Part 1

Welp... Something was going to make me sit down and actually put some of this in writing eventually, so it might as well be AskHistorians. You may be getting more than you bargained for here.

Matt Waters' Ancient Persia book - this is longer, obviously, does it add much?

It certainly says more things.

I was considering was From Cyrus to Alexander by Pierre Briant but that's expensive

Legally, it's unclear if I can advise you to look for that title on Internet Archive. So I won't.

I also noticed he takes a very strong stance opposing the prevailing ideas about Greek influence on "Western civilization" and the importance of the Greek defeat of the Persians.

This is not wildly out of line with how Achaemenid Persian history has been approached for about 30-40 years now. Llewellyn-Jones is just potentially more blunt in his presentation, given that this is a book for popular audiences. Bear in mind that you're also reading the introduction, and the advertising sample. It's intentionally phrased in a dynamic way to challenge the misconceptions of a reading public that's more familiar with 300 than Cyrus the Great. That's the thrust of a lot of the book re: Greece. He definitely wrote with the assumption that many readers will "side" with the Renaissance Hellenophile version of history by default. It's a rhetorical device, and actually one of the better argued points over the course of the whole book.

referring to Sparta as the most oppressive slave state in the ancient world with a terrorist-like hold over ancient Greece

This gets closer to what I think are some of the books core problems. Its rife with bad comparisons and dramatic statements, often lacking for factual support or failing to grapple with popular context for key words. I don't particularly disagree with that description of Sparta. The systematic enslavement/serfification of the Laconian and Messenian Helots, and a political system structured around keeping them enslaved is extremely oppressive, even by ancient standards. Likewise, the stories of the Krypteia and its brutal tactics to prevent Helot revolt are terroristic. However, the extension of this description to Sparta's ability to militarily threaten other Greeks doesn't really mesh with popular ideas of terrorism. Sure, they technically did use fear (of Spartan attacks) to politically manipulate their neighbors, but state-level threats aren't exactly the modern ideal of a terrorist.

But the rest of the book? I can't say I recommend it. It's broken into three sections: Cyrus-Darius I, Persian Culture, Xerxes-Alexander in Bactria. I'd diagnose its problems in categories and sub-categories. Naturally, there's some overlap on specific points.

• Public Relations - Llewellyn-Jones' attempts to address popular expectations.
  • Orientalism
  • Anti-Nationalism
  • Word choice
• Historicity - Whether or not what Llewellyn-Jones wrote is actual historical information.
  • The "Persian" Version
  • Fiction
  • Sources

One point Llewellyn-Jones makes very early on is a need to move away from orientalist stereotypes. Naturally, he references Said's Orientalism, but it occasionally seems like Llewellyn-Jones only recognizes the paternalistic aspects of orientalism while maintaining the use of stereotypes. By far the most egregious example comes as part of his discussion of Persia's nomadic heritage. (Note: my citations use the e-book page numbering)

The Great King and his court used the empire’s sophisticated road system to traverse the realm not just for the pragmatic reasons of state, but also to satisfy a deep-set instinct in the Persian psyche. For the Achaemenids retained the nomadic lifestyle of their Eurasian ancestors. The desire to move from one place to another never left them. The regular progression of the royal court around and across the empire can be thought of as a nomadic migration on a par with the relocation patterns typical of itinerant peoples. In Iran the traditional migration movements of nomadic groups (each with its own deep-set tribal and family affiliations) have always been connected with clearly defined routes and destinations. (174-175)

There's certainly an argument to be made that most or all of the Iranian ethnic population was at least pastoral well into the time of Cyrus the Great. Earlier in the book, Llewellyn-Jones presses that claim quite forcefully. However, the actual evidence to tie the nobility into that system is minimal, and the suggestion that nomadism was an inherent instinct in an ethnic psychology borders on race-science.

There's also no attempt to address the potential counter points. Greek and Assyrian sources mention Median cities, and both Cyrus and is grandfather presented themselves in reference to the city of Anshan. Nothing about the seasonal migration of the Achaemenid court is notably more nomadic than other itinerant courts, like that of the Holy Roman Empire (or for that matter modern grandparents having two homes and going south for the winter).

Though he writes explicit critiques about the western, Greek-centric narrative of Persian history, Lellewellyn-Jones also clearly had a critique of Iranian nationalism in mind too. A large part of the final chapter is explicitly critical of both Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Islamic Republic's handling of ancient history (422-430). There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Both regimes have set back Achaemenid Studies in their own ways. However, some of the ways these critiques appear to come through in the text are concerning.

Most notably, the chapter "Slavery By Another Name" does not explicitly address the popular myth that Cyrus abolished slavery, but it certainly reads like a rebuke to that idea. There was, undoubtedly, slavery in ancient Persia. I've discussed that on this very sub. Unfortunately, this chapter isn't about most of what I wrote about. Instead, it focusses on the kurtash, a Elamite word in the Persepolis Archive Tablets that most accurately translates as "workers." Llewellyn-Jones takes the stance that they were all slaves. Some were certainly prisoners of war. Others were apparently skilled craftsman. Most we're simple laborers of unclear origin.

There's no record of monetary payment, but there wasn't a monetary economy in most of the empire at this point. Payment in kind was standard. Thus, financial compensation can't be a criteria for enslavement. The exact meaning of kurtash is highly debated, but rather than explaining that debate, Llewellyn-Jones firmly takes a side and presents it as fact. More egregiously, he expands that interpretation of kurtash well beyond the labor presented in the Persepolis Archives.

For those women who accompanied husbands or fathers into slavery, there was little hope that they could stay in family groups, since the Persian administration tended to break apart families and deploy individual workers wherever they were most needed. (197)

There is no evidence for this statement, either in Persians or in the Persepolis Archives. There is no record of families, individual *kurtash'*s names, or labeled work groups to indicate that people were separated upon arrival. In fact, the archives do record that workers tended to be grouped by ethnicity, presumably whoever they arrived with.

Describing the army of Alexander the Great discovering the deported Greeks of southern Iran according to Diodorus Siculus:

"All had been mutilated, some lacking hands, some feet, and some ears and noses. They were persons who had acquired skills or crafts and had made good progress in their instruction; then their other extremities had been amputated and they were left only those which were vital to their profession. All the soldiers, seeing their venerable years and the losses which their bodies had suffered, pitied the lot of the wretches."

It is clear that these old Greeks, ripped from their homes many decades before, were kurtash. Even with some possible exaggeration about the rate of the mutilations they had been subject to, the story does provide a very grim perspective on Persia’s labour system. (196)

"Some possible exaggeration" and no acknowledgement of Diodorus' 200 year removal from the events are some sizeable caveats. Never mind that this event is also more than a century removed from the last actual source for the kurtash in Persepolis or any other potential causes of mutilation as a prisoner of war doing hard labor in the 4th Century BCE, nor any reference to other Greek accounts of deportees being resettled in other areas.

The Fortification texts tell a disconcertingly uncomfortable tale of a large-scale kurtash breeding programme throughout Pārs. The records kept a register of the number of pregnant women and show that their health was maintained through the provision of special rations. Post-partum women were also given ‘feeding’ rations, as one text specifies... These postnatal grain rations were provided over and above the normal subsistence rations. They were a reward, as it were, for successful reproduction. (197-198)

Or, and hear me out, new mothers require more food and the Persian overseers recognized that as a basic fact of life. He goes on to cite the increase in birth rates between 502-499 BCE as proof of this. In the same time frame, the Persepolis Archive also demonstrates that the overall number of workers increased. There is no reason, beside assumed cruelty, to interpret this information as proof of a "breeding programme."

The chapters on Cyrus also fall into the nationalist counter argument category, by repeatedly emphasizing the necessary cruelty of ancient war so often left out of our sources, and Cyrus's own propaganda that likely bolstered his reputation in Babylon, Judea, and Greece. None of this is factually wrong, though the violence is necessarily inferred. However, the use of "propaganda" brings me to the next point.