Old Persian Emperors in Many Languages, from Cuneiform to Farsi

From Old Persian through Greek to modern Persian

The Achaemenid Empire was founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC and ruled from the Balkans to the Indus valley.¹ Its kings wrote their own names in Old Persian cuneiform, a semi-alphabetic script used mostly in the inscriptions of Darius I and Xerxes I.¹ Europe learned the names from Greek historians, so English says Darius, Xerxes and Cambyses: Latin forms of Greek adaptations of Dārayavahuš, Xšayāršā and Kambūjiya.

Modern Persian inherited some names directly and rebuilt others. Cyrus is کوروش (Kuroš), Darius داریوش (Dâriyuš), Xerxes خشایارشا (Xašâyâršâ), and Artaxerxes became اردشیر (Ardašir). The capital that Greeks called Persepolis, “city of the Persians”, was Pārsa to its builders; medieval Persians attributed the ruins to the mythical king Jamshid and named them تخت جمشید (Taxte Jamšid), “throne of Jamshid”.¹ Both modern names stand in the Persian row. Ancient Greek kept its own adaptations: Κῦρος for Cyrus, Ξέρξης for Xerxes, Καμβύσης for Cambyses, and the Latin row simply copies the Greek forms into Roman letters.