“Mighty one, foremost of the goddesses,
Ruler in Heaven, Queen on earth…
All the gods are under her command!
She is the Lady of Heaven, Earth and the Netherworld,
having brought them into existence…”
With her brother-husband Osiris and her son Horus, Isis forms the first Trinity in mankind’s religious belief. She is “Great of Magic”, this aspect being central to her many roles. It is through magic that Osiris was revived, Horus conceived and protected, and the deceased worshippers –whether royal or commoner– assisted in the afterlife. Most of the myths relating to Isis stress her magic ability.
One in particular, in which she learns the true name of Ra, highlights her position as the greatest of the gods in terms of magical knowledge and power. In this myth, Isis creates a snake which bites Ra: the stricken sun god is only healed of this poisoning when he reveals his true name to her, and thus further enhances her might. This is the Snake-power of the Goddess in its earliest form.
Isis was later assimilated with many other goddesses, having absorbed them as “Isis in all her manifestations.” It is telling that the last pharaoh, queen Cleopatra VII, often used an Isis dress on state occasions. On coins, she identified herself as “Cleopatra-Isis-Afrodite”, and she was thus deified in Egypt after her death.
Defying Roman customs, Caesar set up a golden image of Cleopatra besides the Venus Genetrix statue in the temple of his new Forum Iulium. One can only wonder what would have happened if Caesar had escaped from the assassins on the Idus of March, 44 BC, to begin a long reign with Cleopatra at his side. Chances are that in the end the worship of Isis, and not Christianity, would have become the religion of the (Holy) Roman empire.
Her influence was amazingly widespread. There was a temple of Isis at Byblos, where the goddess was equated with the local form of Astarté from quite early times. Later, the worship of Isis extended over the Hellenistic world. Isis temples were built in Athens and other Greek cities, and subsequently in many parts of the Roman empire, as well as in Rome itself. The classical writer Apuleius left a detailed description of the initiations into her cult. Evidence of veneration of the goddess– carried afield by Roman legions– has been found as far apart as Iraq and England. In much of the ancient Mediterranean world, statuettes of a ‘combined’ goddess Isis-Afrodite-Venus became extremely popular.
No wonder that Isis was the pagan goddess who held out longest in a Christianised world. In the Land of Isis, as the Nubian territory south of Philae (=Pi-lak, “the island at the end” of the first cataract at Assuan) was known for ages, priestesses and queens continued to be powerful even in Christian times.
In the Meroitic Period (593 BC - 350 AD), women held exceptionally high positions, as the Romans discovered the hard way. Their writer Pliny the Elder described the splendid capital Meroé down to details that have been confirmed by archeological excavations. He also must have had detailed knowledge of the political lay of the land, for he wrote: “The sovereigns of the country carry the title of Candace, a name that has been passed from queen to queen for many years.”
In fact, the Kandake or Candace is a Roman transcription of the meroitic title Kentake meaning ‘queen-mother’. For many centuries, she held the highest office in the Nubian state, wielding her power through a double option. She chose the future king from among her sons, and also chose the woman who was to be his wife and future Kentake. Then, for good measure, she also adopted her officially as her own daughter.
Roman chronicles register four especially awe-inspiring queen mothers in Meroitic Nubia: Nawidemak, Amanirenas, Amanishakhete and Amanitarakide, whose time in office coincided with the first Caesars from Julius to Nero. The most forceful of them was the one-eyed Kentake Amanirenas, a contemporary of Cleopatra VII.
When the Roman legions began to occupy Egypt after Augustus’ triumph over Cleopatra, they thought they also could take over Nubia. But Amanirenas set herself at the head of her army and threw the Roman garrisons out of their frontier forts at Philae and the Elephantine Island. As a warning –so Strabo tells us– she pulled down the statues of Augustus that had been erected there.
The Roman governor Petronius answered with a punishing raid on the ancient Nubian capital of Napata, which he destroyed in 24 BC. But no sooner had Petronius and his legions turned their back, Amanirenas in person led her army in attack again, this time to demolish Assuan. A military standoff ensued: neither the Romans nor the Nubians could force their enemy to surrender.
In the end, Rome preferred to negotiate a settlement. The ambassadors of the Kentake and Augustus came together on the island of Samos in 20 BC. There, they signed a peace and trade treaty that remained in force for centuries. One of its clauses gave the Meroites continued access to the Isis temples on Philae.
When Augustus took over Egypt, he was sufficiently well advised about the importance of the cult to associate himself with Isis. He had the outer walls of Philae decorated with carvings showing himself making sacrifices to the goddess. On these walls, he hailed her as “Sovereign of Heaven, Lady of Philae, giver of Life.” But it was a stick-and-carrot act: at an additional temple he had built on the island, he erected a stele emphasizing how he had crushed a massive revolt in Egypt in 29 BC, following the suicide of Cleopatra VII. At the nearby Debod temple, also (re)dedicated to Isis, Augustus had himself depicted as “Kaisaros, acclaimed by all, Lord of the force that submits his enemies.”
Later Roman emperors funded lavish reconstructions at the Isis temples of Philae. The most prominent were Trajan, around 105 AD, and Hadrian shortly after him. However, the Romans suffered a serious setback in 450 AD, when Nubian warriors reoccupied Philae and Assuan. A new peace agreement was then signed, allowing the Nubian tribes to celebrate festivals of Isis in the Philae temples.
Occasionally they also could borrow the sacred statue of the Goddess for their processions through the Land of Isis. Thus Philae continued in full use as a pagan temple, even under intolerant Christian emperors who had closed down all other Egyptian cults.
Only after a Nubian king, Silko –converted to Christianism in 543 AD–, had crushed his pagan Nubian rivals, the curtain fell. Emperor Justinian finally ordered a clampdown on Philae in 552 AD. The Isis priesthood was chased away, and a crudely built Christian church set up within the main Isis temple.
Even so, as stated in Ancient Goddesses, “the legacy of Isis survived the collapse of Egyptian civilisation, and the social transformations that codified gender inequalities in law and religion. The return of the Goddess at a time when women are claiming equal opportunities underscores the potency of this icon. <…>
The laments of Isis over the violent death of Osiris, and the torments of evil and injustice, were in essence an outcry against the discontent of ‘civilisation’: power leading to rivalry and violence, competition, conflict and potentially, chaos. Isis reasserts love and continuity, and aids in the birth of right and justice.”
• 3 •
WOMEN IN ANCIENT PERSIAN SOCIETY
The epic of the Persian empire begins when Cyrus the Great takes over the throne of the Medes from his grandfather Astyages in 559 BC. And more precisely, if we can believe Xenofon, at the instant when Astyages’ daughter Amytis crowns Cyrus as the King of Kings – a ritual the Persians will never forget.
This Median princess receives great public honors from Cyrus, who first proclaims her his ‘mother’ and then (once her husband has been executed) his ‘wife’. Cyrus has good reasons to homage Amytis. It is her official approval for his takeover of the empire, what puts an end to the armed resistance of important parts of the realm against him. But Amytis’ titles of “mother” and “wife” are just that: nominal titles, given to her by Cyrus for political reasons only.
His real wife, the queen who stands at his side for most of his extraordinary career of conquests, is Kassandane: a Persian like him. She too descends from the Achaemenid lineage that dominates the original Persian hear
tland around Pasargadai. She bears him his heir Cambyses, and his famously powerful daughter Atossa. When Kassandane dies on the 29th of March, 539 BC, the whole empire plunges into public mourning.
Writers of those days tell us that Cyrus bitterly lamented the loss of his queen. He missed her dearly: not only as his wife, but also as his private counsellor. It would take another eight years for him to become politically active again. No one doubted that Persian royal women, during the centuries of the Achaemenid dynasty, were a real power behind the throne.
And before that, older traditions in Mesopotamia said, ón the throne. In 810 BC Sammur-Amat, the great Assyrian queen whom legend would call Semiramis, built the first vast waterworks that secured the power and riches of Babylon. This queen, later chronicles held, proved herself highly capable both in domestic and foreign policy. Nearly a thousand years afterwards Arrian still remembered her example, and grudgingly conceded: “It had been a custom in Asia, ever since the time of Semiramis, even for women to rule men!”
All evidence confirms that the women of ancient Persia had an assigned and honourable place in society. It is interesting to note that the ordinances of Zoroaster specifically assure the female has been created equal in rank with the male. That conviction must have existed already before the time of this religious reformer. Zoroaster was much too respectful of the habits and prejudices of his countrymen to have made any serious alteration in such a basic belief.
After Kassandane, an even more powerful woman appeared on the scene: her daughter Atossa. The historian Herodotos assures that she was the co-ruler of the empire during two generations. First as the principal wife of three ‘Kings of Kings’ in rapid succession: her brothers Cambyses and Bardiya, plus her distant cousin Darius – and then as queen mother in the reign of Xerxes. Also, she was a well educated intellectual. The invention of a specific alphabet for Old Persian, adapted from the Aramaic one and imposed by royal decree for all state use, was credited to her.
She had supreme authority over the royal servants, which did not simply mean she directed palace affairs. Atossa ruled over the civil bureaucracy, and had a say in military appointments. She wielded such power that Herodotos did not hesitate to accuse her of the decision of the first Persian invasion of Greece. To get the information needed to begin a war, he said, she convinced her husband Darius to launch a military mission to spy out the Greek coast. And as a guide for this intelligence unit, Atossa appointed a man who knew those faraway regions well: the Greek court doctor Demokedes.
But then Herodotos, who would never despise a saucy story, whatever its historical merits, went on to reveal the ‘true’ reasons behind the mission that took place in 519 BC. Atossa had a secret debt to Demokedes, he wrote. She had developed an abscess on her breast, which for shame she had tried to conceal; but it spread, and she became so ill she had to confide in the doctor. He cured her discreetly, in exchange for the promise that she would get him an appointment on a mission to Greece. Not because he liked to be a spy, but in reality because he wanted to flee from his Persian masters, and used Atossa’s power to enable his escape to his native home.
Herodotos does not clarify whether Atossa was deceived by Demokedes, or counted on his intention to desert. For the Greeks’ refusal to give him up, was later construed as the insult that permitted the Persians to declare war. But it is made abundantly clear that Atossa, both as queen in Darius’ reign and as queen-mother under the next High King, had the capacity and determination to shape Persia’s international and domestic policy. (Some experts question such statements, because Atossa does not appear on the Persian archive registers that have been translated so far. But that may still happen, and in the meantime Herodotos merits the benefit of the doubt.)
Her name, Atossa, which she wrote as “Hutaosâ”, has a religious connotation. Possibly it was also her religious status what made it so valuable for the High Kings Cambyses II, Bardiya and Darius I to take her for principal wife. Cambyses married her when he was the crown prince. For Bardiya, it was the first royal act of his short-lived rebellion in 522 BC against Cambyses.
Later that year Darius followed suit, after having killed Bardiya saying that he was an impostor – a false claim that Atossa publicly upheld, thereby legitimising Darius’ coup. That pact of silence goes a long way to explain her sway over Darius. Saying that “she had all the power,” Herodotos affirms she was able to intrigue for her son Xerxes to become Darius’ successor instead of his eldest son, born from another wife.
Darius I had taken at least six wives; mostly, for political reasons. This way, he could bind to his cause, and keep out of reach for others, the dynastic legitimacy and powerful status these women had by themselves. Both Atossa and his later wife Irtashduna were daughters of Cyrus the Great; and Parmys, born some 20 years after Atossa, was a granddaughter of Cyrus. Possibly, Darius married these younger wives after Atossa’s death, so they would again bring to his side their legitimacy of royal birthright, whereas his own was a fabrication.
And if Atossa could be called famous, Irtashduna was no less widely known in the empire. The Persepolis Archives register her active management decisions concerning royal estates and factories all over the country. Herodotos (who calls her Artystone) assures she was by far the favourite wife: “Darius even ordered a statue of hammered gold made of her!” For their celebrations, Irtashduna kept a palace in the snowy mountains of the Persian heartland abundantly supplied with food and drink. 1940 litres of wine and 200 sheep were delivered there at New Year’s Eve of 503 BC.
After Atossa’s death, Persia still felt her iron hand for a long time. Amastris, whom she had selected to be Xerxes’ wife, continued her policies, and was equally influential as queen-mother of the first Artaxerxes. Or rather we should say that, from the early days of the empire, the office of queen-mother remained powerful.
A curious detail: Darius’ mother does not appear on his inscriptions and public proclamations. The reason for this omission is that his parents were only indirectly related to Cyrus the Great, so in reality they had nót transmitted to Darius the throne rights he claimed to have. And yet Irdabama shines in the archives with all the (economic) powers of a queen-mother, broader even than those of the favourite wife Irtashduna.
As the Persepolis tablets show, Irdabama regularly orders greater amounts of foodstuffs to be delivered at the palace from her own – more numerous– storehouses, than Irtashduna. Also, Irdabama has more personnel working at her various factories. On top, she can direct the royal treasury to make payments in silver, something which is not attested for any of Darius’ wives.
One should keep in mind that royal women in Persia had their independent power base, because they owned and managed vast estates. The archives mention residences, storehouses and factories of Irdabama in at least ten different localities of the realm, besides the imperial capitals of Susa and Persepolis. One village in conquered Egypt, Anthylla, was reserved solely to provide shoes for the Persian queens. Parysatis, wife of Darius II, owned whole belts of villages in Babylonia and Syria to keep her larders and treasury well stocked. These were extensive properties, “a full day’s march in width.”
But queens and princesses not only held economic force: a High King could just as well regale a royal lady with “an army under her sole command.” According to Herodotos, this was “a thoroughly Persian gift.” As queen mother in the reign of Artaxerxes II, Parysatis demonstrated her independence also in military affairs. She levied an army in her own Syrian estates for her other son, Cyrus the Younger, when he tried to topple his brother from the throne.
Parysatis had willingly contributed to that civil war. When Artaxerxes II publicly announced his decision to eliminate Cyrus from all dynastic power, Parysatis made him withdraw his own decree, and Cyrus was reinstated as viceroy over Asia Minor. Soon after, he gathered an army of Greek mercenaries, added them to the forces his mother had provided, and marched against his brother.
(Describing this campaign, in which h
e took part himself as a mercenary officer, Xenofon gives another example of independent action by royal wives in the Persian empire. He states that queen Epyaxa of Kilikia supported Cyrus’ army out of her own purse — in spite of the opposite policies of her husband. Regardless of her marriage with the king, Epyaxa was “intimate” with Cyrus, Xenofon remarks in his typically prude language.)
Only Cyrus’ death, at the battle of Cunaxa, saved the High King. But Artaxerxes II did not put an end to the abuses of his mother until she poisoned his wife Stateira for having opposed her political intrigues. Even then, Parysatis was only banished to her vast possessions around Babylon.
Artaxerxes II was widely known for his overly generous and affectionate character. For example, he had asked his wife Stateira to withdraw the curtains of her carriage when she went into town, so that people could speak to her freely on the road. With such firsthand information, he said, she would counsel him even better on the affairs of his subjects.
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
Plutarch, citing Ktesias the doctor, gives a moving account of those events. These are some key paragraphs, in the translation by John Dryden:
“Artaxerxes was at first called Arsicas [Arshú, in Old Persian]; this is what Ktesias said, who would not be ignorant of the name of the king with whom he lived as his physician, attending upon himself, his wife, his mother, and his children.
Artaxerxes was gentler than his brother, Cyrus the Younger, in everything. He married a beautiful and virtuous wife [Stateira], at the desire of his parents, but kept her as expressly against their wishes. For king Darius II, having put her brother to death, was purposing likewise to destroy her. But Arsicas, throwing himself at his mother’s feet, by many tears, at last, with much ado, persuaded her that they should neither put her to death nor divorce her from him.
<…>
Cyrus was the favourite of his mother Parysatis, and he had full hopes that by her means he was to be declared the successor to the kingdom. For Parysatis had the specious plea in his behalf with Darius, that she had borne him Arsicas when he was a subject, but Cyrus, when a king. Even so, after Darius the eldest son, Arsicas, was proclaimed king, his name being changed into Artaxerxes. Cyrus remained satrap of Lydia, and commander in the Maritime Provinces.
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