08 - Royal Roads and Provinces

I n this lecture, we leave behind the Great King and the imperial center to journey out to the provinces of the empire. Herodotus wrote about the royal road from Susa to Sardis, but there was actually a whole network of roads, rivers, and canals, and they carried more than just couriers. These routes were packed with travelers—of¿ cials, workers, soldiers, diplomats, businessmen, priests, and others. Achaemenid Persia was an empire on the move. There were roughly 25 million people in the empire, and on any given day, tens of thousands of them were traveling. By following them, we can see how the Persians were able to hold together the satrapies of a vast and diverse empire stretching 4,000 miles from the Mediterranean Sea to India.