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At its largest extent the Achaemenid Empire comprised a gigantic territory, extending from Thrace and northern Greece in the west to India in the east, and from Egypt in the south to Afghanistan and Central Asia in the north. This huge territory was in the first place brought together by the founder of the empire, Cyrus II (c. 559–529 BCE), who added Media (central Iran), Asia Minor, the eastern Iranian regions, Mesopotamia, and the Levant to his small kingdom of Anshan. Despite his short reign, Cyrus' son and successor, Cambyses II (529–522 BCE), was able to conquer Egypt, and his successor, Darius I (521–486 BCE), took some areas in the north (Scythia), Thrace, and the lower Indus valley (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 Map of the Achaemenid Empire.

Source: Reproduced by permission of Jan Tavernier.

The Achaemenids were proud of the geographical hugeness of their realm, as can be seen in the royal inscriptions DPh and DH (Darius I):

This (is) the kingdom which I hold, from the Saka who are beyond Sogdiana, from there as far as Kush, from the Indus as far as Sardis, which Ahuramazda, the greatest among gods, bestowed upon me.

This consciousness is also present in the words of Cyrus the Younger, transmitted by Xenophon (Anab. 1.7.6). By these words Cyrus identifies the Achaemenid Empire with the inhabited world:

My father's realm extends toward the south to a region where men cannot dwell by reason of the heat, and to the north to a region where they cannot dwell by reason of the cold.

Finally, the hugeness of the Achaemenid Empire also impressed some Greek authors, such as Xenophon (Cyrop. 1.1.3), who writes that

Cyrus, a Persian, acquired very many people, very many cities and very many nations.