Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BC)

Achaemenid Persian Empire, founded by the Cyrus the Great in 559 BC, was the largest and the mightiest empire the ancient world had ever known. It was the earliest and largest of the known ‘world empires.’

It was emerged after the fall of mighty Median Empire in 550 BC by one of the most brilliant military and political leaders of antiquity, Cyrus the Great.

The empire encompassed within its boundaries people of many different background, speaking diverse languages, worshipping multiple deities, living in tremendously varied environments and practicing widely differing social customs.

The traditional infrastructure in military, politics, governance, administration, culture an economics that the Persian established has had a long-lasting effect on not only Iran but also the entire Near/Middle Eastern government and their administration.

In less than 30 years, Cyrus the Great expanded the Persian Empire from Asia in the East to Eastern Europe and North Africa, including Egypt and most of the Greek territory, in the West.

Under Darius I (521-486 BC), it reached its greatest extent, stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Indus River, from Egypt to the modern central Asian Republics.

In 330 BC, Darius III was murdered by tow Persian nobles one of whom proclaims himself king of Persia in eastern Iran and Bactria.

Between 327 – 325 BC Alexander the Great completes his conquest of the Persian Empire by conquering Achaemenid-held regions of India.
Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BC)

Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia

Modern Macedonia was a part of the ancient Empire of Macedonia, which partly covered territory now in southwestern Bulgaria and northern Greece.

The ancient Macedonians were the people of Macedon on the Balkan Peninsula who created a state in the seventh century BC that lasted until the second century BC. Its most famous ruler was Alexander the Great (356-323 BC).

The name of the kingdom, Macedon, is sometimes cited as Macedonia; it is perhaps derived from the name of a ruler, Makedon or from the Greek word makedos or makednos for ‘tall man’.

Macedon was conquered by the Persian king Darius and remained part of the Persian Empire until the defeat of Xerxes in 480 BC.

Ancient Macedonians were the core of the Kingdom of Macedon, which reach the peak of its might under Alexander the Great in the 4th century. Under King Philip and then his son Alexander the Great Macedon conquered the whole of Greece and went on to add the Persian Empire to its own vast dominion.

In the historical record the Macedonian first entered Egypt in the course of the eastern campaigns of Alexander the Great. In 331 BBC Alexander arrived in Egypt, where he visited Memphis, founded the city of Alexandria.

After his death, like Alexander’s wider empire, Macedon was split between relentless warring factions.

Three Macedonia Wars were fought, leading to Philip’s defeat at Cynoscephalae in 197 and to his son Perseus’ even more catastrophic defeat at Pydna in 168. After Pydna, Macedonia was ruthlessly sacked and the kingship abolished. The region became a full province of Rome in 146 BC.

Following the decline of Roman power, in the 6th century AD the region was settled by the Slav peoples from whom the majority of modern Macedonians are descended. Macedonia was fiercely fought over by the Byzantines, Bulgars and Serbs until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1371.
Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia 

The origin of Bithynia Kingdom

Bordering the Sea of Marmara, the straits of the Bosporus and the southern shores of the Black Sea and situated opposite Constantinople (Istanbul), Bithynia is today part of Turkey.

Bithynia was anciently inhabited by various nations, differing in their manners, customs, and language, namely the Bebryces, the Caucones, the Dolliones, the Cimmerii, and the Mariandyni occupied the northeast part.

Bithynia was named after the Bithynia one of the warlike Indo-European tribes that had emigrated from Thrace during the first quarter of the first millennium.

Bithynia came under Lydian rule in the seventh century. The province was conquered by the Persians in 546 BC and was included in the satrapy of Phrygia. Bithynia was conquered by the Greeks and the Romans and appeared to have attracted so much attention of its roads and strategic position between the frontiers of the Danube in the north and the Euphrates in the southeast.

The land was occupied by Alexander the Great in 334 BC. In 297 BC Zipoetes, a local Thracian chieftain, freed his country fro Lysimachus and assumed the royal title.
 
Nicomedes I (son of Zipoetes) established the first Dynasty of Bithynian kings and rules from 278 to 250 BC. In 264 BC he founded Nicomedia and made it capital.

Bithynia became a separate province in the 4th century AD, and continued to exist into the 8th century when Slav captives were settled there.
The origin of Bithynia Kingdom 

Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt

Born is n 367/6 BC as the son of Lagus who belonged to a respected Macedonian family, and Arsinoe, who even had family connections to the royal house, Ptolemy witnessed the rise of Phillip II of Macedon and took part in Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire right from the beginning.

In June 323 BC, Alexander the Great having created a Macedonian Empire over the whole extent of the Old Persian Empire and more, died suddenly in Babylon.

About five months later, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus appeared in Egypt as the satrap appointed by the new Macedonian king, Philip Arrhidaeus.

Ptolemy took over the country, establishing the rule of the Ptolemies, Egypt depended for is development and success more fundamentally than did any other Hellenistic power on its control of the routes by river and sea.

Ptolemy left his heirs a state characterized by stability and a relative balance between the two principal population groups, the Graeco-Macedonia and the Egyptian, and with the embryo of a Mediterranean empire that could assure political security and commercial prosperity for the land and its capital.

At the end of several wars, not all of them equally successful, his son Ptolemy II managed to add considerably to the possessions his father had left him.
Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt

Seleucid Empire (312 BC – 63 BC)

The empire was created by Alexander the Great’s general Seleucus constituted the largest Hellenistic kingdom of the successor states.

Seleucus began his career as a Macedonian noblemen and soldier under Alexander. After Alexander’s death he was one of the several Macedonian generals, known collectively as the Diadochi or Successors, who seized portions of the conqueror’s domain.

In an effort to gain more power and influence, Seleucus pushed the boundaries of his empire as far as the Indus River in India and it was here in 305 BC that the Mauryan dynasty of India engaged in a crucial conflict with the Seleucids.

By the time of his death, Seleucus had imposed control on an empire whose boundaries stretched from southern Thrace through Anatolia , the modern near and middle east and central Asia to the frontiers with ancient India in the east, north to the arid steppe-land beyond the Syr Darya river, and south to the waters of the Arab-Persian gulf.

Seleucus was succeeded by his son Antiochus I Soter (324-261 BC). The Seleucid dynasty rules for three centuries with Damascus as their kingdom’s capital. Seleucus’ successors spent much of their fighting rivals in Asia Minor, southern Syria and Palestine and the eastern provinces.

Seleucid ambitions in the Mediterranean arena led to fierce competition with other Hellenistic kingdoms there: the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Attalids of Pergamum and the Antigonids of Macedonia.

The Seleucids’ governing and soldiering classes came from a Greek and Macedonian minority based on the western cities and in military colonies throughout: these people ruled a population of Syrians, Persians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Jews and others. Seleucid permitted local customs and languages, but Greek language and culture spread quickly.

The Seleucid Empire’s significance for history is its role in Hellenizing the Levant. Long after the end of the Seleucid Empire, Greek was still the language of commerce, government and higher learning in the Near East.

The Seleucid Empire was finally destroyed by conflict with Parthians in the east in the second century BC and by the growing power of Rome in the west.
Seleucid Empire (312 BC – 63 BC)