Historical Period Notes - Persia (1 Viewer)

[grk_styl]

KING DARIUS

Darius Claims the Throne

· After the death of Cambyses, a relative, Darius, became king. Before Darius could claim the throne, he had to defeat and kill the so-called pretender to the throne, known as Bardiya. (Herodotus refers to him as Smerdis, and Darius calls him Guamata).

· While Cambyses was in Egypt suppressing the revolt there, a Magus (member of the Median priesthood) by the name of Guamata, claiming to be Cambyses’ brother, Bardiya, proclaimed himself king.

· It appears that Bardiya had the support of most of the Persian Empire in his revolt. This was due, in part, to reforms that benefited various peoples within the empire.

· In the Behistan Inscription, Darius also refers to religious and economic changes made by Bardiya.

· According to Herodotus, a Persian noble suspected that Bardiya was not the true son of Cyrus. He was then joined with in his suspicion by several other Persian nobles. The ‘Seven Conspirators’ planned the murder of the so-called imposter and the deed was accomplished.

· According to Herodotus, once the imposter was dead, the seven then discussed what form of government should be installed. This discussion is highly improbable and is more Greek than Persian in both tone and composition.

· Darius was speaking in favour of monarchy and was then proclaimed King

· Darius wrote an official account of his accession to the throne. It was carved high on a cliff top at Behistan: “I am Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King in Persia…son of Hystaspes, grandson of Arsames, an Achaemenian.”


The Behistan Relief

· According to the Behistan Inscription, on gaining power Darius restored power to the people their pastures, herds, houses, and household slaves that Bardiya had taken away.

· Darius also says that he restored the religious sanctuaries destroyed by Bardiya.

· The relief above the inscription at Behistan emphasises Darius’ victory over Bardiya and nine other rebel leaders

· Darius, larger than the other figures, reigns supreme. His official spear and bow-bearers stand behind him. He adopts a typical ‘warrior-king’ pose. His left foot rests on the fallen Bardiya, who stretches his hands towards the king in submission. Darius’ left hand holds a bow, again emphasizing his military prowess, and his right hand is raised in greeting towards the winged god, Ahura Mazda. The god holds a coronation wreath towards the king and raises his right hand in blessing. In front of Darius are nine rebel leaders ties together in captivity. This effective piece of political propaganda is, of course, merely symbolic as the rebels and Bardiya had already been killed.

· Darius stressed that:
�* He came from a long line of kings
�* He is an Achaemenid and a true Persian
�* Even before he became king, he had the support of Ahura-Mazda
�* He restored temples and other constructions destroyed by Bardiya
�* His marriages to two of Cyrus’ daughters cemented his claim to the throne, by linking him with Cyrus’ family.

Darius the king

· The various portraits of Darius show an idealised figure – that of a strong and handsome king. In fact, it is impossible to distinguish between the official portraits of Darius and Xerxes, as they are practically identical.

· Darius’ official account of his character was carved into his tomb at Naqsh-I Rustam: “A great god is Ahura-Mazda…who bestowed wisdom and activity upon Darius the King…I am a friend to right, I am not a friend to wrong…I am not hot-tempered…I m a good battle-fighter…I am a good bowman…I am a good spearman…and the [physical] skillfulnesses which Ahura-Mazda has bestowed upon me and I have had the strength to use them – by the favour of Ahura-Mazda…” – Kent, p.140

· Darius had several wives, including daughters of Cyrus. He had also married the daughter of Gobryas before he became king and had three sons with her. Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, had also produced four sons after Darius was king. This later produced some conflict in choosing an heir.


Military Campaigns

· Before Darius was proclaimed king, the sources suggest that the Persians were generally quite content to be ruled by Bardiya. Parts of the empire may have benefited from taxation, military and religious reforms.

· On gaining the throne in 552BC, Darius was faced with major revolts throughout the empire. He had obviously been able to gain the support of the army and some of the Persian nobility. With the faithful conspirators, Darius gradually subdued the rest of the territories of the empire within a year.

· Only a few days after the death of Guamata, Babylon revolted, hailing Nebuchadrezzar III as king. Darius himself marched on Babylon and after two battles suppressed the revolt.

· Nebuchadrezzar was executed and a Babylonian cuneiform tablet dated 22 December 522BC implies that Darius was once more in control. Darius himself provides an account of these early revolts in the Behistan Inscription.

· “When I had slain Guamata…Babylonia became rebellious…after that I went off to Babylon…Ahura-Mazda bore me aid; by the favour of Ahura-Mazda we got across the Tigris…then we fought the battle…thereupon we joined battle; Ahura-Mazda bore me aid; by the favour of Ahura-Mazda I smote that army…” – Kent, p.120

· In April 521BC, Darius himself marched out from Babylon against the rebel king of Media, Phraortes, who was defeated and executed. One more attempt by Babylon to revolt was finally suppressed by November 521BC.

· Darius was decisive and ruthless in suppressing these revolts in his first year. The various rebellions had not been coordinated and the indicated that the various peoples wanted to break away from Persian rule rather than create another ‘Great King’.

· By the end of 521BC Darius held all of Cyrus’ former territories, except Asia Minor, by military strength. In the Behistan Inscription, Darius provides considerable detail about the defeat of these rebellions. However, at the end of the inscription, he provides a summary of these campaigns.

Other Military Campaigns

· Egypt
�* Egypt is listed in the Behistan Inscription with the other rebellious lands, but is not mentioned again by Darius
�* Udjahorresne states in his inscription that he was sent by Darius to restore the Sais School of Medicine and in 518BC Darius wrote to Egyptian officials requesting a codification of their laws.
�* Darius represented himself there as the legitimate pharaoh

· Lydia
�* Around 518BC, Darius also successfully dealt with the rebel satrap Oroetes, who governed the provinces of Lydia, Ionia and Phrygia.
�* Herodotus III.126 tells the story in detail.
�* Oroetes was executed.

· India
�* India is not listed as being under Persian control at Behistan, but is mentioned in an inscription at Persepolis and on a statue of Darius found at Susa
�* It is not known when India came under Persian control

· Islands
�* Perhaps as early as 517BC a Persian force under Otanes captured the Greek island of Samos.
�* Lesbos and Chios accepted Persian rule and Darius was able to use Ionian fleets for his campaigns in the Black Sea region

· Thrace
�* In approximately 513BC, a Persian force left Susa and crossed the Bosporus on a bridge of boats.
�* The Persian army subdued the coast of Thrace and the Getae tribes.
�* Herodotus IV.86 gives a detailed account of this campaign

The Persian Wars

· The Persian army then moved into the lands of the Danube where the Scythians proved difficult to conquer. Darius eventually withdrew his army. The king of Macedonia, Amyntas, acknowledged the sovereignty of Darius by sending the symbolic tokens of submission, earth and water.

· Meanwhile, Persian forces captured the Greek islands of Lemnos and Imbros. Darius’ hold on the Ionian Greek mainland appeared quite firm.


Ionia

· It is believed that heavy taxes, military service, discontent with the Ionian tyrants’ rule and particularly Persian restriction of Ionian trade were the initial causes of the Ionian Revolt.

· The Persians had supported tyranny, as that was the form of government in the area when conquered by Cyrus. It was Persian policy t rule through existing political institutions.

· After the revolt, Darius replaced many of the tyrants with a form of democracy.

Mardonius’ Campaign

· Under General Mardonius, son of Gobryas, a Persian forced marched across the Hellespont and into Thrace. Both Thasos and Macedonia surrendered. However the fleet was almost destroyed in a storm off Mount Athos and Mardonius was wounded in a skirmish with the Brygians.

· Persian control of the north Aegean was firm.

Marathon

· Darius requested the submission of the Greek states: some islands and several mainland states agreed. Sparta and Athens refused and a Persian force invaded from across the Aegean Sea

· The Persian defeat at Marathon was a shock to both sides. However, Persia was not seriously affected.

· Herodotus VII describes how Darius was now even more determined to punish Greece and he set in motion plans for a second invasion.

· But Greece was only a small part of his territory and the rest of the empire had to be administered. However, Herodotus believed it was Darius’ major concern until a rebellion in Egypt diverted his energies

· The Egyptian revolt occurred around 486BC, but before Darius could deal with both this and the Greeks, he died at Persepolis in November 486BC, aged approximately 64 years.

· Darius was buried in a rock-cut tomb at Naqsh-I Rustam in the north-west plain of Persepolis. Three successors to the kingship followed the practice set by Darius and also built their tombs nearby.

· The second invasion of Greece was left to his son and heir Xerxes


Darius & The Organisation of the Empire

· After Cambyses committed suicide, the Immortals remained loyal to the name of the Achaemenids and three their support to a distant relative and one of their officers, Darius, the son of King Hystaspes of Parthia.

· Darius suppressed the revolts, executed Guamata, and made good his claim to the throne.

· In 522BC he began a long reign of thirty-six years, in which time he supplied the systematic organisation and care for the whole empire that Cyrus and Cambyses had been too busy to give.

· By 522BC, Darius had made good his claim to the throne and commemorated his victories in a long inscription, a combination of official autobiography and imperial manifesto.

· The Behistan Inscription was written in three languages, Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian but perhaps was designed the impress the passerby by its settings than its content.

· Darius revealed his concern about giving the kingship more sanction of authority, in addition to military success.

· Darius was at pains to stress his hereditary claim to the throne through the Achaemenid line and his special relationship to Ahura Mazda, the chief god of the Persians.

· In the inscription, Darius spoke of himself as the protégé of Ahura Mazda, charged by the god to bring truth and justice to the Empire.

· Such association with a national god was, of course, thoroughly in the tradition of Mesopotamian kingship, but in his insistence on the ethical qualities of Ahura Mazda Darius revealed himself as sympathetic to the religious teaching of the reformer Zoroaster.

· Darius did not attempt to establish a theocratic state or to make the reformed Persian religion into an imperial worship to promote unity, but his organisation of the Empire was characterised by principles of justice and concern for the welfare of the subject peoples.

· By the sixth century the Persian religion had become a composite of the beliefs and practices, which the Aryan invaders had brought into Iran and those if the people along whom they had settled.

· Their most important god was Ahura Mazda, a sky-god.

· There were also Mithras, a sun god, and helper of Ahura Mazda, and Anahita, a fertility goddess who had been adopted from the native peoples.

· In addition, the forces of nature – earth, fire and water – were important to the Persians by vaguely conceived.

· Their gods were worshipped in the open air by blood sacrifices, carried out by a powerful priestly class, known as the Magi.

· The Magi accompanied the armies to war, performed the sacrifices judged necessary for success, interpreted dreams, and crown the king.

· Only they could prepare the sacred and intoxicating drink, haoma, used in the rituals of worship.

· During the sixth century, the religious reformer and prophet, Zoroaster, appeared in eastern Iran.

· It is possible that the revolt of Guamata may have been sponsored by the Magi to counter the spread of Zoroastrian ideas.

· His conception of Ahura Mazda was virtually monotheistic.

· The god was considered to be all powerful, the creator of the world, and was invested with ethical qualities of truth and justice.

· He would help man in his struggled against evil, but held human beings responsible for their own acts.

· Darius seems to have shared Zoroaster’s monotheistic and ethical conceptions of Ahura Mazda, but the king made administrative unity for the Empire his chief concern.

· A reconciliation was effected with the Magi, who incorporated Zoroastrianism into Persian religion and formalised its ideas.

· These were incorporated ultimately into the sacred book of the Persians, the Zend-Avesta.

· The Persian king had to control his unruly relatives and the great nobles by his personal qualities.

· The inscription said to have been written on Darius’ tomb recalls the old Persian virtues: “I was a friend to my friends; as horseman and bowman I proved myself superior to all others; as a hunter I prevailed; I could do everything.”

· Darius tried also to invest the kingship with appropriate pomp and circumstance and to solidify Persian support.

· The Persians themselves were made a privileged group, who paid no taxes and from whose nobility the king chose his administrators and generals.

· The Persian regime continued to be troubled by attempted usurpations and by the revolts of great provincial governors.

· The provinces were large territorial units, satrapies, administered by a governor, the satrap, and other officials appointed by the king.

· While Cyrus and Cambyses had already made a start on the satrapy system, its general application and the detail of organisation were the work of Darius.

· He divided the empire into about thirty satrapies (regions), each headed by a satrap chosen from the royal family or the important nobles.

· Darius also appointed a military commander and a financial official, each individually responsible to the king.

· Te conduct of all these was checked further by the visits, at unannounced and irregular times, of an inspector called the “ear of the king”.

· The satraps were ambitious and in remote parts of the Empire might rule like lesser kings.

· Darius also achieved some degree of administrative unity, by the establishment of a common code of law administered by royal judges.

· He collected and revised the existing codes of Babylonia and Assyria and published then in the traditional Mesopotamian form of a casebook.

· Darius also introduced a common system of weights and measures for the Empire and began the issuance of a gold coinage, the famous darics.

· His purpose may have been to provide a uniform basis for the tax system, but the new standards promoted economic unity within the Empire and the adoption of coinage gradually led to the use of a monetary economy.

· When his collectors apparently reckoned their discounts heavily in the king’s favour, Darius earned the nickname of “the trader”.

· The gold and silver so collected came to rest in the king’s treasury, with the result that the Persian Empire found itself in the happy position of having a budgetary surplus.

· The Persians themselves, like the Assyrians, took little part in the economic life of the Empire, except in their capacity as owners of great estates.

· Trade with the Greeks became lively.

· Darius’ concern for unity, and the order and peace which Persian rule had brought, resulted in a very considerable development of trade and economic growth both within the Empire and between the lands of the Near East and the developing Greek world.

· Darius’ concern for unity was reflected in his frontier policy and in the improvement of communications between the extremities of the Empire and the centres in Mesopotamia and western Iran.

· The schemes of conquest in Africa, which Cambyses had contemplated, were given up in favour of finding more defensible frontiers in Asia. The conquest of northwestern India, started by Cyrus, was completed and that land linked to the west by exploration of the sea route.

· Darius led an expedition in 513bC. Its purpose was interpreted by the Greeks to be the conquest of the Scythians, who lived from the European shore of the Black Sea to the steppes of inner Asia.

· Justification for such a grandiose plan of conquest may be found in the fact that the Scythian nomads were beginning to coalesce into kingdoms in southern Russia at this time and that their kindred around the Caspian did raid into Iran.

· Darius was generally more practical, and modern scholars have suggested other purposes.

· Some consider that Darius hoped to get possession of the gold fields in the Ural Mountains, but this is hardly less ambitious than the conquest of the Scythians.

· The silver mines in Thrace were the chief source of silver from the Greeks, and, in addition, the possession of Thrace would provide Darius with that beach-head in Europe.

· Possibly then, Darius’ purpose was to find a proper frontier for the Empire in the northwest by making Thrace into a province.

· His thrust across the Danube was designed to check Scythian raids.

· It is sufficient to notice here that both Darius and his son Xerxes failed to incorporate Greece into the Empire.

· Darius also tied western Asia Minor more closely to his capitals by the development of the famous Royal Road and by the establishment of a messenger service along its course.

· The road ran from the old Lydian capital of Sardes, which had become the chief centre of Persian administration for Asia Minor, up the valley of the Hermus River to the Anatolian plateau.

· The distance from Sardes to Persepolis was about sixteen hundred miles, and staging posts were built along the road to provide the king’s messengers with fresh mounts.

· The relay took about a week for the messengers of the king, but for travellers by camel and donkey, about three months.

· The road became an important commercial link between the Aegean area of the Empire and its centres.

· At the outset of his reign Darius chose the Elamite city of Susa as his capital.

· In 521BC, he began to refortify the citadel and to build a large new palace in the Babylonian style.

· Susa remained an important centre of administration, but in 512BC, Darius chose a new and more specifically Persian site at Persepolis, the city of the Persians, as the Greeks called it.

· The palace built there was not as large as that at Susa, but its architecture was more traditionally Persian.

· For its construction the king drew lavishly on the resources of the Empire. A huge terrace was constructed for the palace, approached by a monumental stairway. A long frieze represented the Immortals of the king’s bodyguard, through whose support he had won the throne, the Persian nobles associated in its administration, and the varied subject peoples bringing tribute.

· The columns of the palace were treated in Assyrian style with sculptured bull’s heads, powerfully and crisply cut by the best workmen of the Empire.

· The king needed to draw on the cultural traditions of his subjects throughout the Empire, for the Persians themselves were still too young to have developed an individual architectural and sculptural style.

· Their building was still a reflection of what they found congenial in the older traditions of Babylonia, Assyria, and Urartu.

· The Persian Empire about 500BC was a new state with a vigorous king and ruling class. Darius gave it administrative unity rather than homogeneity.

· The establishment of a centralised authority and the improvement of communications and trade with the eastern Mediterranean stimulated growth over a very wide area.

· The land was held mainly by large-scale owners, Persians, native nobles, and the great temple establishments.

· There was no development toward a more organic unity through economic and social means and no unification of society through common citizenship and legal privilege.

· Darius made a framework in which the diverse subject peoples could live and maintain their national institutions but received no share in government.

· The Persian kings exercised a generally benevolent and tolerant rule with some concern fro the welfare of their subjects.

· The Near East had been re-organised, with its traditions preserved and developed after the invasions of the Early Iron Age.

 

[grk_styl]

Darius. 522 – 486 BC.


Claim To Throne:
 Smerdis (a magus) claimed to be Cambyses brother and become king.
o Smerdis was well supported by the Persian subjects as he implemented many new reforms, in the areas of religion and economics – including some tax relief.
 These changes made by Smerdis are outlined by Darius in the Behistan Inscription.
 Octanes (Persian Noble) suspected Smerdis to be an impostor.
 Octanes and Darius + 5 others plotted and killed Smerdis.
 Darius proclaimed king.
o About outlined in the Behistan Inscription.
 Features Darius’ victory over Smerdis and 9 other rebel leaders.
 Considered political propaganda.

Military Campaigns.
 Faced many revolts from 522BC onwards.
o Babylon.
 A few days after the death of Smerdis Babylon revolted.
 Proclaimed Nebuchadrezzar III king.
 Darius as well as army matched.
 2 battles before the revolt was suppressed.
 Babylon cuneiform tablet December 522BC showed Darius being in control again.
o Other Revolts.
 Rebellions broke out within Persian Empire its self.
• Media, Elam, Assyria..........
 Darius was decisive and ruthless in suppressing these revolts in the first year.
 By the end of 521 Darius held all territories except Asia Minor by military strength. Talked about in Behistan inscription.

Persian Wars
 Darius’ hold on Ionian Greek mainland appeared firm.
o 499 Aristagorus went to Athens to seek help in Ionia against the Persians.
 Marked beginning of first Persian wars.
 Marathon.
o Darius requested submission of Greek states – some agreed but Athens and Sparta refused.
o Persians invaded from across the Agean.
o Under the command of Datis and Artaphernes.
o Persians defeated.
Administration.
 Perfected Cyrus’ system of administration.
 Tolerant and broadminded about subject territories.
 Divided subject nations into satrapies.
o Possibly 20 satrapies at the time of Darius.

Kings Advisors.
 Relied heavily on experienced advisors, courtiers, nobles and a large bureaucracy of scribes for advice.
o Seeked advice on the killing of the rebellious satrap Oreotes.

Economic Development.
 Economy appeared to flourish under Darius.
 Payment was mad in the form of meat, wheat, barley and wine.
 Croesus from Lydia introduced coinage.
o Darius adopted coins, minting his own.
 Darics = gold
 Sigloi = silver.

Weights and Measurements.
 Reasonably standardised across the empire.
 “The stones of the king” was a Babylonian weight system commonly used.

Agriculture, Industry and Natural Resources.
 Large waterworks constructed near Persepolis and Pasagadae.
 Darius completed canal linking the Nile to the red see.
o Susa canal.
o Stela found – “I ordered this canal to be excavated...ships sailed from Egypt trough this canal to Persia as was my wish”
 Agriculture was the basis of the empires wealth

Laws.
 Stressed the importance of laws within subject nations in the Behistan inscription.
 Little evidence to suggest that he implemented a universal law code through out the empire.
 Serious crimes such as treason against the state, king and royal family was awarded with death penalty.

Communications.
 Extensive road network.
 Heavily guarded garrisons.
 Royal road extended from Susa to Persepolis and from Sardis to Susa.
 Official staging post.
o Days journey apart.
o Rations issued to official travellers.
o 111 staging posts along the road from Sardis to Susa.
 Official authorisation was needed, and people were often issued with escorts.
 Bridges were maintained on main routes or boat ferries were provided.

Overview Of Darius’ Rule.
 Extended empire east into India and west into Thrace.
 Marathon was hardly a set back.
 Darius proved to be a brave and decisive leader.


Fall of the Persian Empire.

General.
o Traditional greek view that the empire was declining due to the moral decay of the Persians themselves.
o Moral decay supposedly shown in the weakness of the later kings.
o Influence of queens, the harem, court eunuchs and coutiers.
o Laxurious life persued by kings.
o Limited range of sources – most bias.
o Final blow by alexander – but appears other factors at work for some time.


Hubris of the Persians.
o Greek view expressed in the play THE PERSIANS by Aeschylus.
o Persians had offended gods by crossing the Hellespont into Europe (trespassing).
o Reason for xerxes defeat at salamis.
o Not a view held by Persians.
o No known how widely this view of Persians was held by the Greek.


No longer fit to govern.
o Greeks believed Persians have grown soft and effeminate in their personal lives and thus unfit to govern.
o Scoffed at their love of fine clothing jewellery and food.
o Women and eunuchs influence considered bad.
o Life of luxury did not stop Artaxerxes II enduring hardships of battle with his army – plutarch.


Court intrigues
o Court intrigues increased greatly in the time after xerxes.
o Influence of royal women = queen parysatis, wife of darius II contributed to the death of queen Stateria.
o Actual power help by queens unknown as available sources are insufficient to access the real situation.
o Disasterous family feuding saw much of the royal family wiped out by the time of darius III.


Calibre of the kings.
o Few could measure up to the strong leadership qualities of cyrus and darius I.
o Many relied on bribery to control troublesome satrapies – rather then relying on military strength.
o Darius II never lead troops into battle.
o Darius III no match for alexander .


Size of empire.
o Had the Persian empire become to large.
o Main problems in boarder regions, particualy west satrapies – constant clashes with greece. Problems coincide with rise in power and influence of greek states.
o Egypt was also a strain on resourses and power – blunder to try to retain it.


Military weakness.
o Weaknesses emphasied in battles at marathon, salamis and plataea.
o Xenophon’s greek 10,000 walked unhindered through western part of empire – encouraged spartans invasion of asia minor?
o Persia began to rely more heavely on greek mercenaries.
o Economic problems made harder for Persian subjects to supply good infantry.
o Reasonable to assume alexander was aware of Persian weakness when planning invasion of Persian empire.


Satrapy system.
o Independence of satrapiesconstant undermining factor.
o Revolts of satrapies became more evident in later years of empire.
o Had a negative effect of the empires economy.
o Trade would have been interupted.
o Under artaxerxes when many western satrapies and egypt revolted the treasury was deprieved of almost half its revenue.


Economic problems.
o Economic problems could have sapped Persian strength.
o Murasu family records shows crippling interest rates, showing they some times lent money at 40% interest.
o Economic difficulities were not experienced by all empire – most greek asian cities flourished through Persian trade in times of peace.
o Xenphon in wanderings saw evidence on busy merchant shipping in costal cities, and found towns wealthy enough to feed 10,000 for several days.


Alexanders attack.
o found the Persian army at the plains of Gaugamela..
o The two armies met on the battlefield the next morning, and the Macedonian forces swept through the Persian army unleashing an overwhelming slaughter.
o Alexander nearly captured Darius, but he was prevented from doing so by strategic bungling on the part of Parmenion, the Macedonian general on the right wing.
o After this decisive victory, Alexander was named King of Asia, and sent letters to all of the Greek cities proclaiming that he had rid Asia of tyranny.
o After four months, the Macedonians burned the royal palace to the ground. Some historians say that this was done to avenge the Persian invasion of Greece in 490 B.C., but others hold that the fire was set at the suggestion of an Athenian woman, Thais, at one of Alexander's drinking parties, immortalized in poetry by John Dryden.
o Alexander continued his pursuit of Darius for hundreds of miles from Persepolis. When he finally caught up to him, he found the Persian king dead in his coach, assassinated by his own men. Alexander had the assassins executed and gave Darius a royal funeral.
o The fall of Persepolis "symbolized the end of the immense Persian Empire that Cyrus the Great and his successors had carved out from the Nile to the Indus." -Doxuan.
o Alexander let his soldiers loose on the city and "bands of soldiers ran in every direction, slitting the throats of their prisoners..., the carnage lasted several days." -Doxuan.
o Many Greek soldiers took revenge for the destruction of Athens and the Acropolis by setting fire to the royal section of Persepolis.

thanks to Xanthanotus

 

[grk_styl]

CYRUS THE GREAT.

Ruled from 560 – 530 bc.

Background.
 Parentage not officially known.
o Herodotus says: father was a “persian of middle rank”.
o Xenathon – cyrus sprang from the old royal dynasty of the achaemenids.
o Mother mandane?

Conquest.
 Media 550.
o Cyrus led persians, astyages led medes.
o Initiator unknown.
o Various stories in nabonidus chronicle and dream text of nabonidus.
o Either way cyrus defeates astyages and becomes king of media.
 Lydia 545 bc.
o Cyrus used camels in front line. Herodotus – the ‘instinctive fear which they inspire in horses’.
o Cyrus besiged and then took hold of city of sardis.
o King reduced to satrapy under persian governer.
o Croesus died according to babylonian sources lived in greek sourses.

Smaller conquests.
 Exact chronology unknown.
 Ionia.
 West – ionia.
 East – parthia, bactria, sagidia, drangiana, margiana.
 Jaxartes fiver formed NE boarder of empire – stopped attacks from scythian tribes.

Babylon.
 One of wealthest cities in west.
 Surpassing in splendor any city of the known world.
 Major power in west.
 Conquest of babylon covered in cyrus cylinder, nabonidus chronicle, and the deam text of nabonidus.

Establishing control in babylon
 Transittion to cyrus’ rule smooth.
o Did not destroy city or temples.
o Did not send population in to exile.
o No new religions of gods introduced.
o Made sacrifices to babylonias chief god marduk.
o New year festival caried out – cambyses kings representative.

Cyrus as a liberator.
 Acted as a liberator rather then a conquarer in restoration of religious practices.
 Cyrus cylinder reports cyrus restored the deities of other religions to their native cities.
 Allowed those who had been forcably setteled in babylon to return to home lands.
• Cyrus edict – 538 bc – allowed hebrew captives to return home.

Pragmatism in government.
 Showed great pragmatism in area of government.
 Did not replace existing administrative and economic systems.
o Documents show many admin and legal officials retained positions.
 Several bussiness documents from babylon suggest there was no interruption to economic like, no great shortages of food and no significant increases in prices.
 While respecting babylonian religious practices, cyrus exercised firm control over temple property and revenue.
 Appointed royal officials to:
o Oversee activities of important temples.
o Compelled temples to pay taxes to king.
 In 535 bc cyrus united babylon and the countries to the west (syria etc) into a province called ‘babylon and the lands beyond the river’.

Foundations of persian rule.
 Cyrus divided empire into strapies each was administeres by a strap.
 Satrap = protector of the kingdom.
 Success of cyrus rule can be judged by the fact there were no major rebellions during his long rule.
 Ruled from his palatial capital at susa.
o Also kept royal residences at ecbatana, and babylon.
o Building program – greatest achievement was palace complex at pasargadae/

Last campainge.
 Herodotus only source for this period.
 Next campainge to be in egypt – insted went to north east of empire.
 NE of empire scythian tribes raiding persian territory.
 Battle at messagetae – cyrus killed.

Assessing rule.
 If conquest a sign of a good ruler, then cyrus was the great.
 In 10 years conquared or gained submission from all the lands between the mediterranean and india.
 Compared to contemporaries he was a merciful victor.
o Used political subversion and unorodox military strategies in campaings.
 Showed pragmatism in the way he took control of and administeres conquared territories.
 Satrapy system later developed by darius and so was effectively used by all persian kings.
 Showed good judgement in appointing key personal – did not always use persians., harpagus = mede.
 Showed tolerance of religious practices.
 Master of propagande – cyrus cylinder.

Cyrus the man.
 Buried in simple tomb south of palaces at pasargadae.
o 10.7 meters tall.
o Six step base
o Made of stone.

thanks to Xanthanotus

 

[82391990]

Hi, I am looking for any information on the palaces built during the Xerxes-Darius period.

Thanks

 

[*Cassie*]

legend!!