The Fall and Burning of Persepolis
Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid kings, was the richest city in the ancient world. Alexander took it in late 330 BCE. The treasury contained 120,000 talents of gold and silver — so much that it required 20,000 mules and 5,000 camels to transport. The plunder transformed the Mediterranean economy. Alexander occupied Persepolis for four to five months. He allowed his troops to plunder the city (except the palace compound). Then, in circumstances that ancient sources describe differently, the palace burned. Diodorus and Curtius describe a drunken banquet at which the Athenian courtesan Thais urged Alexander to burn the palace as revenge for Xerxes' burning of the Acropolis, and the guests ran out with torches. Arrian is more skeptical, suggesting it was a calculated political act. The fire destroyed the apadana (audience hall), the throne room, the Treasury, and the royal living quarters — a complex of extraordinary artistic achievement decorated with bas-reliefs of subject peoples bringing tribute. The ruins survive as Iran's greatest archaeological site. Alexander reportedly regretted the burning afterward. Whether impulse or policy, the destruction eliminated the palace that had been the physical symbol of Persian imperial legitimacy — a statement that the Achaemenid dynasty was finished.
- Year: 330 BCE
- Category: Cultural
