CHAPTER 12
Achaemenids, Royal Power,
and Persian Ethnicity
Jennifer Gates-Foster
Ethnicity, Cultural Identity, and Persian Imperialism
At its greatest extent under Darius the Great in the late sixth and early fifth centuries
BCE, the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330BCE) stretched from the Indus River
Valley to Northern Greece, and encompassed parts of the Balkans, all of Egypt and Libya,
as well as the many islands of the Aegean. Named for Achaemenes (Hax ̄amaniš in Old
Persian, Herodotus 1.125), the empire was ruled by a house that traced its origins to this
eponymous ancestor, and they administered one of the Near East’s mightiest empires.
Achaemenid Persian rule ended in the late fourth century at the hands of Alexander the
Great, who defeated the last of the Achaemenid kings, Darius III, and conquered much
of the same territory before his own death in 323BCE.
Over the almost 200 years of their rule, the Achaemenid kings administered an enor-
mously varied, multiethnic, and multicultural empire composed of regions as dissim-
ilar as Egypt, Anatolia, Bactria, and Armenia, among others, with remarkable success
(see Map 12.1). The Achaemenid rulers responded to the diversity of their empire by
leaving much as it had been, efficiently incorporating local governing traditions into a
system of rule that allowed for variation while effectively connecting the satrapies, or
provinces, to the center through a system of administration focused on regional capitals
and local elites. Religious and social customs were left largely intact to the degree that
they did not interfere with Achaemenid administration, and very little was imposed from
the center in the way of cultural policy (Kuhrt 2001; Briant 2002; Brosius 2011).
Despite this largely sympathetic approach to local variability, one effect of Achaemenid
conquest was the imposition of a new ruling class and the fundamental rearrangement
of the economic and social order (Tuplin 2011b). In practice, the presence of Persian
officials in the satrapies and the privileges associated with Persian identity were critical new
A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, First Edition. Edited by Jeremy McInerney.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.