From the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, the Persian empire under the Teispid and Achaemenid dynasties ruled most of western Asia and neighbouring regions, from the Indus river to Egypt and the coasts of the Aegean Sea. Despite the sources’ disproportionate emphasis on the failures of military expeditions against the overseas Greeks, the Persians enjoyed a lengthy period of military success and overall stability due in part to their rulers’ skill in the formulation of strategy. In the initial conquests, Persia absorbed peer competitors such as Babylon and Egypt; most subsequent conflicts pitted the empire’s superior forces against localised rebellions. Persia’s control stretched to vital subject communities in frontier zones and they also projected influence over external allies and clients. Persian kings rarely campaigned in person after the early expansionist phase, but relied on an exemplary communication system to manage satraps and other delegates tasked with provincial and frontier operations. To carry out military objectives, they relied on networks of provincial recruitment, supported as necessary by elements of a standing army associated with the royal court. Persian military activities were augmented by diplomatic outreach, most notably in Persia’s Greek relations after the failed invasion of mainland Greece. Persia’s strategic capabilities remained formidable until they were caught off guard by the tactical superiority of Alexander’s Macedonian invaders.

An investigation of the Luvo-Hittite dammara- religious functionaries (male and female) and the borrowing of the term into Ahhiyawan (Ur-Aeolian) and, thence, European Mycenaean cult vocabulary as dumartes and its variant damartes (a scribal borrowing), and an exploration of the Anatolian source of the theonym Artemis. The intersection of both the cult title and divine name with Mycenaean dialect variation is carefully examined.

Alexander the Great's victories over Darius III and his satraps between 334 and 323 BCE have been for very long interpreted as the reliable testimony of the intrinsic feebleness and internal fragility of the Achaemenid empire, which expanded from Central Asia to Aswan and from the Indus to the Mediterranean Sea, and lasted for more than two centuries (c.550–330). And yet, notwithstanding the exceptional cultural and political diversity of the countries and peoples under the empire’s rule, the central authorities exercised a permanent control upon lands and seas. The best way for understanding the originality of such an ancient empire is to rule out the usual tricky alternative centralization versus independence/autonomy. Cultural diversity and imperial power are not mutually exclusive. The main feebleness of such a political construction was that, in front of a powerful (Macedonian) invasion, the central power could not count on any imperial ideology which would be shared by all the cultural components of the empire.