Persionary1/26/2024 ![]() However, the Persian army he left behind was defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. Xerxes quickly left Greece and successfully crushed the Babylonian rebellion. It is possible that at this point a serious revolt broke out in the strategically crucial province of Babylonia. However, the Greeks won a victory against the Persian navy in the straits of Salamis in 479 B.C. Xerxes led his sea and land forces against Greece in 480 B.C., defeating the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae and sacking Athens. 486–465 B.C.) attempted to force the mainland Greeks to acknowledge Persian power, but Sparta and Athens refused to give way. It took the Persians four years to crush the rebellion, although an attack against mainland Greece was repulsed at Marathon in 490 B.C.ĭarius’ son Xerxes (r. However, in 498 B.C., the eastern Greek Ionian cities, supported in part by Athens, revolted. Darius also consolidated Persia’s western conquests in the Aegean. The impression is of a harmonious empire supported by its numerous peoples. These show tributaries from different parts of the empire processing toward the enthroned king or conveying the king’s throne. He added northwestern India to the Achaemenid realm and initiated two major building projects: the construction of royal buildings at Susa and the creation of the new dynastic center of Persepolis, the buildings of which were decorated by Darius and his successors with stone reliefs and carvings. Under Darius the empire was stabilized, with roads for communication and a system of governors (satraps) established. 522–486 B.C.), claiming in his inscriptions that a certain “Achaemenes” was his ancestor. After a ten-day siege, Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis fell to the Persians.Ī crisis at court forced Cambyses to return to Persia but he died en route and Darius I (“the Great”) emerged as king (r. It was left to his son Cambyses to rout the Egyptian forces in the eastern Nile Delta in 525 B.C. The one western power that remained unconquered in Cyrus’ lightning campaigns was Egypt. ![]() Cyrus entered Babylon and presented himself as a traditional Mesopotamian monarch, restoring temples and releasing political prisoners. In 539 B.C., Persian forces defeated the Babylonian army at the site of Opis, east of the Tigris. The Babylonian empire controlled Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean. The Lydians had been allied with the Babylonians and Egyptians and Cyrus now had to confront these major powers. The Lydian army withdrew for the winter but the Persians advanced to the Lydian capital at Sardis, which fell after a two-week siege. The Lydians of western Anatolia under King Croesus took advantage of the fall of Media to push east and clashed with Persian forces. This upset the balance of power in the Near East. Its formation began in 550 B.C., when King Astyages of Media, who dominated much of Iran and eastern Anatolia (Turkey), was defeated by his southern neighbor Cyrus II (“the Great”), king of Persia (r. The Achaemenid Persian empire was the largest that the ancient world had seen, extending from Anatolia and Egypt across western Asia to northern India and Central Asia.
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