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Starting in the second millennium BC, these friendly peoples succumbed to the Aryan conquest. The term “Aryan,” despite the Nazis’ later twisting, is essentially a linguistic designation referring to a variety of peoples who spoke eastern Indo-European languages or dialects and migrated from southern Russia and central Asia into India, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau. How the Aryans overpowered the preexisting societies is unclear, but within a few hundred years they had established kingdoms in eponymous territories throughout the region: for example, the Medes in Media, the Bactrians in Bactria, and the Persians in Persis or Parsa.6

The Persians themselves consisted of a number of tribes and clans, of which the Achaemenids were one. In time, the Achaemenids would extend Persian rule to the other Aryan kingdoms. Indeed the name Iran derives from the Persian word Eränsahr, meaning “Empire of the Aryans.” The Achaemenid Empire was, however, far larger than modern-day Iran. Its provinces or satrapies, with their archaic names, correspond to some modern headline-making regions in the Middle East and central Asia. Babylon, for example, which the Achaemenids conquered in 539 BC, stood in what is now Iraq, approximately sixty miles from Baghdad. Sogdiana was located in modern Uzbekistan. And Bac-tria, so significant in the Achaemenid Empire, maps roughly onto present-day Afghanistan.7

A note about sources: The Achaemenid rulers left virtually no written histories of their own empire. The ancient Persians transmitted the triumphs and deeds of their kings primarily through oral traditions. The few written records we have from the Achaemenid kings consist principally of royal inscriptions—for example, Cyrus's cylinder or Darius's trilingual engravings on the cliffs of Behistun. Unfortunately, these inscriptions are not narrative accounts of actual events. Rather, they are abstract exaltations of royal power and virtue and more than a little propagandistic. Cyrus's cylinder, for example, proclaims, “I am Cyrus, king of the universe, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the world quarters.”8

As a result, most of what we know about the Achaemenid Empire comes from a very limited number of Greek sources, including Xenophon's Anabasis, Aeschylus's Persians, and, most important, Herodotus's Histories. Most of these classical authors lived in the latter half of the Achaemenid period and presumably based their accounts in part on oral testimonies and Persian legends passed on over the years; here again, it may be difficult to separate historical fact from political propaganda.

Additionally, depending on the era, the Greeks were the enemies, subjects, or conquerors of the Persians. Thus, Greek authors were not necessarily the most impartial expositors of Persian history—imagine Saddam Hussein writing A History of the United States, 1990-2006. As a result, Greek references to Persians as “barbarians of Asia,” or the frequent Greek portrayals of the Achaemenid kings as decadent and gluttonous, should be taken with a grain of salt. An exceptional case may be Herodotus, who wrote about the Persians with such little hostility, relative to that of his contemporaries, that Plutarch accused him of being a “friend of the barbarians” (philobarbaros).9

In general, there are enough corroborating sources from different perspectives, often supported by archaeological evidence, to feel comfortable with most of the basic facts about the Achaemenid Empire. Where there are doubts, discrepancies, or differing interpretations among historians, I will point them out.

TOLERANCE AND THE RISE OF THE

ACHAEMENID EMPIRE

The story of the Achaemenid Empire begins with Cyrus the Great. Cyrus's origins are shrouded in legend. According to the version favored by Herodotus, Cyrus was the grandson of Astyages, the weak final ruler of the powerful kingdom of Media. When Cyrus was born—to Astyages's daughter and her husband, Cambyses,