hahaa..no man, I am ot from the UAE duh...

I am not dumb. I do agree that the persian empire was great. How ever, it was not as a whole one united nations right. They were a bunch of lands all called Persian. Besides, china is much bigger and greater. And If u are looking at the size, dont forget the Mongols..they also got to persia. Britain is good too, as well as the Greeks and romans. Now u certainly cant say that persia is all toghether better..

chitori, i mean khodafes

I am not dumb. I do agree that the persian empire was great. How ever, it was not as a whole one united nations right. They were a bunch of lands all called Persian.

You are wrong!

Persia is defintely a cool empire....but it only lasts a while and disappears into history forever....at least I dont see anybody calls himself or herself a Persian anymore....or believe in Persia's religion on the soil of the old Persian empire.....

the 1 million man invasion was just another "boosting" by our ancestors (very often, not persian's fault....), it is not logistically possible 2000 years ago to sustain 1 million men for years....even harder today...
and Persia's invasion was marked by one defeat after another...

It is no comparision to Rome and China..

Roman empire's architectural and philosophical still were unprecentent...Its law studies built the foundation for today's western law system.

China, no need to say, lasts from Xia dynasty about 3600 years ago to today's Communist dynasty (a crappy one), no empire has survived this long and still pretty much in shape.

while Persia holds its empire with brute force, China holds its people and swallow others with its culture power....that is why Chinese are so hard to destroy and those who try to conquer China usually end up being assimilated into Chinese culture.

Originally Posted by superworms1000

Persia is defintely a cool empire....but it only lasts a while and disappears into history forever....at least I dont see anybody calls himself or herself a Persian anymore....or believe in Persia's religion on the soil of the old Persian empire.....

the 1 million man invasion was just another "boosting" by our ancestors (very often, not persian's fault....), it is not logistically possible 2000 years ago to sustain 1 million men for years....even harder today...
and Persia's invasion was marked by one defeat after another...

It is no comparision to Rome and China..

Then your knowledge of my ancient land is little, I assume!
check my page here then

http://freerepublic.com/~khashayar

I call myself Persian and am proud of it too!

Religion of old Persia is Zoroastrian which still exists inside of Iran and India mainly.

The Army of Xerxes was about 800,000 to 1 milion people (military and their relatives) and it is documented by Greek historian Herodotus.

The only time Persian army was defeated was in Marathon which didnt matter at all since half of asia minor including Greece & Egypt were ruled by Persian dynasties for at least 6 centuries.

Rome was a tiny empire of savages like Nero and Atila! An ancient dictatorship for sure!

But I respect China since it was a creative one!

en...freerepublic.com...i bet my history teacher won't let me use that as a source to write an essay, anyways

Rome is a great empire with huge size and large population (50 million)...and it is in someway a democracy (at least in the Repulic era), and it is a society of law, with intense law studies that build the foundation of today's western law studies..

During ancient time,historians tend to exaggrate the numbers grossly...usuually by millions.....if you use your logic..it is really hard to even provide food and water for 1 million man today, how about over 2000 years ago with bad road and animal carts??

Persia was defeated by Greek states although Persia was many times larger....because afterall, Persia is just a relatively uncivilized society compared to Greek world, which has very high cultural achievement..
CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENT!!!

and while Persia is a brutal totalitirian state, Greek at least introduced some form of democracy..very advanced..

so does Rome..



I respect your natinalist view about Persia (sort of , as Persia does not exist anymore), and Persia is cool, but the you have to understand there is a reason why Persia is taught less in books compared to Rome, and China.

Persia was defeated by Greek states although Persia was many times larger....because afterall, Persia is just a relatively uncivilized society compared to Greek world, which has very high cultural achievement..
CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENT!!!

and while Persia is a brutal totalitirian state, Greek at least introduced some form of democracy..very advanced..

so does Rome..


I respect your natinalist view about Persia (sort of , as Persia does not exist anymore), and Persia is cool, but the you have to understand there is a reason why Persia is taught less in books compared to Rome, and China.

I wonder if you have ever really read any thing about HISTORY!

Persia is taught less in your books cuz there is a hostility towards us and lack of knowledge among western people.

if you ever read an unbiased book on history, you would see that Greece was never a democracy, nor Rome was a republic for real.

Like I said, your words on how persia was or greece was would make me and probably your history teacher laugh a lot!

You may see this one too

Btw, Persia was name of Iran until 1934, see I told you to read more books!

Good Day!

This may teach you something more...

Riches of forgotten empire revealed

By Martina Smit

It was the world's first empire: three quarters the size of the US, it built the forerunner of the Suez channel and wrote what some call the earliest "bill of human rights". And now, 2,500 years later, the glory of ancient Persia can be seen at the British Museum.

The first exhibition ever on the forgotten kingdom brings together material from three countries, some never before seen in public.

Cyrus the Great founded the empire in 550 BC when he united the Medes and the Persians. More conquests followed, creating the world's largest kingdom until then.

At its height, it covered 7,500,000 square miles - from Libya in North Africa to the River Indus in modern Pakistan. It lasted for 200 years, until Alexander the Great burnt its capital, Persepolis, to the ground in 330 BC.

Seven storey columns

The exhibition highlights the scale and splendour of the ancient city with recreations, including a column from the Hollywood film Alexander. It is a small-scale version of the 72 massive columns that held up the roof of the Apadana, or meeting hall, which could house 10,000 people at Persepolis.

Soaring nearly seven storeys into the air, they were the tallest and thinnest columns mastered at the time. After almost 2,500 years, only 14 of them tower above the ruins in the arid landscape of south-west Iran.

Plaster casts of 23 stone reliefs that lined the two giant staircases leading up to the Apadana are also on display. Made by a British Museum expedition more than a century ago, the casts contain detail that has since weathered away on the originals.

The panels, hidden away in museum's warehouses until now, were combined with objects from the Louvre, Paris, and two museums in Iran to create the exhibition.

Another set of relief panels, from the Louvre, portray the king's 10,000 bodyguards. If a guard died, he was replaced immediately earning them the name "The Immortals".

'First empire'

Persia is often called the "first empire", said curator John Curtis. Unlike their Babylonian predecessors, who focused on looting, the Persian kings administrated the many nations under their control.

About 20 satraps ruled the provinces of groups such as Egyptians, Greeks, Indians and Babylonians.

A 1,600-mile-long royal road was built from Sardis, in what is now Greece, to Susa, in south-west Iran.

King Darius also constructed a waterway between the Nile and the Red Sea a precursor to the Suez channel.

Religious tolerance

The Persian kings worshipped the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda, but did not follow the religion's practice of laying bodies on towers of silence to be picked clean by birds of prey.

Instead, they buried their dead - sometimes in bronze coffins shapes like bath tubs. One such coffin, found at Susa with a treasure trove of jewellery among the remains, was reconstructed for the exhibition.

Whatever their beliefs, the Persians showed much more religious tolerance than the Babylonians before them.

The famous Cyrus Cylinder, a barrel-shaped stone buried in the foundations of Babylon after Cyrus conquered it, is proof of this.

An inscription on it contains an order of the king that permitted cults to worship their own gods. People taken captive by the Babylonians should also be sent home, it adds.

Although the text does not mention the Jews, experts believe it was at that time when they were allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

Yet despite its rich heritage, the Persian empire is largely forgotten in the west, Mr Curtis said.

The curator hopes the exhibition will change this.

"It may also be important in this time of difficult east-west relations to remind people in the west of a remarkable cultural legacy of a country like Iran."


Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, now open, will run at the British Museum until January 8, 2006. Entry £8.

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/n...e_revealed.php

http://www.persiandna.com/history.htm

Another map which might help you get a better insight

http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/atl...pire_490bc.gif

http://www.bible-history.com/archaeo...-cylinder.html

http://ce.sharif.edu/~khoshgozaran/t...am%20view6.jpg



in this image, Roman king kneeled before the Sasanid king of Persia after his defeat in the hand of Persians. He tried to invade Iran with more than 28 divisions but failed and left what we know as Turkey for Iranians (persians) - The Roman emperor Valerian (Left) after defeat in a battle against Shahpor (Right)

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Sapor I (Shapur I), king of Persia now launched another attack on the reeling Roman empire. If the Persian assault began early into Valerian's or shortly before is unclear.
But Persian claims to have captured as many as 37 cities are most likely true. Sapor's forces overran Armenia and Cappadocia and in Syria even captured the capital Antioch, where the Persians set up a Roman puppet emperor (called either Mareades or Cyriades). However, as the Persians invariably withdrew, this would-be emperor was left without any support, was captured and burnt alive.
The reasons for the Persian withdrawal were that Sapor I was, contrary to his own claims, not a conqueror. His interests lay in looting the Roman territories, rather than acquiring them permanently.
Therefore, once an area had been overrun and sacked for all it was worth, it was simply abandoned again.
So by the time Valerian arrived in Antioch, the Persians had most likely already retreated.
One of Valerian's first acts was to defeat was to crush the rebellion of the high-priest of the notorious deity of El-Gabal at Emesa, Uranius Antoninus, who had successfully defended the city against the Persians and therefore had declared himself emperor.


Valerian campaigned against the marauding Persians for the next years, achieving some limited success.
Not much detail is appears to be known of these campaigns, other than in AD 257 he did achieve a victory in battle against the foe. In any case, the Persians had largely withdrawn from the territory they had overrun.
But in AD 259 Sapor I launched yet another attack on Mesopotamia. Valerian marched on the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia to relieve this city from the Persian siege. But his army suffered severe losses by fighting, but most of all, by plague. Hence Valerian in April or May AD 260 decided it would be best to sue for peace with the enemy.
Evoys were sent to the Persian camp and returned with the suggestion of a personal meeting between the two leaders.
The proposal must have appeared genuine, for emperor Valerian, accompanied by a small number of personal aides, set out to the arranged meeting place to discuss the terms for bringing the war to an end.
But it was all merely a trick by Sapor I. Valerian rode right into the Persian trap and was taken prisoner and dragged off to Persia.
Nothing more was ever heard again of emperor Valerian, other than a disturbing rumour by which his corpse was stuffed with straw and preserved for ages as a trophy in a Persian temple.

It is, however, worth mentioning here that there are theories, by which Valerian sought refuge with Sapor I from his own, mutinous troops. But the above mentioned version, that Valerian was captured by deceit, is the traditionally taught history.

http://www.roman-empire.net/decline/valerian.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_I_of_Persia

Romans, Egyptians, Greeks: Slavery, first class citizens & 2nd class citizens, killing for fun (gladiators), foreigners didn't have any civil rights (even in Rome, Greek werent considered as human)....
That so-called democracy in greece wasnt really a democracy since many people didnt have the right to vote and courts were run by appointed people and only selected people could join to be jurists.
Women didnt have the right to vote. Slavery was practiced vastly among Freek (Greeks) and Athens & Spartans were fighting each other. They never got along!
****
Persia: No Slavery, All citizens were the same and under one law, No fun killing, Universities to train workers instead of slaves, workers got paid, foreigners and other nationals had felt safe inside the persian territories(jews were rescued by persian kings 2 times), justice system was awesome and there was jury duty for ordinary citizens.
Postal service, Roads and social welfare were available!
Money was once invented by Lydians who were part of Greater persia.
Persian empire was run like today's USA. A federal form of governance.
Taxes and laws were designed locally!



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I will add to this list once I recall more.

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Hey, once you visit this monument you would admit how sophasticated Persians were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Empire

You know with all of your point proving you beat the system! No double posting so you did 3 instead!

lol....so Persia is just a nation of freedom and democracy and human rights back 3000 years ago than?? and dont name calling people please

ok, let's do this:


Prove to me the following point:

1. Persia has no slaves?
2. you sound like Persia is just like a nation of freedom today, prove it
3.social welfare? prove it, social welfare cheques? show it
4.does persia even have a philosophy of its own?


Persia was just a backward totalitirian and brutal state and its rulers are dictators who care about themselves more than their people.

at least for awhile greeks elect their leaders and so do Romans in Republican eras..

no comparision in term of phisophical achievement and cultural achievement..

tell me does Iran muslims still worship some Persian weird gods? or does persia even have any influence left in world today, i know ROme does and China does!

and persians were defeated by Greeks totally

http://www.crystalinks.com/greekwars.html