Achaemenids, Royal Power, and Persian Ethnicity 177aspects of life in communities throughout the empire. It is through this lens of differential
access to economic and social power that we must approach the question of ethnicity
in the Achaemenid Empire. To what degree was ethnicity, as currently understood by
archaeologists and historians, a salient factor in the administration of the Achaemenid
Empire? How did local communities view themselves in relation to their Achaemenid
Persian overlords? Was a cohesive ethnic identity part of how these communities defined
themselves in relation to other groups, and if so, how was this ethnic discourse expressed?
Was there such a thing as a distinctPersianethnicity?
Each of these questions relies on our ability to access notions of group identity through
the material and textual information left behind both in the imperial heartland and in the
satrapies, and from sources outside the empire, primarily Greek writers (Kuhrt 2007b;
Harrison 2011). While much is known from the imperial capitals of Persepolis, Susa,
and Pasargadae and other sites in the region of southern Iran known as Fars (Parsa
in Old Persian,Persisin Greek), our sources for understanding cultural dynamics in
the satrapies are both more varied in character and more uneven, making it difficult
to compare these two perspectives. Nevertheless, it is clear from the point of view of
the Achaemenid administration that ethnic and cultural variation was an integral aspect
of the empire in practice as well as a critical component of the ideological character of
the empire.
The diversity of the many constituent peoples and languages of the empire was a vehicle
for the expression of imperial power, an ideological tool with which to craft an image of a
universal empire controlled by the king. This message was dispersed through textual and
visual media, and was closely controlled—consumed by viewers and subjects throughout
the empire, but especially in the imperial centers at Susa, Persepolis, and Pasargadae
(Root 1979, 1990). At Persepolis, archival evidence also confirms the categorization of
laborers by place of origin as a critical part of the administrative functioning of the state
apparatus (Henkelman and Stolper 2009). Awareness of cultural and linguistic variation
can also be observed in many regions beyond the heartland, such as Lydia and Egypt,
where local religious, political and cultural practices show considerable continuity under
Persian hegemony, even as Achaemenid artistic styles and architectural forms exerted
their influence (Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Kuhrt 1990, 1991; Sancisi-Weerdenburg,
Kuhrt, and Root 1994; Kuhrt 2001; Dusinberre 2003). This raises the question of
the response of local groups and individuals to Persian influence, and how this can be
accessed by modern scholars through the analysis of material patterns and the limited
textual evidence.
Given the importance of ethnic categories to the ideological structures of the
Achaemenid state, the evidence for these practices will be a primary focus of this chapter.
It will also explore the many contexts in which the practice of referencing, both visually
and textually, the subject peoples of the empire was deployed as an expression of kingly
power and universal rule. I will then briefly turn to the much more difficult problem
of how ethnic or cultural identity and the negotiation of subject status worked at the
local level in the Achaemenid Empire. In the case of Egypt and Lydia, connections
to local traditions, broadly construed, were clearly of paramount importance, both for