Persia, a Museum of Materials · Hall 5 · Gold & Road

Race a message across the empire

Darius I held his empire together with roads. Herodotus counted 111 stations on the Royal Road from Sardis to Susa, 450 parasangs, roughly 2,500 to 2,700 km: three months on foot. Royal couriers, handing each message from rider to rider, are thought to have covered it in about nine days. Place the stations and send a message.

Day0

Courier0 km

On foot0 km

500 km

Stations on the road

111

Longest stage: 24 km. A fresh horse for every stage.

Courier: about 9 days · On foot: about 90 days · 10× faster

Road: The Royal Road, Sardis to Susa
Built: Reorganized under Darius I (522–486 BC)
Length: 450 parasangs, roughly 2,500–2,700 km
Stations: 111, by Herodotus’s count
On foot: About 90 days

Try this

Press Send the message. The courier and the walker leave Sardis together.
Drag the stations down to 20. Each stage is now longer than the model’s 25 km gallop: the trail turns red and the courier slows down.
Find the fewest stations that still give a fresh horse for every stage. Herodotus counted 111.

The map is simplified and the route is a reconstruction: scholars disagree about parts of it. The 111 stations and 90 days on foot come from Herodotus; the nine days for couriers is a modern estimate. The race uses a simple model: a fresh horse keeps up a fast pace for about 25 km, the relay runs day and night at about 290 km a day, and a rider without a fresh horse manages about 50 km a day. Roads wind; the line on the map is straightened.

Move your pointer or finger across the coin, or use the arrow keys, to turn it in the light.

Gold you could trust

Darius also struck a gold coin, the daric: 8.4 grams of almost pure gold, showing the king as an archer. One daric was worth twenty silver coins. Whether its name comes from Darius or from an Old Persian word for gold is still debated. Darics were struck until about 330 BC.

Weight: 8.4 g
Gold: 95.8% pure
Worth: 20 silver sigloi
Size: About 1.5 cm across

Redrawn after darics of the archer type and shown much larger than life.

Neither snow nor rain

Herodotus wrote that nothing mortal travels faster than these Persian couriers. Men and horses waited along the road, one for each day of the journey, and neither snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness kept them from finishing their stage. An English version of his words is carved above the colonnade of New York’s James A. Farley Building, once the city’s main post office.

Gates, boats and ferries

Herodotus describes the road as a traveller met it: royal stations and fine inns along its whole length, through country that was settled and safe. At the Halys there were gates and a guard post, the Euphrates was crossed by boat, and four rivers further east, the Tigris among them, by ferry.

The cliff that unlocked cuneiform

At Bisotun, near Kermanshah, Darius had the story of how he became king carved about 100 m up a cliff, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. Henry Rawlinson copied it between 1835 and 1847, and the three languages side by side helped scholars read Babylonian cuneiform: the script of the Cyrus Cylinder. Bisotun has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2006.

Episode 5 of 12

Still alive today

Modern Greeks still call a tiresome chore an angaria (αγγαρεία), a word descended from angaros, the ancient Greek name for a Persian royal courier; and an English version of Herodotus’s praise for those couriers is still carved above the colonnade of New York’s old main post office.

Questions people ask

How long was the Royal Road?

Herodotus gives 450 parasangs and 111 stations from Sardis to Susa, and three months on foot. In modern units that is about 2,500 to 2,700 km.

How fast was the royal post?

Riders changed at every station and rode day and night. A modern estimate puts a message from Sardis to Susa at about nine days, some ten times faster than walking.

Where did the road run?

From Sardis, near today’s Salihli in western Turkey, east across Anatolia, over the Euphrates and the Tigris, and down to Susa in Khuzestan, in south-west Iran. Herodotus names regions and rivers rather than towns, so the exact line is reconstructed.

What is a chapar?

In Persian a fast courier is still called a chapar, and the post houses of later centuries were called chapar-khaneh. Herodotus says the Persians called their royal post the angareion.

What does the Bisotun inscription say?

Darius tells how he became king in 522 BC: how he killed Gaumata, who he says had taken the throne by pretending to be Bardiya, the brother of Cambyses, and how he put down the revolts of his first year. It also lists the 23 lands he ruled.

Continue your visit

In the next episode…

People from every corner of the empire climb a staircase at Persepolis with gifts for the king, but the king once carved at its centre has vanished: where did he go?
Hall 6 · Grey Stone · Persepolis →

Next hallHall 6 · Grey Stone · PersepolisEnter the hall →EarlierHall 4 · The Cyrus Cylinder, word by wordEnter the hall →The museumThe entrance · all twelve halls, oldest firstBack to the entrance →

Sources: Herodotus, Histories 5.52–54 and 8.98; Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Čāpār”; Wikipedia, “Royal Road”, “Behistun Inscription” and “Daric”; UNESCO World Heritage List, “Bisotun” (2006).

Map: Natural Earth (public domain): land, rivers and lakes. The route is an approximate reconstruction by Bridge Labs; the coin is redrawn after darics of the archer type.