Summary of Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones's Persians

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The first part of our investigation into the world of the ancient Persians is focused on narrative history. We will cover the origins of the Persians in Central Asia and their subsequent migration into the Iranian plateau. We will look at the rise to power of Cyrus the Great and his methods of conquest and settlement.

#2 The Proto-Iranians were a nomadic tribe that settled on the Iranian plateau 5,000 years ago. They were pastoral migrants who herded their cattle into common pens or cowsheds. They were despised by the cattle-raiders, who were forces of evil.

#3 The first type of migration was the infiltration of cattle-breeding families who voluntarily uprooted themselves from their ancestral lands and made the laborious journey into the Iranian plateau. These people had no masterplan, but were content to wander until they found a space that offered safety and good grazing.

#4 The second type of migration was a mass exodus of tribes headed by a well-organised army of warriors. They cleared the paths of any hostile resistance, and most people went on foot. The Steppe horsemen who entered Iran were fierce.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669388876

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones's Persians

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first part of our investigation into the world of the ancient Persians is focused on narrative history. We will cover the origins of the Persians in Central Asia and their subsequent migration into the Iranian plateau. We will look at the rise to power of Cyrus the Great and his methods of conquest and settlement.

#2

The Proto-Iranians were a nomadic tribe that settled on the Iranian plateau 5,000 years ago. They were pastoral migrants who herded their cattle into common pens or cowsheds. They were despised by the cattle-raiders, who were forces of evil.

#3

The first type of migration was the infiltration of cattle-breeding families who voluntarily uprooted themselves from their ancestral lands and made the laborious journey into the Iranian plateau. These people had no masterplan, but were content to wander until they found a space that offered safety and good grazing.

#4

The second type of migration was a mass exodus of tribes headed by a well-organised army of warriors. They cleared the paths of any hostile resistance, and most people went on foot. The Steppe horsemen who entered Iran were fierce.

#5

The Eurasian horse nomads and their Persian descendants were masters at shooting with bows and arrows from horseback. They were able to do a pivot turn while shooting arrows back over their horses’ rumps as they galloped off.

#6

The most important and influential of the sedentary peoples of the plateau were the Elamites, who lived in the vast flat plains of the south-west of Iran. They were a distinguished and venerable people, and they had their own language and cuneiform script.

#7

The most successful of the Eurasian peoples who settled on the Iranian plateau were the Medes and the Persians. They shared a common DNA and many cultural norms and values, but they had distinctly idiosyncratic identities, and found themselves operating in radically different geopolitical contexts.

#8

The Medes were a tribe that lived in the north of Iran, and they were experts horse breeders. They raised and tended their sheep, goats, and cattle for meat and milk, as well as dung which they used as fuel.

#9

By the time Cyaxares died in 584 bce, he had made Media a wealthy and powerful kingdom. By the standards of the day, the Medes were not really empire-builders, but they did successfully operate a system of chiefdom-leadership which encouraged a tradition of tribal alliances and congregational authority.

#10

The Persians were a tribe that lived in what is now modern-day Iran. They were initially attested in the records of Shalmaneser III, the powerful king of Assyria, who claimed to have received tribute from twenty-seven khans of the Parsuwash.

#11

The Persians were the true heirs of the Elamites. The Elamites were a sophisticated culture that integrated with the Persian tribes, and it is certain that a geopolitical interdependency between Elam and southern Iran emerged during the seventh and early sixth centuries bce.

#12

The Persians were a complex network of tribes, and Herodotus understood this. Every tribe and each clan had its own territory under the leadership of a tribal khān, such as Cyrus I.

#13

The Medes had entered Persia under Cyaxares in the 620s bce, and they never really left. With each military success, the Medes felt powerful enough to extract tribute out of their Persian neighbors.

#14

The war between Astyages of Media and Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was inevitable. Both rulers recognized that warfare was a costly business, but Babylon’s treasury was