The Persians, hemmed in all around by mountains and barrenness, had always regarded the ability to make a desert bloom as the surest mark of any statesman. The satrap who could demonstrate to the Great King’s satisfaction ‘that he had fostered the cultivation of his province, planted it with trees, and seeded it with crops,’18 was invariably marked down as a high-flyer. Present the Great King with a prize vegetable, and even the humblest gardener might be fast-tracked on the spot. As one of Xerxes’ heirs was supposed to have said, when given a monstrous pomegranate, ‘It should be no problem
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