Darius I (Old Persian: Dārayava(h)uš, New Persian: داریوش Dāryuš; Hebrew: דָּרְיָוֶשׁ, Darəyaveš, Dāryāwéš; c. 550–486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third Persian King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its peak, when it included much of West Asia, parts of the Caucasus, parts of the Balkans (Thrace-Macedonia, and Paeonia), most of the Black Sea coastal regions, Central Asia, as far as the Indus Valley in the far east and portions of north and northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.
