History on the Rocks: Sources from Ancient Persia

1. History on the Rocks: Sources from Ancient Persia

2. Empire On A New Scale Persia was the first great empire in the Classic Age of empires, 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.

3. “You can conquer an empire on horseback, but you can not govern it on horseback.” -- quote attributed to the Mongol Khans “The bureaucratic principle meant that an individual – any individual in principle – could expect to be obeyed by those around him simply because some distant monarch delegated authority to him. When generally accepted, such delegated authority made it easier to collect taxes and enforce public laws across long distances, so long as appointed officials remained obedient to their superiors.”-- J.R. McNeill & William H. McNeill, The Human Web How could such authority be communicated?

4. Persians perfected the art of governing and administering a large empire… “According to righteousness I conducted myself. Neither to the weak nor to the powerful did I do wrong. The man who cooperated with my house, him I rewarded well; whoso did injury, him I punished well.” -- Rock Inscription of Darius, Emperor of Persia … mixing persuasion and mutual benefit with raw power. From a regional kingdom, the Persians built an empire of 35 million people that stretched from Egypt to India.

5. Who were the Persians? Part of a larger wave of nomadic migrations known as Indo-European, and specifically Indo-Aryan.

6. Who settle in Fars, a rural hinterland, that became the foundation of the future Persian Empire… Fars province lays today in the southwest of Iran Fars has distinctly different landscapes - barren mountain ranges are interspersed by fertile valleys taking advantage of the little rainfall the province gets annually. Searing hot summers, brutally cold winters, said to be an environment good for breeding fighting men.

7. Migratory horsemen and herdsmen… They called themselves “Aryo,” a PIE word meaning “Lord,” a word that is today the foundation of modern Iran (Iran = Aryo) Kurosh, a.k.a. Cyrus the Great … who built their own royal dynasty: the Achaemenid Dynasty (pronounced aw-kee-MUH-ned), named for Achaemenes, the patriarch of the family, they ruled the Persian Empire from 559-331 B.C.E.

8. Built an empire that absorbed both older population centers and rural hinterlands… Artist’s depiction of Persian army under Cyrus arriving at the Ishtar gate of Babylon. The Persians ended 3,000 years of Mesopotamian kingship and dominance. … including Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Lydia, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor.

9. Announce themselves as liberators… … Cyrus becomes the “Messiah” who rescues the Hebrews from enslavement by another imperial power, Babylon, in 538 B.C.E., and restores their temple at Jerusalem. Mentioned 23 times in the Old Testament: Thus says the Lord to Cyrus his anointed, whom he has taken by the right hand, subduing nations before him… -- Isaiah 45:4 Hebrews gather at the feet of Cyrus in this European Renaissance painting.

10. Promoting a cultural synthesis that helps to unify diverse peoples… “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….” -- Inscription from the Cyrus cylinder Replica of the Cyrus bas-relief from the palace of Pasargadae showing multicultural influences of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria.

11. And a remarkable cultural synthesis carved in stone…Persians conquered over 70 different ethnic groups. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, “there is no nation which so readily adopts foreign customs. They have taken the dress of the Medes and in war they wear the Egyptian breastplate. As soon as they hear of any luxury, they instantly make it their own.” This torso of a statue of Darius the Great, typifies the multi-national character of the Persian Empire. The costume is purely Persian, but the statue base contains Egyptian iconography, including cartouches and the symbol of the Upper and Lower Nile being bound together. Multinational: The two peoples shown striding together, the Mede (wearing the traditional rounded cap) and the Persian (wearing an upright cap), were both allies and rivals. Once the Medes ruled the Persians, and together they had defeated the Assyrians. In 550 B.C.E. Cyrus’s army conquered the Medes army and lay claim to imperial rule. Here they are depicted as friends. One of the most famous motifs found at Persepolis is the relief of a lion attacking a bull, thought by some to be symbolic of the defeat of winter by the Spring Equinox. Both animals were important symbols in all the major empires of the ancient Middle East.

12. Forming the basis of an empire that was both centralized and multicultural… “I am Cyrus, the King” – a tri-lingual cuneiform inscription, featuring Aramaic, a Semitic language that was adopted as the official imperial written language of Persia.

13. An empire built around the grandeur of Persian kings… “The Great King, King of kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide. King in Persia” (above) Darius’s inscription at Bisitun, high above the caravan route on the road from Fars to Babylon (see red arrow). The scene shows the coronation of Darius as Persian king, with his foot firmly on the body of a submissive rival. The scene also bears a tri-lingual text carved into the rock in Babylonian cuneiform script, Elamite, and Old Persian. This is the first appearance of Old Persian and even Darius boasts in his inscription that the language of the Persians had never been written down before.

14. Grandeur cut into rock: an empire of Persian kings and an aura of the divine… (above) Darius seated on a throne with golden scepter, long square beard, and high flat top crown. (Left) the tomb of the Persian king Xerxes, famous as the leader of the Persian forces in such memorable battles such as Thermopylae and Salamis during the Persian invasions of Greece in 480 BC. Styled in imitation of a great Persian palace.

15. A diverse society of obedient peoples: a cosmopolitan royal capital at Persepolis… The ancient capital of Persepolis, located in Fars, was one of four capitals of the sprawling Persian Empire. Standing atop a 40 foot high manmade terrace foundation (right) , the royal compound was built beginning around 520 B.C. It was a showcase for the empire's staggering wealth, with grand architecture, including a treasury and three palaces, adorned with extravagant works of silver and gold, glazed brick, and extensive relief sculptures such as the one below (right) portraying envoys with offerings for the king. Anyone entering the palace complex at Persepolis (left) passed through this monumental gate known as the Gate of All Lands. The strong Assyrian influence on Persian architecture is seen in the large flanking winged-bulls.

16. Visual propaganda: more sculpted images of Persepolis… Palace frame doorways (above left); griffons, mythical creature with head and wings of an eagle and the body of lion atop a column (left) and a stone bull head (below) ; Persian soldiers (above right); Terrace foundation on which Persepolis was constructed (right). … artwork incorporated Mesopotamian, Greek, and Egyptian motifs.

17. Royal edicts enforced through a system of governing provinces… Empire was organized into administrative provinces known as satrapies, with governors (i.e. satraps) appointed by the Persians to rule on their behalf. With the help of the military, satraps enforced a system of taxation, ensuring that wealth from the provinces flowed to Persia. Sculpted scene showing a Persian Satrap receiving visitors.

18. An empire backed by military dominance… According to Herodotus, the Persian king’s royal guard was never allowed to fall below 10,000 “immortals,” i.e. hand-picked soldiers, who were the pride of the Persian army. They wore colorful tunics and cloth headdress, and were the elite of the 150,000 soldiers that comprised the Persian military.

19. Persian troops carried iron weapons, and fought both as cavalry and infantry… The bow was the most widely used weapon among the Persians, but soldiers were also equipped with a short fighting spear, a short sword, and often a shield. … and offered peace and friendship to defeated peoples, and enlistment to foreign soldiers.

20. Along with military strength, the Persians invested in engineering, commerce, and administration… Persians maintained a Royal Road that stretched 1700 miles and connected their administrative capital at Susa with the trading city of Sardis in Asia Minor. Engineers constructed a hard packed gravel surface to make the road more durable. Post stations were established every 14 miles along the road, and couriers could cover the entire length in one week. According to Herodotus, “neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stopped them.” “Nothing mortal travels as fast as the royal messengers” proclaimed another popular saying.

21. Like the later Romans, the Persians were skilled hydraulic engineers… … and channeled water over long distances with ventilated, underground canals. Darius oversaw construction of an above ground canal that ran 50 miles from the Nile River to the Red Sea.

22. They copied administrative models, and imposed a uniform law code, system of coinage, and standardized weights and measures… A Daric, was the minted coin used as currency during the Persian Empire. Probably borrowed from the kingdom of Lydia (home of the fabled “King Midas”) whom the Persians defeated, it was of very high quality, an average purity of 95.83%, the Daric was usually stamped with the image of a Persian king or soldier. Used widely as a currency, the Daric is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible (I Chronicles 29:7) Darius receiving officials at court.

23. Even after the Persian Empire collapsed under the onslaught of Alexander The Great’s campaigns in the 300s B.C.E. . . . Rock carving from ancient Iran showing Mithra (figure standing to the left), a divine priest favored in the ancient Persian religious. Here, he is shown with rays of sunlight emanating from his head. Below, a later Roman carving showing the cult deity “Mithras” slaying a Bull. Figure in the upper left hand corner has sun rays emanating from its head, and represents the “unconquered sun,” an icon that in Latin was called Sol Invictus. • … Persian cultural influences continued to shape the ancient world. In particular, the Persian religious tradition that grew from Zarathustra. The Cult of Mithras, was a syncretic form of worship popular during the time of the Roman Empire, which seems to have borrowed from Persian influences and which in turn had special influence on the early Christian movement: • 7 stages of initiation (i.e. sacraments), including baptism, communion • celebrate holy days, including December 25th as the birth of the sun.

24. And the ancient past echoes from the rocks to our time… Persian fire emanating from the head of liberty….

25. A legacy of imperial administration that continues today… Columned and stone cut and masonry IRS building in Washington, D.C.

26. An American Bisitun… … carved into the rock of Stone Mountain, Georgia.

27. And an iconic ruler carved on seated throne… An American Darius?

28. While the tomb of Cyrus the Great… … is surpassed by the tomb of an American conqueror.