BREAKING | Scandal in Persepolis: VIP party ends with the palace of Xerxes reduced to ashes

PERSEPOLIS, May 330 BC.

The capital of Asian luxury has been the stage for the wildest and most destructive party on record. Alexander the Great, the young CEO of the Macedonian military machine, has just closed the largest hostile takeover in history by seizing total control of the Achaemenid Empire. Yet the celebration of this transcontinental merger spun completely out of control, leaving the Persepolis headquarters in ruins.

The spoils of the acquisition and the shareholders' party

After the successful campaign that culminated in the Battle of Gaugamela and the flight of former chief executive Darius, the Macedonian troops entered Persepolis, the city "richest under the sun." Internal sources at Hellas Press confirm that the audit of the royal vaults turned up astonishing liquidity: 120,000 talents of gold and silver! To move this volume of physical capital, Alexander's logistics team had to mobilize an entire fleet of mules and camels.

With such an injection of capital, it was only to be expected that the Macedonian board of directors would throw a celebration in grand style. The VIP banquet, reserved for the army's top executives and the new Persian elite who have accepted the change of management, flowed amid cups of pure wine and Oriental luxuries. But the spark of the night —literally— was struck by an unexpected guest.

Thais: the influencer who hacked the protocol

Among those attending was Thais, a well-known Athenian courtesan and influencer, a regular companion of the high command. When the guests' blood-alcohol level exceeded the limits of diplomatic prudence, Thais took the floor. With a speech that appealed to the most visceral patriotism, she put forward a disruptive idea: to burn down the palace of the late Xerxes.

Her argument was a masterpiece of emotional marketing. She reminded those present of the "hacking" and destruction of Athens by Xerxes' troops 150 years earlier. What better way to close the loop and make the European victory go viral than to reduce the symbol of Asian power to ashes with their own hands?

A flashmob of fire and a public-relations crisis

The proposal was met with cheers from the Macedonian executives, already well impaired by the rounds of toasts. Within minutes, what had been a gala dinner turned into an incendiary flashmob. Led by Thais herself and by Alexander in person, who, according to eyewitnesses, hurled the first torch, the crowd descended upon the majestic premises.

The palace infrastructure, built from rich cedar timber, turned out to be highly flammable. Within minutes, the most impressive architectural complex in Asia Minor was engulfed in flames, lighting up the Persepolis night with a Dantesque glow.

The euphoria was short-lived, however. Our correspondent reports that, upon seeing the magnitude of the fire and the collapse of the roofs, the Macedonian CEO suffered a sudden attack of sobriety. Aware of the terrible public-relations crisis this would pose for his new policy of "cultural merger" between Greeks and Persians, Alexander ordered the fire put out at once. But the server had already gone down; the damage was irreversible, and the palace of Xerxes was reduced to smoking rubble.

The debate in the Agora is on: was this an act of poetic justice and historical revenge, or simply the miscalculation of a leader who could not manage the excesses of his own success party? The only certainty is that the Persepolis real-estate market will take centuries to recover.

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