History of Persia

Season's Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Shab-e Yalda Mubarak, or a pleasant solstice festival of your choice. This is not a holiday …

From 484-481 BCE, Xerxes directed his subjects to prepare for war in Greece. This didn't just mean assembling soldiers and ships, but also preparing …

In 486 BCE, Darius the Great died while Egypt was in revolt. Over the following years, Xerxes put his empire back in order. First in Egypt, then …

In 486 BCE, Darius the Great died and passed the Persian Empire on to his son, Xerxes. With plans to invade Greece in development, and Egypt in open …

This is the second part of the two-part discussion on the life and times of Zoroaster. This time, I discuss the Zoroastrian conception of reality and how it is portrayed in the Gathas as well as the legacy of …

By audience demand, we're headed back in time. Before wrapping up the reign of Darius, it's time to look back to the bronze age and talk about Zarathustra Spitama, the prophet more often known in the west as Zoroaster. …

Darius the Great is one of Persia's most infamous kings for many reasons. An illegitimate heir who reunified the empire. The king of the first war with Greece. Conqueror of territory at the far reaches of Persian …

To round out our series on Darius' royal family, it's only fair to talk about the men of the family. After all, like it or not, the narrative will …

There were many Duksis (royal women) in Darius' household, and there would be many more in future generations of the Achaemenid family, but three …

Our sources for Achaemenid history are clearly biased towards the stories of men in the ancient world, but we actually know a lot about Achaemenid …

Nearly a decade after Aristagoras first went into revolt, and longer since the Athenians had reneged on their offerings of earth and water, the …

Even once the Ionian cities themselves were defeated, the consequences of their Revolt were ongoing. In 492 BCE, a new general, Mardonius, took to …

Even with Miletus defeated, the other rebel cities in shambles, Cyprus under control, and their armies victorious, the Persians had not heard the …

It is a dark time for the Ionian Revolt. Although Sardis has been destroyed, Persian troops have driven the Rebel forces from Aeolis and pursued them …

While three Persian land armies were spreading out over western Anatolia to contain and defeat the Ionian Greek rebels and their allies, a fourth …

This time I have something a little different. In place of a regular narrative episode this week, I have my recent interview with Dr. Michael Bonner, …

The History of Persia is now on Lyceum! Lyceum is a new podcast app with a hand-curated catalog of high quality educational podcasts ranging from …

After the shocking attack on Sardis, many more Greek cities joined the Ionian Revolt, despite Persian victory at Ephesus. In 497 BCE, three land …

To prepare ourselves for their role in the coming wars between Persian the Greek city states, I'm explaining the history and politics of Archaic …

At the end of the 6th century BCE, a group of exiled aristocrats from the island of Naxos inadvertently set off a chain of events that would …

To celebrate the Persian New Year's festival of Nowruz, check out the 2nd Sort-of Annual Holiday Special, exploring the New Year's celebrations of …

This time it's just one episode for a different kind of tour. Explore the early phases of construction at Susa and Persepolis under Darius the Great. …

It's the final stage of the tour! Our trip through the Persian Empire wraps up with three central provinces of the empire, located in western Iran. This time it's Susiana, Media, and Parsa itself. We'll traverse …

The tour of the Persian Empire continues. This time I'm going through the empire within the empire to dissect Assyria and Babylonia. Within these two satrapies, there were many important administrative districts and …

Today is the one year anniversary of launching the History of Persia podcast. Thank you all so much for your support and interest this past year!

The tour of the Persian Empire continues, this time covering the western Satrapies. I'm exploring the details and histories of the Persian provinces …

With the Persian Empire at its greatest ever extent, it's time to start a tour of the empire. We're travelling east, out of Parsa, and following the …

Happy Holidays Everyone! In place of a regular episode this week, we have the first annual History of Persia Holiday Special. Regardless of what …

It's finally time to talk about the famous Behistun Inscription, commissioned by Darius to commemorate his victories over "Gaumata" and the rebel kings he faced from 522 - 518 BCE. It is part propaganda, part epic, part …

With most of the Persian Empire firmly under his control in 519 BCE, Darius the Great set off to earn that title by conquering surrounding …

Picking right back up in the late summer of 521 BCE, I'm talking about the rest of the rebellions against Darius. That's the last three campaigns against the Liar Kings from the Behistun Inscription, the strangely …

No sooner was Bardiya dead, than the newly minted King Darius had to turn his attention on rebellious subjects. One satrapy after the next went into …

After all that business with Gaumata that Magos, I figured we had time to keep talking about magi. This episode explores the religious developments and beliefs in Persia during the Achaemenid period. I'm focusing on …

522 BCE was a crazy year for the Persian Empire. That was the year that Bardiya - or maybe Gaumata - seized power. He overturned his brother and …

In 522 BCE, the Persian Empire sat on the edge of Chaos. Between March and September of that year, 3 men sat on the Persian throne, and according to the official royal history one of those kings was actually …

The story of Polykrates, the Tyrant of Samos, intersects repeatedly with the history of the Persian empire during his life. From his rise to power in …

Hello everyone! I've got some announcements, updates, and news about the show for you, and as a little bonus for listening to my fundraising spiel, there's a mini-episode on the history of the world's first coinage at …

The story of Cambyses isn't just the conquest of Egypt, but also the dark side of it. According to Herodotus Cambyses was a mad king, driven to …

In 525 BCE, the Persian army crossed into Egypt, in what seems to have been the culmination of years of antagonism between the the new empire and the …

In preperation for Cambyses' invasion of Egypt, we're covering the early Persian armies. These are the armies that helped Cyrus the Great conquer the known world. They started as troops levied from Persia and Media, but …

The narrative lurches forward again with a discussion of the new cast, so to speak. Meet Cambyses, Atossa, Bardiya, Artystone, and Roxane, the children of Cyrus the Great, and the new royal family of the Persian Empire. …

 What did it mean to be an early king of Persia? They were divine, but not quite. Warriors and economists. The king of Persia, but also Babylon, Egypt, and many other lands. Legitimacy came in many forms, and this …

 It's time to introduce religion into the mix, starting with the origins and background of ancient Iranian traditions in general, and then narrowing in on the most famous and significant: Zoroastrianism. This episode …

Returning to the narrative, it's time to see what Cyrus got up to in the final decade of his rule, after conquering Babylon. He traveled around his …

 What exactly is a Satrap? Is there such a thing as a Satrapy? How did all of these people manage to talk to one another? All this, and more as the History of Persia celebrates double-digits with a break down of how the …

This time we're taking a break from the narrative for a bit. Now that this show has all of Cyrus's major conquests under its belt, its probably worth getting a sense of what these Persians were actually like. This …

Cyrus the Great has finally completed his conquests in our narrative. I break down the Cyrus Cylinder, the official record of what he did next, one section at a time. In this episode, I shamelessly take advantage of …

In Babylon, October of 539 BCE began in the 17th year of the reign of Nabonidus, but it ended in the 1st year of Cyrus. In this episode Cyrus the Great carries out his final campaign against Babylon. Our sources tell us …

Cyrus's generals take the reins for a bit and the Persian conquerors face their most grueling task yet: subduing the Ionian Greek city states. Persia's first interaction with the Greek speaking world was a drawn out, …

Just as Cyrus the Great, now officially the King of Persia, was consolidating his hold over the recently conquered Median Empire, a new war started. …

Around 550 BCE, King Cyrus II of Anshan went into revolt against the Median King Astyages. The young Cyrus was aided by a rebellious Median general …

We're bringing the stories from the last two episodes together now. The Medes and the Babylonians joined forces, beat the Assyrians and the Egyptians, and then divided up the Near East between themselves as they built …

Last time, we got up to speed on what was going on in the Near East in the centuries before the Persians showed up. What we didn't cover, was who exactly are these "Persians," and what were they doing while their future …

Here we go, episode 1! Now, as much as I want to get to Persian history, we should probably know at least a little bit about the world before the …

Welcome Everyone! This is the introductory episode to the show, just so you can get an idea for the premise for the show, who I am as a host, and a couple of disclaimers before diving into the narrative of Persian …