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Title: The History of Antiquity
       Vol. VI. (vol. VI. of VI.)

Author: Max Duncker

Translator: Evelyn Abbott

Release Date: December 13, 2011 [EBook #38297]

Language: English

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  THE
  HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.

  FROM THE GERMAN
  OF
  PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER,


  BY
  EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., LL.D.,
  _FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD._


  VOL. VI.


  LONDON:
  RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
  Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
  1882.



  Bungay:
  CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.




CONTENTS.


BOOK VIII. (_CONTINUED._)

_THE EMPIRE OF THE MEDES AND PERSIANS._

  CHAPTER VI.                                                     PAGE
  THE FALL OF THE LYDIAN EMPIRE                                      3

  CHAPTER VII.
  THE SUBJUGATION OF ASIA MINOR                                     47

  CHAPTER VIII.
  THE FALL OF BABYLON                                               66

  CHAPTER IX.
  THE KINGDOM OF CYRUS                                             100

  CHAPTER X.
  THE FALL OF EGYPT                                                131

  CHAPTER XI.
  THE MARCH TO MEROE                                               152

  CHAPTER XII.
  THE DEATH OF CAMBYSES                                            168

  CHAPTER XIII.
  THE RISE OF DARIUS                                               201

  CHAPTER XIV.
  THE REBELLIONS IN THE PROVINCES                                  228

  CHAPTER XV.
  THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF DARIUS ON THE INDUS AND THE DANUBE           258

  CHAPTER XVI.
  THE CONQUESTS IN AFRICA AND EUROPE                               299

  CHAPTER XVII.
  THE STATE OF DARIUS                                              315

  CHAPTER XVIII.
  THE FINANCE AND ARMY OF DARIUS                                   344

  CHAPTER XIX.
  THE COURT OF DARIUS                                              368

  CHAPTER XX.
  RETROSPECT                                                       398




BOOK VIII. (_CONTINUED._)

THE EMPIRE OF THE MEDES AND PERSIANS.




EASTERN IRAN.




CHAPTER VI.

THE FALL OF THE LYDIAN EMPIRE.


After the fall of Nineveh, Media, Babylonia, and Lydia had continued to
exist side by side in peace and friendship. The successful rebellion of
Cyrus altered at one blow the state of Asia. He had not been contented
with winning independence for the Persians; he had subjected Media to
his power. In the place of a friendly and allied house, the kings of
Lydia and Babylonia saw Astyages deprived of his throne, and Media in
the hands of a bold and ambitious warrior. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia
would hardly have allowed the sovereignty of the table-land of Iran to
pass out of the power of a near kinsman into that of Cyrus without
offering some resistance; but he was no longer alive to prevent or
revenge the overthrow of his brother-in-law. His son Evil-merodach had
also come by his death before Astyages succumbed to the arms of Cyrus,
and after a short reign Neriglissar left the kingdom to a boy (III.
392). On the other hand, the Lydian empire was in its fullest vigour.
We are acquainted with the successes which fell to the lot of Alyattes
after his alliance with Media; we saw with what rapidity his son
Croesus brought to a happy conclusion the long struggle against the
Greek cities of the coast. His kingdom now embraced the whole of Asia
Minor, as far as the Halys; the Lycians alone remained independent in
their small mountain canton. Loved and honoured by his people, as
Herodotus indicates, Croesus saw his complete and compact empire in
the greatest prosperity; his treasury was full to overflowing; his
metropolis was the richest city in Asia after Babylon. The Lydian
infantry were excellent and trustworthy; the cavalry were dreaded;
in past days they had measured themselves with success against the
Medes.[1] Thus in the third or fourth year of his reign, in the pride
of his position, surrounded by inexhaustible treasures and the most
splendid magnificence, on his lofty citadel at Sardis, Croesus could
declare himself, against the opinion of the Athenian Solon, the man most
favoured by fortune (III. 458). Two years afterwards Astyages, whose
wife Aryanis was Croesus' sister, was overthrown. Croesus had reason
enough to take the field for his brother-in-law, and anticipate the
danger which might arise for Lydia out of sthis change in the East. He
might hope that his example would set the Babylonians in motion against
the usurper of the Median throne, and cause the Medes themselves to
revolt against their new master. But he appears to have been afraid of
embarking in an uncertain and dangerous war at a great distance from his
own borders. It was not clear that victory at the first onset would
imply lasting success, and Lydia had no attack to fear so long as Cyrus
was occupied in establishing his new dominion in Media, and engaged in
conflicts in the East and North. In Sardis it might be assumed that the
usurper would find great difficulties in his way. Herodotus represents
Sandanis, a distinguished Lydian, as asking Croesus whether he would
take the field against men who clad themselves in leather, and did
not eat what they liked, but what they had, and lived in a rugged
country--who drank water and not wine, and had not even figs or any
other thing that was pleasant? What could the king, if victorious, take
from them, when they had nothing? On the other hand, if conquered, he
had much to lose, and if the Persians once tasted any of the good things
of Lydia, they would never be driven out of the land again.[2] Croesus
hesitated. It was of the greatest importance for Cyrus that Lydia and
Babylonia should not interfere in favour of Astyages and the Medes, that
they remained inactive during the revolution, and allowed him to
establish his dominion in Media without disturbance, to direct his aim
unimpeded against the neighbours of Media, and to subjugate without
opposition the Parthians, Hyrcanians, and Cadusians.

The manner in which war eventually broke out between Lydia and Persia,
the course of the war, and the fortune which overtook Croesus, are
narrated by Herodotus in the following manner: "Solon had scarcely left
Croesus (III. 454, note 3) when the latter saw in a dream the vision
which portended the fate of his son. He had two sons: one was deaf and
dumb, but the other, Attys, was greatly distinguished above all his
companions. The dream told him that he would lose this son by an iron
spear-head. In alarm Croesus found a wife for his son, would not allow
him to go out with the army as before, and removed into the armoury all
the armour which was in the chambers, that nothing might fall upon him.
At the time when Croesus was occupied with the marriage of Attys, a
Phrygian came to Sardis, Adrastus by name, the son of Gordius, the
grandson of Midas, who had unintentionally killed his brother, and had
been banished by his father, and Croesus received him. At the same time
a great boar appeared on the Mysian Olympus, which ravaged the lands of
the Mysians, and as they could not master it, they sent messengers to
Croesus praying him to allow Attys and some chosen youths to come with
dogs to set them free from the monster. Croesus would not let his son
go, for he had just been married. But the son complained to his
father: Previously he had won great glory in war, and in the chase,
now he was kept back from both; how would men look upon him in the
market-place?--in what light would he appear to the citizens and his
young wife? Croesus told him the dream, but Attys replied that the boar
had no hands, and no iron point: Croesus therefore allowed him to go,
and bade Adrastus accompany his son and watch over him. Adrastus
promised to bring back his son uninjured, so far as lay in his power,
in return for the kindness which Croesus had shown him. The boar was
surrounded on Olympus, and javelins thrown at it from every side; the
spear of Adrastus missed the boar and hit Attys. Thus was the dream
of Croesus fulfilled. Adrastus went with the corpse to Croesus, and
besought him to slay him as a sacrifice to the dead. But Croesus replied
that Adrastus had made recompense enough in condemning himself to death.
He had his son buried with proper honours; but Adrastus slew himself on
the grave."

"Two years were spent by Croesus in mourning for his son. Then the
destruction of the empire of Astyages by Cyrus, and the growing power of
the Persians, put an end to the mourning, and caused him to consider
whether he could check the rise of the Persians before they became
great. With this thought in his mind, he determined to test the oracles,
both those of the Greeks and that in Libya, and ascertain whether they
could tell the truth; to the oracle which he found truthful, he would
propose the question, whether he should undertake a campaign against the
Persians. So he sent to the oracles of the Greeks, to Miletus, Delphi,
Abae, and Trophonius, to the sanctuary of Amphiaraus at Thebes, and to
Dodona, to the temple of Ammon in Libya, bidding his messengers inquire
on the hundredth day after their departure from Sardis, what Croesus,
the son of Alyattes, the king of Lydia, was doing on that day. The
answers were to be written down, and brought back to him. What the other
oracles said no one has narrated, but when the Lydians came into the
temple at Delphi and propounded their question, the priestess answered:
'I know the number of the sand, and the measure of the sea; I understand
the dumb, and hear him who speaks not. The scent of the hard-shelled
tortoise comes into my nostrils which is being cooked in brass with
lamb's flesh; brass is below, and brass is above.' The Lydians wrote
this down, and returned to Sardis; and when the other messengers came
back, Croesus opened their letters. He paid no attention to the rest,
but when he came to the answer from Delphi he recognised the power of
the god, and saw that the Delphic oracle alone had been aware of what
he was doing. For on the day appointed he had cooked the flesh of a
tortoise and lamb in a brazen vessel, covered with a brazen lid,
thinking that it would be impossible to discover or invent such a thing.
What answer was brought back from Amphiaraus I cannot say, for it is
nowhere recorded, but Croesus is said to have considered this oracle as
truthful. Then Croesus won the favour of the god of Delphi by great
sacrifices. He offered 3000 victims of every kind, and erected a great
pile of wood on which he burned couches covered with gold and silver,
golden goblets, purple robes and garments, in the hope that he would
thereby gain the favour of the god yet more, and bade the Lydians
sacrifice to their deity whatever each possessed. And as the sacrifice
left behind an enormous mass of molten gold, Croesus caused bricks to be
made, six palms in length, three in breadth, and one in depth; in all
there were 117 bricks. Of these, four were of the purest gold, each two
and a half talents in weight; and the rest of white gold (_i.e._ of
mingled gold and silver), each two talents in weight. In addition, there
was a golden lion which weighed ten talents. When these were finished,
Croesus sent them to Delphi, and added two very large mixing-bowls, one
of gold, weighing eight talents and a half and twelve minæ, and one of
silver, the work of Theodorus of Samos, as the Delphians say, and I
believe it, for it is the work of no ordinary artificer; four silver
jars, and two vessels for holy water, one of gold and the other of
silver, circular casts of silver, a golden statue of a woman, three
cubits high, and the necklace and girdles of his queen. All these things
he sent to Delphi, and to Amphiaraus a golden shield and a spear, of
which both the stem and the point were of gold."

"Croesus bade the envoys who carried these gifts ask the oracles,
whether he should march against the Persians, or collect allies. The
answer of both oracles was to the same effect: they told him, that if he
went against Cyrus he would destroy a great empire, and at the same time
advised him to find out who were the most powerful among the Greeks, and
take them as allies. Croesus was greatly delighted when he received this
answer; in the certainty that he would overthrow the empire of Cyrus, he
sent again to Delphi and presented each Delphian with two staters. The
Delphians in return bestowed on the Lydians for all future time the
right to consult the priestess first, the best seats, freedom from
contributions, and the citizenship of Delphi to any Lydian who should
wish to become a Delphian. Croesus inquired of the oracle for the third
time: whether his reign would be of long continuance, and the priestess
replied: 'When a mule becomes king of the Medes, then, O soft-footed
Lydian, fly from the pebbly Hermus; stay not, and take no shame to be a
coward.' Then Croesus was yet more delighted, for he thought that a mule
would never rule over the Medes instead of a man, and therefore neither
he nor his descendants would lose their power. Then he inquired who were
the most mighty among the Hellenes, and when he found that the greatest
part of the Peloponnesus was subject to the Lacedæmonians, he sent
messengers with presents to Sparta to conclude an alliance. The
Lacedæmonians were filled with joy; they knew the oracle which had been
given to Croesus, and made him a friend and ally, as they had previously
received many kindnesses at his hands."

"Croesus now marched to Cappadocia in the hope of crushing Cyrus and the
Persians; he also intended to add Cappadocia to his kingdom, but above
all he wished to take vengeance on Cyrus, who had defeated his
brother-in-law Astyages, and had got him in his power. When he came to
the Halys, which was the boundary between the Lydian and the Persian
kingdoms, he crossed the river by the bridges, and came into the part of
Cappadocia, which is called Pteria (this region, the strongest in the
whole country, lies towards Sinope and the Pontus Euxinus). There he
pitched his camp, desolated the land, took the city of the Pterians, and
enslaved the inhabitants, conquered the neighbouring cities, and drove
out the Syrians, who had done him no harm whatever. But Cyrus collected
his army, adding to it all the nations in his march, and took up a
position against Croesus. Previous to setting out, he had sent heralds
to the Ionians, and requested them to revolt from Croesus. To this
request the Ionians did not listen. Then Cyrus encamped opposite
Croesus, and the two armies tried their strength in the land of Pteria.
A fierce battle was fought; many fell on both sides; neither was
victorious, and when night came they desisted from the battle. Croesus
found that his force was not strong enough; his army was inferior in
numbers to that of the enemy, and when Cyrus did not venture to attack
him on the next day, he returned to Sardis. His object was to summon the
Egyptians, for he had made a treaty with Amasis the king of Egypt before
entering into terms with the Lacedæmonians, to send to the
Babylonians--for with them also and their king Labynetus he had made an
alliance--and to call on the Lacedæmonians to join him at a fixed time.
After uniting these, and collecting all his forces, he intended, as soon
as the winter was over, to march out against the Persians. So when he
arrived at Sardis he sent heralds to his allies, bidding them assemble
in the fifth month at Sardis, and dismissed all the mercenaries in the
army which had fought against Cyrus. He did not expect that Cyrus, who
had contended in the battle without success, would march against Sardis.
When Croesus retired immediately after the battle in Pteria, and it was
discovered that the Lydian forces were to be disbanded, Cyrus saw that
it would be much to his advantage to march upon Sardis with all speed,
before the Lydian army could be collected a second time. He was so rapid
in his movements, that he announced his own arrival to Croesus."

"Though in great difficulties, inasmuch as things had turned out
contrary to his expectations, Croesus led out the Lydians to battle. And
at that time there was no braver and more warlike nation in Asia. They
fought on horseback, armed with long lances, and were excellent riders.
The armies met in the large open plain before Sardis. The cavalry of
Croesus caused alarm to Cyrus, and on the advice of Harpagus the Mede,
he collected all the camels which carried the food and baggage of the
army, took off their burdens, and had them mounted by armed men. These
he placed before the army, then followed the infantry, and after them
the Persian horse. He bade them not to slay Croesus, even though he
should seek to defend himself when taken captive. When the battle broke
out, the Lydian horses were alarmed at the sight and smell of the
camels, and turned, and so the hopes of Croesus were destroyed. Yet the
Lydians did not lose their courage; they sprang from their horses and
met the Persians on foot. At length, when many had fallen on both sides,
the Lydians fled; they were driven into the walls, and besieged by the
Persians. Croesus thought that the siege would occupy a long time, and
sent fresh messengers to his confederates, and also to the
Lacedæmonians, bidding them come as soon as possible. When they arrived
at Sparta three hundred Spartans had been slain by the Argives, yet they
determined to send assistance; their men were armed and ready to sail,
when there came a second message that Sardis was captured, and Croesus a
prisoner."

"Sardis had been invested fourteen days when Cyrus announced to his
army that the man who first climbed the walls should receive presents.
Attempts were made, but as they failed, they were given up. Nevertheless
Hyroeades, a Mardian, determined to climb the citadel at a place where
no watch had been set. It was never supposed possible that the city
could be taken on this side, for the mountain fell precipitously down
towards Mt. Tmolus, and storming was impossible. On the previous day
Hyroeades had seen a Lydian, whose helmet had fallen down, descend after
it, and then climb back with it. He also ascended, others followed, and
when sufficient Persians were on the top, Sardis was taken and the whole
city plundered. After the citadel had been captured a Persian rushed at
Croesus, whom he did not know, to cut him down. When the dumb son of
Croesus saw this, through fear and horror he broke out into speech, and
cried out: 'Man, do not slay Croesus.' And ever after he was able to
speak."

"The Persians led Croesus to Cyrus, who caused a great pyre to be built,
and Croesus to be led to it in chains with twice seven Lydian boys;
whether it was that he intended to offer the firstlings of the victory
to some god, and discharge a vow, or whether he knew that Croesus was
eminent for piety, and wished to see if a god would protect him from
being burnt alive. When Croesus was on the pyre, the words of Solon
came into his mind, in his distress, that no one among living men was to
be accounted happy. When this occurred to him, he sighed deeply after
a long silence, and called out thrice, Solon! On hearing this Cyrus
commanded the interpreters to ask Croesus whom he was calling upon. At
first he was silent; on being pressed, he said: 'On him, whose words I
count it above great treasures that all rulers should hear.' As what he
said was unintelligible, the question was put to him again, and when
they insisted on hearing the whole, he told them, while the pyre was
being kindled at the outer edge, what Solon the Athenian had said to
him. When Cyrus heard this from the interpreters he reflected that he, a
man, was condemning to the flames a man of no less power than himself;
in fear of vengeance, and considering that there was nothing certain
among men, he changed his mind, and gave orders to quench the fire, and
bring down Croesus and those with him. When all attempted in vain to
quench the flames, Croesus, according to the Lydian account, called on
Apollo, entreating him to aid him now if he had ever offered pleasant
gifts, and save him in his extremity. When Croesus was praying in tears
to the god, the sky, which had been clear and still, was suddenly
covered with clouds; a storm burst upon them, and the fire was quenched
by torrents of rain. And Cyrus then saw that Croesus was a man beloved
by the gods, and asked him why he had marched against his land, and made
him his enemy instead of his friend? Croesus replied, that he had been
induced to do this by his own bad fortune and the good fortune of Cyrus.
The god of the Hellenes had urged him to take the field against Cyrus.
Then Cyrus caused the fetters to be struck off him, and placed him near
himself. When Croesus saw the Persians plundering the city, he inquired
of Cyrus: 'What is all this multitude doing with so much eagerness?'
Cyrus answered: 'They are plundering your city and treasures.' He
replied: 'They are mine no longer; it is your property which they are
plundering and sacking. The Persians, courageous by nature, are poor; if
you allow them to plunder and carry off much booty, it may be that the
man who gains the most will rebel against you. If it pleases you, do as
I advise. Place your body-guard at the gates, and bid them take from the
plunderers what they are carrying out, and tell them that a tenth must
be offered to Zeus. You will escape their ill-will, and they will gladly
obey you.' This advice pleased Cyrus. He followed it, and promised
Croesus to grant him a favour in return."

"The favour which Croesus asked was this: Cyrus must allow him to send
the fetters, which he wore, to the Delphic god, and ask whether it was
his manner to deceive those who showed him kindness. Cyrus granted the
prayer with a smile, and promised that he would not refuse a further
request. So Lydians went with the fetters to Delphi, and asked the god
whether he was not ashamed to have urged Croesus to make war upon Cyrus,
who had taken much spoil from him; and at the same time they showed the
fetters. The priestess answered, as it is recorded, that even a god
could not escape his destiny; Croesus was paying the penalty for his
fifth ancestor, who had seized a throne which did not belong to him. The
god had endeavoured to bring it to pass that the punishment should not
fall on Croesus but on his children, but he had only been able to defer
the capture of Sardis for three years; let Croesus know that he had
been taken captive three years later than was ordained. Moreover, the
god had sent him help when on the pyre. It was announced that he would
destroy a great empire if he went against Cyrus, but what empire was not
said. Nor had Croesus understood the response about the mule. Cyrus was
the mule, the son of a Persian father and Median mother, a subject and
his mistress. When Croesus heard this, he saw that he and not the god
was in fault."

Only a meagre excerpt remains of the account given by Ctesias of the
conflict of Cyrus and Croesus. The king of the Sacæ, Amorges, marched
with Cyrus against Croesus and Sardis. When the Lydians were shut up in
the city, Croesus, deceived by the portents of the gods, gave his son as
a hostage to Cyrus, and when he subsequently sought to deceive him in
the negotiations, Cyrus caused the son to be slain before the father's
eyes. The mother, when she saw the execution of her son, threw herself
down from the turrets of the walls. Then Cyrus, on the advice of
Oebares, caused wooden figures of Persians to be placed on long poles
and laid against the turrets, that the Lydians might be filled with
terror at the sight of them. In this way the citadel, and the city
itself, was taken. Croesus fled for refuge into the temple of Apollo,
where Cyrus caused him to be placed in chains, but though seals were set
on them, and Oebares was commissioned to keep watch, the fetters were
three times removed from Croesus in a miraculous manner. Then those who
had been put in chains with him were beheaded, as though they had
conspired to liberate their king, and Cyrus brought Croesus into the
palace and caused yet heavier chains to be put upon him; but the fetters
again fell to the ground, this time amid thunder and lightning. At
length Cyrus liberated Croesus, showed him great kindness, and presented
him with the large city of Barene, near Ecbatana, which had been
garrisoned by 5000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry.[3]

Polyaenus relates that Croesus, after his defeat in Cappadocia by Cyrus,
withdrew his troops in the night by a pass. This pass he then filled
with a quantity of timber, to which he set fire in order to check the
pursuit of the Persians. When the armies met a second time for battle,
Cyrus rendered the numerous cavalry of the Lydians, in which they
trusted, useless by placing camels opposite them. Thus they were at once
put to flight, and trod down the infantry, so that Cyrus was again
victorious. At Sardis Croesus once more tried the fortune of battle. As
his Greek allies delayed their coming, he provided the strongest and
tallest Lydians with Greek armour. The sight of the strange arms checked
the Persians. They were terrified by the sound of the spears striking
against the brazen shields, and the glitter of the shields caused their
horses to take fright and turn. They retired, and Cyrus concluded a
treaty for three days with Croesus, in which he was to withdraw his
forces from Sardis. But as soon as it was night he turned his army again
upon Sardis, and attacked the city unexpectedly. The ascent of the walls
by scaling ladders was successful, yet Croesus maintained the citadel
and defended it bravely in the deceptive hope that his allies would
arrive. Then Cyrus caused the relatives of those who were with Croesus
in the citadel to be seized and bound, and brought before the walls; and
he announced to their kinsmen on the towers that if the citadel were
given up the captives would be set at liberty, if not they would all be
hanged. This induced the Lydians in the citadel to open the gates. But
in another passage Polyaenus repeats the version of Ctesias about the
capture of the city. Cyrus caused figures in Persian clothing, and
wearing beards, with quivers on their shoulders and bows in their hands,
to be placed on tall poles of equal length, and in the night these were
laid against the walls of the citadel so that the figures rose above the
wall. At break of day Cyrus attacked the part of the city underneath the
citadel. The attacks were beaten off, but on turning round some Lydians
saw the figures above the citadel, and thinking that it had been stormed
by the Persians, they fled, and Cyrus took Sardis by storm.[4]

In Xenophon the Persians and Medes are contending against Babylonia. On
the representation of the king of Babylon that those two nations would
subjugate all the world, unless measures were taken to prevent them,
Croesus marches out to aid the king,[5] with an army of 40,000 horse,
and about 150,000 light-armed infantry and bowmen. But the united army
of the Lydians and Babylonians, though it reached nearly 60,000 cavalry
and more than 200,000 infantry,[6] was defeated. Cyrus turned his steps
towards Lydia, and Croesus collected a new army on the Pactolus of
Lydians, Phrygians, Paphlagonians, and Lycaonians, who were joined by
the Cilicians and Cappadocians. The Egyptians and Cyprians came on board
ship; envoys went to Lacedæmon to ask for troops. With this army Croesus
marched to meet Cyrus at Thymbrara. Here the battle took place. Cyrus
had placed two archers on each of the camels; these were ranged
opposite the enemy's cavalry, and even from a distance the Lydian horses
sought to avoid the camels; some turn round, others rear, and press upon
each other. So the Persians succeeded in overthrowing the disorganised
cavalry. But the battle had to be fought out with the javelin, lance,
and sword; the Persians were not victorious without great bloodshed.
Croesus flies to Sardis, the Lydians alone remain faithful, the rest of
his army disperses. Cyrus pursues him on the next morning, and at once
invests Sardis. In the very night after the camp was pitched before
Sardis, Chaldæans (_i.e._ Gordyæans, Carduchians)[7], and Persians climb
the fortifications where they seem to be steepest. They were led by a
Persian, who having formerly been the slave of one on the watch in the
citadel, knew the place where the rocks could be climbed from the river.
The Lydians abandoned the walls, as soon as they saw the citadel taken.
Croesus shut himself up in his palace, and asked for quarter. Cyrus had
him brought into his presence, and said that it was not his intention to
abandon to his soldiers the richest city in Asia after Babylon, but they
must have some reward for their efforts and dangers which they had
undergone. Croesus replied that the sack of the city would destroy the
sources of wealth, the woven stuffs and industry of the place; if it
were spared the Lydians would gladly bring the best of what they had,
and in a year's time the city would once more be in great prosperity.
Then Cyrus asked Croesus how it came to pass that he who was such a
zealous servant of Apollo, and did everything by his direction, had
fallen into calamity. Croesus replied that he had brought upon him the
aversion of the god by putting it to the test whether his announcements
were true. He believed indeed that he had appeased his wrath by rich
presents of gold and silver, and when he lost his youthful son he had
further asked how he could most happily pass the rest of his life, and
the god had answered, "By knowing thyself, thou wilt live happily." He
had regarded this condition of happiness as a very easy one; a man might
have some difficulty in learning to know others, but himself he could
know quite easily. "But I did not know myself," Croesus continues in
Xenophon, "when I fancied that I was equal to you in war; you are
descended from the gods, from a series of kings, and from your youth
have been exercised in brave deeds. My ancestor was a slave who became
king. Now I know myself." Cyrus allowed him to retain his wife and
daughters, gave him servants and entertainment, and took him with him
wherever he went, either because he held the advice of Croesus to be
useful, or because this seemed to him the safest thing to do.[8]

Only fragments have come down to us of Diodorus' narrative of the fall
of Croesus; in some respects these agree with the account of Herodotus;
more frequently they differ from it. He may have borrowed from
Ephorus.[9] Diodorus began with the death of Attys by the javelin of the
Phrygian Adrastus. Croesus at first threatens to have Adrastus burnt
alive, but forgives his offence when he offers his own life for it. But
he voluntarily slays himself at the tomb of Attys. Diodorus then gives
an account of the oracles--the first, which Croesus received at Delphi
before the war on behalf of his dumb son,--Croesus was foolish in
wishing to hear the much-desired voice of his child; he would speak in a
day of disaster--the second, about the consequences of crossing the
Halys; the third, about the mule. Croesus sent Eurybatus of Ephesus with
gold, apparently to Delphi, but in reality to the Peloponnesus, in order
to receive as many Hellenes as possible into his pay; but Eurybatus
passed over to Cyrus, and revealed everything to him. This act of
treachery was held in such detestation by the Greeks, that to his day a
villain was called Eurybatus. When Cyrus had reached the passes of
Cappadocia with his united forces he sent heralds to Croesus, to
discover his forces, and to tell him that Cyrus would pardon his former
offences and nominate him satrap of Lydia, if he would appear at his
gates and there proclaim himself a servant like the rest. Croesus
replied that Cyrus and the Persians would sooner endure to be his
slaves, as in former times they had been the servants of the Medes; as
regarded himself, he had never obeyed the order of another person. When
Croesus had been taken captive, and the flames of the pyre quenched,
Diodorus represents Croesus putting to Cyrus the question which we find
in Herodotus (p. 14), about the sacking of the city; Cyrus puts an end
to the plundering, and orders the possessions of the inhabitants to be
brought into the palace. We are further told, that as the rain had
suddenly come down and quenched the flames, Cyrus regarded Croesus as a
pious man. Moreover, he kept Solon's saying in mind; he held Croesus in
honour, and made him his adviser, regarding one who had associated with
so many wise men as being himself prudent and able.[10]

Justin's excerpt from Pompeius Trogus gives a brief account of the fall
of the Lydian kingdom. When Cyrus had reduced the greater part of the
nations which had previously been subject to the Medes, Croesus, the
king of Lydia, whose power and wealth were then very great, came to the
help of the Babylonians. He was conquered and retired into his kingdom.
When Cyrus had settled his quarrel with Babylon, he engaged in war with
Lydia. He easily put to flight the Lydian army, already dispirited by
the previous defeat. Croesus himself was captured. "But the less the
danger of the war, the milder was the use made of the victory. To
Croesus was given his life, portions of his property, and the city of
Barka, where he lived a life, which, if not that of a king, approached
nearly to royal magnificence."[11]

The end only of the account of Nicolaus of Damascus, containing the
story of the intended burning of Croesus, has come down to us. Cyrus, we
are told, had great sympathy with the misfortune of Croesus, but the
Persians insisted that he should be burnt as an enemy. A great pyre was
erected at the foot of a hill. Cyrus marched out with all his army; a
great multitude of natives and foreigners gathered together. When
Croesus and fourteen Lydians were brought out in chains, all the Lydians
broke out into sighs and lamentations, and beat their heads, so that the
weeping and wailing of men and women was greater now than it had been at
the capture of the city. This showed what affection Croesus inspired
among his subjects. "They tore their garments, and thousands of women
ran weeping forward. Croesus advanced without tears, and with a firm
countenance, and when he reached Cyrus he asked with a loud voice that
his son might be brought to him. This was done. The son embraced his
father, and said with tears: 'Woe is me, my father. Of what avail was
your piety; when will the gods help us? Have they granted me speech only
to bewail our misfortunes?' Turning to the Persians he said: 'Burn me
also; I am no less your enemy than my father.' But Croesus checked him
with these words: 'I alone determined on the war, and no one else of the
Lydians; therefore I alone must pay the penalty.' When numerous servants
of the Lydian women had brought rich garments and ornaments of every
kind to be burned with him, Croesus kissed his son and the Lydians who
were standing by, and ascended the pyre; but the son raised his hands to
heaven and cried aloud: 'King Apollo, and all ye gods to whom my father
has done honour, come now to our help, that the piety of mankind may not
be destroyed with Croesus.' His friends could hardly restrain him from
casting himself on the pyre. But on a sudden Herophile, the sibyl of
Ephesus, appeared, and descended from the height, and cried: 'Ye fools,
what injustice is this? Supreme Zeus, and Phoebus, and glorious
Amphiaraus will not permit it. Obey the truthful sayings of my words,
that the god may not visit your frenzy with grievous destruction.' Cyrus
caused the oracle to be interpreted to the Persians that they might
desist from their purpose, but they set the pile on fire with torches on
every side. Then Croesus called thrice on the name of Solon, and Cyrus
wept, that he should be compelled by the Persians to do an unrighteous
act, and burn a king who was no less in honour than himself. When the
Persians looked on Cyrus and saw his distress, they changed their
minds, and the king bade those who were near him put out the fire. But
the pile was on fire and no one could quench it. Then Croesus called on
Apollo for help, because his enemies wished to save him and could not.
From the morning the day had been cloudy, but without rain, but when
Croesus had prayed, dark clouds rolled up from every side, lightning and
thunder followed fast, and the rain poured down in such streams that not
only was the pyre quenched but men could hardly withstand the storm. A
purple canopy was quickly spread over Croesus, but the Persians,
terrified at the storm, the darkness, and the panic which had come upon
the horses owing to the tempest, were seized with fear of the gods. They
thought of the saying of the sibyl and the commands of Zoroaster, cast
themselves on the earth, and cried for pardon. From this date the rule
of Zoroaster, which had existed among the Persians for a long time, not
to burn their dead nor pollute fire in any way, was strictly observed.
Cyrus led Croesus into the palace, treated him as a friend, seeing that
he was a pious man, and bade him ask without hesitation for any favour
that he chose. Croesus asked that he might send his fetters to Delphi
and ask the god, why he had deceived him by his responses and driven him
into war, when he had sent him such trophies; the messengers were also
to ask whether the gods of the Greeks paid no heed to the gifts which
they received. Cyrus granted this request with a smile and said that he
would not refuse Croesus even a greater favour; he made him his friend,
and when he left Sardis, restored his wives and children, and took him
as a companion. Some say that he would have made him viceroy of Sardis,
if he had not been afraid that this would induce the Lydians to
revolt."[12]

We have already noticed how deep was the impression made on the Greeks
by the greatness and splendour of the Lydian kingdom. Lydia was the
power of the East with which they first came into immediate contact, the
first Oriental court which they had before their eyes. A king of Lydia
had subjugated the great cities of the coast; his wide dominion, power,
and wisdom were the admiration of the Greeks; his glory and treasures
excited their astonishment; he had shown himself kindly and gracious
towards them, and sent the richest gifts to their gods--and this king it
was who fell by a sudden overthrow from his splendid position. He
succumbed to a foreign and distant nation, whose name up to that time
was hardly known to Greece, and his fall brought with it distress and
mischief for the Greeks of the west coast of Asia Minor. This sudden
fall of Croesus was a striking event, and most disastrous for the
Greeks, the more striking owing to the unexpected and rapid nature of
the change. How could so brave, wise, and religious a ruler fall from
the summit of fortune into the deepest distress, and come by a mischance
which brought disaster not only on himself and his kingdom, but also on
the Greek cities? How could this be the result of an undertaking begun
on the authority of the god of Delphi? These questions forced themselves
on the Greeks of Anatolia, and beyond the sea, and their legends were at
pains to solve the problem. In the mind of Herodotus the solution was
the punishment which sooner or later overtakes every unrighteous act.
Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus, had robbed the ancient royal family of
the Lydians, the race of Sandon, of their throne. It was the vengeance
for this crime which overtook Croesus. It was a widely-spread and
favourite story among the Greeks, how Solon of Athens, unmoved by the
successes, the prosperity, and splendour of Croesus, had warned him in
his proud citadel at Sardis of the mutability of human things, and
preferred to his brilliant position as a sovereign the modest lot of a
life well spent in the performance of duty. We have observed (III. 458)
that this narrative is not without some basis of fact. Could there be a
more impressive illustration of the saying of Solon than the fate which
had overtaken Croesus? The tradition of the Greeks, especially of the
Delphian priesthood, was aware of several oracular responses which had
been given to Croesus. Herodotus' point of view led him to believe that
no one, though warned by portents, dreams, and oracles, could escape the
doom which hung over him. In this fact lay the justification of the
Delphian oracle in regard to the prophecies given to Croesus. It had
announced what was correct, but owing to the blindness sent upon him by
fate, Croesus had not been able to understand its meaning.

Guided by these views, Herodotus represents misfortune as coming on
Croesus in one blow upon another immediately after he had displayed the
splendour of his empire to Solon, and in foolish vainglory had declared
himself to be the most fortunate of men. That Croesus had two sons, one
a youth of promise, the other dumb, and that he lost the former in the
bloom of his youth, are facts mentioned by Xenophon as well as
Herodotus.[13] A dream indicates to Croesus the death which is destined
for his noble son; and the means which he adopts to avert the death
serve to bring it about. Adrastus, who first slays his own brother, then
the son of Croesus, and at length slays himself on the young man's
grave, is called a scion of the old Phrygian royal family of Midas and
Gordius; hence there is a close connection between the fall of the
Phrygian and Lydian houses. The Greeks worshipped Nemesis Adrastea,
_i.e._ the doom which none can escape, on the Granicus, and on a
mountain near Cyzicus.[14] In the tradition of the Lydians, Attys was
their first king, whom Herodotus calls the son of the god Manes;
according to the legend of the Phrygians and Lydians, he had been slain
by a boar.[15] As we saw, the Phrygians mourned each year for the death
of Attys, who had been carried off in the bloom of youth (I. 532). When
death had overtaken this son, Croesus sent to Delphi to ascertain
whether his remaining son should ever receive the gift of speech; and
the answer was returned that he would speak on a day of great
misfortune. Thus the prescience of the Delphic priestess is brought
forward in the most emphatic manner.

The overthrow of Astyages caused Croesus to examine a whole series of
oracles that he might ascertain whether they knew what was hidden from
men, before he inquired whether he should march against Cyrus. Before
this examination, Croesus had sought and received many prophecies at
Delphi, and now he tests not this oracle only, but many others. The
mixture of belief and scepticism which would give rise to such an
examination is not in itself incredible, but the manner in which the
test is carried out in the narrative of Herodotus, or rather of the
Delphian priesthood, is wholly beyond belief. The frivolous
question--what was the king of the Lydians doing on a certain day--the
drift of which was so obvious, would certainly be left unanswered by any
oracle of repute which was believed to receive revelations from the
gods. If we consider the nature of the Delphic prophecy, which claimed
rather to announce the responses of Apollo than to bring to light the
past or the future; the religious solemnity of the ceremonies, which
they who would consult the oracle had to perform; the small number of
the days on which the priestess spoke, we may be quite sure that the
priests would have rejected the question. Herodotus cannot give the
answers of the other oracles--not even the answer of Amphiaraus (which
is also mentioned in the account of Nicolaus), and yet this oracle must
have stood the test no less than Delphi, for Croesus sent presents to
it, and laid before it his second question. To Apollo of Miletus, whose
answer to the first question Herodotus does not know, and of whom the
second question is not asked, Croesus dedicates exactly the same gifts
as those sent to Apollo of Delphi after he had stood the test. Hence it
is quite clear that the supposed examination of the oracles is merely a
story invented by the Greeks to glorify the Delphic shrine. Croesus
fell, in spite of the splendid presents he had made to the Delphic god,
on whose advice he had acted; in order to maintain the divine wisdom of
the oracle against this charge, it must be proved to have knowledge of
the most secret things. And it is true that Croesus had put the oracle
to the test, though in another manner, by following up the answer to his
question whether he should go against the Persians, with a second
question--whether his empire would continue. The story how splendidly
Delphi had stood the test then received an apparently certain
foundation in the hexameters about the lamb's flesh and tortoise, which
was subsequently manufactured in Delphi in the name of the priestess.

The narrative of the campaign in Herodotus is obviously intended to put
Croesus in the wrong, and burden him with guilt of his own in addition
to the offence of his ancestor. Sandanis warns him in vain (p. 5). Cyrus
has done nothing to injure Croesus, and therefore Croesus is the
aggressor. He crosses the Halys, invades the territory of Cyrus, in
order to conquer Cappadocia and avenge Astyages on Cyrus; he causes the
land of the Cappadocians to be desolated; and Herodotus lays stress on
the fact that this nation was quite innocent. Guilt is followed by
incapacity, after the indecisive battle. Croesus disbands his army for
the singular reason that it "was inferior in numbers to that of Cyrus."
He is then surprised in Sardis; the citadel is naturally ascended in the
very place where in old days king Meles omitted to carry the lion which
was to make the walls of Sardis impregnable, because he thought it
unnecessary, the place being inaccessible. (I. 561). Croesus is saved
from instant death, because the deaf and dumb son receives his speech on
a day of misfortune, as Delphi had announced. The son can not only
speak, but knows how to address his father by name. The favour of the
gods, who turn again to Croesus when he has expiated the guilt of Gyges
and himself by his overthrow, is shown in this miracle, and more plainly
still on the funeral pyre. The wisdom of the Greeks, and of Solon, is
set in the clearest light, when Croesus in his deepest distress, on the
brink of a terrible death, remembers the warning once given him by
Solon. If such a recollection forms the most brilliant evidence of the
insight of the Greeks, it might also give the motive for the rescue of
Croesus.

The occurrences on and at the pyre partake so strongly of the miraculous
that Herodotus himself is puzzled. What reason could Cyrus, whose
gentleness Herodotus himself extols, have for condemning Croesus to a
death by fire, and with him fourteen Lydian youths? Herodotus knows that
fire is a god in the eyes of the Persians, and that corpses could not be
burnt.[16] He says: "Cyrus either wished to offer first-fruits to some
god, or to fulfil a vow, or to ascertain whether Apollo would assist the
pious Croesus." When narrating the astonishing incidents which took
place on the pyre, he drops the positive tone, and continues the story
with "the Lydians say." The pyre is already kindled when the question is
asked by the interpreters, What is the meaning of the cry "Solon"?
Croesus is at first obstinately silent, then answers obscurely; and only
after long pressure tells of his meeting with Solon, which could not be
done very briefly if it was to be made intelligible to Cyrus, and the
narrative had to be translated by the interpreters, as Herodotus himself
relates. Then Cyrus is seized with remorse for the execution he has
commanded, and the attempt is made to quench the pyre. Impossible as all
this is, Croesus at the last moment confesses that Solon is right, and
Solon's deep insight moves the heart of the great sovereign of the
Persians, and rescues the once prosperous but now fallen king.

In his minute account of the cremation, which, in his rhetorical manner,
he connects with the recovery of speech by the deaf and dumb son,
Nicolaus of Damascus felt difficulties like those in Herodotus. The law
bidding the Persians not to pollute fire, nor to "burn the dead," is
well known to him. He removes the contradiction by representing the
cremation as taking place against the will of Cyrus, and remarks that
after this incident the regulation was more strictly observed. In his
story also the change is made by the mention of Solon's name. When Cyrus
had ascertained what Solon had said to Croesus, he began to weep, and
saw that he had done wrong, and the pain of their king touches the heart
of the Persians. This movement is assisted in Nicolaus by the sibyl of
Ephesus; in which no doubt he follows the legend of Ephesus; Croesus had
made large presents to the temple of Artemis in that city (III. 451).

In Herodotus, as in Diodorus and Nicolaus, it is the rain, by which the
pyre is quenched, which causes Cyrus to continue his gentle treatment of
Croesus. Moreover, the excellent advice, which Croesus with immediate
prudence gives, for putting an end to the plunder of Sardis, and other
matters in Herodotus, in Diodorus, and Xenophon, co-operate in
influencing Cyrus to hold such a wise man in respect. Xenophon knows, or
at any rate says, nothing of the burning of Croesus. Ctesias knows
nothing of it: in his account miracles of another kind are vouchsafed to
the imprisoned Croesus by Apollo in his temple; the triple loosing of
the bonds, and their final removal with thunder and lightning, determine
Cyrus to set him at liberty and make provision for him.

Lastly, it was incumbent on Herodotus and the Greek narratives to
justify the Delphian oracle with regard to the responses given to
Croesus. In Herodotus and Nicolaus this justification is introduced and
pointed by the sending of the fetters, which Croesus had worn, as the
first-fruits of the promised victory to Delphi, and the question whether
it was the manner of the Greek gods to deceive those who had done them
kindness. Following, no doubt, the legend of the Delphic priesthood,
Herodotus then gives the defence of the priestess, that Croesus had not
rightly understood the oracles,--though as we shall see, he had
understood them correctly enough. The priestess further tells Croesus,
that he was destined to pay the penalty for the offence, which his
ancestor Gyges had committed against Candaules, though the Delphic
oracle had sanctioned this crime and carried it out. Then destiny has to
bear the blame. No man can escape his doom; the god of Delphi had
deferred the fall of Croesus for three years, and saved him from the
flames of the funeral pyre. The god of Delphi had thus announced the
truth (to prove this Cyrus is made the son of a Median mother), and had
shown his gratitude for the gifts of Croesus by delaying his overthrow,
and rescuing him from the flames, as Croesus must himself confess.
Xenophon dwells yet more on the justification. Croesus had placed
himself in the wrong with the god, by putting it to the test whether he
could tell the truth; then he hopes that he has appeased him by rich
presents, but he misunderstands the further response of the god, "that
he will be happy when he knows himself," for in descent, bravery, and
generalship he holds himself the equal of Cyrus. In Herodotus and
Nicolaus the gift of speech to the deaf and dumb son, the quenching of
the pyre,--in Herodotus also the delay of destiny, and in Ctesias, the
miraculous loosing of the fetters,--are proofs that the dedicatory gifts
of Croesus and his piety had not been in vain. They could not avert his
doom, but they had alleviated it; the god of the Greeks, whom he
serves, has at the last saved him from the most cruel fate, and brought
it about that Croesus ends his days, if not as a ruler, yet in peace and
dignity.

In spite of all the national and individual points of view which mark
Herodotus' account of the fall of Croesus, and the legends which he has
woven into it, and used for his own purposes--the fanciful colours which
stamp it as fabulous--it nevertheless contains a nucleus of historical
truth, and we can give it a place before the rest as a narrative of
facts. We have seen above how suddenly the successful rebellion of Cyrus
put an end to the close relations between Babylonia, Lydia, and Media;
how Lydia was touched by this change, how clearly the intervention of
Lydia was needed, and what reasons could induce Croesus to defer it.
Croesus was obviously brought to abandon his delay by the successes
which Cyrus achieved in establishing his dominion over the Medes, and
extending it to North and South, but above all by his conquests in the
West and the advance of the Persian border to the Halys. Herodotus'
account shows us very clearly that Cappadocia had become subject to
Cyrus. When, on a previous occasion, the Medes reached the Halys,
Alyattes, the father of Croesus, had taken up arms; was he to fall short
of this example, in the presence of a power which had grown up more
rapidly and threatened greater danger than the Medes? As Herodotus told
us, it was his intention to attack Cyrus before he became too powerful.
We may conclude with certainty from what Herodotus relates, that Croesus
did not hide from himself the importance and difficulty of the
undertaking. Above all he sought to win the favour of Sandon the
national deity (I. 564). The Lydians offered large burnt-sacrifices to
this deity, their sun-god; on a huge pyre they burnt numerous victims,
gold and silver vessels, and costly robes in his honour. Herodotus tells
us that Croesus bade the Lydians sacrifice from their own stores on that
occasion; hence the great sacrifice, the gold of which Croesus dedicated
to the god of Miletus and Delphi, was a national offering, which Croesus
presented to Sandon. We have already shown that the Greeks recognised in
the sun-god of the Lydians their own Apollo and Hercules, while the
Lydians found their solar deity in the Apollo of the Greeks. When Gyges
undertook to overthrow the old royal family which claimed to spring from
this sun-god, and could not succeed in his attempt, an answer was sought
from the sun-god of Delphi. The god of the Greeks then dethroned the
descendants of the Lydian deity. In the year 556 B.C.[17] Croesus had
already sent to Delphi, and given dedicatory offerings to the god of
Delphi and to the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes; and at the present time,
when he had resolved to enter on a severe struggle for his throne and
kingdom, he called to mind the god, to whose oracle his house owed its
position; he would now receive by his favour both kingdom and crown. So
Apollo of Miletus and Delphi received silver and gold which had been
consecrated by the fire. The bricks into which it was formed were
intended to bear the lion which was also fashioned out of the same
gold--the symbol of the burning sun, the image of the Lydian god. The
four golden bricks formed the uppermost steps. The total amount of the
gold dedicated at Delphi and Miletus reached 270 talents. For the
presents at Miletus Croesus used the property of Sadyattes, which he had
confiscated at the beginning of his reign, dedicated, and applied as an
offering.[18] When Croesus sent the gifts to Delphi, he inquired of the
oracle, as Gyges had previously done. At this time--about 140 years
before Croesus--the question had been who was to ascend the throne of
Lydia; now the question was, whether the descendant of Gyges would
maintain it in the conflict against Persia. The answer of the priestess,
which Aristotle and Diodorus have preserved in metre,[19]--"That Croesus
by crossing the Halys would destroy a great kingdom"--is genuine, and
was certainly given in the meaning that Croesus should undertake the war
and would destroy the kingdom of his opponent. The object of Croesus in
asking the question was to know whether he would be fortunate in his
attack on Persia. If it was the object of the priesthood to give a
dubious answer to this question, they could not possibly have answered
the further question--whether he should take allies to help him,--with
the command that he must take the "most powerful of the Hellenes." At
that time the Spartans were beyond all question the most powerful of the
Hellenes. How could the priests of Delphi, who owing to the close
connection in which they stood to Sparta were well aware that the oracle
would be a law to that state, send the Spartans to defeat and
destruction, if they foresaw such a thing?[20] That at Delphi, owing to
the impression made on the Greeks by the power, greatness, and splendour
of the Lydian empire, the remote and unknown Persians were underrated is
quite probable, and indeed sufficiently proved by the subsequent embassy
of the Spartans to Cyrus. The first response did not entirely remove
the doubts of Croesus, so he asked a second time--"whether his dominion
would continue long," and this question received a thoroughly
satisfactory answer, _i.e._ an answer which, in the obscure form
purposely adopted by oracles, deferred the defeat of the Lydians to
distant times, and impossible conditions.

Croesus had not waited for the oracle to provide himself with sufficient
support in his undertaking. Yet it suited him to enter into negotiations
with the Spartans, who after a series of successful contests against the
Pisatae, Argos, and some cantons of Arcadia, had obtained the foremost
place in the Peloponnesus. At an earlier time Croesus had sent the
Spartans a considerable present for the erection of a statue of Apollo,
and their grateful feeling towards him would certainly be strengthened
by the authority of the Delphian oracle, whose response was known to the
Spartans, as Herodotus expressly states (p. 9). Even in Xenophon's
account they declared themselves ready to send auxiliary troops to
Sardis.[21] Croesus did not stop here: he sent Eurybatus to obtain yet
more troops in Hellas. Herodotus told us that Croesus was in league with
Egypt and Babylonia against Persia before he made the treaty with
Sparta. Amasis, king of Egypt, had determined to support Croesus,
perhaps in return for the service which Gyges had once rendered to
Psammetichus, when he sent soldiers to aid him against his
fellow-princes, the vassals of Assyria (III. 301). The attitude of
Babylonia must be decisive. If Lydia and Babylonia, who were both
equally threatened by the new power, united in a firm military alliance,
they might hope to contend successfully with the prince of the
Persians. At Babylon, after the accession of Nabonetus in the year 555
B.C., the royal power was again in strong hands. According to Herodotus,
there was a league between Croesus and Nabonetus against Persia.
Xenophon represents Croesus as coming to the aid of the king of Babylon.
Justin states that Cyrus was at war with Babylon when Croesus attacked
him; Cyrus drove him back, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried the
war to Lydia. From all this we may assume that Lydia and Babylonia were
united, and that they undertook the war against Persia in common.

Croesus then might consider that careful preparations had been made for
his enterprise, when in the year 549 B.C., and as we may pre-suppose
with certainty, in the spring of the year, he took the field.[22] He
crossed the Halys, and directed his course to the commanding plateau of
Pteria, which Herodotus rightly regards as the strongest position in
those regions. He took Pteria, and the neighbouring cities, and laid
waste the land, with the view no doubt of making it impossible for the
Persian army to support itself. There he remained, either because he
shrank from going further, and seeking a decisive conflict at a distance
from his own borders, or because he expected a diversion on the part of
the Babylonians.

The attack of Croesus was unexpected by Cyrus. He was also engaged with
another enemy. These conclusions we may draw from the fact that it was
autumn according to Herodotus before the armies stood opposite each
other. Herodotus further remarks that Babylon, the Bactrians, and the
Sacæ caused Cyrus to return out of Asia Minor.[23] By lingering in
Cappadocia Croesus had given Cyrus time to collect his army and add to
it the troops of the countries through which he passed on his march to
the West. With his usual circumspection he sought to avail himself of
the weak points in his enemy. He sent ambassadors to the Greek cities
subject to Croesus, on the West coast, to urge them to revolt that he
might raise up enemies in the rear of the Lydians. Croesus awaited the
attack of the Persians in the neighbourhood of the conquered Pteria.
Herodotus tells that the contest was severe. In spite of the
considerable superiority of numbers on the Persian side, the Lydians did
not give way. The battle was not decided, when night came on. In truth
the victory was with the Lydians, whose bravery made such an impression
on Cyrus that he would not renew the battle. But the timidity of Croesus
put in his hands all the advantages of a victory. After the bloody day
it seemed better to Croesus, as is the case with men of weaker mould,
not to risk everything, but to put off the final decision; he thought it
safer to retire, in order to strengthen his army and so fight with
equal numbers. Under the supposition that Cyrus would not venture to
advance "as the winter was at the gate," he retired to Lydia. He
intended to use the winter for collecting the forces of his confederates
at Sardis. He requested Nabonetus of Babylon, the Lacedæmonians and the
Pharaoh, to embark their forces on the Syrian coast, the Laconian Gulf,
and at the mouths of the Nile, in time for them to reach Sardis in the
fifth month, _i.e._ in the early spring. To the want of resolution which
had suggested the thought of retreat, Croesus, when returning, added
another great act of folly. He disbanded "the mercenaries" of his army
(Alyattes had made use of hired soldiers), bidding them come again to
Sardis in the spring, and returned home with the Lydians alone. Such a
series of blunders could not go unpunished in the presence of a general
like Cyrus. In no case could he remain in the devastated country of the
Cappadocians. He must go either forwards or backwards. To choose the
latter was voluntarily to abandon the advantages which the retreat of
Croesus offered. Yet he did not content himself with slowly following
the unexpected retreat of the Lydians. He appears to have been informed
of the plans of Croesus by Eurybatus of Ephesus, whose treason is not
only mentioned by Diodorus after Ephorus, but alluded to by Plato,
Demosthenes, and Aeschines.[24] By a rapid march upon the enemy's
metropolis Cyrus intended to cripple the Lydian forces, hit Croesus in
the very centre of his power, and bring the war to an end at a blow. He
came so quickly, that, as Herodotus says, he announced his own arrival.
The sudden appearance of the Persian army in the neighbourhood of
Sardis completely startled and terrified Croesus. He retired in order to
be able to place in the field a number of warriors equal to the army of
Cyrus, and now he was compelled to shut himself up in the walls of
Sardis or fight with far smaller numbers than took the field at Pteria.
He chose the latter, and awaited the attack on the plain of the Hermus,
which was large enough to provide a field for his excellent cavalry.

Though he had a great advantage in his forces, and in the consciousness
of his superiority to his enemy, Cyrus omitted no means for securing the
victory. He had experienced at Pteria the attack of the Lydian horse,
their superiority to his own cavalry, in spite of the practice in riding
which the Persians underwent from their youth up, and the excellence of
the Median horse. To render useless the attack of these horsemen, Cyrus
caused the camels which carried the baggage and supplies of his army to
be mounted, and placed them in the first line. This arrangement is
mentioned not only by Herodotus but also by Xenophon. No doubt the
Lydian horse would be frightened by the noise and unwonted aspect of
these animals. Though robbed of their best arm and mode of fighting, the
Lydians nevertheless resolved to dismount and carry on the battle on
foot. They pressed courageously on the Persians, and could only be
driven into the gates of Sardis after a bloody battle. Croesus was now
limited to the walls of his city, and compelled to defend them. He hoped
to be able to hold the city till his confederates should come, to whom
on the approach of Cyrus he had sent with appeals for immediate
assistance. But on the fourteenth day after the investment of the city,
as Herodotus maintains, Cyrus brought matters to a decision. Then the
Mardian climbed the steep rock on the Pactolus, on which the citadel
lay, at a place where no guard was set, the citadel and city were taken,
and Croesus became a prisoner. A picture at Pompeii exhibits Cyrus
before his tent, and Harpagus beside him, at the moment when Croesus is
brought forward.

Herodotus' narrative of the ascent of the citadel of Sardis is confirmed
by a precisely analogous incident which took place more than three
centuries later. Antiochus III. had besieged his brother-in-law Achæus
for more than a year in Sardis, and in vain. All hope of taking the city
except by starvation was given up, when Lagoras, a Cretan, observed that
the walls must be left without a guard where the citadel and the city
met. At this point the walls rose on steep rocks above a cleft into
which the besieged threw from the towers their dead along with the
carcasses of beasts of burden and horses. As the birds of prey when they
had eaten the corpses settled on the walls, Lagoras concluded that no
guards were stationed there. By night he examined whether it was quite
impossible to climb up and plant scaling-ladders there. When he
discovered a ravine by which this seemed practicable, he acquainted the
king. The necessary preparations were made; in the night, towards
morning, when the moon had set, Lagoras with sixteen companions climbed
up the rocks; 2000 men were ready to support him. The spur on which the
wall lay was so steep that even when the morning broke a jutting piece
of rock prevented the garrison from seeing what was going on, and when
Antiochus led his army against the Persian gate the garrison went to
meet them. Meanwhile the assailants by means of two ladders scaled the
walls close against the citadel and opened the nearest door; the
confusion which ensued put the city in the hands of Antiochus after a
short struggle. Yet Achæus maintained the citadel; by a secret steep and
dangerous path in the rear he was able to keep up a communication with
Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt, and finally he attempted to escape by this
means, but he was betrayed and fell into the hands of Antiochus (213
B.C.).[25]

Croesus determined not to survive the great overthrow and sudden
disaster which he had brought upon Lydia by his campaign. The Lydians
had become the slaves of the Persians, but it might be possible to
appease the wrath of Sandon, from whom all this misfortune must have
come; it might be that the god would again show favour to his people,
turn aside their misfortune and slavery, and raise up the kingdom from
the depths. In vain had Croesus attempted by lavish presents to win the
favour of Sandon-Apollo; there still remained the last great sacrifice.
So he resolved to offer himself as a peace-offering for his land and
people. In this way he might succeed in laying the foundation of the
future liberation and rise of Lydia, in conquering by his death his
successful opponent. The sacrifice of the heir to the throne and of the
king himself in his purple to avert the anger of the sun-god was not
unknown in Semitic rites. Zimri of Israel had burnt himself with his
citadel in Tirzah; Ahaz of Judah, when defeated by the Damascenes, had
sacrificed his son as a burnt-offering; Manasses of Judah "caused his
son to pass through the fire in the valley of Ben Hinnom" (III. 43,
209); the last king of Asshur had burnt himself with his palace in the
year 607 B.C.; Hamilcar, the son of Hanno, threw himself into the flames
of the sacrificial fire in order to turn the battle of Himera. Cyrus had
no reason for preventing the death of his opponent, if he chose to die.
Though he was offering himself as a sacrifice to his gods, these gods
were false in the eyes of the Persians--they were evil spirits or
demons. The Persian king could quite understand the resolution of
Croesus not to outlive the fall of a prosperous and mighty kingdom, and
to escape a long imprisonment, and would probably look on it as worthy
of a brave man. Still less could he object to the wish of a king to die
in his royal robes. That the cremation was a sacrifice and not an
execution is further proved by the circumstance that Croesus is
accompanied by twice seven youths. It could never have entered the mind
of Cyrus to seize and execute fourteen youths, but they might be quite
ready to sacrifice themselves with their king. The seventh planet
belonged to Adar-Sandon, _i.e._ to the angry sun-god, and Croesus had
sat on the throne fourteen years. The gifts also which the Lydian women
bring or send to the pyre (costly robes and ornaments of every kind, as
was customary in the great sacrifices of Sandon), are a distinct proof
of a peace-offering. In the picture at Pompeii Croesus has laurel
branches round his head, and a wand of laurel in his right hand, and
this marks him out, though in the Greek manner, as dedicated to Sandon;
a vase in the Louvre presents him seated on the pyre, in a royal robe,
with a crown of laurel on his head. In his left hand he holds a sceptre,
with the right he is pouring libations from a goblet, while a servant is
sprinkling with water the already burning pyre.[26] But the sun-god
would not accept the royal sacrifice and peace-offering. It was no
favourable sign that the weather was gloomy ([Greek: cheimôn]) on that
day, as Nicolaus, who here, no doubt, follows Xanthus the Lydian, tells
us, though no rain had fallen. The pyre was kindled; Croesus prayed that
Sandon would graciously accept the offering--the invocation of the god
by Croesus with tears Herodotus gives on the authority of the
Lydians[27]--but the prayer is not heard; a storm of rain descends, and
the pyre is quenched. This was an unmistakable sign, the
clearly-pronounced decision of the god, that he did not and would not
accept the sacrifice. Croesus must abandon his purpose.[28]

At no time can Cyrus have had the intention of doing any further injury
to the captive king of the Lvdians. Herodotus told us that before the
battle at Sardis he bade his soldiers spare Croesus. And he would be the
more inclined to show favour and grace to a man whose death heaven had
openly prevented. As Ctesias told us (p. 16), he allotted to Croesus the
city of Barene, near Ecbatana, as a residence or means of support.
Ptolemy mentions the city of Uarna in the neighbourhood of Ragha, and
the Avesta speaks of Varena in the same region.[29] After that day
Croesus submitted to his fate; we find him at the court of Cyrus as well
as at that of Cambyses in an honourable position; both Cyrus and his
successor at times apply to him for advice.

The convulsion which Cyrus had caused in the Median empire might have
ended with placing the Persians at the summit instead of the Medes, and
establishing the power of Cyrus within the old borders of the Median
kingdom. Had Lydia and Babylonia resolved to recognise this change; had
they reasons for the assumption that Cyrus would not go beyond these
limits, the old relation of the three powers might have been renewed,
though it would not have been confirmed by the bonds of alliance. But
Lydia no less than Babylonia believed that they were threatened by the
advance of Cyrus. At the time when Croesus attacked him, Cyrus certainly
did not intend to proceed to the West beyond the borders of Cappadocia.
This is proved by the fact that he kept within the Halys after the
conquest of that country. He must establish his power in the East before
he could extend his views to the distant West and Asia Minor. It was
Babylon which at that time was threatened, if not actually attacked, by
Cyrus. The advance of the Persians to the West, which Croesus intended
to prevent by his attack, was really caused by it. He brought on the
storm which he sought to allay before it burst upon him. By attempting
to check the advance of Cyrus in the midst of Asia he invited him to
Sardis. The dominion of the Mermnadæ was at an end; Croesus had lost it
140 years after his ancestor Gyges had won it. It is seldom that a
sovereign is hurled so suddenly as Croesus from the summit of power and
prosperity; that the splendour of a high and glorious position stands in
such close and striking proximity to the deepest humiliation. There is
hardly any instance of a warlike and brave nation passing so suddenly
and utterly into obscurity as the Lydians; and never has so ancient, so
flourishing, and powerful a kingdom, while yet in the period of its
growth, been so swiftly overthrown, never to rise again.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Herod. 1, 74, 79, 155; Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 2, 11.

[2] Herod. 1, 71; and equally from the Persian point of view, Xenophon,
"Cyri inst." 6, 2, 22.

[3] Ctes. "Pers." 4; Fragm. 31, ed. Müller.

[4] Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 6, 3, 19; 7, 8, [Woelfflin].

[5] "Cyri inst." 1, 5, 3.

[6] "Cyri inst." 2, 1, 5, 6.

[7] Xenoph. "Anab." 5, 5, 17. Vol. I. 257.

[8] "Cyri inst." 2, 1, 5; 6, 2, 8, 9; 7, 2, 15 ff.

[9] I draw this conclusion from the story of Eurybatus, which was told
by Ephorus; Fragm. 100, ed. Müller.

[10] Excerpt. Vatic, p. 26; "De virtute et vitiis," p. 553. [=9, 31 ff.]

[11] Justin, 1, 7. Lucian ("Contemplat." 9) represents Cyrus as
conquering Babylonia and then marching against Lydia.

[12] [Nic. Damasc. Frag. 68, ed. Müller.]

[13] "Cyri inst." 7, 2, 20.

[14] Strabo, p. 575, 587.

[15] Pausan. 7, 17, 9. 10.

[16] Herod. 1, 131; 3, 16.

[17] Marmor Parnium, ep. 41.

[18] Boeckh, "Staatshaushaltung" 1. 10, 11; H. Stein on Herod. 1, 50.

[19] Aristot. "Rhetor." 3, 5; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 25, 26[=9, 31].

[20] Herod. 1, 69.

[21] "Cyri inst." 6, 2, 10, 11.

[22] The Parian marble mentions a mission of Croesus to Delphi in the
year 556. The date of the year for the capture of Sardis is destroyed,
and cannot be even approximately restored, as the nearest dates are
either mutilated or destroyed. The dates in Eusebius are derived from
Apollodorus, who in turn draws from Eratosthenes. Eusebius puts the
testing of the oracles in Olymp. 57,3 = 550 B.C., the march of Cyrus
against Croesus in Ol. 57,4 = 549 B.C., the capture of Croesus in Ol.
58,3 = 546 B.C. Jerome represents Croesus as beginning the war in Ol.
57,3 = 550 B.C. and puts his capture in Ol. 58,1 = 548 B.C. According to
the statement of Syncellus (1,455, ed. Bonn.), Croesus was defeated in
the 14th year of Cyrus, which would give 547 B.C., if with Eusebius, who
allows Cyrus to reign 31 years, we put his accession in 560 B.C. (V. p.
381 _n._). The interval of three years which Eusebius (549-546) and two
years which Jerome (550-548) places between the beginning of the war and
the capture of Croesus, appears to be due to the three years for which,
according to Herodotus, Apollo delayed the overthrow of Croesus; the
presents came to Delphi three years before the fall (Herod. 1, 91).
According to Herodotus the campaign occupies only one summer and autumn.
The temple of Delphi was burned down in 548 B.C. (Ol. 58,1; Pausan. 10,
5, 13), and as Herodotus represents the temple as intact at the time
when Croesus sent to Delphi after his fall, this must have taken place
before 548 B.C., and therefore Croesus must have been conquered by Cyrus
in 549 B.C. If the justification of the oracle in Herodotus is merely an
invention of the priests, yet in things so well known the existing
circumstances could not be left out of sight. It is certain that if the
presents of Croesus had been injured by the burning of the temple before
his fall, this evil omen would not have been left out of sight by the
legend, or by Herodotus, who himself saw and mentions the lion of
Croesus at Delphi which had been injured by the fire (1, 50). I have
therefore no scruple in putting the fall of the Lydian kingdom in the
year 549 B.C. Though the reign given by Herodotus for Croesus, fourteen
years and fourteen days, may have arisen out of the fourteen Lydian boys
who wished to be sacrificed with their king (p. 12), yet Eusebius,
Jerome, and Syncellus put the reign of Croesus at 15 years. It may
therefore be regarded as an established fact that his reign ended in the
fifteenth year. According to Herodotus (1, 64, 65), it might seem as
though he were of opinion that Croesus sought allies in Hellas at the
time when Pisistratus was tyrant for the third time over Athens. But
this would be an error due to Herodotus' habit of anticipation. We can
only be concerned with the second tyranny of Pisistratus, which belongs
to the years 550 and 549 B.C. Against the argument here used--that the
priests could not leave out of sight the actual circumstances in things
so widely known, even in their inventions, Büdinger objects: "The
chronological relations in Lydian-Persian history were neither various
nor generally known, when Herodotus visited Delphi." The objection would
be pertinent if the legend of the priests had only been manufactured
during Herodotus' stay at Delphi, and for his use. This is not tenable.
The fall of Croesus was an event which deeply moved the Hellenic world,
and created the most lively astonishment; the responses of Delphi had
allured him to war; the oracle must at once justify itself if it were
not to lose considerably in its authority. The justification must,
therefore, have been invented at once; in the cities of Anatolia it
would be best known at that time how and when the Mede came into the
land with the fall of Croesus ([Greek: pêlikos êsth' hoth' ho Mêdos
aphiketo]; Xenophanes in Athenaeus, p. 54), and it was also known
everywhere how long before the great presents of Croesus had come to
Miletus and Delphi. This must be noticed by the Delphian priests. But,
as I have expressly said, I have not laid any great stress on this fact,
but on the burning of the temple in 548 B.C., for that is the only
certain point which can be gained. It does not seem possible to me to
make Xenophon's account of the Lydian and Babylonian wars of Cyrus in
the Cyropaedia a reason for placing the overthrow of Croesus in 541 B.C.
and putting back the beginning of the third tyranny of Pisistratus to
that date in order to suit this account. There are also reasons of fact
against such a date, which are given elsewhere.

[23] Herod. 1, 153.

[24] Plat. "Protagoras," p. 327. Demosth. "De Corona," 24; Aesch. "in
Ctesiph." 137, and the Scholia.

[25] Polyb. 7, 15; 8, 22.

[26] Raoul Rochette, "Mémoires de l'institut," 17, 2, p. 278 ff.

[27] Herod. 1, 87.

[28] Büdinger objects to this view that the Lydian tradition, which
would be favourable to Croesus, could not possibly convert the merit of
such a sacrifice into an execution. Whether the tradition of the Lydians
was favourable or not to Croesus is not handed down; that the Greeks
were favourable to him we know for certain. It is the tradition of the
Greek cities--favourable to Croesus and unfavourable to Cyrus--which we
have in the account of Herodotus. The rescue of Croesus and the wisdom
of Solon were the points of view given in the Greek tradition and
guiding it. If Nicolaus of Damascus has used Xanthus, and his account
rests on a combination of the Greek and Lydian tradition--it is
precisely in his account that the sacrifice, and the prevention of it by
rain, comes out more clearly than in Herodotus.

[29] Steph. Byzant. [Greek: Barênê]. The Barce of Justin (1, 7) must be
the same city. [Barene in Jeep's ed.] Ptolem. 6, 2, 8; "Vend." 1, 68.




CHAPTER VII.

THE SUBJUGATION OF ASIA MINOR.


However unexpected the attack of the Lydians had been by the ruler of
the Medes and Persians, however inconvenient the war with them, he had
brought it to a rapid and prosperous decision. Though he had entertained
no thought of conquests in the distant West before Croesus took up arms
against him, he resolved to maintain the advantage which the war had
brought him to such a surprising extent. Great as was the distance
between Sardis and Pasargadae, Lydia was to be embodied in his empire,
and the Ægean was to form its western boundary. His army took up winter
quarters in Lydia; from Sardis he arranged in person the new government
of the land, and the fate of the nations which had been subject to the
Lydians. We do not know whether the Phrygians, Bithynians, and
Paphlagonians submitted to the change of dominion without resistance.
Æschylus represents Cyrus as subjugating Phrygia. According to Xenophon,
Phrygia was reduced by Cyrus as he returned from Sardis; the
Paphlagonians submitted voluntarily, like the Cilicians; this was the
reason why no satraps were sent there, yet the fortresses were occupied
with Persian garrisons, and the Paphlagonians and Cilicians had to pay
tribute and perform service in war.[30] Cilicia had not been subject to
the Lydians; ever since the irruption of the Scyths had broken the
cohesion of the Assyrian power, her princes were independent, though
they had paid tribute to Assurbanipal (III. 166, 178), They bore the
standing title of Syennesis. More than sixty years previously
Nabopolassar of Babylon and Syennesis of Cilicia had brought about peace
and alliance between Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes of Lydia (V. 295).
That Cilicia now voluntarily submitted to Cyrus, if it had not done so
previously, can be concluded with certainty from the fact that we
subsequently find kings named Syennesis at the head of Cilicia, who are
bound to pay tribute to the Persian empire and render service in
war.[31]

Cyrus met more vigorous resistance in the west of Asia Minor. The
Lycians, who maintained their independence against the Lydians in their
mountains to the south, were not inclined to submit to the Persians, nor
were their neighbours in the south-west, the Carians. The cities of the
Greeks, who possessed the entire western coast, hesitated which course
to take. After their ancestors had set foot on this coast, 400 years
previously, they had succeeded in maintaining their ground for a century
and a half against the rising power of the Lydians under the Mermnads;
indeed it was during this period that they had extended their trade and
colonisation, and risen to be a second naval power beside the
Phenicians,--the centre of a commerce, which on the one hand included
the Black Sea and the Maeotis, and on the other almost all the
Mediterranean--which included in its empire Cyprus and Sicily and
Corsica, Egypt and the mouths of the Po and Rhone, and even extended to
the banks of the Bætis. Along with the trade and wealth of these cities,
poetry had burst into a new bloom, plastic art and architecture were
eagerly cultivated, the foundations were laid for Greek science, natural
history, geography, history, and philosophy. Life was pleasant and
luxurious; no doubt the morals of the Lydians had found their way into
the cities, but the old vigour still remained in the inhabitants by sea
and land. At last they had succumbed to Croesus, not because they did
not know how to fight, but because they had not followed the advice of
Thales of Miletus, who urged them to carry on the war in common, and
place at their head a council with dictatorial powers (III. 450). But
the supremacy of Croesus, to which they did not submit for much more
than a decade, had not been of an oppressive character. It had left the
cities unchanged in their internal trade, and in fact had increased
rather than destroyed it. Croesus had contented himself with yearly
tributes from the cities, and we have seen to what a large extent Greek
art and manners found protection, favour, and advancement at the court
of Croesus. Now these cities suddenly found themselves in the presence
of a power of which they had hardly heard the name, and which had
prostrated with a mighty blow the kingdom of Croesus. As they were not
pledged to provide soldiers for the king of the Lydians, they had looked
on in irresolute neutrality during the war. And they had paid no heed to
the request of Cyrus that they would join his side. Previously it might
have been to their interest to weaken the power of Lydia, in order to
regain their full independence, but when Cyrus marched upon Sardis it
became much more imperative to prevent a stronger power from taking the
place of the Lydians. A diversion on the part of the Greek cities when
Cyrus was besieging Sardis, would have delayed the fate of the city, and
might have rendered possible the arrival of the allies. But they had
done nothing, and now found themselves alone in the presence of the
conqueror. Their danger prompted them to offer submission to the king of
the Persians on the same terms as those on which they had served
Croesus. Cyrus rejected the offer which the ambassadors of the Ionian
and Aeolian cities brought to Sardis. Mere recognition of his supremacy
and payment of tribute he did not consider sufficient to secure the
obedience of cities so remote, and he was strong enough to insist on a
more dependent relation without great efforts. But ever cautious and
provident, he took means to separate the cities. To Miletus, the
strongest, he offered a continuance of the relations in which she had
stood to Lydia. When Miletus, "from fear," as Herodotus remarks,
accepted these conditions, Cyrus had already won the victory. The cities
were divided, robbed of their strongest power and natural head.

Conscious that their submission on the conditions proposed had been
refused, the cities of the Ionian tribe took counsel at their old common
place of sacrifice on the shore of the sea, opposite Samos, under Mount
Mycale. Miletus, it is true, was absent; but among the Ionians there was
far too much pride, far too great a sense of freedom, to offer
unconditional submission to Cyrus. The defection of Miletus seemed to be
compensated when ambassadors of the cities of the Aeolian tribe appeared
on the same day as the Ionians, which had never occurred before, and
declared their common resolution "to follow the Ionians wherever they
led."[32] It was resolved to fortify the cities, to make a resistance to
the Persians, and for this object to call as quickly as possible on the
mother country for help. A common embassy of the Ionian and Aeolian
cities went to Sparta, in order to ask aid of the Dorians there, the
leading state in the peninsula. But in vain did Pythermus of Phocaea,
the mouthpiece of the embassy, put on his purple robe in order to
manifest the importance and wealth of the cities, when the ephors
introduced the legation before the common assembly. Though the Spartans
at that time were at the height of their power, and had promised help to
Croesus, though the ships had been equipped and the contingent was ready
to embark when the news came of the capture of Sardis, Sparta now
refused to send aid, regardless of the fate of her countrymen. She
merely resolved to despatch ambassadors to Cyrus with the request that
he would leave the Greek cities in peace. A ship of fifty oars carried
the embassy to Asia, with the real object, as Herodotus supposes, of
ascertaining the position of affairs in Ionia and with Cyrus. It landed
at Phocaea. Lacrines, the spokesman of the ambassadors, found Cyrus in
Sardis, and there warned him in Sparta's name, "to do no harm to any
Hellenic city, for Sparta would not allow such conduct to go
unpunished." Without the support of an army this warning was an empty
and foolish threat, which Cyrus treated as it deserved.[33]

There must have been some urgent necessity which summoned Cyrus to the
East before he subjected the Lydians, Carians, and Greeks of the coast.
Herodotus tells us that he intended to conquer Babylon, the Bactrian
nation, the Sacæ and Egyptians. In the early spring he set out with the
bulk of his army to Ecbatana.[34] Croesus was in his train. He had given
the government of Lydia to Tabalus, a Persian, but the management of the
revenues to Pactyas, a Lydian.[35] He may have thought that Lydia was
more peaceable than it really was, or more reconciled to its fate by his
gentle treatment of Croesus, and the nomination of a Lydian as manager
of the taxes. The dominion of the Persians had come upon the Lydians
suddenly; they refused to recognise the superior power of their rulers,
and could not finally accept the rapid change which had so suddenly
overthrown their ancient kingdom and their fame in arms. So far from
being subdued, they hardly considered themselves seriously beaten. The
rapid and decisive action, in which they had been defeated, might appear
to them rather a fortunate surprise, than a victory won by the Persians.
It was Pactyas, whom Cyrus had made manager of the revenues, who raised
the standard of revolt. He collected the Lydians, and induced the
inhabitants of the coast, i.e. the cities of the Greeks, to join him.
Tabalus could not resist in the open field the sudden outburst of
rebellion. When Pactyas marched against Sardis, he was compelled to shut
himself up in the citadel, and was there besieged. While yet on his
march Cyrus received the news of the revolt. Yet his presence in upper
Asia was so necessary that he did not return in person; he sent Mazares,
a Mede, with a part of the army, to bring the Lydians once more to
obedience. The rebellion appears to have been undertaken in haste
without sufficient preparations, and Pactyas was not the man to lead it
with energy. He did not venture to await the arrival of Mazares; the
citadel of Sardis was delivered; Tabalus was free; the rebellion was
crushed; Pactyas fled to the Greeks on the coast, to Cyme, the leading
city of the Aeolians. When Mazares demanded that he should be given up,
the oracle of Apollo at Miletus twice ordered the Cymæans, in answer to
their repeated inquiry, to surrender him. The priests of that temple,
the Branchidæ, well knew that the arrangement which their city had made
with Cyrus, pledged her to carry out the wishes of the Persians. The
Cymæans did not obey even the second response, but first took Pactyas in
safety to Mytilene in Lesbos, and when they found that the Mytileneans
were ready to give him up, they took him to Chios. But the Chians,
though, like the Lesbians, they had nothing to fear from the Persians in
their island, nevertheless surrendered him.[36]

The hopes which the Greek cities might have built upon the rebellion of
the Lydians were quickly broken. The mother country had refused any
help. Sparta would not come to their assistance, and Athens, torn as she
was by internal dissensions, could not. No one in the cantons of the
Greek peninsula roused themselves to give aid to an important section of
the Greek nation, to the colonies which had outstripped the mother
country in their development, or strove to save the most vigorous
centres of Greek nationality from subjection to a foreign people, which
had come out of the remote part of Asia. If the voice of a common blood
and the sense of nationality failed to warn the Greeks beyond the sea
against giving over to strangers for plunder such rich and flourishing
cities, was there no one in Hellas who foresaw that if the establishment
of the Persian dominion on the coasts of Asia Minor were not prevented,
and the cities of the coast with their navy were allowed to fall into
the hands of the Persians, Greece itself would not be safe from their
attack, and they would be able to visit the coasts of Hellas in Greek
ships? Yet even without assistance the power of the Hellenic cities
would have sufficed for a considerable resistance to the Persians--for
the position of affairs in Asia did not allow Cyrus to bring any great
force against these distant coasts--if they had been able to understand
and take to heart the lessons of their own past. If they had neglected
to unite their forces against the Lydians, such union was now doubly
necessary. They had learned from experience the evil of delay, and the
danger was now greater than ever. The Greek cities were in uncontested
possession of the sea,[37] and thus in a position to give help in common
to any city which the Persians might attack. An organisation which
permitted the whole force of the city to be used for the benefit of each
one, would have given a prospect of successful resistance. But no step
whatever was taken in this direction. Each city turned its attention to
strengthening its own walls, and awaiting the attack of the Persians.

After the subjugation of the Lydians, Mazares, as Herodotus tells us,
turned his arms against "those who had besieged Tabalus along with
Pactyas." He invested Priene, took the city, and reduced the inhabitants
to slavery; then the plain of the Maeander was laid waste, the city of
Magnesia taken, and its inhabitants enslaved. After the capture of
Magnesia Mazares fell sick and died. Cyrus sent Harpagus the Mede as his
successor. He marched northwards from the valley of the Maeander; in the
first instance against Phocaea, which appeared to have taken the leading
part in resistance, or at any rate had done most to gain the help of
Sparta; after Miletus it was the most powerful city of the Ionians. The
trade in the Adriatic and the Tyrrhene sea, on the coasts of Gallia and
Iberia, was in the hands of the Phocaeans. A strong and magnificent
wall, well built of large stones, surrounded the city, the circuit of
which, as Herodotus says, reached "not a few stadia." Harpagus invested
Phocaea, and threw up works round the walls; he then sent intelligence
to the Phocaeans that he should be content if they would pull down but
one tower, and solemnly give up to him the possession of one dwelling.
The Phocaeans must have thought that they could no longer hold the city
or repulse an attack. According to Herodotus, they answered the offer of
Harpagus with a request that he would allow them a day for
consideration, and for that day would lead his army from the wall.
Harpagus replied that he knew very well what their intentions were, but
he would give them time for consideration. When Harpagus led his forces
from the wall, the Phocaeans drew their ships to the sea, put upon them
their wives and children, and everything that they could carry away,
even the images of the gods and the votive offerings, and then embarked
and sailed to Chios. It was their intention to purchase from the Chians
the Oenussæ, islands lying off Chios, and to settle there. But the
Chians refused to sell them, fearing that their trade would go there.
Then the Phocaeans turned their course back to Phocaea; Harpagus had
taken possession of the empty city and left a garrison in it. This the
Phocaeans cut down; then they sunk a large mass of iron in the sea, with
an oath that they would not return again to the city till the iron
should float, and shaped their course to the distant Western sea, for
the island of Cyrnus (Corsica), where twenty years previously they had
founded the colony of Alalia. Harpagus is said to have burnt Phocaea,
thus punishing the houses and temples for the attack on the
garrison.[38] After the capture of this city, he besieged Teos, and
gained possession of the walls by means of the works which he threw up.
The Teians then went on board their ships, one and all, sailed to the
north, and settled on the coast of Thrace opposite Thasos, where they
founded Abdera.[39] "So all the Ionians," says Herodotus, "with the
exception of the Milesians, who had come to terms with Cyrus, fought
against Harpagus, and showed themselves brave warriors, each for his own
city; but Harpagus took them one after the other by investing them and
throwing up works against the walls. Thus conquered they remained in
their cities, with the exception of those exiles, and did what they were
bid." After the subjugation of the Ionians, Harpagus turned to the
North, reduced the cities of the Aeolians, and bade their military
forces join his army.

The line of conquest had now reached the Dorian cities of the coast, the
Carians and Lycians. The Dorians and Carians made but little
resistance.[40] The Greeks of Asia had not only been abandoned by their
kinsmen beyond the sea, but also by their gods, or at any rate by their
oracles. As Apollo of Miletus had bidden the Cymaeans to give up
Pactyas, so Apollo of Delphi bade the Cnidians to desist from making
their city impregnable. Cnidus lay on the western edge of a long and
narrow promontory. The inhabitants had begun to cut a channel through
the land with a view of securing themselves against the attack of the
Persians. But though a large number of hands were engaged, the work did
not make progress in the hard rock; and as many of the workmen were
injured the city sent to Delphi to inquire the cause of their
misfortunes. The priestess answered, according to the Cnidian account:
"Ye must not fortify the Isthmus, nor cut through it; Zeus would have
made it an island if he had wished."[41] The Cnidians desisted, and
surrendered without a struggle to Harpagus on his approach. Among the
Carians, the Pedasians alone, who had fortified Mount Lida, made a
vigorous resistance; it cost Harpagus much trouble to take this
fortification. The Lycians, who had never been subject to the kings of
the Lydians, marched out against Harpagus. In the open field they fought
bravely, though few against many. When conquered and driven into their
city Xanthus (Arna, I. 577), they brought their wives and children,
their servants, and their goods into the citadel and set them on fire;
then they bound themselves by an oath, fell upon the Persian army, and
maintained the conflict to the last man. Then the remaining towns of the
Lycians, being robbed of their best defenders, submitted. The Caunians
alone, as Herodotus tells us, followed almost exactly the example of the
city of Xanthus.[42] Even the sea put no limit to the supremacy of the
Persians. The Greeks of the islands of Chios and Lesbos voluntarily
submitted to them, though, as Herodotus assures us, "they had nothing to
fear," "for the Persians were not mariners, and the Phenicians were not
their subjects at that time."[43] The two islands would not give up all
hope of the possession of the districts on the coasts opposite.

About three years after Cyrus had left Sardis in the spring of the year
548 B.C. his power in Lydia was not only firmly founded, but the whole
western coast, with all its harbours and landing-places, together with
two considerable islands, was subject to him. As Aeschylus tells us, he
had reduced Ionia by force. The East had again overpowered the colonists
of the West on its western edge. Asia Minor, beyond the Halys, was
subjugated to Cyrus in even greater extent than to Croesus; in fact it
was wholly in his power.[44] He placed two viceroys over it. One, the
viceroy of Phrygia, was to govern the north-eastern; the other, the
viceroy of Lydia, was to govern the south-western half of this wide
region. The first took up his position at Dascyleum, not far from the
shore of the Propontis; the other in the citadel at Sardis.[45] Among
the cities of the Greeks, Priene and Magnesia on the Maeander had been
destroyed, and their inhabitants enslaved; Phocaea had been burned. The
rest had not been injured by Harpagus after their capture; he had not
placed any Persian governors over them, nor introduced garrisons. It was
not intended in any way to destroy their nationality or their religious
worship. Their social life, their forms of government, their autonomy
remained; even the common sacrifices and assemblies of the Ionian cities
at Mycale were permitted to continue. They had only to recognise the
supreme authority of the king of the Persians and his viceroys, to pay
yearly tribute to the king, the amount of which each city fixed for
itself, and furnish a contingent to the army when called upon by the
viceroy to do so. When the Ionians again met at the common place of
sacrifice for the first time after their subjugation, Bias of Priene,
who had escaped the destruction of his country, proposed that all the
Ionian cities should follow the example of the Phocaeans and Teians;
that there should be a general emigration to Sardinia, in order that all
might obtain a new country there. They were then to form one great
community; one city was to be founded by all in common. Had this
proposal been carried out, the achievements of Cyrus would have
exercised a far deeper influence over the distant West, than the mere
settlement of the Phocaeans in Alalia, who moreover were not able to
maintain themselves in their new settlement. The centre of Hellenic
colonisation would have been transplanted from East to West, and the
fate of Italy would have been changed; the Greeks would have retired
before the supremacy of the East in order to establish a strong insular
power among the weak communities of the West. But the Ionians could not
rise to the height of such a revolution. Among the Greeks, the
attachment to their ancient soil, their homes and temples, was
peculiarly strong. If men could and would forget independence, the
supremacy of the Persians did not seem very oppressive. It limited the
trade of the Greeks as little as it repressed their social life; on the
contrary, it rather advanced commerce, which now received the protection
of the Persian king throughout the whole of his wide dominions. The ruin
of Phocaea also aided the trade of Miletus which had suffered neither
war nor siege.

Yet the cities of the Greeks were essentially weakened by the war and
their subjugation. In Phocaea, it is true, a community again grew up.
Half of the emigrants, in spite of their solemn vow, were seized with a
longing for their ancient home; they returned to their desolated city.
But for fifty years after this time the new Phocaea would or could
furnish no more than three ships of war. In Priene also and Teos
sufficient inhabitants gradually assembled to establish small
communities.[46] Other circumstances weighed more heavily even than
their natural losses. Cyrus knew well that it would not be easy to
retain in secure obedience cities so distant in situation, so important
in population and military resources. At such a distance isolated
garrisons would have been exposed to great danger; yet without them the
cities would have closed their gates to the Persians at any moment,
manned their walls, and entered into combinations beyond the sea. Every
rebellion of this kind made new sieges necessary, and these were the
more difficult as Persia had no fleet, and could only use the ships of
the Greeks. Situated at the extreme edge of the kingdom, and supported
by the opposite shore of the Ægean, each of the larger cities could
offer a long resistance. With the unerring political insight which
distinguished him, Cyrus saw that he must gain adherents within the
cities, and have on his side influential interests of sufficient weight
to keep the cities in obedience. Yet he did not aim at supporting one or
other of the parties who contended in the Greek cities for the
leadership of the community; on the other hand, his favour and that of
his viceroys was given to this or that party-leader. His allegiance was
to be secured and certain advantages were held out in prospect to the
city when led by him. Cyrus intended to govern the cities of the Greeks
by Greeks, who were not to be his officers, but to rule the cities as
their lords and princes for their own advantage and profit. By their
position, which they owed to the favour of Persia, and could only
maintain with the help of Persia against their fellow-citizens, by the
interested desire to retain this power in their families and bequeath it
to their children, by the concentration of the princely authority, as
opposed to the republican institutions and republican spirit of their
cities--which authority rested on the Persian court, and was closely
connected with it--these rulers in union with the viceroys and their
troops must be in a position to secure the subjection of the cities.
Thus it came to pass that not in Cyme only, the most important city of
the Aeolians, but in almost all the towns of the Greeks, men were raised
to power by the favour and support of the Persian satraps, who managed
the public affairs, and in the place of autonomous communities came
despotisms and principalities, in reality if not in name. How correct
Cyrus was is proved by the result.[47] He was able to secure the
obedience of the Lydians also. He caused the land to be stripped of its
arms, even to the extent of taking away the cavalry horses,[48] and so
abandoned all thought of forcing the Lydians to serve in his army. The
disuse of arms and the lapse of time did their work, aided as they were
by a vigorous trade, which in Lydia was due not only to the natural
wealth and the gold of the soil, but to a long-established and skilful
industry. In these pursuits and a luxurious life the Lydians forgot
their old days and ancient deeds. Persia had never again to contend with
a rebellion of the Lydians.

The tradition of the Greeks has not omitted to illustrate the important
events of the extension and establishment of the Persian dominion in
Asia Minor by a series of pointed anecdotes and stories. Among these is
the reply which Cyrus is said to have given to the Greek cities, when
they offered their submission after the fall of Sardis (p. 50). At that
time Cyrus, as Herodotus tells us, narrated the following story with
reference to their refusal of his first request:--A flute-player once
played to some fishes in the sea in order to entice them out. As they
did not come, he took them out with a net, and when they leapt about, he
said, Cease dancing now; ye did not dance out of the water when I
played. Diodorus puts the transaction later, and with him it is not
Cyrus, but Harpagus, who, as we saw, received the command against the
cities after Mazares, who told the following apologue to the
ambassadors:--He had once asked a maid of her father in marriage, but
the father betrothed her to a man of greater importance. When he
afterwards found out that the man whom he had despised as a son-in-law
was in favour with the king he brought him his daughter, and Harpagus
took her not for his wife, but for his concubine. By this Harpagus meant
that as the Greeks had not become friends of the Persians when Cyrus
wished it, they could not any longer be allies but only servants.[49]
When Lacrines brought to Cyrus from the Spartans the command that he
must not attack any Greek city, Herodotus represents Cyrus as answering,
in the pride of his absolute power, that he had never been afraid of men
who met in the market-places and deceived each other by speeches and
promises. If he remained in health, they would not have to lament over
the sorrows of the Ionians, but over their own.[50] Here also Diodorus
gives another version:--To the command of the Spartans that he must not
attack the Hellenes in Asia who were their kinsmen, Cyrus answered, that
he would acquaint himself with the bravery of the Spartans when he sent
one of his servants to subjugate Hellas.[51]

The account which Herodotus gives of the negotiations of Harpagus with
the Phocaeans is not historical. If the resistance of the Phocaeans was
so difficult to overcome that Harpagus descended to the concession that
only one tower need be pulled down and a single habitation given up to
him, the Phocaeans had no reason to abandon their city. But if they
were in such a condition that they must abandon the defence, the lapse
of one day would certainly not suffice for them to get the ships in
order, and put on board the whole population with their goods, the
images of their gods, and the votive offerings. Still more inconceivable
would be the folly of Harpagus in drawing off his army from the city and
thus allowing the Phocaeans to destroy his siege works, so that he had
to begin them all anew.

The striking change which took place in the Lydian character after the
suppression of the rebellion under Pactyas, the contrast between the
horse-breeding Lydians of the Homeric poems, between the mounted
squadrons which once pressed so heavily on the Greek cities, reduced
Asia Minor, and offered such a brave resistance to the Medes and
Persians, and the peace-loving, effeminate, submissive Lydians of the
fifth century B.C., was explained by the Greek tradition after its own
manner. When in his return from Sardis to Ecbatana, Cyrus received the
intelligence of the rebellion of the Lydians, he confided to Croesus, as
Herodotus tells us, that it seemed to him the best plan to make all the
Lydians slaves. "I have dealt with them," so Herodotus represents Cyrus
as saying, "as one who spares the children when he has slain the father.
I have captured you who have been more to them than a father, and left
them their city, and now I wonder that they rebel." Croesus replied:
"What you say is just, but let your anger pass by; do not destroy an
ancient and guiltless city. What took place before was my doing, and the
guilt lies on my shoulders; what has happened now is due to Pactyas to
whom you yourself entrusted Sardis. Punish him, but spare the Lydians.
Forbid them to carry weapons for the future, order them to wear coats
under their mantles, shoes with high heels, and to train their boys in
playing and singing and in trade. You will soon make them women instead
of men, and they will never revolt or be a source of alarm." Croesus
gave this advice with the double object of turning aside the vengeance
of Cyrus from the Lydians--for even such a life was better than
slavery--and of preserving the Lydians for the future from bringing
about their own destruction by new rebellions. Cyrus followed the advice
of Croesus. This story is repeated by Polyaenus. When the Lydians had
revolted, Cyrus bade Mazares take away their weapons and horses, and
allow them no longer any practice in throwing the spear and riding; on
the contrary, he was to compel them to wear women's clothes, to weave,
and play the lute. In this way the Lydians became the most unwarlike
people, though previously they had been the most warlike.[52] The new
dress which Cyrus, on the advice of Croesus, commanded the Lydians to
wear, was the hereditary dress of the Lydians (who are called
soft-footed in the response of the Delphic priestess (p. 9), because
they wore shoes), and practice in playing and singing were old customs
of the Lydians which previously had done no harm to their martial
valour. The narrative is invented, though not by Herodotus, to glorify
the wisdom of Croesus and give a reason for the clemency which Cyrus
showed after the rebellion--and at the same time to explain the contrast
between the Lydians of antiquity and their descendants.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Aesch. "Pers." 770; Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 4, 2; 8, 6, 8.

[31] Herodotus, 9, 107, remarks that Xerxes gave the satrapy of Cilicia
to Xenagoras of Halicarnassus; yet even after this date we find a
Syennesis at the head of that country, which in the list of Herodotus
formed the fourth satrapy.

[32] Herod. 1, 141, 142, 151, 169.

[33] Herod. 1, 152; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 36, 1.

[34] Herod. 1, 153. In 1, 157, on the other hand, we find "to the
Persians;" cf. 1, 177.

[35] H. Stein on Herod. 1, 153.

[36] Herod. 1, 161. What is brought forward in the treatise "on the
unfairness of Herodotus" from Charon of Lampsacus against the
historian's statement about the surrender of Pactyas is limited to the
naked fact that he came from Chios into the power of Cyrus.

[37] Thucyd. 1, 12, 14.

[38] Herod. 1, 164, 165; Plutarch, "Aristid." c. 25; Pausan. 7, 5, 4.

[39] A party of the emigrant Teians is said to have founded Phanagoria;
Scymn. Ch. 886; "Corp. inscrip. Graec." 2, 98.

[40] Herod. 1, 174.

[41] Herod. _loc. cit._

[42] The subsequent inhabitants of Xanthus are explained by Herodotus to
be foreigners, except eighty families, who were absent at the time. He
also mentions Caunians about the year 500 B.C. The name of the city
occurs at a later date. On the continuance of the league of the Lycians,
vol. I. p. 575.

[43] Herod. 1, 143, 160.

[44] The year 548 B.C. no doubt passed before the revolt of Pactyas. The
Greek cities had time to build or strengthen their walls before they
were attacked. Phocaea entered into negotiations for this object with
the prince of Tartessus after the fall of Croesus (Herod. 1, 163), and
the great wall of the city was finished, with the assistance of money
furnished by him owing to the approach of the Medes, when Harpagus
attacked it. This attack cannot therefore have taken place before 547
B.C. The sieges of the Ionian and Aeolian cities occupied at least a
year; the campaign against the Dorian cities, the Carians and Lycians,
must therefore have taken place in 546 B.C., if not a year later.
Hieronymus puts the battle of Harpagus against Ionia in Olymp. 58, 3 =
546 B.C.

[45] Oroetes resided at Sardis in the reign of Cambyses and Mithrobates
at Dascyleum; Herod. 3, 120.

[46] Herod. 1, 168; Miletus and Samos contended in 440 B.C. for the
possession of Priene.

[47] Herod. 5, 37, 38; Heracl. Pont. fragm. 11, 5, ed. Müller.

[48] Justin. 1, 7.

[49] Excerpt. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 35, 1.

[50] Herod. 1, 153.

[51] Diod. Excerpt. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 36, 1.

[52] Herod. 1, 155, 156; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 6, 4.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE FALL OF BABYLON.


When the kingdom of the Lydians had succumbed to the arms of Cyrus,
Babylonia alone was left of the three states which had joined in the
overthrow of Assyria. It was a region of very considerable extent,
reaching from the Tigris to the coasts of Syria, and from the foot of
the Armenian and Cilician mountains to the deserts of Arabia; the
population was united, and a strong centre was not wanting. As we saw,
Nebuchadnezzar had not only greatly increased the agriculture and trade
of his kingdom, but had also erected the strongest barriers for the
protection of his native land and the metropolis. In this he had only
the Median power in view, but owing to the victory of Cyrus over
Astyages a stronger power had taken the place of Media, and neither his
wisdom nor his energy had descended to his successors. After a reign of
two years his son Evilmerodach fell by the hand of his own
brother-in-law, Neriglissar, who sat but four years on the throne which
he had thus acquired. The boy whom Neriglissar left behind was murdered
by the conspirators who in the year 555 B.C. elevated Nabonetus to the
throne. Of this king we only know that he did not belong to the race of
Nabopolassar. Neriglissar had continued the fortification of the
metropolis, and Nabonetus completed the walls which were intended to
enclose the two parts of the city of Babylon on the east and west of the
Euphrates towards the river. He continued the buildings of
Nebuchadnezzar at the temples at Ur (Mugheir), and restored the ancient
temple of Bilit (Mylitta) at that place. His inscriptions entreat the
god Sin that his works may continue as the heavens, and commend his
first-born son Belshazzar (Bil-sarussur) to the favour of the moon-god.
To the city of Tyre he gave a new king, Hiram of the race of Ethbaal, in
the year 551 B.C.[53]

We cannot ascertain what position Nabonetus took up towards the growing
power of Cyrus. According to the statement of Trogus Pompeius, Babylon
was at war with Cyrus, when Croesus went to her aid. Cyrus repelled this
attack, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried on war against Asia
Minor. Xenophon represents Croesus as beginning the war against Cyrus at
the request of the king of Babylon (p. 17). Herodotus, as has been
mentioned above, repeatedly assures us that Croesus was in league with
the king of Babylon, whom he calls Labynetus (p. 20). As we saw, Cyrus
left Sardis and Asia Minor in the spring of 548 B.C., before the nations
of the western coast, the Carians and Lycians, had been subjugated; and
Herodotus remarks that he intended to march against Babylon. For
Babylonia there could certainly be no more favourable moment for
carrying on the war with the Persians than the time at which Cyrus lay
opposite the army of Croesus at Pteria in Cappadocia, before he advanced
upon Sardis. A march of the Babylonian army up the river Euphrates would
have cut off the communications of the Persian army with their own home,
and compelled Cyrus to abandon the Lydians and to turn upon Babylon. We
do not know whether Nabonetus looked idly on at the fall of Croesus in
spite of the league, or whether a second Persian army compelled him to
leave events to take their course in Asia Minor, or whether Cyrus, on
his return to Ecbatana, after the overthrow of Croesus, as Herodotus
tells us, marched against Nabonetus. All that we know from Herodotus is
that Harpagus subdued lower Asia, _i.e._ Asia Minor, and Cyrus himself
upper Asia, passing from one nation to another without any exception.

"The greater part of their achievements," Herodotus continues, "I will
omit; I will only narrate that feat which cost the most trouble and is
the most worthy of notice. When Cyrus had reduced the whole of the
continent he attacked the Assyrians. Now Assyria had many other large
cities, but the most famous and strongest of them was Babylon, where
their kings dwelt after the destruction of Nineveh. Labynetus was ruler
of the Assyrians, and against him Cyrus marched." According to this more
exact statement, Cyrus did not march against Babylon directly after the
Lydian war, but only "when the whole of upper Asia had been reduced to
subjection." That Elam and the land between the lower Tigris and the
mountains of Persia was subject to Cyrus before he attacked Babylonia,
follows from the statements of a prophet of the Jews.[54] Berosus says
quite distinctly: "When Cyrus had subjugated the whole of Asia, he set
out with a great power from Persia against Babylon in the seventeenth
year of the reign of Nabonetus."[55] We can establish the correctness of
this date from other sources, and prove that the war between Babylon and
Persia, which Herodotus sets himself to describe in the words quoted,
took place ten years after the Lydian war. Yet it remains doubtful
whether Babylonia and Persia had already met in arms, before, during, or
immediately after the Lydian war. So much only is certain, that if a
collision of this kind had previously taken place, it was indecisive.
Nor can we make it clear what motives caused Nabonetus to allow Cyrus to
attack Babylonia at a time most convenient to himself; whether this
attitude was due to the experience of previous failures, or to a feeling
of confidence that the natural and artificial barriers of the Babylonian
land offered a better prospect of success under any circumstances, than
an attack on Persia.

We have already seen how faithfully the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar had
transported to Mesopotamia and Babylonia in the year 597 B.C., and again
in 586 B.C. when he conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, clung to their
God and their religion (III. 395). They cherished the firm hope that the
judgment which had fallen on Judah and Jerusalem would come to an end,
and Jehovah's anger would turn, when the purification was completed;
that the kingdom of David would be restored, and Babylon punished for
all that it had done to Jerusalem. Since the times of Hosea and Isaiah,
the prophets of the Israelites had always pointed beyond the
punishments which Jehovah would send upon the sins of his people to
their restoration in a happy future. Thus in the first year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah had announced that Jehovah would allow the
King of Babel to come upon Judah and Jerusalem, but that the servitude
of Judah would only continue for a definite period--for seventy years
(III. 326); and Ezekiel had definitely and solemnly announced the
restoration of the national sanctuary to his people in Mesopotamia (III.
395). Zealously devoted to the worship of the God whose strong hand
alone could break their yoke asunder and lead back their weak numbers to
their home, the exiles impatiently awaited the fall of Babylon. It was
their firm hope that as Assyria had fallen, which had annihilated Israel
and brought the severest blows upon Judah, so would the line of
destruction reach Babylon also, and vengeance would not be delayed. "By
the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O
Zion. We hung up our harps on the willows that are in the land; our
conquerors asked us for a melody, and those that troubled us for songs
of joy. How can we sing Jehovah's song in a strange land? O daughter of
Babylon, thou that makest desolate, blessings be upon him who taketh thy
children and throweth them against the rocks."[56] "Why go I sorrowing
under the oppression of the enemy? It was not by their sword that they
took the land, nor did their arms win the victory, but thou, O Jehovah,
wert gracious to them. All this came upon us, and yet we were not
faithless, our steps strayed not from thy path. Tears are my food day
and night, while they say to me, Where is thy God? I thought how I went
with the multitude into the house of God with songs and thanksgiving.
Thou art my King, Jehovah (III. 396); send help to Jacob; with thy name
we shall tread down our enemies. I put not my trust in my bow, but thou
givest us victory over the oppressor. Send thy light and thy truth, that
they may bring me to thy holy hill, to the God of my joy, that I may
praise thee on the lute. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake. Cast us not
away for ever. Our soul is bowed down to the dust, our body pressed to
the ground. Save us for thy mercy's sake. I will yet praise him, who is
my Saviour and my God."[57]

Even in the last years of Nebuchadnezzar, as they looked on the mighty
works with which the destroyer of Jerusalem surrounded his city, the
hopes of the Jews rose. From these enormous structures they might
conclude how insecure Babylon felt herself against the Medes.
Immediately after the death of the great and dreaded prince the Jews
began to dream of an attack of the Medes on Babylonia. "Israel was a
stray sheep," such are the words of a prophet of this period, "which was
in terror of lions. The king of Assyria ate it, and Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, gnawed the bones." "But the God of Israel says, 'I will have
vengeance on the king of Babel, as I had vengeance on the king of
Assyria, and I will lead Israel back, that he may pasture on Carmel and
Bashan, and satisfy himself on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.'"[58] "Bel
shall be put to shame, and I will take out of his mouth that which he
has swallowed, and Merodach shall be overthrown, their images and
idols."[59] "Thou who dwellest on the great waters, thine end is
approaching. Though Babylon exalted herself to heaven, and made the
height of her fortification so that no one could pass over, the broad
walls shall be cast down and the high gates shall be consumed with
fire."[60] "Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, summon
against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni (Armenia), and Ashenas; arm
against her all the governors of the kings of the Medes, and all the
lands of their dominion. Summon against her all who draw the bow; stand
round Babylon, ye archers, and spare not the arrows."[61] Similar views
gave rise to another prophecy which deduces the imminent fall of Babylon
from her pride. "Babylon said in her heart, I will climb up to heaven, I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and dwell on the hill of
assembly in the uttermost north. I will climb to the heights of the
clouds, and make myself equal to the Highest. But against them Jehovah
arouses the Medes, who regard not silver and have no pleasure in
gold.[62] Call aloud to them, wave the hand, that they may enter into
the gates of the tyrants. Their bows will destroy her young men, and she
laments not for her children. And thus Babylon, the delight of the
kingdoms, shall be as Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall be no more inhabited
for ever; the Arab shall not pitch his tent there, nor the shepherd feed
his flock. Beasts of the field shall dwell there; owls shall inhabit the
houses, ostriches shall make their home there, and the satyrs shall
dance. Jackals shall howl in her palaces, and foxes in her
pleasure-houses. I will make Babylon a dwelling for the hedge-hog, saith
Jehovah, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction. The time is
at hand, it will come quickly. Thy glory is gone down into hell, and the
noise of thy harps. Thy bed is with the worm, and thy covering is
corruption. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning! how art thou beaten to the ground that didst lay low the
nations!"[63]

The eager and impatient expectation of the Jews could not but perceive
the change which had been made in the relation of the states of Asia by
the victory of Cyrus over Astyages and the Medes three years after the
death of Nebuchadnezzar. When Cyrus afterwards subjugated the nations to
the east and west of Media, and the mighty kingdom of Lydia was
shattered by him, so that the fame of his victories filled the
East--when it might be expected that his arms would turn against
Babylon, the Jews considered their rescue certain. With redoubled zeal
they called down the punishment of Jehovah on Babylon, and delighted
themselves in advance with the coming vengeance. Cyrus was the
instrument which Jehovah had chosen to punish Babylon. As the old
prophets had seen in the kings of Assyria, and Jeremiah in
Nebuchadnezzar, the servants of Jehovah, who were to carry out his will
on the nations, and hold the judgment day of the Lord, so did the Jews
now see in Cyrus a man called to a similar mission, their saviour and
liberator; he seemed to them the anointed of Jehovah. If the absence of
images in the rites of the Persians, the worship of Auramazda, the
creator of heaven and earth, were nearer the religion of the Jews than
the sacrifices which the Babylonians offered before the images of Bel
and Bilit-Istar, Adar, Samas and Sin, Merodach and Nebo, and the worship
which they devoted to the ruling powers of the stars, they did not
overlook the gulf which divided them; but they were convinced that
Jehovah chose Cyrus as the rod of his anger, and the goad of his wrath,
to punish the pride and wickedness of Babylon. In this spirit we find a
prophet saying, with a definite reference to the announcements of
Jeremiah: "Who called him from the East, whom victory meets at every
step? Who gives him the nations and subjugates kings to him, and makes
their swords as dust, and their bows as chaff? He pursues them and
follows safely in the path which his feet have never trodden. I,
Jehovah, aroused him from the North (midnight), and he came from the
rising sun, who calls upon my name. He passes over the mighty ones as
over clay, as a potter breaks a vessel. I summoned him for salvation,
and his ways will I make smooth; he shall build my city and release my
captives, without ransom and without price. I will speak to Koresh
(Cyrus), my shepherd; all my business he shall perform, so that he will
say of Jerusalem, It shall be built, and of the temple, It shall be
established. And I will speak to Koresh, mine anointed, whom I hold by
his right hand to throw down the nations before him, and strip the loins
of the kings, and open the gates and doors: I called thee, though thou
knewest me not;[64] I will go before thee and make plain the ramparts; I
will break in pieces the brazen gates, and the cross bars will I loosen"
(the gates of Babylon were of brass);[65] "I will say to the deep, Dry
up, and thy streams I will cause to be parched. Hear this, O wanton one,
O daughter of the Chaldæans, thou that didst lay thy yoke heavily on my
people, on the aged one, saying, I will be a lady for ever; but suddenly
on one day thou shalt be childless and widowed. Keep to thy
incantations, to the multitude of the charms wherewith thou hast
comforted thyself from thy youth up. May the quarters of the sky arise
and help thee, which look to the stars, which on the new moons announce
what will come upon thee. Bel boweth down, Nebo falleth. No more shalt
thou be called mistress of the kingdoms, daughter of the Chaldæans. I
will place thee on the earth without a throne, I will plant thee in the
dust, and make thee crawl in the darkness, O virgin, daughter of
Babylon. Take the mill and grind meal, remove thy veil, lift up thy
garment, lay bare the thigh, and pass through the rivers; no more shalt
thou be called delicate and tender[66]. Zion said, Jehovah has left me,
and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, and
have no pity on the fruit of her womb? Yet though she may forget, yet
will not I, Jehovah, forget thee. I have graven thee upon my hands, and
thy walls were ever before my eyes[67]. Loose the fetters from thy neck,
O captive daughter of Zion. Shake off the dust, Jerusalem; rise up, thou
that hast drunk the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah[68]. Behold, I
take from thy hand the cup of my wrath, that thou mayest drink it no
more. I put it into the hand of those who have prepared sorrow for thee.
Break forth into singing, ye ruins of Jerusalem; cry aloud, O heaven;
rejoice, O earth, for Jehovah has mercy on his people[69]. He called the
eagle from the east" (the eagle was the standard of the Achæmenids),
"the man of his counsel from the distant land. Jehovah spake and called
him; he leads him forth, and he shall accomplish it; he brings to pass
the will of Jehovah on Babylon, and his might on the Chaldæans."[70]

Herodotus describes the approach of Cyrus and his war against Babylon in
the following manner: "When on his march against Babylon he came to the
Gyndes (now the Diala), which falls into the Tigris, and crossed it, one
of the sacred white horses was carried away by the stream. Cyrus was
angry, and threatened that he would make the river so insignificant that
a woman should cross it without wetting her knee. With this view he drew
180 lines on each side of the river, and bade his army dig a channel on
every line; and as a great multitude was employed, the work was
finished, but it occupied the whole summer, so that Cyrus did not lead
his army against Babylon till the second spring. The Babylonians marched
out of the city and awaited his attack. When Cyrus came up the
Babylonians joined battle; they were defeated, and driven into the
walls. They had known for a long time that Cyrus would not remain at
rest, for they had seen how he had reduced all nations alike, and
therefore they had collected provisions for many years in the city. The
siege, therefore, caused them no alarm; but Cyrus was in difficulties,
for time passed away, and he made no advance. Afterwards he did as
follows, whether it was that some one suggested the plan to him, or
whether he discovered it for himself. He placed part of his army where
the river flows into the city, and part where it flows out, and bade
them enter the city by the river as soon as it could be forded. After he
had given them orders, he went with the bulk of his army to the basin,
which the queen of the Babylonians had caused to be excavated, and did
what she had done with the basin and the river. By leading the river
through the opening into this basin, which was a marsh, he made the old
bed so that it could be forded. When this had been done, and the water
of the river had fallen to such an extent that it reached the middle of
a man's thigh, the Persians who had been placed near the city forced
their way into Babylon along the bed of the river. Had the Babylonians
previously known or suspected what Cyrus intended, the Persians would
not have passed unnoticed into the walls; had they closed the gates
leading from the city to the river, and mounted the walls which line the
banks, they would have caught the Persians in a trap as it were, and
they would have perished miserably. But the Persians came quite
unexpectedly. The outer parts of the city had been already taken while
those in the centre, who, as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the
matter, owing to the extent of the city, were dancing and making
merry--for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated--until
they at length discovered their misfortune."

Xenophon relates that the inhabitants of Babylon laughed at the siege,
because the strong and lofty walls could not be taken by storm, and the
siege would not hurt them, for they had provisions for more than twenty
years. Cyrus also soon convinced himself that the city could not be
taken by the means which he was employing, and resolved to draw off the
Euphrates, which traverses the city in a stream two stadia (1200 feet)
in breadth, and twice the height of a man in depth. For this object he
threw a rampart round the whole city, with a very broad and deep trench
before it on the side towards the city. This great work was apportioned
to the different parts of the army, and the time occupied in it was
calculated at a year. Where the trenches approached the river the earth
was not excavated, so that the water would not flow into the trenches.
When Cyrus perceived that the Babylonians celebrated a festival at a
fixed time, at which they feasted for the whole night, he caused the
earth which separated the river from the trenches above the city to be
cut through by a multitude of men as soon as it was dark; the water at
once ran into the trenches, and the river sank so low that it could be
forded. The river now opened a way into the city, and Cyrus bade his
troops enter by its bed. They would find the inhabitants drunk and
asleep, without any organization for resistance, and when they found the
enemy in the city they would lose all their courage. If the Babylonians,
nevertheless, attempted to hurl down missiles from the roofs, the houses
could be burned, and they would take fire readily, as the doors were of
palm-wood covered with bitumen. A separate troop of the Persian army,
which Gobryas led, had orders to make their way to the palace of the
king as quickly as possible. The Persians entered, and cut down the
inhabitants whom they found; others saved themselves by flight. The
watch of the palace were drinking by a bright fire before the gates,
which were closed. They were surprised and cut down. When the noise of
the fight was heard inside the palace, the king sent to inquire what was
the meaning of the tumult. But as soon as the gate was opened the
Persians forced their way into the palace; the king and those around him
drew their swords, but succumbed to numbers, and were killed. Meanwhile
Cyrus had despatched his cavalry along the streets, sending with them
men skilled in the Syrian language, who proclaimed that every one who
remained in his house would be uninjured; all who showed themselves in
the streets would be put to death. Thus the city quickly passed into the
hands of the Persians. The gates of the citadel were opened the next
morning, when the dawn of light showed them the Persians in possession
of the city.[71]

Polyaenus gives two versions of the taking of Babylon. The Babylonians
laughed at the siege, as they had provisions for many years. But Cyrus
drew off the Euphrates, which flows through the middle of the city, and
turned it into a neighbouring swamp. As the Babylonians were thus cut
off from drinking-water, they soon opened their gates to Cyrus. The
second version is different. When, in order to take Babylon, Cyrus had
made a trench to receive the water of the Euphrates, which flows through
the city, he led away the army from the walls. The Babylonians believed
that Cyrus had abandoned the siege, and they became negligent in keeping
watch on the walls. But after drawing off the water, Cyrus led the
Persians through the old bed, and unexpectedly made himself master of
the city.

Besides these accounts of the Greeks, proclamations of the Hebrews,
which are joined on to the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, give
indications on the fall of Babel. "Behold, saith Jehovah, I will dry up
their sea and parch their fountains. When they are heated I will prepare
a drink for them, and intoxicate them, so that they make merry, that
they may sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more. And behold!
there came mounted men. The night of my pleasure was turned to horror.
The watchman wakes, the table is prepared, there is eating and
drinking. Rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield. Their dwellings are
set on fire, the bars are broken. One runs to meet another, and
messenger to meet messenger, bringing news to the king of Babylon that
his city is captured on every side; the channels are taken, the lakes
they have burned with fire. Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all her
idols are trampled underfoot. The whole earth rests, and is at peace,
the lands break forth into joy. The cypresses are glad over thee, the
cedars of Lebanon; now that thou art fallen, no one will come to cut us
down."[72] The kings of Babylon, like those of Asshur, used the cedars
of Lebanon for their palaces; Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us that he
caused cedars to be felled in Lebanon for his palace (III. 386). A later
book of the Hebrews, the Book of Daniel, which was written in the first
century B.C., under Antiochus Epiphanes (176-164 B.C.), about the year
167 B.C., represents Babylon as taken by the Persians during the night
of a festival, but Darius, not Cyrus, is the Persian king. Belshazzar,
the son of Nebuchadnezzar, is king of Babylon. He gives a great banquet
to his thousand mighty men, and, heated by wine, causes the gold and
silver vessels to be brought which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from
the temple at Jerusalem; and his mighty men, their wives and concubines,
drink out of them, and sing songs of praise to their gods of gold and
silver, brass, iron, stone, and wood. Then suddenly a hand writes
letters on the wall of the palace. The king changes colour; the wise men
of Babylon, the Chaldæans, the magicians, and prophets were brought, but
they cannot read the writing. Then Daniel was summoned, one of the Jews
whom Nebuchadnezzar brought from Babylon, who had already interpreted
dreams for Nebuchadnezzar which the wise men of Babylon could not
expound, and had remained true to the religion of Jehovah under all
temptations. He read the words, which were Hebrew,--Mene, Tekel,
Peres,--and explained them: Thy kingdom is "numbered"; thou hast been
"weighed" in the balance and found wanting, because thy heart is not
humbled, and thou honourest not the God in whose hand is thy breath and
all thy fortunes; thy kingdom has been "divided" among the Medes and
Persians. Then the king commanded to put the purple robe on Daniel, and
the golden chain upon his neck, and proclaim him third in the kingdom.
"But in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldæans slain, and
Darius the Mede received the kingdom."[73]

Only a short excerpt has come down to us of the account which Berosus
gave of the capture of Babylon. "Cyrus set out from Persia with a strong
force against Babylon. When Nabonetus heard of his approach, he went to
meet him with his army, and they joined battle. He was defeated, and
fled with a few companions into the city of the Borsippeans, where he
was besieged. Cyrus took Babylon, and as he had found the city difficult
to reduce, and stubborn, he gave orders to throw down the walls outside
the city, and then set out against Borsippa in order to get Nabonetus
into his power, by bringing the siege to an end. But Nabonetus did not
wait for the city to be taken by storm; he surrendered. Cyrus treated
him with kindness, and sent him from Babylon to Carmania, which he
appointed to be his dwelling-place. There Nabonetus lived for the
remainder of his life, and there he died." According to Eusebius, Cyrus
gave the vice-royalty of Carmania to Nabonetus, and Darius took it away
again.[74]

After all that has been observed above, the attack of Cyrus could not be
unexpected by Nabonetus, and we also see from Herodotus that it had been
long foreseen, and provisions for many years had been collected in
Babylon--according to Xenophon there was sufficient for twenty years. We
find, moreover, that the fortifications of the city had been completed;
the great extent which Nebuchadnezzar had allowed for the wall of the
city must have enclosed a wide breadth of country, or at any rate
pastures large enough to maintain numerous herds of cattle. And
Nebuchadnezzar had not merely made the metropolis the fortress and
strong camp of the kingdom, which could both receive and protect the
military forces, he had covered the northern edge of the Babylonian land
by a fortification of a hundred feet in height and twenty in thickness,
which extended from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Behind this wall were
the four great canals which connected the Euphrates and Tigris; and,
protected by the great wall, there lay on the Euphrates at Sepharvaim,
the reservoirs by which the level of the Euphrates could be raised or
lowered, and the canals fed--the basin of which Nebuchadnezzar had
availed himself in building his bridge over the Euphrates,--works which
Herodotus, we do not know on what authority, but very erroneously
ascribes to Nitocris, a queen of Babylon. By this wall, and the canals,
which it would be necessary to dam up, any attack on the heart of
Babylonia from the direction of Mesopotamia would be rendered almost
impossible. The Tigris after leaving the mountains of Armenia, above the
ruins of Nineveh, is not difficult to cross in the summer, yet an
attack from this side would encounter almost insuperable difficulties,
and even if they were overcome the attacking army would be involved in a
labyrinth of canals, in which the cavalry of the Persians could be of
little use. Hence Babylonia could only be reached by crossing the Tigris
and Euphrates below that fortification and the canals,--a difficult
task. If Cyrus attempted to cross both rivers above this point, and then
march down the western shore till he was below the "Median wall," he
would sacrifice altogether his communication with Persia, he would have
to march southwards through the Syrian desert, and then force the
passage of the Euphrates, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, _i.e._
in the face of the enemy's power, while he at the same time would find
himself in the midst of an extensive system of canals, and of the swamps
which lie along the Euphrates between Babylon and the sea (I. 300, III.
359).

Under these circumstances Cyrus could only cross the Tigris from the
east, and attempt an attack below the wall which united the two rivers.
This was the line which, in fact, he followed. Berosus told us that
Cyrus "marched from Persia against Nabonetus," and Herodotus exhibits
him as occupied for a whole summer on the Diala. His occupation there,
as Herodotus describes it, is very unintelligible; the Diala was
punished by being divided into 360 canals, and so made fordable. That
Cyrus should punish a river is both unlikely in itself and opposed to
the religious conceptions of Iran, which as we know required the
greatest respect to be paid to rivers; more improbable still and indeed
impossible is it in the midst of the war against Babylon. If we do not
assume that the source from which Herodotus drew has wrongly brought a
great work of irrigation which Cyrus undertook for the land of the Diala
at some other time into connection with this war against Babylon, it
must be the passage of the Tigris which is in question. What we know of
the military achievements of Cyrus does not allow us to suppose that
when once in the field he would give his opponents the respite of a
whole summer. If we could assume that the army of Nabonetus had
contested the crossing with Cyrus at this point, above the mouth of the
Diala, where at a later time the Babylonians attempted to check
Darius--and that they had ships of war in the Tigris then, as at the
time of Darius--we might then suppose that Cyrus reached the Tigris
above the mouth of the Diala, and not being able to force the crossing,
attempted to carry off the water of the river into the Diala, above and
behind his camp, and at length succeeded in his attempt. Even then the
number of the canals is very remarkable. But whether the supposition is
right or wrong, in any case we may assume on the basis of the narrative
of Herodotus that Cyrus began the war against Babylon in the spring of
the year 539 B.C., that he crossed the Tigris in the neighbourhood of
the Diala, and that the only result of his first campaign was to effect
the passage of the Tigris and retain command of the river. From this
point, in the next spring, he led his army, as Herodotus states, in a
diagonal across Babylonia towards the city. Nabonetus lost the battle,
which, as Herodotus says, was fought in the neighbourhood of Babylon. Of
Nabonetus and his fate the historian says not a word; we have therefore
no reason to doubt the statement of Berosus, that Nabonetus did not
again return to Babylon, but took refuge in Borsippa with a few
companions, and was there besieged. It was obviously of great advantage
to Cyrus to prevent the Babylonians from entering into their city, to
drive away the army or part of it from the city in order to diminish the
number of those who could defend the walls. He might accomplish this
object by strengthening his right wing and advancing with it. If
Nabonetus and a part of the fugitives were thus cut off from Babylon, he
could only retire southwards beyond the Euphrates into the city nearest
Babylon, _i.e._ into Borsippa, to seek protection at the great temple of
Nebo (I. 291), the god whose name he bore.[75] The command in Babylon
then devolved on his eldest son Bil-sar-ussur (p. 67). It follows from
the narrative of Berosus that Cyrus quickly followed up the defeated
army of the Babylonians, that a part of the Persians, treading on the
heels of the fugitives, crossed the Euphrates below the city, to invest
Borsippa and the metropolis on the western side. Berosus has told us
that Cyrus marched against Babylon with a great force. His army must
indeed have been strong enough to enclose the second circuit of the
city, 35 or 40 miles (III. 372), to meet the attack of the whole force
of the besieged on both sides of the river, and blockade Borsippa.

But the inhabitants "ridiculed the siege," and Cyrus could make no
progress--such is the account in Herodotus and Xenophon. Owing to the
amount of provisions at the command of the city, an investment could not
promise any result, and there was little prospect of storming the city.
The broad and deep trenches in front of the walls made it impossible to
undermine them; even if these could be filled up under the missiles of
the enemy in a few places for the battering-rams to be brought forward,
the strength of the walls was so great that they could not be broken.
Still less possible was it to mount them. They were so high that the
arrows of the besiegers could not reach them with force, and even if the
attack was carried successfully over the trenches, no towers or ladders
would be at once strong and high enough to bring the storming party to
the turrets. According to Herodotus, a long time had elapsed before
Cyrus formed his plan. He bethought himself of the basin which
Nebuchadnezzar had excavated at Sepharvaim, for the regulation of the
inundations of the Euphrates, for feeding and damming up the canals;
this work constructed for the benefit and protection of the land he used
for the destruction of the capital. The Euphrates was to be led off into
this basin till its bed could be forded at Babylon. Then the storming of
the city was to be attempted from the river, the walls on the banks
being less high and strong. For this object it was necessary to obtain
possession of the fortress of Sepharvaim, which guarded the sluices of
the basin, to deepen or enlarge the basin itself, so that for a certain
period it could receive the whole mass of water; it was also requisite
that the canal which led into it should be widened and deepened; and
lastly the course of the river beneath the basin, or rather beneath the
great canals which led into the Tigris, must be barred by a dam, if the
Euphrates was to flow into it. The army of Cyrus must have been so
strong, that after leaving behind a sufficient number of men on both
sides of the Euphrates to continue the blockade of the city and of
Borsippa, it could detach an adequate force of troops and workmen to
Sepharvaim. Before these works could be begun, the inundation which in
June and July the Euphrates pours over the plain of Babylon must have
been over; and before the return of the inundation in the autumn, which
would imperil the whole undertaking, Sepharvaim must be captured, the
Euphrates drawn off, and Babylon conquered. When Sepharvaim was in the
hand of Cyrus, the stream, which had previously been dammed up with the
exception of a small passage, must have been rapidly closed, that the
Babylonians might not have their suspicions roused by the fall of the
water, and guard the walls on the river with redoubled vigilance. The
time was short. Pliny has preserved for us the statement that the large
city of Agranis, which lay on the Euphrates, where the canal Nahr Malka
(III. 359) flowed out of the river, was destroyed by the Persians; the
walls of the city of Sepharvaim which had been rendered famous by the
wisdom of the Chaldæans (Sippara, I. 245), were also destroyed by the
Persians, and Gobares (Gobryas), as some say, had drawn off the
Euphrates.[76] To Gobryas Xenophon also allots an important share in the
capture of Babylon (p. 78). Even without these statements of Pliny,
which support the account of Herodotus, and inform us of the battles
which the Persians had to fight on the Euphrates above Babylon in order
to establish themselves at the entrance of the Nahr Malka, and get the
mouth of the basin into their power--even without the hints of the
prophets of the Hebrews about the "drying up of the springs," and
"parching of the channels," and the remark of Polyaenus about the
drawing off of the Euphrates at a marsh (the basin of Sepharvaim was,
when not filled, a marsh), we must reject Xenophon's account of the
drawing off of the Euphrates. Conceding the extent of the walls of
Babylon, even if limited to one bank of the river, the work could not
have been done in a year; and every day the execution of the work under
the eyes of the besieged would have made its object more plain.

The plan of Cyrus succeeded. The removal of Agranis and Sepharvaim made
the execution possible; the number of hands at his disposal caused all
the works to be carried out at the right time, _i.e._ before the
inundation of the autumn. The storming of the city could be attempted by
the river-bed both above and below the city.[77] That it took place and
was accomplished on the night of a festival, is stated in the narratives
of Herodotus and Xenophon, and indicated by the Hebrew prophet in the
words "the night of my pleasure was turned to horror," and other phrases
(p. 80); and the book of Daniel makes the same assertion. Aristotle is
of opinion that even three days after, a third part of the population
did not know that the city had been taken.[78] Xenophon represents the
division of Gobryas as the first to reach the palace; the king falls
when defending himself against their attack. By the palace is here meant
one of the two royal citadels, either the older on the western bank, or
the more recent on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the palace of
Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (III. 375), and the king whom he
represents as slain there, must have been Bil-sarussur, the son and
heir of Nabonetus. As we have observed, the book of Daniel calls the
king who lost his throne and life on the night of the festival,
Belshazzar. In addition to him, Nabonetus had a second son, named
Nebuchadnezzar (see below, chap, xiv.). Besides the palace of the king,
Xenophon speaks of citadels of Babylon which surrendered to the
conqueror on the following morning.

After the capture of the metropolis, which was followed by the surrender
of Borsippa, and the capture of Nabonetus (538 B.C.), Cyrus, so far as
we can tell, showed clemency both towards the king, whom he caused to be
taken to Carmania, and to the city of Babylon. The kings of Asshur
treated besieged princes and conquered cities in a manner very different
from that in which Cyrus treated Astyages, Croesus and Sardis, Nabonetus
and Babylon. Babylonia was not oppressed; the city was not destroyed.
Cyrus stepped into the place of the native king. The Babylonian tablets
after the capture of the city and the fall of the kingdom, date from the
years of the reign of Cyrus over Babylonia, the years "of Kurus, king of
Babylon, king of the lands."[79] The city of Babylon retained her
temples and palaces and her mighty walls. Herodotus tells us expressly
that Cyrus did no injury to the walls or the gates of Babylon,[80] and
twenty years afterwards we find the city in possession of her
impregnable works. Xenophon remarks that Cyrus placed troops in the
citadels, set captains over them, left behind a sufficient garrison in
the city and charged the inhabitants with the maintenance of it; the
arrangements then made for keeping guard were in existence still.[81]
If, therefore, the excerpt of Josephus from Berosus tells us that Cyrus
destroyed the walls "outside the city," this can only refer to the great
wall which Nebuchadnezzar had built from the Euphrates to the Tigris
above Sepharvaim, as a protection against an attack from the north. It
would have been a heavy task to level with the ground this fortification
throughout its entire length of from 60 to 75 miles, the Persians
therefore contented themselves with making large breaches in it. The
wall was in this condition when Xenophon came with the ten thousand to
Babylon.[82]

The fall of the metropolis had decided the fortune of the Babylonian
kingdom, and the provinces. The most important of these was Syria, with
the great trading places of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean; we
remember how many and what severe struggles the subjection of Syria had
cost Nebuchadnezzar. At the present moment the approach of the Persians
was enough to cause Syria to recognise the supremacy of Cyrus almost
without a blow. Herodotus tells us that the Phenicians voluntarily
submitted to the Persians; Xenophon mentions that Cyrus had subjugated
the Phenicians; Polybius observes that Gaza alone among all the cities
of Syria offered resistance; the rest, terrified at the approach of the
Persians and the greatness of their power, had surrendered themselves
and their lands to them. With the capture of Gaza Cyrus stood on the
borders of Egypt. As we have seen, Nebuchadnezzar allowed the states and
cities of Syria to retain their native princes, so long as these
preserved their fidelity to him; even over the Phenician cities he and
his successors placed men of their own royal or priestly families to be
at once judges or princes of the cities and viceroys of Babylon. That
Tyre surrendered without a struggle, as Herodotus and Polybius tell us
of Syria, that Cyrus, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, left the princes
who submitted in command, follows from the fact that Hiram, whom
Nabonetus had made king of Tyre, continued to reign over the city under
Cyrus.[83] If Cyrus felt himself compelled to establish princes in the
Greek cities of the coast for the first time, who owed their position to
him, and could not maintain it without his aid, the cities of Phoenicia
had long been accustomed to receive these princes from distant
sovereigns. Cyrus and his successors confined themselves in their choice
to the old royal families of the Phenician cities; at any rate we find,
even under the Achæmenids, men with the hereditary names at the head of
Tyre and Sidon. Yet the relations of the Phenician cities did not remain
without change. Cyrus, as it seems, availed himself of the old rivalry
between Tyre and Sidon to win a further support for his power. Ever
since the foundation of Gades, and the times of the first Hiram of Tyre,
the contemporary of Solomon, Sidon had been gradually forced by Tyre
into the second place; under the Persian kingdom Sidon again appears as
the first city of Phoenicia, and her kings have the precedence of those
of Tyre and the other cities.[84] To the population on the whole the
change to the Persian dominion would be regarded with indifference if
not with pleasure; a connection with the Persian empire opened a far
more extensive market for trade, and secured and protected intercourse
over a far greater extent of country than the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar.

The ancient kingdom of Babylon, in which the civilisation of the Semitic
stock had taken root some fifteen centuries previously, and had attained
to such peculiar development, which had struggled so long and stubbornly
against the younger kingdom of Assyria, and when it finally succumbed,
had been raised to yet greater power than it had ever attained
to in old times, under the brilliant reigns of Nabopolassar and
Nebuchadnezzar--which had united the branches of the Semitic stem from
the Tigris to the Mediterranean, from the foot of the Armenian mountains
to the deserts of Arabia--had succumbed to the attack of Cyrus after a
brief existence, sixty-nine years after the fall of Nineveh. The
predominance exercised for so many centuries by Semitic culture and
Semitic arms through the old Babylonian, the Assyrian, and the second
Babylonian kingdom, passed to a tribe of different character, language,
and culture--to the Arians of Iran.

It was this violent change, which brought to a Semitic tribe liberation
for its fellow Semites. The hopes of the Jews were at last fulfilled.
The fall of Babylon had avenged the fall of Jerusalem, and the
subjugation of Syria to the armies of Babylon opened the way for their
return. Cyrus did not belie the confidence which the Jews had so eagerly
offered him; without hesitation he gave the exiles permission to return
and erect again their shrine at Jerusalem. The return of the captives
and the foundation of a new state of the Jews was very much to his
interest; it might contribute to support his empire in Syria. He did not
merely count on the gratitude of the returning exiles, but as any
revival of the Babylonian kingdom, or rebellion of the Syrians against
the Persian empire, imperilled the existence of this community, which
had not only to be established anew, but would never be very strong, it
must necessarily oppose any such attempts. Forty-nine years--seven
Sabbatical years, instead of the ten announced by Jeremiah--had passed
since the destruction of Jerusalem, and more than sixty since Jeremiah
had first announced the seventy years of servitude to Babylon. Cyrus
commissioned Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, a grandson of Jechoniah,
the king who had been carried away captive, and therefore a scion of the
ancient royal race, and a descendant of David, to be the leader of the
returning exiles, to establish them in their abode, and be the head of
the community;[85] he bade his treasurer Mithridates give out to him the
sacred vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away as trophies to
Babylon, and placed in the temple of Bel; there are said to have been
more than 5000 utensils of gold and silver, baskets, goblets, cups,
knives, etc. But all the Jews in Babylon did not avail themselves of the
permission. Like the Israelites deported by Sargon into Media and
Assyria some 180 years previously, many of the Jews brought to
Mesopotamia and Babylonia at the time of Jechoniah and Zedekiah, had
found there a new home, which they preferred to the land of their
fathers. But the priests (to the number of more than 3000[86]), many of
the families of the heads of the tribes, all who cared for the sanctuary
and the old country, all in whom Jehovah "awoke the spirit," as the Book
of Ezra says, began the march over the Euphrates. With Zerubbabel was
Joshua, the high priest, the most distinguished among all the Jews, a
grandson of the high priest Zeraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed
after the capture of Jerusalem. The importance of the priests had
increased in the captivity; they had become the natural heads and judges
of the Jews, and the people following the guidance of the prophets, had
learned to regard Jehovah as their peculiar lord and king. It was a
considerable multitude which left the land "beyond the stream," the
waters of Babylon, to sit once more under the fig-tree in their ancient
home, and build up the city of David and the temple of Jehovah from
their ruins; 42,360 freemen, with 7337 Hebrew men-servants and
maid-servants; their goods were carried by 435 camels, 736 horses, 250
mules, and 6720 asses (537 B.C.)[87] The exodus of the Jews from Babylon
is accompanied by a prophet with cries of joy, and announcements filled
with the wildest hopes. Was not the fall of Babylon and the return home
a sure pledge that the anger of Jehovah was appeased? Must not the dawn
of that brilliant time be come, which the prophets had always pointed
out behind the execution of the punishment? Could not the most joyful
expectation prevail that Jehovah's grace would be greater henceforth
than his anger in the past? Thus, in the spirit, the prophet saw all the
scattered members of the people of Israel, who since the time of
Tiglath-Pilesar II. had been carried away, or fled for refuge, return
from the distant lands, from Egypt and the isles; Jerusalem has put on a
new splendour which far exceeds that of old days; and therefore he gives
expression to the confident expectation that the people of Jehovah will
be the first nation of the earth, and the resurgent Zion will be the
centre and the protector of all nations. "Go forth from Babylon," he
cries; "fly from the land of the Chaldæans! Proclaim it with shouts
of joy, tell it to the end of the earth and say: 'Jehovah hath redeemed
his servant Jacob.'"[88] "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith
unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.[89] Up, up, go forth, touch no unclean
person; go forth from among them. Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear
Jehovah's vessels.[90] Ye shall go forth in joy and be led in peace; the
mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and
all the trees shall clap their hands.[91] Jehovah goes before you, and
the God of Israel brings up the rear. Was it not Jehovah who made the
depths of the sea to be your pathway, so that His redeemed passed
through? In the desert through which they passed they thirsted not; He
clave the rock and the waters flowed.[92] So shall the ransomed of
Jehovah return, and come with singing to Zion, and everlasting joy shall
be upon their heads; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.[93] O, poor
ones, surrounded with misery and comfortless; for a little time Jehovah
left thee, but He takes thee up again with greater love, and I will have
mercy on thee for ever, saith Jehovah. As I swore that the waters of
Noah should not come again upon the earth, so do I swear to be angry
with thee no more. The mountains may melt and tremble, but my mercy will
leave thee no more. Jehovah calls thee as an outcast sorrowful woman,
and thy God speaks to thee as to a bride who has been put away;[94] thy
ruins, and deserts, and wasted land, which was destroyed from generation
to generation--thy people build up the ruins, and renew the ancient
cities.[95] Behold, I will make thy desert like Eden, and thy wilderness
like the garden of the Lord; I will lay thy stones with bright lead, and
thy foundations with sapphires, and make thy towers of rubies and thy
gates of carbuncles.[96] Joy and delight is in them, thanksgiving and
the sound of strings. The wealth of the sea shall come to thee, and the
treasures of the nations shall be thine;[97] like a stream will I bring
salvation upon Israel, and the treasures of the nations like an
overflowing river.[98] Thy sons hasten onward; those that laid thee
waste go forth from thee.[99] Lift up thine eyes and see; thy sons come
from far, and I will gather them to those that are gathered together.
The islands and the ships of Tarshish wait to bring thy children from
afar, their gold and their silver with them.[100] The land will be too
narrow for the inhabitants; widen the place for thy tent, let the
carpets of thy habitation be spread--delay not. Draw out the rope; to
the right and to the left must thou be widened.[101] I will set up my
banner for the nations, that they bring thy sons in their arm, and thy
daughters shall be carried on the shoulders. Kings shall be thy
guardians, and queens thy nursing-mothers; I will bow them to the earth
before thee, and they shall lick the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt
know that I am Jehovah, and they who wait patiently for me shall not be
put to shame."[102]

Such expectations and hopes were far from being realised. The Edomites
had, in the mean-time, extended their borders, and obtained possession
of the South of Judah, but the land immediately round Jerusalem was free
and no doubt almost depopulated. As the returning exiles contented
themselves with the settlement at Jerusalem, the towns to the North,
Anathoth, Gebah, Michmash, Kirjath-Jearim, and some others--only
Bethlehem is mentioned to the South,[103] they found nothing to impede
them. Their first care was the restoration of the worship, according to
the law and custom of their fathers, for which object an altar of
burnt-offerings was erected on the site of the temple, in order to offer
the appointed sacrifice at morning and evening. The priests, minstrels,
and Levites were separated according to their families, and those who
could not prove their priestly descent were rejected for the sacred
service;[104] the attempt was then made to arrange the rest of the
exiles according to their families, in order to decide their claims and
rights to certain possessions and lands. Then voluntary gifts were
collected from all for the rebuilding of the temple; contributions even
came in from those who had remained in Babylonia, so that 70,000 pieces
of gold and 5000 minæ of silver are said to have been amassed. Tyrian
masons were hired, and agreements made with Tyrian carpenters, to fell
cedars in Lebanon, and bring them to Joppa, for which Cyrus had given
his permission. The foundation of the temple was laid in the second year
of the return (536 B.C.). The priests appeared in their robes with
trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals, to praise Jehovah; "that He
might be gracious, and His mercy be upon Israel for ever." Those of the
priests and elders who had seen the old temple are said to have wept
aloud; "but many raised their voices in joy so that the echo was heard
far off."[105] We have evidence of the grateful and elevated tone which
filled the exiles in those days, in songs, where we read: "They pressed
upon me in my youth, but they overpowered me not. The ploughers ploughed
upon my back and made long furrows. Jehovah is just; he broke the bonds
of the wicked. Praised be Jehovah, who did not give us over as prey to
their teeth; our soul escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
When Jehovah turned again the captivity of Zion, our way was filled with
joy; and they said among the nations: Jehovah hath done great things for
them! Jehovah hath chosen Zion, and taken it to be His abode and
resting-place for ever and ever. There He will clothe His priests with
salvation, and exalt the power of David, and clothe his enemies with
shame."[106]

The fortunate beginning of the restoration of the city and temple soon
met with difficulties. The people of Samaria, who were a mixture of the
remnant of the Israelites and the strangers whom Sargon had brought
there after the capture of Samaria (III. 86), and Esarhaddon at a later
date (III. 154), came to meet the exiles in a friendly spirit, and
offered them assistance, from which we must conclude that in spite of
the foreign admixture the Israelitish blood and the worship of Jehovah
were preponderant in Samaria. The new temple would thus have been the
common sanctuary of the united people of Israel. But the "sons of
captivity" were too proud of the sorrows which they had undergone, and
the fidelity which they had preserved to Jehovah, and their pure
descent, to accept this offer. Hence the old quarrel between Israel and
Judah broke out anew, and the exiles soon felt the result. After their
repulse the Samaritans set themselves to hinder the building by force;
"they terrified the exiles that they built no more, and hired
counsellors to make the attempt vain during the whole of the remainder
of the reign of Cyrus."[107] The reasons which these counsellors brought
forward before Cyrus against the continuation of the buildings at
Jerusalem, would be the same which were afterwards brought before
Artaxerxes Longimanus; namely, that when Jerusalem and its walls were
finished the city would become rebellious and disobedient, as it was
previously under the kings of Babylon.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] The reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Evilmerodach, Neriglissar, and the
accession of Nabonetus in 555 B.C., are now fixed not only by the canon
of Ptolemy but also by the Babylonian tablets, which give forty-three
years for Nebuchadnezzar (604-561), two years for Evilmerodach
(561-559), four years for Neriglissar (559-555), seventeen years for
Nabonetus, (555-538); "Transactions Bibl. Society," 6, p. 47-53. Oppert
(_l. c._ p. 262) also mentions a tablet of Labasi-marduk (Labasoarchad),
who sat on the throne for nine months. Boscawen reads Lakhabasi-Kudur,
_l. c._ p. 78. On the elevation of Hiram in Tyre, vol. III. 394.

[54] Ps. and Isa. xxi. 2.

[55] Fragm. 14, ed. Müller.

[56] Ps. cxxxvii.

[57] Ps. liii., liv.

[58] Jer. 1. 17-19.

[59] Jer. 1. 2; li. 44.

[60] Jer. li. 13, 53, 58.

[61] Jer. 1. 14, 29; li. 27.

[62] V. 314 _n_.

[63] Deut. Isa. xiii. 17-22; xiv. 4, 11-14. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol.
II., Essay xi.]

[64] Deut. Isa. xli. 2, 3; xli. 25; xliv. 28. Kohut, "Antiparsismus in
Deut. Yesaias, Z. D. M. G." 1876, 3, 711 ff.

[65] Deut. Isa. xlv. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. 369.

[66] Deut. Isa. xlvii. 1-13.

[67] Deut. Isa. xlix. 14-16.

[68] Deut. Isa. li. 17. Vol. III. 326.

[69] Deut. Isa. xlix. 13.

[70] Deut. Isa. xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.

[71] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 5.

[72] Jer. li. 31, 32, 39; Deut. Isa. xiv. 7-9; xxi. 4-9.

[73] Dan. v. 1-31.

[74] Beros. fragm. 14; Euseb. "Chron." 1. 42, ed. Schöne.

[75] On the site of Borsippa, Vol. I. 291, and on Nebuchadnezzar's
buildings at the temple of Nebo, at Borsippa, III. 385.

[76] Pliny, "H. N." 6, 30.

[77] Sir Henry Rawlinson spoke in the Asiatic Society on Nov. 17, 1879,
of a Babylonian cylinder brought home by Rassam, which, though broken,
is said to give an account in thirty-seven legible lines of the capture
of Babylon by Cyrus, and to contain a genealogical tree of Cyrus. As yet
I have not been able to learn anything further. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah,"
Vol. II., Essay xi.]

[78] "Pol." 3, 1, 12.

[79] Oppert et Ménant, "Docum. Juridiq." p. 266.

[80] Herod. 3, 159.

[81] "Cyri inst." 7, 5, 34, 69, 70.

[82] Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 4. Vol. III. 366.

[83] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 1, 1, 4; 7, 4, 1. On Hiram, above, p. 67;
Joseph. "c. Apion," 1, 21; Polybius, 16, 40. The statement of Polybius
might be referred to the campaign of Cambyses against Egypt, if the
supremacy of Cyrus in Syria were not proved by other evidence, as Ezra
iii. 7, and the return of the Jews. Herodotus also would not have
omitted the siege of Gaza in his detailed description of the march of
Cambyses against Egypt, if it had not taken place until then. The
general expression in Herodotus (3, 34) cannot outweigh all these
proofs; it only says with the exaggerated tone of flattery that Cambyses
first placed a fleet on the sea, and claims the subjugation of Cyprus
for him. As a fact Cyrus left the islands of Anatolia, except Chios and
Lesbos, which voluntarily submitted, uninjured, and did not call on them
for a fleet, for which there were many good reasons from the point of
view of a Persian king.

[84] Herod. 3, 19; 5, 104, 110; 7, 96, 98, 128; Xenoph. "Ages." 2, 30;
Diod. 16, 41. The rebellion of Sidon in 351 B.C. again reversed the
relations.

[85] 1 Chron. iii. 17-19.

[86] Ezra ii. 36-39.

[87] Ezra ch. ii. As Babylon was conquered in the summer of 538, the
first year of Cyrus in Babylon reaches to the summer of 537; Ezra i. 1,
3; Beros. fragm. 15, ed. Müller.

[88] Deut. Isa. xlviii. 20.

[89] Deut. Isa. lii. 7.

[90] Deut. Isa. lii. 11.

[91] Deut. Isa. lv. 12.

[92] Deut. Isa. xlviii. 21.

[93] Deut. Isa. li. 11.

[94] Deut. Isa. liv. 6-10.

[95] Deut. Isa. xlix. 19; lviii. 12.

[96] Deut. Isa. liv. 11.

[97] Deut. Isa. lx. 5.

[98] Deut. Isa. lxvi. 12.

[99] Deut. Isa. xlix. 17.

[100] Deut. Isa. lx. 4-9.

[101] Deut. Isa. liv. 2.

[102] Deut. Isa. xlix. 22, 23.

[103] Ewald, "Volk. Israel." 3, 91.

[104] Ezra ii. 59-63.

[105] Ezra iii. 8-13.

[106] Ps. cxxix.-cxxxii.

[107] Ezra iv. 1-5, 24. It is obvious that verse 24 must follow on verse
5 in chap. iv. The verses 6-23 treat of things which happened under
Xerxes and Artaxerxes, and they have got into the wrong place.




CHAPTER IX.

THE KINGDOM OF CYRUS.


We were able to prove that Cyrus, soon after his victory over Astyages
and the Medes, reduced the Parthians and Hyrcanians beneath his
dominion, that the Caducians, the Armenians, and the Cappadocians were
his subjects before the Lydian war, that his empire at this period
extended to the Halys. How far he had already advanced towards the
Bactrians and Sacae must remain uncertain, owing to the contradiction
which exists on this point between the summary narrative of Herodotus
and the excerpt from Ctesias. Afterwards the Lydian war and its sequel
made Cyrus master of the whole of Asia Minor. Between the Lydian and
Babylonian wars Herodotus represents him as conquering the whole of
upper Asia, one nation after the other, and Berosus as conquering the
whole of Asia. When our knowledge is so scanty, it is impossible to fix
the campaigns of Cyrus in the East and the West with greater exactness,
or even to ascertain clearly what successes he achieved in these regions
before and after the Babylonian war. We merely perceive that Elam was
subject to Cyrus before the attack on Babylon (p. 83), and if a
habitation could be allotted to Nabonetus in Carmania, that country
must have been subject before the war which destroyed the Babylonian
kingdom; we may also conclude with great probability that Cyrus would
not have marched against Babylon before he felt himself secure in the
East. Hence we may assume that Iran was subject before the Babylonian
war, and the campaigns which resulted in the conquest of the Gandarians
and their northern neighbours, the Sogdiani and Chorasmians, must be
ascribed to the period after this war. Whether the nations in the north
of Armenia, on the isthmus between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the
Saspeires and Alarodians in the East, and the Colchians and Phasians in
the valley of the Phasis, were reduced by Cyrus or his immediate
successors remains doubtful. In the East he had conquered the Drangians,
Areians, Arachoti, Gedrosians, and Gandarians, to the south of the Cabul
on the Indus,[108] and imposed tribute on the Açvakas to the north of
the Cabul.[109] In the land of the Arachoti he destroyed, as we are
told, the city of Capisa; Darius mentions a city, Kapisakani in
Arachosia, and Capisa is also mentioned elsewhere in later writers.[110]
Nearchus tells us that Cyrus undertook a campaign against the land of
the Indians; on the march thither he lost the greater part of his army
in Gedrosia, owing to the desert and the difficulties of the way;
according to the account of the natives Cyrus and seven men alone
remained out of the whole army.[111] In his account of Alexander of
Macedon, Diodorus remarks that after he had encamped at Drangiana (V.
7), he came to the Ariaspi, who were neighbours to the Gedrosians. These
Ariaspi (whose abodes we have already discovered in the neighbourhood
of the Etymandros) were called "Benefactors" for the following reason.
On one of his campaigns, Cyrus was in the desert, and reduced to extreme
distress for want of necessaries; famine compelled his men to eat each
other; till the Ariaspians brought up 30,000 waggons, filled with
provisions. Thus rescued, Cyrus allowed them immunity from
contributions, honoured them with other presents, and gave them the name
of "Benefactors."[112] Strabo also tells us that the Ariaspians received
this name from Cyrus, and so does Arrian, though he gives a different
and less appropriate reason for it, saying that they had assisted Cyrus
in his campaign against the Scyths.[113] Curtius tells us, as a reason
for the name, that the Ariaspi had aided the army of Cyrus when
suffering from want of provisions and the cold, with supplies and
shelter.[114] Herodotus observes that those who had done a service to
the king were called "Orosangians." In Old Bactrian, _Huvarezyanha_
means the doer of a kind action. Other instances are not wanting to
prove that the Persian kings followed the example of Cyrus in conferring
this title as a distinction.

We may regard it as certain that Cyrus had gone beyond Gedrosia and
reduced the Gandarians and the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul; that
he afterwards advanced to the Indus, and his army was brought into great
distress in the deserts of Gedrosia, as was afterwards the case with
Alexander's army on his return from the Indus. The Ariaspians, from the
position of their country, could only be in a position to bring aid if
Cyrus were returning from the Indus, or if the distress was so great on
the outward march that he felt himself compelled to return when in
Gedrosia. Megasthenes distinctly states that Cyrus did not cross the
Indus or set foot in India.[115] In the north-east he had reduced the
Margiani and Bactrians to lasting obedience. As he had gained a good
frontier in the east on the Indus, he set himself to obtain a similar
frontier in the north-east. The northern neighbours of the Hyrcanians,
Parthians and Margiani, the Sacae and the Chorasmians on the lower Oxus,
were subject to him. With the conquest of the Sogdiani on the western
slope of the Belurdagh Cyrus touched the course of the Jaxartes. There,
on a stream running into that river, he built six citadels and a large
fortress to secure the border against the nomads of the steppes beyond.
These, like the fortress in the land of the Cadusians (V. 388), bore the
name of Cyrus. The Greeks call the north-eastern Cyrus, Cyreshata,
_i.e._ the farthest Cyrus (V. 22).

From the mountains of his native land Cyrus had subjugated in thirty
years three great kingdoms--Media, Lydia, and Babylonia; he had
conquered Asia from the shore of the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from
the brook of Egypt to the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas and the
banks of the Jaxartes. None of the conquerors before him--no Pharaoh of
Egypt--none of the ancient kings of Elam or Babylon, or of the restless
sovereigns of Assyria, nor even the Mede Cyaxares--had achieved results
which could be distantly compared with the successes of Cyrus. And he
had done more than merely subdue this region; he had understood how to
maintain his conquests; he was not compelled like the rulers of Assyria
to begin each year a new struggle against his defeated opponents; in
his unbounded empire he knew how to institute arrangements which ensured
an existence of two whole centuries. Hence it would be of great service
to know more precisely what his regulations were for the management of
his empire. But we are almost entirely without information about them.
We can only attempt to draw conclusions from certain hints supplied by
tradition as to the form which Cyrus gave to his dominions. We have
already remarked that the Greeks ascribed to Cyrus the foundation of
excellent institutions, and placed him by the side of Lycurgus; they
maintained that at the time of Cyrus the Persians were in a condition
midway between slavery and freedom. Arrian observes that the Persians,
with whom Cyrus deprived the Medes of the empire and subjugated the
remaining nations of Asia partly by arms and partly by voluntary
submission, were poor and the inhabitants of a rugged country, and
obeyed regulations which made their training like that of the
Spartans.[116] We can plainly see that the kingdom rested on the power
and devotion of the Persians; they were the ruling tribe beside the
sovereign, and in addition to the proud consciousness that they were the
lords of the empire Cyrus allowed them to enjoy the fruits and
advantages of dominion. The Persians were free from contributions and
taxes for the empire, they had only to render military service. Xenophon
tells us that in the time of Cyrus the owners of land furnished
excellent horsemen, who took the field; the rest served for pay. The
garrisons in the fortresses were composed of Persians who were
handsomely treated.[117] The Greeks have already told us that Cyrus
permitted the Persians to express their opinions freely and openly, and
paid honour to those who gave good counsel, and if they assert that no
one rewarded services more liberally (V. 390), these rewards would
mainly fall into the hands of the Persians. From the Persians were first
and chiefly elected the captains of the armies, the commanders of the
contingents which the subject nations had to furnish, and the viceroys
who governed the conquered provinces. Yet nearer to the king stood the
six princes of the Persian tribes (the prince of the Pasargadae was the
king), the descendants of those who in union with Achaemenes had once
governed the Persian nation. Like the king himself they wore the upright
tiara; from their families the king had to choose his legitimate wife,
while his daughters were married to the sons of the tribal princes.[118]
The wife of Cyrus was the daughter of the tribal prince Pharnaspes. The
chiefs of the Persians were the nearest to the throne; they entered into
the king's presence unannounced, and no doubt formed with the king the
chief council of the kingdom. Besides this chief council there was a
supreme court of seven judges. These, as Herodotus tells us, were chosen
men, who had to pronounce sentence for the Persians, and explain the
customs of the fathers; and "everything was brought before them." They
held their office for life, unless convicted of injustice.[119] We also
find that the son succeeded the father. But even these judges were
subject to the supervision and authority of the king, and if it was
proved that any of them had received bribes he inflicted the severest
penalties.[120]

"At the time of the Medes," Herodotus tells us, "the nations ruled over
each other; the Medes ruled over all, and directly over those nearest to
them; these again over their neighbours, who in their turn ruled over
those who lay on their borders. In the same way the Persians estimate
the value of nations. They consider themselves by far the best of all
nations; next in order come those who live nearest to them, and those
who are most remote are held in least estimation."[121] If Herodotus has
here correctly represented the self-consciousness of the Persians his
statement also obviously implies the pride of race, the community of
language and religion, which united the Persians with the kindred
nations of the Iranian table-land, and most closely with the Medes, and
the nations of Western Iran. This feeling presented itself to Cyrus as a
valuable political consideration, and he felt himself called upon to win
for his kingdom the Medes as the nation nearest akin to the Persians and
more numerous. With this view he spared and respected Astyages, took his
daughter into his house, and made her his wife, and even in the first
decade of his reign had no hesitation in appointing Medes as generals
and viceroys; the custom of his successors, to reside for some time in
Ecbatana, in order by this means to attach the Medes to the kingdom,
must, no doubt, go back to Cyrus.

But even towards the conquered nations of alien race, language, and
religion Cyrus conducted himself in a manner very different from the
manner of the kings of Asshur before him. Their kings were not executed,
their cities were not burnt, and their religion and worship were left
uninjured. On the other hand Cyrus did not content himself with the
homage of the conquered princes, nor did he, like the Assyrians, allow
men of the same nation to take their place. Execution, cruel treatment,
imprisonment of the conquered prince, alone or with his family, could
only embitter the conquered nation against the conqueror. The
continuance of the conquered prince in power only supplied them with the
impulse and means to recover their former independence, and princes
chosen in their place from the midst of the subjects would soon follow
the lead of the national tendencies, and their own ambition. Astyages,
Croesus, and Nabonetus received residences and possessions in distant
regions, which allowed them to live in dignity and opulence; and where
the throne remained in the families of the native rulers in districts of
moderate extent which had submitted voluntarily, as in Cilicia and the
cities of the Phenicians, this was not done without certain limitations
and safe regulations. Cyrus set viceroys over the parts of his empire,
who were supplied with troops in moderate numbers. The chief cities,
such as Sardis and Babylon, like the border fortresses, were secured by
garrisons of Persian troops. Cyrus did not impose heavy burdens on the
conquered nations; he left it to themselves to fix the amount of the
yearly contributions which they should pay into his treasury, though it
is true that the amount of the favour they had to expect from the king
depended on the tribute. The viceroys were subordinate to the king, but
with this restriction they exercised supreme authority in the regions
over which they presided. Their main duty was to preserve the province
in obedience and peace. Whether the command that they were to look after
the development of agriculture, and the growth of the population, is
traceable to Cyrus (V. 206), we cannot decide, but we see clearly that
the various communities and regions managed their own affairs
independently, and governed themselves. The local political institutions
were not attacked and removed any more than the religious. It was of no
importance whether the local organisation was dynastic or republican,
though in more important communities such as the Greek cities--the
Anatolian, and the Phenician cities on the Syrian coast, Cyrus gave the
preference to the dynastic form, inasmuch as the dynasties there were
compelled to seek from the king the support necessary for maintaining
their power. If princes of the old royal families were set up over the
cities of the Phenicians, the rise of party leaders to a princely
position was favoured among the Greeks. The local interests of one town
were also advanced against those of another, _e.g._ the interests of
Sidon against those of Tyre, and the interests of Miletus against the
other cities. The persons thus favoured were by this means closely
connected with the kingdom; in the event of a change of dominion they
had to fear the loss of the privileges which they had attained. Moreover
Cyrus had at hand rewards and distinctions of merit, not for the
Persians only, but also for his subjects in other nations. Xenophon lays
stress on the liberality of Cyrus towards those who had done him good
service as the chief means by which he established and strengthened his
empire, and if he tells us that the kings of Persia had continued what
Cyrus had begun, we may certainly assume that the magnificent list of
distinctions and honours, which we find in use at a later time in the
Persian empire, goes back to Cyrus. The merits which whole regions and
tribes had done to the king were also rewarded. We have already seen
that the title "Benefactors," with which largesses in land were
joined,[122] was given not only to distinguished men but also to tribes.
"What conqueror except Cyrus," asks Xenophon, "has been called Father by
his subjects, a name which is obviously given not to the plunderer but
to the Benefactor?" By gentleness and liberality he induced men to
prefer him to son, or brother, or father. As he cared for his subjects
and treated them as a father, so did they honour him as a father. In
this way he was able to reign alone, and rule according to his own will
his kingdom which was the greatest and most splendid of all.[123]

Though this description of Xenophon is idealised, though even the more
sober statements of the Greeks, the words of Plato already quoted, the
statements of Herodotus, that the Persians held no one to be the equal
of Cyrus, that they called him father because he had ruled them with a
father's gentleness and had provided them with all good things,[124] and
the opinion of Aeschylus who speaks of Cyrus as a wise and right-minded
man, primarily represent the grateful memory which the Persians
cherished of the founder of their kingdom, Cyrus is undoubtedly the
least bloody among the conquerors and founders of empires known to the
history of the East. His object was not to terrify the conquered nations
and hold them in check by arms, but to reconcile them to the new
government. In Babylon he simply took the place of the native king; like
him, he took measures for the maintenance of the great temples of the
land; on a brick found at Senkereh we read: "Kuras, maintainer of
Bit-Saggatu" (_i.e._ of the great temple of Merodach at Babylon) "and
Bit-Zida" (the temple of Nebo at Borsippa), "son of Kambuziya, I, the
king."[126] Hence he not only left his subjects their religion and
rites, but was careful of them. In the same way their administration of
justice remained undisturbed, and so far as possible he allowed them to
rule themselves. He did not attempt to exhaust their means; on the
contrary, agriculture and trade were favoured, and wherever a rebellion
was attempted and suppressed, the supression was not followed by any
sanguinary punishment. In spite of our defective information we may
still recognise some trace of his keen and unerring political insight.
The manner in which he organised his empire deserves the higher praise
because it is the product of his own mind, and not a copy of any
pattern. The grounds for the clemency and moderation by which he was
guided, we must seek not only in the religious views of Iran, but to a
still greater degree in his character and his political conceptions.
That along with the effort to satisfy the Persians and win the hearts of
his subjects,--with the clever opposition of interests, and most lavish
application of rewards and distinctions,--Cyrus did not neglect real
support and means of power, is proved by the care which Xenophon
represents him as bestowing on the army, the fortification of
Pasargadae, the garrisons in the chief cities of the subject lands, the
fortresses on the borders of the kingdom. The commanders in all these
places, no less than the "chiliarchs" of the garrisons, were nominated
directly by Cyrus, the lists of the garrisons were brought before the
king. The arrangement of the Persian army in divisions of ten battalions
of a thousand men each, which were again broken up into ten companies,
with seven corporals each, is attributed by Xenophon to Cyrus. He put
an end to all skirmishing with horsemen cavalry, by clothing cavalry and
horses in mail, and supplying each soldier with a javelin only, so that
they fought man against man; the infantry he armed with the wicker,
leather-covered shield, battle-axe, and knife, also with a view to close
fighting.[127] To meet the costs of government and the army, Cyrus
collected a large treasure, which he deposited in his palace at
Pasargadae. Pliny has preserved the statement that the conquest of Asia
yielded to Cyrus 24,000 pounds of gold besides that which had been
manufactured, and the golden vessels, and 500,000 talents of
silver.[128] Though this statement may be exaggerated, the gold
accumulated by Alyattes and Croesus at Sardis, the treasures of the
royal palaces at Ecbatana and Babylon, all of which fell into the hands
of Cyrus, were not inconsiderable. In both these latter places the booty
of Assyria was collected, and in Babylon the booty of Syria and the
tribute of the Phenicians. In any case the treasure which Cyrus
deposited at Pasargadae provided abundant means for a long time to
satisfy the most extravagant needs of the empire, the court, and the
army, and to recompense every deed of merit with gold. The treasures
which Alexander, after a long period of decline in Persia, found at
Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana, and Pasargadae, are estimated by the Greeks
at 180,000 talents, _i.e._ at more than £40,000,000, and beside this
there were the gold and silver ornaments of the citadel (V. 309), and a
large amount of manufactured gold and silver. What Alexander left of the
latter in Susa alone afterwards provided Antigonus with 15,000
talents.[129]

"Concerning the death of Cyrus," so Herodotus tells us, "there are many
narratives, but the most probable in my mind is the following: When he
had reduced the Babylonians, he wished to conquer the Massagetæ also.
There were many things which impelled him to this: in the first place
his birth, by which he considered himself more than human. Then the
success which had attended him in all his wars; for whatever the nation
against which he directed his army it was unable to withstand him. The
Massagetæ were said to be a great and brave nation; some call them
Scythians. They dwell beyond the Araxes (Jaxartes: Herodotus confuses
this river with the Aras), towards the morning and sunrise. The Caspian
Sea is a sea by itself, fifteen days' journey in length and eight in
breadth; on the west side of the sea is the Caucasus, but towards the
east it is bounded by a plain of unlimited extent. A considerable part
of this plain was occupied by the Massagetæ. They wear a dress like that
of the Scythians, and resemble them in their mode of life; they fight on
horse and on foot, use the bow and the lance, and also carry
battle-axes. The points of their lances and arrows and their axes are
made of copper, as also are the corslets of the horses. But for their
girdles, for the adornment of the head and shoulders, as well as for the
bits, cheek-pieces, and curbs of their horses, they use gold. Silver and
iron they do not possess, these metals are not found in the country, but
gold and copper in abundance. Each man marries one wife, but they have
their wives in common, and when any one desires to lie with a woman he
hangs his quiver on her waggon, and no attack is made upon him. Those
who reach a great age are put to death by their relations, who assemble
for that purpose, cooked along with sheep's flesh, and eaten; this they
consider the most fortunate lot. Those who die of sickness are not eaten
but buried, and they look on it as a misfortune not to be killed. They
do not cultivate the soil, but live on their herds and on fish, which
the Araxes supplies in large quantities, and drink milk. Of the gods
they worship the sun only, and to him they sacrifice horses, because
they think that the swiftest animal should be offered to the swiftest
deity. At that time a woman, Tomyris by name, was queen of the
Massagetæ, her husband being dead. Cyrus sent to her under pretext of an
offer of marriage; he wished to make her his wife. But Tomyris perceived
that it was not her, but the kingdom of the Massagetæ, that he wanted,
and refused the offer. As cunning was of no avail, Cyrus marched openly
against the Massagetæ, threw a bridge of boats over the Araxes in order
to carry his army across, and caused towers to be built on the
merchant-men which were to form a bridge over the river. While he was
occupied with this, Tomyris sent him a herald, saying: 'O, king of the
Persians, desist from the undertaking which thou hast begun, for thou
knowest not whether thou wilt bring it to a good end. Desist, and rule
over what is thine, leaving us to govern what is ours. But thou wilt
take no heed of these exhortations, but rather do anything than remain
at rest. If thou eagerly desirest to make trial of the Massagetæ, desist
from making this bridge over the river; enter upon our land; we will
retire three days' march from the river; or if thou wouldst rather have
us in thy land, do thou the same.' When Cyrus heard this he collected
the chiefs of the Persians in order to consult with them what he should
do. Their advice was all to one purport; he was to allow Tomyris and her
army to come into his land. But Croesus, the Lydian, who was present,
dissented from this advice. 'If we allow the enemy to come into the
land,' he said to Cyrus, there will be danger: 'Shouldst thou be
defeated, the whole empire will be ruined. The victorious Massagetæ will
never retire, but invade thy lands, and shouldst thou be victorious,
thou wilt not reap such results as if thou wert to defeat the Massagetæ
beyond the river, for then thou couldst advance into the dominion of
Tomyris. Besides, it is shameful and disgraceful that the son of
Cambyses should retire before a woman. For this reason it seems to me
right to cross the river and advance as far as they retire, and there
attempt to gain the victory over them. As I am told, the Massagetæ are
not acquainted with the luxuries of the Persians; they have no
experience of enjoyment. We must prepare a meal for them in our camp,
slaying and dressing sheep, and placing at hand goblets of unmixed wine,
and various kinds of food; then leave behind the weakest part of the
army and retire to the river. If I am not deceived, they will seize upon
the provisions when they see them, and we shall be in a position to do
great things.' Cyrus decided in favour of the advice of Croesus, and
caused a message to be sent to Tomyris that she should retire; he would
advance beyond the river. She retired as she promised. But Cyrus gave
his son Cambyses, who would be king after him, to Croesus, and exhorted
him to honour the Lydian king, and treat him kindly if the expedition
across the river should turn out badly. Then he sent the two to Persia,
and crossed the river with his army. And in the first night which he
spent in the land of the Massagetæ he saw in a dream the eldest son of
Hystaspes, with wings on his shoulders, one of which overshadowed Asia
and the other Europe. The eldest son of Hystaspes was Darius, at that
time a youth of about 20 years, who had been left behind in Persia,
because he was not old enough to accompany the army. Cyrus summoned
Hystaspes, took him aside, and said to him in private: 'Hystaspes, thy
son is conceiving evil plots against me and my kingdom. The gods watch
over me, and show me the danger which is threatening. Return at once to
Persia, and act in such a way that if I succeed in this enterprise and
return home, thou mayest bring thy son before me for examination.'
Hystaspes answered: 'If the dream shows thee that my son is conceiving a
revolt against thee, I will give him over to thee to deal with as thou
wilt.' Then Hystaspes went over the Araxes on his way back to Persia, to
keep his son under guard for Cyrus. But when he had gone a day's march
from the river, Cyrus did as Croesus had advised; he left the useless
men in the camp, and marched with the able-bodied back to the river. A
third part of the army of the Massagetæ came to the camp, slew those
that were left behind, in spite of their resistance, and as they found
the meal prepared, and had conquered the enemy, they feasted, and then
fell asleep, gorged with food and wine. When the Persians came up they
slew many of them, and took even more prisoners, among them Spargapises,
the son of Tomyris, the leader of the Massagetæ. When the queen
discovered what had befallen the army and her son, she sent a herald to
Cyrus, who said: 'O Cyrus, insatiate of blood, exalt not thyself because
that by the fruit of the vine, filled with which ye rage and utter evil
words--that by such poison thou hast treacherously got possession of my
son, and not by bravery in the battle. Now take my advice, for I counsel
thee well. Give me my son back again, and depart out of this land,
without punishment for bringing shame on the third part of the army of
the Massagetæ. If thou dost not do this, I swear by the sun, the lord of
the Massagetæ, that I will satisfy thee with blood, insatiate as thou
art.' To this message Cyrus paid no heed. When he had recovered from the
effects of the wine, Spargapises discovered into what a calamity he had
fallen. He requested Cyrus that he should be freed from his chains. As
soon as this was done, and his hands were free, he killed himself. As
Cyrus did not obey her, Tomyris collected her whole force, and joined
battle with him. I learn that this battle was the most severe ever
fought among the barbarians, and it was fought as follows. In the first
place, so we are told, they hurled missiles from a distance, and when
the missiles were exhausted they fell upon each other, and fought with
lances and swords. They maintained the battle a long time, for neither
side would fly; but at last the Massagetæ got the upper hand. The
greater part of the Persian army perished and Cyrus himself fell, after
a reign of 29 years. Tomyris searched for the corpse of Cyrus among the
dead, and when she had found it, she plunged the head in a bottle filled
with human blood, and said in insult to the dead: 'Though I live and
have conquered thee in the battle, thou hast nevertheless made me
unhappy, for thou hast taken away my son by treachery. Yet, as I
threatened, I will satisfy thee with blood.'"

In a similar way, though not without variations, Diodorus and Trogus
narrate the death of Cyrus. The account of Diodorus marks even more
strongly the shameful death of the king. He tells us that, after the
overthrow of the Babylonians, Cyrus desired to subdue the whole earth.
He had reduced the greatest nations and mightiest nations, he was of
opinion that no ruler or nation could withstand his power. Like many of
those who exercise irresponsible power, Cyrus did not know how to bear
prosperity as a man should. He led a strong army to Scythia; but the
queen of the Scythians took him prisoner and crucified him. In the
excerpt from Pompeius Trogus we are told that when Cyrus had reduced
Asia and brought the East into his power, he marched upon the Scythians.
But Tomyris, their queen, was not terrified by the approach of the
Persians. She might have defended the passage of the Jaxartes against
them, but she considered that flight would be more difficult for the
enemy if they had the river behind them. So Cyrus crossed the Jaxartes,
and pitched his camp when he had advanced some distance into the country
of the enemy. On the next day he abandoned it as if in terror and
retired, leaving in it a sufficiency of wine and everything that is
required for a banquet. The queen, on hearing this, sent her young son
to pursue the enemy with a third part of her army. When he reached the
camp, the youth, who had no experience of war, gave up all thought of
the enemy, and allowed his people to become intoxicated with the wine,
to which they were not accustomed. Cyrus returned in the night, and all
the Scythians including the queen's son were cut down. In spite of the
loss of such an army, and the still greater loss of her only son,
Tomyris thought only of revenge, and plotted how she could destroy the
victors by treachery. When she was no longer in a condition to give
battle she enticed Cyrus by retiring into a pass, after she had placed
an ambush in the mountains. So she succeeded in defeating the whole
Persian army, 200,000 men, with the king. Not even a messenger escaped
to tell of the disaster. She caused the head to be cut off the body of
Cyrus, and placed in a bottle filled with human blood, calling out:
"Satiate thyself with the blood for which thou didst thirst with an
insatiable desire."[130] In regard to this story, which no doubt is to
be ascribed to Deinon, Arrian remarks quite briefly: "Whether the defeat
of the Persians in Scythia was brought about by the difficulty of the
land, or some mistake of Cyrus, or whether the Scythians were better
soldiers than the Persians of that date, I cannot determine."[131]
Polyaenus must have had stories of a similar kind before him; but in his
account the stratagem which Cyrus uses against Tomyris is used by the
queen against Cyrus, and this is the reason given for the defeat of the
Persian army and the death of the king. When Cyrus approached, Tomyris
retreated with her army in pretended flight. The Persians pursued; in
the camp of the queen they found a great store of wine, provisions, and
cattle, on which they feasted and drank the whole night through as
though they had already won the battle. Then, when they could scarcely
move, Tomyris attacked them and cut them all down together with Cyrus
himself.[132]

The narrative of Herodotus involves glaring contradictions. In
opposition to the cunning, ambition, and bloodthirstiness of Cyrus, it
presents to us as a model of honour, love of peace, moderation and
self-restraint, the queen of a nation of cannibals, who gives Cyrus the
wisest lessons before exacting punishment for his insatiable ambition.
She perceives the treachery of his intended wooing. When he comes openly
with force, she urges him to be content with what he possesses, makes
the battle easier for him by allowing him to cross the river without
opposition, and then gives him the choice of a field of battle. When
Cyrus has made a treacherous use of her honourable and open offers she
taunts him with the evil results of the use of wine on the Persians and
again offers peace on the most favourable conditions; if Cyrus
surrenders her son and retires from her country she will allow the
destruction of her army to go unpunished. This moderation remains
without any effect; Cyrus goes blindly to his destruction. But the queen
of the barbarians has no enjoyment of this success; her sorrow for the
loss of her son, who puts an end to his own life in noble shame that he
has brought his army to destruction, and become a captive by excess in
wine, is greater than her joy at the victory. Hardly less strange is the
conduct of Cyrus. The general who has conquered Media, Lydia, and
Babylonia, and the nations of Asia, is uncertain how to carry on the
campaign against the Massagetæ; he takes counsel with the prince, whom
in spite of the bravery of his people he has defeated most rapidly and
decisively: he allows this prince to tell him that the son of Cambyses
ought not to give way to a woman, and follows his advice against the
unanimous opinion of the Persians. At the same time he has evil
intimations about the issue of the decision; and sends the heir to the
throne back to Persia. He boasts that the gods have announced to him all
the misfortunes which threatened him, whereas it is the elevation of
Darius which was shown to him in the dream, a danger which did not even
remotely threaten him, and not the destruction which was to overtake him
in two days.

It need not be proved that this narrative has come from a poetical
source. The prominent traits, the long speeches and counter-speeches,
the lament of the mother, the bottle of blood, point beyond all mistake
to poetry. It is clear that Persian poems would not ascribe to the great
founder of their empire, whom they honoured as a father, the part which
Herodotus represents him as taking against the queen of a barbarous
nation; least of all would they charge Cyrus with an insatiable thirst
for blood, and bring him on that account to a shameful end. But the
Medes, as they had matched the poems of the Persians on the birth,
youth, and rise of Cyrus with other songs about his origin, his fortune,
and the fall of Astyages composed from their own point of view, might
very well describe after their own manner the death of the king. They
could not reverse their own subjugation, but they could have the
satisfaction of reprobating the ambition and bloodthirstiness of their
conqueror, who called out the Median army for ceaseless service; they
could bring the conqueror of Asia to a miserable end, and represent the
subduer of the noblest men as finding his master in a woman. And if it
was the advice of a conquered and captive king which led Cyrus to
destruction,--the trait suits the context and presents an instance of
poetical justice. The dream of Cyrus obviously belongs to another
context; it is merely inserted here in order to show how Cambyses and
Hystaspes escaped the great defeat in the land of the Massagetæ. At a
later time the Medes felt heavily enough the power of Darius. The Median
poems on the rebellion of Cyrus contained a certain element of fact in
the desertion of Harpagus, and the same may have been the case in their
poems about Tomyris. Ctesias told us above that Cyrus conquered and took
prisoner the king of the Sacae, but was afterwards severely defeated by
his wife Sparethra, in which defeat many captives were taken, and among
them the most distinguished Medes. Strabo also tells us of a battle
which Cyrus lost against the Sacae. Forced to retire, he had abandoned
his camp and all that was in it, and when the Sacae were enjoying the
booty he fell upon them and cut them down. These events may underlie the
story of Tomyris.

From the various narratives, which, as Herodotus informs us, were
current about the rise and death of Cyrus, the historian chose that
account of both which seemed to him the "most probable," _i.e._ that
which coincided with his own views, and thus appeared to him most
credible. It is the firm conviction of Herodotus, the thought which lies
at the base of his great history, that every unjust deed, every act of
violence, is followed by punishment. Cyrus had considered himself to be
more than a man; he had placed no limit, no end to his conquests. Hence
retribution overtook him in his conflict with a woman. The description
of the barbarous custom of the Massagetæ was obviously wanting in the
authority which Herodotus followed about the death of Cyrus; it comes
from another source. In this way, though unobserved by Herodotus, a
glaring contradiction has crept into his narrative. If we may draw a
conclusion from the name Spargapises, _i.e._ youthful form, the enemies
in the poetry which he used were of Arian stock.[133]

According to the account of Ctesias Cyrus fell in war against the
Derbiccians. These were said by some to dwell in the neighbourhood of
the Margiani; by others they were placed on both sides of the mouth of
the Oxus; but as Ctesias mentions the Indians as their allies and
represents the Sacae as dwelling at no great distance, we must look for
them on the middle course of the Oxus in the neighbourhood of Bactria.
According to Strabo's description, the Derbiccians worshipped the earth,
to which they sacrificed male creatures, just as they ate none but male
animals. The smallest offence was punished with death. The men who had
exceeded their seventieth year were slain and eaten by their nearest
relatives. The women who came to old age were also killed but not eaten.
Curtius states that a part of their warriors were armed with poles
hardened in the fire.[134] "Amoraeus," so we are told in the excerpt
preserved from Ctesias' "Persian History," "was king of the Derbiccians;
against him Cyrus marched, and the Indians aided the Derbiccians in the
battle. The elephants which the Derbiccians received from the Indians
were placed in the ambush. They caused the Persian cavalry to retreat.
Cyrus fell from his horse, and as he lay on the ground an Indian hit him
with his javelin under the hip in the thigh. He was lifted up and
carried into the Persian camp. In this battle many of the Persians fell,
and also many of the Derbiccians--10,000 on either side. Hearing this,
Amorges the king of the Sacae came to the help of Cyrus with 20,000 men.
When the battle was renewed, the Persians and Sacae fought bravely and
conquered. Amoraeus fell and with him his two sons; 30,000 Derbiccians
and 9000 Persians were left in the field, and the land of the
Derbiccians submitted to Cyrus. But he felt his end approaching. He
named his eldest son Cambyses as his successor; and the younger
Tanyoxarkes he made lord of the Bactrians, the Chorasmians, Parthians,
and Carmanians, with an arrangement that their lands should pay no
tribute. To the two sons of Spitamas, Spitaces and Megabernes (V. 383),
he gave the satrapies of the Derbiccians and Hyrcanians (Barcanians),
and bade them obey their mother (Amytis) in all things. They were also
to give their hands to each other and to Amorges in pledge that they
would treat him and each other as friends; on him who persisted in
kindness to his brother Cyrus invoked blessings, and curses on him who
should be the first to begin a quarrel. Thus saying, he died on the
third day after his wound."[135]

This narrative also goes back to a poetical source, though it is not
directly borrowed any more than the narrative of Herodotus. Meagre as
the excerpt is, there can be no doubt about the poetical origin of it.
This is proved by the compression of the events into a few days; the
rapid and ready assistance given by the king of the Sacae, whom Cyrus
had once captured in battle and then made his friend; the gratitude
which he reaped for this deed in his last days; the heavy penalty laid
upon the Derbiccians for the wound of Cyrus; the fall of their king and
his two sons and the submission of the country; the death of Cyrus after
great danger in the moment of victory; the appointment of a successor;
the recommendation of Amorges; the exhortations to union given by Cyrus
when dying to his sons; his blessing on the son who remembered them, and
his curse on him who neglected them. Here also, as in the different
accounts of Herodotus and Ctesias in the elevation of Cyrus, we find
points of agreement in the two versions. Whether the names Tomyris and
Amoraeus can be connected we need not inquire. Each story contains the
space of three days, the appointment of a successor, the exhortations
and the recommendation of a third person--Croesus in the one, Amorges in
the other. As in the story of Ctesias--Nicolaus about the rise of Cyrus,
Oebares takes the place of Harpagus in Herodotus, so here the Sacian
Amorges takes the place of the Lydian Croesus; though Croesus, it is
true, gives only ruinous advice, and Amorges renders active and valuable
help. As the Persian tradition is preserved in the story of Ctesias
about the rise of Cyrus, though the Medes had their discrepant version,
so in the story of the fall, as given by this historian, we have no
doubt the Persian account. The region which is allotted to the second
son, the emphasis laid on the harmony of the sons, the death of Cyrus in
victory, no less than the tone which pervades the whole narrative, prove
the Persian origin of the story. The aged prince is wounded at the head
of his people in a battle on horseback; but his friends avenge him; he
dies, as he had lived, in victory and success, surrounded by his sons
and stepsons. This glorification of his death was matched by the Medes
in the poems from which the narrative of Herodotus has arisen.

Xenophon represents Cyrus as dying at an advanced age in peace, when he
has reached Persia for the seventh time after winning the empire. In the
palace he had a dream which announced his approaching end. He caused his
sons to be brought to him, who had accompanied him to Persia, his
friends, and the captains of the Persians. His power, so he told them,
had not decayed with age; he had striven for nothing and attempted
nothing that he had not obtained, and what he had once obtained he had
never lost. Though everything had succeeded according to his wishes, he
had never allowed himself to indulge in proud thoughts and excessive
rejoicing, for he had ever been attended by the apprehension that evil
would come upon him in the future. "Do you now, Cambyses," he continued,
"receive the throne, which the gods and I, so far as lies in me, give to
you; to you, Tanaoxares, I give the satrapy over the Medes, the
Armenians, and the Cadusians. I give you this because I deem it right to
leave to the elder the larger dominion and the name of king, but to you
a less burdensome fortune." Then he urged both to remain in the closest
friendship, for they had been nourished by one mother, and had grown up
in one house; neither of them could find a stronger support than his
brother. He made them swear by the gods of their fathers that they would
hold each other in honour; they could not prove their love for him more
truly in any other way. Finally, he reminded them that by showing
kindness to friends they would be able to punish their enemies, gave his
hand to all, veiled his face and died.[136]

According to the account of the companions of Alexander of Macedon, the
corpse of Cyrus rested in the abode of his ancestors, at his metropolis,
Pasargadae, in the precincts of the "old citadel." Concerning his tomb
we have only the account of Aristobulus, who saw it when Alexander
reached Pasargadae, and on the return from India received a commission
to restore the sepulchres which had been plundered in the mean time.
This account is preserved in two excerpts; the shorter one is given by
Strabo, the more circumstantial by Arrian. In the latter we are told:
"At Pasargadae in the royal garden (Paradeisus) was the tomb of Cyrus.
Round the tomb a grove of trees had been planted of various kinds; the
soil was permeated by streams and overgrown with thick grass. The tomb
itself was built of square stones in a rectangular form; the upper part
was a covered chamber." From Strabo we learn that "the tomb is a tower
of no great size, which is massive in the lower part, but in the upper
story is a room." "The door which leads into it," Arrian continues, "is
so narrow, that a moderately stout man could scarcely enter. In the
chamber was a couch with feet of beaten gold, with purple coverlet over
which lay carpets of Babylonian pattern. There was also a robe
(_kandys_) and under-garments of Babylonian manufacture, and Median
trowsers, garments coloured blue and purple, some of one colour, some of
the other, chains, swords, and necklaces of gold and precious stones,
and a table (Strabo adds goblets). On the middle of the couch was the
coffin with the corpse of Cyrus, covered with a lid. The inscription on
the grave, in the Persian language and Persian letters, says: 'O men, I
am Cyrus the son of Cambyses, who founded the empire of the Persians and
governed Asia; do not grudge me this monument.' Within the outer wall of
the sepulchre near the steps which lead to the chamber was a small
dwelling for the Magians, who have watched the tomb since the time of
Cyrus, the office descending from father to son. Each day they receive a
sheep and a fixed amount of corn and wheat, and each month a horse to
sacrifice to Cyrus." The corpse itself is said to have been completely
preserved after two centuries. Onesicritus tells us that the tower of
the sepulchre had ten stories; the inscription was in Persian and Greek
written in Persian letters, and said: "Here lie I, Cyrus, king of
kings."[137]

Near the modern city of Murghab, on a plain covered with the ruins of
walls, not far from a square tower and a platform, built of square
blocks of marble to a height of nearly forty feet, on a substructure of
seven flats (the sacred number which we meet everywhere) arranged in
terraces, rises a plain oblong building constructed of huge stones of
the most beautiful white marble, which are closely fitted together, and
covered with a flat gable roof; it forms a chamber in which the entrance
is through a door four feet in height. The excellent and beautiful
proportions, the quiet simple forms of the building, give an impression
of solemnity, and appear to mark a consecrated place. Close to this
building, and again in a terrace, we find bases, shafts, and pillars,
which must have belonged to a large structure, perhaps to a portico,
which was in some connection with the stages of the terrace. Three
door-posts bear, in three different languages, the inscription: "I,
Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenid." Hence there can be no doubt that these
remains belong to a structure erected by Cyrus. Before the posts are
twelve bases, and before these a pillar of marble fifteen feet in
height, formed from a single stone. On this is cut in relief a slim form
in profile. It has four wings springing from the shoulders, is clothed
in a closely-fitting garment falling to the ancles; on the right side
which is visible, and on the lower hem, the garment is furnished with
fringes. The form of the uncovered lower arm seems to indicate a
commanding attitude. The head is covered with a striped, closely-fitting
cap, which reaches down to the neck. Out of the crown of it rise two
horns, which extend on either side and bear a tall ornament of
peculiarly-formed leaves and feathers. The face is surrounded by a full
but short beard, the nose is somewhat rounded at the tip, the line of
the profile is straight and well-formed, the expression mild and serene.
Over the head, as on the posts, we find written in cuneiform letters:
"_Adam Kurus Khsayathiya Hakhamanisiya_" _i.e._ "I, Cyrus, the king,
Achæmenid."[138] This is, it would seem, a picture of the famous king.

So far as we can tell Cyrus was long in coming to his prime, and did not
attain to his full powers till he had reached the years of manhood.
Sprung from the royal house of the Persians, grandson of Achæmenes, he
grew up at Pasargadae, and rendered service as a vassal to his
sovereign. While performing courtly and martial duties at Ecbatana, the
extinction of the male line of the house of Deioces, and the rival
claims which the death of Astyages would call forth, opened to him the
prospect of obtaining independence for himself and the Persians. When
once more among his own people, the suspicion of Astyages forces arms
into the hands of himself and his father. Astyages penetrates into the
mountains of Persia, and Cambyses is slain; only after severe struggles
are the Medes beaten back. Cyrus avails himself of his success in order
to carry war into Media. About eighty years after Achæmenes had joined
Phraortes Cyrus marches victoriously into Ecbatana. He at once aims at a
higher object. The dominion of the Medes must pass over to the Persians.
Babylon and Lydia give him time to subjugate the Parthians and
Hyrcanians, to make war on the Sacae and Bactrians, to reduce the
Cadusians, Armenians, and Cappadocians. When yet unprepared or engaged
in other conflicts, he is attacked by Croesus. A brilliant campaign
carries him far beyond the defensive; he overthrows the Lydian empire
and advances to the shore of the Ægean. While his generals complete the
reduction of Asia Minor he turns again to the East; once more Babylon
gives him time to establish and extend his empire in the table-land of
Iran. Secure on the East and West he proceeds to the decisive struggle
with Babylon. In the first campaign he crosses the Tigris and secures
the passage; in the second he defeats Nabonetus, captures Sepharvaim,
storms Babylon, obtains possession of Borsippa, subjugates Syria, and
the Phenician cities. After the annihilation of the Babylonian kingdom,
Cyrus extends the borders of his empire still further to the East. The
nations on the right bank of the Indus, the Chorasmians and the
Sogdiani, are reduced, and the Jaxartes becomes the limit of the
kingdom. Thus by unwearied energy, restless effort, and tough endurance,
Cyrus achieved a career which has no equal; from being chief of the
Persian tribes he became sovereign of Asia. As Xenophon says, his
kingdom extended from regions which are rendered uninhabitable by heat,
to others which are uninhabitable by reason of the cold. This aim Cyrus
had pursued with great determination; he had not been guilty of any wild
outbursts. A general, rapid in decision and tenacious in purpose, he had
understood how to meet failure and make himself master of the most
difficult undertakings. Other military princes of the East have achieved
greater conquests in a shorter space of time than Cyrus, but none
understood how to preserve the empire he had won, and make it permanent,
as Cyrus did. He possessed not only the keen eye of the general, but an
unerring political insight, and an unusual power of penetrating into the
interests, the motives, the manners and actions of the communities and
nations which victory placed in his power. Among the rulers of the East
no one is like him, and one alone approaches him, the second successor
on the throne which he founded.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] Behist. 1, 6.

[109] Arrian. "Ind." 1, 1.

[110] Plin. "H. N." 6, 25; Ptolem. 6, 18.

[111] Script. Alex. Magni; fragm. 23, ed. Müller.

[112] Diod. 17, 81.

[113] Strabo, p. 724; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 27, 4; 4, 4, 6.

[114] Curtius, 7, 3, 1.

[115] In Strabo, p. 686.

[116] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 5.

[117] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 6, 6, 9; 8, 8, 20.

[118] _E.g._ Ctes. "Pers." 43.

[119] Herod. 3, 31; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 6, 4; Esther i. 14.

[120] Herod. 5, 25; 7, 194.

[121] Herod. 1, 134.

[122] Herod. 3, 154; 8, 85.

[123] "Cyri inst." 8, 8, 1; 8, 2, 7.

[124] Herod. 3, 75, 86, 160.

[125] "Persae," 768-770.

[126] "Transact. Bibl. Arch." 2, 148.

[127] "Cyri inst." 8, 6, 9; 8, 8, 22, 23.

[128] Plin. "H. N." 33, 15.

[129] Arrian, "Anab." 3, 16; Curtius, 5, 2, 11; 6, 9, 6, 10; Diod. 17,
66, 71; Strabo, p. 731.

[130] Diod. "Exc. vat." p. 33, 2, 44; Justin, 1, 8; 2, 3; 37, 3.

[131] Arrian, "Anab." 5, 4. A similar story is in Frontin. "Strateg." 2,
5, 5.

[132] Polyaen. "Strateg." 8, 28.

[133] _Çparheghapaeça_, from _çpareg_, to shoot, spring, and _paeça_,
_piça_, shape: Müllenhoff, "Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1866, s. 567.

[134] Strabo, p. 514, 520; Plin. "H. N." 6, 16; Ptolem. 4, 20; Curtius,
3, 2; Diod. 2, 2; Steph. Byz. [Greek: Derbikkai].

[135] Ctes. "Pers." 6-9.

[136] "Cyri inst." 8, 7.

[137] Ctes. "Pers." 7; Arrian, "Anab." 6, 28; Strabo, p. 730; Plin. "H.
N." 6, 29; Plut. "Alex." 69. Curtius (10, 1) asserts after Cleitarchus,
that when Alexander visited the tomb of Cyrus on his return from India,
he only found the shield of Cyrus, then rotten, two Scythian bows, and a
sword in the sepulchre.

[138] In the wings, the clothing, and the peculiar head-dress this
portrait (Tenier, "Descript." pl. 84) differs essentially from the
representation of Darius and his successors at Persepolis and
Naksh-i-Rustem. It is not Cyrus but his Fravashi which is here
represented. The building at Murghab is somewhat like the description of
the tomb of Cyrus given in the text, but the site will not allow us to
regard it as the tomb at Pasargadae. It must be a building which one of
his successors has dedicated to the memory of the great king. The
profile in the relief confirms to some degree Plutarch's statement that
Cyrus had an aquiline nose, and the Persians therefore considered beaked
noses the most becoming: "Praec. ger. reip." c. 30. The nose of Darius,
as we see it in the monuments, appears straighter and longer.




CHAPTER X.

THE FALL OF EGYPT.


After the death of the great king who had founded the Persian empire,
Cambyses (Kambujiya), the elder of the two sons whom Cassandane had
borne to Cyrus, ascended the throne of the new kingdom in the year 529
B.C. A few years before his death Cyrus had entrusted him with the
vice-royalty of Babylonia.[139] Herodotus tells us that "Cambyses again
reduced the nations which Cyrus had subjugated, and then marched
against Egypt." Egypt was the oldest of the great powers of the ancient
East, and, after the fall of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, it still
remained independent beside the kingdom which had risen up so rapidly
and brilliantly out of their ruins. A hundred and fifty years previously
Egypt had succumbed to the arms of the Assyrians; how could an ambitious
ruler of Persia imagine that it could now resist the incomparably
greater forces which were at his command?

We know how Psammetichus and his descendants had restored Egypt to her
ancient position, the place which they had assigned to the Greeks and
Greek civilisation in their state, a place which had not been altered by
Amasis, though brought to the throne by a revolution which had removed
the house of Psammetichus (570 B.C.). The attempt of Necho to renew the
achievements of the Tuthmosis, Amenophis, and Ramses in Syria and on the
Euphrates was wrecked by the sudden rise of the Babylonian kingdom under
Nebuchadnezzar, and Hophra had in vain attempted to prevent the fall of
Jerusalem and the advance of Babylon to the borders of Egypt. The growth
of the Persian power threatened to give Egypt a far more dangerous
neighbour than she had had in Babylonia. Amasis did not underrate the
crisis. Herodotus told us above that he had combined with Lydia against
Cyrus, that Croesus had called upon the Egyptian auxiliaries for the
second campaign, and finally for the rescue of Sardis. The rapid
progress of the war and the fall of Sardis defeated the aims of Amasis.
Then, as we saw, a decade elapsed before Cyrus directed his arms against
Babylonia. That Amasis made every attempt to support Nabonetus against
the Persians is not told us by tradition, unless indeed we accept as
tradition Xenophon's statement, who represents the Lydians and Egyptians
as fighting against the Persians with the Babylonians (p. 17). The fall
of Babylon was followed directly by the subjugation of Syria, the
conquest of Gaza (p. 90), and the advance of the Persian border to the
desert. Amasis does not appear to have been wholly inactive in the face
of the approaching danger. Herodotus tells us that he took the island of
Cyprus and made it tributary, and Diodorus narrates that he subjugated
the cities in Cyprus, and adorned many of the temples there with
splendid offerings.[140] We may assume that the enterprise of Amasis
against Cyprus was intended to provide a counterpoise to the
incorporation of Syria in the Persian empire. It may have appeared more
desirable to the princes of the Cyprian cities to be vassals of the
remote and less powerful Egypt than of the rising and powerful kingdom
of Persia. In any case, when he had set foot in Cyprus, Amasis prevented
that rich island, with its numerous cities, from falling into the power
of the Persians; the ships of the Cyprian cities could assist him in
keeping off the fleet of the Phenicians from their coasts, should the
Persian monarch call out that fleet against Egypt. That this was the
object of the occupation of Cyprus by Amasis is confirmed by the fact
that some years after the fall of Babylon he entered into communication
with the island of Samos. While Chios and Lesbos, as has been observed,
submitted to the Persians without compulsion, Samos had remained
independent. Polycrates, the son of Aeaces, who had made himself master
of the island in the year 536 B.C., built a splendid fleet of eighty
heavy and a hundred light ships, with which he could maintain his
independence against the Persians. The fleet of Polycrates could hold
the fleet of the Ionians in check if it were called upon by the
Persians, just as the Cyprians could restrain the Phenicians. Amasis
entered into close and friendly relations with the prince of Samos, who
on his part must have gladly accepted the support of Egypt against the
Persians. Besides the possession of Cyprus and this union with Samos,
Egypt's power of resistance rested essentially on the difficulty of
crossing the desert which separates Egypt from Syria with a large army,
on the considerable numbers of the warrior caste, in spite of the
emigration under Psammetichus, and the fidelity and bravery of the
Ionian and Carian mercenaries, to whom Amasis had entrusted his personal
protection. The danger of an attack from Persia seemed to have passed
over when, after the subjugation of Syria, Cyrus turned towards the
distant East, the Indus and Jaxartes; and Amasis may have been careful
not to irritate his powerful neighbour. The skill of the physicians of
Egypt was in great repute. When Cyrus asked Amasis for the best oculist,
the Pharaoh, according to the Persian story, may have acceded to his
wish.[141] The death of Cyrus would then bring still greater prospects
of power to Amasis, until at last the decisive moment came thirteen
years after the fall of Babylon.

"Cambyses," so Herodotus tells us, "sent to Egypt and asked the daughter
of Amasis in marriage. Both hating and dreading the power of the
Persians, Amasis was uncertain whether to send or refuse her, for he
well knew that Cambyses did not intend to take her as his legitimate
wife, but as a concubine. So he devised the following plan:--Nitetis,
the daughter of the preceding king Hophra was the only member of her
family remaining. She was tall and beautiful, and Amasis adorned her
with garments and gold and sent her as his own daughter to Persia. But
some time after, when Cambyses was embracing Nitetis and calling her by
the name of her father, she said: 'O king, thou art deceived by Amasis,
who has sent me to thee thus adorned as his daughter, whereas in truth I
am the daughter of Hophra, whom, though his lord, Amasis slew together
with the Egyptians.' This speech put Cambyses into a violent rage, and
for this reason he marched against Egypt. This is the account which the
Persians give; but the Egyptians claim Cambyses as their own,
maintaining that he was the son of this daughter of Hophra. It was not
Cambyses, but Cyrus, who desired the daughter of Hophra. But in this
they are wrong. The law of the Persians is not unknown to them (for the
Egyptians know the laws of the Persians better than any one else), that
the son of the concubine is not made king if there are sons of the
queen, and that Cambyses was the son of Cassandane, the daughter of
Pharnaspes, and not of the Egyptian woman. They invert the transaction
because they wish to give themselves out as allied to the house of
Amasis. Among the auxiliary troops of Amasis there was a man of
Halicarnassus, Phanes by name, of good understanding and mighty in war.
Injured by Amasis in some way, he fled by ship out of Egypt, in order to
join Cambyses. As he was a man of importance among the auxiliary troops,
and most accurately acquainted with Egypt, Amasis was anxious to take
him, and sent his most trusty eunuch after him in a trireme. The eunuch
caught him up in Lycia, but he did not bring him back to Egypt. Phanes
outwitted him, by making his guards intoxicated, and so escaped to
Persia. When he came to Cambyses, who, though intending to invade Egypt,
was uncertain how to pass through the waterless region, Phanes told him
all the affairs of Amasis, and how the march was to be arranged. He
advised him to send to the king of the Arabians, and ask him to give him
a safe passage. The approach to Egypt is open on this side only. From
Phoenicia to the borders of the city of Gaza,[142] which, as it seems to
me, is not much smaller than Sardis, the land belongs to the Syrians,
who are called Palaestinians (Pelishtim), but from this city to Jenysus
the harbours of the sea are subject to the Arabians; from Jenysus to the
Serbonian Lake they again belong to the Syrians, and at the Serbonian
Lake Egypt begins. The strip between the city of Jenysus and the
Serbonian Lake, a journey of three days, is wholly without water.
Instructed by the Halicarnassian, Cambyses sent messengers to the
Arabian, and received permission for the passage, and when the Arabian
had given the envoy of Cambyses a solemn promise with invocation of
Urotal and Alilat, and smearing of seven stones with blood (I. 308), he
caused bags of camel-skins to be filled with water, loaded all his
camels with them, and after marching into the waterless district he
there awaited the army of Cambyses. But Psammenitus, the son of Amasis,
encamped on the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile. For when Cambyses marched
with all over whom he ruled, even with those of the Hellenes who were in
his power,[143] against Egypt, he found that Amasis was no longer
alive; he had died after a reign of 44 years, without meeting with any
great disaster in that time. When the Persians had marched through the
waterless region and had pitched their camp opposite the Egyptians for
battle, the auxiliaries of the Egyptians, Hellenes and Carians, who were
enraged against Phanes because he had brought a foreign army against
Egypt, did as follows:--The children of Phanes had remained in Egypt.
They brought them into the camp, and then led them between the two camps
before the eyes of their father, and slew them one after the other over
a vessel. When they were all dead they poured water and wine into the
vessel; all the mercenaries drank of the blood and then went to battle.
The struggle was severe; when a great number had fallen on both sides
the Egyptians were put to flight. And here I observed a very strange
phenomenon, my attention being called to it by the natives. The bones of
those who fell in the battle were gathered up separately; the Persians
are on one side and on the other the Egyptians, and the sculls of the
Persians are so thin, that even if a pebble is thrown upon them they
break, while those of the Egyptians are so hard that they can hardly be
broken with a stone. The Egyptians fled without any order. To those who
were shut up in Memphis Cambyses sent a Persian herald in a trireme, to
summon them to surrender. But when the Egyptians saw the ship come into
Memphis they hastened down from the citadel, destroyed the ship, tore
the men in pieces, and carried them to the citadel. Then the Egyptians
were besieged and finally surrendered."

"On the tenth day after Cambyses had taken the citadel of Memphis he
desired to make trial of Psammenitus, whom he had taken prisoner with
the other Egyptians in the city, and who had reigned but six months. He
therefore did as follows: He sent his daughter in the dress of a slave
with a pitcher, and along with her the daughters of the leading
Egyptians, similarly attired, to fetch water. When they passed before
their fathers with lamentations and sighs, these also cried and sighed
at the sight of their daughters' shame, but when Psammenitus saw what
was done he fixed his eyes on the earth. When the maidens had passed
with the water, Cambyses caused the son of Psammenitus to be led past
with two thousand Egyptians of the same age, with ropes round their
necks and in their mouths. They were to be the expiation of the
Mytileneans, who were slain on the ship in Memphis; the royal judges of
the Persians (p. 105) had decided that for every dead man ten of the
leading Egyptians must die. Psammenitus saw the train, and knew that his
son was being led out to death, and the Egyptians who sat round him
wailed and lamented, but he did as he had done at the sight of his
daughter. When they also had passed, it happened that an old man, who
had been a guest at the table of the king, but had now lost everything
and was as poor as a beggar, and asked alms of the soldiers, passed by
Psammenitus and the Egyptians in the suburbs. When Psammenitus saw this
he lamented aloud, beat his head, and called on his friend by name. The
guards who stood by announced what he had done on each occasion.
Cambyses was astonished, and asked Psammenitus, by a messenger, why he
had neither lamented nor sighed at the sight of his daughter in her
shame, and his son when led out to execution, but had paid this tribute
of respect to a beggar with whom Cambyses had discovered he was in no
way connected. Psammenitus answered, 'O son of Cyrus, my own misfortune
was too great for tears, but the sorrows of my friend called for
lamentation, since on the threshold of old age he had fallen from great
possessions to the condition of a beggar.' When this was told to
Cambyses it seemed to him well said; but as the Egyptians tell the
story, Croesus wept (he had followed Cambyses to Egypt), and the
Persians who were present wept, and Cambyses was touched with some
degree of compassion. He at once gave orders not to execute the son of
Psammenitus, and to fetch Psammenitus from the suburb into his presence.
The messengers found the son no longer alive, but they brought
Psammenitus himself to Cambyses, who did him no further injury. Had
Psammenitus known how to remain quiet, he would certainly have received
the government of Egypt; for the Persians are wont to honour the sons of
kings, and even though the fathers have revolted, they give the dominion
to the son. But when Psammenitus dealt treacherously he received his
reward. He was detected in exciting the Egyptians to revolt. When
Cambyses discovered this, he compelled him to drink bulls' blood, and he
died on the spot. Such was his end."

"But Cambyses came from Memphis to Sais, and when he entered the palace
of Amasis, he gave orders to take his body out of the grave; when this
was done he caused the corpse to be scourged, the hair to be torn out;
he stabbed it and treated it with every kind of indignity. When those
who were executing his commands grew weary, for the body being embalmed
resisted their blows, and did not come to pieces, he ordered it to be
burned. This was a sacrilegious command. The Persians regard fire as a
deity, and the burning of the dead is not according to the laws either
of the Persians or the Egyptians. The Persians do not consider it right
to offer a corpse to a god; the Egyptians regard fire as a living
all-consuming animal, and as it is by no means lawful to give up corpses
to animals, they embalm them that they may not be consumed by worms.
Hence Cambyses had commanded what was not allowed by the law of either
nation. But the Egyptians say that it was not Amasis who endured this
contumely, but another Egyptian of the same age, whom the Persians
outraged under the impression that they were outraging Amasis. Amasis
had been informed by an oracle what would happen to him after death; to
escape his fate he had buried a man, who died at the time, in the tomb
which he had made for himself at the temple of Neith at Sais, near the
door, and had commanded his son to bury him in the innermost
grave-chamber. In my opinion these arrangements of Amasis about his
burial were not carried out, they were mere inventions of the
Egyptians."

Ctesias' narrative is as follows: Cambyses fulfilled the last commands
of his father that his younger brother Tanyoxarkes should be made lord
of the Bactrians, Chorasmians, Parthians, and Carmanians, and in every
other respect, and sent his corpse to Persia for burial. Having
ascertained that the Egyptian women were more desirable than others, he
asked Amasis for one of his daughters, and Amasis sent Nitetis the
daughter of Hophra. Cambyses took great delight in her, and loved her
much, and when he had learned all her story he acceded to her request
that he would avenge the murder of her father. When he had armed against
Egypt and Amyrtaeus, the Egyptian king, the eunuch Combaphes, who had
great influence with Amyrtaeus, betrayed the passes into Egypt, and all
the affairs of the country, in order that he might be viceroy of it.
Then Cambyses set out on his march; in the battle 50,000 Egyptians and
20,000 Persians were slain,[144] Amyrtaeus was taken alive, and all
Egypt was subjugated. Cambyses did no further harm to Amyrtaeus beyond
sending him with 6000 Egyptians of his own choice to Susa; but Combaphes
became governor of Egypt as Cambyses had promised first by Izabates, his
most trusted eunuch and the cousin of Combaphes, and then by his own
mouth.[145]

Herodotus' account is once more dominated by the desire to give
prominence to the vengeance for the crime which Amasis committed in
betraying Hophra his master and thrusting from the throne the legitimate
ruler of Egypt (III. 407). Amasis was spared, but the punishment fell
upon the son, who thus suffered for his father's sins. The sources open
to Herodotus were the narratives of the Persians, of the Egyptians, and
of his own people. The Greeks of Asia Minor had taken part in the
campaign of Cambyses against Egypt; Greek mercenaries assisted in the
defence; and as we have seen, Greeks were settled in Egypt in
considerable numbers. Herodotus himself rejects the story that Cambyses
was the son of the daughter of Hophra, as the Egyptians maintained by
way of consolation; as well as another story that Cambyses had invaded
Egypt in order to avenge the preference which Cyrus showed to the
daughter of Hophra over his mother Cassandane. On the other hand, he
adopts, though with hesitation, the story of the Persians that Cambyses
sought a wife from Amasis, because it agrees with his own idea that ruin
was brought upon Amasis by his own treachery and the daughter of the
Pharaoh whom he had deposed. Deinon in his Persian History and Lyceas of
Naucratis retained both these stories together in the form that Amasis
sent Nitetis to Cyrus, and that she was the mother of Cambyses who
invaded Egypt to avenge Hophra. The solicitation of Cambyses, and the
deception of Amasis, in Herodotus, and in a still more pointed form in
Ctesias, the source of which, Herodotus tells us, was the narrative of
the Persians, has obviously arisen out of Persian poems about Cambyses,
which required some poetical motive for the campaign against Egypt; we
saw that the modern version of the poems concerning Cyrus represented
the campaign against Tomyris as due to a similar motive. Hophra died in
the year 570; when Cambyses ascended the throne, his youngest daughter
must have been more than forty years of age. There was no need of any
motive of this kind to excite Cambyses against Egypt, as has been shown
above; after the fall of Lydia and Babylonia, Egypt was the natural aim
for the Persian weapons.

Cambyses did not begin the war against Egypt immediately after his
accession. Though Ctesias tells us that he first placed his brother over
the Bactrians, Chorasmians, Parthians, and Carmanians, Cyrus, when he
entrusted the kingdom of Babylonia to Cambyses, may have given the
viceroyalty over the regions of the East to his younger son. We may
confidently believe Herodotus that the death of Cyrus gave the subject
nations the hope of again throwing off the yoke. After overcoming these
rebellions (p. 131), in the fifth year of his reign, Cambyses marched
against Egypt. Amasis, as we have observed, had made himself master of
the island of Cyprus, and had entered into communication with
Polycrates the prince of Samos, in order to cover an attack on Egypt by
sea, and provide, in case of necessity, a counterpoise to the naval
power of the Greek cities on the coast, and that of the Phenicians.
Cyrus had allowed his empire to be bounded by the sea, though he did not
refuse the voluntary submission of Chios and Lesbos. Cambyses went
further. He wished to procure a fleet for his kingdom; Persia was to
rule by sea as well as land. This, it is true, could only be done by
forcing arms into the hands of subject tribes and cities, and that on an
element on which the Persians could not pursue them. It was a bold
conception, and in forming it Cambyses must have felt quite secure of
the obedience of the Greek and Phenician cities, and of the allegiance
of the old princely houses who ruled in the latter no less than of the
new ones who ruled in the former. For the first time the command went
forth to the harbour cities of the Syrian and Anatolian coasts, that
they were to arm their ships for the king. The fleet was to support the
attack of the land army, and then, passing up the Nile, facilitate the
movements of the army in Egypt. The ships of the Greeks were to unite
with those of the Phenicians in the harbour of Acco to the south of
Carmel.[146] This resolution of Cambyses and the assembling of so
magnificent a fleet on the coast of Phoenicia at once bore fruit. The
princes of the Cyprian cities abandoned Egypt, recognised the supremacy
of Persia, and at once prepared their ships for a voyage against Egypt.
In return for this sudden and voluntary submission they were allowed to
remain at the head of the cities; they were only to pay tribute and
furnish contingents in war.[147] On Polycrates of Samos also the naval
armament of Cambyses made a most lively impression. When in possession
of a strong fleet Cambyses could use it against Samos. Was Polycrates to
fight for Egypt whose naval power could not defend him against this
fleet, or was he to remain neutral? Polycrates held the latter course to
be the worst; neutrality during the war of Cyrus and Croesus had cost
the Greek cities dear enough. He determined to change his front. When
the Ionian cities launched their ships, and the vessels of Chios and
Lesbos steered towards the Syrian coast, he also offered to place ships
at the disposal of the Persian king for use in Egypt. Cambyses accepted
the submission of Polycrates, and he sent forty well-manned ships of
war.[148]

Thus Cambyses had already deprived the Pharaoh of two important points
of support before he had begun the war. Whether Amasis was alive at the
defection of the princes of Cyprus, and of Polycrates, is doubtful. It
is possible that his death, which elevated to the throne of Egypt his
son Psammenitus (Psamtek III.), an untried prince in the place of a
proved and experienced leader such as Amasis, was another weight in the
scale on the side of defection. There was still another difficulty to
remove. The Syrian coast formed a strong wall of protection for Egypt.
If the fleet followed the army along the coast it found none but
difficult landing-places; at present there are none in that region for
the heavier ships of our days. In any case, in a numerous army such as
Cambyses no doubt led, care would have to be taken for the horses and
camels. It is not true that Cambyses requested a free passage from the
king of the Arabians; the men in question were the chiefs of the Arabs
in the peninsula of Sinai, the Midianites and Amalekites; and it was the
supply of water for the army which these tribes undertook. After
completing his preparations Cambyses set out early in the year 525 B.C.,
in order to march through the desert before the beginning of the hottest
weather, and arrive in Egypt sufficiently early before the
inundation.[149]

As the desertion of Eurybatus aided Cyrus in the Lydian war (p. 20), so
was Cambyses assisted in his preparations for the campaign against Egypt
according to the narrative of Herodotus by the advice of Phanes, and
according to Ctesias by the advice of Combaphes. We may here give
unhesitating confidence to the definite assertion of Herodotus as it
concerns his own countryman of Halicarnassus. The departure of Phanes
for Egypt must have taken place in the autumn of the year 526 B.C., for
it is Amasis who sends his trusted eunuch after him as far as Lycia. For
the name of Psammenitus the fragment of Ctesias gives the incorrect name
of Amyrtaeus (if this name of the later opponent of Persia on the Nile
is not due to the excerpt), it substitutes Combaphes for Phanes, _i.e._
to all appearances the eunuch who pursues Phanes for Phanes himself. We
do not find elsewhere the slightest trace that Combaphes received the
vice-royalty of Egypt; on the contrary, the statements of the fragments
about the cousinship of the chief eunuch of Pharaoh and the chief eunuch
of Cambyses, and the repeated promise of the vice-royalty which is made
to Combaphes, point to Persian poems, which had to clothe incidents of
this nature in a poetical garb; we have already frequently met with the
analogous promises of Arbaces to Belesys, and of Cyrus to the
interpreters of dreams at Babylon.

With regard to the course of the war we can only establish the fact,
that Psammenitus collected all his forces, _i.e._ the warrior caste, and
his Ionian and Carian troops, which were apparently strengthened by
Libyan tribes, and Greeks from Cyrene, and awaited the attack of the
Persians at the point where at the present day the caravan road from
Gaza reaches Egypt, near Pelusium, the old border fortress, surrounded
by the sand of the desert and wide expanses of mud. In regard to this
battle we only learn from Ctesias that 50,000 Egyptians and 20,000
Persians fell; whether it be that these numbers are taken from the
Persian poems, or whether they belong to the official Persian account. A
part of the Egyptian army retired to Pelusium; with another band of
fugitives Psammenitus reached Memphis. When the Persians had besieged
and captured Pelusium, which made a bold resistance, Egypt lay open to
them. Cambyses shaped his course to Memphis. There in past days the
empire of the Pharaohs had arisen; there stood the temple of Ptah, the
most sacred shrine of the land, which Menes himself was said to have
founded, which all his successors, including Amasis, had enlarged and
adorned. Memphis closed the approach to the upper river valley, which
was barred to the Persians so long as the city held out. Hence it
appears to have been the determination of Psammenitus to give up the
delta to the Persians, to defend Memphis, and shut himself up in its
walls. The city is said to have been twenty miles in circuit (I. 85); it
lay on the western bank of the Nile, and Cambyses had the difficult task
of crossing the river before he could invest the city. But now it was
seen how great was the support afforded by the fleet. The Egyptian ships
must have been forced to retire; the union of the Persian army with the
fleet was accomplished; one of these ships appeared before the walls of
Memphis sooner than the army. According to the account of Herodotus it
would seem that it was not the city but only the citadel of Memphis,
"the white tower" on the southern dam, which defended itself. If this
was the case Cambyses had no doubt to thank the fleet for it. Elsewhere
the city must have been defended on the side towards the Nile by the
river-dams merely, which the garrison despaired of holding against the
attack of numerous ships of war. Thus invested and attacked the citadel
must at length have opened the gates; and with the citadel Psammenitus
fell into the hands of the Persians.[150] After the fall of Memphis
Cambyses does not seem to have found resistance anywhere. It is
nevertheless possible that Sais, the residence of Psammetichus and his
descendants, as well as of Amasis and Psammenitus, the burial-place of
the princes and of Amasis, attempted a defence. In any case the conquest
of Sais completed the subjugation of the Egyptian land. An inscription
of the Egyptians says: "When the great prince, the lord of the world,
Kambathet, marched against Egypt, all nations of the earth were with
him. He became lord of the whole land and settled there."[151] In a war
of a few months Cambyses had overthrown a kingdom which reckoned by
millenniums, and had been the wonder of the world.

What Herodotus tells us of the fate of Psammenitus and the death of his
son reminds us in a striking manner of the legend of the Greeks about
the distress and the rescue of Croesus, who also reappears in this
narrative. In both Herodotus becomes uncertain towards the end, and
changes from direct to indirect narration, from assertion to
supposition. When Cyrus commanded Croesus to be burned, he intended,
according to Herodotus, to prove whether a god would come to his aid;
Cambyses intends to put the endurance of Psammenitus to the test. Two
trials are made with this object; and a third trial also takes place;
and if Croesus calls on Solon three times on the pyre, Psammenitus
remains dumb "with horror," as Aristotle says, at the sight of his
daughter at her slavish task, and of his son when led out to execution;
it is only at the sight of his friend who has become a beggar that he
breaks forth into lamentation. Like Cyrus at Sardis, Cambyses at Memphis
inquires into the reason of such conduct. But if Cyrus weeps at the
pyre, and desires to save Croesus, who is finally rescued by a god, so
in this place, all the Persians who are present weep, and Croesus weeps,
and Cambyses himself is touched by compassion; he wishes to save the son
of Psammenitus; and though he cannot do this he releases the father out
of captivity and receives him at his court. There is a difference in the
stories in the fact that though Cambyses is putting Psammenitus to the
test, the son is actually executed, and that the compassion of Cambyses
is not aroused by the danger impending over the Egyptian king, but by
his conduct. As in the story of Croesus and Cyrus, so in this, we have
obviously a legend of the Greeks--the Greeks in Egypt. The first story
has arisen out of the intention of Croesus not to survive the fall of
his kingdom, to offer himself as a sacrifice to the angry god of the
Lydians; and the second has no other foundation than the punishment
exacted by Cambyses in accordance with the sentence of the seven judges
(p. 105), for the murder of his herald who had demanded the surrender of
Memphis, and for the massacre of the crew of the ship in which the
herald had gone to the city. If the seven judges demand ten Egyptians
for every man slain, this sentence, though it fell on the most
distinguished families of Egypt, would seem mild enough according to the
scale of oriental punishments; as 2000 men were brought out for
execution, the ship must have had the usual crew of a Greek trireme.
Whether the son of Psammenitus was really put to death for the herald,
we must leave to the legend; Ctesias tells us only of the deportation of
Psammenitus and 6000 Egyptians to Susa.

Cambyses resolved to treat Psammenitus and Egypt in precisely the same
way as Cyrus had treated Croesus and Lydia, Nabonetus and Babylon. It is
not said that any harm was done to the city of Memphis, and Herodotus
tells us himself that if Psammenitus had known how to keep quiet,
Cambyses would have entrusted him with the governorship of Egypt. Yet
the degradation of his daughter and the execution of his son were a
strange initiation of such treatment.[152] Still more incredible is the
ill-treatment and burning of the corpse of Amasis, for which Cambyses
had not the slightest reason, especially as Herodotus states that
Cambyses sent Ladice, the widow of Amasis, unharmed back to her own city
of Cyrene.[153] The story belongs to the context of the narrative
according to which Cambyses sues for the daughter of Amasis, and is
deceived by him with the daughter of Hophra, whose desire for vengeance
on Amasis he satisfies. As Amasis is no longer alive, vengeance comes
upon his son and grandson, and even on his own body. For this reason
Herodotus has adopted this story, for he lays great stress on the fact
that no misfortune befell Amasis in his life, though he rejects the
Egyptian version that Amasis had taken the precaution to substitute the
corpse of another person of the same age for his own. If Sais resisted
and was taken by storm, the temple of Neith might certainly be injured,
the royal sepulchres violated, and the mummies taken from them, without
any blame attaching to Cambyses, though on a similar occasion at Memphis
he is charged by Herodotus with opening the tombs and disturbing the
rest of the dead.[154] The Egyptian inscription informs us that the
conduct of Cambyses at Sais and in the temple of Neith, in the portico
of which Amasis had built his sepulchre, was widely different from that
described by the legend. He removed his soldiers from the temple,
purified it, and both here and in other places he showed his regard for
the worship of the Egyptians as Cyrus had shown it for the worship of
the Babylonians and the Hebrews. From the account of Herodotus, no less
than from the later circumstances of Egypt, it is clear that no
alteration was made in the government, law, and administration of
justice, except that a Persian satrap was placed at the head of the
country and Persian garrisons were sent to the citadels of the most
important places. Even the Egyptian warrior caste remained unchanged and
undiminished; it merely passed from the service of the Pharaohs into
that of the Achæmenids; and after repeated rebellions numbered more than
400,000 men in the middle of the fifth century B.C.

FOOTNOTES:

[139] The Babylonian tablets give dates from the first to the ninth year
inclusive of "Kuras, king of Babylon," which entirely agree with the
dates of the canon of Ptolemy, _i.e._ with the capture of Babylon by
Cyrus 538 B.C., and the death of Cyrus in 529 B.C. On another tablet,
No. 877, Br. Mus., we find the "year eleven of Cambyses king of Babylon"
(E. Schrader, "Z. Aegypt. Sprach." 1878, s. 40 ff.). It is a fact
established by the canon of Ptolemy as well as by Herodotus that
Cambyses did not sit on the throne for eight whole years. Tablet 906
explains this eleventh year; it runs as follows: "Babylon month Kislev,
day 25, year 1 of Cambyses king of Babylon, at that time Cyrus king of
the lands." Hence in Babylon dates were sometimes fixed by the years of
Cyrus king of Babylon, and sometimes by the years of the viceroy. If the
"year eleven" of Cambyses in Babylon was the year of Cambyses' death,
Cyrus must have handed over the government of Babylonia to him in the
year 532 B.C., _i.e._ three years before his own death. This view, which
has been developed by E. Schrader, I feel able to adopt against the
opinion of T. G. Pinches, who wrongly assumes an abdication of Cyrus.
That years were not dated from Cambyses after his death is proved by
seventeen other tablets, which do not go beyond the eighth year of his
reign, and two others of the 20 Elul and 1 Tisri from the first year of
Barziya, _i.e._ of the Pseudo-Smerdis.

[140] Herod. 2, 182; Diod. 1, 68.

[141] Herod. 3, 1.

[142] Herodotus writes Kadytis after the Egyptian name Kazatu. Vol. I.
132.

[143] Herod. 2, 1; 3, 44.

[144] Bekker reads 7000.

[145] Ctesias, "Pers." 9; Athenaeus, p. 560.

[146] Strabo, p. 758.

[147] In Herod. (3, 19) the voluntary submission of the Cyprians stands
in direct connection with their participation in the campaign against
Egypt; hence it cannot be placed earlier. If Xenophon ("Inst. Cyri," 1,
1) represents the Cyprians as already subjugated by Cyrus, he maintains
the same of Egypt also. On the other hand, the statement of Xenophon
that the Cyprians retained their native kings owing to their voluntary
submission is amply confirmed by later events ("Inst. 2 Cyri." 7, 4, 2;
8, 6, 8).

[148] Herod. 3, 44.

[149] According to Lepsius, Amasis died in January 525, and hence
Memphis fell in July of this year: "Monatsberichte Berl. Akademie,"
1854. The Psammenitus of Herodotus is called Psammecherites in Manetho;
and Psamtik on the monuments. Rosell. "Monum. storici." 2, 153; 4, 105.

[150] Diod. "Exc. de virtute," p. 557; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 9. In
regard to the campaign we may compare the march of Pharnabazus and
Iphicrates against Nectanebos in the year 374 B.C., in Diod. 15, 41-43.
Aristot. "Rhet." 2, 8, 12.

[151] Herod. 2, 181. De Rougé, "Revue Archeol," 8, 3; Brugsch, "Hist. of
Egypt," 2, 294.

[152] Aristot. "Rhet." 2, 8, 12.

[153] Herod. 2, 181.

[154] Herod. 3, 37.




CHAPTER XI.

THE MARCH TO MEROE.


More than two centuries before Cambyses set foot upon its soil, Egypt
had experienced the rule of the stranger. The reign of the Ethiopic
monarchs of Napata over Egypt (730-672 B.C.) was followed by the more
severe dominion of the Assyrians. But Psammetichus had been able to
restore the kingdom, and the sovereignty of his house; the reign of
Amasis had called into existence a beautiful after-bloom of Egyptian
art, had given a lively impulse to trade, and increased the welfare of
the land. Now the day of Pelusium and the fall of Memphis had decided
the fate of Egypt irrevocably and for all time. The kingdom had been
founded from Memphis three thousand years previously, and at Memphis it
was now overthrown. Egypt, in spite of repeated and stubborn attempts,
was never able to recover from the dominion of the Persians, and even
the fall of the Persian empire did not permit the rise of the Egypt of
the Egyptians.

The speedy and great success which Cambyses achieved had effects beyond
the borders of Egypt. Herodotus narrates that the Libyans in their
anxiety about the fortune of Egypt submitted to Cambyses without a
battle, promised to pay tribute, and sent presents. The Cyrenaeans also
and Barcaeans from similar apprehensions had done the same. The
presents of the Libyans were graciously accepted by Cambyses, but the
500 minae which the Cyrenaeans sent, he threw with his own hand among
the people because "it was too little."[155] Diodorus explains the
anxiety of the Libyans and Cyrenaeans, "after Cambyses had become lord
of the whole of Egypt" and the voluntary submission which was the
consequence of it, by the fact that the Libyans and Cyrenaeans had
fought against Cambyses with the Egyptians. We know from other sources
that the princes of Cyrene were in close and friendly connection with
Amasis.[156] The subjugation of the Libyans cannot have extended farther
than to the tribes adjacent to the Delta, and reaching towards the west
perhaps as far as Cyrene. At that time Archelaus III. was the king of
Cyrene. More than a century before, Greeks from the island of Thera had
founded the city on the well-watered and grassy slopes which run from
the table-land of Barca to the sea. Ever since that time the family of
Battus and Archelaus had reigned over this settlement, which, owing to
its favoured position and lively trade, rose quickly to power and
wealth. The attack which Pharaoh-Hophra made upon it in the year 571
B.C. had been successfully repulsed by the Cyrenaeans (III. 405).
Subsequently, about the year 545 B.C., Battus III. had been compelled to
submit to a constitutional form of government which restricted the
monarchy to a hereditary presidentship. Discontented with this position,
Archelaus III. attempted to recover the old powers. The attempt failed,
Archelaus fled, and found shelter with Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos.
When he had collected there an army of adventurers he returned at their
head, subverted the constitution, and set on foot a cruel persecution
against all who had adhered to it. He may have felt the ground insecure
under his feet in the city; the fall of Egypt deprived him of the
support which he had had in that country, and if he had really sent a
contingent to aid Psammenitus he had to fear the vengeance of Cambyses.
These were reasons enough for seeking the protection of the Persian
king. He recognised the sovereignty of Cambyses, and sent that sum of
money as the first proof of his submission.

"Cambyses now proposed to himself a threefold expedition," so Herodotus
relates; "one against the Carthaginians, a second against the Ammonians,
and a third against the long-lived Ethiopians, who inhabit Libya on the
southern sea. It seemed best to send the fleet against the
Carthaginians, and a part of the land army against the Ammonians, but to
the Ethiopians envoys were first sent. When he had given this command he
ordered fish-eaters to be brought from Elephantine (the island on the
Nile on the border of Egypt) who were acquainted with the language of
the Ethiopians. While these were being brought he ordered the fleet to
set out against Carthage. But the Phenicians refused; they were bound by
great oaths, and they would be guilty of a crime if they went against
their own children. As the Phenicians refused, the rest (_i.e._ the
Greeks) were not strong enough, and so the Carthaginians escaped slavery
under the Persians. For Cambyses could not do violence to the
Phenicians, because they had voluntarily submitted to the Persians (p.
90), and the whole naval power rested on the Phenicians. When the
fish-eaters had come, they were told what they had to say to the
Ethiopians, and received the presents which they had to take--a purple
robe, a golden necklace and bracelets, a box of alabaster filled with
ointment, and a jar of palm-wine. The Ethiopians to whom they were sent
were said to be the tallest and most beautiful of men, and as they live
under laws which are different from those of other men, they were said
to regard the man who is the tallest and strongest among them as the
most worthy of the throne."

"When the fish-eaters reached the Ethiopians and gave over their
presents to the king, they said: 'Cambyses, the king of the Persians,
wishes to be your friend and sends you as presents these things in which
he takes most delight himself.' The Ethiopians answered: 'The Persian
king has not sent you with these presents because he wishes to be my
friend, and ye are not speaking the truth. You have been sent to spy out
my kingdom, and he is not a righteous man. If he were righteous he would
not have desired another land than his own, nor would he have reduced
men to slavery from whom he had suffered no wrong. Give him this bow
(the bows of the Ethiopians were of palm-wood and more than four cubits
in length),[157] and say to the king of the Persians, that when his
people can string a bow of that size he may march against the long-lived
Ethiopians with an overwhelming army; till then, he may thank the gods
that it has not occurred to the sons of the Ethiopians to conquer
another land in addition to their own.' Then he gave them the bow, and
he took the purple robe, and asked what it was and how it was made. And
when the fish-eaters gave him a true account of the purple and the
dyeing, he said that the men were deceivers and their garments
deceptive. When he saw the necklace and bracelets, the king laughed,
for he imagined that they were fetters; their fetters, he said, were
stronger. Then he inquired about the ointment, and when the preparation
and use of this were explained, he said the same as about the robes. The
wine he drank and it pleased him greatly, and he asked what the king of
Persia ate, and what was the greatest age to which the Persians lived.
They replied that he ate bread, and explained the nature of wheat; they
also put the greatest age to which the Persians lived at eighty years.
The king replied that he did not wonder that their years were few,
inasmuch as they ate dirt, and they would not live so long as they did,
if the drink did not strengthen them--in that matter the Persians had
the advantage. Of the Ethiopians most lived to 120 years, and some even
longer; their food was cooked flesh, and their drink milk. When the
envoys returned and Cambyses received their account, he fell into a
passion, and marched against the Ethiopians without taking measures for
the supply of provisions or considering that he was about to march to
the end of the world, but like one distraught and out of his mind, he
set forth on his expedition as soon as he heard the account of the
fish-eaters. No Persian was able to draw the bow of the Ethiopians;
Smerdis alone, the brother of Cambyses, was able to draw it two
finger-breadths.[158] Cambyses bade the Greeks who were with him (_i.e._
the crews of the Greek ships) to remain in Egypt; but the whole of the
rest of the army he took with him. When he came to Thebes, he sent
50,000 men away with orders to enslave the Ammonians and burn the oracle
of Zeus; with the rest he marched against the Ethiopians. But before the
army had traversed a fifth part of the way all their provisions were
consumed, and not long after even the beasts of burden were eaten. If
Cambyses when he saw this had given up his intention, and led the army
back, he would have shown himself a wise man after his first mistake,
but he went recklessly onward. So long as the soldiers found anything
growing on the ground, they ate herbs and grass; but when they came to
the sand, some of them did a horrid deed; they drew lots for the tenth
man and ate him. When Cambyses heard of this, he was distressed that the
soldiers should eat each other, abandoned the war against the
Ethiopians, marched back, and reached Thebes after losing many men. This
was the end of the expedition against the Ethiopians. But with regard to
those who were sent against the Ammonians it is only known that they
reached the city of Oasis where the Samians dwell, seven days' march
distant from Thebes through the desert; in the Greek language this place
is called the island of the blessed. To this place the army came; but
beyond this no man knows anything except what the Ammonians say. They
relate that when they marched from the oasis through the sand and were
about midway between the oasis and the Ammonians, and were eating
breakfast, a great wind from the south blew up a mass of sand and
overwhelmed them, and in this way they perished." Diodorus represents
Cambyses as making the attempt to subjugate the Ethiopians with a great
host, in which he lost the whole of his army and was in the greatest
danger.[159]

If the legend of the Greeks of the fortunes of Psammenitus after his
defeat exhibits analogous traits to the legend, also Greek, of the fate
of Croesus after his capture, the account given by Herodotus of the
march of Cambyses against the long-lived Ethiopians reminds us of his
account of the march of Cyrus against the Massagetæ. In both cases the
aim is directed against unknown foreign nations, against whom there is
no reason to make war; in both cases good sense, moderation, wisdom, and
love of peace are found in the chief of the barbarians; in both envoys
are sent under false pretences; in both the conversation on either side
is accurately known. In the first case it is a foolish resolution which
brings ruin; in the second it is the vexation of Cambyses at the answer
of the Ethiopians, and the inability to draw the bow, which causes him
to lead his army without any hesitation into destruction. Along with
other indications, the test of the bow here, like the bottle in the
other legend, points to a poetical source.

We have seen that the ancient Pharaohs, the Sesurtesen and Amenemha,
Tuthmosis and Amenophis, and after them Sethos and Ramses II., had
extended the dominion of Egypt up the Nile to Semne and Cumne, and
subsequently to Mount Barkal. The Egyptian language, worship, and art
spread in this direction, and with the decline of the Egyptian power
after the time of the Ramessids (from the year 1100 B.C.), an
independent state grew up, the metropolis of which was Napata, near the
modern Meravi, on Mount Barkal. The princes of this state in their turn,
from king Pianchi onwards, had forced their way down the Nile.[160]
Sabakon, Sebichos, and Tirhaka had governed Napata and Egypt. After
Sabakon had come into conflict with the Assyrians at Raphia in Syria
(720 B.C.), and Tirhaka at Altaku (701 B.C.), Tirhaka succumbed in the
year 672 B.C. to the arms of Esarhaddon. Repeated attempts of Tirhaka
and his son Urdamane upon Egypt were wrecked; Esarhaddon calls himself
king of Miluhhi and Cush. Assurbanipal boasts that he pursued Urdamane
as far as the land of Cush. But the kingdom of Napata, which the
inscriptions of Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal call
Miluhhi (Meroe[161])--in the inscriptions on Mount Barkal we find the
names Meru and Merua--continued to exist, and maintained itself against
the restoration of Egyptian power under Psammetichus and his successors.
We cannot doubt that Cambyses wished to penetrate up the Nile at least
as far as the army of the Assyrians, that he felt it necessary to secure
his dominion in Egypt against attacks from Napata, and to extend his
dominion as far up the Nile as the army of the old Pharaohs had reached.
That the prince, who, as we saw, made the most careful preparations for
the campaign against Egypt, should have thrown himself foolishly and
recklessly into this undertaking, as Herodotus represents, is
incredible, and the statement must be attributed to special tendencies
in the sources used by the historian. So far as Meroe, Herodotus tells
us from information collected at Elephantine on the southern border of
Egypt, the way lay up and on the Nile. First there were four days'
journey from Elephantine (against the stream), then forty days' march
along the river, since the rocks made navigation impossible, and then
after twelve days' voyage the great city of Meroe was reached, the
metropolis of the rest of the Ethiopians. The distance to the place
where the Egyptians lived who had emigrated under Psammetichus (III.
307) was not less than the distance from Elephantine to Meroe, and it
was a long journey for them to the long-lived Ethiopians. The total of
56 days' journey from the way from Elephantine to Meroe upon or along
the Nile points to a place much higher up the river than Napata. The new
Meroe is meant, which the princes of Napata, receding before the
Persians, had founded before the time of Herodotus.[162] Herodotus'
statements that the Ethiopians worshipped Zeus and Dionysus alone among
the gods, and worshipped them very zealously, that there was an oracle
of Zeus in their country, and that it was only by its command that they
went to war, are completely established by the monuments of Napata. They
show that the worship of Ammon, the god of Thebes and upper Egypt, and
that of Osiris whom the Greeks, as we know, compared with their
Dionysus, were zealously prosecuted. From inscriptions and intelligence
of other kinds we have also ample information of the influence of the
priests, and the importance of the oracle in the kingdom of Napata. The
fame of the priesthood at Napata may be the basis of the "pious
Ethiopians" of Homer; the same piety, though further removed, is shown
in Herodotus' narrative of the long-lived Ethiopians.

When Cambyses, so Strabo tells us, had made himself master of Egypt, he
advanced to Meroe (Napata), and it is said that he gave the name to the
city in honour of his wife, or his sister, as others say, who was buried
there. Diodorus indeed tells us that Cambyses founded the famous city of
Meroe, and gave it the name of Meroe after his mother.[163] Josephus
also observes that Cambyses changed the name of the royal city of the
Ethiopians and called it Meroe.[164] However unfounded may be the
assertion that the name of Meroe proceeded from Cambyses--for we find it
used two centuries previously by the Assyrians--it is quite clear from
these statements that Cambyses did advance as far as the old metropolis
of the Ethiopians and brought it into his power; that he conquered and
maintained the kingdom of Napata. Indeed Herodotus tells us elsewhere
himself that he advanced far beyond Napata to the south. "In his
campaign against the long-lived Ethiopians," we are told in this
passage, "Cambyses subjugated the Ethiopians who dwell around the sacred
Nysa, and hold festivals in honour of Dionysus." The position of the
mythical Nysa, we cannot, it is true, define more precisely than that a
Homeric hymn puts it above the fountains of the Nile,[165] and Herodotus
himself places it above Egypt in Ethiopia;[166] but inasmuch as these
Ethiopians of Nysa wore leopard and lion skins, according to Herodotus,
and were armed with clubs; as their arrow-heads were made of sharp
stones, and their lances of the horns of antelopes; as they painted
themselves half red and half white in battle;[167] as they had to pay
to the Persians every third year two hundred logs of ebony, twenty large
tusks of elephants, five boys, and two choenixes of unrefined gold,[168]
Cambyses must have penetrated into the land of the negroes, the zone of
ebony and the elephant. On the middle course of the Nile in Nubia, and
above Napata, there were tribes akin to the Egyptians; the land of the
negroes began about the union of the White and Blue Nile. The monuments
of Egypt comprise both populations under the name Cush, the name of the
land of the south, and they exhibit these southern nations as partly red
and partly black. The Greeks call the red and black inhabitants of the
land of the south, Ethiopians. According to the statements of
Artemidorus of Ephesus and of Agatharchides, which have been preserved
by Strabo and Diodorus, the land of the elephant-hunters and
ostrich-eaters, who fought with the Ethiopians, men armed with the horns
of the antelope, began south of the confluence of the Atbara and
Bahr-el-Azrek or Blue River, and the Nile.[169] At the present time the
region of the ebony-woods and elephants begins in the marsh at the foot
of the Abyssinian Alps; elephants are not found elsewhere except in some
more northern regions on the Red Sea; and that the Ethiopians did not
acquire the elephants' tusks in the way of trade is proved by the small
amount of gold which they had to pay as tribute. As we find in the
reliefs of Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustem, among the nations of the
Persian kingdom, certain figures which are marked out as negroes by
their short, curly hair, their snub nose, their bare breast and the
animal's skin on the shoulders; as the Ethiopians of Nysa and their
neighbours served, according to Herodotus, in the army of Xerxes, and
paid the tribute mentioned, as Herodotus expressly tells us, even in his
day, the march of Cambyses must have penetrated beyond the mouth of the
Atbara, and Napata must have been permanently maintained, otherwise such
distant tribes would not have furnished contingents in war fifty years
later, and their tribute would have come to an end long before
Herodotus.

Hence Cambyses did not, as the account of Herodotus represents, return
to Egypt from the upper Nile without success. On the contrary, he
penetrated much further than the Assyrians, and his campaign had more
lasting results than the conquests of Tuthmosis III. and Ramses II. on
the upper Nile. The account given by Herodotus of the distress into
which the army fell, the statement that the soldiers ate each other
(which is also told of the expedition of Cyrus to the Indus), and that
the retreat to Egypt was thus brought about, is hardly compatible with
such results and so firmly-established a supremacy. Yet we may suppose
that Cambyses wished to penetrate even further than the junction of the
White and Blue Nile, and there fell into difficulties. But it is
probable that quite another incident lies at the base of the legend of
the distress of Cambyses "in the sand." At Premnis on the Nile, Pliny
mentions "the market of Cambyses;" in Ptolemy the same place is called
"the Magazine of Cambyses." Strabo, when narrating the campaign which
Petronius took in the year 24 B.C. against Napata, tells us, that after
Petronius had taken Pselchis (140 miles above Elephantine) he came to
Premnis (150 miles further up the Nile, below Abu Simbel and the falls
of Wadi Halfa), "after he had marched through the sand-heaps in which
the army of Cambyses was buried by a sudden wind." Thus, five hundred
years after the campaign of Cambyses, the tradition was in existence,
that his army had been buried there. Hence when Napata had been
conquered, and the negro stems subjugated, when Mount Barkal and the
falls of Wadi Halfa were already behind the army on the return journey,
it was overtaken by a sand-storm in the neighbourhood of Egypt, and a
part of the army, though not the whole, was buried.[170]

Herodotus told us above that Cambyses in his march against the
Ethiopians sent a section of his army against the Ammonians, to reduce
them to slavery, and burn the oracle of Ammon there. Diodorus repeats
the statement of Herodotus almost in the same words. Justin observes,
that Cambyses had sent an army for the conquest of the famous temple of
Ammon, but it was overwhelmed by a storm and masses of sand. Herodotus'
narrative of this campaign cannot have arisen from the source from which
he took the striking traits of his account of the march against the
long-lived Ethiopians. Had this treated of the march against the
Ammonians it would have given some account of the issue of it; but
Herodotus expressly tells us that only the Ammonians could give an
account of this. His authority therefore was a Greek-Egyptian tradition.
The Ammonians inhabited the oasis of Sivah, which lies in the desert to
the west of Egypt: the worship of Ammon was carried there by Egyptian
settlers and Egyptian influence.[171] We cannot doubt that Cambyses,
after Cyrene and the tribes of the Libyans between Egypt and Cyrene had
submitted, sent a part of his army to obtain possession of this oasis.
The oasis of Ammon was well adapted to keep the Libyans of the coast as
well as the Cyrenaeans in subjection; and was at the same time an
important station for trade, and a desirable point of support for
further undertakings in the West. The command to enslave the inhabitants
of the oasis and burn the temple, is part of the conception which
represents Cambyses as setting out against the Ethiopians in a moment of
reckless passion. According to Herodotus, the expedition to Sivah came
in seven days after leaving Thebes to "the Island of the Blest," _i.e._
to the oasis El Charigeh, which as a fact is seven good days' march from
Thebes in the desert.[172] From this point the army had to proceed about
500 miles; at present the caravans go northward from El Charigeh, then
to the west from the oasis of Kasr, to Sivah. What happened to the army
on one of these routes, no one, Herodotus says, can tell; the Ammonians
declared that it was buried half way between El Charigeh and Sivah.

It would be rash to connect the heaps of bones which a traveller in our
times saw in the neighbourhood of the oasis of Kasr with the destruction
of the army of Cambyses,[173] and it is surprising that the Persians
took the longer route from Thebes, when the shorter route which led from
Memphis to Sivah was already frequented. Alexander of Macedon, in order
to reach the Ammonians, marched from the Mareotic Lake along the coast
westward to Paraetonium, then he turned directly to the south, and in
eight marches reached the oasis. A modern traveller reached it in
fifteen days from Fayum, in 1809, and the troops of Mahomet Ali who
subjugated Sivah in 1820 to Egypt (2000 men and 500 camels with water)
reached it in fourteen days. Most remarkable of all is the fact, that
both campaigns of Cambyses were overtaken by the same disaster. The
direction taken by each does not allow us to connect the two; the route
to Sivah could not be past Pselchis and Premnis. Yet neither one nor the
other disaster is in itself incredible, though 50,000 men cannot have
perished. Some 70 years ago a caravan of about 2000 souls was buried in
a sand-storm on the road from Darfur to Egypt.[174] But even if the
division which was despatched against the oasis of Ammon succumbed to
the storms of the desert, Cambyses maintained the oasis El Charigeh,
which Herodotus calls the city Oasis and the Island of the Blessed. The
magnificent remains of a temple which Darius the son of Hystaspes caused
to be erected there to the god of the oasis, the ram-headed Ammon, prove
that the oasis was conquered and held by Cambyses.[175]

Like the undertaking against the Ammonians, the intention of Cambyses to
send the fleet against Carthage was evidence of his plan of extending
his power to the west, and achieving in Africa what his father had done
in Asia. Herodotus gives the account of the order commanding the fleet
to sail, of the refusal of the Phenicians, and the abandonment of the
project by Cambyses, according to the tradition of the Greeks, who
together with the Phenicians made up the fleet of Cambyses and the
Greeks in Egypt. There is no reason to doubt the statement. By the
submission of the Cyrenaeans and Barcaeans Cambyses became the neighbour
of Carthage, which had lately united the Phenician colonies of West
Africa under her leadership and was eager to oppose the advance of the
Greeks in the west of the Mediterranean, the settlement of their
colonies to the west of the great Syrtis, and their progress in
Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. If the attempt to advance to the desert
to the west of El Charigeh were already wrecked, if Cambyses had already
returned from Napata when he commanded the fleet to sail against
Carthage, new successes covered that disaster as well as the calamity of
Premnis, and the gain of Carthage was of more importance than that of
the oasis of Sivah. The old Phenicians of the East, in union with the
navy of the Anatolian cities, was to conquer the new Phoenicia of the
West. The Greeks no doubt were ready, but the Phenicians refused. By
injuring their colonies in the West they would have rendered the
greatest service to the rival naval power and trade of the Greeks; in
Anatolia and on the coasts of Sicily they would probably have given a
fatal blow to their own power by sea. Whether Cambyses saw this
connection of affairs, and felt that the subjection of Carthage would
liberate the independent Greeks from a dangerous neighbour, and the
dependent Greeks from a rival in trade, or whether he simply gave way to
the refusal of the Phenicians, we cannot decide: we only know that "as
the fleet of the Phenicians refused,"--and it formed the preponderating
part of the naval force,--it was impossible to compel it to go.

FOOTNOTES:

[155] Herod. 3, 13.

[156] Diod. "Exc. de legat." p. 619 = 10, 14.

[157] Herod. 7, 69. Cf. Strabo, p. 802.

[158] Herod. 3, 30.

[159] Herod. 3, 17-26; Diod. 3, 1.

[160] Vol. III. 63 ff. 159.

[161] The name Miluhhi is nevertheless used so often in the inscription
of the kings, and in such close connection with Egypt, that the kingdom
of Napata may merely be meant. Assurbanipal tells us that his brother
seduced into rebellion "the princes of Miluhhi whom he subjugated." Vol.
III. 170.

[162] Herod. 2, 29; Strabo, p. 786. Herodotus' statements, like those of
the later authorities from Eratosthenes to Strabo and Pliny, have the
second, more southern, Meroe in view, the ruins of which were found at
Begerauieh, above the mouth of the Atbara, some 150 miles as the crow
flies to the south of Napata. They describe this Meroe as situated on an
island, because the Atbara was regarded as an arm of the Nile. The ruins
at Begerauieh are less important and artistic than those of Napata, the
hieroglyphics are of another kind. As the Persians maintained their hold
on Napata, a new metropolis of the Ethiopian kingdom obviously grew up
at this place after the times of Cambyses and Darius, which adopted the
name and civilization of the old.

[163] Strabo, p. 790; Diod. 1, 33.

[164] "Antiq." 2, 10.

[165] "Hymn." 26, 9.

[166] "Hymn." 2, 146.

[167] "Hymn." 7, 69.

[168] "Hymn." 3, 97.

[169] Diod. 3, 26, 33; Strabo, p. 772.

[170] Plin. "H. N." 6, 35; Strabo, p. 822.

[171] Herod. 2, 42.

[172] Parthey, "Die Oase des Jupiter Ammon, Abh. Berl. Akad." 1862, s.
159 ff.

[173] Belzoni, "Narrative," p. 398.

[174] Ritter, "Erdkunde," 2, 1, 397.

[175] Lepsius, "Trinuthis, Z. Aegypt. Sprache," 1874, s. 76 ff.




CHAPTER XII.

THE DEATH OF CAMBYSES.


"When Cambyses returned from Thebes to Memphis," so Herodotus narrates,
"Apis appeared to the Egyptians. They put on their best clothes, and
made holiday. Cambyses seeing this, formed the opinion that they held
the festival because misfortune had happened to him. He summoned the
governors of Memphis, and when they came into his presence asked them
why the Egyptians had done nothing of this kind when he had been in
Memphis before, but only now that he had lost the greater part of his
army. They replied that their god had appeared to them, who for a long
time had been wont to appear, and when he appeared all the Egyptians
were delighted. When Cambyses heard this he said that they lied, and
punished them with death. He then sent for the priests, and when they
said the same, he said that he would soon ascertain whether a tame deity
had appeared to the Egyptians, and commanded them to bring out Apis.
Apis was brought out, and Cambyses mad as he was drew his sword. He
meant to stab Apis in the belly, but he hit the thigh and said with a
laugh to the priests: 'Wretches, are these creatures gods, which have
flesh and blood, and feel iron? Such a god is worthy of the Egyptians.
But you shall not mock me for nothing,' He gave command to scourge the
priests and slay every Egyptian who was found making holiday. In this
way the festival came to an end; the priests were punished, the Apis
died in the temple of the wound in his thigh, and the priests buried him
secretly unknown to Cambyses.[176] But the king remained in Memphis and
raged against the Egyptians, the allies, and the Persians. He caused the
old sepulchres to be opened and looked at the corpses; he went into the
temple of Hephaestus (Ptah, I. 43), and desecrated the image of the god
in various ways. He also entered the temple of the Cabiri (belonging to
the Phenicians at Memphis, III. 310), which none but the priests may
enter, and outraged the images and burned them."[177] Diodorus observes
that Cambyses, as was said, took away the Golden Zone in the Ramesseum,
which measured 365 cubits, one for each day in the year, and was a cubit
thick.[178] Justin tells us quite generally that Cambyses, enraged at
the superstition of the Egyptians, gave orders for the destruction of
the temples of Apis and the other gods.[179]

In the narrative of Herodotus the best reason given for the wounding of
Apis is the vexation of the king at the failure of his campaigns against
the Ethiopians and Ammonians, and the refusal of the Phenicians; and the
belief that the festival of Apis was merely an excuse for making merry
over the blows which had fallen upon him. If Cambyses tells the priests,
who exhibit Apis to him as a god who has recently appeared to them, that
"they lied," it was very difficult for a worshipper of Auramazda to
believe that a young bull was a god, and the highest god, and the "lie"
with which Cambyses charges them, seems to be an accurate trait
corresponding to the conceptions of the Avesta about the "lying gods,"
and to the Zoroastrian respect for the truth. There could hardly be a
more strongly-marked contrast than between the worship of Auramazda, the
creator of heaven and earth, and surrounded by the light spirits of the
sky, in which no images were allowed, and the rites of the Egyptians,
their worship of numerous images of the most extraordinary form in
splendid temples, their adoration of the sacred animals, in which these
deities appeared, and were thought to be present,--between their anxious
care for the preservation of the corpse, and the eagerness of the
Iranians to remove the impure remains of man. Cambyses might in all
honesty believe that he was in contact with a stupid worship of idols, a
senseless adoration of calves, crocodiles, and serpents, and a nation of
"liars."

But if he held such opinions, he did not act on them. If he had outraged
the worship of Egypt in the manner represented by the legends of the
Egyptians in Herodotus and Justin, the country could hardly have
remained at rest after his death, when almost all the other lands
rebelled against the Persians. Egyptian inscriptions prove that under
Cambyses there was no sort of religious persecution, but quite the
reverse. In the tombs of the Apis, on the plateau of Memphis, on the
vestibule of the new gallery which Psammetichus had caused to be
hollowed out for them, when the old gallery of Ramses II. was filled, we
see on a pillar Cambyses adoring the Apis. The inscription tells us: "In
the year four, in the month Epiphi, in the reign of Cambyses
(Kambathet), the immortal, the god was brought here for the burial which
the king ordained for him. A second Apis, the successor of that which
was buried, was born, as the inscription of the Apis tombs tells us, on
the 28th Tybi, in the fifth year of the reign of Cambyses.[180]
Inscriptions found on the statue of an Egyptian, Uzahorsun (at present
in the Vatican), tell us that he had been a magistrate under Amasis and
Psammenitus (Psamtik III.), and afterwards under Cambyses and Darius.
'When the great prince, the lord of the world, Kambathet,'[181] so we
are told in these, 'marched against Egypt, all the nations of the earth
were with him.' He became lord of the whole land, and settled therein.
He was the great lord of Egypt, the great prince of the whole world, the
king of upper and lower Egypt, Ra-mesut (_i.e._ Ra born again[182]). And
his holiness conferred on me the dignity of a counsellor and overseer of
the royal gates, and commanded that I should ever be where he was. I
brought a complaint before his holiness touching the people who were in
the temple of Neith, that they might be driven out, that the temple
might be purified and clean as before. His holiness commanded the temple
to be purified, and the sacred gifts to be brought as before to Neith,
the great mother of the great gods who dwell in Sais. And his holiness
commanded to celebrate all the great and little festivals, as had been
done before. This his holiness did because he had commanded me to
announce to him the greatness of Sais, which is the city of all the
gods, who are there enthroned on their seats for ever. When the king of
upper and lower Egypt came to Sais, he entered himself into the temple
of Neith. He visited the sacred place of her holiness the goddess, as
every king had done. His holiness did this on the information which he
had received of the greatness of her holiness, who is the mother of the
sun himself. His holiness performed all the rites in the temple of
Neith. He offered a libation of the lord of Eternity (Osiris) in the
inner chamber of the temple of Neith, as all kings had done before him.
On the command of his holiness, the worship of Neith, the great mother
of the gods, was re-established in all its completeness for ever. I have
provided the sacred worship of Neith, the lady of Sais, with all good
things, as a good servant does for his master. I have re-established the
priests in their office, and on the command of the king have given them
rich possessions to be their own for ever. I have erected a good
sepulchre for him who was without a coffin. I was a good citizen of my
city. I have caused its children to live. I have set up all their
houses; I have shown them every kindness as a father for his son. I have
rescued their population, when disaster fell upon their canton, at a
time when there was great calamity in all the land. Never did such
calamity fall upon their land before."[183]

This inscription, like those on the Apis tombs, proves that Cambyses in
Egypt, like his father in Babylon, wished to take the place of the old
princes of the land, and did take it; and that he bore the titles of the
ancient Pharaohs, and that a regal-name Ra-mesut was added to his name,
as was the custom with his predecessors. He undertook the protection of
the ancient gods of the land; he allowed Egyptians, servants of the old
king's, to come into his immediate service; he listened to their advice;
heard their complaints about the outrages done to the temple, which
could hardly have been avoided in the occupation (p. 147), and removed
the cause; restored the priests to the enjoyment of their incomes;
showed respect to their religion, and allowed it to continue without
restriction. However great we suppose the care to be which the Egyptian
inscriptions take to say no evil of the Persian king, whatever weight we
ascribe to the fact that after the Persians had once become their
masters, the priests followed the traditional custom in denoting the
kings of the Persians by the titles of their Pharaohs; whatever
importance we allow to the fact that the priests were closely interested
in representing religious affairs as unaltered even after the change in
the rulers, and however much we deduct from their formal style on the
score of these considerations--it still remains an established fact,
from these inscriptions, that Cambyses did not oppress the Egyptians or
their religion. The purification of one of the largest and most sacred
temples in Egypt, the restoration of the priesthood and the worship at
the temple, could not have been ascribed to Cambyses if the opposite was
known to be the case. On the other hand, the narrative of Uzahorsun
presents us with the natural course of affairs. If he speaks of a great
calamity such as had never before fallen on the district of Sais and the
whole land, this refers to the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, since
he claims the merit of having rescued the population at Sais in this
calamity. We saw above, from the narrative of Herodotus, that Cambyses
went to Sais, after the capture of Memphis. The inscriptions show that
the priests had been driven from the temple of Neith, that the soldiers
were quartered in it, that sacrifice and worship came to an end. But it
also teaches us that Cambyses removed these evils. Whether he felt
himself called upon to offer gifts in the temple of Neith and pour
libations, or whether the priests when restored to possession of the
temple property did this on his behalf, is indifferent; the inscription
and Herodotus tell us that he entered the temple in person. Of the two
Apis-bulls which the inscriptions mention as belonging to the reign of
Cambyses, the first, which was buried in Epiphi of the fourth year of
Cambyses, may have been that which the king is said to have wounded
after his return from Napata. But Herodotus observes that the priests
buried this Apis "secretly." This is contradicted by the sepulchral
pillar, inasmuch as Cambyses causes a place to be prepared for the
burial of this Apis, and we have a picture of Cambyses in adoration
before this Apis. The hypothesis, which we might frame, that the priests
have given themselves the satisfaction of representing Cambyses as
entreating the pardon of the god whom he had slain in a holy place,
little visited by the Persians, would be very artificial and
insufficient to account for this glaring contradiction.

Hence we have to correct in some very essential points the
Greek-Egyptian tradition of Cambyses. Though the Egyptians might
attempt, as we saw, to change Cambyses into the grandson of their own
Pharaoh Hophra, the people could hardly fail to attribute evil deeds and
crimes to the man who had deprived their land of its independence, who
had caused them painfully to feel the loss of their pride, the antiquity
and the monuments of their history, their wisdom and art, a loss which
they felt deeply as their repeated and stubborn rebellions show. But
Herodotus would be the more ready to give credence to the narrative of
the Egyptians of the wounding of Apis, because it explained the
miserable death of Cambyses as the just punishment for this crime.
Besides there were narratives of the Persians, which tended to impress
on Cambyses the traits which he bears in Herodotus.

"Smerdis, the brother of Cambyses," so Herodotus further narrates, "was
with him in Egypt. Cambyses sent him back out of jealousy, because he
was able to draw the bow of the Ethiopians further than all the rest of
the Persians. When Smerdis had returned to Persia, Cambyses saw in a
dream a messenger from Persia, who told him, that his brother sat up on
the throne and that his head touched heaven. He was afraid that his
brother would slay him and take possession of the kingdom; hence he sent
Prexaspes the Persian in whom he had most confidence to Persia to put
him to death. Prexaspes went to Susa, and slew Smerdis as some say,
while hunting with him, but according to others, by taking him out on
the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf) and throwing him into the water. This was
the first evil deed which Cambyses committed immediately after his crime
against Apis. The second he committed against his own sister, by the
same father and mother (_i.e._ against the youngest of the three
daughters whom Cassandane bore to Cyrus; her name has not come down to
us with certainty). He was seized with a passion for one of his sisters,
and desired to have her to wife; but as he saw that this was unusual,
for up to this time the Persians had not taken sisters to wife, he asked
the royal judges (p. 105) whether there was any law which stood in the
way of his wish to marry his sister. The judges made a reply which was
both just and safe; they could find no law which bade the brother marry
the sister, but they had found a law which allowed the king of the
Persians to do as he pleased. Then Cambyses married the sister whom he
loved, and after this a second younger sister. The latter followed him
to Egypt. Here she witnessed, together with Cambyses, a young lion
fighting against a young dog, and when the dog was being beaten, its
brother broke its chain and came to its aid, and the two together got
the better of the lion. Cambyses was delighted at the sight, but his
sister wept. When Cambyses perceived this he asked the cause of her
tears; she replied that she wept because she thought of Smerdis when she
saw the brother running to help the brother, and knew that no one would
come to help him (Cambyses). For this speech, the Greeks say, Cambyses
put his sister to death. The Egyptian account is that at table she took
a lettuce, stripped off the leaves and asked Cambyses whether it looked
better when bare or when full of leaves, and when he replied that it
looked better when full of leaves, she retorted: 'And yet you have made
it bare by desolating the house of Cyrus.' In a rage Cambyses gave her a
kick, and as she was pregnant, she miscarried and died. Such was the
fury of Cambyses against his own family, and he was guilty of similar
acts against the Persians. He asked those Persians who sat with him and
Croesus what sort of a man he appeared to be in comparison with his
father. They replied that he was greater than his father; for he
possessed all that Cyrus had possessed, and Egypt and the sea in
addition. This answer did not please Croesus, who said: 'O son of
Cyrus, to me thou seemest not to be equal to thy father, for thou hast
not a son to leave behind thee such as he left in thee'; and when he
heard this Cambyses was pleased and praised the answer of Croesus. He is
said once to have asked Prexaspes whom he most honoured, and who carried
in messages to him--his son was cup-bearer to Cambyses, an office of no
slight honour--What do the Persians think and say of me? Prexaspes
replied: 'O Sire, in all other things they praise thee greatly, but they
say thou art too much given to wine.' Cambyses answered in displeasure:
'So the Persians now say that owing to wine I am mad and not in my right
mind; their previous answer was untrue.' He remembered that they had
called him greater than Cyrus, and said to Prexaspes: 'See now for
yourself whether the Persians speak the truth, or whether they tell
foolish tales. There is your son in the portico; if I hit him in the
heart it is clear that the Persians are wrong in what they say. But if I
miss they are right and I am not in my senses.' The king drew the bow,
hit the youth, ordered the body to be opened and the wound to be
examined. When it was found that the arrow was in the heart he laughed,
and in great delight said to the father: 'Now I have proved to you,
Prexaspes, that I am not mad, but that the Persians are out of their
senses. Tell me now, did you ever see such an archer?' As Prexaspes saw
that he was not in his right mind, and was afraid for himself, he
replied: 'I believe that God himself could not shoot so well.' On
another occasion he caused twelve of the leading Persians for some
trifling cause to be buried alive, head downwards. Then Croesus felt it
right to warn him with words such as these: 'O king, do not yield in
everything to youth and anger; restrain and bridle thyself. It is good
to look beforehand, and prudence is wise. Thou slayest men of thy own
nation without good reason and killest youths. If thou persistest in
this, beware lest the Persians fall from thee. Thy father Cyrus charged
and bade me many times to warn thee and counsel thee for good.' Cambyses
answered: 'Dost thou venture to advise me, who hast governed thine own
land so well, and advised my father to cross the Araxes against the
Massagetæ, when they were willing to come over the river? A bad ruler of
your country, you have brought yourself to destruction, and Cyrus also
who followed your advice: you shall not escape me; I have long been
seeking for an excuse to take you.' He seized his bow in order to shoot
him, but Croesus escaped and ran out. As he could not shoot him, he
ordered his servants to seize him and put him to death. The servants,
who knew his manner, hid Croesus; if Cambyses changed his mood and asked
for Croesus they intended to bring him and receive presents, but if not,
they would put him to death. Not long after Cambyses asked for Croesus,
and the servants said that he was alive. Then Cambyses said he was glad
that Croesus was alive; but those who had preserved him should not
escape, but die; and this sentence he executed."

"While Cambyses was passing his time in Egypt two brothers rose up
against him, two Magians, one of whom Cambyses had left behind as the
overseer of his house. This man, whose name was Patizeithes, rebelled
when he found that the death of Smerdis was concealed, that few Persians
knew of it, and the majority believed him to be alive. Building on this,
he intended to make himself master of the throne. He had a brother who
was very like Smerdis and had also the same name. When he had persuaded
this brother to take his advice in everything, he put him on the throne,
and sent heralds in every direction, even to Egypt, to announce to the
army that henceforth they should obey Smerdis the son of Cyrus, and not
Cambyses. The envoy to Egypt found Cambyses and the army at Ecbatana in
Syria; he came forward and proclaimed his message. When Cambyses heard
this, he thought that what was said was true, that Prexaspes had
betrayed him, and when sent to kill Smerdis had not done so. He said to
Prexaspes: 'Is this the way you have carried out my commands?' But
Prexaspes answered: 'Sire, it is not true that thy brother has rebelled
against thee, and no war will ever proceed from him. I myself, after
executing your commands, buried him with my own hands. If the dead can
rise then expect that Astyages the Mede will rise again; but if things
continue as they have hitherto been, no evil will happen to you from
Smerdis. I think that we should send for the herald and find out from
him by whose order he announces to us that we are to obey Smerdis.' This
advice pleased Cambyses. The herald was fetched, and Prexaspes asked
him: 'You say that you come as a messenger from Smerdis, the son of
Cyrus. If you tell us the truth, whether you saw Smerdis when he gave
these orders, or whether you received them from one of his servants, you
shall go away uninjured from this place.' The man replied: 'Since
Cambyses left for Egypt I have not seen Smerdis; the Magian whom
Cambyses left as overseer of his house gave me these commands; he said
that Smerdis the son of Cyrus bade me make this proclamation to you.'
Then Cambyses said: 'Prexaspes, you like a brave man have done what I
commanded, and avoided all blame; but who of the Persians is it that has
taken the name of Smerdis and revolted against me.' Prexaspes replied:
'O king, I believe that I understand what has happened; the rebels are
the Magians, Patizeithes, the overseer of the palace, and his brother
Smerdis.' Then Cambyses was struck with the truth of the speech, and the
fulfilment of the dream, and when he found that he had killed his
brother for no result, he wept and bewailed his misfortune, and
determined to lead his army with all haste against Susa and the Magians.
But as he was mounting his horse, the button fell from the end of the
sheath of his sword, and the naked point entered his thigh in the same
place in which he had once stabbed Apis. As he believed that the wound
was mortal, he asked for the name of the city. He was told that it was
Ecbatana. It had been previously announced to him at Buto that he would
die at Ecbatana; and he believed that he would end his days as an old
man at Ecbatana in Media. But when he heard the name he was brought to
his senses by the terror of the calamity which threatened him from the
Magians, and by the wound, and said, with clear understanding of the
oracle, that it was fated for the son of Cyrus to die there. After some
twenty days he caused the most distinguished of the Persians who were
with him to be summoned, and said: 'Persians, I am brought to such a
state that I must reveal to you what I have most carefully concealed.
When I was in Egypt I saw in my sleep a dream,--would that I had never
seen it. It seemed to me that a messenger came from home, who announced
that my brother sat on the royal throne and touched heaven with his
head. Then I was afraid that my brother was taking the throne from me,
and I acted more rashly than wisely,--it is not permitted to human
nature to avoid the coming future. I sent, fool that I was, Prexaspes to
Susa to slay Smerdis. After the crime, I felt myself secure; I never
believed that another would rise up against me after the death of
Smerdis. Wholly in error concerning that which was to come, I have
murdered my brother without sufficient cause, and am nevertheless
deprived of the sovereignty. It was the rebellion of the Magian Smerdis
which the demon revealed to me in a dream. This deed I have done: be ye
assured that Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, is no longer alive. The Magian
whom I left behind as overseer of the palace and his brother Smerdis
have obtained possession of the throne. He who before all others would
have averted this disgrace from me, is no more; he has met his death by
wicked murder at the hands of his nearest relation. As he is no more,
and I am dying, Persians, I must tell you what to do after my death. And
so I charge you, calling on the royal gods, all of you, but chiefly the
Achæmenids, who are here present, not to allow the dominion to pass over
to the Medes. If they obtain it by craft, take it from them by craft; if
they maintain it by force, take it away by yet stronger force. If ye do
this, the earth will bring forth fruit for you, and your wives will bear
children, and your flocks will increase, and ye will be free men for all
time. But if ye do not acquire the sovereignty again or attempt to
recover it, I pray the gods that the opposite may happen to you all, and
that every Persian may come to such an end as mine.' When Cambyses had
thus spoken he lamented all the deeds that he had done, and the Persians
rent their garments and lamented and cried aloud. When the bone had
gangrened and the thigh became inflamed, Cambyses, the son of Cyrus
died, after he had sat on the throne for seven years and four months,
without leaving behind him son or daughter."

If in the narrative given by Herodotus of the fate of Psammenitus and
the campaign of Cambyses against the Ethiopians we perceived Egyptian
and Greek traditions, and along with them a poetical source, so in this
account of the crimes of Cambyses and his death we have obviously
Greek-Egyptian legends and echoes of Iranian poetry existing side by
side. To the first we may trace the wounding of Apis, as already
observed, and then the explanation of a custom which is hinted at in the
Avesta, the marriage with a sister, by the decision of the judges and
the example of Cambyses, the oracle of Buto, and its explanation by the
Syrian Ecbatana, the reason for the wound in the thigh of Cambyses (the
similar wound inflicted on Apis), and, as we shall see, the warning of
Croesus. The legends did not trouble themselves with the contradiction
that, though they represent Cambyses as outraging Osiris-Apis, and Ptah,
they allow him to ask advice from Egyptian gods--a proceeding which is
not made more credible by the fact that Stephanus of Byzantium
identifies the Syrian Ecbatana with Bataneia, and observes that the city
of Hamath (Amatha) was also called Akmatha, though the invention of the
oracle is thus made more intelligible.[184] Like his countrymen before
him, Herodotus must have been struck by the contrast between the long
reign, the achievements and successes of Cyrus, and the short reign and
disastrous end of his son. The Egyptian-Greek tradition explained it by
the wickedness of Cambyses, and this wickedness is the result of his
attack on Apis; the frenzy of Cambyses begins immediately after this
with the murder of his brother. In Herodotus the frenzy begins even
earlier; the supposed maltreatment of the corpse of Amasis must belong
to the period immediately after the victory over the Egyptians, _i.e._
to the period before the march to the South, and consequently Herodotus
represents Cambyses as out of his mind when entering on this campaign,
and continuing in his frenzy till he is compelled to return. The reason
which he gives for this madness is that Cambyses, though Herodotus
represents him in another story as full of ambitious plans from his
youth, was afflicted from his birth, as it was said, with a severe
disease, which some call "the sacred sickness," and that in great
sickness of the body it was not strange that the mind also should be
affected.[185] By the sacred sickness the Greeks meant epilepsy, or
spasmodic attacks in general, which were ascribed to the anger of the
gods. With complete consistency Herodotus represents the madness as
going on, till Cambyses is seized with anxiety concerning the rebellion
of the Magian, and finds himself wounded in the thigh. With this
observation he introduces the public confession and remorse--the last
words of Cambyses. Other Greeks explain the crimes of Cambyses in a more
natural manner. Diodorus is of opinion that he was naturally furious and
changeful in his moods; the greatness of the kingdom made him yet wilder
and more proud of spirit, and after the capture of Pelusium and Memphis
he could not bear his prosperity as a man should.[186] The "Laws" (of
Plato) lay the blame on the education of Cambyses. In the field from his
youth, surrounded by war and danger, Cyrus left the education of his
sons to the royal women, and overlooked the fact that his children were
not brought up and educated in the customary Persian manner. The women
and eunuchs brought them up as if they needed no control, and, while yet
mere children, were prosperous and perfect men. No one was allowed to
contradict them; all must praise what they said or did; thus they grew
up luxurious and uncontrolled; their spirits were over-full of ambition.
When after such adulation and uncontrolled freedom they grew up and
received the kingdom, one slew the other, enraged at his equal position,
and then, maddened by drink and debauchery, lost the dominion owing to
the Medes and the so-called eunuch, who despised the foolishness of
Cambyses.[187]

It is more difficult to trace the tendencies of the poetical source
which has become united with the legends in the narrative of Herodotus
than to separate the legends themselves, and fix the motives which have
determined the conception and judgment of the Greeks about Cambyses.
From what other source could the vision of Cambyses, the shot into the
heart of the cup-bearer, have come, or the conversations of Cambyses
with Prexaspes, or the final words of Cambyses? If these traits are only
before us as fragments at third or fourth hand, their connection with
the narrative of the campaign against the long-lived Ethiopians is
undeniable (the bow of the Ethiopians is the point of connection). And
if we call to mind that in his last exhortations to his two sons, Cyrus
calls down blessings on the son who remains well disposed to his
brother, and imprecates curses on the son who is the first to do evil
(p. 123), the structure of the poem becomes clear. It founds the
misfortune of Cambyses on his disobedience to his father's command, and
exhibits the penalty of disobedience and crime committed against a
brother. Smerdis is able to draw the bow of the Ethiopian further than
Cambyses and all the other Persians. This excites envy and jealousy in
his brother, who sends Smerdis back to Persia. Then in a dream he sees
him on the throne, and his head reaches to heaven. He sends Prexaspes to
Persia, who slays the son of Cyrus in the chase and buries him with his
own hand. The instrument of the murder is quickly overtaken by
punishment. Had Cambyses slain Prexaspes himself intentionally or in
anger, it would be conceivable; but the murder of his son is
unintelligible. Only poetical justice could execute vengeance for the
fact that Prexaspes had laid his hand on the son of Cyrus, by
representing Cambyses as slaying with his own hand, without any personal
reason whatever, the son of the man who by his own command had slain his
brother, and who is best acquainted with this secret crime, the
revelation of which would rouse the hearts of all the Persians against
the king. As the poem goes on, it has in store even heavier penalties
for the man who has slain the son of Cyrus. But it is not merely the
murder of the young Prexaspes which belongs to a poetical source. The
same authority represents Cambyses as becoming more and more deeply
involved in guilt and crime against his house. When looking on at the
two dogs which together got the better of the lion, his sister reminds
him of the death of his brother. In his rage he ill-treats her and so
destroys his long-cherished hope of posterity. The house of Cyrus is
desolate. He has mistrusted his brother without reason--the man whom he
has trusted and made the governor of his palace rebels against him; he
places his brother on the throne as the younger son of Cyrus, and causes
him to be proclaimed as king. In despair at such calamities, at the ruin
of the kingdom of which he is the guilty cause, Cambyses ends his days.
He pays the penalty of his heavy guilt by confessing and lamenting his
offence before the assembly of the chief Persians. The curse of Cyrus is
fulfilled. If Herodotus gives the account of the death of Cambyses after
the Greek-Egyptian legend, he is obviously following Iranian poetry in
the accompanying circumstances and in the speech of the dying Cambyses.
We have Iranian conceptions in the answer of Prexaspes: "If the dead can
rise, your brother will return"; in the saying of Cambyses to the
Persians: "If ye strive earnestly to win back the dominion, the earth
will bring forth fruit, and your wives will bear children, and your
flocks will increase." Conceptions and ideas of this kind, expressed
almost in the same words, have met us frequently in the Avesta. The
close of the speech of Cambyses removes the guilt and points to the
future, for he charges the Persians, and above all the Achæmenids, to
risk everything that the dominion may not again pass to the Medes. If
the Persians fight bravely with all the means at their disposal for the
dominion, all will go well with them, if not Cambyses prays the gods
that the reverse may happen to them; may every Persian die like himself
by a most miserable death, _i.e._ by suicide, which the doctrines of
Zarathrustra from their whole tenor must have most severely condemned.

No doubt the Persian epos had to explain the contrast in which the reign
of Cambyses stood to that of Cyrus; no doubt it was a fact that the race
of Cyrus came to an end in the male line owing to his guilt. It was due
to him that his reign was followed by that of an usurper; that rebellion
broke out in all quarters, the kingdom became completely disintegrated,
and the establishment of Cyrus seemed ruined. The songs of the Persians
gave a reason for the sudden change in the manner indicated, by the
murder of the brother and its results. But they would not have charged
Cambyses with madness or with any other offences than this combination
required. They would not have forgotten his services to Persia; the
establishment of the Persian power in the Mediterranean, the victory
over Egypt, over the Ethiopians of Napata, and the negroes. It was not
these poems which branded his campaign to the south as a mad
undertaking, and represented it as a failure; they could not have
opposed Croesus as a wise adviser to Cambyses, or allowed Cambyses to
speak of the miserable end of Cyrus in the land of the Massagetae. If
these elements in the narratives of Herodotus have not come down from
Greek-Egyptian tradition, if the warning of Croesus, in the form in
which we have it, was not attached by him to his account of the death of
Cambyses, we should have to assume that in this case also the Persian
poems came to Herodotus in their Median counterparts--a hypothesis which
is excluded by the distinctly ante-Median and Persian traits in the
dying speech of Cambyses.

Let us see whether information from other sources puts us in a position
to establish the actual connection of affairs free from the admixture of
Greek-Egyptian tradition and Persian poetry. Ctesias treated the reign
of Cambyses in detail in the twelfth book of his Persian History. Of
this only a meagre excerpt has come down to us, according to which the
narrative began with the statement that Cambyses, in accordance with the
last commands of his father, handed over Chorasmia, Bactria, Parthia,
and Carmania to his brother Tanyoxarkes, as Ctesias calls him. Then
follows the conquest of Egypt, as given above; and after this we are
told: "There was a Magian of the name of Sphendadates who had committed
some fault and been scourged by Tanyoxarkes. The Magian went to Cambyses
to calumniate his brother, saying that his mind was set on evil. As a
proof of defection he alleged that Tanyoxarkes would not come if he were
sent for. Cambyses bade his brother come, but he refused, being occupied
with other business. Then the Magian became more persistent in his
calumnies. Amytis, who saw what was the Magian's object, warned her son
Cambyses not to trust him. Cambyses pretended not to trust him, but in
reality reposed entire confidence in him. When Cambyses bade his brother
come for the third time, he obeyed. Cambyses embraced him, but was none
the less determined to put him out of the way; but he was anxious to
carry out his design unknown to his mother. The deed was accomplished.
The Magian advises the king as follows: He was very like Tanyoxarkes,
the king might give orders that his head should be cut off as having
accused his brother falsely; he would then secretly slay Tanyoxarkes,
and clothe him (the Magian) in his robes, so that he might be taken for
him. This was done. Tanyoxarkes died by drinking bull's blood, and the
Magian was clothed in his garments and called Tanyoxarkes. This was for
a long time concealed from all except Artasyras the Hyrcanian and the
eunuchs Bagapates and Izabates, who were most intimate with Cambyses;
to them alone had Cambyses ventured to mention the matter. He caused the
eunuchs of Tanyoxarkes and Labyzus, the chief of them, to be summoned,
showed them the Magian thus attired, and said: Do you believe that this
is Tanyoxarkes? Labyzus was astonished and said: What other man are we
to think that he is? so greatly did the Magian deceive men by his
likeness to Tanyoxarkes. The Magian was now sent to Bactria, and there
conducted himself in all respects as Tanyoxarkes. When five years had
gone by Amytis learnt what had been done from the eunuch Tibetheus, whom
the Magian had caused to be beaten. She asked Cambyses to give up
Sphendadates, but he refused. Then she pronounced her curse, took
poison, and died. When Cambyses sacrificed, the blood of the sacrificial
animals did not flow. He became dejected, and when Roxane bore him a boy
without a head, he was even more out of heart, and the Magians
interpreted the signs to mean that he could leave no successor. His
mother appeared to him in a dream and threatened him for the murder, and
this made him more dejected than ever. When he came to Babylon, by way
of pastime he chipped a piece of wood with a sword, and so hit the
muscle of his thigh, and died on the eleventh day after, when he had
reigned eighteen years. Before his death Artasyras and Bagapates had
resolved that the Magian should reign; and he reigned after the death of
Cambyses."

The length of the reign of Cambyses is incorrect, as indeed almost all
the numbers in Ctesias are wrong. It is also a mistake that in his
account Cambyses and his brother are the sons of Cyrus and Amytis the
daughter of Astyages. As we have said, they were the sons of Cyrus and
Cassandane, who died before Cyrus (V. 384). The object of Ctesias was to
prove the statements of Herodotus incorrect by opposing them with
others. The elevation of Amytis to be the mother of the brothers, and
the part which the account of Ctesias ascribes to this supposed mother,
shows that Ctesias has here followed a Median version, in which the
daughter of Astyages became, not the mother of Cyrus, it is true, but
the mother of his successor, the ruler of Persia and Media,--the same
version which, as we have already seen, assigns to Amytis the greatest
influence on Cyrus, and in the present instance on his son Cambyses.
Without doubt this version is derived from a poetical source; that is
proved by a number of traits: the calumniation of the brother, the
double introduction of the scourging, the three-fold summoning before
the king, the conversation of Cambyses with the eunuch, the three-fold
increase of the distress of Cambyses, the suicide and curse of Amytis,
the signs at sacrifice and the abortion, the appearance of the dead,
which fills up the measure and drives Cambyses to death. As in the
previous case, in this form of the poems, it was the Median queen who
punished Oebares, who incited Cyrus to revolt, for this act and for the
death of her father, so here she visits the ruler of the Persians and
Medes for his crime. Against this view of the account of Ctesias it may
be urged that the Medes would take the side of the Magian more
vigorously than that of Amytis, for the Magian was apparently a Mede.
Herodotus, at any rate, once represents Gobryas as calling him a
Mede.[188] Cambyses, it is true, does not call him so, but in his last
speech merely urges the Persians not to let the empire revert to the
Medes, which means no more than that the empire is not to go back to the
Medes on the extinction of the house of Cyrus, when his kingdom is being
broken up. We shall see that the usurper was not a Mede, and is only
called a Mede by Herodotus because he wrongly thought that all the
Magians were exclusively Medes (V. 194). But as the story of Ctesias
obviously goes back to a poetical source, we are not carried any further
by it in establishing the actual facts of the case.

A third story of the death of Cambyses, that of Trogus, is also retained
in an excerpt only. It is apparently taken from the Persian history of
Deinon. "Cambyses added Egypt to the kingdom of his father. Enraged at
the superstition of the Egyptians, he commanded the temples of Apis and
the other gods to be destroyed. He also sent an army to conquer the
far-famed temple of Ammon, but it was overwhelmed by storms of sand.
Then in a dream he saw his brother as the future king. Terrified by this
vision, he did not hesitate to add the murder of a brother to the
burning of temples. For this horrible service he sent Cometes, a Magian,
one of his trusted servants. Meantime, his sword coming accidentally out
of the sheath, he wounded himself deeply in the thigh, and died, as a
penalty either for the murder of his brother which he had commanded, or
for the burning of the temples. When the Magian heard this he hastened
to commit the crime before the news of the death of the king was spread
abroad; and when he had killed Smerdis, to whom the throne belonged, he
brought in his brother Oropastes. This brother was very like Smerdis in
form and feature; and as no one suspected the deception, Oropastes
became king instead of Smerdis. The matter was the more secret because
among the Persians the king lives in retirement by reason of his
majesty."[189]

Darius, in his inscriptions on Mount Behistun, has left us the authentic
though very compressed history of Cambyses. "Kambujiya, the son of
Kurus," he tells us, "was of our race, was previously king here. This
Kambujiya had a brother, Bardiya by name, of the same father and mother
as Kambujiya. Kambujiya slew this Bardiya. When Kambujiya had slain
Bardiya the people did not know that Bardiya was dead. Then Kambujiya
marched against Egypt. When Kambujiya marched against Egypt the people
became rebellious, and the lie spread both in Persia and in Media and in
the other provinces. There was a man, a Magian, Gaumata by name; he rose
up from Pisiyauvada, from mount Arakadris, which is there. It was in the
month Viyakhna, on the fourteenth day, that he rose up. He lied to the
people; I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus, the brother of Kambujiya. Then
the whole kingdom rebelled against Kambujiya; it went over to the other,
both Persia and Media and the rest of the provinces. He took them for
his own; he was king; he seized the empire. In the month Garmapada, on
the ninth day, it was that he seized the dominion. Then Kambujiya died,
for he took his own life."[190]

Hence we may establish the true course of events in something like the
following form. Cyrus made a certain division of the kingdom; under the
sovereignty of the elder son he assigned to the younger Chorasmia,
Bactria, Parthia, and Carmania, and thus sowed the germ of contention
between the brothers. The younger was called Bardiya. This name sounded
to the Greek as Berdis, and then it passed into Smerdis, as Bagabukhsa
becomes Megabyzus.[191] If Xenophon calls Smerdis Tanaoxares, and
Ctesias Tanyoxarkes, this can only be an epithet which the Persians gave
to Smerdis. The old Bactrian _thanvarakhshathra_ would mean king of the
bow. The Persians might give this name to Smerdis, as their poems
celebrate him as the best drawer of the bow; it was this superiority of
Smerdis which, according to the poems of the Persians, aroused the
jealousy of Cambyses. The tradition of Iran can tell of the three best
shots that were ever made:[192]--the best was made by Arshana, the son
of Kava Kavata (V. 37, 253); and king Bahram Gor slays his beloved
because she does not sufficiently admire his skill with the bow.

Bardiya did not accompany his brother to Egypt; so that he could not
have been sent back from thence. On the contrary, Cambyses had conceived
a suspicion of him even before the campaign to Egypt; he was afraid that
his brother in Bactria would make use of the distance at which he would
be to seize the throne in secret, and the more extensive the conquests
which Cambyses intended to make in Africa the more dangerous would the
possibility appear to him. He caused him to be put to death before he
set out to Egypt. His death remained a secret. By whom and how Bardiya
was killed, and how the secret was kept, whether by an arrangement such
as that described by Ctesias or by some other means, we cannot decide.
The kingdom, the Persians, and the princes of the Persians did not know
but that Bardiya was alive. But the Magian Gaumata is aware of the fact.
Of the writers of the West, Trogus Pompeius alone gives the true name of
the usurper in the Grecised form of Cometes. As the name is correct in
Trogus, the name of the brother of Cometes, whom he calls Oropastes, may
also be correct. But the narrative in the excerpt in Trogus must be so
far altered in accordance with the version of Herodotus that Cambyses
left Oropastes behind as overseer of the palaces, and that he placed his
brother Gaumata on the throne. In Ctesias the man who suggests the
murder becomes himself the false Bardiya and the future king. The
inscription of Darius speaks only "of the Magian Gaumata," of "his
leading adherents." The rebellion of Gaumata was not delayed till the
death of Cambyses, as Ctesias supposed. It occurred, as the inscription
shows, while he was still on the Nile. During the absence of Cambyses
the lie spread in Persia, Media, and the rest of the provinces. The
inscription mentions the day on which Gaumata rebelled, and the place
where it happened: at Pisiyauvada in mount Arakadris this false Bardiya
arose. As the position of this place and mountain is not defined, as is
elsewhere the case in the inscription of Darius, by the addition of the
name of the country, we may assume that it was in Persia that the false
Bardiya, as his interests and the position of affairs required, came
forward, and that he first called on the Persians to acknowledge him as
king and lord of the realm, as indeed he must have done if he desired
success. The inscription does not tell us that Gaumata was a Mede, or
that the Medes first recognized him as their king; it merely says: on
the fourteenth of the month Viyakhna (_i.e._ in the spring of the year
522 B.C.) the whole kingdom rose in rebellion against Cambyses, both
Persia and Media and the rest of the provinces. We shall see below that
even after the fall of Gaumata it was not Media which gave the sign for
rebellion against his murderers, but that that country followed the
example of the Elamites and Babylonians, and was led by Uvakhshathra, a
man of the race of Cyaxares. First Persia, then Media, then the rest of
the lands recognized the false Bardiya as their king; "he took from
Cambyses Persia, Media, and the rest of the provinces," says the
inscription. Then in the month of Garmapada (_i.e._ in July or August)
the false Bardiya was crowned at Pasargadae (V. 358). That Gaumata was
recognized as king in Babylonia is not only proved by the assertion of
Darius, but also by two Babylonian tablets, which are dated from the
20th Elul and 1st Tisri "in the first year of king Barziya."[193] On the
news of the rebellion Cambyses makes Aryandes satrap of Egypt,[194] and
sets out against the usurper. On this march, at Ecbatana in Syria,
according to Herodotus, _i.e._ at Batanea or Hamath, or at Babylon, as
Ctesias asserts, or on the return to Damascus, according to
Josephus,[195] he died.

However dark may be the shadows which fall on the figure of Cambyses, it
has received blacker traits than truth can confirm in the legends of
Greece and Egypt, and, to some extent, in the poems of Media and Persia.
We have mentioned the story which ascribes to him ambitious plans in his
boyish years; in the estimate which the Persians form of him according
to their poems it is only his love of wine which is reprobated. More
important is the judgment which the Persians really passed on Cambyses;
Herodotus tells us they called Cyrus the father, but Cambyses, because
he was severe and ambitious, they called the master.[196] From this
sentence--from despotic severity and violence, whatever may have been
the degree in which they were present--it is a long way to the picture
of the frantic tyrant which Herodotus has sketched on the basis of these
legends and poems. What we know by credible tradition of the crimes of
Cambyses, apart from his act against his brother, and the supposed
outburst of rage against his sister, is limited to the penalty which he
imposed upon Memphis for the murder of the herald and the crew, and the
punishment of Sisamnes, one of the seven judges who was found guilty of
bribery and unjust judgment. He had him executed, the corpse was flayed,
and the judge's seat covered with the skin, on which the son, who was
named his successor, was to give judgment.[197] The punishment of
Memphis cannot be called cruel in the spirit of these times; and the
punishment of the unjust judge is in the manner of an oriental prince
who loves justice. The reign of Cambyses was undoubtedly marked by the
effort to continue the acts of his father, and in this effort he shows
both vigour and resolution. The idea of creating a fleet for the Persian
empire was bold and happy, and bore fruits in the submission of Cyprus
and Samos without a blow. The preparations for the campaign against
Egypt were made with great prudence, and proved adequate and effectual.
But even before he set out for Egypt he had cast the lot which decided
his life. How far the conduct of his brother, which is suggested in the
version of Ctesias, excused the suspicion of Cambyses, we cannot decide.
He did not venture to leave the kingdom so long as his brother ruled
over the eastern half of it; he feared his rebellion during his absence,
and removed him out of the way. The painful secrecy of the deed shows
that Cambyses was tormented with remorse and shame for this crime. At
the gates of Egypt he conquered in a mighty battle. He used the victory
to storm the strong border fortresses of Egypt, and then at once turned
against Memphis, the most important city and fortress of the enemy. The
treatment of the captive Psammenitus repeats the mild manner of Cyrus
towards conquered princes; we have seen above what clemency Cambyses
showed after the conquest was completed towards the Egyptians and their
temples. In possession of Egypt, he intended to achieve in Africa what
his father had done in Asia; far to the south and west the country was
to be subject to the Persians. The campaign against Napata led to the
conquest of that kingdom. By maintaining this conquest, the supremacy of
Persia over Egypt was rendered secure from attacks on that side, and the
negro tribes to the south of Napata were kept in obedience, though
previously they had been visited by the Pharaohs only in flying
incursions. It was at Napata that, according to the tradition preserved
by Diodorus, Strabo, and Josephus, Cambyses lost his sister, and with
her the hope of an heir, by his own brutal violence, as the songs
represent, when his sister reminded him of the death of his brother. But
Strabo and Diodorus observe, as has been shown above, that he named the
city after his sister "to honour her." No doubt the disquiet of his
conscience increased the longer he remained without children. What was
to become of the kingdom after his death? The brother, whom he had
killed, had only left a daughter.[198] Burdened with new anxiety, if not
with new guilt, he turned back from Napata. The disaster, which befell
the army at Premnis, and the failure of the expedition against the oasis
of Sivah, though it did not involve the loss of 50,000 men, might seem
to him proofs that he had brought upon himself the anger of Auramazda
and Mithra. Then the Phenicians refused to march against the
Carthaginians, and he was unable to compel them. The absence of any
heir, the misfortunes which had fallen upon him, increased his inward
torments. He became more distrustful, passionate, and savage. He may
have sought forgetfulness in wine, but the remedy only increased his
violence. He shrank from seeing again his home and the desolate house of
Cyrus, and remained inactive and irresolute for a year and a half in
Egypt; in spite of the danger which attached to the absence of the ruler
of so vast a kingdom.

In Persia and the provinces nothing was known of the death of Bardiya.
The neglect of the kingdom, the absence of the king for three years,
inspire Gaumata with the courage to make use of his opportunity, and
turn the secrecy of the crime against Cambyses. The Persians declare for
the brother who is among them, as against the distant king who seemed to
have forgotten Persia in Egypt; even the satraps of the other countries
soon decide in favour of Bardiya, as for years they had seen nothing of
Cambyses. In three months after his appearance Gaumata was formally
crowned. The account of the rebellion startled Cambyses from his stupor
in Egypt; he placed a satrap over the conquests he had made and hastened
to Syria, where he learnt the full amount of the usurper's success. With
anger he sees the crown of Cyrus on the head of a miserable pretender.
If he is effectually to contend against the opponent who has risen to
such power, he must acknowledge himself before the Persians and the
kingdom as the murderer of his brother, and even if he makes this
shameful confession, will the Persians believe and follow him? Will they
not think that he announces the murder in order to thrust his brother
from the throne? In despair he perceives that he has destroyed the house
of Cyrus, and ruined the work of his father, the fruit of thirty years
of effort and struggle. He sees no means of preventing the course of
affairs, the ruin of the kingdom of which he is the cause. He
acknowledges before the princes of the Persians what he has done,
commands them to make good the damage which he has caused, and seals his
declaration by taking his own life. Such was the tragical end of the son
of the great Cyrus.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] Herod. 3, 27-30.

[177] Herod. 3, 37.

[178] Vol. I. 175. Diod. 1, 49.

[179] Justin. 1, 8.

[180] The reading "year 4" in the first is confirmed by "year 5" in the
second inscription. Lepsius ("Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1854, s. 224,
495) has examined the difficulties which arise regarding the time of
Cambyses' campaign against Egypt, from the contradiction between these
dates and the statements of the Greeks.

[181] The inscriptions also give the name Cambyses in the form Kambuza.

[182] Lepsius, "Z. Aegypt. Spr." 1874, s. 76.

[183] De Rougé, "Revue Archéol." 8, 37 ff.; Brugsch, "Hist. d'Egypt," p.
267, 269. In the "History of Egypt," Brugsch reads Uzahorenpiris for
Uzahorsun.

[184] Stephen. Byz. [Greek: Agbatana Batana Amatha]. Cf. V. 307, and von
Gutschmid, "N. Beitrage," s. 96.

[185] Herod. 3, 3, 33.

[186] "Excerpt. de virt." p. 557 = 10, 13.

[187] Plato, "Legg." p. 691, 694, 695.

[188] Herod. 3, 73.

[189] Justin. 1, 9.

[190] So Oppert according to the Persian inscription in "Journal
Asiatique," 4, 17, 385, 386; and according to the second series,
"Records of the Past," 7, 90.

[191] Barziya in the Babylonian text. Smerdis, the favourite of
Polycrates (Anacreon, fragm. 4, ed. Bergk), was no doubt named after the
brother of Cambyses.

[192] Sachau, "Albiruni," p. 205; Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 91, 271.

[193] Elul and Tisri fall in September and October. The last year of
Cambyses is 522 B.C. According to Herodotus, Cambyses reigned seven
years and five months, and the Magian more than seven months; the two
make up eight years. The number of the Persian days of the month are
repeated in the Babylonian version of the Behistun inscription. Hence
the Persians adopted the year of the Assyrians and Babylonians as well
as their cuneiform writing, but they had independent names for the
months. Unfortunately the names of the months in the Babylonian text are
more frequently destroyed than not, so that we can only be certain in
giving Kislev (November-December) as corresponding to the Athriadiya of
the Persians, Tebet (December-January) to Anamaka, Iyar (May-June) to
Taigarshis. Oppert maintains that we can also identify the Babylonian
Adar or Veadar (Febr.-March) with the Viyakhna of the Persians; but the
text is uncertain in this passage. Finally, we may with tolerable
certainty regard Garmapada (_i.e._ the path of heat) as corresponding to
July and August, to the Tammuz or Ab of the Babylonians. If Viyakhna is
really Adar, the proclamation of the Magian took place in March, 522
B.C., and his coronation in Garmapada (July and August). This according
to Darius was followed by the death of Cambyses. The two tablets quoted
date from September and October in the first year of Barziya. According
to Herodotus, the Magian reigned more than seven months after the death
of Cambyses, _i.e._ down to the spring of 521 B.C. According to the
inscription of Behistun, Darius slew him on the tenth of Bagayadis
(_i.e._ sacrifice to the gods), which would thus be parallel to the
Nisan of the Babylonians, _i.e._ to our April.

[194] Herod. 4, 166.

[195] "Antiqu." 11, 2.

[196] Herod. 3, 89.

[197] Herod. 5, 25.

[198] Herod. 3, 88; 7, 78.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE RISE OF DARIUS.


"The Persians, when they heard the words of Cambyses," so Herodotus
continues his narrative, "did not believe that the Magians had possessed
themselves of the throne; on the contrary, they thought that Cambyses
had said what he had said of the death of Smerdis in order to deceive
them, that the whole of Persia might rise against Smerdis. They believed
that Smerdis the son of Cyrus was on the throne; for even Prexaspes
solemnly denied that he had slain Smerdis; after the death of Cambyses
it was dangerous for him to allow that he had put to death the son of
Cyrus with his own hand. The Magian who had taken the name of Cambyses
reigned in security and showed great mildness to all his subjects.
Immediately after he had got possession of the throne, he proclaimed
freedom from military service and tribute for three years to all the
nations over whom he reigned. But in the eighth month of his reign it
was discovered who he was. Otanes, the son of Pharnaspes, was one of the
first of the Persians in descent and wealth. He first conceived a
suspicion of the Magian because he never went out of the citadel, nor
allowed any of the leading Persians to approach him. Phaedyme, the
daughter of Otanes, had been the wife of Cambyses, and with the rest of
the wives she had passed over to the Magian. Otanes caused the question
to be put to his daughter, whether the man with whom she lay was Smerdis
the son of Cyrus, or another. She replied that she had never seen
Smerdis, and could not tell who he was. Then Otanes sent a second time:
'If you do not know Smerdis, ask Atossa, with whom you and she lie, for
she will know her own brother.' The daughter answered: 'I cannot speak
with Atossa, or see any other of the women, for since this man, whoever
he is, came to the throne, he has kept us all apart, and sent one in one
direction, and another in another.' When Otanes heard this, the matter
became yet clearer. He sent a third message to his daughter, saying: 'My
daughter, you are come of a noble race and must accept the risk which
your father lays upon you. If this man is not Smerdis the son of Cyrus,
but the person whom I suspect that he is, he must not go unpunished for
associating with you, and exercising dominion over the Persians. Do as
follows: When you perceive that he is asleep, feel for his ears. If he
has ears, be sure that he is the son of Cyrus, but if he has none he is
Smerdis the Magian.' Phaedyme sent an answer to her father, saying that
she would run the greatest risk in doing as he bade, for if the man had
no ears, and she was found feeling for them, he would put her out of the
way; however, she would do it. And when it came to her turn to go to the
Magian, she did all that her father had bidden her; she lay with him,
and when he was asleep she felt for his ears, and easily discovered that
he had none. When Cyrus was king he had for some grave reason cut off
this man's ears. When it was day she sent her father word how the
matter stood."

"Otanes related all the circumstances to Aspathines and Gobryas, who
were the first among the Persians and most worthy of confidence, and as
they had also had their suspicions that the case was so, they listened
to the proposals of Otanes. The three were of opinion that each should
join with him the Persians whom he counted most worthy of confidence.
Otanes brought Intaphernes; Gobryas, Megabyzus; and Aspathines,
Hydarnes. To these six at Susa, Darius the son of Hystaspes came from
Persia, for Hystaspes was satrap of Persia, and when he came, the six
resolved to make him their associate. They met, pledged mutual fidelity,
and took counsel. And when it came to Darius' turn to give his opinion,
he said: 'I believed that I alone knew that the Magian was king, and
that Smerdis the son of Cyrus was dead, and for that reason I came with
haste to put the Magian to death. But as I feel that you also know this
and not I only, we must at once proceed to action without delay; for
that will be dangerous.' Then Otanes spoke: 'O son of Hystaspes, thou
art the son of a brave father, and thou showest thy courage not less
than he. But do not so hasten the matter without consideration; begin it
with prudence. We must be more numerous, and then make our attempt.'
Darius replied: 'Ye men that are present, if ye enter on the matter as
Otanes wishes, ye will come to a shameful end. Some one who seeks his
own advantage will betray the matter to the Magian. Ye ought to have
taken the matter on yourselves and so accomplished it. But as ye have
resolved to take in more confederates, and have confided the matter to
me, it must be done to-day. If this day passes by, I tell you that I
will allow no informer to be before me; I will myself betray you to the
Magian.' When Otanes saw Darius so eager, he said: 'As you compel us to
hasten the matter and allow no delay, tell us how shall we enter the
palace and overcome them? You know yourself--if you have not seen, you
have heard--that guards are set; how shall we pass by them?' 'Many
things,' Darius said, 'may be proved by deeds and not by words; other
things may be done in word but no brilliant deed corresponds to them.
You know that it is not difficult to pass through the guards that are
set. No one will prevent men of our rank; one will give way from
respect, another from fear. Then I have an excellent excuse for passing
through, if I say that I have just come from Persia and have to give a
message from my father to the king. If an untruth must be told, let it
be told. If a man seeks for no advantage to himself by his untruth, he
who tells the truth may be a liar, and he who lies may be a truthful
man. If any of the door-keepers allow us to pass willingly by, this will
be in the future an advantage for him, but any one who opposes us will
show at once that he is our enemy; we will then force our way and begin
the work.' Then Gobryas said: 'We can never with greater honour win back
the empire, or, if we fail, find a more honourable death. Are not we
Persians ruled by a Mede, a Magian, a fellow without ears? Those of you
who were with Cambyses when sick remember what he imprecated on the
Persians if they did not seek to regain the dominion. At that time we
did not believe him, we thought that he spoke to deceive us. Now I give
my vote to you, Darius, and go straight from this consultation to the
Magian.' So Gobryas spake and all agreed with him.

"While they were thus deliberating, the following incident happened.
After solemn deliberation it seemed advisable to the Magians to make
Prexaspes their friend; he had been cruelly treated by Cambyses, he
alone knew of the death of Smerdis, and was of great influence among the
Persians. For this reason they sent for him, and sought by pledges and
oaths to bind him not to reveal to any one the deception he had
practised on the Persians, and they promised him everything in their
power. When Prexaspes agreed to do as they wished, they further proposed
that he should summon the Persians under the walls of the citadel; mount
a tower and tell them that they were governed by Smerdis and by no
other. This request the Magians made because the Persians had great
confidence in Prexaspes, and he had repeatedly told them that Smerdis
was alive and his death a fiction. When Prexaspes declared his readiness
they summoned the Persians to the tower and bade him speak. But he,
purposely forgetting what they had requested, began to speak of the race
of Cyrus, and when he came to Cyrus himself he enumerated the blessings
which he had provided for the Persians, and going yet further he
revealed the truth, declaring that he had concealed it before because it
was dangerous for him to say what had been done, but now the necessity
was laid upon him to reveal it. And now he said, that, compelled by
Cambyses, he had slain Smerdis, and that Magians were on the throne.
When he had imprecated a bitter curse upon the Persians if they did not
win back the kingdom, and take vengeance on the Magians, he threw
himself head foremost down from the tower. All his life he had been an
honourable man, and such he died.

"When they had resolved to attack the Magians without delay, the seven
Persians invoked the gods, and set forth on the way, without knowing
what had happened to Prexaspes. When they had proceeded half the
distance, they heard of it. They slipped aside to consider the matter.
And Otanes with some others were of opinion that they must wait, for all
would be in confusion, but Darius and the rest declared that without
hesitation they must carry out what they had resolved upon. While they
were thus at variance, seven pairs of hawks appeared, which pursued and
tore to pieces two pairs of vultures. When the seven saw this they all
took the view of Darius, and encouraged by the birds, went to the
palace. When they reached the gates it happened as Darius expected. The
guards respectfully allowed the first men among the Persians to pass
through, as though they were led by some divine guide; no one suspected
them, and no one asked any questions. But when they came to the portico,
they came upon the eunuchs who carried messages in to the king. These
asked what they wanted, threatened the guards for allowing them to pass,
and detained them. The conspirators encouraged each other, drew their
swords, struck down those who sought to detain them, and burst at a run
into the hall. The two Magians were there at the time, consulting about
the affair of Prexaspes. When they heard the noise and the cry of the
eunuchs, they sprang up to see what was the matter, then hastened back
and made ready for defence. One seized a bow, the other a spear. The
first could not use the bow, for the conspirators were close upon him,
but the other wounded Aspathines in the thigh and hit Intaphernes in the
eye. The Magian with the bow retired into a dark chamber off the hall,
and wished to close the door, but Darius and Gobryas hastened after
him; Gobryas seized and held him, and when Darius hesitated to strike
lest in the darkness he should hit Gobryas, Gobryas cried out: 'Strike
even though you pierce us both.' Darius did so and smote the Magian
only. When both were slain, their heads were cut off; the two
conspirators who were wounded remained to guard the citadel; the other
five rushed out, called the Persians together, and showed them the
heads. When the Persians heard of the deception of the Magians, and what
had happened, they thought it right to do the same; they drew their
swords, and slew every Magian whom they could find, and had they not
been prevented by the approach of night, not a Magian would have been
left."

The account given by Trogus of the overthrow of the Medes, so far as it
has been preserved to us, differs only in unimportant points from the
narrative of Herodotus. In order to gain the favour of the people, the
Magians remitted the tribute and military service for three years. This
first excited suspicion in the mind of Otanes, a Persian of great
position and discernment. He commanded his daughter, who was among the
royal concubines,--they were secluded from each other,--to feel the ears
of the king when asleep, for Cambyses (in Herodotus it is Cyrus) had cut
off both the ears of the Magian. "Informed by his daughter that the king
had no ears, he announced this to the princes of the Persians, urged
them to put the false king to death, and bound them by an oath. Seven
persons shared in the conspiracy; and to prevent any change of opinion
in time, or any disclosure, they at once put their swords under their
garments and went to the palace. They cut down all who came in their
way, and so reached the Magians, who were not wanting in skill to defend
themselves; with drawn weapons they slew two of the conspirators (in
Herodotus these are only wounded), but they were overpowered by numbers.
Gobryas seized one of them, and when his companions hesitated to strike
lest they should pierce him along with the Magian, for the affair took
place in a dark room, he called out to them to strike even through his
own body. But by good fortune he was uninjured and the Magian was
slain."

In the narrative of Ctesias, as we have seen, there is but one Magian,
Sphendadates, whom Cambyses himself had placed on the throne of Bactria
in the place of his murdered brother (Tanyoxarkes), and had commanded
him to play his part. Astasyras, Bagapates, and Izabates are aware of
the secret. After Cambyses, Sphendadates becomes king, whom Astasyras
and Bagapates had determined to assist to the throne even before the
death of Cambyses. "When the Magian was reigning under the name of
Tanyoxarkes, Izabates came out of Persia, where he had brought the body
of Cambyses, revealed all to the army, and insulted the Magians. Then he
fled to the sanctuary, where he was seized and his head cut off. Then
seven distinguished Persians met, and after pledging their faith
mutually, they joined with themselves Artasyras and then Bagapates who
had the keys of the royal citadel. And when the seven were admitted by
Bagapates to the citadel, they found the Magian with a concubine from
Babylon. When he saw them, he sprang up, and as he had no weapons--for
Bagapates had secretly removed them all--he broke up a golden chair, and
fought with the foot of this till he was cut down by the seven. He had
reigned seven months."[199]

Herodotus' narrative of the death of the Magians again points to a
poetical source. In the speech of the dying Cambyses, in the curse which
he imprecates if the kingdom is not maintained and recovered, and the
indication that it must be done by force and treachery, this source
introduces the new series of events in an attractive and exciting
manner. But the concealment of the truth, the secret murder of his
brother, have evil consequences which extend beyond the life of
Cambyses. The Persians did not believe him; they thought that when dying
he wished to make them the enemies of his brother. It required the
penetration of Otanes, the courage and devotion of his daughter, to
bring the truth to light. At first Otanes prudently admits two men only
into the secret; each of the three then discloses it to a trusty friend,
and when Darius comes from Persia to Susa all are agreed to make him a
confederate. His high mission has already been indicated in the poem by
the dream of Cyrus wherein he saw the son of Hystaspes with wings on his
shoulders, one of which overshadowed Asia, the other Europe. Darius
urged the confederates to immediate action. The faint justification of
the deception which we find in Herodotus shows that in this matter an
attempt was made in the poetical source to keep in harmony with the
Iranian view of the absolute necessity of telling the truth. The
decisive moment approaches nearer and with greater force to the Magians.
They have won the throne by treachery, they maintain it by cunning,
inasmuch as they demand neither tribute nor soldiers from the subject
countries; but at length they suffer for their treachery. They attempt
to gain Prexaspes; he is to declare publicly that the Magian is the son
of Cyrus. Prexaspes proceeds apparently to do this, but he is resolved
to use the freedom of speech which the Magians allow him for their ruin.
He reveals the truth before all the people, and throws himself down from
the tower. The punishment which the poem has already inflicted on
Prexaspes for the murder of Bardiya in the death of his own son (p. 185)
is not sufficient. Like the king at whose command he sinned, Prexaspes
ends his days by suicide. It is only by this complete revelation of the
truth, this voluntary death, and tragic end, that he makes complete
atonement for laying his hand on the son of Cyrus. Thus the figure of
Prexaspes belongs to the series of faithful Persians, who, like Oebares,
knew how to serve not the king only but the prosperity of Persia with
complete devotion. While this took place before the citadel, and the
Magians in terror deliberated what they should do, now that the
proceeding which was to establish their dominion had dashed them to the
ground, the conspirators were already on the way. Once more the prudent
Otanes hesitates; and once more Darius urges haste. But the princes of
the Persians must perform the act alone; they cannot wait for the effect
of the revelation of Prexaspes on the people. The gods themselves give
them a sign; the seven hawks tear to pieces the two vultures. The poem
closes with the death-struggle of the Magians, the readiness of Gobryas
to allow himself to be slain with the Magian, _i.e._ the false king, and
the happy restoration of the dominion of the Achæmenids.

The objections which can be made against this poetical account of the
matter are obvious. The disbelief of the Persians in the admissions of
Cambyses is hardly credible. If they had doubted at the first, they
could doubt no longer when the king had sealed his accusation by his
despair and death. When Otanes imparts his discovery to Gobryas and
Aspathines, they say that "they had already suspected it;" Darius then
comes, and when he has been unanimously received into the conspiracy he
says: "that he had hitherto believed that he alone knew the secret, and
had hastened from Persia in order to slay the Magian." The poem has no
doubt inserted this scepticism of the Persians to explain why they did
not rise against the usurper immediately after the death of Cambyses.
The discovery by the absence of the ears must also belong to the poem;
it is a tale of the harem, in the manner of the poetry of the East. The
deed of Prexaspes, whose place is taken by Izabates in Ctesias, is quite
incredible and impossible in the context of Herodotus. The Magians had
no reason whatever to urge Prexaspes to a public explanation; no one
among the people had any suspicion; seven men only are acquainted with
the truth, and the Magians have no intimation of their knowledge. If
Susa was the scene of the deed, the Magians acted still more perversely,
and Prexaspes sacrificed himself at any rate without the hope of any
immediate effect. The Susians had not the least interest in the
legitimacy or illegitimacy of the king. If the Achæmenids were no longer
their masters, so much the better, inasmuch as they now enjoyed that
mild dominion, which Herodotus himself ascribes to the Magians. In the
narrative of the conspiracy two factors are obviously combined. Otanes
is the originator, Darius joins the band later, but has already resolved
to slay the Magi. Supported by Gobryas he urges immediate action, and
indeed forces the conspirators to act by the threat that, if there is
any delay, he will himself reveal the conspiracy, while Otanes, both in
the deliberation, and on the way to the palace, is in favour of delay.
It was obviously the effect of the poem to bring plainly into light the
merit which, on the one hand, Otanes and the five conspirators, and on
the other Darius, had earned in the great achievement of the overthrow
of the Magi, and to apportion a part of it to each section. The eminent
position which the poem allots Otanes is explained by the advantages and
privileges which the house of Otanes enjoyed in Persia above the other
tribal princes, and which were attributed to the part which he took in
the removal of the dominion of the Magi.[200] According to Herodotus
Otanes was the son of Pharnaspes, and his sister Cassandane was the wife
of Cyrus, the mother of Cambyses and Smerdis. He was thus the uncle of
the king and of Smerdis; and he was also the father-in-law of the king,
for his daughter Phaedyme was among the wives of Cambyses. This is the
account of Herodotus. But we have convincing evidence that Otanes was
not the son of Pharnaspes. As the father-in-law of Cambyses he was
sufficiently near the throne to take a leading part in the action.
Hystaspes, the father of Darius, had already been sent back by Cyrus
from his camp on the Jaxartes (p. 115), according to Herodotus, in order
to keep watch over his son Darius. In Herodotus Hystaspes is now
overseer of Persia, and his son comes to Susa, to slay the Magians with
his own hand. In another passage Herodotus himself relates that Darius
was sprung from the family of the Achæmenids; Hystaspes was the son of
Arsames, who was the son of Ariaramnes, the brother of Cambyses I. the
father of Cyrus.[201]

It is a fact that Darius was sprung from the younger line of the house
of Achæmenes. The elder son of Teispes, the son of Achæmenes, was
Cambyses I., and the younger son was Ariaramnes. His son was Arsames,
who was the father of Hystaspes, the cousin of Cambyses.[202] When the
older line became extinct in Cambyses, the younger should have ascended
the throne in the person of their head Hystaspes, but the Magians
usurped it. What could be more natural than that Hystaspes and Darius
should take the lead in overthrowing the usurper, and winning back the
crown which had been taken from them. As the future head of the tribe of
the Pasargadae, the future heir to the throne takes the lead, and we may
find in his six associates the remaining six tribes of the Persians. We
know that they had the privilege of marriage with the house of
Achæmenes, and of free entry to the king; the tribal princes also wore
the upright _kidaris_, like the king (V. 328). Hence Darius could say in
Herodotus: "Who will refuse entrance to us, the chiefs of the
Persians?[203]" And any one who should do so "would at once show himself
to be their enemy;" hence, as Herodotus relates, the seven, by divine
guidance, arrived at the palace.

Thus far does tradition carry us; but the inscriptions of Darius enable
us to go a good step farther. "The dominion, which Gaumata the Magian
took from Cambyses, belonged of old to our family," so king Darius tells
us. "My father was Vistaçpa, the father of Vistaçpa was Arsama, the
father of Arsama was Ariyaramna, the father of Ariyaramna was Chaispis,
and the father of Chaispis was Hakhamanis. This Gaumata lied. He said: I
am Bardiya, the son of Kurus; I am king. There was no one, either Mede
or Persian, or of our family, who had taken the dominion from Gaumata
the Magian.[204] The people feared him; he put to death many people who
had known Bardiya, to prevent its being known that he was not Bardiya
the son of Kurus. No one made any attempt against Gaumata the Magian,
till I came. Then I called Auramazda to my aid; and Auramazda assisted
me. There is a citadel, Çikathauvatis by name, in the land of Niçaya in
Media; there with men devoted to me I slew Gaumata the Magian and his
chief adherents. This was in the month Bagayadis, on the tenth day. I
slew him, and took from him the dominion. By the grace of Auramazda I
became king. Auramazda transferred the kingdom to me; I restored the
dominion which was taken from our tribe. The places of worship (the
houses of the gods in the Babylonian version) which Gaumata the Magian
destroyed, these I preserved for the people. I gave back to the families
what Gaumata had taken from them. What had been carried away I placed
where it had been before. By the grace of Auramazda I did this. I
laboured till I placed this race of ours again in its position. As it
was before, as though Gaumata the Magian had not robbed our family, so I
arranged it again.[205] These are the men who were present at the time
when I slew Gaumata the Magian, who called himself Bardiya; these men
helped me at that time as my adherents: Vindafrana (Intaphernes in
Herodotus), the son of Vayaçpara, a Persian; Utana (Otanes), the son of
Thukhra, a Persian; Gaubaruva (Gobryas), the son of Marduniya
(Mardonius), a Persian; Vidarna (Hydarnes), the son of Bagabigna, a
Persian; Bagabukhsa (Megabyzus), the son of Daduhya, a Persian;
Ardumanis, the son of Vahuka (Ochus), a Persian."[206]

As has been shown, Gaumata had seized the dominion on Persian ground. He
had first shown himself to the Persians as their master: "He caused
Persia to revolt," is the recapitulation in the inscription of Behistun.
The statement of Herodotus that he remitted for a certain period the
tribute, which the provinces had to furnish yearly in the form of
presents, and announced that for some years to come they need not expect
anything from distant wars, cannot be called in question. He had every
reason to make his rule acceptable, and the treasures of Cyrus at
Pasargadae were no doubt still large enough to enable him to dispense
with the tribute for some years.[207] The inscription of Darius and the
tablets at Babylon (p. 195), establish the fact that not the satraps
only, whom Cyrus and Cambyses had set up, and the population of the
subject lands, but even the army of Cambyses which had gone with him to
Egypt and returned after his death, recognized the Magian as king. As
Herodotus says, Gaumata succeeded so that all nations wished his reign
back when he had fallen, except the Persians. Most remarkable is the
passage in the inscription of Darius according to which Gaumata had
destroyed the places of worship or the houses of the gods. How could a
man, who claimed to be the son of Cyrus, begin by attacking the existing
mode of worship, which Cyrus had practised and protected, without
annihilating himself? Or was it the Magian tendency in him, which
sought to bring the stricter forms observed by the priests into
universal observance, and establish uniformity of worship? Or does
Darius merely mean that Gaumata had allowed the temples of the subject
nations to fall into ruin (Cyrus and Darius took them under their care).
This is probably the meaning of the obscure passage in the Persian text;
the Babylonian version shows that temples of the gods are spoken of, and
these the Persians and Medes did not possess.

The murder of Smerdis cannot have remained an entire secret. The
murderer or murderers knew it, and the relatives, the members of the
house of Achæmenes, the servants and women, cannot have been deceived by
the resemblance for any length of time. The narrative of Darius tells us
plainly, "that Gaumata put to death many men in order that it might not
be known that he was not the son of Cyrus." There is no doubt that
Cambyses, when dying, acknowledged his deed, but only to the Achæmenids
and the six tribal princes. Darius was with Cambyses in Egypt. From
Herodotus we learn that he secretly sent messages to the satraps at the
time of the rule of the Magians[208]. Hence he knew of the fact, and, as
was fitting, he urged the overthrow of the Magian before all others. Why
the younger line of the royal house and the tribal princes of the
Persians did not come forward immediately after the death of
Cambyses--why they did not call on the Persians to rise against the
Magians--on these matters we can only make conjectures, which however
are of a suggestive kind. One obvious reason was that the declaration
that the throne had been usurped, and the rising of the Persians which
would have followed such a declaration, would have thrown the kingdom
into the most violent convulsions. This would have given the subject
nations the choice of taking up arms for their favourite, the usurper,
or for their own independence; it would have given them the right, and
the Medes above all, of throwing off the existing rule. Could they
venture to renew the dangerous war, which Cyrus had waged against the
Medes, which had been so long undecided, and had brought the Persians
into the greatest distress, in which they had conquered only after the
most severe efforts? Who would guarantee a happy issue to the new
conflict? And if the Medes were really conquered for the second time,
would not the conflict with them be the signal for the other nations to
revolt on their part also? In this way the kingdom of Cyrus would be
completely disorganized. Thus Hystaspes and Darius and the princes of
the Persians hesitated; and contented themselves with coming to a secret
understanding with the satraps. So long as the royal house and the six
princes remained silent, the pretended son of Cyrus was compelled to
spare the Achæmenids and the tribal princes in order to play his own
part, but their silence on the other hand declared the Magian to be the
legitimate ruler, and the longer that they were silent the more securely
did they establish his throne. This position of affairs was the more
difficult for the Achæmenids, because Gaumata, as we are told in the
inscription, removed his residence from Persia to Media. He was aware no
doubt that his deception could not be long maintained against the
Persians and the satraps. In Media, therefore, he was more secure than
in Persia, for in Media the Magians formed a numerous and exclusive
order. If the Persians rose against him his best support against them
was the Medes; if the deception had to be dropped, the rising of the
Persians would pass into a war between the Persians and Medes.

From the important position which the authority of Herodotus assigns to
Otanes, and the peculiar honours subsequently paid to him and his
family, we may perhaps assume that it was he more than any other, who,
with the fixed resolution not to endure the dominion of Gaumata, pointed
out at the same time the unavoidable consequences of an armed rising of
Persia. Instead of shattering the central power with their own hands, he
must have advised his confederates to get it into their own power, and
with this object in view he proposed the removal of the Magian, the
surprise, and assassination in the citadel. There would be time for an
open conflict if the assassination failed. Darius, who was then about
thirty-five,[209] was younger and more hasty; he may have insisted on a
sudden decision and have been more inclined to use open violence.
Finally, the princes of the Persians united with Darius in the attempt
to assassinate the king. It is obvious that the consultations and
deliberations which led to this resolution took place among few, and in
the greatest secrecy. It was necessary to avoid observation and
suspicion; they must not go in a company. The son of Hystaspes might
take a message from his father to the king, and the chiefs of the
Persian tribes might accompany him. They were the chosen councillors of
the king, and had the right of free entry to him. Ought they to despair
of this because they had not been summoned to the council? If they had
had confederates in the palace of Gaumata, as Ctesias suggests, it
would have been the most foolish rashness to go to Media in such small
numbers. That Darius accomplished the deed with six associates only, as
he himself tells us, proves that they could reckon on obtaining an
entrance for these seven only, and that the king dared not refuse it to
them. His false assertion that he was an Achæmenid, and the king of the
Persians, must have been his ruin; it compelled him to admit the seven;
at any rate the guards of the palace had no orders to the contrary. The
upright tiara, which the Persian kings, the descendants of Achæmenes,
and the princes of the remaining six tribes wore, and which Plutarch
suggests was the mark of recognition among the conspirators (Polyaenus
states this for a fact[210]), pointed out Darius and his associates to
the body-guard as having the right of free entrance. It was not, as the
Greeks thought, a mark of distinction given to the six after the deed,
but, as we have seen, a distinction which they possessed, along with
others, from the time of Achæmenes, and the arrangement of the Persian
constitution. The six princes of the Persians, and at their head the
eldest son of the lawful successor to the throne, Hystaspes the prince
of the seventh tribe, or Pasargadae, were resolved to attack the
pretended king in his palace in Media, and risk their lives to maintain
the throne in the hands of the Persians. We must look for the citadel of
Çikathauvatis in Niçaya between Kermanshah and Elvend, at the southern
foot of the mountain overlooking the pastures of the Nisæan horses. If
the attempt failed Darius and his companions could hardly escape. But
the father of Darius and two younger brothers (Artabanus and
Artaphernes) were alive and in safety. They could avenge the fall of
the conspirators, and by taking up the struggle openly, attempt to
succeed where craft had failed. In the struggle, as in the previous
consultation, the source from which Herodotus has drawn represents
Gobryas as the leading person next to Darius. He is the first whom
Otanes admits to the secret; he always votes with Darius for immediate
action; he seizes one of the two Magians--obviously the king
himself--whom Darius then slays. Gobryas was the chief of the
Pateischoreans, who dwelt next to the Pasargadae on Lake Bakhtegan, and
the father-in-law of Darius, to whom his daughter had already borne
three sons.[211]

The bold resolution to attack the usurper in the midst of Media and cut
him down with his adherents in his palace succeeded. If Herodotus tells
us that when the princes after the assassination called the Persians
together, and showed them the heads of the Magians, the Persians also
drew their swords and slew all the Magians who came in their way, the
truth is that the only Persians before the citadel of Çikathauvatis in
the Median district of Nisaea would be the servants of the Persians who
accompanied them there. The question was not the slaughter of the Magi;
such a massacre would have been the most foolish thing that could have
been done. The Persians who attended the princes had no other duty than
to enable their masters to escape from the citadel in case of failure,
and in case of success to prevent the servants of Gaumata, who may very
likely have been for the most part Magians, from dispersing, and to cut
them down, to avail themselves of the overthrow of the guard in order to
disarm them. The supposed slaughter of the Magians has arisen from the
festival, by which the Persians celebrated the day of the assassination
of the Magian, the tenth of Bagayadis.[212]

Five days after the death of the Magian the seven took counsel together,
as Herodotus relates, on the state of affairs. Otanes was of opinion
that the government should be handed over to the whole body of the
Persians, that it was not well that one should rule over them. Megabyzus
represented oligarchy; the best men should form the best resolutions.
Darius spoke in favour of monarchy. In an oligarchy enmities arise, and
out of enmities rebellions and struggles, which lead to monarchy. In
democracy baseness forces its way in, and the base gather together till
a man arises who can reduce them to order; he is then admired by the
people and raised to be their ruler. A man had given freedom to the
Persians, and it was not well to set aside the laws of the fathers. Then
Otanes said: "Fellow-conspirators, it is obvious that one of us will be
king, as we are leaving the choice to the Persians either by lot or in
some other manner. But I do not seek the throne with you: I wish neither
to be a ruler, nor to be ruled over. I leave the dominion to you on the
condition that neither I nor my descendants shall be subjects to you."
The six agreed, and Otanes remained apart; to this day his family is the
only free family in Persia, and is governed only so much as it pleases,
provided that it does not transgress the laws of the Persians. The
others resolved, that if the monarchy came to one of them, Otanes and
his descendants should each year receive a Median robe and the gifts of
highest honour usual among the Persians, because he had been the first
to entertain the idea and had called them together. For the whole seven
they resolved that each should have the right of entering the palace
without announcement, whenever he would, and the king should not be
allowed to take a wife from any but the families of the conspirators.
The throne was to go to the man whose horse, when in the suburbs of the
city, should be the first to neigh at the rising of the sun. In the
night Oebares, the groom of Darius, led his horse along the road, on
which the six would ride in the morning, to a mare which he had
previously caused to be brought there. When the princes rode out next
morning, as had been agreed upon, the horse of Darius neighed at the
place where the mare had been brought to him in the night, and at the
same moment there was thunder and lightning in a clear sky. Then the
five sprang from their horses and did homage to Darius. And when Darius
was established on his throne, he set up a picture in relief on stone
representing a man with a horse, and underneath it he engraved the
words: "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, by the help of his horse and his
groom Oebares, came to be king over the Persians."[213]

In Pompeius Trogus we are told: "The conspirators were so equal in
valour and noble birth, that it was difficult for the people to elect
one of them to be king. But the conspirators themselves devised an
expedient which left the decision to religion and good luck. They
resolved to ride early in the morning to a particular place before the
citadel; and he whose horse was the first to neigh at the rising of the
sun, was to be king. For the Persians regarded the sun as the only
deity, and horses as sacred to him. Among the conspirators was Darius
the son of Hystaspes." After narrating the trick of the groom in the
same manner as Herodotus, our excerpt continues: "The moderation of the
others was so great that when they had received the sign from the gods
(Justin speaks only of the neighing, not of the thunder and lightning),
they at once sprang from their horses and greeted Darius as king. The
whole people followed the decision of the princes and made him their
king. By such a trivial circumstance did the monarchy of the Persians,
which was won by the valour of the seven noblest men, come into the
hands of one person. It is extraordinary that those who risked their
lives to wrest the throne from the Magians, should have resigned it with
such readiness, though it is true that in addition to the nobility of
form, and the valour, which made Darius worthy of the throne, he was
also related by blood to the ancient kings."[214] The excerpt from the
account of Ctesias tells us: "Sphendadates (p. 208 ff.) had reigned
seven months (_i.e._ after the death of Cambyses). Of the seven Darius
became king because his horse first neighed at the rising of the sun,
which was the sign agreed upon among them; but it was induced to neigh
by a certain trick and stratagem. Since then the Persians celebrate the
slaughter of the Magians on the day on which Sphendadates the Magian was
slain."[215]

An election to the throne was not a matter of necessity after the fall
of the Magian. The older line of the royal house, the descendants of the
elder son of Teispes, had become extinct with Smerdis and Cambyses; the
younger line had the right to ascend the throne. The head of this line
was Hystaspes. We not only learn from Herodotus, that he was still
alive, the inscription of Behistun mentions his achievements after his
son ascended the throne. The father gave place to the son, just as the
father of Cyrus had given place to his son in the rise of the Persians
against Astyages. Hystaspes abandoned the throne in favour of his eldest
son. This renunciation, in case of success, must have taken place before
Darius set out to Media, when the son went with the princes of the
Persians to succeed in the work of liberation or to perish. These
princes were in a position to salute Darius as king immediately after
the fall of the Magian. A sign from the gods could only be required to
show that the son would be accepted in the place of the father. It was
more important to prove to the Medians, the inhabitants of Nisaea, that
the new ruler who took the place of the murdered prince had done so with
the will of the gods, that Darius had seized the crown with the will of
Auramazda and Mithra. We know the sacred horses and chariot which the
Persians kept for the god of the sun and of light. The lucky neighing
with which the horse on which the new king was mounted greeted the
rising of the sun on the seventh day after the death of the Magian, put
it beyond doubt that the act was just, that the new ruler of Persia was
under the protection of the far-seeing Mithra, the god of truth, the
destroyer of lies. The narrative of the trick of Oebares is no doubt a
Greek invention. In the mind of the Persians it would have deprived the
divine signal of any importance. In the narrative of Herodotus it is
quite superfluous, for not only does the horse neigh but thunder and
lightning occur in a clear sky. The name of the groom, Oebares, does
not improve the story or make it more credible; it is merely a
repetition of the name of that most faithful and energetic counsellor
and helper of Cyrus, who first, himself a fortunate omen, meets him in
the foreign country, and carries horsedung towards him, and afterwards
assists him to victory and the throne (V. 346). As regards the
equestrian picture, which, according to Herodotus, Darius set up in
honour of his horse and his groom, Darius had certainly no interest in
announcing to the kingdom that he had won the throne by deception. No
doubt Darius left splendid monuments behind him. He may also have caused
the divine consecration and confirmation of his kingdom to be engraved
upon a rock, but the inscription to the picture certainly did not
mention the deception, or the inventor of it and his service.

Herodotus represents the conspirators as consulting about the best form
of government on the sixth day after the assassination, no doubt because
the opinion existed among the Greeks, that the Persians had a custom by
which anarchy was allowed to prevail for five days after the death of
the king, not as a sign of mourning, but in order to learn by experience
what an evil anarchy was.[216] The best form of government might be
discussed in Hellas, but it could not be discussed in Persia, and least
of all in the citadel of Çikathauvatis. Herodotus himself observes, that
these speeches were incredible to some of the Greeks, but that
nevertheless they were made;[217] he even recurs to the subject,
supporting the story on the fact that Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, had
removed the tyrants from the cities of the Ionians and set up
democracies there. Herodotus exaggerates what was done in the year 493
B.C. in order to support his story of this discussion; if Mardonius
established democracies, Otanes may have represented this form of
constitution in the council of the seven. At that time tyrannies were
not preserved in the Greek cities to the extent that the princes of
Miletus, Histiaeus and Aristagoras, raised the sign of rebellion for the
Ionians on purely personal grounds. Hence after the rebellion had been
crushed, tyrannies were not fully restored in these cities. But the
tyrants who remained faithful to Persia, like Aeaces of Lesbos, and
Strattis of Chios, were replaced on their thrones. Strattis was ruler of
Lesbos in the time of Xerxes. Even after Mardonius had visited the coast
of Anatolia, Hippoclus and Aeantides ruled over Lampsacus; the
Pisistratidæ in Sigeum; Demaratus obtained Teuthrania, Halisarna, and
Pergamum; Gongylus, Gambrion, Myrina, and Gryneum; Theomestor in the
reign of Xerxes was tyrant of Samos; in Herodotus' own city the
descendants of Lygdamis retained the throne. To renew the tyrannies in
their old extent, when they were intended to keep in subjection Greek
maritime cities of considerable power without Persian garrisons was not
necessary after these cities had been so greatly weakened by the
suppression of the rebellion.[218]

The legend of the discussion of the seven as to the best form of
constitution has grown up out of the privileges of the six tribal
princes, who as a fact formed an aristocratic element in the Persian
constitution (V. 329), and out of the peculiar immunities enjoyed by the
house of Otanes; the Greeks traced both one and the other back to the
assassination of the Magians. From the immunities, and supposed
self-government of this house, the Greeks concluded that Otanes must at
that time have pronounced for the freedom and self-government of the
Persians, and Herodotus represents him as consistently democratic, and
taking no part in the election to the throne. In the discussion the
defence of monarchy was naturally assigned to the future occupant of the
throne.

FOOTNOTES:

[199] Ctes. "Pers." 13. The names of the Seven in Ctesias have been
discussed already, Vol. V. 329 _n._

[200] Herod. 3, 83, 84, and below, p. 221, 222.

[201] Herod. 4, 83; 5, 25, 30.

[202] Vol. V. 326 _n._

[203] Herod. 3, 72, 77.

[204] Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 7, "to say;" so Oppert ("Peuple des
Mèdes," p. 110) after the Turanian version; on the other hand Mordtmann
in "Z. D. M. G." 16, 37 gives, "to undertake."

[205] Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 81 ff.; Oppert, _loc. cit._ p. 121.

[206] Herodotus gives Aspathines or Aspathenes; the inscription on the
tomb of Darius mentions Açpachana as holding an honourable office near
the person of the king.

[207] Herod. 3, 67.

[208] Herod. 3, 139, 126, 127.

[209] See below, p. 229.

[210] Plutarch, "Praec. gerend. reip." c. 27; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 12.

[211] Herod. 7, 2; Behist. 4, 84; 5, 7, 9. N. R. c.

[212] G. Rawlinson's view, which he gives in an excursus to his
Herodotus (2, 548 ff.)--that the Magian was not a Mede, I accept, as I
have observed, p. 191. Darius says in the inscription of Behistun that
neither a Persian nor a "Mede" had risen against Gaumata, and moreover,
that he had recovered the dominion which had been taken "from his tribe"
and "race." But in no case was it a question of a religious conflict,
but rather to avoid a new struggle between Media and Persia. On the
passage 3, 14 in the inscription all that need be said has been given
already (p. 216).

[213] Herod. 3, 80-88.

[214] Justin. 1, 10.

[215] Ctes. "Pers." 14.

[216] Sext. Empir. "Adv. Rhet." 33 in Stein, Herod. 3, 80.

[217] Herod. 6, 43.

[218] The evidence in support of this will be found in the Greek
History.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE REBELLIONS IN THE PROVINCES.


One of the boldest deeds known to history had been accomplished, one of
the most marvellous complications had been severed by a remarkable
venture. At a distance from their home and people, six Persians, led by
a prince of the royal house, had attacked and cut down the pretended son
of Cyrus, in his fortified citadel, when surrounded by his adherents,
after he had reigned for more than ten months (Spring 521 B.C.[219]). An
Achæmenid again sat on the throne of Cyrus. Whether the removal of the
usurper and the sudden proclamation of Darius on the soil of Media had
really prevented the ruin of the kingdom, as it was intended to do, and
whether it would produce the results which the Achæmenids and the
princes of the Persians expected from it, was a question, which, in
spite of the success, still remained to be settled. It was true that the
resumption of the struggle with the Medes for the sovereignty was for
the moment avoided, but that the accession of Darius brought the whole
kingdom into obedience to his power had still to be shown. Undeniable
facts prove that even in the last years of Cambyses the bonds of
obedience were relaxed. The satraps of the provinces had been able to
rule over their provinces independently. This had been rapidly followed
by two violent changes in the succession, which seemed to promise
success to further usurpation. The various nations were quite satisfied
with the rule of Gaumata. Their favourite chief had been slain; they
were now called upon to obey his assassin, whose reign betokened the
return of the severer rule. Neither in Media nor in Babylon did men
forget the state of affairs before Cyrus; scarcely eighteen years had
elapsed since Babylon had been taken by Cyrus. The nations of the
kingdom were in agitation.[220]

Elated by the success of his venture, in the full vigour of his
life,--according to Herodotus Darius had scarcely reached the thirtieth
year, and according to Ctesias the thirty-sixth year of his
age,[221]--the new ruler seemed equal even to the heaviest tasks. The
boldness of his resolution, the daring nature of the advice which he had
given, were favourable indications that he possessed the power to keep
the kingdom of Cyrus together. While he could not but direct his gaze in
the most eager expectation to the nations of the empire, he found in his
immediate proximity, among the associates in the deed of Çikathauvatis,
an independent and rebellious spirit. A remarkable indication proved
that the princes of the Persian tribes, to whose devotion he owed the
throne, who had risked as much as himself, were for that very reason
inclined to regard themselves as more on an equality with the new king,
and to pay less respect to his authority. Soon after the assassination
of the Magian, Intaphernes, one of the six Persian princes, who had lost
an eye in the conflict with the Magians, came one day into the palace to
speak with the king. But the doorkeepers and servants would not admit
him because the king was with one of his wives. Intaphernes thought that
this statement was false, and that the new king intended to refuse to
the Persian princes the ancient right of free entry; he drew his sword,
cut off the ears and noses of each of the two servants, strung them on
the reins of his bridle and hung them round their necks. In this act of
violence Darius could only see extreme contempt for the royal dignity,
and the most severe outrage of it in the persons of his servants; he was
convinced that it was the announcement of a rebellion. He did not
venture to step in and punish at once; he could hardly assume that
Intaphernes would have done such an action without an understanding with
the other chieftains; they had intended, no doubt, to humble the king,
and now that they had helped him to the throne, they wished to take up a
different position towards the ruler whom they had raised from that
which they had occupied towards Cyrus and Cambyses. It was not till
Darius had questioned each of the princes separately, and ascertained
that Intaphernes had acted independently, that he caused him to be
thrown into prison with his sons and all his family. He desired, no
doubt, on this first opportunity to show the chiefs of the Persians
their master, and his intention was naturally carried out with oriental
cruelty. Regardless of the services of Intaphernes and the wound which
he had received, he was to be executed and all the males of his house
with him; the entire stock of this princely family was to be
annihilated. The entreaties of the wife of Intaphernes only prevailed so
far as to save from death her brother and her eldest son, so that the
race could at least be kept in existence.[222]

Still more dangerous, though at a greater distance, appeared to be the
attitude of a satrap who ruled over wide regions. Oroetes had been made
satrap of Lydia and Ionia by Cyrus. In the last year of Cambyses he had
enticed Polycrates of Samos to Magnesia into his power, and had caused
him to be executed there, in order to bring about the subjugation of
Samos. When called upon by Darius to declare against Gaumata he had paid
no heed to the command, but had availed himself of the confusion to
assassinate Mitrobates the satrap of Phrygia, who resided at Dascyleum,
and possess himself of that satrapy. He now ruled from Sardis to the
Halys. After the accession of Darius, so far from obeying his commands
to appear at the court, he cut down the messenger who brought them. It
was obviously his intention to establish an independent kingdom in Asia
Minor. It did not appear possible to crush him without an open struggle,
and the beginning of this would be a signal of revolt for many others.
Darius summoned the chief of the Persians, and asked if any one could
remove Oroetes out of the way. In the narrative of Herodotus not one
only but thirty offered themselves for the venture. They cast lots, and
the lot fell on Bagaeus the son of Artontes. Provided with the necessary
letters from the king, he went as an extraordinary commissioner to
Sardis. The garrison of the citadel at Sardis in which Oroetes resided
consisted of a thousand Persian lance-bearers. Bagaeus caused a
communication from Darius to be read to these troops in the presence of
Oroetes. They showed respect for the letter and the royal seal, and
expressed a willingness to obey the king's commands. As soon as Bagaeus
had convinced himself of their feeling, he read an order from Darius in
which the lance-bearers were forbidden to obey Oroetes any longer. They
at once placed their lances on the ground. Encouraged by this, Bagaeus
immediately read the last order, in which Darius bade the Persians at
Sardis to put Oroetes to death. This command also was executed on the
spot. It was a rapid success, and an extremely fortunate event for
Darius. Asia Minor from the Halys to the Aegean was brought under his
authority at a single blow.

Herodotus only remarks in passing, that the Medes revolted from Darius,
but were conquered in the battle and reduced again to submission.[223]
He relates the rebellion of the Babylonians at greater length. Since the
accession of the Magian the Babylonians had secretly prepared to throw
off the yoke of Persia. They put to death all the women in the city who
were not mothers, leaving only a childless wife and another woman in
each household, that their provisions might not fail, and when Darius
brought up his forces, and invested Babylon, they made merry over the
siege and danced behind their towers. A whole year and seven months
passed away, and Darius tried every art and invention in vain, including
the means by which Cyrus had taken the city and many others, but the
Babylonians were strongly on their guard, and it was impossible to take
the city. In the twentieth month, Zopyrus the son of Megabyzus, one of
the men who had taken part in the assassination of the Magian, appeared
before the throne of Darius with his nose and ears cut off, his hair
shaved, and his body covered with blows from a whip. Distressed to see
one of the most distinguished men in such a condition, the king sprang
up and asked who had done him such an irreparable injury. It was
intolerable, Zopyrus answered, that the Assyrians should mock the
Persians any longer; he had not acquainted the king with his design that
he might not prevent him from carrying it out. It was his intention in
this plight to seek admittance into the city and to tell the Babylonians
that the king of the Persians had treated him thus. He thought that they
would believe him, and entrust him with the command over a division. On
the tenth day after his reception into the city, Darius was to place a
thousand men of the troops which he valued least against the gate of
Semiramis; on the seventeenth two thousand against the gate of Ninus; on
the thirty-seventh four thousand against the gate of the Chaldæans. If
he achieved great successes against these troops the Babylonians would
no doubt entrust everything to him, even the keys of their gates. Then
Darius was to attack the city on all sides, and place the Persians
against the gates of Belus and the gate of the Cissians. "Zopyrus set
forth, gave his name at the gate, pretended to be a deserter, and
demanded entrance. The guards led him before the council of the city. He
lamented the treatment which he had received from Darius because he had
advised him to lead away his army, inasmuch as there was no way of
taking the city. He could do them the greatest services, and Darius and
the Persians the greatest harm, for he knew their plans in every
direction. The Babylonians seeing the most distinguished Persian without
nose or ears, covered with stripes and blood, listened to his words, and
believed that he had come to aid them; and they were ready at his
request to allow him the command of a division." At the head of his
Babylonian soldiers Zopyrus cut down the three troops on the days agreed
upon. "Then Zopyrus was all in all to the Babylonians; they elected him
general and keeper of the walls of the city, and when Darius, as had
been agreed upon, stormed the city on every side, and the besieged
repulsed their opponents in every direction, Zopyrus opened the Cissian
gate and the gate of Belus to the Persians and brought them into the
city. The Babylonians who saw this fled into the shrine of Belus, but
the others fought on in their ranks till they perceived that they had
been betrayed. Thus Babylon was recovered, and Darius now did what Cyrus
had neglected to do at the time of his conquest; he destroyed the walls,
tore down the gates, impaled nearly three thousand of the leading men,
and gave the city to the remainder for a habitation. In order that they
might have wives and posterity, Darius commanded each of the
neighbouring nations to send a number of women to Babylon; in all there
were 50,000, and from these the present inhabitants of the city are
descended. In the judgment of Darius no one had ever done greater
service to the Persians than Zopyrus, with the exception of Cyrus, with
whom no Persian could be compared. It is also asserted that Darius was
wont to say that he would willingly lose twenty Babylons, if Zopyrus
might be restored from his mutilated condition. He held him in great
honour, gave him each year the presents which are most honourable among
the Persians, conferred on him for his life the government of Babylon
free of all tribute to the king, and a great deal besides."[224]

Megabyzus, the son of Daduhya, who aided Darius in putting the Magian to
death, and his descendants, were only too well known to the Greeks, and
more especially to the Athenians. Megabyzus conquered Perinthus, and
reduced Thracia and Macedonia beneath the Persian rule. The son of this
Megabyzus was Zopyrus, to whom Darius, according to the narrative of
Herodotus, owed the capture of Babylon; the son of Zopyrus was Megabyzus
the younger, who in the year 455 B.C. inflicted on the Athenians in
Egypt one of the heaviest defeats which they ever experienced; they lost
more than 200 triremes, and nearly the whole of the crews, for those who
escaped to Cyrene were few in number.[225] From the marriage of this
Megabyzus with the daughter of Xerxes and Amestris, the granddaughter of
Otanes, sprang the younger Zopyrus, who broke with Artaxerxes I. after
the death of his parents, retired to Athens after 440 B.C., and
afterwards, when attacking the city of Caunus in Caria with Attic
troops--the city belonged to the Attic league but had withdrawn from
it, and it was necessary to reduce it--was killed by a stone thrown from
the walls.[226] Hence the achievements of the princely family, who were
the forefathers of the deserter--of his father Megabyzus, his
grandfather, the elder Zopyrus, and his great-grandfather--were
peculiarly interesting to the Greeks. The minute account which Herodotus
gives of the greatest act of the older Zopyrus must be derived from
information which he obtained in Athens either from the younger Zopyrus
or from his retinue, and these would relate what the minstrels of the
Persians had sung of the sacrifice made by the elder Zopyrus for the
great king and the kingdom. We can trace a poetical source in the
mocking of the besiegers, and the saying connected with it. A Babylonian
cries to the Persians, "Why do you sit there? Why do you not retire? Ye
will take the city when mules bring forth." A mule belonging to Zopyrus
does bring forth; this sign, showing that Babylon can be taken,
determines Zopyrus to mutilate himself, when he had previously
ascertained from Darius that the king attached the greatest importance
to the capture of the city. The massacre of the women of the Babylonians
must also be poetical. Herodotus himself tells us that the Babylonians
had prepared their rebellion for a long time, ever since the Magian had
ascended the throne. Thus they had at least a year before the investment
of the city in which to furnish it with provisions, and the adjacent
country was most fruitful; moreover, the walls of Babylon enclosed a
very large extent of arable and pasture land (III. 382). We may conceive
of such wholesale massacre as an act of desperation in consequence of a
long siege; but in the account of Herodotus it took place before the
city was invested, and is one of the preparations of the Babylonians. It
is not until he has heard of the massacre of the women that Darius sets
out against Babylon. Not less remarkable are the definite numbers of the
troops, which Zopyrus with the Babylonians cuts down on the appointed
days. The names of the five gates mentioned in the narrative seem to
show exact local knowledge. But though a gate in Babylon might be named
after Belus, and another "the gate of Elam" (the Cissians); no gate in
that city could have been named after the Chaldæans, or Ninus, or
Semiramis. So far as the inscriptions of Babylon have been deciphered,
the names of the gates were different.[227] As the forms of Ninus and
Semiramis and their history do not belong even in the remotest degree to
Babylonia and her history, but are rather shown to be inventions of the
Medo-Persian Epos, these two gates which are named after them point to
the Persian source from which the narrative of Herodotus was derived.
More incredible even than the massacre of the women at the beginning of
the rebellion is their replacement after the capture by the 50,000 women
whom Darius causes the neighbouring nations to send to Babylon. Darius
had no reasons for assisting a city which had maintained itself against
him for more than twenty months, the walls and gates of which he had
broken, and at the same time, as Herodotus himself tells us, had
executed the leading men, 3000 in number, by a cruel death. His
interests lay in precisely the opposite direction.

Darius himself informs us about the rising of the Babylonians and their
subjugation. "When I had slain Gaumata, there was a man Atrina, by
name, the son of Upadarma, who rebelled in Susiana. He said to the
people: 'I am king in Susiana.' Then the inhabitants in Susiana became
rebellious; they went over to Atrina; he was king in Susiana. Moreover
there was a man of Babylon, Naditabira by name (Nidintabel in the
Babylonian text), the son of Aniri; he rebelled in Babylon. He deceived
the people thus: 'I am Nabukadrachara (Nabukudurussur), the son of
Nabunita.' Then the people of Babylon went over entirely to Naditabira;
he seized the throne in Babylon. After this I sent (an army?) to
Susiana; Atrina was brought in fetters before me; I slew him. Then I
marched to Babylonia against Naditabira, who called himself
Nabukadrachara. The army of Naditabira maintained the Tigris, and
occupied the river with ships; his whole power protected the
Tigris.[228] Auramazda came to my aid; by the grace of Auramazda I
crossed the Tigris, and severely defeated the army of Naditabira. On the
26th of the month of Athriyadiya (on the 26th of the month Kislev), then
it was, that we gave battle. After this I marched against Babylon. When
I went against Babylon, there is a city, by name Zazana on the
Euphrates, there this Naditabira, who called himself Nabukadrachara, had
come with an army to give me battle. Then we joined battle. Auramazda
came to my aid; by the grace of Auramazda I severely defeated the army
of Naditabira. The enemy was driven into the water; the water carried
him away;[229] on the second day of the month of Anamaka, then we
joined battle. Then Naditabira went with a few horse to Babylon, and I
went to Babylon. By the grace of Auramazda I took Babylon and captured
Naditabira. Then I slew Naditabira at Babylon. While I was in Babylonia
these provinces revolted: Persia, Susiana, Media, Assyria, Parthia,
Margiana, the Sattagydæ, the Sacæ."[230]

The inscription shows that the inhabitants of Elam gave the signal for
revolt, that their leader Atrina attempted to raise once more that
ancient kingdom 125 years after its fall. Nabonetus (Nabunahed,
Nabunita), the last king of Babylon, had been sent by Cyrus to Carmania
and had died there (p. 89). A man, who gave himself out to be his
younger son, took the lead of the Babylonians, and once more called into
existence the revered name of Nebuchadnezzar. He had time to collect an
army, and considered himself strong enough to meet the Persians in the
open field. On the eastern border of the ancient kingdom, on the Tigris,
he awaited the attack of the Persians; he brings armed ships to the
place, that they may facilitate his defence of the right bank, and make
it difficult for the enemy to cross the river. The Elamites were
overpowered, their leader captured and slain. The heavier task of
reducing Babylon was undertaken by Darius himself. The army which he led
was obviously the same as that which conquered Susiana; it consisted of
Persians and Medes, as is shown by the sequel of the inscription. Darius
had to open the campaign against the new Nebuchadnezzar in the same
manner in which Cyrus nineteen years previously had begun his war
against Nabonetus. He had first to cross the Tigris. This was done, and
Nebuchadnezzar retired in a slanting direction across Babylonia to the
Euphrates, closely pursued by Darius. On the Euphrates he was again
defeated, and his people were driven in part into the river, but he was
not cut off from the city as Nabonetus had been by Cyrus; he was able to
reach the protection of the walls of Babylon. We know their powers of
resistance. The Persians had crossed the Tigris at a place where it is
not more than 100 miles distant from the Euphrates, _i.e._ not far below
the Median walls; for the battle on the Tigris was fought on the 26th
(or 27th) of Athriadiya, and six days after, on the 2nd of Anamaka, the
Babylonian army suffered its second defeat on the bank of the Euphrates
at Zazana. As Athriadiya coincides with the Kislev (November-December)
and Anamaka with the Tebet (December-January) of the Babylonians (p.
195), the rebellion of Babylonia must have taken place in the summer and
the investment of the city in the last weeks of the year 521 B.C. The
inscriptions tell us nothing of the length of the siege. On the other
hand we have five tablets from the reign of the rebel, Nebuchadnezzar
III., all dated from Babylon, and bearing the name of the same witness.
They date, in the time of this king, from Kislev 20, to the next Tisri
and Marchesvan, _i.e._ from November-December of the year of the battles
down to October-November of the next year.[231] The inscription of
Behistun allows that all the central lands of the kingdom, not excepting
Persia, rebelled against Darius during the siege. It follows therefore
that success at Babylon was long enough delayed to awake the hope that
Darius would be checked before Babylonia, and defeated there. The twenty
months of Herodotus would carry us from the end of the year 521 B.C. to
the autumn of the year 519 B.C.

The rebellion made head everywhere. In spite of the day of
Çikathauvatis, the kingdom was going to ruin. The position of Darius was
desperate. The longer the siege, the more fixed the belief that he could
not succeed, the greater was the progress of the revolt. If he raised
the siege to turn against the rebels, that was a proof that he could not
conquer Babylon; the confidence of the rebels in their fortunes would be
increased, and the army discouraged with which he had conquered on the
Tigris and the Euphrates, with which he stood in personal relations, and
which he had drawn into close connection with himself. On this army the
kingdom rested; it remained yet loyal in the camp at Babylon. The deed
in Nisaea had been best confirmed by the fact that Media recognized
Darius as king, that he had been able to summon the Median contingent to
the field, and by his successes to connect the Median army with himself.
"The Persian and Median army which was with me remained faithful; the
Median nations which remained at home, revolted"--so we learn from the
inscription.[232] Darius perceived that he must not weaken the only
support which he had in this difficult crisis, or remove it by his own
act. He judged the situation correctly, and remained before Babylon in
spite of bad news which was brought to him from all sides. But the
resistance was not less stubborn than the attack. It seemed as though
the new reign of Darius must come to an end before Babylon. Could it
continue beside the defection of the Medes, Parthians, Hyrcanians,
Margiani, Sagartians and Sattagydæ, the Armenians, Assyrians, and
Susiani, the rebellion of the Persians themselves? Was it possible to
check the outbreak of the storm of ruin in the face of the indomitable
resistance of Babylon? Only in the distant east and west were there
glimpses of light. The satraps of Arachosia and Bactria, Vivana and
Dadarshis, remained loyal to Darius and kept their lands in obedience.
Asia Minor was quiet; if Darius had not succeeded in removing Oroetes at
the right moment, these regions also would have taken up arms against
Darius either under him or under some native ruler.

The account of Darius allows us to see that the recently-subdued Susiani
were the first to rebel when Darius was delayed at Babylon. After them
the Medes rebelled, in order to renew the struggle for the sovereignty
between Persia and Media; this was followed in the east by the rebellion
of the Sattagydæ, the Parthians, the Hyrcanians, the Margiani, the Sacæ;
in the west the Armenians and Syrians took up arms. Finally, even the
Persians held out a hand to the subject nations for the overthrow of the
kingdom and their own dominion. Vahyazdata, a Persian of the tribe of
the Utians (V. 323), declared himself to be the legitimate ruler; the
brother of Cambyses was alive; he was no other than Bardiya, the son of
Cyrus. The Persians believe him; this second pretender finds many
adherents.

The inscription is as follows: "There was a man, by name Martiya; he
dwelt in the city of Kuganaka in Persia; he revolted in Susiana; and
said to the people: 'I am Ymani, king in Susiana.' There was a man,
Fravartis (Phraortes) by name, a Mede. He revolted in Media, and said:
'I am Khsathrita of the family of Uvakhshathra' (Cyaxares). The Median
nation then became rebellious towards me; they went over to Fravartis;
and he was king in Media. Thereupon I sent an army. I made Vidarna, a
Persian, my servant, the general, and said to them: 'Go down and smite
the Median army which does not call itself mine.' Then Vidarna marched
out. When he came to Media, he fought a battle with the Medes at Marus,
a city in Media. By the grace of Auramazda the army of Vidarna conquered
that rebellious army on the (twenty-seventh) day of the month Anamaka
(of the month Tebet).[233] There was a district Campada (Cambadene) in
Media; there my army awaited me. The Parthians and Hyrcanians became
rebellious to me, and joined Fravartis. Vistaçpa, my father, was in
Parthia; the people left him and revolted. Then Vistaçpa took those who
adhered to him and marched against the rebels. On the 22nd day of the
month Viyakhna Vistaçpa, by the grace of Auramazda, defeated the rebels
near the city of Viçpauvatis in Parthia. I sent my servant, Dadarshis by
name, an Armenian, to Armenia. When he came to Armenia, the rebels
gathered together and marched against Dadarshis to give battle. By the
grace of Auramazda my army defeated the revolted army near Zuza in
Armenia, on the 6th day of the month of Thuravahara. The rebels marched
against Dadarshis a second time. Near the fortress of Tigra in Armenia
on the 18th of Thuravahara my army defeated the rebellious army; they
slew 526 of them, and took 520 prisoners.[234] A third time the rebels
marched against Dadarshis. Near the fortress of Uhyama in Armenia my
army defeated the rebellious army on the 9th day of the month
Thaigarshis. There Dadarshis waited till I came to Media. A man, by name
Chitratakhma, revolted from me. 'I am king of Sagartia,' he said to the
people, 'of the race of Uvakhshathra' (Cyaxares). There is a province
Margiana (Margu) by name which revolted from me. They made a man of
Margiana, Frada by name, their leader. Against him I sent Dadarshis
(Dadarsu) a Persian, my servant, the satrap of Bactria. There was a man,
Vahyazdata by name, in the city of Tarava, in the district of Yutiya in
Persia; he said to the people: 'I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus.' The
Persian nation revolted from me. He was king in Persia. This Vahyazdata,
who called himself Bardiya, sent an army to Arachosia against the
Persian Vivana, my servant, the satrap of Arachosia."

The rebellion of Phraortes (which took place in the summer of 520 B.C.)
was the more dangerous because it was undertaken with the obvious
intention of restoring the independence of Media under a scion of the
old native royal house, and the name of Cyaxares could not but excite
and give new life to national memories among the Medes. Whatever troops
Darius could spare, and for this purpose he could only use Persians, he
sent under the command of the tribal prince Hydarnes, his associate in
the assassination of the Magi, against the Medes, at the same time
despatching Dadarshis an Armenian to Armenia, to check the advance of
the rebellion there, and mainly, no doubt, to prevent the alliance of
the Armenians and the Medes. A whole year after Darius had begun the
investment of Babylon, on the 27th day of Anamaka (December-January, 520
B.C.), Hydarnes encountered Phraortes at Marus. He did not obtain any
great success. He had to content himself with maintaining against
Phraortes the district of Cambadene in the south of Media. In the west
of Media, Dadarshis had no better success against his Armenian
compatriots. When he had fought two battles, of no great importance, if
we are to judge from the losses of the rebels in one, in one month (on
the eight and eighteenth), and a third in May (Thaigarshis) of the year
519 B.C., he was compelled to retire to a fortress named Uhyama. In
Parthia, to the east of Media, Hystaspes the father of Darius, who was
expected to keep these regions of the kingdom in obedience, was not in a
position, with the forces at his disposal, to prevent the defection of
the Parthians, Hyrcanians, Margiani, and Sacæ. He contented himself with
the attempt to prevent the combination of the Parthians and Hyrcanians
with Phraortes, and to limit as far as possible the spread of the
rebellion. He only succeeded in retaining a part of the Parthians in
obedience. The battle at Viçpauvatis (in Viyakhna, _i.e._ in March,
519), made it possible for him to maintain himself in Parthia, but was
far from giving him the control of the land. The troops and generals
sent by Darius were not able to prevail against the rebels; in Media and
Armenia they were reduced to the defensive, and the same was the case
with Hystaspes the father of Darius in Bactria. This collapse of the
kingdom and general rebellion was used by a Persian of the tribe of the
Utians (Yutiya[235]) in order to win over the Persians once more with
the name of Bardiya, and to wrest them from the rule of Darius.
Vahyazdata must have found a considerable following in Persia, and his
successes must have been important, since he could attempt to extend
his dominion to the east over Carmania and Arachosia, and to send an
army to Arachosia in order to win this province also from Darius.

The position of Darius before Babylon was hopeless. The danger increased
every day, and there was still no prospect of winning the city. We may
certainly believe the narrative of Herodotus that Darius left no means
untried to reduce it, that he repeated the device of drawing off the
water of the Euphrates into the basin of Sepharvaim, by which Cyrus had
attained his object twenty years previously; the Babylonians had been
taught by that siege to be on their guard in this direction. The account
of Darius does not tell us how the city was finally taken; he does not
mention the name of Zopyrus. The pressure of the surrounding dangers was
so great, the hope of taking the city by force so small, that the son of
a tribal king might feel himself called upon to sacrifice himself for
the king and the kingdom, to adopt desperate measures. That Zopyrus did
take a prominent part in the capture of Babylon is clear from the fact,
which we do not learn from Herodotus only, that the satrapy of Babylon
was given to him, and remained in his hands during the whole reign of
Darius and afterwards. He is said to have lost his life in a rebellion
of the Babylonians in the reign of Xerxes.[236] We cannot doubt that
after the capture Darius proceeded with greater severity against Babylon
than Cyrus had done, that the gates were broken and large spaces of the
walls thrown down (p. 234). The inscription of Behistun merely mentions
the execution of the third Nebuchadnezzar.

After a siege of twenty months Babylon fell in the autumn of the year
519 B.C. Darius tells us further: "Thereupon I went up from Babylon, and
marched to Media. The Susiani were overcome with fear, they seized upon
Martiya (p. 242), who was their general, and put him to death. When I
had reached Media, there is a city, Kudurus (Kunduru) by name, in Media,
to which Fravartis marched against me with an army. Then they gave me
battle. Auramazda came to my aid. By the grace of Auramazda I severely
defeated the army of Fravartis on the 26th day of the month of Adukanis.
Then Fravartis with a few horsemen withdrew to the district of Raga in
Media. Then I sent an army against them; Fravartis was captured and
brought to me. I cut off his nose, ears, and tongue. He was kept in
chains at my gate; all the people saw him. Then I crucified him at
Hangmatana (Ecbatana), and the men who were his principal adherents I
imprisoned in the citadel of Hangmatana. Then I sent a Persian army from
Raga to Vistaçpa, and when it had reached him, he marched out with it.
There is a city Patigrabana[237] in Parthia, there Vistaçpa severely
defeated that rebellious army on the 1st day of the month of Garmapada;
he slew 6560 of them, and took 4182 captives. Then the land of Parthia
was mine. I sent Vaumiça a Persian, my servant, to Armenia; when he came
there the rebels collected to give battle to Vaumiça. At Achitu in
Assyria my army defeated the rebels on the 15th day of Anamaka, and slew
2024 of them. A second time they gathered together and marched against
Vaumiça. There is a district Antiyara (Otiara) by name, in Armenia;
there they fought on the last day of the month of Thuravahara (Yiyar
30). By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated the rebels severely;
they slew 2045 and took 1559 prisoners. Against Chitratakhma (the leader
of the rising of the Sagartians), I sent a part of the Persian and
Median army.[238] I made Takhmaçpada, a Mede, the general. Takhmaçpada
fought with Chitratakhma and my army defeated the rebellious army,
seized Chitratakhma, and brought him to me. I cut off his nose and ears,
he lay in chains at my gate; all the people saw him. Then I crucified
him at Arbira (Arbela in Assyria). Dadarshis, a Persian, my servant, the
satrap of Bactria, fought a battle with the Margiani (Frada was the
leader of the rising here) on the 23rd day of the month of Atriyadiya.
By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated the hostile army very
severely. Dadarshis slew 4203 of them, and took 6562 prisoners.[239]
Then the land was mine. Vahyazdata, who called himself Bardiya, sent an
army to Arachosia against the Persian Vivana, my servant, the satrap of
Arachosia. 'Go up,' he said to them; 'defeat Vivana and the army, which
calls itself the army of king Darius.' There is a fortress, Kapisakani
by name; there they fought the battle. By the grace of Auramazda my army
defeated the rebellious army on the 13th of Anamaka. For a second time
the rebels marched against Vivana. In the district of Gandutava
(Ganduvada) on the 7th of the month Viyakhna, my army defeated the
rebellious army. Then the general of Vahyazdata withdrew with his
faithful warriors to a fortress, Arsada by name, in Arachosia. Vivana
followed him with an army. Then he seized him and slew him and the
captains who were with him. I sent out a part of the Persian and Median
army which was with me; I made Artavardiya, a Persian, my servant, the
general of it; Artavardiya marched to Persia; the rest of the army went
with me to Media. When Artavardiya was in Persia, there is a city Rakha
(Racha); to this Vahyazdata who called himself Bardiya marched to fight
against Artavardiya. Auramazda came to my aid; on the 12th of
Thuravahara my army defeated the army of Vahyazdata very severely. Then
Vahyazdata went to Pisicauvada. From thence he marched against
Artavardiya and gave him battle. There is a mountain Paraga (Parga) by
name; there they fought on the 6th day of Garmapada. By the grace of
Auramazda my army defeated that of Vahyazdata; and they seized
Vahyazdata and also his chief adherents. Uvadaidaya is a city in Persia;
there I crucified Vahyazdata and the captains who were with him."

The connection between these various battles is no doubt as follows.
When Babylon had fallen in the autumn of the year 519 B.C. and the new
Nebuchadnezzar had been executed, Darius set out in the spring of the
year 518 B.C. Hydarnes maintained himself against Phraortes on the
western border of Media, Dadarshis against the rebels in Armenia, and
Hystaspes in Parthia. The new pretender to the name of Smerdis ruled in
Persia, and his attempt to gain possession of the lands farther to the
east and of Arachosia was first checked by the defeat which he suffered
from the satrap of Arachosia in a battle fought in December of the year
519 B.C. In all these directions, in Armenia and Parthia, help was
needed, and the decision lay in Persia and Media. Darius did not direct
his march against Persia, but against Media. There, as he acutely saw,
lay the main strength of the rebellion. His approach terrified the
Susiani; they slay their chief, their king Martiya, and submit. Arrived
at the border of Media and Persia, Darius divides his army. To make use
of the mutual jealousy of the Persians and Medes, and to prevent any
contact of his Median troops with their rebellious kinsmen, he sends the
Persian Artavardiya with the Median troops to Persia against Vahyazdata,
and with the Persians he marches against Phraortes to Media. Hydarnes
waited for him at Campada; the first object was to unite the troops. The
road from Susiana to Ecbatana ran through the district of Cambadene.
When united with Hydarnes Darius overcomes Phraortes in the month of
Adukanis (perhaps in June) of the year 518 at Kudurus, pursues him to
Ragha, and takes him prisoner. Before he executed him in front of the
citadel of Deioces, Phraortes, and Cyaxares, he had cut off his nose,
ears, and tongue, and in this condition he had publicly exhibited him in
chains, in order to convince the Medes that they had nothing to hope
from the supposed scion of Cyaxares. The rebellion of the Medes is at an
end. Darius can divide his forces. From Ragha he sends aid to his father
Hystaspes in Parthia, and with this additional aid Hystaspes is able to
defeat the rebellion of the Parthians in Garmapada, _i.e._ in the summer
of 518 B.C. At the same time Dadarshis had received the support in
Armenia for which he was waiting, under the protection of the fortress
of Uhyama. The Persian Vaumiça, who brought up the reinforcements for
Darius, defeats the Armenian rebels in Anamaka, _i.e._ in December of
the year 518 B.C.; a second victory of Vaumiça, in Yiyar (May) of the
following year (517 B.C.), puts an end to the rebellion in Armenia. A
third army was sent by Darius after the fall of Phraortes against the
Sagartians; which overpowered them and took their chief Chitratakhma
prisoner. Meanwhile Artavardiya, whom Darius had sent from Susiana, when
on his march against Phraortes, to check the rebellion in the native
land, had fought with success against Vahyazdata. The latter had
weakened his forces by sending a detachment to Arachosia. Vivana, the
satrap of Arachosia, had repulsed their attack in December 519 at
Kapisakani, and in March (Viyakhna) of the year 518 B.C. he had entirely
destroyed them. This failure in the east was followed in the same spring
by the attack of Artavardiya from the west. First defeated in
Thuravahara (April) at Racha, Vahyazdata succumbed in the summer (in
Garmapada) at Mount Paraga, five days after Hystaspes had again become
master of the Parthians in the north-east of Iran. The forces of the
satrap of Bactria, the second Dadarshis, had sufficed to put an end to
the rebellion of the Margians.

That which the deed of Çikathauvatis, the assassination of Gaumata in
the spring of the year 521 B.C., was intended to prevent, had
nevertheless happened. The whole kingdom was disorganised. In ceaseless
conflicts, which extended over four years, from the autumn of 521 B.C.
to the spring of 517 B.C., Darius had reconquered it, step by step. He
had been compelled to reduce by force of arms even the very foundation
of it, the native land of Persia, and to carry on once more the conflict
between Persia and Media. It had been necessary to repeat the
achievements of Cyrus, if not to their full extent yet in part under far
more difficult conditions. The new king had passed with success through
the severest crisis, and had reorganised the kingdom. This was the
result of his indomitable persistence before Babylon. By this means he
had retained the Medes and Persians of his army in their fidelity, and
by the final success had filled them with self-confidence. The fear
which afterwards preceded his arms, certainly rendered more easy the
decisive victory of Kudurus and at Mount Paraga.

Darius had not yet reached the goal; the kingdom was not entirely
pacified. The reduction of Babylon and the execution of Nebuchadnezzar
III. had not eradicated the strong impulse which the Babylonians felt to
regain their independence. They were once more carried away by the charm
which the name of Nebuchadnezzar exercised upon them: "When I was in
Persia and Media," so Darius relates at the close of the third column of
the great inscription of Behistun, "the Babylonians became rebellious
for the second time. A man of the name of Arakha, an Armenian, rose up
in the city of Dubana (Dubala, Dibleh?) in Babylonia. 'I am
Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonetus,' such was his falsehood: he made
himself master of the city of Babylon and was king. I sent Intaphernes,
my servant, a Mede, with an army against Babylon. Intaphernes took
Babylon, and slew much people. On the 22nd of the month Markazana,
Arakha with his chief adherents was captured;[240] then I ordered them
to be crucified in Babylon." No doubt Darius had left sufficient
garrisons in the two royal citadels of the city which he had conquered
with so much trouble, and, therefore, it is the more remarkable that
Arakha, who did not rebel in Babylon itself, was able to make himself
master of the city. We may assume that Darius did not give the
Babylonians time to fill up the breaches which he had made in the walls
of Babylon; this time the Median Intaphernes must have found the task
lighter. The second rising of the Babylonians seems to have seduced the
Susiani, and to have caused a third rebellion of this land. In a fifth
column, subsequently added to the inscription of Behistun, we have
information about this rebellion of the Susiani and the reduction of the
Sacæ. But this part of the inscription is so greatly injured that only a
few words can be read with certainty. All that is clear is that
Gaubaruva (Gobryas), the father-in-law of Darius and one of the Seven,
was sent against the Susiani and conquered them, that Darius himself
marched against the Sacæ, that he fought against the _Çaka tigrakhauda_,
i.e. against the Sacæ with pointed caps, and conquered them on the sea
(_i.e._ on the Caspian), that he captured and slew their chief Çakunka.
Polyaenus has preserved a few details of the war against the Sacæ,
though they rest on little authority; they prove that it was carried on
in the neighbourhood of Bactria, and was a serious struggle.[241]
Darius recapitulates the narrative of the achievements of the first
years of his reign thus: "This is what I accomplished, what I
accomplished always with the grace of Auramazda; I have fought nineteen
battles, and taken captive nine kings."[242]

In remembrance of these deeds and achievements, Darius erected a
magnificent memorial in that flourishing district of Media which the
Medes called Bagistana, _i.e._ land of the gods. The Choaspes (Kerkha)
rises on the southern slope of the Elvend, on the northern slope of
which lay Ecbatana. Breaking through the mountain rim of Iran, it flows
down a long and narrow valley towards the south into the Lower Tigris.
In its upper course the Choaspes traverses an elevated depression, which
is now thickly strewn with villages, the chosen summer abode of the
shepherd tribes. To the north this depression is bounded by a steep
mountain-chain, twenty miles in length, which ends towards the east in a
precipitous wall of rock more than 1500 feet high. On this wall, which
looks towards the rising sun, over a clear fountain which springs at the
foot of the rock, Darius caused a part of the stone 300 feet above the
plain to be made smooth with the chisel, polished and cut in relief; the
relief is explained by two inscriptions, a shorter one above and a
longer one below, in cuneiform letters. At the foot of the rock there
was a park (paradisus) twelve stades in the circuit.[243] Being placed
in Media, this monument was no doubt intended to remind the Medes that
any rebellion against the power of the Persians even under the most
favourable circumstances would fail. The rock-picture represents Darius,
who in size towers over the other figures. He wears a robe which in
front falls down over the knee, and behind to the middle of the calf, a
crown, a simple fillet with spikes on his head; rings are on his arms,
the hair is long, the beard curled. Behind him stand a bow-bearer and a
lance-bearer, both with long robes and beards. The king places his right
foot on a man lying on the ground. Below this we can read: "This
Gaumata, the Magian, lied: he said, 'I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus; I
am king.'" Opposite to Darius, bound to each other by a rope round their
necks, and their hands tied behind them, stand nine kings with their
heads uncovered (the last only has a very tall pointed cap, which marks
him as the king of the _Çaka tigrakhauda_), clothed in various garments.
Over the first form, which is clad in a long beautiful robe reaching to
the ancles, we read: "This Atrina lied; he said: 'I am king in
Susiana'"; and over the second, in a short robe: "This Naditabira lied;
he said thus: 'I am Nabukadrachara, the son of Nabunita, I am king of
Babylon.'" Near the third figure, also in a short garment, is written:
"This Fravartis lied; he said: 'I am Khsathrita, of the race of
Uvakhshathra, I am king in Media.'" The fourth wears Persian clothing:
"This Martiya lied; he said; 'I am Ymani, king in Susiana.'" Over the
fifth form we find: "This Chitratakhma lied; he said: 'I am king in
Sagartia, of the race of Uvakshathra.'" Over the sixth, who is clothed
as a Persian: "This Vahyazdata lied; he said: 'I am Bardiya, the son of
Kurus; I am king.'" Over the seventh prisoner, who is clothed like the
second, we read: "This Arakha lied; he said thus: 'I am Nabukadrachara,
the son of Nabunita; I am king in Babylon.'" Over the eighth, who wears
Persian garments: "This Frada lied; he said thus: 'I am king in
Margiana.'" The ninth stands a little further back; the inscription
tells us: "This is Çakunka, the Sacian." The picture does not mention
the conquest of the Parthians, Hyrcanians, Assyrians, Armenians, and
Sattagydae. In the midst, above the whole description, hovers Auramazda,
a solemn, aged countenance, with long hair and beard, visible only to
the knees, in a winged circle.

Under this picture, at the close of the fourth column, before the
account of the new rebellion of the Susiani and the subjugation of the
Sacæ, the inscription tells us: "What I have done, I have done by the
grace of Auramazda. Auramazda came to my aid, and the other gods, who
did so because I was not hostile; because I was not a liar or violent.
Thou, who readest these inscriptions, may they tell thee what I have
done. Regard them not as lies. These lands which became rebellious to
me, the lie made them rebellious. Thou who wilt be king hereafter, guard
against the lie. Punish severely the man who is a liar; if thou keepest
this mind, my land will be powerful. Thou who seest this tablet
hereafter, destroy it not. If thou preservest it as long as thou canst,
Auramazda will be favourable to thee; thou wilt have descendants, and
live long, and may Auramazda cause that to succeed which thou dost
undertake. If thou destroyest this tablet, may Auramazda smite thee,
may he give thee no posterity, and what thou doest may he render
vain.[244]"

FOOTNOTES:

[219] Above, p. 195, _n._

[220] Herod. 3, 67, 126, 150.

[221] He was, according to Herodotus, twenty years old at the death of
Cyrus. Herod. 1, 209; 3, 139. Ctesias ("Pers." 19) gives Darius a reign
of thirty-one years and a life of seventy-two. That the reign of Darius
lasted thirty-six years is fixed both by the astronomical canon and
Egyptian inscriptions, which mention the thirty-sixth year of Darius;
and lastly by the Egibi-tablets of Babylon, which give dates out of
thirty-five years (with the single exception of the seventh year).
"Transact. Bibl. Arch." 6, 69 ff. According to Ctesias, Darius would be
thirty-six years old in the year 521 B.C.

[222] Herod. (3, 118, 119) puts this event; [Greek: autika meta tên
epanastasin].

[223] Herod. 1, 130.

[224] Justin repeats the narrative of Herodotus in a rhetorical form; he
incorrectly regards Zopyrus as one of the seven. Diodorus attempts to
unite the statements of Herodotus and Ctesias, by maintaining that
Zopyrus was also called Megabyzus; the "twenty Babylons" are reduced to
ten. (Exc. Vat. p. 34, 35 = 10, 19.) In Herod. (4, 143) Darius wishes
when he opens the finest pomegranate that he had as many Megabyzuses
(the father of Zopyrus is meant) as the fruit had seeds. Plutarch
transfers this to Zopyrus, and represents Darius as saying that he would
rather have Zopyrus uninjured than 100 Babylons; "Reg. Apophthegm." 3.
In Polyaenus (7, 12), Zopyrus imitates the device which Sirakes, a
Sacian, had previously employed against Darius, and opens the gates of
Babylon to the Persians by night.

[225] Thucyd. 1, 104, 109, 110; Diod. 11, 71, 74, 75, 77; 12, 3; Isocr.
"De Pace," 82.

[226] Ctes. "Pers." 44. The paidagogos of Alcibiades was no doubt named
after this Zopyrus. Plutarch, "Lycurg." c. 16; Alcib. c. 1; Kirchhoff,
"Enstehungszeit," s. 15.

[227] _E.g._ Ménant, "Babylon," p. 204; Oppert. "Expéd." 1, 187, 223.

[228] So according to the Babylonian text in Schrader,
"Keilinschriften," s. 345.

[229] Oppert after the Turanian text: "I slew much people from the army
of Nidintabel, and drove others to the river; they were drowned in the
river."

[230] The Turanian version mentions Egypt after Assyria. In the
inscription nothing is said of this country; no Egyptians are found in
the rows of the conquered rebels.

[231] The two Egibi-tablets quoted by Boscawen in "Trans. Bibl. Arch."
6, 68, on Nebuchadnezzar III. have been rightly ascribed by Oppert,
relying on the names of the witnesses, to the later rebellion of Arakha.

[232] Cf. Schrader, "Keilinschriften," s. 346.

[233] Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 346. The day of the month belongs to the
corresponding Babylonian month Tebet.

[234] Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ s. 75; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 347.

[235] Above, Vol. V. 323. The district of Otene belongs no doubt to
Armenia. Steph. Byz. _sub voce_.

[236] What Herodotus relates of Zopyras, Ctesias relates of his son
Megabyzus II. in regard to this new rising, of which we have no more
accurate knowledge in any other source, but which must not be called in
question. Herodotus himself indicates a rebellion under Xerxes, in which
the golden image of Belus was taken away from the lower chamber in the
great temple (1, 183), and we have Strabo's statement of the destruction
of Belus by Xerxes, p. 738. If Darius, as Herodotus tells us, 3, 159,
"destroyed the gates of Babylon," it does not follow that he opened the
supposed tomb of Nitocris over the main gateway, because it made it
impassable, as Herodotus thinks (1, 187).

[237] Vol. V. p. 10, _n._

[238] Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 133.

[239] Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ s. 76, 77; Spiegel, "Altpers.
Keilinschriften," Bag. 3, 3; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 351.

[240] Oppert, "Records of the Past," 7, 104. The date of this rebellion
cannot be accurately fixed. The passage in the inscription of Behistun
which bears upon it stands at the close of the connected narrative; we
should therefore have to assume that it took place in the year 517 B.C.,
for this passage begins with the words, "When I was in Persia and
Media," which in the connection can only have the meaning: When I was
occupied with the overthrow of Phraortes and Vahyazdata. On the other
hand the Egibi-tablets are wanting for the seventh year of Darius only,
so that according to this the year 515 B.C. would be the year of the
rebellion of Arakha. Above, p. 240, _n_.

[241] Polyaen. 7, 27.

[242] Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 158, inserts at the beginning of
this fifth column of the inscription of Behistun before _thardam_:
_duvadaçamam_, so that we get the meaning; "This is what I have done up
to the twelfth year." The eleventh year of Darius ends in spring 510.
But chronological dates are not to be obtained by merely emending the
text. According to the context and the first line of Col. v. Darius said
in reference to the four preceding columns: "This I have done up to this
or that year." Then follows the narrative of the new rebellion of the
Babylonians and the subjugation of the Sacæ. If the rebellion of Arakha
took place in the seventh year of Darius, as Oppert himself assumes, we
should rather insert _astemam_ before _thardam_.

[243] Diodor. 2, 13; 17, 110. Suidas [Greek: Bagistanon oros]. Ritter,
"Erdkunde," 9, 350.

[244] Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 31 ff. Oppert in the "Journal
Asiatique," S. 4, VOL XVII., 322 ff., and "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 151
ff., Col. iv. 19. Oppert after a Turanian version above the picture here
translates as follows: "Et Darius le roi dit: par la grâce d'Ormuzd j'ai
fait une collection de textes ailleurs en langue arienne, qui autrefois
n'existait pas. Et j'ai fait un texte de la loi et un commentaire de la
loi et la bénédiction et les traductions. Et ce fut écrit et je le
promulgai en entier, puis je rétablis l'ancien livre dans tous les pays
et les peuples le reconnurent."




CHAPTER XV.

THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF DARIUS ON THE INDUS AND THE DANUBE.


Aeschylus represents the Persians as saying, "A great, prosperous,
victorious life was granted to us by destiny, when King Darius, the lord
of the bow, Susa's beloved captain, governed the land, without fault or
failure, like a god. The Persians called him their divine counsellor: he
was filled with a godlike wisdom, and wisely did he, the Susa-born god
of Persia, lead our army. We were seen in splendid array; there was
ready for him the unwearying might of armed men, and troops mingled from
all nations, and the return from the wars was glorious. According to his
will, he ruled the wealthy populous cities of the Greeks in the land of
Ionia, and the wave-beaten islands of the seas, adjacent to that land,
Chios, Lesbos and Samos rich in olives, and Lemnos between both shores,
and the cities of Cyprus, Paphos, Soli, and Salamis. Many cities he took
adjacent to the Thracian borders on the Strymonian Sea: even the walled
cities, far from the shore, obeyed him, and the famous cities on the
strait of Helle, on the bay of the Propontis, and the mouth of the
Pontus. Beloved hero, thy like lies not in the land of Persia."[245]

The rebellions were crushed, the kingdom of Cyrus was once more
established. Darius took precautions to prevent the recurrence of such
serious dangers, and to bring the nations into a lasting state of
dependence. He created fixed districts for government, strengthened the
action of the central power, secured the necessary means for this, and
sought to arrange the taxes and tributes of the provinces and settle
them at fixed contributions. Along with this improvement in the
organization of the kingdom he kept in sight the extension of it; he did
not wish to be left behind Cyrus and Cambyses in this respect. We cannot
decide whether the northern boundary of the kingdom reached the Caucasus
in the time of Cyrus; it is certain that under Darius the nations
between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Colchians, the Tibarenes,
Chalybes, Moschians, and Saspeires, were subject to the Persians.
Herodotus observes that the Colchians and their neighbours paid the
tribute which they had imposed upon themselves--which implies that these
nations submitted voluntarily. "The empire of the Persians," Herodotus
tells us, "extends to the Caucasus; the territory to the north pays no
heed to them."[246] It was a considerable gain when the kingdom extended
as far as the Caucasus, or included the whole range; for by this means
it acquired a strong natural border, and at the same time controlled the
trading road which ran from the east and the Caspian Sea through the
valleys of the Cyrus (Kur) and the Phasis to the Black Sea.

In the East Cyrus, as we saw, had already advanced as far as the Indus;
he had conquered the Açvakas on the north of the Cabul, and the
Gandaras to the south of that river. Of their neighbours, Bactria and
Arachosia had remained true during the great rebellion, though the
Sattagydæ (the Gedrosians) had revolted. Darius had himself marched
against the Sacæ, and reduced them again to subjection. Herodotus tells
us, that he sent out a party to explore the Indus; in which was Scylax,
an inhabitant of Caryanda in Caria. They set out from the land of the
Pactyes (_i.e._ from Arachosia), and from the city of Caspatyrus (Cabul)
they followed the course of the Indus to the sea. Then they sailed to
the west, and in the thirtieth month they arrived at the point from
which the Phenicians started, who sailed round Africa at the command of
Necho (III. 313), _i.e._ they did not return to the Persian Gulf but
sailed round Arabia, and landed in the north-west corner of the Arabian
Gulf at Heroonpolis. After their return Darius made use of this sea, and
subjugated the Indians.[247] The extension of the Persian kingdom in the
land of the Indus, by Darius, is beyond a doubt. In the inscription
which he caused to be engraved on Mount Behistun after the suppression
of the rebellions, he enumerates the nations which obey him. We can find
but one name of an Indian nation to the right of the Indus--the
Gandaras. The inscription of the palace of Persepolis, which Darius
built a few years later, mentions the Idhus, _i.e._ the Indians, besides
the Gandarians. Herodotus further informs us that it was the Northern
Indians whom Darius had subjugated. They formed the twentieth satrapy of
his kingdom, while the Gandarians were united with the Arachoti in the
seventh satrapy. The twentieth satrapy of Northern Indians comprised the
lands to the north of Cabul, on the right bank of the stream, from the
land of the Açvakas as far as the summits of the Himalayas. It paid 360
talents of gold, the highest tax among all the satrapies of the
kingdom.[248]

In the west Darius pursued even more extensive plans. If Cambyses had
trodden the soil of Africa, his armies were to cross the western sea,
and carry the empire of Persia into Europe--a point which none of the
great warrior princes of the east had as yet reached. Diodorus tells us,
that Darius, filled with eager desire to extend his dominion, master of
almost all Asia, and trusting to the magnitude of the Persian power,
desired to conquer Europe as his ancestors had defeated the mightiest
nations with less forces.[249] The first achievement of Darius in this
direction was the conquest of Samos, the most powerful and prosperous of
the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Oroetes had already prepared the
way for this by inviting Polycrates to Magnesia and there putting him to
an ignominious death, for when Polycrates was master of Samos and at the
head of the splendid naval power which he had created he could contest
with Persia the possession of the Ægean (p. 143, 231). Polycrates had
left the most trusted of his dependents, Maeandrius, as regent during
his absence. On the news of the death of Polycrates, he declared his
willingness to lay down his power. But when the nobles of Samos demanded
an account of the treasures of Polycrates which were in the hands of
Maeandrius, he treacherously seized those who made the demand, threw
them into prison, and maintained himself as tyrant. At an earlier time,
Polycrates, in close union with his two brothers, Pantagnotus and
Syloson, had made himself master of Samos: he then removed the former
out of his path, and sent the second into banishment. Syloson went to
Egypt to amuse himself with the sights of the country. There, according
to Herodotus, he was one day seen by Darius, who was then in Egypt with
Cambyses, in the market-place of Memphis, clad in a red cloak. The cloak
pleased Darius and he wished to purchase it, but Syloson hastened to
offer it as a present to the Persian prince. When Darius became king,
Syloson went to Susa, as Herodotus relates, placed himself at the gate
of the palace, and told the door-keeper that he had done a service to
the king. Darius in astonishment at such an assertion from a Greek,
caused Syloson to be brought, remembered the cloak, and was prepared to
reward the gift by a liberal present of gold and silver. But Syloson
urged the king to restore him to the throne of Polycrates, which was now
in the hands of a man who had been a slave in his family; the island was
to be spared.[250]

Whether this narrative has any real foundation or not (in any case Susa
must be struck out) Darius found it advantageous to get Samos into his
power; and, as we have seen, it was a maxim from the time of Cyrus to
set up princes in the maritime cities and the islands, who owed their
power to the Persians, and who could only maintain it with their help.
He commanded Otanes, whose service in the assassination of the Magi we
know, to cross over into Samos. The Samians had no inclination to fight
in the cause of Maeandrius, nor did they venture to resist the Persians.
When Otanes landed with the Persian troops, Maeandrius with his
dependants retired into the citadel, and sent a message to Otanes that
he was prepared to quit the island. When this had been agreed upon, the
captains of the Persians waited without suspicion before the citadel
for the departure of Maeandrius and his associates, and for the opening
of the gates. Then the half-witted brother of Maeandrius, Charilaus, who
had been confined in prison in the citadel, burst forth from the open
gates with the old mercenaries of Polycrates and fell upon the nearest
Persians, who in reliance on the treaty were unprepared for an enemy,
and cut the captains down, while Maeandrius passed by a subterranean
passage to the sea, and embarked on board ship. The mass of the Persians
hastened to the rescue; the mercenaries were driven back into the
citadel. Enraged at the treachery, Otanes gave the command to cut down
all the Samians who fell into the hands of the Persians both within and
without the walls. The city was set on fire, and the flames injured the
temple of Hera, which was the largest building in Greece after the
temple of Artemis at Ephesus. When the citadel had fallen, Syloson
received from the Persians (516 B.C.) the ruined city and the desolate
island. He enjoyed the throne but a short time, which he had purchased
by the ruin of the flourishing country, and vassalage to the great
king.[251] The island recovered from the blow which it received from the
Persians. Twenty years after the subjugation it could once more equip
and man 60 triremes.

The possession of Samos completed the dominion of Darius over the coasts
of Anatolia. It was of greater importance to get into his power the two
straits which separate Europe from Asia--the Hellespont and the
Bosphorus. If the Greek cities on the Asiatic side were subject, the
cities and lands beyond were still to be conquered, and with the
conquest of these the Persian empire would set foot in Europe.
Perinthus, a colony of the recently-conquered Samos, Selymbria on the
northern shore of the Propontis, and Byzantium on the Bosphorus, both
colonies of Megara, recognised the dominion of Darius; in Byzantium, the
most important of these cities, a tyrant, Ariston by name, soon took the
lead.[252] The European shore of the Hellespont, the Thracian
Chersonesus, had been for more than forty years under the rule of a
princely family, which sprang from Attica. One of the oldest noble
families in Attica, which had retired from the country before the
usurpation of Pisistratus in 560 B.C.--the Philaidae, had established a
principality there, by protecting and securing the Doloncian Thracians
in the peninsula against their fellow-countrymen the Apsinthians, who
dwelt at the mouth of the Hebrus. The position which the first of these
princes, Miltiades II., thus obtained in the Hellespont, filled the city
of Lampsacus, which lay opposite, on the Asiatic shore, with jealousy
and anxiety for her trade; the question in dispute was the control of
the busy strait. Lampsacus waged long and vigorous war against Miltiades
and his nephew and successor Stesagoras. The latter was followed by his
younger brother, Miltiades III. (about 518 B.C.), who had taken the
reins of government tightly in hand. The forces of the little
principality did not suffice to offer resistance to the Persians; and
the walls of Sestos and Cardia were insufficient. We hear of no
resistance, and Miltiades passed into the series of Persian vassal
princes. In this way he was secured against Lampsacus and Sigeum also,
where Pisistratus, in league with Polycrates of Samos, had placed his
younger son Hegesistratus as prince about the year 533 B.C., who became
a vassal of Persia when Cambyses demanded ships from the Greek cities,
or after the fall of Polycrates, or certainly when Darius extended his
sovereignty over Samos.

By the subjugation of Byzantium and the Thracian Chersonesus, Darius was
not merely master of the whole of the important trade of the Greek
cities of Asia Minor, and the cantons of Hellas, with the north shore of
the Black Sea, but the path into Europe was in his hand. According to
Ctesias, he bade Ariamnes, his satrap in Cappadocia, sail to Scythia and
there make prisoners. Ariamnes carried out the command with thirty
penteconters, and brought back captives.[253] If the statement is
correct, it must refer to an investigation of the north coast of the
Black Sea, similar to that made by Darius of the east on the Indus (p.
260), and at a later time of the coasts of Hellas and Magna
Graecia.[254] Darius contemplated a great expedition; he wished to cross
the straits with a large force, but not to pass to the west against
Macedonia and the cantons of the Greeks, but to the north beyond the
Danube. It must have seemed more important to him to secure himself in
the north first; the conquest of the west he regarded as less urgent,
and also as a less important undertaking. Herodotus tells us that
Darius' object was to avenge the incursion which the Scythians made, at
the time of Cyaxares, into Media.[255] It is his manner to connect
events by a nexus of guilt and punishment; Darius cared very little for
the disaster which had fallen on Media. We shall be more correct in
ascribing to him the intention of getting the whole shore of the Black
Sea into his power, in order that he might reduce the western and
northern coasts, when, the south-west, as far as the Caucasus, being
already subjugated, the whole sea would be a Persian lake. On the
northern edge lay a district fertile in corn, and flourishing colonies
of the Greeks. With this territory and these cities the Persian kingdom
would have gained the mouth of the rivers of the north, and the outlet
of the trading roads to the nations of the north, as it had already got
command of the trading roads which met from the east and west in
Colchis. But what really happened to the north of the Danube, so far as
we can fix the incidents, does not agree with this plan. The object of
the enterprise, unless we assume that Darius only wished to carry his
arms to the most remote nations, cannot be made clear, nor can we follow
with certainty all the phases in it.

If Cambyses had supported his expedition against Egypt by the navy of
the Phenician cities and the Greek cities of Anatolia, Darius had still
more urgent need of their sailors to convey him to Europe, across the
Danube. To the mariners of the Anatolian coasts and the islands lying
off them, the waters of the Black Sea and the mouths of the Danube and
Borysthenes were hardly less familiar than the shores of the Ægean. This
co-operation was therefore the most essential. Darius called out the
navy of the Greek cities of his kingdom, and that navy only; employment
was found for the Phenician fleet was another direction. The Greeks had
to furnish no less than 600 triremes, _i.e._ a fleet of which the crews
reached the total of 120,000 men. That fleet was intended to convey the
land army, the levy of the entire kingdom, across the straits, and it
must assemble before the army arrived. The task before it was the
transport of 700,000 men, for that, according to Herodotus, was the
strength of the army of Darius, with numerous horses, and the enormous
train of servants, porters, and beasts of burden to Europe. This
involved the embarkation and debarkation of the animals,--a long and
difficult operation; it was desirable to lose as little time as
possible, and more desirable still to keep and maintain a safe
connection with Asia in the rear of the army. Hence Darius considered
whether it were possible to bridge over one of the straits. He found a
Greek who undertook to carry out this idea, and had no scruples in
building a bridge to connect the mighty Persian empire with Europe, and
facilitate the subjugation of his own countrymen in their native land.
In the island of Samos, so recently conquered by Darius, were the best
engineers in Greece. After the construction of the great temple of Hera
had been begun, the Samians had found various opportunities of
exercising their skill. A long and difficult acqueduct, and breakwaters
for the protection of the harbour, had been partly begun and partly
carried out before the reign of Polycrates; the building of the palace,
the strong fortifications, and, above all, the great docks and
harbour-works, which Polycrates set on foot, had given yet further
practice to the Samians. From this school came Mandrocles, who undertook
the construction of the bridge.

Darius commanded Mandrocles to build a bridge over the Bosphorus, which
lay in the direction of his march. This strait was narrower than the
Hellespont, but the current which sets through it from north to south
was much stronger. Mandrocles began the structure with the crews and
materials of the fleet which had been ordered to assemble.[256] Several
hundreds of ships, fastened together, were placed in the strait,[257]
and carefully anchored against the north wind and the current. On the
coast of Asia, the bridge lay to the north of the city of Chalcedon and
in its territory; Herodotus supposes that the European end touched the
shore between Byzantium and the temple, which, situated to the north of
Byzantium at the mouth of the Pontus, served as a signal to the ships
entering the Bosphorus.[258] Polybius remarks that the bridge "was said"
to end at the Hermaeum, which lay on the promontory of the European
shore.[259] Strabo places this temple ten stadia to the south of the
northern entrance of the Bosphorus.[260] Hence we may assume that
Mandrocles constructed his bridge across the narrowest part of the
strait, about 1000 paces in breadth,[261] and that it lay at the place
where the castles of Anadoli Hissari and Rumili Hissari now stand
opposite each other.

The army was collected, the bridge was ready, when Darius came to
Chalcedon. He inspected the bridge, and was greatly pleased with the
construction; he embarked on board ship and proceeded for some distance
into the Pontus, then he returned to the temple of Zeus Urius on the
shore of Asia, at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and looked out into the
sea. Before his wishes and his power, and the skill of his Greek
engineer, the impossible had become possible; the Bosphorus was
compelled to submit to a bridge. Mandrocles received the most valuable
presents. The fleet of the Ionians lay on the Black Sea, when the army,
which was the greatest that a Persian sovereign had ever brought
together, commenced the passage. The train was interminable which filed
before the king over the sea; the rock on which Darius sat was pointed
out for a long time afterwards. Even "shepherd Sacæ, of the race of the
Scythians, the children of a nomad race," passed over the bridge;[262]
the nomads of the steppes of the Oxus were led by Darius against the
nomads of the steppes to the north of the Pontus. In remembrance of this
passage Darius caused two columns of white stone to be erected on the
European shore, which recorded the names of all the nations included in
the army; the inscription on one side was in the Persian cuneiform (in
Assyrian letters, as Herodotus says), and on the other in the Hellenic
language and letters. Mandrocles also was proud of his work, and
dedicated a picture which represented the bridge, the army crossing it,
and Darius sitting on his throne, in the great sanctuary of his city,
the temple of Hera at Samos, with the following inscription: "When
Mandrocles bridged the fish-teeming Bosphorus, he dedicated this picture
to Hera in remembrance of the floating bridge. He obtained the crown,
the glory of the Samians, in that he completed the work to the
satisfaction of King Darius."[263]

It was in the year 513 B.C. that the armies of Asia trod the soil of
Europe.[264] The fleet was ordered to sail along the Thracian coast in
the Pontus, then to enter the mouth of the Danube, and there prepare
means for the army to cross the river, by procuring supplies, and
constructing a bridge, no easy task considering the breadth and rapidity
of the stream. The sovereigns of the Greek cities, who owed their
elevation to the Persian king, commanded their ships in person, as
Darius had taken the field in person, or entrusted them to their sons.
Thus Histiaeus the son of Lysagoras, the sovereign of Miletus, which was
the most powerful of the Greek cities of the coast, commanded his own
ships, Laodamas the ships of Phocaea, Aeaces the son of Syloson the
ships of Samos, Strattis the ships of Chios, Aristagoras the ships of
Cyzicus, Metrodorus those of Proconnesus in the Propontis, Daphnis the
ships of Abydus. The ships of Lampsacus were in the charge of Hippoclus,
those of Parium in the charge of Herophantus; and lastly, the sovereigns
of the recently-conquered districts, Ariston and Miltiades, commanded
the ships of Byzantium, of Sestos, and Cardia. While the fleet sailed to
the Danube, the land army marched for two days from the coast, to the
north, in the direction of the Balkan. At the sources of the Tearus,
which no doubt are those of the Simir dere, which near Bunar Hissar send
up warm and cold springs--thirty-eight in number according to
Herodotus--the army rested three days; Darius caused a monument to be
erected with an inscription, which Herodotus gives thus: "The springs of
the Tearus supply the best and purest water of all rivers, and to these
on his march against the Scyths came the bravest and most handsome of
men, Darius the son of Hystaspes, the king of the Persians and of all
the mainland."[265]

The tribes of the Thracians, through whose districts the expedition
marched, submitted without opposition. These were the inhabitants of the
region of Salmydessus; the Odrysae in the valley of the Artiscus (_i.e._
the Teke deresi or Nessowa), the Skyrmiads and Nipsaeans, who dwelt near
Apollonia, the Greek city on this coast (a colony of Miletus, now
Sizepoli), and Mesembria, now Misivri (a colony of the Greeks, planted
soon after the other).[266] It was not till the Persians had passed the
heights of the Balkan that they found resistance. Between this range and
the Danube were the Getae, called by Herodotus the most brave and just
of all the Thracians. They offered an obstinate resistance, but were
nevertheless at once crushed by overpowering numbers.[267] Meanwhile the
fleet had advanced two days' voyage up the river from the mouth, and
placed the bridge there, _i.e._ at the place where the river becomes
one stream. By this bridge the Greek army, to use the expression of
Herodotus, passed "over the greatest river which we know." Strabo says
that the bridge was placed over the lower part of the southern, and
largest, of the mouths of the Danube; which was called the sacred mouth.
On the further shore began the land of the Scoloti. When the army had
crossed the Danube, Darius, as Herodotus relates, wished to destroy the
bridge and employ the crews in his army. But on the advice of Coes of
Lesbos, who pointed out that he must leave the way open for his return,
Darius abandoned his purpose; he then summoned the princes of Ionia, and
gave them a thong with 60 knots, bidding them untie a knot each day. If
the army did not return to the bridge in these 60 days they were to go
home.[268]

The three kings of the Scoloti (III. 236) Idanthyrsus, who inherited the
largest dominion, Scopasis and Taxakis--so Herodotus relates--as soon as
they received news of the approach of Darius, sent messengers to their
neighbours to ask for assistance. The kings of the Agathyrsi (the
western neighbours of the Scoloti), the Neuri, the Cannibals and
Melanchlæni (who lay to the north), and the kings of the Sarmatians,
Geloni, and Budini, who dwelt in the east beyond the Don, assembled for
consultation. The kings of the Sarmatians, Geloni, and Budini agreed to
send help to the Scoloti, but the rest refused. As the Agathyrsi, Neuri,
Cannibals, and Melanchlæni would not help them in the contest, the
Scoloti determined to decline battle with the Persians and retire. Their
wives and children they placed on chariots together with the rest of
their goods, took their slaves and herds and marched to a secure
position in the north; only so much cattle was left with the army as was
necessary for its support. Then the army was divided into two parts. One
under the command of Scopasis was to unite with the Sarmatians and
retire straight towards the Don, if the Persians took that direction; it
was to keep one or two marches ahead of the Persians, to stop up the
springs and fountains, and destroy the pastures; but if Darius turned,
it was at once to pursue the Persians. The other part of the army, under
Idanthyrsus and Taxakis, was to unite with the Budini and Geloni, and to
march in a similar manner to the north as far as the land of the Neuri,
the Cannibals, and Melanchlæni, in order to involve them in the war. The
army of Scopasis found the Persians already three days' march on their
side of the Danube. It retired, and the Persians pursued as far as the
Don. When the Scoloti and Sarmatians crossed the river, the Persians
crossed it also; in pursuit of the Scythians they marched through the
land of the Sarmatians, reached that of the Budini, where they burned
the great wooden city of the Geloni, which they found entirely deserted,
and at length came to the desert which extended for seven days' journey
to the north of the land of the Budini. When Darius reached the desert
he abandoned the further pursuit, and encamped his army on the bank of
the Oarus (_i.e._ the Volga). At the same time he built eight great
fortresses, at equal distances, each about sixty stades from the other,
the remains of which, Herodotus remarks, existed in his day. While
Darius was thus occupied, the army of Scopasis in the north marched back
into their own land and united with the army of Idanthyrsus. When the
Scythians were no more to be seen, Darius left the fortresses
unfinished, turned to the west, under the impression that the Scythians
would retire in that direction, hastened in rapid marches to the land of
the Scoloti, and there found the united army of the Scythians. Again the
Scoloti retired, and as Darius did not cease to press them, they passed,
as they had resolved, over the northern boundary of their land, into the
land of the Melanchlæni, who dwelt beyond the Scoloti, between the Don
and the Gerrhus, a tributary of the Dnieper. From the land of the
Melanchlæni they proceeded yet further to the west, through the land of
the Cannibals into that of the Neuri, who lay above the lake out of
which the Dniester flows (III. 231). All these tribes fled before the
approach of the Scoloti and the Persians to the north; but when the
Scoloti wished to cross the borders of the Agathyrsi, they prepared to
defend them, and compelled the Scoloti to return from the land of the
Neuri to the south into their own land.

When this went on, and there was no end, Darius sent a horseman to
Idanthyrsus with the request that he would either stand and fight, if he
had the forces to do so, or send earth and water to him as his master.
Idanthyrsus answered that the Scoloti had neither cities nor lands which
made it necessary to fight with the Persians in order to defend them;
but if Darius was eager for a battle, there were the tombs of their
fathers; let him discover these and attack them, he would then see
whether the Scoloti dare fight or not. On this the Scoloti sent the part
of the army which Scopasis commanded, with the Sarmatians, to the
Danube, in order to negotiate with the Ionians at the bridge, but the
army of Idanthyrsus was not to retire any longer, but to attack the
Persians as soon as they began to prepare the meal after the day's
march. This was done, and each time the Persian cavalry were put to
flight by the Scoloti; but as soon as the foot soldiers came to the
rescue of the cavalry, the Scoloti retired. In this way the Scoloti
attacked the Persians by night also. And their kings (Idanthyrsus and
Taxakis) sent to Darius a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows.
Gobryas, the father-in-law of Darius, interpreted these gifts to mean,
that the Scythian message was: Unless you become birds and fly into
heaven, or mice and creep into the earth, or frogs and leap into the
marshes, you will succumb to our arrows. The Scoloti also, who were now
armed for battle, drew out with horse and foot; and when they were in
line, a hare ran past and the Scoloti chased it, one after the other, as
they happened to catch sight of it. Then Darius said, These men hold us
in great contempt; Gobryas has correctly interpreted the meaning of the
gifts; we must carefully consider how we are to secure our return.
Gobryas advised that they should light the camp fires as usual when
night came on; that they should leave behind the sick and weak, who
could not bear burdens, in the camp, and with the rest set out at once
for the Danube before the Scythians reached the river and broke down the
bridge, or the Ionians came to some resolution ruinous to the Persians.
This advice Darius followed. The sick and exhausted, and all whose loss
would be of little importance, were commanded to defend the camp, as the
king with the rest of the army wished to make an attack on the
Scythians, and as soon as the fires had been lighted Darius began his
march to the Danube. On the following morning those who had been left
behind perceived that they had been betrayed by Darius, and prayed for
quarter to the Scythians. The whole army of the Scythians with the
Budini, the Geloni, and Sarmatians, went straight to the Danube, for
Scopasis with his division had already retired from the river, after
telling the Ionians that they must not allow the bridge to stand after
the sixtieth day, and the Ionians had given a promise to that effect. As
all the Scythians were mounted they marched far more rapidly than the
Persians and could soon have caught up Darius, had not the Persians in
ignorance taken a longer route, so that Idanthyrsus with the whole army
of the Scythians reached the Danube before Darius arrived. The Scythians
now called upon the leaders of the Greeks to break down the bridge, for
the appointed time had passed; by that means they would get rid of their
master, and might thank the gods and the Scythians for their liberation.
As the sixty days during which the fleet was to remain in the Danube, by
the command of Darius, were really past, Miltiades of the Chersonnesus
urged the captains of the Greek ships to listen to the request of the
Scythians, and set the Ionians at liberty. But Histiaeus, the tyrant of
Miletus, said that each of them held his power in his city by Darius
only; if the king's power were overthrown, he would not be a tyrant in
Miletus, nor would any other tyrant keep his throne; every city would
prefer democracy to tyranny. When all, with the exception of Miltiades,
had agreed to this resolution, they determined to remain, but to prevent
the bridge from being used by the Scythians they destroyed it for the
length of a bowshot from the northern bank. Thinking that the Greeks
were removing the whole bridge, the Scythians returned, to seek out
Darius and destroy him. But they missed the Persians yet a second time.
They thought that the Persians would seek out the places where the wells
had not been stopped up, and the pastures had not been destroyed; but
they returned by the way that they came, and their enemies with great
difficulty reached the crossing of the Danube. It was night, the bridge
could not be found, and the Persians were in great alarm that the
Ionians had abandoned them. Then Darius commanded an Egyptian, who had a
very loud voice, to come forward to the bank and call for Histiaeus of
Miletus. The cry was heard; Histiaeus at once sent all the ships to
transfer the troops, and restored the bridge.

Clear and definite as the incidents are which lead Darius to the Danube,
the river is no sooner crossed than everything passes into northern
mists, into the marvellous and the incredible. Let us first consider the
conduct of the Scoloti. The kings of the barbarous north, though far
distant from each other--Herodotus gives the land of the Scoloti a
length and breath of 500 miles--meet in a great congress. Where the
congress was held we are not told. The kings of the Agathyrsi, Neuri,
Melanchlæni, and Cannibals find that the matter does not concern them,
for they had not invaded Media. But the distant tribes to the east
beyond the Don, the Sarmatians, Budini, and Geloni, come a distance of
hundreds of miles to assist their neighbours; they carry their public
spirit so far as to sacrifice their own lands, regardless of which the
Budini and Geloni march with Idanthyrsus first to the north and then to
the west; the Sarmatians follow Scopasis far to the north-east. Why the
Scythians divided their army in the first instance, why they did not
unite to meet Darius, we cannot ascertain. We are not told what
Idanthyrsus is doing while Scopasis retires to the Volga; we only know
that the two armies again unite, while Darius is building the castles
on the Volga. When united the Scythians retire to the west as far as the
borders of the Agathyrsi, _i.e._ to Transylvania, the most foolish thing
for their own interests which they could have done, for by this means
they brought Darius back into the neighbourhood of the Danube. On the
borders of the Agathyrsi Darius summons them to battle. The princes
answer that they will fight if he attacks the tombs of their fathers.
These tombs we have found in the neighbourhood of the Gerrhus; they are
the numerous Kurgans below the rapids of the Dnieper,[269] a region
which Darius must have traversed on his way north-eastwards to the
Volga. Darius does not accede to the request of the Scythians.
Nevertheless they determined to attack the Persians, and yet contradict
the object of this attack by sending Scopasis with his army and the
Sarmatians to the Danube, thus weakening the army. When Scopasis and the
Sarmatians are gone, Idanthyrsus offers the battle hitherto so carefully
avoided, with cavalry and infantry, though Herodotus remarks that the
Scythians have no infantry. Meanwhile Scopasis comes with his army to
the Danube, not to fight with the Greeks but to treat with them. What
reasons had the Scythians not to treat the Greeks as enemies? If they
wished to cut off the return of Darius, they must attack the bridge and
destroy it. If they thought that they could not do this, or did not wish
to do it, but to treat, they need not have sent half the army with the
Sarmatians, but only a few horsemen. The Greeks were able to protect the
bridge with a fort, upon which the Scythian cavalry could hardly have
made any effectual impression, or if they neglected to do that, they
could at any moment, if watchful, bring the bridge to their own side of
the river, and then secure it with all their ships till Darius should
appear on the farther shore. But the Scythians send Scopasis with his
army. He tells the Ionians that he knew that Darius had ordered them to
wait sixty days; they were to wait till the time had passed and then
sail away. When the Greeks had undertaken to do this Scopasis marches
with his army to the north. He joins Idanthyrsus again when Darius has
begun his retreat. The united army reaches the bridge long before
Darius. A second time we have negotiations with the Ionians. The sixty
days are past, and the Scythians entreat the Ionians to sail away now,
at any rate. They are satisfied when the Greeks remove a part of the
bridge, saying that they have begun to break it up and will now sail
home. They do not wait till they see all the ships sailing down the
stream. They have cut off Darius; he cannot escape them and reach the
Danube. But they turn back into the steppe, and miss him again.

Still more unintelligible and extraordinary is the conduct of Darius.
When the Danube has been crossed he commands the Greeks to break down
the bridge; the crews are to join the army on land. It would follow from
this that Darius thought the bridge no longer necessary. It was not his
intention therefore to return to the Danube, but to march round the
Black Sea, and over the Caucasus, if indeed he did not mean to skirt the
northern shore of the Caspian and return home over the Oxus. If this was
his object why did he not avail himself of the important assistance
which the fleet could afford him, and command it to accompany the march
of the army along the northern shore of the Black Sea? It would then
have brought provisions to the army, or to the mouths of the rivers, and
supported any attacks on the Greek cities of these coasts; on Tyras at
the mouth of the Dniester, on Ordessus on the Teligul, on Olbia at the
mouth of the Bug, and Panticapaeum on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. To leave
the attack on the Greek cities to the Greek ships only would be
dangerous, but there was no danger in giving them a share in it if the
main point was to strengthen the army on land. But Darius wished neither
to use the fleet, nor to allow the bridge to stand, which is the more
remarkable as the bridges on the Bosphorus were not removed but allowed
to remain, obviously under the protection of Greek men-of-war. At the
Danube Darius has to be informed for the first time by a Greek that a
way must be left open for his return. Nevertheless he does not order the
Greeks to keep the bridge till further notice, or till his return. For
sixty days only after his departure does he leave the means for his
return open; so long the bridge is to remain; when that time has
expired, the fleet is to sail away. What interest had Darius in allowing
the Greeks to depart home as quickly as possible? In order to fix this
period of time, he gives the leader of the Greeks a thong with sixty
knots. The calendars of the Persians and Greeks were different; there
were variations in the calendars of the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians;
but sixty days could have been fixed without a strap and knots. Beyond
the Danube Darius blindly follows the division of Scopasis, wherever it
leads him away to the east and north as far as the Volga. On what did
the army of Darius subsist--and it numbered 700,000 men, or if we
include the train, it reached a total of about a million--for more than
two months in a country in which, according to Herodotus' own statement,
there was no tilled land except at the mouths of the Bug and Dnieper,
and in which the advancing Scythians had destroyed the wells and
pastures, as Herodotus asserts? How did the Persians cross the Tyras
(Dniester), Hypanis (Bug), Borysthenes (Dnieper), and the Tanais (Don)?
From whence did they procure the wood for the bridges or rafts for
crossing them, in the steppe which Herodotus rightly describes as
entirely without wood down to the forests on the southern edge? Whence
came the water for man and beast in the waterless desert? When Darius
had crossed the Don Herodotus represents him as building eight large
fortresses beyond the river on the bank of the Volga, the object of
which it is impossible to discover; and in a space of a little more than
two months he represents the Persian army as not only building these
forts but marching round the whole territory of Scythia, which in his
description extends for 500 miles from the mouth of the Danube to the
mouth of the Don, and an equal distance northwards into the land, and
even far beyond it. Darius marches as far as the Volga on the east, and
northwards to the desert which lies beyond the Sarmatians (whose
territory extends for fifteen days' journey up the Don),[270] and also
beyond the Budini, "a great and numerous people," and the Geloni (p.
275). From this point he returns, according to Herodotus, through the
territory of the northern neighbours of the Scythians to the west, as
far as the lake out of which the Tyras (Dniester) rises, till the
Scythians, who are a day's march in advance of the Persians, reach the
land of the Agathyrsi. According to Herodotus' reckoning of the
distances, Darius traversed a journey of about a hundred days' marches
of twenty-five miles each, in less than fifty days. If Herodotus allows
the region of the Scoloti to extend too far to the north, if on the
Dnieper it reached only to the rapids of the stream, where the tombs of
the Scythian kings lay, the distance, on the other hand, from the mouth
of the Danube to the Don, on which the Scoloti and the Sarmatians
bordered, and which Darius is said to have crossed, was far greater than
Herodotus assumes; it is at least 750 miles, and from the mouth of the
Danube to the Volga at least 900 miles, which on the route taken by
Darius could not possibly have been traversed both ways in eighty or
ninety days. Herodotus does not allow Darius even this space of time.
According to his account, the march of Darius to the desert, which
separates the land of the Budini and Geloni on the north from the
Thyssagetae, to the bank of the Volga, the building of the castles, the
return from this point to the borders of the Agathyrsi and the lake from
which the Dnieper springs, did not occupy sixty days. It is in this
region that the Scythians resolve to retire no farther, but to attack
the Persians daily, when they begin to cook their food in a land barren
of wood, and they send Scopasis from this point to the Danube. Scopasis
reaches the river before the expiration of the sixty days for which
Darius has bidden the Ionians wait; indeed, the Scythians of Idanthyrsus
occasionally surrender flocks to the army of Darius, in order that the
Persians may not think of retiring, _i.e._ in order to keep them in
Scythia till the sixty days are at an end. Impossible as all these
marches are, especially in the short space which Herodotus allots to
them, the conduct of Darius is more impossible still. He advances
beyond the Don as far as the Volga, in order to build fortresses which
he does not complete; from this point he marches back again after the
Scythians as far as the sources of the Dniester in order to bring on a
conflict. At last they draw out for battle; Darius has attained the
object he so greatly desired. Then follows the hunting of the hare by
the Scythians, and Darius determines to march away rapidly in the same
night to the Danube; "because the Scythians held them in contempt." He
fortunately reached the bridge by taking the road on which he had come,
but the Scythians assume that as the wells had been stopped up and the
pastures destroyed, he could not come by that route. But how could the
Persians, who when advancing had marched to the north-east to the Don,
strike out the same path on their return, upon which they started on the
borders of Transylvania, and the sources of the Tyras (Dniester)?

The course of affairs must have been widely different. As Darius allowed
the bridge over the Bosphorus to remain, and left the fleet on the
Danube, it cannot have been his fixed purpose to coast round the Black
Sea. But in any case he must preserve his communications with Asia and
Persia and support his army. All the sick, or wounded, or unserviceable
men in the army, and all the messengers could only be sent back over the
bridge on the Danube. The crews of the fleet were the rear-guard of the
army, maintaining and defending its communications. It had also to
provide for its own maintenance, _i.e._ for the needs of more than
100,000 men, and no doubt it likewise collected the provisions for the
army by land. However great the stores which the army brought with it,
they would soon be consumed in the steppe, unless supplemented.
Wherever Darius marched, he could not venture, with the enormous mass of
men and animals in his army, to go more than a few days' march at the
most from the river-courses. The idea of retiring before the enemy
naturally occurred to a people who were without a settled habitation,
who wandered in hordes through fixed districts of pasture, living on the
backs of their horses, and carrying their women and children with them
in waggons drawn by oxen (III. 234). What had they to lose, and what
could they fear from the Persians, if the unarmed, the women, children,
servants, and herds, had already been sent at the right time under safe
convoys far into the interior towards the neighbouring nations?--if all
the men--and the Scoloti were not a numerous nation[271]--collected
together, and accustomed as they were to abstinence, and living in
continual movement, advancing far more lightly and rapidly on their
steppe-horses than their encumbered opponents, hovered round their
enemy, stopped up wells and destroyed pastures, without ever engaging in
battle? If the Scythians were wise, they would not retire to the east,
where Darius could approach the coast, and bring up his fleet with
auxiliaries, but away from the sea, _i.e._ to the north. If the
Scythians were not terrified by the enormous power of Darius, and knew
how to avoid battles, the army of Darius would soon be ruined by its own
numbers in the desert.

As a fact this is the way in which the war beyond the Danube seems to
have been carried on. Herodotus tells us that Darius came upon the
Scythians three marches beyond the Danube. If he found their forces
united, he must have hoped to engage them in a battle which would have
decided the campaign at one stroke in his favour. But these mounted
opponents could not be captured, Darius sinks deeper and deeper into the
desert, till he is compelled by distress to return, and his retreat was
made an occasion of heavy losses by the light-armed Scythians.

In the excerpt from the narrative of Trogus preserved by Justin, which
may have been derived from Deinon's "Persian History," we are told: "The
Scythians drove back Darius the king of the Persians in shameful flight.
When Iancyrus (_i.e._ Idanthyrsus), the king of the Scythians, had
refused to give his daughter in marriage to Darius, Darius made war upon
him, and invaded Scythia with 700,000 soldiers. As the Scythians gave
him no opportunity of battle, he retreated in great anxiety lest the
bridge over the Danube should be broken in his rear, after losing 80,000
men. Owing to the abundance of men this loss was not considered a
disaster."[272] In Ctesias the king of the Scythians is called
Scytharbes. "Darius collected an army of 800,000 men, bridged the
Bosphorus and the Danube, marched into Scythia, and penetrated for a
distance of fifteen days. Scytharbes and Darius sent each other the gift
of a bow. As the bow of the Scythian was the stronger, Darius retired
over the bridge and broke it up, before the whole army had passed over.
Those who were left behind, 80,000 men in number, were cut down by
Scytharbes. Darius crossed the bridge over the Bosphorus, and burnt the
houses and the temples of Chalcedon, because the Chalcedonians had
attempted to destroy the bridge, and had thrown down the altar which
Darius had set up at the crossing."[273] Strabo remarks: "At the mouths
of the Danube there is a large island, Peuce. The mouths are seven in
number, and the largest is called the sacred mouth; the distance to
Peuce by this is 120 stadia; above the lower part of this mouth Darius
built the bridge; it might have been bridged on the upper part also. It
is the first if you take the left hand when sailing into Pontus; the
rest follow in the voyage to Tyras. On the Pontic Sea, from the Danube
to the Tyras (Dniester) is the desert of the Getae, a vast waterless
plain. When Darius, the son of Hystaspes, crossed the Ister, to march
against the Scythians, he was in danger of perishing by thirst with his
whole army through being cut off in this desert; but he discovered his
danger just in time, and returned.[274] For the support of the camel
which had best sustained with him the weariness of the journey through
the desert of Scythia, and had carried the baggage with the provisions
of the king, he apportioned the hamlet of Gaugamela in Assyria," _i.e._
its income and tribute, or natural products.[275] The level desert of
Strabo, between the Danube and the Dniester, includes Moldavia as far as
the eastern slopes of the mountains of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and
Podolia. Herodotus also represents the decisive charge in the campaign
as taking place in the neighbourhood of the Agathyrsi, _i.e._ the
inhabitants of Transylvania. Ctesias tells us that Darius had marched
fifteen days beyond the Danube. Reckoning a day's march at 25 miles, as
Herodotus does, Darius would thus have advanced 75 miles to the north of
the Danube, with which the assertion of Herodotus agrees, that the
Scoloti retired before Darius to the border of the land of the
Agathyrsi, and the lake out of which the Tyras rises, but no further. By
the lake out of which the Tyras rises we can hardly understand the
lakes at Lemberg, for Darius could scarcely have come so far to the
west. The marshes at the source of the Bug are probably meant, which as
the crow flies are 325 miles from Reni, on the Danube. If the Scoloti
ventured to retire but a little way from the river courses, the Persians
retired still less. Hence the retreat of the Scythians and the advance
of Darius must have proceeded up the Pruth, through Bessarabia to
Podolia as far as the marshes on the upper Dniester in which the Bug
rises, where Herodotus represents the two armies as encamping opposite
each other, or as far as the marshes of the Prypet. The answer which
Herodotus puts in the mouth of Idanthyrsus--that Darius should attack
the tombs of the kings (on the rapids of the Dniester) and then the
Scythians would fight, has a meaning, if Darius was far from the centre
of Scythia, and the message was sent to him when in the neighbourhood of
the source of the Bug or the Prypet; it was without meaning if he had
already traversed the whole land of Scythia as far as the Don and the
Volga. Want of provisions for man and beast far more than the want of
water would have compelled him to return. Had the Scythians previously
surrounded the army of Darius on all sides, they would have thrown
themselves with impunity in full force on his rear when retreating. If
everything left behind through weariness and sickness had fallen into
their hands, they would now not merely hinder the retreat but greatly
endanger it. As soon as the communications with the Danube were
completely closed (Strabo tells us that Darius was cut off in the desert
of the Getae), Darius must have been in alarm whether the fidelity of
the tyrants or their desire to maintain their position in their own
cities was strong enough to keep them at the bridge, and if this were
the case whether they could induce their crews to remain.

Such in its essential outlines must have been the course of the campaign
of Darius beyond the Danube. What Herodotus tells us are legends of the
Scythians, which he had heard with some additions from his
fellow-countrymen, in Ordessus and Olbia. It was the greatest glory of
the Scythians not to have succumbed to this attack; no doubt they placed
in the most brilliant light the cunning and endurance of their fathers,
which brought about this result. We must remove from the series of
events the meeting of the barbarians, the assistance of the Geloni,
Budini, and Sarmatians, the entire eastern part of the story, no less
than the march through the whole of Scythia. That story has no doubt
arisen from the supposed object of it--the assumed eight fortresses of
Darius on the Volga, the remains of which were in existence in
Herodotus' time. These unfinished citadels were either fortifications of
some tribe or another, long since abandoned, or ancient tumuli, such as
are still frequently found in the steppes above the Black Sea. Some were
said to be trenches of the Cimmerians and others trenches of Darius. It
was these which gave the direction to the march of Darius. Besides
tradition from Greece and Scythia we have isolated traces of Iranian
poetry in the accounts of Herodotus, Justin, and Ctesias. To these
belong the suit of Darius for the daughter of the king of the Scythians
and his refusal, the sending of the bow, and the enigmatical gifts of
the Scythians, of which Gobryas could interpret the meaning. Other
Greeks could mention the names of different persons who had guessed this
riddle.[276]

A peculiar concatenation of circumstances had placed in the hands of
the princes of the Greeks of Anatolia the fortune of the Persian army,
and with it the fortune of the Persian monarchy and the entire Persian
empire. If they left Darius to his fate, removed the bridge, and sailed
home with their ships, it would be almost impossible for the Persian
king and army to cross the Danube, and the Greek cities would have been
free from any foreign dominion. As soon as Darius was at a distance from
the bridge, the Scythians must have called upon the Greeks to depart,
and they must have repeated their request more urgently when they had
cut off Darius's connection with the bridge and intercepted his retreat;
they would represent his position to be as desperate as possible.
Without doubt Histiaeus of Miletus was commander of the fleet. Not once
only, as Herodotus represents, but every day Histiaeus, on whom the
greatest responsibility rested, must have discussed with his associates
the question of remaining or departing, when it was clear that Darius
was in danger, and there could not be a doubt that the Scythians were
pressing hard upon him, and perhaps cutting off his return.[277] But
there was only one among the tyrants of the Greeks who firmly
represented the view that they ought to abandon the king. This was
Miltiades of Chersonesus, one of the newest vassals of Persia, who had
not been raised to the throne by Darius, but only confirmed in his
hereditary principality. The opposite view, according to Herodotus, was
heard from the mouth of Histiaeus. It showed how correct was the
calculation of Cyrus, when, in order to secure the obedience of the
Greek states, he had made the elevation of princes in them one of his
principles. There is no doubt that the princes could now have put an end
to the dominion of the Persians, but at the same time they would have
put an end to their own power; they would have annihilated themselves
with the king of the Persians. The large majority of the tyrants, so we
are told in Nepos, joined in the opinion of Histiaeus. We can with
certainty assume that those of the tyrants who subsequently received
peculiar marks of distinction from Darius; Histiaeus of Miletus,
Hippoclus of Lampsacus, Coes, the leader of the ships of Lesbos,
contributed in some essential manner to the retention of the fleet; that
it was chiefly they who kept back the others, and above all the crews.
But even those tyrants who maintained most strongly that the post
entrusted to them should be kept, could not prevent the possibility that
the Persians might be detained in the desert; that Darius might not
return. In this uncertain and wavering position (Darius remained longer
than was expected and thus many people thought him lost), the last
decision would be deferred for a certain time, and the crews would be
calmed by a promise not to wait for Darius beyond a certain period. The
same reply might be made to the demands of the Scythians in order not to
ruin their cause with them should they really destroy the army of the
Persians. In the other event Darius might be told that the period was
merely fixed in order to keep the Scythians away from the bridge. From
such a period, which the princes fixed for themselves and their crews,
may have arisen the legend of the command of Darius, that they were to
wait for sixty days--a story which was afterwards quoted by the Greeks
against the tyrants to the effect that they not only faithfully carried
out the commands of Darius, but had gone beyond them to rescue him. As a
fact Darius must have spent far more than sixty days beyond the Danube
if he advanced fifteen full days' marches, according to the reckoning of
Herodotus, and penetrated to the sources of the Dniester, the Bug, or
the Prypet. For an army like that of Darius could not march more than
ten miles a day, and thus the 750 miles of advance and retreat, which in
the latter part would have been traversed amid continual encounters,
required at least eighty or ninety days. The Ionians had remained,
though they had not kept all the contingents with them. The ships of
Antandros and Lamponium, and no doubt those of other cities also, had
sailed away of their own accord.[278]

How great soever the losses may have been which the army of Darius
suffered in Scythia--the number, 80,000, which Ctesias represents as
perishing by the premature destruction of the bridge, and which Justin
represents as the entire sum of the losses of the army, appears to have
been the official amount of the loss among the Persians--when the Danube
was crossed, they found security and provisions, rest and refreshment.
The Scythians could not force a passage against the ships of war, which
controlled the stream, and the land army of the Persians. Undisturbed by
them, Darius could now have made better arrangements for continuing the
war beyond the Danube, and preparing for the conduct of it, if
unexpected events had not compelled him to complete his retreat in
haste. Ctesias told us above that the Chalcedonians, on whose territory
lay the Asiatic end of the bridge, had attempted to break it down.
Strabo relates that Darius burned the cities round the Propontis and
Abydus because he was afraid that they might supply the Scythians with
transports to Asia.[279] Herodotus tells us, that Darius, on his return
from the Danube, marched through Thrace into the land of the
Hellespontians; thence he crossed on the ships to Asia, and then
repaired himself to Sardis,[280] leaving behind Megabyzus as general in
the land of the Hellespontians, who reduced by force of arms those who
did not "medize."[281] With the Persians who remained in Europe he first
attacked the Perinthians "who would not submit to Darius;" the
Perinthians fought bravely for their freedom, but the numbers of the
Persians were overpowering.[282] But Otanes, the son of Sisamnes, to
whom Darius entrusted the command by sea, took Byzantium, Chalcedon,
Antandros, and Lamponium. The reason for enslaving and subjugating these
cities, was that he charged some of them with abandoning the army on the
march against the Scythians, and others with injuring the army on its
return. The latter charge would apply chiefly to Byzantium and
Chalcedon.[283] It follows further from the narrative of Herodotus, that
Darius awaited the result of the action of Megabyzus and Otanes at
Sardis, and did not return to Persia till Megabyzus had penetrated to
the west into Thracia, and he had established his brother Artaphernes as
satrap at Sardis.[284] Of the Scythians Herodotus tells us that they
pursued Darius with their united forces as far as the Thracian
Chersonese; Miltiades did not venture to await their arrival there but
fled, till the Scythians had retired and the Doloncians had brought him
back. Next, in order to punish Darius for his invasion of their land,
the Scythians sent an embassy to Sparta, in order to call upon the
Spartans to cross over to Ephesus, while they attacked Media from the
Phasis.[285]

From this we conclude that a serious rebellion of the Greek cities on
both shores of the straits and the Propontis broke out in the rear of
Darius; that the cities thought Darius lost, or intended to prevent his
return. Byzantium rebelled, though the tyrant Ariston was at the river
with the fleet of the city; so also Abydus, whose tyrant Daphnis was
likewise there with his fleet. Besides these cities, Perinthus,
Chalcedon, Antandrus, and Lamponium, on the Ionian coast, are expressly
mentioned as rebels. Strabo speaks generally of the cities round the
Propontis in this sense. Herodotus tells us that Chalcedon was taken,
and Ctesias that it was burnt. According to the latter the Chalcedonians
were eager to destroy the bridge; but Darius was nevertheless able to
pass it. Herodotus asserts that Darius passed on the ships from Sestus
into Asia, and that the Scythians pursued him as far as the Thracian
Chersonesus. This definite and double statement on the direction of the
return march, and the passage of Darius into Asia, must be maintained
against the inexact excerpt from Ctesias. If the bridge lay over the
Bosphorus, Darius certainly did not march to the Hellespont.

The course of events was this. When he arrived on the northern side of
the Danube Darius perceived that a part of the Greek ships had sailed
homeward, that the communications with Asia were interrupted, that the
bridge had been broken, that the cities on both shores of the straits
were in rebellion. He was compelled to send the fleet at once to the
straits in order to reopen communications. As Byzantium and Chalcedon
could throw great difficulties in the way of any communication or
passage over the Bosphorus, the fleet was bidden to open the Hellespont
and keep it open. When the fleet was dismissed it was no longer possible
to keep the army on the Danube; and besides it was imperative to bring
the rebellious cities to obedience at once, a duty which could not be
left merely to their fellow-countrymen who had remained faithful in the
fleet. So Darius must have led the army to the Hellespont as soon as he
had allowed time for rest on the Danube. The Scythians no doubt crossed
the river when they saw the army of Darius leave the bank, and
well-mounted hordes followed the retreating army on the south of the
Danube in order to make booty, to carry off the baggage, and cut down
the stragglers. But there was no serious pursuit. The Scythians could
not have undertaken this against the Persians; and if they had
undertaken it and threatened danger, Darius would not have sent a part
of the army to Asia. He must then have turned his whole force upon the
Scythians. Miltiades certainly did not retire before the Scythians but
before the Persians. Even if he had gone no farther than expressing his
wish, and had not left the Danube with his ships,[286]--though he had
not found means for embarrassing the retreat of the Persians over the
Hellespont, yet in the eyes of the Persians he was the author of the
revolt, his vote in the council of war at the Danube was obviously
treacherous, and the beginning which gave impulse to the mischief.
Miltiades then retired to the Thracians. He had married the daughter of
Olorus, a Thracian prince. Twelve years later the general revolt of the
Greek states gave him the means of returning to his principality. The
embassy of the Scythians to Sparta seems no more than a fable of the
Spartans, which belongs to the obscure side of the history of Cleomenes.

Arrived at the Hellespont, Darius allowed a part of the army under
Megabyzus to remain on the European shore for the purpose of besieging
Perinthus and the other cities on that coast, with the rest he passed on
the raft to the Asiatic side: the conduct of sieges was no task for a
king. But he wished to remain at Sardis in the neighbourhood till the
rebels were punished, the passage secured, and till the auxiliaries for
the army of Megabyzus and their communications were settled. Otanes, the
son of Sisamnes, received the command on the Asiatic shore; he besieged
and destroyed Abydus, reduced the cities on the Trojan coast, on the
southern shore of the Propontis, and then turned against Chalcedon and
Byzantium, while in the mean time Megabyzus had besieged and taken
Perinthus and the cities on the northern coast of the Propontis. The
campaign against the Scythians was not to remain without results; Darius
could not allow himself to set foot in Europe for nothing. When only
Chalcedon and Byzantium remained unconquered, Otanes received the
command over the troops on both shores, and Megabyzus was commanded to
make the tribes of the Thracians on the west as far as the Strymon
subjects of the Persian king. Chalcedon was the first to fall after a
protracted siege. The exiles from Chalcedon and Byzantium founded
Mesembria.[287]

FOOTNOTES:

[245] "Pers." 555, 644, 654, 852 ff. 900.

[246] Herod. 3, 92-94, 97; 7, 78, 79. Xenoph. "Anab." 5, 4; 7, 8. Arrian
("Anab." 3, 11) mentions Albanians in the army of the last Darius.

[247] Herod. 4, 44.

[248] Vol. IV. 384.

[249] Exc. Vatic. p. 35 = 10, 19, 5.

[250] Herod. 3, 139, 140.

[251] Herod. 3, 141-149. Paus. 7, 5, 4, ff. Heracl. Pont. Fragm. 10, ed.
Müller.

[252] Herod. 4, 138.

[253] Ctes. "Pers." 16.

[254] At a later time Xerxes caused Sataspes to sail round Africa.

[255] Herod. 4, 1.

[256] Herod. 4, 85, 87.

[257] 360 triremes and penteconters were used for the bridge of Xerxes.
Herod. 7, 36.

[258] Herod. 4, 87.

[259] Polyb. 4, 39.

[260] Strabo, p. 319, 320. Opposite the temple of the Chalcedonians on
the mouth of the Pontus, which was sacred to Zeus Urias (now Anadoli
Kavak), there lay on the European shore also on the mouth of the Pontus
a temple of the Byzantines which later authors call the Serapeum (now
Rumili Kavak). Scyl. "Peripl." 67.

[261] Herodotus allows the Bosphorus a breadth of four stades; Strabo in
one passage mentions four, in another five; p. 125, 319. Modern authors
do not agree in their measurements (Grote, "Hist. of Greece," 5, 26),
but give about 1-1/4 mile, _i.e._ above 5000 feet for the narrowest
part, and five miles for the widest. For the narrowest place most
authorities allow about 3900 feet, _i.e._ 6-1/2 stades; cp. Kruse, on
Herodotus' measurement of the Pontus, s, 41. On the other hand, Moltke
("Briefe," s. 82) gives the following: At the northern mouth between the
light-houses, 4166 paces; at Tell Tabia, 1497 paces; between the
castles, 958 paces.

[262] "Anapl. P. E." frag. 35. Choerilus, in Strabo, p. 303.

[263] Herod. 4, 88.

[264] The chronology of the conquests of Darius is not easy to fix. In
Herodotus the campaign against Samos is contemporaneous with the
rebellion of the Babylonians (3, 150). If Darius had had armies at his
disposal from Samos there, he would not have needed to send Bagaeus. The
expedition to Samos must be placed after the end of the rebellion,
_i.e._ at the earliest in the year 517, and it cannot be put later than
a year at the least before the Scythian expedition, since the ships of
Samos, led by Syloson's son, take part in that expedition, and in
addition to Samos the cities of the Bosphorus are in the hands of the
Persians before that event. The expedition to investigate the shores of
Greece, in which Democedes took part, is placed by Herodotus before the
attack upon Scythia. This is improbable, because the experience which
Darius gained in the Scythian expedition, and which made it seem
desirable to put the command in Persian hands, preceded this expedition.
There is nothing to point to it before the expedition; it first becomes
intelligible when Darius had resolved to change his plan of conquests in
the north for conquests in the west, and had given Megabyzus orders to
subjugate the coasts of Thracia on the Ægean,--when Megabyzus had
advanced to the Strymon and Macedonia had recognised the sovereignty of
Persia. On the other hand, the investigation of the Greek coasts cannot
be put much later than 512, since Milo of Crotona, who is still of great
influence in that region, as Herodotus himself remarks (3, 137),
betroths his daughter to Democedes. This influence Milo retained only as
far as the year 510 or 509; for soon after the victory over Sybaris and
the destruction of the city, which took place 511 or 510 B.C., the
rising against Pythagoras and the aristocracy took place; they were
overthrown and expelled. In Herodotus the Scythian expedition comes
after the capture of Babylon (4, 1). We have seen from the inscriptions
(p. 254), that there were two rebellions of Babylon, and that they
cannot have come to an end before the close of the year 517. Now Samos
was subjugated before this Scythian expedition; moreover Byzantium and
the Chersonese must have been in the hands of the Persians; at least a
year must have been occupied with the preparations required to bring
700,000 men to the Bosphorus, and with the preparations for building the
bridge (Herod. 3, 83). Hence the campaign cannot have commenced before
the year 515 B.C. and it cannot be put later than 510 B.C. Miltiades is
already master of the Chersonese when Darius crosses the Danube;
according to Herodotus it is the Pisistratids (not Hippias) who sent him
there. Hence Miltiades was master of the Chersonese before 514 B.C., the
year in which Hipparchus was murdered. Again, when Miltiades has to
retire from the Chersonese before the return of Darius, he does not go
to Athens, from which it follows that Hippias was still tyrant in
Athens. Thucydides tells us that when Hippias, after the murder of
Hipparchus, was looking about for alliances he married his daughter to
Aeantides, the son of Hippoclus, tyrant of Lampsacus, because he saw
that Hippoclus was in great repute with Darius. This influence Hippoclus
must have gained in the Scythian expedition; he led the ships of his
city to the Danube and voted for remaining there. Hence this expedition
must be put some time before 510 B.C. If we allow two years for the
battles of Megabyzus in Thrace, and the march of Bubares to Macedonia
after the Scythian war, and place, as is natural, the expedition to the
coasts of Hellas, which falls in the year 512 B.C., after these
acquisitions, we might keep to the year 515 for the Scythian
expeditions. But as the Indian conquests precede the Scythian war, the
year 513 B.C. seems still better. The expedition to Barca is, in
Herodotus, contemporaneous with the conflicts of Megabyzus against those
"who were not of Median opinions" (4, 145). This contemporaneous date is
supported by the fact that Greek ships only, and not Phenician, are
ordered to the Danube, and to support the communications of Megabyzus
with Asia,--a circumstance which is best explained by the absence of the
Phenicians in the African expedition. Moreover, Justin (19, 1) speaks of
an embassy of Darius to Carthage at the time when this city was engaged
in a conflict with Doreus of Sicily (Herod. 5, 45-48; 7, 165; Diod. 4,
23). Such an embassy, which could only be sent to demand a recognition
of supremacy or union in war against the Greeks, was first suggested
when the Persians reached as far as the Euhesperides and Persia became a
neighbour of Carthage, _i.e._ after the expedition to Barca. The colony
of Dorieus on the Eryx was planted between 510 and 508; he had
previously taken part in the battle on the Traeis in 311 or 510 B.C. The
embassy of Darius to Carthage would therefore be subsequent to the
campaign to Barca and the expedition of Democedes, and the years 513 and
512 seem most suitable for the first. From the inscriptions of Darius it
is clear that the inscription of Persepolis, when compared with the
inscription of Behistun, enumerates more subject lands. The former
speaks of the Ionians of the continent and the Ionians of the sea
(_daraya_), while the inscription of Behistun merely mentions the
Ionians. By the Ionians of the sea we are to understand the
newly-subjugated Greeks of Samos, the Greek cities on the Bosphorus and
Propontis. Moreover, the inscription of Persepolis, as already
mentioned, speaks of Idhus (p. 260), while the inscription of Behistun
speaks of Gandaras only. It follows from this that the first
undertakings of Darius after crushing the rebellion were the wars in the
east, the conquests of Samos and the Greek cities on the straits. This
is established by the statement of Herodotus that the Indians were
included in the first division into satrapies--which he places soon
after the accession of Darius--but the islands and the Thracians were
added later on. The palace at Persepolis must therefore have been built
about the year 515 B.C. after the war upon the Indians and the
expedition to Samos, after the subjugation of the strait, but before the
campaigns against Scythia and Barca. The Scythian campaign falls in the
year 513, the conquests of Megabyzus and Otanes in 512, the campaign
against Barca in 513 and 512, the expedition for the investigation of
the Greek coasts in 512 or 511. The inscription on the tomb of Darius
does not mention Ionians of the continent and Ionians of the sea, but
Ionians merely in one case, and then _Yauna takabara_, _i.e._ Ionians
who wore locks, by whom may be meant the Greeks of Lemnos and Imbros,
the Greek cities of the Thracian coast, and the Macedonians, _i.e._ the
regions which were first subjugated after the Scythian campaign. It will
be made clear below that the last names in the inscription on the tomb
are to be explained of African tribes, _i.e._ of the result of the
expedition against Barca. By the Çkudra, mentioned on the inscription,
we may understand the Thracians; in the place of the Çaka who are
mentioned without any addition at Behistun and Persepolis, the
sepulchral inscription has three kinds of Çaka:--_Çaka humavarka_, who
must be interpreted to mean the Amyrgian Sacae of Herodotus; _Çaka
tigrakhauda_, _i.e._ Sacae with pointed caps; and finally _Çaka
taradaraya_, _i.e._ Sacae beyond the sea, who must be the Scoloti.

[265] Herod. 4, 89-91.

[266] Herod. 4, 90-92. "Geographical Journal," vol. 24, p. 44 ff, where
is also to be found the report of General Jochmus on the supposed
inscription in cuneiform letters and on the stone-heaps, which,
according to Herodotus, the soldiers of Darius piled up at Artiscus.

[267] Herod. 4, 93, 94; Strabo, p. 305; Thuc. 2, 96.

[268] Herod. 4, 97, 98.

[269] Vol. III. 235. Neumann, "Hellenen in Skythenlande," s. 200, 211,
215.

[270] Vol. III. 229.

[271] Neumann, _loc. cit._ s. 223 ff.

[272] Justin, 2, 3, 5.

[273] Ctes. "Pers." 16.

[274] Strabo, p. 305.

[275] Strabo, p. 737.

[276] Pherecyd. fragm. 113, ed. Müller.

[277] Hic quum crebri afferrent nuntii male rem gerere Darium premique
ab Scythis, Miltiades hortatus est, etc. Nepos, "Miltiades," 4, in any
case following Ephorus.

[278] Herod. 5, 27. It is clear that the Antandrians and Lamponians were
accused only of abandoning the campaign, not of imperilling the retreat.

[279] Strabo, p. 591.

[280] Herod. 5, 11.

[281] Herod. 4, 143, 144.

[282] Herod. 5, 12.

[283] Herod. 5, 26, 27.

[284] Herod. 5, 12, 23, 25. The chronology which Herodotus thus gives to
the campaign of Otanes, representing it as subsequent to that of
Megabyzus, is impossible. He himself represents Otanes as nominated
general of the forces on sea, and only subsequently as a successor of
Megabyzus. The subjugation of the cities belongs to his first command.

[285] Herod. 6, 40, 84.

[286] It is self-evident that Miltiades did not wait for the arrival of
Darius on the Danube.

[287] According to Polyaenus, Chalcedon was taken by a mine, which was
carried from a hill 15 stades from the city under the market-place.
"Strateg." 7, 2, 5. It is obvious that we must read [Greek: Kalchêdôn]
here, and not [Greek: Karchêdôn]. The altar of Zeus Diabaterius which,
according to Ctesias, Darius erects, and the Chalcedonians subsequently
pull down, is certainly identical with the two monuments which,
according to Herodotus, Darius set up at Byzantium (above, p. 269).
Herodotus also speaks of the destruction of the monuments, but ascribes
it to the Byzantines. This was done obviously in the time after the
battle of Mycale; if previously destroyed they would have been restored
by Megabyzus and Otanes when they subjugated the Hellespont. Of the
later destruction Herodotus relates that the Byzantines conveyed the
stones into the city, and used them in building the altar of Artemis
Orthosia; one stone only, covered with Assyrian letters, was left at the
temple of Dionysus: Herod. 4, 87.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE CONQUESTS IN AFRICA AND EUROPE.


Like Bactria and Arachosia, Asia Minor and Egypt had remained loyal,
when the natives in the centre of the kingdom, the Semites and Arians,
and even the Persians, had revolted against Darius. In Egypt Aryandes,
who had been appointed satrap by Cambyses, still held his office.
Uzahorsun, the Egyptian whom Cambyses had placed in his retinue and
taken into his service (p. 171), tells us, "that his holiness, the king
of upper and lower Egypt, Darius (Ntariush), the ever-living, had
commanded him to go to Egypt, when his holiness was in Elam, when he
became lord of the whole world, the great king of Egypt." According to
the commands of his holiness he (Uzahorsun) had restored order in Egypt
and had received contributions from all. No one had spoken evil of him,
for he had given to every one what was justly his; he had restored all
men to their rights, and had placed them in the boundaries of their
property as it had been marked out; the worship of the gods and their
habitations had been restored according to the will of his holiness; the
offerings had been brought, the festivals had been celebrated.[288] In
addition to the toleration which the Achæmenids always extended to the
religion of the nations subject to them, though it was not their own
religion, and the care which they took of their places of worship,
Darius seems to have been at especial pains to win the affections of the
Egyptians. His intention was, no doubt, to make Egypt the starting-point
for further enterprise in Africa, and the support of the conquests which
he had in contemplation. Herodotus tells us that when Darius determined
to erect his statue before the temple of Ptah at Memphis, he gave way
before the opposition of the priest of the temple. Diodorus tells us
that the Egyptians consider Darius as their sixth law-giver, after
Menes, Sasychis, Sesosis, Bocchoris, and Amasis. Darius had mixed with
the Egyptian priests, and had thus become acquainted with their
theology, and the magnanimity and devotion of their ancient kings. He
set them before him as a pattern, and for this reason he was so highly
honoured among the Egyptians that even in his life-time he was
considered a god, and after his death he received the honours which in
ancient days had been given to the kings of Egypt, whose reigns had been
most in accordance with law. The name of Darius meets us frequently on
the buildings of Egypt. A long inscription in the stone quarries at
Hamamat informs us that an Egyptian architect, Chnum-ab-rha, who had
already been in the service of Amasis, was in the service of Darius from
the 26th to the 30th year of his reign, and carried out his various
buildings.[289] The Apis which had appeared in the fifth year of
Cambyses (p. 171), died in the fourth year of Darius (518 B.C.), and was
buried in the necropolis of Memphis, in the sanctuary of Osiris-Apis, in
the front space of the gallery of the tombs of Apis, which Psammetichus
had added to the gallery of Ramses II.[290] Another great work which
Darius undertook in connection with the monuments of the ancient
Pharaohs, besides the advantages which it conferred on the trade of the
whole kingdom and the intercourse between the parts of it, must have
been of the very greatest value to Egypt.[291]

From the valley of the Nile, to which Darius devoted such attention, in
the autumn of the same year in which he marched to the Danube, a second
Persian expedition set forth, comprising both an army and a fleet--a
great armament, as Herodotus says, which was intended to establish and
extend the dominion of the Persian kingdom on the north coast of
Africa.[292] The Libyan tribes which inhabited these deserts on the
borders of Egypt, like the great cities Cyrene and Barca, had paid
homage to Cambyses, had sent presents, and agreed to pay tribute.[293]
Barca had been founded by Cyrene about 30 years before the conquest of
Egypt by Cambyses, and was governed by a branch of the Battiadae, the
royal house of Cyrene. The daughter of the prince of Barca, whom
Herodotus, following no doubt the Libyan name for the royal title, calls
Alazeir, was the wife of Archelaus III. of Cyrene, who for reasons known
to us had submitted to Cambyses. More than ten years afterwards,
Archelaus repaired to his father-in-law at Barca; during his absence his
mother Pheretima was to govern Cyrene. While at Barca, he was murdered
together with his father-in-law Alazeir by certain Cyrenaeans who had
fled to that city to escape the cruelty with which he had re-established
his sway in Cyrene (p. 153), and by the people of Barca.[294] His
mother, who was no longer in any position to maintain her power in
Cyrene, fled to Egypt and besought assistance from Aryandes; "in return
for her fidelity to Persia, her son had been slain." Aryandes
sympathised with her distress, so Herodotus tells us, and put at her
disposal the whole force in Egypt, both the army and the fleet; sympathy
with Pheretima was the reason of the campaign of the Persians against
Barca. He adds that in his own opinion this was merely a pretext; the
real object was the subjugation of the Libyans, of whom a few only were
the subjects of Darius.[295]

By the assassination of the two princes who had submitted to Persia the
word for revolt was given, and the more plainly because the Barcæans,
according to Herodotus, refused to give up the murderers. The land round
Cyrene was extraordinarily fertile, and the district of Barca reached on
the west to the great Syrtis. The army which set out to reduce a city,
600 miles distant from Memphis, was led by a Persian, Amasis of the
tribe of the Maraphians. (V. 323). This march along the north coast
through regions partly desert and partly inhabited by nomads, was to be
supported by a fleet formed no doubt of Phenician and Egyptian ships,
under the command of Badres of the tribe of the Pasargadae. The Persians
reached the extensive and well-watered mountain plain which formed the
territory of Barca. The city was invested, but the Barcæans made a
vigorous resistance. Furious attacks of the Persians were repulsed, and
even their attempt to carry mines under the city miscarried. A smith in
Barca, according to Herodotus, discovered the direction of the mines by
placing a brazen shield upon the ground, inside the wall, and striking
it,--the soil being hollow, wherever the shield resounded. Then the
Barcæans dug shafts and killed the workmen of the enemy in their
passages. After nine months of fruitless efforts Amasis was convinced
that he could not take the place by storm. He offered to abandon the
siege if the Barcæans would pay a suitable tribute to the king; so long
as they fulfilled this condition the Persians would not take up arms
against them. The conditions were sworn to on both sides, as Herodotus
tells us, in the form that they "should be kept so long as the earth
remained." But on the previous night Amasis had excavated the place on
which the oath was sworn, had covered the excavation with wood, and
placed earth upon the wood. When the Barcaeans, in reliance on the
truce, opened the gates, came out of their city and permitted the
Persians to enter it, Amasis caused the earth to fall in by removing the
wood-work, in order to make the treaty invalid. Being masters of the
city the Persians gave up to Pheretima those who were chiefly implicated
in the murder of Archelaus. She caused them to be crucified round the
walls of Barca, and at the same time cut off the breasts of their wives
and affixed them to the walls. The Persians also carried away a large
number of prisoners, in order to weaken the city, and so to retain it in
subjection with less effort. Only the Battiadæ and a remnant of the
population were left. After thus reducing the city, the Persians marched
through the fruitful plain, which stretches to the west of Barca between
the table-land and the sea, towards the west. At Euhesperides on the
great Syrtis they reached the extreme point in the west of Africa to
which the Persians ever penetrated.[296]

"When the army reached Cyrene on its return," so Herodotus tells us,
"the Cyrenaeans in obedience to an oracle allowed it to pass through the
city. While passing through, Badres, the commander of the fleet, bade
them take the city, but Amasis prevented this, saying that he was sent
out against Barca, and no other city. When they had marched through, and
the army was encamped on the hill of Zeus Lycaeus, they repented that
they had not seized Carthage, and attempted to enter the city a second
time. But this the Cyrenaeans would not allow. Then the Persians, though
no one was fighting against them, were seized with a panic; they ran
away about sixty stades and there encamped till a messenger of Aryandes
called them back. At their request they received provisions for the
journey from the Cyrenaeans and returned to Egypt. But those who
remained behind and delayed their march were cut down by the Libyans for
the sake of their clothes and armour, till they reached Egypt. The
captive Barcæans were sent to the king, and Darius gave them a village
in Bactria for a habitation to which they gave the name Barca. This
village was inhabited in Bactria down to my time."[297]

According to this narrative the expedition to Barca, which set out in
the autumn of 513 B.C. and returned home at the earliest towards the end
of 512 B.C. (the siege of Barca occupied nine months), did not turn out
prosperously for the Persians. The contrary was the case. Herodotus
repeats a legend of the Cyrenaeans, which was intended to put their
courage in a clear light, and according to which an entrance into the
city when demanded for the third time was refused to the Persian army
which had marched through Cyrene on its advance and return. Further, an
attempted attack of the Persians failed though there was no resistance,
and Cyrene magnanimously furnished the Persians with provisions for
their journey. The army and fleet of the Persians, when quartered in the
fertile district of Cyrene, were in a position to supply themselves
abundantly at the cost of the city. Moreover, we subsequently find a
fourth Battus at the head of Cyrene and Barca, and after him a fourth
Arcesilaus.[298] After the murder of Arcesilaus III. a Battiad would
have been the less likely to ascend the throne of Cyrene without the aid
of the Persians, owing to the cruel punishment which Pheretima had
inflicted on her opponents. Moreover, Herodotus tells us himself that
Darius included the Libyans adjacent to Egypt as well as Cyrene and
Barca in the sixth satrapy, _i.e._ the satrapy of Egypt, and imposed
upon the two a yearly tribute of 700 talents.[299] From other accounts
it is clear that the Libyans of this district, and with them the
inhabitants of the oasis of Ammon, had to contribute salt to the
Persians, and Herodotus tells us that these Libyans of the north coast,
clad in the skins of animals and armed with poles hardened in the fire,
served in the army of the Persian kings along with the curly-haired
negroes living beyond Egypt.[300] Monuments and inscriptions also prove
that not Cyrene and Barca only, but even the Libyan tribes of the north
coast as far as the great Syrtis, _i.e._ the Adyrmachidae, Giligammae,
and Asbystae were subdued at that time, and that the dominion of Darius
extended as far as the oases on the northern edge of the desert.
Herodotus has already told us of the oasis Polis, which was situated
seven days' journey from Thebes in the sand (p. 165),--the modern Oasis
el Charigeh. The inscriptions of the great temple, the walls of which
still exist at this place in tolerable preservation, tell us that Darius
"S-tut-Ra,"[301] _i.e._ rival of the sun, dedicated this temple to Ammon
Ra of Thebes, the lord of Hib (which is the name of this oasis among the
Egyptians). In the colossal picture on the exterior wall at the back,
Darius offers sacrifice to this god and the goddess Mut, who stands
behind him; behind the king we also see the goddess Hathor.[302] At a
later time Darius Ochus added to this temple. The inscription of
Naksh-i-Rustem, which distinguishes the tomb of Darius, quotes among the
nations who were his subjects the _Putiya_, _Machiya_, and _Kushiya_. By
the Putiya (Puta in the Babylonian translation of the inscription) we
must understand beyond doubt the Put of the Hebrews, _i.e._ the Libyans;
the Machiya may be the Maxyes of Herodotus, to the west of Cyrene, the
Mashawasha of the Egyptians; the Kushiya are the Cushites of the
Egyptians, Hebrews, and Assyrians, the Ethiopians of the Greeks, _i.e._
the Nubians and negroes beyond Egypt.[303]

Justin's excerpt from Pompeius Trogus tells us that Darius sent an
embassy to Carthage with the command that the Carthaginians must abstain
from human sacrifices and the use of dogs' flesh, burn their corpses
instead of burying them; and at the same time he bade them furnish
auxiliary troops against the Greeks, whom he intended to attack. The
Carthaginians refused the auxiliary troops because they were frequently
at war with their neighbours; to the rest of his commands they readily
submitted that they might not seem to be obstinate.[304] Both the
objects mentioned for the embassy are fictions, though they show an
acquaintance with the Arian religion and the views of Darius, but there
is no reason to doubt that Darius entered into negotiations with
Carthage. Cambyses had already fixed his eye on Carthage, and Darius by
the expedition to Barca and Euhesperides, had become the neighbour of
the city, the territory of which reached as far to the east as the Great
Syrtis. In common opposition to the Greeks the interests of Carthage and
Darius were united, for the Greek navy was the rival of the Phenicians
and Carthaginians, and the Carthaginians were in conflict with the Greek
cities in Sicily. In Justin's account the embassy of Darius came to
Carthage at the time when the Carthaginians in Sicily were in conflict
with Dorieus. Their struggle to prevent the settlement on Eryx fell
between the years 510 and 508 B.C. The expedition against Barca came to
an end as we saw in the year 512 B.C. Hence the negotiations between
Persia and Carthage must have followed upon this expedition.[305]

While the Persians in the south of the Mediterranean were advancing to
the west along the coast of Africa, the army of Megabyzus moved along
the north in the same direction (512 B.C.). Perinthus and the cities on
the northern shore of the Propontis were reduced and punished, and then
Darius gave orders, according to Herodotus, for the reduction of Thrace.
"And Megabyzus marched through Thrace, and reduced every nation and
every city into submission to the king. The nation of the Thracians is
the greatest after the Indians, and if it were united or governed by one
man, it would be invincible, and in my opinion the strongest of all
nations. But as this is impossible, and can never be brought about,
they are weak. They buy their wives at a high price from their parents
and sell the children into foreign countries. They regard it as the
greatest degradation to till the field, as most honourable to do
nothing, as most noble to live by war and plunder. It is a mark of birth
to be tatooed, and of low origin to have no print upon the skin. The
rich lay out their dead for three days; first they mourn for them, then
they slay victims of every kind and make a feast, burn the corpse or
bury it, heap up a mound, and celebrate games of all kinds, in which, as
is right, the greatest prizes are put up for the victors. They worship
only Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis; but their kings also specially worship
Hermes from whom they claim to be descended. Of this territory Megabyzus
subjugated the whole strip, which lay on the sea, to Darius." The
Paeonians, who were settled on the Strymon and round Lake Prasias,
assembled on their coast to await the attack. But Megabyzus turned into
the inland region to the north of Mount Pangaeum, and from that
direction fell unexpectedly upon the cities of the Paeonians, which were
undefended. Then each of the Paeonians hastened back to his family and
they submitted to the Persians, and Megabyzus caused the Paeonians on
the Siris, and the Paeoplians, who were situated to the north of
Pangaeum, on the Strymon, to be carried captive to Sardis to the king.
"But the Paeonians who dwelt on Mount Pangaeum, and on piles in Lake
Prasias, were not at first subjugated by Megabyzus, though he made the
attempt."[306]

Together with the tribes of the Thracians, the numerous cities of the
Greeks on this coast became subjects of Darius.[307] Doriscus on the
mouth of the Hebrus received a Persian garrison.[308] In vain the
inhabitants of Teos, more than thirty years previously, had emigrated
before the siege of Harpagus, and founded Abdera on this coast--they now
became subjects of the Persians. In return for the great service which
he had rendered at the bridge on the Danube, Histiaeus the prince of
Miletus received permission to found a colony on the Strymon, where it
leaves Lake Prasias, in the land of the Edonians, near Myrcinus, on the
north-west spur of Pangaeum, which is here clothed with magnificent
forests, and possessed fruitful veins of silver.[309] Histiaeus began at
once to build the walls which were to protect the new settlement.

With the subjugation of the Paeonians and the crossing of the Strymon,
Megabyzus reached the border of an empire, the Macedonian kingdom, the
central district of which lay between the Axius and the Haliaemon.
Amyntas, the son of Alcetas,[310] the king of Macedonia, was requested
by Megabyzus through an embassy of seven Persians to send earth and
water as tokens of submission to Darius. Amyntas was in great terror of
the Persians, as Herodotus tells us;[311] he did not refuse the request,
and thus acknowledged the sovereignty of the Persians. In order to do
honour to his envoys, they were hospitably entertained. But when in
their intoxication they laid hands on the women of the royal house,
Alexander the young son of Amyntas caused them to be cut down with their
train. As they did not return, Megabyzus sent his son Bubares, the
brother of the Zopyrus who had done good service before Babylon, and
was now viceroy there, with an armed force.[312] Amyntas was prepared to
pay a large sum as a fine, and to receive the son of Megabyzus at his
royal house; he gave his own daughter Gygaea, the sister of Alexander,
in marriage to Bubares.[313]

While Megabyzus subjugated the Thracian coast with its harbours and
trading-places to the west as far as the Strymon, Otanes had completed
the reduction of the rebellious Greek towns to the south of the straits,
on the shores of Asia Minor. Not only Lamponium and Antandrus, opposite
Lesbos, but also Abydus, Chalcedon, and Byzantium were punished. Coes,
who had led the ships from Lesbos to the Danube, had been rewarded for
his services to Darius by the government of the island. He was not
required to furnish ships to Otanes for the conquest of Lemnos and
Imbros. The Lemnians resisted bravely. When they had been conquered,
Otanes made Lycaretus, a brother of Maeandrius of Samos (p. 261), tyrant
of the island, and he governed it till his death (towards 500
B.C.[314]). With the conquest of Lemnos and Imbros, two large and
important islands in the Ægean Sea, in addition to Samos, Chios and
Lesbos were gained for the Persian kingdom.

After the expedition across the Danube, Darius intended to carry his
conquests to the west of Europe, not to the north. The cantons of
Hellas were the aim towards the attainment of which Megabyzus and Otanes
prepared the way. The co-operation of the marine appeared indispensable
for further enterprises in this direction. The events at the bridge over
the Danube had shown Darius that it was extremely rash to leave in the
hands of the tyrants of the Greeks the command of the fleet formed out
of the vessels from their cities. The Phenicians he could certainly
trust, if he led them against the Greeks, but the navigation of the
Greeks had long ago driven the trade of the Phenicians from the Greek
coasts. In any case it was advisable that a number of leading Persians
should be acquainted with the Greek waters, that they might be entrusted
with the command of squadrons. That Persians were equal to such an
office had been shown in Africa. Darius commanded fifteen Persians
selected by himself to go on board Phenician ships in order to visit and
investigate the coasts of Hellas and Sicily. The expedition embarked on
two Sidonian ships of the line, which were accompanied by a transport
vessel, and set sail from Sidon. On board was a Greek physician as
interpreter and guide--Democedes of Croton, who had previously been
physician to Polycrates of Samos. He had accompanied his master on his
unfortunate voyage to Magnesia (p. 261). After the execution of
Polycrates, Oroetes had released the Samians in his company, and
retained the rest as slaves in his house. When Bagaeus had caused
Oroetes to be slain he sent his property and slaves to the court of the
king, where Democedes was kept in rags and chains along with his
companions in misfortune. It happened that Darius, in leaping from his
horse when hunting, dislocated his ancle. The Egyptian physicians, who
were in the greatest repute in the east, and had already been retained
since the time of Cyrus at the Persian court (p. 134), could not cure
the mischief. At last some one remembered to have heard of the fame of
Democedes among the Greeks. Darius caused him to be summoned, and was
healed by him. Soon after Democedes cured Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus,
the first wife of Darius, of a dangerous tumour in the breast. In return
for his successful treatment Darius presented him with two pairs of
golden chains; and when receiving them Democedes, according to the
Greeks, inquired: Whether the king desired to double his misery in
return for the cure? From that time he was in high favour with the king,
and was appointed a companion of his table, one of the greatest and
rarest distinctions in Persia; it was said to be his intercession which
rescued the Egyptian physicians who were about to be crucified because
they were unable to heal Darius. He now accompanied the expedition, as a
man acquainted with the localities, to Hellas and Sicily, in the year
512 B.C. The king bade the Persians keep watch upon Democedes, and not
suffer him to escape to the Hellenes. The expedition sailed round
Hellas; it kept close to the shore, and sketched the coast; as Herodotus
remarks, these were the first Persians who had come to Greece. From
Hellas they directed their course to lower Italy. When the Persians were
at Tarentum Democedes succeeded in escaping. When it was discovered that
he had gone to Crotona, his native city, the Persians sailed thither and
requested the inhabitants to give him up, but in vain. Then they
experienced a further disaster; they were driven to Iapygia; the crew
were captured and enslaved; only after some time had passed were the
Persians ransomed by Gillus, a Tarentine exile, and carried back to
Persia.[315] However vexatious the loss of his physician might be to
Darius, this expedition enabled him to prepare for the enterprise in the
Greek waters which he had in view. The main object was attained; a
number of Persians had been made acquainted with the sea and the
coasts.

FOOTNOTES:

[288] De Rougé, "Revue Archéolog." 8, 51, 52. De Rougé has Aram, Brugsch
now reads Elam ("Hist. of Egypt," 2, 297), and translates: "For he also
was the great lord of all lands and a great king of Egypt,--in order
that I might reinstate the number of the sacred scribes of the temples,
and revive whatever had fallen into ruin. The foreigners escorted me
from land to land, and brought me safe to Egypt, according to the
command of the lord of the land. I did according to what he had
commanded. I chose them from all their (?) of the sons of the
inhabitants--to the great sorrow of those who were childless--and I
placed them under expert masters, the skilful in all kinds of learning,
that they might perform all their works. The king did all this--in order
to uphold the name of all the gods, their temples, their revenues, and
the ordinances of their feasts for ever."

[289] Herod. 2, 110; Diod. 1, 50, 95. For _Rach-num-hat_ which he read
previously Brugsch now reads _Chnum-ab-rha_. "Hist. of Egypt," 2, 299.

[290] Mariette, "Athen. Franç." 1855; Mai, p. 48.

[291] The remark in Polyaenus; Darius marching through Arabia against
the Egyptians who rebelled against the tyranny of Aryandes, had again
gained their affection by offering a prize of 100 talents of gold to the
discoverer of a new Apis in the place of that which had just died,
cannot be referred to the Apis which died in the year 518 B.C. In that
year Darius was fighting in Media against Phraortes, Aryandes was satrap
in the year 512 B.C. and long after. Hence it must refer to the second
Apis, which appeared in 491 B.C., the thirty-first year of Darius, for
which Darius caused a sepulchre to be built. That the first rebellion of
the Egyptians against Darius took place about this time follows from a
chapter in Aristotle's "Rhetoric," 2, 20, where we are told that Darius
did not cross over to Hellas before he had reduced Egypt; and in like
manner Xerxes reduced Egypt before crossing over to Hellas. The
"crossing over" can only refer to the campaign of Datis and Artaphernes;
the first rebellion of Egypt against Darius therefore took place just
when the rebellion of the Ionians had been crushed, _i.e._ 492, 491
B.C.; the second occurred in 486 B.C.

[292] Herod. 4, 145 says, "at the same time when Megabyzus subjugated
the inhabitants of the Hellespont." This subjugation would begin in the
autumn and pass over into the next spring.

[293] Herod. 4, 167. Above, p. 152.

[294] Herod. 4, 164, 200.

[295] Herod. 4, 165, 167, 197.

[296] Herod. 4, 200-204; Heracl. Pont. fragm. 4, ed. Müller.

[297] Herod. 4, 203, 204.

[298] Herod. 4, 163; Heracl. Pont. Fragm. 8, ed. Müller; Pindar, "Pyth."
4, 5 and the Scholia.

[299] Herod. 3, 91.

[300] Herod. 7, 71.

[301] In Brugsch, "Hist. of Egypt," 2, 297, Settu-Ra.

[302] Lepsius, "Inschriften von Charigeh und Dachileh, Z. f. Aeg. Spr."
1874, s. 75, 78.

[303] It seems to me rash to find Carthage in _Karka_ (so also in the
Babylonian version) with Oppert ("Journal Asiatique," 1872, p. 163 ff.),
and Mordtmann ("Z. D. M. G." 16, 110).

[304] Justin, 19, 1.

[305] Though I admit that negotiations may have taken place between
Darius and the Carthaginians, I do not at the same time allow the
accuracy of the statement in Diodorus about the league of Xerxes and the
Carthaginians against the Greeks: a Sicilian may be suspected of
ascribing to his countrymen as large a share as possible in the glory of
the Persian war.

[306] Herod. 5, 16.

[307] Herod. 5, 26.

[308] Herod. 7, 59.

[309] Herod. 5, 11, 23.

[310] Herod. 8, 139; Thuc. 2, 99, 200.

[311] Herod. 5, 19.

[312] Herod. 5, 21; 7, 21; Justin, 7, 3, 4.

[313] Herod. 5, 18, 21; Justin, 7, 3, 4. In the year 512 B.C., in which
this incident falls, Alexander must have been very young; Herodotus
speaks of him as young and inexperienced. In Justin we are told in
reference to the length of his life: "_Senex decessit_." On the reigns
of Amyntas and Alexander Philhellen, I shall treat in my Greek History.
For the present I refer to Droysen, "Hellenismus," 1^2, 75, and Von
Gutschmid, "Ueber die makedonische Anagraphe, Symbol. Philolog." Bonn.

[314] The Ionian revolt liberated Lemnos from the dominion of the
Persians; when Miltiades during the revolt subjugated Lemnos and Imbros
to Athens, Hermon was at the head of Lemnos.

[315] Herod. 3, 129-138. Athenaeus, p. 522. On the date of the
expedition above, p. 270, _n._ That this whole expedition owed its
origin to an intrigue of Democedes, is merely a part of Herodotus' love
of anecdote. But it is not incredible that Democedes joined it in the
hope of returning to Greece.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE STATE OF DARIUS.


The perseverance and vigour of Darius had succeeded in re-establishing
and extending the kingdom of Cyrus. In the west he had reached Mount
Olympus and the great Syrtis, in the east the course of the Indus, high
up among the Himalayas; in the north the boundaries were the Caucasus
and the Jaxartes, in the south the tribes of Arabia and the negroes
above Nubia. He set himself to give a regulated administration to this
empire, which had been acquired by such vast conquests, and which in its
wide extent threw the empire of the Assyrians completely into the shade.
He made the first attempt known to history to organize his conquests and
govern them on a fixed plan. Thus he became the real founder of the
Persian empire. He succeeded so far that an empire, the like of which
had not been seen upon earth, which enumerated the most various nations
among its subjects, was really governed, and the foundations which he
laid were so firm that in spite of many serious rebellions, the empire
never fell from internal disorganization.

The chief support of the kingdom lay in the proud feeling of the
Persians that they were the ruling nation of Asia, and governed the
nations through their king and with their king. They saw with
satisfaction how the tribute, the contributions, the prisoners of the
subject nations came from the furthest distance to their mountains, how
the palaces of their king rose in ever-increasing splendour on their
native soil, what brilliance and magnificence surrounded their ruler,
the king of kings. From the Persians were chosen the magistrates who
governed the provinces, and the generals who commanded their
contingents; Persians surrounded the king and were his counsellors and
judges. The court, the administration, and the army opened the most
brilliant prospect to every Persian who was in a position to distinguish
himself in the eyes of the king; and service in war offered acceptable
pay to the man of the people. Persian troops, excellently appointed,
protected the person of the king; they formed the garrisons of the
fortresses, they were the nucleus of the army, and marched before the
rest of the troops. In solemn processions and parades, the Persians were
always on the right of the king.[316] They were not only free from tax
and tribute of every kind, but largesses of money were made whenever the
king entered Pasargadae (V. 357). Plato's Laws maintain that Darius
established as law the allotments which Cyrus promised the Persians; in
this way he had shown his inclination to the Persians and had
established a common feeling between the ruler and the nation.[317]
However this may be, every one, even the meanest Persian, felt that he
had a share in the government of Asia.

It was a principle of the king of Persia from the time of Cyrus to grant
to the leading families of the Persians and the Persian nobility a rich
share in the fruits and advantages of the empire, but at the same time
to accustom them to dependence and subjection, and to train up in them a
vigorous class of magistrates and officers. If the wealthy families of
Persia remained in their old mode of life in the country, with their
flocks, such a position might keep up a feeling of independence and
freedom which was hardly compatible with the unlimited power of the king
and the interests of the empire. It was desirable to bring them to the
court, and keep them under supervision, to make them dependent on the
favour of the king, and habituate them to constant service. The Median
court had been numerous; the Persian court was even more extensive, not
merely for the sake of magnificence, or to display the splendour and
greatness of the ruler, and so impose upon the Persians and the subject
nations, but also with a view of educating the nobility in court life.
No one could count on advancement who did not show himself at the gate
of the king; indeed it was difficult for any one whom the king did not
see to obtain a hearing from him. Those whose duty it was to appear at
court were urged not to fail in their appearance.[318] In this way they
learnt not merely behaviour and conduct, modesty and self-control,[319]
but were accustomed to live in the shadow of the throne, and to seek the
sun of royal favour. In the immediate neighbourhood of the king men
could look up with obedience and respect to the greatness of the ruler.
If in this way the nobility were linked round the court, and instructed
to strive for the favour of the king as the highest honour, if the
strict ceremonial of the court reduced them to constant obedience, the
king on the other hand had opportunity to select, from personal
knowledge and confidence, the magistrates to whom important posts might
be entrusted.[320]

The officers round the person of the king, and employed in the service
of the state and court, were numerous. Next to the throne came the six
tribal princes, who wore the upright kidaris, the sign of royalty, and
to them, as we often find, the most difficult duties in war, and the
most important expeditions and provinces were entrusted. Next to the
tribal princes were the seven supreme judges of the kingdom, who watched
over the hereditary customs, and the controller of the empire, "the
king's eye." Less influential, but nevertheless important owing to their
personal relation to the king, were the "quiver-bearer" and the
"lance-bearer"; we find the persons who filled these offices at the time
depicted on the relief at Behistun beside the king. The office of
"bearer of the king's footstool" is also mentioned. The great
court-offices, of the "chief staff-bearer," "messenger," "announcer,"
"chief butler," "master of the horse," and "master of the chase,"
together with various other honourable offices, and many subordinate
places, gave an opportunity of uniting a large number of Persians
closely with the court life, and employing as viceroys and generals
those whom the king had found to be excellent servants.[321] But Medes
were employed in the service of the kingdom as well as Persians. If
Media was treated in other respects like the rest of the provinces (it
had to pay yearly 450 talents of tax, and furnish 100,000 sheep for the
court), the system of Cyrus, who by entrusting important commissions to
eminent Medes, had attempted to reconcile Media to the new position of
affairs, was followed by Darius in spite of the rebellion. From other
nations only those who had been specially tested were in rare cases
entrusted with high offices.

Cyrus had introduced the custom of rewarding loyalty and devotion to the
king and service to the kingdom by distinctions, marks of honour, and
gifts conferred in the most marked and distinctive manner,--of exciting
ambition and emulation by favour and liberality. Who makes such
presents, said Xenophon, as the king of the Persians?--armlets, chains,
and horses with golden bridles; no one could possess such things unless
they were presented to him by the king.[322] Who could compare with the
decorated friends of the king of Persia?--he alone appeared in more
splendid array. The sending of a portion from the royal table was no
slight honour.[323] The present of the kaftan (kandys) was a common
distinction; more important were the golden armlets, the golden chain,
the golden crown, the golden wreath, the golden sabre, the horse with
golden harness. Other presents were also made, as plane-trees and vines
of gold, golden millstones more than 300 pounds in weight.[324] There
were also gifts of property, and allocations of the produce of certain
cities and districts. Pre-eminent services were rewarded by the title
"Benefactor"; we remember that the Avesta requires the good thought, the
good word, and the good act. Besides these distinctions, advancement to
the upper classes of the kingdom counted as the highest honour. The
"table companions" of the king, and above them "the kinsmen" of the king
had the first portion in the kingdom after the tribal princes and the
great officers. The bestowal of the rank of the table companion
conferred the right to eat at or near the table of the king, and
occasionally to make merry with him. The elevation to be a "kinsman of
the king" conferred the rank of an Achæmenid, a prince of the house.
Like the king, the kinsmen wore a pale blue band round the tiara, and
had the right to kiss the king, a custom which was usual in Persia among
persons of equal rank.[325]

According to the statements of Herodotus, the boys of the Persians were
instructed from their fifth to their twentieth year (Xenophon and Strabo
assert till their twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year) in riding,
shooting with the bow, and speaking the truth.[326] In the Laws we are
told that the boys of the Medes were entrusted to the women, and those
of the Persians to free men. According to the assertion of Nicolaus of
Damascus, Cyrus was already instructed in the philosophy of the Magians,
in justice and truthfulness, as the hereditary laws prescribed for the
leading Persians.[327] Plato tells us that the sons of the kings of the
Persians were attended by eunuchs till their seventh year; from that
time till the fourteenth year they learned to ride, shoot, and hunt.
Then they received distinguished teachers, of whom the first instructed
them in the wisdom of Zoroaster, and the business of the crown, the
second in the duty of truthfulness, the third in temperance, the fourth
in courage and bravery.[328] Plutarch observes that a Magian presided
over the education of the princes and instructed them even in
magic.[329] Xenophon narrates that the princes and the children of the
leading Persians were brought up "at the gate" of the king, where they
learned temperance and prudence and saw nothing unbecoming. They
observed what men were honoured by the king and whom he punished, and
thus learned even in their boyhood to command and obey. Modesty and
obedience were counted as a distinction among these boys. In this way
they learned to be excellent riders, to throw the javelin, and use the
bow. At a later time they became so skilful in hunting that they
ventured to encounter a bear.[330] Even now, he says in another passage,
it is the custom to educate children at the court, but the exercise in
riding has fallen into disuse, because they no longer go where they
could gain reputation by skill in the art; and if in former days they
seemed to learn justice when they listened to just sentences, they now
see that he obtains justice who gives most. And if they formerly learned
the nature of all plants in order to avoid what was noxious, they now
seem to have acquired this knowledge in order to do as much mischief as
possible.[331] In Strabo's account the education seems arranged even
more systematically. He tells us that the Persian boys were brought up,
fifty together, with one of the sons of the king, or with the sons of
the satraps. Intelligent men were appointed to teach them, who
instructed them in the legends of the gods, sometimes with and sometimes
without song, and also recounted to them the noblest deeds of men,
besides those of gods.[332] At the same time the boys and young men
were rendered hardy. They were aroused early in the morning by the sound
of a gong, and for food commonly received barley or wheaten bread, and
water to drink; when hunting or keeping the flocks, they were compelled
to live on wild fruits, acorns, and forest berries, and to pass the
night in the open air. They had also to learn to distinguish wholesome
and noxious herbs, to plant trees, and prepare hunting nets.[333]

Putting this evidence together, and remembering that even in the fourth
century the kings and their retinue undertook long hunting expeditions
on horseback, without permitting themselves to be checked by weariness,
heat or cold, hunger or thirst,[334] there seems to be no doubt that the
Persian kings introduced a system of education for the officers on the
basis of the old mode of life and the customs of the nation, and in this
system their own sons, so far as seemed good, had a part. Riding and
shooting were national exercises among the Persians; hunting was
necessary for the protection of the flocks, and was therefore carried on
as a religious duty no less than as a pleasure; from all antiquity the
keeping of flocks and the protection of them against beasts of prey was
assigned to the youth. If these exercises were systematized, and regard
was paid to the prospect of military service in some official capacity,
if the young men were also accustomed to unhesitating obedience, such a
school might be expected to supply capable and active officers and good
generals. A hardy and vigorous life was the more necessary for the sons
of the Persians as luxury began to spread among the higher classes
after the successes of Cyrus. We may believe the accounts of the Greeks
that instruction in religion formed a part of the system; the Avesta
requires such instruction, and it is usual among the Parsees at the
present day (V. 196, 202). But the Greeks are wrong in supposing that
these cadet schools were the general mode of education among the
Persians, and maintaining that the Persian boys received a training like
those of the Spartans. It was only for political reasons that a number
of young men from the eminent families were educated to be generals and
viceroys. Xenophon has perceived that the education was limited to the
higher classes, and states this distinctly in the "Anabasis." This
education went on partly under the eyes of the king at court, partly at
the courts of the satraps, which were arranged on the pattern of the
royal household.[335] Even under the Sassanids the sons of the nobles
were educated at court; we have special mention of the teachers of the
horsemen.[336]

It was not the intention of Cyrus or Darius to interfere with the life
and habits of the subject nations more than was necessary in order to
maintain their supremacy and to secure obedience. The ancient dynasties
in Babylon and Egypt were removed; Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes
are called kings of Babylon in numerous inscriptions;[337] in Egypt, as
the native inscriptions have shown us, they received the style and title
of the Pharaohs. In both countries they take the place of the native
monarchs, and not in name only, for at the same time they undertake the
protection of the national religion and law. The peculiar ordinances and
the law, the political and administrative arrangements of the subject
lands, are said to have continued under the Persian empire to the widest
possible extent. In some cases, indeed, old native families remained at
the head of affairs, as in Cilicia, the Phenician and Cyprian cities; in
Bactria native princes governed the districts (V. 236); in the cities of
the Greeks and the subjugated islands of the Ægean Sea, the Persian
kings had set up princes from the native population. The nomad tribes of
the empire could only be ruled by keeping up relations with their
chiefs. But in whatever way the various parts of the subject territory
were arranged, whether there were princes or a more popular
administration, their communities, their lands and cities, were left to
govern themselves in their hereditary manner, according to their own
customs, laws, and rules, provided that they paid tribute and furnished
a contingent in war. Darius appears even to have taken upon himself the
development of the national law; we have seen that the Egyptians called
him their sixth law-giver (p. 300).

The gods, the modes of religion and worship, were interfered with even
less than the custom and law of the subject nations, notwithstanding
that Cyrus and Darius with the Persians and Arians of Iran may have been
convinced that there could be none but lying gods and false worship
beside Auramazda and Mithra, and the gods of the Arians. The kings of
the Persians were not even content with this liberal tolerance which
forms the chief glory of their rule; they promoted the worship of the
subject nations. The inscription on the brick at Senkereh,[338]
mentions Cyrus as the restorer of the great temple of Merodach at
Babylon (the tower of Belus), and of the temple of Nebo at Borsippa
(Bit-Zida); we found Cambyses with the Egyptian title of the new
sun-god, and celebrated as the restorer of the worship of Neith at Sais;
he is also represented in adoration before the Apis which died in his
reign. And in this matter Darius did not remain behind his predecessors.
We have already heard from the Egyptian Uzahorsun that he was sent to
Egypt soon after the accession of Darius, in order to take care of the
habitations of the gods and their festivals, _i.e._ to support and
maintain the religious worship. In his temple at the Oasis of El
Charigeh, Darius, adorned with the title "rival of the sun," offers
prayer to Ammon with the ram's head. Darius caused the Apis which died
in the fourth year of his reign to be buried (p. 301), and in spite of a
recent rebellion, a sepulchre was built, "to endure for ever," for the
Apis which appeared in the thirty-first year of his reign, _i.e._ in 491
B.C.; to make room for this the gallery of Psammetichus was extended.
Darius, it is said, proposed a prize of 100 talents of gold for the
discovery of this new Apis.[339]

Nor was it Egypt only which experienced the care of Darius for the
national worship of the subject nations. The Samaritans had hindered the
restoration of the temple and walls of Jerusalem, which the exiles from
Babylonia had taken in hand, by threats and by warnings to the court of
Cyrus (p. 99). When Darius ascended the throne, the prophets Haggai and
Zechariah called upon their countrymen to finish the restoration of the
temple. Haggai reproved the indifference to solemn duties and the
selfishness which allowed panelled houses to rise for men, while the
house of God was desolate: "therefore the heavens restrained their dew,
and the earth her increase." He reminded them of the punishments which
had come upon their fathers for neglecting the will of Jehovah: he
demanded vigorous action from Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua; he
pronounced the blessing of Jehovah, if the temple were finished and
proclaimed to Zerubbabel the son of Salathiel, to whom, eighteen years
before (p. 93), Cyrus had entrusted the leadership of the "sons of
captivity," that Jehovah would keep him as his seal-ring if the work
were finished. To Joshua Zechariah promises royal splendour and long
posterity in return for the building of the temple.[340] When the temple
is restored, the scattered remnants of Israel would return, and if the
walls of Jerusalem were not restored, Jehovah would be a wall of fire to
his city. "Many people and mighty nations will come to seek Jehovah at
Jerusalem, and make supplication in the presence of the Lord."[341] The
exhortations of the prophets had such effect that the building of the
temple and the city-walls was taken up again in the second year of
Darius (520 B.C.). When the satrap of Syria, who is called Thathnai in
the book of Ezra, and his subordinates raised the question--who had
given permission for the building--the Jews fell back on the written
permission of Cyrus. The satrap referred the matter to the king.
According to the narrative of the Jews Darius caused a search to be made
for this document in Babylon and Ecbatana, and when it was found in the
archives at Ecbatana, he sanctioned the building by a new royal
rescript. The work was carried on under repeated exhortations of the
two prophets, and after four years and five months it was completed. In
the sixth year of Darius (516 B.C.), seventy years after Nebuchadnezzar
had pulled it down, the temple was rebuilt. The dedication was made by a
sin-offering of twelve goats from the twelve tribes of Israel, and a
thank-offering of 100 bulls, 200 rams, and 400 lambs.[342] The walls of
the city and the ancient citadel of David by degrees rose once
more.[343]

In the place of the governorships which Cyrus and Cambyses had
established as the need arose, Darius introduced fixed departments.
About the year 515 B.C. the kingdom was divided into twenty satrapies.
Asia Minor was broken up into four satrapies. The first included the
west coast of Asia Minor; it was the narrow strip of coast in which lay
the Greek cities from the Sigean promontory as far as Caria; the
territory of the Carians also, and that of the Lycians, the Solymi, and
Pamphylians, under the Taurus on the south coast, were attached to this
satrapy. The second satrapy, of which the metropolis was Sardis,
comprised Mysia and Lydia, together with the southern strip of Phrygia.
To the third satrapy, the satraps of which resided at Dascyleum on the
Hellespont, the Greek cities on the Hellespont, the Propontis, and the
Bosphorus were allotted; the Thracians in Asia, _i.e._ the Bithynians,
the Paphlagonians, the Phrygians as far as the Halys, and the
Cappadocians beyond the Halys as far as the border of Armenia. Cilicia
with its metropolis of Tarsus was the fourth satrapy. Between Asia Minor
and the highlands of Iran there were six satrapies. The Tibarenes,
Mosynoeci, Macrones, and Moschians on the Pontus, formed the first (the
eighteenth in Herodotus' reckoning); the nations who dwelt to the east
of them in the valley of the Araxes, the Saspeires and Alarodians, along
with the western part of Armenia, formed the second (the eleventh); the
rest of Armenia the third (the thirteenth); Syria and Phoenicia and the
island of Cyprus the fourth (the fifth);[344] Assyria and Babylonia,
with the metropolis, Babylon, the fifth (the ninth); the land of the
Cissians (Susiana) on the left bank of the Tigris the sixth (the
eighth). Egypt with Cyrene and Barca, the subject tribes in Ethiopia and
Libya, formed a separate satrapy (the sixth); the satrap resided at
Memphis. The table-land of Iran was broken up into nine satrapies. These
were the satrapy of Media (the tenth); the satrapy of the Caspians,
which comprised the lands to the north of the Medes on the Caspian Sea,
the valley of the Cyrus, and the lands of the Cardusians, the Mardians,
the Tapurians and Hyrcanians (the nineteenth); the satrapy of the
Parthians, Arians, Chorasmians, and Sogdians (the sixteenth); the
satrapy of the Sacae (the fifteenth); the satrapy of the Bactrians, to
which the Margians also seem to have belonged (the twelfth);[345] the
satrapy of the Sattagydæ (Thataghus) and the Gandarians, _i.e._ of the
Gedrosians, the Arachoti, and the Gandharas, on the south bank of the
Cabul (the seventh);[346] the satrapy of the Sagartians and Sarangians,
which extended in the east of Persia as far to the south as the Persian
Gulf, and included the islands belonging to it (the fourteenth); the
satrapy of the Paricanians and Ethiopians in Asia; _i.e._ the
inhabitants of the southern edge of the table-land on the east,
including the black tribes in the delta of the Indus (the seventeenth);
and finally the satrapy of the Indians, which included all the tribes on
the right bank of the Indus, from the summits of the Himalayas to the
junction of the Cabul and the Indus (the twentieth).[347]

The viceroys whom Darius placed over these districts had to keep the
aggregate of the various political bodies, of which the satrapies
consisted, in obedience to the empire and in peace towards each other;
to collect the taxes and tribute, to summon and organize the military
levies. The satrap was the highest authority in his province--the
supreme appeal in law, administration, and military affairs. The king
alone was superior. He was the judge before whom could be laid appeals
from the judgment of the princes and local boards, if the claimant had
not preferred to go to him in the first instance; he was the only judge
between the princes, the districts, the tribes and cities of his
province. His arrangements must be obeyed. He was to take measures for
the advancement of cultivation and the increase of the population in his
province, both as fullfilling the rules of the Avesta, and in the
interest of the kingdom. He kept watch over trade and currency, over the
military roads, the stations, the harbours, the canals and dams; he had
the right to strike silver coins for his province. He had charge of the
military affairs of the province; and was responsible for the weapons
and ships when required for the levy. The apportionment of the taxes and
tributes to the districts and communities of the province, the
collection of these, and the despatch of the proper revenues to the king
were among his duties. He had royal scribes to assist him in these
matters, who read to him the commands of the king and drew up his
reports to the king. It was not likely to escape Darius that the great
powers in the hands of the satrap would lead him to use his delegated
power independently and even against his chief. The attempt of Oroetes
to found an independent monarchy in Asia Minor, had caused him great
anxiety in a time of difficulty. He could not always expect that such
tendencies in distant provinces could be known in time, or that
rebellions on the part of satraps could be prevented. The king withdrew
from them the nomination of the commanders of the castles, which
controlled the main roads of the provinces, the more important
fortresses and citadels of the provinces, _e.g._ the citadels at
Ecbatana, Babylon, and Memphis, that, as Xenophon says, "a satrap who
trusting to his power and the number of his subjects should refuse
obedience, might find opponents in his province"; and he even nominated
the commanders of the Persian battalions, which formed the garrisons of
the fortresses,[348] but limitations of this kind were insufficient
against the power which their office gave to the satrap, if the royal
power was unable to make itself felt with force and rapidity. The
central power must be in vigorous operation against the satraps, if the
feeling of dependence and responsibility were to be kept alive among
them. Appeals from the jurisdiction of the satraps to the king were
possible for the adjacent provinces and did occur, but for the
inhabitants of more distant provinces they were extremely difficult; yet
these were the provinces chiefly in point. If months elapsed before an
order of the kings reached Memphis or Sardis, the Indus or the Caucasus,
or the satraps of these provinces received an answer to their questions,
the necessary result would be that these men would regard themselves as
independent, withdrawn from all authority and obedience. And the distant
provinces, no less than the satraps, had to be kept in order. If
reinforcements were to be sent to them the march must not be too long;
if the borders were to be defended at the right time, the advance of the
army from the inner provinces must not occupy too much time. The larger
the empire the more urgently were rapid communications required to give
reality to the operation of the central force and secure the kingdom
within and without. The distance from the Strymon to the Indus was
enormous; from Ephesus to the Hindu Kush was 3000 miles, and from
Memphis to Sogdiana 2500 miles.

Darius perceived that the kingdom could not be governed or maintained
without good communications. When the western border of the empire
touched the Hellespont, the palaces in Persia were too far to the east;
and the difficulty was increased when Africa, as far as the greater
Syrtis, and the Thracian coast and Macedonia in Europe had been
conquered. Reasons of this kind must have induced Darius to place the
centre of administration as nearly as possible in the centre of the
kingdom; yet he dared not venture to move too far from Persia. He did
not hesitate to move his residence further to the west out of the native
territory into Susiana, a region occupied by subjects of alien race and
language, and make Susa the centre and metropolis of the kingdom. Strabo
tells us that Cyrus and the Persians saw that, after the subjugation of
the Medes, their land lay at the remote edge, while Susiana was more in
the centre, and nearer the Babylonians and the other nations. For this
reason they transferred the seat of the monarchy there, availing
themselves of the proximity of the land and the fame of the city. The
change was the more desirable because Susiana had never pursued an
ambitious course of policy, but had always been part of a larger state,
except perhaps in the times of the heroes.[349] It is a mistake in
Strabo, which however Herodotus and Aeschylus had already made, to say
that Cyrus transferred the residence from Persia to Susa. Aeschylus
speaks of Darius as the Susa-born god of Persia; and Herodotus places
the palace and government of the Pseudo-Smerdis at Susa; it is from the
tower of the walls of the citadel of Susa that Prexaspes throws
himself; there the Magian is assassinated, Darius is raised to the
throne, and resides from the very beginning of his reign. But this is an
anticipation of the residence which was erected here by Darius with the
intention that it should be the fixed abode of himself and his
successors, the centre of the kingdom and the government. Pliny and
Aelian tell us definitely that Darius built Susa the royal citadel of
the Persians, and the inscriptions confirm this statement.[350] Not less
incorrect is the remark of Strabo, that Susiana had always formed part
of a larger kingdom, and had never pursued an ambitious policy. On the
contrary we saw how Elam, after an independence of 1500 years, became
subject first to Assyria for a few decades, and then to Media and
Persia. And the Elamites had so little forgotten their ancient days that
they rose three times against Darius.[351]

The intention to keep the Semitic lands in check, to be nearer Babylon,
without giving up the communication with the native land, must have
contributed to the resolution of Darius to transfer the residence to
Susa. If Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried a road from his
metropolis in a slanting direction through the desert to Syria (III.
365), works of this kind were far more urgently needed for the immensely
greater extent of the Persian empire. Great roads must be made from Susa
in all directions to the borders of the empire, and maintained. Though
Cyrus and Cambyses may have made some steps in this direction, it was
Darius who carried out the plan and founded the great system of roads
which traversed Persia in all directions, and were now carried from
Susa. "Who," asks Xenophon, "could so quickly strike down opponents,
separated from him by a road of many months, as the king of the
Persians?"[352] At the close of his "Persian History" Ctesias gave a
sketch of the Persian roads, which led from Ephesus to Bactria and
India, with an account of the stations, days'-journey, and parasangs.
This is lost. We know but one member of the system, the road which led
from Susa, past Sardis, to Ephesus. Of this road, which interested the
Greeks most, Herodotus gives the following account: "From the Greek sea
to Susa is a distance of 14,040 stades (1755 miles). From Ephesus to
Sardis is a distance of 540 stades (67-1/2 miles), which can be
traversed in three days. From this point there are royal stations and
the most excellent inns: the whole road passes through inhabited lands
and is secure. First, it passes through the region of the Lydians, who
inhabit a fruitful land and are rich in silver; then through the region
of the Phrygians, who are rich in cattle and fruits of the field; these
make up 20 stations, 94-1/2 parasangs. Then the Halys has to be crossed;
there are gates here through which you must pass in order to go over the
river, and a strong guard-house. Beyond the river you are in Cappadocia,
and to the borders of Cilicia is a distance of 28 stations and 104
parasangs. On the borders of Cappadocia and Cilicia are two gates and
two guard-houses: passing through Cilicia in three stations, a distance
of 15 parasangs, you reach the border of Armenia which is formed by the
Euphrates. The Euphrates is crossed by a ferry. In Armenia, which
possesses much cattle, there are 15 stations provided with guard-houses,
and 56-1/2 parasangs. Then follows the Tigris, and two other rivers
bearing the same name (the Greater and the Lesser Zab); and finally the
Gyndes, which Cyrus diverted from its channel: these have to be crossed
in boats. From Armenia you pass to the Matieni, the neighbours of the
Armenians; here there are 34 stations and 137 parasangs to be traversed;
from the borders of the Matieni and the Cissians (_i.e._ the Susiani) to
the Choaspes, where Susa is built upon it (this river has also to be
crossed by a ferry), are 11 stations and 42-1/2 parasangs, making a
total of 111 stations and 450 parasangs, or 13,500 stades (1687-1/2
miles). Hence if the royal road has been rightly measured, and a
traveller makes 150 stades (five parasangs, 19 miles) a day, he goes
from Sardis to Susa in 90 days, and to Ephesus (if we add in the
distance from Ephesus to Sardis) in 93 days."

From this description we see that the road has been accurately measured,
well-kept, guarded, and provided with stations about every 15 miles, in
which the travellers could find shelter. As Herodotus calls these inns
very beautiful, we must assume that after the Persian fashion they were
provided with plantations, and this is confirmed by other evidence. We
are told that a station on the royal road in Cadusia, in a wholly bare
and treeless region, was surrounded by a park of high pines and
cypresses. The Indians also were accustomed to plant their roads and
provide them with shady resting-places. The road from Sardis to Susa did
not take the shortest route; the object was to escape the Syrian and
Phrygian desert, and carry the road through regions which could support
the army on the march. Hence it ran from Susa in the valley of the
Tigris on the left bank of the river through Susiana and the native land
of the Assyrians, for 600 miles in a north-westerly direction, to the
mountains of Armenia. The region between the Tigris and the Zagrus to
the north of the satrapy of Cissia (Susiana) is called by Herodotus the
land of the Matieni, and he extends this name, which is elsewhere used
only for the tribes dwelling round the Lake of Urumiah, to the Tigris.
Armenia proper was then crossed by the road in a straight line from east
to west, from the upper Tigris to the upper Euphrates. Of Cilicia it
touched merely the north-east corner, and then cut through Cappadocia in
a north-westerly direction to the Halys. It crossed the river in the
neighbourhood of Pteria, passed in a south-westerly direction through
Phrygia, leaving the desert to the south, and Lydia to Sardis.[353] From
this great road to the west then branched off between the Gyndes (Diala)
and the Physcus (Adhem) the road to Babylon, and at Physcus the road to
Ecbatana.

The royal roads through the kingdom secured before all things the rapid
operation of the central power and the king on the representatives of
his power in the provinces. The stations were used for a postal
arrangement, the duty of which it was to carry the commands of the king
and the reports and questions of the satraps. Thanks to this post the
king was in the possession of a means of communication far superior to
that within the reach of any of his subjects. At the stations on all the
roads of the kingdom, at intervals of 15 miles or a little more, horses
and riders (Astandae, Angari) were placed, whose sole business it was to
carry the royal messages and errands. One of these postmen must always
be in attendance, in order to carry a letter as soon as it arrived, at
the full speed of his horse, by day or by night, in heat or in snow, to
the next station. Among the Greeks it was said that the Persian couriers
travelled swifter than cranes; Herodotus also assures us that nothing in
the world was more rapid than these horsemen.[354] Thus the king's
commands travelled on well-built and carefully-guarded roads by this
post in the shortest space of time to the most remote provinces. They
were brought from Susa to Sardis in five or six days and nights. The
commands of the king to the satraps were always given in writing, and
accredited by the impression of the king's seal.[355] This seal presents
to us king Darius with the covered tiara on his head standing on the
chariot behind the charioteer; a lion, struck by his arrow, lies beneath
the hoofs of the horses which are leaping forward. The king is about to
shoot a third arrow at a second huge lion, which has reared himself up
in self-defence, and has already received two arrows from the king. At
the side a date palm is visible; over the king hovers Auramazda. The
inscription, which is in three languages, says: "I am Darius, the great
king."[356] The rapidity with which the king's commands reached even the
satraps of the most distant lands, kept the authority of the king before
them. The fortresses and guard-posts on the roads not only served to
maintain security on and near them, and to make commerce safe; they were
also used to control trade, and travelling, and any correspondence among
the subjects. The fortresses were placed at points which could not be
avoided, in narrow passes, or on the bridges of great rivers. Those in
command dared not allow any one to pass who did not establish his right,
as above suspicion. The scribes assigned to the commanders looked over
all the letters, which were carried through by messengers.[357] As the
fortresses in which these guard-posts lay were placed in the most
important divisions of the country, the roads could be closed by the
posts. If a rebellion arose in this or that quarter, the effect on the
neighbouring province was checked by closing the roads by means of the
forts, or the road was defended from post to post. And if an enemy
invaded from outside he found in them points of resistance, and the
Persians points of support.

The guidance and control of the viceroys was not confined to the rapid
and lively communications between them and the king. The Greeks tell us
that the king travelled every year to this or that province in order to
review the troops, and examine the cultivation of the soil. Where the
king did not make a visitation in person, he did so by confidential
ministers. We are further informed that these visitations were
entrusted to the princes of the royal house.[358] Where the king found
that the land was populous and well cultivated, the forests in good
order, and the fields full of the fruits which the land produced, he
distinguished the governor by gifts and honours. But where he found the
land thinly populated and badly cultivated, whether it was owing to the
severity, the neglect, or the extortion of the satrap, the satrap was
punished and removed from his place.[359] The charge of the whole
country lay on the chief overseer, the high official who bore the title
of the "king's eye." In the Persians of Aeschylus, the chorus inquire of
Xerxes, "Where his faithful eye has remained?" Herodotus notices as an
arrangement of the Median kingdom, that the king named a man especially
devoted to him, his "Eye." We see that unexpected inspections were made
by the "Eye" of the Persian king, and that his subordinates, who were
not known to be such, carried on a minute superintendence over the
conduct of the satraps, the other officers, and the subject people.[360]
Still more mysterious was the work of the officers who were known as the
king's "Ears." They cannot have been far removed from spies. We saw to
what an extent the princes of India carried on the system of secret
espionage. Herodotus told us in regard to Deioces that his spies and
informers were in every land, and a Persian proverb said, "The king has
many eyes and ears." The Greeks declare that the Persian spies did not
always content themselves with relating what they had heard, but told
much besides in order to show their zeal. Accusation was received with
favour by the king and rewarded by distinctions and presents.[361] We
saw what control was exercised on the great roads, the arteries of
communication. Owing to the number of guard-houses in each road, which
repeated the inquiries of the first, any one at the court was in a
position to compare the accounts of the commanders, and to control them.
No one passed even the borders of Babylonia without proving who he was,
and of what city, and why he was travelling.[362] In this way every
suspicious circumstance was brought to light, and it was certain that no
conspiracy or rebellion could be contrived without some indications
being received at the court of the king.

What could not be prevented by the control of the higher and lower
officers, and the police supervision of the subjects, was suppressed by
the severe exercise of punishment, which was intended to strike fear
into magistrate and subject alike by the force of terrible examples. The
terrorist use of punishment which the Brahmans on the Ganges knew how to
prove to be a divine right, and a duty of the royal office, was in
Persia regarded as an indispensable means for supporting the state. And
as a fact obedience to the absolute ruler rested, in the magistrates and
the ruling tribe, more decidedly on the apprehension of punishment than
on any personal interest or common share in the maintenance of the
kingdom; and in the subject nations it rested on the fear of the ruler
and the interests which the Persian kings gained in those districts.
Those entrusted with the power of office must also be the most obedient
and submiss. Above all, the feeling must be kept alive in the satraps of
the provinces that the enormous powers delegated to them were given on
the condition of absolute obedience. The severe penalties which overtook
any resistance, or the careless execution of a royal command, were only
the reverse of the favours which fell to their lot in other
circumstances. However earnestly the religion of Zarathrustra preached
the regard for life, the rules of religion were compelled, even in
Persia, to give way to reasons of state. We find Darius no less than
Cambyses inflicting severe penalties for trifling offences. If the
satraps gave any grounds for suspicion, they were either secretly or
openly removed out of the way.[363] But even in the judges and on those
who were not officers every transgression and act of disobedience to the
wish of the king was cruelly punished. Darius, who was not considered a
harsh ruler, did not content himself with the execution of Intaphernes;
he caused nearly all the males of the house to be put to death, though
Intaphernes had taken such a prominent part in the assassination of the
Magian. The leaders of the rebellions in the provinces were punished by
crucifixion or hanging. Khsathrita, who caused the Medes to revolt, and
Chitratakhma, the leader of the Sagartians, had their noses and ears cut
off before execution, and in this state were exposed to public
view.[364] When Darius marched against the Scythians, Oeobazus, a
distinguished Persian, entreated that one of his three sons might remain
behind. The king considered that this wish was not in harmony with the
devotion which every Persian owed to the kingdom; he replied that all
his sons should remain, and at once ordered them to be executed.
Sandoces, one of the royal judges, had been bribed to give a false
judgment; Darius caused him to be crucified; he was already placed on
the cross when the king remembered that he had done more good than evil
to the royal house, and ordered him to be taken down again. He lived,
and remained in the service, but not in the highest court of the
kingdom.[365] One of the mildest forms of punishment was banishment to
the islands of the Persian Gulf. Common punishments were the loss of
eyes, nose, ears, tongue; the cutting off of hands, arms, and feet;
scourgings were frequent, and they were inflicted even by the
satraps.[366] The king pronounced the sentence of death by touching the
girdle of the accused, or occasionally allowed it to be pronounced in
his presence by the seven judges. The sentence was then carried out by
crucifixion or decapitation.[367] In later times we hear of grinding
between stones, incisions in the body while alive, and painful
imprisonment in troughs; Xenophon indeed tells us that one of those who
took part in the rebellion of the younger Cyrus was tortured for a whole
year.[368]

If we compare the practice of the princes of Persia with the conduct of
the Assyrian kings, and the later rulers of the East, we cannot fail to
recognize that the officers under the Achaemenids were in a better
position and more richly paid, but also better controlled and kept in
greater dependence than was the case afterwards. The subjects, in spite
of acts of cruel caprice which affected certain persons, were
incomparably better off than those of the Assyrians, or of the dynasties
which afterwards ruled the East. They were governed with more
intelligence and clemency than the subjects of the Porte, or the
Khedive, or the Shah of Persia, or the Emirs of Cabul and Herat. It was
no small thing that the Persian kings established peace in all Asia from
the shores of the Hellespont to the Belurdagh, and maintained order and
security from the Nile to the Himalayas. Moreover, the religion and
worship of the subject nations, of whatever kind they might be, were not
injured, but rather protected and held in honour. Law, justice, and
manners remained the same, and the subjects preserved their local
self-government. Agriculture in the provinces received attention, trade
and commerce went on along the roads and rivers of the vast empire, and
was not only unmolested but protected.

FOOTNOTES:

[316] Herod. 7, 55; 8, 113; 9, 31. Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 3, 10, 25.

[317] "Laws," p. 695. Vol. V. 390 _n._ 2.

[318] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 5, 6, 17-20.

[319] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 33.

[320] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 11.

[321] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 9.

[322] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 40; 8, 2, 7-9.

[323] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9, 25; "Cyri Instit." 8, 2, 3.

[324] Herod. 3, 130. 8, 118; Ctes. "Pers." 22; Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8,
3, 3, 4; "Anab." 1, 2; Plut. "Artaxerxes," c. 10-14.

[325] Herod. 1,134; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9, 31; "Cyri Instit." 8, 3, 13;
Arrian, "Anab." 7, 11; Curtius, 3, 3, 19.

[326] Herod. 1, 136; Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 1, 2, 13; 8, 8, 7; Strabo,
p. 733.

[327] Nicol. Damasc. fragm. 67, ed. Müller; "Laws," p. 695.

[328] "Alcib. I." p. 121, 122.

[329] Plut. "Artax." c. 3.

[330] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9.

[331] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 8, 13.

[332] Themistocles also was instructed in the doctrine of the Magians,
when he was trained for a place at the Persian court; Plut. "Themist."
c. 29.

[333] Strabo, p. 733, 734.

[334] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 33; 8, 6, 10, 13, 14. Plut. "Artax."
c. 5, 24.

[335] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9, 3.

[336] Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 389, 443.

[337] G. Smith, "Discoveries," p. 387, 388; Boscawen, "Transactions
Bibl. Arch." 6, 61 ff.

[338] Above, p. 109.

[339] Mariette, "Athen. Franç,." May, 1855, p. 48; Brugsch, "Hist. of
Egypt," 2, 291. Above, p. 301, _n._ 3.

[340] Haggai i. 4, 10; ii. 16-20; Zechariah vi. 11-13.

[341] Zechariah ii. 4, 5; viii. 23.

[342] Ezra c. vi.; Psalm lxvi. appears to refer to this.

[343] Nehemiah i. 3.

[344] In the three lists of nations in the inscriptions of Darius, Syria
and Phenicia are not specially mentioned; they must be included in the
names Babylonia and Arabia; in the same way Lydians, Phrygians, Carians,
and Mysians are included in the name Çparda, _i.e._ Sardis.

[345] Behistun, 3, 11 ff.

[346] The inscription of Behistun specially designates Arachosia and
Bactria as satrapies, 3, 13, 14, 54, 55.

[347] Herodotus (3, 89) places this arrangement into satrapies
immediately after the accession. This is impossible, owing to the
rebellions, which continued down to the year 517 B.C. But from the fact
that Herodotus includes the Indians in this arrangement, and represents
the Thracians and the islands as added subsequently (3, 94, 96), we may
conclude that it was made after the Indian conquests and before the
successes of Megabyzus and Otanes, _i.e._ about 515 B.C. The arrangement
of Darius was not retained without changes. Babylonia and Assyria were
afterwards separated; Babylonia formed one satrapy, Syria and Assyria a
second, Phoenicia and Arabia a third. The satrapy of the Ionians
revolted after the battle of Mycale; in the Peloponnesian war, we find,
as in the time of Cyrus, two satrapies in hither Asia, Sardis and
Dascyleum. Xenophon ("Anab." _in fine_) enumerates six satrapies in Asia
Minor: Lydia, Phrygia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia and Lycaonia,
Cilicia. Arrian, ("Anab." 1, 12) enumerates five: Phrygia on the Pontus,
Greater Phrygia, Lydia, Cappadocia, Cilicia; and, finally, in these
later periods several satrapies were united in one hand.

[348] Above, p. 110. Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 6, 1, 9, 10; Curtius, 5,
1, 20. There is no doubt that the satraps commanded the troops of their
districts; at a later time they even carried on independent wars. That
the garrisons of the fortresses were bound to obedience follows from
Herod. 3, 128. The limitations, which Xenophon ascribes to Cyrus, must
belong to Darius; "Cyri Instit." 7, 5, 34, 69, 70; "Oecon." 4, 6.

[349] Strabo, p. 727.

[350] Plin. "H. N." 6, 27; Ael. "Hist. Anim." 1, 59. Ardeshir also found
Fars too distant; he made Shahabad near Susa the second city of the
kingdom.

[351] Vol. I. 252. Vol. III. 175. Above, p. 253.

[352] "Cyri Instit." 8, 2, 9.

[353] Kiepert has convincingly shown how the lacuna in Herodotus (5, 52)
is to be filled up ("Monatsberichte der Berliner Akademie," 1857, s.
123). Xenophon gives twelve short marches and about ten parasangs from
the foot of the Carduchian mountains to the Greater Zab--_i.e._ about 60
parasangs; from the Zab to the Physcus is 50 parasangs; from the Physcus
to the bridge of the Tigris at Sittace is 20 parasangs. The territory
which he traversed in this region he considers to be part of Media
("Anabasis," 2, 4 ff.). Hence there can be no doubt that the length of
the royal road from the point where it crossed the Tigris to the borders
of Susiana was 137 parasangs. If Xenophon passed beyond the point at
which the royal road crosses the Tigris, to the north, this is amply
compensated by the greater distance from the bridge at Sittace to the
Gyndes and the borders of Susiana. At Opis the column of the Greeks came
upon the Persians who were marching from Ecbatana to Babylon. So the
road from Ecbatana must have joined the great royal road at Physcus, and
then it ran past Sittace to Babylon. Alexander also, in order to come
from Babylon to Susa, first marched north-east to Sittace, and after
crossing the Tigris proceeded south-east to Susa: Diod. 17, 65, 66.

[354] Herod. 5, 14; 8, 98; Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 6, 17. Suidas and
Hesychius [Greek: Astandês, Angaros]. Plut. "Artax." 25; "Alex." 18.
Xenophon ascribes even this arrangement to Cyrus, but it could only be
made effectual by a network of first-rate roads.

[355] Herod. 3, 128; Ezra i. 23; vi. 2; Esther iii. 9, 12-15; Arrian,
"Anab." 3, 11.

[356] In Layard; cf. Brandis, "Münzwesen in Vorderasien," s. 231.

[357] Herod. 5, 35, 49-52. 7, 239.

[358] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 6, 16.

[359] Xenoph. "Oecon." 4, 8-12.

[360] Herod. 1, 114; Aesch. "Pers." 980; Plut. "Artax." 12. Suidas and
Hesych. [Greek: ophthalmos]; Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 6, 16; 8, 2, 11.

[361] Xenoph. "Cyri Instit." 8, 2, 10; Brisson, "De Reg. Pers." 1, 190.

[362] Herod. 5, 35, 49-52; 7, 239; Brisson, _loc. cit._ 1, 180.

[363] Herod. 3, 129; 4, 166; Plut. "Artax." 23.

[364] Above, p. 247, 248.

[365] Herod. 4, 84; 7, 194.

[366] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9; Brisson, "de Reg. Pers." 2, 227 ff.

[367] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 6; Plut. "Artax." 29; Curtius, 3, 2, 16-19;
Diod. 17, 30.

[368] Plut. "Artax." 14, 16, 17, 19; Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 6.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FINANCE AND ARMY OF DARIUS.


The empire of Darius rested on the fact that the Persians regarded
themselves as the governing nation in Asia, and on their desire and
determination to maintain this position, with the advantages which it
brought to them; on the devotion and fidelity with which the Persian
tribal princes and nobles stood by the king; on their habits of
obedience and subjection; on the ambition of officers and governors,
which was excited by obvious distinctions; on the education of a
considerable portion of the Persian youth specially for service in the
army and the state. Darius was at pains to add to these foundations
substantial means for maintaining the empire in the greatest profusion.
When he abandoned the system of Cyrus and Cambyses, who had allowed the
provinces to fix the amount of their yearly tribute themselves, and set
himself to secure a fixed income for the state, it was previously
necessary to fix the standard according to which the tribute, which
would now be paid as taxes, should be assessed; to arrange the value at
which the royal chest would accept the various standards current in the
subject nations.

With this object he created a currency. He founded his standard on the
forms which the Babylonian system had developed in the course of time.
The new gold currency was struck on the standard of the Babylonian gold
talent, _i.e._ on a normal weight of 50-1/2 pounds. Three thousand coins
were struck out of this total. The gold in this new currency was purer
than that used by Croesus, or in the older coins in the Ionic cities of
Asia Minor; the coins which have come down to us show but little alloy
of silver. The gold piece weighed 8.40 grammes; and had in our coinage a
value of about 21 shillings; hence the gold talent of Darius was worth
3000 guineas. These new pieces were called by the Hebrews Darkon and
Darkemon, among the Greeks Darics. It was of the first importance to
bring the gold of the coinage into a simple and easily convertible ratio
with silver. In order to do this the silver coins were struck from a
larger weight than the gold. Here also Darius used a Babylonian
talent;--the silver talent of 67-1/2 pounds, for the normal weight. From
this 3000 staters were struck of a weight of 11.14 grammes; or 6000
drachmas of a weight of 5.57 grammes. The silver staters of Darius
(silver darics) were called by the Greeks Median sigli (shekels). As
gold was valued at 13-1/3 times the value of silver, the silver stater,
which was one-fourth heavier than the gold coin, was equal to a tenth
part of its value, and the drachma to a twentieth. Hence the gold daric
was changed for ten silver staters or twenty silver drachmas. The silver
talent of Darius was worth more than £300 of our money, the silver
stater was worth about two shillings. The silver talent of Darius (which
the Greeks call the Babylonian talent) stood to the Euboean talent of
the Greeks, who had used the light Babylonian talent as a standard, in a
ratio of 3 to 4.[369]

The new darics were marked with the figure of the king. Three hundred
have been lately found in the bed of the canal which the son of Darius
caused to be cut through the promontory of Athos; and they exhibit
Darius running or kneeling, in a long cloak, with the kaftan over it,
the royal tiara on the head, with thick hair and beard; in the right
hand, which is depressed, we find a lance; sometimes a sword; and in the
left, which is outstretched, the bow. The silver coins of the king also
carried his image; in these he sometimes holds an arrow instead of a bow
in his left hand. For the Syrian districts Darius had a special large
silver coin of about 28 grammes struck, in addition to the royal
currency. These present the king with his right hand elevated and his
left depressed, on his chariot, which is drawn by four or six horses,
which spring over a dead lion. On the reverse is the picture of a city
with towers. On other coins of the same kind, the reverse of which
presents a galley with rowers, the king is also on his chariot, the
horses are moving slowly, and the royal staff-bearer follows the
chariot.

The new coinage was not entirely to expel or replace the standards
current in the provinces. The coining of gold was indeed reserved for
the crown, but the old silver coins of the provinces were not only
allowed to be current, they might even be increased, for the right to
coin silver was left to the districts, cities, and dynasties. They were
allowed to use their own standards, and mark their coins in whatever way
they pleased. Communities could put the arms of the city, the dynasts
their own portraits, on the coins. The satraps also had the right to
coin silver coins, and mark them with special emblems, their names or
portraits (among the emblems we find two men before a fire-altar, the
form of Auramazda, etc.). The silver money which the satraps struck had
no legal privileges over the common coins of the provinces. In the first
instance they were coined in exceptional cases when there was a
deficiency of the currency, or money was needed for important military
undertakings. The satraps, like the countries, the cities, and dynasts,
rarely coined after the royal standard; they generally followed the
standards common in their provinces in order to meet the local
needs.[370] In the fourth century B.C. they began to coin more
frequently. At the chest of the king only the royal currency was
accepted; all other coins were received as bullion, weighed by the royal
standard, and then melted down in order to be struck in the royal
currency and issued when required.[371]

It was the opinion of Darius that the crown ought to possess the means
for the largest outlay that could be demanded. The treasury of Cyrus was
not perhaps exhausted, but no doubt it was seriously diminished by the
campaigns of Cambyses, the Magian, the rising of Vahyazdata, and the
suppression of the rebellions. The object to be attained was that the
yearly income should considerably surpass the yearly expenditure; the
excess could then be collected in the treasury, which would thus be in a
position to pay and support for years the largest armies that could be
required. The care which Darius bestowed on the currency and taxation
astonished the Persians, who no doubt remembered the magnanimous conduct
of Cyrus, to whom such things were of little moment; as Herodotus tells
us, they called him the "retail-dealer" in contrast to Cyrus.[372] The
measure, by which Darius imposed on all his lands the taxes which they
had to pay year by year, was the produce of their soil. If the tax which
was thus laid on the soil of the provinces on a fixed ratio was not
excessive, they were nevertheless subject to services, and the crown
could with certainty reckon on the payment of the contributions. The
whole amount of arable land in the provinces was measured by parasangs
(each of 30 stades); and according to the extent, when thus ascertained,
and the quality of the soil, as Herodotus states, the taxes of the
provinces were fixed in the royal currency. Within each province the
various countries and cantons, which formed a political unit, whether
under dynasts or chieftains, or some other form of constitution, were
burdened with a fixed share of the contribution of the whole--as we may
see from the statement that the overseers of the cantons and countries
were responsible for the payment of the taxes. After exhausting wars,
new measurements were made with a view to further valuations.[373] The
lowest contribution of land-tax was made by the satrapy of the Arachoti
(the Pactyans of Herodotus), and the Gedrosians (the Sattagydae of
Herodotus), to which belonged also the Gandarians to the south of Cabul;
it amounted to 170 talents of silver (about £50,000); the next lowest
amount was 200 talents, (about £57,000), which was paid by two
satrapies, the Saspeires and Alarodians in the valley of the Araxes, and
the Caspians, _i.e._ the Cadusians, the Mardians, the Tapurians, and
Hyrcanians. The satrapy of the Sacians paid 250 talents (£70,000). Four
satrapies paid 300 talents (£85,000), the satrapy of the Parthians,
Areians, Chorasmians and Sogdiani, of the Moschians and Tibarenes, of
the Ionians and of the Susiani. The satrapy of Syria with Phoenicia and
Cyprus paid 350 talents (£100,000); the satrapies of Bactria and Phrygia
with Cappadocia paid 360 talents each (£103,000); Armenia, and the
satrapy of the Paricanians and Ethiopians in Asia, paid 400 talents each
(£115,000); Media had to pay 450 talents (£130,000); the satrapies of
Lydia and Cilicia 500 each (£145,000); Drangiana (the Sarangians and
Sagartians) paid 600 talents (£170,000); Egypt with Cyrene, Barca, and
the tribes of the Libyans, 700 talents (£200,000); the satrapy of
Babylon, _i.e._ the region to the south of the Armenian mountains
between the Euphrates and the Tigris as far as the mouth of the rivers,
paid 1000 talents (_i.e._ £290,000). This was the highest tax imposed on
any satrapy; from this assessment, as well as from other evidence, we
may conclude that Babylonia was the best cultivated and most fruitful
province in the whole kingdom. The entire income from this satrapy is
put by Herodotus at an artabè of silver daily, and the Persian artabè
was larger by three choenixes than the Attic medimnus. The artabè,
therefore, was about equal to a Prussian bushel, _i.e._ to a measure of
2770 cubic inches.[374]

Darius thus received every year from the land-tax of the provinces,
7600 talents of silver in the royal standard, _i.e._ in round figures
£2,500,000. To this has to be added the large amount of gold-dust, which
the twentieth, or Indian satrapy, paid yearly to the king. This amount,
360 talents according to Herodotus, was not the land-tax of the
province; it was obtained from the gold-sands of the Himalayas. This
raised the net income of the treasury to a total of about £3,000,000,
and to this again have to be added the taxes imposed on Lemnos and
Imbros, on the Thracians and the Greek towns on the Thracian coast, with
the Macedonians, after the campaign to the Danube, and the tribute in
kind paid by the subject tribes among the Arabians (1000 talents of
frankincense every year), and the negroes (ivory and ebony), and the
tribute in slaves paid by the Colchians (100 boys and 100 virgins every
fifth year).

More important than these contributions of the Arabians, negroes, and
Colchians, was the income in money which the crown derived from local
sources, within the empire, and the proceeds of royal privileges--more
important still the produce in kind which the provinces had to pay every
year in addition to the land-tax. In the satrapy of the Parthians and
Areians a large sum was paid every year for the opening of the sluices
of the Ares (no doubt an affluent of the Margus, V. 9), without which
the fields were in that district dried up in the summer. In Egypt the
fishery on the canal, which connected the lake of Amenemhat with the
Nile, brought the king every year 240 talents.[375] In what way the
contributions in kind were divided and imposed upon the provinces, it is
not easy to see. Herodotus only tells us that the whole kingdom was
divided into cantons for the support of the king and army; a full third
of this burden fell upon the satrapy of Babylon.[376] We know that
Cappadocia, _i.e._ Phrygia and Cappadocia, the third satrapy of
Herodotus, provided each year, in addition to the land-tax of £103,000,
1500 horses, 2000 mules, and 50,000 sheep; Media in addition to her
land-tax provided double this amount of animals.[377] Armenia provided
10,000 foals each year in addition to the tax of £115,000.[378] Cilicia
furnished 360 grey horses each year. Besides these contributions in
animals, there were payments in corn for the garrisons in the provinces.
The Persians who formed the garrison of the White Fortress in Memphis
received yearly from Egypt 120,000 bushels of wheat, an amount which
would abundantly supply the wants of 8000 men. As wheat was cheap in
Egypt this contribution would represent a value of about £8500.[379]
Each province sent its best products to the court; and nothing but the
best was brought to court or received there; there all that was splendid
in the empire was to be collected.[380] Babylon sent every year 500
eunuch-boys for service at the court, and Colchis sent male and female
slaves of Caucasian race. Chalybon (Helbon) in Syria furnished wine for
the court; wheat came from the cities of the Aeolians and the Anatolian
coast, salt from the Libyans and the oasis of Siwah.[381]

"From ancient times," Theopompus of Chios informs us, "the taxes and the
entertainment of the king were imposed on the cities according to their
size."[382] Ctesias and Deinon maintain that the table of the king of
Persia, _i.e._ the entertainment of the entire court, cost 400 talents
daily. This is grossly exaggerated. From Herodotus we see that the
support of Xerxes and his train, the officers, and all the necessary
accompaniments, the tents and plate, and moreover the feeding of the
entire army for one day cost the city of Abdera 300 talents, and the
island of Thasos 400 talents (£85,000). Theopompus also tells us that
when the king visited a city it cost them 20, and sometimes 30, talents
to entertain him, and others spent even larger sums.[383] These expenses
were increased by the fact that the servants took away with them the
plate used at table.[384] The support of the king, and apparently of the
satraps, officers, and generals when travelling, the maintenance of
troops on the march, were extraordinary burdens, but the contributions
for the table of the king were ordinary and regular. The daily
maintenance of the court was expensive, because it included the support
of a body-guard. "Every day," Heraclides of Cyme relates, "a thousand
animals were slaughtered; among them horses, camels, oxen, asses, and
deer, but chiefly sheep. Many birds were eaten, and Arabian ostriches
among them. The greater part of this and of the other food was brought
to court for the body-guard, and the overseers gave out meat and bread
in equal portions; for as the mercenaries in Hellas receive money, so do
these soldiers receive their maintenance from the king."[385] Fifteen
thousand men are said to have been fed at the court every day; and as
the body-guard may be put at 10,000 men, this statement does not seem
exaggerated.

Beside the contributions in kind for the equipment of the army, the
support of garrisons and the court, there were burdens of another kind.
The kings of Persia kept great studs for the court and army. We have
already mentioned the stud in Nisaea in Media; 150,000 or 160,000 horses
are said to have pastured there. The royal studs in Babylonia contained
in breeding horses, 800 horses and 16,000 mares--"besides the horses for
war," as Herodotus expressly adds. The Indian dogs which were kept by
Darius or his successors were so numerous, that four great villages in
Babylonia had to contribute exclusively to their maintenance.[386] As
Herodotus observes that these villages were free from other burdens, we
may assume that all the places, on which contributions in kind were
imposed for special objects, were exempted from the large contributions
for the court and army in horses, beasts of burden, cattle for
slaughter, corn, etc. Elsewhere we find places burdened with special
services to members of the royal house, or favourites. Certain districts
and cities had to pay for the girdle of the queen, others for her veil;
one place paid for the head-band, another for the necklace, a third for
the hair ornaments of the queen.[387] Xenophon tells us that the
favourites of the king of Persia received horses and servants in the
various provinces, and transmitted them to their descendants.[388] When
Demaratus, king of Sparta, after losing his throne, sought protection
with Darius in Persia, the city of Halisarna and the district of
Teuthrania were allotted to him. Gongylus of Eretria received from
Darius Gambrium, Myrina, and Gryneum. At a later time Magnesia on the
Maeander was assigned to Themistocles--a city, which, recovering from
the destruction by Mazares (p. 54), paid, according to Thucydides, a
yearly contribution of 50 talents (more than £10,000) for bread,
Lampsacus, which was famous for its cultivation of the vine, for wine,
and Myus for relishes. In this way, in accordance with the system of
Cyrus and Darius, Demaratus was made prince of Halisarna, Gongylus
became prince of Gambrium, Themistocles prince of Magnesia; the latter
also received contributions in produce from other cities. Demaratus and
Gongylus left their thrones to their descendants.[389] As the places
which had to provide contributions in kind for special purposes or
individuals were freed from the contributions of the provinces to the
army and court--the land-tax of the places presented to favoured persons
were no doubt taken out of the land-tax of the province.

We are not in a position to fix even approximately the amount of the net
income of the treasury of Darius which came in every year over and above
the land-tax of the provinces and the tolls. Nor can we say how high the
yearly contributions in kind paid by the provinces for the court and
army ran. If we set aside the extraordinary burdens of supporting the
king on a journey, or a satrap, or officer, and the maintenance of
troops on a march, and follow Theopompus in assuming that the average
daily expense of the whole court amounted to 30 Babylonian talents, a
total of 11,000 talents of the royal standard, _i.e._ more than
£3,000,000, would be required for this purpose, a sum in excess of the
land-tax of the provinces. If we further assume that the maintenance of
the army imposed on the provinces a burden equal to the maintenance of
the court, the provinces would have to pay for the state, in ordinary
burdens, without regard to their own requirements, three times the
amount of the land-tax. Egypt, which, with Cyrene and Barca, had to pay
700 talents in tax, would thus pay 2100 talents of royal money every
year, _i.e._ more than £600,000. At a later time we find that Ptolemy
II. received each year from Egypt 14,800 Attic talents, _i.e._ about
£3,000,000, and 1,500,000 artabès of corn, and Ptolemy Auletes received
6000, and, according to Cicero's statement, 12,500 Attic talents.[390]
The income of the empire of the Sassanids under Chosru Parviz is put at
nearly £14,000,000.[391]

Thus the burdens which the subject lands had to pay to the king do not
seem extraordinarily heavy, and, on the other hand, the rule of the
Persians certainly tended to promote their welfare. We have observed
that the satraps were commanded to take care for the agriculture and the
forests of their provinces, and that special attention was paid to this
in the visitation of the provinces. In his palaces and wherever he went
the king caused the most beautiful gardens to be made and planted with
excellent trees,[392] and the satraps did the same at their residences.
The parks at the residence of the satrap of Phrygia-Cappadocia, near
Dascyleum, were of great extent, consisting in part of an enclosure for
game, in part of open hunting-ground. When Agesilaus of Sparta had laid
them waste, the satrap Pharnabazus said to him: "All that my father left
to me, beautiful buildings, gardens full of trees and game, which were
the delight of my heart, I now see cut down and burnt."[393] At Sardis
the satraps of Lydia-Mysia had made several parks of this kind; the most
beautiful was adorned with water and meadows, with places for recreation
and shade, in a most extraordinary and royal manner.[394] The younger
Cyrus enlarged this by a new park. When he showed it to Lysander, the
Greek marvelled at the beauty of the trees, the evenness of their
growth, the straight rows and well-chosen angles in which they stood and
cut each other, the various and delightful odours which met those who
walked in it, and declared that he admired yet more the man who had
measured out and arranged the whole. The prince replied that he had
measured it out and arranged it himself, and had even planted some with
his own hands. And when Lysander, looking at the splendid clothes of the
prince, his chains and amulets and ornaments and perfumes, seemed to
doubt this, Cyrus replied: "I swear by Mithra, that I never take food
till I have heated myself into a sweat by martial exercises or garden
work."[395]

The trade of the empire must have been very greatly promoted by the
roads which Darius made through it in every direction. Merchandise
passed from one end of the empire to another on paved roads, which were
provided with excellent inns and secured by numerous guard-posts.
Moreover, by his royal currency, Darius had created money which passed
from the Hellespont and the Nile to the Indus, and thus the merchants
had everywhere at hand a fixed measure of value. The raw products which
were required by the manufacturing lands, could be bartered in safety,
on the upper Nile, in Libya and Arabia, and on the Indus; the wide
market which the extent of the Persian kingdom opened to the harbour
cities of Asia Minor and Syria, to the industry of the Lydians and
Phenicians, the Egyptians and Babylonians, could be used in the readiest
and most profitable manner. Ramses II. of Egypt had conceived the idea
of a direct communication by water between the Nile and the Red Sea in
order to facilitate the trade with South Arabia. For this object he had
caused a canal to be taken from the Nile at Bubastis, but he had only
carried it as far as the Lake of Crocodiles. Pharaoh Necho more than 700
years later had again taken up the work and carried the canal as far as
the Bitter Lakes. From this point the canal was to abandon the direction
towards the east and turn almost at a right angle to the south and the
Red Sea. Necho failed to effect the communication between the Bitter
Lakes and the Red Sea; and the canal remained unfinished. Herodotus, who
knew nothing of the attempt of Ramses II., says: "Darius carried a canal
from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf."[396] "Necho was the first to attempt
a canal leading into the Red Sea, and Darius accomplished what he began.
The length of the voyage is four days, and the canal is broad enough to
allow two triremes when rowing to pass one another (_i.e._ more than 100
feet). The water of the Nile flows into it a little above Bubastis, and
empties into the Red Sea. For the first part it is excavated in the
plain of Egypt, which lies towards Arabia, under the mountains opposite
Memphis, in which are the stone quarries. At the foot of the mountain
the canal runs away to the east, and then through a cleft in the range
to the south, and southward, into the Arabian Gulf. The distance from
the northern sea--the Mediterranean--to the Red Sea by the shortest
route from Pelusium[397] is 1000 stades (105 miles); but the canal is
much longer, owing to bends in it."[398] In the bed of this canal, the
direction of which can still be traced in part, three stones were
discovered at Saluf El Terraba, on the Crocodile Lake, not far from the
southern ridge of the Bitter Lakes. They have recently been much injured
by the workmen at the Suez canal. On the front is seen the form of
Darius with the tall tiara on his head (the upper part of one of the
monuments is preserved); and beside the figure of the king we find the
name and title in hieroglyphics. Beneath are the titles and inscriptions
in Persian, Turanian, and Babylonian; on the back is an inscription in
hieroglyphics which has been destroyed with the exception of a word; but
of the Persian and Turanian version we can still read a part: "Darius,
the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands, the king of
this wide earth, the son of Hystaspes, the Achæmenid. Darius the king
says: 'I, the Persian, have governed Egypt; I have caused a canal to be
dug from the river which flows in Egypt to the sea which reaches to
Persia.'" Darius did not, like Ramses and Necho, think only of a direct
communication by water with South Arabia, but rather of a communication
with Persia, and not only with the coasts of Persia but even with the
mouths of the Indus. His expedition to explore the Indus did not sail
back to the Persian Gulf, but coasted Arabia and returned to the Red
Sea; and Herodotus tells us that Darius, after that expedition, made use
of the southern sea.[399] After opening a road by water into the Red
Sea, Darius could, if he thought fit, order the ships of the Ionians and
Phenicians to the coast of Arabia, the Persian Gulf, or the Indus, and
send the ships of Babylon to the Mediterranean. Traders made a constant
use of the canal; the ships of Sidon and Tyre could sail from the Nile
to the shores of Arabia Felix, a voyage which the Phenicians at the time
of Solomon, and Uzziah of Judah, attempted to make from Elath with the
permission and assistance of those princes. From Arabia they could visit
the mouth of the Indus, as their ships had done nearly 500 years before
at the time of Solomon.

However active the wearer of the crown and his immediate supporters
might be in the government of the kingdom, however speedily their
commands were made known in the provinces--in spite of the severity with
which the satraps were watched and controlled, and the impulse given to
their ambition and emulation,--in spite of the excellent management of
the state income and the abundance of the means at disposal, and the
sums of gold and silver, the gold and silver ornaments, the splendid
furniture in the royal citadels, which were in existence for nearly 200
years after this time, attest the success of Darius--the kingdom rested
in the last resort on the fidelity and bravery of the army. In his
body-guards and in the garrisons of the fortresses and guard-posts
scattered up and down the whole kingdom, Darius had a considerable
standing army formed of Persians.[400] In case of war this standing army
was strengthened by the levy of the larger landed proprietors in Persia,
who had to furnish cavalry, and the subject lands.[401] Though the
fortified places were numerous, the amount of troops in the various
forts was not necessarily great, and the complement of a Persian
battalion, 1000 men, seems rarely to have been exceeded. The garrison of
the oldest city in the empire, the White Fortress at Memphis, was much
stronger, and so, no doubt, were the garrisons of the two citadels of
Babylon and of Ecbatana. In the west Dascyleum on the Propontis, and
Sardis, the citadel of which was held by 1000 men, were the extreme
points; in the interior there were so many garrisons at Celaenae, on the
bridge over the Halys, and at other places west of the Halys, that a
considerable army could be formed for service in the field.[402] East of
the Halys, in Cilicia, there was the garrison of the two forts on the
borders of Cilicia and Cappadocia, and in addition a body of cavalry
which it cost 140 talents (£40,000) a year to support. The citadels and
fortresses which the inscriptions of Darius mention in Armenia, Media,
Persia, and Arachosia, show that there was a certain number of fortified
places in those regions. In Armenia Tigra and Uhyama are mentioned; in
Media Ecbatana and Çikathauvatis; in Arachosia Kapisakanis (Kapisa) and
Arsada. The chief points in the royal road from Susa to Sardis at the
most important divisions in the country were closed by fortresses, and
the same was the case on the other military roads; we cannot therefore
doubt that the military arrangements in the eastern provinces were the
same as in the west, though the Greeks can only tell us of the west.
Lastly, there was a number of fortresses at the extreme borders of the
kingdom. In Egypt, in addition to Memphis, Daphne and Elephantine were
fortified;[403] in the country of the Cadusians Cyrus had already
founded the city on the Jaxartes known as _Ultima Cyrus_, and in the
neighbourhood were several citadels to protect the borders (p. 103).
Besides the garrisons, the amount of troops was fixed which the satraps
had to keep under arms, to support their authority, to carry out
executions, and to secure the provinces.[404] Like the garrisons, the
troops of the satraps, in case of necessity, could fall back on the
assistance of the reserve corps of larger districts, such as the
Cilician cavalry. The troops stationed in the provinces were reviewed
yearly, as Xenophon tells us. For this object they were gathered
together at a fixed place in the provinces, with the exception of the
garrisons of the fortresses. For the more western districts the place of
assembly was Thymbrara on the Pactolus,[405] where also, in time of war,
the levy of the province was assembled. The troops which were nearer
the residence of the king, were, according to Xenophon, inspected by the
king in person; those at a greater distance by men in his confidence.
The satraps, chiliarchs, and commandants, who brought up the prescribed
number of troops provided with excellent weapons and horses, were
rewarded by presents and marks of distinction; those who neglected their
troops or made money out of them were severely punished and removed from
their office.[406]

From Herodotus we learn that the guard of the king consisted of 2000
selected Persian horsemen and 2000 lance-bearers on foot, whose lances
were adorned at the lower end with apples of gold and silver, and also
of a division of 10,000 infantry, whom the Persians call the immortals,
because their number is always the same. But the name of the corps may
be formed from the Amesha Çpenta Ameretat (V. 156, 164). Xenophon
ascribes this institution to Cyrus.[407] Nine thousand of them had
silver pomegranates on their lances, but a thousand who were selected
from the whole corps to form the first battalion had their pomegranates
of gold. On the monuments they carry lances taller than the height of a
man, and oval shields of half a man's height. This troop was
distinguished as the body-guard of the king by golden necklaces and
other ornaments; it was better furnished than other troops with beasts
of burden and camels to carry the baggage and the provisions. Later
writers speak only of these 10,000 infantry as forming the guard. They
inform us that the corps was always about the king, keeping watch in the
palace day and night, where they had a court to themselves; they
accompanied the king on his journeys, when they camped in a circle round
the king's tent.[408] The amount of the whole army cannot even be
approximately fixed. Darius led the levy of the empire over the
Bosphorus to the amount of 700,000 men; from the subject lands so many
soldiers would be required as would be necessary.[409] It was more
difficult to organize this vast mass. The strength of the army, like
that of the kingdom, rested on the military skill and superiority of the
Persians. With the Persians, as with the Indians, the chief weapon was
the bow, and the Persian arrows like the Indian were of reed. Aeschylus
praises "the mighty with the bow, the strength of the Persian land," and
Atossa, the queen of Darius, is represented as asking whether "the
bow-driven arrow adorns the hand" of the Hellenes.[410] The Persians
preferred to fight on horseback. The rider placed a coat of mail over
the short shirt, and beside the bow and a short javelin carried a
crooked and not very long sabre on the right hip;[411] the head was
protected by the tiara. But there were also large divisions of heavy
armed cavalry among the troops of the Persians in which the men wore
brass or iron helmets and strong harness, while their horses were armed
with frontlets and breast-pieces.[412] The infantry carried long
rectangular shields of wicker-work, under which hung the quiver with the
javelin and sabre, but as a rule they were without coats of mail.[413]
The leading men and officers were adorned in battle with their best
purple robes, neck-chains, and armlets; over the coat of mail they threw
the glittering kandys; on the hip hung a sabre with a golden handle and
a golden sheath. Thus they mounted their war-horses, Nisaean greys, with
golden trappings, the wildness of which sometimes caused the death of
the rider. Aeschylus speaks of them as "horsemen mighty with the bow,
dreadful to behold, and terrible in the venturous courage of their
hearts."[414] In military skill the Persians regarded the Medes as next
to themselves; then followed the Sacae, the Bactrians, the Indians, and
the other Arian tribes. Next to the Medes the Sacae were the most
trustworthy troops.[415] The contingents of the provinces were governed
by Persian generals, who were mainly taken from the members of the royal
family, the "kinsmen" of the king, and the tribal princes.[416] Like the
Persian troops, these contingents were arranged in divisions of 10,000
men. Each division was subdivided into ten battalions of 1000 men, and
the battalions into ten companies of 100 men; the company was made up
of groups, which, according to Xenophon, consisted of seven men among
the Persians, and according to Herodotus of ten in the contingents.[417]
The commander of the entire contingent of a province had the nomination
of the officers of divisions and the leaders of battalions; the officers
of divisions, as Herodotus says, nominated the captains of companies,
and the leaders of the groups.[418] The native dynasts as a rule marched
out with their troops and ships, but they were subject to the commanders
of the contingents.[419]

The king reviewed the army from his war-chariot, surrounded by scribes,
who wrote down everything worthy of notice. When parading before the
king, the horsemen dismounted, stood by their horses, and concealed
their hands in the sleeves of their kandys. The camp was always pitched
in a particular order; the tent of the king was on the eastern side, for
the abode of the gods was in the east. The large and splendid tent of
the king was surrounded by the tents of the guard; the cavalry, the
infantry, and the baggage had special places assigned to them.[420] They
understood how to fortify the camp;[421] an open camp was always at a
certain distance, about seven miles, from the enemy in order to avoid
surprises as far as possible. The Persian cavalry required a
considerable time, especially at night, for preparation. Their spirited
horses had not only to be tethered, but even tied by the feet to prevent
their running away. The unfettering, saddling and bridling of the
horses, and putting on the harness, took up much time, and could not be
done at night without disorder and confusion.[422] When there was
danger of a surprise the troops had to remain at night under arms. The
signal for marching was given from the royal tent with the trumpet, but
never before daybreak,[423] "before the glittering Mithra mounted, and
in golden shape seized the beautiful summits," the army of the Persians
was not to move. In the same way the march ended at the latest at
sunset.[424] In battle the king occupied the centre of the position,
surrounded by the Achæmenids, the "kinsmen" and "companions," several
hundred in number,[425] and the body-guard, the cavalry of which usually
stood in the first ranks before the king; next to them in the centre
came the best troops in the army.[426] According to ancient custom the
king generally fought from a chariot drawn by Nisaean horses,[427] with
his bow in his hand, in which manner, at an earlier period, the princes
of the Indians had fought, and the kings of the east, the Pharaohs, the
rulers of Assyria, and the princes of the Syrians. The king also, when
in battle, wore all his royal ornaments, the purple kaftan over his
armour, and the royal tiara. Near him was the ensign of the empire, the
golden eagle on a tall pole.[428] The mass of the cavalry was generally
placed on the wings; between these and the centre were the contingents
of the subject nations, each according to its divisions, which were
drawn up separately in solid squares.[429] The battle was begun by the
cavalry and infantry with a thick shower of arrows. With this an attempt
was made to ward off the attacks of the enemy, and it was kept up till
the enemy seemed to be thrown into confusion. Then the troops were
brought closer; javelins were hurled and sabres drawn.[430] The Persian
and Sacian cavalry was most dreaded; as it consisted to a great extent
of archers it was difficult to approach it. If the cavalry marched to
the attack with arms in rest, the onset was made first with separate
squadrons, and then in entire masses.[431] The Medes and Persians had
learned the art of siege from the Assyrians. The cities were enclosed by
ramparts, and on these works were carried forward, under the protection
of which battering-rams were brought to bear against the trenches and
walls. The Persians were also well acquainted with mining. Passages were
carried under-ground, both to make breaches in the walls by excavations,
and to provide a way into the city. In order to recapture Chalcedon,
which had rebelled against Darius when he crossed the Danube against the
Scythians, together with the cities of the Propontis and Hellespont, an
under-ground passage of more than 15 stades in length was carried, after
the king's return, under the walls of the city to the market-place, and
the Chalcedonians had no suspicion of its existence, till the Persians
appeared in the city.[432]

FOOTNOTES:

[369] In his "Metrological Studies" Böckh fixed the ratio of the Euboean
to the Babylonian talent as 5:6. Since that time the discovery of
numerous gold and silver Persian coins and of weights at Babylon and
Nineveh, and the lion of Abydus with its Aramaean stamp, have provided
the means for fixing the gold talent of Darius at 25,245 kilogrammes,
and his silver talent (the Babylonian talent) at 33,660 kilogrammes;
Brandis, "Münzwesen," s. 54, 63, 64, 69. Hence Brandis takes Mommsen's
view, that in Herod. 3, 89, 95, we must read 78 instead of 70 Euboean
talents; the Euboean talent in Attica was a little heavier than the
light Babylonian talent (the gold talent of Darius), and in the
calculation 7600 Babylonian talents must be made equal to 9880 Euboean
talents, which enables us to preserve the total sum given by
Herodotus--14,560 talents.

[370] Brandis, "Münzwesen," s. 225, 231, 239, 241.

[371] Herod. 3, 96; Strabo, p. 735.

[372] Herod. 3, 89; Xenoph. "Hellen." 3, 4, 25.

[373] Herod. 6, 42.

[374] Herod. 1, 192; Böckh, "Staatshaush." 1^2, 130.

[375] Herod. 3, 117; 2, 149.

[376] Herod. 1, 192.

[377] Strabo, p. 525.

[378] Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 5, 34 ff.

[379] Herod. 3, 91; Böckh, "Staatshaush." 1^2, 135.

[380] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 6, 23; Athenaeus, p. 145, 146.

[381] Strabo, p. 735.

[382] In Athenaeus, p. 145.

[383] _Loc. cit._ in Athenaeus.

[384] Herod. 7, 118; Plut. "Artax." c. 4, 5.

[385] In Athenaeus, p. 146.

[386] Herod. 1, 192.

[387] Herod. 9, 109; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 4, 9; 2, 4, 27; Plato, "Alcib.
I." p. 123; Cic. "In Verrem," 3, 33.

[388] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 6, 5.

[389] Xenoph. "Hellen." 3, 1, 6; "Anab." 2, 1, 3; 7, 8, 8; Thucyd. 1,
138; Plutarch, "Themist." 29 ff. That Themistocles was prince of
Magnesia is the less doubtful because a silver stater of this city, 8,56
grammes in weight, with the square, and the name of Themistocles, is in
existence: Mommsen. "Rom. Münzwesen," s. 65; Brandis, "Münzwesen in
Vorderasien," s. 459, proves a second coin of Themistocles, 5.85 grammes
in weight.

[390] Droysen, "Hellenismus," 2, 44; Diod. 17, 52; Strabo, p. 798.

[391] Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 364 ff.

[392] "Oecon." 4, 11, ff.

[393] Xenoph. "Hellen." 4, 1, 33.

[394] Plut. "Alcib." 24.

[395] "Oecon." 4, 20-24; Aelian, "Hist. Anim." 1, 59.

[396] Herod. 4, 39.

[397] Herod. 4, 41.

[398] Herod. 2, 158.

[399] Herod. 4, 44. On the monuments of Darius, see Lepsius, "Chronol."
s. 354, and "Monatsberichte B. A." 1866, s. 288; Oppert, "Mémoires prs.
à l'Acad. des Inscrip." 1, 8 (1869), p. 646 ff. In opposition to the
definite and detailed assertion of Herodotus, given in the text, the
assertion in Strabo (p. 804) and Diodorus (1, 33) that Darius nearly
finished the canal but did not quite finish it, cannot be accepted.
Herodotus was in Egypt not much more than 30 years after the death of
Darius (about 450 B.C.). Diodorus and Strabo accept the tradition of the
times of the Ptolemies, which sought to claim for them the glory of
completing the work, though they did no more than reopen the canal which
had become silted up. To support this tradition Oppert has supplemented
the decisive word of which no more than the syllable _ta_ remains,
according to his transcription, in such a way that the meaning extracted
is that Darius filled up his own canal. I do not see why this _ta_
should not be a part of _uçtaka_, _i.e._ to excavate, as well as of
_vikata_, _i.e._ to make level. We cannot assume without further
evidence that Darius set up a monument over the failure of his
undertaking or its destruction. The Turanian version, which Oppert has
since published ("Peuple des Mèdes," p. 214) does not help us to a
decision, for it is only preserved as far as the place in question.

[400] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 7, 5, 66.

[401] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 20-22.

[402] Herod. 3, 127; 5, 102; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 2; Diod. 11, 34; Arrian,
"Anab." 1, 29.

[403] Herod. 2, 30.

[404] Xenoph. "Oecon." 4, 5.

[405] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 6, 2, 11.

[406] "Oecon." 4, 5.

[407] Herod. 7, 40, 41, 83; 8, 113; Heraclid. Cuman. fragm. 1, ed.
Müller; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 7, 5, 68.

[408] Curtius, 3, 3, 13; Xenoph. _loc. cit._

[409] It is true that the population between the Euphrates and the Indus
is now rated at 18,000,000 only. Kenneir, "Geograph. Memoir of Persia,"
p. 44-47. But the numbers of the prisoners and the slain in the
inscriptions of Behistun allow us to conclude that the population of
Iran was far greater. Under the Ptolemies Egypt, consisting of about
30,000 communities, counted 7,000,000 inhabitants; Diod. 1, 31. That
Asia Minor was not less populous is proved, for certain districts, by
the statements of Xenophon; the budget of Darius, the numbers of his
army, and more especially of the army of Xerxes, the mass of troops
which the younger Cyrus collects in Asia Minor and Artaxerxes in the
Eastern provinces, are evidence of a tolerably dense population.

[410] "Pers.," 239, 926.

[411] Herod. 7, 61.

[412] Herod. 7, 85; 8, 113; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 8, 7; "Cyri Inst." 8, 8,
22; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 13.

[413] Herod. 5, 49; 9, 62; Strabo, p. 734.

[414] Herod. 9, 20, 22, 63, 80; Plut. "Artax." 9; Aeschyl. "Pers."
26-28.

[415] Herod. 1, 134; Polyaen. "Strat." 7, 11. According to Herodotus the
Sacae were in the centre at Marathon. Mardonius retains them in Thessaly
with the Bactrians and Indians: Herod. 8, 113; 9, 31. In the battle at
Arbela they were among the bravest: Arrian, "Anab." 3, 13.

[416] Herod. 7, 64 ff.

[417] Herod. 7, 82, 83; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 14.

[418] Herod. 7, 81.

[419] Herod. 7, 96.

[420] Herod. 7, 100; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 5, 1-16.

[421] Herod. 9, 15.

[422] Xenoph. "Anab." 3, 4, 35.

[423] Curtius, 3, 3, 8.

[424] Brisson, _loc. cit._ 3, c. 89.

[425] Curtius, 3, 3, 14, 15; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9, 31.

[426] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 8; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 11.

[427] Artaxerxes is on horseback in the battle of Cunaxa; Plutarch,
"Artax." 10, 11, but the general custom is given in c. 6.

[428] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 10, 12. Vol. V. 172.

[429] Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 8.

[430] Herod. 7, 218, 226; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 22, 23.

[431] Herod. 9, 20, 23, 49.

[432] Above, p. 303. Herod. 1, 162, 168; 4, 200; 5, 115; Polyaen.
"Strateg." 7, 2, 5.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE COURT OF DARIUS.


Along with the new arrangement of the administration of the empire
Darius had transferred the centre of it into a province, which had
thrice rebelled against him, to Susa,[433] the ancient metropolis of
Elam, which Assurbanipal had conquered, plundered, and destroyed 130
years previously. Since that time the city had risen from its ruins. We
have seen what motives determined Darius to take this step. The position
of the city, which was not far removed from his native territory, and at
the same time brought the stubborn resistance of the Babylonians under
the close pressure of the royal residence, offered the requisite
security. Out of Media, from the southern foot of the Mount Elvend
(Orontes), the Kerkha, or Choaspes, flows down the heights which bound
Iran on the west, towards the south-west; and then breaks through them
in order to fall into the Tigris. Further to the east is the Dizful.
Rising more to the south than the Kerkha it reaches the plains of Elam
in a course parallel to that stream and then falls also into the Tigris.
Between these two rivers there rises in the mountain edge the Shapur, a
river of a short and narrow course, but with a deep channel. For a time
it flows in the same direction with the others, then it turns to the
east, and falls into the Dizful, or rather into the Karun, as the Dizful
is now called in its lower course, after the affluent which falls into
it from the east. At the point where the Kerkha and Dizful approach
within two or three leagues of each other,--though lower down they
separate more and more widely,--about half a league from the east bank
of the Kerkha, and on the eastern side of the Shapur, is the city of
Susa. The approach from the west was barred by the Kerkha, and from the
east by the Dizful and its affluents. If an enemy came from the west or
the east, he had to cross considerable rivers. The great road which ran
from the west from Sardis to Susa, came to an end opposite Susa on the
west bank of the Kerkha. According to Herodotus the city could only be
reached by a ferry across the river. This was no doubt an arrangement
for security. An approaching enemy was not to find bridges either on the
Kerkha or the Dizful.[434] Thus irrigated by three rivers, the land
round the city was extraordinarily fruitful and blooming.

The Greeks were right in calling Susa "the ancient great city." Though
it was not, as they imagined, at one time the abode of Memnon, the son
of the morning, who had come to the help of the Trojans, we have made
acquaintance with the ancient kingdom of Elam, the beginnings of which
we had to place about the year 2500 B.C. We saw that the princes of this
kingdom could make war upon Babylonia, and reduce it to dependence in
the last centuries of the third millennium B.C., and that its armies
must have reached Syria. Then Elam had withstood the Assyrians for a
long time with very great stubbornness, until at length after brave
struggles it succumbed to the arms of Assurbanipal. A relief in the
palace of Assurbanipal exhibited Susa before its capture, in the year
645 B.C., stretching along between two rivers (the Shapur and the
Dizful), and surrounded by high walls and numerous towers. The new Susa
also, the Susa of Darius and his successors, extended, according to the
evidence of Strabo, between the two rivers; according to his statement
the city had a circuit of 120 stades, and according to Diodorus of 200
stades, _i.e._ of 15 or 20 miles--an extent which does not leave it far
behind the fallen cities of the Assyrians, and Babylon.[435] But Susa,
which in spite of its numerous population was inhabited only to a small
extent by Persians, required to be fortified even less than Ecbatana.
The royal citadel must keep the city in check, and afford the most
complete security to the palace. We are expressly told that this
citadel was protected by strong works, which would indeed be necessary
for the position of affairs and the object of Darius.[436] According to
the statement of Pliny, the citadel was surrounded by the Eulaeus, the
name which he gives to the Choaspes; the Book of Daniel also represents
the Ulai as flowing round the castle of Susa.[437] The ruins prove that
the palace lay on the Shapur. Within the protecting walls of the
fortress was the "golden dwelling," "the gold-adorned chambers of
Darius" as Aeschylus calls them,[438] the "far-famed palace" in the
language of Diodorus. According to Aelian Darius took a pride in the
buildings which he had erected at Susa; it was he who had erected the
famous works there.[439]

The ruins of Susa are now surrounded by a wilderness, inhabited only by
lions and hyænas. The soil is still productive of grass, and the remains
of numerous canals attest the ancient cultivation. Steep mounds of
débris and heaps of ruins rise thickly on the left bank of the Shapur,
in appearance closely resembling the remains of Babylon and Nineveh. The
highest mound is nearest the river; it rises 120 feet above the level of
the water, is 3000 feet in circumference, and appears to have supported
a part of the citadel; the mound abutting on the north only rises 80 or
90 feet, and forms a square, the sides of which measure 1000 or 1200
feet. On this the remains of a large building have been discovered.
Further to the east is an extensive platform, the circumference of which
far surpasses that of the two first put together; the height on the
south side reaches 70 feet and on the east and north about 50 feet. On
the east of these three heaps are mounds of a smaller size. These may be
remains of the city, while the others represent the citadel. The entire
circuit of the ruins is about 7-1/2 miles. They confirm the statement of
Strabo that Susa was built of brick, inasmuch as they present masses of
bricks, partly burnt, partly dried in the sun. But even the palaces in
the citadels were built of bricks in the outer walls only; they did not
contain those narrow long porticoes, which formed the royal palaces of
Nineveh, but were rather large square halls, resting on huge terraces.
The bases and remains of the northern hill allow us to trace three
magnificent porticoes. The interior of the building was formed by a
large hall with pillars, the roof of which was supported by 36 pillars
ranged in six rows; the pillars were of stone, slight and tall, the
capitals were formed by the fore-quarters of kneeling horses. Round
three sides of this hall, the north, east, and west, were placed
porticoes, 50 feet in breadth, the roofs of which were supported by 12
pillars in two rows. Four pillars of the chief hall bear the same
inscription in cuneiform letters, and, as always, in the Persian,
Babylonian, and Turanian languages. In this Artaxerxes Mnemon (405-359
B.C.) relates that his great-great-grandfather (_apanyaka_) Darius had
erected this building and that he had restored it. He entreats
Auramazda, Anahita, and Mithra, to protect him and his work. On some
pillars we find the inscription: "I, Artaxerxes, the great king, the
king of kings, son of the king Darius" (_i.e._ Darius Ochus).[440]

Though Darius elevated Susa to be his chief residence, the native land
of the empire, and the nucleus of it, his own home, was to receive a
proper share of the splendour and glory of the court. After the
conquests on the Indus Darius built a new residence in the land of the
Persians, to the north-west of Pasargadae, which Cyrus had made a
fortified city, and where he had erected his palace and deposited the
spoil of his previous victories. At the confluence of the Pulwar and the
Kum-i-Firuz the mountains retire on either side, and leave a space for
the most delightful plain in Persia, which is still covered with
villages,--the plain of Merdasht. Four thousand feet above the sea,
surrounded on every side by lofty mountains, which on the west are
covered with snow, the climate is mild and salubrious. Curtius considers
it the most healthy district in Asia.[441] From the mountain-range on
the west, a block of mountains now called Kuh Istachr advances into the
plain, and gradually falls away to the Pulwar; opposite to this, the
eastern range also advances with a mighty summit, called Rachmed, a spur
of which, at no great height, forms a broad terrace commanding the
plain. On both sides the heights extend a little further to the river,
so that the terrace forms the retiring level of a natural semicircle.
This terrace was chosen by Darius for the site of his new palace, by the
walls of which a city was to rise. The Greeks call this city of Darius,
Persepolis; _i.e._ city of the Persians. Diodorus tells us: "The citadel
of Persepolis was surrounded by three walls, of which the first was 16
cubits in height and surrounded by turrets, adorned with costly
ornamentation. The second wall had similar ornaments, but was twice as
high. The third wall formed a square, and was 60 cubits in height; it
consisted of hard stones, well fitted together, so as to last for ever.
On each side was a gate of brass, and near it poles of brass, 20 cubits
in height; the first for security, the second to strike terror. In the
citadel were several richly-adorned buildings for the reception of the
king and the generals, and treasuries built for the reception of
revenues. To the east of the citadel, at a distance of four plethra,
lies a mountain, called the "royal mountain," in which are the tombs of
the kings. The rock was excavated, and had several chambers in the
middle, which served to receive the corpses. But they were without any
means of access; the corpses were raised by machines and lowered into
the tombs.[442]"

The remains of Persepolis show that the terrace was surrounded on the
west, north, and south by a wall; and that by removing the earth or
filling it in it was changed into a surface measuring about 1800 feet in
length from north to south, and about 500 feet in breadth from west to
east, towards the heights of Rachmed. On the edge of the terrace rose a
wall, the third wall of Diodorus, which surrounded it on the north,
west, and south. According to the description of Diodorus, the eastern
side, towards Rachmed, was also surrounded by this wall. At the present
day we only find remains of the three sides mentioned, consisting of
blocks of marble from four to six feet in thickness, which in some
places rise to a height of 40 feet above the level of the terrace. If we
reckon in the height of the terrace, those walls had certainly the
elevation of 60 cubits which Diodorus gives them. The two other walls
were on the plain, and barred the approach to the palace; of these there
are no remains. Within the third wall, on the terrace, rise the
buildings of the palace. An inscription on the wall of the terrace in
the Turanian language tells us: "Darius the king says: On this place a
fortress is founded; previously there was no fortress. By the grace of
Auramazda I have founded this fortress, strong, beautiful, and complete.
May Auramazda and all the gods protect me and this fortress and all that
is in it."[443] On the western side of the terrace towards the northern
edge, two flights of steps, receding into the terrace, and joining at
the top, lead up to the surface and the gate of the palace. They consist
of 200 broad steps of large blocks of marble, ten or fifteen steps being
sometimes formed out of one block. Ten horsemen could easily ride up
together on each side. On the top of the terrace behind the landing of
the steps, there was a gate in the wall, the place of which can be found
by a break in the ruins; through this was the entrance into the citadel.

Not far from the western edge of the terrace, about equally removed from
the northern and southern walls, on an elevated platform, rose a
structure, 170 feet in length, and 90 feet in breadth; only a few
fragments of the walls, door-posts, and window-cases remain, with the
bases of the pillars in the hall (24 in number) which formed the centre
of the building. On the window-ledges of the building is an inscription
in three languages, in which we read: "Darius (Darayavus), the great
king, the king of kings, the king of the lands, the son of Hystaspes, an
Achæmenid, has erected this house."[444] On a pilaster in the south-west
corner we find an inscription of Xerxes which tells us: "Under the
protection of Auramazda, Darius, my father, erected this house." The
relief of one of the two posts of the door, which forms the entrance to
the central hall on the north, exhibits Darius himself. The figure is
7-1/2 feet high. The king is dressed in a garment which falls down to
the ancles; the sleeves are very wide; he has high shoes, and wears the
tiara; in his left hand he holds a long sceptre, and in the right a
cup-shaped vessel. The beard is long, the hair comes out in strong locks
under the tiara; the face is so injured that little more can be
recognized beyond the long profile, the straight outline of the nose,
and the quiet dignity of expression. Both the lines of the face and the
expression correspond to the head of the king preserved on the memorial
stone of the canal (p. 358). Over the king in a winged circle hovers
Auramazda, whose figure from the knees upward projects from the circle
beneath which the long robe of the god runs out in feathers. He wears a
tiara like the king and in the left hand bears a ring. The countenance
is aged and solemn; the hair and beard are like those of the king. The
figure of the deity is obviously copied from the Asshur which hovers
over the kings of Assyria. Behind the king, in similar clothing, but
with much smaller and lower tiaras on the head, are the bearer of the
royal parasol, which he holds over the head of the king, and the bearer
of the fan.

The largest structure lies to the east, near the height of Rachmed. It
forms a regular square of more than 200 (227) feet on each side, on
which, on the north side, abutted a portico formed of two rows of
pillars. The outer walls of the square consist of blocks of marble
neatly fitted together, and more than ten feet in thickness. Eight
gates, two towards each quarter, on the posts of which stand two
lance-bearers face to face, led into a large hall the roof of which was
supported by 100 pillars, ten in ten rows.[445] At the north entrance to
the portico, in the two western doors of the hall, the king is
represented in conflict with monsters. In these reliefs he is shown with
only a narrow band round the brow, or he wears a low cap; his robe is
short, his arms are bare. He raises a lion with his right hand and
presses the throat, while in his left he holds a dagger; he seizes a
winged one-horned monster with the jaws of a wolf and the legs of a bird
by the horn, and rips up the belly;[446] the third monster has the head
and the claws of an eagle; the fourth is a four-footed animal standing
up, with a horn in the forehead, which the king seizes, while with his
left hand he has already thrust the sword into the body. These pictures
are, no doubt, like the human-headed bulls which Xerxes subsequently set
up at Persepolis, imitations of Semitic symbols. The overpowering or
slaughter of the lion was, among the Assyrians, Cilicians, and Lydians,
an ancient mode of representing the greatest achievement of
Melkart-Sandon--the conquest of the fierce heat. This victory over evil
was easily and naturally transferred to the office of the ruler, and
could be accepted, even among the Iranians, as the religion of the
Avesta rests in its principles on the resistance to the evil spirits of
Angromainyu and the contest with his savage and harmful creatures, and
requires this contest. The great hall of 100 pillars was, as the
sculptures of the walls and posts show, the royal hall of audience. The
throne was between the two central rows of pillars, opposite the two
doors of the north, on the southern wall of the hall. Here, on days of
reception and festivity, the whole splendour of the Persian empire was
displayed. Then, as the book of Esther says; "golden and silver cushions
were laid on the floor of marble and alabaster, of pearls and
tortoise-shell"; and "between the pillars hung white and purple
curtains, on rings of silver, and linen and purple strings," and "wine
was poured in abundance from golden vessels."[447] The walls of this
room, and the beams of the roof, would not be without that ornamentation
of gold and silver plates, which covered the walls, pillars, and beams
of the chambers of the palace of Ecbatana (V. 309). The metal bolts
which are found here and there on the inner side of the walls, can
hardly have had any other purpose than to support plates of this kind.
In both the northern gates two reliefs exhibit Darius sitting on the
throne, on a lofty chair with a still higher back. The feet of the king
rest on a stool; he wears the tiara, and has the sceptre in his right
hand, a goblet in his left. Behind him is the bearer of the fan with a
covered mouth, that his impure breath might not touch the king, then the
bow-bearer without the Paitidana (V. 190), and at a greater distance one
of the body-guard. A foreign emissary approaches the throne, clad in a
tight coat with sleeves, and trousers joined to it, with a rounded cap.
He holds his hand before his mouth while speaking to the king; behind
him stands another figure with veiled mouth. This group of figures rests
on a pediment which is formed by four rows of ten guards placed one over
the other. These are armed partly with bows and lances, and partly with
shields and lances. Their clothing exhibits two types; which often recur
on the monuments of Persepolis. In the three lower rows one half of the
men have wide coats reaching down to the ancles, with large sleeves, and
high angular tiaras; the other half have coats with tight sleeves,
reaching to the knee only, trowsers joined to them, and a low round
covering for the head. This appears to be the Persian dress, the other
is the dress of the Medes. Over the throne of the king a canopy with
hanging fringes encloses the whole picture; except that in the middle,
two winged circles are seen; beside the lower rows of figures on each
side are four dogs (the animals of Auramazda); and beside the upper four
bulls may be seen on each side. This picture of the enthroned king is
repeated on the pilasters of the two southern gates; but on the third
relief we find only Darius on the throne, with the fan-bearer behind;
and the throne is not supported by the rows of guards, but on fourteen
figures of another shape which are arranged in three rows; in the
highest row are four figures, in the two lower five; in the last figure
on the lowest row towards the west, there is an unmistakable negro. They
bear the throne of the king with raised arms; above the two winged rings
is the picture of Auramazda. On the fourth relief is some dignitary of
the empire, or a prince of the house, behind the throne of the king,
which is here supported in the same way by twenty-nine figures arranged
in three rows. Here also Auramazda hovers over the two winged circles.

These figures are intended to present a picture of the government of
Darius as resting in the one case on the fidelity and bravery of the
army, and in the other, on the obedience of the subject nations. The
supporting figures of the southern doors are all clothed differently, in
the various dresses of the empire. Between these doors we find the
following inscription: "The great Auramazda, who is the greatest of
gods, has made Darius king. He has given him the kingdom; by the grace
of Auramazda Darius is king. Darius the king speaks: 'This land of
Persia, which Auramazda has given to me, which is beautiful, rich in
horses and men, fears no enemy by the protection of Auramazda, and of
me, King Darius. May Auramazda stand beside me with the gods of the
land, and protect this region against war, blight, and the lie. May no
enemy come to this region, no army, no blight, no lie. For this favour I
entreat Auramazda, and all the gods. May Auramazda grant me this with
all the gods.'" On the same wall we are told: "I am Darius, the great
king, the king of kings, the king of these numerous lands, the son of
Hystaspes, an Achæmenid. Darius the king says: 'By the grace of
Auramazda these are the lands which I rule over with this Persian army,
which are in fear of me, and bring me tribute: the Susians, the Medes,
the Babylonians, the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Armenians,
the Cappadocians, the inhabitants of Sardis, the Ionians of the
mainland, and those of the sea. And in the east the Sagartians, the
Parthians, the Sarangians, the Areians, the Bactrians, the Sogdiani, the
Chorasmians, the Gedrosians, the Arachoti, the Indians, the Gandarians,
the Sacae, the Macians. If thou thinkest: May I tremble before no enemy,
then protect this Persian army; if the Persian army is protected,
prosperity will remain unbroken to the most distant days.'"[448]

The successors of Darius extended the palace of Persepolis. Directly
behind the gate to which the great staircase on the terrace leads, King
Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, erected a portico. From the two
front pilasters which form the entrance to this court from the west, two
horses are hewn out in high relief; their heads and fore-feet project in
front, their bodies and hinder quarters stand out from the pilasters in
the entrance. These horses are 18 feet in length. From the four pillars
which support the roof of the portico behind this entrance, two are
still standing, 24 feet in height. Corresponding to the two guards of
the front entrances, we find at the exit of the hall towards the
interior of the citadel, _i.e._ towards the east, two winged bulls with
human heads, projecting from the pilasters. About 20 feet in length,
these bulls are precisely similar to the human-headed bulls of Nineveh,
but the wings of the bulls are not thrown back so far, and the solemn
bearded head is not surmounted here by a round cap, but by the Persian
tiara; these tiaras, like the caps at Nineveh, are surrounded by four
united horns. The horse, the animal of Mithra, which occurs repeatedly
on the ruins of Persepolis, was no doubt the peculiar symbol of the
Persians; the human-headed winged bulls belong, as has been observed, to
Babylon and Assyria. Between this portico and the smaller building of
his father, on the western edge of the terrace, Xerxes constructed a
magnificent building. Three porticoes, of twelve pillars each,
surrounded on the north, west, and south, a hall, formed of 36 pillars
of black marble, 67 feet in height, and placed closely to each other in
six rows; 14 are still standing. The building rose upon a walled
platform, paved with blocks of marble. This appears to have been a kind
of vestibule in which the court, the foreign ambassadors, the
emissaries of the provinces, who brought tribute, assembled. The
inscription calls it a reception-house,[449] and the reliefs with which
the front wall of the platform, ten feet in height, is ornamented,
indicate that it was a vestibule. Two flights of steps lead up to this
platform, and in the middle they form a projecting landing, on the front
of which, on either side of an inscription, stand the seven guardians of
the kingdom, three on one side and four on the other, in Median
garments, with an upright spear in the hand. On the external walls of
the steps we see a lion on either side, which attacks a horned horse
from behind; the horse turns to defend itself. On the wall of the
platform reliefs on either side of the steps exhibit three rows of
figures one above the other. On the west side are the nations bringing
tribute, on the eastern, which is more honourable, the body-guard and
the court of the king. In each row here 22 soldiers of the body-guard
advance to the steps; then the people of the court follow, partly in
Median and partly in Persian dress; most of them have a dagger at the
side; some are in conversation and take each other by the hand; others
have suspended the bow in a belt over the shoulder; others carry cups,
others staves which end in an apple in their hands. On the west side of
the steps the figures are arranged in 20 sections, each containing six
men (with one exception, which contains eight). The first figure always
carries a staff, which marks him out as introducing strangers. The
staff-bearer holds the nearest man by the hand; this second figure and
the four which follow are differently clad in each section; the last
four carry various objects, garments, jars containing different
articles, etc., or lead camels, horses, humped oxen, cattle, rams,
mules, and other animals. These are the 20 satrapies of the kingdom who
are brought before the king by the officers, and present their tribute.
A second building, which Xerxes erected to the south-west of the smaller
structure of Darius, consists of a portico of 12 pillars, and a hall of
36 pillars, on which abut four chambers on the east and west. This seems
to have been his dwelling-house at Persepolis; at any rate we see in the
sculptures of the hall six servants, who are carrying dishes with food,
and a wine-skin. In addition to these, in four other places on the
terrace, there are remains of less extensive buildings, one of which,
lying in the south-west angle, was built by Artaxerxes III. Numerous
ruins before the royal citadel, reaching from the foot of the terrace to
the Pulwar, and the ruins of a wall, which ran along the river, confirm
the statements of the Greeks, that a city of considerable size lay
adjacent to the palace, just as the remains of canals and aqueducts show
that the valley in front of the citadel was carefully cultivated.

Near the new citadel and city, which Darius added to his home a few
years later, he caused the place to be marked out in which his corpse
should rest or be exposed. Two leagues to the north-west from the ruins
of the citadel of Persepolis, on the further shore of the Pulwar, lies a
steep wall of white marble, now called Naksh-i-Rustem, _i.e._ pictures
of Rustem. At an elevation of 60 or 70 feet above the ground this wall
is hewn and wrought. The lowest part of this work is a plain surface,
which forms the basis for a façade of four pillars, which are cut out of
the rock. The capitals, like those in the palaces of Persepolis, are
formed of the fore-quarters of two kneeling horses united at the middle.
Between the two central pillars is the case of a door. The heavy
moulding which these pillars support passes into a toothed plinth, on
which rises a sort of catafalque, where are two rows of men, each
containing fourteen, in different dresses (among them are three
negroes), who support a beam with upraised arms, on which a few steps
lead up to a platform. On this stands Darius before an altar, the fire
on which is flaming. The left hand rests on the bow which is planted on
the platform, the right is raised in prayer. In the centre above the
king hovers Auramazda in a winged circle; to the right the sun's disc is
visible. The door of the façade does not seem to have been an entrance;
but now the lower part of it is opened, and leads behind the façade into
a long chamber, and three smaller ones, which are cut out of the
mountain. Any one who wishes to have a near view of the façade must be
drawn up, as Ctesias says that the parents of Darius were; the corpses
also must have been drawn up, as we are told by Diodorus. On the façade
under the form of the king we find the following inscription: "I,
Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands of all
tongues, the king of the great and wide earth, the son of Hystaspes, the
Achæmenid, the Persian, the son of a Persian, Ariya, scion of Ariya (in
the Babylonia text we have only, a Persian, son of a Persian). Darius
the king says: 'By the grace of Auramazda these are the lands which I
governed beyond Persia; I ruled over them: they brought me tribute, they
did what I commanded them: they obeyed my law: the Medes, Susians,
Parthians, Areans, Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, Sarangians,
Arachoti, Gedrosians, Gandarians, Indians, Amyrgian-Sacæ, Sacæ with
pointed caps, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, Cappadocia,
the inhabitants of Sardis, the Ionians, the Sacæ beyond the sea, the
Çkudra (the Thracians?) the Ionians who wear knots,[450] the Putiya, the
Kushiya, the Machiya, the Karka (p. 307). Auramazda gave me these lands
when he saw them in rebellion, and granted to me the rule over them; by
the grace of Auramazda I have again reduced them to order; what I told
them, that was done, because it was my will. If thou thinkest: How many
were the lands which Darius ruled? look on the picture of those who bear
my throne, in order to know them. Then wilt thou know that the lance of
the Persian penetrated far, that the Persian fought battles far from
Persia. What I have done, I have accomplished by the grace of Auramazda:
Auramazda came to my help, till I accomplished it; may Auramazda protect
me, my house and my land. May Auramazda grant me that for which I pray.
O man, resist not the command of Auramazda; leave not the right path;
sin not.'"[451] The mention of the "Knot-bearing" Ionians, and the
Putiya (_i.e._ the Libyans), and the Sacæ beyond the sea on this
inscription shows that it was engraved after the campaigns to the Danube
and Barca, the subjection of Lemnos and Miletus, and the Greek cities on
the coast of Thracia, _i.e._ after the year 512 B.C.; it was after this
year that Darius caused his tomb to be constructed.[452] On the frame of
the façade, over the pillared portal, we find on each side three figures
in long robes placed over each other. These are the six princes of the
Persian tribes, the six chiefs of the empire after the king. Above the
highest figure on the left of the king we read: "Gaubaruva (Gobryas) the
Pateischorean, the lance-bearer of King Darius;"[453] over the second
"Açpachana (Aspathines), the bow-bearer of King Darius."[454]

The ruins of Susa and Persepolis, the only remains of ancient west
Iranian architecture which have come down to us, show that it was indeed
founded upon Babylonian and Assyrian patterns, but that it was by no
means mere imitation. Neither in Ecbatana nor in Persepolis was the use
of brick necessary; stone was at hand; and even in Susa, at a distance
of 50 miles from the mountains, stone was used. The ruins give evidence
of a skill in smoothing and fitting the stones, which can only have been
attained by long practice. If the platform, on which the buildings rest,
belongs to the Babylonian and Assyrian style, the ruins of Persepolis
and Susa nevertheless exhibit a perfectly independent style, which seems
to have arisen out of an earlier practice of building in wood, and a
peculiar manner of treating the ornamentation. We have seen that the
plan of the palace at Ecbatana presupposed the use of wood, that the
pillars there were wooden posts covered with precious metals. In
Persepolis stone took the place of wood. The outer walls of the building
are strong, the blocks and mouldings over the windows and doors are high
and massive, but along with this massiveness, strength, and permanence,
the buildings show a tendency to run into great height. The pillars
are slender, reminding us of tent-posts; though of more than 60
feet in height they have a diameter of only four feet, and the
inter-columniations are often more than 30 feet. The socles and capitals
(which are either the fore-quarters of horses or bulls or inverted cups)
are high and delicate. The socles do not project far, the capitals are
slender; the buildings, which were covered by roofs of beams, overlaid
no doubt with plates of gold and silver, thus acquired, along with their
solidity, the impression of imposing elevation and delicate lightness.
The sculptures also are distinguished from those of Babylon and Assyria,
not merely by the fact that they are carried out in harder material, but
they have also greater repose in the expression, the figures are less
compressed, the muscles less prominent, the development of the forms
more noble and free, the fall of the folds simple and natural. Animals
are represented with extraordinary vigour and life. The execution in
detail is careful, but flatter and duller than at Nineveh. The
expression of the heads does not possess the energy and life which the
sculptures of Assyria present; even in the most excited action it is
ceremonious. It is solemn, massive, earnest, dignified, and restrained,
but wanting in character. Beside the sculptures which symbolically
represent the dignity, business, or deeds of the officers of the empire,
the remaining reliefs of Persepolis give no chronicle of the reign of
Darius and Xerxes; we find neither battles nor sieges; they merely
glorify the splendour and greatness of the monarchy; they exhibit the
throne of the king which the subject nations carry, surrounded by the
princes of the kingdom, and protected by the body-guard. We see the
subject nations bringing tribute, and thus we have a picture of
established power, and secure majesty, but not of the individual acts
and victories of the king. The only historical sculpture which is at
present known, is the inscription of Darius at Behistun. The style is
simple and severe, the treatment far less minute than on the reliefs of
Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustem, but naïve and vigorous.

Susa, so Strabo tells us, was adorned more than other cities by the
kings of the Persians; each built a separate dwelling there as a
memorial of his reign; after Susa they honoured the palaces of
Persepolis and Pasargadae; at Gabae also in upper Persia and at Taoke on
the coast they had castles.[455] From Xenophon we learn that "the kings
of Persia, it is said, pass the spring and the summer in Susa and
Ecbatana."[456] We may conclude from these statements, and from the fact
that the Achæmenids not only preserved but multiplied the gold and
silver ornaments of the citadel of Ecbatana, as well as the buildings of
the palace (V. 315), that Susa remained the ordinary residence even
under the successors of Darius, but that in the height of summer--in
order to avoid the heat of the plains of Elam--the court sought the
cooler air of the ancient residence of Phraortes and Cyaxares--a change
advisable on political grounds also. Even a short residence in Ecbatana
showed that Media did not occupy the last place in the kingdom. The
Persian kings also resided at times in Babylon. The Sassanids pursued
the same course. Ardeshir built Shahabad in Elam, his successors resided
in Madain, but during the summer in Hamadan.[457] The palaces in the
mother country were visited by Darius and his successors from time to
time, who like himself caused their sepulchres to be cut either in the
rocks of Naksh-i-Rustem, or on Mount Rachmed, immediately to the east of
the citadel. There are three sepulchres by the side of that of Darius,
and three on Mount Rachmed.

The size and splendour of the palaces at Susa, Ecbatana, Persepolis, and
Pasargadae were matched by the numbers and brilliance of the court. The
ceremonies and the arrangement of the service were taken from the
pattern of the Median court, but not without considerable variations,
and the Medes, in turn, had imitated the style of the Assyrian and
Babylonian court. The prominent position of the six tribal princes, the
supreme judges, the "kinsmen and table companions of the king," were
without a parallel among the Medes; it was they who immediately
surrounded the king next to the occupants of the great offices of state
or honour. It was the opinion of Cyrus, Xenophon tells us, that the
ruler should not only be superior to his subjects in valour, but he must
exert a charm over them also. Thus he accustomed both himself and his
officers to give commands with dignity, and for himself and for them he
adopted the Median dress, as being more imposing and majestic. On solemn
occasions the king appeared in a long purple robe, bordered with
white--such as no one but himself might wear,[458] a Kaftan (Kandys) of
brilliant purple was thrown over it.[459] The embroidery exhibited
falcons and hawks, the birds of the good god, which dwell in the pure
air nearest to heaven. This garment was held together by a golden
girdle, in which was a sabre adorned with precious stones. The trowsers
were of purple; the shoes of the colour of saffron.[460] The head was
covered by the upright tiara or kidaris,[461] of a white and blue
colour, or by a band of the same colours, and also by a crown, as we see
from the picture of Darius on a seal at Behistun.[462] Plutarch tells us
that the king's attire was valued at 12,000 talents (nearly £3,000,000);
his ornaments and attire on solemn occasions are no doubt meant.[463] If
the royal court of the Sassanids was arranged after that of the
Achæmenids, the attire of the king was even more extravagant. As the
Greeks inform us, the king of the Persians was a sight seldom seen by
the Persians.[464] Only the six tribal princes could enter without being
announced. The attempt in any other person would be punished with death,
unless the king forgave the offence.[465] It required time and trouble,
and even special favour, to make way through the troops of body-guards,
servants, eunuchs, under-officers, and court nobles; and when this was
done it was necessary to be announced by the officers who introduced
strangers, or by the chief door-keeper. The king sat on a golden throne
when he gave audience. Over this was stretched a baldachino of
vari-coloured purple, supported by four golden pillars adorned with
precious stones.[466] It was the custom among the Persians for the lower
to bow to the earth before the more honourable,[467] no one approached
the king without falling in the dust before him.[468] Any one who spoke
to the king was compelled to keep his hands hidden in the long sleeves
of his upper garment, in order to show that he neither could nor would
use them.[469]

According to Xenophon the king of the Persians at day-break praised the
powers of heaven, sacrificed daily to the gods, whom the Magians
indicated. Plutarch tells us that he was awaked daily by a chamberlain
with the words: "Arise, O king, and think of the things which Auramazda
has given thee to think of."[470] At table the queen-mother and the
queen sat beside him. The first sat above him, the second below, the
king was in the middle of the table.[471] Like all the Persians, he ate
but one meal a day, but this lasted a long time. The princes, the
"kinsmen" and "table companions" of the king, as a rule, ate in an
ante-chamber, but at banquets they were in the same hall with him, in
their proper order, the king on a rich divan with a golden frame, the
companions on pillows or carpets on the floor,[472] so arranged that
those whom the king trusted most were on his left, the others on his
right; "because the king," as Xenophon says, "could in case of need
defend himself better with his right hand."[473] Before it was brought
to the king the food was tested by tasters; and before handing the
goblet to the king, the butler drank a few drops out of it with a spoon,
to prove that it was not poisoned.[474] Many kinds of food were set on
the table, but only a moderate portion of each was placed before every
person. Xenophon praises the abstinence of the well-bred Persians at
table; they regarded it as low and brutish to show desire for food or
drink.[475] Plutarch says: "Not only the friends, and commanders, and
body-guard of the king had portions from his table, but also what the
slaves and dogs ate was put upon the board, so that the kings of the
Persians made all who were in their service the companions of their
table and their hearth."[476] What was left from the table of the king
was carried into the courts and distributed in equal portions among the
body-guard and the servants.[477] If the meal was followed by any
drinking, the queen-mother and the queen retired, before the concubines
entered to play and sing.[478] The table-companions might not look at
the concubines, and the eunuchs, who brought the women into the hall,
took care that they should not. Even at night, when the king retired to
rest, the concubines played and sang by the light of burning lamps.[479]
On the festival of Mithra, the king was allowed to dance in Persian
fashion, and to be intoxicated;[480] on his birthday he gave a great
banquet, which, as Herodotus tells us, was called among the Persians the
perfect banquet. On this day the king gave presents to the Persians
(_i.e._ they received a largess of money), and at the banquet, in which
the women took part, he could not refuse any petition.[481] In
accordance with the doctrine of the Avesta the king celebrated the day
which had called him into life, and, as Plato tells us, all Asia
celebrated with sacrifices and feasts the day which had given them their
ruler.[482]

No one ever saw the king on foot; if he passed through the courts of the
palace carpets of Sardis were spread before him, on which no other foot
might step.[483] Outside the palace the king was sometimes seen on
horseback, but more frequently in his chariot. It was a much-envied
distinction among the princes of Persia to be allowed to assist the king
to his horse.[484] If he descended from his chariot, no one might reach
out his hand to support him; it was the duty of the bearer of the royal
stool to place a golden stool for him to descend. At solemn processions,
the roads on which the royal train passed were cleansed, as in India,
strewn with myrtle and made odorous with frankincense; a string of
guards and whip-bearers were placed along the way to prevent any one
from coming forward to the chariot of the king.[485] The body-guard in
their golden ornaments with crowned tiaras led the way and brought up
the rear. The chariot of Mithra, yoked with eight Nisaean greys, went
before the king; the sacred fire was carried before him by the Magians;
and beside the chariot of the king, which was drawn by six or four
Nisaean horses, marched staff-bearers. The chiefs of the tribes, the
Achæmenids, the great officers of the court, the "kinsmen and table
companions" of the king followed. In the train in the rear no doubt the
royal horses, two or four hundred in number, were, no doubt, led in
splendid trappings.[486]

Darius was married before he ascended the throne of the Magian. His wife
was the daughter of Gobryas, the chief of the Pateischoreans. She had
borne him three sons before he came to the throne: Artabazanes,
Arsamenes, and Ariabignes.[487] When he had acquired the throne, he made
Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, his queen, _i.e._ his legitimate wife;
the younger line of Achæmenes was thus yet more closely united with the
elder. The daughter of Gobryas fell into the rank of the second wives;
Atossa took the place which Cassandane had held beside Cyrus, and which
she herself had previously occupied with Cambyses. The second daughter
of Cyrus, Artystone, and Parmys the only daughter whom Smerdis had left,
passed into the harem of Darius. Atossa bore him four sons: Xerxes,
Hystaspes, Masistes, and Achæmenes; Artystone bore Arsames and Gobryas,
and Parmys Ariomardus. Darius had also sons by other women, as
Phratagune, the daughter of his brother, Artanes; "he had many sons," is
the remark of Justin.[488] The secondary wives of the king ranked above
the concubines. The number of the latter was, at any rate under the
successors of Darius, very considerable; it is given at 300, 350, and
360. After the battle of Issus, 329 concubines of the last Darius were
discovered among the captives.[489] These women, as Diodorus informs us,
were sought out from the most beautiful maidens in Asia; for the
new-comers, according to the book of Esther, a year's preparation was
necessary. This went on in a special department of the seraglio, and
consisted in the use of ointments, spices, and perfumes.[490] They were
so far beneath the queen, that they were compelled to prostrate
themselves before her when she looked at them;[491] at no time, except
at the table of the king, could they be seen by men. If they accompanied
the king on the chase or on journeys, and, as became usual at a later
time, to the field, they were always in closed conveyances. Any one who
touched one of the concubines was put to death, and even any one who
approached their waggons, or passed through the train.[492] The queen
enjoyed greater liberty. We are told of Stateira, the consort of
Artaxerxes II., that she always travelled with her hangings drawn back,
and allowed the women of the people to come up to her car and greet
her.[493]

We have mentioned already how numerous were the persons about the court.
The Greeks call attention to the splendid attire of the servants, and
remark that the preparation of the king's table and the waiting gave
them a great deal of trouble: in fact half the day was taken up with
this. Each of the great court officers had a large number of
subordinates. The chief door-keeper had at his disposal a number of
eunuchs, who watched over the inner courts of the palace and the harem,
waited on the women and carried messages. The degrading use of
castration was unknown to the nations of the Arians, and contrary to
their religion, which put so high a value on life, and the preservation
of the germs of life. It was from the princes of the Semites, the
Assyrian and Babylonian court, that the use of eunuchs for guarding the
harem, for waiting on the king and his women, and service in the inner
chambers, was borrowed by the Median kings. In addition to other
burdens, Babylonia supplied each year 500 mutilated boys to Darius.
Eunuchs were never employed in the Persian army for commanders, or for
officers of state, as was the case in Assyria and Babylonia; but
personal attendance on the king, which even in the time of Cyrus
devolved on eunuchs, brought some of them into favour and influence
under him, and subsequently under Cambyses.[494] Beside the chief
door-keeper and his eunuchs, was the chief staff-bearer with his
subordinates. It was his duty to introduce strangers and those who came
to ask for assistance; the envoys from countries and cities; to preserve
order in the palaces, to superintend and punish the servants. The chief
butler was at the head of a large number of butlers and waiters. The
chamberlains, the valets of the king with their subordinates, the
spreaders of pillows and carpets, the carvers and table-dressers, the
cooks and bakers, the preparers of ointment, the weavers of crowns, the
lamp-lighters and palace-sweepers formed a considerable body. In
addition there was the chief groom with his subordinates, the master of
the hunt, the hunters and dog-keepers. Physicians also were at hand,
chiefly from Egypt, who had the greatest reputation in the east; then
came the Greeks.[495]

Long caravans, surrounded by the body-guard, conducted the court, when
a change of residence was made, from Susa to the palaces of Persia or
Ecbatana. A large amount of splendid furniture, cattle for slaughter,
food and drink of special quality, were taken with them. Herodotus tells
us that the king of Persia drank only the water of the Choaspes, _i.e._
the Kerkha, which was boiled and carried in silver vessels on
four-wheeled cars both into the field, and on journeys.[496] Beside
numerous waggons the conveyance of the court required 1200 camels.[497]
Along with the military equipage of the last Darius 277 cooks, 29
pastry-cooks, 13 preparers of milk diet, 17 preparers of liquors, 70
cellarmen, 40 preparers of ointment, and 41 chaplet-makers were
captured.[498]

FOOTNOTES:

[433] The name in Hebrew is Shushan, among the Assyrians, Shusan,
_hodie_, Shush.

[434] Loftus, "Travels in Susiana," p. 425 ff. Nöldeke ("Göttingen G.
G." 1874, s. 173 ff.) has treated exhaustively of the various names of
ancient Elam, as Susiana is invariably called among the Assyrians,
Babylonians, and Hebrews. He proves that the name [Greek: Kissiê] which
is in use among the older Greeks, Aeschylus, Hecataeus, and Herodotus,
must be derived from the Kossaeans, a tribe who inhabited the northern
and higher part of Susiana, and the mountainous edge towards Iran. Of
later writers Polybius only uses the name Cissians, who also uses the
name Matieni in the sense of Herodotus. Uwaya, the name common among the
Persians for Susiana, is taken from the Uxians, who were the eastern
neighbours of Persia, _i.e._ the tribe in Susiana which dwelt nearest to
Persia; it is retained in the new Persian Chuz and Chusistan. Among the
Greeks the name Elymaeans is first used by the companions of Alexander
as the name for a tribe, and then in the second century B.C. as the name
of a new kingdom which restored the ancient Elam. Yet to this tribe
which inhabited the plain and the hills of Susa and Shuster was due the
foundation and government of the kingdom which once ruled in the valley
of the Euphrates, which so long resisted the Assyrians, but was entirely
unknown to the Greeks. The rivers of Susiana are difficult to fix, as
both Persian and native names are indifferently used. The name Choaspes,
which contains _açpa_, is plainly Persian; it is no doubt the Kerkha. On
the Eulaeus, Koprates, and Pasitigris, see Droysen, "Hellenismus," 1^2,
266 _n._

[435] Aesch. "Pers." 16, 120; Athen. p. 513; Strabo, p. 728, 731, 739;
Diod. 17, 65.

[436] Polyb. 5, 48.

[437] Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 31; Daniel viii. 2, 16.

[438] "Pers." 3, 4, 159, 160.

[439] Ael. "Hist. An." 1, 59.

[440] Ménant, "Achaemenides," p. 140, 141; Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes,"
p. 229.

[441] Curtius, 5, 4.

[442] Diod. 17, 71.

[443] Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," 196.

[444] Oppert, _loc. cit._ 19, 148; Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 49;
Schrader, "Assyr. Babyl. Keilinschriften," s. 363.

[445] Texier, "Description," pl. 100.

[446] Impressions of seals which have been discovered in the palace of
Sennacherib at Kuyundshik, represent the king of Assyria in precisely
the same position.--Layard, "Nineveh and Babylon," p. 154, 161.

[447] Esther i. 6, 7.

[448] Inscriptions H. and J. Oppert, "Journal Asiatique," 19, 141;
Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 49. Oppert now translates _aniya_ not by
"enemy" but literally by "the other;" by which Angromainyu would be
meant: "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 199.

[449] _Viçadahyaus_; Spiegel, _loc. cit._ s. 57; Benfey,
"Keilinschriften," s. 63-65; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 364.

[450] Above, p. 272 _n._

[451] Oppert. "Z. D. M. G." 11, 133 ff.; Mordtmann, _loc. cit._ 16, 109
ff.; Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 52; Schrader, _loc. cit._ s. 361.

[452] Above, p. 272 _n._, 307.

[453] So the Babylonian text.

[454] It is merely a guess that _saraçtibara_ means bow-bearer; Spiegel,
"Keilinschriften," s. 106. Oppert translates: bearer of the commands of
the king; "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 213.

[455] Strabo, p. 728, 735.

[456] "Anab." 3, 5, 15.

[457] Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 353. Xenophon's statements about the
residences in the "Anabasis" (_loc. cit._) cannot be outweighed by the
systematized arrangement in the "Cyropaedia" that Cyrus spent three
months at Susa, two at Ecbatana, and seven months at Babylon, which
Plutarch ("De Exilio," c. 12) repeats in the form, that the Persian
kings passed the spring at Susa, the summer in Media, and the winter in
Babylon. With Aeschylus and Herodotus Susa is a fixed residence, and so
also in the treatise "De Mundo," p. 398, and the Hebrews, _e.g._
Nehemiah i. 1. Joseph. "Antiq." 10, 11, 7. Athenaeus, p. 513, thinks
that Persepolis was the residence for the autumn. In the winter of the
year 396-395 Conon finds Artaxerxes II. at Babylon; the same king says
in Plutarch ("Artax." c. 19) to Parysatis, that he will never see
Babylon as long as she lives.

[458] Plut. "Artax." c. 5.

[459] Diod. 17, 77.

[460] Aeschyl. "Pers." 660.

[461] Plut. "Artax." c. 26.

[462] Diod. 17, 77; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 3, 13.

[463] Plutarch ("Artax." c. 24) maintains, it is true, that this is the
value of the garments which the king habitually wore. Arrian treats of
this subject, "Anab." 4, 7, and Curtius, 3, 3, 17-19; 6, 6, 4. With
respect to the royal colours, cf. Esther i. 6.

[464] Phan. Eres. Fragm. 9, ed. Müller; Plut. "Artax." c. 20, 23;
Strabo, p. 525.

[465] Esther iv. 11. Cf. Herod. 3, 118, 119.

[466] Heracl. Cum. fragm. 1, ed. Müller; Esther v. 4.

[467] Herod. 1, 134; Strabo, p. 734.

[468] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 11.

[469] Xenoph. "Hellen." 2, 1; 8.

[470] Herod. 7, 54; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 23, 24, with the addition
that this was the custom in his day. Plut. "Ad princ. ineruditum," 3.

[471] Plutarch, "Artax." c. 5; "Conjug. praecepta," c. 16; "Quaest.
Conviv." 1, 3, 1.

[472] Heracl. Cum. fragm. 2; Xenoph. "Hellen." 4, 1, 30.

[473] "Cyri Inst." 8, 4, 2, 3.

[474] Suidas, [Greek: Edeatros].

[475] "Cyri Inst." 5, 2, 17.

[476] Plut. "Quaest. Conviv." 7, 4, 5.

[477] Athenaeus, p. 145. Above, p. 352.

[478] Plut. "Quaest. Conviv." 1, 1, 1; "Conjug. praecepta," 16.

[479] Heracl. Cum. fragm. 2; Diod. 17, 77.

[480] Ctesias and Darius, in Athenaeus, p. 434.

[481] Herod. 9, 110, 111; Esther ii. 18.

[482] "Alcib. I." p. 121.

[483] Heracl. Cum. fragm. 1, ed. Müller.

[484] Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 4, 4.

[485] Herod. 7, 54; Curtius, 5, 1, 20.

[486] Herod. 7, 40, 41; 54, 55; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 3, 5-10;
Curtius, 3, 3, 21.

[487] Herod. 7, 2, 97; 8, 89. Herodotus (7, 68) calls Arsamenes the son
of Darius, and (7, 69) Arsames the son of Darius and Artystone.
Artabazanes is called by Justin (2, 10) Artamenes.

[488] Herod. 7, 224; Justin, 2, 10.

[489] Diod. 17, 77; Athenaeus, p. 557.

[490] Esther ii. 7-17; v. 2; viii. 4.

[491] Deinon in Athenaeus, p. 557.

[492] Heracl. Cum. fragm. 1, ed. Müller; Plut. "Artax." c. 27.

[493] Plut. "Artax." 5.

[494] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 7, 5, 58.

[495] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 9; 8, 8, 20; Plut. "Artax." c. 19;
Nicol. Damasc. fragm. 66, ed. Müller. On the physicians, above, p. 134,
313.

[496] Herod. (1, 188) ascribes this custom to Cyrus, though the
reference to Susa which he adds shows that it can only have come into
existence after Susa became a residence.

[497] Demosth. "Symmor." p. 185.

[498] Athenaeus, p. 608.




CHAPTER XX.

RETROSPECT.


The arrangement which Darius had given to his vast empire allowed the
character, laws, manners, and religion of the subject nations to remain
as far as possible unchanged, and only interfered, exceptionally, in the
hereditary local customs of the provinces. Adequate provision for the
maintenance of the central government, the establishment of rapid
combinations, care for the training of the generals and officers, ample
and obvious rewards for service, a system of taxation far removed from
extortion, regulations for the advancement of agriculture, development
of the trade on the southern sea, or by land, since the caravans could
pass unharmed and even protected from Miletus to Susa, from Cyrene to
the Indus, seemed to give a solid foundation, an adequate support, and
abiding power to the empire of Cyrus and Darius. Yet for the security
and continuance of it, it was of the first importance, whether the
national feeling of the subject peoples, in spite of or owing to the
tolerance of the empire, was still sufficiently vigorous and strong to
create in them the desire to rise from the subjection in which they
were, to win back their independence, and develop their national
existence; whether the controlling power of the ruling people was
sufficient to maintain itself for a length of time over such wide
regions; whether, in fine, the ruling house would preserve, amid the
splendour of its new palaces, and the brilliance of extraordinary
success, the vigour and force required to sustain the heavy task of
administering the empire in the manner of Darius.

Under his sceptre the national civilizations of Asia which had hitherto
been separated were united into a great whole. Beside the ancient
civilization of Babylon stood the yet more ancient civilization of
Egypt; beside the Lydians and Syrians, and the Hellenes of the Anatolian
coast, stood the forms of life existing on the Indus, all united in
equal rights; above these, and yet owing to the formation of this
empire, side by side with them, was the characteristic civilization of
the Bactrians, Medes, and Persians. The ancient communities of Egypt,
Babylonia, and Phoenicia were able, it is true, to make attempts, and
even stubborn attempts, at resistance, but they did not succeed in
effecting a new departure. On the contrary, the various forms of
civilization united together began by degrees to exercise a mutual
influence, and each wore down the other. Only the religious feeling of
that Syrian tribe, whose states had been crushed beneath the armies of
the kings of Asshur and Babylon, remained free from this assimilation,
and self-secluded; in the native soil, which Cyrus had once more allowed
the exiles to occupy, they struck new and deeper roots, which promised
the noblest fruits from the old sturdy stock.

The Persians, and especially the upper orders, could not remain
uninfluenced by the privileged position of the ruling people and
reigning class in such a wide empire, and by the pattern of the court.
The fruits of dominion flowed in upon them; their lives were opulent
and full of enjoyment. The Greeks can tell us a great deal of the
splendour and luxury of the Persians, which were introduced in the time
of Darius and subsequently. They inform us that the Persians adopted a
richer style of dress. Like the Indians, the Medes and the Persians
after them delighted to adorn themselves; but according to the Greeks
the Persians were even more anxious to give themselves a dignified and
imposing appearance. They wore the loose dress of the Medes, in blue and
red purple; they also followed the Medes in wearing chains, and armlets,
and earrings of gold.[499] The hair and beard received careful
attention. In summer the parasol-bearers were always at hand, in winter
gloves were worn.[500] The houses were adorned with costly carpets; the
Persians lay on beds with golden feet, and soft cushions; and on the
tables of the higher classes glittered goblets, bowls, and pitchers of
gold and silver. The servants were numerous, trained butlers, bakers,
and cooks were kept.[501] The table of the Persians, as the Greeks tell
us, presented but few kinds of farinaceous food, but whole animals were
served up, and the dessert was plentiful and in various courses.[502]
The hereditary moderation in wine was not observed. Herodotus tells us
that: "The Persians readily accept foreign customs. They wear the Median
dress because they consider it more beautiful, and in war they use
Egyptian coats of mail. They adopt any customs which please them, and
in addition to a large number of wives, they have many concubines."[503]
About the year 500 B.C. the Persians were so accustomed to convenience
in their domestic economy, that they took even into the field of battle
their servants together with their cooks and maid-servants, their entire
harem with costly furniture, partly in closed waggons and partly on
camels; even the men of the guard were followed by their women and
furniture. The nobles encamped under tents splendidly wrought with gold
and silver.[504] But in spite of this luxury, self-control and military
vigour were never eradicated in the Persians. They were always seen in a
becoming attitude. They were never observed to eat or drink greedily;
they never laughed loud, or quarrelled, or gave way to passion.[505] The
education which the sons of the nobles received under the eye of the
king and the satraps, and the rich rewards in store for eminent valour,
kept up a manly spirit. We have more than one instance of acts of rare
devotion to the king and the empire. The remembrance of the conflicts of
Cyrus, of the wars which Darius carried on, the consciousness of great
successes, the proud feeling that they governed the nations of Asia,
formed strong counterpoises to the advance of effeminacy. Even those who
lived most delicately at home eagerly joined in the chase, in the
prescribed extirpation of the animals of Angromainyu, and the princes
did not disdain to do garden-work with their own hands day by day. At
that time, as Xenophon observes, the old Persian sobriety and force
existed beside the Median dress and luxury, and Heracleides of Pontus
tells us that the Persians and Medes, who loved luxury and excess above
others, were also the bravest and most magnanimous of the
barbarians.[506] Artaxerxes Mnemon, in spite of his golden ornaments and
purple kaftan, dismounted from his horse, and marched on foot, shield on
arm and quiver on shoulder, day by day at the head of his soldiers,
through the roughest and steepest mountain paths, though the day's march
reached 25 miles or more. In spite of armlets and purple hose the
leading Persians long after the time of Darius leapt from their horses
into the mud, in order to extricate a baggage-cart, which prevented the
march of the army; and the common soldier, even when frozen with cold,
hesitated to lay the axe to beautiful trees which would be consumed
merely to warm him by his watch-fire. The prescripts of religion were
not without effect. The kings kept their word when given; every Persian
regarded it as shameful to break the pledge of plighted hands, to refuse
reverence to his parents--his mother especially--to speak falsely, and
to seek for gains by trade. Thucydides says of them that they liked
better to give than to receive.[507] The pride of the Persians preferred
to serve the king with arms and receive favour and presents from him,
than to carry on any kind of trade. A great number of the Persians were
constantly under arms in the standing army; the rest tended their flocks
and cultivated their fields in the hereditary way. They kept to the old
Persian dress, the close and short garment of leather; their coats
reached only half way down the thigh, and instead of the tiara they wore
a low band round the head. Along with their dress and mode of life,
they kept true to the manners and moderation of their forefathers, and
practised the old arts of riding and archery.

More serious for the future of the kingdom than any splendour or
magnificence on the part of eminent Persians, was the influence, which
in the composition of the court was unavoidable, of his personal
servants on the king and on his resolutions--and the danger that court
intrigues might override the interest of the empire; above all, the
still more unavoidable influence of the harem. If the position of the
queen-mother, who, in accordance with the doctrines of Zarathrustra,
enjoyed a position of great respect at court, and her relations to the
queen or first wife gave occasion for jealous rivalry, each secondary
wife had still stronger motives to seek or maintain influence with the
king, to disparage the queen and the other wives before him, and make
provision for her sons if she could not aspire to gain the succession to
the throne. Thus a door was opened to ambition and intrigue, and the
eunuchs of the wives found in this occupation only too good an
opportunity for gaining importance and weight. If such evils were a
little matter under a ruler of the determination and wisdom of Darius,
it was impossible to count on the fact that he would be followed by a
series of kings like himself, and equally great. But if the court
outgrew the state, and the fortunes of the empire were decided in the
seraglio, the empire itself might be thrown into danger with a change in
the succession. The education given to the princes, and especially to
the heir to the throne, has been mentioned already, as well as their
instruction in the wisdom of the Magi. The crown descended to the eldest
son of the legitimate wife or queen. Whenever the king took the field,
in order to prevent contention he nominated his successor. Even about
the successor of Darius a difficulty might arise. His first wife, the
daughter of Gobryas, had borne him three sons before he came to the
throne; when king, he had made Atossa his queen, and had four sons by
her (p. 394). Which was the legitimate heir, the eldest of the first
family, or of the second?--Artabazanes or Xerxes?

At the death of the king, as Diodorus tells us, the sacred fire in the
royal palace, and in all the houses of the Persians, was put out.[508]
We remember the prescript of the Avesta that the fire of the hearth must
be removed from the house of the dead, together with all the sacred
vessels, the pestle, the cup, the bundle of rods and the Haoma, and that
the fire could not be kindled again till the ninth or thirtieth day
after the death (V. 215). The heir to the throne repaired to Pasargadae,
to receive consecration from the Magi there. "In that city," says
Plutarch, "there is the shrine of a warlike goddess who may, perhaps, be
compared with Athene; to this the prince who is to be consecrated goes,
and there lays his robe aside, in order to put on the garment which
Cyrus wore before he became king: then he eats a cake of dried figs,
bites a terebinth, and drinks a cup of sour milk (no doubt in
remembrance of the old life of the Persians). Whether he has anything to
do beyond this is unknown."[509] We are told elsewhere that the new king
put the royal _kidaris_ on his head; and no doubt the act would be
accompanied with invocations by the Magi. The shrine of the goddess
mentioned by Plutarch must have been a place of sacrifice to Anahita;
the heroes and kings of the Avesta sacrifice to this goddess in order
to attain the splendour of majesty, the supreme dominion.[510]

The Arian tribes of the table-land of Iran have preserved the original
character of their family more truly than their kinsmen who settled on
the Indus and the Ganges, and filled the Deccan with their civilization.
Placed in a less tempestuous region, in a land where there were sharp
contrasts of climate, of hill and plain, of fertility and desolation, of
snow and sand storms, the life of the Arians in Iran was more vigorous
and manly than life in India. The tribes in the north-east attained to
civic life and intellectual progress before the tribes of west Iran. The
contrast in which the former stood to the hordes of the neighbouring
steppes, and the repulsion of their attacks, led the Bactrians to a
larger state, and the formation of a military monarchy, which arose from
the midst of an armed nobility, while the weight of the ancient and
powerful states of the Semites in the valley of the Euphrates and the
Tigris, repressed the independent development of the tribes of western
Iran. The foundations of the religious views of the Arians were the same
to the east and west of the Indus. With the Arians of the Panjab, the
Arians of Iran shared the belief in the power of the spirits of light
which gave life and blessing, in the destructive power of the black
spirits, and the struggle of the spirits of light against the spirits of
darkness. The peculiar intensity of the contrasts in nature and in the
conditions of life in the north-east, gave an impulse to the development
of religious views there, which led to the systematic opposition of the
hosts of heaven and of hell, and the union of these groups under two
supreme spirits, and to deeper ideas of their nature. It was a
transformation of the old conceptions which at the same time carried
with it a change and increase in the ethical demands made upon men.
While the development of conceptions beyond the Indus tended to set man
free from all sensuality, and sought to bring him back to his divine
origin, by crushing the body and quenching the individuality, the
doctrine of Zarathrustra excludes only the harmful side of nature, and
demands the increase of the useful side; it pledges every man to take a
part in the conflict of the good spirits against the evil, demands that
by his work, his activity, and the purity of his soul, he enlarge the
kingdom of the good and light spirits to the best of his ability, and
thus forms sound and practical aims for the conduct of men. When this
doctrine had penetrated to the nations of west Iran, and struck deep
roots among them, the Medes succeeded in combining their tribes, and
repelling the supremacy of the Assyrians. In no long time the borders of
their dominion extended, in the west to the Halys, and in the east over
the whole table-land of Iran; in union with Babylon they overthrew the
remnant of Assyria, and shared with that city the empire over Hither
Asia. What the Medes had begun, the Persians finished, when they had
taken the place of the Medes. One after another the ancient kingdoms of
Hither Asia fell before them--the Lydian empire, which had finally
united under its sway the tribes and cities of the western half of Asia
Minor, ancient Babylon, which had once more united the valley of the two
streams, the states of Syria, and the cities of the Phenicians, and at
length even primeval Egypt.

Arian life and Arian culture were now dominant through the whole breadth
of Asia, from the pearl-banks and coral-reefs of the Indian Ocean to
the Hellespont. At the time when the first Arian settlers were landing
far in the east on Tamraparni (Ceylon) the cities of the Hellenes on the
western coast of Anatolia and the strand of the Aegean were compelled to
bow before the arms of Cyrus. The world had never seen before such an
empire as that of Darius, the borders of which reached from the Libyans,
the plateau of Barca, the Nubians and negroes beyond Egypt, the tribes
of the Arabian desert to the summits of the Caucasus, the remote city of
Cyrus on the Jaxartes, and the gold-land of the Daradas in the lofty
Himalayas. And not contented with this range Darius aspired to extend
yet further the limits of his empire.

Beyond the Aegean Sea a branch of the Arian stock had developed an
independent civilization and civic life in small mountain cantons
surrounded by the sea. The eye of the potentate of Asia looked no doubt
with contempt on these unimportant communities, whose colonies in Asia
and Africa had long been subject to him; on states of which each could
put in the field no more than a few thousand warriors. The sea, which
separated the Persian kingdom from the cantons of the Greeks, had
already been crossed; the Persians had seen the mouths of the Danube;
the straits of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont were in the power of
Darius, the coasts of Thrace and the Greek states were subject to him;
he had already planted a firm foot at the mouths of the Hebrus and the
Strymon, and the prince of Macedonia paid him tribute. At his command
Phenicians and Persians had investigated the coasts of the Aegean Sea,
and of Hellas.

Was it possible that these small cantons, without political union or
common interests, living in perpetual strife and feud, excited and torn
by internal party contests in which there were almost as many views as
men, whose exiles made their way to the lofty gates of the Persian
monarch, whose princes were at pains to secure their dominions by
vassalage to the great king, and join in leagues with him against their
countrymen--was it possible that these cantons, in this position, would
maintain their independence against Persia, and resist the attack of
this universal empire,--the onset of Asia? Would the Greeks be bold
enough to venture on such a hopeless struggle, to oppose the Persians,
whose name was a terror to all their neighbours, and even to the
Hellenes? Few, Herodotus tells us, could even bear the sight of the
Persian cavalry, and Plato remarks that the minds of the Greeks were
already enslaved to the Persians.

It was a question of decisive importance for the civilization and
development of humanity; whether the new principle of communal
government, which had been carried out in the Hellenic cantons, should
be maintained, or pass into the vast limits of the Persian empire, and
succumb to the authority of the king: state power and civic life,
absolute authority and the will of the majority, abject obedience and
conscious self-control, the masses and the individual--these were ranged
opposite each other, and the balance was already turning in favour of
overwhelming material force.


FOOTNOTES:

[499] Plut. "Artax." c. 13; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 40; "Anab." 1, 5,
8; Strabo, p. 734.

[500] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 17.

[501] Aeschyl. "Pers." 543; Xenophon, "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 16.

[502] Herod. 1, 133; Heracleides of Cyme (Fragm. 2, ed. Müller) contests
the excess of the king at table as well as of the officers and generals.
Cf. Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 5, 2, 17; 8, 8, 10; Strabo, p. 733, 734.

[503] Herod. 1, 135.

[504] Herod. 7, 83, 187; 9, 76, 80, 81, 82; Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 4.

[505] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 8 ff.

[506] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 15; Heracl. Pont. ap. Athenaeum, p.
512.

[507] Plut. "Artax." 24, 25; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 5; "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 2;
Thuc. 2, 17.

[508] Diod. 17, 114. Cf. Curtius, 3, 3, 9.

[509] Plut. "Artax." 3.

[510] Vol. V. 32, 37. "Aban Yasht," 22, 25, 46, 50.



THE END.



BUNGAY: CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

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