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what was the name of achaemenid empire ?
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:38 pm
by alex_z
Greeks refer to it as Persis, but did achamenids really refer to their country as Persis ?
thanks in advance
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 2:24 am
by Vergina Sun
Hi alex_z,
The theory I know is that the Persians referred to their country as Iran for an extremely long time. Here some quotes from Wikipedia (which had the only complete explanation I could find):
Starting from c. 600 BC, the Greeks began to use the name Persis for Cyrus the Great's empire. Persis was taken from Old Persian Pars or Pārsa - the name of the people whom Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty first ruled (before he inherited or conquered other Persian Kingdoms) and amongst whom he is counted. This tribe gave its name to the region where they (ethnic Persians) lived (the modern day province is called Fars/Pars).
In Latin, the name for the land was Persia. The name "Persia" until 1935 was the "official" name of Iran in the world, but Persian people inside their country since the Sassanid period have called it "Iran" meaning "the land of Aryans", the older version of which had been "Aryānām" (the genitive plural of the word Aryan, a cognate form of which is seen in "Airyanem Vaejah" ) as seen in ancient Persian texts.
Iran Naming Dispute - Wikipedia
and this too...
The term Iran (ایران) in modern Persian derives from the Proto-Iranian term Aryānām first attested in Zoroastrianism's Avesta tradition.[10] As in Zoroaster's lifetime, differing dates for Avestan have been proposed; scholarly consensus floats around 1000 BCE (roughly contemporary to the Brahmana period of Vedic Sanskrit). Ariya- and Airiia- are also attested as an ethnic designator in Achaemenid inscriptions. The term Ērān from Middle Persian Ērān, Pahlavi ʼyrʼn, is found at the inscription that accompanies the investiture relief of Ardashir I at Naqsh-e Rustam.[11] In this inscription, the king's appellation in Middle Persian contains the term ērān (Pahlavi: ʼryʼn), while in the Parthian language inscription that accompanies it, Iran is mentioned as aryān. In Ardashir's time ērān retained this meaning, denoting the people rather than the state.
Notwithstanding this inscriptional use of ērān to refer to the Iranian peoples, the use of ērān to refer to the empire is also attested by the early Sassanid period. An inscription of Shapur I, Ardashir's son and immediate successor, apparently "includes in Ērān regions such as Armenia and the Caucasus which were not inhabited predominantly by Iranians."[12] In Kartir's inscriptions the high priest includes the same regions in his list of provinces of the antonymic Anērān.[12] Both ērān and aryān comes from the Proto-Iranian term Aryānām, (Land) of the (Iranian) Aryas. The word and concept of Airyanem Vaejah is present in the name of the country Iran (Lit. Land of the Aryans) where Iran (Ērān), is modern-Persian of the word Aryānā.
Iran - Wikipedia
I hope this helps!
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:19 am
by Paralus
As the rulers refered to themselves as Achaemenids (descended from Achaemenes), they most likely thought it the Achaemenid kingdom - or empire.
From the Behistun Inscription:
I am Darius, the great king, king of kings, the king of Persia, the king of countries, the son of Hystaspes, the grandson of Arsames, the Achaemenid.
King Darius says: My father is Hystaspes; the father of Hystaspes was Arsames; the father of Arsames was Ariaramnes; the father of Ariaramnes was Teispes; the father of Teispes was Achaemenes.
King Darius says: That is why we are called Achaemenids; from antiquity we have been noble; from antiquity has our dynasty been royal.
Re: what was the name of achaemenid empire ?
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:59 pm
by Callisto
alex_z wrote:Greeks refer to it as Persis, but did achamenids really refer to their country as Persis ?
thanks in advance
They didnt refer to their country as Persis. They referred to themselves as "King of Countries". For example Cyrus had the title "king of the world, Great king, legitimate king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four rims of the earth, [..]"
The name Persis/Pars/Parsa itself did not cover the entire Iran, but simply the south-west part of present-day Iran.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:46 am
by Callisto
Well now that i find time let me add a few more infos about the name 'Persia'.
Greeks used the name "Persia" having a different perception than Achaemenids. In Greek's eyes when they refer to the "King of Persia", it meant the entire realm of the King, including the entire Middle East, not just the whole Iran. In reality we havent got a Greek expression for the whole of Iran until much later when we read of the expression 'Ariane', with the exception of Eratosthenes who used 'Ariane' to imply eastern Persia. This probably reflected a Pahlavi expression for Iran, namely "Eran", and probably an earlier Avestan expression Airyanem Vaeja.
The Achaemenids perception of the name "Persia" is now different. If you look further in the Behistun inscription it lists:
"the countries which came to me; by the favor of Ahuramazda I was king of them: Persia, Elam, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, (those) who are beside the sea, Sardis, Ionia, Media, Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, Drangiana, Aria, Chorasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Gandara, Scythia, Sattagydia, Arachosia, Maka: in all, 23 provinces"
we note here that "Persia" was merely one province of Iran, the others being Elam, Media, Parthia, Drangiana, Aria, Chorasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and Maka. Neither Darius, nor any of his successors have an expression for the entirety of Iran.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:32 am
by Paralus
No Callisto, I don't think so.
Persia "fell" to the royal family of Achaemenids just as did the other nations afterwards.
The Achaemenids, their propaganda aside, were under the heel of others before they were the ruling elite.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:29 pm
by Callisto
Well in a sense, yes, but in another sense, no. Let me explain it a bit. As you may know, "Persia" (that is, the ancient province now known as Fars, the name in Old Persian is 'Parsa') was divided up by two branches of the Achaemenids. One line said to be the "kings of Parsa", and the other being the "kings of Anshan".
Cyrus descended from the kings of Anshan, hence in one way he superceded the kings of Parsa. In the other sense, we don't know when we can really speak of a Persian self-identity. Darius in his Naqsh-i-Rustam inscription calls himself "a Persian, son of a Persian" and older Assyrian records already distinguish Medes from Persians.