Professor Richard Payne (U. Chicago) explores the importance of the Silk Road to the fiscal foundations of the Iranian Empire and argues for the potentially key role of long-distance commerce to the rise of Iran in late antiquity, exploring how the empire’s growth and progress may have rested as much upon trade and the political economies of its neighbors as upon the internal Near Eastern factors that are often attributed as the catalyst by accounts of this period. Presented as part of 2015-16 Mossavar-Rahmani Center Seminar Series.

More info: http://www.princeton.edu/iran/events/...