Just Finished Reading: Persians – The Age of the Great Kings by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (FP: 2022) [397pp] 

Up until comparatively recently, our knowledge of the Persian world and especially the Greek-Persian War had been almost exclusively from the Greek side. Unsurprisingly, those who write the histories tend to portray themselves in the best of lights and their enemies – well all too often they are seen as decadent aggressive barbarians unworthy of the name civilised. Our views changed with the discovery of thousands of clay tablets which, in the preceding years, have been painstakingly translated and compiled into a history of the region and the Persian empire in their own words. Needless to say, this is VERY different from the Greek accounts so well known in the West. 

Starting in what is now Iran, the Achaemenids eventually founded an empire spanning the whole region and claimed parts of what is now northern Greece and north Africa including most of Egypt. They were mighty and a force to be reckoned with for centuries. They built great cities, produced epic iconic art and waged war with an equally epoch-making intensity. They did not suffer their enemies to remain rivals for long, crushing all opposition, burning cities to the ground and enslaving the survivors. They were most certainly NOT to be messed with. This, of course, did not stop the Greek city states on the coast of what is now Turkey from doing so – much to their regret. It also didn’t stop internal rivalry, most especially at times of power transition. The King of Kings, in order to secure the continuity of the Achaemenids made sure to produce enough sons to pick from to be the designated heir. Unfortunately, with SO many sons to choose from – often in the tens if not more – those who were passed over either had to be placated, exiled FAR away from the centres of power or simply executed/assassinated to ensure a ‘peaceful’ transfer of power. It was, to say the least, messy. If that wasn’t bad enough, even before the next King had been designated (or assumed) there was a constant jostling for position and power in the attempt to ensure that the favoured son in fact ended up as the heir-designate. Poison or simple assassination played their parts here. 

If that wasn’t complicated enough – and to be honest getting my head around some of the family trees in this book is a REAL mind twister – the Achaemenids most definitely kept it in the family in order to maintain a ‘pure’ bloodline. This involved Kings marrying their cousins, sisters, daughters and whoever was ‘best suited’ to maintain the dynasty. My particular ‘favourite’ example was a King (I can’t remember which one as they often had the same names) who married his daughter who was, herself, continuing her affair with her brother throughout. They could certainly give the later Egyptian dynasties a run for their money in that department. 

It was nice to start to rectify my DEEP ignorance of this region and period covered in this excellent book. As you’ll have guessed by now, seeing my reading on Ancient Times, I do tend to concentrate on the Greeks and the Romans probably at least partially due to the fact that there’s just SO much out there on them. I have been trying – OK, mostly by accumulating unread books – to move my knowledge Eastwards and this is an early foray towards that. It was a very good start. If, like me, you’ve often wondered what it was like beyond the edges of the Greek and Roman worlds in Ancient Times I recommend that you give this tome a read. You can thank me later. MUCH more to come from this region. 

[Highest page count of the year so far: 397pp][+14pp]