Achaemenid Empire

Legacy

The Achaemenids created the model of a tolerant, well-organised world empire, and Persepolis remains a symbol of Iranian identity.

Timeline of Achaemenid Empire

1. 550 BCE
   Cyrus defeats the Medes and takes Ecbatana

   Cyrus, king of the small Persian realm of Anshan in south-western Iran from 559 BCE, was a vassal of his grandfather Astyages, king of the Medes, whose empire stretched across much of Iran and beyond. According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, Astyages attacked Cyrus, but part of the Median army mutinied; Herodotus says the general Harpagus defected to Cyrus. After fighting that lasted about three years (553–550 BCE), Cyrus captured Astyages and took the Median capital Ecbatana. The Median Empire's lands and vassals passed to Cyrus, turning Persia almost overnight into the leading power of Iran.

2. 547 BCE
   Cyrus conquers Lydia and captures Sardis

   Croesus, the rich king of Lydia in western Anatolia, attacked Persian territory in Cappadocia and took the city of Pteria. Cyrus marched west; after an indecisive battle at Pteria, Croesus fell back to his capital, Sardis, expecting to wait for allies. Cyrus instead followed him in winter, routed the Lydian cavalry (Herodotus says the horses panicked at the smell of his camels) and captured Sardis and Croesus. The date is uncertain: 547 BCE was long accepted, but 546 is also given. Lydia and soon the Greek cities of Ionia came under Persian rule, carrying the empire to the Aegean.

3. 539 BCE
   Cyrus takes Babylon and its empire

   Babylonia was the last great power in western Asia outside Persian rule, and its king Nabonidus was unpopular with Babylon's priests. In 539 BCE Cyrus defeated the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris, Sippar surrendered, and his forces entered Babylon in October, by Babylonian accounts without a battle. On the Cyrus Cylinder he presented himself as chosen by Babylon's god Marduk and claimed to have returned displaced peoples and restored temples; the Bible records his decree letting the Jewish exiles return to Jerusalem. Babylon's empire, probably including Syria and the Levant, became Persian.

4. 525 BCE
   Cambyses II defeats Psamtik III at Pelusium and conquers Egypt

   Egypt, under the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, was the last great independent kingdom of the Near East. Cyrus's son Cambyses II built a navy from Phoenician and Anatolian ships and made a treaty with the Arabs who controlled the desert route. In spring 525 BCE he defeated the new pharaoh Psamtik III at Pelusium on Egypt's eastern border; one later story says he put animals sacred to the Egyptians in his front line. He then besieged and took Memphis. By summer all Egypt was under Persian rule, and the Libyans and the Greeks of Cyrene soon submitted too.

5. 522 BCE
   Darius I seizes the throne after the disputed succession

   In 522 BCE Cambyses died on his way back from Egypt to deal with a revolt by a man claiming to be his brother Bardiya. According to Darius's own Behistun Inscription, the real Bardiya had been secretly killed, and the rebel was an impostor named Gaumata. In September 522 Darius, a distant relative of Cyrus, and six other nobles killed the man at the fortress of Sikayauvati. Most modern historians doubt this story and suspect Darius invented it to justify seizing the throne. Darius then faced revolts across the empire and crushed them all, then reorganised the empire into satrapies with a common coinage.

6. 515 BCE
   Darius conquers the lands around the Indus (Hindush)

   Cyrus may already have taken Gandhara in the far east of the empire, and Darius's Behistun Inscription lists it as Persian by about 518 BCE. According to one reconstruction, in 516 BCE Darius campaigned through Central Asia and Afghanistan to Taxila, wintered in Gandhara, and in 515 conquered the lands around the Indus River. His inscriptions list a new province, Hindush, whose exact location is uncertain, and according to Herodotus he sent the Greek Scylax of Caryanda to sail down the Indus and back to Egypt. The Indus valley became the empire's eastern frontier and, according to Herodotus, a rich source of gold.

7. 513 BCE
   Darius invades European Scythia and subdues parts of the Balkans

   The Scythians were nomads living north of the Black Sea and Danube who threatened Persia's northern borders and trade. Around 513 BCE Darius crossed the Bosporus on a bridge of boats, marched through Thrace and crossed the Danube into Scythia. The Scythians refused battle, retreating and laying waste the land, and after a month of chasing them Darius's army, worn down by hunger and sickness, turned back. The campaign itself won no territory beyond the Danube, but it brought Thrace under Persian rule and made Macedonia a vassal, extending the empire into Europe.

8. 499 BCE
   Ionian Revolt begins, the first great war between Greeks and Persia

   Persia ruled the Greek cities of Ionia, on Anatolia's west coast, through local tyrants. In 499 BCE Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, led a failed Persian expedition against Naxos and, fearing he would lose his power, stirred Ionia to revolt. With help from Athens and Eretria, the rebels burned Sardis in 498, and the revolt spread to Caria and Cyprus. Persia struck back, crushed the Ionian fleet at Lade in 494 and took Miletus, and by 493 the revolt was over. Darius then set out to punish Athens and Eretria, starting the Greco-Persian Wars.

9. 490 BCE
   Persian expedition defeated at Marathon

   To punish Athens and Eretria for helping the Ionian Revolt, Darius sent a fleet under Datis and Artaphernes across the Aegean in 490 BCE. After subduing the Cyclades and sacking Eretria, the Persians landed at Marathon, near Athens. The Athenians, helped by Plataea and led by the general Miltiades, attacked and enveloped the Persian centre with their strengthened flanks. According to Herodotus, 6,400 Persians died against 192 Athenians. The Persians sailed back to Asia, and Darius began raising a new army, but a revolt in Egypt in 486 and his death delayed the next invasion.

10. 480 BCE
    Xerxes invades Greece; his fleet is beaten at Salamis

    Darius's son Xerxes led a vast invasion of Greece by land and sea in 480 BCE. After the Spartan-led rearguard was destroyed at Thermopylae, the Persians took and burned Athens, whose people had been evacuated. The Athenian general Themistocles lured the larger Persian fleet into the narrow straits off the island of Salamis, where it was badly beaten. Xerxes returned to Asia with much of his army, and in 479 the force he left behind was defeated at Plataea and the fleet at Mycale. Persia never again tried to conquer mainland Greece.

11. 404 BCE
    Egypt breaks away under Amyrtaeus

    Egypt had rebelled against Persian rule several times. Amyrtaeus, probably a relative of the old Saite kings, had led a guerrilla war in the western Delta since about 411 BCE. When Darius II died in 404, the new king Artaxerxes II gathered an army to retake Egypt, but a struggle with his brother Cyrus the Younger kept it from marching. Amyrtaeus became pharaoh in 404, though Persian rule was still recognised in the far south until about 401. Egypt, one of the empire's richest provinces, stayed independent for roughly six decades.

12. 343 BCE
    Artaxerxes III reconquers Egypt

    Artaxerxes III, who killed many of his own relatives to secure his throne, was determined to win Egypt back. His first invasion, around 351 BCE, was crushed by Pharaoh Nectanebo II, and revolts followed in Phoenicia and Cyprus. After crushing those, he led a huge army with Greek mercenaries into Egypt, forced Pelusium and Bubastis to surrender, and drove Nectanebo to flee. The reconquest is traditionally dated 343 BCE, though many scholars now place it in 340 or 339. Egypt was harshly treated, its temples looted, and it stayed Persian until Alexander arrived.

13. 334 BCE
    Alexander invades and wins at the Granicus

    Philip II of Macedon had planned to invade Persia, and after his murder in 336 BCE his son Alexander took over the plan. In 334 Alexander crossed the Hellespont with an army of around 48,000 soldiers. In May he met the army of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor at the Granicus River and won, nearly losing his life in the cavalry fighting, then destroyed the Greek mercenaries in Persian service. Sardis surrendered with its treasury, and the Greek cities of the coast followed. Western Anatolia was lost to Persia.

14. 331 BCE
    Alexander defeats Darius III at Gaugamela

    After defeating Darius III at Issus in 333 BCE, Alexander took the Levant and Egypt, then marched into Mesopotamia. Darius gathered a huge army and met him at Gaugamela, north of Arbela (modern Erbil), on 1 October 331 BCE. Though heavily outnumbered, the Macedonians won through better tactics, and Darius fled east. Babylon surrendered to Alexander, followed by Susa and the Persian capital Persepolis, with their vast treasuries. Darius would never raise another imperial army, and the empire's western and central heartlands now belonged to Alexander.

15. 330 BCE
    Darius III is killed; the empire passes to Alexander

    After Gaugamela, Darius III fled to Ecbatana and then east towards Bactria, hoping to raise another army, while Alexander burned Persepolis and pursued him. In 330 BCE, as Alexander closed in, Darius was murdered by his relative Bessus, satrap of Bactria, and other nobles. Alexander gave him a royal burial at Persepolis, then hunted down Bessus, who had claimed the throne, and had him executed. Most remaining satraps went over to Alexander. The Achaemenid Empire, which had lasted some 220 years, ended, and its lands became part of Alexander's empire.

Periods and reigns

• Cyrus the Great (king of Persia from 559) 550–530 BCE
• Cambyses II 530–522 BCE
• Darius I the Great 522–486 BCE
• Xerxes I 486–465 BCE
• Artaxerxes I 465–424 BCE
• Darius II 423–405 BCE
• Artaxerxes II 405–358 BCE
• Artaxerxes III 358–338 BCE
• Artaxerxes IV (Arses) 338–336 BCE
• Darius III 336–330 BCE

Rulers

• Cyrus II the Great 559 – 530 BCE

  Founder; conquered Media, Lydia and Babylon

• Cambyses II 530 – 522 BCE

  Conquered Egypt

• Darius I 522 – 486 BCE

  Organised the satrapies and built Persepolis

• Xerxes I 486 – 465 BCE

  Invaded Greece

• Artaxerxes I 465 – 424 BCE

  Said to have made peace with Athens (the disputed Peace of Callias)

• Darius III 336 – 330 BCE

  Last king, defeated by Alexander

Realms on the map

• Achaemenid Empire 550–331 BCE

Wars

• Peloponnesian War 431 BCE – April 404 BCE

Chapters

• The world in 500 BCE: The Persian Peace
• The world in 400 BCE: Age of Philosophers