Cyrus the Great

Examples of Cyrus the Great in the following topics:

• The Achaemenid Empire

  • Under Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great, the Achaemenid Empire became the first global empire.
  • The Achaemenid Empire, c. 550-330 BCE, or First Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great, in Western and Central Asia.
  • Around 550 BCE, Cyrus II of Persia, who became known as Cyrus the Great, rose in rebellion against the Median Empire, eventually conquering the Medes to create the first Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire.
  • The unified form of the empire came in the form of a central administration around the city of Pasargadae, which was erected by Cyrus c. 550 BCE.
  • Cyrus II of Persia, better known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire.

• Art of the Persian Empire

  • The Achaemenids (550–330 BCE) established the first Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great, who quickly expanded the empire's borders.
  • The style of the animals originated with the Scythians, who inhabited the Steppes of Russia.
  • A large bas relief representing Cyrus the Great as a four-winged guardian figure proclaims his rank and ethnicity as an Achaemenidian in three languages.
  • Cyrus is believed to have died in December 530 BCE and was interred in a tomb that further demonstrates the syncretism of Persian art.
  • This stylized relief of Cyrus borrows from the Egyptian style of depicting the human body and proclaims the king's ethnicity and rank in three languages.

• Government and Trade in the Achaemenid Empire

  • The Achaemenid Empire reached enormous size under the leadership of Cyrus II of Persia (576-530 BCE), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, who created a multi-state empire.
  • Cyrus the Great was recognized for achievements in human rights and politics, having influenced both Eastern and Western Civilization.
  • The inscription begins by tracing the ancestry of Darius, followed by a description of a sequence of events following the deaths of the previous two Achaemenid emperors, Cyrus the Great and Cyrus’s son, Cambyses II, in which Darius fought 19 battles in one year to put down numerous rebellions throughout the Persian lands.
  • Cyrus the Great created an organized army to enforce national authority, despite the ethno-cultural diversity among the subject nations, the empire's enormous geographic size, and the constant struggle for power by regional competitors.
  • Darius the Great moved the capital of the Achaemenid Empire to Persepolis c. 522 BCE.

• Defeat of Persia by Alexander the Great

  • Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BCE to form the largest empire in the ancient world.
  • The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered Ionia in 547 BCE.
  • Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) was a king of the Greek kingdom of Macedon.
  • From Persepolis, Alexander headed north to Pasargadae where he visited the tomb of Cyrus the Great.
  • Explain Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persiand and the dissolution of the Achaemenid Empire thereafter

• The Phoenicians

  • All major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean.
  • The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme oared ship.
  • The league of independent city-state ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, was ideally suited for trade between the Levant area (which was rich in natural resources) and the rest of the ancient world.
  • Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Phoenicia in 539 BCE.
  • Alexander the Great took Tyre in 332 BCE after the Siege of Tyre, and kept the existing king in power.

• Zoroastrianism

  • The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, which includes the writings of Zoroaster, known as the Gathas and the Yasna.
  • The Gathas are enigmatic poems that define the religion's precepts, while the Yasna is the scripture.
  • The Histories is a primary source of information on the early period of the Achaemenid era (648-330 BCE), in particular with respect to the role of the Magi.
  • According to Herodotus i.101, the Magi were the sixth tribe of the Medians (until the unification of the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great, all Iranians were referred to as "Mede" or "Mada" by the peoples of the Ancient World).
  • The religion would be professed many centuries following the demise of the Achaemenids in mainland Persia and the core regions of the former Achaemenid Empire— most notably Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus.

• American Technology

  • Though the United States borrowed significantly from Europe's technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution, several great American inventions emerged at the turn of the 19th century greatly impacting manufacturing, communications, transportation, and commercial agriculture.
  • Evans' system for handling bulk material became widely used in flour mills and breweries during the 19th century and is among the innovations credited with the development of the assembly line.
  • In 1793, Eli Whitney created the first modern mechanical cotton gin, revolutionizing cotton production in the South .
  • In the early 1830s, Cyrus McCormick's horse-drawn mechanical reaper allowed farmers in the West to harvest great quantities of wheat, leading for the first time to great crop surpluses.
  • With the proliferation of new canal routes in the 1820s and 1830s, steamboat technology was crucial to domestic freight shipments in the United States.

• The Industrial Revolution

  • The Industrial Revolution began in the United Kingdom, and mechanized textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early nineteenth century.
  • Though the United States borrowed significantly from Europe's technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution, several great American inventions emerged at the turn of the nineteenth century that greatly affected manufacturing, communications, transportation, and commercial agriculture.
  • In the early 1830s, Cyrus McCormick's horse-drawn mechanical reaper allowed farmers in the West to harvest great quantities of wheat, leading to great crop surpluses.
  • The great number of rivers and streams along the Atlantic seaboard provided optimal sites for mills and the infrastructure required for early industrialization.
  • The transition away from an agricultural-based economy toward machine-based manufacturing led to a great influx of population from the countryside, causing towns and cities to swell in population.

• The Persian Wars

  • The Persian Wars led to the rise of Athens as the head of the Delian League.
  • In 553 through 550 BCE, the Persian prince Cyrus led a successful revolt against the last Median king Astyages and founded the Achaemenid Empire.
  • According to Herodotus, he received the ambiguous answer that “if Croesus was to cross the Halys [River] he would destroy a great empire”.
  • Croesus chose to attack, and in the process he destroyed his own empire, with Lydia falling to Prince Cyrus.
  • Specifically, the riot was incited by the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras, who in the wake of a failed expedition to conquer Naxos, utilized Greek unrest against Persian king Darius the Great to his own political purposes.

• The Market Revolution

  • The Market Revolution of the nineteenth century radically shifted commerce as well as the way of life for most Americans.
  • The Market Revolution (1793–1909) in the United States was a drastic change in the manual-labor system originating in the South (and soon moving to the North) and later spreading to the entire world.
  • The dramatic changes in labor and production at this time included a great increase in wage labor.
  • The agricultural explosion in the South and West and the textile boom in the North strengthened the economy in complementary ways.
  • In the 1830s, Cyrus McCormick's mechanical mower-reaper quintupled the efficiency of wheat farming.