Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions: collection of Old Persian cuneiform texts from the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries BCE, left by the Achaemenid kings on their official monuments.D2Ha, gold tablet from Ecbatana
[Stereotypical inscription on a gold tablet, similar to A2Hc.]
A great god is Ahuramazda, who…
Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions: collection of Old Persian cuneiform texts from the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries BCE, left by the Achaemenid kings on their official monuments.D2Sa, inscription on a column base
[Badly damaged column base.]
imam \ apadânam \ stûnâya \ athagainam \
Dârayavauš \ XŠ…
Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions: collection of Old Persian cuneiform texts from the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries BCE, left by the Achaemenid kings on their official monuments.D2Sb, inscription on column bases
[Two column bases; Babylonian translation added.]
adam \ Dârayavauš \ XŠ \ vazraka \ XŠ…
In October 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus took Babylon, the ancient capital of an oriental empire covering modern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. In a broader sense, Babylon was the ancient world's capital of scholarship and science. The subject…
In about 165 BCE, an anonymous Jew composed the Biblical book of Daniel. Daniel was, in his view, a Jewish prophet who had lived at the Babylonian court and had had visions of the future. Two of these visions are…
Darius I (Old Persian Dârayavauš): king of ancient Persia, whose reign lasted from 522 to 486. He seized power after killing king Gaumâta, fought a civil war (described in the Behistun inscription), and was finally able to refound the Achaemenid…
The Greek philosopher Demetrius of Phaleron, like Alexander a pupil of Aristotle of Stagira, expresses the following thoughts on the death of the Macedonian king; they can be found in the World History of the Greek author Polybius of Megalopolis,…
Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions: collection of Old Persian cuneiform texts from the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries BCE, left by the Achaemenid kings on their official monuments.DH, tablet from Hamadan
Text, found on a tablet of gold and a tablet of silver. The text is…
Dio Chrysostom (c.40 - after 112) was a Greek politician and philosopher, and one of the first representatives of the Second Sophistic. In 111, he was accused of lèse-majesté. As it happens, the governor who preseded this trial was Pliny…