biography
| name: |
Darius I
|
| |
known as the Great
|
pronunciation:
[dariyus, dahrius]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (548–486 BC)
|
| biography:
| King of Persia (521–486 BC), one of the greatest of the Achaemenids. He is noteworthy for his administrative reforms, military conquests, and religious toleration. His division of the empire into provinces called satrapies outlasted the Achaemenids. His conquests, especially in the East and Europe (Thrace and Macedonia) consolidated the frontiers of the empire. Patriotic Greek writers made much of the failure of his two punitive expeditions against Athens, the first miscarrying through the wreck of his fleet off Mt Athos (492 BC), the second coming to grief at Marathon (490 BC); but in Persian eyes they were probably not very important. Although a worshipper himself of Ahura Mazda, turning Zoroastrianism into a state religion, he showed an unusual respect for the religions of his subjects. |
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