Imagining Xerxes: Ancient Perspectives on a Persian King PDF
Preview Imagining Xerxes: Ancient Perspectives on a Persian King
Imagining Xerxes Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception presents scholarly monographs offering new and innovative research and debate to students and scholars in the reception of Classical Studies. Each volume will explore the appro- priation, reconceptualization and recontextualization of various aspects of the Graeco-Roman world and its culture, looking at the impact of the ancient world on modernity. Research will also cover reception within antiquity, the theory and practice of translation, and reception theory. Also available in the Series: Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen, Paula James Imagining Xerxes: Ancient Perspectives on a Persian King Emma Bridges Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 © Emma Bridges 2015 Emma Bridges has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-47251-137-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN For my parents, with love and thanks Contents List of Illustrations and Photographs viii Note on Translations, Illustrations and Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements x Introduction: Encountering Xerxes 1 1 Staging Xerxes: Aeschylus and Beyond 11 2 Historiographical Enquiry: The Herodotean Xerxes-Narrative 45 3 Xerxes in his Own Write? The Persian Perspective 73 4 Pride, Panhellenism and Propaganda: Xerxes in the Fourth Century bc 99 5 The King at Court: Alternative (Hi)Stories of Xerxes 127 6 The Past as a Paradigm: Xerxes in a World Ruled by Rome 157 Epilogue: Re-imagining Xerxes 191 Bibliography 201 Index 227 List of Illustrations and Photographs Illustrations Plate 1: Xerxes’ army crosses the Hellespont xii Plate 2: Atossa’s dream. Based on a 1778 sketch by George Romney 10 Plate 3: Xerxes contemplates the brevity of human existence 44 Plate 4: Darius and his crown prince. Detail of Persepolis treasury sculpture 72 Plate 5: Xerxes rebuking the sea. Based on a nineteenth-century Spanish lithograph illustrating La Civilisación (1881) by Don Pelegrin Casabó y Pagés 97 Plate 6: Esther at the court of Xerxes. Based on an illustration from Harold Copping’s Women of the Bible (1937) 126 Plate 7: Xerxes’ return to Persia. Adapted from a lithograph illustrating Jacob Abbott’s History of Xerxes the Great (1878) 155 Plate 8: A Xerxes for the twenty-first century. Based on the depiction of Xerxes in Zack Snyder’s movie 300 (2007) 190 Photographs Figure 1: Council Hall: South jamb of east doorway of main hall depicting enthroned Darius with crown prince behind him 84 Figure 2: Persepolis treasury: South portico of Courtyard 17 depicting audience scene with king and crown prince 85 Note on Translations, Illustrations and Abbreviations Translations are my own, unless otherwise stated. Translations of Persian inscriptions in Chapter 3 are from A. Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period (Routledge: London and New York 2007), and are reproduced by kind permission of the publisher. Chapter frontispieces were illustrated by Asa Taulbut. Plates 1 and 3 are original drawings created by the artist; others are based on the images referred to in the captions. Photographs in Chapter 3 (Figures 1 and 2) are reproduced courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Abbreviations of the names of ancient authors and texts follow those used in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Standard abbreviations are used for modern texts. Persian inscriptions discussed in Chapter 3 are referred to by the abbrevia- tions used in Kent (1953) and Kuhrt (2007).
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