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0019 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 19 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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205. DARIUS   615

final consonants, and Pa-ta supposes *Bardap or *Badap ; neither the site nor the name fit the Battaks.

For *Badap, one might think of the it 45   Pa-tu-ma of the Tao-i chih-lio of 1349-1350
(TP, 1915, 255-256; and perhaps Pa-to-la, 126, 127 [in this last passage, the correct text has also Pa-to-la, not Pa-ch'a-tu]); ROCKHILL says that there is no indication as to its location, but it appears with the same characters on the early 15th-cent. map, after Ta-wai (Tavoy) when coming from China, and PHILLIPS has certainly been right in identifying it with Martaban, Mattma in ancient Talaing, perhaps the Marutma of the Nâgarakrétâgama (cf. Hobson-Jobson2, 559; Fe, 647 [but suppressing the identification of M5.-Damàlingam with Martaban], 663). The sovereign of Jambi, who pretended to include Ceylon in his possessions, may have listed Martaban among the places under his suzerainty.

205. DARIUS

daire FA, FB   darius L, LT, P, Z; G   dayre F

dario TA', TAS, V, VA, VB, VL; R

« Daire » or « Dayre » is the usual mediaeval French form of the name of Darius, which had become popular mainly on account of the various redactions of the romance of Alexander. This popularity may explain that the « name » of the Golden King, « Roi Dor » (q.v.), should have been rendered « Darius » in « the old Latin versions » (cf. Y, II, 19).

Polo speaks of Darius himself only once, when he locates the decisive battle between him and Alexander in the region of the « Dry (or Lone) Tree » (q. v.). In two more passages, we are told that, according to the people of Balkh, it was at Balkh that Alexander took to wife the daughter of Darius (cf. Vol. I, 134), and that all people of royal blood in Badahsàn claimed descent from Alexander and the daughter of Darius (cf. Vol. I, 136). On this legendary pedigree of the Badahsàn rulers, cf. Y, I, 160, and see « Çulcarnein ».

The local tradition of the people of Balkh raises a curious problem which I am not in a position to solve to my satisfaction. YULE ( Y, I, 152) was content to say that, « according to the legendary history of Alexander, the beautiful Roxana was the daughter of Darius », but this throws no light on the point which puzzles me. According to true history, Alexander married both Stateira, a daughter of Darius, and Roxana, the daughter of the Bactrian satrap Oxyartes. But in the romance of Alexander, as it became popular with Pseudo-Callisthenes, and in all its Oriental rifacimenti, it is Roxana ('Pa.)&vr), in Persian Rôsanak) who is said to be the daughter of Darius, bequeathed to Alexander by her dying father (cf. C. MÜLLER'S Pseudo-Callisthenes, Bk. II, ch. xx) ; nothing is there said of the Bactrian Oxyartes. In the last chapters, however, when Alexander, before dying, divided the empire between his generals, the Greek text says (MÜLLER's Pseudo-Callisthenes, Bk. III, ch. xxxIII) that he left the region corresponding to modern Afghanistan to « the Bactrian Oxydrakes (= Oxyartes), father of Roxana, the wife of Alexander », while, according to the Latin text, he placed these regions under the authority of Apoctronus (= Oxyartes), « uncle » of Roxana

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