We have seen through text and image that the exaltation of the king’s person is a constant theme in the mainstream of the Classical sources. Aristotle, although he does not mention it explicitly, clearly includes the Achaemenid monarchy in the category he calls pamhasUeia ‘absolute monarchy’, which was found, he writes, “among certain barbarian peoples.” Like so many of his contemporaries, he believed that, because the barbarians’ character inclines them more to servility than the Hellenes, and the Asiatics more than the Europeans, they endure despotic rule with nary a complaint (Aristotle, Pol. VII.6). Within the structure of this pamhasileia, the king wielded universal authority in obedience to nothing but "his own will" (Aristotle, Pol. VII.7). This interpretation streams from the pen or the lips of many Greeks. Among many examples, we may simply note the remark that Xenophon attributes to Jason of Pherae in the context of a stereotypical speech intended to prove that the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire was simple: “I know that everybody there, save one person, has trained himself to servitude (douleia) rather than to prowess (alke)” (Xenophon, Hell. VI. l.lZ-O-).
In a way, the picture obtained from the Greeks is not much different from the picture that Darius and his successors sought to establish in text and image. But both pictures tend to reduce the problem to the person of the king alone, whether denouncing the despotic regime or exalting the virtues of the man who was able to govern so many peoples and countries thanks to his uncommon virtue. It is obvious that the historian cannot be satisfied with these ideologized approaches. It is important to pose more concretely the problem of the relatiorrships between the king and those who served him and held the highest positions in the Empire.
World History
