The peaceful coexistence between Medes and Babylonians, Lydians and Egyptians, was brutally interrupted by the initiative of an Iranian ‘nation’ that was dissatisfied with its secondary role as a subordinate of the Medes. At the time of the collapse of the Assyrian empire, the Persians had already attempted some interventions. They replaced the Elamites in the region of Anshan (the Classical Persis, modern Fars) with a dynasty belonging to the clan of the Achaemenids and related to the Median royal family. This dynasty was already ruling with the title of king of Anshan (an archaic title now referring to the kingdom of Persia) for a few generations.
Suddenly, at least as far as we can tell, soon after the rise of Nabonidus in Babylonia, the king of Persia, Cyrus II (nephew of Cyrus I, a contemporary of Nabopolassar), rebelled against Astyages and faced him in battle. Due to the collapse of the network of loyalties and supporters of the Median king, Cyrus obtained an easy victory. The Nabonidus Chronicle reports that this decisive moment happened in 550 bc. The capture of Astyages (whose life was spared) and the conquest of Ecbatana were followed by a swift substitution of Median supremacy with a Persian one. Consequently, kings and nations that had formerly recognised the supremacy of Astyages, now accepted the supremacy of Cyrus. Initially, the latter’s victory only brought an internal change of power within a large political formation marked by fragmentation. For the time being, then, the Persians seemed willing to recognise the independence of each local ‘nation’ and their dynasties.
The situation then rapidly changed. Internally, while Media’s historical background was centred on a network of tribes, Persia benefited from the experience and political structure of Elam. Externally, while inheriting the alliances of Astyages within the Iranian confederation, Cyrus rejected the previous foreign alliances. He thus brought the 30 years of peace in the Near East to an end. In 547 bc, Cyrus attacked Lydia. He therefore crossed the Halys River and faced Croesus in a battle. The outcome was uncertain, and Croesus, being used to other rules ofwar, returned to Sardis and dismissed his troops. However, Cyrus followed him, besieged Sardis, captured (but spared) the king, and annexed Lydia. The king then left one of his governors to complete the annexation. Cilicia, now surrounded by Cyrus’ territories, was also annexed, although it appears that it was never defeated and enjoyed a privileged status.
In the following years (545—539 bc), Cyrus focused on the margins of the empire. Some ‘nations’ were automatically annexed through the king’s victory over Astyages, although the political role of the Persians in north-eastern Iran remained uncertain enough to require a decisive intervention. This intervention not only clarified that the ‘king of kings’ was now Persian and not Median, but also that the situation had changed, and was now far more demanding. The submission of Bactria (the main ‘nation’ in the north-east) was probably followed by the conquest of new territories (compared to the boundaries of the Median kingdom), namely, Gandhara and Arachosia. In this way, Cyrus’ dominion reached the borders of the Indus Valley.
As we have already seen in the previous chapter, the third step of Cyrus’ expansion was the conquest of Babylon (539 bc). This conquest allowed Cyrus to control the Mesopotamian and Syro-Levantine territories, while northern Arabia remained autonomous. For various reasons, then, Cyrus’ conquests, as extraordinary in terms of time and extension as they may have been, required relatively modest military intervention. In the Greek tradition, his fame as conqueror was presented alongside his magnanimous and moderate nature: defeated kings were spared, conquered cities were not destroyed, local deities and cults were maintained and even taken on by Cyrus himself. This was a clear attempt to take full advantage of that peaceful coexistence already established through the alliance between the Medes and the Babylonians. However, the Persian strategy was clearly imperialistic, expansionistic and focused on unification.
Cyrus’ expansionistic ambitions were continued under his successors. His son Cambyses conquered Egypt (525 bc) and Cyprus. After Cambyses’ death, a coup d’etat led to the rise of the usurper Darius (who belonged to another branch of the Achaemenid clan). Despite his focus on the empire’s internal consolidation, Darius also continued and completed the Persian expansion. In the last 20 years of the seventh century bc, the Persian empire conquered Thracia (Skudra) and the Aegean islands (Yauna), but failed to conquer
Greece. Libya (Put) and Nubia (Kush) soon followed as an extension of Persian control in Egypt. The empire also conquered parts of the Indus Valley (Hindush). The Persians also defeated the Scythians (Saka) in northern Iran, probably reaching as far as the Jaxartes River and Lake Aral. The empire experienced several internal revolts, first in its heartland (Elam, Babylonia and Media), and then in more distant lands (Egypt, Cyprus and Ionia). Moreover, the Persians suffered some setbacks. Certain marginal populations continued to be difficult to control (especially nomadic groups), from the Arabs to the Scythians and the populations in the Caucasus Mountains. However, overall, the 50 years of conquests from Cyrus to Darius marked a radical expansion of the Near Eastern political scene.
The Persian empire included regions that in the previous centuries (or even millennia) had developed different socio-economic and political structures, and were linked to each other through commercial, diplomatic and military ties. For a long time, all these regions managed to remain distinct, allowing us to follow their individual history. However, from the second half of the seventh century bc, this becomes impossible. The important centre of Mesopotamia (which is the main focal point of this book) was sided by the centres of the Nile Valley, the Aegean, the Indus Valley and Central Asia. Moreover, other centres began to emerge, from southern Arabia, Ethiopia and the Central Mediterranean.
Within this polycentric ‘universal empire’, several ancient contrapositions continued to exist. The contraposition between lowlands (Syria and Mesopotamia) and highlands (Iran and Anatolia) was partly overcome, since these two groups were now part of the same political entity. The Zagros foothills ceased to be a political, as well as ethno-linguistic, boundary between states. The states in the highlands (and not the ones in the lowlands) were therefore responsible for the removal of this frontier. Consequently, the contraposition between centre and periphery was reformulated. The political centre of the world (or the empire) used to be part of this periphery, but now acquired its central role due to the inclusion of several other ancient ‘centres of the world’ placed in a single, enlarged world. The barycentre of this world, then, was not one specific area, but the cumulative intersection of several important centres.
Finally, the old contraposition between ‘palaces’ and ‘tribes’, namely, between areas with high demographic concentration and areas for the exploitation of resources, was reshaped. Having ceased to be a consistent ethnic and regional contraposition, the empire became a mixture of urban and mountain components within the same nation and the same economic system. However, in the central area of the empire, the Persians failed to conquer the several tribes of‘bandits’ living in the mountains. This fact clearly indicates how these concepts of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ responded to different political structures and the flux of goods. Therefore, they were not objective geographic locations.
Of the old imperial ideologies, the Persian empire maintained the concept of the centripetal movement of resources and the centrifugal movement of ethical and political contributions. Achaemenid palaces (in Pasargadae and then Persepolis) were built with materials and craftsmen from all over the world. Each population contributed with their best and most characteristic products. However, these resources only found their optimal application when, through the coordination of others, they contributed to the construction of the central nucleus of the world. In return, the latter provided the world with security, laws, divine approval and civilisations.
Compared to previous empires, the Persian empire reached an unparalleled expansion (five or ten times larger than the previous empires). It may suffice to note that the former territories of the Chaldean empire eventually became two satrapies out of 20 Persian satrapies, while the ones of the Neo-Assyrian empire became four. This unparalleled size naturally required a new balance between unification and division into provinces. While Cyrus, building on the structure of the Median kingdom, allowed a considerable degree of local autonomy, Darius’s strategy was far more centralising, systematic and focused on unification. Even the capitals remained more than one. The Persian court therefore constantly travelled between Susa, Babylon, Ecbatana, Pasargadae and Persepolis. Formally, as well as in terms of the monumentality of their celebrative and building programmes, the Persian cities (Pasargadae with Cyrus and Persepolis with Darius) continued to hold a privileged position, although it is likely that the king (and his harem) passed the majority of his time in Susa. Susa was not only equipped with better administrative structures, but also located at the crossing between the highlands and the lowlands, the boundary between the Iranian and Semitic world.
The use of summer and winter residences (Ecbatana and Persepolis, and Susa and Babylon respectively) was a direct consequence of the pastoral customs and transhumance between highlands and lowlands typical of the Iranian tribes. Pasargadae and especially Persepolis were constructed as large ceremonial complexes (Figure 32.4). Their architecture borrowed Urartian and Median features, but enlarged them. This was the case of the tower temples and the hypostyle halls surrounded by hypostyle porticoes, which generated the apadana type of architecture (Figure 32.5). Masters and expertise from Mesopotamia, Egypt and even Lydia and Ionia, contributed to the creation of palace complexes that fully displayed the universal nature of the empire and its various components.
Figure 32.4 The terrace of Persepolis (A: Stairway access; B: Gate of Xerxes; C: Apadana; D: Palace D; E: Tripylon;
F: Palace of Xerxes; G: Palace G; H: Palace H; I: Palace of Darius; J: Gate (incomplete); K: Throne room; L: Treasury; M: Storehouses; N: Royal stables; O: Fortress).
Figure 32.5 Persepolis, the Apadana, general view.
Apart from the urban and administrative tradition, the Persian empire was also marked by its nomadic and military origins, which survived in its kingship ideology. The centre of the empire was wherever the king resided. However, the king was constantly on the move, both in military and peaceful expeditions, improving cities as well as other locations. The construction of palaces was commissioned alongside the creation of parks (the ‘paradises’) for hunting and in order to display, almost in an exemplary way, the luxuriance of its vegetation. Similarly, the typical examples of royal propaganda were rock inscriptions (an ancient tradition in the Zagros from the time of Anu-banini and the Akkadian kings) placed in mountain passes, such as the renowned rock reliefs at Behistun (Bisutun).
The extension and polycentric nature of the empire soon led to a linguistic problem. This was not solved through the selection of one lingua franca, but through the inclusion of a selection of languages in inscriptions. Persian celebrative inscriptions are usually trilingual. Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian were considered equal in status, while some inscriptions also feature Aramaic and Egyptian. It is worth noting that Darius was the first king to introduce Old Persian (Cyrus did not use it in official inscriptions). This decision required the adaptation and simplification of cuneiform to suit this new language. Nonetheless, the language of administrative texts remained Akkadian in Babylonia, Egyptian in Egypt, Aramaic in Syria, while Old Persian slowly substituted Elamite in Persepolis and then Susa.
Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca of the empire, able to fulfil local needs in a vast portion of the empire and to act as an intermediary among neighbouring regions, from Egypt to Anatolia and Iran itself. Old Persian spread especially in the Armenian and Anatolian highlands (less in the Babylonian and Aramean lowlands) as a consequence of the allocation of a number of Persian (and Median) governors in these areas, from administrators to military officials. These were all members of the Persian aristocracy who received lands and official roles in the most challenging areas of the empire. Iranian names, cults and languages thus reached the most distant provinces of the empire, far beyond the original spread of the Iranian ‘nations’.
From an administrative point of view, Darius was responsible for the definitive structure of the empire, which was subdivided into 20 ‘satrapies’. The list provided by Darius in the Behistun Inscription does not fully coincide with the one provided by Herodotus (Figure 32.6). However, the latter’s account seems to
Figure 32.6 Map of the Persian empire under Darius I (I—XX: sequence of satrapies according to Herodotus; cf. the ‘source’ to Text 32.2).
Be based on reliable sources as well. It is likely that the definitive organisation of the empire experienced a number of modifications and additions through further conquests. The size, population and potential contribution of satrapies varied and were affected by the empire’s historical developments. Egypt and Babylonia, with their high concentration of people and resources, were each a satrapy. The same can be said about more modest mountain areas, where the Persian kings were eager to maintain and recognise local ethnic and ‘national’ identities.
The list of tributes attested in Herodotus, but reliable, is a clear reflection of this situation (Text 32.2). They probably represent the most concrete contribution from Darius’ reign in terms of the empire’s organisation. Previous empires had a different practice, which varied from region to region. Moreover, they required the imposition of fixed tributes in some cases, and the provision of more or less ceremonial ‘gifts’ or reserves of key resources (forests and horses) in others. On the contrary, with Darius the system became more homogeneous and balanced in terms of impositions. Persia was the only region exempted from tributes and extraneous to the division into satrapies. The system of gift-exchange continued for some marginal populations (Arabs, Colchians and Scythians) that were not yet subjected to a more demanding political and fiscal relation with the empire, nor were they likely to be any time soon.
World History
