Writing Ancient Persia ─ Duckworth Classical Essays

The history of Achaemenid Persia — the empire of Cyrus the Great, Darius and Xerxes — has largely been rewritten in the last thirty years. Inspired by new sources of information, and by a determination to see Persia in its own terms, historians have created a powerful new image of the Persian Empire: tightly organised and resilient, tolerant towards the religions and cultures of its subject peoples, and with kings and queens whose concerns were pragmatic rather than whimsically despotic.

Writing Ancient Persia offers a far-reaching appreciation and critique of this recent movement. The bias of Greek sources on Persia, it argues, cannot simply be peeled away to reveal authentic source material. Persian evidence points to a significantly less rosy image of Persian imperialism. And past writers on Achaemenid Persia, far from rejecting it as the mirror image and enemy of the Greeks, frequently traced its influence on the classical Greco-Roman world, and identified strongly with Persia as a model.

Thomas Harrison is Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, University of Liverpool.