Within 100 years of Sennacherib’s rampage through Judah, the Assyrians were a spent force. Making way for the next new Empire, that of the Persians. And their are most famous ruler wasn’t exactly a wallflower either. Cyrus “I am Cyrus. Great King, mighty king. King of the globe. King of the four quarters of the Earth.”
We have heard this kind of thing before in world history. We’ll hear a lot of it again. But what does make Cyrus the Great different and possibly even the great. It is that unlike any previous ruler, he listened to the people he conquered, he was open to cultural and religious influences.
Cyrus the Great
And if that makes him sound like an early liberal, think again, because before the listening came the old business of the conquering and the slaughtering.
In 547 BC, the mighty Cyrus turned his attention to one of the wealthiest little kingdoms in the world. These are the ruins of Sardis, the capital of Lydia, in what is now Turkey. The Persians were hitting back against a troublesome rival but they were also following the money because the Lydians were rich.
Gold and Silver were the source of their vast fortune.
King Croesus of Lydia
And when the invaders came knocking, they knew exactly who they were looking for. Croesus, the king of Lydia. He may have been the richest man in the world but now, as he tried to hide with his son, his great wealth was putting his life in danger.
And that great wealth came from right here. This doesn’t look much like a significant site in the history of the world economy, but it is. This is the river bed of the Pactolus, which in ancient times was a stream running with very rich gold and silver deposits, which the Lydians learned to refine and turn into reliable, valuable coins which circulated all around this part of Asia.
There was gold in the hills up there and this is why, even today, when we’re talking about somebody who’s loaded, we say, “He’s rich as Croesus.”
Croesus’s gold coins were stamped with symbols of power and strength - the lion and the bull. Now, other cultures had had currencies before. They’d had a bronze, or silver, or even rare seashells. But what the Lydians did for the first time was produced gold coins of a reliable weight and purity. Even today when people are frightened about the banks and governments, they invest in gold. Well, it started here.
The fate of King Croesus now lay at the mercy of the Persian leader - Cyrus the Great.
Lessons from history - if a Persian king invites you to a barbecue, it’s probably wise to say no.
Croesus called on the God Apollo to save him. And he sent down a shower of rain to douse the flames. Well, maybe, maybe not.
Herodotus
Some of what we know about Cyrus and Croesus, we think we know because of the writings of the great Greek historian Herodotus. The trouble is that he is not an entirely reliable witness.
Apart from being known as “The father of history”, Herodotus is also sometimes called “The father of lies”. He certainly had that fatal journalistic weakness for a great story.
According to Herodotus, the Persian king asked his prisoner why he’d fought him. Croesus, typically, blamed the gods. “Mmm,” thought Cyrus, “bad advice?”. “Well,” said Croesus, “In peace, sons bury their fathers. But in wartime, fathers bury their sons.”. “Mm, fair point,” thought Cyrus. “Rather well put.” And so he let Croesus off the hook and appointed him as his advisor instead.
But it wasn’t just wise advice and mottos that Cyrus got from Croesus. The Persians also picked up the Lydians’ great invention - reliable, effective currency. Coins begin to spread around a large area at this time because of the Persian Empire. Currency becomes current because of war.
Enriched with the gold from Croesus, Cyrus carried on his rampage across the Middle East. And eight years later, he conquered the great city of Babylon. There, the Hebrews of Jerusalem had been exiled and enslaved.
“Weeping by the rivers of Babylon,” says the Bible, and Cyrus set them free, sending them home. Cyrus even paid for the rebuilding of their temple in Jerusalem.
The Wailing Wall is part of it, and remains the most sacred Jewish site to this day. Through these acts of religious tolerance, the Persian king became the only Gentile ever to be honoured with the title Messiah.
Like the Assyrians, like every great ruler before him, Cyrus had hacked and slaughtered his way to power. This period of history is a long catalogue of butchery and burning. But, out of it comes the alphabet, the first standardised currency and the birth of one of the world’s great religions.
Tyrants and despots have long battled over power and wealth; none more so than the Battle of Marathon.
External Links
Cyrus the Great - Wikipedia Page
Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction
