Journal of World-Systems Research: Volume 1, Number 17, 1995
http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
ISSN 1076-156X
The Shifting Frontier:
The Achaemenid Empire's Treatment of Western Colonies
Jon L. Berquist
P. O. Box 17
Lawrenceburg, KY 40342-0017
(502) 839-0133
JBerquist@aol.com
(c) Copyright 1995, Jon L. Berquist
Until recently, most formulations of ancient Israel's history
within the biblical time-frame separated the time-line into
four broad segments: pre-monarchic (also called patriarchal),
monarchic, exilic, and postexilic. This outline allowed the
construction of many major interpretations, based upon
presumed differences between these periods. Newer
presentations of that history, however, have called into
question many parts of this reconstruction. Other terms are
more descriptive than the appellation "postexilic," which has
two chief drawbacks. The first is that it is open-ended; the
last 25 centuries have been after the exile, and so will the
centuries. The second is that "postexilic" defines the
period in terms of its predecessor, and it is not surprising
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that much scholarship of this period has been reductionistic.
One of the other terms is "the Second Temple Period,"
indicating the time from 515 B.C.E. to c. 70 C.E., during
which time a temple stood in Jerusalem that was distinct from
the former, Solomonic temple of the monarchy. Others have
preferred to speak more specifically of the "Persian period,"
thinking of the time from 539 B.C.E. to 333 B.C.E. when the
Achaemenid dynasty ruled a Persian Empire that included
Jerusalem and its surrounding environs (Boardman et al. 1988;
Dandamaev 1989; Dandamaev and Lukonin 1989; Davies and
Finkelstein 1984; Grabbe 1992; Olmstead 1948; Sancisi-
Weerdenburg et al. 1987-1994). This term, which accurately
delineates the period under my consideration today, is useful
for comparisons with Jerusalem's Hellenistic and Roman
periods (though dating those eras is more tricky). But a
more suggestive term includes the time of Jerusalem's life
under those three larger political institutions: the
"colonial" period (Ahlstrom 1993:812-906; Berquist 1995;
Gottwald 1985:409-439).
To think of "colonial" Jerusalem conjures many images, some
of which are helpful. Of course, it also leads to
misapprehensions, often stemming from unsophisticated
comparisons with other colonialisms, such as "colonial
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America." But at its best, the term "colonial" forces the
social historian to expand the frame of reference from
Jerusalem as an autonomous unit to Jerusalem as an
interdependent part of a larger, imperial whole. In other
words, Jerusalem was not an isolated city on a hill; it was
thoroughly enmeshed with the full range of social realities
that made up the Persian Empire. In fact, Jerusalem and its
surrounding area was given a colonial name for the benefit of
its imperial administration: Yehud, derived from the name of
the old monarchy, Yehudah or Judah.
But the reality is even one step further away from the
uncomplicated picture of an insular temple community.
Jerusalem at times was more intimately connected with its
closer neighbors such as the Greek city-states, who were
outside the sphere of direct Persian influence. The
Achaemenid Empire's control over Yehud was not consistent
over these two centuries. Another way to say this alters the
image from the diachronic to the geographic: the imperial
boundary shifted, leaving Jerusalem sometimes on the inside,
and sometimes on the outside -- and very often a little of
both. I suggest that this is what it means to talk about
Jerusalem as a frontier during the Achaemenid Empire.
This presents a problem, however, when it comes to the social
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analysis of frontier Jerusalem. The theories designed to
describe colonial activity only go so far in interpreting
Yehud, since those theories assume constant imperial
development. The interpreter needs to develop a strategy
that allows for colonial behavior as well as for aberrations
from it. I wish to begin by examining relevant theories of
colonial activity to see where these succeed in describing
Yehud, and then to look for other influences within the
colony's development.
THEORIES OF COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT: EMPIRE AND COLONY
Perhaps the best place to start a social-historical
discussion of empires is with Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt's
extensive and generalized perspective on the historical
processes of institution building. Humans construct
boundaries to social systems, using ideology, power, and
material resources. Since such systems and boundaries are
always fragile, their construction requires regulative
mechanisms, such as bureaucracy, rituals, and law (Badie and
Birnbaum 1983; Eisenstadt 1978, 1985; Eisenstadt and Curelaru
1976). A boundary mechanism, such as religious ritual, may
begin as an impromptu attempt to legitimate a specific social
action, but as societal complexity grows and such boundary
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mechanisms become increasingly autonomous. Thus, the
religious ritual may well develop into an organized
priesthood that discerns and enforces official distinctions
between the holy and profane. In other words, the presence
of self-sufficient institutions often points to a prior
boundary.
Eisenstadt's emphasis on historical empires bears special
relevance to the situation of the Persian colony, Yehud. The
society's elites struggle for control of resources, perhaps
using ideology and rhetoric. In such ways, the elites
exercise control of the society through organizations as well
as through coercion. The differential control of resources
results in heterogeneity and conflict, requiring further
attempts by the elites to maintain control and to enforce
boundaries (Eisenstadt 1985: 19-23; cp. Eisenstadt 1978
and Linz 1978). According to Eisenstadt, the social
complexity of empires requires high societal differentiation,
resulting in a political elite (note 1). Imperial political
elites
possess new, broader goals, capable of harnessing the
enhanced resources available to them by increasing societal
differentiation. This growth of the elite class also results
in a more clearly delineated center and periphery, along
with the growth of multiple autonomous centers. The
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growing split between the center and the periphery creates
the central contradiction of any empire (Eisenstadt 1969,
1985).
In Eisenstadt's theoretical framework, both material causes
and ideological factors have their place as possible loci of
free-floating resources. These resources create the
potential, and the power of the elites shape that potential
into imperial institutions (Trigger 1985).
Within Eisenstadt's view of imperial development, the key
factor is the elite's appropriation of free-floating
resources through institutionalized centralization. The
empire develops a core and a periphery. Of course, the core
may encompass much more than just a capital city or province,
and the periphery will be quite heterogeneous in its nature.
Still, such a view of empires emphasizes the collection of
resources within the center, placing relatively little
emphasis on the periphery as part of the empire.
Donald V. Kurtz and Margaret Showman (1981) have argued that
the periphery often consists of inchoate states. These
colonial states lack sufficient authority or ability to
govern themselves and their populations; the functions of
truly autonomous government reside within the imperial
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center. Such peripheries still maintain some local control,
however. Though the colony's internal power may be less
tangible, it is no less real. For example, imperial control
may depend upon food production or military might, whereas
the selection of local leaders may be more sensitive to
principles of religion. Such local leaders, lacking the
basis for true government, turn to more symbolic forms of
legitimation in order to support their own functions within
the governmental apparatus. Thus, colonies and colonial
administration do not necessarily derive all of their power
from the empire; instead, the periphery possesses different
kinds of authority.
SECONDARY STATE DEVELOPMENT
These peripheries, therefore, are states of a sort, even
though they are less formed. This is not surprising, since
not all states develop as pristine states, that is, as states
with no significant external influences. As such, colonies
are a special case of state formation (Claessen, van de
Velde, and Smith 1985; Cohen and Service 1983; Fried 1967;
Lewellen 1983; ). Colonies are one example of state
development under intrusive circumstances, and such secondary
states develop in patterns of their own (Apter 1966; Dube
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1966; Gailey and Patterson 1988; Riggs 1966; Seligman 1966;
Shils 1966a; Shils 1966b; Smelser 1966).
Barbara J. Price (1978) has explained secondary state
development in terms of economic intrusion and exploitation.
According to her, secondary states occur when other states
expand by "the capture by a foreign elite of the capital and
labor--the surplus energy of an impacted population" (Price
1978: 171). The resultant centralization follows the
application of military force necessary to mobilize the
society into a nonbeneficial project. In other words, an
empire conquers an area and organizes it in order to maximize
the empire's extraction of resources. In the ancient world,
the resources in question are usually agricultural, but can
include a wide range of other resources and skills, as long
as these are hierarchicalized (Gunawardana 1981). The
intrusive empire would desire the maintenance of order; thus
the empire would allow the growth of limited power bases in
the colony for the purpose of increased control. The
imperial state encourages economic intensification if it is
practical to increase the flow of resources from the
secondary state. In general, the empire will take all cost-
effective steps to exploit the colony to the fullest degree
made possible by the presence of resources (Price 1978).
Many empires thoroughly reconstruct their colonies' social
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relations at every level to maximize the extraction of resources
from the periphery to the core. The Inca are often offered as
an example.
Romila Thapar (1981) offers a divergent view, noticing that
many imperial states do not maximize exploitation. Instead,
the intrusion and subsequent restructure occurs only to the
degree necessary to establish hegemony over the resources in
question. Though the imperial center dominates this newly
annexed colony, a complete redistribution of resources is not
likely (Carneiro 1978; Ekholm and Friedman 1979; Pershits
1979; Thapar 1981:411-412, 425; Seneviratne 1981). In
Thapar's view, the impoverishment of a colony is not as
likely as the limited domination. Aztec culture provides an
example. This limited domination may leave untouched
almost every cultural aspect, as long as tribute continues
to flow to the core.
Together, Price and Thapar offer an important analysis of the
development of a secondary state. (Ronald Cohen provides a
different yet related discussion in Cohen 1981.) Both agree
that the flow of wealth will be from the colony to the
empire, and that the imperial state will organize the colony
politically and economically for imperial rather than local
benefit. A key variable will be the extent of the economic
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exploitation, as well as the political reorganization and
military enforcement required to attain the empire's goals.
Certainly, the presence of an imperial state causes patterned
changes in the development of the secondary region, creating
the conditions in which its evolution will continue (Haas
1982).
CORE AND PERIPHERY
Empires, then, exist as a mixed entity. Whereas simpler
forms of state organization make possible a homogeneity,
empires assume difference between areas, classes, and other
sorts of groupings. The core identifies the locations of
power and privilege, whether measured in terms of politics,
economy, military, or ideology (Allahar 1989; Eisenstadt
1979; Eisenstadt and Roniger 1981). Usually, these various
spheres of power coalesce into a clearly defined core. In
the periphery, trade was scarce, taxation meant the removal
of local resources rather than the accumulation of them,
there was no control over military might, and the temple's
demands often required movement from the periphery to the
core (Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Kuhrt 1990; Bilde et al. 1993).
In reality, however, peripheries are not completely
impoverished. Many ancient peripheries involve extensive
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peasant classes, who may (nor may not) be decently fed and
moderately comfortable (Redfield 1956; Wolf 1966). The core
and the periphery involve different ways of life, as well as
different roles within the society as a whole (note 2).
YEHUD AS A COLONY
To what extent does Yehud fit these theoretical descriptions
of colonies, secondary states, and peripheries? Certainly,
Yehud was a colony in that it had local political structures
that were completely subsumed within the larger imperial
administration. Persian bureaucrats appointed the local
governors within Jerusalem and even exercised significant
influence in Jerusalem's temple religion, including
permissions, funding, and the appointment of priests and
other temple officials. The Persian Empire used military
power to control areas along the eastern Mediterranean and to
suppress revolts by Yehud's neighbors, though there is no
evidence of Persian attacks against Jerusalem itself. A
variety of the biblical texts from the early Persian period
express dismay about the local economy, consistent with the
assumed flow of funds and goods from the colonial periphery
to the imperial core around the Persian throne. In at least
these ways, Yehud can be accurately described as a colony
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during the Persian period.
Clearly, Yehud also developed its own cultural traditions and
social practices. Its institutions were not identical to
those existing in other parts of the empire. Even though
there is great disagreement about the degree of consistency
within the Achaemenid imperial administration, the governor-
temple relationships (or at least the religious rhetoric
about it) seems unusually if not unique among Persia's
colonies. Thus, Yehud forms an example of a secondary state,
in that it has its own institutions within their own history
and custom, but these institutions were not the only reality
within the society. Imperial authority and local control
mixed in a variety of ways that may have seemed as
unpredictable to those living in it as it does to later
analysts. Despite some local control, the empire dominated
Yehud and drained resources from it to the imperial core,
though the amount and mode were not unchanging.
Persian control often played one local group against another.
Often, this meant imperial favor for priests whose power had
previously been limited by local politicians. Persian rulers
shifted power to such priests with the expectation that they
would oppose local politicians in favor of their imperial
benefactors. This pattern seems to be typical of Persian
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administration (Cook 1983: 41). When Persia granted
authority to one group while denying it to another, local
institutions were destroyed, even if some of the same
people stayed in power. Imperial division of local
authority, however, was not the cause of the growth of
Yehud's religion, even though a few noted religious
officials were supported by Persia early in the Achaemenid
period.
Perhaps the best documented example of Persia's treatment of
a western colony was Egypt. Egypt experienced Persian
intrusion and withdrawal frequently, as did Yehud. But Egypt
was much more economically and politically self-reliant, in
large part due to its geographic isolation from neighbors and
its much more ample economic base. When Persia
withdrew from its west for a decade or more, Egypt would
reestablish its old monarchic traditions, refuse the payment
of taxes to the Persian imperium, raise its old army, and
make arrangement for mutual defense (and sometimes
aggression) with other nation-states. Egypt alternated between
being its own core and experiencing a role as the Persian
Empire's periphery. Yehud, on the other hand, did not
establish itself as an independent power at any time during the
Persian reign. There is no evidence that Yehud ever revolted
or ever refused to pay its taxes to Persia; the community's
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leaders expressed symbolic power without resorting to
economic or military means. Instead, Yehud alternated
between a status as Persia's small, peripheral colony, and
another status that was still weak and at least somewhat
subservient. However, there were times when there was
much less Persian intrusion into Yehudite affairs, and these
period of relative withdrawal left Yehud open to other cultural
and social influences.
NON-COLONIAL INFLUENCES
Images of colonies and peripheries explain many of the
features of Persian-dominated Yehud, but not everything fits
into this picture. As a colony, Yehud experienced both
forces and external forces that resulted from its
participation in the processes of the Persian Empire. As
powerful as these explanations are for understanding the
nature of Yehud's society, there are indications of other
factors. These hints are vague and rare, however, because of
the extent of the Persian domination and its ability to
control the records of Yehud, even (perhaps especially) those
records so well preserved that they are still extant.
However, there are still clues to other influences.
Consider, for example, the following passage from Nehemiah:
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"Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives
against their Jewish kin. For there were those who said,
'With our sons and our daughters, we are many; we must get
grain, so that we may eat and stay alive.' There were also
those who said, 'We are having to pledge our fields, our
vineyards, and our houses in order to get grain during the
famine.' And there were those who said, 'We are having to
borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay the king's
tax. Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred; our
children are the same as their children; and yet we are
forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our
daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our
fields and vineyards now belong to others.'
I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these
complaints. After thinking it over, I brought charges
against the nobles and the officials; I said to them, 'You
are all taking interest from your own people.' And I called a
great assembly to deal with them, and said to them, 'As far
as we were able, we have bought back our Jewish kindred who
had been sold to other nations; but now you are selling your
own kin, who must then be bought back by us!'
They were silent, and could not find a word to say. So I
said, 'The thing that you are doing is not good. Should you
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not walk in the fear of our God, to prevent the taunts of the
nations our enemies? Moreover I and my brothers and my
servants are lending them money and grain. Let us stop this
taking of interest. Restore to them, this very day, their
fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their
houses, and the interest on money, grain, wine, and oil that
you have been exacting from them.'
Then they said, 'We will restore everything and demand
nothing more from them. We will do as you say.' And I called
the priests, and made them take an oath to do as they had
promised." (Nehemiah 5:1-12, NRSV)
The passage starts with unsurprising information: some
residents of the colony of Yehud were poor. In these poor
ones' second statement, they mention that they must acquire
debt in order to survive famines. Though this indicates a
more specialized and pernicious form of poverty, it would not
have been without parallel in Israel's former history. Such
debt drove an increasing class differentiation within the
society. The next statement, though, pushes the point to a
new level. Here the financial difficulty is the king's tax,
and the results are most severe. These Yehudites have no
financial recourse short of selling off children into
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slavery, apparently for money to pay the creditors who hold
the mortgage on the land. Ethnicity enters the argument; the
poor complain that their flesh is the same as the flesh of
the wealthy Yehudites, but still they must sell their
children. Though the exact nature of this financial
arrangement is unclear, it seems likely that these poor
Yehudites had been mortgaging land to the wealthier
Yehudites, who then demanded payments that the poor could not
meet, and so the poor sold some of their children to persons
of other ethnic background. The problem is not only the
attack upon family structures, but more specifically upon the
dissolution of community ethnic boundaries. Indebtedness to
other Yehudites was only a minor problem, an economic matter
to be dealt with in certain ways; this speaks of violations
of ethnic boundaries that were shocking to the community well
beyond the scope of the actual economic effects (note 3).
The result is that the wealthy landowners reduce their
interest charges, since they would have the responsibility of
buying back these children sold into foreign slavery.
Behind all of this economic turmoil is an influence on
Yehudite society that goes unnamed. Some anonymous outsiders
are purchasing slaves from Yehud's poorest classes. Thus,
this small Persian colony trades with foreigners, with those
outside the colonial boundary. There is no indication that
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these slave-buyers are other members of the Persian Empire;
in fact, the community rejection of this trade and the ethnic
issues involved argue that the purchasers are not politically
affiliated with the Persian-dominated ruling class that
sponsors the Yehudite elites. Was this small colony trading
with non-imperial sources? Was there an outside economic
influence that was extracting labor from Yehud through slave
trade, just as the Persian Empire extracted wealth through
taxes?
Two elements combine to suggest a possible locus for these
purchasers. Some scholars have argued for a substantial
olive oil trade in Yehud of the middle and late Persian
period (Kippenberg 1982; Kreissig 1973). This would have
created an economy of extraction; in effect, another economic
power would have been behaving toward Yehud as empires
typically do. In the fifth century B.C.E., the primary olive
oil trade was conducted by Greece, and they seem the most
likely candidate for the purchase of Yehudite slaves. Not
only is this reasonable from historical data, but it also
reflects the animosity against Greece shown in some texts
that may date from the late Persian period, such as Zechariah
9:13. This combination of historical and textual evidence
suggests a strong (and negative) Greek influence in the
Yehudite economy during at least parts of the Persian period.
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POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS OF OTHER INFLUENCES
If this is the case, then Yehud existed as a colony of the
Persian Empire that, at times, was economically exploited by
a non-imperial entity, probably some of the early Greek city-
states. Sometimes, Yehud was on the inside of the Persian
Empire, functioning as a border area defining a boundary
against the non-imperial states. At other times, Yehud
functioned as a trade partner of non-imperial powers,
presumably in the absence of a strong Persian presence that
would have prevented trade with peoples such as the Greeks,
the enemies of the empire. The frontier shifted, and so
Yehud's status varied depending upon where the exact boundary
of effective Persian control ran. This description of
Yehud's economy moves beyond typical imperial-colonial
theories, and requires a notion of a frontier on the
periphery of more than one core.
WORLD-SYSTEM THEORIES
World-systems theorists offer a more comprehensive view of
core-periphery relations (Wallerstein 1974-1988; cp. Chase-
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Dunn and Hall 1991a). Separate states and social structures
interact through trade (both basic and luxury goods),
military conquest, and other means (Gills and Frank 1991).
The large scale of history moves not in terms of subsequent
political states and empires, but in terms of the cumulative
effects of civilization as it waxes and wanes throughout
systematic change. World-systems theory introduces the
concept of the semiperiphery. Chase-Dunn and Hall define
four possible elements of the semiperiphery: 1) it may mix
organizational forms of the core and periphery; 2) it may be
geographically located between the core and the periphery; 3)
it may mediate between the core and the periphery; and 4) it
may exhibit institutional forms that are intermediate between
the core and the periphery (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1991b:21).
This provides a helpful way to understand Jerusalem's role as
a center of colonial administration within the Persian
Empire. Though Jerusalem was far from the imperial core and
exhibited markedly different organizational forms in
comparison to the Persian capital cities, it was distinct
from the rural areas of the periphery itself. Also, core-
periphery mediation quite aptly describes the functions of
the Jerusalem elite as they administered imperial policy.
Chase-Dunn and Hall note that semiperipheral regions are
often "unusually fertile zones for social innovation" because
of their in-between status (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1991b:30, 31,
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37 n. 17).
David Wilkinson expands on the notion of the semiperiphery.
The semiperiphery, an area recently engulfed by the core, is
"a zone characterized by military subjection, powerlessness,
relative poverty, technological backwardness, and low
cultural prestige" (Wilkinson 1991:122). Wilkinson notes a
tendency for cores to incorporate their peripheries over
time, transforming them into semiperipheries or into
completely depleted areas, at the same time as the cores
themselves decline and power shifts to a new core.
The work of these various social scientists clarifies the
interplay of life between core and periphery (as well as
semiperiphery). The dynamic flow of power, resources, and
ideology between imperial cores and colonial semiperipheries
and peripheries requires a rethinking of the role of
Jerusalem and Yehud within the Persian Empire. No longer can
they be considered by themselves; the interrelationships of
the whole world is a prerequisite for understanding the more
local affairs of postexilic Yehud (cp. Holm-Rasmussen 1988).
However, Yehud cannot be considered a static semiperiphery.
Its autonomy and its allegiances to Persia vis-a-vis Greece
changed repeatedly over time (cp. Cunliffe 1993). When
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Persia exerted its economic and military might among its
western colonies, then Yehud was a rather typical periphery
or semiperiphery, depending upon how one analyzes the extent
of its own control over the surrounding environs. But when
the Persian Empire redirected its attention toward its
eastern borders or, as was much more frequently the case,
against Greece to the northwest, Yehud was ignored. The
effective border shifted, and Yehud found itself outside the
primary influence of the Persian Empire. It was no longer a
colony, and yet it was not its own center. The shifting
frontier created a new situation out of oscillating states of
social organization.
MULTIPLE COLONIALIZATION
I suggest the following analysis. Yehud's frontier status
involved multiple colonialization. At different times it was
a colony of two competing world-systems -- Persia and Greece.
Only Persia could be considered an empire, at least by
Eisenstadt's definitions. Persia administered Yehud as an
integrated part of a larger bureaucracy with military,
political, economic, and ideological vectors. Greece, on
the other hand, appears to have exerted no military
pressures, nor to have extended direct political control into
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the Levant. Its influences were less formal, existing only
within economic and ideological categories. Because of the
non-political nature of Greece's influence, it has remained
relatively unnoticed by prior historical explanations that
have focused on official (i.e., political) norms.
Both Persia and Greece related to Yehud through extractive
economies, by means of Persian taxation and Greek commerce.
Both exerted ideological pressures, visible through the
adoption of social forms and languages (Nehemiah 13:23-27;
Heichelheim 1951; Margalith 1986). Despite the differences
in form, Persia and Greece occupied identical positions of
domination with regard to Yehud (Daniel 7:4-8, 11:2-4). In
other words, Yehud was a colony of two imperial powers,
albeit differently construed. Yehud was on a joint
periphery, a frontier between Persia and Greece. This was
not an explicit area of military attack, in contrast to Asia
Minor (Balcer 1984); the conflict was cultural and economic.
In the midst of this, Yehud struggled to keep some core
identity stable despite shifting borders and intrusions of
two radically different outside cultures.
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CONCLUSION
Are there other cases of religion as a response to multiple
colonialization in semiperipheral regions? Certainly, there are
a number of religions that have been founded or have
flourished in peripheral situations, even though a full
study of these cases in terms of multiple colonialization
remains outside the range of this study. The shift from core
to periphery, for instance, seems to have been a factor in
the development of Native American Ghost Dance religions.
Christianity's history offers many possible cases. For
instance, the rapid expansion of early Christianity occurred
during a time of shift frontiers between the Roman Empire
and the so-called "barbarian" powers around it. The
conflicts between Roman authority and German nationalities
set the context for the rise of Protestantism. In Africa, the
intrusion of Christian and Islamic worldviews, along with
the economic world-systems connected to them, produced
new forms of ecstatic religious expression (Lewis 1971).
The boundaries between the system of Northern Hemisphere
powers and the Two-Thirds world are presently the
location of innovation in liberation theology. These
situations represent a number of ways in which religion
arises within semiperipheral cultures, and in some of
these cases or ones of a similar background, further
analysis might discover that the shifting frontier of multiple
colonialization allowed the religious impulses to detach from
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politics and to establish themselves as a local symbolic
elite, as was the case in Achaemenid Yehud.
The Achaemenid Empire's treatment of its western colonies did
not allow regions such as Yehud or Egypt to exist permanently
as stable colonies. The empire kept shifting its border,
leaving these colonies in frequent transition. The social
historian can analyze Achaemenid-period Egypt as an
alternation between periphery and core, but Yehud reflects a
multiple colonization, in which it developed dependencies
upon two different cores, each in different ways. The
shifting frontier between Persia and Greece ran over Yehud
repeatedly during the two hundred years of Persian
domination, leaving the region open to multiple degradations
of its economy and an inability to develop political
autonomy. Leaders in Yehud, caught between world-systems on
a shifting frontier, instead concentrated on the development
of symbolic power, creating a rich religious system that
organized the society and endowed prestige and social
privilege to leaders without a political role in other world-
systems. This development of symbolic power (including
religion) as a response to the shifting frontier may be more
widespread than this one case. In many cases, religion
arises as a form of symbolic power in response to multiple
colonialization.
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NOTES
(Note 1) Peter Skalnik (1981: 340) argues that studies of
the state overemphasize the elites of the society, reflecting
a "tendency towards seeing the state as a more self-
generating phenomenon than it really is." Though the present
work focuses much attention on the imperial elites, it also
strives to show the local elites (who are part of the
imperial "middle class") and the work by others against the
formation of the state. These drives toward dissolution and
the focus on colonial life attempt to correct a bias toward
examining the highest levels of imperial life. The core-
periphery distinction places both in context, paralleling the
emphasis in class formation in Skalnik's work (1981: 344).
(Note 2) Clifford Geertz (1983) argues that peripheral
figures also depend on the symbolics of the core; it would be
impossible for anyone to understand a figure who did not
partake of core symbols, since that is the only common ground
for cultural communication. Though Geertz assumes
homogeneous culture, his argument rightly emphasizes the
[Page 26] Journal of World-Systems Research
importance of the cultural core in setting the language and
the agenda for social debate throughout the society.
(Note 3) Although it remains outside the scope of the
present paper, it is important to note that religion here
becomes a significant force int the redistribution of
resources. Religion functions as a symbolic power of the
same magnitude as the economic, ethnic, and political
concerns, and deserves a wider place in the analysis (cp.
Bilde 1993).
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