Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE

by Matt Waters

  Xerxes’ Royal Inscriptions

  Xerxes left numerous dedications on buildings and sculptures at several sites, though mainly at Persepolis, second only to Darius in the number extant. The basic formula established by Darius persisted: Ahuramazda is the king’s main benefactor, and the king is an Achaemenid. As has been noted, this template – emphasizing divine legitimacy and royal lineage – was one used by Near Eastern kings for centuries. With Xerxes the formula was reinforced. Not only was Xerxes a son of Darius, thus an Achaemenid, but through his mother Atossa he was also descended from Cyrus the Great. All subsequent kings likewise had to be of Achaemenid descent, even if born of secondary wives. There is some irony, then, that all the kings except Darius himself could draw their bloodline to Cyrus as well (see Appendix C).

  Attempts to read significance into minor variations in Xerxes’ titles – for example, “king of lands” or “king of this earth far and wide” – are generally met with skepticism. Not surprisingly, there is heavy emphasis on his continuation of Darius’ legacy: in the ideological sense of his capabilities as an effective ruler and in the tangible sense of his construction work at Persepolis. A trilingual inscription from the apadana at Persepolis (XPg) offers an example: “Xerxes the Great King proclaims: By the favor of Ahuramazda, King Darius, who was my father, did much that is good. And by the favor of Ahuramazda, I added to what had been done and I built more. May Ahuramazda, together with the gods, protect me and my kingdom.” Another inscription, in Old Persian only (XPl), is almost an exact copy of one from Darius’ tomb (DNb), but this one bearing Xerxes’ name also enumerates the royal qualities – physical, mental, and emotional – that typified a proper king.

  Xerxes’ most famous royal inscription is the so-called daiva-inscription, in which Xerxes makes forceful but vague reference to punishment meted out against those who did not worship Ahuramazda but instead worshipped daiv (the long a indicates the plural form) – a word roughly translated as “demons” or false gods.

  And among these lands there was a place where daiv were worshipped.

  By the favor of Ahuramazda I subsequently destroyed the sanctuary of the daiv, and I commanded “The daiv will no longer be worshipped!”

  Where formerly the daiv were worshipped, there I worshipped Ahuramazda as appropriate.

  (XPh §4)4

  In this inscription Xerxes reasserts Achaemenid royal ideology and elaborates the centrality of Ahuramazda to the King’s, and by extension the Empire’s, success and well-being. The inscription begins and ends with invocation of Ahuramazda. It begins with the god’s creation of the world and of heaven; it ends with a blessing for the one who obeys Ahuramazda’s law (understood as manifest in the King) and who worships him appropriately, and it adds a benediction for the god’s protection of Xerxes, his house, and his realm.

  Xerxes’ imprecation against the daiva-worshippers has received much attention in modern treatments of XPh. The very existence of the daiv stands in antithesis to Ahuramazda, the epitome of righteousness, a contrast that impacts our understanding of Achamenid religious practices. Xerxes’ sentiment here parallels that of Darius in the late addition to the Bisitun Inscription (DB §71–76) identifying the failure to worship Ahuramazda as an offense, a marker of rebellion. This is clearly an ideological signpost, but as a motivator of applied strategy it is much more problematic. It is one thing for the king to cast rebels as liars or enemies of the king’s god, but it is another to assume that the king actively sought to compel others to the worship of Ahuramazda. As a practical matter we do not see this sentiment beyond formal expressions in the royal inscriptions and, in fact, there is plenty of evidence that contradicts a notion of exclusive worship of Ahuramazda (see pp. 155–156).

  Xerxes takes Darius’ sentiment one step further but only in this one inscription. In it, Xerxes’ claims are strident but not specific: he restored order by defeating offenders. In those places where the daiv were worshipped – and, by extension, where Ahuramazda was not worshipped – Xerxes made certain that the proper worship of Ahuramazda was (re?)-instituted. What does that mean? Is Xerxes referring to Babylonia, Greece, Egypt, somewhere else? Perhaps the best answer is all of them and none of them – by that it is meant that Xerxes’ expression is an idealized one: a powerful, but generalized, expression of the royal ideology that may not apply to one specific episode or place. We cannot say that Xerxes did not specifically apply these sentiments to one or more of his conquests, but we also cannot find evidence that the compulsory worship of Ahuramazda was instituted anywhere.

  Xerxes’ dahyva-list (XPh §3, see Figure 6.2, p. 97) is notable as the longest such list on record. Unlike the general east-west arrangement (from the center, Parsa) found in Darius’ lists, there is no clear rationale for the order given in XPh. We do not know the exact date of this inscription. If it was commissioned after Xerxes’ failed invasion of Greece (480–479 BCE), there is no acknowledgement of any loss of territory. From the ideological perspective, we should not expect to find one. The Greeks by the sea and beyond the sea are listed. There are two new dahyva here as well: the Dahae of Central Asia and the Akaufaka, whose location is unknown. We cannot track the historicity of these conquests, but it is not an accident that Xerxes’ list is longer. Regardless of the impact of the Greek campaign, Xerxes had to develop his father’s territorial dominion further. The ideology demanded it of the king, “the expander of the realm” – a traditional concept in Near Eastern royal ideology and an actual title used by some Elamite kings. It is notable that Xerxes’ dahyva-list is the last extant. Whether it is a matter of not having found one from subsequent kings, or whether the formal presentation of a list was later deemed no longer necessary, is unclear. Some scholars would correlate the latter possibility with a cessation of Persian expansionism after Xerxes – an assessment that matches our (thin) extant record, and makes perfect sense within that record, but one that in the end cannot be currently confirmed.

  Xerxes and the Invasion of Greece – Sources and Problems

  The Persian invasion of Greece in 480–479 BCE is one of the most readily identifiable sequences in both Achaemenid Persian and Greek history. Our image of Achaemenid Persia is usually one of a tyrannical enemy that unleashed an overwhelming onslaught against the freedom-loving Greeks, who, because of their society’s values and virtues, were able to defeat them. This is the stereotypical view, one as indebted to modern recasting of that historical sequence as it is to the Greek tradition itself. Herodotus wrote roughly two generations after the invasion, and his first six (of nine total) books build toward the cataclysmic confrontation. His account is suffused with cautionary tales of hubris and imperial overreach. Despite all the necessary caveats and qualifications – foremost among which is that we have no Persian sources whatsoever for the invasion – there is no doubt that Xerxes’ invasion of Greece and the Greeks’ reaction to it marked a turning point in the history of the western world. Some hyperbole is inevitable for such a momentous historical event.

  According to Herodotus, when Darius died in 486 BCE, Xerxes took on the responsibility of retribution against Athens for their involvement in the Ionian revolt. After handling the more pressing problems in Egypt and Babylon (see discussion earlier in this chapter), Xerxes was able to turn his attention to a full-scale invasion of Greece. Herodotus relates that the preparations for this campaign, the assembling of manpower as well as the necessary supplies and logistical support, took four years. These preparations tell us as much about Persian military and administrative logistics as does the invasion itself – at least from a Greek perspective.

  With his sense of drama, Herodotus sets the decision to invade Greece in a gripping debate at the Persian court. Mardonius, whom Darius sent on campaign to Thrace in the 490s, exhorts Xerxes to punish Athens, to finish the job that stalled in 490 at Marathon (7.5–6). Herodotus also includes a cast of Greek characters lobbying the King: Athenian exiles, aristocrats from northern Greece seeking support, and the exiled
Spartan king, Demaratus. In contrast to Mardonius’ headstrong and selfish motivation for glory, Xerxes’ uncle Artabanus sounds notes of caution, but Xerxes’ ominous dreams forewarn him of disaster if he does not invade. As intimated by Herodotus during this lengthy excursus (7.12–19), even the gods impel the doomed Xerxes toward his fate.5

  A military campaign understood as retribution fits nicely with Persian royal ideology, and that is generally how Darius’ expedition against Marathon is interpreted. Xerxes’ invasion was on a larger scale, and that retribution as the sole motivator seems unlikely, even if it may have been the main one. Persian campaigns in southeastern Europe and the Aegean Islands during Darius’ reign foreshadowed Persian expansion in this region, and Xerxes’ campaign may well have been a logical outgrowth of Persian expansionism. Mardonius’ argumentation rings true that it was critical for the King to display his power: the overwhelming spectacle of the King’s forces in full pageantry, the King receiving tribute and homage from subjects both old and new.

  The scale of Xerxes’ army arrayed against Greece, as relayed by Herodotus (7.184–187), defies reality. By the numbers: 277,610 men on 1,207 warships; 240,000 men on 3,000 transport ships; 1,700,000 infantry; 100,000 cavalry and charioteers; along with 300,000 men drafted from the Empire’s European territories, who joined the expedition en route. This gives a grand total of 2,617,610 combatants, and Herodotus does not count the camp followers and other peripheral elements. Even if these numbers were factors of ten – assuming a tenfold exaggeration – the numbers still are too high for effective logistics. On the other hand, the greater the numbers of these “barbarian hordes” the greater and more glorious the Greek victory that Herodotus describes. With such wildly exaggerated numbers, it is no wonder that the motif of the army drinking rivers dry runs through Herodotus and later Classical accounts. Modern estimates range from 50,000 to 200,000 for the army and from 500 to 1,000 for the navy, and most realistic assessments tend toward the lower side of these ranges. Occasional references by Herodotus’ younger contemporary Thucydides also support a lower number. Thucydides’ work chronicles the war between Athens and Sparta in the late fifth century. Thucydides periodically mentions Xerxes’ invasion, mainly in rhetorical contexts. But there is a common theme in these references. Thucydides points to the Persians’ mistakes and their relatively small numbers as the main reasons why the invasion did not succeed.

  Some other elements of Greek historiography must be mentioned here. The term “Persian Wars” is a label that reflects a Greek perspective. In any context that emphasizes a Persian perspective, a reversal seems more appropriate: the “Greek wars” or something to that effect. Also, Herodotus, Thucydides, and several other Classical writers refer to the Persians as “barbarians.” This terminology, read at a superficial level in English translation, lies at the root of no shortage of misapprehension and stereotyping. The Greek term barbaros, whence the English term “barbarian,” initially was used to refer to anyone who was not Greek, and who when speaking made sounds – to Greek ears – only like “bar-bar-bar-bar …” in other words, nonsense. From this the Greeks created the onomatopoeic word barbaros. In some Greek writings, the word certainly carried (and was meant to carry) a negative stereotype. The Greeks, ethnocentric as anyone else in that day, believed non-Greeks to be inherently inferior. But such a value judgment depends on one’s perspective. The Persians were highly advanced, heirs to and innovators in civilizations that predated the Greeks by centuries. In any event, the Persians probably held similar views about the “barbarous” Greeks, the Yauna – differentiated only by geography and occasionally by their hats – to the Persians an insignificant, but troublesome, people on the far-flung edge of their empire.

  Medism

  Another important issue of terminology involves the Greek phenomenon of Medism. This term and its varying manifestations as verb and noun – “to Medize,” “to go over to the Mede,” “Medizer,” etc. – referred to Greeks or others who supported the Persians, either by offering tokens of submission (earth and water) or by outright support. The term might apply whether the “Medizing” was compelled or voluntary. This is common but somewhat curious phraseology throughout the Classical accounts: we are dealing with Persians, of course, not Medes, though the latter were subjects of the Persian Empire. So, why “Medize” instead of “Persianize”? Scholars have struggled with this issue for a long time, and explanations vary.6 Did the Greeks simply not differentiate between the culturally and linguistically related Medes and Persians? Did the Greeks simply see the Persian Empire as a continuation of the Median? Even though Herodotus uses the term “Medism” and its variants throughout his work, he clearly distinguishes the two peoples. One piece of evidence comes from a poet named Xenophanes, from the Ionian city of Colophon. Xenophanes was born circa 570 BCE and lived during both Lydian and Persian domination – or, as expressed in the following fragment – the Median domination.7

  Such are the things to discuss by the fire in winter while reclining on a soft couch, well-fed, drinking sweet wine, snacking on seeds: Who are you, and from where among men? How many years have passed you by, good man? How old were you when the Mede came?

  This is one of our earliest references to the Persian conquest of Ionia. Why does Xenophanes attribute it to “the Mede”? It is good to recall here that after the conquest of Lydia, according to Herodotus’ account, Cyrus turned over operations in Anatolia to Mazares and then to Harpagus (see pp. 41–42). These two Medes must have left an impression. If they commanded Median (or even primarily Median) forces, it was thus the Median troops who conquered Ionia, even though they did it under Persian auspices. The conquered Ionians may not have given such distinctions high priority, at least not at first. Questions about the origins of the term “Medism” are certainly more complex, but in this early usage we find some explanation for the use of the term to designate the Persians.

  Earth and Water

  Another recurrent motif in Herodotus is the Persian demand for earth and water as tokens of submission to the King. We find such requests first during Darius I’s reign: made of the Scythians (4.126–132), of the Macedonians (5.18), and of the Athenian embassy to Artaphernes in 507 BCE (see p. 84), and especially in conjunction with the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. Before that expedition, Darius sent heralds throughout Greece to ask for earth and water (Hdt. 6.48). There were not many city-states that refused. The implication is that the mere refusal to a formal request for earth and water put one at odds with the King and that in itself demanded retribution. According to Herodotus’ account, those Persian heralds sent to Athens were thrown into a pit for condemned criminals, and those visiting Sparta into a well, and they were told that they could seek their earth and water there.

  Before his campaign, Xerxes made the same request of Greek city-states. Herodotus provides a list of specific city-states that offered earth and water to Xerxes (7.132). The list cannot be specifically correlated with the city-states submitting to Darius: no specific city-states are named in that passage (6.48). When Xerxes sent out heralds before his campaign, he purposely neglected sending them to either Athens or Sparta because of their mistreatment of Darius’ heralds. It seems a safe assumption that a large number of city-states gave earth and water to Darius and again to Xerxes some ten years later, but this is unverifiable. By the time Herodotus wrote, there was likely a fair amount of revisionist history among some states about their fortitude in resisting the Persians in 480.

  The full significance of the giving of earth and water, especially the symbolism associated with the actual elements themselves, is yet debated. Were they meant to represent Persian possession of the (now formally subject) territory? Was there some religious significance to these elements? The request for earth and water appears closely tied to Achaemenid imperial ideology, but its meanings for both parties, and especially for the King, is harder to grasp. In context, it was clearly meant as one ritual to establish the trustwort
hiness and loyalty of the contracting party to the King.8 But what specific obligations did it entail? That is harder to answer. With the first evidence for such requests dating to Darius’ reign, one cannot help but be tempted to apply some religious significance to earth and water in an early Zoroastrian, or Mazdaean, context.

  The Greek city-states that complied with the request acknowledged the king’s superiority in exchange for his protection and patronage. It is notable that requests for earth and water disappear from the sources after Xerxes’ invasion – perhaps such requests were linked only to acquisition of new territory – and with Persian expansion beyond the Aegean mostly thwarted after 479. But Persian influence, in theory if not in applicable practice, swept through much of Greece in the early fourth century, yet no requests for earth and water are recorded in the sources we have for that period of Artaxerxes II’s diplomatic triumph in 387/386 BCE (pp. 185–188). To assert that submission of earth and water was no longer relevant after Xerxes risks what historians call an argument from silence: simply because the sources do not mention a phenomenon does not mean that the phenomenon did not occur. Also curious, Herodotus preserves a fair amount of information from the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses, both of whom were active in Ionia and the Aegean. Yet not once were either of these kings in Herodotus’ account associated with requests of earth and water from conquered or potential subjects. If Cyrus or Cambyses requested it, it is a striking omission in Herodotus’ account, but the perils of an argument from silence apply here also.