In 500 BC, during the region of the Shah Darius I (522-496 BC), the Achaemenid Persian Empire was perhaps the largest in the world. It stretched from Macedonia to the west, the Indus Valley to the east, and Egypt to the south.
With so many different cultures under their domain, the Persians seem to have embraced tolerance of native customs for the most part, but they were not always popular with their subjects. When Alexander “the Great” of Macedonia invaded Egypt in 322 BC as part of his long campaign against Persia, for example, the Egyptians welcomed him as a liberator. In the end, it was Alexander and his Greco-Macedonian army who brought an end to Achaemenid Persia, with the spoils being divided among his generals after his death.