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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 Darius The Great Author: Grote, George DARIUS THE GREAT, king of Persia in 522-486 BC, one
of the greatest rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty, who was noted for his
administrative genius and for his great building projects. Darius
attempted several times to conquer Greece; his fleet was destroyed by a
storm in 492, and the Athenians defeated his army at Marathon in 490.
Ascension to monarchy. Darius was the son of Hystaspes, the satrap
(provincial governor) of Parthia. The principal contemporary sources for
his history are his own inscriptions, especially the great trilingual
inscription on the Bisitun (Behistun) rock at the village of the same
name, in which he tells how he gained the throne. The accounts of his
accession given by the Greek historians Herodotus and Ctesias are in many
points obviously derived from this official version but are interwoven
with legends. According to Herodotus, Darius, when a youth, was
suspected by Cyrus II the Great (who ruled from 559 to 529 BC) of plotting
against the throne. Later Darius was in Egypt with Cambyses II, the son of
Cyrus and heir to his kingdom, as a member of the royal bodyguard. After
the death of Cambyses in the summer of 522 BC, Darius hastened to Media,
where, in September, with the help of six Persian nobles, he killed
Bardiya (Smerdis), another son of Cyrus, who had usurped the throne the
previous March. In the Bisitun inscription Darius defended this deed and
his own assumption of kingship on the grounds that the usurper was
actually Gaumata, a Magian, who had impersonated Bardiya after Bardiya had
been murdered secretly by Cambyses. Darius therefore claimed that he was
restoring the kingship to the rightful Achaemenid house. He himself,
however, belonged to a collateral branch of the royal family, and, as his
father and grandfather were alive at his accession, it is unlikely that he
was next in line to the throne. Some modern scholars consider that he
invented the story of Gaumata in order to justify his actions and that the
murdered king was indeed the son of Cyrus. Darius did not at first gain general recognition but had to impose his rule by force. His assassination of Bardiya was followed, particularly in the eastern provinces, by widespread revolts, which threatened to disrupt the empire. In Susiana, Babylonia, Media, Sagartia, and Margiana, independent governments were set up, most of them by men who claimed to belong to the former ruling families. Babylonia rebelled twice and Susiana three times. In Persia itself a certain Vahyazdata, who pretended to be Bardiya, gained considerable support. These risings, however, were spontaneous and uncoordinated, and, notwithstanding the small size of his army, Darius and his generals were able to suppress them one by one. In the Bisitun inscription he records that in 19 battles he defeated nine rebel leaders, who appear as his captives on the accompanying relief. By 519 BC, when the third rising in Susiana was put down, he had established his authority in the east. In 518 Darius visited Egypt, which he lists as a rebel country, perhaps because of the insubordination of its satrap, Aryandes, whom he put to death.
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