I am citing how the Persians were viewed at the time, in the ancient world, not how they later came to viewed by "western civilization", after it (Roman + Judeo-Christian) moved north and west from the Mediterranean world, became dominant more in the "world" it spread to than in the world it came from, which was, in ancient times, the confluence of the Mediterranean and the ancient Middle East - from Persia, down through Mesopotamia and Arabia to Egypt, up through Israel and Syria to Greece; Rome was a late comer and brought very little science of her own. Her art and literature was learned and expanded from the Greeks and the Etruscans.