Gadatas letter

Gadatas letter in the Louvre

The so-called Gadatas letter is an ancient inscription on a marble stele . This was discovered in 1886 in the area of Magnesia am Mäander (today's Turkey) and is now kept in the Louvre in Paris (inventory no. Ma 2934). It is a copy of a letter from the Persian king Dareios I to Gadatas, the satrap of the Ionian province.

description

The marble stone with the inscription was found in April 1886 by the French archaeologists Georges Cousin and Gaston Deschamps in the Turkish village Deïrmendjik between Magnesia am Meander and Tralleis (near Aydın ). Three years later, the two researchers published their discovery in the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique .

The letterforms of the inscription indicate a carving around the first half of the 1st century, which must be a copy. The original text is dated to the reign of Darius I (521–486 BC).

content

Original (greek)

Translation (german)

Βασιλεῦς [Βα] σιλέ- ων Δαρεῖος ὁ Ὑσ- τάσπεω Γαδάται δούλωι τάδε λέγε [ι] · πυνθάνομαί σε τῶν ἐμῶν ἐπιταγμάτων οὐ κατὰ πάντα πει- θαρχεῖν · ὅτι μὲν γὰ [ρ τ] ὴν ἐμὴν ἐκπονεῖς [γ] ῆν, τοὺς Εὐπέρνννν φράτου καρποὺς ἐπ [ὶ] τὰ κάτω τῆς ᾽Ασίας μέ- [ρ] η καταφυτύων, ἐπαι- [ν] ῶ σὴν πρόθθεσιν καὰ στιῦθεσιν καὶ [στιδ] στατε σττεδ] στατατεατεδ] στατεάτετειτατατετεδ] στατεατεδ] στατεάτεδ] στατεατεδ] μεγάλη χάρις ἐμ βασι- λέως οἴκωι · ὅτι δὲ τὴν ὑπὲρ θεῶν μου διάθε- σιν ἀφανίζεις, δώσλω σοι μὴ μετβωονομντνωνομντωινομντωνομντωνομνταωνομένταωομομ τναωια πεῖραν ἠδικη [μέ] θυ- νου μοῦ · φυτουργοὺς γὰρ [ἱ] εροὺς Απόλλ [ω] φό- νος ρον ἔπρασσες καὶ χώραν [σ] καπανεύειν βέβηλον ἐπ [έ] - τασσες, ἀγνοῶν ἐμῶν προγόνων εἰς τὸν θεὸν [ν] οῦν, ὃς Πέρσαις εἶπε [πᾶ] σαν ἀτρέκε [……] αν καὶ τη.….

The king of the kings Darius, son of Hystaspes , announces the following to his subordinate Gadatas: I hear that you do not obey my orders in every respect . That you cultivate my land by taking fruits of On the other side of the Euphrates in the regions on the coast of Asia Minor, I praise your decision , and for that reason Great thanks will be given to you in the king's house . But that you do not have my disposition regarding the gods note, if you don't change I'll give you proof of my displeasure. Because you have the holy one Demanded a tax from the gardeners of Apollo and instructed them to cultivate unsanitary land, in misjudgment of the public tion of my forefathers to the deity who announced the full legal order to the Persians and ...

Interpretation
The letter of Dareios I concerns the Apollo sanctuary of Aulai . The listing of the copy of the original letter is apparently related to the sanctuary's entitlement to tax exemption. In this copy, the text originally written in the Ionian dialect was translated into Greek, which was customary in the 1st century.

literature

• Georges cousin, Gaston Deschamps: Une lettre de Darius, fils d'Hystaspes. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 13, 1889, pp. 529-542, full text .
• Wilhelm Dittenberger : The letter of King Dareios. In: Hermes 31, 1896, pp. 643-646.
• Josef Wiesehöfer : On the question of the authenticity of the Dareios letter to Gadatas. In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 130, 1987, pp. 396–398, full text (PDF; 605 kB) .
• Rüdiger Schmitt: Comment on the so-called Gadatas letter. In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 112, 1996, pp. 95–101, full text (PDF; 69 kB) .
• Dieter Metzler : Comments on Darius' letter to Gadatas. In: Recherches récentes sur l'Empire achéménide. Topoi Supplement 1, Paris 1997, ISSN  1161-9473 , pp. 323-332.
• Pierre Briant : Histoire et archeologie d'un texte. La Lettre de Darius à Gadatas entre Perses, Grecs et Romains. In: Mauro Giorgieri u. a. (Ed.): Licia e Lidia prima dell'ellenizzazione. Rome 2003, ISBN 88-8080-034-5 , pp. 107-144.

Web links

• The Gadatas letter at Achemenet (PDF; 382 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ from Wilhelm Dittenberger: The letter of King Dareios. In: Hermes 31, 1896, pp. 643-646.