John Manuel Cook

"[The milieu of the Persian court was one in which intellectual and artistic intercourse between representatives of the various satrapies flourished. The Persians themselves] “clearly … were not a people that we should call intellectual. They do not themselves seem to have had an inclination towards literature, medicine, or philosophical and scientific speculation.” Still, they provided a setting in which such speculation could be freely pursued... “what resulted from the ‘Pax Persica,’” says Cook, “was syncretism and cultural assimilation on a scale that had not previously been thinkable.”"

"From the Greek writers we get some idea of Persian education; but it applies only to the nobility, and there was no place for what we should call intellectual pursuits. From what we can gather, the sons of Persians of note were weaned from the ‘harem at the age of five (when for the first time they were allowed in the presence of the father) and until they were twenty or more they were brought up at the royal court (or in the provinces at the satraps’ court) Emphasis was laid on speaking the truth and learning the examples that the legends provided; older children might listen to the judgements of the royal justices. Herodotus says that among the Persians the thing most prized after valour in battle was to be the father of many children, we can understand that he aim was to contribute the maximum to Persian military strength, and the result must have been a population explosion at the higher social level."

"But the one remarkable achievement was the mixing of races that set the example for the cosmopolitan civilization of the near East after the conquest by Alexander. What resulted from the ‘Pax Persica’ was syncretism and cultural assimilation on a scale that had not previously been thinkable."

"As regards the qualities of the Persians we are in the main dependent on Greek sources. Clearly they were not a people that we should call intellectual. They do not themselves seem to have had an inclination towards literature, medicine, or philosophical and scientific speculation. They were probably most at ease when living as country gentlemen. Despite the uncompromising black and white of their religious creed as expressed by Darius, there is no trace of fanaticism in them, and in general they would seem to have been tolerant. They liked to live in pleasant surroundings; coming from a country in which cultivation is restricted to fertile patches of watered land they may have been rather narrowly ‘oasis-minded’. Luxury appealed to them."