The Sources of the Assyrian History of KtesiasAuthor(s): John GilmoreSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Jan., 1887), pp. 97-100Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/546832 .

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1887 97

NVotes and Documents

THE SOURCES OF THE ASSYRIAN HISTORY OF KTESIAS.

*THE reputation of Ktesias has undergone remarkable fluctuations. The ancients almost unanimously preferred his romantic narrative to the less gorgeous descriptions and more sober chronology of Herodotus and Berosus, and this opinion generally prevailed till the progress of Assyrian research revealed the baselessness of the royal lists derived from his work, and attested the superior accuracy of his rivals. Ktesias' authority was there- fore rejected with contempt till quite recently, when a slight reaction in his favour has set in. His modern vindicators, such as Professor Sayce in the introduction to his ' Herodotus ' and Duncker in the Assyrian and Medo- Persian portions of his ' History of Antiquity,' defend his veracity in so far as they assume that he really related what he was told, but at the same time they attach little or no historical value to his assertions as to earlier times. Duncker regards every statement of Ktesias, at all events down to the time of Darius I, as representing what he styles the ' Medo-Persian epos.' Mr. Sayce ('Herodotus,' introduction, p. xxxiii) says: 'The greater part of his Assyrian history consists of Assyro-Babylonian myths rationalised and transformed in the manner peculiar to the Persians.' This position appears to be only partially sound, for it is contrary to experience that a nation like the Persians should construct an elaborate mythology glorify- ing not their own but another and hostile race.'

Ktesias' mode of constructing his Assyro-Babylonian ' history' was, I think, as follows. The 0Epait 3aoiXwtat of Persia could scarcely have included Assyrian annals, and he had to supply their place for that por- tion of his work from other sources. These probably included the popular Medo-Persian traditions in verse or prose, but I cannot believe with Duncker that these were practically the only source. During the frequent residences of the Persian court at Babylon, Ktesias must have had abun- dant opportunities of conversing with prominent Babylonians acquainted with Persian, of which it seems incredible that the king's physician could have been ignorant.

I The suggestion of Duncker that the glorification of e.g. Astyages was due to the desire to extol the greatness of his conqueror, might apply to a single case, but not to a whole series of legends. The ' Persian version' of the story of Io (Herod. i. 1), which Sayce brings forward as an example of the Persian treatment of foreign mythology, furnishes a very weak argument: so obscure a myth could scarcely have been known to the Persians. Canon Rawlinson's explanation (on Herod. i. 1) seems more probable.

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98 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS Jan.

His researches into the history of their country would probably not be very deep. All he wanted was material enough to construct a plausible and interesting narrative and to damage the reputation of Herodotus. As Semiramis had been specially mentioned by the latter,2 he would probably make some inquiries as to her, and would hear of Sammuramit wife of Rimmon-nirari IV, who it seems reasonable to suppose with Lenormant and others was a Babylonian princess, or at least something more than an Assyrian queen consort, since her name occurs in a dedicatory inscrip- tion coupled with her husband's. As the annals of the period are lost, she may have been regent under one of her husband's weak successors, and if she was a Babylonian her countrymen would naturally exaggerate her position. So far there was an historical basis for the narrative of Ktesias, but a considerable portion of the details appear to be derived from Babylonian myths relating to the goddess Ishtar.3 I cannot, however, agree with Duncker and others that the way in which these are used was due in any special way to Persian influence; on the contrary, whatever elements in the narrative are not Babylonian seem to be Greek due either to Ktesias himself or to his countrymen residing at Babylon. The nature of the Persian legends of his time may be fairly inferred from those handed down to later generations and preserved in the ' Shahnameh ' and other native works, which celebrate Iranian kings, not Semitic goddesses. On the other hand, the Babylonian legends of Ishtar preserved in the sixth tablet of the Izdubar epic represent the goddess in a character not unlike the Semiramis of Ktesias, as a warlike princess engaged in nume- rous amours, and treating her lovers with savage cruelty. Beltis, who is often confused with Ishtar, was sometimes regarded as the wife of Nin.4 This is sufficient to account for the introduction of Ninus, to whom the foundation of Nineveh (really called after Nin the god) was naturally ascribed, both because of the Greek notion of heroes eponyrni (which was entirely foreign to Persian ideas), and because he was looked on as the first king of Assyria.

On this slight basis of fact and legend Ktesias founded an elaborate romance, just as his contemporary Xenophon used Lhe life 6f the elder

2 Mr. Sayce (on Herod. i. 184) seems inclined to adopt the reading of Scaliger, yeveflao v for 7yeve6ao 7rerE, before Nitokris, whom Herodotus places in the sixth century B.c., thus making the era of Semiramis not circa B.C. 750 but circa B.C. 2100, or about the date to which Ktesias' chronology would assign her. But why in the face of all the manuscripts should we reject a date which is approximately correct if the identification of Semiramis with Sammuramit wife of Rimmon-nirari IV (eighth century B.C.) be admitted, especially as a copyist would be much more likely to bring Herodotus' date into accordance with that of Ktesias, which was most generally received in later times, than to introduce a variance ? In an author later than Ktesias a variation from his dates might arouse suspicion as to the text, but this does not apply to an earlier one, for as far as I know there is no mention in any writer earlier than Ktesias of any but the historical Semiramis of the eighth century B.C., all the writers who give ail account agreeing with Ktesias' deriving directly or indirectly from him or his contemporary Deinon.

s The points in Ktesias' legend tending to identify Semiramis with the Asiatic love goddess are too obvious to require indicating: some of the Greeks detected the true character of the story from what is related of her birth.

4 The first husband of Semiramis was Oannes. Oannes is the name of the divine fish in Berosus, and in one aspect Nin is the fish-god.

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1887 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS 99

Cyrus, but in the case of the former succeeding writers treated the romance as serious history.

The duration assigned by Ktesias to the Assyrian empire (1,360 years, Diod. ii. 21) was probably derived from some tradition as to the date of the foundation of Nineveh, but the list of kings from Semiramis to Sar- danapalus seems to be purely his own invention. Had he drawn fromt Persian sources, we should expect to find that each king, as in the ' Shah- nameh' of Firdusi, reigned not tens, but hundreds, of years; the lengtl actually assigned to each reign in the list is beyond ordinary probability, but at the same time is not impossible, so as to suggest that, having to invent names to cover a certain period, he saved himself trouble by giving as few as possible. The names themselves are of the most heterogeneous character: a few, e.g. Baleus, Belochus, and Balatores (Tiglath-pileser), are those of Babylonian or Assyrian deities or kings of whom he had chanced to hear; others are ordinary Persian names; others, e.g. Amyntes, are Greek.

The only episode of this portion of the history which has come down to us is the sending of Memnon as an auxiliary to Priam. If, as Ktesias says, the Assvrians ruled all Asia, it would be asked why did they give no assistance to their Trojan vassal ? The only part of the Greek tale of Troy which offered any connexion with upper Asia was the legend of Memnon, whom one account made leader of the eastern Cushites of Susiana, which in Ktesias' time was included in Persia, of which Tithonus is represented as being king. From the words of Diodorus. (ii. 22), i-pl `Y OVV TOVl Mro'Oi'Or Tolro?ai' Eav /3aoL aXAwakg &raypaoalc haropetaOai q(tatv oi a/3ipapoL, we might suppose that here if anywhere we had an example of a foreign myth ' rationalised and transformed in the manner peculiar to the Persians,' since the legend is one with absolutely no historical basis, at least in the form which makes Memnon an eastern Cushite, and it is therefore quite impossible the Persian chronicles could have contained any mention of it unless we adopt the improbable hypo- thesis that they borrowed it outright from the Greeks, though there is no other trace of it in Oriental literature. To me it seems preferable to assume that an inaccurate writer like Ktesias deemed the existence of Persian myths about Mithra the sun god sufficient to justify him in saying that he found among the Persians the history of Memnon the son of the dawn. The followers of Alexander in India attempted identifications of Greek and Indian heroes quite as farfetched.

Sardanapalus is, of course, Asshur-bani-pal, the last great king of Assyria. His name and luxury were well known to the Greeks quite independently of the Persians, and we need not marvel at popular report assigning to his time the destruction of Nineveh, which really happened under one of his immediate successors. The chronological scheme of Ktesias forced him to antedate that event by several centuries.

The supposition that Ktesias made use of Babylonian sources of in- formation is supported by one or two statements in a later part of his work. He assigns to Kambyses a reign of eighteen years (Persic. Exc. ? 12), while most other writers only give him eight, and it does not appear that his reign over the Persian empire could have exceeded the shorter period. It appears, however, from the Babylonian contract tablets that

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100 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS Jan.

Kambyses was regarded for at least eleven years as king of Babylon, Cyrus being for part of this period ' king of countries.' It appears, more- over, from the annalistic tablet (' Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.' vii. 168), that Kambyses was in Babylon shortly after its capture, and he may have suc- ceeded Gobryas as viceroy some years (say in B.C. 537) before he was raised to the higher dignity of vassal king, the whole period of his govern- ment being afterwards popularly, though not officially, regarded as his reign in Babylon. In like manner Ktesias makes the reign of Darius I only thirty-one years instead of the thirty-six of other writers, the differ- ence arising from the periods of the Babylonian revolts, the exact duration of which is uncertain, being deducted. JOHN GILMORE.

THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF DACIA.

A QUESTION of historical geography which, as it seems to me, deserves more attention than it has yet received, is this: What were the limits of the Roman province of Dacia added by Trajan to the empire ? I pro- pose here to recapitulate some of the arguments on this subject adduced by M. de la Berge (' Essai sur le Regne de Trajan,' 55-62), adding a few of my own. Most geographers have considered themselves bound by the authority of Ptolemy (iii. 8. 4) to accept as the boundaries of Trajan's province the Tibiscus (Theis ?) on the west, the Carpathian mountains on the north, the Tyras or Dniester on the east, and the Danube on the south.' This demarcation gives to the province of Dacia the eastern half of Hungary, the Banat, Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bessarabia, forming an aggregate of at least 70,000 square miles.

Even on the face of the ordinary classical atlas there are some objec- tions to such a demarcation as this. The interval between the Danube (when it is flowing from north to south) and the Theiss is so long and narrow that it is difficult to suppose that a strategist like Trajan would leave such a wedge between Pannonia and Dacia to be occupied by the Jazyges Metanasta3, to whom, on the authority of Ptolemy, it is assigned. Again, on the north-eastern frontier of the province it is almost inconceiv- able that the Romans would abandon the splendid natural defence afforded by the Carpathians, and choose such a comparatively feeble defence agailnst the wandering hordes of Scythia as might be afforded by the river Dniester. The chief argument, however, brought forward by M. de la Berge is derived from Eutropius, who estimates the whole circumference of the province of Dacia at 1,000 Roman miles; ea provincia decies centenca millica passuum in circuitu tenuit. For the Dacia of the maps this figure is decidedly insufficient.2 And though Eutropius is certainly

Ptol. 3. 8. 1 (ed. Muller). 'H AsaKa 7rFpLoptIErac a'7rb V &pICrKTwV E'p'PEL Trs :ap/aTL'as 'rir f3v ECpO) p 'ar &wro?o KapiarTov ovpovs LE%XpL rcEpaTOS T'1S ELp7LLE/ Lr pO47 -oi Tupa 7rOTauoLO . .. 5O-EWS To7s 'IdavCs To0s METravdo"TaL KaTa' Tov T$i'o'iCov 7ro'abLo'v. a'rb &,f yiEao77/jiptas ApEl '0i ACoYoavovBJov 7ora/Lo'v 7(s (arb '7s ExtpOW'rS 'ov TLi$o'Kov 'o'rapiov

e 'AtLO7uAovvAEw5s a&(p1 is f571 Kc-Lael'L 6 /LeXpi 'oi 116V'rov Kcal 2rOV ?CKoAy AaVoILos "Io-rpos. There is some doubt whether the Tibiscus is meant for the Theiss or the Temes. Axiopolis is generally identified with Rassova.

2 Though I do not think M. de la Berge can be right in saying that the Theiss

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