In this last episode on Iran, we talk about one of the most important peoples you probably never heard of: the Elamites. We also talk about the Medes and the early Achaemenids. Special attention will go to the enigmatic figure of Cyrus the Great.

"Power doesn't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying... lying big and getting the whole ×××× world to play along with you." (Quote from sin city) How does that work? Check out this episode and find out...

We talk about how Darius the Great transformed the Persian empire.

Any fake news in this episode is involuntary. If you find any, please let me know.

The Persians, and especially the Achaemenids, have for centuries been presented as the ultimate "other". Corrupt, decadent, freedom-hating...

In this episode, we look how accurate these stereotypes fit the real thing. The episode owes a large debt to professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones' excellent work (and several others), which takes many new findings and weaves them into a fascinating new narrative. I advise you all to buy it, of course. Other sources are on my Facebook page.

We talk about Alexander the Great, and how he (may have) conquered the Achaemenid Persian empire.

In the next episode, we'll talk about how Alexander the Great managed to conquer the Persian empire.

In this one, we'll see why we will probably never know that.

We talk about the predecessors to the Sasanian empire. Their approach was completely different, but in a way, perfectly adopted to the lands of Iran.

Omnipresent magic. Religiously sanctioned inbreeding. Extreme decadence. Lots of war elephants. A royal family that commits genocide on itself. Welcome to the world of Sasan.

Today, we discuss the religion that dominated Iran until the Muslim Conquests: Zoroastrianism. As we shall see, this faith bears many resemblances to Twelver Shiism, the sect that would be embraced by the Buyid dynasty soon after it emerged, and not long after the Islamization of Iran really got underway. These similarities may not be entirely coincidental. Zoroastrianism also left a mark on other world religions. It had many followers in Arabia during the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammed. After the Muslims conquered Persia, both religions would co-exist there for centuries. That was bound to leave a mark.