The Persian empire

Kingdom based on Iran from 559 BC until 651 AD.

During the 1200 years of its existence the ancient Persian empire was a powerful rival of all major political forces around the Mediterranean Sea. It was established by Cyrus II, known for that reason as Cyrus the Great, and ended when it was overrun by the expanding Muslim empires.

The Persian empire falls into four distinct periods:

• The Achaemenid period (559 - 330 BC) was characterized by a society structured into four classes (priests, warriors, peasants and merchants). The empire was based on Cyrus' conquests of Lybia, the Greek city states around the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Babylon. It absorbed many of the cultural and scientific achievements of the conquered empires but maintained its own religion of Zoroastrianism. The education system was based on strict adherence to religious doctrine and emphasized responsibility to the family and community, acceptance of imperial authority and military discipline.
• The Hellenistic period (330 - 224 BC) began with the invasion by Alexander the Great, who introduced Hellenism into the country and replaced the Achaemenid education system by Hellenistic instruction.
• The Parthian empire (247 BC - 224 AD) was established by seminomadic invaders from the Caspian Sea region. Lacking a developed civilization themselves, they continued the Hellenistic tradition.
• The Sasanian empire (224 - 651) marked a determined return to classical Persian values. Achaemenid culture and Zoroastrian values were strongly promoted in the "neo-Persian empire" of the Sasanian kings, and the empire developed again its own distinct type of Middle Eastern civilization. The teachings of Zoroastrianism were refined, extolling the value of labour (particularly agriculture), family and marriage, the law, and intellectualism. Its intellectual centre Gondeshapur played an important role in the history of science and civilization during the period between the end of the Greek institutions and the development of Islam's centres of study.

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