Alexander Histories and Iranian Reflections Read online

  Alexander Histories and Iranian Reflections

  Studies in

  Persian Cultural History

  Editors

  Charles Melville

  Cambridge University

  Gabrielle van den Berg

  Leiden University

  Sunil Sharma

  Boston University

  VOLUME 3

  The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/spch

  Alexander Histories

  and Iranian Reflections

  Remnants of Propaganda and Resistance

  By

  Parivash Jamzadeh

  LEIdEn • BOStOn

  2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Jamzadeh, Parivash.

   Alexander histories and Iranian reflections : remnants of propaganda and resistance / by

  Parivash Jamzadeh.

    p. cm. — (Studies in Persian cultural history, ISSn 2210-3554 ; v. 3)

   Includes bibliographical references.

   ISBn 978-90-04-21746-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBn 978-90-04-21752-2 (e-book) 1. Iran—

  History—Macedonian Conquest, 334–325 B.C.—Propaganda. 2. Iran—History—Macedonian

  Conquest, 334–325 B.C.—Religious aspects. 3. Iran—History—Macedonian Conquest, 334–325

  B.C.—Historiography. 4. Greece—History—Macedonian Expansion, 359–323 B.C.—Campaigns—

  Iran. 5. Alexander, the Great, 356–323 B.C.—travel—Iran. 6. darius I, King of Persia, 548–485 B.C.

  I. title.

   dF234.37.J36 2012

   935’.7062—dc23

  2012014205

  this publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters

  covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the

  humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface.

  ISSn 2210-3554

  ISBn 978 90 04 21746 1 (hardback)

  ISBn 978 90 04 21752 2 (e-book)

  Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill nV, Leiden, the netherlands.

  Koninklijke Brill nV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,

  IdC Publishers and Martinus nijhoff Publishers.

  All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in

  a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nV

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  Fees are subject to change.

  this book is printed on acid-free paper.

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents:

  Dr. Shahjahan Jamzadeh & Homayun Khosravi-Jamzadeh

  COntEntS

  Acknowledgments  ..........................................................................................

  ix

  Introduction  .....................................................................................................

  1

  I the Plight of the Achaemenid Royal Women  ........................... 7

  1. According to Ancestral Custom  ...............................................

  7

  2. Alexander and darius’ Mother  .................................................

  20

  3. Alexander and darius’ Wife  ......................................................

  30

  4. Alexander and the Granddaughter of Ochus  .......................

  36

  5. Episodes in Cyropaedia  ...............................................................

  38

  II

  darius’ Letters to Alexander and the Responses: Ideology of

  Conquest in Retrospect  .....................................................................

  41

  III

  the Campaign for Persia in Iranian & Zoroastrian Lights  .....

  51

  1. Alexander’s Advances and tribulations  ................................

  51

  2. Mutilated Greek Captives’ Story  ..............................................

  61

  3. Persepolis’ Final Fate and the Sources’ Arguments  ...........

  64

  IV

  darius’ Last days & Counter-Propagandas  .................................

  71

  V

  Bessus’ Fate  ...........................................................................................

  91

  VI

  Alexander’s Persian Attire  ................................................................

  99

  VII Reflections from darius I’s Rhetoric  ............................................. 105

  1. Alexander as a Mock-divinity  .................................................. 105

  2. the Incident of Cyrus’ tomb  .................................................... 110

  3. the King and the Ideology of truth  ....................................... 114

  4. Bessus’ Punishment  ...................................................................... 117

  5. darius I’s World Order  ................................................................ 118

  VIII Zoroastrian Echoes in Alexander Histories  ................................ 121

  1. Zoroastrian References in the Story of Clitus  ...................... 121

  2. the Boar Motif and its Zoroastrian Relevance  .................... 125

  viii

  contents

  3. the Sogdian Campaign and its Zoroastrian Features  ........ 127

  4. Iranian and Zoroastrian Features of Hephaestion’s

  Funeral .............................................................................................. 131

  IX

  Iranian Echoes in Mutiny’s Accounts  .......................................... 139

  X

  Alexander’s Final days and Iranian Reflections  ....................... 147

  XI

  Alexander’s Entombment and Iranian Echoes  .......................... 151

  XII the Plight of Alexander’s Family  ................................................... 163

  XIII Reverence for the Fravashī of Alexander ..................................... 169

  XIV testimony of Zoroastrian Sources  ................................................. 173

  XV Concluding Remarks .......................................................................... 177

  Bibliography  ..................................................................................................... 185

  Index  ............................................................................................................... 191

  ACKnOWLEdGMEntS

  this study has been possible thanks to access to the rich collections at

  the library of Western Washington University, as an independent scholar.

  Other material was provided by the Bellingham Public Library’s inter-

  library loans and the efforts of its librarian, Fay Fenske.
/>
  I am grateful to Prof. Phillip Harding of the University of British Colum-

  bia for kindly responding to my questions and clarifying difficulties speci-

  fied in the text. Although the responsibility for conclusions and mistakes

  is mine.

  I thank Prof. david Stronach for a copy of his paper, noted in the text.

  Gratitude is also due to Brill, its reviewers and editors for their atten-

  tion to my work.

  IntroductIon

  Alexander was a Macedonian who conquered the Achaemenid empire

  and sought legitimacy as its king. Although his campaigns had started

  under the slogan of punishing Xerxes’ descendants for his invasion of

  Greece, gradually the focus shifted to displays of sensitivity towards the

  Iranian cultural norms, even at the expense of alienating his close Greek

  and Macedonian allies at some point.

  this expedient policy may be due to the difficulties encountered,

  especially in facing other more legitimate contenders. those contenders

  include not only darius III himself, whose accounts are recorded in the

  same Alexander Histories and elsewhere and reveal him to be a worthy

  opponent, but also other Achaemenids, whom Plutarch refers to as “the

  constant succession of petty kings and their repeated treachery”.1 the

  consequence is the realization of the need for a propaganda endeavour.

  the traces of this effort—besides Alexander’s overt actions towards

  ‘Iranization’, clearly recorded in the sources—survive in the histories cer-

  tain instances revealing direct translations from Iranian originals, while at

  the same time the residues of a counter-propaganda effort are also seen in

  the histories, again manifesting Iranian hands.

  these two lines run through the accounts as echoes of stories or epi-

  sodes with distinct Iranian cultural and religious colourings intended for

  an Iranian audience.2 However, it is important to note that the mentioned

  counter-propaganda surviving in the midst of the Alexander Histories is

  independent of the later Zoroastrian literature, in which Alexander is

  clearly cast as a villain.

  Interestingly in certain instances a conflation of the accounts of the two

  kings, darius and Alexander, is encountered, affecting even the Zoroastrian

  literature, in a case. reaching out to Iranian cultural imports in order to estab-

  lish legitimate power is not limited to mere outward propaganda. Alexander

  is, in fact, seen to undergo transformations and adopt Iranian norms and

  1 Plutarch, Moralia 327 c, 341 F, trans. F.c. Babbitt, Vol. IV, cambridge, 1962, pp. 387,

  469.2 For mention of Alexander’s Iranian allies see The History of al-Tabari, Vol. IV, trans.

  M. Perlmann, new York, 1987, p. 88 (694).

  2

  introduction

  customs. While under the rule of his successors Iran gradually experienced

  Hellenism, for Alexander himself the process seems reversed. this study

  claims that even evidence of profound religious reverence can be gleaned

  from the histories.

  the histories mention participation of the Magi in certain ceremonies.

  At the same time there is record of their mistreatment by Alexander in

  relation to the desecration of cyrus’ tomb.

  Alexander’s recourse to religious ceremonies, motifs and claim of

  Zoroastrian deities’ support would have required the Magi’s co-operation,

  albeit neither whole heartedly nor by all, hence perhaps the resentment

  seen in the later Zoroastrian literature, although the different political cli-

  mate of later periods would also have provided other factors for demon-

  izing Alexander as the historical founder of Hellenism in Iran.

  Alexander commenced his campaign in 334 Bc at the age of twenty-

  two which ended with his death in 323 Bc in Babylon. It is noteworthy

  that neither he nor his body ever returned home. His accounts were

  recorded by a number of historians and historiographers of his time.3

  none of which survive independent of later histories, and some only as

  scattered fragments in later sources.4 What has come to be known as

  Alexander Histories are the works of historians living centuries after his

  time compiled from earlier records. the earliest is diodorus of Sicily who

  dates from the third quarter of the first century Bc.5

  It is also important to note that some of the histories are in Latin but

  based on no longer extant Greek sources that were first written after

  Alexander’s death in 323 Bc.

  the Greek Anabasis of Alexander by Arrian (dated to the second cen-

  tury Ad) is generally considered to be the most reliable surviving account.

  Its sources according to the author had been formed primarily by the

  histories of Ptolemy and Aristobulus, contemporaries of Alexander but

  3 A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire, the Reign of Alexander the Great, cambridge 1988

  (henceforth: Bosworth, 1988a), p. 295 f.; W. Heckel & J.c. Yardley, Alexander the Great,

  Historical Texts in Translation, Blackwell, 2004 (henceforth: Heckel & Yardley 2004),

  pp. xx f.

  4 F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH), Berlin & Leiden, 1923;

  c.A. robinson, The History of Alexander the Great, Vol. I, Providence, 1953.

  5 A.B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander, Studies in Historical Interpretation, oxford,

  1988 (henceforth: Bosworth, 1988b), p. 1; Heckel & Yardley 2004, p. xxii.

  introduction

  3

  writing after his death,6 and secondarily by nearchus and Eratosthenes.7

  therefore, one can see that some four centuries separates Arrian from his

  sources.

  A shorter time span, but nevertheless noteworthy, applies to the Latin

  histories, separating them from their original Greek sources. considering

  this state of affairs, one cannot but admire the labour spent on the preser-

  vation of the centuries old manuscripts, having been copied and recopied

  over time. one wonders how the originals were allowed to perish—and

  also to be translated into Latin. this is especially true of Justin’s book.

  the original author of this history is a romanized Gaul named Pompeius

  trogus who sometime in the late first century Bc had written the his-

  tory of Alexander in the eleventh and twelfth books of his now lost forty-

  four volumes long world history, called Historiae Philippicae.8 Some two

  centuries later, around 200 Ad, Marcus Junianus Justinus (Justin) during

  his stay at rome takes up this history of forty-four books and rewrites it,

  generally said to have epitomized it, omitting or compressing parts that in

  his judgement were not interesting or of use as examples.9 It is believed

  that in certain parts Justin had intruded into trogus’ text, adding certain

  information.10 It is also most significant to note that seemingly the original

  Latin history of trogus itself had been an abridgement of previous works

  that were based on “All that the historians of Greece had undertaken sep-

  arately, according to what was suitable to each, trogus Pompeius omit-

  ting only what was useless, has put together in one narration, everything

  being assigned to its proper period, and arranged in the regular order of

  events”.11 therefore, the original trogus seem
s to be a translation as well

  as a re-editing of his sources. Moreover, his work has been characterized

  as “Writing in Latin a history with a non-roman perspective”.12 Also recent

  scholarship has identified some of his sources, ascribing a section that

  we shall later examine—7.2.1–4, with emphasis on this study’s thesis—

  6 Arrian, Bk. I. 1.

  7 Bosworth, 1988b, p. 13.

  8 Heckel & Yardley 2004, p. xxii.

  9  Justin, Cornelius Nepos; and Eutropius, trans. J.S. Watson, 1897, London, Preface, p. 2;

  J.c. Yardley & W. Heckel, Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Vol. I,

  BKS 11–12: Alexander the Great, oxford, 1997, p. 1.

  10 Yardley & Heckel 1997, pp. 11 f.

  11 Justin, Preface, pp. 1–2.

  12 Yardley & Heckel 1997, p. 16.

  4

  introduction

  to Macedonian historians, Marsyas Macedon or Marsyas Philippi, whose

  work would have contained more folkloric material.13

  Quintus curtius rufus’ Latin history of Alexander is in ten books, dated

  to the first century Ad. the first two books and parts of Books 5, 6 and 10

  are missing.14 His primary source as well as that of diodorus and trogus/

  Justin is believed to have been cleitarchus.15 the same source seems to

  have formed the back bone of the narrative of Plutarch’s biography of

  Alexander,16 writing in the first century Ad.17

  cleitarchus of Alexandria’s history of Alexander seems to have been

  twelve books long covering Alexander’s entire reign. It had been written

  early, before 310 Bc, and mainly based on others’ reports of the campaigns,

  since he himself had not been present.18

  Although among the list of Alexander historians there is no mention of

  any Iranians, modern scholars have speculated on the existence of sources

  informed on Iranian military. tarn had expanded on the idea of a Greek

  mercenary soldier in darius’ camp writing a history that is more sympa-

  thetic towards the Persians and Memnon the Greek general in darius’

  service.19