Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE

by Matt Waters

  A partially preserved statue of Darius, crafted in the Egyptian style but found near a monumental gate in Susa, offers insight into Darius’ rule and representation in Egypt (Figure 5.2). It stood about 10 feet tall on a pedestal and survived intact up to the chest. One of the folds of Darius’ garment has a short inscription in Elamite, Akkadian, and Old Persian versions. The inscription invokes Ahuramazda, celebrates Darius’ victory in Egypt, and contains Persian and Babylonian royal titles. A much longer hieroglyphic inscription on the garment’s right folds and base is done in the traditional Egyptian manner. Darius assumes Egyptian titles (e.g., “King of Upper and Lower Egypt) and incorporates Egyptian imagery. The text sets Darius firmly in Egyptian tradition by linking the king with the Egyptian gods Re and Atum of Heliopolis. The central image of the base shows the tying of the Egyptian knot – a centuries-old symbol of Egyptian unification (Upper and Lower Egypt). The subject peoples of the Empire, identified by hieroglyphic captions, are all portrayed in the Egyptian style and actually hold up the pedestal on which the statue of Darius stands. Clearly Darius, like Cambyses, understood the importance of portraying himself as a right and proper Egyptian king in that tradition.

  Figure 5.2 Darius Statue, Susa. Courtesy of the French Mission at Susa, dir. J. Perrot.

  Darius also undertook major construction work in Egypt that included the digging of a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, an act commemorated by four inscribed stelae. The best preserved is from a place called Kabret, roughly 80 miles north of Suez. It includes a typical Egyptian image: royal figures facing each other, but here with Persian dress and crowns, underneath a winged disk.5 The text contains a succinct statement taking responsibility for the building of the canal, which had been a major undertaking. Herodotus indicates (2.158) that it had been started by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho roughly a century earlier, but it was brought to completion by Darius.

  The Scythian-Danube Expedition

  Darius also campaigned against a group of Scythians in southeastern Europe, in the Danube and Black Sea regions. Herodotus is our main source. This region’s proximity to Ionia and Greece, and heavy Greek settlement in the area, meant that the Persian activity there was much closer to home for the Greeks. There were undoubtedly many Greek stories circulating about the expedition several decades later during Herodotus’ time. But Herodotus was more interested in Scythian customs and way-of-life. Most historians date the campaign sometime in the later 510s BCE. Details of the military campaign are sparse, and interpretations of its significance vary widely.

  The main logistical challenge involved the crossing of the Bosporus – the narrow strait between the northern tip of the Propontis (modern Sea of Marmara) to the Black Sea – by means of a pontoon bridge. Such a feat required massive resources, engineering skill, and will. This crossing was both precedent for and parallel to Xerxes’ more famous crossing of the Hellespont preceding his invasion of Greece in 480. Herodotus was not able to locate Darius’ crossing precisely, but to his reckoning it was roughly in the middle of the strait; Darius left inscribed stelae to commemorate the occasion (4.87), but these have not been found. Darius also directed his fleet to sail to the Ister (the Danube) via the Black Sea and to build a bridge for his army there. We have no clear statement of Darius’ objectives, whether they involved additional conquest or a display of Persian might in a distant land, or both. Herodotus’ contention – that Darius sought vengeance for Scythian depredations against the Medes roughly one hundred years previous – seems a stretch. But because in the late 330s BCE Alexander the Great cast himself as taking revenge for Xerxes’ invasion roughly 150 years before him, we perhaps should not reject such propagandistic claims out of hand. Herodotus judged the campaign a failure, because Darius ultimately withdrew, but a more sober assessment of his possible objectives, and a consideration of his subsequent moves, tempers that negative judgment.

  Herodotus’ concludes his account of the Scythian campaign with Darius’ ordering one of his generals, Megabazus, to subjugate Thrace, that is, southeastern Europe (4.143). His terse account relates Megabazus moving through Thrace and subjugating all the peoples in the area. Not nearly as entertaining as his ethnographic observations on the Scythian campaign, Herodotus’ brief report on Megabazus still offers important details about Persian military ambitions. In the lists of conquered peoples and territories included in some royal inscriptions (see Figure 6.2, p. 97), this area was called in Old Persian Skudra.6 The Persians held this territory, or parts of it, for some time – apparently even after Xerxes’ campaign against Greece in 480–479. In his Life of Alexander (36.4), Plutarch quotes the fourth-century historian Deinon, who noted that the Persians kept water from the Nile and the Danube in their treasury, manifest symbols of their dominion.

  Darius pushed the frontiers of his empire in every direction from Persia: northeast (Skunkha and the “pointed-cap” Scythians), southeast (the Indus River region), southwest (Libya), and northwest (Thrace). The Persian Empire at its territorial height thus comprised territories stretching from the Aral Sea and the western edge of the Himalayas (Central Asia) to the Sahara (Africa), and from the Indus River Valley (Indian subcontinent) to the Danube (southeastern Europe) – the first world empire, indeed. Darius demarcates its boundaries in trilingual inscriptions from Persepolis (DPh) and Ecbatana (DH).

  Darius the King proclaims: This is the kingdom that I hold: from the Scythians

  who are beyond Sogdiana all the way to Kush, from Hidush all the way to Sardis, which Ahuramazda, greatest of the gods, granted me.

  (DPh §2)

  Sogdiana is in the extreme northeast of the Empire, so the inscription refers to the Scythians of Central Asia. Kush refers to Nubia (the Sudan), and Hidush the Indus Valley. The satrapal seat at Sardis controlled the northwestern territories.

  Darius and the Aegean Periphery

  As noted above, when Darius returned from his Scythian campaign he left Megabazus in charge of subjecting the rest of Thrace, a geographic area encompassing parts of modern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and the European portion of Turkey. Persian military activity there gives the impression of long-term, strategic planning. Thrace was a region rich in raw materials, especially timber and precious metals, and also manpower (Hdt. 5.23), of interest not only to the Persians but also to Macedonia and Athens. Details on Megabazus’ campaigns are thin, but reading between the lines in Herodotus indicates that the Persians took a systematic approach to establishing forts and supply depots.

  At Darius’ command Megabazus also subjugated and deported a group of peoples called the Paeonians, who dwelled in the areas north of Macedonia. Herodotus’ story (5.14–15) of how Megabazus outflanked the Paeonians with help from guides from Thrace reveals a common-sense approach: the incorporation of local assistance. Megabazus then sent envoys to Macedonia, where they received earth and water, standard tokens of submission (see pp. 123–125), from the Macedonian king, Amyntas. This made Macedon a vassal kingdom (5.17–18), though Herodotus relays an incredible tale circulating in his day to counter the Macedonian submission to the Persian king’s authority. Amyntas supposedly entertained the Persian envoys at a lavish feast, during which the increasingly intoxicated Persians demanded to see, and then sit with, the Macedonian royal women. The Persians could not keep their hands off the women, and the situation escalated. Amyntas’ son, Alexander (the subsequent King Alexander I), then persuaded the Persian delegation into believing that these women would be available for sex with them. Instead, however, Alexander and his cohorts dressed themselves as women, went to the drunken and lecherous Persians, and killed them all. Herodotus notes that when other Persians came seeking their countrymen, Alexander bought them off and married his sister Gygaea to the leader of the search party, a certain Bubares. This story shows Herodotus at his entertaining and frustrating best. Scholars give little credence to the story of the Persian party massacre – one always must consider how such tales originate7 – but a marriage alliance between the Macedo
nian royal family and a Persian nobleman is credible enough. Such diplomatic marriages were one way in which ties between Persians and their subjects were reinforced.

  Darius solidified his hold in Ionia, Thrace, and the Aegean Islands through appointments of Greek natives as city rulers, the so-called tyrants. The Greek term tyrannos was used for a ruler who came to power through illegal means, independent of whether that ruler himself was considered a good ruler or bad. Over time the term tyrannos came to have generally negative connotations, though, as does its English derivative “tyrant” – its use herein reflects the original Greek connotation. These men included Coës of Mytilene and Histiaeus of Miletus, the latter of whom was also given control of territory in Thrace along the Strymon River. The mainland Greeks come into increasingly sharp focus during the late sixth century as well. For those Greeks who were paying attention, Persian expansion in the northern Aegean must have created some unease – and, in some cases, opportunity. The tyrant of Athens, Hippias (son of the famous Peisistratus), fled to Darius sometime after his exile in 510. Subsequent political infighting in Athens, with one faction receiving Spartan support, led to involvement with the Persian Empire that had major ramifications for subsequent Athenian and Greek history.

  In 507, the Athenian faction not supported by the Spartans sent an embassy to Artaphernes, the satrap in Sardis and Darius’ brother. Artaphernes’ question – “Who are these people?” – is a recurring motif in Herodotus. Herodotus’ message here, reflective of his work’s main focus on the Greek resistance to Xerxes’ invasion in 480, is that the Persians would know soon all about these people, the Greeks. The Persians at this juncture in Herodotus’ narrative had no knowledge of the Athenians, and when they (or other mainland Greeks) appeared before the Persians they were curiosities. Artaphernes’ response was straightforward. If the Athenians wished the support of the King, they must offer earth and water, an act that manifested submission to the King. Herodotus’ account then becomes quite terse, and scholars debate the historical significance of this episode. The Athenians agreed to give earth and water – Herodotus does not expressly say that they did do so, but that is the implication – and then returned home, where they were censured for their behavior (5.73). There may be some revisionist history here, more than fifty years after the Artaphernes affair and more than thirty after Xerxes’ invasion. Athens had been a leader in the fight against Xerxes and, during Herodotus’ time, was at the height of its power in the Aegean, often at Persian expense. Athens leading the Greek fighting against Persia in the mid-fifth century did not fit well with an Athens submitting to the King even two generations earlier.

  For some historians, interpretation of the embassy to Artaphernes in 507 impacts the analysis of all subsequent Athenian action vis-à-vis Persia. If the Athenian embassy offered earth and water as Artaphernes demanded, the Persians would conclude that Athens was subject. The exact expectations on both sides of the arrangement are nowhere described, but it is beyond doubt that in any such exchange the Persians were the dominant party. The Persians appeared to view the offering of earth and water both as a diplomatic agreement and also a solemn oath. Breaking the bond was an insult, and it required the King to respond. Athens broke it.

  The Ionian Revolt

  Persian expansion in Thrace was accompanied by operations in the Aegean Islands. As we have seen, Persian-supported tyrants ruled in several places, including the island of Samos. A failed campaign against the island of Naxos (in the middle of the Aegean, west in a line from Halicarnassus in Ionia) served as a catalyst for a wider revolt, or series of revolts, between 499 and 494 BCE. Herodotus devotes a great deal of space to the preliminaries of the revolt – more than to the course of the revolt itself. For him it was the main precursor to Xerxes’ campaign against the Greek mainland in 480–479.

  In Herodotus’ portrayal, the revolt ultimately stemmed from the misadventures of one man, Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus and nephew of Histiaeus. Aristagoras convinced the satrap Artaphernes to sponsor a campaign against Naxos, once approval from the King had been granted. A certain Megabates, Artaphernes’ cousin (Hdt. 5.32), was appointed commander of the Persian forces, supported with troops supplied by Aristagoras. A quarrel between Megabates and Aristagoras resulted in the former betraying their plans to the Naxians and thus sabotaging the expedition – a charge so ridiculous that no one takes it seriously. Finding himself on the outs with both Megabates and Artaphernes, Aristagoras decided to revolt. He was supported by a secret message from his uncle Histiaeus in Susa, who was seeking an excuse to return home and hoped that Darius would give him a command. Aristagoras convinced several other Ionian cities to rebel. Seeking powerful allies, Aristogoras then visited the Greek mainland. His attempt to convince Sparta to support him failed, but he was successful in garnering ships and men from Athens and from the city of Eretria on the island of Euboea, just off the eastern coast of Attic peninsula.

  Herodotus portrays his fellow Ionians as a hapless group and, by extension, downplays the significance and spread of the revolt. Even in a tradition that framed great events around personal desires or vendettas, Herodotus overemphasizes too much the personal here. Most historians do not give much credence to Aristagoras’ singular role in initiating the revolt, identifying the causes rather in economic or other factors, such as the oppressiveness of Persian-supported tyrants. Any one of these is hard (if not impossible) to substantiate with our current evidence. Save for one tantalizing reference in an administrative document from Persepolis – a record of rations given to a certain Datiya traveling on royal business between Sardis and Persepolis in 494 BCE, perhaps in conjunction with the final phases of the revolt – we lack Persian sources that would offer a different perspective.8 A number of Carian and other non-Greek cities in southwestern Anatolia also revolted, as did the island of Cyprus, a key Persian possession in the eastern Mediterranean (5.108–116). These areas were reconquered relatively quickly, especially Cyprus: its strategic importance made it a greater priority for the Persians.

  Regardless of how much responsibility Aristogoras may have had (or not) in starting it, the revolt was not a one-man show. Aristagoras, supposedly fearing Darius’s reaction, fled to Thrace where he died. The rebellion did not seem to miss him, because it took the Persians more than five years to quell it. After Aristagoras’ death, Histiaeus, Darius’ former favorite and Aristogoras’ uncle, successfully schemed for his return to Ionia from Susa. Artaphernes in the meantime had discovered that Histiaeus encouraged Aristagoras to revolt, but Histiaeus escaped to the Hellespont before Artaphernes could harm him. In a curious aside, Herodotus notes that Histiaeus had communications with several Persians in Sardis who supported the revolt (6.4). Artaphernes discovered this treason and tricked Histiaeus’ supporters into revealing their true stripes, so that they were put to death. Histiaeus himself was captured later, after the fall of Miletus, and impaled – the standard punishment for rebels.

  The rebels’ success was initially spectacular, though short-lived. Much of the capital of Sardis was burned during a surprise attack, including the sanctuary to the goddess Cybele (5.102). This act rebounded upon the Greeks later, when Xerxes destroyed many Greek temples. Although the Athenians withdrew after this initial success, Herodotus emphasizes their involvement in an anecdote that heightens the tension between Persia and Athens (5.105). When Darius heard the news of the burning of Sardis, his initial reaction was to dismiss the Ionians, because they would soon be brought to heel. But he asked who the Athenians were, just as Artaphernes had done previously. Once informed, Darius, swearing vengeance upon Athens, took his bow and shot an arrow into the sky. He then instructed a servant to repeat to him three times at every meal, “My lord, remember the Athenians” – an anecdote with great entertainment value.

  The Ionian rebels took control of the Hellespont, the shipping lane from the Black Sea to the Aegean, and aided the Cypriots in their rebellion. The strategic value of both these places shows what was at stak
e: control of the northwestern territories of the Empire. In response, the Persians were methodical and ruthless, and they did not discriminate. Each city-state was dealt with individually. In some, the previous tyrants or suitable successors were restored to power; in others democratic governments were left unmolested. The most important factor was a willingness to adhere to Persian authority. By 494 the Persians were focusing their efforts on Miletus itself, the seat of the revolt. A great sea battle at Lade, off the coast of Miletus, resulted in a Persian victory, abetted by the defections of many Ionian ships. Persian efforts to splinter the Ionian alliance had been successful. After the victory, Miletus was besieged and ultimately sacked; its inhabitants were sold into slavery or deported, and its main sanctuary at nearby Didyma was burned.

  Mop-up operations continued through the following year (493 BCE) as the Persians reasserted their authority throughout Ionia. They carried through on threats made earlier, before Lade, for those who did not submit. Select girls were sent to the royal court, boys were made into eunuchs. Many cities and sanctuaries were burned – as express punishment for the rebels’ assault on Sardis – and Ionia was, as Herodotus put it, enslaved a third time (6.32): the first by the Lydians, the second by Cyrus, and the third now by Darius. The Persian response was not only military. The satrap Artaphernes subsequently undertook an administrative reorganization of all of Ionia (6.42). This included the establishment of boundaries, the fixing of tribute, and the creation of a system in which disputes were subject to arbitration. Herodotus mentions these acts with approval and notes that they minimized the quarreling among the inhabitants of Ionia and established a lasting stability.