Susa

The Elamite city that became one of the four capitals of the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Darius I, in the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan in southwestern Iran. The book of Esther is set entirely within Susa's royal citadel — the great banquet at the opening, the king's sleepless night, the gallows Haman builds, and the inner court where Esther risks her life to approach the king unsummoned. Nehemiah serves as cupbearer to Artaxerxes I in this same palace and from it asks leave to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.