Pasargadae

Early Achaemenid architecture can be seen at Cyrus II’s capital city at Pasargadae. The city’s layout recalls the Persians’ nomadic past, retaining much of the character of a traditional encampment. The principal buildings stand in isolation, often with a common orientation but scattered over a remarkably wide area. Although no single wall enclosed the whole site, a strong citadel commanded the northern approaches, and individual enclosure walls protected the more important monuments.

The dominant feature of the citadel is a huge stone platform, projecting from a low, conical hill. Two unfinished stone staircases and a towering facade of rusticated masonry were evidently intended to form part of an elevated palace enclosure. An abrupt event, however—perhaps related to the death of Cyrus—brought the work to a halt, and a formidable mud-brick structure was erected on the platform instead. It is possible that the building represents the famous treasury surrendered to Alexander the Great in 330 bce.

To the south of the citadel, on more or less level ground, was an extensive walled park with elaborate irrigated gardens surrounded by a series of royal buildings. Those cleared by modern excavations include a tall, square tower almost identical in size and shape to the Kaʿbeh-ye Zardusht at the Naqsh-e Rostam tomb site at Persepolis; two spacious palaces, each adorned with fragments of sculpture and each bearing trilingual inscriptions in the name of Cyrus; and a fourth building, designed as the sole entrance to the park, which is notable for the unique four-winged figure with an Egyptian-style triple-atef crown that still stands on a surviving doorjamb. Once surmounted by a trilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian saying “I, Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenid,” this grave-faced figure appears to represent an Achaemenid version of the so-called winged genie found on palace doorways in Assyria.

Farther south again, the tomb of Cyrus still stands almost intact. Constructed of huge white limestone blocks, its gabled tomb chamber rests on a rectangular stepped plinth, with six receding stages. The Greek historian Arrian tells of Alexander’s grief at finding the tomb open and despoiled on his return from his Indian campaign in 324 bce. Alexander’s general Aristobulus, who was charged with restoring the tomb, also left some description not only of the interior furnishings of the monument, in which the body of Cyrus lay in a gold sarcophagus on a gold couch, but also of the tomb’s exterior appointments, including a description of the well-watered, lush gardens that once surrounded it.

At the extreme southern end of the site, where the Sīvand (Pulvār) River cuts through the narrow Bolāghī Gorge on its way to Persepolis, an impressive rock-cut road or canal still indicates the course of the ancient highway that once linked Pasargadae and Persepolis. Finally, the northwest corner of the settlement harbors a walled area known as the “sacred precinct,” where a large terraced mound looks down on a pair of freestanding fire altars. Although the entire enclosure undoubtedly was the site of important religious ceremonies, there is no proof that it contained the famous shrine of the goddess Anahiti, said to be the location where certain traditional rites were celebrated at the beginning of each monarch’s new reign.

Persepolis

The main construction of Persepolis began under Darius I, who made it his capital city. The site is marked by a large terrace with its east side abutting the Kūh-e Raḥmat (“Mount of Mercy”). The other three sides are formed by a retaining wall, varying in height with the slope of the ground from 13 to 41 feet (4 to 12 meters); on the west side a double stair in two flights of 111 short stone steps leads to the top. On the terrace are the ruins of a number of colossal buildings, all constructed of a dark gray stone (often polished to a marblelike surface) from the adjacent mountain. The stone was cut with the utmost precision into blocks of great size, which were laid without mortar; many of them are still in place. Especially striking are the huge columns, 13 of which still stand in the apadana of Darius I (the Great; reigned 522–486 bce). There are two more columns still standing in the entrance hall of the Gate of Xerxes, and a third has been assembled there from its broken pieces.

Behind Persepolis are three sepulchers hewn out of the mountainside; the facades, one of which is incomplete, are richly ornamented with reliefs. About 8 miles (13 km) north by northeast, on the opposite side of the Pulvār River, rises a perpendicular wall of rock in which four similar tombs are cut at a considerable height from the bottom of the valley. This place is called Naqsh-e Rostam (“Picture of Rostam”), from the Sasanian carvings below the tombs, which were thought to represent the mythical hero Rostam. That the occupants of these seven tombs were Achaemenid kings might be inferred from the sculptures, and one of those at Naqsh-e Rostam is expressly declared in its inscriptions to be the tomb of Darius I, son of Hystaspes, whose grave, according to the Greek historian Ctesias, was in a cliff face that could be reached only by means of an apparatus of ropes. The three other tombs at Naqsh-e Rostam are probably those of Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II (Ochus). The two completed graves behind Persepolis probably belong to Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III. The unfinished one might be that of Arses, who reigned at the longest two years, but is more likely that of Darius III, last of the Achaemenid line, who was overthrown by Alexander the Great.

At the foot of Naqsh-e Rostam, situated in the direction of the cliff face, rests a square building known as Kaʿbeh-ye Zardusht (“Kaaba of Zoroaster,” a reference to the cubic Kaaba in Mecca). The building, which is roughly 40 feet (12 meters) high and 24 feet (7 meters) square, probably was constructed in the first half of the 6th century bce, although it has numerous inscriptions from later periods. Though the building is of great linguistic interest, its original purpose is not clear. It may have been a tomb for Achaemenid royalty or some sort of altar.

The king, his court, and the army

The highest authority in the Achaemenid Empire was the emperor himself, the king of kings. He was the last court of appeal in judicial matters. He directly controlled the standing military forces stationed in the satrapies, or provinces, although as time went on the military and civil authority in the provinces tended to become combined under the satrap, or governor. The king was also aided in keeping control in the provinces by the so-called king’s eyes or, better, the king’s ears—officials from the central government who traveled throughout the empire and reported directly back to the king on what they learned.

Around the king was a court composed of powerful hereditary landholders, the upper echelons of the army, the harem, religious functionaries, and the bureaucracy that administered the whole. This court lived mainly in Susa but went in the hot summer months to Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), probably in the spring to Persepolis in Fars, and perhaps sometimes to Babylon. In a smaller version it traveled with the king when he was away in the provinces.

The army was a particularly important element within the empire. It, too, developed and changed with time. After Cyrus, the Persian tribal levy, based on the responsibility of all male Persians to fight for the king, was replaced by a professional standing army supplemented by a troop levy from the subject peoples in times of intensive military activity. The elite of the standing army were the 10,000 “immortals,” composed of Persians and Medes, 1,000 of whom were the personal guard of the king. The person who controlled this elite guard, as did Darius on the death of Cambyses, usually controlled all. The troops of the imperial levy fought alongside the regular army in national units and were armed according to their individual customs, but they were usually officered by Persians. Permanent bodies of troops were stationed at strategic points throughout the empire, and, to judge from the garrison at Elephantine in Egypt, these were actually military colonies, firmly settled into the local countryside. Greek mercenaries were used with increasing frequency in later years, and many Greeks fought faithfully for Persian silver.

Organization of the empire

On the whole, Persian rule sat lightly on the subject peoples, at least under the early Achaemenids. It was a conscious policy of Cyrus and Darius to permit conquered nations to retain their own religions, customs, methods of doing business, and even to some extent forms of government. This policy was exemplified by Cyrus’s attitude toward the Babylonians, which led to his being accepted as the rightful successor of Nabonidus; Cyrus’s willingness to permit the Jews to return to Palestine and to their own way of life, and his successors’ concern that this promise be honored; Cambyses’ behavior in Egypt and his acceptance by the Egyptians as founder of a legitimate new Egyptian dynasty; and the policy adopted under Mardonius toward the Ionian cities following their rebellion. Perhaps even in the later empire, rebellious peoples, governments, and leaders were too often forgiven and not suppressed with the thoroughness sometimes characteristic of other regimes. Lapses in this policy, such as Xerxes’ violent reaction to rebellion in Babylon, stand out in the record.

Undergirding this relatively permissive form of rule was a complex administrative system. The empire was divided into satrapies, or provinces. Each satrapy was ruled by a satrap, usually a Persian noble who was technically appointed by the king, although by the end of the empire satrapal dynasties had emerged in places. The satrap was surrounded and assisted in his (or, in rare instances, her) functions by a court modeled on that of the central government and consisted of powerful officials. The number of provinces and their boundaries varied greatly from time to time; at the beginning of Darius’s reign there were 20 provinces. In general, as time went on, the number increased, partly because of the need to reassert control over the satraps by decreasing their power base, partly because the structure that underlay Persian society—which some have compared to feudalism—required rewarding more and more people with a role in government, and partly because the original 20 provinces were undoubtedly simply too large to permit efficient administration.

Despite this robust system, breakdowns occurred in the Achaemenids’ effort to maintain a productive balance between local social structures, customs, regulations, and government and the demands of the empire. The failure of the Persians to find such a balance when dealing with what was for them an extremely strange system of social and political organization—the Greek polis, or city-state—probably lay at the heart of their never-ending troubles in Ionia as much as did the power and ambitions of mainland Greeks. Yet even the Ionians, at the best of times, often realized the mutual advantages and benefits of a unified western Asia under a tolerant central administration.

Both the civil and the military administration, as well as public and private trade, were greatly facilitated by the famous Persian Royal Road system. Communications throughout the empire were better than any previous Middle Eastern power had maintained. The famous road from Susa to Sardis in western Anatolia is the best known of these imperial highways. It was an all-weather road maintained by the state. Over it ran a governmental postal system based on relay stations with remounts and fresh riders located a day’s ride apart. The speed with which a message could travel from the provinces to the king at Susa was remarkable.

Economy

Wealth in the Achaemenid world was very much founded on land, which was awarded to those who gave service or who were in positions of great political or military power in the empire, and on agriculture. Wealthy families controlled enormous estates, which often increased in size over the years and were frequently administered by absentee landlords. Such major landholdings were usually in the hands of Iranians, but non-Iranians were also able to amass similar wealth and power, thereby testifying again to the inherent tolerance with which the empire was administered. The Achaemenids themselves took a positive role in encouraging agriculture by investing state funds and effort in irrigation and the improvement of horticulture.

They also invested in and endeavored to promote trade, another major source of imperial wealth. Overland trade was facilitated by the Persian Royal Road. Equal attention was paid to developing seaborne trade. State-sponsored voyages of exploration were undertaken to search for new markets and new resources. Darius completed a project, begun by the Egyptians, that connected the Nile to the Red Sea by a canal, so that routes across the Arabian Sea and into the Persian Gulf could be used to link the eastern and western ends of his empire. As part of the same program, port development on the Persian Gulf coast was encouraged. Imperial standardized weights and measures, efforts to develop and use coinage, and the standardization of that coinage in the king’s name were all policies intended to encourage commerce and economic activity within the realm.

The tax structure of the empire was based on the principle that all the conquered lands were the property of the king, as was common in the ancient Middle East. Thus taxes were rather rents, and the Persians and their land, Fars, by virtue of not being a conquered people or land, were always tax-free. Each province was required to pay yearly a fixed amount in gold or silver, and each vassal state paid a fixed tribute in kind. Again going on the Babylonian evidence, in previous times agricultural taxes had been levied in fixed amounts regardless of the fluctuating quality of the harvest, but under Darius all land was surveyed, an estimate of its yield (based on an average of the harvests over several years) was from time to time established, and taxes were levied in fixed amounts based on a percentage of that average yield. This was not quite an income tax, since it was not based on a percentage of each year’s production, but it was at least a reasonable figure based on a reasonable production average.

Ultimately, the achievement of the Achaemenid Persians was that they ruled with such creative tolerance over an area and a time of great change in both the Middle East and Europe. In one sense, the ancient Middle East died when Cyrus marched into Babylon. Others would argue that its death came when Alexander burned Persepolis. The question remains open. What is clear is that the Achaemenid Empire—the largest anyone had ever yet tried to hold together and one that was not surpassed until Rome reached its height—was a profound force in western Asia and in Europe during an important period of ferment and transition in human history. That era was one of major developments in art, philosophy, literature, historiography, religion, exploration, economics, and science, and those developments provided the direct background for the further changes, along similar lines, that made the Hellenistic period so important in history.