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In the article "Will the "Persians" Travel to the Ancient Greek Era - <希波战争史>Was It Forged by Later Generations", it has been stated that the term "Persia" should have appeared after 220 AD. That being the case, what is the First Persian Empire that Western history says was established BC? This article will answer this question.
In fact, the ancient Persians did not record the ancient Persians, nor did they pass it down. The current ancient history of Persia was excavated in the modern West. According to Western history, the history of ancient Persia goes like this:
Cyrus I was a king of Anshan in Western Asia in the 7th century BC, c. 600–580 BC or c. 652–600 BC, the son of Tespass, the father of Cambyses I, and his grandson Cyrus II, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia.
In 559 BC, Cyrus II (also known as Cyrus the Great, contemporary Iranians revere Cyrus the Great as the "Father of the Iranian Nation") unified the ancient Persian tribes and established the Achaemenid Dynasty (558 BC ~ 330 BC), known as the First Persian Empire. Cyrus the Great defeated the Median kingdom that ruled Persia at that time in 553~550 BC, making the Achaemenid dynasty a powerful monarchy.
In 547 B.C., Cyrus the Great invaded and conquered the kingdom of Lydia in western Asia Minor at that time, which led to the rise of the Achaemenid dynasty, and from 546 BC to 540 B.C., Cyrus the Great invaded and conquered Parthia, Aria, Bactria, Deltaana, Gedrosia, Arachosia, Marchiana, the central river region of Central Asia between the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya River (Sogdiana), Gantora, and Crancemia.
In 539 B.C., Cyrus the Great invaded and conquered Babylon, the capital of the Chaldean Empire in Mesopotamia, ending the ancient Babylonian civilization and making the Achaemenid dynasty the only civilization center in ancient Western Asia at that time.
When Cyrus's son, Cambyses, ascended the throne, he succeeded his father and continued to expand. Later Achaemenid emperors repeatedly launched conquests against the Cypriots in the East, pushing the border across the Amu Darya River to the banks of the Syr Darya River. The easternmost stronghold of the Achaemenids was in the Ferghana Basin in Central Asia, adjacent to Xinjiang, China.
In the time of Cambyses II (529-522 BC), the latter dynasty finally conquered ancient Egypt in 525 BC.
During the reign of Darius I, the Achaemenid empire developed its territory like never before. In 521 BC, Darius marched east to the Indus Plain and was brought under the rule of the Achaemenid dynasty, and to the west he sent troops to the Danube Delta, Thrace, the Macedonian Kingdom, and ancient Greece, but was defeated by the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) (Greco-Persian War 499~449 BC).
His son, Xerxes I, later (480 BCE), again used his army against Greece, but unfortunately it was not completely successful. The Achaemenid dynasty was the largest empire in the world at that time, and the first world empire to span Asia, Europe and Africa.
Achaemenid territory
Later, the Parthian nomads in northeastern Iran established the Asasis Dynasty (247 BC-226 AD), also known as the Anxian Empire and the Parthian Empire.
In 224 AD, the Governor of Fars, Adasir I, formally established the Sassanid Empire (224-651) in 226 AD, known as the Second Persian Empire.
In 651, the Sassanid Empire of Persia was destroyed by the Great Eclipse (the empire of the Arabs).
In Western history, ancient Persia was only a small part of the southeastern corner of Iran called "Persia", and Cyrus II, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, was the descendant of the intermarriage between the "Fars" and the Medes.
The Achaemenid dynasty was known to the West as the First Persian Empire, and if it existed, what should it have been?
The inscription of Burnistown was discovered in Iran in 1835 by the British officer and minister to Iran, Rawlingson. According to Western history, Luo Linsheng's successful interpretation of ancient Persian created the conditions for further interpretation of cuneiform in the future. From this, the ancient Persian civilization, the ancient Babylonian civilization, the ancient Sumerian civilization, the ancient Assyrian civilization, the ancient Hittite civilization, and so on were "discovered".
In the inscription of Behisdon, it begins: "I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia, the king of the provinces, the son of Hestaspis, the son of Arsames, the Achaemenids." ”
And the others: "King Darius said: Therefore we are called Achaemenids, we have been nobles since ancient times, and our own people have been royal since ancient times." ”
The inscription at Behistun shows that the Achaemenid dynasty had a vast area, a large number of regions, and a great diversity of peoples: "King Darius said: The following provinces and regions: Persia, Elam, Babylon, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, the coastal lands, Lydia, Ionia, Media, Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, Dragiana, Arria, Chorrasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Gandhara, Scythia, Sattarjuthia, Arachosia, Maca, twenty-three provinces and districts belong to me, With the blessing of Ahuramazda, I have become king of the provinces. ”
"Fars" was only a small part of the territory of the Achaemenid dynasty, and "Persians" were only a small part of the Achaemenid dynasty. It can be seen that Darius and the Achaemenids called themselves "Achaemenids".
In the ruins of Pasargad in Persepolis, Iran, which is said to be the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, there is a mausoleum, said to be the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great, with the inscription in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian inscriptions: "I am Cyrus, king of the Achaemenids, who built this place." Thus Cyrus the Great also claimed to be an "Achaemenid".
Since the Achaemenid dynasty was a large empire spanning Europe, Asia and Africa, and there were many regions and nationalities within the dynasty, it was obviously inappropriate to call themselves "Persians".
Since Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid dynasty, it is only logical that they called themselves or were called "Achaemenids". Just like the people of the various dynasties in Chinese history, they were called Qin, Han, Tang, and Song.
Herodotus (c. 484 BC-425 BC), known as the "father of history" in the West, lived during the Greco-Persian Wars and wrote the History of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus is said to have embarked on an extensive journey from about the age of 30 to the northern shores of the Black Sea, south to the southernmost tip of Egypt, east to the lower reaches of the Two Rivers, and west to the Italian Peninsula and Sicily. In order to make ends meet, he also traveled long distances to sell goods. This trip is basically equivalent to traveling through the territory of the Achaemenid Empire.
So the question is, since the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who is known as Sima Qian, lived in the era of the Greco-Persian Wars and traveled all over the territory of the Achaemenid Empire, why does the Achaemenid dynasty or the Achaemenids never be mentioned in his book "History of the Greco-Persian Wars"?
In the History of the Greco-Persian Wars, Herodotus refers to the Achaemenid dynasty as "the kingdom of Cyrus", or "the king of Persia", and there is no trace of the Achaemenid dynasty at all. This is completely inconsistent with what is now described in Western history.
If there really was a so-called "Achaemenid dynasty", Cyrus the Great and Darius I would have been the king or emperor of the "Achaemenid dynasty", not the king of "Persia". It's like being called a governor even if he's a president, or a governor when he's a king, it's certainly impossible for such a famous historian.
In addition, in Herodotus's "History of the Greco-Persian Wars", there is never a name for "Achaemenids", and if it is an "Achaemenids", the name "Persian" is used.
If there really was an "Achaemenid dynasty", and Herodotus was a man of the Greco-Persian wars, and he traveled all over the territory of the Achaemenid Empire, would he call the Achaemenid dynasty only "Persians"?
It can be seen that there is a serious contradiction between the record of Herodotus's History of the Greco-Persian Wars and the inscription of Behistun and the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great. Moreover, according to the records of the 24th History of China, "Persia" can only be a name that existed after 220 AD, and it is impossible for the title "Persia" to appear in BC.
To sum up, either the interpretation of the Behistun inscription and the tomb of Cyrus the Great is wrong, or Herodotus's History of the Greco-Persian Wars is a forgery, or both interpretations are wrong. In any case, the history of the so-called "First Persian Empire" needs to be examined and evaluated.
According to the records of the 24th history of China, Persia was resting before, and it is impossible to have a Persian empire before it, strong enough to conquer three continents, dispatch 5 million troops, build 4,000 ships, and nothing after rest, which is a pseudo-history of reverse development fabricated by the West. The Achaemenid dynasty or the First Persian Empire in BC was a fiction, a historical product that had to be constructed in order to fabricate the history of ancient Greek civilization.
Therefore, the History of the Greco-Persian Wars is a pseudo-book, which could only have been produced after the real Persian kingdom, that is, after the 15th century. Herodotus could not have been an ancient Greek figure, and if he existed, he would have been after the 15th century at best.
Identifying Pseudo-Historical Sentence 9: If a book is titled by someone and the things in the book are written after his own time, the book must be a forgery!
Bibliography:
History, The Commercial Press, 2017, by Herodotus, translated by Wang Yizhu
WeChat public account "Western History Identification and Forgery", "Summary of the 2nd "Western History Identification and Chinese Cultural Rejuvenation" Academic Forum", 2021-12-17, Dong Jisheng
WeChat public account "Silk Road Literature and Tourism", Persia≠ Arabia, 2018-07-13, hoping to get lucky
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