Ancient States and Empires

Interdisciplinarity has experienced cyclical fluctuations. Even though it is currently gaining popularity again, the contours of the notion of interdisciplinarity often remain blurred. For a Research Unit that is adopting an interdisciplinary perspective it is therefore imperative to reach a consensus regarding the underlying concept and its implications. We therefore explain how the interdisciplinary setup and interconnectedness of the DFG Research Unit 2757 contribute to approaching a complex research agenda that lies beyond the scope of individual disciplines. To this end, we first elucidate the fundamental terms, theories and methods, developed and selected through interdisciplinary reflection, and present the basic ideas of our Research Unit. Furthermore, we describe the organizational structure and explain how the subprojects are connected both in terms of content and methodology. This allows us to more precisely define our understanding of interdisciplinary cooperation in the...

Sparta’s naval victory in the Peloponnesian War depended on ship contributions from Peloponnesian and central Greek allies and funding from the Persian empire.  At the end of the war, Lysander’s acquisition of captured enemy triremes allowed Sparta to break free from its reliance on allied warships, but not without long-term consequences.  In the Persian War of the following decade, although Sparta was now able to launch a fleet without Corinthian or Theban participation, it lacked resources to maintain its aging ships’ seaworthiness, and its loss of Persian financial support doomed its efforts to recruit and pay adequate naval crews.  The logistical and financial consequences of the breakdown of Sparta’s Peloponnesian War alliances brought about the collapse of its short-lived naval dominance.

Appian's Illyrian book (Illyrike) was originally intended to be just an appendix to his Macedonian book and today remains the only extant ancient work dealing with the early history of Illyricum which is preserved in its entirety. In this short work Appian puts together different local and regional histories in order to create a unified historical narrative and determines the historical and mythological coordinates of Illyricum inside the ancient world. This paper will discuss Illyrike in the context of the Roman construction of Illyricum as a provincial space, similar to some other regions in continental Europe such as, for example, Gaul or Britain. They were all firstly created through the needs of Roman political geography and later written into literary knowledge through the works of ancient history and ethnography. This paper will argue that Appian's Illyrike represented the final stage of the Roman construction of Illyricum from an imaginary to a provincial space, which was the point of its full coming of age as an integral part of the ancient world and the Roman Empire.

The claim by certain rulers to universal empire has a long history stretching as far back as the Assyrian and Achaemenid Empires. This book traces its various manifestations in classical antiquity, the Islamic world, Asia and Central America as well as considering seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European discussions of international order. As such it is an exercise in comparative world history combining a multiplicity of approaches, from ancient history, to literary and philosophical studies, to the history of art and international relations and historical sociology. The notion of universal, imperial rule is presented as an elusive and much coveted prize among monarchs in history, around which developed forms of kingship and political culture. Different facets of the phenomenon are explored under three, broadly conceived, headings: symbolism, ceremony and diplomatic relations; universal or cosmopolitan literary high-cultures; and, finally, the inclination to present universal imperial rule as an expression of cosmic order.

• Proposes a new view of the notion of universal empire across world history • Adopts a wide-ranging and boldly comparative approach across time and geography • Examines imperial universalism from a multiplicity of disciplinary perspectives

Contents

1. 'Elephant of India' – universal empire through time and across cultures Peter Fibiger Bang with Dariusz Kołodziejczyk; Part I. Eurasia – Antiquity till Early Modernity: 2. Propaganda and practice in Assyrian and Persian imperial culture Gojko Barjamovic; 3. Between Aśoka and Antiochos – an essay in world history on universal kingship and cosmopolitan culture in the Hellenistic ecumene Peter Fibiger Bang; 4. The making of Oriental Rome: shaping the Trojan legend Rolf Michael Schneider; 5. Pseudo-Aristotelian politics and theology in universal Islam Garth Fowden; 6. The Christian imperial tradition, Greek and Latin Judith Herrin and Dimiter Angelov; 7. Khan, Caliph, Tsar and Imperator: the multiple identities of the Ottoman Sultan Dariusz Kołodziejczyk; 8. How the Mughal Padshahs referenced Iran in their visual construction of universal rule Ebba Koch; 9. Ideologies of state building in Vijayanagara and Post-Vijayanagara South India: some reflections Velcheru Narayana Rao and Sanjay Subrahmanyam; 10. Sons of Heaven: the Qing appropriation of the Chinese model of universal empire Evelyn S. Rawski; Part II. Contrasting Universalisms – Old and New World; 11. Aztec universalism: ideology and status symbols in the service of empire-building Justyna Olko; 12. From empire to Commonwealth(s) – orders in Europe, 1300–1800 Peter Haldén; 13. Imperial universalism – further thoughts John A. Hall.

Contributors

Peter Fibiger Bang, Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, Gojko Barjamovic, Rolf Michael Schneider, Garth Fowden, Judith Herrin, Dimiter Angelov, Ebba Koch, Velcheru Narayana Rao, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Evelyn S. Rawski, Justyna Olko, Peter Haldén, John A. Hall

En primer lugar se estudian las relaciones entre la teoría antropológica y los estudios sobre la ciudad griega antigua. En segundo lugar, se analiza la potencialidad del pensamiento de Pierre Clastres para comprender la lógica de funcionamiento de la democracia ateniense.

First, the relations between anthropological theory and the studies about the ancient Greek city-state are taken into account. In second place, the potentiality of Pierre Clastres´ideas are used in order to understand the Athenian democracy and its political working logic.

As an urban oligarchy embarking upon an imperial project, Assyrian elites lacked an ideological roadmap for managing the cultural differences they encountered, or for preserving their integrity as a trans- regional class. If rank, prestige goods, and landed estates distinguished the imperial elite, they were primarily bound through their personal oaths of loyalty to the king rather than a shared class consciousness. Competition among elites is thus more visible in their correspondence than consolidation. “Confidence” was something the king conferred instead of the common possession of a self-affirming trans-regional elite. They therefore also were incapable of framing their relations with local, subordinated elites as encounters of groups, and the Assyrian regime appears neither to have valued nor to have acquired ethnographic capital.  The legitimacy of both imperial and local elites alike depended on royal confidence, a loyalty to the center that overrode all relations with the province—its sub-elites and subjects—that were necessary to ensure effective domination. Toward the end of their empire, the Assyrian kings began to acknowledge the autonomous legitimacy of local elites and the importance of maintaining their distance from the center. In so doing, they pre!gured the development of actual cosmopolitanism.

This article offers an exploration of the "Traveling Court" model of imperial integration from the perspective of Hellenistic kings' travels in mainland Greece. By personally attending local and regional festivals, and participating in the cults of the poleis, Hellenistic rulers increased their visibility and created opportunities for negotiations with local elites; pan-Hellenic festivals offered them opportunities to simultaneously address representatives of many different poleis. Conversely, the organization of so-called great events of the court (here in particular the marriage rites of Antiochos III and an Euboian elite woman at Chalkis) drew local power holders to the court.

Interdisciplinarity has experienced cyclical fluctuations. Even though it is currently gaining popularity again, the contours of the notion of interdisciplinarity often remain blurred. For a Research Unit that is adopting an interdisciplinary perspective it is therefore imperative to reach a consensus regarding the underlying concept and its implications. We therefore explain how the interdisciplinary setup and interconnectedness of the DFG Research Unit 2757 contribute to approaching a complex research agenda that lies beyond the scope of individual disciplines. To this end, we first elucidate the fundamental terms, theories and methods, developed and selected through interdisciplinary reflection, and present the basic ideas of our Research Unit. Furthermore, we describe the organizational structure and explain how the subprojects are connected both in terms of content and methodology. This allows us to more precisely define our understanding of interdisciplinary cooperation in the...

This paper reconstructs the state finances of the Roman Republic from the years 200-157 B.C.E., reevaluating a similar project undertaken by Tenney Frank in the 1930s.  It confirms that basic order of magnitude of Frank’s estimates, although it makes some modifications to the reconstruction of both expenditures and revenues, suggesting that Frank significantly understated the importance of tributum, the war-tax collected from Roman citizens, and underestimated expenditures on public works, which represented the largest non-military expense undertaken by the Middle Republican state. I conclude with a discussion of finance and state power in the Republic, noting in particular that during the second century B.C.E. warfare was overall a money-losing proposition for the Roman state, and that the Roman fiscal apparatus still lagged behind other Hellenistic powers, even as Roman arms achieved hegemony over the entirety of the Mediterranean.

This article builds a framework for the analysis of the Inka Empire’s (1400–1532 CE) expansion in the Peruvian highlands. Drawing from recent archaeological excavations at the site of Canchaje (Huarochirí), I propose that the Inka built upon cultural familiarities between them and their subjects by using ritual emplacements (rock outcrops and plazas) as arenas of mediation. At the same time, the construction of mutual legibility enabled subjected communities to maintain and redefine their cultural practices in ways that survived the Inka Empire. By recasting the Inka from foreign conqueror to new kin within local ritual systems, the people of Huarochirí reinvented their traditions to garner political agency. Using archaeological data and colonial-period documents, I show that local agency informed empire-building, leading to the reinvention of local traditions. Ultimately, my work shows how mutual legibility was built on the ground while exploring specific instances of negotiation through ritual.

The archaeological reconstruction of ancient states requires consistent regional measures of state-directed power and influence. This paper presents data from a series of systematic archaeological surveys in the Cusco region of highland Peru to evaluate patterns of influence by the Wari state during a period of
colonization from ca. AD 600–1000. We discuss interpretive debates over the nature and intensity of Wari social power, suggesting that site-based studies can be contextualized meaningfully using our large-scale dataset, which offers settlement patterns at varying distances (0–70 km) from Pikillacta, a Wari administrative center. We discuss local settlement patterns before and during Wari colonization, as well as the distribution of Wari pottery and local Wari-influenced wares. We then use a geographic information systems analysis of travel time from key sites to evaluate the broad regional distribution patterns of local and Wari ceramic styles. Although the regional survey data do not inform us reliably about all kinds of social power, we conclude that the Wari cultural, economic, and political influence over the Cusco region was limited and discontinuous—an example of colonization that resembles the practices of other early states.

Considerable attention has been devoted to the architecture and art history of Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple in the last century. There has, however, been little research on the functions and internal organisation of the large rectangular enclosure surrounding the temple. Such enclosures have long been assumed to have been sacred precincts, or perhaps ‘temple-cities’: work exploring the archaeological patterning for habitation within them has been limited. The results of LiDAR survey and excavation have now revealed evidence for low-density residential occupation in these areas, possibly for those servicing the temple. Recent excavations within the enclosure challenge our traditional understanding of the social hierarchy of the Angkor Wat community and show that the temple precinct, bounded by moat and wall, may not have been exclusively the preserve of the wealthy or the priestly elite.

The pharaonic state is mainly seen in a modern way always from a jusnaturalist point of analisys, in what we can call a idealist perspective of reading of the ancient egyptian state organization. Starting from works like Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843), Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) and The German Ideology (1845/46), we will try to design a marxist theory of precapitalist state, focusing in the II millennium B.C. ancient Egypt, using concepts like Material state and Political state or state fetishism to look at the state both as a form of social organization and an institutional apparatus disputed by fractions of ruler class

Abstract: In this work, it will be analyzed to what extent the archaeology of the Mayan culture can be useful to clarify the debate about the organization and political interaction on the island of Crete during the Neopalatial period. This analogy is not whimsical; since this topic has generated intense debates in the field of Cretan archaeology, some researchers have considered that the models used for the lowlands of Mesoamerica may be useful to provide new answers. However, this type of comparison has not been studied in sufficient depth. Faced with this situation, this research has four general objectives: first, to offer some theoretical-methodological bases to carry out this analogical analysis; second, briefly describe the state of the art in Minoan studies on the debate about the political organization; third, to systematize the different models proposed for the Mayan culture considering their epistemological and hermeneutical bases; and, finally, evaluate the merits (and defects) of using this analogy.

Interdisciplinarity has experienced cyclical fluctuations. Even though it is currently gaining popularity again, the contours of the notion of interdisciplinarity often remain blurred. For a Research Unit that is adopting an interdisciplinary perspective it is therefore imperative to reach a consensus regarding the underlying concept and its implications. We therefore explain how the interdisciplinary setup and interconnectedness of the DFG Research Unit 2757 contribute to approaching a complex research agenda that lies beyond the scope of individual disciplines. To this end, we first elucidate the fundamental terms, theories and methods, developed and selected through interdisciplinary reflection, and present the basic ideas of our Research Unit. Furthermore, we describe the organizational structure and explain how the subprojects are connected both in terms of content and methodology. This allows us to more precisely define our understanding of interdisciplinary cooperation in the...

Considerable attention has been devoted to the architecture and art history of Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple in the last century. There has, however, been little research on the functions and internal organisation of the large rectangular enclosure surrounding the temple. Such enclosures have long been assumed to have been sacred precincts, or perhaps ‘temple-cities’: work exploring the archaeological patterning for habitation within them has been limited. The results of LiDAR survey and excavation have now revealed evidence for low-density residential occupation in these areas, possibly for those servicing the temple. Recent excavations within the enclosure challenge our traditional understanding of the social hierarchy of the Angkor Wat community and show that the temple precinct, bounded by moat and wall, may not have been exclusively the preserve of the wealthy or the priestly elite.

Th is article explores Inka colonial order from a landscape perspective. It is argued that the Inkas strategically employed the spatial organization and architecture of the settlements they built throughout the Empire in order to regulate interactions, create particular representations, and assemble specific experiences. In this sense, this paper examines the spatial layout of Inka provincial centers in order to understand the world the Inkas sought to create within these places. I argue that there are three main principles that organized Inka spatiality in conquered lands: stratifi cation, rituality, and control. It is claimed that those who resided in or visited Inka provincial centers experienced three overlapping landscapes: 1) a landscape of inequality, 2) a landscape of commemoration and spectacle, and 3) a landscape of control.

« C'est de cette prison… que je voudrais faire l'histoire. Par un pur anachronisme ? Non, si on entend par là faire l'histoire du passé dans les termes du présent. Oui, si on entend par là faire l'histoire du présent. » (Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, Paris, 1975.)Selon une opinion largement partagée en Occident, l'écriture et l'interprétation de l'histoire sont une tradition ancienne dans la civilisation chinoise. Ce qui est peut-être moins souvent reconnu, c'est qu'en Chine non seulement les historiens et la narration historique, mais aussi les évaluations relatives du passé comme du présent, ont été soit un élément intrinsèque des processus d'État, soit pris dans une relation complexe et souvent conflictuelle avec l'État.