text:
User talk:Classroom management

Hello, welcome to Wikibooks!

You will find more resources in Community Portal. If you want to ask a question, visit the Study help desk, the Staff lounge, IRC channel or ask me personally on my talk page. For site news, see the Bulletin board. It might be a good idea to add this page to your "watchlist" so that you can see when any new information is posted there. You can do that by clicking the tab labeled "watch" at the top of the page.

Good luck! Mattb112885 (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply
Hi Classroom:

It is not only possible but highly encouraged to break up the book into chapters. You can make a link to a new chapter from the main page by using the /chaptername/ syntax, which looks like this:

/chaptername/

which, if edited, would create a new page page entitled "User talk:Classroom management/chaptername". A link will automatically be added to go back to the main page from the chapter.

If you're starting a class project make sure to read the Guidelines for class projects and list it under the List of class projects, and ask around if you have any further questions. Regards. Mattb112885 (talk) 00:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Classroom management


text:
Change Issues in Curriculum and Instruction/Accountability

By Patti Horne and Frank Stonier, June 2007

The Accountability Movement
Over the last several decades public pressure for educational improvements has grown. After newspapers featured articles of high school graduates who were unable to fill out job applications, the public outcry reached critical mass. Employers wanted assurance that a high school graduate would be literate and capable of performing the duties required in the workplace. The citizenry demanded some accountability when it came to the quality of education students were receiving in public schools. As legislators often do when there is public uproar, they drafted legislation. Suddenly, the federal government became very involved in state and local education. Along with the legislation came money and with the money came accountability measures. And so people, not necessarily trained in the field of education, began to mandate what would and should be done in classrooms. They also decided how "success" would be measured (enter high-stakes testing). As Popham concludes, we have entered into a game of high-stakes testing that we cannot win" (Popham, 12).

The most prominent of the legislative measures was the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001. It was the culmination of "standards-based reform directed at low-achieving students... and historically low performing schools" (Jennings & Rentner, 2006). A major problem with the current legislation is that it was drafted by people who are not education professionals. It seems to reason that if you want to bring about change in schools you need to hear from the people who are in the classrooms daily and understand the real issues that need to be addressed. Cuban believes that "teachers are gatekeepers to learning in schools and crucial to the growth of nearly 50 million young children and youth". A significant problem in the United States is the high proportion of underqualified and ineffective teachers teaching in schools that have high proportions of minority students and students from low socioeconomic areas (Haycock & Peske, 2006). Due to this teacher distribution, the students in the schools that need the most effective teachers do not have them. No Child Left Behind is subsequently trying to "fix" this problem by ensuring that all students meet a given set of standards. Unfortunately, unless high quality teachers are placed in the low performing schools, this is not likely to happen. Cuban further argues that "student learning still depends on what teachers do in the classrooms" (Cuban, 2007). A major obstacle to teachers is the fact that teachers are not adequately supported (due to both lack of pay and lack of classroom support)which causes them to become over stressed in their profession. Those teachers who are teaching the at-risk students have far greater challenges than just getting the students to the point that they are ready to learn. No great change in education is going to happen without the deliberate efforts of the teachers. It is essential that legislatures work with educators to draft reform measures that are seen as worthwhile and achievable. In order to do this, there needs to be active involvement with teachers. This involvement should include some actual classroom visitation time. To truly understand the obstacles that teachers face on a daily bases one must experience the daily workings of the classroom teacher. This will also allow those making financial decisions a view of the lack of educational equipment. This is especially true for the lack of modern computer technology in many of our schools. How can we keep up with the digital natives learning styles when we are denied the equipment to do so?

A study released by the Harvard Civil Rights Project (http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu) summarizes the problems with NCLB by saying the "core of NCLB has simple but controversial accountability provisions: all schools and districts must meet all standards by 2014" (Owens & Sunderman, 2007). This system does not differentiate for the non-English students nor the special education students with IEPs or 504 plans. In addition, with so much emphasis on lower performing students, little time is left for teachers to prepare and teach lessons that challenge high ability students. The focus of NCLB is for all students to reach grade level proficiency rather than for all students to reach their academic potential. The punitive nature of the law causes many school districts to shift their focus, and funding, to those students who are not grade level proficient. For students already performing at proficiency, attention is on their intellectual maintenance rather than intellectual growth. Little attention is given to students already exceeding the goals of NCLB. It is ironic that teachers are taught how important it is to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners but then the government expects all learners, regardless of abilities, to take and pass exactly the same test. This is probably one of the biggest areas of contention for classroom teachers who must administer high-stakes tests to their students.

It is not being argued here that no accountability is needed. Instead, it is suggested that perhaps we are holding the wrong people accountable for the wrong education. There is no doubt that teachers must be part of the accountability formula. What about the first and possibly most influential teachers a child will ever have, the parents? How will parents be held accountable? The problem with the current accountability system is that it makes it very easy to enter into a blame game instead of real discourse about the flaws of our educational system. Are teachers failing, are parents failing,are students failing or is it just possible that our outdated system is failing?

It could be argued that our educational system is in a state of crisis and if we choose not to be part of the solution then we continue to be part of the problem. Meanwhile, all of this debate and stagnation occurs at the educational expense of future workers who will enter an international job market of very well prepared, highly competent workers. It's time for us all to be held accountable.

sidebar—video—children against testing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWv34fQUwd0)

Parent and Student Accountability
"In the best schools, where all children achieve regardless of race or class, several strategies are typically in place, including a commitment to engage parents as partners in the educational process..." (Noguera, 2007). The Parent Teacher Association (PTA) has a long history of promoting parental involvement in education. The PTA (2007) cites many benefits of parental involvement including increased student motivation and self-esteem, better academic performance, decreased absenteeism, better behavior, and increased enrollment in postesecondary education. The PTA (2007) also says that parental involvement increases teacher effectiveness and job satisfaction. Despite all the obvious benefits of parental involvement in education, at present (short of criminal neglect or abuse) a parent is only accountable for their child's education to the point of seeing that they arrive at school. Dorothy Rich (2007) stated that parents should be held accountable for helping their children become successful learners. She shared the key points that students should come to school adequately fed, rested, and in good medical condition. Students should come to school ready to learn with appropriate attitudes and behaviors for school. Also that children should come from a home that encourages and respects learning. These statements are of course coming from her experience as an educator who realizes these are all situations classroom teachers have virtually no input or control over.

How the Accountability Movement Impacts Education
Accountability can be a valuable tool in the education system, however, it must be determined who is being held accountable for student learning. The current stance on accountability provided by our federal government is that schools and teachers should bear nearly the entire brunt of the responsibility. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has pushed teachers to be "highly qualified". This means teachers must hold at least a bachelor degree in their field and meet the full certification requirements of their prospective state. The NCLB Act gauges schools based on their performance on standardized tests (high stakes testing). President Bush during his April 24, 2007 visit to Harlem Village Academy Charter School once again is trying to renew the NCLB Act this year nearly as is, with the slight tweaks of more funding and school choice. (Kelleher, 2007, U.S. White House, 2007) Schools are held accountable through adequate yearly progress (AYP) and state proficiency tests. Owens & Sunderman (2006) shed light on some of the current NCLB school accountability policies. Through their research they show that state proficiency tests are often inflating student performance. They also point out the sanctions placed on at-risk or Title I schools that are flagged as needing improvement. Even if these schools are making improvement, if it is not enough, they are held accountable with progressively harsher financial penalties. There is also the constant concern over a single subgroup not continuing to improve causing a school to fail to meet the AYP standards.

When a school does not make AYP for five consecutive years the NCLB Act gives districts five options:

• Reopen the school as a public charter school.

• Replace all or most of school staff, including the principal.

• Enter into a contract with an entity such as a private management company with a demonstrated record of effectiveness to operate the school.

• Allow the state to take over the school.

• Engage in any other major restructuring of the school’s governance arrangement (No Child Left Behind Act, 2002).

Other concerns related to high-stakes testing include: teacher retention rates, student drop-out rates, a watered down curriculum and depriving children of the joy of learning with so much emphasis on drill and kill instruction and assessment. http://caglecartoons.com/viewimage.asp?ID={11C6F967-83C9-4260-8B28-4840F4FE7724} Additionally, some feel that diverse schools are unfairly penalized because they have more subgroups that each have to make AYP. Many believe that teachers in "at risk" schools are working very hard and students are making progress. Unfortunately, NCLB has the expectation that everyone will reach a specified level at the end of the year regardless of where they started and what their limitations are.

Ironically, holding schools in poorer areas "accountable" for their students' performance often actually impedes the teachers' ability to help their at-risk students. In the first place, compliance with NCLB requires teachers to complete massive amounts of paperwork, which consumes time that the teachers might otherwise have spent improving instruction or working with individual students: "Nothing could be less efficient than this misappropriation of a teacher's energy and hours" (Kozol, 2005). Moreover, once a school becomes stigmatized as a result of its students' lower test scores, the likelihood increases that the better teachers will look for positions elsewhere, thus leaving the school in worse condition than before. Under NCLB, when a school fails to meet the required standard, students may also request to be placed elsewhere; thus the higher achieving students are also likely to leave the school. Deprived of its better students and teachers and with its funding and very existence threatened, an at-risk school has almost no chance of raising its students test scores to the required level. Finally, if a school is closed down as a result of failing to meet NCLB requirements, as recently happened to a school in Portsmouth, VA (Fernandez, 2006), nearby schools, which may already be overcrowded, could well be harmed by the influx of at-risk students whom these schools have insufficient resources to accommodate. Thus holding these schools "accountable" can ultimately penalize teachers, students, and communities alike.

Repair or Reform?
sidebar:an interesting video about different school settings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOF3K2rCp0

Educators and legislators struggle with how to best bring about the necessary changes in education. Several promising reform models have been proposed. In order to help our children obtain the kind of education needed for a flattening world (Friedman, 2006), our country is going to have to make education a top priority and to do such requires a greater financial investment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC1y9XZbQS8). Moreover, if accountability reforms are to be meaningful, the teachers and administrators who are currently being "held accountable" for the schools' shortcomings must have some say in how policies are reformed. Currently, most policy is made at the state and federal levels; however, when these policies prove ineffective, it is not the state and federal officials who are held accountable but teachers and local administrators. Clearly, the responsible officials should be held accountable for these failed polices—not the teachers and administrators who have been excluded from the decision-making process. An in-depth discussion of reform efforts may be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Change_Issues_in_Curriculum_and_Instruction/Reform_Proposal

Essay Questions
Should parents be held accountable for their children's learning? If so, how? If not, why not?

Response: Of course parents should be held accountable for their children's learning. If not are the public school merely there as a babysitting service? Is that the big picture that the federal government should view our educational system as an educational daycare provider? Teachers are feeling the brunt of the current accountability system. Basically schools need to score well enough on the tests to appear adequate. Teachers are literally being told by their administration to "teach to the test". The administrators are doing this not out of any desire to rob students of a well rounded or challenging curriculum but out of necessity. This is a necessity for their jobs and even to keep the school open. Basically if the school doesn't perform well enough on the tests their toast. I've been at the presentation to parents on school vouchers when it looked like the school wasn't going to be able to beef up those test scores. As an educator it was a sickening prospect to think our students would be bused off to other schools because our school wasn't accredited. It questioned not only the school at large but my own competency and that of my colleagues as educators. Why were we to blame? We were all highly qualified. Some of us even had master’s degrees in our fields. Majority of our team were seasoned veterans having several decades under their belt. We hadn't given up on our students why was our district giving up on us? To bring this back on course the reason I shed this light was to show where the accountability currently lies. The teachers/administrators are the only ones really accountable for our nation's children's education. Why is that? How can a parent not even send their child to school with a meal, or proper clothes, or even allow for proper rest? I'm not even talking about homework or help with projects, I'm talking about basic human needs. I know there are situations where the poverty can be extreme but I'd bet a week's pay 90% of those households have more video games in their house than books. Parents are allowed to put their kids in a corner, plug them in, and call it a day. Today's teacher often has to serve not only as the educational facilitator but as student deprogrammer as well. I would be a gross figure to tally up the hours I waste a day trying to untrain bad habits. Sadly the old saying "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." rings true far far too often. Can students change for the better, yes. Can parents change for the better, yes. Will they do it on their own, no. Parents must be held accountable for their children's education. Whether it be mandatory parenting classes, school service, or shoot maybe the government could offer tax breaks for parents identified (by teachers) as active in the child's learning? I don't have the answers but unfortunately the NCLB Act doesn't either. Our government needs to hold parents (and students) accountable in addition to just teachers, administrators, and schools.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Talk:Music Theory/Fundamentals of Common Practice Music/Notation

The Keyboard
It's great to have some help with the book! I was wondering where everyone went! Thanks, Hoogli.

Your textual addition, "On a keyboard, the white keys represent A through G, and back to A again. However, there are also black keys, which play intermediate notes that are known as sharp or flat notes. Oddly, the interval between two white notes is the same as between a black and white note."
 * It might be construed that the intervals B-C and E-F are odd contradictions to the otherwise simple layout of the instrument. Would it be helpful to those who don't have any knowledge of this if we indicate that between any two successive keys is a half step NO MATTER WHAT and that the progression of keys goes (from C) white-black-w-b-w-w-b-w-b-w-b-w-w? This would, to me, seem more consistent a description than "the notes go c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c and the black notes indicate sharps and flats, which are half step modifications to the natural pitches, and then the distance between b and c, and e and f is different than the normal distance between white notes." Let me know what you think! --A.J. 17:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What is the spoiler warning for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.231.72.129 (discuss • contribs)
 * It's because it's the answer to the above exercise. Oh, and you should sign your comments with ~ . --cuckooman4 (t/c) 00:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Accidentals
Quote: "Following this reasoning to its logical conclusion, you will see that a G-sharp could also be called an A-flat. By which name should you rightfully call that key--G-sharp or A-flat? The answer is, either of them. In fact, all black keys have two note names assigned to them--they are the sharp of the key that precedes it and the flat of the key that follows it. This concept in music theory is called enharmonics. Enharmonic notes are simply two notes which are spelled differently but which have the exact same pitch.

Another way to think of it is to treat enharmonic notes like the American spellings of words versus their British counterparts--for example, American color versus the British colour. While the spelling differs, either spelling is accepted as "correct" and both words mean the exact same thing."

This is not true, as the different spellings of notes are used in different harmonic contexts. A chord that goes Bb-D-F-G# is harmonically very different to one that goes Bb-D-F-Ab, even though they sound the same in isolation (given an equal-tempered tuning system, I should add). Should we not make it clear at this point that this is the case? Or should we leave it for the harmony chapter? Henre (talk) 15:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Basic music theory needed
It is great to see another point of view describing technical information about modes, chord development, progressions and the like in very strait forward language. If there was a bit more description about understanding key signatures and time signatures I would refer students to this book. I hope it is not too mind numbingly basic information. Violinsensei (talk) 01:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If you know the information, or can look it up (and provide references) you can add the material yourself. If you need help with editing, check this page, ask in the Reading Room or on my talk page. Xerol Oplan (talk) 06:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


text:
User:Mikael Häggström

Medicine student. See my Wikipedia page for my actual presentation page.

GO TO ACTUAL PRESENATION >>>

Contact

 * My talk page
 * Email me

title: User:Mikael Häggström


text:
User talk:71.118.41.88

Please stop adding nonsense to Wikibooks. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

Xania talk 19:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:71.118.41.88


text:
PHP Programming/PHP PEAR

Installing PEAR in a Shared Server
The PHP Extension and Application Repository, or PEAR, is a repository of PHP software code.

title: PHP Programming/PHP PEAR


text:
User:Kfasimpaur/sandbox/africa

(a possible new wikijunior book)

Africa

 * Description:
 * Scope: This book will give an overview of the continent of Africa and its countries.
 * Purpose: This will be a part of a series of Wikijunior books on the continents of the world (South America and Europe already underway.) The purpose is to give children exposure to various cultures around the globe.
 * Narrative:
 * Audience:
 * Target Age: 6-12 years
 * Academic Prerequisites: 3rd grade reading level
 * Organization
 * Section Titles: Regions and Countries
 * Eastern Africa
 * Kenya
 * Tanzania
 * Uganda
 * Djibouti
 * Eritrea
 * Ethiopia
 * Somalia
 * Mozambique
 * Madagascar
 * Malawi
 * Zambia
 * Zimbabwe
 * Burundi
 * Rwanda
 * Comoros
 * Mauritius
 * Seychelles
 * Middle Africa
 * Angola
 * Cameroon
 * Central African Republic
 * Chad
 * Democratic Republic of the Congo
 * Republic of the Congo
 * Equatorial Guinea
 * Gabon
 * São Tomé and Príncipe
 * Northern Africa
 * Algeria
 * Egypt
 * Libya
 * Morocco
 * Sudan
 * Tunisia
 * Western Sahara * (disputed territory??)
 * Southern Africa
 * Botswana
 * Lesotho
 * Namibia
 * South Africa
 * Swaziland
 * Western Africa
 * Benin
 * Burkina Faso
 * Côte d'Ivoire
 * Cape Verde
 * The Gambia
 * Ghana
 * Guinea
 * Guinea-Bissau
 * Liberia
 * Mali
 * Mauritania
 * Niger
 * Nigeria
 * Senegal
 * Sierra Leone
 * Togo

 * Standard Section Headings: (May take the form of a question.)
 * Example Question 1
 * Example Question 2
 * Notes:
 * Interested Participants:
 * User 1
 * User 2
 * Discussion

ideas for questions:

Used for Europe book: 1. What is the country's Geography? 2. What is the country's history? 3. What are the people like?

Used for current South America: 1. What is the country's Geography? 2. What is the country's history? 3. What are the people like? (but then people added a bunch more stuff)

Recast South America: * What are %country's% national symbols? * What are some famous places in %country%? * What important events have happened in %country%? * What is the natural environment like in %country%? * What types of things are exported from %country%? * What is school like in %country%? * What is the food like in %country%? * What music is popular in %country%? * What sports are popular in %country%? * Who are some famous people from %country%?

CIA World Fact Book 1. Introduction 2. Geography 3. People 4. Government 5. Economy 6. Communications 7. Transportation 8. Military 9. Transnational Issues

title: User:Kfasimpaur/sandbox/africa


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User:Kfasimpaur/sandbox/body

Reproductive System

title: User:Kfasimpaur/sandbox/body


text:
Irish/Unit 2/Lesson 1

=Unit 2 Lesson 1 — Cad is ainm duit?=

Dialogue

 * Seán: Dia dhuit! Is mise Seán. Cad is ainm duit?
 * Siobhán: Dia's Muire dhuit. Is mise Siobhán. Conas a litrítear Seán?
 * Seán: Litrítear S-e-a-fada-n. Conas atá tú?
 * Siobhán: Go maith, agus tusa?
 * Seán: Iontach, go raibh maith agat.
 * Siobhán: Go maith! Slán leat, a Sheáin
 * Seán: Go dtí amárach.

Hello!

 * Notes
 * Dia duit means literally God be with you, the correct response is Dia is Muire duit (God and Mary be with you). The plural is Dia daoibh and Dia is Muire daoibh.

 * Examples
 * Dia daoibh, a rang.
 * Good morning, class!
 * Lá breá, a Mháire
 * Good morning, Mary.
 * Slán go fóill!
 * Bye, see you soon!

Dia Duit/Dia Dhuit = Hello to you [singular]. Dia Daoibh/Dia Dhaoibh = Hello to you [plural] Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú? (Galway) Conas atá cúrsaí? (Kerry) Cad é mar atá tú? (Donegal) Conas atá tú? (Caighdeán Oifigiúl) = How are you? Táim go maith/ceart go leor/go dona/go hainnis/go huafásach/ar fheabhas = I'm good/alright/bad/terrible/awful/excellent Is maith liom é sin a chloisteáil. = That's good to hear Aon scéal? = Any news? Response for no news is dea scéal. Diabhra Maitheasa (Ciarraí) = Dia dhuit = Greetings. Fáilte agus féile romhat = "Welcomes" and "Hospitalities" be with you
 * More Examples

What's your name?

 * Cad is ainm duit?

Asking someone's name in Irish is different from English, the direct translation would be something like 'What name is on you?' 'Cad is ainm duit?'

The reply can be either:

 * (Person's name) is ainm dom, e.g. Seán is ainm dom

This repeats the phrasing of the question and could be translated directly as Seán is the name on me. Another possible reply, as we saw in the dialogue is

 * Is mise (Person's name), e.g. Is mise Siobhán

This literally means I am Siobhán.

Duit - To You
'Duit' is the compound form of 'do' (to) and 'tú' (you). In Irish, prepositions (for example, to, with, on, etc) are usually combined with the personal pronoun (me, you, they, etc) to form distinct words. The full table for 'do' is below. You'll notice these are the same forms used in the greeting Dia dhuit/dhaoibh.

 * Examples
 * Cad is ainm duit? [Cahd is ahn-m ditch]
 * What's your name?
 * Peadar agus Robárd is ainm dóibh.
 * Their names are Peter and Robert.
 * Cad is ainm dó?
 * What's his name?
 * Cad is ainm dóibh?
 * What are their names?

How are you?
Go raibh maith agat literally translates as May good be upon you.
 * Note

 * Examples
 * Robárd: Dia dhuit, a Róisín. Conas atá tú?
 * Hello, Roisín. How are you?
 * Roisín: Go hiontach, go raibh maith agat. Agus tusa, a Robáird?
 * Very well, thanks. And you, Robert?
 * Robárd: Go maith freisin. Slán leat!
 * I'm good too. See you later!

 * Notes
 * When talking to someone directly, an 'a' is put before the name and the name is changed to the vocative case. This will be dealt with in a later lesson.
 * When two vowels come together, a 'h' is usually put before the second vowel. In this example, a 'h' was put between 'go' and 'iontach'

How do you spell that?

 * Examples
 * Robárd: Dia duit. Robárd is ainm dom. Cad is ainm duit?
 * Good day. My name is Robert. What's your name?
 * Brian: Dia is Muire duit. Brian is ainm dom. Conas a litrítear Robárd?
 * Hello. My name is Brian. How do you spell Robert?
 * Robárd: Litrítear é mar seo, R (mar Rothar); O (mar Oráiste); B (mar Baile Átha Cliath); A fada (mar Árainn); R (mar Rothar); D (mar Duine).
 * It's spelt R (as in Rothar (Bike)); O (as in Oráiste (Orange)); B (as in Baile Átha Cliath (Dublin)); A fada (as in Árainn (Aran, islands off the west coast of Ireland)); R (as in Rothar); D (as in Duine (person)).
 * Brian: Go raibh míle maith agat. Slán, a Robáird!
 * Thanks a lot. Goodbye, Robert.

 * Irish only has one accent mark, resembling the French acute accent, called the síneadh fada (long mark) or simply fada.

Summary
In this lesson, you have learned
 * How to greet people (Dia dhuit; Conas atá tú; Slán).
 * How to introduce yourself (Roisín is ainm dom).
 * How to introduce others (Robárd is ainm dó).
 * How to say how you are (Go hiontach; go dona; go maith).
 * How to spell your name (Litrítear P-E-T-E-R).
 * How to ask others about any of the above (Cad is ainm duit?; An bhfuil tú go maith; Conas a litrítear é?).

Irish now has one diacritic, the síneadh fada. There was a second in use in Old Irish - the sí buailte or ponc séimhithe, which is a dot on top of consonants. For example, this diacritic, when represented as a dot on top of the letter b converts the b sound to a v sound. The sí buailte was replaced in Modern Irish with the use of a h immediately after the affected character, thusly the b with the dot on top is now written as bh, etc. The buailte was pronounced bool-che.

title: Irish/Unit 2/Lesson 1


text:
Scala/Expressions, Not Statements

Simple Conditional Branching
Frequently, we need to make a simple decision regarding which value a variable should instantiate to. Take for example a somewhat artificial case:

At first sight it does not seem so bad. But we can do better if the branching itself evaluates a value.

In fact, Java/C# provides you with the (...) ? (...) : (...) syntax just because it's very handy at times.

Often this construct saves the Scala programmer from inventing a silly name for a short-lived variable. Perhaps it's equally important that it does not assign a silly value to it to start with.

Of course, if the value is needed more than once you probably should introduce a value. Even then,

This does not prevent you from using if ... else ... as statements. Statements, after all, are expressions.

Scaling It Up
Understandably if ... else if ... else ... chains are just as common, and they work just as fine in Scala. We might, for a finer result, try,

But more than often we need to branch on values rather than conditions. Basically that's why we have switch in Java/C#. Scala uses match for this,

Several things look different. For one, these cases do not use break to indicate the end of a branch. You don't have a fall through. Not that you need to fall through. They make programs harder to read and reason about. You can, however, group equivalent cases so that the principal use of falling through switch statements can be handled. Although Scala does not have the default keyword, the underscore reads "anything else", so to speak.

If you, for some reason, try this in Java 1.6 or lower, you'll probably notice another difference. <tt>switch</tt> only handles primitive types (and <tt>String</tt> since Java 1.7) so a straightforward translation will have to use <tt>if</tt> chains with a couple of <tt>equals</tt> calls. Scala uses <tt>equals</tt> to match cases for objects to make the code cleaner to read.

We will have to say more on <tt>match</tt> here and there in this book. For now, you probably will appreciate the ability to mix conditionals and cases to handle very special cases, like,

Although to make sense, this case should sit above the default case.

Trying And Failing
Even a <tt>try ... catch ...</tt> block is an expression in Scala and this can result in remarkably readable code:

As an aside, note that <tt>catch</tt> looks very much like <tt>match</tt> (and the underscore here means we don't care which specific exception was thrown).

title: Scala/Expressions, Not Statements


text:
GBA Development/HAM IDE

Step 1 - Setup
The first thing that needs to be done for this project is to download and install the necessary programs. Download the following files from these links

 * Software Development Kit
 * Graphical User Interface Update

Open up the first executable and run it, when it is done extracting the files it will ask you to type in 'OK' (so do that), and also put in an installation path. Make the installation path C:\GBADev. When these steps are done, click on 'Install', and it should finish just fine.

Next run the second executable, click on 'Next', then select 'I accept the agreement', click next again, select the folder that vham will be installed to (it should already be selected, but if not, put it under C:\GBADev\vham ), then click 'Next' -> 'Next' -> 'Next'-> 'Install' -> Finish'. If all went well you should have your Gameboy Advance development environment all set up and ready to make some games!

Step 2 - Getting started with a new project
If you haven't already opened up the VHam environment, go ahead and double-click on the 'VisualHAM' icon on your desktop. Once its open we are going to create a new project, so go ahead and click on 'File' >> 'New' >> 'New Project'. The project type that we are going to make is a '[C++ Empty]' type project, so select that, and then type in a project name and location. It doesn't matter what the project name is, as long as you remember it, and the location can be any folder on the hard drive. (If you can't think of a good project name, or location just input "etchasketch" as the project name and "c:\projects\etchasketch" as the Location).

Step 3 - Getting acquainted with the main.cpp file
Once the project has been created you will have in the left hand window 2 files that you can edit, main.cpp and makefile. Do not make any changes to the makefile (it will not be needed in this project), it is only needed for more advanced projects. The only file that we are going to be changing is the main.cpp file. Basically this file is the code that is executed when the game is being run. Go ahead and double click on 'main.cpp' in that left hand pane.

Mostly this file is pretty empty, except for a few lines. All that your game does right now is just display's the HAM logo, and then shows a blank black screen. Let me explain what some of the items in this file are, and what they do.

 * 1) include

This line includes into the program a whole bunch of other functions and declaration that we can use. This is needed unless you want to do everything at a machine level (not pretty)

MULTIBOOT

Allows your game to boot off off a linker cable and not need a cartridge. Not needed for our project, and it can be deleted.

int main(void) {}

Everything within the first and the very last curly brace is the main body of the program. The game starts at the first curly brace, and ends at the last ending brace.

ham_Init;

First statement in the body of the program. Initializes all of the HAM features. Also causes that little 'Created with HAM" logo to show up at the beginning of your game.

while(true) {}

A loop that continues to run over and over again and never finishes. This basically stalls the game and causes it to never finish (Most of the time a console game will finish by the user turning off the power). If the game gets all the way to the end it will restart back at the begning. This statement just keeps things from ever ending.

return 0;

This statement just tells your main function to exit out with a return code of '0'. Generally this means that the program ended successfully. When this line is executed the game ends, and then restarts back up again (if the power is still on).

Step 4 - Building and running your game
This step should be fairly easy to do. Once you have made any of your changes to the main.cpp file and you want to see how they affect the game, simply save your code by clicking on 'File' >> 'Save All', and then compile and run your game by pressing the 'F6' key on your keyboard. You can also build with other options by clicking on the red ! If everything worked correctly, you should have a running game! Congratulations... its not much yet, but soon it will be.

Step 5 - Adding our first additional function to main.cpp
Now we are going to get into really adding some useful code into this game. We want our game to show something on the screen, right? Lets add a function that will draw a certain colored pixel to the screen. If you have questions about pixels or functions, I will explain this in class.

Right after the line of code that says ham_Init; you will need to add the following line of code

ham_SetBgMode(3);

This will set the gameboy hardware into a certain video mode (mode 3) that will give us direct access to the video memory in a sequential memory array (I'll explain that term in class). This makes it easy to put a single pixel on the screen basically.

Now we need to add a function to our program. All functions will be added above the main function, but below the #include  section. Any function that calls another can only call the functions that are declared above it. main will be calling all of our other functions, so it needs to be at the bottom. Add the following function to your main.cpp file

//Function that draws a single pixel to the screen void drawPix(int xPos, int yPos, int color) { unsigned short* videoBuffer = (unsigned short*)0x6000000; videoBuffer[(yPos*240) + xPos] = color; }

Now that you have that function, anywhere in your main function you can call drawPix. You need to give the function how far to the right of the screen (xPos), how far down on the screen (yPos), and what color to make the pixel (color). I'll explain this is better detail in class. But if example you wanted to draw a single white pixel 50 pixels over and 100 pixels down, you would call in your main the following line of code

drawPix(50,100,0xFFFFFF);

You can test this, save your project, and then run your program (see step 4 for detail on that).

Step 6 - Saving information with variables
With our Etch-A-Sketch program we are going to need to save certain information about where the Etch-A-Stetch pen is, and what color it is currently drawing. This is going to take 5 variables. 2 of them will save where the pen is at (how far over and down it is), and then other 4 for the color (how much Red, Green, and Blue is in the pen, as well as the total pen color).

Right above your function that we just declared, we are going to make 6 global variables. Put the following lines right below your #include  section (but above the other functions).

// Global variables int curX, curY, curColor; u8 cR, cG, cB;

We also need to initialize these variables in your main function so that the values are set to zero, and not to some random garbage value. Right under the statement ham_SetBgMode(3); put the following lines

curX = 0; curY = 0; cR = 0xFF; cG = 0xFF; cB = 0xFF; curColor = 0xFFFF;

Now you can keep track of your drawing pen from any function by either checking the value of this variable, or you can change the value to something else. We will be doing this later on when we get input from the joypad. In fact this leads right up to our next section.

Step 6 - Getting input from the keyboard
What good is a game if you can't control it? Input is actually pretty easy. Its just a matter of checking to see if certain values are true are false. Basically the 'A' button is either being pressed at a given time, or its not. The tricky part is deciding what each of these key buttons being pressed means. Lets make another function right under the drawPix function that gets input from the joypad, and changes our variables based on that input.

//Gets input from the joypad void query_input { }

Notice how there is some blank space in between the curly braces. We are going to add some more code in here that is actually going to check the joypad buttons. This is done by using an If statement. If the statement is true, then the line of code right below will get run, otherwise it will be skipped. Lets say that we want to move the pen down when the down button is pressed. We would use the following 2 lines of code

if (F_CTRLINPUT_DOWN_PRESSED) curY++;

If the down button is being held down when this code executes, the variable curY will be incremented by 1. variable++ means the same as varible = variable + 1 Lets put the following code into the query_input function

if (F_CTRLINPUT_UP_PRESSED) curY--; if (F_CTRLINPUT_DOWN_PRESSED) curY++; if (F_CTRLINPUT_LEFT_PRESSED) curX--; if (F_CTRLINPUT_RIGHT_PRESSED) curX++; if (F_CTRLINPUT_B_PRESSED) curColor = RGB(--cR, cG, cB); if (F_CTRLINPUT_A_PRESSED) curColor = RGB(cR, --cG, cB); if (F_CTRLINPUT_L_PRESSED) curColor = RGB(cR, cG, --cB); if (F_CTRLINPUT_R_PRESSED) { cR = 0xFF; cG = 0xFF; cB = 0xFF; curColor = RGB(cR, cG, cB); }

This code segment is a little long and ugly, and I will explain more in class about specifics, but all it pretty much does it check the up, down, left, right, B, A, L, and R buttons on the joypad. When those are pressed it sets variables to certain values.

Step 7 - Making the Game loop
We've got a function to get input from the user, we have a function to put stuff on the screen, not we just have to put it all togeather by making our main game loop. We are making one more function that will be called on every screen refresh, basically once every 60 seconds or so. Every screen refresh we are going to check the input buttons, and then draw to the screen. Right after your drawPix and query_input, but before your main functions you need to make another function that calls both of those other first 2 functions.

// Function called every screen refresh void vbl_func { query_input; drawPix(curX,curY, curColor); }

Pretty simple isn't it? It really is. Most of the work is already being done in the other 2 functions that we made, so there isn't much more work to do in here. The only other thing that we need to do is to call this functions every 1/60th of a second. This can be done by putting in main after the variable initialization the following code statement

//Starts running the vbl_func every screen refresh ham_StartIntHandler(INT_TYPE_VBL,(void*)&vbl_func);

Now that it is checking the joypad every 1/60th of a second, and drawing your pen to the screen, your Etch-A-Sketch is done! Save the file, build it and run it! There still might be other enhancements that you could add to it (such as stopping the pen from falling off the side of the screen, or adding on screen instructions that explain how to use the game). You have an interactive, and I might add pretty fun, program that runs on a Gameboy Advance system.

Once you've got the basic program running correctly, save it off and back it up, then try making other changes to the program on your own and see if you can make the program a little more unique and personal. Maybe you could make the pen bigger or a different shape than just a single dot, or maybe make the pen spin around in a circle when you press the start button, or any one of a hundred different things.

End notes & Resources

 * HAM Gameboy Advance Development Web Site
 * VisualHAM Web Site
 * HAM Basic Tutorial
 * "Programming the Nintendo Game Boy Advance: The Unofficial Guide".
 * Programming the Nintendo Gameboy Advance the Unoffical Guide (online book in PDF format)
 * Complete Source code to this project
 * Compiled Binary ROM for this project
 * Peter Schraut. "HEL Library". depends on the HAM SDK.

title: GBA Development/HAM IDE


text:
User talk:71.53.141.104

Please do not add copyrighted material to Wikibooks. It is against policy and could jeopardize the entire project. I have removed the offending material. Your understanding is appreciated. --Jomegat 01:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:71.53.141.104


text:
Cookbook talk:Fred Steak Marinade

REQ FOR EDIT: It looks like the amounts of the ingredients in the ingredient list are in need of attention

I tried this recipe, a slight variation of of the one found here (Cycling Forums / Five40) (this is the one I found to be sour, probably due to the wine/vinegar:) 1.5 cups of coffee 1 cup of red wine 0.5 cups of olive oil 0.5 cups of molasses 0.33 cups of Balsamic vinegar 0.33 cups of Worcestershire sauce 2 tablespoons of chili powder 2 tablespoons of onion powder 2 tablespoons of garlic powder 1 tablespoon of Marmite 1 garlic clove, minced I felt the need to document this (it did turn black, made a tri-tip very soft and juicy, and blackened caramelized like Fred steak). It marinated for 72 hours. It was close enough to merit honing in on the real recipe. Mickrussom 05:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I fixed up the fractions as they were wrong in the original cycling forums recipe. I will also try and engage the author at cycling forums to hone in on this recipie. Also, I am refining this recipe. The marinade here was too sour, and I could taste a lot of the sourness in the final product. It did however caramelize properly and blackened like Fred's steak. If you want to stick to the recipe, I would recommend really good not-sour-at-all red wine and very sweet Balsamic vinegar. I am trying this tonight:

1 ground up garlic clove 1.5 cups of coffee 1.33 cups of Jim Beam bourbon (4 year whiskey) 0.5 cups of Olive Oil 0.5 cups molasses 0.33 cups of Tamari Sauce 0.33 cups of honey 1 tablespoon of Marmite (smells and tastes like Brewers Yeast, its not that bad or strong, so don't believe that its too strong or too nasty to use.) 2 tablespoons of salt (The original recipe here was not salty enough) I was also considering adding a dash of MSG, but I don't have any. I will report here on how close I get to the real deal with this recipe. The main goal of this marinade is to eliminate sourness. I took out the Worcestershire sauce (I may consider adding it back), the Red Wine and the Vinegar. I might also consider simply adding the honey portion back as Molasses, which seems to be the key ingredient in this marinade. Mickrussom 05:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The above recipe did not have the "Fred Steak Flavor." It was a good steak, soft, but it was off on the flavor. The first recipe was closer so I have to focus on making that salties and sweeter and less sour. Mickrussom 00:11, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Folks...Schaub is, umm, Jewish and probably kosher (since he's a butcher). Half the ingredients you list here couldn't possibly be deemed kosher in 1950's. Only today is everything we touch kosher (including Mountain Dew). Try agin.

There is a message board at Wordpress. (I'm breaking up the URL that follows because it's upsetting the wiki. gardenandeats dot wordpress dot com/2013/01/24/deconstructing-freds-steak/ That has an ongoing discussion about hacking the Fred Steak recipe.  It includes the receipe that appears in this article.  I've tried it.  It's not even close to actual Fred Steak (too sour, too sweet, not the right color, and missing something I can't put a finger on).  The closest anyone has come is this alternate from someone called Edub.  I've tried this one too (with my own stab at proportions).  This one is closer, but still missing that something.  Below is what Edub said about it and his receipt (without proportions).

"The steak marinade is far simple than anything you can find posted online. I’ve had the original hundreds of times (I know schaub personally), he hasn’t let go of the secret but I’ve damn near perfected it. It requires a tumbler to fully marinade and penetrate, otherwise a good 48hrs+ soak in a bag in the fridge will do.

Ingredients

Food grade activated charcoal powder Garlic powder Onion powder Salt Oil" (end of Edub comments)

When I tried Edubs recipe, I used the proportions: 1/2 cup garlic power 1/2 cup Onion Powder 1/3 cup salt 1.3 cup charcoal 3 cups of vegetable oil (don't use Olive Oil - it solidifies in the fridge Marinate a sirloin in the fridge for 2 days in a zip lock bag which I massaged a couple times a day.

Like I said, it was closer, not quite there. The charcoal did not really impart the color and was gritty. Some people have suggested squid ink instead, or black food coloring. I work near Schaub's so I have done side-by-side comparisons with the genuine article. DVMadison (discuss • contribs) 23:51, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

title: Cookbook talk:Fred Steak Marinade


text:
Iranian History/The Era of the Three Dariuses

Smerdis 522 BC
In 522 BC, when Cambyses II was busy with his campaigns in Africa, a prominent Magus named Gaumata who was favored and appointed to a very high position by Cambyses usurped the throne claiming to be Smerdis or Bardiya the son of Cyrus the Great who was believed to have been long dead killed by Cambyses II.

The history of the "false" Smerdis is narrated by Herodotus and Ctesias according to official traditions; Cambyses before his death supposedly confessed to the murder of his brother, and in public explained the whole fraud. But, as Darius said, nobody had the courage to oppose the new king, who ruled for seven months over the whole empire.

Soon after his accession to the throne, Smerdis started to issue proclamations designed to favor the old Magian religion and to supersede Zoroastrianism. First of all, Magism was made the state religion and the capital was transferred from Pasargadae to a castle in the district of Nisaya. Following this proclamation, Zoroastrianism was targeted and numerous Zoroastrian temples were destroyed. But the most infamous act Smerdis is held responsible for is the edict reversing the decree of Cyrus guaranteeing religious freedom to the Jews of Babylon. The construction of Solomon's Temple had to be stopped temporarily.

In September 522BC, after a reign of seven months, Smerdis was killed by Darius, a distant cousin of Cambyses, who was hailed as a liberator and a true scion of the Achaemenid family and was crowned as Emperor in the year 522 BC

Darius I 522 - 485 BC
Darius was twenty-eight years old when he led the rebellion that overthrew the false Smerdis and restored the Achaemenid dynasty.

The Name 'Darius'
Darius was originally called Khashayarsha Darayavaus which was Romanized to Xerxes Darius by Roman historians. Darayavaus, itself might have been actually Darayavahu, which has been suffixed with an -s in tune with the practice of writing Old Persian. His name could be roughly translated as "He Who Holds Firm the Good". Darius is credited with the famous inscription at Behistun in which he declares:

"'Adam Darayavaus, Kshaayathiya Vazraka, Hakhamanisha Parsa,Arya Aryacita'"

which would roughly translate as

"'I am Darius, Great King, Achaemenid Persian, an Aryan with an Aryan lineage'"

Rebellion and Disorder 522 - 516 BC
Soon after his accession to the Persian Empire, Darius had to contend with numerous insurrections and counter unrest in the provinces. There was a rebellion in Susiana where a certain Atrines had crowned himself king. The rebellion was crushed with an iron hand the leader put to death. But a new commander appeared in the person of a certain Martes (Martiya) who resumed the insurrection. Darius took the field in person and advanced against the enemy. This alarmed the Susianians so much so that they laid hands on the pretender and slew him.

Simultaneous rebellions emerged in Babylonia where the rebellion was led by Nebuchadnezzar (Nidintu-Bael), a son of Nabonidus and prince of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty. Darius led a huge army into Mesapotamia and defeated the Mesapotamians on the banks of the Tigris. A second battle was fought outside the Babylonian capital by the Babylonians in their retreat in which the Babylonians were defeated once again. Nebuchadnezzar escaped on his horse and threw himself upon Babylon. But Babylon was besieged by the Persians who captured it in a matter of days. Nebuchadnezzar was captured and killed.

At this juncture, the Persians were thrown into peril by three simultaneous eruptions in Media, Armenia and Assyria which comprised the most important provinces of the Empire. A Median candidate to the throne rose in the form of one Xathrites (Kshatritha) who claimed descent from the Median king Cyaxares. Armenia and Assyria aided him and he tried to snatch Media by force. A battle was fought in the three fronts in Media, Armenia and Assyria all of which were indecisive (though Darius claimed victory in his inscriptions). Soon, Hyrcania and Parthia rose in rebellion against Persia and supported Xathrites. Darius took the field in person and marched against Xathrites at the head of a large army. Xathrites gave battle at a place called Kudrus and was defeated. He captured Ecbatana forcing Xathrites to become a fugitive anbd flee to the East. However, the unfortunate Xathrites was overtaken and brought before the king. Xathrites was made prisoner and horribly mutilated as a punishment before being put to death.

Darius now resolved to take revenge and invaded Parthia and Hyrcania annexing all the cities and towns on the route.But he was forced to return early in order to tackle a rebellion in Sagartia. A new pretender (Chitrantakhma) rose in the province of Sagartia who declared himself king. Darius moved against the new pretender and captured him with ease. He was subjected to the same kind of punishment as Xathrites.

At the same time, a second pretender (Vahyazdatha) claiming himself to be the actual Smerdis rose in North East Persia. However, a majority of the Persians and Medes were highly pleased with the efficient rule and administration of Darius that they refused to desert him. The impostor was defeated in two successive battles by Darius' general Artabardes (Arthavardiya) and crucified.A second rebellion arose in Babylonia which was once again quelled with an iron hand. Around this time, Oroetes the Governor of Sardis, had a quarrel with Mitrobates the Governor of a neighbouring province and murdered him. Darius sent him a message severely reprimanding him for his conduct. Angered, Oroetes murdered the messenger. Furious at this challenge to authority, Darius raced to Sardis and ordered his men to arrest the Governor and kill him.

Quite similar was the case with the Governor of Egypt who minted pure gold and silver coins in his own name without the knowledge of the Emperor. But when Darius came to know of it he was captured and killed.

It was six years before rebellions and insurrections could be quelled and peace established all over the Empire. However, once having established peace and stamped his authority over the provinces, Darius proceeded to rule in moderation and justice and renew the policy of Achaemenid expansion followed by Cyrus II and Cambyses II.

The Behistun Inscription 515 BC
In 515BC, soon after establishing his hold over Persia, Darius inscribed the details of his accession in face of the usurper Smerdis and details about his legitimate claim to the Persian throne on the rock-face of a mountain near the town of Bagasthana or "God's place" (Romanized to Behistun) in the Kermanshah province of Iran. The inscription is approximately 15 metres high by 25 metres wide, and 100 metres up a limestone cliff from an ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media (Babylon and Ecbatana). The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian and was used by Henry Rawlinson to decipher the First Persian cuneiform texts in 1838.

Conquest of the Punjab 515 BC
Darius was as ambitious as his predecessors Cyrus II and Cambyses II had been. Having earlier sent a mission to survey the Indus from Attock to its mouth on the Arabian Sea coast, he sent an expedition under Scylax to reduce the whole Indus plain. This brought Punjab,Sindh and Gandhara under Persian suzerainty. The two Indian satraps were the richest provinces of the Empire and yielded the highest tribute.

Expedition to Thrace and Scythia 513 -512 BC
Darius launched an invasion of Greece in 513 BC with the probable intent of expanding the Achaemenid kingdom into Europe and with the ambition of conquering the whole world. However, Herodotus says that the expedition was initiated with the purpose of capturing a Persian rebel and fugitive Democedes who had sought refuge in Greece. Nevertheless, Darius did desire to subjugate Thrace and the Greek city-states and with this aim in mind he crossed the Bosporus into Europe.

So, in 513 BC, Darius set out along with the Persian fleet comprising 600 ships and an army of 700,000 to 800,000 men, as per George Rawlinson's estimate, across the Bosporus to conquer Thrace and the countries that lay beyond. Marching along Thrace's northern shore, Darius entered the Balkan and defeated the Getae. Crossing the Danube, the Persians proceeded northwards and subjugated Scythia. Returning to Thrace with his army intact, Darius posted a body of 80,000 in Europe under the command of a certain Megabazes to subjugate Thrace before returning to Persia.

Megabazus appears to have been fully worthy of the trust reposed in him. In a single campaign (B.C. 506) he overran and subjugated the entire tract between the Propontis and the Strymon, thus pushing forward the Persian dominion to the borders of Macedonia. Among the tribes which he conquered were the Perinthians, Greeks; the Pseti, Cicones, Bistones, Sapaei, Dersaei and Edoni, Thracians; and the Paeoplae and Siripasones, Pseonians. These last, to gratify a whim of Darius, were transported into Asia. The Thracians who submitted were especially those of the coast, no attempt, apparently, being made to penetrate the mountain fastnesses and bring under subjection the tribes of the interior.An embassy was sent to Macedonia whose king, an ancestor of Alexander the Great at once accepted Persian suzerainty.

The Ionian Revolt 499 - 494 BC
In 502BC, the usland of Naxos in the Aegean Sea rose into revolt against the Persians and appealed to Aristagoras the overlord of the Greek city of Miletus for help. Aristagoras, in turn, sought out the aid of Artaphernes, the satrap of Lydia and brother to Darius I of Persia. Artaphernes agreed to supply Aristagoras with a fleet of ships under the command of the esteemed Persian admiral Megabates.In return, Aristagoras promised to cede the islands and Cyclades to Artaphernes.This was possible only if the conspirators won. However, the conspiracy was discovered before it could be executed and the fleet was forced to retreat.

Due to the failure of the plan, Aristogoras was unable to repay Artaphernes who insisted that the former fulfill his promise.Aristagoras chose to incite the Ionian Greeks, to revolt against their Persian masters.

In 499BC, Miletus rose in rebellion. Aristogoras relinguished his post as a Persian Governor and sent soldiers to arrest the Governors of Mylasa,Termera and Mytilene. But Aristogoras realized that the Persian soldiers might arrive sooner or later and hence appealed to Greece for help.Sparta did not respond favorably. But Athens provided a fleet of twenty ships and Eretria,five.

The combined European and Ionian Greek contingents attacked the Lydian capital, Sardis and plundered the city. However, they were forced to bid a speedy retreat by an accidental fire that broke out in the city. Aristagoras retreated, but the Persian troops stationed At Ephesus caught up with them and defeated them severely.

The fact that such a small Greek contingent could overthrow a Persian garrison and capture an important town in the Persian Empire such as Sardis convinced other subject people of the Persian Empire that the Persians were not invincible. Soon, the Greeks of the Hellespont, the Carians and the Caunians of the south-western coast,Cypriots and Scythians rose into revolt and plundered Thrace. The Athenian fleet even defeated the Phoenician fleet of the Empire near the island of Crete.

However, these victories were short-lived. Darius launched a major counter-offensive recovering Crete by the end of the year and defeating the Carians, Hellespontine Greeks and Aeolians. Ionia was ravaged and Aristogoras was murdered by a Thracian. Darius concentrated his energies on Miletus, the cradle of the revolt destroying it completely and settling the bulk of its inhabitants on the Persian Gulf. Ionia was ravaged and the coastal islands were depopulated. The cities on the Hellespont and the sea of Marmara were burnt.

A year after the capture of Miletus, The Capture of Miletus, a play by the poet Phrynichos, was performed in Athens, reducing the entire amphitheater to tears. The Ionian Revolt, although ultimately a failure for the Ionian Greeks, was a touchstone for both Persia and Greece. As such, it marks the beginning of the Persian Wars.

Expeditions to Greece 492 - 490 BC
Humiliated and Enraged by the rebellion of Greek city-states in Asia Minor, Darius dispatched an expedition under Mardonius across the Bosporus to reduce Thrace,Greece and Macedonia in the year 492BC. Mardonius was successful at first taking Thasos and invading Athos but an thunderstorm broke out killing 20,000 men. Seizing this opportunity, a Thracian tribe Brygi attacked the Persians killing a large number of them. The Persians, however, retaliated completely subjugating them. But Mardonius was unable to advance further and had to retreat.

A couple of years later Darius sent another expedition under Datis whioch followed the coast of the Cyclades and fell upon Eretria and Attica. Eretria was reduced and a large number of its inhabitants massacred. However, the siege of Athens failed completely with a Persian Army of 100,000 to 200,000 men facing a crushing defeat at the hands of 20,000 Athenians and Plateans in the Battle of Marathon.

Battle of Marathon 490 BC
The main historical account of the Battle of Marathon comes from Herodotus' Histories Book VI, paragraphs 102–117. Calculations as per the Julian Calendar suggest a date of September 12, 490BC for the battle.

Darius had sent a part of the navy under Aristapharnes which laid siege to Athens on the 12th of Sepmteber 490BC. Meanwhile, the Persian cavalry had already retreated. The Persian Army was arranged in a straight line close to the coast while the fleet was a few miles away at sea. Miltiades, a powerful politician of the Athenian Republic who had led Greek troops in the Ionian revolt led the Greek army.

The front of the Greek army numbered 1,625 men of whom 500 guarded the centre while the rest formed the sides of the formation. If the Persians had the same density as the Greeks and were 10 ranks strong then the Persian army opposing the Greeks numbered 16,000. men. But if the front had a gap of 1.4 meters between soldiers compared to 1 meters for every Greek and had a density of 40 to 50 ranks as seems to be the maximum possible for the plain—the Persian army had even fought in 110 ranks—then the Persian army numbered 44,000 to 55,000.

Prior to the commencement of the battle, runners were sent to Sparta to request the Spartans for their help. The runners reportedly ran an unbelievable 200 kilometres in less than 36 hours.

When the battle began, the Greek centre made a ferocious charge at the Persian troops piercing the gaps between the troops. But when the Persian archers attacked the Greeks with a barrage of arrows, the Greeks retreated pulling the Persian troops in. When the Persians were close enough for the kill, the sides charged. The warriors who made up the flanks reportedly covered he one and half kilometres that separated them from the Persian troops in less than 10 minutes. With no time to fire their weapons, the Persians fled. The Persian fleet was at a great distance from coast of Marathon. Unable to make their escape, the Persians lost miserably and over 6,000 soldiers were killed.

The Battle of Marathon heralded a new dawn in the history of Perso-Greek relations. This battle, in particular, led to the commencement of the Persian Wars which lasted over a hundred years and culminated in Alexander's conquest of Persia in 331BC. However, the most imminent result of this battle was that it fuelled insurrections against Persian rule all over the Empire. It proved that the Persians could be defeated and commenced a string of Greek victories over Persia in land and sea.

Revolt in Egypt 487-486 BC
Still undeterred, Darius was making elaborate preparations for another invasion of Greece when rebellion broke out in Egypt. Darius hurried to the scene, but was soon struck by illness and died in 486 or 485BC according to some accounts at the age of 64.

Administration
It has always been the habit of West Asian countries to rebel at the slightest provocation that kingdoms often collapsed in a short time. Darius was the first one to find a solution to this problem and he devised a new system of government hitherto unknown. This form of government not only sustained the Persian Empire for two hundred years but also contributed to the rapid expansion of the dominions. This system of governance was the decentralization of power through the appointment of provincial governors or satraps.

Satraps (Kshatras) of the Empire
The word satrap is the Romanized form of Old Persian "Kshatra" or "province" which is the Iranian counterpart of the Sanskrit "Kshetra". It administrator was known as "Kshatra-pava" or "protector of the satrap".

The duties of the Persian satrap (Kshatra-pava) were   Collection and transmission of revenue  Administration of justice  Maintenance of Order General supervision of territory

This policy of establishing satraps   brought a sense of uniformity with each satrap having a similar form of administration  The imposition of checks and counterpoises over provincial governors and officials  Equal distribution of authority amongst the provinces.

Taxation and Tribute
The mode of taxation employed often was left to the wishes and whims of the satrap who exacted the tribute. Generally, the exactions were made by land-tax. As far as tribute was concerned, the provinces usually paid a tribute of 150 to 1000 silver talents except in the case of the two satraps of India which furnished the Empire with vast quantities of gold and men. These were the richest provinces of the Persian Empire and yielded the highest tribute.

Population
The population of the Empire has been estimated at over forty million and these included people of various nationalities as Persians, Medes, Indians, Arabs, Mesapotamians, Turks, Africans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Jews, Greeks and Scythians.

Legacy
Darius I is arguably the greatest ever monarch to have ruled Persia. Cyrus II may actually have been the one who established the Achaemenid Empire, but practically speaking, the Persian Empire owes its greatness to Darius I. He was the one who consolidated the Empire and brought his nation into direct conflict with Greece. The kingdom was a fledgling power, not much more than a barbarian state, ruled by semi-civilized ancients before Darius came to power. Darius transformed it into an Empire and gave it a system of administration, rarely if at all, seen anywhere in the ancient world. Cyrus had been given the epithet "the Great" by Persians at a later stage. But Darius declares himself "Kshaayathiya Vazarka" or "Great King" in his inscriptions. It was obvious who deserved it more. It was definitely, Darius I the Great.

Xerxes I 485-465 BC

Xerxes was the son of Darius I and Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great. His throne name in Old Persian was Khashayarshah which means "ruler of heroes".

The reign of Xerxes was completely devoid of unnecessary adventures in unknown lands. His first campaign was again Egypt soon after the death of his father and he was extremely successful in putting an end to the rebellion and reducing Egypt. Another rebellion broke out in Babylon and he was able to quell this one too without much effort.

Wars with Greece
In 483BC, Xerxes sent a large expedition to invade Greece. A channel was dug through the isthmus of the peninsula of Mount Athos, provisions were stored in the stations on the road through Thrace, two bridges were thrown across the Hellespont. The Persian soldiers who invaded Greece were estimated to be over 2 million strong.

The Persian troops crossed the Hellespont and laid siege to the city of Thermopylae.

Battle of Thermopylae
Various accounts exist of the Battle of Thermopylae between the Greeks and the Persians but even the oldest, by Herodotus, was written a full generation after the event, and none is entirely reliable. Greek accounts of the time say that Xerxes dispatched an army of 10,000 Medes to assault the Pass but it was cut to pieces on the very first day. He then sent an army of 20,000 Immortals, but they too failed. Accounts say that Xerxes sent an army of 50,000 on the second day but once again, they weren't able to achieve any success.

On the third day, with a crucial piece of information from a Greek traitor called Ephthalite, the Persians were able to sneak into Thermopylae. A skirmish followed. In this struggle, Herodotus tells us that two brothers of Xerxes I fell: Abrocomes and Hyperanthes. Leonidas, the commander of the Greek army, also died in the assault.

The Persians won the battle and proceeded to take Athens. The body of Leonidas was captured by Xerxes, who, in a fit of rage, ordered it to be brutally mutilated and crucified.

Battle of Artemisium
On the same day that the Battle of Thermopylae was fought the Battle of Artemisium raged between the Greeks and the Persians. This battle brought a complete victory for the Persian fleet over the Greeks in the Greek waters. Following these two victories, the Persians laid siege to Athens. The Oracle at Delphi had earlier prophesied that the Greeks would be saved by a "wooden wall". The defeat at Artemisium seemed to imply that this did not refer to the wooden hulls of the fleet, so the Athenians hoped that building a wooden wall around the Acropolis would save them from the Persians. However, as expected, the wooden wall was burnt by the Persians and the Athenians inside were massacred.

Battle of Salamis
The Delphic Oracle had also predicted ambiguously that Salamis would "bring death to women's sons." In September 480BC, the Persian fleet met the Greek navy off the coast of Salamis island near Athens and the Battle of Salamis was fought. The Persian fleet was made of 800 ships while the Greek fleet was made of around 378 ships. However, soon after the battle began, a storm broke out which tossed the flimsy Phoenician ships of the Persians up and down. Ariamenes who commanded the Persians was killed in hand-to-hand combat and confusion followed.The battle was tightly contested and in the end, the Persians had to flee. Unable to provide for the troops in Greece, Xerxes led his army back across the Hellespont into Asia, leaving behind Mardonius. Mardonius once again recaptured Athens, but was defeated in the Battle of Platea and the Battle of Micale.

Battle of Plataea
After the Battle of Salamis, Xerxes I returned to Persia, leaving Mardonius in charge of the conquered Greek territories. Mardonius, through Alexander I of Macedon, asked for a truce with Athens, offering autonomous government and Persian aid in rebuilding their city. Athens rejected this and asked for Spartan assistance, though the Spartans were more interested in protecting the Peloponnese. Mardonius then recaptured Athens, but the Athenians once more rejected his offer of peace.

Mardonius fortified the Asopus river in Boeotia, hoping that the Greeks would be unable to unite against him. However, the Athenians sent 8,000 men and marched with the Spartan force to the pass over Mount Cithaeron, where they could successfully defend themselves from Persian raids. Mardonius sent cavalry charges led by Masistius to attack the Greeks, hoping to lure them onto the plain or to check whether his cavalry could successfully attack a phalanx on hilly terrain.[4] Masistius met resistance from the Megarans and Athenians under the command of Olympiodorus, in the centre of the Greek formation. Masistius was killed and his cavalry retreated. The Greeks began to move away from the pass towards the plain of Plataea where Mardonius had built a fortified camp, and where the Greek hoplites could fight more easily. The Athenians formed the left wing of the army, with the Spartans on the right and the Tegeans in the centre.

At this point, the Greek army numbered 80,000 men while the Persians are estimated to have numbered anywhere between 50,000 and 300,000 men. The Athenians and Spartans switched positions so that the Athenians would defend against the main Persian force while the Spartans would fight the Greek subjects within the Persian army. The Persians thought that the Greeks were retreating and attacked them. The Persians fought with their large heavy shields while the Greeks used long spears which gave them a tactical advantage. The Tegans attacked followed by the Spartans. Mardonius was killed and his successor Artabazus pulled back his troops.

Battle of Mycale
The Battle of Mycale was a turning point in the history of Greco-Persian wars and marked the end of Achaemenid intrusion into Greece. This was fought during the same period as the Battle of Plataea. The Ionian Greeks in the Persian army went over to the Greeks and the Persians suffered a crushing defeat.

The Persians hastily evacuated Greece after this battle. Never again would they set foot on European soil.

Battle of the Eurymedon
In 477BC, the Greek city-states form the Delian League with Athens at its head. This was inaugurated as a defensive and offensive alliance against Persia. The first major offensive carried out by the Delian League was the Battle of the Eurymedon in 466BC.

Starting with 477BC, when the Delian League was formed, the Greeks launcdhed a major offensive to drive out Persians from Asia Minor. This led to the Battle of the Eurymedon in 466 BC when the Athenian general Cimon led a fleet of 250 ships against the Ionian cities. Most Greeks surrendered without resistance, however, Ionians of mixed Persian and Greek descent held out. The Athenian fleet was assisted by an Ionian fleet of 100 ships from the surrendered cities of Asia Minor. The Greek city Fasilida gave the stoutest resistance. However, this resistance was overcome in time and Persian hold over the Ionian cities of Asia Minor was completely lost.

Cimon then moved against the Persian fleet stationed on the Eurymedon river which resulted in a complete victory for the Athenian fleet. Persian rule over the Ionian cities completely disappeared with this battle.

Missing Later Years
Of the later years of Xerxes, little is known. He sent out Sataspes to attempt the circumnavigation of Africa. He left inscriptions at Persepolis, where he added a new palace to that of Darius, at Van, now in present-day Turkey, and on Mount Elvend near Ecbatana. In these texts he merely copies the words of his father. In 465 he was murdered by his vizier, Artabanus, who raised Artaxerxes I to the throne

Artaxerxes I 465 - 424 BC
Xerxes was succeeded by Artaxerxes I in 465BC. His name in Old Persian was "Artakshasa" which may be roughly translated as "one who rules through truth (arta)". He was given the epithet Minuschir or (Greek) Longimannus because his right-arm is believed to be longer than his left.

According to some accounts, Xerxes was killed by his eldest son Darius who tried to usurp the throne. But Artaxerxes, a younger son of Xerxes removed Darius and ascended the throne. Immediately after his accession, he killed Artabanus who made an attempt on his life.

Rebellions
Soon after Artabanus was killed, Bactria rose in rebellion under Artabanus, a younger brother of the king Hystaspes. But this rebellion was sternly put down. Simultaneous eruptions followed in Africa where the King of Libya Inarus overthrew the Persian satrap of Egypt, Achaemenes who was an uncle of Artaxerxes I. At the same time, an Athenian fleet under Cimon sent to help the Egyptians won a decisive victory near the coast of Egypt. After having hoped in vain for help from Sparta, Artaxerxes sent a relieving force under Megabyzus who set free the Persians besieged in Memphis after a contest which lasted more than a year. The mutineers were besieged at Byblos in the Nile Delta and forced to surrender in 454BC. The Athenian fleet faced a crushing defeat and was forced to retreat. Arsames was made the new satrap of the province.

Relations With Greece
As soon as Artaxerxes I ascended the throne, he commenced the practice of bribing city-states hostile to Athens in order to keep the Athenians in check and prevent the formation of a Greek confederacy. Athenians resorted to desperate measures as demanding tribute in the form of money from the members of the League instead of men or ships. Open hostilities commenced in 450BC when the Athenians lent their aid to an Egyptian revolt against Persia.

Battle of Salamis in Cyprus
The Battle of Cyprus or Battle of Salamis (in Cyprus) took place in 450BC near the coast of Salamis, a Greek city-state in the island of Cyprus.

In 454BC, the Athenians made an unsuccessful bid to aid the Egyptian revolt. The insurrection was crushed and the Athenians lost a fleet in the attack. In 451BC, a truce was concluded between the warring Athenians and Spartans which enabled the Athenians to renew hostilities with Persia.

In 450BC, Cimon sailed into Cyprus with a fleet of 200 ships. He sent sixty ships into Egypt to aid the revolting Egyptians. Cimon besieged the Persian stronghold of Citium in south-west Cyprus. The siege was completely successful though Cimon was killed in the battle. The Greeks did not press further and returned to the mainland.

In 447BC, the First Peloponnesian War commenced between the Delian League and the Boetian League which brought about a temporary truce between the Athenians and the Persians. The Peace of Callias was signed to this effect in the year 449BC.

Rebellion in Syria
Soon after the Peace of Callias, the Persian commander at the battle against Egypt, Megabyzus rose in rebellion against Artaxerxes for violating the terms of Inarus' surrender by killing him. He established a stronghold in Syria and defeated two Persian armies sent against him. However, peace was soon agreed upon by the opposing parties and the rebellion came to an end.

During the last years of his reign, Artaxerxes faced the rebellion of Pissuthenes, the satrap of Sardis. The Athenians made an unsuccessful invasion of Caunia. During the fag end of his reign, Artaxerxes was approached by both Sparta and Athens requesting his help in the Peloponnesian Wars. But no definite treaty seemed to have been arrived at.

Character of Artaxerxes
Artaxerxes I is often portrayed as an Emperor with a weak character. But historians and writers of the period have endowed lavish praises on him for his kindness and benevolence. Like his father, he supported building activities in the Empire. The construction of the "Hall of 100 Columns" begun in the reign of his father was completed under his supervision and patronage.

Xerxes II 424 BC
Xerxes II succeeded his father Artxerxes I in 424 BC but reigned for a brief period of 45 days. He was the legitimate heir to the throne being the son of Artaxerxes nthrough his principal wife Damaspia. Very little is known about him. Mostly from the writings of Ctesias. He was murdered by the orders of his half-brother Sogdianus forty-five days after his accession.

Sogdianus 424 - 423 BC
Xerxes II was succeeded by his half-brother Sogdianus in 424BC. Sogdianus was an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes I. He ruled for a few months from Elam. Even during his time, Darius II (Ochus) another son of Artaxerxes I ruled from Hyrcania.

Soon after the death of Xerxes II, Sogdianus usurped the throne and ruled for six months and fifteen days. In 423BC, after a short fight, Ochus, a son of Artaxerxes II killed Sogdianus and ascended the throne as Darius II

Rebellion in Lydia and Caria
Soon after the accession of Darius II there was a rebellion by his brother, Arsites and Zopyrus, the son of Megabyzus. Darius sent two armies against them but both were defeated by Zopyrus with help from Greek mercenaries. Finally, Darius resorted to strategem and bought the mercenaries with Persian gold. Devoid of allies, Arsites and Zopyrus were forced to capitulate under pressure from advancing Persian forces. The duo surrendered under the pledge of protection but his wife Parsyatis persuaded Darius to disregard the pledge. Both Arsites and Zopyrus were mercilessly killed in violation of the pledge.

The revolt of Lydia, a satrap of Persia was another prominent outbreak. The rebellion was led by one Pissuthunes and had started in the reign of Artaxerxes I. Darius sent Tissphernes against him. Once again Lycon, the Athenian commander of the Lydian troops and Pissuthunes' Greek mercenaries were bribed and switched sides over to the Persians. Pissuthunes was captured and put to death.

The Loss of Egypt
During this time, there was a rebellion in Egypt. Darius made an unsuccessful attempt to quell the rebellion resulting in the loss of Egypt. The revolt of Egypt is placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. These indiscrepancies arise from the belief that Manetho considered Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader while some feel that the leader was Amyrtseus of the twenty-eighth dynasty.

Relations With Greece
Darius observed the affairs and political situation in Greece with a watchful eye and was keen to support one party against the other. The crushing defeat of the Athenian army in 413BC created news all over the Empire. Athens was reduced to a status of a minor power by this battle. The Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus made overtures to Sparta and a formal treaty was signed between the Persian Empire and Sparta. The Persians followed a policy akin to the "divide et impera" or "Divide and rule" practised by the British in India, always supporting one city-state against the other.

Rebellion in Media
In 409 or 408BC, a rebellion broke out in Media which is described in detail by Xenophon. Terutichmes, who belonged to a noble family with a good standing and influence was the satrap of Media. He was married to Amestris, the daughter of Darius II. However, soon, he became enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana and desired to marry her. However, he could not do so while Amestris was alive and made secret plans to murder her. The conspiracy hatched by Terutichmes reached the ears of Darius II and he sent a certain Udiastes to secure the life of his daughter. Udiastes overwhelmed Terutichmes and 300 associates of his and slew him. His extended family was rounded up with the one exception of his sister Statira who was married to the Crown-Prince Artaxerxes Memnon and was brutally extinguished at the orders of the queen Parsyatis.

Darius II's character
Darius II was an extremely weak,incompetent and a wicked monarch and functioned as a mere puppet at the hands of his favorite wife, Parsyatis. His reign was ridden with palace intrigues, conspiracies and brutal executions.

Artaxerxes II 404 - 358 BC
Artaxerxes II was the eldest son of Darius II but Parsyatis preferred her younger son Cyrus to her elder and persuaded the Emperor in his last years to appoint Cyrus as the heir-apparent. However, Darius was too weak to prevent Artaxerxes II from capturing the throne and crowning himself Emperor soon after his death in 404BC.

Meanwhile,Cyrus returned to his satrapy in Asia Minor and plotted to take over the Empire. He found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes and utilizing this, he recruited an army of 13,000 Greek mercenaries focring Tissaphernes to report the matter to the Persian Emperor.

Cyrus quitted Sardis in 401BC and with an army of over 100,000 Persian soldiers and 13,000 Greek mercenaries, he rapidly advanced through Asia Minor taking Cilicia,Phrygia and Syria. At last, when Cyrus entered Babylon, Artaxerxes decided to give battle and according to reports, took the field at the head of an army in excess of 900,000. A showdown took place near the banks of the Euphrates. When the battle began, the Greek mercenaries of Cyrus advanced at their Persian opponents forcing them to retreat. But Cyrus, unwisely, pitted the guards who protected him against the persona of Artaxerxes. Cyrus was pierced in the eye by a javelin and killed in the melee that followed.

Relations With Greece
After the death of Cyrus, Lydia and Phrygia were ruled by satraps who had a deep and bitter rivalry towards one another. They were willing to engage the support of one or more of the Greek city-states in order to increase their power and influence. Meanwhile, Sparta provoked the open hostility of the Persian Government by welcoming the "Ten Thousand" survivors of the Battle and supporting the independence of Asiatic Greeks.

As a result, the Persians allied with Athens against Sparta and invaded the Peloponnese in 393BC. The island of Cythera was occupied. The Spartans learnt their lesson and concluded peace with the Athenians, the Persians and the smaller Greek city-states. Sparta assured the Persians that the Greeks would never henceforth interfere with the Persian provinces in Asia. The Greek city-states meanwhile were to remain autonomous. Persia agreed to this peace in the year 387BC

The Cyprian Revolt 391 - 380 BC
Cyprus broke into revolt under Evagoras of Salamis who allied with the Athenians in 391BC. The Athenians agreed to supply them with men and materials.With assistance from Achoris of Egypt and Hecatomnus of Cadia they occupied Tyre and extended into Cilicia. The Persians sent Tiribazus with an army of 300,000 men and 300 ships. Evagoras fought bravely and the battle lasted six years. But in the end, the rebels were defeated and forced to surrender. Evagoras was surprisingly pardoned and was given a high position in the administration.

The Cadusian Revolt
Around the same time as the Cyprian revolt, the Cadusian revolt broke out in Cadusia which was a part of the Great Emperor's dominions. However,Artaxerxes invaded their territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and 10,000 horse. Artaxerxes suffered a crushing defeat and was contented to reach Persia alive.

Invasion of Egypt 375 BC
In 375BC, Artaxerxes, with the services of the great Athenian general Iphicrates invaded Egypt and surrounded Memphis. But the Persians delayed in investing Memphis and paid the price. The rains came and the river banks of the Nile were flooded forcing the Persians to withdraw.

Rebellions
As the king grew older and feebler, the provinces began to revolt. Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia shook off the Persian yoke in 366BC and declared himself independent. Cappadocia too broke into revolt. However, both Phrygia and Cappadocia were conquered and their satraps deposed. In 362BC, there was a general revolt of the western provinces of the Empire. The Persians resorted to bribery and bought the loyalty of the new satrap of Phrygia apart from one of their generals. The insurrection was crushed. Following this rebellion, Artaxerxes II died in 358BC at the age of ninety-four.

Artaxerxes III 358 - 338 BC
Artaxerxes III was a cruel, despotic monarch who immediately after his accession killed all his relatives and other claimnants to the throne. He even destroyed the princesses cruelly. When he had got rid of all his opponents, Artaxerxes commenced the invasion of Egypt.

Egyptian Campaign and Rebellions 351 - 346 BC
In around 351BC, Artaxerxes embarked on a campaign to recover Egypt. The Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo with the services of the Greek generals Diophantus and Lamius inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians. Artaxerxes was compelled to retreat and postpone his Egyptian enterprise. Following on the heels of the Egyptians, leaders of Phoenicia,Asia Minor and Cyprus declared their independence.

In 346BC, Artaxerxes initiated a counter-offensive by deputing Belesys, satrap of Syria and Mezseus, satrap of Cilicia to invade Sidon. Both suffered crushing defeats at the hands of the Sidonese king aided by Greek mercenaries. So, Artaxerxes proceeded against Sidon in person at the head of 330,000 men and burnt the city to the ground. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in the conflagration.

Soon after the conquest of Sidon, Artaxerxes launched an invasion of Egypt. Nectanebo resisted with an army of 100,000 of whom 20,000 were Greek mercenaries. The Persian army completely routed the Egyptians and occupied the Lower Delta of the Nile plundering its temples and destroying the idols. Artaxerxes returned to Persia and spent the next few years effectively quelling insurrections in various parts of the Empire so that a few years from the conquest of Egypt the Persian Empire was firmly entrenched in the grasp of the Great Emperor.

Last Years and Death
In 340BC, Artaxerxes sent a large army to assist the Thracian prince Cersobleptes against the Macedon Emperor Philip (father of Alexander the Great). Philip was baffled and forced to lift the siege on Perinthus.

His violence and cruelty rendered him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they caused even those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure. Bagoas may have feared that sooner or later he would himself be one of the monarch's victims and poisoned him.

Artaxerxes IV (Arses) 338 - 336 BC
Soon after killing Artaxerxes III, Bagoas raised the young Artaxerxes IV to the throne as a puppet while retaining actual control over the Empire. But as Artaxerxes grew older he refused to act according to the wills and whims of Bagoas and was expectedly murdered by the latter who now raised a friend of his, Condomannus to the throne with the title 'Darius III'

Darius III (Condomannus) 336 - 330 BC
The same year that Darius III ascended the Persian throne, Philip of Macedon was assassinated and succeeded by his son Alexander. In 338BC, the League of Corinth had nominated Philip to lead an army into Persian territory to avenge the Greco-Persian wars and the destruction of the acropolis at Athens. But his life was terminated even before he could embark on his mission. So, the mantle of avenging the Greco-Persian wars fell upon Alexander and in 336BC, soon after ascending the throne, Alexander made preparations to lead an enormous expedition into Asia.

Meanwhile, soon after ascending the throne, Darius III punished Bagoas by forcing him to drink the poison that the latter had prepared for him. Having disposed the only inside threat to his sovereignty, Darius III concentrated his efforts on destroying the rising power of the Macedonians.

At first, Darius was successful to some extent. His general Memnon from Crete entered the Hellespont and drove away the Macedonian occupants. But he was powerless to stop Alexander intrusion into the Persian Empire which began in the spring of 334BC. The Persians suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Granicus and retreated. In 333 BC, Darius himself lead an army against Alexander and was defeated once again. In September 333BC, Darius suffered a third defeat at Gaugamela in present-day Iraq resulting in the Macedonian conquest of Persia. Darius fled to Ecbatana where he held court and tried to collect a Persian army for fighting the Greeks. But as he was planning to organize an invasion, he was murdered brutally by his general Bessus who took on the title Artaxerxes V. Alexander's invasion and the Greco-Macedonian wars are covered in great detail in the next chapter.

Artaxerxes V 330 - 329 BC
In 330BC, the Persian general Bessas murdered the last Achaemenid Emperor Darius III and took on the title Artaxerxes V. This pretender to the Persian throne held court in Ecbatana for a few months before it was conquered by the Macedonians. Bessas was captured and crucified by Alexander as a punishment for the murder of Darius III. With this, the Achaemenid Empire ceased to exist.

The Achaemenid Legacy
Persia, under the Achaemenids, was a world empire that dominated Eurasia for two centuries. At the height of its power and influence, the grandeur and splendor of the capital Persepolis was unparalleled. Fortunately, for us, a few monuments of the Achaemenid period have survived, like the 'Hall of a Thousand Columns' and the ruins of the palaces of Persepolis. This enables us to recreate the seat of the Imperial Government of the Shahs of Iran.

Persepolis
Persepolis rose in the middle of the 6th century BC in the reign of Cyrus. It is a city often identified with the Achaemenid Empire, for its rise and fall mirrored the rise and fall of Achaemenid fortunes. Most of the monuments in Persepolis, however, were constructed by Darius I, Xerxes I and Artaxerxes I. The city rose to spectacular heights in the subsequent period when it became the centre of lavish feasts, hunting festivals and religious ceremonies. Its inhabitants l;ed a life of luxury and leisure. Their pastimes included playing board games, dining and drinking. Persepolis was connected with the rest of the Empire by means of royal roads. The capital was supplied by means of artificial streams and reservoirs which helped create a garden in the middle of the Persian desert.

Royal Road
A system of well-built roads connected the capital Persepolis with the rest of the Empire. The most prominent among these was the 'Royal Road' which ran from Persepolis to Sardis the capital of Lydia. It began in the west in Sardis (about 60 miles east of İzmir in present-day Turkey), traveled east through what is now the middle northern section of Turkey to the old Assyrian capital Nineveh (present-day Mosul, Iraq), then traveled south to Babylon (present-day Baghdad, Iraq). From near Babylon, it is believed to have split into two routes, one traveling northwest then west through Ecbatana and on along the Silk Road, the other continuing east through the future Persian capital Susa (in present-day Iran) and then southeast to Persepolis.

Communication was maintained through a system of couriers who relayed important messages across the Empire. These people seem to have been the predecessors of the     system.

Society
Achaemenid Persian society was quite moderate compared to those of other cultures. Persians were of Indo-European descent migrating to an area neighboured by Semitic cultures of Assyria, Babylonia, Sumer and Akkad. The Indo-European Iranians had different moral codes compared to the more strict neighbouring countries. Persians established the first true multi-cultural society where each region maintained their religion, language and culture. The country was run on a Federal model with representatives of the central government providing general guidance but not interfering in local affairs. Cyrus set the model based on respect for local laws, language and religion so the Achaemenid Society was a cosmopolitan one where the local norms thrived and not influenced by the ruling government.

Women had special roles in the Society with significant influence in court affairs. Many women in the Achaemenid society held prominent roles in the society as seen with leadership roles in the army and navy. Atoussa was the daughter of Cyrus the Great and wife of Darius. She played a significant role in the Court of Darius influencing many decisions. Panthea commanded the Immortal army of Cyrus the Great; Artoniss was a Lieutenant General (Sepah-bod) of Darius the Great and Artemis lead the navy of King Xerexes.

The remaining artefacts depicting women demonstrate the women's clothing from this era. Anahita, the Goddess of Water is depicted with long hair and a flowing tunic. Other artefacts show women in flowing dresses and open tunics. Not many artefacts are found depicting women but those discovered demonstrate the Indo-European influence similar to those found in Greece.

Contemporary Perception
The Achaemenids have been perceived in modern times as the true standard bearers of Persianism and the Persian legacy. Secularists,Persian nationalists and monarchists have adopted Cyrus and Darius as symbols of their anti-theocracy movement against the Islamic republic. Tempers rose during the Gulf War when Iran fielded Cyrus,Xerxes and Darius as the symbols of the resistance movement in retaliation to Iraq's extensive use of Qadesiyyah as political propaganda. Today, Achaemenids are lauded for their greatness and tolerance and remembered with tear-filled eyes by Iranians destroyed by the ruthless policies of a theocratic state.