Listed 1 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "EKVATANA Ancient city MIDIA" .
EKVATANA (Ancient city) MIDIA
Ecbatana (Old Persian Hagmatana, 'meeting place'): capital of the ancient
Median empire, Hamadan in modern Iran.
According to the Histories of the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus,
Ecbatana was founded by Deioces, the legendary first king of the Medes. He writes:
Deioces bade them build for him a palace worthy of the royal dignity
and strengthen him with a guard of spearmen. And the Medes did so: for they built
him a large and strong palace in that part of the land which he told them [...].
He built large and strong walls, those which are now called Ecbatana, standing
in circles one within the other. And this wall is so contrived that one circle
is higher than the next by the height of the battlements alone. And to some extent,
I suppose, the nature of the ground, seeing that it is on a hill, assists towards
this end; but much more was it produced by art, since the circles are in all seven
in number. And within the last circle are the royal palace and the treasure-houses.
The largest of these walls is in size about equal to the circuit of the wall round
Athens; and of the first
circle the battlements are white, of the second black, of the third crimson, of
the fourth blue, of the fifth red: thus are the battlements of all the circles
colored with various tints, and the two last have their battlements one of them
overlaid with silver and the other with gold. These walls then Deioces built for
himself and round his own palace, and the people he commanded to dwell round about
the wall.
[Herodotus, Histories 1.98-99]
This is clearly a fantastic description, but it may contain an element
of truth: the seven walls may in fact be a ziggurat, a kind of multi-storied temple
tower that was common in the ancient Near East. This explanation, however, is
far from certain. Only archaeology will be able to offer a reliable description
of ancient Ecbatana, but since the site is currently overbuilt by modern Hamadan,
it is not likely that this will happen in the foreseeable future.
The Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis
offers probably the best available description of the city (World history 10.27.5-13).
He writes that the city was richer and more beautiful than all other cities in
the world; although it had no town wall, the citadel had impressive fortifications.
This confirms Herodotus' words that the Medes were 'to dwell round about the wall',
but Polybius offers more plausible dimensions: the circumference of the citadel
was 1,300 meters. He also states that the builders used cedar and cypress wood,
which was covered with silver and gold. The roof tiles, columns and ceilings were
plated with silver and gold. This sounds like a credible description of an oriental
palace, like Persepolis.
When the Persian king Cyrus the Great, a member of the Persian Achaemenid
dynasty, had overthrown the Median empire in 550 BCE, he captured Ecbatana. The
text known as the Chronicle of Nabonidus states:
King Astyages called up his troops and marched against Cyrus, king
of Ansan [i.e., Persia], in order to meet him in battle. The army of Astyages
revolted against him and in fetters they delivered him to Cyrus. Cyrus marched
against the country Ecbatana; the royal residence he seized; silver, gold, other
valuables of the country Ecbatana he took as booty and brought to Ansan. According
to the Greek historian Xenophon of Athens (c.430-c.355), Ecbatana became the summer
residence of the Achaemenid kings (Anabasis 3.5.15).
In December 522, the Median rebel Phraortes reoccupied Ecbatana and
made it his capital; he was defeated, however, by the Persian king Darius the
Great (May 521). He celebrated this event with a large relief and an inscription
along the road between Babylon and Ecbatana (the famous Behistun inscription).
Greek sources mention temples dedicated to the goddess Aene (probably
Anahita) and the goddess of healing, which the Greeks called Asclepius. This shrine
was destroyed by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, who overthrew the Achaemenid
empire, because the god had allowed his friend Hephaestion to die in Ecbatana
(324). Hephaestion's sepulcral monument, a lion, is still visible. Earlier, Alexander
had had his general Parmenion killed in the capital of Media (330).
Later, Ecbatana was one of the capitals of the Seleucid and the Parthian
empire, sometimes called Epiphaneia.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!