Cyrus II (Karash or Kurush II) is a gifted commander and king of Persia, who during his lifetime received the nickname "The Great" when he founded a powerful Persian empire, uniting disparate states from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. Why was the Persian king Cyrus called the Great? The name of the wise ruler and the ingenious strategist is fanned by legends, many facts have been forgotten forever, but majestic monuments testifying to the victories of Cyrus have survived to this day, and in Pasargada, the first capital of the Achaemenids, there is a mausoleum where its remains are supposedly resting.
Cyrus the Great: A Brief Biography
The origin and exact years of Cyrus the Great are unknown. In the archives of ancient historians - Herodotus, Xenophon, Xetius - conflicting versions have been preserved. According to the most common of them, Cyrus was a descendant of Achaemen, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, the son of the Persian king Cambyses I and the daughter of King Midia Astiaga (Ishtuvegu) Mandana. He was born presumably in 593 BC.
Interesting fact
From the first days of the life of the royal baby, severe trials awaited. Believing his prophetic dreams and the predictions of the priests about the future great conquests of the boy, who was still in his mother’s womb, Astiag ordered one of his subjects to kill the newborn grandson. Whether out of pity or because of an unwillingness to do the monstrous thing to himself, Harpag, a dignitary of the king of the Medes, handed the child to a shepherd slave, ordering him to be left in the mountains for wild animals to eat. At that time, a slave died of a newborn son, whose body he put on the prince’s luxurious clothes and left in a secluded place. And Cyrus took the place of the deceased in the shepherd’s hut.
Years later, Astyages learned of the fraud and brutally punished Harpag, killing his son, but left the grown-up grandson alive and sent to his parents in Persia, because the priests convinced him that the danger had passed. Harpagus later sided with Cyrus, leading one of the armies of the Persian king.
Rebellion Against Mussels
Around 558, Cyrus became king of Persia, which was dependent on Media and a vassal of his grandfather Astyages. The first Persian uprising against Media took place in 553. It was initiated by Harpagus, who organized a conspiracy of the Mead courtiers against Astyages and attracted Cyrus to his side. 3 years after bloody battles, the Persian king captured Ecbatana, the capital of Media, deposed and captured the king of Media.
Anti-Persian coalition
After the triumphal rise of the king of small and previously completely insignificant Persia, the rulers of the most powerful states of the Middle East and Asia Minor at that time - Egypt, Lydia, Babylon - formed a kind of coalition in order to prevent the Persian troops from moving in any direction. The coalition was supported by Sparta - the most militarily strong Hellenic policy. By 549, Cyrus the Great conquered Elam, located in the southwestern part of modern Iran, then conquered Hyrcania, Parthia, Armenia, which were part of the Median state. The king of Cilicia voluntarily sided with Cyrus and subsequently repeatedly provided him with military assistance.
Conquest of Lydia
Campaigns of Cyrus the Great forever remained in history. In 547 BC the legendary Croesus, king of prosperous Lydia, tried to capture Cappadocia, which was located in the territory subject to Cyrus. The Lydian army was furiously rebuffed; Croesus chose to withdraw his troops in order to regain strength and then recapture Cappadocia from Cyrus. But the Persian army almost the next day was at the walls of Sardis, the capital of Lydia and an impregnable fortress. Croesus was forced to throw his best cavalry into battle, but Cyrus and Garpag, who by that time had become a military leader and one of the most reliable subjects of the king of Persia, came up with an ingenious tactical move: at the forefront of the Persian army, instead of cavalry, there was a column of camels on which armed soldiers were seated . The Lydian horses, smelling the smell of camels, unpleasant to them, stood on their hind legs, dumped the riders and fled. The Lydian riders had to accept the battle, dismounting, which led to defeat. Sardis were under siege, but after only a couple of weeks they fell, as the Persians conquered the sheer walls of the fortress, using a secret path. Croesus was captured by Cyrus, and Lydia, control of which Garpag received, became part of the Persian Empire.
Tsar Cyrus the Great, with the support of the former Median courtier, who nearly killed him as a child, achieved incredible success. While Cyrus and his troops advanced into the depths of Central Asia, Harpag captured the Hellenic cities in Asia Minor and crushed the rebellion against the Persians in Lydia. Gradually, the Achaemenid empire expanded to all sides of the world. From 545 to 540 BC e. it included Drangiana, Bactria, Khorezm, Margiana, Sogdiana, Arachosia, Gandahar, Gedrosia.
Capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great
Now the main threat to Cyrus the Great was concentrated in Babylonia, uniting Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Phenicia, eastern Cilicia, and the north of the Arabian Peninsula. King Babylon Nabonidus had enough time to prepare for a serious war with the Persians, while Cyrus’s troops erected defensive earthen walls in the valleys of the Diyala and Gind rivers. The ancient Babylonian kingdom was famous for its powerful army prepared for any battle and a large number of impregnable fortresses scattered throughout the territory. The most difficult defensive structure was the Babylonian fortress with a deep moat filled with water and thick walls from 8 to 12 m high.
Nevertheless, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, whose biography is presented to your attention in the article, was approaching the capital. August 539 was marked by the crushing defeat and death of the stepson of the Babylonian king under the Opis on the Tigris. Having crossed the Tiger, the Persians captured Sippar in October, and only a couple of days later Babylon was taken almost without a fight. Nabonidus, who was not popular and respected among the inhabitants of Babylon, nor among the conquered countries, nor among his own courtiers and soldiers, was deposed, but not only survived, but also received the post of satrap in Karmania.
King Cyrus the Great allowed the deported peoples to return home, retained the privileges of the local nobility, ordered the restoration of the temples destroyed by the Babylonians and Assyrians in the occupied territories, and the return of idols there. It was thanks to Cyrus that the Jews had the opportunity to return to Palestine and restore their main shrine - the Temple of Jerusalem.
How Egypt managed to maintain sovereignty
In 538, Cyrus proclaimed himself "king of Babylon, king of the countries." All provinces of the Babylonian empire voluntarily recognized the power of the Persian ruler. The kingdom of the Achaemenids by 530 BC spread from Egypt to India. Before moving troops to Egypt, Cyrus decided to take control of the territory between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, where the nomadic Massaget tribes lived under the leadership of Queen Tomiris.
Cyrus the Great, Persian king, handed over the reins of Babylon to his eldest son, Cambyses II, and set off for the northeastern borders of his kingdom. This time the campaign ended tragically - the great conqueror died. Cambyses could not immediately find the remains of his father and worthily bury him.
An angry mother - the cause of the death of Cyrus the Great
What else is Cyrus the Great famous for? Interesting facts permeate through his biography. Below is one of them.
At the first stage, Cyrus, as always, was lucky. In front of his army, the king ordered the convoy to be loaded with wineskins with wine. A detachment of nomads attacked the convoy, the soldiers drank wine and, drunk, without a fight were captured by the Persians. Perhaps everything would have ended happily for the Persian king if the queen’s son had not been among the captured massagets.
Upon learning of the capture of the prince, Tomiris became furious and ordered to kill the cunning Persian at all costs. In the battle, the massagets demonstrated such fury that the Persians could not even bring the body of the deceased king from the field. By order of Tomiris, the severed head of Cyrus was stuck in a wine glass with wine ...
Empire after the death of Cyrus
The death of Cyrus II the Great did not cause the collapse of his empire. The grandiose kingdom of the Achaemenids existed in the form in which the gifted commander left it for another 200 years, until Darius, the descendant of Cyrus, was overwhelmed by Alexander the Great.
Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, was not only a brilliant strategist who knew how to count any trifle, but also a humane ruler who managed to maintain his power in the conquered territories without cruelty and bloodshed. For centuries, the Persians considered him the "father of the nations", and the Jews - Jehovah's anointed.