Greeks in the Neo-Assyrian Levant and Assyria in Early Greek Writers

440 Pages·1980·19.861 MB·440\440

by  Peyton Randolph Helm

801855**
HELM, PEYTON RANDOLPH
"GREEKS" IN THE NEO-ASSYRIAN LEVANT AND "ASSYRIA" IN EARLY GREEK
WRITERS
University of Pennsylvania PH.D. 1980
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by
HELM, PEYTON RANDOLPH
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"GREEKS" IN THE NEO-ASSYRIAN LEVANT AND
"ASSYRIA" IN EARLY GREEK WRITERS
PEYTON RANDOLPH HELM
A DISSERTATION
in
Ancient H istory
Presented to the Graduate F aculties of th e U niversity of Pennsylvania
in P a rtia l F ulfillm ent o f the Requirements for the Degree o f Doctor
of Philosophy.
1980
rv iso r of D isserration
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© COPYRIGHT
Peyton Randolph Helm
1980
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
During the four years which the w riting of th is d issertatio n has
larg ely occupied I have received much support and many kindnesses which
these b rie f acknowledgements cannot even begin to repay.
I must thank, firs t of a ll, the Graduate Faculty o f A rts and
Sciences o f the U niversity of Pennsylvania for the D issertation Year
Fellow ship of 1976-77 which allowed me to begin work on th is th esis, and
the Graduate Group in Ancient H istory which, under the chairm anship of
M ichael Jameson, offered me generous support along the road to the d isser­
tatio n stage.
I owe more than can be easily expressed to the members of my superb
d issertatio n committee: James D. Muhly, my supervisor, who offered me
lim itless encouragement and bibliographical advice and who served as
lending lib ra ry , c ritic , and friend; E rie Leichty, whose breadth of
A ssyriological knowledge and astu te ed ito rial eye helped me to clarify
many points and correct many errors; and M artin Ostwald, whose knowledge
of the C lassical sources and whose s ty lis tic criticism s have proved in­
valuable. I must also thank Professor Ostwald for his assistance in pro­
curing a ty p ist for the fin al ty p escrip t of th is d issertatio n and for
serving as courier in the delivery of the chapter m anuscripts to her.
Among the many other members of the U niversity of Pennsylvania
faculty to whom I owe thanks, I must especially mention A. John Graham,
the current chairman of the Graduate Group in Ancient H istory, who firs t
emphasized to me the lim itations of the evidence for Greek settlem ent in
the Neo-Assyrian Levant, and thereby greatly influenced the direction
i i i
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taken by th is d issertatio n . Thanks are also due Irene J. W inter, who
offered invaluable criticism and advice on many sections of the fourth
and fifth chapters.
I must also express my gratitude to Hayim Tadmor for his many per­
ceptive criticism s, for his good humor and tire le s s in terest in my work,
and for his h o sp itality in Jerusalem . Thanks are also due to Professors
Jonas G reenfield in Jerusalem , Israel E ph'al in Tel Aviv, and Gary O iler
at the U niversity of Akror , Akron, Ohio.
D espite the copious assistance I have received from a ll o f these
fine scholars, I must confess to sole resp o n sib ility for those erro rs,
shortcom ings, and inadequacies which inevitably remain.
L ast, but fa r from le a st, I wish to thank my parents, my two
brothers and my fiancee, whose generosity, kindness, patience and en­
couragement have never flagged.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One: In tro d u c tio n ..................................................................................................... 1
Chapter Two: The Name A s s y r ia ..........................................................................................27
’Acaupuri and A ssu r..........................................................................................................................27
’Aaaupco and Z up^n....................................................................................................................30
Chapter Three: Greece and the Near East in the Second
M illennium B.C.: The P o ssib ility o f a Bronze Age
Transm ission of the Name " A s s y ria " ...............................................................................42
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 42
The Middle Bronze A g e ...............................................................................................................43
The Late Bronze A g e ....................................................................................................................48
C o n c lu sio n s..........................................................................................................................................52
Chapter Four: Greeks in the Neo-Assyrian Levant—The
Evidence for Trade and Settlem ent ............................................................................... 62
L iterary Evidence .................................................................................................................... 64
A rchaeological Evidence ..................................................................................................... 73
The Significance of the Ceramic Evidence ............................................................. 83
Non-Ceramic A rchaeological Evidence for Greeks in
the Near E a s t ...............................................................................................................................
86
A R econsideration of A egean-O riental Trade in the
Iron Age—the Role of C y p ru s..........................................................................................89
The Beginning o f Greek Trade w ith the O rient in the
Late Eighth C e n tu ry ...............................................................................................................98
M aterial Evidence for A ssyrian Commerce w ith Greece .............................. 101
Chapter Five: Greek M ercenaries in the Levant down to
C. 600 B.C..................................................................................................................................................135
Chapter Six: Neo-Assyrian References to "Greeks" and the
H isto rical Context of Greek R elations w ith the Neo-
A ssyrian Levant....................................................................................................................................161
Yaman, Ya' and Yadnana .............................................................................................162
The Ninth through M id-Eighth C e n tu rie s..................................................................166
T ig lath -P ileser I I I ..................................................................................................................171
Shalmaneser V .................................................................................................................................177
Sargon I I ............................................................................................................................................180
S e n n a c h e rib .......................................................................................................................................190
Chapter Seven: The Near East in Homer and Hesiod and
Homeric "E upcn".................................................................................................................................216
Arimoi and E rentooi.......................................................................................................................216
P h o e n ic ia n s.......................................................................................................................................219
E g y p t.......................................................................................................................................................224
Sum m ary.................................................................................................................................................226
Homeric Euptri, ’Aacuptn, and th e Date of the O dyssey..............................226
v
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Chapter Eight: The Kear East in Early Greek W riters
to H e ro d o to s............................................................................................................................... 235
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 235
The Predecessors of H e ro d o to s....................... .................................................... 240
H ekataios of M iletos .......................................................................................................... 242
Dionysios of M ile to s......................................................................... 250
Charon of L am psakos................................................, , ............................................... 251
H ellanikos of Lesbos .......................................................................................................... 254
Xanthos of L y d ia .................................................................................................................... 258
O fficial Achaemenid Documents as Sources ........................................................ 264
Chapter Nine: "Syria” and "A ssyria" in H erodotos........................................ 276
The Satrapy L i s t .................................................................................................................... 277
The Army L i s t .......................................................................................................................... 280
The "Map" of A s i a .................................................................... 284
A ristagoras Map and the D escription of the Royal Road . . . . 285
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O riental Terminology for W estern Asia and its Influence
on H erodotos Use of the Terms "Syria" and "Assyria" . . . . 294
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Chapter Ten: C o n clu sio n ..................................................................................................... 313
Appendix I: Table of Eighth-Century Greek Imports at Al
Mina and in C y p ru s ................................................................................................................ 317
Appendix II: The B erossian Account of Sennacherib's C ilician
C am p aig n .......................................................................................................................................... 319
Appendix III: The Problem of M atien e..................................................................... 327
Figure 1 .............................................................................................................................................. 172
Figure 2 ............................................................................................................................................... 293
A b b rev iatio n s.................................................................................................................................... 333
B ib lio g ra p h y
334
In d ex I 381
v i
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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
From as early as the m id-seventh century B.C. and certain ly from the
very e a rlie st occurrence o f these term s in th eir lite ra tu re , the Greeks
used the related names "Syria" and "A ssyria" as ill-d efin ed geographical
designations for the Levant, p arts of Asia Minor, and M esopotamia.^ Yet
i t is apparent th at they had only slig h t fam iliarity w ith the h isto rical
O riental state whose name they had borrowed for th is purpose, and little
in the way of accurate inform ation about the h isto ry , cu ltu re, or geography
of th at sta te . In the la te fifth century, when Herodotos prom ised to re­
late the h isto ry of A ssyria, he invoked the name of an empire which had
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been ex tin ct for nearly two centuries by the time he w rote. Though the
prom ised ’Aaadptot Adyot never m aterialized, the few scraps of Assyrian
h isto ry which Herodotos does provide are su fficien t to reveal the inade-
3
quaoy of his inform ation. There is no reason to suspect th at the effo rts
of H erodotos predecessors or contem poraries to compile an A ssyrian h is-
1
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tory met w ith any greater success. The e a rlie st Greek account of Assy­
rian h isto ry of which sub stan tial segments remain extant comes from
K tesias' P ersika, w ritten a generation a fte r Herodotos. It provides a
(
rom antic narrative woven from Near Eastern fo lk tale, Achaemenid court gos­
sip and K tesias' own fe rtile im agination.^ The Persika does not reveal
much real knowledge about the h isto ric a l A ssyrian sta te . In la te r clas­
sic a l lite ra tu re the name of A ssyria was used even more haphazardly: var­
ious authors at various tim es id en tified the A ssyrians with P ersians, Jews,
£
P arth ian s, Phoenicians, Cappadocians and Babylonians.
1
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This d issertatio n addresses two related areas of concern: when, and
in what circum stances did the Greeks become fam iliar w ith the name of
A ssyria and begin to use i t as a general term for W estern Asia? How did
the e a rlie st Greek prosew riters employ the names "A ssyria" and "Syria",
and why did they use these term s as they did?
The questions when and how the Greeks came to apply the name of a
sta te with which they were only su p erficially acquainted to mucn of West­
ern Asia have not cost classical p hilo lo g ists or A ssyriologi.sts much sleep.
D espite considerable scholarship devoted to Aegean relatio n s w ith the Near
East during the Bronze Age and numerous studies of the O rientalizing in­
fluences on Greek a rt in the firs t millennium, there have been com paratively
few attem pts to define the period in which Greeks firs t encountered Assy­
rians and to reconstruct the h isto ric a l settin g in which these encounters
occurred. The h isto ry of the discussion may be b rie fly summarized.
A few scholars have suggested Eronze Age relatio n s between Aegean and
O rient as the context in which Greeks firs t used the names "Assyria" and
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"Syria" as general terms for the Near East. Most, however, have followed
the assum ption made by Noldeke in his 1871 study of the term s ’Aaatfptos,
Ztfptos, Etfpos. Noldeke believed th at Greek contacts w ith the Neo-Assyrian
empire during the eighth and seventh centuries resu lted in the use of the
name ’ Aaaupu'n to designate those areas in which they had encountered the
em pire. For Noldeke th is included the south coast of the Euxine, especial­
ly the area around Sinope, which early Greek sources re fe r to as "A ssyria",
O
"Syria" and "Leuko-syria" ("W hite-Syria"). This area was never controlled
by the Neo-Assyrian em pire, even at its greatest ex ten t. The association
of these toponyms w ith the south Euxine region, consequently, comprises a
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problem which s till aw aits explanation.
Although most scholars were content w ith N oldeke's view th at Greeks
had encountered the Neo-Assyrian empire upon various occasions during the
eighth and seventh centuries, few were overly concerned w ith the fre ­
quency of these encounters or the m otivation for them. Those who did con­
cern them selves w ith such m atters were chiefly in terested in the few spe­
c ific incidents recorded in Greek and cuneiform sources. In 1889 Hugo
W inckler suggested in h is edition of the in scrip tio n s of Sargon II of
A ssyria th at "Yamani of Ashdod", a usurper deposed by Sargon in 713 B.C.,
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was a C ypriot Greek. This th esis was quickly endorsed by several schol­
ars, including A. T. E. Olmstead, who described Yamani as a "mercenary
Greek so ld ier from Cyprus" who took charge of the Ashdod reb ellio n by v ir­
tue of h is "superior armor and m ilitary t r a i n i n g . E v e n e a rlie r, Fried­
rich D elitzsch had noted Sargon's mention of a naval victory over certain
"Yamneans" and concluded th at th is referred to the depredations of Ionian
p irates in the Levant."^ Beloch, noting th at the Greeks seemed not to
have attem pted colonial enterprises in the Levant, nonetheless cited the
"Greek" encounters w ith Sargon attested in the cuneiform records as evi­
dence for the Greeks in the E ast. He also noted the Berossian account of
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a b a ttle in C ilicia between Greeks and the A ssyrian army of Sennacherib.
The f ir s t A ssyrian in scription to mention a C ilician campaign of Senna­
cherib was published several years la te r by L. W. King. Though the cunei-
form account made no mention of G reeks, i t was generally considered a con­
firm ation of the h isto ric ity of the B erossian account and a contemporary
13
source for at least one armed clash between Greeks and Assyrxans. Some­
what la te r, Eduard Schwartz suggested th a t Greeks became fam iliar w ith the
name "A ssyria" through the im portation of A ssyrian goods (the <popxux
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