Where did Cyrus the Great grow up and live?

📍Pasargadae, Fars Province, Iran

“I built Pasargadae as the first capital of the Achaemenid Empire, on the plain where I defeated the Median king Astyages and began my conquest of the ancient world. It was airy and open, a series of pavilions set in formal gardens with water channels running between them, the whole complex spread across the plain with the mountains rising behind. When I captured Babylon I freed the Jewish people from their captivity and allowed them to return to Jerusalem — not from weakness, but because I believed that a great empire is built on justice, not fear.”

👍 LovedThe open landscape of Fars and the freshness of the Persian plateau. The sense of building something genuinely new — an empire based on tolerance of different peoples and religions.

👎 DislikedThe enormous distances involved in governing an empire from the Aegean to the Indus. The constant military campaigns that a growing empire demands.

Map showing where Cyrus the Great lived — Pasargadae, Fars Province, Iran

🗺️ Approximate location today

Location associated with Cyrus the Great

📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons

Sources: Briant, P. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire (2002), Eisenbrauns; Xenophon, Cyropaedia (370 BC)