古波斯海军

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Ships of the Persian-Phoenician Navy
By conquering Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) the Persians suddenly acquired a naval capability as great as their power on land.
It was this navy that allowed Persia to:
-successfully invade and conquer Egypt (multiple times)
-pursue the Iranic Scythian tribes up the coast of the Black Sea, supplying the land armies of Darius the Great as he chased his fellow Iranic Sakhas (Scythians) through the Balkans and north-eastward, deep into what is now Ukraine and Russia. The necessary supply chain would not have been possible except for the fact that the Persian army was shadowed by its navy hugging the coast of the Black Sea, all the way to Crimea.
-put down the Ionian Greek revolt by sinking the Greek navy
-conquer Cyprus, Crete and the Greek Isles
-invade European Greece, Macedonia and Thrace
-Despite modern Hollywood propaganda that concentrates only on the Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis, when the Persians' superior navy was bottled up in narrow straights and unable to maneuver, the fact remains that the Persian Navy won most of it's battles against the Greeks. Battles well known and thoroughly described by Herodotus and the Greeks themselves, but not surprisingly ignored in modern history books in the Anglo sphere.
Global Trade and the Darius Canal
This world beating naval capability, supplied primarily by the Phoenicians, the greatest sea faring nation of the ancient world,  also made Iran's Achaemenian Empire a trading power at sea. And Darius the Great built the famous Darius Canal (a predecessor of today's Suez Canal) in order to allow trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, via the Red Sea and the Nile.
Drawbacks
It should be added however that relying so heavily on the Phoenicians for it's naval power did have occasional drawbacks for Persia.  
One example is that when the the Persian King of Kings Cambyses proposed attacking and adding Carthage (modern Libya and Tunisia) to the Persian Empire, the Phoenicians refused to supply the ships, because Carthage--was a Phoenician colony and they simply would not help fight their own brethren.
Fair enough

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