The Greco-Persian wars of 499–449BC – half a century of conflict during which Greek city states repelled the westward expansion of the vast empire of the Achaemenid kings – brought spectacular war booty into the treasuries of Athens and its allies. The historian Herodotus, recounting the division of spoils after the Battle of Plataea 479BC, described the Greeks’ amazement at the luxuriousness of the Persian camp, where Xerxes I’s generals slept in tents covered with glittering adornments, filled with beautiful furniture, where they were served food on silver platters and drank wine from golden cups.
Stretching from modern-day Libya in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, the Achaemenid empire was rich in both natural resources and skilled craftspeople. It was also a complex political entity that required efficient (and loyal) local government. Regional leaders (satraps) ensured taxes and tributes flowed from the conquered territories to the court of the empire’s absolute ruler, the Great King. A largesse of diplomatic gifts moved in the other direction. Like rulers down the ages, the Achemaenids used awe – the shimmer of gold and the splendour of ceremony – as a soft power tool to hold together an empire forged by blunter instruments.
In the aftermath of war, however, luxury and excess came to be viewed by the Greeks as a reason for the Persians’ inevitable defeat. For the Athenians, the image of an extravagant, despotic Persian empire provided an ideal foil for their own nascent democratic identity, where luxury was viewed not only as a strategic flaw, but a philosophical one. By the time Persepolis and the last Achaemenid king fell to Alexander the Great, in 330BC, the trope of the decadent East, softened by pleasure, was already well established. It’s an image that has remained remarkably persistent in the Western imagination, in part, perhaps, because we are obliged to take the Greeks at their word: there are no existing written ancient Persian records of the wars. What do remain are their objects, which tell a nuanced story of their own.
While Herodotus and others noted the quantity and variety of gold objects used by the Persians, it is a sign of the metal’s enduring value and versatility that it tends not to survive in the archeological record. Where it does, it has been well concealed. This small, beautifully worked jug, with its lion-headed handle, is part of the Oxus treasure, a cache of gold and silver objects dating from 500–330BC found in the middle of the 19th century by the banks of the Oxus in Tajikistan. One suggested explanation for the hoard is that these were votive offerings belonging to a temple, buried to protect them from looting. It is possible that this jug, as a temple good, was used to pour libations.
This exquisite silver bowl, with a repeating pomegranate-seed design on the interior, is inscribed with a band of ancient Persian cuneiform script, which attributes its making to the palace of ‘Artaxerxes, the Great King, King of Kings, King of Lands’. Not only were gold and silver serving dishes a crucial part of the royal banquet where seating and ceremony were a play of politics and power, then as around state tables today, they also often served as diplomatic gifts, distributed from the king’s court to regional satraps and foreign emissaries. Silver platters also served as currency (many of them have their weights inscribed on them): a form of portable wealth important to the Persian court, which was a mobile entity, moving between five imperial capitals over the course of the year. (This peripatetic existence, an extension of the Persians’ nomadic origins, might also account for the great luxury of the battle tents that so struck the Greeks.)
The territorial advances of Philip II and his son, Alexander III (Alexander the Great), brought gold and silver reserves in northern Greece, as well as the treasuries of Persepolis and Pasargadae, under Macedonian control. This led to a flourishing in goldwork across the newly expanded Hellenistic world, particularly in the Levantine regions, including Syria, where this reef knot dating from 300– 250BC is thought to have originated. Reef knots, or two knots looped together, had been used as amulets in Egypt since the third millennium BC, but came to be associated during the Hellenistic period with the hero Herakles (who wore his lion skin tied this way) and often used to symbolise matrimony (this example has a small figure of Eros at its centre). The fact that, half a century after Alexander’s death in 323BC, Syrian gold workers were making jewellery deeply connected to the Greek pantheon shows the shift in cultural influence from East to West.
Also uncovered at Oxus, this perfume flask (500–330BC) is in the shape of a barbel, a fish native to the Caspian Sea. Designed with a loop, to be attached to a cord on an outfit, it imitates the way a real fish might hang once caught, its minutely rendered scales similarly catching the light. But in place of stinking fish flesh, the flask would emit the fragrances of various unguents: sandalwood and frankincense from the Arabian peninsula, turmeric and cinnamon from India, extremely expensive luxuries from the reaches of the empire. Persian kings, who enjoyed near godlike status, would not have breathed foul-smelling air but the perfume of incense, just as they would have sat under the shade of a parasol held by a eunuch rather than in the sun’s glare. In fifth-and fourth-century BC Athens, however, these gestures, which symbolised the absolute authority of the Great King, came to be associated with femininity and therefore weakness.
At the Persian court and in the households of regional aristocrats, rhyta – horn-shaped vessels made from precious metals – would have been used as a piece of feast theatre. Holding it aloft, a nobleman would pour wine from a short spout between the feet of the animal at its bulbous end into a bowl balanced in his other hand: a gesture of dexterity and courtly etiquette. This example (500–400BC) is not technically a rhyton, as it lacks a pouring spout. Found in Turkey, rather than the heartlands of the Achaemenid empire, it imitates court usage and draws on the kingly iconography of the bull. Later Athenian potters seem to have taken inspiration from the animal-faced rhyta of Persian court ritual to create drinking jugs, formed from clay. This menacing boar-headed example (460– 450BC), with its lifelike protruding tusks and amber-coloured eyes, is attributed to a particularly inventive ceramicist, Sotades Painter. The wide rims and thick handles suggest that these objects may have had a purpose in Greek symposia – gatherings of equal (male) citizens – very different to the Achaemenid rhyta, which performed courtly ritual. This function might have been partly comic – when lifted to the face, the cup would become a mask, momentarily transforming the drinker into the wild animal depicted. There are numerous examples of donkey-faced mugs, making a connection to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, who is often portrayed as being carried on the back of one. Thus is the mighty Achaemenid bull rendered asinine.
‘Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece’ runs at the British Museum, Great Russell St, London WC1, until 13 Aug. Details: britishmuseum.org
A version of this article appears in the June 2023 issue of The World of Interiors. Learn about our subscription offers
