Making Antioch his base, he marched at the head of his troops towards Ctesiphon, but a second army was destroyed by the Persians, and further losses were incurred by the retreating Romans in Armenia.

This play, The Persians, is the only extant classical Greek tragedy concerned with recent history ( very few of that kind were ever written ) and it is a useful source of information about that period.

The Persians followed up their victory by sending a fleet to re-establish their control over Cyprus, and 200 ships were sent out to counter them under Cimon, who returned from ostracism in 451 BC.

Athens's empire was not very stable, and only 27 years of war with the Spartans, aided by the Persians and internal strife, were able to defeat it.

Hippias fled to Sardis to the court of the Persian satrap, Artaphernes and promised control of Athens to the Persians if they were to help restore him.

As is discussed below, the reason for the delay was probably simply that neither the Athenians nor the Persians were willing to risk battle initially.

In order to face the Persians in battle, the Athenians had had to summon all available hoplites ; and even then they were still probably outnumbered at least 2 to 1.

Tactically, hoplites were vulnerable to attacks by cavalry, and since the Persians had substantial numbers of cavalry, this made any offensive maneuver by the Athenians even more of a risk, and thus reinforced the defensive strategy of the Athenians.

Conversely, if the second theory is correct, then the Athenians were merely reacting to the Persians attacking them.

All this was evidently much to the surprise of the Persians ; "... in their minds they charged the Athenians with madness which must be fatal, seeing that they were few and yet were pressing forwards at a run, having neither cavalry nor archers ".

Indeed, based on their previous experience of the Greeks, the Persians might be excused for this ; Herodotus tells us that the Athenians at Marathon were " first to endure looking at Median dress and men wearing it, for up until then just hearing the name of the Medes caused the Hellenes to panic ".

The Athenians pursued the Persians back to their ships, and managed to capture seven ships, though the majority were able to launch successfully.

It was the first time the Greeks had beaten the Persians, proving that they were not invincible, and that resistance, rather than subjugation, was possible.

Some of the most elaborate columns in the ancient world were those of the Persians, especially the massive stone columns erected in Persepolis.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that books on magic were invented by the Persians, with the 1st century CE writer Pliny the Elder stating that magic had been first discovered by the ancient philosopher Zoroaster around the year 6347 BC, but that it was only written down in the 5th century BC by the magician Osthanes — his claims are not however supported by modern historians.

Jews were left to govern Jerusalem when the Persians took over, though the short living Jewish commonwealth lasted until about 617, when the Persians capitulated.

While the Persians were contesting each other in Iran, the 25-year-old Ahmad Khan was busy in Afghanistan calling for a loya jirga (" grand assembly ") to select a leader among his people.

This proved to be a hasty decision, for they were on the wrong side of the Tigris with no clear means of retreat and the Persians had begun to harass them from a distance, burning any food in the Romans ' path.

The Persians were slow to furnish promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans.

In the late 7th and early 8th C., during the Umayyad Caliphate, conversions were often ignored and jizya continued being collected on Muslim converts, particularly if they were non-Arabs ( e. g. Berbers, Persians ), raising tensions throughout the caliphate.

Persians were not only stationed on islands of the Persian Gulf, but also had ships often of 100 to 200 capacity patrolling empire's various rivers including Shatt-al-Arab, Tigris, and the Nile in the west, as well as Sind waterway, in India.

By the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens.

The Spartans and Persians, overwhelmed by the arrival of multiple forces from several directions, were defeated and driven off, and the Athenians captured all the Spartan ships which were not destroyed.

Alarmed by the sudden reappearance of something resembling the Athenian empire that had driven them from the Aegean in the 5th century BC, the Persians began supporting Sparta, and a Persian fleet was soon in the Hellespont, threatening Athens ' grain supply.

For a time, Thrasybulus and Alcibiades were both driven back by superior forces, but the arrival of Theramenes and Chaereas turned the tide ; the Spartans and Persians were defeated, Mindarus was killed.

The Persians heavily reinforced that side, and the feint was driven back, but at that point, Alexander led the horse companions in their classic wedge-shaped charge, and smashed into the center of the Persian line.

The Mughal commander, Sa ’ adat Khan was taken prisoner by the Persians after his elephant was driven into Persian ranks by the out of control elephant belonging to his nephew.

Before the gates of the city the Romans defeated the Persians ( Battle of Ctesiphon ), driving them back into the city.

Procopius adds that the object was later sent back to Jerusalem where there is no record of it, although it could have been destroyed when Jerusalem was pillaged by the Persians in 614.

* 494 BC: The Battle of Lade, where Persians take back Ionia.

* 400 BC: After Cyrus has been killed, his Greek mercenaries make their way back to Greece, where Sparta is so impressed with their feats in and march through Persia that they declare war on the Persians.

According to a contemporary account by theologian, Sheikh Yusuf Al Bahrani, in an unsuccessful attempt by the Persians and their Bedouin allies to take back Bahrain from the Kharijite Omanis, much of the country was burnt to the ground.

Bahrain was eventually sold back to the Persians by the Omanis, but the weakness of the Safavid empire saw Huwala tribes seize control.

Shortly before the Byzantines took the area back five years later in 615, the Persians gave control to the Christian population, who tore down the partially built Jewish Temple edifice and turned it into a garbage dump, which is what it was when the Caliph Omar took the city in the 630s.

Driven back from the Aegean shores by the Delian League during the 5th century, the Persians had been recovering their position since the later part of the Peloponnesian War, and were now strong enough to dictate terms to Greece.

Iraqi cuisine or Mesopotamian cuisine has a long history going back some 10, 000 years – to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Ancient Persians.

At first they misdirected the fleeing Persian contingents so that they ended up back amongst the Allied troops ; then, perhaps seeing the outcome of the battle was certain, they began killing the fleeing Persians.

Shifting his attention eastward, Tiberius sent his general Justinian with the eastern armies, and he pushed the Persians back across the Euphrates.

The Persians in the citadel, being surrounded by a burning city, emerged into the market-place of Sardis, where they fought with the Greeks, forcing them back.

The survivors of Marsyas fell back to a sacred grove of Zeus at Labraunda and deliberated whether to surrender to the Persians or to flee Asia altogether.

However, as the two sides neared each other, the Samians sailed away back to Samos, as they had agreed with the Persians.

He wanted the Persians to destroy the land in front of Alexander, which he hoped would force Alexander's army to starve, and then to turn back.

After the battle, Alexander buried the dead ( both Greeks and Persians ), and sent the captured Greek mercenaries back to Greece to work in the mines, as an abject lesson for any Greek who decided to fight for the Persians.

The Persians forced a crossing of the ditch, pushing back the Roman cavalry.

With the help of Greek mercenaries, Apries was able to hold back Babylonian attempts to conquer Egypt, but it was the Persians who conquered Egypt, and their king Cambyses II carried Psamtik III to Susa in chains.

As soon as Khalid had left Mesopotamia with half his army of 9000 soldiers, the Persians decided to take back their lost territory.

The Greeks constantly beat back the Persians, and following the defeat of his personal bodyguard in battle against the Spartans, Xerxes begins to consider withdrawing to Sardis until he can equip a larger force at a later date.