Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland Izmir. The ethnic group inhabiting this kingdom are known as the Lydians, and their language, known as Lydian, was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The capital of Lydia was Sardis.
Xenophon of Athens was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies of the Achaemenid Empire, the Ten Thousand, that marched on and came close to capturing Babylon in 401 BC. As the military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote, "the centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior". Xenophon established precedents for many logistical operations, and was among the first to describe strategic flanking maneuvers and feints in combat.
Sardis or Sardes was an ancient city best known as the capital of the Lydian Empire. After the fall of the Lydian Empire, it became the capital of the Persian satrapy of Lydia and later a major center of Hellenistic and Byzantine culture. Now an active archaeological site, it is located in modern day Turkey, in Manisa Province near the town of Sart.
Croesus was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years.
The Ionian Revolt, and associated revolts in Aeolis, Doris, Cyprus and Caria, were military rebellions by several Greek regions of Asia Minor against Persian rule, lasting from 499 BC to 493 BC. At the heart of the rebellion was the dissatisfaction of the Greek cities of Asia Minor with the tyrants appointed by Persia to rule them, along with the individual actions of two Milesian tyrants, Histiaeus and Aristagoras. The cities of Ionia had been conquered by Persia around 540 BC, and thereafter were ruled by native tyrants, nominated by the Persian satrap in Sardis. In 499 BC, the tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, launched a joint expedition with the Persian satrap Artaphernes to conquer Naxos, in an attempt to bolster his position. The mission was a debacle, and sensing his imminent removal as tyrant, Aristagoras chose to incite the whole of Ionia into rebellion against the Persian king Darius the Great.
The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike.
The Battle of Pteria was fought in 547 BC between the Persian forces of Cyrus the Great and the Lydian forces of Croesus. Both armies suffered heavy casualties in this indecisive battle.
Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Median Empire and embracing all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanding vastly and eventually conquering most of West Asia and much of Central Asia to create the world's then-largest polity. The Achaemenid Empire's largest territorial extent was achieved under the rule of Cyrus' successor Darius the Great, whose rule stretched from the Balkans and the rest of Southeast Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east.
Harpagus, also known as Harpagos or Hypargus, was a Median general from the 6th century BC, credited by Herodotus as having put Cyrus the Great on the throne through his defection during the battle of Pasargadae.
Mazares was a Median general who defected to Cyrus the Great when the latter overthrew his grandfather, Astyages and formed the Persian Empire. Mazares is mentioned by Herodotus as a Median general in the service of Cyrus the Great who died while putting down a revolt in Asia Minor.
Camel cavalry, or camelry, is a generic designation for armed forces using camels as a means of transportation. Sometimes warriors or soldiers of this type also fought from camel-back with spears, bows, or firearms.
The land of Phoenicia was ruled by the Neo-Babylonian Empire from around 605 BC to 538 BC.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire arose in the 10th century BC. Ashurnasirpal II is credited for utilizing sound strategy in his wars of conquest. While aiming to secure defensible frontiers, he would launch raids further inland against his opponents as a means of securing economic benefit, as he did when campaigning in the Levant. The result meant that the economic prosperity of the region would fuel the Assyrian war machine.
The siege of Sardis was the last decisive conflict after the Battle of Thymbra, which was fought between the forces of Croesus of Lydia and Cyrus the Great, when Cyrus followed Croesus to his city, laid siege to it for 14 days and captured it.
The Battle of Opis was the last major military engagement between the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which took place in September 539 BC, during the Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in Western Asia that was not yet under Persian control. The battle was fought in or near the strategic riverside city of Opis, located north of the capital city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, and resulted in a decisive victory for Persia. Shortly afterwards, the Babylonian city of Sippar surrendered to Persian forces, who then supposedly entered Babylon without facing any further resistance. The Persian king Cyrus the Great was subsequently proclaimed as the king of Babylonia and its subject territories, thus ending its independence and incorporating the entirety of the fallen Neo-Babylonian Empire into the greater Achaemenid Empire.
The Persian Revolt was a campaign led by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in which Persis, which had been under Median rule, revolted against the Median kingdom and declared its independence. After several battles, the Persians defeated the Medes, establishing the Achaemenid Empire.
Tabalus the Persian ,Greek: Τάβαλος, was the first Persian satrap of Sardis. Cyrus the Great of Persia put him in place after conquering Lydia and annexing it into the Persian Empire in 546 BC. Herodotus mentions him in his histories :
Presently, entrusting Sardis to a Persian called Tabalus, and charging Pactyes, a Lydian, to take charge of the gold of Croesus and the Lydians, he himself marched away to Agbatana, taking with him Croesus, and at first making no account of the Ionians. For he had Babylon on his hands and the Bactrian nation and the Sacae and Egyptians; he was minded to lead an army himself against these and to send another commander against the Ionians.
Pactyes was the Lydian put in charge of civil administration and gathering Croesus's gold when Lydia was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia around 546 BC:
Presently, entrusting Sardis to a Persian called Tabalus, and charging Pactyes, a Lydian, to take charge of the gold of Croesus and the Lydians, he himself marched away to Ecbatana, taking with him Croesus, and at first making no account of the Ionians. For he had Babylon on his hands and the Bactrian nation and the Sacae and Egyptians; he was minded to lead an army himself against these and to send another commander against the Ionians.
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the First Persian Empire was the ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen at its time, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.
