ASMR Bedtime Story - Ancient Empires of Persia

hello everyone we're going to make another imaginary journey to the past tonight and follow the history of ancient persia from the beginnings of civilization in iran thousands and thousands of years ago to the seventh century 80 when the last antique persian empire fell in the western tradition that we inherited from the greeks and the romans the various kingdoms and empires that flourished in persia were often seen as antagonists as threats coming from the east that even came close to dominate greece and later that threatened the roman empire but there is so much more to ancient persia it was a beacon of civilization for centuries with a cultural area that spreads far beyond the modern frontiers of iran persia had a very tumultuous history it was invaded multiple times it received influences from india from central asia from the whole middle east and western civilizations but the invaders that persia couldn't push back militarily it converted culturally and the constant feature of persia all along its history is that it always reappears revives as an independent state before the muslim conquest as we're going to see tonight or after if you are interested we could continue the story another time to explore the last 14 centuries to our days which are no less fascinating we will also talk about aspects of ancient persian culture including its religions like zoroastrianism its architecture we will travel to persepolis at the time of its splendor we will relieve the greco-persian walls and many more things so we have plenty of things to discover but all you need to do now is adopt a comfortable position relax and let the sound of my voice guide you along the centuries you can easily navigate the story with the timestamps in the first command and it will soon be available on spotify apple music or amazon music if this is more convenient for you together we have dozens more of my stories and as usual you will find a link to my patreon in the first comment if you choose to support the channel on patreon you contribute to keep it free of video ads and you can download audios and videos listen to the stories as podcasts participate in surveys and get more updates about what i'm working on but for now take a single deep breath sit or lay down comfortably and feel free to close your eyes at any time you don't need the visuals to follow along our story begins right now the first and probably the most famous persian empire is the achimanod empire that existed in the first millennium bc from the 7th to the 4th century it is the one that alexander the great destroyed and conquered entirely the heartland of this empire was a region of the southwest of modern iran the region of persis where an ethnic group the persians terminated but when this first empire started the ancient persians were almost newcomers to the region they had arrived 300 years before to a land that already had thousands of years of urban culture and had been influenced by other civilizations of mesopotamia sumer assyria babylon what became persia is home to some of the most ancient remains of settlements of agricultural communities in the world the earliest ones are 10 000 years old the southwestern part of modern iran is part of the fertile crescent which is a large region in the middle east that stretches from egypt to mesopotamia where many of humanity's first major crops were domesticated and where the first large towns and cities appeared followed by states during the bronze age five to six thousand years ago maybe with the influence of mesopotamia many prehistoric settlements were created to the east of the fertile crescent on the iranian plateau if we take a look at the geography of persia its heartland and central historical region is an elevated plateau surrounded by mountain chains it is not perfectly flat it contains several mountain ranges and the altitude varies a lot but overall it raises a higher than the planes that surround it in the middle east in central asia and in india geography is an element that can shape culture and it definitely did in the case of persia the plateau is a semi-arid there are rivers that cross it and some parts are fertile but overall it is an environment where water was not as abundant as it was around the large rivers of mesopotamia or the northwest of india or egypt much later persia became famous for its gardens in this environment where irrigation was mandatory they were a sign of refinement and luxury the iranian plateau was not the easiest environment for large cities to appear and indeed long before the accumulated empire the most advanced culture technically and administratively and the first states that we know of in this part of the world emerged at the foot of the plateau in coastal plains that are connected to mesopotamia this first civilization in persia is called ilum and it consisted of different kingdoms along the coast of the persian gulf that progressively expanded to the iranian plateau eventually they may have been unified under a single state with its capital in the city of souza they had a writing system but a lot of what they wrote was lost and disappeared hilum had a proximity to other mesopotamian cultures but there were enough differences to consider it an independent civilization it had its own language and a specific religion probably influenced by its neighbors but their deities were mostly forgotten and little is known about their pantheon and their belief system iran lasted for almost three thousand years and was the predecessor of the achievement empire it had a strong cultural influence on it for example the elamite language remained an official language in the persian empire so since the beginning i have used the terms persia and iran almost as synonyms and up to a point they are but not entirely what are the differences between these two terms until the 1930s the country was called persia internationally until it decided to change its official name to iran and this was adapted everywhere so persia became a historical term it is no longer used politically the word iran is way older than this it corresponds to a group of peoples the iranians the country became known as persia in the west mainly because of the greeks they were threatened by the accumulated empire later they conquered it and they named it persia after the province of persis or pass they also named its capital persepolis police means city but this central province of the akimanu empire was only a small part of the empire itself and later the various states known as persia along history we are not limited to it so the name has a local origin that can still be found in the modern province of parks or farce in modern iran or in farsi the persian language now iran is also a very ancient term but it refers to the iranian or uranic peoples who wear a branch of these indo-european peoples i told you about in many stories lately about the greeks the romans the celts the germans the slavs indo-european peoples emigrated from a region that is believed to be north of the caucasus and it started several thousand years ago slowly and in several waves they reached almost every region of europe where they mix with the locals we don't know in which proportions or exactly how things unfolded because there are no written records of all this of course and it is mainly through languages or cultural features or more recently dna that aspects of this migration have become better understood apart from their numbers which are uncertain what we know is that in many regions these indo-europeans had a strong cultural influence their languages prevailed even though they evolved and diversified a lot due to the distances and local influences with the exception of a few european countries like hungary or finland where the dominant language is not of indo-european origin all other european languages evolved from indo-european roots it doesn't mean we could understand these dead languages at all that some of the words and the different forms some of the sounds or the structure of speech have remained now all indo-europeans did not migrate westward some went to the south-east towards the caucasus iran and the north-west of india hence the term indo-european and in these lands they also brought a new culture and language that left a strong footprint even after centuries and centuries of mixing with earlier inhabitants so the iranian peoples were part of the migration they are a branch of it in the third millennium bc indo-europeans settled into central asia and from there several distinct ancient iranian peoples emerged in the first millennium stretching from eastern europe to west asia antique peoples like the aerons the bactrians the sithians and more importantly for us on the iranian plateau the medes the parthians and the persians this is how the persians arrived in iran around 1000 bc 3 000 years ago and like for many other indo-european peoples they assimilated and fall apart were assimilated bringing a strong cultural change to the region where they had settled the area occupied by iranian peoples then frank in the first millennium 80 because of other migration waves the slavs the germans the turks and much later the mongols they were expelled or assimilated within these populations but they still cover a large area that stretches from the caucasus in the north to the persian gulf and east-west from eastern turkey to china they are not alone in these lands but they dominate demographically all this history is behind the changing name of the country from persia to iran virgil was a historical term chosen by the greeks that referred to either a small region or to ancient empires with moving frontiers so the term persia may be culturally accurate but geographically it is a very unprecised and also in the 1920s and 1930s when the change of name was decided the term persia was identified with a form of decline for decades the country had shrunk and lost some of its prestige in 1921 the general reza pallavi took power and was proclaimed shah king of persia beginning a new dynasty that lasted until the iranian revolution of 1979 his priorities were to modernize persia and reassert its independence which was under threat by the influence of foreign powers especially russia and great britain the changing name was a way of showing that a new start a fresh beginning was happening and also to symbolically refound the country on a more ethnic basis which distinguished it well from its turkey shore arab neighbours it is a fact that the country has a strong and distinct identity from the rest of the middle east a different language different ethnicities it has become the champion of shia islam there were religious reasons to it but in no small parts this reflects its particularism and this is how persia became iran 90 years ago but both terms are extremely ancient they are more than 2 000 years old now let's return to ancient history i told you that iranian people settled around the 10th century bc on the iranian plateau and doing so they forced the elamites to relinquish one area of their land after another three main peoples that we will speak more about occupied the plateau the mids the persians and the parthians all three different iranian groups ilum was not really a threat to their independence but assyria was at the time the rising power in the middle east was the new assyrian empire it is called neo because the region of assyria in the north of mesopotamia had already expanded before but starting in the 10th century bc the syria conquered large parts of the middle east mainly to the west as far as egypt and to the north the iranian plateau was on its eastern frontier and the peoples that populated it fell under its influence they had to pay tribute to assyria and obey its orders the power of the new assyrian empire was based on a large population effective military tactics and a technological edge they were the first in history to be armed with iron weapons that were far superior to bronze weapons they were lighter and stronger at its peak near syria had conquered all its rivals babylonia islam finisher israel and judah and the other great power of the middle east egypt it became probably the most powerful state in the world at the time and he developed an administration and ways of controlling a multinational empire that later inspired the persians but after 300 glorious years the syria began to disintegrate after the death of its ruler king ashore banabal this happened in the 7th century bc a civil war began and multiple peoples including the babylonians the mids the persians raced against assyria at the end of the 7th century assyria was no more as an independent state and the iranian plateau had recovered its independence but these decades of a syrian domination and then the war against assyria had transformed it when they had settled in the region the medes or the persians had a nomadic lifestyle based on breeding their small kingdom on the plateau had received a serious influence and they had turned into larger and more centralized states with a sedentary population that could now raise armies and taxes in cities that had become bigger the one kingdom that emerged as a leading power was that of the mids they expanded into mesopotamia and they founded the first iranian empire but this empire of the mids was short-lived because it was replaced with the herkimets the epic of the archaemanol empire was about to begin the kimonos are a dynasty and the empire was named after them like four the ottomans for example and they were not mids but persians like the mids the persians had evolved since their arrival on the plateau around 1000 bc they had changed from groups of nomads to a sedentary kingdom that had repelled or conquered the elamites and they had even installed their capital in the previously eramide city of anshan the ancestor of this dynasty was called akimonis hence the name of the family but it is unknown with certainty whether he was real or mythological because there are no records of his life or his actions the name of hikiminis and his successors are transliterations of persian words into greek this is how we know them and these are the names i will use but obviously they called themselves in the ancient persian language the chemist would have lived around 700 bc but his dynasty really became important four or five generations later with the king cyrus ii also known as cyrus the great who created his empire this genealogy is known mainly from the cyrus cylinder an ancient clay cylinder with inscriptions that was discovered in the ruins of babylon and dates from the 6th century bc it is contemporary to the foundation of the hachiminid empire but the accuracy of its content cannot be cross-checked with other documents when cyrus ii inherited the kingdom the medes were the dominant power of the iranian plateau but he revolted against them captured the capital and the king and proclaimed himself his successor in fact he absorbed a much bigger state than his own and when he replaced the median state with his own he also inherited conflicts with the two main kingdoms at its frontiers lydia in what is now the west of turkey and babylon which had freed itself from a syrian domination and had begun an expansion of its own known as the neo-babylonian empire cyrus the great was one of the greatest conquerors of the antiquity in the following years he conquered and annexed his two main rivals starting with lydia the last king of lydia who was defeated by cyrus was called chris he little is known about him but a legend appeared started by greek historians about his supposedly fabulous wealth hence the phrase rich as creators maybe the ancient greeks were impressed with the size of lydia which was their neighbor on the other side of the aegean sea in any case lydia was much larger than any greek kingdom or city-state in the 6th century but there is no solid proof that he was particularly wealthy or powerful he was vanquished anyway in 546 bc and the accumulated empire annexed all of anatolia a few years later in 540 bc cyrus crushed babylon and put an end to its influence annexing a large part of the babylonian empire this is why cyrus is praised in the hebrew bible for his actions in the conquest of babylon by taking the city he freed the captives from the kingdom of judah who could return to their land and later he authorized the reconstruction of jerusalem including the second temple i told you about this in a recent story about the ark of the covenant we will come back to the cultural and religious policies of the a criminal empire in the moment because in fact it administrated very different peoples with a variety of cultures languages and religions and did it with quite a lot of toleration and autonomy in that regard given to its provinces cyrus lived for conquest and after babylon he turned to the east expanding into central asia he died on one of these expeditions in 530 bc having conquered in 20 years the largest empire the world had ever seen he was succeeded by his son campisius ii who continued conquests and added egypt to the empire the days when egypt was a middle eastern power where long gone at this point egypt had already been subjugated by the assyrians before but it was still a major conquest for the younger the kimono empire because it had a large population and was still relatively wealthy after gambesis ii began the golden age of the persian empire under daryus the first the third ruler of the empire who stayed on the throne for 36 years the riots kept expanding but more importantly he consolidated largest state in the world by developing the administration organizing provinces and building a new capital persepolis it is also under his reign that a greco-persian wars began so let's take a look at all of this as i told you the persians had been very influenced by the culture of the region where they settled around 1000 bc by hilomite culture ended by assyria as subjects of the neo-syrian empire they witnessed the rise and administration of one of the first multi-ethnic and multicultural empires in history they learned a lot from it and when the time arrived to organize their own empire and cyrus regret they created an elaborate system to raise taxes or tributes to travel around the empire roads to control different regions or mobilize armies the empire was organized in provinces called satrapis each one was governed by a satrap a kind of viceroy who reported to the central government and was assisted by a general for the supervision of the army and the state secretary for the keeping of official records these two aides also reported to the central government which was a way of keeping control of each satrapy at differing times there were between 20 and 30 satrapies ancient empires rarely kept a permanent army because it was too expensive there were professional guards and a few soldiers but in small numbers cyrus the great created the base of a permanent army a group of ten thousand highly trained soldiers an elite called the immortals he also created a pastoral system from egypt to india or to central asia the journey could take months but thanks to relay stations and riders information could reached the main cities and the capital in just weeks or even days when it came to culture and religion the archimondes were noted by their contemporaries especially the greeks for their policy of toleration there were for example several official languages in news old persian was one of them but so was illomite acadian the dialect of babylon and a remake another language spoken in mesopotamia there were different writing systems in use depending on the languages but mesopotamian languages and old persian had a cuneiform script what is it cuny form was a type of script that appeared in the bronze era several thousand years ago initially developed to write the sumerian language of southern mesopotamia it is named cuneiform for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions from latin kunius for wedge along with egyptian hieroglyphs it is one of the earliest writing systems and the signs are not letters they are a mix of symbols that represent a word and others that represent syllables uniform writing coexisted in the nearest with the greek and roman alphabets or egyptian hieroglyphs until the 1st century bc and it disappeared when the languages that used it went extinct or when people stopped writing them in the following centuries it was replaced by alphabetical systems greek latin arabic and the knowledge of these ancient written languages disappeared until the 19th century when they were deciphered again at least some of them because ancient nearest civilizations that used this system left hundreds of thousands of tablets there is a half a million of them in museums across the world and a lot of what we know about ancient mesopotamia including sumer babylon assyria the hittites the elomites comes from the decipherment of these tablets that could be official documents or letters or all sorts of records the greek language was also in use i'm going to tell you about greco persian wars in a moment but we shouldn't see the relationship between the persian empire and the greek world as two entirely separate worlds entering in conflict cyrus and his successors annexed various greek speaking regions in anatolia war around the black sea and there was a greek minority within the frontiers of the empire greek was one of the languages used in persia among many others and there were even greeks working in the administration or in the building of palaces and cities long before the conquests of alexander the great the most famous of these ancient persian cities is probably persepolis a new capital built under doris the first and we're going to take a look at it because it exemplifies the kimono style of architecture and the wealth and power they had acquired as i told you at the beginning persepolis is a greek name the ancient persians called it parsa the site of persepolis who has chosen to create a brand new capital that would become the official and ceremonial center of the empire but because the site was remote in a mountainous region it was not the most convenient residence for rulers of the empire and they spent more time out of it in other residencies like susa there was never a large population in persepolis so in that sense it is more a monument or a ceremonial complex than a city it seems it was occupied seasonally maybe to celebrate the persian new year held at the spring equinox and this was also the place where the nobility and representance from provinces from the satrapis that paid tribute gathered to present gifts to the king the buildings at persepolis included three different groups there were military quarters a treasury and reception halls and occasional houses for the king all of this stood on a large artificial terrace and because the city was built to showcase the power of the kings the architecture was spectacular and imposing the kimono architecture was a reflection of this empire it was eclectic and borrowed elements from egypt mesopotamia greece to create a distinctly persian style among the ruins of persepolis because the city was destroyed during the greek invasion in 330 bc less than 200 years after its founding an element that stands out is the gate of all nations it is a spectacular structure the remain of a large room whose roof was supported by stone columns and the entrances symbolically watched by massive statues of animals there were two bulls to the west and to la masu to the east the lamazu were mesopotamian protective deities hybrids of a bull or a lion with wings and a human head at the time when persepolis was built persian kings had adopted a new state religion that became strongly associated with ancient persia zoroastrianism it is named after its spiritual leader or prophet zoroaster who lived in the first millennium bc and it entered recorded history in the 5th century bc when it became a state religion as far as we know there were never any persecutions or attempts to impose this religion by dear the kimonos but it gave it a status in what was now the largest empire in the world by the 5th century bc it is estimated that the empire had a population of almost 50 million out of a world population of maybe 120 million that is to say if these estimates are true about 40 percent of humanity in terms of land controlled it was much less than that but the persian empire had very populated regions like egypt or mesopotamia that concentrated a large part of the world's population at the time zoroastrianism which is also called mastaiasana sometimes centers on the belief in a benevolent supreme being a hero master it contains an elaborate cosmology a tale from the creation of the world to its upcoming end and it enjoins its followers to reject evil save their soul and follow a number of rituals these include the worship of fire seen as a purifying force or burial rituals in the persian tradition the dead were not immediately buried but they were placed inside the structure or on top of it a sort of tower called the tower of silence where dead bodies were exposed to carrion birds like vultures but zoroastrianism had and still has many different aspects it is a little known nowadays but it hasn't disappeared persian rulers kept it as the state religion for more than a thousand years until the muslim conquest of persia after the conquest a small minority continued to exist in iran that the majority converted or emigrated today there are zoroastrian minorities in india and pakistan also in north america that this faith only has something between a hundred and two hundred thousand followers in the world still it hasn't disappeared and it is one of the oldest continuously practiced religions in the world at the beginning of the 5th century still during the reign of the riots the persian empire entered in a conflict with greece the persians had already conquered land north of greece the province of trace but then there had been a revolt on the aegean coast of anatolia where the ancient kingdom of lydia was before its conquest by cyrus this was right in front of greece on the other side of the aegean sea and some greek cities like athens had supported the rebellion this began a long period of war during which greek cities fought for their survival against an empire that was much bigger and powerful than they were but against the odds the greeks resisted and almost prevailed in 492 bc the persian expedition re-subjugated thrace and forced the kingdom of macedonia to become a vessel the same macedonia that would produce alexander the great several generations later but two years after that in 490 bc persian forces were defeated by the athenians at the battle of marathon a major battle of the antiquity the forces on each side are not known but precisely persian army was far bigger than that of atons but the greeks would choose a good site for the battle there were marshes and mountains that prevented the persian cavalry from joining the infantry and with brilliant maneuvers they were able to envelop the persians and rob them causing the army to break in panic towards their ships this victory gave grace a long respite because as dorius was preparing his revenge with a new invading force his province of egypt revolted and he had to postpone a new greek expedition ten years passed and it is the son and successor of the riots xerxes the first who tried to complete the job with an even bigger army than his fathers he organized a massive invasion by the north in the first invasion athens was fighting almost alone only with minor allies but this time many more great cities joined the war especially sparta the other major power among greek cities in the first invasion sparta had not replied to a call for help from athens which was dishonorable and had remained as a stain on its reputation this time the spartans threw all they could in the war starting with the first battle that became legendary the battle of thermopylae it is the battle that inspired the 300 comic books and movies thermopylae was a greek defeat but a heroic one the battlefield was a narrow coastal path and during the battle the small force led by the king of sparta leonidas managed to block for two days the only road by which the massive persian invasion force could pass tens of thousands of men but that was not enough to win estimates vary but in average modern historians believe that the greek force amounted to around seven thousand men when the persians were 10 to 40 times more numerous they suffered massive casualties many more than the greeks but they could finally pass and keep advancing towards the south of greece the road to athens was now open and the city had been evacuated xerxes took it and sacked it and at this point the situation looked desperate for the coalition of greek cities they faced the possibility of being overwhelmed and turned into a satrapy of the kimino's empire that victory changed side a few months later the greeks won a decisive victory over the persian fleet and forced turkeys to retreat to the other side of the aegean sea in modern turkey the land army that he left behind was isolated and the following year it was destroyed at the battle of platya this time the greeks had had time to gather a much bigger force of around 80 000 men against a persian army of about the same size or slightly bigger at the time this was the largest greek army ever assembled and it prevailed putting an end to this second persian invasion after that the persians lost their territories in europe and macedonia retook its independence hostilities didn't cease between greek cities and the empire in the following decade and peace was finally signed only in 449 bc 50 years after the beginning of these wars leaving for sure slightly worse off than it was before this was a setback and indeed the best period of dear hiki minute empire was now behind it expansion seized the resistance of grace had been a problem but more than anything the empire was very big and keeping it together required a lot of energy this is a problem all empires in the antiquity faced when they became large they were victims of their success they had multiple enemies on their frontiers and it took time to move armies the provinces were different from one another and succession crisis often happened even the roman empire several centuries later which probably had the most efficient administration ever created at the time reached a point when it could no longer grow and had to accept a stagnation for a century more until the rise of alexander the great this is what happened to dear cabanades their empire was still formidable the largest and most populated state in the world by far and they focused on keeping it united and they were faced with revolves especially a major egyptian revolt in 404 bc egypt was lost for 60 years and was only reconquered in 343 bc and then suddenly the empire collapsed like a house of guards when it was attacked by the greatest conqueror of the antiquity alexander regret the conquests of alexander are another story that i told you about years ago in only three years from 335 to 331 bc alexander defeated repeatedly the larger armies of king and rios the third and conquered the entire empire that alexander's empire didn't last longer than his creator at alexander's death he'd broke up with different states governed by his generals and followers one of his generals tried to take control over the bulk of alexander's legacy in asia iran mesopotamia and later syria and anatolia that this empire the silusid empire began to decline after its founder's death and was expelled from iran by a new force that would dominate ancient persia for centuries and to an extent replace dear the kimino's the parthians you remember when we talked about ancient iranian peoples who had occupied the iranian plateau i told you about the mids that repelled syria and for a short time created the first iranian empire it was quickly taken over by the accuminates who were persians there was a third major group that had its heartland in the east of iran north of the persians and east of the mids the parthians they had been integrated into the akimad empire and they had become a province of the new syrusid empire the province of parthia revolted against its greek masters but during this rebellion another iranian tribe arrived from the south of the caspian sea led by its king arthur sears and they invaded parthia from this base arsocies established a new independent dynasty on the iranian plateau a small kingdom that managed to remain independent for a century and then suddenly by the middle of the second century bc like cyrus the great had done for the earlier accumulated empire a successor of our success turned the small kingdom into a great power by taking media and mesopotamia from the syrup seed a new iranian empire was born the parthian empire that lasted until the third century haiti and managed to recreate a large state centered on iran that stretched at its height from eastern turkey in the west to afghanistan in the east like the archimedes the parthian empire was culturally heterogeneous and made a synthesis of greek persian and various local regional cultures the parthians never could recreate the wealth and expansion of the occamnoned empire but there are still longer and became the new incarnation of persia in the west of their empire they clashed with rome until the 3rd century the state of war with rome never completely ended and the parthians effectively blocked roman expansion in the middle east they competed with rome to control armenia to the north and there were numerous battles one of the most notable during the late roman republic when rome had adopted for its government the triumvirate system power had been shared between three men including julius caesar and his x-mentor tracers each of them tried to gain military glory by conquering land for rome and krasus launched an expedition against the parthians he was soundly defeated in 53 bc and in the following years much of the levant fell to the parthians due to its geography the parthian empire also benefited from the silk road the land route that connected china to the mediterranean sea and trade was a resource that helped to maintain the empire but in the end of the 1st century the romans could annex the levant and the front lines moved to mesopotamia wars between the romans and the parthians were most of the time inconclusive because of very different military tactics the romans relied a lot on heavy infantry which was powerful in pitched battles but also very slow the parthians on the other hand had made knee cavalry either heavy riders in armor or mounted archers and this meant that they were very hard to defeat for the romans because they were much faster and could harass or refuse to fight but on the other hand the parthians had very little skill in siege warfare so they would not really occupy conquered areas and because of these weaknesses on both sides neither the romans nor the parthians were able to annex each other's territory and the status quo often prevailed rather than a foreign power it is a internal instability that put an end to the parthian empire in 224 a.d in the 3rd century the last king was defeated by one of his vassal peoples the persians and the yet a new dynasty the sasanians the the senior or the senior empire is also called neo-persian empire by historians and it was the longest lasting of all of them the same dynasty stayed in power for over 4 centuries until the seventh century haiti and it replaced the parthian empire but expanded it further and almost reached the same size as the achievement empire when it was at its side the iranians became a superpower of the antiquity again during this period and actually it is generally called the sasenyan empire by historians after the dynasty but it called itself empire of iranians it carried on the legacy of its predecessors on many aspects the state religion remained a zoroastrianism it dealt with a variety of cultures religions and languages the persian language had evolved to a new form called middle persian which is the linguistic ancestor to modern version the writing system for the language had left behind cuneiform to replace it with an alphabet or actually several different alphabets and the casual influence of the sassanians cannot be underestimated apart from iran the empire maintained the presence for centuries in what is now afghanistan the south of central asia pakistan iraq and there were trade and cultural influences with china india byzantium the arabian peninsula actually when the muslim conquest started from arabia in the 7th century and effectively destroyed the sasanian empire it also embraced a lot of its culture the persian empire formed the basis for much of early islamic culture be it architecture the arts music literature even philosophy and the absorption of the neo-persian empire is one of the mechanisms through which the muslim world quickly took in a large intellectual legacy from the antiquity this empire also had a tumultuous history with favorable periods when it was politically stable and in expansion like in the 4th and the 6th centuries separated by intermediate periods of difficulties and setbacks but what characterizes its political situation the most is a constant state of war with rome and then byzantium continuing the rivalry that the parthians already had with this powerful neighbor these roman persian wars that began in the 1st century bc and ended in the 7th century a.d that is to say almost 700 years these are the longest lasting conflicts in human history and they ended without a victor the fighting was not constant it was more a series of wars and it culminated in the byzantine sesani noir from 602 to 628 80 during which the sasanians led siege to constantinople the capital of byzantium but without success i will also put the link to the story about the history of byzantium in the description for you in this war the sassanians were successful for the first 20 years they took much of the levant egypt and parts of anatolia from byzantium and this is the time when they reached their maximal expansion that the wall turned into a disaster in the last years after the fader in front of constantinople they were forced onto the defensive against emperor heracleous who campaigned in the heartland of persia the civil war broke out the persian king was killed and they had to sue for a peace that brought back the two empires to the pre-war status quo but the war had also exhausted the belligerents politically and militarily so when the arab invasion began a few years later this was at the worst possible moment for both and this is one of the reasons why the muslim conquest was so quick and could take much of byzantium and all of persia in such a short time by the middle of the seventh century the susannian empire was gone iran was officially converted to islam judaism christianism or zoroastrianism maintained a presence that declined but was never entirely suppressed including to our days but the dominant religion became islam and after an early schism shia islam with an already long history and a vast cultural area persia didn't disappear with the end of its last antique empire quite the opposite actually it continued to be a cultural and intellectual center inside the muslim world and its very eventful history continued with periods of invasions and rebirths during the middle ages and modern times that this was the end of the antiquity for persia and the end of our story for tonight i hope you liked it and i'll talk to you soon with a new topic in the meantime sleep well sweet dreams oh wow

Channel: The French Whisperer ASMR

Views: 219,181

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Id: KzYrM3L_Enk

Length: 69min 46sec (4186 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020