Persian Achaemenid Empire

Cyrus the Great (r. 559–530 BC) of the small kingdom of Anshan defeated the Medes in 550, the Lydians in 547, and Babylon in 539, creating an empire that stretched from the Aegean to the Indus. In 538 BC he issued the decree recorded in Ezra 1 (and on the Cyrus Cylinder now in the British Museum), allowing exiled peoples to return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. Isaiah had named him by name 150 years earlier (Isa 44:28; 45:1). The empire was organised into twenty-odd satrapies linked by the Royal Road and a postal relay system Herodotus admired. Darius I (522–486) reformed the administration and finished the second Temple in 516. His son Xerxes (485–465) — the Ahasuerus of Esther — failed to conquer Greece at Salamis in 480. Artaxerxes I (465–424) sent Ezra in 458 and Nehemiah in 445 to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls and re-establish the Torah. Two centuries of relative stability ended in 334–330 BC when Alexander of Macedon defeated Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela, burned Persepolis, and ended the dynasty. The Persians had been, by ancient standards, unusually tolerant masters, and Israel’s post-exilic life was reshaped under them.