Can’t get enough of bookandswordblog? This spring I will be teaching two short courses for the University of Victoria’s Continuing Education program. One of them is online on Tuesday 4 February from 6 to 8 pm Victoria, BC time. The price is CAD $35.70 (about USD $24). You can find more here.
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In my article for the Journal of Ancient Civilizations, I tried to be as clear and concise about Greek soldiers in the Achaemenid empire as I could. In the 20th century scholars often used the subjective and partisan term ‘mercenary‘ and focused specifically on Greek soldiers and Greek hoplites. I think its better to think about them differently.
Read moreBeginning with Ctesias, Greek writers often mention that thousands of Greeks fought for Achaemenid kings and satraps in exchange for pay (in earlier periods Greeks fought for the king as allies or subjects). Modern researchers have written half a dozen books about these so-called “mercenaries” but have not always considered the Egyptian and Near Eastern context. Since the Old Kingdom, Egyptian armies had contained large contingents of Nubians, Libyans, and other people from the edges of the Egyptian world. The Neo-Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians deported all kinds of people to the cores of their empires, gave them land to work, and extracted civil or military service from them. By the Achaemenid period Babylonians often provided a substitute or paid a fee rather than serve themselves. Hiring Greeks for coins was just another way of obtaining foreign soldiers.
“The Armies of the Teispids and Achaemenids: The Armies of an Ancient World Empire,” Journal of Ancient Civilizations Vol. 27 Nr. 2 (2022) p. 156 hosted here
Do you need a second pair of eyes on that book, paper, or project report? I have been editing business and academic writing since 2013. Aside from ancient world studies and medieval studies, I have experience creating software documentation and a background in academic computer science. Because of my time living in Austria, I have experience with the challenges of writing in a second language or a new field.
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The first part of my three-part series on medieval linen armour has appeared in Medieval Clothing and Textiles 18. Whereas in some periods linen armour is commonly showed in paintings and sculptures, there are very few pictures of fabric armour from western Europe between 500 and 1250 CE. No quilted garment survives from Europe in this period either. So I discuss about thirty texts from this period. I work with texts in Greek, Latin, Old French, Ibero-Romance, Irish, Middle High German, Old Norse, and Arabic, and provide my own translations of the Greek, Latin, Romance languages, and Middle High German. Whereas most books summarize and allude to a few of these texts, I put them in context and give both the original language and a translation.
Read moreIn December 2023 my article with an overview of Teispid and Achaemenid armies and warfare became free to download. Whereas my first book is an academic monograph with lots of history of ideas and arguments for and against different position, this article was concise and focused on facts (originally it was intended for a companion or handbook which was derailed by the COVID pandemic). The final published version has some more academic things at the beginning after the three or so rounds of peer review. This week, I want to share why I think its fundamentally wrong to measure the Achaemenids against the Roman empire or the British empire and look for ‘Persian customs’ or ‘ethnic Persians’ in the archaeology and the tablets.
Read moreMany imperial powers emerge in two stages: first a city or dynasty gains control of and homogenizes a core territory, and then it expands outwards. During the phase of homogenization, a common language and writing system are spread, laws and customs harmonized, weights and measures standardized, and a sense of common identity develops. During the phase of expansion, the city or dynasty begins to take control of peoples who are too far away, too different, or simply too numerous to assimilate in the same way. It often chooses to rely on troops from the core territory, and to create a few standard patterns of military unit which can be recruited from that core territory and sent wherever needed. These standardized units from the core territory bring their own military culture into distant parts of the empire. The reliance on soldiers and administrators from the core territory can be understood as a political measure to keep power flowing to those who benefit from the empire. However, it also reduces cultural tensions and language barriers within imperial armies and administration and supports the rulers’ claims to be powerful and necessary. This model fits some famous world empires such as the Roman and the British. But it is not a very good fit for the Teispids and Achaemenids, whose kingdom emerged in different circumstances.
“The Armies of the Teispids and Achaemenids: The Armies of an Ancient World Empire,” Journal of Ancient Civilizations Vol. 27 Nr. 2 (2022) pp. 151-153 hosted here
While many aspects of my life hobble along, some of my print publications have been coming out like arrows in a Scythian battle over the past few months! I wrote about the family of Akhenaten, swords in archaic Greece, reviewed Matthew Waters’ book on Cyrus the Great, and turned my first book into an article which is more concise and focused on giving my best guesses at answers rather than on why its really hard to know about the armies of the Teispids and Achaemenids.
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The latest International Ancient Warfare Conference will happen online from Thursday 23 June to Saturday 25 June under the sponsorship of Prof. Graham Wrightson in South Dakota. I am speaking in session 14 from 10.45 to 12.15 Saturday. The topic I picked is “Get to the Point: What Questions Should We Ask About a Spear?”
Sessions are open to the public and will not be publicly recorded (I may share my talk afterwards). There is no website for the conference, but here are a list of panels with links. All times are US Central Time (UTC -5.00).
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Folks preparing for Plataea 2022 know that there are no commercially available fibulae (safety pins) suitable for the Aegean in 479 BCE. Mark Shier of medievalwares.com in Canada now offers a copy of a type which was very common from Egypt to Western Iran during, before, and after the Achaemenid period. These elbow fibulae are often found in graves from Babylonia through Syria to Judea. If you want to learn more, check out these websites and articles:
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About ten years after the initial proposal the Companion to the Achaemenid Empire has been published! This two-volume, 110-chapter companion covers all aspects of the Achaemenid empire. Whereas previous surveys have been written by a single author, this book is the product of 92 researchers including Elspeth Dusinberre, Bruno Jacobs, Amélie Kuhrt, Robert Rollinger, David Stronach, and Caroline Waerzeggers. Bringing such a project to completion during a period of rapid change in publishing, a pandemic, and a turbulent situation in several rich countries was no small task for the organizers. The price is very appropriate for a European vision of the Achaemenids: 365 Euros. In 2015, there were plans for a cheaper softcover edition printed in thousands of copies, but those plans may have changed.
My chapter is the first comprehensive history of research on the Achaemenids in western Europe. With my co-author, we covered research in English, French, German, and Italian by chronological development, by country, and by themes such as numismatics.
There is a complete list of chapters and authors on Wiley’s Online Library.
This project is bittersweet because the Lie is becoming strong in Gandara and Ionia is on fire. I completed my chapter in 2015 and last revised it in December 2019, and I am not sure what the printed version of the chapter will look like. In a few months, I have gone from having most of my research in press to having almost nothing in press. But getting any version of such a project out is a great deed for the editors and their assistants.
Jacobs, Bruno / Rollinger, Robert (eds.), A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Two volumes. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World No. 2 (John Wiley & Sons, 2021) ISBN-13 ISBN: 978-1-119-17428-8 Wiley (with publisher’s description) – Wiley VCH – Bookfinder
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