Western Asia : The Medo-Persian Empire 97 Mediterranean, becoming the leading state in the oriental world. Turning eastward again, Cyrus had no trouble in defeating Cyrus the army of Babylonia led by the young Belshazzar, whose name Babybnia in the Book of Daniel is a household word throughout the (Chaidea) Christian world. In 539 B.C. the Persians entered the great cit' of Babylon seemingly without resistance. Thus only sixty- seven years after the fall of Nineveh (p. 7 9) had opened the conflict be- tween the former dwellers in the northern and the southern grass- lands, the Semitic East completely collapsed before the advance of the Indo-European power. Some ten years later Cyrus fell in battle (528 B.C.) as he was fighting with the nomads in north- eastern Iran, All western Asia was now subject Fig. 5: Colonnades of the Persian Palace at Persepolis This sumptuous and ornate architecture of the Persians is made up of patterns borrowed from other peoples and combined (see p. 99) to the Persian king; but in 525 B.C., only three years after the death of Cyrus, his son Cambyses con- Cambyses •' ■' . conquers quered Egypt. This conquest of the only remaining ancient Egypt oriental power rounded out the Persian Empire to include the whole civilized East. The great task had consumed just twenty- five years since the overthrow of the Medes by Cyrus.
