Cyrus

Cyrus (II) “the Great” (d. 530 BCE) appears abruptly in the historical record. Inheriting the throne of a small principality, his military campaigns would greatly expand the tradition of ancient Near Eastern imperialism to cover the largest territory yet seen in history. Though the empire was threatened by a dynastic break not long after Cyrus’s death, the polity would endure for roughly 200 years. Cyrus and his sons (Cambyses II and Bardiya) are known as the Teispid dynasty and Darius I and his heirs as the Achaemenid dynasty, though the latter is typically used for the empire to distinguish it from later Persian empires. The seemingly unprecedented conquests of Cyrus and his relations with his new subjects deeply impacted classical and biblical authors. These latter two sets of sources would shape both the memory and the historiography of the Persian Empire, and they continue to do so today. A recent uptick in scholarly interest in the Persian Empire as it can be understood from Persian and Akkadian sources has begun to illuminate both the empire at large and its origins. The limited nature of the direct sources for Cyrus himself means his reign must be contextualized both with previous ancient Near Eastern evidence and from the subsequent Persian Empire. This article focuses on Cyrus himself as much as possible rather than the empire he founded.