THE PERSIAN EMPIRE Although Nebuchadnezzar, “King of
Kings” of the biblical Daniel, had boasted that he “caused a mighty wall
to circumscribe Babylon... so that the enemy who would do evil
would not threaten,” Cyrus of Persia (r. 559–529 BCE) captured the city
in the sixth century. Cyrus, who may have been descended from an
Elamite line, was the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty and traced
his ancestry back to a mythical King Achaemenes. Babylon was but one
of the Persians’ conquests. Egypt fell to them in 525 BCE, and by 480 BCE
the Persian Empire was the largest the world had yet known, extending
from the Indus River in South Asia to the Danube River in northeast-
ern Europe. Only the successful Greek resistance in the fifth century
BCEprevented Persia from embracing southeastern Europe as well. The
Achaemenid line ended with the death of Darius III in 330 BCE, after
his defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great (FIG. 5-70).
PERSEPOLIS The most important source of knowledge about
Persian art and architecture is the ceremonial and administrative
complex on the citadel at Persepolis (FIG. 2-25), which the succes-
sors of Cyrus, Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE) and Xerxes (r. 486–465 BCE),
built between 521 and 465 BCE. Situated on a high plateau, the heav-
ily fortified complex of royal buildings stood on a wide platform
overlooking the plain. Alexander the Great razed the site in a gesture
symbolizing the destruction of Persian imperial power. Some said it
was an act of revenge for the Persian sack of the Athenian Acropolis
in the early fifth century BCE(see Chapter 5). But even in ruins, the
Persepolis citadel is impressive.
The approach to the citadel led through a monumental gateway
called the Gate of All Lands, a reference to the harmony among the
peoples of the vast Persian Empire. Assyrian-inspired colossal man-
headed winged bulls flanked the great entrance. Broad ceremonial
stairways provided access to the platform and the royal audience
hall, or apadana,a huge hall 60 feet high and 217 feet square, con-
taining 36 colossal columns. An audience of thousands could have
stood within the hall.
The reliefs (FIG. 2-26) decorating the walls of the terrace and
staircases leading to the apadana represent processions of royal
guards, Persian nobles and dignitaries, and representatives from 23
subject nations bringing the king tribute. Every one of the emissaries
wears his national costume and carries a typical regional gift for the
conqueror. The carving of the Persepolis reliefs is technically superb,
with subtly modeled surfaces and crisply chiseled details. Traces of
color prove that the reliefs were painted, and the original effect must
have been even more striking than it is today. Although the Persepo-
lis sculptures may have been inspired by those in Assyrian palaces,
they are different in style. The forms are more rounded, and they
project more from the background. Some of the details, notably the
treatment of drapery folds, echo forms characteristic of Archaic
Greek sculpture (see Chapter 5), and Greek influence seems to be
one of the many ingredients of Achaemenid style. Persian art testifies
to the active exchange of ideas and artists among all the Mediter-
ranean and Near Eastern civilizations at this date. A building in-
scription at Susa, for example, names Ionian Greeks, Medes, Egyp-48 Chapter 2 THE ANCIENT NEAR EASTT
he uncontested list of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world
was not codified until the 16th century. But already in the second
century BCE, Antipater of Sidon, a Greek poet, compiled a roster of
seven must-see monuments, including six of the seven later Wonders.
All of the Wonders were of colossal size and constructed at great ex-
pense. Three of them were of great antiquity: the pyramids of Gizeh
(FIG. 3-8), which Antipater described as “man-made mountains,” and
“the hanging gardens” and “walls of impregnable Babylon.”
Babylon was the only site on Antipater’s list that could boast two
Wonders. Later list makers preferred to distribute the Seven Wonders
among seven different cities. Most of these Wonders date to Greek
times—the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, with its 60-foot-tall col-
umns; Phidias’s colossal gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus at Olympia;
the grandiose tomb of Mausolus (the “Mausoleum”) at Halikarnassos;
the Colossus of Rhodes, a bronze statue of the sun god 110 feet tall;
and the lighthouse at Alexandria, perhaps the tallest building in the
ancient world. The pyramids are the oldest and the Babylonian gar-
dens the only Wonder in the category of “landscape architecture.”
Several ancient texts describe Babylon’s gardens. Quintus Curtius
Rufus, writing in the mid-first century CE,reported:
On the top of the citadel are the hanging gardens, a wonder celebrated
in the tales of the Greeks....Columns of stone were set up to sus-
tain the whole work, and on these was laid a floor of squared blocks,
strong enough to hold the earth which is thrown upon it to a great
depth, as well as the water with which they irrigate the soil; and the
structure supports trees of such great size that the thickness of their
trunks equals a measure of eight cubits [about twelve feet]. They
tower to a height of fifty feet, and they yield as much fruit as if theywere growing in their native soil....To those who look upon
[the trees] from a distance, real woods seem to be overhanging
their native mountains.*
Not qualifying as a Wonder, but in some ways no less impres-
sive, was Babylon’s Marduk ziggurat, the biblical Tower of Babel.
According to the Bible, humankind’s arrogant desire to build a tower
to Heaven angered God. The Lord put an end to it by causing the
workers to speak different languages, preventing them from communi-
cating with one another. The fifth-century BCE Greek historian
Herodotus described the Babylonian temple complex:
In the middle of the sanctuary [of Marduk] has been built a solid
tower ...which supports another tower, which in turn supports
another, and so on: there are eight towers in all. A stairway has been
constructed to wind its way up the outside of all the towers; halfway
up the stairway there is a shelter with benches to rest on, where peo-
ple making the ascent can sit and catch their breath. In the last tower
there is a huge temple. The temple contains a large couch, which is
adorned with fine coverings and has a golden table standing beside
it, but there are no statues at all standing there....[The Babylonians]
say that the god comes in person to the temple [compare the Su-
merian notion of the temple as a “waiting room”] and rests on the
couch; I do not believe this story myself.†Babylon, City of Wonders
WRITTEN SOURCES
*Translated by John C. Rolfe,Quintus Curtius I (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1971), 337–339.
†Translated by Robin Waterfield,Herodotus: The Histories (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 79–80.2-25ACapital
with bull
protomes,
Persepolis,
ca. 521–465 BCE.2-26AGold
rhyton,
Hamadan, fifth to
third century BCE.