The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium.
Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution. Edited by IAN MORRIS and WALTER
SCHEIDEL. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xii + 381 + 7 maps.
Cloth, $85.00. ISBN 978–0–19–537158–1.
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CJ Online 2010.03.03
A book that presents the Roman or Athenian empire in the context of others
in the ancient world seems like an eminently good idea, with the potential
for real or unusual insights. This volume offers some of these, but because
its contents are extremely disparate, it hardly provides the material for a
general understanding.
A highly theoretical introduction by Jack Goldstone and John Haldon sets
the tone for a work evidently designed for a scholarly rather than a
popular audience. The introduction first deals with states, which it sees
as defined regions with a central authority capable of exercising coercive
power. Successful states have administrative structures and an ideology,
and are acceptable not only to their own elites but to the general
population. Relations between rulers and elites, however, are always
crucial. This leads to a definition of empire as a territory ruled from a
distinct organizational center with ideological and political sway over
elites who in turn exercise power over populations whose majority has
neither access to nor influence over political power (p. 18). This
definition seems both broad and incomplete, for it could describe virtually
any stratified society and could as well refer to a state as an empire.
Some might prefer Michael Doyle’s succinct definition in the opening
sentence of his Empires (1986): “Empires are relationships of political
control imposed by some political societies over the effective sovereignty
of other political societies.”
The first subject of discussion is the Neo-Assyrian Empire (not, for some
reason, the earliest empires—the Sumerian, Babylonian or Egyptian), which
lasted from the 9th–7th centuries BC and had considerable influence.
Peter Bedford reviews the problems of the sources and provides a clear
historical outline and a useful appendix of texts. He explains the dual
administrative system, with provinces ruled by an Assyrian elite and client
states under their local rulers, and shows how ever more territory was
incorporated into Assyria. The king represented the will of the god Assur,
who demanded conquest and had to be recognized as supreme by all. Below the
king were the elites, both Assyrians and foreigners who subscribed to the
imperial ideology. Assyria’s important innovation was to create an
ideology that integrated subject populations into the Assyrian world view.
Since conquered territories became part of Assyria, it was legitimate to
move their populations around to exploit new lands. In the process, the
state broke regional and ethnic identities, turning its varied population
into Assyrians. This is a clear and stimulating essay.
Josef Wiesehofer’s discussion of the Achaemenid empire offers something
similar. The Persians were a small minority ruling over the vastest empire
of the ancient Near East. They succeeded through flexibility and
compromise. Instead of forcing their subjects to become Persians or
subordinating local gods to Ahura Mazda, the Persians allowed their
subjects to follow local traditions and left local elites in power as long
as they were loyal to Persia. The king ruled through governors (satraps)
and garrison troops, so that he could exercise coercive authority as
needed, although he rarely had to until the empire began to decline.
Central power was strengthened by grants of land to members of the royal
family and the new administrative elite. Persia reached its height under
Darius, who as a usurper needed to create a false genealogy relating him to
the royal house and who mobilized the empire’s resources to build a
symbol of imperial splendor in Persepolis. Unfortunately, this chapter
gives short shrift to the long decline and ultimate collapse of the empire.
Problems begin with the exceedingly long and heavily documented study (78
pages with 390 notes) of the “Greater Athenian State” by Ian Morris,
who points out that the Athenian domain was tiny in size, population and
resources compared to others, and that it had a homogenous population. He
believes that it was not an empire at all. Why, then, include it here?
Because, it seems, it was an example of state formation, in which the
Athenians tried to develop an Ionian Greek territorial state with Athens as
its capital. For Morris, an empire must have a large territory and be
hierarchical and multiethnic, with a strong sense of foreignness between
rulers and ruled. He supports his argument with a comprehensive survey of
the environment, political systems and economic, social and cultural bases
of classical Greece states. Although there is much of value in his
argument, it seems to me that the central point is seriously flawed. First,
well-placed people in 5th-century Athens believed that they were involved
with an empire: “your empire (arche) is a tyranny exercised over subjects
who do not like it” (Cleon in Th. 3.37). Second, why is foreignness such
an essential element in defining an empire? Surely it would not apply to
the Chinese or to the British who in the 18th century ruled over North
Americans just as British as they were. And was the Athenian domain really
so homogenous? For Morris it seems all Ionian; but in the islands and Asia
Minor Athens ruled large Aeolian and Dorian populations, who were fully
conscious of their relationship to Thebes or Sparta (see, e.g. Th. 7.57 on
the composition of the force Athens sent against Syracuse and the
compulsion exercised upon its non-Ionian contingents). For the moment, it
probably remains best to see an Athenian empire.
The sketch of the political economy of the Roman empire was unfortunately
cut short by the death of its author, Keith Hopkins. Nevertheless, it
explains the relation of the state and its ruling elites, who formed an
aristocracy predicated upon service rather than heredity and who in the
period of expansion were rewarded with the profits of conquest. The empire
did its best to control the aristocracy, whose agricultural wealth often
made it difficult to extract full potential tax revenues. The long life of
this empire reflects the effective destruction of previous political
systems and the subordination of existing cults, all behind a facade of
autonomy. Hopkins deals also with the economy and money supply, but the
essay ends in mid-stream.
John Haldon’s long essay on the Byzantine Empire also focuses on central
power and elites, and is particularly concerned with who exploited whom in
social and political terms. The chapter will be hard going for anyone not
already acquainted with Byzantine history. It deals primarily with the
medieval state, not the East Roman realm of late antiquity (4th–7th
centuries), and thus falls outside the ostensible scope of the volume.
Byzantium had the advantage of an elaborate system of precedence and an
all-encompassing fiscal administration, which enabled the center to keep
the upper hand during most periods until the 12th century. Byzantium also
had an unshakable sense of its own superiority derived from its classical
tradition and Christian orthodoxy. Haldon presents the Islamic state of the
7th–9th centuries as a kind of alternative, seeing a three-cornered
struggle between the center, local interests and provincial rulers.
Certainly, centrifugal tendencies were always strong and eventually led to
collapse. But all this needs to be seen in a clearer context. The early
Islamic state, unlike Byzantium, was ruled by a tiny military elite of
Muslim Arabs who controlled vast Roman and Persian populations. It had the
power of a new religion and also of a complex inherited administrative
apparatus. This section (which also demands previous knowledge of history)
is really too short to exploit its subject satisfactorily.
The volume ends on an odd note, with a lengthy essay (70 pages with 389
notes) by Walter Scheidel on “Sex and Empire.” Drawing on anthropology
and sociology, he asks why there are empires at all and why they have
power. He finds a strong correlation between status, power and male
reproductive success and asks whether ancient empires conform to a model of
competition for females and other resources. Unsurprisingly, he finds that
in the ancient Near East the rich and powerful wound up with a
disproportionate share of women and resources. Interestingly, though,
polygyny has been the most desired mating pattern in history, with the
monogamy of the classical (not Homeric) Greeks and Romans an unusual
phenomenon. Monogamy seems designed to force the appearance of equality and
encourage cooperation more then competition. Yet, Scheidel finds, it is a
bit of a fraud, since the men at the top have greater sexual opportunities
from owning slaves, supporting hetairai or belonging to a conquering or
colonizing force that can appropriate local women. In those cases, empire
brings sexual rewards that reflect superiority over the subjected
populations. The phrase “sexual exploitation” frequently occurs here,
but there were also benefits for women. Surely one reason for polygyny was
that many young men were killed off in wars, leaving women without
support—and one might wonder whether a woman was better off digging in
the fields or lolling in a harem. This is a provocative essay, though that
it is more relevant to empires than other societies is not obvious.
In sum, this volume is less than the sum of its parts. Some individual
chapters have merit and at least show the need to understand the role of
dominant elites as well as supreme rulers. But they are all so different
that it is hard to draw general conclusions or to come away from the book
with a clearer idea about ancient empires than one had upon opening it.
CLIVE FOSS
Georgetown University
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