Nabu Achemenet novembre 2009

Nabu 2007-51 D.T. Potts

51) Once more on the general who is above the four generals and his congeners
Anyone who has trawled through the astronomical diaries (Sachs and Hunger 1989, 1996)
in an attempt to glean data pertaining to Babylonian history in the Seleucid and Parthian
periods will be familiar with the title
l
GAL ERN
me
ana UGU 4
l
GAL ERN
me
, the general
who is above the four generals. Considering how unusual this title is, it is surprising that
so little has been written about it. Attested in the diaries from 229 to 119 B.C., the title has
one important congener, namely,
l
GAL ERN KUR URI
ki
ana UGU 4
l
GAL -qu-t, the
general of Babylonia who is above the four generals. Discussing this title in 1999, K. Kessler
suggested that, in spite of the fact that no such title exists in Greek, this would have been
understood by contemporary Seleucid authorities as the strategos of Babylonia who ranked
above the four (other) strategiai (Kessler 1999:178). In 2002 Y. Mitsuma suggested that the
general above the four generals is probably to be equated with the Satrap of the East...
of the Seleucid kingdom, adding, One variant of the title for the latter the General of
Akkad who is above the Four Governors, indicates that this o cial controlled a number
of provinces because the word Governor (LB
lu
mu-ma-i-ir/
lu
GAL UKKIN) here no doubt
corresponds to the Gk. satrapes, the governor of a province (e.g. Babylonia), whereby
the Four Generals/Governors will be the Generals/Governors of the provinces in the
Seleucid East (Mitsuma 2002: English abstract). More recently, however, Mitsuma has
suggested that the jurisdiction of the general above the four generals corresponded to the
Upper Satrapies, i.e. the whole of the Seleucid realm east of (the) Euphrates (Mitsuma
2007: 9).
The geographical extent of the term Upper Satrapies varied through time and
we have no way of knowing just what jurisdiction might have been meant, if indeed this
is how we are to understand the title, by the references in the astronomical diaries to the
general above the four generals. Are we talking about an area as extensive as has been
assumed for the lifetime of Alexander, when no fewer than 14 satrapies (Persis, Paraitakene,
Karmania, Media, Tapuria, Parthia [with Hyrcania], Bactria, Areia [with Drangiana],
Gedrosia, Arachosia, Paropanisus, and India) are thought to have been subsumed under
this designation (von Gutschmid 1888: 6-7)? Was it the much smaller if no less far ung
area assigned to the Upper Satrapies by Diodorus in his discussion of Eumenes attempt,
after reaching Persis in 318 B.C., to gain the aid of the satraps and generals in the Upper
Satrapies, which included 7 satrapies, viz. Persis, Karmania, Arachosia, Paropanisus,
Nabu Achemenet novembre 2009
Drangiana, Bactria and India (Diodorus 19.14.1-8). However one is to understand Mitsumas
interpretation, it is clear that there were far more than four eastern or upper satrapies
in the Seleucid period, and that the designation general above the four generals is not
matched by a neat, quadripartite satrapal division east of the Euphrates.
Indeed, this same conclusion, reached by Mitsuma, suggested to him an alternative
explanation for the presence of the numeral four. He wrote, We would rather conjecture
a symbolical use of the number four in the light of the title ar kibrt arbai/erbetti (King
of the Four Quarters, i.e. the Entire World), which is used of Mesopotamian and Persian
kings who ruled over vast teritories.... the numeral in the General who is above the
Four Generals may be used to imply the vastness of the territory under his jurisdiction
(Mitsuma 2007: 10).
This hypothesis, which invokes an ancient title rst attested under Naram-Sin
(Hallo 1957: 49), is interesting, but it ignores an entirely dierent line of evidence from
Iranian sources which suggests that a real, quadripartite division of authority attested in
the Sasanian period may be relevant to our understanding of the Seleucid and Parthian
title under discussion here. Following a line of inquiry rst opened by F. Gurnet, T. Daryaee
has interpreted four mint signatures DYW-XW (dwn of Xwarsn, i.e. the northeast),
DYW-AT (dwn of drbdagn, i.e. the northwest), DYW-AT (dwn of srestn, i.e. the
southwest), DYW-KR (dwn of Kermn, i.e. the southeast) as evidence of quadripartition
late (years 32-40, or 520-528) in the reign of Kawd I (Daryaee 2002: 10). According to
Tabari, on the other hand, it was Khusraw I (539-579) who replaced the o ce of general
over the army of the entire empire (Ern-sphbed) with four generals designated according
to the cardinal points, viz. xwarsn sphbed (General of the East) nmroz sphbed (General
of the South), xwarbarn sphbed (General of the West), and abaxtar sphbed (General of the
North) (Nldeke 1879: 155). Later writers (al-Dinawari, Yaqubi, Ferdowsi) give more precise
information about the composition of these four regions. Thus, al-Dinawari says that the
East comprised Khorasan, Seistan and Kerman; the West comprised Isfahan, Qom and Jibal;
the South comprised Fars and Ahwaz (Khuzestan); and the North comprised Iraq up to the
Byzantine border (Nldeke 1879: 155, n. 2). Interestingly, Masudi says that the institution
of four generals was an innovation of Ardashirs in the early 3
rd
century (Gignoux 1984:
5-6 and n. 25). The quadripartite division of Iran into a western (Kusti Xorbaran), southern
(Kusti Nemro), eastern (Kusti Xorasan) and northern (Kusti Kapkoh, lit. Caucasus) is explicit
in a geographical description of the Sasanian empire by the Armenian writer Pseudo-
Moses of Khorn, dating to 8
th
or 9
th
century (Marquart 1901: 6, 16-17), while the same
titles attested in Tabari are preserved in the 9
th
century Bundahin (Gyselen 2001: 5).
P. Gignoux suggested that the literary evidence of this quadripartite division of
the empire was ctitious, un thme littraire plutt quune ralit historique, and like
Nabu Achemenet novembre 2009
Mitsuma, he invoked Naram-Sins famous title as a parallel expression simply meant to
gloss domination over the entire world (Gignoux 1984: 4). Over the past two decades,
however, epigraphic evidence has come to light conrming that the quadripartite division
of the Sasanian empire was not a ction. In 1988 Gignoux himself presented a fragmentary
seal impression on which the legend nmroz sphbed (General of the South) could be read
(Gignoux 1991) and in 2001 R. Gyselen published further seal impressions, dating to the
reigns of Khusraw I (531-579) and Hormizd IV (579-590), which document the o ce of the
other three generals of the Sasanian empire (Gyselen 2001). The seal impressions present
us with titles that are eectively an amalgamation of the terminology preserved by Tabari
and Pseudo-Moses of Khorn, viz. rn kust xwarsn sphbed (General [rn-sphbed] of the
side of the East), rn kust nmroz sphbed (General [rn-sphbed] of the side of the South),
rn kust xwarbarn/xwarrn sphbed (General [rn-sphbed] of the side of the West) and
rn kust drbdagn sphbed (General [rn-sphbed] of the side of the North).
It is not my contention that the Sasanians were cognizant of the much earlier
Seleucid and Parthian title general who is above the four generals, but I think the
Sasanian evidence for a quadripartite division of military authority must raise a question
mark over the interpretation of the numeral four in the earlier title as merely a rhetorical
device harkening back or parallel to the Old Akkadian king of the four world quarters. The
military exigencies which caused the Seleucids in Babylonia to re-organise their military
command structure in the 3
rd
century B.C. may have been very dierent from those which
motivated the reform of Sasanian Irans high command. Yet, if the Seleucid generals were
indeed responsible for the Upper Satrapies, as Mitsuma has suggested, and if the satrapies
of 229 B.C. were even half as extensive as Diodorus account of the situation in 318 B.C., then
one can see that the geographical imperatives confronting the Seleucids and Sasanians
were not entirely dissimilar. In any case, though the parallel adduced here is not precise,
I do believe that the title used in the astronomical diaries very probably reected a real,
quadripartite division of military responsibility, comparable to that seen in the Sasanian
period, rather than a semi-mythic allusion to the four world quarters and the vastness of
the empire thereby implied.
Daryaee, T. 2002. ahrestnh rnahr: A Middle Persian text on Late Antique geography, epic, and
history. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers.
Gignoux, P. 1984. Lorganisation administrative sasanide: Le cas du marzbn. Jerusalem Studies in
Arabic and Islam 4: 1-29.
Gignoux, P. 1991. A propos de quelques inscriptions et bulles sassanides. In: Bernard, P. and
Grenet, F., eds. Histoire et cultes de lAsie Centrale prislamique. Paris: ditions du CNRS, pp. 65-69.
Nabu Achemenet novembre 2009
Gri ths, G.T. and Sherwin-White, S. 1996. Seleucus (2) II (Callinicus): Gloriously Victorious. OCD
2
nd
ed: 1381.
Gutschmid, A. von. 1888. Geschichte Irans und seiner Nachbarlnder von Alexander dem Grossen bis zum
Untergang der Arsaciden. Tbingen: Lauppschen Buchhandlung.
Gyselen, R. 2001. The four generals of the Sasanian Empire: Some sigillographic evidence. Rome:
Conferenze 14.
Hallo, W.W. 1957. Early Mesopotamian royal titles: A philologic and historical analysis. New Haven:
American Oriental Society.
Kessler, K. 1999. Bemerkungen zum Militrwesen im hellenistischen Babylonien. Isimu 2: 173-
182.
Marquart, J. 1901. rnahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenaci. Berlin: Abhandlungen der
Kniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gttingen, phil.-hist. Kl. NF III/2.
Mitsuma, Y. 2002. The o cial posts of generals in Seleucid and Arshakid Babylonia. Oriento
(Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan) 45: 26-55 (in Japanese, Abstract in English).
Mitsuma, Y. 2007. The General in Charge of the Four strategiai? NABU 2007/9.
Nldeke, T, 1879. Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, aus der arabischen Chronik
des Tarabi. Leiden: Brill.
Sachs, A. and Hunger, H. 1989. Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia, vol. II. Vienna:
sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl, Denkschriften 210.
Sachs, A. and Hunger, H. 1989. Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia, vol. III. Vienna:
sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl, Denkschriften 247.
Potts, D.T. 2002. Five episodes in the history of Elymais, 145-124 B.C.: New data from the
astronomical diaries. In: Hourcade, B. and Huyse, P., eds. Actes de la 4e Confrence Europenne dtudes
Iraniennes, i. Paris: CNRS, pp. 343-356.
Sherwin-White, S. and Kuhrt, A. 1993. From Samarkhand to Sardis: A new approach to the Seleucid
empire. London: Duckworth.
D.T. POTTS (06-07-2007) Dan.Potts@usyd.edu.au
Dept. of Archaeology, University of SYDNEY (Australie)