In 550 BC Astyages of Media, who dominated much of Iran and eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey), was defeated by his southern neighbour, the Persian king Cyrus II (reigned 559-530 BC). The Lydians of western Anatolia under King Croesus took advantage of the fall of Media to push east and clashed with Persian forces. The Lydian army withdrew for the winter but the Persians pursued it to the Lydian capital Sardis, which fell after a two-week siege. The Lydians had been allied with the Babylonians and Egyptians and it was perhaps inevitable that Cyrus now had to face these other major powers.

The Babylonian Empire controlled Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean. In 539 BC the Persian forces defeated the Babylonian army at the site of Opis, east of the River Tigris. Cyrus entered Babylon and presented himself as a traditional Mesopotamian monarch, restoring temples and releasing political prisoners. The one western power left unconquered by Cyrus’ lightning campaigns was Egypt. It was left to his son Cambyses (reigned 530-522 BC) to rout the Egyptian forces in the eastern Nile Delta in 525 BC. After a ten-day siege Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis fell to the Persians. The period of the Achaemenid Empire that followed in Egypt and western Asia outside Iran is often called the Persian period.