The Persian Royal Road
-Jason

Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/bqn1/hwts142

The first Persian Empire, known to the West as the Achaemenid Empire, was the largest power in the ancient world between 500 and 331 BCE.  At its height, the empire encompassed a tremendous amount of territory: the modern-day states of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan.  Maintaining such a culturally diverse and physically enormous empire was a challenge for the Persian kings who ruled.

An extensive road network was the most efficient means of connecting many of these far-flung regions together.  This road would need to be built and maintained by the central government which sought to use it.  The earliest western parts of this ancient highway were most likely created before the Persians by the Assyrian Empire.  The major cities of the Assyrian heartland, located in northern Iraq, were connected by a well-maintained road network that facilitated the movement of goods, information, and people. 

The Assyrians had extended their control over the regions of modern Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine before the empire declined.  After the collapse of the Assyrians, the Neo-Babylonians replaced them as the regional power controlling the western ancient Near East.  They too sought to expand the existing road systems to connect their newly acquired lands.  The Babylonians however did not have long to enjoy their new status as regional overlords: they too were overwhelmed by a neighboring power, Persia.

The Persians initially started as a local power in the southwest region of what is now Iran, where they allied with the larger polity called the Medes.  In 559 BCE, Cyrus the Great became the founder of the Persian Empire after fighting a bitter civil war against his grandfather.  Having secured his throne, Cyrus led his armies on a successful campaign that destroyed the Neo-Babylonians.  Not content to stay in Mesopotamia, Cyrus conducted further conquests before his eventual death in combat.  His son, Cambyses II, assumed the Persian throne and continued his father’s conquest.

Cambyses died without a son who could be his heir, so the crown passed to his young brother Bardiya, but only for a short time.  In 522 BCE, a courtier named Darius built a coalition with the six most powerful Persian families and led a coup that eliminated Cyrus’s bloodline.  He legitimized this overthrow by claiming that the man on the throne was not, in fact, Bardiya, but a pretender.  He ruled from 522 BCE to 4866 BCE.  Darius the Usurper named himself Darius I and founded a new dynasty: the Achaemenids.  The new king found that despite his actions, he was not accepted universally as the legitimate ruler of Persia.  Multiple revolts broke out against the new dynasty.

Darius I was forced to shift military forces from one part of the empire to another throughout the first few years of his reign.  To facilitate the movement of troops, Darius reorganized and expanded existing the ancient highways and renamed them the Persian Royal Road.  He linked up the western roads built by the Assyrians with the Silk Road; thereby connecting ancient China, India, and Persia.

The Persian Royal Road stretched for 1,677 miles and connected the city of Sardis in modern Turkey with the Persian capitals of Persepolis and Pasargadae in modern Iran.  As part of the newly renovated road system were a total of 114 relay stations, set at regular intervals, to aid couriers as they moved from one side of the empire to the other.  Food, shelter, and fresh horses were available for the riders as they carried important news across the empire.  This system allowed a rider to travel to Susa from Sidon in only nine days versus ninety days on foot.

The Persian Royal Road was the ancient world’s most heavily used highway to move information throughout the ancient Near East and Asia.  The Greek historian Herodotus was very impressed by the Royal Road, writing in his History of the Persian Wars “there is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers."  Another part of Herodotus's praise for these messengers—"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” was later adapted as the creed for the United States Postal Service.

The Achaemenid Dynasty its was itself extinguished by Alexander the Great.  Rather than allow the Royal Road to disintegrate, Alexander and his successors further expanded it and used it extensively to spread Hellenism throughout the region.  As Alexander’s successors waned, the Romans became the dominant power and further reinforced and expanded the Royal Road.  Despite the decline of the many empires that utilized it, the Persian Royal Road continued to connect Europe, the Near East, and Asia together with a highway for the transmission of goods, information, and peoples.