The Rise of the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire

In the mid-sixth century an empire finally arose which managed to conquer and consolidate its hold over the entire Ancient Near East, including, for much of the period, Egypt. It is known as the Achaemenid empire, the name being derived from the legendary founder of its ruling family, a king known as Achaemenes.

The empire was founded by one of the great conquerors of history, Cyrus II (ruled 559-530 bc). Cyrus was descended from a line of kings that had emerged in the late seventh century at Persis (modern Fars, on the Iranian plateau) out of the earlier Elamite state. (The Elamites whose state was based on the south-western part of modern Iran had been a major player in Near Eastern politics, especially during the second millennium bc.) However, Cyrus represented a distinct Persian people who had possibly infiltrated the plateau as pastoralists from central Asia as the authority of the Elamite state declined. To his north were another people, the Medes, who controlled the fertile valleys which led down into the Iranian plateau and who had recently shown their military prowess in the wars against the Assyrians. In 550 the Medes attacked Cyrus possibly as a reaction to his growing power. Their defeat led to the incorporation of the Medes and their wealthy capital, Ecbatana, within the Persian state. The uplands of the Medes offered rich grazing and fine horses as well as more manpower. Neighbouring states now began to resent Cyrus’ kingdom as it expanded further both to the west and east. King Croesus of Lydia, a state that had been consolidated in the seventh century in western Anatolia, attacked the Persians in the mid-54os, but he too was defeated and his capital, Sardis, brought into what was now an empire. It remains a moving experience to stand below the rocky citadel of Sardis and read Herodotus’ account of the capture (Book I of The Histories, 79-84). Next the prosperous Greek city-states of the coastline of Anatolia were bullied into accepting Persian control.

Cyrus’ conquest of the Greek coast was probably followed by campaigns as far east as central Asia and Afghanistan. Finally, he turned back to Babylonia in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia. Following the glorious reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the

State had lost some of its vigour. Its last king Nabonidus (succeeded in 555) was not of royal lineage but had been a state official. He seems to have been accepted by the nobles but threats to his kingdom meant that he spent many years of his reign campaigning abroad, particularly in Arabia. One result was that he was accused of neglecting the god Marduk, whose rituals required an annual ceremony at each New Year in Babylon itself. Confronted by Cyrus, the Babylonian state fell after one major battle (Opis in 539 bc), and Cyrus found himself master as far west and south as the borders of Egypt.

It was now that Cyrus showed his political abilities. Despite carrying out a massacre of his opponents at Opis he managed to legitimize his rule by claiming that he was restoring traditional order to Babylon after Nabonidus had threatened its prosperity through his lack of religious orthodoxy. So it was that ‘all the inhabitants of Babylon, as well as the entire country of Sumer and Akkad, princes and governors, bowed to Cyrus and kissed his feet, jubilant that he had received the kingship, and with shining faces happily greeted him as a master through whose help they had come to life from death and had all been spared death and disaster, and they worshipped his name. He was accepted by the Babylonian elite while the defeat of the city allowed him to liberate the Israelites from their bondage and be acclaimed by them as a deliverer. Traditional accounts link him to the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem that he opportunistically proclaimed was through the will of Yahweh. Among his new subjects were the Phoenicians, whose sailors were to provide the manpower for an imperial navy.

The Achaemenid empire now stretched over 4,000 kilometres from east to west and 1,500 from north to south, 6 million square kilometres with an estimated population of some 35 million. Its territories were so varied and, in many cases, so uncontrollable that it was impossible to impose authoritarian rule but, as the treatment of Babylon showed, this was not Cyrus’ way. So long as the ultimate authority of himself as ‘King of Kings’ and the Persian god Ahura-Mazda were recognized, local cultures and religions were free to thrive. Taxes were kept relatively low—it has been noted that Cyrus’ capital at Pasargadae was nothing like so lavish as those of the Babylonian or Assyrian kings. Foreign craftsmen at the city were free to display their own styles. Palaces show the influence of Assyrian art, the Greeks brought their own traditions of stone working, while Cyrus’ own tomb echoes models from Anatolia. (A later Greek account of the tomb tells how Cyrus’ body was encased in a gold sarcophagus with a tapestry from Babylon as coverlet.)

The maintenance of such a vast empire depended heavily on the energy and charisma of Cyrus. On his death his successor, his son Cambyses, was successful in extending the empire yet further through the conquest of Egypt and Cyprus. The Persian armies invaded Egypt in 525 bc, defeating king Psamtek III and besieging his capital at Memphis. The city fell and the last of the native Egyptian kings was, according to some sources, carried off in triumph to the Persian capital at Susa (other sources say he was executed in Memphis). As mentioned above, Egyptian sources suggest that, like his father, Cambyses was shrewd enough to integrate himself into local custom. At Sais he restored the temple of Neith, the mother of Re, to

The native priesthood and then carried out the traditional rituals of homage. He seems to have used the local elites to sustain his rule. While the Assyrian assault on Egypt was soon diluted by Psamtek (see above), now a new phase in Egyptian history had begun, one in which foreign rulers, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, would exploit the centuries-old traditions of loyalty to a central ruler to serve their own ends.

By 525 bc therefore, the Persian empire extended over the whole of western Asia. However, Cambyses faced considerable internal unrest while he was still in Egypt, and shortly before his death in 522 there was a coup by one of his generals, Darius. This could have been the moment when the empire collapsed but Darius himself proved a military and organizational genius and, by 520, he had subdued the revolts and stabilized the empire. Without any justification, it seems, Darius claimed descent from Achaemenes, and successfully exploited his background to gain the allegiance of the heartlands of the empire. Perhaps more than his predecessors, he rallied the Persian nobility behind him and consolidated them as a ruling elite. It is his achievements which were proclaimed on the great inscription carved on a rock face 80 metres high at Behistun in north-western Iran in three languages, Elamite, Akkadian (the script used by Babylonians and Assyrians), and Old Persian, a language that Darius identified with his kingship. (As already noted, one of the major feats of nineteenth-century archaeology was the copying and deciphering of Akkadian from this inscription by the Englishman Henry Rawlinson.) Campaigns followed in the east, where control was consolidated over the vast stretches of plains and mountains that make up Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the eastern parts of modern Iran. About 514 Darius crossed the Hellespont into Thrace and fought some inconclusive campaigns against the native Scythian peoples.

Darius legitimized his rule through the one god, Ahura-Mazda, who was prepared to preside benignly over the lesser gods of the peoples Darius controlled. King and god reinforced each other’s legitimacy. A great god is Ahura-Mazda, who created the earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king, one king over many, one lord of many,’ runs part of the inscription on Darius’ tomb, and reliefs on this and later royal tombs show king and god each raising a hand to each other in greeting. A myth of succession is created that through the deceit of rival pretenders the empire had fallen into disorder and the god and Darius had restored both righteousness and good order. In another royal inscription Darius prides himself on his calm temper that enables him to dispense justice for all his people with fairness and equanimity.

The empire was divided into twenty satrapies, or administrative regions, each under an imperial appointee, normally a Persian. He was granted a royal estate whose produce he could keep for himself. In line with the generally tolerant attitude to local peoples, ancient capitals, Memphis, Sardis, Ecbatana, Babylon, were preserved as centres of local government and many of the resources gathered in taxation or tribute were stored locally. (Massive amounts of silver were found by Alexander’s men in the citadel in Babylon, for instance.) Each capital kept its own records of administrative decisions and there are even cases of local officials writing

In to check the details of royal decrees that they kept in these archives. The reliefs depicting processions of subjects, notably at the royal palace founded by Darius I at Persepolis, show each national group in its distinctive dress and carrying its regional produce to the court. (Herodotus lists the tribute expected of each people (Book III of The Histories, 90-4).) Some are even allowed to bear arms. While in Egypt the subject peoples would have been diminished in stature and in Assyria eliminated, here they are left with some pride. Local languages were respected, many public inscriptions were multilingual, as at Behistun, while Aramaic was used as the lingua franca of administration. It was a system flexible enough for the kings to keep contact with the more remote tribal peoples, normally through buying their allegiance with gifts. Their loyalty was essential if free passage through the empire was to be preserved.

Communications were good with a network of roads criss-crossing the empire. The celebrated Royal Road, the backbone of the empire’s communications, ran from Susa to Sardis, the former capital of Lydia, in the west with any dangerous stretch or crossing continuously under guard. Along it messages could be carried more than 300 kilometres a day. Official travellers were given a pass allowing them to draw rations for the next day from each station on the road, and the record that this had been done was then sent up to the capital. This effective and well-policed communications system allowed wealth to be channelled upwards, to the great palaces of Pasargadae, the original sixth-century capital of the empire, and Persepolis in the homeland of the dynasty and to Susa, the ancient capital of the Elamites, which Darius made the administrative capital of the empire. As before the dynasty drew freely on the resources and skills of its subject peoples. Darius’ palace from Susa was built of cedars from the Lebanon with other timbers brought from Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli came, as it had always done, from the east, gold from Sardis and Bactria. Egypt provided its most common precious metal, silver, as well as ivory that also came in from Nubia and India. Once again it was the Greeks who were the expert stone-cutters, the Medes and the Egyptians the finest craftsmen in gold and wood, while the Babylonians were responsible for baking bricks for the palace.

Despite the overall efficiency and good order of the empire it could hardly be maintained in absolute peace for decade after decade. In 499 BC the western part of the empire was shaken by a major revolt by the Greek cities of the Ionian coast. Darius was forced into confrontation with a people who were to prove the match of his empire. For the next 170 years, the empire and its Greek neighbours were to have a complicated relationship that was finally to end in the overthrow of the empire by Alexander. Before the story of this relationship goes further, an introduction must be made to the Greeks and their sea, the Mediterranean.