Let's start with the Persian empire, which became the model for pretty much all land-based empires throughout the world. Except for -- wait for it -- the Mongols.
Much of what we know about the Persians and their empire comes from an outsider writing about them, which is something we now call history, and one of the first true historians was Herodotus, whose famous book The Persian Wars talks about the Persians quite a bit.
Now the fact that Herodotus was a Greek is important because it introduces us to the idea of historical bias.
But more on that in a second. So the Persian Achaemenid dynasty… Achaemenid? Hold on… AkEEmenid or AkEHmenid. They're both right? I was right twice!?
Right, so the Persian AkEEmenid or AkEHmenid dynasty was founded in 539 BCE by King Cyrus the Great.
Cyrus took his nomadic warriors and conquered most of Mesopotamia, including the Babylonians, which ended a sad period in Jewish history called The Babylonian Exile, thus ensuring that Cyrus got great press in the Bible.
But his son, Darius the First, was even greater, he extended Persian control east to our old friend the Indus Valley, west to our new friend Egypt, and north to Crash Course newcomer Anatolia.
By the way, there were Greeks in Anatolia called Ionian Greeks who will become relevant shortly.
So even if you weren't Persian, the Persian Empire was pretty dreamy.
For one thing, the Persians ruled with a light touch, like, conquered kingdoms were allowed to keep their kings and their elites as long as they pledged allegiance to the Persian King and paid taxes, which is why the Persian king was known as The King of Kings.
