The Great King might have enjoyed the security and prestige of ‘invisibility’ but when he was viewed by members of his court he was a sight worth seeing. Look at any conventional Persian-made image of an Achaemenid Great King (F1, F3, F5, and F7) and notice how perfect he is. (Azarpay 1994 suggests he is even mathematically perfect, thanks to an Egyptian-style grid system employed by artists when depicting the human frame.) The monarch’s clothed body emanates strength and vitality; his posture encodes military prowess and sportsmanship; his hair and his beard are thick and luxuriant and radiate health and vitality; his face, with its well defined profile, large eye and thick eyebrow, is as noble as it is handsome.
These images are imperial pronouncements. We must read them as codes through which the king’s body takes on cultural meaning: the manliness, wholeness, beauty, and physical fitness of the monarch’s body guarantee his right to rule. As we noted in Chapter 1, the Great King’s body was special, sharing in appearance the best physical attributes of the anthropomorphic divinity he worshipped (see Bertelli 2001; Hamilton 2005; Sommer 2009; Llewellyn-Jones forthcoming b). The origin and significance of the tradition of the handsome king is unclear, although it is probably connected to the connotation that the ruler is superlative in all respects, for, as Briant (2002: 225-6) has pointed out, ‘a man did not become king because he was handsome. . .; it was because of his position as king that he was automatically designated as handsome’.
Greek texts do seem to fixate on the body of the Persian monarch, however, and they take an obvious delight in his splendid appearance, making him into a handsome, if nevertheless inherently despotic, opponent. Successive kings are noted for their valour, handsome demeanour, and their impressive stature (and coincidentally, as we have observed, a hallmark of Achaemenid art is that kings are made taller than their subjects). They are all ‘the most valiant of men’ or ‘the best-looking of men’ and their wives and daughters are equally beautiful - a ‘torment’ for Greek eyes no less (see Herodotus 7.187; Plutarch, Artaxerxes 1.1) - and together Persian kings and queens are habitually tagged as being ‘the best looking in all of Asia’ (B8; see further Llewellyn-Jones forthcoming a). Even Plato could not resist speculating on the striking beauty of the royal Persian physique, which he explained by suggesting that infant princes underwent a strict regimen of massage therapy in which their young oiled limbs were twisted into perfection by their doting eunuch slaves (B9; see also Pliny 24.165). Of course, every prince and monarch aspired to match the standard of masculine good looks set by Cyrus the Great - his aquiline nose was allegedly the benchmark of beauty for generations of Persians: ‘Because Cyrus was hooked-nosed, the Persians - even to this day - love hooked nosed men and consider them the most handsome’ (Plutarch, Moralia 281e).
Xenophon’s Cyrus understood the benefit of what might today be termed a good ‘makeover’: he saw the beauty of ‘Median’ dress, considering it to be stately and becoming (B10), and he realised also the effectiveness of cosmetics in enhancing a person’s appearance (on the term ‘Median’ see below). The story goes that Cyrus especially admired his grandfather Astyages’ use of eye-liner, rouge, and wigs (B11). Of course, reading between the lines we must note Xenophon’s disparagement of the Persian penchant for garments and cosmetics that are intended to trick the observer: Cyrus finds ‘Median’ dress suitable for the Persians for the very fact that it conceals physical imperfections and makes the wearer look ‘tall and handsome’. From a Greek perspective, this was unmanly and uncivilised; the Greeks prided themselves on the display of nudity (in controlled situations: at the gymnasium and sporting events, even on the battlefield), so that to cover the body conspicuously a la perse was categorically cowardly. For the Greeks, the wearing of cosmetics was strictly the prerogative of women and for Xenophon even that was unacceptable. His work on household management, Oeconomicus, includes a diatribe (10.1-13) instructing a young bride to set aside her powders, rouge, and eye-liner because of their connections to trickery. For Xenophon’s readers, the implication is simple - Persians wear concealing robes and cosmetics because they are womanly and untrustworthy.
Of course, Xenophon fails to understand the long history of dress and cosmetics in the ancient Near East, especially the role given to kohl in ornamenting the eyes. The Persian use of kohl is attested in iconography, where make-up lines drawn around the eyes are sometimes delineated (F4), but also in Achaemenid-period archaeological finds from north-west Iran which have yielded delicate kohl tubes made of coloured glass (Dayagi-Mendels 1989: 46). In common with many courts of the Near East, the Achaemenids also created a stratum of specialist slaves who were trained as beauticians, some of whom could become influential at court - no doubt because of their close proximity to the ruler or his family (B12). The Biblical text of Esther records that new recruits into the royal harem at Susa underwent six months’ intensive beauty therapy as they were massaged with oil of myrrh in what B. W. Jones (1977: 175) has called ‘conspicuous consumption in the extreme’ (on cosmetics in Esther see further Albright 1982; Baldwin 1984: 68-9; De Troyer 1995).
There can be little doubt that Achaemenid kings and courtiers wore wigs and false hair pieces and their images at Persepolis and other palace sites certainly suggest that false tresses could be plaited into natural hair and beards. This fashionable caprice must have made hair expensive. Strabo (15.3.21) notes that hair was therefore a taxable item in the Persian Empire, while Pseudo-Aristotle suggests that the Great King demanded a ‘tribute’ of hair from provinces specifically for the creation of wigs (B13).
In the ancient world, hair and beards were highly significant and were surrounded by rituals and symbolic undertones; elite men grew their hair long, full, and luxuriant as a supreme mark of high social status and women’s beauty was judged by their luxuriant hair (Llewellyn-Jones 2011). At the most mundane level, hair signalled a person’s state of health or lack of it (poor-quality hair could signal disease or uncleanliness and the tearing out of the hair was a symbol of grief or distress), and therefore men of the warrior elite carefully grew and cared for theirs to represent their strength and virility (after all, the greatest heroes of Near Eastern antiquity were long-haired: consider Gilgamesh and Samson). They were careful to dress it and arrange it, thereby symbolically ‘taming’ and ‘civilising’ it. Excessive hair growth had overtones of the barbaric, so that when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar went into mental decline his courtiers read the external sign when ‘his hair grew as long as an eagle’s feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws’ (Daniel 4:33).
Egyptian pharaohs had an age-old tradition of wearing carefully
Dressed wigs and Neo-Assyrian monarchs also took extreme care with the plaiting, braiding, and ringletting of their hair and beards into elaborate coiffures (see Madhloom 1970: 83-9; and images in Dayagi-Mendels 1989: 66-7; Bahrani 2003), and it was this fashion which was wholeheartedly adopted by Achaemenid rulers, who carefully had themselves depicted in the artworks with every curl and wave of hair clearly delineated. In reality, the hair and the beard were carefully dressed by skilled hairdressers, who twisted the curls into shape and fixed them in position by the use of perfumed oil, which helped control the hair, in addition to keeping it shiny and fragrant. Anointing the hair and beard with oil was probably a ritual practice for the Achaemenid monarchs as it was for other Near Eastern kings (1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 Kings 1:39), but it was also a beauty ritual in its own right, and one associated too with festivity and hospitality. Great Kings lavished their wealth on costly perfumed hair oil, and one particular sort, labyzos, was even more expensive than myrrh (Deinon F25a = Athenaeus 12.514a).
A full, well set, fragranced beard was a sign of manhood and a source of pride for Persian men. It was the ornament of their machismo. In Near Eastern cultures the beard was symbolically loaded: it was the object of salutation and the focus of oaths and blessings, although, conversely, the beard could also be a locus of shame, for an attack on the beard was an attack on the individual who sported it. Because the beard was the superlative symbol of manhood, it was a great insult to degrade it; to humiliate them, prisoners of war might have half their beards shaved off. Thus Israelite prophets threatened the people that the king of Assyria would ‘shave your head and the hair of your legs and. . . take off your beards also’ (Isaiah 7:20; see also 2 Samuel 10:4-5). Not surprisingly then, given the close association between the beard and physical power and martial ability, the Great King was depicted with the most impressive beard of all; it far outstripped those of his courtiers in terms of length, fullness, and elaboration and it clearly demarcated him as the Empire’s alpha male.
Ctesias tells a story (which perhaps has at its core a genuine Iranian version) of the time a powerful court eunuch, Artoxares, attempted to overthrow the throne of Darius II and establish himself as Great King. To do this, Ctesias says (F15 §54), he asked a woman to procure for him a beard and moustache of false hair, ‘so that he could look like a man’. At a time when beards were de rigueur for all elite men, eunuchs (who, if castrated before puberty, could never sprout facial hair) must have appeared very incongruous - at best ‘half-men’, at worst sub-human (for eunuchs see Chapter 1; on eunuchs and beards see Tougher 2008: 23), and Ctesias’ point is to confirm that, to rule as a king, one must look the part. The vital accoutrement for the job was the luxuriant royal beard. Since Artoxares was incapable of growing his own, he would seize on the fashion for false hair and wear a counterfeit one (see Llewellyn-Jones 2002: 39). Preserved in Ctesias is a genuine Persian belief that the monarch was the first among men and that his ability to rule and to preserve cosmic order was signified through his appearance. Interestingly, Pirngruber (2011: 283) expresses doubts that Artoxares was a eunuch castrato, suggesting that it was his wife who helped procure for him the false beard; if he was married, Artoxares could not have been a castrated eunuch. This thesis is fundamentally flawed, however: Ctesias’ Greek refers only to an anonymous ‘woman’, not specifically to ‘his wife’ (see Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010: 195).
One further symbol of monarchy needs to be examined in the context of the king’s head - the crowning glory, quite literally, of monarchy - for on top of the Great King’s coiffured and oiled locks sat a crown, weighty with symbolic authority. In antiquity, as in later eras, the crown signified some kind of state of honour or dignity for those who wore it because a kind of divine aura emanated from a monarch’s crown and raised the wearer up to the most exalted position. Whether children in make-believe play, beauty queens, athletic victors, or royal heirs, aiming for the crown, with its lofty ritual and ancient symbolism, secures glory even today.
The Old Persian word for ‘crown’ is not known, although various contemporary Greek terms like kidaris or kitaris, tiara, and kurbasia were possibly derived from Old Persian vocabulary. In the Achaemenid period there is evidence to suggest that rulers might wear two very different kinds of crown. Most common (and more in keeping with the standard image of a crown) was a rigid metal cylinder with or without crenelated decoration (it is not known whether the king’s crown was of a special colour or metal, like gold). While it is possible that Achaemenid kings adopted different forms of crown (crenelated crowns certainly changed shape over the decades), they cannot be considered ‘personal crowns’ in the way that Sasanian crowns are understood (Berghe 1993: 74; see also Root 1979: 92-3; Henkelman 1995-6); after all, the Achaemenid crown prince is usually depicted wearing the same crown as his father (F3) and members of the court at Persepolis sometimes likewise wear crenelated and fluted crowns (although less tall than royal examples; see Tilia 1978: 53-66; see further Kaptan 2002: 58-60).
Greek texts suggest that an alternative ‘crown’, the tiara, was commonly worn by Great Kings. This was a soft headdress, a kind of bashlyk (a cap with lappets for wrapping around the neck) made from treated leather, felt, suede or cloth. It was a form of headdress worn by nearly all Iranian tribesmen and was constructed with long ear flaps and neck flaps, which could be draped in a myriad of styles. The form of this ‘crown’ varied considerably from tribe to tribe but, according to the Greeks, only the Great King wore the upright (orthe) tiara or kidaris (Hebrew, keter?), although it must be stated that this headdress is never encountered in indigenous Iranian royal iconography (Salvesen 1998: 126-30, figs 2 and 3, suggests otherwise, but she is confusing the tiara with the crenelated crown and diadem - see below). Nevertheless, the Greeks fixated on the royal upright tiara so much that it must have its basis in reality (see further Tuplin 2007c). The tiara was usually worn in conjunction with a diadem - a purple and white cloth band - which was wrapped around its base. When Darius I prayed to Apollo, however, he took off his tiara and wore only the diadem (Polyaenus 7.12), suggesting that the latter had a special symbolic importance of its own; certainly the honour of wearing the diadem was also bestowed on the king’s most high-ranking courtiers, who wore it knotted on the forehead. Interestingly, of all the elements which made up the Persian royal crown, Alexander adopted only the diadem (Arrian, Anabasis 7.22) and it remained the primary symbol of royalty for all Hellenistic rulers.
World History
