Darius in the Shadow of Alexander DARIUS IN THE SHADOW OF ALEXANDER PIERRE BRIANT TRANSLATED BY JANE MARIE TODD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, EN GLAND 2015 Copyright © 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the French Ministry of Foreign Aff airs and the Cultural Ser vices of the French Embassy in the United States. First published as Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre by Pierre Briant World copyright © Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2003. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Briant, Pierre. [Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre. En glish] Darius in the shadow of Alexander / Pierre Briant ; translated by Jane Marie Todd. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 674- 49309- 4 (alkaline paper) 1. Darius III, King of Persia— 330 B.C. 2. Iran— Kings and rulers— Biography. 3. Iran— History—To 640. 4. Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.– 323 B.C. I. Title. DS284.7.B7513 2015 935'.705092—dc23 [B] 2014018170 Contents Ac know ledg ments vii Preface to the English- Language Edition ix Translator’s Note xvii Introduction: Between Remembering and Forgetting 1 I THE IMPOSSIBLE BIOGRAPHY 1. A Shadow among His Own 15 2. Darius Past and Present 65 II CONTRASTING PORTRAITS 3. “The Last Darius, the One Who Was Defeated by Alexander” 109 4. Arrian’s Darius 130 5. A Diff erent Darius or the Same One? 155 6. Darius between Greece and Rome 202 vi Contents III RELUCTANCE AND ENTHUSIASM 7. Upper King and Lower King 233 8. Iron Helmet, Silver Vessels 282 9. The Great King’s Private and Public Lives 320 IV DARIUS AND DĀRĀ 10. Dārā and Iskandar 357 11. Death and Transfi guration 394 V A FINAL ASSESSMENT AND A FEW PROPOSALS 12. Darius in Battle: Variations on the Theme “Images and Realities” 425 Abbreviations 451 Greek and Roman Sources 455 General Bibliography 461 Notes 491 Thematic Notes by Chapter 531 Illustration Credits 563 Index 567 Ac know ledg ments I would like to thank all those who off ered me their help, especially in the fi elds of Persian and Arabo- Persian literature and iconography, during the four years I spent preparing and composing this book. Philippe Gignoux (Paris) was kind enough to share with me a manuscript, unpublished at the time, on the Sassa- nid texts that refer to Alexander (the book appeared in 2007 under the title La démonisation d’Alexandre le Grand); Marina Gaillard (Centre National de la Re- cherche Scientifi que, or CNRS, Paris) allowed me to use her French translation of Abū Tāher Tarsusi’s Dārāb-nāmeh, since published in Alexandre en Iran (2005), and was no less generous in sending me unpublished translations of Ibn’ Bakhlī and Dīnawarī. In various ways, Francis Richard (Department of Oriental Man- uscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, or BnF), Dominique Gerin (Coins, Medals, and Antiques Department, BnF), Marjan Mashkour (CNRS, Paris), and Marie- Françoise Clergeau (Collège de France) assisted me in collect- ing images and illustrations: F. Richard guided me in the discovery of manu- scripts and their illustrations; D. Gerin gave me her careful attention during my research in the Coins, Medals, and Antiques Department; M. Mashkour showed me information and illustrations concerning the coff ee house paintings of Iran; and I am indebted to M.-F. Clergeau for allowing me to publish here her remarkable original drawings of an exceptional painting (Fig. 40). My thanks as well to the colleagues who provided me with bibliographical information: Mas- sumeh Fahrad (Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), Charles- Henri de Fou- chécour (Paris), Robert Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh), Mary Subtelny (University of Toronto), Maria Szuppe (CNRS, Paris), Gilles Veinstein (Collège de France), and Yuriko Yamanaka (Osaka). The librarians at the Collège de France, the Institut d’Études Iraniennes (Université de Paris III), and the Institut viii Ac know ledg ments Français de Recherches en Iran (Tehran) assisted me in gaining access to valu- able collections. Finally, my partner read and reread various drafts and, through her constant encouragement and pertinent suggestions, helped me to see this venture to its conclusion. Editorial Note With the exception of Chapters 11– 12, endnotes in this book have been reduced almost entirely to source references. The reader may consult more extensive notes in “Thematic Notes by Chapter.” Preface to the English- Language Edition Some ten years after the publication of the French edition of Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre, I am particularly happy that Harvard University Press is introduc- ing it to anglophone readers, because studies and refl ections on Alexander in English- speaking countries have traditionally been so plentiful and so stimulat- ing. With the passage of time, it would appear useful to explain to new readers what my project was and to place it within the context of Achaemenid history as it is now being written, but also within the context of the refl ections that have multiplied on the relationship the historian maintains with his or her sources and documentary materials. The text itself has not been modifi ed, apart from some adjustments in wording here and there and a few updated bibliographical references and ex- planatory notes. That might seem surprising, given the fl ood of publications on Alexander that have appeared in the last ten years, including an abundance of studies on the Alexander Romance (chap. 10).1 The reason is simple: since 2003 the subject I deal with here— the construction of images of Darius III in the Greek and Latin literature of the Roman period and in the Persian and Arabo-Persian literature, in all its chronological diversity—has not been the occasion for any specifi c articles, with the exception of the reviews of the French edition of this book published in various journals. The motivations that led me to undertake that vast inquiry, unprece dented at the time, therefore remain fully valid. The pro cess of reconstituting in detail the personality and reign of Darius III re- mains an insurmountable challenge, despite a few recent documentary discov- eries that enhance both the history of the Macedonian conquest and the history of the transition from Darius to Alexander.2 This book is therefore not a biogra- phy of the last of the Great Kings, and there is nothing about the last sentence x Preface to the English- Language Edition of my introduction that I would change: “The objective of this book is instead to explain why Darius, along with so many others, is condemned to haunt the realm of historical oblivion.” The French version was generally well received, especially with respect to the method of analysis I applied to the texts.3 I do not intend to go on at length about these reviews or to engage in polemics: rather, I would like to initiate a dialogue. Some of the reservations and criticisms the reviewers expressed are worthy of attention and sparked methodological refl ections on my part that I believe it would be useful to share with readers. This will also be an opportu- nity to explain more clearly my way of thinking, just as my book is becoming available to a broader audience. Reviewers regularly pointed out the continuity between this book and an earlier one I wrote, devoted to the history of the Persian Empire. I myself had remarked on this, referring readers to the chapter in which I had attempted to reconstitute Darius’s strategy between 334 and 330.4 Although I would like to remind readers that this new book has a diff erent object, I also wish to add that the kinship and continuities between the two books go well beyond that simple observation, and that my inquiry really makes sense only when it is placed within an even broader time frame. The nature of the documentary materials collected for this book made it inevitable that, willingly or not (because the historian cannot choose his docu- ments), I would focus on an analysis of the Greco-Latin sources. Unsurpris- ingly, therefore, my refl ections developed within the larger context of a prob- lematic well known to historians of the Achaemenid Empire: How and to what extent can one write Achaemenid history on the basis of the classical sources? I have continually contended with that question since the early 1970s and at- tempted to give a preliminary and provisional response to it in a 1982 article.5 Without going into detail about the discussions (sometimes pointlessly polemi- cal) that continue to take place on that issue, I observe simply that my book constitutes a new contribution to the debate, in the form of a completely indi- vidualized and identifi ed set of issues. At the same time, the context within which research is now being con- ducted has been profoundly transformed by the unearthing and/or publication in the last forty years of a large number of corpora originating in diff erent re- gions of the Achaemenid Empire. From Bactriana to Egypt and from Asia Mi- nor to Persia proper (Fārs), the new documentation and our new knowledge are extremely impressive.6 Apart from ancient Macedonia, few historical fi elds Preface to the English- Language Edition xi have undergone such a radical upheaval over such a brief period of time. The change is not only quantitative but also qualitative: these new documents have sometimes radically changed the makeup of the materials that historians of the empire collect and use. In par tic u lar, it has not escaped anyone’s attention that the new archaeological and iconographical documents, and the multilingual written corpora, sometimes from the central administration (Persepolis, Susa) or the administration of the satrapies (western Asia Minor, Egypt, Idumea, Babylonia, Bactriana), provide a remarkable new perspective on the contribu- tions of the classical sources.