History abounds in vivid characters and different persons: some honourable and honest, some much less so. When faced with a choice of a single one in that plethora of candidates, it is truly a difficult quest to find one who is interesting and fascinating. However, I had to make a selection. From my earliest age, I was attracted to life stories of prudent and influential men, so my choice fell on one of the greatest men in history, a Persian king Cyrus the Great.
It would do wrong to Cyrus to call him only a king, for he was a king of kings, in other words, an emperor. The empire he forged stretched from Asia Minor to far east provinces that are modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. In times of successors, the Empire expanded and included Egypt, Thrace, and parts of Macedonia and the Levant. At its peak, 40% of the world’s population lived in the Persian Empire, making it the most populous empire the world has ever seen in relative terms. Yet, it was a single man that created this vast imperium. Cyrus’s birth and early years are explained in details by the Greek historian Herodotus, who in his lengthy volume The Histories explains the history of the Persian Empire from its birth to its defeat in Greco-Persian wars. His birth and early years are shown as mythical. A mad king dreamed that his daughter urinated over the whole world; he saw that as a sign that her baby will rule the world and kick him from the throne. For that reason, he ordered his daughter’s baby to be killed. Thankfully, king’s wise advisor did not kill the baby, but gave it to a peasant family. When Cyrus was of age, he learned his destiny and rebelled against the mad king.
It would do wrong to Cyrus to call him only a king, for he was a king of kings, in other words, an emperor. The empire he forged stretched from Asia Minor to far east provinces that are modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. In times of successors, the Empire expanded and included Egypt, Thrace, and parts of Macedonia and the Levant. At its peak, 40% of the world’s population lived in the Persian Empire, making it the most populous empire the world has ever seen in relative terms. Yet, it was a single man that created this vast imperium. Cyrus’s birth and early years are explained in details by the Greek historian Herodotus, who in his lengthy volume The Histories explains the history of the Persian Empire from its birth to its defeat in Greco-Persian wars. His birth and early years are shown as mythical. A mad king dreamed that his daughter urinated over the whole world; he saw that as a sign that her baby will rule the world and kick him from the throne. For that reason, he ordered his daughter’s baby to be killed. Thankfully, king’s wise advisor did not kill the baby, but gave it to a peasant family. When Cyrus was of age, he learned his destiny and rebelled against the mad king.
The rest of Cyrus’s reign is history; he conquered most of the known world and even made a document that is considered the world’s first declaration of human rights. I think we should all look upon Cyrus the Great as a wise and honourable man.
Robert Injac, 4.5