Review of Briant, Darius in the Shadow of Alexander

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Pierre Briant, Darius in the Shadow of Alexander (translated by Jane Marie Todd; first published in French 2003). Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. xvii, 579. ISBN 9780674493094. $39.95.

Reviewed by Jennifer Finn, Marquette University (Jennifer.Finn@marquette.edu)

Preview

To scholars of ancient studies, Pierre Briant will be undoubtedly be a recognizable name. His Histoire de l'empire perse: De Cyrus à Alexandre (translated into English in 2002) broke ground in historical studies as an exemplum for an egalitarian incorporation of Classical and Near Eastern source material, and its methods were at the forefront of a profusion of novel interpretations of cultural interaction in the ancient Mediterranean.1 Promised in this initial study was an evaluation of the source material related to Darius III, the much-beleaguered opponent of Alexander the Great. Briant delivered, with the publication of Darius dans l’ombre d’Alexandre in 2003. This edition, now translated into English, is unmodified, excluding the addition of a new preface. Briant maintains that the last sentence of the introduction to the first edition should be unchanged: the objective remains “to explain why Darius, along with so many others, is condemned to haunt the realm of historical oblivion” (x).

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Not about ancient Judaism, but provides some rich material on the international historical and political context of Second Temple Judaism.