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He was the father of Darius I, king of the Achaemenid Empire, and Artabanus, who was a trusted advisor to both his brother Darius as well as Darius's son and successor, Xerxes I . The son of Arsames, Hystaspes was a member of the Persian royal house of the Achaemenids.
Hystaspes (flourished 6th century bc) was the son of Arsames, king of Parsa, and father of the Achaemenid king Darius I of Persia. According to the 5th-century- bc Greek historian Herodotus, Hystaspes was governor of Persis under Cyrus II the Great and Cambyses II and accompanied Cyrus on his last campaign against the Massagetai in 530 bc.
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Darius the Great was an Achaemenid ruler noted for his administrative genius, his great building projects, and his benevolence toward the diverse peoples under his sovereignty. His policies and building projects helped fortify his vast empire and enhance trade throughout.
How did Darius the Great come to power?
Darius was a member of the royal bodyguard of Cambyses II, the son and heir of Cyrus the Great who ruled for several years before dying mysteriously in 522. Later that same year, Darius took the throne after killing an alleged usurper he claimed had only pretended to be Cambyses’ brother Bardiya.
How was Darius the Great influential?
Darius the Great helped unify the Achaemenid empire, which spanned a vast heterogeneous territory. Much of this unification was achieved through building upon the administrative reform program begun by Cyrus the Great to fit the needs of the expansive empire. It was also achieved through Darius’s encouragement and patronage of local traditions and building projects.
Darius I, (born 550 bc—died 486), king of Persia in 522–486 bc, one of the greatest rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty, who was noted for his administrative genius and for his great building projects. Darius attempted several times to conquer Greece; his fleet was destroyed by a storm in 492, and the Athenians defeated his army at Marathon in 490.
Darius was the son of Hystaspes, the satrap (provincial governor) of Parthia. The principal contemporary sources for his history are his own inscriptions, especially the great trilingual inscription on the Bīsitūn (Behistun) rock at the village of the same name, in which he tells how he gained the throne. The accounts of his accession given by the Greek historians Herodotus and Ctesias are in many points obviously derived from this official version but are interwoven with legends.
According to Herodotus, Darius, when a youth, was suspected by Cyrus II the Great (who ruled from 559 to 529 bc) of plotting against the throne. Later Darius was in Egypt with Cambyses II, the son of Cyrus and heir to his kingdom, as a member of the royal bodyguard. After the death of Cambyses in the summer of 522 bc, Darius hastened to Media, where, in September, with the help of six Persian nobles, he killed Bardiya (Smerdis), another son of Cyrus, who had usurped the throne the previous March. In the Bīsitūn inscription Darius defended this deed and his own assumption of kingship on the grounds that the usurper was actually Gaumata, a Magian, who had impersonated Bardiya after Bardiya had been murdered secretly by Cambyses. Darius therefore claimed that he was restoring the kingship to the rightful Achaemenid house. He himself, however, belonged to a collateral branch of the royal family, and, as his father and grandfather were alive at his accession, it is unlikely that he was next in line to the throne. Some modern scholars consider that he invented the story of Gaumata in order to justify his actions and that the murdered king was indeed the son of Cyrus.
Darius did not at first gain general recognition but had to impose his rule by force. His assassination of Bardiya was followed, particularly in the eastern provinces, by widespread revolts, which threatened to disrupt the empire. In Susiana, Babylonia, Media, Sagartia, and Margiana, independent governments were set up, most of them by men who claimed to belong to the former ruling families. Babylonia rebelled twice and Susiana three times. In Persia itself a certain Vahyazdata, who pretended to be Bardiya, gained considerable support. These risings, however, were spontaneous and uncoordinated, and, notwithstanding the small size of his army, Darius and his generals were able to suppress them one by one. In the Bīsitūn inscription he records that in 19 battles he defeated nine rebel leaders, who appear as his captives on the accompanying relief. By 519 bc, when the third rising in Susiana was put down, he had established his authority in the east. In 518 Darius visited Egypt, which he lists as a rebel country, perhaps because of the insubordination of its satrap, Aryandes, whom he put to death.
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Having restored internal order in the empire, Darius undertook a number of campaigns for the purpose of strengthening his frontiers and checking the incursions of nomadic tribes. In 519 bc he attacked the Scythians east of the Caspian Sea and a few years later conquered the Indus Valley. In 513, after subduing eastern Thrace and the Getae, he cross...
Dec 15, 2004 · A collection of prophecies attributed to Vištāspa, a follower of Zarathustra and the father of Darius. The text is lost, but some fragments are preserved in Greek and Latin sources, mostly related to the end times and the Messiah.
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Darius the great king, king of kings, king of countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenid. King Darius says: This is the kingdom which I hold, from the Sacae who are beyond Sogdia to Kush , and from Sind ( Old Persian : 𐏃𐎡𐎭𐎢𐎺 , "Hidauv", locative of " Hiduš ", i.e. " Indus valley ") to Lydia ( Old Persian : "Spardâ") – [this ...
Hystaspes ( ῾Υστάσπης , also HYSTASPAS, i.e. eydaspes), a prophetico-apocalyptic work among the early Christians, thought to contain predictions of Christ and the future of his kingdom, so called from a Persian savant (Magus), Hystaspes, under whose name it was circulated.
Hystaspes (flourished 7th and 6th centuries bc) was a protector and follower of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. Son of Aurvataspa (Lohrasp) of the Naotara family, Hystaspes was a local ruler ( kavi) in a country called in the Avesta (the Zoroastrian scripture) Aryana Vaejah, which may have been a Greater Chorasmian state abolished by the ...
