The culture of Athens lives on today in the modern world. The Greeks gave us Democracy and Dramatic Theatre, and we're still using words from ancient Greek, and we have buildings that use principles from Greek architecture. Greek civilization, as we will see later, stands against Jewish culture.

King Cyrus and the Persians quickly conquered the Babylonian Empire, then they turned their attention to the Greeks. The Persians met with defeat twice, at the beach of Marathon and later in one of the greatest naval battles of all time.

King Cyrus established the Medo-Persian Empire, then came against and destroyed the Kingdom of Lydia. This brought the Persians in contact with the Greeks. Meanwhile, the Jews lived in exile in Babylon, studying the Torah, and Jerusalem remained as a pile of rubble.

This is the start of a new topic- a look at the ancient Jewish state, started by the Hasmonean family. We'll be taking a look at the Chanukkah story, along with most of ancient history- the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the start of the Christian religion.