Darius at the Bosporus

Abstract

As part of his Scythian campaign, Darius famously ordered the bridging of the Bosporus. Two stelai were erected to commemorate this feat, and although they did not survive even to Herodotus’ time, he does describe them in some detail at IV.87.Modern scholarship has largely overlooked these stelai, though there are some important exceptions: thus, Schmitt attempts to ascertain what may have been written on them and, along with West, draws parallels between them and similar stelai which Darius erected in Egypt to commemorate the construction of his Red Sea Canal (texts found in Kent and Posener).Building on this idea, I suggest that Darius’ Bosporus inscriptions, together with those which he set up along his Red Sea Canal, are crucial to our understanding of Achaemenid imperial ideology in general and, more specifically, to the Persians’ perception of the western boundaries of their empire. The surviving Egyptian inscriptions stress the Great King’s ability to construct a direct link between Persia and distant Egypt via the sea (Lloyd, Tuplin). Through a close reading of Herodotus IV.85-89, I show that the lost Bosporus inscriptions presented Darius’ bridging of this strait as an equally momentous deed. The similar format (and most likely content) suggests that both sets of inscriptions shared a similar purpose: to advertise the Great King’s control over the waters which encircle the world. At the same time, it also hints at subtle differences between Persia’s relationship with Greece and Egypt; the Red Sea Canal was a permanent symbol of Persian control, yet the bridge at the Bosporus was, from the beginning, designed only as a temporary structure, its impermanence actually underlining the boundary between the Achaemenid Empire and Europe which Darius’ Scythian campaign was meant to dissolve. In the final part of my paper, I argue that Greek authors such as Herodotus took up and dramatised the idea of the bridge at the Bosporus as a fragile link between two essentially separate worlds.BIBLIOGRAPHYKENT, R. G. (1953) Old Persian : Grammar, Texts, Lexicon. (New Haven, American Oriental Society)KUHRT, A. (2002) ‘Greeks’ and ‘Greece’ in Mesopotamian and Persian Perspectives (A Lecture delivered at New College, Oxford, on 7th May 2001). (Oxford, Leopard's Head Press).LLOYD, A. B. (2007) "Darius I in Egypt : Suez and Hibis." In C. TUPLIN (Ed.) Persian Responses : Political and Cultural Interactions with(in) the Achaemenid Empire. (Swansea, The Classical Press of Wales), 99-115.POSENER, G. (1936) La Première Domination perse en Égypte (Cairo, Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire).SCHMITT, R. (1988) Achaimenideninschriften in griechischer literarischer Überlieferung. Acta Iranica, 28, 17-38.TUPLIN, C. (1991) "Darius' Suez Canal and Persian Imperialism." In A. KUHRT & H. SANCISI-WEERDENBURG (Eds.) Achaemenid History vol. VI : Asia Minor and Egypt : Old Cultures in a New Empire. (Leiden, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten), 237-283.WEST, S. (1985) Herodotus' Epigraphical Interests. The Classical Quarterly, 35, 278-305.