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The articles on Xerxes and Darius each have pictures of the very sam relief from Persepolis, (note the damage) and each article attributes the portrait to its eponymous king. Is it a relief of Xerxes? Of Darius? Is this question disputed? In any case, the image from the article on Darius is of much better quality, so it should be used once we've established a reasonable caption. 75.71.66.105 21:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure how the article got so thoroughly vandalized, but I just spent a good twenty minutes removing snippets from all over the article. That vandalism persisted through numerous legitimate edits, so I'm asking everyone to please take a minute to read over the entire section you're editing before you leave the page. Some of the vandalism was almost a month old. Thanks! Spectheintro 14:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)spectheintro
I think it is a good idea to move the article to Darius the Great, as that is in fact the common name he is known by in the English language. After all, we also have Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great, not Cyrus II or Alexander III. Shervink 16:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The present edit says that Darius organized the Persian Empire into twenty provinces called satrapies. Most sources say that he really had that 20 satrapies, which refer to the major provinces (example is Babylon, who has been conquered by Cyrus the Great a generation ago.) but the 120, which has been expanded to 127 by Darius on the near end of his reign, were only minor ones. Yeah, Persia really reached its "golden age" under Darius. But, his successor, Xerxes, had lost some of these provinces due to revolts against him.
He had 20 great satrapies. These were ruled by satraps, but being guarded by the inspectors he had established to act as Darius' "eyes and ears", to maintain the order in ruling these satrapies. You're right: they are called satrapies: but other books gave the name of "minor satrapies", which refer to the minor provinces Darius had established earlier in his reign, when he started his conquest for a bigger empire. --bubbles16_22 (talk) 15:21, 15 August 2009
The result was no consensus. Vassyana ( talk) 08:13, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The current title is out of line with other Persian monarchs ( Xerxes I of Persia, who was Xerxes the Great, and Cyrus the Great, who is not titled "Cyrus the Great of Persia"). Remove the redundancy. Srnec ( talk) 23:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The current title is out of line with other Persian monarchs and is redundant (there is no other Darius who is the Great except one of the ones who is also of Persia). I prefer Darius the Great, but seeing as it failed as "no consensus"... Srnec ( talk) 23:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.173.120 ( talk) 01:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
78.151.173.120 ( talk) 05:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)The name Darius is of Lithuanian origin and still is very popular name in Lithuania. It originates from the verb 'daryti'=to make/to act/to be doing smth and consequently Darius means both and being making/being acting/being doing and the man who is doing/acting/making...Zeus Bottiaeus in Lithuanian language 'Dzevs Botiaus' means God of our ancestors (Aleksandre dedicated altar to Zeus Bottiaeus)...Aleksandras in Lithuanian language 'A(t)lek(e)s Antras' means born second and Macedon 'Manke Duona' means knead bread...Hun in Lith. 'Gunas/ganytojas' means pastor/shep-herd and Atila 'Eitila' means going/runing the office...Ainiai is the name of ancient Greece tribe and in Lithuanian language that means posterity/antecedents 78.151.173.120 ( talk) 05:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
There is no section on Darius' ascension to power by the asassaination of the "Magian", who was impersonating Smerdis, the murdered brother of Cambyses. Darius and the "7" who killed the Magian then sought out the best form of government, with the decision being based on whoever's horse neighed first in the morning, would become King. Darius, through deception, won the contest, as told by Herodotus, book 3. anyone mind if i add the section? Nathraq ( talk) 18:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a serious academic theory that Gaumata never existed. So it should be explained as such. See also Smerdis and I have another go. BTW, Herodotus was describing the events 100 hundred years later from persian sources and Darius left only inscription on his tomb, not a reliable account of how Gaumata usurped the power StJohnTheBaptist ( talk) 14:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Behiston inscription and ancient Greek texts, Gaumata was an imposter! and these are the only evidence/sources we have about the way Darius took the power. There is no reason not to believe them, unless someone wants to represent a false face of Darius! It is necessary to be honest about the history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.211.112.44 ( talk) 16:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Please ref to your removal of category Category:Pre-Islamic heritage of Iran
In this edit of yours
darius does not belong to that category (according to description of the category
The reason you sited for removal does not seem valid because the very first criteria listed in the description of this category it clearly states
“People from Iran or their descendants of ethnic Zoroastrian/Aryan descent”
Please do not delete this category .
Cheers
Intothefire (
talk) 03:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I havent been able to understand the meaning of your post please specificaly explain ....and do not delete before discussing your reasons ,
Intothefire (
talk) 11:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I rewrote the article and was reverted. Could anyone care to explain why. warrior 4321 20:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
warrior 4321 21:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Most of the facts that you given in the above paragraph, are all written in the paragraph I wrote, there is just a shorter number of words. warrior 4321 21:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
References
ar-EI
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).schimit-EI-ACH-ii
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).IranicaDarius
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).I have re-written an article version of Darius the Great. The article is more organized, referenced and follows many Wikipedian policies and guidelines. The article can be found here. I am proposing that the proposed version replace the current version. However, if no response is given in around five day's time, I will implement the proposed version. warrior 4321 06:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
There are these problems with the article:-
1. The section on Smerdis/Bardiya/Gaumata has an anti-Bardiya bias, it should be a condensation of the Bardiya article, some issues e.g. his religous policy should be moved there.
2. The article relies rather heavily on one source, the Encyclopedia Iranica article, I am not convinced this is a particularly good source. Darius is one of the most important rulers in ancient history, there must be a fairly large amount of material on him.
3. Most educated people with some knowledge of ancient history will have heard of the Persian Empire, by comparison the term Achmaenied is rather obscure. PatGallacher ( talk) 01:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't know whether to laugh or cry - there are so many problems with the article that I don't know where to begin. How about this: - stop arguing about whose third-rate secondary source is best and find out what a primary source is. For example, "Nonetheless, Darius killed Intaphernes' entire family, excluding his wife's brother and son. She was asked to choose between her brother and son. She chose her brother to live. Her reasoning for doing so was that she could have another husband and another son, but she would always have but one brother. Darius was impressed by her response and spared both her brother's and her son's life." Wrong! Darius was going to kill her husband, her brother and all her kids, but she was so distraught that he said to her that one of her family could survive and she could choose which (why do this - she could have chosen Intaphernes, then where would Darius be? I suppose he was gambling that she'd choose her first-born son). She chose her brother on the grounds that she could remarry and have more kids but her parents were dead so she could never get a new brother. Darius was so impressed he spared the brother and her eldest son. But Darius killed all the others (nice guy!). So either your secondary source has got it all wrong, or you (what could be sadder?) have misquoted a secondary source, when you could have gone to the primary source. Also, you can't leave this story without pointing out that it also features in Sophocles' Antigone 905-12 (another primary source), so it's pretty much only a folk-tale (as we could have guessed anyway). You don't seem to have discovered (probably because you haven't read Herodotus) that not only was Gaumata supposedly Bardiya's DOUBLE, but, by sheer coincidence, his real name was actually supposedly Bardiya! OK, Herodotus's sources were Persian, therefore he was forced to take on everything Darius wrote in the Behistun inscription. Darius not only invented the story that Bardiya was a fake to justify his usurpation of power, but he invented the Achaemenid descent of both himself and Cyrus, also in order to make it seem that he was the legitimate heir of Cyrus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.237.77 ( talk) 11:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Please state what is "disputed" as just placing tags is unhelpful. warrior 4321 23:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Do a diff between the last version before your recent edits and the version after the first 2 of these edits (before somebody else chipped in). This could be a misuse of the GA criteria, since if applied consistently it could mean deleting all sorts of legitimate material from articles which aren't in too bad shape. I cannot provide a page number just like that, but if that's the problem then there is a relevant flag which can be added to the article. PatGallacher ( talk) 00:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Reviewer: Tea with toast ( talk) 19:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
References are of the 8 March 2010 version
I will place this review "On hold" until the first issue is resolved and the second issue is either resolved or explained here. -- Tea with toast ( talk) 01:42, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I find that this article meets the good article criteria:
-- Tea with toast ( talk) 17:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
In my view, this article does not yet meet GA criteria, and is being artificially pushed for GA status before it is ready. It is not stable as it is the subject of a significant content disupute about whether there should be mention of revisionist or critical accounts of Darius' seizure of power. In my view, without mention of such accounts, it fails NPOV. I have a few lesser criticisms. PatGallacher ( talk) 02:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
The sequenced list below, is copied directly from MOS:APPENDIX. Items marked in bold, are ones of particular interest, which pertain specifically to this article.
Why is the WP:MoS being challenged in this case, and reverted whenever I attempt to adjust it accordingly? Why the insistence to erroneously place the "References" section before the "Bibliography" section? I don't get the problem here, and hardly see my adjustments as a matter for dispute. -- WikHead ( talk) 08:17, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Is there an inconsistency here? Darius' life is listed as 550–486 at the top, and 519-465 at the bottom. Lee merrill ( talk) 23:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was moved to Darius the Great per common usage. Based on the discussion below as well as on Talk:Darius, I see good primary topic reasons for moving it to Darius, but don't see enough consensus at this time.-- rgpk ( comment) 15:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Darius I of Persia → Darius I — We have Darius II Ochus and Darius III Codomannus. If the reader needs reminding that any of these guys was Persian, it's not Darius I. I would also think Darius the Great and improvement, but I think the proposed title is more consistent with our guidelines, our other articles and (perhaps) the reliable sources. — Srnec ( talk) 23:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.The current names of these other two Dariuses is controversial and there is a move request in progress in relation to Darius III. Darius I would be ok if there was not the need to disambiguate him from Darius of Pontus. See WP:NCROY. PatGallacher ( talk) 00:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Keep It Simple Stupid. These 3 Persian monarchs should be described as Darius I, Darius II and Darius III. PatGallacher ( talk) 19:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Agree that this is the primary topic for Darius; Not quite sure where to go from here. Andrewa ( talk) 19:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, but it's far from clear to me that the consensus of the last discussion was to move to Darius the Great. PatGallacher ( talk) 16:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
All told, "Darius I" had 2 1/2 first-preference !votes, 2 1/2 second-preference !votes (splitting Kauffner's !votes into two halves each), and no opposes. "Darius the Great" had 2 first-preference !votes, one second-preference !vote, and 2 1/2 opposes (with Pat Gallacher's mild oppose as a half !vote). "Darius" had one first-preference !vote and two opposes. "Darius I of Persia" had Kauffner's split support, with everyone else opposed. Does that seem correct? Dohn joe ( talk) 17:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I propose that the date format be reverted from BCE/CE to BC/AD as the BCE/CE edits have violated WP:ERA by not being discussed and reaching a consensus on this article's talk page. If you are going to change the date formats please propose it on the talk page and not suddenly implement it, that violates the policy that was created to stop such actions. Please voice objections and reasons against the reversion of date formats now. 78.146.132.102 ( talk) 20:37, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
I created an RM to make Darius a redirect to this article. See here. Kauffner ( talk) 00:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved to Darius I. Favonian ( talk) 00:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Darius the Great → Darius I – In the WP:RS, just plain "Darius" is the WP:COMMONNAME for this subject by an overwhelmingly margin. Out of 8,650 post-1990 English-language Google Book results for Persia Darius Behistun OR Marathon, only 716 (8 percent) are for "Darius the Great", while 1960 (23 percent) are for "Darius I." So the "the Great" adds a spin that the majority of relevant authors do not share. A move to "Darius I" establishes consistency with the articles about his successors, namely Darius II and Darius III. Britannica calls him "Darius I". Finally, this ngram shows that "Darius I" is more than twice as common as "Darius the Great". Kauffner ( talk) 07:18, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
To user Kauffner: Please stop reverting the title of this article. Consensus on title of article, going back months ago, was the proper historical title "Darius the Great" (Darayavau xshâyathiya vazraka) [1], the suffix for Achaemenid rulers including Darius, covered by centuries historical Western and Persian literature going back to the Achaemenid era, the time of Darius. Janus945 ( talk) 06:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Darius the Great → Darius I - Let's base this on historical facts on documents and historical literature; Both Western and Persian. The title of this ruler has always been Darius the Great in literature. This is nothing but an attempt to re-write history; by people who have very little to no knowledge on this subject.
Here is one of thousands of historical scriptures, from 6th century BC and onward. [2] Can we please have Historians and experts on this topic to vote. As I see here the majority of the voters have absolutely no expertise on this topic, or history for that matter. Janus945 ( talk) 07:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
References
Found this at the end of the Babylonian revolt section: "... found no known enemies but an enigmatic Scythian tribe distinguished by their large pointy hats." It seems out of place. It seems like it should be cleaned up or removed. Not the same one ( talk) 12:25, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
I've located information that indicates that Darius I may also have been Emperor Gustasp of Turkistan. The details are located in the following sources: [1] [2]. Has anyone else stumbled upon this information? Also, the sources indicate that he was in fact the ruler of this area during the birth of Zoroaster. Any assistance on this would be most helpful. Apologies, Page 173 is a mention of Darius I being Emperor Gustasp of Turkistan.
Twillisjr ( talk) 20:56, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
References
As the individual who "voted" to have the name of the article changed to "Darius I" months ago, never bothered presenting any facts/sources, Darius' title is from (Old Persian transliteration) Dârayavaush : xshâyathiya : vazraka, "Darius the Great (King)" which is copied to dozens of translations carved in stone from Persia to Greece as well as Egypt, dating from circa 500 BC including translations from Old Persian to Babylonian, Aramaic, Elamite, Ancient Egyptian, Greek etc. Not to mention that it was inherited by all the Achaemenid dynasty heirs as well as copied by Alexander. I belive this closes the discussion and all we need is an admin to move the article as I tried moving the article with editor access and it reports a conflict with another page which contains the Redirect tag. Janus945 ( talk)
I am correctly and authentically expressing what the world was like during the time of Darius I. YinJiao10 ( talk) 12:41, 20 December 2015 (UTC).
The introduction ends with this sentence: "Darius is mentioned in the Biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezra–Nehemiah."
This is incorrect. The Darius in Daniel is NOT Darius I (Darius the Great). There's considerable dispute as to who exactly the Darius mentioned there actually is. I don't have a lot of academic sources (a few years ago I was just trying to trace Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian kings, but I've lost my notes). It is very very clear the Darius in the book of Daniel is not mentioned anywhere else. http://www.biblehistory.net/newsletter/belshazzar_darius_mede.htm http://www.truthnet.org/Daniel/Chapter6/
It looks like the Book of Daniel page needs to be fixed too. I'm sorry that I can't do this right now. I'm too busy and would need to do a lot of research, but I'm happy to bring this error to the attention of my gifted fellow editors so that you can fix it. Lehasa ( talk) 17:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
KRASNODAR, August 4. /TASS/. Archeologists doing excavations in the area of antique town of Phanagoria in the Temryuk district of Russia’s southern Krasnodar territory have discovered fragments of a marble stele carrying an inscription of the ancient Persian King Darius I, the press service of the Volnoye Delo foundation said in a press release on Thursday. [1] -- Wario-Man ( talk) 11:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
It is written in text "...was the third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire" Well that is kinda confusing. "King of Empire". Shouldn't it be "Emperor of the Empire"? Does English language even has the term for that which is above Kingdom, but not "Roman Empire", rather some other Empire....? Aryanprince ( talk) 22:01, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
None of the Achaemenid monarchs had an imperial title. Their main title was "Shahanshah", which translates to the King of Kings. In this case, several of the Empire's satraps and other vassals had royal titles or were kings in their own right, so the Achaemenid monarch was the overlord of several kings. The Greek translation of the the title is " Basileus ton Basileon". Dimadick ( talk) 09:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Problem is "King" title. He was not King. He was Shar, or Sar... About imperial title. Well they had. What is Emperor on the West is Shar on the east. So he can not be King, he is above kings. He must be Shar or Sar. I repeat, problem is English language which does not have the title of the ruler who rules above several lands ruled by some other rulers, which is not (roman) emperor. Greek Basileus can not be translated as King. Basileus is ruler of the East Roman Empire. So the greeks have their own word that describes title same as emperor, but in their own language. English does not have that. They have only emperor. So, here we should ether use Emperor Darius or Shar Darius. King does not rule above other kings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.4.55.85 ( talk) 15:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
No, not Shah. Shah is from medieval Persia. Sure, it is legacy from ancient persian Shar/Sharu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.4.55.85 ( talk) 20:58, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
"Based on historical demographic estimates, Darius I ruled over approximately 50 million people, or at least 44% of the world's population."
The source for this claim is an unimpressive blog and it needs better verification or to be removed. Does anyone seriously think 44% of the world's population lived in the greater Middle East sans Arabia, while the rest of Africa, Europe, Russia, India, China, southeast Asia, the Pacific Island and the entire Western Hemisphere contained only 56% of the world's population? -- The Vital One ( talk) 23:36, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
I would delete the following claim as too speculative and nearly certainly exaggerated :
“Based on historical demographic estimates, Darius I ruled over approximately 50 million people, or at least 44% of the world's population.[8] [8] "Five Empires That Were Close to World Domination". Joseph KAMINSKY. March 20, 2016. Retrieved August 16, 2016.”
The cited source for this overarching & improbable statistical statement is referenced as the web blog of one Joseph KAMINSKY, a self-declared “history student”.
Here the relevant text at the end of his March 20, 2016 article: in <Five Empires That Were Close to World Domination (March 20, 2016)> ; under <The Achaemenid Empire: Population Control.> :
"Realize that this is the ancient world, so population and demographics were incredibly different. But, at the time <not specified here : could be anytime between 550 – 330 BCE = duration of the Empire; Guinness specifies 480 BCE> , at least 44% of the world’s population <percentage copied from Guinness Book?> belonged to this Persian leadership! 50,000,000 people <rounded from the 49;.4 mio in the Guinness book> found themselves under the Achaemenid flag. http://josephkaminski.org/2016/03/20/five-empires-that-were-close-to-world-domination/
The figures given make one suspect that KAMINSKI copied his information from the GUINNESS Record Book site, which can hardly count as a reliable source for his so-called “historical demographic estimates” :
"By share of population, the largest empire was the Achaemenid Empire, better known as the Persian Empire, which accounted for approximately 49.4 million of the world’s 112.4 million people in around 480 BC – an astonishing 44%. " http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-empire-by-percentage-of-world-population
I have no idea where GUINNESS(a very opaque, commercial site) got its (suspiciously precise) figures, when most historians warn that the uncertainty marges for estimates of ancient population numbers are forbidding :
"The upshot of all this is that a number of questions pertinent to those interested in the comparative study of empires cannot be readily answered with any assurance. Take demography, for example. Ancient Near Eastern historians have been reticent to offer even guesses at the population of western Asia for any pre-Hellenistic period. "
in MORRIS, Ian; SCHEIDEL, Walter (2009). The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-19-975834-0.
On page 77 of the same book (not available to me) the same authors (MORRIS & SCHEIDEL) would have risked nevertheless to cite two existing academic estimates for Achaemenid population c. 500 BCE: from 17 million ** to 35 mio <i.e. much less than the above-claimed 49.4 mio>, on a World population of 100 to 150 mio. Resulting in a still very speculative 17% à 23,3 % of World population … <much less than the above-claimed 44%>
(the lower estimates 17mio vs 100 mio would come from : Colin McEVEDY and Richard JONES , 1978, Atlas of World Population History, Facts on File, New York, ISBN 0-7139-1031-3 and ties in nicely with the graph I found on page 127 of the Penguin edition of their work (Fig. 2.5 "Top Ranking empires" : Persian BCE 400 : 17 mio ; Macedonian BCE 300 : 19 mio ; Mauryan BCE 250 25 mio)
I found no way to check where MORRIS & SCHEIDEL's second cited estimate (of 35 mio / 150 mio = 23,3% ) came from.
Now Doug Weller {talk 13:20, 8 February 2018 (UTC)} found a "better" source for the very high figure of 50 mio people, i.e. 'The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History' , 1 Mar 2012.[2] .
It says on page 134 "Darius thus ruled an empire stretching from Libya to the Crimea, from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf, and from the Aegean Sea to the Indus River, with a population estimated at 50 million people."
https://books.google.co.uk/books...
I checked and found that this figure of 50 mio was dropped very casually (as if in an aside) with no source given. And the author of Chapter 4 of this vulgarizing, introductory text, Alireza Shapour SHAHBAZI, was no doubt an expert in Achaemenid archaeology, but not on ancient demography…
CONCLUSION:
Given the large subsisting error margins, I propose not to “correct” but to delete the above “44%-50mio” factoid altogether from this Wikipedia article, as was already done recently in two related Wiki-articles :
/info/en/?search=Achaemenid_Empire
/info/en/?search=List_of_largest_empires —
80.200.136.88 ( talk) 08:57, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Almost three years later while looking for something completely different, I happened to find a WP:Reliable source—The Oxford World History of Empire—which estimates the Achaemenid Empire to have had a maximum share of 12% of the world's population, in 450 BCE (i.e. a few decades after Darius' death). The same source estimates that the greatest share any empire has ever had is 37% ( Qing dynasty China in 1800). [1] Clearly, 44% is way off. TompaDompa ( talk) 19:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
References
Darius the Mede has nothing to do with Darius I, it is like claiming that Master Yoda is a peer of Barrack Obama. Therefore mentioning the Book of Daniel is completely off-topic. Besides, mentioning "a Darius" is a violation of WP:LEDE. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Darius, who could be either Darius I or anotheris bunk, utter bunk, WP:CB. Darius the Mede could be no one, since he did not exist in the first place.
The Bible is the voice of God, not the voice of scientists. If we want the voice of scientists, we ask the scientists.
The author of Daniel, mindful of certain prophecies that the Medes would destroy Babylon (Jeremiah 51:11,28 and Isaiah 13:17), and needing a Median king to complete his four-kingdom schema (see the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel 2), appears to have taken the historic Darius and projected him into a fictional past. [1]
References
I've removed references to the books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah as historical sources. Daniel, of course, is not a history book and is unusable as a source for facts about the era of Darius. The status of the Aramaic letters in Ezra and Nehemiah is heavily disputed among biblical scholars, who would never use them without serious qualification. PiCo ( talk) 08:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain t/ c 14:16, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Darius I → Darius the Great – This article used to be named "Darius the Great", before it was controversially changed to "Darius I" in 2011 through a RM requested by "Kauffner", a sockmaster whos been indeffed since 2013 (community ban). [3]- [4]. Honestly, I do not see the numbers, when I click on the links, that sockmaster Kauffner mentions. " Darius the Great Persia" gives me 27.800 solid results in Google.Scholar, most of whom are directly related to this figure, whereas " Darius I Persia" provides 21.900 results, including many unrelated entries (for example, entries related to "Darius III"). Likewise, solely using "Darius I" shows many results that are not related to this figure (i.e. false positives). Other than Google.Scholar, the majority high-quality WP:RS, including Encyclopedia Iranica, refer to this figure as "the Great" in their chapters/titles. - LouisAragon ( talk) 15:38, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Believing in Ahura Mazda doesn't necessarily make you Zoroastrian, he was a god in ancient (Indo-)Iranian paganism/polytheism as well. Encyclopædia Iranica [5] has a pretty good say on this;
"There is no consensus among scholars over the question whether the early great kings (Cyrus II The Great, Darius I The Great, Xerxes) were influenced by some form of Zarathuštrianism. They certainly believed in the absolute supremacy of Ahura Mazdā (OPers. Auramazdāh-) and in the dichotomy of ahura- and daiva-. Beyond that, however, all is speculation. Neither the Achaemenids themselves nor Herodotus mention Zarathustra, and Gathic quotations, which some see in the inscriptions (Skjærvø, 1999) may merely reflect phrases common to the shared (Indo-)Iranian poetic diction."
-- HistoryofIran ( talk) 22:09, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, too many images - I'm removing some of them, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 07:44, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
@ Xoltron: The current addition you're making is unsourced, and irrelevant. The lead is supposed to be simple and concise. Also, he is referred to 'Darius the Great' here because he is referred so in modern sources, not in ancient ones (if he even was that) - see [6]. Per the rules you have to reach WP:CONSENSUS, since you're the one making the changes. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 04:28, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
بخارست (باخاراسیتوس) یکی از مستعمرات یونانیان بود که در دوران داریوش به مرز هخامنشیان افزوده شد. 2.185.142.109 ( talk) 18:27, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm no Darius expert, but I can count. Multiple places in the article state Born 550 BCE, Died 486 BCE. That suggests 136 years old at death. But the article ALSO states age 64 years at death. In my opinion, the latter is the more reasonable number, unless Darius really was one of the Biblical prophets. But my real point here is that the dates of birth, death, and everything in between are suspect if whoever did them can't count up or down using the conventional BCE timescale. The dates need to be reworked. Wolfram.Tungsten ( talk) 21:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
When I was looking up Darius for a History assignment, I could only find a very vague "illness" as his cause of death listed on [7] . Obviously I was quite frustrated but added "illness" as his death on to the wiki page but still I believe it would benefit us, students, and the people who ctrl c+ctrl v wikipedia if we know the cause of his death.
I'm begging for answers!
~Arot Arotparaarms ( talk) 15:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Darius the Great isn't mentioned in the Book of Daniel, Darius the Mede is. The problem with Darius the Mede is that he did not exist. So stop adding the Book of Daniel to this article.
Bottom line: there is no Darius the Great in the Book of Daniel, and Wikipedia won't pretend there is. tgeorgescu ( talk) 18:38, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
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The articles on Xerxes and Darius each have pictures of the very sam relief from Persepolis, (note the damage) and each article attributes the portrait to its eponymous king. Is it a relief of Xerxes? Of Darius? Is this question disputed? In any case, the image from the article on Darius is of much better quality, so it should be used once we've established a reasonable caption. 75.71.66.105 21:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure how the article got so thoroughly vandalized, but I just spent a good twenty minutes removing snippets from all over the article. That vandalism persisted through numerous legitimate edits, so I'm asking everyone to please take a minute to read over the entire section you're editing before you leave the page. Some of the vandalism was almost a month old. Thanks! Spectheintro 14:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)spectheintro
I think it is a good idea to move the article to Darius the Great, as that is in fact the common name he is known by in the English language. After all, we also have Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great, not Cyrus II or Alexander III. Shervink 16:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The present edit says that Darius organized the Persian Empire into twenty provinces called satrapies. Most sources say that he really had that 20 satrapies, which refer to the major provinces (example is Babylon, who has been conquered by Cyrus the Great a generation ago.) but the 120, which has been expanded to 127 by Darius on the near end of his reign, were only minor ones. Yeah, Persia really reached its "golden age" under Darius. But, his successor, Xerxes, had lost some of these provinces due to revolts against him.
He had 20 great satrapies. These were ruled by satraps, but being guarded by the inspectors he had established to act as Darius' "eyes and ears", to maintain the order in ruling these satrapies. You're right: they are called satrapies: but other books gave the name of "minor satrapies", which refer to the minor provinces Darius had established earlier in his reign, when he started his conquest for a bigger empire. --bubbles16_22 (talk) 15:21, 15 August 2009
The result was no consensus. Vassyana ( talk) 08:13, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The current title is out of line with other Persian monarchs ( Xerxes I of Persia, who was Xerxes the Great, and Cyrus the Great, who is not titled "Cyrus the Great of Persia"). Remove the redundancy. Srnec ( talk) 23:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The current title is out of line with other Persian monarchs and is redundant (there is no other Darius who is the Great except one of the ones who is also of Persia). I prefer Darius the Great, but seeing as it failed as "no consensus"... Srnec ( talk) 23:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.173.120 ( talk) 01:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
78.151.173.120 ( talk) 05:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)The name Darius is of Lithuanian origin and still is very popular name in Lithuania. It originates from the verb 'daryti'=to make/to act/to be doing smth and consequently Darius means both and being making/being acting/being doing and the man who is doing/acting/making...Zeus Bottiaeus in Lithuanian language 'Dzevs Botiaus' means God of our ancestors (Aleksandre dedicated altar to Zeus Bottiaeus)...Aleksandras in Lithuanian language 'A(t)lek(e)s Antras' means born second and Macedon 'Manke Duona' means knead bread...Hun in Lith. 'Gunas/ganytojas' means pastor/shep-herd and Atila 'Eitila' means going/runing the office...Ainiai is the name of ancient Greece tribe and in Lithuanian language that means posterity/antecedents 78.151.173.120 ( talk) 05:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
There is no section on Darius' ascension to power by the asassaination of the "Magian", who was impersonating Smerdis, the murdered brother of Cambyses. Darius and the "7" who killed the Magian then sought out the best form of government, with the decision being based on whoever's horse neighed first in the morning, would become King. Darius, through deception, won the contest, as told by Herodotus, book 3. anyone mind if i add the section? Nathraq ( talk) 18:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a serious academic theory that Gaumata never existed. So it should be explained as such. See also Smerdis and I have another go. BTW, Herodotus was describing the events 100 hundred years later from persian sources and Darius left only inscription on his tomb, not a reliable account of how Gaumata usurped the power StJohnTheBaptist ( talk) 14:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Behiston inscription and ancient Greek texts, Gaumata was an imposter! and these are the only evidence/sources we have about the way Darius took the power. There is no reason not to believe them, unless someone wants to represent a false face of Darius! It is necessary to be honest about the history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.211.112.44 ( talk) 16:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Please ref to your removal of category Category:Pre-Islamic heritage of Iran
In this edit of yours
darius does not belong to that category (according to description of the category
The reason you sited for removal does not seem valid because the very first criteria listed in the description of this category it clearly states
“People from Iran or their descendants of ethnic Zoroastrian/Aryan descent”
Please do not delete this category .
Cheers
Intothefire (
talk) 03:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I havent been able to understand the meaning of your post please specificaly explain ....and do not delete before discussing your reasons ,
Intothefire (
talk) 11:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I rewrote the article and was reverted. Could anyone care to explain why. warrior 4321 20:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
warrior 4321 21:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Most of the facts that you given in the above paragraph, are all written in the paragraph I wrote, there is just a shorter number of words. warrior 4321 21:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
References
ar-EI
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).schimit-EI-ACH-ii
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).IranicaDarius
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).I have re-written an article version of Darius the Great. The article is more organized, referenced and follows many Wikipedian policies and guidelines. The article can be found here. I am proposing that the proposed version replace the current version. However, if no response is given in around five day's time, I will implement the proposed version. warrior 4321 06:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
There are these problems with the article:-
1. The section on Smerdis/Bardiya/Gaumata has an anti-Bardiya bias, it should be a condensation of the Bardiya article, some issues e.g. his religous policy should be moved there.
2. The article relies rather heavily on one source, the Encyclopedia Iranica article, I am not convinced this is a particularly good source. Darius is one of the most important rulers in ancient history, there must be a fairly large amount of material on him.
3. Most educated people with some knowledge of ancient history will have heard of the Persian Empire, by comparison the term Achmaenied is rather obscure. PatGallacher ( talk) 01:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't know whether to laugh or cry - there are so many problems with the article that I don't know where to begin. How about this: - stop arguing about whose third-rate secondary source is best and find out what a primary source is. For example, "Nonetheless, Darius killed Intaphernes' entire family, excluding his wife's brother and son. She was asked to choose between her brother and son. She chose her brother to live. Her reasoning for doing so was that she could have another husband and another son, but she would always have but one brother. Darius was impressed by her response and spared both her brother's and her son's life." Wrong! Darius was going to kill her husband, her brother and all her kids, but she was so distraught that he said to her that one of her family could survive and she could choose which (why do this - she could have chosen Intaphernes, then where would Darius be? I suppose he was gambling that she'd choose her first-born son). She chose her brother on the grounds that she could remarry and have more kids but her parents were dead so she could never get a new brother. Darius was so impressed he spared the brother and her eldest son. But Darius killed all the others (nice guy!). So either your secondary source has got it all wrong, or you (what could be sadder?) have misquoted a secondary source, when you could have gone to the primary source. Also, you can't leave this story without pointing out that it also features in Sophocles' Antigone 905-12 (another primary source), so it's pretty much only a folk-tale (as we could have guessed anyway). You don't seem to have discovered (probably because you haven't read Herodotus) that not only was Gaumata supposedly Bardiya's DOUBLE, but, by sheer coincidence, his real name was actually supposedly Bardiya! OK, Herodotus's sources were Persian, therefore he was forced to take on everything Darius wrote in the Behistun inscription. Darius not only invented the story that Bardiya was a fake to justify his usurpation of power, but he invented the Achaemenid descent of both himself and Cyrus, also in order to make it seem that he was the legitimate heir of Cyrus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.237.77 ( talk) 11:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Please state what is "disputed" as just placing tags is unhelpful. warrior 4321 23:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Do a diff between the last version before your recent edits and the version after the first 2 of these edits (before somebody else chipped in). This could be a misuse of the GA criteria, since if applied consistently it could mean deleting all sorts of legitimate material from articles which aren't in too bad shape. I cannot provide a page number just like that, but if that's the problem then there is a relevant flag which can be added to the article. PatGallacher ( talk) 00:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Reviewer: Tea with toast ( talk) 19:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
References are of the 8 March 2010 version
I will place this review "On hold" until the first issue is resolved and the second issue is either resolved or explained here. -- Tea with toast ( talk) 01:42, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I find that this article meets the good article criteria:
-- Tea with toast ( talk) 17:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
In my view, this article does not yet meet GA criteria, and is being artificially pushed for GA status before it is ready. It is not stable as it is the subject of a significant content disupute about whether there should be mention of revisionist or critical accounts of Darius' seizure of power. In my view, without mention of such accounts, it fails NPOV. I have a few lesser criticisms. PatGallacher ( talk) 02:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
The sequenced list below, is copied directly from MOS:APPENDIX. Items marked in bold, are ones of particular interest, which pertain specifically to this article.
Why is the WP:MoS being challenged in this case, and reverted whenever I attempt to adjust it accordingly? Why the insistence to erroneously place the "References" section before the "Bibliography" section? I don't get the problem here, and hardly see my adjustments as a matter for dispute. -- WikHead ( talk) 08:17, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Is there an inconsistency here? Darius' life is listed as 550–486 at the top, and 519-465 at the bottom. Lee merrill ( talk) 23:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was moved to Darius the Great per common usage. Based on the discussion below as well as on Talk:Darius, I see good primary topic reasons for moving it to Darius, but don't see enough consensus at this time.-- rgpk ( comment) 15:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Darius I of Persia → Darius I — We have Darius II Ochus and Darius III Codomannus. If the reader needs reminding that any of these guys was Persian, it's not Darius I. I would also think Darius the Great and improvement, but I think the proposed title is more consistent with our guidelines, our other articles and (perhaps) the reliable sources. — Srnec ( talk) 23:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.The current names of these other two Dariuses is controversial and there is a move request in progress in relation to Darius III. Darius I would be ok if there was not the need to disambiguate him from Darius of Pontus. See WP:NCROY. PatGallacher ( talk) 00:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Keep It Simple Stupid. These 3 Persian monarchs should be described as Darius I, Darius II and Darius III. PatGallacher ( talk) 19:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Agree that this is the primary topic for Darius; Not quite sure where to go from here. Andrewa ( talk) 19:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, but it's far from clear to me that the consensus of the last discussion was to move to Darius the Great. PatGallacher ( talk) 16:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
All told, "Darius I" had 2 1/2 first-preference !votes, 2 1/2 second-preference !votes (splitting Kauffner's !votes into two halves each), and no opposes. "Darius the Great" had 2 first-preference !votes, one second-preference !vote, and 2 1/2 opposes (with Pat Gallacher's mild oppose as a half !vote). "Darius" had one first-preference !vote and two opposes. "Darius I of Persia" had Kauffner's split support, with everyone else opposed. Does that seem correct? Dohn joe ( talk) 17:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I propose that the date format be reverted from BCE/CE to BC/AD as the BCE/CE edits have violated WP:ERA by not being discussed and reaching a consensus on this article's talk page. If you are going to change the date formats please propose it on the talk page and not suddenly implement it, that violates the policy that was created to stop such actions. Please voice objections and reasons against the reversion of date formats now. 78.146.132.102 ( talk) 20:37, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
I created an RM to make Darius a redirect to this article. See here. Kauffner ( talk) 00:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved to Darius I. Favonian ( talk) 00:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Darius the Great → Darius I – In the WP:RS, just plain "Darius" is the WP:COMMONNAME for this subject by an overwhelmingly margin. Out of 8,650 post-1990 English-language Google Book results for Persia Darius Behistun OR Marathon, only 716 (8 percent) are for "Darius the Great", while 1960 (23 percent) are for "Darius I." So the "the Great" adds a spin that the majority of relevant authors do not share. A move to "Darius I" establishes consistency with the articles about his successors, namely Darius II and Darius III. Britannica calls him "Darius I". Finally, this ngram shows that "Darius I" is more than twice as common as "Darius the Great". Kauffner ( talk) 07:18, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
To user Kauffner: Please stop reverting the title of this article. Consensus on title of article, going back months ago, was the proper historical title "Darius the Great" (Darayavau xshâyathiya vazraka) [1], the suffix for Achaemenid rulers including Darius, covered by centuries historical Western and Persian literature going back to the Achaemenid era, the time of Darius. Janus945 ( talk) 06:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Darius the Great → Darius I - Let's base this on historical facts on documents and historical literature; Both Western and Persian. The title of this ruler has always been Darius the Great in literature. This is nothing but an attempt to re-write history; by people who have very little to no knowledge on this subject.
Here is one of thousands of historical scriptures, from 6th century BC and onward. [2] Can we please have Historians and experts on this topic to vote. As I see here the majority of the voters have absolutely no expertise on this topic, or history for that matter. Janus945 ( talk) 07:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
References
Found this at the end of the Babylonian revolt section: "... found no known enemies but an enigmatic Scythian tribe distinguished by their large pointy hats." It seems out of place. It seems like it should be cleaned up or removed. Not the same one ( talk) 12:25, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
I've located information that indicates that Darius I may also have been Emperor Gustasp of Turkistan. The details are located in the following sources: [1] [2]. Has anyone else stumbled upon this information? Also, the sources indicate that he was in fact the ruler of this area during the birth of Zoroaster. Any assistance on this would be most helpful. Apologies, Page 173 is a mention of Darius I being Emperor Gustasp of Turkistan.
Twillisjr ( talk) 20:56, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
References
As the individual who "voted" to have the name of the article changed to "Darius I" months ago, never bothered presenting any facts/sources, Darius' title is from (Old Persian transliteration) Dârayavaush : xshâyathiya : vazraka, "Darius the Great (King)" which is copied to dozens of translations carved in stone from Persia to Greece as well as Egypt, dating from circa 500 BC including translations from Old Persian to Babylonian, Aramaic, Elamite, Ancient Egyptian, Greek etc. Not to mention that it was inherited by all the Achaemenid dynasty heirs as well as copied by Alexander. I belive this closes the discussion and all we need is an admin to move the article as I tried moving the article with editor access and it reports a conflict with another page which contains the Redirect tag. Janus945 ( talk)
I am correctly and authentically expressing what the world was like during the time of Darius I. YinJiao10 ( talk) 12:41, 20 December 2015 (UTC).
The introduction ends with this sentence: "Darius is mentioned in the Biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezra–Nehemiah."
This is incorrect. The Darius in Daniel is NOT Darius I (Darius the Great). There's considerable dispute as to who exactly the Darius mentioned there actually is. I don't have a lot of academic sources (a few years ago I was just trying to trace Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian kings, but I've lost my notes). It is very very clear the Darius in the book of Daniel is not mentioned anywhere else. http://www.biblehistory.net/newsletter/belshazzar_darius_mede.htm http://www.truthnet.org/Daniel/Chapter6/
It looks like the Book of Daniel page needs to be fixed too. I'm sorry that I can't do this right now. I'm too busy and would need to do a lot of research, but I'm happy to bring this error to the attention of my gifted fellow editors so that you can fix it. Lehasa ( talk) 17:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
KRASNODAR, August 4. /TASS/. Archeologists doing excavations in the area of antique town of Phanagoria in the Temryuk district of Russia’s southern Krasnodar territory have discovered fragments of a marble stele carrying an inscription of the ancient Persian King Darius I, the press service of the Volnoye Delo foundation said in a press release on Thursday. [1] -- Wario-Man ( talk) 11:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
It is written in text "...was the third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire" Well that is kinda confusing. "King of Empire". Shouldn't it be "Emperor of the Empire"? Does English language even has the term for that which is above Kingdom, but not "Roman Empire", rather some other Empire....? Aryanprince ( talk) 22:01, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
None of the Achaemenid monarchs had an imperial title. Their main title was "Shahanshah", which translates to the King of Kings. In this case, several of the Empire's satraps and other vassals had royal titles or were kings in their own right, so the Achaemenid monarch was the overlord of several kings. The Greek translation of the the title is " Basileus ton Basileon". Dimadick ( talk) 09:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Problem is "King" title. He was not King. He was Shar, or Sar... About imperial title. Well they had. What is Emperor on the West is Shar on the east. So he can not be King, he is above kings. He must be Shar or Sar. I repeat, problem is English language which does not have the title of the ruler who rules above several lands ruled by some other rulers, which is not (roman) emperor. Greek Basileus can not be translated as King. Basileus is ruler of the East Roman Empire. So the greeks have their own word that describes title same as emperor, but in their own language. English does not have that. They have only emperor. So, here we should ether use Emperor Darius or Shar Darius. King does not rule above other kings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.4.55.85 ( talk) 15:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
No, not Shah. Shah is from medieval Persia. Sure, it is legacy from ancient persian Shar/Sharu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.4.55.85 ( talk) 20:58, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
"Based on historical demographic estimates, Darius I ruled over approximately 50 million people, or at least 44% of the world's population."
The source for this claim is an unimpressive blog and it needs better verification or to be removed. Does anyone seriously think 44% of the world's population lived in the greater Middle East sans Arabia, while the rest of Africa, Europe, Russia, India, China, southeast Asia, the Pacific Island and the entire Western Hemisphere contained only 56% of the world's population? -- The Vital One ( talk) 23:36, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
I would delete the following claim as too speculative and nearly certainly exaggerated :
“Based on historical demographic estimates, Darius I ruled over approximately 50 million people, or at least 44% of the world's population.[8] [8] "Five Empires That Were Close to World Domination". Joseph KAMINSKY. March 20, 2016. Retrieved August 16, 2016.”
The cited source for this overarching & improbable statistical statement is referenced as the web blog of one Joseph KAMINSKY, a self-declared “history student”.
Here the relevant text at the end of his March 20, 2016 article: in <Five Empires That Were Close to World Domination (March 20, 2016)> ; under <The Achaemenid Empire: Population Control.> :
"Realize that this is the ancient world, so population and demographics were incredibly different. But, at the time <not specified here : could be anytime between 550 – 330 BCE = duration of the Empire; Guinness specifies 480 BCE> , at least 44% of the world’s population <percentage copied from Guinness Book?> belonged to this Persian leadership! 50,000,000 people <rounded from the 49;.4 mio in the Guinness book> found themselves under the Achaemenid flag. http://josephkaminski.org/2016/03/20/five-empires-that-were-close-to-world-domination/
The figures given make one suspect that KAMINSKI copied his information from the GUINNESS Record Book site, which can hardly count as a reliable source for his so-called “historical demographic estimates” :
"By share of population, the largest empire was the Achaemenid Empire, better known as the Persian Empire, which accounted for approximately 49.4 million of the world’s 112.4 million people in around 480 BC – an astonishing 44%. " http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-empire-by-percentage-of-world-population
I have no idea where GUINNESS(a very opaque, commercial site) got its (suspiciously precise) figures, when most historians warn that the uncertainty marges for estimates of ancient population numbers are forbidding :
"The upshot of all this is that a number of questions pertinent to those interested in the comparative study of empires cannot be readily answered with any assurance. Take demography, for example. Ancient Near Eastern historians have been reticent to offer even guesses at the population of western Asia for any pre-Hellenistic period. "
in MORRIS, Ian; SCHEIDEL, Walter (2009). The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-19-975834-0.
On page 77 of the same book (not available to me) the same authors (MORRIS & SCHEIDEL) would have risked nevertheless to cite two existing academic estimates for Achaemenid population c. 500 BCE: from 17 million ** to 35 mio <i.e. much less than the above-claimed 49.4 mio>, on a World population of 100 to 150 mio. Resulting in a still very speculative 17% à 23,3 % of World population … <much less than the above-claimed 44%>
(the lower estimates 17mio vs 100 mio would come from : Colin McEVEDY and Richard JONES , 1978, Atlas of World Population History, Facts on File, New York, ISBN 0-7139-1031-3 and ties in nicely with the graph I found on page 127 of the Penguin edition of their work (Fig. 2.5 "Top Ranking empires" : Persian BCE 400 : 17 mio ; Macedonian BCE 300 : 19 mio ; Mauryan BCE 250 25 mio)
I found no way to check where MORRIS & SCHEIDEL's second cited estimate (of 35 mio / 150 mio = 23,3% ) came from.
Now Doug Weller {talk 13:20, 8 February 2018 (UTC)} found a "better" source for the very high figure of 50 mio people, i.e. 'The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History' , 1 Mar 2012.[2] .
It says on page 134 "Darius thus ruled an empire stretching from Libya to the Crimea, from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf, and from the Aegean Sea to the Indus River, with a population estimated at 50 million people."
https://books.google.co.uk/books...
I checked and found that this figure of 50 mio was dropped very casually (as if in an aside) with no source given. And the author of Chapter 4 of this vulgarizing, introductory text, Alireza Shapour SHAHBAZI, was no doubt an expert in Achaemenid archaeology, but not on ancient demography…
CONCLUSION:
Given the large subsisting error margins, I propose not to “correct” but to delete the above “44%-50mio” factoid altogether from this Wikipedia article, as was already done recently in two related Wiki-articles :
/info/en/?search=Achaemenid_Empire
/info/en/?search=List_of_largest_empires —
80.200.136.88 ( talk) 08:57, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Almost three years later while looking for something completely different, I happened to find a WP:Reliable source—The Oxford World History of Empire—which estimates the Achaemenid Empire to have had a maximum share of 12% of the world's population, in 450 BCE (i.e. a few decades after Darius' death). The same source estimates that the greatest share any empire has ever had is 37% ( Qing dynasty China in 1800). [1] Clearly, 44% is way off. TompaDompa ( talk) 19:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
References
Darius the Mede has nothing to do with Darius I, it is like claiming that Master Yoda is a peer of Barrack Obama. Therefore mentioning the Book of Daniel is completely off-topic. Besides, mentioning "a Darius" is a violation of WP:LEDE. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Darius, who could be either Darius I or anotheris bunk, utter bunk, WP:CB. Darius the Mede could be no one, since he did not exist in the first place.
The Bible is the voice of God, not the voice of scientists. If we want the voice of scientists, we ask the scientists.
The author of Daniel, mindful of certain prophecies that the Medes would destroy Babylon (Jeremiah 51:11,28 and Isaiah 13:17), and needing a Median king to complete his four-kingdom schema (see the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel 2), appears to have taken the historic Darius and projected him into a fictional past. [1]
References
I've removed references to the books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah as historical sources. Daniel, of course, is not a history book and is unusable as a source for facts about the era of Darius. The status of the Aramaic letters in Ezra and Nehemiah is heavily disputed among biblical scholars, who would never use them without serious qualification. PiCo ( talk) 08:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain t/ c 14:16, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Darius I → Darius the Great – This article used to be named "Darius the Great", before it was controversially changed to "Darius I" in 2011 through a RM requested by "Kauffner", a sockmaster whos been indeffed since 2013 (community ban). [3]- [4]. Honestly, I do not see the numbers, when I click on the links, that sockmaster Kauffner mentions. " Darius the Great Persia" gives me 27.800 solid results in Google.Scholar, most of whom are directly related to this figure, whereas " Darius I Persia" provides 21.900 results, including many unrelated entries (for example, entries related to "Darius III"). Likewise, solely using "Darius I" shows many results that are not related to this figure (i.e. false positives). Other than Google.Scholar, the majority high-quality WP:RS, including Encyclopedia Iranica, refer to this figure as "the Great" in their chapters/titles. - LouisAragon ( talk) 15:38, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Believing in Ahura Mazda doesn't necessarily make you Zoroastrian, he was a god in ancient (Indo-)Iranian paganism/polytheism as well. Encyclopædia Iranica [5] has a pretty good say on this;
"There is no consensus among scholars over the question whether the early great kings (Cyrus II The Great, Darius I The Great, Xerxes) were influenced by some form of Zarathuštrianism. They certainly believed in the absolute supremacy of Ahura Mazdā (OPers. Auramazdāh-) and in the dichotomy of ahura- and daiva-. Beyond that, however, all is speculation. Neither the Achaemenids themselves nor Herodotus mention Zarathustra, and Gathic quotations, which some see in the inscriptions (Skjærvø, 1999) may merely reflect phrases common to the shared (Indo-)Iranian poetic diction."
-- HistoryofIran ( talk) 22:09, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, too many images - I'm removing some of them, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 07:44, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
@ Xoltron: The current addition you're making is unsourced, and irrelevant. The lead is supposed to be simple and concise. Also, he is referred to 'Darius the Great' here because he is referred so in modern sources, not in ancient ones (if he even was that) - see [6]. Per the rules you have to reach WP:CONSENSUS, since you're the one making the changes. -- HistoryofIran ( talk) 04:28, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
بخارست (باخاراسیتوس) یکی از مستعمرات یونانیان بود که در دوران داریوش به مرز هخامنشیان افزوده شد. 2.185.142.109 ( talk) 18:27, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm no Darius expert, but I can count. Multiple places in the article state Born 550 BCE, Died 486 BCE. That suggests 136 years old at death. But the article ALSO states age 64 years at death. In my opinion, the latter is the more reasonable number, unless Darius really was one of the Biblical prophets. But my real point here is that the dates of birth, death, and everything in between are suspect if whoever did them can't count up or down using the conventional BCE timescale. The dates need to be reworked. Wolfram.Tungsten ( talk) 21:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
When I was looking up Darius for a History assignment, I could only find a very vague "illness" as his cause of death listed on [7] . Obviously I was quite frustrated but added "illness" as his death on to the wiki page but still I believe it would benefit us, students, and the people who ctrl c+ctrl v wikipedia if we know the cause of his death.
I'm begging for answers!
~Arot Arotparaarms ( talk) 15:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Darius the Great isn't mentioned in the Book of Daniel, Darius the Mede is. The problem with Darius the Mede is that he did not exist. So stop adding the Book of Daniel to this article.
Bottom line: there is no Darius the Great in the Book of Daniel, and Wikipedia won't pretend there is. tgeorgescu ( talk) 18:38, 2 March 2024 (UTC)