_Dshemshid_, the Greek _Achæmenes_, the Biblical _Nimrod_, the mighty hunter before the Lord, _pierced the earth with a golden dagger_--allegorically meaning that he improved agriculture. Dshemshid ruled 616½ years; he built Persepolis, or Takt-i-Dshemshid (the throne of Dshemshid). He was, however, conquered by _Zahok_ and _sawn into two pieces_, meaning that the empire of Dshemshid had been divided by _Zahok_, who was a descendant of the cursed race of Aad. He is said to have been the _Sesostris_, or _Sesoosis_, of the third dynasty of the Egyptians, the 332nd king after Menes the builder of Memphis, a great conqueror who went to India, took possession of Thracia and Skythia, and united Æthiopia, Libya, and Egypt into one mighty empire in the fortieth century B.C. He is also said to have been _Ninus_, who with Semiramis, the night-born queen of doves, and the daughter of the water-sprung _Derceto_, is set down as the builder of Nineveh, and the founder of the empire of Babel. Takt-i-Dshemshid existed before either Nineveh or Babylon; its priority is borne out not only by these records, but, as we have said, by the very ruins left of the Persian metropolis. The name _Parsagad_, or _Passagarda_, means ‘_camp_ of the Persians,’ and points to an early, unsettled state of society; as also do the ruins, which may be divided into two classes:-- 1. The ancient Persian monuments of Dshemshid. 2. The monuments of the reign of the Sassanides. The name Persepolis was first used by the Greek historiographers who accompanied Alexander the Great, to denote that part only of the vast town in which the tomb of Kyrus was situated, and this gave rise to much confusion. Passagarda, Isthakr, or Estakar, was situated on the border of one of the richest and most beautiful plains of Central Asia, watered by the Bendemir (the Araxes of the ancients), and surrounded by lofty mountains, ‘whose rugged masses rise from the verdant plain like islands from the ocean.’ The _oldest_ monuments are:-- 1. The ruins of the palace now called by the Arabs _Tshil-Minar_ (the forty columns), and two great tombs close by. 2. Four other tombs, about four and a half English miles to the north-west, and in the plains of Murghab the ruins of Passagarda, built by Kyrus to commemorate his victory over Astyages, who came from Hamadan (Ecbatana). Here is situated the pyramidically-constructed tomb of Kyrus, made of white marble blocks. Farther north are the ruins of _Bisutun_.