The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period Vol.1

The Persian Empire, as discussed in my book *The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period Vol. 1*, refers primarily to the vast realm ruled by the Achaemenid dynasty between the mid-6th century BCE and the conquest by Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BCE.

It began with Cyrus II (Cyrus the Great), who overthrew the Median kingdom around 550 BCE and went on to conquer Lydia and Babylon, establishing an empire that stretched from the Aegean Sea in the west to the borders of India in the east. His successors—Cambyses II, Darius I, Xerxes I, and others—continued to expand and consolidate the realm.

The empire was notable for its administrative innovations:
- Division into satrapies (provinces), each overseen by a satrap.
- Use of Aramaic as an official language for imperial administration.
- Policies of respecting local customs and religions, which helped maintain stability across a culturally diverse region.

Sources that inform us about the Persian Empire include royal inscriptions (like those of Darius I at Behistun), administrative texts from Persepolis, Greek historical writings, and later Babylonian chronicles. These allow us to reconstruct both imperial ideology and its practical workings.

Would you like me to give you details of Cyrus the Great’s rise according to these sources?