The complexity of the imperial structure of Achaemenid Persia, the vastness of its ethnic diversity and geographical size, and the loss of contemporary imperial journals has shrouded their history in mystery and has discouraged the modern novelists from romancing the Achaemenids. In 1930s, archaeologist from the Chicago Oriental Institute discovered two storerooms full of clay tablets, fragments, and seal impressions, some 30,000+ pieces in Aramaic, Elamite and Âryâ (Old Persian), from the reign of King Darius when they cleared a portion of a collapsed fortification wall in the ruins of Persepolis.
Meticulous collaborative studies of these priceless imperial administrative records, commonly known today as the Persepolis Fortification Archive, by distinguished scholars is greatly expanding our insight to and appreciation for the Achaemenid Persia. A new view of the Achaemenid Persians is now emerging based on the research and study of a wider set of contemporary sources, in addition to the ancient Greek sources, such as:
·Avesta, collection of Mazdan holy scripture and sacred texts ·Babylonian documents, from temple records to private business archives ·Biblical sources ·Egyptian religious and administrative records ·Old Persian royal inscriptions · Persepolis Fortification and Treasury Tablets ·Seal impressions But while ancient history is mostly about war and conquest, stories are about people who make the history. Hence, the process of such stroytelling is still not straightforward. It masks the difficulty of choices that must be made among all historical sources, some still of uncertain nature. It is a given that there will be gaps and imbalances by adopting a certain point of view.
The stories, then, present just what the scribe, to the best of her abilities, now thinks.
While it is impossible to take account of all the available information, here is a select list of some of the scholarly books in English used in researching Roxanâ Romance, followed by a short list of a few books recommended for further reading.
Research...
Babylonian Bertman, Stephen: Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) Hunger, H. and Sachs, A. J.: Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia I: Diaries from 652 B.C. to 262 B.C. (Vienna, 1988) King, Leonard William: The Seven Tablets of Creation, Vol. 1 (London: Luzac & Co., 1902) Lambert, W. G. and Millard, A. R.: Atra Hasîs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, with the Sumerian Flood Story by M. Civil (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999) Leick, Gwendolyn: Who’s who in the Ancient Near Eastern Mythology (London: Routledge, 2002) Leick, Gwendolyn: The Babylonians: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2003) Letters From Mesopotamia, translated by Leo A. Oppenheim (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967) Oates, Joan: Babylon, revised edition (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986) Saggs, H. W. F.: The Greatness that was Babylon (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1969)
Bactrian Holt, Frank L.: Alexander the Great and Bactria (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988) Holt, Frank L.: Thundering Zeus, The Making of Hellenistic Bactria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) Holt, Frank L.: Into the Land of Bones (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)
Egyptian Murray, Margaret A.: The Splendor that was Egypt, revised edition (Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004) The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Hellene
Burns, A. B.: Persia and the Greeks: The Defense of the West, C. 546-478 B.C., second edition with a postscript by D. M. Lewis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984) Diodorus Siculus: Library of History, 12 Vols., translated by C. H. Oldfather and edited by C. B. Welles (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954) Hanson, Victor Davis: Wars of the Ancient Greeks (New York: Smithsonian Books, 1999) Herodotus: The History, translated by David Grene (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987) Homer: Iliad, translated by Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Doubleday, 1974) Shipley, Graham: The Greek World After Alexander, 323-30 BC (New York: Routledge, 2000) Skinner, Marilyn B.: Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) Stobart, J. C.: The Glory that was Greece, revised by F. N. Bryce (New York: D. Appleton, Century Company, Inc., 1935) The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece, edited by Paul Cartledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Xenophon: Anabasis, translated, W. H. D. Rouse (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958)
Indian Basham, A. L.: The Wonder that was India, 3rd revised edition (New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1968) Hart, George L. III: The Poems of Ancient Tamil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975) Mallanaga, Vatsyayana: Kamasutra, translated by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) Smith, Vincent A.: The Early History of India: From 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, 4th edition revised by S. M. Edwards (Oxford: The Claredon Press, 1924, 1962) Thapar, Romila: Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) Judean
Ackroyd, Peter R.: Israel under Babylon and Persia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970)
Allen, Leslie C. and Laniak, Timothy S.: Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2003)
Grant, Michael: The History of Ancient Israel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984)
Moreen, Vera Basch: In Queen Esther’s Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)
The Cambridge History of Judaism, edited by W. D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein, Volume One: Introduction; The Persian Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)
Makedonian
Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt (London: Penguin Books, 1958) Borza, Eugene N.: Makedonika, edited by Carol G. Thomas (Claremont: Regina Books, 1995) Bosworth, A. B.: Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) Bosworth, A. B.: Alexander and the East (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) Bosworth, A. B.: The Legacy of Alexander: Politics, Warfare, and Propaganda under the Successors (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) Bosworth, A. B., and Baynham, E. J.: Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) Briant, Pierre: Alexander the Great: Man of Action, Man of Spirit, translated by Jeremy Leggatt (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987) Cantor, Norman: Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the World (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005) Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly: Women and Monarchy in Macedonia (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 2000) Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly: Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great (New York: Routledge, 2006) Cartledge, Paul: Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2004) Engles, Donald W.: Alexander the Great and the Logistics of Macedonian Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978) Green, Peter: Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) Green, Peter: Alexander of Makedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) Hamilton, J. R.: Alexander the Great (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974) Hammond, N.G.L.: The Genius of Alexander the Great (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997) Heckel, Waldemar: The Last Days and Testament of Alexander the Great (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GMBH, 1988) Heckel, Waldemar: The Marshalls of Alexander’s Empire (New York: Routledge, 1992) Heckel, Waldemar: Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006) Lane Fox, Robin: In Search of Alexander (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980) Plutarch: The Life of the Great Alexander, translated by John Dryden (New York, 2004) Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander, translated by John C. Rolfe, 2 Vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, MCMXLVI) Renault, Mary: The Nature of Alexander(New York: Pantheon Books, 1975) Tarn, Sir William W.: Alexander the Great, 2 Vols. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1948) The Cambridge Ancient History: Macedon, 401-301 B.C., Vol. 6, edited by J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, and F. E. Adcock, 3rd Impression (Cambridge: University Printing House, 1964) The Greek Alexander Romance, translation: Richard Stoneman (London: Penguin Books, 1991) Worthington, Ian: Alexander the Great: Man and God (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004)
Mazdean
Boyce, Mary: A History of Zoroastrianism, Vols. 1 and 2 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975, 1982, 1989) Boyce, Mary: Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985) Clark, Peter: Zoroastrianism: An Introduction to an Ancient Faith (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1998)
Jackson, William A. V.: Zoroaster: The Prophet of Ancient Iran (London: The MacMillan Company, 1898, 1901) Mehr, Farhang: The Zoroastrian Tradition: An Introduction to the Ancient Wisdom of Zarathushtra (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2003)
Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 4, translated by James Darmesteter and L. H. Mills, edited by Max Müller, revised edition (New York: Collier, 1900)
Persian
Allen, Lindsay: The Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) Briant, Pierre: From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, translated by Peter T. Daniels (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002) Brosius, Maria: Women in Ancient Persia: 559-331 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) Cook, J. M.: The Persian Empire (New York: Schocken Books, 1983) Dandamaev, M. A.: A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire, translated by W. J. Vogelsang (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989) Dandamaev, Muhammad A. and Lukoniv, Vladimir: The Cultural and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran, English edition by Philip L. Kohl with the assistance of D. J. Dadson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) Eddy, Samuel K.: The King is Dead (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1961) Farrokh, Kaveh: Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007) Ferdowsi Toosi, Hakim Abol-Ghasem: Shâhnâmeh: The Persian Book of Kings, translated by Dick Davis (New York: Viking, 2006) Ferdowsi Toosi, Hakim Abol-Ghasem: Shâhnâmeh: Fathers and Sons, translated by Dick Davis (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2000) Ferdowsi Toosi, Hakim Abol-Ghasem: Shâhnâmeh: Sunset of Empire, translated by Dick Davis (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2004) Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, edited by John E. Curtis and Nigel Tallis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) Frye, Richard N.: The Heritage of Persia (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1963) Ghirshman, Roman: The Arts of Ancient Iran: From its Origins to the Time of Alexander the Great, translated by Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons (New York: Golden Press, 1964) Hallock, Richard T.: Persepolis Fortification Tablets (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969) Hekmat, Forough: Folk Tales of Ancient Persia (Delmar: Caravan Books, 1974) Highlights of Persian Art, edited by Richard Ettinghausen and Ehsan Yarshater (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979) Hinnells, John R: Persian Mythology (London: Chancellor Press, 1985) Iskandarnameh, A Persian Medieval Alexander-Romance, translated by Minoo S. Southgate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978) Kent, Roland: Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon, 2nd edition, revised (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1953) Olmstead, A. T.: History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1948) Payne, Robert: The Splendor of Persia (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1957) Persian Literature, Columbia Lectures on Iranian Studies, edited by Ehsan Yarshater (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988) Rypka, Jan: History of Iranian Literature (Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1968) Shahbazi, Shapur A.: “Irano-Hellenic Notes 3: Iranians and Alexander”, American Journal of Ancient History, New Series, Vol. 2, No. 1. (2003), pp. 5-38
Stolper, Matthew: Entrepreneurs and the Empire: Murašű Archive, the Murašű Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia (Belgium: Nederlands Historisch - Archaeologisch Instituut Te Istanbul, 1985) The Cambridge History of Iran: The Median and Achaemenian Periods, edited by Ilya Gershevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) The Splendour of Iran: Ancient Times, edited by N. Pourjavady, Vol. 1, edited by A. Sh. Shahbazi (London: Booth-Clibborn Editions Limited, 2001) Wiesehöfer, Josef: Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD, translated by Azizeh Azodi (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1996)
