Who were the greatest Persian commanders?
Cyrus the Great is the greatest Persian commander in our ranking. He overthrew the Median king, took Lydia and Babylon and founded the Achaemenid Empire. Darius the Great, who crushed the revolts of 522 to 521 BC in person, is one point behind, followed by Xerxes I, Cambyses II and Memnon of Rhodes, a Greek in the king's service.
For two centuries, from Cyrus the Great's overthrow of the Median king in 550 BC to Alexander's conquest in 330 BC, the Achaemenid Persian Empire was won and held by its kings and by generals who were often not Persians at all: a Mede, Harpagus, conquered Ionia for Cyrus, and a Greek, Memnon of Rhodes, is remembered as the man who might have stopped Alexander. This list ranks the nine who did most in the field. Kings count only for the battles they led in person, and the later Parthian and Sasanian empires are left out. The nine are ranked by score for recognition, battlefield record, consequence, legacy and certainty, not by date; see how we chose them.1
1 Cyrus the Great, about 600 to 530 BC
- Lived
- Birth year unknown; died in 530 BC, far to the northeast of his empire
- Served
- King of Anshan from 559 BC; ruler of the Medes and Persians from 550 BC
- Greatest victory
- Opis on the Tigris, 539 BC, which opened Babylon to his army; no figures for the armies survive
- Record
- Took Media (550 BC) when Astyages’ army handed its king over; drew at Pteria, then beat Croesus and took Sardis after 14 days; won Opis (539); defeated and killed by the Massagetae in 530, according to Herodotus
- Legacy
- Founder of the Achaemenid Empire, from the Aegean to the Iaxartes
Cyrus II became king of Anshan in 559 BC and then rose against his overlord, the Median king Astyages. The Nabonidus Chronicle says that when Astyages marched on him in 550 BC his own army rebelled, took him prisoner and handed him over to Cyrus, who then plundered the Median capital, Ecbatana. Herodotus agrees: the Median general Harpagus went over with part of the army and most of the rest ran.2
After a drawn battle with Croesus of Lydia near Pteria, Cyrus followed him home, beat his cavalry before Sardis and took the city after a siege of 14 days, in about 547 BC. In 539 BC he turned on Babylon. The chronicle says Cyrus fought the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris, slaughtered the people there, took Sippar without a battle, and then his general Ugbaru led the army into Babylon, again without a battle; Cyrus himself entered about two weeks later. Myth vs fact: his own Cyrus Cylinder, written for a Babylonian audience, says the god Marduk let him enter Babylon “without fighting or battle”, but it passes over the slaughter at Opis that the chronicle records. By his death in 530 BC, in a lost battle against the Massagetae according to Herodotus, peacefully according to Xenophon, he ruled from the Aegean to the Iaxartes.3
Why it ranks here: Cyrus is No. 1 because he alone has full marks for both recognition and consequence: his victories created the empire. Media fell by betrayal rather than battle and the Greek writers contradict each other about how he fought and died, so record 3 and certainty 2 leave him only one point ahead of Darius.
2 Darius the Great, 550 to 486 BC
- Lived
- About 550 to 486 BC
- Served
- King from 522 BC after killing the ruler he called the impostor Gaumata; put down the revolts of 522 to 521 BC
- Greatest victory
- The crossing of the Tigris, 13 December 522 BC, against the Babylonian rebel Nidintu-Bel
- Record
- Beat Nidintu-Bel on the Tigris and at Zazana and Phraortes at Kunduru in person (522 to 521); his Scythian campaign of 513 BC turned back without a battle; Marathon (490) was lost by his generals
- Legacy
- Ruled the empire at its greatest extent; his Behistun inscription tells his wars in his own words
On 29 October 522 BC Darius, a distant relative of Cyrus, and six Persian nobles killed the king who ruled as Bardiya, Cyrus’ son; Darius called him an impostor, the Magian Gaumata. Myth vs fact: the impostor story is Darius’ own, carved in his Behistun inscription and repeated by Herodotus, and historians cannot rule out that the man he killed was the real Bardiya, with a better claim to the throne.4
The empire answered with revolts in Persia itself, Media, Parthia, Babylonia, Egypt and elsewhere. Darius took the Babylonian front himself. Nidintu-Bel’s army held the far bank of the Tigris; Darius floated part of his men across on inflated skins, put others on camels and horses, and routed it on 13 December 522 BC, then beat it again five days later at Zazana, where, he says, the river carried the fleeing rebels away. In May 521 he crushed the Median pretender Phraortes at Kunduru, while generals fought the other fronts. He claimed nineteen battles and nine captured kings in a single year. In 513 BC he crossed into Europe with an army Herodotus puts at 700,000; the Scythians refused battle and wasted the land until hunger turned him back. The army he sent to Greece in 490 BC under Datis and Artaphernes lost at Marathon.5
Why it ranks here: Darius matches Cyrus on recognition and legacy and beats him on certainty, since Behistun is his own account; but he saved the empire rather than founding it, so consequence 4 leaves him one point behind. Scythia, where he never got his battle, holds his record at 3, while Marathon, which his generals lost, does not count against him.
3 Xerxes I, about 519 to 465 BC
- Lived
- Born about 519 BC; king from 486 BC; murdered at court in August 465 BC
- Served
- Put down revolts in Egypt and Babylonia (484 BC); led the invasion of Greece in person (480 BC)
- Greatest victory
- Thermopylae, 480 BC, followed by the capture of Athens
- Record
- Won Thermopylae and took Athens (480); his fleet was beaten at Salamis and he went home; the army he left under Mardonius was destroyed at Plataea (479)
- Legacy
- The best known Persian king in the West, remembered through his Greek enemies
Xerxes, born about 519 BC, became king in 486 BC and first had to deal with a revolt in Egypt and two rebel kings in Babylonia, put down in 484. His own Daiva inscription at Persepolis boasts that when he became king one country was in rebellion, and that he smote it and put it down in its place.6
In 480 BC he led the invasion of Greece in person. Myth vs fact: Herodotus counted 1,700,000 men in the land army and more than five million with the followers, but modern historians put the soldiers at about 220,000. At Thermopylae his attacks on a Greek garrison of about 4,000 failed in the narrow road until the Immortals were sent round by a mountain path; on the third day Xerxes made his final assault and Leonidas’ rearguard was destroyed. Athens fell in late September, and the Persians stormed the Acropolis and burned it. Then his fleet was beaten at Salamis. Herodotus says Xerxes, fearing for his bridges over the Hellespont, resolved on flight, leaving Mardonius with a picked army that was destroyed at Plataea the next summer. Nearly everything we know of the campaign comes from his Greek enemies, above all Herodotus, who fills it with omens Xerxes ignored and has him order the Hellespont given three hundred lashes.7
Why it ranks here: Xerxes has full marks for recognition, but he is judged only on what he led in person: Thermopylae and Athens were won, Salamis was lost and the invasion failed, so record and consequence are both 2. Herodotus’ full if hostile narrative gives certainty 4 and keeps him third, six points clear of Cambyses.
4 Cambyses II, died 522 BC
- Lived
- Birth year unknown; died in 522 BC on his way home from Egypt
- Served
- Son of Cyrus; king from 530 BC; conqueror of Egypt in 525 BC
- Greatest victory
- Pelusium, 525 BC, against Psamtik III; no figures for the armies survive
- Record
- Won Pelusium and took Memphis after a siege; Libya, Cyrene and Barca submitted; Herodotus says his column sent to Siwa vanished and his march on Kush failed
- Legacy
- Made Egypt a Persian province until the revolt of 404 BC
Cambyses succeeded his father Cyrus without trouble in 530 BC and turned on Egypt, the last great power left in the region. Arab chieftains watered his army across the Sinai, and the commander of the Egyptian fleet, Udjahorresnet, apparently changed sides; his autobiography, carved on a statue now in the Vatican, never mentions a sea battle. In 525 BC the Persians met Pharaoh Psamtik III at Pelusium, on the easternmost branch of the Nile delta. Herodotus says many fell on both sides before the Egyptians broke; Memphis held out for a long siege and then surrendered, and the Libyans, Cyrene and Barca submitted without a fight.8
Herodotus then has him send 50,000 men from Thebes against the oracle of Ammon, who vanished in a sandstorm, and lead the rest against the Ethiopians of Kush until hunger drove the soldiers to cannibalism and him back. Lendering thinks the lost army was probably invented and the march south a new pharaoh’s customary show of himself at the frontier. Myth vs fact: Herodotus’ mad king who stabbed the sacred Apis bull came from Egyptian priests whose temple income Cambyses had cut; the Apis that died in 524 BC received a normal burial, and its funeral monument shows Cambyses worshipping the bull. Egypt stayed Persian until the revolt of Amyrtaeus in 404 BC.9
Why it ranks here: Cambyses won a real victory with a lasting result, so consequence 4, but Pelusium is barely described and most of his story reaches us from hostile priests through Herodotus, so record 3 and certainty 2. Consequence outweighs Memnon’s better legacy and certainty and leaves him one point ahead.
5 Memnon of Rhodes, about 380 to 333 BC
- Lived
- About 380 to 333 BC; died of illness during the siege of Mytilene
- Served
- Greek from Rhodes; rebel and exile in the 350s, then the king’s commander in the Troad and, from 334 BC, commander of the fleet and the coast
- Greatest victory
- Magnesia, 336 or 335 BC, against Parmenion’s Macedonian advance force
- Record
- Beat Parmenion and drove the Macedonians back to their bridgehead; commanded cavalry in the defeat at the Granicus (334); defended Halicarnassus, then withdrew by sea; took Chios and most of Lesbos (333)
- Legacy
- Remembered as the commander who might have stopped Alexander
Memnon was a Greek from Rhodes whose brother Mentor rose high in Persian service. In the 350s both backed the rebel satrap Artabazus, and Memnon spent years in exile at the court of Philip II of Macedon before Mentor won him a pardon. When Philip sent Parmenion across the Hellespont with an advance force, Memnon was given 5,000 mercenaries. He beat Parmenion at Magnesia, nearly took Cyzicus, made the Macedonians break off the siege of Pitane and pushed them back toward their bridgehead.10
When Alexander crossed in 334 BC, Memnon urged the satraps to burn the crops, avoid battle and carry the war to Macedonia by sea; Diodorus calls it the best counsel. He was overruled, and at the Granicus he only shared the left wing of the beaten army with a satrap, each leading his own cavalry. Now commander of the fleet and the coast, he held Halicarnassus with night sorties that burned Alexander’s siege engines, then set fire to the city and took most of his men away by sea to Kos. In 333 BC, with 300 ships, he took Chios and most of Lesbos and was besieging Mytilene when he fell ill and died. Diodorus has him take the city first; Arrian says it surrendered only after his death. Both writers tell the story from Alexander’s side, which makes their respect for him the more telling.11
Why it ranks here: Memnon is the one commander here who repeatedly checked the Macedonians, but he never beat Alexander in a pitched battle and died before his Aegean offensive could change anything, so consequence 2. Three points on every other criterion leave him one point behind Cambyses.
6 Mardonius, died 479 BC
- Lived
- Birth year unknown; killed at Plataea in 479 BC
- Served
- Son of Gobryas and son-in-law of Darius; led the expedition of 492 BC; Xerxes’ leading general in Greece, 480 to 479 BC
- Greatest victory
- The conquest of Thasos and Macedonia, 492 BC
- Record
- Added Thasos and Macedonia and subdued the Thracian Brygi (492), but lost about 300 ships off Athos; took Athens again (479); defeated and killed at Plataea (479)
- Legacy
- The Persian general of the Greek wars, known almost only through Herodotus
Mardonius was the son of Gobryas, one of the six nobles who helped Darius to the throne, and married the king’s daughter; a Persepolis tablet of 495 BC, a rare Persian document that names him, already records the marriage. In 492 BC Darius sent him west after the Ionian revolt. Herodotus, surprised, says he deposed the Greek tyrants and set up democracies; then he crossed into Europe, made Thasos and Macedonia subject and, though wounded in a night attack, subdued the Thracian Brygi. But a north gale wrecked his fleet off Mount Athos, with, Herodotus heard, about 300 ships and more than 20,000 men lost, and Darius took the command away from him.12
Under Xerxes he was the army’s leading general and, in Herodotus’ telling, the hawk who pressed for the invasion. After Salamis he stayed in Greece with a picked army: 300,000 men by Herodotus’ count, probably 150,000 by Lendering’s estimate. In 479 BC he took Athens a second time and burned what was left, then fell back to the plain of Plataea and attacked when the Greeks pulled back at night. Riding a white horse among a thousand picked Persians, he held the Spartans until he was killed; then his men broke and the Greeks stormed the camp.13
Why it ranks here: Mardonius won ground in 492 BC and came close at Plataea, but the wreck off Athos and the defeat that ended the invasion hold record and consequence at 2. He shares 26 points with Harpagus and Artaxerxes II and takes the higher place on the first tie-breaker, recognition, where his 3 beats their 2.
7 Harpagus, active about 550 to 540 BC
- Lived
- Dates unknown; his campaigns probably ended by about 542 BC
- Served
- Median noble at the court of Astyages who went over to Cyrus; Cyrus’ general in western Asia Minor after the fall of Sardis
- Greatest victory
- The conquest of Ionia, Caria and Lycia, completed by about 542 BC
- Record
- Took Phocaea and the Ionian cities with siege ramps; subdued the Carians, Caunians and Lycians and took Xanthus; Herodotus records no defeat
- Legacy
- Carried Persian rule to the Aegean coast of Asia Minor
Harpagus was a Median noble at the court of Astyages. Herodotus tells a lurid tale of why he turned: ordered to kill the infant Cyrus, he spared him, and the king punished him by serving him his own son at a feast. Lendering calls this a fairy tale invented to explain one plain fact, that Astyages was betrayed, which the Babylonian Nabonidus Chronicle confirms: Astyages’ army mutinied and handed him to Cyrus. In Herodotus’ version Harpagus commanded that army and went over with it.14
After Sardis, Cyrus went east and left the west to his generals. When the Mede Mazares died, Harpagus took over and brought something new to the Greek coast: he drove the defenders inside their walls and built earth ramps against them. The Phocaeans abandoned their city by ship rather than submit; the other Ionians fought him in the field, lost, and saw their cities taken, after which the islanders surrendered. He then marched south against the Carians, Caunians and Lycians. At Xanthus the Lycians fought few against many, burned their families and goods on the acropolis and died in a last sally. Lendering dates the end of his campaigns, with the Aegean coast of Asia Minor in Persian hands, to about 542 BC.15
Why it ranks here: Harpagus won every fight Herodotus records and carried Persia to the Aegean, so record and consequence 4, but he lives only in a few chapters of Herodotus, so recognition 2, legacy 1 and certainty 2. On 26 points he loses the recognition tie-break to Mardonius and wins the next one, consequence, over Artaxerxes II.
8 Artaxerxes II, died 358 BC
- Lived
- Birth year unknown; king from April 404 BC until his death in early 358 BC
- Served
- Fought his brother Cyrus the Younger for the throne; lost Egypt to the revolt of 404 BC
- Greatest victory
- Cunaxa, 401 BC, where the rebel Cyrus was killed
- Record
- Won Cunaxa though wounded (401); his generals failed to retake Egypt (385 to 383 and 373); his Cadusian campaign was saved by a negotiated peace
- Legacy
- Kept the throne and imposed the King’s Peace on the Greeks in 386 BC
Artaxerxes II became king in April 404 BC and at once faced two revolts: Egypt broke away under Amyrtaeus, and his younger brother Cyrus, governor in Asia Minor, raised an army to take the throne. By Xenophon’s count Cyrus had 10,400 Greek hoplites, 2,500 peltasts and 100,000 Asian troops; the king had 1,200,000, of whom 900,000 fought, a number his translator calls probably overstated; Ctesias, the king’s Greek doctor, gave 400,000.16
They met at Cunaxa, north of Babylon, in 401 BC. The Greeks routed the wing in front of them, but Artaxerxes, in the center of a line so long that it reached beyond Cyrus’ left, stood firm. Cyrus charged straight at him with his bodyguard and wounded him through his breastplate; Ctesias, who was with the king, says he healed the wound himself. Then a javelin struck Cyrus under the eye and he was killed with eight of his companions. With the pretender dead the throne was safe. The rest of the reign went less well: his generals failed to retake Egypt in 385 to 383 and again in 373 BC, and on his own march against the Cadusians, Plutarch says, the army was eating its pack animals until a negotiated peace got it out.17
Why it ranks here: Cunaxa is unusually well recorded, by Xenophon on one side and Ctesias at the king’s side, so certainty 4; but Artaxerxes won it largely because his brother was killed, and Egypt stayed lost, so record and consequence 3. Of the three on 26 points he comes last, behind Mardonius on recognition and Harpagus on consequence.
9 Artaxerxes III, died 338 BC
- Lived
- Birth year unknown; king from 358 BC to his death in 338 BC
- Served
- Son of Artaxerxes II, known as Ochus; won back Phoenicia, Cyprus and Egypt
- Greatest victory
- The reconquest of Egypt, 343 BC
- Record
- His first invasion of Egypt failed (probably 351 or 350 BC); took Sidon by betrayal (probably 346); reconquered Egypt (343)
- Legacy
- The last Persian king to win back a lost province
Artaxerxes III, called Ochus before he took the throne, became king in 358 BC. Egypt had been independent since 404 BC, and his first attempt to retake it failed, probably in 351 or 350 BC; Demosthenes and Isocrates say he led it himself. Phoenicia and Cyprus then revolted too. Diodorus says the king now resolved to fight in person and gathered 300,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry and 300 warships, figures only he gives.18
Sidon’s own king, Tennes, betrayed the city to him. Artaxerxes had a hundred leading citizens and then five hundred suppliants shot, and the Sidonians burned themselves in their houses, more than 40,000 people by Diodorus’ count. A Babylonian chronicle confirms that prisoners taken at Sidon were brought to Babylon and Susa, in a year Lendering puts at 346 BC. In 343 BC the army moved on Egypt in three divisions, each a Greek mercenary general paired with a Persian officer, while the king held the reserve. Pelusium surrendered, Mentor of Rhodes talked Bubastis and the other cities into giving up, and Pharaoh Nectanebo fled south. Egypt stayed Persian only until Alexander came after Issus. Myth vs fact: Diodorus says the eunuch Bagoas poisoned the king, but a Babylonian tablet shows that he died a natural death in 338 BC.19
Why it ranks here: Artaxerxes III is the one later king who won back a lost province, so record 4, but Egypt stayed Persian only until Alexander came, and the campaign is known almost only from Diodorus, so consequence 3, certainty 2 and legacy 1 leave him ninth, two points behind the three-way tie above him.
How we chose and ranked these Persian commanders
We counted a Persian commander as a king or general who led the armies of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, from Cyrus the Great's overthrow of the Median king in 550 BC to the fall of the empire to Alexander in 330 BC, Greeks in the king's service included. Kings are judged only on the battles they commanded in person, so Darius the Great is not credited with Marathon, which his generals lost, nor Xerxes with Plataea, which Mardonius fought. The later Parthian and Sasanian empires are left out, as in the greatest battles of the Persian Empire; Persia's opponents are in the greatest commanders of ancient Greece, and the world's best in the greatest military commanders.20
We considered 23 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of who the greatest Persian commanders were; battlefield record, consequence and legacy count twice, and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the commander is known far beyond Persian history and appears on most published accounts of the great Persian kings and generals, 1 if only specialists know the name.
- Battlefield record (×2). 5 if he won several decisive victories in person, against strong odds and with few defeats, 1 if he won no battle of note himself.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if his victories created or saved the empire or changed its borders for generations, 1 if they changed nothing lasting.
- Legacy (×2). 5 if he is still studied, imitated and remembered in national memory and culture, 1 if he is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if his campaigns are documented by independent and contemporary sources, 1 if they rest on one late or partisan account.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known commander, then to the one whose victories changed more, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. The pool is small: most of what we know about Persian generals comes from their Greek enemies, so we stopped at nine rather than pad the list. Xerxes, the best known Persian king in the West, sits third behind Cyrus and Darius: he forced Thermopylae, but his one great campaign ended in defeat at Salamis and Plataea.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Battlefield record ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Legacy ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cyrus the Great | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 41 |
| 2 | Darius the Great | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 40 |
| 3 | Xerxes I | 5 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 35 |
| 4 | Cambyses II | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 29 |
| 5 | Memnon of Rhodes | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 28 |
| 6 | Mardonius | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 26 |
| 7 | Harpagus | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 26 |
| 8 | Artaxerxes II | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 26 |
| 9 | Artaxerxes III | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 24 |
Close calls
Three commanders came close and did not make the nine:
Darius III, 23 points. The last Achaemenid king is famous as Alexander's opponent and his battles are well recorded, but he commanded in person at Issus in 333 BC and at Gaugamela in 331 BC, and Arrian has him flee from both fields, at Gaugamela as the first to turn. By July 330 BC he was dead and the empire lost. Record and consequence of 1 leave him one point behind Artaxerxes III: his fame comes from losing, not from command.21
Pharnabazus, 23 points. The satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia commanded the king's fleet at Cnidus in 394 BC, Xenophon says with the Phoenician ships, while the Athenian exile Conon led the Greek squadron in front of him; Plutarch credits the victory to both and says it led to the King's Peace. But he shared that command with Conon, the invasion of Egypt that Pharnabazus led with Iphicrates in 373 BC failed, and only specialists know his name.22
Tissaphernes, 22 points. The satrap of Lydia commanded the horsemen on the king's left at Cunaxa in 401 BC and then arrested the Greek general Clearchus during the talks that followed. His weight lay in diplomacy, playing Sparta and Athens off against each other, not in battle, and after Agesilaus beat him near Sardis in 395 BC he was executed.23
Why are there only nine, and where are Darius III, Nader Shah, Shapur I and Surena?
Only nine Achaemenid commanders scored 24 points or more; the tenth, Darius III, owes his 23 to fame for losing, so we stopped at nine. The famous Iranian generals missing here served later empires: Surena, who beat Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC, was Parthian, Shapur I, who captured the emperor Valerian in 260, Sasanian, and Nader Shah, the victor of Karnal in 1739, Afsharid.24
They are out by scope, not by score. On the same criteria Nader Shah would score 42 and take first place, and Shapur I (34) and Surena (32) would come straight after Xerxes; this page keeps to the Achaemenid empire, like our guide to the greatest battles of the Persian Empire. Cyrus the Younger is out for the same reason, since he fought his own king at Cunaxa, and so is Spitamenes, who fought Alexander after the empire had fallen.
One more name is scored on another page. Conon, the Athenian exile who led the king's Greek squadron at Cnidus in 394 BC and then used the king's fleet to help rebuild the walls of Athens, would score 28 here, the same total as Memnon. He fought for Persia as a hired Athenian, though, so we score him with the greatest commanders of ancient Greece.25
Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes and Cambyses each have a full biography. Follow their wars against Greece in the greatest battles of ancient Greece, or measure them against the world's best in the greatest military commanders.
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- Livius.org, “Cyrus the Great”; Livius.org, “Darius III Codomannus”; Livius.org, “Harpagus”; Livius.org, “Memnon of Rhodes”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Cyrus the Great”; Livius.org, “ABC 7 (Nabonidus Chronicle)”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 127”. ↩
- Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 84”; Livius.org, “ABC 7 (Nabonidus Chronicle)”; Livius.org, “Cyrus Cylinder Translation”; Livius.org, “Cyrus the Great”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Darius the Great”. ↩
- World History Encyclopedia, “Darius I”; Darius I, “Behistun T 10”; Darius I, “Behistun T 11”; Darius I, “Behistun T 19”; Darius I, “Behistun T 17”; Darius I, “Behistun T 33”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 4, chapter 87”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 6, chapter 94”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Xerxes I”; Livius.org, “Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions”. ↩
- Herodotus, “Histories, Book 7, chapter 60”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 7, chapter 186”; Livius.org, “Herodotus, bk 7, logos 21”; Livius.org, “Thermopylae (480 BCE)”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 7, chapter 223”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 8, chapter 53”; Livius.org, “Mardonius”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 8, chapter 97”; World History Encyclopedia, “Xerxes I”. ↩
- World History Encyclopedia, “Cambyses II”; Livius.org, “Cambyses II”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 3, chapter 11”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 3, chapter 13”. ↩
- Herodotus, “Histories, Book 3, chapter 25”; Livius.org, “Cambyses II”; Livius.org, “Cambyses II (2)”; Livius.org, “Amyrtaeus”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Memnon of Rhodes”; History of War, “Memnon of Rhodes (d.334)”; Diodorus Siculus, “Diodorus Siculus, Book XVII, chapters 1 to 16”. ↩
- Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book I, Chapter XII”; Diodorus Siculus, “Diodorus Siculus, Book XVII, chapters 17 to 39”; Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book I, Chapter XX”; Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book I, Chapter XXIII”; History of War, “Memnon of Rhodes (d.334)”; Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book II, Chapter I”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Mardonius”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 6, chapter 43”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 6, chapter 94”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Mardonius”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 8, chapter 113”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 9, chapter 3”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 9, chapter 13”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 9, chapter 63”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 9, chapter 70”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Harpagus”; Livius.org, “ABC 7 (Nabonidus Chronicle)”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 127”. ↩
- Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 162”; Livius.org, “Harpagus”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 164”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 169”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 171”; Herodotus, “Histories, Book 1, chapter 176”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Artaxerxes II Mnemon”; Livius.org, “Amyrtaeus”; Plutarch, “The Life of Artaxerxes”; Xenophon, “Anabasis, Book 1, chapter 7”. ↩
- Xenophon, “Anabasis, Book 1, chapter 8”; Plutarch, “The Life of Artaxerxes”; Livius.org, “Artaxerxes II Mnemon”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Artaxerxes III Ochus”; Diodorus Siculus, “Diodorus Siculus, Book XVI, chapters 40 to 65”. ↩
- Diodorus Siculus, “Diodorus Siculus, Book XVI, chapters 40 to 65”; Livius.org, “ABC 9 (Artaxerxes III Chronicle)”; History of War, “Memnon of Rhodes (d.334)”; Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book III, Chapter I”; Diodorus Siculus, “Diodorus Siculus, Book XVII, chapters 1 to 16”; Livius.org, “Artaxerxes III Ochus”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Cyrus the Great”; Livius.org, “Darius III Codomannus”; World History Encyclopedia, “Darius I”; Livius.org, “Mardonius”. ↩
- Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book II, Chapter XI”; Arrian, “The Anabasis of Alexander, Book III, Chapter XIV”; Livius.org, “Darius III Codomannus”. ↩
- Xenophon, “Hellenica, Book 4, chapter 3, section 11”; Plutarch, “The Life of Artaxerxes”; Livius.org, “Pharnabazus (2)”. ↩
- Xenophon, “Anabasis, Book 1, chapter 8”; Livius.org, “Tissaphernes”. ↩
- Livius.org, “Carrhae (53 BCE)”; Livius.org, “Shapur I”; World History Encyclopedia, “Shapur I”; Laurence Lockhart, “Nadir Shah (1938)”. ↩
- Xenophon, “Hellenica, Book 4, chapter 3, section 11”; Xenophon, “Hellenica, Book 4, chapter 8, section 9”. ↩
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