Record · Classical world · West Asia
How did Persia run the largest empire the world had seen?
Darius I cut the Achaemenid empire into tax districts, linked them with a road of 111 stations and relay couriers, and paid in gold darics.
· 500 BCClassical world West Asia
West Asia in the classical world (800 BC – AD 500). Greece, Rome, Persia, the Qin and Han, the Maya: the age of the great classical states and the written histories that describe them. These articles cover their rise, their wars and the everyday lives their ruins preserve.
Record · Classical world · West Asia
Did Persia really capture a Roman emperor alive in AD 260?
Shapur I took Valerian prisoner near Edessa in AD 260 and recorded it in a trilingual inscription and rock reliefs in Fars. Rome told it differently.
· AD 260
Record · Classical world · West Asia
How did a desert oasis get rich enough to challenge Rome?
Palmyra taxed the caravans carrying Gulf and Indian goods across the desert to Rome. That wealth let Odaenathus and Zenobia rule the Roman East until AD 272.
· AD 270