Ecbatana

Ecbatana (Heb. Achmetha, as in Ezra, vi. 2), the capital and chief fortress of Media. It was situated $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ mile from Mount Orontes (now Elvend), and at the foot of a hill crowned with the royal citadel and a magnificent temple of the sun. According to Herodotus, Ecbatana was founded by Deioces (about 700 B.C.), who surrounded it with seven walls, each higher than the next outside it, and having its battlements of a different colour. The inmost wall inclosed the citadel, with the treasury and the archives, among which Darius found the roll containing the edict of Cyrus for the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem (Ezra vi.). Ecbatana was taken by Cyrus in 549 B.C., after which it became the chief seat of his government. Its cool mountain climate made it a favourite summer residence of the Persian kings; and Alexander the Great lingered here for two months in 324 B.C. After his death Ecbatana sank to a mere provincial town, till, under the Parthians, it became once more the summer residence of kings. From the time of its conquest by the Sassanidæ it is scarcely again mentioned in history. In the Mohammedan period there rose on the site of the ancient city the modern Hamadan. Inscriptions of Xerxes have been found on the summit and slopes of Mount Elvend (10,728 feet).—There were six other Asiatic cities or strongholds to which the name Ecbatana was given by Greek writers, and Sir H. Rawlinson identifies the Ecbatana of Herodotus not with Hamadan, but with a hill half-way between it and Tabriz.