Cyrus the Great : Cedar Lake Classics : 9781611048544 : 1611048540 : 23 Nov 2023 : When Cyrus burst onto the pages of history in 559 B.C., Persia was but a vassal state crushed beneath the heel of the mighty Median Empire. Yet where others saw only subjugation, Cyrus envisaged an independent Persia stretching across continents. At the head of a rebel army, he fulfilled this vision by toppling his Median overlords in a bloodless coup. To the delight of many, Cyrus the conqueror soon proved to be Cyrus the liberator. Rather than enslave defeated peoples as tyrants, he freed local populations to worship their own gods and practice their customs under Persian protection. This sent a shockwave across the Ancient East - and unleashed a loyalty that enabled Cyrus to overrun the civilizations of Lydia and Babylon with startling ease. Within years, the young rebel controlled an empire spanning from the Aegean to the Indus - the largest the world had seen. Yet Cyrus spurned the title of