How many years of tyranny and submission did Marji's father say had taken place?

Persepolis is an Iranian comic book series written by Majane Satrapi. The seres is actually a biographical look at her childhood and early adulthood growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. The comic has enjoyed some praise and was ranked as number 5 by Newsweek on the list of top ten best non-fiction books of the decade.

In the comic Marji’s father tells her that 2,500 years of tyranny and submission have taken place in Iran. From a very early age Marji is seen as a prophet and treated as such. This must have been quite a strange world for a young girl to grow up in.