539 Cyrus starts for Babylon. He is opposed at Upi, but is victorious and moves southward.
538 Babylon opens her gates to Cyrus. Nabonidus flees. The Syrio-Phœnician provinces submit. Cyrus gives permission to the Hebrew exiles to return. The new territory is reorganised.
529 Death of Cyrus in battle. Cambyses, the heir apparent, has his brother Smerdis put to death.
526 Warlike preparations for conquest of Egypt begin. Phœnicia furnishes a fleet.
525 Battle of Pelusium. Defeat of Psamthek III. Egypt becomes a Persian province. Polycrates, of Samos, also submits. Cambyses plans attack on Carthage, but his army is lost in the Libyan desert.
524-523 Expedition against Ethiopia, which seems to have overthrown the kingdom of Napata. The army suffers great loss in the return march. Cambyses, enraged by this, outrages the Egyptian gods and the Apis bull.
522 He starts for home, but in Syria is informed that Gaumata, a Magian, has impersonated the murdered Smerdis and seized the throne. Cambyses commits suicide.
521 The Achæmenian, Darius Hystaspes, of Persia, and six other princes form a conspiracy against Gaumata, who is murdered.