Darius in the Shadow of Alexander
19,79 €
inkl. gesetzl. MwSt.Beschreibung
Produktdetails
Format
ePUB 3
Kopierschutz
Nein
Family Sharing
Nein
Text-to-Speech
Ja
Erscheinungsdatum
18.01.2023
Verlag
Harvard University PressSeitenzahl
602 (Printausgabe)
Dateigröße
9969 KB
Übersetzt von
Jane Marie Todd
Sprache
Englisch
EAN
9780674745209
The last of Cyrus the Great's dynastic inheritors and the legendary enemy of Alexander the Great, Darius III ruled over a Persian Empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indus River. Yet, despite being the most powerful king of his time, Darius remains an obscure figure.
AsPierre Briantexplains in the first book ever devoted to the historical memory of Darius III, the little that is known of him comes primarily from Greek and Roman sources, which often present him in an unflattering light, as a decadent Oriental who lacked the masculine virtues of his Western adversaries. Influenced by the
Alexander Romanceas they are, even the medieval Persian sources are not free of harsh prejudices against the king Dara, whom they deemed deficient in the traditional kingly virtues. Ancient Classical accounts construct a man who is in every respect Alexander's opposite-feeble-minded, militarily inept, addicted to pleasure, and vain. When Darius's wife and children are captured by Alexander's forces at the Battle of Issos, Darius is ready to ransom his entire kingdom to save them-a devoted husband and father, perhaps, but a weak king.
While Darius seems doomed to be a footnote in the chronicle of Alexander's conquests, in one respect it is Darius who has the last laugh. For after Darius's defeat in 331 BCE, Alexander is described by historians as becoming ever more like his vanquished opponent: a Darius-like sybarite prone to unmanly excess.
Praise for
Darius in the Shadow of Alexander
"Briant is the world's leading authority on the Persian empire that Alexander conquered, one of few living scholars with the linguistic mastery to study both the Greco-Roman and Persian sources and hence examine the reign of Darius from European and Asian perspectives. In the intensely thorough analysis he conducts here, he finds reasons to mistrust both traditions and thereby qualify the charge of cowardice that has shadowed Darius for more than two millennia... His insights are penetrating and his mastery of the evidentiary record is unsurpassed... Having deftly taken down much of the edifice supplied by the ancient accounts of Darius, Briant finally turns architect and shows us how the rebuilding might begin." -James Romm,
The Wall Street Journal
"Briant's work, as always, is a significant contribution to Achaemenid studies, a display of historiographical learnedness whose methods can benefit historians across ancient studies." -Jennifer Finn,
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
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