Pros And Cons Of Darius The Great

The greatest conflict Darius the Great had to face was the war against the Ionian Greeks. They had democracy and it proved to be very successful for them. Also, the Greek city-states in Lydia had become part of the empire in 546 B.C.E, and they rose in rebellion in 499 B.C.E. Greek settlers had come to the region several hundred years before, and they wanted their independence from Persian rule. At the time, Greece was made up of independent city-states scattered across the Aegean sea. Citizens of Athens and other city states supported their fellow Greeks. Darius defeated the rebels, and then turned to attack Greece itself. The Greeks destroyed the residential areas of Sardis, the capital in western Turkey, and Darius’ brother Artaphernes stood

on the battlefield until reinforcements came. Then the Greeks attempted to seize Cyprus, but failed when the Persian navy defeated them. Yet the Persian army learned one lesson from this and that was that “the Greeks were very dangerous warriors.”
During the war between the Greeks and the Persians, Darius the Great died, after thirty days of illness, and he was sixty-four years old. Even his enemies knew that he had been a great king and historians have called him the greatest Persian king. Xerxes, his oldest son from his first wife Atossa daughter of Cyrus the Great, succeeded him as the fourth king of the Achaemenid Empire. There was no rebellion or revolts, like when Darius claimed the throne. His body was placed in a coffin and was then taken to Naqš-i Rustam to be buried.
Darius had inherited a disorganized kingdom and what he left behind was an empire that was well-organized and powerful. Even after the Macedonian king Alexander the Great crushed the Achaemenid empire, it survived in another form. Many empires and kingdoms afterwards would follow Darius’ steps in leadership and military strategies. He certainly had the right to call himself the greatest Persian king.