Susa

“ Its belly is always all bloody and inflamed to look upon.' Then his Augustness Haya-Susa no wo said to the old man, 'If this be thy daughter, wilt thou give her unto me?' 'With reverence be it said,' replied the old man, 'I know not thy honourable name.' 'I am the elder brother of the Sun Goddess, and have now come down from heaven,' replied Susa no wo. ”

“ The King of Susa is described as a tall, fair, and very handsome man of five and thirty, without beard or moustaches, and wearing the hair in the bushy wig-like form of the Amhára. He carries state umbrellas of yellow silk, surmounted by golden globes, wears a sword with a massive golden scabbard, and bears a shield decorated with radii and crosses of the same metal. The government is not despotic. No subject can be put to death unless condemned by the judges. Property is free ”

“ And he touched her on the forehead, and said, “Fair and beloved, fair and beloved....”
And the maid flushed faintly to stand thus barefaced. Howbeit, she had little need, for the tears that stood in my lord Susa’s eyes were veil enough for her modesty. And he said again, “Dear and beautiful, our pleasure shall be hereafter, now we may not tarry.”
So he took the young maid at once, and changed her into a crown for his head. And Susa wore the crown gallantly. And he instructed the earthly deity, and together they brewed saké, refined eight-fold ”

“ I confined myself to inviting him to accompany me at least as far as Susa, whither I was to proceed by sea. Now, even at Susa, life is by no means safe. Indeed, constant reports had reached Tunis during my sojourn there [162] of the shooting of Europeans in the streets of the town; and it was notorious that Arab raiders had cleared the country up to the very walls of the city. Afrigan, however, was quite ready to go with me to Susa; and forthwith I despatched him to pack a small portmanteau, whilst I made a few farewell calls upon French and English friends. ”

“ Public audience is daily given, when the decisions of the judges are confirmed or annulled from a raised throne of solid gold concealed by velvet draperies.
Susa is a kingdom of much greater extent than Shoa, but in manners and customs nearly similar. The monarch is approached with shoulders bared, and three prostrations to the earth. On the festival of Máskal an annual review takes place at Boorétta. Oxen are then slain for the soldiery, and each warrior receives a jar of beer from the royal cellars. The herald proclaims the approaching expedition to the sound of the nugáreet. ”

“ So important were they, that the whole of Susiana was sometimes called Cissia after them, as by Herodotus (iii. 91, v. 49, &c.) . In fact Susiana was only a late name for the country, dating from the time when Susa had been made a capital of the Persian empire. In the Sumerian texts of Babylonia it was called Numma, “the Highlands,” of which Elamtu or Elamu, “Elam,” was the Semitic translation. Apart from Susa, the most important part of the country was Anzan (Anshan, contracted Assan) , where the native population maintained itself unaffected by Semitic intrusion. ”

“ Ilishma may have been appointed to the throne of Susa by the king of Akkad during an invasion of that country, which reached its culmination in the deportation of the native king, as Shar-Gani-sharri deported the kings of Kutû and Amurru, and Manishtusu the king of Anshan. The available evidence suggests that, during the Dynasty of Akkad, Susa and Elam generally enjoyed their independence, subject to occasional periods of interruption. ”

“ But now we’ll go home and say nothing at all to our wives about Kairwan. I shan’t say anything to mine about Susa either.” And then Afrigan lighted a cigarette, and strolled off in search of a coffee-house, humming a gay Arab tune.
I went to breakfast with Mr. Gallia at his house. Nowhere in the world, I imagine, is a man’s house so entirely his castle as it is in these semi-savage Arab towns on the north coast of Africa. For the European resident in a place like Susa there is absolutely no attraction outside the walls of his own home. He has no society ”

“ Susa-no-o, or "The Impetuous Male," was the brother of Ama-terasu, the Sun Goddess. Now Susa-no-o was a very undesirable deity indeed, and he figured in the Realm of the Japanese Gods as a decidedly disturbing element. His character has been clearly drawn in the Nihongi, more clearly perhaps than that of any other deity mentioned in these ancient records. Susa-no-o had a very bad temper, which often resulted in many cruel and ungenerous acts. ”

“ Susa-no-wo is “continually weeping, wailing, and fuming with rage”, and is “a lover of destruction”, and he is associated with Yomi, the habitation of the deities that work evil against mankind. Susa-no-wo may be the Japanese Indra, who brings rain. Japanese wind-gods were givers of rain, as well as wind.13 Like Indra, Susa-no-wo is a dragon-slayer. A festival “celebrated in his honour at Onomochi in Bingo” is described by a Japanese writer in these words:14
“The procession is a tumultuous trial of speed and strength. ”

“ At a distance of three miles is Zaouiat Susa, a poor little village, situated in the midst of a rich plain covered with olive-trees; beyond, on both sides of the road, are Roman ruins, but of no interest. ”

“ This is inexplicable if they were struggling for three days through the narrow and rocky defiles of the valley of Aosta, but perfectly intelligible if they were traversing in half a day the broad and open valley of Susa, offering no facilities to the attacks of the mountaineers. ”

“ He had perhaps already built there the great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred by English enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of construction. Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian capital, possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate was softer than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that of Babylon. Its position was convenient for communicating both with the East and with the West. Its people were plastic, and probably more yielding and submissive than the Medes or the Persians. ”

“ A swarthy man with keen black eyes and resolute mouth, the colonel does not promise much in the way of agreeable companionship during our voyage to Tunis. The other new-comers are a young Italian with his remarkably pretty wife and their baby. This gentleman lives at Susa, one of the Arab coast-towns in the Gulf of Hammamet, and is returning to his dreary home after a pleasure-trip to Paris. His wife seems quite content at the prospect of exchanging the delights of Paris for the dull confinement of a house in such a place as Susa. ”

“ The natural centre lay, rather, in the ancient fertile tract on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. The actual capital of the empire was therefore Susa, where Darius I. and Artaxerxes II. erected their magnificent palaces. The winter months the kings chiefly spent in Babylon; the hot summer, in the cooler situation of Ecbatana, where Darius and Xerxes built a residence on Mt Elvend, south of the city. ”

“ But of all the isolated remnants of the ancient Ethiopic empire to the south of Abyssinia, Susa would appear to be the most important and the most powerful. This kingdom is situated beyond Cáffa, and extends to the head of the Gitché, which rises in Chára-Nára, and is one of the principal sources of the Gochob. The rains are violent during three months of the year, and the climate is excessively cold, the elevation being much greater than that of Shoa, whilst beyond are mountains which “seem to touch the skies, and are covered with perpetual snow.” ”

“ Tiglath Pileser III and Sargon II, names already familiar in this story, profess to have made them pay tribute. They are spoken of in the inscriptions as the “dangerous Medes.” They are as yet a tribal people, not united under one king.
About the ninth century b.c. Elam and the Elamites, whose capital was Susa, a people which possessed a tradition and civilization{v1-319} at least as old as the Sumerian, suddenly vanish from history. We do not know what happened. They seem to have been overrun and the population absorbed by the conquerors. Susa is in the hands of the Persians.
Scythians ... ”

“ In addition to Susa, we meet with the names of Anshan, Kharishi, Kimash and Markharshi, the conquest or annexation of which by Dungi, as we have already seen, is recorded in the date-formulæ. Other places, the officials of which are mentioned, were Khukhnuri, Shimash, Sabu, Ulu, Urri, Zaula, Gisha, Siri, Siu, Nekhune, and Sigiresh. Like the preceding districts, these were all in Elam, while Az, Shabara, Simashgi, Makhar and Adamdun, with which other officers were connected, probably lay in the same region. ”

“ All the other hours of the day must be spent within the walls of his own home, and the only society he meets with is that of his own family. It will be seen, then, of what importance the house is in a town like Susa. The exteriors of the houses here, like those in the Arab quarter of Tunis, are miserable in the extreme. The residences of even the wealthiest merchants bear a strong outward resemblance to stables or barns. ”

“ Sugga Surroo was king over Susa. He was a Pagan; but wore a “máteb,” as many of the heathen tribes are wont to do. Hoti and Beddoo were his sons; and on his death-bed he bequeathed the sceptre to the former, who, after a reign of ten years marked by the most galling tyranny, was deposed by the people, and Beddoo elevated to the throne. Turning his attention to Christianity, which had greatly degenerated, he revived the custom of bathing the holy cross on Christmas-day, in the river Gitché, where all the surrounding Galla tribes perform the same ceremony without knowing why. ”

“ Neither is inappropriate as applied to the moon. ↑ This name is written indifferently Sosa no wo and Susa no wo. The accepted derivation refers Susa to Susamu, a verb which means "to be impetuous." Hence the "Impetuous Male" of Chamberlain's and Satow's translations. I am disposed to prefer a derivation suggested by the "Idzumo Fudoki," a very old book, which states:—
"Village of Susa. Nineteen ri due west of the Town-house of the district. Kamu Susa no wo no Mikoto said:—'This is only a small country, but it is a Kuni-dokoro (local capital?) . ”

“ Uzume Awakens the curiosity of Ama-terasu.— (p. 28)
[Pg 29]
Susa-no-o, having descended from Heaven, arrived at the river Hi, in the province of Idzumo. Here he was disturbed by a sound of weeping. It was so unusual to hear any other than himself weep that he went in search of the cause of the sorrow. He discovered an old man and an old woman. Between them was a young girl, whom they fondly caressed and gazed at with pitiful eyes, as if they were reluctantly bidding her a last farewell. ”

“ In our enthusiasm we may easily overestimate his powers; but, as we study him and his work, we feel that here was a great race, and that now some great human possibilities are to be fully attained and made permanent. Apparently he had come from the plateau region of western Asia. Near his birthplace there must have been other peoples capable of great things. We remember that Susa was probably founded not much later than the beginning of the Magdalenian epoch in Europe. But the Cro-Magnon folk decreased in numbers, in stature, apparently also in ability and vitality. ”

“ So many characters are unfortunately wanting in this epigraph, that the inscription cannot be satisfactorily translated. It commences, it would appear, with the name of the Susianian king, although written without the first character found on the other slabs. The captive, however, was not the monarch himself, who was slain, as it has been seen, in the battle. The name of Shushan, written, as in the book of Daniel, for Susa, is highly interesting. It places beyond a doubt the identification of the site of the campaign. ”

“ Indeed at times they are deprived of food and drink for some days, simply to accustom them to privations. When the court is at Ecbatana or Pasargadae, and the weather is bitterly cold, they are sure to be taken out to bathe, and here in Susa, the hotter the sun, the longer and more difficult the marches they are compelled to take. ”

“ I had to confess that I did not. “The suzu is a special bronze instrument hung with little bells, which the miko uses in dancing,” the engineer explained patiently, fixing his eyes on the bamboo thicket. “To this very day it preserved the shape of a bamboo shoot in remembrance of the mythical episode which this dance represents. As you know, Ama-terasu, the Goddess of the Sun, having been offended by her brother Susa-no-o, in her anger hid herself in a cave, leaving the earth plunged in grievous darkness. The rest of the gods in vain endeavored to persuade her to come out ”

“ In Babylonia the cylinder-seal is already highly developed when found on the earliest Sumerian sites, and it would appear that the Sumerian immigrants brought it with them into the country, along with their system of writing and the other elements of their comparatively advanced state of civilization. Whether they themselves had evolved it in their original home, or had obtained it from some other race with whom they came into contact before reaching the valley of the Euphrates, it is still impossible to say. The evidence from Susa has not yet thrown much light upon this point. ”

“ De aedif. vi. 6) . The Arabic invasion at the end of the 7th century destroyed the Byzantine towns, and the place became the haunt of pirates, protected by the Kasbah (citadel) ; it was built on the substructions of the Punic, Roman and Byzantine acropolis, and is used by the French for military purposes. The Arabic geographer Bakri gave a description of the chief Roman buildings which were standing in his time (Bakri, Descr. de l’Afrique, tr. by de Slane, p. 83 et seq.) . The modern town of Susa, despite its commercial prosperity, occupies only a third of the old site. ”