[8] The Achaemenid Empire's largest territorial extent was achieved under Darius the Great, whose rule stretched from Southeast Europe in the west to the Indus River valley in the east.

He also led an expedition into Central Asia, which resulted in major military campaigns that were described as having brought "into subjection every nation without exception";[9] Cyrus allegedly died in battle with the Massagetae, a nomadic Eastern Iranian tribal confederation, along the Syr Darya in December 530 BC.

[8][13] Following the Persian conquest of Babylon, Cyrus issued the Edict of Restoration, in which he authorized and encouraged the return of the Jewish people to what had been the Kingdom of Judah, officially ending the Babylonian captivity.

The Achaemenid Empire's prestige in the ancient world would eventually extend as far west as Athens, where upper-class Greeks adopted aspects of the culture of the ruling Persian class as their own.

[30][31] [d] The Persian domination and kingdom in the Iranian plateau started as an extension of the Achaemenid dynasty, who expanded their earlier dominion possibly from the 9th century BC onward.

[50] However, Astyages summoned the son of Harpagus, and in retribution, chopped him to pieces, roasted some portions while boiling others, and tricked his adviser into eating his child during a large banquet.

[60] According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great spared Croesus's life and kept him as an advisor, but this account conflicts with some translations of the contemporary Nabonidus Chronicle which interpret that the king of Lydia was slain.

In addition to Babylonia, Cyrus probably incorporated its sub-national entities into his Empire, including Syria, Judea, and Arabia Petraea, although there is no direct evidence to support this assumption.

Although some have asserted that the cylinder represents a form of human rights charter, historians generally portray it in the context of a long-standing Mesopotamian tradition of new rulers beginning their reigns with declarations of reforms.

Ctesias, in his Persica, has the longest account, which says Cyrus met his death while putting down resistance from the Derbices infantry, aided by other Scythian archers and cavalry, plus Indians and their war-elephants.

[81] The account of Herodotus from his Histories provides the second-longest detail, in which Cyrus met his fate in a fierce battle with the Massagetae, a Scythian tribal confederation from the southern deserts of Khwarezm and Kyzyl Kum in the southernmost portion of the Eurasian Steppe regions of modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, following the advice of Croesus to attack them in their own territory.

[citation needed] He then commenced his attempt to take Massagetae territory by force (c. 529 BC),[84] beginning by building bridges and towered war boats along his side of the river Oxus, or Amu Darya, which separated them.

He accepted her offer, but, learning that the Massagetae were unfamiliar with wine and its intoxicating effects, he set up and then left camp with plenty of it behind, taking his best soldiers with him and leaving the least capable ones.

[citation needed] The general of Tomyris's army, Spargapises, who was also her son, and a third of the Massagetian troops, killed the group Cyrus had left there and, finding the camp well stocked with food and the wine, unwittingly drank themselves into inebriation, diminishing their capability to defend themselves when they were then overtaken by a surprise attack.

When it was over, Tomyris ordered the body of Cyrus brought to her, then decapitated him and dipped his head in a vessel of blood in a symbolic gesture of revenge for his bloodlust and the death of her son.

[92] Though the city itself is now in ruins, the burial place of Cyrus the Great has remained largely intact, and the tomb has been partially restored to counter its natural deterioration over the centuries.

[96] Translated Greek accounts describe the tomb as having been placed in the fertile Pasargadae gardens, surrounded by trees and ornamental shrubs, with a group of Achaemenian protectors called the "Magi", stationed nearby to protect the edifice from theft or damage.

[96] On some accounts, Alexander's decision to put the Magi on trial was more about his attempt to undermine their influence and his show of power in his newly conquered empire, than a concern for Cyrus's tomb.

[91] British historian Charles Freeman suggests that "In scope and extent his achievements [Cyrus] ranked far above that of the Macedonian king, Alexander, who was to demolish the [Achaemenid] empire in the 320s but fail to provide any stable alternative.

[citation needed] The rise of Persia under Cyrus's rule had a profound impact on the course of world history, including in forms of Iranian philosophy, literature and religion.

Many of the thinkers and rulers of Classical Antiquity as well as the Renaissance and Enlightenment era,[111] and the forefathers of the United States of America sought inspiration from Cyrus the Great through works such as Cyropaedia.

"[115] Frye writes, "He became the epitome of the great qualities expected of a ruler in antiquity, and he assumed heroic features as a conqueror who was tolerant and magnanimous as well as brave and daring.

[118][119] Against the thesis is how Cyrus treated local polytheistic cults, acknowledging their gods and providing funding for the establishment of their temples and other holy sites, as well as a possible late-date for the activity of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, who founded Zoroastrianism.

[133] Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, relates the traditional view of the Jews regarding the prediction of Cyrus in Isaiah in his Antiquities of the Jews, book 11, chapter 1:[134] In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity.

She also wrote that "appeals to Marduk in the cylinder and to Yahweh in the biblical decree demonstrate the Persian tendency to co-opt local religious and political traditions in the interest of imperial control.

[143] Cyrus's conquests began a new era in the age of empire building, where a vast superstate, comprising many dozens of countries, races, religions, and languages, were ruled under a single administration headed by a central government.

[150] In the 1970s, the Shah of Iran adopted the Cyrus cylinder as a political symbol, using it "as a central image in his celebration of 2500 years of Iranian monarchy",[151] and asserting that it was "the first human rights charter in history".

[156] The British Museum describes the cylinder as "an instrument of ancient Mesopotamian propaganda" that "reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC, kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms.

"[159] The use of the name Kuruş as a currency denomination for coinage goes back to the 6th century BC, dating to the time of the Croeseid, the world's first gold coin, originally minted by King Croesus of Lydia.

The Croeseid was later continued to be minted and spread in a wide geographical area by Cyrus the Great (Old Persian: 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 Kūruš), the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, who defeated King Croesus and conquered Lydia with the Battle of Thymbra in 547 BC.