Read in Persian

Persian “Pre-History”

Persian (O.P. Pārsiya-) is the name attributed to one of the three West Iranian tribal confederacies that moved to the Iranian Plateau sometimes in the late 2nd or early 1st millennium BC . Persia (Old Pers.: Pārsa-), the historical homeland of Persians since at least the 7th century BC, is bound between the southern stretches of Zagros mountains to the west, Persian Gulf to the south, plain of Karmania to the east, and Media to the north. We find this homeland expanding towards the Khuz plains over the Zagros, and slowly starting to include Karmania as well, all before Persians started to play their major role in history.

The Persian homeland is consisted of long stretches of highland plains, often interrupted by even higher mountains. Most of the land has a rather low average of rainfall, and thus is not best suited for high yield agriculture. Even before the arrival of Persians, the economy of the inner parts of this plain depended mainly on pastoralism, and in the south, by the Persia Gulf, on fishing subsistence. This of course suited the nomadic ancestors of Persians who, like their Indo-Iranian forefathers, were horse-riding herdsmen of great skill.

Exactly who lived in this plain before Persians we are not sure. Reports of Babylonian and Assyrian scouts only mention Kassites and Elamites who lived in the Zagros Mountains and in the Khuz Plain, neighbouring the Babylonians. We know that the Elamite power expanded beyond the Zagros and into the Persian lands, since the famed Elamite city of Anshan (alt. Anzan) is now matched with the archaeological site of Tape Malyan, 100 kilometres west of Pasargedae, in the heart of Persia.

Our knowledge of where Persians lived before descending to their historical homeland is equally limited. Assuming the word Persian as the ethnic name or the tribal name of these people, we naturally look for the historical occurrence of this name or similar terms in other places. Our earliest encounter with the term is in an Assyrian text of 836 BC that details the lands that pay tribute to the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III . The document mentions a place named Pārsua that is located to the south of the old Urartu lands and to the northwest of the Medians, placing it in modern day province of Western Azerbaijan, somewhere west of the Lake Urmia. A short time later, about 820 BC, another Assyrian king, Shamshi-Adad V, mentions a tributary called Pārsumash, well to the south of Parsua, near modern day Kermanshah . However, by the time Tiglath-pileser III invaded Parsua in 737, he found Medians living there. Naturally, these evidences have led many to believe that Persians originally moved down from Azerbaijan to Persia. Although plausible as a theory and also consistent with the patterns of Iranian migrations , this migration theory nonetheless fails to be convincing. There is no evidence to assume such movement in historical times, since the very detailed Assyrian annals do not mention anything about what should have been a significant population change, and neither do archaeological records. Furthermore, the fact that Assyrians find Medians in Parsua at the 8th century BC may suggest that even a hundred years earlier, the land was inhabited by Median tribes, and that the name just bears the word Pars-, which considering our complete lack of any Median language sources, may have a meaning other than ethnic designation for historical Persians (cf. Arabs of Assyrian texts and historical Arabs). Whatever the truth about this might be, we would certainly need more evidence to assume such large scale migration, and those have not come forth yet. In any case, by the time Persians enter history, just prior to the accession of Cyrus the Great, we find them in their homeland, the naturally fortified plains that come to be known as Persia.

Formation of Persian Tribes

As mentioned before, Persians, like other Iranian groups, formed a tribal confederacy. Each of these tribes inhabited a certain part of Persia, and their territories were well defined. Their social formation does not seem to be much different from their Indo-European ancestors, being a basic patriarchal system based on several blood related families forming a tribe, and the tribes ultimately forming the confederacy. There seems to have been a firm oligarchic system in place in which the heads of tribes would make all large decisions regarding the general conduct of the society. These Elders belonged to an upper level of the society, the “ruling class”, whose members held the chief positions by the right of birth.

Membership in other social classes - clergy, artisans, herdsmen – was also hereditary, although Iranian tribes in general seem to have avoided the experience of their Indian cousins in creating an untouchable class, mostly consisting of the natives. Persians, as well as Medians and Parthians, easily married with the local population, whom they probably served initially as mercenaries and herdsmen when they first arrived in the plateau. By the time Persians formed their empire, they seem to be a good mix of Aryan and native Iranian stocks.

We have a fair idea of the territories where each of the Persian tribes inhabited, especially the one that supposedly found the Persian Empire, known to us through Greek historians as the Pasargedae tribe. This is the tribe that inhabited the northern Persian plain and the area of the present day Bakhtiari Mountains, and immediately bordered the Neo-Elamite kingdom in its eastern extent, the city of Anshan. From very early on, Persians started to mingle with the Elamites and entered the social formation of the very advance Elamite Kingdom.

At some point close the foundation of the Median Empire (mid 8th century BC), Persians had gotten strong enough in Anshan to have one of their own rule the city. This person was called Ku-rash, son of Chish-pesh in the Elamite tablets, he and his father bearing unmistakeable Elamite names. No mention of his Persian background is of course provided, but we make this assumption from the words of his grandson of the same name. This Ku-rash, or Kurosh as he was known in Old Persian, was succeeded by his son, Kabujia, who bore an equally Elamite name. Kabujia was marriedto the daughter of Ishto-vigo/Astyages, the king of Media, named Kasandra.

At the time that Kabujia was ruling in Anshan, another Persian family ruled in Pasargadae proper. These were the descendants of a man called Hakhamanesh /Achaemenes, and their king at the time was called Arsham (Arsames), son of Aryaramna (Ariaramnes), son of Hakhamanesh (Achaemens). Later sources, most importantly the rock carving of Arsham’s grandson, Darius the Great, would claim that Chish-pesh, the father of Ku-rash, was also son of Achaemenes, and thus Kabujia was made to be a second cousin of Arsham (for a detailed discussion of the family tree of the Persian/Achaemenid Emperor’s, please see the present author’s article, to be published soon). Arsham/Arsames, was bound to be the last king of Parsa, as Kabujia was the last king of Anshan. The events that followed the succession of Kabujia’s son, Kurosh II (Cyrus), would determine the future of the Anshan and Persia, as well as most of West Asia.

Cyrus the Great and the Persian Empire

Cyrus, or more exactly Kurosh (Elamite: Kurash), first comes to our attention as the ruler of the Elamite highland capital of Anshan (alt. Anzan) (ca. 559 BC). In this position, he was succeeding his ancestors, Cambyses/Kabujia I, Kurosh I, and Chishpesh/Tespes who all styled themselves King of Anshan. History, mainly through its Greek interpreters, tells us that Cyrus was the maternal grandson of the Media Emperor Astyages or Ishto-vigo, (see Chapter III). He was always very ambitions to be more than the king of Anshan, a desire that led him to conquer and depose his father’s cousin, Arsham, the ruler of Parsa, from his position, thus gaining the control of the Persian “heartland”.

Cyrus’ advancement coincided with the decline of the Median Empire and descent of its emperor into decadence and the negligence of his duties. The story of Cyrus’ life, transmitted to us mainly by Xenophon’s Cyropedia, mentions that the unhappy Median nobility, headed by an important official named Harpag, “asked” Cyrus to challenge the old emperor and take over the empire. Media at the time was an ally of Babylonia, an alliance remaining from the time of Cyaxares and Nabopulassar’s successful attempt to destroy Assyria. However, at the time of these events, the king of Babylonia, Nabunid, had priorities in his mind other than the security of Media. Nabunid, a deeply religious person who came from an Aramaic background, had dreams of restoring the Babylonian might in the Mesopotamia and taking over the commerce of the region. He was also planning to rebuild the city of Ameda (Harran) that was destroyed by Assurhaddon and construct a temple to his favourite god, Sin, the god of the moon. Generally, due to his Aramaic background and the pressure on his territory from the west (by Arabs especially), Nabunid’s foreign policy was more westward looking. He also did not mind that one Iranian kingdom (Parsa) was trying to destroy the other (Media), making the field clear for the rise of Babylon. As a result, left without any strong allies and weakened by mismanagement, Medes were finally defeated by the young and motivated army of Cyrus.

Cyrus’ quick defeat of Media must have given him the support he needed from his Persian base to continue the conquests. We can well imagine that his ultimate goal must have been the conquest of Babylonia, the glorious sign of the Mesopotamian power. However, the obvious burdens put on the Persians by the conquest of Media most likely left them too weak to attack the Babylonians who were at the time enjoying a revival of their power under the rule of Nabunid. Cyrus probably realised that in order to take on Babylonia, he needed a large source of funding, one bigger than the one offered to him by the Median treasury. His gaze around for locating the source of this needed money surely fell upon an obvious choice, the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor.

Lydia, a small kingdom ruling over the western territories of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was one of the wealthiest kingdoms in the world. The king of this land, Croesos, was supposedly a granduncle to Cyrus and was aware of his rapid advancements. There is a famous story about this episode in Greek legend that tells us of a consolation from the Oracle of Delphi by Croesos. As the story goes, the king asked the Oracle of Apollo about the outcome of the war at hand, and the ever enigmatic Oracle answered that a great king will fall. The Lydian monarch interprets this as the fall of Cyrus, a greater king than himself. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the interpretation proves wrong, and the Oracle indeed had flattered Croesos, since Cyrus succeeds in subduing the Lydian king and further enlarging his empire.

We are not supplied by the full report of the conquest of Lydia, but all evidences seem to suggest a rather peaceful and bloodless conquest. It is well imaginable that the armies of Lydia, a strictly commercial empire, did not stand much chance against the horse riding Persians and Medes, and they probably gave up their defence in order to save their capital city, Sardid, from destruction and thus losing its position as a financial centre. Croesos was reported to have attempted suicide, but was rescued in time, and very conveniently, by Cyrus, who chose him as his advisor, a choice that can account for excellent financial formation of the Persian territories. Cyrus was now secure as far as finances were considered, and only needed to supply proper troops for his attempt at subduing Babylon.

Although enjoying a commercial revival, Babylonia’s power in the region was never really recovered after the death of Nebuchadnezzar II. Nabunid’s obsession with religion, his frequent absences from Babylon itself, his psychotic fascination with Babylonia’s ancient glamour, and his negligence in protecting Babylonia’s interest, was unavoidably driving his kingdom to a state of ruin. It was not long before the power of Nabunid did not stretch far beyond the walls of Babylon itself.

It was in these conditions that Cyrus fought with the Babylonians and reached the walls of the great and ancient city. As the story goes, Cyrus found the walls impossible to penetrate. So, he figured out a way to enter the city without destroying the walls. He ordered a new canal to be dug around the walls, and then changed the course of the river Euphrates that ran through the city, making it flow in the newly dug canal, thus opening an entrance under the city walls.

When Cyrus invaded Babylonia, he treated the locals honourably and in contrast to the common practice, did not order any massacres. He set free the Jewish captives that had been moved to Babylon since the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and gave back the stolen ornaments of the Temple of Jerusalem and money to rebuild that Temple. This made him into a much praised personality in the Old Testament. Also in Babylon, Cyrus issued a decree that guaranteed social and religious freedoms of the Babylonians and is much praised as being the first ever declaration of human rights. A copy of this decree, known as the Cyrus Cylinder and carved in Neo-Babylonian, is kept in the British Museum.

After this victory, Cyrus returns to his homeland of Persia and orders the building of a palace in Pasargadea, around 100 km north of present day Shiraz. During the time of this construction, Cyrus sets of for another war, this time with the nomadic Massaget tribes that lived to the north of Parthia. It is at some point in this not so grandiose war that Cyrus receives an arrow that ends his legendary life. His body was brought back in full honour to his unfinished palace and was buried in a tomb that has well stood the test of time, showing us the glory of the first great emperor.

For Further Reading

Fry, Richard N. The Heritage of Persia. Mentor, New York, 1963

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Salincourt. Revised by John Marincola. Penguin Classics, London, 1996

Olmstead, Arthur T. History of the Persian Empire. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970

Stronach, David. “Anshan and Parsa: Early Achaemenid History, Art and Architecture on the Iranian Plateau”. In John Curtis ed. Mesopotamia and Iran in the Persian Period, British Museum Press, London, 1997

Old Persian Texts (http://www.avesta.org/op/op.htm)

Iranologie (http://www/iranologie.com/history/history.html)

Wikipedia History of Persia (http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Persia)

Iranology | In the middle of 6th century BC, Cyrus the Great, King of Kings, found the Persian Empire. Although not the first of its kind, the Persian Empire was so influential in all aspects of administration and organisation that it became a pattern for all of the Eurasian empires of antique and medieval times.