8

The Empire of Darius III in Perspective

Pierre Briant

1 Sources and Problems: The Empire in Short- and Middle-Term Perspective

1.1 Darius and his empire

Until recently, Achaemenid historiography did not show much interest in the reign of Darius III, or in the state of the empire at the time Alexander set foot in Asia Minor. It sufficed to explain everything by the convenient thesis of the “colossus with feet of clay” that had become irreversibly undermined by disorganization, overtaxation, and rebellious subjects.¹ This thesis was, in itself, deemed sufficient to explain the Persian defeat in confrontations with the Macedonian armies.² From its origins, Alexander historiography has developed two visions on the Persian adversary. One is found in handbooks and the most recent conference proceedings: that the Achaemenid empire is evanescent to such a degree that it does not even represent one of two players in the game about to be played on the Near Eastern chessboard: time passes “as if Alexander were alone . . . when he faced his personal quest.”³ In contrast, other historians have attempted to reevaluate the military and strategic capacities of the last Great King.⁴

This double orientation in modern historiography is, to some extent, the latest avatar of a double-sided image of Darius handed down by the Greco-Roman tradition and continuously running through modern European historiography: Darius is either portrayed as a despot characterized by weakness and lack of drive, a man incapable of facing the danger that the Macedonian invasion presented to his throne and his empire; or he is glorified as a king possessing virtues and all kinds of admirable qualities, yet confronted by an enemy of such overwhelming strength that he stood no chance of gaining victory over him.⁵ This second image, of a man both capable and courageous but overcome by a peerless adversary (presented by Bossuet as early as 1681), was adopted by Droysen from 1833 on, and the same conclusion is reached by a recent study by Badian (2000b: 265).⁶

This observation certainly does not imply that since Bossuet the historian’s attitude toward his sources has not been redefined in terms of methodological rigor. It simply illustrates that, when scholars keep posing the same questions concerning Darius’s “merit,” there is a risk of falling into an epistemological trap, that is, to be obliged to choose between the “vices” and the “virtues” of Darius, a choice preconditioned by the ideological presuppositions and literary attitudes of the Classical authors.⁷ Today, the historian’s task should not be to “rehabilitate” Darius, nor to summon Alexander before an international court of justice to charge him with his “crimes.”⁸

The question of the political aptitude and strategic abilities of Darius should indeed not be ignored and, apart from a few exceptions (e.g., Strauss and Ober 1990), there is nowadays agreement among scholars that the king was not an incapable strategist. Yet, on the one hand, such an observation reduces the historical analysis to its military aspects, at the cost of the political aspects of the Persian–Macedonian conflict, while, on the other hand, the analysis may not be subordinated to a teleological approach predetermined by the Achaemenid defeats. The empire lived its own life and its rulers did not have their eyes fixed on what Classical and modern historiography has presented as a conquest that, if not determined by fate, was in any case inevitable. Consequently, it is better to avoid the term “pre-Hellenistic” (German: Vorhellenismus), informed as it is by an a priori vision (RTP 320–3). Contrary to what a celebrated Iranian philologist in a commentary on the Xanthus Trilingual asserts, Asia Minor in the third quarter of the fourth century BCwas not situated “between the death throes of the Persian Empire and the Hellenistic Spring,” or “in a dying world, plunged into the shadows,” a world waiting for “the charismatic, still uncertain light of Alexander.”⁹ When interpreted without such prejudices, the epigraphical document suggests a rather different assessment of the state of the empire (see below §3.1).

In order not to reduce a complex and evolving reality to the “shadow of Alexander,” and to avoid an Aegeocentric approach,¹⁰ it is helpful to analyze the Achaemenid empire, in geographical terms, as an entity stretching from Central Asia to the Aegean and, in terms of chronology, from a middle-term perspective, that is, the period roughly defined by the last part of Artaxerxes Il’s reign and the death of Darius III (c.365–330).¹¹ By reinserting Darius’ short reign into the imperial context that precedes it, and from which it proceeds, one creates the conditions necessary for understanding the distinctiveness of the empire’s internal situation.¹²

Evidently, an analysis of the kind just described would exceed the bounds of a chapter like the present one. I shall therefore only point out a number of particularly notable historical and methodological features, more precisely with evidence that, though still not fully published, are accessible to the historians of the empire. Many of these corpora continue into the beginnings of the Hellenistic period, but rather than treating the entire period of transition (see Briant and Joannès 2006), I aim simply to shed light on a period sometimes characterised as a Dark Age.

1.2 Greco-Roman literary sources

The Greco-Roman sources are, it should be stressed, a constituent part of the documentation that we have at our disposal. But they must be considered within the context of Achaemenid reality. Such evidence is so deeply enshrined in the Greco-Roman perspective that it is severely distorted. To give only one especially striking example: new analysis of Greco-Roman texts relating to the inhabitants of the Zagros (Uxians and Cossaeans) and to the  in the Tigris demonstrates that, contrary to long established opinion based on superficial evaluation, the royal residences in the empire’s core were not in Darius III’s time at risk from the double threat of mountain “brigands” and Persian Gulf “pirates.”¹³

At the same time, and despite grave omissions and biases, it is clear that the historian should not minimize the testimonies of the Classical authors, as long as necessary methodological precautions are taken.¹⁴ It is by these sources, for example, that we are informed about the violent dynastic conflicts that emerged, one after another, between the murder of Artaxerxes III (end of 338) and that of Darius III (July 330), including the brutal elimination of Arses by Bagoas followed by the rise of Codomannus/Artašata under the name of Darius (end of 336). When comparing such episodes with the numerous comparable cases since the death of Cambyses (522), it is easy to appreciate that they do not allow the conclusion of increasing decadence in Persian politics (Briant 2002b). The very same documentation clearly suggests that the accession of Darius occurred along familiar lines, with the new king assuming the robe of Cyrus, as Artaxerxes II had done before (HPE 769–80, 1033–4). Also, it is generally implied in the sources that Darius managed to impose his authority: it is under his supreme command that Arsites was charged, in 334, with the command of the satrapal contingents from Asia Minor (HPE 820–3); from that moment until the fall of the royal residences (November 331–January 330) and the subsequent conspiracy instigated by Bessus under very special circumstances (331/30) no internal crises are detectable, nor any revolt within the Persian and Iranian nobility who held the reins of royal power.¹⁵ One need only follow the ancient testimonies step by step to realize that, on the contrary, the leading officers, with very few exceptions (Mithrenes at Sardes), displayed an exemplary loyalty toward the crown, even after the first two defeats at the Granicus and at Issus (HPE 780–3, 842–52).

The Greco-Roman texts also allow, albeit only partially, the reconstruction of a relief map of Achaemenid lands, showing their specific aspects and traits at the moment they were crossed and conquered by Alexander’s armies: they show that there were satrapies, palaces, treasuries, and fortresses, plains, streams, and natural resources, populations, villages, and towns, but also regulations and administrations at the level of cities and regions, tribute and taxes, as well as an overarching system of managing expenses and revenues. From this perspective, especially when considering the period under discussion, one cannot emphasize enough the importance of Ps.-Aristotle’s Oeconomica. ¹⁶

It is also thanks to the same sources that we have access to information on the military organization, on the mustering of the royal armies, on the rites that precede the entry and exit of the king’s retinue, on many other aspects of Achaemenid aulic practice, and on the composition of the highest ranks in the imperial government. In general, it cannot be denied that our knowledge about the last phase of Achaemenid history would be diminished if we did not possess the conqueror’s perspective, if only because we lack the perspective of the conquered.

1.3 The Achaemenid documentation: illuminating life in the provinces

Still, a type of documentation like that offered by the Greco-Roman sources could never suffice; one is obliged to gather, as far as possible, a range of sources from the lands that formed the Achaemenid empire, whether they are textual (in whatever language and script), archaeological, numismatic, or iconographic. Until recently, the period under discussion ranked among the most unknown of Achaemenid imperial history. The reign of Darius II (424–405/4) is the last one that is relatively well documented, and even this reign stands out much less distinctly than the reigns of Darius I (522–486), Xerxes (486–465), and Artaxerxes I (465–425/4).¹⁷ In the case of Darius II, royal presence and activity is attested at Persepolis (inscriptions and constructions), Ecbatana, and Susa. Life in the provinces can be studied in detail on the basis of the abundant Babylonian documentation (in particular the corpus of tablets from the Murasti firm), the exceptional Aramaic documentation from Egypt, biblical and a number of Anatolian sources (HPE 600–11, 981–4). The study of the reign of Artaxerxes II (405/4–359/8) still profits from a reasonably favorable documentary situation, particularly through the epigraphical and archaeological sources from Susa (construction of the Palace of Chaour) and the other royal residences.¹⁸ At the same time one has to observe that Aramaic documentation from Egypt has disappeared (the Nile valley became independent again c.400) and that the Babylonian documentation has become both less abundant and more difficult to use as a result of the frequent difficulty of distinguishing between the different kings named Artaxerxes or Darius.¹⁹ In the absence of substantial and precisely dated bodies of evidence from the provinces, and with the importance of the Greek material (particularly Plutarch, Xenophon, and Diodorus), narrative history focused on western affairs once again takes precedence. Even in that particular area uncertainty reigns, however, especially with respect to the evidence for the satrapal revolts, which has always held a decisive place in the evaluation of the empire’s relative strength or fragility in the course of the fourth century.²⁰

Confronting the Greek sources with those from the Achaemenid world does not always yield decisive results, since the relevance of a certain comparison is sometimes hard to demonstrate.²¹ As to the economic and commercial revival occasionally deduced from Artaxerxes Ill’s mintings (Mildenberg 1998, 1999), the proposed interpretation is both disputable and less original than it appears.²² In some cases the ambiguities in our documentation are such that we are, for example, still neither capable of telling whether the new Egyptian revolt under pharaoh Khababbash was put down by Darius III,²³ nor of reconstructing the conditions under which the land again came to be governed by the satrap Sabaces who, like his predecessor Mazdaces, is known from the coins he struck in Egypt.²⁴

Some of the imperial lands are very well known. Such is the case for Babylonia (Briant and Joannès 2006: 17–306) and Asia Minor (Briant 2006a). Other regions elude detailed analysis on account of lacunae in the documentary record (Egypt).²⁵ Fortunately, our knowledge of the Achaemenid world is not fixed, but expanded by an evolving corpus of new discoveries and publications.²⁶ As a result, two regions of very different importance, Bactria and Idumea, merit revisiting.

The recently (but not completely) published corpora from the vast Central Asiatic satrapy and the little Palestinian district are both parts of archives written in Aramaic and brought to light by illegal excavations. With the exception of a few texts,²⁷ they were drafted in a time frame defined by the last decades of Achaemenid history and the beginnings of the Hellenistic age: from Artaxerxes III to Alexander (358²⁸-324) in Bactria, and from Artaxerxes II (362) to Ptolemy (post 306) in Idumea.²⁹ Incidentally, it may be noted that, thanks to the Bactrian corpus, the number of texts dated after the last Darius has grown spectacularly.³⁰

The space reserved in this survey for the Aramaic documents from Bactria and Idumea can easily be justified by simple reference to an appropriate methodological remark made by Eph’al during the presentation of a preliminary synthesis of the new Palestinian sources:

A historical picture based on non-literary sources may be likened to a mosaic, put together from tiny stones, rather than large blocks, as it is generally the case with literary sources. . . A meticulous analysis of the entire corpus should help to accord the Persian period its proper place in the history of Palestine and its environs, as a substantial link between the Ancient Near East and the Hellenistic period. (Eph‘al 1998: 109, 119)

Such documentation enables the historian to leave political and dynastic history for what it is and to concentrate on history from below. As has been remarked by another editor of the corpus (Lemaire 2002: 232–3), the Idumean documentation invites a modest kind of history, “a social and economical history on a local level where a small group of tax collectors and scribes do their best to manage levies in kind and in silver from taxpayers who, for the most, are peasants.” What is true for the Idumean documents also pertains to the Bactrian corpus, with the difference that the latter is more readily accessible since it includes texts in literary (epistolary) format. Documents of that type are completely absent from the minute accounts written and abbreviated on the Idumean ostraca.

2 From Bactria to Idumea

2.1 Bactria–Sogdiana from Artaxerxes III to Alexander

Recently acquired from London dealers and purportedly coming from Afghanistan, the Khalili collection³¹ includes thirty documents written on parchment and eighteen on “wooden sticks” (small wooden boards), all inscribed in Aramaic; nine additional documents have up to this point come to light – of which five are usable and date to the same period – but these texts so far remain unedited (Shaked 2006). All are dated to the third regnal year of Darius III (333/2). The wooden boards carry brief inscriptions and are acknowledgments of debts (ADAB, D1–18, pp. 31–3, 231–57). The parchment documents, on the other hand, are letters and lists of allocations. One recognizes the names of the leading officials of the satrapy such as Bagavant, whose designation is peat (governor) of the town of Khulmi (modern Khulm) and who corresponds with his superior Akhvamazda. The latter could be considered the satrap in Bactria, but no text confers that title on him. An elusive reference to a treasurer/* ganzabara is found on a fragment (B10).³²The name of Bactra is twice attested, again in fragmentary texts (A7, A8). As the corpus testifies, the responsibilities of Akhvamazda and Bagavant were not limited strictly to Bactria.³³ Bagavant’s assignment was to administer the collection of crop revenues in storages, and, additionally, the distribution of rations to various groups; additional duties included the maintenance of buildings and the construction of fortifications in Sogdiana. In 348 or 347, Bagavant, at this time in Khulmi, received a letter from Akhvamazda, telling him that he had been assigned a contingent from the local troops (hyl’ mt) in order to construct a wall and a ditch in the town of Nikhshapaya (A4, pp. 93–9). Another letter, sent to Bagavant and to other officials, conveys Akhvamazda’s renewed insistence that his orders be carried out strictly and that the wall be constructed in conformity with regulations. This time the letter is to be delivered by a messenger (zgnd’ compare Gk.  and Akhvamazda’s foreman (*frataraka-); it concerns the town of Kiš (A5). Other texts mention more individuals and toponyms and allow tentative descriptions of the status of the garrison troops, apparently part-soldier, part-peasant.³⁴

The range of different rations in document C1 (Shaked 2003: 1522–4; 2004: 40–2; ADAB 177–85) allows glimpses of the richness of the production in livestock (sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, geese, chicken),³⁵ animal products (cheese, milk), crops, and agricultural products (fruits, spices, flour of various qualities, oil, spices, vinegar), as well as the magnitude of the reserves kept in the administration’s storehouses (fodder; see also A10a). In addition, this document is part of a group of texts that yield pertinent details on the organization of official missions and the rations given to travelers at state-run halting places (C5). One finds a technical terminology known from the Aramaic documents from Egypt and the Elamite tablets from Persepolis (e.g., baššabara = *pasabara-, “travel provisions” -ADAB 197). Other documents again list products, such as barley, wheat, and millet disbursed as rations (ptp) to laborers and to the administration’s personnel; the quality of the products allocated is clearly a function of the social rank of the recipient (B2). As for the term used for “ration,” ptp, it is the same that is found at Elephantine as well as at Persepolis, in Babylonia (HPE, index, 1174) and now in Idumea (see below). One of the suppliers of rations holds an Iranian designation, rendered in Aramaic as ptpkn .³⁶

In the Bactrian corpus, one also discerns clearly the transfer of commodities from one locality to another, by means of the officials that collect them and transport them to those responsible for its distribution (C4, dated to year 7 of Alexander: ADAB 203–12). The meticulousness of the accounting of commodities entering and leaving the storehouses seems to equal procedures known from Persepolis (e.g., C3).

Apart from donkeys (C1, B4, B6), camels were reared (B8) and used for transports. Some of these animals were labeled “camels of the king” (A1:3: gmln zy mlk), again an expression known from Persepolis, where it is used to refer to king’s assets per se (as opposed to the institution’s assets in general).³⁷ The situation undoubtedly was the same in Bactria. Camel-keepers  enjoyed a special fiscal status and were exempt from certain taxes. One letter relates that, at one occasion, they were unjustly surcharged, and even detained by Bagavant, his foreman (*frataraka-) and the magistrates (dyny), upon which Akhvamazda had to intervene on several occasions in order to make sure that his orders were followed by Bagavant and the other officials of the district (ADAB 68–75, A1). The document also gives some specifications on the taxes (here: ilk). In an unfortunately broken context, another document refers to “the king’s tribute” (mndt’ mlk’: A8: 2).³⁸

Akhmavazda himself seems to have owned property in the province under his control. One text refers to commodities taken out “from [his] house” (byt’zylk: A2), but it is possible that the expression relates to assets that are ex officio under the satrap’s control (seeHPE 463). In another letter (A6), Akhvamazda reproaches Bagavant, this time for not having followed his instruction (handarz) to roof two old houses (located in two villages), and to bring wheat and sesame for sowing as seed to the granary in accordance with his instructions. If Bagavant remains reluctant to effectuate the order, he risks having to pay for the whole amount “from your own house” (byf). Here again, Akhvamazda refers to the buildings, the houses, and the granary as belonging to him. Are these his private property, or domains of which he, in his capacity as satrap, was the usufruct, like Aršma a century before in Egypt? Note that, like his Egyptian colleague, Akhvamazda had a steward (paqdu) who managed his assets, and who denounced Bagavant’s culpable behavior (A6: 1). As to the threat that hangs over the latter’s head, the expression used (“from your own house”), is reminiscent of the expenditures by other administrators or Persian military commanders, whose responsibility makes them liable, if necessary, “from their own possessions” (: HPE 595–6).

The new documentation also yields information on religious practices (Shaked 2004: 42–47; ADAB 35–7) and on Old Iranian onomastics (partly from local origin, such as the names built on the base whšw (*vaxšu-), the name of the river known in Greek as the Oxus: ADAB 57–60). One even finds, on a rolled document (C2), the impression of a magnificent Achaemenid seal: a horseman holds up a lance and faces a rampant lion; he is accompanied by a second figure on foot who, his head covered by a bashlyk, holds a pike, ready to help the horseman if necessary.

A first encounter with the said documentation inspires amazement at the fact that it was found in a region that, until now, was a little-known territory that appeared in two quite disparate groups of sources: the Greco-Roman corpus of Classical and Hellenistic texts on the one hand, and the massive amount of data gathered in years of surveys in northern Afghanistan on the other. Archaeologists have always insisted on the “particularly Bactrian” character of the hydraulic structures attested in the area since the third millennium. From their point of view, the extent of these structures and their continuity into the Achaemenid period suggest the existence, persisting during the reigns of the Great Kings, of what is invariably referred to, with a somewhat hazy description, as a “Bactrian entity,” or a “pre- Achaemenid Palaeo-Bactrian entity.” In this model, the focus lies on Bactrian continuities still existing after the Achaemenid conquest, which, by contrast, would not have left conspicuous traces.

This view raises several questions. That the construction of systems of irrigation canals was a phenomenon occurring throughout the third, second, and first millennia is not to be doubted. But should one deduce from the existence of an inherited “characteristically Bactrian” technique – and from that alone – that, after the Persian conquest, the Achaemenid administration never intervened in this complex? Would that not be an overinterpretation of the absence of Achaemenid textual evidence? For many reasons (including the find of an Elamite Persepolis-type administrative tablet in the Achaemenid layers of Old Kandahar³⁹), which I have advanced since the start of the debate, the validity of such a rigid interpretation may be doubted.⁴⁰ From my point of view, it would seem preferable to leave open the possibility that, one day, a textual documentation from the Achaemenid period would come to light from this region.⁴¹ This is exactly the point proved by the corpus currently being published. Obviously, the texts do not answer all the questions, but they will at least show that, contrary to well-established opinion, Bactria did not constitute a special case within the whole of the Achaemenid empire. The region was, unmistakably, a satrapy in the full sense of the word, a province where the royal administration carried out the same tasks that it had assigned itself in other parts of the empire. One is struck in particular by the formal and functional similarities between the Bactrian documentation on the one hand, and the Elamite tablets from Persepolis and the Aramaic documentation from Egypt on the other.

Another characteristic of the Bactrian administration is that it is written in a form of Aramaic very close in morphology, syntax, and redaction to that known from Achaemenid Egypt (Shaked 2004: 22–9; ADAB 39–51). It is fascinating to note that the hypothesis of a diffusion ofReichsaramaïsch throughout the lands of the Iranian plateau during the reigns of the Great Kings had already been posed with much vigor by Benveniste as early as 1958 in his edition of the Aramaic version of the Kandahar Bilingual, that is, on the basis of a document dating well into the Hellenistic period. There, he demonstrated the close links in terms of language and redaction, as evidenced by the presence of a host of Iranian loans, with the Elephantine documents dated to Artaxerxes I and Darius II. “Nous sommes en réalité dans une province iranienne où s’étaient maintenues les traditions des chancelleries achéménides,” Benveniste concluded, speaking of the borders between the Iranian Plateau and the Indus lands.⁴² This is precisely what the Aramaic documents from Bactria are now confirming. As the great number of Iranian terms they include shows (ADAB 281–3), it is absolutely clear that the use of Aramaic in the Bactrian documents should be related to the installation and functioning of the imperial administration of the Great Kings.

2.2 Idumea, a province in the Trans-Euphrates satrapy between Artaxerxes II and Darius III

The period discussed in the previous section is also illuminated by material from the other end of the empire: Idumea, at the frontiers of the Negev. In the context of the attack by one of Antigonus’ generals against the city of Petra at the beginning of the Hellenistic era, Diodorus refers to the eparchy as well as to the satrapy of Idumea, centered on Lake Asphaltites (the Dead Sea).⁴³ At that point, Idumea served as a military base for the Macedonian troops (19.95.2, 98.1). Regardless of the term used for it, one observes that the area constituted the territory of a provincial government; its capital, during the Persian period, may have been Hebron or Lachish. The new Aramaic documentation, which is currently being published,⁴⁴ will give new impetus to the debate on the region’s status during both the last phase of imperial Achaemenid history and the period of transition and the establishment of the Hellenistic kingdoms.

The size of the corpus is considerable;⁴⁵ however, it is mutilated as a result of the illegal character of the excavations that brought it to light and its subsequent dispersal, in smaller lots, between a number of museums and private collections (since c. 1985). Nevertheless, the Aramaic ostraca from Idumea bring new insights into one of the least-known regions of the Achaemenid Trans-Euphratean lands.⁴⁶ The texts, which are extremely difficult to read, are very short and may be drafts of partial accounts, possibly destined to be included in longer documents that would have been kept in the regional archive.

Though some documents have no date at all, many mention a month name and some a regnal year. Fortunately, a few texts also provide a royal name: Artaxerxes, Alexander, Philip, and also Antigonus. The last three names may be those of Alexander IV (?),⁴⁷Philip Arrhidaeus and Antigonus Monophthalmus (see also Wheatley, ch. 3).⁴⁸ The Achaemenid part of the chronology of the ostraca is established by the occurrence of the royal name Artaxerxes which can be associated with certain years and sometimes interpreted more precisely thanks to identification of individual dossiers within the corpus (Porten and Yardeni 2003, 2004, 2006). Given that there is a series of documents dating to years 42–46, it is certain that part of the corpus is from the reign of Artaxerxes II (the only king of that name who ruled for so many years), and that ostraca from years higher than 21 may be assigned to the reign of the same king. Identifying documents dating to Artaxerxes II’s successors is often more complicated: Arses can be referred to only by his first or second regnal year, and Darius III by years 1–3 (until the loss of Syria), but years 1–3 may also refer to Artaxerxes III (which is, in fact, often the case⁴⁹), Philip or Alexander.⁵⁰Be that as it may, the beginning of the Aramaic Idumean documentation, as far as we know at present, may be fixed to 362, during the reign of Artaxerxes II.⁵¹ None of the documents is explicitly dated to the reign of Darius III.

The ostraca are silent with regard to the designations and functions of those active in the region’s administration,⁵² but they imply that products were collected, undoubtedly as taxes, from the land, that they were registered and subsequently redistributed from storehouses⁵³ that must be those controlled by the provincial administration. Some of these are located at Maqqedah (Kirbet-el Qom, 14 km west of Hebron) and Maresha (well known from the Hellenistic period, from the correspondence of Zeno, among other sources).⁵⁴

The texts are dockets that, after a date, mention one or several commodities, the quantity delivered, the measure in which it is counted, and a proper name. They supply, in the first place, information on the resources of a region that, manifestly, was being extensively developed in the period. Apart from cereals, flour, and straw, one finds wine, olive oil, wood, and hay (measured in fodder loads) as well as all kinds of livestock (camels, donkeys, cattle, sheep/goats, pigeons).⁵⁵ Some documents refer to the handling of silver (ksp), perhaps measured in shekels,⁵⁶ others to some form of cadastral register, or at any rate a registry of fields, which are, as elsewhere (HPE 414), sometimes measured by the amount of seed necessary for cultivation.⁵⁷ More than forty texts also speak of “workers,” plausibly day laborers, each of whom was registered on a document. It is particularly difficult, however, to establish under what conditions such workers were recruited, and by which authority.⁵⁸

The Idumean corpus also yields a good deal of information on the organization in “clans” (“house,” byt’) or “families” (“son of,” bny), on the coexistence of populations with different origins in the same region during the Achaemenid period (Arabs, Arameans, Judeans, Phoenicians, etc.),⁵⁹ on the temples, and on the cults.⁶⁰ Finally, a few Iranian terms are recognizable in their Aramaic form, such as “paradise, garden” (prds) and “rations” (ptp).⁶¹

It is essential to compare the Idumean ostraca with other corpora discovered, in regular excavations, at other sites in southern Palestine, especially those of Arad and Beersheba.⁶² The Arad ostraca, published in 1981, carry very short texts written in ink. They document deliveries of staple goods (barley, barley grits, straw) as fodder for animals (horses, donkeys). The texts are not dated, but may be situated, on palaeographic grounds, in the middle of the fourth century, that is, in the late Achaemenid period (Naveh 1981). The same is true for the Beersheba ostraca, which do, however, mention regnal years (from 1 to 12) that belong either to Artaxerxes II or to Artaxerxes III (the latter is more likely according to the editor: Naveh 1973, 1979). Some twelve documents may be considered as dockets that register deposits of certain quantities of barley and wheat, and that mention proper names (as in Idumea and Arad): these texts may pertain to the delivery to a central storage facility of taxes collected from farms scattered in the countryside. Based on such evidence, it appears that Beersheba must, at this date, have been one of the most importance centers (perhaps the capital?) of the Negev.

Even though the ostraca currently being published are silent on the ranks of the administration, there is no doubt that the circulation of commodities as evidenced by these tiny documents bears witness to a system well known from Persepolis, that is, that of levies, storage, and redistribution.⁶³As to the utilization of the reserves, the Arad ostraca may give a possible answer: the rations given to animals and their caretakers can probably be related to the disposition of guard posts (with an organization in contingents (degelin), as in Elephantine), as well as to the existence of official halting stations along a road (Naveh 1981: 175–6)⁶⁴ – these are elements well known from the Persepolis tablets, from a famous Aramaic document from Egypt, and from the Greco-Roman sources (RTP 505;HPE 364–5).⁶⁵

The Idumean ostraca now accessible illustrate imperial realities that, though situated in a micro-region, are far from insignificant. The chronological convergence of the various text groups seems to allow for the conclusion that the region was being reorganized during the later part of the reign of Artaxerxes II, resulting in a relatively dense occupation of the available space under the aegis of the imperial authorities and their local representatives.⁶⁶ It is therefore possible that our documentation bears witness to the origin of the province of Idumea as attested later by Diodorus when using the terms satrapeia and eparchia. We can scarcely go beyond that conclusion, though it is tempting to establish a link with the strategic situation of this region within the empire at the time, until 343, that the Achaemenid armies were led in counter-offensives against Egypt.⁶⁷

3 From Halicarnassus to Sidon, via Xanthus and Tarsus: Two Achaemenid Satraps between Artaxerxes III and Darius III

It is not a novel observation that an inventory of satrapies constituting the empire of Darius III and a list of holders of satrapal positions can be given on the basis of Greco-Roman accounts of Alexander’s expedition.⁶⁸ Yet, even when connected to episodes from earlier periods, these texts yield limited concrete and precise evidence on either the regular or the special missions of Achaemenid satraps. As shown by the Egyptian and Babylonian examples (sixth to fourth centuries) and that of Akhvamazda in Bactria during the reign of Artaxerxes III, those persons whom we would term “satraps” are not necessarily designated as such in documents pertaining to regular administrative practice.⁶⁹ Moreover, it is much less from the Classical texts than from Achaemenid evidence (textual or numismatic; Elamite, Akkadian, Aramaic, etc.) that we may gather pieces of information on the specifics and the nature of the satraps’ interventions in the daily life in the provinces, as well as on the prerogatives granted to them by the central authorities in times both of peace and war. What is true for the satraps of Egypt,⁷⁰ Babylonia, or Bactria applies also to the satraps of Asia Minor and Syria under the last Achaemenid kings. This is demonstrated by the examples of Pixodarus and Mazaeus/Mazday, selected here because of the variety of available sources and the insights they offer on how the provincial administrations represented and managed the imperial interests.

3.1 Pixodarus at Xanthus: satrapal power and local elites

In contrast to the case of the satrap Mausolus, whose links to the crown can be studied on the basis of a number of (largely epigraphical) sources,⁷¹ the same type of research was rather difficult in the case of Pixodarus until recently.⁷² The youngest son of Hecatomnus and brother of Mausolus, Artemisia, Hidrieus, and Ada (the last being the famous dynast/satrap of Caria), Pixodarus was born c.400; he died in 336/5, shortly after the accession of Darius III. Pixodarus was succeeded, as satrap in Caria, by Orontobates, who was sent not long before to Halicarnassus by the Great King and had married his predecessor’s daughter, Ada the Younger.⁷³ The literary sources also inform us on the obscure episode of negotiations with Philip II (“the Pixodarus affair”).⁷⁴

Apart from a few inscriptions that illustrate his administrative measures in Caria and Lycia (HPE 709), Pixodarus used to be known particularly for his remarkable coin issues, struck in his own name.⁷⁵ He has become even more well known, however, since the French mission at Xanthus uncovered, in 1973, and published the now famous trilingual inscription, a document that continues to arouse divergent, if not conflicting interpretations.⁷⁶ Though technically a trilingual inscription (Lycian, Greek, Aramaic), the stele in fact carries the text of two resolutions: first, the decision taken by the inhabitants of Xanthus, expressed in Lycian and Greek, inscribed on the sides of the monument; second, the intervention of the satrap Pixodarus documented in an Aramaic text on the edge of the stele.

The evidence can be summarized as follows: the Xanthians decided to institute a regular cult for Basileus Kaunios and Arkesimas. Accordingly, appropriate measures were taken concerning the erection of an altar , the selection of a priest  both for the present and for the future, an exemption from taxes  for the priest, and the allocation of land, the revenues of which would finance the cults. Furthermore, the income of the sanctuary would be provided by an annual sum levied from the Xanthians and a tax incumbent on freed slaves. The inscription ends with a traditional curse formula aimed at any future violator of the rules; the text also includes a direct appeal to Pixodarus, who is to punish anyone who violates the “law” (datah):⁷⁷ “May Pixodarus be its guarantor!” ).

The trilingual document poses some formidable problems in terms of satrapal chronology and imperial history, which will be touched on only briefly. The Aramaic text opens with an absolute dating formula: “In the month of Sivan in year 1 of King Artaxerxes, in the citadel of Orna, Pixoda[ro] son of Katomno, the satrap of Caria and Lycia, said. . . ”. In the eyes of the editors, this could refer only to Artaxerxes III, that is, in the year 358. In an attempt to solve certain difficulties, Badian (1977) has, however, proposed to date the text to the first regnal year of Artaxerxes IV, that is, according to the author, Arses, in 337. Despite the critique expressed by the editors vis-à-vis this view (FdX 166 n. 1), Badian’s proposal has been accepted by a number of scholars.⁷⁸ If correct, it would imply that the Xanthus Trilingual is the only official text dated to Artaxerxes IV⁷⁹ – the existence of this king has hitherto not unambiguously been confirmed by the Babylonian texts.⁸⁰ According to a third hypothesis (Maddoli 2006), the chronology behind the carving of the different versions of the text is more complex than previously assumed: in summary, Pixodarus would have become satrap of Lycia only in the first regnal year of Artaxerxes III (358)⁸¹ while Mausolus was still satrap of Caria and would only later, from 341 onward, control Caria as well (the situation known from other sources).

Regardless of how the dating issue is to be solved, the exceptional document at any rate informs us on what constituted a “satrap” in the period between Artaxerxes III and Darius III in a micro-region of the empire, on his prerogatives and capacity to intervene in the local affairs of the territories of his assignment. Given the evident intricacies of jurisdictions involved in the decision to introduce a new cult at Xanthus, the Trilingual bears an exceptional contribution to the debate on the relationship between imperial authority and local rule.

All this explains why, throughout the last quarter-century, the document has more or less been adopted by specialists of postexilic Judah. This tradition is actually older than the discovery of the Trilingual, since, in 1896 Eduard Meyer had already used the Letter from Darius to Gadatas(published 1888) as an argument supporting the purported authenticity of the decrees contained in the book of Ezra (Briant 2003b: 110–11). As the number of archaeological discoveries and textual publications increased, the case of Judah gradually became integrated in a dossier containing a documentation as varied as the Cyrus Cylinder (Akkadian), the Aramaic papyri from Egypt, the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Udjahorresnet, the correspondence of Pherendates with the authorities of the temple of Khnm (Demotic and Aramaic), the “Decree of Cambyses,” and the codification of Egyptian laws at the initiative of Darius (Demotic). In one and the same assemblage, one finds, from Asia Minor, the Letter from Darius to Gadatas as well as (since the 1970s) the inscription of Droaphernes at Sardes and the Xanthus Trilingual, but also some other epigraphical documents from Lydia (the so-called “Inscription of Sacrileges”), from Ionia (arbitration by Struses: HPE 495, 646) and from Caria, and even a passage from Herodotus on the tribute reforms by Artaphernes (HPE 494–7). It is on the basis of this dossier that, in recent years, the status of Judah has been reexamined, often in the light of the Xanthus Trilingual. In an attempt to clarify the texts by means of other texts in the same corpus, they have been included in more general interpretations at the level of the empire, resulting in sharply contrasting views: either that of an extremely potent and interventionist empire of the kind defined by Eisenstadt,⁸² or an empire that grants local communities far-reaching autonomy and that even lends its “imperial ratification” (Reichsautorisation) to decisions taken locally (see Frei 1996, 1996²). As a result of this debate on the status of Judah, the Xanthus Trilingual has acquired the rank of an essential comparative reference.⁸³ It shares this position with some other epigraphical documents from Asia Minor, including texts of doubtful authenticity⁸⁴ or of debatable relevance for the discussion at hand.⁸⁵

In itself, approaching a problem at the level of the empire is a perfectly sound method. At the same time, it should be observed that an all-encompassing comparatist view tends to construct or postulate a global model that in turn is applied, without the necessary precautions, to a regional or micro-regional case to the detriment of its specific traits. The consequence is, all too often, that the epigraphical material from Asia Minor is used within a “dossier” that is so heterogeneous that one risks pushing the independent voice of individual inscriptions into deadlocked generalizations.⁸⁶

A more fruitful approach would be to revisit the historical and institutional context of the Xanthus Trilingual, a context that can explain its genesis and that shows its particularities. To start with: what relations existed between the satrap and the city of Xanthus? Two possible answers, which are not mutually exclusive, suggest themselves. First, it may be reiterated that there should be no doubt that Lycia and Xanthus were subjected: Pixodarus appointed two archontes in the land, and an  at Xanthus. In addition, it was the satrap’s prerogative to impose certain taxes (customs) or to proclaim a fiscal exemption (TL 45).⁸⁷ Furthermore, though referred to as  in the Greek version (l. 12), Xanthus appears, under its Lycian name Orna, as a birtha in the Aramaic version of the Trilingual; birtha, “citadel,” appears as a generic term in several Aramaic corpora of the imperial administration (Elephantine, Samaria, Sardes, Kiršu-Meydancikkale, and even Persepolis: Briant 1993a: 21; HPE 433).

At the same time, Xanthus is not defined by its status as subject city alone. The decision to found a new sanctuary, to organize the performance and material conditions of the cult, was actually taken by “the Xanthians and the perioeci” ; it is this community that “selects a priest”  and that makes an oath to effect all that it has pledged in the stele. Also, it is the  that allocates  lands and fields  for the support of the new cult. It can therefore not be denied that, whatever the precise institutional contexts, the text refers to a community that exerts some kind of autonomy. As to the closing formula, “May Pixodarus be its guarantor!” , it certainly does not imply that the whole process, from the beginning to the end, is placed under the satrap’s supervision. Already under the threat of divine wrath, the offenders will also have to account for their acts before the satrap, if the Xanthians decide to refer a complaint to his authority. From that moment onward, it is the satrap’s responsibility to preserve or restore the sanctuary’s interests, including the economic conditions that insure its sustenance.⁸⁸

In the eyes of several commentators, however, the formula , well attested in Greek cities, could not have had the same meaning in a Lycian context, since Xanthus was not a democratic Greek city.⁸⁹ The objections seem hardly decisive (BHAch II. 179–82). In fact, both the concept and the reality of a “deliberating community,” whatever the basis of the selection of the “citizens,” are not exclusively Greek,⁹⁰ and in this case it is clearly “the Xanthians and the perioeci.” In addition, the recently published Carian–Greek document from Caunus demonstrates that the Caunians were perfectly able to develop a political vocabulary and political concepts without slavishly adopting a Greek model (Marek 2006: 122–3).

The Xanthus Trilingual also informs us about the coexistence of Lycians and Greeks in the Lycia in the second half of the fourth century and the preservation of the local language. It is certainly remarkable that it was on the basis of the Lycian text that the Greek version could be restored, and not the other way around. Despite the advance of Greek as the preferred language for official inscriptions in Lycia, Lycian remained very much present throughout the period of Achaemenid domination. Recently enriched by the Caunus Bilingual, evidence of the intercultural and interlingual contacts in southern Asia Minor at the end of the Achaemenid period keeps expanding and grows more promising – all this despite the uncertain datings which complicate interpretation (Briant 2006a: 322–7).

3.2 “Mazday who is over Trans-Euphrates and Cilicia”

Attention may be drawn to another satrap of Darius III, a man known from the Classical sources as Mazaeus, a grecism of the Persian Mazday, as found on coins. There is no doubt that this individual enjoyed a very high prestige in the king’s entourage.⁹¹ Nothing can be said about his family background, but we do know that he had already been charged with certain responsibilities under Artaxerxes III. In his long and rather imprecise description of the revolts of the lands between Syria and Egypt,⁹² Diodorus notes that Artaxerxes himself took supreme command and that, on the march from Babylonia to Phoenicia, he was joined, “by Belesys, satrap of Syria, and by Mazaeus, governor of Cilicia , who had opened the campaign directed against the Phoenicians” (16.42.1). As so often with a testimony from Diodorus, we find ourselves confronted with several difficulties: one relating to its terminology, the other to its chronology.

What, then, was the division of authority between Belesys (I) and Mazday? Was it just that of different provinces: Trans-Euphrates (Belesys) and Cilicia (Mazday)? Or was it a difference in rank  within the same administrative division? Nothing is known of Belesys, but it is tempting to connect him with a homonymous individual who, around 400, governed Syria  and who, on the basis of that position, could dispose of a residence  and a paradise  at the sources of the Dardas (near Aleppo).⁹³ The latter Belesys (IIa) is certainly the same person who, in the Babylonian sources, has a Babylonian name (Belšunu; IIb) and patronymic (Bl-usuršu), who, from 407 to 401, held the title of “governor () of Ebir-Nri” and who, under Darius II (between 421 and 414), held the title of “governor () of Babylon” (Stolper 1987). Another (?) Belšunu has the title of satrap (ašadrapanu) in a text dated to 429? (IIc). This text, among others, attests that Babylonian terminology for satrap/ governor is as variable as that found in Greek texts, but the document does not allow the conclusion that the “satrap” Belesys (IIc) is identical to the Belesys (IIb) who is qualified as “governor of Syria”  by Xenophon (Stolper 1989a: 291; HPE 601–2, 981). Apart from the hypothesis of his Babylonian origins, the anthroponyms and the terminology used tell us nothing about the identity and functions of the Belesys (I) of Diodorus. One cannot therefore reliably interpret his Greek titulature  in the light of one of the titles of the Babylonian Belšunu ( of Ebir-Nri; IIa). Nor is it possible to advance a hypothesis on the functions assigned to Mazday in Cilicia: whether it is that of a plenipotentiary governor, or that of a subordinate of Belesys.⁹⁴

It is only on the basis of numismatic evidence that we can proceed from here, but only with due caution since the interpretive uncertainties are impressive and persistent. Series of coins struck at Tarsus, already known for a long time, often display on the obverse a seated figure on a throne at right and an Aramaic inscription at left: “Baal of Tarsus.” The reverse has the well-known theme of lion and prey (very familiar in Achaemenid art). Certain series also have an Aramaic inscription above the lion that may be translated as “Mazday who is over (governing) Trans-Euphrates and Cilicia.”⁹⁵ Comparison with the situation deduced from Diodorus’ testimony suggests that, at some point, Mazday united Cilicia and Trans-Euphrates under a single governorship,⁹⁶ and that Belesys disappeared from the scene (or our sources).

Unfortunately, the chronology of the mintings is highly uncertain as a result of divergent dates (355 or 346) assigned to the revolt and the surrender of Sidon to Artaxerxes III and his generals. The latter event is fixed to year 4 or 14 of Artaxerxes on the basis of a Babylonian chronicle, which cites the arrival of Sidonian prisoners in the royal palace at Babylon at that time.⁹⁷ Finally, the entire argument is connected to mintings by Mazday at Sidon; the coins from these mintings bear his name in Aramaic (MZD) on the reverse, sometimes accompanied by an official scene representing the king or the city god in a chariot.⁹⁸ There are some disagreements, however, on the counting system used by the satrap on the coins: if we are dealing with year numbers from the reign of Artaxerxes III (years 1–21: 353–333?), his mintings could indicate that Mazday became satrap of Cilicia and Trans- Euphrates in 356, and kept his post until 333.⁹⁹

In any case, there is scarcely any doubt that Mazday was, as a governor, assisted by a host of local subordinates such as, possibly, his son Brochubelus in Syria proper.¹⁰⁰ There were, additionally, a governor of Damascus,¹⁰¹ local dynasts at Sidon (Elayi 2005), Jerusalem, or Samaria (Dušek 2007), and no doubt also a governor of Idumea.

3.3 From Lycia to Cilicia: the imperial hold

On a general level, the examples from Lycia and Cilicia are remarkably instructive concerning the empire that Darius III inherited. In Cilicia, leaving aside the chronological debate, the literary (Diodorus) and especially the numismatic evidence demonstrates two essential facts. One is that a new, vast administrative division was created, encompassing Cilicia and Trans-Euphrates. This measure was not without logic since Cilicia had long been oriented toward Syria and Mesopotamia, and its culture included a number of common and similar characteristics. In addition, Mazday was not the first imperial grandee to have struck coins in Cilicia: his predecessors, Persian military commanders, minted coins in the context of short-term military operations in the region. But Mazday was the first to coin silver as a standing territorial responsibility in his capacity as “governor of Cilicia and Trans- Euphrates.” He was also the first to include his name and titulature on the coinage. Simultaneously, yet without abolishing the royal coinages, Mazday introduced his name on a series of mintings at Sidon – another means of asserting, even more distinctly, Achaemenid sovereignty over the region.

As for Lycia, the Xanthus Trilingual fits in the history of Carian–Lycian relations since at least the reign of Mausolus, and illustrates the constant tendency of the lords of Halicarnassus to extend their sway to Lycia. It is possible that the introduction of divinities whose origins lie in Caria (more precisely in the border region with Lycia) corresponded, at least partially, with the wishes of the Hecatomnid satrap. Yet, in these circumstances, the introduction of Hecatomnid power in the region was not brought about against the empire’s interests. Quite the contrary: it was rather to strengthen control over Lycia that, under Artaxerxes III, the region was first defined as an autonomous satrapy and confined to Pixodarus, and subsequently included in a larger Carian-Lycian satrapy from 341 onward. When one takes into consideration that Pixodarus’ harmonious relations with the central court brought Orontobates to Halicarnassus and that the latter succeeded him upon his death (336/5), one discerns in the developments described a reinforcement of Achaemenid imperial hold on the southwestern regions of Asia Minor between Artaxerxes III and Darius III (see HPE666–73, 707).

The case of Cilicia is thus joined by that of Lycia, in the sense that one witnesses the disappearance of local dynasts: in the course of Artaxerxes III’s reign, Lycia and Caria were, as it were, “satrapized” to a greater extent than before. Changes in the territories assigned to satraps were a frequent and constant feature in these regions: hence, it is quite possible that the death of Pixodarus led Darius III to take measures to effect a territorial and tributary organization in Lycia and the adjacent regions.¹⁰² Altogether, if we add the cases of Bactria and Idumea (§2.1–2), the Lycian and Cilician examples (§3.1–2) confirm the reality of Achaemenid imperial domination, both in its unity (e.g., the use of Aramaic) and in its regional diversity.

4 At the Empire’s Center: Indications of Dynastical and Imperial Continuity

Greek texts abound in details on the dynastic conflicts that took place between Artaxerxes III and Darius III, on the “decadent luxury” of Darius III’s court.¹⁰³ The documentation on the center of the empire as such is less informative, even though there are some particularly important insights into the daily administrative organization of life at court.¹⁰⁴

According to Plutarch (Alex. 69.1–2), Artaxerxes III never went to Pasargadae in order to avoid the royal custom that demanded that at such occasions the king gave Persian women a piece of gold. Evidently, the anecdote has been reworked by Plutarch (Stadter 1965: 53–6), who wanted to contrast Alexander and Artaxerxes and to portray the former as the one who revitalized the tradition of the “giving king.” At the same time, Arses and Darius III may not have left any material or epigraphical trace at Persepolis or any other residence,¹⁰⁵ but their immediate predecessors certainly did. The royal tombs (V and VI) overlooking the platform and seen by Diodorus’ source (17.71.7) are attributed to Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III. Though we do not know the reasons prompting their choice of Persepolis rather than Naqš-i Rustam, the site of the four earlier royal tombs, it is at any rate clear that the later tombs followed a model that had been used without interruption since the first rock tomb, that of Darius I (Schmidt 1970: 99–107). With the exception of a few details, the motif of subject peoples represented as throne bearers and identified by means of captions (A³Pb) is repeated exactly. The same loyalty to dynastic traditions can be observed in an inscription by Artaxerxes III (A³Pa), found in different fragmentary copies on that part of the Persepolis platform where early constructions (Artaxerxes I) had become dilapidated (Palace G).¹⁰⁶ As he himself records, Artaxerxes III ordered the construction of a staircase and the execution of reliefs, the sequencing of which evinces a development from earlier models of representing delegations of subject peoples.¹⁰⁷ The inscription A³Pb (on his tomb) reproduces (ll. 1–8) part of the inscription that may be described as the “Prince’s Own Mirror” and was carved on the tomb of Darius I (DNa), and it proceeds according to the well-known model of the royal genealogy (ll. 8–21). The captions that identify the thirty throne bearers on Artaxerxes III’s tomb duplicate almost exactly the captions of inscription DNe, at Naqš-i Rustam. It may also be noted that, as Artaxerxes II had done before him, Artaxerxes III explicitly included Mithra among the gods whose protection he implores for himself and his constructions. Despite the persistent uncertainties involved, it is clear that the royal inscriptions attest that ideological-religious traditions continued, but underwent evolution and adaptation throughout the Achaemenid period (HPE 676–9, 998–1001). Several testimonies by the Alexander biographers show that Darius III still invoked the protection of Mithra in his prayers (HPE 243, 253).

The persistence of religious and dynastic traditions during the reign of Darius III is also shown by the descriptions given by the classical authors of Alexander’s second visit to Pasargadae after his return from India. One detail in these reports, as given by Arrian, that demonstrates the importance that the tomb and the memory of Cyrus the Great had for Alexander (RTP 386–393) should be singled out:

Within the enclosure and by the ascent to the tomb itself there is a small building  put up for the Magians who used to guard Cyrus’ tomb, from as long ago as Cambyses, son of Cyrus , an office transmitted from father to son . The king used to give them a sheep a day, a fixed amount of meal and wine, and a horse each month to sacrifice to Cyrus . (6.29.7; trans. P. A. Brunt)

This passage not only shows unequivocally the continuity of the dynastic and religious tradition in Fars under Darius III (and even five years after the death of the last Great King), but it also, and especially, informs the debate on the economic bases of the monarchy at this period. In fact, the testimony of Arrian evokes in a compelling way the functioning of a “royal economy” as we know it from the reigns of Darius I, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes I thanks to the Persepolis archives (HPE 42271). Part of this documentation deals with the allocation of various commodities (flour, cereals, livestock) to officiants administering different cults. These allocations are made, on the orders of the king and the highest representatives of the crown, from the institution’s stores and/or from the House of the King (Henkelman 2003, 2006). Such is certainly the case here, in the context described by Arrian.¹⁰⁸

The testimony just cited and the commentary to be added to it on the basis of the Persepolis material open up a different approach for historians of the reign of Darius III. In the absence of any Achaemenid documentation in the proper sense, the Greco-Roman texts on Alexander and the Diadochi, when analyzed against the background outlined above, indicate the persistence of an institutional economy, with its organized means of production and intricate administration, in Fars throughout the Achaemenid period. Echoes of Achaemenid administrative practice are, for example, clearly discernible in an anecdote (set in 322) related by Plutarch in his Life of Eumenes (8.5).¹⁰⁹ Another example, pertaining to a few years earlier (325/4) and this time situated in Babylonia, is that of the financial stratagems recorded in the Oeconomica of Ps.-Aristotle (2.2.38), which introduce a certain Antimenes. This individual was undoubtedly Alexander’s director of finances¹¹⁰ and it is in this capacity that he issues orders to satraps.¹¹¹ He reminds them that their task is to retain a constant level of reserves  in the supply stations situated along the royal roads  – the places where traveling groups on official business could receive rations, doubtless upon presentation of an authorized travel voucher. The striking similarity with the well-known organization of the road system at the time of the Great Kings unmistakably shows that the orders given by Antimenes were not an innovation; rather, they reflect an Achaemenid heritage .¹¹² The same is true for another measure taken: Antimenes imposed the tithe on all caravans entering Babylon, including “those who bring numerous presents  <to the king>.” In doing so, he reintroduced a regulation that had existed for a long time in Babylon , but that had fallen into disuse (2.2.34). A third measure (2.2.34), another of Antimenes’ expedients to replenish Alexander’s funds, was to demand that slave owners in the armies register the value of their slaves  and pay a specific tax. It is tempting to relate this information to what we know about the taxes levied on slave sales in Babylonia since the reign of Darius I: here too, the royal registries (karammaru ša šarri) were in charge of controlling the slave rolls and levying the tax.¹¹³

Such connections allow the deduction that the material, productive, and administrative basis of taxation and redistributions had continued in more or less the same form into the reigns of the last Great Kings. Only the sustaining (even if only partially) of these traditions, administrative modes, and practices makes it possible to understand how, at the end of the Achaemenid period, the richness and the prosperity of the Persian lands struck eyewitnesses in the way they did: the agricultural wealth was not simply the result of advantageous climatic conditions, but rather that of organized development.¹¹⁴ This is also the only context that allows us to appreciate how the kings of the fourth century could continue with their building programs, as well as with the reconstruction and maintenance of Persepolis and other royal residences (HPE 734–5), or how Alexander could gather enormous herds of pack animals for the transport of the royal treasure.¹¹⁵ As the measures taken by Antimenes reveal, it was evidently in the best interest of the conqueror to retain in force all the traditions and regulations, since he was the de facto heir of the Persian House of the King (ulhi sunkina) in the economic sense that the expression already had in Achaemenid context (HPE 463–71, 445–6, 945–7).¹¹⁶

Against the above background, one can better understand the episode of the herdsman who, in the winter of 331/30, guided Alexander round the Persian Gates. Plausibly, the son of a mixed marriage and deported to Persia after a Lycian defeat against the Persians, the herdsman is but one of many individuals who constituted the labor force in the service of the institutional economy, those whom the Perse-polis tablets call, in generic terminology, the kurtaš. These kurtaš were recruited from all the empire’s populations (one of the most frequently mentioned ethnonyms is that of theTurmilap ). A number of them were active in the administration’s craft centers where production was organized and closely supervised (HPE 433). If we disregard the romantic overtones of the contexts in which they appear, the status of the Greeks “liberated” by Alexander from theergastula of Persepolis, seems perfectly comparable.¹¹⁷ Other kurtaš worked on the fields and on pastures. The tablets also provide documentation on flocks of livestock and their herdsmen (batera) whose status undoubtedly was the same as that of the Lycian who guided Alexander at the end of the year 331 through the Persian mountains.¹¹⁸

One simply cannot avoid acknowledging that what has been called the “sudden interruption” of the Persepolis archives is an illusory phenomenon, a distorting perspective due to the intrinsically uncertain history of the modes of archiving.¹¹⁹It is, at any rate, certainly not the expression of an abrupt annihilation of the “royal economy” evidenced by the texts. Other bureaucratic methods (involving more perishable documents? HPE 423) and/or chance preservation suffice to explain “archival silence” after 458.

Once reunited in a single dossier, the texts cited above, as well as others, allow the conclusion that, under Darius III, there was, on the regional level of the Persis as well as on the general level of the empire, still an economic and administrative organization with a logical coherence that was comparable overall with the elaborately documented structures in place during the reign of Darius I.¹²⁰ It is thanks to the ample documentation of those “bureaucratic” systems (RTP 209) inherited by later kings that we are able to pinpoint their echoes in the Greco-Roman sources on the reigns of Darius III and Alexander. Altogether the daily and/or monthly allocations to the magi at Pasargadae are only the tip of an iceberg of Achaemenid documentation that will, perhaps, one day be revealed more completely.

5 From Darius to Alexander: Empire(s) in Transition

As observed by one of the editors of the Idumean ostraca, “the arrival of Alexander did not result in a sudden disruption of economic life in this region. Aramaic continued to be used and one only replaced the name of the Persian king with that of Alexander.”¹²¹The Aramaic documents from Bactria invite a similar reflection: a list of rations (C4) documents, for a period of three months (June–August), the allocation of cereals (barley, millet, wheat) to various groups. The text itself is dated to “the 15th of Sivan, year 7 of Alexander,” that is, July 324; it constitutes one of the proofs that, from one domination to another, the administrative processes and their textual and linguistic expression remained the same, at least in the short term.¹²² In this sense, these documents on economic practice nourish the discussion on the continuities and adaptations that mark the transition from the administration of the Great Kings to that of Alexander.

Let us, in conclusion, return to Mazday. At the time that this individual continued to fight at Darius’ side (November 333 to November 331), Alexander had his first imperial coinage struck at Tarsus: a coinage that displays undisrupted continuity from the coinages struck by Darius’ satrap, if not the rehiring of artists from the satrapal workshops.¹²³ Thanks to a now celebrated astronomical tablet (ADRTB-330), we know that about a month after Gaugamela, and after negotiations with the Babylonians, Alexander appeared before the walls of the imposing Mesopotamian metropolis (November 331). Arrian and Curtius, each in his own style, describe the welcome organized for the conqueror outside the city walls, with representatives of the local elites as well as the Persian leaders: Bagophanes, the custos of the royal fortune, and Mazaeus/Mazday. Having fled to the city after the battle, Mazday met Alexander “as a suppliant, with his mature children, and surrendered the city and himself.”¹²⁴ Next, Mazday was given the post of satrap in Babylonia, the first appointment of this kind, which was, at the same time, a sign of the continuity of an Iranian policy conceived by Alexander from the moment he embarked on his expedition.¹²⁵

Figure 8.1 Coin of Mazaeus/Mazday, struck at Tarsus, c.350–333 BC. Photo: Dominique Gerin.

The poorly documented satrapal administration of Mazday (331–328) does not concern us directly in this context, except for one point: numismatic evidence shows not only that, among Alexander’s satraps, Mazday was the only one to have minted his own coinage in the province under his control, but also that the types used copied those from the earlier coin series he had struck at Tarsus at the time of the Great Kings. The Babylonian tetradrachms of Mazday bear, on the reverse, his name in Aramaic (MZDY), inscribed over a lion; on the obverse, one finds again a Tarsian motif, that of a figure seated on a throne and the name of the god (Baaltars) inscribed in Aramaic (BLTRZ). Only the standing censer (thymiaterion) of the Cilician coinages has disappeared.¹²⁶ In other words: these Babylonian mintings provide most eloquent comments on the question of the transition of the empire(s) from Darius to Alexander, and they bear witness to the intermediary role played by a man like Mazday.

¹ My warmest thanks to Wouter Henkelman (Collège de France) who translated my text into English.

² See below, ch. 9.

³ Cf. Briant 2005c: 26 [=1974: 27], 36, 39–4; also Briant 2003a: 567–8. The necessity of presenting the Achaemenid empire in courses on the history of Alexander is sometimes explicitly acknowledged (e.g., Flower 2007: 420), but has not really been taken into account in more recent syntheses.

⁴ See, e.g., Seibert 1988; Badian 2000; Garvin 2003 and compare the earlier publication by Murison 1972 (followed by Briant 1974: 50 n. 2). See also Nylander 1993 (with my remarks in Briant 2003a: 242–4, 530–1, 577).

⁵ See Briant 2003a: 85–130, 567–9.

⁶ “This man of demonstrated courage . . . found himself facing one of the greatest military leaders. What might have sufficed against an Agesilaus proved totally inadequate against Alexander.”

⁷ Briant 2003a: passim.

⁸ Briant 2003a: 126–30; Briant 2005c: 49–62.

⁹ Mayrhofer 1976; the same scholar participated in the premier edition: FdX 181–5.

¹⁰ I sensed this approach already in CAR² vi (1994), which includes several chapters that are excellent syntheses, but lacks chapters on the regions beyond Mesopotamia. The very recent case of the Cambridge Economic History of the Graeco-Roman World(2007) is distinctly worse. The chapter “The Persian Near East” (Bedford 2007) is included in a volume the title of which clearly announces its Aegeocentric orientation. Despite the deceptive map (304–5), an incomprehensible editorial bias has in fact reduced “the Persian Empire” to Mesopotamia and Syria-Palestine, i.e., to the Near East, in an extraordinarily restrictive sense that excludes Asia Minor and Egypt, as well as the regions east of the Tigris. Furthermore, recently published documentation (such as the Idumean ostraca; cf. 312–13, 315–16) are neither mentioned nor used. As to the Persepolis tablets, these are barely referred to in the course of a bibliographical note (315, with n. 47). Against the background of the longue durée of Achaemenid historiography, such a chapter and the conception that informed it represent a perplexing step backward.

¹¹ Extensive discussions of the subject are already to be found in RPE 691–871, 1007–50; updates are given in BRAch I. 57–63 and II. 92–100.

¹² Military operations as such need not be discussed again within this perspective, except where they can clarify the structural analysis (see RPE 817–71, 1042–50).

¹³ See Briant 1976 and 1982: 57–112(RPE 726–33, 1022: Zagros); RPE 1019–20 and Briant 2006c, 2008 . Compare also, on the Uxians and Cossaeans and their connections with the royal administration, the interesting proposals by Henkelman 2005: 159–64.

¹⁴ See Briant, RTP 141–5, 491–506, the resolved methodological reminder in HPE 693–5 and chs. 16–17, devoted to a detailed analysis of the empire. See also Briant 1999: 1131–8 and 2003a: 16–18; cf. below §4. I cannot see why Garvin (2003: 89 n. 11) would assume that I dismissed “the Greek sources on account of their biases,” or why Brosius (Gnomon 2006), in a very positivist review of Briant 2003a, assumes that I have denied any reality to the Greek and Latin literary texts about Alexander. The method that I have consistently promoted and defended is rather more complex and elaborate (see, e.g., Briant 2006c and 2008 on the  of the Tigris): it is not about simplistically reasoning by exclusives (yes/no), but about understanding that the literary Classical tradition is at the same time useful and deforming.

¹⁵ The thesis that holds the contrary finds its origins in Macedonian circles (HPE 842–3 and esp. Briant 2003a: 177–81); via the biased lens of the Alexander Romance the idea was redeveloped in medieval Arab-Persian literature in order to make an “evil king” out of Dar (2003a: 461–3, 475–86).

¹⁶ See HPE, passim, esp. 389–90, 451–6, and index, 1125–6; see also below §4 and the numerous studies on the subject by Descat, the latest being 2006: 365–71. The recent commentary by Zoepffel 2006 is, unfortunately, badly informed on current debates in Achaemenid and Hellenistic history.

¹⁷ It is to these three reigns that the documents from Persepolis are dated (HPE 422–3, 938–9). On the unequal spread of the sources see also HPE 8–10, 518, 569–70, 612–15.

¹⁸ On Susa, see the surveys by Boucharlat 2006: 443–50 and forthcoming.

¹⁹ HPE 613–14, 675–81, 986–7, 998–1003; see also Boiy 2006: 45–7.

²⁰ See RPE, chs. 14–15, with the corresponding notes (972–1006); see also Briant 1984: 76–80 (Bactria).

²¹ With regard to the revolt of Datames, the Babylonian explanation suggested by Van der Spek 1998: 253–5 seems very speculative to me (see BRAch II. 93–5). The postulated connection between Datames and the Tarkumuwa known from Cilician mintings has met with skepticism from several scholars, myself included (BRAch I. 59–61; II. 94–5).

²² See the doubts expressed by Le Rider 2001: 223–6. On the traditional glorification of the figure of Artaxerxes III, in contrast to the negative image of Darius (so Mildenberg 1998: 283), see Briant 2003a: 108–12.

²³ On the Satrap Stele, see the bibliography and discussion in RPE 1017–18; BRAch I. 58; and Briant 2003a: 65–70, 563; most recently: Schäfer, forthcoming.

²⁴ See Nicolet-Pierre 1979(RPE 1017) and, most recently, Van Alfen 2002; images in Briant 2003a: 76–7.

²⁵ The influx of new material (see Briant 2003c: 39–46) does not pertain to the period under discussion. On the documents relating to the second Persian domination (between 343 and 332), see Devauchelle 1995; on the documents from the transition period see Chauveau and Thiers 2006.

²⁶ See RPE 693–768, 1007–32, particularly the comments on 1029–32, as well as the updates in BRAch I and II, and the synthesis in Briant 2003b.

²⁷ Two texts from Bactria are palaeographically dated to the fifth century (Shaked 2004: 13, 22; 2006; ADAB 16 [B10]); two ostraca of Maresha are dated to the same century (Kloner and Stern 2007: 142).

²⁸ The date depends on the dating of text C1. The dating formula reads, “In the month of Kislev, in year 1 of king Artaxerxes.” As the editors read the name of “Bessus,” receiving “supplies as he went from Bactra to Varnu,” they conclude that the texts is from the first regnal year of Bessus-Artaxerxes V or November–December 330 (Shaked 2003; 2004: 16–17; ADAB 180). The interpretation seems disputable, however (on this point I share the skepticism expressed by Lane Fox 2007: 297), since, apart from the difficulties in the reading “Bessus,” I fail to see how, in one and the same document, the same individual could be referred to as “king” and as private person receiving travel rations. If the text indeed dates to the first year of a certain ruler, it may pertain to year 1 of Arses-Artaxerxes IV (336/5) or, more plausibly, to year 1 of Artaxerxes III, i.e., 358 (this hypothesis is considered but rejected by Shaked 2003: 1521 on the basis of arguments that do not seem to be decisive).

²⁹ A recently published ostracon (Ahituv and Yardeni 2004: 9, 19–20) dates to Ptolemy (“Talmaios the king”), but see cautioning remarks on the identity of this Ptolemy by Lemaire 2006c: 417 n. 96: “Cet ostracon fragmentaire devra être revu et interprété . . . pour savoir s’il faut le rattacher au groupe principal ou aux ostraca du III^e siècle.”

³⁰ On the few Babylonian documents dating to Darius III, see Joannes 2001: 250, 255 and Boiy 2006: 45–7; see also Dušek 2007: 118–19 (Samaria; accession year of Darius, corresponding to the second regnal year of his predecessor, i.e., March 335).

³¹ See the preliminary but precise presentations in Shaked 2003, 2004, who kindly entrusted me with an advance copy of the premier edition (ADAB, forthcoming): I express my warmest thanks to him and his co-author.

³² Text dated to the middle of the fifth century by palaeographical criteria (ADAB 16). On administrative structures and practices see ADAB 22–6, 27–9.

³³ As stressed by Shaked (2003: 1528–30), it is certainly remarkable that the administration’s authority stretched into Sogdiana, across the Oxus: the two regions seem to form a single unit, as was the case during Darius III (cf. Berve ii. 267–8; I am not sure whether I understand correctly the construction suggested by Jacobs 1994: 213–14 in this regard). On the strategic responsibilities of the satrap of Bactria, see also Briant 1984: 71–6.

³⁴ This is at any rate what is suggested by text A4 (letter from Akhvamazda to Bagavant at Khulmi): upon the request to that effect received from “Spaita, the magistrates and others (of) the garrison” of Nikhshapaya, Akhvamazda gives his authorization to interrupt their construction work temporarily so that the “troops” may return to gather the harvest under threat of a locust plague; after having completed harvesting, “they will build that wall and ditch.”

³⁵ See the list of animal and plant species in ADAB 33–5.

³⁶ See ADAB, C4:10; 28, 55.

³⁷ See discussion in HPE, 463–71 and 945–7; Henkelman, forthcoming.

³⁸ On the different meanings of mandattu, see HPE 385 (a tax levied on commercial cargo entering the Nile); 405, 462 (taxes levied on Egyptian domains); 441 (in a Treasury text from Persepolis); 942.

³⁹ Briant 1984: 59; HPE 753, 764; most recently BHAch II. 73, and Stolper-Tavernier, www.achemenet.com/document/2007.001-Stolper-Tavernier. pdf). Note that recent archaeological research has identified new important sites dating to the Achaemenid period (communication by Roland Besenval).

⁴⁰ On the debate with archaeologists see Briant, RTP 314–18, and esp. Briant 1984; cf. HPE 752–4, 1027–8; Gardin 1997; Lyonnet 1997: 118–19; Francfort and Lecomte 2002: 659–66 – the last three adopting a more flexible approach, with recognition of the limits of the archaeological documentation. See also BHAch II. 162–4 and Briant 2002a (where the future publication of the Aramaic documents from Bactria and their integration in the ongoing debate is announced: 522 n. 20).

⁴¹ See Briant 1984, esp. ch. 2, where, objecting to the argumentum a silentio, I introduced the idea and the conviction that “les autorités achéménides de Bactriane maniaient les archives avec autant de constance et de persévérance que leurs collègues des régions babyloniennes et égéennes” (59; on satrapal archives see RTP 209); see also HPE 754: “It is safe to say that the discussion is not over.”

⁴² References in Briant 1984: 59–60 (see n. 7 on the Aramaic documents found at Ai-Khanum); see also my introduction to Shaked 2004: 5–8. Benveniste’s study is, surprisingly, not mentioned by Graf 2000.

⁴³ The expression found in D.S. 19.98.1, “in the middle” , does not have a strictly geographical meaning: cf. Bartlett 1999: 106; on the excavation see the survey in Stern 2001: 443–54 as well as Grabbe in Lipschits et al. 2007: 125–44.

⁴⁴ The new documentation is briefly introduced in BHAch I. 31; II. 56–7, and announced in HPE 1017. Three volumes, comprising 201, 199, and 384 texts, have been published: one by Eph’al and Naveh (1996), and two by Lemaire (1996, 2002). The publications of Lemaire 1996 and Eph’al and Naveh 1996 have been discussed also by, e.g., Amadasi-Guzzo 1998: 532–8. Since these publications, a number of isolated documents have been published in various articles partial list: see esp. Lozachmeur and Lemaire 1996; Lemaire 1999b, 2006a; Ahituv and Yardeni 2004; Porten and Yardeni 2003, 2004, 2006 (these last three articles contain the most sophisticated interpretation of the archives). A great number of documents, dispersed over various private and public collections, are yet to be edited (a history of the successive discoveries is found in Porten and Yardeni 2003: 207–9; 2006: 457–9); an encompassing publication with continuously numbered texts, under the direction of Porten, is in preparation (see Porten and Yardeni 2003). Among (necessarily provisional) syntheses see, e.g., Eph’al 1998; Lemaire 1999a; 2006a; 2006b: 416–19; and Kloner and Stern 2007.

⁴⁵ According to the latest estimate by Porten and Yardeni 2006: 458, 1,900 items, of which about 1,700 are legible.

⁴⁶ On Trans-Euphrates in this period see HPE 716–17, 1016–7, as well as the regular surveys published in Transeuphratène (Elayi and Sapin 2000; Transeuphratène 32 [2006], 191–4) and, most recently, Lemaire 2006c.

⁴⁷ There are some differences in opinion with regards to this Alexander: contrary to Eph’al and Naveh 1996, Lemaire argues that he cannot be Alexander IV, but must be Alexander the Great. To support this, he has devised the hypothesis that there was a different year count in Palestine in this period (1996: 41–5; 2002: 199–201; repeated in 2006b: 418 n. 98). Anson 2005a chooses Lemaire’s chronology without hesitation, whereas Porten and Yardeni 2006: 484–6 seem to remain undecided. That the documents refer to Alexander IV is forcefully asserted by Boiy 2006: 58–61; see also his reflections in Boiy 2005 (on the Lydian inscriptions).

⁴⁸ On the chronology of the ostraca dated to Antigonus, see now Boiy 2006: 73–4.

⁴⁹ See the chronological charts in Porten and Yardeni 2006: 462–3, 468–70; see also Porten and Yardeni 2003 and 2004.

⁵⁰ See the remarks of Eph’al and Naveh 1996:16–17 and Lemaire 1996: 11–13.

⁵¹ See Lemaire 2002: no. 1 (pp. 11, 199): a document dated to Tammuz 27, year 43, i.e., July 20, 362.

⁵² It may be mentioned, however, that Lemaire 2002: 227–8 proposes to read the term GZBR’ (*ganzabara, “treasurer”) on an ostracon found at Tel ‘Ira.

⁵³ From this perspective, the documentation under discussion presents a number of functional resemblances with the Aramaic texts from Persepolis (see the remark by Eph’al and Naveh 1996: 14–15).

⁵⁴ On the history of Maresha in the Achaemenid period on the basis of the ostraca, see the remarks by Eshel 2007. On Zeno’s voyages in the region see Durand 1997.

⁵⁵ Eph’al and Naveh 1996: 10–13; Lemaire 1996: 142–6; 2002: 203–8, 223–9.

⁵⁶ See the interpretations suggested by Lemaire 2002: 223–9.

⁵⁷ Eph’al and Naveh 1996: 13; Lemaire 2002: 206.

⁵⁸ On this point see esp. the exposition by Porten and Yardeni 2006: 473–82; see also Lemaire 2006b: 443, who raises the question of forced labor.

⁵⁹ Kloner and Stern 2007: 142–3; a small number of Iranian anthroponyms have been noted (see table on p. 143); on Maresha, see Eshel 2007.

⁶⁰ See, e.g., Lemaire 2002: 221–3.

⁶¹ Lemaire 2002: 208 (the term ptp is known from Bactria, Elephantine, Babylonia, and Persepolis).

⁶² So already Eph’al and Naveh 1996: 11. Note that the reconstruction of administrative processes in Idumea, as proposed by Lemaire (1996, 2002), is clearly directly inspired by the model drawn by Naveh for Arad and Beersheba.

⁶³ RPE, ch. 11; these are the “revenues”  and “expenses”  of Ps.-Arist. Oec. 2.1.2(RPE 452–3, 943–4).

⁶⁴ This interpretation by Naveh has met with some opposition (see RPE 928).

⁶⁵ On the strategic aspect of fodder reserves in this region (and certainly in others too, e.g., in Bactria: ADAB, A10, C1, C3), compare the famous travel voucher given by the Egyptian satrap Aršma to his intendant (RPE 362–3) or the measures taken by the Sidonian rebels against the Persians (D.S. 16.41).

⁶⁶ On this point see also RPE 716–17; 1016–17.

⁶⁷ So Lemaire 1996: 151; 2002: 231–2; see also Sapin 2004.

⁶⁸ See Berve i. 253–73, and the name entries in vol. ii; cf. Jacobs 1993. On the functions of satraps see Berve i. 273–83 and, recently, Klinkott 2005; Henkelman, forthcoming, esp. §5. On the satraps and satrapies in Asia Minor, see the recent synthesis by Debord 1999, whose analysis has the merit of integrating numismatic sources in all their diversity and complexity. To my knowledge, Casabonne 2004 is the only recent monograph on Achaemenid Cilicia.

⁶⁹ See Stolper 1987 and 1989b (Babylonian terminology); Briant 2000c: 268 (Aramaic and Demotic terminology).

⁷⁰ On the coins struck by the last two satraps in Egypt under Darius III, see Nicolet-Pierre 1989 and Van Alfen 2002.

⁷¹ See Hornblower 1982: 137–70; HPE 667–70, 995; on his double status (“king of the Carians” and satrap), see HPE 767–8, 1032.

⁷² Overview of the sources in Berve ii, no. 640; see also Ruzicka 1992: 100–55 and Debord 1999: 400–6.

⁷³ Arr. Anab. 1.23.7–8; Str. 14.2.17; on the name Orontobates (written Rhoontopates on the coins), see Schmitt 2006: 257–60; on the later history of this individual see also HPE 1043–4.

⁷⁴ See Plu. Alex. 10.1–5 (e.g., Ruzicka 1992: 120–34).

⁷⁵ See Konuk 1998: 161–83 (gold coinage: 178–83); 2002.

⁷⁶ Since its preliminary presentation in CRAI 1974 and its premier edition in 1979(FdX), the document has provoked a considerable number of studies, listed and discussed in 1996: 707–9 (text on 708), 1011–12, and particularly in my specialized study, Briant 1998 (and, subsequently, in BRAchII. 17982). In this context I refer only to the most recent studies. Text of the Lycian version: Melchert 2000; text of the Aramaic version: Kottsieper 2002.

⁷⁷ On the term (used in the Aramaic version and in many other imperial corpora), see RPE 510–1, 956–7; BRAch I. 96–7; ii. 143, 177; Briant 1999: 1135.

⁷⁸ See, e.g., Briant 1998: 305–6 n. 3.

⁷⁹ An Aramaic document from the Wadi Daliyeh, published by Cross in 1985 and republished by Gropp in 1986(RPE 1033) and Dušek (2007: 118–19), is dated to the accession year of Darius (III) and the second regnal year of his predecessor (March 19, 335); unfortunately neither his personal name (Arses) nor his throne name are mentioned.

⁸⁰ See recently Boiy 2006: 45–7, whose argumentation on the basis of the unique and only decisive tablet reveals that the “fact” is still to be established firmly.

⁸¹ On the date formula that opens the Lycian and the Greek version , see discussion in Briant 1998: 320–5, and the meticulous study by Cau 1999–2000.

⁸² A thesis defended throughout by Fried 2004 (see 4–5), following Eisenstadt 1969 (frequently cited). On the subject see my remarks in BHAch II. 184–5 n. 396 (on the basis of the 2000 typescript, published largely unaltered, as Fried 2004).

⁸³ See esp. Frei 1996: 39–47; in the first edition of this book (1983), the Trilingual already held a strategic importance. See also Fried 2004: ch. 4 (140–54 on the Trilingual); Watts 2001 (see index, 222, and the high number of references to the Trilingual in the papers of the contributors); Bedford 2001: 132–57 (143–5 on the Trilingual); Kratz 2002: 174, 194; Grabbe 2004: 107–9; 213–4; Grabbe in: Lipschits and Oeming 2006: 538–9.

⁸⁴ On the Letter of Darius to Gadatas, see Briant 2003b; Lane Fox 2006 does not respond to any of the arguments and analysis advanced in it (despite his postscript, 169–71); the same is true for Fried 2004: 108–19.

⁸⁵ See, on the Droaphernes inscription, my remarks in BRAch II. 177–9, and, on the “Inscription of Sacrileges,” Briant 2000a: 242 n. 32 and BRAch II. 179.

⁸⁶ See on this problem Kuhrt 1987 and 2001: 171–2, where she stresses the “crucial” character of the Trilingual in Frei’s argumentation and reaches the conclusion that “in sum, then, none of Frei’s examples provides instance of Reischsautorisation in the sense needed to sustain the argument.” On the risks of comparative history, see also Briant 2000a: “L’histoire comparatiste ne peut aboutir à des rsultats fonds que si chacun des exemples . . .a t minutieusement tudi pralablement per se” (242); cf. BRAch II. 157–9.

⁸⁷ See RPE 709, and compare other Achaemenid texts such as the papyrus on the custom duties of Egypt: RPE 384–7, 930.

⁸⁸ I have developed this interpretation in Briant 1998, esp. 330–6; it has, basically, been followed by Maddoli 2006: 607.

⁸⁹ See, independently, Fried 2004: 151–2 and Le Roy 2005; see also Debord 1999: 66–7 (the comparison with the Droaphernes inscription seems unfortunate: BHAch II. 153).

⁹⁰ See Briant 1993a: 19–23, on Sardis and its internal organization, with a comparison with the case of Xanthus (21–2); see also the connections rightly established between the Xanthus Trilingual and the Caro-Greek Bilingual from Caunus (SEG xlvii: no. 1568; Marek 2006: 120–1). In both cases, what I call the “civic version” (a terminology accepted by Frei) is introduced by . See most recently Briant 2006a: 322, and compare Debord 1999: 67, who also speaks of a “décision politique . . . consistant en la création d’un culte poliade.” A firm stand to the same effect is also taken by Domingo Gygax (2001): 102–3, 195–9; see the discussions summarized in SEG li: no. 1824, and SEG lii: no. 1424–5.

⁹¹  (Plu. Alex. 39.9); he was one of the Friends  of the king (D.S. 17.55.1) and a vir illustris who became even more celebrated on account of his behavior at Gaugamela (Curt. 5.1.18).

⁹² On the enormous difficulties in the reconstruction and interpretation of Diodorus narrations see RPE 656–75, 993–8 (Artaxerxes II); 681–8, 1003–5 (Artaxerxes III).

⁹³ Xen. Anab. 1.4.10.

⁹⁴ A host of different hypotheses was already extensively analyzed by Leuze 1935: 193–235, without any real progress.

⁹⁵ Ever since Six 1884, Mazday’s coinage has often been studied; see Mildenberg 1990–1; Debord 1999: 412–16; Le Rider 2001: 211–3, 226–8; Casabonne 2004: 207–23. In these publications detailed analyses are given for each minting. On the Aramaic titulature see Lemaire 2000: 134–8, and my own remarks in Briant 2000c: 268.

⁹⁶ A coin, published in 1998, from Menbig in Syria (the coinage of which is otherwise well known) has the Aramaic inscription “Mazday who is over Ebir-Nri.” The document has engendered quite some conflicting interpretations (BHAch I. 29; Lemaire 2000: 135–7; Casabonne 2004: 210). Much caution remains warranted and this includes reckoning with the possibility of a fake (so Elayi and Sapin 2000: 173–5).

⁹⁷ HPE 683–4, 1004 (year 345); since then, Elayi 2005: 129–32 has reaffirmed his conviction that the date is indeed year 4 of Artaxerxes III, i.e., 355.

⁹⁸ The historical implications are debated: is it a purely Sidonian scene (Elayi and Elayi 2004b; 2005: 6974), or one that marks the Great King’s imprint on the city (HPE 606–8, 983, with caution)?

⁹⁹ Such is the position defended by Elayi and Elayi 2004b and Elayi 2005: 132–5, 139–41; a number of questions remain unanswered, however.

¹⁰⁰ See Curt. 5.13.11: Brochubelus, Mazaei filius, Syriae quondam praetor (HPE 1013).

¹⁰¹ Curt. 3.12.3: praefectus Damasci.

¹⁰² Arr. Anab. 1.24.5, with my comments in RPE 706 and 1011.

¹⁰³ See Briant 2003a: 347–419.

¹⁰⁴ Esp. Polyaen. Strat. 4.3.32, on which see HPE 286–92, 921, as well as the recent seminal study by Amigues 2003.

¹⁰⁵ On Darius III, see Briant 2003a: 40–52.

¹⁰⁶ See esp. Tilia 1972: 243–4; Roaf 1983: 127–31, 140–1.

¹⁰⁷ See Calmeyer 1990a: 12–13; HPE 734. The inscriptions A³Pa and A³Pb have been edited by Schmitt 1990: 114–22 (with specialized bibliography).

¹⁰⁸ As demonstrated in RPE 95–6 and 895; 734–6; my interpretation was subsequently followed and elaborated by Henkelman 2003: 152–4, who also comments (153) on a slightly divergent passage in Str. 15.3.7.

¹⁰⁹ See my comments in RTP 209 and RPE 452.

¹¹⁰ In Oec. 2.2.34, Ps.-Aristotle calls him , an appellative that has long been disputed (e.g., Zoepffel 2006: 629–30). Based on the context of his activities, Le Rider 2003: 304–5 has proposed considering him as the official charged with the finances of Babylonia after Harpalus’ flight. Muller 2005, in turn, based his analysis on recently published inscription from Asia Minor (SEG xlvii: no. 1745) and concludes that Antimenes was Alexander’s director of finances. The tentative comparison suggested (381), with the position of Parnakka in the Fortification texts from Persepolis is a bit bold, but certainly suggestive in terms of possible continuities between Achaemenid financial administration and that of Alexander.

¹¹¹ See Oec. 2.2.38: . Similarly 2.2.34: Antimenes orders the satraps to recover runaway slaves .

¹¹² See HPE 364–5; 406 (on the term ; 364–5 and 453 (on the ambiguous role of Antimenes – but the passage merits a detailed reevaluation); see also Le Rider 2003: 304–10 (analysis of each of the stratagems related in the Oeconomica), and 316–19 (Antimenes and the coinage of Alexander).

¹¹³ The existence of this tax in Babylonian has been demonstrated by Stolper 1989b (see HPE 413, 935). Comparison with this material allows, in my view, a better understanding of the passage in Ps.-Aristotle, including the clause on the flight of slaves. In a very rigid line of argumentation that, necessarily, is not made explicit, Lane Fox 2007: 290 decides that there has been no continuity, erroneously assuming that the tax was only imposed under Darius I (undoubtedly he misread HPE 413). In fact, Stolper’s unmistakably shows that the tax is especially known from texts postdating Darius (probably from the reigns of Artaxerxes II and III: 82 n. 2), and that it is subsequently amply attested in the Seleucid period. As the author demonstrates very clearly, we are dealing with a remarkable case of Achaemenid–Hellenistic continuity via Alexander (90–1).

¹¹⁴ See esp. D.S. 17.67.3; 19.21.3; Arr. Ind. 40.2–3; Str. 15.3.6(RTP 338, RPE 733–4). On Arr. Ind. 42.5; cf. Briant, forthcoming: 70.

¹¹⁵ See, e.g., Plu. Alex. 37.4; D.S. 17.71.1 (on the numbers see de Callataÿ, REA 1989: 263); the pack animals partly came from the royal herds, and partly from subject peoples (cf., e.g., Arr. Anab. 3.17.6, with the comments by Henkelman 2005: 159–64).

¹¹⁶ As Arr. Anab. 3.18.11 remarks (through Parmenion), that a lasting conquest cannot be defined by military victories and plundering alone: Alexander would also have to let the economical and fiscal heritage of Darius, to which his victories had given him access, yield profit since he now possessed these as “his own property” , both in the present and in the future.

¹¹⁷ RTP 223 n. 353; 329 n. 161; 344 n. 73; RPE 735–6.

¹¹⁸ On the kurtaš , see RPE 429–39, 456–63; on the episode with the Lycian herdsman see my suggestions in RTP 343–4; cf. RPE 735.

¹¹⁹ Pending the publication of the international Paris symposium on the Persepolis archives (Briant et al., forthcoming), see the reflections of Henkelman 2006: 96–116, who suggests that the excavated part of the archive was already dormant during the Achaemenid period (and preserved precisely because of that circumstance).

¹²⁰ See already my explicit reflections to this regard in RTP 208 and 223 n. 353; 344; 329 (the documentation “suggère le maintien (total ou partiel) de l’organisation sociale et économique achéménide dans le Frs du vivant d’Alexandre”); see HPE 734–6.

¹²¹ Lemaire 1996: 152; the remark remains valid, independent of the identity of the “Alexander” of the ostraca; see also my remarks in BHAch I. 62.

¹²² Shaked 2003: 1526–9; 2004: 17–8; ADAB 202–12. Paradoxically, to say the least, the very same document is advanced by Lane Fox 2007: 297 as support for his skepticism on the assumed continuities between the Achaemenids and Alexander!

¹²³ See Le Rider 2003: 161–5, with my comments in Briant 2006a: 312–17.

¹²⁴ Curt. 5.1.17; on the circumstances of Alexander’s entry into Babylon see HPE 840–2, 845–50, 1045–6. Despite Lane Fox 2007: 275–7, 297–8 n. 60, the available documentation, when taken together, does indeed show clearly that there had been negotiations (see also Le Rider 2003: 275–6). As to the official entrance into Babylon and other places (HPE 189–95), this was, again despite Lane Fox (2007), surely an Achaemenid ceremonial protocol, which in turn was adapted from an Assyro-Babylonian model (Kuhrt 1990). The necessary logistics are clearly referred to in a Babylonian text (official entrance of Artaxerxes II at Susa in 398; text in Joannès 2004: 217–18; see Briant forthcoming. On the use of the image of Mazday in the Napoleonic period see Calmeyer 1990b (see Briant 2003c: 33).

¹²⁵ Briant 1993a and HPE 842–4.

¹²⁶ On this complex see the remarkable study by Nicolet-Pierre 1999; see also Le Rider 2003: 274–6 (Mazday himself, in the course of the negotiations that resulted in his coming over to Alexander’s side, obtained from the latter the right to coin money with his own name and his own mint types), and Mildenberg 1990–1 = 1998: 9–23. After 328, the motifs are still the same, but they have been partially Hellenized: Babylonian documents from the time of Antigonus refer to the coins as “lion staters.”