Royal Roads: The First World Empires and the Integration of Central Eurasia, c. 550-150 BCE

Before the European maritime powers attained global dominance after ca. 1750 CE, China and the Mediterranean where connected by land via an intricate system of connected cities. Although peoples, goods and ideas had moved around the world since Prehistory, it was particularly during the second half of the First Millennium BCE that enduring connections and standardized modes of intercultural communication were first established.
This period of enormously increased connectivity between east and west coincides with the emergence of the first world empires in central Eurasia. Between ca. 550 and 150 BCE, the Achaemenid and Seleukid dynasties united in a single hegemonial system the urbanized core of Eurasia’s “Lucky Latitudes”, facilitating direct economic and cultural exchanges from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. This lecture focuses on the question how these empires succeeded in integrating disparate societies over large geographical distances. Specifically we will look at the pivotal role of the mobile royal court with its ritualized modes of behavior for the creation of political and cultural cohesion.