Mann's Imperial March : Modelling the role of marcher lords in ancient state development and expansion

This article uses economic analysis of the marcher lord actor theorised by sociology literature, particularly the work of Michael Mann (1986), to explain the shifting nature of power in the ancient world. We model the marcher lord to argue that a first mover advantage from developing state institutions first does not bring a lasting military advantage as lesser developed lords located closer to the periphery of a region are better able to diversify their armies. We develop a second model to analyse Mann's strategies of control and a rational calculus of technology adoption to consider whether new empires will emerge to dominate existing empires. We find that advancement does not emanate from the seat of power, rather marcher lords on the periphery of civilisation development have the opportunity to expand leading to them being more innovative and able to shift the centre of power away from stablished empires in later time periods.