Persepolis, The centre of the great Persian Empire

Pasargadae spoke too eloquently of the supplanted dynasty, and Darius sought a new site for his capital. Twenty-five miles down the winding gorge of the Median River that watered the Pasargadae Plain, a rock-cut road led into another and broader plain. Through it flowed a yet larger river, the Araxes, to irrigate the fertile soil, until the stream disappeared in the great salt lake of southwestern Persia. (172).