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The Arshama Letters from the Bodleian Library

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The Arshama Letters from the Bodleian Library THE ARSHAMA LETTERS FROM THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY Volume 3 COMMENTARY Christopher Tuplin December 2013 The Arshama Letters from the Bodleian Letters Vol. 1 Introduction Vol. 2 Text, translation and glossary Vol. 3 Commentary Vol. 4. Abbreviations and Bibliography Available for download at http://arshama.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/publications/ The Arshama Letters from the Bodleian Library by L. Allen, J. Ma, C. J. Tuplin, D. G. K. Taylor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License This work takes its origin in activities funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; more at http://arshama.classics.ox.ac.uk. Cover: Pell. Aram. 1 (A6.10). Photography courtesy of the Bodleian Library. CONTENTS Commentary 1-127 Appendix 1: Letter subscripts 128-135 Appendix 2: The Fall and Rise of the Elephantine Temple 136-151 A6.3 = Driver 3 = Grelot 64 = Lindenberger 39 Punishment of slaves of ‘Ankho ḥapi Summary Arshama writes to Artavanta giving instructions for the punishment of eight slaves belonging to ‘Ankho ḥapi. This arises because Psamshek son of ‘Ankho ḥapi (Arshama’s servant) has reported that, when he went to Arshama, the slaves of his father took his property and fled. He has asked Arshama to ask Artavanta to punish the slaves that he (Psamshek) presents before him. Arshama therefore issues the requested instruction. Date None given. Text The Porten-Yardeni text in TADAE I differs from Driver’s in incorporating fr.7.1. See below, notes on lines 1, 2. There are also some further relevant fragments identified in TADAE IV. See below, notes on lines 3-4, 5. As noted there, Lindenberger, while drawing attention the information in TADAE IV, incorporates it in his text and/or translation somewhat inconsistently. His text also differs slightly from Porten-Yardeni in lines 2,6,7,9 in his judgment of where the square brackets marking the start or end of a lacuna should be placed. This does not affect the text that he actually prints (which matches Porten-Yardeni). This phenomenon is a regular feature of his edition and normally involves putting more letters inside square bracket than is the case in Porten-Yardeni. Lindenberger is also more prone to mark individual letters as damaged, though reasonably certain. line 1 mn ’Ršm ‘l ’Rtwnt , “from Aršama to Artavanta”. The principle seems to be that the more important party is mentioned first, irrespective of whether that is the sender (as in A6.2 and throughout A6.3-16) or the receiver, as in A6.1, which starts [ ‘l mr’n ’Rš ]m ‘bdyk ’ Ḥmnš wknwth , “to our lord Arshama, your servants Achaemenes and his colleagues”. In most contexts, of course, if sender and recipient are not of markedly different status, the sender politely affects to ascribe higher status to the recipient, which is why Egyptian Aramaic letters standardly begin “To PN”. Almost all the Bactrian letters begin “From PN 1 to PN 2”. This is unremarkable in letters from the satrap Akhvamazda (ADAB A1-6), but interestingly it is true of most of the other letters too (B1-4,6), with only B5, “ [To] my l[ord ... I send] to you [much peace and strength]” working the other way. Perhaps the writers of B1-4 and B6 were all more important than their addressees: we know nothing of them that can determine this one way or another. The fact that their addressees are regularly described as “my brother” (only B2 does not have this feature) and are always accorded a polite greeting (as, of course, Artavanta is by Arshama) are not necessarily counter-indications. 1 line 1 ’Ršm , “Aršama”. Neither Arshama nor any of his correspondents ever refers to him as “satrap”. He is “Arshama who is in Egypt” (A6.1, A6.2) or (extremely tantalisingly) “Arsames who is in Egypt as [...]” (P.Mainz 17) 2 or “lord” or “son of the house”. This is 1 Note that in Neo-Babylonian letter-writing superiors in a temple setting address subordinates (as well as equals) as “brothers” not “servants” (Kleber 2012, 228). 2 It is preceded by a regnal date (year 36 of, presumably, Artaxerxes I), producing an effect resembling the Mylasan inscription I.Mylasa 1-3 = SIG 3 167 = RO 54, the Lydian (funerary?) text in Gusmani & Akkan 2004 (starting with the 17 th year of Artaxerxes and the satrap Rhosaces) and the 1 unremarkable. The term “satrap” is far from omnipresent even in Greek sources and decidedly rare in Persian and the other non-Greek languages of the empire. (It does not occur, for example, in the Bactrian Aramaic letters, leaving us strictly speaking unsure of the status of Akhvamazda.) In Egypt a demotic version of the word appears on a Saqqara ostracon (S.75/6- 7:2), apparently in reference to the Petisis of Arrian 3.5.2, 3 and in the text on the verso of the Demotic Chronicle that recounts Darius’ commissioning of a collection of Egyptian laws, but otherwise (apparent) holders of the office are referred to as “to whom Egypt is entrusted” (P.Berlin 13539-13540) or “lord of Egypt” (P.Rylands IX 2.17) or (perhaps) “the great one who ruled Egypt”. 4 The low incidence of official use of the title might have some bearing on the sparseness of its use in Greek sources before the fourth century. line 1 ‘l , “to”. The use of ‘l , rather than ’l , in letter addresses is characteristic of the Bodleian letters, but not other Egyptian Aramaic letters, where ’l is universal (except for A2.4:1 and A6.2:1) – despite the fact that, in general, ’l = “to” is avoided in Egyptian Aramaic. In ADAB ‘l is standard in the first line of the letter, but ’l is used in the external address line (ADAB A1.13, A3.5, A4.7, A5.4, A6.12). This oddity, and the occurrence of ‘l in A6.2 (written in Egypt), suggest that the contrast between the Bodleian letters and the generality of Egyptian Aramaic letters is not simply a matter of where the letters written (as Alexander 1978 supposed), but may be something to do with official conventions. (Note also its appearance in Ezra 4.11,17.) line 1 ’Rtwnt , “Artavanta”. Iranian *Ṛtavanta - (“righteous”): Tavernier 2007, 303, the equivalent of Greek Artayntes or Artontes. Variously written in Aramaic as ’Rthnt (A6.7, D6.4 fr.[f]) – the use of H for /V/ is “exceptional” (Tavernier) but “represents a linguistic developmnt of late Old Persian / early Middle Persian” (Elizabeth Tucker [personal communication]) - and ’Rtwnt (A6.3, 6.4, 6.5, D6.4 [fr.g]). (There can be no doubt that the same person is designated by these two spellings.) He never has a title, but is addressed respectfully by Arshama,5 and must be of substantial standing (Grelot 1972, 300: “haut personnage”). Driver thought he was approximately equal in rank to Arshama and perhaps acting temporarily as his representative in charge of Egyptian affairs (1965, 13); and, although it is unclear whether he meant this to include state/political affairs (i.e. that he was a temporary/deputy satrap), some have certainly supposed that to be the case. Fried 2004, 91 postulates that Artavanta was Arsames' hyparch and garrison commander in Memphis; but there is no specific cause to say that – i.e. to put him firmly in the “public” sphere, let alone propose such precise official roles. Whitehead, while acknowledging that Artavanta’s status is a puzzle (and not including him in a table of authority in estate administration: 1974, 23), remarks that A6.7 suggests that he has “authority even over Arsames’ enemies” (1974, 20 n.1): that sounds exciting, but is misleading. We must (or we certainly can) assume that, so far as the Mi ṣpeh Thirteen are concerned at any rate, Arshama’s enemies have been worsted: Artavanta simply has authority in the ensuing situation. More generally, he is involved in cases of e.g. domain-assignment(A6.4) and punishment (A6.3) or Aramaic version of the Xanthos trilingual (the Greek and Lycian versions omit the regnal date): FdX 6.136; www.achemenet.com/pdf/arameens/lycie01 . 3 The belief that it occurs in S.H5-450 (cf. Tavernier 2007, 436) must be abandoned: cf. Smith & Martin 2010, 51-53. The correct reading is Hšsry (? = OP *Xšaçariya, a personal name). 4 Such, at least, is Menu’s understanding of this phrase in one of its occurrences in the Wn-nfr = Onnophris stela: cf. Menu 2008, 157. 5 On one occasion he is the recipient of what, formulaically speaking, seems to be an especially polite greeting: cf. A6.7:1 n. It may be another aspect of Arshama’s politeness to him that the external addresses of letters to Artavanta describe Arshama as br byt’ , whereas this title is never used in the external addresses of letters to pqydyn . 2 non-punishment (A6.7) that go beyond the normal authority of the pqyd (or, in the case of A6.3, pqyd family-member) but still lie essentially within the purview of estate business.6 Letters to Artavanta lack subscription formulae: in some sense, then, they are in a different realm of the bureaucratic process – but what that signifies remains debatable, given that letters that do have subscription formulae are also essentially concerned with estate business. (See Appendix I.) Elsewhere I have speculated that Artavanta was (to use Babylonian terminology) Arshama’s mār biti (see Introduction pp.21-25). Another theoretical possibility is that he was his son. line 1 šlm....lk , “I send you...strength”. Among Persian addressors the use or non-use of greetings formulae plainly reflects relative status.
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