Ancient History WIP Seminar: Rhyne King
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Description
Athenian Silver and the Persian Political Economy
From 550 to 330 BCE, the two leading economic powers of the eastern Mediterranean were the Greek city-state of Athens and the mighty Persian Empire. Scholarly discussions of their economies tend to treat these two worlds as separate. However, this paper will argue that the Athenian and Persian economies were innately intertwined. I will discuss the abundant, though understudied, evidence for Athenian-Persian trade, particularly through the analysis of coinage. I will argue that Athenian economic growth arose, in part, out of trade relations with the Persian Empire.
Rhyne King is a historian of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which stretched from the eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia from 550 to 330 BCE. Two broad questions drive his research. First, how did the imperial ruling class maintain its empire? Second, how did ordinary people react to being part of the empire? In his research, he combines the Greek historiographical sources (Herodotus, Xenophon, etc.) with the rich documentary evidence in Middle Eastern languages such as Akkadian, Elamite, and Aramaic.
Rhyne King received his PhD from the University of Chicago, and he has previously worked at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (part of New York University) and the University of St Andrews.
* This seminar is hosted by the Department of Classics.