CYRUS THE GREAT
Cyrus the Great is generally regarded as the first Persian king, or Shah. He began as a ruler of a small kingdom. Over a ten year period between 559 and 549 B.C. he united the various Persian tribes and conquered the Medes to create the Persian Empire. Said to have been of humble origins, he was regarded as both a great warrior and a just statesman, who treated his subjects and enemies with compassion.
According to a semi-mythical story retold by Herodotus Cyrus had an Oedipus-like childhood. He was condemned to exposure as a baby but returned as a young man to seek revenge against all those who wronged him. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylonia, defeating the declining Neo-Babylonians with relative ease, released the Jews from captivity, and slowly expanded westward across Asia Minor. The Persian and Medes warriors under his command were skilled charioteers and fighters. They carried out light, hide-covered shields and fought with bows and arrows. They relied on speed, quick attacks and luring armed opponents within range of their arrow attacks.
Cyrus the Great’s Conquests
Cyrus the Great won Assyria by defeating the Medes. He conquered Lydia, ruled by King Croesus, in 546 B.C. This gave him possession of much of Asia Minor. Babylon was ruled by the Chaldean Empire, who had enslaved the Jews. The Chaldeans gave up Babylon without a fight in 539 B.C. Cyrus thus claimed the ancient city and acquired Palestine. He allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. With his empire in the Middle East secure, Cyrus the Great turned his attention to the east. He extended the border of his empire into India. Among the early kingdoms to fall was exotic Massagetae, which did not have much experience with wine and were easily subdued after they were all gotten drunk. Over the next 60 years, Cyrus and his successors Cambyses (ruled 530-522 B.C.) and Darius I swept north, east and west to expand the Persian Empire. Cambyses was Cyrus’s son. He captured weak Egypt in short campaign and was regarded a cruel tyrant. See Egyptians
Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: ““Cyrus became king of Anshan in 559, and Astyages, cognizant of Cyrus' intention to revolt, prepared to attack. A rebellion within his army frustrated Astyages' plans, and by 550 Cyrus was in control of the Persian-Mede empire and was beginning a series of brilliant military maneuvers. Nabonidus, fearful of Cyrus' power, entered into alliances with Croesus of Lydia in Asia Minor (560-546) and with Amasis of Egypt (569-525). Cyrus moved across northern Mesopotamia, removed Syria from Babylonian control, and disregarding the usual military practice whereby hostilities ceased during the winter months, attacked Croesus in his winter palace at Sardis and made Lydia part of his kingdom. The Babylonian-Egyptian pact was dissolved. Cyrus conquered Afghanistan and prepared to move on Babylonia. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]
Cyrus “Babylon was ready for Cyrus. Fifth columnists had been at work spreading pro-Persian propaganda. Babylonians, irritated by Nabonidus' long absence in the desert and troubled by the monarch's religious deviations, were willing to heed reports about the liberal-minded Persian. It is not impossible that the subversive work reached into the Jewish community.6 The Persians entered Babylon without battle. According to the Cyrus cylinder,7 Cyrus came at the invitation of Marduk who, angry with Nabonidus, searched for a righteous man and pronounced the name of Cyrus, commanding the Persian king to assume control of the land (cf. Isa. 45:4).8 Cyrus records that his army strolled toward Babylon, weapons sheathed, welcomed by the entire countryside. Upon taking control of the city, he forbade plunder by his troops, began a program of urban renewal, permitted captive peoples to return home, restored sanctuaries and returned sacred implements to their respective shrines. Cyrus speaks of himself as a worshipper of Bel-Marduk.9 Whether or not he was a follower of the prophet Zoroaster cannot be known for sure, but some parts of Isaiah have been compared with the religious documents of Zoroastrian faith, known as the Gathas, and parallels suggesting dependence have been noted, but the evidence is still subjudice.
Cyrus was killed in India in 529 B.C. fighting eastern nomadic tribesmen. He died after an ill-advised crossing of the river Araxes, considered the boundary between the Near East and the Far East (Asia) and was buried in a tomb in his capital, Pasargadae, The ruins of the tomb remain today.
Cyrus the Great, the Father of Human Rights?
Some have called Cyrus the Great a pioneer of ideas about freedom and human rights. Before the classical Greeks developed their form of democracy, he not only freed the Jews enslaved in Babylonia in 539 B.C. he let them to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Cyrus is also credited with establishing what has been called the world’s first religiously and culturally tolerant empire, More than 23 different peoples coexisted peacefully under a central government, originally based in Pasargadae.
The Chaldeans gave up Babylon without a fight in 539 B.C. to the Persian king Cyrus, who acquired Palestine and allowed the Jews to return their homeland and rebuild their temple. For 200 years the Jews lived under Persian rule. A religious revival occurred under prophet Ezra and the Persian Jewish leader Nehemiah.
Herodotus tells one story about Cyrus the Great and a dog. About 550 B.C. Cyrus received a large mastiff from the King of Albania as a gift. To test its fighting ability Cyrus puts the dog up against another dog and then a bull, which the mastiff show no interest in fighting. In disgust Cyrus ordered the mastiff killed, When news of this got back to the King of Albania he sent another mastiff with the message that this dog was no ordinary cur and took no notice of common creatures such as Persian dogs or bulls. He urged Cyrus to come up with a worthy opponent such as a lion or elephant. The king of Albania concluded by saying that mastiffs were rare and royal gifts and he would not send another. Cyrus then pitted the new mastiff against an elephant. The dog attacked with such furry and efficiency Herodotus wrote, the elephant was brought down to ground and would have been killed by the dog if someone hadn’t intervened.
Cyrus cylinder
Cyrus Cylinder, the Earliest Written Bill of Rights
The Cyrus Cylinder — perhaps Iran’s most important artifact — is a decree that has been described as the charter of human rights — predating the Magna Carta by nearly two millennia. Resembling a corncob made of clay and housed in the British Museum in London, with a replica at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, it banned slavery and oppression of any kind, outlawed the taking of property by force or without compensation and gave member states the right to subject themselves to Cyrus’s crown, or not. In cuneiform it reads: “I never resolve on war to reign.”
The Cyrus Cylinder is about the size of a rugby ball. Ben Hoyle wrote in The Times, “The Cylinder was made after Cyrus, King of Persia, conquered the city-state of Babylon — ancient kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar — in 539 B.C. It records, in intricate gouged cuneiform script, his decree that the peoples whom the Babylonian kings had enslaved and deported should be allowed to return home, and it proclaims the rights of all worshippers to honour their different gods.[Source: Ben Hoyle, The Times, April 18, 2011]
Cyrus's move proved to be a stroke of political genius. This tolerant approach secured the loyalty of conquered peoples across the Persian empire and it won for Cyrus the admiration of history: in 18th-century Europe, he was still held up as the model enlightened ruler. Critically, Cyrus's decree allowed the Jews deported by Nebuchadnezzar to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. It is recorded with gratitude in the Old Testament. The Cylinder is the fullest surviving version of this historic proclamation, which transformed the Middle East.
When the Cyrus Cylinder was loaned by the British Museum to the National Museum of Iran in Tehran more than one million people paid to see it, more than for any loan exhibition in the UK since the Treasures of Tutankhamun came to London in 1972. Visitors on the final day said that everyone they knew had already been at least once. Most spoke of it in terms of "human rights". One young artist said: "It is so important for us that 2,500 years ago we had human rights in our country. We get very emotional about this. Government and people are separate. Government think one thing and the people something else."
Cambyses II: the Persian Conqueror of Egypt
Cambyses II, son of Cyrus and Cassadane, was born in 558 B.C. and came to the throne during a major rebellion. He moved swiftly to put down the uprisings only to find that his brother, Smerdis, was a primary instigator behind it. In Persian, it was a tradition for the younger sibling to attempt a coup and usurp the throne of the elder brother. [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato]
Herodotus wrote in Book 2 of “Histories”: After the death of Cyrus, Cambyses inherited his throne. He was the son of Cyrus and of Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, for whom Cyrus mourned deeply when she died before him, and had all his subjects mourn also. Cambyses was the son of this woman and of Cyrus. He considered the Ionians and Aeolians slaves inherited from his father, and prepared an expedition against Egypt, taking with him some of these Greek subjects besides others whom he ruled. . [Source: Herodotus, “The Histories”, Egypt after the Persian Invasion, Book 2, English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920, Tufts]
Cambyses II once reportedly remarked to his mother that when he became a man, he would turn all of Egypt upside down. After eliminating his brother, he was now free to organize a long-anticipated expedition to bring the riches of Egypt into the Hittite Empire. And the time was ripe after Egypt weakened its military with two disastrous campaigns into Syria and Babylon by the unpopular pharaoh, Hophra. There was also a power struggle between Hophra’s regime and the supporters of Amassis, a popular military commander. This struggle ended in Hophra’s untimely demise. Amassis knew the danger that Cambyses II posed and looked to the Greeks for help, which proved fruitless. In fact, Polycrates of Samos actually offered his aid to the Hittites. +\
See Separate Article: PERSIAN CONQUEST AND EARLY RULE OF ANCIENT EGYPT: CAMBYSES II AND UDJAHORRESNET africame.factsanddetails.com
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, BBC and various books and other publications.
Last updated August 2024