51 Herodotus, 3.84.
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52 Yasna, 43.4.
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53 Amesha is generally translated as “immortal,” but Spenta is an altogether more untranslatable word: its definitions include “strong,” “sacred,” “possessed of power,” “beneficent” and “bounteous.” See Boyce (1975), 1.196–7.
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54 Yasna, 30.2.
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55 For Persian opinion, we have to rely on the evidence of the Greeks: Zoroaster was dated by Xanthus of Lydia (fifth century BC) to six thousand years before the time of Xerxes, a number which almost certainly reflected Zoroastrian notions of the cycle of world ages. The first Greek to date him to Astyages’ reign was Aristoxenus, in the fourth century BC, who also cast the Prophet as the teacher of Pythagoras. Both traditions appear to be worthless, although the fact that they could coexist suggests the degree to which Zoroaster was a figure of mystery and myth. The confusion has continued to plague contemporary scholarship. The current consensus—arrived at by dating the most ancient Zoroastrian texts—places Zoroaster in or around 1000 BC, but wide divergences of opinion remain. Some (notably Boyce) date him to 1700–1500 BC; others (notably Gnoli) to the end of the seventh century BC. As Gnoli (p. 5) himself ruefully acknowledges, though, arguing about the date of Zoroaster is, for Iranianists, “the favorite pastime of scholars.”
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56 Although the Median city of Ragha, near what is present-day Tehran, would one day promote itself as the birthplace of the Prophet.
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57 The phrase “fire-holder” is Boyce’s (Zoroastrianism, Vol. 2, p. 52), as is the identification of the three Pasargadae structures as such.
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58 Clemen, pp. 30–1.
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59 DB 63.
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60 In Old Persian, Bagastaana.
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II Babylon
1 “Enuma Elish,” 6.5–6.
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2 Jeremiah, 28.14.
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3 Ibid., 5.16–17.
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4 Quoted by Leick, p. 96.
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5 Nabonidus, inscription 15.
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6 Cyrus Cylinder.
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7 George, p. 41.
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8 Herodotus, 1.191.
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9 “Instructions of Shuruppak,” 204–6.
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10 Darius, inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam (Dna 2).
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11 Cyrus Cylinder.
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12 Haggai, 2.6.
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13 DB 25 (Babylon).
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14 DB 1.
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15 DB 4.
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16 Byron, p. 43.
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17 DB 70.
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18 DB 72.
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19 DB 73.
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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.
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21 Darius, inscription at Persepolis (DPf).
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22 Herodotus, 3.89.
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23 Darius, inscription at Susa (DSf 3e).
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24 Ibid., 3h–i.
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25 Ibid., 3f.
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26 Darius, inscription at Persepolis (Dpg 2).
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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.
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III Sparta
1 Herodotus, 1.153.
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2 Ibid., 1.4.
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3 The Iliad, 3.171.
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4 Cicero, On Duties, 2.22.77. Hans van Wees, in his essay “Tyrtaeus’ Eunomia,” has conclusively demonstrated the archaic origins of this anonymous proverb. See Hodkinson and Powell, pp. 1–41.
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5 Herodotus, 1.65.
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6 Phocylides, Fragment 4. These lines almost certainly postdate the fall of Nineveh, and probably reflect fears of the growth of Persian power in the 540s BC.
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7 Who precisely the Dorians were is one of the great imponderables of 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.
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8 Plato, Hippias Major, 285d.
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9 Tyrtaeus, 5.2–3.
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10 Ibid., 5.4.
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11 Ibid., 5.10.
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12 Plutarch, Lycurgus, 2.
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13 Herodotus, 1.65.
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14 Plutarch, Lycurgus, 29.
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15 Thucydides, 1.6.
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16 Tyrtaeus, 7.31–2.
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17 Plutarch, Lycurgus, 29.
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18 For the best discussion, see Hodkinson, p. 76.
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19 For instance, Ephorus, quoted by Strabo (8.5.4). An alternative—and etymologically more convincing—theory equated “helot” with a word for “captive.”
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20 Tyrtaeus, 6.1.
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21 Herodotus, 1.66.
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22 Xenophon, Agesilaus, 2.7.
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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 standardization 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.