Antik Pers Tarihi

by Josef Wiesehöfer, Mehmet Ali İnci (Translator)

Antik Pers ülkesi, hem Avrupalılar'ı hem de İranlılar'ı büyüledi ve son dönemde artan bir ilgiyle karşılaştı. Özellikle Batılı entelektüellerin ve araştırmacıların kendilerini salt Avrupalı bakış açısından kurtarma ve yabancı kültürlerle de yeni bir bağlantı kurma çabası, Yunan-Roma dünyasının "kıyısındaki" antik kültürlerin incelenmesine neden oldu. Büyük bir uygarlık birikiminin ürünü olan Eski İran Kültürü bu kapsamda yeniden gündeme geldi: Kurulmuş olan imparatorlukların ekonomik, sosyal ve siyasal niteliklerinin yanı sıra, Ahura Mazda ve Mani'nin geliştirdiği inanç sistemleri büyük bir ilgi odağı oldu.
Bu anlamda Antik Pers tarihini incelemek, yalnızca antik döneme ilgi duyan Avrupalıları Hellas ve Roma merkezci dünya görüşü tehlikesinden kurtarmakla kalmayacak, aynı zamanda herkese, antik dönemde yatan ve günümüze kadar etkisini sürdüren değer örneklerini, halk tipolojilerini tanıma, önyargıları aşma ve yabancı olnalar, bilinmeyenler için doğru bakış açısı kazanma olanağı sunacaktır.
Son dönemde Eski İran'a ilişkin araştırmalara damgasını vuran ve alışılmış düşüncelerin çoğunun terk edilmesini ya da esnemesini sağlayan, Prof. J. Wiesehöfer'in hazırladığı "Antik Pers Tarihi", karmaşık, gelişkin bu uygarlık hakkında derin bir bilgi kaynağı olma özelliğini taşımaktadır.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Iran, Archaeology, Middle East

464 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 1998

About the author

Josef Wiesehöfer is a German classical scholar and professor of ancient history at the Department of Classics of the University of Kiel.

He is an internationally renowned expert on the history of pre-Islamic Persia and the forms of contact between the Greek and Roman World and the Ancient Near East.

Reviews

[Aroosha Dehghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

«چطور در زمانی کوتاه تاریخ سیاسی، اجتماعی و اقتصادی ایران باستان را مطالعه کنیم؟
به سادگی؛ با خواندن این کتاب.»
این کتاب، یکی از بهترین گزینه‌ها برای کسانیه که می‌خوان یک دید کلی از تاریخ ایران به دست بیارن و کمی هم فراتر از مطالب دم‌دستی باشند و به عمق ماجرا برن.
ویسهوفر با نگاهی تحلیلی به توضیح جنبه‌های مختلف تاریخ ایران پرداخته و بدون حاشیه‌پردازی رفته سر اصل مطلب. برای همین حاصل هم چکیده است و هم مفید.
البته این رو در نظر داشته باشید که این کتاب از ورود آریایی‌ها به بعد رو میگه و جز چند اشاره‌ی کوچک، چیزی از تاریخ پیش-آریایی‌های فلات ایران نداره. برای اون بخش باید کتاب‌های دیگه‌ای رو بخونید. (درباره‌ی تاریخ ایلام پیشنهاد من مقالات جدیده. کتاب‌های انگلیسی یا ترجمه شده به فارسی معمولا قدیمی هستند).

و نکته‌ی آخر:
این کتاب قرار نیست به شما تاریخ سلسله‌ها، اسم شاهان و کی پسر کی بود رو بگه پس اگر هیچی از تاریخ نمی‌دونید انتخاب مناسبی برای شروع نیست.
برای اطلاعات مقدماتی تاریخی مجموعه‌ی تاریخ جهان که نشر ققنوس چاپ می‌کنه گزینه‌ی خوبیه. اون مجموعه برای نوجوانان نوشته شده (هرچند تو ایران به اسم کتاب تاریخ بزرگسال چاپ می‌کنن!) و به همین دلیل زبان ساده‌ای داره و مطالب کاملا ابتدایی رو به خوبی بازگو کرده.

[Kowsar Bagheri]

این کتاب رو در سال تحصیلی ۹۶-۹۵ و ترم ۲ لیسانس خونده بودم ولی وارد گودریدز نکرده بودم.

[Marcin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous introduction to the turmoils inside and around the great persian empire. No, it does not spend chapters on breeding the persian cat, instead it focuses on most interesting story how the empire was born and how it has become one of the most powerful force of the times. An interesting read for anyone studying the topic, he would also find the references and bibliography very useful for further studies. Westerns should also take a peek at least, since the book shows how Pershians managed to create multicultural multinational world capable of conquering european 'white power' by the Middle Ages... It sure explores the political and economic ideas used within the lands, presents how fast-forward thinking and inventive the nations were and how it allowed them to develop and expand into major political power between pharaohs in the east and the nile, freezing himalayas and beyond, indian subcontinent and beyond, and finally the later catered european reach in the form of greeks followed by Roman Empires. The book examines certain beliefs and viewpoints introducing one the long debates as well as angles on the reason why the Persians chose to settle down and develop into powerful force of civilisation in a land so close to surrounding sands and how their civilisation might have helped save the western ones from the easterners at the same time improving economy and trade. Sure, it does require of reader to have some knowledge of ancient history but not as much as some university course books do. It is quite informative and with the text easily flowing through pages you do not feel overtly tired of reading them. It does leave you with some questions but it's what a book should do - give information in enough portions for an academic or interested one to find the book's contents useful while restricting and limiting itself for a normal person not to fall asleep by the tenth page. Wiesehofer managed just that, maybe a little too much of academic language is used but it's not a fasion/style weekly for teenagers so this shouldn't be held againt him. What really counts is how fluid the information crammed transfer to the reader is and how much of it is showed through those pupils of his/hers. A really good read for anyone, but not perfect... So when can we expect new edition with even more on the topic?

[Lizabeth J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wiesehofer's book provides a lot of good information about the different primary sources that are available for different periods of Persian history (roughly 600 BCE- 650 CE), but it's not organized as a narrative history, which might make it less interesting to anyone looking for a basic introduction to the history of the Persian Empire.

[mL g · Rating 3 out of 5]

Çok kapsamlı bir çalışma ama Türkçe çeviri çok kötü yapılmış.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denna bok är en snabb och bredpenslad översikt av 1000 år persisk historia, från Mederna till Sasanidernas fall. Det är svårt att sammanfatta 1000 år på 300 sidor, och ge något slags rättvisa åt det. Denna bok försöker, genom att vara källdriven, och blanda småanekdoter med breda genomgående teman. Det är en approach som i alla fall får en att hungra efter mer, vilket både är precis vad den skall göra, och djupt otillfredsställande.

[Alex Helling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Persia is one of the great ancient civilisations of the Middle East. Centred on modern Iran and Iraq it is the adversary of the ancient Greece of Athens and Sparta, and of Alexander, and later the biggest state to remain outside Rome’s orbit. And yet it is not very well known, and much of what is known is filtered through the lens of those two western neighbours that were far more likely to write narratives of events, or through later islamic tradition. Josef Wiesehöfer in his book ‘Ancient Persia’ aims to deliver a history that is based on the primary sources of Persia itself. He does this for the three main Persian dynasties of the Ancient world; the Achaemenids, the Parthians and the Sasanians taking the reader through a millennium of history from 550BC to 650AD.

This is a good overview, or a starting point for studying ancient Persia. Each section starts with a chapter on what all the sources for the period are and their shortcomings. Interrogating sources is very necessary for those studying the history so this will be very helpful to anyone going on to read more about or study ancient Persia, but is less interesting to someone just wanting an introduction to Persia without going further. Similarly the focus of the book is on the structure of society and does not provide any kind of narrative, little idea of events (except a bit on the rise and fall of each dynasty which is hard to avoid), or on any individuals except as examples. This again is great for those wanting a starting point for further study but it is impersonal and somewhat unmoored from time - if Wiesehöfer did not want to use space on a narrative an accompanying timeline of kings/events might have been a neat way around the problem.

I think my conception of what I want out of a history book does not match with Mr Wiesehöfer’s, and as such I found this a rather frustrating read. Wiesehöfer seems to be most interested in the process of finding out history, rather than the history itself. As such there are lengthy sections on discussions of the sources with rather less on what they actually tell us. Along similar lines some time is spent debunking myths about Persia, and I would expect wrong popular misconceptions to be pointed out, but Wiesehöfer does not always tell us what our view should be in its place. For example there are a couple of pages spent educating us that Persan kings did not maintain a harem, rather they were not secluded and were politically active, which is great, but we are not told what they actually did or what their actual influence was (e.g. did they travel with the king? Or have independent means?). Moreover as the kings had multiple wives and concubines this would still appear to meet the definition of a harem.

I also found the structure a bit odd. In theory having the book split by dynasty, and then in each a chapter on sources, one on the kings, and one on the people makes sense, but it does not seem to work so well in practice. In practice they run together. All three chapters contain a lot on sources, and the ones on the people seem to be more about the kings’ governance than those they ruled. Thus in the everyday life section of the Achaeminids the discussion on religion focuses on whether the rulers adopted Zoroastrianism, when if we are talking everyday life I would expect; how much of the population practised it, what did it mean for their lives, were there temples, we are told there were priests but nothing about what they did or how they were supported, were they like monks or more like preachers? Also odd is that Alexander and its successor over Persia the Seleucid Empire only get a nine page ‘interlude’ despite this interlude lasting as long as the previous Achaemenid Empire (more than two centuries). I presume this is down to the Greek rulers, but since Wiesehöfer himself points to the continuity and minimises the amount of Hellenisation this does not make much sense. And even if it did shouldn’t we want to explore the changes and how they influence the next regime?

In terms of the writing it has the odd combination for me of both being quite easy to read and dry. In that the writing is good and easy to follow, points well made etc., but that there is no excitement in it, no reason to keep reading. Much of this is the result of ignoring events and people so there is no interest in what happens next.

Worthwhile for a history student who wants to learn the structures of the state and needs to know what the sources are. Probably less for the general audience wanting a good narrative and clearer idea of events across the period.

[Lain · Rating 2 out of 5]

A short historical work on the Persian Empire, split into four parts that cover the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian eras. The book mainly concerns itself with discussing primary sources, mostly inscriptions, friezes and coins, with some excerpts from greek and latin authors.

I found the book to be quite disorganized, like a jumbled ball of yarn. Lots of different threads are presented and then discarded, and sometimes picked back up at odd moments, without much narrative structure on which to fasten the information. The most interesting bits of trivia are mentioned in passing and never discussed in detail. For instance, roman soldiers and civilians were actively captured and settled in Iran, to build bridges and irrigation-systems. Am I being led to believe the local populations in southern mesopotamia were incapable of doing this themselves? Why did they need roman captives to do their building, and what evidence is there of this? Apparently that question isn't interesting enough to answer.

The conclusion, which is supposed to sum up what has been discussed previously, does none of that; instead he introduces lots of completely new material. It starts with a sequence of european travellers to Iran and what they discovered, and then a long digression into the deciphering of persian inscriptions, and an abrupt end. That's enough of that, I don't want to write any more. I think the conclusion used to be an introductory chapter that got shuffled to the back for some inexplicable reason. For instance, throughout the text we are made to know that the Sassanians had lost all memory of their Achaemenid predecessors. But how do we know this? That fact is only presented in the conclusion, long after you're done reading about the Sassanids.

For people who are interested in the historiography of the Persian Empire(s), otherwise an incredibly unsatisfying read.

[William Razavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing you should know is that this is more of a work of historiography than history.
As such, it doesn't really present a narrative history of the periods that it covers so much as a survey of the sources and methods involved in generating histories of those periods and difficulties involved in piecing together a sense of what happened and why.
It's also translated from the German, so that adds a level of difficulty in how academic it sounds.
So if you're looking for a narrative popular history you're barking up the wrong tree here. This is historiography.
When it comes to the Achaemenid Persians you Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones has an excellent and very readable history that is more up to date than Wiesehofer in terms of scholarship. Maria Brosius has a great textbook that even with its limitations is also up to date on its scholarship.
Wiesehofer is still valuable and in fact still earns its keep precisely because of its historiography.
And also for this one key reason: it's the only book that goes on to cover the Seleucids, the Arsacids/Parthians and the Sasanians. And so it is a comprehensive historiography of Persia from the Teispid/Achaemenid period through the Sasanians.
The annotated bibliography is almost as long as the text itself.
And it has great maps for each section.
Most importantly is that in its appendices it not only has a general chronology but crucially has lists of the rulers of each Persian dynasty (including the petty kings of Elymais and Persis).
So, while it might not be as useful for the Achaemenids as it was a few years ago it's still a handy reference and for the later periods it is a critical volume to keep on the shelf since the Parthians and Sasanians are criminally under represented in literature.

[Pushon Bhattacharya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice primer on a society that rarely gets much of a look-in in these popular history works.

[Ylva]

Read for school waaaay back during my bachelor thesis days

[Yaren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book contains a lot of information about Ancient Persia, Parthians and The Sassanid Empire. One of the most prominent features of the book is that it provides the opportunity to compare the passages of ancient authors who have written on the subject. While doing this, appropriate explanations are given by the author for you to gain a new perspective. However I think that people who do not have a comparative basis of knowledge about Persians may find it difficult to grasp what is being told. Another factor that increases this difficulty is telling the events without using a chronological narrative.
P.S. I read the Turkish translation of this book and the translation was literally awful. Therefore, this may be the most important issue that makes me think that what is being explained is difficult to comprehend.