Episode 30. Persian Intrigue and Economic Mastery

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What if the financial strategies of an ancient empire could reshape your understanding of economic power today? Join me, Mike D, on a captivating exploration of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, where every twist of a half-brother's betrayal and the cunning moves of a powerful sister become a lesson in political intrigue and economic innovation. Witness the rise and fall of rulers like Xerxes II and Darius II, whose stories of borrowed warfare echo through time, parallel to the sophisticated practices of the Murasu family. Together, we'll uncover how these historical narratives set the stage for a flourishing era of trade and financial leverage, drawing unexpected connections to medieval Italian city-states.

Experience the tension-filled corridors of the Persian court as we navigate the complex web of power struggles between Darius II and Artaxerxes II, and the ambition-fueled conflict of Cyrus the Younger. Intrigue and betrayal run rampant, with familial rivalries and strategic interventions by their formidable mother shaping the empire's destiny. Discover how the empire's reach extended into Greek affairs during the Peloponnesian War, and how Artaxerxes III's ruthless ascent to power left a complex legacy that echoed through time, setting the stage for future clashes with Macedonia.

Finally, unravel the Achaemenid Empire's groundbreaking advancements in economics, law, and culture. From the progressive Achaemenid  Law Code to the empire's efficient credit systems and inclusive governance, these innovations laid the groundwork for modern financial systems. Marvel at the empire's engineering feats, agricultural progresses, and strategic management of vassal states. With Alexander the Great's conquest looming on the horizon, understand how these historical developments left a lasting impact on the world, reshaping warfare, governance, and economic strategies that resonate even today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome podcast listener.
I am Mike D and this is theHistory of Money, banking and
Trade podcast.
My goal is to expand yourknowledge of the history and
evolution of trade, along withmoney, banking and credit, from
ancient civilizations all theway to the present.
I truly hope you find theseepisodes to be informative and
entertaining.
Now, I'm not a historian, but Iam a fan of history.

(00:29):
When we last left off, weexplored Xerxes' invasion of
Greece.
As part of his invasions, wetalked about the monumental
engineering challenges that, inhindsight, may not have been the
wisest of decisions, such asthe bridge of ships across the
Dardanelles.
However, mother Nature did stepin and have other plans.

(00:49):
So, despite the fact that hedid help fuel these great
engineering feats, they turnedout to be more or less a
disaster in the end.
We also got into the epic clashat Thermopylae and then the
really amazing naval strategy atSalamis, where the Greeks
basically turned the tideagainst an overwhelming Persian
force.
In part, the Greeks were helpedby a campaign of misinformation

(01:13):
, which culminated in theirtriumphant stand at Plataea.
Additionally, the Greeks kindof really got together and put
their differences aside andorganized a confederation with
the Delian League, which shiftedthe power dynamics that
basically reshaped the wholeentire ancient world.
However, many of the Greeksquickly became suspicious of the

(01:36):
Athenians when they shiftedtheir treasury to Athens.
Despite all the epic battlesthat had occurred, a peace
treaty was signed, which led toa flourishing banking industry
and increased trade inside andoutside of the Persian Empire.
As part of the peace, we sawthe rise of the West Semitic
community in Babylonia and thesophisticated banking practices

(01:59):
of the Mushuru family.
We concluded with Artaxerxes'reign, with the intricate web of
diplomacy and culturalinterplay that defined the
Persian society.
Artaxerxes only had one son withQueen Dimaspea, which was Crown
Prince Xerxes II, but with hisconcubines he had 17 other sons.

(02:22):
Artaxerxes and his queen diedon the same day in 424 BCE,
perhaps of the same illness ormaybe something worse, something
foul.
Crown Prince Xerxes II ascendedto the throne, but he sat on
the throne for only 45 daysbecause his half-brother,
sogdianus, assassinated himwhile he was in a drunken sleep.

(02:44):
Brother Sogdianus assassinatedhim while he was in a drunken
sleep.
So while Sogdianus had usurpedthe throne, he kind of realized
that he needed help inmaintaining the throne.
So what he did is he basicallyhanded out significant bribes to
his military.
The issue he faced was hisother half-brothers and even
half-sister, for that matter hadpowerful allies on the other

(03:06):
side who wanted them on thethrone.
One of his brothers, who wentby the name of Oches, was the
son of a Babylonian concubine.
Now it sounds like Sagdianuswas potentially worried that
Oches would try to claim thethrone, so he ordered him to
Susa, where it is thought thatwhen he sends him there he's

(03:30):
obviously going to have himkilled.
So Ochas was clearly worriedbecause when he received the
little note that he got in themail, which was a cuneiform
tablet instructing him to Susa,he knew he had to put together a
plan quite quickly or else itcould be death.
And obviously the first thinghe would do is ask his

(03:51):
supporters to fight for him.
But he had a problem because hedidn't have any means to pay
them.
Like a lot of ancient royalty,they were land rich but cash
poor, and that wasn't going tobe much of use, because if he
was to put together a mercenaryarmy he would need lots of

(04:11):
silver to pay them.
So if he didn't have actualsilver he had to borrow.
And wouldn't you know it, hereached out to our old friends,
the Murasu family, for support.
The Murasu family is the familywe talked about in the prior
episode that ran these greatbanking operations, and in order

(04:31):
to do this, he needed tomortgage his vast property
holdings so that the Murasufamily could lend against the
property's collateral.
So by the time he had answeredthe call from Sagdianus, he had
to roll into Susa with a largearmy financed by the Murasu
family.
So after six short months,sagdianus was killed by his

(04:54):
half-brother, who took thethrone as Darius II.
Now it's quite possible thatthis is the first ever recorded
instance of war or maybe war isa strong word maybe more like a
battle that was in fact financedby borrowed money.
Don't forget, in the past, Imean, there might be some sort

(05:16):
of borrowing that had takenplace, but most kings would have
had the resources that theycould have used to call up an
army.
But in this particular casethis was purely done through
leverage.
So you got to look at from thebanking operation side.
So the Morasu family took amajor risk because if this
doesn't turn out in their favor,they potentially lose

(05:37):
everything and probably aregoing to get killed in the
process.
They would have been probablyhung as traitors.
So this is potentially thefirst time this ever really
happened, at least what we knowof in written records.
But it certainly won't be thelast time, especially when we're
talking about the medievalItalian city-states, because
most of their wars werebasically fought through

(06:00):
borrowed money.
So we see it first here, but itcertainly won't be the last
time we ever see kings borrowmoney to finance a war.
And it's interesting because Ikind of briefly said something
and I just want to kind of getback to it, but I had mentioned
that there was a half sisterthat was very powerful.
Now, it's quite possible thatthis half sister well, she was

(06:23):
completely ruthless and savvy,because it sounds like she was
the brains behind the operationto usurp the throne.
Now, of course, we all knowthat whenever a king is usurped
from the throne, especially froma powerful state like the
Achaemenid Persian Empire, theprovinces that were once
independent kingdoms were almostcertain to try and break away

(06:47):
from the overlords.
In addition, it didn't helpthat it wasn't a peaceful
transfer of power, because,ultimately, darius II took the
throne by murdering his brother,who had taken the throne by
murdering his brother, who wasthe legitimate heir to the
throne.
So, needless to say, theprovinces were going to test

(07:08):
whether Darius II was a strongor weak ruler, and of course,
the first nation to bolt wasEgypt.
But the Egyptians were veryimportant to the Persian Empire
and subsequent empires thatfollowed, because Egypt was
vital to trade and, moreimportantly, they were the
breadbasket of the Near East andthe Mediterranean.

(07:29):
And if they were to lose Egypt,you might not be able to feed
your army and local population.
And to make matters worse, theAthenians were meddling in
Western Anatolia by kicking outthe oligarchs who were ruling
the Ionian cities and restoreddemocracy to the region and

(07:50):
essentially brought them underthe Athenian control or, at the
very least, strong influence.
So this is ultimately whereit's going to start for Darius
II, if he's going to provehimself to be a good or a weak
commander.
And luckily for the AchaemenidPersian Empire, he proved to be
a very formidablecommander-in-chief.

(08:14):
Now Darius, just like thePersian rulers prior, were
financially supporting Sparta intheir proxy war.
He had the Phoenicians buildwarships to replenish the
Spartan fleet while reconqueringmost of the Ionian city-states
with his own fleet.
Well, this move whetherintentional or unintentional,

(08:35):
but probably intentional was thefinal break of the Peace of
Callias.
Now, the Peace of Callias was apeace treaty that was
established around 449 BCEbetween the Delian League, which
was led by Athens, and theAchaemenid Persian Empire that
ended the Greco-Persian Wars.

(08:56):
Darius II's second son, cyrusthe Younger, struck a deal with
General Lysander of Sparta.
By assisting Sparta againstAthens, cyrus the Younger ended
up making Lysander ruler of ajoint Greece in exchange for
assistance in a secret deal inwhich he planned a coup against

(09:17):
his older brother.
After his father's death,lysander and his Spartans, with
their 200 ships that had beenprovided by Persia, laid siege
to Athens until it surrendered.
So, in the end, it was thePersians' influence in Greece
that really kicked off thePeloponnesian War, and then

(09:37):
again, it was the interferenceby the Persians that helped end
the Peloponnesian War, as Spartawas finally able to defeat the
Athenians, of which Sparta woulddemand a large sum of tribute
from the Athenians.
So, just as the PeloponnesianWar had ended, darius II died in
404 BC, and his oldest son,artaxerxes II, succeeded him.

(10:03):
However, I just said that Cyrusthe Younger already had a plan
in place with the Spartans toprovide support for his cool
attempt to usurp the throne fromhis older brother.
Well, the whispers must havebeen loud, because it seemed to
travel.
Well, because rumors wereswirling around indicating that

(10:23):
Cyrus the Younger was planningon usurping the throne.
Now, it also didn't help thefact that it was well known that
Cyrus the Younger was veryheadstrong and also extremely
motivated for power, whereas itsounds like Artaxerxes II was
almost the opposite, where hewas a lot more chill and maybe
not quite the cutthroat like hisyounger brother was.

(10:46):
So what I'm saying is, whenDarius II died, there was
probably people in the courtthat saw this coming a mile away
, and because of this, cyrus theYounger was arrested.
However, he did have a lovingmother who obviously didn't want
to see one of her sons killedand therefore begged and pleaded

(11:09):
with Artaxerxes II to drop thecharges, like the previous king
where there were half-brotherswho had different mothers.
So apparently she persistentlydefended her son and eventually
got the charges dropped.

(11:30):
Cyrus the Younger decided thatit'd be best to kind of leave
town and just kind of let thingscool down a little bit.
So he skipped out and went toLydia and, more importantly,
what he wanted to do is bid histime to see if Artaxerxes II
would sort of let his guard down.

(11:52):
Now, as you can imagine, thequeen mother was pretty powerful
and headstrong.
In fact she was very muchinvolved in the decision-making
in the kingdom, whether it waswith her husband or now her son,
artaxerxes II.
In hindsight, it's probablyquite obvious, considering the

(12:12):
fact that she was able to getthe king, which was her son, to
drop the charges of their otherson, who was basically plotting
to kill the oldest son.
Now, towards the beginning ofthis series, we talked about the
fact that women were viewed asequals and could also hold
courts and make policy decisionsfor the empire, unlike a lot of

(12:36):
other places, especially placeslike the Phoenician city-states
.
Now, the problem here wasArtaxerxes' current wife was
also a key influencer and herinput was viewed just as
important as the mother's inputs.
Now, normally I would think, mepersonally, that taking the
advice from your wife is a goodthing, because you're going to

(12:58):
get a different viewpoint oncertain topics or whatever.
But the problem here is we havea conflict between the wife and
the mother, and the motherdidn't want to take a backseat
to anybody and therefore themother and the wife became
bitter rivals.
So one way the mother knew howto get at her daughter-in-law

(13:20):
was by influencing her son totake as many concubines as
possible, and in fact it soundslike he had well over 300.
And on top of that, it soundslike he had about 100 sons with
the different concubines.
So, as Mel Brooks famously said, it's good to be the king, and
apparently he was putting in hiskingly duties outside the

(13:42):
palace duties for sure, which Idon't know how that's even
possible to be running an empireand having to deal with major
problems in Greece and thenhaving to deal with problems in
Egypt, all the while yourbrother is over there trying to
plot and kill you.
But then, on top of all that,now you got to deal with the

(14:02):
fact that your mother and wifehate each other and you have 300
other women or concubines nowand you have sons with many of
them who are probably going tostart jockeying for a position
for their son to be thepotential crown prince.
So there's a lot going on here.
Now it sounds like his 300concubines and 100 sons really

(14:26):
didn't materialize into aproblem at all, but he had to
deal with the fact that hismother and wife were just bitter
enemies.
And then, to make matters worse, his wife was speaking publicly
about his mother's apparentcruelties in court and the way

(14:46):
she treated other people.
So the mother obviously didn'tlike to hear her name badmouthed
in the court of public opinion,because that's essentially
what's happening here.
So she thought to herself well,what's the next best step that
can potentially silence thiswhole issue?
And of course, the next beststep for her would be murder.

(15:10):
In order to make theassassination happen, the queen
mother used a loyal servant tocarve a bird with a poison knife
.
So when the wife took a bite ofthe bird, it had poison from
where the knife had cut it andshe apparently had a very
painful death as a result.
And if you're wondering if thissounds somewhat familiar, I

(15:31):
mean it kind of really playedout in Game of Thrones when King
Joffrey died.
So you wonder, when RR Martinis writing these amazing stories
, if he is just going straightto the source of historical
evidence and putting them in hisbooks, but rewriting them in a
way that is very appealing tothe audience.

(15:52):
Now, unlike Game of Thrones, itsounds like this murder was
committed by his mother becauseshe was in fact jealous of her
son's wife, because, accordingto Plutarch, her son, artaxerxes
, apparently actually loved hisnow deceased wife, and
apparently this put him into arage when his wife died.

(16:14):
But he couldn't kill his mother, so instead he had his mother's
eunuch and servants executed.
He then exiled his mother toBabylon, but that really didn't
last long, because she came backinto his life and once again
was a leading figure inproviding counsel.
And in doing so, what she didis she kind of advised

(16:38):
Artaxerxes to take a couple ofnew wives that the mother knew
that they were timid and had nosay or ability in court, so
therefore she could still reignon top and not have to worry
about a powerful wife ofArtaxerxes.
Now, despite all this intriguein the court and the issue with

(17:01):
his mother and now deceased wife, artaxerxes still had an empire
to run and as part of that hehad to essentially set out the
economy and move the trade inthe direction that he felt would
be best fit.
And of course, one of the bestways to influence trade is to
influence coinage, and in thisparticular case, artaxerxes II

(17:26):
kind of really came to theconclusion if it ain't broke,
don't fix it.
So basically, what he did is hemaintained basically the same
coinage that had been aroundsince Darius first issued coins
in 520 BCE.
However, the current iterationsof the coinage were known as
the Siglos Type 4, which was adepiction of a king running with

(17:47):
a dagger, which would have beenaround 375 to 340 BCE, and
those particular coins wereactually silver coins.
Then there was also the DerrickType 4, which was also
basically the same thing, butthese were gold coins, which was
also basically the same thing,but these were gold coins and
they essentially remained thesame size and weights of the

(18:10):
original Derricks that wereissued by Darius in 520 BCE.
So not a lot of change there.
And of course it's probably bestnot to change things because
ultimately you still need to paya mercenary army and the
mercenary army is always goingto want to get paid in coinage
that can be fungible and changedand moved around the different

(18:32):
empire and, of course, you know,moved out into the outer
reaches, into places like Greece, if they're going to do any
kind of long-distance trade orif they're just going to hire
Greek mercenaries.
And speaking of mercenaries,cyrus the Younger hadn't gone
away.
In fact, he was stillcontinuing to plot and plan and
as such, he was able to puttogether an army of about 20,000

(18:56):
men and an additional 10,000Greek mercenaries, which he
probably ironically, paid withthe coinage of Artaxerxes II.
Now, eventually, these twosides would square off in
Babylonia.
Cyrus' only objective was tokill his older brother.

(19:17):
So essentially what happenedwas he kind of locked into him
and went straight for him, buthe was cut down in the middle of
the process.
Now, from then on, it's quiteclear that Artaxerxes II is the
king of the Cuman-Persian empire, as he really didn't have any
kind of rivals at this point.
However, the Greek mercenariesthat had survived were kind of

(19:42):
really stuck in a bad placebecause their employer was just
killed.
So they're not going to getpaid for one thing, and another
thing is, if they don't get outof Dodge, they're going to die.
So they're going to pick uptheir stuff and they just
started to flee.
And if you ever want to hear agood detailed account of this,
paul Cooper's Fall ofCivilization podcast, in the

(20:03):
introduction he laid out thegreat scenario of basically what
happened, where he basicallydiscussed how the Greek
mercenary army that was sent toPersia to fight for Cyrus the
Younger in 401 BCE well, theywere left stranded and they knew
that they had to get back toGreece yesterday.
So they basically took off onfoot and moved as fast as they

(20:27):
could, following the TigrisRiver towards the north, towards
the Black Sea.
Xenophon wrote how they werestunned to find these huge
abandoned cities, of which thelocal population didn't even
know who formed these cities.
These cities, in fact, were old, abandoned Assyrian cities, but

(20:48):
the people in the localpopulation, they didn't know who
the Assyrians were.
They were basically lost totime so they had absolutely no
clue who built these enormouswalls for this enormous city.
But I digress Now.
You ever notice when things getlike really hectic and you kind

(21:08):
of really go through themotions to resolve whatever it
was that you needed to resolve,and then you kind of take a step
back mentally and just kind ofreview what happened and once
things calm down you realize,hey, wait a minute.
Well, that's kind of whatArtaxerxes II did Afterward.
He was like wait, the Spartansjust tried to help my no-good

(21:31):
brother in a coup d'etat.
And to make matters worse, theSpartans fomented a revolt of
the Ionians against the Kingdomof the Persian Empire.
Let us not forget it was theSpartans and the Persians who
allied with each other to defeatthe Athenians just a few
decades prior to this.
Luckily for Persia, the Greekscouldn't get along and therefore

(21:56):
the Corinthian Wars broke outfrom 395 to 37 BCE, which was
between Sparta and a coalitionof city-states comprising Thebes
, athens, corinth and Argos, ofwhich the Achaemenid Empire was
supporting that side.
Now the war was caused becauseformer allies of Sparta in the
Peloponnesian War were disgustedby Sparta's imperialism in the

(22:19):
aftermath of the PeloponnesianWar, along with the fact that
Corinth and Thebes felt theyweren't adequately rewarded for
their help in defeating Athens.
So essentially what happenedwas the Sparta issue with the
Persians was kind of reallyhandled by the Greeks because

(22:40):
they were once again at eachother's throats and the Persians
weren't going to let a war goto waste.
So now they supported theAthenians and sent a Phoenician
fleet to help defeat their nowenemies, the Spartans.
So if Sparta would have stayedout of the Cyrus the Younger
coup attempt, well, the Spartansmight have been in a much

(23:01):
better position and theywouldn't have to deal with the
Persians now supporting theirenemies.
But either way, artaxerxes was amajor player in brokering the
peace of which ended theCorinthian war in 387 BCE.
Persia was once again friendlywith Sparta and abandoned its

(23:22):
allies with Athens.
So things kind of went back tohow they had been as the Ionian
Greek city-states became vassalsto the Achaemenid Empire and
the rest of the Greekcity-states regained their
independence as well.
So right now we have a casewhere Athens is getting itself

(23:43):
back into order, but Thebes wasbeginning its rise to power in
Greece as well, as they had wonseveral battles using the
phalanx maneuvers with the longspears, but they did something
that would end up changing theworld as we know it.
They invaded thesemi-barbarians, the Macedonians

(24:04):
, and took the king's son,philip II, as a hostage where he
would learn their battletactics.
So it's crazy to think thatthis action alone will
eventually come back to end theAchaemenid Persian Empire.
Also, while all this ishappening and, to be honest,

(24:27):
even before these events inGreece, egypt, known as Persia,
was too tied up in Greece.
So they saw this as anopportunity and they had
revolted and retained itsindependence from Darius II, who
, if you recall, was Artaxerxes'father, who was never able to
bring them back under control.
Now Artaxerxes was just aboutto invade Egypt, but he got

(24:53):
caught up in his brother's coupattempt and, because Sparta was
a big part of that, they gotthemselves entangled in the
Greek wars again.
Shortly after settling thepeace between the Greeks and the
Persians, artaxerxes II went oncampaign to Egypt, but after
three years Persia couldn'trecapture Egypt and more or less

(25:16):
saw the writing on the wall andjust left in disgrace.
Artaxerxes was getting up therein age and needed to make sure
that the crown prince was namedprior to his death because he
feared if this was not in thepublic record, a civil war could
break out.
And of course, this couldn'tpossibly be drama-free.

(25:36):
Because how could it?
Because that wouldn't make anysense.
Now would it make any sense now, would it?
The person who probably thoughtwas first in line was his oldest
son by the Queen of Darius,which would have been the
obvious choice, because theoldest son was typically, but
not always, chosen as the crownprince.
But in this particular case,the younger son, oches, plotted

(25:59):
and schemed his way to makehimself look like the proper
choice For one.
He courted his half-sisterAtusa, who was Artaxerxes'
favorite daughter, thinking thathis father would want her to be
the next queen, which is kindof a smart strategy if you think
about it.
But the strategy was all fornaught.

(26:22):
So he basically appointed hisson, darius, as the heir present
to the throne.
Darius was already 50 by thistime, because Artaxerxes had
such a long reign.
Now Darius was in love withCyrus, the Younger's consort.
Well, this didn't sit too wellwith Artaxerxes, because Cyrus

(26:42):
the Younger was the brother whotried to kill him.
So marrying the woman who wasadvising your potential assassin
wouldn't look good andcertainly wouldn't feel good
either.
So therefore, artaxerxesrejected this, and, to make sure
that nothing could come of it,he forced her to become a
priestess, which meant she hadto remain a virgin for the rest

(27:05):
of her life, or, if she wasn't avirgin, she would have to be
sexually inactive.
Now, apparently, darius tookthis very hard, so much so that
he plotted to assassinate hisfather while he was sleeping in
his bed.
Somehow or other, he was tippedoff, or maybe he's just a light

(27:26):
sleeper, I don't know.
But whatever it was, he managedto escape this assassination
attempt by fleeing into a hiddenroom behind his bed and,
needless to say, this failedcoup attempt wasn't going to end
well for Darius.
As such.
He was ordered to be beheaded.
So you got all that.
First of all, the names are allconfusing, and then all the

(27:48):
plot twists and everything likethat.
It's just mind-blowing.
I mean, let's take a step backfor a second.
This succession was supposed tobe simple and easy, but it got
messy really quick.
Artaxerxes wanted to make surethat there wasn't going to be
any problems on this succession.
But sure enough, this isancient civilizations and it
almost seems like nothing can besimple, despite the fact that

(28:10):
it should be simple.
So now Oches was in the driver'sseat to be named the crown
prince, but he still had twoother half-brothers who were
potential rivals.
He got into the head of one ofthem and convinced one of his
brothers that his father wasgoing to kill him.
So he took the only reasonableoption and committed suicide

(28:41):
suicide.
Now, it sounds like Artaxerxestook this very hard and
suspected Oches of being behindit, but he couldn't prove it.
So with one down, it was one togo, but in this particular case
he wouldn't take the time toget in someone's head and
convince them this, that orwhatever.
He just took the simple routeand killed his brother directly,
and apparently this reallyshook up Artaxerxes II, who was

(29:04):
already quite elderly at thetime, and essentially it sounds
like he more or less died ofgrief in 358 BCE, which is quite
sad.
In all honesty, I never thoughtI'd really feel bad for a
Persian king, but you kind ofcan't help but feel a little bit
sympathy for what he had to gothrough, and what makes it worse
was he was trying to do theright thing.

(29:26):
But it's amazing when someonegets consumed with ambition and,
as a result, it's just notuncommon for things to get real
messy and for people to die.
So Ochus took the throne in 358BCE with the throne name of

(29:47):
Artaxerxes III.
But of course, this couldn't bedrama free.
According to a Macedonianhistorian, ocas schemed with the
palace, eunuchs and officials,along with guards, to keep his
father's death a secret for 10months while he consolidated his
rule.
Meanwhile, he forged lettersfrom his father naming Ocas as

(30:11):
the heir.
Now you might be askingyourself didn't you say that he
had over 100 sons with his 300concubines?
Wouldn't some of them want tobe on the throne as well?
Well, according to the Romanhistorian Justin, he straight up
murdered most of the royalmales, which may have included

(30:35):
80.
In one day he even killed someof his sisters, just in case.
Now, while he was committingfamilial genocide, philip II was
ascending the throne inMacedonia.

(30:56):
Now, the ironic thing was, eventhough Artaxerxes III was kind
of viewed as an ancientpsychopath, the Persian Empire
was kind of going through a bitof a renaissance at the time.
Art and architecture flourished, but, more importantly, coinage
was being widely adoptedthrough the empire.
Local and foreign trade wasbooming, so the Achaemenid
Persian Empire's economy washumming along.

(31:17):
But it's interesting becauseits rivals, the Greek
city-states, well, their economywas actually struggling during
this time period and as such,the Achaemenid Persian trade in
the Western Aegean and theMediterranean seas actually
picked up, where the Greeceeconomies were struggling.

(31:45):
Now, despite the booming economyof the Cuman-Persian Empire,
artaxerxes was getting warningsthat Philip II of Macedonia was
going to invade Persia.
But Philip was also kind ofgetting the same information
that the Persians were going toevade the Greek city-states.
But really, before the Persianscould worry about the
Macedonians, they had otherconcerns.

(32:06):
Namely, they had insurgenciesin certain Phoenician
city-states and Egypt wassticking its nose in Persian
provinces, and Egypt wassticking its nose in Persian
provinces.
The Phoenician city-states hadlong established expertise in
shipbuilding and had theextensive trade networks, so
losing them would mean thePersians were losing its trade

(32:29):
networks through theMediterranean.
Artaxerxes was going to leadthis war into the Levant, so he
assembled 300,000 infantrymenand 30,000 cavalry, 300 warships
and about 500 supply ships,along with food, weapons and
siege engines.
Now, in the past, the Persiannavy relied on the Phoenicians

(32:53):
and the Egyptians.
But obviously they couldn't dothat now, so he hired Greek
mercenaries.
Oh, and while this washappening, cyprus had declared
themselves independent as well.
So Artaxerxes III was furiousand asked a minor kingdom on the
southwestern coast to sail intoCyprus and put down the revolt.

(33:16):
And put it down they did.
The commanders of the fleet andthe soldiers knew that Cyprus
was wealthy.
So the soldiers and the sailorscouldn't get there fast enough
because they knew that there wasa ton of treasure to plunder.
Other sailors and soldiersheard the news and rushed over
to plunder as well.
So in the end the size of theforce doubled.

(33:38):
Because, greed right, everybodythought, hey, I got to get a
piece of the action.
So all of a sudden this hugeforce kind of converged on
Cyprus.
Well, this triggered a majorpanic among the various
city-states on the island ofCyprus, so literally all of them
surrendered to Persia exceptthe ruler of Salamis.
So literally all of themsurrendered to Persia except the
ruler of Salamis.
So all the while, when thePersians got to the Phoenician

(34:01):
city-states of Sidon inparticular, its king took one
look at the size of the forceand he immediately struck a deal
with Persia.
The Sidon king figured it'sbest to help the Persians with
their Egyptian problem.
But remember, artaxerxes IIIhad a bit of a psycho streak in

(34:22):
him, so he decided to reject thedeal and evade the city anyway,
because he wanted to send amessage to everyone else in the
region not to cross him.
So apparently, 40,000 peoplewere slaughtered in Sidon.
Sidon was one of the biggestcities in the Phoenician
city-states.
The other Phoenician citiesimmediately pledged their
loyalty to Artaxerxes III.
So while the Phoeniciancity-states problem was resolved

(34:46):
, it was off to Egypt where he,unlike his father, would take a
hands-on approach.
When the Persians arrived at thecity of Pelellicium, which was
the same city that Cambysespreviously defeated, with the
cats, dogs and rams, well, theymet up with the Egyptian pharaoh

(35:07):
Nectimbo, who was extremelyoverconfident due to their
recent success against Persia,so he refused to share the
command with his highlyexperienced Athenian and Spartan
generals.
It was relatively quick, butPersians took control of the
Nile Delta and, as a result, thepharaoh fled south to the

(35:29):
capital city of Memphis, and theGreeks realized that the
pharaoh and the Egyptians hadabandoned the city.
So they surrendered andArtaxerxes allowed them to
return to Greece with whateverthey could plunder and carry on
their backs on the way back.
So actually this actuallyworked out really well for the

(35:50):
Greeks.
I mean, they could have beenslaughtered, but instead
Artaxerxes surprisingly let themlive and in fact let them kind
of profit in the meantime.
So that's kind of interesting.
One Egyptian city after anotherfell.
Each of those cities' templeswere plundered and desecrated.
Now, as you can imagine, theEgyptians didn't have a
favorable opinion of thePersians.
So several decades later, whenAlexander the Great came to

(36:14):
Egypt, they viewed him as aliberator from their Persian
overlords.
However, before Alexander wasable to make his way into Egypt,
artaxerxes was able tocelebrate his victory over the
Egyptians by minting a coinwhich shows Artaxerxes III as

(36:35):
the Egyptian pharaoh.
Shows Artaxerxes III as theEgyptian pharaoh.
Now back in Europe.
In 340 BCE, the accumulatedPersian Empire experienced its
first encounter with theMacedonians in Thrace, because
King Philip II was slowlyexpanding his empire and now it
was encroaching into thegarrisons in Thrace which had

(36:59):
come under control of theAchaemenid Empire under Darius
the Great.
Artaxerxes III was able to pushPhilip out of Thrace, but for
some crazy reason, when Philipwas retreating, artaxerxes did
not pursue him or seem to takethe Macedonians a little too
lightly.
Now it's quite possible thatthey viewed them as some sort of

(37:24):
backwater Greeks when theytalked about the Macedonians,
and maybe they didn't take themas serious as the other Greeks
weren't taking them as seriousto begin with.
But either way, persia was ingreat shape at this time.

(37:49):
They retook Egypt, they snuffedout rivals in the Phoenician
city-states and in Cyprus.
But despite all this, it allcame crashing down when
Artaxerxes' closest friend, whowas a eunuch named Begoas, whom
he had appointed as the secondin command, had poisoned and

(38:11):
killed him.
The historian Diodorusdescribed Begous as grasping and
treacherous, and thatdescription certainly seems to
be pretty accurate.
The death from poisoningbrought his son Arsus, who took
the name Artaxerxes IV, to thethrone.
Arsus had older brothers, butBegous orchestrated events to

(38:35):
crown him, expecting that hecould easily manipulate the
youth and rule through him.
Oh, and at the same time, mostof the Greek city-states had
joined the Greek League underthe leadership of the Macedonian
king, philip II.
King Arsus tried but failed topoison him and was in turn

(38:59):
poisoned by Pagoeus.
Now, as a quick reminder,artaxerxes III, the father of
Artaxerxes IV, was abloodthirsty king and had wiped
out most of the royal males atthe beginning of his reign.
Oh, and Pagoas had poisoned himand the remaining heirs,

(39:21):
leaving no male heirs in directline of Artaxerxes III.
So finally, pagoas had schemedhis way to find a young man who
he had identified as thegreat-grandson of Darius II and
put him on the throne.
But Darius III wasn't thepuppet that he was hoping for,

(39:45):
so this wasn't going to work forBegous.
So why not go into the old bagof tricks and poison?
Him, because he'd already doneit in the past, but Darius
wasn't falling for it.
Him, because he'd already doneit in the past, but Darius
wasn't falling for it.
Suspecting that he was next inline for the poison treatment,
darius handed his cup to Bagoasand said drink a toast to me.

(40:06):
Now, this reminds me once againof Game of Thrones, when the
guy was going to poison Khaleesi, but her advisor had him drink
the wine first.
Now Bagoas knew he was toastand apparently what he said was
he had lifted up the cup andbefore he drank it, he says to

(40:29):
the victor.
So while the eunuch waspoisoning the Persian royal
family, philip of Macedon wasconquering all of Greece except
for Sparta, and the new Dariuswas taking notice and probably
was concerned, but out ofnowhere his advisor had rushed

(40:53):
in out of breath.
I have some amazing news.
Philip is dead.
Darius says dead.
What happened, murder sire.
His jilted lover stabbed him todeath.
Darius laughed my nemesis waskilled by a woman.
No, sire, his bodyguard.
Philip was throwing a weddingfor his daughter and his

(41:16):
bodyguard suddenly pulled hisdagger out and stabbed him.
Is Alexander the king now?
Yes, I believe.
The Macedonian threat iseliminated.
Now.
Darius must have been ecstatic.
There is no way that a 20 yearold boy could be a threat.
And now rumors were coming inthat the other Greek leagues of

(41:39):
nations were falling apart aseach of the city-states were
pulling out of their alliance.
And, as you pretty well know,alexander took about two years
to bring all the Greekcity-states under control, all
except for Sparta, that is.
And as far as Darius knew, theonly threat was losing the

(42:00):
Ionians.
Darius could have never imaginedthat Alexander was plotting
against his entire empire.
However, one of his greatgenerals named Menmen of Rhodes.
Well, he knew much better,because Alexander set out to
conquer the entire Persianempire.
In order to do this, he neededto borrow a lot of money in

(42:23):
order to pay and provideprovisions for his troops, and
he took his cues from thePersians and the Lydians, and he
minted his own coins, of whichhe used to pay his creditors.
He then continued on by meltingdown gold and silver he
plundered after his initialvictories and converted much of
it to his own coinage.

(42:44):
Alexander's army, whichnumbered some 120,000 men,
required a half a ton of silvera day just for wages.
On the flip side, the existingPersian system of mines and
mints had to be reorganizedaround providing for the
defenses of the potentialinvading army.

(43:05):
Now, I didn't get into itpreviously, but working the
mines absolutely sucked and inmany ways it was a death
sentence.
So therefore, the mines wereworked by slaves, of which a
large percentage of those slaveswere war captives.
After Philip's murder, medmen, aprominent Greek commander from

(43:26):
Rhodes who was in the service ofthe Persian-Accumated Empire,
had defeated the demoralizedMacedonians near the Meander
River, which resulted in themgoing back to Europe.
But now Alexander was gainingsteam and heading back their way
.
Now, as he and the Persiansaptraps were designing their

(43:48):
defense strategy, they kind ofcame to the conclusion that it's
best to use a scorched earthpolicy, of which they wanted to
burn the fields and cut down thefruit trees and basically
remove all the supplies and moveeveryone to the interior.
Their philosophy was if hecan't feed his army, he'll be

(44:09):
forced to leave.
The issue was Medman wasethnically Greek, so he had some
credibility issues.
They wanted to know why wouldhe burn their own fields and
food supplies?
Furthermore, if we run, thenthe Greeks would grow more
confident.
So instead, the satraps decidedto stop them at the river

(44:33):
Granicus.
Alexander's army arrived in thelate afternoon, but he still
needed to cross the river, whichthey expected first thing in
the morning.
Since the Persians had highground, they would shoot off as
many arrows as they could untilit basically blotted out the sun
.
But it was the late afternoon,so they didn't expect him to

(44:56):
forge the river until the nextmorning.
Instead, alexander's forcesquickly moved into formation the
cavalry on the flanks with theinfantry in the center and the
Macedonian phalanx formation.
His javelin throwers, the eliteinfantry and the archers were
also on the right side.

(45:16):
Then, all of a sudden, thecavalry charged across the river
and up the bank.
As the Persians engaged withthe warhorses coming up from the
ridge, the rest of the armyplunged into the river and waded
across and fended off a hail ofjavelins and arrows Reaching
the top of the ridge.
Alexander immediately impaledDarius' son-in-law, mithridates,

(45:39):
in the face with his javelin.
Now the next thing to happennearly changed history forever.
The Persian satrap of Ionia andLydia came up behind Alexander
and chopped at his head with abattle axe, but he didn't kill
Alexander.
Somehow.
His helmet was split in two,but he was virtually uninjured.

(46:01):
Could you imagine if this wouldhave been fatal?
We might not ever have heard ofAlexander and all the
subsequent events that happenedthereafter.
The entire Near East historywould have been altered forever,
including Egypt and obviouslyGreece and potentially Rome and
even Carthage.
I love playing the what if?
Game in history, and this isprobably one of the greatest

(46:26):
what ifs ever.
Just as the satrap was about tostrike Alexander again,
alexander's friend Cletus theBlack ran up the hill and either
speared the sap trap to deathor chopped off his arm, but
either way, this saved Alexander.
The Greeks ended up destroyingthe Persian army in this

(46:48):
particular battle, but it wasn'tquite over yet.
In fact, darius nearly snuck upon Alexander's army, but
luckily for Alexander, he wasable to spot them in the nick of
time and therefore was able toturn his army around and reform
into the phalanx position.
Now the story goes thatAlexander had jumped on his
horse and charged at Darius andapparently Darius and his

(47:13):
bodyguards were so overcome withfear that they quickly fled the
scene.
However, alexander did notchase him because his army was
in the thick of the battle andwould have needed his leadership
.
But what he was able to do isessentially sneak in from behind
and shatter the Persian armyfrom the rear.

(47:33):
But he did take a sword in thethigh during the battle.
But of course it sounds likeduring the middle of this battle
the Persians had kind ofrealized that their king had
fled, and of course they're notgoing to sit around and fight
for a king that's not going tofight for them.
So they fled as well.
But the reason why this storyis so interesting is because

(47:54):
Darius fled, but his mother, hiswife and queen, and Darius's
two daughters were left behind.
Now, by all accounts, alexanderhad treated these women quite
well and even married one of thedaughters, but in the end this
was a great shame to Darius.

(48:15):
In the aftermath of the Persianloss, most of the Ionian
city-states under Persiancontrol surrendered almost
immediately, and all thePhoenician city-states that
suffered tire surrendered aswell.
Darius, in the meantime, hadsent a letter to Alexander and
stated I will give you myfriendship, my daughter in

(48:36):
marriage, a large payment forreturning my women and all of
Ionia.
Alexander immediately turneddown this offer and continued on
to Gaza.
While on campaign, alexanderwas once again wounded, as he
was shot in the shoulder by anarrow that went through his
shield.
Alexander then entered Egypt.

(48:58):
He was hailed as a liberatorfrom the Persian oppression, and
even the Persian satrap bowedto him and handed the treasury
over to him.
But then Darius was desperateand offered Alexander half of
his empire and his daughter'shand in marriage and a fortune
in gold.
Alexander replied saying healready had a fortune from all

(49:20):
the cities he just conquered andplundered, and he already had
his daughters.
He didn't want half his empire,he wanted the whole thing.
Since the negotiations broke off, a battle ensued in modern day
northern Iraq.
Darius was prepared and had anew strategy, of which he
brought war elephants in fromIndia, of which Alexander had

(49:43):
never seen, and chariots withblades extending from the wheels
of which they didn't have a lotof experience against chariots
as well.
Now, with regard to thechariots, they were designed to
cut people and horses down as aroad by alexander's army, but he
just pulled a fast one, juststepped to the side and then

(50:06):
attacked the chariots from therear.
As for the elephants, it'sreally hard to tell from the
accounts how much it reallyaffected the battle, but it must
not have been too much of anissue, as Alexander was able to
decisively defeat Darius yetagain.
But he managed to slip away.
But Alexander was able toplunder the region and now had

(50:29):
war elephants.
From there, alexander marchedhis troops into Babylon, where
he was hailed as the new king ofPersia.
While Alexander was beingcrowned the new king of Babylon,
the satrapobactria had capturedDarius and stabbed him up and
left him on the side of the roadas Alexander approached.

(50:50):
By the time Alexander got tohim he was already dead.
But Alexander had his body sentback to Persepolis where he
would be given a former royalfuneral Afterward.
The satrap of Bactria, which islocated in central Asia, like
think modern day Afghanistan,including parts of, say,

(51:11):
southwestern Tajikistan andsoutheastern Uzbekistan, and had
declared himself free from thePersians and therefore the king
of Bactria, and took the throneas Artaxerxes V.
But his kingdom basically fellapart almost immediately once
the Bactrians realized Alexanderwas coming for them.
The Bactrians then capturedtheir new king and cut off his

(51:35):
ears and nose and turned himover to Darius' brother, who
ordered him crucified.
Now, the interesting thing aboutthis is Alexander quickly
adopted Persian customs andclothing which his men found
quite bizarre.
One was called proskinesis,which was the practice of a

(51:57):
person kissing another on themouth.
If they were of equal stature,however, if one was unequal, if
one was inferior to the other,they would kiss the person on
the cheek, and if one was muchless lower rank, the other would
fall down before them andworship them.
By all accounts, alexander washaving a potential mental

(52:24):
breakdown or something, as hewas becoming very erratic, of
which some people think it couldhave been related to all his
head injuries he had sustainedin battle.
He even killed his closestfriend, cletus the Black, while
drunk, and, if you remember, hewas the one that saved his life.
Previously, alexander wasn'tthe king of Persia much longer,

(52:47):
as in 323 BCE, alexander fellill with a fever and died two
weeks later at the age of 32.
The Persian Empire fell intochaos after his death as his
generals divided up his empire.
Much of the Asian part of thePersian Empire lived on as the
Seleucid Empire, which wasfounded in 312 BCE by the

(53:10):
Macedonian general Seleucus I,and was ruled by the Seleucid
dynasty until it was annexed bythe Roman Republic under Pompey
in 63 BCE.
Now that I've pretty much gonethrough the entire history of
the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Ithought it might be a good time

(53:31):
to kind of reflect at itsaccomplishments.
First off, you can make thecase that, due to their sheer
size, they had established theworld's first ever large-scale
globalized economy, which wouldhave established trade routes
through a diverse amount ofethnicities and nations from

(53:51):
places as far away as Nubia inAfrica to the Balkans in Europe
and into the Indus Valley andinto China and Asia.
Now, prior to the Persians, youcould have said that the
Assyrians had established thefirst kind of international
economy in the Near East, but itdidn't reach nearly as far and

(54:13):
wide as the Achaemenid PersianEmpire way the Persians did,
which ultimately allowed formore free-flowing trade through
interactions with other groupsin commerce through its diverse

(54:34):
provinces and trade partners.
This trade was further enhancedthrough its vast road network,
which was originally started bythe Assyrians but was made much
more extensive and safer, whichencouraged even more trade and
communications and allowed forthe quick movement of military

(54:54):
troops, which contributed torelatively peace and prosperity.
Now, I didn't get into it atall really, but I figured now
was a good time.
The Acumenate Law Code differedfrom earlier regulation
practices Prior to theAchaemenid law code.
People could be found guilty orinnocent in ancient times based

(55:15):
on one's word or trial byordeal.
An example of an ordeal trialfrom the Code of Hammurabi was
if a man was accused of a matterby another, the accused was to
leap into the river.
If the accused man survivedthis ordeal, the accused would

(55:36):
be acquitted.
If the accused was foundinnocent by the ordeal, the
accuser was to be put to death.
The accumulated law code was amajor step forward as it
required the presentation ofrational evidence of guilt or
innocence in court, such asmultiple witnesses.
Another change in the legalsystem was that a woman's

(55:58):
testimony was now accepted incourts because, as I said prior,
women were treated with a lotmore respect and as equals in
many instances.
Treated with a lot more respectand as equals in many instances
.
Now, with the empire's outervassal states, well, they had
well-defined and wealthyeconomies, mostly based on

(56:25):
shipping and farming, and inlarge part because these places
had literally thousands of yearsto perfect their craft, whether
it was to be aquatic engineers,for farming or overland
transports or shipbuilding andnavigation on the ocean or local
rivers.
So what happens is, if you takeall these strengths, you can
kind of combine them togetherunder one flag and therefore
generate the most efficienteconomy the world has yet to see

(56:47):
.
Much of this was brought on bythe fact that the Achaemenids
believed in respecting eachother's belief systems, which
ultimately led to an exchange oftechnology and ideas across
borders, which ultimately led toengineering feats that would be
built upon each other throughthe decades and even centuries.
So, in other words, they wantedgood ideas to be passed on from

(57:09):
one side of the empire to theother side.
But, more importantly, thelarge scale of the empire almost
acted like a gigantic mutualfund, in the sense that some
areas were strong, the regionhad some strong agricultural
growing seasons, and then thepeople who had developed a
strong expertise in thetransported goods via water or

(57:31):
overland trade routes could movethese crops to other places
that were experiencing droughtsor had a relatively low crop
yield.
In other words, the gains fromone investment will offset the
losses in another investment.
So this meant that the peopleon one side of the empire could
help support the people on theother side that normally would

(57:53):
have had a hard time gettingfood to them and thus were at
risk of famine.
And due to the sheer size andthe types of crops that were
being grown, this would havebeen diversified by the region
that they were grown in.
So, in other words, you wouldhave wheat and barley grown in
one region, and in other regionsyou could have certain

(58:14):
vegetables like cucumbers andpeas, and then you can have
other regions that were growinglarge amounts of fruits like
apples and grapes, and then fromthere you can have wine in
other regions.
So, in other words, you cankind of combine everything and
if one region was kind of havinga rough growing season, they
could be supplemented by anotherregion, and since you had a

(58:34):
large amount of barley that wasgrown, this would have supported
the fact that beer was one ofthe most popular liquids that
was consumed in the region.
One of the biggest factors thatallowed this to happen was the
fact that the Achaemenid rulersbuilt upon and expanded the
previous road systems that werealready in place, especially the
roads that were built by theAssyrians, and, like I said

(58:56):
several times now, the roadsystem allowed for not only
goods to transport from one sideof the empire to the other.
But just as important, ideaswere able to be spread from one
side of the empire to the otherside.
And these ideas includedtechnology.
And of course it wasn't justthe roadways that helped move
goods and ideas from one placeto the other.

(59:18):
They also had large amounts ofwaterways.
I mean, look at Mesopotamia.
It essentially sits between tworivers, and then you factor in
that the Ecumenical PersianEmpire had expanded into Egypt
and they had the Nile River, andthen you had the Phoenician
city-states that were sitting onthe Mediterranean.
So you can see how the use ofwater from the Mediterranean to

(59:44):
the Caspian Sea, to the ArabianSea, to the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf and even up intothe Caspian Sea, these were all
major trade and shipping routesthat would have been utilized by
the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
So now you can get grain fromEgypt or, if they had a subpar
growing season, you can get itfrom the regions surrounding the

(01:00:05):
Black Sea.
And this is kind of why I madethe comparison of a modern
mutual fund.
You have one area that'sthriving, the other area may not
be thriving, and they can kindof really balance each other out
and in the end you kind of hopethat your return is greater
than zero, as you're ultimatelylooking to diversify your risk

(01:00:27):
profile, as you're ultimatelylooking to diversify your risk
profile.
And the sheer size of theAchaemenid Persian Empire really
helped kind of reduce theiroverall risk profile, because
the empire was absolutelymassive it was even larger than
the Roman Empire and since thePersian policy was generally to
allow the new conqueredterritories to continue to rule

(01:00:50):
as they had done previously,many of these areas that were
now part of the Persian Empirealready had their own land
distribution policies, in placeof which it was common for land
to be owned by the temples ofthe region, along with the
nobility and the palace, withthem nobility and the palace.

(01:01:10):
But in a lot of these places,there was also a system in place
that allowed for private landownership, which was usually
family farms in which tenantfarmers also worked the land.
Now, even though the Achaemenidrulers preferred to allow the
conquered territories to do asthey had done previously, the
cumulative rulers did make somesmall tweaks, in that they

(01:01:32):
required accurate landmanagements and introduced
certain legislation thatrequires some land
redistribution.
Now, to be clear, this landredistribution did have an
ancient or even medieval feel toit, in that a lot of the lands
were redistributed to members ofthe nobility and even the

(01:01:53):
clergy, so it wasn't likeordinary people were suddenly
given lands that they had farmedfor generations.
In addition, some of the king'sland was more or less used by
the military so that they couldlearn how to be self-sustaining
when on campaign, because thosewho joined the military before

(01:02:16):
the age of 10 would have tolearn agricultural skills very
early on, and this typicallywould have happened in the
king's land.
In the king's land and I shouldbe a little more clear the
king's land would have beenowned not just by the king,
queen and prince, but also localsatraps.

(01:02:36):
Also, the king's land couldhave been used as a business
venture, whereas the land couldbe rented out to certain
businesses and they would haveto use the land as they saw fit,
so that they could have farmedthe land or use it as grazing
territory for their herd, andjust like the Sumerians did.
A few thousand years prior tothis, there were also productive

(01:02:58):
workshops that were owned bythe king.
These workshops would haveincluded the making of clothing
that would have become morediversified than the wall
clothing that was produced prior, because now the empire is able
to bring in cotton and linenfrom Egypt and even as far away
as India.
There obviously would have beenpottery workshops, but also

(01:03:20):
there would have been glasswareand wine and even purple dye
from the Phoenician city-states,which I'll go into further when
we get to those episodes.
Some of these workshops wouldhave been massive, where there
was over 15,000 workers, withcertain workers specializing in
their particular craft.
I mean, these could have beenstonemasons or winemakers and

(01:03:45):
even carpenters, just to name afew.
Winemakers and even carpenters,just to name a few.
But if you heard the Sumerepisodes, that shouldn't really
surprise you now, should it?
Because these goods would havebeen shipped to different
regions or other states far awayand they would have been paid
for by using a few differenttools.
Probably the first form ofpayment would have been some

(01:04:06):
sort of credit system that wouldhave been set in place, whereas
they would have usually taken aclay tablet and would have
shown who owed what to who andthen, at a certain time and
place, that would have to settleup with some sort of means,
whether it was some kind ofin-kind distribution or most
likely it would have been somekind of metal such as silver, or

(01:04:28):
there could have been evenother things, such as copper,
but something would have beenpre-arranged in the contract to
show the terms of the payment,including when, where and how
the payment is to be made.
As the Achaemenid Empireexpanded into Anatolia, and in
Lydia in in particular, theAchaemenids would have adopted

(01:04:50):
Lydian coinage and thereforethey would have moved away from
having to weigh out the silveror even gold to a lesser extent,
to completing the transactionusing coinage.
The coinage would have been aslow adaptation, so it wasn't
like when they went into Lydiaand saw this great concept of
coinage would have been a slowadaptation.
So it wasn't like when theywent into Lydia and saw this

(01:05:10):
great concept of coinage thateverybody on all sides of the
empire would have been using itright away, like anything.
There would have been a slowadaptation process.
Now, if you notice, I didn't saythat there was a barter system.
Now, despite the fact thatthat's what I've always learned
growing up, and even inundergrad and grad school to a

(01:05:33):
lesser extent, there appears tobe growing evidence that barter,
for the most part, was a myth.
Now it's quite possible thatthis changes and people start to
find a lot more widespreadevidence of it, but the fact
remains, as of this recording,there just really isn't any
evidence of it, as mostly the it.
But the fact remains, as ofthis recording, there just
really isn't any evidence of it,as mostly the evidence points
to the fact that credit waswidely used and that people just

(01:05:56):
tracked who transacted with whoand they would figure out how
to settle it up in the endEventually.
I'd like to do an episode onthis, because criticism is
really fascinating and it wouldhave appeared virtually
everywhere, whether it was atally stick or on the island of
Yap using gigantic stones.

(01:06:17):
The idea of credit just reallykind of was widespread, no
matter where you were in theworld, because ultimately barter
is super inefficient and in alot of cases it's just not
practical.
So it makes a lot more sense totally up who owes what to who
and then kind of figure out whata good medium of exchange would

(01:06:38):
be for all parties involved.
With the advent of coinage, itallowed for an easier way to pay
taxes and tributes.
Now I just realized I neverreally defined tribute, but
tribute is essentially thepayment of an amount of
valuables in specie or in kindthat is imposed on the subjected
area or nation by a highersovereign.

(01:07:00):
As such, you could kind ofreally tell how each kingdom or
satrap was doing by what theypaid as far as tribute goes.
So, for example, the threeextremely wealthy provinces in
the Indian subcontinent whichwould have been in modern day
Afghanistan, another one wouldhave been in the modern Pujab

(01:07:21):
region and another one wouldhave been in lower Indus Valley,
which would have borderedPakistan and India well, they
paid almost one third of theentire empire's tributes in gold
.
Dust.
Plus, they provided elephantsin ivory and even teak, which
was a tropical hardwood trees.
In fact, they were the onlyprovince that paid their tribute

(01:07:44):
in gold.
The reason why this region wasso wealthy is that they just had
an abundance of natural goldreserves.
Babylon's chief export weretheir crops that it grew, so
therefore the empire's view onthem was more like a breadbasket
, and therefore they wererequired to pay enough grains to
feed the military for up tofour months.

(01:08:05):
Additionally, they wererequired to send a sizable
military force and corvée laborservices.
Corvée labor is a form ofunpaid forced labor that is
limited in nature, but it wouldhave lasted for a certain period
of time, typically only acertain number of days of work
each year.
This form of tax was quiteprevalent in Egypt year.

(01:08:30):
This form of tax was quiteprevalent in Egypt.
In addition, babylon was alsorequired to pay 1,000 silver
talents.
One Babylon talent would haveequaled about 30 kilograms of
silver.
Now, according to Herodotus, thesilver tribute was smelted down
and poured into pots.
When the king needed money, thepots were broken and the silver
was minted into coins or ingots.

(01:08:50):
And, like I said previously,coinage was slowly being adopted
and the farther out you wentinto the outer regions of the
empire, coins were less likelyto be used.
Coins circulated mostly in thenorthwestern periphery of the
empire, which already had atradition of coinage.
Greek historians also describedAlexander's conquest as

(01:09:14):
reporting that there was animpressive amount of silver in
the Cumanid royal treasuries.
But beyond the silver and thecrops that Babylon would have
provided, they also provided 500eunuch boys a year In Egypt and
the Libyan states.
Well, they provided even moregrain than Babylon but needed to
provide less silver.

(01:09:35):
That is, they typicallyprovided about 700 talents a
year.
Egypt also provided themaintenance of the garrisons in
Memphis, the Levant, whichincluded Syria, phoenicia,
israel and Cyprus.
They paid only about 350talents of silver a year,
despite the fact that Phoeniciahad a ton of wealth, but the

(01:09:58):
reason why is because Phoeniciahad built the ships and manned
the navy and was ultimatelytheir big long-distance traders
for the empire, and wasultimately their big
long-distance traders for theempire.
Now, since the Persians camefrom Iran, the Iranian satrapies
had relatively low taxes.
Elam paid 300 talents and Medeapaid 400, but they also

(01:10:21):
provided men for the military.
The land of Persia did not payany taxes, but they did pay
tribute in the form of sheep andother livestock.
Herodotus actually did somecalculations and what he figured

(01:10:47):
out was that the total tax andtribute system that was sent to
the Persian Empire wasapproximately 14,460 talents per
year.
Now, as a reminder, oneBabylonian talent equals 30
kilograms, so that means thatthey would have received about
433,800 kilograms of silver, orabout 956,365 pounds of silver,
and this would have been on ayearly basis.
In addition, the AchaemenidEmpire also collected and

(01:11:12):
imposed certain trade tariffs,and the slavers in the slave
states had to pay an additionaltax on each transaction.
All in all, the tax system inthe Achaemenid Empire appears to
have been relatively reasonableand therefore its vassals
didn't feel like they were beingbled dry, which was very

(01:11:32):
different from the AssyrianEmpire's taxation policies.
However, the Achaemenid Empiremade a fatal mistake that so
many other empires before andafter had made, in that they got
involved into a series of warsthat turned out to be
financially disastrous, and whatI'm referring to was their

(01:11:53):
deep-seated fear that the Greekswere going to eventually attack
them.
So they took the mindset of agood defense is a good offense,
and therefore they essentiallyemptied their treasury when they
decided that they needed tofend off the Greeks.
It's not unlike what happenedwith Carthage, when they felt

(01:12:15):
that they had to go to war withthe upstart Romans on several
occasions, being an empire thatovertaxes vassals to the point
that they were increasinglyovertaxed in order to fund these
disastrous wars and even, to alesser extent, live a sort of

(01:12:39):
lavish lifestyle.
So by the time Alexander theGreat made his way down from
Macedonia, the population, whohad been treated very well
throughout the centuries, wasready for a change and therefore
had no qualms with switchingtheir allegiance to the
Macedonians.
Before I wrap this series up, Ithink it's important to note

(01:12:59):
that the Seleucids continuedwith the ecumenical policy of
tolerance of all religions andcultures.
However, they were Greek, andthe Greek dialect quickly became
the lingua franca of the day,as a steady immigration of
Greeks into the empire broughttheir Hellenistic culture with
them.

(01:13:23):
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