Chapter Five – The Reign of Darius the Achaemenid (522–486 BC)
Introduction
The three decades leading up to the reign of Darius I witnessed a remarkable transformation within the Achaemenid dynasty, evolving from a modest ruling house to the dominant power of the ancient world. By the early sixth century BC, the nascent empire had burgeoned into a vast dominion, stretching from North Africa to the Hindu Kush and from the Syr Darya to the Persian Gulf. This expansion forged a unified transcontinental imperial structure, establishing unparalleled access to major maritime trade networks and laying the groundwork for a new era of global interaction.
The resources at its disposal—timber, metals, grain, leather—were drawn from a diversity of ecological zones and coordinated through a vast administrative system. The navy built by Cambyses enabled the Achaemenids to extend their authority far beyond the Iranian plateau and secure their maritime frontiers.
While Darius I is widely celebrated for his administrative genius and the significant reforms he enacted, it is crucial to recognize that his monumental achievements were fundamentally built upon the foundational work of his predecessors, Cyrus and Cambyses. These earlier rulers had already established key courtly institutions, initiated the centralization of the imperial elite, and laid the basic framework for the formidable Persian military and administrative systems that Darius would inherit and refine.
Under Darius, the empire's economic system notably resembled the Neo-Elamite model, where the palace definitively replaced the temple as the central locus of economic control. This vast and complex system was meticulously managed by a large, hierarchical bureaucracy responsible for record-keeping, resource allocation, and the overall management of imperial assets. The administrative language, Achaemenid Elamite, further underscored a continuity with older traditions, linking Darius’s innovations with the established practices of the region.
The circumstances surrounding Darius's accession remain one of the most controversial episodes of his reign, particularly his confrontation with Bardia. According to Darius's own account, enshrined in the monumental Behistun inscription, a Magian priest named Gaumata usurped the throne by impersonating Bardia, the younger brother of Cambyses, who had, according to Darius, been secretly assassinated. Darius vehemently claimed to have overthrown this impostor, thereby restoring legitimate rule to the Achaemenid line. However, many contemporary scholars view this narrative with skepticism, often interpreting it as a carefully constructed political myth designed to legitimize Darius's controversial seizure of power. These scholars frequently suggest that the figure Darius denounced as the "false Bardia" may, in fact, have been the true Bardia, and that Darius's own claim to the throne was questionable, quite possibly stemming from a military coup rather than a legitimate succession.
The chapter details the pivotal conspiracy that ultimately led to the overthrow of Bardia. This cabal comprised seven prominent Persian nobles: Otanes, Aspathines, Gobryas, Hydarnes, Intaphrenes, Megabyzus, and Darius himself. Darius is prominently credited with personally killing the alleged impostor. Following this dramatic event, the conspirators engaged in a heated debate regarding the future form of government for the Achaemenid Empire. Darius, through his persuasive arguments, successfully advocated for the restoration of monarchy, a decision that would define the empire for centuries. The Behistun inscription meticulously lists these conspirators, and their crucial roles in restoring order after widespread revolts that erupted across the empire are consistently highlighted. For instance, Intaphernes was instrumental in crushing a significant rebellion in Babylon, Hydarnes bravely subdued a Median revolt, Gobryas was strategically deployed against an Elamite uprising, and Otanes led a decisive campaign to recapture the vital island of Samos.
A compelling illustration of the challenges to imperial authority and Darius's methods of control is found in the rebellion of Oroetes, the powerful satrap of Lydia. Oroetes brazenly refused to acknowledge Darius's authority, posing a direct threat to the newly consolidated empire. Unable to immediately deploy a large army to the distant satrapy, Darius resorted to cunning and psychological warfare. He dispatched Bagaeus, a trusted aide, with a series of royal edicts. These edicts were read aloud to Oroetes’s own guards, gradually revealing a new royal decree that ordered them to assassinate their satrap. This daring plan was successfully carried out, demonstrating both the inherent fragility of satrapal loyalty in the vast empire and the immense, almost supernatural, power ascribed to the royal command. This episode, alongside the widespread revolts following his accession, reflects deeply on the themes of legitimacy and resistance that characterized the early years of Darius’s reign. Many Persian nobles, it seems, retained loyalties to Cyrus's direct lineage and to pluralistic traditions, but Darius's forceful and often ruthless suppression of dissent ultimately led to the undeniable consolidation of imperial power under his firm hand.
Finally, the chapter touches upon Darius's ambitious Western aspirations, a vision significantly influenced by Atossa, the formidable daughter of Cyrus. Atossa fervently urged the continuation of Cyrus's grand vision for Persian dominion over the Aegean world. In pursuit of this, Darius sent his Greek physician Democedes on a critical reconnaissance mission to various Greek cities, aiming to gather intelligence for future campaigns. However, this mission ended abruptly with Democedes's successful escape back to his homeland, complicating Darius's intelligence gathering for future Greek campaigns. The article also briefly mentions the Scythian Campaign, a significant but ultimately inconclusive expedition into the Black Sea Frontier, which solidified the empire's northern borders. The chapter concludes by discussing the famous Battle of Marathon. It is noted that Western narratives have often romanticized this battle as a quintessential triumph of democracy over tyranny. However, the esteemed ancient Greek historian Thucydides, a key authority on the Peloponnesian War, barely mentions Marathon in his comprehensive work, largely dismissing it as a minor, almost inconsequential, episode in the broader sweep of Greco-Persian conflicts, offering a vital counterpoint to its later historical prominence.
The Confrontation with Bardia
According to the narrative presented in the Behistun inscription, a Magian priest named Gaumata seized the throne in March 522 BC by impersonating Bardia (Greek: Smerdis), the younger brother of Cambyses. Darius asserts that Bardia had been assassinated in secret by Cambyses, and that Gaumata exploited the secrecy of the murder to present himself as the rightful heir. The ruse, Darius claims, was effective even among the inner court, with nobles and provincial governors submitting to the false claimant. Cambyses, upon hearing the news, began his return from Egypt to suppress the revolt but died en route—either from natural causes or by suicide.
The Behistun inscription recounts:
“Cambyses killed Bardia. When Cambyses had done this, the people did not know that Bardia was dead. Afterward, Cambyses went to Egypt. Then the people became hostile, and lies spread in the land—both in Persia and Media and the other provinces. A certain Magian, named Gaumata, rose in rebellion at Pishiyauvada, on Mount Arakadrish. On the 14th day of the month Viyaxana [i.e., 21 March 522 BC], he falsely declared: ‘I am Bardia, the son of Cyrus, the brother of Cambyses.’ The people were deceived, and the kingdom fell to him on the 9th of the month Garmapada [i.e., 1 July 522 BC]. Then Cambyses died.”
Herodotus offers a parallel, though embellished, account. According to him, Cambyses, plagued by a dream in which his brother sat on a royal throne reaching the heavens, sent his trusted officer Prexaspes to murder Bardia. The assassination, Herodotus reports, may have occurred during a hunting trip or by drowning in the Persian Gulf. Herodotus attributes Cambyses’ later instability to guilt over the fratricide, while also acknowledging that Egyptian priests had ample reason to vilify Cambyses—chiefly because he curtailed the income of their temples. Archaeological evidence, including the ceremonial burial of the Apis bull, indicates that Cambyses treated Egyptian religion with far more respect than the hostile tradition suggests.
Yet the plausibility of Darius’s account has long been questioned. Scholars such as Olmstead, Winckler, Nyberg, Burn, Bickerman, Tadmor, Gershevitch, Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Cook, and Balcer regard the Behistun narrative as a work of political myth-making. Olmstead, in particular, dismisses the supposed deathbed confession of Prexaspes as a narrative device conveniently beyond verification. The idea that even Bardia’s mother and sisters could not distinguish the impostor from the true prince is highly improbable. Moreover, the man Darius names Gaumata may well have been the actual Bardia—the legitimate son of Cyrus and the rightful heir to the throne.
Darius’s own legitimacy, despite repeated insistence on his Achaemenid ancestry, remains questionable. The lack of contemporary evidence directly linking him to Cyrus suggests that he may have been a distant cousin at best. His accession appears to have resulted from a military coup executed with the support of a small circle of Persian nobles—an event later reframed as the righteous overthrow of a usurper.
As such, the figure known to Darius as the “false Bardia” may in fact have been the true Bardia, eliminated to make way for a ruler with no indisputable dynastic claim. The Behistun inscription, for all its rhetorical power and historical importance, must therefore be read as a carefully constructed political artifact—designed not to record history faithfully, but to secure power through narrative control.
The Conspirators: Darius and the Overthrow of Bardia
According to Herodotus, Otanes (Old Persian: Utāna), the brother-in-law of Cyrus the Great and half-uncle of Cambyses, was the first among the Persian elite to suspect that the man ruling as King Bardia was in fact an impostor. His suspicions were based on testimony from his daughter Phaidyma, who had been married to the reigning king. She reported that her husband was not Bardia, the true son of Cyrus, but rather a magus who had taken his place. While this revelation is pivotal in the traditional account of the conspiracy, the role of the magus requires careful interpretation. The Magi were the priestly caste of the Median and Persian religious tradition, particularly prominent in the Mithraic cult that Bardia is believed to have revered. Thus, Phaidyma’s use of the term magus may have been made partly in jest, or in recognition of Bardia’s religious identity, rather than as a direct accusation of impersonation.
Nevertheless, Otanes summoned two trusted allies—Aspathines (possibly Aspachana in Old Persian) and Gobryas (Old Persian: Gaubaruva)—to a private council. At their meeting, they resolved to expand the circle of conspirators by inviting three more: Hydarnes (Vidarna), Intaphrenes (Vindafarnah), and Megabyzus (Bagabuxsha). Initially uncertain of how to proceed, their efforts gained new momentum with the arrival of Darius, a member of a junior Achaemenid line, who traveled from Susa to join their cause. Encouraged by Otanes’s counsel, the group resolved to act.
The conspirators entered the royal palace, where Darius allegedly approached the king without resistance and killed the man they claimed was the imposter Gaumata. Herodotus reports that following the assassination, the seven rebels debated the future form of government for the empire. Otanes proposed a democracy; Megabyzus advocated for an oligarchy; and Darius, with characteristic assertiveness, insisted on monarchy. All ultimately agreed with Darius, who was then proclaimed king. While many scholars consider this dialogue a literary construction, Herodotus insists it was a genuine deliberation, offering it as evidence of the Persians’ familiarity with multiple constitutional models. Later historical events—such as the granting of democratic privileges to Greek cities by Persian satraps—lend some support to Herodotus’s claim. It is not unreasonable to suppose that some form of deliberation among the conspirators did occur.
Darius himself refers to these events in his Behistun inscription:
“These are the men who were with me when I slew Gaumata the Magian who called himself Bardia: Vindafarnah (Intaphrenes), Utāna (Otanes), Gaubaruva (Gobryas), Vidarna (Hydarnes), Bagabuxsha (Megabyzus), and Ardumanish (Ardumaniš/Aspathines). You who will be king hereafter—protect the family of these men.”
Curiously, Ardumanish (Arjomana) appears only once in the Behistun inscription and does not feature prominently elsewhere in the record. Some scholars have suggested that he may have perished during the assault on the palace or soon thereafter, which could explain his limited mention. In contrast, in the sculptural reliefs at Darius’s tomb at Naqsh-e Rustam, six noblemen are depicted surrounding the king. The first two are labeled as Gaubaruva and Aspachana, suggesting that Aspachana (Aspathines) may have succeeded Ardumanish’s position among the Seven.
According to Herodotus, Aspathines was the father of Prexaspes (likely Fravartish Aspachana), who had earlier been entrusted by Cambyses with the assassination of Bardia. Whether he was acting on genuine orders or part of a deeper conspiracy remains unclear. Darius’s inscriptions note that, in the first year of his reign, Vidarna, Vindafarnah, and Gaubaruva were commanders of the royal army. Herodotus also notes that later, under Darius’s orders, Otanes commanded the Persian expedition that seized the island of Samos. As a reward for his loyalty, Otanes received the satrapy of Cappadocia, where his descendants governed as client kings of the Achaemenids until the arrival of Alexander the Great. As the Russian historian Vladimir Dandamaev notes, the kings of Pontus also claimed descent from this elite circle of Persian nobles.
To further secure his legitimacy, Darius married multiple royal women. He took as his principal wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, as well as her younger sister Artystone. He also married a daughter of Bardia—although Herodotus asserts that Cambyses had no children—and another daughter of Otanes, who had previously been married to both Cambyses and Bardia. Dandamaev identifies Otanes as the brother of Queen Cassandane, Cyrus’s wife, which would explain his prominence in court politics. Herodotus notes that both Cassandane and Otanes shared the same father, Pharnaspes. However, Darius himself states that the father of Otanes was Thukhra, a name of apparent Parthian origin—highlighting the complex interplay of ethnic identities within the Persian nobility.
Religion, Legitimacy, and the Imperial Mindset
Unlike Cyrus and his sons, whose political and religious tolerance reflected a Mithraic and pre-Zoroastrian Elamite tradition, Darius explicitly identifies as a Zoroastrian in his royal inscriptions. This marked a decisive shift in the religious identity of the Achaemenid monarchy. Cyrus, by contrast, never mentioned Ahura Mazda in any surviving texts attributed to him. As Avram R. Shannon observes, the Cyrus Cylinder—composed in Babylonian cuneiform—presents a model of royal legitimacy that is strikingly pluralistic. In this text, Cyrus credits Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, with choosing him to rule and pledges to restore temples and guarantee religious freedoms across the empire. The language of the Cylinder reflects an ecumenical political theology that vanishes from Achaemenid texts under Darius and his successors.
Darius, by contrast, repeatedly invokes Ahura Mazda as the divine source of his right to rule and as the guarantor of truth and order (asha). The transition from the religious pluralism of Cyrus to the more exclusivist Zoroastrian ideology of Darius represents not only a spiritual realignment, but also a deeper transformation of the state. Where Cyrus governed through charismatic authority and adaptive legitimacy, Darius rooted his kingship in orthodoxy, divine election, and imperial law.
Inventing a Dynasty: Darius and the Rise of Zoroastrian Kingship
As M. Waters has noted, the name Achaemenid and any reference to a dynastic lineage derived from Achaemenes (Haxāmaniš) appear only in the inscriptions of Darius I and his successors. Neither Cyrus the Great nor Cambyses ever referred to themselves as Achaemenids, nor did they construct genealogies tracing their descent to a common ancestor named Achaemenes. The brief inscriptions attributed to Cyrus at Pasargadae—insisting on his Achaemenid identity—were in fact commissioned under Darius, serving as retroactive legitimations of dynastic continuity. In this respect, Darius created what modern scholarship has termed a bifurcated model of the Achaemenid dynasty: one branch stemming from Cyrus, the founder and charismatic conqueror, and the other from Darius, the institutionalizer and legislator. The Achaemenid lineage thus functioned less as a historical reality than as an ideological instrument—crafted by Darius to justify his claim to the throne and to stabilize imperial succession.
Darius’s parents, Hystaspes (Vištāspa) and Rhodogune, were both adherents of the Zoroastrian faith. It was on the basis of their religious convictions that Darius, along with his son Xerxes, undertook what they regarded as a holy struggle against non-Zoroastrian peoples—those whom they referred to as daiva-yazna, “worshippers of demons.” Their royal inscriptions openly declare their campaign to impose the worship of Ahura Mazda and to root out the false cults that they believed imperiled both state and cosmos. Darius, in particular, emphasized that his kingship had been granted by Ahura Mazda in reward for his defense of truth (asha) and his destruction of the lie (drauga), terms central to Zoroastrian theology.
Thus began the transformation of Zoroastrianism into the institutional religion of the Achaemenid Empire. The ancient priesthood of the Magi—long associated with the Median-Mithraic cults—was systematically displaced. Zoroastrian priests, or mōbeds, increasingly assumed the ceremonial and administrative roles once held by their Mithraic predecessors. The Mithraic cult, with its cosmic dualism and veneration of solar deities, was gradually pushed to the margins of imperial culture and eventually driven underground.
A potent reflection of this transformation survives in a symbolic form in the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. In one episode, Darius, urged by his counselors and satraps, is said to decree that for thirty days no prayer should be offered to any god or man except to the king himself. As the narrative records:
“O King, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O King, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be altered, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not change.” (Daniel 6:6–8)
Though apocryphal, this episode resonates with the ideological shifts of Darius’s reign. It echoes the authoritarian impulse to centralize not only political but religious authority—a hallmark of Zoroastrian kingship. While the historicity of the biblical Darius is contested, the underlying message aligns with Darius’s well-documented efforts to unify his realm under a single, state-sponsored religion.
Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, had demoted the ancient Indo-Iranian gods—chief among them Mithra—to the status of daivas (false gods or demons). In doing so, he positioned Ahura Mazda as the sole creator and lord of truth. Scholars have long debated the origins of this monotheistic formulation. Some argue that Ahura Mazda derives from the Asura of the Indo-Aryan Rigveda, a class of divine beings distinct from the later devas. Others, such as J. H. Moulton, follow the earlier claim by Martin Jamme (1911) in suggesting a closer link between Ahura Mazda and the Assyrian god Ashur. Moulton points to the figure of Asara Mazas, a deity listed in Assyrian god lists, as potential evidence for this cultural cross-pollination. This argument is further supported by the symbolic continuity between Ashur and the faravahar—the winged disc motif adopted by the Achaemenids, featuring a human figure rising from the sun, often holding a ring of sovereignty. While the phonetic convergence of Asura and Ashur may be coincidental, the influence of Assyrian religious iconography and titulature—such as malka malka (“king of kings”)—on early Persian kingship cannot be entirely dismissed.
Darius’s inscriptions, especially those at Behistun, are replete with Zoroastrian terminology and religious affirmations. They bear witness to his conscious campaign to convert the imperial realm to Mazdaean orthodoxy. It appears likely that Darius, as a committed Zoroastrian, regarded both Cambyses and the figure he identified as Gaumata as adherents of the old Mithraic order. By casting Gaumata as a Magus, Darius sought to associate him not merely with political treachery but with religious deviance. His campaign against the Magi was not only a battle for the throne but also a theological purge.
In his own words, recorded in the Behistun inscription, Darius recalls:
“There was no man who dared to rise against Gaumata the Magus, until I did. I prayed to Ahura Mazda, and Ahura Mazda brought me aid. On the tenth day of the month Bagayādish [11 November 522 BC], with a few loyal men, I slew Gaumata the Magus and those nobles who had followed him. I killed him at the fortress called Sikayauvatiš, in the district of Nisāya in Media. By the favor of Ahura Mazda, I seized the kingship.”
Thus, the consolidation of Darius’s rule was inseparable from the religious transformation of the empire. His claim to legitimacy rested not only on political victory and genealogical invention but also on a new vision of divine kingship—one that yoked Persian imperial authority to the singular god of Zoroaster, and redefined the religious landscape of the ancient Near East.
Rebellions in the Wake of Darius’s Accession
The consolidation of Darius I's rule was far from smooth. As the Behistun Inscription makes clear, his accession sparked widespread revolts across the empire. Many of these uprisings were in support of Bardiya—whether real or alleged—and arose in direct opposition to Darius’s efforts to centralize power and impose Zoroastrianism as the empire’s dominant religion. Although he ultimately crushed the rebellions, the deep fissures created by his religious zeal left long-lasting effects on the cultural and economic fabric of the empire.
Revolts in Babylon and Armenia
Contemporary evidence from both Babylon and Egypt confirms that Darius came to power in 522 BC. Herodotus reports that Cambyses ruled for seven years and five months, a chronology corroborated by Babylonian records. The final extant Babylonian inscription attributed to Cambyses is dated to the twenty-third day of the first month in the eighth year of his reign—corresponding to early 522 BC—and notes the rise of Bardiya in the final month of 523 BC.
If Bardiya did rule for eight months, his reign would have lasted through the last month of 523 and into the first seven months of 522 BC, ending with his assassination near Kermanshah on the tenth of Bagayādish (11 November 522 BC).
Following Bardiya’s death, Babylon rose in revolt under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar III, a priest from the temple of Zazakku. Alarmed by Darius's departure from the pluralistic policies of Cyrus and Cambyses—particularly his imposition of Zoroastrian orthodoxy—Nebuchadnezzar III attempted to re-establish an independent Babylonian monarchy. His forces seized control of Babylon, Borsippa, Sippar, and Uruk.
Darius crossed the Tigris River on 23 Āçiyādiya (approx. 14 December 522 BC) and engaged the rebels near Zāzāna on the Euphrates. Five days later, he achieved a decisive victory. Nebuchadnezzar III fled to Babylon but was captured and executed, and the Babylonian priesthood was compelled to acknowledge Darius’s rule.
A year later, another rebellion flared in Babylonia, this time led by Arakha, a noble from Urartu (Armenia), who declared himself Nebuchadnezzar IV and falsely claimed descent from the former Babylonian king Nabonidus. According to the Behistun Inscription, Arakha launched his revolt in July 521 BC while Darius was in Media. He captured Sippar, Borsippa, Babylon, and Uruk. Although Sippar briefly submitted to Darius, Arakha reconquered the city soon after.
Darius dispatched his general Vidafarna (Greek: Intaphrenes) to suppress the revolt. On the 22nd of Markāsana (7 December 521 BC), Vidafarna captured and executed Arakha and impaled numerous Babylonian nobles who had supported him. With this brutal reprisal, Darius reasserted his control over Mesopotamia.
The Egyptian Revolt and the Libyan Campaign
While Darius was still engaged in suppressing revolts in Babylonia, Egypt also rose in rebellion. According to the Behistun Inscription, the satrap Aryandes—originally appointed by Cambyses—had declared independence and issued coinage in his own name. Herodotus states that Aryandes was later executed by Darius, possibly for aspiring to royal power.
Egyptian sources suggest that a nobleman named Petubastis III deposed Aryandes in 522 BC and proclaimed himself Pharaoh. Recognizing Egypt’s critical importance—its annual tribute to the Persian treasury amounted to some 200 talents of silver—Darius personally led an expedition to reconquer the satrapy. By 518 BC, the rebellion had been crushed and Aryandes was restored to power.
Aryandes soon embarked on a campaign westward into Cyrenaica, capturing the city of Cyrene (Korēnē), which had previously been contested by both Egyptians and Greeks. There, Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates, would later found the Cyrenaic school of philosophy in the 4th century BC.
The region had a complex political history. After Cambyses defeated Psamtik III of Egypt at the Battle of Pelusium in 525 BC, Arcesilaus III of Cyrene pledged loyalty to Persia and petitioned Cambyses to restore his royal powers, which had been curtailed by a constitutional reformer named Demonax. Demonax had instituted a council and reduced the king’s authority, distributing royal lands to the people in a system later recorded in the Vendidad.
Cambyses reinstated Arcesilaus’s autocracy, but this act provoked unrest. When Petubastis rose against Aryandes in Egypt, the people of Cyrene also revolted and expelled Arcesilaus. He fled to Samos, raised an army, and returned to power with Persian support—only to face renewed rebellion. Eventually, he and his father-in-law, King Althaeus of Barka (modern Barqa), were killed.
Queen Pheretima, Arcesilaus’s mother, fled to Egypt and appealed to Aryandes. He dispatched a force under his general Badyrah and a commander named Amasis (possibly the son of Psamtik III, though Herodotus suggests he was Persian). The Persians captured Barka, and the Cyrenaean nobility was punished severely: the men were enslaved and sent to Bactria, and the women were mutilated. The Persians built a city named Barka in Bactria to house these exiles. Battus IV, grandson of Pheretima, was installed as a Persian puppet king.
Aryandes' Second Revolt and the Apis Cult
In 496 BC, Aryandes rebelled again. According to Polyaenus, Darius himself traveled to Memphis to suppress the revolt. This coincided with the death of the sacred Apis bull, a central symbol of Egyptian religious life. Darius attended its burial in Memphis on 18 November 518 BC and offered a reward for the discovery of a new Apis, showing sensitivity to local tradition—despite his Zoroastrian background. (Tuplin has suggested that this bull may have died later, though the inscriptional and archaeological evidence remains contested.)
Though Aryandes had been restored by Darius earlier, this second act of defiance was not tolerated. Herodotus reports that he was executed, perhaps for once again minting coinage independently or challenging Darius’s religious policies.
Nevertheless, Darius increasingly sought to accommodate Egyptian religious traditions. He made offerings to Neith at Sais and to Osiris at Busiris, and he commissioned the restoration of the temple of Amun at Hibis in the Kharga Oasis—possibly building upon earlier work initiated under Psamtik II.
Significantly, Darius also instructed Egyptian priests to codify the ancient legal and religious texts—an initiative that reflects both his imperial administrative agenda and a growing flexibility in his religious stance. His earlier Zoroastrian exclusivism gave way to a pragmatic religious pluralism, more in line with the traditions of Cyrus the Great.
The Canal of Darius and the Suez Precursor
Among Darius’s most enduring achievements in Egypt was the construction of a canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea, a precursor to the modern Suez Canal. An inscription discovered by Charles de Lesseps in 1866, located approximately 130 kilometers from Suez, attests to this achievement. The trilingual inscription—written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Egyptian—bears the following:
“I am Darius the Great, King of Kings, King of all nations, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenid. I ordered the excavation of this canal from the river called Pirawa [Nile], known in Egypt as Danu [flowing], to the sea that reaches Persia. When this canal was dug as I commanded, ships went from Egypt to Persia, as was my will.”
This inscription reflects Darius’s vision of connecting the empire through infrastructure, commerce, and symbolic unity. Despite the religious upheavals that marked the early years of his reign, Darius increasingly presented himself as a cosmopolitan ruler in the tradition of Cyrus—one who blended ideological ambition with pragmatic governance.
The Persian Revolts and the Fall of Oroetes, Satrap of Sardis
In the wake of Darius’s violent seizure of power and the execution of Bardiya in 522 BC, internal opposition to his rule continued to surface across the empire. Particularly notable was the revolt of the Persians themselves, as well as the defiance of Oroetes (Greek: Ὀροίτης), the powerful satrap of Sardis.
The Revolt of Vahyazdāta and Persian Dissent
Among the most consequential rebellions was that led by a Persian noble named Vahyazdāta (Old Persian: 𐎻𐎹𐏀𐎭𐎫; rendered in some sources as Veh-Yazdatta). As recorded in Darius’s Behistun Inscription, Vahyazdāta declared himself to be Bardiya, son of Cyrus, and was thus the second impostor to challenge Darius’s claim to the throne in the name of the legitimate Achaemenid line. He proclaimed himself king in Pārsa (Persis), mustering significant local support.
This rebellion—rising from the very heartland of the Achaemenid Empire—reveals that Darius’s legitimacy was deeply contested even among the Persians. Vahyazdāta’s ability to rally support among Iranian nobility and partisans of the House of Cyrus indicates the lingering influence of Bardiyan and Mithraic sympathies among the elites.
In response, Darius dispatched his general Artavardiya (Greek: Artabardes), who initially defeated Vahyazdāta’s forces. Yet the rebel leader was able to regroup and expand his insurrection into Arachosia (modern-day Sistan). There, Darius’s satraps—Vivāna of Arachosia and Dādarši of Bactria—mobilized quickly. By the end of July 521 BC, Vahyazdāta was decisively defeated, captured near the future site of Persepolis, and executed.
Darius’s swift suppression of this revolt owed much to his military organization and the loyalty of key satraps and generals. His father, Vištāspa (Hystaspes), played a crucial role in the suppression of revolts in Parthia and Hyrcania. Four of the original seven conspirators who had helped Darius assassinate Bardiya in 522 BC—Intaphernes, Hydarnes, Gobryas, and Otanes—were also instrumental in restoring order. Intaphernes crushed the remnants of Arakha’s rebellion in Babylon (December 521); Hydarnes subdued the Median revolt led by Phraortes (February 521); Gobryas was deployed against the renewed Elamite uprising (520); and Otanes led the Persian campaign to recapture Samos, according to Herodotus (3.141–149).
Oroetes, Satrap of Sardis: Rebellion and Assassination
While Darius fought to suppress widespread revolts in the eastern and central provinces, a crisis unfolded in the west. Oroetes (Old Persian: Arvatas; Greek: Ὀροίτης), the powerful satrap of Lydia, appointed by Cyrus the Great, refused to recognize Darius's authority. During Cambyses’ reign, Oroetes had risen to prominence by engineering the assassination of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, who had attempted to extricate the Greek city from Persian control.
According to Herodotus, Oroetes made no effort to resist the usurpation of Bardiya (whom Herodotus calls the Magus), and during this period of instability, he defied the Persian royal house by executing Mitrobates (Mehrpāt), the satrap of Daskyleion (Hdt. 3.126). When Darius sent an envoy with orders for Oroetes, the satrap contemptuously had the messenger killed. This defiance is believed to have taken place in early 521 BC, while Darius was still in Ecbatana and embroiled in multiple military campaigns.
Darius had instructed Oroetes to march his troops eastward, across the Halys River, to aid in the campaign against the Median and Armenian revolts. Oroetes not only disobeyed but openly challenged Darius’s authority, possibly hoping the new king would be unable to spare forces to subdue him.
Instead, Darius turned to cunning. Unable to deploy a field army, he summoned thirty elite Persian officers and asked for a volunteer to assassinate the rebel satrap. The task fell to Bagaeus, one of Darius’s trusted aides, who devised an ingenious ruse. Upon arriving in Sardis, Bagaeus presented a series of sealed royal edicts to Oroetes’ guards and read them aloud. After observing their reverent response to each successive command, he finally read a final order: "King Darius commands the Persians in Sardis to kill Oroetes." The guards obeyed without hesitation. Oroetes was executed on the spot, and his possessions were distributed among the soldiers.
This episode, recounted in Herodotus (3.127–128), illustrates both the fragility of satrapal loyalty and the enduring power of royal command under the Achaemenid system. Though Oroetes had assumed his status and security were guaranteed by his appointment under Cyrus, the moral authority of the central throne ultimately superseded personal ambition.
Reflections on Unity and Resistance
The story of Vahyazdāta’s revolt and the fate of Oroetes speak to deeper themes of legitimacy, continuity, and the contested identity of the early Achaemenid Empire. In the wake of Darius's forceful religious and political reforms, it is clear that many Persian nobles retained loyalties to Cyrus’s lineage and to the broader pluralistic and Mithraic traditions that Darius sought to uproot.
Yet the violent suppression of dissent also underscored the extraordinary effectiveness of the Persian imperial apparatus. Through a combination of strategic appointments, personal alliances, and decisive use of force, Darius managed to reassert his authority across the empire’s vast and fractured territories. It was not without cost, but the triumph of Darius’s kingship marked the beginning of an imperial consolidation that would reshape the religious, political, and administrative landscape of the Near East for generations to come.
Darius, Atossa, and the Western Ambitions of Empire
Historical evidence suggests that Cyrus the Great envisioned a grand imperial integration of West Asia, North Africa, and parts of Europe. Cambyses' conquest of Egypt appears to have been a continuation of this geostrategic vision. According to Herodotus, it was Atossa—daughter of Cyrus, sister of Cambyses, and now queen consort of Darius—who urged the continuation of Cyrus’s dream, particularly in securing Persian dominion over the Aegean world. Herodotus’s account reflects Atossa’s active influence in shaping imperial objectives, and her insistence on the Aegean conquest seems to have been a direct attempt to fulfill her father's uncompleted aspirations.
Democedes and the Aegean Expedition
Darius ultimately aligned himself with Atossa's views, and in a moment of both diplomatic and strategic curiosity, shared his intentions with his Greek physician Democedes (Greek: Δημοκήδης). A native of Croton in southern Italy, Democedes had been taken captive and brought to Susa after the defeat of Polycrates of Samos by Oroetes (the satrap of Lydia under Cambyses). When Darius suffered a severe injury to his foot, Democedes succeeded where the court physicians had failed, curing the king and earning a place of great favor—so much so that he dined at the king’s own table.
Darius entrusted Democedes with a mission of reconnaissance. He was to accompany fifteen Persian officers aboard three Phoenician ships and collect intelligence on the Greek cities of the Aegean. The mission proceeded smoothly until the fleet reached Tarentum (modern Taranto), where Democedes confided his story to the local ruler. Seizing the opportunity to score a diplomatic victory over Persia, the Tarentine king detained the Persian officers and seized their ships. Democedes escaped to his homeland in Magna Graecia, and only after his successful flight were the Persian emissaries released and permitted to return.
The Scythian Campaign and the Black Sea Frontier
Darius’s broader ambition, encouraged by Atossa, was to establish a unified imperial realm stretching from the Indus to the Danube and across to North Africa. According to Herodotus, it was Darius himself who first conceived of punishing the Scythians for past incursions, though Atossa may have preferred a campaign into European Greece. The story recounted by the Roman historian Justin, in which the Scythian king Idanthyrsus (Greek: Ιδανθυρσος) refused Darius’s proposal to marry his daughter, is likely a mythological embellishment.
Having completed the conquest of the Indus valley by 518 BC, Darius turned his attention to the northern Black Sea. Ctesias records that he ordered Ariaramnes, the satrap of Cappadocia, to launch a naval assault against the Scythians. With a fleet of fifty-oared ships (pentēres), Ariaramnes captured prisoners, including the brother of the Scythian king, Marsagetes. This act provoked a letter of protest from the Scythian ruler Scytharbes, to which Darius responded defiantly.
The Scythians, whom Darius referred to in his Behistun inscription as Saka Tigrakhauda (“Saka beyond the sea”), were an Eastern Iranian-speaking, nomadic people inhabiting the steppes north of the Caspian. Despite their extensive trading links with Iran, India, and China, their non-urban way of life and resistance to imperial control posed persistent difficulties to Persian ambitions in Central Asia.
Darius assembled an immense army, which Herodotus—almost certainly exaggerating—estimates at 700,000 soldiers and 600 ships. He summoned his vassals and allies across Asia Minor, the Aegean, and the Propontis, including cities such as Abydos, Lampsacus, Cyzicus, Byzantium, and Miletus. Among his allies was the Athenian aristocrat Miltiades, then the tyrant of Chersonesus in the Hellespont.
Having arrived in Chalcedon (across from modern-day Istanbul), Darius ordered the construction of a pontoon bridge across the Bosporus. His Greek allies were also instructed to build another bridge across the Danube to facilitate the overland invasion. As Darius advanced into Thrace—then a loose confederation of tribal territories—some cities submitted willingly, while others, like the Getae, offered stiff resistance.
Scythian Resistance and Strategic Withdrawal
Darius appointed his Greek naval commanders to guard the bridge over the Danube, while he led the land army deeper into the steppes. There, however, he encountered the Scythians’ elusive guerrilla tactics: mounted archers who refused direct engagement, striking and vanishing across vast terrain. Much like the later Parthians, the Scythians evaded capture while exhausting the Persian forces.
Herodotus recounts how the Scythians offered the Greek commanders bribes to abandon their post and trap Darius in Scythia. However, the Greek autocrats—loyal to the Persian king who had granted them their power—refused. From a Greek perspective, Herodotus comments, their allegiance was rooted in political survival: if Darius fell, so would their authority.
According to Ctesias, Darius and the Scythian king eventually staged a symbolic duel, firing arrows at one another in ritual fashion. When Darius realized the superiority of the Scythian archers, he chose to retreat, burning down homes and temples in Chalcedon—whose inhabitants had tried to destroy the bridges—and a shrine he had erected to Zeus Diabatros (possibly a syncretic form of Ahura Mazda).
Consolidation in Thrace and the Bosporus
Darius retreated via Thrace to Sestos and sailed back to Asia, leaving his general Megabazus in charge of European operations. Megabazus quickly subdued Thrace, integrating its fertile lands and strategic river valleys into the empire. He deported Paeonian tribes from Macedonia to Anatolia, effectively asserting Persian control over key territories between the Danube and the Aegean.
Another general, Otanes, was assigned control of the coastal regions. Before departing Sardis in 510 BC, he captured Byzantium, Chalcedon, and other crucial cities including Antandros in the Troad and the islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
Thrace, with its rich natural resources—including silver mines on Mount Pangaion and abundant shipbuilding timber—proved vital to Persian expansion. Darius rewarded Histiaeus of Miletus with the territory of Myrcinus in Thrace as a token of his loyalty. But Megabazus soon warned the king of Histiaeus’s growing influence, citing the area’s wealth and strategic potential. Darius responded by recalling Histiaeus to Susa and appointing him as a royal advisor and table companion, thereby neutralizing a potential rival under the guise of honor.
Darius and the Athenian Challenge in Hellas
The Athenian Tyrant Hippias Seeks Refuge in the Court of Darius at Susa
While Darius I is widely celebrated for his administrative genius, it must be emphasized that his achievements were predicated on the foundational work of Cyrus and Cambyses. Xenophon, in his Cyropaedia, offers a partial yet insightful assessment in attributing the structure of imperial governance to Cyrus himself. It was Cyrus who established the courtly institutions, centralized the imperial elite, laid the basis for the Persian cavalry and army, and envisioned a transregional administrative framework after the conquest of Babylon. He appointed high-ranking officials, imposed financial accountability, and required the nobility to be present at the royal court. Xenophon also attributes to him the creation of the satrapy system, the appointment of imperial inspectors, and the development of a tribute-based economy.
Nevertheless, the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, dating particularly from the thirteenth to twenty-eighth regnal years of Darius, attest to a significant economic expansion and institutional deepening under his reign. At the outset of his rule, Darius governed with a rigor that Greek sources referred to as kapēlos—a term implying a calculating, managerial style of kingship. The economic system that took shape in Persia by the end of the sixth century BC closely resembled the model found in the Neo-Elamite principalities, where the temple had been replaced by the palace as the epicenter of economic control. In this model, a large and specialized bureaucracy operated under the direct supervision of royal officials, managing estates and labor networks on a continental scale. The administrative language of the Achaemenid bureaucracy—Achaemenid Elamite—was a direct continuation of Neo-Elamite, retaining much of its technical and legal vocabulary, and demonstrating continuity with the Susa Acropolis archives of the late seventh century BC.
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