Darius the Great

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Darius I (Old Persian: 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 Dārayavaʰuš; c. 550 – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan. Darius ascended the throne after overthrowing the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya (or Smerdis), whom he claimed to be an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout the empire but quelled each of them. Darius organized the empire by dividing it into administrative provinces, each governed by a satrap. He organized a new uniform monetary system, and he made Aramaic a co-official language of the empire alongside Old Persian. He...

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