1. By: David Villarreal, Chris Watts, John Silveira, Matthew Tomsuden

2. Beginning of Persian Empire by Cyrus II (550 B.C.) of land by Cyrus II (550 B.C.) Empire Started with conquering of land by Cyrus II (550 B.C.) Cyrus II dies and Darius I takes control. (521 B.C.) Xesxes led Persian army into Greece(480 B.C.) later retreating after the battle of marathon(479 B.C.) Artaxerxes takes control of empire.(465 B.C.) Darius III takes over and Falls to Alexander III of Macedon (330 B.C) 600B.C 500 B.C 400 B.C 300 B.C

3. Persian Maps

5.  Since the beginning of the empire the Persians were separated into many different Indo-European tribes.  Many of the tribes were nomadic and others were settlers.  They believed that conquering the whole world they knew was common.  They were found of silver and other rare metals.  The Persians mostly lived in rural areas.

6.  The Persians controlled the Tigris River from there capital Ecbatana.  Darius’ the greats innovation in politics was dividing the empire into satrapies.  The Persians had not thought of governors or senators but just appointed military leaders.

7.  The first religion for the Persians was Zoroastrianism created by Zarathustra.  The religion is Polytheistic because they have two Gods called Ahura-Mazda &Ahriman.  Other than being polytheistic it is also an eschatological religion.  Cyrus believed that territorial conquest was justified on religious grounds.  Cyrus also introduced Zoroastrianism to many countries he conquered but didn’t force the people to follow it.

8.  In 521 BC Darius took over from his dad Cambyses who committed suicide.  When Darius was leading the empire it was at its peak spreading from modern day Iran to Egypt to Northern Greece.  To keep balance in the government Darius put it into 20 providences called satrapies. After that he tried to invade the mainland of Greece and failed.  Then the empire started to decrease in size because of invaders.

9.  When Darius was the leader of Persia he conquered so many countries that when he ruled the Persian empire was at its peak.  We still use the strapies but now a days we call them states and we have Senators/ Governors not military leaders.

10.  The Persian wars made Sparta and Athens drift even farther apart Athens grew a lot more powerful making Sparta jealous, eventually making the Peloponnesian wars. The government fell, trade stopped city-states still fought each other culture still creative but there cities destroyed.

11.  Bc, By 486. "The Persians." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 6 June 1999. Richard Hooker. 22 Sept. 2010.  "Index of /news/04/dec." Payvand, Iran News, Directory and Bazar. 22 Sept. 2010.  "Robert W. Brown: Home Page." The University of North Carolina at Pembroke. 22 Sept. 2010.  "Zoroastrianism: holy text, beliefs and practices." ReligiousTolerance.org by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 22 Sept. 2010.  "Persian Empire (historical empire from about 550 BC-640 AD) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 22 Sept. 2010.