Protectors of Persia

I wanted to ask you something. Which is... what's your name?
This article title is conjecture. Although the article subject is canon, no official name for it has been given.

"We were protectors, Amorges. We were champions of Persia. Of the people!"

―Darius to Amorges^[src]^-[m]

A secret group whose express goal was to protect Persia and its people from tyranny waged a covert war against the Order of the Ancients over their puppetry of the Achaemenid Empire.

Led by Artabanus, they assassinated Xerxes I of Persia in 465 BCE for his association with the Order, but the organization splintered over Artabanus' insistence on preemptively assassinating Xerxes' successor Artaxerxes I as well. His closest comrade Amorges and a number of other members defected to the Order and protected Artaxerxes, subsequently conducting an extermination campaign against Darius's family and associates.

History

Amorges: "...There will always be more tyrants."

Darius: "And there will always be us to stop them."

—Amorges and Darius, 465 BCE^[src]

In August 465 BCE, Artabanus, Amorges, and Pactyas ambushed King Xerxes I and his entourage as they were travelling. While the group distracted and eliminated the king's guards, Artabanus himself, disguised as one of the guards, assassinated the king using a weapon of his own creation: the Hidden Blade.^[1] This would become the first recorded use of the Hidden Blade, centuries before the blade became the signature weapon of the Assassin Brotherhood.^[2]

After Xerxes' death, Artabanus sought to prevent the Order of the Ancients from exerting their influence on the king's son and successor, the young Artaxerxes I, and planned to kill the new king before he could be manipulated. However, he faced opposition from Amorges, who instead persuaded the rest of the group to join forces with the Order and use their combined resources to create a better future for Persia. The group completely disbanded when Amorges turned on Artabanus during the latter's attempt on Artaxerxes' life, which forced Artabanus and his family into exile.^[3]

Amorges and the Order subsequently spent the next few decades hunting down Artabanus and his family, though Artabanus, who had taken up the alias "Darius", and his son Natakas constantly managed to avoid them.^[4] During this time, just like Darius had anticipated, the Order attempted to sway the young king Artaxerxes like they had done with his father. After they were unsuccessful, they made a failed attempt on his life using poison that left the king blind and on the run,^[5] and framed Darius for the plot.^[6]

The later Assassin Brotherhood, still remembering Darius' deeds thousands of years later, posthumously honored him as one of the earliest members of their organization. He was memorialized alongside six other figures at the Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni, a headquarters of the Italian Brotherhood, and a secret tomb was erected for him within the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella.^[2]

Behind the scenes

"It's time I told you the truth about Artabanus, Protector of Persia."

―Darius explaining his past to Kassandra^[src]^-[m]

Darius' organization was originally referred to as the Persian Brotherhood, a branch of the Assassin Brotherhood, in the first edition of Assassin's Creed: The Essential Guide. Following the retroactive continuity introduced in Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017) that shifted the founding of the Assassins from prehistory to 47 BCE, all references to Darius and his group were expunged from the second edition of The Essential Guide.

Darius features as a major supporting character in the Legacy of the First Blade DLC expansion to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018), with his group's story being told via flashbacks and the conflict with the Order of the Ancients. Although this conflict parallels the one fought between the Assassins and Templars, his group is never referred to as the Persian Brotherhood in the game nor does it show what connection it has with the Assassins.

The organization is furthermore never expressly identified by a name at all. When recounting his assassination of Xerxes, Darius refers to himself as "Protector of Persia" although it is unclear if this is an epithet uniquely held by him or if it was commonly held by members of his group. Nonetheless, he goes on to repeatedly describe his organization as having been "protectors" throughout the rest of the story. For this reason, the name Protectors of Persia has been chosen as the placeholder title of this article on the group.