The Ancients - Tomyris: A Warrior Queen's Revenge

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

Her legend afforded her a place alongside Eve, Cleopatra and Venus, to name just a few of the famous women whose biographies were collected by Giovanni Boccaccio in 1361-2. Though not a household name as the others may be, Tomyris’ story contains all of the hallmarks of an epic. Tomyris was Queen of the Massagetae people, from present day Central Asia, in the 6th century BC. She is remembered in Herodotus’ first book for her vengeful challenge to the bloodthirsty Cyrus the Great. To talk about Tomyris, Queen and commander, Tristan was joined by Christian Djurslev of Aarhus University.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast we are talking about a warrior queen who ruled over a people largely situated in the area around what is today Turkmenistan, just east of the Caspian Sea. Now, Timaeus, remarkable figure, we hear about her from the 5th century BC historian Herodotus. And according to Herodotus, she has an encounter, a military run-in, with the

founder of the Persian Empire, the great conqueror, Cyrus the Great. But it doesn't end well for Cyrus, as you're going to find out in this podcast. Now joining me to talk about the story of Tamiris and her legacy over the centuries, I was delighted to be joined by Dr Christian Gerslev from Arras University. Christian was also formerly at the University of Edinburgh where he was my professor so it was great to get him on the show, it was great to catch up with him and to talk of all things Tamaris. Here's Christian. Christian, it's great to see you again. How have you been? I've been good, thank you. How are you?

I'm doing really well, thanks. I'm glad just to have you on the podcast and glad to see you again. Now, Tamiris, this is an extraordinary warrior queen of antiquity. Yes, yes, she is an extremely important character in ancient Greek and Roman literature, and she was really important for their thought world back in ancient history. And who is our main source for the story of Timaeus? Our main source of the story is Herodotus, who was active in the 5th century BC. And it's interesting you mentioned Herodotus there, because I'm just thinking about Artemisia, the Bast of Salamis. He talks quite a bit in his narrative about these extraordinary

warrior queens. That's very true. He has a penchant for talking about powerful women like Artemisia. And she was, of course, the queen of Pelicanas' Herodotus' hometown. And she's important because she fought on the Persian side in the wars that Herodotus was writing about, the Great Persian War against the Greek states. Even though she allied with the Persian king Xerxes, Herodotus recorded that her main achievement was actually to destroy some of the Persian king's ships at the naval battle of Salamis to save herself and her crew. And so this is her sort of her great achievement, like Timaeus also had one great achievement in Herodotus' works. Atemisia, she is like Timaeus, a widow, but she is in other ways rather different than Timaeus.

She fights for the Persian army. She is a naval commander. She is based in a town rather than on the land and so on. I should say that Herodotus also wrote about many other kinds of women, such as the Lydian baker for King Croesus, a beard-growing priestess, and a Mendian woman who was said to have sex with a goat in public. In fact, one scholar has counted almost 400 passages involving women, so Timaeus was definitely not alone in Herodotus. So like Timaeus, Artemisia was a widow and she was a ruler as well. And who was Timaeus ruling over?

Timaeus was ruling over a Scythian tribe, an Eastern Iranian tribe called the Masaegitans. They are basically like a nomad tribe, I would say. But in book four of the histories, Herodotus argues that despite what the Greeks thought about them, they were actually quite an independent tribe that Timaeus is ruling over. They're quite an interesting one because Herodotus tells us a lot about them. So for example, we know that for war, they armed themselves as both a cavalry and infantry, and they fight as archers and as spearmen, but their customary weapon was the battle axe. And one interesting fact about them also is that Herodotus says that their armor and the horse's armor as well is made from gold and from brass, which they apparently

had in abundance. They had no iron or silver. So very, very sparkly Masa Gitans. Yeah, very sparkly horse culture, nomadic horse culture Masa Gitans. And big question, I know it's a difficult question to ask, but do we have any general idea where the Masa Gitans lived in the ancient world? This is really the million dollar question. Herodototus says that the Mazgitans live on the great plains of Central Asia, east of the inland Caspian Sea, and this is somewhere in the grasslands between modern-day Turkmenistan, western Uzbekistan, and southern Kazakhstan. But then Herodotus also tells us that they live by the Araxes River, which is a completely different area, namely the modern Aras River, which flows through Turkey, through Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is west of the Caspian Sea rather than the east.

So Herodotus is actually quite confused and we're not quite sure about this. People have tried to come up with different explanations for why Herodotus says what he does. He has probably confused this Araxes River with the Oxus River or the Yaxatas River, the modern Amu Daraia or the Sur Daraia. They are great rivers. We know them well.

They flow through Central Asia, through modern-day Kazakhstan, and through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. So probably one of these rivers rather than the Araxes River that Herodotus talks about. It's remarkable when you think that Herodotus is living in Western Asia Minor on the Aegean Sea coastline. And he is talking in his histories about a people who lived hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away to the east on these rivers on a far corner of what would be the Persian Empire. Yes, quite on the periphery. It's probably one of the most northeastern places that Herodotus remarks upon in the histories. And you mentioned she was a widow.

Do we have any idea of how Timaeus becomes queen of the Masagitai or for how long she is ruling when Herodotus starts the story? Unfortunately, we don't really know what has happened before then. It's one of the first things we hear about is that she's a widow and presumably she is ruling through her dead husband, basically. We know that this was what happened with other people in the histories. For example, the first queen mentioned the Lydian queen who is married to Canduclus. So we don't really have many personal details about her except this story. And we enter it basically as she becomes important for Cyrus' fate.

Absolutely. And it's also very interesting how this ancient culture did have these queens who were able to rule in their own right, as it were, following the death of the king. But let's go on to Cyrus because you did mention him just there. So he is Cyrus the Great. He is the founder of the Persian Empire. Just before this story begins, he's embarked on a lot of conquests and a lot of successful conquests. Yes, this is indeed true. So basically, Herodotus tells us his whole story in book one. We hear about Cyrus's origins up until his death, which is what we're going to talk about now. Big spoiler alert there. But yeah, so we have a full, complete narrative of Cyrus' life and his great deeds, his great conquests, his ingenious use of, for example, a camel corps

to conquer Lydia. He conquers Babylon. So he has some pretty big conquests behind him before he engages with the Masaetan enemy. I should say that when we encounter Timaeus, we're probably around the year 530 BC. So it's really a moment in time that defines Timaeus' legacy and also, of course, Cyrus' fate. So he's done all these conquests. You mentioned Lydia, Babylon just there over many years of ruling. Why does he now turn his attention to these beautifully adorned, armour-clad horse warriors with their battle axes and their bows on the steps of perhaps Turkmenistan? Why does he turn his attention to the Masagitai? Yeah, this is also quite a good question. We don't really know for sure. Herodotus says that they were simply just the obvious next

target. But if you look at the map, Cyrus has just conquered Babylon, and he's miles and miles away from these Masogeesans. So there's no obvious connection between the two. People believe, though, that, and this is modern scholars, and they believe that the Masogeesans or the Scythians or whatever, some tribes were raiding the periphery of the Persian Empire and therefore Cyrus had to respond to this threat from the outside. But Herodotus, he does not remark on this at all. For Herodotus, it's simply because Cyrus is looking for more land to conquer and that these people, the Masochitans, they simply had the largest territory and therefore he engaged them instead of somebody else. Is this one of the first initial signs that we can see

when looking at Herodotus's narrative, really trying to analyse it and sorting the fact from the fiction that I'm sure no doubt there'll be more and more of as Herodotus's story progresses? Yes, this is exactly it. Sort of internal inconsistencies that we can focus on and say, oh, what's going on here? Very interesting also because Herodotus is basically going into the head of Cyrus and thinking for him and trying to figure out what his motives are. So continuing with Herodotus' story, what does Cyrus do to prepare for his conquest against these Masagetans? He doesn't actually prepare anything for his conquest against these Masaegitans? He doesn't actually prepare anything for the conquest. He launches an immediate attack on

the Masaegitans, which is basically a marriage proposal. So he tells Tamyris via messenger that he simply wants to marry her and in that way take over her territory. So in the first instance, he thinks that he can simply become king by marrying her. And Timaeus, of course, understands this and refuses his initial advances. Once this is out of the way, so to speak, Cyrus does indeed prepare for war by building a bridge across the Araxes River. And then because Timaeus can see that he's advancing, Timaeus gives him some options of whether to fight in her territory or in his territory. That's very nice of her. Yeah. And so she gives Cyrus these very nice options of where they want to fight. How does Cyrus initially respond? He doesn't know really how to respond.

I don't think many of his enemies have done something similar. But he does what is customary to do, and what most people do in the histories themselves, is to call a war council. And the war council of the Persians basically advise him to say, well, fight in your own territory. You know, you have the home field advantage. But who objects? Well, you anticipate me there, because of course, one of the counsellors, one of the advisers, does not agree. And he, the former monarch of Lydia, concreases. He argues

that Cyrus should simply attack in Tamyrisus' lands, simply because in case Cyrus falls, the Masgetans won't go on to invade the rest of Persia if they fight in Timaeus' territory. And also he makes the argument that Cyrus should not concede the initiative to a woman and retreat before her. That would not be his advice. Cretace, he seems to be this extraordinary figure in antiquity. You mentioned he was the king of Lydia, wasn't he? And he seems to have this quite an important place in Herodotus' narrative. But it's interesting now, even after he's been defeated by Cyrus, and he's serving as an underling of Cyrus at his court as an advisor, he is still playing a very

significant role in Cyrus's life. Yes, that's exactly what is happening. And this is a very, very important point and a very, very important relationship, this relationship between the king and his wise advisor. And as you already mentioned, Croesus has an enormous symbolic significance and he has suffered much else through Herodotus' narrative. He has experienced the reversal of fortune that Cyrus is about to encounter, and Croesus, he will of course witness this again when he comes to advise Cyrus' son Cambyses. And I should note here just a brief note about historiography, and that is of course that Herodotus is quite fond of these recurring motifs throughout his history showing that history does indeed

repeat itself and as a historian he is also interested in the origin and causation of events because he actually talks about Croesus in a way where he's saying that Croesus, he was the first aggressor against the Greeks, an arrogant king who upset the Greek gods at Delphi. And this unfavorable portrayal of his royal arrogance is basically projected onto the Persian rulers like Cyrus, because they are associated with this King Croesus. And therefore, when Croesus persuades Cyrus to attack this foreign land, we are meant to see or think that this particular conflict anticipates the wars that the Persian monarchs will fight with other lands, such as Egypt and with Greece. Of course, Greece is the last one in line. Croesus' cruel fate and the subsequent choices of the Persian monarchs, they set them on this imperialistic path that leads to ruin. And it's worth keeping these thematic parallel in mind, because they help us to appreciate the histories as a literary work, but also as a source of

information about the past. So Croesus is doing quite a lot here, just the mention of him. Absolutely. So having the name Croesus as well must carry a lot of influence with it in his histories because he's a name that quite a lot of people who look at ancient history will know because of the stories surrounding him. And so Cyrus, he takes Croesus' advice and he crosses the river into Massagetae territory. What happens next? and he crosses the river into Masagitai territory. What happens next? Well, perhaps I should say that Croesus actually does give Cyrus a piece of advice on what to actually do. He gives him a stratagem that he should follow. And that's the second thing that happens, but it's quite important, because this stratagem exploits the wild or savage nature of the Masaetans.

The Persians basically are advised to set up a camp with an excessive feast, and the Masaetans then will be lured into this trap, because they have never experienced opulence and wine before. And then the Persians will basically strike at that point. So Cresa's advice, and that's one of the things that will happen. But the first thing that actually happens after this war council is that Cyrus has a dream, because this is one of the things that often happens when you cross a natural boundary into enemy territory, a supernatural occurrence happens.

Cyrus, he sees Darius, the son of one of Cyrus's noblemen. And this image basically spreads a pair of wings over Europe and over Asia. And so upon awakening, Cyrus, he believes that Darius is plotting against him to take the throne because obviously Cyrus thinks that he is ruling over Europe and Asia. But what he does is that he sends Darius's father, Hystaspes, to look after, to keep an eye on Darius at the court. Darius is about 20 years old or something like that at this time. But as with many dreams in the histories, the interpreter is of course wrong. Cyrus is wrong. The dream indicates that Cyrus would die in the impending invasion and that Darius would assume the throne eventually. And so, of course, like most mortals, he's blind to the divine revelation which is before him.

And this is, of course, a great irony because Herodotus begins the whole digression on the Mastogetans by saying that Cyrus will eventually lose. So it's as if this campaign against the Mastogetans, Cyrus has been winning all these victories beforehand, but this is the one which will sound his undoing from what the dream says. Yeah, precisely. But of course, we know this, Cyrus doesn't know, so he goes ahead with the plan. I should also say here that, of course, we know this. Cyrus doesn't know, so he goes ahead with the plan. I should also say here that, of course, the parallel to Croesus is also quite clear for people who have read the first book of the histories, because history basically repeats itself. basically win in his war against Cyrus. He had asked the oracles, and the oracles had said that if Croesus would go into war, a great empire would fall. And Croesus misinterprets this again, and it's his own empire that falls, not Cyrus's, at that point anyway. So we are meant to think about this while we read about Cyrus's fall. I'd like to quickly stick on the bit about the savagery of the Masochitans,

which you mentioned earlier, and that whole plan to get them to isolate a part of the Masochitan band by all this luxurious food and drink from the wagons and all that. We get quite a lot in Herodotus in this idea that the Greeks were the civilized people and the Persians are the barbarians. But it sounds quite here in the Cyrus versus the Masagetans that Herodotus is portraying Cyrus and the Persians as more civilized and the Masagetans as this barbarous nation who knew nothing about the luxuries and the joys of what they would call civilization. Yeah, there's a sort of differentiation between these Asian cultures. And it's quite clear that some of them were capable of great things like building cities and organizing in societies and so on, and that other tribes, they do things differently.

So it is a kind of a reversal of the stereotype. But basically, within Herodotus' narrative, there are lots of different peoples and some of them are more or less civilized. So it's not at all strange here. What is kind of strange about this initial stratagem that is being proposed is that it's basically a Trojan horse, isn't it? They are offered these gifts of wine and food and they go and they feast upon this. And then when they are all lulled into a false sense of security, the Persians strike. So there's also something going on there. And it's quite interesting to see previous literature, Homer, the Iliad, rearing its head in Herodotus' narrative. There's some literary interaction there. And how does this Trojan horse plan, how does it proceed? Well, of course,

it always goes well. A stratagem can work just fine. One third of the Mazagetan army is defeated. Herodotus is quite specific about that. And the leader of the army is taken captive. And this is quite a weird thing, just thinking about the inconsistencies in Herodotus as well, because we actually hear that the leader of the army, the general, is Timaeus' son. So here we have a son who is suddenly introduced to us, but who is apparently old enough to drink wine and is old enough to lead an army. So we may wonder, why is he not ruling? Why is Tamiris ruling? But there you go. She's still the reigning queen of the Masochistans. But anyway, the stratagem goes well, at least if you're a Persian. You can say that the main problem with it is, of course, it only takes out one third of the force because clearly the remaining force is quite strong. But it's only one third of the force. That's still quite a lot. And as you mentioned, it has Tamiris' son within its ranks. Yeah, it's still quite a lot and as you mentioned, it has Tamaris' son within its ranks

Yeah, it's really quite a significant force that is sticking out here And to capture Tamaris' son as well I can imagine for Cyrus that would be, if the story is correct, this would be a huge bargaining chip How does Tamaris react? Actually she reacts immediately, somehow she just learns that the force has been

destroyed and that her son has taken his thing captive, so she does what you normally do, she sends again Somehow she just learns that the force has been destroyed and that her son has taken captive. So she does what you normally do. She sends again a herald to Cyrus saying that he has tricked her and that he has tricked her son with all this feast and alcohol and so on. She demands the release of her son, who was clearly not defeated in a proper way. It was an unfair trick. And she also demands the departure of Cyrus's armies from her lands. If he doesn't agree to this, she says that she will

satisfy his insatiable bloodlust. And she means this because she swears by the Masagetan god, the sun, basically. And so these are quite ominous things with what is to come. She basically promises him revenge if the son is not released and if he does not depart. So does Cyrus, does he listen to Tamaris's warnings? Does he return her son? No. In fact, Herodotus states quite clearly that he basically ignores her warning. So she is completely overruled, even if she's just had this message delivered, and Cyrus just ignores her. What is important here is, of course, that he

doesn't have a plan for how he's going to defeat the rest of the Masochists. So we don't really know what's going to happen here. And we can see this as a sort of his arrogance that he's basically like, okay, victory is basically secure, everything is going to go fine from now on. And he's trusting in himself. Herodotus has already said that whenever Cyrus had waged war, he had encountered only nations who had proven incapable of resisting his conquest. So again, here we can see that he's trusting in his good fortune, which is a grave mistake for any commander in history. So we know what might happen with him soon. What does happen to Tamira's son, because of course he's quite interesting here, is that Tamira's son, I think he's called Spaga Pises or something like this, he goes up to Cyrus once the

effects of the wine had worn off. And he basically requests release. He begs Cyrus to be released. And Cyrus, he oddly grants him this request. I mean, he has no reason to, but he does. And the son proceeds to commit suicide because he has discovered, we are told by Herodotus, he has discovered the terrible nature of his predicament. So we don't know what this could be,

but it's probably from the dishonour of losing that large of a force, but it's probably also be just the manner in which he lost by being tricked and by all this shameful drinking as well. So this is quite a terrible end to Tomyrus's son. A terrible end, and it sounds like a point of no return, even though Cyrus has kind of ignored Timaeus' warning before. But it sounds like now a second battle is inevitable. Yes, indeed, because Timaeus seems to know what's happening in Cyrus' camp at all times. So yes, she of course learns about this, and then they engage in a great battle. In Herodotus' estimation, he says himself explicitly that this battle between Tauriris and Cyrus is the greatest battle, the most violent battle fought among the barbarians.

That's quite a title to give a battle in Herodotus' history. It's not just any battle. This is one of the bloodiest that he's ever heard of. Yes, exactly. And I mean, what a great way to open his histories, isn't it? I mean, this is the end of book one of his histories, and it ends with this massive battle that is going to basically put into context all these future battles that the Persians will have with Egypt, and then with Scythia, and then with Greece. But we basically have the most massive one, at least the one fought among the non-Greeks, I should say, because it also anticipates that the Persians will fight against the Greeks.

It's a significant battle in itself. Absolutely. It sounds not only climactic in the whole Masa Gitan campaign, but also climactic in all of the battles that Cyrus has fought through the Book I narrative up to this point. This is the bigging up and up and up. Exactly. This is the climax, as it were. And what happens in it? So Herodotus does give us quite a good account of this battle. He basically states that the battle began with each side shooting arrows at each other while they were still far apart. And this is basically just like any ancient history war movie today, I'd say. But anyway,

there you go. Then when the supply of arrows was exhausted, the two sides, they fall upon each other at close quarters. They fight with spears and with daggers. He says specifically, I don't know why the battle axes aren't there, but there you go. For a long time, the two sides, they fight fiercely. So they're evenly matched. Again, two thirds of the Mazagetans are evenly matched. Again, two-thirds of the Masaegitans are evenly matched with all the Persians, and neither side was willing to basically back down. At last, we hear that the Masaegitans prevail in this type of warfare, and a large part of the Persians, they die, including Cyrus. And then Herodotus tells us that Cyrus has reigned for 29 years. So this is a long

reign coming to an end for the Persian monarch. And do we know anything more in detail about Cyrus's end in particular? So Herodotus doesn't actually tell us, which kind of seemed a little bit strange. I mean, why does he deprive us of a single combat between Timaeus and Cyrus. But he does. And other sources for Cyrus's death, he also has Cyrus fight and dying in much more sort of glorious ways to go. But here, we're told that Cyrus dies. What does happen to him is, of course, the main event, I should say, in the battle. Because remember, Timaeus hasn't met Cyrus they have only communicated via Harold but she basically goes and locates him on the battlefield again indicating that they haven't fought each other in any personal way but she basically sees him for the first time as he lies dead and what

she does is that she does something again very Homeric is that she gloats over the body of Cyrus as he lies dead there. This is basically like Achilles gloating over the body of Hector in Iliad, book 22. And she does something that Achilles also does in a way to Hector. She basically defiles the corpse of Cyrus there on the battlefield. She doesn't drag it behind her chariot. She doesn't have a chariot. Presumably she has a horse, but we don't know. But she decapitates him and she puts this head in a wineskin filled with blood. And in this way, she says that Cyrus has finally satiated his bloodlust by being put in this container. So this is quite a graphic display of violence and this most violent battle where a woman defeats a man on equal footing. Yeah, very graphic indeed. And also

from what you're mentioning, once again, these Homeric undertones, which seem to be there once again, alongside the possible Trojan horse tactic of earlier. And yeah, extraordinary story, an astonishing end to it and to the end of this great forger of the persian empire but you mentioned earlier this is not the only story we have from antiquity about cyrus's death yeah it's very important to just say that it ends with this graphic display it ends with tamiris and the bag with the head and everything. But Herodotus then says, and this is the last line of the whole story, is that I found this version the most credible version of all the stories about Cyrus's death. And in antiquity, as you mentioned, there are many other stories.

And there are some stories that clearly engage with Herodotus's version, but also write something completely different. Perhaps the most famous one occurs in Xenophon's. Xenophon is also one of the Greek historians. He writes in the 4th century BC, and he writes the Syropaideia, which is basically a whole story about Cyrus, so basically a life of Cyrus. The education of Cyrus, I should say, is the Greek title, but it ends with his death. And in that death scene, Cyrus basically dies in his bed at home as an old man in Babylon, giving his son Cambyses the actual succession, giving him the crown. There are also other excellent stories. I should just mention my favorite one, which is one of the historians that talk about Alexander

the Great, but this historian also talks about Cyrus's death. And in that version, Cambyses, Cyrus's son, basically makes Cyrus so upset with one of the things that he has done in war that Cyrus's heart explodes. So there you go. There are clearly many versions to choose from, but Herodotus has given us quite an elaborate narrative. He has put Tormirus at the

center of this. He's made her basically, we talked about Croesus as the wise advisor, but Tormirus is basically both the wise advisor of Cyrus. If he had just done what she had wanted, it would all have ended up much better. And yeah, she also can defeat him in war. She's basically more man than he is a man, as it were. And given all these different versions, but the extraordinary nature of Herodotus' tale in particular, do we have any idea of how popular Herodotus' story of Cyrus' death of Timaeus was in antiquity? Yes, we have quite a good indication of this. And I would say that this is probably the most popular story that there was of Cyrus's end. It basically beat out all the other versions. And we can see this from other Greek sources from the Roman period, Latin sources, Latin writings, and so on. They really agreed that this version was the most historical one, despite all these literary parallels that we've talked about. I should say that since people started agreeing with Herodotus,

and since this is all of classical literature, basically, people later on, so in the Middle Ages and in Renaissance, they began to agree with this version as well and basically promoted Tomyrus in, for example, Renaissance literature. So Giovanni Boccaccio includes Tomyrus in his for example, Renaissance literature. So Giovanni Boccaccio includes Tomyrus in his Catalogue of Excellent Women. She's one of the nine worthies in France,

which is basically a catalogue of nine great women who match the nine great men of antiquity and Christianity. So yes, she really has sort of a rich reception in both the ancient period, the medieval period, the Renaissance. And I should also say that she also has quite a great reputation today. And this is quite a recent thing, actually. You could consider her the definition of a history hit because there's basically a heavy metal track about her by this band called The Sound of Thunder. They have made a song basically going through this Herodotus story. There's a movie from 2019, basically a big Kazakhstan production, where they speak old Persian and Iranian languages, and where Tamiris

is featured. It's just called Tamiris, basically. So she has a sort of a long history of reception from the ancient world to ours. I'm going to take a quick tangent on that heavy metal music example you mentioned just there because that's interesting and I know you've done work on this before, some very interesting work on this because it sounds like there are certain figures in antiquity like Timaeus, like Alexander the Great, who are mentioned in some heavy metal music songs. Yes this is true there's actually quite a huge catalogue of songs that deal with ancient history and there was a book out about classical history, ancient history and heavy metal music which basically argues that

there's so much of it that you could teach a course in the ancient world just from heavy metal music, or you can at least illustrate every single war event with a heavy metal track. So, I mean, there's a huge discography out there to explore for people who are interested in that, just like there are films and there are even operas about Timaeus. So, I mean, there's a lot to choose from if you're interested in the topic. about Tamiris. So, I mean, there's a lot to choose from if you're interested in the topic. That's amazing. Her lifespan seems to span much further, originating in Herodotus. She has become this figure who's emerged in later writings, in ancient writings, in Roman poetry. I'd like to ask about that in a moment. Is it medieval times, Renaissance times, even modern day with rock music and opera? I mean, her longevity is amazing. Yeah, it music and opera. I mean, her longevity is amazing. Yeah, it is quite amazing. I mean, there's no doubt about that. And I think that illustrates

how important this ability we have to tell each other stories about people, how really powerful they are, and what we talk about, and what we think about these, even if they're just fictions or whatever, they can really make a difference for people and our thought worlds. So I guess that's one of the reasons why it's so important to study the ancient world and study the classics is that these things are really things to think with in a modern day setting. Absolutely. It's very striking the story as well, which I guess can also add to its longevity, isn't it? One that has all these undertones as well, which are attractive to an audience. But I would like to talk about Roman poetry, if I may, just quickly.

What examples do we have of Tamiris and the death of Cyrus being mentioned in Roman times? Well, there's quite a lot of it, actually, because she becomes important as a character who is cataloged with other powerful queens who fought well. So we have lots of catalogs of these powerful women, people like Semiramis of Assyria, Cleopatra of Egypt, Zenobia, the ruler of Palmyra, and then Tamyris, of course. And they are, they're basically a group that people fought with in Rome, and they thought about these deeds that they did. And so they feature all across Roman literature. So, for example, Propertius has a catalogue of women in one of his elegies, this Roman poet, in which these great queens, they are discussed, I should say, not in an incredibly flattering way, but they are

at least there. And lots of other Roman literature talk about these women as a sort of examples of how to not behave necessarily, but to showcase a certain virtue. So for example, Tomyris, because she is the ultimate avenger, basically, she avenges her son and so on. She is represented as a, this is how you conduct a good revenge on somebody if they take something from you. Of course, you shouldn't do it exactly like Tamyris did, but you should at least be aware that this is something that you can think about. Do you think it's that idea that she is the ultimate avenger and how far she goes to avenge the death of her son that because she goes so far and the tale is so i dare say unique but you get an idea of what i'm meaning by that is that another reason why it's so popular through

time because people just remember it because of how far she goes to avenge the death of her son. Yeah, I must say also the outstanding image of Tomyris with the bag or putting the head in the bag is really quite a capturing motif because it sort of retells the whole story by that action alone. Here you see the revenge consummated, basically. This is the end, as it were. And yeah, consummated, basically. This is the end, as it were. And yeah, so that's a really striking image. And of course, this is what people focus on all through history. I should probably also say that the story is, of course, so captivating that some people believe and have believed basically since the Middle Ages that Tormiris is basically the figure behind the story of Judith in the Old Testament, who also cuts the head off one of the Assyrian generals. This motif of women taking revenge, rightful revenge on men, is quite stunning. Not just because of what has happened to the women, because other things happened to Judith,

she wants to preserve Israel and so on. But basically, this theme of revenge is really quite important for different reasons. I should say that, of course, it's really in the local context of Herodotus, there's really quite a lot going on. Because first of all, by making Cyrus drink blood, Timaeus takes revenge for his blood thirst. And by quenching this thirst, she takes revenge for the faith of her son, whose innocence is, of course, quite clear because he had not drunk wine before. And Timaeus then, for Herodotus, becomes sort of an instrument of the heavens or whatever, punishing Cyrus for this intemperance because he was not satisfied with what he had. He had decided to conquer more land and simply also for believing himself immortal. So here we are shown, not just by Tumaira's revenge, but all these other things that have been going

on in Roderick's narrative, we are shown that Cyrus is not a god. He's a man who, like all men, is born from a woman and who, like all men, is mortal, not immortal. There you go. It's the end of Roderick's big chapter on Cyrus at the beginning of his history. It's a very interesting way to end. And I can imagine this scene of her dipping the head in blood and all that satiating Cyrus's bloodlust. It's a scene that we see quite regularly used by painters in history as art pieces. Definitely. This is the most famous motif.

You can just Google it very quickly and find hundreds of these images. I went to a museum not long ago in Copenhagen, and I saw three of these images hanging in the National Museum in Copenhagen just after Christmas, when it was still possible to go elsewhere. I went to Belgium and Ziem again, I saw at least two versions of this motif. And you simply can't say whether it's Judith or it's Tumaira's on there. So it's really something that has impressed itself upon our imagination through time. Absolutely. Truth or not, this story, as you said, has survived for centuries through so many different mediums. Christian, your current work is on the subject of Tamaris. historian and I'm very interested in these great literary traditions of great rulers in antiquity so of course my work is not just on Timaeus but also on Cyrus, Alexander the Great, Semiramis and these people and I'm so lucky to be sponsored by the great Danish Carlsberg Foundation to conduct

research into these figures as literary tradition and antiquity. So as you can hear, there's quite a lot to get to work with here. Absolutely. Well, it's going to keep you busy. Best of luck with all of that, Christian. And once again, it's great to speak to you. Yeah. Thank you so much, Tristan. Thanks for having me on the show. Bye for now. Thank you.