The ascension of Darius the great

Our story begins in the Persian achaemenid empire, one of antiquity’s great empires, founded by Cyrus the great, marking the end of the median empire and the beginning of Persian rule over the Middle East.

After the death of Cyrus the great, his eldest son Cambyses II ruled the empire while the youngest son Bardiya ruled as satrap (governor) of the eastern regions.

During the first years of his reign Cambyses managed to invade and conquer Egypt, but started losing his sanity a little after a failed attempt of conquering Nubia, during that period he killed the sacred Apis bull, and most importantly ordered the assassination of his younger brother Bardiya. As the Persian shah descended further into madness, two powerful magi rebelled against him one of them Gaumata was Bardya’s look alike and so pretended to be Cambyses supposedly dead brother. They succeeded in their revolt as many nobles preferred the fake Bardiya over the mad Cambyses, furthermore many of them were lured by Gaumata’s striking resemblance with Bardiya.

However a powerful Persian nobleman called Otanes was septic about Bardya’s true name and origin, and so asked his daughter which was Bardiya’s fiancée to see if his ears are cut or not as Gaumata was well known for his cut ears.

Using this information, Otanes decided to plot to kill the userper and was assisted in this task by six other plotters one of them was a member of the achaemenid dynasty, his name was Darius. Without any other further suspense and as you may have guessed based on the title, the plot did succeed and Darius became the next achaemenid shah, what’s more interesting however is the many debates between the plotters on the future of Persia once they managed to kill the magus Gaumata, as Otanes supported a democratic system, while Darius supported monarchy.

And thus ascended one of Persia’s greatest emperors Darius the first most well known as Darius the great.

It should be noticed though that the story of Darius’ ascension to the throne is one history’s biggest enigmas as it’s a huge matter of debate between historians if Darius’ version of the story as related by Herodotus and as I’m telling it in this article is the truth or just a propaganda created by Darius himself to legitimise his ascension to the throne, was Bardiya even killed and replaced or is the Bardiya that was overthrown by the coalition of plotters the real one, was Cambyses ever mad, or was it an invention, to put it simple has Darius overthrown a usurper or was he the usurper. We will probably never know as the only written records from that period are those in support of Darius as he was the emperor of persia and so had the power to suppress any divergent opinion.

That’s all for today folks, hoping thet you enjoyed reading this article and may Ahura Mazda’s blessings be upon you