History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 27. Cyrus the Great and the Rise of Ancient Economies
Unravel the secrets of ancient warfare and economics as we dissect the military genius of Cyrus the Great and the birth of coinage in Lydia. Witness the eerie silence of the elite Immortals and their psychological tactics that left ancient battlefields in awe. We promise a journey through time as we contrast the strategic foresight of Cyrus with the logistical pitfalls of modern warfare, drawing surprising parallels to the German army's struggles in 1918.
Our exploration doesn't stop at the battlefield. Discover how King Croesus of Lydia became an unexpected advisor to the very king who conquered him. This unique twist in leadership and diplomacy highlights how victory was not just about force but also about forging unexpected alliances. We'll also shine a light on Lydia's revolutionary economic contributions, from the pioneering use of electrum coins to the ingenious separation of gold and silver that set a new standard for ancient monetary systems.
Finally, we'll venture into the political and spiritual landscapes reshaped by Cyrus’s conquests. From the peaceful takeover of Babylon to the elevation of the Persian naval power with the surrender of the Phoenicians, every move had its profound implications. Cambyses' formidable campaigns in Egypt further expanded Persian influence, unraveling tales of intelligence coups and cat-led tactics that defy belief. Join us as we chart the rise of an empire under the strategic brilliance of Darius the Great, leaving you with insights that resonate through the ages.
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Welcome podcast listener. I am Mike D and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credit, from ancient civilizations all the way to the present. I truly hope you find these episodes to be informative and entertaining. Now, I'm not a historian, but I am a fan of history.
Speaker 1:When we last left off, we walked through the earliest histories of the Iranian peoples, including the rise of Cyrus the Great. So now that Cyrus ruled over both the Medes and the Persians, cyrus organized the military. So it would fall into three different categories, which would have been part-time soldiers, full-time professional soldiers and the elite division, which Herodotus called them the immortals. Now, the thing about the immortals is they would have been a very scary foe to deal with because they employed a certain kind of psychological warfare, whereas in most warfare, especially ancient history, when opposing armies were attacking each other, you know, people would yell these war cries and be loud and try to be intimidating. But the immortals were the complete opposite. They stood kind of eerily silent as they marched towards the opposition. That alone could be very discerning Like why are these people so calm? I think that would absolutely scare most armies and it was kind of really the opposite of, say, the Vikings, where the Vikings would have been loud and yelling, and even you know a lot of Germanic tribes as well. So these immortals were clearly taking a different tact and ultimately it had to do with psychological warfare. I mean, the reason why people would scream and yell in warfare is they want to scare people. But when you do just the opposite, when everybody else is screaming and yelling and you're not doing nothing, well that's a whole different ball of wax. I'm pretty sure it was quite effective.
Speaker 1:But in the end it wasn't just the Iranian peoples that were fighting in Cyrus's army. Later on, the Persians would have hired Greek mercenaries and they would have received free food and one gold derrick a month in pay. Persians were great archers and therefore preferred to fight from a distance as to leverage their superior archery skills. To give you an idea of what this could mean, a division of, say, 10,000 archers could easily launch as many as 100,000 arrows in a minute. This is why the descriptions of the Persian battles say that arrows blotted out the sun.
Speaker 1:Of course, a huge army will need a massive amount of supplies and support from the rear. So therefore, among the archers, the foot soldiers, the cavalry, there would have been huge supply lines, including cooks and doctors, along with the scouts and people that would travel well ahead of the marching army to ensure that water would be readily available whenever they reached their campsite. And in addition to all this, people would have to go out in front and find land that would have been suitable for their horses and their mules and their camels to graze. So this was a huge operation that would have taken place that I don't think the average person really takes into consideration. I mean, if you look at any movies or even like History Channel documentaries or whatever, when they show the army marching they just generally just show like a small army marching because obviously they have to deal with budgets and using extras or whatnot, so they can't do this huge army. But one thing they never do show is they never show the people in the rear, they never show the people going up front and doing the scouting. They just show the soldiers. But there's so many more people that are involved in any kind of warfare. This is not just the Persians, we're talking just warfare in general, and I feel like that's often one of the most underlooked things when it comes to having battles and setting up an army.
Speaker 1:In fact, a lot of times you'll hear about certain armies making great progress towards the beginning of whatever kind of battle they're doing. A perfect example would be, say, in 1918, the Germans. Once the soldiers came from the Eastern Front to the Western Front, they would have made great progress in the spring and they would have really, really opened up to more of an open warfare from a trench warfare, and they would have made great distances that hadn't been achieved for four years. The problem with them is that they went ahead so fast that their supply lines couldn't keep up and ultimately, because of it, they could not sustain the progress that they had made. And this right here, I think, is a perfect example, even in modern cases where the supply lines are so important to the overall battle and the tactic that you're going to take, to the overall battle and the tactic that you're going to take and this right here sounds like one of the geniuses behind Cyrus the Great whereas he was able to plan his movements, whereas he could keep the supply line in contact with the soldiers in the front, and that's very crucial, especially in a place when you're fighting that may have issues with irrigation and water, and of course, they had a lot of archers and they had a lot of foot soldiers, but they also had the horses, so getting the places to graze would have been very important as well. So, taken all together, cyrus would have had a very commanding army that would have been very difficult to deal with.
Speaker 1:In fact, the first group of people that he would have had to deal with directly outside of the Iranian plains would have been the people of Anatolia and the people of Lydia in particular, and in my previous episode I talked about Cretaceous. Now, cretaceous was the legendary wealthy king of Lydia who basically became the world's richest person because he was able to mint coins, and in minting the coins he was able to separate the gold and the silver, and his coins were used throughout the Near East in trade, making him extremely wealthy. Now, the issue with that is, I think sometimes, when people have a lot of money, they think they're a little bit smarter and a little bit more of a general than they really are. And this is kind of where maybe Kreish just got a little bit ahead of himself, because ultimately, what he did was he marched his troops into central Anatolia and captured the Median city of Tyria and in the process, began selling his citizens into slavery. Well, that wasn't going to work for Cyrus or the Persian. Well, that wasn't going to work for Cyrus or the Persian, and as a result, it gave Cyrus an excuse to expand his empire even further. So his new empire, which consisted of a mix of Persians and Medes, marched into Cappadocia.
Speaker 1:Now, surprisingly, the Lydians held their own at first, and their first battle was essentially draw. But winter was approaching and that meant campaigning season was basically over. As such, cretaceous expected Cyrus to retreat back home to Persia, so he withdrew his troops from Sardis and sent word to his allies to be ready in the spring, and not immediately. But Cyrus didn't retire for the winter. He surprised Cretaceous by chasing him back to Sardis, but either way, cretaceous had a much bigger army of approximately 420,000 men compared to Cyrus' 196,000 soldiers. When Cyrus caught back up, what he did was a bit of psychological warfare by putting regular camels in the front. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but the fact was the Lydian horses had never seen them and were terrified by their size and their smell. They couldn't be controlled and basically fled the battlefield.
Speaker 1:Cyrus eventually captured Cretaceous, and it sounds like Cyrus was really mad at first and therefore he wanted to execute Cretaceous right on a giant bonfire. But apparently the gods stepped in and a rainstorm doused the bonfire and Cretaceous was saved. After being saved by the gods, he supposedly said to Cyrus you should stop your soldiers from burning and looting Sardis. Well, cyrus is like, why? Well, he says, because you have defeated me, the city belongs to you. Why let your men destroy it? Cyrus agreed and spared his life and because it's Cyrus the Great, he decided to give him a job as an advisor to him.
Speaker 1:And that, right, there is really what separated Cyrus from really a lot of other kings in the ancient world. Most of the time, if a king caught another king, it was over right. They were going to do something chop your head off, make your general carry the king's head back to the city as a warning to everybody. And basically, you know, use a form of psychological warfare to basically let other people know don't try me, because this is going to happen to you. Cyrus did just the opposite and this is what he was known for. He looked at certain kings and generals of foreign armies and thought you know why kill this person? This person could be an ally and can help me in the long run, and so this is one of the things he did is like I said he did this with his grandfather first and now he's doing it with Cretaceous. So I talked about this in my previous episode when I was talking about Anatolia and Lydia in particular, but I'll go back through it again real quick.
Speaker 1:The thing is is, lydia might not be the name people think of when they think of influential ancient societies, but Lydia, despite being relatively small, really had an outside influence on the ancient world and even really modern societies to this day, because Lydia was the first state to circulate coins, which was the Lydian stater. India or even China also developed coins independently of Lydia. However, most historians believe Lydia was to have minted coins first. The Lydians created these coins as a means to authenticate payment, so therefore coinage took trade and essentially increased its efficiency, as traders would no longer need to use scales to weigh out silver or gold or any other kind of metal that they're using as an exchange, as this had been done for thousands of years prior.
Speaker 1:The earliest coins are believed to have dated back to approximately the second half of the 7th century BCE, during the reign of the Illydian king Aliates, who was in power from around 619 to 560 BCE. They weren't very sophisticated at first. The coins is, as they were, just basic round shapes of metal with basic stamps, stamping a coin with the official seal which would have conferred its official value to it, which was undertaken during the reign of King Aliates. Then it was the son, criscius, who really began to set the stator apart from all the other previous tokens that had been used in trade previously. The reason why is because initially, the coins were made of a substance called electrum, which was essentially an alloy of approximately 55% gold and 45% silver, and then there would have been a tiny amount of copper. The copper additives were used to give the coins more durability and, as we discussed in the other episode, precious metals made of silver and gold had long been used as currency in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, and coins came into being as they were universally accepted by traders across the ancient world, whether it's in the Aegean or into Sumer. With standardized weights, coins essentially eliminated the time-consuming and annoying problem of weighing and verifying their content. Like all the ancient coins that came after it, including shekels, for example, the coins represented units of weight rather than specific monetary value, the word stator, which came to mean that which strikes the scales in ancient Greece.
Speaker 1:Now getting back to Cretaceous, so initially I said the coins were electrum. This caused a little bit of a problem because when you were making some sort of trade and you're accepting the electrum coins, well, you didn't really know is this 60 gold? Is this 50 gold? Uh, is what is the actual content? Because it's kind of a mix and because of it, a lot of times the the coins would have been traded at a discount outside of the Lydian empire, because people just kind of assumed that the gold contents may not be 55%, it may be less. So the Electrum coins were great because people wouldn't have to weigh out the coins, they would just know by the stamp it's official weight. But, like I said, there was the added problem of not really knowing what the content was.
Speaker 1:So when Cretaceous came around, his people kind of figured out a way to separate the gold and the silver, and so what happened was the Cretaceous stator was designed so that it would have a standard weight of 10.7 grams, of which people would know specifically how much gold and how much silver was in because it was completely separated and, as a result, the coins from Lydia were essentially universally accepted. Everywhere in the nearest, anywhere that trade happened, people would have accepted the coins, the reason being because it's not like it's a dollar or a pound or a euro, it's gold and silver right. People know exactly how much it's going to be worth because it's universal. So it wouldn't matter if it's a Lydian gold coin that made its way to a far off place, because silver and gold were typically accepted as medium exchanges. So when Cyrus conquered Lydia, he simply adopted the Lydian coinage that was already in place, and at the time it was the famous lion and bull Krosid coinage, which were minted in Sardis and became universally known as the Persic standard. The Persians also minted the Krosid half-staters, which had a weight of 5.35 grams, which would become the weight standard for the later Sigloy, which was introduced at the end of the 6th century BCE. The empire also accepted coins from Greece as legal currency as well.
Speaker 1:All this new coinage would ultimately supply the western part of the Achaemenid empire, but, more importantly, this coinage supercharged the Persian economy through efficiencies that really allowed the macro economy to get more economies of scale and also more coins in the circulation, which would have acted as almost an ancient stimulus program. In the end, this coinage was used to pay tribute, but tribute could still be paid in kind with whatever the local region produced, such as other kinds of metals, timber, cloth, horses and camels, and even food items like dried fish or dried fruit and grains. The tribute's amount depended on the satrap's wealth, whether they were Persian or kinsmen to the Persians, and whether they surrendered quickly or forced Persia into some long expansive war. So, in other words, when Cyrus and the Persians showed up to your doorstep and you were not related to the Iranian peoples, the amount of tribute that you're going to pay would have ultimately depended on your first actions. So if he shows up and you say you know what I heard, that you're a great military, I don't think I can defeat you. Let me just give it up to you right now, and most likely you'll allow me to be the governor anyway. Well, cyrus would take that into consideration and most likely the amount that he would require to pay you in tribute would be a lot less. But if you wanted to put up a fight, cyrus would be mad about it and he would take it out in the back end and you would ultimately have to pay more.
Speaker 1:From a military strategic point, lydia was now a buffer zone for the Ionian Greek city-states on the Aegean Sea. In those early days, nearly half the Greeks lived outside of today's Greece. With that being said, they still stayed intricately connected to the motherland through trade and culture, but they had independent governments through trade and culture, but they had independent governments. Like I said, the Greek city-states were cousins that sometimes got along, sometimes would fight each other, but in the grand scheme of things, each city-state would have had their own local government and they could do as they saw fit. Sometimes, when the foreign armies came in, they would unite, sometimes they wouldn't.
Speaker 1:Cyrus' general Harpagus, who you might remember, was the guy whose son was served to him by Astyages and wanted revenge on him and informed Cyrus to take the Median kingdom. Well, he was sent out and he conquered Ionian Greek city-states. Now, this was a truly shocking thing for the other Greek city-states, as they now understood that they had a potential powerful enemy right at their doorstep. Despite the defeat, not a lot of change, as the Ionians maintained their ability to rule themselves as long as they paid their tribute and sent men to fight in the Persian military. Like I said, this was a common tactic that Cyrus would employ. You give up your sovereignty to me, but you can still kind of rule as a governor. Just pay your tribute, and if I need help in some kind of battle or war, you got to send your guys, and if I need help in some kind of battle or war, you got to send your guys.
Speaker 1:Now, before all this happened in Persia, you know, before the conquest of Lydia and before the conflict with the Medes, the Babylonian King Nabonidus had encouraged Cyrus the Great to essentially go to war with the Medes in order to keep them off of his back. So while Persia was taking control of Iran, nabonidus was either having some kind of weird religious experience or maybe even a mental breakdown, or possibly both, because he sent himself into essentially self-exile into Arabia, where he started worshipping the wrong gods, according to Babylonians, as he was dedicating himself to Sin, the moon god, instead of Marduk. After about 10 years away, nebuchadnezzar finally returns to Babylon, where he began to officially replace Marduk with Sin. I emphasize May, because there appears to be some kind of conflicting information on this subject. Also, people were wondering why. Now Some believe he got worried about Cyrus' expansion to the east, and then things got worse for the Babylonians as famine gripped the region. Nabonidus saw this famine and he basically blamed the Babylonians, as it was sin's wrath, because the Babylonians were resisting his changes. While all this was happening, the newly formed Persian empire under the control of Cyrus was strengthening and Nabonidus clearly took notice and prepared for a Persian attack. However, despite all his preparations, babylonia fell relatively quickly, like in a few weeks quickly. And this fall really had started with the city of Opus, which was a major city that generated a lot of wealth for the Babylonians through their trade. In fact, babylonians dug the royal canal between the Euphrates and the Tigris, which ended near Opus.
Speaker 1:Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled from 605 to 562 BCE. Well, he built a long wall between the two rivers to protect it against a potential Median invasion, which he sort of got right. But it was more the Persians and less the Medes that eventually prepared to attack the city, prepared to attack the city. Opus apparently saw the writing on the wall or just hated Nebunidus so much that they gave up the city without much of a fight. And of course, this was perfect for Cyrus because he was able to amass quite a bit of a treasure which was essentially plunder without having to sacrifice his soldiers. And also, too, he didn't have to burn a city down either. So the city would be fully operational, which would have been great for trade, and therefore he was able to allow the city to resume its trading operations and therefore he was able to get more tribute relatively quickly. Now, if he burns the city to the ground, the city might not be able to provide him with tribute because they're too busy using their resources to rebuild the city Soon after Opus went. Then he went to Sippar, which was another important trading center, which was known for its wool production. Well, that city gave it up to Cyrus without a fight, and King Nabonidus must have saw the writing on the wall and he just fled.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, in Babylon, the drunken citizens were celebrating their festival to Sin the moon god, word had not reached them that Cyrus had taken Opus and Nebunidus' son Belshazzar, who was probably the real king of Babylonia at the time, while he was celebrating a grand feast with thousands of his nobles. The drunken shouts of departing Babylonians probably obscured the noise of the Persians breaking down the Enlil gates. Most citizens had no idea their city was under attack. The Babylonians were just too drunk to defend themselves. On top of this, they were immensely outnumbered anyway. The Persian forces cut down Balthazar and all of the Babylonian nobles who he was parting with.
Speaker 1:The Persians eventually captured Nabonidus, but Cyrus did the Cyrus thing and didn't kill him, but instead sent him off to govern Iran's province of Carminia. In his stead, darius the Mede, who was probably Syaxares II, ruled briefly as the king of Babylonia. The next thing Cyrus did was he freed all the captives in Babylonia, including the Medes, the Syrians and, most famously, the Jews, which had been relocated by the previous Babylonians and Assyrian rulers, whom Cyrus had sent them back to their homelands, and as such, cyrus would ultimately be anointed as the only non-Jewish messiah. Cyrus then conquered the nomads of today's Uzbekistan and then went to conquer the Phoenician city-states, who were preeminent shipbuilders, who had created probably the world's ancient biggest trade network through the Mediterranean. It's quite possible that they heard how the other kingdoms were treated and they surrendered while the fight Plus. The Phoenicians were traders and sailors. They just weren't soldiers.
Speaker 1:So while the accumulated Persian Empire was expanding in all different directions, they were also building a standardized weights and measures that would have been used as payment throughout the empire and at the time, the metals that were used were known as the shekel and the mina, which were both units of weight and volume. The talent was a measure of weight that was used for large amounts of coinage. To give you an idea of what we're talking about here, one shekel, which would have equaled the water weight of 8.3 milliliters. One profane mina, which would have equaled 50 shekels, which would have equaled the water weight of 500 milliliters. One sacred mina, which would have equaled 60 shekels, which would have equaled the water weight of 600 milliliters. And one talent which would have equaled the water weight of 600 milliliters. And one talent which would have equaled 60 profane mina, which would have equaled the water weight of 25 liters. So ultimately, one talent would equal 3,000 shekels.
Speaker 1:But in reality, what does that mean to you and I? I mean it doesn't really mean much. Those are just numbers as far as I'm concerned. To you and I, I mean it doesn't really mean much. Those are just numbers as far as I'm concerned. What would a shekel entail? What kind of buying power did the shekel have? That's really kind of what I want to know and really what happens is, during this time period of the Cuban and Persian Empire.
Speaker 1:There's kind of a range that's used as far as unskilled labor. That shows like kind of payments, but for the most part typically it would have been two shekels a month would have been the payment for unskilled labor and it could have been as high as seven to 10 shekels per month in some time periods. So you know, inflation would have kind of affected and also kind of demand at certain times would have also affected the prices of unskilled labor. A survival wage for an urban household during the Persian period would require at least 22 shekels of income per year. So I think that kind of gives a decent baseline of what we're talking about as far as payments go. So with regards to definitions, because they had given up really early and didn't have to force Cyrus's hand, what they did is they set up a tribute payment system that was relatively light speaking, was relatively light speaking, and when I say light, what they had to do is they only had to pay a tribute of 350 talents a year, which would have been much less than what the Egyptians would have been forced to pay because, like I said, they didn't fight. But more than money, the Phoenicians could transform the Persians from a land power to a naval power, which the Achaemenid Persian Empire really needed in their naval wars against Egypt and Greece.
Speaker 1:By this time, the Achaemenid Persian Empire had stretched from the Mediterranean to modern-day Afghanistan, but they were having problems with some Scythians who were distant relatives of the Medes and the Persians. The issue with the Scythians was that they were nomadic groups who really didn't do well with authority. One group of Scythians in particular were the Masajidai. Now, these were a different breed of people. In fact, I would say probably one of the more unique peoples you'll ever read about, because one thing they believed was when you get old, you should be ritually euthanized and sacrificed to the gods, as this was considered an honorable death, as it would give favor to the gods. So while the Aztecs were sacrificing young virgins, thousands of years later the Magi would kill off grandpa, since this would be much better for the tribe, as they were already old and would most likely hinder their nomadic lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Their queen, who was known as Tamiris, had ruled over the Magitai after her husband had died. Cyrus figured hey, she's single, I need more territory. I prefer to acquire land without a fight, so why not make it a union through marriage. Tameus wasn't feeling it at all and she rejected that notion right away. So Cyrus was like okay, then this means war. So he amassed a large army on the river. From there, the queen had sent her message to inform him King of the Medes, how can this be of any true advantage to you? Be content to rule your own kingdom in peace and let me govern my country. If not, then back off from the riverbank by three days' march, and my soldiers will meet you there.
Speaker 1:So Cyrus and his generals got together and kind of hashed out a plan like what should we do? Should we abide by what the queen says? Should we attack? Like what's the best course of action here? So what they end up doing is they voted in favor of meeting the queen.
Speaker 1:However, ciscus, who was the former king of Lydia, who was spared by Cyrus and was a trusted advisor, strongly disagreed. He said my king, I can't agree. If we lose this battle, the Masajidai will push into your empire. If you win, we still have to cross the river before following through on your victory, and by backing off three days march, you're yielding to a woman. I suggest we cross the river, then prepare a great banquet with roast and lamb and lots of wine. These Masajitai aren't used to drinking wine. We'll abandon our camp, except for our weakest troops, allowing the Masajidai to capture it, eat the food and drink the wine. When they're drunk we'll attack. Cyrus thought about it and thought, hey, this is a great idea. So he agreed with Cretaceous and everything really went according to plan.
Speaker 1:The Persians slaughtered the drunken Masajidai and captured the queen's son. The angry queen messaged Cyrus, you bloodthirsty Cyrus, your poison grape juice ensnared my child. It wasn't a fair fight. Give me back my son and leave my land. Otherwise, give me back my son and leave my land, otherwise you'll die in a bloodbath.
Speaker 1:Now, on a side note, I should mention the fact that getting drunk was kind of an essential part of Persian decision-making, so, essentially, whenever a crucial decision was needed, they would discuss the question when they're drunk, which, from a modern perspective, seemed like a really, really bad policy and procedure. However, this would have had a double-edged sword type of thing, because, on one hand, making decisions while you're drunk may make you more brave and unpredictable from an opponent standpoint, but, on the other hand, the obvious thing being making decisions while you're drunk might result in really poor decision making and think about how many things you've done or said when you were drunk, and how many people probably had life-altering decisions made of which they regret to this day because they got drunk. So I wonder how many times they made a drunken decision and completely regretted it shortly thereafter, but before they can even really come to grips with their decision. Things really took a weird turn for the worse because the queen's son committed suicide. The queen, who was now highly upset and, you could say, bloodthirsty, had led her furious troops against the Persians. So in 530 BCE, cyrus's army was demolished and Cyrus had died in battle at around the age of 70. Timaeus took Cyrus' head and put it in a bag of blood, saying I promised you would die in a blood. It was an unfortunate end to probably one of the few people that deserved the name the Greats. As such, cyrus left behind a massive empire, but more importantly, it was well run, with a strong administration in place and was very stable, with each province ruled by satraps or governors who were treated fairly under Persian rule. In fact, babylon experienced a resurgence of mathematics and scientific advancement after the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians. Therefore, unlike other ancient societies, their vassals didn't feel like they needed to revolt once they had an opportunity.
Speaker 1:Typically when a strong ruler conquers lots of lands and foreign places and basically has different cultures under one roof in this kingdom basically has different cultures under one roof in this kingdom Well, typically in the past when this ruler died, everything would fall apart pretty quickly. But in this particular case, because he had such a good government in place, his legacy didn't end, but instead it continued and even strengthened under his heir and son, cambyses, and then his distant relative, darius I, or known as Darius the Great. Cambyses would expand the empire even further when he was able to conquer Egypt, and this was enabled in part because the ruler of Samos, which was a Greek colony in the Aegean Sea off Turkey's western coast, well, he had basically switched sides in the middle of the battle. So what happened was he became a Persian ally and he brought with him his powerful navy. Then things got worse for Egypt because Egypt relied on mercenaries quite a bit. The problem was mercenaries really aren't loyal to any regime in particular and, as such, a lot of mercenary armies are all about risk mitigation. So they would kind of really view things from a 30,000 foot view and really see which way the winds are blowing. So, in other words, they would tend to switch sides with the best expectations of winning, and they did this, in fact, with the Persians and they did this in fact with the Persians. So the issue is, the mercenary army is now aligned with Persia and because they were allied with Egypt for the longest time, they kind of understood where Egypt's strengths and weaknesses were, and now the Persians had that valuable information. In other words, this was a huge intelligence coup.
Speaker 1:And then things just got worse for Egypt. The Mycenaean Greeks and the Phoenicians of Cyprus switched their allegiance from Egypt to Persia. Egypt was in a bad position and Cambyses knew this and tried to negotiate based on the known strengths that they had. So what he did was like so many other kings would do. They tried to form an alliance through marriage.
Speaker 1:Cambyses clearly had the upper hand, but didn't really want to go to war, because he figured it's best to avoid this costly war by marrying the Egyptian pharaoh's daughter. The issue was, the Egyptian pharaoh couldn't bear to see his daughter leave and marry the Persian king. So he came up with a great idea. He thought his best course of action was to pull fast when it comes to Is seas by sending the daughter of a previous pharaoh that had been usurped. Now, personally, I'm trying to understand how this Egyptian pharaoh would even think that this could work, because obviously the daughter of the previous pharaoh who had just taken her father's throne. So, as you can imagine, she's not going to be too happy with this new pharaoh and would probably absolutely love to plot against this downfall. So apparently, as soon as she got to Persia, she was like hey, I got to tell you something. I am not who you think I am. And, as you could imagine, cambyses wasn't all too happy by this deception and he used it as a legitimate reason to attack Egypt. And now that he had gotten this great Phoenician fleet and these Ionian Greeks on his side, he would have a great navy to sail down the Nile to get his revenge. In addition, cambyses had signed a treaty with the Arabs who had controlled the Sinai Peninsula, so they didn't like the Egyptians either. So they allowed him to march through without any hindrance and were even provided with water. Now, before Cambyses had actually reached Egypt, the pharaoh who pulled the fast one had died and his son, samteak III, became the pharaoh. Third became the pharaoh. However, semteak's admiral must either not have liked him or probably figured that they didn't have much of a chance, but either way, the admiral had defected and provided Cambyses with even more vessels and naval expertise.
Speaker 1:In 525 BCE, the Persian navy sailed into the Nile Delta. The Egyptians were actually able to hold off the Persians and their international force for some time, but the Persians had a trick up their sleeves. They had known that the Egyptians had this fondness for their cats and almost viewed cats as certain deities. And to give you an idea how strongly Egyptians felt about their cats, they would often go into deep mourning if a cat whom they considered a part of the family had recently died. But they would also take it much further than just mourning, as sometimes they would even shave their eyebrows to show that they were mourning, and they would often mummify their cat and bury it with valuables. So, needless to say, egyptians would often take great offense to anyone who harmed or killed a cat, which could result in the death penalty. So obviously the Persians knew this.
Speaker 1:So what they did was, as part of their plan, they had the soldiers paint a cat god Bastet on their shields. Now, bastet was often depicted as a human with a cat head. In addition to the shields, they also released cats, along with dogs and rams in the front lines, because these animals were also part half human and half animal deity. So, with these animals running around the front lines, the Egyptians could not shoot any arrows or catapults because they were afraid they might harm these animals. So they basically had no choice but to flee in fear, and one thing about fleeing is it often turns into a rout, and that's exactly what happened, as something like 50,000 Egyptians versus 7,000 Persians died on the battlefield. It is believed that Herodotus had visited this battle site a century or so later and had observed skulls and bones that were still on the battlefield later, and had observed skulls and bones that were still on the battlefield. With the defeat of the Egyptians, cambyses had crowned himself pharaoh. Libya soon followed with a treaty with the Achaemenid Empire as well, so the Persians had basically control of northeastern Africa.
Speaker 1:Now, unfortunately, cambyses wasn't long for this world. According to Herodotus, cambyses had epilepsy, so he possibly injured himself during a seizure, and this injury within three weeks would cause him to die of potentially septic shock. In 522 BCE, his lone lance bearer, darius, was with him at the time, so it was just Darius around. And now, if that doesn't seem suspicious and there were whispers that Darius had actually killed Cambyses, since Cambyses had no children and thus no direct heir to the throne. But he did have a younger brother who went by the name of Bardia. But wouldn't you know it? Bardia just happened to die as well.
Speaker 1:But Darius played his cards right, because he claimed that Cambyses had actually killed his younger brother because he was afraid he would try and usurp the throne when he was away in Egypt. But that didn't stop a person claiming to be Cambyses' brother from taking the throne in Persia. Something like that would happen in Russia, where the false Dmitry would try to take the throne in Russia in a similar kind of fashion. But you can't have false Bardiyas on the throne and not expect Darius to leave Egypt, come back to Persia and take care of business. But this is where it gets a little haywire, because Darius came back and killed the false Bardia. But the crazy part was that this may have actually been the real Bardia and he really did usurp the throne. And Darius made up the whole story about the false Bardia so that he could usurp the throne.
Speaker 1:Now, just a second ago I'd mentioned that Cambyses didn't have any heirs to the throne, so Darius' claim was that he was a distant relative of Cyrus the Great and the direct descendant of Achaemenes, who the Achaemenid Persian Empire is named after. I think I'm going to leave it off here right now. In the story Next up we're going to really get into Darius the Great and how he basically turbocharged the Persian Empire forward and really from this point on it'll be known as the Achaemenid Persian Empire. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help out the show a ton by leaving a five-star review and telling some people you know about it. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.
