A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 2 Volume Set. Группа авторов. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

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in central Anatolia, around Lakes Van and Urmia, the central Iranian plateau, Sistan, and Afghanistan received rain in both seasons (Brice 1966: Fig. 9). Just as it has been in recent times (Kouchoukos et al. 1998: p. 480), inter‐annual variability in precipitation was probably great. Hyper‐arid zones may have received only a few dozen millimeters of rainfall each year, while sub‐tropical areas like Gilan and Mazanderan received enough rainfall to enable double‐cropping (e.g. growing rice in summer and wheat/barley in winter). To cite just one extreme, modern example of inter‐annual variability, unusually heavy rainfall in 1968 saw the level of Lake Urmia rise by no less than 2 m. (Bottema 1986: p. 243). Fluctuations of this sort are generally not recorded in ancient sources, with the exception of the Babylonian astronomical diaries. In addition to containing observations on the height of the Euphrates (Slotsky 1997: pp. 88–98), these mention a wide range of meteorological phenomena, including rain showers, lightning, thunder, and tornados (e.g. Sachs and Hunger 1988: p. 71, no. 384) that characterized the Babylonian winter of 384 BCE.

      With every type of environment from the sub‐tropical in the north to the semi‐arid steppe, arid desert, and humid coasts along the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea in the south, Iran itself is a microcosm – if one can use such a term to describe an area three times the size of France – of the diverse range of ecosystems found across the empire. In the higher ranges of the Zagros mountains, where peaks in excess of 3000 m. above sea level can be found, heavy snowfall, perennial streams, and abundant springflow are well‐attested, while on the borders of Khuzestan, Sistan, Kerman, and Baluchistan, arid conditions exist in which dry‐farming is impossible without the aid of irrigation. The northerly winds of the summer, coming almost entirely from the north, cause the region to become overheated. Extreme examples, such as the 120 days' wind in Sistan (Drangiana) or the shamal in Mesopotamia (Assyria, Babylonia) and the Gulf region (the satrapy of the Erythraean Sea and Maka), while useful for sailors, are inhibitors of agricultural development. Still, in coastal areas where agriculture was unviable except in winter, fishing and pearling, not to mention trading, were pursued in summer. Living with drought in the more southerly satrapies of the empire would have been the norm for six months of the year whereas in the more temperate latitudes a far more Mediterranean climate was conducive to continuous agricultural production, punctuated by severe winters with heavy frosts and snowfalls, rather than hyper‐arid summers.

      Climate and topography necessarily had an enormous influence on flora and fauna throughout the Achaemenid Empire. Once again, given its size, it is scarcely surprising that the empire spanned the Mediterranean, Euro‐Siberian, western and central Asiatic, and Saharan‐Indian floristic zones. The more central portions of the empire contained an enormous range of flora, including desert, steppe, and semi‐desert vegetation; sub‐tropical savannah; Pistacia and Quercus woodlands; scrublands dominated by almond and juniper; conifer forests; and sub‐alpine and alpine vegetation (Breckle 2007). Following the last glaciation the Zagros and Alburz mountains in Iran and the Hindu Kush/northern Afghanistan provided refuge for a large number of tree species, many of which later spread across Iran, Anatolia, and into Europe. Indications of ancient environments within the Achaemenid Empire are provided by both Achaemenid epigraphic and Greek literary sources as well as archeological data.

      Turning to some of the Greek literary sources, Xenophon's Anabasis is replete with geographical and topographic information, including the names of rivers crossed and places visited, but when describing, for example, Cyrus the Younger's passage from Cilicia to Thapsacus on the Euphrates, it scarcely offers any description of the country traversed (Xenophon, Anab. 1.4.11). Upon reaching “Arabia,” i.e. northern Mesopotamia (Donner 1986), more description is given. According to Xenophon, “In this region the ground was entirely a plain, level as the sea. It was covered with wormwood, and whatever other kinds of shrub or reed grew on it, were all odoriferous as perfumes. But there were no trees. There were wild animals, however, of various kinds; the most numerous were wild asses [onagers, Equus hemionus]; there were also many ostriches, as well as bustards and antelopes” (Anab. 1.5.1–2). Further south, as they approached Babylonia proper, “there was neither grass, nor any sort of tree, but the whole country was completely bare. The inhabitants, who quarried and fashioned millstones near the river [Euphrates], took them to Babylon, and sold them, and lived upon corn which they bought with the money” (Anab. 1.5.5). This extreme barrenness is a perfectly accurate description for the time of year in which Cyrus' passage into Babylonia occurred. This has been dated to the very end of August (Watson and Ainsworth 1883: p. 260), which, with respect to the ancient Mesopotamian agricultural calendar, was after the annual harvest in July/August (Potts 1997: Table III.1). Some scholars have been puzzled by the absence of any reference to pastoral nomads and their herds in this description (e.g. Donner 1986), but from the general floral, faunal, environmental, and agricultural point of view, the description accords well with the semi‐arid nature of the steppic environment in this region during the late summer. In the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries, Turcoman nomads, such as the Aq‐qoyunlu, wintered in precisely this area – the steppe between Mosul on the Tigris and Raqqah and Bireçik on the Euphrates, north as far as Diyarbakır – but summered further north over an area extending from the east of