Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones - Persians: The Age of the Great Kings

A brilliant feat of resurrection, restoring to the Persian Empire the color, brilliance, and complexity that renders it one of the most fascinating and influential of ancient civilizations, and of which for so long, in most histories of antiquity, it has been bled.

Tom Holland, author of Dominion

Always lively, often challenging, this is a very welcome exploration of one of the greatest empires and cultures of the ancient world. Highly recommended.

Adrian Goldsworthy, author of Philip and Alexander

Superb, authoritative, and compelling, a fresh history of the Persian Great Kings that combines exuberant storytelling with outstanding scholarship that is both entertaining and bracing revisionist, filled with a cast of ruthless conquerors, queens, eunuchs, and concubines that brings the Persian world blazingly to life through Persian instead of the usual Greek sources. The result is a tour de force.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography

Persians is a wonderful introduction to the ancient worlds largest and most consequential empire. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is one of the foremost scholars of Achaemenid history, and he gives us a gripping account of the history of ancient Persia, tracking how a small tribal society in southwestern Iran came to be the worlds first superpower.

Touraj Daryaee, University of California, Irvine

This is an engaging, pacy account of the Persian Empire which is based on a rich range of sources. Going right up to the use of Cyrus the Great in modern Iran, the Persian Version on which Professor Lloyd-Jones focuses has much to tell us about how different cultures create history and use it to tell their stories.

Helen King, professor emerita, Classical Studies, The Open University

A masterful account and evocation of the history and culture of the first true world empire.

Aidan M Dodson, Hon Professor of Egyptology, University of Bristol

For too long, the world of Achaemenid Persia has been viewed through the eyes of often hostile foreigners. In this compelling investigation, Llewellyn-Jones draws on a wealth of evidencefrom imposing cliff-cut inscriptions to tiny seal-ringsto reveal the Persian Version of its empires stirring history, far removed from the traditional stereotype. Spotlighting not just the royal dynasty but a wealth of other characters (including ambitious courtiers, a wily Egyptian administrator, a Greek slave-girl enmeshed in Persias great power game) he brings to vivid life a sophisticated, highly complex, tightly run society with an acute sense of its place within the cosmos, where devotion to the Truth could coexist with cruelty and violence, and imperialism with cultural and religious tolerance. Clear, convincing, and meticulously researched, Persians: The Age of the Great Kings is not just a timely reassessment of the worlds first superpowerits a wonderfully accessible page-turner to boot.

David Stuttard, author of A History of Ancient Greece in Fifty Lives

Copyright 2022 by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Cover design by Ann Kirchner

Cover images Louvre, Paris, France / Bridgeman Images; Zita / Shutterstock.com; photonova / Shutterstock.com; Magdalena Cvetkovic / Shutterstock.com

Cover copyright 2022 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Epigraph calligraphy Farnaz Moshenpour 2022

Map and Family Tree Artwork Tim Peters 2022

All Line Drawings Kateryna Kyslitska 2022

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First published in 2022 by WILDFIRE an imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP, an Hachette UK company.

First US Edition: April 2022

Published by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Basic Books name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group.

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All translations are the authors own, except those taken from the IVP edition of The Bible

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021943742

ISBNs: 9781541600348 (hardcover), 9781541600355 (ebook)

E3-20220307-JV-NF-ORI

A bowl of wine is the Mirror of Alexander

Look, it displays the state of King Darius realm to us.

Hafez

To my students, past and present,

for joining me on the journey back to Persia.

Line Drawings

A Greek hoplite prepares to violate a Persian soldier. Eurymedon Vase, Attic red-figure oinochoe , a wine jug attributed to the circle of the Triptolemos Painter, c .460 bce . Museum fr Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg.

Cyrus I of Anshan defeats his enemies. Seal impression (PFS 93*).

Winged and crowned apkallu (guardian) from the gateway into the garden-palace of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae.

The Bisitun Relief, a pictorial imagining of the victory of Darius the Great.

The Great King, in his guise as a Persian hero, kills a mythical monster (part lion, part eagle, part scorpion) representing the chaos of drauga (the Lie). From a door jamb of the Hall of a Hundred Columns, Persepolis.

Seal impression of Parnakka (PFS 9).

Seal impression of Zishshawish (PFS 83*).

Second seal impression of Parnakka (PFS 16*).

Second seal impression of Zishshawish (PFS 11).

Gold daric showing an image of a Great King armed with a bow and arrow and a spear, 460 bce . Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain).

Impression of a cylinder seal depicting a female audience scene. Possibly from Susa, c .490 bce . Louvre, Paris.

Impression from a seal belonging to Rashda, the chief steward of the household of Irdabama, the mother of Darius the Great (PFS 535).

Impression of a seal belonging to Artystone (PFS 38).

Impression of a seal belonging to Shalamana, chief steward to Artystone (PFS 535).

Detail taken from the so-called Treasury Relief at Persepolis; the Great King and crown prince are shown in royal audience.

Two Magi, their mouths covered, conduct sacrificial rituals at an altar. They hold wands of balsam wood. From Dascylium, c .450 bce . Museum of Archaeology, Istanbul.

A seal impression depicting Xerxes decorating a tree with offerings of jewellery. Muse des Armures, Brussels (SXe).

A seal impression of a Great King killing a Greek hoplite. This was probably produced in Asia Minor and is carved in a Greek style.

Seal impression depicting a Persian soldier killing nomadic warriors. Ahuramazda hovers above the scene. British Museum.

Seal impression of Artaxerxes I shown as the master of Egypt. Hermitage, St Petersburg.