Darius I

Darius I, called The Great (c. 558-486 bc), king of Persia (c. 521-486 bc), son of the Persian noble Hystaspes, and a member of a royal Persian family, the Achaemenids. In 522 bc, on the death of King Cambyses II, a group of Magi (Persian priests) tried to give the throne to one of their number, the usurper Gaumata; he pretended to be Smerdis (died c. 523 bc), the murdered brother of Cambyses II. In 521, Darius defeated Gaumata and was chosen king of Persia.

The first two years of his reign were spent suppressing rebellions, the most important of which occurred in Babylonia. Thereafter he devoted himself to reforming the internal organization of Persia and making its borders secure. He reorganized the vast empire into 20 satrapies (provinces), built highways, organized a postal system, reformed the currency, encouraged commerce, and won the goodwill of large portions of the heterogeneous population. He was tolerant of other religions, and earned the respect and goodwill of the Jews, whom he permitted to complete the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem in 516; the Egyptians, whose high priest he consulted; and the Greeks of Asia Minor, whose oracles supported him during the revolt of the Greek cities.

In protecting the borders of the empire, Darius conquered new territories along the Indus River in the east and in the Caucasus Mountains in the north-east, but his expedition in 516 against the tribes of the Danube failed. In 499 a revolt broke out among the Ionian Greek cities of Asia Minor, partly encouraged by some of the Greek cities on the mainland. By 493 the revolt had been suppressed, but Darius prepared to exact vengeance from the mainland Greeks for their intervention. In 492 an army under Mardonius, the son-in-law of Darius, crossed the Bosporus into Thrace but was unable to reach Greece because the supply ships were wrecked off Mount Athos. In 490 a strong Persian force under the joint command of Artaphernes, a nephew of Darius, and the Mede commander Datis invaded Greece from the north but was defeated at the battle of Marathon. Darius was in the middle of preparing a third expedition when he died. He left a detailed account of his reign, inscribed in three languages on a towering rock, known as the Behistun Inscription. It was first translated into English in 1849.