Like kings in other ancient Near Eastern societies, the Achaemenid monarchs relied upon formalised etiquette and court ceremony to create a special aura around the throne (see above and Brosius 2010a, 2010b). The separation and distancing of the king from the gaze of his subjects, even from the majority of his court, meant that elaborate rituals were enacted through which courtiers and visitors might get limited access to the royal personage during a tightly controlled audience ceremony, where matters of security and etiquette were paramount (Esther 1:14 highlights the notion of having ‘privileged access to the royal presence’). To enjoy the benefits of a royal audience courtiers and visitors had to undergo (we must assume) tight security checks and had to be conversant with palace protocol to ensure that they behaved with dignified decorum and observed preordained rules in the presence of the monarch.
We might think of the Great King, costumed in his finery, as an actor in a great royal drama and his courtiers as both players and spectators. Thinking about the court in terms of theatre is, of course, not new. Historians and others writing about the Hellenistic court or the court of Versailles (or many other early modern courts) have found the metaphor of theatre irresistible (Burke 1994; Strootman 2007: 10). The metaphor is perfectly apropos. No less a person than Elizabeth I of England once declared that ‘We princes. . . are set on stages, in the sight of the world duly observed’ (Neale 1958: vol. II, p. 119), implying that monarchs could regard themselves as performers in the drama of court life. The social theorist Erving Goffman has argued that the word ‘performance’ refers to ‘all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers’ (Goffman 1956a: 22). Events at court, like investiture ceremonies, royal audiences, and imperial parade reviews, were clearly focused on a more limited kind of ‘performance’, since they were set apart from everyday life by being ‘scripted’ or turned into ceremony. But nevertheless, Goffman’s exploration of the notion of ‘ceremonial’ and its relation to deference, demeanour, and etiquette suggested that ‘the self is in part a ceremonial thing, a sacred object which must be treated with proper ritual care and in turn must be presented in a proper light to others’ (Goffman 1956b: 497). While here Goffman is writing about everyday behaviour patterns in the twentieth century, his observation, if anything, is even more pertinent to an earlier society which was more rigidly and hierarchically ordered, such as the Achaemenid court. Indeed, the ceremonies of the Persian court arose precisely out of a heightened concern for establishing and reconfirming the place of each individual within a structure of both bonds and boundaries.
In addition, the close association between etiquette and ceremony must not be dismissed lightly as a mere frippery of a privileged aristocratic lifestyle, for, as Elias was keen to demonstrate in his work on Versailles:
Etiquette had a major symbolic function in the structure of. . . [court] society and its form of government. . . . [Etiquette] served as an indicator of the position of an individual within the balance of power between the courtiers, a balance controlled by the king and very precarious. . . . What gave [etiquette and ceremony] their gravity was solely the importance they conferred on those present within court society, the power, rank and dignity they expressed. (Elias 1983: 94)
Moreover,
Each individual was hypersensitive to the slightest change in the mechanism [of etiquette and ceremony], standing watch over the existing order, and attentive to its finest nuances. . . . In this way, therefore, the mechanism of the court revolved in perpetual motion, fed by the need for prestige and by tensions which, once in place, endlessly renewed the competitive process. (Elias 1983: 97)
In other words, ‘doing the right thing’ was expected at court. The laws of protocol, the knowledge of employing the correct formulae (spoken and non-verbal) for greeting, showing respect or deference, and the arts of obsequiousness had to be mastered by courtiers who were eager to maintain court positions or to climb the ladder of success. Conversely, failure to ‘do the right thing’ could be used as a weapon to bring about the fall of an enemy at court and courtiers (at Versailles as much as in Persia) carefully observed the actions and speech of others to measure their knowledge of the correct courtly behaviour.
An extreme example of a courtier who did not ‘do the right thing’ is that of Intaphrenes, a historically verifiable figure who in the Bisitun inscription was entrusted with putting down the Babylonian revolt in the autumn of 521 bce. Herodotus tells his story (although there are novelistic folk motifs within it which are shared by many cultures) and his narrative pivots around Intaphrenes’ misreading of his courtly privilege (B18). Insisting that he, like the other killers of the Magus, should have unlimited access to the monarch, Intaphrenes doubts the protestations of the king’s security personnel (who tell him that the king is in bed with a woman), attacks them and, as a result, is thought by the king to be behaving treacherously. He is imprisoned and then executed. Intaphrenes plays fast and loose with the rules of correct court procedure and he dies for it.
The Intaphrenes story also highlights the careful demarcation of space inherent in Achaemenid royal architecture, ideology, and ceremonial (Herodotus appears to have a secure grasp of this). The inner court/outer court polarity is central to the tale, in that while Intaphrenes violates the boundaries of space and self-control, his (unnamed) wife understands all too well the rules of space and the efficacy of playing by the rules. Her persistent appearance at the king’s gate solicits the king’s curiosity and ultimately his benevolence, a situation which occurs elsewhere in the literary tradition (Esther 4:1-5; Herodotus 3.140).
The king’s gate, a genuine Near Eastern expression (Akkadian, bab sarri; Hebrew, s‘r ‘hmlk), actually refers to an imposing building always a short distance from the main palace. The term nonetheless became a synonym for the palace and court as a whole; ‘those of the gate’ was likewise a kind of court title (see Esther 2:21,3:2), just as in the Ottoman world the term ‘the sublime porte’ referred to both the physical palace gateway and to the court itself. At Persepolis, Xerxes’ ‘Gate of All Nations’, with its huge apotropaic bull figures (F15), served its purpose as the magical portal between the brutal outside world and the rarefied universe of royalty (B19), while at Susa the gateway was flanked (as we have seen) with over-life-sized statues of Darius I, which perhaps served a similar magico-religious function as the Persepolis bull figures. The gate was the place where all suppliants and petitioners waited for an appointment with the monarch; they were questioned by security here and only after satisfying the guards were they admitted into the courtyard beyond. Here messengers (including eunuchs) conveyed missives back and forth between the courtyard and the audience hall. Briant (2002: 261) notes that in the Parthian period every visitor to court ‘had to give his name, homeland, profession, and reason for visiting, and all this information was written in a register along with a description of the person and his clothing’; this security and administrative policy probably already existed at the Achaemenid court.
Narrative accounts of audiences with the Great King form a significant corpus in Greek and Biblical writings on the Persian court (B20, B21); the same is true of satrapal audience scenes (see Xenophon, Hellenica 1.5.1-3; Plutarch, Lysander 6), but nothing remotely comparable exists in the Achaemenid literary tradition. Instead we must turn to a rich stratum of iconography for information on the intricacies of the ceremony. Representations of the royal audience come in the form of numerous seal and gemstone images, a small painted image on a sarcophagus, and from the sculptured monumental doorjambs at Persepolis (for excellent overviews see Allen 2005b; Kaptan 2002: 31-41), although the finest surviving examples come in the form of two big stone reliefs once located at the two staircases to the Persepolis Apadana but later moved to the treasury (Tilia 1972, 1978; Abdi 2010). In the reliefs, the Great King is shown in audience in a ‘frozen moment’ (F3); he wears a court robe and crown and holds a lotus blossom and a sceptre (which he might stretch out to grant favours; Esther 4:11, 5:2, 8:4); in order to ‘accentuate the immutable character of kingship’ (Briant 2002: 221) he is accompanied by the crown prince, who is depicted wearing the same garb as the king, and who is also given the prerogative of holding a lotus. Also in attendance are high-ranking members of the court and the military (for a discussion of the identity of these individuals see Abdi 2010: 277-8; for a good description see also Kuhrt 2007: 536). Two incense-burners help to demarcate the royal space and accentuate its sacredness, as do the dais upon which the throne is placed (Brettler 1989: 85-6) and the baldachin which covers the scene. The relief image closely echoes a Greek description: ‘The throne. . . was gold, and round it stood four short golden posts studded with jewels; these supported a woven canopy of purple’ (Deinon F1 = Athenaeus 12.514c). The theatrical paraphernalia of the throne room and the awesome setting of the Apadana (F16) were intended to instil fear and wonder in suppliants; further, the figure of the king himself, the protagonist of the courtly drama, must have been an impressive, almost overwhelming, sight. The anonymous author of the Greek version of the book of Esther brilliantly captures the scene of the terrified queen approaching the enthroned king, who is described as looking ‘like a bull in the height of anger’ (B22).
The royal throne was an icon of kingship and in the Near East both monarchs and gods were frequently portrayed enthroned (Salvesen 1998: 132; Brettler 1989: 81-5). Unsurprisingly, the expression ‘sit upon the throne’, indicating the practice of kingship, is found widely in Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Hebrew texts, and the close association between the throne and the ruler was widespread in ancient societies (for an excellent overview of thrones in world civilisations see Charles-Gaffiot 2011). The Achaemenid throne was high-backed and rested upon leonine feet (F3); Near Eastern thrones frequently employed lion or sphinx imagery (see 1 Kings 10:18-20). A rare example of sections of an actual Achaemenid-period throne (probably from a satrapal palace) was discovered near Samaria in Israel (Kuhrt 2007: 617). The unmistakable message sent by this ornate piece of furniture was obvious: the one who sat on the throne had absolute authority. It was the symbolism of the throne, not necessarily the physical artefact itself, that shifted from one king to another and the image of the throne was therefore used in the ancient Near East to describe the transfer of rule: ‘as Yahweh was with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon to make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord, king David’ (1 Kings 1:37). When a king ruled with integrity and justice and courted the good-will of the gods then he had no fear of being deposed from his occupancy of the throne: ‘If a king judges the poor with fairness, his throne will always be secure’ (Proverbs 29:14).
The Achaemenid Great King had a footstool as well as a throne and this too was an important emblem of his kingship. Like the throne, it was loaded with ritual and symbolism. Shalmaneser III of Assyria was thus addressed as ‘Valiant man who with the support of Ashur his lord has put all lands under his feet as a footstool’ (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods 3.2.102-3; see further Psalm 110:1). At the Achaemenid court there was even an office associated with the footstool (B23) and its bearer is depicted on the north and east wings of the Apadana. Curtius Rufus’ comical vignette of Alexander misappropriating a low table as a footstool (B24) only reconfirms the centrality of this seemingly inconspicuous piece of furniture in royal display and ideology. After all, it was a given that the Great King’s feet should never touch the ground and must be protected by soft carpets (B25).
At the centre of the Treasury relief (F3) a courtier dressed in the riding habit - possibly the chiliarch - performs a ritual gesture of obeisance to the monarch. It was one of the principal roles of the chil-iarch to present individuals or delegations to the king (Nepos, Conon 3.2-3; Plutarch, Themistocles 27.2-7), so his presence in the scene makes sense. He stoops forward and raises his hand to his mouth and makes a gesture that is similar the sala’am, or formal greeting, used in later Muslim courts. Any society that requires such codes of respectful behaviour towards categories of high-ranking individuals is likely to have autocratic political organisation, characterised by the coercive power of a king. In the ancient Near East the pattern of cosmic kingship was so deeply entrenched in the governmental systems that its codified apparatus of power manifested itself in multiple displays of non-verbal communication, and particularly in the act of showing reverence to the monarch (or his representative). Much has been written on the nature of non-verbal communication in ancient Near Eastern civilisations (see especially Gruber 1980, who provides a full bibliography), although a particular debate centres on the Greek understanding of Persian nonverbal customs and Persian displays of affection, friendliness, loyalty, and, most importantly, reverence. Unspontaneous, semi-ritualised gestures were a hallmark of Persian social communication, at least according to Herodotus (1.134), who describes in some detail a series of greeting gestures used in daily life. These same gestures were, it would seem, ritualised at the Persian court. Common rules of respectful deference are often multiplied and formalised where a strict protocol of codified gesture is required, and the Persians seem to have transformed the gestures of la vie quotidienne into a rarefied form of court etiquette.
Known to the Greeks as proskynesis, the exact nature of the ceremonial obeisance to a Persian monarch is debated (Frye 1972; Fredricksmeyer 2000). Etymologically, proskynesis incorporates the idea of a kiss (Greek, pros ‘towards’; kyneo ‘to kiss’), but when Herodotus says that one should perform proskynesis to a superior while prostrating oneself or bowing down, the term must describe an act performed once one is bowed or prostrate, which is, as on the Treasury relief, kissing from the hands. Importantly, for the Greeks the gesture was a religious act and suitable for performance only before a god, so that for a Greek to do it before a man undermined the very concept of eleutheria, or ‘freedom’ (Xenophon, Hellenica 4.1.35). Classical authors note that performing proskynesis before the Great King was a non-negotiable rule for an audience (Frye 1972; Fredricksmeyer 2000) and this is clearly what the chiliarch Artabanus intended to convey to Themistocles when he briefed the Greek about the ceremony (B26). Likewise, the chiliarch Tithraustes advised Conon that any man who appeared before the Great King must render to him ‘a rite of adoration (Latin, venerai)’, a term specifically defined by Nepos as proskynesis (Conon 3.3; see also Aelian, Historical Miscellany 1.21). The misunderstanding of the Persian act of proskynesis as a veneration of divine monarchy (a claim never made by the Achaemenid kings themselves, nor understood that way by the Persians) accounts for several Greek tales which take the distaste for this act of social submission as their theme. Herodotus (7.136) tells how the Spartans Bulis and Sperchis refused to prostrate themselves before Xerxes in a royal audience at Susa, even though the royal guards thrust their heads to the ground; and Aelian (Historical Miscellany 1.29) describes the Theban Ismenias as ‘ingenious and typically Hellenic’ in his ruse to dodge paying the required homage to the Great King (compare Plutarch, Artaxerxes 22.8). Notoriously, it was with this background of misunderstanding that, in the summer of 327 bce, Alexander provoked unrest among his Macedonian followers when he introduced proskynesis to his court and army (Taylor 1927).
In a Near Eastern context, the Persian practice of bowing and kissing as a sign of submission and respect looks very much at home. Kowtowing, prostration, kissing the ground, or even kissing the hem of a garment or the feet of the monarch were familiar gestures in Assyrian court protocol, and some Near Eastern texts record an elaborate and flowery language of bodily self-debasement utilised to render homage to the monarch (B27), while other sources suggest that the relative status of monarch and subjects was carefully negotiated through different gestures of respect (2 Samuel 14:33; 1 Kings 1:15, 31).
World History
