The Persian Empire

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  See also: K&Q, Sasanian: Kavad II Shiruya; Khosrow II Parvez

  Further Reading

  Browne, Edward G. A Literary History of Persia, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928.

  Mustawfi-i Qazvini, Hamdullah. Tarikh-i Guzida. Edited by Edward Browne. Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1910.

  Tafazzoli, Ahmad. “Barbad.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1988, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/barbad-minstrel.

  Borzuye

  Borzuye was the gifted and celebrated physician of the late Sasanian era who served the Sasanian monarch Khosrow I Anushiravan (r. 531–579 CE). Borzuye is also known as a translator of numerous scholarly and literary works, including the classic work Pañcatantra [Five Principles]. This collection of animal fables, known in Persian as Kalila va Demna and in Europe as the Fables of Bidpai, continues to be read today. Borzuye completed its original translation from Sanskrit into Middle Persian after a visit to India.

  Borzuye was born either in Abarshahr in western Khorasan or in Marv (Merv), the capital of Khorasan and today a city in the Republic of Turkmenistan. Borzuye’s father was an officer in the Sasanian army, and his mother hailed from a prominent religious family. He enrolled in school at the age of seven. After completing his primary education, he studied medicine and became a physician.

  Borzuye came of age during the reign of the Sasanian monarch Khosrow I Anushiravan. A highly energetic and dynamic ruler, Khosrow dedicated his rule to the restoration of the power of the Sasanian central government, the suppression of the radical Mazdakite movement, and the reform of the financial, social, economic, and military institutions of his empire. For much of his reign, Khosrow I was preoccupied with wars against the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Hephthalites to the east. Aside from campaigns in the west and the east, Khosrow spent much of his reign in implementing his reforms. Despite his ambitious agenda, however, he acted as the great patron of arts and sciences. When in 529 the academy of Athens was closed, a group of Greek philosophers fled to Sasanian territory. Khosrow welcomed them and allowed these scholars to settle in his empire. The Sasanian king also expanded the prestigious medical school at Gondishapur, which emerged as one of the world’s most important centers of learning, training, and research in late antiquity. Located in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan, the city of Gondishapur was founded by the Sasanian monarch Shapur I. During the reign of the Sasanian dynasty, the city emerged as one of the most prosperous urban centers of the Persian Empire. The Sasanians built a medical center in the city, which included a major library. During the reign of Khosrow I, a hospital was added to the medical complex. At this hospital Persian, Greek, and Indian physicians attended to the needs of the sick. Meanwhile, the medical school offered courses in medicine, anatomy, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. Students and trainees were obliged to pass an examination before graduating from the school.

  It was in this exciting and dynamic environment that Borzuye joined government service and established a reputation for himself as an outstanding scholar and physician. As a physician, he treated his patients free of charge. Accounts of Borzuye’s life and career indicate that he stressed and engaged in a highly ethical practice of medicine. It has also been written that Khosrow sent Borzuye, who was by then probably the most eminent physician at his court, to India to study the Indian sciences and healing techniques and recruit Indian physicians to teach at the medical school in Gondishapur. This was a golden opportunity for the inquisitive and ever-searching Borzuye to study Indian medicine. India was viewed as a treasure house of ancient wisdom and knowledge and a destination for scholars, scientists, and writers from a variety of scientific fields.

  It is not clear when Borzuye departed for India; how long he stayed in the country; which provinces, cities, and towns he visited; or when he returned to Persia. What sources do tell us is that he returned from India with a large collection of scientific and literary books, which were translated into Middle Persian. Borzuye also brought back the game of chess and numerous herbal plants from his trip to India. His visit to India left a profound impact on him. He studied the great works of Sanskrit literature and became engrossed with Indian mystical beliefs and practices. When he returned to Iran he brought back several collection of fables, including the Pañcatantra (later in Persian the Kalila va Demna), which he translated from Sanskrit to Middle Persian. Kalila va Demna, which according to François de Blois had been originally translated as Karirak ud Damanak, was a collection of animal stories that originated in India almost 2,000 years ago. The two central protagonists, Kalila and Demna, were clever and shrewd jackals who related humorous and racy stories about birds, beasts, and humans. The common theme of the fables was astute leadership, wise conduct of power, and the value of gaining genuine and faithful friendship. Neither the original Sanskrit nor Borzuye’s translation have survived, but the eighth-century Persian writer Ibn al-Moqaffa’ (721–757 CE), who was a convert from Zoroastrianism to Islam, translated the Middle Persian version of the book into Arabic. This translation, which has been praised as a masterpiece of Arabic literary prose, probably served as the basis for later Arabic and Persian translations. Today, numerous versions and translations of the stories that Borzuye originally brought back from India are available in a variety of languages throughout the world. As he grew older, Borzuye gradually withdrew from an active public life and chose a life of detachment and solitude.

  See also: Cultures: Education; K&Q, Sasanian: Khosrow I Anushiravan

  Further Reading

  De Blois, François. Burzōy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalīlah wa Dimnah. London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1990.

  Elgood, Cyril. A Medical History of Persia and the Eastern Caliphate: From the Earliest Times until the Year A.D. 1932. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. “Borzūya.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1989, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/borzuya-also-burzoe-a-physician-of-the-time-of-kosrow-i-.

  Latham, J. Derek. “Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ, Abū Mohammad ʿAbd-Allāh Rōzbeh.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1997, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ebn-al-moqaffa.

  Reidel, Dagmar. “Kalila wa Demna: Redaction and Circulation.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2010, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kalila-demna-i.

  Wood, Ramsay, and Doris Lessing. Kalila and Dimna: Fables of Friendship and Betrayal. London: Saqi Books, 2008.

  Ctesias of Knidos

  Greek physician and author of Persica who was born in the late fifth century BCE in Cnidus in Caria in southwest Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). Ctesias claimed that he had traveled to the Achaemenid court in 405 BCE and had served as the court physician during the reign of Artaxerxes II (r. 404–359 BCE). Ctesias also claimed to have been present at the Battle of Cunaxa between the Achaemenid monarch Artaxerxes II and his brother, Cyrus the Younger, in 401 BCE and to have treated the wounds that the Achaemenid king had received from his brother on the battlefield. Ctesias returned to Greece in 398 and began working on his Persica. The original text of Persica has not survived, but an abstract of the original compiled by the patriarch of Constantinople, Photius, has been preserved. Ctesias claimed that his book was based on Persian court documents and therefore was inherently superior to the Histories of Herodotus. Although it contains intriguing accounts regarding Iranian society and the Achaemenid court, much of Persica has been rejected as a compilation of court gossip and exotic and fantastic stories. The numerous inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the book have led some scholars to reject Ctesias’s claims that he had enjoyed access to Achaemenid royal records and had stayed at the Persian court for any length of time.

  See also: Prophets: Cyropaedia; Herodotus; Xenophon

  Further Reading

  Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd, and James Robson. Ctesias’ History of Persia: Tales of the Orient. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2010.

  Wiesehöfer, Josef. Ancient Persia. Translated by Azizeh
Azodi. London: I. B. Tauris, 1996.

  Cyropaedia

  Cyropaedia, or Education of Cyrus, is a partially fictional portrayal of Cyrus II the Great (r. 559/558–530 BCE), the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, written by the Greek author Xenophon (431/430–356/354 BCE). Xenophon participated in the unsuccessful military campaign of Cyrus the Younger, the Persian prince who revolted against his brother, Artaxerxes II (r. 404–359 BCE). After the defeat and death of Cyrus the Younger on the battlefield at Cunaxa in 401, Xenophon and the 10,000 Greek mercenaries who had joined the ill-fated Persian prince returned to Greece through Asia Minor and the Black Sea.

  In Cyropaedia, Xenophon portrays Cyrus II the Great as an ideal ruler and a model of intelligent, compassionate, benevolent, and just rule. The work is divided into eight books, but only the first book is directly related to its title, namely the education of Cyrus. In Book 2, Xenophon describes how Cyrus reorganized his army. In Book 3, the author’s focus shifts to Cyrus’s conquest of Armenia and Scythia, while in Books 4, 5, and 6, Xenophon details the wars between the Persians and Assyrians. In Book 7 we read about the conquest of Sardis and Babylon, and Book 8 deals with Cyrus’s return to Persia after his capture of Babylon, the creation of a system of satrapies, and finally his death. In the last section, or epilogue, of Cyropaedia, Xenophon wages a harsh attack against the successors of Cyrus, holding them responsible for the weakness and decline of the Persian Empire, which supposedly began immediately after the death of its founder. Some have suggested that this section of the book was not written by Xenophon and was added to the original text sometime later.

  Cyropaedia was not written as a work of history but rather as a historical novel. It most probably was intended to highlight the benefits of benevolent rule based on compassion and persuasion and to reject the notion that the exercise of power always requires the use of violence and force. The work suffers from numerous errors. Some of the events and personages mentioned in the narrative are fictional, and their existence cannot be validated through the available historical sources and documents. This has led scholars of ancient Greece to view Cyropaedia as a work of pure fiction. It is important to note, however, that much of Xenophon’s description of the Persian court seems to have been based in historical reality. The Greek author may have been projecting his knowledge and observation of Cyrus the Younger to the life and character of Cyrus the Elder.

  CYRUS THE GREAT IN CYROPAEDIA

  The Greek author Xenophon (431/430–356/354/350 BCE) held the Persian king Cyrus II the Great in high regard. In his book Cyropaedia [Education of Cyrus], Xenophon used Cyrus as an ideal model of a just ruler. Cyropaedia was not written as a work of history but rather as a historical novel. It most probably intended to highlight the benefits of benevolent rule based on compassion and persuasion as opposed to an exclusive reliance on the use of violence and coercion. Though the Cyrus of Cyropaedia represented an ideal type, the decision by a Greek writer to choose a Persian ruler as the model of just rule was a provocative act. In sharp contrast to the majority of Greek authors who wrote about the Persian Achaemenid Empire without having known any Persians or having ever traveled in the Persian Empire, Xenophon knew the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger. Xenophon participated in Cyrus’s campaign to seize the Persian throne. Cyrus the Younger and his army, which included 10,000 Greek mercenaries, were, however, defeated by the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II in the Battle of Cunaxa near Babylon in southern Iraq in 401 BCE. After Cyrus the Younger was killed on the battlefield, the Greek mercenaries returned home in a long, arduous, and hazardous journey led by Xenophon and another Greek officer. The description of Cyrus the Great in Cyropaedia reflects Xenophon’s respect and admiration for the founder of the Persian Empire.

  Throughout the centuries, Cyropaedia was read by many prominent world leaders as well as numerous political leaders, writers, and intellectuals, including the Roman emperor Augustus, the Italian author Machiavelli, and the American president Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, who possessed two editions of the Cyropaedia, advised his grandson, Francis Wayles Eppes, to study history and poetry by first reading Cyropaedia.

  See also: K&Q, Achaemenid: Cyrus II the Great; Cyrus the Younger; Prophets: Xenophon

  Further Reading

  Due, B. The Cyropaedia: Xenophon’s Aims and Methods. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1989.

  Eddy, S. K. The King Is Dead: Studies in the Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism, 334–331 B.C. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961.

  Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen. “Cyropaedia.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1993, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cyropaedia-gr.

  Xenophon. The Education of Cyrus. Translated by Wayne Ambler. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.

  Xenophon. Persian Expedition. Translated by Rex Warner. London: Penguin, 1972.

  Ferdowsi

  Ferdowsi, also known as Hakim Abolqasem Ferdowsi or Ferdowsi-ye Tusi (935/940–1019/1020 CE), is one of the greatest and most eminent Persian poets of all time. He was the author of the Shahnameh [Book of Kings], the national epic of the Persian-speaking world. The Shahnameh is considered not only a magnum opus of Persian poetry but also a masterpiece of world literature. Written around 1000 CE, the book has played a central role in shaping the cultural identity of Greater Persia. By preserving the historical memory of the Persian-speaking people and highlighting the spirit of their heroic past, Ferdowsi has imbued his countrymen with a strong sense of pride in their cultural, artistic, and literary achievements. By assembling and marshaling the legends and folktales of ancient Persia, which were being forgotten, Ferdowsi provided his readers with a window through which they could journey back to their ancient history and encounter its complexities and richness. Through the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi also revitalized the Persian language. The scope of the book is the history of pre-Islamic dynasties of Greater Persia from the dawn of history and the appearance of the first man, Gayomard (New Persian: Kiyumars), and the establishment of the legendary Pishdadian dynasty to the invasion of Persia by Muslim Arabs and the fall of the Persian Sasanian Empire in 651 CE. Ferdowsi devoted 30 years of his life to this work, completing his colossal literary project in 1010 CE, just 10 years before his death in 1020.

  Ferdowsi was born in 935 or 940 CE in the village of Bajh in the district of Tabaran of the city of Tus (present-day Mashhad) in the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan. He was a dihqan, or a small landowner, who lived off the income generated by the rents he collected on his lands. He was happily married to a highly educated wife. They had one daughter.

  Ferdowsi was influenced by the revival of Persian language, culture, and civilization during the reign of the Samanid dynasty (r. 819–999 CE), which ruled a powerful empire that incorporated the southern regions of Central Asia, much of Afghanistan, and the entire territory of northeastern Iran. The Samanids traced their lineage to Bahram Chobin (Chubin) of the Mehran family, the great Iranian general of the late Sasanian era who seized the throne and ruled for a short time as Bahram VI in 590 CE (al-Narshakhi: 82). The Samanids were champions and patrons of Persian language and culture. During the Samanid rule, Persian language was revived through numerous scientific and literary works produced by numerous scientists, writers, scholars, and poets. Not surprisingly therefore, the Samanid era has been branded as the golden age of Persian civilization. The idea of composing the epic history of ancient Iranians in verse had already been attempted during the Samanid period by the Persian poet Daqiqi, who had completed 1,000 couplets before he was killed at a young age. Daqiqi’s verses focused on the reign of Goshtasp, the legendary king of the Kayanian dynasty, and the appearance of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster), who converted Goshtasp to his new religion. In the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi paid tribute to Daqiqi.

  The content of the Shahnameh was based on a pre-Islamic Sasanian text written in Pahlavi called Khwadai Namag, or Book of Sovereigns. Ferdowsi could not read Pahlavi, but his wife, who was highly literate and knew the pre-Islamic l
anguage, read from the text, and Ferdowsi converted the Pahlavi prose to New Persian verse. The result was a poetical masterpiece comprising thousands of couplets of rhythmic and beautifully flowing Persian poetry chronicling the national history of the Iranian people from the dawn of history to the fall of the Persian Sasanian dynasty in 651 CE. The historical narrative of the Shahnameh begins with the creation of the world and the reign of the first man and ruler of the world, Gayomard, and continues with detailed accounts of the reigns of Iran’s legendary kings of the Pishdadian and Kayanian dynasties. Aside from the renowned kings of legendary Iran, Ferdowsi recounted the lives and struggles of such great heroes as Siyavash, Rostam, Sohrab, and Esfandiyar as well as famed heroines, including Rudabeh, Tahmineh, Farangis, Manijheh, and Katayun.

  By the time Ferdowsi had completed the Shahnameh, the Persian Samanid dynasty had been overthrown, and power had shifted to Sultan Mahmud, the powerful ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled a vast and powerful empire from Ghazni in present-day Afghanistan. Ferdowsi took his masterpiece to Mahmud’s court expecting royal praise and generous gifts and payments. His work was praised by Mahmud’s chief minister, Abul Qassem Ahmad ibn Hassan Maymandi, who planned to express his appreciation of Ferdowsi’s work by providing the poet with a handsome financial gift. The enemies of the chief minister, however, opposed the idea of showering the poet with a sizable prize and accused Ferdowsi of being a rafezi, or a Shia Muslim. Maymandi, who had acted as Ferdowsi’s patron, was soon dismissed from his post and imprisoned, and he would only be released after Mahmud’s death during the reign of his successor, Masu’d. Mahmud, who had followed the advice of his chief minister’s enemies, failed to show adequate appreciation for Ferdowsi’s work, paying the great poet a trifling gift of 20,000 dirhams. Humiliated and broken-hearted, the poet went to a bathhouse and, upon leaving it, requested a glass of sherbet. Upon finishing his drink, Ferdowsi divided the money he had received from Mahmud between the bathhouse owner and the man who had sold him the sherbet. Painfully aware of the brutality and vindictiveness of Mahmud, Ferdowsi escaped Ghazni for Herat, in today’s northwestern Afghanistan, where he lived in hiding at the shop of a bookseller. Ferdowsi remained in hiding for six months before returning home to the city of Tus, carrying a copy of his masterpiece. He did not, however, remain in Tus. From Tus, he traveled to Tabarestan (present-day Mazandaran) on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, where he visited the court of the local king, Espahbad Shahryar ibn Sherwin, who hailed from the royal house of Bavand. The Bavands traced their lineage to Yazdegerd III, the last king of the Persian Sasanian dynasty. Espahbad Shahryar received Ferdowsi with kindness and generosity. While in Tabarestan, Ferdowsi wrote a verse lampooning the Ghaznavid ruler, Mahmud.