The Persian Empire

Between 612 and 615 BC, the mighty Assyrian Empire, long past its day of glory, was dissolved by the forces of an unknown King of the Medes. But the Medians were not as strong and ruthless as the Assyrians were to become so powerful. Less than a century later, an ambitious prince, Cyrus (Kuruš) by name, cast the crown of the Medes to the ground and proceeded to take the land of the Tigris and Euphrates by force. He called his kingdom Pārsā ("above reproach", according to Wikipedia), or Persis to Hellenic ears. The kings that came after him carried on his great legacy a hundred fold, stretching the Persian Empire [below] from Egypt and Thrace all the way to India at the time of the reign of Darius I (Dārayawuš) the Great [above, right]. These Persians were certainly not as cruelly heavy-handed as the Assyrians were, but they had a healthy love of war and an intense enjoyment for enjoying its spoils. No Persian King could resist the feeling of a once-great nation groveling at his feet.

And so the Persians conquered. The first to fall to the Achaemenid Dynasty were the realms of the Middle East, then Egypt, near India, Arabia, Asia Minor, and Thrace. It seemed that no one could stop their rampage. Under Emperor Xerxes I (Khashâyârshâh), son of Darius I, everyone expected the tiny Greek states to fall like all the others. Indeed, they started to crumble until the Battle of Salamis, where the Persian armies lost any overseas contact with their homeland, and were forced to retreat back to Persia.