Abstract
The Babylonian and Aramaic versions of the Bisitun inscription give precise enumerations of enemies killed and captured by the armies of Darius I in 522–521 bc. But the figures are absent from Bisitun’s other versions, and their accuracy and historical value remain in question. This study reviews their textual reliability and modern reconstructions and argues that they do not reflect accurate counts of battlefield dead or prisoners. It proposes that the Babylonian text offered more space for additional material than its Elamite or Persian counterparts and that its casualty figures enhanced Darius’ military narrative by quantifying his superiority to subordinates: enemy losses are highest when the King commands in person, less for generals in separate commands, and lowest for Darius’ non-Persian lieutenants. Explanations are considered for a possible exception, the victory of the satrap Dadaršiš in Margiana.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Mike Kozuh, Bezalel Porten, Matt Stolper, and Christopher Tuplin, as well as the anonymous referees for JANEH, for critique and advice; any remaining flaws are the author’s alone.
Bibliography
Bae, Chul-Hyun. 2003. Literary Stemma of King Darius’s (522–486 B.C.E.) Bisitun Inscription: Evidence of the Persian Empire’s Multilingualism. Eoneohag36: 3–32.Search in Google Scholar
Baghbidi, H. Rezai. 2009. Darius and the Bisotun Inscription: A New Interpretation of the Last Paragraph of Column IV. Journal of Persianate Studies2: 44–61.10.1163/187471609X454662Search in Google Scholar
Balcer, Jack. 1987. Herodotus and Bisitun: Problems in Ancient Persian Historiography (Historia Einzelschriften 49). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Beard, Mary. 2007. The Roman Triumph. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.10.4159/9780674020597Search in Google Scholar
Billows, Richard. 1990. Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520919044Search in Google Scholar
Bosworth, A. Brian. 2002. The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, Warfare, and Propaganda under the Successors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198153061.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Briant, Pierre. 1999. The Achaemenid Empire. Pp. 105–28 in War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Mesoamerica, eds. KurtRaaflaub and NathanRosenstein. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Briant, Pierre. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, trans. PeterDaniels. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.10.1515/9781575065748Search in Google Scholar
Brunt, Peter. 1971. Italian Manpower 225 B.C.-A.D. 14. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Chandler, David. 1980. Waterloo: the Hundred Days. London: Penguin Books.Search in Google Scholar
Daly, Gregory. 2002. Cannae: the Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Dandamaev, M.A.. 1989. A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire, trans. WillemVogelsang. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
De Odorico, Marco. 1995. The Use of Numbers and Quantifications in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions. State Archives of Assyria Studies Vol. III. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.Search in Google Scholar
Englund, Peter. 2003. The Battle that Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire. London: I.B. Tauris.Search in Google Scholar
Farrokh, Kaveh. 2007. Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Fouts, David M. 1994. Another Look at Large Numbers in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions. Journal of Near Eastern Studies53(3): 205–11.10.1086/373692Search in Google Scholar
Frassanito, William A. 1995. Early Photography at Gettysburg. Gettysburg: Thomas Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Greenfield, Jonas, and BezalelPorten. 1982. The Bisitun Inscription of Darius the Great: Aramaic Version. London: Lund Humphries.Search in Google Scholar
Grillot-Susini, Françoise, ClarisseHerrenschmidt, and FlorenceMalbran-Labat. 1993. La version élamite de la trilingue de Béhistoun: une nouvelle lecture. Journal Asiatique281(1–2): 19–59.10.2143/JA.281.1.2006131Search in Google Scholar
Hammond, Nicholas G.L. 1989. Casualties and Reinforcements of Citizen Soldiers in Greece and Macedonia. Journal of Hellenic Studies109: 56–68.10.2307/632032Search in Google Scholar
Head, Duncan. 1992. The Achaemenid Persian Army. London: Montvert Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Head, Ronan. 2010. Assyria at Bisitun and the Universal Kingship of Darius I of Persia. Pp. 117–24 in Your Praise is Sweet: A Memorial Volume for Jeremy Black from Students, Colleagues and Friends, eds. Heather D.Baker, EleanorRobson, and GáborZólyomi. London: BISI.Search in Google Scholar
Huyse, Phillip. 1999. Some Further Thoughts on the Bisitun Monument and the Genesis of the Old Persian Cuneiform Script. Bulletin of the Asia Institute13: 45–66.Search in Google Scholar
Hyland, John. 2011. Contesting Marathon: Billows, Krentz, and the Persian Problem. Classical Philology106(3): 265–77.10.1086/661548Search in Google Scholar
Keegan, John. 1976. The Face of Battle. New York: Viking Press.Search in Google Scholar
King, Leonard W., and Reginald C.Thompson. 1907. The Sculptures and Inscriptions of Darius the Great on the Rock of Behistun in Persia. London: British Museum.Search in Google Scholar
Kozuh, Michael. 2003. Context and Content of the Persepolis Inscriptions: the Interchange of XPb and XPd. Pp. 266–70 in Yeki Bud, Yeki Nabud: Essays in the Archaeology of Iran in Honor of William M. Sumner, eds. Naomi F.Miller and KamyarAbdi. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California.Search in Google Scholar
Krentz, Peter. 1985. Casualties in Hoplite Battles. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies26: 13–31.Search in Google Scholar
Loewe, Michael. 2006. The Government of the Qin and Han Empires 221 BCE- 220 CE. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Margulies, Martin. 2007. The Battle of Prestonpans 1745. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Millard, Alan. 1991. Large Numbers in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions. Pp. 213–22 in Ah, Assyria… Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography presented to Hayim Tadmor (Scripta Hierosolymitana 33), eds. MordechaiCogan and IsraelEph’al. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, the Hebrew University.Search in Google Scholar
Potts, D.T.. 2006–2007. Darius and the Armenians. Iranistik: Deutschsprachige Zeitschrift für iranistische Studien9-10: 133–46.Search in Google Scholar
Rawlinson, Sir Henry. 1870. The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. Vol. 3. London: the British Museum.Search in Google Scholar
Rey, F. Echevarría. 2010. Weapons, Technological Determinism, and Ancient Warfare. Pp. 21–56 in New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare, eds. GarrettFagan and MatthewTrundle. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004185982.i-391.8Search in Google Scholar
Rosenstein, Nathan. 2004. Rome at War: Farms, Families, and Death in the Middle Republic. Chapel Hill, CA: University of North Carolina Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rubincam, Catherine. 1991. Casualty figures in the battle descriptions of Thucydides. Transactions of the American Philological Association121: 181–98.10.2307/284451Search in Google Scholar
Sabin, Philip. 2007. Battle. A. Land Battles. Pp. 399–433 in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Vol. 1: Greece, the Hellenistic World and the Rise of Rome, eds. PhilipSabin, Hansvan Wees, and MichaelWhitby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen. 1999. The Persian Kings and History. Pp. 91–112 in The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts, ed. ChristinaKraus. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004351295_006Search in Google Scholar
Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1980. Zur babylonischen Version der Bīsutūn-Inschrift. Archiv für Orientforschung27: 106–26.Search in Google Scholar
Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1989. Bisotun iii. Darius’ Inscriptions. Encyclopedia IranicaIV/3: 299–305.Search in Google Scholar
Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1991. The Bisitun Inscriptions of Darius the Great: Old Persian Text. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Schwinghammer, Gundula. 2011. Die Smerdis Story – Der Usurpator, Dareios und die Bestrafung der, Lügenkönige. Pp. 665–87 in Herodot und das Persische Weltreich – Herodotus and the Persian Empire (Classica et Orientalia 3), eds. RobertRollinger, BrigitteTruschnegg, and ReinholdBichler. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Sears, Stephen W. 2003. Gettysburg. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.Search in Google Scholar
Sekunda, Nicholas. 1992. The Persian Army 560–330 BC. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.Search in Google Scholar
Summerer, Latife. 2007. Picturing Persian Victory: The Painted Battle Scene on the Munich Wood. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia13: 3–30.10.1163/157005707X212643Search in Google Scholar
Tritle, Lawrence A. 2000. From Melos to My Lai: a Study in Violence, Culture, and Social Survival. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Tuplin, Christopher. 2010. All the King’s Horses: in Search of Achaemenid Persian Cavalry. Pp. 101–82 in New Perspectives on Ancient Warfare, eds. GarrettFagan and MatthewTrundle. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004185982.i-391.26Search in Google Scholar
Tuplin, Christopher. 2013. Intolerable clothes and a terrifying name: the Characteristics of an Achaemenid Invasion Force. Pp. 223–40 in Marathon – 2500 Years. Proceedings of the Marathon Conference 2010 (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 124), eds. ChristopherCarey and MichaelEdwards. London: Institute of Classical Studies.Search in Google Scholar
de Vaan, Joop M.C.T. 1995. Ich bin eine Schwertklinge des Königs’: die Sprache des Bēl-ibni. Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Vogelsang, Willem J. 1992. The Rise and Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire: the Eastern Iranian Evidence. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
von Voigtlander, Elizabeth. 1978. The Bisitun Inscription of Darius the Great: Babylonian Version. London: Lund Humphries.Search in Google Scholar
Wheeler, H.F.B, and A.M.Broadley. 1910. The War in Wexford: An Account of the Rebellion in the South of Ireland in 1798 Told from Original Documents. London: John Lane Company.Search in Google Scholar
Wu, Xin. 2010. Enemies of Empire: A Historical Reconstruction of Political Conflicts between Central Asians and the Persian Empire. Pp. 545–63 in The World of Achaemenid Persia. History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, eds. JohnCurtis and St. JohnSimpson. London: I.B. Tauris.10.5040/9780755625420.ch-051Search in Google Scholar
Yates, R. 1999. Early China. Pp. 7–46 in War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Mesoamerica, eds. KurtRaaflaub and NathanRosenstein. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ziolkowski, Adam. 1990. Credibility of Numbers of Battle Captives in Livy, Books XXI–XLV. Parola del Passato45: 15–36.Search in Google Scholar
©2014 by De Gruyter
