Croesus
“You will destroy a powerful empire.” An ancient oracle warned that invading Persia would have a bad result. Just like Trump, Croesus and others didn’t want to listen.
The invasions of ancient Persia were always daunting undertakings. Often they ended in disaster. In the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the Persian empire came to dominate a vast and diverse geography, with Iran at its center.
Encompassing present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, the Persian Gulf and parts of other neighboring countries, the Persian Empire was founded and ruled by the Achaemenids, a powerful dynasty that lasted until around 330 BC, when Alexander the Great defeated its last ruler, Darius III. But, in the early days of this Achaemenid Persian expansion (546 BC), the legendary king Croesus (from Lydia, in the west of present-day Türkiye) decided to challenge her.
The Warning to Croesus (and How Others Failed)
Considered, according to tradition, the richest man in the world, Croesus consulted the famous Oracle of Apollo, in Delphi, Greece. The oracle, according to the ancient writer Herodotus, told Croesus that, If he sent an army against the Persians, he would destroy a great empire.
The invasion launched by Croesus and his defeat at the hands of the Persian king Cyrus led to the destruction of his own empire. The oracle had correctly predicted the outcome, but not in the way Croesus expected.
Croesus was not the last ruler to invade Persia and realize that he had gotten himself into much more than he could control. From the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, Greeks and Romans invaded Persia several times. The risks were high and the logistics were complicated.
In fact — as US President Donald Trump is now discovering — wars like these, in this part of the world, are much easier to start than to end.
Complex and high-risk operations
The vast resources and enormous human capacity of the Achaemenid empire, together with its varied geography, made any invasion of Persia a complex and high-risk operation.
When Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) invaded Persia in 334 BC, he commanded a series of stunning military successes against the Persians over the following years. But when he died prematurely in Babylon in 323 BC, the organization of the vast territory he had conquered was a makeshift set of short-term solutions.
Over time, the memory of Alexander in the Iranian territories he conquered was marked by contempt. The Persian territory he had conquered could not be maintained by his successors.
About 70 years after Alexander’s death, a new dynasty. Known as the Parthian Arsacids, the Arsacid Empire would come to dominate much of the ancient Achaemenid territory for centuries.
The Arsacids became the main rivals of the Romans as they expanded further east, beginning in the 1st century BC The first Roman invasion of the Parthian empire ended in total disaster for the Romans.
The Roman general Crassus invaded Parthian imperial territory in southern present-day Türkiye in 53 BC. The Parthian army annihilated Crassus’s forces near the city of Carrhae. Around 20,000 Roman soldiers died (including Crassus and his son) and 10,000 were captured.
The disaster would remain in Roman memory for centuries.
“Constant and costly wars”
Even when the Roman invasions of the Parthian empire in the second century AD were successful, there was often a reverse side of the coin. Emperor Trajan advanced to the Persian Gulf in 116/117 AD, but was unable to maintain any of his conquests.
Later, in the 2nd century AD, the Roman invasions of the Parthian empire actually brought territorial gains in Mesopotamia (south of present-day Türkiye). But a contemporary Roman writer, Cassius Dio, considered that these gains gave more problems than advantages.
“He [o imperador Septímio Severo] he used to declare that he had added a vast territory to the empire and that he had transformed it into a stronghold of Syria. On the contrary, the facts themselves show that this conquest has been for us a source of constant wars and great expense,” wrote Dio.
From loss to final humiliation
In the 3rd century AD, the Sasanian dynasty took control of Iran and Mesopotamia from the Parthians. In the following centuries, the Sasanian Persians inflicted severe defeats on the invading Roman armies.
The Roman emperor Gordian III died in battle against the Sassanids in 244 AD. He had led a large-scale invasion of the Persian empire, but died while trying to attack the capital, Seleucia-Ctesiphon. His successor (Philip I) signed a humiliating peace treaty to rescue what was left of the army.
But the final humiliations for the Roman emperors were yet to come. In 260 AD, Emperor Valerian was captured by the Persian king Shapur I. Legendary accounts state that Valerian served as a footstool for Shapur when he rode a horse.
Rock reliefs from the 3rd century that represent Valeriano and Philip I in a position of submission before Sapor.
About a century later, Emperor Julian died while invading the Persian empire. At the head of an army of 60 thousand men, Julian suffered a heavy defeat and was killed north of the Persian capital, Seleucia-Ctesiphon.
The peace treaty signed in the wake of this defeat led to Rome losing key territories and fortresses in northern Mesopotamia. It would take Rome more than a century to recover from this defeat.
Most of the ancient invasions of the Persian empire caused serious problems for those who carried them out. The varied, and sometimes harsh, nature of the geography was an important factor. National determination and military preparation were others.
Although the current US and Israeli war against Iran is in many ways highly different from the ancient wars directed against Persia, third-century Sasanian rock reliefs are a reminder of what could go wrong.
