Cissia (area)
region of the Achaemenid Empire mentioned in ancient Greek literature
Cissia (Ancient Greek: Κισσία, Kissia) was a very fertile district of Susiana in the Persian Empire, on the Choaspes. According to Herodotus, the inhabitants, Cissii, were a 'wild', free people, resembling the Persians in their manners.
Herodotus and other ancient Greek writers sometimes referred to the region around Susa as "Cissia", a variant of the Kassite name. However, it is not clear if Kassites were actually living in that region so late.
History
In ancient times Cissia was subjugated by Tiglath-Pileser III.
Once the Ionian Revolt was finally crushed by the Persian victory at the Battle of Lade, Darius began to plan to subjugate Greece. In 490 BC, he sent a naval task force under Datis and Artaphernes across the Aegean to subjugate the Cyclades, and then to make punitive attacks on Athens and Eretria. Reaching Euboea in mid-summer after a successful campaign in the Aegean, the Persians proceeded to put Eretria under siege. The siege lasted six days before a fifth column of Eretrian nobles betrayed the city to the Persians. The city was plundered, and the population enslaved on Darius's orders. The Eretrian prisoners were eventually taken to Persia and settled as colonists in Cissia, in the village of Ardericca.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cissia (area)” is region of the Achaemenid Empire mentioned in ancient Greek literature. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cissia, area and region, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cissia (area)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.