Western Iranian peoples
Distribution of Iranic peoples during the Iron Age.
Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent underthe rule of Darius I (522 BC to 486 BC) Persepolis: Persian guards
During the 1st centuries of the 1st millennium BC, the ancient Persians established
themselves in the western portion of the Iranian Plateau and appear to have interacted
considerably with the Elamites and Babylonians, while the Medes also entered in
contact with the Assyrians.[63] Remnants of the Median language and Old Persian show
their common Proto-Iranian roots, emphasized in Strabo and Herodotus' description of
their languages as very similar to the languages spoken by the Bactrians
and Sogdians in the east.[29][64] Following the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire,
the Persian language (referred to as "Farsi" in Persian after being changed from Parsi)
spread from Pars or Fars Province (Persia) to various regions of the Empire, with the
modern dialects of Iran, Afghanistan (also known as Dari) and Central-Asia (known
as Tajiki) descending from Old Persian.
At first, the Western Iranian peoples in the Near East were dominated by the
various Assyrian empires. An alliance of the Medes with the Persians, and
rebelling Babylonians, Scythians, Chaldeans, and Cimmerians, helped the Medes to