Persian Society at the Time of Darius and Xerxes

Persian society at the time of Darius and Xerxes is one of the Ancient Societies options in Section II (25 marks). You answer one question with three or four parts; one part is worth 10–15 marks and the others are short answers, often based on a source. The syllabus asks you to study the society through its evidence:

• Historical and geographical context: the extent and resources of the empire; sites such as Persepolis, Susa, Pasargadae, Behistun and Naqsh-i Rustam.
• Social structure and political organisation: the king, the nobility and the court, the bureaucracy and satraps, law, the army and navy, women, subject peoples.
• The economy: agriculture, taxation and tribute, trade, coinage and treasuries, technology, the Royal Road and foreign workers.
• Religion, death and burial: beliefs across the empire, the kings' religious policy, Ahuramazda, the magi and fire rituals, royal tombs.
• Cultural and everyday life: palace architecture and reliefs, inscriptions and tablets, and leisure.

Dates are BC: Darius I reigned 522–486 and Xerxes 486–465.

• Persian royal inscriptions (Behistun, Persepolis, Susa, Naqsh-i Rustam), usually in three languages: Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. They present the king's ideology.
• Administrative tablets from Persepolis: the Fortification Tablets (thousands, mostly in Elamite, about 509–493, on food rations and supplies) and the Treasury Tablets (about 492–458, payments partly in silver). They show how the system really worked.
• Archaeology and art: palaces, reliefs, seals, coins, tombs.
• Greek writers: Herodotus, Aeschylus' play Persians, and later Ctesias and Xenophon. They give detail but see Persia from outside, often as the enemy, and they like stories of luxury, harems and cruelty. Modern historians have worked to balance them with Persian evidence.

The empire

The Achaemenid empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, stretched from the Aegean and Egypt to the Indus and Central Asia. The Persian homeland, Persis (modern Fars in south-western Iran), was mountainous; the empire included the river valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the plateau of Iran and the steppes. Resources ranged from the grain of Babylonia to the gold of Sardis and Bactria and the timber of Lebanon.

Key sites

• Persepolis: the ceremonial palace complex on a great terrace, begun by Darius about 518 and continued by Xerxes: the Apadana (audience hall), the Gate of All Nations, the treasury and royal palaces.
• Susa: the administrative capital in Elam, with Darius' palace.
• Pasargadae: Cyrus' capital and tomb.
• Behistun: Darius' great relief and inscription on a cliff above the road to Ecbatana.
• Naqsh-i Rustam: the rock-cut tombs of Darius, Xerxes and later kings.

The king

The king was ‘king of kings’, ruling ‘by the favour of Ahuramazda’. His duty was to uphold arta (truth, right order) against drauga (the Lie). Darius came to power in 522 after killing Gaumata, a magus who he said had pretended to be Cyrus' son Bardiya; many historians suspect Darius killed the real Bardiya, which helps explain why he worked so hard to justify his rule. Royal images show the king larger than others, calm and dignified, often under a parasol, supported by the peoples of the empire.

Nobility and court

Persian noble families held the highest offices and commands. Darius' fellow conspirators of 522 had special privileges. The court moved between Persepolis, Susa, Ecbatana and Babylon. Kings rewarded loyalty with gifts, land and the title of ‘benefactor’.

Satraps and administration

The empire was divided into satrapies (provinces), each under a satrap, usually a Persian noble. Satraps collected tribute, kept order and raised troops, but royal secretaries and garrison commanders reported to the king, and Greek writers mention inspectors called the ‘King's Eye’. The administration wrote in Elamite and Aramaic, the common language of the empire.

Law

The king's law (data) sat alongside local law codes; royal judges heard cases. Darius' inscriptions stress justice for weak and strong.

The army and navy

The core was Persian and Median infantry and cavalry, including an elite corps of 10,000 infantry that Herodotus calls the Immortals, part of which served as the king's guard. Subject peoples provided contingents; the navy came from Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cypriots and Ionian Greeks. Xerxes' invasion of Greece (480–479) shows the scale, and the defeats at Salamis and Plataea its limits.

Women

The Fortification Tablets show royal women such as Irtashduna (Artystone), a wife of Darius, and Irdabama controlling estates, workers and issuing orders under their own seals. Ordinary women worked in labour groups, some as supervisors; new mothers received extra rations, larger for a boy. This is very different from the Greek image of secluded women in a harem.

Agriculture

Farming was the base: grain, dates, fruit, livestock. Canals and, probably in some regions, underground channels (qanats) carried water across dry land, and the kings created walled parks and gardens (‘paradises’).

Tribute, taxation and treasuries

Herodotus says Darius fixed the tribute of each province (he lists twenty), in silver and in kind; Babylonian and Egyptian documents show regular taxes before him too, so Darius systematised rather than invented them. The Apadana reliefs show delegations bringing gifts. Royal treasuries at Persepolis and Susa stored huge quantities of metal.

The ration economy

The Fortification Tablets show the administration collecting produce and paying it out as rations to workers (including foreign workers, kurtash), officials, travellers and the court.

Coinage and trade

Darius introduced the gold daric and silver siglos, used mainly in the west; elsewhere weighed silver remained normal. The Royal Road from Sardis to Susa had 111 stations, according to Herodotus, and relay couriers. Darius completed a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Foundation texts at Susa list materials and craftsmen from across the empire.

Ahuramazda and the kings

Darius and Xerxes credited everything to Ahuramazda, the wise lord. Historians debate how far the kings were Zoroastrians in the later sense; their inscriptions share ideas such as the struggle between truth and the Lie but never mention Zoroaster.

Religion across the empire

The kings generally supported local cults. The tablets record offerings to Elamite and Babylonian gods as well as Ahuramazda; Darius is said to have allowed the Jerusalem temple to be completed, and the Egyptian official Udjahorresnet says Darius sent him to restore the temple school at Sais. Xerxes' daiva inscription says he destroyed a sanctuary of false gods (daivas) in a rebellious land; it does not name the land, and many historians link it to revolts early in his reign.

The magi and fire

The magi were priests who performed sacrifices and rituals; the tablets show them receiving supplies for offerings. Fire was sacred; fire altars appear on royal tomb reliefs.

Royal burial

Darius' tomb at Naqsh-i Rustam is cut into the cliff in the shape of a cross. Its relief shows the king before a fire altar, with a winged figure above, on a throne platform carried by the peoples of the empire. Herodotus says Persians coated bodies in wax before burial and that the magi exposed bodies to birds and dogs; practices may have differed by rank and region.

Palace art and architecture

Persepolis combined styles from across the empire: tall columns with bull and griffin capitals, Assyrian-style winged bulls at the Gate of All Nations, Egyptian-style door frames and Ionian stonework. The Apadana reliefs show lines of nobles and delegations of subject peoples, each in their own dress, in calm, orderly procession — an image of a harmonious empire.

Inscriptions and writing

Old Persian cuneiform was used mainly for royal inscriptions; Darius at Behistun claims a new form of writing, and many scholars think the script was created in his reign. Elamite and Aramaic were the working languages of administration.

Leisure

Hunting (often in the paradises), banquets, gift-giving at court and horsemanship. Herodotus says Persian boys were taught three things: to ride, to shoot the bow and to speak the truth.

• Using only Greek sources, or accepting their stereotypes of decadence. Balance them with Persian evidence.
• Confusing the Fortification Tablets (food rations, under Darius) with the Treasury Tablets (silver payments, Darius to Artaxerxes I).
• Saying the Persians forced their religion on subjects. The evidence mostly shows support for local cults.
• Mixing up Darius and Xerxes: Darius built Behistun and began Persepolis and Susa; Xerxes invaded Greece and added buildings at Persepolis.

• Name your evidence: Behistun, the Apadana reliefs, the Fortification Tablets, Herodotus.
• For a source, use its words, add own knowledge and comment on its purpose (royal ideology, administrative record, Greek outsider).
• In the 10–15 mark answer, open with a clear judgement and keep returning to the question.
• Historians' views are credited if used accurately, but they are not required.

• Personalities in their Times — Xerxes: builds directly on this society.
• ANC-ATH (Athens): the Persian Wars and their aftermath shaped Periclean Athens.