When most people think about the Achaemenid Persian empire, they think of Leonidas throwing a spear badly at a smug Xerxes in the movie 300. Or, perhaps, they recall a history lesson, in which an underpaid middle school teacher explained how the Greeks heroically defeated the Persians at Thermopylae, saving western civilization forever.

Everywhere you hear about them, the Persians are described as terrible oppressors, while the Greeks are the benevolent saviors of progress. But this, of course, oversimplifies things.

Who Were the Persians?

For most of ancient Middle Eastern history, the lands around the Tigris and the Euphrates held the most sophisticated civilizations. Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer each lasted for thousands of years, spanning many dynasties. Only at the end of this era did the Persians begin to exert any influence over the desert lands.

In 625 BCE., a rough, tribal people called the Medes combined their tribes into a single kingdom. They founded a capital city, called Ecbatana, and used their city and newfound power base to battle with the Assyrians. In 612 BCE, after allying themselves with the neighboring Babylonians and Scythians, they finally defeated Assyria, razing Nineveh, its capital, to the ground in a brutal campaign.

The Medes were fiercely effective in combat. They had spent much of their history hunting the jagged landscape of the Iranian mountains and fighting various minor battles with one another. But city life sometimes softens rough people. The Persians, a group from the same stock, soon overthrew them.

Cyrus the Great

in 553 BCE, a man named Cyrus II led a revolt against his grandfather, Astyages, the median king. Succeeding, he continued to grow his territories, defeating enemies and strategically forming alliances.

Ancient sources — often propaganda pieces as much as historical documents — tell us Cyrus was unbelievably handsome and smart. Go figure! Still, he was clearly an impressive man. While he was as terrible to his enemies as any ancient king, he seemed to understand peoples’ motivations.

Where an Assyrian king might publicly flay dissenters, Cyrus offered them clemency. Where a Babylonian might threaten to ravage an entire city for failing to convert to his religion, Cyrus offered subjected people the right to continue believing what they liked.

In fact, Cyrus may have saved Judaism forever when he allowed persecuted Jews to live in his newly conquered Babylon — interesting, considering the less-than-friendly relations between modern Iranians and Jews.

The benefits of this “kinder” mentality might seem obvious to us today, but in the ancient world, most leaders relied on terror to get things done. Every level of government, from the highest kings to the lowest (male) heads of families, used violence, fear, and intimidation.

Since kindness, or at least permissiveness, tended not to yield such rapid results, most rulers overlooked it. Only a handful of ancient leaders, of which Cyrus was one, used the carrot as often as the stick.

Even by modern standards, Cyrus acquired a ton of territory during his reign. When he took the throne, he was a minor ruler or an Iranian backwater. By the time he died, Persia was the most powerful force in the ancient east.

Unfortunately, the most detailed records we have of the beginning of the Persian empire come from Herodotus, a fun but eccentric Greek historian. He tells us that Cyrus died when a barbarian woman cut off his head and threw it in a vase of blood so he could “quench his thirst for the blood of her people.” Since this contradicts firsthand accounts of the king’s body being buried, it’s generally regarded as unlikely.

Cambyses

Cambyses, Cyrus’ son, understandably had a tough time living up to his dad’s name. But if we’re to believe Herodotus, he didn’t try especially hard. Unlike his father, Cambyses wasn’t interested in offering clemency or building good faith. He was greedy, impulsive, and brutish.

In one story, he supposedly sells thousands of Egyptian children into slavery out of spite. He dresses the king’s daughter as a slave and parades her in front of gawking men. Not exactly the best way to make friends.

Fortunately, Cambyses died young, leaving history with a far more suitable replacement — Darius the Usurper.

Darius

Most historians agree that Darias was at least the second greatest king in Achaemenid history. While he wasn’t the relentless expansionist that Cyrus was, he was an excellent administrator who held on to vast territories for his whole lifespan.

Most sources, including autobiographical notes, paint him as a stoic, disciplined man, concerned with finances and infrastructure. He standardized a coin-based money system, built roads, and funded other construction projects.

He was the first of his line to attempt and fail to take the most famous of the Greek city-states. After this failure, the Egyptians began rioting, and Darius seems to have died when stress over the situation worsened his already-faltering health.

Xerxes

Xerxes is primarily known for his campaign against Greece, which, as we all know, went badly. He seems, however, to have been reasonably competent as a military leader. He successfully put down rebellions in both Egypt and Babylonia. He also built things and advanced laws.

Xerxes, of course, had some major negative qualities. He was both dumb enough to fall victim to Greece’s military deceptions and hotheaded enough that his subjects continuously rebelled against him. Few sources, therefore, complain much about his assassination.

What Was Persian Culture Like?

When you hear about ancient Persians, you usually don’t hear many pleasant details about everyday life. This is because they were classic enemies of the Greeks who wrote prolifically, and, admittedly, gave birth to democracy. When the Asians attempted to annihilate the Greeks, they inadvertently created an underdog who would live on in popular culture until the modern day.

But what were the Iranians really like? We already know they were relatively tolerant, provided you allowed them to subjugate you. But what made them them? What jokes might an ancient Mesopotamian or plainsman make about their new overlords? What stereotypes would these jokes reinforce?

No Lying

One of the oddest qualities of the Ancient Persians was the extent to which they reviled lying. We all tend to dislike people who lie excessively, but lying is an accepted part of modern society. We lie in our resumes, essays, and relationships. We even lie with our pictures.

This would have horrified the ancient Achaemenids. To them, the oaths people made to one another, whether through commerce or intimate relationships were sacred. Violating them was a grave sin. So how did these dominant people manage to rule over others without the same cultural views? Condescendingly, it seems.

No Markets

While modern-day Iran and Iraq are full of bazaars and open-air trading places, Cyrus and later kings forbid such commercial centers. These were seen as hotbeds for deceit and untruthfulness. Since the Greeks famed agoras virtually epitomized the Greek social world, Achaemenids reserved a special distaste for them.

Iranian kings still needed to make money through trading and agriculture, of course. They participated in a wider economy, but they didn’t do it in markets in which sellers and buyers debated prices. Plenty of transaction records have made their way down to us from which it’s hard to tell how these exchanges differed from so-called “immoral” ones. Perhaps there was some grey area.

Fancy

Both the Greeks and outlying barbarian peoples considered the Persians to be effeminate. This might not have reflected their temperaments so much as their tendency to wear makeup and concern themselves with fashion. They loved gold, and, having instituted the first standardized coinage system, surely hoarded wealth.

Sadly, we’ll never know how true this stereotype is, or whether it applied to all the Achaemenids or only the aristocracy.

Zoroastrian

The Zoroastrian religion was one of the first monotheistic religions. Its main theme was the cosmic conflict between good and evil, and it featured a special emphasis on fire. It emerged from a hodgepodge of local religions, but it’s one of the oldest world religions still practiced today — if you’re wondering, Hinduism and Judaism are the other big ones that predate it.

One of the most interesting and brutal elements of Zoroastrianism is its funerary ritual. Priests called magi prepared bodies for death by placing them at the top of towers, which were called, very creepily, towers of silence. There, the bodies would be consumed by vultures and dogs. Afterward, the magi embaled the remains and buried them.

Towers of silence in modern day iran — *“Tower of silence”*

Artistic

The Achaemenids weren’t quite as well known as the Assyrians or Babylonians for their art, but they made reliefs and temples about as well as any ancient people. Interestingly, their art styles blend somewhat with subject peoples, and many of the existing records are fun to look at.

Because the Iranians conquered so many territories, we have plenty of their written records, inscriptions, and statues. Regrettably, though, in a typically dickheadish move, ISIS destroyed monuments at Hatra and Palmyra that were once overseen by the Persians.

Downfall

Several hundred years after its rise to prominence, Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenid empire, and it never again reached the same level of influence. Perhaps this was inevitable. The Greeks had stumbled upon something great when they decided that mankind should elect rather than submit to its leaders, and they hated the men who tried to take their choice away.

Ironically, though Alexander was technically Greek, he was a Macedonian king — considered a barbarian by some — and he wasn’t the least bit interested in the philosophical ramblings of the Athenians. He spent years conquering everything until his men were ready to mutiny, and then, rather wastefully, he died. So, you may wonder, who was the evil overreached here?

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Ancient Persians: Terrible or the Least Terrible?