1帝国承续的观念,可远溯至希罗多德。希罗多德意识到波斯人承续了米底亚人的帝国统治(1.95,130),而且他还在他的历史中承诺要专门为亚述人撰文一篇(1.184)(不过,这样的一篇文字永远也没有出现在他的作品中)。几十年后,亚述、米底亚、波斯,作为前后承续的帝国,再次出现在克特西亚斯[Ctesias]的作品中。那么,我们很肯定,这三个帝国浓缩了一个史家在亚洲史这样的一个主题上所不得不谈及的全部内容。鉴于先在 1 The concept of empire continuity continues as far as Herodotus. Herodotus realized that the Persian inherited the Midian’s empire (1.95,130) and that he also promised in his history to write an article exclusively for the Assyrians (1.184) (However, A piece of text never appears in his work). Decades later, Assyria, Midian, and Persia reappeared in the works of Ctesias as the antecedent empires. We are sure, then, that the three empires have condensed all that a historian has to say about a subject such as Asian history. In view of the first