FIVE PERSEPOLIS: CITY, THRONE AND POWER

Persepolis is one of the very earliest examples of a purpose-built imperial city. Here, city, throne and power were fused together in a massive display of the magnificence of the Persian Empire. The idea for such a centre of power evolved during the reigns of Cyrus II and his successor Darius I.

Early on Cyrus realized the importance of establishing a capital city from which the empire would be ruled, and, following his victories to the west, he returned to the Persian homeland of Pars and there embarked on the building of a great palace at Pasargadae. Called in Old Persian ‘Pasragarda’, meaning ‘camp of the Persians’, this had been an early gathering point for the nomadic Persian tribes. Having also been the site of the great victory over the Medes, it held a position of considerable importance for the Persians. It was the place where the Persians and their empire had originated and so it rapidly gained an aura of being a sacred space. It was subsequently chosen to become Cyrus’s de facto capital.

With the death of Cyrus in 530 BC there was a struggle for the succession and, after the short reign of his son Cambyses II, the throne passed to another branch of the dynasty and Darius I ascended the throne as Great King. While Cyrus had established his capital at Pasargadae, Darius, at first uneasy on his throne, decided that a new purpose-built capital was necessary as a clear demonstration of his own power. The new capital was intended to be a symbol of his reign and so would distance him from his illustrious predecessor. However, when Pasargadae was chosen as the site for the splendid Tomb of Cyrus – built in white limestone – this was to reinforce the city’s position as the most sacred place for the Persians. Darius chose a location some 50 kilometres to the southwest for his new capital Parsa, which became known to the Greeks as Persepolis. It was to be Darius’s greatest building project and by far the most important symbol of his power.

Persepolis is situated on the Marv-e Dasht plain and surrounded by high mountains. There appear to have been many reasons for choosing this particular site for the project, a number of them relating to Persian historical events and mythology. The tales of the early Persian kings were collected by the great Persian epic poet Ferdowsi in the Shahnameh, the ‘Epic of the Kings’, and the area around Persepolis was believed to have had associations with the mythical early kings of Persia. The most important of these was Jamshid, and Persepolis came to be familiarly known as Takht-e Jamshid, ‘The Throne of Jamshid’.1

The area is also by tradition the home of Rustam, the great Persian hero best known in English through Matthew Arnold’s mid-nineteenth-century poem ‘Sohrab and Rustum’. The importance of the sun, and possibly sun worship, can also be seen in the fact that the eastern entrance of Persepolis has been aligned in accordance with the point at which the sun rises over the plain on the summer solstice.

Charles Chipiez’s 19th-century drawing of the city of Persepolis, which was built on a raised platform and surrounded by gardens. It proclaimed the wealth and power of the Great King.

As is most usually the case, in addition to these mythical origins, there were also more practical reasons for the selection of the site. The city is located deep in the outliers of the Zagros mountains at a height of 1,500 metres. This would have made it a cooler place for the court to reside than the low-lying land of Mesopotamia where Susa, the city in which the day-to-day running of the empire actually took place, was located. Since the Persians had come from the north, they would certainly have preferred this climate, and the landscape surrounding the city would also have been far more congenial to them. Furthermore, the site is in the valley of the Kor river, which would have provided a water supply for the population. As the population grew, ample water could also be brought down from the surrounding mountains using the intricate system of underground watercourses that the Persians invented (see Chapter Seven). The Kor followed a structural depression in the Zagros that is aligned from northwest to southeast, and this facilitated communication with Susa and other major centres of the empire. The great axis of communication of the empire was the Royal Road, which connected Sardis with Susa. This was later extended eastwards to Persepolis itself. Finally, the importance of the geology cannot be underestimated. The local limestone was easy to work and proved an ideal material for the great buildings and monuments of the city. Thus a powerful combination of mythological, historical and geographical factors combined to produce what must have been judged at the time to be the most appropriate site for the location of Darius’s imperial capital.

Work on Persepolis commenced around 520 BC. The city was built on an immense platform that rises some 15 metres above the surrounding land. As well as providing stability for the foundations, this would have made the city visible from a greater distance and enhanced its effect on all those who approached. It was intended above all to be a demonstration of the power of the Shahanshah and of the empire over which he ruled. The main entrance to the city was accessed by a flight of stairs that were shallow enough to allow horses to mount. The whole city was clearly designed with ceremonial purposes very much in mind. Its architecture was derived from that of the conquered peoples, in particular the Assyrians and Babylonians, but it possessed a greater sophistication than either. The brutal ostentation of the Assyrians was softened by the Persian architects.² At the top of the Great Stairway, the Gate of All Nations led into the Apadana, the great hall where many of the ceremonies of state took place. Another, unfinished, gate on the same side of the platform leads to the Hall of the Hundred Columns. This was also used for many ceremonial purposes. In both of these halls at various times state business would have been conducted and the Great King would have received the homage of his subjects.

Guardian bull at the head of the Great Stairway

Darius at the head of the Great Stairway of the palace at Persepolis.

There was another massive building on the platform that housed the state treasury. Persepolis being the place where tribute was received, the stored wealth of the dynasty had to be safeguarded. The decoration of the Apadana centred on the twin bull capitals surmounting the pillars, also to be found elsewhere in the palace. Among the most significant carvings are those along the wall of the Great Stairway. Here bas-reliefs depict the subject peoples climbing the stairs bearing their annual tributes for the Great King. In many cases it is possible to make out from their dress and appearance, and from the gifts they are bearing, the lands from which they had travelled.

This is confirmed by what is written on the inscriptions found in and around the city. While on the gold tablet of Ariaramnes there was great emphasis on Persia and its virtues, by the time of Darius it was rule over the vast imperial possessions that was being justified. One such inscription in Persepolis reads:

I am Darius, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of countries, which (are) many, the son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian.

Darius the King says: by the favour of Ahuramazda these (are) the countries, which I acquired, with this Persian people, which had fear of me (and) bore me tribute – Elam, Media – Babylonia – Arabia – Assyria – Egypt – Armenia – Cappadocia – Sardis – the Ionians, those of the mainland, and those of the sea – Sagartia – Parthia – Drangiana-Bactria – Sogdiana – Chorasmia – Sattagydia – Arachosia – India – Gandara – the Scythians – Maka.3

On the bas-reliefs the Elamites are bringing a snarling lioness, the Bactrians are bringing a two-humped camel, the Egyptians a bull and the Ethiopians elephant tusks. The Indians have axes and a donkey. The Armenians are shown holding a horse and a large vase and the Assyrians a bull and spears. Undoubtedly many of these things would have been symbolic, and the real tributes would be of gold and other precious metals, destined for the treasury.

The Medes are also depicted on the bas-reliefs. Although also subjects of the Persians, they were always accorded a privileged position and they were respected as the people who had made possible the great achievements of the Persians. The Persian relationship to the Medes was in this way similar to that of the Romans to the Greeks; they were the civilizers and mentors of the imperial people. On the Great Stairway, while the Medes had the honour of leading the procession they are also shown in the role of officials conducting the ceremony. Halfway up the Great Stairway on the wall behind the guards was the Faravahar, the winged sun disc and symbol of Ahuramazda.

The Great Stairway at the palace of Persepolis.

On this fragment from the ruins of Persepolis is a figure in Median dress holding a covered vessel, c. 500–450 BC.

W. H. Forbis considered this staircase to be ‘perhaps the most engrossing socio-historical documentary ever put into stone’ and ‘a hand-chiselled filmstrip of obeisance to the emperor’.4 Here at the ceremonial entrance to the capital was a perfect statement of imperialism in stone, and the Faravahar above it provided the divine justification for the whole imperial enterprise.

The two door-jambs of the Gate of All Nations at the top of the stairway are faced with the figures of the winged bull, bearded and crowned. Over the Gate is another bas-relief, of Ahuramazda. The level of the Apadana audience chamber was raised above that of the rest of the platform. There the winged god Ahuramazda is also seen protecting the Throne of the Great King. It was in this hall that Darius and his successors would have received the homage of the representatives of the subject peoples and the tribute they brought.

Eagle head atop a column capital at the entrance hall of the palace at Persepolis.

A Persian and a Mede depicted on the Great Stairway at the palace of Darius I.

The building work at Persepolis begun by Darius was later continued by his son Xerxes and grandson Artaxerxes. The whole area around the capital was the heart of Pars and because of its history and geography it became sacred space for the Persians. However, Pasargadae retained its special position as the site of the tomb of Cyrus the Great and so became a place of veneration for the founder of the imperial dynasty. The two cities were close enough to be linked both as twin symbols of the empire and as justifications for its existence. It was in Pasargadae rather than Persepolis that the elaborate coronation ceremonies of the Great Kings were conducted. However, other royal tombs were located in Persepolis or nearby. The tombs of the successors of Darius I, including Artaxerxes II and III, are on the hill immediately overlooking the city. Some 10 kilometres to the north of Persepolis is Naqsh-i Rustam, where the tombs of Darius and other successors were carved into the rock face.

On the tomb of Darius there is another inscription justifying the dominance of Persia. It includes the following words: ‘Darius the King says: Ahuramazda, when he saw the earth disturbed, after that bestowed it on me; made me king. I am the King . . . Ahuramazda bore me aid until I did what has to be done.’5 This constitutes one of the first clear statements of imperialism and the justification for it (of which more in Chapter Six). Thus within this relatively small area in the centre of Pars the Great Kings were crowned and buried, and the record of their achievements was hewn into the rock.

Jim Hicks saw Persepolis as having been ‘a gigantic living monument – a conspicuous demonstration of the Persians rise from rude nomads to world masters, a colossally immodest salute to their own glory’.⁶ It was certainly perhaps the most ambitious building project ever to have been undertaken at that time.

The Persepolis capital region continued to retain its significance until the fall of the Persian Empire to the forces of Islam in the Battle of Nehawand in around AD 642. The Arabs swept through the ruins of the old capital and many of the carvings showing human figures were defaced. They were deemed to be un-Islamic, as was the old Zoroastrian religion itself. Persepolis soon disappeared beneath the dust and sand of the semi-desert which surrounded it and new centres of power were located elsewhere.

The poem ‘Cities and Thrones and Powers’ by Rudyard Kipling deals with the transitory nature of power. Power that at one time appears to be so absolute and permanent is inevitably destined to decline and disappear. Kipling’s poem also captures the fact that the principal repository of such power is the city, and when a new power emerges it will also seek to display itself in a similar manner.7

While Persepolis remained a legendary capital, the evidence of its existence was lost in the sand for many centuries. It was rediscovered by travellers in the eighteenth century and excavated by archaeologists in modern times. In the twentieth century it was to have one more moment of quasi-imperial glory when Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi used it as the backdrop for one great – and final – celebration of his country’s dynastic heritage.

Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-i Rustam, the mountain range around 5 km north of Persepolis home to colossal rock-carved burial tombs of the Achaemenid rulers.