How One Man’s Betrayal Destroyed An Empire
The year is 590 BC. Astyages rules over the vast Median Empire. The empire covered a vast chunk of the Ancient Near East.
While asleep one night, King Astyages had a dream about the son of his daughter Mandane. Taking the dream as an omen of evil, the Median king sent his courtier, Harpagus, to kill the offspring of Mandane and her husband, Cambyses.
The young boy was to be left in the forest to die. However, when it came time to abandon the child, Harpagus couldn’t bring himself to do it. He ended up giving the child to a herdsman named Mitradates, who would raise the child as his own. The child’s name? Cyrus.
A decade later, when Astyages was made aware of Cyrus’ existence, he punished Harpagus in the cruelest way he could think. Not only did he kill the general’s only son, the king fed the boy’s remains to his father during a banquet.
After realizing the horrid truth,Harpagus was furious. But he waited. He accepted the punishment bestowed upon him by the king and waited for his moment for vengeance. And he would get it.
Nearly 20 years later, the same child Astyages wanted dead was rebelling against the Median Empire. Cyrus the Great, as he was now known, had transformed a group of semi-nomadic tribes into a group he called the Persians.
Three years into the war, Astyages and his followers were forced to retreat into the Median capital of Ecbatana, forced onto the back foot by Cyrus and his rag-tag bunch of Persians. Cyrus relentlessly attacked the city in what came to be known as the Battle of Pasargadae. Cyrus and his forces sieged the capital for three long days, until something gave way. Something that came from an unexpected source.
Harpagus turned on the Medes and Astyages, defecting to the Persian cause to get his revenge on Astyages for the murder of his son all those years ago. He didn’t forget. He ripped the throne out from under Astyages and put the child he was supposed to kill on it.
Harpagus’ betrayal essentially put Cyrus on the throne, giving the Persians control of the entire Median empire. Harpagus closed the book of the Median Empire, and opened the story of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Harpagus served as one of Cyrus’ top generals for many years, helping the conqueror expand what land he already possessed, leading Persia to become the ancient world’s first true superpower.
He would die roughly 10 years after the formation of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, but he is remembered as the man who crumbled an entire empire by himself. He is Harpagus, cause of the fall of the Median Empire, and catalyst of the ancient worlds first superpower, the Persians.
