Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis

Description

Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre proposes a new approach to understanding the Achaemenid empire based on her study of the regional capital, Sardis. This study uses archaeological, artistic and textual sources to demonstrate that the two-hundred year Persian presence in this city had a profound impact on local social structures, revealing the region's successful absorption, both ideological and physical, into the Persian Empire. During this period, Sardis was a centre of burgeoning creativity and vitality, where a polyethnic elite devised a new culture - inspired by Iranian, Greek and local Lydian traditions - that drew on and legitimated imperial ideology. The non-elite absorbed and adapted multiple aspects of this new culture to create a wholly new profile of what it meant to be Sardian. As well as successfully bringing together current information on the Achaemenids, this book is also an excellent contribution to empire studies.

ELSPETH R. M. DUSINBERRE is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"...this book brings together a diverse array of evidence and makes a significant contribution to the growing field of Achaemenid Anatolian studies, with an insightful and progressive theoretical approach." Journal of Field Archaelogy "...Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis is carefully written, methodologically well informed and thoughtfully argued." BMCR "...Dusinberre's book brings Sardis studies forward in a vital way." BMCR