Persia history

The Achaemenid Empire (/əˈkiːmənɪd/; Old Persian: 𐎧𐏁𐏂, romanized: Xšāça, lit. 'The Empire'),

also called the First Persian Empire,[16] was an ancient Iranian empire that was based
in Western Asia and founded by the king Cyrus the Great. The empire reached its greatest extent
under king Xerxes I, who conquered most of Northern and Central Greece, including Athens, in
480 BC. At its greatest extent, the empire stretched from the Balkans and Eastern Europe to
the Indus Valley in the east. The empire was larger than any previous empire in history, spanning
a total of 5.5 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles).[12][13]
The empire has its beginnings in the 7th century BC, when the Persians settled in the south-
western portion of the Iranian Plateau, in the region of Persis.[17] From this region, the former king
Cyrus the Great went on to defeat the Medes, Lydia, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire and
established the Achaemenid Empire.
The Achaemenid Empire is known for imposing a successful model of centralized, bureaucratic
administration via the use of satraps; its multicultural policy; building infrastructure, such as road
systems and a postal system; the use of an official language across its territories; and the
development of civil services including its possession of a large, professional army. The empire's
successes inspired the usage of similar systems in later empires.[18]
Alexander the Great, an ardent admirer of Cyrus the Great,[19] conquered most of the empire by
330 BC.[20] Upon Alexander's death, most of the former territory of the empire fell to the rule of
the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Iranian elites of the central plateau reclaimed
power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire.[17]