Cyrus the Great: The Persian hero and an Influential Military Leader, Causes for Success

Ruins of the palace of Cyrus the Great in Iran

Cyrus the Great the founder of the Persian Empire is the earliest influential military commander for whom at least some reliable records are available. In the 6^th century BC, he defeated the Medes, Lydians and Babylonians and united them into a single empire that stretched from India to the Mediterranean Sea. Cyrus, as efficient in administrating his domain as he was in conquering it, established a lasting kingdom that survived and prospered for two centuries as the world’s leading power.

It is difficult to separate fact from myth about the early years of Cyrus, believed to have been born between 600 and 585 BC. His father Cambyses I was a member of the Achaemenid dynasty. Mythology, particularly the writings of Herodotus say that Cyrus as a child was banished to the mountains, suckled by a wolf and later raised by a shepherd.

In 558 BC, Cyrus became the ruler of Persian district Anshan, a few years later Cyrus initiated a rebellion against the ruling Median Empire. In a three-year ling war, Cyrus defeated the Medians, treated them mercifully and incorporated them into his empire. Cyrus adopted many Median laws and administrative procedures as his own

In 546 BC, King Croesus of Lydia in Asia Minor invaded Persia. After repelling the invaders Cyrus pursued them back into Lydia and engaged them in a decisive battle in the Thymbra plain. Cyrus formed his outnumbered army into a square, with his archers preventing Lydian penetration. As the Lydians spread out to surround the square, Cyrus countered with his cavalry to cut off and destroy the isolated enemy groups. When Croesus ceased fighting and withdrew to his capital of Sardis near Izmir, Turkey, Cyrus pursued him and completed his conquest. Cyrus spared Croesus and his kind treatment of the vanquished Lydian people ended their hostility and added their support to his army.

Cyrus the Great

In 539 BC, Cyrus turned his army to the rich kingdom of Babylon to his east. The Babylonians unhappy with their own leadership and impressed with the nice treatment of Cyrus with the previously conquered territories, surrendered without a fight. This bloodless conquest also included Palestine and Syria. Cyrus’s humane leadership continued. Along with a lack of brutality against the citizens of the newly acquired territories, Cyrus introduced many reforms to put an end to wrong practices. One such significant deed was the return of the Jews to their homeland, from where the Babylonians had deported them fifty years before.

The Persian Empire now reached from the eastern Indus River border with India, north to the Aral, Caspian, and Black Sea and west to the Mediterranean. It was the center of politics and culture of the civilized world. Although his empire was vast, rich, peaceful and threatened by no outside force, Cyrus apparently desired more conquests. In 530 BC he set out to conquer the Massagetae, a group of nomadic tribes living east of the Caspian Sea in Central Asia. The Persians won the early fights in the war that followed but within a year Cyrus was killed in a battle at the age of 39 year only. his soldiers could not even recover his body. Supposedly the queen of Massagetae removed his head and placed in a blood-filled skin of an animal and remarked that now the Persian leader could have all the blood he wanted. Later when his son Cambyses II ascended to thrown he defeated the Massagetaes and recovered the body of his father that was buried in the empire’s capital of Pasargadae.

Tomb of Cyrus The Great

Cyrus gained his empire not only through his military strength but also with his ability to unite those he defeated. He exhibited remarkable talent in governing his own and the conquered people. His policies of moderation in the treatment of conquered people and his tolerance of their local religions and customs gained him allies of former enemies. As a result the Persian empire survived in peace and prosperity for two centuries after the death of its founder. However when Cyrus tried to venture for unnecessary conquests like the battles with he Massagetaes, his downfall started. Not only that he lost his life at a young age for no plausible objective, he denuded his empire of a capable and efficient leader.

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