Persia and Alexander

In the 550s BC, the Near East had four great powers: Media in Iran, Babylon, Lydia in Anatolia, and Egypt.

The Persians were a smaller people in the south-west of Iran, in a land called Persis, today’s Fars province, under Median rule.

Within thirty years, a Persian king would swallow all four powers, building the largest empire the world had yet seen.

Cyrus II, king of the Persians from 559 BC, rebelled against his Median overlord. In 550 BC he took the Median capital, Ecbatana.

Around 547 BC he marched west and captured Sardis, capital of the rich kingdom of Lydia.

He often kept local rulers, customs and religions in place. This made conquest easier to accept.

In 539 BC Cyrus defeated the Babylonian army at Opis. On 12 October, his forces entered Babylon without a battle.

A clay cylinder written for Cyrus presents him as chosen by Babylon’s god Marduk, restoring temples and returning displaced peoples to their homes.

Among them, according to the Bible, were the exiles of Judah, who were allowed to return to Jerusalem.

Cyrus died in 530 BC, fighting in Central Asia. His son Cambyses II conquered Egypt in 525 BC.

Now one king ruled Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt: every old empire of the Near East at once.

In 522 BC, after a disputed succession, Darius I seized the throne. He recorded his version of events on a cliff at Behistun, in three languages.

He divided the empire into provinces called satrapies, each with a governor, fixed taxes, and royal inspectors.

He introduced gold coins, the daric, and used Aramaic as a common language of administration.

The Royal Road ran about 2,500 kilometres from Sardis to Susa. Royal couriers, changing horses at relay stations, covered it in about a week or two.

Around 500 BC the empire reached about 5.5 million square kilometres, from Libya and Thrace to the Indus valley.

At Persepolis, carvings show delegations from over twenty peoples bringing gifts to the king: Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Lydians and many more.

Its population may have been 17 to 35 million people. Estimates vary widely.

In 499 BC, Greek cities in Ionia, on the Anatolian coast, revolted. Athens sent help, and Persia vowed revenge.

In 490 BC the Athenians defeated a Persian landing at Marathon.

In 480 BC Darius’s son Xerxes invaded with a huge force. After the stand at Thermopylae, the Greek fleet won at Salamis.

In 479 BC the Persians lost at Plataea and withdrew. For Persia it was a frontier setback. For the Greeks it became a founding story.

After the Greek wars, Persia stayed the greatest power on Earth for a century and a half, using money and diplomacy to play the Greek cities against each other.

It faced revolts in Egypt and among its own governors, and murders at court. But it did not break.

In 334 BC Alexander, the 22-year-old king of Macedon, crossed into Asia. He won at the Granicus river, then at Issus in 333 BC.

Egypt surrendered, and he founded Alexandria. In 331 BC he defeated Darius III at Gaugamela, near today’s Mosul.

In 330 BC Persepolis was burned, and Darius was killed by one of his own nobles. The Achaemenid Empire had ended.

Alexander pushed on through Central Asia, founding cities and marrying a Bactrian noblewoman, Roxana.

In 326 BC he won a hard battle on the Hydaspes river, in today’s Pakistan. Then his exhausted army refused to go further.

He returned to Babylon, where he died in June 323 BC, aged 32. His empire covered about 5.2 million square kilometres.

Alexander left no adult heir. His generals, the Diadochi, fought each other for forty years.

Three dynasties emerged: the Antigonids in Macedon, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids from Syria to Afghanistan.

Seleucus gave up his easternmost lands to India’s Chandragupta Maurya in exchange for 500 war elephants.

Greek language and cities spread across the East. This Hellenistic world lasted until Rome took Egypt in 30 BC.

The Achaemenids showed that a vast, diverse empire could be ruled with provinces, roads, coins and a degree of tolerance.

Later empires, from the Parthians and Sasanians to the Romans and Islamic caliphs, borrowed from that model.

Alexander, meanwhile, spread Greek culture from Egypt to India. Next we go to India itself, and the Maurya Empire.