ASSYRIA AND PERSIA Chapter 3.3

ASSYRIAN EMPIRE (700 BCE – 612 BCE)

• Exploited the use of iron weapons to create and expand their empire

• Assyrian kings held absolute poweroOrganized communication helped govern empire

ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

• Assyrians effective at conquering others✓100,000+ troops

✓Cavalry

✓Horse-drawn chariots

✓Advanced military tactics

✓Terror and destruction

• Not so effective at governing territory; collapsed in less than 100 years

KING ASHURBANIPAL

Terror

•When leaders of the city Suru rebelled against Assyria and were then reconquered, King Ashurbanipal of Syria wrote:

o“I built a pillar at the city gate and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins; some I walled up inside the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes.”

• Dissidents killed or sold into slavery; populations deported and replaced with Assyrians

PERSIAN EMPIRE

• Indo-Europeans who lived in modern-day Iran

oUnited under one ruler: Cyrus “the Great”

oCyrus creates a powerful Persian state (559 BCE)

Cyrus “the Great”

• Freed the Jews and allowed them to return to Israel

• Inclusive government and society

oAllowed native peoples as government officials

• Accepted by all under his rule

PERSIAN EMPIRE

• Successors sought to expand empire

•Persian Empire reached peak under King Darius I, or Darius the Great

• Darius divides empire into 20 satrapies (provinces)

oSatraps (governors) appointed to rule each satrapy

• All subjects seen as servants to king

FALL OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

• Successors to Darius become lazy, corrupt; increase taxes

oLoyalty to empire declines

• Persian kings were polygamous

oPlots to gain throne increase

oArtaxerxes II had 115 sons

• Weakened empire conquered by Alexander the Great

ZOROASTRIANISM

• Many Persians followed Zoroastrianism

oFounded by Zoroaster, a prophet

oMonotheistic

• Good vs evil

• Mankind given choice between good and evil

oThose that choose good achieve paradise

oThose that choose evil have souls thrown into abyss; eternity