This pdf of your paper in The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaption and Expansion belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and it is their copyright. As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web until three years from publication (June 2019), unless the site is a limited access intranet (password protected). If you have queries about this please contact the editorial department at Oxbow Books ([email protected]). THE PARTHIAN AND EARLY SASANIAN EMPIRES: ADAPTATION AND EXPANSION AN OFFPRINT FROM THE PARTHIAN AND EARLY SASANIAN EMPIRES: ADAPTATION AND EXPANSION PROCEEDINGS OF A CONFERENCE HELD IN VIENNA, 14–16 JUNE 2012 Hardcover Edition: 978-1-78570-207-5 Digital Edition: 978-1-78570-208-2 (epub) Edited by VESTA SARKHOSH CURTIS, ELIZABETH J. PENDLETON, MICHAEL ALRAM AND TOURAJ DARYAEE Published by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS) Archaeological Monographs Series Contents © Oxbow Books 2016 Oxford & Philadelphia www.oxbowbooks.com Published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by OXBOW BOOKS 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW and in the United States by OXBOW BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © Oxbow Books and the individual authors 2016 Hardcover Edition: 978-1-78570-207-5 Digital Edition: 978-1-78570-208-2 (epub) A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh, editor. | Pendleton, Elizabeth J., editor. | Alram, Michael, editor. | Daryaee, Touraj, 1967- editor. Title: The Parthian and early Sasanian empires : adaptation and expansion : proceedings of a conference held in Vienna, 14–16 June 2012 / edited by Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, Elizabeth J. Pendleton, Michael Alram and Touraj Daryaee. Description: Oxford : Oxbow Books, 2016. | Series: Archaeological monographs series | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2016017931 (print) | LCCN 2016021369 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785702075 (hardback) | ISBN 9781785702082 (eBook) | ISBN 9781785702082 (epub) | ISBN 9781785702099 (mobi) | ISBN 9781785702105 ( pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Arsacid dynasty, 247 B.C.-224 A.D.–Congresses. | Parthians–Congresses. | Sassanids–Congresses. | Iran–History–To 640–Congresses. | Iran–History–640-1256–Congresses. | Iran--Antiquities–Congresses. | Coins, Parthian–Congresses. | Coins, Sassanid–Congresses. Classification: LCC DS285 .P375 2016 (print) | LCC DS285 (ebook) | DDC 935/.064–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017931 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. Printed in the United Kingdom by Short Run Press, Exeter For a complete list of Oxbow titles, please contact: UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Oxbow Books Oxbow Books Telephone (01865) 241249, Fax (01865) 794449 Telephone (800) 791-9354, Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] www.oxbowbooks.com www.casemateacademic.com/oxbow Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate Group Front cover: Rock carving at Naqsh-e Rostam, Iran: Ardashir I (left) tramples the defeated Parthian king Artabanus IV and receives his symbol of kingship from Ohrmazd, the Wise Lord, © G. Herrmann; Sasanian silver coin, showing bust of Ardashir I (AD 224–240) and the Zoroastrian fire, © Trustees of the British Museum. Introduction vii HISTORICAL 1. Some Aspects of Political History: Early Arsacid Kings and the Seleucids 3 Jérôme Gaslain 2. The Arsacids and Commagene 8 M. Rahim Shayegan 3. Dynastic Connections in the Arsacid Empire and the Origins of the House of Sāsān 23 Marek Jan Olbrycht 4. From Terror to Tactical Usage: Elephants in the Partho-Sasanian Period 36 Touraj Daryaee 5. Remarks on the Location of the Province of Parthia in the Sasanian Period 42 Mehrdad Ghodrat-Dizaji 6. The Birth of the Sasanian Monarchy in Western Sources 47 Andrea Gariboldi 7. Kirdēr and the Re-organisation of Persian Mazdeism 53 Antonio Panaino LINGUISTIC 8. The Parthian Language in Early Sasanian Times 61 Rika Gyselen 9. From Aramaic to Pahlavi: Epigraphic Observations Based on the Persis Coin Series 69 Khodadad Rezakhani 10. Parthian Studies: Two New Notes 76 Daryoosh Akbarzadeh ARCHAEOLOGICAL 11. A Note on Architectural Traditions in Arsacid Parthia: The Round Hall at Nisa 83 Antonio Invernizzi 12. Women, Dance and the Hunt: Splendour and Pleasures of Court Life in Arsacid and Early Sasanian Art 90 Barbara Kaim NUMISMATICS 13. Quantifying Monetary Production: Ecbatana and Media in Parthian Times 109 Pierre-Yves Boillet 14. The Coinages of Paradan and Sind in the Context of Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian Numismatics 123 Nikolaus Schindel vi Contents In 2011 it was decided to hold an international conference at the British Museum on the Partho-Sasanian periods in connection with the Sylloge Nummorum Parthicorum (SNP) project.This international project, directed by Dr Michael Alram and Dr Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, has as its aim the publication of a series of volumes dealing with the coinage from the beginning of the Parthian period in the third century BC to its ending with the advent of the Sasanians in the early third century AD. The project is principally numismatic in nature but also deals with the history, religion and art of the Parthian period. Coin holdings from the American Numismatic Society, the Berlin Coin Cabinet, the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, the British Museum, the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the National Museum of Iran in Tehran will be published by representatives of these institutions, who are working in close cooperation with Chris Hopkins, the database manager of www.parthia.com. He has custom-built a web-based database for this project, 6 The Birth of the Sasanian Monarchy in Western Sources Andrea Gariboldi University of Bologna The last notable political achievement of Arsacid foreign (a kind of military attaché): this important position gave policy was the peace signed with the Romans in 218 AD.1 him access to secret documents and official letters, and he Although some years later Cassius Dio (LXXX 3–4) and also participated in delicate missions behind the Roman Herodian (VI 2, 1–2) wrote about serious trouble on the limes. Nevertheless, in his Histories we do not find a single eastern border of the Roman empire, reporting the murder of reference to the dynastic change in Persia, when Ardashir Artabanus and Ardashir’s ascent to the throne, which should brought to an end a regime which had lasted five centuries. be dated to 224 AD,2 the Romans did not immediately realise How can we explain this surprising omission? Ammianus the revolutionary character of the new Sasanian empire. was an enthusiastic supporter of Julian’s aggressive policy The territorial claims (supposedly) advanced by the against the barbarians. He thought that a strategy mainly Persians created apprehension on the Roman side.3 Herodian, based on military containment along the Mesopotamian who says that he was a contemporary of Artabanus (Hdn VI border was not sufficient to meet the Persian threat. Julian, 2, 7), is very clear on one point at least: a bold protagonist who was welcomed by the Phoenician community on the in the Orient, called Artaxerxes/Ardashir, the king of the eve of the Persian campaign as barbarorum extinctor, “the Iranians, seized power from the Parthians and killed their terminator of the barbarians”,10 once proclaimed to his Great King Artabanus, who wore the double diadem (Hdn troops: abolenda nobis natio molestissima, cuius in gladiis VI 2, 1).4 These remarks are scanty but correct. The title nondum nostrae propinquitatis exaruit cruor (H. XXIII 5, of basileus megas (of Babylonian and Achaemenid origin) 19) – “We must destroy this pernicious people, on whose was characteristic of the Parthian dynasty but was never swords the blood of our relatives is not yet dry.” Julian’s officially adopted by the Sasanian kings,5 while the double references to recent Roman defeats clearly alluded to the diadem sometimes adorns the king’s head in the late Parthian catastrophic Oriental campaigns of Gordian III, Philip the and Elymaian art.6 Arab and Valerian. Julian visited Gordian’s tomb at Zaitha, Yet in Roman literary texts there is no single term used where he celebrated sacrifices in his honour.11 He was to describe the Sasanians, who are generally defined as anxious to fight and desired to add to his official titles the Persians, Medians or even Parthians (not always for purely cognomen Parthicus.12 The Roman emperor represented rhetorical reasons), even by very competent historians, like himself as the avenger of the soldiers killed at Carrhae; the Ammianus Marcellinus.7 Modern historiography has usually final solution thunders in the threatening words (echoing emphasised that his digression about the Persis region, in those of Cato), abolenda nobis natio. particular, is very generic and imprecise.8 One might even Julian, like a tragic actor, was confronted by a host think that Ammianus, who should have been well informed of ill omens: the strange and sudden deaths of soldiers, about the difference between Parthians and Sasanians, was unexpected thunderbolt strikes and, in particular, the not the author of this excursus. He was personally present discovery of a huge dead lion pierced by javelins, which the during the campaigns of Constantius II against Shapur II. Etruscan haruspices (who used to accompany the Roman Moreover, he was a direct witness of the siege of Amida in emperor in battle) explicitly interpreted as the impending 359 AD and a contemporary witness of the great Persian death of one king. Without listening to his advisers, Julian expedition of Julian in 363 AD.9 Ammianus was a native rushed against the Persians, led by Shapur II. Ammianus of Antioch and served with the Roman army as protector has harsh words for the Persian king; in addition to 48 Andrea Gariboldi describing him (correctly) as an old man, longaevus ille is completely altered.20 The historic deformation of the Sapor (H.