576 – 530 BC – Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and created the Persian Achaemenid Empire 550 to 330 BC – Achaemenid Empire 547 BC – Battle of Pteria between the Lydian Empire and the Achaemenid empire 539 BC – Fall of Babylon 537 BC – Cyrus allows the Israelites to return from the Babylonian captivity and rebuild the Temple 522 to 486 BC – reign of Darius the Great, third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire 516 BC – completion of the Second Temple 510 to 323 BC – Classical Greek period with large annexations by the Persian Empire and a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and western civilization 500 BC – Ionian Revolt 499 to 449 BC – Greco-Persian Wars, finally won by the Greek city-states 480 to 479 BC – Xerxes invades Greece, start of Second Persian invasion of Greece 477 BC – founding of the Delian League, an association of Greek city-states under Athenian hegemony 431 to 404 BC – Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens leading to the end of Athens' hegemony and weakening of Greece 353 to 350 BC – Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is built in Lydia, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world 334 to 262 BC – Zeno of Citium, Founder of the Stoic school of philosophy 330 BC – Alexander the Great conquered Persia 323 to 31 BC – Hellenistic period with Greek influence in Europe, Africa, and Asia, in the arts, exploration, literature, theatre, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science 316 to 240 AD – Arcesilaus, founder of Academic skepticism 300 BC – Foundation of the city of Antioch by Seleucus I Nicator 279 to 206 BC – Chrysippus of Soli, creator of the first system of Propositional logic 247 BC to 224 AD – Parthian Empire 230 to 140 BC – Diogenes of Babylon, scholarch of the Stoic school in Athens in 2nd century BC 190 to 120 BC – Hipparchus, mathematician, astronomer and geographer from Bithynia who studied at Alexandria and Babylon. He discovered Axial precession, and gave the first tables of chords, analogous to modern tables of sine values, and used them to solve problems in trigonometry and spherical trigonometry. 163 BC to 72 AD – Kingdom of Commagene 150 to 75 BC – Zeno of Sidon, Epicurean philosopher known through his pupil, Philodemus 132 BC to 214 AD – Kingdom of Osroene 125