Episode 12: Persia, Rise of an Empire

Now that we have seen the development of Sparta and Athens, two of our main players for the upcoming Greco-Persian Wars period, we need to look at a third. This time it is not a Greek city state, but an empire east across the Aegean Sea. This was the Persian Empire and would come to influence Greek affairs for centuries to come.The main empire the Greeks had contact with in the Near East during the Achcahic period was that of the Lydian Empire who controlled most of Anatolia. In the late 6th ...