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How Did The Persian Kings Control And Govern The Various Parts Of Their Realm?

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Griffin Bassman
Professor Frame
Ancient Near East History
12/5/14
How did the Persian kings control/govern the various parts of their realm? Consider at least three different geographical areas

The origins of Cyrus the Great are rather unclear and highly disputed. Multiple accounts range from him being the grandson of the Median King Astyages to being the son of a poor Persian family of a disreputable clan. Although there can be no certainty, as with most everything from the ancient world, it is widely believed that, by heredity, he became the sub-king of a Persian land called Persis, under the rule of the Median king Astyages. (Cook 1983, 25-26) He quickly expanded his power by unifying all of the Persian lands under …show more content…

After conquering Media, Babylonia, and Egypt, for instance, Cyrus The Great and Cambyses II would make a personal union with the peoples of these countries. They would crown themselves according to the local customs, and created normal conditions for the development of the economy and transit trade. They retained, with moderate altercations, the local political structures in these countries, and offered the peoples a large degree of local self-government. These first two kings proved to have not created a very well structured empire, however, which led to the multiple uprisings from 523-521 BCE. (Gershevitch 1985, 502 – 504) From there, Darius I, the King who proceeded Cambyses II, found a more stable balance by putting in place a more organized administrative system that would not undergo any fundamental changes up until the demise of the Achaemenid Empire.
The system that Darius I put in place split the empire up into roughly twenty “satrapies” that would be governed by “satraps.” The satraps were responsible for collecting the annual tribute set by the king, drafting people to the army, and maintaining justice and security within their satrapy. The satraps would also have an armed force at their disposal to keep everybody within their satrapy in line. (Gershevitch 1985, 267) Inspectors would also periodically visit each satrapy to

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