Page 80 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

Persian Empire, 557 B.C.E.
Persian Empire, 539 B.C.E.
Black Sea
SYRIA
0 0
300 600 300
SOGDIA
Arabian Sea
900 Kilometers 600 Miles
J
M
a
x
a
r
t
e
S
.
R
S
A
THRACE
Aegean GREECE Sea
Caspian Sea
Aral Sea
PARTHIA
Persepolis PERSIS
G
E
T
A
C
E
a
u
.
c
R
a
s
s
y
u
l
s
a
M
t
s
s
O
.
H
x
Sardis
Athens
IONIA LYDIA
u
s
Sparta
Ephesus
R.
Nineveh ASSYRIA
T
i
g
Z
r
i
E
u
s
p
h
P
g
r
a
R
o
t
e
s
.
s
M
CANAAN MESOPOTAMIA
t
a
r
s
A
.
r
e
Babylon Susa
MEDIA
Jerusalem
Arabian Desert
Persian Empire, 500 B.C.E. Royal Road
R
.
.
R
s
u
d
n
I
Sahara
Memphis EGYPT
N
i
l
e
Red Sea
R
s
.
i
a
n
G
u
l
f
MAP 2.3 The Persian Empire at the Time of Darius. Cyrus the Great united the Persians and led them in the successful conquest of much of the Near East. By the time of Darius, the Persian Empire was the largest the world had yet seen. The Persians allowed religious tolerance and gave some government positions to natives of conquered territories.
Q How did Persian policies attempt to overcome the difficulties of governing far-flung provinces?
be laid.” This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him.12
Cyrus had a genuine respect for ancient civilizations— in building his palaces, he made use of Assyrian, Baby- lonian, Egyptian, and Lydian practices.
Expanding the Empire
Cyrus’s successors extended the territory of the Persian Empire. His son Cambyses (kam-BY-seez) (530–522 B.C.E.) undertook a successful invasion of Egypt and made it into a satrapy with Memphis as its capital. Darius (duh-RY-uss) (521–486 B.C.E.) added a new Per- sian province in western India that extended to the Indus River and moved into Europe proper, conquering
Thrace and making the Macedonian king a vassal. A revolt of the Ionian Greek cities in 499 B.C.E. resulted in temporary freedom for these communities in western Asia Minor. Aid from the Greek mainland, most notably from Athens, encouraged the Ionians to invade Lydia and burn Sardis, center of the Lydian satrapy. This event led to Darius’s involvement with the mainland Greeks. After reestablishing control of the Ionian Greek cities, Darius undertook an invasion of the Greek main- land, which culminated in the famous Athenian victory in the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.E. (see Chapter 3).
Governing the Empire
By the reign of Darius, the Persians had created the largest empire the world had yet seen. As noted earlier, it not only included all the old centers of power in the
42 Chapter 2 The Ancient Near East: Peoples and Empires
Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.