Week 5 - The Vampire

Achaemenid Persia - Week 5
 
Essay :How efficient was the Achaemenid satrapal administration ? 
 
Presentation 1 : Vidranga at Elephantine
Presentation 2 : Akhvamazda in Bactria
 
Introductory :
L.S. Fried, ‘The role of the governor in Persian imperial administration’, in Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten, ed. A.F.Botta (2013), 319-332.
 
The Arshama Archive: 
C. Tuplin and J. Ma, Arsama and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context (2020, 3 vols) - enormously detailed publication; Volume 1 includes a good introduction; the texts and translations; and a full commentary. Vol.3 includes a sequence of excellent essays, particularly those by Amélie Kuhrt on the wider Persian imperial context and John Ma on Arsama the vampire, but also Bresson on tribute, Fried on Aramaic, and Tuplin on Arshama's career.

You will also find a brief description and introduction here; a complete translation here, by David Taylor; and an introduction to the archive here; especially useful are the introduction by J. Ma and the general discussion of Arshama by C. Tuplin. 
 
The Pherendates and Jedeniah Archives: 
A. Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period (2007), 852-9
B. Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English (1996), esp. B13, B15, B17, B19-21; C1, C3, C4.
B. Porten, Archives from Elephantine : The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony (1968)
P. Briant, ‘A strange affair at Elephantine in 410 BC’, in Kings, Countries, Peoples (2017) 207-220.
 
The Akhvamazda Archive: 
Short online introductions can be found here: https://www.aramaicdocuments.com and - more lavishly - here. 
Fully published in a truly beautiful book, best viewed in person: J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Aramaic documents from ancient Bactria (2012).
Select scans from that book are available from the introduction (essential for context), Texts A1-A10 (letters to Bagavant from the satrap Akhvamazda), and Texts C1, C2, and C4 (supplies under Bessus and Alexander).