Albrecht Altdorfer's depiction of the moment in 333 BC when Alexander the Great routed Darius III for supremacy in Asia Minor is vast in ambition, sweeping in scope, vivid in imagery, rich in symbols, and obviously heroic — the Iliad of painting, as literary critic Friedrich Schlegel suggested In the painting, a swarming cast of thousands of soldiers surround the central action: Alexander on his white steed, leading two rows of charging cavalrymen, dashes after a fleeing Darius, who looks anxiously over his shoulder from a chariot.

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.

George R. Law, Ph. D., provides this list of candidates, who may identify with Darius the Mede:

He returned to college after serving nearly four years in the army, this time attending Mills College and studying under Darius Milhaud, who encouraged him to study fugue and orchestration, but not classical piano.

On June 15, 2007, the Jaguars released veteran strong safety Donovin Darius, who had seen diminished playing time in previous years due to mounting injuries.

Larissa was indeed the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 ( retold in Xenophon's Anabasis ) meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia ( Meno is featured in Plato's dialogue bearing his name, in which Socrates uses the example of " the way to Larissa " to help explain Meno the difference between true opinion and science ( Meno, 97a – c ) ; this " way to Larissa " might well be on the part of Socrates an attempt to call to Meno's mind a " way home ", understood as the way toward one's true and " eternal " home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to seek in his life ).

* 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

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.

The throne then passed to the Persians, who their king Darius was the first to sit successfully on Solomon's throne since his death, and after that the throne passed into the possession of the Greeks and Ahasuerus.

Later the Persian king Darius had the same idea, and yet again Ptolemy II, who made a trench 100 feet wide, 30 feet deep and about 35 miles long, as far as the Bitter Lakes.

Necho's project was finally completed by Darius I of Persia, who conquered Ancient Egypt.

3 ) The father of Josiah, the priest who dwelt in Jerusalem when Darius issued the decree that the temple should be rebuilt ... ( Zech 6: 10 ).

In addition, several important composers who were not directly influenced by Rostropovich wrote cello concertos: György Ligeti, Alexander Glazunov, Paul Hindemith, Toru Takemitsu, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Samuel Barber, Joaquín Rodrigo, Elliot Carter, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, William Walton, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Hans Werner Henze, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Einojuhani Rautavaara for instance.

After a reign of forty-five days, he was assassinated in 424 BC by his brother Sogdianus, who in turn was murdered by Darius II.

The second was Darius II, Artaxerxes I's son by his concubine Cosmartidene of Babylon, who was married to their common half-sister Parysatis, daughter of Artaxerxes I and his concubine Andia of Babylon.

According to Darius, who was Cambyses's lance-bearer at the time, he decided that success was impossible, and died by his own hand in March 522 BCE.

Immediately after Darius seized Persia, Babylonia briefly recovered its independence under a native ruler, Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of Nebuchadnezzar III, and reigned from October 522 BC to August 520 BC, when Darius took the city by storm.

Darius expanded his empire by conquering Thrace and Macedon and invading Scythia, home of the Scythians, nomadic tribes who invaded Media and had previously killed Cyrus the Great.

According to Herodotus, Darius had a slave, Oebares who helped Darius win this contest.

Intaphernes was one of the seven noblemen who had deposed the previous ruler and installed Darius as the new monarch.

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

Even before the Ionian Revolt, Darius had begun to expand the Empire into Europe, subjugating Thrace, and forcing Macedon to become allied to Persia.

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.

In 492 BC, once the Ionian Revolt had finally been crushed, Darius dispatched an expedition to Greece under the command of his son-in-law, Mardonius.

However in 490 BC, following up the successes of the previous campaign, Darius decided to send a maritime expedition led by Artaphernes, ( son of the satrap to whom Hippias had fled ) and Datis, a Median admiral.

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.

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.

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.

Chalouf or Shaloof ), located just south of the Great Bitter Lake, had become so blocked with silt that Darius needed to clear it out so as to allow navigation once again.

After Darius III of Persia had been defeated by Alexander the Great, the satrap of Bactria, Bessus attempted to organize a national resistance but was captured by other warlords and delivered to Alexander.

Some modern scholars also view the unusual decision of Darius to give the throne to Xerxes to be a result of his consideration of the unique positions that Cyrus the Great and his daughter Atossa have had.

Also according to Herodotus ( III. 139 ), Darius, prior to seizing power and " of no consequence at the time ", had served as a spearman ( doryphoros ) in the Egyptian campaign ( 528 – 525 BCE ) of Cambyses II, then the Persian Great King.

However, once Cyrus had crossed the Aras River he had a dream with a vision of Darius in which he had wings atop his shoulders and stood upon the confines of Europe and Asia ( the whole known world ).

Several days after Gaumata had been assassinated, Darius and the other seven nobles discussed the fate of the empire.

Darius did not believe that he had achieved the throne through fraud but through brilliant sagacity, even erecting a statue of himself mounted on his neighing horse stating " Darius, son of Hystaspes, obtained the sovereignty of Persia by the sagacity of his horse and the ingenious contrivance of Oebases, his groom.

These Greeks served as soldiers, artisans, statesmen and mariners for Darius ; however, Greek fear of the strength of Darius's kingdom became strong and the constant interference by the Greeks in Ionia and Lydia were all stepping stones in the conflict that was yet to come between Persia and Greece.

Dassault was the codename used by his brother, General Darius Paul Bloch, when he served in the French resistance, and is derived from char d ' assaut, French for " battle tank ".

Datis or Datus was a Median admiral who served the Persian Empire, under Darius the Great.

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.

With the exception of Babylonian dated tablets and some Egyptian inscriptions, we possess no contemporary evidence about the reign of Cambyses but the short account of Darius I in the Behistun Inscription.

Some modern historians suspect that Cambyses may have been assassinated, either by Darius as the first step to usurping the empire for himself, or by supporters of Bardiya.

However, his son Cambyses was the heir to the throne, not Darius, causing Cyrus to wonder if Darius was forming treasonable and ambitious designs.

Darius did not seem to have any treasonous thoughts as Cambyses II ascended the throne peacefully, and through promotion Darius was eventually elevated to Cambyses's personal lancer.

After securing his authority over the entire empire, Darius embarked on a campaign to Egypt where he defeated the armies of the Pharaoh and secured the lands that Cambyses had conquered while incorporating a large portion of Egypt into the Achaemenid Empire.

Early in his reign, Darius wanted to organize the loosely organized empire with a system of taxation he inherited from Cyrus and Cambyses.

While there is no absolute consensus on the kings before Darius, such as Cyrus and Cambyses, it is well established that Darius was an adherent of Zoroastrianism or at least a firm believer in Ahura Mazda.

Following Cambyses ' brief rule, Darius the Great began a major building program in Susa and Persepolis.

Written between the 450s and 420s BC, the scope of Herodotus ' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th-century historical figures such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II and Psamtik III, and alludes to some 8th-century ones such as Candaules.

Modern commentators associate him either with Cambyses or with the pseudo-Smerdis who reigned for seven months between Cambyses and Darius I.

According to Darius the Great, Cambyses II, after becoming king of Persia but before setting out for Egypt, killed Bardiya and kept this secret.

The Immortals played an important role in Cyrus the Great's conquest of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 547 BC, Cambyses ' campaign against Egypt in 525 BC and Darius the Great's invasion of India's smaller western frontier kingdoms ( western Punjab and Sindh, now in Pakistan ) and Scythia in 520 BC and 513 BC.

Atossa married Darius I during 522 BC after he, with the help of the nobleman Otanes, defeated the followers of a man claiming to be Bardiya ( Smerdis ), the younger brother of Cambyses II.

Cambyses ' successors Darius I the Great and Xerxes pursued a similar policy, visited the country, and warded off an Athenian attack.

Pasargadae remained the Persian capital until Cambyses II moved it to Susa ; later, Darius founded another in Persepolis.

Another inscription ( from CM's ) mentions Cambyses I as " mighty king " and " an Achaemenian ", which according to bulk of scholarly opinion was engraved under Darius and considered as a later forgery by Darius.

Cyrus the Great's son Cambyses II would become the king of Persia, and his daughter Atossa would marry Darius the Great and bear him Xerxes I.