Definition of Achaemenid empire

The Achaemenid Empire ( ) (559 BC–330 BC), or "Achaemenid Persian Empire", was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Greater Iran, the famous foe of the Greek city states (See Greco-Persian Wars), and the first of many successor Persian Empires to be accounted as such and to figure importantly in history—most often as a local superpower, or major regional power. It is also the state which freed the Israelites (Jews) from their Babylonian captivity, and instituted Aramaic, the language in which small portions of the Old Testament and many important historic records are written, to the greater near east as official language.