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They obliterated troublesome people by sending armies along those wonderfully straight and fast imperial roads. But inside the empire bloodshed was generally avoided, thanks to a huge – and hugely effective – administrative machine. The King of Kings ultimately controlled everything, but at the local level he was represented by a governor – a satrap – who would keep a close eye on what was going on in the subordinate kingdoms. He would enforce law and order, levy taxes and raise armies.

The tomb of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia

Which brings us back to our golden toy, because the passenger in our chariot must be a satrap on tour. He sports a stylishly patterned overcoat – he’s obviously spent a great deal of money on it – and his headdress leaves you in no doubt that this is a man who is used to being in charge. His chariot is made for serious travel: the large-spoked wheels are as high as the horses themselves, and are clearly designed for long distances.

You can tell a lot about a state from its transport system, and our chariot tells us a great deal about imperial Persia. Public order was so secure that people could travel long distances without armed guards. And they could travel fast. With its horses specially bred for strength and speed, and with its large, steadying wheels, this chariot was the Ferrari or Porsche of its time. Broad dirt roads were kept wheel-worthy in all weathers, and there were frequent staging posts. Commands from the centre could be transmitted at speed across the whole territory, thanks to an entirely reliable royal postal service that used horsemen, runners and express messengers. Foreign visitors were deeply impressed, among them the Greek historian Herodotus:

There is nothing in the world which travels faster than these Persian couriers … it is said that men and horses are stationed along the road, equal in number to the number of days the journey takes – a man and a horse for each day. Nothing stops these couriers from covering their allotted stage in the quickest possible time – neither snow, rain, heat, nor darkness.

But our chariot doesn’t just tell us about travel and communications; it sums up the acceptance of diversity that was at the heart of the Persian imperial system. Although found on the eastern frontier near Afghanistan, it must have been made in central Persia because of the technique of its metalworking. The driver and his passenger wear the costume of the Medes, an ancient people who lived in the north-west of what is now Iran, while on the front of the chariot, prominently displayed, is the head of the Egyptian god Bes. Bes, a dwarf with bow legs, is perhaps not your most likely candidate for a divine protector, but he looked after children and people in trouble, and he was a good god to have guarding your chariot on long journeys. I suppose he’s the equivalent of a modern-day St Christopher or talisman dangling from the car mirror.

But what is an Egyptian god doing protecting a Persian on the frontiers of Afghanistan? It’s a perfect demonstration of the Persian Empire’s striking capacity for tolerating different religions and indeed, on occasion, adopting them from the people that they conquered. This unusually inclusive empire was also perfectly happy to use foreign languages for official proclamations. Here is Herodotus again:

No race is so ready to adopt foreign ways as the Persian; for instance, they wear the Median costume as they think it handsomer than their own, and their soldiers wear the Egyptian corselet.

The multi-faith, multicultural approach that’s summed up in our little chariot, when combined with well-organized military power, created a flexible imperial system that lasted for more than 200 years. It enabled the king to present to his subjects the image of a tolerant, accommodating empire, whatever the specific facts on the ground might have been. So, when Cyrus invaded Babylon, near modern Baghdad, in 539 BC, he could issue a grandiloquently generous