Author: Trevor Culley

I'm Trevor Culley. My personal experience with both Persian history and podcasts began with a college extra credit assignment to listen to the first Hardcore History history episode on the Achaemenids. I was instantly enthralled with the stories of the Kings of Kings and coming a little late to the party, started listening to podcasts. On one hand, I started heading down the road toward PhD that will let me study ancient Persia for a living. On the other, as I binged my way through both the History of Rome and early episodes of the History of Byzantium I was always excited for the episodes dealing with the Parthians and Sassanids. I'm sure some of you shared my surprise and disappointment to discover that there was not a similarly dedicated podcast dealing with the great empires east of Rome. So that brings us here. I've decided to personally create that dedicated podcast.

Announcement 01: Croeseids

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A gold Croeseid c. 560-540 BCE from the original run of heavier coins. Image from CNG Coins via Wikimedia Commons under GNU Free Documentation License

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 end. Thank you everybody!
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Episode 17: The Mad King

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Cambyses killing the Apis Bull as depicted in a sketch from the 1881 Illustrated History of the World from Ward, Lock, and Co.

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 paranoia and acts of terrible violence while he was Egypt. The Greek Historian, as well as the Behistun Inscription, tell how Cambyses II murdered his family members and drove his own empire into open revolt. This episode describes the Persian tragedy of the King of King’s fall into madness.

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Episode 16: Pharaoh Cambyses

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  • Le roi Cambyse au siège de Péluse, 1872. Paul-Marie Lenoir’s bizarre depiction of the Battle of Pelusium in which he takes the legend of the cat shields a step beyond Polyaenus’ description.
  • A map of the eastern Mediterranean and major locations for this episode.
  • A map of Ancient Egypt and Kush with the locations of named locations and battles marked. Image from Jeff Dahl via Wikimedia Commons under GNU Free Documentation License

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 last great kingdom of the Near East. To accomplish his task, the new King of Kings, Cambyses, mustered all his resources. He assembled a huge land army, constructed Persia’s first navy, and formed alliances from the Greek islands in the Aegean to tribal kings in Arabia. Over the following three years, he established and consolidated Persian rule over the kingdom of the two lands, bringing one of the oldest civilizations in the world under Persian domination.
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Archaeologists May Have Found 2,500-year-old Persian Military Base in Northern Israel

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Episode 15: The Army That Conquered The World

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The Immortals at court as depicted on the walls of Darius I’s palace in Susa with colored bricks. You can see the elaborate colors and patterns of their robes and what equipment they carried. If you look on their front feet, you can see the silver counterweight that gave them the name “Apple Bearers.” Photo from Jakob Harlun via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

In preparation 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 grew to incorporate every facet of the empire and built on the history of Near Eastern warfare to form a disciplined and organized system.

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Episode 14: Princes, Princesses, Kings, and Queens

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Bardiya/Smerdis (left) and Cambyses (right) as depicted in the 15th century by William Caxton.

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. This time I’m breaking down marriage customs, inheritance rights, and political training. Or to put that another way: incest, dividing the empire, and the next round of political power plays. Cyrus the Great is gone, and his empire would never be quite the same again. 

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Episode 13: Kingship 101

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One of the possible locations for Cambyses’ tomb: a ruined tower at Pasargadae, also called the Prison of Solomon. Credit to Soroush90gh via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

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 episode explores them.

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