The Teaching Company, 2012.
Taught By Professor John W. I. Lee , Ph.D., Cornell University,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Course Lecture Titles.
The Persian Empire Guidebook - PDF.
24 Lectures.
30 minutes / lecture.
Rethinking the Persian Empire.
Questioning the Sources.
The World before Cyrus.
Cyrus and Cambyses — Founders of the Empire.
Darius I — Creator of the Imperial System.
Persian Capitals and Royal Palaces.
The Great King — Images and Realities.
Royal Roads and Provinces.
East of Persepolis.
Challenges in the West, 513–494 B.C.
Across the Bitter Sea, 493–490 B.C.
Xerxes Becomes King.
Xerxes’s War, 480–479 B.C.
Cultures in Contact.
Achaemenid Religion.
From Expansion to Stability, 479–405 B.C.
The War of the Two Brothers.
Persian Gold.
City and Countryside.
Women in the Persian Empire.
Artaxerxes II — The Longest-Ruling King.
Persia and Macedon, 359–333 B.C.
The End of an Empire, 333–323 B.C.
Legacies of the Persian Empire.
Third part: Lectures 19-24.