Cyrus the Great and the first Persian Empire
Cyrus the Great unites the Medes and Persians and conquers Babylon, founding the Achaemenid Empire, which stretches from the Aegean to the Indus until Alexander destroys it.
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
- Cyrus iii. Cyrus II the Great — Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1993)
- The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon — Irving Finkel (ed.), I.B. Tauris (2013)
- The Cyrus Cylinder — British Museum
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
In the sixth century BCE the Persians were a people of the south-west of today’s Iran, in the region still called Fars (from which “Persia” comes), subject to the Medes. Around 550 BCE a Persian king, Cyrus, son of Cambyses, defeated the Median king Astyages and took over his realm.
- Cyrus iii. Cyrus II the Great — Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1993)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
An empire in a generation
What followed was one of the fastest empire-building careers in history. Cyrus conquered Lydia in Anatolia, home of the fabulously rich Croesus, in the 540s, then the Greek cities of the Ionian coast. In October 539 BCE his army entered Babylon, the greatest city of the age, apparently with little fighting. He died in 530 BCE campaigning in Central Asia and was buried in a simple stone tomb at Pasargadae, which still stands.
- Cyrus iii. Cyrus II the Great — Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1993)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
His successors went further. His son Cambyses took Egypt. Darius I (522–486 BCE) reorganised the empire into provinces (satrapies), built a royal road, standardised coinage, and began the ceremonial palace city of Persepolis, whose reliefs show delegations from across the empire, Ethiopians, Indians, Lydians, Scythians, bringing gifts. At its height the empire ran from Libya and the Aegean to the Indus, perhaps the largest the world had seen.
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
A different kind of empire
The Achaemenids ruled through local elites and largely left subject peoples their own languages, laws and gods. The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay cylinder found in Babylon in 1879 and now in the British Museum, records Cyrus restoring sanctuaries and returning displaced peoples to their homes.
- The Cyrus Cylinder — British Museum
- The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon — Irving Finkel (ed.), I.B. Tauris (2013)
- Cyrus iii. Cyrus II the Great — Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1993)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
Historians caution against seeing this as modern tolerance: it was a smart way to rule a vast, diverse empire, and the Achaemenids crushed revolts brutally when they had to. The Cylinder itself, in the style of Babylonian royal inscriptions, has Cyrus chosen by Babylon’s god Marduk.
- The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon — Irving Finkel (ed.), I.B. Tauris (2013)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
The Greek view, and the end
Westerners mostly met the Persians through the Greeks, as the enemy at Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis. The image of despotic, decadent Persia against free Greece, repeated in films like 300, irritates many Iranians, who note that Greek writers such as Xenophon also admired Cyrus.
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
- Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices — Mary Boyce, Routledge (1979)
The long afterlife
The Achaemenid memory was dimmed for centuries; medieval Persians knew more of the legendary kings of the Shahnameh than of Cyrus. It was revived by archaeology and by twentieth-century nationalism. In 1971 Mohammad Reza Shah held a lavish celebration of “2,500 years of the Persian monarchy” at Persepolis, addressing Cyrus at his tomb, an extravagance many Iranians resented and the revolution later mocked.
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
- A History of Modern Iran — Ervand Abrahamian, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Modern Iran since 1797: Reform and Revolution — Ali M. Ansari, Routledge (2019)
- Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic — Michael Axworthy, Oxford University Press (2013)
Cyrus was a just and tolerant king who freed the Jews from Babylon and respected every people's gods. The Cyrus Cylinder, a replica of which stands at the United Nations, is often called the "first charter of human rights", a phrase the last Shah popularised in 1971.
- The Cyrus Cylinder — British Museum
- A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind — Michael Axworthy, Basic Books (2008)
The Cylinder is a Babylonian-style building inscription and piece of royal propaganda, in which Cyrus claims the Babylonian god Marduk chose him. It does describe restoring temples and returning deported peoples, and the policy was unusually pragmatic for its time, but calling it a human rights declaration reads modern ideas into it.
- The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon — Irving Finkel (ed.), I.B. Tauris (2013)
- From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire — Pierre Briant, Eisenbrauns (2002)
- Cyrus iii. Cyrus II the Great — Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Encyclopaedia Iranica (1993)
Early revolutionaries scorned the pre-Islamic kings as symbols of the Shah's monarchy, and some wanted Persepolis neglected. Official attitudes later softened into presenting it as national heritage, but large gatherings at Cyrus's tomb have been restricted.
- Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic — Michael Axworthy, Oxford University Press (2013)
- Modern Iran since 1797: Reform and Revolution — Ali M. Ansari, Routledge (2019)
Why it matters today
The Achaemenids give Iranians a sense of having been a great civilisation for 2,500 years, long before Islam. Cyrus is a national hero, especially for secular Iranians and the diaspora, and his reputation for tolerance is a quiet rebuke to rulers they dislike. Persepolis and Pasargadae are places of pride, and crowds have gathered at Cyrus's tomb on 29 October, now dubbed "Cyrus Day", despite official discouragement.