ASSYRIANS, MEDES, AND PERSIANS: The Struggle for Power in the Ancient Near East

The picture above shows Tiglath Pileser III (the tall figure on the far right with the long robe) leading his Assyrian forces in the capture of a city. On the left several men are scaling the wall of the city with a ladder with a ladder. On the right, a wheeled and covered battering ram is being used to create a breach in the city walls. The three figures at the top next to the city have been impaled on spikes.

A map of upper Mesopotamia, showing the territory of the Assyrians

In the northern half of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley another civilization inherited the remains of Sumeria, Akkad, and Babylonia.  This new civilization called themselves the Assyrians, after their chief deity, Asshur, which incidently, is the name of the Assyrian capital.  In terms of language and religion they are virtually indistinguishable from the Babylonians of Hammurabi.  They were, however, the most aggressive of the breed.           The earliest of the Assyrian kings maintained their residence and the seat of the government at Assur until the heat of the desert and the constant attack from the nearby hill tribes caused them to create a second city.  That second city was Ninevah, named after the god Ninus, and at the peak of Assyrian civilization it was a thriving city with a population of over 300,000.

The Assyrians were the first to develop an effective method of managing conquered territories.  Conquered lands were divided into provinces and all of these were required to pay tribute to the King in Ninevah.  In some cases an Assyrian garrison was stationed in the province while the province maintained its native government.  Other, more easily regulated territories,  were simply staffed with officials who were vassals of the Assyrian ruler.  Several of the cities that were exceptionally cooperative enjoyed municipal autonomy under a charter granted by the King.           The Assyrian army was more versitile and dynamic than anything the world had seen previously.  Chariots were used, but these were strategically employed with heavy and light infantry, as well as bowmen and slingers.  Siege towers and battering rams were utilized for the first time in history.  It would not be far from the mark to say that the Assyrian economy was based upon warfare rather than trade.           Perhaps the most devastating innovation of the Assyrian warmasters was the practice of psychological warfare.  The Assyrians encouraged the stories of their bestial nature in combat, and as a result many of their foes fled without engaging the forces.  Assyrian chronicles are filled with bloodthirsty accounts of their ferocity in combat and the brutal punishments they employed upon those who sought to oppose them.  One of their kings, Ashurnasirpal II, relates the following account:

I slaughtered them, and with their blood I dyed the mountain like crimson wool.  . . . The heads of their warriors I cut off, and I piled them in a heap and their young men and their maidens I burned in the fire.  I slaughtered their inhabitants in great numbers and their cities I burned with fire. . . . From some I cut off their hands and their fingers and from others their noses and their ears.

Assyria ruled with treachery and she fell the same way.  In 625 BC, an Assyrian general named Nabopolassar broke away from the Assyrian army and joined his forces with a chieftain of the Medes named Cyaxares, and in 612 these combined forces destroyed the Assyrian stronghold of Ninevah.

THE NEO-BABYLONIAN, OR CHALDEAN EMPIRE

The fall of Ninevah set the stage for the last of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms, the Neo-Babylonian  Empire (The first Babylonian Empire consisted of eleven kings, of which Hammurabi was the sixth).  Seven years after the fall of Ninevah and the Assyrians, in 605 BC, Nabopolassar's son, who had married the grand-daughter of Cyaxares, Amytis, secured the throne of Babylon.  This son was Nebuchadnezzer, whom most of us know as the oppressor of Israel who threw Daniel and his companions into the "fiery furnace."  Of interest is the fact that there is a contemporary Babylonian relief carving that may portray this very event.  Nebuchadnezzer is also remembered as the king who built the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon,"  one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.           The reign of Nebuchadnezzer lasted from 605 until 562 BC.  Twenty-three years and two insignificant rulers later the last of the great kingdoms between the two rivers fell to the Persians.

This relief carving depicts the Assyrians taking the Hebrew city of Lachish.  On the far left, sappers are attemptng to  dig underneath the wall, as Hebrew archers rain arrows down upon them.  Immediately to the right, a Hebrew is falling from the wall.  Continuing to the right, two Assyrian soldiers attempt to start a fire and burn their way through the gate, as battering rams and siege engines are directed toward the wall.  Little would change in the way war was conducted until the advent of gunpowder in the West.

In this relief, Assyrian predecessors of the Navy SEALS prepare to make an amphibious assault.  These warriors appear to be swimming underwater, using skin bladders as an ancient equivalent of SCUBA gear.

Two representations of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.  Built by Nebuchadnezzer for his wife, the Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  In the illustration at right, note  (somewhat anachronistically) the Tower of Babel in the background.

PERSIA

MEDES           As mentioned earlier, Cyaxares, the  king with whom Nabopolassar allied himself following his defection from the Assyrian army was a Mede.  During the Indo-European migrations a large body of travellers made it to the Iranian Plateau, then splintered into three separate groups.  One of these traveled on to the Indus Valley and became the ancestors of the Brahman caste.  The remaining two groups were known as the Madai and the Pars, and these divided the plateau amongst themselves.  In time the Madai developed into the Kingdom of the Medes and the Pars developed into the Persians.           For two hundred years before the adventure of Cyaxares and Nabopolassar the Medes had been divided into local provinces administered by chieftains under Assyrian rule.  Once Cyaxares had secured the alliance with Nabopolassar he returned to Media, and the chieftain  established himself as King of the Medes.  Thirteen years later he and Nabopolassar destroyed the Assyrian capital.           The  Cyaxares was a ruthless and efficient ruler.  In fact, he was so ruthless and efficient that his Babylonian "allies" were terrified of the man and Babylon became the most heavily fortified city in the world.  The Babylonians knew that they had less to fear from the combined might of all their enemies than the impulsiveness of their "friend," Cyaxares.            To illustrate, a number of Scythians, the blood-drinking, scalps-as-napkins, barbarians from a few lectures back, were  living under the rule of Cyaxares, and would frequently bring the king gifts of game from their hunting trips.  On one trip, however, they returned empty-handed.  Cyaxares was enraged, and in a fury he cursed them for their incompetence.           The Scythians were determined that such an insult would never occur again, so, following their next hunting trip, Cyaxares was presented with a preparation so delicious and appealing that he could not withhold his blessings from  his Scythian subjects.  Halfway through the meal it was that the Scythians had left the dinner without touching a bite, and the king soon recognized that the dish he was consuming was not venison, as he had supposed, but the butchered remains of one of his court favorites.           Cyaxares set out after the barbarians, only to find that they had been granted safe-haven by the Lydians, and as a result there was war between Lydia and Media for the next five years.  The war, however, became rather costly, and it was brought to a close by the marriage of Cyaxares son and heir, Astyages, to the daughter of the Lydian king.  All things considered, Cyaxares had accomplished a great deal in his life, for he had brought the Medeans from a position of near slavery under Assyria to that of a world power in the space of forty years.           Astyages proved to be a weak and petulent king.  He possessed his father's temper, but none of the Cyzxares' bravery.  According to Herodotus, he was also haunted by nightmares.  Two of those dreams had a profound impact on the course of history.           In the first of those dreams, Mandane, the daughter of Astyages began to urinate, and she carried on with such intensity that she had soon swamped the whole of Asia.  Astyages was obviously troubled by the dream, and he went to the court Magi for an interpretation.           The Magi were a caste of priests in Persia who were known for there abilities in dream interpretation, astrology, and the use of the liver of a sacrificial sheep  as an oracle.  From the name Magi we get our terms 'Magic,' and 'Magician.'  In the west they are best known as the wise men who attended the  birth of Christ with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.           When Astyages came to the Magi and sought an interpretation he was told that his daughter would give birth to a son that would overthrow the Medean Empire.  Astyages never questioned the interpretation.  In order to head of this impending bad luck he immediately betrothed Mandane to the least promising noble he could find, a prince of the former ruling house of Persia, named Cambyses.  He was a peacable man, obviously a social inferior, and thus it was not likely that he would be the sire of threat to the Medean throne.           Cambyses and Mandane were soon married, and shortly thereafter she became pregnant.  Astyages then had a second dream in which he saw a vine grow from his daughter's body that covered all of Asia.  When he consulted the Magi as to the meaning of this dream he was told that the child his daughter was carrying would usurp his throne and conquer all of Asia.           Astyages was frantic, and he concluded that his only recourse was to put the child to death.  When the child, whom the parents named Cyrus, was born, Astyges secretly had the infant removed from the care of its mother and given over to Harpagus, a trusted servant, with instructions to put the child to death.  Harpagus took the child, but his conscience would not allow him to be the instrument of its death.  He therefore delivered the child over to a herdsman, along with the king's instructions.  The herdsman, however, decided to raise Cyrus as his own, replacing a stillborn child his wife had recently lost.           Cyrus grew to be a strong young man.  One day while playing the king in a village game with other children, Cyrus whipped the son of a Median nobleman.  The father of the child was outraged and brought Cyrus before King Astyges for judgement.  Astyges, who was unaware that the young man standing before him was actually his own grandson,  was immediately impressed with the youth's confidence and behavior.  Soon the king's astonishment began to give way to suspicion and after some detective work he discovered to his horror that the grandson who was destined to usurp his throne was indeed still alive.           Astyges was irate.  He consulted the Magi, and was relieved when his soothsayers informed him that Cyrus had already fulfilled his destiny by playing king with the village boys and whipping the son of  the nobleman.  Consequently, Cyrus was restored to  Mandane and Cambyses, his parents.  Astyges, however, still had to deal with the fact that Harpagus had disobeyed him.  In punishment, Harpagus' own son was slain and served to the father for dinner.  History would show that Astyges never made a worse mistake.           For years Harpagus nursed his hatred.  Finally Cyrus had grown strong, and Harpagus saw in the young Persian prince the ideal instrument for his revenge.  The tyrannical ways of Astyges had completely alienated the Median nobility, and Harpagus persuaded a number of these men that it would be in their best interest to dethrone the tyrant and install the young Persian prince in his stead.           Harpagus disguised a trusted servant as a hunter and gave him a rabbit with a message for Cyrus sewn in its belly.  The message urged Cyrus to punish Astryges, who attempted to murder him, by leading the Persians in a revolt.  If Cyrus would take this step, Harpagus argued, he would insure that the Median nobility followed suit.           Cyrus proceeded by forging a document from Astyges in which he appointed himself the commander of the Persian army.  He then ordered men from the more influential tribes to appear before him the next day, bringing their agricultural tools.  The following day, from dawn until dark, Cyrus forced the Persian nobles to work to the point of exhaustion, clearing a rough tract of land.  At the end of the day he ordered them to return tomorrow.  The following day Cyrus led them in an enormous banquet.  After they had taken their fill, Cyrus asked which of the two days the men had preferred.  Naturally, all votes were for the banquet.  Cyrus then rose to his feet and proclaimed that the banquet was nothing compared to the pleasures they would gain if they joined him in the overthrow of Astyges, the tyrant king of the Medes.           With no dissenting votes the troops immediately rallied behind Cyrus and marched on Media.   Astyges sent his army to engage the Persians, interestingly enough, commanded by Harpagus.  Harpagus had served Astyges long and well.  He seemed to have taken the death of his son humbly enough.  Astyges never dreamed that Harpagus could be thinking of treason.  As they arrived on the field of battle, Harpagus suddenly led the vast majority of the Median nobles in revolt, while the remainder of the Median forces fled in confusion.           Again Astyges  flew into a rage,  killing Magi who had advised him to free Cyrus.  He then  armed the boys and old men of his kingdom and with this feeble force he sought to engage the Persians.  The battle was brief, and most of his men were killed.  Astyges himself was taken prisoner, and Harpagus was there to jeer at the man who had so brazenly sent his son to death, now in chains.            Cyrus refused to slay his grandfather.  In an unexpected display of humanity, Cyrus brought the old man into his court and cared for him for the remainder of his life.  This occurred in 559 B.C., and marked the beginning of a thirty year reign that would be conspicuous for the wisdom with which it dealt with conquered peoples.  Cyrus, like Cyaxares before him, sought to  retain the best features of the culture of those whom he conquered, allowing those whom he overcame in combat an unusual degree of freedom.  This early form of enlightened despotism was the secret of the Persian empire's success.           Cyrus completed his immediate task by assimilating the Medes on equal footing with the Persians, forming a composite empire.   With the assimilation of the Medes, Cyrus also inherited the remains of the Median empire, which included a portion of Assyria as well as the easternmost  part of Asia Minor.  It also created for Persia three areas of potential conflict: with the Egyptians to the south, with the Lydians in Asia Minor, and with the Babylonians to the west.           Cyrus quickly evaluated the odds of being able to overcome Babylon, and decided against an immediate attack, opting instead to move against Lydia to the northwest.  Now Lydia at this time was ruled by Croesus, reputed to be the wealthiest of rulers.  On the eve of the Persian attack Croesus made an offering to the oracle of Zeus that consisted of 117 gold ingots weighing approximately 130 lbs., a golden bowl that weighed 500 lbs, a golden lion weighing 750 pounds, a golden woman weighing 300 lbs, among other items;  16,760 lbs of gold.  At the current rate of approximately $300 per ounce Croesus shelled out $80, 500,000 to ask the oracle if it would be wise to engage the Persian forces.  Croesus received an accurate prediction: If he fought the Persians a mighty empire would fall.  The oracle was typically silent as to which empire would collapse.           Cyrus sought to avoid a conflict.  He was in a position of power, having negated any possibility that the Lydians would receive aid from either Babylon or Assyria, Cyrus made the following offer: If Croesus would recognize Persian sovereignty, Cyrus would allow him to remain on the Lydian throne.  Croesus, however, had misread the oracle's message as a promise of victory and refused to accept the terms of Cyrus.           On a May morning in 547 B.C. the forces of the two kings met in combat.  It was a heated battle and significant losses were sustained on both sides.  They fought until nightfall.  When Cyrus did not re-engage the following morning, Croesus assumed that he had given up his idea of conquest and the Lydian king led his forces home.  Cyrus,  however, had simply pulled off for a brief respite, and with the ferocity of a bird of prey he brought his forces down upon the Lydian capital city of Sardis without warning.  The Lydians, however, possessed an unusually fine cavalry, and the horsemen seemed to be on the verge of turning the tied of battle.  It was clear to Cyrus that he had a fight on his hands.           Help then came to Cyrus from perhaps the most useful of his entire entourage, his loyal Median retainer, Harpagus.  Harpagus urged Cyrus to mount his men on camels.  Harpagus explained that the camels looked and sounded so strange and possessed such a superior stentch that the Lydian horses would bolt at the sight of them.  It was an unusual concept, but Cyrus had come to trust the man who had given him his empire concealed in the belly of a rabbit, so the idea certainly deserved his consideration.  He brought the humped beasts up from the rear of his baggage train, mounted his soldiers upon them, and successfully terrified the Lydian cavalry into retreat behind the walls of Sardis.           Cyrus then laid siege to the city, promising riches to any man that could mount the walls. Croesus, however was not to be harmed. The Persians attempted a frontal assault on the city and were soundly beaten off.   One side of the city of Sardis consisted of a steep wall and a sheer cliff.  It was regarded as impenetrable.  Then one of Cyrus' soldiers noticed a strange sight.  A Lydian had dropped his helmet over the edge, scampered down the wall to retrieve it, and then back up again.  The Persian soldier, Hyroeades by name, realized that the wall could be climbed and that the Lydians would have that section of their city poorly defended.  Hyroeades led the assault, gained the wall, and was able to open the gates allowing the Persians into the Lydian capital.           As they advanced through the city, one of the Persian soldiers came upon Croesus and started to strike him down, unaware of the king's identity.  A son of Croesus, who had been mute from birth, suddenly gained the  power of speech and identified the king, who was making his way to a funeral pyre.  It was there that Cyrus found him, captured him, and led him back to Persia as one of his chief advisors.           Cyrus was well aware of the strain such a massive military expedition placed upon an army and a nation, so he waited eight years before he attempted another large operation.  Finally, in 539 B.C., he felt that his gains were adequately consolidated, and he set his sights on the ancient city of Babylon.           By this time Babylon was the most strongly fortified city in the known world.  The outer wall of the city was ten miles around, and thirty-six feet wide, wide enough to accomodate two four-horse chariots.  Troops could be moved rapidly to accomodate any defense needs.  The central thirteen acres of the city was the palace grounds, and it had its own formidable fortifications.           The timing of Cyrus, however, could not have been better.  Under Nebuchadnezzer the Babylonians would have fought the Persians until the last citizen dropped, but Nebuchadnezzer was dead, and the present king, Nabonidus, was occupied with scholarly pursuits, such as archaeology.  The peasants were neglecting their fields, and by 546 B.C. Babylon was facing a famine.           This was the period of the Jewish captivity in Babylon, and the Hebrew prophet Isaiah was already proclaiming Cyrus to be the Lord's "annointed," or Messiah, and the deliverer of the Jewish people.  Thus when Cyrus marched against Babylon it was a town ripe for the taking.           The city itself gave up without a struggle, and the palace enclosure held out for a few days.   Cyrus treated the captured Nabonidus with the same dignity he had bestowed on Croesus, again displaying a compassion uncharacteristic of the age.  When the aging king died the next year Cyrus led the people of Babylon in mourning.           When Cyrus took the city of Babylon he issued a proclamation declaring himself the king of the universe.  In spite of such an assertion, Cyrus ruled the land with restraint and understanding.  Rather than enforcing the use of the Persian language across his empire he adopted Aramaic as the common tongue.           The year after Cyrus took Babylon, in 538 B.C., Cyrus forever won the devotion of the Jews by freeing them from their captivity.  From his capital at Ecbatana Cyrus issued the following decree:           As for the house of God which is at Jerusalem, let the house be built, the place where they offer           fire sacrifice continually; its height shall be ninety feet and its breadth ninety feet with three courses           of great stone and one of timber.  And let its cost be from the king's house.  Also let the gold and           silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the house of God and brought           to Babylon, be restored and brought again to the temple which is in Jerusalem, each to its place.           And you shall put them in the house of God. The following year forty thousand men left Babylon and began their joyful march back to Jerusalem.  Cyrus, however, was not being altogether altruistic.  He knew that the day would come when he would desire to move against the pharoah of Egypt, and if the land of Palestine were friendly toward him it would greatly aid his progress.           Cyrus now led the greatest empire the world had ever known, and to administer such a vast holding required new methods of government. The empire was divided into twenty districts, and each was placed under the supervision of a Satrap, a Persian word meaning "Protecter of the Country."   These Satraps occasionally sought to 'stretch their wings,' so Cyrus devised a system to keep them under control.  The secretary, financial officer, and military officer in each satrapy was accountable directly to Cyrus rather than the Satrap, providing a system of checks on the administrators.  Additionally, Cyrus had a spy network, called the king's eye or the king's ear, that made a yearly inspection of each province then reported directly back to the king.           As with any large empire, there is constantly the problem of border raids.  Along the eastern edge of the lands of Cyrus there lived a relatively minor tribe (called the Massagetae) that seem to have been related to the Scythians.  They were led by a savage queen named Tomyris, and they began to stage a number of border raids against the northeastern frontier.  In 529 Cyrus set out to punish them personally.  According to Herodotus, Cyrus  marched into the northeastern territory, set out a great banquet as bait, then withdrew most of his forces, leaving only a token detachment behind.  About one third of Tomyris' troops fell upon the Persians, slaughtered them, then consumed large quantities of food and wine.  Cyrus moved from his place of hiding, killed most of the Massagetae troops and captured others.            Among those captured was the son of Tomyris.  When he disclosed who he was and asked to be released from his chains, Cyrus granted his request.  The prince promptly committed suicide.  This drove the nomad queen to a fury and she attacked without reserve.  It was a brutal and inconclusive battle, but when it was over Cyrus lay dead.  Tomyris had the body of Cyrus beheaded, and his son and heir, Cambyses, retrieved the body.  The tomb of Cyrus was massive, but not elegant, and it is adorned with the one simple inscription:  "Here I lie, Cyrus, king of kings."           At the time of the death of Cyrus, Cambyses had been functioning as the crown prince and as his father's personal representative to Babylon for eight years.  When Cyrus went forth on his fateful campaign he named Cambyses his regent and bestowed upon him the title 'King of Babylon.'  With Cyrus dead, Cambyses inherited the empire.

Two views of the tomb of Cyrus the Great, King of Kings

CAMBYSES AND DARIUS

The reign of Cambyses was nothing like that of his father. First, Cambyses had to deal with the question of other contenders for the throne, so he promptly had his brother, Smerdis, assassinated because he coveted the kingship.  He also had to deal with restlessness that the death of Cyrus had created in the subject nations.  It was only natural that they would seek to test the new ruler, to see if the strength of the father was present in the son.  When Cambyses married his two sisters, Atossa and Roxana upon his ascent to the throne, his Greek subjects were furious.  It was a Persian tradition and had the blessings of the Magi, but the Greeks found incestuous marriages disgusting.           Though it took Cambyses two or three years after the death of his father to consolidate his position, by 526 B.C. he was ready to continue with the business of empire building, and he turned his sights toward Egypt.  He was able to cross the Sinai desert with the aid of friendly Arab chieftains who provided his troops with water at pre-arranged way-stations.  We know little of the campaign itself.  What we do know is that the Persians engaged the Egyptians three times and on each occasion the Persians were victorious.  By May of 525 B.C. Cambyses had added Egypt to his empire.           It was then that he made a fatal mistake.   He began to march up the Nile.  For two and a half millennia the desert had protected Egypt from external invasion from the south.  Where armies had failed to stop the Persians, the environment proved to be a much more formidable force.  Soon his supplies were exhausted and according to several sources his troops even began to resort to cannibalism.  A contingent that had separated from the main force to try to take the Oasis of Ammon was swallowed up by a sandstorm.           Herodotus then begins to delineate for us a picture of a ruler in the midst of a mental breakdown.  According to these stories, Cambyses began to exist in a state of perpetual rage.  He was said to have desecrated Egyptian tombs and killed Apis, the sacred bull of Egypt.  He supposedly shot an arrow through the heart of a young boy after the child's father chose to argue with him, and to have killed one of his own wives in a fit of anger.  He is even said to have taken a shot at the old Lydian king, Croesus, who, due to the compassion shown to him by Cyrus, was still a faithful member of the Persian court, but Croesus had the wherewithal to get out of range of the arrow.  These stories, however, are without confirmation, and Egyptian records seem to maintain that when Cambyses sought to return to Persia in 522 B.C., the nation was at ease with its conqueror.           Trouble, however, awaited Cambyses at home.            When Cambyses first came to the throne he had a dream in which he saw his brother, Smerdis, sitting on the throne with his head touching the heavens.  As was the Persian custom in such matters, Cambyses took the troublesome dream to the Magi for an interpretation.  The interpretation was obvious: the day would come when Smerdis would take the throne from Cambyses.  Cambyses then had a loyal member of his personal guard secretly assassinate his brother and bury the body.  Only a handful of people knew of the assassination, and the people of Persia assumed that Smerdis was about the business of the king elsewhere.            While Cambyses was away on his Egyptian expeditions a member of the Magi, who knew of the secret assassination of Smerdis  and whom Cambyses had left in charge of his household, devised an intricate plan.  He had a brother that possessed an uncanny resemblance to the dead brother of the king.  As luck would have it, this royal look-alike was also named Smerdis.            The plot becomes obvious.  The Magi would insist that the impostor was the missing brother of the king and install him as a puppet of the priesthood while Cambyses was away.  For a time it appeared that the ploy was successful.           Upon hearing of the coup Cambyses was outraged.  His first thought was that he had been betrayed by the guard whom he had entrusted with the task of assassination.  Upon questioning the man, however, he was convinced of the truthfulness of his account.  The guard also informed Cambyses that he had a reasonably clear idea of exactly what was going on, and he informed the king that the Magus (singular of Magi) that Cambyses left in charge of his household had a brother by the name of Smerdis.           The plot was then clear to the king.  More importantly, the meaning of the dream he had experienced seven years earlier was obvious.  It was not Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, that threatened his kingship, but Smerdis, the brother of the Magus.  Cambyses had ordered his own brother slain without cause, and he was overwhelmed with grief.  It was at that point, according to one story, that he committed suicide, but Herodotus records that he sprang into his saddle and pierced himself through the thigh with his own sword.  Apparently he had lost the cap of his sheath and the sword was protruding through the bottom.  Cambyses was aware that he had recieved his death-wound.  He lingered on for almost three weeks, then he finally gathered his troops together and related the truth of the entire affair.  He then charged them to use whatever means were necessary to recover the kingdom, and since he had produced no son and his brother was dead, they were to choose a king from among the most noble of the Persians.  Cambyses then died on Egyptian soil.           Cambyses was not a great leader, but he did more than most men would have done in his situation.  He had held the empire of Cyrus together and added the wealth of Egypt to his holdings.  Had he not fallen between the monumental greatness of Cyrus, his father, and Darius, his successor, he would have, perhaps, made a more significant impression.  Against such a brilliant background, however, it is difficult for a lesser light to shine.           The pretender was able to maintain his hold on the throne for several months.  Then a group of Persian nobles deduced what had happened.  One of the nobles had a daughter who was a member of the royal harem and after repeated requests from her father she was able to ascertain that the man who was posing as king was not the son of Cyrus.  Her father had suspicions, but he needed his daughter to confirm those suspicions.  The next time the supposed king came to her she was to inadvertantly touch the side of his head while they were in the midst of lovemaking.  If his suspicions were true, the man who was sharing her bed would have no ears, for the noble remembered that ears of a Magus named Smerdis had been removed during the reign of Cyrus for some unmentioned infraction.  The suspicions of the nobleman proved to be correct and he informed his allies.           Fearing a conspiracy and the consolidation of power in the hands of the Magi, the nobles decided that the pretender must be eliminated.  It was at this time that Darius returned from Egypt and informed the nobility of the death of Cambyses, as well as his final words.           After some discussion Darius and his six allies made their way into the palace and stabbed the pretender and his brother.  Two of the nobles were wounded in the process, but the counter-coup was a complete success.  With the severed heads of the conspirators in their hands, the nobles rushed through the streets, telling their story to all who would listen.  Soon a bloodthirsty purge began, and many of the Magi were killed in the process.            Following the purge the nobles discussed among themselves exactly what form of government should now be instituted throughout the Persian empire.  The positive and the negative aspects of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy were all debated, and Herodotus records the conversation at length.  It was finally decided, with one dissenting vote, that monarchy was the only form of government that could hold the empire together.  In a historically unique occurance, the one dissenter and his family was granted freedom from the rule of the king (though they were expected to follow the law of the king) until his line came to an end.  The only question remaining was who should occupy the throne.  In the most logical Persian fashion, it was decided that the man whose horse first neighed at the sunrise should be chosen King of Persia.  With some preparation, the honor fell to Darius.           Darius was not the direct successor of Cambyses, but he was distant cousin to the king.  The Persian pronounciation of his name was Darayavaush, which means "he who sustains good thought."  Although he was only twenty eight when he came to the throne of the Persian Empire, he had already established himself as a formidable warrior.  Darius was the leader of the "Ten Thousand Immortals," a group of elite spearmen that formed the fighting core of the Persian army.  He was also the head of the personal bodyguard of Cambyses.           When Darius became king he inherited an empire on the brink of revolution.  The pretender had been uncommonly generous with his office, and as a result many of the lands ruled by the Persians had been granted freedom from taxation and military service for a period of three years.  When it was known that Cambyses was dead and the pretender had been slain as well, many of the provinces, led by Babylon, revolted.           Darius knew that he had to act fast, and during his first two years on the throne he fought nineteen battles and defeated nine rebellious satraps.  The losers were usually slain, their bodies disfigured, and the hideous corpses placed on public display as a warning to others who might want to rock the boat.           Darius was also aided by the intense loyalty he had been able to create among his followers while he was the leader of the Persian army.  One case is illuminative.           As mentioned earlier, Babylon led the way into rebellion.  It was a well-fortified city and it had braced itself for a long siege.  Most of the women of the city had been slain to conserve resources, so it seemed that Darius was at last going to be thwarted.  At that point he was saved by the sacrificial actions of a close friend, Zopyrus by name.           Zopyrus amputated his own ears and nose, shaved his head, and ordered a servant to beat him with a whip.  He then told Darius of his intentions and fled to Babylon, posing as someone who had been mutilated by Darius, intent on revenge.           Initially the Babylonians were slow to trust Zopyrus, so they devised a test.  Zopyrus was placed in charge of a small contingent of Babylonian soldiers and he led them forth against the emcamped Persians.  Darius, in turn, played his part in the ruse and sent forth one thousand of his own men to certain death, armed only with daggers.  The Babylonians were impressed, but still far from trusting, so the test was repeated a second and a third time.  When Zopyrus emerged from the third conflict victorious he was acclaimed as a hero throughout the city and placed in charge of the defence of the wall.  The trap was then set and with relative ease Zopyrus was able to let the Persian forces into the city.           Lacking the restraint that had characterized Cyrus, Darius brought the city to the ground and either impaled or crucified three thousand of its leading citizens.  The aggressiveness with which Darius had humbled Babylon brought the rest of the empire into line and for the remainder of his reign he was able to devote his time and energy to administration.  He proved to be as able to manage an empire as he had been to pacify it.             Darius codified the laws that would govern the empire in a document called the Ordinances of Good Regulations.  Though no copy of the document has been uncovered as yet by archaeologists references to the document have been found in Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, as well as in several royal documents.  In the Biblical book of Daniel there are references to the "Law of the Medes and Persians, which alters not."  The law was extreme, but it was consistent, and it applied to the king himself as well as to any commoner.           To enforce the law Darius established a number of judges and held them to a strict standard of impartiality.  Punishments dealt to an unjust judge were uncommonly severe.  This standard had been set earlier.  During the reign of Cambyses a judge once took a bribe to render an unjust ruling.  Cambyses learned of the deed and  had the judge flayed.  His skin was then tanned and cut into strips, which were used to cover the seat of judgment.  This served as a warning to the next judge, who happened to be the son of the previous occupant.  Darius also sentenced an unjust judge to death, this time by crucifixion.  Darius had the man taken of the cross before he died after considering another of the laws which insisted that one wrong deed might be pardoned if it was outweighed by a record of good.           One of Darius' greatest achievements was the construction and maintenance of the Royal Road.  It ran from Susa, which was now the capital, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, to Sardis in Asia Minor on the coast of the Mediterranean, a distance of 1,677 miles.  The road was kept in a good state of repair, free from bandits, and well-stocked with inns providing rest and food.  Fresh horses and men waited at one hundred and eleven way stations along the road, speeding the king's messengers along their way.  Herodotus immortalized these messengers with the following words:           Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor dark of night can stay these messengers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.           Caravans also used the road, making the trip from Susa to Sardis in around three months, a remarkably quick trip for the time, providing a great stimulus to commerce and trade.  The private messengers of the king, however, could cover the distance in a week.           Darius also standardized weights and measures.  The gold 'Daric,' which was the coin of the realm, was 98% pure, and the silver Shekel was required to be at least 90% pure.  The ration of silver to gold was set at 13.3 to 1.  The cubit was set at around 18 inches, and the standard of weight, known as a karsha, weighed about one fifth of a pound.           Darius was also responsible for the planning and the initial construction of one of the greatest royal cities the world has ever know, Persepolis.  Though Darius began the construction in 520 B.C., the work went on for sixty years, well into the reign of his grandson, Artaxerxes.           Darius is best remembered for leading an attack on the rapidly expanding Greeks.  Herodotus noted that the Greeks suffered more during the reigns of Darius, and his two successors than in the previous twenty generations.  The wars between the Persians and the Greeks can be more clearly understood once we have learned something about the emergence of the Greeks from their dark ages and the period of Greek colonization.  For now it should merely be noted that the victory of the much smaller Greek forces over the armies of Darius was a deciding moment in the history of the Western world, allowing Europe to develop in distinction to the civilizations of the East.

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