the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Persians
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Persians, the name of people and nation which occurs only in the later periods of the biblical history, and then for the most part in conjunction with the Medes [MEDES]—a conjunction which tends to confirm the truth of the sacred records, since the most respectable historical authorities have found reason to conclude that the Medes and Persians were in truth but one nation, only that at an earlier period the Medes, at a later period the Persians, gained the upper hand and bore sway. This ascendancy, in the case of the Persians, as generally in the ancient Asiatic governments, was owing to the corrupting and enervating influence of supreme and despotic power on the one side, and on the other to the retention on the part of mountaineers, or of tribes seated remotely from the center of the empire, of primitive simplicity—in laborious lives, hard fare, and constant exposure, which create patient endurance, athletic strength, manly courage, independence: qualities which in their turn refuse or throw off a yoke, and convert a subject into a conquering and ruling nation. At what precise time this great change was brought about in regard to the Medes and Persians, we are not in a condition to determine historically. With Cyrus the elder, however, begins (B.C. 558) the domination of the Persian dynasty which held rule over Media as well as Persia. Whether Cyras came to the throne by inheritance, as the son-in-law of Cambyses II, according to Xenophon, or whether he won the throne by vanquishing Astyages, the last Median king, agreeably to the statements of Herodotus, is one of those many points connected with early Eastern history, which, for want of documents, and in the midst of historical discrepancies, must remain probably for ever uncertain.
The most interesting event to the theologian in the history of Cyrus is the permission which he gave (B.C. 536) to the captive Jews to return to their native land. After a prosperous reign of the unusual length in Asiatic monarchies of thirty years, Cyrus was gathered to his fathers (B.C. 529). He was succeeded by Cambyses (B.C. 529), who, according to Herodotus, reigned seven years and five months. Then came (B.C. 522) Smerdis, nominally brother of Cambyses, but in reality a Magian; and as the Magi were of Median blood, this circumstance shows that, though the Medes had lost the sovereignty, they were not without great power. Smerdis being assassinated (B.C. 521). Darius Hystaspis was elected king. He favored the Jews, and permitted them to resume and complete the building of their temple, which had been broken off by reason of jealousy on the part of the heterogeneous populations of Samaria (; ), and the influence which they exerted at the Persian court (). The last monarch had for successor Xerxes (B.C. 485), who is probably the Ahasuerus of Esther and Mordecai. After a reign of twenty years, Xerxes was murdered by Artabanus, who, however, enjoyed his booty only for the short period of seven months. The next in order was Artaxerxes (I) Longimanus (B.C. 465), who enjoyed his power for the surprisingly long period of forty years, and then quietly handed the scepter over to his son Xerxes II (B.C. 424), who reigned but two months. He was followed by his stepbrother Sogdianus (B.C. 424), whose rule came to an end in seven months; thus making way for Darius Nothus, whose reign lasted nineteen years. Artaxerxes (II) Mnemon next took the throne (B.C. 404), and is reported to have reigned forty or forty-three years (Diod. Sicul. xiii. 108; xv. 93). His successor was Artaxerxes Ochus (B.C. 364), who occupied the throne for twenty six years. Then came Arses (B.C. 338), reigning three years. At last Darius Codomannus (B.C. 335) ascended the throne. But the valor, hardihood, and discipline which had gained the dominion, and which, as the length of several reigns in the succession shows, had sustained it with a firm and effectual hand, were almost at an end, having been succeeded by the effeminacy, the luxuriousness, and the vices which had caused the dissolution of earlier Asiatic dynasties, and among them that of the Medes, which the Persians had set aside. When this relaxation of morals has once taken place, a dynasty or a nation only waits for a conqueror. In this case one soon appeared in the person of Alexander, misnamed the Great, who assailing Darius on several occasions, finally overcame him at Arbela (B.C. 330), and so put a period to the Persian monarchy after it had existed for 219 years. On this the country shared the fate that befell the other parts of the world which the Macedonian madman had overrun; but, more fortunate than that of other eastern nations, the name of Persia and of Persians has been preserved even to the present day, as the representative of a people and a government.
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