The Persians emigrated from the great plains of Russia in the 9th century BC.
The Persian kings: Teispes, Cyrus I, Cambyses I, Cyrus the Great, Cambyses II, (Gaumata the usurper), Darius the Great who was the 3rd cousin of Cambyses II, & Xerxes a.k.a. Ahasuerus.
The above mentioned kings, with the exception of Gaumata, were members of the Achaemenid Dynasty. Nothing is known about Achaemenes, the founder of the dynasty. Shortly after 700 BC, Teispes captured the city-state of Anshan and established himself as king. Anshan became an ally of Elam against Assyria, the world power at that time. In 639 BC, the Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Elam. To retain Anshan’s independence, Cyrus I sent his eldest son with a tribute to serve as a hostage of Ashurbanipal in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. The crown prince perished in 612 BC when the Medes and Chaldeans joined forces to conquer Nineveh. Thus his younger brother, Cambyses I, became Anshan’s heir apparent.
Cyrus the Great’s accession year was 559 BC. From his humble beginnings as ruler of the tiny state of Anshan, he conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylon and built the humongous Persian Empire.
The inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, which included Xerxes, were written in trilingual cuneiform e.g. Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian. Xerxes is a Greek name which represents the Old Persian Khsayarsan, meaning “ruling over heroes” or “he who rules over men.” It was translated Iksersa in Elamite and Ahsi’arsu in Akkadian. In Hebrew the name was rendered ’ahasweros, translated Ahasuerus in the English Book of Esther. Ahasuerus was identified in the Septuagint, Josephus, Jewish Midrash, and the Peshitta as Artaxerxes. However modern historians have no doubt that Ahasuerus was Xerxes (485-465 BC), son of Darius the Great. See Edwin Yamauchi, "Persia and the Bible" pp. 130 & 187.
ReplyDeleteThe following statement was made by Darius the Great in the Behistun inscription: “My father was Hystaspes; Hystaspes’ father was Arsames; Arsames’ father was Ariaramnes; Ariaramnes’ father was Teispes; Teispes’ father was Achaemenes.” Hence Cyrus I & Ariaramnes were brothers, Cambyses I & Arsames first cousins, Cyrus the Great & Hystaspes second cousins, and Cambyses II & Darius the Great third cousins.
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