Darius I

Biography

Darius I was perhaps the greatest administrator in Persian history — the man who reorganised a vast empire into 20 satrapies, standardised weights and measures, built the Royal Road from Sardis to Susa, and constructed the magnificent ceremonial capital at Persepolis. He expanded Persian power to the Indus Valley in the east and into Thrace in the west, and when the Ionian Revolt of 499 BC erupted with Athenian support, he took it personally. His first expedition against Athens under Mardonius (492 BC) ended when storms wrecked the fleet off Mount Athos. His second, under Datis and Artaphernes (490 BC), landed at Marathon. When news of the defeat arrived, Darius allegedly had a servant repeat three times at every dinner: 'Master, remember the Athenians.' He began preparing a third, larger expedition but died in 486 BC before it could be launched, leaving the task to his son Xerxes. Darius never visited Greece, never saw Marathon, and never faced the Greeks in battle. Yet his obsession with punishing Athens for its support of the Ionian Revolt set in motion a fifty-year conflict that would ultimately diminish Persian power in the Aegean and contribute to the cultural explosion of Periclean Athens.

Key Battles