The use of the sources

There is one category of evidence which, very often, is regarded in con nection with Persian policies, as primary source-m aterial, i.e., part or all of the Avesta, the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrianism . O n the assum ption that the Avesta is m ore or less co n ­ temporaneous with the A chaem enid period and that, in the same way as A chaem enid kingship it is an Iranian phenom enon, concepts and notions from the Avesta are used to explain the behaviour of Persian kings. In two recent m onographs on X enophon, for example, it is suggested that “the Persian king strove to represent and im itate the god Mithra in his earthly dom ain” (H irsch 198 5 : 122) and M ithra’s characteristics are used therefore to explain the nature of A chaem enid kingship (H irsch 1 9 8 5 : 19; Tatum 1989: 79). O ne glance at the Persian royal inscriptions (published in K e n t 1948) would suffice to convince anyone that this is sheer nonsense. Every inscription, without ex­

ception, features Ahuramazda one or more times. M ithra is only m entioned in inscrip­

tions of A ttaxerxes II, where he is m entioned as the third in a trio of Ahuramazda, Anahita and M ithra3. T h e appearance of this divine trio probably testifies to the fact 3 A2Sa 11. 4 - 5 , w here despite large dam age to th e text it seem s certain that the three gods were indeed m entioned; A 2Sd 11. 3 - 4 : “By the favor of Ahuram azda this is th e palace w hich I built in my lifetime as a pleasant retreat (paradayadam). May Ahuram azda, A nahita and M ithra protect from all evil and my buildin g” : th e divine trio is here preceded by a m en tio n of th e baga vaz- faka Ahuramazda alone; A 2H a 11. 5 - 6 : the first m en tion of th e trio is a restoration, the second H,u' not- Attaxerxes II’s lo n g est preserved inscrip tion (A2H c) m en tio n s only A huram azda. In a

¡ text on a colum n w here ju st M ithra seem s to be m en tion ed (A 2H b) the restoration seem s to leave some room for doubt: in translation the text goes as follows:

this palace, of stone in its colum n(s), A rtaxerxes the G reat K in g built, the son of D arius the

^ mg, an A chaem enian. May M ithra p rotect m e ...

e text is restored by K e n t from th e second syllable of M ithra on. A s it is, the inscrip tion is

1 4 8 H e le e n S a n c is i-W e e rd e n b u r g

that there had been changes in the religious field, which may well have had repercus­

sions on the political scene. But the continuous and consistent references to Ahura- mazda as the god of the king is a powerful argum ent against ideas such as the king re­

presenting or imitating Mithra. It is of no use in these cases to refer to the Hymn to Mithra: its dating is uncertain but it does not belong to the oldest parts of the Avesta, the Gathas, which usually are ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster him self. It is not im ­ possible that the Hymn to Mithra was known in the A chaem enid period4: we simply have no way of knowing how far and how wide it was spread. It is usually assumed that the whole of the Avesta was written down for the first tim e in the Sasanian period5.

But even if knowledge of the Mithra hymn could be attested for the corelands of the Persian empire, it seems perverse to ignore the explicit statem ents of the Persian kings themselves. If we take the inscriptions seriously, only one conclusion is allowed:

Ahuramazda is the most im portant god, the only one nam ed by nam e in the first part of the fifth century and throughout the whole period the god of the king. Som e rising through the ranks of Mithra (along with Anahita) can be seen in the later period, but Mithra never ascended to the exclusive position which Ahuramazda occupied through the reigns of Darius and Xerxes. Even in these later days Ahuramazda retained his po­

sition of the baga vazraka, the great god par excellence.

It has been surmised (D uchesne-G uillem in 1974) that Mithra occupied a more im ­ portant position in the reign of Cyrus. This contention, as well as the opposite one strongly presented by Mary Boyce (1 9 8 2 : 49 ff.) that Cyrus was a staunch adherent of Ahuramazda, is based on alm ost no evidence whatsoever. It is clear that in the conquered territories Cyrus adopted a policy of adapting to what was expected of the local ruler, including claims of protection by local or national gods (K u h rt 1983, Van der Spek 1983). In his hom eland the total evidence consists of two altar pedestals, ap­

parently intended for some cerem ony of the sacred fire, found in the Sacred Precinct in Pasargadae and a recently discovered rosette on Cyrus’ tom b (Stronach 1978: 36), of which it is not clear that the carving had any religious im plications. W e may guess that there m ight have been a third pedestal and that thus they were intended as altars for the sacred trio (thus Trüm pelm ann 197 7 : 14 f.), but the other hypothesis, that there Fortsetzung Fußnote von Seite 14 7

slightly anom alous and com parable only to an inscription of D arius w hich has the m ention of the building in stone by D arius II followed by: “Darius the K in g (accus.) may Ahuram azda together with the gods protect” (D 2Sa 1. 3). In A 2H b as we have it in K e n t’s restoration (1 9 4 8 , 155) the ob­

je ct of M ithra’s divine protection is lacking. Even if we take the text as according to K ent it should be read, the odds are against M ithra as the god of the kin g: now here b u t in the inscrip­

tions of A rtaxerxes II does his nam e occu r and even there in m ost cases he com es third after AM and after Anahita. In all other inscrip tions of earlier kings there is no god nam ed by name but Ahuramazda, in som e cases accom panied by a m en tion of “the [other] god s” (e.g. D S t 1. 8; XPb 28 f.; D 2Sa 1. 3) or “all the gods” (D Pd 1. 22).

4 Cf. M alandra (19 8 3 ) 2 9 : “the com p osition (not redaction) of the older sections [scil. of the Y ounger Avesta], especially the great Y ashts belongs to a tim e prior to th e rise of the A c h a e m e n - ids”; cf. Gershecitch {1959).

5 Boyce (1975) 2 0 : “It is possible that som e part of the Avesta was w ritten down in the late Par thian period, but the fixed canon was not established until th e Sasanian era, apparently as late as the 6th century”.

P o litic a l C o n c e p ts in O ld -P e r s ia n R o y a l In s c r ip tio n s 1 4 9

were ju st two and that they served, one for the king and the other for an altar con tain­

ing the [royal?] fire, has just as m uch, or probably m ore, to recom m end itself. There are no inscriptions of the period of Cyrus that m ention an Iranian god; the reliefs that are preserved closely follow m odels from the earlier Assyrian tradition or, as in the case of the ‘W inged G enius’, can be seen in a Syrian tradition. In any case, their reli­

gious m eaning, if there was any such m eaning in those reliefs, totally eludes us.

T h e only other seem ingly religious sym bol in the extant Persian docum entation is the figure in the winged disk, usually referred to as Ahuramazda in the older literature.

Its iconographie behaviour closely follows that of the king and it is m ost frequently, although not always, con nected with the image of the king (Lecoq 1984). This has re­

cently led to a new interpretation of the sym bol as the ‘krarenah’ of the king (Cal- meyer 1979, Shahbazi 1974 and 1980), the personal genius of the portrayed king. Lack of further evidence m akes it hard to com e to a definite conclusion, although person­

ally I am convinced that the analogy betw een the reliefs and the royal inscriptions is so strong that it can only be Ahuramazda thus portrayed in these iconographie state­

ments of kingship. T h e nam e of M ithra has been entirely absent from this discussion.

The image of the figure in a winged disk is constant throughout the A chaem enid pe­

riod and is to be found on the latest tom bs of the dynasty (even at the last unfinished tomb east of the Persepolis terrace).

It is not surprising that ancien t historians and classical philologists are often tempted to regard the two known Iranian sources, the Zoroastrian tradition and the A c h a e m e n id docum entation, as one and the same and are inclined to insert data from the religious tradition into the historical evidence for the Persian period. T h e con fu ­ sion probably originates from the question w hether the A chaem enid kings were or were not (zealous) adherents of the religion of Zoroaster. T h at question has been answered very affirmatively in what is probably the m ost influential recent book on the history of Zoroastrianism , M. Boyce’s second volum e of the History o f Zoroastrian­

ism. This volume in the Handbuch der Orientalistik tends to be the one nonspecialists are most likely to use for inform ation on religious m atters in the sixth to fourth cen tu ­ ries B.C. The author is undoubtedly the leading expert on the history of Zoroaster’s re­

ligious legacy and on the cults and practices of his followers. H er persuasive style of argumentation, however, very often proceeds at the cost of ignoring a detailed discus­

sion of the sources or a cautious analysis of diverging opinions6. B oyce’s conclusion can be easily sum m arised: the A chaem enids were Zproastrians from start to finish.

The whole problem has been well form ulated by D u ch esn e-G u illem in : it is such a difficult issue because it com pels scholars to com pare two disparate entities: “d’un coté un ensemble de faits historiques, appuyés par l’archéologie, de l’autre, une tradi­

tion religieuse sans con nexions historiques ni archéologiques et presque im possible à s|Uierdans le temps et dans l’espace” (1 9 7 1 : 61). T he Avesta, or rather the various lay- ers which it is com posed, cannot be dated with any precision. T he discussion about the date of Zoroaster’s preachings is indicative in this respect. In m ore recent work the

® F

Wjt^ rsom e ° f the older literature see Herrenschmidt (1 9 8 0 ); cf. now also Yamauchi (1990) 4 1 9 if.

an accessible overview of co n flictin g opinions.

1 5 0 H e le e n S a n c is i-W e e r d e n b u r g

traditional dating som ewhere in the sixth century has lost favour7, and dates such as

‘before 1000 B.C.’ (Boyce 1 9 8 2 : 3) or ‘around the beginning of the first m illen niu m ’ can be found (cf. Malandra 1 9 8 3 : 17). For the present purposes this discussion is hardly relevant but it serves to indicate how widely opinions can diverge.

If one com pares our knowledge of Zoroastrian religion with the evidence on reli­

gion at the tim e of the A chaem enid kings, not only do we find no signs of an active propagation of Zoroastrian beliefs throughout the em pire, but the statem ents of the kings them selves show rem arkable ‘divergences’ from the sacred texts. T he first diffi­

culty can be easily overcom e by arguing that the Persian kings did not custom arily prom ote the Iranian religion beyond their hom eland, but actively adapted them selves to the cultural and religious traditions of the countries they integrated in their empire.

T h e second problem is increased by the very clear evidence that in Fars itself the gods who were worshipped and were allowed rations from the royal treasury were by no means exclusively Iranian (K o ch 197 7 : 1 0 1 -1 1 2 ; K o ch 1 9 8 7 : 2 7 3 f.; Sancisi-W eerden- burg 1 9 8 0 : 17; D andam aev-Lukonin 1 9 8 8 : 340 ff.). A solution has been sought in the argum ent that the A chaem enids were adhering to ‘som e sort’ of Zoroastrianism or even that the text (X Ph) of one of the kings, X erxes, deviated from the correct use of Zoroastrian formula, because the king was known not to be very intelligent and had failed to grasp the appropriate formulas (Gershevitch 1964: 1 8 f.). In view of so much diversity in opinions, the only correct scholarly approach is to leave the question open and to return to a position recently stated by K ellen s: the evidence of the Achaem enid period is better known than the chronologically elusive Zoroastrian tradition. We should therefore start from a renewed analysis of these sources (K ellens 1 9 9 1 : 81 ff.). A m ethodological mise a point such as K uiper’s discussion of the linguistic implications of the nam e of Ahuramazda (the main point in com m on of A chaem enid texts and the Avesta) is also very heipful (K u ip er 1976). For the m o m en t it only distorts the discus­

sion seriously if we attem pt to explain Persian politics and political behaviour through the possibly anachronistic knowledge of Zoroastrian texts.