Ancient Greeks and Persians | World History | Khan Academy

So where we left off in the last video, we have the Neo-Babylonians, the Chaldean Empire, being conquered by the Persians led by Cyrus the Great. That's in 539 BCE that Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon, and they’re able to establish a significant Empire. His successor, Cambyses II, in 525 BCE is able to do something that many of the conquerors that we've talked about in the last few videos were not able to do, and conquers Egypt, making that part of the Persian Empire.

So, the Persian Empire is this vast and significant Empire that gets created in this time period, but they soon run up to, I guess you could say, a group of city-states, a civilization that is able to fend off the Persians. Just to be clear about what we're talking about or what I just talked about here, we are in roughly 539 BCE, where you have Cyrus the Great taking over the Neo-Babylonian Empire. In doing so, going back to references from the Old Testament, he ends the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people, freeing them. His successor, Cambyses, in 525 BCE is able to take over Egypt, and you see this expansion of the Persian Empire on this timeline as well.

However, they run up against the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks were not a unified nation; they were a group of city-states. When people talk about city-states, it's cities like Athens that are associated with the Ionians who settled several hundred years ago in that region, the Spartans associated with the Dorians, who also moved down several hundred years before the time period we're discussing. Each city was its own state; it had its own military, its own laws, and traditions. But they also had things in common: they shared a language, shared traditions, and shared religion.

The Persians, and I'll do many videos on this because it is fascinating, were not able to conquer the Greeks. Now, under the successors of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses, we have Darius the Great, who is not able, in multiple attempts, to take over the Greeks. These are the famous Greco-Persian Wars, which occur from 499 BCE to 450 BCE. On our map, we see it right over here: the Greco-Persian Wars. There are some famous events from these wars, like why we now run a marathon, and the movie "300," where you have the stand that the Spartans attempted to take at Thermopylae, where the Persian army, with thousands and thousands of soldiers, faced 300 Spartans and several hundred other soldiers.

The Persians said, "Give us your arms," and once again, we don't know how much of this is legend and how much is true, but it's a good story. The Spartans replied, "Come and take them." The Persians then claimed, "We have enough arrows to blot out the sun," and the Spartans said, "Good, then we will fight in the shade." So, the Greco-Persian Wars happened, and they're also the stuff of legend. Some great stories and movies have come out of those wars.

Now, even though the city-states of Greece were able to fend off the Persians during this time period, they're not able to unify. In fact, they start fighting each other, and that’s when you start having the Peloponnesian Wars. From 431 BCE to 404 BCE, you have the Peloponnesian War, which is between Sparta and its allies and Athens and its allies. Once again, we will do more videos on this. Sparta is this militaristic society, while Athens is famous for its culture and learning, but they are able to give each other a good fight.

Can you imagine? While they are fighting each other, it leaves them open to being conquered by someone else. That someone else ends up being Philip of Macedon. The Macedonians are a related people; they share a similar language and similar traditions. Philip of Macedon is able to take over most of what we now consider to be Greece. As famous as Philip of Macedon is, his son is perhaps one of the top five most famous people in history because in 336 BCE, Philip of Macedon dies; he is actually assassinated, and his son, Alexander the Great, takes over. His son is only 20 years old.

He wasn’t called Alexander the Great when it started, but by the time he was done, they called him Alexander the Great. So, Alexander takes over—I'll write this down—he's 20 years old, and he quickly consolidates power, not only over Greece but he starts establishing an empire where he's able to take over. Now the shoe is on the other foot; he’s able to take over much of what was the Persian Empire. He actually is able to take his armies all the way to the borders of India; he’s taking over Egypt and much of the Middle East.

This is often referred to as the world's greatest adventure, and it's fascinating because he does this over a little bit more than a decade. He dies in 323 BCE; Alexander dies in his early 30s. He managed to do this; unfortunately, or depending on what side of history you're on, his empire isn't able to last. You could see this on our timeline: Alexander, in that brief, you know, a little bit more than a decade, is able to take over all of this territory. He gets his armies to the borders of India, but then, because he dies, the empire does not last; it actually gets split into multiple empires led by people who are related or the generals of Alexander.

We will do many videos about that split, but maybe more interestingly, while that is happening at the time of Alexander, another group is emerging that will eventually turn into one of the greatest empires that the world has ever seen, and that is the Romans that we will see in the next video. You can see it on this timeline right over here.