Around 500 BCE, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Old Aramaic was adopted by the conquerors as the " vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages.

Between the two invasions, Darius died, and responsibility for the war passed to his son Xerxes I.

In 492 BC, the Persians again conquered Abdera, this time under Darius I.

Persian King Darius I the Great, in an attempt to subdue the Scythian horsemen who roamed across the north of the Black Sea, crossed through the Bosphorus, then marched towards the Danube River.

As for the identity of Mordecai, the similar names Marduka and Marduku have been found as the name of officials in the Persian court in over thirty texts from the period of Xerxes I and his father Darius, and may refer to up to four individuals, one of which might after all be Mordecai.

Another view attempts to identify him instead with Artaxerxes I ( ruled 465 – 424 BCE ), whose Babylonian concubine, Kosmartydene, was the mother of his son Darius II ( ruled 424 – 405 BCE ).

Jewish tradition relates that Esther was the mother of a King Darius and so some try to identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I and Esther with Kosmartydene.

It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece.

After Darius died, his son Xerxes I restarted the preparations for a second invasion of Greece, which finally began in 480 BC.

Darius I of Persia, as imagined by a Greek painter, 4th century BC

Darius then died whilst preparing to march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed to his son Xerxes I. Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt, and very quickly restarted the preparations for the invasion of Greece.

The Hall of Hundred Columns at Persepolis, measuring 70 × 70 metres, was built by the Achaemenid king Darius I ( 524 – 486 BC ).

Herodotus tells us that c. 482 BC Xerxes I ( the son of Darius ) had two pontoon bridges built across the width of the Hellespont at Abydos in order that his huge army could cross from Persia into Greece.

Afghanistan was inhabited by the Aryan tribes and controlled by the Medes until about 500 BC when Darius the Great ( Darius I ) marched with his Persian army to make it part of the Zoroastrian Achaemenid Empire.

Afghanistan became part of the Achaemenid Empire, after it was conquered by Darius I of Persia.

The district Aria of the Persian Achaemenid Empire is mentioned in the provincial lists that are included in various royal inscriptions, for instance, in the Behistun inscription of Darius I ( ca.

The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I.

After Cyrus ' death Darius I of Persia succeeded his throne.

* Nebuchadnezzar III ( Niditu-bel ), who rebelled against Darius I of Persia in 522 BC

* Nebuchadnezzar IV ( Arakha ), who rebelled against Darius I of Persia in 521 BC

Under the leadership of the Achaemenid king Darius the Great ( Darius I ), Persian ships found their way to the Persian Gulf.

Persian naval forces laid the foundation for a strong Persian maritime presence in Persian Gulf, that started with Darius I and existed until the arrival of the British East India Company, and the Royal Navy by mid-19th century AD.

* 522 BC – Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta, securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire.

Concerned about the possibility of a rebellion, he halted work on the reconstruction of the temple until work resumed at the decree of Darius I (, ).

Darius left a tri-lingual monumental relief on Mount Behistun which was written in Elamite, Old Persian and Babylonian between his coronation and his death.

In addition, further texts and monuments from Persepolis have been found, including a fragmentary Old Iranian inscription from Gherla, Romania ( Harmatta ) and a letter from Darius to Gadates, preserved in a Greek text of the Roman period.

The monuments that Darius built were often inscribed in the official languages of the Persian Empire, Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Babylonian is called Armenia in Old Persian.

He began to transcribe the Old Persian portion of the trilingual inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian ( a later form of Akkadian ) written by Darius the Great sometime between his coronation as king of the Persian Empire in the summer of 522 BC and his death in autumn of 486 BC.

It is a calque of Old Persian Verkâna as recorded in Darius the Great's Behistun Inscription, as well as in other Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions.

Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia ( 522 BC – 486 BC ), the inscriptions consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite.

A multilingual stele from al-Kabrīt, dating to the reign of Darius I refers to the Put as the province of Putiya ( Old Persian ) and ( Neo-Babylonian ), where the equivalent text written in Egyptian has " Libya ".

Indía in Byzantine ( Koine Greek ) ethnography denotes the region beyond the Indus () river in Pakistan, since Herodotus ( 5th century BC ), hē Indikē chōrē ; " Indian land ",, Indos, " an Indian ", from Old Persian Hinduš ( referring to what is now known as Sindh, a province of present day Pakistan, and listed as a conquered territory by Darius I in the Persepolis terrace inscription ).

Former Hootie and the Blowfish singer, Darius Rucker, joined Old Crow at the Grand Ole Opry July 6, 2012 " for a special rendition of ‘ Wagon Wheel .’" The fans " went crazy over Rucker ’ s cover of the Bob Dylan hit ," setting the stage for his tweeted announcement: " Secret out after @ opry perf.

Darius the Great's Suez Inscriptions were texts written in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian on five monuments erected in Wadi Tumilat, commemorating the opening of a canal between the Nile and The Bitter Lakes.

Ariaramnes ( Old Persian: Ariyāramna, " He who brings peace to the Aryans ( i. e. Iranians )") was a great uncle of Cyrus the Great and the great-grandfather of Darius I, and perhaps the king of Parsa, the ancient core kingdom of Persia.

Located in the range is the Ganj Nameh, a trilingual ancient inscription by kings Darius the Great and Xerxes I in the ancient languages Neo-Elamite, Neo-Babylonian, and Old Persian.

Oxyathres ( in Greek Oξυαθρης ; in Old Persian Vaxšuvarda ; lived 4th century BC ) was a brother of the Persian king Darius III Codomannus.

In 490 BC, Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against Darius I's invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon.

However, in a decision of great historic significance, the Persian king Darius the Great decided that, despite successfully subduing the revolt, there remained the unfinished business of exacting punishment on Athens and Eretria for supporting the revolt.

These people may have assisted the Scythians when King Darius the Great led a Persian invasion into what is now Southern Russia to punish the Scythians for their raids into the Achaemenid Empire.

Authored by Darius the Great sometime between his coronation as king of the Persian Empire in the summer of 522 BC and his death in autumn of 486 BC, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography of Darius, including his ancestry and lineage.

Later in the inscription, Darius provides a lengthy sequence of events following the deaths of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II in which he fought nineteen battles in a period of one year ( ending in December of 521 BC ) to put down multiple rebellions throughout the Persian Empire.

Once the Ionian revolt was finally crushed by the Persian victory at the Battle of Lade, Darius began plans to subjugate Greece.

Moreover, the Persian king Darius was a usurper, and had spent considerable time extinguishing revolts against his rule.

The revolt was used as an opportunity by Darius to extend the empire's border to the islands of the eastern Aegean and the Propontis, which had not been part of the Persian dominions before.

The expedition was intended to bring the Cyclades into the Persian empire, to punish Naxos ( which had resisted a Persian assault in 499 BC ) and then to head to Greece to force Eretria and Athens to submit to Darius or be destroyed.

Image: BattleofIssus333BC-mosaic-detail1. jpg | Alexander the Great using armoured cavalry, fighting Persian King Darius III

Herodotus records that when heralds of the Persian king Darius the Great demanded " earth and water " ( i. e., symbols of submission ) of various Greek cities, the Athenians threw them into a pit and the Spartans threw them down a well for the purpose of suggesting they would find both earth and water at the bottom, these often being mentioned by the messenger as a threat of siege.

In Persia, from the time of Darius the Great, Persian rulers used the title " King of Kings " ( Shahanshah in modern Iranian ) since they had dominion over peoples from India to Greece.

Unlike some of his predecessors the new Spartan general, Lysander, was not a member of the Spartan royal families and was also formidable in naval strategy ; he was an artful diplomat, who had even cultivated good personal relationships with the Persian prince Cyrus, the son of Darius II.

From among the writings of others in the same period, there is the inscription and engraving of Darius the great, installed at junction of waters of Red Sea ( also called " Arabian Gulf " or " Ahmar Sea ") and the Nile river and the Rome river ( current Mediterranean ) which belongs to the 5th century BC where, Darius the Great, the king of the Achaemenid Empire has named the Persian Gulf Water Channel: Pars Sea ( Persian Sea ).