But dark clouds were on the horizon. An ancient rivalry with Greece would erupt into an epic clash that changed the course of history, and shaped the western world for thousands of years to come. 330 BC: a young Macedonian king conquers the Persian Empire and leads his invading army into Persepolis, its spectacular capital city. The Macedonian ruler is Alexander the Great, an admirer of the great Persian kings. By sundown, the Greek victory celebration degenerates into a drunken melee. By sunup, Persepolis, the crown jewel of the Persian Empire with palaces unrivaled anywhere in the world, is burned to the ground. More than 2,500 years later, these immense towers stand as testament to the soaring heights this now forgotten empire once reached. I equate Persia with luxury, with rich tapestries and beautiful rugs, and my mother's fat, fuzzy Persian cat named Otis. But I also think of a fantastic Persian king named Cyrus the Great who believed in religious and cultural tolerance; and who freed the Jews from Babylon to return to Israel. Hello, I'm Peter Weller, and welcome to the Persian Empire. Around 4,000 BC, two nomadic tribes were starting to take root in a rich, but hot Iranian plateau: the Medes in the north, the Persians in the south. Being as that these tribes were nomadic, they were more interested in survival than conquest. As they became less nomadic, they had to learn how to farm--in particular, how to cultivate this fertile Iranian plateau. But to do that, they needed a source of water. The early Persians may have very well become dust in the winds of history had they not unlocked a source of water; and just as importantly, a means to channel that water to their crops and settlements. And what makes this engineering feat so remarkable, is that they found this water not from rivers or lakes or oceans, but from the most unlikely source of all: rocks. Persia emerged out of nothing--a rugged, hostile terrain built with only invention and determination. Three thousand years ago, nomadic, early Persians roamed the parched, forbidding Iranian plateau. Finding water meant travelling long distances. It fell to a hybrid engineer, geologist, and diviner called a "mogane" to figure out how to bring it back to his people. Using nothing more than stone chisels, moganes would build the first cornerstone of the Persian Empire. A breakthrough system of underground irrigation canals called "qanats". They began by harnessing gravity to exploit the natural topography of their land, which sloped relentlessly from the Alborz Mountains towards the Persian gulf. Vertical shafts were first dug down from the surface and the tunnel was excavated horizontally for a short distance. Then another vertical shaft was built approximately three-quarters of a mile up the slope, and the channel continued. That can sometimes be 20, 30, 40 kilometers away, so it's a very skilled operation to the point where the gradient of the water channel meets the aquifer, or the groundwater, sloping up at the point where the mountains begin. The angle of the slope was crucial: one unit in elevation for every hundred on the horizontal. Not too steep because that would erode the base of the water channel, and of course, not so flat as to prevent the water from moving to its intended destination. Water means food, but the engineering technology to locate that water and move it was a carrot that the Persians were dangling if front of their neighbors. Around 700 BC, all of these tribes were united under one legendary figure named Achaemenes, who founded a dynasty. But this dynasty thrived and flourished under one guy--a guy I would have liked to have met--named Cyrus the Great. Cyrus created and maintained and empire, thanks no doubt to his military savvy; but he was also a political genius. He was an excellent benevolent manager of men. Historians have called him humanist, the Jews calling "mashiach", or anointed one. His own people called him "father", and even the Ionian Greeks whom he conquered called him a just and worthy lawgiver and ruler. Cyrus the Great came to power in 559 BC. It was the beginning of the Achaemenid Dynasty. Their reign would change the course of history and redefine architectural possibility If you're looking at the greatest personages in history, who have affected the world, Cyrus the Great is one of the few who deserves that epithet, the one who deserves to be called "The Great". The empire over which Cyrus ruled was the largest the ancient world had ever seen, and may be to this day the largest empire ever.

• published: 28 Oct 2015
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