However, the effects of Esarhaddon's victory over the Manneans could not have been very long lasting, because soon thereafter we find them, side by side with Medes, Cimmerians and Sapardeans, allied with Kaštaritu of Karkaššî. The name of his city, Karkaššî, suggests the center of his activities to have been in the old Kassite homeland in the central Zagros mountains. Kaštaritu (Median Khšathrita) is commonly identified with Phraortes of the Mede dynasty of Deioces.[[255]] According to Herodotus, this Phraortes fell years later, in 653, i.e. in the reign of Assurbanipal, in battle against the Assyrians. The identification of Kaštaritu with Phraortes does raise some problems of chronology, which cannot be properly discussed in this introduction.[[256]]
About twenty oracle queries in various states of preservation are our only Assyrian source of information about him and his activities. His major thrust was against Assyrian outposts from central Anatolia to western Iran. The events associated with Kaštaritu and his allies may have occured between the years 674 and 672. At least, his threat must have been over by 672, because in that year Esarhaddon was able to initiate treaties with some of his Iranian vassals, indicating peaceful conditions in that region at the time. These treaties were designated to secure the loyalty of Assyrian vassals to the succession to the Assyrian throne, with Assurbanipal and Šamaš-šumu-ukin being designated that year crown princes of Assyria and Babylonia, respectively. The Babylonian orthography of all but one of the queries in this group, although in itself indecisive as a criterion, supports a pre-672 date, because after Assurbanipal was named crown prince, the use of the Assyrian script appears to have become more prevalent in the queries.
255 First proposed by F.W. König, Alteste Geschichte der Meder und Perser (1934), p. 29ff. The Phraortes of Herodotus is the son of Deioces, the founder of the Mede dynasty, who according to Herodotus rose to power in 728 and ruled 53 years. Scholars have long noted the similarity of this name to that of Daiukku, a Mannean ruler exiled in 715 B.C. to Syria by Sargon II. Now according to Diodorus (Book II 32), who explicitly states he derived his information from Herodotus, Deioces was succeeded in 711 B.C. by a certain Cyaxares. This person might well be identical with a Mede named Uaksatar known from Sargon's correspondence. The latter part of Deioces' long reign would thus have to be ascribed to this Cyaxares, who would have reigned 711-675. This would make him the real father of Phraortes, and the latter a contemporary of Kaštaritu of the queries. That Kastaritu and Phraortes were actually the same person is raised beyond a mere interesting possibility by a much cited passage from the Behistun inscription, in which a pretender to the throne named Fravartiš (i.e. Phraortes) declares: "I am Khšathrita (i.e., Kaštaritu) of the royal house of Cyaxares (= Uaksatar)." See Weissbach, VAB 3 24 ii 14; Labat, JA 249 (1961) 2; and König, op. cit. 30. There is no denying the approximation of the name Kaštaritu with the Old Persian Khšathrita. We find then a pretender to the throne of later times actually bearing both names, Phraortes and Kaštaritu, and even sharing with his Sargonid namesake an eponymous ancestor!
256 A thorough discussion of these problems, originally included in an earlier version of the present introduction, is planned for publication elsewhere.
Ivan Starr
Ivan Starr, 'Kaštaritu/Phraortes', Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, SAA 4. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA04 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa04/chronologyandhistoricalbackground/kashtarituphraortes/]