Administration of the Empire: Satraps and Satrapies

The Achaemenid Empire set new standards in its organizational capacity, and not just with regard to the amount of territory ruled. The empire was divided into satrapies or provinces, each ruled by a satrap, answerable to the king.

The creation of the Achaemenid administrative structure is usually attributed to Darius I. However, even if he reformed the system, parts were certainly organized under Cyrus and Cambyses. Tribute had been collected by Darius's predecessors; it was a long-standing practice before the Achaemenids. Herodotus provides a de­tailed accounting (3.90-95) of the empire's satrapies and their respective tributes. Whether Herodotus's tribute total, a staggering sum of 14,560 talents, has any basis in reality is open to debate.^[351] Tribute might also include troop levies and what we would term taxes: payments from royal holdings for the maintenance of government officials and other expenditures. An incredibly detailed customs ac­count from Egypt lists harbor dues and taxes on specific items in the cargo paid to “the house of the king,” which referred to a local treasury.

The incorporation of local rulers into the satrapal system reveals another means whereby local elites came to have a stake in the empire's stability, such as the Hecatomnid family in Caria in the fourth century bce. Many satraps were appointees from elite Persian families, as in the case of Artabazus in Phrygia (in northwestern Anatolia). Artabazus founded what amounts to a satrapal dynasty: his son Pharnaces and his grandson Pharnabazus provide an unbroken line from 479 bce well into the fourth century. Artabazus was a cousin to the royal family, thus a part of the extended Achaemenid clan, and this connection underlines the Persian nobility's stake in the empire. The king depended upon his satraps' loyalty for the empire's smooth functioning and stability, and the satrap depended upon the king for his position.

The functioning of the empire demanded reliable communications between center and periphery, and the most visible manifestation of this was an extensive network of roads. The Persians adopted and greatly expanded their predecessors' systems to facilitate communication across vast distances. Individuals or groups on state business carried sealed documents that allowed access to supplies or provisions en route to their destination. The most famous of these roads, though it was only one of many, was the so-called Royal Road between Susa in Elam and Sardis in Lydia: it ran through Cappadocia and Cilicia in Anatolia to Armenia and then southward through Arbela and on toward Susa.

Extensive, local bureaucracies are manifestations of a wider system by which the king and the imperial bureaucracy managed the empire's territories. The most fa­mous are the Persepolis Treasury Tablets and the Persepolis Fortification Tablets from Persepolis, labels that indicate the find spots of the archives, not their contents. An important component of the Fortification archive is the wide range of sealings on the tablets, more than 1,100 distinct types of seal impressions on the published Elamite tablets.^[353] These reflect an integral part of the administrative process, as the sealings on a tablet may in themselves communicate the originator or recipient, the responsible official(s), and even the specific locale of the transaction. The archive as a whole deals mainly with the collection, storage, and redistribution of foodstuffs and livestock. The tablets provide crucial data on the organization of labor; fiscal management; the demography and cartography of the empire's core; operations of state institutions; religious practices and cultic personnel; travel on state busi­ness; and a host of other social and cultural aspects of Achaemenid history. None of this incredible detail and sophistication was unusual, and it was not unique by any means to Persepolis. It is difficult to reconcile a laissez-faire or indifferent approach of the royal administration in the face of such detailed records.

Bullae from Daskyleion and Aramaic documents from Bactria attest to additional bureaucracies, comparable with and connected to the central one at Persepolis, even in the far-flung provinces.^[354] For example, Thucydides relays that Xerxes gave the satrap Artabazos his royal seal (1.29.1), and this act finds an echo in the seal inscriptions found at Daskyleion that bear Xerxes's name. Access to provisions and storehouses along the royal roads required authorization, as demonstrated by not only Herodotus's description of the Royal Road but also a number of documents in Aramaic and Elamite. Herodotus's account is corroborated by a Persepolis tablet (PF 1404), a disbursement from the satrap Artaphernes for a traveling group.

A satrap had a great degree of autonomy in the day-to-day business of his prov­ince, but one loyal to the king stayed within the bounds of royal policy and acted in accordance with royal directives. To act otherwise was tantamount to revolt, and the satrap risked removal from office and, potentially, execution. The demise of Oroetes, the end result of Darius's carefully orchestrated commands sent via messages under the royal seal (Hdt. 3.128), serves as a paradigmatic example of royal control in the satrapies but also the consequences of insubordination. Oroetes, the satrap of Lydia, had remained aloof during the crisis that preceded Darius's ac­cession. Darius tested the loyalty of the Persian troops in Oroetes's satrapy through a series of letters sent under the royal seal. Each letter contained a command that, if the troops obeyed, was a signal for the messenger to continue reading aloud the letters. When it became clear to the messenger that the satrap's troops were loyal to the king, he opened and read the last letter, which commanded the guards to slay Oroetes. They did so immediately.

There are a number of other examples. Around 493 bce, the satrap Artaphernes compelled negotiated settlements through arbitration for Ionian cities, established the boundaries of their territories, and assessed their tribute (Hdt.