An Afro Eurasian “Hyperpower” and Its Ancient Near Eastern Roots
2022 Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series: The Achaemenid Persian World Empire
The series of lectures offers a novel and fresh perspective on one of the largest and most successful empires in world history, namely, the Achaemenid Persian World Empire (sixth to fourth century BCE), the central power of a (proto-)globalized world, and the driving force behind many cultural developments, whose manifold repercussions we may observe from Gibraltar to the Taklamakan Desert, from the Aegean and Scythian lands to the sub-Saharan worlds, and from the Bay of Bengal to eastern Africa. Our sources, both written and archaeological, are but a faint palimpsest bearing witness to the grandeur of the Achaemenid civilization, and its impress on the antique world.
The present Yarshater Lectures are an attempt at deducing, from among the many ideological layers still cluttering our (narrative) sources, including the many biases, old and new, that still guide modern scholarship, the unique identity, sense of purpose, and political awareness that distinguished the Achaemenids, eventually enabling them to forge a capacious vision of the world. In these lectures, the Achaemenid Persian World Empire will be presented as a political formation that not only profoundly impacted its immediate and more distant surroundings, but also served as an imperial model that most lastingly transformed its posterity.
Lecture 1: An Afro-Eurasian “Hyperpower” and Its Ancient Near Eastern Roots (First Millennium BCE)
The lecture focuses on the structure, genesis, and historical setting of the Achaemenid Empire. It discusses major aspects of the royal ideology, the position of the Great King, and the Empire’s resilience in periods of crisis.
Citation
Rollinger, Robert. "An Afro-Eurasian “Hyperpower” and Its Ancient Near Eastern Roots (First Millennium BCE)." Pourdavoud Center: The Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series (April 11, 2022).
About the Speaker
Robert Rollinger
University of Innsbruck
Robert Rollinger is Professor of Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck. His main research areas are the history of the Ancient Near East and the Achaemenid Empire, contacts between the Aegean World and the Ancient Near East, ancient historiography, and the comparative history of empires. Recent publications include Imperien in der Weltgeschichte. Epochenübergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche (co-edited; 2014), Mesopotamia in the Ancient World. Impact, Continuities, Parallels (co-edited; 2015), Alexander und die großen Ströme. Die Flussüberquerungen im Lichte altorientalischer Pioniertechniken (2013), Short-term Empires in World History (co-edited; 2020), A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 2 volumes (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) (co-edited; 2021), Empires to be Remembered (Studies in Universal and Cultural History) (co- edited; 2022) or Decline, Erosion and Implosion of Empires (Studies in Universal and Cultural History) (co-edited; 2022).