previous next


τὴν ἀδελφεήν. Cyrus and Cassandane (ii. 1) had three daughters, Atossa (v. i.), this nameless one, the ‘Roxana’ of Ctesias (c. 12, p. 67), and Artystone, the favourite wife of Darius (iii. 88; vii. 69).


Incestuous marriage is praised in the Avesta, and was freely practised under the Sassanians; instances occur in other Persian kings, e.g. Artaxerxes II married two of his own daughters (Plut. Artax. c. 23). This ‘Persarum impia religio’ (Catullus, xc. 4), however, was mainly the practice of the Magi.

For the royal judges cf. 14. 5 n.


The immutability of Persian law (cf. Dan. vi) has passed into a proverb.


ἄλλην: Atossa, who was successively the wife of Cambyses, of the pretender Smerdis, and of Darius (cc. 68, 88). For her influence cf. vii. 2; her name has become proverbial for a reigning Sultana (cf. Pope, Moral Essays, ii. 115 seq.); her sons were Xerxes, Masistes (vii. 82), Achaemenes (vii. 97), Hystaspes (vii. 64).

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: