The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire,[16] also known as the Persian Empire[16] or First Persian Empire[17] (/əˈkiːmənɪd/; Old Persian: 𐎧𐏁𐏂, Xšāça, lit. 'The Empire'[18] or 'The Kingdom'[19]), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the largest empire by that point in history, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles). The empire spanned from the Balkans and Egypt in the west, West Asia as the base, the majority of Central Asia to the northeast, and the Indus Valley to the southeast.[12][13]
Around the 7th century BC, the region of Persis in the southwestern portion of the Iranian plateau was settled by the Persians.[20] From Persis, Cyrus rose and defeated the Median Empire as well as Lydia and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, marking the formal establishment of a new imperial polity under the Achaemenid dynasty.
In the modern era, the Achaemenid Empire has been recognized for its imposition of a successful model of centralized bureaucratic administration, its multicultural policy, building complex infrastructure such as road systems and an organized postal system, the use of official languages across its territories, and the development of civil services, including its possession of a large, professional army. Its advancements inspired the implementation of similar styles of governance by a variety of later empires.[21]
By 330 BC, the Achaemenid Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great, an ardent admirer of Cyrus; the conquest marked a key achievement in the then-ongoing campaign of his Macedonian Empire.[22][23] Alexander's death marks the beginning of the Hellenistic period, when most of the fallen Achaemenid Empire's territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire, both of which had emerged as successors to the Macedonian Empire following the Partition of Triparadisus in 321 BC. Hellenistic rule remained in place for almost a century before the Iranian elites of the central plateau reclaimed power under the Parthian Empire.[20]
The Achaemenid Empire borrows its name from the ancestor of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the empire, Achaemenes. The term Achaemenid means "of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes" (Old Persian: 𐏃𐎧𐎠𐎶𐎴𐎡𐏁, romanized: Haxāmaniš;[24] a bahuvrihi compound translating to "having a friend's mind").[25] Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria.[26]
Around 850 BC the original nomadic people who began the empire called themselves the Parsa and their constantly shifting territory Parsua, for the most part localized around Persis.[20] The name "Persia" is a Greek and Latin pronunciation of the native word referring to the country of the people originating from Persis (Old Persian: 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿, romanized: Pārsa).[26] The Persian term 𐎧𐏁𐏂 Xšāça, literally meaning "The Kingdom",[19] was used to refer to the Empire formed by their multinational state.[27]
The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here. ... : the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished; they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder—the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, Sagarti, being nomadic.
The Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Persians were Iranian people who arrived in what is today Iran c. 1000 BC and settled a region including north-western Iran, the Zagros Mountains and Persis alongside the native Elamites.[28] The Persians were originally nomadic pastoralists in the western Iranian Plateau. The Achaemenid Empire may not have been the first Iranian empire, as the Medes, another group of Iranian people, possibly established a short-lived empire when they played a major role in overthrowing the Assyrians.[29]
The Achaemenids were initially rulers of the Elamite city of Anshan near the modern city of Marvdasht;[30] the title "King of Anshan" was an adaptation of the earlier Elamite title "King of Susa and Anshan".[31] There are conflicting accounts of the identities of the earliest Kings of Anshan. According to the Cyrus Cylinder (the oldest extant genealogy of the Achaemenids) the kings of Anshan were Teispes, Cyrus I, Cambyses I and Cyrus II, also known as Cyrus the Great, who founded the empire.[30] The later Behistun Inscription, written by Darius the Great, claims that Teispes was the son of Achaemenes and that Darius is also descended from Teispes through a different line, but no earlier texts mention Achaemenes.[32] In Herodotus' Histories, he writes that Cyrus the Great was the son of Cambyses I and Mandane of Media, the daughter of Astyages, the king of the Median Empire.[33]
.svg/1280px-Achaemenid_Empire_under_different_kings_(flat_map).svg.png){kind=link}