Short History Of... - The First Persian Empire

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

For a little over 200 years, the First Persian Empire ruled over a vast expanse across three continents, making it arguably the world’s first great superpower. At its peak, it stretched from its base in Persia - roughly analogous to modern-day Iran, all the way to India in the East, incorporating swathes of Central Asia, Egypt, Libya and Iraq. It also conquered ancient powers such as Pharaonic Egypt, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Altogether, it ruled an area that now comprises some twenty nation-states. But from where did it spring, and how did it establish such formidable power? Who were its leaders? And what led to its decline, completed with such ferocity by Alexander the Great? This is a Short History Of… The First Persian Empire. A Noiser production, written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Dr Christopher Farrell, assistant professor of Greek History and Culture at University College Dublin. Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's dusk in January 330 BCE. A cool evening in Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, better known today as the First Persian Empire, in a mountainous region of modern southwest Iran. A mother and her young son are sprinting through a labyrinth of alleyways between the vast sea of tents, which normally houses thousands of royal courtiers. In the distance, she can hear shouting and screaming. Thunderous voices bellow orders in a language she does not recognize. Voices bellow orders in a language she does not recognize.

Every now and again, there are thumping crashes, like buildings being torn from their foundations, set against the unmistakable crackle of flames. The boy whimpers as she pulls him along, and she hushes him urgently. Silence is imperative. Keeping low, they pass the vast Royal Terrace, one of the most spectacular sights in the entire Empire. Towering over them, on a raised platform, is the gargantuan limestone Throne Hall, part

of the complex of ceremonial buildings at the city's heart. Framed by lush climbing gardens, spectacular soaring staircases ascend to a gate guarded by statues of winged bulls with human heads. Beyond that is the magnificently decorated Royal Audience Hall, big enough for 10,000. Its cedar roof, supported by 36 columns. It's a sort of paradise. At least it was until a few hours ago, when the invaders arrived. Desperately pulling her son close as she runs, she sees gangs of armored men rampaging within,

ripping the beautiful glazed tiles from the wall, tearing down drapes, their clothes bulging with looted treasure. Some are drunk, their violence accompanied by lewd jokes and bursts of raucous laughter. These are men who have been on long, hard military campaigns, now allowed to let loose. Our men who have been on long, hard military campaigns, now allowed to let loose. She hides in the shadows as best she can, fighting to keep her panicked breathing in check. But then she spots an opportunity, somewhere to hide. Climbing through a small opening and helping her son in behind her, she enters the network

of drainage tunnels that run beneath the terrace. They huddle close in the darkness. Water droplets fall incessantly on their heads, but she figures this is their best chance of escape. Hidden from the marauders, licensed by their leader, the Macedon Alexander, to plunder and pillage at will. In these past few hours, she has seen men slain without mercy, girls and women assaulted and violated, youths rounded up and taken prisoner, crops set ablaze.

Not even the animals have been spared the slaughter, save for the horses taken to serve new masters. Her own husband is missing. She daren't think what fate has befallen him. Instead, she focuses on her motherly duty to do whatever she can to protect her son. She whispers to the boy, They'll wait down here for the trouble to pass. She whispers to the boy, they'll wait down here for the trouble to pass. But then comes the sound of heavy footsteps echoing around the tunnel.

The pair pin themselves against the wall, hoping they'll somehow go unnoticed. All the while, she can hear the roar and hiss of the conflagration above getting closer. Persepolis is falling, a herald of the collapse of the Empire itself, and a personal tragedy for those caught up in the merciless bloodletting. Alexander the Great's destruction of Persepolis marked the end of arguably the world's first great superpower. For a little over 200 years, the first Persian empire ruled over a vast expanse in three continents. From its base in Persia, roughly analogous to modern-day Iran, at its peak it stretched from the Balkans in the west all the way to India in the east, incorporating swathes of

Central Asia, Egypt, Libya, and Iraq. It conquered established ancient powers, including Pharaonic Egypt, the Lydian Empire, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the kingdoms of the Indus Valley. Altogether, it ruled an area that now comprises some 20 modern nation-states. But from where did it spring, and how did it establish such formidable power so quickly? Who were its leaders, and what led to its decline, completed with such ferocity by Alexander the Great. I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Network.

This is a short history of the First Persian Empire. Any exploration of the Persian Empire must work within the context of problematic historical records. Contemporary Persian sources are few and far between, and what histories do exist were written predominantly by Greco-Roman authors and others from Mesopotamia in southwestern Asia, alongside biblical accounts. Religiously or politically motivated, they often present conflicting or even diametrically opposed interpretations of events. But by piecing together evidence from these multiple sources,

along with an ever-expanding archaeological record, it is possible to trace the story, if an incomplete one, of the Empire. Little is known of the original Achaemenids, but they seem to have been an important clan within one of the leading tribes in Parsa, in what is now southwestern Iran. They take their name from an ancestor, Achaemenes, who probably lives in the 8th or 7th century BCE. Achaemenes, who probably lives in the 8th or 7th century BCE. His descendants become heads of a kingdom centered around the city of Ansham.

Parsa, though, is surrounded by much stronger neighbors. Dr. Christopher Farrell is Assistant Professor of Greek History and Culture at University College Dublin. Just to the north of Parsa, you had this area that, according to our Greek sources anyway, is dominated by the Medes, who seem to be a kind of more loosely like a federation of kings and tribes that spans from the Halis River in Turkey to the northern and eastern sections of Iran. And in various traditions, the Persians are either a kind of vassal kingdom or a subordinate state to the Medes. Even so, they are destined to assume a much more prominent role on the international stage as rulers of the first Persian Empire.

national stage as rulers of the first Persian Empire. Sometime between 600 and 580 BCE, an Achaemenid prince is born to King Cambyses and his wife Mandui, whose father is Astyages, the king of the Medes. The infant is named Cyrus, and when his father dies, he succeeds him as king. The infant is named Cyrus, and when his father dies, he succeeds him as king. But Cyrus still plays second fiddle to his grandfather, Astyages, in the game of regional power. So when Cyrus emerges and is king, he's a very small fish on the global scene, but he's ruling a city in particular. He identifies himself as the ruler of Anshan,

and that is traditionally, again, another Bronze Age site that had been a really important center of power for another kingdom, the Elamites. And a lot of the early Achaemenid ideas about kingship, language, administration seems to also hark back to this group. Legend has it that Astyages had a dream before his grandson Cyrus' birth that the boy would one day supplant him. Whether or not that's true, when the two kingdoms go to war, it's Cyrus who emerges victorious in 550 BCE. From his new position of strength, he consolidates his power over other rivals on the Persian plateau. Then he moves westwards to defeat enemies in what is now Turkey, incorporating various

Ionian Greek cities into his empire along the way. cities into his empire along the way. After probable incursions further east into India, he moves down to Babylonia, where he leverages discontent with the incumbent king to launch a successful invasion. Once he's taken Babylon itself, his empire stretches from modern India in the east to Turkey in the west. Meanwhile, he is building a new imperial capital of his own, Pasagadae, close to the site of his victory over Astyages. In just a few years, Cyrus has evolved from little fish to the most formidable shark in the ocean. The secret of his success, though, is disputed.

With Cyrus, we're dealing really kind of not uncommonly with a really important figure who becomes sort of quasi-mythical or legendary very early on. And then we're probably dealing with oral histories, songs, and stories that are circulating for a long time before they may have been written down by non-Persians. And I think that that slightly limits or skews our perspective on exactly how he's able to do what he does. What cannot be disputed is his natural talent as a military leader. It is astonishing. I mean, he comes to the throne something like 559 BC. And within that period of reign down to his death in 530, he's built out the bulk of what's going to be the Persian empire

for another 220 years or thereabouts. So he's clearly very successful militarily. He's clearly very successful as a tactician. He seems to be able to move very quickly. He's a wily politician too. Having fashioned an empire so rapidly, now comes the question of how to maintain it. The sources that we have from places like Babylon demonstrate what he's really doing is he's very successfully acclimating himself to the local elites. He's keeping people who are doing good work or at least who are going to be loyal to him in power. He's probably marrying into these royal families or elite families. The Empire runs on a system of vassal kings who owe both loyalty and tribute

to the emperor. Cyrus is regarded as a king of kings and installs a network of satraps, or provincial governors. These local leaders enjoy considerable autonomy, but in return, they must ensure the emperor's concerns are central to their execution of local power so they're really seen as kind of the the eyes the ears and the people protecting the interests of the king and probably also of themselves in that particular structure cyrus dies in 530 bce although the precise details are uncertain. Some accounts have him dying on campaign, perhaps in Central Asia. Others say that he is murdered by a disgruntled wife, or that he passes away peacefully.

But in death his legend grows. In the Hebrew Bible's book of Ezra, he is depicted as liberator of the Jews being held captive in Babylonia. But it is the Greeks who do most to cement his reputation as an ideal monarch, notably Herodotus and especially Xenophon, writing a hundred or more years after his death. Cyrus, king of the world, as he is sometimes called, garners a reputation as merciful and moderate in all things. All of a sudden, what you get is a picture of Cyrus who seems to be unanimously thought of as a good ruler.

And of course, being successful, doing something that had never been done before becomes a paradigm not only for subsequent Persian leaders, but for Greek political thought. And then through the Greek political thought, even into Roman authors, he's still being presented very much in a positive light. Cyrus is succeeded by his son, who takes the royal title Cambyses II. his son, who takes the royal title Cambyses II. His first task, and not a small one, is to consolidate the territorial gains of his father, the creator of the empire. In fact, while Cyrus was fighting in Central Asia, he neglected his western border.

Disquiet has been growing against Persian rule in the regions analogous to modern-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. Taking his army, Cambyses suppresses this dissent, bringing the island of Cyprus into his realm along the way. In order to do so, he achieves something that eluded his father. He builds a successful navy. The Persians now count themselves as masters of the eastern Mediterranean. So Cambyses is kind of more of the same of his father Cyrus. He's building on clearly the military successes. He's clearly doing what Cyrus had done successfully in Mesopotamia, which is acclimating himself to the local elites. In search of even greater glories, Cambyses turns his gaze upon mighty Egypt.

In the spring of 525 BCE, Samtik III has been pharaoh for barely a year when Cambyses decides to strike. His fleet hugs the Palestinian coast on its way to the Nile Delta while his army marches across the Sinai desert with the help of Arabs with whom he has agreed a treaty. His combined forces meet at the frontier town of Pelusium, about 20 miles southeast of modern Port Said. In May it becomes the site of a decisive battle between the Egyptians and the Persians, a short and brutal affair in which the Persians are assisted by the defection of an Egyptian

naval leader. Legend has it that the Persian attack is further strengthened by their decision to carry cats, animals sacred to the Egyptians who fear inflicting injury upon them. It is sadly an apocryphal tale. The remnants of the routed Egyptian army flee for safety behind the monumental white walls of Memphis, but Cambyses takes the city after a short siege. Many of its defenders, including the pharaoh, are butchered, and thousands more enslaved. Memphis is looted, and its wealth transferred to the Persian treasury. Within weeks, Egypt has submitted to Cambyses II.

It's August 525 BCE in the Nile-Delta city of Sais, a jewel in the Egyptian crown. Inside the spectacular chief shrine of Net, the goddess of war and of the loom, the ruler Cambyses lies prostrate on the floor. There is a somber atmosphere inside the ornately decorated room. Intricately carved statues, hewn from the smoothest stone, stare blankly on as holy men and high-ranking officials watch the ritual. The chief priest stands over the prone, bearded king, uttering incantations. Cambyses is here on important business, paying homage to the native deities on one of the most important days of his life. homage to the native deities on one of the most important days of his life.

He has already paraded through the streets, past other grand temples, colossal statues and magnificent royal tombs. Now he submits to Nate, pushing gifts of meat, wine and fragrant lotus flowers towards the altar. Once he has made his offerings, Cambyses gets to his feet and is ushered forward by the priest. He is washed by attendants with water from the city's sacred lake and takes his place on a throne for the next phase of the proceedings. The priest places a crown upon his head, red in color to denote Lower Egypt, then a second, this time white, to represent Upper Egypt. Cambyses recites the pharaonic-style name that has been devised for

him. It expresses that he is the living embodiment of Horus, the sun god, uniting the two lands. of Horus, the sun god, uniting the two lands. He knows there are still many more rituals to go through in the coming days and weeks, but this is the moment when this son of Persia inserts himself into the long line of Egyptian pharaohs. From Nate's temple, he proceeds to a feast. The solemnity of his coronation gives way to revelry. His guests have their fill of wine and mouth-watering food. His military might having proven irresistible,

Cambyses is now on a charm offensive to win local hearts and minds. Not only is he worshipping the local deities and taking an Egyptian name, but he is putting word about that he is in fact the son of an Egyptian princess. Not a conqueror then, but a legitimate heir to the throne. His father Cyrus has been a tough act to follow, but Cambyses is writing his own indelible place into Persian history. And he can drink to that. And then he's able to invade and conquer Egypt, which in of itself is enormous independent kingdom dating back to the Bronze Age.

Bronze Age and in the history of conflicts between Egypt and the Mesopotamian rulers, no one had really successfully been able to control much of the territory. So Cambyses is breaking new ground, not just on Cyrus, but for Near Eastern kings at the time, because he's able to successfully expand into Egypt. The Persians enjoy the fruits of their imperial expansion. Through a mixture of trade, cooperation and coercion, Cambyses and his court can have the best of everything. They have access to gold and silver, they have access to precious stones and resources,

again from Central Asia, from the subcontinent, as well as from Africa, in addition to anything that they're bringing in through trade and commerce. So life at court would have been pretty luxurious. It's a way of showing off your imperial reach and all of the expertise that you can harness, but also creating something that's luxurious, that's its own once unique style, and also very familiar from what kings have been doing in Mesopotamia, in Elam, in Media previously. The court is large,

incorporating the wives and children, not just of the emperor and his immediate family, but a much wider aristocracy. Perhaps harking back to an earlier Persian nomadic tradition, it moves from grand city to grand city. Cambyses oversees impressive engineering projects too. Cambyses oversees impressive engineering projects too The Persians become famous for bringing water to places where it doesn't naturally exist Complex underground irrigation systems are created using terracotta piping So that lush pleasure gardens can thrive on desert plateaus

Each is a show of extraordinary power But with Cambyses spending so long in Egypt, pockets of unrest grow in his Persian heartland. He leaves Egypt in the spring of 522 BCE to avert civil war, but dies on the way home. Just as with his father, rumors abound about his cause of death. In his brief reign he has achieved much, overseeing a period of relative stability, and in bringing Egypt into the fold he has won himself great glory.

But he will not have anything like the reputation of his father. Herodotus will see to that. Writing in the next century, in the midst of prolonged conflict between Persia and his native Greece, a historian depicts him as a brutal dictator in Egypt, who committed incest while in the throes of madness. The true picture is, as ever, much more complex. There may have been marriages made within his family group,

although this is not so unusual for the time, when such matches are frequently used to consolidate power. Still, the allegations will attach themselves to his name for millennia to come, despite the absence of any real corroborating evidence. But in the immediate aftermath of his death, more pressing is the fact that Cambyses leaves behind no viable male heir. A dynastic dispute breaks out, involving his younger brother Bardia and likely several half-brothers.

At one stage, it is alleged that the man purporting to be Bardia is in fact an interloper, Bardiya having been murdered by Cambyses sometime earlier. As ever, in the Persian Empire, it is a claim that gains traction despite the absence of proof. Amid the tumult, an unlikely victor emerges, one of those accusing Cambyses of fratricide. His name is Darius, the son of one of Persia's provincial governors, or satraps. He would have been a distant member of the immediate royal family at that time. For Darius, it's very important that Cambyses has killed his brother, but in all probability, it's probably Darius that did that. And that is one of the ways of discrediting Cambyses

and kind of justifying his own narrative, is that he's able to avenge the legitimate ruler, as it were. As well as deflecting attacks from those who consider him a usurper, Darius also faces significant unrest in the empire. There is a burgeoning civil war in Persia, and further rebellions in Mesopotamia as well as parts of Central Asia and Afghanistan. Yet within a year or two at most, he has suppressed the most serious dissent. He then embarks on a PR campaign, aligning himself with Uhura Mazda,

the godhead of the Zoroastrian religion, which gains new prominence in his Persian heartlands. So he's legitimizing himself in terms of religion, and he presents himself in not that dissimilar to sort of modern strongmen as the defender of the truth and in opposition to the lie. And he says the lie, the pretenders are the people who would accuse him of not being the legitimate ruler. But Darius seemingly has little interest in the sort of merciful rule with which Cyrus has become associated. He wins these brutal military victories. He publicly executes the ringleaders, these kind of would-be king's local rulers. And at the Behiziton Monument, for example, he has himself larger than life, literally trampling on these figures.

on these figures. He marries at least six times, including to Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus and alleged wife of Cambyses. Through these various unions, he integrates himself into a royal household from which he has been an outsider.

He sets about strengthening his frontiers, adding to the conquests of those who came before him. He incorporates regions of northwest India and modern Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and maybe even Romania and Ukraine. And so it's under Darius that we reach really the largest extent of the geographical territory that Persia is going to have. A master administrator, he perfects the organization of the empire into satrapies, areas under the rule of a satrap, and regulating the amount of tribute each owes him. In support of imperial trade and commerce, he standardizes coinage, weights and measures, and develops new land and sea routes, including a canal connecting the Nile River to the Red

Sea. Despite his personal association with Zoroastrianism, he follows the model of Cyrus in respecting indigenous religions where it is to his advantage. While promoting the building and upkeep of temples to Egyptian deities, in 519 BCE he authorizes the Jews to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, after its destruction by the Babylonian invasion earlier in the century. Darius now looks towards Greece to further expand, but his efforts come to nothing after humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon. But there are other magnificent achievements that ensure his

long reign comes to be considered a golden age. He proves the greatest architect of the dynasty, and his most lasting monument is Persepolis, the city of the Persians. The monument is Persepolis, the city of the Persians. And he starts to build Persepolis, probably as a rival to Pasargadae, but also as a means of legitimizing his own power. He refers to it as a fortress. And so it may be that for him, as a usurper, as someone who's come in and asserted his dominance through violence and force in the first instance, that that's something that's important, that it's literally built into the side of a mountain, that it has oversight of the plain. It draws upon the skills

of the greatest engineers and architects of the age. Constructed several thousand feet above sea level and carved out of the base of a mountain, it will be an active construction site for the coming 200 years. Aside from its astonishing buildings, there are spectacular formal gardens and nearby a site for royal tombs. Its role is not primarily administrative, but to serve as a ceremonial capital, a statement to the world about the greatness of Darius and his empire. You have, again, the fusion of Mesopotamian art and culture,

Greek art and culture, indigenous Iranian art and culture, all kind of blended together, and a display of power. display of power. By November 486 BCE, Darius, now in his mid-sixties, is weakening. He has been ill for a month, although exactly what ails him is uncertain. But just days later he is dead. Persia descends into mourning. Men shave their heads and beards, and even crop the manes of their horses. His embalmed body is placed on a chariot, drawn by sixty-four mules and accompanied by a brilliantly attired armed guard. He rests beneath a golden canopy, fringed with bells that toll the mournful procession.

Vast crowds express their grief all along the route. At last, he reaches his final destination, a tomb cut from the rock near Persepolis. He is laid to rest, and the great leader is no more. Once again the throne is up for grabs. In common with other regional powers of the time, the Persians do not operate a system of primogeniture, where the crown automatically passes to the ruler's eldest male heir. Prior to his death, Darius named his successor as Xerxes, not his eldest son, but the eldest son born since his ascent to power. And I think that's one of the reasons why he probably chooses Xerxes as his successor. It has to do with the fact that he is not the eldest son, but that he is the son of Darius and Atossa, who is the daughter of Cyrus.

Despite his elder brother's protestations, Xerxes, already in his thirties, is crowned before the year is out. In the background, Atossa pulls the strings to make sure his accession runs smoothly. She will remain a power behind the throne for the duration of his reign. So you've got figures like the mother of Xerxes, the daughter of Cyrus Atossa, who in the story of Cyrus, you know, and in Darius, Herodotus makes a lot out of her. You know, he presents her as very powerful. She has this role later on as queen mother, and she's seen as this very powerful woman working behind the scenes. Obviously for the Greeks, this is often presented negatively, but it gives us some insight into women in Persia had a lot of power and influence. They could own property and royal women in

particular seem to have had really large estates and control over management. Like his father before him, Xerxes' early reign is concerned with consolidation. There are two serious rebellions that likely started at the very end of Darius' life in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It takes Xerxes the best part of four years to get on top of these. But then his mind moves from stabilization to expansion. And just as his father once did, he has Greece in his sights. For him, the Aegean campaign, the invasion of Greece, is a logical next step. So his father had sent soldiers into the Balkans and into what we think

of as the modern nation state of Greece today. But he hadn't led a campaign there himself. So Xerxes is doing something that his father hadn't done. By 483 BCE, Xerxes is preparing his expedition. He brings together a military force from across the empire, numbering in the tens or maybe hundreds of thousands. There are extraordinary infrastructure projects in support of the invasion including a mile-long canal through the base of mount athos xerxes also orders the construction of two pontoon bridges across the hellespont

the modern-day dardanelles that separates turkey from mainland europe. And again, that in of itself is initially not successful, but when they do successfully bridge the Hellespont, it's a remarkable feat of Persian engineering, and it does facilitate a two-year campaign that he's also able to sustain, which shows his power, right? The ability to mobilize troops from Pakistan, from Egypt, from the furthest limits of his empire, and to have them march into the Greek world is a display of power.

In the spring of 480 BCE, the invasion begins in earnest. Xerxes' troops cross the Hellespont, ready to face the Greek resistance comprising an alliance of several city-states led by Athens and Sparta. The two sides' land forces collide at the Battle of Thermopylae on the east coast of central Greece. At virtually the same time, the navies clash in the Battle of Artesium. After sterling defense for three days by a much smaller Greekreek force at thermopylae the persians gain the upper hand when news reaches the greek naval leaders they too withdraw the path seems set for the persians it's the early hours of the 29th of September, 480 BCE.

On a hillside, the curly-haired figure of Xerxes peers out over a narrow stretch of water. The sea crashes against the coastline of the Strait of Salamis, which separates a small island of the same name from the Greek mainland. It is still dark, but Xerxes has risen early to witness what he hopes will count among the greatest triumphs of his reign. Down beneath him, his armada glides through the cresting waves, preparing to attack. Some of his most trusted advisors have warned him against today's operation. But Xerxes

is confident. Only days ago he led his men into Athens as conquerors of a defeated and virtually deserted city. Even so, he had given the order to raise it, underlining the completeness of their triumph. Many Athenians have fled the short distance to Salamis, and, from a hastily erected shantytown, they have watched as Athens' dense streets of wood and mud brick buildings burn. As the breeze lifts, Xerxes picks up the trace of a scent of smoke from the ruined city just a few miles away. Now, as he watches Salamis

scanning its many bays and coves, a messenger arrives. He carries the latest intelligence about the Greek fleet of triremes, their distinctive ships with billowing sails and several banks of rowers. The first rays of dawn appear, and Xerxes can pick out his navy in greater detail.

In formation, they thrust into the strait, ready to strike their death blow. But something is not right. Even from this distance, he can make out raised voices carrying on the breeze. Then, from the inlets, trireme after trireme accelerate towards the lighter Persian vessels. With their greater knowledge of the local currents and winds, and perhaps fueled by a thirst for vengeance, the Greeks row their heavy ships as if they are mere canoes. The sea froths around them. Xerxes winces as he hears the crash of wood on wood. The Greeks smashing into the side of his fleet.

In the narrow strait, his men have no room for maneuver. They are sitting ducks. The sky fills with the sound of hulls shattering hulls. Xerxes grimaces at the gut-wrenching screams of sailors thrown

into the churning sea. The Persian king is at once transfixed and appalled. He stands unfamiliarly powerless as a third of his navy is destroyed

and the waters he has come here to dominate clog with the corpses of his own men. waters he has come here to dominate, clog with the corpses of his own men. With his fleet devastated, the supply lines to his land troops are sheared, and the invasion, that had seemed unstoppable, gets bogged down. Xerxes withdraws to Asia, and a Persian foray into Greece soon peters out. Over the coming years, the Greeks even drive them from their Aegean and Ionian bases. To Greek chroniclers, it is a momentous victory.

But whether it is a correspondingly crushing blow to Xerxes is debatable. It's often presented as a loss for Xerxes from that perspective, that he loses control of territory that had been part of Persia from Cyrus Cambyses and Darius. The other way of looking at it from a Persian perspective is that the Greek cities are not necessarily worth holding on to directly. They're a frontier group. You know, they're very far away from the heartland of the Persian Empire. So we don't know what the reaction in Persia was, but the fact that he's able to do something that neither his father nor their predecessors had done in terms of going to a new place, to bringing Persian armies to the Greek world, to bring back spoils from the

destroyed Greek cities. There are ways to present that invasion as a success. Back in Persia, Xerxes devotes himself to the completion of major building projects, left unfinished by his predecessors, especially in Persepolis and an important administrative center in Susa. His court, though, is riven by intrigue. In August 465 BCE, the plotting comes to a head when Xerxes is murdered, apparently in his bed at the hands of a royal bodyguard, scandalously aided and abetted by a eunuch. History will judge Xerxes harshly for his perceived failures in Greece,

especially when compared to the spectacular expansion of the empire's borders overseen by his father Darius. But that is perhaps not how Xerxes' reign is best evaluated. You see less of an emphasis after Darius on expansion and more of an emphasis on consolidation and control of what is a really huge multinational, multi-ethnic, with diverging interests at times, state. Keeping the disparate forces within the empire in check

rather than looking to increase its reach becomes the primary concern of Xerxes' successor, Artaxerxes, and his successors. Our perception of the empire is also shaped by a change in the nature of the historical sources that communicate the story of this era. There is suddenly a big gap in records like the Babylonian Chronicles that might have been more sympathetic to the Persians. The narrative is dictated by Greco-Roman historians, with good reason to decry their Persian enemy. Their take on the story is one of slow decline, but the reality is rather different. The archaeological record, for instance, shows that Persepolis continues to expand in the decades following Xerxes' death. So another way of thinking about it is that Persia transitions from a period of rapid

expansion and now is entering a period of consolidation and control. And they're starting to reap the benefits of that administrative system that's been brought in. The provinces continue to be sort of divided and to be manned by satraps. But tribute is coming in. The Persians are controlling the Levant and trade into the Mediterranean world. They're controlling trade down from Mesopotamia and the Tigris and Euphrates leading into the Persian Gulf and therefore into India. And they're benefiting from trade probably into the wider African continent through existing traditional links through Egypt. So Persia is doing remarkably well.

Where earlier Persian kings had been eager to invade Greece and Europe, their descendants adopt a different approach. In the Peloponnesian War, which rages between Sparta and Athens for decades, both sides seek alliance with their superpower neighbor. Persia opts to back Sparta, providing it with the resources to win. Sparta, providing it with the resources to win. In 405 BCE, Artaxerxes II begins a 47-year reign, the longest of any Persian king. Now that Sparta has asserted its dominance in Greece, the Persian strategy changes again. Artaxerxes plays the Athenians off against the Spartans, helping to rebuild the Athenian fleet and its city defenses.

And so what they're really doing is they're now entering a different phase of control and manipulation, in which essentially they're playing the role of the puppet master, and they're interfering through diplomacy and economic interference in the Greek cities. So they're saying, okay, direct control is either not in our interest or not something that we want to pursue, but they have a tremendous amount of indirect influence, the same way that many kind of contemporary superpowers are using economic aid or diplomacy.

In 387 BCE, Artaxerxes forces through a treaty known as the King's Peace that brings to an end the Corinthian War between Sparta and various other city-states. It imposes an era-defining ceasefire on Greece and secures Persian control of Ionia and sections of the Aegean from where it had earlier been pushed out. Not bad for an empire supposedly on the decline. However, like many Persian kings before him, Artaxerxes is dogged by dangerous revolts and internal discontent. But it is scheming within his own royal court that poses the greatest threat.

scheming within his own royal court that poses the greatest threat. The dynastic chaos around the end of his life is enough to rival any fiction. Artaxerxes chooses his son Darius as his heir, but then executes him for treason. Another son, Ariaspes, is driven to suicide by his own brother, Occus, who promptly slaughters the next brother in line for good measure. When his father dies, around 358 BCE, Occus is crowned as Artaxerxes III, an occasion he marks by massacring most of the remaining royal family. He manages to survive 20 years before being murdered. His son succeeds him, but survives just two years before he is also poisoned,

at which point his cousin takes the crown, the third king after two regicides in two years. Just as this Darius III is coming to the throne, there is a new king in faraway Macedonia. An impressive young man by the name of Alexander, he too follows an assassinated king, his father Philip II. If we start to look at Macedonia and Persia side by side, there's something really remarkable happens, which is there's dynastic instability on both sides. Darius has to assert his control over it. He's not an immediate member of the traditional royal family. And there's a question of how much stability is there if you have not one but two rulers assassinated in a two-year span of time. And Alexander is able to take advantage of that fact.

After a couple of years dealing with domestic issues and securing his own borders, the ambitious young Macedonian sets out to conquer the Persian Empire. The first major battle between the two sides occurs at Granicus in Asia Minor, with Alexander notching up an important victory. According to some accounts, not without good fortune. The Greek sources are fond of this. He has luck on his side. He almost dies very quickly at the battle at Granicus River. We're told that a Persian soldier brings down an axe on Alexander's head, but he's wearing a helmet, which is actually something that's not guaranteed.

Alexander marches his force deep into Persian territory, taking city after city. He is a master tactician, adopting strategic innovations and always quick to move. But there is a mismatch in hardware, too. The Macedonians are well-armored and carry frightening spears several meters in length. In contrast, the Persians have no such protection nor such formidable weapons. In November 333 BCE, Darius himself comes face to face with his foe for the first time at the Battle of Issus near the border of what is now Turkey and Syria. Alexander scores another devastating victory.

The Macedonian leader proceeds to pick off Syria and the Levant, and Egypt soon falls to his irresistible advance too. Then it's onward, through Assyria to Mesopotamia, where a final encounter between Darius and Alexander takes place at the Battle of Gaugamela in modern-day Kurdistan. Here Alexander's men triumph again, despite being heavily outnumbered. Darius flees the battlefield in a last-ditch bid to regroup. But the sands of time are running out for him. A faction of his own high-ranking officials, led by a prince named Bessus, conspire to remove him from power.

They push him into an ox cart as they decide what to do with him. Meanwhile, Alexander is in hot pursuit, determined to capture the great Persian leader alive. Bound in his humble wagon, Darius knows the endgame is at hand. Before Alexander can get to him, his own men snuff out his life. Bessus assumes the mantle of Persian king and continues the fight against Alexander, but it is a forlorn task. Alexander, however, is made to work for his glory. So as Alexander goes into the eastern portions of the empire, into Central Asia, into what we think of today as Afghanistan, he becomes not the last by any means to get bogged down in

the fighting there. It's in places in Central Asia and in Pakistan where Alexander has to be more violent and more extreme in his campaigns because he gets the fiercest resistance there. And it takes him years, really the rest of his reign. And it's really only through, again, successful marriage alliances and diplomacy and extreme violence that Alexander is able to finally subdue the last resistance to the Persians. In 330 BCE, Alexander permits his men to ravage Persepolis. The following year, Bessus falls into the hands of the Macedonians and is flogged, mutilated, and finally put to death. An ignoble end for the last of the Persian emperors.

Taking inspiration from the likes of Cyrus and Darius, Alexander adopts many aspects of their administrative management of the Empire. He makes sure to give Darius III an honorable burial, too, and encourages his men to marry into aristocratic Persian families. But his time as the leader of the Persian Empire the Achaemenids built is limited. In 329 BCE, he too dies in disputed circumstances. After Alexander, the empire quickly breaks up. But one of his generals establishes a successor, the Seleucid Empire,

that comes to encompass large swathes of the old Persian Empire. It continues the imposition of Greek culture, started by Alexander, but the Parthian and Sasanian empires which succeed it revive some of the older Persian traditions. The empire that Cyrus the Great built as an Achaemenid king provides at least a partial blueprint for these new powers. While it is true that the memory of the first Persian Empire fades in the later Islamic period, it will achieve a new prominence in the 20th century against the backdrop of rising Persian-Iranian nationalism, an opportunity to reconsider this remarkable early superpower and its place in global history.

It's really only in the 20th century, and in particular with the nation building that takes place even after the Second World War and the last Shah of Iran, that you get a lot of looking back nostalgically to the Achaemenids, looking back to Cyrus in the ability to try and create this narrative of 2,500 years of continuous kingship. Certainly in 20th century politics and geopolitics, that was seen as a way of linking Iran with Europe. And it's kind of also a way of saying fairly, right, that Iran is a player on the world stage, that it has a role to play in the history of the world

and in the history of civilization. Next time on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of Princess Diana. I think there was something about Diana that was timeless. She was this very, very appealing, heady combination of seriously old school, hierarchical, timeless, aristocratic, crossed with contemporary, modern, unpredictable celebrity. And that was dynamite, absolute dynamite. And it literally blew apart the royal family. That's next time.