterized by an imposing citadel, have produced interest-
ing results (figure 63.4).109 Much like the Swat valley further north in
Gandhara, the Iron Age material culture at Akra (Assemblage 2) had
strong links with Iran and Central Asia.110 In the subsequent phase,
dated to the sixth–fourth centuries bc (Assemblage 1), similarities have
been noted between items from different regions of Iran under Persian
imperial domination, from the southeast to the Persis (Fars). These items
108. Fleming 1982.

109. Magee et al. 2005: 732–737; Magee and Petrie 2010; Petrie 2020.
110. Khan et al. 2000: 107–108, 113.
862
include “bowls with offset vertical rims, banded beakers, S-carinated rim
bowls and tulip bowls.”111
Based on this material, the excavators proposed that Akra might be
the capital of the satrapy of Sattagydia.112 The presence of Persian ele-
ments in the local material culture is undeniable and is possibly evidence
that the region had contact with the Persian Empire. But on what basis
can Akra be identified with the seat of the satrap, and the Bannu region
with Sattagydia? The excavations at Akra have yielded no major struc-
tures, nor written archival documents, nor any other indications of a
possible satrapal settlement like Old Kandahar (section 63.2). Cameron
Petrie and Peter Magee’s explanation that “the Achaemenid policy in
Bannu appears to have been of acquiescence to local systems rather than
alteration”113 is not enough to remedy the speculative nature of this
interpretation.114
Bruno Jacobs, to whom we owe the most exhaustive study available
to date on the satrapies of the Persian Empire at the end of the imperial
period, as described in detail by the historians of Alexander of Macedon
(section 63.1), sought Sattagydia in a different location.115 According to
Jacobs, the designation Sattagydia corresponded to three administrative
units that were controlled by local governors at the time of Alexander’s
conquest. A first, central area around the important settlement of Taxila,
the seat of the governor Taxiles, was bounded to the west by the Indus
river, to the north by the second unit, which corresponded to present-
day Kashmir, and to the east by the Hydaspes river (modern Jhelum).
Beyond this lay the territory of the third unit, which to the east was
bounded by the Hyphasis river (modern Sutlej), on the far eastern fron-
tiers of the Persian Empire, ruled by Porus. Toward the south, the central
111. Khan et al. 2000: 104–106.

112. Magee and Petrie 2010: 508.
114. Coningham and Young 2015: 372.
115. Jacobs 1994.
863
unit extended as far as the confluence of the Acesines river (modern

Chenab) with the Indus, while the third unit reached the confluence of
the Hyphasis river with the Acesines.
That the central seat of Sattagydia was Taxila might be shown by the
fact that Alexander installed there the new Macedonian satrap Philip, to
whom the three sovereigns of the previous subdivisions pledged submis-
sion. The main archaeological record, according to this interpretation,
would be that of Taxila (as discussed in section 63.7). In the rest of the
Pakistani Punjab, archaeological research on the relevant period is lim-
ited in scope and has not (yet) led to the identification of any materials
of western provenance in sites with levels that are datable to the sixth–
fourth century bc.116
63.7. Gandara =Gandhara and

Hinduš = India
The easternmost part of the Persian Empire, south of the Hindukush,
takes up much of the Indus river basin in the northwest of the Indo-
Pakistani subcontinent, in the area that today corresponds to Pakistan
and in the Bronze Age to the so-called Indus Civilization (or Harappan
Civilization) that flourished ca. 2600–1900 bc, with Mohenjo-daro in
the south and Harappa in the north constituting the two most impor-
tant sites.117
Much later, in the inscriptions of the Persian kings, there are two
satrapies mentioned in reference to this area, and both have names that
correspond closely to modern geographical terms: Gandara and Hinduš,
both part of the larger administrative unit of Arachosia (section 63.2).
Gandara is commonly identified with the Indian term Gandhara,
as attested in the Ṛgveda as well as in the works of the Sanskrit gram-
marian Pāṇini. Along with Sattagydia, Arachosia, and Maka, this region
116. Mughal 1967; Rehman et al. 1998: 10.

117. For a recent survey of the Indus Civilization, see Coningham and Young
2015: 177–240.
864
appeared in the main part of Darius I’s Bisotun inscription as a terri-

tory inherited from his predecessors, and we can therefore assume that it
must have belonged to the regions subject to Cyrus the Great.118
Hinduš, on the other hand, appears only in the later inscriptions of
Darius, and the region therefore is likely to have been one of the new
conquests made after Darius’s victory over the rebels and the consolida-
tion of his claim to the throne. Most importantly, Hinduš is mentioned
on the foundation tablets for Darius’s Apadana at Persepolis,119 and as
the deposition of these, and of the coin hoard found underneath them,
can be dated to ca. 515 bc, the conquest of Hinduš has been assumed
to have taken place in ca. 518 bc.120 This suggested to Gérard Fussman
that the Persian penetration into the northwest of the subcontinent took
place in several stages, starting from north to south.121 The presence of
Indian contingents in the army of Darius III at the time of Alexander the
Great’s conquest shows that these regions still belonged to the Persian
Empire in the late fourth century bc.122 That we lack any references to
officials appointed by the Persian king to exercise control over these ter-
ritories may indicate a certain degree of autonomy.
The commitment to legitimizing the “civilizing” work of the British
Raj by finding a tangible historical precedent for western colonialism
caused modern scholars and explorers to follow the trail of Alexander
of Great and the subsequent spread of Hellenistic culture in the north-
west and north of the subcontinent, leading to some arbitrary inter-
pretations of the archaeological data that were, moreover, obtained
using relatively rudimentary excavation methods.123 The attempts to
understand the nature of Persian rule over the northern part of the
118. DB §6; see Kuhrt 2007: 141, no. 5.1.

119. DPh; see Kuhrt 2007: 476–477, no. 11.1.
120. Vogelsang 1987: 187–188; Briant 1996: 153.
121. Fussman 1993: 84.
122. Briant 1996: 699, 774.
123. Cf. Olivieri 2020: 386–388.
865
Indo-Pakistani subcontinent and the empire’s influence on the local

societies and cultures were deeply shaped by the strong ideological bias
underpinning archaeology in British India, mitigated by the stature and
prestige of archaeologists such as Sir John Marshall (director-general of
the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928) and Sir Mortimer
Wheeler (director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India from
1944 to 1948).124 This colonial Hellenocentrism also profoundly influ-
enced the study of the Persian imperial presence in the Indo-Pakistani
territories, as the Persian rulers were perceived by the historiography of
the time as the immediate antecedents of Alexander; and they too came
from the west that was able to bring civilization and progress to a land
that the pre-Alexandrian Greek sources configured as a place of social
and cultural backwardness. Wheeler’s introduction to the volume on his
excavations at Charsadda (also Charsada) speaks for itself:
From the decline of the prehistoric Indus Civilisation of the third

and second millennia until the advent of the Achaemenid kings
in the middle of the sixth century B.C., it may be inferred and
assumed that these regions were the battlefields of jealous local
regimes ( . . . ). To the worst abuses of this inter-regional rivalry
the strong arm of the Persian Empire set a term. Safe communi-
cations were amongst the Imperial blessings and long-distance
trafficking became at last secure and profitable. Commercial cit-
ies such as those just mentioned were the economic response,
whether newly founded or newly enlarged. There is in fact no
hint that Begram or Charsad(d)a or Taxila existed appreciably
before the extension of Persian power across the Hindu Kush in
early Achaemenid times.125
As the colonial era faded away, archaeological research was gradually

directed toward the search for elements of material culture that could
124. Vogelsang 1989.

125. Wheeler 1962: 5.
86
in some way be linked to the Persian Empire in order to verify the tes-
timony of the written sources. The results were often erroneous, due
to the backwardness of the excavation techniques and interpretive
methodology.
Moreover, most of the datings were based on comparisons with
sites such as Charsadda, whose results had become reference frame-
works because of the authority of their excavators, rather than on the
basis of rigorous scientific analysis. Thus, for example, archaeological
layers exposed at the site of Balambat in the Lower Dir District in the
North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, north of Gandhara, were
interpreted as dating to the time of the Persian Empire. Ahmad Hasan
Dani called Period IV the “Achaemenian Period” and its ceramics
“Achaemenian pottery,”126 although the most distinctive ceramic form
associated with the Persian imperial material culture, the carinated
bowl, is not attested in this phase (but rather in the earlier Period III,
also classified as an “Achaemenian Period”). Dani based his designation
of Balambat Period IV as “Achaemenian” on the presence of a certain
type of hearth or oven that he compared to the “oven-altars” excavated
by the IsMEO archaeological mission at the site of Dahan-e Gholaman
in Sistan in eastern Iran (identified with ancient Zarin/Zranka, the
capital of the satrapy of Zranka/Drangiana); these installations have
since been shown to have a practical rather than a ritual function and
moreover differ markedly from the examples excavated at Balambat.127
Another example is the settlement of Bhir Mound at Taxila, the main
archaeological site of the area immediately east of Gandhara, with an
occupation phase dating to the sixth–fourth century bc, whose irreg-
ular plan was linked to the “slipshod method of Persian builders,”128
while attestations for the custom of exposing corpses to the elements
for excarnation was considered to be Zoroastrian in character,129
126. Dani 1967: figs. 57–60.

127. Tucci 1977: 12–13.
128. Marshall 1951: I 12.
129. Marshall 1951: I 16.
867
without taking into account the similar funerary customs of the Dardic
peoples. Proof for the influence of Persian imperial architecture was
seen in particular in the use of hypostyle halls and was thought to be
discernible as far away as Gangetic India in the Maurya-era palace of
Pataliputra.130
More recently, however, it has been argued that the “attempts to iden-
tify classes of objects that may serve as verification of an actual Persian
military or bureaucratic presence have further obfuscated an under-
standing of the impact of imperial control,”131 and instead, researchers
should “examine the indigenous (and foreign) archaeological evidence
that dates before and after such a conquest, to determine whether chang-
ing patterns of social and economic behavior coincide with imperial epi-
sodes.”132 In general, the equally important mechanisms related to trade
have seldom been taken into consideration, so strong has been the desire
to find proof for the testimony of imperial domination seemingly pro-
vided by the textual sources.133
In addition to the previously mentioned elusiveness of an associated
material culture even in Iran itself, the identification of concrete archaeo-
logical evidence for a Persian imperial presence in the Indo-Iranian bor-
der region is also problematic because cultural links had existed between
this region and the Iranian plateau and Central Asia since prehistoric
times.134 The frontier character of the region is relevant when assessing
the affinities between Iran and Central Asia demonstrated by the mate-
rial culture.
Even if it presently does not include ceramic elements, the archaeo-
logical analysis of the frontier region can confirm that three important
130. Wheeler 1968; 1974. Cf. Boardman 1998: 19–20; Allchin 1995: 236–239.
131. Magee et al. 2005: 717.
132. Magee et al. 2005: 717.
133. Schiwek 1962.
134. Silvi Antonini 1969; Stacul 1970.
86
aspects of its material and immaterial culture are best justified by the
assumption that they originated in the Persian imperial presence:135
• The diffusion of coins partially analogous to the silver bent-bar

punch-marked coinage of Afghanistan in the late imperial period,136
which continued to influence the local coin production until the end
of the third century bc;137
• The presence of the Aramaic language, attested at Taxila and Hadda
by documents written after the end of the Persian Empire, and the
diffusion of writing in a world of oral tradition, defined using a term
(lipi) of Persian derivation,138 and the consequent creation of a syl-
labic writing system (Kharoṣṭhī) that was undoubtedly derived from
the Aramaic script;139
• The local production of so-called Greco-Persian seals of a type char-
acteristic for some areas of the Persian Empire, defined by the use of
symbols and iconography of Indian origin such as the swastika, the
so-called taurine, and the large-humped cattle.140
In the territories of the Gandhara region proper, the Peshawar valley

west of the Indus river, a surface survey looking for archaeological evi-
dence of Persian imperial rule has not produced any results.141 However,
a level dated to the period of the Persian Empire has been unearthed at
Charsadda, situated north of Peshawar and identified with the ancient
135. Callieri 2004; Henkelman 2017: 179. Petrie and Magee 2012: 9 instead remark
that “such data is not a direct proxy for influence;” however, cf. Petrie 2020: 34.
136. MacDowall and Taddei 1978: 203; Allchin 1995: 131. The treasure from
Chaman-e Hazuri park in Kabul includes bent-bar punch-marked coins and
Persian-period coins: Curiel and Schlumberger 1953.
137. Cribb 1983; Bernard 1987: 188–189; Henkelman 2017: 180.
138. Fussman 1988–1989: 513; Henkelman 2017: 175–178.
139. Greenfield 1985: 705.
140. Callieri 1996.
141. Ali 2003: 173.
869
city of Puṣkalāvatī (Greek Peukelaotis), the seat of the ruler of Gandhara

who fought against Alexander.
Charsadda consists of two settlement mounds, the larger site of
Shaikhan Dheri and the smaller site of Bala Hissar. Since the careful
study of the pottery found at Shaikhan Dheri demonstrated its founda-
tion in the Indo-Greek period,142 the settlement dating to the time of the
Persian Empire should be located at Bala Hissar, where Wheeler exca-
vated an important chronological sequence of pottery that has long been
used as a reference framework for the wider region, although its absolute
chronology had to be revised.143
Wheeler had erroneously associated the presence of iron at the site
with the arrival of the Persian imperial authorities, thus placing the
beginning of the relevant archaeological phase exactly within the sixth
century bc.144 A thorough review of the chronology resulted in the clari-
fication of those phases which correspond to Persian imperial rule,145
while a new chronology of the earliest phases going back to the late sec-
ond millennium bc was proposed, based on comparison to materials
from the Swat valley to the north.146 Yet the only artifacts in the period
assigned to the time of the Persian Empire that can be clearly associated
with imperial material culture are the “carinated bowls” and the “tulip
bowls.” According to Wheeler,147 the “carinated bowls” should be attrib-
uted to the period from the beginning of the sequence until Stratum 27;
however, the examples he illustrated actually belong to the fourth–third
centuries bc.148
The “tulip bowls” were found in strata that Wheeler dated to a period
after the end of the Persian Empire (third to second centuries bc). The
142. Hussain 1980.

143. Ali et al. 1997–1998: 14–15.
144. Wheeler 1962: 34.
145. Dittmann 1984.
146. Stacul 1990: 606; Coningham and Ali 2007: 93–98.
147. Wheeler 1962: 40.
148. Cf. Vogelsang 1988: 106.
870
recent critical review of this material by Robin Coningham and Ruth

Young described it as
a small round-bottomed wheel-turned vessel of a buff or brown-

ish coarse ware with a distinct kick or carination halfway down
the side (. . .) strongly associated as a vector indicating the spread
of Achaemenid influence and dominance in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.149
This 2015 study revealed the wide oscillations between the proposed
chronologies advanced by that point (ranging from the sixth to fourth
centuries bc,150 to the fourth to third centuries bc,151 or to the period
after the end of the Persian Empire152) and at the same time emphasized
the attestation of similar forms in the Ganges valley in the first half of the
first millennium bc.
The recent analysis of the ceramic sequence of the Swat valley—from
an archaeological point of view the best-studied region in the northwest,
thanks to the activities of the archaeological mission of the IsMEO—
highlighted a gap for the early historical periods corresponding to the
late Iron Age; the period of the sixth to fourth centuries bc, in which
no evidence of ceramic material of Persian imperial origin was attested,
was attributed to the “Protohistoric Period” in the Swat valley sequence.
However, more recently, the last phases of the Swat valley Protohistoric
Period sequence received a new absolute dating to 1200–800 bc, based
on the study of graves from the Swat valley,153 and on the material from
the excavations at Barikot.154
149. Coningham and Young 2015: 360.

151. Dittmann 1984: 172.
152. Vogelsang 1988: 104.
153. Vidale and Micheli 2017.
154. Olivieri et al. 2019.
871
Figure 63.5. General plan of Barikot, as of 2019. Courtesy of the ISMEO

Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan.
Until 2016, the site of Barikot (figures 63.5 and 63.6) had shared the
Persian-period gap with the other sites of the region, but in that year,
“a very distinctive ceramic assemblage never previously documented at
Barikot” was identified, characterized by the presence of luxury pottery
typical of the Persian Empire, as well as by the introduction of Indic
luxury ceramics.155 Radiocarbon dating places this horizon around
450 bc.156
The most characteristic ceramic form of western origin is the so-
called tulip bowl, executed in very fine slipped red ware fabric with a
155. Olivieri and Iori 2020.

156. Olivieri et al. 2019. The three samples from Phase 2a2 of Trench BKG 11 have a
calibrated date with 95.4 percent probability (according to the OxCal calibra-
tion curve), of 499–400 bc, 405–372 bc, and 369–320 bc, respectively.
872
Figure 63.6. Barikot: the southwestern corner of the historical settlement, as

viewed from the north. Courtesy of the ISMEOItalian Archaeological Mission
in Pakistan.
873
typical flaring shape;157 the same ware was used for small-sized red
bowls with convex walls and an inflected (and sometimes bi-everted)
rim. Tulip bowls are among the few ceramic forms that are widespread
throughout the Persian Empire, from Sardis to Bactra, and can be identi-
fied at Barikot in the so-called Indo-Greek and Saka levels. Yet what adds
interest to this new horizon is the coexistence of Indic ceramic material,
such as carinated cooking pots and dishes (thalis), pear-shaped water
jugs, and truncated conical jugs,158 which suggests that Persian imperial
rule may have played a unifying role between the satrapies of Gandara
and Hinduš, thus also favoring the penetration of properly Indian mate-
rials into areas of Dardic culture such as the mountainous area north of
the Kabul river plain. The documentation collected is still too limited in
quantity to be able to verify this hypothesis. However, it is less specula-
tive than a statement made by Petrie and Magee that
the pre-Achaemenid Gandharan economic zone was split at

the end of the 6th century BC into a western sphere under
Achaemenid control (the satrapy of Gandhara), while the area
east of the Indus developed into a separate entity that was free of
Achaemenid control.159
The latter assertion is based mainly on the alleged absence of significant

elements in the documentation of Taxila and ignores the qualitative
shortcomings of both the excavations and the study of the material.160
Gérard Fussman proposed that from the second century bc onward,
Taxila constituted the only truly urban center of the entire region of
157. While Vogelsang 1988: 104 does not consider this class a reliable proof of a
Persian imperial presence, Petrie and Magee 2012: 9 stress that “this form that
can be found throughout Iran, western Turkey, Afghanistan and also elsewhere
in Pakistan” and on the basis of the attribution by Dittmann 1984: 189 to the
“Late Achaemenid period,” date it to the fourth century bc.
158. Olivieri 2020: 403.
159. Petrie and Magee 2012: 10.
160. Petrie 2013: 657.
874
Gandhara.161 However, the city’s favorable location near one of the main
fords of the Indus river would have guaranteed its leading position in
that area even in earlier times, even if one assumes that the Indus would
have marked the eastern administrative boundary of the Persian satrapy
of Gandara.
For the satrapy of Gandara, the example of Barikot shows how even
an excavation with limited dimensions can yield data that overturn pre-
viously long-held assessments. With the discovery of the new ceramic
horizon that combines vessel types of Persian imperial origin with Indic
materials, Barikot has become a key site that allows us to propose a new
understanding of the cultural and sociopolitical dynamics of the wider
region; at the same time, this case demonstrates how an argumentation e
silentio is always extremely risky since the discovery of new evidence can
disprove the argument at any time.
In Taxila (figure 63.7), the excavations at Bhir Mound also yielded
tulip bowls, attributed to Period II, which has been dated to the third
century bc.162 In fact, Bhir Mound lacked any palatial structure that
could have served as the seat of the Persian satrap, and also more recent
excavations have not uncovered any evidence of a proper imperial pres-
ence.163 The only relevant finds from Period IV (dated by Marshall to the
time of the Persian Empire) were stamp seals and necklace beads in the
shape of scarabs.164 However, as far as Taxila is concerned, relevant results
could reasonably be expected from a systematic exploration of the nearby
Hathial ridge, where a settlement (in a strategic position on a rocky spur)
has been identified with surface finds dated to the third to second century
bc. Dani attributed this same material to the “Achaemenid period,”165
but in either case this would be an occupation period that is earlier than
any reported by the British archaeological mission working in this area in
161. Fussman 1993: 87. Cf. also Fleming 1993.

162. Sharif 1969: 73.
163. Bahadar Khan et al. 2002.
164. Marshall 1951: II 103, 674–675.
165. Dani 1986: 41.
875
Figure 63.7. General plan of Taxila, indicating the archaeological sites men-
tioned. Reproduced from Fussman 1993: fig. 2.
the early 1980s.166 The site was subsequently interpreted as a part of the
fortifications of the Indo-Greek-period settlement at Sirkap.167
However, the high ground of the ancient settlement discovered in
the Hathial ridge would make it eminently suitable to house a citadel
for the Persian satrap. The use of pressed earth for the fortifications of
the Indo-Greek settlement of Sirkap leads to the assumption that any
fortifications from the Persian Empire period would also have been built
of sun-dried mudbrick, making their preservation much less likely. This
is probably the reason for the absence of any monumental remains visible
166. Allchin 1982: 13.

167. Allchin 1993: 77.
876
on the surface. Unfortunately, the results of the excavations that were

undertaken by the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan under the
direction of Mohammad Sharif remain unpublished.
63.8. In conclusion
While the lists of satrapies in the Persian royal inscriptions, the classical
sources, and the visual representations of the empire’s peoples are propa-
gandistic documents that disseminate the ideology of the Persian Empire
and therefore must be considered with healthy skepticism, administra-
tive documents such as the Persepolis Fortification Tablets are beyond
such suspicions.
However, from the materials presented in this chapter, a stark
reality emerges: a pronounced lack of archaeological evidence in the
southeastern satrapies for the entire period corresponding to the sover-
eignty of the Persian Empire, and in particular for elements of a distinct
Persian or Persian imperial character. And yet, as the example of Barikot
illustrates, new archaeological discoveries can suddenly change negative
assessments. Moreover, as the example of Kandahar demonstrates, the
identification of buildings with an official function can mark the begin-
ning of archaeological work capable of producing the long-awaited
evidence for the Persian satrapies in the southeast. Therefore, despite
the scarce archaeological evidence, it remains methodologically cor-
rect to refrain from assessing the issue of the Persian imperial presence
negatively.
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64
The Persian Empire in Contact

with the World
Robert Rollinger
64.1. Introduction
In the summer of 430 bc, a terrible plague ravaged Athens.1 The over-
crowded city was under siege by the Spartans and faced terrible death
rates by a disease nobody appears to have known before. The Greek his-
torian Thucydides left a famous description of the plague and its devas-
tating effects.2 Already its beginning is impressive:
1. My research for this chapter was supported by a grant PPN/PRO/2020/1/00009/

U/00001 of the NAWA Chair 2020 Programme “From the Achaemenids to the
Romans: contextualizing empire and its longue-durée developments” (Wrocław,
Poland) and by a grant from the National Science Centre (Poland) 2021/01/1/
HS3/00006. The following additional abbreviations are used in this chapter: DB
for the Bisotun inscription of Darius I; DNa for one of Darius’s inscriptions from
Naqš-e Rustam; DPe for one of his inscriptions from Persepolis; DSe and DSf for
two of his inscriptions from Susa; DZc, DZd and DZe for his inscriptions from
the area of the Suez Canal; XPh for an inscription of Xerxes I from Persepolis.
Persepolis Fortification Tablets are cited by publication number in Hallock 1969
(PF numbers) and 1978 (PFa numbers) or by inventory number (NN numbers;
after the unpublished editions by Richard Hallock).
2. Thuc. 2.47−56.
Robert Rollinger, The Persian Empire in Contact with the World In: The Oxford History of the Ancient
8
In the first days of summer the Lacedaemonians (i.e., the Spartans)

and their allies, with two-thirds of their forces as before, invaded
Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus,
king of Lacedaemon (i.e., Sparta), and sat down and laid waste to
the country. Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague
(nosos) first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said
that it had broken out in many places previously in the neighbor-
hood of Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence (loimos) of such
extent and mortality was nowhere remembered. Neither were
the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as they were of the
proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most thickly,
as they visited the sick most often; nor did any human art suc-
ceed any better. Supplications in the temples, divinations, and so
forth were found equally futile, till the overwhelming nature of
the disaster at last put a stop to them altogether.3
Modern literature about the plague in Athens during the second year of
the Peloponnesian War is vast. However, it nearly exclusively revolves
around two aspects only: the nature of the plague, and Thucydides’s mas-
terly description of the symptoms together with the reception history of
his narrative.4
Astonishingly, recent scholarship neither discusses nor takes into
account a possible larger framework surrounding the pestilence. This
Hellenocentric narrowing of the perspective is even more remarkable
since Thucydides himself contextualizes the disease and refers to other
places of origin. He mentions not only the island of Lemnos and thus the
northern Aegean, as shown in the passage quoted above, but he provides
further important details:
It first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt, and

thence descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the
3. Thuc. 2.47.2−4.
4. Cf. Meier 1999: 177–179 with nn. 3–6. Cf. Schmitz 2005.
89
The Persian Empire in Contact with the World 889
king’s country. Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the

population in Piraeus,—which was the occasion of their saying
that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs, there being
as yet no wells there—and afterwards appeared in the upper city,
when the deaths became much more frequent.5
Thucydides clearly states that the disease first moved into “the king’s
country” (es ten Basileos gen), that is, the Persian Empire (figure 64.1),
and from there to Athens via the harbor of Piraeus. What we have here
is a clear observation concerning the spread of a pandemic in the eastern
Mediterranean. Whether or not the disease really originated in “Ethiopia
above Egypt” (i.e., Nubia) or whether people just assumed so is of little
importance. What matters is the fact that the disease blazed a trail from
the Persian Empire to the Aegean and Athens. It is not by chance that it
did so via the port of Piraeus since any pandemic requires connectivity
and entanglement.6 Pathogens travel along the routes that move human
populations,7 and dynamic human movement facilitates disease disper-
sal.8 Thus, Thucydides’s testimonial exhibits, beyond its exquisite literary
presentation, a (proto-)globalized world9 with the Persian Empire as a
major player and both intensive and extensive communication networks
extending outward from the imperial “borderlands” toward the “outside
world.”10
5. Thuc. 2.48.1−2.
6. Achtmann 2017.
7. Green 2017.
8. Tatem 2017.
9. For concepts of “globalization” and “proto-globalization” in antiquity, see
Jennings 2011; Olstein 2015; Hodos 2017; 2020.
10. For imperial “borderlands” and the relationship between “empire” and connec-
tivity, see Rollinger 2021a; 2021c; cf. also Birn 2020: 340–343; Preiser-Kapeller
et al. 2020: 5–6, 10, 19–20; Ponchia 2021. For the role of animals in the spread of
disease, see Muehlenbein 2016. Animals loom large not only as food and enter-
tainment, but also as a means of transport in long-distance overland trade: Agut-
Labordère and Redon 2020.
890
Figure 64.1. Sites mentioned in chapter 64; for some of the sites in the western areas, see the maps in
chapter 58. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri (LMU Munich).
891
64.2. Overcoming traditional

perspectives: The Persian Empire and
the dynamics of (proto-)globalization
It is surprising that the Persian Empire’s decisive role in the dynamics of
emerging globalization processes during the pre-Hellenistic first millen-
nium bc has been neglected by modern scholarship.11 The reason for
this shortcoming is deeply embedded in a Eurocentric history of research
that begins with our classical sources. These sources were long regarded
as key for any study of the Persian Empire, even if their underlying intent
and cultural context were largely ignored. Not only did they originate
in a western border zone but, more importantly, they are imbued with
a dichotomized worldview that praises and contrasts Greek “liberty”
vs. “Asiatic” “despotism.”12 They present the Persian Empire as both
static and self-contained, lacking any ambition in commerce and naval
entrepreneurship, both of which were regarded as intrinsically western
pursuits.
A typical example of this perception is found in Arrian’s biography
of Alexander the Great. In his narrative, the Macedonian conqueror
is said to have removed weirs (katarraktes) in the river Tigris that had
been installed by the Persians “to prevent anyone sailing up to their
country from the sea and mastering it with a naval force.”13 Alexander
is presented as the person who destroyed these devices and finally made
the Tigris navigable, opening the country to the world. As Pierre Briant
demonstrated in two groundbreaking articles, this testimony is based
on a complete misunderstanding of age-old irrigation installations in
the Middle East. These katarraktes were not constructed to hinder ship-
ping traffic along the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Rather, they were
devices to control and collect the waters of the fast-flowing Tigris during
periods of low water, and to irrigate nearby fields. Regrettably, Arrian’s
11. There are exceptions, of course: see, e.g., Wu 2021.

12. Rollinger 2010: especially 619–622.
13. Arr. An. 7.7.6−7.
892
misinterpretation was amplified by Western scholars who combined

it with their general belief in the inertia and lethargy of any Oriental
empire. Beginning in the nineteenth century ad, this precise source has
enjoyed great popularity because of its characterization of the (alleged)
sluggishness of the Ottoman Empire and has become a staple of the
scholarly discourse on the Persian Empire since that time.14
As a result, Alexander became a Christopher Columbus–like figure
who threw open the gates of a no-man’s-land and discovered a new, hith-
erto unknown world.15 Although the historian Mikhail Rostovtzeff had
already unmasked this view as a trope more than eight decades ago,16
this perspective is still widespread and has significant ramifications for
modern conceptions of the Persian Empire and the outside world. In the
vast majority of cases, the empire’s relationship to the world outside its
borders (figure 64.2) is reduced to the alleged failure of its military in
its quest for further expansion. The so-called Greek Wars loom large in
this context, but so do the campaign of Cyrus the Great (559–530 bc)
against the Massagetae, the move of Cambyses II (529–522 bc) against
Nubia (“Ethiopia”), and the alleged attack of Darius I (521–486 bc) on
the Scythians to the north of the Black Sea.
To modern eyes, the Persian Empire appears ponderous and sedate,
and if any connections to an outside world existed, they are ascribed
to Greek agency. Thus, according to modern understanding, the “con-
nectivity of Asia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean” is considered a phe-
nomenon introduced by Alexander and his successors,17 and the first
“Silk Road Era” is confidently dated to between 100 bc and 250 ad.18
However, this idea does not withstand scrutiny. There is more and more
14. Briant 2006; 2008.

15. Cf. the title of a well-received exhibition on Alexander the Great at the Reiss-
Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany, in 2009–2010: “Alexander der
Große und die Öffnung der Welt” (in translation, “Alexander the Great and the
opening of the world”).
16. Rostovtzeff [1941] 1998: 128–129.
17. von Reden 2020: 15.
18. Benjamin 2018.
893
Figure 64.2. The extent of the Persian Empire (dotted area) and its sphere of impact (lined area), ca. 480 bc. Prepared by Andrea
Squitieri (LMU Munich) after a draft of the author.
894
evidence that, around the middle of the first millennium bc, proto-
globalized entanglement in an interconnected Afro-Eurasian world was
triggered by new dynamics that were profoundly shaped by the Persian
Empire and its impact on the outside world.
It was certainly not accidental that by ca. 500 bc, the Bay of Bengal
was integrated into a network that connected India, Central Asia, south-
eastern Asia, and China.19 About the same time, trans-Saharan trade
routes and networks were established for the first time.20 Finally, the
steppe corridor from Manchuria to eastern Europe increasingly became
a dynamic zone of contact between east and west. This process was accel-
erated by the spread of horseback riding, a phenomenon that arose at the
turn of the second to the first millennium bc.21 Cavalry units began to
assume greater importance in warfare and are well attested from China
to the Aegean from the mid-first millennium bc onward, with the horse
trade playing an economically decisive role.22 Natron glass beads from
the Levant appear in China in the early fifth century bc, where they fur-
ther stimulated glass production.23 At about the same time, and for the
first time in world history, Darius I had every known ocean connected
by a canal dug between the eastern Nile Delta and the Red Sea.24 In one
of the steles that stood alongside this canal, the Persian ruler explicitly
proclaimed that the waterway had been built for ships to travel from the
Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.25
19. Gupta 2014; also Gupta 2005: 23, who talks about “the chronological water-
shed of 500 bce” for the establishment and development of the “Bay of Bengal
Interaction Sphere.”
20. Mattingly 2017; Fragner and Rollinger 2020.
21. Tuplin 2010a; Brosseder 2015; Stark 2021a: 81–82.
22. Brouwers 2007; Francfort 2020.
23. Lü et al. 2021, who talk about a “proto‑Silk Road,” but do not once mention the
Persian Empire.
24. Yoyotte 2010; Rollinger 2021a. See also section 64.4.3.
25. Nevertheless, the economic dimensions of this gigantic project are still ignored
by modern researchers, as they mainly focus on the Persian king’s alleged mega-
lomania: Yoyotte 2010: 272–275.
895
Figure 64.3. Obverse and reverse of a tally stick inscribed in Aramaic, from
a Bactrian archive of the fourth century bc, now part of the Khalili Collection
of Aramaic Documents. Photograph by Khalili Collections, via Wikimedia
Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96251001
and https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96251002), Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0) license.
At the same time, huge building projects were initiated in the imme-
diate hinterland of the northeastern shores of the Persian Gulf, where
palaces were erected and direct connections established between the
Persian heartland of Parsa (modern Fars) and the Gulf.26 The same is true
for the Persian-style palaces that are now well-attested in Transcaucasia,
highlighting the importance of connections from the southern Caucasus
to the steppes lying to the north.
Also in Central Asia, a novel dimension of this connectedness
becomes apparent. According to the testimony of a Bactrian archive
now in the Khalili Collection, counting by tally sticks was introduced
as a new bureaucratic technique for the first time in world history in the
late fourth century bc (figure 64.3).27 These tally sticks were especially
suited for communication with illiterate people and between speakers
of different languages. The evidence suggests that they were used as a
special instrument for communication with traders and elites from the
steppe zone. The satrapal administration of Bactriana may have used this
instrument to co-opt tradesmen and help control caravan trade with the
Central Asian frontier zone.
26. Zehbari 2020. See further section 64.4.3.

27. Henkelman and Folmer 2016.
896
Moreover, with the so- called Imperial Aramaic (German

Reichsaramäisch) the Persian Empire established a homogeneous
bureaucratic device for all chancelleries from Egypt to the region of
modern Afghanistan.28 The spread of Aramaic, both as a language and an
alphabet script, from the Iranian plateau across the Taklamakan Desert
toward China can be regarded as a major legacy of the Persian Empire.
The earliest testimonies of writing in India, originating around the turn
of the fourth to the third century bc, perfectly illustrate the pervasive
and stimulating influence of the Imperial Aramaic script. It is highly
likely that this development did not post-date the Persian Empire but
was triggered during its heyday.29
These new dimensions of transregional connectivity, fostered and bol-
stered by the Persian Empire, also become evident when we take a closer
look at its geography. From later periods we are well-informed about the
major trade routes that connected east and west across the Afro-Eurasian
continental mass. Bactriana was always a hub. Commodities from the
east were transferred across the Hindukush and Khyber Pass to the Indus
valley, where they were transported down the Indus river to the Indian
Ocean.30 An alternative route was the “Karakorum Highway” which led
from Kashgar, on the western border of the Taklamakan Desert, to the
region of Gandhara, another central hub for transregional trade. From
Gandhara goods could be moved into Iran to the west, Central Asia to
the north, India to the east, or the Indian Ocean to the South.31 Bactriana
was connected to the north via Sogdiana and to the west via Chorasmia.
In every historical period, Chorasmia was the direct link between
Central Asia and the steppes to the north.32 Was it purely by chance that
these central regions were all directly controlled by the Persian Empire
28. Gzella 2021a; cf. also Joannès 2009.

29. Rollinger 2021a.
30. Seland 2013; Benjamin 2018: 223–224.
31. Samee 2020: 49.
32. Honeychurch 2015: 51; Minardi 2015: 7–8; Stark 2021b: 695; Malagaris 2020: 5.
Cf. chapter 62 in this volume.
897
and administered by a highly developed imperial bureaucracy?33 Indeed,

the empire commanded all major transport and travel corridors between
east and west on the Afro-Eurasian continent, and this held true for both
land and sea routes.34
64.3. The outside world and the Persian

Empire’s self-representation
This extensive control was proudly reflected in the Persian Empire’s self-
representation. We have two pieces of evidence that at least indirectly
attest to control of the key regions for transport and travel.
The first source is a famous inscription of Darius I, generally referred
to as the “Susa Foundation Charter” (DSf ). The second is the lists of
lands and peoples that predominantly appear in the inscriptions of
Darius I and Xerxes I (485–465 bc).35 The specific character of these lists
is debated. Although scholars argue over whether or not they represent
provinces and thus bureaucratic units,36 they definitely attest to a con-
ceptual map of the Persian Empire and the world as ruled and controlled
by its kings. The Susa Foundation Charter praises the erection of Darius’s
palace at Susa which is conceptualized as a mirror image of the entire
empire. This is accomplished in two ways. First, on a material level, the
diverse building materials used were sourced in every part of the empire.
Second, on a human level, each of the major nations of the empire par-
ticipated in the building program, either as craftsmen or as suppliers of
important raw materials.37
Obviously, the main concern of the Susa Foundation Charter was
not trade and trading connections with an abstract, outside world, but
33. Cf. Henkelman 2017; 2018; King 2019; Briant 2020; Gzella 2021b.
34. Colburn 2013; Hyland 2019.
35. Dan 2013; Jacobs 2017; Tavernier 2021.
36. Jacobs 1994.
37. DSf §7–§13; see Kuhrt 2007: 492; cf. also Wiesehöfer 2009: 182–183; Rollinger
2018; Tavernier 2021.
89
royal accomplishment embedded in an ambitious claim to rule over

the entire world. But it is also apparent that trade and trading networks
are implied in every line of this important text. The Persian Empire is
presented as a deeply interconnected unity from its easternmost to its
westernmost frontier. Moreover, all of the important border regions of
the empire that were essential for communication with the outside world
are mentioned: Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Bactriana and Gandhara, Egypt,
Nubia, Lydia, and the Greek world.
This picture becomes even clearer when we focus on the second set of
sources, the lists of the empire’s lands and peoples that appear for the first
time in Darius’s Bisotun inscription. These lists are attested throughout
the reigns of Darius I and Xerxes I. The latest example is preserved in the
form of labels identifying the throne-bearers on the tomb of Artaxerxes III
(358–338 bc) at Persepolis.38 Roughly organized in chronological order,
these texts represent an important source for the Persian mental map and
the imperial conception of the world.39 Although there are no explicit
markers pointing to the internal organization of the lists, they can be sub-
divided into regional groups where specific border regions become appar-
ent. The Bisotun inscription, which preserves the oldest list, presents the
following border regions: Yauna (Greeks) in the west, Saka (Scythians) in
the east, Egypt in the southwest, Cappadocia in the northwest, Chorasmia
in the northeast, and Maka (which includes Oman) in the southeast. Parsa
and Elam are located in the center of the world. The entire list can be struc-
tured into groups of three to four members. In the west, the Yauna are
joined by an anonymous group of “those on the sea” and Lydia; in the east,
the Saka are followed by Bactriana, Sogdiana, and Gandhara.40
This general conceptual map underwent certain changes and varia-
tions over the years. An inscription of Darius I on the southern wall of
the terrace at Persepolis introduces a new concept by referring for the first
time to the “lands beyond the sea” that mark the northwestern border of
38. Calmeyer 2009.

39. Key for the following considerations is Dan 2013, according to whom these lists
represent “extensive official catalogues of the Achaemenid Empire.”
40. Dan 2013: 93.
89
the empire. In the southwest this position is held by Egypt, in the north-
east by Chorasmia, and in the southeast by Maka. The latter is grouped
together with Saka, Gandhara, India, Arachosia, and Sattagydia. This
can be taken as evidence for the naval route from the Persian Gulf to the
Indus valley and Central Asia.41
New elements can also be found in the hieroglyphic list of lands
and peoples that appears on Darius’s statue from Susa.42 Only here do
we find “Saka of the marshlands and of the plains,” grouped together
with Chorasmia as the northern border zone. This attests to a concep-
tion of the area from the northern shores of the Black Sea (plains) to
Chorasmia (marshlands) as having a single population characterized
as “Saka.” Further, it is testimony to the intrinsic connection between
Chorasmia and the steppe to the north, west, and east. The same text
displays other interesting features. Sogdiana (followed by Bactria,
Parthia, and Aria) represents the northeastern border zone; Sattagydia
(together with Arachosia and Drangiana) the southeastern border zone.
Skudra43 provides the northwest with a new border region (together
with Cappadocia, Lydia, and Armenia). In the southwest this position is
once more held by Egypt, whereas the south is marked by India (grouped
together with Maka, Nubia, and Libya), referring again to the southern
connection from India via Arabia to Africa.
Darius’s tomb inscription at Naqš-e Rustam (DNa) elaborates on
these conceptions of the world and its border regions.44 Here we find
already well-known representatives on the northeast (Chorasmia)
and southwest (Egypt), but the “southeast” (Drangiana, Arachosia,
Sattagydia, and Gandhara) is packed together with a group of Saka to
the north, again demonstrating the interconnectedness of these regions.
Like the Saka on Darius’s Susa statue, this population is diversified, but
41. Dan 2013: 94.

42. Dan 2013: 95.
43. The Persian concept of “Skudra” is not really identical with the Greek idea
of “Thrace.” Thus, there is only a rough correspondence. See Henkelman and
Stolper 2009.
44. Dan 2013: 96–97.
90
in a different manner. The text distinguishes between “Haoma-Drinking

Saka” and “Saka with Pointed Hats.”45 The headwear on the latter is
well-known from the depiction of the captive Scythian ruler, Skunkha,
on Darius’s Bisotun relief. The image of Skunkha is part of a complete
reconceptualization of the whole monument. Its placement was consid-
ered supremely important since it considerably damaged the previously
finished Elamite version of the accompanying monumental inscription.
In consequence, the text had to be completely reworked and moved to
the opposite side of the relief.
We can only speculate about the reason for this major intervention in
an already existing monument. However, it is probable that Skunkha, a
“Saka with Pointed Hat,” represented precisely the group against whom
Cyrus had led a disastrous campaign that ended in his death. Apparently,
the submission of these Saka was regarded as such an important victory
for Darius I that it justified the complete reshaping of the already com-
pleted Bisotun monument.46 In addition to the relief, Darius added a
new narrative text, this time in Old Persian only. In it he detailed his
decisive victory over the “Saka who wear the pointed hat” (Sakā tayai
xaudām tigrām baranti), obviously identical to the “Saka with Pointed
Hats” (Sakā tigraxaudā) in the lists of lands:
Proclaims Darius, the king: Afterwards with an army I went

against Scythia (Saka); after that, the Scythians (Saka) who wear
the pointed hat, these came against me, when I had come down
to the sea. By means of a tree-trunk with the whole army I crossed
it. Afterwards I defeated those Scythians (Saka); another (part of
them) they captured; that was led to me in fetters. And (the man)
who was their chief, Skunkha by name, him they captured and
led to me in fetters. There I made another (their) chief, as was my
desire. After that the country became mine.47
45. For details, see Rollinger and Degen 2021a.

46. Rollinger and Degen 2021a.
47. DB §74 (v 20–30) according to Schmitt 1991: 76.
901
These Saka must have been located on the northeastern borders of the
empire. The fact that Darius pretends to have crossed the sea has less to
do with “real” geography than with the deeply embedded, ancient Near
Eastern conceptual map in which the world is surrounded by an ocean,
marking its limits. Although the concept of transgressing this liminal
boundary was already associated with the kings of the Assyrian Empire,
they never boasted in their inscriptions of having themselves achieved
this feat; Darius I was the first to do so, followed by a long line of rulers
who emulated his example.
Since Darius was a usurper, it was of utmost importance to legitimize
his new role as king by portraying himself as a royal hero who advanced
into regions no ruler before him had ever seen.48 However, this rhetoric
was later abandoned, as the list of peoples and lands in the Naqš-e Rustam
inscription (DNa) shows. Here the “Saka with Pointed Hats” are no lon-
ger referred to as “beyond the sea.” Instead, this location is ascribed to
another group of Saka who are explicitly labeled as “Saka beyond the
sea” (Sakā tayai paradraya). Together with Armenia, Cappadocia, Lydia,
Yauna, Skudra, and Yaunā takabarā, they form a group of peoples and
lands at the northwestern edge of the Persian Empire, apparently mark-
ing its western outer limits. The whole group refers to peoples and lands
that encircled the Black Sea. Apart from the Saka, the Yauna were the
only other population group that were further subdivided.49 This might
have been due to a steadily increasing knowledge of these groups and
their lands that triggered a demand for more precise characterizations.
What we face is an ever-expanding conceptual map and a desire to pres-
ent the world according to this dynamic worldview.
One final aspect of the list in Darius’s Naqš-e Rustam inscription
(DNa) deserves attention. The “southern” group of peoples and lands
includes Libya, Nubia, Maka, and Caria.50 Again, this group is not really
48. Rollinger and Degen 2021a.

49. Yaunā takabarā is often translated as “Petasos-wearing Greeks,” which, however, is
pure speculation; cf. Rollinger 2006a. The term’s meaning and the exact location
of these people remain unknown, but see the discussion below in this section.
50. Dan 2013: 96.
902
“southern,” but it is interconnected. Whereas the line Libya–Nubia–

Maka refers to the entanglement between the Persian Gulf and Africa,
the inclusion of Caria hints at a connection to the eastern Mediterranean
via the Red Sea and Darius’s Canal.
This is further emphasized by another inscription found on column
bases in Darius’s palace at Susa (DSe).51 Although similar to the DNa
list, there are nevertheless slight differences. Libya and Nubia are miss-
ing, and Maka is part of a larger group that marks the empire’s south-
eastern and eastern regions, with links to the northeastern areas. Caria,
however, is part of a northwestern group that borders the Black Sea,
consisting of Armenia, Cappadocia, Lydia, the “Yauna of the sea,” the
“Saka beyond the sea,” Skudra, the “Yauna beyond the sea,” and Caria.
Read together with the DNa list, we have an interconnected chain of
peoples and lands extending from the mouth of the Persian Gulf, skirt-
ing the Aegean and going around the Black Sea. Since Maka is in the
DSe list in the center of a southeastern and eastern group (with links
to the northeastern regions), the circle is extended in the east via India
across Central Asia toward the eastern steppe: Drangiana, Arachosia,
Sattagydia, Maka, Gandhara, India, the Haoma-Drinking Saka, and the
Saka with Pointed Hats.
It is evident that such lists of lands and peoples testify not only to
the Persian Empire’s expanding mental map of itself, but also to its par-
ticular awareness of the outer borders of the empire, without directly
mentioning the regions beyond those borders. This is important since
the lists show lines of interconnectivity within the empire by grouping
together specific regions and people, as well as its entanglement with the
outer rims. There, certain hubs become visible that can be characterized
as nodal points of transregional entanglement, like Egypt, Maka, India,
Gandhara, Chorasmia, Sogdiana, the Saka (and their subcategories), and
the Yauna (and their subcategories). To a lesser extent this may also be
true of Caria and Skudra.
The list of lands and peoples attested in an inscription from the
reign of Xerxes I from Persepolis (XPh) does not contain a comparable
51. Dan 2013: 97.

903
geographical concept, and the order of the entries appears random.52

The “Saka beyond the sea” are absent, and a new population group, the
“Dahae,” is introduced.53 However, Darius’s mental map, as attested in
the inscriptions DNa and DPe, may still have assumed a canonical char-
acter as it was used again, with only slight variation, by Artaxerxes III.54
One point, however, needs further discussion. Generally speaking,
modern scholarship has assumed that all these lists of lands and peoples
represent the empire controlled by the Persian king either directly or
indirectly. Such a view is especially apparent when the entries are equated
with satrapies and thus administrative units of the empire.55 While this
may have been the case in part, it is doubtful whether it holds true for
the lists as a whole. This is important to stress since these lists demon-
strate a conceptual map rather than a bureaucratic charter. They tell us
more about geographical vision and aspirations than about administra-
tion and “constitution” (whatever the latter means in the ancient world).
If this view is accepted, then such a vision could not have arisen out of
thin air but out of hodological experiences of connectivity, and it is not a
true reflection of the regions under the Persian kings’ direct and indirect
rule. This in turn implies that the perimeters in each list reveal deeper
connections with certain parts of the outside world, without explicitly
characterizing it as such.
Another important source for how the elites of the Persian Empire
conceptualized the outside world are cylinder seals. The scenes engraved
on some of these seals depict only three clearly identifiable ene-
mies: Greeks, Egyptians, and Saka,56 in each case shown being crushed
by “heroes” in Persian dress. As discussed above, each of these peoples
occupied liminal positions in the Persian imperial worldview. In all three
52. Dan 2013: 98.

53. Cf. Jacobs and Gufler 2021.
54. Dan 2013: 97.
55. Jacobs 1994; 2017.
56. Wu 2012; 2014; most recently with all details: Tuplin 2020: 336–337, 339, 347–
359 with n. 45, 372–379.
904
cases, we know of campaigns launched against these groups and their

lands. However, the seal images do not appear to commemorate specific
historical events and are much more likely to represent the recycling of
“existing tropes for ideological purposes.”57
The same may be true of the lists of lands and peoples. Both sources
highlight the Persian kings’ claim to control the outer rims of the empire.
In certain cases this might have been true, but in others probably not.
What we have are “border areas” that also represent zones of transition
between scaled forms of control and non-control, between claims of rule
and fictitious rule—spaces where different perceptions about empire and
non-empire intermingle and clash with each other depending on one’s
perspective, whether from inside or outside the empire. Ancient empires
did not have established borders like modern nation-states,58 but they
commanded imperial spaces in different ways by direct and indirect rule.
Receiving “gifts” by one side could be regarded as accepting “tribute” by
the other. Everything depended on perspective. A well-known example
of such a misunderstanding occurred during a British diplomatic mis-
sion to Beijing in 1792 ad. The gifts presented by the British embassador
George Macartney were interpreted by the Chinese as “tribute” and thus
as signs of submission to the Chinese emperor.59
Thus, the nation lists are not primarily a testimony to the structure
and outline of the empire, but rather indicate what was defined as impe-
rial space by the Persian king and his elites. The “border areas,” in par-
ticular, may well have been seen completely differently by agents from
outside the empire. These observations have implications for the ques-
tion of which areas were actually meant by specific designations, e.g., the
exact location of the different groups of Greeks attested in the Persian
royal inscriptions. Whether they were simply called “Yauna,” or were fur-
ther characterized and diversified as Yaunā takabarā, “Yauna of the main-
land,” “(Yauna) who (dwell) by the sea,” “Yauna who (dwell) beyond the
57. Tuplin 2020: 379; differently Tuplin 2010b: 301.

58. Gehler and Rollinger 2014.
59. Cannavò 2018: 244–245.
905
sea,” or even more abstractly designated as “lands which (are) beyond the
sea,” “(people) who (dwell) by the sea,” or “lands which (are) by the sea,”
modern identification attempts mainly revolve around regions that are
known to have been under the control of the Persian Empire.60 However,
there is no reason to doubt that a designation like “Yauna who (dwell)
beyond the sea” indeed referred to mainland Greece, although the influ-
ence a Persian king wielded over such a region was at times very limited.61
The same holds true for the “Saka beyond the sea.” It is clear that this
designation referred to the regions to the north of the Black Sea, but it
is unclear whether this area was ever part of the Persian Empire, strictly
speaking. Although Herodotus offers a long and fanciful report about a
campaign of Darius I against the Scythians beyond the Danube which
ended in disaster and disgraceful retreat, modern scholarship was long
convinced of the legendary character of this narrative, considering it a
good example of storytelling with little historical substance.62 However,
this conviction has recently been changed by the discovery of a frag-
mentary inscription of Darius at Phanagoria on the Taman peninsula
(figure 64.4).63 Now, some scholars even suggest that the Persians exer-
cised direct rule in these areas.64 While this cannot be entirely excluded,
it is not very likely.
As the famous stele of Sargon II of Assyria (721–705 bc) in Cyprus
demonstrates, imperial monuments could be erected in borderland
zones that were never under the direct control of the empire.65 Moreover,
60. For an overview, see Rollinger 2006b: 213; 2020: 187–190.

61. However, the Persian king remained a point of reference even after 479 bc; see
Hyland 2015.
62. Tuplin 2010b; Sieberer 1995: 230–249; Bichler 2000: 292–297; cf. Anderson
2020: 586: “Herodotus is a problem for the entire Persian Empire.”
63. Avram 2019; Kuznetsov 2019; Kuznetsov and Nikitin 2019; Rung and Gabelko
2019; Schmitt 2019; Shavarebi 2019; Tsetskhladze 2019; also Tsetskhladze 2018.
64. Tsetskhladze 2018: 469–470; 2019: 115, 142–145; cf. also Tsetskhladze 2021, who
is very optimistic in assessing the presence of objects in Persian style as evidence
for the Persian Empire’s rule. For the problems, see Rehm 2010b.
65. Radner 2010.
906
Figure 64.4. The fragmentary inscription of Darius I from Phanagoria

(DFa) on the northern shore of the Black Sea. Reproduced from Kuznetsov and
Nikitin 2017: 156, fig. 2, and 158, fig. 4.
907
it remains uncertain whether the fragment of Darius’s inscription

from Phanagoria belongs to a monument that actually stood at this
site. Against the assumption of direct rule, one may suggest that both
Sargon’s stele in Cyprus and Darius’s stele in the Taman peninsula instead
reflect an extended imperial borderland in which the respective empires
claimed world hegemony and received gifts, perceived as tribute, whereas
the locals simply thought they were participating in the imperial trade
network. Such a win-win situation was based on tribute (as seen through
the empire᾽s lens) and trade.
For comparison, a similar system is well documented much later in
imperial China. It is interesting to note that the six expeditions of Zheng
He to East Africa and the Indian Ocean (1405–1422 ad) were seen by
the Chinese as an extension of imperial rule, whereas the locals simply
profited from the extension of the Chinese trade network.66 Even more
interesting is the fact that Zheng He erected a trilingual stele in Sri Lanka,
documenting offerings to the sacred mountain Sri Pada (also known as
Adam’s Peak) that exemplified this imperial perspective, and which was
obviously accepted by locals concerned with their trading interests.67
64.4. Reconsidering the border regions

of the Persian Empire
After having discussed Persian perspectives on empire and the outer
world, let us take a closer look at some of its specific border regions. These
areas exhibit some shared characteristics due to their specific position
on the rim of the empire. Seen from the center, and through the lens of
imperial ideology, they are peripheral zones that are nevertheless under
the firm control of the Persian king. However, from a structural point
of view, they are not “peripheral” at all, but represent a category of their
66. Brook 2010: 93–94, 219–222.

67. For the so-called Galle Trilingual in Chinese, Tamil, and Persian, see Dreyer
2007: 72. In general, see Ptak and Salmon 2005. For further details, see Rollinger
and Degen 2021a.
908
own with very specific dynamics—caught between forces of attraction

and repulsion. They maintained close ties both with the imperial center
and with the outside world. They were part of the empire, but at the same
time deeply connected with a world beyond the empire’s direct reach.
They defined an area of communication between interior and exterior,
and provided a link between this side and the other side.
Such an intermediate position offered a wide range of opportunities
but also carried risk and danger. This was especially true for the main
historical agents, i.e., the local elites. Contact with the imperial admin-
istration and economy opened up a new world that triggered internal
developments and changed local power structures. The Persian Empire
can be seen as provoking admiration and emulation but also disgust and
antipathy. New modes of legitimization became available, and conscious-
ness of transregional identities were fostered and boosted.
This ambiguity also applied to the imperial center. Expansion toward
the “periphery” follows the imperial agenda and means the enlargement
of power and influence. At the same time, imperial overreach becomes
more relevant the further the empire expands into areas “beyond.”
Moreover, imperial expansion not only triggers local conflicts, but trans-
fers intra-peripheral struggles to the imperial agenda. Local agents have
to choose whether they foster their careers and ambitions by currying the
favor of the empire or by defying it.
These dynamics can be seen in nearly all border areas, with the Greek
world of western Asia Minor and the Aegean offering good examples.68
Although our mainly Greek sources developed and promoted a different
picture that revolved around the dichotomies between “east” and “west,”
Greeks and barbarians, and freedom and despotism, a closer examina-
tion reveals that such a biased perspective does not do justice to the
historical circumstances. Rather, it was the result of a lengthy process
to foster the creation of a “Greek” identity—a development that was
only politically necessary when Athens became the dominant force in
the Aegean.
68. Cf. Kholod 2018.

90
64.4.1. The west

When Cyrus the Great defeated Croesus and the kingdom of Lydia
in the 540s bc, the Persians became masters of not only western Asia
Minor, but also of various Greek poleis in Ionia on the Aegean coast.69
These city-states were already vassals of the Lydian king and now had
a new overlord. The Persians did not markedly change the administra-
tive structure of the region. They installed a governor in Sardis, but the
Greek city-states at the very western edge of the empire continued to
be ruled indirectly. As long as the local agents respected Persian rule,
paid tribute, and added soldiers and ships to the imperial forces when-
ever needed, everything was fine. As far as the internal government of
these poleis was concerned, the empire was flexible enough to accept
“aristocratic” as well as “democratic” rule.70 Only loyalty was important.
However, political situations within these Greek poleis were generally
unstable, and opposing factions in each city eagerly sought Persian sup-
port. The empire, voluntarily or involuntarily, became more and more
involved in these conflicts and had to pacify incidents of unrest and
turmoil.
Successful local agents, externally and in retrospect often labeled
“tyrants,” were rewarded with imperial favor. Their unsuccessful oppo-
nents looked for assistance further afield, in areas that often involved
polities outside the imperial agenda. Successful players faced undreamt-
of opportunities, which, however, were often short-lived due to the
ever-changing dynamics in these border areas. Polycrates of Samos
provides a memorable example of how this could affect individual
careers: he went from being a sea captain in a newly established naval
fleet with far-reaching contacts to being executed by the Persian gover-
nor of Sardis.71 One of his successors, Syloson, actively sought Persian
assistance in order to gain control of Samos. Histiaeus of Miletos and
69. Rollinger and Kellner 2019; Rollinger 2021b; Kuhrt 2021.

70. Wiesehöfer 2006–2007: 226–230.
71. Kuciak 2020.
910
his son-in-law, Aristagoras, were similarly dazzling figures.72 Both

were rewarded and punished by the Persian ruler for their politics.
Aristagoras’s unfortunate campaign against Naxos led to the loss of
the king’s favor. Finally, he took the bull by the horns and organized
an anti-Persian alliance that resulted in the Ionian Revolt (500–494
bc). Unhappily for him, the empire ultimately prevailed and the revolt
was crushed. Although later Greek tradition presented the revolt as
a struggle for Greek liberty, this was an anachronistic view. Had this
been the case, then the imperial crisis at the beginning of Darius’s reign
would have offered much better opportunities for revolt.73 What we
find here resulted from the complicated ups and downs of border zone
dynamics, rather than ideological concepts of an alleged, nationally
driven longing for freedom. Such an understanding was the product
of later invention.
The situation was more complex when the empire was still expand-
ing. At the end of the sixth century bc, Darius and his generals pushed
further into European territories beyond the Hellespont. Although they
first concentrated on a coastal advance, to establish control over the
major ports along the northern Aegean and the Black Sea, some inland
polities, like the Odrysian kingdom in the Hebros valley and Macedon,
soon became Persian vassals.74 This was also true of Athens, at least in
the eyes of Darius, who interpreted the delivery of gifts at the end of
the sixth century bc as an act of submission, which implied that Athens
now shared both the Persian king’s friends and opponents.75 A campaign
by Mardonius in 492 bc secured the Persian positions in the northern
Aegean. Another campaign two years later, involving the sack of Eretria,
further extended Persian influence in the Aegean. However, the Persian
landfall in Attica resulted in the Battle of Marathon, followed by the
retreat of Persian forces. Whether this landing was the first step in a real
72. For details, see Meier 2021.

73. Meier 2021.
74. Heinrichs and Müller 2008; Boteva-Boyanova 2021; cf. also Rehm 2010a.
75. Waters 2016.
91
invasion which was repulsed in a decisive battle (as it came to be seen in

Athenian memory and propaganda) or a simple raid that resulted in a
skirmish and hasty embarkation is a matter of debate.76 At the very least,
the operation exemplified the long reach of Persian forces beyond the
Aegean and Darius’s willingness to further expand his influence and to
settle political obstructions occurring in distant regions that affected the
border areas of his empire. The climax of this engagement was Xerxes’s
campaign ten years later in 480/479 bc.77
This was not a confrontation between “the” Greeks and “the” Persians
but between the empire and a “Hellenic League” of about thirty poleis
under the leadership of Sparta, in which part of the empire’s army were
Greeks from all over western Asia and the northern Aegean, including
Thessalians and Boeotians. Although we are not sure about the empire’s
ultimate goals, the conversion of the Greek world into a series of Persian
provinces was definitely beyond the Persian king’s aspirations. Western
Asia and the northern Aegean were controlled via vassals, and there is no
reason to believe that this would have been any different in the regions
to the southwest. However, as we have seen, these regions were heavily
involved in all kinds of affairs on the empire’s outer edge which gave rise
to processes and developments that could not really be controlled any-
more, by either the empire or by the agents along the rim and beyond.
The empire interpreted this loss of control as disloyalty, and saw it as
a constant source of unrest, provocation, and disrespect that required
imperial action and chastisement.
From a certain point of view, it is possible to consider the Persian
king’s policies as an attempt “to find a long-term solution to the Greek
problem,”78 but one could also argue that with the conquest of Athens
and the Persian ruler’s sacrifice on the Acropolis, the major goals of his
campaign had already been achieved. However, his campaign triggered
processes that were certainly neither envisioned nor intended by the
76. Rollinger and Degen 2021c.

77. Rollinger and Degen 2021c.
78. Meier 2021: 631–632.
912
Persian ruler or by the victors when the war began. Both the empire’s
land and naval forces suffered considerable setbacks (Battle of Salamis in
480 bc, Battle of Plataea in 479 bc), and the Delian League represented
a powerful, transregional opponent that challenged Persian power in the
west more than Darius and Xerxes might have ever imagined before 480
bc. At the same time, the grand design of the campaign, impressive as
it was, revealed an imperial overreach that unmistakably demonstrated
that the empire had already achieved its maximum expansion. We can
interpret this turning point in Persian imperial history as either a sign of
“exhaustion” or as the beginning of a phase of consolidation that lasted
a further 150 years.79
Matters in the border areas, however, did not go quiet. For about
thirty years the Delian League, which masked an increasingly artifi-
cial Athenian hegemony that actually owed its existence to dynamics
along the Persian Empire’s western border, created considerable unrest
and losses for the Persian king.80 Yet, very soon Athens too experienced
the terrible setbacks that resulted from its own overreach. Operations
beyond the Aegean had only limited success. Interventions in Egypt
(460–454 bc) ended in disaster, and an attempt to intervene in Cyprus
also failed. Moreover, Athenian politics stirred up more and more oppo-
sition within the Greek world, which precipitated the Peloponnesian
War at the end of the century (431–404 bc). As a result of this war,
in which Sparta only prevailed thanks to lavish Persian subsidies, the
Persian king was successfully restored as a major player in the western
border regions of his empire.
There was no internal Greek conflict during the fourth century in
which the Persian king was not actively involved. With the Peace of
Antalcidas in 387 bc (so-called after the Spartan general who traveled to
Susa to negotiate the terms of the treaty that ended the Corinthian War;
also known as the King’s Peace), Artaxerxes II (404–359 bc) not only
regained direct control over all the Greek poleis of western Asia Minor
79. Wiesehöfer 2007.

80. Kehne 2014.
913
but also achieved supremacy over the Aegean. The ultimate enemy of the
Greek city-states was not the Persian Empire, but other city-states with
similar aspirations to transregional influence and power. Popular slogans
like “autonomy” and “liberty” were not primarily directed against the
empire, in the sense of “freeing” the Greek city-states of western Asia
Minor, but against Greek competitors in an ongoing struggle for power
and influence.81 Before Philip II of Macedon, there was no power in the
Aegean that was able to match the Persian king and his empire. The situ-
ation changed with the ascendancy of Macedon, a relatively new king-
dom on the empire’s border that, like Athens and Sparta before it, owed
its special position and strength to its location immediately beyond the
empire’s edge.82 When Alexander III, Philip’s son and successor, started
his campaign against the empire, he triggered a long-standing and dif-
ficult war that clearly showed that the empire was neither weak nor in
decline.83 Although there is a lively debate in modern scholarship over
whether or not Alexander can be regarded as the “last Achaemenid,”84
one can hardly doubt that Macedon and Alexander owed their rise and
success in large measure to their original position in an imperial border-
land, just as Anšan and Cyrus did more than 200 years earlier.
While it is the case that during the sixth through fourth centuries bc
the Aegean exhibited the dynamics of an imperial borderland in a very
particular way, comparable processes can be observed in other regions
as well. Cyprus offers one such example. The island harbored several
independent city-states with a mixed population speaking Greek and
Phoenician vernaculars.85 These city-states had become vassals of the
Assyrian Empire in the seventh century bc, although neither an Assyrian
governor nor Assyrian troops were permanently stationed on the island.86
81. Seager 1981; Bosworth 1982; van Wijk 2020; Degen and Rollinger 2022.
82. Olbrycht 2010; cf. also Müller 2020; Zahrnt 2021.
83. Degen and Rollinger 2022.
84. Rollinger and Degen 2021b.
85. Körner 2017.
86. Radner 2010.
914
After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, the city-states faced competition as
the Saite kingdom in Egypt (chapter 49 in this volume) and the Neo-
Babylonian Empire (chapter 50 in this volume) vied for influence and
domination in the eastern Mediterranean. As part of Cambyses’s prep-
arations for his campaign against Egypt, the Persian empire became
the first ancient Near Eastern empire to establish a navy.87 During this
time, the Persians increased their grip on the Phoenician city-states on
the eastern Mediterranean coast, for it was these vassals whose know-
how and capacities were key to the Persian ambition to control the sea
as well as the land.88 Whether the city-states of Cyprus became Persian
vassals before or after the conquest of Egypt is difficult to say. In any case,
Persian control of the island followed the trajectory established in the
seventh century bc.
Cyprus’s connections with the eastern Mediterranean coast, Cilicia,
and Egypt were as intensive as its networks in the west were. Thus, the
integration of the Cypriot city-states into the Persian Empire was a
logical step for an empire that was still expanding and safeguarding its
position in the eastern Mediterranean. Although Persian control of the
island was in some respects similar to that of the empire’s Assyrian pre-
decessor, the Persian Empire’s grip grew increasingly tighter. As far as
we know, there was never a governor on the island, and the city-lords
continued to rule their territories as vassals of the Persian king. However,
the neighboring Persian satraps of Syria and Cilicia regularly intervened
when necessary and sent troops to the island whenever political unrest
occurred. The city-states considerably expanded Persian naval capacity
and were important for the empire’s naval operations in the Aegean from
the Persian Wars onward. Close ties to the Aegean world also involved
some Cypriot city-states in the Ionian revolt, but the island was soon
back under the empire’s control.89 The situation became more difficult
87. Müller 2016; Klinkott 2021.

88. Wallinga 2005.
89. Wiesehöfer 2011; Zournatzi 2019; cf. also Zournatzi 2018.
915
when Xerxes’s campaign failed in 479 bc and the Delian League started
to operate beyond the Aegean. However, in this case, Athens’s effort to
gain a foothold in Cyprus failed miserably in the middle of the fifth cen-
tury bc.90
A particular challenge was posed by the ambitious city-lord of
Salamis, Evagoras I, in the second half of the fifth century bc. The mani-
fold political maneuvers of this warlord, who declared himself king of
Salamis, again illustrated Cyprus’s role as a western outpost of empire,
albeit one with strong ties to the outer world. Evagoras’s politics of expan-
sion at the expense of other Cypriot city-states, such as Kition, Amathus,
and Soli, led to multiple interventions in the court of Artaxerxes II. On
the one hand, Evagoras was eager to get assistance from allies in the
Aegean (Athens) and Egypt (usurper Pharaoh Akchoris/Hakor); on the
other hand, he knew how to outplay different, opposing factions within
the empire and expand his position on the island. For a while he even
managed to extend his control as far as the Levant. The turmoil related
to this unrest was noticed by the itinerant South Arabian merchant
Ṣubḥhumu, who led a caravan north to Dedan (modern al-‘Ula), Gaza,
and the towns of Judah (yhd), from which he crossed the sea to Kition
(kty) on Cyprus. Apparently an eyewitness to the upheavals triggered by
Evagoras’s maneuvers, Ṣubḥhumu explicitly noted “the war of the kšdm
and the ywn” in a votive inscription written in Sabaic when he returned
home (figure 64.5).91 This war between the “Chaldeans” (kšdm) and the
“Greeks” (ywn) appears to refer to struggles between the Persian imperial
authority—“Chaldeans” from a South Arabian point of view—and the
Cypriots, identified here as “Greeks.”92 In the end, Persian troops under
the command of the satraps Autophradates of Lydia and Hekatomnos
90. Mehl 2021: 615.

91. For an edition of the inscription “Demirjian 1,” see Robin and de Maigret
2009: fig. 14, and the online Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions, as maintained
by the Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions (http://dasi.
cnr.it/index.php?id=8 0&prjId=1&corId=27&colId=0&navId=577801909
&recId=1292; last accessed April 2, 2021). See also chapter 53 in this volume.
92. Sørensen and Geus 2019; Multhoff 2019.
916
Figure 64.5. A bronze plaque with an Early Sabaic votive inscription of

Ṣubḥhumū (Demirjian 1). Reproduced from Robin and de Maigret 2009: 83,
fig. 14.
917
of Caria conquered Salamis and disciplined Evagoras. However, while

his power was restricted and his position reduced to simply one among
a number of other Cypriot city-lords, all of whom respected the Persian
king’s sovereignty, he was not deposed.
The close ties between Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt became again
evident when Sidon revolted in the 340s bc and was joined by several
Cypriot city-lords. Both parties were in contact with the Egyptian
usurper Nectanebo.93 The Persian ruler’s reaction was harsh, and the
revolt ended with the total defeat of the Sidonian and Cypriot rebels.
Artaxerxes III successfully reorganized his power base in the Levant,
and from there he reconquered Egypt some years later. In conse-
quence, Artaxerxes also seems to have installed Evagoras II, grandson of
Evagoras I, as city-lord of Sidon. A silver obol from Cyprus shows this
king, when he was city-lord of Salamis, with a Persian tiara.94 The empire
was not challenged again, either in Phoenicia or on Cyprus. It was only
after Alexander III had gained a firm grip on the Levant in 332 bc that
the Cypriot polities left the empire.95
64.4.2. The north

The Caucasus is another interesting region in which to study how the
Persian Empire organized its major border areas. Following the decline
and disintegration of the Urartian empire in the seventh century bc,
a fragmented Urartian state survived until the mid-sixth century bc,
when Cyrus integrated Transcaucasia into the Persian Empire.96 This
included the areas of what is today Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, east-
ern Turkey, and northern Iran. As far as we know, the entire area was
under direct Persian control and remained a part of the empire until
its very end. There is no evidence that any regions to the north of the
93. Wiesehöfer 2016a.

94. Cannavò 2021: 252–253.
95. Degen and Rollinger 2022.
96. Rollinger 2009; Rollinger and Kellner 2019.
918
Caucasus range were ever integrated into the empire, either directly or
indirectly. A campaign of Darius I beyond the Caucasus and its connec-
tion with Herodotus’s story about the Persian king’s venture beyond the
Danube against the Scythians cannot be excluded, but remains specula-
tive.97 However, the region certainly was within the empire’s reach and
intervention was always possible. As in the west, such interventions fell
to the satraps. A short note by Ctesias referring to a raid by Ariaramnes,
satrap of Cappadocia, whom Darius ordered “to cross over into Scythia,
and carry off a number of prisoners, male and female,” may have been one
such intervention.98
In any case, Transcaucasia was always an important communica-
tion hub and a bridge for the transfer of knowledge and goods between
the Middle East to the south and the steppe regions to the north of the
Caucasus. Raids conducted by the Scythians and Cimmerians toward
the south via this region during the Neo-Assyrian period attest to the
area’s geo-strategic importance. With the rise of cavalry and mounted
units in the early first millennium bc, the horse trade may also have had
an important role. Along with Chorasmia, Transcaucasia provided vital
contact with the steppe and its pastoral nomads.
Transcaucasia appears to have been very well integrated within the
empire. This is attested by a wide range of luxury products from sites
in Georgia and, to a lesser extent, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Metalwork
and jewelry were especially important and became status symbols
for local elites. Apart from products that were also locally produced
and imitated, Persian drinking habits were emulated, as the icono-
graphic evidence for the practice of balancing wine bowls on the fin-
gertips reveals.99 Beyond these imports, borrowings, and imitations,
archaeological research in Transcaucasia has revealed an especially
rich corpus of Persian imperial architecture and building traditions.100
97. Jacobs 2000; 2006; Messerschmidt 2021: 672–673; cf. also Sauvage 2020: 132.
98. Ctesias FGrH 668 F13 §20; see also Rollinger and Degen 2021a: n. 100.
99. Knauss 2021: 305.
100. Stronach 2018.
91
Sary Tepe and Gurban Tepe/Karacamirli, both in Azerbaijan, and

Gumbati in Georgia are outstanding examples of this cultural trans-
fer. Characteristic bell-shaped column bases have been found at many
sites in the region.101 Most of these buildings testify to the bureaucratic
networks of the empire and may have hosted itinerant administrators.
Three cuneiform tablets written in Achaemenid Elamite from Armavir
(Urartian Argištihinili), Armenia, are vivid examples of Achaemenid
administrative practice.102
As already noted, Transcaucasia was particularly important as a con-
nector to the outside world north of the Caucasus. Contacts with these
regions increased markedly from the seventh century bc onward and
became especially important in the fifth and fourth centuries bc. As
more and more recent findings make apparent, horse trading was not the
only common interest that connected the Persian Empire with a fron-
tier zone that extended far beyond the empire’s direct control. The much
more diversified economies of the pastoral societies of the steppe became
more and more interwoven with the empire and had social, political,
and economic repercussions on numerous levels. This can be studied in
detail thanks to the huge amount of finds from Kurgan burials in the area
immediately to the south of the Ural mountains, along the Ilek and Or’
rivers.103 Prestige objects, including an alabastron with a quadrilingual
inscription of one of the Artaxerxes (figure 64.6),104 were concentrated
in a small number of individual kurgans considered “royal.”105 With
some caution, the finds have mainly been connected with workshops in
Asia Minor, Thrace, and Iran.106
101. For details, see Knauss 2021.

102. Koch 1993; Vallat 1997, both correcting the view of Diakonoff and Jankowska
1990, who thought the fragments represented an “Elamite Gilgameš text.”
103. Treister and Yablonsky 2013; Olbrycht 2015.
104. For this alabastron from a kurgan at Novyj Kumak near Orsk, see Balachvancev
2013: 250–252, 399–400, figs. 44–45, 629, pl. 13.
105. Treister 2013: 307.
106. Cf. Rehm 2012; 2013.
920
Figure 64.6. An alabastron with quadrilingual inscription of an Artaxerxes,

from a kurgan at Novyj Kumak near Orsk. Adapted from Treister and Yablonsky
2013: 399, fig. 44, 629, pl. 13.
Classical sources, like Herodotus and Ctesias, report on Saka/

Scythian soldiers in the Persian army, both the horsemen and the bow-
men who served as mariners.107 Saka soldiers, who received plots of lands
in exchange for military service, are also documented as landholders in
Persian-period Babylonia.108 Obviously, these men did not till their plots
themselves, but leased them to local businessmen. The most important
agent was the Murašû firm at Nippur, from which a huge number of doc-
uments dating to the late fifth century bc have survived.
With respect to Persian-period finds from the steppe, the most
famous come from the Pazyryk tombs. An extraordinary pile carpet
107. Hdt. 8.96.1; 8.184.2; 8.130.1. For more details, see Stark 2012: 112.
108. Dandamayev 1979. The same holds true for Indian soldiers in Persian-period
Babylonia, see Dandamayev 2017.
921
and a wooden saddle cloth, both from Barrow 5, traditionally dated to

the fourth or third century bc, stand out with their impressive, Persian-
style motifs. Although the kurgans of Pazyryk have now been assigned
to the early third century bc and thus appear to post-date the Persian
Empire,109 finds made there continue to be important testimonies to the
intensive exchange networks between the empire and the steppe and the
profound imperial impact on the social and political structures of these
frontier zones.
64.4.3. The south

After this tour d’horizon we return to the Persian Gulf. So far, we do not
have much evidence that trade along the Persian Gulf and further east
toward India already played a major role during the time of the Persian
Empire. But is this view correct? Globalization and new dimensions of
entanglement did not begin in the Hellenistic era but much earlier.110
Although sources are less abundant in the first millennium bc than in the
two preceding millennia, there are indications of connectivity between
the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea in the period of the
Persian Empire.111 As we know from recent studies, in the late second
millennium bc, Kassite Babylonia controlled central-western Iran and
thus the western branch of the Great Khorasan Road connecting the
109. Stark 2012: 121.

110. See, e.g., Gurukkal 2016: 110, who rightly highlights: “After over a millennium,
long persistent voyages through the spice route along the coast of southern
Arabia and beyond by the seafaring merchants accomplished a larger world of
exchange relations that culminated in the making of the Persian Empire extend
from the Red Sea to the north-west of the Indian subcontinent with the con-
quest of Egypt by Cambyses. Darius, by restoring the channel linking the Nile
with the Red Sea and by sending ships on voyages to explore routes to connect
the distant places, expanded relations of exchange across his empire, as attested
by his inscriptions. Sending Scylax on an expedition from the mouth of the
Indus to the Red Sea, across the Persian bays and along the coast of southern
Arabia, Darius facilitated voyages between the Indian subcontinent and Egypt.”
111. See Salles 1988; 1996; 1998; Macdonald 2009: 11–12; Potts 2007b; 2010; 2016;
2019; 2021.
92
Mesopotamian lowlands with the Iranian plateau.112 This testifies to the

importance of the land route at this time. The Assyrians appear to have
continued this policy, and from the ninth century bc onward they were
keen to exert control over the very same area.113 In the following centuries
the Assyrians expanded their control further east. The seemingly never-
ending conflict with the Chaldeans and Elamites in the south may have
enhanced the importance of the land route in Neo-Assyrian times. With
the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and the establishment of the Neo-
Babylonian Empire, the geopolitical situation appears to have changed
completely. The Babylonians were no longer able to control the western
branch of the Great Khorasan Road. This situation became even more
acute when, around the mid-sixth century bc, a new power arose with
Cyrus of Anšan, who began to control the land route. Of course, this
does not necessarily mean that Babylonian traders could no longer use
these routes,114 but that taxation and tolls were no longer in Babylonian
hands.115
The same applies to the maritime route along the Persian Gulf,
and one may even hypothesize that the rise of Anšan was connected
in some way to an increasingly important long-distance sea-trade. The
Babylonians still controlled Bahrain (ancient Tilmun) during the reign
of Nabonidus (555–539 bc), as a cuneiform text dating from his eleventh
year (545/544 bc) mentions a Babylonian governor (bēl pīhāti) on the
island.116 However, Babylonian naval traffic and revenues from customs
and tolls may have declined due to the new political situation. Therefore,
Nabonidus’s transfer of the Babylonian royal residence from Babylon to
the oasis of Tayma may be explained not only by the Babylonian desire to
control and tax the profitable trade with the Arabian peninsula, but also
by the wish to seek out alternative routes to India via the Red Sea. In any
112. Fuchs 2017a.

113. Cf. Fuchs 2011; 2017b.
114. Pirngruber 2020.
115. Kozuh 2015; Graslin-Thomé 2016a; 2016b.
116. Kessler 1983: 152; Salles 1998: 53; Potts 2007a: 71.
923
case, Babylonian trade with the east and India is still attested.117 It seems
plausible to connect Cyrus’s intensive building projects at Tamukkan/
Taocê, in the hinterland of modern Bushehr and of Cambyses at
Matannan in western Fars,118 with an intention to foster and strengthen
trade routes along the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf. Similar devel-
opments can be observed in the early Sasanian period, when the new rul-
ers from Fars redirected the trading networks from the eastern shores of
the Arabian peninsula to the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf.119 What
Richard Payne noted for the Sasanian Empire, based on the geopolitical
situation on the Iranian plateau, must also have been true of the Persian
Empire in its early stages:
The geography of Iran posed major disadvantages to empire for-

mation, not least the difficulty of extracting revenues from dis-
parate, highland territories and the high costs and slow pace of
transferring agrarian produce overland to imperial centers. But
its predicament also represented a potential advantage: located at
the nexus of the largest Eurasian markets ( . . .)120
Although it had no interactions comparable to those of the Sasanian

Empire with Roman and Chinese markets, the emerging Persian
Empire was at the nexus of every major trading route connecting the
Afro-Eurasian worlds. The rulers of the Achaemenid Dynasty simply
expanded what their Teispid predecessors had started, following the
already existing trajectories which grew ever more significant. Cotton
(Babylonian kiṭinnû) from India and linen from Gandhara (Babylonian
GADA.gandarasānu) appear to have gained importance in Persian-
117. Kleber 2017: 15–21. Kleber 2017: 6, 12, 42–43, also refers to the importance
of Tayma already in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 bc). For the
Persian Empire’s presence in Tayma, see Stein 2014; Graf and Hausleiter 2021.
118. Henkelman and Kleber 2007; Henkelman 2009; 2018: 230, 240–241.
119. Payne 2018: 231–233.
120. Payne 2018: 242.
924
period Babylonia.121 Also, the transfer of knowledge in mathemat-

ics, astronomy, and divination from Babylonia to India seems to have
achieved a new dimension at this time.122 Seen against this backdrop, it
is not by chance that clear evidence of the Persian Empire’s control of
the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman exists. References to Maka
in Persian royal inscriptions have already been mentioned. Scholarship
is divided over whether these terms designate only the region of modern
Oman or include the opposite Makran coast.123 In any case, the region
around the Strait of Hormuz was of utmost importance for the empire
as a gate of interconnection and entanglement. Elamite documents from
the Persepolis Fortification archives attest to the distribution of rations
to 162 “Arabs” for their journey from Susa to Maka.124 A text records an
official, Barnuš, qualified as qaramaraš and located at Maka, receiving
rations.125 Journeys between Maka and the imperial center are also attested
in documents mentioning a “satrap” of Maka. Another text records the
receipt of a ration of wine at Tamukkan/Taocê by Irdumašda, “satrap of
Maka.”126 Irdumašda, who clearly bore an Iranian name (*Ṛtāmazdā),
is also mentioned in several other documents from the Fortification
archives.127 Tamukkan/ Taocê is located in the region of Bushehr
and could be reached by ship from Babylonia via the Persian Gulf.128
121. Cf. Muthukumaran 2016; Kleber 2017: 7, 27; Potts 2021: 525–
526; also
Malatacca 2016.
122. Pingree 1974; 1982; Potts 2021: 525.
123. Vallat 1993: 164; Schmitt 2014, 209.
124. PFa 17, and PFa 29: 54–55: Hallock 1978: 112, 122, 130; de Blois 1989; Henkelman
and Stolper 2009: 275 n. 11.
125. PF 2050: Hallock 1969: 634; cf. Hinz and Koch 1987: 439 s.v. qa-ra-ma-
ráš: “Musterungskommissar, Inspizient.”
126. PF 679: Makkaš šakšabama.
127. PF 1801: 4; NN 1074: 5; NN 2135: 4 (for an edition, see http://www.achemenet.
com/fr/item/?/2226911; last accessed April 2, 2021); NN 2358: 1. There is also
an Aramaic label on the reverse of PF 1801; see Tavernier 2007: 297–298; also
Henkelman 2008: 491 n. 1138.
128. Tolini 2008, 8.
925
A maritime route must have also connected Tamukkan with Maka.

Another Elamite tablet of uncertain date mentions another satrap
of Maka, again with an Iranian name, Zamašba (*Jāmāspa) who also
received a ration of wine on his journey “to the king.”129 Since in both
cases, the wine was supplied by an individual named Parnizza, whose
association with Tamukkan is well-attested, he certainly took the same
road and made use of the very same supply station.130 Moreover, a “satrap
of the islands” in the Persian Gulf, named Bagiya, is attested during
Darius’s reign. He may have been subordinate to the satrap in Kṛmāna.131
It may be assumed that the vital connection between Parsa (modern
Fars) and Maka did not end there, but that Maka was a hub for maritime
travel to the world beyond. In Darius’s Suez inscription (DZd), men-
tioned above, Darius celebrates the construction of a canal to the Red
Sea. However, “Red Sea,” “Persian Gulf,” and “Indian Ocean” are exclu-
sively modern terms.132 For Darius, this was all one ocean. He is rather
clear about this since the canal enters “the sea which comes from Parsa
(i.e., Fars).”133 D.T. Potts was the first to recognize that this concept testi-
fies to a worldview that
foreshadowed the (later) Greek convention of using the hydro-

nym Erythraean Sea to denote the combined waters of the Persian
Gulf, the western Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea.134
Yet, this idea is more than just a further reference to a conceptual map
that was later adapted by Greeks who, in other cases as well, were deeply
129. PF 680; cf. Tavernier 2007: 220 (also with other attestations of the name).
130. Henkelman 2008: 491.
131. Henkelman 2017: 52–53 with n. 8; 2018: 239 n. 62; Potts 2019: 375.
132. Cf. Wiesehöfer 1998.
133. DZc H-I : draya taya hacā Pārsā aiti (Schmitt 2009: 150). Kuhrt 2007: 486
translates “the sea which goes to Persia”; see, however, Schmitt 2009: 150;
Lecoq 1997: 248.
134. Potts 2021: 520.
926
indebted to the Persian worldview.135 It reveals an idea of connectiv-

ity and entanglement that becomes even more evident when the Old
Persian toponym Parsa is correctly translated as Persis or Fars. The com-
mon translation as “Persia” is misleading in this case since the text explic-
itly refers to a connection between the Persian heartland, i.e., the Persis
(Fars), and thus the northern end of the Persian Gulf, with the northern
end of the Red Sea via one single ocean.
Apparently, Maka must have had crucial importance within this
maritime network due to its special geographical position. For the strait
of Bab al-Mandab, this is explicitly recognized in the Hieroglyphic ver-
sion of the Maskhuta Stele (figure 64.7), whose Old Persian version is
nearly completely lost (DZe). The text also refers to the land Šb which
is the kingdom of Saba that controlled the Bab al-Mandab.136 This is one
of the very rare examples in which a Persian royal inscription explicitly
refers to an outside world without claiming sovereignty. It may not be
by chance that such a reference is attested in a text that originated in
Egypt. Thus, Darius at least indirectly referred to a world outside the
empire, where other players and different alliances (so well attested in
the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean) held prominence. The Nubian
kingdom of Napata may also have played a role in these mingled powers,
as the Harsiotef Stele from Gebel Barkal (ca. 400 bc) suggests. In this
text, the ruler of Saba is described as a “rebel” who would not succeed but
was subdued by the Napatan king.137
64.5. In conclusion: the Persian

Empire as the center of an entangled
Afro-Eurasian world
Let us draw a conclusion. The Persian rulers employed a novel concept
of empire that was both self-contained and universalistic at the same
135. Rollinger 2016a: 152–155.

136. Klotz 2015: 268 and passim; also Sperveslage 2019: 45–49.
137. Klotz 2015: 271.
927
Figure 64.7. Drawing of the Maskhuta Stele of Darius I. Egyptian Museum

Cairo, inventory no. JE 48855. Reproduced from Golénischeff 1890: pl. 8.
928
time. They developed a conceptual map that was expressed in the form
of lists of lands. It was not by chance that this concept of empire was
created, tested, verified, altered, and adapted during the reigns of Darius
I and Xerxes, when the new dynasty was eager to achieve legitimacy and
push the empire’s borders to its maximum extent. However, this self-
conceptualization defined an imperial space that pretended to represent
the world, but from an outside perspective did not reflect political real-
ity. This is especially true of the best-known border zone, i.e., the Greek
world, where, since the days of Hecataeus, geographical worldviews were
concocted that were heavily indebted to the Persian imperial “template,”
but developed these concepts further (also with a critical tone), and had
a rather different setting and Sitz im Leben.138 The Persian concept of
empire was universalistic, from an official, interior perspective, since it
professed to constitute the world, but less obviously did not reflect “real-
ity.” When the Persian king referred to his Greek “subjects” in their vari-
ous subcategories, he certainly may have included the entire Greek world
in this claim, whether it held “true” or not for those Greeks included in
his list of imperial subjects. The same applies to the Saka who lived in the
vast territories of the north and the east. The dynamic between these two
concepts manifested in the imperial border zones that developed within
the tension between these two competing concepts, which are contradic-
tory only at first glance.
This tension derived not only from different perspectives and claims,
but also from the very specific constituents—social, economic, and
political—that formed these border areas. They belonged to two different
worlds simultaneously; they were part of the empire but also belonged to
an outer world. This special situation created a hotbed for not only pecu-
liar developments, adaptations, and adoptions, but also delimitation and
alienation, identity-shaping, and binary worldviews. The empire’s reach
into an outside world far beyond its ruler’s direct control was the essen-
tial trigger for these dynamic developments. Contacts and transfers were
intense throughout the empire’s entire existence, stimulating integration
138. Rollinger 2021d.

92
as well as disintegration.139 It is no accident that the Persian Empire offers

one of the very first conceptions of the world as diverse and variegated.
This concept of diversity was consciously and officially propagated in the
royal inscriptions. It was not inserted into a dichotomized world view of
“we and they,” or “inside and outside,” but was equated with the world as
such, a diversified world ruled by the Persian king. Forerunners to this
concept can already be found in the Assyrian Empire, but a closer exami-
nation reveals them to be different. There is ample evidence that the
Assyrians renamed conquered places and lands, and juxtaposed old and
new designations.140 In a famous passage of an Assyrian royal inscription
in which Esarhaddon (689–669 bc) summarizes his campaign against
Egypt, the text begins:
In my tenth campaign, the god Aš[šur . . .] had me take [. . . and

made] me [set out] to [Makan and Meluhha, which are called]
Kush and Egypt in (their) native tongue.141
It is true that the world is consciously presented as diversified (cf.

chapter 40 in volume 4), but only as long as it was out of the reach of
the god Aššur, his king, and his armies. As soon as any region was con-
quered, it was renamed and thus harmonized.142 This is entirely different
from the Persian Empire. The very use of trilingual royal inscriptions,
extended by the addition of hieroglyphic Egyptian as a fourth language,
displays a novel conception of the world.143 This world was not harmo-
nized but remained diverse, even after the Persian king had taken con-
trol. Moreover, diversity was not a shortcoming but a distinction, as the
139. Miller 1997; Rollinger 2020: 187–190; cf. also Lewis 2011.
140. Pongratz-Leisten 1997.
141. Leichty 2011: no. 23: 6′–8′.
142. For Makan and Meluhha as Neo-Assyrian designations for Egypt and Kush/
Nubia, see Bagg 2017: 383.
143. Rollinger 2016b.
930
abundant references to this kind of qualification in the royal inscriptions

demonstrate. The Persian king rules lands “containing many (kinds) of
men” (Old Persian paruzana). He is ruler of lands “containing all (kinds)
of men” (Old Persian vispazana).144 As Jan Tavernier notes:
The words were firmly established in the Achaemenid royal

ideology and were that specific that the Elamite (and once a
Babylonian) versions simply transcribed the Old Persian words
into their own languages.145
However, the Babylonian versions were also free to develop their own
translations of this concept when paruzana and vispazana became
ša naphar lišānu / ša naphar lišānāta, “of all tongues.”146 The fact that
the trilingual inscriptions do not harmonize ethnic designations but
openly present different worldviews further highlights this concept.
Whereas the Old Persian and Elamite versions talk about Saka/Sakka,
Armina/Harminu, and Maka, the Babylonian versions have Gimirri
(Cimmerians), Urašṭu (Urartu) and Qadû.147
As the reliefs of throne-bearers and delegations, as well as the depic-
tions on the famous statue of Darius I from Susa demonstrate, diversity
was not only linguistic,148 but also applied to attire, weapons, and “cul-
ture.” This conscious acknowledgment and celebration of diversity as
such, as well as diverse views of the world, can be taken as a sign of deep
and thorough consideration of human affairs, and thus of “enlighten-
ment.” It is hardly accidental that the “Greek” enlightenment of the sixth
century bc began not in Greece but in the Persian Empire, at its outer
western limits close to the border zone. If we leave modern concepts of
144. Schmitt 2014: 229, 280; also Rollinger 2017.

145. Tavernier 2021: 41.
146. XPa7, XPc 10, XPd11, XPh, XV 12, DE 15f, DNa 5, DSe 6.
147. Zadok 1985: 217, 253; Vallat 1993: 86, 163–164, 237, 253–254; Lanfranchi 2011.
Cf. Bagg 2017: 487.
148. Cf. Rollinger 2016b; Wiesehöfer 2016b; Wiesehöfer 2018.
931
“nation” and “identity” as well as modern ethnic designations aside, this

intellectual revolution was as “Persian” as it was “Greek.”149 Actually, it
was neither, but rather “imperial,” a product of one of the major channels
connecting the Persian Empire with the outside world.
R ef er en c es
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65
The Persian Empire

Perspectives on Culture and Society
Maria Brosius
65.1. Introduction: the bias of the available sources

The discussion of the social and cultural history of the Persian Empire
(figure 65.1) is very much dependent on a body of rich yet inherently
biased sources: Greek and Roman literary texts.1 Aspects of life at the
Persian court, of Persian education, cultural habits and customs, of
Persian social attitudes and religious practices, are all remarked on by
classical authors who often are our sole source of information, yet their
veracity is frequently in doubt. Some alleged Persian customs, such as
those described by Herodotus, are impossible to confirm or deny by
drawing on other bodies of sources. Was the birthday in fact the most
1. The following abbreviations are used in this chapter: DB for the Bisotun inscrip-
tion of Darius I; DNc, DNd and DNf for the labels identifying Darius’s atten-
dants on the relief of his tomb at Naqš-e Rustam; DSf for an inscription of Darius
at Susa; XPh for Xerxes I’s inscription from the Persepolis garrison quarters (for
editions, see, e.g., Schmitt 2009). Persepolis Fortification Seals (PFS) are cited by
publication or inventory number and, if inscribed, with an asterisk (for the num-
bering, see Garrison and Root 1996). The chapter was language-edited by Denise
Bolton.
Maria Brosius, The Persian Empire In: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Karen
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0065
950
951
The Persian Empire: Culture and Society 951
important feast of the Persians?2 Did the Persians indeed honor their
father and mother to such an extent that a man would never kill his
parents?3
A case which highlights the potential for misunderstanding between
actual Persian practice and its perception by the Greeks is the act of
obeisance performed before the king. According to Herodotus, Persians
of equal rank kissed each other on the lips; if the social difference was
minor, they kissed each other on the cheek; but if the class difference was
considerable, the Persian of lower rank bowed down and did obeisance
to the other (Greek prospipton proskyneei ton eteron).4 Even though the
verbs prospiptein (“to fall down”) and proskynein (“to kiss toward”) are
distinct, both ancient authors and modern scholarship have equated the
hand-kissing gesture (= proskynesis) with the complete prostration before
the ruler (=prospiptein). An additional problem in the Greeks’ misun-
derstanding of the Persian practice of proskynesis stems in part from the
notion that, in their view, it was performed in reverence to the gods and
thus was a sacred act. Recently, Eduard V. Rung has emphasized that it
is important to differentiate between proskynesis as a hand-kissing ges-
ture and prostration.5 Furthermore, as has been noted by Pierre Briant,
there is a marked difference between the Greek interpretation of prosky-
nesis and our primary archaeological evidence.6 The closest image of a
prostration is the slight bowing by a supplicant who is standing before
the king in the audience relief from Persepolis, depicting a key event at
2. Hdt.1.133.1; 9.110.2.
3. Hdt.1.137.
4. Hdt.1.134.1.
5. The suggestion of Rung 2020: 412 that proskynesis may have included a variety of
gestures, with or without a small bow, whereas others performed it as prostration,
bowing down, or kneeling, obscures the matter even further, and evidence is once
again lacking. It is equally problematic to suggest, on the basis of the figure at the
tomb of Darius I, that proskynesis had a religious connotation (Rung 2020: 433), as
it was first and foremost a gesture of respect toward the king.
6. Briant 2002: 222; cf. Rung 2020: 411.
952
court, i.e., the visitor being presented to the king.7 One may therefore
justifiably assume that the Greek idea of proskynesis served to amplify
the Persians’—in the Greeks’ view, excessive—subservience to their
king, and that the so-called Alexander historians’ view on the matter is
clearly that it was seen as a sign of the king’s hybris, as the Greeks only
performed such prostrations before a deity.
However, information on other Persian customs can be more safely
accepted when it is matched by data derived from other sources. A case in
point is Ctesias noting the return of a king’s body to Parsa, as archaeolog-
ical data locates the tombs of the Persian kings in this province.8 Reports
on the existence of extensive gardens and parks or hunting grounds (Old
Persian para-daidā, Greek paradeisoi) have recently found confirmation
through the results of geophysical surveys.9 The extensive descriptions
by Xenophon and Ctesias of the favored royal pastime of hunting match
the depictions on numerous seals and seal impressions that show hunting
scenes in chariots, on foot, and on horseback, as well as similar scenes in
funerary contexts (on funerary steles, sarcophagi, and tomb paintings).10
7. According to a recently discovered, trilingual inscription above a male figure in

Persian dress at Darius’s tomb at Naqš-e Rustam (DNf ), the Old Persian verb a-f-
r-[?]‌-a-t-i-y, “to greet, to bless,” corresponds to Elamite *ā-fra-yāti, “he comes for-
ward”? or *ā-fra-δāti, “he speaks forth to,” and to Akkadian i-GA-ir-ra-bi, from
*garābu, “to approach”; the suggested translation “(Personal Name, a Pati)scho-
rean, invokes blessing upon Darius the King” follows the Babylonian version
of the inscription and seems to describe the action of the man depicted below
the inscription, who has both hands raised before his lips. For a full discussion
of the inscription and the philological problems entailed in the Old Persian,
Elamite, and Babylonian versions, see Delshad and Doroodi 2019. As for the
identification of the Patischorean performing proskynesis, Schmitt 2019: 48 has
argued that this must be Otanes. This, however, raises a problem, as Otanes son
of Pharnaces (Parnakka) was an Achaemenid. Alternatively, we need to consider
the identity of Otanes as the son of Thukhra (DB §68; see Kuhrt 2007: 149,
no. 5.1) .
8. With the one exception, perhaps, of the unfinished tomb at Persepolis ascribed
to Darius III. It is not known where his body may have been taken after he was
killed by two courtiers en route to Bactriana.
9. Boucharlat 2001.
10. On funerary rites and hunting, see sections 65.4.3 and 65.8.
953
Whereas Herodotus provides a brief account of Persian education

from the age of five, with boys being trained in horse-riding, archery,
and truth-telling,11 Plato provides a lengthy discourse on the fact that
the initial care of Persian boys by women was the cause for the Persians’
effeminacy and decadence.12 His description serves the sole purpose of
discrediting the Persian Empire by demonstrating the inferiority and
weakness of the Persian kings who succeeded its founder Cyrus the
Great. Equally, Book 8.8 of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is but an account of
the negative habits of the Persians, again with the sole aim of discrediting
king and court.
In these texts, decadence is seemingly evident in every aspect of
Persian life and customs, from adopting Median dress and luxury, to a
laxness in the boys’ education. The demise of horse-riding due to laziness
and the decline from measured dining to gluttony are but some of the
accusations hurled at the Persians. The use of the parasol is mocked,13
as are the habits of avoiding walking on foot, lining their clothes against
the winter cold, and employing beauticians to apply kohl to their eyes
and rouge to their cheeks.14 Any information taken from such accounts
has to be treated with caution, their historiographical aspects recognized
and their bias uncovered. Horse-riding was part of the Persian identity,
a virtue pointed out by Darius in his inscription from Naqš-e Rustam,15
and the appreciation of and desire for horses manifested themselves
throughout the Persian imperial period. When the kings, and most likely
the other members of the Persian nobility, used cosmetics when present-
ing themselves in public, they followed in the well-attested footsteps of
11. Hdt. 1.136.

12. Pl. Leg. 694c–696a.
13. Xen. Cyr. 8.8.17. On the parasol as a symbol of authority and feature of court
protocol, see Lerner 2020.
14. Xen. Cyr. 8.8.20.
15. DNb §9: “I am trained in my hands and in my feet; as a horseman, I am a good
horseman; as a bowman, I am a good bowman, both on foot and on horseback;
as a spearman, I am a good spearman, both on foot and on horseback.” See Kuhrt
2007: 505, no. 11.17.
954
the Egyptian and Mesopotamian elites. And while the Greeks may have
found the Persian idea of wearing warm clothing against the cold a point
of ridicule, the Persians no doubt would have questioned the Greek prac-
tice of exposing their naked bodies.
Persian luxury—or rather, what was perceived by the Greeks as
such—is frequently remarked upon. The immeasurable wealth of the
Persian kings was without equal anywhere in the contemporary world
and was advertised by the grandeur of the court, by the luxuriousness of
Persian clothing (from the quality of the textiles to their colors and the
richness of the decoration, including gold appliqués), and by the opu-
lence of the banquets, with their rich tableware and enormous variety of
foodstuffs.16 Writers on Persia such as Heracleides of Pontus (ca. 390–
310 bc), Heracleides of Cyme (floruit 350 bc), and Chares of Mytilene
(floruit 340 bc) perceived such luxury as a reflection of the decadence of
the Persian kings, and indeed of the Persian Empire. Thus, Chares claims
that
the Persian kings had come to such a pitch of luxury, that at the
head of the royal couch there was a supper-room laid with five
couches, in which there were always kept five thousand talents
of gold; and this was called the king’s pillow. And at his feet was
another supper-room, prepared with three couches, in which
there were constantly kept three thousand talents of silver; and
this was called the king’s footstool. And in his bed-chamber
there was also a golden vine, inlaid with precious stones, above
the king’s bed. And this vine, Amyntas says in his Posts, had
bunches of grapes, composed of most valuable precious stones;
and not far from it there was placed a golden bowl, the work of
Theodorus of Samos. And Agathocles, in the third book of his
History of Cyzicus, says, that there is also among the Persians a
water called the golden water, and that it rises in seventy springs;
and that no one ever drinks of it but the king alone, and the
16. Miller 2010; Miller and Hölscher 2013.

95
eldest of his sons. And if anyone else drinks of it, the punishment
is death.17
Understanding and accepting a foreign culture requires a level of toler-

ance for the “Other,” and Greek sources do not just reflect an inability
or unwillingness on the part of their authors to comprehend a foreign
culture, but highlight that their deliberate emphasis on such seemingly
alien habits was meant to underline the inferiority and decadence of the
Persians.18
Among the primary sources available to us, the materials from the
heart of the Persian Empire are of special relevance for offering insights
into the world of the Persian court: in particular, the wall reliefs
decorating the palaces in Pasargadae (Elamite Batrakataš) and Susa
and various royal buildings in Persepolis (the Throne Hall or “One-
Hundred-Column Hall,” the Apadana, and the private palaces of Darius
I and Xerxes I), as well as the reliefs on the façades of the royal tombs
at Persepolis and nearby Naqš-e Rustam (chapter 55 in this volume).
Furthermore, there are important archaeological remains from other
regions of the Persian Empire, notably from western Asia Minor, but
also from the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and Thrace. Depictions on
funerary steles and seals from western Asia Minor affirm the customs
and habits of the Persian elite, while other evidence from the eastern
Mediterranean and Egypt, such as the paintings on a wood beam from
a tomb at Tatarlı in Phrygia, demonstrates the affinity of local elites
with their Persian overlords and their efforts to emulate their lifestyle.
The Persian royal inscriptions add a poignant note to our topic, as they
express the creation of Persian culture and the Persian king’s claim to an
all-inclusive world empire.
17. Chares of Mytilene FGrH 125 F2 (apud Ath. 12.514e-f ).

18. As Miller 1997 pointed out, Greek prejudice did not prevent the influence of
Persian “court fashion” from entering Greek life, including items of clothing
such as the kandys, dishes used in banqueting such as the rhyton, and the use of
parasols.
956
65.2. Innovation through adoption of cultural

and social practices
The single most striking feature that characterizes the social and cultural
history of the Persian Empire is the willingness of the kings and nobility
to adopt selected practices and traits from the kingdoms and lands they
had conquered and to amalgamate these attributes into innovative fea-
tures of Persian court life. The inclusion of practices and elements from
the cultures of the imperial provinces not only reflected the acceptance
of other civilizations but, most remarkably, resulted in the creation of a
distinctive Persian culture. By no means does this imply that the Persians
lacked a social and cultural background of their own, but as former pas-
toralists their way of life had been shaped by seasonal migration: moving
on horseback with their livestock, relying on tents as their main form of
dwelling. As pastoralists, they had no need for city foundations, exten-
sive irrigation systems, a network of roads to secure communication and
trade, or of a bureaucracy that monitored tax incomes and expenses, nor
had they, for that matter, a need for writing.19
Persian society was, by all accounts, an oral society, in which stories
and important events were commemorated by an oral tradition. This
makes the phenomenon which we recognize as Persian culture even
more astounding and remarkable. From their seemingly peaceful accul-
turation in the homeland of the Neo-Elamites in the region of Anšan
to the adoption of Elamite writing in order to continue the administra-
tion necessary to govern their kingdom, the Persians pursued their way
to power with remarkable efficiency. The reason for their willingness
to take on social and cultural practices from the former kingdoms was
expediency: these practices served as role models for the way of life of
the Persian king and the nobility. From the hierarchical power structure
to the court and court life, from expressions of kingship and the pre-
sentation of the king and his court to monumental palace architecture
and building projects, the Persians looked to their royal predecessors in
Assyria, Babylonia, Elam, Lydia, Media, and Urartu (chapters 38–40,
19. On early Persian lifestyles, see Potts 2014.

957
42–44 in volume 4 and chapters 51–52 in this volume). City founda-

tions were as much a part of this adoption process as the building of
canals and the expansion of the network of royal roads connecting west
and east, north and south.20
The various elements known to have originated in the conquered
kingdoms were incorporated in a way that enabled the creation of an
innovative Persian culture with its own social behavior, customs, and
habits, as well as its own art and architecture. Looking to the Neo-
Elamite, Median, Lydian, Babylonian, and Assyrian royal courts as
models, the Persians created their own distinctive court life. Noting the
palatial buildings of their immediate predecessors, including the Median
columned halls of Godin Tepe and Tepe Nush-e Jan, they created a
monumental palatial building program with private palaces and audi-
ence halls which featured Ionian columns built on a square ground plan
that are distinctively Persian and Achaemenid. Architectural features
that originated in Urartu, Lydia, Ionia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia were
combined and reworked in a way that allowed the creation of an original
Persian style. Royal pastimes such as banqueting were adopted from the
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Elamite courts, and while reclining couches
were borrowed from Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean,
the tableware used, including bowls, beakers, and jars, was distinctively
Achaemenid. One might therefore argue that this extensive adoption
of foreign cultural traditions was due to necessity. However, the fact
that the Persians transformed such features and created an entirely new
iconographic program that came to characterize the Achaemenid court
is certainly testimony of an original and highly creative imperial culture.
The first Persian rulers in particular displayed an astounding sense
of their place in history, no doubt anchored in their need to legitimize
their claim to power in the newly conquered lands. This is obvious
from the way Cyrus II (559–530 bc; chapter 54 in this volume) linked
himself to the royal traditions of the previous Assyrian and Babylonian
20. On the network of royal roads, see Velázquez Muñoz 2010; 2013. With the
expansion of the royal road network and the postal stations, the Persians fol-
lowed Assyrian predecessors; cf. Kessler 1997; Radner 2014.
958
kings, according to both the Cyrus Cylinder21 and the palace reliefs
at Pasargadae, which feature the ancient Mesopotamian motifs of the
fish-man (Akkadian kulullu) and bull-man (Akkadian kusarikku). His
son and successor Cambyses II (529–522 bc) continued this strategy in
his unfinished building project in the Marv Dasht,22 where a replica of
the Ištar Gate constructed at Tol-e Ajori further highlights Babylon’s
importance to the early Persian kings.23 And although the early Persian
funerary architecture may have adopted certain features from Lydian
and Urartian art, these buildings—including the stepped tombs at
Pasargadae and Dasht-e Gohar and (also at Pasargadae) the single-
chamber tower structure of the Zendan-e Suleiman with its extensive
staircase—display an originality that is today recognized as distinctively
Persian.24
The era of the Achaemenid Dynasty began with the reign of Darius
I (521–486 bc; chapter 55 in this volume), and it was marked by the
deliberate creation of “Persianness.” The identification of a Persian
nobility, recognizable through the use of their own language which
was now written down for the first time, and the promotion of the god
Auramazda to the highest-ranking of the Persian deities took the pub-
lic expression of a characteristic Persian culture to a new level. While
the Achaemenid rulers continued to incorporate elements from Ionia,
Lydia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia in their architecture, the iconographic
program now included a strong political element and became the visual
expression of their all-encompassing empire, whose recognizably foreign
features served to express its claim to world domination. The world of
the Persian Empire was mirrored in the royal palace and its art, with its
various constituent elements: not just architectural features and artistic
motifs, but also the building materials. This is poignantly expressed in
Darius’s building inscription from Susa:
21. For recent editions of the Cyrus Cylinder, see Schaudig 2001; Finkel 2013.
22. Kleiss 1980.
23. Chaverdi et al. 2013; Chaverdi et al. 2016.
24. Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1983; Boucharlat 2003; Gropp 2009.
95
This palace which I built at Susa: its materials were brought from
afar. The earth was dug down deep, until the rock was reached
in the earth. When the excavation had been made, then rubble
was packed down, some 40 cubits (=ca. 20 m) deep, another
(part) 20 cubits deep. On that rubble the palace was constructed.
And that earth, which was dug deep, and that rubble, which was
packed down, and the sun-dried bricks, which were moulded, the
Babylonian people—they performed (these tasks). The cedar tim-
ber was brought from a mountain called Lebanon. The Assyrian
people brought it to Babylon. From Babylon the Carians and
Ionians brought it to Susa. The sissoo-timber was brought from
Gandara and from Carmania. The gold which was worked here
was brought from Sardis and from Bactria. The precious stone
lapis lazuli and carnelian which were worked here were brought
from Sogdiana. The precious stone turquoise, which was worked
here: this was brought from Chorasmia. The silver and the ebony
were brought from Egypt. The ornamentation with which the
wall was adorned, was brought from Ionia. The ivory which was
worked here was brought from Ethiopia (=Nubia), and from
India and from Arachosia. The stone columns which were worked
here were brought from a village called Abiraduš, in Elam. The
stone-cutters who worked the stone were Ionians and Sardians.
The goldsmiths who worked the gold were Medes and Egyptians.
The men who worked the wood were Sardians and Egyptians.
The men who worked the baked brick were Babylonians. The
men who adorned the wall were Medes and Egyptians.25
Other architectural features were distinctively Achaemenid, such as the

double-headed bull capitals crowning the Ionian columns and the cross-
shaped tomb façades of Naqš-e Rustam and Persepolis, with their cen-
tral panel reminiscent of the columned palace façades of Persepolis and
the relief in the upper section of the cross-shaped façade depicting the
king worshipping before a fire altar under the auspices of Auramazda,
25. DSf §3–§4; see Kuhrt 2007: 492, no. 11.13 (i).
960
hovering above the scene in a winged disc. No precedent exists for this
type of funerary architecture, and its appearance remained the exclusive
privilege of the Achaemenid kings.26 The rhyton, the distinctive drinking
vessel ending in an animal protome and made of precious metal, gold
and silver, but also of bronze and occasionally clay, though originally
from Anatolia, became a symbol of exclusivity in Achaemenid Persia,
with its fluted top design and protome that featured lions, griffons, and
horned mythical beasts.27
65.3. The royal court and its hierarchy

The court of the Persian king encapsulated the social and cultural world
of ancient Persia. It is here that we can best observe the establishment
of hierarchies, of social behavior, attitudes, distinctions, and interactions
between individuals and groups of people, tribes, clans, and families, of
Persians and non-Persians alike. At the court, distinctions of rank were
determined by a courtier’s closeness to the king, and no doubt received
outer expression by signifiers of dress such as appliqués attached to the
clothing, textiles of different quality and colors, headdresses, and choice
and quality of jewelry and weapons. The official presentation of the
king and the Persian nobility followed a prescribed etiquette, which
may be described as a “theater of power,” which affirmed an individu-
al’s rank within the system and declared each person’s status to external
spectators.28 The public expression of such presentations at the court
included: the rites performed to mourn the death of the king and other
members of the royal family; the ceremony of the king’s investiture; the
celebration of birthdays; royal audiences; weddings, banquets, and hunts;
and the migration of the royal entourage between the royal residences at
26. On Persian funerary architecture, see Jacobs 2010.

27. On rhyta, see Ebbinghaus 1998; 1999; 2018.
28. Cf. Brosius 2011. On the Persian royal court, see Brosius 2007; 2010b; Rollinger
and Wiesehöfer 2009; Llewellyn-Jones 2013.
961
Persepolis, Susa, Babylon, and Ecbatana, with resplendent tents being

erected en route to accommodate the king’s household in style.
While, by definition, life at the royal court was first and foremost
orientated toward the king, the royal family, and the Persian nobility,
cultural norms and behavior established there permeated non-Persian
individuals and elite groups across the empire. On the one hand, this
was due to the presence of Persian satraps in the capital cities of the
provinces and their emulation of Persian court life and court practices,
which in turn were observed by local elites. On the other hand, it was
also determined by the willingness of these non-Persian elites to adopt
Persian cultural practices in personal appearance (i.e., wearing Persian
dress), emulating court life with its banquets and hunts, and borrowing
elements of Persian art and architecture. One may speak here of a pos-
sible “Persianization” of the non-Persian elite, which strove to appear in
the courtly fashion and manner of their Persian overlord. In this way,
elements of Persian culture, Persian ways of life, and Persian outer attes-
tations of grandeur and authority trickled down to the non-Persian elites
of the empire and cast their influence well beyond.
As the king took the highest rank in the pyramid of power, his appear-
ance, habits, cultural practices, and rites set the standard at the court.
His position was followed by different members of his immediate family,
starting with the son who was the designated heir to the throne, then the
further sons of the King’s Wife, followed by the sons of other women
of the palace (distinguishing between Persian and non-Persian women).
The king’s brothers and uncles, the King’s Mother, the King’s Wife, and
the royal daughters formed the core of the royal family. Next in rank
were the members of the Persian nobility, many of whom were in-laws
of the king’s family. Darius’s Bisotun Inscription gives us the names of six
noble families that were headed, in the late sixth century, by Intaphernes,
Otanes, Gobryas, Hydarnes, Megabyzus, and Ardumaniš (according
to Darius’s Bisotun inscription)29 who was succeeded by Aspathines
(according to one of Darius’s inscriptions at Naqš-e Rustam: DNd).
29. DB §68; see Kuhrt 2007: 149, no. 5.1.

962
What is less clear is how these Persian families related to the differ-
ent Persian tribes named by Herodotus, who stated that the Pasargadae
(Elamite Batrakataš) ranked highest, and that this tribe included the clan of
the Achaemenids (Elamite Haxamaniš). This information supports Cyrus
II’s and his predecessors’, as well as Darius’s, status as claimants to kingship.
No Maraphian or Maspian tribal identity (as listed by Herodotus)30 can
be assigned to any of the Persian nobles.31 The accompanying label on the
depiction of the façade of the tomb of Darius I at Naqš-e Rustam (DNc)
identifies Gobryas as a Patischorean (Old Persian *Pātišuvariš, Elamite
Battišmarriš), a tribe or clan that is not mentioned by Herodotus.32
Outside the Persian nobility, the Panthialaeans, Derusians, and the
Germanians worked the land, whereas Herodotus counted the Daians,33
the Mardians,34 the Dropicans,35 and the Sagartians36 as nomads. Little
information about the customs and habits of these groups has come
down to us. Curtius describes the Mardians as a tribe living in caves
whose “hair sticks out in shaggy bunches, their clothes are worn above
the knee, and they bind their foreheads with a sling which serves both as
a head-dress and a weapon.”37
30. Hdt. 1.125.3.

31. Both tribes are otherwise unknown; cf. Murray and Moreno 2007: 163.
32. For the identity of Otanes as a Patischorean according to the newly discovered
inscription DNf, see section 65.1.
33. The Daians most likely refer to the Dahā mentioned in XPh §3 (see Kuhrt
2007: 305, no. 7.88) that have been identified with the Scythian Dahae located in
the province of Hyrcania; cf. Potts 2014: 89–94. On the Dahae, see chapter 62 in
this volume.
34. Str. 11.7.1 locates the Mardians, also known as Amardians, between the Elburz
Mountains and the Caspian Sea; cf. Potts 2014: 94–99.
35. On the identification of the Dropicans with the Derbikes and their localization
in the eastern part of the empire, see Potts 2014: 99–102. On the Derbikes, see
36. The Sagartians, or Assargarta, were located in the eastern part of the empire; cf.
Potts 2014: 102–108.
37. Curt. 5.6.18. Cf. Potts 2014: 95.
963
65.3.1. The role of clothing

While the Persian ruling elite are easily identified as occupying the high-
est position in the social hierarchy, it is more difficult to determine to
what extent the Elamites and Medes were integrated into the royal court
and its power structure. Their importance to the Persians can be gauged
by their prime position in the procession of the delegates of the lands of
the empire on the Apadana reliefs. It is widely accepted in scholarship
that the Persian settlers of the region of Parsa (Greek Persis) underwent
a long process of peaceful acculturation with the indigenous Elamite
population,38 but it is difficult to determine whether, and to what extent,
the Elamite nobility had been integrated into the early Persian court.39
The same problem applies to the Medes; like the Persians, the Medes
were an Iranian people, but, unlike the Elamites, they had been con-
quered by Cyrus the Great in ca. 549 bc. Herodotus claims that the
Persians, eager to adopt foreign customs, adopted Median clothing styles
following the conquest of the kingdom, and indeed the Median delega-
tion on the Persepolis reliefs can be seen wearing a riding costume con-
sisting of trousers, shirt, and a high rounded cap. However, the fact that
the Persians’ own traditional riding attire consisted of trousers, shirt, and
a tall cap renders the adoption of a Median riding costume superfluous.
As for the Elamites depicted on the Apadana reliefs, they wear
Persian dress and a headband tightened with a knot. Their clothing dif-
fers in style from the Elamite dress known from Middle Elamite reliefs at
Šekaft-e Salman near modern Izeh, the twelfth-century bc bronze statue
of queen Napirasu, or, closer to our period, the Elamite dress worn by the
genius on the relief on the entrance gate in Pasargadae.40 Shapur Shahbazi
38. Cf. Henkelman 2003.

39. One indicator that a link existed between the Elamite and Persian elite may be
the use of Neo-Elamite cylinder seals, evidently appreciated as heirlooms, in the
Persian administration. To these belong the seal of Šeraš, daughter of the Neo-
Elamite king Hubanahpi (PFS 77*), and the seal of Cyrus I of Anšan carved in
the Neo-Elamite style (PFS 93*); see Garrison 1991.
40. Or, indeed, from the female figure on the ivory comb from the second coffin
from Susa; see Wicks et al. 2018: pl. 6.
964
has suggested that the Persian court dress was worn by both Persians and
Elamites, whereas the riding costume was worn by other Persian and
non-Persian groups such as the Medes, Armenians, Cappadocians, and
Parthians.41 This makes it rather difficult to distinguish Persians, Medes,
and Elamites on the basis of their clothing.
In contrast, distinctive garments can be identified for the delegations
from the empire’s regions. Each ethnic group among the representatives
of the peoples of the empire depicted on the Apadana reliefs, the door-
way reliefs of the Persepolis palaces, the reliefs at Naqš-e Rustam, and the
base of Darius’s statue from Susa can be identified on the basis of their
garments, headdresses, and shoes. Regarding the clothing of the Persians,
we can distinguish between riding outfits, Persian court dress, and the
shorter Persian dress. The riding costume consisted of a tunic (Greek
sarapis, but also referred to as chiton), and trousers (Greek anaxyrides).
Xenophon provides us with a description of the riding costume favored
by Cyrus II, who wore “his tiara upright, a purple tunic shot with white
(no one but the king may wear such a one), trousers of scarlet dye about
his legs, and a mantle (Greek kandys, Old Persian *gaunaka) all of pur-
ple,” with Xenophon then continuing:
“He also had a fillet about his tiara (diadema peri ten tiara) and his
kinsmen had the same mark of distinction, and they retain it even now.
His hands he kept outside his sleeves.”42 The long Persian court dress as
worn by the king was, according to Curtius Rufus,
a purple-edged tunic woven about a white center, a cloak of cloth

of gold, ornamented with golden hawks, which seemed to attack
each other with their beaks; from a golden belt, with which he
41. Shahbazi 1992.

42. Xen. Cyr. 8.3.13. In contrast to the Persian nobles who seemingly were obliged
to place their hands inside the sleeved coat to render them harmless (Xen. Hell.
2.1.8). This is not borne out in the reliefs of the noble Persians ascending the
staircase to the Apadana, who all carry a lotus flower in their hands, nor in the
audience relief. From a practical point of view, it is impossible to perform prosky-
nesis before the king and hide the hands (and flower) at the same time. On the
*gaunaka, see Llewellyn-Jones 2021.
965
was girt woman-fashion, he had hung a scimitar (Latin acinacem)

the scabbard of which was a single gem. The Persians called the
king’s head-dress cidaris (tiara) this was bound with a blue fillet
variegated with white.43
Curtius also claims that a special group, the spear-bearers (Greek doro
phoroi) took care of the royal robes.44 According to Democritus of
Ephesus, the Persian dress called aktaia was the most expensive garment:
It is woven compactly to make it strong and light, and it is covered

with gold beads; the beads are all attached to the inside by means
of a purple thread that runs through their middle.45
Archaeological finds of appliqués made of gold include rosettes, rhombs,

and volutes, as well as lion heads, horses, and goats. The bodyguards of
the Immortals also stood out due to their clothing; they wore golden
necklaces, garments adorned with cloth of gold, and long-sleeved tunics
adorned with gems.46 The short Persian dress, known to the Greeks as
kypassis, worn for hunting, was attested on seals and most prominently
on the Persepolis reliefs depicting the royal hero.47
The king’s headdress varied; on the audience relief, both the king
and the heir to the throne wear a high turreted crown, while the relief
at Naqš-e Rustam shows the king with a smaller turreted crown.48
43. Curt. 3.3.17–19.

44. Curt. 3.3.15.
45. Democr. apud Ath. 12.525d. For the manufacturing of Persian garments in Corinth,
see Rollinger 2020: 176–177. Plut. Vit. Alex. 36.1–2 notes the 5,000 talents’ weight
of purple from Hermione stored in the palace at Susa. Despite having been stored
there for 190 years, the purple had lost none of its luster, due to the honey used in
the purple dye, and the white olive oil in the white dye; cf. Rollinger 2020: 177.
46. Curt. 3.3.13.
47. Root 1979: 303–308.
48. According to Deinon FGrH 690 F26 (apud Ath.12.514a), the Persian king placed
an emblem on his head made of labuzos, which was more expensive than myrrh.
96
Greek writers used different terms to refer to the Persian headdress,

namely kitaris (or kidaris), tiara, and kurbasia, though the distinctions
between them are not always clear. Additional headdresses were worn
to accord with the specific types of clothing or the wearer’s status. In
Persepolis the palace guards wearing riding costumes had rounded caps;
those wearing the Persian court dress had fluted crowns; whereas those
depicted on the colored bricks from the palace at Susa wore bound
diadems.49 Royal and high-ranking women seem to have worn tur-
reted crowns, based on the evidence of various seals and funerary steles
from Asia Minor,50 as well as a high-relief figure of a woman in Persian
dress from Egypt (figure 65.2),51 and a saddle cloth from Pazyryk (in
the Altai Mountains in Siberia, south of the modern Russian city of
Novosibirsk).52
Jewelry was worn both by men and women, with torques, bracelets,
and earrings attested for both genders. For high-status individuals, such
jewelry was predominantly made of gold; earrings were often inlaid
with semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli, turquoise, and carnelian.
Torques could be a simple or twisted band ending in animal protomes, a
style used also for bracelets.
65.3.2. Court society at the royal palace and beyond

Within the palace hierarchy, the head of the administration oversaw
all activities at court. At the time of Darius I, this position was held
by his uncle Parnakka. From what can be inferred from the Persepolis
49. Servant headdresses resembled a cloth wound around the head and they covered
the chin and chest. Some riders wore caps which locked at the chin and featured
a neck cover, and thus acted as a kind of helmet. Rehm 2006a: 206 suggested
that this cap may have been made of felt.
50. For depictions of crowned women on seals and funerary steles, see Brosius 2010c.
51. Brooklyn Museum, New York (Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund; accession
no. 63.37).
52. The Pazyryk textile is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg (inventory no. 1687/100); see Brosius 2021: 121, fig. 7.4a-b.
967
Figure 65.2. Limestone plaque depicting a woman in Persian dress, middle

of fourth century bc; possibly from Memphis. Brooklyn Museum, New York
(Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, accession number 63.37). Photograph ©
Brooklyn Museum (63.37_PS9.jpg). Creative Commons-BY dedication.
Fortification texts, he managed the royal stores and supervised the dis-
tribution of food to workers. He himself received one of the highest
remunerations.53
53. Parnakka received a daily ration of 90 quarts of wine, 180 quarts of flower, and
two sheep. One quart equals 0.9 liters; see Lewis 1977: 5.
968
On the basis of archaeological evidence from Bisotun, Naqš- e

Rustam, and Persepolis, the king’s spear-, axe-, and bow-bearers took
prominent positions behind the king. These posts were held by high-
ranking Persian nobles who were trusted by the king. During the reign
of Darius I, these were Gobryas and “Aspathines, the bow-bearer, [who]
holds the king’s axe.”54 Other Persians who held royal offices at court that
gave them direct access to the king included the head of the king’s body-
guard (Elamite hazarapatiš), the head of the royal treasury (Elamite kan-
dabara), the chief scribe, the keeper of the gate, the priest(s), as well as
those members of the Persian nobility who acted as the king’s counselors,
royal judges, and the king’s eyes.
The king’s attendants included his personal servants, ointment-
bearers, the cup-bearer, the king’s parasol-bearer, the royal charioteer,
and the chair-bearer. This group attended to the king’s daily needs, pre-
pared and served his meals, and was in attendance wherever the king
was, within the palace complex as well as during his migrations between
royal capitals and during campaigns. Reliefs in the doorways of the One-
Hundred-Column Hall in Persepolis depict parasol-bearers and atten-
dants walking behind the king holding a fly-whisk, as well as servants
carrying perfume, ointment bottles, and towels. The images of the king
on these door jambs no doubt presented the king performing ceremonies
connected with court life and court ritual.
Other attendants were responsible for ensuring the king’s comfort
when traveling, either on foot, by horseback, or in the royal chariot.
Their depiction on the reliefs in the staircases leading up to the throne
hall testifies to the fact that the king regarded their inclusion in this
scene as an expression of court practice. The servants carried carpets and
rugs, ready to place before the king, whose foot was never to touch the
ground, as Heracleides of Cyme discussed in his book on the history of
Persia:
54. According to the labels DNc (Gobryas) and DNd (Aspathines) that accompany
their depictions in the relief on the façade of Darius’s tomb at Naqš-e Rustam.
Aspathines probably succeeded Ardumaniš in office after Darius’s accession to
the throne.
96
Through their (=the bodyguards’) court also the king would go

on foot, Sardis carpets, on which no-one else but the king ever
walked, having been spread on the ground. And when he reached
the last court he would mount his chariot, or sometimes his
horse; but he was never seen on foot outside the palace.55
As personal attendants who had frequent and close access to the king,
these servants held positions which required complete trust and loy-
alty and were predominantly recruited from among the members of the
Persian nobility.56 The allocation of these tasks was probably subject to a
careful balance which created a hierarchy even among this group.57
Outside the palace, the Persian elite took office as satraps across the
empire. In many cases the brothers, uncles, sons, and in-laws of the king
can be identified holding this office. As satraps in the provinces of the
empire, they represented the Persian king, and their courts mirrored that
of the king accordingly. As his representatives, the satraps safeguarded
the king’s law, ensured the collection of taxes for the king, and levied
troops at the king’s request. We may assume that they were also respon-
sible for the celebration of official royal ceremonies at the local level, as
well as the observation of the royal cult of Auramazda. The concept of
imperial high office was based on the idea of appointing close members
of the family, as well as giving a share of power to the nobility through
marriage to a female member of the royal court. In this way, a Persian
court society was created across the empire that established Persian cul-
tural life in the satrapies and aided the dissemination of Persian culture.
55. Heracleides of Cyme FGrH 689 F1 (apud Ath. 12.514c).

56. See, e.g., Patiramphes, son of Otanes, who was Xerxes’s chariot driver (Hdt.
7.40); cf. Briant 2002: 310.
57. Whether the attendants of the king should be identified as courtiers or merely as
members of the household staff is difficult to establish. While they may not have
been courtiers in the strict sense, i.e., holding an official position of authority and
the ability to participate in the decision-making process, with a view to improv-
ing their position, the indication that these attendants were of noble descent
must mark them as members of the court.
970
65.3.3. Meritocracy and gift-giving

Separate from the divisions of court hierarchy, satraps and courtiers were
also distinct from one another through the practice of royal gift-giving.
A key aspect of the king’s attitude toward these men involved recogniz-
ing individual officials and acknowledging their loyal service through an
elaborate system of bestowing gifts. Satraps and courtiers were singled
out by the king via the types of privileges granted and the form of gifts
bestowed on them. This, in turn, led to a hierarchy between the nobil-
ity, courtiers, royal staff, and administrators. Each individual within this
hierarchy identified with his role and his—in a way—unique relation-
ship to the king, and this order of rank was acknowledged by the court-
iers themselves. No doubt, this meritocratic system resulted in members
of the nobility competing with one another, and constantly vying for a
better position within the hierarchy. Any status attained remained pre-
carious, as the privileges bestowed by the king could be revoked at any
moment. Accordingly, members of the nobility were required to contin-
uously demonstrate their worthiness for their position within the order
of rank.58
According to Xenophon, the practice already existed at the time of
Cyrus II:
And whenever Cyrus wished to honor anyone it seemed to him

proper to address him by name. Furthermore, it seemed to him
that those who were conscious of being personally known to
their general exerted themselves more to be seen doing some-
thing good and were more ready to abstain from doing any-
thing bad.59
58. The question arises of whether the royal ceremony of gift-giving found its equiva-
lent at the satrapal courts. As the satraps emulated the king’s court (cf. Miller
2011: 336; Wright 2021), did they also distribute gifts to members of their courts,
and beyond to the local elites, who cooperated with them?
59. Xen. Cyr. 5.3.47–48.
971
It was equally clear that these gifts were a political means to an end:
[H]‌e used to reward with gifts and positions of authority and

seats of honor and all sorts of preferment others whom he saw
devoting themselves most eagerly to the attainment of excellence,
and thus he inspired in all an earnest ambition, each striving to
appear as deserving as he could in the eyes of Cyrus.60
The kind of gift and its quality elevated one courtier above another, and
expressed favor and standing with the king.
The gifts themselves were ranked and signified the level of esteem
bestowed by the king on the recipient.61 They included horses with
golden bridles, jewelry such as bracelets and necklaces, weapons such
as daggers (Greek akinakes), bowls (Greek omphalos), and jars (Greek
amphora) and cups or beakers (Greek phiala) made of either gold or
silver, and royal robes. Otanes, son of Parnakka, is said to have been
an annual recipient of such a robe in recognition of his declining the
kingship.62
The highest honor a noble could receive was to be given a king’s
daughter in marriage, as a reward for loyal service to the king. This was
an honor that simultaneously bound a Persian noble closer to the king
and ensured his continued loyalty. It was bestowed upon Tissaphernes
after he had proved himself in his support for King Artaxerxes II (404–
359 bc) against the rebelling Cyrus the Younger. Equally, Orontes and
Pharnabazus were honored with marriages to royal princesses, as were,
under Darius III (335–330 bc), Mithrodates and Spithrobates (the
60. Xen. Cyr. 8.1.39. Cf. Xerxes addressing his cavalry and infantry prior to battle,
“riding in a chariot past the men of each nation he questioned them, and his
scribes wrote all down till he had gone from end to end of the horse and foot”
(Hdt. 7.100.1–2).
61. At the same time, they affirmed the king as the gift-giver to whom the newly
awarded prestige was owed; see Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989: 139–140; Briant
2002: 305.
62. Hdt. 3.84.1.
972
satrap of Ionia), in return for services rendered to the king. In contrast,

Tiribazus’s impending marriage to Atossa, one of Artaxerxes II’s daugh-
ters, was canceled after Tiribazus fell out of the king’s favor.
Some individuals at the court were awarded a special honor and
received the status of King’s Friend (Greek philos)63 or King’s Benefactor
(Greek euergetes).64 A King’s Friend was a member of the court who was
allowed to join the King’s Table, meaning that he had the privilege of
dining with the king at the king’s invitation. It is important to recog-
nize that even within the group of the King’s Friends, an order of social
rank existed.65 The king bestowed the status of King’s Benefactor upon
individuals and groups of people whom he wished to reward for acts of
loyalty.66 These individuals were not exclusively Persian, but included
foreigners as well. They could receive land, estates, and cities, while
other gifts were identical to those awarded to the Persian nobles. As
with the latter, the design and quality of the metal and precious stones
used to produce these items, the color and embroidery of the textiles
used, as well as the quality of craftsmanship all identified the royal gift,
and singled out its recipient among his peers.67 For example, a statue of
the Egyptian administrator Ptahhotep, who served under Darius I,68
depicts him wearing a Persian-style torque which ends in two ibex heads
63. See Wiesehöfer 1980. The Persian term orosangai which Herodotus gives for
Greek euergetes may derive from an Old Iranian word *varusaŋha, with a pos-
sible meaning of “widely known”; cf. Schmidt 1967: 131.
64. The distinction between a King’s Friend and a King’s Benefactor was not always
clear-cut; cf. Wiesehöfer 1980: 10–11.
65. Cf. Wiesehöfer 1980: 13. This would not least be reflected in the distinction
between Persians and non-Persians who held the status of a King’s Friend. It is
possible that a ranking order existed among these as well.
66. Cf. Wiesehöfer 1980: 15.
67. On the creation of a “service aristocracy” of the king, see Wiesehöfer 2001: 37.
On gift-giving, see Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989: 135–137.
68. In his inscription, Ptahhotep refers to himself as “hereditary prince and count,
royal sealer and unique companion, great in his office and important in his rank,
the chief of all the king’s works and the head of the treasury” ( Jansen-Winkeln
1998: 163–165: “Erbfürst und Graf, der königliche Siegler und einzigartige
973
looking away from each other. It was evidently a mark of his high status,
and he wanted it prominently featured on the statue he had made and
placed in the temple of Ptah in Memphis.69 The statue of Udjahorresnet,
most likely installed in the temple of Osiris at Sais, shows the Egyptian
administrator under Cambyses II, and later Darius I, wearing a pair of
Persian-style bracelets.70 A funerary stele of Yehaw-milk, king of Byblos,
depicts him wearing a Persian court dress, which may possibly have been
a royal gift (figure 65.3).71
The king also bestowed gifts on visitors:
As for the gifts made by the Great King to ambassadors, who came
to him from Greece and elsewhere, this is what they were: he gave
to each one Babylonian talent of coined silver, and two silver cups
(Greek phialai) of one talent (the Babylonian talent is sixty-two
Attic minas). He also presented them with bracelets, a curved
sword and a torque—a total value of one thousand darics—
and further a Median robe. The name of this robe is dorophoric
(=“presented as a gift” in Greek).72
Freund, groß in seinem Amt und bedeutend in seinem Rang, der Leiter aller
Arbeiten des Königs und Vorsteher des Schatzhauses”).
69. The statue of Ptahhotep is kept in the Brooklyn Museum, New York (accession
no. 37.353). For a discussion, see Colburn 2014: 791–794 and also chapter 61 in
this volume.
70. The statue of Udjahorresnet is housed in the Vatican Museum (inventory
no. 196); see also chapter 61 in this volume.
71. The stele of Yehaw-milk from Byblos is now in the Louvre (inventory no. AO
22368). What is striking about the image is that Yehaw-milk presents himself as a
king dressed in Persian dress, wearing a crown reminiscent of those worn by the
Persian king, and even wearing Persian-style hair and beard. Above all, he is mak-
ing a gesture of prayer which is familiar to us from the praying gesture of Persian
kings, e.g., Darius I. For the inscription, see Gibson 1982. Further evidence for
the adoption of Persian dress can be found on a terracotta statuette from Assos
dated to the mid-fifth century, and a statuette excavated at Kelenderes in Cilicia
dated to the fourth century bc; cf. Miller 2011: 328 with n. 62.
72. Ael. VH 1.22. Whether this term applied solely to the robe or also described
other royal gifts is unclear.
974
Figure 65.3. The funerary stele of Yehaw-milk, king of Byblos, from Byblos.
The bearded and long-haired king is depicted in Persian dress, with a long
pleated robe, a cylindrical headdress, and a dagger in his belt. Louvre, AO 22368.
Photograph © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) /René-Gabriel Ojeda.
975
Thus, according to Herodotus, Cambyses presented the Nubians with

gifts that were brought to them by a people called Fish-Eaters:
When the Fish-Eaters arrived from Elephantine at Cambyses’

summons, he sent them to Ethiopia with orders what to say, and
bearing as gifts a red cloak and a twisted gold necklace and brace-
lets and an alabaster box of incense and an earthenware jar of
palm wine.73
And according to Xenophon, Cyrus the Younger gave the ruler of Cilicia
gifts “which are regarded at court,” including a horse with a gold-mounted
bridle, a gold necklace and bracelets, a gold dagger and a Persian robe.74
While these examples illustrate the cultural practice of gift-giving
and the ways in which royal gifts could be distributed and disseminated
across the empire, it is intriguing to note that the gifts for the king, borne
by the foreign delegations on the Apadana staircase, precisely resemble
the gifts the king passed on to others.75 Evidently, they adhered to an
imperial standard. The bales of cloth, wool, and textiles were presumably
intended to be manufactured into Persian garments, whereas bowls, bea-
kers, jars, jewelry, and daggers were crafted in the style of Achaemenid
royal art. This was only possible if these objects were created in satrapal
workshops across the empire which, in turn, can mean two things: one,
that a system of royal redistribution of precious goods may have existed,
which is to say that the king was given these gifts from the lands of the
empire to be redistributed as gifts to individuals in the king’s service;
and, two, that objects crafted in the satrapal workshops were used at local
levels to award local elites with gifts adhering to the royal standard.76
73. Hdt. 3.20.1.

74. Xen. An. 1.2.27.
75. This observation was first made by Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989; cf. also Miller
2010: 855–856, 875.
76. See Miller 2010; Dusinberre 2003; Kistler 2010. We possess a striking image from
the Egyptian tomb of Petosiris in Hermopolis, dated tentatively before 300 bc,
976
65.4. Key aspects of court ceremonial

65.4.1. Access to the king
At court, the Persian king was simultaneously omnipresent and elu-
sive: he was omnipresent in the sense that he inhabited the palace and all
activity centered around his person, and elusive in that actual access to
the king remained a privilege and an exception. As access to the monarch
was deliberately limited, the person of the king became a unique figure
that was removed from all other members of the court.77
To maintain his extraordinary position, the king had to remain a
singular figure, set apart especially from the members of the nobility.
Those who were allowed to enter the king’s presence were privileged
above all others. Apart from members of the royal family, this privilege
was bestowed upon the heads of the six Persian noble houses who had
supported Darius I in his claim to kingship.78 Whether this privilege
was passed down to subsequent generations of these houses is difficult
to ascertain, although the continued close links that can be identified
between the king and the members of the Persian nobility suggest that
this was the case. Nobles who enjoyed access to the king were set apart
from those who did not, as a noble’s closeness to the king meant close-
ness to power, which in turn affected his standing among his peers.
For most visitors to the palace, direct access to the king was
unthinkable and was managed by members of court. Anyone seeking
permission to speak with the king had to be accompanied by a court-
ier and announced by the royal staff-bearer. This official therefore
of a craftsman manufacturing a Persian-style rhyton with hammer and punch,

whereas another artisan is shown working on a four-horse support made of
metal. The crafting of the rhyton is remarkable in that this drinking vessel does
not appear as one of the gifts in the Apadana reliefs; yet its evident local fabrica-
tion means that the use of Persian style rhyta in drinking ceremonies continued
to be in fashion after the end of the Persian Empire; cf. Boardman: 2000: 185–
186, fig. 5.67a-b.
77. Perhaps this was a custom adopted from the Median court, as Herodotus claimed
(Hdt. 1.99.1).
78. Hdt. 3.70.
97
held a key position at the court, mediating between the king and his
supplicants.79
65.4.2. Audiences with the king

An audience with the king followed strict protocol and was a privilege
granted to few individuals. The supplicant’s approach to the king, escorted
by a Persian courtier, and the respect and subservience shown to the king
were part of the king’s reception of the supplicant. Following the depiction
of this scene on the so-called audience relief from Persepolis, the visitor
paid his respect to the king with a slight bow while he held his right hand
in front of his lips. These audiences may have taken place to receive del-
egates, ambassadors, and supplicants. The appearance of similar audience
scenes on reliefs, seals, and bullae from other parts of the empire supports
the conclusion that this event counted among the key features adopted by
local satraps and rulers in their own courts. Most notable is the audience
scene on a relief from the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus, which depicts a
satrap dressed partly in Greek (chiton) and partly in Persian fashion (soft
cap) who is seated on a throne and receives two visitors dressed in a chi-
ton. Behind the satrap, a servant holds up a parasol, and behind this man
are three courtiers, one of whom carries a round shield.80
65.4.3. Funerary rites for the deceased king

At the king’s death, an official mourning period was declared across
the empire. The eternal fires which burned during his reign were extin-
guished and only relit upon the accession of the new king. Presumably
Persian funerary ritual followed Babylonian practice, which meant that
at the king’s death a mourning period of forty days was proclaimed.81
79. On the royal staff-bearer, see Lewis 1977: 16; Briant 2002: 259.
80. On the royal audience scene, see Kaptan 1996; 2002.
81. Cf. the Nabonidus Chronicle on the mourning period kept after the death
of Cyrus’s wife Cassandane in 538 bc; see Grayson 1975: 110–111: Chronicle
7: iii 22–24.
978
It was essential that the king’s body was returned to Parsa. As to the
manner in which this occurred, we have to rely on archaeological data
from the western part of the empire. The body was placed on a funerary
cart pulled by a pair of horses; it was followed by mourners, seemingly
female.82 In the case of the body of Cyrus II, it was laid to rest in his
tomb at Pasargadae, a single chamber tomb with a gabled roof placed on
a six-stepped pyramidal base.83 It was situated within an irrigated park
including trees and grass areas. Inside the tomb chamber
lay a golden sarcophagus in which Cyrus’ body had been buried;

a couch stood by its side with feet of wrought gold; a Babylonian
tapestry served as a coverlet and purple rugs as a carpet. There was
placed on it a sleeved mantle and other garments of Babylonian
workmanship. According to Aristobulus, Median trousers and
robes dyed blue lay there, some dark, some of other varying
shades, with necklaces, scimitars and earrings of stones set in
gold, and a table stood there.84
Priests guarding his tomb sacrificed a horse each month to Cyrus;

they themselves received rations of one sheep a day, a certain quantity
of foodstuffs, and wine.85 We may trust Arrian’s description based on
Aristobulus’s account, that the king was buried with luxury items and
other burial goods.
It is noteworthy that the body was placed inside a sarcophagus; this
would seem to match the evidence of the burial spaces cut into the rock
82. See the upper tier of the stele of Dascylium or the wooden beam from the tomb
chamber from Tatarlı; see Summerer 2007a; 2007b; Miller 2011: 323.
83. There are two similar tomb structures in Persia, one at Gur-e Dukhtar, the other
at Takht-e Gohar. For the Pyramid Tomb at Sardis being based on Cyrus’s tomb,
see Dusinberre 2003: 140–141; Miller 2011: 321–322. Dusinberre 2003: 142
argues convincingly for the cultural mix including Lydian funerary practices and
Persian “funerary banqueting patterns that conformed to certain customs of the
conquerors.” On the unfinished tomb of Cambyses, see Kleiss 1980.
84. Arr. An. 6.29.5–6.
85. Arr. An. 6.29.7.
97
behind the tomb façades at Naqš-e Rustam and later at Persepolis, which
allowed the excavator Erich Schmidt to assume that sarcophagi made of
wood and/or metal would have been placed inside these cavities.86 It is
possible that the body was treated with wax in order to preserve it.87 As
the Achaemenid tombs could accommodate multiple sarcophagi, it must
be assumed that other members of the king’s family were buried there.
It is not certain whether a funerary banquet took place in honor of
the deceased king or of other deceased members of the king’s family.
There is evidence for the celebration of funerary banquets on behalf of
the deceased from Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean, and Asia Minor.
A notable example from Egypt is the depiction of a funerary banquet
on a stele from Saqqara, dated between 525 and 404 bc. The deceased
is dressed in a Persian robe, seated on an Achaemenid-style high-backed
chair, and holds a bowl in one hand and a lotus flower in the other.
Before him stand two servants and a table with foodstuffs, including
a bird. There is an additional table with various jars and containers.
The accompanying inscription, written in hieroglyphic and Demotic,
identifies the deceased as the son of a Persian father and an Egyptian
mother: “Djedherbes son of Artama, born of the lady Taneferether.”88
86. Schmidt 1970: 88; cf. Jacobs 2010: 99. A bronze sarcophagus from Susa con-
tained the body of a woman, richly adorned with jewelry, and provided for with
alabaster containers and omphaloi. Cf. Frank 2013; and now Wicks et al. 2018
for the discussion of a second bronze sarcophagus from Susa and the possible
connection to Elamite funerary practices. For the sarcophagus burial in Sardis,
see Dusinberre 2003: 136, 159–164. Buried alongside the male body were four
ceramic vessels, a gold ring, a seal, and three gold foil appliqués.
87. Hdt. 1.140; Str. 15.3.20. Burial practices for the Persians seem to have differed
from those for the Magi, as Strabo claims in the same passage that their bodies
were exposed to be cleaned by vultures.
88. Cf. Mathiesen et al. 1995. As this is seemingly how a member of the Persian elite
wanted to be depicted, the question is from where this motif of the funerary
banquet with a single seated figure originated. In my view, a case can be made
that the motif of the seated banqueter derives from Elam. An Elamite seal dated
to the beginning of the first millennium bc depicts a seated figure wearing a long
dress and holding a cup at his lips, seated before a table which holds three further
containers. Before the scene stands a servant with a fly whisk (Louvre, inventory
no. Sb 6177). Even more intriguing is the Neo-Elamite relief from Susa (Louvre,
980
Figure 65.4. A cylinder seal and its modern impression. Archaeological

Collection, University of Zurich, inv. no. 1961. Photographs by Frank Tomio. ©
Archaeological Collection, University of Zurich.
A close parallel for this depiction of the single seated banqueter is found
on a Persian-period seal of unknown provenance, but thought to be from
Iraq (figure 65.4).89 The seal depicts a bearded man on a high-backed
chair, wearing the long Persian dress and a crown. Seated before a table
laid out with foodstuff, he holds a bowl in his right hand and a lotus
flower in his left. A servant in Median dress stands in front of the table,
while another servant wearing Persian dress stands behind the seated
man, holding a fly whisk and a towel. Above the scene hovers the winged
disc of Auramazda.
Further depictions of funerary banquets from Lydia show the
deceased relining on a kline (a couch), often accompanied by at least
inventory no. Sb 2834) that shows a woman with a carefully coiffed bobbed hair-
style, holding a spindle, in front of a table laden with foodstuffs including fish.
Behind the woman stands a servant with bobbed curly hair, holding a fly whisk.
In contrast, note the difference between the Egyptian style of the scene show-
ing the embalming of the body in the upper tier of the Saqqara stele and the
“Persianizing” depiction of the funerary scene on a fifth-century bc stele from
Memphis (Ägyptisches Museum Berlin, inventory no. 23721), which shows the
body of a Persian male with a long curly beard and hair, wearing a high rounded
cap and lying on a kline. The scene is framed by one female and two male mourn-
ers and sphinx-like creatures (or sirens) at the top. The top left corner depicts a
male mourner holding a horse.

89. Archaeological Collection, University of Zurich, Switzerland (inventory
no. 1961); published in Rehm 2006b: 218.
981
one female. While the idea of using a kline in the funerary banquet
scene may have originated in Lydia, these representations undergo a
noticeable Persian influence once the region was integrated into the
empire.90 Thus, a funerary stele from Dascylium depicting a funerary
banquet shows a male reclining alongside a crowned female seated on
a high-backed throne, each holding a Persian-style bowl.91 A striking
example is known from a wall painting at a tomb at Karaburun in Lycia,
where the deceased is shown holding a funerary banquet, reclining on a
couch and holding a bowl in the manner of the Persians, with three fin-
gers (figure 65.5);92 he is accompanied by two attendants. The so-called
Atrastas Stele from Sardis in Phrygia, dated to 330–329 bc, depicts a
man dressed in a Persian-style dress reclining en couchant with a female
seated at the foot of the kline.93 The depictions of such scenes on grave
steles from Lydia allowed Elspeth Dusinberre to suggest that the kline
in Cyrus’s tomb, as well as other grave goods required for a funerary
banquet, was adopted from Lydia.94
The funerary rites of Cyrus II thus combined practices from sev-
eral culturally distinct areas of his realm: the use of a sarcophagus
hints at Elamite practices, while the kline was a feature adopted from
Mesopotamia and/or Lydia. In turn, with the establishment of the
empire, a Persian influence can be observed in the funerary imagery of
western Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean.
90. Cf. Dusinberre 2003: 135. The presence of klinai in Lydian tombs pre-dates
the Persian period; cf. Baughan 2013. For the increase of such tombs in the
Persian period, see Draycott 2016, for whom the western Anatolian banquet-
ing images are part of a wider eastern Mediterranean–based development. The
“Persianizing” influence on these images should be differentiated from the sug-
gestion that the motif of the funerary banquet derived from the Persian court.
91. Istanbul Archaeological Museum, inventory no. IAM 5763.The funerary ban-
quet and its possible origin have recently been discussed by Draycott 2016.
92. Mellink 1971: 251–255, pl. 55–56; Miller 2011: 329.
93. Istanbul Archaeological Museum, inventory no. IAM 4030; cf. Dusinberre
2013: 93.
94. Dusinberre 2013: 137.
982
Figure 65.5. A: A dignitary depicted at a funerary banquet, reclining on

a couch and holding a bowl. Scene of a wall painting from Karaburun tomb
near Elmalı in Lycia, ca. 475 bc. B: Closeup of the hand and bowl, showing that
the vessel is held with three fingers in the Persian manner. Reproduced from
Mellink 1971: pl. 55, fig. 24; pl. 56, fig. 26.
983
65.4.4. The royal investiture

The royal investiture was celebrated at the end of the mourning period
observed for the death of the preceding king. The new king received a
divine sanction from the god Auramazda, to whom the king offered
a sacrifice and celebrated with a banquet.95 At his investiture the king
received the official insignia of kingship, including the royal robe, a spe-
cial pair of shoes, his crown, the royal staff, and his royal seal.96 Members
of the royal court, the Persian nobility, the satraps, and possibly also
delegates from the lands of the empire witnessed the divine approval of
the new king and publicly acknowledged his reign. The king may have
used his investiture to confirm or dismiss individuals in high office,97 to
confirm or invalidate treaties,98 and to bestow gifts on members of the
Persian nobility and loyal subjects.
The celebrations took place in Pasargadae, the first Persian royal res-
idence, paying homage to the empire’s founder and in memory of the
humble background of the Persians. Before the king could wear the royal
robe, his tiara, and the other paraphernalia of kingship, he put on the
robe Cyrus wore before he became king, ate terebinth, and drank sour
milk.99
We may assume that an official celebration was held at the proclama-
tion of the heir to the throne. At this time, the heir would take an official
throne-name, and receive the kitaris headdress and the lotus flower as
symbols of his new status. He also was allowed to join the king at official
audiences.100 Undoubtedly there were a number of other events which
required the presence of the court, including the celebration of the king’s
95. Diod. Sic. 17.83.7.

96. Polyaenus Strat. 7.7.17.
97. Diod. Sic. 11.71.1.
98. Hdt. 7.151–52.
99. Plut. Vit. Artax. 3.1–2; see Wiesehöfer 2001: 32; Brosius 2004.
100. Cf. Brosius 2004.
984
birthday.101 On this occasion a banquet was held during which the king
anointed his head and presented gifts to the Persians.102
65.4.5. Royal weddings

Royal weddings were major official celebrations. According to Arrian,
the mass weddings at Susa in 324 bc were celebrated according to Persian
custom: chairs were placed in a certain order, presumably reflecting the
importance of each participant, and after a drink, the brides entered
and sat down next to their respective bridegrooms, who then took their
brides’ hands and kissed them.103 Plutarch has the guests for the wed-
ding feast reclining on couches, their number totaling 9,000. Each one
was given a golden cup for the libations.104 Chares of Mytilene, himself
court-marshal to Alexander the Great, provides a very detailed descrip-
tion of the wedding ceremony:
When he (=Alexander) took Darius prisoner, he celebrated

a marriage feast for himself and his companions, having had
ninety-two bedchambers prepared in the same place. There was
a house built capable of containing a hundred couches; and in
it every couch was adorned with wedding paraphernalia to the
value of twenty minas, and was made of silver itself; but his own
bed had golden feet. And he also invited to the banquet which he
gave, all his own private friends, and those he arranged opposite
101. See Hdt. 1.133: “The day which every man most honors is his own birthday. On
this he thinks it right to serve a more abundant meal than on other days; before
the rich are set oxen or horses or camels, or asses, roasted whole in ovens; the
poorer serve up the lesser kinds of cattle.”
102. Hdt. 9.110.2. Herodotus calls this banquet tukta, meaning “perfect” in Greek
(Hdt. 9.102). It may derive from Old Persian *tuxta. This passage allows us to
draw a link between banquets and gift-giving, confirming, perhaps the official
character of the gift-giving ceremony. Still, one event could also take place with-
out the other.
103. Arr. An. 7.4.4.
985
to himself and the other bridegrooms; and his forces also belong-
ing to the army and navy, and all the ambassadors which were
present, and all the other strangers who were staying at his court.
And the apartment was furnished in the most costly and magnifi-
cent manner, with sumptuous garments and cloths, and beneath
them were other clothes of purple, and scarlet, and gold. And,
for the sake of solidity, pillars supported the tent, each twenty
cubits long, plated all over with gold and silver, and inlaid with
precious stones; and all around these were spread costly curtains
embroidered with figures of animals, and with gold, having gold
and silver curtain-rods. And the circumference of the court was
four stadia. And the banquet took place, beginning at the sound
of trumpet, at that marriage feast, and on other occasions when-
ever the king offered a solemn sacrifice, so that all the army knew
it. And this marriage feast lasted five days.105
65.5. Women at court

As already indicated above in section 65.4.5, the importance of the
women of the court lay in their marriageability to high-ranking Persians,
and, after the fall of the empire, to Macedonian nobles. In both cases,
women had no say in that matter, but had to submit to the marriages
arranged for them, most likely by the king and the male members of the
Persian nobility. Yet in other respects, certain women held a high status
at court, and, following the given pattern, at the satrapal courts as well.
At the royal court, the wife and the mother of the king held extraor-
dinary positions. No specific titles are attested for them, but their status
sufficed to mark them as the King’s Mother and the King’s Wife. The
generic designation to refer to the women of the palace was the Elamite
term dukšiš, which translates as “princess.” Both the King’s Mother and
King’s Wife joined the king for his meals; whether they participated in
105. Chares of Mytilene FGrH 125 F4 (apud Ath. 12.538b–e).

986
royal banquets is not entirely clear, but it seems likely. One source even
suggests that royal women held their own banquets.106 The question of
whether women joined the king’s banquet is still a matter of dispute.
Heracleides of Cyme remarked that the king dined with his wife and
his mother;107 according to his testimony, women did participate in the
king’s banquet but left at a certain point in the celebrations.108
High-ranking women apparently held audiences for female visitors
and supplicants. This may be a practice inherited from the courtly tradi-
tions of the Neo-Elamite period, as a Neo-Elamite seal depicts Šeraš, the
daughter of the Elamite ruler Hubanahpi, in an audience scene with all-
female participants.109 In this scene, Šeraš is seated on a throne and holds
what appears to be a shallow bowl. A female servant with a fly whisk
stands behind her, while an incense burner is placed in front of her, sepa-
rating her from the female supplicant, who also holds a shallow bowl in
her hand. All three women wear long dresses and their hair is cut in a
bobbed style.
Parallel scenes are found on several cylinder seals from the Persian
period. One such seal features an audience scene with a woman seated
on a high-backed throne, her feet resting on a footstool. She is depicted
wearing a Persian court dress, a turreted crown, and a long veil that falls
down her back. In her right hand she holds a lotus flower. In front of her
stands a female servant holding a bird; behind an incense burner stands
the female supplicant, who also wears a Persian court dress and a crenel-
ated crown with a veil. In her hand she appears to be holding a lotus
flower.110 The scene is very reminiscent of the royal audience scene from
Persepolis. Similar scenes depicting female audience scenes were carved
106. According to Esth 1:9–12, the King’s Wife celebrated a banquet parallel to that
of her husband.
108. Heracleides of Cyme FGrH 689 F2 (apud Plut. Mor. 140b).
109. PFS 77*; see Garrison 1991.
110. Louvre, inventory no. AO 22359 (formerly in the collection of Louis de Clerq),
and cf. also the seal from the Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, NY (inven-
tory no. C16496), as published and discussed in Lerner 2010.
987
on steles from Asia Minor.111 The motif even appears to have been trans-
ferred to Lycia, where we identify a similar scene on the west face of the
so-called Harpy tomb from Xanthos.112
In terms of dress and appearance, there are strong indicators that
royal women wore crenelated crowns and bobbed hairstyles. They wore
pleated dresses held together by a long belt, seemingly matching the gar-
ment worn by the Persian king on the audience relief of the Apadana in
Persepolis. A striking image of this appearance is a high-relief figure of
a Persian lady from Egypt (figure 65.2; section 65.3.1): like that of the
king and the Persian nobles, her jewelry includes a torque, earrings, and a
bracelet. She is depicted from a full frontal perspective, a position that is
otherwise only attested for Darius I in his statue from Susa.113 Her hands
are held in a hand-over-wrist gesture known from Elamite art, specifi-
cally from the bronze statue of Queen Napirasu and the reliefs at Šekaft-
e Salman dated to the Middle Elamite period.114
Two points are significant here. The first is the fact that this and other
images of Persian women suggest they wore a dress identical in style to
the one worn by the king and the Persian nobility. The women’s dresses
may have been woven from different fabrics and may have had different
colors, but their style was identical to those worn by men. The fact that
they also were depicted wearing crowns is equally intriguing. Further
examples can be found in a fourth-century textile, which was part of
a saddle cloth discovered in a tomb in Pazyryk in Siberia.115 Here two
111. Cf. Brosius 2010c.

112. Our only written testimony of the presence of a royal woman at a king’s audi-
ence comes from the Book of Nehemiah, in which Nehemiah, the wine steward
of Artaxerxes I (464–424/423 bc), remarked that the King’s Wife was seated
next to the king when he spoke about his wish to travel to Jerusalem (Neh
2.1–6).
113. Compare the statue of Artystone that Darius I commissioned for her as his
favorite wife (Hdt. 7.69.2).
114. For Naparisu, see Root 1979: 273; for a discussion of the reliefs at Šekaft-e
Salman, see Álvarez-Mon 2018.
115. The saddle cloth is kept in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inven-
tory no. 1687/100).
98
pairs of women can be seen standing opposite one another, separated by

an incense burner. The taller women wear crowns and veils above their
bobbed hairstyles, together with long appliquéd dresses. The fabric was
produced locally but copied Persian court style. Similarly, a funerary stele
from Dascylium shows a banquet scene with a reclining male with his
wife seated beside him on a high-backed chair. Seated women depicted
on Lydo-Persian gems and finger rings show these women crowned and
wearing pleated dresses, but here their hair is gathered into long braids
that fall down their backs.
We may regard these depictions of women as mirroring representa-
tions from the center, as it is highly likely that women of the provincial
elite, or wives of officials from the upper levels of the Persian admin-
istration, copied the Achaemenid style of Persian royal women. What
precisely the attested features are meant to indicate is not always cer-
tain. Most importantly, what are the implications of the fact that the
women wore dresses, hairstyles, and jewelry identical to those sported
by their husbands or sons? If the extraordinary position of royal and
noble women was defined by their relationship to men (i.e., the king, the
king’s brothers and sons who acted as satraps), one could surmise that
the women were decked out in identical fashion as reflections of their
male relatives.
It was customary for women to travel in covered carriages, called
harmamaxa in Greek. They not only traveled in the king’s entourage,
but also privately, as women owned estates and workforces in Persis
and in other satrapies. As they traveled with their own personnel and
attendants, we can expect that their travel arrangements were compa-
rable to those of the king, and that they made use of tents and the other
paraphernalia needed to dine en route. This would constitute an addi-
tional opportunity for Persian court practice to be observed by the local
elite and subsequently copied. Whether, as Plutarch claimed, it was the
Persian king’s custom to give each woman a gold coin on his return to
Parsa, cannot be verified, but the fact that Alexander upheld this custom
may support his assertion.116

98
65.6. Education at court

According to Herodotus, Persian boys remained under the protection of
women until the age of five, after which their education was put into the
hands of men until the age of twenty. The reason that boys were secluded
was to spare their fathers the grief they might experience, should their
sons die before the age of five. Plato made reference to this early educa-
tion in the hands of women, regarding it as a sign of Persian effeminacy
and decadence.117 Once in their fathers’ charge, their education focused
on riding, archery, and telling the truth.118 Contrary to Plato’s accusa-
tion, there is little to fault with the notion that infants and small children
were in the care of the women in the royal household, and it is equally
plausible to suggest that the boys’ training as riders and archers began
after the age of five and was in the hands of male adults. As for telling
the truth, Herodotus emphasized that the Persians detested lying above
all else.119 It is possible that Herodotus was referring to the virtue called
arta in Old Persian, which we translate as “Truth” or “Order,” and which
is opposed to drauga, “the Lie,” which included disloyalty and rebellion
against the king. In this case, his claim may reflect the Persian virtue so
frequently invoked in the royal inscriptions, namely, to follow the Truth/
Order, and not rebel or show disloyalty.
For Xenophon, education for boys focused on learning justice. To
that end, they would put on trial any of their peers who were found
to have committed a crime; ingratitude was regarded as the vilest of
offences—anyone failing to return a favor would be punished:
For they (=the Persians) think that the ungrateful are likely to
be most neglectful of their duty toward their gods, their parents,
their country, and their friends.120
117. Pl. Leg. 694d–695a.

118. Hdt. 1.136.
119. Hdt. 1.138.1.
120. Xen. Cyr. 1.2.6–7.
90
Persian education also included training in self-control and in show-

ing appropriate respect for one’s superiors, and the pupils ate with their
teachers, taking along food brought from home.121 Starting at the age
of sixteen or seventeen, the boys were considered to be young men, and
their duties at court changed accordingly.
65.7. Banqueting with the king

In his description of a royal banquet, Heracleides of Cyme provides us
with an impression of the hierarchical order and of the importance of
court ritual. This was reflected in the preparation of the meal itself, but
was especially reflected in the king’s selection of his guests from among
the nobility, the gathering of those invited to join the king, and the seat-
ing order at the banquet. The guest list not only identified the respective
standing of each of the courtiers, but also presented an opportunity for
the king to showcase his generosity and inclusivity toward his subjects.
After the banquet, a few chosen participants continued to drink with the
king, again following a strict seating arrangement and highlighting the
great chasm separating the king from his dining companions by the use
of different wines for the king and his guests.
All who attend upon the Persian kings when they dine first bathe
themselves and then serve in white clothes, and spend nearly half
the day on preparations for dinner. Of those who are invited to
eat with the king, some dine outdoors, in full sight of anyone who
wishes to look on; others dine indoors in the king’s company. Yet
even those do not dine in his presence, for there are two rooms
opposite each other, in one of which the king has his meal, in the
other the invited guests. The king can see them through the cur-
tain at the door, but they cannot see him. Sometimes, however,
on the occasion of a public holiday, all dine in a single room with
the king, in the great hall. And whenever the king commands a
121. Xen. Cyr. 1.2.8.

91
symposium (which he does often), he has about a dozen compan-

ions at the drinking. When they have finished dinner, that is, the
king by himself, the guests in the other room, these fellow-drinkers
are summoned by one of the eunuchs; and entering they drink
with him, though even they do not have the same wine; moreover,
they sit on the floor while he reclines on a couch supported by feet
of gold; and they depart after having drunk to excess. In most cases
the king breakfasts and dines alone, but sometimes his wife and
some of his sons dine with him. And throughout the dinner his
concubines sing and play the lyre; one of them is the soloist, the
others sing in chorus. ( . . . ) For one thousand animals are slaugh-
tered daily for the king; these comprise horses, camels, oxen, asses,
deer, and most of the smaller animals; many birds are also con-
sumed, including Arabian ostriches . . . , geese and cocks.122
Those who were invited to dine with the king were by no means a set
group of nobles. According to Xenophon, the seating order changed
according to the king’s personal preferences for his guests:
Cyrus thus made public recognition of those who stood in his

first esteem, beginning even with the places they took when sit-
ting or standing in his company. He did not, however, assign the
appointed place permanently, but he made it a rule that by noble
deeds any one might advance to a more honored seat, and that if
anyone should conduct himself ill he should go back to one less
honored. And Cyrus felt it a discredit to himself, if the one who
sat in the seat of highest honor was not also seen to receive the
greatest number of good things at his hands.123
Therefore, an invitation to the royal banquet amounted to an official

declaration of favor with the king; it was an expression of high rank and

123. Xen. Cyr. 8.4.5.
92
privilege. As much as dining with the king was a privilege for any mem-
ber of court who was invited, in the context of military campaigns the
privilege was extended to the king’s generals and commanders who were
invited to join him.124 The reliefs on the staircase leading to Darius’s pri-
vate palace provide us with an impression of the preparations for such
a banquet. Servants can be seen carrying dishes, wineskins, sheep, and
goats. These scenes suggest that Darius’s palace served as the king’s pri-
vate dining room, separate from his dinner guests who were accommo-
dated in the great hall, in the manner described by Heracleides.
65.8. Hunting with the king

Hunting was the privilege of the Persian king and the Persian nobility
and an unequivocal manifestation of power. As a Persian royal pastime,
it was adopted from the Assyrian and Babylonian courts. As an exercise
involving many members of the court, it also served as a military prac-
tice, providing training in the use of bow and arrows, spears, and scimi-
tars. The killing of wild beasts such as lions, Persian leopards, boars, deer,
gazelles, and birds also proved an individual’s prowess to his peers.
When the king goes out hunting he takes out half the garrison; and
this he does many times a month. Those who go must take bow and
arrows and in addition to the quiver, a sabre or bill in its scabbard;
they carry along also a light shield and two spears, one to throw, the
other to use in case of necessity in a hand-to-hand encounter. ( . . . )
As their king is their leader in war, so he not only takes part in the
hunt himself, but sees to it that the others hunt too.125
Royal protocol was followed even during the hunt. The king had the
right to take the first shot at the designated prey. Disregard for this rule
had severe consequences, as the king’s son-in-law Megabyxos experienced
124. Cf. Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989: 133–135.

125. Xen. Cyr. 1.2.9–10.
93
Figure 65.6. Line drawing of the impression of the cylinder seal of Irdabama
(PFS 51) from Persepolis, depicting an onager hunt. Courtesy of the Persepolis
Seal Project.
when he—believing the king to be in danger—shot the first arrow at a

lion. Megabyxos was banished from the court and his privileges were
withdrawn. It was only after the intervention of his mother-in-law,
Queen Amestris, and his wife Amytis, that he was eventually allowed to
return to the court.126 Hunting scenes were favored motifs on seals, and
we see Persians fighting an array of wild animals. The seal of Irdabama
(PFS 51; figure 65.6) shows a hunting scene with onagers; and Darius
I himself is identified on a seal from Egypt in which he is depicted on a
chariot during a lion hunt.127
Particularly noteworthy in this context are the hunting scenes on steles
and sarcophagi from the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia Minor.
Subject of a recent study by Alessandro Poggio, hunting scenes on dynas-
tic funerary monuments are identified as an important expression of the
artistic language of the eastern Mediterranean,128 which reflected a set of
ideological values shared by the ruling elite in the eastern Mediterranean
during the Persian period. Prominently represented in Assyrian art, hunt-
ing scenes corresponded to an ideology of power,129 and as such were
126. Ctesias FGrH 688 F14 (40).

127. The seal is now in the British Museum (BM 89132).
128. Poggio 2020: 44.
129. Poggio 2020: 63.
94
adopted by the Persian Empire.130 As in the case of the funerary banquet

motif, the Persian artistic elements introduced in the hunting scenes
reflect the influence of the imperial court, in the depiction of hunting
practices such as the group hunt, and the artistic details of hunters dressed
in Persian clothing. The prevalence of the hunting motif on funerary art
in western Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean allows Poggio to
identify a degree of competitiveness among the dynasts of the eastern
Mediterranean to outdo one another in the splendor of their (funerary)
architecture. As has been argued, the imitation of the king (imitatio regis)
can be seen to be directly linked to Persian imperial power.131
65.9. Traveling with the king: the royal tent

It was customary for the Persian kings to move between royal capitals
according to the season. The sources differ as to when the king and his
court were at which royal capitals. While Athenaeus claimed that the
king “spent the winter in Susa, the fall in Persepolis, the spring in Babylon
and the summer in Ecbatana,”132 Xenophon stated that
Cyrus (II) himself made his home in the center of his domain,
and in the winter season he spent seven months in Babylon, for
there the climate is warm. In the spring he spent three months in
Susa and at the height of the summer two months in Ecbatana.
By doing so, it is said, he enjoyed the warmth and coolness of per-
petual springtime.133
Traveling with his entourage meant that the royal family, their staff, and
royal attendants and the 10,000 Immortals migrated across the empire,
130. Poggio 2020: 58.

131. Poggio 2020: 115 with n. 4. On the influence of the imagery of the royal hunt
beyond the Persian Empire, see Poggio 2020: 117–119.
132. Ath. 12.513.
133. Xen. Cyr. 8.6.22.
95
on horseback, in carriages, and on foot. This royal “spectacle” passed

along the royal roads, where royal storehouses supplied the foodstuffs
for the entourage. For the duration of travel the king and the royal fam-
ily stayed in tents, a practice well attested for campaigns, when the king
stayed with his soldiers, sharing the same food, while occupying a central
position around which the tents of his army were pitched:
And for himself Cyrus had a tent made big enough to accommo-
date all whom he might invite to dinner. Now he usually invited
as many of the captains as he thought proper, and sometimes also
some of the lieutenants and sergeants and corporals; and occa-
sionally he invited some of the privates, and sometimes a squad
of five together, or a squad of ten, or a platoon, or a whole com-
pany in a body. And he also used to invite individuals as a mark
of honor, whenever he saw that they had done what he himself
wished everybody to do. And the same dishes were always placed
before those whom he invited to dinner as before himself.134
A practice that may have originated in Mesopotamia was the presence

of the king’s family and that of certain nobles in the army train. Curtius
provided the most detailed description of Darius III’s army train, in
which royal women appear alongside the female relatives of the Persian
nobles.135 A fire carried on two silver altars in front led the train, fol-
lowed by the magi, 365 men in purple robes, white horses pulling the
chariot of Auramazda, one horse of the sun, ten chariots, horsemen of
twelve nations, 10,000 Immortals, 15,000 king’s kindred, spear-bearers,
the king’s chariot, 10,000 lancers, 200 king’s relatives on the right and
left, 30,000 infantry, 400 king’s horses, the chariot of the King’s Mother,
and one of the King’s Wife, the women of the queen’s household on
134. Xen. Cyr. 2.1.30. On the royal tent, see von Gall 1977; Potts 2019.
135. The presence of royal woman in the army train of the Assyrian Empire is
attested by the monument of Adad-nerari III of Assyria (819–783 bc), which
records that his mother Šammu-ramat had accompanied him on his campaign
against the king of Kummuh: Grayson 1996: 204–205, no. A.0.104.3.
96
horseback, the king’s harmamaxa for children and eunuchs, 365 concu-
bines, 600 mules, 300 camels, the wives of the king’s relatives and friends,
the troops of sutlers and batman, the band of light-armed troops.136
The splendor of the royal tents must have been extraordinary. After
the Battle of Plataea in 479 bc, Pausanias ordered the helots to recover
the spoils, finding “tents adorned with gold and silver, and couches gilded
and silver plated and golden bowls and cups and other drinking vessels.”137
The tent of Xerxes I (485–465 bc) had been left with Mardonius with its
display of gold and silver and brightly colored tapestry;138 there were also
richly covered couches and tables of gold and silver “and the magnificent
service of the banquet.”139 So impressive was the scale of the tent that it
served as the model for the music hall built in Athens: the Odeon was
constructed on a square ground plan with 90 columns supporting the
ceiling.140 After the Battle of Issus in 333 bc, Alexander took possession
of Darius III’s tent which according to Plutarch was “full to overflowing
with gorgeous servitors and furniture and many treasures.”141 Phylarchus
described the tent as follows:
(Alexander) had a tent capable of containing a hundred couches,

and fifty golden pillars supported it. And over it were spread
golden canopies wrought with the most superb and costly
136. Curt. 33.8–16; cf. Arr. An. 2.11.9–10; Curt. 3.8.12; Plut. Vit. Alex. 24.1.
137. Hdt. 9.80.1.
138. Hdt. 9.82.1; see von Gall 1979.
139. Hdt. 9.82.
140. Paus. 1.20.4: “Near the sanctuary of Dionysus and the theater is a structure,
which is said to be a copy of Xerxes’ tent.” The space measured 62.4 × 68.6 m,
providing a space of 4,280 square meters. The roof was made of the masts of
Persian ships: “The music hall which Themistocles surrounded with stone col-
umns, and roofed with the yards and masts of ships captured from the Persians.
It was burned during the war with Mithridates, and afterwards restored by King
Ariobarzanes” (Vitr. 5.9.1).
141. Plut. Vit. Alex. 20.11. On the suggestion that Alexander appropriated Darius’s
tent, see Collins 2017.
97
embroidery, to shade all the upper part of it. And first of all, five
hundred Persian melophori (literally, “apple-bearers”) stood all
around the inside of it, clad in robes of purple and apple-green;
and besides them there were bowmen to the number of a thou-
sand, some clad in garments of a fiery red, and others in purple;
and many of them had blue cloaks. ( . . . ) In the middle of the tent
was placed a golden chair, on which Alexander used to sit and
transact business, his body-g uards standing all around.142
65.10. Persepolis, the embodiment

of Persian culture
After Pasargadae, the royal city founded by Cyrus the Great, the city
of Parsa (best known as Persepolis, “The City of the Persians”) became
under Darius I the representational center of the Achaemenid kings.
While Pasargadae continued to be recognized as the spiritual center of
the Persian dynasty, Persepolis epitomized Achaemenid culture. Darius’s
throne-hall (Old Persian apadana, thus the modern designation as the
Apadana for the entire building) was elevated 3 m above the palace
grounds, featured 6 × 6 columns with a height of 20 m and was comple-
mented by two staircases at the north and east walls that allowed access
to the hall; it must have been a dazzling sight for any visitor.
The One-Hundred-Column Hall, completed under Artaxerxes I,
must have been no less mesmerizing, with its 10 × 10 columns placed on
a square ground plan measuring 4,700 square meters in total. It may well
have served as a banqueting hall for the royal court. Yet it is on the reliefs of
the Apadana walls that the splendor and atmosphere of the Achaemenid
court comes to life. The reliefs depicting the delegates of the lands of the
empire on one side, and the courtiers and Immortals on the other, seem
to portray a specific event which brought them together to bring before
the king, and in the presence of the members of the court, their gifts of
142. Phylarchus FGrH 81 F41 (apud Ath. 12.55d–e).

98
livestock, cloth, weapons, jewelry, and dishes crafted in Achaemenid court

style. The interior walls of the staircases depict courtiers joyously ascend-
ing toward the throne-hall, at ease in the expectation of meeting (and din-
ing with) the Persian king, as they chat to one another, pat each other on
the shoulder, or turn their heads to look at the person behind them.
Whether these scenes reflect an idealized situation or a real event is a
question for debate, along with the question of Persepolis’s function—a
key issue for understanding the cultural significance of this palace com-
plex for the Persians. Some scholars interpreted Persepolis as a religious
center, especially as the location of the celebration of the New Year festival
in March.143 But there is little support for this, and especially the idea that
Persepolis was the location of the New Year festival has been conclusively
disproved, as recent scholarship has shown that the king spent the spring
season in Susa.144 Current scholarship favors the view that Persepolis was
the representational center of the empire, where the delegations from all
the regions of the empire delivered their annual tribute to the king. This
event was demonstrably celebrated with a huge banquet, as the imag-
ery on the staircases leading up to Darius’s adjacent private palace (Old
Persian taçara) depicts servants in Persian dress transporting foodstuffs
and banqueting equipment, including wineskins and tableware, into the
king’s private palace. Beyond that, Persepolis functioned as the imperial
center where day-to-day activities took place throughout the year, ranging
from tax collection and accounting to the management of local affairs,
such as ongoing construction work and the payment of workers’ salaries.
65.11. “Persianization”: Persian culture

in the empire and beyond
We will now address the issue of the presence and dissemination of
Persian culture both within and outside the Persian Empire. To this
143. Thus Widengren 1965; Eliade 1971.

144. On the cuneiform documentation that demonstrates that the Persian king
received Babylonian visitors at Susa at that time of the year, see Waerzeggers 2010.
9
end we must investigate the mechanisms of Persian cultural influence on

other regions, which resulted in the adoption and adaptation of Persian
cultural traits: a process we may call “Persianization.”145
The Persian influence on the local cultures across the empire is beyond
doubt. The adoption of Persian cultural life is evident in the imitation of
the royal or satrapal lifestyle and in the use of royal motifs and features in
art and architecture. The adaptation of Persian art reached a point where
the artistic motifs and architectural elements were applied in a manner
that no longer resembled Achaemenid Persian royal art, but rather cre-
ated a “Persianized” art.146 The question arises whether the process of
“Persianization” was initiated and endorsed from above, namely by the
Persian king and the ruling Persian elite, and to what extent it was a con-
sequence of a Persian presence within the satrapies and the subsequent
desire on the part of the local elites to emulate a Persian lifestyle. How
was this phenomenon brought into accord with the desires of the local
rulers to strive for and express their own cultural identity, both within
the Persian Empire and outside it?
While it would seem to be a natural process for local elites to adapt
the material and visual expressions of Persian culture to reflect their own
status, either in relation to the Persian court or by setting themselves
apart from those excluded from the use of these signifiers, the ques-
tion remains whether the king and the Persian ruling class accepted the
widespread appropriation of the practices and symbols of Persian court
culture by local elites. It seems that no distinction was made between
the use of Persian elements in funerary banquet scenes or those of the
(royal) hunt, and the use of royal Achaemenid motifs such as audience
scenes, and the emulation of distinctive Achaemenid architecture such
as palace façades, columns, and bull-headed capitals on local represen-
tational buildings. The use of architectural elements, such as the bull-
headed capital, the sphinx, the motif of the lotus flower, and indeed the
145. The seminal contribution on this subject is still Miller 2002, followed by her
subsequent research, especially Miller 2007; 2010; 2011. Cf. also Brosius 2010a.
146. On Persian and Persianizing artifacts in burial contexts, see Miller 2002;
2011: 324–325.
10
construction of banqueting halls are indicators that a non-Persian elite

emulated a Persian lifestyle and/or showed its connection with the royal
center and the king.147 It allows us to argue that the adoption of Persian
lifestyle and culture at local levels was accepted at the imperial level,
which exercised little if any control over which social groups affected a
“Persianized” lifestyle. It thus appears that the extent to which Persian
culture was adopted and adapted was a process independent from the
king and the court, whether this happened within conquered kingdoms
placed under Persian sovereignty, such as the kingdom of Lydia with its
own long-established cultural traditions and identity (chapter 51 in this
volume), within the sphere of local dynasts who established their power
in the shadow of Persian rule, or within regions outside the Persian
Empire.
But if this “Persianization” of local elites was not channeled down
from the imperial level, what enabled this appropriation of imagery
originating at the Persian royal court? Let us return to the practice of
gift-giving. The officials in the satrapies and also the local dynasts were
part of the court hierarchy and its meritocratic system. Even if they were
on the periphery of this system, local dynasts still had a vested interest
in publicly displaying their link to the Persian king. It meant that they
readily accepted the Persian model as a standard and readily underwent
“Persianization” while simultaneously maintaining or creating their own
local identity within their displays of power. Being part of the Persian
imperial order meant that they also needed to represent their status, and
they did so by emulating Persian culture and social habits. In a further
step, local dynasts and local officials contributed to the dissemination of
these adopted cultural traits among their peers, and also among those in
their service. There may have been a competitive element among local
dynasts to outperform one another in their imitation of the Persian king
(imitatio regis: section 65.6).
“Persianization” was not an explicit policy that was issued from the
imperial center, although a series of mechanisms were put in place to
ensure that non-Persians strove to pursue it. Above all else, the Persian
147. Miller 2011.

10
royal court embodied the imperial model on which one’s own power
and status were based. Local kings or governors wanted to depict their
authority and power employing the catalogue of cultural norms and
artistic expression associated with the royal court. To do so, they may
not have required explicit permission from the Persian king, but we may
assume that the king, and also his satraps, had a vested interest in the
widespread dissemination of these images. To that end, even royal imag-
ery, such as the audience scene, belonged to the catalogue of desirable
imperial motifs to be emulated at local levels.
65.11.1. “Persianization” in the dependent

regions of the empire
If we ask to what extent the expression of a “Persianized” lifestyle by local
rulers equaled the acceptance of political dependence on the Persian cen-
ter (or in its absence, political independence), my inclination is to argue
that those attitudes are intertwined. One example where this is particu-
larly evident is the Nereid Monument ascribed to Kheriga of Xanthos.
This building reflects a symbiosis of Greek and Persian elements, and
the themes of the reliefs (audience and banquet scenes) are manifestly
Persian in character. As Pierre Briant has stated,
it was first and foremost the image of power that these kinglets
could outwardly show by exhibiting a symbolism of power that
was strongly inspired by the ideological and iconographic codes
that regulated the court of the Great King.148
The choice of these symbols of power is deliberate. The dynast of

Xanthos, striving for the upper hand over other contenders such as
Perikle of Limyra, used those images that most strongly linked himself
to royal power: an audience scene; scenes of court life epitomized by a
banquet scene that contained Persian elements; and hunting scenes that
148. Briant 2002: 672. For a recent discussion of the monument, see Poggio
2020: 22–24.
102
echoed the Persian royal hunt. The use of these images may not neces-
sarily have equaled the Xanthian dynast’s political submission to the
Persian king, but they certainly signaled his recognition of that king,
and with it his authority. Kheriga of Xanthos and his successor Arbinas
quite possibly maintained a diplomatic relationship with the Persian
satrap of Lydia at Sardis. With this connection, it was inevitable that
they would have entered the world of the Persian court, and accordingly,
the “Persianizing” expression of power derived directly from the impe-
rial center.
The use of architectural designs that we may identify as “imperial
motifs” by local rulers undoubtedly expressed an affinity with the Persian
king and demonstrated allegiance, if not a degree of identification, with
the imperial ruler and his court. As the king intended for the satraps to
represent him as closely as possible and to emulate Persian court life,
local rulers in turn emulated satrapal courts in order to strengthen their
own authority at the local level, emphasizing their own importance to
their subjects by showcasing their close ties with the Persian king while
expressing, directly or indirectly, their allegiance to imperial power.
The inclusion of these two aspects of “Persianization” is also appar-
ent in the Hecatomnid architecture found at Labraunda, where the pres-
ence of Persian-style features is striking. Winfried Held identified three
buildings (designated as Andron A, Andron B, and the Oikoi Building)
that were built using a mixture of Ionian and Dorian building styles.
Andrones A and B are representative banquet buildings whose entrance
façades resemble those of Greek temples, and the roof of Andron B was
decorated with male bearded sphinxes. Although these sphinxes are
certainly the work of a Greek craftsman, their type is Persian as they
parallel specimens known from Persepolis and Susa. These buildings at
Labraunda have previously been criticized as barbaric misinterpretations
of Greek forms.149 In contrast, Held has argued that the high quality
and originality of the architecture demonstrate that the local rulers of
the Hecatomnid dynasty, who held the rank of satraps of Caria, were
well aware of Greek architecture and did not build in this way out of
149. Cf. Held 2011: 384.

103
ignorance. Rather, these banquet halls were deliberately designed to

appropriately represent the ruler in the given political context and in
their role as the satraps of Caria. By integrating features of Persian and
Carian representational architecture into Andron B, Mausolus strove to
display the “cosmopolitan” nature of his rule to the Carian koine that was
assembled at Labraunda. Thus, the Persian-style sphinxes of Andron B in
particular should be regarded as a public expression of his allegiance to
the Persian king.
Held compared the Persianizing architecture at Labraunda with a
contemporary temple dedicated to the god Eshmun at Sidon. Between
390 and 370 bc, Abd-Aštart I (also known as Straton I) of Sidon, a con-
temporary of Mausolus, had a new temple built from marble atop an
older structure dating to ca. 500 bc. The outside of the temple build-
ing is remarkable for its pronounced Ionian-style architecture as well
as its acroteria, which are reminiscent of the sphinxes from Labraunda.
Inside, the temple’s square ground plan with four columns matches a
well-known architectural pattern attested in Persian royal and satrapal
architecture, and the columns’ protomes feature bull-heads, reminiscent
of those known from the palaces at Persepolis and Susa. The Eshmun
temple therefore deliberately combined Ionian and Persian building
traditions within the same architectural context (Ionian on the outside,
Persian on the inside). Just like Mausolus’s banqueting hall at Labraunda,
which was built around the same time, the Eshmun temple exhibits a
highly innovative, nontraditional architectural design of high quality.
The rulers who had these monumental buildings designed and built
did not do so out of ignorance, but followed a deliberate decision to create
a new architectural form. The Persian-style sphinxes were used as akrote-
ria at both Labraunda and the Eshmun temple at Sidon with purpose: as
Held argues, they are representative of the buildings of Persian satraps.150
When one evaluates the blend of architectural designs in its own cultural
and historical context, rather than comparing it unfavorably to Greek
models, it can be argued that the satraps’ and other local rulers’ integra-
tion of architectural designs from various regions was meant to reflect
150. Held 2011: 388.

104
the same inclusive approach that defined the Achaemenid Persian court
style: innovative design through the incorporation of different regional
traditions. The architecture commissioned for these prominent build-
ings by Mausolus, satrap of Caria, and Straton I, king of Sidon, showcases
the self-representation of these local rulers and their alignment with the
Persian imperial project.
We should also mention in this context a representational building
that was most likely commissioned by a local governor at Meydancıkkale
in Cilicia and mirrored the style of an Achaemenid palace.151 The
remains of column bases allow us to reconstruct the main building as a
Persian-style columned hall, which was enlarged at a later point in the
Achaemenid period. The building plan seems to reflect a simplified ver-
sion of the audience hall in Persepolis, and the wall reliefs show male
gift-bearers, reminiscent of those depicted in Persepolis.
Building on Winfried Held’s argument that the rulers of
Halicarnassus and Sidon deliberately incorporated imperial design and
adding the further evidence of Persian-influenced architecture in Cilicia,
and also Lycia,152 we can now draw several conclusions. First, Mausolus
of Halicarnassus not only emphasized his link to the Persian king by the
use of an imperial signifier (the sphinx) in his banqueting hall (Andron
B), but more importantly, he adopted the royal concept of creating an
all-inclusive architecture that reflected his key cultural and political rela-
tionships. Beyond that, the comparison of Andron B and the Eshmun
temple of Sidon demonstrates that Mausolus’s approach was not unique.
Apparently, Straton I of Sidon, the king of a prominent Phoenician city-
state, regarded his rule and his position vis-à-vis the Persian Empire in
similar terms as the satrap of Caria: as a local ruler who accepted the
151. Meydancıkkale can most likely be identified with Kiršu, the capital city
of Pirundu, which is mentioned in the year 557/556 bc in the Babylonian
Chronicles when Neriglissar king of Babylon (560– 556 bc) campaigned
against the city; see Held and Kaptan 2015.
152. Note the Heroon of Limyra, commissioned by Perikle and combining Greek,
Persian, and western Anatolian traditions, which seems to signal that Perikle
saw himself as an independent ruler who, however, shared certain values of the
Persian Empire; see Şare 2013: 58; Poggio 2020: 25–26.
105
imperial ideology, and who used imperial signifiers expressing his link
with the Persian king in order to show his allegiance to the overlord,
while at the same time demonstrating his authority over his own subjects.
65.11.2. “Persianization” beyond the empire’s control

The cultural impact of Achaemenid Persia on kingdoms such as
Macedon and the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace has been recognized
in recent scholarship.153 The Persian Empire served at least in part as a
model for the Macedonian court and similarly, Persian cultural influence
is tangible in the court life of the Odrysian kingdom. From the mid-fifth
century bc onward, select Persian motifs and Persian-style vessels (phia-
lai, rhytha, jugs) as well as jewelry (bracelets, torques, earrings) appear
in Thrace, indicating an appreciation and adaptation of Persian luxury
objects in the aftermath of the Persian military incursion.154
Only a few objects can be identified as having been made directly by
Achaemenid craftsmen; most were produced locally, pointing to close
contacts with Persian gold-and silversmiths. Luxury objects are likewise
well attested in the Caucasus region, and the north Pontic coast. The
Persian-inspired luxury objects found all around the Black Sea show that
an intensive Persian-Greek exchange must have taken place at the level
of artistic ideas and metal production at the demand of the Thracians,
Scythians, and Caucasians. We can identify Greek craftsmen, and their
production of Persianized luxury goods, in many of the Greek cit-
ies of the Pontus, as key figures in the interaction between Persia and
the neighboring regions. Many of the objects appear in the context of
the Odrysian royal court. The Greek inscriptions on phialai naming
Thracian kings are reminiscent of the inscribed phialai and other ves-
sels of the Persian kings, and may allude to their similar use as royal gifts
as a practice adopted from Persia. Other objects, like the rhytha, were
153. See, e.g., Carney 1993; Brosius 2010d.

154. For a survey on the artistic influence on gold and silver objects from Thrace, see
Archibald 1989.
106
adapted into shapes very different from their Persian originals, possibly
hinting at independent artistic developments.155
65.12. In conclusion
The Persian kings and their court created a distinctive culture which was
both an amalgamation of older courtly and cultural traditions and an
innovative system of the expression of power and ideology through social
and cultural traits. As the core region of a world empire, Achaemenid
Persia shaped the lands that it ruled, casting its influence over local elites
and their lifestyles. The multifaceted aspects of Persian culture became a
desirable entity, a standard model for how to express court life with all its
luxury in dress, dining, lifestyle, and funerary practices. It left its cultural
mark on newly established kingdoms and empires, including Macedon,
Thrace, and, after its fall, the Seleucid Empire.
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104
105
Index
For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53)
may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages.
Tables and figures are indicated by t and f following the page number
Ab’amar Ṣadiq, 334–36 Achaemenes

‘Abd, 710–11, 719 alleged dynasty founder, 381–83,
Abd-Aštart I, 701–2, 1003 387, 417, 427–29
Abiraduš, 450–51, 959 satrap of Egypt, 465, 748–49, 757
Abiyate, 271–72 Aciamus, 199
Abradatas, 789n.12 Ada of Caria
Abreha, 325–26 I, 613t
Abrocomas, 428–29, II, 613–14, 613t
482n.257, 706–7 Adad-nerari III, 245, 995n.135
Abuleutos. See Abulites Adam’s Peak. See Sri Pada
Abulites, 546–47 Adapa, 130–31
Abu Simbel, 31, 40–41, 43 Adda-g uppi’, 127–28
Abusir, 7, 30–31, 43, 56 ‘Addi ’Akawiḥ, 348–51
Abyafa‘, 340 Aden, 330–31, 340–42
’Abyan, 314 Adikran, 60
Abydos Adiya, 271–72
in Egypt, 58–59 Adon, 22, 25
in Phrygia, 617–18 Adousius, 611–12
Abyssinians, 303 Adramyttium, 213, 617–18. See also
Acesines River, 862–63. Edremit
See also Chenab Adulis, 348–51
106
1016 Index
Adummatu, 240–41, 269–70 Akes River, 801–2

Adyattes, 201–3 Akhetaten, 185–86. See also Tell
Aegean Sea, 214–15, 460, 493, 601– el-Amarna
3, 635–36, 888, 889, 894, 902, Akhvamazda, 493
908–9, 910–11, 912–17, 926 Akkad, 107–8, 110, 114, 142, 145–
Aelian, 492, 494–95 46, 384, 392–93, 662, 664,
Aelius Gallus, 310–12, 323 668, 704
Aeolia, 619–20 Akko, 696–98
Aeschylus, 408 Akpinar, 186
Aesop, 194–95 Akra, 860–62
Afghanistan, 529–30, 790–91, 823, Aksum, 348–51, 353
845, 851, 868, 870, 896 al-Bayḍa’, 311–12, 332–33.
‘Afraw, 344–45 See also Našq
Ağaca Kale, 629–30 Alarodii, 571–72
Agathocles, 954–55 Alcim(i)us, 199
Agesilas, 751–52 Alcman, 194–95
Agesilaus II, 612–13, 618–19, 620–21 Alexander Amyntas, 424n.5
Aghurmi, 59–60 Alexander III the Great, 3–4, 190,
‘Aglibun, 284 223, 310–11, 410, 422t, 439, 490,
Agradates, 390. See Cyrus I 497–500, 501, 526, 544, 546–
Agron, 201 47, 568, 569, 585, 586–87, 608t,
Ahava, 720–21 612, 613t, 620–21, 622t, 624–26,
Aḥiab, 711 624t, 629–31, 632–34, 632t,
’Ahi’ummih, 260 635–36, 659–60, 675–76, 678–
Ahmose 81, 694, 740, 757, 773, 793–94,
III (pharaoh) (see Amasis) 800–1, 803–4, 810, 812–14,
Neferibranakht, 40–41 815–16, 818–20, 823–24, 845–
son of Paiuenhor, 760–62 46, 857–58, 862–63, 864–65,
Ahura Mazda, 787–88. 868–69, 891–94, 912–13, 917,
See also Auramazda 951–52, 984–85, 988, 996–97
Ahvaz, 541–42 Alexandria
Aḥzai. See Aḥiab in Arachosia, 845–46
Ainara, 431–32 in Egypt, 47, 48, 194–95
Akalan, 634–35 Alexandropolis. See Alexandria
Akanosh of Sebennytos, 11 (Arachosia)
Akaufačiya, 838, 859–60 Alexicles, 42–43
Akchoris, 915–17 al-Hait. See Fadak
107
Index 1017
Alkaios of Mytilene, 194–95 Amheida, 59–60, 747–48

al-Khuraybah. See Dedan ’Amir, 323, 345, 357
al-Manat, 266 Amisos, 634–35
’Almaqah, 311–13, 314–19, 320–23, ‘Amm, 340
326–30, 334–36, 344–45, 348– ‘Ammkarib, 340
52, 353, 355–56, 359, 362–63 Ammon
al-Masaǧid, 355–56 (country) (see Bit-Ammani)
al-Mina, 694–95, 698, 701–2 (god), 404–5 (see also Siwa)
al-Nasim, 276–77 ‘Ammrata‘, 340
Alogune, 469–72 Ammu-ladin, 271–72
Altai Mountains, 965–66 Amorges, 790–91, 792–93
Altıntepe, 574–76. See also Erzincan Amrit, 694–95
al-‘Ula. See Dedan Amu Darya, 499, 571–72, 792. See
al-‘Uzza, 266 also Oxus River
Alvand. See Elvand Amukanu, 114. See also Bit-Amukani
Al-Yahudu, 703–4, 717 Amun, 6, 12–15, 30, 33, 47, 50, 51–
Alyattes 52, 56–57, 58, 59–60, 65–66,
II, 208–9 762, 764
III, 182, 209–10, 211–13, 219 Amun-Ra, 38–39, 58, 59–60
Amaseia, 632–34 Amuq valley, 660–61
Amasis (pharaoh), 3, 4–6, 7–8, 14– Amyntas, 954–55
15, 16, 17–19, 26, 27–31, 35–38, Amyrtaeus, 466, 749–50
39, 40, 41–42, 43–45, 48–50, Amytis
51, 52, 54–57, 58–60, 64–65, daughter of Astyages, 392–93, 556
66–67, 405, 746, 747, 750–51 wife of Megabyxos, 467, 992–93
Amasis (general). See Ahmose Anahita, 484–85, 492–93
Neferibranakht Anaphas, 629–30, 632t, 632
Amathus, 915–17 Andria, 469–70
Amel-Marduk, 114–15 Ankhhor, 14–15, 30
Amenheb, 755–57 Ankhnesneferibra, 13, 30, 56–57
Amenhotep III, 185–86 Ankhwahibra, 760–62
Amestris Anšan, 128, 386–88, 389, 394, 395,
daughter of Artaxerxes II, 485–86 402, 523–24, 536–37, 543–44,
daughter of Darius II, 476–77 669, 912–13, 921–23, 956–57.
wife of Xerxes I and mother of See also Tell-e Malyan
Artaxerxes I, 463, 467, 469– Antalcidas, 422t, 481–82, 912–13
70, 992–93 Antandrus, 617–18
108
1018 Index
Anthedon, 256–57. 329–32, 333–36, 340–42, 345,

See also Blakhiyah 346–47, 348–53, 354–55, 357–
Antigonus Monopthalmus, 223 58, 359–61, 362–64, 564, 699–
Antiochus 700, 709–11, 856–57, 899
I, of Commagene, 580 Arabia Felix, 240, 345
III (Seleucid), 581–82 Arachosia, 435t, 450–51, 498–99,
V Eupator (Seleucid), 472–73n.210 564, 572, 787, 788, 792–94,
Anu, 130–31, 674–75 818–20, 823, 838–41, 842–43,
Anubis, 767–68 845–49, 850–51, 856, 857–58,
Apadana, 447–48, 450, 460–61, 860, 863–64, 898–900,
574–76, 716, 741, 743–44, 902, 959
807–9, 841, 843–44, 864, 955, Arad, 263–64, 699–700
963–64, 975, 987, 997–98 Aradus, 489–90
Apameia, 694 Aragats, Mount, 582–84
Aparytae, 840–41 ‘Ara‘il, 284
Apasa, 185–86, 197. See also Ephesus Arakha. See Nebuchadnezzar IV
Apa Tyrannos, 755–57 Aral Sea, 437n.56, 450–51, 792
Aphrodisias, 193n.92 Aramu of Urartu, 572
Aphrodite ’Aranyada‘, 334–36, 343
Anaitis, 485 (see also Anahita) Araxes River, 571–72
at Naukratis, 38–39 Arbakas. See Arbakes
Api, 23n.88 Arbakes, 584–85
Apis bull, 6–7, 23, 43, 54–56, 405–6, Arbareme, 472
492, 494, 760–64 Arbarius. See Arbareme
Apollo, 37, 38–39, 41–42, 180–81, Arbela, 396–97, 561, 655–56, 659–60,
221–22, 603 661, 672–73, 678–79
Appian, 818n.137 Arbinas, 1001–02
Apries, 3, 4–6, 9–10, 17–19, 27–30, Archidamus, 888
33–35, 38–39, 41–43, 47, 48–52, Archilochus of Paros, 181–82, 194–95
53–54, 56, 58–60, 61–62, 753– Ardumaniš, 961
55, 757–58 Ardys, 201–2, 208–9.
Aqaba, 276–77 See also Alyattes II
Arabia, 106–8, 131–34, 142, 174, 235– Areia, 564
36, 237–41, 242–43, 251, 258– Arethas IV, 311–12
59, 267, 268–69, 271, 273–77, Argišti
278–79, 281, 284–85, 299–303, I, 573
304–6, 307–13, 314–17, 318–23, II, 530–31
109
Index 1019
Argištihinili. See Armavir Aroandes (son of Orontes), 580

Argos, 480–81, 491 Aroantopata. See Orontobates
Aria, 788, 795, 798–99, 800, 810, Arpates, 486–87
817–20, 899 Arraphe, 107–8
Ariabignes, 428–29 Arrian, 498–99, 500, 534–35, 546,
Ariaios, 624t 585, 673–74, 675–76, 706,
Ariamenes (son of Darius I), 428–29 803–5, 810–11, 812, 814, 818–
Ariaramnes. See Ariyaramna 19, 848–49, 857–58, 891–92,
Ariarathes, 632t 978, 984
Ariaspai, 852n.57 Arsaces. See also Artaxerxes II
Ariaspes, 486–87 satrap of Aria, 818–19
Aribaius, 629–30 Aršada, 838–40, 845–46
Arimaspians, 794n.34 Aršama
Arin Berd. See Erebuni grandfather of Darius I, 427–28
Ariobarzanes satrap of Egypt, 428–29, 453,
satrap of Persia, 546–47 467–68, 472–73, 660–61, 722,
satrap of Phrygia, 483, 621–22, 757–58, 768–70
622t, 630–31 Arsames. See Aršama
Ariobazanes, 457–58 Arsanes, 496
Ariomardos, 428–29 Arsekhen, 759
Aristagoras of Miletos, 569– Arses. See Artaxerxes IV
71, 909–10 Arsicas. See Artaxerxes II
Aristobulus, 978 Arsites, 469–70, 474, 475–76,
Aristotle, 310–11, 615 622t
Ariyaramna, 427–28, 629–30 Aršu. See Artaxerxes IV
Arjan, 378 Artabanus, 422t, 462–63
Arkesilas III, 743, 748–49 Artabatas, 632t
Armavir (Argištihinili), 573, Artabazus
582, 918–19 I, 621, 622t
Armenia, 230, 443, 472, 474, 481– II, 489, 621–22, 622t
82, 497, 556, 559, 561–63, 564– Artacoana, 818–19. See also Herat
67, 568, 569, 571–72, 573–76, Artaeus. See Artareme
577, 578, 579, 581–87, 630–31, Artagerses, 479–80
636, 651, 677–78, 899, 901, Artahšar. See Artoxares
902, 917–19 Artakamas, 624t
Armina. See Armenia Artama, 767–68, 979–80
Aroandes. See Orontes Artanes, 428–29
102
1020 Index
Artaphernes/Artaphrenes Artemision, 603

I, 601–3, 608t, 611 Artimas, 608t
II, 608t Artobazanes, 428–29
Artareme, 477 Artochmes, 578
Artarios, 470–71n.203 Artouchas, 580
Artašes, 581–82 Artoxares, 472, 474–75, 579, 676–77
Artasyras, 474, 580 Artyphius, 474, 475–76
Artavardhya, 435t Artystone, 387, 407–9, 428–29, 534
Artaxerxes Arukku, 389–90
I, 421–26, 421t, 422t, 425t, 438– Arwad, 103, 114, 694–96, 714–16
39, 444–45, 453–54, 462–65, Aryandes, 743, 757
466–73, 474–75, 477, 484–85, Aryavarta, 767n.132
529, 531, 541–42, 579, 606–9, Aryenis, 210, 397
608t, 621–22, 622t, 676–77, Aryurat, 629–30. See also Haryuk
706–7, 744, 757, 841, 843– Arza, 256–57. See also Tell Jemmeh
44, 997–98 Arzawa, 185–86
II, 421–26, 421t, 422t, 425t, 449, Asasif, 15, 57
476–77, 478–87, 488–89, 493, ’Ašerah, 328–29. See also Asherah
496–97, 501, 531, 541–42, 579, Ashdod, 21–23, 114, 696–98, 707–
580, 584, 606–9, 608t, 612–13, 9, 712–16
613t, 620–21, 622t, 624t, 632t, Asherah, 254. See also ’Ašerah
677–78, 705–7, 720–21, 723– Ashkelon, 22–23, 25, 100–1, 180, 199,
24, 749–50, 751–52, 788, 841– 696–98, 714–16
42, 912–13, 915–17, 971–72 Ashurbanipal, 10–12, 21, 97–99,
III, 421t, 422t, 425t, 444–45, 189–90, 191–92, 193–94, 206–
484–85, 487–90, 491–93, 7, 246, 269–72, 388–90, 402–3,
494–95, 496–97, 501, 531, 584– 543–44, 668
85, 608t, 613t, 622t, 624t, 632t, Asi, 283–84
653–54, 706–7, 751, 752–53, Asia (Roman province), 223
898, 902–3, 917 Asima, 280–81
IV, 421t, 422t, 425t, 495, 496– Aśoka Maurya, 846
97, 678 Aspamitres, 462–63
V, 421t, 422t, 425t, 499, 811– Aspasia of Phocaea, 485–86
12, 818–19 Aspathines, 961, 968
Artayktes, 621, 622t Aspelta, 32–33
Artemis, 191, 195, 212–14, 603 Aspis, 630n.173
Artemisia, 613t Assandros, 608t
102
Index 1021
as-Sawda’, 333–34. See also Naššan Athenaeus, 184, 994

Assesus, 209. See also Mengerevtepe Athens, 39, 422t, 439, 466–67, 475–
as-Sila, 248–50, 251, 279–80. See 76, 478–79, 480–82, 582–84,
also Sela 606–9, 651, 748–49, 751–52,
Assina, 434, 435t, 544 887, 888–89, 908, 910–13, 914–
Assos, 973n.71 17, 996
Assur (city), 23–24, 99, 247–48, Athiyawahi, 759
655–56, 658–60, 668, 677–78 Athribis, 10–11, 32–33, 52. See also
Aššur (god), 206–7, 246–47, Tell Athrib
389, 929–30 ’Aṯirat, 328–29
Aššur-ahhe-iddina. See Esarhaddon Atizyes, 624t
Aššur-etel-ilani-mukin-apli. See Atossa
Esarhaddon daughter of Artaxerxes II, 485–
Aššur-uballiṭ II, 23–24 86, 487–88, 971–72
Assyria, 10–12, 21, 91–94, 97–98, daughter of Cyrus the Great, 386,
104–5, 106, 107–8, 113, 161, 387, 407–9, 428–29, 457–58
189–90, 191–92, 193–94, Atrastas, 980–81
206–9, 214, 239–41, 245, 246, Atropates, 585, 586–87
247–48, 252, 254, 256–58, 262– Atta-hamiti-Inšušinak, 387–88,
63, 269–70, 278–79, 308–9, 545
378, 388–89, 393–94, 402–3, ‘Aṯtar, 330–31, 348
409–10, 543–44, 556, 561, 562, ‘Aṯtar ḏu Riṣaf, 334–36
563, 564, 573, 649, 651, 658–61, Attar-quruma, 270–71
668–70, 674–75, 679–81, 789– Attar-samayin, 270–72
90, 791–92, 905–7, 956–57 ‘Aṯtar Šayimim, 328–29
‘Astar. See ‘Aṯtar Attica, 888, 910–11
Astyages, 128–30, 210, 219, 392–93, Atum, 755
394–96, 397, 556, 560, 789–90 Aturia. See Assyria
Asuan, 805n.78 See also Syene Atys, 179, 197–99
Asuhili, 256–57 Augustus, 410
Aswan, 404–5, 746 Auramazda, 386, 432, 434, 445–46,
Atargatis, 180 447–48, 458–60, 461–62,
Atarneus, 214–15, 617–18 484–85, 493, 563–64, 568,
‘Atarot, 241–42 634–35, 764–65, 958, 959–60,
Atarphernes, 223 969, 979–80, 983, 995–96. See
Athamaita, 434, 435t, 545 also Ahura Mazda
Athena, 36–37, 51, 479n.240 Autiyara, 563–64
102
1022 Index
Autophradates of Lydia, 483, 584, 495, 498–99, 539, 541–43, 561,

605–6, 608t, 915–17 562, 584–85, 630–31, 649–51,
Avesta, 787–88 652–53, 654f, 655, 656, 658–59,
’Awam, 317–19, 320–23, 328–29, 359– 662–69, 670–72, 673–76,
61. See also Maḥram Bilqis 677–78, 679–81, 680f, 692,
’Awsan, 332–33, 337–44, 345– 694, 702–7, 711–12, 791–92,
46, 347–48 922–23, 957–58, 959, 960–61,
Aya-rammu, 246 994, 1004n.151
Ayn el-Muftella, 59–60 in Egypt (see Kheraha)
Ayn Manawir, 748–50, 766, 771–72 Babylonia, Babylonian, 43, 91, 93,
Ayrarat. See Urartu 96–99, 101–2, 103–4, 106–10,
Ayyelet Ha-Shahar, 698–99 111–12, 113–14, 115–17, 119–20,
Aždahak. See Astyages 125–26, 131–32, 135–38, 139–40,
Azerbaijan, 530–31, 917–19 141–42, 144–45, 147–50, 155–
Aži-dahaka, 560 57, 160–62, 240–41, 252, 381–
Azlayanu, 309n.20 83, 392, 398–99, 400, 409–10,
Az/sarilu, 246–47 431–32, 438–39, 456–57, 458–
60, 475–76, 479–80, 486–87,
Ba‘al, 265 490, 544–45, 564, 573, 603–5,
Ba‘al-šamin, 284 626, 649, 651, 656–57, 658,
Baba Jan Tepe, 393 661, 666–67, 668–72, 674–76,
Bab al-Mandab, 299–301, 310–11, 677–79, 702–4, 705–7, 711–12,
358, 363–64, 926 716–17, 720–21, 726, 747, 752,
Babylon 757, 772, 773–74, 788, 791–92,
in Babylonia, 64–65, 93–95, 95f, 802–3, 804–5, 920, 921–22,
96–100, 101–2, 103, 106, 107, 923–25, 956–57
108–9, 109f, 110–11, 117, 119–21, Bacchylides, 221–22
123–25, 131–33, 134–37, 138, Bactra, 500, 788, 789–90, 792–93,
144, 145–48, 146f, 160, 161, 812–14, 815, 817–18, 821–22,
193–94, 202, 219, 251, 252f, 263, 848–49, 871–73. See also
269–70, 271–72, 273–76, 279– Balkh; Tepe Zargaran
80, 376–78, 380–81, 382f, 384, Bactria, 493, 498–99, 529–30, 547–
394, 398–400, 402–3, 422t, 48, 580, 788, 789–90, 791–92,
429–33, 438–39, 444–45, 449, 793–94, 814, 818–19, 899, 959
450–51, 458–60, 462–63, 468– Bactriana, 450–51, 463–65, 501,
69, 471–72n.204, 477, 478, 564, 784–85, 787, 789–90,
479–80, 484–85, 490n.298, 793–94, 795–96, 798–99, 800,
1023
Index 1023
801, 802–4, 810–14, 816–20, Barca, 741, 743, 748–49

821–22, 823–24, 848–49, Bardak-e Siah, 541
895, 896–98 Bardiya
Badanu, 309n.21 I, 387, 404, 405, 406–8, 417,
Baded, 38–39 422t, 428–32, 434, 435t,
Bagapaeus, 469–70 437–38, 544–45, 561–62, 567,
Bagavahya, 494n.311, 711 670–72, 790–91, 795 (see also
Bagavant, 493 Gaumata; Smerdis)
Bagiya, 923–25 II, 434n.54, 435t (see also
Bagoas, 492, 494–96, 497 Vahyazdata)
Bagorazus, 470–72 Barikot, 823–24, 870–73, 874, 876
Bahariya oasis, 30, 59–60 Barnuš, 923–25
Bahrain, 844, 922–23. See Barrikana, 456n.129
also Tilmun Barsaentes, 498–99, 848–49
Bakales, 748–49 Baryaxes, 586
Bakchos. See Dionysus Barzanes, 819–20
Bakenrenef, 15, 60–61, 65–66 Bašakerd, 859–60
Bala Hissar, 869 Basqanu, 269–70
Balambat, 866–67 Batis, 711n.86
Balaq Mountains, 314, 323–24 Battias II, 35, 36–37
Balawat, 239–40. See also Bazu, 271
Imgur-Enlil Bede, 426n.7
Balikh River, 24–25, 103, 104–5, Be’erotaim, 699–700
655–56, 694 Beersheba, 255, 260, 263–65,
Balkh, 817–18, 821–22, 848–49. See 699–700
also Bactra; Tepe Zargaran Begram, 790–91, 865.
Balochistan, 856–57, 858–59. See See also Kapisa
also Makrān Behbehan, 453–54n.119, 524–25
Banāt ‘Ād, 334–36 Behistun. See Bisotun
Bandar-e Bushehr, 535 Beit Ha-‘Emeq, 696–98
Bandirma, 617 Bel/Belus, 121, 389, 649–51, 675–76,
Banebdjedet, 6, 47, 52 679. See also Marduk
Baniyas, 694–95 Belesys. See Belšunu
Bannu, 860–62 Belitanas, 675–76
Bar’an, 320–23 Belshazzar, 115–16, 131–32, 398–
Baraqiš, 299–301. See also Yaṯill 99, 404
Baraqo, 746 Bel-šimanni, 458–60, 673–74
1024
1024 Index
Belšunu, 477, 674–75, 694, 701– Blakhiyah, 256–57. See also

2, 704–7 Anthedon
Bel-uṣuršu, 477, 705–7 Boğazköy, 185–86. See also Hattusa
Bengal, Bay of, 894 Borazjan, 535
Beniamin, 573, 582–84 Borsippa, 94–95, 110, 114–15, 120–21,
Berea, 472–73n.210 124, 132, 139–40, 144, 145–46,
Berossus, 93, 114–15, 135–36, 484–85, 160, 433, 438–39, 458–60, 656,
652–54, 664–65, 666–67, 658, 664–65, 674–75
668–69, 792 Botan Çayı, 574, 580. See also
Berytus, 695–96, 698 Kentrites River
Bes, 254 Bubastis, 40, 752
Beset, 254 Buhen, 31
Bessus. See Artaxerxes IV Bukhara, 813n.114
Bethlehem, 699 Busayra, 237, 247–52, 258–59
Beth-Shean, 698–99 Bushehr, 535, 922–25
Beth-Zur, 699 Busiris, 11
Biga Çayı, 223. See also Bust, 823
Granicus River Buto, 40, 52
Bin Tepe, 175, 182–83, 210–11 Büyük Menderes, 175. See also
Bi’r ‘Ali, 303. See also Qani’ Meander River
Bisotun, 376–78, 379, 406–8, 422t, Byblos, 695–96, 698, 710–11, 714–
434–38, 440–44, 468–69, 16, 719, 972–73
523–24, 530–31, 544–46, 562– Byzantium, 422t, 620, 856–57
63, 564, 567, 573–74, 593–96,
629–30, 653, 659–60, 672–73, Cadusia, 476–77, 479–80, 497,
747–48, 795–800, 838–40, 856, 585
863–64, 898, 899–900, 961, 968 Cadys, 201, 202
Bisutun. See Bisotun Caenae, 658–59, 660–61
Bit-Ammani, 246–47 Caicus valley, 605n.58
Bit-Amukani. See Amukanu Calachene, 658–59
Bit-Dakkuri. See Dakkuru Calas, 622t
Bithynia, 620 Callatebus, 185
Bit-Yakin, 96–97 Callias, 422t, 466
Black Sea, 202–3, 422t, 439, 493, Callinus of Ephesus, 194–95
569, 574, 601, 621, 677–78, Cambles, 200
892, 899, 901, 902, 905, 910–11, Cambyses
1005–06 I, 381–83, 389, 392
1025
Index 1025
II, 1, 28, 41–42, 64–65, 136–37, Caucasus, 422t, 439, 574, 895, 917–
221–22, 265–66, 381–83, 384, 18, 919, 1005–06
385–86, 387, 402–7, 417, Caunios, 720
428–29, 430–31, 494, 545–46, Cayster
561–62, 567, 599–600, 601–3, Plain, 175, 605
608t, 622t, 623, 666–67, 669– River, 175, 177, 185–86 (see also
70, 695–96, 700–1, 702–3, Küçük Menderes)
740–41, 744, 745–46, 747–48, Central Asia, 561, 571–72, 785–86,
753–57, 762–64, 771, 790–91, 787–88, 792, 793–95, 800–1,
794–95, 838–40, 892, 922–23, 810–11, 816–17, 821–22, 823–25,
957–58, 972–73, 975 860–62, 867, 894, 895, 896–97,
Çan, 619 898–99, 902
Canaan, 23n.88 Chabrias, 751–52
Čandragupta Maurya, 845–46 Chach, 793n.31
Capisene, 790–91 Chaeronea, 651
Cappadocia, 220, 397–98, 478–79, Chalos River, 578, 694. See also
564, 565, 569, 586, 592–93, Queik River
597–98, 606–9, 620–21, 623– Chaman-e Hazuri, 868n.136
25, 627–35, 632t, 636, 898, 899, Charax, 848–49, 851
901, 902, 917–18 Chares of Mytilene, 954, 984
Carchemish, 25, 99–100, 103, 143– Charkhab, 541
44, 193–94, 239–40, 278–79 Charsadda, 864–65, 866–
Caria, 42–43, 175, 206, 213, 483, 593, 67, 868–69
600–1, 605–6, 611–12, 613–15, Chasheshonqy, 66
613t, 635–36, 901–2, 915–17, Chatal Höyük, 103–4
1002–05 Cheirisophus, 677–78
Carmania, 450–51, 536, 545–46, 860, Chenab, 862–63. See also
959. See also Kerman Acesines River
Carthage, 695–96 China, 894, 896, 907
Caspian Sea, 476–77, 479–80, Chios, 37, 38–39, 422t
498–99, 565–67, 568, 569, Chorasmia, 450–51, 564, 784–85,
792, 817–18 788, 789–90, 793, 795, 798–99,
Cassandane, 384–85, 387, 430–31 800, 804–5, 810–11, 812–14,
Castolus Plain, 597–98 817–18, 821, 823, 896–900, 902,
Catacecaumene, 177–78, 183 918, 959
Catanes, 812n.105 Chrysantas, 559, 608t
Cataonia, 630n.173 Cilbian Plain, 605
1026
1026 Index
Cilicia, 103–5, 144, 465–66, 489– Cunaxa, 422t, 479–80, 579, 584–
90, 571, 574, 620–21, 623–25, 85, 677–78
632–34, 689–92, 694–95, 701– Curtius, 487–89, 499–500, 546–47,
2, 706–7, 750, 752, 793–94, 804–5, 810–12, 814, 962, 964,
914–15, 975, 1004–05 965, 995–96
Cimmeria, 11–12, 40, 182, 206–9, Cutha, 99, 110, 144, 145–46, 656
210, 918, 930 Cyaxares, 393–94, 559, 672–73
Cimon, 466 Cybele, 601–3
Cincakhri, 544–45 Cyme, 201, 617–18, 954, 968, 985–
Čišpiš. See Teispes 86, 990
Cissantakhma, 435t, 672–73. Cyprus, 35–36, 236–37, 361–62,
See Tritantaechmes 465–66, 481–82, 601, 620–21,
Cissia, 533 689–92, 693, 700–2, 748–49,
Clazomenae, 37, 210 750, 905–7, 912, 913–17
Clearchus, 677–78 Cyrenaica, 740, 743, 746, 748–49
Cnidus, 37, 193–94, 392–93, 480–81, Cyrene, 35, 36–37, 42, 60, 741,
651, 788 743, 748–49
Colchis, 574 Cyropolis, 793, 812–14. See
Colophon, 207–8, 210 also Kurkat
Commagene, 580, 581–82 Cyrus
Condalus, 615 birth name of Artaxerxes I, 425t, 463
Conon of Athens, 480–81 I, 386–87, 389–92, 963n.39
Constantinople, 651 II the Great, 35–36, 64–65, 91,
Coptos, 759 107–8, 122–23, 128–30, 132–37,
Corinth, 39, 209–10, 480–81 219, 220–22, 275–76, 376–87,
Cosmartidene, 469–70 388–90, 392–93, 394–404,
Crabus, 199 405–6, 407–8, 409–10, 417,
Crete, 601 427–29, 430–31, 455–56, 457–
Croesus, 35–36, 175, 179, 193, 212–15, 58, 478–80, 531, 543, 544–47,
217–22, 396–98, 455–56, 592– 556, 558–60, 561–62, 565–67,
93, 600, 623–24, 627–29, 909. 569, 571, 592–93, 599–600, 608t,
See also Qldañs 609, 620–21, 622t, 627–30, 632t,
Ctesias, 193–94, 392–93, 395–96, 635, 636, 649–53, 659–60, 661,
401–2, 407, 425t, 462–65, 467, 662–68, 669, 670, 673, 679–81,
469–72, 474–77, 478–80, 692, 702–3, 722–23, 787, 788,
556, 559, 651, 658–59, 668–69, 789–92, 793–95, 801, 820, 838–
673–74, 675–77, 705–6, 788, 40, 863–64, 892, 900, 909, 912–
789–93, 851, 917–18, 920, 952 13, 917–18, 921–22, 953, 957–58,
1027
Index 1027
962, 963, 964, 970, 971, 977–78, 380–84, 385–87, 401, 403–4,
981, 983, 991, 994, 995, 997 406–10, 417, 420–21, 421t,
the Younger, 392–93, 422t, 478– 422t, 425t, 427–39, 435t,
80, 483–84, 579, 597–98, 605– 444–49, 450–63, 465, 475–76,
9, 608t, 611–13, 623, 624t, 631, 484–85, 501, 523–24, 526–29,
632t, 636, 651, 677–78, 694, 531, 536–37, 541–42, 544, 545–
705–6, 971–72, 975 46, 561–64, 567–68, 573–74,
Cyzicus, 954–55 576, 593–96, 600, 601–3, 608t,
621, 622t, 627–30, 632t, 635,
Dadanu. See Dedan 636, 653, 659–60, 670–72,
Dadaršiš, 433, 435t, 562–63 673–74, 675–76, 678, 696–98,
Dadicae, 802–3, 840–41 702–5, 710–12, 720, 723–24,
Dahae, 792, 804–5, 811–14, 815, 741, 743–44, 747–48, 753–58,
816–18, 902–3 760–62, 765, 766–67, 768–70,
Dahan-e Gholaman, 851, 853–56, 787, 788, 791–92, 793–98, 800,
866–67. See also Zranka 801, 805, 838–40, 841–43, 846,
Dai, 383n.11 856, 863–64, 892, 894, 897,
Dakhla oasis, 59–60, 747–48 898–99, 900–, 905, 910–12,
Dakkuru. See Bit-Dakkuri 917–18, 925, 926–28, 930–31,
Ḏamar, 330–31 955, 958, 962, 966–68, 972–73,
Damascus, 193–94, 201, 202–3, 976, 987, 992–93, 997
209, 267–69, 485, 704–5, II (Ochus), 251–52, 390, 421t, 421–
718, 768–70 26, 422t, 453, 467–68, 469–70,
Damaspia, 469–70, 473 472–79, 484–85, 496–97, 531,
Damonno, 201 579, 597–98, 606–9, 608t, 611,
Dangeil, 32–33 622t, 623, 624t, 632t, 636, 676–
Daniel, 425t, 664 78, 705–6, 757, 762, 764–65
Danube River, 742, 799–800, III (Artašata, Codomannus),
905, 917–18 251–52, 379, 421t, 421–26, 422t,
Daphnae, 17–18, 19–20, 21–22, 66 425t, 496–99, 500, 546, 584,
Darb el-Arbain, 742 608t, 613t, 622t, 624t, 632t,
Dardanus, 619–20 658, 678–79, 707, 753, 771, 787,
Dardas River, 694. See also Nahr 803–4, 810, 818–20, 864–65,
ed-Dahab 971–72, 995–96
Dards, 802–3 Dascylitis, Lake, 617. See also
Darius Manyas, Lake; Kuş Gölü
I, 26, 28, 44–45, 52, 59, 202–3, Dascylium, 617–19, 623, 980–
222–23, 251–52, 376–78, 379, 81, 987–88
1028
1028 Index
Dascylus, 201–3, 206 Diodorus, 17, 188–89, 263–64, 465,

Dasht-e Gohar, 957–58 483–84, 487, 489–90, 491,
Dashtestan, 534, 535, 541, 547–48 494–95, 496–97, 546, 585, 586,
Daskyleion, 617. See also Dascylium 611–12, 629–30, 679–81, 695–
Datames the Carian, 584, 598–99, 96, 706–7, 749, 751–52, 766
630–31, 632t Dionysus, 177–78, 996n.140
Dataphernes, 812 Dioscuri, 38–39
ḏat Ba‘dan, 353 Diyala River, 656, 658, 664–65. See
ḏat Ḥamen. See ḏat Ḥamyim also Gyndes River
ḏat Ḥamyim, 353 Djedhor. See Teos, son of
David, 245–46 Nectanebo I
Daya, 270–71 Djedkhonsuiufankh, 59–60
Dead Sea, 102, 237, 244, 247– Djedptahiufankh, 18–19
48, 263–64 Djoser, 53–54, 61–62
Dedan, 107, 231–33, 235–36, 240–41, Dokki Gel, 32–33
244, 266, 273–75, 280, 281–85, Dor, 696–98, 707–9, 712–14
301–3, 308–9, 345, 361–62, Dorginarti, 18–19, 746
710–11, 719, 915–17 Doriskos Plain, 744
Deinon, 486, 742 Drangiana, 498–99, 564, 572, 798–
Deir el-Medina, 57 99, 801–2, 838–40, 842–43,
Delos, 301–3 845, 851, 856, 866–67, 899–
Delphi, 36–37, 204, 219, 397 900, 902
Delphinios, 603 Drilai, 634n.189
Demirci-Dümrek, 180. See also Droaphernes, 599–600
Hyllus River Dropicans, 962
Democritus, 965 Dropici, 383n.11
Derbikes, 790–91 ḏu Ġabat, 311–12
Dercylidas, 480–81 Dülük Baba Tepesi, 635n.193
Derusiaei, 383n.11 Dumah. See Adummatu
Dharah’il, 283–84 Dumat al-Jandal. See Adummatu
Dharb el-Ghazza, 254, 255 Dur-karašu, 398–99
Dhu-Gabat, 281–82, 284 Dur-Katlimmu, 105–6, 655–56.
Di‘amat, 352–53 See also Magdala, Tell
Didyma, 41–42, 603 Sheikh Hamad
Dilbat, 145–46, 160, 438– Durrah-i Bast, 858–59
39, 458–60 Dur-Šarrukin, 247–48, 346–47. See
Dingil’dzhe, 824n.163 also Khorsabad
1029
Index 1029
ḏu Samawi, 323 472–73, 477, 478–79, 481–82,

Dush, 759 483n.262, 487, 489–92, 493,
494, 501, 561–62, 564, 601,
Eanna, 120–21, 123–24, 135–36, 140, 614, 635–36, 660–61, 678–79,
403–4, 673, 674–75, 710–11 689–92, 693, 699–700, 701–3,
Ebabbar, 123, 125, 135, 710–11 706, 707–10, 714–16, 715f, 718,
Ebir-nari (Across-the-River), 467, 719–20, 722, 725, 737–43, 744,
477, 484, 669–70, 674–75, 745, 746, 747–74, 789–90,
689–92, 693, 694, 699–700, 791–92, 800, 804–5, 809–10,
701–7, 711–12, 716, 717–18, 719, 842–43, 888–89, 892–94, 896,
720–21, 725 897–900, 902, 903–4, 912,
Ecbatana, 128–30, 395, 397–98, 429, 913–17, 921n.110, 926, 928–30,
477, 484–85, 498–99, 556, 558, 953–54, 955, 957, 958, 959,
562, 569, 812–14, 816, 960–61, 965–66, 972–73, 975–76n.76,
994. See also Hamadan 979–80, 987, 992–93
Edfu, 14–15, 762 Lower, 1, 10–16, 17, 18–19, 21, 45,
Edom, 33–34, 102, 106–7, 231–33, 51–52, 58, 405–6, 762–64
235, 240–41, 244–48, 250–51, Upper, 1–3, 12–13, 14–15, 16–17,
252, 255, 258–60, 261, 268–69, 29–30, 33–34, 45, 58, 191, 748,
273–75, 279–80, 281, 284–85, 752, 762 (see also Pathros)
699–700 Ekišnugal, 127
Edremit, 213. See also Adramyttium Ekron, 22–23, 25. See also Tel Miqne
Eğrikale, 220n.192 See also Pteria El, 265. See also ’Il
Egypt, Egyptian, 1–11, 12–26, 29–30, el-Hiba, 7–8, 33, 44–45
31–35, 36n.156, 37–45, 48–50, Elam, 96–97, 106, 388–89, 409–10,
51, 52, 56, 58–59, 60–65, 99– 434, 435t, 450–51, 453–54,
102, 103, 138–39, 142, 150, 185– 521–25, 526, 530–32, 533, 534–
86, 191, 193n.92, 206–8, 214, 35, 536, 541–42, 543–47, 548,
231n.2, 235–39, 244, 245–46, 564, 568, 573, 656, 768–70,
247, 252, 254, 256–59, 265–66, 798–99, 898, 956–57, 959
269, 270–71, 272, 275–76, Elburz Mountains, 476–77, 479–
277–78, 281, 301–3, 307–8, 80, 568
309n.23, 310–11, 397–98, Elephantine, 17–19, 26, 44–45, 51,
402–7, 419–20, 422t, 428–29, 58, 404–5, 614, 653, 718, 722,
430–31, 438–39, 440–41, 723–24, 749–50, 759, 760–62,
450–52, 453–54, 458–60, 463, 764–65, 766–67, 975
465–66, 467–69, 470n.198, Eliakim. See Jehoiakim
103
1030 Index
Eliashib, 255 Etemenanki, 145–46, 649–

Elisha’, 260 51, 679–81
Elkab, 47, 58 Ethiopia, 354–55, 363–64, 404–5,
Ella Atzbeha, 317–18 447–48, 743–44, 789–90,
Elnatan, 711 848–49, 888–89, 892, 959, 975
el-Qasr, 59–60 Etruscan, 198
Elvand, 461–62, 530–31 Euphrates River, 23–25, 96–97,
Elymais. See Elam 99–100, 103, 104–5, 107–8, 110,
‘En Gedi, 263–64 138–39, 144–45, 160, 239–40,
‘En Hazeva, 253–54, 255, 261–63 267, 308–9, 346–47, 398–99,
En-nigaldi-Nanna, 125–26 571, 574, 655–56, 664–65,
Ephah, 269 669–70, 678–79, 689–92, 694,
Ephesus, 185–86, 191, 194–95, 197, 702–3, 706, 891–92
200, 212–14, 601–3, 965. See Eurymedon, 422t
also Apasa Euthydemus, 749n.47
Epizyes, 621–22, 622t Euxine sea, 571–72
Eratosthenes, 310–11 Evagoras
Erbbina, 615 I, 481–82, 701–2, 915–17
Erebuni, 573, 574–76, 580. See also II, 917
Arin Berd Ezekiel, 240–41
Eretria, 439, 910–11 Ezida, 124
Ergili, 617 Ezion-Geber, 248–50. See also Tell
Erimena, 572 el-Kheleifeh
Erk-kala, 821–22. See also Ezra, 484, 702–3, 704–5, 711, 717,
Margu, Merv 718, 719, 720–21, 722, 725–26
Eruand. See Orontes
Erythraean Sea, 467, 925. See also Fadak, 107, 273–75. See also al-Hait
Indian Ocean Fahlyan River, 524–25, 536–37
Erzincan, 574–76. See also Altıntepe Farnava, 759
Esagil, 117, 123–25, 131–32, 136–37, Fars, 376–78, 401, 524–26, 541, 860–
138, 140, 145–46, 399, 402, 62, 895, 922–23, 925–26. See
649–51, 652, 662, 665– also Parsa; Persia
67, 675–76 Fath ‘Ali Shah, 486n.275
Esarhaddon, 10–11, 97–98, 246, Fergana valley, 793, 801–2
256–58, 264–65, 269–72, 929 Flavius Josephus. See Josephus
Eshmun, 1003–05 Frada of Margiana, 433, 435t
Ešmun-azor II, 696–98, 701–2 Fravartiš. See Phraortes
103
Index 1031
Gabae, 813n.114 See also Koktepe Gediz River, 175. See also
Gabala, 694–95 Hermus River
Gabaš, 534 Gedrosia, 838, 842–43, 845, 856–58
Gablini, 23–24. See also Qablinu Genghis Khan, 410
Gadatas, 603, 608t George Syncellus, 487
Gadd, 284 Georgia, 917–19
Gadrosi, 857–58. See Gedrosia Gerar, 256–57. See also Tel Haror
Gaia, 197 Gergis, 619–20
Galilee, 698–99, 711–14 Gerizim, 699, 723–24
Galle, 907n.67 Germanii, 383n.11, 962
Gambulu, 114 Gešem, 266, 283–84, 710–11
Gandara(š), 450–51, 564, 800, Gezer, 138–39
810–11, 838–40, 841, 842, 845, Ghab Plain, 694
850–51, 860–62, 863–64, Ghrareh, 248–50
866–67, 868–69, 871–74, 896– Gil‘am, 696–98
900, 902, 923–25, 959. See also Gilan, 565–67
Kandahar Gindibu the Arab, 239–40, 267–68
Gandhara. See Gandara(š) Giza, 7, 30–31, 56, 211–12
Gandutava district, 838–40 Gobares
Ganges valley, 870 governor of Pasargadae, 546–47
Ganj-nāma Pass, 461–62 the Mede, 811–12
Gašmu, 266 Gobryas
Gaugamela, 422t, 498–99, 534–35, general of Cyrus the Great,
546, 585, 658, 678–79, 803–4, 662n.64
810, 811–12, 814n.119, 819–20 satrap of Babylon, 477
Gaumata, 406–8, 428–31, 435t, son of Darius I, 428–29
544–45, 561–62, 629–30, 670, spear-bearer of Darius I, 385–86,
795. See also Bardiya I; Smerdis 428–29, 434, 435t, 457–58,
Gawa, 788 961–62, 968
Gaza, 25–26, 114, 256–58, 265–66, Godin Tepe, 393, 957
282–83, 301–3, 345, 361–62, Gölhisar, 191
699–700, 714–16, 915–17. See Gomal River, 860
also Kadytis Gördes, 191. See also Iulia Gordus
Gazena, 624–25 Gordion, 625, 626
Gebel Barkal, 31–33, 926 Granicus River, 223, 422t, 605, 619,
Gebel el-Silsila, 191, 193n.92 622. See also Biga Çayı
Gedaliah, 101–2 Grat Be‘al Gibri, 351–52
1032
1032 Index
Great Nafud Desert, 276–77 Hajar Yahirr, 338–40, 342–

Greece, 63–64, 383, 408, 422t, 43, 345–46
458–60, 479–80, 574, 578, 601, Hakor. See Akchoris
606–9, 635–36, 701–2, 904–5, Halatu, 309n.20
930–31, 973 Halicarnassus, 37, 614–15, 649–51,
Gubaru. See Gobryas 977, 1004–05
Guggu. See Gyges Halule, 387–88
Gulf Halys River, 175, 219, 220, 397, 601–
of Aden, 346–47 3, 623–24, 632–34. See also
of Aqaba, 248–50, 254, 258 Kızılırmak River
of Iskenderun, 694–95 Hama, 99–100, 693–94
of Oman, 923–25 Hamadan, 477, 484–85, 556, 569,
Gumbati, 918–19 800. See also Ecbatana
Gurbaal, 258 Hamath, 25, 267–68
Gurban Tepe, 918–19 Hamun, Lake, 851–52. See also
Gur-e Dukhtar, 978n.83 Kąsaoya, Lake
Gutium, 135–36 Hananiah, 722, 764–65
Guzana, 105–6, 239–40. See also Hananiahu, 255
Tell Halaf Han-’Ilat, 266
Gygean Lake, 175, 178–79, 180, 188– Hanun, 256–57
89, 196, 198–99, 210–11. See also Han-‘Uzzai, 284
Koloe, Lake; Marmara Gölü Hapalla, 185–86
Gyges, 11–12, 40, 181–82, 191–92, Haram, 332–33, 334–36, 344–45, 347–
201–8, 209–10, 213, 214–15 48. See also Ḫaribat Hamdan
Gymnias, 634–35 Harappa, 863
Gyndes River, 571, 664–65. See also Harauvatiš. See Arachosia
Diyala River Harbes Psamteknefer, 30n.117
Gyumri, 573, 582–84 Ḫaribat Hamdan, 332–33. See
also Haram
Hadad, 245–46 Harminu. See Armenia
Hadda, 868 Harpagus, 182–83, 395–96, 615
Ḥaḍramawt, 299–301, 303, 311, Harran, 23–25, 99–100, 103, 104–5,
332–33, 340–42, 345–48, 358, 115–16, 127–30, 131–32–, 143–
361–62, 363–64 44, 145–46, 394, 655–56, 664
Haetumant, 851–52 Harsiotef, 746, 926
Hajar ar-Raḥani, 355–56. See Ḥarun, 314–17, 318–19
also Marda‘ Harwa, 15
103
Index 1033
Haryuka, 629–30. See also Aryurat Helmand River, 823, 851–52, 856
Hathial ridge, 874–76 Hephaestion, 679–81
Hathor, 50 Hephaistos, 54
Hatshepsut, 238–39 Hera, 36–37, 38–39
Hatte, 309n.21 Heracleides
Hatti, 107–8 of Cyme, 954, 968, 985–86,
Hattusa, 180–81, 185–86. See also 990, 991–92
Boğazköy of Pontus, 954
Hattusili I, 181n.27 Heracles, 200
Hauran, 268–69 Herakleopolis, 13–14, 16, 27, 759
Hawar, 334–36 Herat. See also Artacoana
Hawbas, 323, 329–30, 353 Hermes, 182
Ḫawlan Mountains, 326–28, 330–31 Hermione, 965n.45
Hawtar‘aṯt, 359 Hermonthis, 755–57
Haxamaniš. See Achaemenes Hermopolis Magna, 19–20, 760–
Hayappa, 309n.21 62, 766–67
Haza’il, 269–70 Hermus River, 175, 177, 180, 185–86,
Hazor, 247–48, 698–99 603–5. See also Gediz River
Hebron, 263–64 Herodotus, 4, 5–6, 17–18, 19–22, 23,
Hebros valley, 910–11 25–26, 34–38, 39, 40, 41–42,
Hecataeus of Miletos, 63, 569– 43–44, 45, 48–51, 52, 54–55, 60,
71, 926–28 63–64, 66–67, 93, 103–4, 174,
Hecatomnus, 611–12, 613t 179, 193–94, 197–99, 201, 202–4,
Hejaz, 235–37, 240–41, 267, 276– 206, 207–8, 209–11, 212, 213, 220,
77, 284–85 265–66, 376–78, 383–84, 391, 392,
Hekaemsaf, 29–31 395–97, 398–99, 401–2, 404–6,
Hekatomnos of Caria, 915–17 407, 408, 427–29, 430–31, 438–
Heliopolis, 6, 7, 9–10, 47, 54, 60–61, 39, 456–58, 526, 532, 533, 545–46,
63–64, 755, 759–60 559, 561–62, 567, 569–72, 578, 593,
Hellas, 439, 458–60 597–98, 600, 601–3, 621, 623–24,
Hellenion, 37–39 625–26, 627–29, 649–51, 658–
Hellespont, 617–18, 621, 636, 802– 59, 665–66, 668–69, 675–76,
3, 910–11 689–92, 740, 741, 743, 744, 748,
Hellespontine Phrygia, 489, 599– 753–55, 759–60, 762–64, 770,
600, 617–18, 619–21, 622t, 789–90, 791–92, 801–3, 840–41,
623–24, 626, 630–31, 636. See 843–44, 856–57, 905, 920, 949–
also Phrygia 52, 953, 962, 963, 975, 989
1034
1034 Index
Hesperites, 571–72, 582–84 Horvat Qitmit, 261, 262–63

Hesychius, 194–95 Horvat Radum, 253–54, 263–64
Hibis, 59, 60, 65–66, 762 Horvat Ritma, 699–700, 707–9
Hibra. See Khaybar Horvat Tov, 263
Hidali, 388–89, 543–44 Horvat ‘Uza, 253–54, 255, 260,
Himalayas, 410 261, 263–64
Ḥimaśum, 340 Hubanahpi, 986
Ḥimyar, 299–301, 303, 308, 310–11, Humadešu, 430n.33
313, 346–47 Humban-menanu, 387–88
Hindanu, 138–39 Huta[...]’, 704
Hindukush, 376–78, 838, Hydarnes, 435t, 476–77, 485–86,
863, 896–97 562, 567–68, 579, 961
Hinduš. See India Hydaspes River, 862–63. See
Hipparenes, 675–76 also Jhelum
Hippodamos, 698 Hyllus River, 180. See also
Hipponax, 188–89, 194–95 Demirci-Dümrek
Hipponicus, 466n.180 Hyperanthes, 428–29
Hirataqaz/saya, 246–47 Hyperboreans, 221–22
Hisartepe, 617 Hyphasis River, 862–63. See
Histiaeus of Miletos, 909–10 also Sutlej
Hobas. See Hawbas Hyrcania, 472, 498–99, 562, 585,
Homer, 188–89, 198–99 795–96, 801–2, 818–19, 820
Horiraa Wehemibranefer, 28, 50 Hyssaldomus, 611–12, 613t
Hormuz, Strait of, 546, 923–25 Hystaspes
Horn of Africa, 238–39, 331–32, brother of Xerxes, 428–29, 802–3
348, 352 father of Darius I, 381–83, 385–87,
Hor-Psamtek, 40–42 427–28, 435t, 545–46, 562
Ḫor Rori, 303. See also Samarum
Horudja, 66 Iahmessaneith, 27, 65–66
Horudja Psamteksasekhmet, 30n.117 Iardanus, 200
Horus, 28, 755–57, 762, 771 Iati’e, 269–70
Horus Behedeti, 762 Iauta’, 270–72
Horvat ‘Eleq, 707–9 Iaxartes, 437n.56
Horvat ‘Eres, 707–9 Ibadidi, 269
Horvat Haluqim, 235 Ibi, 13–15, 56–57
Horvat Haroa, 699–700 Ichthyophagoi, 857–58
Horvat Mesora, 699–700, 707–9 Ichthys, 180
1035
Index 1035
Idernes. See Hydarnes Iphicrates, 751

Idiba’ilu, 309n.21 Iphitus of Tiryns, 200
Idibi’lu, 257–58 Irdabama, 408–9, 992–93
Idrieus, 613t Irdumašda, 923–25
Idumea, 251–52, 263–64, 265–66, Irtašduna. See Artystone
725–26 Iseum, 50
Ienysus, 265–66 Isfahan, 488–89, 534
Ikizari, 632–35 Isidore
Ikmah, 282, 284 of Charax, 848–49, 851
’Il, 334–36. See also El of Seville, 426n.7
Ilek River, 919 Isin, 145–46
Ilion, 618–19. See also Troy Isis, 54–55, 767–68
Imaniš, 544–45. See also Martiya Iskenderun, 694–95
Imgur-Enlil, 239–40. See also Balawat Ismael, 271–72. See also Šumu’il
Inabba’, 332–33, 334–36 Isocrates, 750
Inaros, 63, 422t, 465, 466, 467, 707– Israel, 96, 101–2, 245–46, 252–54,
9, 748–49, 757 267–69, 706–7, 720–21
Incense Route, 299–301, 323, 331–33, Issus, 422t, 481–82, 497–98, 678–
337–38, 345–47, 363–64 79, 773, 803n.70, 996
India, 310–11, 450–51, 501, 586, 788, Ištar, 123, 124, 145–46, 246–47,
789–91, 793–94, 815, 823, 838, 279–80, 444–45, 539, 670–
842–43, 845–46, 848–49, 857– 72, 957–58
58, 864–65, 866–67, 894, 896– Ištumegu. See Astyages
97, 898–99, 902, 921–25, 959 It’amar, 269
Indian Ocean, 437n.56, 842, 896– Iturekh, 47n.203
97, 907, 921–22, 925. See also Iulia Gordus, 191. See also Gördes
Erythraean Sea Iustinus, 220n.194
Indus Izala, 563
River, 857–58, 862–63, 868–69, Izeh, 963–64
873–74, 896–97
Valley, 376–78, 410, 453, 896– Jaffa, 696–98
97, 898–99 Jawf, 240–41, 311–12, 332–33,
Intaphernes, 435t, 961 336–40, 343–46, 347–48, 353,
Ionia, 175, 359–62, 396–97, 450–51, 356–57, 359
481–82, 564, 593, 600–5, 635– Jaxartes River, 401–2, 571–72, 792–
36, 701–2, 791–92, 909, 957, 94, 795–96, 800, 810–14, 817–
958–59, 971–72 18. See also Syr Darya
1036
1036 Index
Jebel al-‘Awd, 299–301, 347–48, 358 Kabul, 850–51, 860, 871–73

Jebel al-Lawḏ, 348 Kadesh Barnea, 253–54, 256, 263,
Jebel Balaq, 314 265–66. See also Tell el-Qudeirat
Jebel Dedan, 281–83 Kadytis, 25–26, 265–66. See also Gaza
Jehoahaz, 24–25 Kalhu, 268–69, 308–9, 655–56, 658–
Jehoiachin, 25–26, 101–2, 263 60. See also Nimrud
Jehoiakim, 24–26, 101–2 Kamas-halta, 271–72
Jehoshaphat, 245–46 Kāmfīrūz, 453–54n.119
Jeremiah, 19–20, 395–96, 662, 664 Kaminahu, 332–33, 334–36, 343–45.
Jerome, 426n.7 See also Kamna
Jerusalem, 17–18, 19–20, 25–26, Kamisares, 632t
33–34, 101–2, 114–15, 140–41, Kamna, 332–33. See also Kaminahu
148–49, 263, 400, 484, 699, Kandahar, 450–51, 529–30, 787, 788,
704–5, 707–9, 717, 720–21, 821–22, 823, 824–25, 845–46,
722–24, 764–65 848–49, 850–51, 862, 876. See
Jezirah, 104–5, 694 also Gandara(š)
Jezreel valley, 698–99 Kandalanu, 98–99
Jhelum, 862–63. See also Kandara, 845–46
Hydaspes River Kandaules, 182, 185, 202–3
Josephus, 102, 135–36, 744 Kandyba, 615
Josiah, 22–23, 24–25 Kanrach valley, 858–59
Judaea/Judah, 4–5, 22–23, 24–26, Kapisa, 790–91. See also Begram
33–34, 93, 101–2, 114, 143–44, Kapišakaniš, 791n.20, 838–40, 845–46
147–48, 161, 240–41, 245–46, Karabel, 186
250, 252–54, 259–61, 263–64, Karaburun, 980–81
340, 361–62, 400, 484, 692, Karaçallı, 624n.144
699–700, 702–3, 706–9, Karacamirli, 918–19
711–16, 717, 719, 720–21, 722– Kara Kum Desert, 793, 812–14
26, 915–17 Kar-Apladad, 309n.20
Justin, 457–58, 485–86, 488, 497, Karib’il Watar, 312–13, 329–30
545–46, 584, 814 Karkiš, 545–46
Karkushah, 851. See also Korok
Kabirhumu, 340 Karkuyeh, 851
Kabir’il, 283–84 Karnak, 7, 9–10, 12–13, 19–20, 32–
Kabret, 451–52, 764–65, 768–70 33, 56–58
Kabujiya/Kanbuziya. See Karun River, 534–35, 656. See also
Cambyses I Pasitigris River
1037
Index 1037
Kąsaoya, Lake, 851–52. See also Kheriga of Xanthos, 1001–02

Hamun, Lake Khief el-Zahrah, 282
Kashgar, 896–97 Khirbet al-Jariya, 245
Kashmir, 862–63 Khirbet el-Kom, 264–65, 266. See
Katpatuka. See Cappadocia also Makkedah
Kawady, 48–50 Khirbet en-Nahas, 237, 245
Kaymakçı, 185–86, 196 Khnum, 44–45, 764–65, 766
Kayseri region, 220n.192 Khonsuirdis, 14–15
Kaystros valley, 601–3 Khorasan Road, Great, 921–22
Kazakhstan, 410, 437n.56 See also Khorenats‘i, Movsēs, 559, 560
Transoxania Khorsabad, 247–48, 346–47. See
Kedar, 240–41 also Dur-Šarrukin
Kelainai, 625–27 Khufu, 63, 211–12
Kelenderes, 973n.71 Khuzestan, 450, 524–25, 531,
Kemerhisar, 185–86. See also 535, 541–42
Tuwanuwa; Tyana Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Kentrites River, 574, 580. See also province, 860–62
Botan Çayı Khyber Pass, 896–97
Kerasos, 634n.189 Kibyra, 191
Kerč, 193n.92 Kimuhu, 25. See also Kummuh
Kərəsāspa, 840 Kinda, 345
Kerkenes Dağ, 220n.192 See King’s Highway, 240–41, 247–48
also Pteria Kiršu, 1004n.151 See also
Kerma, 31–33. See also Pnubs Meydancıkkale
Kerman, 450–51, 536. See also Kiš, 110, 145–46, 438–39, 458–60
Carmania Kissik, 145–46
Kermanshah, 441 Kition, 361–62, 481–82, 700–
Khababash, 745n.29 1, 915–17
Khabur Kızılırmak River, 175. See also
River, 655–56, 694 Halys River
Valley, 105–6, 107–8, 135, 143–44 Kleomenes, 569–71
Khafra, 63 Kmbsdn, 745–46
Kharga oasis, 59, 60, 185–86, 755–57, Knidos, 422t, 701–2
762, 771–72 Koca Mutaf Tepe, 211–12
Khaybar, 107, 273–75 Kōfēč. See Qofs
Khentimentiu, 58–59 Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad
Kheraha, 759–60 province, 524–25
1038
1038 Index
Koktepe, 813n.114 See also Gabae Kutha, 431–32

Koloe, Lake, 175. See also Gygean Kydrara, 600, 623–24
Lake; Marmara Gölü Kyrta, 467
Kolossai, 625–26 Kyuzeli-g ȳr, 821
Kom el-Hisn, 35. See also Kyziltepa, 824–25
Momemphis Kyzyl Kum Desert, 793, 812–14
Kom el-Idris, 17–18. See also Marea
Kom Geif, 37–38. See also Naukratis Laban, 257–58
Korok, 851. See also Karkushah Labaši-Marduk, 115–16, 123
Kor River, 539–41 Labraunda, 1002–04
Korydalla, 615 Labu’an, 343–44
Kotyora, 634–35 Labynetus. See Nabonidus
Kotys, 620–21 Lacedaemon. See Sparta
Kṛmāna, 923–25 Lachish, 33–34, 247–48, 264–65,
Kubaba, 179, 180–81 266, 699–700, 710–11
Küçük Menderes, 175. See also Laconia, 39
Cayster River Ladike, 36–37, 60
Kufawa. See Kubaba Lahiru, 107–8
Kūfeč. See Qofs Lamilk, 260
Kugnaka, 534, 544–45 Lapethus, 447–48
Kuhal, 346 Larissa. See Kalhu
Kuh-e Khwaja, 852–53 Larsa, 110, 132, 145–46
Kuh-e Rahmat, 445–46, 493 Lebanon, 94–96, 102–3, 450–51,
Kukas. See Gyges 695–96, 716, 959
Kummuh, 25, 995n.135 See Lemnos, 888
also Kimuhu Leontopolis, 11
Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, 254, 255, 256 Letoon, 616–17
Kuprlli, 616–17 Li‘aḏr’il, 357
Kurangun, 536–37, 541 Libya, 17–18, 376–78, 404–5, 410,
Kuraš. See Artaxerxes I; Cyrus I 740, 741, 743, 748–49, 888–89,
Kurkat, 793. See also Cyropolis 899, 901–2
Kuş Gölü, 617. See also Dascylitis, Liḥyan, 280–82, 359–61, 710–11
Lake; Manyas, Lake Limyra, 615–17, 1001–02. See
Kush, 31–33, 404–5, 450–51, also Zimuri
741, 743–44, 865, 929. See Lindus, 36–37
also Nubia Lixus, 203
Kutal, 346 Liyan, 535
1039
Index 1039
Lower Sea. See Persian Gulf Ma‘dikarib, 359

Lurestan, 536 Maeonians, 188–89, 194–95, 198–99
Luwia, 186. See also Arzawa Magdala, 655–56. See also Dur-
Luxor, 32–33 Katlimmu; Tell Sheikh Hamad
Lycaonia, 586, 624–25, 630–31 Magdolos, 20–21, 25–26. See
Lycia, 593, 600, 605–6, 611–12, 615– also Migdol
17, 635–36, 720, 981, 986–87, Magians, 634–35
1004–05 Magnesia, 207–8, 601–3
Lycon, 475–76 Maharoth, 241–42
Lydia, 11–12, 35–36, 40, 42, 64–65, Maḥliy, 328–29
128–30, 174–79, 180–81, 182– Mahmud, 488–89
84, 185–89, 190–92, 193–95, Maḥram Bilqis, 318–19. See
196, 198–99, 200–1, 202, 204, also ’Awam
206–8, 219, 220, 222, 223, 396– Maka, 564, 741, 798–99, 838–40,
97, 398–99, 410, 450–51, 455– 842–43, 845, 856–58, 863–64,
56, 478–79, 483, 543, 561, 564, 898–99, 901–2, 923–25, 926,
584, 592–93, 597–98, 599–600, 930. See also Makkan
601–5, 606–13, 623–24, 626, Makarene, 856–57. See also Makkan
627–29, 635–36, 750, 796–98, Makkan, 856–57. See also Gedrosia;
823–24, 897–98, 899, 901, 902, Oman; Maka; Makarene
909, 915–17, 956–57, 958, 980– Makkedah, 264–65. See also
81, 999–1000, 1001–02 Khirbet el-Kom
Lydus, 198–99 Makran, 856–57, 923–25. See also
Lysimachus, 223 Balochistan
Malikwaqah, 343, 344–45
Ma, 11 Malis, 200–1n.123
Ma’an, 235–36 Mallus, 481–82
Ma’in, 282–83, 299–301, 303, 332– Mamasani, 524–25, 541, 543–
33, 356–57, 363–64. See also 44, 547–48
Qarnawu Manasseh, 699
Macedon, 439, 489, 613–14, 621, 636, Mandane, 428–29
678–79, 812–14, 818–19, 862– Manes, 197
63, 910–11, 912–13, 1005, 1006 Manetho, 740
Mačiya, 856–57 Manhiyat, 343–44
Madaba, 241–42 Mania, 619–20
Madain Salih, 282 Manota. See al-Manat
Madduwatta, 199–200n.119 Manuštanu. See Menostanes
104
1040 Index
Manyas, Lake, 617. See also Kuş Marv Dasht Plain, 444–45, 524–26,
Gölü; Dascylitis, Lake 534, 536–37, 546–48, 957–58
Marad, 145–46, 160 Masa, 198n.112
Marakanda, 812–14. See also Mas’a, 309n.21
Samarkand; Zariaspa Masistes, 428–29
Maraphian, 962 Maskat, 323
Marathon, 422t, 439, 910–11 Masnes, 197–98n.106
Marda‘, 355–56. See also Hajar Maspian, 962
ar-Raḥani Massa, 280
Mardi, 383n.11 Massagetae, 385–86, 402, 666–67,
Mardonius, 428–29, 601–3, 910– 791–92, 804–5, 814–15, 816–
11, 996 17, 892
Marduk, 108–9, 110–11, 119–20, 123, Maswar, 342–43
127–28, 131, 132–33, 134–35, 137, Mata‘’il, 283–84
140, 279–80, 394, 399–400, Matannan, 534, 922–23
405–6, 649–51, 652–53, 663– Matiene, 569–71
64. See also Belus/Bel Mausolus of Halicarnassus, 483,
Marea, 17–18, 748–49. See also Kom 605–6, 611–12, 613–17, 613t,
el-Idris 635–36, 1002–05
Mareotis, 760–62 Mazaeus. See Mazday
Maresha, 264–65, 266, 699–700 Mazaka, 632–34
Margiana, 433, 435t, 788, 795– Mazday, 707
96, 810–11 Meander River, 175, 185, 601.
Margu, 821–22. See also Merv; See also Büyük Menderes
Erk-kala Media, 395, 432n.38, 434n.53, 435t,
Marib, 299–301, 303, 310–12, 313, 476–77, 485–86, 532–33, 536,
314–19, 320–24, 326–30, 331– 556–58, 559, 560, 561–62, 563–
33, 334–36, 337–38, 345, 346, 64, 565–69, 577–78, 584–87,
348–51, 355–56, 357–58, 359– 658–59, 670–74, 788–89, 798–
61, 362–63 99, 842–43, 956–57
Marmara Gölü, 175. See also Gygean Medina. See Yathrib
Lake; Koloe, Lake Medinet Habu, 32–33, 57
Marsimani, 269 Mediterranean Sea, 3, 17, 22–23, 26,
Marsyas River, 625–26 38–39, 40–42, 64–65, 100–1,
Martiya, 435t, 544–45. See 103–4, 107–8, 240–41, 252,
also Imaniš 254, 256–58, 301–3, 345, 362,
Martu, 309n.20 693, 694–96, 701–2, 709–10,
104
Index 1041
725, 743, 745, 747, 750–51, Meydancıkkale, 1004. See also Kiršu
770, 889, 892–94, 901–2, Mezad Hashavyahu, 22–23
913–15, 926, 955, 957, 979–80, Midas, 625–26
981, 993–94 Migdol, 20–21, 25–26, 33–34. See
Megabates, 621, 622t also Magdolos; Tell el-Kedwa
Megabyxos, 992–93 Miletos, 39, 41–42, 207–10, 569–71,
Megabyzus, 462–63, 467, 472, 474, 601–3, 909–10
675–76, 705–6, 961 Mimnermus, 194–95
Megapanos, 802–3 Minat al-Baida, 694–95
Megiddo, 24–25, 247–48, 698– Minean, Mineans, 301–3, 308–9,
99, 712–14 358, 362
Meion, 199n.115 Mira, 185–86, 197, 200, 212–13
Mekelle, 348–51 Mira-Kuwalliya, 185–86
Meles, 180–81, 199, 202, 220–21 Miri Qalat, 858–59
Meluhha, 929. See also Kush Mithra (god), 459n.148, 484–85,
Memnon, 489, 497–98 492–93, 577, 787–88
Memphis, 6–7, 9–11, 15, 19–20, 23, Mithras (king of Armavir), 582
30, 32–34, 40, 43, 47, 48–50, 51, Mithradates, 631, 632t
52, 53–55, 56, 60–62, 404, 477, Mithridates, 996n.140
748–49, 752, 757–58, 759–64, Mithrenes (satrap of Armenia), 585
973. See also Mit Rahina Mithrines (satrap of Lydia), 608t
Mendes, 6, 47, 48–50, 52, 751–52 Mithrodates, 971–72
Menelaus, 472–73n.210 Mithropastes, 624t
Mengerevtepe, 209. See also Assesus Mitradates, 476–77
Menkaura, 63 Mit Rahina, 47, 53–55, 757–58. See
Menostanes, 470–72, 474– also Memphis
75, 676–77 Mitrobates, 623
Mentor, 489–90, 608t Miturna. See Hydarnes
Mermnads, 197, 201–3, 204 Mizaeus, 489–90
Meroe, 745 Mizpe Yammin, 698–99
Merv, 821–22. See also Margu; Moab, 33–34, 241–42, 246–47, 250,
Erk-kala 252, 261, 271–72, 699–700
Mesha, 241–42 Mohenjo-daro, 863
Mespila, 658–59. See Nineveh Moksos, 180
Messogis Mountains, 175, 177, 178– Momemphis, 35. See also Kom el-Hisn
79, 183, 605 Montuemhat, 7–8, 10–11, 13–16,
Me‘unites, 258 43, 60–61
1042
1042 Index
Mopsus. See Moksos Nabonidus, 94–95, 102, 103–5, 106–

Mossynoikoi, 634–35 8, 115–16, 122–24, 125–26, 127–
Moxus, 199 30, 131–37, 140, 142, 144, 161,
Muʼaba. See Moab 193–94, 219, 222, 251, 273–75,
Mudraya, 742 279–80, 376–78, 384, 394, 395,
Muha’mir, 345, 357 396–97, 398–400, 402, 405–6,
Muhammad, 345 556, 561, 652–54, 661, 662–68,
Mukarrib, 317–18, 340, 347–48, 352– 669–72, 922–23
53, 356–57, 358, 362–64 Nabopolassar, 25, 98–100,
Muksas/Muksos/Muksu. 104–5, 106, 114–16, 119–20,
See Moksos 144–45
Multan, 860 Nabû, 93, 98–99, 121, 389, 657, 666–
Murašu, 674–75, 676–77, 716– 67, 669–70
17, 920 Nabû-ahhe-bullit, 669–70
Muratta‘, 342–43 Nabû-aplu-uṣur. See Nabopolassar
Murghab, 379. See also Pasargadae Nabû-da’’inanni, 207n.144
Mursili II, 185–86 Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur. See
Mut, 51–52 Nebuchadnezzar I
Mut el-Kharab, 59–60 Nabû-tattannu-uṣur, 704–5
Muweilah, 179 Nad-i Ali, 855–56
Mycenean, 196 Nadintabaira.
Mykoi. See Mačiya See Nebuchadnezzar III
Mylasa, 614–15 Nader Shah, 439
Myra, 615 Nafaq, 323
Myriandos, 694–95 Nagran, 302f, 303, 323, 345–
Myrsilus, 202–3 47, 356–57
Myrsus, 202–3 Nahal Besor, 256–57. See also
Mysia, 175, 483, 619–20 Nahal Muṣur
Myson, 221n.203 Nahal Gerar, 256–57
Mytilene, 37, 194–95, 954, 984 Nahal Muṣur, 257–58. See also
Nahal Besor
Nab‘al, 334–36 Nahal Tut, 707–9
Nabarzanes, 498–99 Nahariya, 696–98
Nabaṭ‘ali, 344–45 Nahr ed-Dahab, 694. See also
Nabatean, 251–52, 282, 311– Dardas River
12, 326–28 Nakhthorheb, 39, 60–61.
Nabayat, 280 See also Nectanebo II
1043
Index 1043
Nakhthorheb IV, 433–34n.50, 435t, 670–72

Hormenekhibnakht, 28 Nechepsos. See Nekau II
Nakhtnebef. See Nectanebo I Nectanebo
Napata, 10–11, 31–33, 926 I, 3–4, 39, 489–90, 751–52
Napirasu, 963–64, 987 II, 751–52, 751n.54, 917
Naqš-e Rustam, 427–28, 458–60, Neferibranefer. See Horiraa
462–63, 531, 532, 565, 743– Wehemibraneder
44, 796–801, 805–6, 841, Negev, 233–35, 236–37, 239–44,
899–900, 901–2, 953–54, 955, 247–48, 251–54, 255, 256–59,
959–60, 961–62, 964, 965–66, 260–61, 263–64, 265–67,
968, 978–79 275–76, 277, 284–85, 699–
Narezzaš, 430n.31 See also Neyriz 700, 707–9
Našq/Našqum, 311–12, 332–33, Nehemiah, 706–7, 711, 717, 718, 719,
334–36, 343–45, 356–57, 359, 722, 723–24, 725–26
478–81. See also al-Bayḍa’ Nehtihor, 660–61, 768–70
Naššan, 332–33, 334–36, 343–45, Neirab, 693–94, 711–12
347–48, 356–57, 359. See also Neith, 39, 48–51, 54, 755
as-Sawda’ Nekau
Nastasen, 745–46 I, 10–11, 12–13
Naukratis, 9–10, 19–20, 37–39, II, 3, 22, 24–28, 41–42, 50, 52,
47, 48–50, 51–52, 54. See also 56–57, 59–60, 66
Kom Geif Nekhbet, 47, 58
Nautaca, 812. See also Shahrisabz Nemrud Dağı, 580
Naw‘um, 340 Neoptolemus, 586
Naxos, 909–10 Nepherites, 750
Nearchus, 546, 857–58 Nephthys, 767–68
Nebayot, 271–72 Neriglissar, 103–4, 114–16, 124,
Nebi Yunis, 696–98 143, 711–12
Nebuchadnezzar Neshor (Psamtekmenekhib), 17–
I, 124–25, 127 18, 39, 42
II, 3, 25–26, 33–34, 93, 99–102, Nespakashuti (D), 14–15
103, 105–6, 111–12, 113, 114–16, Nespaser, 759n.91
118–20, 121–22, 123–24, 140, Nesptah (B), 14–15
144–48, 161, 263, 272, 400, Neyriz, 536. See also Narezzaš
449, 668–69, 711–12 Nicolaus of Damascus, 193–94, 201,
III, 429–30, 431–34, 435t, 202–4, 206, 209
670–72 Nidintu-Bel. See Nebuchadnezzar III
104
1044 Index
Nile River, 1–3, 5–6, 15, 18–19, 20–21, 745–47, 752, 889, 892, 897–98,
26, 37, 40, 51, 52, 64–65, 191, 899, 901–2, 959. See also Kush
404–5, 440–41, 451–52, 526, Nuhaya, 270–71
746, 751, 755–57, 760–62, 768– Nur-Sin, 152
70, 788–89 Nush-i Jan, 393
Canopic branch, 37, 39
Cataract, First, 746 Ochus
Cataract, Second, 18–19, 746 birth name of Artaxerxes III,
Cataract, Fifth, 32–33 425t, 486–88, 492n.304,
delta, 1, 6, 9–12, 16–17, 19–20, 492n.305, 494–95
25–26, 37–38, 40, 47–48, birth name of Darius II, 425t,
51–52, 244, 404, 465–66, 742, 469–70, 472–73, 484–85
748–49, 751, 752, 760–62, 766, son of Darius III, 497–98
770, 894 Odrysian kingdom, 910–11, 1005–06
Pelusiac branch, 20–21, 40, Oibares, 621, 622t, 623
404, 768–70 Oman, 363–64, 798–99, 838, 842–
valley, 31–32, 59, 404, 740, 742 43, 856–57, 898, 923–25. See
Nimrud, 268–69, 308–9. See also Maka
also Kalhu Omises. See Vaumisa
Nineveh, 10–11, 23–24, 99, 270–72, Omphale, 200–1n.123
346–47, 389, 584–85, 655–56, Onophas, 463n.167
658–60, 679. See also Mespila Opis, 135–37, 399, 662, 664–65,
Ningal, 127 677–78. See also Upi
Ninurta-kudurri-uṣur, 308– Orites, 857–58
9, 346–47 Oroetus, 222–23
Ninus, 788, 789–91 Oroites, 599–600, 601–3, 608t
Ninus. See Nineveh Orontas. See Orontes
Nippur, 110, 132, 145–46, 160, 222– Orontes
23, 275–76, 431n.37, 438–39, River, 101–2, 103, 481–82, 483–
474, 656, 674–75, 711–12, 920 84, 579–80, 582, 586, 694–
Niriz, 407n.82, 453–54n.119 95, 971–72
Nitiqret, 4–5, 12–14, 30, 56–57 Valley, 99–100, 694
Nitocris. See Nitiqret Orontobates, 613–14, 613t
Nuba Mountains, 744 Or’ River, 919
Nubia, 1–3, 4–6, 18–19, 26, 31–32, Orsk, 468–69n.194
35–36, 40–41, 63, 66, 404–5, Osiris, 6, 9–10, 13, 15, 47, 50, 52, 56–
450–51, 740, 741, 742, 743–44, 57, 58–59, 492, 972–73
1045
Index 1045
Osiris Wennefer Pandantes, 635n.192

Nebdjefau, 56–57 Panini, 863–64
Osiris Wennefer Panionion, 603
Nebneheh, 56–57 Pantaleon, 213
Ostanes, 488–89, 496–97 Panthialaei, 383n.11
Otanes, 428–29, 632, 961, 971 Paphlagonia, 620–21, 624–
Outioi, 840 25, 630–31
Ovid, 424n.5 Papremis, 748–49, 757
Oxathres, 487–88, 546 Paraetacene, 568
Oxus River, 499, 571–72, 792, 793– Parin, 851. See also Zarin
94, 811–12, 819–20, 821, 824– Parmises, 475–76
25, 855–56. See also Amu Darya Parmys, 387, 407–8, 428–29
Oxyartes, 789–90 Parnakka, 454, 966–67, 971
Oxydates, 585 Parnizza, 923–25
Oxyrhynchus, 30 Paros, 194–95
Parsa, 376–78, 385–87, 389, 404,
Paakhraef, 16 440–41, 521–23, 531, 536–37,
Pabasa, 14–15 853, 895, 898, 925–26, 952, 963,
Pactolus River, 178, 214–17, 480–81. 977–78, 988, 997. See also Fars;
See also Sart Çayı Persia; Persis
Pactyes, 222–23 Parthia, 385–86, 435t, 545–46, 562,
Pactyic, 571–72 564, 568, 789–90, 795–96,
Padakku. See Fadak 798–99, 800, 801–2, 810, 817–
Padiamenope, 15, 60–61, 62–63 20, 823, 899
Padienaset, 30–31 Parysatis, 469–70, 472–75, 476–77,
Padihorresnet, 14–15, 30 478–79, 578, 660–61, 677–
Padineith, 65–66 78, 694
Padisematawy, 40–41. See also Pasargadae, 376–78, 379, 380–81,
Potasimto Neferibranebqen 383, 387, 390, 395–96, 401,
Pagakanna, 704 478–79, 531, 536–37, 539–41,
Paiuenhor, 760–62 546–47, 609, 955, 957–58, 962,
Paki, 177–78 963–64, 977–78, 983, 997. See
Pamir, 800 also Murghab
Pammenes of Thebes, 489 Pasitigris River, 534–35, 656. See also
Pamphaes, 213 Karun River
Pamphylia, 624–25 Pataliputra, 866–67
Pamu, 11 Patara, 615
1046
1046 Index
Pathros, 33–34 435t, 466, 478–79, 480–81,

Patiramphes, 969n.56 521–26, 530–33, 534–37, 544–
Patischorean, 952n.7, 962 47, 548, 558, 564, 567, 568–69,
Patizeithes, 407 609, 626, 742, 788, 838–40,
Patumos. See Pithom 925–26, 954, 956, 959–61,
Pausanias, 996 968, 1005–06. See also Fars;
Payava, 605–6 Parsa; Persis
Pazyryk, 920–21, 965–66, 987–88 Persian Gates, 546–47
Pedon, 42–43, 63–64 Persian Gulf, 107–8, 345, 535, 541,
Peftjauneith, 28, 58–59 546, 656, 768–70, 772, 840,
Pelops, 182–83 856–58, 894–95, 898–99, 901–
Pelusium, 752 2, 921–26
Penelope, 466n.182 Persis, 376–78, 390, 429, 531, 574,
Pergamum, 193n.92, 214–15, 223 711–12, 788, 798–99, 860–62,
Perge, 624n.144 926, 963, 988. See also Fars;
Periander of Corinth, 209–10 Parsa; Persia
Pericles, 466 Peshawar, 860, 868–69
Perikle of Limyra, 616–17, 1001–02 Petiese
Persepolis, 193–94, 378, 391–92, III, 27, 45, 63
408–10, 422t, 429, 438–39, harbor master, 16
440–41, 444–46, 450, 451–52, son of Api, 23n.88
453–54, 456–57, 458–62, 468– Petosiris, 975–76n.76
69, 470–72, 484–85, 492–93, Petra, 251. See also Reqem
498–99, 521–30, 531, 532, 534– Petubastis IV, 747–48
35, 536–41, 543–44, 545–48, Peukelaotis, 868–69
565, 567–68, 572, 574–76, 609, Phaidymie, 428–29
623, 632, 741, 743–44, 771–72, Phanagoria, 905–7
787, 796–800, 805–6, 807–9, Pharasmanes, 814
823, 838–40, 841–42, 843–44, Pharbaitos, 11
846, 850–51, 856, 859, 864, Pharnabazus
876, 898–99, 902–3, 923–25, I, 622t
951–52, 955, 959–61, 963, 964, II, 622t, 971–72
965–68, 977, 978–79, 986–87, Pharnacyas, 470–72, 474
994, 997, 998, 1002–03, 1004. Pharnake, 694
See also Parsa; Takht-e Jamshid Pharnakes II, 622t
Persia, 44–45, 59, 134–35, 193–94, Pharnakids, 621
219, 398–99, 404, 406–7, 422t, Pharnaspes, 384
1047
Index 1047
Pharnuchus, 622t Pliny, 310–11, 790–91

Phaselis, 37 Plutarch, 486–87, 584–85, 621–22,
Phasians, 571–72, 582–84 651, 742, 984, 988, 996
Phasis River, 571–72 Pnubs, 31–32. See also Kerma
Phellus, 615 Polvar River, 539–41
Pherendates, 44–45, 757, 764 Polyaenus, 623
Pheretime, 743 Polycrates of Samos, 36–37, 42, 64–
Philae, 32–33, 58 65, 909–10
Philip Polytimetus River, 814n.123 See also
II, of Macedon, 489, 613– Zeravshan
14, 912–13 Pompeius Trogus, 630–31
satrap of Sattagydia, 863 Pontus, 202–3, 636, 954, 1005–06
Philistia, 263–64, 696–98 Porus, 862–63
Phocaea, 37, 485–86 Potasimto Neferibranebqen, 40–41.
Phoenicia, 268–69, 465–66, 489– See also Padisematawy
90, 689–92, 701–2, 704–5, 917 Potnia Theron, 179
Photius, 651 Prexaspes, 405n.76
Phraortes, 435t, 562 Priene, 42–43, 208–9, 210, 213
Phratagoune, 428–29 Procopius, 310–11
Phrataphernes, 804, 814, 818–20 Prosopitis, 749
Phrygia, 175, 178, 201–3, 211–12, Psammetichos. See Psamtek I
478–79, 483, 597–98, 600, Psamtek
606–9, 617, 621–22, 623–26, chief physician, 30–31
624t, 630–31, 636, 955, 980–81. I, 1–8, 10–25, 26–27, 40, 42–43,
See also Hellespontine Phrygia 45, 50, 51–52, 54–57, 58, 59–61,
Phylarchus, 996 65–66, 191–92, 206–7, 753–55
Pinara, 615 II, 3, 4–6, 7–8, 16, 18–19, 26–30,
Pindarus, 213–14 31–34, 40–41, 42–43, 50, 52,
Piraeus, 888–89 56–57, 58, 59–60, 63, 746
Pirindu, 103–4 III, 28, 41–42, 56–57, 404, 747
Pisidia, 624–25, 630–31 IV, 748
Pissouthnes, 475–76, 608t V, 749–50
Pithom, 52. See also Patumos; Tell Psamtekseneb, 28
el-Maskhuta Pseudo-Aristotle. See Aristotle
Pixodarus, 613t, 616–17, 720 Pseudo-Scylax, 689–92, 856
Plataea, 422t, 460, 911–12, 996 Ptah, 52, 53–55, 56–57, 405, 762–
Plato, 953, 989 64, 973
1048
1048 Index
Ptahhotep, 767, 972–73 Qofs, 859

Pteria, 175, 220, 397–98, 592–93. See Qos, 247, 261, 265. See also Qaus
also Kerkenes Dağ Qrayyah, 277, 280
Ptolemy I, 21n.74 Queen of Sheba, 240, 310
Punjab, 860, 863 Queik River, 694. See also
Punt, 26, 238–39 Chalos River
Puqudu, 110, 114–15 Quintus Curtius Rufus. See Curtius
Pura, 857–58 Qumran, 664
Puṣkalāvatī. See Peukelaotis Qurayyah, 234–36, 276–78, 282
Pythios, 599–600
Ra, 755–57
Qablinu, 23–24. See also Gablini Raamah, 240–41, 282–83
Qadû, 930 Radi’um, 352
Qaitul Ridge, 845–46, 849 Radman, 299–301, 338–40
Qale Kali, 541 Ragmat, 345, 357
Qani’, 303. See also Bi’r ‘Ali Raḥab, 328–29
Qarnawu, 282–83, 299–301, 332–33, Ra‘ma. See Ragmat
334–36, 356–57, 363–64. See Ram Hormoz, 453–54n.119, 524–25
also Ma’in Ramat-Negeb, 260
Qarqar, 239–40, 267–68 Ramat Raḥel, 699, 712–14, 723–24
Qaryat al-Fa’w, 345 Rameses
Qasr al-Hamra, 280–81 II, 40–41, 54
Qasr-e Abu Nasr, 529–30 III, 57, 244, 277
Qasr el-Ghueita, 59 XI, 1–3
Qataban, 303, 326–28, 332–33, 337– Ramlat as-Sab‘atayn, 299,
43, 345–46, 347–48, 355–57, 314, 338–40
358, 363–64 Raphiah, 256–57
Qaus, 260. See also Qos Ras al-Bassit, 694–95
Qaus-gabri/Qa’uš-gabri/Qos- Ras al-Miyah, 237
gabr, 246 Ras ibn Hani, 694–95
Qaus-malak/Qa’uš-malaka, 246 Ras Shamra, 694–95
Qaynu, 266 Raybun, 311
Qedar, 266, 269–70, 271–72, 282–84 Red Sea, 26, 52, 238–39, 299–301,
Qeshm, 546 348–51, 440–41, 451–52,
Qibli, 325 768–70, 894, 901–2, 921–23,
Qidru. See Qedar 925, 926
Qldañs, 212–13. See also Croesus Reqem, 251. See also Petra
1049
Index 1049
Rhagae, 562. See also Shahr-e Ray Sahara Desert, 410

Rhodes, 36–37, 38–39, 422t Saḥr, 323, 710–11
Rhodiapolis, 615 Sais, 1–3, 6, 7, 9–11, 37, 39, 44–45,
Rhodogune, 580 47–51, 54, 60–61, 746, 749–
Rhoisakes, 608t 50, 972–73
Rhoparas, 659n.39 Saka, 564, 785–86, 790–94, 795–96,
Riblah, 101–2, 103, 143–44 799–800, 805–7, 809–10, 814,
Rikis-kalamu-Bel, 710–11, 719 815–16, 819–20, 871–73, 898–
Rome, 6, 47, 48, 50 901, 902–4, 905, 920, 926–28,
Roxane, 476n.223 930. See also Scythia
Royal Road, 222, 601, 614, 618–19, Sakastan, 851–52. See also Zranka
624–25, 626, 632–34, 660–61, Salala, 303, 363–64
693, 798–99 Salamis, 422t, 481–82, 603, 625–26,
Rub‘ al-Ḫali, 299, 314 700–2, 750, 911–12, 915–17
Rud-e Biyaban, 854–55 Salḥin, 317–18
Rujm Hamrat Ifdan, 237 Salḥum. See Salḥin
Rulda’u, 270–71 Salm, 280–81
Ruqdini. See Reqem Sāma, 840
Rusa Samaria, 24–25, 269, 692, 699, 706–
III, 572 7, 711, 714–16, 718, 719, 724–26
IV, 572 Samarkand, 812–14, 821. See also
Marakanda; Zariaspa
Sa’amise, 746 Samarum, 303, 363–64. See also
Saba, 239–40, 267, 278–79, 299– Ḫor Rori
301, 304, 308–9, 313, 317–18, Šamaš, 279–80
340–42, 343–44, 346–47, 352, Šamaš-bari, 155n.208
358, 926 Šamaš-eriba, 458–60, 673–75
Sabaces, 773 Šamaš-šumu-ukin, 97–98, 271–
Sabiktas, 629–30, 632–34 72, 402–3
Šabwat, 299–301, 301f, 345– Šammu-ramat, 995n.135
46, 363–64 Samos, 36–37, 39, 42, 63–65, 909–
Sacesinians, 585 10, 954–55
Sacians, 793–94 Šams, 311–12
Sadyattes, 202–3, 209, 213 Samsi, 268–69
Sa el-Hagar, 48–50 Sanaa, 314, 326–28, 362–63
Sagartia, 435t, 672–73, 840 Sana’iye, 278
Sagartii, 383n.11 Sanam, 32–33
105
1050 Index
Sanballat, 706–7, 711 Sealand, 107–8, 110, 114, 656

Sangarios River, 625 Sebennytos, 11
Sang-e Siah, 541 Seha River Land, 185–86
Sangila, 280–81 Seir, 244, 246–47
Sappho, 194–95 Šekaft-e Salman, 963–64
Saqqara, 6–7, 15, 17, 25, 27, 30–31, 43, Sekhmet, 771
45, 53–56, 61–62, 614, 766– Sekyndianos. See Sogdianus
68, 979–80 Sela, 248–50, 251, 279–80. See also
Šaqurri, Mount, 268–69 as-Sila
Sarangia. See Drangiana Seleucus I Nicator, 311, 845–46
Sardis, 175, 178, 179, 180–83, 186–89, Sematawytefnakht
190, 192, 193, 194–96, 199, harbor master and governor of
200, 202, 203, 204–6, 207–8, Herakleopolis, 13, 16
210–11, 212–14, 218, 220–23, physician, 771
397–98, 439, 447–48, 475–76, Wahibramen, 17–19
478–79, 485, 561, 599–603, Semiramis, 788, 789–90
605–6, 609–11, 790–91, 823– Semkamansken, 32–33
24, 871–73, 909–10, 959, 969, Sennacherib, 97–98, 246, 269–72,
980–81, 1001–02 308–9, 312–13, 329–30, 346–47,
Sarepta, 695–96, 698 668–69, 679–81
Sargon, 392–93 Senusret, 66
Sargon II, 256–58, 269, 278–79, Serabit el-Khadim, 277
308–9, 312–13, 329–30, 346– Serapeum, 6–7, 23, 43, 55–56, 760–64
47, 905–7 Šeraš, 963, 986
Sari, 818–19. See also Zadracarta Sestus, 617–18, 621
Sarıgöl, 185 Seth, 59–60, 492
Sart Çayı, 178. See also Pactolus River Sethirdis, 59–60
Sary Tepe, 918–19 Seuthes, 620n.125
Sa’sa’, 698–99 Shabaqo, 32–33
Saspiri, 571–72 Shahr-e Kohna, 845–46
Satet, 58 Shahr-e Ray, 562. See also Rhagae
Satibarzanes, 804, 818–19 Shahr-e Sokhta, 851–52
Sattagydia, 564, 838–40, 842–43, Shahrisabz, 812. See also Nautaca
845, 860–64, 898–900, 902 Shah Soltan Hoseyn, 488–89
Scythia, 422t, 437–38, 561, 564, 795, Shaikhan Dheri, 869
900, 917–18 Shalmaneser III, 239–40, 267–
Sea of Marmora, 437n.56 68, 530–31
105
Index 1051
Sharon Plain, 241–42, 696–98 Ṣirwaḥ, 299–301, 311–13, 317–18,

Sharuhen, 256–57. See also Tell 326–29, 332, 334–36, 348–52,
el-Far‘ah 355–56, 359, 362–63
Sheba. See Saba; Queen of Sheba Sisigambis, 496–97
Shechem, 699 Sistan, 845, 851–56, 866–67. See
Shellal, 31–32 also Zranka
Shepenupet II, 12–14, 57 Sittace, 658
Shephelah, 696–98, 699– Siwa, 6, 47, 59–60, 404–5, 742. See
700, 712–14 also Ammon
Sheshbazzar, 711 Skepsis, 619–20
Sheshonq (F), 11 Skudra, 800–1, 901, 902
Shiraz, 529–30, 535–36, 541 Skunkha, 422t, 435t, 437–38, 443,
Shirhon, 256–57. See also Tell 545, 795–96, 799–800, 899–900
el-‘Ajjul Smerdis, 405, 407, 428–30, 435t,
Shush, 521–23. See also Susa 561–62, 567, 629–30. See also
Sibirtios, 857–58 Bardiya I; Gaumata
Sidon, 33–35, 103, 114, 489–90, 491, Smyrna, 207–8, 210
678, 694, 695–98, 701–2, 704– Sogdiana, 447–48, 450–51, 564,
5, 707, 712, 714–16, 725, 752, 743–44, 788, 795, 798–99, 800,
917, 1003–05 810–11, 812–14, 815–18, 896–
Silk Road, 892–94 98, 899, 902, 959
Silsilis, 191 Sogdianus, 421t, 422t, 469–72,
Sin, 107 474, 606–9
Sinai, 20–21, 34–35, 254, 256–58, Sokar, 61–62
265–66, 275–76, 277, 747 Solak-1/Varsak, 573n.58
Sind, 447–48 Soli, 481–82, 915–17
Sippar, 110, 116–17, 119–21, 123, 125, Solomon, 310
135–36, 144–46, 160, 275–76, Solon, 63–64
394, 395–96, 398–99, 438–39, Somalia, 238–39
656, 662, 664–65, 669–72, Sophene, 574, 579
674–75, 678, 710–11, 757 Sorkh Dagh, 855–56
Sipylus, Mount, 186. See also Sotades, 745
Spil Dağı Sparethre, 790–92
Širaziš. See Shiraz Sparta, 36–37, 422t, 465–66, 478–
Sirkap, 874–76 79, 480–81, 569–71, 582–84,
Siruatti the Me‘unite, 257– 606–9, 612–13, 618–19, 750,
58, 268–69 888, 911, 912–13
1052
1052 Index
Spermes, 201 498–99, 521–25, 529–30, 531,

Sphendadates, 407 533, 534–35, 536–37, 541–44,
Spil Dağı, 186. See also 546–48, 656, 679, 741, 755,
Sipylus, Mount 768–70, 771, 772, 796–98,
Spitamenes, 499, 812–16 799–800, 841, 842–43, 848–
Spithridates, 475–76, 605, 608t 49, 857–58, 860, 897–98,
Spithrobates, 605, 971–72 899–900, 902, 912–13, 923–25,
Sri Lanka, 907 930–31, 955, 958–59, 960–61,
Sri Pada, 907 964, 965–66, 984, 987, 994,
Stateira 998, 1002–03. See also Shush
wife of Artaxerxes II, 476– Susia, 818–19. See also Tus
77, 485–86 Susiana, 387–88, 524–25, 531, 534–35,
wife of Darius III, 497–98 543–44, 546–47
Stephanos of Byzantium, 856–57 Sutlej, 862–63. See also
Strabo, 175, 177–78, 191, 310–11, 323, Hyphasis River
390, 565, 568, 576, 577, 579, 586, Šutruk-Nahhunte II, 387–88
603–5, 631, 632–34, 679–81, Swat, 801–2, 860–62, 869, 870
814, 815 Sybares, 545–46
Straton I. See Abd-Aštart Syene, 805n.78 See also Asuan
Struses, 601–3, 608t. See also Struthas Syloson, 909–10
Struthas, 601–3, 608t. See also Struses Syr Darya, 401–2, 571–72, 788–
Ṣubḥhumu, 915–17 89, 792, 812–14. See also
Sudan, 410, 450–51, 744 Jaxartes River
Suez, 768–70, 925
Suez Canal, 842–43 Tabalus, 222–23, 608t
Suhu, 239–40, 267, 278–79, 308–9 Tachos. See Teos, son of Nectanebo I
Sum‘ay, 362–63 Taharqo, 10–11, 12–13, 32–33, 56–57
Sumer, 668 Tahlan, 283–84
Sumuhu‘ali Yanuf, 325, 356 Tahpanhes, 19–20, 33–34. See also
Sumuhuyafa‘, 343–45 Tell Defenna
Šumu’il, 271–72. See also Ismael Tajikistan, 793
Suppiluliuma I, 185–86 Takhmaspada, 435t, 562–63
Šuraḥbi’il Ya‘fur, 325–26 Takhout, 52
Suratkaya, 186 Takht-e Gohar, 978n.83
Susa, 106, 387–88, 429, 440–41, Takht-e Jamshid, 521–23. See also
448–52, 461–62, 466–67, Persepolis
468–69, 477, 484–85, 492–93, Taklamakan Desert, 896–97
1053
Index 1053
Tal’a, 278 Tel Haror, 256–57, 263. See also Gerar

Ta’lab, 362–63 Tel ‘Ira, 253–54, 261, 263–64
Tall al-Umayri, 712 Tel Kabri, 696–98
Taman Peninsula, 905–7 Tel Malhata, 253–54, 261, 263
Tamukkan. See Taocê Tel Masos, 253–54, 263
Tanaïs, 788–89, 811–12 Tel Megadim, 698
Taneferether, 767–68, 979–80 Tel Mevorakh, 696–98
Tang-e Bolaghi, 539–41 Tel Michal, 696–98
Tanis, 1–3, 31–32, 48–50, 51–52 Tel Mikhmoret, 696–98
Tanutamani, 10–11, 13, 32–33 Tel Miqne, 22. See also Ekron
Tanyoxarkes, 407, 567, 790–91. See Tel Qasile, 696–98
also Bardiya; Smerdis Tel Qedesh, 698–99, 711–12
Taocê, 922–25 Tel Qiri, 698–99
Tarhundaradu, 185–86 Tel Ruqeish, 256–57
Tarsus, 481–82 Tel Sera‘, 256–57, 263. See also Ziklag
Tatarlı, 626–27, 955 Tel Shimron, 698–99
Tattannu. See Tattenai Tel Shiqmona, 696–98
Tattenai, 703–6 Tel Sochoh, 263–64
Taukan, 534 Tel Ta‘anach, 698–99
Taurus Mountains, 636 Tel Yoqne‘am, 698–99
Tawilan, 248–50, 251–52 Tel Zippor, 696–98
Taxila, 862–63, 865, 866–67, Tell Abraq, 237–38
868, 873–75 Tell Abu Hawam, 696–98
Taxiles, 862–63 Tell Abu Salima, 256–57, 266
Tayma, 107, 131–32, 145–46, 231–33, Tell Abu Shusha, 698–99
234–36, 239–41, 244, 267, 270, Tell Afis, 693–94
273–75, 276–81, 282, 284–85, Tell al-Kathib, 282, 284
308–9, 346–47, 404, 922–23 Tell as-Sa‘idiya, 699–700
Te’elhunu, 269–70 Tell Athrib, 52. See also Athribis
Teispes, 381–83, 386–87, 388–89, Tell Daruk, 694–95
391–92, 417, 427–28, 543 Tell Defenna, 4–5, 9–10, 19–20, 26,
Tel Achziv, 696–98 33–35, 48–50, 51–52, 54. See
Tel ‘Arad, 253–54, 255, 259, 260, 261, also Tahpanhes
263–65, 266, 699–700 Tell Deinit, 693–94
Tel ‘Aroer, 253–54, 261, 263–64 Tell Deir Alla, 699–700
Tel Beersheba, 253–54, 263, 266 Tell el-‘Ajjul, 256–57.
Tel ‘Erani, 696–98 See also Shirhon
1054
1054 Index
Tell el-Amarna, 185–86. See also Tell Tuqan, 693–94

Akhetaten Telmessus, 180–81, 615–17
Tell el-Balamun, 19–20, 51–52, Tema. See Tayma
54, 65–66 Teman, 254
Tell el-Far‘ah, 256–57, 266. See also Temnus Mountains, 178
Sharuhen Tennes, 489–90, 695–96, 701–
Tell el-Hajj, 693–94 2, 706–7
Tell el-Herr, 20–21, 760–62 Teos
Tell el-Hesi, 696–98 city, 37
Tell el-Kedwa, 20–21, 25–26, Tachos, son of Nectanebo
33–34 I, 751–52
Tell el-Kheleifeh, 248–50, 251–52, Tepe Nush-e Jan, 957
255, 266. See also Ezion-Geber Tepe Yahya, 825n.168
Tell el-Maskhuta, 26, 52, 266, 283– Tepe Zargaran, 817–18, 821–22.
84, 768–70. See also Pithom See also Bactra; Balkh
Tell el-Qudeirat, 253–54, 265–66. Terituchmes, 476–77
See also Kadesh Barnea Te’umman, 388–89
Tell-e Malyan, 387–88, 523–24, 543, Thales of Miletos, 210
546–47. See also Anšan Thamaneans, 801–2, 840
Tell es-Safi, 696–98 Thamud, 269
Tell Halaf, 105–6, 239–40. See Thapsacus, 678–79, 704–5
also Guzana Thataguš. See Sattagydia
Tell Jalul, 699–700 Thebe Hypoplacia, 213, 617–18
Tell Jemmeh, 239–40, 256–57, 263, Thebes
699–700, 707–9. See also Arza in Egypt, 1–3, 6, 7–11, 13–16,
Tell Kazel, 694–95 21–22, 32–33, 43, 45–47,
Tell Keisan, 696–98 56–57, 58, 60–61, 62, 63, 489,
Tell Kuneise, 677n.137 762, 764
Tell Mardikh, 693–94 in Greece, 480–81, 491
Tell Mazar, 699–700 Themistocles, 621–22, 996n.140
Tell Qarqur, 693–94 Theodorus of Samos, 954–55
Tell Sheikh Hamad, 105–6, 655– Theophrastus, 310–11
56. See also Dur-Katlimmu; Thermopylae, 422t
Magdala Thessalians, 911
Tell Sukas, 694–95, 698 Thibron, 480–81
Tell Tayinat, 103–4 Thonis, 39, 766
Tell Tuba, 388–89 Thoth, 59–60
105
Index 1055
Thrace, 422t, 439, 453, 501, 621, 636, Tlos, 615

919, 955, 1005, 1006 Tmolus Mountains, 175, 177, 178–79,
Thrasybulus, 209 183, 188–89, 198–99, 601–
Thucydides, 466, 621–22, 748–49, 3, 605
887, 888, 889 Tocra, 748–49
Thukhra, 952n.7 Tol-e Ajori, 444–45, 539, 547–
Thuys, 482n.258 48, 957–58
Thymbra, 220–21 Tol-e Takht, 539–41
Tiglath-pileser Tomyris, 791–92
I, 530–31 Torbali, 186
III, 246, 256–58, 268–69, 278– Toudo, 203
79, 308–9 Transcaucasia, 895, 917–19
Tigra, 563 Transjordan, 233–37, 240–42, 243,
Tigranes, 560 244, 246, 251–52, 258–59, 267–
Tigray, 331–32 68, 271–72, 279–80, 284–85,
Tigris River, 96–97, 104–5, 106, 699–700
107–8, 110, 114–15, 135–36, Tripoli, 695–96, 704–5
144–45, 387–88, 396–97, Tritantaechmes, 435t, 672–73
398–99, 432–33, 530–31, 534– Troad, 207–8, 619–20
35, 561, 571, 655–56, 658–59, Troy, 196, 200, 617–18.
660–61, 664–65, 670–72, See also Ilion
677–79, 891–92 Tsaghkahovit, 582–84
Tihama, 303 Tsenhor, 759n.91
Tille Höyük, 573n.58 Tšetres, 759
Tilmun, 922–23. See also Bahrain Tukriš, 450–51
Til Tuba, 543–44 Tulmay, 280
Timna, 236–38, 277, 299–301, 338– Ṭupliaš, 114
40, 345–46 Tura, 51
Tiribazus, 480–82, 486, 571–72, Turbat, 858–59
582–84, 971–72 Turkmenistan, 821, 821n.149
Tiryns, 200 Tus, 818–19. See also Susia
Tissaphernes, 475–76, 478–79, Tuwanuwa, 185–86. See also
598–99, 603, 605–6, 608t, 611, Kemerhisar; Tyana
677–78, 971–72 Tyana, 185–86. See also Kemerhisar;
Tithraustes, 482n.257, 608t Tuwanuwa
Tjahapimu, 751–52 Tylonids, 203
Tjanenhebu, 29–31 Tymnessus, 615
1056
1056 Index
Tyre, 33–35, 103, 114, 143–44, 240– Urmia, Lake, 569–71

41, 258, 268–69, 489–90, 695– Uruk, 98–99, 110, 114–15, 116–17,
99, 701–2, 710–16, 724–26, 750 119–21, 123, 124, 132, 135, 140,
Tyrsenoi, 198. See also Etruscan 145–46, 160, 275–76, 403–4,
Tyrsenos, 198 432–33, 438–39, 458–60, 463,
495, 656, 661, 669–72, 673,
Uabu, 270–71 674–75, 676–77, 710–11
Uadaicaya, 544–45 Ushu, 701–2
Uaite’, 271–72 Uštana. See Ostanes
Udana, 456n.129 Uštanu, 703–4
Udhruh, 235–36 Ustyurt Plateau, 817–18
Udiastes, 476–77, 632t Uxians, 531, 534–35, 546
Udjahorresnet, 28–30, 41–42, 405– Uzbekistan, 812, 824–25
6, 753–55, 766–67, 771, 973 ‘Uzzi’il, 260
Udummu. See Edom
Udusa. See Atossa: daughter of Vahyazdata, 435t, 544–45, 838–40.
Cyrus the Great See also Bardiya II
Ugbaru, 135–36, 662. See also Valerius Maximus, 487–89
Gobryas: ally of Cyrus the Great Van, 461–62, 530–31
Ukbateya, 567–68 Kalesi, 574–76
Ulug-depe, 789–90n.14 Lake, 574–76
Umakištar. See Cyaxeres Vaumisa, 435t, 562, 563–64
Umakuš. See Artaxerxes III Venus, 279–80
Umaryi-Hisban region, 699–700 Vidranga, 759
Umbria, 198 Vištaspa. See Hystaspes: father of
Umm el-Biyara, 246, 248–50 Darius I
Unas, 30–31 Vivana, 435t, 838–40
Upad(a)rama, 544 Volga, 788–89
Upi, 662. See also Opis Vourukaša, 851–52
Upper Sea. See Mediterranean Sea
Ur, 110, 119–20, 125–27, 132, 145–46, Wadd, 353
392, 478–79, 669 Wadi ’Aḏanat, 323–24
Ural Mountains, 919 Wadi al-Jawf, 299–301
Uranduš, 534 Wadi al-Juba, 345, 346, 355–56
Urartu, 396–97, 530–31, 556, 558–59, 561, Wadi Arabah, 236–37
571–72, 573, 592–93, 930, 956–57 Wadi Bayḥan, 338–40
Urašṭu. See Urartu Wadi Daliyeh, 718, 719
1057
Index 1057
Wadi Ḏana, 314 Xerẽi, 615

Wadi Daw‘an, 311 Xeriga, 615
Wadi Dawasir, 345 Xerxes
Wadi Faynan, 235, 236–37 I, 136–37, 387, 405–6, 408–9,
Wadi Ḥaḍramawt, 299–301 420–21, 421t, 422t, 428–29,
Wadi Hammamat, 60–61 438–39, 444–45, 446–47,
Wadi Ḥarib, 338–40 448–49, 457–63, 465, 468,
Wadi Maḏab, 332–34, 343–44 478, 531, 537, 572, 573, 574–76,
Wadi Marḫa, 340–43. See also Wusr 578, 599–600, 603, 608t, 609,
Wadi Nagran, 345 621, 622t, 623, 625–26, 673–76,
Wadi Natrun, 742 701–2, 748–49, 757, 759, 762–
Wadi Sirhan, 267–68, 270 64, 773, 792, 798–99, 802–3,
Wadjet, 52 841–42, 859, 897, 898, 902–3,
Wahibra, 44–45, 60–61 911–28, 955, 996
Wahibraemakhet, 42–43 II, 421t, 422t, 469–72, 473, 606–
Walad ‘Amm, 299–301, 338– 9, 676–77
42, 345–46
Wa‘lan, 299–301, 338–40 Yada‘’il Bayyin, 358, 359–61, 362–63
Walwetes. See Alyattes III Yada‘’il bin Ḏamar‘ali, 326–28, 332
Wa‘ran, 352 Yada‘’il Ḏariḥ, 319–20, 328–
Waraw’il, 346 29, 355–56
Watar, 323 Yada‘’il Watar, 245–46
Western Desert, 47, 59, 60, 740, Yada‘sumuhu, 334–36
742–43, 746, 747–49, 759, 766 Yadihu, 107, 273–75
Wuqro, 348–51 Yaḏmurmalik, 344–45
Wusr, 340. See also Wadi Marḫa Yahdik, 543–44
Yaḥir, 340
Xanthus, 180, 193–94, 200, 605– Yahweh, 33–34, 254–55, 720–
6, 615–17 21, 764–65
Xenophon, 221–22, 392–93, 401–2, Yakrubmalik, 337–38
477, 479–80, 559, 567, 571–72, Yanhagu, 340
573–76, 578, 580, 582–85, Yariri, 193–94, 278–79
597–98, 618–21, 623, 625–26, Yasran, 314
627–31, 634–35, 651, 658–59, Yasuj, 546–47
660–61, 677–78, 705–6, 793– Yathrib/Yatribu, 107, 273–75, 345
94, 952, 964, 970, 975, 989, Yaṯill, 299–301, 356–57, 363–64. See
991, 994 also Baraqiš
1058
1058 Index
Yauna, 617, 898, 901, 902, 904–5 Zariaspa, 814. See also Marakanda;
Yavneh, 696–98 Samarkand
Yavneh-Yam, 696–98 Zarin, 851, 853, 866–67. See also
Yeha, 348–52, 353, 354–55 Parin; Zranka
Yehaw-milk, 972–73 Zaris, 476–77
Yehizkiyah, 711 Zarpanitu, 279–80
Yeho‘ezer, 711 Zazannu, 670–72
Yehud. See Judaea/Judah Zedekiah, 25–26, 33–34, 101–2, 263
Yemen, 238–39, 299, 301–3, 307–8, Zendan-e Suleiman, 957–58
313, 323–24, 325–26, 332–33 Zenis of Dardanus, 619–20
Yiṯa‘’amar Bayyin, 317–18, 325, 356 Zenodote, 42–43
Yiṯa‘’amar Watar, 312–13, 329–30, 358 Zeravshan River, 813n.114, 814n.123
Yuhanṭil, 340 See also Polytimetus River
Yusuf ḏu Nuwas, 310–11 Zerubbabel, 711
Zeus, 37, 197
Zabibe, 268–69 Zeuxidamus, 888
Zabol, 851 Zheng He, 907
Zab River Ziklag, 256–57. See also Tel Sera‘
Lower, 569–71, 655–56 Zimuri, 615–17. See also Limyra
Upper, 655–56 Zišpiš. See Teispes
Zadracarta, 818–19. See also Sari Ziššawiš, 454
Ẓafar, 299–301, 303, 346–47 Zopyrus, 670–72, 675–76
Zagaba, 615 Zoreh River, 536–37
Zagros Mountains, 393–94, 655–56 Zoroaster, 386, 851–52
Ẓaḥḥak, 560 Zranka. See Drangiana
Zakho, 660–61 Ztw, 626
Zamašba, 923–25 Zuza, 563
1059
106
106
1062

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i

The Oxford History of the Ancient

The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East

This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

49. Saite Egypt (Alexander Schütze) 1

50. The Neo-​Babylonian Empire (Michael Jursa) 91

51. The Kingdom of Lydia (Annick Payne) 174

53. Early Saba and Its Neighbors (Norbert Nebes) 299

54. The Persian Empire under the Teispid Dynasty: Emergence

55. The Persian Empire under the Achaemenid Dynasty, from

56. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Persia and Elam

57. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Media and Armenia

58. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Asia Minor: Lydia,

59. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Babylonia and Assyria

60. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Ebir-​nari/​Syria

61. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire in Egypt

62. The Northeastern Regions of the Persian Empire:

63. The Southeastern Regions of the Persian Empire on the

64. The Persian Empire in Contact with the World

65. The Persian Empire: Perspectives on Culture and Society

Amel-​Marduk (562–​560) ...

Psamtek III (526–​525) Cambyses II (529–​522)

Damien Agut-​Labordère is a permanent researcher at the Centre

xviii The Contributors

published on the history and economy of imperial regimes in ancient

The Contributors xix

André Heller (PhD University of Erlangen-​Nürnberg 2010, Habilitation

unpublished data from the British excavations conducted from 1976

The Contributors xxi

xxii The Contributors

Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the Catholic University of

AAE Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy

JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt

Ael. VH Aelianus, Varia Historia

App. Syr. Appian, Syriaca

Phot. Bibl. Photius, Bibliotheca

2 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East

Figure 49.1. Sites mentioned in c­ hapter 49. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri

invasions starting in 672 bc, the Assyrian Empire succeeded in extend-

and ruled by one king of local extraction. In the service of reintegrating

4 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East

the central administration emerged, with its members exceptionally

49.2. The sources for the Saite period

commissioned by Psamtek I and Amasis with the explicit intent to mark

6 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East

Saite period is a recurring theme in Herodotus, who primarily addressed

7. Meeks 1979; 2009.

on behalf of Saite kings as well as officials and priests in the Serapeum,

9. Vercoutter 1962; Malinine et al. 1968; see also Devauchelle 2011.

8 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East

administration of Egypt in the Saite period. Although the official script

19. Jansen-​Winkeln 2014a; for Psamtek I, see also Perdu 2002a.

10 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East

49.3. The unification of Upper and

24. For an overview, see Leclère 2008.

the Assyrian court at Nineveh.29 Ashurbanipal returned to Egypt and

12 Oxford History of t he Ancien t N ear East

Figure 49.2. The colossal statue of Psamtek I, recently found at Heliopolis,

50. The Neo-Babylonian Empire (Michael Jursa) 91

60. The Satrapies of the Persian Empire: Ebir-nari/Syria

Amel-Marduk (562–560) ...

Psamtek III (526–525) Cambyses II (529–522)

Damien Agut-Labordère is a permanent researcher at the Centre

André Heller (PhD University of Erlangen-Nürnberg 2010, Habilitation

Figure 49.1. Sites mentioned in c hapter 49. Prepared by Andrea Squitieri

19. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a; for Psamtek I, see also Perdu 2002a.

51. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 53.22–23; Ritner 2009: 585–587.

where the existence of a Persian-period garrison manned with Aramean

57. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: no. 56.147.

91. Grayson 1975: 91; Glassner 2004: 218–219.

96. 2 Kgs 23:31–33.

101. Grayson 1975: 102; Glassner 2004: 230–231.

107. Gozzoli 2000; 2017: 80–91.

From Psamtek II’s short reign, an above-average number of court

111. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.87–135; Gozzoli 2017: 177–215.

135. 2 Kgs 24:20–25:7.

bc, after a thirteen-year siege.142 An exact reconstruction of these events

142. Hdt. 2.161.2; see Lloyd 1988: 169–173.

172. Pernigotti 1999; Haider 2001; Vittmann 2003: 194–

176. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: nos. 55.101, 60.197–200 (Potasimto); nos. 54.76–77,

186. Jansen-Winkeln 2014a: 60.693; Villing 2018; dating uncertain.