Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great founded the Persian empire and is the only foreign ruler the Hebrew Bible calls a messiah. Born around 600 BC, he inherited the small kingdom of Anshan in Persis as a vassal of the Medes, and revolted against his overlord Astyages around 550 BC, winning when the Median army defected to him. He then took Lydia from Croesus around 546 BC — Herodotus has the Delphic oracle tell Croesus that if he attacked he would destroy a great empire, which he did, his own — and Babylon in 539 BC, entering a city whose priesthood was estranged from its king and which opened its gates. His method of rule is what distinguishes him. Conquered peoples kept their laws, languages, religions and local administrations, and satraps governed on behalf of a king who presented himself as the legitimate successor to each throne he took. In Babylon he was proclaimed as chosen by Marduk; in Egypt his son used pharaonic titles. The Cyrus Cylinder, found at Babylon in 1879, records the restoration of deported peoples and their gods to their own sanctuaries. It is a royal building inscription of a conventional Mesopotamian type and has often been described, over-generously, as the first charter of human rights. The biblical books of Ezra and Isaiah credit him with permitting the Jews exiled in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. He died around 530 BC campaigning in Central Asia against the Massagetae. Alexander visited his tomb at Pasargadae, found it plundered, and ordered it restored. His empire lasted two centuries and was the largest the world had yet seen.

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