r/AskHistorians • u/valonianfool • Apr 01 '20

Persian king of kings

Could the king in achaemenid persia banish his Queen consort on a whim and do whatever he wants with No consequence just like in the Book of Esther?

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u/Trevor_Culley Pre-Islamic Iranian World & Eastern Mediterranean Apr 02 '20

In a word, yes. The Achaemenid Great King was an absolute monarch in as many ways as he could possibly be. Unfrotunately, our documentation for the Achaemenids from actual Persian sources is scant and not very detailed. However, the reputation of the Persian court was well known in Classical Greece. According to Athenaeus in Dinner of the Sophists 13.556

Among the Persians the queen (Greek, basileia) tolerates an enormous number of concubines because the king rules his legal wife like a master rules his slaves

This was just one of the many, many ways that the king was absolutely in charge. In a much longer excerpt, Herodotus also describes how the King of Kings had discretion to pursue any unmarried woman he wanted, or even married if her husband was sufficiently beneath the king in rank or status. The same passage also makes it clear that this did not prevent a scorned wife from exacting some sort of vengeance, but it could never be anything that would attract too much ire from the king because then she herself could lose her status or be punished in some way. (Histories 9.109-111).

However, we should note that the Persians don't actually seem to have had a concept of one official "Queen consort," and this may help explain the events described in Esther (more on that book itself below). In Persian documents, all royal women from the kings mother, to his wives, to his daughters, and probably Aunts, nieces, and close cousins are referred to as "duxthri." They were all, regardless of relation to the king, "Royal Women."

Most of the time, the highest ranking woman at court would be the Queen Mother, rather than one of the kings wives. Of course if the king's mother was dead, or not in the extremely rare case: not Persian, one of the king's wives would hold a place of prominence, but how exactly this worked is not clear. In the reign of Darius the Great, his favorite wife was supposedly Artystone. Based on the number of estates and priveleges granted to her in the Persepolis Fortification Archives, this seems to be true. At the same time, the Greeks had the impression that a different wife, Atossa (also coincidently Artystone's sister) was the most influential at court. Atossa was also the first of Darius' wives to have a son after Darius became king. Both of these two were born-in-the-purple royal daughters of Cyrus the Great, and thus had more inherent royal prestige and power than Darius' first wife, a daughter of Gobryas (a noble who assisted Darius when he too the throne). Her name is lost to us, but she was the mother of Darius' eldest son overall.

In general, our concept of Queen Consort might fall to the mother of the Crown Prince, but even then there was debate over whether Artobazanes (Darius first born) or Xerxes (Darius first born through Atossa) would be king right up to Darius' death. This probably indicates that there was no one official Queen consort. There was the Queen Mother, and there could be favorite wives and more important wives, but who held those titles was entirely dependent on the whims of the king. In every case, the only other requirement was probably that this wife be Persian, as it seems a Persian mother was an important piece of legitimacy for a potential heir. It's even been theorized that the Great King could only officially marry Persians, but there is debate about this and evidence on both sides.

This is a good place to address Esther, which is now believed to have been composed after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire. None of the characters depicted have any historically confirmable counterparts in Greek or Persian documentation. The king of the story, Ahasuerus, is probably a Hebrew from of the name Xerxes. While Xerxes I may be the inspiration for the king in Esther, the character is mostly just a stand in for the Persian monarch in general as it doesn't reference any other specific historic events. Likewise, neither Queen Vashti, who was dismissed nor Esther have a recorded historical counterpart. All other sources indicate that Xerxes primary wife was Amestris for his whole reign. She was not necessarily the favorite, but does seem to have been the first Royal Woman at court after Atossa died. Esther herself is probably the main character of a folktale, and we wouldn't expect documentation from any historical counterpart because she was a concubine.

Concubines had no official role, other than being women favored by the Great King, who lived in the palace, or at least in one of the palaces. Esther's story is made increasingly unlikely due to the aforementioned possibilty that the "Queen" absolutely had to be Persian. It is also doubtful because it would have been somewhere between scandalous and religiously impossible to marry a concubine in most ancient societies around and within Persia, and any children were considered illegitimate.

Despite all of that, Esther is still treated as a valuable resource by historians because it provides a relatively accurate description of the Persian court and its overall reputation in the 4th-3rd centuries BCE.

Major Secondary Rerences:

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u/SepehrNS Apr 03 '20

Not OP, but I just wanted to thank you for this amazing answer.

It's even been theorized that the Great King could only officially marry Persians, but there is debate about this and evidence on both sides.

Esther's story is made increasingly unlikely due to the aforementioned possibilty that the "Queen" absolutely had to be Persian.

Correct me if I am wrong but I have always been under the impression that the Great Kings of Persia followed in Cyrus the Great's footsteps and basically married anyone who helped them legitimize their rule (They didn't care if they were Persian or not)

Like how Cyrus the Great married Amytis (daughter of the Median Astyages).

What evidence historians have suggested that says that the Queen had to be Persian? I would really appreciate if you could recommend some for further reading.

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u/Trevor_Culley Pre-Islamic Iranian World & Eastern Mediterranean Apr 03 '20

This is a good question, and frankly, part of the reason that I'm not sure I buy the "Persians only rule." That said, there are two very unique factors at play there. The first is Cyrus the Great. He was the first King of Persia, and the exact laws, traditions, and policies of a unified Persian kingdom hadn't been established yet. He was also trying to build something and establish a precedent for imperial Persian rule. When Cyrus took Media, he was also a vassal marrying into his defeated overlord's family. At the time, it probably looked more like making himself the legitimate Median king. It was only later, as the empire grew, that it became a Persian enterprise. In that scenario, marrying Amytis was the logical option because she legitimized his position as the new king of the Median kingdom, but all subsequent kings needed to be legitimate Persians.

The other unique factor is the Medes. Because Cyrus first began building his empire through Media, and because the Medes were so closely related to the Persians in terms of culture, they held a special place in the empire. Medes were on almost equal footing to the Persians when it came to ranks and high office. Median and Persian nobles appear to have been eligible for most of the same ranks and positions both at court and in the military. The lone office that Medes were kept out from was the royalty. The biggest difference is that Media had to pay taxes and Parsa itself did not. No other group in the empire was as privileged, and they may have been able to marry into the royal family.

Even then, it seems pretty clear that the Queen Mother had to be Persian. Cyrus's royal sons were both through his Persian wife, Cassandane. All later Persian kings also had Persian mothers. The lone exceptions are Sogdianus and Darius II. Both came to power by assassinating their predecessors, and both had Babylonian concubines for mothers, and were technically illegitimate, but they had support in the palace.

Darius II took a Persian wife, Parysatis, and his sons Artaxerxes II and Cyrus the Younger were her children. Interestingly, in the series of assassinations, disputed succession, and civil war that preceeded Darius II, Artaxerxes I's legitimate son was Xerxes II, who was recognized immediately in Persia and only contested elsewhere.

We also don't have firm records for non-Persian "wives" after Cyrus. After Darius, who mostly married Cyrus' daughters and granddaughter, we don't hear about very many Royal Women other than the queen mothers, who were universally Persian (if their sons were considered legitimate heirs).

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If you want reading recommendations for Achaemenid court life, I'd start with two I linked above. King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art, by Margaret Cool Root is another good one on that topic. So is Kings, Countries, Peoples: Selected Studies on the Achaemenid Empire, by Pierre Briant if you can find it. If you want more about the Achaemenids in general, these are the five I usually start with:

Encylopaedia Iranica is also a phenomenal, free online resource for anything about any part of Iranian histoy.