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A Persian Influence on the Greeks?

A Persian Influence on the Greeks?

By Warren Huard

Hirundo: the McGill Journal of Classical Studies, Vol.7 (2008-9)

The Hyrcanian Golden cup. Photo: Wikipedia

Introduction: In the latter half of the sixth century B.C. parts of the Greek world came under the control of Achaemenid Persia through its conquests, such as the Greek cities of Asia Minor in 545. As David Frank Graf has noted, this marked the beginning of political relations between the Persian and Greek civilisations. More generally, Cyrus’ conquests also marked the beginning of contacts between the cultures of Greece and Persia. Walter Burkert has related that one result of this meeting of cultures was Greek influence upon the Persians’ culture. Indeed, this would not be that striking if there is any truth whatsoever in Herodotus’ account of the receptiveness of the Persians to foreign cultures. However, given the dominant position of Persia at the outset of their relations with the Greeks, one should also expect there to have been Persian cultural influence upon the Greeks. Such expectations do not seem to be misplaced, for within the sphere of religion there was indeed Persian influence on the Greeks.

Besides a few instances of both definite and possible Persian influence on matters within the domain of what might usually be considered Greek religiosity, the most interesting cases of the probable influence of Achaemenid religion involve its relation to Presocratic philosophy. Although Presocratic philosophy may not be considered a field within the domain of ancient Greek religion by all, it may nonetheless be useful if not essential to study certain Presocratics in terms of their relation to Greek religion. For instance, Peter Kingsley has asserted that Presocratics such as Pythagoras and Empedocles are best understood when not approached simply as ‘philosophers;’ he suggests that mysticism, magic, mythology, and other such domains associated more with religion than philosophy must nonetheless be considered in the study of Presocratic philosophy for it to be successful. This point will not be argued here. For the sake of this study, Presocratic philosophy will be considered to be within the domain of Greek religion.



Ab initio, the study of the influence of Achaemenid religion upon anything whatsoever presents certain difficulties. This is due to the fact that there has been considerable scholarly controversy over the matter of what Achaemenid religion was. For instance, much debate concerns the question of whether the Achaemenids, particularly the early Achaemenids up to and including Xerxes, were Zoroastrians. Knowing that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians would not only allow one to define Achaemenid religion as ‘Zoroastrian’ but also allow one to understand their religious practices within a Zoroastrian framework. This in turn raises basic questions about Zoroastrianism itself, such as the role of Ahura Mazda in Zoroaster’s system compared to his role in pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion, the role of the Magi in Zoroastrianism and the Achaemenid court, the possibility of the existence of an ‘orthodox’ variety of Zoroastrianism from which the Achaemenids might deviate, and the use of later texts to study the Zoroastrian beliefs and practices of earlier times. Such questions are relevant to this discusion because it is essential to define Zoroastrianism in order to understand whether Achaemenid religion was Zoroastrian, and to understand the implications of Achaemenid religion being Zoroastrian. Specifically, if Achaemenid religion was Zoroastrian, this would mean that the question of Achaemenid religious influence on Presocratic philosophy is the question of Zoroastrian religious influence on Presocratic philosophy; knowing this would clarify what kind of influences might be expected and explain what kinds of influences might be manifest.

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