Greek Perspectives on the Achaemenid Empire

Janett Morgan is an interdisciplinary ancient Greek historian. Her research focuses on material culture and its representation in ancient texts, investigating the ways in which individuals, groups and communities in Greece and Achaemenid Iran used architecture and artefacts to create religious, social and political identities and to express differences. She is the author of The Classical Greek House (Bristol Phoenix Press, 2010).

• Introduction: Perspectives, Looking-Glasses and the Achaemenid Empire1. Journeys of the Mind: Greek perspectives of the East before the Achaemenid Empire2. Journeys through the Looking-Glass: early perspectives of the Achaemenid Empire3. Facing the Gorgon: reactions to the Achaemenid Empire in Classical Athens4. What the Butler saw: intimate perspectives of King and court in Classical Ionian texts5. The Mirror Crack’d: Spartan responses to the east and the Achaemenid Empire6. Entering the Hall of Mirrors: Macedonia and the Achaemenid EmpireConclusion: travelling with eunuchsBibliography

The Greek response to Achaemenid Iran is sometimes seen as a special case within the wider story of interaction between the Greek and non-Greek worlds. Janett Morgan insists that this is not so, and her claim is one to which students of Greek cultural history will have to pay serious attention.'