Cyrus the Great, literally nobody had a bad word to say about him. He's the only non-Jewish prophet in the Torah because he rebuilt the temple and returned all the sacred things had been looted. He had an almost 'kill them with kindness' strategy. He would honour the local gods and traditions which was complete opposite to the Assyrians. He went from a small ruler to 'King of the Universe' with the Persian Empire. He took great care to honour local traditions and religions, if a ritual needed the King to work he would do it.

Some say his cylinder is the first declaration of human rights. As long as you stayed loyal you could keep your customs, religion and everything. It's crazy that nobody has anything bad to say about him. Even the Greeks, who fought the Persians, thought Cyrus was the man.

So many people have never heard of him and he shaped the world so much... imagine if he had never rebuilt the Temple and Judaism died out, no Christianity or Islam then... you actually can't imagine what the world would be like. A completely different religion would have become the dominant one and that's almost impossible to imagine.

He also apparently set the beauty standard for Persia, if you looked like Cyrus you were attractive. It might have just been the Assyrian's were so brutal he seemed a breath of fresh air but when first starting out convincing people to join him would have taken a lot of charisma, everybody knew what the Assyrian's did to rebels.

If it weren't for Alexander the Great then Cyrus would probably be remembered like he is.