Kissians
The Kissians or Kissians were an ancient tribe in Persia . They are known from the works of Herodotus , Aeschylus , Apollonius of Tyana and Hekataios of Miletus .
Herodotus describes the Kissians in Xerxes' army show in Doriskos , right after the Persians and Medes . They were dressed like the Persians, but wore bandages instead of belts (Herodotus, Historien 7, 62). They were led by Anaphes, son of Otanes. In the battle of Thermopylae , Xerxes sent the Medes and Kissians first against the Spartans (Herodotus 7, 211), after whose failure the immortals .
Aeschylus names in his play The Persians Ekbatana , Susa and the "old castle" of the Kissians, after Harmon, because he did not know that Susa was in the territory of the Kissians and therefore lacked a capital for this tribe.
According to Apollonius of Tyana, the land of the Kissians in Media, a day's journey from Babylon (1.23), was in the plain of Ekbatana . There were no cities, only villages, and nomads on horseback lived here (1, 24). According to Apollonius, the land was soaked with pitch and bitter (probably too salty). Locals died early because the pitch from the water was deposited in their bowels. Darius had settled 410 abducted Eretrians from Euboea in the land of the Kissians . They had fortified their settlement by diverting the river so that it flowed in a semicircle around the village. Agriculture was only possible on a hill near the village, where the earth was not contaminated, but it was contested by nomads. In addition, they had built a quarry and built a Greek-style temple and a market square with the stone extracted there. They consecrated altars to Darius, Xerxes and Daridaios. Their tombstones bore Greek inscriptions and were decorated with ships.
Individual evidence
- ^ Austin Morris Harmon: The Scene of the Persians of Aeschylus . In: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 63, 1932, 7-19