Iran - Andrew Burke [9]
Cyrus colonised the old Median capital at Ecbatana, redeveloped Shush and built for himself a new home at Pasargadae, establishing the pattern whereby Persian rulers circulated between three different capitals. Unfortunately for him, the Massagetae from the northeast of the empire decided he was indeed imposing his monarchy on them and they didn’t like it. Herodotus writes that Cyrus incurred the wrath of the Massagetae queen, Tomyris, after he captured her son and slaughtered many of her soldiers in a battle made especially one-sided because the Massagetae army were all drunk – on wine strategically planted by the Achaemenids. Herodotus writes:
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Cyrus the Great, by Jacob Abbott, tells the story of the fair-minded empire builder through the writings of Greek historian Herodotus and general Xenophenon, with extensive commentary from Abbott.
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When Tomyris heard what had befallen her son and her army, she sent a herald to Cyrus, who thus addressed the conqueror: ‘Thou bloodthirsty Cyrus, pride not thyself on this poor success: it was the grape-juice…it was this poison wherewith thou didst ensnare my child, and so overcamest him, not in fair open fight. Now hearken what I advise, and be sure I advise thee for thy good. Restore my son to me and get thee from the land unharmed… Refuse, and I swear by the sun, the sovereign lord of the Massagetae, bloodthirsty as thou art, I will give thee thy fill of blood’.
Cyrus paid no heed to Tomyris, who gathered all the forces of her kingdom for what Herodotus described as the fiercest battle the Achaemenids had fought. Cyrus and most of his army were slain. When his body was recovered she ordered a skin filled with human blood and, making good on her threat, dunked Cyrus’s head in it. Cyrus’s body was eventually buried in the mausoleum that still stands at Pasargadae.
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THE FIRST CHARTER OF HUMAN RIGHTS…OR NOT
In 1879, Assyro-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam unearthed a clay cylinder during a dig in the ancient Marduk temple of Babylon. What became known as the ‘Cyrus Cylinder’ bears a cuneiform inscription recording, among other things, that Cyrus ‘strove for peace in Babylon and in all his [the god Marduk’s] sacred sites’ and ‘abolished forced labour’ for those (Jews) who had been enslaved in Babylon.
These passages have been widely interpreted as a reflection of Cyrus’s respect for human rights, and many consider it the world’s first charter of human rights. Indeed, a replica remains on permanent display at UN headquarters in New York (the original is in the British Museum), and in 1971 the cylinder became the symbol of the 2500th anniversary of Iranian royalty. However, not everyone agrees. Many scholars argue the cylinder is not a charter of human rights, but rather that such statements were common populism among kings at the time. They say that Mesopotamian kings had a tradition dating back to the 3rd millennium BC of making grand and popular statements espousing social reform when they came to the throne, meaning Cyrus’s declaration was neither new nor unique.
Whether the cylinder was the world’s first declaration of human rights or not, it seems fair to say that Cyrus was an unusually benevolent ruler for his time, and he’s well-remembered across the faiths. In the Bible both Ezra and Isaiah speak of Cyrus as a benign ruler responsible for the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. And he is the only Gentile (non-Jew) designated as a divinely appointed king, or messiah, in the Tanakh.
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In 525 BC Cyrus’s son, Cambyses, headed west to capture most of Egypt and coastal regions well into modern Libya. It was later recorded that Cambyses had quietly arranged the assassination of his brother, Smerdis, before