HELLENISM IN THE EAST The interaction of Greek and non-Greek civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander edited by Amelie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White Duck worth First published in 1987 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. The Old Piano Factory 43 Gloucester Crescent, London NW1 © 1987 by Amelie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 0 7156 2125 4 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hellenism in the East: the interaction of Greek and non-Greek civilizations from Syria to Central Asia after Alexander. 1. Hellenism 2. Middle East-- Antiquities 3. Middle East-- Civilization -- Greek influence I. Kuhrt, Amelie 11. Sherwin-White, Susan 939'.4 DS56 ISBN 0-7156-2125-4 Typeset by Input Typesetting Ltd. and printed in Great Britain by Unwin Brothers Limited, Old Woking DSSr r\ cz' '?J q; I q ~ -1 Contents r'JAlf'l List of plates vi List of figures vii Preface IX List of contributors xiii 1. Seleucid Babylonia: a case study for the installation and 1 development of Greek rule Susan Sherwin-White 2. Berossus' Babyloniaka and Seleucid Rule in Babylonia 32 Amelie Kuhrt 3. The Babylonian City 57 R. J. van der Spek 4. The Arab-Persian Gulf under the Seleucids 75 Jean-Fram;ois Salles 5. The Problem of Hellenistic Syria 110 Fergus Millar 6. Greek and non-Greek Interaction in the Art and Architecture 134/ J of the Hellenistic East Malcolm Colledge Abbreviations 163 Bibliography 166 Index 185 Plates (between pp. 144 and 145) I. Reconstruction of the interior of the 'Square Hall', (Old) Nisa, Turkmenistan, as rebuilt in the mid-Parthian period 11. Khurha sanctuary, west Iran Ill. Bronze figurine of horseman in cap, west Iran (?) IV. Bronze figurine of the goddess Fortuna/lsis, Laodicea (Nihavand, west Iran) V. Marble portrait head, probably of an eastern king (Euthydemus I?) VI. Ai Khanum, gymnasium: limestone bearded head from a cloaked 'herm' VII. Marble figurine from (Old) Nisa 'Treasury' VIII. Female (divine?) figure in clay and stucco on wooden frame from wall niche, (Old) Nisa 'Square Hall' IX. Limestone statue of a female figure beside a pillar from the 'indented' temple, Ai Khanum X. Rock relief of Heracles reclining, Bisitun XI. Rock relief depicting a Parthian king (Mithridates II?) before four dignitaries (to the left), all in profile view, Bisitun XII. Three ivory carved drinking horns with figured decoration from (Old) Nisa 'Treasury' XIII. Limestone relief of Antiochus I of Commagene shaking hands on equal terms with the god Heracles, from Arsamea Nymphaeus (Eski Kahta), Commagene, south Turkey XIV. Bronze statue of a chieftain, perhaps a Parthian vassal, from Shami shrine, west Iran Figures Map of the Seleucid empire xiv-xv 1. Archaeological sites in the Gulf area 77 2. Monetary findings in the Gulf area (a) Seleucid coinage in the Gulf area 93 (b) Seleucid coinage in Failaka: Seleucia-Tigris and Susa mints 93 (c) Arab coinage inside and outside the Gulf area 94 (d) Monetary findings in Susa 95 3. Tentative map of the Gulf area under the Seleucid monarchy 101 4. Plan of Dura Europus 141 5. Ai Khanum, plan of indented temple, phase IV 143 6. Plans of dwellings which incorporated a central room, corri dors and court from Babish Mulla, Chorasmia, USSR, Heca- tompylus (Shahr-i Qumis) and Ai Khanum 147 7. Nippur, Babylonia: plan of the 'palace' 148 8. Architectural orders of west Iranian sanctuaries 149 9. Taxila, Pakistan: plan of Sirkap mound with grid-plan streets 151 10. Khaltchayan, north Bactria: 'reception hall', plan and facade 160 11. Taxila: plan of the 'J andial' temple 160 12. Khaltchayan: reconstruction of three wall-compositions of 161 the 'reception hall' Preface The worldwide hegemony of Orientalism and all it stands for can now be challenged, if we can benefit properly from the general twentieth-century rise to political and historical awareness of so many of the earth's peoples. (Said 1978, 328) During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries archaeological exca vation has revealed vast quantities of material relating to the different areas and civilisations of the peoples of the Near and Middle East. Yet this rich source of evidence has invariably been treated from a Europocentric perspective, and interdisciplinary co-operation between historians, Assyriologists and archaeologists has been almost totally absent. The narrowness of approach resulting from these failures in historical method characterises especially studies of the Near and Middle East after Alexander's conquest. The articles collected in this book represent an acknowledgement of the need to redress the balance by seeking the collaboration of scholars from a variety of fields concerned with different aspects of the Seleucid empire. Traditional approaches to the study of the hellenistic East after Alexander have been mainly hellenocentric and have selected as of prime importance the establishment and spread of Greek culture. Two recent contri butions exemplify this bias: F. Walbank's The Hellenistic World (London 1981), and Cambridge Ancient History VII/1 (new edition: chs. 3, 5 and 11) in both of which the Near Eastern background, local traditions and cultures are grossly neglected. This is a serious lack which stems from the overriding significance attached to the classical tradition in which most scholars of the ancient world have been educated. One of the results of this is that where there is no clear Greek evidence a political, social and cultural vacuum is assumed. Another distorting factor has been the preoccupations of Roman historians who have tended (not unnaturally) to concentrate almost exclusively on those regions of the Seleucid empire which by the first century BC had become part of the Roman empire. This approach has led them to place a disproportionate empha:::~is on the importance of, for example, the role of Syria in the Seleucid empire as a whole, totally ignoring the central importance of the vast territories controlled by the Seleucids east of the Euphrates. A further methodological weak- Preface X ness has been the almost total failure of historians of this period to recognise the fundamental importance of the traditions and insti tutions of the Achaemenid empire for understanding the system of Macedonian rule in the East. This is the direct result of the traditional separation of disciplines whereby the Middle East before Alexander is usually studied exclusively by Assyriologists and Iranists and not deemed to fall within the scope of Graeco-Roman historians. One important result of the development of Assyriology has been the publication of many more hellenistic period cuneiform texts and a growing interest in late Babylonian history. The new availability of this comparatively rich documentation has now made it possible to study Seleucid history and institutions in this particular area of the Seleucid empire on the basis of local sources instead of seeing them '"\ ~mainly through Greek and Roman eyes. The first three articles are 7 thus devoted to different aspects of Babylonia and its culture under\ the Seleucids, which can now be recognised as the region of central importance for their empire (Sherwin-White; Kuhrt; van der Spek). This fact is also well reflected in Salles' article demonstrating the strong Seleucid presence and strategic and economic interest in the Gulf on the model of the Achaemenids. The impact of Greek rule in Syria is subjected to sceptical scrutiny by Millar, whose merit is to caution against exaggerating the influence and presence of Greeks and Macedonians in this area. However, his careful examination of a scattered body of material is susceptible to a more positive interpret ation than he himself allows and the strength of Seleucid imperial rule there cannot be denied. A conspectus of Greek and non-Greek art and architecture of the Near and Middle East is presented by Colledge, who is one of the few archaeologists to emphasise the importance of early Greek contacts with the cultures of the East before Alexander, during the Achaemenid empire, and traces the subsequent develop ment of Greek and existing non-Greek art forms and the gradual emergence of a new art combining Greek and non-Greek (primarily Iranian and Mesopotamian) features. The results of these contributions suggest that there is an urgent need for Graeco-Roman historians to perceive correctly the geo political limitations of their particular sources (cf. Sherwin-White) and refrain from equating them with historical reality. What is required is a shifting of their focus to the Middle East if progress in understanding the Seleucid empire is to be made. Antidotes to the prevailing view are to be more aware of the existence and significance of what may appear to them to be tiny pieces of contemporary archaeological evidence from places such as eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Soviet Central Asia and North India and to realise the importance of trying to inte grate this material into their accounts of Seleucid imperialism. This would be a fruitful method for fundamentally re-evaluating the Preface XI dynamics of the Seleucid empire in a way that has been singularly lacking in past treatments and has been profitably applied in the following chapters. Another new' direction for research suggested by this volume (Sher win-White; Salles; Colledge) is the application of this methodology to a serious re-analysis of the Parthian and Mauryan empires. The Mauryan empire has been so disregarded by Graeco-Roman historians as to be virtually invisible, in spite of the major work ofRomila Thapar (see, for example, Thapar 1966 and 1981) and Fussman 1982, as well as the now significant archaeological remains. Despite some re-evalu ation of Parthian imperialism by Soviet scholars, the prevailing view remains that of, for example, E. J. Keall (in Young and Levine (eds.), Mountains and Lowlands, Malibu 1977) by which the Parthians are characterised (or rather caricatured) as 'the political clowns of the millennium' (p. 81). And this of a people who successfully ruled an empire stretching from the Euphrates to Central Asia for about four hundred years and whom Strabo ranked with the Romans as the most powerful people of his time. A further aspect clearly illustrated by most of the contributions (Sherwin-White; Kuhrt; van der Spek; Salles; Colledge) is the huge importance of the Achaemenid empire and its legacy and influence on the formulation and development of the Seleucid empire. This has been illuminated by much recent work on the Persians (cf. particularly Sherwin-White and Kuhrt) but has as yet to make an appreciable impact on standard views of the Achaemenids (cf., for example, Cook 1983). An urgent need for furthering and implementing these studies is a full and critical analysis of Megasthenes' work on India in the manner achieved for Berossus by Burstein 1978 and Kuhrt (this volume) and for Hecataeus of Abdera by Murray 1970. It is, after all, one of the very few partially preserved examples of hellenistic historiography concerned with a non-Greek kingdom seen through the eyes of a Greek in Seleucid imperial service. This volume represents a beginning to what we hope will lead to further fruitful collaboration between Assyriologists, archaeologists and ancient historians. The articles collected here originated in papers given in the seminar series The Seleucid Empire: Sources and Prob lems, organised by the editors and held in Autumn 1984 at the Insti tute of Classical Studies, London University. We are grateful to the Director, Professor John Barron, and the staff of the Institute for their support and help. We would like to thank Professor Fergus Millar for first suggesting that we should co-operate on this stimulating subject. We express our gratitude to the British Academy which, by awarding a visiting fellowship to Jean-Fran«;ois Salles, made possible his partici pation in the seminar. Thanks should also be given to the Institute xii Preface for Jewish Studies for facilitating Bert van der Spek's visit and thus his contribution to the seminar. Finally we must thank warmly, for the help that we have received in preparing the articles for publi cation, Sarah Oliver, Department of Classics, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, and Katie Edwards, Department of History, University College. A.K. S.S.-W. Con tri bu tors Malcolm Colledge, Professor of Classical Archaeology, Westfield College, University of London Amelie Kuhrt, Lecturer in the History of the Ancient Near East, University College, University of London Fergus Millar, Camden Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford Jean-Fran~;ois Salles, Maison de !'Orient Mediterranee, CNRS, University of Lyons and Director of the French excavations on Failaka, Kuwait Susan Sherwin-White, formerly Lecturer in Ancient History, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London Bert van der Spek, Lecturer in Ancient History, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam