Persepolis - The Great Ceremonial Capital Of Ancient Persia

In 330 BC, Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire, was set ablaze by Alexander the Great. For nearly 200 years, this great palatial complex stood as a symbol of Persia's power. But in just a few years, the empire was brought down. This fire was its dramatic end. But before I tell you the story of how Alexander burned it, I want to show you the site itself. I'll walk you through what remains today, the art, the architecture, as well as reconstructions of what this place once was, so you get a sense of how much was lost. Typically on this channel, I focus on the Greco-Roman world, but with recent events in Iran, I wanted to step out of that lens and explore ancient Persia. My name is Jordan, and I'll be your guide through Persepolis. The term Persian Empire is actually a bit generic. There were several Persian empires ruled by different dynasties across the many centuries. Persepolis belongs to the Achaemenids, the most famous of these dynasties. The Achaemenids ruled at the same time as late Archaic and Classical Greece, and it's the most familiar dynasty to Westerners because they appear so much in Greek history. Persepolis was founded by Darius I in 518 BC. This was the same Persian king who invaded Greece and was defeated at the famous Battle of Marathon. His son Xerxes later launched the second invasion of Greece. It was these kings who initially built Persepolis, and their successors continued to develop it. Unlike most empires that ruled from a single capital, the Achaemenids had several. Their court rotated seasonally between Susa, the administrative center, Babylon, the great city they had conquered, Ecbatana, their summer residence, and Pasargad, the first Persian capital. But Persepolis is the most famous capital because it was the most monumental, and because of its association with Alexander. As you can tell, it's a huge site, on the scale of a small ancient city. But all of it was a royal complex of palaces, a massive treasury, and reception halls where the Achaemenid kings held ceremonies and received delegations from across the empire. Visitors approaching the complex would have climbed the grand staircase, then entered through the Gate of All Nations, the main entrance into the royal complex. The name refers to the many nations in the Persian Empire who sent delegations to Persepolis to present the king with gifts and tribute. As these delegations approached the gate, they would be greeted by two guardians, a pair of bulls standing guard over the entrance. On the inner doorway stood another pair of guardians, Lamassu statues, mythical creatures with the body of a bull, the wings of an eagle, and a human head wearing a crown. The Achaemenids adopted these Lamassu motifs from the Assyrians, who famously displayed them as guardians at their palace gates, part of a long Near Eastern tradition of protecting monumental entrances with mythical creatures. From here, visitors would turn towards the heart of the complex, the great audience hall known as the Apadana. The entire complex of Persepolis stood on a massive artificial platform, measuring about 450 by 270 meters, and the Apadana itself stood on an even higher platform. As you approached it, you'd have to climb another set of stairs to the higher platform, and at the top, the stone columns would tower above you. In this reconstruction, you can also see two winged symbols associated with the Hur Mazda, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism, the pre-Islamic religion of ancient Persia. One appears high above the façade as a winged disc, while another shows a human figure emerging from the disc itself. These symbols express the divine authority of Hur Mazda, and reinforce the idea that the king ruled under his protection. For visitors arriving here, it would have been an intimidating sight. This was the place where they would finally stand before the king. Stepping inside the Apadana, visitors would enter a vast hall supported by a forest of massive stone columns, rising more than 20 meters high. At the top were capitals carved as double bull heads, which supported the long wooden beams of the enormous roof, creating one of the largest indoor spaces of the ancient world. Standing inside this space must have been breathtaking and overwhelming. It was designed to make you feel small. At the far end, the Persian king would sit waiting for you. But in this reconstruction, we are seeing the hall from the point of view of the king, looking back toward the entrance through the forest of columns. And high up is again the winged symbol of Hur Mazda, also called Farvahar in modern Iran. After presenting your gifts to the king, you would descend the staircase outside, and only then, once the tension of the visit was behind you and your nerves calmed down, you might begin to notice the beautiful carvings that decorated the staircase and the walls of the platform. On the facade of the platform, a long procession of figures moves along the walls, representatives from the many peoples of the empire, each distinguished by their clothing, hairstyle, and the tribute they carry. Some lead animals, others bring vessels, textiles, and precious goods from their homelands. These scenes are strikingly different from the reliefs of ancient Assyria, which often celebrate brutal conquest and slaughter. But the Persian reliefs show order and harmony, with the delegations approaching the king in calm procession. This peaceful imagery, however, probably reflects nations that had already been pacified through conquest. Also depicted in the reliefs are the empire's elite soldiers, known as the Immortals, a lethal force on the battlefield, and the king's security within the palace. They were armed with spears, bows and arrows, and daggers. This glazed brick decoration is from the other capital, Susa. It shows their weapons and clothing in remarkable detail. They number 10,000 men at all times. The Greeks called them the Immortals because if a soldier fell in battle, a backup was immediately available to replace him, ensuring they always stayed 10,000 soldiers, as if they were immortal. These reliefs are carved with a very high level of skill and artistry for 500 BC. The folds of the garments, the patterned hair, the realism of the faces. In fact, they may not have been carved by Persian artists at all, but by foreign specialists. Many scholars believe the artisans who carved these were Greeks from the Ionian cities of western Anatolia. In an inscription from his palace at Susa, Darius himself boasts of employing craftsmen from across the empire, Egyptian goldsmiths, Babylonian brickmakers, and Ionian stoneworkers. The Greeks were becoming some of the best sculptors of the ancient world, and the Ionian Greek cities were under a committed rule, which gave the king access to that talent. Although this inscription by Darius is from Susa, it's likely he employed them at Persepolis too. But even if Greek hands carved these figures, this is not Greek art, it is Greek skill employed for a Persian vision. Orderly, ceremonial, and imperial. Today they appear as bare stone, but originally these reliefs were painted in bright vivid colors. Traces of these colors were found on the surfaces of the stone. Finally, the most striking image is a line devouring a bull, a motif thought to symbolize renewal and the coming of spring. Persepolis is believed to be connected to Nowruz, the Zoroastrian New Year celebrated on the spring equinox. It was here that the king likely came to celebrate this important festival. Even though Iran is a Muslim country today, Nowruz is still celebrated by Iranians, along with Yalda, the winter solstice festival. These traditions are rooted in the ancient Zoroastrian world more than 2500 years ago. Most of the Achaemenid kings were buried in the cliffs near Persepolis. A few kilometers north, at Naqsh-e Rostam, four impressive tombs were carved into the mountainside, including Darius I and three of his successors. The facades of these tombs show the king standing before a sacred fire altar, with the symbol of Ahura Mazda above him. He stands on a platform held up by the subjects of the empire. These tombs also show a facade of a building with a flat roof and columns. Notice the doorway, how closely it matches the palace doors at Persepolis. This has led some scholars to suggest the tomb facade represents the king's palace. But it also shows the double bowl capitals, suggesting it could also be the Apadana, making this relief a kind of ancient photograph that captures what it would have looked like. This is one of the pieces that helps scholars reconstruct the facade, even though most of it is gone today. Two later kings were buried in similar tombs carved into the hill above Persepolis. Starting with Darius I, most of the kings who followed him were buried in these tombs. But the very last king is missing. South of Persepolis lies an unfinished tomb, thought to have been intended for Darius III, the king who had to face Alexander the Great, who conquered his empire and extinguished his dynasty. If it really is his intended tomb, he probably commissioned it, but never got to be buried in it because his empire collapsed before it could be finished. After defeating Darius III, Alexander pursued him and crossed the empire. But while on the run, the king was murdered by his own officers, and by the time Alexander caught up with him, the last king of Persia was already dead, never to receive a royal tomb. Alexander later gave him a royal burial, reportedly sending his body to the royal tombs, but the exact location is unknown. Alexander entered Persepolis in 330 BC and occupied the complex. While most of his army encamped outside, he and his officers lived inside the palaces in luxury. There were several palaces at Persepolis, one built by Darius and another by Xerxes. According to some ancient writers, during a drunken banquet in the palace, a Greek courtesan named Thais persuaded Alexander to burn it all, as revenge for the destruction of Athens during the Persian invasion of Greece. Some later accounts even claim that he targeted the palace of Xerxes first, because it was Xerxes who had burned Athens 150 years earlier, a vendetta against the long-dead king for an act remembered across generations. Whether those Alexander stories are true is debated. More likely, it was a deliberate act of destruction to symbolically mark the end of the Achaemenid dynasty. We don't know exactly how it all unfolded, but what likely happened is that the flames took hold of the wooden roofs and spread across the complex. The massive timber beams became fuel for the fire. They weakened and the entire superstructure collapsed. Their immense weight would have torn through the spaces below, breaking columns and destroying everything inside. And after standing for two centuries, Persepolis was left in ruins. The site was never rebuilt after Alexander, and over the centuries, most of the stone was gradually reused for building material, like so many other ancient sites. Today, only fragments remain. Scattered columns, broken palace walls, the skeleton of the Gate of All Nations, and the outlines of great halls that once received delegations. But the fire did something else as well. The palace contained an archive of administrative records, thousands of clay tablets, which were baked and buried, preserving a record of the empire's bureaucracy that would otherwise have been lost. And even as a ruin, Persepolis still reveals the monumental scale that it once had, and the immense wealth and power of the Achaemenids.