Ancient World Review

Blood On The Deltoids: Conan The Barbarian

In the interests of improving my mind, I just watched Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer again, plus I've been reading the original Robert E. Howard stories, the later books by Robert Jordan, and the Dark Horse collections of the Savage Sword of Conan comics. This is all great stuff, even the second movie, which is generally panned as campy and too light for serious barbarian action. The Destroyer has its dopey moments, true--quite a few of them, in fact--but I've always been a sucker for stories about evil queens who try to bring ancient gods back to life so they can take over the world. Something always goes wrong, naturally, and they end up releasing monsters which turn on them and run amok. This same general plot was also used by Robert Jordan in his excellent novel "Conan the Triumphant," by the way. It never gets old.

If you really want to get into the Conan saga, however, you need to read the original Howard stories, now available in three volumes from Del Rey: "The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian", "The Bloody Crown of Conan" and "The Conquering Sword of Conan" (the best of the three, in my opinion.) And, if you can find it at an affordable price, I highly recommend the 928-page Gollancz hardback collection The Complete Chronicles of Conan. This is the only one-volume "collected" Conan I'm aware of that actually includes all of the stories and other Conan-related material that Howard wrote. It's the Bible for hardcore Conan fanatics.

Note: Excellent audiobook versions of the Del Rey Conan books can be found at Audible along with many of Howard's other works. There are several Conan collections for Kindle as well, some of them better than others. The Kindle versions are kind of hit and miss. Some of them have formatting problems and others, advertised as being complete, aren't actually complete. The three volumes of the Del Rey collection are apparently available on Kindle now, but they're kind of expensive.

The original Howard stories are all fantastic and some of them, like "Red Nails," "Beyond The Black River," "The Black Stranger," "Queen of the Black Coast," and "The Hour of the Dragon" (Howard's only novel) are masterpieces of high adventure and incredibly luminous writing. Beneath the surface, Howard was writing about the clash between barbarism and civilization and his prognosis for civilization wasn't very bright:

"'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,' the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'" -- Beyond The Black River.

Howard was an inspired, prolific writer who is often credited with creating the swords and sorcery genre, aka heroic fantasy, though stories like this can be traced all the way back to Homer and the Norse sagas. He was also lucky enough to live during a time when fiction writers could actually make a living writing for pulps like Weird Tales.  His writing's vivid and energetic, if sometimes florid, but always absorbing and entertaining. He was a friend of H.P. Lovecraft, another favorite of mine, and the great fantasist Clark Ashton Smith, and the three writers included references to each other's work in their own books in order to spread the word about Hyperborea and the Cthulhu Mythos, an interesting example of literary cross-pollination. Howard and Lovecraft corresponded regularly, producing a huge number of interesting letters collected in the two-volume set A Means To Freedom, edited by the Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi.

"For stark, living fear...what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?" --H.P. Lovecraft.

The late fantasy writer Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, continued the Conan saga at a high level. He wrote six or seven Conan novels,  three of which are collected in "The Further Chronicles of Conan," and he also wrote the novelization for Conan the Destroyer. I'm reading "Conan the Triumphant" right now and it's excellent:

"In the fabled kingdom of Ophir, Conan and his Free-Company of mercenaries enter the service of the voluptuous, dark-eyed Lady Synelle, unaware that she is secretly High Priestess of Al'Kiir, the sharp-horned, multi-fanged demon god whose worship is almost forgotten in the kingdom." --Fantastic Fiction UK

Now that's what I call high literature, but enjoying it involves an obsolete skill, namely reading. If you're a product of the modern school system and you've already seen the flicks, you can always get a good dose of Conan through the comic books (though some reading is still required). The ones I've seen are top rate. For instance, I just got volume one of The Savage Sword of Conan (Dark Horse), which includes a faithful version of the Howard classic, Red Nails. The art work in these old comics was top notch (though nothing beats the original Magnus Robot Fighter series, in my opinion) and the writing is a testament to the good old days when kids weren't protected from the real thing by the all-knowing Nanny State.

As for the movies, the first one, Conan the Barbarian, is generally considered the best. Arnold Schwarzenegger was still in condition at the time, the supreme Iron Rat and perfect for the role of the semi-articulate Cimmerian (Howard's Conan was anything but inarticulate, but never mind that). The second movie, Conan the Destroyer, is almost universally mocked as kid stuff by serious fans, but I've always liked it. Both movies are quests. In the first one, Conan's sent to recover a king's daughter who has fallen under the spell of the evil Thulsa Doom, the leader of an apocalyptic snake cult. In the second movie, he's dispatched by an evil queen to help a beautiful young princess (destined to be sacrificed, naturally) recover a supernatural treasure which the queen plans to use to bring the god Dagoth back so life so she can rule the world. During the process, heads roll "with more thwacks and less facts, more pecs and less sex...with Arnold the Barbarian getting blood on his deltoids in every scene..." according to the legendary drive-in movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs. Neither movie is faithful to the far superior Howard creation, but that's the way it goes. I'm not holding my breath waiting for someone in the movie industry to do justice to Conan (the 2011 Conan the Barbarian was a typical Hollywood CGI schlockfest and I'm sorry I even mentioned it). 

Robert E. Howard is sitting at the right hand of Crom these days, but he should be proud of himself. Conan has become a cultural icon and the character Howard created has spawned a huge industry of movies, books, comic books, video games, role-playing games, you name it. Regardless of the format, however, they all have one thing in common. The world presented in the Conan saga is harsh, cruel, violent and, well, barbaric, but it's also more elemental, which I think is the big attraction these stories have for the modern mind cut off from nature in the barrack cities of so-called advanced civilization.

Note: I wrote this article several years ago. I've been reposting it on a regular basis because I want to do what I can to publicize the work of this great American writer.

Tacitus' Germania: "A Most Dangerous Book"

The Germania by the great Roman historian Tacitus is "a most dangerous book," according to the thought police in the Lugenpresse. Tacitus' description of the history and culture of the ancient Germanic tribes living outside the control of the Roman empire has become a kind of ethnologic bible in Germany and everybody knows that the Germans can't be allowed to have a sense of national pride and identity. For instance, the Harvard Gazette (2008) said that Tacitus "helped to fuel Nazi propaganda" and the New York Times (2011) claimed that the book "was exactly what nationalists had been waiting for."  And many other "journalists" agree:

"Perhaps the most fateful decision in all of European history was made by Augustus Caesar, when he chose to fix the border of the Roman Empire at the Rhine. As a result, the region known to the Romans as Germania would go without the products of Roman civilization (1) —good roads and big cities and the Latin language and Christianity (2). But it would also remain vigorous and untamed enough to threaten Roman power, and finally destroy it in the fifth century A.D." Source: "Ideas Are Viruses - How Tacitus' Germania Became the Bible of German Nationalism," Slate.com (2011)

Comment: This is all crap, of course, not to mention the fact that it's obvious anti-German propaganda. The paranoia about Tacitus' history of Germania is the kind of stuff you would expect from these particular sources, however. (See the footnotes below for some of the problems with the argument in the Slate article.)

Tacitus was the greatest historian ancient Rome ever produced. His primary concern in all of his writings was to analyze and expose the corruption of the Roman state under the emperors.

According to Moses Hadas, in his introduction to the 1942 Modern Library edition of the complete works of Tacitus (p. xii), "[i]t is a temptation to which many have succumbed to look upon the Germania as a sort of Utopia, a conscious idealization of a primitive and unspoiled people calculated to chasten and reform the decadent Romans. This view is justified in the degree that a strong moralizing strain runs through all Tacitus' work. It has been wittily remarked that no one in Tacitus is good except Agricola [his father-in-law] and the Germans."

Concerning the problems with the Slate article:

(1) The writer seems to think that the savage Germans would have become more civilized if they had been conquered by the Romans. It's hard to understand how the warlike Germans would have become less warlike by exposure to the warlike Roman culture, but it hardly matters because the author of this Slate article has his facts all wrong. In reality, the Germans were exposed to Roman civilization and learned Roman methods of warfare from them, among other things. 

Many Germans served in the legions. In one notable example, Arminius, the commander of the German tribes who wiped out three Roman legions in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9AD, had served in the Roman military and was apparently a Roman citizen. The Romans needed mercenary forces and, like modern Americans, they ended up providing weapons and training to some of their worst enemies.

(2) - The author of the Slate piece also got it wrong when he said that Germania wasn't exposed to Christianity. The Germans described by Tacitus were still pagans, but by the time of the invasions, many of the invading tribes were Christians, though of a "heretical" variety. The Visigoths who sacked Rome, for instance, were Arian Christians:

"Being Arian Christians, the Visigoths respected Christian sites and treasures. According to one story, a group of them refused to steal rich gold and silver vessels when told that they belonged to St Peter and on Alaric’s orders the sacred objects were carried safely through the streets to St Peter’s Church, respectfully accompanied by a throng of Christian citizens who were only too glad to find sanctuary there themselves. St Augustine told this story in City of God to help rebut allegations by pagans that the sack of Rome was the fault of the Christians, who had enraged the city’s pagan gods." Source: History Today (2010)

I have no idea how true these stories are, but I really doubt if Christians in Rome ever "respectfully" marched through the city with the invading Visigoths or that the invaders "refused to steal rich gold and silver vessels." St. Augustine is a suspect source, to say the least, and he obviously had an agenda in presenting the Visigoths as being respectful of Christian fetishes.

The "barbarians" were Christians, but their religion didn't have any effect on their warlike behavior. That's not too surprising, however. Even if they had been completely "orthodox," there is absolutely no evidence in history that Christianity has ever made people more gentle or nations more peaceful. 

Getting back to Tacitus, it's disingenuous for modern writers to blame him in any way for the rise of National Socialism in Germany. Ethnic nationalism - a sense of common tribal identity - has been a common feature of all countries throughout history. Besides, even if Tacitus did idealize his pagan subjects to a certain extent in order to contrast them with the decadent Romans there's no evidence that I'm aware of that his information on the Germanic tribes is intentionally inaccurate.

According to Moses Hadas again, "More than six hundred items of information are recorded [in the Germania], of a credibility, to be sure, varying with that of Tacitus' sources. The sources were undoubtedly the best available, and included eye-witness accounts as well as written material, and Tacitus was a conscientious workman."

Modern Germans have every right to be proud of their ancestors.

Footage From King Midas' Tomb 1951/1957

Note: This footage shows the excavation of Gordium, Turkey and the supposed tomb of King Midas by a team of University of Pennsylvania archaeologists in 1951/1957. According to the video description, "The Midas Mound was opened in 1957 by an archaeological team headed by Rodney Young who appears at the beginning of the film and makes a brief appearance as he pieces together decorative wall moldings."

The burial chamber of King Midas was discovered under the Midas Tumulus or burial mound. According to the LA Times (1988), "About 90 pyramid-shaped mounds of earth rise on the land [Anatolian plateau in western Turkey] where the Phrygians had their ancient capital of Gordion. The largest and highest of the burial mounds is believed to be the tomb of King Midas, who is said to have lived from 725 BC to 675 BC."

Barbarians - The Cimmerians

Video may have some inaccuracies. Subtitles need proofreading.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd Ed. Revised), "'Bosporus, the Cimmerian,' another name for the strait of Kerch which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, was the center of the major kingdom of Bosporus in what is now Ukraine. The kingdom was ruled by the Greek Spartocids from around 438 BC until it came under the control of the new Pontic Empire under Mithridates. The whole area later fell under the control of the Romans."

The Greek/Cimmerian Bosporan Kingdom is deep barbarian territory and the ancient history of the region is suitably tumultuous and confusing. The Cimmerians themselves apparently lived in the region back in the 7th or 8th centuries BC, but their original homeland is still obscure and they were apparently defeated by the Scythians:

"...prevailing opinion among the ancients was that the Cimmerians had once inhabited the steppes on the northern shore of the Black Sea. The first surviving evidence of this view is found in the poem Arimaspaea by Aristeas of Proconnesus (ca. 550 b.c.e.), in which the Scythians are said to have driven the Cimmerians from their country in southern Russia..." Source: Encyclopedia Iranica.

The Cimmerians could have been Scythians themselves, or Iranians; it all seems to depend on which source you read.

"Some authorities identify [the Cimmerians] with 'Thraco-Cimmerian' remains of the 8th–7th century BC found in the southwestern Ukraine and in central Europe; these may perhaps be looked upon as traces of the western branch of the Cimmerians, who, under fresh Scythian pressure, eventually invaded the Hungarian plain and survived there until about 500 BC." Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Fittingly enough, Thraco-Cimmerian artefacts seem to consist mostly of "grave goods and hoards."

The most famous Cimmerian, of course, is Conan the Barbarian, but the Cimmerians as created by the great Robert E. Howard are a fictional race living in a mythological world of his own invention which was based very loosely on actual history:

"North of Aquilonia, the western-most Hyborian kingdom, are the Cimmerians, ferocious savages, untamed by the invaders, but advancing rapidly because of contact with them; they are the descendants of the Atlanteans, now progressing more steadily than their old enemies the Picts, who dwell in the wilderness west of Aquilonia." -- The Hyborian Age, Robert E. Howard.

Part two can be found here.

"The Cimmerians are known from several Assyrian texts, which call them Ga-mir or Gi-mir-a-a. In the Assyrian language, the last name means something like 'people traveling back and forth' and seems to be the less adequate of the two renderings of the Cimmerians' Indo-European name, but it describes their way of life excellently, because they were nomads. The Cimmerians were closely related and are archaeologically almost identical to the Scythians, who may have expelled them from their home country." Source: Livius.

The Cimmerians appear to have been a warlike, aggressive people, but they weren't a force for very long. According to Wikipedia, their homeland, Gamirr, was first mentioned by the Assyrian king Sargon II around 721-715 BC. They destroyed the Anatolian kingdom of Phrygia in 695 and again in 676-674 and were eventually defeated in 637-626 by Alyattes II, the king of Lydia, after decades of battles, sacks, invasions, shortlived occupations and general mayhem.

The Cimmerians, aka the Cimmerri, had a meteoric rise and fall, but they made their mark on history. According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, they were "an ancient people of the far north or west of Europe, first spoken of by Homer (Odyssey, xi. 12–19), who describes them as living in perpetual darkness. Herodotus (iv. 11–13), in his account of Scythia, regards them as the early inhabitants of South Russia (after whom the Bosporus Cimmerius [q.v.] and other places were named), driven by the Scyths along by the Caucasus into Asia Minor, where they maintained themselves for a century."

The Cimmerian's push for conquest and expansion only lasted for about a hundred years, but that's not a bad record considering the chaos and constant turmoil in the region back then.

Related: Bosporan coins of the Hellenic period and [Roman] imperial period.

Molecular Genealogy Of A Mongol Queen's Family And Her Possible Kinship With Genghis Khan

"Members of the Mongol imperial family (designated the Golden family) are buried in a secret necropolis; therefore, none of their burial grounds have been found. In 2004, we first discovered 5 graves belonging to the Golden family in Tavan Tolgoi, Eastern Mongolia. To define the genealogy of the 5 bodies and the kinship among them, SNP and/or STR profiles of mitochondria, autosomes, and Y chromosomes were analyzed." Source: PLOS One (2016).

Comment: This is a long technical paper, too complex for my fuzzy little brain. The goal of the 2016 (?) study was "to determine the matrilineal and patrilineal origins of the Golden family members," but I can't tell if the question was ever completely resolved. It does appear that the Mongols went through a long period of genetic mixing with other Eurasian populations:

"Evidence suggests that many Mongoloid and Caucasoid nomadic tribes inhabited the present-day Mongolian plateau over thousands of years. Since Genghis Khan’s era, the Mongolian population underwent rapid and considerable gene flow from Eurasia, resulting in additional genetic admixture. Likewise, the Mongolian population was formed by the continuous admixture of indigenous tribes who inhabited the Mongolian plateau, with European and other Asian populations who inhabited regions geographically distant from Mongolia. This admixture has deeply influenced the physical appearance of modern-day Mongolian people, exhibiting both Mongoloid and Caucasoid features."

Human Sacrifice In Iron Age Europe

"Around a hundred bodies have been found in ... Irish bogs to date, some male, some female, and those of children too. Some were thought to be there by accident, perhaps as a result of falling into the bog and drowning. Others were considered to be formal (and some not so formal) burials, and others appear to be rather more sinister." Source: Irish Central.

The ritual sacrifice dramatized in this video shows the execution of Old Croghnan Man, a bog body currently on display in the National Museum of Ireland, which, among other things, has an exhibit called Kingship & Sacrifice. According to the museum's website, "the exhibition is centred on a new theory that connects human sacrifice with sovereignty and kingship rituals during the Iron Age. Research has indicated that other material connected with these rituals include: items of regalia; items associated with equestrian [horse] procession; weapons; feasting utensils; boundary markers; items associated with corn and milk production, such as quern stones and butter deposits known as ‘bog butter’."

One possible human sacrifice from this period is known as Tollund Man, "a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body, on the Jutland peninsula. The man's physical features were so well-preserved that he was mistaken at the time of discovery for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before Tollund Man's discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, had been found in the same bog." (Wikipedia)

I think this describes Tollund Man, but I'm not sure.

"Scholars tend to agree that Tollund Man’s killing was some kind of ritual sacrifice to the gods—perhaps a fertility offering. To the people who put him there, a bog was a special place. While most of Northern Europe lay under a thick canopy of forest, bogs did not. Half earth, half water and open to the heavens, they were borderlands to the beyond. To these people, will-o’-the-wisps—flickering ghostly lights that recede when approached—weren’t the effects of swamp gas caused by rotting vegetation. They were fairies. The thinking goes that Tollund Man’s tomb may have been meant to ensure a kind of soggy immortality for the sacrificial object." Source: Smithsonian.

"'At an appointed time all tribes meet ….. in a forest consecrated by their ancestors, surrounded by fear, sacred from the dawn of time. There, on behalf of those assembled, they celebrate the commencement of their barbaric cult with a human sacrifice.'

"This is how the Roman historian Tacitus described the situation among the Semnones, a Germanic tribe, in the 1st century AD. This could provide the explanation of what happened to the woman from Huldremose, Tollund Man and Grauballe Man. More than a hundred bog bodies have been found in Denmark, which date from the period 800 BC to 200 AD. The cause of death has only been established in a small number of cases, where people have been strangled, hung or had their throats cut. Like the woman from Huldremose, the bodies were carefully placed in a bog afterwards, which points toward a sacrifice or another ritual act rather than an attack." Source: National Museum of Denmark.

Closed captions helpful.

"For Europeans dating as far back as the Neolithic period 6,000 years ago, bogs were both resources and possibly ominous supernatural portals, according to Ulla Mannering, an expert in ancient textiles at the National Museum of Denmark." Source: National Geographic (2014).

"The bogs' peat, which could be burned for heating homes, was valuable in tree-scarce Denmark, and an ore called bog iron was made into tools and weapons.

"Among prehistoric people, 'when you take things, you also offer things,' said Mannering.

"This may be why the Danish villagers would deposit 'gifts' of clothes, old shoes, slaughtered animals, battered weapons, and, for a period of 500 years, people into the black abyss of the bogs."

Related: Medieval Christian Book Discovered in Ireland Bog.

Diet At The Docks: Living And Dying At The Port Of Ancient Rome

"Analysis of plant, animal and human remains from Portus, the maritime port of Imperial Rome, has reconstructed for the first time the diets and geographic origins of its inhabitants, suggesting a shift in food resources following the Vandal sack of Rome in AD 455." Source: Science Daily.

Related: The University of Southampton Portus Project.

Book Review: The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire by Michael Grant

The fall of Rome proves beyond doubt that one thing always leads to another, usually in unexpected ways. For example, when the Romans gave up the idea of conquering Germany and switched to a defensive strategy along the Rhine and Danube frontier, they succeeded in blocking the German advance into their territory, but they had no idea that they were starting a long chain of events which would eventually lead to the collapse of the western empire.

The Germanic tribes needed living space. Stymied in their attempts to spread west into Roman Gaul, the various tribes started to move to the east in the Second Century AD and ran into big trouble about a century later. In 372, according to The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, "the eastward expansion of the Ostrogoths provoked an explosive reaction from the Huns of the Volga Steppe." When the Ostrogoths intruded into their territory, the Huns drove all the German tribes back towards the Danube like a giant hammer, pounding them against the Roman frontier.

"...the Huns rolled forward to the Danube, crushing the Visigoths and enslaving the Gepids, who had the misfortune to occupy the Hungarian steppe. There the Huns settled down with their flocks, lords of a pasture that stretched back to the Caspian. In three years they had obliterated a century of German expansion." New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, page 10.

Over the next century, the Franks, Frisians, Suevi, Vandals, Alemanni and Visigoths crossed the frontier into Roman Gaul, but they didn't stop there. Driven by hunger, the need for land and their leader's private ambitions, the Visigoths sacked Rome and spread as far as Spain, establishing the Kingdom of the Visigoths in 418. Rome in the west, heart of the strongest and most successful empire the world has ever seen, no longer existed.

The story of the fall of the western empire is more complicated than this, of course, but the main question is why Rome couldn't defend its frontier. What had changed? One part of the answer is given by the famous classical historian Michael Grant in his short and relatively obscure book "The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire." Briefly, Rome had been so weakened by two centuries of political instability, corruption, civil wars, military disasters and financial problems that it was no longer able to defend itself. In fact, according to Grant, the western empire should have collapsed in the Third Century, but managed to recover thanks to the efforts of a series of strong emperors who instituted much needed reforms.

"The fact that the Roman empire did not collapse in the 260s or 270s AD is one of the miracles of history." Grant, Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, Introduction, xvii.

In my opinion, the origins of Rome's political instability can be traced all the way back to Julius Caesar, at least. When the legions figured out that they could make or break emperors at will, they became the ultimate power brokers and this eventually developed into a state of constant chaos and civil war as ambitious military leaders bribed and murdered their way into power, only to be murdered themselves, sometimes after a reign of only a few days. The turnover in the Roman government between 235 and 284 AD was mind-boggling:

"In the age of the soldier-emperors, between the assassination of Alexander Severus, the last of the Severans, in 235 A.D. and the beginning of Diocletian's reign in 284, at least sixteen men bore the title of emperor: Maximinus (r. 235–38 A.D.), Gordian I and II, Pupienus and Balbinus (r. 238 A.D.), Gordian III (r. 238–44 A.D.), Philip the Arab (r. 244–49 A.D.), the Illyrian Decius (r. 249–51 A.D.), Trebonianus Gallus (r. 251–53 A.D.), Aemilianus (r. 253 A.D.), Valerian (r. 253–60 A.D.), Gallienus (r. 253–68 A.D.), Claudius Gothicus (r. 268–70 A.D.), Aurelian (r. 270–75 A.D.), Tacitus (r. 275–76 A.D.), Probus (r. 276–82 A.D.), Carus (r. 282–83 A.D.), Carinus (r. 283–84 A.D.), and Numerianus (r. 283–84 A.D.). Most were fierce military men and none could hold the reins of power without the support of the army. Almost all, having taken power upon the murder of the preceding emperor, came to a premature and violent end. Social life declined in Roman towns and instead flourished among the country aristocracy, whose secure lifestyle in large fortified estates foreshadowed medieval feudalism." (Source: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

Michael Grant's short book, actually a monograph of 68 pages with an appendix and notes, provides a good overview of the chaotic succession of emperors and the constantly changing state of Roman relations with the Germans and Persians at the time. In Part Two, he discusses the military, financial and religious reforms instituted by the "strong emperors" such as Diocletian and Constantine who emerged at just the right time and managed to pull the empire back from the brink--for a while. Grant's book gives one of the most coherent explanations available for why the western empire collapsed after the Ostrogoth's fatal encounter with the Huns on the Volga Steppe. The lesson is clear enough. A series of bad or ineffective leaders can destroy a civilization.

Sound familiar?

The Achaemenid Empire

"The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC), also called the (First) Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. Ranging at its greatest extent from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, it was one of the largest empires in history, spanning 5.5 million square kilometers, and was larger than any previous empire in history." Source: Wikipedia.

The early history here is very murky and a lot of it seems to be based on one source: The Histories of Herodotus. Basically, Cyrus was a local monarch who revolted against the domination of the Median Empire. "According to the official story, the Achaemenid or Persian empire was founded by Cyrus the Great, who became king of Persis in 559 BCE and defeated his overlord Astyages of Media in 550." (Source: Livius.) Persis, aka Parsa or Persia, was the name of the region Cyrus controlled before he launched his rebellion.

According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, "We are told that Cyrus was the grandson of Astyages (1) on his mother’s side, but that did not stop him wanting to shake off the Median yoke. By 552 BCE, he had formed the Persian tribes into a federation and begun a series of uprisings. When the inevitable showdown with his grandfather came in 550 BCE, the Medes mutinied and joined Cyrus to march on [the Median capital city of] Ecbatana.

"Cyrus took the title ‘Shah [‘King’] of Persia’ and built a capital on the site of his victory, which he called Pasargadae, after his tribe. Winning the Medes over had landed Cyrus with a vague, sprawling empire of countless different peoples ..." In other words, Cyrus was now in charge of an early multicultural empire which, like all multicultural empires, was highly unstable and could only be held together with force.

(1) Astyages was apparently the son of the Median king Cyaxeres. It's unclear if Astyages ever became king himself, but one way or another Cyrus was directly related to the royal family of the Medes. This is just another example of the old adage that revolutions usually come from the upper strata of society.

Next video is a lecture about the Cyrus Cylinder, written in the name of Cyrus after the conquest of Babylon. Actual lecture begins at app. 6:30.

The Achaemenid empire was only the first in a series of imperial dynasties described collectively as the "Persian Empire." The rise and fall of the Achaemenids was so complex and turbulent that I'm not even going to try to summarize it here. Different rulers came and went, many of them poisoning their previous overlords and rivals only to be poisoned in turn themselves. By the time Alexander the Great invaded Asia Minor around 330 BC, the last Achaemenid king, Darius III, had taken control of the empire and was trying to subdue Egypt (again). "In the ensuing chaos created by Alexander's invasion of Persia, Cyrus's tomb was broken into and most of its luxuries were looted," according to Wikipedia. Alexander was supposedly horrified by this desecration and ordered the tomb to be restored, but this may have been an act of political theater to help establish his control.

Just to put all of this into perspective, the Achaemenid empire, the largest empire in the world up until then, only lasted for around 220 years. That's about the same length of time that the United States -- "the greatest country in the world" -- has been in existence. Two-hundred and twenty years is about 9 generations, assuming 25 years per generation. For most of those people, the Achaemenid empire was their entire world and it probably seemed like it would last forever. And who knows how many brave patriots died for their glorious nation in the service of Cyrus and his successors? Looking back on it now, it's easy to see that the empire -- like all empires and nation states -- was just a transient power coalition based on violence, as ephemeral as the weather.

The Thracian Tomb Of Kazanlak

"Discovered in 1944, this tomb dates from the Hellenistic period, around the end of the 4th century BC. It is located near Seutopolis, the capital city of the Thracian king Seutes III, and is part of a large Thracian necropolis." Source: UNESCO World Heritage List.

Note: The tomb "comprises a narrow corridor and a round burial chamber, both decorated with murals representing a Thracian couple at a ritual funeral feast. The monument dates back to the 4th century BCE and has been on the UNESCO protected World Heritage Site list since 1979. The murals are memorable for the splendid horses and for a gesture of farewell, in which the seated couple grasp each other's wrists in a moment of tenderness and equality (according to Lyudmila Zhivkova—a view that is not shared by all specialists). The paintings are Bulgaria's best-preserved artistic masterpieces from the Hellenistic period." (Wikipedia)

The tomb itself is closed to the public, but a full-scale replica has been constructed nearby.