Persian Fire: The First World Empire, Battle for the West - 'Magisterial' Books of the Year, Independent

by Tom Holland

King of B...

King of...

Having won Babylon, Darius was alert to all the city could teach. For a man of his penetrating intelligence, the city must have appeared as an immense illustration of what kingship might truly be, enshrined within ritual, and luxury, and stone. The lessons that he was absorbing in Babylon promised to be valuable, and they would need to be – for as Darius lingered in the city, grim news began to reach him. His victory in Mesopotamia had failed to deliver a knockout blow to his other enemies. Rebellion was rife, and growing, throughout the dominions he aspired to master. Insurrection and war were reported everywhere.

So it was that the hapless Nebuchadnezzar, captured on the downfall of his capital, was denied even the right to his celebrated name. Darius, pulling a favourite trick, accused him of being an impostor, and had him arraigned as ‘Nidintu-Bel’. Just as the corpse of ‘Gaumata’ had been disposed of with suspicious haste, now Nidintu-Bel, rather than being paraded down the Processional Way, was hurriedly and discreetly impaled.

Vahyazdata,

Phraortes seized control of Ecbatana.

Phraortes

Astyages,

By January, Phraortes’ forces were pushing hard: advancing almost to the Nisaean plain, they threatened to break through into Mesopotamia, just as Darius himself had done barely two months before. Here loomed the great fulcrum of the crisis: Darius, knowing that he could not afford to lose Babylon, yet also frantically orchestrating a war on numerous fronts, dispatched a small army under Hydarnes, one of the seven original conspirators, to hold the highway at all costs.

Hydarnes,

frozen Z...

cliff-face of Bisitun,

Vahyazdata,

Hydarnes,

Phraortes,

Darius, having neglected to expose either Gaumata or Nidintu-Bel to public obloquy, now more than made amends. Indeed, the fate of Phraortes could not have been more gruesomely exemplary. His nose, tongue and ears were cut off; then for good measure, he was blinded in one eye. While other prominent rebels were flayed and their skins then stuffed with straw, their master was chained before the gates of the royal palace in Ecbatana, ‘where everyone could see him’,13 Only once his co...

Vahyazdata,

The various female offshoots of the royal family – the sisters, wives and daughters of the man he had displaced – were swept into the marital bed.

twice-widowed Atossa,

her younger sister, Artystone – the second of Cyrus’ daughters

Not that Darius, having waded through blood to seize the kidaris, was the man to rely merely on a harem to cement his claim. Even as he staked his exclusive rights to the bloodline of Cyrus, he was loudly broadcasting the primacy of his own: ‘I am Darius, King of Kings, King of Persia, King of Lands, the son of Hystaspes, grandson of Arsames, an Achaemenid.’

Besides, the fabrications only veiled a deeper truth. By the summer of 521 BC, although there were still smouldering bushfires in Elam and Mesopotamia, Darius’ triumph was not in dispute: he had secured the throne for himself and saved the world for the Persian people.

Ahura Mazda,

D...

Bisitun, holiest of mountains,

execution of Gaumata

Ga...

defeat of Ph...

Already, even before his victory in Persia, masons had been set to work at Bisitun. For the first time ever, ‘cut like the pages of a book on the blood-coloured rock’,16 the Persian language was to be transcribed into written form. The story of how Darius had rescued the world from evil was far too important to be trusted to the recitations of the Magi alone. Only solid stone could serve such an epic as its shrine.

And yet the king, even as he proclaimed his achievements to the far ends of the earth, was already seeking to distance himself from the swirl of revolt and war.

cliff-face of Bisitun

giant D...

On the face of the conqueror, however, there was no wrinkled lip, no sneer of cold command, only serenity, dignity, majesty and calm; as though the triumphs celebrated in the relief were, to their hero, simply ripples upon an order outside time. Here was a radical departure from the norms of royal self-promotion. When the Assyrian kings had portrayed themselves trampling their foes, they had done so in the most extravagant and blood-spattered detail, amid the advance of siege engines, the flight of the defeated, piles of loot and severed heads.

Ahura Mazda,

Never again, however, would he permit himself to be shown enclosed within mere events. As universal monarch, he was now above such things. Just as Lord Mazda dwelt beyond the rhythms of the world, so had his proxy, the King of Persia, transcended space and time. History, in effect, had been brought to a glorious close.

520 BC,

hard at work at Bisitun,

ever-fractious ...

Ahura Mazda.’

Until that moment, Darius, following the subtle policy of Cyrus, had always been assiduous in his attention to foreign gods. Now he was delivering to the subject nations of the world a stern and novel warning. Should a people persist in rebellion against the order of Ahura Mazda, they might expect to be regarded not merely as adherents of the Lie but as the worshippers of ‘daivas’ – false gods and demons.

Gobryas, Darius’ father-in-law,

led an army into Elam, he was able to crush the revolt there with a peremptory, almost dismissive, speed. Never again would the Elamites dare to challenge the awful might of the Persian king. Such was the effect of the world’s first holy war.

Not that Darius, even as he ordered the invasion of Elam, had ever aimed to impose his religion at the point of a sword; such an idea was wholly alien to the spirit of the times. Nevertheless, a new age was dawning – and Darius was its midwife. His vision of empire as a fusion of cosmic, moral and political order was to prove stunningly fruitful: the foundation-stone not only of his own rule but of the very concept of a universal order. The dominion raised by Cyrus, having been preserved from dissolution, was now, in effect, to be founded a second time – and a global monarchy, secured anew, was to spell a global peace.

For, earth-shaking though Darius’ usurpation had proved to be, it had never been his intention to turn the whole world upside-down. Just the opposite. The ancient kingdoms of the Near East, having had their last hour of rebellion, were now finished as international players; yet Darius, the man responsible for their quietus, still indulged their spectres.

A pharaoh still reigned in Egypt;

a king of Babylon in Mesopotamia;

a self-proclaimed heir of the house of Ast...

And there was no one left undiminished.

The nobility, decimated by civil war, and intimidated by Darius’ battle-hardened armies, no longer dared dispute the pretensions of royal power.

Susa, capital of the defeated Elamites,