Listed 41 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "IRAN Country PERSIAN GULF" .
ANTIOCHIA MARGIANI (Ancient city) IRAN
Antiocheia Margiana (A. Margiane), a city on both sides of the river
Margus, in Margiana. (Pliny, vi. 16 ; Strab. p. 516.) It is said to have been
founded by Alexander, but his city having been destroyed by the barbarians, Antiochus
I. Soter restored it, and gave to it his own name. It lay in a fertile plain surrounded
by deserts; and, to defend it against the barbarians, Antiochus surrounded the
plain with a wall 1500 stadia in circuit (Strabo). Pliny, who seems to have referred
to the same sources as Strabo, and perhaps to others also, states that the region
is of great fertility, and surrounded by mountains; and he makes the circuit 1500
stadia, but omits to mention this great wall, which is probably a fiction. The
city was 70 stadia in circuit. The river which flowed between the two parts of
the town was used for irrigation. Pliny adds that the soldiers of Crassus, whom
Orodes took prisoners (Plut. Crass. c. 31), were settled here. The place appears
to be Merv, on the Murgh-aub, the ancient Margus, where there are remains of an
old town. Merv lies nearly due north of Herat.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
EKVATANA (Ancient city) MIDIA
Ecbatana (ta Ekbatana: the genuine orthography appears to be Agbatana,
as it is now written in Herodotus, and as we learn from Steph. B. it was written
by Ctesias: Apobatana, Isid. Char. p. 6, ed. Hudson: Ecbatana-ae, Hieron. Chron.
Euseb.; Lucil. Satyr. vii.), a celebrated ancient city of Media. Its foundation
was popularly attributed, like those of many other very ancient places, to Semiramis,
who is said to have made a great road to it from Assyria, by Mt. Zarcaeus or Zagros,
to have built a palace there, and to have plentifully supplied the district in
which it was situated with water, by means of an enormous tunnel or aqueduct.
(Diod. ii. 13.) According to the same author, the city of Semiramis was seated
in a place at the distance of twelve stadia from the Orontes (Mt. Elwend), and
would therefore correspond pretty nearly with the position of the present Hamadan.
Herodotus tells a different story: according to him, the city was of later origin,
and was built by the command of Deioces, who had been elected king by the people,
after they had renounced their former independence. Herodotus describes with considerable
minuteness the peculiar character of this structure, which had seven concentric
walls, each inner one being higher than the next outer one by the battlements
only. The nature of the ground, which was a conical hill, favoured this mode of
building. These battlements were painted with a series of different colours: the
outermost was white, the second black, the third purple, the fourth blue, the
fifth bright red, and sixth and seventh, respectively, gilt with silver and gold..
It has been conjectured that this story of the seven coloured walls is a fable
of Sabaean origin, the colours mentioned by Herodotus being precisely the same
as those used by the Orientals to denote the seven great heavenly bodies, or the
seven climates in which they are supposed to revolve. (Rawlinson, J. R. Geogr.
Soc. vol. x. p. 128.) Herodotus adds, what is clearly improbable, that the size
of the outer wall equalled in circumference that of the city of Athens. He probably
obtained his information from the Medes he met with at Babylon. Diodorus, on the
other hand, states that Arbaces, on the destruction of Nineveh, transferred the
seat of empire to Ecbatana (ii. 24-28), so that, according to him, it must have
been already a great city. Xenophon, at the foot of the Carduchian hills, heard
that there were two principal roads from Assyria; one to the S. into Babylonia
and Media, and the other to the E. to Susa and Ecbatana. It would seem pretty
certain, that the former is the road by Kermanshh to Hamadan; the latter, that
by Rowandiz and Keli Shin into Azerbaijan, and thence through the valleys of Kurdistan
(Mah-Sabadan) and Laristan to Susa. He mentions that the great king passed his
summer and spring respectively at Susa and Ecbatana (Anab. iii. 5. § 15), and,
in another place, that the Persian monarch spent generally two summer months at
Ecbatana, three spring months at Susa, and the remaining seven months at Babylon
(Cyrop. viii. 6. § 22). The same fact is noticed by Strabo (xi. p. 523). During
the period of the wars of Alexander the Great we have frequent mention of Ecbatana:
thus, after Arbela, Dareius flies thither, taking, most likely, the second of
the routes noticed by Xenophon (Arrian, Anab. iii. 19. § 2). Alexander marching
in pursuit of him, comes to it from Susa (iii. 19. § 4), and transports thither
as to a place of peculiar security the plunder which he had taken previously at
Babylon and Susa, ordering Parmenio to place them eis ten akran ten en Ekbatanois,
and to leave there a force of 6000 Macedonians under Harpalus as their guard (iii.
19. § 7). Again, when Alexander at last overtook and captured Bessus, he sends
him to Ecbatana - as to the most important place in his new dominions, to be put
to death by the Medes and Persians (iv. 7. § 3); arid, on his return from the
extreme east, Alexander sacrifices at Ecbatana and exhibits games and musical
contests (vii. 14. § 1). At Ecbatana, Alexander's favourite Hephaestion died,
and the conqueror is said to have destroyed the famous temple of Aesculapius there,
in sorrow for him; an anecdote, however, which Arrian does not believe (vii. 14.
§ 5). In Polybius we have a curious description of the grandeur of this ancient
town, as it had existed up to the time of Seleucus. He states that, of all the
provinces of Asia, Media was the one best fitted, from natural causes, for the
maintenance of a great and settled monarchy, the richness of its land being remarkable
and the abundance both of its inhabitants and of its cattle. He remarks of Ecbatana
itself, that it was situated in the northern part of the province, adjoining the
districts which extend thence to the Palus Maeotis and the Euxine, and that it
was under the roots of Mt. Orontes (Elwend) in a rocky situation. He adds that
there were no walls round it, but that it had a citadel of enormous strength,
and, adjoining the citadel, a royal palace full of rich and beautiful workmanship,
- all the wood used being cedar or cypress, but wholly covered with silver and
golden plates: most of these metallic ornaments, he subsequently states, had been
carried away by the soldiers of Alexander, Antigonus and Seleucus, the temple
of Aena (Anaitis) alone preserving some of these decorations up to the. time when
Antiochus came there; so that a considerable sum of money was coined from them.
The book of Judith gives a remarkable account of the building of Ecbatana in the
days of Arphaxad who reigned over the Medes in Ecbatana, from which it is evident
that it was a place of great. strength (i. 2-4). It has not been quite satisfactorily
made out who this Arphaxad was; and some have identified him with Phraortes and
some with Deioces. The former is, perhaps, the most probable conclusion, as the
same book relates a few verses further his overthrow by Nebuchodonosor in the
mountains of Ragau (v. 14), which corresponds with Herodotus's statement, that
this king fell in a battle with the Assyrians (i. 102). The place is also mentioned
in 2 Maccab. i. 3, where it is stated that Antiochus died there, on his flight.
from Persepolis; in Tobit, ii. 7, vi. 5, vii. 1, where it is evidently a place
of importance; and in Ezra, vi. 2, under the name of Achmetha, when the decree
of Cyrus for the restoration of the Jews was, found in the palace that is in the
province of the Medes. Subsequently to the period of the wars of the Seleucidae,
we find scarcely any mention of Ecbatana, and it might be presumed that it had
ceased to be a place of any note, or that its site had been occupied by a city
of some other name: Pliny, however, alludes to it, stating that it was built (more
probably, restored) by Seleucus (vi. 14. s. 17); adding, a little further on,
that it was removed by Dareius to the mountains (vi. 26. s. 29), though it would
seem, that his two statements can hardly apply to the same place. Curtius speaks
of it as caput Mediae, remarking that it was (at the time when he was writing)
under the domination of the Parthians (v. 8. § 1); while Josephus preserves, what
was probably a Jewish tradition, that Daniel built, at Ecbatana in Media, a tower
of beautiful workmanship, still extant in his day, asserting that it was the custom
for the kings both Persian and Parthian to be buried there, and for the custody
of their tombs to be committed to a Jewish priest (Ant. Jud. x. 11. § 7). He states
that it was in this tower that the decree of Cyrus was discovered. (Ant. Jud.
xi. 4. § 6.) Lastly, Ammianus places it in Adiabene (or Assyria Proper), on the
confines of which province he must himself have marched, when accompanying the
army of Jovian (xxiii. 6).
Various theories have been propounded as to the origin of the name
of Ecbatana, none of which are, we think, satisfactory. Bochart supposed that
it was derived from Agbatha, which, he says, means variously coloured; but it
is more probable that it should be derived from Achmetha. Herodotus and Ctesias
write Agbatana. There seems little doubt that the Apobatana of Isidorus refers
to Ecbatana, and is perhaps only a careless mode of pronouncing the name; his
words are curious. He speaks of a place called Adrogiananta or Adrapananta, a
palace of those among or in the Batani (ton en Batanois), which Tigranes, the
Armenian, destroyed, and then of Apobatana, the metropolis of Media, the treasury
and the temple where they perpetually sacrifice to Anaitis. If the country of
the Batani corresponds, as has been supposed, with Mesobatene, the position and
description of Apobatana will agree well enough with the modern Hamadan. (C. Masson,
J. R. As. Soc. xii. p. 121.) The coincidence of the names of the deity worshipped
there, in Polybius Aena, in Isidorus Anaitis, may be noticed; and there is little
doubt that the Nanea whose priests slew Antiochus and his army (2 Maccab i. 13)
was the goddess of the same place. Plutarch (Artax. c. 27) mentions the same fact,
and calls this Anaitis, Artemis or Diana; and Clemens Alex. referring to the same
place speaks of the shrine of Anaitis, whom he calls Aphrodite or Venus.
It is worthy of remark that Mr. Masson noticed outside the walls of
Hamadan some pure white marble columns, which he conjectured might, very possibly,
have belonged to this celebrated building.
It is, however, not a little curious that, though we have such ample
references to the power and importance of Ecbatana, learned men have not been,
indeed, are not still, agreed as to the modern place which can best be identified
with its ancient position. The reason of this may, perhaps, be, that there was
certainly more than one town in antiquity which bore this name, while there is
a strong probability that there were, in Media itself, two cities which, severally
at least, if not at the same time, had this title. If, too, as has been suspected,
the original name, of which we have the Graecised form, may have meant treasury,
or treasure-city, this hypothesis might account for part of the confusion which
has arisen on this subject. It must also be remembered that all our accounts of
Ecbatana are derived through the medium of Greek or Roman authors, who themselves
record what they had heard or read, and who, in hardly any instance, if we except
the case of Isidorus, themselves had visited the localities which they describe.
The principal theories which have been held in modern times are those of Gibbon
and Jones, who supposed that Ecbatana was to be sought at Tabriz; of Mr. Williams
(Life of Alexander), who concluded that it was at Isfahan; of the majority of
scholars, and travellers, such as Rennell, Mannert, Olivier, Kinneir, Morier,
and Ker Porter, who place it at Hamadan; and of Colonel Rawlinson, who has contended
for the independent existence of two capitals of this name, the one that of the
lower and champaign country (known anciently as Media Magna), which he places
at Hamadan, the other that of the mountain district of Atropatene, which he places
at Takht-i-Soleiman in the province of Azerbaijan, in N. lat. 36° 25? W., long.
47° 10 (J. R. Geog. Soc. vol. x. pt. 1). Of these four views the two first may
be safely rejected; but the last is so new and important, that it is necessary
to state the main features of it, though it would be obviously impossible to do
more in this place than to give a concise outline of Colonel Rawlinson's investigations.
It is important to remember the ancient division of Media into two provinces,
Upper Media or Atropatene, and Lower or Southern Media or Media Magna (Strab.
xi. pp. 523, 524, 526, 529); for there is good reason for supposing that, in the
early history, contemporary with Cyrus (as subsequently in Roman times), Media
was restricted to the northern and mountainous district. It was, in fact, a small
province nearly surrounded by high ranges of hills, bearing the same relation
to the Media of Alexander's aera which the small province of Persis did to Persia,
in the wide sense of that word. It is on this distinction that much of the corroborative
evidence, which Colonel Rawlinson has adduced in favour of his theory, rests:
his belief being, that the city of Deioces was the capital of Atropatene, and
that many things true of it, and it alone, were in after-times transplanted into
the accounts of the Ecbatana of Media Magna (the present Hamadan). Colonel Rawlinson
is almost the only traveller who has had the advantage of studying all the localities,
which he attempts to illustrate, on the spot, and with equal knowledge, too, of
the ancient and modern authorities to whom he refers.
In his attempt to identify the ruins of Takht-i-Soleiman with those
of the earliest capital of Media, Col. Rawlinson commences with the latest authorities,
the Oriental writers, proceeding from them through the period of the Byzantine
historians to that of the Greek and Roman empires, and thence, upwards, to the
darkest times of early Median history. He shows that the ruins themselves are
not later than Tmur's invasion in A.D. 1389; that they probably derive their present
name from a local ruler of Kudistan, Soleiman Shah Abuh, who lived in the early
part of the thirteenth century A. D.; that, previous to the Moghels, the city
was universally known as Shiz in all Oriental authors, and that Shiz is the same
place as the Byzantine Canzaca, This is his first important identification, and
it depends on the careful examination of the march of the Roman general Narses
against the Persian emperor Bahran, who was defeated by him and driven across
the Oxus. (Theophylact. v. 5-10.) Canzaca is described by Theophanes, in the campaigns
of Heraclius, as that city of the East which contained the fire-temple and the
treasuries of Croesus king of Lydia (Chronogr. ed. Goar. p. 258: see also Cedren,
Hist. p. 338; Tzetz. Chil. iii. 66; and Procopius, Bell. Pers. ii. c. 24); its
name is derived from Kandzag, the Armenian modification of the Greek Gaza, mentioned
by Strabo as the capital of Atropatene (xi. p. 523; Ptol. vi. 18. § 4). The notice
of the great fire-temple (of which ample accounts exist in the Oriental authorities
which Col. Rawlinson cites), and the Byzantine legend of the treasuries of Croesus
(in manifest reference to Cyrus; compare Herod. i. 153), are so many links in
the chain which connect Shiz, Canzaca, and Ecbatana together. Colonel Rawlinson
proceeds next to demonstrate that Canzaca was well known even earlier, as it is
mentioned by Ammianus, under the form Gazaca, as one of the largest Median cities
(xxiii. c. 6), and he then quotes a remarkable passage from Moses of Chorene,
who (writing probably about A.D. 445) states that Tiridates, who received the
satrapy of Atropatene in reward for his fidelity to the Romans in A.D. 297, when
he visited his newly acquired province of Azerbaijan repaired the fortifications
of that place, which was named the second Ecbatana, or seven-walled city (ii.
c. 84; compare also Steph. Byz. s. v. Gazaca, who quotes Quadratus, an author
of the second century, for the name of what he calls the largest city in Media,
and Arrian, who terms it a large village ). During the aera of the Parthian empire,
and its conflicts with the Roman power, Col. Rawlinson proves, as we think, satisfactorily,
that the names Phraata, Praaspa, Vera, Gaza, and Gazaca are used indifferently
for one and the same city. (Compare, for this portion of the history, Plut. Anton.;
Dion Cass. xlix. 25-31; Appian, Hist. Parth. pp. 77, 80, ed. Schweigh.; Florus,
iv. 10; and for the names, of Gaza and Vera, and the distinction between them,
Strab. xi. p. 523.) The next point is to compare the distances mentioned in ancient
authors. Now Strabo states that Gazaca was 2400 stadia from the Araxes (xi. p.
523), a distance equivalent to about 280 English miles; while Pliny, in stating
that Ecbatana, the capital of Media founded by Seleucus, was 750 miles from Seleuceia
and 20 from the, Caspian gates, has evidently confounded Ecbatana with Europus
(now Veramin) (vi. 14. s. 17). The former measure Col. Rawlinson shows is perfectly
consistent with the position of Takht-i-Soleiman. Colonel Rawlinson demonstrates
next, that the capital of Media Atropatene was in the most ancient periods called
Ecbatana, assuming what is certainly probable, that the dynasty founded by Arbaces
was different from that which, according to Herodotus, commenced with Deioces,
a century later. Arbaces, on the fall of Nineveh, conveyed the treasures he found
there to Ecbatana, the seat royal of Media, and it is clear that here the Ecbatana
of Media Magna is meant. (Diod. ii. 3.) To the same place belongs the story of
Semiramis, also recorded by Diodorus, and previously mentioned. After five generations
Artaeus ascends the throne at the same place. During his reign the Cadusians (who
are constantly associated with the Atropatenians in subsequent history) revolt,
under the leadership of Parsodes. Colonel Rawlinson happily suggests that this
is no other than the Deioces of Herodotus, Parsodes or Phrazad being an affiliative
epithet from his father, Phraortes. (Diod. l. c.; Herod. i. 95-130.) When we examine
the narrative of Herodotus, it is clear that he is speaking of some place in Atropatene
or Northern Media. Thus he states that the pastures where they kept the royal
cattle were at the foot of the mountains north of Agbatana, towards the Euxine
sea. In this quarter, toward the Sapires, Media is an elevated country, filled
with mountains and covered with forests, while the other parts of the province
are open and champaign. (Herod. i. c. 110.) Colonel Rawlinson then shows that
the existing state of Takht-i-Soleiman bears testimony to the accurate information
which Herodotus had obtained. It is clear from his account that the Agbatana of
Deioces was believed to be an embattled conical hill, on which was the citadel,
and the town was round its base in the plain below. Colonel Rawlinson adds that
there is no other position in Azerbaijan which corresponds with this statement,
except Takht-i-Soleiman, and cites abundant evidence from the Zend Avesta, as
compared with the Byzantine and other writers to whom we have alluded, in reference
to peculiarities, too important to have been only imagined, which mark out and
determine this locality. It is impossible here to state his arguments in their
fulness; but we may add that from the Zend he obtains the word Var, the root of
the baris of the Greeks (see Hesych. and Suidas, s. v.), which is constantly used
to denote the Treasure Citadel of Ecbatana; of the Vera of Strabo; of the Balaroth
(i. e. Vara-rud, river of Vara) of Theophylact, whence we have Barisman - the
keeper of the Baris - the title used by the emperor Heraclius in reference to
the governor of the fortress of this very place. In conclusion, Colonel Rawlinson
suggests that the Ecbatana of Pliny and Josephus refers to the Treasure Citadel
of Persepolis; that there are grounds for supposing a similar treasury to have
existed in the strong position of the Syrian Ecbatana on Mount Carmel (Herod.
iii. 62-64; Plin. v. 19. § 17); and that, if there ever was (as some have supposed)
an Assyrian place of the same name (Rich, Kurdistan, i. p. 153), the castle of
Amadiyah - which, according to Mr. Layard (i. p. 161), retains the local name
of Ek-badan - will best suit it. (See also Journal of Education, vol. ii. p. 305;
and Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. vi. Append. 2., where the site of Hamadan
is ably defended.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MIDIA (Ancient country) IRAN
Media (he Media: Eth. Medos: Adj. Medikos), a country of considerable
extent and importance, in the western part of Asia, between the Caspian Sea on
the N. and the great rivers of Mesopotamia on the W. It is by no means easy to
determine what were its precise boundaries, or how much was comprehended under
the name of Media. Thus Herodotus, who speaks repeatedly of the Medes, gives little
or no description of the country they inhabited, and perhaps all that could be
inferred from his language is, that it must have been a mountainous district between
the Halys in Asia Minor and Persia, fit for raising a warlike and independent
race of men (i. 72). Again, during the wars of Alexander, Media had to a considerable
extent taken the place of Persia, and was the great country E. of Mesopotamia,
and extending indefinitely along the Caspian sea eastwards to Ariana and Bactriana.
Still later, at the close of the Roman Republic and under the earlier emperors,
Media was restricted by the encroachments of the Parthian empire to its most mountainous
parts, and to the Caspian coast westwards,- the province of Atropatene forming,
in fact, all that could be strictly called Media. Indeed, its limits were constantly
changing at different periods. General consent, however, allows that Media was
divisible into three leading divisions, each of which from time to time was apparently
held to be Media Proper. These were: - 1. A northern territory along the shores
of the Caspian, extending more or less from Armenia on the W. to Hyrcania on the
E., comprehending much of the country now known by the names of Mazanderan and
Gilan; 2. Media Atropatene, a very mountainous district, to the west and south
of the preceding; and 3. Media Magna, the most southern, extensive, and, historically,
the most important, of the three divisions, with its capital Ecbatana (the present
Hamadan).
Of the ancient geographers, Ptolemy gives this country the widest
boundaries. Media, says he, is bounded on the N. by the Hyrcanian (i. e. the Caspian)
sea, on the W. by Armenia and Assyria, on the S. by Persis and a line drawn from
Assyria to Susiana, and on the E. by Hyrcania and Parthia (vi. 2. § § 1, 3). It
is clear from this, and still more so from the mention he makes of the tribes
and towns in it, that he is speaking of Media in its most extended sense: while,
at the same time, he does not recognise the triple division noticed above, and
speaks of Atropatene (or, as he calls it, Tropatene, vi. 2, 5) as one only of
many tribes.
Strabo, in the tolerably full account which he gives of ancient Media,
is content with a twofold division, into Media Atropatene and Media Magna; to
these he gives nearly the same limits as Ptolemy, comprehending, however, under
the former, the mountain tract near the Caspian (xi. pp. 522-526). Pliny, in stating
that what was formerly the kingdom of the Persians, is now (in his time) under
the Parthians, appears only to recognise Media Magna as Media Proper (vi. 14.
s. 17). Atropatene, though subject to Ecbatana, the capital of Media Magna, he
does not seem to consider has any thing to do with it (vi. 13. s. 16).
We proceed now to describe Media Magna, the first or most northern
part of what was popularly called Media having been fully noticed under Atropatene
and Ecbatana. It is very difficult to distinguish the classical accounts of the
different divisions to which we have alluded, the name Media being used very indefinitely.
It may, however, be stated generally, that Media Magna comprehended the whole
of the rich and fertile plain-country which was shut in between the great chain
of the Carduchian mountains and of Mt. Zagros in the W. and by Mt. Coronus on
the N. It appears to have extended as far south as Elymais and Susiana, and to
have bordered on the eastern side on Caramania and Ariana, or on what, in later
times, was better known by the name of Parthia. Some have attempted to prove that
it derived its name from its lying in the middle part of Asia (Gesenius, Thes.
ii. p. 768; cf. also Polyb. v. 44, who states, He Media keitai peri mesen ten
Asian). The derivation, however, admits of doubt. On the Cuneiform Inscriptions
the name is read Mada (Rawlinson, Behistun Inse. As. Journ. vol. x.). Much of
this land was of a high elevation above the sea, but it abounded in fertile valleys,
famous for their richness, and in meadow land in which a celebrated breed of horses,
called the Nisaean horses, were raised. (Herod. vii. 40, iii. 106; Diod. xvii.
100 ; Strab. xi. p. 525 ; Aelian, Hist. Anim. iii. 2 ; Ammian. xxiii. 6.; cf.
also the modern travellers, Ker Porter, vol. i. p. 216, Chardin, and Morier.)
It is comprehended for the most part in the modern province of Irak Ajem.
The principal town of Media Magna was Ecbatana (doubtless the present
Hamadan), which, during the time of the wars of Alexander, as for many years before,
was the capital of the whole country. Besides Ecbatana, were other towns of importance,
most of them situated in the NE. part of the country, on the edge of, if not within,
Atropatene, as Rhagae and Heracleia.
It is equally difficult to determine with accuracy what states or
tribes belong to Media Magna. It is probable, however, that the following may
be best comprehended in this division : - The Sagartii, who occupied the passes
of Mt. Zagros ; Choromithrene, in the champaign country to the south of Ecbatana;
Elymais, to the north of Choromithrene - if indeed this name has not been erroneously
introduced here by Ptolemy and Polybius; the Tapyri or Tapyrrhi, S. of Mt. Coronus
as far as Parthia and the Caspian Gates; Rhagiana, with its capital Rhagae; Sigriane,
Daritis, and, along the southern end of the Parachoatras, what was called Syromedia.
(See these places under their respective names.)
The Medi, or inhabitants of Media, are the same people as the Madai
of the Bible, from which Semitic word the Greek name is most likely derived. Madai
is mentioned in Genesis, as one of the sons of Japhet (x. 2), in the first repeopling
of the earth after the Flood; and the same name occurs in more than one place,
subsequently, indicating, as it would seem, an independent people, subject to
the king of Nineveh (2 Kings, xvii. 6), or in connection with, if not subject
to, the Persians, as in Dan. v. 28, vi. 15; Esth. i. 3, 14. The first Greek author
who gives any description of them is Herodotus. According to him, they were originally
called ARII, but changed their name to that of Medi on the coming of Medeia from
Athens (vii. 62). They were divided into six tribes, the Busae (Steph. Byz.),
Paraetaceni (Strab. xi. p. 522, xvi. p. 739, &c.; Arrian, iii. 19), Struchates,
Arizanti, Budii (Steph. Byz.), and the Magi. Von Hammer has attemped to show that
most, if not all, of these names occur under their Persian form in the Zendavesta
and Shah-nameh ( Wiener. Joahrb. ix. pp. 11, 12), but it may be questioned whether
the identification can be considered as satisfactory. Some, however, of these
names indicate the Eastern origin of the inhabitants of Media, as Arii and Arizanti;
though it may be doubted whether others of them, as the Magi, ought to be considered
as separate tribes. The general evidence is, that the Magi were a priest-class
among the Median people; not, like the Achaemenidae in Persia, a distinct or dominant
tribe. (Cf. Strab. xvi. p. 962; Cic. Divin. i. 41; Porphyr. Abstinent. 4. 16,
&c.) In other authors we find the following peoples counted among the inhabitants
of Media, though it may be doubted whether some of them do not more properly belong
to one or more of the adjacent nations: the Sagartii, Tapyri or Tapyrrhi, Matiani
Caspii, Cadusii, Gelae, and the Mardi or Amardi. Herodotus proceeds to state that
originally the Medes were a free people, who lived in separate villages, but that
at length they chose for themselves a king in the person of Deioces, who built
the celebrated city of Ecbatana, and was succeeded by Phraortes and Cyaxares (i.
95-103). The reign of the former was, he adds, terminated by a defeat which he
sustained (at Rhages, Judith, i. 15); while, during the commencement of that of
the latter, all Western Asia was overrun by a horde of Scythians (i. 103). There
can be no doubt that for awhile they were subject to, and formed a satrapy of,
the Assyrian empire, as stated by Diodorus (ii. 2); that then they threw off the
Assyrian yoke, as stated by Herodotus (i. 106), and were ruled over by a series
of kings of their own for a long period. (Cf. Strab. xi. p. 524.) The order and
the names of these rulers are differently stated; and it would be out of place
here to discuss at length one of the most difficult and disputed points of ancient
chronology. (Cf., however, Diod. ii. 24, 32; Herod. i. 95; and Euseb. Chron. Armen.
i. 101; Clinton, Fast. Hellen. vol. i. p. 257, app.) It may be remarked, that
in the Bible the first notice we find of the Medes, exhibits them as the subjects
of the Assyrian king Salmaneser (2 Kings, xvii. 6), who was contemporary with
the Jewish king Hoshea; while in the later times of Nebuchadnezzar, they appear
as a warlike nation, governed by their own rulers. (Isaiah, xiii. 17; Jerem. xxv.
25, li. 11, 28.) It is equally clear that the Medians were united to the Persians
by Cyrus, and formed one empire with them (Herod. i. 129; Diod. ii. 34; Justin,
i. 6), and hence are spoken of in the later books of the Bible as a people subject
to the same ruler as the Persians. (Dan. v. 28, viii. 20 ; Esth. i. 3, &c.) From
this time forward their fate was the same as that of the Persian monarchy; and
they became in succession subject to the Greeks, under Alexander the Great, to
the Syro-Macedonian rulers after his death, and lastly to the Parthian kings.
(Cf. 1 Macc. vi. 56, xiv. 2; Strab. xvi. p. 745; Joseph. Antiq. xx. 3. § 3.)
The consent of history shows that in early times the Medes were held to
be a very warlike race, who had a peculiar skill in the use of the bow. (Isaiah,
xiii. 18; Herod. vii. 62; Xen. Anab. ii. 1. 7; Strab. xi. p. 525,) They had also
great knowledge and practice in horsemanship, and were considered in this, as
in many other acquirements, to have been the masters of the Persians. (Strab.
xv. pp. 525, 526, 531.) Hence, in the armament of Xerxes, the Medes are described
as equipped similarly with the Persians, and Herodotus expressly states that their
dress and weapons were of Median, not Persian origin (l. c.). In later ages they
appear to have degenerated very much, and to have adopted a luxurious fashion
of life and dress (cf. Xen. Cyrop. i. 3. 2 ; Strab. l. c.; Ammian. xxiii. 6),
which passed from them to their Persian conquerors. The religion of the Medes
was a system of Starworship; their priests bearing, as we have remarked, the name
of Magi, which was common to them with the Persians, indeed was probably adopted
by the latter from the former. (Xen. Cyr. iv. 5 ; Strab. xv. pp. 727, 735;; Cic.
Div. i. 3. 3) The principal object of their adoration was the Sun, and then the
Moon and the five planets, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, and Mars.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
PARTHIA (Ancient country) IRAN
Parthia, (he Parthuaia, Strab. xi.; he Parthuene, Polyb. x. 28; Steph. B. s. v.;
Curt.v. 12; Parthia, Ptol. vi. 5.1; Parthia, Plin. vi. 15. s. 16), originally
a small district of Western Asia, shut in on all sides by either mountains or
deserts. It was bounded on the W. by Media Atropatene, on the N. by Hyrcania,
on the E. by Ariana and M. Masdoranus, and on the S. by Carmania Deserta, M. Parachoathras,
and Persis. It comprehended, therefore, the southern part of Khorasan, almost
all Kohistan, and some portion of the great Salt Desert. It was for the most part
a mountainous and rugged district. The principal mountains were the Labus or Labutas
(probably part of the great range now known by the name of the Elburz Mts.), the
Parachoathras (or Elwend), and the Masdoranus. The few rivers which it possessed
were little more than mountain streams, liable to violent and sudden floods on
the melting of the snow, but nearly dry during the summer: the only names which
have been recorded of these streams are, the Zioberis or Stiboetes, the Rhidagus,
and the Choatres. The principal divisions of the land were into Camisene, on the
north; Parthyene, to the SW. of Camisene, extending along the edge of the Caspian
Sea, as far as the Caspian Gates, a district which some have supposed to have
been the original seat of the population, and that from which the whole country
derived its name; Choarene, the western portion of the land, and for the most
part a fruitful valley along the frontiers of Media; Apavarctene, to the S.; and
Tabiene, along the borders of Carmania Deserta. There were no great towns in Parthia,
properly so called, but history has preserved the names of a few which played
an important part at different periods: of these, the best known were Hecatompolis,
the chief town of the Parthians, and the royal residence of the dynasty of the
Arsacidae, and Apameia Rhagiana.
Little is known of Parthian history at an early period; and it is
probable that it was subject to the great empire of Persia, and subsequently to
the first successors of Alexander, till the first Arsaces threw off the Syro-Macedonian
rule, and established a native dynasty on the throne of Parthia in B.C. 256. From
this period it grew rapidly more powerful, till, on the final decay of the house
of the Seleucidae, the Arsacidan dynasty possessed the rule of the greater part
of Western Asia. Their long wars with the Romans are well known: no Eastern
race was able to make so effectual a resistance to the advance of the Roman arms,
or vindicated with more constancy and determination their natural freedom.
The overthrow of Crassus, B.C. 53, showed what even the undisciplined Parthian
troops could do when fighting for freedom (Dion Cass. xl. 21). Subsequent to this,
the Romans were occasionally successful. Thus, in A.D. 34, Vonones was sent as
a hostage to Rome (Tacit. Annual. ii. 1); and finally the greater part of the
country was subdued, successively, by the arms of Trajan, by Antoninus, and Caracalla,
till, at length, the rise of the new Sassanian, or native dynasty of Persia, under
the command of Artaxerxes I. put an end to the house of Arsaces (A.D. 226). Subsequent
to this period there is a constant confusion in ancient authors between Persians
and Parthians.
The inhabitants of Parthia were called Parthyaei (Parthuaioi, Polyb.
x. 31: Strab. xi.; Arrian, Anab. iii. 21; Ptol. iii. 13.41) or Parthi (Parthoi,
Herod. iii. 93; Strab. xi.; Plin. vi. 25. s. 28; Amm. Marc. xxiii. 6), and were,
in all probability, one of the many branches of the great Indo-Germanic family
of nations. Their own tradition (if, indeed, faithfully reported) was that they
came out of Scythia -for they were wont to say that Parthian meant exile in the
Scythian tongue (Justin, xli. 1). Herodotus, too, classes them with the people
of Chorasmia and Sogdiana (iii. 39, vii. 66); and Strabo admits that their manners
resembled those of the Scythians (xi.). On the other hand, modern research has
demonstrated their direct connection with the Iranian tribes; their name is found
in the Zend to be Pardu, in the Sanscrit Parada. According to Strabo, who quotes
Posidonius as his authority, the Parthians were governed by a double council,
composed of the nobles or relatives of the king (according as the reading eugenon
or sungenon be adopted), and of the Magians (xi). As a nation, they were famous
for their skill in the management of the horse and for their use of the bow (Dion
Cass. xl. 15, 22; Dionys. 1045; Plut. Crass. c. 24), and for the peculiar art
which they practised in shooting with the bow from horseback when retreating.
This peculiarity is repeatedly noticed by the Roman poets (Virg. Georg. iii. 31;
Horat. Carm. i. 19. 11, ii. 13. 17; Ovid, Art. Am. i. 209). In their treatment
of their kings and nobles they were considered to carry their adulation even beyond
the usual Oriental excess (Virg, Georg. iv. 211; Martial, Epigr. x. 72, 1-5).
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
PERSEPOLIS (Ancient city) IRAN
Persepolis (Persepolis, Diod. xvii. 70; Ptol. vi. 4. § 4; Curt. v.
4. 6; Persaipolis, Strab. xv. 729: Eth. Persepolites), the capital of Persis at
the time of the invasion of Alexander, and the seat of the chief palaces of the
kings of Persia. It was situated at the opening of an extensive plain (now called
Mardusht), and near the junction of two streams, the Araxes (Bendamir) and the
Medus (Pulwan). The ruins, which are still very extensive, bear the local name
of the Chel Minar, or Forty Columns. According to Diodorus the city was originally
surrounded by a triple wall of great strength and beauty (xvii. 71). Strabo states
that it was, after Susa, the richest city of the Persians, and that it contained
a palace of great beauty (xv. p. 729), and adds that Alexander burnt this building
to avenge the Greeks for the similar injuries which had been inflicted on them
by the Persians (xv. p. 730). Arrian simply states that Alexander burnt the royal
palace, contrary to the entreaty of Parmenion, who wished him to spare this magnificent
building, but does not mention the name of Persepolis. (Anab. iii. 18.) Curtius,
who probably drew his account from the many extant notices of Alexander's expedition
by different officers who had accompanied him, has fully described the disgraceful
burning of the city and palace at Persepolis by the Greek monarch and his drunken
companions. He adds that, as it was chiefly built of cedar, the fire spread rapidly
far and wide.
Great light has been thrown upon the monuments which still remain
at Persepolis by the researches of Niebuhr and Ker Porter, and still more so by
the interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions by Colonel Rawlinson and Prof.
Lassen. From the result of their inquiries, it seems doubtful whether any portion
of the present ruins ascend to so high a period as that of the founder of the
Persian monarchy, Cyrus. The principal buildings are doubtless due to Dareius
the son of Hystaspes, and to Xerxes. The palace and city of Cyrus was at Pasargada,
while that of the later monarchs was at Persepolis. (Rawlinson, Journ. of Roy.
As. Soc. vol. x; Lassen, in Ersch and Gruber's Encycl. s.v.; Fergusson, Palaces
of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored, Lond. 1851.) It has been a matter of some
doubt how far Persepolis itself ever was the ancient site of the capital; and
many writers have supposed that it was only the high place of the Persian monarchy
where the great palaces and temples were grouped together. On the whole, it seems
most probable that the rock on which the ruins are now seen was the place where
the palaces and temples were placed, and that the city was extended at its feet
along the circumjacent plain. Subsequent to the time of Alexander, Persepolis
is not mentioned in history except in the second book of the Maccabees, where
it is stated that Antiochus Epiphanes made a fruitless attempt to plunder the
temples. (2 Maccab. ix. 1.) In the later times of the Muhammedan rule, the fortress
of Istakhr, which was about 4 miles from the ruins, seems to have occupied the
place of Persepolis; hence the opinion of some writers, that Istakhr itself was
part of the ancient city. (Niebuhr, ii. p. 121; Chardin, Voyages, viii. p. 245;
Ker Porter, vol. i. p. 576; Ouseley, Travels, ii. p. 222.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
SELEFKIA EPI TOU EVLEOU (Ancient city) IRAN
Susa (ta Sousa, Aeschyl. Pers. 535, 730; Herod. i. 188; Xen. Cyr.
viii. 6. 8, &c.; in O. T. Shushan Esther, i. 2; Nehemiah, i. 1; Daniel, viii.
2), the chief city of the province of Susiana, on the eastern bank of the Choaspes
(Kerkhah). There was considerable doubt among the ancient writers as to the exact
position of this celebrated city. Thus Arrian (vii. 7), Pliny (vi. 27. s. 31),
and Daniel (viii. 2) place it on the Eulaeus (Ulai in Daniel): while from other
authors (Strab. xv. p. 728) it may be gathered that it was situated on the Choaspes.
(For the probable cause of this confusion, see Choaspes) We may add, however,
that, according to Curtius, Alexander on his way from Babylon had to cross the
Choaspes before he could reach Susa (v. 2), and that the same inference may be
drawn from the account of Aristagoras of the relative position of the places in
Persia in his address to Cleomenes. (Herod. v. 52.) It appears to have been an
early tradition of the country that Susa was founded by Dareius the son of Hystaspes
(Plin. l. c.); and it is described by Aeschylus as meg' astu Sousidos (Pers. 119).
By others it is termed Memnoneion astu (Herod. v. 54), and its origin is attributed
to Memnon, the son of Tithonus. (Strab. l. c.; Steph. B. s. v.) The name is said
to have been derived from a native Persian word Susan (meaning lily), from the
great abundance of those plants in that neighbourhood. (Steph. B. s. v.; Athen.
xii. p. 513, ed. Cassaub.) Athenaeus also confirms the account of the excellence
of the climate of Susa (l. c.). It may be remarked that the word Sousinon was
well known as applied to an unguent extracted from lilies. (Dioscor. iii. c. de
lilio: Athen. xv. p. 609; Etymol. M. s. v. Sousinon). The city was said to have
been 120 stadia in circumference (Strab. l. c.), and to have been surrounded by
a wall, built like that of Babylon of burnt brick. (Strab. l. c.; Paus. iv. 31.
§ 5.) Diodorus (xix. 16, xvii. 65) and Cassiodorus (vii. 15) speak of the strength
and splendour of its citadel; and the latter writer affirms that there was a splendid
palace there, built for Cyrus by Memnon. Besides this structure, Pliny speaks
of a celebrated temple of Diana (l. c.; see also Mart. Capella, vi. de India,
p. 225, ed. Grotius), in all probability that of the Syrian goddess Anaitis: while
St. Jerome adds, that Daniel erected a town there (Hieronym. in Dan.), a story
which Josephus narrates, with less probability, of Ecbatana. (Ant. x. 11.) Susa
was one of the capitals at which the kings of Persia were wont to spend a portion
of the year. Thus Cyrus, according to Xenophon, lived there during the three months
of the spring. (Cyrop. viii. 6. § 22.) Strabo offers the most probable reason
for this custom, where he states that Susiana was peculiarly well suited for the
royal residence from its central position with respect to the rest of the empire,
and from the quiet and orderly character of its government (l. c.) From these
and other reasons, Susa appears to have been the chief treasury of the Persian
empire (Herod. v. 49); and how vast were the treasures laid up there by successive
kings, may be gathered from the narrative in Arrian, of the sums paid by Alexander
to his soldiers, and of the presents made by him to his leading generals, on the
occasion of his marriage at Susa with Barsine and Parysatis (Curt. vii. 4, 5):
even long after Alexander's death, Antigonus found a great amount of plunder still
at Susa. (Diod. xix. 48.)
With regard to the modern site to be identified as that of the ruins
of Susa, there has been considerable difference of opinion in modern times. This
has, however, chiefly arisen from the scarcity of travellers who have examined
the localities with any sufficient accuracy. The first who did so, Mr. Kinneir,
at once decided that the modern Sus, situated at the junction of Kerkhah and river
of Diz, must represent the Shushan of Daniel, the Susa of profane authors. (Travels,
p. 99; comp. Malcolm, Hist. Persia, i. p. 256.) Rennell had indeed suspected as
much long before (Geogr. Herodot. i. p. 302); but Vincent and others had advanced
the rival claim of Shuster. (Anc. Commerce, i. p. 439.) The question has been
now completely set at rest, by the careful excavations which have been made during
the last few years, first by Colonel (now Sir W. F.) Williams, and secondly by
Mr. Loftus. The results of their researches are given by Mr. Loftus in a paper
read to the Royal Society of Literature in November, 1855. (Transactions, vol.
v. new series.) Mr. Loftus found three great mounds, measuring together more than
3 1/2 miles in circumference, and above 100 feet in height; and, on excavating,
laid bare the remains of a gigantic colonnade, having a frontage of 343 feet,
and a depth of 244, consisting of a central square of 36 columns, flanked to the
N., E., and W. by a similar number-the whole arrangement being nearly the same
as that of the Great Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis. A great number of other curious
discoveries were made, the most important being numerous inscriptions in the cuneiform
character. Enough of these has been already deciphered to show, that some of the
works on the mound belong to the most remote antiquity. Among other important
but later records is an inscription,-the only memorial yet discovered of Artaxerxes
Mnemon, the conqueror of the Greeks at Cunaxa,-which describes the completion
of a palace, commenced by Dareius the son of Hystaspes and dedicated to the goddesses
Tanaitis and Mithra. A Greek inscription was also met with, carved on the base
of a column, and stating that Arreneides was the governor of Susiana. The natives
exhibit a monument in the neighbourhood, which they call and believe to be the
tomb of Daniel. There is no question, however, that it is a modern structure of
the Mohammedan times.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ATROPATENE (Ancient province) IRAN
Atropatene (Atropatene), or Media Atropatia, the northwestern part of Media, adjacent to Armenia, named after Atropates, a native of the country, who, having been made its governor by Alexander, founded there a kingdom, which long remained independent.
BACTRIA (Ancient province) IRAN
Bactria (Baktria) or Bactriana (Baktriane). A province of the Persian Empire, bounded on the south by Mount Paropamisus, which separated it from Ariana; on the east by the northern branch of the same range, which divided it from the Sacae; on the northeast by the Oxus, which separated it from Sogdiana; and on the west by Margiana. It was included in the conquests of Alexander, and formed a part of the kingdom of the Seleucidae until B.C. 255, when Theodotus, its governor, revolted from Autiochus II., and founded the Greek kingdom of Bactria, which lasted till B.C. 134 or 125, when it was overthrown by the Parthians.
(ta Ekbatana; Heb. Acmetha). The capital of Media, situated,
according to Diodorus, about twelve stadia from Mount Orontes. The genuine orthography
of the word appears to be Agbatana (Agbatana), a form employed by Ctesias. Ecbatana,
being in a high and mountainous country, was a favourite residence of the Persian
kings during summer, when the heat of Susa was almost insupportable. The Parthian
kings also, at a later period, retired to it in the summer to avoid the excessive
heat of Ctesiphon. According to Herodotus, Ecbatana was built near the close
of the eighth century B.C. by Deioces, the founder of the Median monarchy. The
Book of Judith assigns the building of this city, or, rather, the erection of
its citadel, to Arphaxad, in the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Assyria. Some writers make Arphaxad the same with Deioces, while others
identify him with Phraortes, the son of the latter, who might have repaired
the city or else made some additions to it.
Herodotus furnishes us with no hint whence we may infer the
relative position of Ecbatana on the map of Media. His description of the fortress
or citadel, however, is particular. "The Medes," he remarks, "in
obedience to their king's command, built those spacious and massive fortifications
now called Ecbatana, circle within circle, according to the following plan:
each inner circle overtops its outer neighbour by the height of the battlements
alone. This was effected partly by the nature of the ground, a conical hill,
and partly by the building itself. The number of the circles was seven; within
the innermost were built the palace and the treasury. The circumference of the
outermost wall and of the city of Athens may be regarded as nearly equal. The
battlements of the first circle are white; of the second, black; of the third,
scarlet; of the fourth, azure; of the fifth, orange. All these are brilliantly
coloured with different paints. But the battlements of the sixth circle are
silvered over, while those of the seventh are gilt. Deioces constructed these
walls around his palace for his own personal safety; but he ordered the people
to erect their houses in a circle around the outer wall". The Orientals,
however, according to Diodorus Siculus, claimed a far more ancient origin for
Ecbatana. Ctesias not only describes it as the capital of the first Median monarchy,
founded by Arbaces, but as existing prior to the era of the famed and fabulous
Semiramis, who is said to have visited Ecbatana in the course of her royal journeys
and to have built there a magnificent palace. She also, with immense labour
and expense, introduced abundance of excellent water into the city by perforating
the adjacent Mount Orontes, and forming a tunnel, fifteen feet broad and forty
feet high, through which she conveyed a lake-stream. The palace stood below
the citadel. Its tiles were of silver and its capitals, entablatures, and wainscotings
of gold and silver. This metal the Seleucidae coined into money, amounting to
the sum of 4000 talents, or $4,730,000.
Ecbatana was taken by Cyrus in B.C. 549, and remained a splendid
city under the Persian sway, the great king spending at this place the two hottest
months of the year. The Macedonian conquest did not prove destructive to Ecbatana,
as it had to the royal palace at Persepolis. Alexander deposited in Ecbatana
the treasures taken from Persepolis and Pasargada, and one of the last acts
of his life was a royal visit to the Median capital. Although not equally favoured
by the Seleucidae, it still retained the traces of its former grandeur; and
Polybius has left on record a description of its state under Antiochus the Great,
which shows that Ecbatana was still a splendid city, though it had been despoiled
of many of its more costly decorations (Polyb. x. frag. 4). When the Seleucidae
were driven from Upper Asia, Ecbatana became the favourite summer residence
of the Arsacidae, and at the close of the first century it still continued to
be the Parthian capital. When the Persians, under the house of Sassan, A.D.
226, recovered the dominion of Upper Asia, Ecbatana continued to be a favourite
and secure place of residence. The natural bulwarks of Mount Zagros were never
forced by the Roman legions. Consequently, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus,
near the close of the fourth century Ecbatana continued to be a strongly fortified
city.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
HYRCANIA (Ancient province) IRAN
Hyrcania (Hurkania). A province of the ancient Persian Empire, on the south and southeast shores of the Caspian or Hyrcanian Sea, and separated by mountains on the west, south, and east from Media, Parthia, and Margiana. It flourished most under the Parthians, whose kings often resided in it during the summer.
IRAN (Country) PERSIAN GULF
Persia (Persike, sc. ge, Persis; Lat. Persis, more rarely Persia;
old Pers. Parsa). The original home of the ancient Persians, and later the chief
province of the great Persian Empire, is the small territory in the southwestern
corner of the Iranian tableland. In this limited and original sense, Persia
corresponds exactly to the present Province of Fars or Farsistan with the capital
Shiraz. On the north it was bounded by Media, on the east by Karmania, on the
southwest by the Persian Gulf, and on the northwest by the province of Susiana.
The latter had from the time of Cyrus been closely united with Persia. Persis
was separated from Media by the Parachoathras Mountains, the most southerly
spur of the Taurus. Persia is a highland rising in terraces to a height of 5000
metres, intersected by many clefts, with approaches on most sides only by difficult
rocky passes. In consequence of its isolated position, the oriental peoples,
before the time of Alexander, had only a scanty knowledge of the land. The flat
coast line was intolerably hot, sandy, and unfruitful; but in the interior the
climate was everywhere favorable, temperate, and for the latitude almost raw,
on account of the elevated position; the valleys and plains productive and well
watered, with many clear rivers and lakes, where all kinds of waterfowl made
their homes, covered with fertile meadows and gardens, and pasturage for horses
and cattle, and, in parts, with forests and game. Wine and all fruits except
olive oil were produced. The northern portion of Persia, on the other hand,
is cold and snow is frequent. As a whole, Persia was intended by nature more
for a grazing than for an agricultural country. The largest inland river is
the Araxes, which empties into a salt lake, with its tributary the Medos (now
Pulvar). In the fruitful plain of the Medos in the centre of the country, sixty
kilometres northeast of the present Shiraz, over 1000 metres high, in a mild
and healthful climate, lay the capital Persepolis (later Istakhr). Next to Susa,
Persepolis was the largest and most beautiful city in the land. Here stood the
costly and strong royal citadel (ta basileia), the extensive ruins of whose
walls, terraces, halls, and state apartments are still extant. Twelve kilometres
down the river was the rock-hewn grave city of the Achaemenids (now Naksh-i-Rustem).
Persepolis remained the nominal capital of the kingdom even after the kings
had moved their residence to Susa and in mid-summer to Ecbatana. The original
seat of the dynasty lay two days' journey northeast of Persepolis, in the so-called
lower Persis, on the little river Cyrus, the present Murghab. There stood the
ancient royal city of Pasargadae with the palace and the still preserved tomb
of Cyrus. In a wider sense the name Persia embraces the whole Persian nation
of Iranian race, which should rather be called Iran. The broad highland of Iran,
from the Tigris to the Indus, from the Indian Ocean to the Oxus and the Caspian
Sea, is divided into halves by the great salt desert in its midst --western
Iran with the States of Media and Persia, and northeastern Iran with Sogdiana,
Chorasmia, Bactria, Areia, and Arachosia. These divisions are united only in
the north by a narrow inhabitated strip, Hyrcania. The old geographers confined
the term Ariane to Eastern Iran. The feeling of national unity existed in all
the tribes; their common name was once that of Aryan. Darius emphasizes first
of all the fact that he is a Persian, the son of a Persian, and secondarily
that he is an Aryan, of Aryan race. The Medes, too, according to Herodotus,
anciently called themselves Aryans. The national unity of all Iran, a national
dream even in the old heroic legends, was fully realized only once, under the
Achaemenids. The empire of the Sassanids did not succeed in recovering the whole
east of Iran. The present Persia fully includes only western Iran, and extends
eastward not far beyond the eastern edge of the salt desert. The greater part
of the ancient eastern Iran is occupied by Afghans and Turcomans.
Ethnology.--The inhabitants of Persis were originally a genuine
mountain race of shepherds. Herodotus, Xenophon, and others describe the ancient
Persians (old Pers. Parsa, formerly, according to Herod. vii, 61, called Atrei)
as an energetic, brave, contented race, of inordinate self-esteem, accustomed
to hardships but not lacking in finer traits, fond of rude pleasures, of strict
discipline, with a certain sense of justice, and of sound morals. The Persian
sculptures show a noble profile, with long, straight nose, and carefully arranged
beard. They ate only once a day, but then heartily, and drank wine freely. The
life of men of station was consumed in hunting, travelling, archery, and war.
The Persians served in the army from the twentieth to the fiftieth year. The
soldiers wore the characteristic pointed felt hat (tiara), a coloured coat and
breeches, and carried a light shield, a short spear, a long bow with thirty
arrows, and the short dagger-sword (akinakes). Commerce was unknown among them,
as were also rapine and thieving; lying, developed in the East to a virtue,
they abhorred, at least in theory. Next to lying, incurring debt was considered
the greatest disgrace. Polygamy and paederasty were customary. Large families
of children were esteemed honourable and the king offered yearly prizes for
them. Education was undertaken by the State; the sons of nobles were brought
up as pages at the court, where they were prepared for the high State offices.
All kinds of bodily exercise and truthfulness were required of the youth, and
they were early accustomed to hardship and watchfulness. They studied the sciences,
traditions, natural history, and arboriculture. Even Herodotus blames their
fatal eagerness to imitate foreign customs. Thus in place of their ancient simple
leather garments, they took from the more civilized Medes a more highly adorned
dress (purple caftan, necklaces, and bracelets, Cyrop. i. 3, 2), false hair,
and a blase air of fashion, and wherever they heard of a new form of amusement
they introduced it. With their growing dominion and under the influence of foreign
customs the Persians rapidly deteriorated. Luxury, debauchery, and effeminacy
destroyed their former discipline and bodily excellence. Cruelty and barbarity
on the part of those in authority, extortion, crime, and injustice became the
order of the day. The traditional origin of the Persian satraps is quite incredible.
The Persian nation was divided into various tribes, each
possessing its own special portion of farming and pasture land. Of the ruling
nobility, to which all other classes were subject, there were according to Herodotus
three orders: the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii. Of these the Pasargadae
were the highest; from them sprang the dynasty of the Achaemenids, who raised
themselves from petty tribal chiefs and princes to national sovereigns. The
king was permitted to select his wives only from the six highest families of
the land, and the six "First of the Persians" had free access to the
king.
The Iranian languages belong to the Indogermanic stock. In
spite of strong dialectic differences, a specific Iranian type is unmistakably
noticeable in all. Their common characteristic marks are the change of s to
h, the preference for fricatives, and the great development of sibilants. Old-Pers.
hanti ("they are")=Skt. santi, Lat. sunt; hindu (Indus)=Skt. Sindhu;
fra=Skt. pra, pro; thri (three)=mod. Pers. si=Skt. tri.
Old Persian stands on a very primitive stage, still very
close to Sanskrit. The sentence from an inscription "Auramazda hya imam
bumim ada hya avam asmanam ada hya martiyam ada" ("Ormuzd, who created
this earth, who created that heaven, who created man"), would read in Sanskrit
"Asuro medhasvi ya imam bhumim adhad yo 'mum acmanam adhad yo martyam adhat.”
Characteristic is the change of the Iranian z to d; adam (I)=Avestan azem; and
f for Eastern Iranian hv: Vindafarna (Intaphernes)=Avestan Vindat-hvarenao.
The final syllable is greatly maimed: abara= Skt. abharat ("he bore").
The ancient Persians left no real literature. Remains of
a lost heroic epic of Eastern Iran are to be found in the Avesta. But we have
a fairly accurate knowledge of the language of the old Persians from the rock-inscriptions
in which Darius I. and his successors perpetuated their deeds in plain, almost
clumsy style. The most extensive of these inscriptions are those of Darius on
the smoothed rock-face of Mount Behistan in Media, 426 lines, with a twofold
translation. These Persian inscriptions are written in the simplest form of
cuneiform, and, so far as they are not destroyed by the action of the weather
or wantonly, they have been almost completely deciphered. Of the language of
the Medes we know only a few words through the Greeks; it probably resembled
Old Persian. The dog was called by the Medes spako, in the Avesta spa. The home
of the very primitive language of the Avesta cannot be determined.
From the Old Persian was developed the Middle Persian or
Pahlavi, the literary and official language under the Sassanids. A peculiar
cryptographic system (with Semitic ideograms), and a very defective and ambiguous
alphabet, make this language unnecessarily difficult. While the Old Persian
is still rich in grammatical forms, the Pahlavi shows great poverty. Still further
poverty is shown in the Modern Persian (from the tenth century A.D. the national
language of modern Persia), the last stage of development in the local speech
of the Persians. The purest Modern Persian is still spoken around Shiraz.
Among the arts architecture and sculpture hold the first
place. Monumental structures are confined exclusively to the numerous royal
palaces, and of their former magnitude the ruins of Susa and the far more imposing
remains of Persepolis are silent witnesses. Their luxury and extravagance were
a source of amazement to the Greeks. Founded by Darius, most of them were enlarged
and finished by his successors. According to the detailed description of Polybius,
the palace in Ecbatana at the time of the Achaemenids (whether during the period
of the Medes is questionable) was covered with silver tiles, and a great part
of the interior was coated with gold and silver plates. And so it may have been
in Persepolis. But while the Median palace was a wooden structure, the material
in Persepolis is a durable stone. The treatment of the stone shows a high degree
of workmanship; walls and columns are ornamented with reliefs and inscriptions.
The architectural style was drawn from the Babylonian and Assyrian, but was
not a slavish imitation. The palace of Persepolis lay on a terrace of ten metres
in height, with the rear towards a mountain. It was protected by an ingenious
threefold wall and brazen doors. The interior contained the dwelling and reception
rooms of the king and his highest officials, as well as the treasure-chambers.
The slender columns are twenty metres high and end in lofty, delicate capitals.
The whole produced an effect of towering and imposing elegance and gigantic
dimensions.
The numerous sculptures excavated do not depict single episodes
in the life of the king, but form a common symbolic picture-language, glorifying
the splendour of the kingdom and its far-reaching might. The composition is
in general stiff and monotonous, but is carefully elaborated in details; the
faces expressionless, but the forms lifelike and natural, the dress, weapons,
etc., reproduced with great fidelity.
Religion.--The Perso-Iranian national religion has from the
oldest times been the Zoroastrian, with its belief in a good and an evil spirit
(Ormuzd, ahuro mazdao; Ahriman, anro mainyush), worship of moral and natural
powers (Asha, "law"; Rashnu, "justice"; Mithra, "sun"),
purity of body and soul, after death a strict balancing of good and evil deeds,
with the rewards of paradise or the punishments of hell, a last judgment, resurrection
of the dead, marriage of relatives, etc. In all probability the teachings of
Zoroaster originated in the East and spread westward into Media. The external
and internal history of the Zoroastrian doctrine until it became a fully developed
national church is still dark. In Media the Magi, one of the Median orders,
became the privileged priestly class. The Magi, doubtless under the Median supremacy,
carried the religious movement to Persis, and there also remained in exclusive
and lasting possession of the priestly dignity. Without Magi no one could make
a sacrifice, for they alone possessed the priestly mysteries; they also were
soothsayers and interpreters of dreams. They had great respect and influence
in public and private affairs; they conducted the education of the princes from
the seventh year and constantly surrounded the king's person. They dressed in
white and wore a felt turban, the cheek-pieces of which concealed the mouth.
Cyrus was undoubtedly an orthodox Zoroastrian; the belief
in the resurrection arose under Cambyses. Darins in his inscriptions constantly
emphasizes the fact that he is ruler through the grace of Auramazda; Ahriman
is naturally not mentioned by name. The cult of the goddess Anaitis (Anahita)
and that of Mithra, which afterwards became almost international, was not officially
introduced into Persia until the time of Artaxerxes II.
In their descriptions of Persian sacrificial rites, the details
given by Western writers agree in all essentials with the ordinances of the
Avesta. The Persians had neither images of the gods nor real temples. They offered
a garlanded sacrificial animal under the open heavens, while the Magi, holding
in their hands a bundle of tamarisk twigs (the barsom), chanted the sacred passages.
They sacrificed to the highest god, Ormuzd; to the sun and moon, but especially
to fire and water--to fire, by burning dry wood and dropping fat on it; they
offered worship to water, by some lake, river, or spring. The dog and the birds
were sacred creatures; the dog they held as inviolable as men. On the other
hand, it was considered a righteous deed to kill as many harmful animals as
possible.
The Perso-Iranian funeral rites are the strict consequence
of the belief that all dead things were unclean and forfeited to the evil spirit.
It was a mortal sin to defile the pure elements, fire and water. (Fire could
not even be blown upon, under penalty of death.) The ecclesiastical prescriptions
concerning burial, as later set down in the Avesta, seem for a long time to
have been repugnant to the Persians, and only gradually to have supplanted the
old customs. According to Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 7, 25), Cyrus, when dying,
ordered his body to be buried. Herodotus tells of the Magi that they do not
bury their dead until dogs and birds have torn them. Whether the Persians did
the same is not certain; at any rate they buried the corpse only after having
covered it with wax. But the prescription of the Avesta indicates that the naked
corpse was exposed to the vultures on an elevation (dakhma) outside the city,
and that only subsequently the bones were buried in the open field. Not until
the Sassanid period did this become the usual practice, as the description in
Agathias, ii. 21, 22 proves. Procopius relates that a Persian who had buried
his wife was sentenced to death. When Damassius and his companions cov ered
a body lying on the ground with earth, the latter had disappeared in the morning,
and during the night a spirit appeared to them in a dream, warning them to bury
the dead, because the earth, the mother of all, received no tribute (Agathias,
ii. 31). Evidence is not wanting that the custom existed as early as the time
of Alexander, at least in Bactria. Alexander's Grecian governor in Bactria was
almost driven out because he wished to forbid the exposure of the dead.
The Zoroastrian priesthood and sect fell into decay with
the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. Under the Sassanids it was restored, and
under the royal protection reached a position of power as the organized State
religion which it had never possessed before. It gradually succumbed to the
advance of Islam, and in the Persia of to-day there are very few Zoroastrians.
More numerous are the adherents of the old national religion, who have found
refuge in and about Bombay--the Parsees. History.--The history
of Persia is lost in the little-known period of Median supremacy. The Persian
kings are vassals of the Median kings, who, on their side, freed themselves
from Assyrian dominion after long struggles. The founder of the Median dynasty
is Deioces, who, in the first half of the seventh century B.C., raised the Median
tribes from confusion and anarchy to an organized state under a central royal
power, for a time probably still a tributary vassal of the Assyrian king, but
paving the way for the Median war of independence from the Assyrian yoke. He
built the royal capital Ecbatana (old Pers. Hagmatana, later Hamadan). His son
Phraortes (646-625) was the real founder of the Median supremacy. He subdued
Persis and portions of the rest of Iran ("all Asia, one tribe after the
other), and finally entered into an attack on Assyria, for which, however, he
paid with his life. His successor Cyaxares (624-585) was the most important
king of Media, and raised the young nation to the highest power. He gave the
country a firm organized military system. His expedition against Assyria, which
brought him victorious before Nineveh, had to be broken off, as the Scythians
were meantime invading and devastating all Iran. Cyaxares freed his land from
this plague by stratagem. Even then he made Armenia and Cappadocia as far as
the Halys subject to himself, and is said to have pushed his dominion eastward
over Hyrcania, Parthia, and Bactria. In alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylon,
he destroyed Nineveh, and divided the Assyrian Empire among his allies. His
son Astyages (584- 550) was the last king of his race. Herodotus tells only
of his fall, which was brought about by the son of his vassal in the small but
energetic district of Persis.
Cyrus (Kurush), 559-530, belonged to the highest order of
Persian nobility--the Pasargadae. His family, which already occupied a leading
position in Persis, traced its origin to Achaemenes (Hakhamani). Xenophon, in
opposition to Herodotus, makes the father of Cyrus king of Persia. Babylonian
inscriptions call his great-grandfather Teispes "king of the city of Anshan."
According to this, the Achaemenids had long ruled as kings in Persis under the
suzerainty of the great kings of Media.
Myths early gathered about the youth of Cyrus and his ascension
to the throne. The romantic story in Herodotus is familiar. The Persians under
Cyrus revolt against Astyages; he sends against them Harpagus, who, however,
from private enmity, is favourable to Cyrus. A large part of the Median army
goes over to Cyrus, and Astyages is conquered and taken alive. But Xenophon's
account makes Cyrus gain the power most easily of all by marrying the daughter
and heiress of the last Median king Cyaxares, a son of Astyages, receiving Media
as a dowry. But Herodotus and Xenophon agree that Cyrus, on his mother's side,
was a grandson of Astyages. The account of Herodotus is corrected and in part
confirmed by the Babylonian inscriptions.
In these inscriptions it is related that Astyages took the
field against Cyrus, but his soldiers revolted and surrendered him to Cyrus.
Briefly, therefore, the circumstances were probably the following. In the year
559 Cyrus succeeds his father Cambyses as viceroy in Persis. He frees Persis
and Susia, which was connected with it, from the Median suzerainty, and so becomes
the first sovereign king of Persis and Susia. Astyages makes war upon him, and
in the decisive battle at Pasargadae loses his liberty and his Empire (550).
After a short existence and rapid growth the Median sovereignty had given place
to the Persian. In Media itself the acquirement of Ecbatana, which was shortly
afterwards accomplished, seems to have completed the transfer of the powers
without any long resistance; the Medes soon became reconciled to the new order.
For them the change meant not a foreign domination, but only a change of dynasty;
the political aim of the Median Empire--the conquest of Asia--remained undisturbed.
Since all accounts agree that Astyages had no son, Cyrus was the natural pretender
for the throne, and only anticipated his time somewhat. And with the new Persian
sovereign the place of the unloved Astyages was occupied by a man who combined
daring energy with paternal kindness. The Persian nobles, indeed, played the
first parts, and Persian soldiers formed the military nucleus of the Empire.
On the other hand, the less civilized victors willingly submitted themselves
to the higher culture of the conquered. The Persians adopted their dress, customs,
and vices from the Medes, together with the whole system of court and State,
as they had already adopted their religion. Although to foreign eyes the Median
name long retained its lustre, the national wall of division between Persians
and Medes seems gradually to have fallen away and both races to have been mingled
in a national unity. The court resided for a portion of the year in Media. Medes
occupied high State positions and commands. From this time Persia, Susia, and
Media formed the powerful kernel of the nation.
Not so willingly did the other vassal States of the Median
kingdom give their adherence to their new lords; their revolts caused Cyrus
many wars. Even before Cyrus was involved in the second great war, the former
vassal countries westward to the Halys were subject to him. Here followed at
once the collision with his powerful neighbour Lydia. Once already, under Cyaxares,
a bloody war had broken out between the two rival Empires, which continued with
varying results for five years, and was finally calmed through the diplomatic
intervention of the kings of Babylon and Cilicia. The fall of his brother-in-law
and the rapid rise of the insatiable Cyrus forced the ruler of Sardis, Croesus,
into war. After assuring himself of the alliance of Babylon, Egypt, and Sparta,
he crossed the Halys in the year 547, anticipating an attack of Cyrus, and carried
devastation into Cappadocia, a Persian protectorate. The first battle occurred
at Pteria, but was not decisive. There Croesus began the return march, to occupy
winter-quarters in Lydia. Cyrus pursued with forced marches, gained a decisive
victory over the Lydians at Sardis before the auxiliaries which had been requested
arrived, and shut the king up in the capital, which, after a siege of two weeks,
was stormed and plundered. Cyrus eventually showed mercy to the captured Croesus,
and took him with him to court in Persia, leaving the complete subjection of
Lydia to his Median governors Mazares and Harpagus. Not alone all the Greek
towns on the west coast of Asia Minor, which were tributary to Lydia, but also
Miletus, Lycia, Caria, and Cilicia recognized the Persian authority either willingly
or by force. Cyrus himself, immediately after the capture of Sardis, was summoned
to the eastern part of the monarchy, to Bactria, by new revolts. All of Upper
Asia to the eastern border of Iran is from this time on under his sway. Sardis
became the firm centre of the western half of the Empire. Lydia was divided
into two provinces, the governors of which resided at Sardis and Dascyleion
.
Now, when his Empire reached from the Iaxartes to the west
coast of Asia Minor, only Babylon stood between him and the supreme power in
Asia. In the year 539 Cyrus made an incursion into Babylonian territory. In
the very first battle the troops of the enemy mutinied. King Nabonidus of Babylon
fled. The strong capital surrendered without resistance, and the whole Babylonian
territory, together with the vassal States, of which Syria was the most important,
yielded willingly to Cyrus, who, in this case also, showed himself not as a
barbarous, oppressive conqueror, but as the new father of the country. He allowed
the sanctuaries and palaces of Babylon to remain unharmed. It was quite in the
character of the ancient Persians, who were not in the least religious fanatics,
that he should tolerate and protect the old Babylonian religion. Cyrus was accustomed
to treat the dispossessed princes with consideration, and to retain them in
his service as governors. Through his wise policy, he was able to make moral
conquests, and became the least sanguinary of the great conquerors of the Orient.
His followers also, notably Darius, pursued this moderate policy in cases of
conquest, not of rebellion.
The crown treasures of the conquered lands Cyrus took as
spoils of war and stored up in his palaces, thus laying the foundation of the
inexhaustible reserves of money of the later Persian Empire. These supplies
indirectly benefited the Persians, for it is said that as often as Cyrus entered
the territory of Persia he gave a piece of gold to every Persian man and woman.
To his Persians he was always the national king; the heads of the nobility of
Persis were nearest to the throne, and their counsel was of weight in important
decisions.
Cyrus is said to have met his death in an expedition against
a nomad race beyond the Iaxartes-- the Massagetae, according to Herodotus, the
Derbiccae, according to Ctesias. At all events, it was one of the wild Turanian
tribes which, with their plundering inroads, had long been the scourge of Northern
Iran. But the reports are conflicting. His military science probably failed
in the inhospitable steppes of Central Asia before the crafty tactics of these
rider hordes. His army was cut to pieces; Herodotus says that he himself fell
in the battle, Ctesias that he died from the wounds received there. His body
was entombed at Pasargadae, in the shade of the park, in a chamber upon a small
stone pyramid. There Alexander saw his golden coffin. Cyrus had two sons, Cambyses
and Smerdis, by his wife Cassandane, who died before him. Of his daughters,
Atossa is best known.
He was succeeded by his eldest son, Cambyses (Kabujiya), B.C.
529-522, an imperious, passionate man, whose notorious intemperance at times
developed into delirium. While the Persians considered Cyrus as their father,
they looked on the new sovereign as their master. Cambyses inherited the active
disposition of his father. His first expedition against Egypt involved immense
armies. The Ph?nician ports, as well as Cyprus, which had recently revolted
from Egypt and voluntarily submitted to Persia, were obliged to mobilize their
fleets to afford naval support to the land attack. Samos also at the time entered
into voluntary alliance with Persia. Cambyses first caused his younger brother
Smerdis (Bardiya), whose loyalty he distrusted, to be murdered secretly by Prexaspes.
A Greek fugitive, Thanes, led the army through the Arabian Desert. At Pelusium
Cambyses met the army of Psammetichus III., who had shortly before succeeded
King Amasis. The Egyptian army was completely vanquished, Memphis was taken
after a short siege, and Psammetichus made prisoner. In the year 525 the old
kingdom of the Pharaohs was made a province of the Persian Empire. In general,
Cambyses held to the policy of recognizing and respecting foreign nationality;
no change was made in religion or government except that a satrap took the place
of the Pharaohs. But the unbridled king personally outraged the people by brutal
excesses, such as the desecration of the corpse of Amasis and his private mockery
of their sacred things.
From Egypt Cambyses planned great expeditions to the west
and south. The naval expedition against Carthage was abandoned, because the
Phoenicians refused to move against their own colony. A land force perished
utterly in the sands of the Libyan Desert. The expedition under his own command
against Aethiopia was not entirely fruitless, but entailed heavy losses. These
failures increased his madness to a still higher point; he killed the bull Apis
in rage, and by ill-treatment caused the death of his own sister, whom he had
married according to Persian custom.
Cambyses remained in Egypt until the year 522, when suddenly
disquieting reports came from Persia, which, in consequence of his long absence,
seems for a long time to have been in a state of fermentation. A Magian, Gaumata,
whose brother was the steward of Cambyses, took advantage of the universal dissatisfaction,
and, favoured by a certain resemblance to the murdered Smerdis, proclaimed himself
to be the latter, and inflamed the land against the rightful king. Only a few
initiated persons knew of the murder of Smerdis. Through great mildness and
still greater promises the usurper quickly succeeded. Persia, Media, and the
provinces gave him their allegiance, and Cambyses was practically a dethroned
prince. From this point we can test the statements of Herodotus by the inscriptions
of Darius. While on his homeward journey to punish the usurper, he met his death
in Syria by his own hand, or through carelessness, as Herodotus thinks. The
position of the Achaemenid dynasty was precarious. The people considered the
pretender the real Bardiya, who would now have been the legitimate successor
to the throne, as Cambyses died childless. Certain expressions of doubt seem
to have been checked by the new tyrant with great cruelty. He must have feared
most of all being unmasked by the Persian grandees, and therefore he never received
them, nor allowed himself to be seen publicly, which was quite contrary to etiquette.
Herodotus makes him reside in Susa, but according to the inscriptions his fate
overtook him in a Median fortress. Seven Persian nobles, with Darius at their
head, who had secretly discovered the truth, formed a conspiracy, surprised
the castle, and struck Gaumata down.
It had been neither a Median revolt against Persian sovereignty
nor a religious uprising of the Magi, but the game of chance of a political
adventurer, whom fortune favoured for a short time through a rare combination
of circumstances. But for the moment the whole wrath of the insulted Persian
nobility was turned against the Magi, and it would have needed little to end
the day with a night of St. Bartholomew for all the Magi. Darius, the head of
the conspiracy, was proclaimed king. The story of Herodotus that the choice
was to be made among the seven by lot or chance is a later addition. In fact
Darius was the only rightful heir to the throne. He was descended from a collateral
branch of the Achaemenids, which from the time of Teispes had separated from
the now extinct chief line. The genealogy of the family, according to Herodotus
and the inscriptions, is the following:
When he ascended the throne as governor of Persis his father
was still alive, but appears to have resigned all claim to the succession to
the avenger of his order. The other conspirators were rewarded with hereditary
privileges. The new king, Darius I. (Darayavaush), (521-485), was in his thirtieth
year. He entered into the inheritance of the Achaemenids at a critical period.
The short interregnum had relaxed the empire of Cyrus in all its points. The
provinces were everywhere uneasy--rebels and pretenders sprang up in every direction.
The revolt first broke out in Susiana, but was quickly repressed. The uprising
in Babylon was more serious, where a pretended son of Nabonidus placed himself
at the head of the rebels; the fortress was taken only after a hard siege--according
to Herodotus, through the craft of Zopyrus. While Darius was still fighting
in Babylonia, Persia and Media revolted at the same time. The rebellion spread
eastward to Margiana, westward over Armenia and Assyria, only the outer provinces
remaining quiet. It seemed that the end of the empire had come, but the young
king remained unshaken through all the storms, and the Persian and Median armies
stood faithful. Only a great man could meet this gigantic task. Through years
of sharp fighting he forced the seceding countries to return, one after the
other, and disarmed the rebels. Later on he set up a proud memorial of these
deeds in the great rock-inscriptions of Behistan.
By the end of the year 519 the great rebellion had been crushed
forever; the Empire, twentythree countries from the Nile to the Iaxartes, was
again under his undisputed sway. He proceeded at once to unite the Empire more
closely by reorganizing the government, and in accordance with the traditions
of his house to extend his boundaries. To the east the Empire was extended to
the Indus after he had carefully explored the lands of the Indus by ship, and
the same were annexed.
The great expedition to the Danube against the Scythians,
on the other hand, was only partially successful. There were probably various
reasons for this expedition. Perhaps those mysterious, restless savages, who,
from the time of Cyaxares, had been held in hostile memory, again attracted
attention; perhaps this far-seeing man intended to surround Greece from the
north, and so wished to secure first the right flank. Darius is said to have
placed 700,000 men in the field, while his Ionian subjects supplied 600 ships.
From the latter the Samian engineer Mandrocles constructed the famous bridge
of ships over the Bosporus, on which in 515 Darius crossed to Europe. While
the land force travelled north over the Balkan, the Ionians received command
to break up the bridge, to put into the Danube, and to construct another bridge
there. On the Danube the Getae alone offered an obstinate resistance, and he
proceeded across the river into a wholly unknown region, while the Ionians were
to wait sixty days for his return, and hold the bridge during that period. Most
of the operations in the present Bessarabia were brought to nothing by the skilful
equestrian tactics of the enemy, who came and disappeared with the speed of
lightning, and never allowed themselves to be grasped. The Persian army was
thus led deeper and deeper into the inhospitable steppes, and at last forced
by lack of supplies and exhaustion to return. After heavy losses Darius succeeded
in getting back to the bridge over the Danube, which fortunately, thanks to
the faithfulness of Histiaeus of Miletus, had not yet been broken up. The sole
result was the subjugation of the Thracian cities by Megabazus, followed by
that of the Grecian ports Paeonia and Macedonica.
Persia and Greece had thus come into dangerous proximity,
and the inevitable collision from the Persian side must have been long foreseen.
A slight cause set the stone rolling. Exiled Greeks from Naxos applied to Aristagoras,
governor of Miletus, for Persian aid against their city, whose freedom they
were willing to sacrifice to their private revenge. The Persian king gave them
assistance through the satrap of Sardis. The command was, however, divided between
Aris tagoras and Megabates, and the rivalry of the two generals caused the failure
of the undertaking. The offended Aristagoras revenged himself: in the year 500
he gave the signal for a general uprising of the Ionian cities, which he had
for some time been planning with Histiaeus. In the freedom-loving Greek cities
the tyrants introduced by Persia had long been found a burden, and the spirit
of revolt found in them ample nourishment. First a republic was proclaimed in
Miletus, and the fleet returning from Naxos was seized. At the same time aid
was asked from the mother-country, but only Athens and Eretria responded with
twenty-five ships, which were the beginning of all misfortune for Greeks and
barbarians. The forces of Aristagoras moved upon Sardis and burned the city.
Next the Greek cities on the Hellespont and almost the whole of Cyprus and Caria
joined the revolt. But soon the Persian army was in the field, operating in
conjunction with the fleet provided by Ph?nicia. Cyprus was first reconquered,
and the revolt suppressed in Asia Minor by three Persian armies after battles
of varying results. The decisive naval battle occurred at Lade, where the Ionian
fleet was completely overcome by the combined Ph?nician, Cyprian, and Egyptian
fleets. Miletus, the home of the revolt, was taken and destroyed, after holding
out for six years, 500-494. The vengeance of the victors was terrible; Milesian
maidens were carried off to the Persian harems, the men banished, and the flourishing
country of the Ionians devastated and depopulated. For the Athenians and Eretrians
also the Persian monarch had planned a similar chastisement. In the spring of
492 the land forces under Mardonius set out, supported by an enormous fleet.
But the army had little success in Thrace, and the fleet was shipwrecked at
Athos. A second and larger expedition started in 490 under Datis and Artaphernes,
this time by sea only. The course was laid past Naxos, which was conquered.
Then Eretria was burned, and its inhabitants carried off to the interior of
Asia. This expedition came to its end on the memorable Plain of Marathon (490).
The Greek victory has evidently been greatly exaggerated. Probably the Greeks,
after having avoided battle for a long time, fell upon the Persians as they
were departing, when the greater part of the army, especially the powerful cavalry,
had already embarked. The Persian generals contented themselves with the results
in Naxos and Euboea and abandoned the campaign. If Darius had commanded in person,
the result would probably have been a different one.
Another piece of bad news troubled the closing days of the
king's life. Egypt, which up to this time had borne the easy yoke, now rose
against Persia. Thus the unyielding monarch saw himself confronted with a twofold
war, but in the midst of extensive preparations he was overtaken by death after
a reign of thirty-six years (485). With him died the greatest ruler that Iran
ever produced, the ideal of an enlightened despot, trained in a hard school,
filled with his high calling, wise in his choice of means and persons, fitted
by his energy and wariness for the greatest achievements. Darius was not alone
a conqueror like Cyrus, an augmenter of his Empire, which he raised from twenty-three
to thirty lands, but also a wise and practical organizer. His predecessors had
appointed governors (satraps) as need arose; Darius divided the kingdom into
fixed governmental districts (satrapies), and regulated the powers of the satraps
(khshathrapavan). They held a prince's court in the provincial capitals, and
were the chief heads of the government, the law, and the military in their provinces.
They were responsible immediately to the sovereign. In order to prevent any
possible schemes of independence, Darius caused them to be watched by persons
in whom he reposed special confidence. He himself made annual tours of inspection.
The commanders of fortresses in the provinces were appointed directly by the
king. Besides, he fixed definitely the tax to be imposed on each province, and
so assured the Empire as well as the crown a definite revenue, whereas formerly
the taxes had consisted in so-called presents --i. e. voluntary tribute. Only
the original Persia was untaxed. The rest of the provinces paid a land tax in
proportion to the yield of the soil, Babylonia being taxed most heavily. There
were, besides, indirect taxes, duties, taxes on products, etc. The direct taxes
alone amounted annually to about twelve million dollars.
Intercourse and trade were fostered by Darius by means of
military roads and canals. His courier post was renowned, by means of which
he sent his commands through the whole Empire in the shortest possible time.
His descendants were quite numerous. Some of his sons were
born when he was still a private citizen. The succession descended according
to Persian custom to Xerxes, the first son born after his accession to the throne.
Xerxes (Khshayarsha) (485-465) was the eldest son of the
imperious Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, who had been successively the wife
of Cambyses, Pseudo-Smerdis, and Darius. Soon after his accession Egypt was
subdued (484). He was at first little disposed to continue the war against Greece,
but finally followed the promptings of the war-party under the ambitious Mardonius,
and for fully four years was actively employed in making preparations. The army
was concentrated at Sardis. In the spring of 480 Xerxes marched with the land
forces through Thrace and Macedonia, while the fleet sailed to Therma. The defeat
of the Spartans at Thermopylae, where the Persians avenged Marathon, and the
doubtful result of the sea-fight at Artemisium, were compensated by the brilliant
victories of Salamis, Plataeae, and Mycale. The chances of war were by no means
so unfavourable to Greece as they had appeared in the momentary discouragement
at first. The numerical advantage of the Persians was very great; but the patriotic
legend has enormously exaggerated the number of actual combatants in making
it reach the total of two and a half millions. It was, moreover, a contest between
a people fighting for their country and a soldiery brought together from all
quarters, partly by force, who had little to lose by defeat. The boastful Persian
generals committed a mis take in wholly undervaluing their antagonists. In organization,
tactics, and generalship the Greeks were far superior to the Asiatics, and the
great masses of the Persian army could not be used to the best advantage in
the Grecian territory. Even before Plataeae Xerxes had lost all courage and
quickly removed his Persians to a place of safety, leaving Mardonius with the
choicest Persian troops. He retired at once to his luxurious capitals in the
interior, sinking into the inactive life of the harem, while the Greeks, especially
under the leadership of Timon, made greater and greater progress in the liberation
of their countrymen on the islands and the Asiatic coast. The European possessions
of the Persians were lost forever.
In the year 465 Xerxes and his eldest son Darius were murdered
in a revolt in the palace. Under Xerxes began the chain of misrule, seldom interrupted,
which slowly undermined the existence of the nation. The fate of the dynasty
was determined almost alone by palace revolts, court intrigues, and the rule
of women and favourites. The inner history of the Empire, its growing decay,
is hidden from our knowledge, as Herodotus, the fullest source of information,
breaks off with the battle of Mycale, and the Persian inscriptions after Xerxes
become more and more scanty. In its external history the Greeks remain the chief
factor; Persian money and intrigues play an important part in Greece.
Xerxes was succeeded by his youngest son Artaxerxes I. Longimanus
(Artakhshathra) (464-425). In his long reign only two events are important--
a revolt in Egypt, supported by Athens, but repressed by the battle of Memphis,
and the conclusion of peace with Athens (449), through which the Aegean and
the Greek colonies in Asia were taken from the Persian dominion. His only legitimate
son, Xerxes II., was murdered after a very short reign by his half-brother,
Secydianus; but the murderer was himself put to death by another illegitimate
son of Artaxerxes, Orthus, previously satrap of Hyrcania. Orthus himself ascended
the throne as Darius II. (Nothus), (423-405). In his reign an opportunity was
offered to Persia of regaining its lost power in the Aegean and the whole west
coast. When in the Peloponnesian War the hegemony of Persia's hereditary enemy,
Athens, was broken, the Persian court entered into relations with Sparta through
the satraps Tissaphernes of Lydia and Pharnabazus of Phrygia. In return for
subsidies Sparta was to give over to Persia all the coast region lost by the
peace of 449. For a long time the alliance accepted by Sparta could not be put
into effect, owing to the rivalry of the two satraps and the perfidy of Tissaphernes,
and the Athenians for a time had a decided advantage. A change came only when
the Persian prince, Cyrus, an energetic and ambitious young man, received the
chief command of the troops of Asia Minor. He sought a close alliance with Sparta;
subsidies were freely given, and with this assistance Sparta was enabled to
force Athens to a peace.
About this time Darius II. died, and his death occasioned
the well-known contest for the throne. His wife Parysatis, an imperious, intriguing
woman, had borne him two sons, the elder, Arsicas, before his accession, and
younger, Cyrus, when queen. Her efforts to gain the succession for her younger
and far more gifted favourite son Cyrus, as being the real king's son, had no
result. Arsicas ascended the throne as Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) in 405. He placed
his younger brother as satrap over Asia Minor. But Tissaphernes, the professed
friend of Cyrus, defamed him to his brother, and it was only through the protection
of his mother that he escaped imprisonment. Returning to his satrapy, he assured
himself of troops from every side in Greece, in order to gain forcible possession
of the throne. In the spring of 401 he began an expedition with 13,000 Greek
auxiliaries and his own army of Asiatics, ostensibly against rebels in his own
satrapy. Again he was betrayed by Tissaphernes. At Cunaxa Cyrus met an enormous
royal army. The mere appearance of the Greek soldiers put the Asiatics to terror
and flight; but Cyrus ventured too far into the conflict, and fell. The sudden
end of this knightly youth, who was entitled to great hopes, is tragic. The
adventurous return of 10,000 Greeks is familiar from Xenophon's Anabasis.
Sparta had openly sided with Cyrus against the great king,
and the relations between the two States were therefore strained. Tissaphernes,
returned to his post of satrap in Asia Minor, demanded submission from all the
Ionian cities which had gone over to Cyrus. They refused, and asked help of
Sparta, which, in spite of the still existing alliance, forbade Tissaphernes
to attack the cities; and, as Tissaphernes paid no attention to this prohibition,
war broke out in 401 between Sparta and Persia. The war dragged along, and the
Spartans gained no important results until Agesilaus received the chief command,
when they invested the provinces of Asia Minor. In its difficulties the Persian
court now made use of Athenian aid. The Athenian admiral Conon commanded the
newly equipped Persian fleet, and conquered the Spartans at Cnidos (397). Mutual
exhaustion ended the war with the peace of Antalcidas (387), which the Persian
king practically dictated. In it Persia claimed the whole Asiatic sea-coast
and some islands, such as Cyprus, as its property.
The last years of Artaxerxes were occupied with numerous
revolts among the satraps. Personally he is said to have been mild and peaceloving
(Thuc. Artax. 30). He showed fatal weakness towards the women of the court,
and his life was a series of intrigues and quarrels. In his last days he named
his oldest son Darius as his successor, but the latter became involved in a
conspiracy against his father, and was beheaded. His ambitious son Ochus caused
the murder of two older brothers who stood in his way, and after his father's
death in 358 ascended the throne as Artaxerxes III. He was a thorough despot,
pursuing his ends without scruple, shrinking at no cruelty. By his severity
and by his wise policy he lifted the decaying kingdom once more to its former
power. At his accession all the western part of the Empire was in turmoil. Hardly
was the rebellious satrap of Phrygia conquered when Phoenicia and Cyprus revolted.
His generals were unsuccessful in their operations against the rebelling king
Tennes of Sidon and Mentor of Rhodes. The monarch placed himself at the head
of a large army, which was strengthened by Greek soldiers supplied in accordance
with the terms of the alliance. Sidon fell through the treachery of Tennes,
and was fearfully punished. The fall of the capital soon reduced the rest of
Phoenicia, and Cyprus was reconquered.
The most important task before Artaxerxes was to reconquer
Egypt, which, for more than sixty years, had remained independent. His two generals
Bagoas and Mentor, who had come over to his side, operated so skilfully under
his command on the field, and not less with threats, that king Nectanebus of
Egypt soon abandoned his cause as lost and fled to Aethiopia. The defenceless
land, after a severe punishment, was again made part of the Persian Empire.
Mentor became satrap of the sea-coast of Asia Minor; Bagoas remained near the
king as minister, and appears to have been the originator of the plot to kill
the king by poison, which was carried out in 338; Bagoas, who remained master
of the situation, placed Arses, the youngest son of Artaxerxes, on the throne
(338-336). But as the latter did not show himself pliant, he was removed in
the third year of his reign.
Bagoas now placed on the throne a distant relative of the
murdered king, Darius III. (Codomannus), a great-grandson of Darius II. (336-320).
When Bagoas once more attempted his old manoeuvre, he was himself forced to
drink the poison. Darius was perhaps the most worthy of the Achaemenids at the
time to fill the high station, but he was not man enough to ward off the threatening
evils. Even at the time of his accession there was imminent danger of war from
the uprisings in Macedonia. The casus belli, if, indeed, any was needed, dated
from the time of Artaxerxes III. When, in the year 340, Philip was besieging
the town of Perinthus, opposite the Persian territory, Persian auxiliaries,
in union with Athens, had relieved the town. Philip himself had planned an expedition
against the Persian king, ostensibly as the avenger of Greece. On the threshold
of his undertaking Philip was assassinated, apparently not without instigation
on the part of Persia. The young Alexander, whom Darius at first wholly undervalued,
at once took up the great plans of his father as soon as Greece was completely
pacified. Darius in vain sought to counteract his extensive preparations. Darius's
right-hand and first general was the Rhodian Memnon, a brother of Mentor, a
man as skilful and energetic as his renowned brother. He alone planned earnestly
for the safety of the Empire, when indecision, suspicion, and great egoism controlled
the other Persian commanders.
In the spring of 334 Alexander crossed the Hellespont with
not more than 30,000 infantry, 4500 horsemen, and 182 ships. At the Granicus,
where, against the advice of Memnon and with no plan of action, the Persian
army offered battle, Alexander gained his first brilliant victory. Sardis capitulated
without a blow. In Ephesus he was greeted as a liberator; Miletus and Halicarnassus
alone defended themselves bravely. At the end of the year Alexander was in possession
of Asia Minor as far as the Taurus. Only Memnon threatened him with danger.
Memnon crossed to the sea unhindered, and was on the point of carrying the war
into Europe behind Alexander's back when death overtook him. His death was the
most severe blow to the Persian cause. Nothing now obstructed Alexander's victorious
course. In an unfavourable position at Issus, Darius himself opposed him with
an immense army, and was completely routed with great losses (333). The Persian
army was scattered, and Darius fled across the Euphrates. In order to protect
the rear, Alexander occupied Ph?nicia and Egypt (332). In the spring of 331
he marched towards the heart of the Persian monarchy, after having rejected
various overtures of peace from the Persian king. Darius had concentrated in
Assyria another immense army from the inexhaustible resources of the Persian
Empire. The decisive battle of Arbela and Gaugamela completely shattered the
Persian colossus. Darius did not even await the issue of the day, but was among
the first to flee to Media. Without a blow, Babylon and Susa opened their gates.
In the middle of the winter Alexander stood before the passes of Persis, in
which the satrap Ariobarzanes, with a small army, successfully opposed him.
Alexander imitated the Persian manoenvre of Thermopylae. Persepolis capitulated,
and immense treasures fell into Alexander's hands. At his command the royal
citadel was burned, and the town was given over to plunder. Persis was completely
reduced to subjection. In the spring of 330 Alexander went to Ecbatana, and
pressed hard in pursuit of the fleeing Darius. Meantime Bessus, satrap of Bactria,
had gained possession of the government of all Ariana, and had been taken prisoner
by Darius in his retreat. When Alexander was close at his heels Bessus struck
Darius down. Alexander found only the corpse of the last of the Achaemenids.
Bessus for a time maintained himself as King Artaxerxes IV. in the far east
of Iran, and organized the defence of Bactria and Sogdiana with much skill.
But beyond the Oxus he was surrendered by his own people, and later on was crucified
in Ecbatana. Bactria quickly yielded, but Sogdiana for a long time offered stout
resistance, and not until 327 did it, the last bulwark of Iranian independence,
fall completely into the hands of the great Macedonian.
Persian history from this time is absorbed in the history
of Alexander, the Diadochi, and the Parthian kingdom under the Arsacids. Not
until the year A.D. 224 was a new Persian nation born, under the dynasty of
the Sasanids.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MARGIANA (Ancient province) IRAN
Margiana (Margiane). A province of the ancient Persian Empire, bounded on the east by Bactriana, on the northeast and north by the river Oxus, and on the west by Hyrcania. It received its name from the river Margus, which flows through it. On this river stood the capital of the district, Antiochia Margiana, which was founded by Alexander the Great and rebuilt by Antiochus I. Margiana corresponds to the southern part of Khiva and Bokhara and the northeastern part of Khorassan. Its chief inhabitants were the Derbices, Dahae, and Mardi.
MIDIA (Ancient country) IRAN
An important country of Asia above Persia, and bounded on the
north by the Araxes, on the west and southwest by the range of mountains called
Zagros and Parachoatras (Mountains of Kurdistan and Louristan), which divided
it from the Tigris and Euphrates valley, on the east by the Desert, and on the
northeast by the Caspii Montes (Elburz Mountains). It was a fertile country, well
peopled, and one of the most important provinces of the ancient Persian Empire.
After the Macedonian conquest it was divided into two parts--Great Media and Atropatene.
The earliest history of Media is involved in much obscurity.
Herodotus reckons only four kings of Media, namely: (1) Deioces, B.C. 710-657;
(2) Phraortes, 657-635; (3) Cyaxares, 635-595; (4) Astyages, 595-560. The last
king was dethroned by a revolution, which transferred the supremacy to the Persians,
who had formerly been the subordinate people in the united Medo-Persian Empire.
The Medes made more than one attempt to regain their supremacy; the usurpation
of the Magian pseudo-Smerdis was no doubt such an attempt; and another occurred
in the reign of Darius II., when the Medes revolted, but were soon subdued (B.C.
408). With the rest of the Persian Empire, Media fell under the power of Alexander;
it next formed a part of the kingdom of the Seleucidae, from whom it was conquered
by the Parthians in the second century B.C., from which time it belonged to the
Parthian, and then to the later Persian Empire. See Persia, with bibliography
there given.
It is important to notice the use of the names Medus and Medi
by the Roman poets for the nations of Asia east of the Tigris in general and for
the Parthians in particular.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
PARTHIA (Ancient country) IRAN
Parthia, Parthyaea (Parthuaia), and Parthyene (Parthuene). A country, southeast
of the Caspian Sea, in Asia. Its extent varied greatly at different times, and
the name is often used indefinitely by the ancient writers; but it may be regarded
as bordering upon Hyrcania, Asia, Carmania, Persis, Susiana, and Media. It was
largely a mountainous and semi-desert country, whose people were noted warriors,
celebrated especially for their skill in archery and horsemanship. Their tactics,
of which the Romans had fatal experience in their first wars with them, became
so celebrated as to pass into a proverb. Their mail-clad horsemen spread like
a cloud around the hostile army, and poured in a shower of darts; and then evaded
any closer conflict by a rapid flight, during which they still shot their arrows
backward upon the enemy.
Under the Persian Empire, the Parthians, with the Chorasmii, Sogdii,
and Arii, formed the sixteenth satrapy: under Alexander and the Greek kings of
Syria, Parthia and Hyrcania together formed a satrapy. About B.C. 250 they revolted
from the Seleucidae, under a chieftain named Arsaces, who founded an independent
monarchy, the history of which is given under Arsaces. During the period of the
downfall of the Syrian kingdom, the Parthians overran the provinces east of the
Euphrates, and about B.C. 130 they overthrew the kingdom of Bactria, so that their
empire extended over Asia from the Euphrates to the Indus, and from the Indian
Ocean to the Paropamisus, or even to the Oxus; but on this northern frontier they
had to maintain a continual conflict with the nomad tribes of Central Asia. On
the west their progress was checked by Mithridates and Tigranes, till those kings
fell successively before the Romans, who were thus brought into collision with
the Parthians. After the memorable destruction of Crassus and his army, B.C. 53,
the Parthians threatened Syria and Asia Minor; but their progress was stopped
by two signal defeats, which they suffered from Antony's legate Ventidius, in
39 and 38. The preparations for renewing the war with Rome were rendered fruitless
by the contest for the Parthian throne between Phraates IV. and Tiridates, which
led to an appeal to Augustus, and to the restoration of the standards of Crassus,
B.C. 20; an event to which the Roman poets often allude in terms of flattery to
Augustus, almost as if he had conquered the Parthian Empire. It is to be observed
that the poets of the Augustan Age use the names Parthi, Persae, and Medi indifferently.
The Parthian Empire had now begun to decline, owing to civil contests
and the defection of the governors of provinces, and had ceased to be formidable
to the Romans. There were, however, continual disputes between the two empires
for the protectorate of the kingdom of Armenia. In consequence of one of these
disputes Trajan invaded the Parthian Empire (A.D. 115-117), and obtained possession
for a short time of Mesopotamia; but his conquests were surrendered under Hadrian,
and the Euphrates again became the boundary of the two empires. There were other
wars at later periods, which resulted in favour of the Romans, who took Selencia
and Ctesiphon, and made the district of Osroene a Roman province. The exhaustion
which was the effect of these wars at length gave the Persians the opportunity
of throwing off the Parthian yoke. Led by Artaxerxes (Ardshir), they put an end
to the Parthian kingdom of the Arsacidae, after it had lasted 476 years, and established
the Persian dynasty of the Sassanidae, A.D. 226.
The Parthians were of Scythic origin, but during the more flourishing
period of the Empire adopted many of the usages of Greek civilization, including
the Greek language (as the official form of speech) and to some extent the Greek
religion. As the Empire declined, however, this superficial cultivation wore off,
and by the second century A.D. even the Greek language fell into total disuse.
This text is cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
PERSEPOLIS (Ancient city) IRAN
(Persepolis, Persaipolis; in the Middle Ages, Istakhar; now
Takhti-Jemshid, i. e. "Throne of Jemshid," or Chil-Minar, i. e. "Forty
Pillars"). The Greek name, probably translated from the Persian name which
is not recorded, of the great city which succeeded Pasargada as the capital of
Persis and of the Persian Empire. From the circumstance, however, of the conquest
of the Babylonian Empire taking place about the time when Persepolis attained
this dignity, it appears to have been seldom used as the royal residence. Neither
Herodotus, Xenophon, Ctesias, nor the sacred writers during the Persian period,
mention it at all; though they often speak of Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana as the
capitals of the Empire. It is only from the Greek writers after the Macedonian
conquest that we learn its rank in the Empire, which appears to have consisted
chiefly in its being one of the two burial places of the Persian kings (the other
being Pasargada), and also a royal treasury; for Alexander found in the palace
immense riches, which were said to have accumulated from the time of Cyrus. Its
foundation is sometimes ascribed to Cyrus the Great, but more generally to his
son Cambyses. It was greatly enlarged and adorned by Darius I. and Xerxes, and
preserved its splendour till after the Macedonian conquest, when it was burned;
Alexander, as the story goes, setting fire to the palace with his own hand at
the end of a revel by the instigation of the courtesan Thais in B.C. 331. It was
not, however, so entirely destroyed as some historians represent. It appears frequently
in subsequent history, both ancient and mediaeval. It is now deserted, but its
ruins are considerable, though too dilapidated to give any good notion of Persian
architecture, and they are rich in cuneiform inscriptions. In the days of its
splendour a great plaza or species of platform was crowned with palaces, halls,
and altars. Here were stored the treasures which Alexander rifled; and here was
kept the copy of the Avesta, written on 12,000 oxhides in letters of gold.
Among the ruins still existing three groups are distinguished
by archaeologists: first, the Forty Pillars proper, with the so-called "Mountain
of Tombs" or "Throne of Jamshid," after a fabulous king who is
said to have founded the city; second, the Naksh-in-Rustam, a collection of tombs;
and third, a building now called "the Haram of Jamshid." The first group
is the most important, being the terrace already mentioned, built of cyclopean
masonry, and extending 1500 feet in one [p. 1206] direction and 800 in another.
It was once surrounded by triple walls of a height varying from about 48 to 100
feet. There are still to be distinguished on the central platform the so-called
"Great Hall of Xerxes," the Palace of Xerxes, and the Palace of Darius.
The stone used for these structures is dark grayish marble cut into enormous square
blocks, and highly polished. The ascent to this platform is by two double flights
of steps nearly 22 feet in width and only 3 1/2 inches high, so that they have
been ascended in modern times on horseback. The portals still exhibit huge figures
of animals, 15 feet high, and not unlike the Assyrian bulls of Nineveh. The cuneiform
inscriptions are ascribed to Xerxes. Persepolis was situated in the heart of Persis,
in the part called Hollow Persis (koile Persis), not far from the border of the
Carmanian Desert, in a beautiful and healthy valley, through which runs the river
Araxes. After Alexander's time the place was of secondary importance. It was plundered
by Antiochus in B.C. 164, and later was the residence of a Persian viceroy.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
SELEFKIA EPI TOU EVLEOU (Ancient city) IRAN
(ta Sousa; Old Test. Shushan; ShusPers. ). The winter residence of the Persian
kings. It stood in the district Cissia of the province Susiana, on the eastern
bank of the river Choaspes. Its name in old Persian signifies "Lily,"
and that flower is said to abound in the plain in which the city stood. Susa was
of a quadrangular form, 120 (or, according to others, 200) stadia in circuit,
and without fortifications; but it had a strongly fortified citadel, containing
the palace and treasury of the Persian kings. The Greek name of this citadel,
Memnonice or Memnonium, is perhaps a corruption of the Aramaic Maaninon, "a
fortress;" and this easy confusion of terms gave rise to the fable that the
city was founded by Tithonus, the father of Memnon. An historical tradition ascribes
its erection to Darius, the son of Hystaspes, but it existed already in the time
of Daniel. There is, however, a difficulty as to the identification of the Shushan
of Daniel with the Susa of the Greeks. The climate of Susa was very hot, and hence
the choice of it for the winter palace. It was here that Alexander and his generals
celebrated their marriage with the Persian princesses in B.C. 325, but the city
declined after Babylon became the capital of Alexander and his successors. In
B.C. 315 it was taken by Antiochus, who found in it a vast amount of treasure.
The site of Susa is now marked by extensive mounds, on which are found fragments
of bricks and broken pottery, with cuneiform inscriptions. The ruins of the ancient
city cover a space of nearly three square miles, and they have been carefully
explored by Loftus, Churchill, Dieulafoy, and others. The principal remains that
still exist are four vast platforms like those at Persepolis, with traces of a
gigantic colonnade with a frontage of over 340 feet and a depth of 240 feet. The
palace of Darius Hystaspis has also been excavated, and from it many artistic
treasures taken to the Louvre.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
SOGDIANA (Ancient province) IRAN
Sogdiana (Sogduane: Persian, Sogd). Comprising parts of Turkestan and Bokhara. The northeast province of the ancient Persian Empire, separated on the south from Bactriana and Margiana by the upper course of the Oxus (Jihoun); on the east and north from Scythia by the Sogdii Comedarum and Oscii Mountains (Kara-Dagh, Alatan, and Ak Tagh) and by the upper course of the Iaxartes (Sihoun), and bounded on the northwest by [p. 1476] the great deserts east of the Sea of Aral. The natives of the country were of the Aryan race, resembling the Bactrians in their customs (Arrian, Anab.iii. 30; iv. 16 Anab., 18).
SUSA (Ancient city) IRAN
Susa (ta Sousa; Old Test. Shushan; ShusPers). The winter residence of the Persian
kings. It stood in the district Cissia of the province Susiana, on the eastern
bank of the river Choaspes. Its name in old Persian signifies "Lily",
and that flower is said to abound in the plain in which the city stood. Susa was
of a quadrangular form, 120 (or, according to others, 200) stadia in circuit,
and without fortifications; but it had a strongly fortified citadel, containing
the palace and treasury of the Persian kings. The Greek name of this citadel,
Memnonice or Memnonium, is perhaps a corruption of the Aramaic Maaninon, "a
fortress", and this easy confusion of terms gave rise to the fable that the
city was founded by Tithonus, the father of Memnon. An historical tradition ascribes
its erection to Darius, the son of Hystaspes, but it existed already in the time
of Daniel (Dan. viii. 2). There is, however, a difficulty as to the identification
of the Shushan of Daniel with the Susa of the Greeks. The climate of Susa was
very hot, and hence the choice of it for the winter palace. It was here that Alexander
and his generals celebrated their marriage with the Persian princesses in B.C.
325, but the city declined after Babylon became the capital of Alexander and his
successors. In B.C. 315 it was taken by Antiochus, who found in it a vast amount
of treasure. The site of Susa is now marked by extensive mounds, on which are
found fragments of bricks and broken pottery, with cuneiform inscriptions. The
ruins of the ancient city cover a space of nearly three square miles, and they
have been carefully explored by Loftus, Churchill, Dieulafoy, and others. The
principal remains that still exist are four vast platforms like those at Persepolis,
with traces of a gigantic colonnade with a frontage of over 340 feet and a depth
of 240 feet. The palace of Darius Hystaspis has also been excavated, and from
it many artistic treasures taken to the Louvre.
This text is cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
SUSIANA (Ancient province) PERSIAN GULF
Susiana (Sousiane) or Susis (Sousis) (nearly corresponding to Khuzistan). One of the chief provinces of the ancient Persian Empire, lay between Babylonia and Persis, and between Mount Parachoatras and the head of the Persian Gulf. In this last direction its coast extended from the junction of the Euphrates with the Tigris to about the mouth of the river Oroatis (Tab). It was divided from Persis on the southeast and east by a mountainous tract, inhabited by independent tribes, who made even the kings of Persia pay them for a safe passage. On the north it was separated from Great Media by Mount Charbanus; on the west from Assyria by an imaginary line drawn south from near the Median pass in Mount Zagros to the Tigris; and from Babylonia by the Tigris itself. See the works cited under Susa.
PASARGADAE (Ancient city) PERSIAN GULF
PERSEPOLIS (Ancient city) IRAN
Persepolis (Old Persian Parsa, modern Takht-e Jamshid): Greek name of one
of the capitals of the ancient Achaemenid empire, founded by the great king Darius
(522-486 BCE), forty-three kilometers downstream from the capital of Cyrus the
Great, Pasargadae.
There are some indications that the site of Persepolis
was already a government's center under Cyrus the Great (559-530) and his son
Cambyses II (530-522), but there are no archaeological traces of this older phase.
However this may be, it seems as if Darius 'invented' Persepolis as the splendid
seat of the government of the Achaemenid empire and as its center for receptions
and festivals. The wealth of Persia was to be visible in every aspect of its construction.
Persepolis was a showcase.
The first building phase may have lasted from 518 to 490. Darius'
men leveled the ground and created a terrace of 450x300 meters, on which stood
a large building and an audience hall. In the treasury, the booty of the conquered
tribes and states and the annual tribute sent by the king's loyal subjects on
the occasion of the New Year's festival, were stored. Many people were employed
to keep the gold and silver shining: from the so-called Fortification tablets,
it is known that in 467 BCE, no less than 1348 people were employed in the treasury.
The square audience hall, which was at the heart of the terrace, is
usually called the apadana. It could contain hundreds, probably thousands, of
subjects at the same time. It was the largest and probably the most beautiful
of the buildings at Persepolis. The seventy-two columns which supported the roof
were twenty-five meters high (thirteen can still be seen).
Darius the great king, king of kings, king of countries, son of Hystaspes,
an Achaemenian, built this palace.
During this first building phase, a complex system of water channels
and drainage was cut into the rocky terrace.
The second phase, between 490-480, consists of buildings started by
Darius but completed in the first years of the reign of his son and successor,
Xerxes (486-465). Actually, Persepolis is mostly the work of this king. He tells
us in an inscription:
When my father Darius went away from the throne, I became king on
his throne by the grace of Ahuramazda. After I became king, I finished what had
been done by my father, and I added other works.
The apadana was finished and a small palace was added to the south
of the apadana. It is usually called Darius' palace, although he probably did
not live to see the building finished. The ancient Persian name was Tachara, 'winter
palace'. To the north of the apadana Gate of All Nations (also known as Xerxes'
gate) was built, which was guarded by a pair of large bulls in the west and lamasu's
in the east (a lamasu is a bull with the head of a bearded man). Walls were constructed
on the northern ridge of the terrace fortification. In front of Xerxes' gate was
a monumental double-ramped stairway.
Above these lamasu's, an inscription was written:
A great God is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky,
who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Xerxes king, one king
of many, one lord of many.
I am Xerxes, the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing many
kinds (of men), King in this great earth far and wide, son of King Darius, an
Achaemenian.
roclaims Xerxes the King: By the favor of Ahuramazda I built this Gateway of All
Nations. I built many other beautiful things in Persia. I built them and my father
built them. All beautiful things we built, we have built by the favor of Ahuramazda.
Proclaims Xerxes the King: May Ahuramazda protect me from harm, and this land,
and whatever was built by me as well as what has been built by may father
In the next decade, 480-470, Xerxes' palace was built between the
treasury and the apadana. The Persian name was Hadis, 'dwelling place'. It was
twice as large as the palace of Darius. Meanwhile, the western part of the treasury
was reconstructed; this part became known as the harem. The women lived in their
own rooms, situated around a spacious courtyard. In these years, the treasury
-probably not big enough to store the booty of Xerxes' successful wars- was enlarged
to the north. Many buildings were built on the southern edge of the platform;
they may have been magasins.
In the fourth phase, the Hall of hundred columns was added. It was
Persepolis' second largest building, measuring 70 x 70 meters. This throne hall
was finished by Xerxes' son Artaxerxes I Makrocheir (465-424). At a certain moment,
its function was changed and it became a store room, probably because the treasury
was again too small to contain everything.
In about 450 BCE, the complex was more or less finished and there
was probably no building activity for almost a century.
King Artaxerxes III Ochus (359-338), who was in a sense the last ruler
of the Achaemenid empire, added a Hall of thirty-two columns, a corridor and his
tomb. The rock-cut tomb has a relief, which shows the king worshiping before a
fire altar; this is inspired by the tombs of Darius the Great and his successors
at Naqs-i-Rustam, which is one hour's walk north of Persepolis. The corridor connected
the Gate of All Nations with the Hall of Hundred Columns; we can imagine how delegations
from the subject countries passed through this corridor to bring their tribute
to their ruler. On both sides of the corridor were store-rooms. Artaxerxes III
Ochus' successors Artaxerxes IV Arses (337-336) and Darius III may have done something
to build a large gate; but this gate was still unfinished when the Macedonian
king Alexander the Great captured Persepolis in the first weeks of 330 BCE. The
buildings of this final building stage are shown in pink on the map. One building
can not be seen on the map: a rock-cut tomb that remained unfinished.
Archaeologists found two cuneiform archives. The oldest and largest
archive are the so-called Persepolis fortification tablets, 25,000 to 30,000 in
number, of which some 2,000 are published and an additional 1,500 were read but
not really published. They were written in Elamite, the language of the Persian
chancellery, and deal with economic transactions up till 493. Payments are done
in kind. The other archive, the Persepolis Treasury Tablets is smaller (139 tablets)
but similar to the first one; it describes payment in silver between 492 and 458.
Moreover, king Xerxes left a 'letter to posterity' in the harem room, a long but
stereotypical text which is known as the Harem inscription. As we
have already seen, Persepolis was taken by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great
in the first weeks of 330. He destroyed the palace in April, because he was not
yet sole ruler of the Persian empire, and it was too dangerous to leave the enormous
treasures behind, where his enemies could recapture them. The Palace of Xerxes
seems to have received a special treatment, because it was damaged more severely
than other buildings; it is likely that the Greek soldiers in Alexander's company
had their revenge for the destruction of Athens
in 480 BCE. When Alexander returned several years later and saw the ruins, he
regretted his act.
Although a new capital for Persis, called Istakhr, was built nearby,
the old capital was a mere ruin for the next two thousand years. The local population
invented legends to explain the existence of the ruins of what was called Tchehelhimar,
'forty columns'.
The first westerner to visit Persepolis was a missionary man from
Portugal, Antoine de Gouvea, who noticed cuneiform inscriptions in 1602. Sixteen
years later, the Spanish ambassador Garcias de Silva y Figueroa saw the ruins;
he must have planned his stay, because he visited the place with an edition of
the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in his hand.
During the next century, several diplomats interrupted their voyage
to the Persian court to see Persepolis, but they were no scholars. Between 1664
and 1667, however, the French travelers Jean de Thevenot (1633-1667) and Jean
Chardin (1643-1713) did some serious research. In his Voyage au Levant, Thevenot
reached the conclusion that Tchehelhimar could never have been the palace of the
kings of ancient Persia, because it was too small. The columns he saw, were, in
his view, the pedestals of the idols of the Persians. As we have seen, he was
wrong, but other observations were correct.
The fist to make a real contribution to the study of the ruins and
to identify them as the capital of ancient Persia, was a Dutchman, Cornelis de
Bruijn (1652-1727), who visited Persepolis in 1704/1705. He made many beautiful
drawings, which he published in 1714 in Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie.
His drawings were long considered as the best representations available, until
the first photographers visited the place in the twentieth century.
After a dig in 1878, which was organized by the Persian governor of
the Shiraz region, the first archaeological research was executed by the Oriental
Institute of Chicago: Ernst Herzfeld and F. Schmidt were working in Persepolis
from 1931 to 1939. The project was continued by Andre Godard and Ali Sami of the
Iranian Archaeological Service. More recently, A. Tajvidi has directed excavations
on behalf of the Iranian Archaeological Service. The Italian Institute for the
Middle and Far East is trying to restore some of the ruins of Persepolis.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
PARTHIA (Ancient country) IRAN
EKVATANA (Ancient city) MIDIA
This very important city of the Achaemenid empire was taken over by
the Seleucids. Pliny states that it was founded by Seleucus, the first Seleucid
ruler, while Strabo writes that the existing Achaemenid palace was an occasional
residence of the Seleucid kings.
D. N. Wilber, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
LAODIKIA (Ancient city) IRAN
A Seleucid city adjacent to modern Nihavand. According to Pliny, it
was founded by Antiochos I. Chance finds include a stele with an inscription of
193 B.C. of Antiochos III in behalf of a cult of his queen, and a round altar
with ribbons carved in relief and bronze statuettes of Zeus, Athena, Apollo, and
Demeter. Furthermore, at Magnesia in Asia Minor a stone was found bearing a decree
passed at Laodicea during the reign of Antiochos III. The site may also have been
known as Antioch-in-Persis.
D. N. Wilber, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
SELEFKIA EPI TOU EVLEOU (Ancient city) IRAN
The very ancient site of Susa on the Eulaeus river, renamed in Seleucid
times. In that period a small Achaemenid palace was drastically restored, and
excavations there have brought to light ten stone pedestals of bronze statues,
some with Greek inscriptions, part of a female torso in Greek marble, and smaller
fragments of statues.
D. N. Wilber, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
