Western History 24: How did Persia impact the World?

While the Egyptian Civilization was defined in a sense by its longevity (it survived for over three thousand years), the Persians Achaemenids were the great acquirers of territory so much so that at its height the Persian Empire covered 8.5 million km².  This made the Empire the largest of the Ancient World (Yes…. it was bigger than the Empires of Alexander the Great and Rome which covered 5.2 and 5.0 million km² respectively). Over 40% of the World’s population at the time is believed to have lived under the domain of the Achaemenids.

The Achaemenid Empire was centred in the Iranian Plateau but spread throughout Asia and encompassed much of what we now know as the Middle East. Libya, Egypt, Bulgaria, Afghanistan, parts of China and Thrace-Macedonia, Pakistan. Georgia,  Armenia, Abkhazia and Azerbaijan. .It was Cyrus who defeated the Kingdoms of Media and Lydia and the Babylonian to build establish the Achaemenid legacy that would dominate the geo-political arena from 550 to 330 BCE.

Table 5 lists some of the most important Achaemenid Emperors, their period of reign and the key events of their respective eras of rule.

Emperor	Key Events of Reign
Cyrus the Great aka Cyrus II (559-530 BCE)	Established the Achaemenid after defeating the Medes, Lydia and Babylonia. Champion of Religious Freedom. Allowed the Jews to return to the Holy Land. Occupied Cyprus. Father of the First Persian Empire. Solidified Zoroastrian religion in the Empire.
Cambyses II (530-522 BCE)	Conquered Indus Valley Takok the city of Pelsium, defeated and brought Egypt into the Persian domain.
Darius I (Darius the Great) (522-486 BCE)	Linked the Nile to the Red Sea by Canal (early version of Suez Canal). Wages war against the Scythians (people from the European Steppes) Fought against the Greeks during the Ionian rebellion. Lydian city of Sardis was burnt to the ground. Persians are defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon. But Darius will go on to capture the island of Rhodes.
Xerxes I (486-465 BCE)	Destroyed Babylon. Defeated Greeks (albeit at a high cost ) at the Battle of Thermopylae but lost the key naval battle of Salamis (480 BCE). His ambition to invade mainland Greece came to an end at the Battle of Plataea (479BCE). He did however build the Gate of All Nations, the Hall of 100 Columns and the Grand Palace of Xerxes.
Artaxerxes I (465-424 BCE)	Negotiated a peace settlement with the Greeks (Peace of Callias). Ionian Greek cities gain autonomy.
Darius III (336-330 BCE)	Adversary of Alexander the Great. His defeat hastened the end of the Achaemenid collapse.

While the Persian made many contributions to Western Civilization their greatest legacy arguably lies with the religion of Zoroastrianism – one of the earliest attempts at monotheism and the dualism of good and evil as forces in nature. The Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – have all placed considerable emphasis on these notions within their respective theological philosophies.

The Achaemenid Empire would eventually fall to the sweeping force of Alexander the Great in c. 330 BC but it would resurrect itself in various forms under the later Parthian (247 BCE- 224 CE), Sassanian (224-651 CE) and Safavid (1502-1736) Empires. While none of these later Empires would aspire to the global dominance of the Achaemenid, they certainly carried much of the cultural wealth of the Achaemenids, who through their great building projects, road design, postal service and system of Satraps (governors) provided the foundation model that the Greeks, Romans, Ottoman and British would adopt in their later version of Empire.