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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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 八 都 馬 Pa-tu-ma of the Tao-i chih-lio of 1349-1350
(TP, 1915, 255-256; and perhaps Pa-tu-la, 126, 127 [in this last passage, the correct text has also
Pa-tu-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 Nāgarakrētāgama (cf. Hobson-Jobson², 559; Fe, 647 [but
suppressing the identification of Mā-Damālingam 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 TA¹, TA², 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 Badaḫšān claimed descent from Alexander
and the daughter of Darius (cf. Vol. I, 136). On this legendary pedigree of the Badaḫšān 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 (Ῥωξάνη, in Persian Rōšanak) 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

1.