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SWS PRSY / Sūs Pārsī / a Parthian Horse,” Iran Nameh, 29:2 (Summer 2014), 64-78

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SWS PRSY / Sūs Pārsī / a Parthian Horse,” Iran Nameh, 29:2 (Summer 2014), 64-78 Dan Shapira, “‘Parthian Cavalry’ SWS PRSY / sūs pārsī / A Parthian Horse,” Iran Nameh, 29:2 (Summer 2014), 64-78. "Parthian Cavalry" SWS PRSY / sūs pārsī / A Parthian Horse Dan Shapira Bar-Ilan University It was only just after the Iranians’ first appearance on the stage of history that the Jews came to know them. The Achaemenid dynasty was distinctively “Persian” (or, “Persian and Median”) for the Jews. The Macedonian invasion brought about an interruption to the course of things, but then a new Iranian dynasty arose, the Parthian Arsacids. Interesting that although- understandably- Alexander is remembered negatively by the Iranians1, it is not so for the Jews (and Aleksander is one of the few non-Hebrew names to be accepted as a “Jewish” name). From the Babylonian Talmud (henceforth BT), most of which dates to the Sasanian centuries, and which was finally redacted in the first decades of Muslim rule in formerly Sasanian Babylonia, we know that the Rabbis of the BT still recalled the Arsacid period as a golden era (BT, ʻAvodah Zara 10b–11a):2 *I would like to express my gratitude to friends 1. Cf., e.g., W. Hanaway, “Alexander and the and colleagues, Dr. Geoffrey Herman, Dr. Reu- Question of Iranian Identity,” Iranica Varia: Pa- ven Kiperwasser, and Professor Adam Silverstein pers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater for their assistance with this paper. A special (Leiden: EJ Brill, 1990), 93–103. thank goes to Ariel Kogan for his technical help. 2. Geoffrey Herman, (A Prince without a King ISSN 0892-4147-print/ISSN 2159-421X online/2014/29.2/64-78. 64 Iran Nameh, Volume 29, Number 2, 2014 Ardaban [V, 216–224CE] attended to Rav [Abba Arikha, the founder of the Talmudic center at Sura in Babylonia ca. 2203] … when Artaban died, Rav exclaimed: “The bond is snapped!” אדר*בן שמשיה לרב ... כי שכיב אדר*בן אמר רב נתפרדה חבילה Indeed, earlier on, the relationship between Rabbi (Judah the Prince, d. ca. 217 CE), the leader of the Palestinian Jewry in the Roman-occupied Palestina, and the last Arsacid king, triumphant over Caracalla’s armies at Nisibīn in 217, was such that it enabled Rabbi to play the role of a protector of Artaban V’s realm by means of magic:4 Artaban sent to our holy Rabbi a fine, priceless pearl. He said to him, “Send me something as good as this.” He sent him a single mezuzah [amuletum]. He [Ardaban] said to him [Rabbi], “I sent you something priceless and you sent me something worth one follarion.” He [Rabbi] sent to him, saying “Your possessions and my possessions together do not equal the value of this. Moreover, you sent me something that I must guard; but I sent you something that will watch over you when you sleep, as it is written ‘When you walk it will lead you, when you lie down it will watch over you’ [Proverbs 6:22].” ארטבן שלח לרבינו הקדוש חד מרגלי טבא אטימיטון אמר ליה שלח לי מילה דטבה דכוותה שלח ליה חד מזוזה אמר ליה מה אנא שלחית לך מילה דלית לה טימי ואת שלחת לי מילה דטבא חד פולר אמר ליה חפציך וחפצי לא ישוו בה dom. The Exilarch in the Sasanian Era(Tübin - material in the BT. gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 28–29) speaks of 4. Interestingly, this tradition is only preserved rabbinic “nostalgia” for the Arsacid era. in the Palestinian Talmud (henceforth, PT) 3. His contemporary rival and colleague and contains three Greek loanwords; see PT, Shemuel of Neharde’a, however, promoted an Peah 1:1, 15d. The translation is adopted from accommodation with the new Sasanian re- Midrash Rabbah, ed. H. Freedman and M. Si- gime and the Babylonian Talmud frequently mon (London: Soncino Press, 1939). This pas- mentions Shemuel’s close relations with sage should be taken into account while discuss- “ŠBWR MLK’” (Šāhpūr I, 241–72 CE). ing Aramaic and other magic texts from Shemuel was the transmitter of much Iranian Mesopotamia of Late Antiquity. “Parthian Cavalry” SWS PRSY / sūs pārsī / A Parthian Horse 65 ולא עוד אלא דאת שלחת לי מילה דאנא מנטר לה ואנא שלחית לך מילה דאת דמך לך והיא מנטרה לך דכתיב בהתהלכך תנחה אותך. Characteristically, these two texts fail to tell us exactly how and why Artaban V died, who he was, and why Rabbi’s magic text failed to protect the former’s realm. One may also observe that the Palestinian tradition in PT Pe’ah preserved the more original form of the king’s name, while that of the BT, ʻAvodah Zara, formulated by the end of the Sasanian rule in Babylonia, where Middle Iranian was still heard, spells the name of the last Arsacid king in a rather younger form, reflecting the shift art>ard. Our knowledge of Jewish relations with the Parthian Arsacids, and their attitude toward them, is very limited for a number of reasons. There are, however, genuine early traditions in the later Jewish texts that enable scholars to discern that the Parthian warriors, and the Parthians, were renowned for their cavalry, were seen by Jews of Roman Palestine as apocalyptic redeemers of Israel who would bring about the Messianic era and the resurrection of the dead.5 Šīr haŠšīrīm Rabbāh (Song of Songs Rabbah), is a midrashic composition, an anthology of exegesis on the biblical Song of Songs (Šīr haŠšīrīm). It is thought that Song of Songs Rabbah (henceforth SSR) reached its final redaction in Byzantine Palestine in the middle of the sixth century.6 The sources used in SSR are mostly from the Palestinian Talmud and no borrowing from the Babylonian Talmud has been detected so far. Obviously, the traditions quoted in SSR from the Palestinian Talmud can be of very different dates. In the exegesis in SSR on the Cant. 8:9–10, we אמרתי לו זו מניין לך אמר לי לחיילות של רומי -Cf. James Darmesteter, “Les Parthes à Jéru .5 נשכרתי ובין גינזי רומי מצאתיה וכתוב בה לאחר ד’ –salem,” Journal Asiatique 9, ser. 4, 1894, 43 אלפים ומאתים ותשעים ואחד שנה לבריאתו של עולם .53 ,54 העולם יתום מהן מלחמות תנינים מהן מלחמות גוג In the long and famous Messianic passage .6 ומגוג ושאר ימות המשיח ואין הקב“ה מחדש את עולמו :(in BT, Sanhedrin, it is stated, i.a.: (Sanh 97b אלא לאחר שבעת אלפים שנה. שלח ליה רב חנן בר תחליפא לרב יוסף מצאתי אדם :R. Ḥanan bar Taḥlīpha informed R. Yoseph“ אחד ובידו מגילה אחת כתובה אשורית ולשון קדש 66 Iran Nameh, Volume 29, Number 2, 2014 can trace, I believe, an old tradition linking Messianic aspirations with Parthian conquest.7 Midrashic literature is a genre with its own style and rules, but it is not my intention here to probe beyond points of immediate interest to this paper: traditions concerning the Parthians. The Biblical Hebrew text of Song of Songs 8:9–10 reads: אם חומה היא נבנה עליה טירת כסף ואם דלת היא נצור עליה לוח ארז אני חומה ושדי כמגדלות אז הייתי בעיניו כמוצאת שלום “If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of Cedar. I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.” Here follows the abbreviated English translation of SSR ad loci: If she be a wall, we will build upon her . and if she be a door . we will enclose her with boards of cedar. I am a wall . and my breasts are like the towers thereof . then was I in His eyes as one that found peace. Why so? Because all the other nations taunted Israel saying to them: “If that is so, why did God expel ‘I met a man with a scroll written in Assyrian Creatures in Eschatological Narratives of the script, but in the Holy Language (Hebrew). I Babylonian Talmud,” in Shoshanat Yaakov: asked him, “where did you get this?” He answered Ancient Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of me: “I was hired to serve in the Roman/Persian Yaakov Elman, ed. Steven Fine and Shai Secunda armies and found it (among other things) in the (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 203–35. The date 4,291 Roman/Persian archives; it is written within (or, 4,231, as a variant) places us in the mid-sixth that after 4,291 years after the Creation of the century. The printed text has RWMY, Rome; world, the world will be orphaned/ended. Some PRS was the reading suggested in Urbach 1967; of these (years) will be wars of the (sea) monsters cf. Otakar Klíma, “Mazdak und die Juden,” [tnynym], others, wars of Gog and Magog, and the Archiv Orientální 24 (1956), 420–31, 428–9. As rest—the days of the Messiah. And God will not the dating of SSR, compare note 21 below. recreate His world until after 7,000 years (from 7. The translation adopted below is byThe the First Creation?)”. The sea monsters tnynym[ ] Midrash Rabbah–Complete English Translation, here are both a reference to the Iranian-tainted Midrash Rabbah IX Esther Song of Songs, ed. Jewish apocalyptics and the plain Aži-Dahāka; Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman and Simon Maurice, cf. Reuven Kiperwasser and Dan Shapira, vols. 1–10 (London, 1939 [published by The “Irano-Talmudica II: Leviathan, Behemoth and Soncino Press, London, 1983]), 313–17. the ‘Domestication’ of Iranian Mythological “Parthian Cavalry” SWS PRSY / sūs pārsī / A Parthian Horse 67 you from His land, and why did He lay waste His sanctuary?” Israel thereupon answered: “We are like a king’s daughter who [RGL / רגל] went to celebrate the first festival after her marriage in her father’s house; in the end she will certainly return to her own house in peace.” .
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