Cyrus the Great
A Persian king conquers the largest empire yet and advertises tolerance while doing it.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 20 years
- Known to
- ± 5 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
Cyrus takes Media in 550 BCE, Lydia in 546 and Babylon in 539, assembling an empire from the Aegean to the Indus. His method differs from Assyria's: local elites, laws and religions are largely left in place, and he presents himself to each people in their own idiom — as chosen by Marduk in Babylon, and in the Hebrew Bible as the anointed of the Lord for permitting the exiles to return and rebuild the temple.