areas by supervising the activities of local power brokers. The Achaemenid
Empire, for example, set quotas in silver for each of its main provinces, and
police spies checked up on tax collection. States also developed subtler ways
of mobilizing resources. As their reach increased, states created large zones
of relative stability within which peasants and merchants À ourished, so both
populations and available resources increased. In such times, the interests
of rulers, peasants, and merchants came closest together, and the most
farsighted rulers understood that protecting
the interests of those they ruled was often
the most effective way of generating taxable
wealth. Rulers became increasingly adept at
using tributes: ¿ rst, to bind the ruling elites
together through the sharing of privilege;
and second, to overawe their subjects by
displays of power such as military triumphs
or the building of religious monuments that
displayed their closeness to the gods.
This lecture has surveyed the spread of
Agrarian civilizations and their increasing
power over almost 4,000 years. The next lectures will ask about rates of
innovation in the later Agrarian era. Did Agrarian civilizations encourage
or discourage the capacity for innovation that is such a distinctive feature
of our species? Ŷ
Brown, Big History, chaps. 6, 7.
Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 10.
Taagepera, “Size and Duration of Empires.”
For details on particular civilizations, see Bentley and Ziegler, Traditions
and Encounters; and Fernandez-Armesto, The World.
Rulers increased their
military authority partly
by recruiting larger
armies and equipping
them with increasingly
sophisticated weapons,
such as chariots and
siege weapons.Essential Reading
Supplementary Reading