Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 600-530 BC), who rose from the petty kingdom of Anshan in Fars to conquer Media, Lydia and Babylon and to create the largest empire the world had yet seen. He is remembered as a tolerant and pragmatic ruler, and his policies and his treatment in ancient texts made him an enduring emblem of enlightened kingship.

Origins and Rise to Power

Cyrus was born around 600 BC to the royal house of Anshan, a Persian kingdom in the highlands of Fars, descended from a line that traced its authority to the older kings of Elam. His father is usually identified as Cambyses I, a vassal of the Median empire, and according to the Greek historian Herodotus his mother was a daughter of the Median king Astyages, a link that later lent drama to his overthrow of his overlord.

The rise of Cyrus began with a rebellion against Astyages, which ended with the capture of the Median capital in 550 BC and the transfer of Median power to the Persian king. From this base he extended his authority over the Iranian plateau and the peoples subject to the Medes, adopting Median institutions, court customs and officials into his own growing administration.

Herodotus and other Greek writers, as well as the Babylonian records, offer differing and sometimes legendary accounts of his early life, including the famous tale of his being raised as a herdsman's son and the dreams by which his grandfather sought to prevent his rise. Whatever the value of the legends, the historical achievement is clear: the creation of a Persian imperial power from a minor kingdom.

Conquests: Lydia, Ionia and Babylon

Cyrus turned westward and in 546 BC defeated Croesus, the wealthy king of Lydia in Anatolia, and absorbed his kingdom into the empire. This brought the Greek cities of Ionia under Persian control and opened the Aegean world to his rule, an event of lasting consequence for the relations between Greece and Persia.

His most celebrated victory was the capture of Babylon in 539 BC, achieved after the collapse of the Neo-Babylonian empire under Nabonidus. Cyrus entered the city in peace, was welcomed by its priests and population, and took the title king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, thereby assuming the ancient kingship of Mesopotamia with its traditions and titles.

According to the Biblical book of Ezra, it was Cyrus who in his first year decreed the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the return of the exiled Judeans, restoring the sacred vessels taken by the Babylonians. The decree is also reflected in an inscription and in the policy of returning local gods to their sanctuaries, which became one of the hallmarks of his rule.

The Cylinder and the Policy of Tolerance

The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay document buried at Babylon and discovered in the nineteenth century, records the king's accession after the fall of Nabonidus and his restoration of temples, cults and populations. It presents Cyrus as chosen by the Babylonian god Marduk to correct the neglect of the previous king, and it forms one of the most important surviving documents of the empire.

The text has often been described as an early charter of religious freedom and human rights, because of its language about restoring sanctuaries and returning peoples to their homes. Modern scholars are more cautious, seeing in it a conventional Mesopotamian royal inscription that nonetheless reflects a real and effective policy of conciliating subject peoples and respecting their gods.

This tolerance was not mere sentiment but sound statecraft. By allowing conquered populations to keep their religions, laws and elites, the Persians reduced the cost of ruling and won loyalty from peoples who might otherwise have resisted. The policy set a pattern that later Achaemenid kings largely followed and that distinguished Persian rule from the more homogenising empires that came after.

Government and Legacy

Cyrus united disparate regions, including Media, Persia, Lydia, the Greek cities of Asia Minor, Babylon, Syria and the eastern Iranian lands, into a single empire governed through a mix of local institutions and Persian authority. He employed native officials and administrators, and he presented himself in the style appropriate to each region, as king of Babylon to the Babylonians and as kin to the Persians and Medes.

His administrative achievements were developed further by his successors, above all Darius I, who organised the provinces into satrapies and built the roads and the tribute system. Cyrus laid the foundation of this structure by his conquests and by his practice of ruling through local elites, and the durability of the empire owed much to the inclusiveness of his approach.

He died in 530 BC, campaigning in the northeast against a nomadic people, in circumstances that have been variously described by ancient writers. His tomb at Pasargadae, his capital, survives as a plain and dignified monument, and it became a place of veneration in later Persian tradition.

Memory and Reputation

Cyrus was remembered with admiration even by peoples he had conquered. The Greeks, who often wrote of Persian kings as despots, treated him as a model ruler and a statesman of exceptional virtue, and Xenophon made him the hero of a philosophical romance on kingship that influenced European political thought for centuries.

In the Hebrew Bible he appears as an instrument of divine providence, the shepherd and anointed of the Lord who restored the temple and the exiles, and the decree attributed to him is a central text in the Jewish tradition of return to Zion. In Persian tradition he was remembered as a founding father, and his tomb remained an emblem of national identity.

Modern audiences have often read the Cyrus Cylinder as an ancient statement of tolerance and rights, and it has been used in debates about religious freedom and international order. Whether or not such readings stretch the original text, the recognition reflects a real feature of his reputation: the first ruler of a world empire who was remembered by many of the peoples he ruled as a liberator rather than a tyrant.

See also

• Achaemenid Empire
• Cyrus Cylinder
• Pasargadae
• Babylon