Persia

I

Introduction

Persia, the country in south-west Asia between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf now known as Iran. The term Persia originated from a region of southern Iran known as Persis or Parsa. The use of the name was gradually extended by the ancient Greeks and western world to apply to the whole Iranian plateau. The Iranians themselves, however, had long called their country Iran, that is, the “land of the Aryans”. In 1935 the government requested that the name Iran be used instead of Persia. The following entry deals with the ancient Persian Empire until the Arab conquest in the 7th century ad. For the history of the region since then, see the entry on Iran.

II

The First Empire

The Iranian plateau was settled about 1500 bc by Aryan tribes, the most important of whom were the Medes, who occupied the north-western portion, and the Parsa (Persians), who emigrated from Parsua, a land west of Lake Matianus (now Lake Orūmīyeh), into the southern region of the plateau, which they named Parsamash or Parsumash. The first prominent leader of the Persians was the warrior chief Hakhamanish, or Achaemenes, who lived about 681 bc. The Persians were dominated by the Medes until the accession to the Persian throne in 558 bc of Cyrus the Great, an Achaemenid. He overthrew the Median rulers, conquered the kingdom of Lydia in 546 bc and that of Babylonia in 539 bc and established the Persian Empire as the pre-eminent power of the region. His son and successor, Cambyses II, extended the Persian realm even further by conquering the Egyptians in 525 bc. Darius I, who ascended the throne in 521 bc, pushed the Persian borders eastwards as far as the Indus River, had a canal constructed from the Nile to the Red Sea, and reorganized the entire empire, earning the title Darius the Great. Between 499 and 493 bc he crushed a revolt of the Greek Ionians living under Persian rule along the west coast of Asia Minor, and then launched a punitive campaign against the Greeks of Greece proper for supporting the rebels. His forces were defeated at the Battle of Marathon in 490 bc and Darius died while preparing a new expedition against the Greeks. His son and successor, Xerxes I, also attempted to invade Greece but met defeat in the naval battle at Salamis in 480 bc and in the land battle at Plataea and naval battle at Mycale in 479.

The forays of Xerxes were the last notable attempt at expansion of the Persian Empire. During the reign of Artaxerxes I, the second son of Xerxes, the Egyptians revolted with help from the Greeks; although the revolt was suppressed in 446 bc, it marked the first major assault against the Persian Empire, and the beginning of its decline.

III

Alexander the Great and the Seleucids

The empire was torn by numerous revolts in the 4th century, but the final blow was struck by Alexander the Great, who added the Persian Empire to his Mediterranean realm by defeating the troops of Darius III in a series of battles between 334 and 331 bc. Alexander effected a temporary integration of the Persians into his empire by drafting large numbers of Persian soldiers into his army and by encouraging his commanding officers to marry Persian women. His death in 323 bc was followed by a long struggle among his generals for the Persian throne. The victor in this contest was Seleucus I, who, after conquering the kingdom of Babylon in 312 bc, annexed the rest of the former Persian Empire as far east as the Indus River, as well as Syria and Asia Minor. Thus Persia became a subordinate unit within the great realm of the Seleucids until they were overthrown by the Parthians in the 2nd century bc.

IV

The Sasanians

In ad 226 Ardashir I, a Persian vassal-king, rebelled against the Parthians, defeated them at the Battle of Hormuz (224), and founded a new Persian dynasty, the Sasanians. He went on to conquer several minor neighbouring kingdoms, invaded India, levying heavy tribute from the rulers of the Punjab, and conquered Armenia. He also established Zoroastrianism as the official religion of Persia. Ardashir was succeeded in 240 by his son Shapur I, who waged two successive wars against the Roman Empire, conquering territories in Mesopotamia and Syria and a large part of Asia Minor. Between 260 and 263 he lost his conquests to Odenathus, the prince of Palmyra, and an ally of Rome. War with Rome was renewed by Narses whose army was virtually annihilated by Roman forces in 297. Narses was compelled to conclude peace terms whereby the western boundary of Persia was moved from the Euphrates River to the Tigris River and much additional territory was lost. Shapur II (reigned 309-379) regained the lost territories, however, in three successive wars against the Romans.

The next ruler of note was Yazdegerd I, who reigned in peace from 399 to 420. Although he initially allowed the Persian Christians freedom of worship and may even have contemplated becoming a Christian himself, he later returned to Zoroastrianism and launched a four-year campaign of ruthless persecution against the Christians. The persecution was continued by his son and successor, Bahram V, who declared war on Rome in 420. The Romans defeated Bahram in 422; by the terms of the peace treaty the Romans promised toleration for the Zoroastrians within the Roman Empire in return for similar treatment of Christians in Persia. In 424, Persian Christians declared their independence from the western Church.

In the late 5th century a new enemy, the barbaric Ephthalites, or “White Huns”, attacked Persia; they defeated the Persian king Firuz II in 483 and for some years thereafter exacted heavy tribute. In the same year Nestorianism became the official doctrine espoused by the Persian Christians. Kavadh I favoured the teachings of Mazdak (fl. 5th century), a Zoroastrian high priest who sought to make property common. In 498 Kavadh was deposed by his orthodox brother Zamasp, but with the help of the Ephthalites, Kavadh was restored to the throne in 501. He fought two inconclusive wars against Rome, and in 523 he withdrew his support for Mazdak and ordered the massacre of his followers. Kavadh's son and successor, Khosrau I, was successful in his wars with the Byzantine emperor Justinian I and extended his sway to the Black Sea and the Caucasus, becoming the most powerful of all the Sasanian kings. He reformed the administration of the empire and restored Zoroastrianism as the state religion. His grandson Khosrau II began a long war against the Byzantine Empire in 602 and by 616 had conquered almost all south-western Asia Minor and Egypt. Further expansion was halted by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, who between 622 and 627 drove the Persians back within their original borders. The last of the Sasanian kings was Yazdegerd III, during whose reign (632-651) the Arabs invaded Persia, destroyed all resistance, gradually replaced Zoroastrianism with Islam, and incorporated Persia into the caliphate.