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Other Palaces & Structures
There
were other palaces built, these included the Tachara
palace which was built under Darius I, the Imperial
treasury which was started by Darius in 510 BC and
finished by Xerxes in 480BC. The Hadish palace by
Xerexes I, which occupies the highest level of terrace
and stand on the living rock. The Council Hall, the
Tryplion Hall, The Palaces of D, G, H, Storerooms,
Stables and quarters, Unfinished Gateway and a few
Miscellaneous Structures at Persepolis near the
south-east corner of the Terrace, at the foot of the
mountain.
Tombs of King of Kings
Now
we know that Cyrus the Great was buried at Pasargadae
and if there is any truth in the statement that the body
of Cambyses II was brought home "to the Persians" his
burying-place must be sought somewhere beside that of
his father. Ctesias assumes that it was the custom for a
king to prepare his own tomb during his lifetime. Hence
the kings buried at Naghsh-e Rustam are probably,
besides Darius the Great, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and
Darius II. Xerxes II, who reigned for a very short time,
could scarcely have obtained so splendid a monument, and
still less could the usurper Sogdianus (Secydianus). The
two completed graves behind Takhti Jamshid would then
belong to Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III. The
unfinished one is perhaps that of Arses of Persia, who
reigned at the longest two years, or, if not his, then
that of Darius III (Codomannus), who is one of those
whose bodies are said to have been brought "to the
Persians."
Another small group of ruins in the same style is found
at the village of Hajjiäbäd, on the Pulwar, a good
hour's walk above Takhti Jamshid. These formed a single
building, which was still intact 900 years ago, and was
used as the mosque of the then existing city of Istakhr.
Since
Cyrus the great was buried in Pasargadae, which is
mentioned by Ctesias as his own city, and since, to
judge from the inscriptions, the buildings of Persepolis
commenced with Darius I, it was probably under this
king, with whom the sceptre passed to a new branch of
the royal house, that Persepolis became the capital of
Persia proper. As a residence, however, for the rulers
of the empire, a remote place in a difficult alpine
region was far from convenient, and the real capitals
were Susa, Babylon and Ecbatana. This accounts for the
fact that the Greeks were not acquainted with the city
until it was taken and plundered by Alexander the Great.
It
has been universally admitted that "the palaces" or "the
palace" burned down by Alexander are those now in ruins
at Takhti Jamshid. From Stolze's investigations it
appears that at least one of these, the castle built by
Xerxes, bears evident traces of having been destroyed by
fire. The locality described by Diodorus after
Cleitarchus corresponds in important particulars with
Takhti Jamshid, for example, in being supported by the
mountain on the east.
Ancient texts
The
relevant passages from ancient scholars on the subject
are set out below:
(Diod. 17.70.1-73.2) 17.70 (1) Persepolis was the
capital of the Persian kingdom. Alexander described it
to the Macedonians as the most hateful of the cities of
Asia, and gave it over to his soldiers to plunder, all
but the palaces. (2) +It was the richest city under the
sun and the private houses had been furnished with every
sort of wealth over the years. The Macedonians raced
into it slaughtering all the men whom they met and
plundering the residences; many of the houses belonged
to the common people and were abundantly supplied with
furniture and wearing apparel of every kind….
72
(1) Alexander held games in honour of his victories. He
performed costly sacrifices to the gods and entertained
his friends bountifully. 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. (2) 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. (3) This was said to men who were still young
and giddy with wine, and so, as would be expected,
someone shouted out to form up and to light torches, and
urged all to take vengeance for the destruction of the
Greek temples. (4) 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 [epinikion komon] in honour of Dionysius.
(5)
Promptly many torches were gathered. Female musicians
were present at the banquet, so the king led them all
out for the komos to the sound of voices and flutes and
pipes, Thais the courtesan leading the whole
performance. (6) She was the first, after the king, to
hurl her blazing torch into the palace. As the others
all did the same, immediately the entire palace area was
consumed, so great was the conflagration. It was most
remarkable that the impious act of Xerxes, king of the
Persians, against the acropolis at Athens should have
been repaid in kind after many years by one woman, a
citizen of the land which had suffered it, and in sport.
(Curt. 5.6.1-7.12) 5.6 (1) On the following day the king
called together the leaders of his forces and informed
them that "no city was more mischievous to the Greeks
than the seat of the ancient kings of Persia . . . by
its destruction they ought to offer sacrifice to the
spirits of their forefathers."…
7 (1)
But Alexander's great mental endowments, that noble
disposition, in which he surpassed all kings, that
intrepidity in encountering dangers, his promptness in
forming and carrying out plans, his good faith towards
those who submitted to him, merciful treatment of his
prisoners, temperance even in lawful and usual
pleasures, were sullied by an excessive love of wine.
(2) At the very time when his enemy and his rival for a
throne was preparing to renew the war, when those whom
he had conquered were but lately subdued and were
hostile to the new rule, he took part in prolonged
banquets at which women were present, not indeed those
whom it would be a crime to violate, but, to be sure,
harlots who were accustomed to live with armed men with
more licence than was fitting.
(3)
One of these, Thais by name, herself also drunken,
declared that the king would win most favour among all
the Greeks, if he should order the palace of the
Persians to be set on fire; that this was expected by
those whose cities the barbarians had destroyed. (4)
When a drunken strumpet had given her opinion on a
matter of such moment, one or two, themselves also
loaded with wine, agreed. The king, too, more greedy for
wine than able to carry it, cried: "Why do we not, then,
avenge Greece and apply torches to the city?" 5) All had
become heated with wine, and so thy arose when drunk to
fire the city which they had spared when armed. The king
was the first to throw a firebrand upon the palace, then
the guests and the servants and courtesans. The palace
had been built largely of cedar, which quickly took fire
and spread the conflagration widely. (6) When the army,
which was encamped not far from the city, saw the fire,
thinking it accidental, they rushed to bear aid. (7) But
when they came to the vestibule of the palace, they saw
the king himself piling on firebrands. Therefore, they
left the water which they had brought, and they too
began to throw dry wood upon the burning building.
(8)
Such was the end of the capital of the entire Orient. .
. .
(10)
The Macedonians were ashamed that so renowned a city had
been destroyed by their king in a drunken revel;
therefore the act was taken as earnest, and they forced
themselves to believe that it was right that it should
be wiped out in exactly that manner.
(Cleitarchus, FGrHist. 137, F. 11 (= Athenaeus 13.
576d-e))
And
did not Alexander the Great have with him Thais, the
Athenian hetaira? Cleitarchus speaks of her as having
been the cause for the burning of the palace at
Persepolis. After Alexander's death, this same Thais was
married to Ptolemy, the first king of Egypt.
There
is, however, one formidable difficulty. Diodorus says
that the rock at the back of the palace containing the
royal sepulchres is so steep that the bodies could be
raised to their last resting-place only by mechanical
appliances. This is not true of the graves behind Takhti
Jamshid, to which, as F. Stolze expressly observes, one
can easily ride up; on the other hand, it is strictly
true of the graves at Nakshi Rustam. Stolze accordingly
started the theory that the royal castle of Persepolis
stood close by Nakshi Rustam, and has sunk in course of
time to shapeless heaps of earth, under which the
remains may be concealed. The vast ruins, however, of
Takhti Jamshid, and the terrace constructed with so much
labour, can hardly be anything else than the ruins of
palaces; as for temples, the Persians had no such thing,
at least in the time of Darius and Xerxes. Moreover,
Persian tradition at a very remote period knew of only
three architectural wonders in that region, which it
attributed to the fabulous queen Humgi (Khumái)--the.
grave of Cyrus at Pasargadae, the building at HäjjIãbãd,
and those on the great terrace.
It is
safest therefore to identify these last with the royal
palaces destroyed by Alexander. Cleitarchus, who can
scarcely have visited the place himself, with his usual
recklessness of statement, confounded the tombs behind
the palaces with those of Nakshi Rustam; indeed he
appears to imagine that all the royal sepulchres were at
the same place.
After the fall of Ancient Persia
In
316 BC Persepolis was still the capital of Persia as a
province of the great Macedonian Empire (see Diod. xix,
21 seq., 46 ; probably after Hieronymus of Cardia, who
was living about 316). The city must have gradually
declined in the course of time; but the ruins of the
Achaemenidae remained as a witness to its ancient glory.
It is probable that the principal town of the country,
or at least of the district, was always in this
neighborhood. About AD 200 we find there the city
Istakhr (properly Stakhr) as the seat of the local
governors. There the foundations of the second great
Persian Empire were laid, and Istakhr acquired special
importance as the center of priestly wisdom and
orthodoxy. The Sassanian kings have covered the face of
the rocks in this neighborhood, and in part even the
Achaemenian ruins, with their sculptures and
inscriptions, and must themselves have built largely
here, although never on the same scale of magnificence
as their ancient predecessors. The Romans knew as little
about Istakhr as the Greeks had done about Persepolis--and
this in spite of the fact that for four hundred years
the Sassanians maintained relations, friendly or
hostile, with the empire.
At
the time of the Arabian conquest Istakhr offered a
desperate resistance, but the city was still a place of
considerable importance in the first century of Islam,
although its greatness was speedily eclipsed by the new
metropolis Shiraz. In the 10th century Istakhr had
become an utterly insignificant place, as may be seen
from the descriptions of Istakhr, a native (c. 950), and
of Mukaddasi (c. 985). During the following centuries
Istakhr gradually declines, until, as a city, it ceased
to exist. This fruitful region, however, was covered
with villages till the frightful devastations of the
18th century; and even now it is, comparatively
speaking, well cultivated. The "castle of Istakhr"
played a conspicuous part several times during the
Muslim period as a strong fortress. It was the
middlemost and the highest of the three steep crags
which rise from the valley of the Kur, at some distance
to the west or north-west of Nakshi Rustam.
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