Comparing The Successes Of Cyrus And Darius I

While learning about the many rulers of the Archimedean Empire, two particular conquers peaked my interest. At first, I wondered why both Cyrus and Darius where given the honorific title of ‘The Great’ in an empire that produced so many outstanding rulers. However, after comparing the bureaucratic systems established by both Cyrus II and Darius I, it is revealed that their governances drew many similarities to each other. Through this we can see that Persian kings learnt from their predecessors’ successes and failures and used them to refine their own governing strategies. Cyrus II was beloved conqueror, regarded as father to the Persians,the Lord’s Annointed to the Jews and elect of Marduk to the Babylonians few in history have received such

widespread adoration. His reign was characterised as a period justice and acceptance, whereby subjects of the Persian empire received a relative degree of autonomy. Evidenced by The Cyrus Cylinder which today is seen as emblematic of tolerance, Cyrus encouraged his subjects to practice their own religions and keep their cultural identities. Utilising skills of diplomacy, Cyrus was able to avoid opposition and rebellion, and develop a multi-stated administrative system that leveraged the skills of pre-existing regional leaders to his advantage.

By adopting successful methods of leadership from other rulers and incorporating them into his own administration, Cyrus developed an inclusive empire which proved to be advantageous for both the people themselves the empire at large. Following in Cyrus’ footsteps, Darius adopted many of the governing strategies which where proven to be successful during Cyrus’ reign. Firstly, he streamlined the already successful taxation system which he inherited from his predecessors. Darius’ established a system of satrapy which was designed to prevent corruption- each province was ruled by a handpicked satrap, and safeguarded by royal inspectors. It is clear that Darius recognised the importance of cultural tolerance shown by Cyrus as he tried to emulate a similar accepting attitude in his own reign. His religious tolerance is thus documented by the Persepolis fortification tablets which talk about the sacrifices made by Darius to Persian, Babylonian and Elamite gods. Both Cyrus and Darius where immensely respectful of foreign religions as they recognised the importance of tolerance during their

reigns. Neither rulers tried to forcibly assimilate those whom they’re conquered into their own culture. Therefore, one can learn valuable lessons by looking at the administration and policies of successful leaders and predecessors.

Dependence on a singular source as the main evidence for an event is problematic.
Similar to the way in which Herodotus provides us with the only comprehensive recount of The Persian Wars, evidence for the occurrence of The Great Satrap revolt can only be found within book fifteen of Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliotheca historica.

While learning about the event I found the two contesting schools of through - localized vs widespread revolt- immensely fascinating. At a brief glance, I didn’t understand how Weiskopf managed to produce such as convincing argument for his case of localized revolts with such a lack of evidence for the event. However, upon further inspection it is revealed that there’s a number of issues and a lack of evidentiary support for arguments from both sides. One school of through stems from Diodorus original recount of the event which positions the revolt as serious threat to Artaxerxes II empire. Neatly framed within the period of exactly one year between 362-361 BCE, it presented the revolt as a widespread and unified rebellion made by a collective of satraps along with powerful individual in opposition to Artaxerxes II. His only support for the affair comes from Walter Judeich who ‘marshalled the related fragmentary literary documents in order to solidify the primary description of the revolt’. However, both the Athenian Decree at IGII 207’ and epigraphic sources fail to mention anything of a revolt. The second school stems from Michael Weiskopf who argues that The Great Satrap revolts where in actual fact just “a series of local, but

interrelated troubles” which had little impact on Artaxerxes control. Weiskopf refutes Diodorus recount framing it as “shallow” and lacking in evidence. However, Weiskopf himself similarly lacks evidentiary support for his arguments. Hornblower makes a great critique when he states that Weiskopf needs to provide further information on the origins of Diodorus information and sufficient evidence to argue why we should dismiss of Diodorus perspective. Concurrently, Graf states that Weiskopf argument although persuasive is based entirely on his own methodologies and presuppositions which depend on “impressions from Greek tradition about Persian bureaucracy”.Thus, if we are to disregard the only source describing these events there would be no other sources to look to for evidence. Therefore, dependence on a singular source as evidence for an event is problematic as it does not afford historians the ability to cross-validate with other sources and test its validity.

Egyptians erased the names of pharaohs whom they deemed as shameful or insufficient rulers from their history books. A religious revolutionary, Akhenaten greatly changed the religious landscape of Egypt during his reign. He diverged away from polytheism to focus on a more monotheistic approach in his worship of the Aten. Consequently, he was looked down upon by later pharaohs who disapproved of his religious changes and sought to restore the traditional Egyptian religion. Thus, after his death subsequent pharaohs made a conscious effort to erase all remnants of him from Egyptian history. Akhenaten’s name and image was systematically removed on monuments, while his buildings where dismantled and turned into quarries as evidenced by the Temple of Amenhotep IV, The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak and in many of Ramesses II buildings which reused Akhenaten’s talatat blocks. In this way, we can see that Egyptians wrote their history to preserve the legacies of those who they deemed as worthy leaders. Those who were seen as illegitimate or shameful- Hatshepsut, Akhenaten and Tutankhamen- where omitted from history and excluded from both the official Abydos and Karnak king lists as well as later king list by Manetho.