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The lion

Big cat of Persis, Elam and northern Greece, and the royal hunt image, 6th-5th century BCE

In the game: Level 1: The Founder's Tomb, Level 4: The Terrace, Level 5: The Charter, Level 9: The Canal

Lions lived in the Near East in the Achaemenid age, and Herodotus places some in northern Greece. Seals and palace art show the king hunting or overcoming lions, an image of royal power. Herodotus says lions attacked Xerxes' baggage camels on the march between the Nestos and the Achelous.

In the game: The game draws lions as scenery on the Athos, Parsa, Pasargadae and Susa levels: on hills in Persis and Thrace, and at the marsh edge in Elam. No rule reads them. Those placings are the designers' choice, not a documented range.

Lions in Xerxes' march

Ancient account

Herodotus says that on the march between the Nestos and the Achelous lions came down at night and killed the camels that carried the army's food. He adds that they touched no men and no other baggage animals, and that he found this strange. He says lions were found only in that stretch of Europe, together with wild oxen.

Herodotus 7.125-126

The royal lion hunt on seals

In the record

Seals and sealings from Persepolis, including impressions on the Fortification tablets, show a royal figure hunting or fighting lions. Modern scholars read the scene as the king acting as protector against wild beasts. The images come from the time itself, but they show an ideal and not a record of any one hunt.

M. Garrison and M. Root, Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, 2001

Lions in palace art

In the record

Lions appear in the glazed-brick decoration of the palace at Susa, and at Persepolis a lion is shown attacking a bull on the Apadana. Such images use the animal as a symbol of power, not as a sign of real lions near the building.

P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002

Lions in Persis and Elam

Disputed

Lions survived in south-western Iran into recent times, so they probably lived in Persis and Elam in the sixth century. The sources give few direct reports, and the numbers and range cannot be fixed. Historians also debate how far royal lion hunting was real sport and how far it was staged.

P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002

Lions kept in the king's care

Disputed

Xenophon describes a paradise, a park full of game, kept by Cyrus the Younger, and later Greek writers describe royal hunting parks. Whether lions were kept in such parks under Darius and Xerxes is not clear from the evidence. Many modern scholars see the royal lion hunt image as owing something to Assyrian kings, who also had lion hunts recorded.

Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2