United States or Mongolia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On approaching Ecbatana he learned that the Persian monarch had already fled with the little army which still adhered to him. Alexander, with his main body, then pursued Darius through Media by forced marches and reached Rhagae, a distance of three hundred miles from Ecbatana, in eleven days. Such was the rapidity of the march that many men and horses died of fatigue.
From hence he marched through the province of Babylon, which immediately submitted to him, and in Ecbatana was much surprised at the sight of the place where fire issues in a continuous stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth, and the stream of naphtha, which, not far from this spot, flows out so abundantly as to form a sort of lake.
Another was built by Darius and his son Xerxes on the great mound of Susa; and of this we have the ground-plan, in a great measure, and various interesting details. A third stood within the walls of the city of Persepolis, but of this not much more is left than of the construction at Ecbatana.
Now where have you been since I sent you off in the winter to visit Asia?” The man, who knew his master loved to do the lion’s share of the talking, answered instantly:— “Sardis, Emesa, Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana.” “Eu! Your commission is well executed. Are all the rumours we hear from the East well founded? Is Xerxes assembling an innumerable host?” “Rumour does not tell half the truth.
When the writing of Cyrus, of the existence of which Cambyses had known nothing, was found in the archives of Ecbatana, he allowed the Jews to carry on the building of their temple to Jehovah; he also left the Ionian cities free to govern their own communities independently. Indeed, he would hardly have sent his army against Greece, if the Athenians had not insulted him.
The wealth of one of the richest countries of antiquity had been dispersed and re-collected at Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, and other cities, to be again seized by Alexander in his conquest of the East, then again to be hoarded or spent by the Syrian and Egyptian kings who descended from Alexander's generals, and finally to be deposited in the treasuries of the Romans and the Byzantine Greeks.
The city was besieged and taken, and the wisest and wealthiest of the Eastern kings sunk thenceforth into a petty vassal, consigned as guest or prisoner to a Median city near Ecbatana . The prophecy was fulfilled, and a mighty empire overthrown.
He had perhaps already built there the great palace, whose remains have been recently disinterred by English enterprise; or he may have wished to superintend the work of construction. Susa, which was certainly from henceforth the main Persian capital, possessed advantages over almost any other site. Its climate was softer than that of Ecbatana and Persepolis, less sultry than that of Babylon.
It maintained its rank under the Persians, and is mentioned by Darius Hystaspis as the scene of the struggle which terminated the great Median revolt. The last Darius seems to have sent thither his heavy baggage and the ladies of his court, when he resolved to quit Ecbatana and fly eastward.
He established himself at Ecbatana, the capital, without resistance, and made preparations for the invasion of the eastern part of the Persian empire, beyond the Parthian desert, even to the Oxus and the Indus, inhabited by warlike barbarians, from which were chiefly recruited the Persian armies.