alright, i'm done. It umm....turned out to be really long, so i cut it down some. Its still fairly long, but i checked and its approximately the same length as the Roman entry
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The term Persia has been used for centuries, chiefly in the West, to designate a region of southern Iran formerly known as Persis or Parsa; the name of the Indo-European nomadic ‘Aryan’ people who migrated into the region about 1000 BC, eventually supplanting the Assyrians and Chaldeans. The Persian Empire, in its peak, stretched from India to Egypt and the Greek mainland. The first mention of the Parsa occurs in the annals of Shalmanesar III, an Assyrian king, in 844 BC. Cyrus II (559-529 BC), also known as Cyrus the Great, was heir to a long line of ruling kings in Persia and was the founder of the Persian Empire; he was called the father of his people by the ancient Persians. In 550 BC, Cyrus, the Prince of Persia, revolted against his maternal grandfather, the Median king Astyages, and welded the Persians and Medes together into one powerful force. Cyrus consolidated his rule on the Iranian Plateau and then extended it westward across Asia Minor. In October 539 BC, Babylon, the greatest city of the ancient world, fell to his Persian forces. Cyrus also oversaw the construction of a series of great roads to link together the territories that he had conquered. Although Cyrus was a great military conqueror, he was also a fair ruler; he allowed and funded the Jews’ return from Babylon to their homeland in Palestine. Upon his invasion of Babylon, he had his decrees written on a clay cylinder known as the cylinder of Cyrus. This cylinder is considered the first universal declaration of human rights in history. His dynasty, known as the Achaemenids, ruled Persia for two centuries.
Following the death of Cyrus' heir, who added Egypt to the empire, Darius I (522-486 BC), a leading general and one of the princes of the Achaemenid family, proclaimed himself king following the suppression of a number of provincial rebellions and challenges from other pretenders to the throne. Darius was in the mold of Cyrus the Great - a powerful personality and a dynamic ruler. To consolidate his accession, Darius I founded his new capital of Parsa, known to the Greeks as Persepolis ("Persian City") and expanded the ranks of his personal bodyguard, the Immortals. The elite force consisted of exactly ten thousand men and drew its name from the fact that no matter how many men were lost, the Persian Emperor would always pay the cost to restore the Immortals back to their original strength. Although Darius consolidated and added to the conquests of his predecessors, it was as an administrator that he made his greatest contribution to Persian history. During his reign, political and legal reforms revitalized the provinces and ambitious projects were undertaken to promote imperial trade and commerce; coinage, weights and measures were standardized and new land and sea routes, including the earliest Suez Canal, explored and established.
Such activities, however, did not prevent Darius from following an active expansionist policy. Campaigns in the east confirmed gains made by Cyrus the Great and added large sections of the northern Indian subcontinent to the list of Persian-controlled provinces. In 502 BC, Persian-controlled Ionian provinces in Asia Minor started to revolt supported by the Greek city states. Darius moved against the city states and defeated the revolution (afterwards allowing democratic government in the states). He then invaded mainland Greece in 492 BC. Thrace, Macedonia and Eretria were taken, but the Persian army was defeated at the Battle of Marathon and retreated back to Asia. Xerxes (486-465 BC), son and successor of Darius I, was determined to continue the Persian conquest of the west and is best known for his massive invasion of Greece from across the Hellespont in 480 BC, a campaign marked by the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. Although successful in the pacification of Egypt and suppression of a Babylon revolt, his defeat by the allied Greek city-states spelled the beginning of the decline of the Achaemenian Empire. In Xerxes' last years, he squandered the once-enormous treasury he had gathered through trade and taxation by launching vast construction programs, most never finished.
Persia’s revenge on Greece was ultimately somewhat successful. Persia supported the Greek infighting of the Peloponnesian Wars. These wars saw the decline of the Greek city-states, who never regained their former glory. this is optional but i thought it should be in there
The death of Xerxes was the final turning point in Achaemenian influence. Occasional flashes of vigor and ability by some of Xerxes' successors were too infrequent to prevent eventual collapse. The final act was played out during the reign of Darius III (336-330 BC), who was defeated at the Battle of Granicus (334 BC) by Alexander of Macedon, who in April 330 BC burned down Persepolis in a drunken rage. Darius, the last Achaemenian, was murdered by his own officers in the summer of the same year while fleeing the Greek forces. In the struggle for power after Alexander's death, Seleucus I brought under his control the Persian provinces of Alexander's empire. But this unity was short-lived, as the Parthians, another Iranian tribe, retook the empire. The Romans and Parthians struggled against one another for centuries over control of Mesopotamia, with the Parthians usually holding onto most of the Fertile Crescent. The Parthians introduced a new tactic by combining archers and cavalry, hence ‘The Parthian Shot’. They used this to defeat Krassus of the Roman Triumvirate at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. But in 224 AD the Parthians, who had grown weak, were overthrown by a new Sassanid dynasty that revived many of the customs of the Achaemenids, such as the Zoroastrian religion. The Sassanids fought a series of debilitating wars with the Byzantine Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries, even taking the Roman Emperor Valerian prisoner. These wars, however, weakened the Persian Empire when the Arabs exploded onto the scene. In a series of decisive battles between 633 and 642, the Arabs conquered and destroyed the Persian Empire. After several hundred years of Arab rule, Persia was restored to Persian rule in 1501 with the Safavid Dynasty. During the ensuing centuries, Persia was invaded by the Mongols, Russians and Timurids, yet managed to keep its unique culture and language, and made significant contributions to the arts and sciences. In 1935 Reza Khan Pahlavi, the Shah of Persia, formally requested that the international community call the country by its native name, 'Iran', which means ‘Land of the Aryans’.
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Note that when i use the word 'Aryan' I am not in any way referring to anything having to do with the 'Aryan Race' or 'White Power' people. I am talking about the people who are historically referred to as the aryans, and who speak the Indo-Aryan group of languages.
let me know what you think, and keep in mind i had to cut back A LOT, lol. in my opinion this is more concise and goes to the actual "end" of Persia.
