But although it was not the capital, still Shushan was a very important place in that first great world-empire.

We find Daniel, the prime minister, staying in the palace of Shushan, to which he had been sent to transact business for the King of Babylon, and it was during his visit to the City of Lilies that God sent him one of his most famous visions.

In his dream he thought he was standing by the river Ulai, the very river he could see from the palace window, and before that river stood the ram with the two horns and the strong he-goat, by means of which God drew out before his eyes a picture of the future history of the world.
But the great Babylonian empire did not last long.

Cyrus the Persian took Babylon, Belshazzar was slain, the great Assyrian power passed away, and the second great world-empire, the Persian empire, was built upon its ruins.
What city did the Persian kings make their capital?
Not Babylon, with its mighty walls and massive gates, but Shushan, the City of Lilies.
They chose it as their chief city for three reasons; it was nearer to their old home, Persia, it was cooler than Babylon because of the neighbouring mountains, and lastly, and above all, it had the best water in the world.

The water of the river Choaspes was so much esteemed for its freshness, its clearness, and its salubrity, that the Persian kings would drink no other; they had it carried with them wherever they went; even when they undertook long warlike expeditions, the water of the Choaspes was considered a necessary provision for the journey.
The City of Lilies, in the days of the Rab-shakeh, was a perfect fairy-land of beauty, surrounded as it was by fruit-gardens and corn-fields; the white houses standing out from amongst dark palm trees, and the high walls encircled by groves of citron and lemon trees.