Persians - Age Of The Great Kings

 Persians

The Age Of The Great Kings

By Lloyd LLewwllyn-Jones

 

I picked up this book to gain a bit more substance to my general feeling that Cyrus and Darius were great benevolent kings.  I wanted more insight and the book certainly delivered.  Turns out the Achaemenid held rule over Persian Empire for a two hundred years (~550 -330 BCE).  It was a classic familial royal dynasty, with classic familial intrigue, including assassins, poisoning, and conquests. Wrapped into this family were brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, mothers, concubines, and lastly eunuchs.  It seems eunuchs played a major part in the executions of palace tasks, which positioned them in the thick of the whispering plots.  The prime King names were:

• Cyrus II “the Great” (550–529 BC)
• Cambyses II (529–522 BC)
• Darius I (522–486 BC)
• Xerxes I (486–465 BC)
• Artaxerxes I (465–425 BC)
• Xerxes II (425–424 BC)
• Darius II (423–404 BC)
• Artaxerxes II (404–359 BC)
• Artaxerxes III (359–338 BC)
• Arses (338–336 BC)
• Darius III (336–330 BC)

The book lacked maps of which I recommend you have next to you while reading.  Over time of conquest Persian Empire spanned east to west from Pakistan to Euro Asia north to south from the Black and Caspian Seas to Egypt and the Indus Valley (India).  Each King had a hand in a new conquest, new palace, and maintaining the peace of their conquest.  The reader is made aware that what gave the Ruler Kings a benevolent reputation is they allowed those they conquered for the most part to continue their beliefs and way of life.  So one may reflect on who the founding fathers of the USA modeled their governance on? 

 

The book concludes with a chapter King Alexander the Great on the conquest of the Great Persian.  And an epilogue on how this history shapes the minds of modern day Iranians, of which I have an affinity for.  Missing in this history is Persia from 530 BCE to 600 AD under Alexander rule and then Muslim rule, and then  the crucial story of Iran from 1905 through 1979 of secular politics, and finally the brutal IRGC rule from 1979 to present day. 

Why is this history important to me?  Because it helps re-enforce my hope for the IRGC to be removed from Iran.

 

To come are the excerpts from the book… promise