After nearly three decades of conquest, Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, rode to war one last time.

In 530 BC, the 70-year-old Great King led his Persian army north to confront the nomadic Massagetae, ruled by the fierce Queen Tomyris.

Seeking peace, Cyrus offered marriage — but the queen refused. What followed was one of the bloodiest battles of the ancient world.

Through strategy and courage, Cyrus triumphed in his trap at the Jaxartes River, yet fate soon turned. When Tomyris’s son fell in the ambush, her vengeance brought the final battle — the one in which Cyrus the Great fell.

Drawing on Herodotus, Ctesias, and Xenophon, this episode recounts both the legendary and historical accounts of Cyrus’s death and his final words to his sons, Cambyses and Bardiya.

It is the story of a ruler who built the world’s first empire on mercy, justice, and respect — and who met his end not in luxury, but in battle.

In this episode:

The invasion of the Massagetae and the counsel of Croesus
The trap at the Jaxartes and the death of Spargapises
The vengeance of Queen Tomyris
The final words and will of Cyrus the Great
The legacy of a king who changed civilization forever

From triumph to tragedy, this is the story of the last campaign of Cyrus the Great — a tale of honor, strategy, mercy, and mortality.