You know, it's really fun to do cute little intros and chair anecdotes and stories and

stuff about my childhood.

This one I don't think needs that because the episode this time is the story.

It's time to talk about how Persia went from pretty much nothing to being the grand

daddy of all the empires in the ancient world and this happened over like a hundred years

they came out of nowhere and I think one way to look at it and this is kind of the way

I'm going to tell the story.

We'll see if you're persuaded by it or not.

I think one way to look at it is that all the big competitors for who would wear the

crown of most important empire next just beat each other up so much between the late

six hundreds and the mid five hundreds that it allowed little small Persia to bounce

to the front of the line and take advantage of a power vacuum to become the big dogs

to become the most powerful empire in the world when nobody ever would have guessed that

a hundred years earlier.

I'll do my best to tell you the story and we'll see what you think.

If you've been with me through the Bible stuff you know Syria was a really big deal and

they were really mean and nobody liked them and you know what they got lucky.

I mean to some level you got to give them credit for being terrifying yet awesome but

on the other hand when you're doing a monarchy or an empire you don't really have control

over who the next king is going to be you just get who you get and all of these great

empires in history that have like a hundred year on or two hundred year on or whatever

and it goes really well.

...