A disputed succession

The regnal deeds of Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes are all well documented: the Greeks, the Aramaic correspondence in Yeb "Elephantine", the Elamite tablets, the last Jewish prophets, and of course Darius' own propaganda which also informed the Greeks (Herodotus didn't care to fact-check Behistun). But, er... then what?

Artaxerxes Longhand was a significant "what" over the middle fifth century, ruling until 424 BC. He'd planned a succession... but here, the oh-so-literate Greeks don't help much. They were too busy in one of those Pelopponesian Wars. The Jews are basically running out of Scripture by then too. Per hbdchick, Matthew Stolper wrote an entire book collating a subBabylonian witness, from old Nippur. And the book can be d/l'ed for free! Per Stolper, 424 BC occasionned a local Mortgage Crisis. Problem: the book is from 1985 in our own era. How does it hold up?

Checking around, DT Potts offers a hundred-page chapter on the Achaemenids from start to finish. Wherever Stolper comes up, Potts endorses him.

The issue here is that we actually do have a Greek narrative account. Rather: we did. He was Ctesias, physician to Artaxerxes II. Ctesias talks about Artaxerxes' successors, Xerxes II and Sogdianus, prior to Darius the Bastard born prince Ochus. Another problem: Ctesias is the only source for Xerxes II or Sogdianus. Potts generally trusts Ctesias... but Stolper didn't.

That may be why Potts trusts Stolper, come to think of it. By keeping the Greeks to the side, Stolper could run the data from the Nippur archive. This is what flags the mortgage-crisis of 424 BC. Something had screwed the economy. (Not that anybody dares make analogies, here.)

One issue might be that the big Persian names in the Nippur archive are simply not the Persian names in Ctesias. Prince Arsames shows up but he's an absentee, the 'Abd al-'Aziz over in Egypt keeping that place sweet. Arsames isn't touching the mess in the 'Iraq. Well maybe not directly.

Stolper overall ponders if Ctesias has been mistreated by his tradents, such that what everyone says is "Ctesias" be extracted from his work, and massaged by various interested parties like, oh, Plutarch. It's Stolper's thought that Ctesias is best used for Artaxerxes II, a man he knew personally. Mind: Artaxerxes II had suffered a disputed succession of his own... as "fellow" Greek Xenophon told us from the other side of that dispute, which was the side of the bastard's queen Paurushatis / Parysatis and their son Cyrus. Anyway Artaxerxes won so Xenophon had to march his gitz off north, leaving Ctesias to tell the rest of the tale.

Back to Potts, a chapter this large could be a book if expanded even slightly. He seems to know his stuff. I reckon people would've bought the book.