The Gathering Storm By the end of the sixth century BCE, Greece stood at a crossroads. The megacity- countries had progressed, art and gospel were blowing, and trade connected the Aegean to every corner of the Mediterranean. Yet beneath that brilliance lay commodity fragile — a world of small, fiercely independent poleis, each jealous of its freedom and suspicious of its neighbors. Just across the ocean, another world was rising. It was vast, organized, and grim the Persian Empire. The Rise of Persia Let’s set the stage. The Persian Empire began in the rugged mounds of ultramodern Iran, under the leadership of Cyrus II, known to history as Cyrus the Great. Around 550 BCE, he overthrew the Median Conglomerate and also rolled through a string of vanquishing with astonishing speed Lydia