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Its been qouted the Persians Cyrus and his boys were moderate,deal making nicer guys.The freed the Jews and lived in harmony with the peoples the lorded it over.Utter tosh.Areas of the Persian Empire within its own borders were basically at liberty to charge taxes from the Persian king of Kings. Where as Alexander chased them into the hills crushed them and made them pay taxes.And if the Persians so likable.Why did Egypt welcome Alexander as liberator and more so Babylon.As was said Babylon was an impregnable fortress taken by Cyrus. Therefor if it was impregnable and the Persians were Mr Nice guys why did the Babylonians open the impregnable gates to Alexander and welcome him as liberator?Its ok saying Alexander was just a warrior and Cyrus a politician yet we all knopw the Persians had blood on there hands also and Alexander was much more lenient to Persians that he captured.Persian hospitality entailed cutting off hands ears and nose. Alexanders wounded at issus bears witness.Whatever the argument as Andrew said Persia was the daddy had all the gold and money. I would say Darius 3rd had more of this than Cyrus as Cyrus was building it. He had thousands ofMacedonian hating Greek mercenaries who fought tooth and nail.He had a massive fleet hundreds of peoples to call to arms. Alexander had Macedonians and a few loyal Cavalries and also mercenaries more likely to kill him than love him.Yet he went in took it by the throat and crushed it. Cyrus didnt have the drive the evergy and the military ingenuity to touch him.Cyrus troops and tactics would be similar to Darius.Alexanders and Philips army training and tactics were new and inovative. Moving even firther than the sacred band. Lets call Cyrus the equivelant to Philip as a politician. But he would have had his throat taken out by Alexander. As was the empire finally smashed.And the Empire of Persia has been smashed ever since.

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Cyrus has always reminded me of the acorn and the Persian Empire of the great oak tree, and Alexander is a lot like Johnny
Appleseed.

Hail Andrew Keeping the moderators sweet. Upon reflection with your remarks about Tyre. Indeed impregnable and it must be that The Tyrians had faith in the Persian power even after Issus to hedge its bets with Darius and hold out against Alexander.If Persian power was so weak as some peop[le seem to point out then the Tyrians would have yielded quicker to Alexander.Thanks for the compliment Andrew. Keeping decorum and good fractors hail.Kenny

Well it seems that you know very little about Cyrus the Great. To compare the army of Cyrus to that of Darius III is like comparing lions to sheep. During Cyrus time ALL Persian troops weather archers or infantry or on horse were trained as young boys to be soldiers(starting there careers around the age of 20 and ending in mid 40's). After the rule of the good Persian kings (CyrusII,Cambyses,DariusI,Xerxes,Artaxerus) this policy of training troops from childhood at camps fadded. More and more the rest of the Persian Kings began relying on untrained men. True the size of the latter armies were larger but its better to have well trained seasoned troops then to have a hord of rag tag farmers and merchants. If you dont believe me tell me this, when Cyrus the Great was killed defending his eastern empire from wild bandit horsemen his troops didnt drope there weapens and run for there lives they continued to fight and won the battle. When Darius III the cowerd that he was ran from Alexander both times his troops did the same because they obviously had no experiance in battle.Also there is the fact that Darius III put together his army in six months and Xerxes is said to have taken 2 years or more to put together his army. This fact just proves that he put together untrained men. The fact is weather a good king or not it takes years to train a large army in all the different skills required. I agree if Alexander and Cyrus were to have met on the battle field it would be Alexander who would have won. Not because he was the better leader but because he had the better army. Cyrus's army relied most of all on archery weather on foot or on horse. Do to the fact that Alexanders army wore armor and sported the huge hoplite shield it basicly made the strongest Persian attack oppsolite.Cyrus was not only a conquerer he was a poitician and a entrupenuer. No other person in history had ever written a declaration of humen writes before him. I would say Alexander was the greater conquerer but Cyrus was the greater inovater and carring leader.

Oh i forgot to mention a few thingsSo you say that the Persians were conquered to this day? Is that why after the rule of just five Selucid Kings the Parthians drove them out and established there empire which was almost the size of the original empire of the Archamanid. The parthians ruled for over 300 years just to be conquered by an even better dynasty the Sassanians who ruled for almost 500 years. Both the Parthians and the Sassanians withstood countless border attacks from the Romans. True Persia was conquered by Alexander but she learned from her mistakes and took it back.
The Archamanids wore inferior armor compared to Alexanders men but the Parthians and Sassanians did not make that mistake and adapted there army to it.

In a major metropolis the size of Phoenix and Scottsdale, there are only two books on Cyrus the Great in the library system. Maybe at the University there may be more, but I have not tapped that resource.However, I do believe that Confucius and Cyrus share modesty and humility in common. The size of the tomb of Cyrus is very important to realize his own sense of his proportion to his life's work which is a lot like that of Confucius. It always struck me odd that Confucius wanted one of his best students to have a small and meager coffin while his classmates lamented that kind of frugality. They were rightfully opposed to the modesty that Confucius inflicted, yet we later see that Cyrus, about whom so little is known, shares the same kind of attitudes. The one area in which Cyrus is exactly like Alexander is that both cannot stand still and remain at one spot for any length of time. Each of them has to go forward and continue to extend his rule to other places within the vast empire that each claim is their own. Critics find fault with that, but each realized his own destiny in that method of operation. Alexander's means of conquest are very similar to that of Cyrus but with much more accurate reporting and recording. Too little is known of Cyrus's administration to call him an entrepreneur. His chief fame appears to have freed the Jews from the slavery and from Babylon. The date alone is always significant! 538BC. Two hundred years later, the Battle of Charonea was fought in 338 BC. Choice tiein, isn't it?

Kohyar: there is one thing that i must comment on what you have written.It took 6 months for Darius to create an army because his initial army was already crushed by Alexander at issus.This initial army was well prepared.The persian Kings before Darius the 3rd must have been preparing it when they saw that Philip may try to invade Persia.
So Darius after the battle of issus had to create a big army to face Alexander again to stop him from conquering the empire. I do not want to be mean or anything like this,but even Xerxes who prepared his army for 2 years was eventually defeated in greece both in 490 and 480 bc.