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Attempts have been made to associate Daiaukku, a local Zagros king mentioned in a cuneiform text as one of the captives deported to Assyria by Sargon II in 714 BC, with the Deioces of Herodotus, but such an association is highly unlikely.
To judge from the Assyrian sources, no Median kingdom such as Herodotus describes for the reign of Deioces existed in the early 7th century BC; at best, he is reporting a Median legend of the founding of their kingdom.
According to Herodotus, Deioces was succeeded by his son Phraortes (675-653
BC), who subjugated the Persians and lost his life in a premature attack
against the Assyrians. Some of this tale may be true.
Assyrian texts speak of a Kashtariti as the leader of a conglomerate
group of Medes, Scythians, Mannaeans, and miscellaneous other local Zagros
peoples that seriously threatened the peace of Assyria's eastern borderlands
during the reign of Esarhaddon (680-669 BC).
It is possible that Phraortes is this Kashtariti, though the suggestion
cannot be proved either historically or linguistically. That a Median
king in this period exerted political and military control over the Persians
is entirely reasonable, though it cannot be proved.
Beginning as early as the 9th century, and with increasing impact in the late 8th and early 7th centuries, groups of nomadic warriors entered western Iran, probably from across the Caucasus. Dominant among these groups were the Scythians, and their entrance into the affairs of the western plateau during the 7th century may perhaps mark one of the important turning points in Iron Age history.
Herodotus speaks in some detail of a period of Scythian domination,
the so-called Scythian interregnum in Median dynasty history. His dating
of this event remains uncertain, but traditionally it is seen as falling
between the reigns of Phraortes and Cyaxares and as covering the years
653 to 625 BC. Whether such an interregnum ever actually occurred and,
if it did, whether it should not be dated later than this are open questions.
What is clear is that, by the mid-7th century BC, there were a great
many Scythians in western Iran, that they, along with the Medes and other
groups, posed a serious threat to Assyria, and that their appearance threw
previous power alignments quite out of balance.
Herodotus reports how, under Cyaxares of Media (625-585 BC), the Scythians were overthrown when their kings were induced at a supper party to get so drunk that they were then easily slain. It is more likely that about this time either the Scythians withdrew voluntarily from western Iran and went off to plunder elsewhere or they were simply absorbed into a rapidly developing confederation under Median hegemony. Cyaxares is a fully historical figure who appears in the cuneiform sources as Uvakhshatra. Herodotus speaks of how Cyaxares reorganized the Median army into units built around specialized armaments: spearmen, bowmen, and cavalry.
The unified and reorganized Medes were a match for the Assyrians. They attacked one of the important Assyrian border cities, Arrapkha, in 615 BC, surrounded Nineveh in 614 BC but were unable to capture it, and instead successfully stormed the Assyrian religious capital, Ashur. An alliance between Babylon and the Medes was sealed by the betrothal of Cyaxares' granddaughter to Nabopolassar's son, Nebuchadrezzar II (605-562 BC). In 612 BC the attack on Nineveh was renewed, and the city fell in late August (the Babylonians arrived rather too late to participate fully in the battle).
The Babylonians and the Medes together pursued the fleeing Assyrians westward into Syria. Assyrian appeals to Egypt for help came to nought, and the last Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballit II, disappeared from history in 609 BC.
The problem, of course, was how to divide the spoils among the victors.
The cuneiform sources are comparatively silent, but it would seem that
the Babylonians fell heir to all of the Assyrian holdings within the fertile
crescent, while their allies took over all of the highland areas.
The Medes gained control over the lands in eastern Anatolia that had
once been part of Urartu and eventually became embroiled in war with the
Lydians, the dominant political power in western Asia Minor. In 585 BC,
probably through the mediation of the Babylonians, peace was established
between Media and Lydia, and the Halys (Kizil) River was fixed as the boundary
between the two kingdoms. Thus a new balance of power was established in
the Middle East among Medes, Lydians, Babylonians, and, far to the south,
Egyptians.
At his death, Cyaxares controlled vast territories: all of Anatolia
to the Halys, the whole of western Iran eastward, perhaps as far as the
area of modern Tehran, and all of southwestern Iran, including Fars.
Whether it is appropriate to call these holdings a kingdom is debatable;
one suspects that authority over the various peoples, Iranian and non-Iranian,
who occupied these territories was exerted in the form of a confederation
such as is implied by the ancient Iranian royal title, king of kings.
Astyages followed his father, Cyaxares, on the Median throne (585-550 BC). Comparatively little is known of his reign. All was not well with the alliance with Babylon, and there is some evidence to suggest that Babylonia may have feared Median power. The latter, however, was soon in no position to threaten others, for Astyages was himself under attack. Indeed, Astyages and the Medians were soon overthrown by the rise to power in the Iranian world of Cyrus II the Great of Persia.
The rise of the Persians under Cyrus II
The ruling dynasty of the Persians settled in Fars in southwestern Iran
(possibly the Parsumash of the later Assyrian records) traced its ancestry
back to an eponymous ancestor, Haxamanish, or Achaemenes.
There is no historical evidence of such a king's existence. Traditionally,
three rulers fall between Achaemenes and Cyrus II: Teispes, Cyrus
I, and Cambyses I .
Teispes, freed of Median domination during the so-called Scythian interregnum,
is thought to have expanded his kingdom and to have divided it on his death
between his two sons, Cyrus I and Ariaramnes.
Cyrus I may have been the king of Persia who appears in the records
of Ashurbanipal swearing allegiance to Assyria after the devastation of
Elam in the campaigns of 642-639 BC, though there are chronological problems
involved with this equation.
When Median control over the Persians was supposedly reasserted under
Cyaxares, Cambyses I is thought to have been given a reunited Persia to
administer as a Median vassal. His son, Cyrus II, married the daughter
of Astyages and in 559 BC inherited his father's position within the Median
confederation.
Cyrus II certainly warranted his later title, Cyrus the Great. He must
have been a remarkable personality, and certainly he was a remarkable king.
He united under his authority several Persian and Iranian groups who apparently
had not been under his father's control. He then initiated diplomatic exchanges
with Nabonidus of Babylon (556-539 BC), which justifiably worried Astyages.
Eventually, he openly rebelled against the Medes, who were beaten in battle when considerable numbers of Median troops deserted to the Persian standard. Thus, in 550 BC, the Median Empire became the first Persian Empire, and the Achaemenid kings appeared on the international scene with a suddenness that must have frightened many.
Cyrus immediately set out to expand his conquests. After apparently
convincing the Babylonians that they had nothing to fear from Persia, he
turned against the Lydians under the rule of the fabulously wealthy Croesus.
Lydian appeals to Babylon were to no avail. He then took Cilicia, thus
cutting the routes over which any help might have reached the Lydians.
Croesus attacked and an indecisive battle was fought in 547 BC on the
Halys River. Since it was late in the campaigning season, the Lydians thought
the war was over for that year, returned to their capital at Sardis, and
dispersed the national levy.
Cyrus, however, kept coming. He caught and besieged the Lydians in the
citadel at Sardis and captured Croesus in 546 BC. Of the Greek city-states
along the western coast of Asia Minor, heretofore under Lydian control,
only Miletus surrendered without a fight. The others were systematically
reduced by the Persian armies led by subordinate generals. Cyrus himself
was apparently busy elsewhere, possibly in the east, for little is known
of his activities between the capture of Sardis and the beginning of the
Babylonian campaign in 540 BC.
Nowhere did Cyrus display his political and military genius better than
in the conquest of Babylon. The campaign actually began when he lulled
the Babylonians into inactivity during his war with Lydia, which, since
it was carried to a successful conclusion, deprived the Babylonians of
a potential ally when their turn came.
Then he took maximum advantage of internal disaffection and discontent
within Babylon. Nabonidus was not a popular king.
He had paid too little attention to home affairs and had alienated the native Babylonian priesthood. Second Isaiah, speaking for many of the captive Jews in Babylon, was undoubtedly not the only one of Nabonidus' subjects who looked to Cyrus as a potential deliverer. With the stage thus set, the military campaign against Babylon came almost as an anticlimax.
The fall of the greatest city in the Middle East was swift; Cyrus marched into town in the late summer of 539 BC, seized the hands of the statue of the city god Marduk as a signal of his willingness to rule as a Babylonian and not as a foreign conquerer, and was hailed by many as the legitimate successor to the throne.
In one stride Cyrus carried Persian power to the borders of Egypt, for
with Babylon came all that it had seized from the Assyrians and had gained
in the sequel.
Little is known of the remainder of Cyrus' reign. The rapidity with
which his son and successor, Cambyses II, initiated a successful campaign
against Egypt suggests that preparations for such an attack were well advanced
under Cyrus. But the founder of Persian power was forced to turn east late
in his reign to protect that frontier against warlike tribes who were themselves
in part Iranians and who threatened the plateau in the same manner as had
the Medes and the Persians more than a millennium earlier.
One of the recurrent themes of Iranian history is the threat of peoples
from the east. How much Cyrus conquered in the east is uncertain. What
is clear is that he lost his life in 529 BC, fighting somewhere in the
region of the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers.
The humble Tomb of the Cyrus
The Achaemenid dynasty
Cambyses
On the death of Cyrus the Great the empire passed to his son, Cambyses
II (529-522 BC).
There may have been some degree of unrest throughout the empire at
the time of Cyrus' death, for Cambyses apparently felt it necessary secretly
to kill his brother, Bardiya (Smerdis), in order to protect his rear while
leading the campaign against Egypt in 525 BC.
The pharaoh Ahmose II of the 26th dynasty sought to shore up his defenses
by hiring Greek mercenaries, but was betrayed by the Greeks. Cambyses successfully
managed the crossing of the hostile Sinai Desert, traditionally Egypt's
first and strongest line of defense, and brought the Egyptians under Psamtik
III, son and successor of Ahmose, to battle at Pelusium.
The Egyptians lost and retired to Memphis; the city fell to the Persians
and the Pharaoh was carried off in captivity to Susa. Three subsidiary
campaigns were then mounted, all of which are reported as failures:
one against Carthage, but the Phoenician sailors, who were the backbone
of the Persian navy, declined to sail against their own colony; one against
the oasis of Amon (in the Egyptian desert west of the Nile), which, according
to Herodotus, was defeated by a massive sandstorm; and one led by Cambyses
himself to Nubia. This latter effort was partly successful, but the army
suffered badly from a lack of proper provisions on the return march. Egypt
was then garrisoned at three major points: Daphnae in the east delta, Memphis,
and Elephantine, where Jewish mercenaries formed the main body of troops.
In 522 BC news reached Cambyses of a revolt in Iran led by an impostor claiming to be Bardiya, Cambyses' brother. Several provinces of the empire accepted the new ruler, who bribed his subjects with a remission of taxes for three years. Hastening home to regain control, Cambyses died--possibly by his own hand, more probably from infection following an accidental sword wound. Darius, a leading general in Cambyses' army and one of the princes of the Achaemenid family, raced homeward with the troops in order to crush the rebellion in a manner profitable to himself.
Cambyses has been rather mistreated in the sources, thanks partly to the prejudices of Herodotus' Egyptian informers and partly to the propaganda motives of Darius I. Cambyses is reported to have ruled the Egyptians harshly and to have desecrated their religious ceremonies and shrines. His military campaigns out of Egypt were all reported as failures.
Darius I
Darius I, called the Great, tells the story of the overthrow of Bardiya and of the first year of his own rule in detail in his famous royal inscription cut on a rock face at the base of Bisitun mountain, a few miles east of modern Kermanshah. Six leading Achaemenid nobles assisted in slaying the false Bardiya and together proclaimed Darius the rightful heir of Cambyses.
Darius was a member of the Achaemenid royal house. His great-grandfather
had been Ariaramnes, son of Teispes, who had shared power in Persia with
his brother Cyrus I. Ariaramnes' son, Arsames, and his grandson, Hystaspes
(Darius' father), had not been kings in Persia, as unified royal power
had been placed in the hands of Cambyses I by Cyaxares.
Neither is named a king in Darius' own inscriptions. Hystaspes was,
however, an important prince of the blood, who at the time of revolt of
the false Bardiya had apparently been the governor of Parthia. Darius himself
was in the mold of Cyrus the Great--a powerful personality and a dynamic
ruler.
It took more than a year (522-521 BC) of hard fighting to put down revolts
associated with Bardiya's claim to the throne and Darius' succession to
power. Almost every province of the empire was involved in the conflict,
including Persia and, most particularly, Media. A balanced policy of clemency
backed by the swift and thorough punishment of any captured rebel leader,
in combination with a well-coordinated and carefully timed distribution
of loyal forces, eventually brought peace to the empire and undisputed
power to Darius.
He then turned his attention to the organization and consolidation
of his inheritance, and it was for this role--that of lawgiver and organizer--that
he himself, to judge from his inscriptions, most wished to be remembered.
Such activities, however, did not prevent Darius from following an active
expansionist policy.
Campaigns to the east confirmed gains probably made by Cyrus the Great
and added large sections of the northern Indian subcontinent to the list
of Persian-controlled provinces.
Expansion in the west began about 516 BC when Darius moved against
the Hellespont as a first step toward an attack on the Scythians along
the western and northern shores of the Black Sea.
The real strategic purpose behind this move probably was to disrupt
and if possible to interrupt Greek trade with the Black Sea area, which
supplied much grain to Greece. Crossing into Europe for the first time,
Darius campaigned with comparatively little success to the north of the
Danube.
He retreated in good order, however, with only limited losses, and a bridgehead across the Hellespont was established.
Perhaps in part in response to these developments, perhaps for more purely internal reasons, the Ionian Greek cities on the west coast of Asia Minor revolted against Persian rule in 500 BC.
The Persians were apparently taken by surprise, and at first the rebellion prospered. The Ionians received some limited assistance from the Athenians and in 498 BC felt strong enough to take the offensive. With one hand Darius negotiated; with the other he assembled a counterattack. The first Persian military efforts proved only partially successful, however, and the Ionians enjoyed another respite in the years 496-495 BC.
A renewed Persian offensive in 494 BC was successful. The Greek fleet was badly beaten off Miletus, and the Persian land army began a systematic reduction of the rebel cities. About 492 BC Mardonius, a son-in-law of Darius, was made special commissioner to Ionia. He suppressed local tyrants and returned democratic government to many cities. In time the wounds caused by the revolt and its suppression healed, and by 481 BC Xerxes was able to levy troops in this region with little trouble.
By 492 BC Mardonius had also recovered Persian Thrace and Macedonia,
first gained in the campaign against the Scythians and lost during the
Ionian Revolt. There followed the Persian invasion of Greece that led to
Darius' defeat at the Battle of Marathon late in the summer of 490 BC.
The "Great King" was forced to retreat and to face the fact that the
Greek problem, which had probably seemed to the Persians a minor issue
on the western extremity of the empire, would require a more concerted
and massive effort. Thus began preparations for an invasion of Greece on
a grand, coordinated scale. These plans were interrupted in 486 BC by two
events:
a serious revolt in Egypt, and the death of Darius.
Xerxes I
Xerxes (486-465 BC), Darius' eldest son by Queen Atossa, was born after
his father had come to the throne; he had been designated official heir
perhaps as early as 498 BC, and while crown prince he had ruled as the
King's governor in Babylon.
The new king quickly suppressed the revolt in Egypt in a single campaign
in 485 BC. Xerxes then broke with the policy followed by Cyrus and Darius
of ruling foreign lands with a fairly light hand and, in a manner compatible
with local traditions, ruthlessly ignored Egyptian forms of rule and imposed
his will on the rebellious province in a thoroughly Persian style.
Plans for the invasion of Greece begun under Darius were then still
further delayed by a major revolt in Babylonia about 482 BC, which also
was suppressed with a heavy hand.
Xerxes then turned his attention westward to Greece. He wintered in
Sardis in 481-480 BC and thence led a combined land and sea invasion of
Greece.
Northern Greece fell to the invaders in the summer of 480, the Greek
stand at Thermopylae in August of 480 came to nought, and the Persian land
forces marched on Athens, taking the Acropolis.
But the Persian fleet lost the Battle of Salamis, and the impetus of the invasion was blunted. Xerxes, who had by then been away from Asia rather long for a king with such widespread responsibilities, returned home and left Mardonius in charge of further operations.
The real end of the invasion came with the Battle of Plataea, the fall
of Thebes (a stronghold of pro-Persian forces), and the Persian naval loss
at Mycale in 479 BC. Of the three, the Persian loss at Plataea was perhaps
the most decisive.
Up until Mardonius was killed, the issue of the battle was probably
still in doubt, but, once leaderless, the less organized and less disciplined
Persian forces collapsed.
Time and again in later years this was to be the pattern in such encounters,
for the Persians never solved the military problem posed by the disciplined
Greek hoplites.
The formation of the Delian League, the rise of Athenian imperialism, troubles on the west coast of Asia Minor, and the end of Persian military ambitions in the Aegean followed rapidly in the decade after Plataea. Xerxes probably lost interest in the proceedings and sank deeper and deeper into the comforts of life in his capital cities of Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis.
Intrigues, which were steadily to sap the strength and vitality of the
Achaemenid Empire, led to the assassination of the Great King in 465 BC.
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