Parthia 5

The position of the Persian monarchy as a world-empire is characteristically emphasized in the buildings of Darius and Xerxes in Persepolis and Susa. The peculiarly national basis, still recognizable in Cyrus's architecture at Pasargadae, recedes into insignificance. The royal edifices and sculptures are dependent, mainly, on Babylonian models, but, at the same time, we can trace in them the influence of Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor ; the last in the rock-sepulchres. All these elements are combined into an organic unity, which achieved the greatest creations that Oriental architecture has found possible. Nevertheless, the result is not a national art, but the art of a world-empire ; and it is obvious that foreign craftsmen must have been active in the royal services— among them, the Greek sculptor Telephanes of Phocaea (Pliny xxxiv. 68). So, with the collapse of the empire, the imperial art vanishes also : and when some 500 years later, a new art arose under the Sassanids, whose achievements stand to those of Achae menid art in much the same relation as the achievements of the two dynasties to each other, we discover only isolated reminis cences of its predecessor.

For the organization and character of the Persian empire, see Barnabas Brisson, De regio Persarum principatu libri iii. (159o) ; Heeren, Ideen fiber Politik, Handel and Verkehr der alien Welt, i.; G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, ii. 555 sqq.; Five Eastern Monarchies, Eduard Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, iii. On the Satrapies, cf. Krumbholz, De Asiae minoris satrapies persicis (1883). See also MITHRAS. The rock sculptures and part of the ruins of the Achaemenids and the Sassanids are published and analysed in the work of Sarre and Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs (Iwo). See also Sarre, Die Kunst der Alten Perser (1925). Many ruins and inscriptions have since then been discovered by Herzfeld; cf. his preliminary account in Zeitschrift d. deutschen Morgent. Ges. (Bd. 8o, 1926). See also MITHRAS.

The Achaemenids: Sources.

The history of the Persian empire was often written by the Greeks. The most ancient work preserved is that of Herodotus (q.v.), who supplies rich ma terials up to 479 B•C• These are drawn partly from sound tradition, partly from original knowledge—as in the account of the satrapies and their distribution, the royal highway, the nations in Xerxes' army and their equipment. They also contain much that is admittedly fabulous : for instance, the stories of Cyrus and Croesus, the conquest of Babylon, etc. Forty years later (c. 390 B.c.), the physician Ctesias of Cnidus, who for 17 years (414-398 B.c.) remained in the service of the Great King, composed a great work on the Persian history, known to us from an extract in Pho tius and numerous fragments. Ctesias (q.v.) possesses a more pre

cise acquaintance with Persian views and institutions than Herod otus ; and, where he deals with matters that came under his own cognizance, he gives much useful information. For the early period, on the other hand, he only proves how rapidly the tradition had degenerated since Herodotus; and here his narrations can only be utilized in isolated cases, and that with the greatest caution. Of more value was the great work of Dinon of Colophon (c. 34o), which we know from numerous excellent fragments ; and on the same level may be placed a few statements from Heraclides of Cyme, which afford specially important evidence on Persian institutions. To these must be added the testimony of the other Greek historians (Thucydides, Ephorus, Theopompus, etc., with the histories of Alexander), and, before all that of Xenophon in the Anabasis and Hellenica. The Cyropaedia is a didactic romance, written with a view to Greek institutions and rarely preserving genuine information on the Persian empire. Of Oriental sources, only the contemporary books of Ezra and Nehemiah are of much importance; also, a few statements in the much later Esther romance. Berossus's history of Babylon contained much valuable and trustworthy information, but next to nothing has survived. That the native tradition almost entirely forgot the Achaemenid empire, has been mentioned above. For a more detailed account of the empire of these sources see separate articles on HERODOTUS, etc.; EZRA ; and NEHEMIAH. The scanty amount of original docu ments from the time of the Achaemenids (among them a large quantity of business contracts from Babylonia, dated after the years of the Kings) has been greatly increased by the Aramaic documents from Elephantine (see above) from the time of Darius II., which throw light on the administration and the judicial procedures in Egypt (cf. Eduard Meyer, Zu den aram. Papyri am Elephantine, Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akad. 1911,1026 sqq.). For the struggle of the Egyptians for independence in the 4th century we obtain some information from the so-called "Demotic Chronicle," published in 1914 ; cf. Eduard Meyer, Aegyptische Documente aus der Perserzeit, Sitzungsberichte der Berl. Ak. 1915, 287 sqq. (reprinted in Kleine Schrif ten, vol. II. 1924).

The external history of the empire is treated under the in dividual kings (see also history sections of articles GREECE; The chronology is exactly verified by the Ptolemaic canon, by numerous Babylonian and a few Egyptian documents, and by the evidence of the Greeks. The present article gives only a brief conspectus of the main events in the history of the empire.