ABSTRACTS

ANABASIS

Studia Classica et Orientalia

2 (2011)

ABSTRACTS

Malcolm Davies (Oxford, United Kingdom)

Sabine Müller (Kiel/Siegen, Germany)

Deioces the Mede - Rhetoric and Reality in Herodotus 1.99

(Keywords: Herodotus, Deioces, Media, Achaemenid Court Ceremony)

In his Median logos, Herodotus reports that no-one was to see the king. Thus, the remark that laughing and spitting in his presence was unacceptable seems to be contradictory. This paper explores the apparent inconsistency as an example of a rhetorical or stylistic device.

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Ryszard Kulesza (Warsaw, Poland)

Marathon and Thermopylae in the mémoire collective

(Keywords: Marathon, Thermopylae, European tradition, mémoire collective)

The majority of Greeks remembered the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataeae; but the future was to belong not to the pan-Hellenic Salamis or Plataeae, but to the Marathon, appropriated by the Athenians, and Thermopylae, which the Spartans made their own. The battles of Marathon and Thermopylae are viewed by us only from the perspective of the Greek sources, and some lacunas are obvious even in those. In both cases the events were quickly mythologized. In Athens Marathon almost immediately grew into a symbol of the Greeks’ struggle with the barbarians (as seen from The Persians by Aeschylus,). The first epitomised love of freedom, the latter – enslavement. Marathon became the object of pride for the Athenians, who were the first among the Greeks to oppose the invasion of the eastern barbarians.

In Thermopylae, a stone lion and the famous epitaph by Simonides commemorated the death of the Spartans. Perhaps it is only there that lies the source of the general, and not entirely correct, conviction that a Spartiate could only be victorious or die, tertium don datur.

With the passage of time, both battles gained in importance with respect to politics. Marathon has long been an element of the European mémoire collective. Yet the star of Marathon rose fully in the 19th century, when it became an inspiration for poets (e.g. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Byron) and the symbol of the Greek war of independence. It was, of course, present also in the history of Poland. Throughout the 19th, 20th and early 21st century, “Thermopylae” seem to have replaced “Marathon” as the symbol of a heroic fight for freedom.

To an increasing number of people – not only in Europe, but throughout the world – “Marathon” and “Thermopylae” are lieux de mémoire, a confirmation of belonging to a system of values for which the Greeks fought (consciously or not, but that is another story) in the early fifth century B.C.

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Sabine Müller (Kiel/Siegen, Germany)

Onesikritos und das Achaimenidenreich (Onesikritos and the Achaemenid Empire)

(Keywords: Onesicritus, Alexander the Great, Achaemenid Persia, Cyrus II, Cyropaedia)

As a historiographer, Onesicritus is generally regarded as notorious for his fairytales. This paper reassesses his intellectual background, position within the structures of Alexander’s empire, and significance as a historiographer. His information on Persian history and Diogenes Laertius’ claim that he was strongly influenced by Xenophon’s Cyropaedia will be reexamined.

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Marek Jan Olbrycht (Rzeszów, Poland)

First Iranian military units in the army of Alexander the Great

(Keywords: Alexander’s army, conquest, Iranians, Achaemenids, Media, Parthia)

The first Iranian units enlisted in Alexander’s army were the cavalry detachments formed in Media; one of them, consisting of Iranian aristocrats, was sent to Arachosia in the autumn of 330. Another cavalry unit, supporting Alexander’s generals in Media, was probably established by the satrap of the country Oxydates. Recruitment of Iranians for Alexander’s army reached large proportions when the king established the hippakontistai division in 330.

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Franca Landucci Gattinoni (Milan, Italy)

Diodorus 18. 39.1-7 and Antipatros’s Settlement at Triparadeisos

(Keywords: Diodorus, Successors’ chronology, First War of the Diadochoi, Antipatros, Triparadeisos’ settlement)

Books 18-20 in Diodorus Siculus’ Library provide a continuous record of events from Alexander the Great’s death to the eve of the Battle of Ipsos at the end of the archon year of 302/1. Book 18 deals with the period between 323 and 318 and is entirely devoted to events in Greece and in the East; there is no reference to Sicilian and Roman affairs.

At 18. 39.1-7, Diodorus narrates of the conference at Triparadeisos, an unknown Syrian town: after the Babylon Settlement in June 323, Antipatros supervised another distribution of satrapies. There were few surprises: the murderers of Perdikkas were rewarded; the war against the Perdikkan forces in Asia Minor was assigned to Antigonos; Seleukos received Babylonia, the nucleus of his future kingdom.

At 18. 39.7, Diodorus concludes the chapter portraying Antipatros crossing the Hellespont in order to return to Macedonia with the kings. He says nothing about Antipatros’s deeds on the way from Triparadeisos to the Hellespont: about these deeds we are informed only by Arr. Succ. 1.40-45. Therefore, we can suppose Diodorus (or, better, his source) actually ‘effaced’ Antipatros’s march across Asia Minor by focusing only on Antipatros’s return to Macedonia.

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Jeffrey D. Lerner (Salem, USA)

A Reappraisal of the Economic Inscriptions and Coin Finds from Aï Khanoum

(Keywords: Aï Khanoum, coins, economics, inscriptions, treasury)

The paper proposes a new interpretation of the activities that occurred in the palace treasury of the Hellenistic city of Aï Khanoum on the eve of the site’s abandonment by its Greek inhabitants. A reexamination of a series of inscriptions and coins from the site reveals that the names of individuals believed to have been the treasury’s directors are in actuality the names of depositors, the treasury stored three different currencies, and coins found in association with the site indicate that the city was inhabited for a longer period of time than is the standard reckoning.

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Eduard V. Rtveladze (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

Parthians in the Oxus Valley. Struggle for the Great Indian Road

(Keywords: Parthia, Nisa, terracotta, Mithridates, Phraates II, Orodes II, Kampyrtepa, Amu Darya (Oxus), Khalchayan)

The paper deals with the Parthian conquests in the East, including the eastern borders of the Parthian state. The author provides a range of evidence in favor of the idea that the middle Amu Darya (Oxus) River formed the eastern boundary of Parthia. It is possible, therefore, that for a period of time the Oxus valley as far east as the site of Kampyrtepa was in Parthian hands. According to the numismatic evidence, a section of the Amu Darya valley extending from Kampyrtepa to Kerki demarcated a portion of the Kushan state during Kanishka’s reign (i.e., the first half of the 2nd century AD).

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Michał Marciak (Leiden, the Netherlands; Kraków, Poland)

Seleucid-Parthian Adiabene in the Light of Ancient Geographical and Ethnographical Texts

(Keywords: Adiabene, Arbela, Nineveh, Strabo, the Zabs)

This paper surveys ancient texts in search of geographical and ethnographical information on Adiabene in the Seleucid and Parthian Periods. Adiabene originated as a relatively small province between the Lykos and Kapros rivers, perhaps including the Arrapachitis region. In the early Seleucid period, Adiabene was politically dependent on the mighty province of Babylonia. At some point in its Parthian history (between the mid-1st century BCE and the mid-1st century CE) Adiabene started to expand its territory northwest. From then on, it included Ashur and Nineveh, and extended along the eastern bank of the Tigris river to include Gordyene. Adiabene’s influence is also recorded on the western bank of the Tigris. In the first half of the 1st century CE (incorporation between 37-40/41 CE) Nisibis belonged to Adiabene. Its influence on the western bank of the Tigris is also attested for the whole 2nd century CE. As for Adiabene’s cultural profile, it featured a great deal of diversity, since it consisted of co-existing Iranian and Greek and Semitic elements.

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Leonardo Gregoratti (Udine, Italy)

A Parthian port on the Persian Gulf: Characene and its trade

(Keywords: Parthia, Characene, trade, Persian Gulf, Arabia)

Scholars have mainly focused their attention on the western connections of the south Mesopotamian kingdom of Characene, whose harbours appear in several texts of the well known caravan inscriptions from Palmyra. As a consequence this interesting and important state has been often regarded almost exclusively from a western point of view, which favoured the role it played as the main Palmyrenian trading partner in the East. The aim of this paper is to provide a different approach to this topic. The kingdom of Characene was part of the Arsacid empire and its historical role cannot be understood without taking into consideration also the history of the Parthian state and the relationship with its south Mesopotamian vassal kingdom. Parthian kings exploited the proficiencies the Characenians had gained in sea routes and trade rendering this small kingdom a sort of port for the entire Parthian empire. This can remind the role which another important ‘Port of the sands’, that is to say Palmyra, played for Rome, the Parthian neighbour. Apart from hosting Palmyra’s merchant colonies and within the Parthian state, Characene autonomously developed a trade network in the Persian Gulf, promoting the cultural evolution of the societies which belonged to its trade horizon.

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Martin Schottky (Pretzfeld, Germany)

Sanatruk von Armenien (Sanatruk of Armenia)

(Keywords: Sanatruk, Arsacids, Armenia, Caucasian history, Parthia)

Greek and Armenian authors tell about one Sanatruk, king of Armenia. He was very likely the son Tiridates I and his successor, who is last mentioned in the late seventies of the first century A.D. A report about his death could be preserved in two passages of John Malalas´ chronicle, which are evidently distorted. The story pictures a Persian (!) great-king Sanatrucius, who is involved in Roman-Parthian fightings in Trajan´s time. The king is later betrayed by his own cousin and killed. In all likelihood, this account referred originally to the death of Sanatruk of Armenia, who may have reigned until 108/9 A.D. About this year the Parthian great-king Pacorus (often wrongly counted as „Pacorus II“) lost his long fight against the usurper Osroes (Khosroes). At the end of his reign, he tried to win at least the Armenian kingdom for one of his sons. Sanatruk´s assassin was apparently Pacorus´ son Parthamasiris, who in the sources could easily be confused with Osroes´ son Parthamaspates, reported as the murderer of Sanatrucius in Malalas´ story. But at long last, no-one of Pacoros sons won the Armenian crown. The kingdom fell to Sanatruk´s son Vologaeses, who was appointed by emperor Hadrian and ruled for more then twenty years.

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Tomasz Polański (Kielce/Kraków, Poland)

A Collection of Orientalist Paintings in the Imperial Private Gallery

in Naples

(Keywords: Roman art, Orient, Pliny, Philostratus the Elder, Naples, Severan dynasty)

Pliny the Elder’s history of sculpture and painting can be read largely as a guide to the Roman art galleries of his time. Philostratus the Elder in his turn compiled a learned guide to a painting gallery in Naples (Imagines). I focus on a selection of ‘Orientalist’ paintings from Philostratus the Elder’s gallery (Heracles and Antaeus, Heracles and the Pygmies, The River Nile, Memnon, Pantheia, Rhodogoune). Philostratus the Elder confronted the Greek hero ‘short in stature but in soul unflinching’ with the Libyan savage whose body was ridiculously distorted, his limbs overgrown and unnaturally swollen which emphasised his primitivism. According to Philostratus’ description the artist counterpoised two contrasting forces: the young Greek’s skill and power against the brutal force of primitivism. This image of the non-Greek neighbouring peoples had already been deeply rooted in the Greek mentality for a long time in fact. Heracles and the Pygmies’ painting was conspicuous for its air of grotesque, parody and burlesque. The Graeco-Roman attraction with Africa was a mixture of fascination, fear and alienation. Rhodogoune’s story reflected the popular archetype of Oriental warrior-queen, both brave and beautiful, vengeful, cruel and cunning. The painting of Rhodogoune was remarkable for its specific mixture of Hellenic components (facial portrait, composition, illusionist forms) and Oriental elements (textiles, harness, weaponry, fashion of dress) combined together. The predominantly Classical subjects and exclusively Classical form of the paintings from the Neapolitan gallery well portrays the cultural milieu of the Severan court, hellenized Rome with an Oriental undercurrent. This strange blend of Hellenic and Oriental ingredients is also symptomatic of the Parthian art. The collection of paintings complied with the artistic tastes, intellectual occupations and Arabian origin of the Empress Julia Domna, who was probably the owner of that refined and precious art gallery at Naples.

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Massimiliano Vitiello (Kansas City, USA)

The “Light, Lamps, and Eyes” of the Persian Empire and the Gothic Kingdom in Justinian’s Time: A Note on Peter the Patrician and Cassiodorus

(Keywords: Peter the Patrician, Cassiodorus, Theodora, diplomacy, royal chancery)

A fragment from the lost History of Peter the Patrician is the most important surviving source for the peace treaty of 298 between the Romans and the Sasanids, and scholars have acknowledged the influence of this piece on the later work of Theophlylact Simocatta. This essay explores Peter’s use of images of power, particularly the “lamps, lights and eyes” as a metaphor for imperial rule, considering them together with similar uses of the same imagery by Cassiodorus. In some of his letters for the Ostrogothic Kings, Cassiodorus used strikingly similar images to describe the relationship between Empire and Kingdom, and between rulers, particularly Theodora and Gudeliva. By examining these works in their larger context, nuances of meaning in Sixth Century diplomacy can be discerned, revealing that while the ultimate source of the “lamps, lights, and eyes” cannot be stated with certainty, the use of this image to symbolize power reflected the authors’ efforts to represent relationships between empires and kingdoms (Roman/Persian and Byzantine/Italic) in ways that were useful as diplomacy and especially as propaganda, as well as symbolically important. They also may hide Theodora’s ambitions to hold power equal to that of her husband, as testified by other contemporary authors.