by Amy Chua
3. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 81, 88-89, 168-69, 429-30; Richard N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962), p. 126; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 56, 176-77, 23817.
4. See Jean-Noel Biraben, “The Rising Numbers of Humankind,” Population & Societies, no. 394 (French National Institute of Demographic Studies [INED]) (Oct. 2003), pp. 1-4.
5. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 16-17.
6. Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 2-3, 4317; Josef Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD (London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1996), p. xi.
7. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 18-19; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 45; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. xi-xii.
8. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 5-7; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, p. 51 (quoting from the Cyrus cylinder).
9. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 5-7, 286-93,1007-8; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 79-88.
10. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 15-16; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 78-80.
11. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 15-18, 36-37, 40-44; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 78-81; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 34-41, 50-51, 59.
12. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 71-72, 81; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 127; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 7, 57. On satrapies, and the historical debates surrounding them, see Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, p. 59; Wiesehöfer, pp. 59-62.
13. Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 82; H.WF Saggs, The Might That Was Assyria (London: Sidgewick & Jackson, 1984), pp. 114-15.
14. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 40-44; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 81; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 52-53; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 44-45.
15. Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 43-44.
16. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, p. 226.
17. Isa. 45:1-3; Ezra 6:2-5.
18. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 41, 4617, 79; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 49-51.
19. Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 49-55.
20. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, p. 55; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 87, 92, 129.
21. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 57-61; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 88; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 88-95.
22. Regarding Cambyses’ conquests and the creation of the Persian navy, see Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 51-54, 62. On Cambyses’ death, see Briant, p. 61; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 92-93.
23. As with many of the Achaemenid kings, there is some dispute about the exact year that Darius acceded to the throne. Most scholars, however, agree that it was between 522 and 520 BC. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 13913, 159-61; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 107-8; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, p. 15. On the Scythians, see William Montgomery McGovern, The Early Empires of Central Asia: A Study of the Scythians and the Huns and the Part They Played in World History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939), pp. 36, 47, 49, 56.
24. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 165-79, 369-71; J. M. Cook, The Persian Empire (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1983), pp. 69-70; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 116; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 63-65, 76-77.
25. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 390-94; Cook, The Persian Empire, p. 70.
26. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 170-71, 177-78, 507-10; Cook, The Persian Empire, pp. 68-69; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 19, 29.
27. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, p. 77; Cook, The Persian Empire, pp. 14718; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 117; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. xi, 59, 99. On the debates about the religion of the Achaemenids, see Briant, pp. 93-94; Wiesehöfer, pp. 94-100.
28. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 510-11; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, p. 222.
29. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 168, 172; Frye, The Heritage of Per-sia, pp. 100-101, 126.
30. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 81, 363; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 126.
31. Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 108-9. On the close relationship between the Medes and the Persians, see Cook, The Persian Empire, pp. 42-43.
32. Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 108-9; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 238, 247 (quoting Herodotus).
33. Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 108-9; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 239, 242.
34. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 384-87; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 111-12; Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp. 243-44.
35. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 792-800; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 109-12.
36. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 77, 82, 122-23, 180-83; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, pp. 107-8. On the migratory habits of the Achaemenids, see Briant, pp. 186-89.
37. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 200-201, 289-91.
38. Ibid., pp. 13-14, 200-201, 286-94, 331.
39. Ibid., p. 171.
40. Percy Sykes, A History of Persia (London: MacMillan and Co., 1930), p. 169.
41. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 543-47, 551, 567-68; Frye, The Heritage of Persia, p. 123; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 4213, 46-47, 52.
42. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 543, 549, 554, 567; Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia, pp. 46, 54-55.
43. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 687, 769.
44. Ibid., pp. 852-53, 868-69; Guy MacLean Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 125-27. For vivid accounts of Alexander's military tactics and brilliance on the battlefield, see generally Green, Alexander of Macedon; J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958), pp. 285-305. The quote about Alexander's military prowess is from Green, p. xv.
45. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, pp. 868-69.
46. My description of young Alexander is taken from Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 54-55. On young Alexander and Aristotle, see Green, pp. 53-54, 58-61; Waldemar Heckel and J. C. Yardley, Alexander the Great: Historical Texts in Translation (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 35-39; Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, pp. 4-5, 8-9.
47. Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 59-60; Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, pp. v, xviii, 88-89.
48. My account of Alexander's approach and attitude toward conquered Babylon and Egypt draws heavily on Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 269-70, 303; see also Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, pp. 89, 98, 120.
49. Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 369-70, 446-48; Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, pp. 171-73, 251-52. Modern scholars began to debate the extent to which Alexander sought a fusion of races after the publication of W. W. Tarn's 1948 biography, in which Tarn argued that Alexander had a “unity of mankind” policy. See W. W. Tarn, Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), excerpted in Ian Worthing-ton, ed., Alexander the Great: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 198-207. For a strong critique of this view, see A. B. Bosworth, “Alexander and the Iranians,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 100 (1980), pp. 1-21, excerpted in Worthington, pp. 208-35.
50. Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 453-56, 487-88; Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, pp. 213-14, 221-26, 251, 256, 259-61.
51. Green, Alexander of Macedon, pp. 473-75; Rogers, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, pp. xvii, 87, 265, 273; Worthington, Alexander the Great, p. 198.
TWO: TOLERANCE IN ROME'S HIGH EMPIRE: GLADIATORS, TOGAS, AND IMPERIAL “GLUE’
Epigraphs: The quote from Claudian can be found in Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), p. 65. The quote from Claudius is reproduced in A. N. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 60.
1. “For all its material impressiveness and occasional grossnes
s, the core of the explanation of the Roman achievement was an idea, the idea of Rome itself, the values it embodied and imposed, the notion of what was one day to be called romanitas.” J. M. Roberts, The New History of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 227.
2. See Anthony Pagden, Peoples and Empires (London: Weidenfeld & Nicol-son, 2001), pp. 42, 45; and Keith Hopkins, “Conquerors and Slaves: The Impact of Conquering an Empire on the Political Economy of Italy,” in Craige B. Champion, ed., Roman Imperialism: Readings and Sources (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p. 108. My opening paragraph also draws on Fergus Millar, ed., The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours (New York: Delacorte Press, 1967), p. 9.
3. See Pagden, Peoples and Empires, p. 42; Chris Scarre, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Rome (London: Penguin, 1995), pp. 82-83.
4. See Pagden, Peoples and Empires, pp. 35-37, 41. The quote from Theodor Mommsen can be found in Colin Wells, The Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 1.
5. For a detailed discussion of Rome's provincial system and its administration, see Peter Garnsey and Richard Sailer, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 20-40. On the native backgrounds of the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimius Severus, as well as the diversity of Roman elites more generally, see Michael Grant, The History of Rome (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), pp. 236, 238-39; Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Macmillan, 2005), p. 44; Christopher S. Mackay, Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 229, 231-35; Pagden, Peoples and Empires, pp. 41-42 (quoting Cicero); Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 152 (quoting Tacitus), 170-71; Pierre Grimal, L'Empire Roman (Paris: Editions des Fallois, 1993), p. 133; Géza Alföldy, Das Imperium Romanum—ein Vorbild für das vereinte Europa? (Basel, Switzerland: Schwabe & Co. AG Verlag, 1999), pp. 29-30; Basil Kremmydas and Sophocles Marcianos, The Ancient World-Hellenistic Times-Rome (Athens: Gnosis Editions, 1985), p. 200. The quote in the section heading beginning “The single native land” is from Pliny and cited in Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, p. 65.
6. See Champion, Roman Imperialism, p. 263 (quoting Claudius); Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1 (1776; reprint, London: Allen Lane 1994), p. 64; Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, p. 149; Pagden, Peoples and Empires, p. 40 (quoting Wilson).
7. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 110-25, 178; Andrew Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 14-15; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 24819. My discussion of Roman slavery draws heavily on J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1979), pp. 77-81. On the gore of the gladiator games, see Daniel P. Mannix, The History of Torture (Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 2003), p. 30.
8. Champion, Roman Imperialism, p. 209 (citing Livy and Cicero); Grant, The History of Rome, pp. 38, 45, 49-50, 54-55; Roberts, The New History of the World, p. 227.
9. Grant, The History of Rome, p. 101; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 234-36; M. Rostovtzett, Rome, J. D. Duff, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 41, 76.
10. On Rome's shift from indirect to direct provincial rule and its conquests of Europe, Asia Minor, and the Middle East, see Grant, The History of Rome, p. 121; Lintott, Imperium Romanum, pp. 9-11, 13-14; Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 9-12, 19-25, 49-50, 57, 60-61; Mackay, Ancient Rome, pp. 81-84; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 248-49; Rostovtzett, Rome, pp. 76-77. On “government without bureaucracy,” see Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, p. 20.
11. In his magnum opus, Edward Gibbon characterizes the golden age as the reign of five emperors from AD 96-180: Marcus Cocceius Nerva (AD 96-98), Trajan (AD 98-117), Hadrian (AD 117-38), Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61), and Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-80). Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, p. 31. Other historians include Marcus Aurelius's successor, Commodus (AD 180-92), as well as Vespasian (AD 70-79), Titus (AD 79-81), and Domitian (AD 81-96). See, for example, Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. 11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), front page.
12. On Trajan and Hadrian generally, see Anthony R. Birley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (London: Routledge, 1997); Grant, The History of Rome, pp. 236-39; Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, pp. 42-43; Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 174, 184, 202-7, 285. Specifically on the Jewish rebellion, see Birley, pp. 2, 268-76; Mackay, Ancient Rome, pp. 229-31; Roberts, The New History of the World, p. 271.
13. My discussion of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius draws on Anthony R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius, rev. ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 37-38, 58-59; Mackay, Ancient Rome, pp. 230-35; Roberts, The New History of the World, p. 271; Ando Schiavone, The End of the Past: Ancient Rome and the Modern West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 21-22; Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 213-29.
14. On Rome as a free-trade zone and “global economy,” see Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, p. 20; Rostovtzeff, Rome, pp. 248, 257-63; Alföldy, Das Imperium Romanum—ein Vorbild für das vereinte Europa?, p. 33. The quote from Aristides is reproduced in Schiavone, The End of the Past, p. 7. There are a number of fascinating scholarly articles exploring the relationship between the Roman and Han Chinese empires. See, for example, H. H. Dubs, “A Roman City in Ancient China,” Greece & Rome, 2nd ser., vol. 4, no. 2 (Oct. 1957), pp. 139-48, and J. Thorley, “The Silk Trade Between China and the Roman Empire at Its Height, Circa AD 90-130,” Greece & Rome, 2nd ser., vol. 18, no. 1 (Apr. 1971), pp. 71-80.
15. See Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, David Lowenthal, trans. (New York: The Free Press, 1965), pp. 36-37; Rostovtzeff, Rome, p. 263; Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 224-26.
16. My discussion of Roman stereotypes draws heavily on two sources: Balsdon, Romans and Aliens, pp. 1-2, 59-70, 214-19; and Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome, pp. 57-58.
17. See Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, p. 103.
18. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, p. 70; see Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, p. 15; Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 37, 44.
19. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 178, 186; Mackay, Ancient Rome, p. 258; Montesquieu, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, p. 24; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 236-40, 250-51.
20. On the empire's linguistic diversity, see Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 186, 189-92; Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, p. 153; Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 134-35.
21. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 35, 110-12, 115; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 249-50; Mackay, Ancient Rome, p. 257; Schiavone, The End of the Past, p. 6 (citing Aristides); Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 6, 126-29, 142; Holy Bible, C. I. Scofield, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), Acts 16:35-40, 22:22-29.
22. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens, pp. 85-86, 91, 93-95; Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 116-17, 178; Mackay, Ancient Rome, p. 257; Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, p. 196; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 249-50; Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 9, 116-17, 127-29; G. Woolf, “Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul,” in Roman Imperialism, pp. 231-42. The quote from Aristedes is reproduced in Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, p. 58.
23. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome, pp. 3-5, 7, 58-60.
24. See Balsdon, Romans and Aliens, p. 82 (quoting Claudius); R. MacMullen, “Romanization in the Time of Augustus,” in Roman Imperialism, pp. 215, 223
-24.
25. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, p. 56.
26. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 168, 170-73; Grant, The History of Rome, pp. 37, 43; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 254-56.
27. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 168-73, 202; Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, pp. 153-54.
28. Champion, Roman Imperialism, pp. 272-75; Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 169-70, 173, 202-3; Mackay, Ancient Rome, pp. 227-28, 230; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 263-65, 271. On Julius Caesar and the Jews, see Antony Kamm, Julius Caesar: A Life (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 120-21, 151.
29. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 174-75; Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, pp. 526, 550; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 270-72; Wells, The Roman Empire, p. 241.
30. On theories of the Roman Empire's decline, see generally Grant, The History of Rome, pp. 332-51; Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 49-142; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 276-83; Wells, The Roman Empire, pp. 219-21.
31. Pagden, Peoples and Empires, p. 46; see also Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, p. 178; Grant, The History of Rome, p. 324; Mackay, Ancient Rome, p. 257; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 276, 289, 292.
32. Garnsey and Sailer, The Roman Empire, pp. 174-75; Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Roman Civilization, Selected Readings, 3rd ed., vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 583-84; Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours, p. 209; Roberts, The New History of the World, pp. 271-73; Wells, The Roman Empire, p. 243.
33. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3 (1776; edited and abridged by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, New York: Modern Library, 2003), pp. 982-83; see Grant, The History of Rome, pp. 304-5, 308. Gibbon's view of the role Christianity played in Rome's decline has been much debated. For just one helpful analysis, see David P. Jordan, Gibbon and His Roman Empire (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971), chap. 7.
