CONTENTS    Achaemenid Persia of Cyrus (Kurus) The Great (ca. 550 - 530 BC) Achaemenid Persia of Darius I The Great (522 - 466 BC) Achaemenid Persia of Xerxes Alexandrian/Seleucid Persia (ca. 330 -171 BC) The Parthian Empire (ca. 171 BC - 224 AD) The Sassanid Empire (224 - 651)

ACHAEMENID PERSIA OF CYRUS (KURUŠ) THE GREAT (ca. 550-530 BC)

Zoroastrianism came to some kind of prominence and world attention only with the rise of Persia under Cyrus the Great.  Cyrus was the young leader of a Persian clan, the Achaemenids, living in the highlands of what eventually came to be known as Persia or Iran at that time under the domination of the Medes (ethnically and culturally cousins to the Persians).  Around 550 BC he led a successful Persian revolt against the Medes and established himself as a Persian-Median king, thus beginning his career of conquest.  He soon extended Persian power through much of central Asia. Rivalry with the kingdom of Lydia in the western reaches of Asia (modern-day Turkey) eventually brought Cyrus in conflict with Babylon and Egypt, which had allied with Lydia against this new rising Persian power. Completing the defeat of Lydia (ca. 546 BC) Cyrus turned his attention to Phoenecia (modern-day Lebanon) bringing this Eastern Mediterranean power under Persian mastery.  Then he turned to Babylon, bringing a crushing defeat to the Babylonian army in 539 BC through not only his massive army but also through some massive engineering feats (diverting the waters of the Euphrates River away from Babylon). At this point Cyrus was the ruler of the greatest Asian Empire that had hitherto existed.  But just before he turned his attentions to Egypt he died in 530 BC in a minor battle with some tribal subjects.  His son Cambyses soon defeated the Egyptians – but ruled only seven years as supposedly a drunken madman until he died mysteriously and was replaced by one of his officers, Darius. Cyrus’s rule proved to be hard – but fair.  Cyrus attempted to build the Persian’s multi-ethnic empire on the foundations of a Zoroastrian sense of truth and goodness.  He was a generous ruler to the subject peoples who accepted his rule without complaint – as is attested in the Hebrew Bible which tells of how he restored the Jews to their homeland and allowed them to reestablish their own government and worship at Jerusalem.  This guiding principle proved to be fairly workable – as long as everyone cooperated with the Persian vision of order and justice.  Rebellions were put down ruthlessly; cooperation was rewarded lavishly.

ACHAEMENID PERSIA OF DARIUS I - THE GREAT (522 - 486 BC)

Under Darius the Persian Empire reached its greatest extent, from Egypt and the Greek or Ionian regions of Western Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in the West, eastward to areas of the north Indian plains. He is best known to the West as the Persian king who attempted to crush a rebellion of Greeks at the western edge of the Persian Empire – but who was defeated by the Greeks at Marathon in 490 BC  Though at the time this was probably only a relatively minor defeat for the Persians, it marked the beginning of the rise of Greece (and Western civilization) to political prominence.

ACHAEMENID PERSIA OF XERXES

Darius’ son Xerxes took the throne with the death of his father in 486 BC.  He invaded Greece (480 BC) in order to punish the Greeks for their victory at Marathon.  He was nearly halted at Thermopylae by a small band of Spartans (‘the 300') but withe the help of a Greek traitor he was able to circumvent the Spartans and march on to Athens, which he found empty upon arrival and which mysteriously was destroyed by fire.  The Greeks retreated to the Peleponnesos peninsula - and the Athenian navy was able to lure Xerxes’ navy into a trap at Salamis.  This setback, plus a rebellion back in Babylon forced Xerxes to leave Greece.  He turned his army over to his general Mardonius, whom the Greeks defeated the following year (479 BC) in a land battle at Plataea and a sea battle at Mycale.  This forced the Persians to retreat from Greece – never to return.  It also made permanent enemies of the Greeks, who a century later would come under the leadership of Alexander – and reverse the Greek-Persian balance of power in favor of the Greeks.

A large cuneiform inscription found on the south side of the Van Castle hill (Eastern Turkey)

The inscription reads:   Ahuramazda is the great god, the greatest god who created the sky and created the land and created humans Who gave prosperity to the humans Who made Xerxes king King of many kings, being the only ruler of the totality of all lands I am Xerxes, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands, king of all the languages, king of the great and large land, the son of king Darius the Achaemenian. The king Xerxes says: "the king Darius, my father, praised be Ahuramazda, made a lot of good, and this mountain, he ordered to work its cliff and he wrote nothing on it so, me, I ordered to write here. May Ahuramazda protect me, with all the gods and so my kingdom and what I have done."

ALEXANDRIAN / SELEUCID PERSIA ca. 330 BC to 171 BC

Seleucus Nicator (312-281).  In the division of Alexander's Empire, infantry General Seleucus Nicator would receive the largest section of the empire, approximately the equivalent of the former Persian Empire … and all the problems that went with it.  Locating his own capital at Babylon in 305 BC, Seleucus ruled Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia, Kuwait, Bactria (Afghanistan and Turkmenistan), and parts of what is today Pakistan.  However when Seleucus ran into serious opposition in the eastern reaches of his empire from the Indian general Chandragupta Maurya,1 he entered into alliance with Chandragupta, handing over to him not only much of the far eastern portions of the Empire (Afghanistan and Pakistan) but also his daughter in marriage … receiving 500 elephants in return – which Seleucus subsequently used to great advantage in his battles elsewhere. But much territory still remained to the new Seleucid dynasty that he established.  And into this land the Greeks migrated in large numbers, bringing their language and culture ... leaving a permanent mark on Central and West Asia that would only be replaced very slowly by a return of the pre Greek cultures (but much changed through Greek influence). Seleucus' son and grandson, Antiochus I (281-261 BC) and Antiochus II (261-246 BC), faced constant challenges in the West as well – from the Egyptian Ptolemies and the Celts (Gauls or Galatians) who were migrating into Asia Minor.  This ended up distracting Antiochus II so much that he lost control of the satrapies of Bactria and Sogdiana (Afghanistan and Turkmenistan) ... which however moved to independence as Greek Bactrian States (c. 250 BC), Greek power centers by their own rights.  Indeed, Greek Bactrian King Demetrius I Aniketos ("the Invincible") would invade India in 180 BC and set up a Bactrian Greek-Indian kingdom that would last over a century and a half. Antiochus III (223-187 BC) then made the fateful political decision to cooperate with the Carthaginian General Hannibal – whose army at the time was thrashing the Romans in their own homeland – in Antiochus's effort to liberate mainland Greece from Roman influence.  That was a mistake.  In four years of fighting between Antiochus's Seleucid army and the Roman legions, Antiochus was slowly ground down by the Romans, in 188 BC had to accept humiliating terms for peace, and watched the eastern provinces he had worked so hard to return to Seleucid control once again go on their independent way.  Likewise, he lost land in the West (Anatolia, today's central Turkey) to Rome's allies Pergamum and Rhodes.  The next year he was killed (assassinated?) raiding Persia in an attempt to gain the gold he was required to pay Rome as an annual indemnity ... at the same time helping to establish Arsacid rule in Persia in reaction to Antiochus's maneuvering. Again … Rome.  Rome now pretty much dictated matters ... at least within the Western reaches of the Seleucid Empire (while the Eastern portions became increasingly rebellious and independent). Seleucid kings came and went in rapid succession ... and containing (or causing) civil strife occupied most of their time in power. The death of the Seleucid Empire By the beginning of the 1st century BC little more than Damascus and the area of Syria immediately around it was about all that the Seleucids truly governed ... although they remained deeply involved in the dynastic politics of the Eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.  Far greater in power and importance by that time was the Greco Persian (semi-Seleucid) kingdom of Pontus, to the north of Seleucid Syria ... and encompassing all of Asia Minor and Anatolia (modern Turkey). Mithridates VI of  Pontus (113-63 BC).  Far greater in power and importance by that time was the Greco-Persian (semi-Seleucid) kingdom of Pontus, to the north of Seleucid Syria ... and encompassing all of Asia Minor and Anatolia (modern Turkey) ... in close alliance with and at times dominance over Armenia –  just to the west of Pontus. Rome was constantly active in trying to bring down Pontus's leader Mithridates, a very capable military ruler.  Wars between Rome and Pontus were constant ... and in 89 BC Mithridates was able to defeat an enemy Roman army but also the next year turn on local Roman and Italian settlers and  slaughtered them ... perhaps as many as 80,000 people. Finally, Roman General Pompey took on Mithridates in battle in 66 BC ... defeating him soundly and sending him into flight.  Then in 63 AD, with Pompey closing in on him – and not wanting him and his family to be subjected to a triumphal parade in Rome, Mithridates chose suicide.  Meanwhile (69 BC) the Romans had resurrected a small portion of the Seleucid Kingdom for its own political ends ... but after Pompey defeated Mithridates he redesigned the lands of Eastern Mediterranean into Roman client states, converting Seleucid Syria into a Roman province under the rule of a Roman governor. 1It is said that in a battle in 305 BC between the Greek and the Indian generals, Chandragupta was able to field 600,000 troops and 9,000 elephants.

THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE ca. 171 BC to 224 AD

The Rise of Arsacid Parthia (247 BC).  Parthia (northeastern Iran) also moved to independence under the Greek satrap Andragoras (also around 250 BC) … but was not able to maintain its independence. An Asian (of Scythian origin?) named Arsaces soon overthrew him and laid the foundations in Parthia for the Arsacid Dynasty … which would eventually come to dominate all of Persia for five centuries as the powerful "Parthian Empire" (247 BC – 224 AD). But it would not be until Mithrades ("The Great") that Partia came to serious power ... during his reign. 171-138 BC. In 113 AD the Roman Emperor Trajan turned on Parthia (constituting at that point what is today's Iran and Iraq).  The Parthian king Osroes had forced on Armenia a king of Osroes's choosing – in violation of the Roman-Parthian treaty secured by Nero which had made Armenia (in the land between the Black Sea and the lower Caspian Sea) a joint protectorate of both these two great empires. Thus Trajan marched into Armenia and placed his own man on the Armenian throne.  Then in 116 Trajan continued his conquest into Parthia itself, seizing Babylon, Ctesiphon, and Susa, deposing Osroes, and placing his own ruler on the Parthian throne. Subsequently, the Parthians had been undergoing a military revival ... and in 161 assaulted – and defeated – Roman legions in Armenia and Syria.  Varus was sent out to deal with the Parthian problem ... and by 166 Varus – or actually his general Gaius Cassius – captured the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, and subdued the Parthians. The end of this loosely organized empire finally came in 224, when the last king was defeated by one of the Parthia's vassals ... the Sassanids.

THE SASSANID EMPIRE 224 to 651

The new Persian Sassanid dynasty was put in place by Ardashir and his son Shapur.  The Sassanids had not only taken over the Parthian kingdom, but had extended Persian control deep into Roman territory in the eastern reaches of the Roman empire.  When Alexander marched his army out to meet the Sassanids in 232, the results were something of a standoff for both sides.  This marked the beginning of a rivalry that would offer Rome constant anguish for the next four centuries. Sassanid kings Ardashir (224-240) and Shapur (240-270)

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  Miles H. Hodges