20. Persia - An Empire in Ashes

Introduction to Persia

0:00In the year 1618, the Castilian Spaniard Garcia da Silva y Figueroa was traveling through the heartlands of Persia in what is today Iran. By then, Figueroa was about 61 years of age, a venerable statesman who had set out

0:36from Spain four years earlier as an ambassador from King Philip III. His mission was to meet with the Shah of the Safavid Persian Empire, flatter and befriend him, and encourage him to go to war with their common rival, the Ottoman Empire. But Figueroa's embassy got off to a bad start. When he arrived at the Shah's court, the Persian ruler tried to entertain his guest with a display of

1:10dancing girls, but the aging and pious Spaniard was unimpressed. Figueroa later wrote about what happened in his ambassador's report. The king then told all those present that the Spanish ambassador, because of his advanced age, did not like watching dancing girls. And turning to the ambassador, he said, it's no good trying to deceive us, leading us to believe that it is

1:43due to your virtue, when we know that the real reason is the impotence of your advanced age. At this, he and the other two ambassadors burst into laughter.

Diplomatic Failure

1:57Now that he was an object of ridicule, Figueroa's diplomatic aims would also come to nothing, and he soon left the Shah's court, despondent with his mission in ruins. The old Spaniard set out on the journey home. But on his way, he consoled himself by taking in some of the sites of the lands of Persia. Travelling through the mountainous region of the Iranian plateau,

2:28he and his guides enjoyed the fruitful lands, still watered by ancient aqueducts. They praised the many palm trees and fruit orchards that are irrigated with that good water for their beauty and pleasant appearance, especially the many orange and lemon trees, which produced sweet lemons. These can be compared to the other ones from Valencia, Spain. In fact, they may even be better. It was while travelling through this pleasant region, known as the Marv-Dashed

Chehel Minar

3:05Plateau, along the main road between Isfahan and Shiraz, that his guides recommended they stop at a place that was surrounded by folklore, myths and mystery. It was a site they called Chehel Minar, which in Persian means the Forty Pillars. As they approached and Figueroa caught a glimpse of it in the mouth of a wide valley, he would have found out why. On the horizon were the towering shapes of a great number of massive stone columns reaching up into the sky.

3:41After crossing the river Bramir, we travelled through a beautiful valley, where the river fed many streams and ditches. Many populated villages and large herds of cattle of all kinds could be seen. Finally, from a distance, we could see the highest of the columns or minarets of Chehel Minar, only visible through a thick forest of orchards at the foot of a tall mountain.

Exploring Ruins

4:19As they drew nearer, they caught sight of what lay ahead of them. A sprawling mass of impressive ruins, carved from massive blocks of black stone. After the ambassador had eaten and rested, he was filled with the desire to see this famous and great structure that was so worthy of examination and study. Not only because of its antiquity, but also because of its stupendous and magnificent size, especially since no one else had ever written

4:53the kind of accurate and erudite description it deserved. For much of that afternoon, Figueroa explored the ruins of this once grand city, which must have been built to a staggering scale. A very thick wall made of square stones enclosed a large area at the foot of the mountain. It was of marvellous dimensions, standing over two pikes tall, having been constructed with admirable symmetry and

5:28beautiful proportions. There were 48 standing columns in all. Some of them were seen to be broken and partially buried in the ground, and big pieces of others were spread around all over the plain.

5:48Although much of what remained was a crumbling mass of shattered stone and brick, in other places he was astonished to see how well the structures had stood the test of time. We climbed both stairways to find a portico, or entrance, supported by two huge horses that were constructed from white marble, each of them bigger than a large elephant, with enormous wings and lionine ferocity. The stairway as a whole seemed to have been finished just yesterday. This great and

6:24wonderful structure, for incalculable centuries, had resisted the ravages of time, which arose the roads and consumes all things.

6:40In places the polished stone was still so fine, that it even caused some confusion to one particular member of their expedition.

6:55The lower sections were set with slabs of black stone, that were so burnished and polished, that anyone who stepped close to it could see his reflection. It happened that the ambassador's dog saw its own reflection in the inner surface. It began snarling and showing his teeth, and since its shadow and reflection performed the same actions, it attacked with great impetus and fury, attempting to bite the slab, and rising up on its hind legs, much to the mirth of those present.

Identifying Persepolis

7:21Figueroa was a great reader of classical history and felt sure that he knew what this once great city had been. It was the fabled Persian capital of Persepolis. After closely observing the location of its beautiful and fertile countryside, and the

7:52proximity of the ancient Araxes river, not only was there no doubt that this was once the site of the great and celebrated Persepolis, but anyone who sees these superb and magnificent monuments of such ancient majesty can declare it to be such with certainty. For its antiquity, and the grandeur of its perfection, and the imperishability of the material of which it is built, Persepolis is incomparable to any of the other wonders that antiquity has bequeathed to us."

Historical Significance

8:27Figueroa's letter home about his journey would be the first written account to accurately identify the ruins of Chehelminar as the ancient Persian capital. For centuries, this city had stood at the heart of what was at the time the largest empire the world had ever seen, the empire known today as the Achaemenid, or simply Persian Empire. It was a power that had ruled over a vast territory nearly the

9:00size of the United States today, and brought countless different cultures together within its borders.

9:09But for nearly two millennia, the ruins of Persepolis had stood alone in the rocky highlands, now a mystery wreathed with folklore and legend, the names of its builders forgotten, and with no one left to tell their story.

Fall of Civilizations Podcast

9:36My name's Paul Cooper,

10:06and you're listening to the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Each episode, I look at a civilization of the past that rose to glory, and then collapsed into the ashes of history. I want to ask what did they have in common, what led to their fall, and what did it feel like to be a person alive at the time, who witnessed the end of their world?

Achaemenid Persian Empire

10:29In this episode, I want to tell the story of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. I want to show how this remarkable ancient power sprung up from the rubble of a ruined world to become the most powerful human society on earth. I want to show how they raised their grand palaces and monuments, and brought an unprecedented number of people together within their borders. I want to show how they came into conflict and cooperation with other ancient peoples,

11:03and finally, I want to show what happened to bring the palaces of the Persian kings crashing down in fire and flame. The story of Persia begins in the ashes of the old world, the world left behind by the Assyrian Empire.

11:37As we saw in our 13th episode, for much of the second and first millennia BC, the Assyrian Empire had been one of the great powers of the ancient world. They had sprung up in the northern reaches of the river Tigris in Mesopotamia, in what is now northern Iraq and Kurdistan, and from there had expanded their military might to eclipse all others. Assyria had ruled the region of Mesopotamia, aided by its massive armies,

12:11which were equipped with iron weapons and armor, and crushed all resistance to their empire.

12:21In 729 BC, the Assyrians were powerful enough to finally conquer their greatest rival, the largest and most powerful city in the southern marshlands of Mesopotamia, the city of Babylon, where our story begins. Babylon was at that time the world's greatest metropolis. Since its founding more than a thousand years earlier, it had grown to become the largest city in the world at two points in its history,

12:54and was probably the first city to have a population above 200,000 people. The great city of Babylon was now absorbed into the Assyrian Empire, but it would always be a difficult and rebellious subject. Its people were proud and belonged to an ancient lineage of independent kings. The Babylonians spoke their own dialect, and their god named Marduk rivaled the Assyrian deities in prominence. This meant that throughout the occupation of their city,

13:32Babylon's rulers were always looking for their chance to rise up and throw off the yoke of their Assyrian masters. There was a time when the might of Assyria must have looked completely unbeatable, but when the fall of Assyria came, it came all at once as a thunderclap, and it was the city of Babylon that proved instrumental in its collapse. After the death of the last great king of Assyria,

14:05Ashurbanipal, a period of weak kings and civil wars followed, and during this time, all of Assyria's enemies took the opportunity to unite against it. In the south, the Babylonians finally saw their moment. They rebelled and crowned a man named Nabopolassar as the new king of an independent Babylon, as one chronicle recalls.

14:36On the 26th day of Arasamna, Nabopolassar sat on the throne in Babylon. This was the beginning of the reign of Nabopolassar.

14:48The Assyrians had dealt with Babylonian rebellions before, but this time would be different. Now the rebelling Babylonians were joined by a number of powerful allies. Chief among these were a hardy, horse-rearing people known as the Medes, who lived in the mountains and high plains of what is now Iran.

15:15In the year 615 BC, while Assyria was trying to contain the Babylonian revolt, the Medes swept down into the river plains of the Assyrian Empire, raiding and ravaging as they went. The Assyrians were now fighting a war on two fronts against two very different enemies, and their mighty edifice began rapidly to crumble. One Babylonian carved stele, dated around the middle of the 6th century BC, records this alliance of

15:53Babylon and the Medes, who they refer to with the name Umun-Manda, a name that evokes a terrifying horde sent by the gods. The god Marduk provided Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, with help, and gave him a companion for himself. The king of the Umun-Manda, who has no rival, he caused to come to his aid. Above and below, from right and left, the Umun-Manda swept like a flood storm, avenging Babylon in retaliation.

16:28The Medes rode swiftly across the land and overwhelmed the Assyrian forces. One by one, they besieged and captured each of the great Assyrian cities that for centuries had swelled with the wealth of their empire. Many of Assyria's cities were destroyed so utterly that they would

17:00never return as centers of population. The bodies of their hopeless defenders left to rot in the streets and buried beneath fallen masonry, their bones left to be covered by the sands. This event, the collapse of the Assyrian empire, was one of the swiftest and most dramatic rearrangements of power in world history. The largest empire on earth had been toppled in

17:32only about three years, and in its wake, it left a yawning chasm. In dividing up the territory of Assyria and the lands beyond, the Medes and the Babylonians mostly stuck to what they knew best. Like the Assyrians, the Babylonians were a settled people who lived in villages, towns and walled cities with sophisticated art, technology and an advanced understanding of

18:08mathematics and writing. They fielded large infantry armies, fed from fields watered by complex irrigation systems, where they grew barley, wheat and fruit orchards. They were masters of trade, and their grand cities were resplendent, with goods brought from all over the Eurasian landmass, carried up and down the rivers Tigris and Euphrates on barges. For this reason, they happily swept north

18:40and captured many of the Assyrian cities that still remained after the destruction that the Medes left behind. These they absorbed into a new Babylonian empire that, in size, geography and structure, looked very much like the Assyrian empire it had replaced. But the rocky mountains to the north and east they left to the hardy Medes. The Medes were in fact only one of countless peoples

19:12who had lived for millennia in the rocky highlands of Iran's Zagros mountains.

19:29Beginning around a hundred million years ago, the Arabian tectonic plate began driving northwards into the Eurasian plate, and over the next tens of millions of years, the constant pressure bent and buckled the land of the Eurasian side in what geologists call a fold and thrust zone. Today, this landscape is known as the Iranian plateau. At its southern edge, it looks like a piece of

20:00rumpled fabric, a series of alternating mountain ridges and deep valleys that are known as the Zagros Mountains.

20:11The region of the south Zagros would become known as Paz, and it is from this word that the name Persia would derive. In the late 4th century BC, the Greek historian Hieronymus of Cardia wrote the following description of the landscape of Persia.

20:35High land, blessed with a healthy climate and full of the fruits appropriate to the season. There were glens heavily wooded and shady cultivated trees of various kinds in parks, and also naturally converging glades and hills of trees of every sort, and streams of water. So the travellers lingered with delight in places pleasantly inviting repose. Also, there was an abundance of cattle of every kind.

21:05Through these mountains cut an ancient and well-used highway, later known as the Khorasan Road. The word Khorasan means sunrise, since this highway led to the east and the regions where the sun rose, and ultimately to the vast deserts and arid grasslands of the Eurasian steppe.

21:32As it would be for much of human history, the steppe was then home to great numbers of nomadic horse-riding peoples who lived by herding cattle and other animals and moving from place to place to find ever newer pastures.

21:50Over the millennia, countless different peoples had passed along it, moving out of the great steppe and into the shady valleys of northern Iran. The first known of these people arrived more than 4,000 years ago and called themselves the Arya, a word that in old Iranian languages likely meant noble or lord.

22:17They came from a vast area of Central Asia known in Sanskrit as Arya Varta, or the home of the Aryan people. Today, the word Aryan still forms the etymological root of the modern name of the nation today, Iran.

22:39Alongside these Arya came further waves of migrations from the steppe into the sheltered hills and valleys of Persia. While much of the interior of Iran is characterized by vast sand dune deserts, the mountainous regions along the Caspian Sea are exceedingly green, forested with oak, and many of the highland plateaus are well watered and lined with poplar trees. Alongside these Arya came further waves of migration into these sheltered hills and valleys.

23:19As a group, these people are today referred to as the Proto-Iranians, and they spoke many different related Iranian languages, among them Old Avestan, one of the oldest preserved languages in the Indo-European family. Because this is the same family as English, we can actually find a lot of linguistic similarity with our own language. For instance, the Old Avestan word for daughter is dugadar,

23:50mother was martyr, and their word for brother was bratr. These Proto-Iranians settled all over Central Asia, from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the hills of Iran, and everywhere they went they developed a wide range of cultures, all speaking related languages. Among these people were the Bakhtris or Bactrians, the Suguda or Sogdians, the Parthava or Parthians,

24:25and, importantly for our story, in the west of the Iranian plateau appeared the Marder or Medes. While the Babylonians were a centralised and stratified kingdom, with a king at the top, officials beneath, and priests and administrators running the empire, the Medes were likely more of a loose collection of tribes, bound together in a system of alliances, blood oaths, and relationships of marriage.

24:59Assyrian records particularly mention the skill of the Medes in horseback riding, and Assyrian sources always mention with pride the many fine horses they seized whenever they raided the Median lands, as this inscription by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III shows.

25:23In my ninth regnal year, I ordered my armies to march against the Medes. I conquered their cities, defeated them, and took their spoil. One hundred and thirty horses from Bitishtar and its districts. One hundred and twenty horses from the cities of Ginezinanu, Sadbat, Sisad. One hundred horses from Upash of Bitkapsi. One hundred horses of Ushru of Nikisi. One hundred horses of Uxatar and Bardada.

25:59The Assyrians had long put down the Medes with these kinds of raids, but now with the Assyrian empire fallen, the Medes were free to expand. They had been living and thriving in the mountains for centuries, and so while the Babylonians took the fertile riverlands of Mesopotamia, the Medes had free reign over the hills and mountains in a broad stretch of what is now Iran,

26:30Azerbaijan, Syria, and Turkey.

26:34It's not clear the exact geographic bounds of their empire or how centralised it ever was, but of all the peoples of the region, they were the greatest rival to the power of Babylon. So this is the world as we begin our story. In the fertile lowlands of Mesopotamia, the new Babylonian empire was just beginning to find its feet as an imperial power, and in the rocky mountains to the north and east

27:04were the loose tribal confederation of the horse-rearing Medes. This was a world of new and fragile powers, unstable, uncertain, and now increasingly paranoid. But for the right man, it could also be a world for the taking. It was into this landscape, around the year 600 BC, that a man was born who would shake up this fragile equilibrium

27:35and change the course of history.

Cyrus the Great

27:39His name in Old Persian was Kurush, but he has gone down in history by the name given to him by the Greeks, Cyrus, and he would come to be known as Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Great Cyrus, or Kurush, was born into a family that ruled the province of Anshan,

28:17in the Zagros Mountains in southwestern Iran.

28:22The province was centred around the ancient city of Anshan, which had once been the original homeland of the people of Elam, an old and powerful society. But Elam had been all but destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in a cataclysmic war only 50 years or so earlier, as one tablet written by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal describes. The great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered.

29:00I entered its palaces, I destroyed the ziggurat, I smashed its shining copper horns. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught, their gods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. After this destruction, what had once been a united Elamite kingdom fractured. Now the city of Anshan stood in a state of ruin, its population much reduced from its former glory.

29:35Into this wasted land, sometime over the preceding century, a number of nomadic Iranian peoples had migrated from the north. They were cultural and linguistic cousins to the Medes and agreed to swear allegiance to the Median king, likely offering to pay him tribute and fight for him in times of war.

30:02Archaeology shows them living a semi-nomadic lifestyle among the ruins, pitching their tents among the fallen columns and crumbling brick walls of the old Elamite capital. Since their arrival, these Iranian peoples intermarried and merged with what remained of the local Elamites, adopting some of their ancient dress and customs. And there they formed a new hybrid culture,

30:34one that was half nomadic and half belonging to the ancient, devastated civilization of Elam. The three major tribes that made up these people were the Maspia, the Marafia, and the Parsagad. These were the people that today we call the Persians, and it was into this society that the baby boy Cyrus was born. It's worth pausing here and mentioning that we know very little for sure

31:15about the early life of Cyrus.

31:18His is a childhood that is wreathed in myth and mystery. That's because for much of the more than two millennia since the Persian Empire flourished, their story has been told largely by another people, a people who at times admired and emulated them, and at others hated and feared them, and against whom they fought many bitter wars. These were the people who lived in the rocky islands and mountainous mainlands

31:50where the Mediterranean meets the Black Sea, the Greeks, and one Greek in particular who has been given the name the Father of History. His name was Herodotus.

32:08Herodotus was born in the city of Halicarnassus, now the Turkish port town of Bodrum, around the year 485 BC, more than a hundred years after the birth of Cyrus the Great. He was a Greek, but this wasn't at all a simple identity. Greece was at that time divided between clusters of about a thousand independent city-states, speaking dialects including Ionian, Dorian, Attic, and Aeolian,

32:41and all constantly warring amongst themselves.

32:46The writer Plato famously describes the Greek cities like so.

32:53The earth is very large, and we who dwell between the pillars of Hercules and the river Phasis live in a small part of it around the sea, like ants or frogs about a pond. But these cities were united by a shared culture, language, and reverence for a shared pantheon of gods. When he reached the age of about 30, Herodotus felt a calling to travel.

33:24Around the year 454 BC, he set out from his home of Halicarnassus and travelled to Egypt and Libya, then through Palestine to the Phoenician city of Tyre, and after that down the river Euphrates, possibly as far as Babylon.

33:44Everywhere he went, he asked people what they knew of the past of their region, and he wrote down everything he saw and heard as he went. These accounts he compiled into nine books he called Historiae, which in ancient Greek meant researches or inquiries, but is the origin of our word, history.

34:10In the introduction to his work, Herodotus explains what motivated him. Herodotus of Halicarnassus hereby publishes the results of his inquiries, hoping to do two things, to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of the Greek and the non-Greek peoples, and more particularly, to show how the two races came into conflict.

34:41There was no publishing industry in ancient Greece, no printing press or mass production of books, and so Herodotus wrote his work to be read aloud to audiences of citizens, often at popular festivals. One account by the writer Lucian claims that Herodotus first debuted his histories by reading them aloud at the Olympic Games to a rapt audience.

35:14The great Olympian Games were at hand, and Herodotus thought this the opportunity he had been hoping for. He waited for a packed audience to assemble, one containing the most eminent men from all Greece. He appeared in the temple chamber, presenting himself as a competitor for an Olympic honor. Then he recited his histories, and so bewitched his audience that his books were called after the muses, for they too were nine in number.

35:44By this time, he was much better known than the Olympic victors themselves. He had only to appear, and he was pointed out, that is that Herodotus who wrote the tale of the Persian Wars.

35:59Perhaps due to this need to captivate a crowd, Herodotus was a writer who brought his stories to life in vivid color, full of dramatic characters, strange lands, gory murders, dream visions and prophecies, and sometimes fantastical creatures.

36:19Even for some ancient Greeks, Herodotus' wild tales went too far. Plutarch would later write a blistering essay entitled On the Malice of Herodotus, tearing apart much of his histories. And the writer Theseus, himself also a source on the Persian Empire, supposedly rubbished many of Herodotus' claims too, as related by the chronicler Phocius.

36:47He differs almost entirely from Herodotus, whom he accuses of falsehood in many passages, and calls an inventor of fables.

36:58But historians generally consider Theseus even less reliable than Herodotus. Even worse still is Xenophon's biography of Cyrus the Great, titled Chiropedia, which is best described as a piece of fan fiction, in which the Greek soldier and writer uses Cyrus as a blank slate onto which he can project a fictional version of an idealized king. But for better or worse,

37:29for many of the events that follow, Herodotus is the only source we have available. That's because, in the light of history, the Persians themselves are all but silent.

37:43The Persians never wrote down the kind of narrative histories that made Herodotus famous. For learning about their past, they relied on a cast of oral storytellers or singers who would regale their people with stories of the old times, as the Greek writer Strabo records.

38:06As teachers of learning, they use the wisest men who weave in legends in order to make it useful. Both with and without song, they recite the deeds of the gods and the noblest men.

38:24Just like Herodotus, these tales were designed to be read out loud to an audience. But instead of writing them down, their storytellers simply remembered them using astonishing feats of memory. These tales they would have passed on to one another by word of mouth, so long as the tradition of storytellers continued. But for this reason, the Persians are not able to tell their own story in the light of history.

38:55The historian Lloyd Llewellyn Jones puts the dilemma for historians bluntly. We cannot believe much of what Herodotus says, and yet we cannot do without him. Some historical truths about the Persians may well lie hidden in Herodotus, but one needs to dig deep through the layers of fantasy and fiction to find them.

39:20In the end, trying to glean the truth about this very ancient past can feel like exploring the depths of the deep ocean, where a single beam of light might illuminate a whole ecosystem or an undiscovered species living down in the depths. But elsewhere, in all directions, there is only darkness.

39:53Like many momentous figures of this time, such fantasy and fiction completely shrouds the early life of Cyrus the Great. What we know for sure is that Cyrus was born into a royal family. He was the son of a Persian ruler named King Cambyses I of Anshan and possibly his wife Mandane, who was reportedly a Mede. As such,

40:23Cyrus may have grown up speaking both Old Persian and his mother's tongue of Median. His mother Mandane was also royalty. She was the daughter of the ruling king of the Medes, a man named Astyages, who all the tribes of the Persians swore loyalty to. As such, Cyrus was likely born the immediate heir to the province of Anshan and through his mother,

40:53a distant heir to the throne of the entire Median Empire. A unique situation that his mother would no doubt have reminded him of many times throughout his childhood.

41:07One legendary account of Cyrus' birth and upbringing is given by Herodotus. The first year after the marriage of his daughter, Astyagi saw a vision. A vine appeared to spring from his daughter, which overspread all Asia. On this occasion, also he consulted his interpreters. The result was that he sent for his daughter from Persia. When the time of her delivery

41:38approached, the Magi had declared the vision to intimate that the child of his daughter should supplant him on the throne. On her arrival, he kept a strict watch over her, intending to destroy her child.

42:00Unable to kill the small baby himself, Astyagi's enlists the help of a general named Harpagus and tells him to take the baby Cyrus out into the wilds and there leave him in the open to die. But Harpagus takes pity on the child and lets him live.

42:23He instantly sent for a herdsman who, as he knew, pursued his occupation in a place among mountains frequented by savage beasts. When the herdsman had received his orders, he took the child and returned to his cottage.

42:42From here, this fairy tale unfolds with a colorful brutality. When the boy's identity is finally discovered, the king Astyagi's is enraged and realizes that the general Harpagus has betrayed him. As punishment, he orders that Harpagus's son is to be secretly killed. Then, he invites the general to a banquet at which he puts on a lurid spectacle.

43:13Before the rest, as well as before Astyagi's himself, dishes of mutton were placed. But to Harpagus all the body of his son was served, except the head and the extremities, which were kept apart in a covered basket. After he seemed well satisfied, Astyagi's asked him how he liked his fare. Harpagus expressed himself greatly delighted. The attendants then brought him

43:45the basket which contained the head and extremities of his child and desired him to help himself to what he thought proper. Harpagus uncovered the vessel and beheld the remains of his son. He continued, however, a master of himself and betrayed no unusual emotions. When Astyagi's inquired if he knew of what flesh he had eaten, he acknowledged that he did and that the king's will was always

44:15pleasing to him. Saying this, he took the remains of the body and returned to his house, meaning, as I suppose, to bury them together. Astyagi's thus revenged himself on Harpagus. Despite taking this brutal revenge on his general, Astyagi's court priests or magi convinced the Median king not to kill Cyrus and to let him go.

44:46But the general Harpagus would never forget what the king had done.

45:00this story would no doubt have thrilled Herodestus' audience as he read it out to them, but we can be relatively sure that it is a piece of mythology. The trope of the abandoned child is one that reoccurs throughout folklore and myth. From the Greek story of Oedipus to the Akkadian king Sargon to Moses and the fairy tale Snow White. The story of the king's vision

45:31is another theme that often occurs in the early lives of great men and perhaps most famously in the Gospel of Matthew when King Herod orders all the baby boys in Jerusalem to be killed when told of the birth of Jesus. and the most colourful and bloodthirsty part, the revenge taken by tricking someone into eating the flesh of their loved ones, also occurs throughout mythology and folklore,

46:01featuring, for instance, in the sixth book of Ovid's Metamorphosis, which then inspired Shakespeare's bloodthirsty play Titus Andronicus. For all these reasons, it's safe to assume that this story of Cyrus' early life is a work of literature rather than fact. But I include it to give a sense of the kinds of stories that constantly swirled around the life of this enigmatic character, as an example of why the

46:32accounts of Herodotus need to be treated carefully as we go forward and, of course, because no one can resist a good story.

46:46The rest of what we know about Cyrus' life can be gleaned in fragments.

46:57The Greek writer Xenophon records what Persians some centuries later still remembered about the character of Cyrus. Even to this day, the barbarians tell in story and in song that Cyrus was most handsome in person, most generous of heart, most devoted to learning, and most ambitious, so that he endured all sorts of labor and faced all sorts of danger for the sake of praise.

47:29As a boy, the young Cyrus would have been raised with all the skills needed by a man of the Persian royal line. The first five years of a boy's life he would spend with his mother and the other women of the tribe, as Herodotus describes.

47:48Until his fifth year, his father does not lay eyes on the boy who spends his time with the woman. This is done so that if he dies during his upbringing, he will not distress his father. During this time, his mother would have cared for her son, taught him the language and the songs of her people, and all the while must have looked at her little son growing and wondered whether one day he

48:18might be destined for great things. But after that, the boy was handed over to his father and taught the ways of men.

48:30Although our typical impression of Persian royalty, derived largely from Greek sources, is one of luxury and decadence, in fact, the early life of Cyrus would have been quite different. The Persians were a hardy pastoral people who survived by herding cattle, hunting on horseback with a bow and arrow, and with trained hawks. And these are all the skills that the young Cyrus would have learned, as the Greek writer Strabo recounts.

49:03From age five to twenty-five, they are trained to shoot with the bow, handle the spear, ride on horseback, and speak the truth. They gather the boys in one place, after rousing them before dawn with the noise of a bronze instrument, and order them to follow in a race, after marking out a distance of thirty to forty stadia.

49:23Strabo records the broad education that a Persian prince was required to absorb.

49:30They train them in speaking loudly, how to breathe and use their lungs, and to endure heat and cold and rain, and to cross torrents, and also to herd flocks and live outdoors, surviving on wild fruit, terebinth, acorns, wild pears. Their daily diet, after exercising, consists of bread, barley, cardamom, grains of salt, and baked or boiled meat. They hunt by hurling spears from horseback and with bows and

50:01lassos. Towards evening they learn to cultivate plants, how to cut and collect roots, how to make weapons, and the technique of making linen cloth and hunters' nets.

50:14But while the Persians still lived a relatively humble and hardy existence, the later Greek writer Xenophon records that by this time the Medes were quite different.

50:28Cyrus noticed that his grandfather, Astyages, was wearing makeup, with eyes outlined, colour rubbed on his face and false hair, as was the Median fashion. All this is Median, as are the purple tunics and sleeved coats, the necklaces worn around the neck and the bracelets on their wrists, while the Persians, even now in their homes, have simpler clothes and a more humble lifestyle.

50:58When Cyrus was grown, he succeeded his father as the ruler of the Persian tribe of the Pasargad, and it's then that he found himself coming into conflict with his grandfather, the king of the Medes, Astyages.

51:14The exact details of this conflict we can never know, but it's clear that Cyrus saw his moment.

51:23He gathered the tribes of the Persians around him, the Pasargadai, Maraphia, the Massapea, the Darusiad, Germania, Dai, Mardi, and Sagartia, all of them united by their language and shared culture. Herodotus imagines Cyrus giving a rousing speech.

51:46Cyrus collected and slaughtered all his father's goats, sheep, and oxen in preparation for entertaining the whole Persian army at a banquet, together with the best wine and bread he could procure. The next day the guests assembled and were told to sit down on the grass and enjoy themselves. Men of Persia, he exclaimed, you are the arbiters of your own fortune. My voice is the voice

52:16of freedom. I am the instrument of your prosperity. Decline all future obedience to Astyages. The Persians, who had long spurned at the yoke imposed on them, were glad of such a leader and ardently obeyed the call of liberty.

52:39All the tribes of the Persian peoples now united around Cyrus.

52:46Astyages was naturally enraged. He ordered that all his court soothsayers, who had long ago convinced him to spare and release Cyrus, should be crucified. Then, with their screams still echoing in his ears, he gathered his armies and marched out to meet the Persian upstart. As he marched, he sent out messengers, demanding in furious terms that Cyrus come and bow at his feet,

53:16as Herodotus recounts.

53:20Cyrus sent the messenger back, with the threat that he would be there a good deal sooner than Astyages liked. Astyages thereupon armed the Medes to a man, and so far lost