ABSTRACT

If one were to assess the achievements of the Achaemenid Persians, surely the concept of ‘One World’, the fusion of peoples and cultures in one ‘oecumene’, was one of the important legacies to Alexander and the Romans. The Achaemenid monarch thought of himself as a king of kings over many peoples with their various rulers. Hand in hand with the idea of empire went the process of mixture and syncretism; members of distant tribes and nations were brought into contact with each other under the umbrella of the Persian peace and there must have been much give and take.