Die Verwaltung im Achamenidenreich / Administration in the Achaemenid Empire

Imperiale Muster und Strukturen / Tracing the Imperial Signature: Akten des 6. Internationalen Kolloquiums zum Thema Vorderasien im Spannungsfeld klassischer und altorientalischer Uberlieferungen aus Anlass der 80-Jahr-Feier der Entdeckung des Fest

edited by Bruno Jacobs, Wouter F. M. Henkelman and Matthew W. Stolper

Book cover: Die Verwaltung im Achamenidenreich / Administration in the Achaemenid Empire

Extent: 888 pages

Publisher: Harrassowitz Verlag

Subjects: Ancient Near East

Series: Classica et Orientalia

Series volume number: 17

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(September 2017)

ISBN: 9783447107938

Price: $177.00

Out of stock

In recent decades, a number of local archives and other primary sources for the history of the Achaemenid empire have been made available for the first time, or have received new treatment. Foremost among these are the Persepolis Fortification archive and the correspondence between the satraps of Bactria and Egypt and their respective staffs. Several contributors to this volume try to analyze the events and transactions documented by these sources in terms of bureaucratic and administrative protocols and to interpret them within an empire-wide network. Recurring patterns reveal a system of administrative hierarchies and structures. Among other things, the Achaemenid administration managed supplying official travelers, assuring regular communication between the empire’s core and the provinces, and it used some of the same methods and institutions to manage supply, assignment and logistics of workers sent from the provinces to do labor service in the center of Persia. Another approach represented in this volume confronts these primary sources with information about Achaemenid imperial administration in classical sources, the primary material serving both as corrective and as analytical tool. Combined, these complementary approaches lead to a similar assessment: the imperial administration was not characterized by rupture and ad hoc responses to crises but rather by continuity and stability, and these long-term factors were important reasons for the unprecedented scope and endurance of this first world empire.

  • Edited by Wouter F M Henkelman
  • Edited by Bruno Jacobs
  • Edited by Matthew W Stolper

"Even if the contributors make clear that there still is a long way to go to unravel all threads that made up the Achaemenid Empire, I found this nevertheless generally a comforting volume, if only because it not merely makes clear how much has been achieved in the last decade(s), but also because it suggests clear directions to be pursued in (already current and) future research. [...]The editors (and contributors) are to be congratulated with this volume." --Jan P. Stronk, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.10.59
—