Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore

The edited volume Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore re-contextualizes Cyrus's foundational act and epoch in light of recent scholarship, while examining his later reception in antiquity and beyond. Among the many themes addressed in the volume are: the complex dossier of Elamo-Persian acculturation
the Mesopotamian antecedents of Cyrus's edict and religious policy
Cyrus's Baupolitik at Pasargadae, and the idiosyncratic genesis of Persian imperial art
the Babylonian exile, the Bible, and the First Return
Cyrus's exalted but conflicted image in the later Greco-Roman world
his reception and programmatic function in genealogical constructs of the Hellenistic and Arsacid periods
and finally Cyrus's conspicuous and enigmatic evanescence in the Sasanian and Muslim traditions.

The sum of these wide-ranging contributions assembled in one volume, as well as a new critical edition and English translation of the Cyrus Cylinder, allow for a more adequate evaluation of Cyrus's impact on his own age, as well as his imprint on posterity.