An outline, era by era

Achaemenid Empire at its height; Greco-Persian Wars

Classical Antiquity · ~500 BCE – ~500 CE

The Achaemenid Empire was founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 BCE and grew under Cambyses II and Darius I to stretch from Egypt and Anatolia in the west to the Indus valley and Central Asia in the east. It was the largest empire the world had yet seen. It was ruled through provinces called satrapies, governed by satraps under the Great King, and held together by roads, a common administrative language (Imperial Aramaic) and a tax system. Its royal centres included Susa, Persepolis and Babylon.

The Greco-Persian Wars (499 to 479 BCE, with fighting continuing for decades) began with the Ionian Revolt of Greek cities under Persian rule. They led to Persian invasions of mainland Greece under Darius I and Xerxes I, with battles at Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. The Greeks held out, and the wars shaped Athenian and Spartan power and Greek memory. Much of what we know comes from the Greek historian Herodotus, so the Persian side must be read from inscriptions and archives. The empire lasted until Alexander the Great conquered it in 330 BCE.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Ionian Revolt

    Event

    What happened

    In 499 BCE the Greek cities of Ionia on the western coast of Anatolia, which had been under Persian rule since the 540s BCE, rise against the Great King Darius I. Led at first by Aristagoras of Miletus, they receive a small force of ships from Athens and Eretria. In 498 BCE the rebels and their allies burn Sardis, the seat of the Persian satrap. The Persians then retake the region, and in 494 BCE they defeat the Ionian fleet at the battle of Lade and destroy Miletus.

    The rest is history

    The revolt is the start of the Greco-Persian Wars. Darius was angered by the Athenian and Eretrian support for the rebels, and Herodotus presents this as the reason for the later Persian expeditions against mainland Greece. Historians also point to Persia's wish to secure its western frontier. After the revolt Persia reorganised Ionia, with new tax assessments and a settlement between the cities. In 492 BCE Mardonius led a campaign into Thrace and Macedonia, and in 490 BCE a Persian fleet sailed across the Aegean and landed at Marathon.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories, Books 5.28-6.32. Greek prose history, c. 430 BCE.The main ancient account of the revolt, from its causes to the fall of Miletus.
    2. BookBriant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Trans. Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002.Reads the revolt from the Persian side.
    3. BookHolland, Tom. Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. London: Little, Brown, 2005.

  2. Darius I builds the empire's administration and the Behistun inscription

    Event

    What happened

    After taking the throne in 522 BCE, Darius I faces revolts in Babylonia, Media, Elam and other regions, and by about 520 BCE he has put them down. He has his account of these events carved in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian on a cliff at Behistun in western Iran. In the following years he organises the empire into provinces under satraps, sets fixed tribute for each, and begins building the new royal centre at Persepolis.

    The rest is history

    This settlement gave the empire the form it kept until its fall. Darius extended Persian rule east to the Indus valley and west into Thrace, and the satrapy system and the use of Imperial Aramaic held a huge territory together. The same system ruled the Greek cities of Ionia, whose resentment of Persian-backed rulers helped bring on the Ionian Revolt in 499 BCE. The Persepolis administrative archives, written in Elamite, show the workings of this state in detail. Persepolis remained a ceremonial centre until Alexander's army burned its palace in 330 BCE.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBehistun Inscription of Darius I. Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian rock inscription, c. 520 BCE.Darius's own account of the revolts and his victories.
    2. BookBriant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Trans. Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002.Covers Darius's rise, the satrapies and tribute.
    3. BookKuhrt, Amélie. The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London: Routledge, 2007.

  3. The runner of Marathon

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    After the Athenians defeat the Persians at Marathon, a messenger named Pheidippides runs all the way to Athens. He bursts in, gasps out the word 'Victory!' and falls dead of exhaustion. The marathon race is said to commemorate his run.

    The rest is history

    Herodotus, writing around 430 BCE, does not tell this story. He says that Pheidippides (called Philippides in some manuscripts) ran from Athens to Sparta, about 240 km, to ask for help before the battle. The tale of a runner dying after the battle appears centuries later, in Plutarch and Lucian, and the names differ between them. The battle of Marathon itself was real and took place in 490 BCE. The modern marathon race was created for the first Olympic Games of 1896, inspired by the legend, and its length was fixed at 42.195 km in 1921.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories, Book 6.105-117. Greek prose history, c. 430 BCE.Describes the run to Sparta and the battle of Marathon.
    2. PrimaryPlutarch. On the Glory of the Athenians (Moralia 347C). Greek essay, c. 100 CE.An early version of the runner who announces victory.
    3. BookKrentz, Peter. The Battle of Marathon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.Modern study of the battle and its traditions.

  4. Leonidas and the three hundred at Thermopylae

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Three hundred Spartans under King Leonidas hold a narrow pass against the vast army of Xerxes. When a Persian tells them their arrows will blot out the sun, a Spartan replies that then they will fight in the shade. They die to the last man so that Greece can be saved.

    The rest is history

    Herodotus tells of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, but says they were joined by several thousand other Greeks. On the last day Leonidas sent most of them away and stayed with the Spartans, about 700 Thespians and some Thebans. The 'fight in the shade' line is given by Herodotus to a Spartan named Dieneces, and is a later flourish in popular retellings. The Greeks were betrayed by a local man, Ephialtes, who showed the Persians a path around the pass. The battle took place in August or September 480 BCE. Persian numbers are exaggerated in Herodotus, and modern estimates are far lower, though debated.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories, Book 7.201-238. Greek prose history, c. 430 BCE.The account of the pass, the stand and the betrayal.
    2. BookCartledge, Paul. Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World. London: Macmillan, 2006.Study of the battle and its later legacy.
    3. BookHolland, Tom. Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. London: Little, Brown, 2005.

  5. Xerxes whips the sea

    Folk tale

    The legend

    When a storm destroys the bridges of boats that Xerxes has built across the Hellespont, the furious king orders the sea to be given three hundred lashes and shackled with fetters. He has the engineers beheaded and tells the water it is a muddy, salty river that deserves its punishment.

    The rest is history

    The story comes from Herodotus, who tells it to show Persian arrogance. No Persian source mentions it, and Herodotus himself says that those who did this were acting in an 'un-Greek' way. The bridging of the Hellespont was real and was a huge engineering feat, using two lines of ships joined by cables, around 480 BCE. Xerxes also had a canal dug through the Athos peninsula, and traces of it can still be seen. The tale shows how Greek writers framed the Persian king.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories, Book 7.33-37. Greek prose history, c. 430 BCE.The bridging of the Hellespont and the punishment of the sea.
    2. BookBriant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Trans. Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002.Standard history of the empire using Persian and Greek evidence.

  6. Cyrus the Great and the first charter of human rights

    Popular belief

    The legend

    When Cyrus conquers Babylon in 539 BCE, he frees the captive peoples, lets them return home and proclaims religious freedom. The clay cylinder that records his words is called the first charter of human rights.

    The rest is history

    The Cyrus Cylinder, found at Babylon in 1879 and now in the British Museum, is real. It is written in Akkadian and presents Cyrus as a chosen king of the god Marduk who restored the city's cults and returned images of gods to their sanctuaries. The text does not mention human rights as modern law does, and it is a typical royal building inscription of the Mesopotamian kind. The Hebrew Bible (Ezra 1) separately credits Cyrus with letting the Judeans return to Jerusalem. The Cylinder was presented in 1971 by Iran's last Shah as a human rights charter, a reading scholars now treat with caution.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCyrus Cylinder. Akkadian cuneiform inscription on a clay barrel, Babylon, c. 539-530 BCE. British Museum, London.Records Cyrus's capture of Babylon and his restoration of temples.
    2. BookFinkel, Irving, ed. The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon. London: I. B. Tauris, 2013.
    3. BookKuhrt, Amélie. The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London: Routledge, 2007.

  7. Darius wins the throne by his horse's neigh

    Folk tale

    The legend

    After the false king is killed, seven Persian nobles agree that the throne will go to the one whose horse neighs first at sunrise. Darius's groom rubs his hand on a mare and holds it to his stallion's nose. At dawn the horse neighs, thunder rolls, and Darius is made king.

    The rest is history

    Herodotus tells this tale in Book 3 as the way Darius became king in 522 BCE. Darius's own account is the great Behistun inscription, carved in three languages on a cliff in western Iran. It says he killed a usurper, whom he calls Gaumata the Magian, and put down nineteen rebellions in a year. Many modern scholars suspect Darius's story hides a coup, since he was a distant relative of Cyrus's line and the inscription is propaganda. The horse story is a Greek tale, with no support in Persian sources.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryHerodotus. Histories, Book 3.84-87. Greek prose history, c. 430 BCE.The contest of the horses.
    2. PrimaryBehistun Inscription of Darius I. Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian rock inscription, c. 520 BCE.Darius's own account of his rise and the rebellions.
    3. BookKuhrt, Amélie. The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. London: Routledge, 2007.

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