biography
| name: |
Cyrus II
|
| |
known as the Great
|
pronunciation:
[siyrus]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (?–529 BC)
|
| biography:
| The founder of the Achaemenid Persian empire, the son of Cambyses I. He defeated the Medes (549 BC), became King of Persia (548 BC), and took Lydia (c.546 BC) and Babylon (539 BC). His empire eventually ran from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. He had a policy of religious conciliation: the nations which had been carried into captivity in Babylon along with the Jews were restored to their native countries, and allowed to take their gods with them. |
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