1.
Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
2.
Neo-Babylonian Empire
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The Neo-Babylonian Empire, also known as the Chaldean Empire, was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 626 BC and ended in 539 BC. During the preceding three centuries, Babylonia had been ruled by their fellow Akkadian speakers and northern neighbours, Assyria, a year after the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Assurbanipal, in 627 BC, the Assyrian empire spiralled into a series of brutal civil wars. Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar, a member of the Chaldean tribe which had migrated from the Levant to south eastern Babylonia in the early 9th century BC. This period witnessed an improvement in economic life and agricultural production, and a great flourishing of architectural projects. The Neo-Babylonian period ended with the reign of Nabonidus in 539 BC, to the east, the Persians had been growing in strength, and eventually Cyrus the Great conquered the empire. Babylonia was subject to and dominated by Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian period, the Assyrians of Upper Mesopotamia had usually been able to pacify their southern relations through military might, installing puppet kings, or granting increased privileges. Even though Aramaic had become the everyday tongue, Akkadian was retained as the language of administration, archaic expressions from 1500 years earlier were reintroduced in Akkadian inscriptions, along with words in the long-unspoken Sumerian language. Neo-Babylonian cuneiform script was modified to make it look like the old 3rd-millennium BC script of Akkad. Ancient artworks from the heyday of Babylonias imperial glory were treated with reverence and were painstakingly preserved. For example, when a statue of Sargon the Great was found during work, a temple was built for it. The story is told of how Nebuchadnezzar, in his efforts to restore the Temple at Sippar, had to make repeated excavations until he found the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin of Akkad, the discovery then allowed him to rebuild the temple properly. Neo-Babylonians also revived the ancient Sargonid practice of appointing a royal daughter to serve as priestess of the moon-god Sin, much more is known about Mesopotamian culture and economic life under the Neo-Babylonians than about the structure and mechanics of imperial administration. It is clear that for southern Mesopotamia, the Neo-Babylonian period was a renaissance, large tracts of land were opened to cultivation. Peace and imperial power made available to expand the irrigation systems. The Babylonian countryside was dominated by large estates, which were given to government officials as a form of pay, the estates were usually managed by local entrepreneurs, who took a cut of the profits. Rural folk were bound to these estates, providing both labour and rents to their landowners, urban life flourished under the Neo-Babylonians. Cities had local autonomy and received privileges from the kings. Centered on their temples, the cities had their own law courts, free laborers like craftsmen enjoyed high status and a sort of guild system came into existence, which gave them collective bargaining power
3.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
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Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and at first ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, the reign of Philip II saw the rise of Macedonia, during which the kingdom rose to control the entire Greek world. With a reformed army containing phalanxes wielding the sarissa pike, Philip II defeated the old powers of Athens and Thebes in the decisive Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, Sparta was kept isolated and was occupied a century later by Antigonus III Doson. Alexander then led a roughly decade-long campaign of conquest against the Achaemenid Empire, in the ensuing wars of Alexander the Great, he overthrew the Achaemenid Empire and conquered a territory that stretched as far as the Indus River. For a brief period, his Macedonian empire was the most powerful in the world – the definitive Hellenistic state, Greek arts and literature flourished in the new conquered lands and advances in philosophy, engineering, and science were spread throughout much of the ancient world. Of particular importance were the contributions of Aristotle, who had been imported as tutor to Alexander, important cities such as Pella, Pydna, and Amphipolis were involved in power struggles for control of the territory. New cities were founded, such as Thessalonica by the usurper Cassander, Macedonias decline began with the Macedonian Wars and the rise of Rome as the leading Mediterranean power. At the end of the Second Macedonian War in 168 BC, a short-lived revival of the monarchy during the Third Macedonian War in 150–148 BC ended with the establishment of the Roman province of Macedonia. The name Macedonia comes from the ethnonym Μακεδόνες, which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός, meaning tall and it also shares the same root as the noun μάκρος, meaning length in both ancient and modern Greek. The name is believed to have meant either highlanders, the tall ones. Robert S. P. Beekes supports that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology. Contradictory legends state that either Perdiccas I of Macedon or Caranus of Macedon were the founders of the Argead dynasty, the kingdom of Macedonia was situated along the Haliacmon and Axius rivers in Lower Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus. Historian Malcolm Errington posits the theory one of the earliest Argead kings must have established Aigai as their capital in the mid-7th century BC. Prior to the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region corresponding to the western. Achaemenid Persian hegemony over Macedonia was briefly interrupted by the Ionian Revolt, although Macedonia enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and was never made a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, it was expected to provide troops for the Achaemenid army. Following the Greek victory at Salamis in 480 BC, Alexander I was employed as an Achaemenid diplomat to strike a treaty and alliance with Athens. Soon afterwards the Achaemenid forces were forced to withdraw from mainland Europe, although initially a Persian vassal, Alexander I of Macedon fostered friendly diplomatic relations with his former Greek enemies, the Athenian and Spartan-led coalition of Greek city-states. Two separate wars were fought against Athens between 433 and 431 BC, spurred by an Athenian alliance with a brother and cousin of Perdiccas II who had rebelled against him
4.
Flag of Iran
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The current flag of Iran was adopted on 29 July 1980, and it is a reflection of the changes brought about by the Iranian Revolution. Its field is a tricolour comprising equal horizontal bands of green, white, the parliament, per the 1980 constitution, changed the flag and seal of state insofar as the Lion and Sun were replaced by the red emblem in the centre of the flag. Above the central stroke is a tashdid resembling W and this emblem is somewhat similar to the Khanda but has no relation to Sikhism and its meaning to that religious community. Written in white and repeated eleven times on the edges of each the green. This writing renders the flag non-reversible, in the Iranian culture, it symbolizes growth, happiness, unity, nature, vitality, and the Persian language. Historically, a green and white flag in a form used to be the flag of the Persians. The traditional colour of white stands for freedom, because white is blank, in the Iranian culture, it symbolizes bravery, fire, life, love, warmth, and sophistication. Historically, a red and white flag in a form used to be the flag of the Medes. Since Cyrus the Great, a Persian, defeated his grandfather Astyages the High Judge of the Medes and founded Iran by uniting the Persians, the Iranian flag symbolized this unity and victory as the flag of the people of Iran. Physical requirements for the Iranian flag, the shape of the emblem. Flags, standards, and banners have always been important national and imperial symbols for Iranians, xenophon reports that Cyrus the Greats standard was a golden eagle with spread wings, mounted on a long shaft. Late in the century the Lion and Sun motif was combined with an earlier scimitar motif and superimposed on a tricolour of green, white. With minor modifications, this remained the flag until the revolution of 1979. The oldest flag found in Iran is the Bronze Age Shahdad Standard, found in Shahdad, Kerman Province, dating back to c.2400 BC and it features a seated man and a kneeling woman facing each other, with a star in between. This iconography can be found in other Bronze Age pieces of art in the area as well, the Old Persian word for banner, standard was derafš. Xenophon in Cyropaedia describes the standard of Artaxerxes II at Cunaxa as an eagle, with outspread wings. Since the flag being described is different from the flag made by Cyrus the Great, according to Herodotus, each Persian army division had its own standard, and all officers had banners over their tents. One such banner, a plaque in saltire, is depicted on a Greek vase
5.
Wars of Alexander the Great
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Alexander the Great was one of the most successful military commanders of all time. By the time of his death, he had conquered most of the known to the ancient Greeks. Although being successful as a commander, he failed to provide any stable alternative to the Achaemenid Empire—his untimely death threw the vast territories he conquered into civil war. His conquests included Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria, and Mesopotamia, Alexander had already made more plans prior to his death for military and mercantile expansions into the Arabian Peninsula, after which he was to turn his armies to the west. However, Alexanders diadochi quietly abandoned these plans after his death. Instead, within a few years of Alexanders death, the diadochi began fighting each other. Philip II was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguard, Pausanias, Philips son, and previously designated heir, Alexander was proclaimed king by the Macedonian noblemen and army. News of Philips death roused many states into revolt including Thebes, Athens, Thessaly, when news of the revolt reached Alexander he responded quickly. Though his advisers counseled him to use diplomacy, Alexander mustered the Macedonian cavalry of 3,000 men and rode south towards Thessaly, Macedons immediate neighbor to the south. When he found the Thessalian army occupying the pass between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa, he had the men ride through Mount Ossa and, the Thessalians surrendered and added their cavalry to Alexanders force as he rode down towards the Peloponnese. Alexander stopped at Thermopylae, where he was recognized as the leader of the Sacred League before heading south to Corinth, Athens sued for peace and Alexander received the envoy and pardoned anyone involved with the uprising. At Corinth, he was given the title Hegemon of the Greek forces against the Persians, while at Corinth, he heard the news of the Thracian rising in the north. Before crossing to Asia, Alexander wanted to safeguard his northern borders and, in the spring of 335 BC, he advanced into Thrace to deal with the revolt, at Mount Haemus, the Macedonian army attacked and defeated a Thracian garrison manning the heights. The Macedonians were then attacked in the rear by the Triballi, Alexander then advanced on to the Danube, encountering the Getae tribe on the opposite shore. The Getae army retreated after the first cavalry skirmish, leaving their town to the Macedonian army, news then reached Alexander that Cleitus, King of Illyria, and King Glaukias of the Taulanti were in open revolt against Macedonian authority. Alexander defeated each in turn, forcing Cleitus and Glaukias to flee with their armies, while he was triumphantly campaigning north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once more. Alexander reacted immediately, but, while the other once again hesitated. This resistance was useless, however, as the city was razed to the ground amid great bloodshed, the end of Thebes cowed Athens into submission, leaving all of Greece at least outwardly at peace with Alexander
6.
Akkadian
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Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the writing system, which was originally used to write the unrelated Ancient Sumerian. The language was named after the city of Akkad, a centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire. The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a sprachbund, Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From the second half of the third millennium BC, texts written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the second millennium BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively, for centuries, Akkadian was the native language in Mesopotamian nations such as Assyria and Babylonia. However, it began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, by the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD, Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages, a family native to East Africa, which then spread to West, Northwest and Northeast Africa. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup and this novel word order is due to the influence of the Sumerian substratum, which has an SOV order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana, other Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə. The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown, in contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative, ḫ. Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages, until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated. Old Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.2500 BC and it was written using cuneiform, a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the cuneiform script could represent either Sumerian logograms, Sumerian syllables, Akkadian syllables. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum, additionally, this sign was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ, do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities, nor is there any coordination in the other direction, the syllable -ša-, for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA, but also by the sign NĪĜ. Both of these are used for the same syllable in the same text
7.
Satrap
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Satraps were the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The word satrap originates ultimately from Old Persian xšaçapāvan, Sanskrit kshatrapam or kshtrapa, from xšaça, in Greek, the word was rendered as satrápēs —which later borrowed into Latin as satrapes—from a Western Iranian cognate xšaθrapā. In modern Persian the descendant of xšaθrapāvan is shahrbān, but the components have undergone semantic shift so the word now means town keeper. The first large use of satrapies, or provinces, originates from the conception of the First Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great. However, provincial organization originated during the Median era from at least 648 BCE, up to the time of the conquest of Media by Cyrus the Great, emperors ruled the conquered lands, through client kings and governors. The chief difference was that in Persian culture the concept of kingship was indivisible from divinity and he was responsible for the safety of the roads, and had to put down brigands and rebels. But the satrap was allowed to have troops in his own service, the great satrapies were often divided into smaller districts, the governors of which were also called satraps and also hyparchs. The distribution of the great satrapies was changed repeatedly, and often two of them were given to the same man, as the provinces were the result of consecutive conquests, both primary and sub-satrapies were often defined by former states and/or ethno-religious identity. When his office became hereditary, the threat to the authority could not be ignored. Rebellions of satraps became frequent from the middle of the 5th century BCE, darius I struggled with widespread rebellions in the satrapies, and under Artaxerxes II occasionally the greater part of Asia Minor and Syria was in open rebellion. The last great rebellions were put down by Artaxerxes III and they would ultimately be replaced by conquering empires, especially the Parthians. In the Parthian Empire, the power rested on the support of noble families who ruled large estates. City-states within the empire enjoyed a degree of self-government, and paid tribute to the king, shahrabs ruled both the city and the surrounding rural districts. Exceptionally, the East Roman Empire also adopted the title satrap for the princes that governed one of its Armenian provinces. The Western Satraps or Kshatrapas were Saka rulers in the western and central part of the Sindh region of Pakistan, and it is also used in modern times to refer to the loyal subservient lieutenants or clients of some powerful figure, in politics or business. In Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, the word not only carries the aforementioned ancient historical meaning. It can refer as well to living in luxurious and ostentatious conditions or to individuals who act astutely. The College of Pataphysics used the title Transcendent Satrap for certain of its members, including Marcel Duchamp, Jean Baudrillard, in the Serbian language, satrap is used to mock a person who displays servile tendencies to an authority figure
8.
Neo-Assyrian Empire
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The Neo-Assyrian Empire was an Iron Age Mesopotamian empire, in existence between 911 and 612 BC. The Assyrians perfected early techniques of imperial rule, many of which became standard in later empires, the Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Old Assyrian Empire, and the Middle Assyrian Empire of the Late Bronze Age. During this period, Aramaic was also made a language of the empire. Upon the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the empire began to due to a brutal. In 616 BC, Cyaxares king of the Medes and Persians made alliances with Nabopolassar ruler of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, Assyria was originally an Akkadian kingdom which evolved in the 25th to 24th centuries BC. The urbanised Akkadian speaking nation of Assyria emerged in the mid 21st century BC, during the 20th century BC, it established colonies in Asia Minor, and under the 20th century BC King Ilushuma, Assyria conducted many successful raids against the states of the south. Ashur-uballit extended Assyrian control over the farming lands of Nineveh. Tiglath-Pileser controlled the caravan routes that crossed the fertile crescent from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Much campaigning by Tiglath-Pileser and succeeding kings was directed against Aramaean pastoralist groups in Syria, by the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Aramaean expansion had resulted in the loss of much Assyrian territory in Upper Mesopotamia. After the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC, Assyria was in decline for the next 150 years. The period from 1200 BC to 900 BC was an age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals. Adad-nirari II and his successors campaigned on a basis for part of every year with an exceptionally well-organized army. He subjugated the areas previously under only nominal Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting Aramean and Hurrian populations in the north to far-off places. Adadinirari II then twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing an area of land north of the Diyala river. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin I later in his reign and he was succeeded by Tukulti-Ninurta II in 891 BC, who further consolidated Assyrias position and expanded northwards into Asia Minor and the Zagros Mountains during his short reign. The next king, Ashurnasirpal II, embarked on a vast program of expansion, during his rule, Assyria recovered much of the territory that it had lost around 1100 BC at the end of the Middle Assyrian period. Ashurnasirpal II also campaigned in the Zagros Mountains in modern Iran, repressing a revolt against Assyrian rule by the Lullubi, the Assyrians began boasting in their ruthlessness around this time. Ashurnasirpal II also moved his capital to the city of Kalhu, the palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art
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Standard of Cyrus the Great
