Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of the great 'City of the Persians' founded by Darius I as the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire that stretched from the Indus Valley to Egypt and the coast of the Black Sea. It was known as the richest city under the sun and was a centre at which the Empire's subject peoples paid tribute to a succession of Achaemenid leaders, until the arrival of Alexander III of Macedon who destroyed it by fire supposedly in revenge for the burning of the Acropolis in Athens.

The image above is a detail from a relief at the Apadana, the huge audience hall, and shows a lion attacking a bull.

With

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis

And

Lindsay Allen

Producer: Simon Tillotson.