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  

 

[Page 1] 

 

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  

71  Journal of World-Systems Research



 

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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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73  Journal of World-Systems Research



 

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  

 

[Page 7] 

 

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  

75  Journal of World-Systems Research



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  

 

[Page 11] 

 

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  

 

[Page 13] 

 

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  

 

77  Journal of World-Systems Research



 

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  

 

[Page 15] 

 

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  

 

[Page 17] 

 

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 

79  Journal of World-Systems Research



 

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- 

 

[Page 19] 

 

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  

 

[Page 21] 

 

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.   

81  Journal of World-Systems Research



 

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.   

 

 

[Page 23] 

 

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 

 

[Page 24]    Journal of World-Systems Research 

 

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.   

 

[Page 25] 

 

 

 

 

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  

83  Journal of World-Systems Research



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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