There are great treasures that have been sought for decades and centuries. They are looking for gold of the Third Reich, looking for Kolchak's gold. They are looking for the treasures taken out by Napoleon from Moscow, looking for the treasure of Captain Kidd. Peter I sent an expedition to search for the treasures of Alexander the Great, and Alexander himself was looking for the riches of the Persian king Darius that had escaped him.
Persian campaign of Alexander the Great
In the spring of 334 BC. the troops of Alexander the Great crossed the Dardanelles and entered the borders of Persia. The trip seemed like a pure gamble. Alexander with a 35,000-strong army opposed a state stretching from India to the Aegean Sea (Greece) and from the sources of the Nile to the Caucasus Mountains. And yet … Three times Darius collected a huge army, significantly outnumbering the Macedonian army, and three times Alexander won a brilliant victory.
Persia was conquered. Darius was killed by his own confidants. The Macedonian king has seized a gigantic booty. In Damascus, Alexander took the marching treasury of Darius - about 78 tons of silver, in Arbelah - 120 tons of silver. In the capital of Persepolis, Alexander got the royal treasury. To take out the captured prey, the Macedonian king needed 3,000 camels and 20,000 mules. Just Fabulous Treasures.
Lost treasures
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And yet Alexander believed that he did not get most of Darius's values. Even before the tragic (for Darius) battle of Gaugamela, which put an end to the history of the Achaemenid state, caravans with gold and silver went to the area of the city of Ecbatana (the summer residence of the King of Kings).
However, when the Macedonians took over the city, the valuables were nowhere to be found. The servants were tortured, but no one said anything. Most likely, they did not know anything. According to the old tradition, when burying treasures, everyone who knew about the location of the cache was executed, and then the executioners were killed. (What if someone blurted out something before dying? What if someone tried to buy himself a life in exchange for a secret?)
Alexander was the first to attempt to find the treasures of Darius and was the first to leave Ecbatan with nothing.
Crassus, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Nero
Spartak winner Mark Crassus was very rich, but money is never too much. Thousands of slaves were brought to Ecbatan, who climbed all the surroundings, dug pits and looked into every crevice. Crassus called even sorcerers for help, but gold was not given to him.
The next "amateur archaeologist" was Gaius Julius Caesar. He, too, was left without Achaemenid gold. Mark Anthony accepted from his friend not only his mistress Cleopatra, but also the dream of getting rich on treasure hunting. Again, thousands of slaves with picks and shovels appeared in the vicinity of Ecbatana. But soon Antony and Cleopatra were engaged in completely different matters, and they were not up to the search for treasures.
The Roman Emperor Nero organized three expeditions! Each time upon returning to Rome, the emperor imposed penalties on careless prospectors. Some were executed, others were exiled to galleys. Getting banished from Rome was revered as an unheard of luck. It is even possible that the emperor made the decision to burn Rome just after receiving news of the failure of the next expedition.
Centuries XIX and XX
In the 19th century, after a long hiatus, French intelligence agents appeared in Persia. The Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte really needed money for the next military campaign. Not finding gold, Napoleon founded the French Central Bank and thereby closed the cash problem for himself.
At the beginning of the 20th century, employees of the British Intelligence Service appeared in the vicinity of Ecbotan, and in the 20s - employees of the Soviet Cheka. In the 30s, the Germans appeared. They quickly found out that gold was not lying underfoot and that extensive expensive research was needed. The practical Germans gave up their treasure hunt and industrialized counterfeit British pounds. Much simpler and much more efficient.
In 1973, the last Iranian Shah, Mohammed Pahlavi, invited American specialists to search for treasures. The shah hoped very much for super-modern technology. But the Persians who lived before our era turned out to be more cunning than modern treasure hunters with all their miraculous electronics.
In the vicinity of the Iranian city of Hamadan, tourists still come to gaze at the ruins of ancient Ekbotan. Local residents do not even pay attention to them - how many of them have already been here. But maybe some of them will really be lucky to find the most ancient treasure. And then heavy shocks await the gold market.