When Manson Everard finds Keith in 542 BC, the latter as Cyrus has already conquered the Medes and founded the Persian Empire but Everard cannot rescue him because Cyrus' career, and life, continue until 530 BC. Keith must stay where and when he is. Everard and Keith himself had traveled to ancient Persia from the twentieth century of a timeline in which Keith as Cyrus had already died fighting after ruling from 558 to 530 BC.
Cyrus is "'...a key figure in a key milieu...'" (p. 87) because Persia was the first conquering power to:
respect those it had conquered;
obey its own laws;
open regular contact with the Far East;
create a world religion.
Further:
Cyrus will allow the Jews to return from Babylon;
Mithraism will influence Christianity;
most of Alexander's conquests will be of former Persian territory;
many Persian successor states will be important.
Everard says, "'If you quit...I can imagine them still building ziggurats and reading entrails - and running through the woods up in Europe, with America still undiscovered - three thousand years from now!'" (p. 88)
Could any one man possibly be more important?
5 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Indeed! Cyrus the Great and the Empire he founded was VERY important in and for our history. And what Poul Anderson said in "Brave to be a King" about the respect the Persians had for law and for tolerant ruling of many different peoples is also true. It reminded me of how Jerry Pournelle, in the Introduction he wrote for the first volume of THE IMPERIAL STARS, quoted this inscription of Cyrus' son in law and second successor, Darius I, called the Great:
"Saith Darius, the King of Kings, the Great King: by the favor of Ahurazmada, these are the nations I seized beyond the boundaries of Persia; I ruled over them, they bore tribute to me; what was said to them by me, that they did; my LAWS [my stress, SMB] held them firm. .....
"Saith Darius, the King of Kings: Much which was ill done that I made good. Provinces were in turmoil, one man smiting another. By the favor of Ahuramazda this I brought about, that the one does not smite the other at all, each one is in his place. My law, of that they feel fear, so that the stronger does not smite or destroy the weak."
Pournelle then contrasted this with an inscription of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria, which was nothing but a savage boasting of the devastation and plundering he inflicted on the kingdom of Elam. Contemporary annals wrote bitterly of how the Assyrians brought nothing but the "death of the earth."
So, it can be easily seen with what amazement the Persians were regarded when they ruled with what was unprecedented mildness and humanity (at least by the standards of those times).
Sean
I have also seen the suggestion that it was the devastation inflicted by the Assyrians that made the middle east willing the accept rule by the Persians.
Kaor, Jim!
I agree that, even sixty years after Assyria came to an end, as Persia was rising to become a great power, many people still had bitter memories of Assyria and of how that nation had terrorized the Near East for centuries. The Biblical Book of Nahum gives us an example of how people rejoiced at the fall of their ancient tyrant!
And I agree the mildness of the Persians made many willing to accept their rule.
Ad astra! Sean
And the fact that the Greeks had *not* been beaten down by the Assyrians was why they put up much greater resistance than other peoples to the Persian empire.
See also the Egyptians. They had been only briefly under the Assyrians & gave the Persians more problems than most of the peoples in their Empire
Kaor, Jim!
I agree with both of these suggestions. Yes, the fact Assyrian power never reached Greece was probably one factor in how or why the Greeks successfully fought off Persian rule.
Yes, however brutal the brief Assyrian occupation of Egypt had been, it did not last long enough for the Egyptians to conclude Persian rule was better than remaining their own kingdom. Albeit, the XXVI Dynasty did succumb rather easily to conquest by Cambyses II. And Egypt did successfully rebelled against Persian rule during the reign of Artaxerxes II of Persia.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment