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Notes on the Persae of Aeschylus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. S. F. Gow
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Extract

As some of the following notes bring to the illustration of Aeschylus material gathered from Persian sources, they may seem to require a word or two of preface.

When the Persae was produced, in 472 B.C., a large section of the Greek people was still in process of delivery from Persian rule, to which it had been subject for more than half a century. Persians may not have been very numerous on the Ionian seaboard and the islands, but they were the ruling class, and any eastern Greek would know quite well how they lived and how they behaved; some too had been privileged to study them at close quarters, for the Ionian ships in Xerxes' fleet carried as ἐπιβάται, Persians or Medes or Sacae (Her. 7. 184). In Athens itself, for many years before Plataea, Persia had been a subject of the most painful and pressing interest: every Athenian must have desired to know all about these Persians; and if he had no Ionian friends to ask, there were many of his countrymen who had visited Asia or even helped to sack Sardis, and the spoils of Marathon were before his eyes. After Plataea, if the desire to know was less pressing, the opportunity of knowledge was even greater, for Athenian fleets were busy in the work of liberation. And the very production of this play proves that the interest was alive.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , 1928 , pp. 133 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1928

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References

1 I am indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to reproduce objects in various departments of the Museum; to M. Babelon in Paris, Dr. Hofmann in Leipzig, Miss Richter in New York, Dr. Watzinger in Tübingen, Dr. Zahn in Berlin, for photographs or imprints of objects in their charge, and to Dr. P. Arndt for the imprint of a gem in his own collection. My notes on costume could not have been written without constant reference to my friend Prof. J. D. Beazley.

2 I have for this reason discussed at some length below (157) a point in which he is commonly supposed to be mistaken. See also on 578.

3 I have quoted the Behistûn inscription, as Bh., by the pages of King, L. W. and Thompson, R.C., Sculptures and Inscription of Darius the Great on the Rock of Behistûn (1907)Google Scholar; other Old Persian inscriptions, as W.B., by the pages of Weissbach, F. H. and Bang, W., Die Altpersischen Keilinschriften (1908).Google Scholar Dalton stands for O. M. Dalton, 33. The Treasure of the Oxus (1926); Flandin, for E. Flandin et P. Coste, Voyage en Perse; Herzfeld, for Herzfeld, E., Am Tor von Asien (1920)Google Scholar; Moulton, for Moulton, J. H., Early Zoroastrianism (1913)Google Scholar; Sarre, for Sarre, F., Die Kunst d. Alten Persien (1923)Google Scholar; S. H., for Sarre, and Herzfeld, , Iranische Felsreliefs (1910).Google Scholar I should add that I have no knowledge of the original languages of the inscriptions.

4 I use the notation of Dindorf, which is common to Wilamowitz and Sidgwick.

I have consulted the commentaries of Hermann (1852), Paley (1879), Prickard (1889), Schiller-Conradt (1888), Sidgwick (1915), Teuffel-Wecklein (1922), Weil (1862), Zomarides-Wecklein (1891).

5 So Strabo, xv. p. 730, ἐνθἁδ᾿ ἐγὠ κεῖμαι Κῦρος βασιλεὺς βασιλήων the existing ‘tomb of Cyrus’ (S.H. pp. 172 ff.) does not bear this title (W.B. p. 47). Similarly Gotarzes is called σατράπης τῶν σατραπῶν on an inscription of Mithridates II (Herzfeld, p. 39).

6 Let me add to the reasons that, if Her. is to be believed, Darius described himself on an inscription in Thrace as ἀνὴρ ἄριστός τε καὶ κάλλιστος πάντων ἀνθρώπων (4. 91). It was at least not excessive modesty which prevented him from calling himself a god.

7 See, besides passages to be quoted and the accounts of Alexander's demand for προσκύνησις (Arrian, An. 4. 10 ff., Plut. Alex. 54, Q. Curt. 8. 18, Justin, 12. 7), Herod. 7. 136, Dem. Meid. 549, Nepos, Conon 3, Aesch. Ag. 925, Eur. Or. 1507; cf. Troad. 1021.

8 Except perhaps in the case of Alexander: see note 10. The nearest is Isocr., Paneg. 151, θνητὸν μἐν ἄνδρα προσκυνοῦντες καὶ δαίμονα προσαγορεύοντες τῶν δὲ θεῶν μᾶλλον ἤ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὀλιγωροῦντες But here προσκ. and δ. προσαγ. are distinct stages, and even so δαίμων is not θεός.

9 Diehl, , Anth. Lyr. 2. p. 128Google Scholar; but see W. Schmid in B.P.W. 1927, 989.

10 I need not discuss Alexander's attempt to extract προσκύνησις from his Macedonians, because, if his claim to be a god was already before them, the granting of προσκύνησις might naturally become the test of its acceptance and acquire for the particular occasion the significance which in general I deny it. Recent discussions of this difficult subject: Klio, xix. pp. 113 ff., xx. 179 ff., 398 ff., ΕΠΙΤϒΜΒΙΟΝ, Swoboda, pp. 194 ff.Google Scholar, and MissTaylor, in J.H.S. xlvii. 53 ff.Google Scholar To her references upon the gesture itself add J. Royal Asiatic Soc. 1919, 531 ff. Kaerst, , Gesch. d. Hellenismus, ed. 3Google Scholar, I know only from C.R. xlii. 148.

11 E.g. Ar. Nub. 285; Aeseh. fr. 170, N2, A.P. 7. 669 (Plato). Cf. Cook, A. B., Zeus, 1. 196.Google Scholar On the light of the eyes see further ProfPearson, C.R. xxiii. 256Google Scholar and on Soph. fr. 474.,

12 At Ag. 27, Clytemnestra ‘dawns’ more modestly, in a metaphor.

13 βασιλέως ὀφθαλμός (979, Ar. Ach. 94, etc.), in view of β. ὧτα (Xen. Cyr. 8. 2. 10), presumably contains another idea.

14 Add the gold plaque, Dalton, Pl. XV., 93, and two women on horseback muffled in cloaks on a relief from Daskyleion in Constantinople (Herzfeld, Taf. xii., Sarre, 30).

15 A.'s βαθύζωνος (155), therefore, though derived from Homer, is quite appropriate.

16 I regret that I have been unable to obtain an imprint of the fine scaraboid with a similar scene in the Southesk Coll. (O. 10: Furtwaengler, , Ant. Gemm. xii. 11Google Scholar).

17 Similarly Atossa's offerings (611 ff.) look like Greek ritual (Od. 11. 27, Eur. I.T. 160), but are very likely Persian also (Strabo, xv. p. 733). Greeks and Persians made so much noise over their differences that we are in some danger of forgetting to consider what they may have had in common.

18 Unless three small gold discs in the Oxus Treasure (Dalton, 25, 33, 34) are such.

19 Some (J.H.S. xlvii, p. 66) think it represents the king's fravashi (see p. 136 above).

20 This relief, with trifling variants, appears above the entrances of seven Achaemenian royal tombs—that of Darius and the six others modelled on it (S.H. pp. 57 ff., Sarre, 32–4, Flandin, iii. 164, 166, 167, iv. 172–6, 178).

21 Euseb. Praep. Ev. 1. 10, p. 42, Ζωροάστρης . . . φησὶ κατὰ λέξιν ό δέ θεός ἐστι κεφαλὴν ἔχων ίέρακος seems to bear on this subject; but obscurely, for the bird's head is precisely what the symbol lacks.

22 Delaporte, Cylindres Orient., No. 401 (= Babelem, , Coll. Pauvert de la Chapelle, 16Google Scholar), another, ib. 400; cf. Weber, Altorient. Siegelbilder, Fig. 464 a, and a cone seal in the Hermitage, , O.T. and Sem. Studies in mem. of W.R. Harper, i. p. 379Google Scholar, Fig. 26. The type is presumably derived from an Assyrian model where the fire is replaced by the sacred tree: Menant, , Coll. de Clercq. 303Google Scholar, 344, Glypt. Orient, ii. Pl. X. 2; Ward, Hayes, J. P. Morgan Coll. 297, 303Google Scholar, Seal Cyl. of W. Asia, pp. 219 ff.

23 And probably Soph. Ant. 1003, σπῶντας ὲν χηλαῖσιν ἀλλήλους φοναῖς This phrase is not really on all fours with A., for σπᾶν is not quite the same as τίλλειν, and the species of bird is not named. Moreover, ἐν χ. may mean ‘gripping, they …’

24 Unless 499 be so regarded; but the language there would suit Greek as well as Persian, and in any case the speech contains matter which can hardly be A.'s (Verrall, , Bacchants of Eur. pp. 283 ff.Google Scholar).

24a In spite of Eitrem, 's recent criticism (Symbol. Osloens. vi. 10).Google Scholar

25 It is commonly supposed that one is Median, the other Persian, though opinions differ as to which is which. Costume II, as we shall see, is described by Her. and Xen., both of whom definitely say that it is Median (H. 7. 62, X. Cyr. 8. 3. 1; cf. 1. 3. 2), as does Strabo (xi. p. 526). Costume I might be thought more fitted than II to the hotter climate of Persia (as opposed to Media: Strabo, l.c.), but I should not myself describe it as φαυλότερος (X. Cyr., 1. 3. 2; cf. 2. 4. 5, H. 1. 135): and Persians σκυτίνας μὲν ἀναξυρίδας, σκυτίνην δὲ τὴν (H. 1. 71), though this may well refer to Persians in the Median costume II: see note 34. Herzfeld (S.H. pp. 60 ff.) considers I Median, II Persian, disregarding the Greek evidence. And since he wrote it has been noticed that, among the nations who support the king's throne on the tomb of Darius, a figure in costume I is definitely labelled Persian, while his neighbour in costume II was probably labelled Mede: see Weissbach, , Keilinschriften am Grabe d. Darius in Abh. K. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss., 29.Google Scholar 1 (a reference I owe to the kindness of Prof. E. H. Minns).

26 Unless the silver statuette, Dalton, Pl. II. 1, Fig. 41, is an exception; I do not understand this costume, but it is nearer to I than to II, and the wearer is not evidently royal. Dalton 85 is another possible exception.

27 Three possible exceptions are known to me, but in all the artist, if a Greek, was working for a Persian employer. All three are gems in Dr. Arndt's collection, and all are published by Duhn, von in Sumbolae Litter, in hon. J. de Petra, pp. 22 ff.Google Scholar The first is a 14-facetted stone of ordinary Graeco-Persian style with a king in this dress on two facets (von Duhn, Tav. ii. 1 and 4): the second a scaraboid (ib. Fig. 3) on which the king combats two griffins—a Persian subject, the style debatable. The third is the remarkable scaraboid, said to come from Apollonia in Caria, which was published also by Bulle, , Der Schoene Mensch, ed. 2, p. 665Google Scholar, and is figured in my Plate X, No. 7. The artist of this stone, who was presumably a Greek, seems to have misunderstood the dress. I should not say from the imprint that (as von Duhn supposes) the king is wearing in place of skirts, but the fold between the legs seems misinterpreted (e.g. from such a cylinder as that figured in Amtl. Ber. K. Kunstsamml., 1910, Fig. 91), and the bare hip is inconsistent with Persian representations, where a belt holds the garment in place.

28 Simple headband (Flandin, ii. 97, 98), humbler version of the king's hat (ib. iii. 157, 164, iv. 178) and, possibly, tiara (ib. iii. 164).

29 This hat looks as though it were derived from Assyria (Ebert, , Reall, d. Vorgesch. vii. 102 ff.Google Scholar), and that worn in Fig. 3 resembles in effect an Assyrian head dress of feathers (ib. viii. 329).

30 Her. 7. 61 (below), Serv. ad Aen. 7.247, Schol. Juv. 6. 516. Κυρβασία and κίδαρις (or κιτ-) seem to be the same: for the first, Her. 5. 49, Dion. Hal. 2. 70, Hesych. s.v. τιάρα, Erotian, p. 89 (Klein): for the second, Plut. Mor. 340 C, Artax. 28, Hesych. s.v., E.M. pp. 513. 18, 758. 4: for both, Pollux, 7. 58, Schol. Plat. Rep. 8.553 C, Müller, V. K., Der Polos, p. 101.Google Scholar

31 Xen. Cyr. 8. 3. 10, Ib. 14, In representations of this garment the sleeves are always, I think, out of use. Why they were used in the king's presence is explained by Xen. Hell. 2. 1. 8.

32 E.g. the frieze of the temple of Nike, the Xenophantus, vase (Ant. Bosp. Cimm. Pl. 46)Google Scholar, the Satrap and the Alexander Sarcophagi, the Alexander Mosaic.

33 The details are sometimes hard to make out, but at Persepolis this leg-wear is perhaps invariable with costume II (cf., however, Flandin, iii. 154). Xen. (Cyr. 8. 1. 41) says: For the spindle-shanked at any rate it had plain advantages.

34 Cf. n. 25 above; Pollux, 7, 58, If Ctesias may be believed (Apollonius, , Mirab. 20Google Scholar), nobles wore garments of camel's hair.

35 The colours, Winter, , Alexandersark. Taf. 9.Google Scholar

36 The colours of the Alexander Mosaic or its original may once have agreed with Xen.: the χιτών is now a bluish-grey, the κάνδυς a faint pink. Darius's can not be seen: the man holding a horse in the foreground wears them in a coral red.

37 I do not think it occurs on the frieze of the Nike temple.

38 Some sort of corslet, however, seems to be worn on certain Persian cylinders (Pl. IX, 2, 4).

39 Or elsewhere in Greek art, except on the pediment of the Alexander Sarcophagus (Winter, Taf. 14).

40 If I interpret this object aright, it is both quiver and bow-case, and has a flap which will fasten over the end of the bow when the bow is carried in it, protecting it somewhat as the heads of golf clubs are protected in the more elaborate bags.

41 Wilamowitz, (Interpret. p. 46)Google Scholar judges this passage otherwise.

42 I will therefore not pursue beyond a footnote the question of the costumes of Persian soldiers on vases. The dress seen in Fig. 6 occurs also on the following: (1) Nolan amphora in New York, Sambon, , Coll. Canessa, p. 65.Google Scholar (2) Cup at Orvieto, , Jahrb. iii. Pl. 4.Google Scholar (3) Cup at Oxford, C.V.A., Oxford, Pl. VI. 4. On (3) the man so dressed is fighting against hoplites, and his comrade, who carries an immense rectangular shield, wears, over the harlequin costume, not two garments, but one—either a sleeveless χιτών or a linen corslet. A second Persian dress, therefore. The shield and the dress each link this man to others. The shield (which suggests the Egyptian of Xen. An. 1. 8. 9, 2. 1. 6) reappears on a skyphos in Berlin (Fig. 9: Arch. Anz. 1889, p. 92), where it is carried by a man wearing a tiara, harlequin costume and sleeveless χιτών with a dark stripe down the breast (cf. p. 146): his friend on the other side of the vase has been given in addition a wholly un-Persian ἱμάτιον. The dress, on the other hand, connects him with the barbarians who fight with hoplites on the lost cup, Gerhard, , A.V. 166.Google Scholar Among men so attired on that cup is one who wears only the harlequin costume. But here we are on dangerous ground, for this dress is common, and, if Persian, can hardly be exclusively so, since it is worn by people who fight side by side with hoplites (e.g. Hartwig, , Meisterschalen, T. 55Google Scholar). On it see Hartwig, , Meisterschalen, pp. 512 ff.Google Scholar, C.V.A. Oxford, text, p. 4, Dickins, , Cat. Acrop. Mus. p. 139Google Scholar, Minns, , Scythians and Greeks, p. 55Google Scholar, Zahn, Barbaren in Litt. u. Kunst. It would be interesting to know how the Persians in the fresco of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile were dressed, but the only detail is Persius 3. 53, bracatis inlita Medis porticus, which does not help.

43 Sassanian kings wore a similar dress. For Achaemenians see n. 26 above.

44 Ar. Av. 487, Schol., Xen. An. 2. 5. 23; other refs. above, n. 30. Cf. p. 146.

45 It contains a very pretty assortment, from the almost perfect Persian dress of the king's bodyguard to the bare himation of his treasurer. The king himself wears a kind of fancy tiara, a sleeved under-garment, sleeveless chiton, himation, and shoes—a costume with Persian elements, but conventionalised by now, and worn by other theatrical royalties.

46 On the χιτὼν χειριδωτός in Greece, see Jahrb. xxxii. p. 60Google Scholar, Pauly-Wissowa iii. 2210.

47 Cf. the reverse of the Berlin skyphos, Fig. 9, mentioned above, n. 42.

48 I have shown above, n. 42, that this represents a Persian.

49 I am indebted to Dr. Watzinger for the photographs of this vase and also for some details supplementing his published account of it. It should be added that a replica was seen by Buschor in the market (F.R. iii. p. 297), and that a third leeyth, also seen by Buschor and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, represents a woman wearing a red sleeveless jacket with the same zigzag. Her companion is a woman and the scene apparently domestic, though the details and the other dress have perished.

50 If the vases are later than the decree mentioned in Vit. Aesch. 12, one, or both, might reflect a revival of the play and not the original performance; but the general conclusion would still stand.

51 πέπλος 125, 182, 199, 468, 1030, 1060: ἐσθήματα 836, 848: κάλυπτραι 537. Let him add who will 277

52 He might, if he had known the word σάραπις, have used it here; but there seems no reason for thinking that he did know it.

53 I quote the translation of the Susian version. The Babylonian is mostly obliterated at this point: the Persian is given, in the translation, a slightly different turn. Prof. R. A. Nicholson, whom I have consulted, kindly informs me that in his opinion there is no material difference and that the general sense of both versions is given correctly by Kossowicz's paraphrase: res ab anterioribus regibus gestae minime sunt comparandae his quae, deo omnino iuvante, ego perfeci.

54 Cowley, , Aramaic Papyri, p. 248.Google Scholar

55 The surprising accuracy of Herodotus's list of the seven conspirators (3. 70), as compared with Ctesias's, is usually and perhaps rightly put down to the excellence of his Persian sources. But if there were Greek versions of the inscription, this particular piece of information may have been more accessible to a Greek in Ionia than to one at Susa.

56 As Cyrus had conformed to Babylonian (Weissbach, , Keilinschriften, d. Achämeniden, pp. 3 ff.Google Scholar); cf. Ezra, 1. It would no doubt be imprudent to rely on 1 Esdras for evidence of Darius's attitude.

57 Cf. the praise awarded to Gadatas in the Greek inscription for an experiment in acclimatising fruit trees or crops.

58 There are resemblances, too, of a general nature, between the earlier chorus (73–92) andsome of Darius's inscriptions at Persepolis and in its neighbourhood. W.B. p. 35: Es spricht der König Darius: Dieses Land Persien, welches mir Auramazda verliehen hat, welches schön, menschenreich, rossereich ist—nach dem Willen Auramazdas und meinem, des Königs Darius, zittert es vor keinem Feinde. Ib. p. 37: Wenn du nun denkst: ‘Wie vielfach waren jene Länder, welche der König Darius besass?’, so betrachte das Bild (derer) die meinen Thron tragen, dann wirst du sie erkennen. Da wirst du erfahren: des persischen Mannes Lanze ist fernhin gedrungen. Da wirst du erfahren: der persische Mann hat fern von Persien Schlachten geschlagen.

59 I should accept at 870 Wilamowitz's The passage has been used as evidence that A. was at Eion with Cimon, (Rhein. Mus. 29. 48Google Scholar).

60 Griech. Gesch. iii. 1. 741, arguing against Kirchhoff', article (Hermes, xi. 1 ff.)Google Scholar, from which I have borrowed some references. See also Köhler, , Zur Gesch. d. delisch-Ath. Bundes (Abh. k. Preuss. Ak. 1869).Google Scholar

61 This may be an accident. It is sometimes, as in Fig. 3, seen with costume I, but archers in this dress usually carry the bow strung; see below. The other form of quiver mentioned above seems to be an enlarged version of the Assyrian.

62 So also at Behistûn, but there another bow and a spear are carried by attendants.

63 A later type (Pl. IX, 8), known only in silver, but no doubt used for darics (since gold fractions exist), shows him without a spear discharging an arrow; cf. the scaraboid, Menant, , Glypt. Orient. ii. Pl. IX. 8.Google Scholar Any of these darics might be the τοξόται of Agesilaus's jest (Plut. Ages. 15, Artax. 20), though the name fits this last type best. On the dating of the daric types see B.M. Cat.: Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, p. cxxxiv.

64 Cyrus, in Xenophon, is contemptuous of missiles and equips his picked troops with short sword or battle-axe (Cyr. 2. 1. 9 ff., 3. 3. 57 ff., 6. 3. 24 ff). On the Alexander Mosaic Darius III is in a chariot and carries a bow and no spear; and this may be historical, for at Issus and Arbela his bow and shield were captured (Arrian, An. 2. 11. 6, 3. 15. 5).

65 On Pl. X, 7 see n. 27 above. The others, with some rougher specimens, were put together by Furtwaengler, , Ant. Gemm. vol. iii. p. 121Google Scholar: add W. Hayes Ward, Seal Cyl. of W. Asia, No. 1055. Observe that in Pl. IX, 2 the artist has equipped his hoplite with round-butted Persian spears. The object seen behind the heads of the Persians in Pl. IX, 2 and 4 seems to be an axe like that carried by the enemy on the latter cylinder; cf. Fig. 6. On Pl. X. 7 the king's spear is hardly discernible, though it is plain enough on the imprint. He holds it in both hands and is driving it into his enemy's abdomen. The Persian on Pl. X, 8 is not quite clear (sharper imprint, Ant. Gemm. xi. 9): he wears, I think, costume II, with the boots of Fig. 3 and perhaps a corslet.

66 I regret that in spite of the kind offices of Dr. Waldhauer I have been unable to obtain an imprint of this important cylinder.