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By the 6th century BCE, the Persian empire was the largest the world has ever seen. what strategies did Persian kings develop to help them govern...

The two main strategies that held the Persian Empire together during its height were federalism and rapid communication. Because the empire was so huge, it was necessary to establish lines of communication that were very fast (for their time) across it; for this, Persia established a postal service, one of the first in the world (and certainly the first on anything like this scale). Their motto (reported by Herodotus) may sound familiar: "Nothing mortal...

The two main strategies that held the Persian Empire together during its height were federalism and rapid communication.

Because the empire was so huge, it was necessary to establish lines of communication that were very fast (for their time) across it; for this, Persia established a postal service, one of the first in the world (and certainly the first on anything like this scale). Their motto (reported by Herodotus) may sound familiar: "Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers. These men will not be hindered..., either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night." This postal service was centered around the Royal Road, a highway over 1500 miles long that crossed the empire. The postal service was so efficient it could cover that whole distance in a little over a week.

Yet there was another part of Persia's successful strategy, which was that they devised the government so that they would not need to constantly micromanage the local affairs: federalism. The empire was divided into satrapies, essentially states, each governed by a local satrap. There were between 20 and 30 satrapies (they varied over time), and each one had its own system of laws and taxes tailored to that specific region. Satraps were monitored by the king, but also given substantial autonomy.

As part of this federal system, many different cultures and religions were allowed to coexist, as long as they obeyed the basic laws of the empire and paid their taxes on time. This prevented a great deal of ethnic violence and unrest that would otherwise have occurred, and kept the Persian Empire stable and flexible to change.

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