Iran 1

Plentiful and usually cheap Iranian energy has played a major role in the industrialization of the European developed world ever since and today turns the wheels of Asia.

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Although he was culturally Greek, Herodotus was a Per-sian subject.

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In Herodotus’ time, when Persian envoys were sent to Sparta and Athens to negotiate a cease-fire, the Spartans and Athenians threw them “into a pit like criminals

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For his mistakes, he apologized in advance, writing, “My business is to record what people say, but I am by no means bound to believe it

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Surprisingly, we know little of Cyrus, although he became the archetype of the Persian ruler and perhaps the most famous man in Persian history. He conquered most of western Asia, but, judged by the standards of his time, he was both humane and tolerant. Unlike earlier and later rulers, both Eastern and Western, he did not massacre the people he conquered and did not try to suppress local cults. While in Babylon, he gave the resi-dent Jews, whom the Assyrians had exiled to the “Baby-lonian Captivity,” permission to return to Jerusalem and restored to them the temple utensils that Nebuchad-nezzar had confiscated. I

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In appreciation, the Jews referred to him as “the anointed of the Lord,” and Isaiah said of him, “He is my shepherd.” Jews even used the word messiah for

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Xenophon
ideal of monarchy, and Alexander the Great is said to have tried to model his imperial persona on Cyrus.

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Cyrus had great virtues, but his faults too were monumental. He was vain, headstrong, and avaricious. He often chose war rather than diplomacy to gain his objectives, and when he warred, he did so in a remarkably sophisticated fashion.

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Herodotus tells us, the empire established by Cyrus and enlarged by his followers stretched eastward from the Mediterranean (i.e., from western Anatolia, some of the Greek islands, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt) r

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The Persian answer was a road system that would be unmatched until the time of the Roman Empire centuries later. As Herodotus recounts, on the “Royal Road” from the main city in western Anatolia, Sardis (near modern Izmir), to the capital Susa in western Iran, a distance of about 2,500 kilometers (1,600 miles), travelers were served by some 111 “recognized stations, with excellent inns, and the road itself is safe to travel.… [A] man will take just ninety days to make the journey.” But urgent messages could be sent by relays of post riders in just nine days. “There is nothing in the world which travels faster than these Persian couriers,” Herodotus wrote

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Cyrus’ insatiable quest for glory and his belief that he was God’s in-strument for imposing order on the fragmented and dangerous world were to lead to his destruction at the hands of the greatest unknown woman ruler of all time, the queen of the Scyth peoples, Tomyri

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Queen Tomyris confronted Cyrus at the end of his triumphal march through western Asia. The queen sent a message saying, “Glutton as you are for blood … get out of my country with your forces intact.… If you refuse, I swear by the sun our master to give you more blood than you can drink, for all your gluttony.” Indeed she did. When Cyrus was killed in the ensuing battle, one of Tomyris’ soldiers cut off his head and delivered it to the queen. His fate fitted her warning. As Herodotus tells us, Tomyris “pushed his head into a skin which she had filled with human blood.”

Cyrus’ bloody end did no

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