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The Persian Wars: Darius the Great



The man who lead the revolt in Persia in 622 BC claimed to be the son of Cyrus the Great, despite the fact that the real Bardia was killed by his own brother Cambyses II before the conquest of Egypt. Darius, a nobleman from the Immortals unit, decided to defeat the fake Bardia and quell the rebellion.

Darius and six other Persian noblemen conspired against Bardia and finally killed him. Herodotus writes that three Persian noblemen were discussing the future of Persia and that Darius finally won the discussions and was crowned the king of Persia in 521 BC, when he was 29 years old. On the other hand, on the Behistun inion, Darius said that he defeated one rebellion after another. This happened throughout the Empire. Finally he won the Empire by force and legitimized his rule by marrying Atossa, the daughter of  Cyrus the Great. Now he only had to consolidate his rule by investing heavily in building the infrastructure of the empire.


(Darius the Great on his Throne)

Darius also continued the humanist path of Cyrus the Great by building many temples in Egypt. He built the Royal Road from Persis to the western part of Asia Minor which facilitated the first postal system in history, created by Darius.  He again proved himself as an outstanding organizer by dividing his empire into 20 satrapies with a satrap as the governor in every single satrapy. He created a very stabile currency known as the Dareik. He started building the impressive Persepolis that arguably was the United Nations of the ancient world. This palace-complex was built throughout 150 years and continued by the son and grandson of Darius. The magnificent reliefs proved the stability and peace of the Persian Empire because there was not a single variation in the building relief in 150 years, while the Greeks were experiencing major changes in their art as a result of their wars. More important is the fact that Darius and his successors never used slaves and always paid the workers who building Persepolis and the first canal, connecting the Red Sea to the Nile. All these brilliant feats earned him the name Darius the Great.


(Persepolis, National Geographic)

He incorporated the Phoenician navy into the Imperial Persian Navy. He demanded that each satrapy contributed with a certain amount of troops and taxes. It resulted in the dramatic change of the Persian army, because it went from a mainly Persian army to a multicultural army with soldiers from India and Central Asia to Greece & Egypt. He also expanded the kingdom in Central Asia, India, Caucasus and into the Balkans.

In 499 when Darius the Great was 51 years old, the Ionian Greeks revolted. The Persians defeated this revolt 6 years after, but they were infuriated by the Greek aid to the Ionian rebels when they burned down Sardes. Therefore Darius wanted them to suffer the consequences of violating the Persian hegemony. 

In 490, when Darius the Great was 60 years old, his army met the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon in one of the first naval assaults in history. Herodotus says that the Greek were afraid of looking at the Persians, and now they had to meet them in a battle. The Persians had never met an army consisting of brilliantly trained heavy infantrymen and the Persians were used to fight with very high speed and mobility which the Greek land didn"t allow. On the other hand, they fought bravely against the Greek center which they pushed back, but the Persian flanks were overrun by the Greeks. This caused the envelopment of the center of the Persian Empire that decided to retreat with the Greeks pursuing. The Greeks were overjoyed by the victory and Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, ran all the way from the battlefield to Athens to inform the inhabitants of Greece about the victory. He managed to say "We Have Won" and then he died on the spot due to exhaustion. Now the Persians wanted to reach Athens before the Athenian army in order to conquer the city-state, but they gave up, when  they saw that the Athenian army had reached Athens beforehand. 

One of the reasons of the defeat in the Battle of Marathon was the late arrival of the Persian horses, who were famous killing-machines. Darius died 5 years after the Battle of Marathon, and he had made the Persian Empire into a efficient and very stabil empire. Now his son Xerxes was ready to defeat the annoying Greeks once and for all... 


The Persian Empire 485 BC




The Egyptian Expedition: Cambyses II

After the Battle of Pelusium in May 525 BC, Cambyses conquered Egypt. It was 4 years after the death of his father, Cyrus the Great. The main source of Cambyses" Egyptian campaign is the Histories written by Herodotus. In his book, he mentions 3 reasons for the Persian conquest of Egypt:

  • When Cambyses was a little boy, he saw that his mother Cassandane was sad. He wanted to know the reason of her sadness, and she said that her husband, Cyrus the Great, didn"t love her anymore, because he was with his Egyptian concubine all the time. When Cambyses heard that, he promised his mother that he would turn Egypt upside down when he grew up.
  • When Cambyses was the King of Persia he demanded a doctor due to his eye-problems. The Egyptians had famous doctors at that time, and consequently the Egyptian king, Amasis II, sent a doctor to treat him. The doctor was angry, because he didn"t want to leave Egypt, but he was forced to do so by the Egyptian King. Therefore he wanted to avenge this, and said to Cambyses that the Egyptian king had a very beautiful daughter. Therefore, Cambyses wanted to marry her. Amasis II was afraid now. In either way he would lose something. If he married his daughter to Cambyses, he would never see her again, and if he didn"t send his daughter to Cambyses, he would lose his country to the Persians. So he decided to send another beautiful girl to Persia pretending to be his daughter. Eventually Cambyses found out that it wasn"t an Egyptian princess and he got very angry and decided to conquer Egypt.
  • Cyrus the Great had conquered almost all the known world and thus created the largest empire the world had ever seen at that time. When Cambyses was crowned as king, only Egpyt remained unconquered in that area. Subsequently, Cambyses had to conquerer this ancient civilization. One day, a Greek general, Phanes of Halicarnassus, defected to the Persians from Egyptian service. He said to Cambyses that he knew a path into Egypt and would help the Persians to conquer Egypt. Amasis II hoped to stop the coming Persian invasion by allying with the Greeks, but it didn"t happen and a large number of Greek ships from Cyprus and Samos joined the Persian army. Cambyses, allied with the arab chieftains, made the world"s first pipeline with camel-skin, so the Persian army was well-supplied with water when crossing the desert towards Egypt.
The two armies eventually met at Pelusium. The Persians outnumbered the Egyptians, and the Egyptian king Amasis II was succeeded by his inexperienced son Psamtik III. The Persians were very clever and they had painted their shields with a large image of Bestat, an Egyptian deity. Therefore, the Egyptians were unwilling to attack the Persians. Consequently they suffered a crushing defeat and routed. According toCtesias, The Egyptians lost 50.000 men, while the Persians had only lost 7.000 men.


(Cambyses II Fighting the Egyptians, Encarta)

The Egyptians fled into the fortress of Pelusium. The Persians again demonstrated their cleverness by collecting as many cats as possible, because cats were considered as holy animals by the Egyptians, and they symbolized peace and security. So Cambyses ordered the Persians to make the cats run towards the Egyptians, as if they were making an assault, while the Persians stormed the fortress. Consequently, the Persians easily defeated the Egyptians. 

After the siege of Memphis in Northern Egypt, the Persian conquest of Egypt was complete. Now Cambyses wanted to conquer Ethiopia, and the soldiers were unable to do so, because of the lack of food. And the conquest of Carthage (modern Tunisia) was impossible, because the Phoenicians that made up the imperial Persian fleet wouldn"t attack their kindred.

Now Cambyses only wanted to consolidate the empire. In 522 BC, three years after the battle of Pelusium, a rebellion started in Persia, and Cambyses left Egypt to attack the leader of the rebellion, who claimed to be his brother Bardia. 

In may 522, Cambyses died on his way to quell the rebellion. Now the Persian Empire was up for grabs. At that time, Darius, one of the soldiers in the Persian army was on his way to Persia...


The Persian Empire 522 BC


The Birth of the Persian Empire: Cyrus the Great

Astyages had nightmares about his coming grandson, when his daughter Mandana was pregnant. He dreamt that all Asia would be under the shadow of his grandson Cyrus the Great. When Cyrus was born in 576 BC, Astyages ordered him to be killed and gave the responsibility to Harpagus who couldn"t kill a baby. So Harpagus handed the baby, along the responsibility of killing him, to a shepherd. The shepherd"s wife had a stillborn child at the same day, and she decided to bury her own child instead of Cyrus...

Cyrus grew up and was recognized by Astyages. Cyrus moved to Persia and planned a rebellion against the Medes. Meanwhile, Astyages punished Harpagus, due to his disobedience, when he was ordered to kill Cyrus. Therefore he decided to help Cyrus. He managed to defeat Astyages after several fierce battles, and he eventually managed to gain the loyalty of the Median army in 550 BC. Now The Medes had become the subject of the Persians.

At the same time the Lydian king Croesus was afraid of the growing Persian power, and wanted to stop it"s potential expansion into all of Asia Minor. Cyrus decided to expand the Persian Empire to all of Asia Minor. So the two armies met near the river Halys in April 547 BC, where they fought the fierce Battle of Thymbra. Croesus decided to retreat to his capital Sardis in order to fight, when it was spring, but he didn"t know that Cyrus the Great had followed him all the way in an unbelievable forced march. Cyrus conquered the Lydian Empire and installed Croesus as his personal advisor.

(Cyrus the Great)

Meanwhile, the Jews where praying to God to be released from their Babylonian captivity. Fortunately, Cyrus the Great had planned the conquest of the Babylonian Empire. After the fierce Battle of Opis on September 25, 539 BC, Cyrus defeated the Babylonians. Then he demonstrated the skill of the Persian engineers by letting them dig canals and divert the river away from Babylon. Therefore the Persian soldiers entered Babylon without drawing a single sword, and Cyrus the Great was hailed as a liberator. 

Cyrus the Great proved his epithet with a charter, which now is known as the first declaration of human rights. He followed this revolutionary act with releasing the Jews from their captivity and helping them build their temple in Jerusalem. Because of his contribution to humanity Cyrus the Great has been praised in the Koran, Torah & Bible. 


(The Tomb of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae)

Cyrus the Great decided to form a elite unit known as the 10.000 Immortals. This united was formed by the Persians and Medes who proved themselves as brave and extraordinary warriors. There was also many nobles who were a part of the army, and they had golden pomegranates as the counterweight on their spears. Herodotus also admired the luxury and splendor of the Immortals, when they were marching into Greece.

Cyrus Now turned eastwards against the Massagetae in Central Asia. In a fierce battle he was defeated and killed in 529 BC. 

After his death he was succeeded by his son Cambyses. The Persian Empire became the superpower of the ancient world. Cyrus the Great created a vast empire, from India to the Ionian Coast. The greatest empire the world had ever seen. But Egypt remained unconquered...

The Persian Empire 529 BC


The First Iranian Empire: Media

Iran has been inhabited by many civilizations before the arrival of the Aryans. The Elamites established themselves in South Iran in 5000 BC. The rise of the Assyrian Empire subjected Elam to constant attacks and raids into their lands. In 645 the Assyrians, under the leadership of Ashurbanipal, sacked the capital Susa and annexed the country. This laid the foundation for the Medes and the Persians to fill the void, and it lead to the dramatically change of the Ancient World Order. 


(Two Median Men, Persepolis)

Northern Iran consisted of Median city-states. In 715 BC, Deioces united these city-states and was considered to be the founder of the Median Empire. The Medes allied with the Babylonians against the Assyrian Superpower. In 612 BC, the alliance captured the Assyrian capital Nineveh and overthrew the Assyrian Empire.

The Median Empire emerged as the dominant power and consequently expanded the borders to eastern Anatolia under the Median king, Cyaxares. In 584 BC, Cyaxares was succeeded by his son, Astyages, who became allied with the Lydian king, Croesus.

Meanwhile, the Persians were the subjects of the Medians. Astyages" daughter, Mandana, married the Persian king, Cambyses I, and gave birth to the end of the Median Empire... 


  The Median Empire 600 BC