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The ostrich

Large flightless bird of the Near Eastern steppe, reported by Xenophon about 401 BCE

In the game: Level 5: The Charter

The Arabian ostrich lived on dry open ground in south-west Asia and survived into the twentieth century. For the Persian period it is known mainly from Xenophon's report of it on the Euphrates plain. Whether it lived near Susa is not documented.

In the game: The game draws ostriches as scenery on the Susa level only; no rule reads them. Susa is the designers' inference, since Xenophon places them on the Euphrates plain, not in Elam.

Xenophon on the Euphrates plain

Ancient account

Xenophon, who marched with Cyrus the Younger in 401, describes a treeless plain by the Euphrates where wild asses, ostriches, bustards and gazelles lived. He says the horsemen chased the ostriches and none was caught, because the birds outran the horses.

Xenophon, Anabasis 1.5.2-3

Not a Susiana record

Disputed

Xenophon's plain lay far to the north-west of Susa. His passage therefore does not place ostriches in Elam. It shows only that the bird lived on the Near Eastern steppe under Achaemenid rule, and the extent of its range further east is a matter of inference.

Xenophon, Anabasis 1.5

Range in the south-west

Disputed

No source used here puts ostriches on the Susiana plain. The lowlands of south-west Iran may lie at or beyond the edge of the bird's range. Showing them at Susa is a reasonable guess, not an attested fact.

P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002

Ostriches in Roman-era writing

Ancient account

Pliny, writing in the first century CE, treated the ostrich as a creature of Africa and Ethiopia. This is long after the Persian empire and says little about Elam in the sixth and fifth centuries.

Pliny, Natural History 10.1