Ieraticità e postura fisica nel linguaggio del potere nell’Iran achemenide

The present contribution focuses on some physical aspects in the posture of the Persian king starting from the Achaemenid iconography of Bisutun, and in the light of the formulary self-representations of power in the Old Persian inscriptions. In particular, we shall focus on the emphasis on the physical proudness of the royal person, who must be a good bowman and a good knight, one who is always ready to react. His insight must be well perceived and the power of his hand on the enemy is foundational for his own authority. The contribution emphasizes the symbolic values of the bow, the arrow and the spear, whose meaning can be projected back into the Indo-European past; it also draws attention to the historical complexity the formulary locution dastayâkar-, “to put somebody in the hands (of)”, whose endurance has been impressive and full of an unpredictable number of further implications within the Sasanian period.