Rating: Not rated
Tags: History, Lang:en
Summary
Includes pictures
**
Includes ancient accounts
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further
reading
Lying in the middle of a plain in modern day Iran is a
forgotten ancient city: Persepolis. Built two and a half
thousand years ago, it was known in its day as the richest city
under the sun. Persepolis was the capital of Achaemenid Persian
Empire, the largest empire the world had ever seen, but after
its destruction, it was largely forgotten for nearly 2,000
years, and the lives and achievements of those who built it
were almost entirely erased from history. Alexander the
Great’s troops razed the city to the ground in a drunken
riot to celebrate the conquest of the capital, after which time
and sand buried it for centuries.
It was not until the excavations of the 1930s that many of the
relics, reliefs, and clay tablets that offer so much
information about Persian life could be studied for the first
time. Through archaeological remains, ancient texts, and work
by a new generation of historians, a picture can today be built
of this remarkable civilization and their capital city.
Although the city had been destroyed, the legacy of the
Persians survived, even as they mostly remain an enigma to the
West and are not nearly as well understood as the Greeks,
Romans, or Egyptians. In a sense, the Achaemenid Persian Empire
holds some of the most enduring mysteries of ancient
civilization.
The Parthian people created an empire that lasted almost 500
years, from the mid-3rd century BCE until 224 CE, and it
stretched from the Euphrates River in the west to Central Asia
and the borders of Bactria in the east (Brosius 2010, 83). In
fact, the expansive empire challenged the Romans on numerous
occasions for supremacy in the Near East, created the first
sustainable link between the peoples of Europe and East Asia,
and followed a religion that many consider to be the oldest
form of monotheism in the world; but despite these
accomplishments the Parthians are often overlooked in favor of
the Achaemenid and Sassanid Persians who came before and after
them respectively, not to mention the Romans themselves.
Although the Parthians may not get top billing in most popular
histories of the period, they left an indelible mark on the
world that cannot be overstated.
During the first half of the 1st millennium CE, an empire arose
in Persia that extended its power and influence to Mesopotamia
in the east, Arabia in the south, the Caucasus Mountains in the
north, and as far east as India. This empire, known
alternatively as the Sasanian Empire or Sassanid Empire, was
the last of three great dynasties in Persia—the
Achaemenid and the Parthian being the first two
dynasties—before the rise of Islam. In fact, many
scholars consider the Sasanian Empire to be the last great
empire of the ancient Near East because once it had been
obliterated, Islam became the standard religion of the region,
ushering in the Middle Ages.
The Sasanian Empire was important for a number of reasons.
Besides being the last of three great Persian dynasties, they
carried on many Persian cultural traditions relating to
religion and kingship. The Sasanians fostered and promoted the
native religion of Zoroastrianism to the point of persecuting
other religions from time to time. It was during the Sasanian
period that the numerous Zoroastrian hymns, prayers, and
rituals were collected under one book, known as the Avesta.
Thanks to the Sasanians’ efforts with regard to religion,
modern scholars know much more about Zoroastrianism than they
would have if the religion continued to disseminate orally.
Their efforts also protected Zoroastrian knowledge in later
years after the dynasty was long gone and Islam became
ascendant in Persia. The Sasanians, like the Achaemenids and
Parthians, also carried forth the Persian conflicts with the
Hellenic world.