Achaemenid Empire

State · 550–327 BCE · at its largest around 480 BCE

Cyrus the Great's Persian empire was the largest the world had yet seen, known for tolerating the customs and religions of its many peoples. Its Royal Road, postal system and palaces at Persepolis impressed the Greeks, who fought it at Marathon and Thermopylae.

Its battles, in Battle View

On its lands while it lasted

Uruk (c. 5,000 BCE – c. 700 CE): Sumerian city on the Euphrates that by about 3100 BCE was probably the largest city in the world, centre of the first urban civilization.
Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BCE – 530 BCE): Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which he expanded from Anatolia to Central Asia by conquering Media, Lydia and Babylon.
Fall of Babylon (539 BCE): Cyrus the Great's Persian army took Babylon, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire; Cyrus later allowed deported peoples, including the Judeans, to return home.
Persepolis (c. 518 BCE): Ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire begun by Darius I, famous for its columned halls and reliefs; Alexander the Great burned it in 330 BCE.
Athenian democracy (508 BCE): The reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/507 BCE created a system in which male citizens voted directly on laws, the earliest well-documented democracy.
Battle of Marathon (490 BCE): Athenians and Plataeans defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece, sent by Darius I, on the plain of Marathon.
Battle of Salamis (480 BCE): Decisive naval victory of the Greek fleet under Themistocles over the Persian fleet of Xerxes in the straits of Salamis.
Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE): A small Greek force led by King Leonidas I of Sparta held the pass of Thermopylae for three days against the army of Xerxes I before being overwhelmed.
Xerxes’ invasion of Greece (480–479 BCE): Xerxes I led a vast Persian army from Sardis across the Hellespont into Greece, won at Thermopylae and burned Athens, but was defeated at sea at Salamis (480 BCE) and on land at Plataea (479 BCE).
Socrates (c. 470 BCE – 399 BCE): Athenian philosopher who examined ethics through questioning dialogue; he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock in 399 BCE.
Parthenon (447 BCE): Temple of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, built 447–432 BCE under Pericles; the supreme monument of classical Greek architecture.
Parthenon Marbles (438 BCE): Frieze, metopes and pediment sculptures of the Parthenon, made under Phidias; about half were removed by agents of Lord Elgin in 1801–1812 and are now in the British Museum, the rest in the Acropolis Museum.
Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE): Philosopher and polymath, student of Plato and tutor of Alexander the Great, who founded the Lyceum and wrote on logic, biology, ethics and politics.
Alexander the Great (356 BCE – 323 BCE): King of Macedon who conquered the Persian Empire and reached India, spreading Greek culture across the Near East before dying in Babylon at 32.
Campaigns of Alexander the Great (334–323 BCE): Alexander of Macedon crossed into Asia in 334 BCE, defeated Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela, conquered Egypt and the Persian Empire, and campaigned as far as the Indus valley before dying in Babylon in 323 BCE.