Culture Post #4 The Persian Empire

[Maria Eugenia Riande]

The Persian empire was created by Cyrus the great who was born around 558BC and died around 529 BC. He rapidly became the the ruler of most of Asia Minor ( defeated Lydia,Pterya, including a few cities on the Turkish coast). As a ruler he allowed new cities to be autonomous and keep their independence by paying taxes. This independence allowed these cities to keep their religion.In 539 BC they persians conquered the city of Babylon, at this point the Babylonian empire included both Syria and Phoenicia which were now part of the Persian empire. In 525 BC they Cambyses II conquered Egypt and he was then replaced by Darius in 522BC. Darius had to deal with rebellions within the empire and then began to fought wars in Greece. He was able to manage the revolt of the Greek cities from the coast of Turkey and to punish the Greek on assisting the revolt he decided to invade Greece. The invasion of Greece was called the battle of Marathon and the Persians were defeated by the Greek. Ten years later in 480BC Xerxes decides to invade Greece as well but this time they defeated the Greek and burned the Acropolis. But they were defeated in 479 BC by the greek in the battle of Plataea. Xerxes was killed in 465 BC and from there the empire declined. Then in 331 BC the persian empire was finally destroyed by Alexander the Great.