During the 6th century BC, a relentlessly
ambitious Persian king named Cyrus the Second conquered the three major powers of the Near
East and founded the Achaemenid Empire. Its reach would stretch from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Indus River, making it the largest empire the world had ever seen. His ability to conquer vast swaths of land
and insistence on treating his subjects with mercy, kindness, and compassion
earned him the name “Cyrus the Great”! Cyrus the Great was born around 600 BC in
the ancient region of Persis to the King of Anshan, Cambyses the First,
and Queen Mandana of Media. Cyrus’ parents belonged to the Achaemenid dynasty,
which made them descendants of the dynasty’s legendary eponymous founder, King Achaemenes, who reigned
over the city of Anshan during the late 8th century BC. Cyrus was named after his paternal grandfather,
thus making him Cyrus the Second. His traditional Persian name, ‘Kourosh’, meaning ‘Sun’, was in
honor of the celestial body worshiped within Persian culture. According to the 5th-century Greek historian
Herodotus, Cyrus’ maternal grandfather King Astyages, ruler of the Median Empire, had
a dream before his grandson’s birth in which water flowed from his pregnant daughter
Mandana’s womb, flooding the entirety of his realm. His council of advisors interpreted this dream as a prophecy
foretelling that his grandchild would one day overthrow him as ruler. As a precaution, Astyagaes decided to marry
Mandana off to the King of Anshan, Cambyses the First, believing that the son of such a weak and
insignificant monarch could never supplant his rule. In a subsequent dream, Astyagaes watched as his empire became
overgrown with vines that sprouted from Mandana’s womb. This caused Astyagaes to become exceedingly
paranoid, which led him to command his most senior general, Harpagus, to
slay the baby upon its birth. Unable to commit such a vile act, Harpagus ordered one
of his herdsmen, Mithridates, to kill the baby boy instead. Unbeknownst to Harpagus, Mithridates' wife
had just suffered a stillborn birth and the couple decided to use this as an opportunity to
secretly adopt Cyrus and raise him as their own son. When Cyrus was only about 10 years old, he
caught the attention of his grandfather, King Astyages, after allegedly hitting the son
of a nobleman who refused to obey his orders during a children’s game called ‘King and Court’. Cyrus and his adoptive father Mithridates were summoned by
King Astyages to answer for the crime of injuring a nobleman’s son. Upon his arrival, Mithridates confessed to deceiving
Harpagus a decade earlier and raising Cyrus in secret. Because Cyrus had been discovered playing
a game called ‘King and Court', Astyages’ advisors were confident that his prophetic dream of the boy
one day becoming king had already been fulfilled. So Cyrus was allowed to return to
his birth parents in the city of Anshan. In retribution for disobeying his order to
kill Cyrus as a baby, Astyages had Harpagus’ 13-year-old son chopped into small pieces,
boiled, roasted and prepared to be eaten. He then invited Harpagus to a large banquet
where he unknowingly ate his own son. Upon being presented with his son’s head,
hands, and feet on a platter, Harpagus reacted calmly and proclaimed,
“Whatever my king does, pleases me.” Harpagus proceeded to collect his son’s remains,
bury them at home, and begin plotting his revenge. Following the death of his father, Cambyses the First,
in 559 BC, Cyrus was crowned the new King of Anshan. Like many local kings, Cyrus owed allegiance to the Median
Empire, which was still ruled by his grandfather, Astyages. Cyrus had no intention of remaining subservient
and hostilities soon broke out, leading Astyages to send his army, led by Harpagus,
to attack his grandson in 553 BC. Unbeknownst to Astyages, it was Harpagus who
had incited Cyrus to revolt against his grandfather. Harpagus seized this opportunity to exact revenge on Astyages
for killing his son by defecting with his army to Cyrus’ side. Three years of brutal war ended with Cyrus capturing the
Median Empire’s capital of Ecbatana and becoming its new ruler. To appease several of Media’s former vassal states, Cyrus
spared his grandfather’s life and agreed to marry his daughter. Prior to this, Cyrus had already married a
Persian noblewoman named Cassandana. The two were said to have been madly in love,
having two sons and three daughters together. For political purposes, Cyrus would go
on to take several other wives as well. With Astyagus overthrown, Cyrus turned his attention to uniting the
twin Achaemenid kingdoms of Parsa and Anshan into Persia proper. Cyrus’ conquests of Media and Persia resulted in the founding of the
Achaemenid Empire, otherwise known as the First Persian Empire. The king of Lydia, Croesus, attempted to leverage
the instability to the East to expand his own territory. He was inclined to do so after consulting
the Oracle of Delphi, who informed the king that a great empire would be destroyed
should he choose to attack Cyrus. Emboldened by the oracle’s prophecy, Croesus marched
his army into Cappadocia, an area within Persian territory. This culminated in the Battle of Pteria in
March of 547 BC, which saw the invading Lydian forces face Cyrus and his
Persian army in open battle. The battle resulted in a stalemate, with
both sides sustaining heavy casualties. Croesus and his army withdrew to the
Lydian capital of Sardis to await the arrival of reinforcements from allies
in Sparta, Egypt, and Babylon. He anticipated that the approaching winter
would discourage Cyrus from engaging in battle. However, the Persian king made the unorthodox
decision to march his army toward the Lydian town of Thymbra in December of 547 BC, where
he was met with a force twice the size of his own. Harpagus observed that Lydian horses were
frightened by the sight and smell of camels, so he advised Cyrus to surround
his archers with the animals. This completely disrupted the Lydian cavalry charge,
allowing the Persian archers to wreak havoc on their enemies. Pressing on, Cyrus laid siege to the Lydian capital of Sardis
in 546 BC, capturing the city after 14 days of fighting. King Croesus was the wealthiest man in the
world at the time, and it is from his name that the modern expression
“rich as Croesus” originates. His extreme wealth was evidenced by the fact
that Persians began using gold as their primary currency directly following their conquest of Lydia. Some accounts suggest that Croesus was burned alive,
while others theorize that he became an advisor to Cyrus. The Persian king was fond of surrounding himself with a diverse
group of advisors, even those who he had previously viewed as enemies. To this point, Cyrus once said: “We love ourselves notwithstanding
our faults, and we ought to love our friends in like manner. All men have their flaws; and whoever looks for a friend
without imperfections, will never find what they seek.” When Cyrus ordered a Lydian by the name of
Pactyas to bring Croesus’ fortune to Persia, Pactyas instead used the gold to
hire mercenaries and spark a revolt. The Persian king swiftly crushed Pactyas’ uprising and by reasserting
his power, he managed to easily subdue the entirety of Anatolia. Cyrus ordered that Pactyas be brought to him alive,
but the traitor’s ultimate fate remains unknown. While several kingdoms attempted in vain to resist,
others submitted voluntarily to Persian hegemony. The latter witnessed how Cyrus not only defeated the mighty King
Astyages, but also how justly and respectfully he treated his subjects. The Persian king once said:
“Whenever you can, act as a liberator. Freedom, dignity, wealth - these three together
constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. If you bequeath all three to your people,
their love for you will never die.” By 540 BC, Cyrus had successfully captured
the kingdom of Elam in eastern Mesopotamia and its capital of Susa, which pushed his empire’s
borders to the doorstep of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. During this time, Babylon was ruled by King
Nabonidus, who had seized power via a coup. This power grab made Nabonidus extremely unpopular
with the Babylonian people because they perceived it as having angered the city’s chief god, Marduk, and
began viewing the Persian king as a potential liberator. In 539 BC, Cyrus decisively defeated the
Babylonian army at the Battle of Opis and days later went on to capture Babylon, which at the time
was viewed as the greatest city in the world. He accomplished this considerable feat by
employing an ingenious strategy to besiege Babylon’s 350-foot-high defense walls that were
surrounded by a deep moat fed by the Euphrates River. Cyrus ordered that the river be diverted into
a nearby canal, allowing his troops to wade through the shallow water and enter
the city under the cover of night. Nabonidus quickly surrendered after the successful
besieging of the city, making him the final independant king of Babylon and marking an end to
thousands of years of Sumerian-Akkadian rule. The fall of Babylon was most notably recorded in a Babylonian
text inscribed on a clay tablet, known as the ‘Nabonidus Chronicle'. Some scholars view it as a work of propaganda
by Babylonian priests of Marduk to vilify King Nabonidus following his attempt to institute
the worship of the unpopular moon god, Sin. Upon his monumental conquest of
Babylon, the Persian king proclaimed: “I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the
powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world!” Although Cyrus became the most powerful man
on Earth, he maintained a high degree of modesty throughout his life, never allowing his
kindhearted nature to be corrupted. He once said: “In my experience, men who
respond to good fortune with modesty and kindness are harder to find than those
who face adversity with courage.” After the capture of Babylon, the Persian
king issued an edict recorded on an artifact known as the ‘Cyrus Cylinder,’ which is praised by
scholars as “the first human rights charter in history”. The Cyrus Cylinder ordered the restoration
of temples and religious practices, in addition to allowing all displaced Jews
to return to their homelands. This famous policy is recounted in the Books
of Isaiah and Ezra from the Hebrew Bible, documenting the liberation of Jewish people
exiled by Nebuchadnezzar a half-century earlier. The 8th-century BC Israelite prophet
Isaiah named Cyrus the ‘Messiah’ or ‘anointed one of Yahweh’, and
presented him as a God-given savior. The Persian king holds the honor of being the only foreigner
ever to be hailed as the Messiah of the Jewish people. Not much is known about Cyrus’ personal religious beliefs,
but he is thought to have been a devout Zoroastrian. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic ancient Persian
religion that worships a deity named Ahura Mazda. The faith was founded by a religious reformer
named Zoroaster during the 6th century BC. It is one of the world’s oldest religions and is considered to have
influenced the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Cyrus oversaw and pioneered many
groundbreaking strategies, on and off the battlefield. The most well known of these is the establishment
of the Immortals, a group of elite soldiers who served dual roles as both heavy infantry units in
combat and personal bodyguards to the Persian king. The Immortals’ elite training and weaponry made them
proficient warriors who were greatly feared by their enemies. The title of ‘Immortals’ comes from the
policy that the soldiers always remained at a strength of 10,000 men, which was achieved by
immediately replacing a warrior once wounded, sick, or dead. Rather than dismantling the cultures and customs
of those he conquered, Cyrus sought to learn from them, and regularly adopted their
policies, fashions, and organizational systems. Cyrus’ empire was home to four capital cities:
Pasargadae, Ecbatana, Babylon, and Susa, each of which enjoyed a level of self-governance
while still owing fealty to the Persian ruler. The empire’s territory was divided into 26 provinces known
as satrapies, with a satrap acting as a kind of governor. State secretaries and generals were appointed to aid
with administration and maintain order within the satrapies. This system worked so well that it was adopted by subsequent rulers, including Alexander the Great, who conquered Persia two centuries later. Cyrus used the riches he amassed from his conquests
to fund his many building projects and campaigns. This allowed him to lower taxes throughout the empire,
making him very popular among his subjects. As he once said: “Success always calls for
greater generosity - though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos,
treat it as an occasion for greater greed. Collecting wealth is not an end in itself,
but only a means for building an empire. Riches would be of little use to us now -
except as a means of winning new friends.” It is uncertain exactly how Cyrus the Great
died, but Herodotus claims that the Persian king met his end at the hands of a
nomadic tribe known as the Massagetae. Cyrus offered to marry the ruler of the Massagetae,
a warrior queen named Tomyris, who had recently become a widow. However, Tomyris refused the marriage proposal and
warned the Persian king to leave her territory immediately. Unwilling to do so, Cyrus chose to engage in
battle with the queen and her nomadic warriors. Knowing that the Massagetae were unfamiliar
with the inebriating effects of alcohol, Cyrus cleverly positioned his weakest soldiers with copious
amounts of wine as he hid with his strongest men. The Massagetae, led by Tomyris’ only son,
wiped out the feeble Persian soldiers. As they proceeded to get drunk from the wine, Cyrus
ambushed and massacred the intoxicated Massagetae warriors. As a result, the queen’s son was captured and
ultimately committed suicide, filling Tomyris with rage. The warrior queen then confronted Cyrus with her own army,
ultimately defeating his troops and killing the king in December of 530 BC. Allegedly, Tomyris decapitated Cyrus and
mockingly dipped his head in blood, saying: “Drink your fill of blood!” After the Persians were allowed to collect
their king’s body, Cyrus was entombed in the capital city of Pasargadae, surrounded
by his beloved gardens and laid to rest inside a golden coffin with a collection of treasures. The inscription on his tomb read:
“Whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus
who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this
bit of earth that covers my bones.” The valuables within his tomb were looted during the
chaos that followed Alexander the Great’s invasion of Persia. The Macedonian king made great efforts
to restore Cyrus’ tomb, which still stands today despite countless wars
in the area over the centuries. Alexander was a great admirer of Cyrus the
Great, due in large part to Xenophon’s biography of the Persian king known as the ‘Cyropaedia,’
meaning “The Education of Cyrus”. The Greek philosopher praised the Persian
king, writing: “He honored his subjects and cared for them as if they were his own children
and they, on their part, revered Cyrus as a father.” Cyrus the Great is often described as a philosopher-king,
who was perceived as "the ideal leader" by the ancient world. He once said: “Brevity is the soul of command. Too much
talking suggests desperation on the part of the leader. Speak shortly, decisively and to the point–and
couch your desires in such natural logic that no one can raise objections. Then move on.” Through never-ending determination and unprecedented
benevolence, Cyrus the Great founded the First Persian Empire and immortalized himself as one
of the most influential ancient figures in history! Consider liking, commenting and
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