Iranians in Babylonia.

• Author: Stolper, Matthew W.

The ruling classes of the Achaemenid Empire left few texts in Old Iranian languages to record their names and concerns, so the study of Achaemenid Iranians relies on evidence in the languages of the Empire's subjects and adversaries. Greek and Babylonian texts were the richest source of this evidence before Hallock's Persepolis Fortification Tablets was published in 1969, and the Babylonian corpus is still pre-eminent for its wide distribution in time and space, its formal variety that represents a range of functional contexts, and its relatively clear transcriptions of Iranian words and names. Dandamayev names Husing and Eilers among the early scholars who collected and interpreted Iranian evidence from widely scattered Babylonian texts, and Hinz, Mayrhofer, Schmitt, and Zadok among contributors to the wave of restudy that began in the 1970s (p. x). This publication of Dandamayev's 1987 lectures at Columbia University, incorporating earlier surveys and updating them with fresh material and opinion, is the first such compendium to appear in fifteen years. It is an indispensable sable guide to texts and secondary literature that will save students of Achaemenid history and languages the immense effort that Dandamayev has spent during his. long studies.

Part one, "Traditions and Innovations," sketches a background of institutions, devoting one to five pages each to broad historical topics (systems of administration, law, taxes, land tenure, and military organization, and imperial policies toward temples), with special attention to selected Iranian loanwords and associated Babylonian terms. Part three, "Inhabitants of the Iranian Plateau, and Central Asia in Babylonia," sketches a complementary cultural background, summarizing Achaemenid Babylonian allusions to Elam and Elamites and to various Iranian populations, and concluding with remarks on religious and cultural contacts and the status of Iranian minorities.

The heart of the book, about half of its contents, is part two, "Iranian Names." It arranges evidence drawn chiefly from Babylonian legal and administrative texts (but also from Aramaic, Classical, and Biblical sources) under 353 headings, supplying attested spellings, etymologies, bibliography, and brief characterizations of the contexts in which the names appear, usually distinguishing homonymous individuals. Some entries include excursuses on Iranian titles or loanwords. The list includes, in addition to individuals who lived in Babylonia (p. xi), parties and witnesses in Babylonian texts drawn up outside Babylonia, occasional non-Babylonian rulers (Kurash of Parsumash, Bardiya), and a few geographical names. The bibliography and indexes that complement the list constitute about a quarter of the book.

Among the general historical views that affect Dandamayev's presentation of particulars is the understanding that radical administrative changes near the beginning of Darius I's reign led to a concentration of important political, administrative, and military offices in the hands of ethnic Persians (p. 5). A consequence is Dandamayev's interpretive principle that Iranian titles held by individuals with Babylonian names or patronyms label unimportant offices (e.g., pp. 10, 52,); that is, rank and status depended in part on ethnicity and descent.

Dandamayev's principles for inferring ethnicity, descent, and geographical origin from the etymologies of personal names and patronyms arise from general suppositions about immigration and contact. They are first explicitly stated on pp. 171ff. Iranian names in texts from the late sixth and early fifth centuries must belong to born Iranians; when name and patronym are both Iranian, or when several Iranian names appear together, the holders of the names must be of Iranian origin or descent; persons with Babylonian names and Iranian patronyms may be children of mixed marriages, but persons with Iranian names and Semitic patronyms must be of Babylonian or Aramean descent. Some of the entries in part two amplify these principles. names of people with Iranian patronyms or gentilics in the reign of Darius I or earlier are more likely to have Iranian than non-Iranian etymologies (pp. 71 s.v. Gambiia, 123 s.v. Summu; and cf p. 114 s.v. Pirmizdi); Iranian-named fathers of persons with Babylonian names in later texts may have been Babylonians themselves (pp. 28 s.v. Ahseti c, 51 s.v. Bagadata- d, N s.v. Bagaina b); Iranian names without patronyms imply Iranian ethnicity (pp. 39 on Artambar a, 51 s.v. Bagadata- f).

The general absence of gentilics makes it hard to distinguish individual names as belonging to one or another of the Iranian "tribes" (p. 171), but it seems "natural to suppose" that many holders of Iranian names were Persians, and fewer were Medes (p. 158, cf. p. 3 on Gubaru and Ustanu). Nonetheless, Dandamayev observes accurately that Babylonian transcriptions of Iranian words and names usually represent "Median" rather than Old Persian forms where such a distinction can be made at all (p. x), and the simplest likely reason is that Persian speakers were a minority among Achaemenid Iranians. Dandamayev himself sometimes ignores this observation and its consequences. e.g., in identifying Babylonian forms with telltale "Median" - [theta] - or -z- as transcriptions of reconstructed Old Persian forms with - [sigma] - or -d- (ahsadrapannu and umarzanapata, p. 6; pardesu, p. 20); in treating "Median" aspa- vs. Old Persian asa- not as an instance of the general phenomenon, but as evidence that aspastu, "lucerne(?)," came into Babylonian via Assyrian from a "Median," hence pre-Achaemenid, source (p. 17), or in rejecting Hinz's translation of Babylonian ustabari as "Kamelreiter" because Old Persian "camel" was usa-, though Hinz's suggestion presupposes an underlying "Median" *ustra- (p. 60).

Like other compendia, Dandamayev's represents the recent status of a changing corpus. It invites marginal comments, additions and reconsiderations.

Characterizations of some texts can be clarified:(1)

Pp. 9, 83, 102, and 220: in Achaemenid Babylonian (and probably in earlier Neo-Babylonian and in Neo-Assyrian) the logogram LU.IGI+DUB represents Babylonian masennu (not abarakku). The translation "chief steward of the royal "household" offered for masennu, p. 38 s.v. Artambar (cf. abarakku, p. 83 s.v. Hurunnatu), is without support in Achaemenid Babylonian texts.

Pp. 15 and 220: the translation "sword bearers" presumes a reading of the logogram LU.GIR.LAL as nas patri (not tabihu [sic]).

P. 19: for "persons who suffered from leprosy" (presumably reacting LU.SAHAR.SUB.BA), read prebend holder(s)" (LU.GIS.SUB.BA) in UET 4 57:5, 10, and 12 (cf. UET 4 60:3).

P. 27 s.v. Ahiamanus: BE 10 P is a receipt for rent paid to subordinates of the satrap Gubaru for canals (not for a field of the satrap G.); BE 10 85 and PBS 2/1 103 and 201 refer to different properties (not to the same property passed from father to son).

P. 29 s.v. Appiesu and 235a: delete Bit Uqupi; read E u-qu GIS.APIN in Jakob-Rost and Freydank, p. 11, no. 1 obv. (!)4 (collated); cf. uqu (GIS).APIN Dar. 533 and 20.

P. 43 s.v. Artarios: Stolper 1987, pp. 399f., attributes a career of thirty years or more not to Artarios (Babylonian Artareme) but to Belsunu (Greek Belesys).

P. 45 s.v. Arturu[...]: in K.[sic] 8133, A. is the patronym of Parnuma, as indicated on p. 110; Batraparsa is the name of another witness, as indicated on p. 66.

P. 53 s.v. Bagadata- 1, end. BE 10 129 refers to a bailiff (paqdu) of an ustarbaru, not vice-versa.

P. 53 s.v. Baga-baja a: OECT 10 192:3 refers not to a...