Darius as a whole

• Darius the first

  The most competent ruler, also called Darius the Great and became the King of the Kings. Makes things run more smoothly and because of him the empire lasted so long.
• Darius: 'THE FOLLOWING IS WHAT WAS DONE BY ME AFTER I BECAME KING. A SON OF CYRUS, NAMED CAMBYSES, ONE OF OUR DYNASTY WAS KING HERE BEFORE ME. THAT CAMBYSES HAD A BROTHER, BARDIYA BY NAME, OF THE SAME MOTHER AND THE SAME FATHER AS CAMBYSES. AFTERWARDS, CAMBYSES SLEW THIS BARDIYA, IT WAS NOT KNOWN UNTO THE PEOPLE THAT BARDIYA WAS SLAIN.'
• Cambyses got his brother Bardiya executed, tried to marry his sister but after his sister was feeling sorry for Bardiya he killed her himself and Cambyses also tried to kill Croesus with a bow and arrow and missed. Told some people to kill Croesus, they protected him instead and Cambyses was happy he didn't die but still killed the men that protected Croesus
• Someone who called themselves Bardiya made a revolt
• Darius was in the group who heard that Bardiya should take the Persia back and that could be a reason that he rose to become king of kings
• Cambyses's Lance bearer was Darius, someone destined for a good life
• Otanes, an aristocrat, didn't think Bardiya was the right person
• The father of one of the wives of Cambyses and now Bardiya asked his daughter to check the ear of Bardiya as Cambyses had cut the ear off of the person pretending to be Bardiya. The father collected 6 more high aristocrats of Persia
• Croesus


  The first king to take control of Ionians
• Solon was one of the seven stages and asked Croesus who the most successful man, to which Croesus replied with normal Greek men
• Croesus asked why he was not the most successful, to which Solon replied by saying he had not died yet
• When Croesus almost dies he yells Solon three times and that led to him being saved and not burned by Cyrus
• The Persian Empire had 25 million people, of which only 1 million were Persians
• Darius talked about how the god called 'AHURAMAZDA' had helped him with his achievements (a Persian god). This is his own 'Ideology'
• The Phoenicians (in modern day Lebanon) had a very strong navy
• Darius says how his god is the most powerful and it was only his god who helped him
• Darius says how he is protesting too much - he emphasises that he tells the truth even if he has lied about how he became ruler
• Darius and his seven friends burst in and kill the ruler
• Darius


  Ruler of the Persian Empire between 522 and 586BC, also known as 'Darius the Great'
• After Darius came into power, a lot of revolts happened. These are mentioned in the 'Darius in the Bisitun Inscription' but Herodotus says nothing about this - He does talk about a revolt that happened in Babylon which might have happened a year or two after Darius came to throne
• The Bisitun Inscription was a propagandist version of all the revolts that happened while Darius was in power which he claims to have successfully stopped
• In the Autumn of 522 Elam (near Babylon) and Babylon revolted but Darius quickly shut it down. Darius impaled the people that revolted
• The person who led the revolt was told to be a family member of the old Babylonian king but Darius says he was an imposter. The person who led this claimed to be the son of Nabonidus and was called Nidintu-Bel (or Nebuchadnezzar III) and Darius killed and captured the leader
• Another revolt leader named Arakha also claimed to be the son of Nabonidus a year later but he was put down by a leading Persian, Intaphernes in November 521
• Rebellious regions

  • Persia
  • Elam
  • Media
  • Assyria
  • Egypt
  • Pathia
  • Magiana
  • Sattagydia
  • Saka of central Asia
• Darius says proudly about the ruthlessness of the revolts and how he put them down. Darius speared Nidintu-Bel and his 49 supporters and the same thing happened to Arakha and his followers a year later
• The Inscription boasts about how Darius fought 19 battles and took nine kings prisoner in a single year so by the end of 521 he was firmly in power
• 7 of these 9 kings are in the Inscription and the last two figures are leaders of foreign enemies. These two were added to the Inscription in 520/519 after they had all been defeated. They are all described as liars as they claimed to be the sons of kings such as Cyrus or Nabonidus
• We don't know why there were so many rebellions within the Empire - a possibility is that the instability of Persia rule gave people hope of regaining their freedom. Some people may have also felt upset that Darius had only come into power by killing their previous leader
• Herodotus says how Darius could have been popular if he ended tribute and military leaves for three years
• Cyrus and Cambyses

  Presented themselves as 'King of Anshan' while Darius presented himself 'King of Persia'
• Darius tried to present himself as the heir to Cyrus by linking them together through royal genealogy (Achaemenes - scholars believe that Darius made him up to say he was related to Cyrus as he said Achaemenes was their ancestor. They don't believe it because Cyrus never mentioned him)
• After Darius became king he married 2 of Cyrus's daughters named Atossa & Arystone
• The message Darius is trying to give to people by doing that is by continuing Cyrus's policies and takes them to the next level
• Polygamy was normal in Persian times
• Ahura-Mazda


  The Persian god that Darius believes in, not mentioned by Cyrus but mentioned 63 times in the Bisitun Inscription
• Drauga

  'Liar kings' who deserve to be punished
• Darius was always accompanied by a Magi
• Under Darius's rule, the empire saw a lot of development in the Persian culture, as well as development in politics, sculpture, architecture and technology
• Satrapies


  20 provinces of the Persian Empire, each with a governor called a satrap who was usually the king's relative