The Entire History of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC) / Ancient History Documentary

In 480 BC, war came to Greece, not the usual disputes between regional powers, but a myriad of Greek-speaking city-states, kingdoms, and oligarchies scattered along the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. No, this threat was something else

entire

ly, a leviathan arriving from the No doubt many members of the coalition formed to confront this new threat must have cursed their cousins ​​across the sea in Ionia for bringing them this fate; The Ionian Greeks rebelled against their new Near Eastern overlords more than a decade earlier, ushering in years of conflict in the process and now in the water just beyond the horizon of the Greek mainland, a massive army and fleet of ships at the height had gathered as the Greek world had never before seen those defenders, each individual Greek state could At best, the size and composition of this new force must have been almost incomprehensible.

The Greek historian Herodotus, writing several decades later, states that more than two and a half million men were present from every nation in the known world. I don't know the actual size of the invasion force, although modern scholars tend to estimate the number closer to between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand men, it is still a massive force, this was the great army of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, simply put. the most powerful state that had ever existed in the

history

of the world and in many ways Herodotus was right this force was not made up of just Persians by any means, to name a few, those present were Medes Elamites Babylonians Phoenicians Judeans Egyptians Bactrians Scythians Sogdians Lydians Cushites and even Indians from the far eastern edge of the known world together were the subjects of a colossal land

empire

that stretched from the deserts of Libya in the west to the Indus River Valley in the east to the ladders of central Asia in the north.

At least until the first cataract of the Nile in the south, many of these contingents of soldiers fought on behalf of their own local rulers, the same elites who still ruled their kinsmen at home, but in reality, above all, there was only one king that really mattered. a king of kings, the shah and the shah who sat on the Persian throne in 480 BC. C., that man was Xerxes, son of the powerful Darius, the great of the greatest administrators in

history

and grandson of Cyrus the Great, the warrior lord who had brought the world. on its knees before the Greeks a literate society from which most of our evidence on the Persians is derived the situation seemed bleak this last and greatest of the near eastern

empire

s of the

ancient

world was the most successful the world has ever seen This was a very different and extremely hierarchical world from that of the Greeks, who kept their prostrations and worshiped the gods rather than mortal rulers.

Today, in the plains and mountains of the Middle East, you can still see remains of fire altars, monumental architecture, temples and cities, a testament to this time long gone, when all roads led to Persia. It is believed that the Persians worshiped deities of the natural world, water, fire, earth and, above all, the sky. Their main deity is a Mazda of Terror depicted here as a winged guardian, as other pantheons might. easily incorporate themselves into their own without offending the subject peoples too much, in stark contrast to brutal empires like that of the Assyrians before them, a policy that allowed them to absorb the Greeks into their world quite easily, specifically the city-states of the Ionian coast that absorbed them into the ever-growing empire under tributary status.

The Persians' idea of ​​subject peoples was different from that of most other empires, being particularly lenient and often allowing local rulers to continue as before, for Therefore, as soon as the Persian armies left, the Ionians rebelled, culminating in the burning of the city of Sardis. However, when they had to be, the Persians were no easy prey in 499 BC. the great king darius turned his gaze westward the historic

ancient

city of miletus a center of power since the bronze age long considered the richest and largest of all greek cities was burned to the ground its men killed women and children sold as slaves and now in 480 under a new king native or from the mountains of western Iran had heard of the people known as the Persians;

They did not have the long, storied histories of other ancient peoples, such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, or various other groups. who had ruled parts of the Near East before them, were indeed beyond us whose distant ancestors, like the Greeks, had descended from the Eurasian echelon atop war chariots to bring the world of city builders to its knees, although they were relatively newcomers to the world stage. The impact of the Persians on the lands they ruled would change the course of history forever, but who were the Persians, where did they come from, and how did they build the largest empire the world has ever seen?

Let's go back to the time when Persia ruled the country. world oh hello pete kelly i normally write and produce all the videos you see on this channel this time around however the initial research and script was written by someone else and he has his own youtube channel one of the best on the internet. for ancient history and definitely one of my favorites go and watch history with psy here and don't forget to subscribe to these videos that I'm posting they are very long productions and require an immense amount of time and energy to make so I hope. don't mind me thanking the sponsor for this is magellan tv, a long time supporter of History Time and my brother David at Voices of the Past Magellan is the world's leading

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It's essentially a Netflix for academics made up

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ly of documentaries with the largest collection of historical content found anywhere and many other genres, many of them available in 4k. My personal recommendation this time is the Neanderthal in us. A fascinating look at human history. Perhaps a vision of distant ancestors. Click the link in the description below or visit try.magellantv.com advance historical time for your exclusive one-month free trial now back to the ancient world to truly understand the history of the Persians we must look far beyond the traditional centers of Near Eastern city builders to outsiders in the lands of the periphery, with no writing and very little archeology to go on, as so often happens in history, we must seek a new infusion of one world warrior culture barbaric exterior making its way to power over an older world. more populated lands, first of all, we must look at another Iranian people related to the Persians, the Medes.

Today it is believed that the ancestors of both the Persians and the Meads, who were Indo-European speaking tribes, began migrating from the passes of Central Asia to what is today. the Iranian plateau sometime in the second millennium BC. He left in his wake horse equipment, chariots, regalia, bronze weapons, drinking vessels, and even vast archaeological sites. These were pastoral societies of mobile herders and tribes who eventually settled also to engage in agriculture. It was not until a thousand years ago that we have written records of these people, for the most part they are stories lost in the mists of time.

The first written record of the Medes appears in the year 835 BC. In the annals of the Assyrian king Manasseer the Third as a people who occupied large parts of the areas around the barbarians of the Zagros Mountains on the periphery of their world, it is now thought that this may have simply been the western edge of the territory. middle of the Median domain, perhaps extending to the great salt deserts of central Iran, there is no way to know for sure, since the Assyrian sources are not specific on the subject and the Medes themselves left no written text or record of their own.

What is known is that several Assyrian kings after Chalmanisir also claimed to have waged many campaigns against the restless Medes. We are told that Assyrian forces regularly marched into the Zagros Mountains to subdue the Mead tribes only for them to rebel. the following year, forcing the Assyrians to retreat in increasing numbers. Both assyrian sources and the later writings of herodotus describe the medes. as a fiercely independent but disunited people, ruled by tribal chiefs, each of whom may have controlled a single fortress and several adjacent villages, occasionally coalescing into larger groups and then collapsing again. Tradition says that eventually the Medes grew tired of both Assyrian attacks. and general anarchy throughout their land, so they united to form a single kingdom, perhaps having learned the art of government from their Assyrian and Elamite neighbors, much like the Germanic tribes of the Roman Empire, although their existence cannot be confirmed by archeology or by any other source.

Herodotus writes that eventually the man they chose to lead them was called a diocese, however, it was King Cyaxaris, grandson of Two, who turned the fledgling Median state into a world power, allying himself with King Nabapalassa of Babylon, as well as the nomads. on horseback Chimerians and Scythians that the two kings took. Taking advantage of a succession crisis and weak rulers in Assyria to launch a two-pronged attack on this former superpower and eventually bring it to an end once and for all, leaving a huge void in its wake after the collapse of the Assyrian empire. Two allies divided the territories of this powerful empire between them: the Babylonians took most of Mesopotamia and the Levant, while the Medes took lands in Anatolia up to the Hallis River on the border with the kingdom of Lydia, an ancient land that eventually Would make its way into Greek legend for five years, King Cyaxaris and the Medes fought against King Aliyatis and the Lydians with neither side able to gain the upper hand finally apparently after a solar eclipse was taken as assigned, the gods were displeased, the two sides made peace in 585 B.C.

The following year Cyaxáriz died and his son Astyagis became king outside of Herodotus. There is little information about the reign of Astyagis in general, although it appears that the three most powerful kings of the ancient Near East at the time of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Lydian Crisis and Astyagis on average were at peace with each other, although this would prove to be the calm before Of the storm, according to Herodotus, one of the Median kings was the kingdom of Passa, which the Greeks called Persia, being an Iranian people closely related to the Persians. much in common with the Medes they had similar religious customs and spoke a dialect of the same Indo-European language, perhaps it was for this reason that Astiagi married his daughter Mandani to his vassal and was able to take over Persia, it was these two who would become the fathers of possibly the greatest king of persia, cyrus ii, better known to history as cyrus, today's great ancient cities still cover the plains and mountains of modern-day iran, vast buildings and statues protruding from the dusty ground, remains of the great number of empires and kingdoms that once ruled this land in ancient times the Elamites Medes Persians Parthians Sassanids and Arabs all left their mark here to reach the origins of the most powerful of all the Persian kings;

However, a figure still revered in the Middle East today we must look to one of the oldest. Cities across the rugged Zagros Mountains in the country's southwest, home to one of the oldest urban centers in the entire Middle East, Anshan is firmly located within the Elamite sphere of influence, a center of power since the fourth millennium BC. Like the Sumerian cities to the west, when Anshan came under Persian rule in the 7th century BC. C., supposedly captured by the Tayuspise warlord, it was already a historic and ancient place and would soon serve as the capital of a new incipient Persian state, Fortesbis.

He was Cyrus's great-grandfather and, as far as he was concerned, the progenitor of his royal house, yet this is a period steeped in the mists of time with very little concrete evidence to go on. There are many stories about the birth and upbringing of Cyrus, the most apparent. To be more legend than fact, in fact, many of these tales come from later Greek and Roman writers, such as Herodotus, Thessias, Xenophon, and Arion. Outsiders look in and disagree on several of the most important events and details of his life, for example, Herodotus writes that the last king. of the Median Empire Astyagis was the grandfather of Cyrus, while Thesias, a Greek writing from the 5th century at the Achaemenid court, states that in reality there was no family relationship between the two, on which the accounts do coincide, as well as on the writings from neighboring Babylon, is that if they were related orNo, the young Cyrus was clearly a capable politician and a capable military leader.

He was able to overthrow the Astyar geese around 550 BC. C. becoming the king of a unified Median Persian state according to the Greek geographer Strabo was at the site of his victory over the Medes. That Cyrus established his new royal capital of Pasagade, an especially important site for hundreds of years in the future, kings in the ancient world were overthrown and replaced by their enemies all the time, but what made the defeat of Astyagis around the 550 BC was different from that of many of his peers in the past is that Cyrus apparently showed mercy to his former feudal lord, not only allowing him to live out his final days with dignity and honor, but also keeping him at court as a member of the king's retinue, although This was probably not the first time that a king had shown mercy; such events were rare, especially between rivals in the ancient world;

However, if the stories about his life are true from the beginning, Cyrus had made it a general policy not only to treat his defeated enemies with dignity but also to be tolerant. of their customs and religion sometimes even showing deference to the customs of the newly incorporated peoples searches in mesopotamia where the local infrastructure was simply absorbed by the new empire it is this policy of tolerance that would eventually make the

persian

s famous in the ancient world and probably would greatly enable them to govern such a diverse group of peoples. Cyrus's relatively sudden rise to power did not go unnoticed by the other kingdoms in the region, especially the superpowers of Lydia and Babylon, both of whom had treaties with Media and Astyagis, a respected king. , not the Persian Cyrus, whom they considered a usurper. of the median throne, the Lydian king chresis, famous in future generations as an incomprehensibly wealthy ruler, confident after his victories against the Greek city-states to the west, attempted to put an end to the upstart empire that now limited him to the east, crossing the ancient border of the hallis river to march towards cappadocia for decades the border between the territory of lydia and meda according to herodotus crisis famous for its elite cavalry faced the

persian

s and medes under the command of cyrus finally the battle was in a stalemate and When the campaign season came to an end the crisis decided to fall back to his capital of Sardis, far to the west, without thinking for a moment that Cyrus would continue pursuing him through western Anatolia, a big gamble for a new king how wrong he was.

Not only did Cyrus pursue the Lydians in a campaign that could easily have cost him his life, but after a battle and a brief siege of the capital of Lydia he managed to capture and absorb the entire kingdom as a new province in his empire. According to Herodotus Cyrus, he initially planned to burn the king of Lydia on a funeral pyre. Other sources argue that the crisis plans to burn down, but ultimately the kingdoms sent by the gods put out the fire rather than die. This once proud king like that of Astiagi before him apparently joined Cyrus' retinue and became one of his closest advisors shortly after the Greek city-states of Ionia along the Aegean coast once subdued to the Lydian tribute now submitted to the rule of Cyrus, however, the most famous conquest of Cyrus and the one that would immortalize him was that of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and its legendary capital of Babylon during the time of Cyrus, the Babylonian state was going through a period of decline gradual.

It didn't help that their king nabonidus, successor to the great nebuchadnezzar, apparently spent much of his time offending both the people of babylon and their priests by neglecting their patron deity, marduk, in favor of another sin, the moon god, In fact, Nabonidus had embarked on a 10-year pilgrimage of sorts across northern Arabia to build and restore temples dedicated to the moon god. The Babylonian chronicle tells how Nabonidus did not return for the new year festival commemorating Marduk, leaving his son Belshazzar to lead the festivities and direct the day. -the current activities of the empire in his absence are a massive insult, today scholars tend to think that when it became clear that Cyrus had his sights set on Babylon, an immensely rich and powerful land that bordered his own, many in the city ​​who were dissatisfied with nebonnetus may have done so. he invited the Persians because all sources agree that in 539 B.C.

The city was conquered without bloodshed, like his other conquests, Cyrus treated the citizens of Babylon kindly and was tolerant of their religious practices, even masterfully portraying himself as Marduk's chosen representative in Direct Opposition to Nabonidus in the process of absorbing not only Babylon itself but all its subject peoples up to the borders of Egypt, it was during this time that Cyrus freed the Jews who had been exiled in Babylon since the time of Nebuchadnezzar, almost 60 years earlier, not only allowed him to return to his homeland, but also helped rebuild the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Passages from the biblical book of Ezra, where the Persian king reportedly speaks in the first person, underscore Cyrus' kindness toward his new Jewish subjects, so says King Cyrus. from Persia the Lord the god of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has commissioned me to build him a house in Jerusalem in Judah any of those among you who are his people, may their god be with them, now they will allows them to go up to Jerusalem in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord the god of Israel he is the god who is in Jerusalem and that all the survivors wherever they reside be helped by the people of their place with silver and gold with goods and with animals, as well as freewill offerings to the house of god in jerusalem, for centuries, many historians dismissed biblical passages along with testimonies of cyrus's benevolent nature in the stories of herodotus and the cyropedia of xenophon as simple legends compiled decades, if not centuries. , after the arrival of the Persian king.

Then, in 1879, a clay cylinder with cuneiform writing was found among the ruins of ancient Babylon. When the text was deciphered, it was revealed that the aforementioned texts may not have been legends after all, written shortly after their conquest of Babylon. The text of The Cylinder tells how Cyrus was Marduk's chosen agent sent to bring peace and justice to the land. Part of what he claims to be, in Cyrus' own words, says the following: I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the mighty king, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akhad king of the four quarters of the world. son of cambyses the great king king of the city of anshan descendant of thespes the great king king of the city of anshan my vast troops marched peacefully in babylon and throughout sumer and akkad i had nothing to fear i sought the safety of The city of Babylon and all its sanctuaries As for the population of Babylon I relieved their fatigue I freed them from their bonds Marduk The great lord rejoiced at my good works I sent them back to their places to the city of Ashur and Susa Akad the land From Ashnuna the city of Zamban the city of meternu dur to the edge of the land of gooti the shrines on the other side of the tigris river whose shrines had previously decayed the gods who lived there and had been made permanent shrines for them, I gathered everyone his people and returned them to their settlements and to the gods of the land of sumer and akkad that nabanidus, before the fury of the lord of the gods, had brought to shuana by order of marduk, the great lord.

They returned them unharmed to their cells in the sanctuaries that make them happy. Both the biblical passage and the Babylonian cylinder attest to Cyrus's policy of religious tolerance, something that with few exceptions would remain a central policy of future Achaemenid kings, in fact, almost All Greek and Roman historians who would later write about the Achaemenid style of government noted that all subject peoples were allowed to worship and continue their lives and customs as they wished, as long as they paid their taxes to the central government. This policy was also practical. since it would have been impossible in the long term to have managed such an expansive and diverse empire without showing goodwill towards the subject peoples, most of whom were proud and fiercely independent and for the most part could continue to consider themselves as such, while it seems clear that Cyrus respected the religious practices of others.

Scholars have long debated what the actual native religion of the Achaemenids was. Interestingly, no texts or inscriptions have been found that specifically link Cyrus to any form of religious practice, however, they are based on what is known of ancient Median and Persian religion. Especially that of Cyrus's successors, Darius from 1800 BC During the troubled time of the Bronze Age Zarathustra proclaimed that there was only one god, a Mazda of Horror whose name means Lord of Light and Wisdom, and that humanity was in a cosmic struggle against the forces of evil, those who were on the side of a mazda of horror against evil and spoke the truth would be rewarded after death with entry to heaven known as the house of song while those who allied themselves with evil also known as lies would be punished in the afterlife and They would live in hell at the end of time there would be a final judgment by which all souls would be judged again and after a purification process even those who had committed serious offenses could enter heaven.

Many scholars believe that it is from the Zoroastrian religion that the concepts of heaven, hell, a day of judgment, devil's angels and perhaps even the concept of monotheism itself may have emerged towards the end of his reign, having achieved the largest territorial expansion ever seen in history. Cyrus continued to expand his state, leaving his son and crown prince Cambius as king in Babylon. The great king began campaigning in what is now central Asia perhaps seeking to control the lucrative trade routes across Eurasia and also protect his borders from external attack, resulting in the incorporation of a number of eastern lands into his now state. in constant expansion.

He also had plans to conquer Egypt, although this was a dream. that Cyrus himself could not achieve according to Herodotus and most other sources, the great king died in battle with nomadic tribes, most likely Scythian horseback nomads along the northeastern border of his empire, the only dissenting source is the Greek general and philosopher Xenophon, who in his Cyropedia states that Cyrus died peacefully of old age. He was buried in a modest tomb that he had designed in his capital city, Pasagade. Cyrus had been a great king; However, like many similar rulers throughout history, his kingdom could easily have collapsed soon after.

Cyrus was fortunate that a significant number of his successors were large near the city of Kermanshah, in western Iran, a huge multilingual inscription and rock relief remain motionless in the landscape, dwarfing those who come to look at them in a cliff here, about twenty-five hundred years ago, this is Mount Bearhiston and the inscription here, somewhat like the rosette stone, written in three languages ​​and therefore vital in the modern translation of hundreds of cuneiform tablets, was made by the Persian king Darius the Great sometime between 522 and 486 BC. In addition to singing the exploits of the last king of kings, the inscription also gives the first mention of the supposed patriarch of the Achaemenian royal family, said by Darius, he is the father of the Teus Paz mentioned by Cyrus, so the royal house would be known Persian. like the Achaemenid dynasty, however, there is a good argument that these achimanis never existed at all, perhaps a clever piece of political intrigue by a usurper seeking entry into the royal family, however the name stuck and Darius is considered one of the greatest of all Persians. kings, but how did he come to power in the first place after the death of cyrus in 530 BC?

C.? It was his son Kambi Assist II who succeeded him, continuing his father's policy of expansion to annex the island of Cyprus before turning his sights towards Egypt in 525 BC. C. Defeating Pharaoh Semeticus III in a battle outside the Egyptian capital of Memphis, Cambius remained in Egypt for three years consolidating his rule and launching efforts to conquer neighboring Libya and Nubia; However, his absence from the Persian heartland caused a crisis that not only threatened his rule but the Persian Empire itself. Some scholars call these events the crisis of 522 BC. Herodotus tells us that the Cambius went crazy, furiously killing sacred animals throughout Egypt, although there is no other evidence of this, very soon the Cambius would be dead, the empire was a very real risk of falling apart, enter Darius the Great, the story of how Darius came to the throne. isFascinating, the best-known version is told in the Bahistan inscription commissioned by Darius himself, which defends his vision of the crisis and its resolution according to Darius Cambiuses had a brother named Bardia whom he secretly killed before embarking on his Egyptian campaign.

We are not told the reason, but it is assumed that his reason was to prevent Bardia from possibly usurping the throne in the absence of Cambiusesar, however, while Cambiuses was in Egypt, a man named Gal Mata, who was a lookalike of Bardia, took the throne, Gamata was able to do this because he covered his tracks by killing many of Bardia's close associates and at the same time terrorized the people, however, Darius with the help of a handful of chosen men, six of whom are specifically mentioned was able to kill the usurper Gaumata after which Darius, a self-proclaimed relative of Cambius and Cyrus, was elected as the new king.

It's a great story and it may well be true, however, it is very likely that the cunning Darius may not be related at all. For the royal family he simply killed Bardia before ascending the throne and created an elaborate story to justify his actions, perhaps even creating a common ancestor to link him to the royal house, whatever the truth, the Achaemenid dynasty was born and each king next would be a descendant. of Darius, whether or not they were related to Cyrus, of course, when he took over, Darius had an especially difficult task ahead of him, imposter and rebellious kings now sitting on thrones throughout the kingdom of Media Elam, Babylon and elsewhere , apparently an extremely capable military commander, perhaps.

Denying his true identity as a general, Darius claims that with his allies he was able to quell each rebellion and was victorious in 19 battles, all in the space of a single year, finally in 522 BC. C., after restoring order, Darius became the shahan shah or legitimate king. of kings or there was no one left to argue with him herodotus also tells a similar although more dramatic story that was probably based on the story of darius to begin with in his story which he calls bardia smirdis the story of darius is the subject of heated debate among scholars , many of which simply believe to be an absolute invention invented by the king himself to cover the fact that he was a usurper;

However, regardless of the details, it illustrates the fragility of the empire during this particular time without a strong king, it would simply fall apart fighting so hard to keep the empire together. Determined to do whatever was necessary to continue many of Cyrus's policies, he formally divided the empire into provinces called satrapis, naming each a carefully chosen governor. These tended to be individuals related to areas of the royal household that retained autonomy and, to some extent, were autonomous. -enough kingdoms to further foster the territorial integrity of the empire Darius commissioned several large construction projects, including a vast network of roads and highways, one of which would become known as the royal road.

This road began in the city of Susa in southwestern Iran and extended all the way to the city of Sardis in western Anatolia, not far from the Aegean Sea. Darius also ordered the construction of a canal between the Red Sea and the Nile, a precursor of the modern Suez Canal as Sargon the Great of the Akkadian Empire or Ashunasipal of Assyria Darius also built a new capital to reflect his greatness as a king known throughout the world by his Greek name Persepolis which means city of the Persians the new The capital was located in the Persian heartland about 50 kilometers from Pasagade.

Ancient Greek historians wrote that during the height of the empire, it was the richest and most magnificent city in the known world, surpassing even Babylon. Finally, with order restored throughout the kingdom, Darius launched new military campaigns to expand the empire's borders, including new lands in central Asia and territories as far east as the Indus. river in what is now Pakistan, however, his campaigns in Greece were the beginning of what would become the Greco-Persian Wars that gained the most attention and notoriety in the Western world in 499 BC. C. and with the help of Athens and Eritrea, the Ionian Greeks.

Along the Aegean Sea they rebelled against their Persian overlords. The rebels reached the city of Sardis, former capital of the kingdom of Lydia, which they looted and burned. However, it was a short-lived victory and in 493 the rebellion was crushed to prevent further attacks from the Greek mainland. Darius launched a campaign to punish Athens, Eritrea and any other troublemakers in 492 BC. A Persian force seized Thrace and Macedonia, but aborted the attack on Athens due to poor weather conditions and hostile local tribes in 490. However, the Persians crossed the Aegean Sea and captured several islands before landing on the mainland. , there they were defeated by Greek forces on the plains of Marathon.

The conflict did not end there, however, as Darius made plans to return and subjugate all of Greece, although this would not happen in his lifetime. When he died four years later, at his death the Persian Empire was at its peak in terms of power and territory, the task of punishing Greece would fall to his son and successor, Xerxes in the west, Xerxes remains probably the most powerful Persian king. famous of all those immortalized. but he was also vandalized for his role in the Greco-Persian Wars, particularly his defeat of the 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, most recently portrayed in the Hollywood film 300.

In Persia, Xerxes was remembered as the second great after of Cyrus and Darius. say that Greek society was very different from that of the Persians, a people who favored oral tradition over the written word, much of which has been lost or distorted over time, therefore, for the most part, when it's about Xerxes ruling the greatest empire. In the world at its peak, the story is told from the point of view of his enemies, but because these sources exist, we can arrive at a picture of his life; However, life would not have been easy for a Persian prince raised by eunuchs at the age of seven.

According to a later Greek source, Xerxes would have been taught to ride and hunt at the age of 14. His teaching would begin by instructing him to be wise, simply prudent and brave. Finally, at age 16, 10 years of national service would begin with an emphasis on archery, javelin throwing and competition. seeking prizes and hunting, he would eventually begin an official military career for some 25 years, after which came elevation to the status of elder and advisor to the king, which in no way guaranteed the throne; this life would continue unless interrupted by the death of a king. This happened in 486 BC, when Darius finally died in the midst of preparations for a new war against Egypt, but not before naming Xerxes as his heir, but this did not necessarily mean a smooth transition because another also claimed the throne.

Xerxes had the right. pedigree for sure his mother was a tosa a daughter of cyrus the great but the eldest prince was his half brother artobazan born to a commoner due to his mother's high prestige and apparently the words of demerit a spartan king in exile at the

achaemenid

court who argued that the eldest does not necessarily need to inherit the throne his grandfather Xerxes. The first challenge as king was to quell the rebellions in Egypt and Babylon, which he was able to achieve and once peace was restored in those restive provinces that he also likes.

His father before him made preparations for an invasion of Greece in 480. The great king gathered a gigantic army, most likely numbering over a hundred thousand men, and invaded the continent, seizing Thessaly, Macedonia and other parts of northern Greece. Elite Spartan warriors who had trained their whole lives for war, now allied with the Athenians were able to stop the Persian advance at the Thermopylae Pass before they were finally defeated by the numerically superior Persian force. The sacrifice of the Spartans was not in vain, as it gave the Athenians time to escape when Xerxes' army arrived in Athens, except for a few defenders, they found the place more or less abandoned.

His people lived to fight another day. Xerxes set fire to the city but could not kill its population. This was an act that would come back to haunt the Persians. Years later, the next major engagement took place at Salamis, where a Greek fleet, possibly aided by the weather, won a decisive victory that destroyed Persia's superior naval capabilities. It is these two battles, Thermopylae and Salamis, that future Greek writers and historians such as Herodotus would cite as momentous events. Which were turning points in Greek history, the war did not end there, however, while Xerxes returned to Persia to oversee mata in other parts of his enormous state, he left a considerable Persian force in Greece under the command of his Mardonius trusted, a force to be counted from the time of Darius in 479 BC, Madonius attacked the region of Attica engaging the Greek forces in the palate, the battle remained stagnant until Madonius, who was fighting in the center of the action, He died, disorganizing his forces and forcing the Persians to retreat. to Asia after this second great defeat, no future Persian force would land on the Greek mainland again.

These military conflicts in Europe had taught the Persians that the Greek city-states, although divided among themselves, would unite against a foreign aggressor and thus the Persian kings for a long time. Having allied himself with Greek rulers at times, he adopted a strategy of using the almost unlimited financial resources of the Persian state to create diplomatic alliances with selected city-states and support them against their local rivals, his divide and rule strategy working within a few years. The Greek city-states had returned to fighting among themselves, posing little threat to Persian interests in the region. It would take an especially powerful and cunning ruler to unite the Greeks.

A ruler who rivaled Cyrus in the 5th century BC. C., no such figure existed and few would have done so. It was predicted that one would ever do so despite his defeats in Greece. Xerxes almost 20 years of rule is still considered a golden age in 465 BC. However, this would change according to later Greek historian Diodorus Siculus Xerxes was assassinated by the man closest to him, the captain of his royal guard Artabanus apparently to gain more power and influence through Whether it had been in the plan or not, he had Artabanus killed for the next 40 years. Artaxerxes ruled during a time of stability and peace for the Persian Empire, however, the empire had stopped growing and future kings would not be so lucky. .

Much was changing in the Greek world to the west and more and more Greek generals like the mysticalise would become involved in the affairs of the Persian state in truth. Not much is known about Artaxerxes' reign, although we do know that his successor Xerxes II took the throne just 45 days before he too was slain by the assassin's swords with no clear guidelines for royal succession. The rot of factionalism was beginning to seep in according to For Thesias a fight soon broke out between the brothers Xerxes, Sogdianus and Ocus, and the latter eventually won, assuming the throne in 423 BC.

C. like Darius II. Again, not much is known about Darius's reign. Xenophon mentions a middle rebellion in 409 BC. C. and, in general, tensions with certain Greek factions began to arise and broke out into an all-out war with Athens on some occasions, to the point that he is remembered as Darius Nothos or Darius the Bastard after Darius' death in 404 BC. A full-scale civil war broke out between Darius II's son and successor Artaxerxes II and another son known as Cyrus the Younger, supported by thousands of battle-hardened Greek mercenaries, especially under the command of the Athenian general and historian Xenophon, who would record the subsequent events. for posterity in 401 BC, the two sides finally clashed near the small town. of kuksana on the euphrates river when cyrus was assassinated however by one of artaxerxes's champions his faction quickly crumbled artaxerxes ii became the new king and the ten thousand greeks had to march across the empire to get home as the First Artaxerxes, the second Achaemenid king of his name, also had a long reign, in this case 46 years, although for the first time there may have been some stability within the Achaemenid family.

His reign also had its setbacks, for example he had to deal with the loss of Egypt and there are few records of any Persians. expansion in any other direction, however, Artaxerxes II was able to administer Greece by continuing the Persian divide-and-rule policy of supporting one city-state against another, but he was neither Cyrus nor Darius and, upon his death in 359 BC, one of his sons succeeded him taking the name of artaxerxes iii in certainIn this sense, Artaxerxes III was the kind of king the stagnant Persian Empire needed to turn around its fortunes while his father had lost Egypt, although Artaxerxes brought him back into the fold and suppressed rebellions in Phoenicia and Cyprus.

Successful on the battlefield, the end of his reign was marred by a plot orchestrated by his close confidant, a eunuch named Bagoas, who desired more power for himself, Artaxerxes III and all but one of his sons were killed by bagawas, of whom, as Greek writers tell us. wanted to control the empire through a puppet ruler, that puppet turned out to be Rc who eventually ascended the throne as Artaxerxes the Fourth, although with Baghoas calling the shots, Rc only ruled for two more years before he himself was poisoned, presumably by Bagoas. with the Achaemenid king. family was decimated by so many murders, very soon there was only one prince left from the ruling dynasty who could still legitimately claim the throne at that time, he was already forty years old and had no hope under normal circumstances of becoming king.

Governor or satrap of Armenia called back to the Persian heartland for his coronation The prince assumed the throne under the name Darius III Little did he know that his reign would be the last of any Achaemenid because a new kingdom was on the rise when Darius III became the new king of kings in 336 B.C. News of the infighting and regicide ravaging the Persian ruling house had reached across the Western Sea to the mountain kingdom of Macedonia, a warring kingdom on the periphery of the Hellenistic world. In the preceding decades, Macedonia's highly capable ruler Philip ii had forcibly united the major greek city-states, except sparta, under his flag, his next plan was supposedly to invade the persian empire, but philip had made many enemies over the years and it was then that the swords of the murderer they killed him.

He was also succeeded by his son, who was only 18 years old, but who was already a proven general; His name, of course, was Alexander in the year 336 BC. C. The highly efficient imperial system of administration that had been pioneered by Cyrus the Great and perfected by Darius the First was now suffering from serious mismanagement and corruption. The Sabbaths, especially Babylon and Egypt, were restless and burdened by heavy taxes. This, along with instability and bloodshed within the royal family, led to a situation ripe for foreign invasion, just two years later, the young Alexander, all the power of Greece behind him ever spurred. insisting that his father had been murdered by Persian assassins, he crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor and there defeated a modest Persian force at the Granicus River, liberating Ionia from centuries of foreign occupation, the first of a remarkable series of victories that they would bring the the world was to its knees within a year alexander occupied most of asia minor in 333 he marched south toward what is now syria, where darius iii's army, probably twice the size of the invading force, He was waiting for him near the city of Isus on a narrow coastal plain bounded by mountains and the sea.

They met there in November, the fighting was fierce and both sides were well matched until Darius's chariot was seen leaving the field apparently fleeing prey. of panic, abandoning not only his army but also his mother, wife and child heir, destroying the morale of the Persians. Alexander emerged victorious and took Darius's family under his personal protection. Of course, he did not stop there and continued south along the Mediterranean coast, facing strong resistance only in Tire and in Gaza. before venturing to Egypt on his way there. Darius sent a peace to the young king. offering stating that he would give all the lands east of the Euphrates to the Macedonian conqueror if he suspended hostilities Alexander refused;

He wanted the whole empire or nothing at all riding victoriously into Egypt in 332 BC. C. before an oppressed Egyptian population tired of the external Persian government. Alexander was treated as a hero and presented himself as such Egypt spread a basket under his belt his army rested well the way was open to the heart of the Persian Empire in October 331 near the city of Gaugamela in present-day northern Iraq Darius had gathered another huge had the advantage of choosing the battlefield and having weeks to prepare again, however, it was Alexander who triumphed, relying on his elite hoplite infantry with cutting-edge military technology to hold the center and his fast companion cavalry to overcome the maneuvers of the enemy's wings again. seen abandoning the field before the outcome of the battle was clear, causing his men to panic and follow him in retreat from that point on, alexander had little trouble taking charge of what remained of the persian empire and He finally reached the royal cities of Pasagade and Persepolis in Pasagarde.

He paid homage to Cyrus' tomb, even placing guards there to protect it in his absence, Persepolis, although it was a different matter there, Alexander's men are said to have taken three months to empty the city of its vast treasures after this, according to It is reported, during a night of drunken revelry and perhaps at the instigation of a Greek courtesan, Alexander set fire to the city, burning a good portion of this magnificent capital to the ground. Some say this was in revenge for Xerxes burning Athens 150 years earlier, regardless of whether the burning of Persepolis symbolized the end.

From the

achaemenid

ruling house and the glorious empire they had presided over, which was now largely in the hands of alexander and the greeks, darius is said to have fled to equitana and then to areas of eastern iran with his presumably still loyal nobles, His plan was probably to connect with the satraps and commanders of the eastern provinces of the empire, most likely in Bactria and Soggdiana, Alexander, although he was pursuing him, it is not known exactly what happened in the end, but when Alexander caught up with the king, the last Achaemenid He had been stabbed and left to die or was already dead by order of Bessos, the satrap of Bactria, so in the summer of 330 BC.

C. the Achaemenid line officially came to an end, it is reported that Alexander gave Darius a royal burial, as Bessus declared himself to be Darius's successor attempting to make peace with Alexander thinking that the latter could reward him for kill his former king Alexander rejected the offer and according to the historian Quintus Rufus Adbessus arrested, tortured and then murdered for betraying his legitimate king in the end Alexander continued campaigning in Central Asia before reaching what is now India, conquering more lands. Beyond those ever secured by the Persians, he probably would have gone further, but his men were tired of fighting and demanded that they return home facing mutiny, Alexander marched west, back to Babylon, where he eventually died in 323.

Unlike Cyrus's empire, Alexander crumbled almost immediately after his death and his generals fought over the loot and eventually divided it among themselves. However, the cultural impact of the conquest was immense and the descendants of these generals were still in control hundreds of years later, as Hellenization occurred throughout the lands of the ancient Persian state and cities named after Alexander were built. In places as far away as Egypt and Afghanistan, as for the Persians, they continued under various dynasties, especially the Celiacids and the Parthians, until another native Persian dynasty, the Sassanids would come to power in 224 AD, although the Achaemenid empire continued.

Being the model followed by these and other dynasties, they attempted to manage diverse groups of people and nations with different customs, languages, religions and laws under a single ruler in a world that was becoming increasingly interconnected and more complex. If you want to know more about this world, why not subscribe to find out much more? You've been watching the story. Let me know what you think in the comments. Why not share with a like? minded friend and I'll see you next time