Cyrus the Great chose a wife named Kasandan from the Achaemenid family, with whom he had 4 children. Two of the children of Cyrus the Great were boys and the other two were girls. The sons of Cyrus were named Cambojie II and Berdia, and one of his daughters was named Atusa, but the name of another daughter of Cyrus the Great is not mentioned in historical sources. Cambyses II took the throne after his father's death and killed his other brother Berdia. After conquering Egypt, he committed suicide on his way back to Iran.
Atusa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great, also married Darius I and became the queen of Iran. Also, Cyrus the Great had another daughter named Artiston, who was not born from Kasandan and was Atusa's half-sister. Kasandan and Cyrus the Great had a lot of love for each other, and Kasandan loved Cyrus the Great until his death. According to the inscription of Nabonidas in Babylon, when Kasandan died, all the people of the Achaemenid Empire mourned in honor of Cyrus the Great, and this mourning was especially evident in Babylon, and the people of this city mourned for 6 days (from March 21 to 26, 538). they were busy.
The tomb of Kasandan, the wife of Cyrus the Great, was located in Pasargad, the capital of the Pars Empire. Other sources provide other information about Cyrus' wife. According to these sources, Cyrus the Great married Amitis, the daughter of Aghidhag. It is possible that after Cassandan's death, Cyrus the Great married a Mede daughter of his royal family.
After Cyrus the Great became their king, he thought of attacking Medes. Meanwhile, Harpag played a major role. Harpagus incited the elders of the Medes, who were dissatisfied with the harshness and severity of the emperor's actions, against Ishtovigo (Aghi Dahak) and succeeded in forcing Cyrus the Great to march against the Medes king and defeat him.
With the defeat of the Medes by Persia, which was a puppet country and a subject of it, the 35-year reign of Ishtovigo, the king of the Medes, came to an end, but according to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great did not harm Ishtovigo and kept him with him. In this way, Cyrus the Great took over the kingdom of Media and Iran in 546 and declared himself the king of Iran.
After Cyrus the Great united Media and Persia and called himself the King of Media and Persia, while Babylon had betrayed him, he wisely asked Qarun, Shah Lady, to recognize his rule and in exchange for Cyrus the Great to reign. Accept him as a lady. But Qarun (Crouses) in the complete lack of wisdom, instead of accepting this proposal of Cyrus the Great, he thought of expanding the borders of his country, and for this reason, he hastily moved his troops across the river Halsi (modern-day Qazalirmaq in Turkey), which was the border between his country and the Medes. Seeing this hostile move, Cyrus the Great moved from Hamadan to Lydi and Dejsard, which was considered impregnable, fell from its walls when a number of Iranian soldiers climbed and Qarun (Croesus), the king of Lydi, was captured by the Iranians and Cyrus Kabir extended the border of his country to the Roman sea and the neighborhood of the Greeks.
The remarkable thing is the behavior of Cyrus the Great after the defeat of Qaroon. Cyrus did not kill or humiliate the defeated king Lady, but lived under the protection of Cyrus until the end of his life, and the people of Sardar were granted amnesty despite the fact that they had delayed Cyrus the Great's army for three months in a state of war and under siege of their city.
After Lady Cyrus the Great, he brought the eastern regions under his command, one after the other, and in order, Gorgan (Hirkani), Parth, Haryu (Herat), Rokhj, Merv, Balkh, Zarngiana (Sistan) and Sugod (areas between Amu Darya and Sir Darya). ) and subjugated Thatgush (northwest India).
The main goal of Cyrus the Great's campaign to the east was to provide security and consolidate the position, otherwise there would not have been a government in the eastern side of Iran at that time that could fight with Cyrus the Great. By subduing the eastern regions of Iran, Cyrus the Great doubled the size of the territories under his control. Now the king of Babylon had really regretted his betrayal to Cyrus the Great and the promise he made to him at the beginning of his victory over Medes.
Of course, it goes without saying that one of the main reasons for the fear of the king of Babylon was Cyrus the Great's reputation for having moral integrity and his popularity among the people of Babylon on the one hand, as well as the predictions of the prophets of Israel about the liberation of the Jewish people at the hands of Cyrus on the other hand. .
Babylon fell without defense on the 22nd of October 539 BC and only the royal quarters resisted for a few days, the king was imprisoned and Cyrus the Great, as usual, treated him like a free secretary, and in the next year (538 BC) when When he passed away, national mourning was announced and Cyrus the Great himself participated in it. With the conquest of Babylon, its colonies, namely Syria, Palestine and Phenicia, also surrendered and were added to the domain of Cyrus the Great.
The behavior of Cyrus the Great after the conquest of Babylon has a special place among archaeologists and even lawyers. Cyrus the Great freed the Jews and, while returning all the property that Bakht al-Nasr (Nebuchadnezzar), the powerful king of Babylon, had taken from Solomon's temple during the conquest of Jerusalem, he provided them with many financial and facilities so that they could return to Jerusalem and ordered He ordered the rebuilding of Solomon's temple and because of this, he became known as a savior among the Jews, which is recorded in Jewish history and in the Torah.
In Babylon and other places, many documents have been obtained in connection with the tolerance of Cyrus the Great in religious matters, and no signs of his prejudice against his national religion have been seen. There is disagreement about what religion Cyrus the Great had, and probably Cyrus himself must have been a worshiper of Ahura Mazda, although we know almost nothing about his beliefs. According to Xenophon's report, Cyrus the Great followed Mughan's instructions in his court regarding religious issues. Although many scholars do not consider Cyrus the Great to be a Zoroastrian, Mary Boyce strongly argues that Cyrus himself was a Zoroastrian, following in the footsteps of his ancestors, who were still petty kings as early as the 7th century BC.
He points out that the fire temples and shrines of Pasargad indicate the practice of Zoroastrian rites and Greek texts also show that Zoroastrian monks had valuable positions in the court of Cyrus the Great. Lewis Gray believes that Cyrus the Great was an exact follower of the ancient Iranian religion before the Zoroastrian Gathas and its remnants in the New Avesta, and the gods who were revered by Cyrus can be compared to Ahuramazda, Mitra, Azaru Anahita. He believes that the religion of Cyrus the Great was close to the religion presented in the New Avesta and there is no reason to consider him a Zoroastrian.
On the other hand, researchers such as George Cameron and Walter Hintz believe that Zoroastrian lived between 660 and 582 BC and that Cyrus the Great even met Zoroastrian during this period and was a follower of Zoroastrian religion, and the reason for this argument is the built fire pits. They know in the open space and fire maintenance tower in Pasargad.
Max Malvan says that so far no evidence has been obtained on the basis of which it can be said that Cyrus the Great was a Zoroastrian, but Cyrus's behavior has many common points with Zoroastrian teachings and the principles of his religion, and perhaps he was influenced by Zoroastrianism.
Regarding the death of Cyrus the Great, the narrations are very confusing and different from each other. According to the historical book of Herodotus, which contradicts the archeological findings in many areas and many contradictions can be seen in it, Cyrus the Great was killed in a war with the Massaget tribes, who were yellow-skinned tribes living in the north of Khorasan.
According to the traditions of Herodotus, the Massaget tribes in the southern regions of Khwarezm and Qezil Qom, which are today part of the steppes of modern Kazakhstan, started a war with Cyrus the Great after he attacked that region. The relatives of the Massaget were capable horsemen who lived on horseback. In order to obtain the territory of the ruler of these tribes, who was a woman named Tomyris, Cyrus the Great proposed marriage to him, but Tamiris rejected this proposal, so Cyrus the Great decided to seize these territories by resorting to force and military force. brought He crossed this river by providing boats and ships from Jaxartes river (Sir Darya) across the river.
Then Cyrus the Great sent an envoy to Tamiris and warned him that if he did not respond to his request, he would have to wait for dire consequences. Tamiris replied to Cyrus that they would see each other on the battlefield. The armies of the two sides met each other at a place that was one day's distance from the Sir Darya river. Cyrus the Great was told that the Massagets are strangers to wine and do not know it and are unaware of the intoxication caused by drinking wine. Cyrus the Great left a large amount of wine and provisions in his camp and left the camp with his men. The commander of Tamiris' army was none other than his son Spargapis.
Spargapis attacked the camp of Cyrus the Great with his army and found the camp full of food and a strange drink. The massages quickly started eating and drinking and drank a lot of food and wine. When they were overcome by drunkenness, Cyrus the Great attacked this army with his men.
During this attack, Spargapis was captured by Cyrus the Great and committed suicide when he got drunk and regained consciousness. When Tamiris was informed of what had happened, he denounced this tactic of Cyrus the Great as uncouth.
He ordered the second wave of attack to be carried out by his men against the Persian forces and he himself took command of this attack. In this attack, Cyrus was killed and his army suffered many casualties. Tamiris ordered to avenge his son's blood by cutting off the head from the body of Cyrus the Great and putting it in a pan full of blood and saying to Cyrus' head: You who could not get enough of eating blood, now eat as much blood as you like. This narrative of Herodotus is very similar to a legend from the point of view of historians, and no other historian than Herodotus has defined this narrative. Historians believe that this account was known as an unreliable account by Herodotus, but he included this account in his book. At the time of Cyrus the Great's death, the Achaemenid Empire was the largest empire that mankind had ever seen. This empire included an area from Central Asia in the north and a part of today's Pakistan in the east to the Persian Gulf in the south and a part of today's Greece in the west.
