The House of Achaemenes was an Iranian royal family. The Achaemenid kings and their descendants ruled the Achaemenid Kingdom, the Achaemenid Empire, the Kingdom of Pontus and the Kingdom of Cappadocia. Reign of the first Achaemenid king, Achaemenes, who gave his name to the dynasty, probably started in 705 BC and this is the year of foundation of the House of Achaemenes.[3]
From 705 BC until 550 BC, the Achaemenid kings ruled Persia and Anshan, two region in south-western Iran. With the conquests of Cyrus the Great, the kingdom became an Empire and the "king" became the "king of kings". The Empire ruled much of the known world from 550 BC until 330 BC, when it was conquered by Alexander the Great.[4] Fall of the Achaemenid Empire led to rise of new Achaemenid-descented kingdoms in the former territories of the Persian Empire, with the Mithridatic dynasty of Pontus[5] and Ariarathic dynasty of Cappadocia[6] being the most notable ones. The dynasties ruled those kingdoms until early and mid 1st century BC, when the struggle with the Romans caused death of last rulers of Achaemenid ancestry.
The House of Arsaces[7] and the House of Sasan[8], the two other great ancient Iranian royal families, also claimed descent from the House of Achaemenes via Artaxerxes II and Darius III, respectively.
^Iranica: Even when the Mithridates known as “Founder” proclaimed himself king in the early years of the 3rd century BCE, and the family adopted some of the ways of Hellenism and Hellenistic courts, in particular the use of Greek as the official language, they continued proudly to proclaim their royal Achaemenid lineage: their search for respectability and legitimization through Persian descent attests a deep and powerful Persian ethos in the people of Pontus.
^Iranica: ... The House of Ariarathes tied itself (Diodorus, 31.19.1-3) to the Achaemenid royalty (Cyrus and Darius’ Seven) ...
^Iranica: Even when the Mithridates known as “Founder” proclaimed himself king in the early years of the 3rd century BCE, and the family adopted some of the ways of Hellenism and Hellenistic courts, in particular the use of Greek as the official language, they continued proudly to proclaim their royal Achaemenid lineage: their search for respectability and legitimization through Persian descent attests a deep and powerful Persian ethos in the people of Pontus.
^Iranica: ... The House of Ariarathes tied itself (Diodorus, 31.19.1-3) to the Achaemenid royalty (Cyrus and Darius’ Seven) ...
^Daryaee, Touraj (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. p. 179.
^G. Posener, La première domination perse en Égypte, Cairo, 1936, pp. 30-36.
^Jürgen von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen (= Münchner ägyptologische Studien, vol 46), Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1999. ISBN3-8053-2310-7, pp. 220–21.
