ACHEMENIDI (ancient Persian hakhamanīlīja, Greek 'Aẓāṭeviḍa). — Persian dynasty (its founder being Achaimenes) of the Pasargadae tribe, which in the 7th century B.C. passed from its first capital, Pasargada, into Susiana, founding there the Elamite kingdom of Anšan and then, under Giro, the great Persian Empire (549–330 B.C.), incorporating Media, Assyria, Babylonia, Lydia (Asia Minor), Syria and Palestine and (after Cambyses) Egypt. Once the Babylonian exile had ended, Israel, reduced to the Jews, lived under their rule (the “Persian period”), amid internal and external events of which little is known to us (the books of Esd. and Neh., Esth., Agg., Zach., Mal.). The Persian period is
(Alinari photograph)
The success of the A., who formed the political power of Iran and were the first to establish a universal monarchy by absorbing the preceding monarchies, was due above all to the genius and magnanimity of Cyrus, who spared the life of Astyages and Croesus, spared the conquered cities of Ecbatana and Babel, and allowed the many exiles to return to their homeland; and then to the organizing genius of Darius I. Under the A., the Persians rose to a high level of culture and derived an alphabetic script from the Babylonian cuneiform scripts, though it was still partially syllabic and consisted of 41 signs.
The religion of the A. kings was ancient Mazdaism: they worshipped Ahura-Mazda, symbolized in fire; it does not appear that they adopted Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Magi, which was still confined to Bactriana. J. Hertel asserts the identity of the dynasty of the Caianids (Kayāni), mentioned in the Avesta, with the A.; Hystaspes (Ὑστόσπης), father of Darius I, would be identical with King Viṣṭaspa, praised in the Avesta as protector and supporter of Zarathuṣtra. But G. Messi-
na demonstrates that Zarathuṣtra must be placed much earlier, in the eleventh century B.C., and that Darius I was not strictly Zoroastrian. Eclectic, the “great kings” did not concern themselves with proselytism. The A. must have felt religiously akin to the monotheistic Jews, who likewise shunned representations of the divinity. The desire to win the love of his subjects nevertheless led Cyrus to a practical polytheism, by which he attributed his ascent to the throne indifferently to Marduk and to Yahweh (cf. Esdr. I, 2).
The internal organization was skillfully implemented by Darius I. The empire, strongly centralized, was divided into 23 satrapies, and then, under Darius I, into 31, whose satrap (khāthrapa), a powerful viceroy subject to the “king of kings,” was to regulate ordinary civil and military administration and carry out payment of the tax established. Beneath him, but responsible only to the King, were a commander of the army (karanos) and an official in charge of bureaucratic affairs. Periodic inspections reported the condition of the satrapy to the Great King. But under inept kings such as Xerxes I and Artaxerxes II, offices came to be concentrated in the hands of a few persons, and inspections became empty formalities.
Grandiose road-building projects (Darius I built the “royal road” between Sardis and Susa, approximately 2,400 km long), rapid postal services, and daring voyages of exploration increasingly linked the most distant provinces. The syncretist movement consequently developed; “from the east to the west of the empire, cults mingle and the gods unite” (A. Causse).
But continual rebellions by the various peoples led to the disintegration of the dynasty and the empire. Darius I fought 19 battles in 7 years; under Darius II (404), Egypt defected, remaining in revolt until 341. The revolts were fomented by the atrocities of the unworthy successors of Cyrus. In Egypt, Cambyses went so far as to kill the Apis bull, and later Artaxerxes Ochus repeated the devastation; Xerxes I destroyed the grandiose city of Babel. Cruel suppressions of claimants to the throne (Smerdis killed by his brother Cambyses; 80 relatives killed by Artaxerxes III) encouraged conspiracies that killed Xerxes I, Xerxes II after only one month of reign, and Sogdianus after six months; then the eunuch Bagoas poisoned Artaxerxes III and Arses. The internal decline of the Achaemenid kingdom enabled Alexander the Great to defeat the Persians at the Granicus (334), at Issus (333), and at Arbela (330), where the fugitive Darius III was killed.
Susa (v.) the palaces of the A. and their citadel have been explored by M. Dieulafoy and J. de Morgan from 1884 onward (Neb. 1, 1; Trib. 1, 2). At Persepolis, in 1933, E. Herzfeld discovered the archives of the A. kings, containing more than 30,000 tablets, 500 of them in Aramaic.
Chronological list of the A. kings. — The genealogy from Achaimenes onward is known to us from the “cylinder of Cyrus” and the Behistun inscription. After Teispes, son of Achaimenes, a double branch begins (Herodotus, I, 209).
1) Cyrus (v.) [II], great-grandson of Teispes, king of Anshan from 558 and of Persia from 549; 2) Cambyses, 530–522, conqueror of Egypt, opposed the Jewish restoration; 3) the magus Gaumata, the “false Smerdis,” attempted to raise Zoroastrianism to the throne; 4) I (v.) son of Hystaspes (great-grandson of Ariaramnes, younger son of Teispes), of the second Achaemenid branch (522–486), was favorable to the Jews; 5) Xerxes I (v. AS-KEBO), not very benevolent toward the Jews (486–465); 6) I (v.) Longimanus (465–424); 7) Xerxes II (424; 1 month); 8) Sogdianus (424; 6 months); 9) Darius II Nothus (424–405 [404]), under whom the uprising of Egypt occurred; 10) Artaxerxes II Mnemon (405 [404]–358); 11) Artaxerxes III Ochus (358–337), who reconquered Egypt; 12) Arses (337–335); 13) Darius III Codomannus (335–330). — V. PERISIA.