"Cyrus II of Persia (Old Persian: 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁, romanized: Kūruš; New Persian: کوروش, romanized: Kūroš; c. 600 – 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire.
Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. From the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great created the largest empire the world had yet seen. Under his successors, the empire eventually stretched at its maximum extent from parts of the Balkans (Bulgaria–Paeonia and Thrace–Macedonia) and Southeast Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east." - (en.wikipedia.org 10.08.2021)
