It is clear, from what we read of Cyrus the Great in the Histories of Herodotus and in Xenophon's Cyropaedia, that his life and reign warrant the full-dress biographical treatment – Philip Freeman's biographies of Alexander and Caesar come to mind as possible models. Matt Waters’ life of Cyrus has the right title for a book that would be appropriately epic; but I must admit to being a bit surprised at the rather slim volume sent for my review. Waters’ Preface, however, makes clear what Cyrus’ biographer is up against in writing a life that would be properly historical.

Cyrus is indeed as worthy of a full-blown biography as Alexander or Caesar; but ‘Cyrus the individual remains elusive’, Waters warns us, ‘as he has left no surviving testimony beyond a handful of royal inscriptions’ (viii). But then he makes clear that his life of Cyrus the Great will make the most of the sources we have. That epic title, for instance, is attributable to one of those inscriptions; Waters neatly dates, translates, and contextualises the inscription, and so begins writing the Life by foregrounding how it can be written.

The first chapter begins with the well-known Cyrus Cylinder, the source, or site, of that afore-mentioned inscription. The chapter's epigraph affirms both Cyrus’ status and ancestry. Waters then fills in the historical background using ‘a broad range of documentary, archaeological, and art historical evidence’ (3). That evidence is often fragmentary and enigmatic; and so a coherent and cogent interpretation of it is not easy to come up with. Waters deploys his considerable knowledge and experience in deciphering source materials and surveying the various modern commentators. We get a sense of the most advanced methodologies and sensibilities, as Waters teases out the meanings of the sources for the ‘New Achaemenid History’ that has since the 1980s sought to ‘loosen the so-called tyranny of Greece over early Persian history’ (7). The stories of Herodotus are not strictly historical, but he was writing what would become disciplined history; there are many other indigenous sources that the historian of Persia must consider, but ‘ancient Middle Eastern studies remains a discipline with firm roots in Western academia’ (8).

Waters has been engaged in these studies for over 30 years and has written several books; this one is meant to be introductory, and intended for a general audience. This means that he has a great deal of detailed historical background to cover in a clear and efficient manner; but this he does, with the pertinent names and dates, terms and trends. The background has breadth and depth, and holds up in spite of the acknowledged fragmentary state of the sources and debated interpretations of what they tell us. Waters folds into his account of the background some telling readings of selected sources, illuminated by photographs or drawings. We hear from Herodotus or Xenophon where they can shed some light on what is attested in these other sources. Again, we can see not just what can be known but also how it may be learned.

If the first chapter sets the stage for the appearance of Cyrus, it is in the second chapter that he makes his appearance; and if in the first chapter the unreliability of the Greek literary sources sends us to the indigenous archaeological sources, here the paucity of those sources sends us back to Herodotus and Xenophon, as well as to Ctesias, the subject of one of Waters’ earlier books. As Herodotus himself might have observed, the stories about Cyrus might not be strictly accurate, but that they were in circulation is historically significant. Waters interprets the historical narratives as purposefully and persuasively as he deciphers the archaeological inscriptions; here the latter inform the former, as Waters accounts for the world of which Cyrus was the King.

Subsequent chapters take up the conquests and governance of Cyrus, his sense of history and history's sense of him. Waters sustains his narrative account of the life and times of Cyrus by maintaining its balance of literary and scientific analysis. One of Cyrus’ most significant conquests was of the kingdom of Lydia in western Anatolia, and of its king, the famously wealthy Croesus. ‘There is a rich narrative tradition in Greek sources’ about Croesus, but ‘no documentary evidence from Lydia itself … to supplement this narrative’ (72). Herodotus’ account ‘contains much of interest to the historian, but even more to the literary specialist: the account reads as more legendary than factual. That does not mean, however, that it is entirely fabricated’ (72). So, he reads Herodotus, and as the reading proceeds, we hear also of ‘Ashurbanipal's inscriptions,’ ‘archaeological finds at Ephesus and elsewhere in western Turkey’, and ‘a fragmentary passage in the Nabonidus Chronicle’ (72-4). In the end, though we can't know for sure what became of Croesus, we know that his capital city of Sardis was sacked; ‘and in this case the archaeological record, including radiocarbon analysis, corroborates the textual sources’ (77).

The organisation of the chapters holds up despite each one's arriving, at several points, at what had been discussed in a previous chapter or what will be discussed in a subsequent one. The recurring discussion of the Cyrus Cylinder, for example, adduces the factual and interpretive evidence pertinent to that chapter's narrative. The Cylinder, of course, is associated with Cyrus’ most famous conquest, that of Babylonia. It shows that the more of the world Cyrus came to rule, the more his rule took on the attributes of other kings and kingdoms. Waters maintains his focus on Cyrus by means of an extended and detailed description of the archaeological site of his capital at Pasargadae. Here his admiration of and reliance upon the work of the archaeologist David Stronach (to whom the book is dedicated) is most obvious. The contrast between this archaeological exposition and the narrative paraphrases of the more literary sources suggests that it may be of more interest to Classics teachers than learners; but those teachers could probably find ways to make use of it.