Dispatches from the British Museum

Now a king with daughters just naturally worries----their sons will have more-or-less equal claim to the throne. And that spells trouble, especially if they marry foreign royalty or ambitious nobles. So Cyrus' granddad married his girls off to commoners. Lucky girls, eh? Did I mention this is, like, 550 BC? So the commoners are, you know, REALLY common.

But I digress...

From one of these unions sprang Cyrus. Or so they say (if you see what I mean). See, according to legend, the king ordered his minister to take the boy out and have him killed, fearing, oh, I don't know--a Tree that would cover all of Asia? Instead, kindly old Nebucahnwhatzisname gave the boy to a poor family who had lost their child. Sound familiar, Snow White? ¹

Of course, when Old Granddad found out about this leniency, he had the minister's son baked into a souffle and fed to soft-hearted old Nebuchannevermindaboutthatnow, as a gentle reminder of who was boss in Mede town. ²

So naturally, in light of all this, Cyrus took over the kingdom and went on to conquer everything between the Indian border and Egypt, inclusive. This was not only proper--he was the descendent of Old GrandDad, not some commoner with dung on his sandals, after all; and not only justified--gramps would feed you to your own pa, my fellow vassal; it was actually fore-ordained in royal dreams--some guys are just born to be a Tree that covers all of Asia. They can't help themselves. And how can you argue with that, plus the imperial army?

Anyhow, that's how Cyrus tells the story, and who's going to contradict the guy who conquers a world empire in eleven years?

Not me. ³

Seems old granddad was actually Emperor Astyages, nominally king of the Medes, back when local civilization was divided, approximately, into the Medes and the Youses, with the good guys surrounded by a swarm of viscious Hittites (and probably a bunch of Biteites, plus mabye some Kick- and Scratch-ites). ⁴

The poor-but-honest Babylonian wood-cutters (sand-strainers?) who raised Cyrus were, in fact, the king and queen of Persia, a modest vassal kingdom. Well, not that modest. So when Cyrus took old grand-dad behind the woodshed to straighten him out, he brought along the Persian army. Much smaller than the Imperial army, mind you, but still, you know: nice to have.

Together, they took the Emperor captive, declared Cyrus the new emperor, incorporated the two armies into one, drafted the Neo-Babylonians  ⁵  at sword-point, and headed off to conquer the Hittites, Greeks, Macedonians, Lydians, Cyrenians, Egyptians, Cannanites, and anybody else who got in the way.

The old emperor formally abdicated to his "grand-son" Cyrus, and the empire of the Medes, the kingdoms of Persia, Babylonia, Egypt, etc., were merged into the spanking-new Persian Empire. Hotcha!

He's formally known as Cyrus the Great, by the way, which makes him a distant relative of Peter, Catherine, and Alexander, I guess... The Great family has produced some seriously ambitious kids over the millennia, hasn't it?  ⁶

But I digress again.

Cyrus also has a reputation for being extremely tolerant and wise, not least because he found several tribes of Jews cooling their heels by the waters of Babylon, bitching about the emperor and playing Remember When. Maybe he liked them; maybe he saw the chance for some serious long-term PR from the People of the Book; maybe he was just sick of hearing about it--anyway, he let them go back to Israel, Judah, Jersusalem, and so on, and they had nothing but good things to say about him until the day he died. And for a long time thereafter.

Good one, Cy.

Back