Arghandehpour, Mohammad Matin;
(2024)
Persian Use of Religion and Religious Culture in the Greco-Persian Wars.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis assesses how the Persians used religion in their war-effort during the Greco-Persian Wars. This assessment has been conducted through the study of multiple relevant cases from primary sources. To complement the evidence concerning wars against Greece, the Persian invasions of Babylon under Kyros and of Egypt under Kambyses has also been considered. The Greco-Persian Wars is a widely researched field, but approaches adopting a Persian perspective are scarce. This holds even greater weight since the majority of the primary sources for the subject matter are non-Achaemenid, and so the Persian viewpoint is often lost. This thesis focusses on the Persian side of the cultural discourse between the Greek states and the Achaemenid Empire in a military setting. A focussed study of this topic has been conducted for Kyros’ invasion of Babylon by Kuhrt (1987), but not for the wars against Greece. The closest are studies by Tozzi (1977) and Rung (2016) which were limited to Persian temple destruction in Greece and Asia Minor. The larger scope of this thesis captures the temple destruction alongside other acts of war, adding detail, context, and explanation to the previous works. It was found that Persian uses of religion consisted of ‘internal’ use, and ‘external’ use. ‘Internal’ use of religion in warfare aimed to legitimise war and conquest. ‘External’ use of religion aimed to find support and legitimacy in foreign, non-Persian cultures. As part of the internal uses, the Great Kings would partake in local rituals and festivals, attempting to legitimise an image of themselves as a local ruler, appointed by the local divinities. This was a constant appearance among conquests where the Persian king assumed his victory. In contrast, cases of external use showed antagonising manoeuvres, where the Persian king attempted to use local religious institutions to delegitimise current authoritative bodies and put a wedge between the state’s government and the religious institutions.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Persian Use of Religion and Religious Culture in the Greco-Persian Wars |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Greek and Latin |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10189828 |
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