Herodotus says that the highest ethical principle recognized by the Persians is not to lie. This is in the nature of a local custom and forms part of every Persian child’s education. As so often in his treatment of Persia, it seems like he’s onto something here: one would like to draw a line connecting Herodotus’ remark to the hatred of the lie (Avestan drug) so thoroughly attested in the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism. Of course, hating “the lie” isn’t quite the same thing as hating lying; the Zoroastrian drug sometimes takes the form of a cosmological principle, sometimes that of a hypostasis of evil, rather rarely a form that fits the Merriam-Webster definition of english lie: “to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.”
One also observes that drug is far from the only, and perhaps not even the most important, ethical concept toward which Zoroastrianism manifests hostility: rage, for instance (Avestan aeshma), plays the villain’s part in plenty of Avestan hymns. But Herodotus mentions no customary aversion to rage among the Persians. What forces have compressed Zoroastrianism’s diverse field of ethical-emotional concepts down to Herodotus’ monotonic focus on the lie?
Our approach to this question depends on whether we see Herodotus’ remark as a true descriptive statement about Persian nomos or, rather, as part of an ethnography that structures the people of the inhabited world by defining them against one another, or against the Greeks who would have made up Herodotus’ first audience. I think there’s value in both hypotheses; I’ll follow up the first one today, and the second one tomorrow.
As I’ve suggested, there’s a gap that separates Herodotus’ remark from the texts of Zoroastrianism: Herodotus both literalizes the lie and makes it the prime ethical enemy of the Persians. Another text that makes these same maneuvers is the inscription placed by Darius the Great on the cliff-face at Bisutun in present-day Iran. The inscription narrates Darius’ rise to power and his suppression of a number of nationalist-nativist revolts among the peoples then subject to Persian rule. Naturally, this narrative involves a measure of propaganda. Take, for instance, this summary passage that appears near the end of the inscription:
(52) King Darius says: This is what I have done. By the grace of Ahuramazda have I always acted. After I became king, I fought nineteen battles in a single year and by the grace of Ahuramazda I overthrew nine kings and I made them captive.
One was named Gaumâta, the Magian; he lied, saying ‘I am Smerdis [Bardiya], the son of Cyrus [Kûruš].’ He made Persia to revolt.
Another was named ššina, the Elamite [Ûvjiya]; he lied, saying: ‘I am king the king of Elam.’ He made Elam to revolt.
[similar formulaic entries follow for the other 7 kings]
(53) King Darius says: These nine king did I capture in these wars.
(54) King Darius says: As to these provinces which revolted, lies made them revolt, so that they deceived the people. Then Ahuramazda delivered them into my hand; and I did unto them according to my will.
(55) King Darius says: You who shall be king hereafter, protect yourself vigorously from lies; punish the liars well, if thus you shall think, ‘May my country be secure!’
Part of the inscription’s propagandistic force is its assertion that each rebellious king defeated by Darius lied (old Persian adurujiya) to the people of his province in articulating the proposition, “I am king of such-and-such.” This is contrasted, implicitly, with the truth that a claim of that nature has in Darius’ mouth; in fact, the inscription as a whole (for whose own truth it repeatedly vouches) is just such a claim.
Adurujiya and related lexemes form the Bisutun inscription’s main, and perhaps only, vocabulary of ethical condemnation. For the most part, this vocabulary passes judgment on the propositional content of statements made by Darius’ rivals. Whatever Herodotus’ motivation for placing the lie at the center of Persian ethical culture, he seems to be following in Darius’ footsteps.
Tomorrow: more Herodotus. What it means.