Darius I 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁
Organizer of the Persian Empire; the Second Temple was completed in his reign
He reigned from 522 to 486 BCE: he divided the empire into satrapies, laid the royal road, brought in a single coinage, and left the Behistun inscription in three languages—Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian.
A divergence of reckonings. On the academic count the Temple was completed in 516 BCE, that is 3245 AM; on the Jewish track it is 3408. Darius's bar stands here by the academic count.
Beyond that, the identification itself is contested: the tradition knows fewer kings in the Persian period, and "the Darius in whose sixth year the Temple was completed" is, for the sages, not Darius I but a later Darius—the son of Ahasuerus and Esther, on one midrash. Academic history assigns the decree of Ezra 6 to Darius I. These are different claims, and both are worth knowing.
Sources
Tanakh
- Ezra 6:1–15 — the decree confirming Cyrus's; the Temple completed in the sixth year
Documents of the period
- The Behistun inscription — his own account of his accession, in three languages
Basis: documents and evidence.