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Persian Empire may refer to:

Pre-Islamic

Achaemenid Persian Empire

The Achaemenid Persian Empire (/əˈkiːmənɪd/; Old Persian: Parsā, name of ruling dynasty: Haxāmanišiya, Template:Lang-fa ) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as the First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire in Western Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BCE stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece, making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen.

Parthian Empire

The Parthian Empire (Template:Lang-fa), (/ˈpɑːrθiən/; 247 BC – 224 AD), also known as the Arsacid Empire (/ˈɑːrsəsɪd/; Modern Persian: اشکانیان Ashkāniān), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Persia. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I of Parthia who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the Parthia region in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I of Parthia (r. c. 171–138 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now south-eastern Turkey, to eastern Iran. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and Han Empire of China, became a center of trade and commerce.

The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and royal insignia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian, Hellenistic, and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, though it eventually saw a gradual revival of Iranian traditions.

Sassanid Empire

The Sassanian Empire or Sassanid Persian Empire (pronounced /sæˈseɪniən/, /ˈsæsənɪd/; also spelled Sasanid or Sasanian), known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran, was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from AD 224 to AD 651. The Sassanid Empire, which succeeded the Parthian Empire, was recognized as one of the main powers in Western and Central Asia, alongside the Roman/Byzantine Empire, for a period of more than 400 years.

See also

• List of Iranian states and empires
• Iranian monarchy (disambiguation)
• Persia (disambiguation)
• Persian (disambiguation)
• Translatio imperii

1. David Sacks, Oswyn Murray, Lisa R. Brody (2005). Encyclopedia of the ancient Greek world. Infobase Publishing. pp. 256 (at the right portion of the page). ISBN 978-0-8160-5722-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Waters 1974, p. 424 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWaters1974 (help).
3. Brosius 2006, p. 84 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrosius2006 (help)
4. "roughly western Khurasan" Bickerman 1983, p. 6 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBickerman1983 (help).
5. MacKenzie, D. N. (2005), A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, London & New York: Routledge Curzon, p. 120, ISBN 0-19-713559-5
6. (Wiesehofer 1996) harv error: no target: CITEREFWiesehofer1996 (help)
7. "A Brief History". Culture of Iran. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved 11 September 2009.
8. (Shapur Shahbazi 2005) harv error: no target: CITEREFShapur_Shahbazi2005 (help)

• Ill-formatted IPAc-en transclusions
• Disambiguation pages