Darius I of Persia
Darius the Great (
Darayawush I) (ca.
549 BC"
485/486 BC;
Old Persian Dārayawuš: "He Who Holds Firm the Good"), was the son of
Hystaspes and
Persian Emperor from
521 BC to
485/486 BC. His name in
Modern Persian is داریوش (
Dariush), in
Hebrew "ַּרְיָוֵשׁ (
Daryawesh) and the
ancient Greek sources call him (
Dareios).
Governance
Darius in his inscriptions appears as a fervent believer in the
monotheistic religion of
Zoroaster. He was also a great statesman and organizer. Darius thoroughly revised the Persian system of administration and also the legal code. His revisions of the legal code revolved around laws of
evidence,
slave sales,
deposits,
bribery, and
assault. The time of conquests had come to an end; the wars which Darius undertook, like those of
Augustus, only served the purpose of gaining strong natural frontiers for the empire and keeping down the barbarous tribes on its borders. Thus Darius subjugated the wild nations of the
Pontic and
Armenian mountains, and extended the Persian dominion to the
Caucasus; for the same reasons he fought against the
Saka and other Iranian
steppe tribes, as well as the mysterious
Turanians from beyond the
Oxus. In the process of these campaigns he made military reforms such as introducing
conscription, pay for soldiers, military training and he also made changes in the army and navy. But by the organization which he gave to the empire he became the true successor of the great
Cyrus. His organization of the provinces and the fixing of the tributes is described by
Herodotus (iii. 90 if.), evidently from good official sources. He divided the
Persian Empire into twenty provinces, each under the supervision of a governor or
satrap. The satrap position was usually hereditary and largely autonomous, allowing each province its own distinct laws, traditions, and elite class. Every region, however, was responsible for paying a
gold or
silver tribute to the emperor; many areas, such as
Babylonia, underwent severe economic decline resulting from these quotas. Each satrapy also had an independent financial controller, an independent military coordinator as well as the satrap, who controlled administration and the law. All three probably reported directly to the king. This more evenly distributed power within the satrapy and lowered the chance of revolt. Darius also increased the bureaucracy of the empire, with many scribes employed to provide records of the administration.
Many building projects were initiated during the reign of Darius, with the largest being the building of the new capital of
Persepolis.
Pasargadae was too well associated with the previous dynasty of
Cyrus and
Cambyses and so Darius sought a new capital. The city would have walls sixty feet high and thirty-three feet thick and would be an enormous engineering undertaking. Darius' tomb was cut into a rock face not far from the city. He dug a canal from the
Nile to
Suez, and, as the fragments of a
hieroglyphic inscription found there show, his ships sailed from the Nile through the
Red Sea by
Saba to Persia. Darius also commissioned the extensive road network that was built all over the country. The
Persepolis Tablets mention a ‘royal road' from
Susa to Persepolis and from
Sardis to Susa built by Darius. It was highly organised with rest stations, guarded
garrisons,
inns and apparently no
bandits. Darius is also remembered for his
Behistun Inscription which was chiselled into the rock face near the town of
Behistun. It showed Darius' successful ascension to the throne and described Darius' legitimacy to be king.
Darius is often renowned above all as being a great financier. He fixed the
coinage and introduced the golden
Daric. He tried to develop the
commerce of the empire, and sent an expedition down the
Kabul and the
Indus, led by the
Carian captain
Scylax of Caryanda, who explored the
Indian Ocean from the mouth of the Indus to
Suez. During his reign, the population increased and industries flourished in towns.
Persia under Darius probably had connections with
Carthage (cf. the
Karka of the
Nakshi Rustam inscription) of
Sicily and
Italy. At the same time he attempted to gain the good-will of the subject nations, and for this purpose promoted the aims of their priests. He allowed the
Jews to build the
Temple of Jerusalem. In
Egypt his name appears on the temples which he built in
Memphis,
Edfu and the Great Oasis. He called the high-priest of
Sais,
Tzahor, to
Susa (as we learn from his inscription in the
Vatican Museum), and gave him full powers to reorganize the "house of life," the great medical school of the temple of Sais. In the Egyptian traditions he is considered as one of the great benefactors and lawgivers of the country. In similar relations he stood to the
Greek sanctuaries (cf. his rescript to "his slave" Godatas, the inspector of a royal park near
Magnesia on the Maeander, in which he grants freedom of taxes and forced labor to the sacred territory of
Apollo); all the Greek
oracles in
Asia Minor and
Europe therefore stood on the side of Persia in the
Persian Wars and admonished the Greeks against attempting resistance.
|
Achaemenid empire at its greatest extent |
Weights and measures were standardised (as in a "royal
cubit" or a "king's measure") but often they still operated side by side with their Egyptian or Babylonian counterparts. This would have been a boon for merchants and traders as trade would now have been far simpler. The upgraded communication and administration networks also helped to turn the Empire ruled by the
Achaemenid dynasty into a seemingly commercial entity based on generating wealth.
Darius also continued the process of
religious tolerance to his subjects, which had been important parts of the reigns of
Cyrus and
Cambyses. Darius himself was likely monotheistic - in royal inscriptions
Ahuramazda is the only god mentioned by name. But, time and again he is mentioned worshipping, funding or giving 'lip-service' to various
pantheons of gods. This was important as the majority of the empire's inhabitants were
polytheists. Also, like many other Persian Kings, he maintained a no-slave policy; for example, all workers at the Persepolis site and other sites made for him were paid, which was revolutionary at the time. His human rights policies were also common to his ancestors and future Persian kings, continuing the legacy of the first human rights document ever made.
About
512 BC Darius undertook a war against the
Scythians. A great army crossed the
Bosporus, subjugated eastern
Thrace,
Macedonia submitted voluntarily, and crossed the
Danube. The purpose of this war can only have been to attack the
nomadic tribes in the rear and thus to secure peace on the northern frontier of the empire. Yet the whole plan was based upon an incorrect geographical assumption; a common one in that era, and repeated by
Alexander the Great and his
Macedonians, who believed that on the
Hindu Kush (which they called the
Caucasus Indicus) and on the shores of the Jaxartes (which they called
Tanais, i.e., the
River Don) they were quite near to the
Black Sea. Of course the expedition undertaken on these grounds could only prove a failure; having advanced for some weeks into the
Russian steppes, Darius was forced to return. The details given by Herodotus (according to him, Darius had reached the
Volga) are quite fantastic; and the account which Darius himself had given on a tablet, which was added to his great inscription in
Behistun, is destroyed with the exception of a few words.
Although European Greece was intimately connected with the coasts of Asia Minor, and the opposing parties in the Greek towns were continually soliciting his intervention, Darius did not meddle with their affairs. The Persian wars were begun by the Greeks themselves. The support which
Athens and
Eretria gave to the rebellious
Ionians and
Carians made their punishment inevitable as soon as the rebellion had been put down. But the first expedition, that of
Mardonius, failed on the cliffs of
Mount Athos (
492 BC), and the army which was led into
Attica by
Datis in
490 BC was beaten at the
Battle of Marathon. Before Darius had finished his preparations for a third expedition an
insurrection broke out in Egypt (
486 BC). In the next year Darius died, probably in October
485 BC, after a reign of thirty-six years.
*
Darius the Great*
Darius I the Great*
Genealogy of Darius The Great*
The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS)
