A Senior Student's Guide to Ancient Persia

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the three Persian topics in HSC Ancient History: Society Option D: Persian society at the time of Darius and Xerxes Personality Option D: The Near East – Xerxes Historical Period Historical Option D: Persia – Cyrus II to the Death of Darius III. Early chapters introduce the key features of Persian history and provide foundation knowledge for all three HSC topics. The Xerxes chapter includes a Source Study on The Persians, the play by Aeschylus. The chapter on Expansion of the Empire provides detailed coverage of the Persian wars against the Greeks – from a Persian perspective. The book is written in an engaging and accessible style, drawing on a wealth of written and archaeological sources, including recent research. Questions draw attention to key areas of content and issues of historiography, encouraging students to work with sources and think critically about how they contribute to knowledge/understanding.

Contents

• Chapter 1: The Persian Empire
• Chapter 2: Sources on Ancient Persia
• Chapter 3: Administration of the Persian Empire
• Chapter 4: The Persian Concept of Kingship
• Chapter 5: Religion in the Persian Empire
• Chapter 6: Royal Building Programs
• Chapter 7: The Persian Army
• Chapter 8: Cyrus II
• Chapter 9: Cambyses
• Chapter 10: Darius I
• Chapter 11: Personality Study: Xerxes
• Chapter 12: Expansion of the Persian Empire
• Chapter 13: Later Persian Kings
• Chapter 14: Decline of the Persian Empire
• Chapter 15: Persian Society at the time of Darius and Xerxes
• Preparing for the HSC