Persian Fire (67 page)

12
Haggai, 2.6.

13
DB 25 (Babylon).

14
DB 1.

15
DB 4.

16
Byron, p. 43.

17
DB70.

18
DB72.

19
DB73.

20
The origins of this title are obscure. The kings of Urartu, in what is now Armenia, employed it, but quite how, and if, it gravitated from them to the Persian monarchs is a puzzle. The kings of Assyria did sometimes lay claim to it, but only rarely; the kings of Babylon not at all.

21
Darius, inscription at Persepolis (DPf).

22
Herodotus, 3.89.

23
Darius, inscription at Susa (DSf 3e).

24
Ibid., 3h-i.

25
Ibid., 3£

26
Darius, inscription at Persepolis (Dpg 2).

27
This is a logical presumption. 'The Persian kings', we are told, 'had water fetched from the Nile and the Danube, which they laid up in their treasuries as a sort of testimony of the greatness of their power and universal empire' (Plutarch,
Alexander,
36.4). The list of rivers surely reflects the historian's Greek perspective: it seems improbable that the Indus would not also have been included.

III Sparta

1
  
Herodotus, 1.153.

2
  
Ibid., 1.4.

3
  
The Iliad,
3.171.

4
  
Cicero,
On Duties,
2.22.77. Hans van Wees, in his essay 'Tyrtaeus'
Eunomia',
has conclusively demonstrated the archaic origins ot this anonymous proverb. See Hodkinson and Powell, pp. 1—41.

5
  
Herodotus, 1.65.

6
  
Phocylides, Fragment 4. These lines almost certainly post-date the fall of Nineveh, and probably reflect fears of the growth of Persian power in the 540s
bc.

7
  
Who precisely the Dorians were is one of the great imponderables ot a period known even by ancient historians, who are well used to sifting minute fragments of evidence, as the Dark Ages. As with the migrations of the Medes and the Persians, the precise details of the Dorian invasion are irrecoverable. Inevitably, a minority of historians dispute whether it was ever anything more than a myth.

8
  
Plato,
Hippias Major,
285d.

9
  
Tyrtaeus, 5.2—3.

10
Ibid., 5.4.

11
Ibid., 5.10.

12
Plutarch,
Lycurgus, 2.

13
Herodotus, 1.65.

14
Plutarch,
Lycurgus,
29.

15
Thucydides, 1.6.

16
Tyrtaeus, 7.31—2.

17
Plutarch,
lycurgus,
29.

18
For the best discussion, see Hodkinson, p. 76.

19
For instance, Ephorus, quoted by Strabo (8.5.4). An alternative - and etymologically more convincing - theory equated 'helot' with a word for 'captive'.

20
Tyrtaeus, 6.1.

21
Herodotus, 1.66.

22
Xenophon,
Agesilaus, 2.7.

23
The earliest reference to the Spartans' scarlet cloaks does not occur until as late as 411
bc
- in Aristophanes' comedy
Lysistrata
- and there is no way of knowing precisely when they first began to be worn. It seems likeliest, however, that they were introduced as part of the increasing standardisation of the Spartan military that was a feature of the mid-sixth century
bc
. A further complication lies in the ambiguity of the Greek words used to describe the cloak: it may be that the Spartans' tunics, as well as their cloaks, were scarlet.

24
Lysias,
In Defence of Mantitheus,
16.17.

25
Thucydides, 1.10.

26
The Iliad,
21.470. Her shrine by the Eurotas was originally dedicated to an obscure goddess named Ortheia. The Spartans worshipped Artemis there as Artemis Ortheia, probably from the sixth century
bc
, although the name is not attested before the Roman period.

27
The masks date from the seventh and particularly the sixth centuries
bc.

28
Pindar, quoted by Plutarch,
lycurgus,
21.

29
According to Plato, only the elderly were permitted to criticise aspects of the state. See
Laws,
634d—e.

30
Pindar, quoted by Plutarch,
Lycurgus,
21.

31
Xenophon,
The Constitution of the Spartans,
10.3.

32
Plutarch,
Lycurgus,
16.

33
Ibykos, Fragment 58.

34
Plutarch,
Lycurgus,
14.

35
Herodotus, 6.61.

36
The king was Charilaus, but since he was supposed to have lived in the eighth century, before the Lycurgan revolution, the saying is surely apocryphal. It was recorded by Plutarch, and is grouped in his
Sayings of the Spartans.

37
Plutarch,
Lycurgus,
16.

38
It is only fair to point out that both these details derive from late sources, Aelian and Athenaeus (both
c.
second century
ad
), respectively.

39
The precise origins of this practice are obscure — some scholars date it to as late as the fifth century
bc.

40
Xenophon,
The Constitution of the Spartans,
2.9.

41
There is an ambiguity here in the sources. It is claimed that Spartans married in secret, but how a bride could keep her new status a secret when she had just been cropped is unclear. In Sparta, it was only married women who were veiled in public.