Master of Media, Cyrus came next into collision with the great kingdom
of Lydia,[2] in Asia Minor. Crœsus was king of Lydia when Cyrus met his
attack and conquered him, in 546 B. C. The rising empire of Persia was
thus extended to the western seaboard of Asia Minor. The Greek colonies
on the coast next fell a prey to the arms of Cyrus, and in 538 B. C. he
captured Babylon, as we have seen, and added the provinces of the later
Babylonian Empire to the Persian. Before this he had conquered the
territory eastwards between Media and the Indus, and restored the Jews
from captivity. His power and life ended in his expedition against the
Scythian people, by whom he was defeated and killed, in 529 B. C. Cyrus,
the greatest as a king and the best as a man among all the Persian
monarchs, had spread the Persian sway from the Hellespont on the west to
the Indus on the east.
[2] Lydia, with its capital at Sardis, and extending from the coast
of the Ægean Sea eastward to the river Halys, was easily one of the
most powerful monarchies of the second class in Asiatic history. The
Lydians were a highly civilized, wealthy, and energetic people,
great in agriculture, manufactures, commerce and the arts. In music
and metallurgy their names are famous as inventors or improvers;
they were proverbial in the ancient world for luxury and the softer
vices that attend it.
He was succeeded by his son Cambyses who is distinguished by his
conquest of Egypt in 525. He died in 522, on his march from Egypt
against a Magian pretender to the throne. The usurper reigned for a few
months, and was then dethroned and slain in an insurrection headed by
Darius, son of Hystaspes, a noble, who succeeded to the throne.