180 Jennifer Gates-Foster
the Persians, and in particular the problem of the relationship between Iranian and
Elamite traditions in the era immediately before the emergence of the empire under
Cyrus (Henkelman 2003). Whatever it reveals about this intractable problem, this
text indicates an early willingness on the part of Achaemenid Persian rulers to take
on concepts and vocabulary from conquered peoples, as well as to craft their political
personas around existing connections with older political and cultural traditions (Briant
2002; Fowler and Hekster 2005; Beaulieu 2006).
The explicit engagement with an Achaemenid Persian identity appears as a full-throated
insistence only in the reign of Darius I (522–486BCE), who actively worked to retrofit
Cyrus into a narrative of rule that included a much greater focus on Achaemenid identity
as part of royal ideology. For example, three inscriptions were recorded on buildings at
Cyrus’ royal city at Pasargadae (Building S and P and Gate R), each of which explicitly
connects Cyrus to the Achaemenid line by naming him “Cyrus the king, an Achaemenid”
or some variation of this phrase (C/DMa, b, c). These inscriptions are trilingual, but the
Old Persian script in which it is written is thought to have been invented later specifically
for use in imperial monuments under Darius I (Stronach 1990; Schaudig 2001; Briant
2002). This makes it clear that these were later additions to buildings and reliefs known
to be associated with Cyrus, effectively co-opting him into a later conceptualization of
the empire that incorporated a specific Achaemenid Persian identity as an integral part of
the legitimacy of a ruler’s position (Lecoq 1997 and Vallat 2011 have argued that these
are original to Cyrus’ reign).
Darius’ interest in depicting Cyrus as an ethnic Achaemenid can be explained by his
own precarious position. During the reign of Cambyses, Cyrus’ son, the empire faced its
first serious challenge of leadership, although the details of this conflict are not entirely
clear except that the murder of Cambyses’ brother Bardiya (Smerdis in Herodotus) plays
an important part. Darius’ own account of the events that led to his rule is contained in
the Behistun (or Bisitun) Inscription (DB), part of a large rock-cut monument located
along an important route in Fars (Figure 12.1). In his telling, after Cambyses’ death, the
succession was threatened by a pretender to the throne, Gaumata, who impersonated the
dead Bardiya. Darius was responsible for his defeat as well as the suppression of several
subsequent revolts (see Herodotus 3.30; 61–67 for a slightly different version). Given
the way he came to power, it is no surprise that Darius is at pains to connect himself to
the royal lineage in order to legitimize his new position:
I am Darius, the great king, king of kings, king of all kinds of peoples, a king in this great
earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan,
having Aryan lineage (DNa 8–14).It is only from Darius’ reign that the empire can properly be characterized as the
Achaemenid Persian Empire, and his singular achievement in unifying both the court
and the disparate provinces at such a moment was almost certainly facilitated by his
strategy of creating a (fictional) but persuasive link between his own family and that of
Cyrus. In doing so, he elides explicit association with Elam, which served to legitimize