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great Persian ruler their tribute or compulsory gifts that serve as tokens of their loyalty.
Allegiance is thus manifest through a panoply of sumptuous items (precious vessels,
weapons, fabric, jewelry, and animals) that cumulatively index the terrain and wealth
of the empire.
The reliefs adopt a hieratic formal logic but studied details of dress differentiate
the individual tribute bearers and their offerings so as to create a processional
rhythm underscoring the ritual aspects of the setting. After all, the representational
procession evokes the New Year’s Day ceremonial tribute gathering that was
central to the construction of Persian ideologies of sovereignty. The Persian tribute
system was based in theory on reciprocity, though the ruler and his subjects were
bound by codes of non-reciprocal obligation. Moreover the political was funda-
mentally rooted in the cosmological: the king was understood to rule the vast
empire on behalf of the gods and for the benefit of all. The Apadana reliefs thus
evoke not merely the allegiance (and by implication the subjugation) of tributary
peoples but also their participation in and centrality to the concept of royal pax
Achaemenidica. Testifying to this ideal world order, they illustrate the ethnography
of peoples and the corresponding ecology of luxury materials that fall under the
stewardship of the Persian ruler.
Figure 19.2 Detail of tribute bearers from eastern staircase reliefs of the Apadana,
Persepolis, Iran. SEF/Art Resource, NY. No. ART13339.