The Historians' History of the World 02

The empire of the Achæmenides is the first of all the states with which history is acquainted, to advance a claim to a universal character. “To be ruler far over this great earth, him the one, to be the lord over many,” “to be king over many lands and tongues,” “over the mountains and plains this side and beyond the sea, this side and beyond the desert,” to this had Ahuramazda, the creator of heaven and earth, appointed the Persian king. He may call himself “the lord of all men from the sunrise to the sunset.” All the nations whose representatives are pictured on the seat of his throne obey him, bring him tribute, and yield him military service.

At the same time it is said that the empire is sensible of being a civilised state. The king has to perform the task which Ahuramazda has laid on him, to exercise justice, to punish injustice and falsehood, to reward friends, to chastise enemies, and “under the shelter of Ahuramazda to impose his laws on the countries.” “King of the countries” (Khshajathija dahjunam, Bab sar matati) is his most characteristic title. Still more usual is “king of kings,” although with the exception of the king of Cilicia, he has no vassals properly so-called; for the town princes and tribal chiefs, of whom there is no lack amongst the subjects of the Persian empire, stand so far below him that they give no true meaning to the title. It may therefore be that the designation which, as is well known, has remained the regular appellation of the Persian king, is not of Median origin at all (the Assyrians and Babylonians were also unacquainted with it); but it would rather seem to express the summit of royalty, like the Greek appellation Basileus without the article, which gives expression to the idea that this conception has only one representative in the world. For this very reason the partition of the empire amongst the sons of a king, so frequent in other ages, could not take place here; and the attempt of Cyrus to give his younger son a position of his own by investing him with several provinces under the suzerainty of the elder, was not again repeated in the same fashion, after its unfortunate results. The universal empire was a united state and knew only one master.

Regarded from the standpoint of the East, universality attained a similar range through the conquests of Cyrus and Cambyses as in the imperial dominion of Rome. If on the borders of the earth there dwelt turbulent peoples at a lower level of civilisation or one which was incomprehensible to that of the East, that was of no more importance to the Persian empire than the independence of the Germans and Getæ or of the Parthian kingdom was to the Roman Orbis terrarum. All the civilised peoples of the East were joined together to form one state. From the time of the restoration of the unity of the empire by Darius the dominion of the Achæmenides ceases to be a conquering state: all that was left to subsequent ages was the task of organising and completing and maintaining what had been acquired.

In the civilised states that they had subdued, the Persian kings had as far as possible preserved the ancient forms which had been consecrated by a tradition preserved for thousands of years. Cyrus in Babylon and Cambyses in Egypt appeared as the divinely appointed successors of the native rulers, and nominally the two kingdoms still continued to exist under their successors. It is true that this was no more than a form; the kingdoms annexed had neither privileges nor a special administration; and Persian governors resided at Babylon and Memphis as in every other province of the empire. In Western Asia there is no trace of a similar spirit of concession nor is there in Lydia. On the other hand much greater consideration was shown to the Medes [Scythians] and the rest of the Iranian peoples. It was through the treachery of Median magnates and by the desertion of the Median army of Astyages that Cyrus’ victory was rendered possible. So in the empire the Medians take rank next to the Persians. “Persia, Media, and the other countries,” so Darius calls his empire; and in Babylon Xerxes is referred to as “King of Persia and Media.”[23]

The kernel of the army consisted of Persians and Medes, the imperial officials were drawn from them, and under Cyrus and Darius the Medes appear in the highest places of trust at the head of the army. The royal apparel and the order of the court was taken by Cyrus from the Medes, and Ecbatana was one of the residences of the Great King. Thus the Median kingdom continues to exist, not like Babylonia and Egypt, as the shadow of a once independent state, but transformed into the Persian empire. Those at a distance were scarcely aware of the internal changes in face of the continued subsistence of a powerful Iranian empire: consequently the Greeks, like other nations, transferred the Median names to the Persian empire.