Cyrus the Great (600-529 B.C.), conqueror of Media, Lydia and Babylon, founded the Persian Empire which extended from the Indus to the Mediterranean, and from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean. Established and maintained by force of arms, ruled by the greatest Kings the world has ever seen, Darius and Alexander among them, almost the whole known world came under Persian rule. Tracing the history of Persia (modern Iran) up to the Kajar rulers, this work studies ancient Persian history, from its earliest times, through the Sassanian dynasty, up to the Arab conquest in the seventh century. S.G.W. Benjamin, American author and historian, became U.S. Minister to Persia in the latter years of the nineteenth century. The present work was first published in 1887.