Royal Inscriptions as Literature: From Elam to Pārsa, and thence to the Empire

Abstract

Royal inscriptions, especially the Achaemenid ones, have often been dismissed as repetitive and therefore not worthy of attention: Are they not just blatant propaganda? Notwithstanding this awareness, scholars have often fallen into the trap of such propaganda, believing that they are really the ipsissima verba of the king: Do they not often repeat “Thus speaks the king?” Actually, the Achaemenid royal inscriptions are not the king’s words but the refined product of the royal chancellery, crafted using rhetorical devices and literary language, renewing the well-established tradition of Elamite (pre-Achaemenid) and Mesopotamian models. Moving from these premises, the paper will explore the topic in two directions: the impact of Elamite epigraphy and textuality on the Achaemenid inscriptions and the reflexes of Achaemenid models, spread throughout the empire by the royal propaganda, in coeval or slightly later Biblical literature.