Ctesias

[marcus]

Hello all,

I happened to pop into Foyles yesterday on my way to the British Museum, and I noticed that there is a new book of all the quotes and references to Ctesias. Obviously it cannot hope to reproduce all of Ctesias' work, but it's a good corpus of the references.

Amazon has the details here.

And for more good stuff on Ancient Persia, how about this excellent tome from Amelie Kuhrt?

ATB

[Semiramis]

They both look very interesting Marcus. The Brosius one seems to have a lot of background information on the region before Achaemenid rule as well. It'll go on my (long and currently neglected) reading list.

What do you make of the charge that Ctesias may have *ahem* exaggerated his level of importance at the courts?

[Paralus]

What do you make of the charge that Ctesias may have *ahem* exaggerated his level of importance at the courts?

That's quite likely. Heaven knows he exaggerated numbers and, even though this is a typical Greek thing, he even manages to outdo Herodotus - by a goodly margin:

Diod.2.5.4
Accordingly, after the army had been assembled from every source, it numbered, as Ctesias has stated in his history, one million seven hundred thousand foot-soldiers, two hundred and ten thousand cavalry, and slightly less than ten thousand six hundred scythe-bearing chariots.

This was the invasion army of Ninus, the soon-to-be husband of yourself Semiramis. You, though, not to be outdone invade india with the following:

Diod.2.17.1-2
And the multitude of the army which was assembled, as Ctesias of Cnidus has recorded, was three million foot-soldiers, two hundred thousand cavalry, and one hundred thousand chariots. There were also men mounted on camels, carrying swords four cubits long, as many in number as the chariots. And river boats which could be taken apart she built to the number of two thousand, and she had collected camels to carry the vessels overland.

Did you really assemble that multitude??!!

Ctesias saw Herodotus' 1,700,000 and raised him.... substantially. I'd reckon Herodotus folded. Ctesias is the most egregious example of Greek exaggeration of barbarian numbers. Not even Xenophon could write such a number - not without trying though, he does have 900,000 at Cunaxa (and 300,000 more who missed the fun). Truly laughable such rubbish.

[Semiramis]

You, though, not to be outdone invade india with the following:

Diod.2.17.1-2
And the multitude of the army which was assembled, as Ctesias of Cnidus has recorded, was three million foot-soldiers, two hundred thousand cavalry, and one hundred thousand chariots. There were also men mounted on camels, carrying swords four cubits long, as many in number as the chariots. And river boats which could be taken apart she built to the number of two thousand, and she had collected camels to carry the vessels overland.

Did you really assemble that multitude??!!

Yes, of course. He's very reliable our man Ctesias. How long is a cubit? Were most of the men back then 4 cubits long, let alone the swords?

[Paralus]

How long is a cubit? Were most of the men back then 4 cubits long, let alone the swords?

That, I'm afraid, is a rather personal question...

[rocktupac]

How long is a cubit? Were most of the men back then 4 cubits long, let alone the swords?

That, I'm afraid, is a rather personal question...

From everything I can gather, one cubit is traditionally converted to 1.5 feet. Therefore a 4 cubit sword, or man, would be 6 feet long (about 1.8 m).

A 6 foot long sword does seem extraordinarily long, especially for the time. Sounds like more of a Scottish claymore than a sword that would be equipped to a camel jockey

[agesilaos]

It has to be long enough to reach infantrymen from camel back, a much higher mount than a horse so is not unfeasible the Palmyrenes used such weapons in the 4th century AD and are shown doing so at Doura Europas I think.

[marcus]

And for more good stuff on Ancient Persia, how about this excellent tome from Amelie Kuhrt?

By the way, my spanking brand new copy of the Kuhrt book arrived today from Amazon - fantastic! It's got everything!

What is particularly infuriating(?), however, is where the preface tells us that Amelie Kuhrt translated all the sources herself, from the Greek, Hebrew, Old Persian, Akkadian, Aramaic, Egyptian, and Latin. Don't you just hate people like that?

ATB

[agesilaos]

surely the ones to hate are those that DON'T translate those languages but just leave them sitting there like banks of monsterous unseens, worse still when they quote paragraphs of German there's something more wearisome about plodding through modern scholarly opinion; the original sources are somehow more envigorating but cuneiform is surely a script designed to torture the eyeballs

Anyway bet she's rubbish at cryptic crosswords (brilliant at Coptic ones though, sigh).

Actually the ones I really hate are those that protest a life long love of Greek then reproduce out of copyright nineteenth century translations, and make bogus points about one Greek word displaying a complete lack of both linguistic and cultural knowledge. Bet you know who I mean

[marcus]

surely the ones to hate are those that DON'T translate those languages but just leave them sitting there like banks of monsterous unseens, worse still when they quote paragraphs of German there's something more wearisome about plodding through modern scholarly opinion; the original sources are somehow more envigorating but cuneiform is surely a script designed to torture the eyeballs

Well, yes, I hate them, too. But that's because of the trouble they put us to. It's intellectual hatred of her ancient linguistic ability ...

Anyway bet she's rubbish at cryptic crosswords (brilliant at Coptic ones though, sigh).

LOL!

Actually the ones I really hate are those that protest a life long love of Greek then reproduce out of copyright nineteenth century translations, and make bogus points about one Greek word displaying a complete lack of both linguistic and cultural knowledge. Bet you know who I mean

Not sure I do, actually - am I being dumb? Any clues?

ATB

[agesilaos]

He thinks Lucian was an historian, but calls him Lucan! That the Maedoi lived in Media, that Thessally is to the North and Thrace to the South of Macedon, shares a surname with Kate Moss' crackhead boyfriend and writes the most poorly researched, shallowly characterised and childishly plotted historical mysteries ever.

He also thinks Ptolemy poisoned Alexander because he does not understand promotion.

[rocktupac]

Paul Doherty?

[marcus]

He thinks Lucian was an historian, but calls him Lucan! That the Maedoi lived in Media, that Thessally is to the North and Thrace to the South of Macedon, shares a surname with Kate Moss' crackhead boyfriend and writes the most poorly researched, shallowly characterised and childishly plotted historical mysteries ever.

He also thinks Ptolemy poisoned Alexander because he does not understand promotion.

Ah, well, as we well know, Doherty knows very little about the Alexandrian period, and his rigour as a historian is to be questioned severely. How he ever managed to get anything published about something he clearly knows so little about beggars belief.

I mean, have you read his Alexander "whodunnits"? Atrociously bad!

ATB

[Paralus]

Actually the ones I really hate are those that protest a life long love of Greek then reproduce out of copyright nineteenth century translations, and make bogus points about one Greek word displaying a complete lack of both linguistic and cultural knowledge. Bet you know who I mean

Ahh... the very doubtable Mr Dougherty.

There are others though. Those who "reproduce out of copyright nineteenth century translations" and then claim that what was written by the ancient author is not as written as the ancient author knows facts which he has not written and therefore really means something other than what he has actually written.

I don't even think I can follow that...

I'll email you the 'sent for publishing' version of that Sellasia piece: I firmed up some criticisms and other material.

[Semiramis]

What is particularly infuriating(?), however, is where the preface tells us that Amelie Kuhrt translated all the sources herself, from the Greek, Hebrew, Old Persian, Akkadian, Aramaic, Egyptian, and Latin. Don't you just hate people like that?

ATB

Ah.. I remember reading something in Briant's introduction to 'Cyrus to Alexander' that did not make sense at the time but does now. He writes that one does not have to know all the ancient languages of the sources to be able to contribute to the topic of Persian history. At the time I thought "What a superfluous statement. Nobody can possibly know that many ancient languages!" It seems I was wrong.