Main Points

History is Now

With the advent of the Persians, Middle Eastern culture developed significantly. The Persians built the largest empire in the history of the Middle East. They also represented the first time a foreign power had seized the heartland of Mesopotamia (not to mention Egypt). They ruled over the most prosperous empire in the history of the Middle East with the possible exception only of Babylon from 1800 - 1500 BC.

The dynasty founded by Cyrus the Great boasted not only the most feared army of the Middle East, but the most popular government ever to rule in the cradle of civilization. The Persian governors held their posts at the pleasure of the Persian emperor and were regularly observed to ensure they conformed to the emperor's wishes; and Cyrus himself was renowned in his conquered lands as a savior because the Persians brought their competent and moderate government with them. Persian law was widely held to be the fairest ever to rule in the area, and it was Cyrus himself who proclaimed respect for the customs and traditions of all his subjects, excepting only the tradition of slavery which he outlawed.

Thus it was that the Persians demonstrated the hallmarks of successful states in the Ancient Era: they conquered unbefore dreamt of expanses of territory, they ruled lightly, valued learning and education, and built a highly cultured and civilized empire that would influence the rulers which came after them including the Greeks, the Parthians, the Sassanians, and beyond.

New Institutions and Limited Government

In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon ending more than 3000 years of dominance by Mesopotamian civilizations. While the Persians would absorb much of Mesopotamian culture, their capital stayed in what is today known as Iran. The Persians were not interlopers in need of a base of operations. They already had a place to call home. Like the Greeks in the hinterlands of Europe, the Persians absorbed, learned, and brought their own special touch to leadership in the Middle East. The Persians learned the lessons of war and boasted the most feared army in the world. They enjoyed a sophisticated culture absorbed over millenia from Mesopotamia and their own local ancestors who'd grown up on the Mesopotamian periphery.

However, what distinguished the Persians was their sense of justice and tolerance. If they did not go as far as the Greeks or were not as revolutionary, it is because they were closer to and more connected with the traditions of the great powers. Yet Cyrus was known throughout the Middle East not as a conqueror but as a savior. He conquered the Babylonians and presented those conquered by them with a much more reasonable and fair government. He freed the Jews enslaved and serving in Babylon and allowed them to return home. He also issued a decree limiting the actions of his bureaucrats and had copies dispersed throughout his empire, a document which has been called the first Declaration of Human Rights. In it Cyrus not only guaranteed respect for local customs and religions, but guaranteed the fundamental freedom of all individuals living under Persian rule, ie he abolished the millenia-old tradition of slavery throughout all his extensive conquests.

If the Persians failed sometimes to meet these high expectations, it is highly relevant that they were the first major civilization to set such idealistic goals – in such practical terms – in the first place. It represented a major step forward in the philosophy and practice of government that subject peoples had fundamental rights which the emperor's officials were expected to respect. That's why the Persians were able to build such a wide empire. It's one thing to build an empire on power and fear, but the Persians were the first civilization in the Middle East to understand and explicitly set down in writing that you kept an empire with leniency, service, and wisdom. These Persian laws were the first in the history of the Middle East that were not issued by a leader to command his people, but to guarantee their rights. This was one important reason why even the Greeks, who were about to face the full fury of Persian might, wrote admiringly of the Persians and spoke highly of their leaders, especially Cyrus.

In 525 BC, the Persians invaded Egypt and added their lands. Here too, they were welcomed as saviors, for the Egyptians were ruled by a foreign dynasty from Kush (the lands south of Egypt). The Persians now commanded the largest empire the world had ever seen, encompassing their homelands in Iran, all of Mesopotamia, and Egypt. Nor did they stop there, but pressed north into Anatolia all the way to the Aegean Sea. The Persians met with great success in central Anatolia, their one setback coming in the Caucasus where the nomadic Scythians failed to give the Persians a fixed target. The inconclusive result was a blow to the Persians only in the sense that their army was used to total victory. Once they reached Western Anatolia however, they opened one of the most fateful chapters in human history; for the first time the Persians encountered a culturally Greek state, the kingdom of Lydia.

The Persians conquered Lydia around 529 BC, the same year that Cyrus died. His heir, Darius I, continued his policies of toleration and justice. Further, Darius was also a great innovator in government. He unified the rule of the 20 provinces of Persia and created a network of spies to report on not only the provinces but the actions of his local governors. He also created the most massive system of roads that had ever been built. The Royal Road of Persia was known throughout the world and ran from Lydia to Persia, permitting the newly established courier service to speed messages to the emperor in his court and send out the army for whatever business it might be needed for. With networks of secondary roads, it was also the life blood of trade throughout the empire, bringing more wealth to the Persian economy than any other state in history.

Darius followed the victory in Lydia by prosecuting war against the Greek city-states on the shores of the Aegean Sea. This outraged the newly minted democracy in Athens; in 499 BC, they sent aid to the Greek city-states of Anatolia. This in turn outraged the Persians who felt insulted that so pathetic and small a group as the disorganized Greeks would believe they could stop the mighty Persian Empire. Thus in 490 BC on Darius's orders, the Persian navy transported a large army onto Greek soil to conquer Athens and carve out a new province in Greece. The stories of the Persian invasions are recorded in detail, one of the most important changes between the Formative and the Ancient Era being the birth of recorded history as we think of it today – not simply lists of kings and law codes. The outcome was that against all odds, the Greeks repulsed two massive Persian campaigns concluding with the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. This left the Persians reeling, and questioning many of their assumptions about the supremacy of their culture.

However, there was no collapse. If ever the wisdom of Cyrus and Darius's policies at home became clear, it was now. Persia was in moral crisis but still strong; the army not weakened, only defeated, and no tributary states were lost. In fact, Persia remained much as it had before the invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Because their rule was not based solely on the terror invoked by their army, its defeat did not threaten Persian rule in the way it had the Assyrians and other Formative Era empires.

The Persian emperors had learned their lesson and sent no more armies to Greece, but with their immense wealth, they supported various city-states to undermine Greece from the inside. Their support for Sparta proved decisive in 404 BC, when the leading Spartan admiral burned the last fleet Athens could afford to muster. With no one to oppose them, the Spartans sailed into the Athenian harbor and conquered the city. The bellicose Spartans in turn were so egotistical in victory, that they alienated their supporters, leaving Greece more divided than ever.

It was a measure of payback for the Persians as the Greeks collapsed. However, it also kept alive the animosity between the Greeks and the Persians. While the Spartans had done all the fighting, Persia's part was bitterly understood by the Greeks. That was one of the reasons the Spartans were so hated following the war; everyone understood the foolish Spartans had ultimately benefited only Persia. Unfortunately, the Persians now saw their empire start to unravel. Their pettiness against the Greeks did more damage to Persian authority than than the failures of the army ever had. Several states revolted and Egypt (in 404 BC) and several Indian provinces (in 380 BC) achieved their independence. While the Persians managed to reconquer Egypt in 343 BC, there was no question of them being welcomed as saviors. And it was almost too late; the Persian's "success" against Greece was about to bring down their entire empire.

Learning, Literacy, and Education

In 338 BC a tough, semi-barbaric king, Philip II of Macedon, conquered Greece. Philip was a talented ruler determined to solidfy his rule over the sophisticated city-states which he admired greatly. He succeeded by raising the old spectre of Persia and preyed on the old animosities to unify the city-states with promises of a punitive expedition. He was unable to lead it when he was assassinated in 336 BC. And so it was his son Alexander III – who was probably behind the assassination – that led the Greek invasion of Persia in 334 BC.

Alexander III's natural brilliance, unconventional tactics, and determination proved the difference. A uniquely talented general, Alexander repeatedly used these irrational attributes and the prowess of his troops to launch assaults against armies numbering over 100,000 at Issus in 333 BC and Gaugamela in 331 BC. Each time the Greeks carried the day, and after Gaugamela there was no one to stand between him and the Persian capital at Persepolis. In 330 BC, Alexander of Macedon sacked the Persian capital and claimed all of Persia for his own; the Romans so admired his military prowess that centuries later they gave him the name by which he was forever after known, Alexander the Great.

When elements of the Persian army refused to surrender, Alexander chased them into the mountains, securing his conquest of Persia's eastern territories as he went. By 328 BC, Alexander ruled Greece, had conquered the entire Persian Empire, and defeated the states of Northwest India. His empire stretched from the shores of the Adriatic and Aegean Seas to the Indus River Valley. It would be almost a thousand years before so large an empire was forged again.

Here, he could go no further. Undefeated in battle, his army mutinied and refused to march further east. There is little doubt that his army was dangerously low on morale. They had marched further and conquered more territory than any other army in history, usually against overwhelming odds. Nor did Alexander make it easy; his adoption of Persian court ceremony went down badly with the sophisticated Greeks, and even worse with the down-to-earth Macedonians he had grown up with. Thus Alexander made a long slow march back to Babylon where he established his court.

Alexander spent his time enjoying the riches of an Eastern monarch, and supporting the cities he had built in the course of his campaigns. In every kingdom or province he had passed through, he left a city named Alexandria. Humble Alexander was not, and there is some evidence to suggest that he was working on a full-blown god complex by this time if not earlier. However, he understood the role of cities in Greek culture, their critical role in spreading ideals, and more importantly to him, control. He used cities to promote Greek institutions like libraries and other places of learning. The Persians had already been respectful of learning and open to outside ideas, but with Greek support for the institutions of learning, the Middle East became a broad dynamic cosmopolitan culture. This was the immediate legacy of Alexander the Great when he collapsed and died at a banquet in 323 BC.

After Alexander's death, large scale warfare dominated the Middle East from 323 - 280 BC. Known as the Wars of the Diadochi (the Successors), Alexander's generals futilely tried to catch his lightning in a bottle. One by one each succumbed to the combined might – or guile – of the others, until a balance of power was reached. A relatively stable dynasty emerged encompassing Greece and Macedon – the Antigonids. Another ruled Egypt, possibly the richest state – the Ptolemies. The most successful dynasty, the Seluecids, gained control of Asia. However, Asia was also the most exposed and least defensible; year by year provinces dropped off and attained independence in the East.

It began during the Wars of the Diadochi in 321 BC, when Seleucus I was challenged in India by a young noble named Chandragupta Maurya. Seleucus was defeated, the first and most important victory of the new dynasty; Chandragupta formed the first major empire in the history of India, the Mauryan Empire. Seleucus had little interest in India and even less desire to stay while his rivals determined the future of Alexander's empire, so he ceded the Indus Valley to Chandragupta in exchange for trained Indian war elephants which he used effectively in battle against his Macedonian enemies in the West. In 239 BC, Greeks in Bactria revolted against his successors and won their independence. In 238 BC, Parthia (just West of Bactria) successfully declared its independence under a native dynasty. While the last of Alexander's successor states, the Ptolemaic empire of Egypt would survive until 30 BC; their power was over long before then. The Bactrian Greek state was cut off from the Seleucid Greek dynasty – not that the Seleucids would have helped them if they could. Parthia had effectively isolated it from the rest of the Greek kingdoms; so in 135 BC, as waves of barbarians swept west fleeing the mighty Chinese dynasties warring against them, one group of barbarians, the Yue Qi, destroyed the Greeks and claimed Bactria for their own. The Yue Qi had little training in rule and relatively speaking did not last long. However, by eliminating Bactria they effectively secured the flank of the Parthian Empire. For the next 300 years the Parthians would rule the Middle East, as heirs of the Persians.

The period of Alexander and his successors' states has become known as the Hellenistic Era. The Greeks call themselves the Hellenes and historians use Hellenistic to distinguish 338 - 30 BC from the Hellenic age of the great city-states of Greece like Athens and Sparta (507 - 404 BC). The Hellenistic monarchies were politically fragmented, largely petty and entirely dedicated to the fixed goal of aggrandizing themselves... preferably at the expense of their neighbors. Therefore it is terribly ironic that the period of Hellenistic rule was a 250 year cultural flowering that largely continued and enriched the culture of the Persians before them. Despite their generally wasteful attitude to their riches, they maintained much of the tolerance of the Persians and Alexander before them. Nor did they tamper extensively with the rich body of Ancient Era institutions that powered their empires. So if they were not particularly noble, they were at least relatively shrewd. The Hellenistic monarchs settled among their new peoples. And although each of them enjoyed a long series of revolts against their foreign rule, they all consciously adopted local customs and produced propaganda styling themselves in the fashion that native dynasties had. The Ptolemaic dynasty went so far as to marry several generations of brothers and sisters in homage to Egyptian tradition and pharonic practice.

In addition to their political pragmatism, they possessed three other key traits. One, each monarchy placed a high premium on education and learning. Alexandria, Egypt became the leading city of the Mediterranean under the Ptolemaic dynasty, which erected both the Great Library and the Pharos, a great lighthouse which used mirrors and lenses and was acclaimed one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. These were the two greatest temples of Hellenistic learning, but every major city boasted a library staffed with scholars dedicated to its maintenance and growth. Two, nothing stopped the flow of trade which continued frequently even in the midst of wars between the monarchs, their thirst for taxes (and luxuries) overwhelming other considerations. Third, the Greek love of literature, of trade, and of the Greek language, spread with merchants throughout these domains, from Southern Italy to India. Evidence of Greek goods, Greek coins, and Greek art can be found throughout the Middle East. With it spread Greek principles, Greek government, and Greek cities. What Alexander had begun, others continued using the power of cities and city-states to consolidate political power and either directly or indirectly to spread Greek literature and education.

Culture and Empire

The Persian Empire and Hellenistic monarchies were the richest cultural period of the Middle East throughout the Ancient Era. However, the political fragmentation of the monarchies and their infighting was ultimately their undoing. While Alexander had ruled the Persian domains with a relatively light hand, the Hellenistic monarchs who followed him had a much harder time, especially as the centuries wore on. They never shirked taxing their subjects in order to make up for the latest failed military campaign. With problems at home and good will being squandered in increasingly fruitless wars against each other, the Parthians gradually gained in power until their conquest of Mesopotamia.

However, they did not nurture cultural and educational institutions in the same way that the Greeks had. They also weakened the moderate governance of the Persians. They were still a rich culture, for the next 200 years they enjoyed controlling the rich trade routes of the Silk Road. However, their failure to continue some of the successful strategies of their forerunners and the lack of interest in innovation ensured that the Parthians and their successors lost the cultural bloom of the early Ancient Era. Greek culture continued to be important but it was a shadow of its former self; in a way, it was fitting. The power of Greece was at an end in Europe as well; these were new times, and a new European nemesis arose that would threaten the Middle East for the next 1200 years.

With the defeat of Egypt at the hands of Caesar Augustus in 30 BC, Cleopatra, the last Hellenistic monarch, committed suicide, and the Romans emerged into the Middle East. The wars with Rome did not go well for the Parthians. On at least three occasions, powerful Roman emperors would conquer the Parthian capitol, Ctesiphon, including Trajan in 117 AD. This was the high water mark of the Roman Empire as Trajan divided Mesopotamia up into Roman provinces; unfortunately, they were quickly lost. Worse for the Parthians, the capitol was sacked again in 197 AD, this time brutally by Septimus Severus. Lacking Trajan's territorial ambitions, he was content to depart with the riches of the city and leave behind a power vacuum.

Parthian monarchs limped along as the Romans had intended. Unfortunately for the Romans, no vacuum can remain empty for long and in 226 AD, the Sassanian dynasty seized power. The Sassanians proved aggressive warriors on all fronts. In 272 AD, they seized what had been the Eastern provinces of the Persian Empire from the barbarians who had settled there, the Kushan. From the doorstep of India to Mesopotamia, the Sassanians ruled a powerful empire that slaughtered several Roman emperors in battle and caused the Romans to long for days of the weaker Parthian dynasty. The Sassanians generally fought on the offensive in a see-saw battle over Syria and Egypt, though the Romans held their own. Nevertheless, the barbarian invasions fell more heavily on the Romans than the Sassanians and this gradually wore the Romans down.

The collapse of the Roman Empire in the West contrasted with the continued power of the East. The Eastern Roman Empire was already ruled from Constantinople and these emperors continued to contest the Middle East with the Sassanians. This lasted until the final, fateful clashes that began in 607 AD; the outcome was that the Romans destroyed the power of the Sassanian dynasty, but at a price. In the conflict, the Roman culture and the Latin language of the aristocracy was replaced at court by the Greek culture and language of the common people. Once again the Romans sat down to hope that their devastation of the Sassanians would ensure a weak dynasty on Rome's flank. It didn't.

In 622 AD, Muhammad fled Mecca inaugurating the Muslim calendar. Under his enlightened rule and that of his successors, all of Arabia was unified under their flag. Lacking internal enemies for the first time, the Arabs stormed out of Arabia. The weakened Sassanians were their first opponent and after only a few years of war, they threw down the Sassanian dynasty in 642 AD at the Battle of Nehavend. With the arrival of the Arabs, Islam became the dominant religion of the region. While the Romans had brought Christianity into the Middle East, their reluctance to settle in Mesopotamia deprived the Christians of the same consistent support throughout the Ancient Era that Islam would enjoy during the Medieval. This prevented Christianity's 600 year head start from benefiting it very greatly in the Middle East. 642 AD, therefore, marks the year that Islam began to sweep the Middle East, and with it the opening of the Medieval Era.

Although the Muslims were the last major religion to emerge, they were in some critical ways the most extraordinary. The Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates were the largest stable empires in world history. They were also the second most advanced culture of the Medieval Era, second only to China during the Tang Dynasty. While the Middle East had been subjected to hundreds of years of invasions by the European powers during the Ancient Era, it was now ready to take the fight into Europe.