However, when Cambyses was away in battle, another man named Gaumata appeared and began calling himself Bardiya.

Cyrus was a great military commander who slowly conquered all the peoples neighboring his kingdom, and unified the Iranian peoples under one ruler for the first time. On the fourteenth day of the month Viyaxana [11 March 522] did he rebel. Darius in his inscriptions appears as a fervent believer in the monotheistic religion of Zoroaster. He listened to the opinions of non-Persians but mainly depended on Persians to administer the empire, building on the work of Cyrus the Great who divided the territory into provinces (Satrapies). The time of conquests had come to an end; the wars which Darius undertook, like those of Augustus, only served the purpose of gaining strong natural frontiers for the empire and keeping down the barbarous tribes on its borders. He fixed the coinage and introduced the golden Daric. His son, Xerxes, would succeed him as ruler and go on to suffer a more famous defeat at the hands of the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis. When he died, the Persian empire had reached its largest extent. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you

To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here: The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia: Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed. credit-by-exam regardless of age or education level. Darius decided that he would lead a new invasion against the Greeks himself; however, as he set out for the Greek islands, the Egyptians rebelled against their Persian rulers and Darius was forced to leave the Greeks alone. He was also a great statesman and organizer. Then I prayed to Ahuramazda; Ahuramazda brought me help.

His revisions of the legal code revolved around laws of evidence, slave sales, deposits, bribery, and assault. Under Darius, the Royal Road was built and Zoroastrianism encouraged to spread. In the first place, we have to accept that for months, Gaumâta was not recognized as the fraud he was.

Yet the whole plan was based upon an incorrect geographical assumption; a common one in that era, and repeated by Alexander the Great and his Macedonians, who believed that on the Hindu Kush (which they called the Caucasus Indicus) and on the shores of the Jaxartes (which they called Tanais, i.e., the River Don) they were quite near to the Black Sea.

She has taught college History and Government courses. ), the outline of the story is the same.

For whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the same object. According to Darius himself, Cambyses, the ruler of Persia, killed his brother and heir, Bardiya, but for obvious reasons kept the murder a secret.