Neil D. Bramwell - Discover Ancient Persia

CIVILIZATIONS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

Ancient civilizations have always been a source of fascination. From the first farmers of Mesopotamia, to ancient China, the world's oldest continuing civilization, to Egypt's breathtaking pyramids, to Cyrus the Great of Persia who set up one of the greatest empires of the ancient world, through the glories of Greece and the rise and fall of Rome, each civilization has left behind stories and secrets for those who have followed. The books in the Discover Ancient Civilizations series explore the lands, people, cultures, and conquests of ancient China, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamian, Persia, and Rome.

About the Author

Neil D. Bramwell practiced law for almost thirty years and taught law at Fordham Law School in the Bronx. Aside from his work on the Discover Ancient Civilizations and the Presidents series for Enslow Publishers, Inc., he has also published a mystery novel.

Entranceway to Persepolis

In the sixth century B.C., the land that is today the nation of Iran was the center of the largest empire in the ancient world. The kings of Ancient Persia (from Persis, the Greeks name for Persia) were the leaders of a great civilization that made important advances in government, laws, and communications. The Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 B.C. would, within only fifty years, occupy much of the known world at the time.

The earliest people in what is now Iran were the Elamites, who may have settled the region as early as 3000 B.C. Aryans, nomadic people from central Asia, began migrating to Iran in the 1500s B.C. After a time, there were two major groups of Aryans: the Medes in the northwest, who established a kingdom called Media, and the Persians in southern Iran. Both of these groups referred to their home as Iran, which translates as land of the Aryans. By the 600s B.C. the Medes ruled the Persians. But the rule of the Medes came to an end between 559 B.C. and 549 B.C., when a Persian who would come to be known as Cyrus the Great overthrew Astyages, king of the Medes. He is the first ruler to whose name was added the words the Great, a title taken by many others after him, including Alexander the Great, who over-threw the Achaemenid dynasty two centuries after the death of Cyrus.

Cyrus the Great

According to Herodotus, a Greek historian, Cyrus was the son of an Iranian nobleman and a Median princess, daughter of the Median king Astyages. Many historians dispute this account of Cyrus background, but what cannot be disputed is that his dynasty, the Achaemenids, would rule the vast Persian Empire for more than two hundred fifty years.

Cyrus began to build his empire after the model of the great Assyrian Empire that had flourished centuries before on the banks of the Tigris River, in what is now the country of Iraq. By 545 B.C., Cyrus had seized the kingdom of Lydia, and he gradually took over the Greek colonies in Ionia, in western Asia Minor, a peninsula in western Asia between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea that is now the Asian part of Turkey. By 539 B.C., Cyrus armies had conquered Babylonia, and Cyrus freed the Jews who were in captivity there, allowing them to return to Palestine, which was also under his control. Although he did not conquer Egypt, he prepared the way for his son, Cambyses II, to accomplish that, in 525 B.C.

Cyrus rule came to an end in 530 B.C. with his death. The empire he began would not reach its peak until the reign of Darius I, in 500 B.C., when it would encompass a region nearly as large as the modern continental United States. But Cyrus the Great continues to be admired among ancient world leaders for more than his military conquests and the empire he began.

What set Cyrus the Great apart from the rulers of most other ancient dynasties was his attitude toward the different ethnic and religious groups that existed within his empire. He had conquered many lands, and the people within those lands spoke different languages, prayed to different gods, and lived according to different customs. His tolerance and respect for the diverse cultures, customs, and beliefs of his people has led most historians to consider Cyrus a liberator rather than a conqueror.

The Cyrus Cylinder is displayed at the National Museum of Iran, in Tehran, September 12, 2010. The Cylinder is a sixth century B.C. clay object inscribed with an account in cuneiform of the conquest of Babylon by the Persian King Cyrus the Great and his intention to rule the conquered people with fairness.

This bas-relief can be seen found at Pasargadae, northeast of Persepolis. A winged-figure thought to be Cyrus the Great is shown with four Assyrian wings, and wearing a horned Egyptian-like crown and Persian dress. At the top, the inscription written in three languages is the sentence I am Cyrus the king, an Achaemenian. It reflects Cyruss dedication to the philosophy of multiculturalism.

Cyrus is also credited with being the author of what is often referred to as the first charter of human rights. The Cyrus Cylinder is an account of Cyrus Babylonian conquest, written in cuneiform inscription on a clay cylinder. But it is remarkable for its declarations of reform. In the ancient script, Cyrus pledges to bring relief to Babylons citizens and return captives held prisoner in Babylon to their homelands:

I returned to the sacred cities... the sanctuaries of which have been in ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I gathered all their (former) inhabitants and returned (to them) their habitations.

By 490 B.C. the Persian Empire was the largest empire that the ancient world had ever known. The Persian king, Darius I, ruled over an area that stretched east to west from the Indus River in Pakistan to Asia Minor, including Thrace, an ancient country that is now part of Bulgaria and Turkey.

The empire from north to south extended from the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea down to the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. What are now parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt were all once part of the great Persian Empire.