Profile of a conqueror Cyrus the Great, whose Persian Empire stretched from Turkey to India in the sixth century B.C., is pictured in a headdress in this 19th-century A.D. engraving.

Join us as we compare Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great across five crucial categories: rise to power, military accomplishments, impact, wealth, and legacy.

In fact, says Briant, there’s a simple reason why, 2,000 years on, we talk about Alexander but not Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BCE: racism.

Gandhi was never called “the Great,” nor was Winston Churchill, though both clearly were. As for Cyrus, the sixth-century b.c.e. king of Persia, the epithet would appear to be entirely deserved.