Download The Empires of Ancient Persia: The History and Legacy of the Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanids in Antiquity AudioBook Free
Lying in the center of a plain in modern day Iran is a forgotten historical city: Persepolis. Built two and a half thousand years back, it was known in its day as the richest city under the sun. Persepolis was the administrative centre of Achaemenid Persian Empire, the most significant empire the planet had ever seen, but after its destruction, it was typically forgotten for almost 2,000 years, and the lives and accomplishments of these who built it were almost entirely erased from record. Alexander the Great's troops razed metropolis to the bottom in a drunken riot to enjoy the conquest of the administrative centre, and time and fine sand buried it for centuries. It was not before excavations of the 1930s that lots of of the relics, reliefs, and clay tablets that provide a lot information about Persian life could be studied for the first time. Through archaeological remains, historical text messages, and work by a new technology of historians, a picture can today be built of the remarkable civilization and their capital city. Although metropolis had been demolished, the legacy of the Persians survived, even as they mostly continue to be an enigma to the West and are not almost as well grasped as the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians. In a sense, the Achaemenid Persian Empire holds some of the most long lasting mysteries of historical civilization. The Parthian people created an empire that lasted almost 500 years, from the middle-3rd hundred years BCE until 224 CE, and it extended from the Euphrates River in the western to Central Asia and the edges of Bactria in the east (Brosius 2010, 83). Actually, the expansive empire challenged the Romans on numerous events for supremacy in the Near East, created the first sustainable link between the peoples of Europe and East Asia, and followed a religion that lots of consider to be the oldest form of monotheism on earth; but despite these achievements the Parthians tend to be overlooked in favor of the Achaemenid and Sassanid Persians who arrived before and after them respectively, not to mention the Romans themselves. Even though Parthians may well not get top billing generally in most popular histories of the time, they still left an indelible tag on the planet that can't be overstated. Through the first half the 1st millennium CE, an empire arose in Persia that expanded its vitality and impact to Mesopotamia in the east, Arabia in the south, the Caucasus Mountains in the north, as asia as India. This empire, known alternatively as the Sasanian Empire or Sassanid Empire, was the previous of three great dynasties in Persia-the Achaemenid and the Parthian being the first two dynasties-before the rise of Islam. Actually, many scholars consider the Sasanian Empire to be the previous great empire of the historical Near East because once it turned out obliterated, Islam became the standard religion of the region, ushering in the Middle Ages.
