Cyrus the Great

>>3076257
A true Aryan

A true Messiah by definition.

>>3076263
>>3076396
Explain? Also what about his political and military achievements?

>>3077398
He created the Persian empire, and restored Israel to the Jews and helped rebuild the temple of Jerusalem (requirements of a Messia). He also had a bill of rights and shit, he was a very tolerant ruler.

Shame his son's weren't

>>3076257
Almost certainly hyped due to his biblical rule.

I wonder whether it's even possible to find not entirely biased accounts of the man.

>>3077439
How the hell is Cyrus hyped? If anything, he isn't given enough credit in the Western world.

>>3077439
Herodotus describes him a fair bit, I think, and he's very positive, more than you'd expect for a greek writing about the Greco-Persian wars. He certainly wasn't influenced by biblical opinions.

>>3077439

>hyped

Literally how? Barely anyone in the west has heard of him.

When you're respected by the people you've conquered, you're legit.

>>3077435
He only had one son though. The direct line of Achaemenids that started with the Medes ended with Cambyses II. Darius the Great's line then took over, which was originally a cadet branch.

>>3077502
Thomas Jefferson was a huge Cyrusboo, and I think most people who know of Cyrus know him through Alexander's obsession with equaling his conquests thanks to Herodotus and Xenophon's hugely positive accounts of him.

>>3077476
Also this.

>>3077722
>Xenophon's hugely positive accounts of him

I think those were about a different Cyrus.

>>3077722
You're right, sorry I fucked up the family tree on my head. Cyrus II throws me off.

>>3077798
I'm pretty sure Cyrus the Younger was constantly compared by Xeno with Cyrus II.

>>3076257
I honestly think he's one of the very few men in history who honestly deserve the epithet of "the Great". Founded the first truly global empire that would end up spanning three continents, an administration and system of governance that was largely enforced via peaceful allowance of letting its subjects in conquered lands it annexed speak their language, keep their faith, and not force its subjects to anything other than nominal taxes. Add to the fact Cyrus was at least in the range of his time period, an enlightened ruler whose policies were pretty damn close to being humanitarian like are all in all fairly amazing.

>>3076257
Dude was Alexander before Alexander. If later generals sought to emulate Alexander, they were unknowingly trying to emulate Cyrus. Dude came from fucking nowhere, toppled everything he ran into, established (or provided the foundation for) the greatest empire that existed in that era of history and one that only Rome could ever truly claim to have matched, and then died like a punk when he ran up against a force he didn't really understand. No great kingly death, just cut down after some fuck ups going against that biker gang/hippie tribe of scythians with that ultra-bitch Tomyris with the dipshit son.
Alexander was a rich kid expanding dad's company, but Cyrus went from street to sky with nothing but brass balls.

How come Cyrus' army was so efficient? What did they do diff from the rest?

>>3078828
The story about Cyrus being killed by Scythians is likely one of the things Herodotus even outright admits is unlikely true in his own writings. We don't know what happened, but I really doubt it was him with his army getting blown out by some ass-mad Scythian Queen. Xenophon even claims Cyrus passed away peacefully in his chambers at Pasargade.

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>>3076257
>>3076396/this
>>3077435/this
The Jewish Messiah predicted in the Old Testament
Pretty simple really
>pic unrelated

>>3076257
He made a mistake sparing the Jews, and should have formed an alliance with Babylonians to eradicate them. If he knew Abrahamic faiths like Islam and Christianity would grow from Judaism, then he would have purged it. Both Muslims and Christians persecuted Zoroastrians and did their best to eradicate that tradition. I believe Europe would have become Roman Mithraists rather than Christians then, and Iran would have remained Zoroastrian. The holy lands of the vast majority of modern population would be around Ural river, or what is called "The Land of Tur" in Shahnameh.

The only reason Westerners care about him is due to Persian diaspora WE WUZZERS who are too dense to read books and learn about other aspects of their culture, such as Sassanids who were more important. Jews were insignificant nomads back then, but Cyrus' feigned kindness, in order to increase stability of growing empire, was ultimately bad.

>>3078828
>Dude
I stopped reading there.

>>3079530
This is a super bait post of the highest order.

>Cyrus BTFO out of the Median, Neo-Babylonian, and Lydian Empires
>barely anyone remembers this
>Lydians who also used a fuck ton of heavy armored cavalry, infantry (which included Hoplites since they were basically either a Greek colony originally or super Greekboo)
Could Cyrus have conquered Greece? Or at least defeated their armies unlike his successors?

Since we're on the Persians: What happened to Persia after Xerxes defeat? Did it lead to his downfall as some sources suggest or was this just a minor setback that was used for propaganda purposes?

>>3081174
It was literally a minor footnote in the Persian's eyes then and now. Persians stilled controlled half of the known world, their economy remained strong, and their empire endured for another two and half centuries. Later wars would involve the Greeks and Persians constantly switching sides between each other.

Athen's quasi-empire with its fellow city-states in the hegemony it founded would lead to several further wars with Persia over territories in Anatolia and North Africa but then the Sparta formed a counter-alliance to this and the Persians just kept playing divide and weaken with their money and material support to keep each side tied down with the other.

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>>3081188
Thanks dude

3079637
(You)

>>3076257
>persian cucks
>Great

l fucking mao

>>3081804
T. Croesus

>>3078828
>but Cyrus went from street to sky with nothing but brass balls.
What.
He started with very similar conditions to Alexander.

>>3081188
>and their empire endured for another two and half centuries.
You mean one and a half centuries. 480 - 330 is literally 150 years.

>>3077439
Literally every classic writer (most BC) has good things to say about him, and classic writers absolutely hate the guts of the persians. Of course classic writers are unreliable, but when even your enemies say mostly good things about you it truly means something.

>>3077798
Anabasis Cyrus is another Cyrus, Cyropaedia's Cyrus is Cyrus the Great. This should be obvious to everyone who reads them.

>>3082590
Not really.

>>3078828
Alexander was just trying to cosplay as Cyrus. Guy was a total fangirl. (not that he can be blamed)

>>3081148
Was he who conquered Ionia or Darius? Because asiatic and european greeks were basically the same.

Anyways, a problem that Cyrus would've suffered from just like Darius and Xerxes did is that, once you're forced to cross the sea, you no longer rely on persians to win the war but on phoenicians. Achaemenid rulers could almost always count on their persian/iranic troops (even in Marathon they only were bested after being completely surrounded). Not so much on the allies. Phoenicians specifically proved loyal but unable to best the greeks in the aegean.

>>3082423
Croesus was a bro though. How many monarchs went from absolute dipshit to humbly wise? GOAT character progression.

>>3082666
>be a villain of the week character that gets btfo by the MC husbando
>goat anything

>>3082670
He's basically Vegeta but without being a tsundere dick about it. That's cool.

>>3082661
Were Ionians and Aeolians even known for any military prowess? Hell the most powerful """Ionian""" state was Athens and it's a sea away.

>>3082703
Were any greeks even known for their military prowess? Even when the spartans came to Sardis to present their respects the persian ruler said something like "who the fuck are the spartans?"

Being known for military prowess in your small ass region or outside it but only in retrospective is like not being known at all.

>>3082642
Elaborate?

>>3082710
Well they really had no need for it. Being better than your neighbor was good enough for most of their history. The Achaemenids were the wake up call the Greeks needed, but then again any attempt one of the poleis made at unifying the region was quashed by jealous neighbors.

>>3082727
Okay, if you simplify it enough I'm sure you can make me concede that to some degree they started in similar conditions. Basically if you summarize it as "they started with a small portion of land and they conquered a vast empire".

The thing is that if you start looking for detail the differences are important. Alexander had Philip II, Cyrus didn't have anyone comparable. Alexander was preying on a massive but decadent empire, Cyrus was fighting three relatively fresh empires that were smaller than Alexander's foe but bigger than Cyrus' kingdom (either in population, size or both). Alexander had Greece, a nation that had proved a long time ago that it was the top dog in military quality (if not in absolute might) while Cyrus started a bunch hillmen. Alexander came from a Mediterranean region, the center of western eurasia, while Cyrus came from a peripheral and relatively anonymous province. Although mesopotamia and elam were close, significant cultural, historical and geographical barriers separated it from the Iranian plateau.

Granted, not all differences give Cyrus more merit. Cyrus came from a region where kingly authority was well entrenched, Alexander did not so much (it was in Macedonia but not in Greece).

Cyrus is more similar to Genghis Khan, really, in that they both started from bunchfucking nowhere and conquered several empires. And not even so much.

>>3082752
Yeah, well, my point was that if Cyrus defeated asiatic greeks he maybe could've defeat the european ones... in battle. In an actual war it would be harder, because of logistics and the need to rely on a force that is not your traditional force.

>>3082781
Cyrus defeated the Lydian Empire. The Lydian Empire had already managed to militarily and politically annex the Ionian Greeks completely and employed Hoplitse and heavy armored Greek soldiers in their armies.

So yes, Cyrus has experience and knowledge at least partly on Greek warfare and military units. Bare in mind though, there is a big difference between how the Achaemenid military ran under Cyrus and Cambyses vs Darius and especially Xerxes' armies.

>>3082775
>Cyrus is more similar to Genghis
Well there's another parallel between the two in that Cyrus and Genghis both started their path to power with help from their fathers who would also pass away before each man would reach their peak/prime. Cyrus ended up in charge of the Persian Revolt shortly after it started at the age of 15-16 leading his people against his grandfather who was the ruler of the Mede Empire.

>>3082775
>Cyrus is more similar to Genghis Khan
I think he has more in common with Caesar or Alexander then Genghis. After all he didn't go around slaughtering or butchering innocents to make political statements for the world to fear his military and empire.

>>3076257
desu Achaemenid Persia is an underrated civilization overall

they get a bad rap due to their wars with Greece, the forerunner of Western Civilization