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Ancient Empires: Persia, Athens, Macedon

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
  • Convenor: Peter Martin
  • Assessment: a 1000-word source analysis (20%) and 4000-word essay (80%)

Module description

In this module we analyse the entangled histories of three ancient empires: Achaemenid Persia, Classical Athens and Alexander the Great’s Macedon, from 559 BCE to 323 BCE. After the Persian Wars, Athens’ Empire, which subjugated other Greek city-states, was seen by contemporaries as the new Persian Empire. A century later, Alexander the Great of Macedon defeated both Athens and the Persian Empire. You will study both the conflicts between these empires and the ways in which they learnt from each other. A central topic is orientalism (past and present) and how it has affected the representation of these empires. You will engage with a range of primary material, including Persian friezes at Persepolis, Darius’ monumental inscription on Mount Behistun, the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah, and Herodotus’ Histories, the first surviving Greek history. You will be asked to consider how different voices, of the ruling and the ruled, become audible, depending on the sources being analysed.

Indicative syllabus

  • Introduction: what is an empire?
  • The emergence of the Achaemenid Persian Empire
  • Orientalism: ancient and modern
  • King Darius’ rule: Herodotus and the Behistun Inscription
  • The Persian Wars
  • The creation of the Athenian Empire
  • Democracy and empire in Athens
  • The fall of Athens’ empire
  • Alexander the Great: a Greco-Persian empire
  • Aftermath: the breakup of Alexander’s empire

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • evaluate different types of imperial systems in the ancient world
  • analyse a range of textual, visual and material sources
  • understand how, by focusing on some types of evidence over others, different experiences of imperial rule are brought to the fore
  • participate in informed debates about the interactions between imperial states in the ancient world, in both small and large group discussions.