ABSTRACT
Despite royal coups and palace conspiracies, the Achaemenid empire remained a relatively stable and ecient organization until Alexander the Great ended it in 330 aer defeating its last king Darius III. One of its most distinctive features was its division, by Darius I, into twenty provinces, called satrapies, governed by satraps who were oen rulers of local origin. Communications between various parts of the empire were facilitated by the development of a network of major roads, the most famous of which was the ‘Royal Road’ linking Susa with Sardis. To help ensure the empire’s stability, Darius I created a powerful standing army of professional soldiers. Its backbone was an elite force of Persians and Medes known as the Ten ousand Immortals. For their operations by sea, the Persians had at their disposal a large navy consisting initially of ships provided by Phoenician cities along the Syro-Palestinian seaboard. e policy of Darius and his successors of employing crasmen and artists from every part of the empire for their public works gave a rich, eclectic, cosmopolitan character to Persian material culture, to an extent unparallelled in any earlier or contemporary civilization.
