Precursors of the Persian Empire LVV44 – 2012
Peoples whom we read about in Herodotus
Sumerians - Akkadians – Egyptians * – Hittites – Israelites * – Philistines/ Phoenicians – Assyrians – Babylonians – Lydians * – Medes and Persians * – Parthians.
* Those civilizations that you should be able to identify for LVV4U.
• Sumerians (5,000 - 2,000 B.C.)
- It all starts with the Sumerians who created the first civilization we know of. This was in Mesopotamia (Iraq).
- Farmers started to settle in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers about 7,000 B.C.
- The Sumerian civilization is dated 5,000-2,000 B.C.
- The Sumerian villages grew into self-governing city states that were huge walled cities, with a temple at the centre and farmland all around.
- Later they became united under Sargon (q.v.). In 2, 700 B.C.
- Gilgamesh reigned at Uruk.
• Akkadians (2,400-1,600 B.C.)
- People to the north of Sumer took over the Sumerian civilization.
- They were called Akkadians and they assimilated the Sumerian civilization and it became called the Akkadian civilization.
- The great name associated with this culture is the king, Sargon (2,370 B.C.). He conquered and united the city-states of Mesopotamia for the first time.
- Sargon’s capital city was called Akkad, but it has never been identified. Later in time, Babylon had an Amorite king called Hammurabi (1,792-1,750) who united Mesopotamia under his rule.
- He devised a law code, called the Code of Hammurabi.
- The Mesopotamian people had the god, Marduk, who created the world; the flood story, like the story of Noah in the Bible; and the epic of Gilgamesh who wanted to live forever but a snake ate the sea plant, which would have given him it.
• Egyptians *
- First settlers settled on the Nile around about 4,000, and another great civilization began developing. (Egypt is not in our area of concern, but is mentioned here, as it was so great a civilization.)
- Civilizations developed along rivers because people noticed the connection between rivers and fertility. The invention of agriculture meant that people could stay in one place, build cities and free lots of people from the drudgery of agriculture.
- The invention of agriculture meant surpluses, trade and the consequent need for record keeping. So writing evolved.
• Hittites
- The peoples of Anatolia (Turkey), and the Hittites (1,500 – 500 B.C.).
- There are early cities found in Anatolia (Turkey) before the Hittite ascendancy. They are the great people associated with this part of the world.
- The capital of the Hittites was Hiatuses.
- About 1,500 the Hittites began trading iron.
- About 1,200 BC the Hittite empire was wiped out by internal dissension and by new invaders called the Sea Peoples, who probably came from the Mediterranean lands.
• Israelites * (1,050 – 935 B.C.)
- Reigns of Saul, David and Solomon. [Read about them in the books I and II Samuel and I and II Kings in the Bible.]
- David, second king of Israel (Saul was the first) establishes Jerusalem as his capital.
- After Solomon died in 925 B.C. the kingdom of Israel split in two – Israel, the name of the northern kingdom – and Judah, the southern kingdom, capital at Jerusalem.
- The Assyrians deported the ten northern tribes of Israel (721 B.C.) and they have disappeared from history. They are called "the Ten Lost Tribes".
- The second great mental trauma for Israel occurs in 587 B.C. when Jerusalem is taken by the Babylonians and the Jews carried off into exile, south east to Babylon. They created Judaism in exile.
• The Philistines and the Phoenicians
- One tribe of the Sea Peoples, the Peleset, settled in the south of Canaan (Lebanon).
- The land was named Palestine after them and in the Bible they are called Philistines.
- Saul and David fought against the Philistines.
- The Philistines were powerful and feared, since they had control of the iron trade. (Iron means superior weapons, much tougher than brass.)
- About 1,100 B.C. trade in the Mediterranean was dominated by Canaanite merchants who lived on the coast of Canaan.
- The Greeks called them Phoenicians (and later the Romans called them Punici). Carthage was one of their colonies, founded by Queen Dido in 814 B.C.
- Our alphabet comes from the Phoenicians. Phoenicia later became part of the Persian empire (539 B.C.). The Persians used Phoenician warships to fight against the Greeks.
• The Assyrians (1,500-600 B.C.)
- Their capital was Ashur on the Tigris. Another of their famous cities was Nineveh.
- They had to fight long for survival and became tough warriors but their name is marked by cruelty.
- In 721 B.C. the Assyrians deported the ten northern tribes of the state called "Israel" to Assyria. They disappear from history.
- Sennacherib (704-681)
- Ashurbanipal (668-631)
- Complete destruction of the Assyrian empire by Babylon (614-609)
• The Babylonians (1,500-500 B.C.). Their capital was Babylon.
- Hammurabi (early in their history) died about 1,750 B.C.
- With the help of their neighbours, the Medes, the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians in 612 B.C.
- Nebuchadnezzar, the son of their general, went on to win an empire.
- Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. and was destroyed in 587 B.C. with Babylonian captivity of the Jews following.
- 539 B.C. Babylon herself captured by the Persians. People gradually left the city and by A.D. 200 it was deserted and ruined.
- Famous were the Ishtar Gate, named after the chief goddess of the Babylonians and the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. They were built by Nebuchadnezzar for his wife, Amytis, a princess of the Medes, because she missed the hilly landscape of her home. You can read about Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel in the Bible.
• The Lydians *
- Lived in what today is western Turkey.
- Their capital was Sardis. A famous king was Croesus.
- We have the expression "as rich as Croesus" still.
• The Medes.
- Their capital was Ecbatana.
- The were one of the two great families of the Iranian people whose other great family was the Persians.
• The Persians. *
- Their capital was Susa.
- Cyrus the Great founds the Persian empire (550 B.C.). [550 B.C. - Confucius is born in China.]
- Cyrus was good to the Jewish captives at Babylon. He released them to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple (538 B.C.). See The Book of Ezra, Chapter 1 in the Bible.
- Darius I of Persia was a great conqueror. We read about him in Herodotus. His attack on European Greece fails after the defeat at the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.)
- His son Xerxes tried to defeat the Greeks ten years later but was himself defeated and repulsed after the sea battle of Salamis (480 B.C.), which we will read about in Herodotus.
• The Parthians – This political and culture alignment came after our period of concern
- The Parthians are mentioned, as they were historically important and so troublesome to the Romans.
- They show us what happened after the decline and demise of the great Persian Empire of the time of the Battles of Marathon and of Salamis.
- Having moved in from the north, they filled the vacuum left by the decline of the Persian Empire following Alexander the Great’s conquest of Darius III.
- They were famous enemies of the Romans. They were renowned cavalry fighters, and one of their techniques has given us the expression "the parting (i.e., Parthian) shot". They were talented at galloping away from an enemy in a feint and then turning in their saddles to launch arrows backwards.