The relief stone of Darius the Great in the Behistun Inscription
King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire
Reign
29 September 522 BCE – October 486 BCE
Coronation
Pasargadae
Predecessor
Bardiya
Successor
Xerxes I
Pharaoh of Egypt
Reign
September 522 BCE – October 486 BCE
Predecessor
Bardiya
Successor
Xerxes I
Royal titulary
Horus name
mnḫ-jb Menekhib The one of splendid mind
Second Horus name: wr-nb-mrj-šmꜤw Wernebmeryshemau Chieftain and Lord, beloved of Upper Egypt
Prenomen (Praenomen)
rꜤ-sttw Seteture Progeny of Ra
Nomen
drjwš Deriush Darius
[1]
Born
c. 550 BCE
Died
October 486 BCE (aged approximately 64)
Burial
Naqsh-e Rostam
Spouse
Atossa
Artystone
Parmys
Phratagune
Phaedymia
a daughter of Gobryas
Issue
Artobazanes
Xerxes I
Ariabignes
Arsamenes
Masistes
Achaemenes
Arsames
Gobryas
Ariomardus
Abrocomes
Hyperanthes
Artazostre
Names
Dārayava(h)uš
Dynasty
Achaemenid
Father
Hystaspes
Mother
Rhodogune or Irdabama
Religion
Indo-Iranian religion (possibly Zoroastrianism)
Darius I (Old Persian: 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁Dārayavaʰuš; Greek: ΔαρεῖοςDareios; c. 550 – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.[2][3]
Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya (or Smerdis), who he claimed was in fact an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout the empire but quelled each of them; a major event in Darius's life was his expedition to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and Eretria for their participation in the Ionian Revolt. Although his campaign ultimately resulted in failure at the Battle of Marathon, he succeeded in the re-subjugation of Thrace and expanded the Achaemenid Empire through his conquests of Macedonia, the Cyclades, and the island of Naxos.
Darius organized the empire by dividing it into administrative provinces, each governed by a satrap. He organized Achaemenid coinage as a new uniform monetary system, and he made Aramaic a co-official language of the empire alongside Persian. He also put the empire in better standing by building roads and introducing standard weights and measures. Through these changes, the Achaemenid Empire became centralized and unified.[4] Darius undertook other construction projects throughout his realm, primarily focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon, and Egypt. He had an inscription carved upon a cliff-face of Mount Behistun to record his conquests, which would later become important evidence of the Old Persian language.
Darius is mentioned in the books of Haggai, Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament).
^Jürgen von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen (= Münchner ägyptologische Studien, vol 46), Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1999. ISBN 3-8053-2310-7, pp. 220–21.
^"DĀḠESTĀN". Retrieved 29 December 2014.
^Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994). The Making of the Georgian Nation. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-20915-3. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
^Pollard, Elizabeth (2015). Worlds Together, Worlds Apart concise edition vol.1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-393-25093-0.
under DariustheGreat, whose rule stretched from the Balkans (Eastern Bulgaria–Paeonia and Thrace–Macedonia) and the rest of Southeast Europe in the west...
DariustheGreat Is Not Okay is a young adult novel by Adib Khorram, originally published August 28, 2018, by Dial Books. The book has received various...
London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781848856219. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Palace of Darius I in Susa. "Susa, Palace of DariustheGreat", Livius...
Dariusthe Mede is mentioned in the Book of Daniel as King of Babylon between Belshazzar and Cyrus theGreat, but he is not known to secular history and...
The Scythian campaign of Darius I was a military expedition into parts of European Scythia by Darius I, the king of the Achaemenid Empire, in 513 BC....
87472°E / 29.98889; 52.87472 The tomb of DariustheGreat (or Darius I) is one of the four tombs for Achaemenid kings at the historical site of Naqsh-e...
the Persian Empire now effectively under Alexander's control, Alexander then decided to pursue Darius. Before Alexander reached him, however, Darius was...
football". The Reporter. "'Thegreat ones, they have it': Darius Robinson's transition to football". Columbia Missourian. "Canton's Darius Robinson: Missouri...
The Suez inscriptions of DariustheGreat were texts written in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian on five monuments erected in Wadi Tumilat...
incite the whole of Ionia into rebellion against the Persian king, Darius I, who was commonly known as DariustheGreat.[citation needed] The Persians...
until his assassination in 465 BC. He was the son of DariustheGreat and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus theGreat. In Western history, Xerxes is best known...
coup d'état, and that Darius then ascended the throne. Most sources (including Darius himself, Herodotus and Ctesias) have Darius as part of a group of...
opposing army. At the decisive encounter with Darius at Gaugamela, Darius equipped his chariots with scythes on the wheels to break up the phalanx and equipped...
Rustam would not only house DariustheGreat, but also his son Xerxes theGreat, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II as well. The necropolis complex was looted...
Khorram published his first novel, DariustheGreat is Not Okay, in 2018 followed by the sequel, DariustheGreat Deserves Better, in 2020. 2019 William...
of the inscription, DariustheGreat declares his ancestry and lineage: King Darius says: My father is Hystaspes [Vištâspa]; the father of Hystaspes was...
Look up Darius in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Darius may refer to: Kings of the Achaemenid Empire Darius I (theGreat, 550 to 487 BC) Darius II (423...
completed by DariustheGreat (r. 550–486 BC). Classical sources disagree as to when it was finally completed.[citation needed] DariustheGreat's Suez Inscriptions...
have been written on the order of Darius I after Cyrus' death. As such, Achaemenes could be a retrograde creation of DariustheGreat, made in order to legitimize...
1–5. ISBN 9780521611916. "cylinder seal | British Museum". The British Museum. "Darius' seal, photo - Livius". www.livius.org. David Sacks, Oswyn Murray...
The Tachara, or the Tachar Château, also referred to as the Palace of DariustheGreat, was the exclusive building of Darius I at Persepolis, Iran. It...
overthrown by DariustheGreat (r. 522–486 BC), who went on to increase the power of the Achaemenids even further. The origins of the name of "Cambyses"...
that the Gur-e-Dokhtar was the mausoleum of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus theGreat and the wife and queen of DariustheGreat. Later, when the iron clamps...
2017 at the Wayback Machine). The first Persian ruler to use the title in an Iranian context was Darius I of Persia (DariustheGreat), in the Behistun...
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