Blood feuds and the Persian obsession with the Greeks would return when Darius II assumed control of the empire. Darius had been born Ochus, the bastard son of Artaxerxes. After Artaxerxes died, another illegitimate son, Secydianus, took the throne, but only after bumping off his brother Xerxes II, the legitimate heir. Ochus then murdered Secydianus and changed his name to the more dynastically correct Darius II in order to give his reign a veneer of legitimacy. In 413 BCE his attention was directed westward, when a weakening of the Greek forces tempted him to resume the effort to conquer Athens.
While strolling around the grounds, digesting all of these battles and conquests, and rulers and ruled, I started to wonder about the relationship between today’s Iranians and their ancient past. Was it the same as the residents of Cairo, who live and work within sight of the Giza Pyramids? Or the Athenians who hawk souvenirs in the backstreets of the Plaka, under the shadow of the Acropolis? And what about the Chinese who crowd smog-filled Beijing or labor in the countryside? Does the philosophy of Confucius still speak to them?
In these cases there seemed to be a significant difference in the connection between the people of the present and their ancient past. By most historians’ accounts, the fate of the pharaonic people of the second and third millennium BCE is largely a mystery. Some claim that a long-term disruption of the annual flooding of the Nile, on which the agriculture of the valley depended, forced the pharaonic people to uproot and disperse throughout the region. Other contributing factors were the invasions of the Assyrians in 671 BCE and later the Persians in 525 BCE. In 30 BCE Egypt was absorbed into the Roman Empire, and the spread of Christianity, which led to the adoption of the Greek alphabet and abandonment of hieroglyphics, was the final nail in the coffin.
Whatever theory carries the most weight, it is generally agreed that given the widespread migration that took place across North Africa throughout the centuries, few of today’s Egyptians can honestly claim more than a drop of pharaonic blood. Therefore, no Egyptian can state, with a straight face, to borrow from Shirin Ebadi, “I am a descendant of Ramses. . . .” Furthermore, the arrival of Islam in 642 forever severed the Egyptians from the pantheon of pharaonic gods—Isis and Mut, Sekhmet, Horus, and Thoth—and the view of the spiritual world that emanated from them. The result, today, is that for Egyptians and foreign tourists alike the ancient temples and monuments represent an alien if awe-inspiring culture, showpieces of antiquity that bear little relationship to their own worldview and the spiritual tradition that derived from it.
Mention Greece and immediately images arise of the Acropolis rising above Athens, the ancient Agora below, and the Temple of Poseidon, perched on a rock outcropping at Sounion, overlooking the Aegean. And then there is the birthplace of the Olympic Games; the dialogues of Plato and the Politics of Aristotle, which formed the basis of Western thought; and the comedies and tragedies of the great dramatists, which became the foundation of modern drama. But one could rightfully ask what direct impact they have on the lives of contemporary Greeks. The growth of the Byzantine Empire, centered in Constantinople, quickly absorbed Greece, tugging it culturally away from its ancient past. Robert D. Kaplan, a former senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and author of the book Balkan Ghosts, described the disparity that exists between the popular image of Greece, promulgated by academics and travel agencies, and the facts of Greece’s broader history:
Greece is where the West both begins and ends. The West—as a humanist ideal—began in ancient Athens where compassion for the individual began to replace the crushing brutality of the nearby civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The war that Herodotus chronicles between Greece and Persia in the 5th century BC established a contrast between West and East that has persisted for millennia. Greece is Christian, but it is also Eastern Orthodox, as spiritually close to Russia as it is to the West, and geographically equidistant between Brussels and Moscow. Greece may have invented the West with the democratic innovations of the Age of Pericles, but for more than a thousand years it was a child of Byzantine and Turkish despotism. And while Greece was the northwestern bastion of the anciently civilized Near East, ever since history moved north into colder climates following the collapse of Rome, the inhabitants of Peninsular Greece have found themselves at the poor, southeastern extremity of Europe.
The case of Iran is a little different. The Arab invasion of 651 brought Islam to the opposite side of the Persian Gulf but never really severed Iranians from their Zoroastrian roots, which are still intertwined with the Iranian identity. It is no coincidence that Iran still adheres to the Persian-Zoroastrian calendar, neither the Islamic nor the Gregorian, and that New Year’s Eve falls on March 20 (or 21, depending on the cycle of the sun), marking the beginning of Noruz, or “new day” in Farsi. And on the Wednesday preceding Noruz, Iranians of any or no religious affiliation will engage in “fire-jumping.” Ask an Iranian abroad where they are from and often they will reply, “I’m Persian.” Part of the reason is political, to take a swipe at the ruling regime and all that it stands for, but the response also reveals that beyond the Iranian identity there is another that evokes a more historic, cultural bond to a time long before the term Iran became forever interwoven with modern geopolitics. The land of Persia was relabeled “Iran,” meaning “land of the Aryans,” during World War II, courtesy of Adolf Hitler, to consolidate the historical and linguistic tie between Persia and central Europe.
With the tombs behind us, Sohrab and I climbed back into the Volvo and pulled back onto the highway, heading south. The climax of the day was saved for last. About twenty minutes later we arrived at the parking lot in front of the entrance to Persepolis. In 1979 the ruins were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in terms of prestige the now crumbled city can hold its own among other great archaeological treasures of the world.
The name Persepolis can be attributed to the invading Greeks, who saw it simply as the city (polis) of the Persians (Perse). Once the Greeks had set their sights on Persepolis the Persian name for the city, Takht-e Jamshid, named for Jamshid, a character from Persian mythology, soon faded from common use. The Greeks turned out to be far more accurate in their nomenclature, for Darius I viewed Persepolis as the crowning jewel of the empire. According to Ernst Herzfeld, the archaeologist appointed in 1931 by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago to lead the excavation of Persepolis, it was never intended to be a truly functioning capital. It was meant to be more of a showpiece, to celebrate Noruz and other festivals, and display the usual pomp and circumstance that go hand-in-hand with the running of an empire.
Many of Persepolis’s choice artifacts that survived both Alexander’s invasion and the toll of time have been carted off to serve as representations of Persian greatness in many of the world’s most well-known museums, from the Louvre in Paris to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But Herzfeld ensured that his own institution would receive an impressive prize for his efforts. One of Persepolis’s largest stone-carved bull’s heads hangs in the Persian room of the Oriental Institute on the University of Chicago campus.
Alexander’s troops went wild in their destruction of Persepolis, but enough of the city remains to give a glimpse into the Persepolis of more than two millennia ago. Still standing are many of the stone doorways of the Tachara, Persepolis’s oldest ceremonial palace; the entrance and a few columns of the Gate of All Nations, in its time a palatial reception hall; the Treasury; the Throne Hall; and the Apadana.
The crowning jewel is the grand staircase, and it is the best-preserved feature of the entire complex. It is actually a double staircase, one series of steps leading right and the other left from ground level to wind around the structure and end on a terrace, on which once stood the entire palace complex. When Persepolis was first excavated it was believed that the staircase was designed with unusually long steps and low risers so that visiting nobles, priests, and other members of the elite could climb to the terrace mounted on royal steeds. A revis
ionist view claims that horses played no part. The notables simply wanted their arrival to take place in the most dignified manner possible, so the staircase, as it was designed, would make them appear to rise effortlessly to the throne, as though gliding on air.
It is not the staircase itself but the relief sculptures carved on its facing that are among Persepolis’s most impressive features, along with others on the face of the Apadana, the palace, and the rest of the buildings. In remarkable detail, along the grand staircase, a parade of priests is shown bearing ceremonial gifts accompanied by representatives from every region of the empire. Here and there, twelve-petaled lotus flowers serve as adornments. On the rear of the staircase, a pair of lions are taking a bite out of a horse’s hindquarters. The impression these images were intended to project—of power, control, and spiritual transcendence—has carried through the ages.
Dug into a rockface near the top of a ridge behind the ruins of Persepolis are three more tombs like those at Naqsh-e Rustam. The entombed are believed to have been Darius I, Artaxerxes II, and Artaxerxes III. A series of steep stone steps leads up to a panoramic view of the plain and the ruins below. There was no choice but to seek out the view. Thinking it might convey a bit of the long-gone splendor of the place, I began the climb, one aching step at a time, until I had arrived at the entrance to Darius’s tomb. Only from such a vantage point is it possible to absorb the scale and sweep of the city that once stretched across the plain, and only from such a vantage point is it also possible to absorb the scale of the loss that resulted from the rampage of Alexander’s forces. But even if Alexander hadn’t descended on Persepolis, there is little doubt that it would never have survived to the present day. If historical patterns are any guide, either it would have fallen to another invader or been shaken to rubble by one of the earthquakes to which the Persian landscape is forever vulnerable. But most likely Persepolis would have simply succumbed to old age, as all empires do, along with their symbols, if they last long enough. How or when Persepolis would have been destroyed, or simply faded into history, ignores the fact that its demise may have been a little premature.
The Persians do deserve some sympathy, but not all that much. In 480 BCE, when the Persian force led by Xerxes invaded Greece, the Persians showed themselves to be less than magnanimous conquerors. By the time they reached Athens, the city was mostly deserted. Most of the population had fled, giving the Persian army free rein to vandalize and pillage at will, which they did, and to make a lasting impression of their victory they torched the Acropolis and other temples on the mount sacred to the Greeks.
The fall of Persepolis came in 330 BCE, but to fully explain what happened on that date and time we must backtrack. In 334 BCE Alexander began his eastward campaign, entering Asia at the Dardanelles, between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara, fortified by a massive force. Then emperor Darius III either dismissed Alexander as too young and inexperienced in the art of warfare or never believed the twenty-three-year-old had “the right stuff” to take on his enormous empire. He would soon be proven wrong. Within the year the Macedonian invader had penetrated deep into Persia, and Darius was defeated twice, first in the Battle of Granicus and later in the Battle of Issus, both on the Anatolian Peninsula in modern-day Turkey. At Issus, Alexander’s rout of the Persians was so complete it sent Darius and many of his soldiers fleeing the battlefield. Adding to the Persians’ humiliation was the fact that they had Alexander’s forces greatly outnumbered, by as much as two to one.
Alexander was now almost unstoppable, and Darius started to see the writing on the wall. He offered to cede half of Persia to Alexander in exchange for an alliance with the Greeks, but sensing total victory, Alexander would have none of it. A desperate Darius sweetened the deal, offering Alexander more territory and even his daughter in marriage. Again he was rebuffed. Darius made a third offer, throwing in a pile of silver and even more territory—all of his empire between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean Sea. Alexander was tempted, but smelling blood, he chose to press on and routed Darius a third time, at the Battle of Gaugamela. The Persian leadership had had enough of Darius’s inept leadership, and the last ruler of the empire was assassinated by one of his own generals.
Alexander conquered Persia, and to the victor go the spoils. The wealth of Persepolis was so massive that, according to Plutarch, 20,000 mules and 5,000 camels were needed to cart it all away. This included 3,500 tons of gold, silver, and other precious metals, so claimed the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. But more than two thousand years later, it is still unclear what led to the final burning of Persepolis. There are three theories. The first states that the motive was raw revenge for the burning of the Acropolis. The Greek historian Arrian wrote:
He [Alexander] also set the Persian palace on fire against the advice of Parmenion, who argued that it was ignoble to destroy what was now his own property and that the peoples of Asia would not pay heed to him in the same way if they assumed he had no intention of governing Asia but would merely conquer and move on. But Alexander declared that he wanted to pay back the Persians, who, when they invaded Greece, had razed Athens and burned the temples, and to exact retribution for all the other wrongs they had committed against the Greeks.
According to the second theory, in the middle of a drunken victory banquet, Alexander’s troops went wild and began torching the city. The third theory combines the two, claiming that during the victory party the reveling soldiers were goaded on to destroy the city by Thais, believed to have been a mistress of Ptolemy. According to the Greek historian Diodorus:
While they were feasting and the drinking was far advanced, as they began to be drunken a madness took possession of the minds of the intoxicated guests. At this point one of the women present, Thais by name and Attic by origin, said that for Alexander it would be the finest of all his feats in Asia if he joined them in a triumphal procession, set fire to the palaces, and permitted women’s hands in a minute to extinguish the famed accomplishments of the Persians. This was said to men who were still young and giddy with wine, and so, as would be expected, someone shouted out to form the comus and to light torches, and urged all to take vengeance for the destruction of the Greek temples. Others took up the cry and said that this was a deed worthy of Alexander alone. When the king had caught fire at their words, all leaped up from their couches and passed the word along to form a victory procession in honor of Dionysius.
This is a rare case in which historical accuracy probably means very little. Whether the result of drunken revelry or the spirit of revenge fueled by a drunken revelry doesn’t change the fact that Persepolis was destroyed—plain and simple. From the terrace outside the tomb of Darius I it is possible to imagine the enormity of what was lost. The few imposing doorways and columns that remain, along with the grand staircase and the spectacular rows of reliefs, have defied not only a conquering army’s worst impulses but the wear of time to remind us of what can be envisioned and achieved, and that ambition tied to will is the marker of human progress. It also reminds us that what took years to build can be destroyed in a flash. But, thankfully, what was not destroyed was the will and desire to build in the first place, and that is what rises again to continue the story of human progress.
Finished with reflections on history, I side-stepped down the steep staircase that had brought me up to the tombs and headed to the Persepolis Museum, standing on the edge of the ruins. It houses a collection of bric-a-brac that had been scoured from the site, mainly second- and third-rate artifacts, none of the prize finds that had long ago been carted off to the first-rate museums of the world.
It sometimes happens that in any museum the main attraction isn’t the objects preserved in the climate-controlled display cases but the visitors poring over them, and this was the case here. I circled the room, eyeing the clusters of visitors gathered around the exhibits. They lingered, and pondered, longer than the usual crowd of museumgoers. These were not tourists who had dropped in from other sides of the
Earth, like myself, but mostly Iranians—or Persians—peering through a looking glass that took them back to the roots of their own recorded history, and the studied looks on the faces of the observers hinted at questions that only an Iranian—or a Persian—could ask: What does it mean to be Persian? How has the ancient past shaped the Iranian identity? Does it have any influence on the present at all? Is there any purpose in preserving these relics of a far more glorious past than the present could ever live up to? Could such a display only squelch the aspirations of the young generation in today’s Iran? If so, maybe the museum should be shut—maybe the entire site. Of course that was nonsensical, but it was where such ruminations took me.
As I circled the room I tried to imagine the thoughts that were spinning through the heads of the visitors. The intrigue became perplexing, and then discouraging, as I knew the answers to these questions were as inaccessible as history itself. Studious, puzzled looks can only reveal so much. Did they feel proud or humbled? Did they see this as their own history or that of a lost people of another time? It was hard to tell. I stepped outside to take a last look at the ragged ruins of the crumbled city. The afternoon was warming up, and many of the visitors, driven away from the midday sun, had gathered in the shade of the museum’s portico. But the warm, dry air came with them, making the nearby water cooler the most popular spot on the entire grounds.
Soon I caught the attention of a group of young men, all twenty-somethings, gathered outside the museum entrance. They exchanged a few words, and then one moved toward me—the most emboldened, the one with the most facility with English, leading the way.
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