bulk of the Bisitun Inscription relates the victories of Darius and his lieutenants over the numerous rebel kings who challenged him in PERSIA (Parsa) itself, Elam, Babylonia, Media, and other points in northern and eastern Iran. Rebels were cast as impelled by the Lie (Old Persian drauga), and most of them claimed descent from prominent figures among their predecessors; for example, two Babylonian rebels claimed to be descended from the famous Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylonia in the early sixth century (Zawadzki 1994; Lorenz 2008). Each of the rebel ARMIES was defeated, and the rebel kings hunted down and impaled. The Akkadian and Aramaic versions of the Bisitun Inscription give casualty figures for many of these battles, but there is no check on the veracity of these NUMBERS, which run from the hundreds to the (potentially) tens of thousands (see Briant 2002, 118–19; Hyland 2014).
SEE ALSO: Cambyses (II); Magi; Medes; Near Eastern History; Rawlinson, Henry and George; Rebellion; Smerdis; Sources for Herodotus
REFERENCES
1 Bae, C. 2001. “Comparative Studies of King Darius’s Bisitun Inscription.” Diss. Harvard University.
2 Briant, Pierre. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
3 Feldman, Marian H. 2007. “Darius I and the Heroes of Akkad: Affect and Agency in the Bisitun Relief.” In Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context. Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by her Students, edited by Jack Cheng and Marian H. Feldman, 265–93. Leiden: Brill.
4 Greenfield, Jonas C., and Besal’el Porten. 1982. The Bisitun Inscription of Darius the Great: Aramaic Version. London: Lund Humphries.
5 Grillot‐Susini, F., C. Herrenschmidt, and F. Malbran‐Labat. 1993. “La version élamite de la trilingue Behistun: une nouvelle lecture.” JA 281: 19–59.
6 Hyland, John O. 2014. “The Casualty Figures in Darius’ Bisitun Inscription.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History 1: 173–99.
7 Kent, Roland G. 1953. Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon. 2nd edition. New Haven: American Oriental Society.
8 Kuhrt, Amélie. 2007. The Persian Empire. A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London and New York: Routledge.
9 Lecoq, Pierre. 1997. Les inscriptions de la Perse achéménide. [Paris]: Gallimard.
10 Lorenz, J. 2008. Nebukadnezar III/IV: Die politischen Wirren nach dem Tod des Kambyses im Spiegel der Keilschrifttexte. Dresden: Islet Verlag.
11 Luschey, H. 1968. “Studien zu dem Darius‐Relief von Bisitun.” AMIran 1: 63–98.
12 Root, Margaret Cool. 1979. The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire. Leiden: Brill.
13 Root, Margaret Cool. 2013. “Defining the Divine in Achaemenid Persian Kingship: The View from Bisitun.” In Every Inch a King: Comparative Studies on Kings and Kingship in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, edited by Lynette G. Mitchell and C. P. Melville, 23–65. Leiden: Brill.
14 Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1991. The Bisitun Inscriptions of Darius the Great: Old Persian Text. London: SOAS.
15 Seidl, Ursula. 1999. “Ein Monument Darius’ I. aus Babylon.” ZA 89: 101–14.
16 Trümpelmann, L. 1967. “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Monumentes Dareios’ I. von Bisutun und zur Datierung der Einführung der altpersischen Schrift.” AA 82: 281–98.
17 Vallat, François. 2013. “The Inscriptions of Darius at Bisitun.” In The Palace of Darius at Susa: The Great Royal Residence of Achaemenid Persia, edited by Jean Perrot, translated by Dominique Collon and Gerard Collon, 479–84. London: I. B. Tauris.
18 Voightlander, Elizabeth von. 1978. The Bisitun Inscription of Darius the Great: Babylonian Version. London: Lund Humphries.
19 Wiesehöfer, Josef. 2001. Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD, translated by Azizeh Azodi. London: I. B. Tauris.
20 Zawadzki, Stefan. 1994. “Bardiya, Darius and Babylonian Usurpers in the Light of the Bisitun Inscription and Babylonian Sources.” AMIran 27: 127–45.
BISTONES (Βίστονες, οἱ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Thracian tribe living east of the NESTUS RIVER in northern Greece (BA 51 D2). XERXES led his Persian invasion force through Bistonian territory in 480 BCE and compelled them to join the army (7.110). The Bistones are not well‐attested historically (Strabo 7 F18a Radt; Ps.‐Scymnus 673–75), though the name is used by Hellenistic (and, later, Roman) poets to refer to THRACE (e.g., Ap. Rhod. 2.704). In Greek MYTH, DIOMEDES was said to have ruled over the Bistones until he was killed by HERACLES (Eur. Alc. 485; Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.8).
SEE ALSO: Bistonis (Lake)
FURTHER READING
1 Vasilev, Miroslav Ivanov. 2015. The Policy of Darius and Xerxes towards Thrace and Macedonia, 172–73. Leiden: Brill.
BISTONIS, LAKE (ἡ Βιστονίς λίμνη)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Lake Bistonis (modern Vistonida), near the ancient city of DICAEA in THRACE, occupying the gap between the AEGEAN coast and the foothills of Mt. RHODOPE (BA 51 E2; Müller I, 44–45). Herodotus mentions Bistonis as XERXES’ invasion army passes by (7.109.1). He describes it as “well‐known” (cf. Arist. Hist. an. 598a24) along with Lake ISMARIS, and notes that the TRAUSOS and COMPSATUS rivers empty into Lake Bistonis.
SEE ALSO: Bistones; Persian Wars
FURTHER READING
1 Tuplin, Christopher J. 2003. “Xerxes’ March from Doriscus to Therme.” Historia 52.4: 385–409.
BITHYNIAN THRACIANS (Θρήικες οἱ βιθυνοί)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Thracian tribe living in northwest Anatolia (BA 52 F4; Müller II, 790–91). Herodotus mentions the Bithynians twice. First, they are among the peoples west of the HALYS RIVER conquered by the Lydian king CROESUS (1.28). Later, in his CATALOGUE of XERXES’ invasion force, Herodotus describes the equipment of the “Thracians of Asia” and says they came to be called Bithynians when they crossed to ASIA from EUROPE, having previously been called Strymonians according to their own account (7.75). Their small shields or peltai were typical of Thracian fighters; the increasing use of Thracians as MERCENARIES in the late fifth century BCE led to the incorporation of peltasts (light‐armed infantry) into many Greek ARMIES. In the classical period the Bithynians were feared by Greek travelers through the region (Xen. An. 6.4.2). During the wars between Alexander’s
