Mark Gagnon

Now, let me also say, this is 6th century BC.

This is how long ago this was.

And Cyrus was unique in the sense that he was actually loved by the people, which is pretty rare for ancient conquerors.

Typically, conquerors just

destroy and vanquish all the people of the towns that they're conquering.

But Cyrus was a little bit different.

He was known for his tolerance.

For example, he conquered Babylon in 539 BC, and he actually freed the Jewish people from their captivity and allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple.

And the Hebrew Bible actually calls Cyrus God's anointed one, which basically likens him to this messianic figure in a way.

And in Jewish and Christian history and theology, that's a massive deal.

And then after Cyrus came Darius, Darius I. And this is the king who would basically take the empire to its peak.

Now, Darius was a Persian noble who married Cyrus's daughter, Attausa.

Attausa is one of the most prominent women in all of Persian Iranian history.

And it's interesting because Darius did not inherit the empire by blood, though he did belong to a different branch of the Achaemenid family.

Now, Darius I was less of a conqueror and more of an administrator.

He divided the empire into different provinces called satrapies, and each was governed by a satrap.

And they basically answered directly to the king.

And this was very unique for the time because typically the king just had absolute control over everything.

But this person, these satraps basically had regional control of different parts of the empire, almost like states in a way.

And so it was a very modern, progressive governmental system.