With the Persian Empire we first enter on continuous history. A
multiplicity of histories first met and commingled in that of
Persia. The Persian Empire extended itself over the whole of western
Asia, and into Europe and Africa; it drew together Bactria, Parthia,
Media, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Phœnicia, Asia Minor, Armenia,
Thrace, Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The voice of the Great King was
law from the Indus on the east to the Ægean Sea and Syrian Gulf on
the west, from the Danube and the Caucasus on the north to the
Indian Ocean and the deserts of Arabia and Nubia on the south.
The empire of the Medes and Persians, commonly known as “the Persian
Empire,” absorbed all the territories of Western and Southwestern Asia
(except Arabia), as well as Egypt and a small portion of Europe. The
Medes and the Persians are treated of together, because of their
intimate connection in race and the fact that Media was conquered by and
included in Persia, as the latter empire rose into power and importance
in the western Asiatic world.