Persika

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As Persika be ancient Greek historical works referred to the Persian Achaemenid Empire treated and 5./4. Century BC Were written.

overview

The fascination of the Greeks for Persia - with its enormous size, its resources and the magnificent court of the great kings - led in the 5th century BC. About the creation of special works that exclusively depicted Persian history and whose focus was not on the military conflicts, but rather on the cultural contacts. The Greeks' interest in Persia was constant, from the early 5th century BC. BC (i.e. the time of the beginning of Greek historiography) to the time of the fall of the Achaemenid Empire as a result of the Alexander procession . It should also be emphasized that it was by no means exclusively polemicized against the Persians, but that especially in the reports of Greeks, whose cities were or had been under Persian rule themselves, there was no keen friend-foe thinking. In literary terms, these reports also offered the opportunity to process exotic and spectacular stories.

Of these Persica (the title can roughly be translated as "Persian History"), which represent a separate literary genre, only fragments have survived (see Felix Jacoby , The Fragments of Greek Historians = FGrHist). The completely preserved Histories of Herodotus , the climax of which was the depiction of the Persian War , do not belong in this genre, however, as they are much broader.

Authors

Dionysius of Miletus

Very little is known about Dionysius, the first author of Persica . He lived in the late 6th / early 5th century BC. BC and wrote both a history of Persia (probably reaching as far as Dareios I ) and a work about the events after Dareios (FGrHist 687). The few fragments of his works hardly allow a more precise characterization.

Charon of Lampsakos

Charon wrote Persika in two books (FGrHist 262). In older research, it was often assumed that he wrote before Herodotus (but this was already different from Felix Jacoby, who believed Charon to be an author who lived later) and that he was possibly even a source for his histories . In recent research, however, his work is mostly settled in the time after Herodotus.

Hellanikos of Lesbos

Hellanikos was a contemporary of Herodotus and came from a city that was under Persian rule for a long time. Hellanikos wrote numerous works, including a "History of Persia" in at least two books (FGrHist 687a). In it he also described the history of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The work probably extended to the Battle of Salamis (480 BC). It is often assumed that he wrote before Herodotus (but it is also possible to write it around the same time), since a brief Persian story shortly after the publication of the Histories of Herodotus is rather unlikely.

Ktesias of Knidos

Ktesias of Knidos is one of the most famous (and notorious) authors of Persian history in ancient times. Ktesias worked as a doctor for several years at the court of Artaxerxes II and thus had a good insight into the conditions there. Shortly after 397 BC He returned to Knidos and wrote his history of Persia (FGrHist 688), which includes 23 books, among other works (including Indika , a history of India with fable stories). Although Ktesias would have had the opportunity to report from his knowledge about the internal conditions in Persia, he wrote not least with the intention of "correcting" Herodotus - sometimes sharply polemicizing Herodotus, but making several mistakes himself. His historical work, which is mainly available in an excerpt from Photios and several quotations from other authors, is often not very reliable. The first six books of the work also dealt with the history of the Assyrian Empire ( Assyriaka ), the description then extended beyond Persian history to Ktesias' own time.

Apparently, the focus of the Persika was less the history of events (the Persian Wars also play a rather subordinate role); rather, Ktesias described in detail court life, which was characterized by intrigues and harem stories. The image of a decadent court indulging in luxury was quite influential. However, it may above all reflect the Greek ideas of the court life of the great kings and is a very rich source for this. Reliable information that can be used is rather rare, especially since Ktesias worked with numerous clichés, although he claims to have had access to Persian archive material. However, some researchers believe that Ktesias had access to local narratives and processed them.

The Persika was used by numerous later authors (including Diodorus ), but the not infrequently unreliable representation, which is sometimes enriched with fantastic designs, was already criticized in antiquity. In older research, the image of Persia conveyed by Ktesias was sometimes regarded as credible (so still Karl Julius Beloch ), but overall a negative assessment of the work prevailed.

Some of the more recent research, on the other hand, has developed a more nuanced picture, whereby not all of Ktesias' statements are generally questioned and it is also assumed that Ktesias fell back on oral Persian traditions and is a not unimportant source for this. The reports on court internals probably reflect his point of view, especially since Ktesias also stayed mainly at the Persian royal court. The fragments of the work may also convey a skewed picture, because the Persika may well have contained more differentiated descriptions, but these have not been passed down. Furthermore, while the reports about the distant past at Ktesias actually have no historical value, the more contemporary descriptions are not insignificant.

In any case, it is noteworthy that with Ktesias a Greek attempted for the first time to write a Persian story including the entire ancient oriental history and thereby included Persian points of view. Nevertheless, Ktesia's image of Persia primarily reflects a Greek perspective.

Dinon of Colophon

Dinon, father of the Alexander historian Kleitarchos , wrote around the middle of the 4th century BC. A "Persian story", of which several fragments have been preserved (FGrHist 690). The Persika , enriched with fairytale and erotic elements , was used by Plutarch , among others , but was by far not as popular as the work of Ktesias, which was followed by Dinon. Like him, Dinon also had many fictional elements in his narrative.

Herakleides of Kyme

About Herakleides, who in the 4th century BC In fact nothing is known. He also wrote Persika , which were divided into five books (FGrHist 689). The fragments provide important and thoroughly reliable information about Persian court life, about which Herakleides was apparently well informed, as well as about the Persian administration. Besides Plutarch, Athenaios also used Persica .

Editions and translations

Beside Felix Jacoby ( The Fragments of the Greek Historians - FGrHist):

  • Amélie Kuhrt (Ed.): The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period . Routledge, New York 2007 (translated source excerpts).
  • Dominique Lenfant (ed.): Les Histoires perses de Dinon et d'Héraclide, fragments édités, traduits et commentés . De Boccard, Paris 2009.
  • Dominique Lenfant (Ed.): Ctésias de Cnide. La Perse, l'Inde, autres fragments . Paris 2004 (new, authoritative edition of the Ktesias fragments; however, it also contains sections whose attribution to Ktesias is contested by other researchers; review ).
  • Friedrich Wilhelm König (ed.): The Persika of Ktesias of Knidos . Graz 1972.
  • Jan P. Stronk: Ctesias' Persian History. Part I: Introduction, Text, and Translation. Wellem Verlag, Düsseldorf 2010 (collection of all fragments with English translation and detailed introduction).

literature

  • Eran Almagor: Plutarch and the Persica. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2018.
  • Carsten Binder: Plutarch's Vita des Artaxerxes. A historical comment. de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020994-5 ( Göttingen Forum for Classical Studies. Supplements NF 1), (Also: Univ. Düsseldorf, Diss., 2007).
  • Pierre Briant : From Cyrus to Alexander. A History of the Persian Empire. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake IN 2002, ISBN 1-57506-031-0 .
  • Wolfgang Felix: Dinon . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Iranica . Volume 7. Routledge & Paul et al. a., London a. a. 1996, ISBN 1-56859-028-8 , pp. 419f.
  • Dominique Lenfant: Greek Historians of Persia. In: John Marincola (Ed.): A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Volume 1. Blackwell, Oxford et al. 2007, ISBN 978-1-4051-0216-2 , pp. 200ff. ( Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World )
  • Gabriele Marasco: Ctesia, Dinone, Eraclide di Cuma e le origini della storiografia tragica. In: Studi italiani di filologia classica 6, 1988, pp. 48-67.
  • Rüdiger Schmitt: Ctesias . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Iranica. Volume 6, Mazda Publishing, Costa Mesa CA 1993, ISBN 1-56859-007-5 , pp. 441ff.
  • Rosemary B. Stevenson: Persica. Greek Writing about Persia in the Fourth Century BC. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1997, ISBN 0-7073-0719-8 ( Scottish Classical Studies 5).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cf. Dominique Lenfant: Greek Historians of Persia. In: John Marincola (Ed.): A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Volume 1. Oxford et al. 2007, here p. 208.
  2. ↑ Different, however, Dominique Lenfant: Greek Historians of Persia. In: John Marincola (Ed.): A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Volume 1. Oxford et al. 2007, here p. 201.
  3. ↑ To summarize, see also Klaus Meister : The Greek Historiography . Stuttgart 1990, pp. 62-64.
  4. ↑ Cf. in summary Amélie Kuhrt (ed.): The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period . New York 2007, here p. 8 as well as the work of Lenfant in general. On the other hand, however, see the overview in Carsten Binder: Plutarchs Vita des Artaxerxes. A historical comment. Berlin 2008, p. 55f.
  5. ↑ Cf. Dominique Lenfant: Greek Historians of Persia. In: John Marincola (Ed.): A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Volume 1. Oxford et al. 2007, here p. 205.