Kūruš the Great rose around 559 BCE from a minor vassal kingdom in Persis to overthrow his Median overlord Astyages, then within twenty years built the largest empire the world had yet seen — stretching from the Aegean to the Indus, encompassing some 50 million people and most of the literate ancient world. Lydia fell in 547, taking King Croesus and his legendary gold; Babylon fell in 539 with hardly a fight, and Cyrus marched through the Ishtar Gate by torchlight. The Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed in cuneiform, declares his policy: he restored the gods to their original temples, rebuilt cities his predecessors had destroyed, and freed the Jewish exiles to return home and rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. The book of Isaiah names him 'God's anointed.' He died around 530 BCE on campaign in Central Asia and was buried in a small but exquisitely simple stone tomb at Pasargadae that still stands. The empire he founded outlasted him by two centuries until Alexander.
All Figures
Achaemenid King · Founder of the Persian Empire
Cyrus the Great
c. 600 BCE – 530 BCE
The Achaemenid king who built the first multinational empire — and ruled it through tolerance.
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Epoch Episode · ~48s
Epoch Episode · 6 scenes · ~48sEpoch+
