Page 164 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

peter the great 1465

low the king was the chiliarch, the go-between for the lizations (those of Indus, Tigris-Euphrates, and Nile)
king of kings and those who wanted to seek an audience were unified, and their three civilizations brought into
with him.Then there were the royal princes who lived at contact with one another. This resulted in the exchange
the court who were from the clan.The elite of the Achae- of ideas. It also brought about a period of peace (Pax Per-
menid Persian society was the Persian and the Median sica) in those portions of the world controlled by the Per-
nobility, and royal princes were granted a special posi- sians for two centuries—something that had not been ex-
tion. Part of the warrior class of the Iranians, they were perienced in the past. Although not remembered fondly
exempt from paying taxes, and many served as command- by contemporary Greeks, the Persians are remembered
ers of the army and the cavalry.The king possessed a spe- with respect and admiration by contemporary Hebrews
cial force, ten thousand men strong, known as the Immor- and Mesopotamians.
tals,dedicated to his protection.These Persian royal princes
Touraj Daryaee
along with the king were the elite rulers.The royal women
lived in the private quarter or harem and were protected See also Cyrus the Great; Macedonian Empire;
by eunuchs.They traveled with the king and the nobility Mesopotamia
in battle and were allowed to own property.
Slavery was a fact of life. Slaves worked mainly as labor-
ers, both on land as harvesters and as manual workers. Further Reading
However, they were paid for their labor when they were Boyce, M. (1982). A history of Zoroastrianism: Vol 2. Zoroastrianism
under the Achaemenians. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
working on the land of the Persian nobility and to a Dandamaev, M. A. (1989). A political history of the Achaemenid empire
lesser extent on the land of small farmers. (W. J.Vogelsang,Trans.). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Dandamaev, M.A., & Lukonin,V. G. (1989). The culture and social insti-
Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism) was the dominant reli-
tutions of ancient Iran. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
gion of the Persians, and Zoroastrian priests (magi) Frye, R. N. (1993). Heritage of Persia. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda.
memorized the sacred hymns and kept the rituals alive. Frye, R. N. (1984). The history of ancient Iran. Munich, Germany: C. H.
Beck.
The magi are believed to have been a Median tribe who Gershevitch, I. (Ed.). (1979). The Cambridge history of Iran: Vol 2. The
became the religious doctors of the empire. Darius I Median and the Achaemenian periods. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
mentions the great deity Ahura Mazda more than sixty
Root, M. C. (1979). The king and kingship in Achaemenid art: Essays on
times in his Bisitun inscription alone. Later on the Iran- the creation of a iconography of empire. Louvain, Belgium: Peters.
ian deities Mithra and Anahita come to be mentioned Schmitt, R. (1991). The Bisutun inscription. London: Corpus Inscrip-
tionum Iranicarum.
and honored by the kings as frequently as Ahura Mazda. Stronach, D. (1978). Pasargadae. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
For the most part, the Achaemenid Persians were Vogelsang, W. (1992). The rise and organisation of the Achaemenid
empire:The eastern Iranian evidence. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
quite tolerant of other religions. Cyrus II paid homage to
Wiesehöfer, J. (1996). Ancient Persia. London & New York: I. B.Tauris.
the Hebrew god Yaweh and to the Babylonian god Mar-
duk. Economic tablets from Persepolis reveal that the
state allotted food for non-Zoroastrian sacrifices.Thus, it
appears that although the Achaemenid Persians honored
Ahura Mazda at their capital and in their homeland, they Peter the Great
did not proselytize. (1672–1725)
Russian czar
Significance of the
Persian Empire eter I (czar of Russia 1682–1725) was a modernizer
With the creation of the Persian empire—the largest Pwho inspired Russia’s rise as a major world power.
empire the world had yet seen—in the sixth century BCE, The son of Czar Alexis I (reigned 1645–1676), Peter ruled
for the first time three of the four early major river civi- jointly with his elder half-brother Ivan until the latter’s