ABSTRACT
What ideologies held the Achaemenid empire together? How did the Persian king perceive the world he ruled over and how, in turn, was he himself perceived? These questions can only be partially answered from what has survived. In the absence of Persian treatises on kingship and power, we have to examine a range of extremely diverse sources. Both visual and written materials offer significant insights. It is particularly important to realise that many, indeed a majority, of the verbal imperial statements are embedded in royal monuments and sculptures. This means that image and text have to be read in conjunction (cf. Kozuh 2003), and it explains why this chapter contains almost as many figures as texts. Many motifs recur, reinforcing certain messages that the authority in the imperial centre wished to project. One aspect of the material presented here, that we must keep in mind, is that, with the exception of Darius I’s account of his successful seizure of the throne (5, no.1), nothing allows us to gain an impression of the character of individual rulers (Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1989/2002). The images and messages of Achaemenid kingship, as we first see them being formulated in Darius I’s reign, set a norm for later rulers. And that vision of monarchic power was driven home by reiteration, verbal and visual. While there are hints of change over time (see 11, nos.4, n.1; 37 & n.4; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1998), these are so subtle that it is impossible to pin down their significance. To try to gain some sense of facets of Achaemenid ideology, I have divided this Introduction (as well as the chapter) into a series of sections, each of which forefronts certain aspects. The categories are not neatly separable from each other. Themes overlap and reappear to produce a dense ideological web that embraced the peoples of the empire and strongly affected both those on its margins and its successors.
