the Foundation of the Persian Empire

Information on the Persians from "The Cambridge Ancient History" Vol. IV

*The Persians succeeded Assyria as the great political power
- Persia 'casts her shadow over the lands and water of the eastern Mediterranean"
- 3 powers strive for supremacy in the western Mediterranean: Etruscan, Carthaginian, & the Greeks

*Persian Empire created in less then a generation by a series of conquests "With a rapidity scarcely equaled except by Alexander, and by the Arabs in the first generation after the death of Mohammed"
- defeat of Astyages the Med in 549 B.C.
- defeat of Croesus the Lydian in 546
- capture of Babylon in 538
- conquest of Egypt in 525

*These conquests gave the Persians "an extent exceeding that ever obtained by the greatest of the monarchs of the Mesopotamia or the Nile Valley, and (...) that of any earlier empire west of China"

*confirmed and rounded off by Darius, and maintained by the same family that created it for two centuries undivided and unbroken (unlike Alexander's dominions which were separated from his family and divided immediately after his death and several changes during the first century and a half of the Islamic dynasty)

*Persians all but unknown until with Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius they suddenly became the centre of world-history

*Cyrus was the first king to bring the Persian tribes under one sceptre

*as far as we know, Cyrus was the fourth (or longer) king in his family to be called King of Anshan and he was not called King of Persia until after his conquests

*Susa was a capital of the kings of Anshan from Teispes to Cyrus & continued to be the capital of the Persian empire under Cyrus, who also maintained Expectant as a summer residence