According to Herodotus the Persians regarded their land as of moderate extent, poorly equipped, and filled with rocks. In the Books of the Laws which are ascribed to Plato, we are told that the Persian land is naturally adapted to produce strong shepherds, and as they had to watch their flocks night and day, they were thus in a position to do good service in war. As a fact Persia is a mountainous country; the slopes are admirably fitted for cattle breeding, but there is little room or encouragement for agriculture. According to Xenophon's description, the Persians in ancient times were much occupied in the chase, and in riding; they only ate once in the day, and at their banquets goblets might indeed be seen, but no pitchers of wine. Strabo remarks, with reference to a later period, that the Persian youth remained long in the open air with their flocks, and were eager hunters; when thus engaged, their only drink was water, their food bread, flesh, and salt. The Greeks with one consent describe the Persians of ancient times as simple, hardy, self-controlled men, of great endurance and martial vigour, with few requirements. They were also called "Eaters of Terebinths," in order to mark the scantiness of their food: their drink was water; and their clothing, coats as well as trousers, were of leather.[510]
The nation of the Persians consisted of various tribes. Herodotus gives a special prominence to three, on which the rest were dependent. These were the Pasargadae, the Maraphians, and the Maspians. "Other tribes are the Panthialaei, the Derrusiaei, the Germanii, all of which are agricultural; while the remainder, the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, and Sagartii are Nomads."[511] According to this statement six of the Persian tribes carried on agriculture, and four were pastoral. But the Germanians and Sagartians were distinguished from the tribes of the Persians in the narrower sense. The Sagartians (Açagarta) are spoken of in the inscriptions of Darius, and by Herodotus himself in other passages, as a separate nation; we have already found their country on the western edge of the great desert, and observed its character (p. 6). The Germanians of Herodotus are the Carmanians of the later Greeks, who also passed with them as a separate nation, though closely allied to the Persians and Medes.[512] They wandered to and fro to the east of Persia in the district now called Kirman. The number of the tribes mentioned by Herodotus would therefore have to be reduced to the Pasargadae, Maraphians, Maspians, Panthialaeans, Derusiaeans, Dai, Mardi, and Dropici, if we did not hear of two others in the inscriptions of Darius, the Yutiyas and the Patisuvaris, whose names were known to the later Greeks in the form Utei and Pateischorei. These later authorities tell us also of other Persian tribes: Kyrtians, Rhapaesans, Stobaeans, Suzaeans, etc. They also reckon the Paraetaci, or Paraetaceni, among the Persians.[513] The Mardians of Herodotus are also called Amardians by later writers, who place them in the West, among the mountains which divide Persia from Elam.[514] With regard to the position of the rest of the tribes, we can only ascertain that the Pasargadae occupied the best part of the Persian land—the valley of the Pulwar; that the Maraphians[515] and the Maspians were their neighbours, and the land of the Pateischorei followed next after that of the Pasargadae on the eastern side, towards Carmania. Besides these three chief tribes, the Pasargadae, Maraphians, and Maspians, the Persian nation, according to these statements, was made up of a considerable number of more or less powerful tribes, of whom each one, like the chief tribes themselves, must have had a separate territory, or, at any rate, a pasture for its flocks.
If the name Parsua could signify Persians, the inscriptions of the kings of Asshur would confirm the division of the Persians into several tribes. Shalmanesar II. tells us, that in the year 833 B.C. he received tribute from the heads of the Parsuas, as the inscription says: from twenty-seven princes of the Parsuas. Afterwards Tiglath Pilesar II. traversed the land of the Parsuas and imposed tribute upon them (744 B.C.).[516] The books of the Hebrews confirm Esarhaddon's dominion over Persia, inasmuch as they tell us that he settled Persians and Dai (Dahas) in Samaria (III. 154).
It must have been in the period of the supremacy of Assyria, at the latest in the first half of the seventh century B.C., that the worship of the gods, which the Persians shared from all antiquity with their fellow-tribesmen on the table-land of Iran, the worship of Mithra, Vayu, Anahita, and fire, underwent the change which bears the name of Zarathrustra. As we saw good reason to assume, the new doctrine first came to the Medes from the North-East; from the Medes it passed, without doubt, to the Persians. If Herodotus places the Magians, or special priestly order, among the tribes of the Medes and not among those of the Persians, among whom Strabo is the first to mention them, the conclusion is, as has been sufficiently proved, not that the Persians were without priests before and after the reform, but rather that even after the reform the priestly families remained in their natural unions, and did not form themselves into a special tribe (p. 192).
The supremacy of Assyria over the West of Iran came to an end when Phraortes united the tribes of the Medes under his leadership, and, towards the year 640 B.C., undertook to maintain the independence of Media against Assurbanipal, the successor of Esarhaddon. In this struggle the Persians joined the Medes and ranged themselves under them. Herodotus, who obviously follows the tradition of the Medes, represents Phraortes as marching against the Persians, conquering and subjugating them; according to the Persian account, which is preserved in Ctesias, the chief of the Medes induced the Persians to revolt against the Assyrians, and to join him, by the promise that they should remain free under his leadership (III. 250). The situation of affairs agrees better with the second version than with the first. Considering the enormous power which Assyria under Assurbanipal possessed down to the middle of the seventh century, it is hardly probable that Phraortes would have inaugurated the recent independence of Media by an attack on the Persians, which might, and indeed must, drive them into the arms of the Assyrians. It is far more probable that the two nations formed a league against Assyria. As already observed, the annihilation of the kingdom of Elam, which Assurbanipal accomplished in the year 645 B.C., would supply the Persians with a strong incentive to unite themselves with the kindred and more powerful nation of the Medes.
Of the three tribes of the Pasargadae, Maraphians, and Maspians, the most prominent—so Herodotus tells us—are the Pasargadae.[517] To them belongs the race of the Achæmenids, from which sprang the Persian kings. In the inscription of Behistun, King Darius says: "From old time we were kings; eight of my family have been kings (Kshayathiya), I am the ninth; from very ancient times we have been kings."[518] He enumerates his ancestors: "My father was Vistaçpa, the father of Vistaçpa was Arsama, the father of Arsama was Ariyaramna, the father of Ariyaramna was Khaispis, the father of Khaispis was Hakhamanis; hence we are called Hakhamanisiya (Achæmenids)." In these words Darius gives the tree of his own family up to Khaispis; this was the younger branch of the Achæmenids. Teispes, the son of Achæmenes, had two sons; the elder was Cambyses (Kambujiya), the younger Ariamnes; the son of Cambyses was Cyrus (Kurus), the son of Cyrus was Cambyses II.[519] Hence Darius could indeed maintain, that eight princes of his family had preceded him; but it was not correct to maintain that they had been kings before him, and that he was the ninth king.[520]
In this series of the ancestors of Darius we find names belonging not only to the East of Iran, but also to the Arians of India. The name Cambyses (Kambujiya) points to the Cambojas, a nation which we found in the north-west of India (IV. 249); the name Cyrus (Kurus) to the ancestors of the ancient princely race who founded the first great empire in the land of the Ganges on the upper course of the river, whose contest with and overthrow by the Pandus is celebrated by the Indian epic, while the name Vistaçpa repeats the name of the King of Bactria, whom the prayers of the Avesta extol as the protector of Zarathrustra (p. 132). Of Achæmenes we are told that an eagle nourished him;[521] a prophet of the Hebrews calls Cyrus "the eagle;" we know the importance which the Avesta ascribes to the two eagles of the sky, and the modern Persian epic to Simurgh; and we have seen that the standard of the Achæmenids was an eagle (p. 173). Hence from this notice we may with certainty conclude that the tradition of the Persians ascribed to this ancestor of their kings a youth distinguished by the favour of heaven.
As Cambyses the father of Cyrus is a contemporary of Astyages of Media, Teispes the father of Cambyses must be reckoned a contemporary of Cyaxares, and Achæmenes, the father of Teispes, as a contemporary of Phraortes.[522] We must therefore assume either that Achæmenes was at the head of the Persians, at the time when they joined Media, or that he was established by Phraortes as the chief of Persia and his vassal-king, and that his throne passed with the duties of vassalage to his descendants Teispes and Cambyses. It is not very probable that the traditions of the Persians should have accorded signs of divine favour to the youth of a man, who had been placed over them after their subjugation as viceroy of Media. Moreover, we find among the Persians, according to this tradition, a form of constitution, such as a Median viceroy would hardly have established, even for the object of overthrowing the Median power. The race of the Achæmenids belonged to the tribe of the Pasargadae; we may therefore assume that Achæmenes was the first to become chief of this tribe.
Aeschylus enumerates the seven men who stand at the side of the king of the Persians.[523] Josephus says that the "seven houses" of the Persians had named Darius as king. As a fact we see that when Darius, after the extinction of the older line of the descendants of Achæmenes, sets himself to ascend the throne, six men stand at his side, whom Herodotus distinguishes as the "first of the Persians." The Laws ascribed to Plato say that the empire was then divided into seven parts between Darius and the Six, and that a relic of this division was still in existence.[524] In regard to the privileges of the Six and their descendants we find that they consisted in the right of free access to the king, and that the king could choose his chief wife only from their families;[525] the descendants of the Six had also the right to wear the head-dress of the king, the upright kidaris, which was the symbol of royal dignity. In the kingdom of the Sassanids, we find seven hereditary princes under the king; these princes, like the king, wear crowns, but their crowns are lower than that of the king; the "sons of the houses," i. e. the members of these seven families, form the highest rank of the nobility. Hence in these six chieftains of the Persians standing at the side of and beneath the seventh, who is the prince of the Pasargadae, we may suppose that we have the princes of the remaining tribes.[526] And in respect of the privileges of the six co-chieftains in the kingdom of the Achæmenids we may assume that they originally occupied a position close to the king, and formed the council and court of the chief tribal prince. These privileges the Greeks ascribe to the services which the Six rendered at the time when Darius ascended the throne. But as the seven houses existed before, and the Six had previously been "the first of the Persians," their privileged position must have been of an older date; it must have been introduced by Cyrus or be of even more remote origin. It is not probable that such a mighty warrior prince as Cyrus would, after the reduction of the Medes, impose limitations on his power by sharing the symbols of royalty and hereditary privileges. According to the narrative of Herodotus, Cyrus does not simply command the Persians to take up arms against the Medes, but he assembles the tribes, and ascertains their feeling. In considering the peculiar position of these six families we may certainly assume, that under the ancestors of Cyrus there were chiefs among the Persians with whom the Achæmenids had to deal. If the Achæmenids were the heads of the tribe of the Pasargadae, the other tribes would have chiefs also. Yet we only hear of "six princes" besides the Achæmenids, though we have seen that the number of the Persian tribes was considerably more than seven.
Following the indications thus given, we may sketch the course of events as follows. When Achæmenes had acquired the headship of the tribe of the Pasargadae, he must have combined the two neighbouring tribes, the Maraphians and Maspians, whom Herodotus classes with the Pasargadae as the most important among the Persians, into closer union, perhaps by some understanding with the chiefs. Supported by these three tribes, who possessed the favoured regions of Kazerun, Shiras, and Merdasht, Achæmenes must then have subjugated the remainder to his power. Herodotus told us above that the remaining tribes depended on the three mentioned. They must, therefore, have been combined into larger groups, and in fact into four communities. To the chiefs who became the heads of these new combinations, a position must have been accorded similar to that enjoyed by the Maraphians and Maspians beside Achæmenes—above all, the right to bequeath the chieftainship to their descendants. When the chiefs of the Persians, now seven in number, mutually guaranteed to each other their position, the foundation was laid of a community of interests, and thus of a community of the Persian nation. That the princes of the four new combinations of tribes belonged to those tribes, and not to the three first, is proved by the inscription of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustem, where one of the princes of the date of Darius is called a Pateischorean. In some such way as this Achæmenes may have brought about the union of the Persian tribes, and at the same time have obtained the leadership of them. His position thus rested essentially on the relation of the prince of the Pasargadae to the other six tribal princes, a relation of which we find no trace in the Medes. That the number seven was normal for the combinations of the tribes we may ascribe to the influence of the recently-introduced doctrine of Zarathrustra, of which we found echoes in the legend of Achæmenes.