Cyrus II of Persia (
Old Persian:
Kūruš;
New Persian:
Kurosh ;
c. 600 or 576 – 530 BC), commonly known as
Cyrus the Great (,
Kourosh-e-Bozorg) and also called
Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the
Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the
empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the
ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of
Southwest Asia and much of
Central Asia and the
Caucasus. From the
Mediterranean Sea and
Hellespont in the west to the
Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great created the largest empire the world had yet seen. Under his successors, the empire eventually stretched from parts of the
Balkans (
Bulgaria-
Paeonia) and
Thrace-
Macedonia in the west, to the
Indus Valley in the east. His regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan, King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, and King of the Four Corners of the World.