Latest / The Achaemenid Empire: Persia's Golden Age of Power — Fexingo History
Bardiya and the Magian Usurpation – Persia's Crisis of Legitimacy
In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into one of the most mysterious and violent episodes of early Achaemenid history: the brief reign of the false Bardiya (also known as Gaumata the Magian) in 522 BCE. After the death of Cambyses II, a man claiming to be Cambyses' brother Bardiya seized the throne. But whispers spread that the real Bardiya had been secretly murdered years earlier, and the imposter was a Magian priest. Lucas walks through the tense weeks of the imposture, the conspiracy of seven noble Persian families led by Darius I, the dramatic assassination of Gaumata at a fortress in…
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