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Cyrus Cyrus and the establishment of the Persian Empire The Rise of Persia Under Cyrus Darius Xerxes
Cylinder seal and inscription of Cyrus the Great from Babylon I am Cyrus, king of the world,
great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of the land of Sumer and
Akkad, king of the four quarters, son of Cambyses, great king, king of
Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, great king, king of Anshan, descendant of
Teispes, great king, king of Anshan, progeny of an unending royal line,
whose rule Bel and Nabu cherish, whose kingship they desire for their
hearts' pleasures.
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Persia
Cyrus' conquests Author: Grote, George
After inheriting the empire of the Medes, Cyrus first
had to consolidate his power over Iranian tribes on the Iranian plateau
before expanding to the west. Croesus, king of Lydia in Asia Minor
(Anatolia), had enlarged his domains at the expense of the Medes when he
heard of the fall of Astyages, and Cyrus, as successor of the Median king,
marched against Lydia. Sardis, the Lydian capital, was captured in 547 or
546, and Croesus was either killed or burned himself to death, though
according to other sources he was taken prisoner by Cyrus and well
treated. The Ionian Greek cities on the Aegean Sea coast, as vassals of
the Lydian king, now became subject to Cyrus, and most of them submitted
peacefully. Several revolts of the Greek cities were later suppressed with
severity. Next Cyrus turned to Babylonia, where the dissatisfaction of the
people with the ruler Nabonidus gave him a pretext for invading the
lowlands. The conquest was quick, for even the priests of Marduk, the
national deity of the great metropolis of Babylon, had become estranged
from Nabonidus. In October 539 BC, the greatest city of the ancient world
fell to the Persians. In the Bible (e.g., Ezra 1:1-4), Cyrus is famous for
freeing the Jewish captives in Babylonia and allowing them to return to
their homeland. Cyrus was also tolerant toward the Babylonians and others.
He conciliated local populations by supporting local customs and even
sacrificing to local deities. The capture of Babylon delivered not only
Mesopotamia into the hands of Cyrus but also Syria and Palestine, which
had been conquered previously by the Babylonians. The ruler of Cilicia in
Asia Minor had become an ally of Cyrus when the latter marched against
Croesus, and Cilicia retained a special status in Cyrus' empire. Thus it
was by diplomacy as well as force of arms that he established the largest
empire known until his time. Cyrus seems to have had several capitals. One was the
city of Ecbatana, modern Hamadan, former capital of the Medes, and another
was a new capital of the empire, Pasargadae, in Persis, said to be on the
site where Cyrus had won the battle against Astyages. The ruins today,
though few, arouse admiration in the visitor. Cyrus also kept Babylon as a
winter capital. No Persian chauvinist, Cyrus was quick to learn from
the conquered peoples. He not only conciliated the Medes but united them
with the Persians in a kind of dual monarchy of the Medes and Persians.
Cyrus had to borrow the traditions of kingship from the Medes, who had
ruled an empire when the Persians were merely their vassals. A Mede was
probably made an adviser to the Achaemenian king, as a sort of chief
minister; on later reliefs at Persepolis, a capital of the Achaemenian
kings from the time of Darius, a Mede is frequently depicted together with
the great king. The Elamites, indigenous inhabitants of Persis, were also
the teachers of the Persians in many ways, as can be seen, for example, in
the Elamite dress worn by Persians and by Elamite objects carried by them
on the stone reliefs at Persepolis. There also seems to have been little
innovation in government and rule, but rather a willingness to borrow,
combined with an ability to adapt what was borrowed to the new empire.
Cyrus was undoubtedly the guiding genius in the creation not only of a
great empire but in the formation of Achaemenian culture and civilization. Little is known of the family life of Cyrus. He had
two sons, one of whom, Cambyses, succeeded him; the other, Bardiya (Smerdis
of the Greeks), was probably secretly put to death by Cambyses after he
became ruler. Cyrus had at least one daughter, Atossa (who married her
brother Cambyses), and possibly two others, but they played no role in
history. When Cyrus defeated Astyages he also inherited Median possessions in eastern Iran, but he had to engage in much warfare to consolidate his rule in this region. After his conquest of Babylonia, he again turned to the east, and Herodotus tells of his campaign against nomads living east of the Caspian Sea. According to the Greek historian, Cyrus was at first successful in defeating the ruler of the nomads--called the Massagetai--who was a woman, and captured her son. On the son's committing suicide in captivity, his mother swore revenge and defeated and killed Cyrus. Herodotus' story may be apocryphal, but Cyrus' conquests in Central Asia were probably genuine, since a city in farthest Sogdiana was called Cyreschata, or Cyropolis, by the Greeks, which seems to prove the extent of his Eastern conquests.
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