Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire, at its peak, covered roughly 5.5 million square kilometers, making it the largest empire of its time. It reached from the Balkans and Cyrenaica in the west to the Indus Valley in the east. Inside that span sat Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Levant, the South Caucasus, parts of Eastern Arabia, and large stretches of Central Asia. Cyrus the Great founded it in 550 BC, rising out of Persis in the southwestern Iranian plateau.
The people who built it once called themselves the Parsa. Around 850 BC they were nomadic pastoralists, their shifting territory named Parsua, localized around Persis. From that modest base grew a state that defeated Media, Lydia, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire in a single generation. How did wandering herders assemble the ancient world's largest realm? What held together a polity of dozens of peoples, languages, and gods?
This is also a story of an ending. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great conquered the empire entirely and annexed it to his Macedonian Empire. Yet the systems it pioneered, its roads, its couriers, its tolerant rule, outlived its kings by centuries.
Achaemenes gives the empire its name, credited as the progenitor of the Achaemenid dynasty. The term Achaemenid means "of the family of the Achaemenis," a compound translating to "having a friend's mind." Achaemenes was a minor seventh-century ruler of Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria.
The Persians arrived in what is today Iran around 1000 BC, settling alongside the native Elamites in north-western Iran, the Zagros Mountains, and Persis. The Achaemenids were initially rulers of the Elamite city of Anshan, near the modern city of Marvdasht. Their title "King of Anshan" adapted the earlier Elamite title "King of Susa and Anshan."
The oldest surviving genealogy lists the kings of Anshan as Teispes, Cyrus I, Cambyses I, and Cyrus II, the man who founded the empire. The Behistun Inscription, written later by Darius the Great, claims Teispes was the son of Achaemenes, yet no earlier texts mention Achaemenes at all. Herodotus offers a different thread, naming Cyrus the Great as the son of Cambyses I and Mandane of Media. Mandane was the daughter of Astyages, king of the Median Empire, a kinship that would soon turn into conquest.
In 553 BC, Cyrus revolted against the Median Empire. By 550 BC he had defeated the Medes, captured Astyages, and taken the Median capital of Ecbatana. He then styled himself the successor to Astyages and assumed control of the entire empire, inheriting its quarrels with Lydia and Babylon.
King Croesus of Lydia tried to seize former Median territory in Asia Minor. Cyrus counterattacked, captured Sardis, and brought down the Lydian Kingdom in 546 BC. When the official Pactyes later instigated a rebellion in Lydia, Cyrus dispatched the Median general Mazares, and after him Harpagus, to reduce the rebel cities. Subduing Lydia took about four years.
In October 539 BC, Cyrus defeated the Babylonians at Opis, took Sippar without a fight, then captured Babylon on the 12th of October. The Babylonian king Nabonidus was taken prisoner. Cyrus cast himself as restoring divine order disrupted by Nabonidus, who had promoted the cult of Sin over Marduk. He compared himself to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. He is also credited with freeing the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, permitting their return to Judah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, including the Second Temple. Cyrus would die battling a local Iranian insurgency, before he could build a navy.
Cambyses II succeeded his father in 530 BC, while his younger brother Bardiya received a large territory in Central Asia. By 525 BC, Cambyses had subjugated Phoenicia and Cyprus and prepared to invade Egypt with a newly created Persian navy. He soundly defeated Pharaoh Psamtik III at the Battle of Pelusium in the Nile Delta. Psamtik fled to Memphis, was taken prisoner, attempted a revolt, then committed suicide.
Herodotus paints Cambyses as antagonistic to Egyptian gods and priests, stressing the murder of the sacred bull Apis, and depicting a descent into madness. Yet the epitaph of Apis from 524 BC shows Cambyses participating in the funeral rites and styling himself as pharaoh. He pushed further into Africa, establishing a garrison at Elephantine staffed mainly by Jewish soldiers. A Nubian delegation appears in the Apadana reliefs at Persepolis, suggesting real success in subduing Nubia.
Bardiya's fate is fiercely debated. By the Behistun Inscription, a magus named Gaumata impersonated Bardiya and sparked a revolution. Cambyses, returning from Egypt, was wounded in the thigh in Syria and died of gangrene in the summer of 522 BC. The Iranologist Pierre Briant cautions that "nothing has been established with certainty at the present time, given the available evidence." Gaumata ruled seven months before Darius the Great overthrew him.
Macedonian king Amyntas I surrendered his country to the Persians in about 512-511 BC. The next year a huge Achaemenid army under Darius the Great invaded the Balkans, chasing the European Scythians north of the Danube. Darius left his commander Megabazus to finish the conquests, subjugating gold-rich Thrace and the coastal Greek cities. The Persians called both Greeks and Macedonians Yauna, or "Ionians," and the Macedonians specifically Yaunã Takabara, "Greeks with hats that look like shields."
The Ionian Revolt erupted in 499 BC, led by the Milesian tyrants Histiaeus and Aristagoras, and lasted until 493 BC. It was the first major conflict between Greece and the empire, the opening phase of the Greco-Persian Wars. Darius imposed a peace settlement generally judged just and fair, but vowed to punish Athens and Eretria. In 490 BC the Athenians defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Marathon, and Darius died before he could launch a fresh invasion.
Xerxes I took up the campaign, entering Greece in the spring of 480 BC. A small Greek force delayed him three days at Thermopylae, and the simultaneous naval battle of Artemisium was indecisive amid great storms. Xerxes sacked the evacuated city of Athens, but in 480 BC the Greeks won decisively at the Battle of Salamis. His land army retook Athens, then was destroyed in 479 BC at the Battle of Plataea. Xerxes was later assassinated in his bed, with accounts blaming Artabanus or, in a Babylonian tablet, his own son.
Artaxerxes I, succeeding his assassinated father, presided over a quiet revolution in language. Elamite ceased to be the language of government, Aramaic gained importance, and Zoroastrianism became the de facto religion of the empire. He weakened Athens by funding its enemies, which pushed the Athenians to move the Delian League treasury from Delos to their acropolis. The Peace of Callias was agreed in 449 BC. When he died in 424 BC at Susa, his body went to a tomb already built for him in the Naqsh-e Rustam Necropolis.
Xerxes II reigned only a few days before being assassinated while drunk. His half-brother Sogdianus reigned six months and fifteen days, then was suffocated in ash by Ochus, who had promised he would not die by the sword, by poison, or by hunger. Ochus took the royal name Darius II. His son Cyrus the Younger later assembled an army with Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries, only to be killed at Cunaxa in 401 BC by the forces of Artaxerxes II.
Artaxerxes II reigned 45 years, the longest of any Achaemenid king. He moved the capital back to Persepolis and greatly extended it, and lavished the summer capital at Ecbatana with gilded columns and roof tiles of silver and copper. He is said to have fathered more than 115 sons from 350 wives. His chief wife Stateira was poisoned around 400 BC by his own mother Parysatis.
Sidon felt the full weight of Artaxerxes III, who personally led an army of 330,000 men against the city. When its king Tennes betrayed it, Artaxerxes had 100 principal citizens transfixed with javelins, then condemned 500 more supplicants to the same fate. Sidon burned to the ground, and forty thousand people died in the conflagration. Artaxerxes sold the ruins at a high price to speculators hoping to dig treasure from the ashes.
Egypt fell next, in 343 BC. Artaxerxes divided his Greek troops into three bodies, each led by a Persian and a Greek, the Greek commanders being Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos. Pharaoh Nectanebo II resisted with 100,000 men, including 20,000 Greek mercenaries, but was out-maneuvered and fled south to Ethiopia. For the 10 years Persia held Egypt, native believers were persecuted and sacred books stolen. The eunuch Bagoas rose to lead the empire's internal administration.
Poison ran through the dynasty's final acts. In 338 BC, Bagoas poisoned Artaxerxes III, then poisoned his successor Artaxerxes IV Arses before he could act. Bagoas placed Darius III on the throne, and Darius III in turn forced Bagoas to swallow poison. In 334 BC, Alexander invaded Asia Minor, winning at Granicus, then Issus in 333 BC, then Gaugamela in 331 BC. Persepolis was destroyed by fire in early 330 BC. Darius III was murdered by his Bactrian satrap Bessus, whom Alexander later put on trial and ordered executed.
Four capital cities anchored Cyrus the Great's multi-state empire: Pasargadae, Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana. He divided the realm into satrapies, administrative units run by a satrap, with a general overseeing military recruitment and a state secretary keeping records. At differing times there were between 20 and 30 satrapies. Royal inspectors, the "eyes and ears of the king," toured the provinces and reported on local conditions.
Darius I rebuilt the economy around coinage, introducing the gold daric and the silver siglos as a bimetallic standard. He tailored a tax system to each satrapy: Babylon owed 1,000 silver talents and four months' food for the army, while Egypt, the granary, owed 120,000 measures of grain plus 700 talents of silver. He codified the dāta, a universal legal system that became the basis of later Iranian law.
The Royal Road from Susa to Sardis, built under Darius I, was the most impressive stretch of a 2,500-kilometer highway, dotted with stations and caravanserais. The relays of mounted couriers, the angarium, could reach the remotest areas in fifteen days. Herodotus wrote that "there is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
The army that enforced this order was as diverse as the empire, drawing Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and dozens more. At its core stood the Immortals, heavy infantry led by Hydarnes II and kept at exactly 10,000 men, every fallen soldier instantly replaced. Religious toleration remained a remarkable feature throughout, from Cyrus restoring the sacred places of various cities to the spread of Zoroastrianism, with its novel idea of free will, across southwestern Iran.
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Common questions
What was the Achaemenid Empire and who founded it?
The Achaemenid Empire was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based on the Iranian plateau, it grew to roughly 5.5 million square kilometers, the largest empire of its time, stretching from the Balkans and Cyrenaica to the Indus Valley.
When did the Achaemenid Empire fall?
The Achaemenid Empire fell in 330 BC when Alexander the Great conquered it entirely and annexed it to his Macedonian Empire. Alexander won at Granicus in 334 BC, Issus in 333 BC, and Gaugamela in 331 BC, and Persepolis was destroyed by fire in early 330 BC.
How did Cyrus the Great build the Achaemenid Empire?
Cyrus the Great built the empire by defeating Media, Lydia, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. He took Ecbatana and captured Astyages by 550 BC, captured Sardis and ended the Lydian Kingdom in 546 BC, and captured Babylon on the 12th of October 539 BC.
What was the Royal Road in the Achaemenid Empire?
The Royal Road ran from Susa to Sardis and was the most impressive stretch of a 2,500-kilometer highway built under Darius I. It featured stations and caravanserais, and mounted couriers called the angarium could reach the remotest areas in fifteen days.
Who were the Immortals in the Achaemenid army?
The Immortals were heavy infantry led by Hydarnes II and kept at exactly 10,000 men. According to Herodotus, every killed, wounded, or sick member was immediately replaced, maintaining the unit's strength and cohesion.
How did the Achaemenid Empire govern its many peoples?
The Achaemenid Empire governed through the satrapy system, with between 20 and 30 satrapies at different times, each run by a satrap, a general, and a state secretary. It was known for religious tolerance, official languages in Persian and Aramaic, and a tax system tailored to each region by Darius I.
What happened to the Achaemenid Empire after Alexander the Great?
After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his empire was divided among his generals, the Diadochi. The Seleucid Empire held the Iranian plateau, until native Iranian rule was restored by the Parthian Empire over the 2nd century BC, later succeeded by the Sasanian Empire.
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