information:highlighting, structural:summarization
Classical era

Tehran is in the historical Media region of (Old Persian: 𐎶𐎠𐎭 Māda) in northwestern Iran. By the time of the Median Empire, part of present-day Tehran was a suburb of the prominent Median city of Rhages (Old Persian: 𐎼𐎥𐎠 Ragā). In the Avesta 's Videvdat (i, 15), Rhages is mentioned as the 12th sacred place created by Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhages appears as a province (Bistun 2, 10–18). From Rhages, Darius I sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, who was putting down a rebellion in Parthia (Bistun 3, 1–10). Some Middle Persian texts give Rhages as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan Province.

Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsi 's Šāhnāme, an Iranian epic poem based on the ancient legends of Iran. It appears in the epics as the homeland of the protoplast Keyumars, the birthplace of King Manuchehr, the place where King Fereydun bound the dragon fiend Aždahāk (Bivarasp), and the place where Arash shot his arrow.