Achaemenid History, VI: Asia Minor and Egypt: Old Cultures in a New Empire by HeleenSancisi-Weerdenburg; Amelie KuhrtReview by: Ronald H. SackJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 113, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1993), pp. 285-286Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603039 .

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Reviews of Books 285

Hellespont to Issus-that is, the part of his march that led through modem Turkey. An attractive detail is the account of Alexander's personal voyage along the south shore of Anato- lia, the account based on the report of Freya Stark, who fol- lowed his traces. The route taken by the Ten Thousand Greeks

under Xenophon through the mountains of eastern Turkey is discussed in great detail. Last but not least, the travels of Paul are followed in chapter 20.

While the book does not give descriptions of sites in the style of a travel guide, the author succeeds in capturing the mood of some of his favorite places in almost lyrical descrip- tions. One of these is Amasya, whose beauty is praised in the introduction to the section on the war against Mithradates of Pontus (pp. 172-74). The poetry of the ruins is brought to life when he takes the reader to such places as Pergamon and Priene. Similarly the great quantity and high quality of marble sculptures excavated at Aphrodisias and exhibited in the local museum is enthusiastically described and the importance of this local school for the whole Empire is duly stressed. The traveller who may wonder why a building on a hillside near Ephesus is shown as the last dwelling place of the Virgin Mary will be grateful to the author for telling the story which led to this belief (pp. 224-27).

Notes are arranged (pp. 232-35) only by the numbers of the chapters, without the heading, which is inconvenient for the reader. The index (pp. 236-40) lists geographical and per- sonal names, both ancient and modern.

While the spelling of Turkish names according to the mod- ern Turkish alphabet is laudable, its rules are nowhere ex- plained. The uninitiated reader cannot know that Alaca should be read "Aladja," Zincirli, "Zindjirli" or ;atalhiydk, "Chatal- hUyik." In a book for a general reader, spelling according to the English system would have been preferable.

The book is illustrated by 12 color plates of great beauty, many well-chosen and well-reproduced photographs in the text, 8 maps and 17 instructive drawings, some of them taken from old travel reports. All these illustrations are provided with instructive captions (fig. 27 shows a door-jamb not a statue base; under fig. 39 read "eighth" not "eighteenth" cen- tury B.C.).

The book is written in an exquisite style. It gives an excel- lent and clear overview of the history of Anatolia up to the end of classical antiquity, characterizing the many cultures that flourished at different times in the various regions of the region. It can be highly recommended not only to the potential traveller, but to anyone interested in the past of Turkey. This reviewer has learned a great deal from it.

HANS G. GUTERBOCK

THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Achaemenid History, VI: Asia Minor and Egypt: Old Cultures in a New Empire. Proceedings of the Groningen 1988 Achaemenid History Workshop. Edited by HELEEN SANCISI- WEERDENBURG and AMtLIE KUHRT. Leiden: NEDERLANDS IN- STITUUT VOOR HET NABIJE OOSTEN, 1991. Pp. xviii + 367.

The volume under review is the sixth in a series of proceed- ings of several Achaemenid history workshops held in Groningen. The papers included here were presented in 1988 and focus specifically on Asia Minor and Egypt. They add a valuable dimension to the studies included in an earlier vol- ume, where the "Centre and Periphery" of the Achaemenid Empire were examined. The editors describe four of the con- tributions as "micro-studies of particular regions or aspects"; they emphasize the fact that these and other studies, due to their diversity, do not really enable the drawing of any broad conclusions regarding the relationship of Asia Minor and Egypt to the Persian Empire as a whole. Nevertheless, what clearly emerges is evidence of the retention of local customs or characteristics amidst the creation of an empire that previ- ously had no equal in size or organization.

The importance of this volume lies not so much in the con- clusions drawn by the contributors as in the synthesis of perti- nent archaeological, literary and historical sources for Achaemenid Asia Minor and Egypt. As with previous vol- umes, both the magnitude of Achaemenid control of the Near East and the coexistence of local customs and traditions are clearly stressed. There can be no question that "the Persian period represents a new era in the history of the Near East be- cause the arena ... was suddenly enormously enlarged and came to include lands . .. whose cultural and economic devel- opment had until then been relatively autonomous" (p. xiii). Also, nearly everyone agrees not only that the "newly sub- jected regions were not blank pages on which the new im- perial regime was the only one to make its mark" but also that "the conquerors were clearly not unaffected by the results of conquest" (p. xiii). The articles of Margaret Cool Root, Sekunda, Zahle and Tulpin, in particular, reinforce this con- clusion. In doing so, they present in very convenient form all the evidence from these significant areas so that it can be eas- ily used by scholars and students interested in further study. Also the extensive bibliography appearing at the end of the volume will surely serve as a useful research tool.

Despite its positive qualities, this volume has, unfortu- nately, a number of shortcomings. As is often the case with conferences of this type, the papers presented represent a somewhat "rhetorical" response to the general theme of the conference. Despite the remarks of the editors, there is very little new evidence, archaeological or otherwise, presented here. In fact, most of the contributions reinforce the editors' conclusion that our present knowledge of the sources for the Achaemenid empire allow no new broad conclusions to be

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286 Journal of the American Oriental Society 113.2 (1993)

drawn. As was the case with Chaldean Mesopotamia or the Hellenistic Near East, only a veneer of "newness" emerged in areas conquered by the Achaemenid Persians. In some in- stances, one has a problem ascertaining the extent of that "newness," due to the incomplete nature of the archaeological or literary record. As Sekunda's article indicates, often we cannot even determine the extent of Achaemenid settlement in conquered territory. Such appears to have been the case in both Asia Minor and Egypt. As I earlier noted, having the relevant sources collected in one convenient place is impor- tant; these sources are, nevertheless, for the most part not new and lend themselves to few important new conclusions.

Finally, to say that this volume is poorly edited is an under- statement. While it does contain an extensive bibliography, there is clearly no regularity in notation. This was also the case in earlier volumes of proceedings, especially volume IV. Some articles have notes at the bottom of individual pages, while others contain parenthetical cryptic references in the body of the article to works cited in the bibliography. This in- consistency in method is clearly and totally unsatisfactory. Not only does it detract from the readability of the articles, but it illustrates the apparent inability of the editors to remem- ber that these contributions were originally papers intended to be heard by participants in a conference rather than read by them. Considering the ridiculously high cost of this volume, formal citations should have appeared in all cases either at the bottom of each page or at the end of each article. For this the editors are to blame; one has a right to expect that the same standards will be employed in the publication of the proceed- ings of a conference as one normally finds in an article ap- pearing in a refereed journal.

RONALD H. SACK

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

Satrapes et satrapies dans l'empire ach'menide de Cyrus le

Grand a Xerxes le'. By THIERRY PETIT. Bibliotheque de la Facult6 de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Universit6 de Liege,

CCLIV. Paris: SocIIT9 D'EDITION "LES BELLES LETTRES,"

1990. Pp. 304.

This detailed study of satraps in the early part of the Achae- menid Empire is a revised version of the first part of a doc- toral dissertation at Liege in 1985, which covered the entire

period of rule. The first part of the book gives a survey of sources, terminologies, and a description of each satrapy. The second part discusses the reform of Darius, the powers and re-

sponsibilities of the satrap, and changes in satrapies to the end of the empire. One appendix discusses the concept of feudal- ism and vassals, and another gives a table of the satrapies and

their satraps from the beginning to the end of the dynasty as gleaned from the sources. The work gives us a good reference book on questions relating to the satraps, and the table of strapies and satraps is especially welcome.

Petit's reliance on Ctesias as a good source runs counter to usual assessment, but in some cases the author seems justified. It is in certain details, however, that Petit's contributions may be judged. He devotes many pages to proving that there were two high officials in Babylonia after its conquest by Cyrus: Ugbaru, a Semite, and Gubaru or Gaubaruva, an Iranian, and that two offices in Akkadian suakin mati and be1 pihatu (or pd- hatu-) were different offices, which some specialists on an- cient Babylonia would support. The problem raised by the Iranian word tirgata (p. 66) may be resolved by remembering that throughout the history of Iran one must distinguish be- tween titles of offices and appellatives or honorifics, and our word surely belongs to the latter.

The author rightly emphasizes the role of Darius in institut- ing a reform of the empire with Persian satraps having closer ties to the center than the various 'vassal' kings and governors under Cyrus and Cambyses. Incidentally, in my opinion, the words Assyria and Syria were originally the same but came to designate two parts of the old Assyrian empire (see my article, JNES 51 [1992]: 281-85).

I am completely puzzled by the remark (p. 89) that Kellens, following Herrenschmidt, made the discovery that the concept and words zam/bumi- (Avestan and OP) mean 'empire' rather than simply 'earth,' as bhfimi- surely does in Sanskrit. I never said that there was no concept of state or empire in OP; I rather assumed that the word was OP xgassa-, Avestan xsaO- ra-. Does the author mean that before the Achaemenids there was an Iranian word for empire which was zam/bum-? If so I doubt it and find no evidence for this meaning.

Contrary to Dandamayev and others, Petit concludes that the administrative reforms of Darius were to the detriment of the previous aristocracy, many of whose powers were ceded to a new group of officials, including the satraps. Arguments pre- sented are convincing but the picture is certainly not clear. The author shows that the title karanos was given to a general sent on a special mission of conquest (p. 137). The controversy about Herodotus' list of satrapies, different from those listed in

the inscription of Behistun, is joined by Petit, who asserts that the Greek author really copied a list of tax districts under the reign of Darius, since these did not always correspond with the boundaries of the satrapies (p. 176). He also shows that Greek authors at times mistook hyparchies for satrapies and has a

long and interesting discussion about this matter. Petit accepts the reading frataraka in the Egyptian Aramaic papyri as an

Iranian equivalent of hyparch (p. 201), which I trust will be

accepted by all. He also convincingly suggests that the divi-

sion of the large satrapy of Babylonia and "Across the River" = Syria, into two parts took place in 482 B.C. Maka, which he identifies with Gedrosia (p. 205) surely extended to Oman.

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