C.E. with its mighty army joining that of Babylon to destroy the Assyrian Empire. In 546 B.C.E., Cyrus the Great, after conquering Lydia and subduing its king Croesus, quickly acquired domination over many of the Greek polis or city-states on the western coast of Anatolia, a region which King Croesus of Lydia had previously subdued. In 539 B.C.E. Cyrus the Great invaded the Babylonian Empire and annexed all of Chaldea, taking its king Nabonidus captive and then naming himself as the king of Babylon, Akkad and Sumer. Soon after, Cyrus the Great gained control of the vast Arabian Peninsula and attempted to invade the Egyptian Kingdom. Not surprisingly, all of this expansion of the Persian Empire was not taken very lightly by Cyrus' numerous enemies; thus, by the early 5th century B.C.E., Cyrus the Great and his Persian Empire came into conflict with the powerful Greek city-states of Ionia which soon erupted into the Persian Wars which took place in the 490's and in 480 to 479 B.C.E. with King Darius, the son of Cyrus the Great, as the leader and absolute ruler of the Persian Empire. Undoubtedly, Cyrus the Great was one of the most skilled military leaders of all time and although his military victories were often extremely bloody and violent, he nonetheless respected the cultures and traditions of those he conquered during his reign as the leader of the Achaemenid Empire.

CONFUCIUS:

As one of the greatest and most influential figures in world history, Confucius (ca. 551 to 479 B.C.E) was a Chinese philosopher, educator and writer, best-known for his teachings in the "Analects" which formed the basis for his views on the importance of education and on how human beings should conduct themselves within...

As to his life story, not much is known about him, but what there is can be found in the "Records of the Grand Historian" by Sima Qian, written some three hundreds years after the death of Confucius and seen by many scholars as mostly fiction rather than based on reality.
It should be mentioned that the "Analects" of Confucius, the primary source for all of his philosophical teachings, was put together by a number of Chinese scholars and disciples, thus making it quite unreliable in many respects. For example, in Book Ten of the "Analects," there are descriptions of Confucius as a great philosophical thinker and educator, but some Chinese scholars now believe that these descriptions have been altered over the centuries by other writers, much like creating variations in the stories of the Holy Bible.

As to the philosophical teachings of Confucius as found in his "Analects," his basic foundation appears to lie in his belief that human beings, although constantly under the watchful eyes of a supreme being in Heaven, are wholly responsible for their own actions and for how their lives ultimately turn out. Confucius also believed that all human beings should treat one another with respect, love, and admiration, and not be so centered on the ego and the self. For the most part, Confucius firmly believed in what is known as "ren," the Chinese equivalent of compassion in which a person must see others as meaningful and always attempt to say or think only good things about others. In essence, Confucius was a steadfast believer in self-discipline which he saw as the only true way to achieve satisfaction in life and to be accepted by others in society.