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| ==Economy, diplomacy and trade== | ==Economy, diplomacy and trade== | ||
| ] introduced by Darius the Great, gold quality, with a purity of 95.83%. (circa 490BC).]] | ] introduced by Darius the Great, gold quality, with a purity of 95.83%. (circa 490BC).]] | ||
| ], 1785]] | |||
| Darius is often renowned above all as being a great financier. He fixed the ] and introduced the golden ]. He developed ] within the empire and trade leading outside his empire. For example, he sent an expedition down the ] and ] Rivers, led by the ]n captain ], who explored the ] from the mouth of the Indus to ]. During his reign, the population increased and industries flourished in towns. | Darius is often renowned above all as being a great financier. He fixed the ] and introduced the golden ]. He developed ] within the empire and trade leading outside his empire. For example, he sent an expedition down the ] and ] Rivers, led by the ]n captain ], who explored the ] from the mouth of the Indus to ]. During his reign, the population increased and industries flourished in towns. | ||
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| Darius also continued the process of ] to his subjects, which had been important parts of the reigns of Cyrus and ]. Darius himself was likely monotheistic - in royal inscriptions ] is the only god mentioned by name. However, there is considerable evidence that Darius worshiped, funded, and honored various ]s of gods. This was important as the majority of the empire's inhabitants were ]s. Also, like many other Persian Kings, he was strictly against slavery: for example, all the workers at Persepolis and other construction projects he commissioned were paid, which was revolutionary at the time. His human rights policies were also common to his ancestors and future Persian kings, continuing the legacy of the ]. | Darius also continued the process of ] to his subjects, which had been important parts of the reigns of Cyrus and ]. Darius himself was likely monotheistic - in royal inscriptions ] is the only god mentioned by name. However, there is considerable evidence that Darius worshiped, funded, and honored various ]s of gods. This was important as the majority of the empire's inhabitants were ]s. Also, like many other Persian Kings, he was strictly against slavery: for example, all the workers at Persepolis and other construction projects he commissioned were paid, which was revolutionary at the time. His human rights policies were also common to his ancestors and future Persian kings, continuing the legacy of the ]. | ||
| ==European campaigns== | |||
| ] | |||
| About 512 BC Darius undertook a war against the ]ns. A great army crossed the ], subjugated eastern ], ] submitted voluntarily, and crossed the ]. The purpose of this war can only have been to attack the ] tribes in the rear and thus to secure peace on the northern frontier of the empire. Yet the whole plan was based upon an incorrect geographical assumption; a common one in that era, and repeated by ] and his ]ians, who believed that on the ] (which they called the ]) and on the shores of the Jaxartes (which they called ], i.e., the ]) they were quite near to the ]. Of course the expedition undertaken on these grounds could only prove a failure; having advanced for some weeks into the steppes of ], Darius was forced to return. The details given by ] (according to him, Darius had reached the ]) are quite fantastic; and the account which Darius himself had given on a tablet, which was added to his great inscription in ], is destroyed with the exception of a few words. | |||
| At the time, European Greece was intimately connected with the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and as a result ] and ] gave support to the ] against the Persians. Once the rebellion was put down, the Persians attempted to punish Athens and European Greece for meddling in the rebellion. But the first expedition, that of ], failed on the cliffs of ] (492 BC), and the army which was led into ] by ] in 490 BC was beaten at the ]. Before Darius had finished his preparations for a third expedition an ] broke out in Egypt (487 BC). In the next year Darius died, probably in October 486 BC, after a reign of 36 years. | |||
| ==Offspring== | ==Offspring== | ||
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| Darius the Great | |
|---|---|
| Great King of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt | |
 Darius I of Persia | |
| Reign | September 522-October 486 BC |
| Predecessor | Bardiya |
| Successor | Xerxes I |
| Old Persian | 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 |
| House | Achaemenid |
| Dynasty | Achaemenid dynasty |
| Father | Hystaspes |
| Religion | Zoroastrianism |
Darius I or Darius the Great (Template:Lang-peo (Dārayavahuš) > modern Persianداریوش بزرگ Template:IPA2) (c. 549 BC – October 486 BC), was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah (Great King) of Persia. He reigned from September 522 to October 486 BC as the third Achaemenian King and called by some arguably "the greatest of the Achaemenid kings".
He managed not only to “hold together the empire” (to use his words), but also to extend the empire founded by Cyrus the Great in all directions; east into the Indus valley, north against the Saka tribes, and west into Thrace and Macedon. His reign lasted 35 years and completed the work of his Achaemenian predecessors. Under Darius and the generation he belonged to, Achaemenid Iran became the greatest power in the world--arguably, Earth's first sole superpower in relation to the then known world. However, the successful expansion of the empire was not Darius' only important achievement. He also centralized administration of his empire and encouraged the development of cultural and artistic activity as demonstrated by his building projects at Susa and Persepolis.
In the lands he conquered, Darius continued Cyrus' path of active benevolence to non-Persian faiths most evidently seen in his construction of a huge temple to Amun-Re in Egypt. Darius completed the work of Cambyses II and issued a code of laws in Egypt and become the lawgiver to Egyptians.
His entire empire benefited from legal reforms and the development of juridical systems. Indeed most peoples of Darius' empire started to use the Old Persian word "dāta" (law, King's law) in related documents.
Darius' reign was marked by upheaval and unrest: twice Babylonia revolted, Susiana three times, and the Ionian Revolt precipitated several Persian expeditions against Greece, including their defeat by the Greeks at Marathon in 490 BC.
Darius was a restless king as evidenced by his major building programs in Persepolis, Susa, Egypt, and elsewhere. Toward the end of his reign, he decided to punish the Greeks for supporting the Ionian Revolt. But a further revolt in Egypt (probably led by the Persian satrap of Egypt) had to be suppressed first. As Darius' health was failing, this prevented him from acting in person against the Greeks. Major expeditions such as that planned against the Greeks required, under Persian law, the Achaemenian kings to choose a successor before starting such expeditions. Upon his decision to leave for Greece, Darius prepared his tomb at Naqsh-e Rostam and appointed Xerxes I, his oldest son by Atossa, as his successor. But he did not leave Persis again and he died there in October 486 BC.
Name and Etymology
Darius (or Dareus) is the Latin form of Ancient Greek: Δαρεῖος (Dareios), a short form of the original Template:Lang-peo (Dārayavauš). His name has also appeared in many languages of his vast empire; in Elamite as (Dari(y)amauiš), in Babylonian as (Da(a)riia(a)muš), in Egyptian tr(w)š, etc. The name must be translated based on its original longer Old Persian form as “holding firm the good”. This is the point of view of modern scholars that reject the ancient accounts. The English pronunciation is sometimes /'dæriəs/ or /də'raɪəs/.
Accession of imperial power
Not much is known about the early life of Darius before his accession to power in the summer of 522 BCE, when he killed the previous ruler with the cooperation of six other Persian families. The traditional story is that this previous ruler was a "Magian usurper" who was impersonating Bardiya, a son of Cyrus. Some modern historians consider that this ruler was the real Bardiya, and the story that he was an impostor was an invention by Darius.
Darius rewarded the cooperation of those who helped him kill Bardiya by requiring their family to be protected thereafter. After this, some provincial magnates rebelled. But Darius defeated all of them as reported by Darius himself at Behistun and elsewhere. Darius explains the causes of the rebellions: “Falsehood (drauga-) made them rebellious”. Thereafter his rule was established throughout the empire.
This event and the story of the transition of power to Darius has been mentioned by the ancient Greeks. However, their accounts mention wrong names of Darius' cooperating nobles and miss some. There is also evidence of certain "misunderstanding" in these accounts.
He was crowned as the great king of Persia in September 522 BC. A tradition of Achaemenid kings was to take throne names at accession. This served as an expression of the king’s program. Darius expression was his name; "holding the good".
Darius was a Zoroastrian. In fact the rejection of falsehood (i.e. drauga) is itself viewed as an acknowledgement of Zoroastrian teachings which Darius very often mentions. And beside there is a number of other important monuments and inscriptions as evidence and guides to Darius' Zoroastrian beliefs. Indeed Darius is very often portrayed with his right hand raised, apparently at prayer according to Zoroastrian prescriptions. Ahuramazda, proclaimed by Zoroaster as God, is mentioned and celebrated as Creator in most speeches of Darius. Darius' Naqsh-e Rostam inscription reads "A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created man, who created happiness". This reference to Ahuramazda as Creator only of what is good is in accordance with Zoroastrian doctrine and as such significant. In the Elamite version of Darius' trilingual inscription at Behistun, "Ahuramazda" is called "god of Aryans (i.e. Iranians)".
A great reformer and organizer, Darius thoroughly revised the Persian system of administration and also the legal code. His revisions of the legal code revolved around the laws of evidence, deposits, bribery, and assault.
It was through the organization of the empire he became the true restorer of the heritage of Cyrus the Great. His organizing of provinces and fixing of tributes is described by Herodotus (iii. 90 if.), evidently from good official sources. He divided the Persian Empire into 20 provinces, each under the supervision of a governor or satrap. The satrap position was usually hereditary and largely autonomous, allowing each province its own distinct laws, traditions, and elite class. Every province, however, was responsible for paying a gold or silver tribute to the emperor; many areas, such as Babylonia, underwent severe economic decline as a result of these quotas.
Each province also had an independent financial controller and an independent military coordinator as well as the satrap, who controlled administration and the law. All three probably reported directly to the king. This distributed power within the province more evenly and lowered the chance of revolt. Darius also increased the bureaucracy of the empire, with many scribes employed to provide records of the administration.
Soldiers of many nationalities served in the armies of Darius, including the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Indians, Egyptians, Jews and Arabs.
Building projects
Many building projects were started during the reign of Darius, the largest being the building of the new capital of Persepolis. Pasargadae was too well associated with the previous dynasty of Cyrus and Cambyses and so Darius sought a new capital. The new city would have walls 60 feet high and 33 feet thick and would be an enormous engineering undertaking. Darius' tomb was cut into a rock face not far from the city. He dug a canal from the Nile to Suez, and, as the fragments of a hieroglyphic inscription found there show, his ships sailed from the Nile through the Red Sea by Saba to Persia. Darius also commissioned the extensive road network that was built all over the country. The Persepolis Tablets mention a ‘royal road’ from Susa to Persepolis and from Sardis to Susa built by Darius. It was highly organized with rest stations, guarded garrisons, and inns. Darius is also remembered for his Behistun Inscription which was chiseled into the rock face near the town of Behistun. It showed Darius' successful ascension to the throne and described Darius' legitimacy to be king.
Economy, diplomacy and trade
Darius is often renowned above all as being a great financier. He fixed the coinage and introduced the golden Daric. He developed commerce within the empire and trade leading outside his empire. For example, he sent an expedition down the Kabul and Indus Rivers, led by the Carian captain Scylax of Caryanda, who explored the Indian Ocean from the mouth of the Indus to Suez. During his reign, the population increased and industries flourished in towns.
Persia under Darius probably had connections with Carthage (cf. the Karka of the Nakshi Rustam inscription) of Sicily and Italy. At the same time he attempted to gain the good-will of the subject nations, and for this purpose promoted the aims of their priests. He allowed the Jews to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem and it was finished in 516 BC, his sixth year. In Egypt his name appears on the temples which he built in Memphis, Edfu and the Great Oasis. He called the high-priest of Sais, Tzahor, to Susa (as we learn from his inscription in the Vatican Museum), and gave him full powers to reorganize the "house of life," the great medical school of the temple of Sais. In the Egyptian traditions he is considered one of the great benefactors and lawgivers of the country. In similar relations he stood to the Greek sanctuaries (cf. his prescript to "his slave" Godatas, the inspector of a royal park near Magnesia on the Maeander, in which he grants freedom of taxes and forced labor to the sacred territory of Apollo); all the Greek oracles in Asia Minor and Europe therefore stood on the side of Persia in the Persian Wars and admonished the Greeks against attempting resistance.
Weights and measures were standardized (as in a "royal cubit" or a "king’s measure") but often they still operated side by side with their Egyptian or Babylonian counterparts. This would have been a boon for merchants and traders as trade would now have been far simpler. The upgraded communication and administration networks also helped to turn the Empire ruled by the Achaemenid dynasty into a seemingly commercial entity based on generating wealth.
Darius also continued the process of religious tolerance to his subjects, which had been important parts of the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses. Darius himself was likely monotheistic - in royal inscriptions Ahuramazda is the only god mentioned by name. However, there is considerable evidence that Darius worshiped, funded, and honored various pantheons of gods. This was important as the majority of the empire's inhabitants were polytheists. Also, like many other Persian Kings, he was strictly against slavery: for example, all the workers at Persepolis and other construction projects he commissioned were paid, which was revolutionary at the time. His human rights policies were also common to his ancestors and future Persian kings, continuing the legacy of the Cyrus Cylinder.
European campaigns
About 512 BC Darius undertook a war against the Scythians. A great army crossed the Bosporus, subjugated eastern Thrace, Macedonia submitted voluntarily, and crossed the Danube. The purpose of this war can only have been to attack the nomadic tribes in the rear and thus to secure peace on the northern frontier of the empire. Yet the whole plan was based upon an incorrect geographical assumption; a common one in that era, and repeated by Alexander the Great and his Macedonians, who believed that on the Hindu Kush (which they called the Caucasus Indicus) and on the shores of the Jaxartes (which they called Tanais, i.e., the River Don) they were quite near to the Black Sea. Of course the expedition undertaken on these grounds could only prove a failure; having advanced for some weeks into the steppes of Ukraine, Darius was forced to return. The details given by Herodotus (according to him, Darius had reached the Volga) are quite fantastic; and the account which Darius himself had given on a tablet, which was added to his great inscription in Behistun, is destroyed with the exception of a few words.
At the time, European Greece was intimately connected with the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and as a result Athens and Eretria gave support to the Ionian Revolt against the Persians. Once the rebellion was put down, the Persians attempted to punish Athens and European Greece for meddling in the rebellion. But the first expedition, that of Mardonius, failed on the cliffs of Mount Athos (492 BC), and the army which was led into Attica by Datis in 490 BC was beaten at the Battle of Marathon. Before Darius had finished his preparations for a third expedition an insurrection broke out in Egypt (487 BC). In the next year Darius died, probably in October 486 BC, after a reign of 36 years.
Offspring
- By Artabāma daughter of Gobryas
- Artobarzanes or Artobazanes
- Ariabignes
- Ariaramnes or Ariamnes (sometimes identified with Masistes)
- By Atossa (daughter of Cyrus the Great)
- Xerxes the Great
- Achaemenes
- Hystaspes
- Masistes
- Mandane (sometimes identified with Sandauce)
- Artazostre, wife of Mardonius
- Amytis
- By Parmys, daughter of Smerdis
- Ariomardus
- By Phaedymia, daughter of Otanes son of pharnaspes
- Arsamenes
- By unknown wives
- The unnamed father of Mithropaustes
- Arsame
- Rhodogune
- The unnamed wife of Artochmes
- The unnamed wife of Daurises
- The unnamed wife of Himeas
- The unnamed wife of Otanes son of Sisamnes
- Sandauce (sometimes identified with Mandane)
- Ištin wife of Bagaya
- Pandušašša wife of Bakanšakka
| Darius the Great Achaemenid dynastyBorn: c. 549 BC Died: 486 BC | ||
| Preceded byBardiya | Great King of Persia 522 BC–486 BC |
Succeeded byXerxes I |
| Pharaoh of Egypt 522 BC–485 BC | ||
Notes
- Ghiasabadi, R. M., Achaemenid Inscriptions. See also Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Published by Cambridge University Press for the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. XI, Part I, 1849. p. 185.
- ^ Schmitt, R., Achaemenid dynasty, i. The Clan and Dynasty, in Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- ^ Boyce, M., Achaemenid religion, in Encyclopaedia Iranica'.
- ^ Olmstead, A. T. (1935) Excerpts 1. Diodorus of Sicily, we have long known,lists the six famous Egyptian lawgivers as Mneves or Menes,Sasychis,Sesoosis or Sesostris,Bocchoris, Amasis, and Darius. As regards Darius,a demotic papyrus proves Diodorus correct. 2. Now that we have actual evidence for the code of laws issued by Darius, we at last understand why we find references to the "king's law" in the business documents of the reign and not before, why the Persian word data is employed and not the native Akkadian dindtu...
- Darius I :: Fortification of the empire. - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ^ A. Sh. Shahbazi, Darius I the Great, in Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- His name in Hebrew דַּרְיָוֶשׁ (Daryavesh), the ancient Greek sources call him Template:Polytonic (Dareios), the Armenian name is Դարեհ Dareh and Indians called him दरायु (Darāyu) in Sanskrit.
- Schmit, R., Darius (i. The name) in Encyclopaedia Iranica. The etymology "possessing goodness" is also proposed in Avesta names; Old Persian names; Parsi names; Irani Zoroastrian names.
- Darius I. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. /də'raɪəs/ is the pronunciation found in the 2004 movie Alexander in reference to Darius III, and is also the only one given in Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary, 14th edition, Jones, D, 1977. Stress on the second syllable is etymologically more supportable than stress on the first, given the Greek form and the standard Latin forms Darēus and Darīus, themselves derived from the Greek.
- Dandamaev, M. A., A political history of the Achaemenid empire, p. 103.
- Cook, J. M., The Cambridge History of Iran 2, p. 217.
- ^ Schmitt, R., Achaemenid dynasty, ii. The empire, in Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- Saati, P., Conversion in Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- Boyce, M., AHURA MAZDĀ,Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 1.
- twice and only in Elamite version (DB ¶ 61-2 E).
- Farrokh 2007: 60
References
- Ghiasabadi, R.M. (1385AP). Achaemenid Inscriptions (کتیبههای هخامنشی) (in Persian) (2nd edition ed.). Tehran: Shiraz Navid Publications. p. 25. ISBN 964-358-015-6.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help); Check date values in:|year=(help)CS1 maint: year (link) - Dandamaev, M. A. (1989). A political history of the Achaemenid empire. BRILL. p. 373. ISBN 9004091726.
- Schmitt, Rüdiger. "Achaemenid dynasty". Encycloaedia Iranica. Vol. vol. 1. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
{{cite encyclopedia}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Schmitt, R.; Frye, R. N.; Shahbazi, A. Sh.; et al. (2005). "Darius". Encyclopœdia Iranica. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|accessyear=,|month=,|accessmonth=, and|coauthors=(help); Explicit use of et al. in:|last4=(help) - Saati, P. "Conversion". Encycloaedia Iranica. Vol. vol. 6. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
{{cite encyclopedia}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Boyce, Mary. "Achaemenid Religion". Encycloaedia Iranica. Vol. vol. 1. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
{{cite encyclopedia}}:|volume=has extra text (help) - Template:Cite article
- Gershevitch, Ilye; et al. (1985). The Cambridge history of Iran. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521200911.
{{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in:|last2=(help)
- Darius I the Great
- Brosius, M: Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 BC, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998.
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