Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) King of the Four Corners of the World

Cyrus was the son of Cambyses I, ruler of Anshan, a region in the uplands of eastern Elam and part of the lands of the Persian tribes. Cambyses had inherited his rule from his father Cyrus I. According to Xenophon, Cyrus' mother was Mandane / Mandana, daughter of Astyages / Ishtovigu, King of Media from 585-550 BC.

Cyrus II or Cyrus the Great was one of the great leaders of the 6th century BC. Originally the king of a small sub-kingdom of the Medes, by the time of his death thirty years later Cyrus had conquered all the great powers of the day: the Medes, the Lydian Kingdom, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire creating the first true world empire.

He reigned from 559 to 530 BC, and his empire flourished until its conquest by Alexander the Great (331 BC).

Cyrus was a skillful ruler. He adopted a policy of toleration toward the people he conquered. he allowed them to speak their own languages, practice their own religions, and follow their own ways of life.

By his conquest of the Median Empire (550 BC) Cyrus had in the first place welded Medes and Persians into a unified nation. His conquest over Media had given him rule over its former provinces of Assyria, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, and Cappadocia.

Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) King of the Four Corners of the World