The Great King and His Audiences
Abstract
It is well-known that the Achaemenid inscriptions were not only carved on the stone in the languages/scripts of the realm (Old Persian; Elamite, Akkadian, Middle Egyptian), but also disseminated in "diplomatic" copies and in oral variants (at least the Old Persian version). This multitude of compositions on occasion offered variations in content as well, which is to be ascribed to the empire's desire to pay heed to the intellectual make-up of its constituents. Indeed, royal proclamations had a greater chance of being discerned and understood when garbed in local literary traditions. A few case studies shall be discussed to exhibit the Achaemenid discursive strategies.
Citation
Shayegan, Rahim M.. "The Great King and His Audiences," Achaemenid Workshop 3 (February 21, 2025).
About the Speaker
M. Rahim Shayegan
University of California, Los Angeles
M. Rahim Shayegan is Professor of Iranian and the Ancient Near East and the Eleanor and Jahangir Amuzegar Chair in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC) at UCLA. At UCLA, he also serves as the founding director of the Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World (established 2017), the founding director of the Yarshater Center for the Study of Iranian Literary Traditions (established 2023), as well as the founder and chair of Global Antiquity (established 2020), an academic unit of the Humanities.
Professor Shayegan received his PhD from Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows before joining the NELC faculty at UCLA.
He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013–14), is a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea, Section of Classics and Oriental Studies (2019–present); a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) (2021–present), and the invited Yarshater conférencier in November 2022 delivering five lectures at INALCO/Collège de France.
Professor Shayegan has authored and edited several books, among them: Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia (Cambridge UP, 2011); Aspects of History and Epic in Ancient Iran (Harvard UP, 2012); and Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore (Harvard UP, 2019). He is currently working on a number of volumes on the Achaemenid and Sasanian empires, among them Achéménides et Sassanides: Continuités et ruptures, which is the text of the cinq conférences delivered at INALCO/Collège de France; History of the Sasanian Empire (Cambridge University Press); and Ancient Iran and the West (Getty Publishers).
He is currently working on a number of volumes on the Achaemenid and Sasanian empires, among them Achéménides et Sassanides: Continuités et ruptures, the text of cinq conférences at INALCO/Collège de France; The World of Ancient Iran and the West (Getty Publishers), and Companion to the Sasanian Empire (Wiley-Blackwell). He is editor of a number of newly established series, among them Iran and the Ancient World with University of California Press (UCP).