History of Persia
Persia is home to one of the major oldest civilizations with historical and urban settlements dating back to 7000 BC. On the periphery of the Iranian plateau that forms a natural massive fortress throughout the late prehistoric period, the Elemites city state of Susa was closely tied culturally to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. These top mountain master archers would win main long time Rivals of the Sumerians, Acadians, Babylonians and Assyrians and would remain an ever-present threat pillaging the cities of the fertile river valley in times of strength if the opportunity arose and paying tribute in times of weakness. During one of these tribulant periods Elams(also known as Susiana after Susa), unique system of materialinial succession emerged. Sovereignty was hereditary through the royal women and that a new ruler was always a son of a sister of a previous sovereigns family. Elimite’s states were among the leading political forces of the ancient near east for more than 2000 years. Susa’s culture and political influence also stressed far beyond the borders to the north and east to the growing Iranian Tribes of the arid plateau. One of these: Epimetheus begin uniting the tribes and together with the babylonians, would allied together to topple the Assyrian empire; the largest the world had yet seen at the time. The Medes would go on to conquer a vast but short-lived empire with the magnificent capital city at Ecbatana. One of the tribes allied with the Medes were the Persians. In 553 their leader Cyrus rebelled against his grandfather the Mede king of stages, establishing a Persian capital at the ancient Elimite city of Anshan. He finally won a decisive victory between 550 BC resulting in the stages capture by his own dissatisfied nobels who promptly turned him over to the triumphant Cyrus. The following decade the ancient Elamite city of Susa fell under Persian control. Although the Medes had been conquered by the Persians they retained a prominent position in status and in war. They stood next to their Persian cousins for core ceremony was adopted by the new sovereigns who in the summer months resided in Ecbatana and the rest of the year in Susa. Many Medes noblemen were employed as official governors and generals. After the fall of Babylon to Cyrus the venerable city was also made the capital of the empire and the construction of another capital city of Pasargadak on the Iranian plateau was commissioned. That way the Empire could be governed closer to whatever point was most urgent. In stark contrast to his Babylonian and Assyrians predecessors, Cyrus was known as a just king and tolerant of local religions and customs within his Empire. He has been praised in the old Testament of the Bible as a righteous ruler. This massive Empire stretching from Europe to India was far too large to administer by one man and under Darius the great, more than 20 governors were appointed to administer the provinces where an efficient system of roads were constructed to facilitate trade, communication and mobilization of troops throughout the empire. Darius implemented Aramaic as the official language, a uniform currency in a standard System of weights and measures throughout the empire. He also embarked upon a massive building program in Ecbatana, Susa and Pasar where he built the massive palace complex of Percepolis and the newly conquered province of Egypt. The Persian Achaemenid Empire left a lasting impression on the technology, heritage and cultural identity of Asia, Europe and the Middle East. And influence the development and structure of future empires. In fact the Greeks and later Romans adopted the best features of a Persian method of governing empire.
Alexander of Macedon, a small kingdom to the far west of Persia was an avid admirer of Cyrus the great. He conquered most of the Persian Empire by 330 BC, and in the aftermath of his death at the age of 32 his Empire was divided among his generals. One of them; Seleucus received Babylonia and expanded his domains to include much of the former eastern provinces of the Persian empire. And then much of the near east. The Selucid Empire formed a unique fusion of Persian and Hellinistic culture. And throughout this empire’s existence, many Greeks emigrated to the Empire. Their expansion was halted by the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and their Roman allies. And after the disastrous Battle of Magnesia, the Seleucids were forced to pay crippling war reparations to the Romans. Greatly weakened from their wars in the West, the Selucids fell prey to the Parthians, formerly a dutiful vassal. The Parthians were nomadic Iranian speaking people. They had migrated from the eastern banks of the Caspian Sea on to the Iranian plateau. The Selucids devolved into a minor state and were eventually cannibalized by the Romans and Parthians. The Parthian empire was not as centralized and did not engaged in managing the realm to the level the Selucids or Achaemenid Persians had. Instead they function as a small warrior elite who ruled his Greek style monarchs from the populated cities of Mesopotamia. The plateau was largely self governed by the Persian Elite. They seldom paid any text or assimilated into the rest of the Greek and Aramaic speaking population. But importantly they supplied the Parthian kings with a steady supply of skilled horse archers with which they were able to defeat the Romans multiple Times. In attempts to conquer Parthia, there were numerous civil wars, the realm stood relatively peaceful and prosperous. As these wars only typically involved the Parthian warrior class fighting amongst themselves. The Roman emperor Trajan was a first and only to conquer Mesopotamia. Although this victory was extremely short-lived, Trajan was forced to withdraw relinquishing his costly raids. The Parthians returned to the Iranian plateau to take their lands and after two more costly wars with Rome, the Parthians were worn thin and overthrown by native Persian dynasty; the Sasanians. In stark contrast to the Parthians decentralized chaotic style of rulership Sasanians built a large administrative bureaucracy and implemented a massive program of urbanization building and rebuilding thousands of cities throughout the Empire. Society was divided into castes, priests, warriors, artisans and commoners. Unlike the Roman empire slavery was uncommon in the Sasanian Empire. Sasanian civilization is considered a high point of Persian culture where a long-lived populous Empire was stable and prosperous for hundreds of years. Its trading network stretched far into the Roman empire, India, East Africa and China. Under the Sasanians, orthodox Zoroastrianism; the religion of Achaemenid Empire was revived. And after the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, the Sasanians followed suit by promoting Zoroastrianism above other religions and begin imposing extra taxes on Christians but not Jews. However most religious violence during the Sasanian empire was targeted against the followers of Mani and Mazda who sought to Reform the religion of Zoroastrianism. Despite the occasional upheaval and wars with the Romans, Sasanian Empire would prove to be one of the most stable and long lived Empire with a higher standard of living, giving rise to the perception of Persian luxury and sophistication. During the redundantly named Byzantine Sicilian lure, the Sasanian Empire reached its greater extent. This was the final and most devastating of a series of wars fought between the Byzantine and the Sasanian Empire of Persia. The Persians laid siege to Constantinople but failed in taking the Roman capital and were beaten back to their original borders. By the end of the conflict both sides had exhausted their human and material resources and achieved very little. Consequently they were left vulnerable to the sudden emergence of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate whose armies invaded both Empires only a few years after the war had ended. The Arab forces quickly conquered the entire Sasanian empire and deprived the Byzantine Empire in its territories.
From the Rashidun Caliphate to the Umayyads and then to the Abbasids, the Timurids, Turcomans and many more large and small dynasties we reach Safavids in 1502, the Qajars in 1789 and lastly the Pahlavi dynasty — the last Persian monarchy before the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
Persia is truly one of the most impactful areas of the world in history. Even after the Islamic conquest the conquers became the concord and adopted much of Persian culture and exported it throughout the Islamic world. From the empire of Khorasan to the name, the Iranian plateau has been near the center of world events since the beginning of recorded history.
