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4 results

  • 10 - Darius I to Alexander, and Seleucid to Parthian Rule

  • Stephanie Dalley, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    The City of Babylon
    Published online:
    23 June 2021
    Print publication:
    08 July 2021, pp 275-307

  • Summary

    Darius I overcame rebellions and seized the throne of Babylon, but cuneiform scholarship continued and developed; religious practices did not change, nor did the great buildings on the citadel. The zodiac scheme came into use. The Achaemenid king took Babylonian royal titles and promoted the worship of Marduk for local purposes. Xerxes broke the continuity. Following an uprising, a purge led to the ending of many archives. The province of Babylon was divided in two. Subsequent Achaemenid kings continued to treat Babylon with reverence. Alexander the Great defeated Darius III, entered Babylon, retained the Persian satrap, and moved treasure from Susa and Ecbatana to Babylon. He was recognized as a god. Lack of sons at his premature death precipitated a civil war from which Alexander’s commander Seleucus emerged to take the throne jointly with his son Antiochus. The derelict ziggurat was demolished, but temples and rituals, chronicles and astronomical diaries, continued as before. Aramaic was widely used, and fewer texts were inscribed in cuneiform. Interest in the fall of Assyria and of the Babylonian empire is apparent in Greek literature. Famous scholars include Berossus and named astronomers. Parthians invaded and eventually ended the dynasty.

  • 7d - Coinage

  • from 7 - Archaic Greek society
    • By Colin Kraay, Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 431-445

  • Summary

    This chapter describes the origin of coinage in mainland Greece. But coinage certainly started at an earlier date in Asia Minor, where the most readily available metal was alluvial electrum rather than silver. In the Peloponnese the transition from a utensil currency to a currency of silver appears to have begun under Pheidon in the first half of the seventh century but true coins are unlikely to have been minted at Aegina before the sixth century. The earliest datable context for an Aeginetan coin is the foundation deposit of the audience-hall of Darius I at Persepolis, which can be no earlier than circa 515. The most remarkable characteristic of the archaic coinage of South Italy is its uniformity in both weight standard and fabric. The practice of coining is seen to have been spreading across the Greek world during the sixth century though it was still a rather recent phenomenon in the West.

  • 11 - THE EVIDENCE OF THE PERSEPOLIS TABLETS

  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 June 1985, pp 588-609

  • Summary

    The Achaemenid Elamite texts found at Persepolis add a little flesh to the picked-over bones of early Achaemenid history. The fortification texts, which date from the thirteenth to the twenty-eighth year of Darius I, record many kinds of transfers of food products. The fortification texts were written at many sites in a region which, it seems, surrounds the Persepolis-Susa axis. The texts mention the names of many officials. By all evidence the chief economic official from the sixteenth to the twenty-fifth year of Darius was Pharnaces. In the assignment of work groups three persons are more frequent than any others: Irsena in the Susa area, Karkis and Suddayauda successively in the Persepolis area. In any case it would have been very difficult by the use of clay tablets to achieve an adequate accounting system for such varied and extensive operations. The problem might in the end have been solved by the use of records in Aramaic written on perishable materials.

  • 10 - THE BABYLONIAN EVIDENCE OF ACHAEMENIAN RULE IN MESOPOTAMIA

  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 June 1985, pp 529-587

  • Summary

    To present the Babylonian evidence, cuneiform texts and archaeological remains, for the Achaemenian rule over the satrapy Babairuš is to write a history of Mesopotamia. To write a history of Mesopotamia during these two hundred years would moreover necessitate the complete and critical utilization of contemporary and later classical sources. The cuneiform evidence of Achaemenian rule not only confirms the sequence of Persian rulers as known from Old Persian inscriptions and from Greek writers, but adds important chronological refinements. The student of Mesopotamian history can also rely on the inscriptions often written or stamped on bricks destined for temples, palaces, city walls, etc. In Mesopotamia as elsewhere historical events have left their imprints on literary creations and, conversely, literary creations have been used for political purposes. This chapter discusses the problems connected with the co-regency of Cyrus and Cambyses. Mesopotamian sources provide very little written evidence for Darius I, apart from the mention of his name in the Uruk kinglist.