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In A recent translation of The Histories by the famous Greek Historian Herodotus we find a detailed account concerning Atusa (Atossa) and the Greek Physician Democedes. Herodotus tells us of this story which was not a legend but something that actually occured less than a century before. In a Wikipedia article about Democedes we learn something more about this story. |
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Democedes was a Greek physician and a part of the court of Darius I. He was born in Croton, in southern Italy. His father was Calliphon, a priest as part of Asclepius. His first position as physician seems to be in civil service of Athens and Aegina. Later he entered service under Polycrates. In 522 B.C., Polycrates, his entourage, and Democedes were all captured as Lydians by Oroites and sent to Susa. Darius once sprained his ankle while he was hunting, and his Egyptian doctors could not help his ankle. This may seem a very small injury today, but medicine around those times was very primitive. However, Democedes was able to heal his ankle, and he was thereafter given great esteem. The court regarded his actions highly enough that he was able to eat in the presence of the king. He was the first of many Greek physicians to be within the Persian court. He lived in what the Persians regarded as luxury. Nevertheless, he always wanted to go back to his homeland, Greece. Later on, Darius's wife, Atossa, had a breast ulcer. When Democedes cured her ulcer, as a reward, he was set free and allowed to visit Greece. He went to Greece as passenger on one ship of a reconnaissance mission for a later military campaign. Three Phoenician ships were sent with fifteen Persian nobles. Through the latter half of the mission, the fleet stopped in Tarentum, where Democedes made his escape with help from the Tarentian king. After his escape he went back to Croton. He was guarded from the Persians, and later married a daughter of Milon. |
| Thus we have here the gist of the story, and can now proceed to the actual text of Herodotus. Here we discover some interesting clues as to the nature of the relationship between Darius and his wife. If in fact Atossa did address Darius in this way it suggests that she did indeed instruct him as to what should be done and why. We know from historical facts that he actualy did as she suggested, and sent Democedes on the reconnaissance mission. |
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Herodotus, The Histories 3.130.3 But when Darius turned the case over to him and Democedes applied Greek remedies and used gentleness instead of the Egyptians' violence, he enabled him to sleep and in a short time had him well, although Darius had had no hope of regaining the use of his foot. 3.130.4 After this, Darius rewarded him with a gift of two pairs of golden fetters. "Is it your purpose," Democedes asked, "to double my pains for making you well?" Pleased by the retort, Darius sent him to his own wives. The eunuchs who conducted him told the women that this was the man who had given the king his life back. 3.130.5 Each of them took a bowl and dipped it in a chest full of gold, so richly rewarding Democedes that the servant accompanying him, whose name was Sciton, collected a very great sum of gold by picking up the staters that fell from the bowls. 3.131.1 Now this is how Democedes had come from Croton to live with Polycrates: he was oppressed by a harsh-tempered father at Croton; since he could not stand him, he left him and went to Aegina. Within the first year after settling there, he excelled the rest of the physicians, although he had no equipment nor any medical implements. 3.131.2 In his second year the Aeginetans [Note] paid him a talent to be their public physician; in the third year the Athenians hired him for a hundred minae, and Polycrates in the fourth year for two talents. Thus he came to Samos, and not least because of this man the physicians of Croton were well-respected 3.131.3 for at this time the best physicians in Greek countries were those of Croton, and next to them those of Cyrene. About the same time the Argives had the name of being the best musicians]. 3.132.1 So now because he had healed Darius at Susa Democedes had a very grand house and ate at the king's table; he had everything, except permission to return to the Greeks. When the Egyptian physicians who until now had attended the king were about to be impaled for being less skilful than a Greek, Democedes interceded with the king for them and saved them; and he saved an Elean seer, too, who had been a retainer of Polycrates' and was forgotten among the slaves. Democedes was a man of considerable influence with the King. |
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3.133.1 A short time after this, something else occurred; there was a swelling on the breast of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus and wife of Darius, which broke and spread further. As long as it was small, she hid it out of shame and told no one; but when it got bad, she sent for Democedes and showed it to him. 3.133.2 He said he would cure her, but made her swear that she would repay him by granting whatever he asked of her, and said that he would ask nothing shameful. 3.134.1 And after he treated her and did cure her, Atossa addressed Darius in their chamber as she had been instructed by Democedes: "O King, although you have so much power you are idle, acquiring no additional people or power for the Persians. 3.134.2 The right thing for a man who is both young and the master of great wealth is to be seen aggrandizing himself, so that the Persians know too that they are ruled by a man. On two counts it is in your interest to do this, both so that the Persians know that their leader is a man, and so that they be occupied by war and not have time to plot against you. 3.134.3 You should show some industry now, while you are still young: for sense grows with the growing body, but grows old too with the aging body and loses its edge for all purposes." 3.134.4 She said this as instructed, but he replied with this: "Woman, what you have said is exactly what I had in mind to do. For I have planned to make a bridge from this continent to the other continent and lead an army against the Scythians; and this will be done in a short time." 3.134.5 "Look," Atossa said, "let the Scythians go for the present; you shall have them whenever you like; I tell you, march against Hellas. I have heard of Laconian and Argive and Attic and Corinthian women, and would like to have them as servants. You have a man who is fitter than any other to instruct and guide you in everything concerning Hellas: I mean the physician who healed your foot." 3.134.6 Darius answered, "Woman, since you think that we should make an attempt on Greece first, it seems to me to be best that we first send Persian spies with the man whom you mention, who shall tell us everything that they learn and observe; and then when I am fully informed I shall rouse myself against them." 3.135.1 He said this, and no sooner said than did it. For the next day at dawn he summoned fifteen prominent Persians, and instructed them to go with Democedes and sail along the coast of Hellas; telling them, too, by all means to bring the physician back and not let him escape. |
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3.135.2 Having given these instructions to them, he then sent for Democedes, and asked of him that when he had shown and made clear all of Greece to the Persians, he would come back; and he told him to take all his movable goods to give to his father and siblings, saying that he would give him many times as much in return and would send with him a ship with a cargo of all good things. 3.135.3 Darius, I think, made this promise without a treacherous intent, but Democedes was afraid that Darius was testing him; therefore he was in no hurry to accept all that was offered, but answered that he would leave his own possessions where they were, so as to have them when he returned; the ship which Darius promised him to carry the gifts for his siblings, he said he would accept. Having given the same instructions to Democedes too, Darius sent them all to the coast. 3.136.1 They came down to the city of Sidon in Phoenicia, and there chartered two triremes, as well as a great galley laden with all good things; and when everything was ready they set sail for Hellas, where they surveyed and mapped the coasts to which they came; until having viewed the greater and most famous parts they reached Tarentum in Italy. 3.136.2 There Aristophilides, king of the Tarentines, out of sympathy for Democedes, took the steering gear off the Median ships and put the Persians under a guard, calling them spies. While they were in this plight, Democedes made his way to Croton; and Aristophilides did not set the Persians free and give them back what he had taken from their ships until the physician was in his own country. 3.137.1 The Persians sailed from Tarentum and pursued Democedes to Croton, where they found him in the marketplace and tried to seize him. Some Crotoniats, who feared the Persian power, would have given him up; but others resisted and beat the Persians with their sticks. "Men of Croton, watch what you do," said the Persians; "you are harboring an escaped slave of the King's. 3.137.3 How do you think King Darius will like this insolence? What good will it do you if he gets away from us? What city will we attack first here? Which will we try to enslave first?" |
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I have included in this story the last few lines of the text, which suggests to me how things might have been in those days of great power and great persuasion. We can imagine that not many would even think of rubbing the King of Kings the wrong way. Darius I, may have been the Absolute Ruler of the World but when he died the Queen, Atusa was in a key position to Rule the world herself with her son Xerxes. We know that Xerxes became the next King of Kings and continued the work that Darius I, had started. In a Wikipedia article on Xerxes we discover some interesting facts concerning the role and power of Atusa. (Atossa) |
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Immediately after seizing the kingship, Darius I of Persia (son of Hystaspes) married Atossa (daughter of Cyrus the Great). They were both descendants of Achaemenes from different Achaemenid lines. Marrying a daughter of Cyrus strengthened Darius's position as king.[2] Darius was an active emperor, busy with building programs in Persepolis, Susa, Egypt, and elsewhere. Toward the end of his reign he moved to punish Athens, but a new revolt in Egypt (probably led by the Persian satrap) had to be suppressed. Under Persian law, the Achaemenian kings were required to choose a successor before setting out on such serious expeditions. Upon his great decision to leave (487?486 BC),[3] Darius prepared his tomb at Naqsh-e Rostam and appointed Xerxes, his eldest son by Atossa, as his successor. Darius's failing health then prevented him from leading the campaigns,[4] and he died in October 486 BC.[4]
Artabazanes claimed the crown as the eldest of all the children, because it was an established custom all over the world for the eldest to have the pre-eminence; while Xerxes, on the other hand, urged that he was sprung from Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, and that it was Cyrus who had won the Persians their freedom. Some modern scholars also view the unusual decision of Darius to give the throne to Xerxes to be a result of his consideration of the unique positions that Cyrus the Great and his daughter Atossa have had.[5] Artobazan was born to "Darius the subject", while Xerxes was the eldest son born in the purple after Darius's rise to the throne, and Artobazan's mother was a commoner while Xerxes's mother was the daughter of the founder of the empire.[6]
Xerxes was crowned and succeeded his father in October?December 486 BC[7] when he was about 36 years old.[3] The transition of power to Xerxes was smooth due again in part to the great authority of Atossa[2] and his accession of royal power was not challenged by any person at court or in the Achaemenian family, or any subject nation.[8]
Almost immediately, he suppressed the revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before, and appointed his brother Achaemenes as governor or satrap (Old Persian: khshathrapavan) over Egypt. In 484 BC, he outraged the Babylonians by violently confiscating and melting down[9] the golden statue of Bel (Marduk, Merodach), the hands of which the rightful king of Babylon had to clasp each New Year's Day. This sacrilege led the Babylonians to rebel in 484 BC and 482 BC, so that in contemporary Babylonian documents, Xerxes refused his father's title of King of Babylon, being named rather as King of Persia and Media, Great King, King of Kings (Shahanshah) and King of Nations (i.e. of the world). (2) Schmitt, R., Atossa in Encyclopaedia Iranica. (3) Dandamaev, M. A., A political history of the Achaemenid empire, p. 180. (4) A. Sh. Shahbazi, Darius I the Great, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (5) R. Shabani Chapter I, p. 15 (6) Olmstead: the history of Persian empire (7) The cambridge history of Iran vol. 2. p. 509. (8)The Cambridge ancient history vol. V, p. 72. (9) R. Ghirshman, Iran, p.191 |
| In the references listed above we find at last an authorartive article about Atossa in the Encyclopedia Iranica by R. Schmitt. |
| Because of her lineage and by her intelligence, Atossa exercised great influence on her husband and at court generally. Ca. 487, in a harem struggle, she won Darius' support for the succession of Xerxes. Xerxes was the first son born to Darius after his seizure of the kingship, but not the eldest of all. Darius had three sons by his first wife, the daughter of Gobryas (Herodotus 7.2.2). Xerxes' appointment as commander-in-chief of the Persian army was made to strengthen his position as prospective successor (Herodotus 7.2.1-3.4; Plutarch, De fraterno amore 18). The smooth transition to Xerxes' rule after Darius' death must have been due in part to Atossa's great authority. During her son's reign she held the high status of queen-mother. |
