and Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE, among other works.
Waters applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, King of the World: The Life of Cyrus the Great, and reported the following:
Page 99 contains a photo of one of Cyrus the Great’s royal inscriptions, dating circa 539 BCE, this one from the southern Babylonian city of Ur. Part of the description of the inscription on page 99 runs as follows:Learn more about King of the World at the Oxford University Press website.Its elegant orthography and archaizing signs situated Cyrus in a long line of rulers who built and restored the temple of the moon god, Nanna-Suen, where the inscription was found. That fact alone, likewise with Cyrus’ inscription found at the Eanna complex in Uruk, is important. Cyrus’ work, and record of work, done at sanctuaries such as these was expected of a proper Babylonian king.Page 99 of my book does indeed give a good idea of what the book is about. While Cyrus’ Ur brick inscription is not as well known as the Cyrus Cylinder (which is also discussed at some length in the book), it manifests nicely who Cyrus was and what he did. The Ur inscription in translation reads as follows: “Cyrus, King of the World, King of Anshan, the son of Cambyses, King of Anshan. The great gods have delivered into my hands all the lands and I caused the land to live in peace.”
In a nutshell, Cyrus informs us of his dominion, his origins and lineage, and his right to rule: divine favor via military conquest – a suitable but compelling summary of the whole book. This is only the short version, of course. Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, reigned from 559 to 530 BCE. He ruled territory stretching across the ancient Near East: broadly defined, the widely diverse populations of Iran, Greater Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant. Within two decades after his death, his successors added Egypt and the Indus Valley, a sprawling empire seldom rivaled in its expanse of territory, its reach, and its staying power. Cyrus the Great remains one of the most pivotal, yet underappreciated, figures in history. For a figure of such historical import, he has not received his due in comparison with, for example, other fascinating leaders who followed in his footsteps, such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Chinggis Khan. Cyrus may be matched with any of these, though books dedicated to him are far fewer in number than for any of the preceding. Cyrus the Great himself was a transformational figure in world history, who, with few exceptions, was well-regarded in the surviving records of all those peoples whom he ruled: a compelling legacy in itself.
--Marshal Zeringue