Persepolis was being developed as a built up acropolis, let's say, ar a generation or two before the main r building phase of a fifth century athens. However, the construction in percepolis continued right through that period too. They are very distant to each other, and it's worth saying that is a distant doe they are. I mean, they are quite a long way p not many weeks on a camel's journey, is it really? If you had no dostay long, if you had provisions all the way supplied by all the sataas celmes before ut, you know, the sattraps could also keep you waiting around for
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of the great 'City of the Persians' founded by Darius I as the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire that stretched from the Indus Valley to Egypt and the coast of the Black Sea. It was known as the richest city under the sun and was a centre at which the Empire's subject peoples paid tribute to a succession of Achaemenid leaders, until the arrival of Alexander III of Macedon who destroyed it by fire supposedly in revenge for the burning of the Acropolis in Athens.
The image above is a detail from a relief at the Apadana, the huge audience hall, and shows a lion attacking a bull.
With
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University
Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
Curator of Middle Eastern Coins at the British Museum
And
Lindsay Allen
Lecturer in Greek and Near Eastern History at King's College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson.