B. Jacobs (ed.), Ancient Information on Persia Re-assessed: Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Proceedings of a Conference Held at Marburg in Honour of Christopher J. Tuplin, December 1-2, 2017, Classica et Orientalia 22 (Wiesbaden 2020) 241-258
The gifts that pass from hand to hand in Xenophon – especially in the Cyropaedia – correspond to ... more The gifts that pass from hand to hand in Xenophon – especially in the Cyropaedia – correspond to a remarkable degree with the objects that the delegations from the provinces of the Achaemenid Empire on the stairway facades of the so-called apadāna at Persepolis brought to their king. To describe those objects with the term “gift” – or “Geschenk” in German – is, however, misleading, because the word’s natural connotation of irregularity and voluntariness is inappropriate. In many interpretations of the imagery the idea of mutuality plays an important role, but this also seems to miss the point.
Interpretations like these should be replaced by an understanding that in the representations of delegations approaching the king two levels of meaning overlay each other. One is the strictly one-sided obligation of (obedience and) tax payment, the other the iconographic expression of this reality chosen by the Achaemenids in the form of a scene of ceremonial gift-giving. The relationship of subordinate provinces to royal rule and the burden of liabilities are entirely one-sided and no generous intent can be discerned on either side. That the negotiation of obligations was set in a ceremonial frame similar to the representations of gift-giving delegations, though imaginable, is unprovable.
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Books by Bruno Jacobs
As questions of genre cannot be ignored anyway so the volume opens with contributions that consider where Cyropaedia stands in relation to historiography, the novel and Socratic literature. The next group of studies deals with how Xenophon drew on material from other authors and from his own experience to develop a picture of the emergence of the Persian Empire and of the way in which power was exercised there. Investigations of this sort presuppose questions about the historiē that underpins Cyropaedia, and that topic is the focus of two further contributions that deal specifically with the types of information that were available to Xenophon. A final group of contributions looks at the impact of the work in canonical and deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, in the writings of the Alexander historians, and in modern literature up to the 20th century.
Papers by Bruno Jacobs
Interpretations like these should be replaced by an understanding that in the representations of delegations approaching the king two levels of meaning overlay each other. One is the strictly one-sided obligation of (obedience and) tax payment, the other the iconographic expression of this reality chosen by the Achaemenids in the form of a scene of ceremonial gift-giving. The relationship of subordinate provinces to royal rule and the burden of liabilities are entirely one-sided and no generous intent can be discerned on either side. That the negotiation of obligations was set in a ceremonial frame similar to the representations of gift-giving delegations, though imaginable, is unprovable.
As questions of genre cannot be ignored anyway so the volume opens with contributions that consider where Cyropaedia stands in relation to historiography, the novel and Socratic literature. The next group of studies deals with how Xenophon drew on material from other authors and from his own experience to develop a picture of the emergence of the Persian Empire and of the way in which power was exercised there. Investigations of this sort presuppose questions about the historiē that underpins Cyropaedia, and that topic is the focus of two further contributions that deal specifically with the types of information that were available to Xenophon. A final group of contributions looks at the impact of the work in canonical and deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, in the writings of the Alexander historians, and in modern literature up to the 20th century.
Interpretations like these should be replaced by an understanding that in the representations of delegations approaching the king two levels of meaning overlay each other. One is the strictly one-sided obligation of (obedience and) tax payment, the other the iconographic expression of this reality chosen by the Achaemenids in the form of a scene of ceremonial gift-giving. The relationship of subordinate provinces to royal rule and the burden of liabilities are entirely one-sided and no generous intent can be discerned on either side. That the negotiation of obligations was set in a ceremonial frame similar to the representations of gift-giving delegations, though imaginable, is unprovable.
Das Faktum, dass die Bīsutūn-Liste, soweit dies überhaupt möglich ist, vollkommen in einer Liste alexanderzeitlicher Provinzen aufgeht, beweist eine Kontinuität der Verwaltung und ihrer Einheiten von der Zeit Kambyses’ II. bis zum Ende der Achämenidenzeit. Kontinuierliches Eingreifen der Zentrale und fortgesetztes Justieren der Institutionen, wie es immer wieder (re)konstruiert wurde, hat es nicht gegeben. Charakteristisch für das System waren nicht fortgesetzte Veränderung und Anpassung, sondern Kontinuität und Stabilität.
Eine solche Verehrung dürften nun auch jene Vorfahren genossen haben, die Dareios in §2 der Bīsutūn-Inschrift aufzählt. In Zusammenhang mit ihnen wurde die Frage aufgeworfen, welche Qualität Achaimenes, eine Person, die in einer weit entfernten, geradezu mythischen Vergangenheit imaginiert wurde, prädestiniert haben mag, zum heros eponymos des Geschlechts zu werden. Die oben erläuterte gleiche Attribuierung der königlichen Ahnen und des „Zeus“ in den klassischen Quellen suggeriert nun den Gedanken, dass Achaimenes das Bindeglied war, das die königlichen Vorfahren mit Auramazdā verband und diesen letztlich zum Ahnherrn des Herrschergeschlechts machte.
Dass Auramazdā in der Gestalt des Mannes im Flügelring zu erkennen ist, scheint – neben allen anderen Argumenten – die Göttlichkeit signalisierende Hörnerkrone auf dem Bīsutūn-Relief nahezulegen. Die ikonographische Angleichung, bei der man die Hörnerkrone zugunsten der Kopfbedeckung, die auch der König trug, aufgab, mag die verwandtschaftliche Beziehung unterstrichen und den König umgekehrt zu einem Abbild seines Gottes gemacht haben.
Prognose schließt sich der Rezensent mit Überzeugung an.