Comparing The Achaemenid Empire And The Imperial

Geography and Climate.

A Companion to the Persian Achaemenid Empire, vol. The Nile Valley was not suddenly more fertile, any more than the Mesopotamian plain was suddenly more saline than it had been. The cedars of Lebanon were no less abundant than they had been under the Assyrians, notwithstanding the fact that enormous quantities of timber had been harvested and sent to the Assyrian capitals; horses were no scarcer in A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Volume I, First Edition.

Edited by Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger.

Potts Media than previously; bitumen no less abundant at Hit; and lapis lazuli was just as available in Afghanistan as ever. But the sheer size of the empire required an extraordinary effort to manage it effectively and no doubt tested the capa- bilities of the state administrative apparatus at the same time as it helped to build considerable managerial and logistical expertise.

Efficient communica- tion across enormous distances became a sine qua non of imperial success and demanded regular travel on a scale scarcely seen in any period of human his- tory prior to the creation of the Achaemenid Empire. Within the borders of the empire, the major mountain ranges are pierced by only half a dozen major passes and these have necessarily acted as conduits for travel across the Comparing The Achaemenid Empire And The Imperial.

Beginning in the east these are the Khyber pass, formed by the Kabul river as it flows through the mountains of Pakistan; the Bolan pass, which pierces the hills of southwestern Pakistan where the Nari river cuts through them; the Ardewan pass in the Hindu Kush, which opens up communication between Merv in Turkmenistan and Herat in western Afghanistan, thanks to the Kushk river; the Sefid Rud gap, which bursts through the Alburz mountains, giving access from the Leadership Is Made Not Born Sea to the Iranian plateau, near Rasht; the Zagros Gates, where the Diyala river cuts through the Zagros mountains near Bisitun, providing access from the Mesopotamian plain to the Iranian plateau in the east Tigridian region; and the Cilician Gates, where a branch of the Tarsus river pierces the Taurus mountains, providing access from the western Anatolian plateau to the Mediterranean Brice p.

If Achaemenid administrators and military commanders felt that a tyranny of distance operated within the empire, it was at least mediated by effective communications that facilitated the movement of private individuals Waerzeggerscouriers Herrenschmidt ; Briantarmies, and officials Hallock on foot, camel, horse, donkey, cart, barge, and boat. For the most part, travel was undertaken along roads already in exist- ence. These included major routes that had been traversed since prehistoric times, from southern Babylonia, up the Euphrates and Tigris, and across Geography and Climate 15 northern Mesopotamia, descending into Syria and the southern Levant Hallo Fig.

Uralmost certainly continued to be used as well. Guides, fast couriers, and guard stations had been known since the Bronze Age Barjamovic pp. Indeed, judging by the extant literary testimonia, travel in the Achaemenid period was as efficient as it was at any time prior to the development of motorized transport. Nor were Comparing The Achaemenid Empire And The Imperial generally mediated by appreciable rainfall, though it is clear that precipitation varied enormously across the length and breadth of the region controlled by the Achaemenids.

This is scarcely to be wondered at in an empire spanning so many degrees of latitude and longitude. Generally speaking, the climate of most of the empire may be characterized as a drier, continental variant of the Mediterranean regime Brice p. Pockets of territory in central Anatolia, around Lakes Van and Urmia, the central Iranian plateau, Sistan, and Afghanistan received rain in both sea- sons Brice Fig. Just as it has been in recent times Kouchoukos et al.

Bottema p. Fluctuations of this sort are 16 Daniel T. Potts generally not recorded in ancient sources, with the exception of the Babylonian astronomical diaries.

In addition to containing observations on the height of the Euphrates Slotsky pp. Sachs and Hunger p. In the higher ranges of the Zagros moun- tains, where peaks in excess of m. The northerly winds of the summer, coming almost entirely from the north, cause the region to become overheated. Still, in coastal areas where agriculture was unviable except in winter, fishing and pearling, not to mention trading, were pursued in summer. Climate and topography necessarily had an enormous influence on flora and fauna throughout the Achaemenid Empire.

Indications of ancient environments within the Achaemenid Empire are provided by both Achaemenid epigraphic and Greek literary sources as well as archeological data. In ancient usage, how- ever, it is often the case that the geographical descriptor attached to a com- modity is the supplier of the material rather than the actual land in which it grew or was mined. Minerals used in the palace at Susa included gold from Lydia, probably the alluvial gold of the Pactolus river Muhly p.]

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Main articles: Achaemenes , Teispids , and Achaemenid family tree The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished; they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei , Derusiaei , Germanii , all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder—the Dai , Mardi , Dropici , Sagarti , being nomadic. The Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Persians were an Iranian people who arrived in what is today Iran c. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as the Medes , another group of Iranian peoples, established a short-lived empire and played a major role in the overthrow of the Assyrians. According to the Cyrus Cylinder the oldest extant genealogy of the Achaemenids the kings of Anshan were Teispes , Cyrus I , Cambyses I and Cyrus II , also known as Cyrus the Great, who created the empire [26] the later Behistun Inscription , written by Darius the Great , claims that Teispes was the son of Achaemenes and that Darius is also descended from Teispes through a different line, but no earlier texts mention Achaemenes [28]. Mazares, and after his death Harpagus , set about reducing all the cities which had taken part in the rebellion. The subjugation of Lydia took about four years in total. Comparing The Achaemenid Empire And The Imperial.