The Glittering World of Sasanian Iran

[Alanus]

Still, Stefan raises a good point in asking why the sources were not transmitted from Achemenid or Sasanian culture, with the Parthian Arsacids possibly being a culture much closer to their nomadic Saka roots to produce large, written corpus.

A case in point is Ferdowi's Shahname, the Persian national epos, written towards the end of the 10th century. On the other hand, it seems to me that it is also a case in point to indicate that there was a large body of sources Ferdowsi could draw on (some of them, as regards Alexander, possibly Greek, but many must have been Persian), whether they were written or oral; he did not simply invent things.

It is a pity that there are so few sources to show the Persian side of things, as opposed to looking at this culture from the usually hostile eyes of Romans and Greeks. There are a few reliefs, at Behistun for instance, which show some epigraphic habit.

Good points. I think we're fortunate to at least have surviving fragments, plus extensive examples of early IE oral traditions (the Vedas, Gathas, and the Shaname) wherein we find such warriors as Vishpala and Rustan, perhaps the two oldest recorded. I'm not well-versed on this subject, certainly not academically, but love the links that hark back to origins in the pre-Saka steppe culture, Sassanian or otherwise. :wink: