Iranian peoples in the context of "Cyaxares"

The early Slavs were an Indo-European peoples and speakers of the Indo-European dialectswho lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th centuries AD) in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the Early and High Middle Ages. The Slavs' original homeland is still a matter of debate due to a lack of historical records; however, scholars generally place it in Eastern Europe, with Polesia being the most commonly accepted location.

It is generally agreed that ancient Roman writers referred to the ancestors of Slavs as Venedi. The proto-Slavic term Slav shares roots with Slavic terms for speech, word, and perhaps was used by early Slavic people themselves to denote other people, who spoke languages similar to theirs. The first written use of the name "Slavs" dates to the 6th century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By then, the nomadic Iranian-speaking peoples living in the European Pontic Steppe (the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, etc.) had been absorbed by the region's Slavic-speaking population. Over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded westwards (to the Elbe river and in the Alps), and southwards (into the Balkans, absorbing Illyrian and Thracian peoples in the process), and also moved eastwards (in the direction of the Volga River). Between the sixth and seventh centuries, large parts of Europe came to be controlled or occupied by Slavs, a process less understood and documented than that of the Germanic ethnogenesis in the west. Yet the effects of Slavicization were far more profound.

Persians, or the Persian people, are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to the Iranian plateau and comprise the majority of the population of Iran. They have a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. In the Western world, "Persian" was largely understood as a demonym for all Iranians rather than as an ethnonym for the Persian people, but this understanding shifted in the 20th century.

The Persians were originally an ancient Iranian people who had migrated to Persis (also called "Persia proper" and corresponding with Iran's Fars Province) by the 9th century BCE. Together with their compatriots, they established and ruled some of the world's most powerful empires, which are well-recognized for their massive cultural, political, and social influence in the ancient Near East and beyond. The Persian people have contributed greatly to art and science, and Persian literature is one of the world's most prominent literary traditions both inside and outside of Iran. The regional prestige of their civilization was the basis for the development of many noteworthy Persianate societies, especially among the Turkic peoples, throughout Central Asia and South Asia.

The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centuries. They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers trace Bulgar ethnic roots to Central Asia.

During their westward migration across the Eurasian Steppe, the Bulgar tribes absorbed other tribal groups and cultural influences in a process of ethnogenesis, including Iranic, Uralic, and Hunnic tribes. The Bulgars spoke a Turkic language, the Bulgar language of the Oghuric branch. They preserved the military titles, organization, and customs of Eurasian steppes as well as pagan shamanism and belief in the sky deity Tangra.

Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization (Turkish: Türkleştirme) describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specifically Turkish rather than merely Turkic, meaning that it refers more frequently to the Ottoman Empire's policies or the Turkish nationalist policies of the Republic of Turkey toward ethnic minorities in Turkey. As the Turkic states developed and grew, there were many instances of this cultural shift.

The earliest instance of Turkification took place in Central Asia, when by the 6th century AD migration of Turkic tribes from Inner Asia caused a language shift among the Iranian peoples of the area. By the 8th century AD, the Turkification of Kashgar was completed by Qarluq Turks, who also Islamized the population.

Greater Iran or Greater Persia (Persian: ایران بزرگ Irān-e Bozorg), also called the Iranosphere or the Persosphere or Iranzamin (Persian: ایران‌زمین Irān-zamin), is a term used to refer to a broader cultural sphere that has been influenced, at least to some degree, by Iranian peoples and Iranian languages, and primarily includes the Iranian plateau, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and historically stretched as far east as the Tarim Basin.

The regions which make up Greater Iran are defined by having long been under the rule of various Iranian empires and dynasties, during which the local populace gradually absorbed Iranian influence and assimilated it into their cultural and linguistic traditions; or those where a considerable Iranian population settled and retained their culture, such as in the areas surrounding the Iranian plateau. It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica.

The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it is situated in both Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau. It covers a surface area of 371,000 km (143,000 sq mi) (excluding the highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east), an area approximately equal to that of Japan, with a volume of 78,200 km (19,000 cu mi). It has a salinity of approximately 1.2% (12 g/L), about a third of the salinity of average seawater. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the southwest, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast. The name of the Caspian Sea is derived from the ancient Iranic Caspi people.

The lake stretches 1,200 km (750 mi) from north to south, with an average width of 320 km (200 mi). Its gross coverage is 386,400 km (149,200 sq mi) and the surface is about 27 m (89 ft) below sea level. Its main freshwater inflow, Europe's longest river, the Volga, enters at the shallow north end. Two deep basins form its central and southern zones. These lead to horizontal differences in temperature, salinity, and ecology. The seabed in the south reaches 1,023 m (3,356 ft) below sea level, which is the third-lowest natural non-oceanic depression on Earth after Baikal and Tanganyika lakes.

The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe during Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman Empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths. Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars because it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Although the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine, to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine. The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE.

Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity. Scholars generally agree that it is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This culture existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celtic, Iranic, Baltic, and Slavic peoples before they were noted by the Romans.

The Armenian highlands (Armenian: Հայկական լեռնաշխարհ, romanized: Haykakan leṙnašxarh; also known as the Eastern Anatolian highlands, Armenian upland, Armenian plateau, or Armenian tableland) comprise the most central and the highest of the three plateaus that together form the northern sector of West Asia. Clockwise starting from the west, the Armenian highlands are bounded by the Anatolian plateau, the Caucasus, the Kura-Aras lowlands, the Iranian Plateau, and Mesopotamia. The highlands are divided into western and eastern regions, defined by the Ararat Valley where Mount Ararat is located. Since the turn of the 20th century, Western Armenia has been relabeled as "Eastern Anatolia" by Ottoman and Turkish authorities. Eastern Armenia is part of Lesser Caucasus, which was historically known by some as the Anti-Caucasus, meaning "opposite of the Caucasus".

During the Iron Age, the region was known by variations of the name Ararat (Urartu, Uruatri, Urashtu). Later, the Highlands were known as Armenia Major, a central region to the history of Armenians, and one of the four geopolitical regions associated with Armenians, the other three being Armenia Minor, Sophene, and Commagene. The highlands are primarily defined by the geographical dispersal of its native inhabitants, the Armenians. Prior to the appearance of nominally Armenian people in historical records, historians have hypothesized that the region must have been home to various ethnic groups who became homogenous when the Armenian language came to prominence. The population of the Armenian highlands has had a high level of regional genetic continuity for over 6,000 years. Recent studies indicate that the Armenian people descend from the indigenous people of the Armenian highlands and form a distinct genetic isolate in the region. The region was also inhabited during Antiquity by minorities such as Assyrians, Georgians, Greeks, Jews, and Iranians. During the Middle Ages, Arabs and particularly Turkmens and Kurds settled in large numbers in the Armenian highlands.

Cyrus II of Persia (c. 600 – 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Median Empire and embracing all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanding vastly across most of West Asia and much of Central Asia to create what would soon become the largest empire in history at the time. The Achaemenid Empire's greatest territorial extent was achieved under Darius the Great, whose rule stretched from Southeast Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east.

After absorbing the Median Empire, Cyrus conquered Lydia and eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire, granting him control of Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent, respectively. He also led a major expedition into Central Asia, where his army brought "into subjection every nation without exception" before he allegedly died in battle with the Massagetae, a nomadic Eastern Iranian people, along the Syr Darya in December 530 BC. However, according to Xenophon of Athens, Cyrus did not die fighting and had instead returned to the capital city of Pasargadae. Regardless of the date of his death, he was succeeded by his son Cambyses II, whose campaigns into North Africa led to the conquests of Egypt, Nubia, and Cyrenaica during his short rule.

The History of Iran (also known as Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, which is a region encompassing all of the areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence by the Iranian peoples and the Iranian languages – chiefly the Persians and the Persian language. Central to this region is the Iranian plateau, now largely covered by modern Iran. The most pronounced impact of Iranian history can be seen stretching from Anatolia in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, and parts of Central Asia. It also overlaps or mingles with the histories of many other major civilizations, such as India, China, Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to the 5th millennium BC. The Iranian plateau's western regions integrated into the rest of the ancient Near East with the Elamites (in Ilam and Khuzestan), the Kassites (in Kuhdesht), the Gutians (in Luristan), and later with other peoples like the Urartians (in Oshnavieh and Sardasht) near Lake Urmia and the Mannaeans (in Piranshahr, Saqqez and Bukan) in Kurdistan. German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called the Persians the "first Historical People" in his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. The sustained Iranian empire is understood to have begun with the rise of the Medes during the Iron Age, when Iran was unified as a nation under the Median kingdom in the 7th century BC. By 550 BC, the Medes were sidelined by the conquests of Cyrus the Great, who brought the Persians to power with the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus' ensuing campaigns enabled the Persian realm's expansion across most of West Asia and much of Central Asia, and his successors would eventually conquer parts of Southeast Europe and North Africa to preside over the largest empire the world had yet seen. In the 4th century BC, the Achaemenid Empire was conquered by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, whose death led to the establishment of the Seleucid Empire over the bulk of former Achaemenid territory. In the following century, Greek rule of the Iranian plateau came to an end with the rise of the Parthian Empire, which also conquered large parts of the Seleucids' Anatolian, Mesopotamian, and Central Asian holdings. While the Parthians were succeeded by the Sasanian Empire in the 2nd century, Iran remained a leading power for the next millennium, although the majority of this period was marked by the Roman–Persian Wars.