How do rulers justify murdering their way to power? #ancienthistory #persianempire #darius

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]What would you do if you've just murdered your way to power? You can try to rule by force, but at some point you've got to persuade people that you're the right person to rule. So, how would you justify being in charge?

[00:00:13]In the late 520s BCE, Darius the first had just become king of the Persian Empire, the most powerful state in the world. He had no direct blood link to the previous king who had just died, Cambyses, and he may well have murdered the legitimate successor to the throne.

[00:00:29]One of the things that Darius now did was set up this monument at Bisitun in western Iran. The relief image depicts nine men whom Darius accuses of rebelling against his authority. They're obviously prisoners, so the image celebrates Darius's defeat of these supposed revolts. Meanwhile, his foot rests on the body of Gaumata, the man who he claims seized the throne that was rightfully his and who he has killed.

[00:00:53]Around the relief, we get this incredibly detailed inscription which sets out Darius's version of events. And this text is brilliant for understanding how Darius tried to explain why he should be king. Darius sets out this really long lineage, tracing his ancestors back to somebody called the Achaemenes. He claims that this makes him royal and the ninth member of his dynasty to have ruled in Persia. If this is true, then it's a powerful claim, but it's striking that he doesn't mention Cyrus or Cambyses, who we know were the last two kings to have ruled Persia. We also don't know anything about Achaemenes. Was this really Darius's ancestor, or was he claiming some forced spurious connection to somebody from the mythical Persian past? What's really important is that Darius attributes his rise to kingship to the intervention of the god Ahura Mazda. He is emphatic, "Ahura Mazda made me king." If you've seen my video on Seleucus I, you'll know that he used his personal qualities and successes to justify his claim to kingship. Now, Darius is certainly not shy of bragging about his achievements, but when it comes to setting out explicit reasons why he should [snorts] be king, he is taking here a very different approach to Seleucus. If you claim to be king because you're good at fighting, you're just inviting people to come and have a go at you and to challenge you. What Darius is doing here is he's redefining the rules of Persian kingship to try to restrict or limit how many people can contest his claim. What he's saying is that to be a Persian king, you have got to have special blood and you've got to have the support of the god Ahura Mazda.

[00:02:35]And this is pretty powerful stuff.