This contribution covers roughly 12 centuries, from around 550 BC to AD 640. During this time, three Persian dynasties controlled vastly different extents of territory - the largest territory under the first dynasty (Achaemenian), the smallest during the middle phase (Parthian dynasty), and with subsequent sizeable expansion under the Sasanians (though nowhere nearly as extensive as under the Achaemenians).
It is through Westerners’ eyes that we know the land as ‘Persia’. Pars, an ancient province in today’s southwestern Iran, was the homeland of the Achaemenians. Today, through the alliteration of its pronunciation in Arabic, the area is known as Fars province. In this
Region of Iran lay Parsua, the first substantial Achae-menian settlement. In the fourth century BC, when the Macedonian Greeks of Alexander the Great encountered the Achaemenians, they recognized them as based in Pars, which they expressed as Persis. Hence, the rulers in Persis were identified as ‘Persians’. Through an extension of the term, the entire region ruled by these Persians became known as ‘Persian Empire’. The ancient name was ‘Iran’, a term closely related to the concept of ‘Aryan’. Linguists define the people as Indo-Iranians. They were connected with the great migration into the area of Indo-European language speakers that had occurred around the middle of the second millennium BC. Those communities, with whom they could communicate, because of the similarities of the spoken language, were judged to be part of a great Iran. Those who spoke completely different languages were considered outsiders. Notwithstanding this simplistic definition of Iran’s demographics, one should acknowledge that there were definite exceptions to this rule. For there were significant minorities present in the various Iranian (‘Persian’) states under scrutiny here, not least the Semitic-language speaking groups of Mesopotamia (particularly Aramaeans and Jews) who had been residents since the first millennium BC, and Arabs who increasingly migrated into the region in the early centuries of the first millennium AD.
None of the three Iranian states described here was confined to the Iranian plateau. For the Achae-menians, their purview at its height (besides Iran proper, and Mesopotamia) included all of Anatolia (modern Turkey), lower (northern) Egypt, northern Arabia and Palestine, and the Punjab (modern Pakistan). Admittedly, revolts toward the end of the fifth century considerably reduced these territorial holdings (especially in Egypt). Certainly, both the
Parthians and the Sasanians in times of strength controlled territory far beyond today’s northeastern border of Iran, to include parts of modern Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. But official administration of Afghanistan was often ephemeral, and local dynasties assumed virtual control. They rarely ever held sway beyond the River Oxus (Amu Darya), and never beyond the Jaxartes (Syr Darya). To the west, the Parthians and Sasanians controlled large parts of Mesopotamia, but only briefly did they control any part of the Levant. The dynastic capital was invariably in the area of today’s modern Baghdad. For the Parthians and Sasanians, the rough zone of confrontation with their western enemies (first the pagan Romans, then the Christian Byzantines) lay along the River Euphrates.
The archaeological record for all three Persian dynasties under scrutiny here is at best spotty. Certainly, formal excavations have been conducted in the past at various national capitals - Achaemenian Pasarga-dae and Persepolis; Parthian Nisa, Hekatompylos, and Seleucia-on-Tigris; and Sasanian Firuzabad and Ctesiphon. But there has not been sufficient systematic scrutiny of the entire area under consideration to allow us to draw an effective picture of how each of the regions operated over time period. It is evident that when sites are excavated, the most prevalent tangible item recovered - broken utilitarian pottery - is characterized by a local production tradition. Excavators, for example, of the site of Tepe Agrab in northwestern Iran, may muse about ‘Achaemenian-looking’ shapes of the pottery, but without the certainty of attribution that is possible, by contrast, in the discipline of Roman archaeology where thousands of sites have been excavated and their pottery classified. Standards are also difficult to assess. Artifact norms prevalent in the Zagros reaches of western Iran may not be directly applicable to the northeastern reaches of Khorrasan. Sites singled out for mention here are mostly based on the reality of excavation or site study, and a published report. Historical phenomena are also presented when documented by written texts, even though they have not necessarily been excavated.
World History
