CYRUS THE GREAT
590/580–530 BC
I am Cyrus, the Great, the King.
Inscription from Pasargadae
Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, was the founder of a powerful empire that dominated western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean for two centuries. He was a peerless ruler: a bold soldier and conqueror but also a tolerant monarch who recognized the human rights of his subjects, permitted religious freedom and liberated the Jews from slavery. In the ancient world he was lauded as the model of the ideal king, even by the Greeks, and was something of a role model for Alexander the Great. Cyrus’ realm stretched from modern Israel, Armenia and Turkey in the west to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the fringes of the Indian subcontinent in the east.
Cyrus—Kourosh—was born in Persis, in modern-day Iran. His mother was the daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes in western Iran. As with other great heroes, such as Moses or Romulus and Remus, a legend was passed down about Cyrus’ birth (recorded by Greek historian Herodotus amongst others). Astyages had a dream that he interpreted as a sign that Cyrus would grow up to overthrow him: his daughter urinated a golden stream that squirted out his entire kingdom. Then he dreamed that a vine was growing out from between his daughter’s thighs. Clearly his grandson was a threat so he ordered that the infant be put to death. But Astyages’ adviser Harpagus could not bring himself to murder a newborn child, so he gave the baby to a shepherd. By the time Cyrus was ten, his precocious gifts had brought him to the court of Astyages, where his identity was discovered. Astyages allowed the child to live, but had his brutal revenge on Harpagus by tricking him into eating his own son.
Whether true or not, the legend shows that from the start Cyrus was seen as the anointed redeemer of his people. In 559 BC he succeeded his father Cambyses I as head of the Achaemenid dynasty that ruled Persia, which was then restricted to an area of southwest Iran and subject to the Medes. In 554 Cyrus allied himself with Harpagus and led a rebellion against his cruel grandfather Astyages. The revolt gathered momentum during the next four years, and when Cyrus marched against Astyages in 550, the Median soldiers defected. Cyrus captured the land of the Medes and made its capital, Ecbatana, his own.
In 547 he conquered the kingdom of Lydia, (in today’s Turkey) deposing the fabulously wealthy king, Croesus. This extended his domain throughout all Asia Minor, and drew in the Greek cities along the coast of the Aegean Sea. Having secured the western frontiers of his empire, Cyrus turned his attention to Babylonia.
Babylon was the most splendid of the ancient cities, but it was governed by a tyrannical and unpopular king, Nabonidus. Cyrus was welcomed as a liberator when, in 539, he dug a canal to divert the River Euphrates and marched his army into the thousand-year-old capital. With Babylon came vast territories including Syria and Palestine, which gave Cyrus control over most of the Near East.
Within twenty years Cyrus had assembled the greatest empire the world had ever seen. He realized that keeping his vast new domain together would require peaceful diplomacy, rather than oppression and violence. So instead of forcing Persian customs and laws on the newly conquered peoples, he set about creating a new concept of world empire, selecting the best elements from different areas to create a better whole. He employed Median advisers, mimicked the dress and cultural influence of the Elamites, and tolerated religious freedom everywhere in return for total political submission. He governed from three capitals: Ecbatana, the Persian capital Pasargadae, and Babylon.
In Babylon he freed the Jews who had been held there in slavery since the 586 BC Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. Cyrus returned them to Jerusalem; paid for their return, and funded the rebuilding of their temple. As a result, he is the only Gentile to be regarded by some Jews as possessing messianic qualities. His reputation was further enhanced by the discovery in the 19th century of the “Cyrus Cylinder,” an artifact inscribed with details of Cyrus’ conquests and his overthrow of tyranny, and declaring his belief in religious toleration and his opposition to slavery. It is recognized by the United Nations as the first charter of human rights. He was no liberal—brutally repressing any political revolts—but he did grant religions tolerance.
Cyrus died on campaign in 530 BC, fighting Tomyris, queen of the Massagetai, who was intent on exacting bloody revenge for the death of her son, who had been held captive by Cyrus. The inscription on Cyrus’ tomb in Pasargadae, which still stands, was: “O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus, who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore grudge me this little earth that covers my body.” Cyrus was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, whose short reign resulted in the capture of the only territory in the Near East that Cyrus had not added to his empire: Egypt. The Achaemenid Empire almost fell apart but was refounded by a second Persian empire builder, only distantly related to Cyrus: Darius the Great conquered all of Cyrus’s realms, confirmed Cyrus’s tolerant policies, invaded Ukraine, India and Europe and organized the first imperial postal service and world currency: he was the Augustus of the Persian empire. But he pushed into Greece, where, before his death in 490 BC and was defeated by the Greeks at Marathon. Darius’ successor, his son, Xerxes, failed to crush the Greeks—but his legacy ensured that Cyrus’ empire lasted two centuries.
THE BUDDHA
c. 563–483 BC
“Are you a god?”—“No,” he replied.
“Are you a reincarnation of god?”—“No,” he replied.
“Are you a wizard then?”—“No.”
“Well, are you a man?”—“No.”
“So what are you?” they asked in confusion.
“I am awake.”
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, questioned on the road after his enlightenment
The Buddha’s teachings of benevolence, toleration and compassion have a universal appeal that extends far beyond those who expressly follow him. His quest for enlightenment gave rise to a movement that is as much a code of ethics as a religion. It provides each of his followers with the ability and the desire to live a life of contentment and spiritual fulfillment.
According to legend, the Buddha was conceived when Mahamaya, the queen consort to the king of the Sakyas, dreamed that a white elephant had entered her womb. Born in a curtained enclosure in a great park in Nepal, the prince was originally called Siddhartha Gautama (the title Buddha—“enlightened one”—was conferred on him later). His forename, meaning “one whose aim is accomplished,” was an allusion to priestly predictions that he would achieve greatness either as a ruler or as a religious teacher. Some scholars have suggested his birth was later than tradition holds, around 485 BC.
Seven days after his birth, Gautama’s mother died. Eager that his son should follow the former, worldly path, his father had Gautama “exceedingly delicately nurtured,” shielding him from any sight of hardship. He seldom left his palaces (he had one for each season of the year), and on the rare occasions that he did, the king ensured that the streets were filled with young, healthy and cheerful people. Only when he was twenty-nine did chance encounters, first with an old man, then with a sick man and finally with a corpse, alert Gautama to the existence of age, infirmity and death. This realization inspired a fundamental aspect of his doctrine—that human existence is one of suffering.
Subsequently catching sight of a peaceful wanderer with shaven head and yellow robe, Gautama made the “Great Renunciation,” abandoning princely luxury in the hope that an austere religious life might bring greater spiritual fulfillment. Taking one final look at his sleeping wife and newborn son, he stole out of the palace in the dead of night to embrace the life of a wandering ascetic.