The World

Darius the Great was that most unusual phenomenon, a warlord of panache and stamina who was both visionary and master of detail, so much so that his subjects nicknamed him the Trader. He launched an imperial currency, the daric, but he was also a master of security: his spies – King’s Ears – reported any treason to his secret-police boss entitled the King’s Eye. Constantly travelling in splendour, a maestro of colossal projects, tolerant of other religions (helping the Jews rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem), he built a new capital at Parsa (Persepolis) with enormous throne halls and a ceremonial staircase designed to be ascended, probably by Darius, on horseback, all built with ‘the gold of Sardis and Bactria, lapis and carnelian of Sogdiana, silver and ebony from India, friezes from Ionia, ivory from Ethiopia and India’. As a young man he had married the daughter of one of the Seven, with whom he had three sons, but now he married all the wives and daughters of Cyrus, Cambyses and Strongbody, having children with each. Atossa, Cyrus’ daughter, now married her third Great King. In a marital history brimming with blood and betrayal, both her brother-kings had likely been murdered by her new husband Darius. It was enough either to crush a woman’s spirit or, in her case, to fortify it for she became the mother of three sons, including Xerxes, and a political force.^*

Darius’ women and children resided in a protected household: women were invisible in the inscriptions of court life; indeed, since the court was frequently on the road, women travelled in special giant curtained carriages which in camp were placed together to create a familial compound. Yet royal women were potentates who ran their own estates. The family court, protected by trusted eunuchs – African and Colchian (Georgian) boys seized or bought in childhood and then castrated – was run by Darius’ mother Irdabama, who ruled when he was away.

Darius was restless: when he travelled, the courtiers and their wives and families – 15,000 people – went with him. The sacred fire was borne ahead of him, pulled by eight white horses, then came the magi, followed by the empty carriage of Ahura-Mazda, then the crack royal bodyguard the Immortals and the top courtiers, led by the Master of the Thousand, and the Royal Companions, followed in turn by the queen’s household. Wherever he stopped, a palatial round tent would be erected at the centre of a resplendent tented capital.

The empire was a family business, with Darius’ brother, Artafarna, King Stabber, ruling as satrap of Greek Ionia, and most commanders being relatives or descendants of the Seven. But inevitably at least one of the Seven would resent that sacred kingship of their old messmate. Vidafarnâ (Intraphrenes) was outraged when one day refused entry to the royal apartments and cut the ears off the guards. When the rest of the Seven all wisely disavowed him, Darius executed Vidafarnâ and his family. Recalling the death of Cyrus in battle, Darius considered the succession: his sons were raised as warrior princes, growing up in the harem, awoken at dawn by trumpets, tutored by Greek eunuchs and magi, hardened by iced baths, practising horsemanship with spear and bow to enable them to accompany their father on lion hunts and to war. Even the princesses were taught bow shooting, riding and history. Among his many sons, Xerxes (Khshayarsha – He Who Rules Over Heroes) was handsome, brave in war and in the hunt. Male beauty was evidence of Ahura-Mazda’s favour: slaves were trained as beauticians; Persian men wore make-up and eyeliner; false beards and hairpieces were so valuable that they were taxed; beards were curled and anointed with perfumed oil. Getting dressed in the morning was a special ritual.

Darius, like Cyrus, recognized no limits. Once he was secure, the Trader ordered the building of a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, opening Mediterranean trade to Arabia and India. Then in 516 he invaded Afghanistan and India.

As Darius conquered provinces that his successors would rule for centuries – seven satrapies covered modern Afghanistan – the news of his invasion would have reached a prince living in the kingdom of Magada, one of the sixteen mahajanapadas, principalities of north-east India, dominated by high castes, Brahmin priests and kshatriya kings and nobles according to the Vedic rituals of what later became Hinduism.^* But many of the cities were republics ruled by sanghas, popular assemblies. The prince’s teachings both challenged and dovetailed with these existing religions to found what would become the first world religion.