We cannot speak about the great Persian
emperor without briefly understanding the political life in the period and the
origins of the people there. It all started with the Indo-European migration
from 4000 BC as the y came down towards the Iranian plateau and settled there
as shown in the map below
Years after, 3 main settlements later developed,
the Medians, Elamites and the Persians, they settled the locations shown in the
map
There was no historical reference to them
before what the Assyrian wrote about the in 850 BC as a troublesome people with
no civilization and of course they meant the Medians whom managed under the
rule of Deocies (728 – 675 BC) to unite all the Median tribes and establish the
Median kingdom, but that did not help a lot with the Assyrians nearby as they
attacked Media several times between 681 and 669 BC in a way that helped the
Median king to unite all the tribes and created hate between the two which lead
to the fall of Assyria as we pointed out in the History of Assyria article in
the life explained history blog. The Assyrian attacks continued under
Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC) and managed to kill the second king of Median
Phraortes whose son Cyaxeres seceded him and was only 20 years of age. The
Scythians to the north invaded Media and the new king was overwhelmed as it
took him another 20 years to manage removing them from the land , in that
period the Babylonians lead by Nabopalassar revolted against Assyria in 625 BC,
and the Assyrians were getting weaker by the time while the king of Media was
rebuilding the state and the army.
In 614 the Medians and the Babylonians
joined force and succeeded in defeating the Assyrians and conquering its old capital
Ashur and completed conquering all Assyria by 612 BC after the fall of Nineveh,
they divided the Assyrian empire among themselves and to make the treaty more
sound the Babylonian crown prince marries the Princess of Media. The Median
king went on to Anatolia and conquered it which made Media an empire but his
dreams were cut short as Cyaxeres died in 585BC and his son Astyages ruled but
was nothing like his father and was very hated by the people of Media. Until
one day when Astyages saw a dream that his daughter will give birth to a great
king that will rule the world, so he decided to make her marry a Persian prince
as he did not think much of the Persians called Cambyses and in 583 BC Cyrus
was born and as he grew up into a clever young Prince, his father made him rule
an area south called Anshan (not far from the city of Shiraz Iran today) in the
year 559BC.
So his father was ruling Persia and his
grandfather was ruling the Median Empire.
In 556 BC the last Babylonian king Nabonidus,
whom was obsessed by the city of Harran because his mother was a priestess for
the moon god sin.
But Harran was under Median rule, so
Nabonidus makes a deal with Cyrus that he will help him defeat his grandfather
Astyages of Media if in return he can have Harran, the idea seemed good to
Cyrus and both Persia and Babylonia made a coalition and in 550 BC Media fell
rather easily to Cyrus since the Median army defected to him, so Cyrus became
the first emperor over the Iranian plateau to what was called the Medo-Persian
Empire.
Cyrus the great ruled: 559-530 BC and
instead of writing I will put a map to show the size of the Persian Empire
during his rule and the years of conquests.
Cyrus was unlike any other emperor at the
time, he believed that every country he conquers should keep their religious beliefs,
language and culture, he wrote in the famous cylindrical seal in Babylonian
language about peace and rebuilding and prosperity and did not believe in
bloodshed in fact in his battle with Lydia as shown in the map he faced Lydia's
king Croesus famous for his wealth and defeated him yet he was not killed and
kept as an advisory in his cabinet
In line 36 (45 lines all together) he
wrote: "The
people of Babylon blessed my kingship, and I settled all the lands in peaceful
abodes."
In line 33 he wrote "at the command of Marduk, the great lord, I settled in
their habitations, in pleasing abodes, the gods of Sumer and Akkad, whom
Nabonidus, to the anger of the lord of the gods, had brought into Babylon."
The tale that he saw a vision that the Babylonians are
committing sins and it is time for their conquest and clean the society.
He was mentioned in both the Bible Isa. 44,
45 Ezr.1 and in the Quran 18-84 and is called "thu alqarnain" meaning
the man with 2 horns.
Also unlike other emperors there is only one
statue found for him and has a great meaning wearing an Elamite robe, An
Assyrian wings and an Egyptian crown in a symbolic notion that he is not the
Emperor of Persia only so Assyria symbolizes all Mesopotamia, Egypt symbolizes
Africa and Elam the Iranian Plateau .
The famous Greek historian Xenophon wrote 4
books about how to run a country and rule an empire, since he was a great
enthusiast of Cyrus rule he wrote Cyropaedia, and according to the British
museum that Thomas Jefferson had 3 copies of this book and used to refer to it regularly.
In my opinion Cyrus was one of the greatest
emperors in history, whom showed us a model of tolerance that can lead to
greatness and to me he is a man of GOD since he was called a Messiah in the
Bible and is the only Messiah that is not a Jew and if we know that the word means
anointed one I cannot see a pagan be one plus in the Quran he was mentioned
" we established his power on earth and we gave him the ways and the means
to all ends". When he released the captive Jews in Babylon they showed him
his name mentioned in Isaiah's prophecy according to the Jewish historian Josephus,
he gave them all the support to build the second temple, and that is another
proof that he was not a pagan in my opinion.
He was killed in battle in December 530 BC
and buried in Pasargadae the Persian capital at the time, he is still
celebrated in Iran as a national hero
