Explore a Persian Empires timeline covering the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian dynasties - Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, the Greco-Persian Wars, and the fall of ancient Persia.
From Cyrus the Great's founding of the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BC to the fall of the Sasanians in AD 651, Persia produced three of antiquity's greatest empires. This timeline traces their rise, their wars with Greece and Rome, and their lasting legacy.
Cyrus the Great overthrows the Median king Astyages around 550 BC, founding the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Cyrus defeats King Croesus and absorbs the wealthy kingdom of Lydia in western Anatolia, c. 546 BC.
Persian forces take Babylon in 539 BC. Cyrus allows exiled peoples, including the Jews, to return home.
Cyrus dies on campaign in 530 BC and is buried at Pasargadae. His son Cambyses II succeeds him.
Cambyses II defeats Pharaoh Psamtik III at the Battle of Pelusium in 525 BC, adding Egypt to the empire.
After a succession crisis, Darius I seizes power in 522 BC and reorganizes the empire into satrapies with roads, coinage, and tribute.
Darius I begins construction of the great ceremonial capital of Persepolis around 518 BC.
Greek cities of Ionia rebel against Persian rule from 499 to 493 BC, drawing Athens into conflict with Persia.
Darius I's expedition against Greece is defeated by the Athenians at Marathon in 490 BC.
In 480 BC Xerxes I invades Greece, winning at Thermopylae and sacking Athens before the Persian fleet is defeated at Salamis.
A Greek coalition defeats the remaining Persian army at Plataea in 479 BC, ending the second Persian invasion of Greece.
Xerxes I is assassinated in 465 BC; Artaxerxes I takes the throne as palace intrigue grows.
Egypt wins independence around 404 BC and resists Persian rule for six decades until Artaxerxes III reconquers it c. 343 BC.
Alexander the Great crosses into Asia in 334 BC and defeats a Persian army at the Granicus River.
Alexander decisively defeats Darius III at Gaugamela in 331 BC, breaking Achaemenid power.
Alexander burns Persepolis in 330 BC; Darius III is murdered by his own officers, ending the Achaemenid dynasty.
After Alexander's death, his general Seleucus founds a dynasty that rules most of the former Persian lands.
Around 247 BC Arsaces I establishes the Parthian (Arsacid) dynasty, which gradually wrests Iran from the Seleucids.
Parthian horse archers destroy a Roman army under Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC, fixing the Euphrates frontier.
Ardashir I defeats the last Parthian king, Artabanus IV, in AD 224 and founds the Sasanian dynasty.
Sasanian king Shapur I defeats and captures the Roman emperor Valerian at Edessa in AD 260.
Khosrow I Anushirvan rules 531-579, a high point of Sasanian administration, culture, and scholarship.
A ruinous war with Byzantium from 602 to 628 exhausts the Sasanian state shortly before the Arab conquests.
The last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III, is killed in 651 after the Arab victories at al-Qadisiyyah and Nahavand, ending pre-Islamic Persian empire rule.
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