Background
destroying all the written texts, except for a number of Persian books that he plundered and had translated into Greek and Egyptian (ar-Ru- mī wa-l-Qibṭī), while some of the ancient sciences also survived scattered in India and China. After Alexander’s destruction, a period of ignorance fell over Iraq (i.e., the region that was to become the administrative center of the Sasanian Empire). This came to an end when Ardašīr, the founder of the Sasanid dynasty (r. ca 224–ca 241), began to bring together the remains of the ancient Iranian writings. His son and successor, Šāpu-r I, continued the effort. Some of the authors whose works were translated under Šāpu-r are named: among others, Dorotheus, Ptolemy, and “Hermes the Babylonian, who had been king over Egypt” (Hirmisu l-Bābilīyu llaDī kāna malikan <alā Mis.r). All these books that originally derived from Babylon (allatī kāna as.luhā bi-Bābil) were studied and taught in Persian. Later, the Sasanid emperor ¢usro¯ I (r. 531–579) again renewed interest in the sciences. Thus ends Ibn Nawbaxt’s history, the earliest extant history of science in Arabic. The translation of works of Hermes of Egypt into Middle Persian is specifically said to have been effected by the early Sasanid Šāpu-r I, along with astrological works of other Greek authors. In this account, the Egyptian Hermes is originally from Babylon. This explains the Babylonian epithet of Hermes in the Arabic translation of the Middle Persian version of Dorotheus, discussed above: it appears to reflect an idea in the Middle Persian reception of the Hermetica claiming that they were effectively of Babylonian origin. It should be remembered that Babylon (i.e., Mesopotamia) in this story is meant to indicate a territory that was part of the Persian Empire. (The Sasanian capital, Ctesiphon, was near ancient Babylon.) This becomes clear when Ibn Nawbaxt says that Darius refused to pay the tribute imposed by Alexander on the people of Babylon and the Kingdom of Persia.40 It is well known that Mesopotamia was considered an important part of Iran in later Sasanian times.41 In this account, ancient Babylonian science—including the teachings of Hermes—is conceived as part of the ancient heritage of Iran, proper to the Persians. As it is related, there are three episodes in this history. First there is the very ancient period during which the sciences are gathered in Babylon under Dahāk but then scattered, partly by the agency of Hermes who went to Egypt and preserved them there. The next episode is that of Alexander’s theft and destruction of Persian knowledge. The last episode is the Persian recovery of the scattered, stolen sciences in more recent times. It will be useful to recognize that these three components have been put together to form a continuous narrative of the history of Iranian science, but that there is no evidence that they all belonged together originally. 40. Fihrist 300.10 (Flügel 239.7). 41. Ibn ¢urradāDbih, 5.18–19: Tumma abtadi>u bi-Dikri s-Sawādi iD kānat mulu-ku l-Fursi tusammīhi dil-i Ērānšahr ay qalbu l-<Irāq, “Next, I begin by reporting on the Sawād [= lower Mesopotamia] since the kings of the Persians used to call it [Persian words given:] ‘the heart of Iran,’ that is, the heart of Iraq.”