Tissaphernes and the Achaemenid Empire in Thucydides and Xenophon (Greece)

Despite recent reevaluation of large parts of the Greek textual evidence on which the majority of Achaemenid Persian political history depends, there has not yet been a thorough historiographical study of Persia's decisive intervention in the Peloponnesian and Korinthian Wars (412--404, 395--386 B.C.). This dissertation examines the depiction of Achaemenid political behavior and involvement in the Greek world in the history of Thucydides and the Hellenika and Anabasis of Xenophon, exemplified by their treatment of the controversial satrap Tissaphernes.; Chapter One challenges a widespread belief that Thucydides neglected Persian aspects of the Peloponnesian War and remained ignorant of Persia's political importance before 412. It argues that he was well-informed about Persian matters, but chose to avoid them in his early books because of their irrelevance to the Athenian-centered themes of the narrative. Chapter Two suggests that Persia occupies a crucial place in Thucydides' analysis of the flaws of Athens in Book Eight, in which rumors of Persian friendship for Athens play a major part in the oligarchic coup of 411. It contends a political motivation for Thucydides' hostile portrayal of Tissaphernes, constructed in order to deter contemporary Athenian adherents of alliance with Persia by painting the Great King's main diplomatic representative as an enemy to the interests of all Greeks.; Xenophon, as argued in Chapter Three, downplays Persia's responsibility for Spartan victory over Athens in the first part of the Hellenika . In the Anabasis, treated in Chapter Four, he analyzes moral and practical faults of Persian leadership (particularly that of Tissaphernes), but does not use them to suggest the weakness of the Achaemenid army, unlike his contemporary Isokrates, or to encourage Greek aggression against Persia, as some modern scholars have claimed. Chapter Five examines Xenophon's portrayal of Persia in the later books of the Hellenika, and concludes that despite his real hostility towards Persians, he considers Greek aspirants to empire, such as Sparta, much more dangerous to Hellenic peace and stability. Far from supporting a militant anti-barbarian Panhellenism, he attempts to discourage simplistic belief in the Achaemenid empire as a scapegoat for Greek political disorder.