The founder of the Achaemenid dynasty proper, Darius I (OP *Dārayava(h)uš "he who holds firm the good"), is one of the best documented and most controversial Achaemenid kings (r. 522-486 BCE). He created the epigraphic formulae attested across the corpus of Achaemenid royal inscriptions, had more of them carved than any of his successors, and also created the only known extensive royal inscription to contain a historical narrative of events, the great inscription at Behistun (DB) that details his rise to power and the deeds of his first year of rule and a little beyond. These facts alone make him the most significant figure for the epigraphy of the Achaemenid Empire, which also assumes its mature form with him (Kuhrt 2007, 135).
It is relatively certain that this exceptional epigraphic output was motivated by the fact that Darius I was, if not a usurper, of questionable legitimacy and needed to buttress his position by any means possible. We know little of Darius' position before becoming king. He was clearly of Persian nobility and was able to trace his lineage back many generations (DB §2-4), but was at best distantly related to the Empire's founder Cyrus and his son Cambyses. Herodotus describes him as a spear-bearer of Cambyses during the Egyptian campaign, a high position of honour known from one of Darius' tomb inscriptions (Hdt. 3.139; DNc). This means that he must have been part of the inner circle of the court, but he was not part of the royal family proper (Waters 2014, 68).
Cambyses, Darius' predecessor and one of Cyrus' two sons, died in Syria of an accidental wound while on his return journey from this Egyptian campaign (Hdt. 3.66), a hasty return prompted by unrest in the heartland and a fear that his brother Bardiya might usurp the kingship (Briant 2002, 100-103). Babylonian documentary evidence attests that Cambyses stopped being used for dating in April 522 BCE, was then succeeded by a Barziya (Bardiya) until September (BM 30534) and that Darius then ruled after him, interrupted by further Babylonian pretenders (Zawadski 1994; Bloch 2015). Nothing in the documentary evidence, nor in Aeschylus' Persians, the Greek source composed closest to the events (l. 774-777), suggests that Bardiya was in any way illegitimate; even if he did indeed rebel while Cambyses was alive, once Cambyses had died, he was the obvious king. After all, neither Cambyses nor Bardiya seem to have had any sons (Hdt. 3.66).
In the official version of Darius' accession provided by the Behistun inscription, however, Darius himself claims that Cambyses had previously killed his brother in secret and that this Bardiya was in fact a look-alike, a magus Darius calls Gaumata, who rebelled against Cambyses in March 522 and proclaimed himself king on June 1, 522 (DB §10-14). Throughout the inscription, Darius now presents himself as the heroic agent of truth and order, OP *arta, who saw through the impostor's falsehood and proceeded, with the help of his god Ahuramazda, to fight against the chaos engendered by this deceptive act, the rupturing of the royal line, and Bardiya's bad administration. With six loyal and noble Persian companions, he invaded a fort in Media and slew Gaumata on September 29, 522 BCE. Subsequently, he restored the empire to right (DB §14-15) and proceeded to defeat all the local rebels who rose to defy him and thus violated arta.
Since this is the victor's propaganda, which was clearly hastily published in extremely monumental form and publicised throughout the empire, scepticism is called for (DB §70; the haste is evident from the alterations made to the monument soon after its creation, see Borger 1982; Streck 1996, 283). Though he gives much the same story, the Greek historian Herodotus provides more detail about Bardiya, whom he knows as Smerdis. He describes a contest of strength between Smerdis and Cambyses in Egypt that involved a bow, one of the king's symbolic weapons, and which Smerdis won (DNb §8; PFS 196, 859*; Schmidt 1953, pls. 144-146; BM 89132). Having sent his brother back to Persia, the king then contrives to have him assassinated because of a bad omen seen in a dream (Hdt. 3.21.3, 3.30; cf. Iust. 1.9.4-13). In Herodotus, the rebellion is then conducted by two magi brothers in a fashion similar to Darius' version, but is much more successful, since it is backed by the magi, one of the Persian clans known for its religious expertise, and the people's affection. Darius is also the last to join the conspiracy of the Persian nobles against the two magi and the future king is chosen among the conspirators by means of a horse oracle (Hdt. 3.84.3; Rollinger 2015).
Besides the disparities between these two versions and a number of others (Ctesias FGrH 688 F15.10-13; Iust. 1.9.4-11), a range of other factors cast doubt on Darius' presentation of his accession. 1) How did the false Bardiya trick or bully his supposed sister-wife Atossa, the entire palace administration, and the nobility into supporting him or keeping silent? 2) How was the assassination of the real Bardiya concealed and why? 3) Why did the heartlands of the Empire rebel against Darius and his allies (including Babylonia, Elam, Media and Fars) if the current ruler was so evil? 4) Why does Darius' account claim that Gaumata rebelled in March before Cambyses' death, but became king only in July, when the documentary evidence treats him as king from April, beginning immediately after Cambyses stopped being treated as such? 5) Why is the assassination of Gaumata such a hushed affair and why does it involve a look-alike?
It has proven impossible to reconcile the sources and much ink has been spent on trying to solve these and other problems. While there are differing views (Wiesehöfer 1978, 66-73; Shapur 1994) and much disagreement in the details, it now seems most plausible to read Darius' version of events, which coloured almost all others, as a fiction made up to gloss over the fact that he and his allies killed Cyrus' son Bardiya and that they did so because of strife within the Persian nobility (Olmstead 1948, 92f.; Dandamaev 1976, 108-127; Tadmor/Bickerman 1978; Briant 2002, 97-106; Kuhrt 2007, 138). This removes the first two problems and solves the third. The fourth can be explained by the fact that explicitly dating Bardiya's accession before Cambyses' death allowed Darius to make Bardiya a rebel. But contrary to the many other "rebels and liars" Darius and his allies later defeated, Gaumata was not publicly exposed or punished as a traitor (Kuhrt 2007, 136-138, though cf. Hdt. 3.79, an aetiological myth), which suggests that he could not be treated as such publicly. On the Behistun relief, for instance, the figure Darius is dominating, presumably Gaumata, is wearing Persian, but not royal garb, hardly appropriate for the Mede or Magus Darius claimed Gaumata to be (Zawadski 1994, 129). This further suggests that the man killed was a Persian. Finally, the doubling of Bardiya can be read as a twisted reflection of a substitute king ritual enacted by Bardiya with the help of the magi to protect himself from assassination by Darius and his allies (Parpola 1983, xxii-xxxii; Huber 2005; Waters 2014, 75; Nagy 2016, 352-355; but cf. Bickerman and Tadmor 1978 for a more narrative approach).
So why were Darius and the other nobles discontent enough to murder the king? Cambyses' long absence with many of his most loyal followers, including Darius himself, and the demanding and expensive Egyptian campaign will surely have affected the balance of power in the heartland, especially if Cambyses was already unpopular with part of the Persian nobility (Briant 2002, 97f.). The prominent involvement of the magi, a fixed point of the story also present in Ctesias and Justin, may suggest that they were one faction with different views on how things should be done and that when Bardiya gained power, he followed their interests, making matters worse. Faced with the growing discontent of some nobles, Bardiya then took measures to punish them, such as redistributing land and levy obligations; Darius lists distortions of these measures in DB §14, as he "rectified" them (Briant 2002, 103-105). Put under pressure, the conspirators would then have taken advantage of the attested rivalry between Bardiya and Cambyses, the substitute king ritual, and the similarity between Bardiya and his substitute to spin their version of events.
The suspicions surrounding Darius' version of his accession are reinforced by the many other measures taken to legitimize it. The Behistun monument itself is a testament to weak legitimacy as it echoes a plethora of strategies adopted by previous Near Eastern kings (Rollinger 2017). Despite the grand claim made in the inscription that he was the ninth king in a line of kings descended from Achaemenes, the only one related to Cyrus' line is Teispes – Darius' father Hystaspes, who helped him in his campaigns, and his grandfather Arsames were surely not kings in any real sense (A²Sa; A³Pa). Darius' constructed genealogy in the Behistun inscription hence served to absorb Cyrus' line by emphasizing an ancestor one generation older than Teispes, Cyrus' oldest ancestor on the Cyrus cylinder (CB²a), and thus enveloping Cyrus, Cambyses, and even Bardiya in his own ancestry (Rollinger 1998, 177-188). The inscriptions of Cyrus at Pasargadae, in which he calls himself an Achaemenid (CMa-c), and those by Ariaramnes and Arsames (AmHa, AsHa, though not from Ekbatana), ancestors of Darius, are revealed as forgeries already by the fact that DB §70 claims to be the first inscription in Old Persian (Nylander 1967; Rollinger 1998, 185-187; Schmitt 1999, 106-111; Schmitt 2007, 25-31; cf. Henkelman 2011). They are hence further evidence of Darius' and his successors' inflation of their legitimacy by creating inscriptions that corroborated his own mythologization of history (cf. also Hdt. 1.209f.; 3.86 for more such stories). In more practical terms, Darius further married Cyrus' daughters Atossa, who had been both Cambyses' and Bardiya's wife, and Artystone, who had been unmarried, to strengthen his claim and prevent rivals from deriving legitimacy from the women of Cyrus' line (Hdt. 3.88.2f.). This move also ensured that sons of these unions would join Cyrus' and Darius' bloodline together (Briant 2002, 132f.).
The most significant element in Darius' legitimation, however, was his military prowess, which he first demonstrated by defeating all other contenders for the throne (DB §16-57). In the Behistun inscription, Darius claims to have defeated eight "liar kings" in 19 battles, all in the space of one year (DB §52, 56), a statement that can be confirmed if one excludes the murder of the Bardiya and counts only the period from his first to the last combat (Hallock 1960). Achieving grand things in one's first year of rule is a traditional theme in Near Eastern royal self-presentation and the account clearly mirrors Assyrian annalistic models (Naram-Sin is particularly famous: Hallock 1960; Tadmor/Bickerman 1978; Vogelsang 1986; Nylander 1994). Darius even claims to have accomplished more still, but humbly he did include it in the inscription (DB §58f.).
After he became king in Pasargadae (DB §10, 15), Darius moved to Ekbatana, where he learned of uprisings in Elam and Babylonia. The Elamite uprising was nipped in the bud by capturing and executing its leader Āçina in Susa (DB §16). In Babylonia, a certain Nidintu-Bēl, allegedly descended from Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus, had himself proclaimed Nebuchadnezzar III in October 522 BCE. He too is attested in documentary evidence (Lorenz 2008, 183f.; Bloch 2015), but disappears after three months, when Darius himself deposed and executed him after some difficulty (DB §18-20). While Darius was still in Babylon, a new uprising was sparked by a man named Frāda in Bactria. However, Cambyses' or Bardiya's actual satrap of Bactria, Dadarshi, drove Frāda into the desert, where he was later seized and executed (DB §38; Briant 2002, 116f.).
At the same time, Vahyazdāta, a man who claimed to be Bardiya, rose in Fars, the Persian homeland (DB §40-43); there was renewed unrest in Elam and also in Media, Armenia and Sagartia, Parthia-Hyrcania, Margiana, and Arachosia-Sattagydia (DB §16-48) and it is likely that there was also a revolt in Egypt, quelled by Cambyses' satrap Aryandes (Polyain. 7.11.7; Hdt. 4.166), and in the west (Hdt. 3.120-129; Diod. 10.16.4). Towards the end of 522 BCE almost the entire Persian Empire was in turmoil and threatened to fall apart again (DB §21).
Darius, however, was able to rely on a number of loyal confidants, including his father and co-conspirators (Briant 2002, 133-137), and had succeeded in putting down these uprisings roughly one year later. The Akkadian version of DB and the scanty remains of the Aramaic version circulated throughout the Empire give high casualty numbers for many of these battles and the leaders were usually executed as traitors: after having their faces mutilated, they were staked for all to see (e.g. DB §32). Darius' success in inflicting violence on his foes played no small part in justifying his accession.
The fifth column later added to the Behistun inscription reports that in Darius' second year (521/20), another revolt broke out in Elam (DB §71f.), but was put down. Early in his second year, from August to November 521, Darius also had to deal with another uprising in Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar IV and another Bardiya, even though Darius lists it in his first year (DB §49f.; Lorenz 2008, 11f.; Zawadzki 1994). The last event recorded in the Behistun inscription is a Scythian campaign conducted in his third year (DB §74f.; 520/19 BCE). The reason this column was added onto the monument may be that this last campaign distinguished him from the empire's glorious founder Cyrus, who had died fighting the Scythian Massagetae (Hdt. 1.214): Where Cyrus had failed, Darius prevailed thanks to his bond with Ahura Mazda (DB §75f.).
After the continuous account of the Behistun inscription ends, historical coverage of Darius' reign becomes patchy (Briant 2002, 138, 142). It is likely that there was some sort of conquest of the Indus valley and a campaign into Cyrene and Libya in the following years, both of which were marginal but important areas (Hdt. 4.44, 167, 200-204). Unfortunately, no details are forthcoming, though Darius' later inscriptions list the Indus satrapy (e.g. DHa; DNa §3; DPh) and he was clearly acknowledged as pharaoh in Egypt (DSn).
The next big event was another campaign into Scythia perhaps around 513 BCE (Hdt. 4.1; Iust. 1.10.23), which may now be documented in a decontextualized, but reliably provenanced fragment of an Achaemenid royal inscription from Phanagoreia on the northern Black Sea coast (Shavarebi 2019). Since Herodotus (4.87, cf. 4.88, 91f.) attests that Darius set up stelae by the Bosporus that were soon used as spolia by the Byzantines, one may assume that Darius did so also to mark the extent of his success in Scythia. How great this success was is complicated by the anti-Persian sentiment of Herodotus' account that focuses on the Scythians and their rebuke of Darius, who was forced to withdraw back across the Danube despite his immense armies (Hdt. 4.87, 130, 134-136, 140-143; Plut. Alex. 36.4). Nevertheless, Darius certainly succeeded in conquering Thrace, imposing tribute, and also in extending his control over the Bosporus and into Macedonia and the Aegean as a result (Hdt. 5.1-27; Briant 2002, 142-146).
Darius' most famous accomplishment – or failure, depending on perspective – is the first Persian War that culminated in the battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. Besides the increasing involvement between Darius and the tyrants of Asia Minor and the Aegean islands engendered by the Scythian campaign, the lead up to this event proper begins in 507 BCE, when the Athenians pledged loyalty to the empire at Sardis (Hdt. 5.73; Waters 2014, 84). When the Greek cities of Asia Minor and a number of other areas revolted in the period between 499 and 494 BCE, the satrapal seat of Sardis was burned down, including its sanctuary of Cybele (Hdt. 5.102). The rebels took control of the Hellespont and Cyprus, weakening Persian control over the Mediterranean (Waters 2014, 84-87), but their successes were short-lived. By 493 the Persians had reasserted their control, besieging Miletus as the heart of the revolt, and punishing the rebels by taking hostages and burning sanctuaries in retaliation. Ionia was reorganised, which may have been an attempt at rectifying the underlying economic and political issues that had led to the revolt (Hdt. 6.42f.).
Over the next few years, Persia sought to reaffirm its control over Thrace and Macedonia, which had been weakened by the rebellion. Since the Athenians, who considered themselves descended from Ionians, had aided the rebellion and thus broken their allegiance to Persia, royal ideology demanded that they too be punished as oath-breakers and violators of the empire's order. This objective could be combined with an expedition into Greece and many Greek cities, especially the islands, submitted to Persian dominion readily (Hdt. 6.48f.). Those that had turned traitor or resisted where conquered and punished (6.94f.). When the Persian fleet moved to punish Athens, the Athenians managed to outmanoeuvre them, defeat them in the plain of Marathon and rebuke the landing, forcing the Persians to abort their overall successful expedition. There were surely plans to follow it up soon, but Darius died before he could implement them.
Besides military prowess, which the inscriptions generally announce only via the lists of the lands that make up the empire, the Achaemenid kings also exhibited their ability to rule by erecting impressive buildings and structures. These condensed the vast resources of the empire into awe-inspiring architecture (e.g. DSa; DSf) and exhibited the king's ability to conquer chaos through architecture and cultivation (DSe §5f.), and especially through irrigation (Briant 2002, 752-754).
After the conquest of India, Darius began remodelling the ancient Elamite capital of Susa extensively and invasively, demonstrating the unification of Elamite and Persian territories by setting a Persian stamp upon the city and especially its so-called acropolis (Briant 2002, 165f.). He expanded and restored existing structures, but also added completely new buildings (DSe §6; DSf; XSd; A²Sa). These included the apadana and palace (DSg), erected on a massive brick terrace buttressed with gravel drainage and fortifications (DSf) and accessible via a vast gate, a brick causeway and propylaeum (Briant 2002, 165-168; Perrot 2013).
The area of Persepolis was likewise completely transformed by Darius, beginning the site's history of continuous embellishment (Briant 2002, 169; Waters 2014, 141). Adding to the previous settlement area, he constructed a vast fortified terrace (DPf; Diod. 17.61.1) and built the treasury, a palace (DPa; completed by his successor Xerxes XPc; XPf §4; XPg), and the apadana (DPh), as well as potentially the Tripylon gate/Council Hall now located in the centre of the terrace, though that structure makes more sense as a monumental space connecting buildings only erected later. The sculptural design of Persepolis shows Darius as an Iranian hero defeating beasts and establishing order, a theme also reflected in the reliefs showing the ordered processions of the subject peoples delivering tribute. A relief from the treasury probably shows the designated crown prince standing behind Darius. This is usually assumed to be Xerxes, suggesting that the theme of imperial order Persepolis exhibits extended to the succession (Schmidt 1953, 163-168; Briant 2002, 217).
Beyond this, Darius also probably built a palace at Babylon and an apadana at Ecbatana (DH with Briant 2002, 170), while at Cyrus' palace and tomb complex of Pasargadae, the work of Cyrus and Cambyses was continued and embellished to stress the Achaemenid's continuation of the Teispid line, for instance by adding inscriptions ostensibly by Cyrus (CMa-c).
As Xerxes' inscription by the fortress on lake Van documents (XVa), Darius also built there and his successor saw fit to mark out his continuation of this project, signalling the Persian king's control over Anatolia. In inscribing an inscription high up on a cliff face in a location remote from the imperial heartland, Xerxes echoed modes of behaviour exhibited by the Neobabylonian kings in their control over remote regions (Dusinberre 2013, 51-53; da Riva 2019).
Finally, another major project marked by several inscribed stele (DZc is the best preserved) was the digging of a canal from the Nile eastwards to a system of lakes linked to the Red Sea, a project that had long been envisaged by his predecessors as pharaoh (Hdt. 2.158) and can be considered a forerunner of the modern Suez Canal and another example of Darius' imperialist ambitions (Tuplin 1991).
While preparing a renewed expedition against Greece after his defeat in the Battle of Marathon and moving to respond to a revolt in Egypt, Darius died in November or December 486 BCE of an illness (Hdt. 7.1.4; Ctesias FGrH 688 F13.23; Waters 2014, 114). During his lifetime he had prepared a grand cruciform rock-cut tomb at Naqsh-i Rustam (Tomb I; Ctesias FGrH 688 F; Briant 2002, 210-216). This tomb bears reliefs and inscriptions that lay out the favour of Ahura Mazda, the peoples of the Empire, as well as the royal ideology and conceptions of justice (DNa-b, e), while also showing the court in mourning (DNc-d, f). Darius was buried there by Xerxes, his successor, starting a tradition that would be broken only by Artaxerxes II, over 120 years later (Schmidt 1970, 80).
Darius I had five wives named in the Greek sources: Artystone, Atossa (daughters of Cyrus), Parmys (daughter of Bardiya), Phaidyme (daughter of his co-conspirator Otanes), and Phratagune (his niece, married to ensure inheritance of his brother's estate). A sixth wife, the daughter of Gobryas, is not mentioned by name (Brosius 1996, 47-49), but can be potentially identified with a 'Queen' Apame attested in two deeds from Borsippa (Zadok 2002; Kuhrt 2007, 173). Much is known of these royal women from the Persepolis archives (Brosius 1996; Henkelman 2010).
These wives all bore him children. Four sons from Atossa: Xerxes, Achaimenes, Masistes and Hystaspes; two sons from Artystone: Arsames and Gobryas; Ariomardos from Parmys; Abrokomas and Hyperanthes from Phratagune. His first wife, the daughter of Gobryas, bore him Artobazanes, his firstborn son, as well as Ariabignes and Ariamenes.
Due to the wealth of inscriptions left by Darius I, they are discussed on a separate page.
Bickerman, Elias J., Tadmor, Hayim, "Darius I, Pseudo Smerdis, and the Magi", in: Athenaeum 56 (1978), 239-261.
Bloch, Yigal, "The Contribution of Babylonian Tablets in the Collection of David Sofer to the Chronology of the Revolts against Darius I", in: Altorientalische Forschungen 42:1 (2015), 1-14.
Borger, Rykle, Die Chronologie des Darius-Denkmals am Behistun-Felsen, Göttingen 1982.
Briant, Pierre, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, Winona Lake, IN 2002.
Brosius, Maria, Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 BC, Oxford 1996.
Da Riva, Rocio, "The King of the Rock Revisited: The Site of As-Sila (Tafila, Jordan) and the Inscription of Nabonidus of Babylon", in: Pavel S. Avetisyan, Roberto Dan, Yervand H. Grekyan (eds.), Over the Mountains and Far Away: Studies in Near Eastern history and archaeology presented to Mirjo Salvini on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Oxford 2019, 157-170.
Dandamaev, Muhammad A., Persien unter den ersten Achämeniden, Wiesbaden 1976.
Dusinberre, Elspeth R. M., Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia, Cambridge 2013.
Hallock, Richard T., "The 'One Year' of Darius I", in: JNES 19 (1960), 36-39.
Henkelman, Wouter F.M., "Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Elamite: A Case of Mistaken Identity", in: Christian Rollinger, Brigitte Truschnegg, Reinhold Bichler (eds.), Herodot und das Persische Weltreich, Wiesbaden 2011, 577-634.
Jacobs, Bruno, "'Kyros, der grosse König, der Achämenide': zum verwandtschaftlichen Verhältnis und zur politischen und kulturellen Kontinuität zwischen Kyros dem Grossen und Dareios I.", in: Herodot und das Persische Weltreich, 635-663.
Koch, Heidemarie, Es kündet Dareios der König. Vom Leben im persischen Großreich, Mainz 1992.
Kuhrt, Amélie, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period, London 2007.
Lorenz, Jürgen, Nebukadnezar III/IV: Die politischen Wirren nach dem Tod des Kambyses im Spiegel der Keilschrifttexte, Dresden 2008.
Mayrhofer, Manfred, "Über die Verschriftung des Altpersischen", in: Historische Sprachforschung 102 (1989), 174-184.
Nagy, Gregory, "The Idea of an Archetype in Texts stemming from the Empire founded by Cyrus the Great", in: John Bintliff, Keith Rutter (eds.), The archaeology of Greece and Rome: studies in honour of Anthony Snodgrass, Edinburgh 2016, 337-358.
Nylander, Carl, "Who wrote the inscriptions at Pasargadae", in: Orientalia Suecana 16 (1967), 135-180.
Nylander, Carl, "Xenophon, Darius, Naram-Sin: A Note on the King's ‚Year'", in: Brita Alroth (ed.), Opus Mixtum: Essays in Ancient Art and History, Stockholm 1994, 57-59.
Olmstead, Albert T., History of the Persian Empire, Chicago 1948.
Perrot, Jean, The Palace of Darius at Susa: The Great Royal Residence of Achaemenid Persia, London 2013.
Rollinger, Robert, "Altorientalisches bei Herodot: Das Wiehernde Pferd des Dareios I.", in: Hilmar Klinkott und Norbert Kramer (eds.), Zwischen Assur und Athen, Altorientalisches in den Historien Herodots, Stuttgart 2017, 13-42.
Rollinger, Robert, "Der Stammbaum des achaimenidischen Königshauses, oder: die Frage der Legitimität der Herrschaft des Dareios", in: Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 30 (1998), 155-209.
Rollinger, Robert, "The Relief at Bisitun and its Ancient Near Eastern Setting, Contextualising the visual vocabulary of Darius' triumph over Gaumata", in: Carsten Binder, Henning Börm, Andreas Luther (eds.), Diwan. Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Festschrift für Josef Wiesehöfer zum 65. Geburtstag, Duisburg 2016, 5-51.
Schmidt, Erich F., Persepolis I: Structures, Reliefs, Inscriptions, Chicago 1953.
Schmidt, Erich F., Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments, Chicago 1970.
Schmitt, Rüdiger, Beiträge zu altpersischen Inschriften, Wiesbaden 1999.
Shapur Shahbazi, Alireza, s.v. "DARIUS iii. Darius I the Great", in: Encyclopaedia Iranica VII/1 (1994), 41-50, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/darius-iii
Shavarebi, Ehsan, "An Inscription of Darius I from Phanagoria (DFa): Preliminary report of a work in progress", in: ARTA 2019:5.
Streck, Michael P., Rev. of "Malbran-Labat, Florence, La version akkadienne de l'inscription trilingue de Darius à Behistun, Rome 1994", in: ZAVA 86:2 (1996), 275-286.
Tuplin, Christopher, "Darius' Suez Canal and Persian Imperialism", in: Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Amelie Kuhrt (eds.), Achaemenid History VI. Asia Minor and Egypt. Old Cultures in a New Empire, Leiden 1991, 237-283.
Waters, Matthew, "Darius and the Achaemenid line", in: AHB 10:1 (1996), 11-18.
Waters, Matthew, Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire 550-330 BCE, Cambridge 2014.
Wiesehöfer, Josef, Der Aufstand Gaumātas und die Anfänge Dareios' I, Bonn 1978.
Zadok, Ran, "An Achaemenid Queen", in: NABU 2002, 63-66.
Zawadzki, Stefan, "Bardiya, Darius and Babylonian Usurpers in the Light of the Bisitun Inscription and Babylonian Sources", in: AMI 27 (1994), 127-145.
Henry Heitmann-Gordon
Henry Heitmann-Gordon, 'Darius I', Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions online (ARIo) Project, The ARIo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/ario/rulers/dariusi/]