History of Persia

The Spartan Invasion of Anatolia continues. The incompetent Thibron was replaced first by Derkylidas, then by the Spartan King Agesilaus himself. Agesilaus' successes led to the final downfall of Tissaphernes, only to be completely undone with the arrival of Persia's newest ally: Athens.

We continue following the 10,000 mercenaries, straight into the Spartan Invasion of the Persian Empire. What? You thought the Greeks stopped caring just because Cyrus dead?

The long awaited march of the 10,000 Greek mercenaries from Cyrus the Younger's forces back toward Greece has begun.

Introducing HoPful Media, an overarching brand name that doesn't mean much now but might in the future. Plus a minisode about Greek coinage circulating in the Achaemenid Empire.

Jashn-e Mehregan mubarak everyone! This year's roving holiday special is all about the traditional Feast of Mithra and the yazata it honors. Grab some sharbat, maybe a bowl of pistachios, and settle in for festivities ancient and modern with a healthy side of all of Mithra's awesome and badass jobs in the cosmos.

We follow the Spartan general, Clearchus, as he was taken into captivity in Babylon before following the royal court off to the building projects and border disputes of Artaxerxes II's empire.

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In the last 8 days, at time of posting,  the country of Iran has been rocked by a nationwide uprising in response to the brutal murder of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini, a 22 year old Kurdish woman from the city of Saqqez who was living in Tehran. She was beaten into a coma by the Gasht-e Ershad, the Iranian morality police, and died in custody shortly after on September 16, 2022. Her crime? Being in public without a Hijab.

This is my small contribution to that. As a platform innately connected to Iran and its history, I want to express the History of Persia Podcast’s unequivocal support for all those resisting oppression and theocracy in Iran. Beyond simply lending my voice to the international chorus cheering them on, I also hope that I can at least provide some exposure for the regime’s violence and the resistance against it by directing my listeners and social media followers toward sources of information.

After the battle of Cunaxa, both sides were left to deal with the fallout. In Babylon, Artaxerxes II and his supporters celebrated victory and punished treason. In the detritus of the battlefield, Cyrus the Younger's supporters were left to pick up the pieces and start their long walk home.

After 6 months on the road, Cyrus the Younger and Artaxerxes II face off to decide who will be King of Kings, deciding the course of Achaemenid History forever after. 

A collection of early Zoroastrian prayers to the various Yazatas, the Yashts are some of the only surviving sources that provide a detailed window into the more polytheistic aspects of ancient Iran. As a bonus, they partially stem from myths and legends as told in the Achaemenid period.

Breaking News! The History of Persia Podcast now has merch, swag, gear, and other physical items to show off how much you like ancient Persia and this podcast.

Plus, there's one last group of coins from the Achaemenid Empire that I want to talk about.

Cyrus the Younger obviously graduated early, but what exactly did he learn in ancient Persian school? Hunting, fitness, soldiery, science, and religion amongst many other things in a complex noble educational system.

In 408 BCE, Darius II decided the Ionian War called for more drastic, teenage measures. He sent the 16 year old Prince Cyrus to rule western Anatolia as Karanos, a supreme military authority. Cyrus did everything in his power to enable his new Spartan allies' victory against Athens.

Despite their defeat in Sicily, the tales of Athenian demise in 413 BCE were greatly exaggerated. In 411, Athens and Sparta began to clash again and protracted tug-of-war in the Aegean even as Athens itself was seized by political upheavals.

The story of the Megabyzid family conveniently flows from a solid recap of the story so far straight into the next major event in Achaemenid history: the very first satrap's revolt, complete with Greek mercenaries and royal family drama.

The treaty known as the Peace of Callias supposedly ended the second Greco-Persian War with a formal agreement between Athens and Persia. However, its very existence is the topic of intense historical debate. Despite this, hostilities did cease in 449 BCE, so something must have happened, right?

In late 465 BCE, Xerxes I - the King of Kings - was murdered in his sleep by his own captain of the guard, Artabanus the Hyrcanian. Artabanus and a group of highly placed conspirators chose their victim's third son, Artaxerxes to be their puppet on the throne and moved to secure their coup. Unbeknownst to them, Artaxerxes was not easily manipulated. When the conspirators turned on one another, the Achaemenid Empire plunged headfirst into the age of Artaxerxes with a new round of civil wars.

It completely slipped my mind that the next episode would be due out on Thanksgiving Day. I've got family sleeping in my office this week so that's not happening, but I didn't want to leave you completely hanging. Fortunately, there might be some pre-Persian history that catches your interest over on The Oldest Stories.

As the war with the Greeks drags on into obscurity, it is time to investigate what was happening inside the empire under Xerxes. In the far west, most territories slipped from Persian control completely. The Mediterranean coastal region was reconfigured and given a new leadership class to carry on the war against Athens. In the royal court, Xerxes dealt with infamous court drama and intrigue, while in Babylon the daily minutia of government wore on and dealt with economic crises.

Supposedly on the same day as the Battle of Plataea, another battle was unfolding at the foot of Mount Mycale (modern Mount Dilek). The Greek fleet agreed to aid Samian rebels against Persia and sailed all the way to mainland Anatolia to fight the Persian fleet. Still recovering from Salamis, the Persians opted to turn the confrontation into a land battle, but the new general, Tigranes, and his men were overwhelmed and even more of the fleet was destroyed by Greek hands.

After a year of relative success, the Persian occupation of northern Greece received its second massive defeat. For the first time, the Hellenic League managed to field the full might of a Greek army against the occupation force commanded by Mardonius. They clashed repeatedly in the plains surrounding the small town of Plataea until their maneuvers drew both sides into a decisive and bloody confrontation.

I sat down with an interview with Uzume Wijnsma, a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Leiden, whose research has proved invaluable to the podcast on a few occasions. Her research focuses on Egyptian and Babylonian resistance to Achaemenid rule, and she is part of the Persia & Babylonia project at Leiden.

Thank you all so much! The AMA Episode was a great success and I look forward to the next 50 episodes of the History of Persia. This episode has everything: the ancient world in color, beard fashion, video games, book reviews, time travel, and of course me trying to piece together something to say about provinces we don't actually know much about. Links below in order of appearance:

It's that somewhat random time of year again, where I set aside a bit of time to celebrate a holiday that intersects with our narrative. This year that means Purim, the Jewish celebration of the Book of Esther. Esther tells the story of a Jewish woman turned Achaemenid queen in the court of Ahasuerus (maybe Xerxes, maybe an Artaxerxes, probably a bit of both). Esther and her cousin Mordecai have to foil the genocidal plans of the King's vizier Haman to save their people, and the result is today's festivities.

Before launching into the actual warfare between the Persian Empire and Greek city states, it's worth examining how the Greeks prepared for war. Athens prepared by building a navy, everyone prepared by planning to deploy their armies, and we'll explore the whole history of the famous "300" Spartans.

By audience demand, we're headed back in time. Before wrapping up the reign of Darius, it's time to look back to the bronze age and talk about Zarathustra Spitama, the prophet more often known in the west as Zoroaster. This is the first of a two part series on the life and teachings of Zoroaster, as presented in the Gathas - 5 hymns to Ahura Mazda believed to be composed by Zoroaster himself.

Darius the Great is one of Persia's most infamous kings for many reasons. An illegitimate heir who reunified the empire. The king of the first war with Greece. Conqueror of territory at the far reaches of Persian control. He was many things. He was also a reformer and an administrator who oversaw the implementation of new systems of taxation, record keeping, and political organization. Those reforms formed the basis of Persian governance for centuries to come, and may be his longest lasting legacy.

This time I have something a little different. In place of a regular narrative episode this week, I have my recent interview with Dr. Michael Bonner, author of the new book: The Last Empire of Iran. This jumps far ahead of our current point in the narrative story, all the way to the Sassanid Persian Empire of the 4th-8th centuries CE.

Dr. Bonner and I discussed the origins, sources, conflicts, and fall of Iran's last pre-Islamic dynasty.

To prepare ourselves for their role in the coming wars between Persian the Greek city states, I'm explaining the history and politics of Archaic Athens, from their first adoption of oligarchy rather than monarchy, down through the adoption of democracy, the Peisistratid tyrants, and the final restoration of democracy by Cleisthenes. At the end of that long process, the Athenians and their Eretrian allies joined forces with the Ionian Greek cities of Anatolia in their revolt against the Persian Empire. In 498 BCE, the Greek army set out from Ephesus in a lightning raid to attack, and ultimately destroy, the Lydian capital at Sardis. 

At the end of the 6th century BCE, a group of exiled aristocrats from the island of Naxos inadvertently set off a chain of events that would eventually lead to such famous battles as Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. They asked the Milesian Tyrant, Aristagoras, to help them retake their home island after being kicked out. Aristagoras went to the Satrap of Lydia, who in turn asked Darius the Great. When Darius gave the go ahead, a Persian fleet invaded, and subsequently retreated from Naxos. Out of money and out of options Aristagoras and the rest of the Ionian Greeks in western Anatolia began hatching a plan to launch an Ionian Revolt against the Persian Empire.

It's the final stage of the tour! Our trip through the Persian Empire wraps up with three central provinces of the empire, located in western Iran. This time it's Susiana, Media, and Parsa itself. We'll traverse everything from rundown ancient kingdoms, hostile mountain tribes, royal capitals, and one of the wonders of the ancient world. For some of them, we won't even have to leave the same city. These are the provinces that ruled and defined the Achaemenid Persian Empire. 

The tour of the Persian Empire continues. This time I'm going through the empire within the empire to dissect Assyria and Babylonia. Within these two satrapies, there were many important administrative districts and geographic divisions including Judea, Palestine, Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Akkad in addition to Assyria and Babylon themselves. With hindsight's 20/20 this was obviously one the most important parts of the empire, and we'll go through it in detail. 

The tour of the Persian Empire continues, this time covering the western Satrapies. I'm exploring the details and histories of the Persian provinces starting with Armenia and moving counter clockwise, through Anatolia and Europe, over the Mediterranean, North Africa, Arabia, and Assyria. Based on the maps of Ian Mladjov. 

Happy Holidays Everyone! In place of a regular episode this week, we have the first annual History of Persia Holiday Special. Regardless of what holidays you're celebrating, or not, I have a surprise topic to cover by audience request this week. Please enjoy!

It's finally time to talk about the famous Behistun Inscription, commissioned by Darius to commemorate his victories over "Gaumata" and the rebel kings he faced from 522 - 518 BCE. It is part propaganda, part epic, part origin story, and part religious creed, declaring Darius' position over his hard-won empire. I go through the inscription step by step and give some of the history of the site beyond Darius.