Fars

   The modern and most commonly used name for Parsa (Persis to the Greeks), the ancient homeland of the Persians, located directly north of the Persian Gulf in southern Iran. Scholars are still uncertain about and divided on the issue of where the original Persian tribes came from and when they settled in Fars. It does seem fairly certain that a people known as the Parsua had established themselves in central Fars by the seventh century b.c. The early Persians were closely associated with the Medes, who inhabited the region of west-central Iran. It also appears that the early Persian inhabitants of Fars were culturally influenced by the Elamites, whose lands overlapped to some extent with the western part of Fars. In fact, Assyria's destruction of Elam in the 600s b.c. seems to have allowed the Persians to expand into western Fars and set the stage for the sudden and spectacular rise of the Persian Empire under Cyrus II in the following century.

   See also: Cyrus II; Medes; Persian Empire