Talk:Achaemenid Empire

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Dynasty vs Empire

Since we already have a Persian Empire page should this be renamed to dynasty instead? Lacrossedeamon (talk) 20:58, September 11, 2018 (UTC)

The Persian Empire page should actually be merged into this since it is essentially referring to the same regime, but "Axhaemenid Empire" is more specific not to mention the conventional name. This is also why I would advocate for the name "empire" instead of "dynasty" since that's just the term most commonly used in academic sources for this regime. I believe both are valid. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 21:44, September 11, 2018 (UTC)

The Persian Empire page so far only mentions this one but also includes other dynasty/ empires like Nader Shah's Afsharid dynasty. I feel Empire in the context of this page is a misnomer. When talking in the context of other Empires and ruling family we don’t say the Tudor Empire or the Hanover Empire but the British Empire of which those two are Dynasties of. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 22:44, September 11, 2018 (UTC)

Hm, that's more of a problem of delineating between regimes, where one begins and another ends. For example, would not technically all the Chinese dynasties from Qin to Qing be just different dynasties of a contiguous Empire of China where competing dynasties only represent the country in civil war? Perhaps you would say yes, just as you would say that the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanian, Safavids, etc. are all simply different dynasties of a contiguous Persian Empire in spite of some intervals of fragmentation in between them. Conceptualizing when one nation begins and another ends is ultimately an arbitrary and subjective matter we can't really have an absolute answer for. I would hardly consider the Third, Fourth, and Fifth French Republics different republics just because of a change in constitution, but it is conceptualized as such; you have to remember that the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanian, and Safavid Empires were all quite distinct from one another in terms of administration, culture, and politics although all were legitimate representatives of the Persian civilization and people.

To put aside such a debate, I strongly suggest we simply defer to conventional, scholarly classification which is to treat the Achaemenid Empire as a distinct regime, not just a ruling house. This is aside from the fact that we intend to rewrite Iran to refer to the Persian civilization as a whole, and the fact that we have already decided that our policy is to have separate articles for each regime, hence the Persian Empire article should be deleted.

Finally, there is a distinction between an article about a ruling family and the government ruled by that country. Hence Wikipedia's distinction between the articles Ptolemaic Kingdom and Ptolemaic dynasty. This article is meant to refer to the regime or government, not the dynasty per se. Besides, it was never proven that Darius and his successors really were related to Cyrus the Great or if it was a lie spread by Darius to claim legitimacy after his coup. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 23:24, September 11, 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 00:37, September 12, 2018 (UTC)