"Cyrus the Great" is a biography of Cyrus II of Persia (c. 600-530 BC), the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian Empire. Under his rule, which lasted c. 30 years, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. From the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west ...