The term “Aristocracy” and its Use for Nobility in the Achaemenid Empire

Abstract

This article discusses the use of the term “aristocracy” for the history of the Ancient East as a whole, and of the Achaemenid Empire, in particular. Turning to this issue, the authors demonstrate, in a number of examples, in what contexts the term “aristocracy” was used in the works of foreign and Russian orientalists and Hellenists, and finally they give a brief description of the Persian aristocracy, which they consider on the basis of the ancient Greek understanding of this phenomenon, and of ancient Persian realities reconstructed from sources.