From the eighth century bce, ‘Greeks’ are known to us from texts of the ancient Near East: There appears in Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform sources, in addition to the place name Yaman (pronounced ‘Yawan’), an ethnic name Yamanaya ¯ (pronounced ‘Yawanaya’) or Yamn ¯ aya (pronounced ‘Yawn ¯ aya’), which does not ¯ refer to ‘Greeks’ in the modern sense but rather to a people from the far-removed Aegean region, where Greek-speaking elements are likely to have constituted an essential component (Rollinger 1997, 2001b, 2003, 2006a, b, c, 2007a). It is evident that the ethnonym Yamanaya (Yamn ¯ aya) is connected linguis- ¯ tically with the ‘Ionians’ in Greek sources who appear for the first time in Homer, Iliad 13.685 (c.700 bce). Scholars have discussed whether this single testimony might be a later interpolation; if it is, then the first attestation of the ‘Ionians’ would be in the Homeric Hymns (3.147), which may approximately be dated c.600 bce (Rollinger 2007a). Be this as it may, in both Greek sources the ‘Ionians’ appear in a linguistically old form as ‘Iaones’ (originally pronounced ‘Yawones’), which shows their close relationship to the terminology of the ancient Near East.

1. The Neo-Assyrian Empire (750–612 bce): ‘Greeks’ as Westerners
2. The attestations range from the time of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (744–727) to King Esarhaddon (680–669) (discussion of the evidence in detail: Rollinger 2001, 2006–7, 2008; see also Lanfranchi 1999). Most of them are Assyrian royal inscriptions written in a literary Babylonian dialect called ‘standard Babylonian’ and exhibiting specific ideological patterns. Only a few testimonia reflect a different context. One of them, the oldest one of all, is a letter written by an Assyrian official who is known as the author of other letters and who obviously carried out some official function in the areas of Tyre and Sidon to Tiglath-pileser III (744–727) around the year 730 (Rollinger 2001):

It is obvious that the Yamnaya were treated as enemies by an o ¯fficial of the Assyrian Empire, and that they constituted a threat at least to the district of which Qurdi-Aššur-lamur was in charge. It also seems pretty clear from the other letters of ¯ the official that this was somewhere near the Phoenician coast and at the fringes of the empire. The cities of Samsimuruna and Har¯ısu also belong to this geographical ¯ area (for a map see Parpola and Porter 2001: 8). The Yamnaya seem to have appeared ¯ suddenly and to have been fairly mobile. The letter gives only one clue to their origin. They came from the midst of the sea. This is the earliest instance of this terminology, which reappears later in the inscriptions of Sargon II (721–705) and Esarhaddon (680–669) as a familiar quotation. The Yamnaya do not look like ¯ unknown plunderers appearing for the first time in this area. Qurdi-Aššur-lamur ¯ mentions the ethnonym like a well-known entity without further explanation, so he might already have had some experience with these people (Rollinger 2001). In addition to the small set of archival documents, Yamnaya are mentioned in ¯ Assyrian royal inscriptions from Sargon II until Esarhaddon. The texts are very short but, notwithstanding minor variants, they present the same conception concerning these peoples. So Sargon says in one of his texts (Rollinger 2001):

And Esarhaddon boasts (Rollinger 2001):

But there is another point of concern. The activities of the ‘Greeks’ seem not only to be limited to marauding and plundering, but their presence seems also to be restricted to the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. And indeed, we do have evidence that ‘Greeks’ were also present in the centres of the empire. An inscription of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681) recounts comprehensively the events of his sixth campaign (694). In one episode, Yamnaya also seem to have ¯ played a role (Rollinger 2001, 2006–7):

It is clear that the Greeks—as are the Sidonians and Tyrians—are designated as ‘war booty’ and that these people are chosen for their seafaring and military knowledge of the high seas.

Another attestation is probably the most important one, for it sheds light on contact between Greece and the ancient Near East in the first half of the seventh century bce. An undated Assyrian letter, which has been dated for prosopographical reasons to the time of Esarhaddon (680–669), refers to fifteen people who were sent from the governor of the city of Der (east of Babylonia and the river Tigris) to two Assyrian officials. One of them is called Addikritušu, who is obviously a Greek, Antikritos, and who probably originates from Cyprus (Rollinger and Korenjak 2001). This means that the existence of Greeks in this time is not restricted to the western fringes of the empire, and we can suppose that at least some of them had seen parts of inner regions, including the capitals. Finally, the annals of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, reproduced without modification by his son and successor Ashurbanipal, offer a list of ten Cypriot vassal kings. The list dates from the year 673 bce. Some of these kings have Phoenician names (Qish of Salamis, Damu-osh of Qart hadasht), but some are obviously Greek (Akestor of Idalion, Philagoras of Chytroi, Eteanthros of Paphos, Aretos of Soloi, Damasos of Kourion, Admetos of Tamassos, Onasagoras of Ledra, Bouthytes of Marion). Besides the aforementioned Antikritos, these are the earliest attestations for Greek personal names in cuneiform sources (Lipinski ´ 1991).

The Neo-Babylonian and Early Persian Empires (612–520 bce): ‘Greeks’

The situation totally changes over the next 100 years. There is not a single royal inscription mentioning ‘Greeks’, and this is also true for the beginning of the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great and Cambyses (from whose reign no Persian inscriptions have survived). But what we have is a relatively broad archival documentation. One group of texts belongs to the only surviving royal court archive of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The other texts are private documents originating from different cities in Babylonia. Let us start with the royal archive. The personal names are not Greek but point to a Luwian and Anatolian milieu. The testimony may give us a hint that, from a Near Eastern perspective, non-Greeks with an Anatolian background may be included within the Yamanaya (Weidner ¯ 1939: 932–3; Brinkman 1989: 58 f.; Rollinger 2007a).

The other type of source where Greeks appear is private documents. One document dating from the 2. Aiaru of Nebuchadnezzar’s fourth year (29 April 601 bce) deals with a consignment of 41 /2 minas (21 /4 kilos) of ‘blue-purple wool’ from Yaman (Weisberg ¯ 1980: 253, Rollinger 2007a). The author tells us that special garments coloured with blue purple were produced in Corinth (FGrHist 267 F 1 = Athenaeus 12.29, 525cd). Furthermore, Plutarch informs us that when Alexander conquered the Persian city of Susa he captured 5,000 talents of ‘Hermionic purple, which was stored there for 190 years’ (Alexander 36). This means not only that, at least from the second half of the sixth century bce, there were cities in mainland Greece such as Hermione and Corinth where purple-coloured garments were produced, but that the ‘Yaman’ of the Neo-Babylonian sources also encompassed ¯ mainland Greece. In this respect, a Babylonian chronicle fragment, which informs us about an incursion into Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar in 568, gains significance. In this document, a place or region is called ‘Putu-Yam ¯ an’ (Edel ¯ 1978; Brinkman 1989: 60). The passage shows that ¯ from a Near Eastern perspective Yaman was primarily connected with the Aegean ¯ (Cyrene was colonized from Thera), for even colonies founded from there were designated as connected to the ‘Yamanaya’.

1. The Achaemenid Empire (520–321 bce): ‘Greeks’
2. There are nine inscriptions of Darius I, one of Xerxes I, and one of ¯ Artaxerxes III in which Greeks appear. All of these texts deal with the ‘Greeks’ as royal subjects who have to duly observe the king’s command. These ‘Greeks’ were separated into different groups, thus further developing a conception which we first encountered in Neo-Babylonian times. We find Yauna takabar ¯ a (‘Greeks’ ¯ takabara¯), ‘Greeks of the mainland’, ‘Greeks who (dwell) by the sea’, and ‘Greeks who (dwell) beyond the sea’. Since we cannot be absolutely sure to which sea these sources refer (the Aegean or the Marmara), it is still heavily disputed where these ‘Greeks’ should be located. But it is certain that the terms not only encompass the ‘Greeks’ of Western Asia but also some of the Aegean islands and probably also the Greek mainland (Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2001a, b; Klinkott 2001; Rollinger 2006a, b). The Yauna takabar ¯ a are very di ¯ fficult to understand, and for a long time, it was thought that these were ‘Greeks’ wearing a petasos (a wide-rimmed hat), and thus that that the terms designated Macedonians and Thessalians. But this view cannot be maintained anymore (Rollinger 2006c).

The inscriptions do not tell us anything about political affairs in connection with these ‘Greeks’. The Persian wars are not mentioned explicitly in words. However, this would not be due to shame arising from a heavy defeat but due to a broader ideological framework. Political matters generally do not play a major role in Achaemenid royal inscriptions (with the exception of the famous Bisitun inscription that relates how Darius I ascended the Persian throne). Instead, the royal inscriptions exhibit a static and eternal world ruled by the Persian king who is favoured by his god Ahura Mazda (Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1999). The list of peoples in the inscriptions shows the extent of the realm and the great king’s far-reaching power (Kuhrt 2002). This conception can be further developed.