ASIA MINOR

 

ASIA MINOR, Irano-Anatolian relations. Cyrus the Great gave Iranians control over Anatolia. Settlement, some forced, continued until his House fell in the 330s; residence continued for longer still (into the fourth century A.D. in the west, beyond Sasanian times in the east). The Iranians left their imprint above all on the art of governing: They transformed the unproductive into the productive and by example taught non-Iranians to do the same.

I. The Achaemenid era.

1. Sources: Lacunose sources preclude a continuous and detailed narrative of the Achaemenid empire’s impact on the landscape and its inhabitants. Literary sources stem from outsiders ill-disposed towards the Persians (Greeks, later Greco-Romans using earlier, but now lost, works). While their mocking characterizations of administration and administrators are transcended easily (Isocrates, Panegyricus 152; Herodotus 1.155), greater problems are posed by their tendency to view the empire as a large city-state with packages of reforms assigned to a single major figure (Herodotus 3.89ff.) or detailed checks and balances existing among officers (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.6.1-3; Oeconomicus 4.5-11). These western sources document Anatolia unevenly. Attention is paid only when Greeks are involved, only the most senior Achaemenid officers appear with any regularity, and local affairs, for the most part, are ignored. There are some shafts of light: Herodotus on the activities of the early kings. Thucydides’ account of satrapial rivalry in attempting the removal of foreign Greeks from the coast, the Alexander historians’ accounts of the collapse of Achaemenid imperial rule. The Roman Nepos’ biography of Datames and Xenophon’s works are exceptional in their attention to the more local manifestations of Achaemenid rule. Greek epigraphy offers complementary data and glimpses into the ordinary workings of the Achaemenid presence (the sale of grain by an estate owner, Kirchener, Inscriptiones, p. 207; resolution of border disputes, Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum, p. 134). The survival in second-century A.D. Greek translation of older documents attest to the importance and long lasting impact of Achaemenid control (e.g., Darius’ letter on temple land inviolability, Dittenberger, op. cit., p. 22).

From the Achaemenid officers themselves there is silence, Droaphernes’ strictures on the worship of Ahura Mazdā, Pixodarus’ decree at Xanthus (discussed below) being notable exceptions. In Persis the names and images of Anatolian subjects appears in royal monuments, attesting to their obedience to the Great King. The native Lycian dynasts left monuments on which we have testimony to intermarriage with and emulation of the Iranians.

The numismatic record is limited: Only the Hecatomnid satraps of Caria issued a continuous coinage. There were short-lived emissions of campaign coinages (usually in Cilicia to pay troops used to reconquer Egypt). Filling out the historical record with numismatics is dangerous, however, since not all officers attested struck coins and not all coins extant were struck by attested officers. But throughout Achaemenid issues the hands and influence of native, primarily Greek, artisans can be detected.

The Achaemenid presence has been investigated unevently by archeologists attracted foremost to Hellenic sites. The satrapial capital at Dascylium has been identified, Sardis is being excavated, and there is continued interest in Caria and Lycia. But estates, Hanfmann’s “Little Persias,” and the cornerstone of Achaemenid control, remain hidden, with the exception of their inhabitants’ luxury goods.

2. Administrative landscape: Ethose. “Developmental” and “competitive” strands marked the administrative ethos of Achaemenid control. The first strand (Briant’s “chief economic command” in his Antigone le Borgne, held that the empire’s goal was the transformation of the landscape into paradeisos, a well-ordered, productive estate, free from external and internal disruption. This vision, to be achieved by a rational use of economic and human resources, was represented on imperial monuments, where subject peoples, including those of all Anatolia, join together in supporting the Great King who intercedes with Ahura Mazdā for the safety of the dynasty, empire, and inhabitants. Local reflections are in Lycian monuments: native dynasts made it clear that through cooperation and mutual support they and their Iranian superior at Sardis ensured the establishment and continuation of good government.

The second strand held that great deeds proved one worthy of post and promotion. For the Great King this meant a “heroic kingship” (cf. the sentiments in Herodotus 7.8.11), for his subordinates—regardless of nationality—a service and status orientation of empire. Serving the king was a matter of honor (Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.37); visibility and performance added to one’s status (see, e.g., Xenophon, Hellenica 3.1.10-13) and compensated for ignoble ancestry.

With these strands were woven the major characteristics of Achaemenid control (which made little distinction between Iranians and non-Iranians); on the one hand those which permitted the rational use of resources: decentralized government (left local experts govern), replication in activities (each officer was expected to maintain order in the area entrusted to him and so be able to forward tribute to superiors), continuity in administrative practice and personnel (prevent unnecessary, deleterious changes; create miniature dynasties with which the central government could work easily); on the other hand there arose great deeds and dangers: an undercurrent of competition and rivalry in the relations between officers (Thucydides 8.5-6, Xenophon, Hellenica 3.1.9,14-15), which could result in open warfare (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.1.7-8; Hellenica 4.1). Achaemenid Anatolia was like a battlefield upon which the forces of good administration contended with the forces of maladministration.

Officers. The warrior class, including the officers, were a multi-ethnic group (well-documented families prove to be both Iranian and non-Iranian, e.g., Strabo 14.2.17). Their responsibilities were to maintain order and forward tribute, but more important administrators were permitted wide-ranging discretionary powers and their deeds had impact over a larger region.

The sources are too scanty and vague to permit detailing a precise administrative hierarchy; the true political value of honorific titles (orosanga, Herodotus 8.85; phoinikistes, Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.20) is difficult to assess. In general, a satrap (Old Persian xšaçapāvan-) not necessarily an Iranian, headed a province (satrapy). Subordinate to him were lesser officers: local nobles (usually estate owners), city commanders, semi-obedient tribal chieftains, native dynasts. The categories overlap: The Greek city commanders Zenis and Mania were styled “satraps” of Pharnabazus (Xenophon, Hellenica 3.1.10-12); the Carian Hecatomnid family, initially city commanders in Mylasa and local dynasts, provided Caria (and Lycia) with satraps. The service and status orientations of empire left much for promotion—and demotion.

Extraordinary threats to imperial security were met by the appointment of extraordinary officers. The most visible was the karanos (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.4.3; idem, Anabasis 1.1.2, 1.9.7), normally a senior officer familiar to and with the forces he would lead in campaign (so Pharnabazus leading Anatolian troops against Egypt). Cyrus the Younger’s appointment—to get him out of Susa—was a tragic exception.

Monitoring the activities of rivalrous officers was not entrusted to a special class of administrators (so Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.6.16). The Great King relied on a variety of information sources; for the most part, officers policed themselves.

Landed property. The creation of estates was the physical expression of the belief that an aim in administration was maintaining agricultural productivity through the protection of the land and its fertility. The estates (and owners) were the building blocks of control: The Achaemenid presence was rurally-based and not uniform in depth. The creation of new estates (and the settlement of Iranians: Strabo 13.4.13; Xenophon, Anabasis 7.8.15) facilitated the growth of stronger and more productive land.

Located on the plain, the estate was a complex: manor house (the owner’s basileia), cultivated fields, numerous villages, hunting parks and ceremonial gardens (paradeisoi), fortifications (Dascylium was a model: Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.15-17; Hellenica oxyrhynchia 21.3). The crops grown and livestock raised were the raw materials of revenue and wealth; the cavalry commanded by the estate owner was the backbone of Achaemenid military power (cf. Xenophon, Anabasis 4.4.3-22, 7.8.8-24).

Most estates were the property of “civil” officers, but there existed large tracts of agricultural land connected with religious sanctuaries (Strabo 12.2.3,6): their economic importance is not to be underestimated.

Threats to peace. The characteristics of Achaemenid control engendered long-standing problems for administrators. Power was land-based, cavalry at its heart. Naval power depended primarily upon the utilization of fleets from Anatolian Greek city states or sources outside Anatolia. As a result, the coast could be raided, often with impunity, invaders pushing inland. Extreme care and foresight were requisites in setting priorities for the use of naval power in imperial defense. Only Caria, in the fourth century B.C., developed a satrapially controlled fleet. The uneven, porous nature of Achaemenid control meant that many areas were frequently in disorder and deserving of constant police action (e.g., the Mysians: Hellenica oxyrhynchia 21.1; Xenophon, Anabasis 3.2.23).

The undercurrent of rivalry among officers led to irrational use of resources. The 390s and 360s B.C. saw protracted clashes between Iranian nobles (Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.6; idem, Agesilaus 2.26-27, 3.3). Occasionally, even open warfare was tolerated by the Great King (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.1,6). Overall, the only beneficiaries were the less stable, tribally organized peoples of Anatolia, who both exploited and were exploited by the contending forces (e.g., Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1).

Internal tensions were exploited by external enemies: Egypt, when in rebellion and led by native “pharaohs,” sought to assist anti-Achaemenid forces in Anatolia as a means of tying up the military, particularly scarce naval forces (Diodorus 15.2, 92; Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.8.4). The Greeks, politically fragmented and scattered in numerous settlements in both Europe and Asia, possessed the characteristics of both an external enemy and a tribally organized people. Ready access to naval power enabled them to defy long-term effective control by land-based forces.

3. Provinces: Dascylium. Northeastern Anatolia contained the satrapy of Dascylium, centered on the homonymous estate near modern Ergili, an administrative center under the old Lydian kingdom (Nicolaus of Damascus in Jacoby, Fragmente, p. 90 frag. 63, cf. Strabo 13.1.17). The province, first documented in Cambyses’ reign (Herodotus 3.120.3, 126.2), occasionally served as a means of extending Achaemenid control or influence across the Hellespont into Europe. Achaemenid Dascylium was characterized by estates protected by cavalry (Xenophon, Hellenica 3.4.13, 4.1.40). The most important complex was the property of the Iranian satrapial family, the House of Pharnaces (late fifth through fourth centuries B.C.). Xenophon preserves an account of its wealth and productivity (Hellenica 4.1.15-19, 33; cf. Hellenica oxyrhynchia 21.3). Excavations at the site, though incomplete, have unearthed bullae from archives, reused masonry, and a series of stelae and plaques from funerary monuments. The latter emphasize horsemanship and depict Zoroastrian prayer outside a tomb. The newest stele from the region records the names of previously unknown lower echelon officers. Wherever possible native Anatolians were brought into the administrative structure: Cyzicus, the urban center closest to Dascylium estate, provided diplomats (Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.29; Thucydides 8.6.1); along the coast to the west city bosses did much to pacify Aeolis (Xenophon, Hellenica 3.1); tribal chieftains, only partially under control, occasionally joined the cause of rebellious Iranian nobles (Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1).

Sparda (Lydia). The satrapy of Sparda, though more heavily urbanized, shared Dascylium’s salient features: Achaemenid power, based inland, depended upon an Iranian satrap and a series of estates owned by Iranian, native, and foreign notables. They maintained peaceful conditions needed for agriculture and trade. Sparda was the kernel of the old Lydian kingdom (Herodotus 1.28; Dascylium and Phrygia were spun off as separate provinces). The old royal capital, Sardis, became the satrapial center, and an Iranian satrap (usually Achaemenid royalty: Herodotus 5.25; Diodorus 16.47) replaced the Lydian king in the palace. From the start, Achaemenid authorities attempted to utilize Lydian administrators. Greek sources note only failure (Herodotus 1.153; Diodorus 9.31), but stamp seals from Sardis record a Lydian presence in the bureaucracy of empire and intermarriage did occur (Pausanias 5.27).

This satrapy was the focal point of Achaemenid control in western Anatolia: Satrapial authority extended into Caria (Thucydides 8.5), Lycia (Tituli Asiae Minoris 1.44), and the Greek-inhabited coast (Dittenberger, Sulloge Inscriptionum, p. 134; Herodotus 6.42). Iranian settlement concentrated around Sardis (Strabo 13.4.13), but estates and settlements are noted far afield (Xenophon, Anabasis 7.8.25; idem, Hellenica 3.2.12; cf. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones, p. 229 for a later period). In addition, land and cities were granted to transplanted foreigners (Thucydides 1.138; Herodotus 6.41). Excavations at Sardis reveal the persistence of native Lydian culture, increasing Hellenization, and the absence of forced Iranization. Iranian objects of personal adornment and tombs have surfaced (the Pyramid Tomb; a mausoleum reminiscent of those of Lycian dynasts in form and decoration). A cult of Ahura Mazdā (Zeus Baradates “Law-Giver”) was established, and pains taken to keep it apart from indigenous Anatolian cults.

The satrapy of Sparda shrank during the fourth century when Caria (with responsibility for Lycia) was granted as a satrapy to the native Hecatomnid family. This division was accompanied by an increasing depth and success in control.

Caria. Although unsuited for cavalry (Xenophon, Hellenica 3.4.12) and relatively poor in resources, Caria roved to be an Achaemenid success. Initially the region was characterized by a series of local dynasts (Herodotus 7.99) under Sparda’s control. By the early fourth century the Carian family of Hecatomnus emerged as a competent force for Achaemenid control and he was appointed satrap in the 390s. Hecatomnus and his sons (Strabo 14.2.17) effected a transformation: The capital was shifted from inland Mylasa to a rebuilt coastal Halicarnassus, new urban centers were created, satrapial coinage minted, and a satrapial fleet maintained. Although Hecatomnid activity, particularly under the eldest son, Mausollus, took a Hellenic form (use of Greek artisans; Greek language for inscriptions and on coins), its ethos was Achaemenid. Run as a closely held family business, the satrapy enabled imperial authorities to deploy resources in the pacification of both Cyprus and Egypt. Satrapial influence extended into Rhodes and Crete (Labraunda no. 40). Details of administration are preserved in Greek language inscriptions from urban centers and Carian sanctuaries. Local Carian groups were permitted a measure of self-government under satrapial view (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum, pp.167, 311; Labraunda no. 42). The sanctuaries of Sinuri near Mylasa and of Zeus Lambrandeus were objects of Hecatomnid dedications and building.

Lycia. Lycia fell to Cyrus’ general Harpagus (Herodotus 1.176, cf. 1.28) and was ruled, until the mid-fourth century, by the satrap at Sardis. A land of warring dynasts, Lycia’s saving grace was its ability to provide a fleet (Herodotus 7.92) and turn its violence against anti-Achaemenid forces (Thucydides 2.69). A remarkable number of documents preserve the names and deeds of these native political figures: coins (minted at numerous, partially identified, sites) and monuments, most of them funerary and at Xanthus, sometime center of political power. The origin and nature of the dynasts’ power is open to debate. A mix of Iranians and Lycians introduced after the Persian conquest and subordinate to the dynast at Xanthus or else native lords, owners of large estates, all contending for power. The funerary monuments illustrate the strong impact of the Iranian presence on Lycian dress and attitude: dynast and satrap worked together against the Achaemenids’ enemies (the Harpagid monument, “Harpy Tomb,” at Xanthus honors an Irano-Lycian in a manner reminiscent of Persepolis; the Payava monument at Xanthus commemorates its honoree’s work alongside Sparda’s Autophradates, satrap in the fourth century). A similar impact is found in Lycian chamber-tomb paintings near Elmali.

By the mid-fourth century, as a result of the creation of a Carian satrapy, the age of the Lycian dynast had ended (the last notables were Perikle and Artumpara “the Mede”). The trilingual inscription from Xanthus (338 B.C.) portrays a Lycia firmly in Halicarnassus’ control.

Cilicia. Cilicia, its satrapial capital at Tarsus, comprised two fertile plains girded by mountains forming the gates to the profitable regions of Syria and beyond. Geography (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.4.4), cavalry (Herodotus 3.90), and naval forces (Herodotus 6.6, 7.91, 96; Diodorus 14.79) made the satrapy valuable.

At first Cilicia was administered for the Great King by its own native king, the Syennesis (Herodotus 5.118, Xenophon, Anabasis 1). Native rule ended in the early fourth century B.C., a result of the then-ruling Syennesis’ failure to prevent Cyrus from breaking out of Anatolia. Thereafter the satrapy was governed by imperial appointees, the first noted being Datames the Carian (Nepos, Datames) who, by the mid-fourth century, was satrap of both Cilicia and Cappadocia. Following his fall, Cilicia was held by the Iranian Mazaeus (Diodorus 16.42). Sources note Cilicia normally in connection with military operations: it served as a mustering point for expeditions against Europe (Herodotus 6.43, 95) and Egypt (Diodorus 15.2-4). In connection with operations against the latter come much of the campaign coinage noted earlier.

The interior. Poorly documented, the satrapies of eastern Anatolia (Phrygia, Cappadocia, Armenia) were less urbanized: The estate, agriculture, livestock were their characteristic features.

Phrygia. Phrygia, its satrapial capital Celaenae (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.7-9), was sheep-raising plateau country (Herodotus 5.49). The particulars of administration are unclear; the only officers attested are those whose activities were in some way touched by events further west (Plutarch, Themistocles 30.1; Diodorus 14.80). Representative of the Achaemenid presence was the Lydian Pythius, who owned a large estate near Celaenae (Herodotus 7.27-29, 38-39; Plutarch, Moralia 262A-263A): His wealth, dependent upon livestock, agriculture, and mining, is indicative of the satrapy’s potential.

Cappadocia. Cappadocia, relatively untouched by Hellenic depredation, was probably the centerpiece of Achaemenid Anatolia. Part of the old Median Empire (Herodotus 1.72), the satrapy was structured like Sparda, with a satrap (his capital not known), lesser officers, and estates (a concentration is known at Dana: Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.20). There were also temple-based estates (these may go back to Achaemenid times: Strabo 12.2.3, 15.3.15).

The chief danger to the development of Cappadocian resources (Strabo 11.13.8, 12.3.13) came from less stable peoples. Datames’ career as satrap suggests representative policing actions, involving campaigns against Paphlagonians (Nepos, Datames 2), native chieftains (ibid., 5), and city states on the north coast (Polyaenus 7.21.2).

By the later fourth century Cappadocia was divided into two satrapies (Strabo 12.1.4), a move suggesting that the province had attained a high degree of development and two officers were needed to maintain quality administration. Depth of control is indicated also by the ability of lesser officers, without apparent concern for internal safety, to deploy troops for the reconquest of Egypt in the 340s (Diodorus 31.19).

Armenia. Armenia was another rather rural satrapy. Xenophon offers a snapshot of the province in the fourth century (Anabasis 3-4): The chief threat to agricultural productivity was posed by peoples such as the Cardouchi with whom the satrap, Orontes, negotiated to protect the lowlands (Xenophon, Anabasis 3.5.16-17). At stake were extensive estates (Xenophon, Anabasis 4.4; cf. Herodotus 5.49) which produced crops and livestock, villagers raising the latter as tribute (Xenophon, Anabasis 4.5.24, 34). The depth of Iranian settlement is suggested by the survival of place names derived from the Achaemenid kings (Strabo 11.4.1, 11.14.4-5).

4. End of the empire: Whereas Alexander the Macedonian’s military activities (335-323 B.C.) are well-illuminated, the Achaemenid resistance is depicted by an enumeration of the dead only. The House of Pharnaces (Memnon, Pharnabazus the Younger) and the Hecatomnids (Orontopates) led resistance in the west. Cappadocia and Phrygia were rallying points (Quintus Curtius 4.1.34-35, 4.5.13); campaign coinage survives. After the fall, Alexander’s orders for Dascylium (Arrian, Anabasis 1.17) suggest continuity, and a continued superficial prominence of the satrapial house can be traced (Arrian, Anabasis 7.4; Plutarch, Eumenes 7.1; Kirchener, Inscriptiones Attical, p. 356). Macedonians were now the satraps (Caria a temporary exception, Arrian, Anabasis 1.23), but the details of administration are lost. The fates of lesser officers and estates are unknown as is the reaction to the end of Darius’ House.

II. The post-Achaemenid era (the Iranian diaspora).

1. Sources: Reconstructing the “Iranian Diaspora,” i.e., the presence of Iranians in Anatolia after the Achaemenid collapse, is the tortuous collection of fortuitously preserved scraps of scattered evidence. Most of it is weighted towards the west: Greek-language inscriptions and literary sources which discuss Iranian successor states only in the context of the activities of larger western powers (Macedonian and Roman). Local conditions remain obscure: coins preserve attempts by rulers to straddle two worlds, Hellenized and Iranian; inscriptions give names, deities, only an occasional detailed glimpse at Iranians under foreign rule (e.g., at Amyzon, Caria). The nuances are gone, however, and Iranians can be recognized only where they have Iranian-sounding names. Although a complete picture of Iranian settlement can not be drawn, what does emerge from the fragments is an overall continuity in settlement and life-style, persisting from the Achaemenid era.

2. Western Anatolia: There existed a basic division in post-Achaemenid Anatolia between east and west. The former (the old satrapies of Dascylium, Sparda, Phrygia, Caria and Lycia, Cilicia) remained under non-Iranian control (Greco-Macedonian, then Roman). In the east, the old satrapies of the Cappadocias and Armenia became kingdoms whose independence was “regulated” by the presence of stronger powers on either side. But throughout Anatolia practices dating from Achaemenid times continued.

Administrative continuity. This is most visible in the Seleucid Kingdom, which first held the Achaemenid far west, also a multi-ethnic empire (302-187 B.C. in Anatolia). King, polis (city-state), ethnos (tribal peoples), and dynast were its components (Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones, p. 229). Administration took its lead from the Achaemenids: a satrap (sometimes called strategos, “general”) commanded lesser officers: Sparda became Lydia (Polybius 21.16) and sometimes included Caria and Phrygia. Dascylium was the “satrapy on the Hellespont” (ibid., p. 221). Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia were fought over by the Seleucids and Ptolemaic Egypt; control over Cappadocia and Armenia was illusory at best (Diodorus 31.19; Strabo 11.14.6).

Estates and villages remained key features of the countryside. Epigraphical evidence reports the granting of estates by the king to subjects (it is not known if the property was once Achaemenid). The Seleucids enjoyed greater success in regulating Greek city-states: The king stood above and beyond civic government as a magistrate who never had to render account of his activities. Nobles granted estates could join them to a city and so became powerful voices on the king’s behalf. The city-states were anxious for royal benevolence (Dittenberger, op. cit., pp. 219, 223). The threats to stability and economic productivity of the Achaemenid era had their post-Achaemenid counterparts. Rebellion by officers was endemic to Sardis (e.g., Achaeus the Younger in the later second century B.C.); diluted control led to the rise of more permanent kingdoms headed by former lesser officers (e.g., the Attalids, city chiefs of Pergamum) and previously less stable peoples (e.g., the Bithynians). The old troublemakers were joined by the Galatians. Rebel pharaohs were replaced by the Ptolemaic dynasty, who, rightly or wrongly, were made responsible for the instability in southern Anatolia and beyond. For a time their officers held Caria and Lycia, making common cause with local dynasts such as Ptolemy of Telmessus in Lycia. The naval tyrannies of the European Greeks were replaced by Antigonid Macedonia: In Caria one can trace the machinations of the dynast and city commander Olympichus of Alinda, a Seleucid strategos who befriended the Antigonids and exploited the disturbances to gain greater power.

But what can not be determined with any certainty at all is the role of the Iranian inhabitants in the power politics of the new order.

Dascylium. Little information survives about the Iranian inhabitants (the estate Dascylium appears no longer to have been an administrative center). Inscriptions report the continued existence of estates, their owners Greco-Macedonian, their components resembling Achaemenid examples (ibid., pp. 221, 225). Iranians could be sought among the inhabitants and managers.

Sparda (Lydia). Iranian inhabitants, most of them clustered around Sardis, can be found well into the second century A.D. An Achaemenid landscape survived outside urban centers: Estates, owned by non-Iranians, were Achaemenid in organization and multiethnic. Achaeus the Elder’s was a small kingdom, the owner a savior in the eyes of villagers he protected from the Galatians. These villagers were permitted a form of local government, a practice found earlier in Anatolia (e.g., Xenophon, Anabasis 4.5.24).

Continuity appears to have marked Iranian life. Settlers from Hyrcania had given their name to a plain near Sardis (Strabo 13.4.13). In Hellenistic and Roman times the name Hyrcanis survived as a town’s name, the inhabitants called Makedones Hyrcanioi. The Cyrus-plain and Darius-village (near Magnesia) attest to an Iranian presence. More fortuitous is the ability to note the presence of Iranian warriors (Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones, p. 229, Magnesia at the Sipylus) in the Hellenistic age or an Iranian mint official in Roman times (at Apamea on the Maeander).

Iranian religious practices persisted. The use of the Persian name Megabyxus for the manager of Artemis’ temple at Ephesus (Xenophon, Anabasis 5.3.6-7) continued. Ahura Mazdā and Anāhitā (the “Persian Artemis”) appear in particular. The former, in his guise as Zeus the Law-Giver, was worshipped at Sardis, apparently in the same manner as during the Achaemenid era, as late as the second century A.D. The latter, as goddess of nature and water, was an understandable choice for worship by those concerned with agricultural productivity (for an Achaemenid statue at Sardis see Berossus in Jacoby, Fragmente, p. 680 frag. 11 ). In the south, in Lycia, the god Mithra was worshipped as “Satrapes,” i.e., “Lord of Power,” from Iranian *xšaθra-pā- or *xšaθra-pati-.

The best known post-Achaemenid sanctuaries were at Hypaepa and Hierocome (later Hierocaesarea), whose Zoroastrian practices were described by Pausanias in the second century A.D. (5.27.5-7). The picture is filled out by archeology: At the latter site coins evoke Iranian life in their use of Anāhitā and fire altars as types. From Hypaepa there are inscriptions recording an archimagos and festival, the Artemesia, which drew participants from the Sardis area. The inhabitants, called Persian-Lydians, bore Iranian names and placed their goddess on their coins (depicted inside her temple or, in Avestan style, in a chariot drawn by horses). Worship of Anāhitā is found elsewhere at Hierolophus (in the west Cayster valley) and north of Sardis among the Iranian Maibozanoi.

Caria. Greek-language inscriptions from sanctuaries once favored by the Hecatomnids document the survival of Achaemenid era practices in the post-Achaemenid era. Local Carian groups tolerated by the satraps continued to exist. Earlier satrapial decisions were carried forward by the new rulers: The Koarendeis are attested in 323/322 B.C.; tax-exemption granted by Mausollus remained in effect (Dittenberger, Sylloge, p. 311). In Pixodarus’ time (ca. 345 B.C.) the Plataseis had granted Dion of Cos honors; in the early third century B.C. the lesser officer Eupolemus approved them for Dion’s heirs (Labraunda no. 42).

The sanctuary of Artemis at Amyzon permits one to examine continued Iranian involvement in local affairs. In 321-20 B.C. a Bagadates was named temple manager. He and his son, Arieramnes, were granted citizenship and additional honors. These actions were taken on the advice of the oracle at Delphi in Greece (cf. Diodorus 15.8 for Achaemenid practices). The continuation of concern for the sanctuary is reflected in the second-century B.C. dedication by the Seleucid satrap for Lydia (and Caris) Zeuxis (Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones, p. 235). At Laubranda the Irano-Carian Ariarames (?) dedicated a statue of Zeus (Labraunda no. 28).

3. Eastern Anatolia: Here old satrapies functioned as new kingdoms. Ruling families claimed Achaemenid lineage. The elements of the Achaemenid landscape—estates, villages, fortified strongpoints—survived.

4. The Cappadocias: The region became the kingdoms of Cappadocia and Pontus (Strabo 12.1.4). The founder of the former, Ariarathes, began as an Achaemenid lesser officer who fought the Macedonians and set up base at Gazioura (Strabo 12.3.15). His family constructed an elaborate genealogy (Diodorus 31.19) going back to Cyrus’ time and including major political figures associated with the Achaemenid satrapy (e.g., Datames). The kingdom survived for three centuries until Roman annexation in A.D. 14 (Tacitus, Annals 2.42). Achaemenid lineage was claimed by the kings of Pontus, northern Cappadocia (Appian, Mithridatic Wars 9; Polybius 5.43.2), however, the surviving evidence merely indicates that the family began as lesser officers from the area around Cius who rode out the Achaemenid collapse (Diodorus 16.90, 19.40, 20.111; Plutarch, Demetrius 4). The family, perhaps related to the satrapial family at Dascylium, as a means of survival, deftly switched sides in the midst of struggles between Alexander’s immediate successors (Diodorus 20.111; Strabo 12.3.41; Appian, Mithridatic Wars 9). The most famous member of the family, Mithridates VI (ruled 110-63 B.C.), challenged growing Roman power and placed most of Anatolia (and part of Europe) back into Iranian hands.

5. Armenia: Orontes, the last satrap of Armenia, claimed descent from one of the Seven, i.e., Iranian associates of Darius I (Herodotus 3.70), and led his realm after the empire’s collapse. Armenia later split into two kingdoms (Satrabo 11.14.15), both of Iranian descent. The Artaxiad House, led by Tigranes, took a reunited kingdom to its height in the first century B.C. Armenia survived into Sasanian times, an object of warfare between western and Iranian empires.

A number of smaller, semi-independent kingdoms existed. Note may be made here of Commagene, whose king, Antiochus I (ca. 70-35 B.C.) grandiosely styled himself the union of Achaemenid and Macedonian royalty in monuments at Nimrud Dagh.

In each of the three major Iranian kingdoms it is difficult to point to a break with Achaemenid times. The Cappadocian royal center at Mazaca embodied the old Achaemenid desire to make the unproductive land productive (Strabo 12.2.7-9). Fertile regions were protected by forts (Strabo 12.2.1, 6). Zoroastrian worship survived in enclosures known as Pyraitheia (Strabo 15.3.15). Temple estates, with attached villages, cities, and fields, remained a key part of the landscape (cf. Plutarch, Eumenes 4.2-3; Appian, Mithridatic Wars 65). At Comana the priest of the wealthy temple of Ma was a member of Cappadocian royalty and second only to the king in rank (Strabo 12.2.3). The temple of Zeus (Ahura Mazdā) at Venesa in the region of Morimene (Strabo 12.2.6) was noted for its agricultural wealth. Its priest was third in rank. Anāhitā/Artemis remained significant: her sanctuaries were found at Castabala (Strabo 12.2.7) and north of Archelais.

The Achaemenid era lived on in Pontus, too. Mithridates VI’s Cabeira (Strabo 12.3.30ff.) rivaled Pharnabazus’ Dascylium: palace, paradeisos, mines, the temple estate of Men of Pharnaces nearby. Strongholds guarded property: Mithridates the Founder used Cimiata as a base (Strabo 12.3.41), his successor Mithridates VI built forts to protect against the Tibereni and Chaldaei (Strabo 12.3.38). The temple estates of Anāhitā were politically important (cf. Strabo 12.3.32 on Pontic Comana). Her priest at Zela vas a political notable (Strabo 12.3.37).

Armenian place names attest to the past Achaemenid rule and—combined with other evidence—to continued Iranian influence (Strabo 11.14.4,5). The kingdom was by its natural resources suited for both agriculture (Gogarene) and cavalry (Orchistene; Strabo 11.14.4). The capital, Artaxata, adjoining the Araxene plain, consisted of a fortified residence, nearly fortresses, and treasuries (Strabo 11.14.6). Here Anāhitā was significant (a sanctuary at Acilisene).

To sum up: Anatolia, in spite of Hellenic visions of Lydian wealth, was neither the most significant nor most profitable portion of the Achaemenid empire, being quite secondary to the western provinces of Egypt and the Levant (cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1393a3-94b4). Why did the Achaemenid dynasty take pains to hold and settle Anatolia? The answer lies in a mixture of honor and pragmatism. On the one hand Cyrus, the founder of the Achaemenid empire, displayed military skill and gave Anatolia to the Iranians. To give the region up would betray his memory and be a serious blow to the dynasty’s prestige. On the other hand Anatolia’s Cilician Gates served as a frontline defense for the more valuable regions of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Mesopotamia. An unstable and unfriendly Anatolia, as the career of Cyrus the Younger proved, could pose an eventual threat to Susa itself. A constant but geographically limited struggle to transform Anatolia was preferable to risking serious damage from regions completely out of control. And when stable, Anatolia provided resources used in subduing trouble-makers in Phoenicia and Egypt.

Bibliography : Most of the Greco-Roman sources cited can be found in English translation in the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard University Press. Inscriptions: I. Kirchener, ed. Inscriptiones Atticae Euclidis Anno Posteriores, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1913-18. J. Crampa, ed., Labraunda III: The Greek Inscriptions. Skrifter Utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen, Lund, 1969-72. G. Dittenberger, ed., Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, Leipzig, 1903-05. Idem, ed., Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed., Leipzig, 1915-24. F. Jacoby, ed., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Leiden, 1923-. See also D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century after Christ, 2 vols., Princeton, 1950.

Achaemenid period in general: P. Briant, Ētat et pasteurs au Moyen-Orient ancien, Paris, 1982 (on management of less stable peoples). Idem, Rois, tributs et paysans, Paris, 1982 (a collection of articles discussing administrative ethos and practice; of value for post-Achaemenid period as well). J. M. Balcer, Sparda by the Bitter Sea, Chico, California, 1984 (excellent, but marred by imported jargon). J. M. Cook, The Persian Empire, New York, 1983 (good introduction which never breaks free from the Hellenic orientation of the sources). S. Hirsch, Xenophon and Persia, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1981 (important treatment of a major group of sources and administrative problems, e.g., the fabled “King’s Eye”). W. Judeich, Kleinasiatische Studien, Marburg, 1892 (still a standard treatment of fourth-century Anatolia). M. Cool Root, The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art, Acta Iranica 19, Leiden, 1979 (administrative ethos as depicted in art). C. Starr “Greeks and Persians in the Fourth Century B.C.: A Study of Cultural Contacts before Alexander,” Iranica Antiqua 11, 1975, pp. 39-99; 12, 1977, pp. 49-115 (discussion of administrative landscape and archeological sources). M. Weiskopf, Achaemenid Systems of Governing in Anatolia, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1982 (revisionist version of Judeich’s work, marred by the author’s perception of the empire as a large business). See also Camb. Hist. Iran II, 1985, esp. pp. 263-76.

More particular studies on the Achaemenid era. For coinage (with references): P. Naster, “Les monnayages satrapaux provinciaux et régionaux dans l’empire perse face au numéraire officiel des Achéménides,” in E. Lipinski, ed., State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near East II, Leuven, 1979, pp. 597-604. For Archeological work at Dascylium and Sardis: G. M. A. Hanfmann, From Croesus to Constantine, Ann Arbor, 1975. Idem, Sardis From Prehistoric to Roman Times: Results of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, 1958-1975, Cambridge, 1983. D. Metzler, R. Altheim-Stiehl, and E. Schwertheim, “Eine neue gräko-persische Grabstele aus Sultaniye Köy und ihre Bedeutung für die Geschichte und Topographie von Daskyleion,” Epigraphica Anatolica 1, 1983, pp. 1-23. On Caria (and the Iranian diaspora): S. Hornblower, Mausolus, Oxford, 1982 (much accumulated, little analyzed). L. Robert, Le Sanctuaire de Sinuri près de Mylasa, Paris, 1945. Idem, Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie, Paris, 1983. Also see Crampa, ed., Labraunda (above). On Achaemenid Lycia: T. R. Bryce, “Political Unity in Lycia during the Dynastic Period,” JNES 42, 1983, pp. 31-42 (outlines views on the nature of Lycian dynasts); Sh. A. Shahbazi, The Irano-Lycian Monuments, Tehran, 1975 (too sanguine in prosopography). The end of the empire: P. Briant, Antigone le Borgne, Paris, 1973 (analysis of the evidence of the Achaemenid resistance in Anatolia). C. Harrison, “Persian Names on Coins of Northern Anatolia,” JNES 41, 1982, pp. 181-94 (on campaign coinage).

The post-Achaemenid era: In general consult E. Yarshater, ed., The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods in Camb. Hist. Iran III/1, Cambridge, 1983. L. Raditsa, “Iranians in Asia Minor,” ibid., pp. 100-15 (a workable account of the diaspora). Also useful: E. Benveniste, Titres et noms propers en iranien ancien, Paris, 1966. R. Bagnall, The Administration of the Ptolemaic Possessions outside Egypt, Leiden, 1976. E. Bikerman, Institutions des Seleucides, Paris, 1938. H. Kreissing, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im Seleukidenreich, Berlin, 1978. E. Will, Histoire politique du monde hellénistique, 2nd ed., Nancy, 1979-82.

More particular: In addition to items cited earlier by Robert, Crampa, Hanfmann: A. Dupont-Sommer, “L’énigme du dieu "Satrape" et le dieu Mithra,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions 1976, pp. 648-60. J. Hornblower, Hieronymus of Cardia, Oxford, 1981 (on the lineage of Iranian successor dynasties). L. Robert, “Hyrcanis,” Hellenica 6, 1948, pp. 16-26. Idem, “Une nouvelle inscription greque de Sardes,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions, 1975, pp. 306-30 (Droaphernes’ inscription; discussion of evidence in general for Iranian diaspora, east and west). Idem, “Monnaies grecques de l’epoque imperiale,” Revue Numismatique 18, 1976, pp. 25-56 (Hypaepa and Hierocome). M. Wörrle, “Antiochos I, Achaios der Ältere und die Galater,” Chiron 5, 1975 pp. 59-87 (Achaeus’ estate and his significance).

 

Search terms:

 آسیای صغیر  asia e saghir asiay e saghir

 

(M. Weiskopf)

Originally Published: December 15, 1987

Last Updated: August 16, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. II, Fasc. 7, pp. 757-764