Iran in World History

The “Cyrus cylinder” bears a cuneiform inscription of the policies of the 
Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great following his conquest of Babylon in 539 
bce
. 
Claimed today to be the world’s first declaration of human rights, a replica of 
the cylinder is on display in the entrance hall to the United Nations building in 
New York City. 
Replica from the collection of the Centre for Iranian Studies, 
Concordia University.

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I r a n i n Wo r l d H i s t o r y
18
Eastern Mediterranean to the marches of the northwestern Indian sub-
continent. Under his son, Cambyses (Pers. Kambujieh) II, Egypt as well 
was brought under Persian rule.
The imperial administration under Cyrus, like that of the Medes, 
was based on the indirect rule of the provinces through satraps (gov-
ernors) appointed personally by him. Rebellions from regional power 
bases—that is, ambitious local satraps in league with tax-resistant 
landowners and their private armies conscripted from peasants and 
nomads—always had the potential to challenge the imperial govern-
ment. Nevertheless, in its essence, this administrative model remained 
in place throughout successive empires ruling Iran, both native and 
foreign, for more than two millennia, well into the Islamic period.
Whereas Cyrus’s proclamations portray him in the tradition of 
Elamite and Babylonian rulers, Darius (Darayavaush) I was the first 
imperial monarch to assert a distinctly Persian identity, and his inscrip-
tions are the first written records of the Persian language. Beginning 
his career as a humble cavalryman in the army of Cambyses II, Darius 
assumed the throne in 522 bce after a confusing political scrum during 
which either the emperor’s brother or an imposter claiming to be him 
briefly seized power and Cambyses himself either committed suicide, 
died in an accident, or was assassinated.
Doubts regarding Darius’s legitimacy sparked revolts in the prov-
inces, and he spent the first part of his reign suppressing these. Once 
he had established control over the imperial heartlands, he turned his 
attention to Egypt and then to the Indus Valley, consolidating Persian 
rule in both regions. He also invaded Saka territory to the north, osten-
sibly to avenge the killing of Cyrus. From there he proceeded westward 
to Thrace, bringing many Greek-inhabited lands under Persian control. 
An alliance of Greek city-states finally halted the Persian advance into 
Greece at the Battle of Marathon in 490 bce. (The original “mara-
thon” was run by a courier who brought the news of Greek victory to 
Athens, twenty-six miles away.)
Darius not only succeeded in expanding and systematizing the 
Persian Empire; he also reformed it from within, ensuring the empire’s 
lasting stability. The Greek philosopher Plato attributed the strength 
of the Persian Empire to the effectiveness of Darius’s laws: “For by the 
laws he framed he has preserved the empire of the Persians even until 
this day.”
3
The Old Persian word for law, 
data
, was borrowed into the 
Semitic languages, including Aramaic and Hebrew, suggesting that 
the Persian model for prescribing social order was seen as innovative 
in the context of the ancient world.

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I r a n a n d t h e G r e e k s
19
Since the time of Cyrus, the empire had been a loose confederation 
of diverse states, each of which operated according to its own admin-
istrative norms. Darius reworked the provincial system into twenty 
satrapies, formalizing the fiscal responsibilities of each. He helped to 
standardize trade by introducing royal coinage in fixed weights of gold 
(the daric) and silver (the shekel)—these were the first coins in history 
to bear images of a person’s face (his). He allocated substantial funds 
toward the construction of underground canals (
qanat
s), which facili-
tated the development of agriculture in Iran’s dry climate.
Darius established Aramaic, not Persian, as the language of admin-
istration. This was likely because of the numerical and economic impor-
tance of the Semitic Mesopotamian population under his rule, but in his 
royal inscriptions he addressed a broader audience by using Persian and 
Elamite as well. He was consciously proud of the cosmopolitan nature 
of his empire, which his official proclamations describe as including 
“all nations and languages.” (In practice he identified thirty.) The total 
population of the empire at the time was probably around fifty million, 
including both Iranian and non-Iranian citizens: aristocrats, landown-
ers and peasants, merchants and craftsmen, nomads and slaves.
Darius referred to himself as “King of Kings,” reflecting his mul-
tinational imperial vision. It was Darius who gave the empire its dis-
tinctive and lasting character, and his inscriptions are the first written 
sources to use the dynastic name “Achaemenid.” (Cyrus the Great is 
often referred to as the founder of the Persian Empire, but there is some 
doubt about his exact relationship to the Achaemenid family line.) The 
Achaemenids had four capital cities, incorporating the political tradi-
tions of the major states they had absorbed: the former Elamite center 
of Shushan (henceforth known as Susa), Babylon in Mesopotamia, the 
Median capital of Ecbatana, and Persepolis, which they built them-
selves as a ceremonial site for celebrating the New Year every spring. 
These and provincial capitals from Anatolia and Egypt to Central Asia 
were linked by a system of royal roads, facilitating not only the move-
ment of troops but also commerce, as well as mail—it was the Persians 
who developed the world’s first postal system.
Despite the empire’s proudly multinational character, the 
Achaemenids made a conscious distinction between Iranian peoples 
(