ECBATANA

(Ec·batʹa·na) [perhaps, place of gathering].

The capital city of ancient Media, from about 700 B.C.E. Persian King Cyrus II took it from Median King Astyages in 550 B.C.E., after which the Medes and Persians joined forces under Cyrus. Ecbatana is Scripturally identified as a place that was in the jurisdictional district of Media in the days of Persian King Darius I (Hystaspis).—Ezra 6:1, 2.

“Ecbatana” is the English rendering of this city’s name at Ezra 6:2 according to the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, whereas the Masoretic text and the Syriac Peshitta Version give it as “Achmetha.” The Old Persian form Hagmatana may mean “place of gathering” or “the meeting place of many roads,” and the ultimate derivation of “Ecbatana” appears to be from an Akkadian word meaning “gathering.” Early Greek writers seem to have applied the name “Ecbatana” to several places. However, there is general agreement among scholars today that the Ecbatana captured by Cyrus (and thus that mentioned at Ezra 6:2) is the modern city of Hamadan, an important commercial center of Iran situated at the foot of Mount Elvend approximately 180 miles (c. 290 kilometers) W-SW of Tehran. Just as ancient Ecbatana was a significant city along the chief route leading from Mesopotamia to points farther E, so modern Hamadan is traversed by various roads, such as that running from Baghdad to Tehran.

Ecbatana served as the summer capital of kings of Media and Persia. Cyrus, for instance, appears to have spent the summer months there, although he wintered in Babylon. So, it could be expected that records of his rule might be found in both cities. With its elevation of some 6,280 feet (1,914 meters) Ecbatana was probably more desirable than Babylon in summer because of Ecbatana’s cooler climate.

When certain Persian-appointed officials questioned the legality of the Jews’ temple-rebuilding work in Zerubbabel’s day, these opposers sent a letter to King Darius I of Persia requesting confirmation of Cyrus’ decree authorizing the reconstruction. (Ezra 5:1-17) Since the Jews resumed their temple-rebuilding activities (after a halt of some years) around September 25, 520 B.C.E., the letter was likely sent to Ecbatana, the summer capital. Darius had an investigation made and Cyrus’ decree was found in Ecbatana, thus establishing the legality of the temple-rebuilding work. In fact, Darius put through an order so that the Jews’ work might go on without hindrance and their opposers were even ordered to provide them with needed materials, which “they did promptly.” The temple was finally completed “by the third day of the lunar month Adar, that is, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king,” or near the spring of 515 B.C.E.—Ezra 6:6-15.

Herodotus ascribes the founding of Ecbatana to the Median king Deioces, but Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser I, of an earlier time, seems to refer to it in one of his inscriptions. The Greek writer Ctesias said Ecbatana and Babylon were both founded by Semiramis. According to Herodotus (I, 98), Ecbatana was built on a hill and had seven concentric walls (so constructed that the battlements of one stood just above the next wall out), with the king’s palace and the treasury within the innermost wall. Herodotus wrote: “The battlements of the first circle are white, of the second black, of the third purple, of the fourth blue, of the fifth bright red. Thus the battlements of all the circles are painted with different colors; but the two last have their battlements plaited [plated], the one with silver, the other with gold.”

It was once suggested that the Ecbatana of Herodotus was to be identified with Takht-i-Suleiman, NW of Hamadan. But this does not seem likely, The Encyclopœdia Britannica (11th ed., Vol. VIII, p. 846) stating: “Sir H. Rawlinson attempted to prove that there was a second and older Ecbatana in Media Atropatene, on the site of the modern Takht-i-Suleiman, midway between Hamadan and Tabriz . . . but the cuneiform texts imply that there was only one city of the name, and Takht-i-Suleiman is the Gazaca of classical geography.”

The story about Ecbatana’s seven concentric walls told by the Greek historian Herodotus (of the fifth century B.C.E.) may be at least somewhat imaginative, for the later Greek historian Polybius (who lived possibly between 205 and 125 B.C.E.) said that the Ecbatana of his time was unwalled though its acropolis or citadel was very well fortified. At one time Cyrus’ citadel stood in a section of modern Hamadan called Sar Qalʽa (meaning “cliff castle”), where portions of foundations and walls of ancient palace towers have been unearthed by excavators, these finds dating back to the days of Median and Persian (Achaemenian) rulers. Various ancient items have been discovered in Hamadan, among them silver and gold tablets bearing inscriptions of Persian King Darius I. Though magnificent palaces and temples once stood in Ecbatana, unearthing their remains would require the removal of many present-day buildings, and such major archaeological work has not been done in Hamadan.

Alexander the Great took Ecbatana from the Persians in 330 B.C.E. It thereafter came into the control of the Seleucidae, Antiochus the Great and the Parthians, whose rulers again used it as a summer capital. Ecbatana’s subsequent history included control by the Sassanians (who used it as their capital) and by Islamic conquerors, as well as the city’s survival of the Mongol conquest of the thirteenth century C.E.