Persepolis

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2018

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:05.0	There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs
0:08.8	if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:14.0	Hello, in 520 BC, Darius the Great started building on the site of Persepolis, the ceremonial
0:20.0	city of the Persians and for almost two centuries this was the richest place on Earth.
0:25.7	Its extravagance was a mark of the rulers' power as cave kings of a land that stretched
0:30.2	in modern terms from Libya to Pakistan, from Egypt up to the Russian steppes.
0:35.2	This was the Archimedes Empire and it was then the largest in the world.
0:40.1	When in October revenge or vandalism Alexander Macedon sacked the city in 330 BC, it said
0:45.8	he removed 200 wagons of gold and silver, some of the tributes and taxes from across the
0:51.2	Empire.
0:52.2	With me to discuss the rise in four of Persepolis are Lloyd Lillian Jones, Professor of
0:56.2	Ancient History at Cardiburn University, Besta Sahuaschkotis, curator of Middle Eastern
1:00.8	coins of the British Museum and then Jalen, lecturer in Greek and Near Eastern history
1:06.0	at King's College London.
1:08.3	Lloyd Lillian Jones, Darius the Great was head of what's known as the Archimedes Empire,
1:12.9	what were his origins?
1:13.9	Oh, the Persians originate from...
1:17.3	People were Persian as Iran, we can make it change.
1:22.1	Modern day Iran is what we think of the Iranian plateau, the essential border still of Iran,
	...

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