History of the Persian Empire

[ana]

Dear All
I'm new to this forum. I'm just about to finish my PhD thesis on a topic far removed from anything to do with Alexander. Reading about him and his deeds has been a good way to relax during the last months of thesis writing. I have just bought "History of the Persian Empire" by A. T. Olmstead. (1948). does anyone know if this is any good? Any other suggestions?
Thanks
Best
Ana

[jona]

It's outdated. The book to read, at this moment, is the "brick" by Pierre Briant. For details, see http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?par ... PersiaAlso, see http://www.achemenet.com/choix.htmJona

[Kit]

You could also take a look at J.M Cook's 'The Persian Empire' published in 1983. Kit

[ancientlibrary]

Jona should answer that; I think the feeling is
that it's a bit out of date--but still worthwhile. Nick
Wellman wrote a review of it for this site, arguing
it focused on the Greek side of things too much
(http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=1
14&keyword_id=4&title=Books:%20Persia).
Certainly it's an unavavoidable fact that we
approach the history of the Persian empire
primarily through Greek sources. (Therefore
understanding Achaemenid history is an act of
double discovery, with a bunch of extra
methodological problems.) We needn't,
however, learn about the Persians primarily to
understand their interaction with Greece. .What's your thesis about?

[jona]

Maybe I must add something to the preceding message. You did not ask for it, but the journal to read is, at the moment, *Achaemenid History*. It appears irregulary and actually, it is not a real journal but a book with essays.Its origin is the series of "Achaemenid Workshops" organized by the late Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg in Groningen, Holland, where she invited everyone she thought was important - and able to attend (an important point to which I shall return). The colloquiums became a tradition, the papers were published, and *Achaemenid History* was born.Soon and deservedly, Pierre Briant became the leading man in the field, and he has a status comparable to that of Mommsen in Roman studies a century ago. There are two problems with Pierre Briant, however. (This sounds unkind, I am sorry.)One, his epigones. Briant is almost venerated as a god by the other iranologists. The most revolting example can be found in the latest volume of *Achaemenid History*, which was dedicated to Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, who has recently died. The publishers have included a biography of HS-W, which concludes with the ultimate compliment: that Briant thought she was such an excellent scholar. (This reminds me of the anecdote, probably untrue, that during the Stalin era, the ultimate tribute to Pushkin was a statue of Stalin reading Pushkin.)The second point is perhaps more serious, and again, Briant can not be blamed. When the Achaemenid Workshops and *Achaemenid History* started, the Iranian revolution was well on its way. Many Iranian iranologists were unable to attend the Workshops. At the same time, several scholars (like Mary Boyce) started to believe that the corpus of Iranian religious literature known as Avesta was composed at several stages; its nucleus, the Gatha's composed by Zarathustra, were believed to date back to the second millennium.The result of all this was that during the reorganization of iranology (institutionalized in the Achaemenid Workshops, with a journal like *Achaemenid History* and a new synthesis in Briant's book mentioned in the preceding message), Iranian iranologists were left out, and zoroastrianism was left out. A new paradigm was created, scholars who did adhere to it were no longer invited and were sometimes ridiculized (poor Walter Hintz).It is a classical example of a scientific revolution as described by Thomas Kuhn in his masterpiece, *The structure of scientific revolutions*.The results of this new

[jona]

[continued]The result of all this was that during the reorganization of iranology (institutionalized in the Achaemenid Workshops, with a journal like *Achaemenid History* and a new synthesis in Briant's book mentioned in the preceding message), Iranian iranologists were left out, and zoroastrianism was left out. A new paradigm was created, scholars who did adhere to it were no longer invited and were sometimes ridiculized (poor Walter Hintz).It is a classical example of a scientific revolution as described by Thomas Kuhn in his masterpiece, *The structure of scientific revolutions*.The results of this new iranology have been impressive and you do well to read Briant's book. But as you suspected already, I have some doubts about it. The most essential point is the redating of Zarathustra, as proposed by Gherardo Gnoli, in *Zoroaster in History* (2000). He returns to the old date of Zarathustra, ca. 600 BCE. This means that the Avesta is essentially contemporary to the Achaemenids, and means that at least the religious parts of the new synthesis are currently under attack.So, my advice would be: read Briant, be sceptical (always a good advice), consult the two major updates of Briant big book (online at http://www.achemenet.com/bibliographies/bhach1.htm and http://www.thotm-editions.com/editions/bhachII.htm ), and consult ARTA for the very latest news (http://www.achemenet.com/ressources/enl ... /table.htm ).Finally, I modestly refer to another source of information, my very own website: http://www.livius.org/persia.html.Jona

[jona]

The last link should not have ended with a dot. The correct link is http://www.livius.org/persia.htmlJ

[houman]

If you want to work on a persian history and you dont know persian languages it would be based on the sources that european especially french and english people gained from iran,I recommend you to know persian if you want to find your! point of view
I can help you in your way
thanks for your interesting in persia

[ancientlibrary]

Of course, if you want to do academic work on
Persia, it is necessary to know the languages
such a study might entail. (I suspect Akkadian
and Greek would be absolute necessities too.).That said, scholarship is a world endeavorGÇönot
something French and English scholars "take"
from Persia or elsewhere. Moreover, if I may be
blunt, it is generally the case that Middle Eastern
scholarship--Persian, Islamic, you name itGÇöis
not at the same level in the Middle East as it is
in the West. This is partially the result of a much
weaker university systemGÇöNew England has
more colleges than the entire Arab world, for
example. It is even true in the case of Greece:
there, of course, lots of top-level Greek
historians of ancient Greece, but Greeks do not
have some sort of monopoly on the study, or a
special quality Germans, French, English and
Americans lack. And the Dutch, of course!

[jona]

Of course you're absolutely right; the problem, unfortunately, is the comparative lack of Persian sources. Essentially, we have only the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions, which are -let's face it- fairly stereotypical. (See http://www.livius.org/aa-ac/achaemenian ... tions.html )The second group of Iranian sources is the Avesta (http://www.livius.org/au-az/avesta/avesta.html ), which was composed at a rather late date (Sassanid). It contains older information, mostly describing rituals. For a reconstruction of the Zoroastrian religion, they are valuable, but they do not offer information about the Persian Empire, which is the subject of this thread.Finally, there is the set of texts known as the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (http://www.livius.org/pen-pg/persepolis ... blets.html ). They are an important source for the economic history of Fars, and should indeed be studied more. The trouble is that they are written in Elamite, a poorly understood language.This being said, I agree that we must break away from the Greek sources to create an Asian perspective.Jona

[Dr. Pal]

Dear Anna,I think you have bought a very good book. Dont listen to others, just read it. I dont have Briant's book but have access to it and in my opinion it is not very good as it is based almost entirely upon Classical sources.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2004/2004-11-11.html
I have to admit that I have often found 'outdated' books much better than modern ones.Regards,Dr. Pal

[Dr. Pal]

Dear Jona,I admire your deep interest in Persian history because I share it myself but there seems to be a fundamental flaw in your outlook which may be a contamination from Briant. When you talk about the Persian Empire are you aware that there were many Indians within it? I have pointed out that southeast Iran was known as India. I think even Mary Boyce is not fully aware of this. Frye's book is better because he often stresses the multicultural aspect of the Persian empire. Frye says that Xerexes' expedition against the daivas may have been directed against the Indians. I have written that Xerexes banished Gomata/Gotama. This means that you cannot analyse the persian empire without considering the vast Indian tradition.
Regards,Dr. Pal

[Dr. Pal]

Dear Ana,
I am very sorry for misspelling your name. I shall give another example of the degradation(in my view) of modern scholarship which is of utmost importance in biblical studies. The name Shinar in the Bible has been identified with Sumer by all the modern scholars including D.J. Wiseman. This is not supported by linguistics and I think this is a horrible mistake. The nineteenth century dictionaries on the Bible mentioned Shinar as a separate entity. The Buddhist texts refer to an ancient territory named Shineru which I think is the biblical Shinar. This is Seistan where I have placed the ancient garden of Eden. http://www.geocities.com/ranajitdaRegards,Dr. Pal