Tom Holland

And it helps Darius secure his rule, crush his enemies, this combination of kind of militant devotion to notions of truth and a readiness to impale people and kind of mutilate them.

And it's, you know, it's a great combination, very effective.

And it helps him to set the Persian Empire on foundations that are so secure that it will endure...

Pretty much in a state of peace.

I mean, you know, give or take the old rebellion or whatever.

For about two centuries until it ends up conquered by Alexander.

Yeah, so we've compared him to Constantine, but you could also compare him to Augustus.

I mean, he's that significant.

He's that able.

And he founds this great palace to serve him as his nerve center, as his powerhouse, and also as the showcase for his power.

And the Persians call it Parsa, so basically Persia, and the Greeks will call it Persepolis.

And this is the site where the Persian rebels had been impaled.

You know, this is where the Shah in due course will have his great party.

Persepolis becomes the focus of an immense network of precisely organised tribute that spans the entire empire.

Cyrus and Cambyses hadn't really been bothered with this kind of thing, but Darius has the brain of an accountant.

The Persian nobles mock him behind his back as a shopkeeper.

But it is precisely this mastery of tribute and of fiscal policy and so on that actually is at least as important as his talents as a general.

You know, it's a combination of knowing how to conquer people and then knowing how to screw the money out of them so that they don't rebel.

Harmony and order and truth and all that is you know, divinely sanctioned and all that is good in this world, you know So so you get conquered by the Persians you get told you got to give enormous amounts of tribute and then you get told that if you're going to rebel then you know, you're you're you're in rebellion against truth and order and that this truth and order spans the entire cosmos and so it enables Darius who I think is it's clearly not a very pleasant man to cast himself as a kind of

Friendly uncle.