Darius I

Darius I was the Achaemenid king who consolidated and greatly organised the Persian Empire. He suppressed rebellions, developed imperial administration and communications, campaigned in Scythia and launched the expedition that ended in Persian defeat at Marathon.

Christian Cameron’s Killer of Men places Darius I within a narrative shaped by family, marriage and personal loyalty, social change and the pressures of ordinary life, and military command and battlefield decision-making. Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound and Other Plays places Darius I within a narrative shaped by court politics and dynastic power and empire, conquest and resistance.

In non-fiction, Darius I is discussed in Herodotus’s The Histories. Herodotus’s The Histories approaches the subject through military command and battlefield decision-making.