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Dossier: Cultic Honours and Divinisation in the Hellenistic Eastern Mediterranean, New Voices for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Heroisation or divinisation of men? Some remarks on the Greek interpretation of the ancient Iranian cults of the frauuaši

Diventare eroi o dèi? Alcune considerazioni sull'interpretazione greca degli antichi culti iranici per le frauuaši
Lorenzo Paoletti

Résumés

Questo contributo intende esaminare le caratteristiche principali dei culti tributati a uomini viventi o defunti nel mondo antico iranico, così da mettere in evidenza le differenze sostanziali tra contesto iranico e greco e la continuità di pratiche cultuali tra l’epoca achemenide e sasanide. Alcuni autori di età classica, primi su tutti Erodoto e Teopompo, forniscono dettagli assai utili per ricostruire, sebbene in maniera parziale, le liturgie e l’organizzazione di questi culti da parte dei Persiani. Infatti le fonti iraniche, come l’Avesta, le iscrizioni reali achemenidi e alcune testimonianze relative agli Arsacidi e ai Sasanidi, permettono una ricostruzione storica diversa, rivelando pratiche cultuali analoghe proprie del Mazdeismo. Al centro dell’indagine si trova il concetto iranico di frauuaši che non ha paralleli nel mondo greco e romano. Infine si cercherà di determinare fino a che punto l’interpretazione degli autori greci e romani dei riti iranici in onore delle frauuaši fosse influenzata dalle categorie eroiche e divine proprie del mondo classico, finendo così per travisare, in parte o del tutto, il significato di riti che derivavano da un milieu religioso differente.

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1. Introduction

  • 1 On Greek reception of ancient Iranian cultic honours for men see inter alia Taylor 1927; Boyce 1987 (...)
  • 2 See Coppola, Caneva 2021 on the (partial) results of their studies of the heroic category in the He (...)
  • 3 Muccioli 1997; 2000; 2011; 2014a; 2014b; 2014c; 2015a; cf. also the fundamental work on divinisatio (...)

1The interpretatio Graeca of Achaemenid and later Arsacid and Sasanian ritual honours for living men, and especially the king as well as the heroic cults in the ancient Greek world have received great attention in the last century.1 Since the study of Foucart in 1918 until the recent volume edited by Muccioli and Kimmel-Clauzet in 2021, the nature of heroes and the various practices connected to their cult in the Greek and Hellenised world have been thoroughly explored, highlighting differences and specificities in space and time of Hellenic heroic cults. These are fundamental to understand the process of divinisation of men which seems to be peculiar to Greek culture and is intimately linked to the concept of the heroic category.2 In the last three decades, Muccioli thoroughly highlighted how the bestowal of heroic honours upon mortal men between the end of the fifth and the third century BC led to the development of the Gottmenschtum phenomenon which is closely linked to the birth of the ruler cult.3

  • 4 By saying Zoroastrian, I am referring to the sacred texts of the Avesta and later Pahlavi texts in (...)

2Bearing this in mind, the differences on theological level and the religious sensibilities between the Greeks and the Mazdean and Zoroastrian Iranians were substantial and profound.4 Nonetheless, there were attempts to a mutual interpretation of the other’s religious practices and the cult of heroes and Herrscherkult seem to offer a specific insight into this process. There is not enough space in one single paper to examine all the specificities of what can be called Iranian divine or heroic cults for men and their role within the Mazdean-Zoroastrian theology. However, it can be helpful to reappraise their features and to pave the way for a future deeper analysis. In the following paragraphs, I will examine episodes from the Achaemenid, Arsacid to the Sasanian time to show that, even the sources are scanty and fragmentary, the ritual honours shared analogue practices over a long period of time, arguing for a general continuity despite contingent differences. Eventually, I will highlight the main differences and similarities between the Greek ἥρωες and the artaioi and frauuaši to understand how and if the cult of deceased rulers played the same role in the Iranian as well as in the Greek-Roman world towards the divinisation of men.

2. The Mazdean and Zoroastrian significance of artāvan and frauuaši

  • 5 The Zoroastrian religious texts were collected under the name of Avesta were put in written form on (...)
  • 6 XPh 47-48: šiyāta ahaniy jīva utā marta artāvā ahaniy “that I may be happy in life and in death may (...)
  • 7 Gnoli 1979, 393-394.
  • 8 Vidēvdād 19.31; Hādōxt Nask 2.16. Cf. Kellens 1976, 114.
  • 9 Gnoli 1979, especially 404-413; 1987c. There is also another important aspect to consider. When dea (...)
  • 10 For the relationship between the Achaemenids and the Avestan texts and liturgy see Kellens 1976; 20 (...)

3In order to understand most similar the parallel of heroisation in the Iranian world, we need to look at the non-Greek evidence, and especially at the religious sources of the Zoroastrian tradition.5 The term in Old Persian artāvan can be found in the so-called daivas inscription at Persepolis in which Xerxes tells to have destroyed the daivas and the place where they were worshipped. The scholarship speculated a long time around the real meaning of these daivas, but what is interesting for the present argumentation is the fact that Xerxes in the inscription wishes to be happy (šiyāta) in life and artāvan when he is dead, as is also stated in the Avesta for who is aṣ̌āvan «possessing truth (aṣ̌a)».6 It is important to stress with Gnoli that concept artāvan is strictly correlated to šiyāta and it is a condition that mortals must achieve before their death.7 Indeed, the Persian king wishes to be artāvan after his death because Mazdeans believed that to enter Paradise one must be artāvan.8 Furthermore, in a Zoroastrian perspective, the term artāvan has a broader meaning that can be attributed to all the followers of the Truth (aṣ̌a) opposed to those who possess lie drəguuant/druuant, i.e. followers of the Lie (druǰ). The two groups reflect the dualistic view of Zoroastrianism that sees the world divided between the forces of Good led by Ahura Mazdā /Ohrmazd (Pahl.) and the forces Evil led by Ahreman.9 It is still debated whether the Achaemenids were Zoroastrian, but the similarities of their inscriptions on the theological and ritual level with Zoroastrianism are striking. Being clear that the Achaemenids were Mazdean and worshipped Ahura Mazdā, we do not precisely know how close their liturgical setting to the one was represented in the Avestan liturgy. In any case, it was in the same religious framework that the Avestan liturgy was reorganized in Achaemenid time. However, this debate is very complex, and this is not the place where to open or deepen it.10

  • 11 (Avestan) frauuaṣ̌i- (Old Persian.) *fravarti; (Middle Persian/Pahlavi) fravahr.
  • 12 Y. XVI, 7. Gnoli 1979, 395-397. Cf. Gershevitch 1959, 153-156.
  • 13 The Mazdean religious perspective does not tend to divinisation. The human soul, and the frauuaši s(...)
  • 14 Gnoli 1982, 340-343 and note 25. Cf. Y. 24, 5. At a later stage when Mazdeism and Zoroastrianism be (...)

4The inscription of Xerxes allows me to introduce the Zoroastrian conception of the afterlife and immortality of soul and, consequently, to focus on the frauuaši.11 As Gnoli claimed following Gershevitch, in the Yasna, the central ritual transmitted by the Avestan texts, it is said that one has to worship the frauuaši of the living and dead aṣ̌āvan.12 It must be stated from now, that the Zoroastrian concept of the immortality of soul was constructed with theological adaptions of more ancient Iranian religious beliefs.13 As highlighted by Gnoli, such religious thoughts were intimately linked to the ethic of an aristocratic and warlike society in which the spirits of the dead were thought to come back to the living and the soul of men reconnected with a preexisting spirit (to be identified with the Greek category of δαίμων by Gnoli) after death. Therefore, the frauuaši are not the souls of dead heroes but the souls that preexisted, coexisted with and existed after the heroes and were intimately connected to them.14

  • 15 The following words are reported in Avestan.
  • 16 Kellens 1995; 2008-2009; Panaino 2016, 104-108.

5In Zoroastrianism the human beings are divided into five parts or elements. The first two are linked with the material world and disappear after death and the other three are immortal and continue to exist after death.15 The first two are the baoδah “faculty of sensorial perception” and uštāna “faculty of moving, the animation of the body”. Then come the three immortal parts. On the one hand, the uruuan the intra-corporal soul that produces the feeling of the self, when liberated by death, stays for three nights by the head of the deceased, incapable of perceiving, being perceived or moving. This is the male part of the soul. On the other, the daēnā (Pahl. dēn) that is the mobile and seeing soul, the soul of the path, appears to uruuan and guides it towards the beyond. This is the female part of the soul. Eventually, comes the frauuaši: this is, as the daēnā, a female part that is the “elected-soul” or that part of the soul that preexisted the human being.16

  • 17 Yt. 13, 149. See Gnoli 1982, 342, note 20 contra Boyce 1975, 117-129; 2000. In general, we can say (...)

6Some scholars identified the frauuaši with the uruuan or the daēnā. However, as Gnoli pointed out, we should not identify the frauuaši with the souls of the heroes or the dead but with something similar to a Greek daimon that preexists the body and rejoins the soul after death. In the Avestan and Pahlavi texts, frauuaši are always neatly distinguished from the other parts of soul.17

  • 18 Boyce 2000b with references.
  • 19 Yt. 13.21. Cf. Kellens 1989, 106 with references. Their functions as presented in this hymn, have b (...)

7Considering Zoroastrian texts helps to understand what the frauuaši were thought to be. In the Farvardīn Yašt, the thirteenth of twenty-one hymns devoted to the principal deities of Zoroastrianism is dedicated to the frauuaši as divinities and gives precious information about their nature and their cult. 18In this Yašt it is written that they assisted Ahura Mazdā when he created the universe and helped him in ordering the primitive chaos of the universe, then they also assisted other deities such as Mithra, heroes and men. In the text, Ahura Mazdā teaches Zoroaster how to invoke them and they are said to be the frauuaši of the worshippers, the family, the clan, the tribe and the nation.19

  • 20 Yt. 13.65.
  • 21 Kellens 1989, 111.
  • 22 According to a part of the scholarship a parallel could be seen in the Indian pitàras or the Roman (...)
  • 23 This is stated in the Bundahišn, (3, 26-27), a sort of Zoroastrian book of Creation composed by the (...)

8The translation of this word has a very wide semantic field, and, in my opinion, every translation proposed reflects the theories of the scholar who proposed it. In general, we can opt for a translation with “protection” or “preference” in the sense of an election, a choice of the divine entity that acts to protect, assist and help the worshipper, the other divinity or the human group to which it is associated. In the hymn, the frauuaši are many tens of thousands,20 and not only every man has an own frauuaši that has to be seen as génies tutélaires, as Kellens defined them,21 but also every clan, tribe and nation has its own frauuaši.22 According to Zoroastrian theology and cosmogony, the frauuaši preexisted the creation of human beings and they first helped Ahura Mazdā and then the other divine entities. Later, they chose to side with Ahura Mazdā and his followers in the fight against Ahreman and they entered the material world to fight Ahreman.23

  • 24 Yt. 13, 27.
  • 25 Yt. 13, 131-138.
  • 26 Gnoli 1982, 343 with bibliography.

9Other two very important aspects to underline are the warlike and nurturing functions of the frauuaši. Since they help the gods in fighting the forces of Evil, they are also close to men in battle. They are described as heavily armoured, going to war with their standards and to be invoked by men before entering the battle.24 The frauuaši of many ancient Iranian heroes are evoked in the hymn to the frauuaši.25 Some suggested that their warlike attitude connects them with the pre-Zoroastrian cultic practices of the ancient Iranian societies to honour the souls of dead warriors who are part of the wider religious belief in the immortality of soul.26 This aspect must be stressed as fundamental to the present analysis.

  • 27 Hdt. 43, 1-2.
  • 28 Yt. 5, 21, 57, 62. Cf. Gnoli 1998, 62, note 46.
  • 29 Gnoli 1998, 63. See Yt. 13, 143-145.
  • 30 de Jong 1997, 302.
  • 31 Haubold 2007, 61:“ The Persians and their ‘wise men’ had suggested that Homeric epic justified an i (...)

10The nurturing aspect links the frauuaši to water. This second function of the frauuaši is also fundamental in the study of the passage of Herodotus about the sacrifices performed at Ilion by Xerxes in 480 BC. This passage clearly shows the worship of the frauuaši by the Achaemenid king, as Gnoli pointed out. Xerxes is described from the Greek interpretatio of Herodotus while sacrificing 1000 cattle to Athena Polias and offering libations to the heroes of the Trojan War27. This rite can be seen from the Mazdean perspective of Xerxes and the Persians. There is evidence of the sacrifice of 1000 oxen in the fifth hymn, the Ābān Yašt, which is dedicated to Anāhitā.28 Moreover, as Gnoli pointed out, the sacrifice for the frauuaši of men and women belonging to foreign people is allowed by the Farvardīn Yašt.29 Therefore, the assumption that Herodotus would have used the sacrifice of Xerxes to embellish his account of the expedition, while the Persians would have ignored the heroes of the Trojan War can be confuted.30 Xerxes is aware of the Greek mythical and religious beliefs and uses them to foster his propaganda against the Greeks before crossing the Hellespont. The sacrifices performed at Ilion made sense in both Greek and Iranian terms but from two different points of view. On the one hand, Xerxes could exploit the Trojan epic as a tool to justify his war of revenge against the Greeks who destroyed Troy, honouring the goddess and the heroes of the place.31

  • 32 Corsten 1991, 166-170; Brosius 1998. Cf. also Saadi-nejad 2013; 2021. For the importance of this de (...)
  • 33 Yt. 13, 65-68
  • 34 Yt. 13, 143-145. Cf. Gnoli 1998, 62.

11On the other hand, in a difficult moment of the campaign due to water shortage the Persian king offered sacrifices to the most important goddess of the Iranian pantheon, Anāhitā, who is the Iranian goddess of water, fertility and kingship and has also warlike features and therefore she was variously identified with Aphrodite, Artemis and Athena.32 At the same time the Magi libated to the frauuaši who could have helped Anāhitā and, as said in the Farvardīn Yašt, provided men with water.33 The possibility that Xerxes was sacrificing to foreign local heroes, the Trojan ones, thus exploiting Greek mythology for his war against the Greeks, is also understandable from a Mazdean-Zoroastrian perspective because in the Farvardīn Yašt, the frauuaši of non-Iranian heroes are also recorded as recipient of honours.34

  • 35 They even protect children in the womb according to Zoroastrian sources Yt. 13, 1-11.
  • 36 Hdt. I 132. In the Zoroastrian Farvardīn Yašt (Yt. 13, 21) that they sacrifice to the frauuaši of t (...)
  • 37 Y. 59, 28. See Panaino 2004, 66-75 with translations of the passages.

12Eventually, the ultimate meaning of frauuaši seems to be “protective” and recalls the protection of this supernatural being on a single worshipper or social group.35 Herodotus says that the Persians do not sacrifice for themselves but for the king and his people.36 However, further evidence contradicts this assumption by Herodotus. The Zoroastrian evidence is even more striking, because the Yasna expects also that the ritual agent sacrifices also for himself, his soul (uruuan) and his frauuaši, not only for the frauuaši of the aṣ̌āvan.37

  • 38 BM 72747, see Rollinger 2011, 44-46 with translation of the tablet.
  • 39 Rollinger 2011 44; Wiesehöfer 2017, 58.
  • 40 Rollinger 2011, 45.
  • 41 BM 72747 II, 5: Bunene-ibni. Cf. Rollinger 2011, 46.
  • 42 Rollinger 2011, 45, note 139.
  • 43 See Henkelman 2003 for the Persepolis tablets and Arr. Anab. VI 29, 7 and Strabo XV 3, 7 for the ac (...)

13The possibility to sacrifice for themselves and the frauuaši of the aṣ̌āvan allows for further speculation about the honours for living and dead kings during the Achaemenid time, if the king fostered the rituals for himself and his frauuaši. Obviously, one would expect the king to be aṣ̌āvan due to his outstanding position, as the inscription of Xerxes confirms, but he was aṣ̌āvan just as the others could be. Confirmation about these rituals for the king is found in a cuneiform tablet from Sippar in Mesopotamia attesting offerings of barley to the statue (or in front of the statue) of Darius.38 Rollinger and others do not exclude that such offerings could have been established during Darius’s lifetime, but the tablet is dated to the first regnal year of Xerxes.39 Rollinger remarked that these offerings have not to be interpreted as proof of the Verttlichung of the king but as representation of the special nature between godlike and human that the monarch acquired.40 We do not know how and by whom these rites were performed, because the tablet only mentions the official in charge of the rations of barley for the regular offerings to statue of the king.41 This seems to have precedents in Mesopotamia, since similar rites were already established under the Babylonian king Nabonidus42. At the same time, the offerings attested in Sippar made sense from the Mazdean point of view as rites in honour of the frauuaši of Darius and as such they might as well have been performed when he was still alive. Of course, this interpretation presumes the possibility of a Mesopotamian interpretatio of the funeral offerings attested by Greek authors and the Persepolis tablets at the tombs of kings and noble men in Persia.43

  • 44 PF-NN 2174 (503/2 and 502/1 BCE) Cambyses and Upanduš; PF-NN 1700 (499/498 BCE) Hystaspes probably (...)
  • 45 Yt. 13, 21.
  • 46 Wiesehöfer 2017, 59. Cf. Henkelman 2003.
  • 47 Panaino 2005.

14Indeed, it is worth considering the offerings made for dead Persian nobles in the Persepolis fortification tablets, because they were honoured with the analogue practices as for the kings. These tablets record provisions to be delivered to the guardians of the šumar, i.d. the grave, not only of members of the royal family such as Cambyses and Hystaspes, but also to other unknown Persian nobles such as a certain Zišunduš.44Although hierarchically much less important than the kings, from a Mazdean-Zoroastrian religious perspective they are the same as the monarchs, because they are mortal and wanted to be aṣ̌āvan to enter Paradise, so their frauuaši as righteous ones might well be honoured.45 Wiesehöfer rightly suggests seeing in these practices a “kind of heroic cult for outstanding individuals inside or outside the ruling house” and this non-exclusivity of cults for the Persian dynasty must be stressed.46 The meaning of heroic in this case should be understood as supra-human in the sense of men of outstanding political and social position that cannot be equated to other men but that does not grant a divine status. The Persian king is a medium between the gods, especially Ahura Mazdā, and people; he is mortal, as in the Near Eastern tradition, but his nature as man and as chosen by Ahura Mazdā made him reach a superior position. Nonetheless, from a religious point of view the monarch remains a man, nothing more. The problem is whether to define these cults “heroic” from a Greek perspective putting the souverain and noble men on a supra-human level or to see them from more human Mazdean angle. Both solutions may be acceptable, since it is a matter of cultural view. The scanty evidence offers only, as is often the case, a partial view on Persian society that involves almost only the king and a few nobles. However, this kind of honours are indeed intimately linked with ancient Iranian religious sensibility and could also be performed in a private context for every believer. The offerings for rituals involved a precise liturgy and products such as wheat, wine and cattle that are difficult to categorise with certainty.47

15In conclusion, all these offerings must not be seen as a proof of the divinisation of Darius or other Persian kings but as honours for what the mortal king represents: the rule bestowed upon him by Ahura Mazdā, giving the king a special status which places him over other mortals but does not make him divine. The king is the chosen among the mortals to lead the world and maintain peace, order and fight back the chaos brought by the evil Ahreman and all his deviations and demons that threaten Ahura Mazdā ’s creation, so from a material perspective the entire physical world. In this respect, there is a clear theological distinction between the Greek and Mazdean cultic honours for men.

3. Heroic and godlike honours for the Persian kings in the Greek tradition

  • 48 Cf. inter alia Kinglsey 1995; Gazzano 2009; Lenfant 2014.
  • 49 Ekroth 2002, 21.
  • 50 Rudhardt 19922, 128. Cf. Ekroth 2015, 384.

16The Greek ethnographic interest for Persia and its customs is well-known from Herodotus and the rich fragmentary evidence of authors, such as Xanthus, Charon, Ctesias and Dinon.48 The approach to this subject is necessarily a comparative one, since the most important testimonies about ancient Iranian heroic cults were transmitted by the Greek authors since the fifth century BCE. The Greek testimonies are important not only as witnesses of ancient Iranian heroic cult practices, but also because they also try to interpret such practices through the lenses of their religious sensibility. We can agree with the definition Ekroth gave of the heroic nature in the Greek culture: “It is clear from the ancient evidence that often no sharp line was drawn between divinities called heroes and those called theoi and a hero could sometimes be called a god (theos) or become a god permanently”.49 Furthermore, Rudhardt summarised the peculiarities of heroes before they achieved a divine status, saying that they were born, they lived and they died.50

  • 51 Hdt VII 61, 2-3: καὶ ἄρχοντα παρείχοντο Ὀτάνεα, τὸν Ἀμήστριος πατέρα τῆς Ξέρξεω γυναικός. ἐκαλέοντο(...)

17Herodotus is probably the first Greek author who gives an attestation of term artaioi (Old Pers. artāvan), as we shall see connecting it to Persian cults. Herodotus focuses on the numerous people that formed the Persian army and in particular on the Persians. He says that the Persians were led by Otanes, Xerxes’ father-in-law, and that they were formerly called Cephenes and that their neighbors used to call them artaioi. Then Herodotus briefly refers to the myth of Perseus to explain the origin of the name of the Persians.51 This passage shows how Greeks explained the etymology of the term “Persians”, recurring to mythology and it also reveals a misunderstanding of the term artaioi, as if it was an ethnic term that the Persians attributed to themselves. As it has been shown above, this is a misconception from the Greek side, since the Persians defined themselves artāvan to show their righteousness according to Mazdean values.

  • 52 Hdt. VII 43, 1-2: ἀπικομένου δὲ τοῦ στρατοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν Σκάμανδρον, ὃς πρῶτος ποταμῶν, ἐπείτε ἐκ Σαρδίω (...)
  • 53 FGrHist 4 F 60 (=Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀρταία): Ελλάνικος ἐν Περσικῶν . οἱ οἰκοῦντες ᾽Αρταῖοι. ἀρταίους(...)
  • 54 Hesych. α 7473 (Latte): ἀρταῖοι· οἱ ἥρωες, παρὰ Πέρσαις. “Artaioi: the heroes among the Persians”.
  • 55 Gnoli 1998.
  • 56 de Jong 1997 302; 353.
  • 57 Haubold 2007.
  • 58 Haubold 2007.

18As has been shown above, in his description of the sacrifices performed at Ilion by Xerxes in 480 before crossing to Europe.52 Herodotus briefly tells that the Magi offered libations (χοαί) to the ἥρωες but does not specify what liquid. The Greek identification of the artaioi with the Greek ἥρωες is also quite evident from a fragment of Hellanicus of Lesbos’ Persikà reported by Stephanus of Byzantius.53 Moreover, the equation between ἀρταῖοι and ἥρωες is explicitly attested by a glossa of Hesychius.54 According to Gnoli the ἀρταῖοι were identified by Herodotus with the Greek ἥρωες because the Halicarnassean historian, as also Hellanicus of Lesbos, had been influenced by the Persian propaganda of Xerxes. Indeed, Gnoli proposed an interesting lecture of this passage arguing for a deeper knowledge of Persian religious tradition by Herodotus than what other modern scholars had until then supposed.55 On the contrary, de Jong dismissed the sacrifices of the Magi offerings for the heroes of the Trojan War as pure literary fiction, modeled after Greek ritual practices by Herodotus, doubting that the historiographer knew Persian religious traditions.56 Xerxes was aware of Greek mythology and epic and he was exploiting the topic of the Trojan war and the conflict between Asia and Europe to support his expedition against the Greeks from an ideological perspective. This has been highlighted by Haubold’s analysis of the exploitation of Greek epic by Xerxes.57 He knew the importance of the Homeric epic for the Greek World due to the large presence of Greek intellectuals at the Persian court. The Achaemenid propaganda constructed by pro-Persian Greek authors represented Troy and Persia as part of the same empire, the Assyrian one. From an imperial point of view, the Achaemenids were the heirs of the Assyrians. Therefore, they were entitled to avenge Troy bringing war to Greece.58 However, in my opinion, if the anti-Persian Greek authors were influenced by this propaganda, they neglected, perhaps deliberately, the meaning of the sacrifices at Ilion from the Mazdaic theological point of view, because the recipient of the rituals were probably the frauuaši of the heroes and not the heroes themselves.

  • 59 Hdt. VII 117, 1-4. cf. Harrison 2000, 158-159; Muccioli 2009, 99; Vannicelli 2019, 432-433.

19There are other interesting episodes that are worth examining in consideration of the Persian cults. The first, known from Herodotus, concerns the Persian Artacheus who oversaw the construction of the channel at the mount Athos. After his death, he received a heroic cult from the inhabitants of Acanthus after having been honoured by Xerxes with the highest regards and funerals. Moreover, according to Herodotus, Artacheus was also an Achaemenid and a relative of the king. It would be interesting to know if the Acanthians adopted cultic practices from the Persians at the moment of the funeral and following Xerxes’ dispositions, but most likely they celebrated the cult for Artacheus in a Greek religious environment.59

  • 60 FGrHist 115 F 124 (= Athen. 6, 252 a-c, Olson): […] πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ οὕτως ἠγάπησε τὴν παρὰ τοῦ βαρβά (...)
  • 61 See infra.
  • 62 Nikostratos indeed was a general who helped Artaxerxes during his campaign in Phoenicia in 346 and (...)
  • 63 Plut. Them. 27, 4. Cf. Muccioli 2016, 48.
  • 64 Taylor 1927.

20The second episode is found in a fragment of Theopompus reporting that during the banquets, a special table was set in honor of the δαίμων of the living Achaemenid king. The passage talks about a Greek living at the court of the king Artaxerxes III Ochus, Nikostratos of Argos, who would have imitated Persian habits and set a similar table during his mealtime.60 This kind of offerings resembles analogue ones attested for the living Arsacid and Sasanian kings, as will be shown a little further.61 Despite the harsh criticism exerted by Theopompus against Nikostratos, this fragment provides very interesting information about Persian cultic practices for the δαίμων of the living king and the adoption of such habits by a Greek.62 It also worth noting that according to Plutarch the Persian Artabanus would have said that the Persians honoured the king ς εἰϰὸνα ϑεοῦ, meaning that the king was not a god but a reflection of it and thus special honours where due to him.63 A long ago, Taylor had already seen in the δαίμων of the Persian king a interpretatio Graeca of the Iranian concept of frauuaši .64

  • 65 Aesch. Pers. δαίμων vv. 620; 643; θεός v. 642; ἰσοδαίμων v. 634; ἰσόθεος v.856; θεῖος (West) v. 651 (...)
  • 66 Curt. VI 6,2: Persicae regiae par deorum potentiae fastigium; VIII 5, 5: caelestes honores.

21The nature of the cults tributed to the Achaemenid king can be also inferred from two brief but famous passages of Aeschylus and Curtius Rufus. The Athenian tragedian calls Darius I δαίμων/θεός, a spirit or divinity, and also ἰσοδαίμων/ἰσόθεος “godlike”, but also θεος “divine”. Beside the dramatic expedient of the spirit of Darius appearing to Atossa, it would be worth stressing that Aeschylus as his contemporaries were aware of the rites performed for the Persian kings and probably thought of a divinisation.65 This is a very probable dramatic construction based on the Persian belief of the frauuaši, as we shall see next. More than five centuries later, Curtius speaks of “the power of Persian kingship, equal to that of the gods” and of “celestial honours” deriving his information about the Achaemenid kings from sources difficult to identify. These passages do not require us to think that they referred exactly to a cult of the frauuaši, but from a Mazdean point of view the king’s frauuaši could be recipient of cultic honours.66

  • 67 Isocr. Paneg. (IV) 151: […]θνητὸν μὲν ἄνδρα προσκυνοῦντες καὶ δαίμονα προσαγορεύοντες, τῶν δὲ θεῶν (...)
  • 68 Tuplin 2017, 94. See the collection of passage about heroic and isotheic honours for men in the fif (...)
  • 69 Panaino 2014; Tuplin 2017.

22Finally, it is relevant to stress that in these passages, taken from works with different public and intentions, information about the nature of Persian kingship and rites performed at the Persian court share a similar view on the godlike nature of the Achaemenid kings. Notwithstanding, the explicit condemnation of some intellectuals,67 the Greek contemporaries of the Achaemenids drew a picture of the outstanding and godlike nature of the Persian kings that reflects religious features of the veneration of souls in Zoroastrianism, albeit with some differences. In the fifth and fourth century BC Greek world, and even less in the time of Curtius, posthumous godlike and heroic honours were not unusual, so we can conclude with Tuplin that “something in another culture looking like posthumous heroization might not be shocking to Greeks.”.68 However, as Panaino and Tuplin remarked, we should avoid to see a sort of divinisation of kings in the Achaemenid period, as non-Greek sources show.69

4. The cultic honours for the Arsacid kings

23The cultic honours of the Achaemenid kings, and highly likely for their frauuaši, played also a central role in the Arsacid and Sasanian empires, as it will be clear from the selected evidence.

  • 70 On the sources about the Parthian empire, see Wiesehöfer 1998. Some noted the often-unsuccessful at (...)
  • 71 Writers such as Apollonius of Artemita, Posidonius of Apamea and Isidore of Charax offered curious (...)
  • 72 BNJ 87 F12 (= Athen. IV 153 a-b): […] παρὰ Πάρθοις ἐν τοῖς δείπνοις ὁ βασιλεὺς τήν τε κλίνην ἐφ᾽ ἧς (...)
  • 73 Similarity for Mazdean-Zoroastrian cults at the Arsacid court are often seen in the cult of fire, d (...)
  • 74 Amm. Marc. XXIII 6, 6. Cf. Muccioli 2009, 93: “Ammiano scrive espressamente che i Parti venerano e (...)
  • 75 SEG VII, 12-13.
  • 76 See Muccioli 2009, 89-90, with references.
  • 77 Invernizzi 2004,139-140. Muccioli adopts a more cautious approach and opts for an Iranian origin mo (...)
  • 78 Boyce 1987, with references, supposing a probable rite (pad ruwān) for the kings’ souls.
  • 79 Muccioli 2009, 95: “Un riscontro alla notizia di Isidoro è stato individuato negli ostraka provenie (...)
  • 80 Gignoux 1999, 40-42.
  • 81 Lerner 2017; Panaino 2019; Terribili 2019, esp. 272-280.
  • 82 Muccioli 2009; Dąbrowa 2010. We do have later Zoroastrian sources based on material stemming from t (...)

24It is the well-known that the lack of information other than the Classical literary sources or the documents related to Hellenised contexts on the Arsacids, such as the inscriptions of Susa, allows for a partial reconstruction of the non-Greek contexts of the Parthian kingdom, especially for cultic practices.70 Nonetheless, this scanty evidence gives precious information to argue for a common origin of Arsacid cultic practices with the Achaemenid ones and to see in the cults a cult of the frauuaši of dead and living kings.71 Posidonius of Apamea, probably relying on Apollodorus of Artemita, says that during banquets the Parthian king is honoured like a hero with a separate couch and table for him higher than the others.72 This passage reminds of the imitation of Persian habits by Nikostratos of Argos who used to set a table for Artaxerxes’ III daimon. Such heroic honours could be reconnected to the cult of the soul and/or frauuaši of the living kings, for we have seen that sacrifices to the soul and frauuaši of living men were admitted in the Mazdean religion.73 Moreover, centuries later, we find the testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus who wrote that the Parthians worshipped their kings like gods, but again we have to evaluate the sources of Ammianus.74 Furthermore, at the end of the first century BC we find two inscribed epigrams for Phraates IV from Susa,75 where he is called theos pantokratōr. Muccioli excluded divinisation of Phraates and explained the epiclesis connecting it to the developments of the Herrscherkult in the Hellenised East within Greek communities at the end of the first century BC.76 Invernizzi also claimed that the Parthian kings were divinised under the influence of the Seleucids. Indeed, he speculated about the function of the so-called “Round Hall” at Nisa seeing in it a building dedicated to the dynastic cult of the Arsacid monarchs.77 This assumption is also based on the ostraca from Nisa that account for goods delivery from the royal estates from Priapatius (191-176 BCE) until Gotarzes I (ca. 90-78 BCE) presumably to perform rites to honour their souls or frauuaši.78 However, it is probably a cult that is attested here.79 Moreover, the ostraca of Nisa also show the presence of vineyards named after the kings that produced wine used in the rituals for the kings, as it was also attested by Arrian and Strabo (following Aristobulus) for the Achaemenid time.80 It is worth noting that the Parthian kings seemed to share some heroic features in their representation as royal best-archer with the Achaemenid and Sasanian and minor Hellenistic dynasties.81 However, as some suggested, a more cautious approach would be helpful in studying the Arsacid relationship with the divinisation of kings and would refer the heroic honours to the Mazdean religious framework in which the frauuaši of men were worshipped.82

5. The sacrifices for Šābuhr I and the Sasanian nobles

  • 83 For an edition and translation of the trilingual inscription (Middle Persian, Parthian and Greek) s (...)
  • 84 Panaino 2005.
  • 85 Arr. Anab. VI 29, 7: εἶναι δὲ ἐντὸς τοῦ περιβόλου πρὸς τῇ ἀναβάσει τῇ ἐπὶ τὸν τάφον φερούσῃ οἴκημα (...)
  • 86 Strabo XV 3, 7: συμβῆναι δὲ ταῦτα, καίπερ φυλακῆς περικειμένης Μάγων, σίτισιν λαμβανόντων καθἡμέρ (...)
  • 87 Briant 1996, 107-108; 923. Cf. Henkelman 2003.
  • 88 Panaino 2005, 113 contra Briant 1996, 107. Panaino noted the similarity between the sacrifices offe (...)

25When looking at Šābuhr’s I (240-272 AD) trilingual inscription (ŠKZ) from the so-called “Kaaba of Zoroaster”, in front of the Achaemenid tombs at Naqš-i-Rustam, other elements of continuity with the beliefs and rites of the Achaemenid era for the souls of kings and nobles emerge.83 Indeed, Panaino drew attention to the similarities between the rites prescribed for the soul (pad ruwān) of the king and two passages of Arrian and Strabo derived from Aristobulus concerning the sacrifices in honour of Cyrus the Great at his tomb in Pasargadae.84 Arrian refers more details about the ritual goods for the sacrifices performed by the Magi at the tomb: a sheep, wheat and wine daily and a horse monthly.85 Strabo writes that the Magi received a sheep every day and a horse every month.86 Briant studied these two passages in detail and showed the similarities in offerings with the information known from the Elamite tablets of Persepolis Fortification.87 Panaino corrected the interpretation of the Greek text of Arrian by Briant showing that the goods where all destined for the sacrifice for the soul of Cyrus.88

  • 89 Huyse 1999, 49-63. Cf. Henning 1954, 42.

26In any case, it is remarkable that in the inscription Šābuhr orders to sacrify 1000 lambs, wheat and wine not only for his soul but also for that of his relatives (ŠKZ 36-38) and other nobles (ŠKZ 40-50).89 Thus he confirms what we have seen above for previous Achaemenid period based on the Elamite tables of Persepolis. There were sacrifices also for people other than the king, because on a theological level they were admitted for every man. The fact that the others were nobles depends from the context where the evidence comes from, but does not exclude that they were performed at a more private level. Again, we are witnessing a religious habit which was admitted in the Mazdean Zoroastrian framework, without necessarily indicating an heroisation or divinisation of men.

6. Conclusions

  • 90 According to Diodorus, heroic honours for Dion which were bestowed by the Syracusan assembly while (...)

27We can finally draw some general conclusions on similarities and differences between Greek heroic and godlike cults and Mazdean practicalities of men’s cults. In myth as in history, the Greek ἥρωες were mortals with superior qualities to normal men, no matter if they were generals, kings or figures like Philoktetes. After death, they received a post-mortem status that highlighted their superiority on a cultic and cultural level. In Greek religion, all humans could potentially be worshipped as ἥρωες, but often their heroic honours were linked to their deeds, such as for Dion or Timoleon90, and in general to the political and social contexts. An evident similarity of ἥρωες with the frauuaši is their warlike aspect and the capacity to help men fighting beside them and assisting them in war and other circumstances of life. This closely resembles of the sacrifices performed by the Persians at Ilion and their interpretation by Herodotus.

  • 91 Muccioli 2014b, 40: “Vi è poi sempre più la necessità di svincolarsi, o quanto meno di stemperare l (...)
  • 92 Muccioli 2005.

28In the Greek world, and this is especially evident in Magna Graecia, the cults for the local oikistai or legislators are often difficult to categorise as divine or heroic. Yet, the difference between the two categories almost does not exist.91 Similarly, this dichotomy is not attested in ancient Iranian religious habits. Kings and men receive sacrifices as heroes and gods do, even if the king is chosen by Ahura Mazdā and has higher position than the rest of men, the liturgies and cultural practices show similarities. On a theological level, men can receive sacrifices while they live or once they are dead. In the Greek world, ritual honours for living recipients are a phenomeon that finds its fullest expression only during the Hellensitic era, despite previous sporadic attestations.92

  • 93 Although there is a different and at the same time similar sensibility of the divine, the anthropom (...)

29Moreover, the Greek and Iranian gods are represented as anthropomorphic and have specific attributes that identify them, like Athena, Artemis or Zeus or Ahura Mazdā and Anāhitā. Indeed, in the Iranian context, we probably have representations for Ahura Mazdā, and certainly for other divinities such as Mithra and Anāhitā, but also for other divine beings. For instance, the frauuaši are described as heavily armoured in the Farvardīn Yašt, and they were also related to single individuals, so we can think that they resembled them.93 Nonetheless, we do not have any evidence in art history of the representation of frauuaši on a tomb, a statue or a monument.

30The difference with the ancient Mazdean context is how the Greeks perceived the divine and I think that this has to do with a more materialistic understanding of the reality. The Greek world knows three main dimensions of the world: the divine, the mortal, and the afterlife one that are not necessarily separated, as mythology and history show through heroisation and divinisation of men, e.g. Herakles, Lysander, Alexander, or the Hellenistic kings. In the Mazdean-Zoroastrian theological system, there are two dimensions, mēnōg and gētīg which are neatly separated, albeit they can influence each other and are interconnected. They are set within a precise eschatological perspective and serve in the fight between Good and Evil. Indeed, the material world, gētīg, is just a temporary creation by Ohrmazd to help in the fight against Ahreman who exists only in the mēnōg dimension but influences and deviate the gētīg.

  • 94 On Lysander see inter alia Muccioli 2005; on Timoleon see inter alia Muccioli 2014b; on Dion see in (...)
  • 95 The frauuaši belong to that part of individuals that according to Zoroastrianism is immortal and ca (...)

31In the Iranian Mazdean world, every man has a frauuaši that preexisted him and this can always be worshipped for every living or dead man as the Avesta, the Greek sources and the ostraca from Nisa for Gotarzes I attest. Furthermore, there are also collective frauuaši and villages, tribes and peoples possess their own ones, so they are ancestrally linked to a collective conscience that precedes the individual one. As the Greek ἥρωες, they belong to a superior reality, but that is first mental; at the same time, they have always been immortal contrary to many Greek heroes. The status of frauuaši is not a condition that can be bestowed upon men because of their deeds, such as Greek heroic honours. But they can become aṣ̌āvan through their righteous actions and thus worth of veneration, as Xerxes’ inscription shows. The Greek authors misinterpreted this Mazdean concept identifying the term artaioi with the ἥρωες, while the recipient of honours were the frauuaši of the aṣ̌āvan. The Greek use of conferring heroic or godlike honours as means of political negotiation is somehow excluded in the Iranian religious context, since at least on a theological level every man could worship and honour its own frauuaši and the ones of the others.94 Honouring and worshipping the frauuaši did not mean a direct divinisation of men, but the worship of a preexistent divine entity associated with men.95 This divine entity still represents the individual after his death and allows him to interact with the living ones and to assist them assuming the functions of a protective spirit of individuals or communities such as tribes or clans. This particular function has its roots in the cult of the ancestors and of the dead warriors in the primordial Indo-Iranian societies with strong warlike values. Beside this, there are even the frauuaši who help the gods, like in the case of Ahura Mazdā.

32In conclusion, the differences in perspective are sound. In the Greek world, the heroic cults put men on a supra-human level, even if under the gods, and paved the way for the divinisation of dead and living men that is well known for the Hellenistic era. On the contrary, the veneration of the frauuaši of men does not imply an evolution of status from simple dead to divinised heroes but the possibility of worshipping and honouring the génies tutélaires of every good man that existed before, during and after his lifetime. Perhaps, in the end, Herodotus identified the artaioi to whom the Magi offered libations with heroes, because on the one hand he was influenced by the Persian exploitation of Greek epic. On the other, he described these as heroic cults, because it was how Greek authors interpreted such rites of the Magi who were sacrificing to the frauuaši of the aṣ̌āvan. In fact, both in the Greek and in the ancient Mazdean religion human beings could be recipient of cultic honours, although within two different religious mindsets.

Lerouge 2007: Ch. Lerouge, L' image des Parthes dans le monde gréco-romain: du début du Ier siècle av. J.-C. jusqu'à la fin du Haut-Empire romain, Stuttgart 2007.

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Panaino 2014: Panaino, A., «Power and Ritual in the Achaemenian Royalty», in M. J. Geller (ed.), Melammu: The Ancient World in an Age of Globalization, Berlin 2014, 235-239.

Panaino 2016: A. Panaino, Zoroastrismo. Storia, temi, attualità, Trento 2016.

Ricl 2002: M. Ricl, «The cult of the Iranian Goddess in Anatolia before and after Alexander’, Živa Antika 52 (2002), 197-210.

Rudhardt 19922 : J. Rudhardt, Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuses et actes con­stitutifs du culte dans la Grèce classique, Paris 19922.

Saadi-nejad 2013: M. Saadi-nejad, «Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā: An Indo-European River Goddess», Analytica Iranica 4-5 (2013), 253-274.

Saadi-nejad 2021: M. Saadi-nejad, Anāhitā: A History and Reception of the Iranian Water Goddess, London 2021.

Schmitt 2009: R. Schmitt, Die altpersischen Inschriften der Achaimeniden, Wiesbaden 2009.

Shenkar 2014: M. Shenkar, Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World, Leiden – Boston 2014.

Taylor 1927: R.L. Taylor. «The ‘Proskynesis’ and the Hellenistic Cult Rules», Journal of Hellenic Studies 47, 1 (1927), 53-62.

Terribili 2019: G. Terribili, «Sasanian Royal Ceremonies and Heroic qualities. The Case of Šābuhr I’s Inscription at Ḥājiābād», A. Panaino, A. Piras, P. Ognibene (a cura di) Studi Iranici Ravennati III, Milano 2019, 269-301.

Tuplin 2017: C. J. Tuplin, «The Great King, his God(s) and Intimations of Divinity. The Achaemenid Hinterland to Ruler Cult?», The Ancient History Bulletin 31/3-4 (2017), 92-111.

Wiesehöfer 1998: J. Wiesehöfer (Hg.), Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse, Stuttgart 1998.

Wiesehöfer 2017: J. Wiesehöfer, «Cyrus the Great and the sacrifices for a dead king», in T. Howe, S. Müller, R. Stoneman (eds), Ancient historiography on war and empire, Oxford 2017, 55-61.

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Notes

1 On Greek reception of ancient Iranian cultic honours for men see inter alia Taylor 1927; Boyce 1987; Briant 1996 107-108; Gnoli 1998; Panaino 2005; Muccioli 2009. On Greek heroic cults see inter alia Foucart 1918; Farnell 1921; Habicht 1956; Rudhardt 19922; Ekroth 2002; Muccioli, Kimmel-Clauzet 2021.

2 See Coppola, Caneva 2021 on the (partial) results of their studies of the heroic category in the Hellenistic and Imperial era. After a detailed analysis of the occurrence of the term ἥρως and its semantic field, the two scholars remarked that heroic cults and honours cannot be separated from the religious sphere and that this phenomenon seems to be constant for the Hellenistic and Imperial era. Mythical heroes are honoured both in civic institutional context and in the private one, while heroic cults for men are primarily linked to the funerary context.

3 Muccioli 1997; 2000; 2011; 2014a; 2014b; 2014c; 2015a; cf. also the fundamental work on divinisation of men Gnoli, Muccioli 2014.

4 By saying Zoroastrian, I am referring to the sacred texts of the Avesta and later Pahlavi texts in which the worshippers define themselves Mazdeans in the manner of Zoroaster. It must be stressed that such sources concern the priestly environment and were originally composed to help the priests in their ritual activities and liturgies. Unfortunately, we do not possess any other literary evidence for Mazdeism apart from the Zoroastrian sources. Beside this kind of sources there are the inscriptions in Old Persian of the Achaemenid kings where it is clear that they were Mazdeans.

5 The Zoroastrian religious texts were collected under the name of Avesta were put in written form only under the Sasanians. After a long debate, today scholarship agrees on dating the older parts of the Avesta to the end of the first millennium BCE and the younger parts to the early Achaemenid time. They concern the liturgy performed by the believers during the sacrifice with all the prescriptions that have to be followed during the rite, see Kellens 1987.

6 XPh 47-48: šiyāta ahaniy jīva utā marta artāvā ahaniy “that I may be happy in life and in death may I be artāvan;”; XPh 54-56: utā jīva šiyāta bavatiy utā marta artāvā bavatiy “and in life he becomes happy and in death he becomes artāvan.” Both translations from Gnoli 1987c. Cf. Gnoli 1979, 392-395. For the edition of the inscription see Schmitt 2009 164-169. Gnoli studied in depth the important Iranian concept of ašavan and concluded that the Avestan term ašavan has the same meaning of the Old Persian term artāvan as reported in the inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, see Gnoli 1979.

7 Gnoli 1979, 393-394.

8 Vidēvdād 19.31; Hādōxt Nask 2.16. Cf. Kellens 1976, 114.

9 Gnoli 1979, especially 404-413; 1987c. There is also another important aspect to consider. When dealing with the Zoroastrian religious perspective, a too rigid distinction between material and mental world is not useful. The two dimensions are interconnected and influence each other. On the two dimensions mēnōg and gētīg and battle between Ohrmazd and Ahreman cf. inter alia Panaino 2016, 54-58; 90-104 with references. Gnoli also highlighted the possibility for living men to be artāvan, basing his argumentation on the passage of Herodotus on the sacrifices performed by Xerxes at Ilion in 480 BC, see Hdt. VII, 61. Cf. Gnoli 1979, 405. Cf. also the lemma of Hesych. α 7472 (Latte) ἀρτάδες· οἱ δίκαιοι, ὑπὸ Μάγων with evident connection with justice for the ones connected to aša.

10 For the relationship between the Achaemenids and the Avestan texts and liturgy see Kellens 1976; 2012; 2017.

11 (Avestan) frauuaṣ̌i- (Old Persian.) *fravarti; (Middle Persian/Pahlavi) fravahr.

12 Y. XVI, 7. Gnoli 1979, 395-397. Cf. Gershevitch 1959, 153-156.

13 The Mazdean religious perspective does not tend to divinisation. The human soul, and the frauuaši s in particular, already shared a supernatural and divine nature with the supreme Creator Ahura Mazdā. This perfectly fits the Mazdean religious perspective and does not tend to divinisation. The human soul, and the frauuaši in particular, already shared a supernatural and divine nature with the supreme Creator Ahura Mazdā.

14 Gnoli 1982, 340-343 and note 25. Cf. Y. 24, 5. At a later stage when Mazdeism and Zoroastrianism beliefs developed, the concept of frauuaši of valiant warriors who protected their descendants was elaborated and assumed a paramount importance in the Zoroastrian theological system. In fact, the Iranian society remained defined as a complex one with a military aristocracy at its top and politically fragmented until the time of Cyrus the Great. A major part of the scholarship of the last century, though with different analyses, explained the origin of the frauuaši in a sort of “heroic” cult or a cult of the ancestors, see inter alia Gnoli 1982; Kellens 1989; Boyce 2000 with references.

15 The following words are reported in Avestan.

16 Kellens 1995; 2008-2009; Panaino 2016, 104-108.

17 Yt. 13, 149. See Gnoli 1982, 342, note 20 contra Boyce 1975, 117-129; 2000. In general, we can say that is a very debated topic of Iranian studies and that there has been and there is still an intense discussion around the origin and nature of the frauuaši, cf. Kellens 1989; Boyce 2000a providing a good summary of the debate. For the present argument, it has to be remarked that the frauuaši were believed to be not only a part of the soul which played a role in the post-mortem, but also spirits that pre-existed the bodily existence of men. As Gnoli noted, in the Avesta (Y. 24, 5) they are said to be the frauuaši of the past, present and future men, because they are entities that transcend human souls regardless of the lives of men, see Gnoli 1982, 342.

18 Boyce 2000b with references.

19 Yt. 13.21. Cf. Kellens 1989, 106 with references. Their functions as presented in this hymn, have been reconducted by scholars to the tripartite scheme or tripartite ideology developed by Dumézil for the Indo-European societies: kingship, war and fertility (kinds, warriors, priests, peasants, artisans). Dumézil also stressed their warlike attitude that would associate them to the second category of warriors. See Dumézil 1953. Cf. Gnoli 1982, 339-340 with references.

20 Yt. 13.65.

21 Kellens 1989, 111.

22 According to a part of the scholarship a parallel could be seen in the Indian pitàras or the Roman manes since the frauuaši are also linked to the souls of the ancestors. Cf. Gnoli 1982, 341 with references. In this sense they were honoured in the last days of the Zoroastrian year (Yt. 13.49), as souls of the ancestors. In the Calendar of Cappadocia, artana (perhaps from the genitive plural of Old Pers. artāvan-) is the name given to the month of the frauuaši. The worship of uruuan- and frauuaši of the living and the dead ones is well attested in the older Avestan sources. After death it is believed that the male part of the soul will watch over the body for three days until when the female part will come and take the other part to paradise or hell according to the “thoughts, words and actions” of the man when he was alive. See Panaino 2004, 66-75. It is debated if the frauuaši predated Zoroastrianism or were original to it. Gnoli attributed them to a pre-Zoroastian beliefs at the end of the II millennium BC, see Gnoli 1987. Cf. also frauuaši Boyce 2000, 195-199.

23 This is stated in the Bundahišn, (3, 26-27), a sort of Zoroastrian book of Creation composed by the Zoroastrian clergy in the ninth century AD which was based on ancient Zoroastrian and Mazdean beliefs. See for a translation of the text Agostini-Thrope 2020, 26: “(26) It was at noon that Ohrmazd and the Amahraspands forged the spirit of worship. During the celebration of the worship, he created all creation. He consulted with men’s perceptions and frawahrs, instilling in them all-knowing wisdom. He said: “What seems more profitable to you: That I fashion you in the material world, fighting bodily against the demons and destroying them, so that in the end I will restore you, whole and immortal, and I will return you to the material world undying, ageless, and unopposed for ever? Or, that you always require protection from the Adversary? (27) With their all- knowing wisdom, the frawahrs of men saw the evil that would befall them in the material world from the demons and Ahriman. But because in the end the Adversary would be vanquished and they would become whole again and immortal forever in the Final Body, they agreed to go to the material world.”

24 Yt. 13, 27.

25 Yt. 13, 131-138.

26 Gnoli 1982, 343 with bibliography.

27 Hdt. 43, 1-2.

28 Yt. 5, 21, 57, 62. Cf. Gnoli 1998, 62, note 46.

29 Gnoli 1998, 63. See Yt. 13, 143-145.

30 de Jong 1997, 302.

31 Haubold 2007, 61:“ The Persians and their ‘wise men’ had suggested that Homeric epic justified an imperial takeover”.

32 Corsten 1991, 166-170; Brosius 1998. Cf. also Saadi-nejad 2013; 2021. For the importance of this deity for the Achaemenid kings, see Berossus’ account on the erection of statues of Anāhitā under Artaxerxes I, BNJ 680 F 11 (= Clem. Al., Protrep. V 65,3): ἀγάλματα μὲν θεῶν οὐ ξύλα καὶ λίθους ὑπειλήφασιν (scil. Πέρσαι καὶ Μῆδοι καὶ μάγοι) ἀλλὰ πῦρ τε καὶ ὔδωρ ὡς φιλόσοφοι. μετὰ πολλὰς μέντοι ὔστερον περιόδους ἐτῶν ἀνθρωποειδῆ ἀγάλματα σέβειν αὐτοὺς Βήρωσσοςἐν τρίτηι Χαλδαικῶν παρίστησι, τοῦτο ᾽Αρταξέρξου τοῦ Δαρείου τοῦ ῎Ωχου εἰσηγησαμένου, ὃς πρῶτος τῆς ᾽Αφροδίτης ᾽Αναίτιδος τὸ ἄγαλμα ἀναστήσας ἐν Βαβυλῶνι καὶ Σούσοις καὶ ᾽Εκβατάνοις καὶ Πέρσαις καὶ Βάκτροις καὶ Δαμασκῶι καὶ Σάρδεσιν ὑπέδειξε σέβειν. “(Persians, Medes, and magi) did not accept wooden and stone statues of the gods, but fire and water like philosophers. Later, however, after the passage of many years they worshipped statues of human figures, as Berossus states in the third book of the Chaldaika. This was introduced by Artaxerxes, the son of Darius Ochus, who was the first to set up the statue of Aphrodite Anaïtis in Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, Persae, Bactra, Damascus, and Sardis and showed (how) to worship it.” (translation by G. De Breucker). Cf. Ricl 2002, 199-200; Saadi-nejad 2021, 119-123.

33 Yt. 13, 65-68

34 Yt. 13, 143-145. Cf. Gnoli 1998, 62.

35 They even protect children in the womb according to Zoroastrian sources Yt. 13, 1-11.

36 Hdt. I 132. In the Zoroastrian Farvardīn Yašt (Yt. 13, 21) that they sacrifice to the frauuaši of the righteous ones, i.e. the artāvan, the ἀρταῖοι of Greek sources.

37 Y. 59, 28. See Panaino 2004, 66-75 with translations of the passages.

38 BM 72747, see Rollinger 2011, 44-46 with translation of the tablet.

39 Rollinger 2011 44; Wiesehöfer 2017, 58.

40 Rollinger 2011, 45.

41 BM 72747 II, 5: Bunene-ibni. Cf. Rollinger 2011, 46.

42 Rollinger 2011, 45, note 139.

43 See Henkelman 2003 for the Persepolis tablets and Arr. Anab. VI 29, 7 and Strabo XV 3, 7 for the account of the rites performed at Cyrus’ grave by the Magi. Cf. infra.

44 PF-NN 2174 (503/2 and 502/1 BCE) Cambyses and Upanduš; PF-NN 1700 (499/498 BCE) Hystaspes probably father of Darius; NN 1848 unknown; Fort. 2512 Zišunduš. On the rites performed at the šumar, see the ground-breaking study Henkelman 2003; cf. also Bessac, Boucharlat 2010, 12-13 with references; Rollinger 2011, 40-44 with references and translations of some of the documents. They recall the made to the tombs of Cyrus the Great, see Aristobulus BNJ 139 F51a-b (a= Arr.VI 29, 4-7; b= Strabo XV 3, 7).

45 Yt. 13, 21.

46 Wiesehöfer 2017, 59. Cf. Henkelman 2003.

47 Panaino 2005.

48 Cf. inter alia Kinglsey 1995; Gazzano 2009; Lenfant 2014.

49 Ekroth 2002, 21.

50 Rudhardt 19922, 128. Cf. Ekroth 2015, 384.

51 Hdt VII 61, 2-3: καὶ ἄρχοντα παρείχοντο Ὀτάνεα, τὸν Ἀμήστριος πατέρα τῆς Ξέρξεω γυναικός. ἐκαλέοντο δὲ πάλαι ὑπὸ μὲν Ἑλλήνων Κηφῆνες, ὑπὸ μέντοι σφέων αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν περιοίκων Ἀρταῖοι. ἐπεὶδὲ Περσεὺς Δανάης τε καὶ Διὸς ἀπίκετο παρὰ Κηφέα τὸν Βήλου καὶ ἔσχε αὐτοῦ τὴν θυγατέρα Ἀνδρομέδην, γίνεται αὐτῷ παῖς τῷ οὔνομα ἔθετο Πέρσην, τοῦτον δὲ αὐτοῦ καταλείπει. “Their commander was Otanes, son of Amestris and father of Xerxes' wife. They were formerly called by the Greeks Cephenes, but by themselves and their neighbors Artaei. When Perseus son of Danae and Zeus had come to Cepheus son of Belus and married his daughter Andromeda, a son was born to him whom he called Perses, and he left him there; for Cepheus had no male offspring; it was from this Perses that the Persians took their name.” (translation by A.D. Godley).

52 Hdt. VII 43, 1-2: ἀπικομένου δὲ τοῦ στρατοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν Σκάμανδρον, ὃς πρῶτος ποταμῶν, ἐπείτε ἐκ Σαρδίων ὁρμηθέντες ἐπεχείρησαν τῇ ὁδῷ, ἐπέλιπε τὸ ῥέεθρον οὐδ’ ἀπέχρησε τῇ στρατιῇ τε καὶ τοῖσι κτήνεσι πινόμενος, ἐπὶ τοῦτον δὴ τὸν ποταμὸν ὡς ἀπίκετο Ξέρξης, ἐς τὸ Πριάμου Πέργαμον ἀνέβη ἵμερον ἔχων θεήσασθαι. θεησάμενος δὲ καὶ πυθόμενος ἐκείνων ἕκαστα τῇ Ἀθηναίῃ τῇ Ἰλιάδι ἔθυσε βοῦς χιλίας, χοὰς δὲ οἱ μάγοι τοῖσι ἥρωσι ἐχέαντο. ταῦτα δὲ ποιησαμένοισι νυκτὸς φόβος ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον ἐνέπεσε. […]. “When the army had come to the river Scamander, which was the first river after the beginning of their march from Sardis that fell short of their needs and was not sufficient for the army and the cattle to drink—arriving at this river, Xerxes ascended to the citadel of Priam, having a desire to see it. After he saw it and asked about everything there, he sacrificed a thousand cattle to Athena of Ilium, and the Magi offered libations to the heroes. After they did this, a panic fell upon the camp in the night.” (translation by A.D. Godley). Cf. Vannicelli 2019, 354-355.

53 FGrHist 4 F 60 (=Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀρταία): Ελλάνικος ἐν Περσικῶν . οἱ οἰκοῦντες ᾽Αρταῖοι. ἀρταίους δὲ Πέρσαι, ὥσπερ οἱ ῞Ελληνες, τοὺς παλαιοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἥρωας καλοῦσι. […]. Hellanikos mentions it in the first book of his On Persia. The inhabitants are called Artaians. The Persians call their ancient ancestors artaioi, just as the Greeks call their heroes. […] (translation by F. Pownall).

54 Hesych. α 7473 (Latte): ἀρταῖοι· οἱ ἥρωες, παρὰ Πέρσαις. “Artaioi: the heroes among the Persians”.

55 Gnoli 1998.

56 de Jong 1997 302; 353.

57 Haubold 2007.

58 Haubold 2007.

59 Hdt. VII 117, 1-4. cf. Harrison 2000, 158-159; Muccioli 2009, 99; Vannicelli 2019, 432-433.

60 FGrHist 115 F 124 (= Athen. 6, 252 a-c, Olson): […] πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ οὕτως ἠγάπησε τὴν παρὰ τοῦ βαρβάρου τιμὴν ὥστε βουλόμενος ἀρέσκειν καὶ πιστεύεσθαι μᾶλλον ἀνεκόμισε πρὸς βασιλέα τὸν υἱόν, ὃ τῶν ἄλλων οὐδεὶς πώποτε φανήσεται ποιήσας. ἔπειτα καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ὁπότε μέλλοι δειπνεῖν τράπεζαν παρετίθει χωρὶς ὀνομάζων τῶι δαίμονι τῶι βασιλέως, ἐμπλήσας σίτου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιτηδείων, ἀκούων μὲν τοῦτο ποιεῖν καὶ τῶν Περσῶν τοὺς περὶ τὰς θύρας διατρίβοντας, οἰόμενος δὲ διὰ τῆς θεραπείας ταύτης χρηματιεῖσθαι μᾶλλον παρὰ τοῦ βασιλέως·[…]. “For first he so loved the barbarian’s honor that, in wishing to please and gain greater trust, he brought his son up to the King’s court something that no one ever will be shown to have done before. Then, every day when he was about to have a meal, he set a table separately, having named it for the divine power of the King and heaped it with food and other provisions, upon hearing that the Persians who spend their time at the King’s court do this. He thought that he would more likely be rewarded by the King for this slavishness”, (translation by W.S. Morison). Cf. Shenkar 2014, 57, note 103.

61 See infra.

62 Nikostratos indeed was a general who helped Artaxerxes during his campaign in Phoenicia in 346 and in Egypt in 343 leading a contingent of 3000 Argives in the service of the Great king. Theopompus’ bias derives from a well-known antagonism of the Greek world towards Greeks serving at the Persian court, not least influenced by Philip’s II and Alexander’s propaganda in preparation of the attack to the Achaemenid empire. Far from being a simple κόλαξ, Nikostratos, as later Peukestas, seems to have adopted not only cultic Persian habits, even bringing up his son at the King’s court, see Diod. XVI 46-48. It would be worth considering the special connection between Argos and Persia in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, not only on the mythical level with the figure of Perseus, but also on the diplomatic and military level with a precise anti-Spartan purpose since the time of the Persian war. On Peukestas and the adoption of Persian habits, see Muccioli 2017. Cf. also Taylor 1927 seeing a cult of the frauuaši of the king in this and in another passage from Plut. Artax. 15, 7. More recently, Muccioli wrote about the misunderstanding of the Persian habit of proskynesis in the Classical sources stressing the cultural prejudice of some intellectuals such as Callisthenes, see Muccioli 2016.

63 Plut. Them. 27, 4. Cf. Muccioli 2016, 48.

64 Taylor 1927.

65 Aesch. Pers. δαίμων vv. 620; 643; θεός v. 642; ἰσοδαίμων v. 634; ἰσόθεος v.856; θεῖος (West) v. 651. Cf. Garvie 2009, 257-267; esp. 267 on the lectio θεῖος.

66 Curt. VI 6,2: Persicae regiae par deorum potentiae fastigium; VIII 5, 5: caelestes honores.

67 Isocr. Paneg. (IV) 151: […]θνητὸν μὲν ἄνδρα προσκυνοῦντες καὶ δαίμονα προσαγορεύοντες, τῶν δὲ θεῶν μᾶλλον τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὀλιγωροῦντες.

68 Tuplin 2017, 94. See the collection of passage about heroic and isotheic honours for men in the fifth-fourth century BCE Greek world in Tuplin 2017, 93 note 3.

69 Panaino 2014; Tuplin 2017.

70 On the sources about the Parthian empire, see Wiesehöfer 1998. Some noted the often-unsuccessful attempts by the Arsacids to involve Greek communities in the administration of the empire, even if there was a pacific coexistence and the adoption of Greek administrative customs, see inter alia Dąbrowa 1998; 2005a; 2005b; Olbrycht 2014.

71 Writers such as Apollonius of Artemita, Posidonius of Apamea and Isidore of Charax offered curious insights on Parthians royal cults. Cf. Lerouge 2007; Muccioli 2007; 2009.

72 BNJ 87 F12 (= Athen. IV 153 a-b): […] παρὰ Πάρθοις ἐν τοῖς δείπνοις ὁ βασιλεὺς τήν τε κλίνην ἐφ᾽ ἧς μόνος κατέκειτο μετεωροτέραν τῶν ἄλλων καὶ κεχωρισμένην εἶχε καὶ τὴν τράπεζαν μόνωι καθάπερ ἥρωι πλήρη βαρβαρικῶν θοιναμάτων παρακειμένην. “Amongst the Parthians at banquets the king had a separate couch on which he alone reclined, higher than the other ones, and a table placed alongside for him alone, as though it was for a hero, full of barbarian feast-food” (translation by K. Dowden). Cf. also BNJ 87 F5 (=Athen. IV, 152f–153a). Cf. Lerouge 2007, 255-260; Muccioli 2007, 104; 2009, 93.

73 Similarity for Mazdean-Zoroastrian cults at the Arsacid court are often seen in the cult of fire, described by Isidore of Charax in his Parthian Stations, see BNJ2 781 F2, 11: πόλις δὲ ᾽Ασαάκ, ἐν ἧι ᾽Αρσάκης πρῶτος βασιλεὺς ἀπεδείχθη· καὶ φυλάττεται ἐνταῦθα πῦρ ἀθάνατον. Cf. Boyce 1979, 87.

74 Amm. Marc. XXIII 6, 6. Cf. Muccioli 2009, 93: “Ammiano scrive espressamente che i Parti venerano e adorano Arsace come un nume (numinis eum vice venerantur et colunt), affermazione in cui l’elemento più rilevante è costituito dal termine numen (che può essere posto a confronto con la fravashi, piuttosto che con il farrah/xwarrah)”.

75 SEG VII, 12-13.

76 See Muccioli 2009, 89-90, with references.

77 Invernizzi 2004,139-140. Muccioli adopts a more cautious approach and opts for an Iranian origin more than Seleucid of such cults, see Muccioli 2009, 94-95. On Nisa and the function of the Round Hall, see Lippolis 2006, 195-196; in general, on the Arsacid capital, see Invernizzi-Lippolis 2008. On the religious practice of the Parthians and the cultic honours for the souls of the Arsacid kings, see Bader 1996, 272-273; Assar 2004, 71-77; Panaino 2005; Canepa 2010, 14-15; Canepa 2018, 235-239. The idea that the royal titles in Greek of the Arsacids reflect a ruler cult could be rejected as demonstrated by Muccioli 2013, 319-324.

78 Boyce 1987, with references, supposing a probable rite (pad ruwān) for the kings’ souls.

79 Muccioli 2009, 95: “Un riscontro alla notizia di Isidoro è stato individuato negli ostraka provenienti da Nisa, in cui sono menzionati diversi monarchi arsacidi nonché un Artaserse identificabile o con l’achemenide Artaserse I o con il suo omonimo Artaserse II (il che può anche essere letto in chiave di elaborazione genealogica). Si dovrebbe pertanto parlare di culto dinastico per i sovrani defunti, nell’alveo della tradizione di stampo iranico e del concetto di fravashi, anche se tale affermazione è (apparentemente?) contraddetta dal fatto che è menzionato anche un sovrano vivente, Gotarze I.”

80 Gignoux 1999, 40-42.

81 Lerner 2017; Panaino 2019; Terribili 2019, esp. 272-280.

82 Muccioli 2009; Dąbrowa 2010. We do have later Zoroastrian sources based on material stemming from the Sasanian time that praise the Arsacids for having restoring the Mazdean religion after Alexander, see Bahman Yašt 3, 26, cf. Cereti 1995, 152; 184-185.

83 For an edition and translation of the trilingual inscription (Middle Persian, Parthian and Greek) see Huyse 1999. Cf. for the content Henning 1939; 1954.

84 Panaino 2005.

85 Arr. Anab. VI 29, 7: εἶναι δὲ ἐντὸς τοῦ περιβόλου πρὸς τῇ ἀναβάσει τῇ ἐπὶ τὸν τάφον φερούσῃ οἴκημα σμικρὸν τοῖς Μάγοις πεποιημένον, οἳ δὴ ἐφύλασσον τὸν Κύρου τάφον ἔτι ἀπὸ Καμβύσου τοῦ Κύρου, παῖς παρὰ πατρὸς ἐκδεχόμενος τὴν φυλακήν. καὶ τούτοις πρόβατόν τε ἐς ἡμέραν ἐδίδοτο ἐκ βασιλέως καὶ ἀλεύρων τε καὶ οἴνου τεταγμένα καὶ ἵππος κατὰ μῆνα ἐς θυσίαν τῷ Κύρῳ. “Within the enclosure, and lying on the approach to the tomb itself, was a small building put up for the Magians, who were guardians of Cyrus’ tomb, from as long ago as Cambyses, son of Cyrus, receiving this guardianship from father to son. To them was given from the King a sheep a day, an allowance of meal and wine, and a horse each month to sacrifice to Cyrus.” (translation by E. Iliff Robson).

86 Strabo XV 3, 7: συμβῆναι δὲ ταῦτα, καίπερ φυλακῆς περικειμένης Μάγων, σίτισιν λαμβανόντων καθἡμέραν πρόβατον, διὰ μηνὸς δἵππον.

87 Briant 1996, 107-108; 923. Cf. Henkelman 2003.

88 Panaino 2005, 113 contra Briant 1996, 107. Panaino noted the similarity between the sacrifices offered at the Cyrus tomb witnessed by Aristobulus and the later Sasanian practice of the pad ruwān, The mention by Theopompus of the daimon of the king that receives a sacrifice every day of good food recalls the sacrifice for the uruuan and the frauuaši of the living, the dead and the yet unborn present in the Avestan sources. See Panaino 2005. Moreover, Panaino agrees with Taylor 1927 that a sacrifice to the uruuan and the frauuaši of the living king is not impossible but it does not point to the divinization of the kings. Cf. also Panaino 2016, 80-81; pad ruwān is a sacrifice for the soul of living and dead, not a divinization, see Panaino 2009a, 37-39. Cf. Panaino 2009b on king and gods in the Sasanian ideology.

89 Huyse 1999, 49-63. Cf. Henning 1954, 42.

90 According to Diodorus, heroic honours for Dion which were bestowed by the Syracusan assembly while he was still alive, see Diod. XVI 11, 2; 20, 5-6. Plutarch writes that Syracusans addressed Dion as if he were a god, see Plut. Dion 29, 1-2; 46. cf. Muccioli 2014, 42. For the posthumous heroic honours for Timoleon see Diod. XVI 90; Plut. Tim. 39.

91 Muccioli 2014b, 40: “Vi è poi sempre più la necessità di svincolarsi, o quanto meno di stemperare la netta dicotomia culto divino/culto eroico, cercando di individuare possibili intersezioni o di delineare una casistica che tenga conto di tutte le variabili, compresa l’influenza o la partecipazione dell’elemento indigeno nel conferimento del culto.”.

92 Muccioli 2005.

93 Although there is a different and at the same time similar sensibility of the divine, the anthropomorphic representation of deities clearly emerges for Iranian deities: Yt. 10, 28, 112 for Mithra described as a warrior; see Yt. 13, 26-27 for the frauuaši. Furthermore, the bearded figure in the Achaemenid relief at Behistun is considered by some a representation of Ahura Mazdā. On Ahura Mazdā’s representations, see Shenkar 2014, 47-65 with references. See also the fragment of Berossus on the erection of statues of Anāhitā under Artaxerxes II. BNJ 680 F 11 (= Clem. Al., Protrep. V 65,3).

94 On Lysander see inter alia Muccioli 2005; on Timoleon see inter alia Muccioli 2014b; on Dion see inter alia Muccioli 1997; Caneva 2021, 220-227.

95 The frauuaši belong to that part of individuals that according to Zoroastrianism is immortal and can dwell in the material and the immaterial world, see Gnoli 1987.

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Lorenzo Paoletti, « Heroisation or divinisation of men? Some remarks on the Greek interpretation of the ancient Iranian cults of the frauuaši »Mythos [En ligne], 19 | 2025, mis en ligne le 01 octobre 2025, consulté le 15 décembre 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mythos/9273 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/152un

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Lorenzo Paoletti

Universität zu Köln, Historisches Institut, Abteilung für Alte Geschichte, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Köln – lpaolet1(at)uni-koeln.de

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