Achaemenid Empire reached from Aegean Sea to Indus River and Caucasus to Nubia. The empire was divided into provinces ruled by satraps, who collected taxes and were typically local power brokers. The empire controlled about a third of the world's farm land and a quarter of its population. In 522, after King Cambyses II's death, Darius the Great took over power. Greek dominance As the population of Ancient Greece grew, they began a colonization of the Mediterranean region. This encouraged trade, which in turn caused political changes in the city-states with old elites being overthrown in Corinth in 657 and in Athens in 632, for example. There were many wars between the cities as well, including the Messenian Wars (743-742; 685-668), the Lelantine War (710-650), and the First Sacred War (595-585). In the seventh and sixth centuries, Corinth and Sparta were the dominant powers of Greece. The former was eventually supplanted by Athens as the main sea power, while Sparta remained the dominant land-force. In 499, in the Ionian Revolt Greek cities in Asia Minor rebelled against the Persian Empire but were crushed in the Battle of Lade. After this, the Persians invaded the Greek mainland in the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449). The Macedonian King Philip II (350-336) conquered much of Greece. In 338, he formed the League of Corinth to liberate Greeks in Asia Minor from the Persians, with 10,000 troops invading in 336. After his murder, his son Alexander the Great took charge and crossed the Dardanelles in 334. After Asia Minor had been conquered, Alexander invaded Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, defeating the Persians under Darius the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331, and ending the last resistance by 328. After Alexander's death in Babylon in 323, the Macedonian Empire had no designated successor. This led to its division into four: the Antigonid dynasty in Macedonia, the Attalid dynasty in Anatolia, the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire over Mesopotamia. Roman dominance The Roman Republic became dominant in the Mediterranean Basin in the 3rd century BC after defeating the Samnites, the Gauls and the Etruscans for control of the Italian Peninsula. In 264, it challenged its main rival Carthage to a fight for Sicily, starting the Punic Wars. A truce was signed in 241, with Rome gaining Corsica and Sardinia in addition to Sicily. In 218, the Carthaginian Army general Hannibal marched out of Iberia