Iran in World History

In a rock relief at the burial site of a Median ruler—possibly Cyaxares I (who 
may be the figure to the left)—the ruler faces a Mazdaean priest before a fire 
altar, in what is possibly the earliest known depiction of Zoroastrian ritual. 
A rare example of Median architecture, this mausoleum shows an emerging style 
combining Greek-style pillars, Assyrian iconography, and the Urartian model 
of building funerary monuments in honor of important individuals. 
Photo 
by author

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I r a n i n Wo r l d H i s t o r y
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According to the Greek historian Herodotus, during the eighth and 
seventh centuries bce, six Mede tribes formed an alliance and began 
to rebel against their Assyrian overlords. In about 672 bce they man-
aged to expel the Assyrians altogether and assert their independence, 
forming, in Herodotus’s words, a “Median empire” (
medikos logos
).
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In 612, the Medes went on to conquer the Assyrian capital at Nineveh 
in northern Mesopotamia, which allowed them to extend their power 
into Anatolia. Contemporary scholars, citing the lack of archaeological 
evidence such as imperial infrastructures, have questioned whether in 
fact the Medes ever established a unified state, so calling it an “empire” 
may be a bit of an exaggeration. In fact, little is known about Median 
politics after the Medes expelled the Assyrians, up to 550 bce when 
they were conquered by their southern relatives, the Persians.

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C h a p t e r 2
Iran and the Greeks 
(550–247 bce)
O
ne of the key moments in Jewish history as described in the 
Hebrew Bible is the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king 
Cyrus in 539 bce. The Book of Isaiah refers to Cyrus as 
“God’s anointed” (literally, a Messiah), and portrays the Persians as 
instruments of the Hebrew god, Yahweh, sent to liberate the Israelites 
from their Babylonian captivity: “I will raise up Cyrus in my righteous-
ness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set 
my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says Yahweh Almighty.”
1
Cyrus the Great, as he is known in the West, was actually Kurash II, 
the King of Anshan in Elam. It was under his leadership that the Parsa 
tribe—who by that point were becoming an ethnic mix of Iranians 
and Elamites—successfully rebelled against their Median overlords in 
550 bce, reversing their prior relationship and turning the Medes into 
Persian vassals.
In fact, Babylon was home to many captive peoples, and Cyrus lib-
erated all of them. He accorded citizenship to everyone, along with the 
freedom to live wherever they wished within the boundaries of his now 
vast empire. Ironically, few Israelites actually took advantage of this 
opportunity to return to Palestine, which had been laid waste by the 
Babylonian invasions several decades earlier. On the contrary, many 
stayed on as free citizens in Persian-ruled Babylonia. This region would 
become the center of Jewish civilization for the next thousand years or 
more, eventually producing the Talmudic religion that came to repre-
sent its essence.
Other groups of Israelites preferred to move even farther east, set-
tling throughout the lands of the plateau where they became integrated 
into Iranian society. (The biblical books of Esther and Daniel are both 
set in Iran.) The Jewish tradition developed to a large extent within an 
Iranian cultural environment and was shaped by it in many ways.

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I r a n i n Wo r l d H i s t o r y
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The Bible exaggerates, however, in according the Israelites a central 
place of importance for the Persians. Cyrus was first and foremost a 
strategist, and he sought to build support among all the various nations 
under his rule (among whom the Israelites were hardly the most numer-
ous or significant) by respecting their individual norms and traditions. 
On entering Babylon he paid homage to the Babylonian supreme deity, 
Marduk, and had a written proclamation of his policies engraved on 
a cylinder that was then buried within the foundations of Marduk’s 
temple. This cylinder—which may in fact have been one of many—was 
rediscovered by archaeologists during the nineteenth century and has 
since become one of the most discussed documents of the ancient world.
The “Cyrus cylinder,” as it is often called, is actually a rather small 
object, measuring less than nine inches across. Its text, which is in 
Akkadian cuneiform script, is divided into six sections, each praising 
various aspects of Cyrus’s enlightened deeds since entering Babylon. 
The first section—belying the claims of the Bible that Cyrus was acting 
on behalf of the Hebrew god—associates Cyrus with Marduk and 
implies that he came to Babylon to restore proper rule in Marduk’s 
city: “[Marduk] inspected and checked all the countries, seeking the 
upright king of his choice. He took the hand of Cyrus, King of the city 
of Anshan, and called him by his name, proclaiming him aloud for the 
kingship over all of everything.”
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The remainder of the text continues 
to refer to Marduk and other Babylonian gods; neither the Hebrew god 
nor any Iranian deities are mentioned. Clearly the text is intended for 
a Babylonian audience, portraying Cyrus as a legitimate ruler in the 
established Mesopotamian tradition.
In modern times the Cyrus cylinder has often been claimed as 
the “world’s first document on human rights.” Indeed, a replica of it 
adorns the entrance lobby to the United Nations building in New York, 
and it has been cherished by Iranians as a national symbol since the 
early 1970s. Interpreting the cylinder as a human rights manifesto is 
anachronistic, however, and modern-day nationalist Iranian claims 
to it are overstretched. Cyrus’s conciliatory policy toward his subjects 
was a departure from the prior abuses of the Babylonians and the 
Assyrians, but it was based mainly on the pragmatic needs of running 
a multinational state.
While the Persian Empire was the direct heir to Elamite civili-
zation, its perpetuation of Median traditions is more immediately 
visible. The Persians adopted Median titles (e.g., “satrap” for “gover-
nor”) and their system of administration, and they used the Median 
capital Ecbatana (modern Hamedan) as their summer residence. The 

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I r a n a n d t h e G r e e k s
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monumental architecture of the Persians followed that of the Medes 
(and the Urartians before them), for example, in their use of colon-
naded reception halls and rock-cliff royal inscriptions.
Having subjugated the Median lands, Cyrus launched an attack 
against the Lydians in central Anatolia. This step in his expansionist 
campaign was ostensibly taken in defense of a Median possession 
that had been seized by the Lydian ruler Croesus, who despite his 
loss to the Persians, came to be immortalized in Western tradition 
as a symbol of massive wealth (as in the expression, “richer than 
Croesus”). The Lydian king may have been the first ruler in history to 
mint gold coins, which were then adopted by the victorious Persians 
as their principal currency. Cyrus brought Lydian and Ionian archi-
tects and stonemasons back to Iran and set them to work construct-
ing his new capital at Pasargadae, where Greek building styles are 
evident.
Cyrus met his death in 530 bce, fighting against one of the nomadic 
Saka tribes of Central Asia, the Massagatae. By that time he had carved 
out the largest empire the world had yet known, stretching from the