HISTORY OF EGYPT
CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
By G. MASPERO,
Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws, and Fellow of
Queen’s College,
Oxford; Member of the Institute and Professor at
the College of France
Edited by A. H. SAYCE,
Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Translated by M. L. McCLURE,
Member of the Committee of the Egypt
Exploration Fund
CONTAINING OVER TWELVE HUNDRED COLORED PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Volume IX.
LONDON
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
PUBLISHERS
A Howling Dervish
THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
THE IRANIAN RELIGIONS—CYRUS IN LYDIA AND AT BABYLON; CAMBYSES IN
EGYPT—DARIUS AND THE ORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE.
The constitution of the Median empire borrowed from the ancient peoples
of the Euphrates: its religion only is peculiar to itself—Legends
concerning Zoroaster, his laws; the Avesta and its history—Elements
contained in it of primitive religion—The supreme god Ahura-mazâ and
his Amêsha-spentas: the Yazatas, the Fravashis—Angrô-mainyus and his
agents, the Daîvas, the Pairîkas, their struggle with Ahura-mazdâ—The
duties of man here below, funerals, his fate after death—-Worship
and temples: fire-altars, sacrifices, the Magi.
Cyrus and the legends concerning his origin: his revolt against
Astyages and the fall of the Median empire—The early years of the
reign of Nabonidus: revolutions in Tyre, the taking of Harrân—The
end of the reign of Alyattes, Lydian art and its earliest coinage—Croesus,
his relations with continental Greece, his conquests, his alliances with
Babylon and Egypt—The war between Lydia and Persia: the defeat of
the Lydians, the taking of Sardes, the death of Croesus and subsequent
legends relating to it—The submission of the cities of the Asiatic
littoral.
Cyrus in Bactriana and in the eastern regions of the Iranian table-land
—The impression produced on the Chaldæan by his victories; the
Jewish exiles, Ezekiel and his dreams of restoration, the new temple, the
prophecies against Babylon; general discontent with Nabonidus—The
attach of Cyrus and the battle of Zalzallat, the taking of Babylon and the
fall of Nabonidus: the end of the Chaldæan empire and the deliverance of
the Jews.
Egypt under Amasis: building works, support given to the Greeks;
Naukratis, its temples, its constitution, and its prosperity—Preparations
for defence and the unpopularity of Amasis with the native Egyptians—The
death of Cyrus and legends relating to it: his palace at Pasargadæ and his
tomb—Cambyses and Smerdis—The legendary causes of the war with
Egypt—Psammetichus III., the battle of Pelusium; Egypt reduced to a
Persian province.
Cambyses’ plans for conquest; the abortive expeditions to the oceans of
Amnion and Carthage—The kingdom of Ethiopia, its kings, its customs:
the Persians fail to reach Napata, the madness of Cambyses—The fraud
of Gaumâta, the death of Cambyses and the reign of the pseudo-Smerdis, the
accession of Darius—The revolution in Susiana, Chaldæa, and Media:
Nebuchadrezzar III. and the fall of Babylon, the death of Orætes, the
defeat of Khshatrita, restoration of peace throughout Asia, Egyptian
affairs and the re-establishment of the royal power.
The organisation of the country and its division into satrapies: the
satrap, the military commander, the royal secretary; couriers, main roads,
the Eyes and Ears of the king—The financial system and the
provincial taxes: the daric—Advantages and drawbacks of the system
of division into satrapies; the royal guard and the military organisation
of the empire—The conquest of the Hapta-Hindu and the prospect of
war with Greece.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
CHAPTER II—THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD
EASTERN WORLDList of Illustrations
012.jpg the Ahura-mazd of The Bas-reliefs Of
Persepolis012b.jpg Hypostyle of Hall Of Xerxes: Detail
Of Entablature013.jpg an Iranian Genius in Form of a Winged
Bull014.jpg Ahura-mazd Bestowing the Tokens of
Royalty on An Iranian King022.jpg One of the Bad Genii, Subject to
AngrÔ-mainyus023.jpg the King Struggling Against an Evil
Genius031.jpg the Two Iranian Altakrat
Nakhsh-Î-rustem032.jpg the Two Iranian Altars of Murgab
032b.jpg the Occupations of Ani in The
Elysian Fields033.jpg the Sacred Fire Burning on The Altar
039.jpg a Royal Hunting-party in Hun
042.jpg Remains of the Palace Of Ecbatana
050.jpg the Tumulus of Alyattes and The
Entrance to The Passage051.jpg One of the Lydian Ornaments in The
Louvre052.jpg Mould for Jewellery of Lydian Origin
054a.jpg Lydian Coin Bearing a Running Fox
054b.jpg Lydian Coin With a Hare
055.jpg Lydian Coins With a Lion and Lion’s
Head056a.jpg Coin Bearing Head of Mouflon Goat
059.jpg View of the Site and Ruins Of Ephesus
078.jpg a Persian King Fighting With Greeks
080.jpg the Present Site of Miletus
083.jpg a Lycian City Upon Its Inaccessible
Rock105.jpg Table of the Last Kings Of Ptolemy
111.jpg an Osiris Stretched Full Length on
the Ground113.jpg Amasis in Adoration Before the Bull
Apis114.jpg the Naos of Amasis at Thmuis
120.jpg the Present Site of Naucratis
145.jpg the Naophoros Statuette of The
Vatican148.jpg Encampment de Bacharis
159.jpg Darius, Son of Hystaspes
166.jpg Darius Piercing a Rebel With his
Lance Before A Group of Four Prisoners174.jpg Rebels Brought to Darius by
Ahura-mazd This Is The Scene Depicted on the Rock of Behistun.181.jpg Map of the Archaemenian Strapies
186.jpg Street Vender of Curios After the
Painting By Gerome.188.jpg Daric of Darius, Son Of Hystaspes
212a.jpg Alexander I. Of Macedon
215.jpg the Battle-field of Marathon
219.jpg Darius on the Stele of The Isthmus
220.jpg Walls of the Fortress Of
Ditsh-el-qalÂa221.jpg the Great Temple of Darius at HabÎt
239.jpg the Battle-field of Plataea
258.jpg View of the Achaemenian Ruins Of
Istakhr261.jpg the Hill of The Royal Achaemenian
Tombs At Nakush-i-rustem262.jpg One of the Capitals from Susa
262b.jpg Freize of Archers at Suza
263.jpg General Ruins of Persipolis
267.jpg the Propylaea of Xerxes I. At
Persepolis268.jpg Bas-relief of the Staircase Leading
to The Apadana of Xerxes269.jpg the King on his Throne
270.jpg a View of the Apadana Of Susa,
Restored273.jpg Processional Display of Tribute
Brought to The King of Persia305.jpg Evagoras II. Of Salamis
312.jpg Table of the Last Egyptian Dynasties
313.jpg Small Temple of Nectanebo, at the
Southern Extremity of Philae314.jpg Naos of Nectanebo in the Temple at
Edfu315.jpg Great Gate of Nectanebo at Karnak
316.jpg Fragment of a Naos Of the Time Of
Nectanebo II. In the Bologna Museum317.jpg One of the Lions in The Vatican
321.jpg Map of the Persian Empire
325.jpg Coins of the Satraps With Aramaean
Inscriptions327a.jpg Coin of a Lycian King
328.jpg Lycian Sarcophagus Decorated With
Greek Carvings337.jpg Chaldean Seal With Aramaic
Inscription346.jpg Fountain and School of the Mother Of
Little Mohamad348.jpg Modern Mohammedan Shekhs Tombs
349.jpg Part of the Inundation in a Palm
Grove350.jpg Ephemeral Hovels of Clay Or Dried
Bricks359.jpg the Step Pyramid Seen from The Grove
Op Palm Trees to the North of Saqqarah362a.jpg Long Strings of Laden Vessels
362b.jpg the Vast Sheet of Water in The
Midday Heat363.jpg the Mountains Honeycombed With Tombs
And Quarries368.jpg an Elephant Armed for War
376.jpg the Battlefield of Issus
377.jpg a Bas-relief on A Sidonian
Sarcophagus
CHAPTER I—THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
The Iranian religions—Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in
Egypt —Darius and the organisation of the empire.
The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a
time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this
is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: the Chaldæan
empire of Nebuchadrezzar lasted for a period quite as brief, and yet the
main outlines of its history can be established with some certainty in
spite of large blanks and much obscurity. Whereas at Babylon, moreover,
original documents abound, enabling us to put together, feature by
feature, the picture of its ancient civilisation and of the chronology of
its kings, we possess no contemporary monuments of Ecbatana to furnish
direct information as to its history. To form any idea of the Median kings
or their people, we are reduced to haphazard notices gleaned from the
chroniclers of other lands, retailing a few isolated facts, anecdotes,
legends, and conjectures, and, as these materials reach us through the
medium of the Babylonians or the Greeks of the fifth or sixth century
B.C., the picture which we endeavour to compose from them is always
imperfect or out of perspective. We seemingly catch glimpses of
ostentatious luxury, of a political and military organisation, and a
method of government analogous to that which prevailed at later periods
among the Persians, but more imperfect, ruder, and nearer to barbarism—a
Persia, in fact, in the rudimentary stage, with its ruling spirit and
essential characteristics as yet undeveloped. The machinery of state had
doubtless been adopted almost in its entirety from the political
organisations which obtained in the kingdoms of Assyria, Elam, and
Chaldæa, with which sovereignties the founders of the Median empire had
held in turns relations as vassals, enemies, and allies; but once we
penetrate this veneer of Mesopotamian civilisation and reach the inner
life of the people, we find in the religion they profess—mingled
with some borrowed traits—a world of unfamiliar myths and dogmas of
native origin.
The main outlines of this religion were already fixed when the Medes rose
in rebellion against Assur-bani-pal; and the very name of Confessor—Fravartîsh—applied
to the chief of that day, proves that it was the faith of the royal
family. It was a religion common to all the Iranians, the Persians as well
as the Medes, and legend honoured as its first lawgiver and expounder an
ancient prophet named Zarathustra, known to us as Zoroaster.* Most
classical writers relegated Zoroaster to some remote age of antiquity—thus
he is variously said to have lived six thousand years before the death of
Plato,** five thousand before the Trojan war,*** one thousand before
Moses, and six hundred before Xerxes’ campaign against Athens; while some
few only affirmed that he had lived at a comparatively recent period, and
made him out a disciple of the philosopher Pythagoras, who flourished
about the middle of the fifth century B.C.
According to the most ancient national traditions, he was born in the
Aryanem-vaêjô, or, in other words, in the region between the Araxes and
the Kur, to the west of the Caspian Sea. Later tradition asserted that his
conception was attended by supernatural circumstances, and the miracles
which accompanied his birth announced the advent of a saint destined to
regenerate the world by the revelation of the True Law. In the belief of
an Iranian, every man, every living creature now existing or henceforth to
exist, not excluding the gods themselves, possesses a Frôhar, or guardian
spirit, who is assigned to him at his entrance into the world, and who is
thenceforth devoted entirely to watching over his material and moral
well-being,* About the time appointed for the appearance of the prophet,
his Frôhar was, by divine grace, imprisoned in the heart of a Haoma,** and
was absorbed, along with the juice of the plant, by the priest
Purushâspa,*** during a sacrifice, a ray of heavenly glory descending at
the same time into the bosom of a maiden of noble race, named Dughdôva,
whom Purushâspa shortly afterwards espoused.
Zoroaster was engendered from the mingling of the Frôhar with the
celestial ray. The evil spirit, whose supremacy he threatened, endeavoured
to destroy him as soon as he saw the light, and despatched one of his
agents, named Bôuiti, from the country of the far north to oppose him; but
the infant prophet immediately pronounced the formula with which the psalm
for the offering of the waters opens: “The will of the Lord is the rule of
good!” and proceeded to pour libations in honour of the river Darêja, on
the banks of which he had been born a moment before, reciting at the same
time the “profession of faith which puts evil spirits to flight.” Bôuiti
fled aghast, but his master set to work upon some fresh device. Zoroaster
allowed him, however, no time to complete his plans: he rose up, and
undismayed by the malicious riddles propounded to him by his adversary,
advanced against him with his hands full of stones—stones as large
as a house—with which the good deity supplied him. The mere sight of
him dispersed the demons, and they regained the gates of their hell in
headlong flight, shrieking out, “How shall we succeed in destroying him?
For he is the weapon which strikes down evil beings; he is the scourge of
evil beings.” His infancy and youth were spent in constant disputation
with evil spirits: ever assailed, he ever came out victorious, and issued
more perfect from each attack. When he was thirty years old, one of the
good spirits, Vôhumanô, appeared to him, and conducted him into the
presence of Ahura-mazdâ, the Supreme Being. When invited to question the
deity, Zoroaster asked, “Which is the best of the creatures which are upon
the earth?” The answer was, that the man whose heart is pure, he excels
among his fellows. He next desired to know the names and functions of the
angels, and the nature and attributes of evil. His instruction ended, he
crossed a mountain of flames, and underwent a terrible ordeal of
purification, during which his breast was pierced with a sword, and melted
lead poured into his entrails without his suffering any pain: only after
this ordeal did he receive from the hands of Ahura-mazdâ the Book of the
Law, the Avesta, was then sent back to his native land bearing his
precious burden. At that time, Vîshtâspa, son of Aurvatâspa, was reigning
over Bactria. For ten years Zoroaster had only one disciple, his cousin
Maidhyoi-Mâonha, but after that he succeeded in converting, one after the
other, the two sons of Hvôgva, the grand vizir Jâmâspa, who afterwards
married the prophet’s daughter, and Frashaoshtra, whose daughter Hvôgvi he
himself espoused; the queen, Hutaosa, was the next convert, and
afterwards, through her persuasions, the king Vîshtâspa himself became a
disciple. The triumph of the good cause was hastened by the result of a
formal disputation between the prophet and the wise men of the court: for
three days they essayed to bewilder him with their captious objections and
their magic arts, thirty standing on his right hand and thirty on his
left, but he baffled their wiles, aided by grace from above, and having
forced them to avow themselves at the end of their resources, he completed
his victory by reciting the Avesta before them. The legend adds, that
after rallying the majority of the people round him, he lived to a good
old age, honoured of all men for his saintly life. According to some
accounts, he was stricken dead by lightning,* while others say he was
killed by a Turanian soldier, Brâtrôk-rêsh, in a war against the Hyaonas.
The question has often been asked whether Zoroaster belongs to the domain
of legend or of history. The only certain thing we know concerning him is
his name; all the rest is mythical, poetic, or religious fiction.
Classical writers attributed to him the composition or editing of all the
writings comprised in Persian literature: the whole consisted, they said,
of two hundred thousand verses which had been expounded and analysed by
Hermippus in his commentaries on the secret doctrines of the Magi. The
Iranians themselves averred that he had given the world twenty-one volumes—the
twenty-one Nasks of the Avesta,* which the Supreme Deity had
created from the twenty-one words of the Magian profession of faith, the
Ahuna Vairya. King Vîshtâspa is said to have caused two authentic
copies of the Avesta—which contained in all ten or twelve hundred
chapters**—to be made, one of which was consigned to the archives of
the empire, the other laid up in the treasury of a fortress, either
Shapîgân, Shîzîgân, Samarcand, or Persepolis.***
Alexander is said to have burnt the former copy: the latter, stolen by the
Greeks, is reported to have been translated into their language and to
have furnished them with all their scientific knowledge. One of the
Arsacids, Vologesus I., caused a search to be made for all the fragments
which existed either in writing or in the memory of the faithful,* and
this collection, added to in the reign of the Sassanid king, Ardashîr
Bâbagan, by the high priest Tansar, and fixed in its present form under
Sapor I., was recognised as the religious code of the empire in the time
of Sapor II., about the fourth century of the Christian era.*** The text
is composed, as may be seen, of three distinct strata, which are by no
means equally ancient;*** one can, nevertheless, make out from it with
sufficient certainty the principal features of the religion and cult of
Iran, such as they were under the Achæmenids, and perhaps even under the
hegemony of the Medes.
It is a complicated system of religion, and presupposes a long period of
development. The doctrines are subtle; the ceremonial order of worship,
loaded with strict observances, is interrupted at every moment by laws
prescribing minute details of ritual,* which were only put in practice by
priests and strict devotees, and were unknown to the mass of the faithful.
The primitive, base of this religion is difficult to discern clearly: but
we may recognise in it most of those beings or personifications of natural
phenomena which were the chief objects of worship among all the ancient
nations of Western Asia—the stars, Sirius, the moon, the sun, water
and fire, plants, animals beneficial to mankind, such as the cow and the
dog, good and evil spirits everywhere present, and beneficent or
malevolent souls of mortal men, but all systematised, graduated, and
reduced to sacerdotal principles, according to the prescriptions of a
powerful priesthood. Families consecrated to the service of the altar had
ended, as among the Hebrews, by separating themselves from the rest of the
nation and forming a special tribe, that of the Magi, which was the last
to enter into the composition of the nation in historic times. All the
Magi were not necessarily devoted to the service of religion, but all who
did so devote themselves sprang from the Magian tribe; the Avesta, in its
oldest form, was the sacred book of the Magi, as well as that of the
priests who handed down their religious tradition under the various
dynasties, native or foreign, who bore rule over Iran.
The Creator was described as “the whole circle of the heavens,” “the most
steadfast among the gods,” for “he clothes himself with the solid vault of
the firmament as his raiment,” “the most beautiful, the most intelligent,
he whose members are most harmoniously proportioned; his body was the
light and the sovereign glory, the sun and the moon were his eyes.” The
theologians had gradually spiritualised the conception of this deity
without absolutely disconnecting him from the material universe.
He remained under ordinary circumstances invisible to mortal eyes, and he
could conceal his identity even from the highest gods, but he occasionally
manifested himself in human form. He borrowed in such case from Assyria
the symbol of Assur, and the sculptors depict him with the upper part of
his body rising above that winged disk which is carved in a hovering
attitude on the pediments of Assyrian monuments or stelæ.
In later days he was portrayed under the form of a king of imposing
stature and majestic mien, who revealed himself from time to time to the
princes of Iran.*
He was named Ahurô-mazdâo or Ahura-mazdâ, the omniscient lord,* Spento-mainyus,
the spirit of good, Mainyus-spenishtô** the most beneficent of
spirits.
Himself uncreated, he is the creator of all things, but he is assisted in
the administration of the universe by legions of beings, who are all
subject to him.*
The most powerful among his ministers were originally nature-gods, such as
the sun, the moon, the earth, the winds, and the waters. The sunny plains
of Persia and Media afforded abundant witnesses of their power, as did the
snow-clad peaks, the deep gorges through which rushed roaring torrents,
and the mountain ranges of Ararat or Taurus, where the force of the
subterranean fires was manifested by so many startling exhibitions of
spontaneous conflagration.* The same spiritualising tendency which had
already considerably modified the essential concept of Ahura-mazdâ,
affected also that of the inferior deities, and tended to tone down in
them the grosser traits of their character. It had already placed at their
head six genii of a superior order, six ever-active energies, who, after
assisting their master at the creation of the universe, now presided under
his guidance over the kingdoms and forces of nature.**
These benevolent and immortal beings—Amesha-spentas—were,
in the order of precedence, Vohu-manô (good thought), Asha-vahista
(perfect holiness), Khshathra-vairya (good government), Spenta-armaiti
(meek piety), Haurvatât (health), Ameretât (immortality). Each of them had
a special domain assigned to him in which to display his energy
untrammelled: Vohu-manô had charge of cattle, Asha-vahista of fire,
Khshathra-vairya of metals, Spenta-armaiti of the earth, Haurvatât and
Ameretât of vegetation and of water. They were represented in human form,
either masculine as Vohu-manô and Asha-vahista,* or feminine as
Spenta-armaiti, the daughter and spouse of Ahura-mazdâ, who became the
mother of the first man, Gayomaretan, and, through Gayomaretan, ancestress
of the whole human race.
Sometimes Ahura-mazdâ is himself included among the Amesha-spentas, thus
bringing their number up to seven; sometimes his place is taken by a
certain Sraôsha (obedience to the law), the first who offered sacrifice
and recited the prayers of the ritual. Subordinate to these great spirits
were the Yazatas, scattered by thousands over creation, presiding over the
machinery of nature and maintaining it in working order. Most of them
received no special names, but many exercised wide authority, and several
were accredited by the people with an influence not less than that of the
greater deities themselves. Such Were the regent of the stars—Tishtrya,
the bull with golden horns, Sirius, the sparkling one; Mâo, the moon-god;
the wind, Vâto; the atmosphere, Vayu, the strongest of the strong, the
warrior with golden armour, who gathers the storm and hurls it against the
demon; Atar, fire under its principal forms, divine fire, sacred fire, and
earthly fire; Vere-thraghna, the author of war and giver of victory;
Aurva-taspa, the son of the waters, the lightning born among the clouds;
and lastly, the spirit of the dawn, the watchful Mithra, “who, first of
the celestial Yazatas, soars above Mount Hara,* before the immortal sun
with his swift steeds, who, first in golden splendour, passes over the
beautiful mountains and casts his glance benign on the dwellings of the
Aryans.” **
Mithra was a charming youth of beautiful countenance, his head surrounded
with a radiant halo. The nymph Anâhita was adored under the form of one of
the incarnations of the Babylonian goddess Mylitta, a youthful and slender
female, with well-developed breasts and broad hips, sometimes represented
clothed in furs and sometimes nude.* Like the foreign goddess to whom she
was assimilated, she was the dispenser of fertility and of love; the
heroes of antiquity, and even Ahura-mazdâ himself, had vied with one
another in their worship of her, and she had lavished her favours freely
on all.**
The less important Yazatas were hardly to be distinguished from the
innumerable multitude of Fravashis. The Fravasliis are the divine types of
all intelligent beings. They were originally brought into being by
Ahura-mazdâ as a distinct species from the human, but they had allowed
themselves to be entangled in matter, and to be fettered in the bodies of
men, in order to hasten the final destruction of the demons and the advent
of the reign of good.*
Once incarnate, a Fravasliis devotes himself to the well-being of the
mortal with whom he is associated; and when once more released from the
flesh, he continues the struggle against evil with an energy whose
efficacy is proportionate to the virtue and purity displayed in life by
the mortal to whom he has been temporarily joined. The last six days of
the year are dedicated to the Fravashis. They leave their heavenly abodes
at this time to visit the spots which were their earthly dwelling-places,
and they wander through the villages inquiring, “Who wishes to hire us?
Who will offer us a sacrifice? Who will make us their own, welcome us, and
receive us with plenteous offerings of food and raiment, with a prayer
which bestows sanctity on him who offers it?” And if they find a man to
hearken to their request, they bless him: “May his house be blessed with
herds of oxen and troops of men, a swift horse and a strongly built
chariot, a man who knoweth how to pray to God, a chieftain in the council
who may ever offer us sacrifices with a hand filled with food and raiment,
with a prayer which bestows sanctity on him who offers it!” Ahura-mazdâ
created the universe, not by the work of his hands, but by the magic of
his word, and he desired to create it entirely free from defects. His
creation, however, can only exist by the free play and equilibrium of
opposing forces, to which he gives activity: the incompatibility of
tendency displayed by these forces, and their alternations of growth and
decay, inspired the Iranians with the idea that they were the result of
two contradictory principles, the one beneficent and good, the other
adverse to everything emanating from the former.*
In opposition to the god of light, they necessarily formed the idea of a
god of darkness, the god of the underworld, who presides over death,
Angrô-mainyus. The two opposing principles reigned at first, each in his
own domain, as rivals, but not as irreconcilable adversaries: they were
considered as in fixed opposition to each other, and as having coexisted
for ages without coming into actual conflict, separated as they were by
the intervening void. As long as the principle of good was content to
remain shut up inactive in his barren glory, the principle of evil
slumbered unconscious in a darkness that knew no beginning; but when at
last “the spirit who giveth increase”—Spentô-mainyus—determined
to manifest himself, the first throes of his vivifying activity roused
from inertia the spirit of destruction and of pain, Angrô-mainyus. The
heaven was not yet in existence, nor the waters, nor the earth, nor ox,
nor fire, nor man, nor demons, nor brute beasts, nor any living thing,
when the evil spirit hurled himself upon the light to quench it for ever,
but Ahura-mazdâ had already called forth the ministers of his will—Amêsha-spentas,
Yazatas, Fravashis—and he recited the prayer of twenty-one words in
which all the elements of morality are summed up, the Ahuna-vairya: “The
will of the Lord is the rule of good. Let the gifts of Vohu-manô be
bestowed on the works accomplished, at this moment, for Mazda. He makes
Ahura to reign, he who protects the poor.” The effect of this prayer was
irresistible: “When Ahura had pronounced the first part of the formula,
Zânak Mînoî, the spirit of destruction, bowed himself with terror; at the
second part he fell upon his knees; and at the third and last he felt
himself powerless to hurt the creatures of Ahura-mazdâ.” *
The strife, kindled at the beginning of time between the two gods, has
gone on ever since with alternations of success and defeat; each in turn
has the victory for a regular period of three thousand years; but when
these periods are ended, at the expiration of twelve thousand years, evil
will be finally and for ever defeated. While awaiting this blessed fulness
of time, as Spentô-mainyus shows himself in all that is good and
beautiful, in light, virtue, and justice, so Angrô-mainyus is to be
perceived in all that is hateful and ugly, in darkness, sin, and crime.
Against the six Amesha-spentas he sets in array six spirits of equal power—Akem-manô,
evil thought; Andra, the devouring fire, who introduces discontent and sin
wherever he penetrates; Sauru, the flaming arrow of death, who inspires
bloodthirsty tyrants, who incites men to theft and murder; Nâongaithya,
arrogance and pride; Tauru, thirst; and Zairi, hunger.*
To the Yazatas he opposed the Daêvas, who never cease to torment mankind,
and so through all the ranks of nature he set over against each good and
useful creation a counter-creation of rival tendency. “‘Like a fly he
crept into’ and infected ‘the whole universe.’ He rendered the world as
dark at full noonday as in the darkest night. He covered the soil with
vermin, with his creatures of venomous bite and poisonous sting, with
serpents, scorpions, and frogs, so that there was not a space as small as
a needle’s point but swarmed with his vermin. He smote vegetation, and of
a sudden the plants withered…. He attacked the flames, and mingled them
with smoke and dimness. The planets, with their thousands of demons,
dashed against the vault of heaven and waged war on the stars, and the
universe became darkened like a space which the fire blackens with its
smoke.” And the conflict grew ever keener over the world and over man, of
whom the evil one was jealous, and whom he sought to humiliate.
The children of Angrô-mainyus disguised themselves under those monstrous
forms in which the imagination of the Chaldæans had clothed the allies of
Mummu-Tiamât, such as lions with bulls’ heads, and the wings and claws of
eagles, which the Achæmenian king combats on behalf of his subjects,
boldly thrusting them through with his short sword. Aêshma of the
blood-stained lance, terrible in wrath, is the most trusted leader of
these dread bands,* the chief of twenty other Daêvas of repulsive aspect—Astô-vîdhôtu,
the demon of death, who would devote to destruction the estimable
Fravashis;** Apaosha, the enemy of Tishtrya the wicked black horse, the
bringer of drought, who interferes with the distribution of the
fertilising waters; and Bûiti, who essayed to kill Zoroaster at his
birth.***
The female demons, the Bruges, the Incubi (Yâtus), the Succubi (Pairîka),
the Peris of our fairy tales, mingled familiarly with mankind before the
time of the prophet, and contracted with them fruitful alliances, but
Zoroaster broke up their ranks, and prohibited them from becoming
incarnate in any form but that of beasts; their hatred, however, is still
unquenched, and their power will only be effectually overthrown at the
consummation of time. It is a matter of uncertainty whether the Medes
already admitted the possibility of a fresh revelation, preparing the
latest generations of mankind for the advent of the reign of good. The
traditions enshrined in the sacred books of Iran announce the coming of
three prophets, sons of Zoroaster —Ukhshyatereta, Ukhshyatnemô, and
Saoshyant* —who shall bring about universal salvation.
Saoshyant, assisted by fifteen men and fifteen pure women, who have
already lived on earth, and are awaiting their final destiny in a magic
slumber, shall offer the final sacrifice, the virtue of which shall bring
about the resurrection of the dead. “The sovereign light shall accompany
him and his friends, when he shall revivify the world and ransom it from
old age and death, from corruption and decay, and shall render it
eternally living, eternally growing, and master of itself.” The fatal
conflict shall be protracted, but the champions of Saoshyant shall at
length obtain the victory. “Before them shall bow Aêshma of the
blood-stained lance and of ominous renown, and Saoshyant shall strike down
the she-demon of the unholy light, the daughter of darkness. Akem-manô
strikes, but Vohu-manô shall strike him in his turn; the lying word shall
strike, but the word of truth shall strike him in his turn; Haurvatât and
Ameretâfc shall strike down hunger and thirst; Haurvatât and Ameretât
shall strike down terrible hunger and terrible thirst.” Angrô-mainyus
himself shall be paralysed with terror, and shall be forced to confess the
supremacy of good: he shall withdraw into the depths of hell, whence he
shall never again issue forth, and all the reanimated beings devoted to
the Mazdean law shall live an eternity of peace and contentment.
Man, therefore, incessantly distracted between the two principles, laid
wait for by the Baêvas, defended by the Yazatas, must endeavour to act
according to law and justice in the condition in which fate has placed
him. He has been raised up here on earth to contribute as far as in him
lies to the increase of life and of good, and in proportion as he works
for this end or against it, is he the ashavan, the pure, the
faithful one on earth and the blessed one in heaven, or the anashavan,
the lawless miscreant who counteracts purity. The highest grade in the
hierarchy of men belongs of right to the Mage or the âthravan, to
the priest whose voice inspires the demons with fear, or the soldier whose
club despatches the impious, but a place of honour at their side is
assigned to the peasant, who reclaims from the power of Angrô-mainyus the
dry and sterile fields. Among the places where the earth thrives most
joyously is reckoned that “where a worshipper of Ahura-mazdâ builds a
house, with a chaplain, with cattle, with a wife, with sons, with a fair
flock; where man grows the most corn, herbage, and fruit trees; where he
spreads water on a soil without water, and drains off water where there is
too much of it.” He who sows corn, sows good, and promotes the Mazdean
faith; “he nourishes the Mazdean religion as fifty men would do rocking a
child in the cradle, five hundred women giving it suck from their
breasts.* When the corn was created the Daêvas leaped, when it sprouted
the Daêvas lost courage, when the stem set the Daêvas wept, when the ear
swelled the Daêvas fled. In the house where corn is mouldering the Daêvas
lodge, but when the corn sprouts, one might say that a hot iron is being
turned round in their mouths.” And the reason of their horror is easily
divined: “Whoso eats not, has no power either to accomplish a valiant work
of religion, or to labour with valour, or yet to beget children valiantly;
it is by eating that the universe lives, and it dies from not eating.” The
faithful follower of Zoroaster owes no obligation towards the impious man
or towards a stranger,** but is ever bound to render help to his
coreligionist.
He will give a garment to the naked, and by so doing will wound Zemaka,
the demon of winter. He will never refuse food to the hungry labourer,
under pain of eternal torments, and his charity will extend even to the
brute beasts, provided that they belong to the species created by
Ahura-mazdâ: he has duties towards them, and their complaints, heard in
heaven, shall be fatal to him later on if he has provoked them.
Asha-vahista will condemn to hell the cruel man who has ill-treated the
ox, or allowed his flocks to suffer; and the killing of a hedgehog is no
less severely punished—for does not a hedgehog devour the ants who
steal the grain? The dog is in every case an especially sacred animal—the
shepherd’s dog, the watchdog, the hunting-dog, even the prowling dog. It
is not lawful to give any dog a blow which renders him impotent, or to
slit his ears, or to cut his foot, without incurring grave
responsibilities in this world and in the next; it is necessary to feed
the dog well, and not to throw bones to him which are too hard, nor have
his food served hot enough to burn his tongue or his throat. For the rest,
the faithful Zoroastrian was bound to believe in his god, to offer to him
the orthodox prayers and sacrifices, to be simple in heart, truthful, the
slave of his pledged word, loyal in his very smallest acts. If he had once
departed from the right way, he could only return to it by repentance and
by purification, accompanied by pious deeds: to exterminate noxious
animals, the creatures of Angrô-mainyus and the abode of his demons, such
as the frog, the scorpion, the serpent or the ant, to clear the sterile
tracts, to restore impoverished land, to construct bridges over running
water, to distribute implements of husbandry to pions men, or to build
them a house, to give a pure and healthy maiden in marriage to a just man,—these
were so many means of expiation appointed by the prophet.* Marriage was
strictly obligatory,** and seemed more praiseworthy in proportion as the
kinship existing between the married pair was the closer: not only was the
sister united in marriage to her brother, as in Egypt, but the father to
his daughter, and the mother to her son, at least among the Magi.
Polygamy was also encouraged and widely practised: the code imposed no
limit on the number of wives and concubines, and custom was in favour of a
man’s having as many wives as his fortune permitted him to maintain. On
the occasion of a death, it was forbidden to burn the corpse, to bury it,
or to cast it into a river, as it would have polluted the fire, the earth,
or the water—an unpardonable offence. The corpse could be disposed
of in different ways. The Persians were accustomed to cover it with a
thick layer of wax, and then to bury it in the ground: the wax coating
obviated the pollution which direct contact would have brought upon the
soil. The Magi, and probably also strict devotees, following their
example, exposed the corpse in the open air, abandoning it to the birds or
beasts of prey. It was considered a great misfortune if these respected
the body, for it was an almost certain indication of the wrath of
Ahura-mazdâ, and it was thought that the defunct had led an evil life.
When the bones had been sufficiently stripped of flesh, they were
collected together, and deposited either in an earthenware urn or in a
stone ossuary with a cover, or in a monumental tomb either hollowed out in
the heart of the mountain or in the living rock, or raised up above the
level of the ground. Meanwhile the soul remained in the neighbourhood for
three days, hovering near the head of the corpse, and by the recitation of
prayers it experienced, according to its condition of purity or impurity,
as much of joy or sadness as the whole world experiences. When the third
night was past, the just soul set forth across luminous plains, refreshed
by a perfumed breeze, and its good thoughts and words and deeds took shape
before it “under the guise of a young maiden, radiant and strong, with
well-developed bust, noble mien, and glorious face, about fifteen years of
age, and as beautiful as the most beautiful;” the unrighteous soul, on the
contrary, directed its course towards the north, through a tainted land,
amid the squalls of a pestilential hurricane, and there encountered its
past ill deeds, under the form of an ugly and wicked young woman, the
ugliest and most wicked it had ever seen. The genius Rashnu Razishta, the
essentially truthful, weighed its virtues or vices in an unerring balance,
and acquitted or Condemned it on the impartial testimony of its past life.
On issuing from the judgment-hall, the soul arrived at the approach to the
bridge Cinvaut, which, thrown across the abyss of hell, led to paradise.
The soul, if impious, was unable to cross this bridge, but was hurled down
into the abyss, where it became the slave of Angrô-mainyus. If pure, it
crossed the bridge without difficulty by the help of the angel Sraôsha,
and was welcomed by Vohu-manô, who conducted it before the throne of
Ahura-mazdâ, in the same way as he had led Zoroaster, and assigned to it
the post which it should occupy until the day of the resurrection of the
body.*
The religious observances enjoined on the members of the priestly caste
were innumerable and minute. Ahura-mazdâ and his colleagues had not, as
was the fashion among the Assyrians and Egyptians, either temples or
tabernacles, and though they were represented sometimes under human or
animal forms, and even in some cases on bas-reliefs, yet no one ever
ventured to set up in their sanctuaries those so-called animated or
prophetic statues to which the majority of the nations had rendered or
were rendering their solicitous homage. Altars, however, were erected on
the tops of hills, in palaces, or in the centre of cities, on which fires
were kindled in honour of the inferior deities or of the supreme god
himself.
Two altars were usually set up together, and they are thus found here and
there among the ruins, as at Nakhsh-î-Kustem, the necropolis of
Persepolis, where a pair of such altars exist; these are cut, each out of
a single block, in a rocky mass which rises some thirteen feet above the
level of the surrounding plain. They are of cubic form and squat
appearance, looking like towers flanked at the four corners by supporting
columns which are connected by circular arches; above a narrow moulding
rises a crest of somewhat triangular projections; the hearth is hollowed
out on the summit of each altar.*
At Meshed-î-Murgâb, on the site of the ancient Pasargadas, the altars have
disappeared, but the basements on which they were erected are still
visible, as also the flight of eight steps by which they were approached.
Those altars on which burned, a perpetual fire were not left exposed to
the open air: they would have run too great a risk of contracting
impurities, such as dust borne by the wind, flights of birds, dew, rain,
or snow. They were enclosed in slight structures, well protected by walls,
and attaining in some cases considerable dimensions, or in pavilion-shaped
edifices of stone adorned with columns.
The sacrificial rites were of long duration, and frequent, and were
rendered very complex by interminable manual acts, ceremonial gestures,
and incantations.
In cases where the altar was not devoted to maintaining a perpetual fire,
it was kindled when necessary with small twigs previously barked and
purified, and was subsequently fed with precious woods, preferably cypress
or laurel;* care was taken not to quicken the flame by blowing, for the
human breath would have desecrated the fire by merely passing over it;
death was the punishment for any one who voluntarily committed such a
heinous sacrilege. The recognised offering consisted of flowers, bread,
fruit, and perfumes, but these were often accompanied, as in all ancient
religions, by a bloody sacrifice; the sacrifice of a horse was considered
the most efficacious, but an ox, a cow, a sheep, a camel, an ass, or a
stag was frequently offered: in certain circumstances, especially when it
was desired to conciliate the favour of the god of the underworld, a human
victim, probably as a survival of very ancient rites was preferred.**
The king, whose royal position made him the representative of Ahura-mazdâ
on earth, was, in fact, a high priest, and was himself able to officiate
at the altar, but no one else could dispense with the mediation of the
Magi. The worshippers proceeded in solemn procession to the spot where the
ceremony was to take place, and there the priest, wearing the tiara on his
head, recited an invocation in a slow and mysterious voice, and implored
the blessings of heaven on the king and nation. He then slaughtered the
victim by a blow on the head, and divided it into portions, which he gave
back to the offerer without reserving any of them, for Ahura-mazdâ
required nothing but the soul; in certain cases, the victim was entirely
consumed by fire, but more frequently nothing but a little of the fat and
some of the entrails were taken to feed and maintain the flame, and
sometimes even this was omitted.* Sacrifices were of frequent occurrence.
Without mentioning the extraordinary occasions on which a king would have
a thousand bulls slain at one time,** the Achæmenian kings killed each day
a thousand bullocks, asses, and stags: sacrifice under such circumstances
was another name for butchery, the object of which was to furnish the
court with a sufficient supply of pure meat. The ceremonial bore
resemblance in many ways to that still employed by the modern Zoroastrians
of Persia and India.
The officiating priest covered his mouth with the bands which fell from
his mitre, to prevent the god from being polluted by his breath; he held
in his hand the baresman, or sacred bunch of tamarisk, and prepared the
mysterious liquor from the haoma plant.* He was accustomed each morning to
celebrate divine service before the sacred fire, not to speak of the
periodic festivals in which he shared the offices with all the members of
his tribe, such as the feast of Mithra, the feast of the Fravashis,** the
feast commemorating the rout of Angrô-mainyus,*** the feast of the Saksea,
during which the slaves were masters of the house.****
All the Magi were not necessarily devoted to the priesthood; but those
only became apt in the execution of their functions who had been dedicated
to them from infancy, and who, having received the necessary instruction,
were duly consecrated. These adepts were divided into several classes, of
which three at least were never confounded in their functions—the
sorcerers, the interpreters of dreams, and the most venerated sages—and
from these three classes were chosen the ruling body of the order and its
supreme head. Their rule of life was strict and austere, and was
encumbered with a thousand observances indispensable to the preservation
of perfect purity in their persons, their altars, their victims, and their
sacrificial vessels and implements. The Magi of highest rank abstained
from every form of living thing as food, and the rest only partook of meat
under certain restrictions. Their dress was unpretentious, they wore no
jewels, and observed strict fidelity to the marriage vow;* and the virtues
with which they were accredited obtained for them, from very early times,
unbounded influence over the minds of the common people as well as over
those of the nobles: the king himself boasted of being their pupil, and
took no serious step in state affairs without consulting Ahura-mazdâ or
the other gods by their mediation. The classical writers maintain that the
Magi often cloaked monstrous vices under their apparent strictness, and it
is possible that this was the case in later days, but even then moral
depravity was probably rather the exception than the rule among them:***
the majority of the Magi faithfully observed the rules of honest living
and ceremonial purity enjoined on them in the books handed down by their
ancestors.
There is reason to believe that the Magi were all-powerful among the
Medes, and that the reign of Astyages was virtually the reign of the
priestly caste; but all the Iranian states did not submit so patiently to
their authority, and the Persians at last proved openly refractory. Their
kings, lords of Susa as well as of Pasargadse, wielded all the resources
of Elam, and their military power must have equalled, if it did not
already surpass, that of their suzerain lords. Their tribes, less devoted
to the manner of living of the Assyrians and Chaldæans, had preserved a
vigour and power of endurance which the Medes no longer possessed; and
they needed but an ambitious and capable leader, to rise rapidly from the
rank of subjects to that of rulers of Iran, and to become in a short time
masters of Asia. Such a chief they found in Cyrus,* son of Cambyses; but
although no more illustrious name than his occurs in the list of the
founders of mighty empires, the history of no other has suffered more
disfigurement from the imagination of his own subjects or from the rancour
of the nations he had conquered.**
The Medes, who could not forgive him for having made them subject to their
ancient vassals, took delight in holding him up to scorn, and not being
able to deny the fact of his triumph, explained it by the adoption of
tortuous and despicable methods. They would not even allow that he was of
royal birth, but asserted that he was of ignoble origin, the son of a
female goatherd and a certain Atradates,* who, belonging to the savage
clan of the Mardians, lived by brigandage. Cyrus himself, according to
this account, spent his infancy and early youth in a condition not far
short of slavery, employed at first in sweeping out the exterior portions
of the palace, performing afterwards the same office in the private
apartments, subsequently promoted to the charge of the lamps and torches,
and finally admitted to the number of the royal cupbearers who filled the
king’s goblet at table.
When he was at length enrolled in the bodyguard,* he won distinction by
his skill in all military exercises, and having risen from rank to rank,
received command of an expedition against the Cadusians.
On the march he fell in with a Persian groom named OEbaras,* who had been
cruelly scourged for some misdeed, and was occupied in the transportation
of manure in a boat: in obedience to an oracle the two united their
fortunes, and together devised a vast scheme for liberating their
compatriots from the Median yoke.
How Atradates secretly prepared the revolt of the Mardians; how Cyrus left
his camp to return to the court at Ecbatana, and obtained from Astyages
permission to repair to his native country under pretext of offering
sacrifices, but in reality to place himself at the head of the
conspirators; how, finally, the indiscretion of a woman revealed the whole
plot to a eunuch of the harem, and how he warned Astyages in the middle of
his evening banquet by means of a musician or singing-girl, was frequently
narrated by the Median bards in their epic poems, and hence the story
spread until it reached in later times even as far as the Greeks.*
Astyages, roused to action by the danger, abandons the pleasures of the
chase in which his activity had hitherto found vent, sets out on the track
of the rebel, wins a preliminary victory on the Hyrba, and kills the
father of Cyrus: some days after, he again overtakes the rebels, at the
entrance to the defiles leading to Pasargadse, and for the second time
fortune is on the point of declaring in his favour, when the Persian
women, bringing back their husbands and sons to the conflict, urge them on
to victory. The fame of their triumph having spread abroad, the satraps
and provinces successfully declared for the conqueror; Hyrcania, first,
followed by the Parthians, the Sakae, and the Bactrians: Astyages was left
almost alone, save for a few faithful followers, in the palace at
Ecbatana. His daughter Amytis and his son-in-law Spitamas concealed him so
successfully on the top of the palace, that he escaped discovery up to the
moment when Cyrus was on the point of torturing his grandchildren to force
them to reveal his hiding-place: thereupon he gave himself up to his
enemies, but was at length, after being subjected to harsh treatment for a
time, set at liberty and entrusted with the government of a mountain tribe
dwelling to the south-east of the Caspian Sea, that of the Barcanians.
Later on he perished through the treachery of OEbaras, and his corpse was
left unburied in the desert, but by divine interposition relays of lions
were sent to guard it from the attacks of beasts of prey: Cyrus,
acquainted with this miraculous circumstance, went in search of the body
and gave it a magnificent burial.* Another legend asserted, on the
contrary, that Cyrus was closely connected with the royal line of
Cyaxares; this tradition was originally circulated among the great Median
families who attached themselves to the Achaemenian dynasty.**
According to this legend Astyages had no male heirs, and the sceptre would
have naturally descended from him to his daughter Mandanê and her sons.
Astyages was much alarmed by a certain dream concerning his daughter: he
dreamt that water gushed forth so copiously from her womb as to flood not
only Ecbatana, but the whole of Asia, and the interpreters, as much
terrified as himself, counselled him not to give Mandanê in marriage to a
Persian noble of the race of the Achæmenids, named Cambyses; but a second
dream soon troubled the security into which this union had lulled him: he
saw issuing from his daughter’s womb a vine whose branches overshadowed
Asia, and the interpreters, being once more consulted, predicted that a
grandson was about to be born to him whose ambition would cost him his
crown. He therefore bade a certain nobleman of his court, named Harpagus—he
whose descendants preserved this version of the story of Cyrus—to
seize the infant and put it to death as soon as its mother should give it
birth; but the man, touched with pity, caused the child to be exposed in
the woods by one of the royal shepherds. A bitch gave suck to the tiny
creature, who, however, would soon have succumbed to the inclemency of the
weather, had not the shepherd’s wife, being lately delivered of a
still-born son, persuaded her husband to rescue the infant, whom she
nursed with the same tenderness as if he had been her own child. The dog
was, as we know, a sacred animal among the Iranians: the incident of the
bitch seems, then, to have been regarded by them as an indication of
divine intervention, but the Greeks were shocked by the idea, and invented
an explanation consonant with their own customs. They supposed that the
woman had borne the name of Spakô: Spakô signifying bitch in the
language of Media.*
Cyrus grew to boyhood, and being accepted by Mandanê as her son, returned
to the court; his grandfather consented to spare his life, but, to avenge
himself on Harpagus, he caused the limbs of the nobleman’s own son to be
served up to him at a feast. Thenceforth Harpagus had but one idea, to
overthrow the tyrant and transfer the crown to the young prince: his
project succeeded, and Cyrus, having overcome Astyages, was proclaimed
king by the Medes as well as by the Persians. The real history of Cyrus,
as far as we can ascertain it, was less romantic. We gather that Kurush,
known to us as Cyrus, succeeded his father Cambyses as ruler of Anshân
about 559 or 558 B.C.,* and that he revolted against Astyages in 553 or
552 B.C.,** and defeated him. The Median army thereupon seizing its own
leader, delivered him into the hands of the conqueror: Ecbatana was taken
and sacked, and the empire fell at one blow, or, more properly speaking,
underwent a transformation (550 B.C.). The transformation was, in fact, an
internal revolution in which the two peoples of the same race changed
places. The name of the Medes lost nothing of the prestige which it
enjoyed in foreign lands, but that of the Persians was henceforth united
with it, and shared its renown: like Astyages and his predecessors, Cyrus
and his successors reigned equally over the two leading branches of the
ancient Iranian stock, but whereas the former had been kings of the Medes
and Persians, the latter became henceforth kings of the Persians and
Medes.***
The change effected was so natural that their nearest neighbours, the
Chaldæans, showed no signs of uneasiness at the outset. They confined
themselves to the bare registration of the fact in their annals at the
appointed date, without comment, and Nabonidus in no way deviated from the
pious routine which it had hitherto pleased him to follow. Under a
sovereign so good-natured there was little likelihood of war, at all
events with external foes, but insurrections were always breaking out in
different parts of his territory, and we read of difficulties in Khumê in
the first year of his reign, in Hamath in his second year, and troubles in
Plionicia in the third year, which afforded an opportunity for settling
the Tyrian question. Tyre had led a far from peaceful existence ever since
the day when, from sheer apathy, she had accepted the supremacy of
Nebuchadrezzar.*
Baal II. had peacefully reigned there for ten years (574-564), but after
his death the people had overthrown the monarchy, and various suffetes
had followed one another rapidly—Eknibaal ruled two months, Khelbes
ten months, the high priest Abbar three months, the two brothers Mutton
and Gerastratus six years, all of them no doubt in the midst of endless
disturbances; whereupon a certain Baalezor restored the royal dignity, but
only to enjoy it for the space of one year. On his death, the inhabitants
begged the Chaldæans to send them, as a successor to the crown, one of
those princes whom, according to custom, Baal had not long previously
given over as hostages for a guarantee of his loyalty, and Nergal-sharuzur
for this purpose selected from their number Mahar-baal, who was probably a
son of Ithobaal (558-557).* When, at the end of four years, the death of
Mahar-baal left the throne vacant (554-553), the Tyrians petitioned for
his brother Hirôm, and Nabonidus, who was then engaged in Syria, came
south as far as Phoenicia and installed the prince.**
This took place at the very moment when Cyrus was preparing his expedition
against Astyages; and the Babylonian monarch took advantage of the
agitation into which the Medes were thrown by this invasion, to carry into
execution a project which he had been planning ever since his accession.
Shortly after that event he had had a dream, in which Marduk, the great
lord, and Sin, the light of heaven and earth, had appeared on either side
of his couch, the former addressing him in the following words:
“Nabonidus, King of Babylon, with the horses of thy chariot bring brick,
rebuild E-khul-khul, the temple of Harrân, that Sin, the great lord, may
take up his abode therein.” Nabonidus had respectfully pointed out that
the town was in the hands of the Scythians, who were subjects of the
Medes, but the god had replied: “The Scythian of whom thou speakest, he,
his country and the kings his protectors, are no more.” Cyrus was the
instrument of the fulfilment of the prophecy. Nabonidus took possession of
Harrân without difficulty, and immediately put the necessary work in hand.
This was, indeed, the sole benefit that he derived from the changes which
were taking place, and it is probable that his inaction was the result of
the enfeebled condition of the empire. The country over which he ruled,
exhausted by the Assyrian conquest, and depopulated by the Scythian
invasions, had not had time to recover its forces since it had passed into
the hands of the Chaldæans; and the wars which Nebuchadrezzar had been
obliged to undertake for the purpose of strengthening his own power,
though few in number and not fraught with danger, had tended to prolong
the state of weakness into which it had sunk. If the hero of the dynasty
who had conquered Egypt had not ventured to measure his strength with the
Median princes, and if he had courted the friendship not only of the
warlike Cyaxares but of the effeminate Astyages, it would not be prudent
for Nabonidus to come into collision with the victorious new-comers from
the heart of Iran. Chaldsea doubtless was right in avoiding hostilities,
at all events so long as she had to bear the brunt of them alone, but
other nations had not the same motives for exercising prudence, and Lydia
was fully assured that the moment had come for her to again take up the
ambitious designs which the treaty of 585 had forced her to renounce.
Alyattes, relieved from anxiety with regard to the Medes, had confined his
energies to establishing firmly his kingdom in the regions of Asia Minor
extending westwards from the Halys and the Anti-Taurus. The acquisition of
Colophon, the destruction of Smyrna, the alliance with the towns of the
littoral, had ensured him undisputed possession of the valleys of the
Caicus and the Hermus, but the plains of the Maeander in the south, and
the mountainous districts of Mysia in the north, were not yet fully
brought under his sway. He completed the occupation of the Troad and Mysia
about 584, and afterwards made of the entire province an appanage for
Adramyttios, who was either his son or his brother.*
He even carried his arms into Bithynia, where, to enforce his rule, he
built several strongholds, one of which, called Alyatta, commanded the
main road leading from the basin of the Rhyndacus to that of the
Sangarius, skirting the spurs of Olympus.* He experienced some difficulty
in reducing Caria, and did not finally succeed in his efforts till nearly
the close of his reign in 566. Adramyttios was then dead, and his fief had
devolved on his eldest surviving brother or nephew, Crosus, whose mother
was by birth a Carian. This prince had incurred his father’s displeasure
by his prodigality, and an influential party desired that he should be set
aside in favour of his brother Pantaleon, the son of Alyattes by an
Ionian. Croesus, having sown his wild oats, was anxious to regain his
father’s favour, and his only chance of so doing was by distinguishing
himself in the coming war, if only money could be found for paying his
mercenaries. Sadyattes, the richest banker in Lydia, who had already had
dealings with all the members of the royal family, refused to make him a
loan, but Theokharides of Priênê advanced him a thousand gold staters,
which enabled Crosus to enroll his contingent at Bphesus, and to be the
first to present himself at the rallying-place for the troops.**
Caria was annexed to the kingdom, but the conditions under which the
annexation took place are not known to us;* and Croesus contributed so
considerably to the success of the campaign, that he was reinstated in
popular favour. Alyattes, however, was advancing in years, and was soon
about to rejoin his adversaries Cyaxares and Nebuchadrezzar in Hades. Like
the Pharaohs, the kings of Lydia were accustomed to construct during their
lifetime the monuments in which they were to repose after death. Their
necropolis was situated not far from Sardes, on the shores of the little
lake Gygaea; it was here, close to the resting-place of his ancestors and
their wives, that Alyattes chose the spot for his tomb,** and his subjects
did not lose the opportunity of proving to what extent he had gained their
affections.
His predecessors had been obliged to finish their work at their own
expense and by forced labour;* but in the case of Alyattes the three
wealthiest classes of the population, the merchants, the craftsmen, and
the courtesans, all united to erect for him an enormous tumulus, the
remains of which still rise 220 feet above the plains of the Hermus.
The sub-structure consisted of a circular wall of great blocks of
limestone resting on the solid rock, and it contained in the centre a
vault of grey marble which was reached by a vaulted passage. A huge mound
of red clay and yellowish earth was raised above the chamber, surmounted
by a small column representing a phallus, and by four stelæ covered with
inscriptions, erected at the four cardinal points. It follows the
traditional type of burial-places in use among the old Asianic races, but
it is constructed with greater regularity than most of them; Alyattes was
laid within it in 561, after a glorious reign of forty-nine years.*
* Herodotus gave fifty-seven years’ length of reign to Alyattes, whilst
the chronographers, who go back as far as Xanthus of Lydia, through Julius
Africanus, attribute to him only forty-nine; historians now prefer the
latter figures, at least as representing the maximum length of reign.
It was wholly due to him that Lydia was for the moment raised to the level
of the most powerful states which then existed on the eastern shores of
the Mediterranean. He was by nature of a violent and uncontrolled temper,
and during his earlier years he gave way to fits of anger, in which he
would rend the clothes of those who came in his way or would spit in their
faces, but with advancing years his character became more softened, and he
finally earned the reputation of being a just and moderate sovereign. The
little that we know of his life reveals an energy and steadfastness of
purpose quite unusual; he proceeded slowly but surely in his undertakings,
and if he did not succeed in extending his domains as far as he had hoped
at the beginning of his campaigns against the Medes, he at all events
never lost any of the provinces he had acquired. Under his auspices
agriculture flourished, and manufactures attained a degree of perfection
hitherto unknown.
None of the vases in gold, silver, or wrought-iron, which he dedicated and
placed among the treasures of the Greek temples, has come down to us, but
at rare intervals ornaments of admirable workmanship are found in the
Lydian tombs. Those now in the Louvre exhibit, in addition to human
figures somewhat awkwardly treated, heads of rams, bulls, and griffins of
a singular delicacy and faithfulness to nature. These examples reveal a
blending of Grecian types and methods of production with those of Egypt or
Chaldæa, the Hellenic being predominant,* and the same combination of
heterogeneous elements must have existed in the other domains of
industrial art—-in the dyed and embroidered stuffs,** the vases,***
and the furniture.****
[These illustrations are larger than the original pieces.—Tr.]
Lydia, inheriting the traditions of Phrygia, and like that state situated
on the border of two worlds, allied moreover with Egypt as well as
Babylon, and in regular communication with the Delta, borrowed from each
that which fell in with her tastes or seemed likely to be most helpful to
her in her commercial relations. As the country produced gold in
considerable quantities, and received still more from extraneous sources,
the precious metal came soon to be employed as a means of exchange under
other conditions than those which had hitherto prevailed. Besides acting
as commission agents and middle-men for the disposal of merchandise at
Sardes, Ephesus, Miletus, Clazomenaa, and all the maritime cities, the
Lydians performed at the same time the functions of pawnbrokers,
money-changers, and bankers, and they were ready to make loans to private
individuals as well as to kings. Obliged by the exigencies of their trade
to cut up the large gold ingots into sections sufficiently small to
represent the smallest values required in daily life, they did not at
first impress upon these portions any stamp as a guarantee of the exact
weight or the purity of the metal; they were estimated like the tabonu
of the Egyptians, by actual weighing on the occasion of each business
transaction.
The idea at length occurred to them to impress each of these pieces with a
common stamp, serving, like the trade-marks employed by certain guilds of
artisans, to testify at once to their genuineness and their exact weight:
in a word, they were the inventors of money. The most ancient coinage of
their mint was like a flattened sphere, more or less ovoid, in form: it
consisted at first of electrum, and afterwards of smelted gold, upon which
parallel striae or shallow creases were made by a hammer. There were two
kinds of coinage, differing considerably from each other; one consisted of
the heavy stater, weighing about 14.20 grammes, perhaps of Phoenician
origin, the other of the light stater, of some 10.80 grammes in weight,
which doubtless served as money for the local needs of Lydia: both forms
were subdivided into pieces representing respectively the third, the
sixth, the twelfth, and the twenty-fourth of the value of the original.
The stamp which came to be impressed upon the money was in relief, and
varied with the banker; * when political communities began to follow the
example of individuals, it also bore the name of the city where it was
minted.
The type of impression once selected, was little modified for fear of
exciting mistrust among the people, but it was more finely executed and
enlarged so as to cover one of the faces, that which we now call the obverse.
Several subjects entered into the composition of the design, each being
impressed by a special punch: thus in the central concavity we find the
figure of a running fox, emblem of Apollo Bassareus, and in two similar
depressions, one above and the other below the central, appear a horse’s
or stag’s head, and a flower with four petals. Later on the design was
simplified, and contained only one, or at most two figures—a hare
squatting under a tortuous climbing plant, a roaring lion crouching with
its head turned to the left, the grinning muzzle of a lion, the horned
profile of an antelope or mouflon sheep: rosettes and flowers, included
within a square depression, were then used to replace the stria and
irregular lines of the reverse. These first efforts were without
inscriptions; it was not long, however, before there came to be used, in
addition to the figures, legends, from which we sometimes learn the name
of the banker; we read, for instance, “I am the mark of Phannes,” on a
stater of electrum struck at Ephesus, with a stag grazing on the right. We
are ignorant as to which of the Lydian kings first made use of the new
invention, and so threw into circulation the gold and electrum which
filled his treasury to overflowing. The ancients say it was Gyges, but the
Gygads of their time cannot be ascribed to him; they were, without any
doubt, simply ingots marked with the stamp of the banker of the time, and
were attributed to Gyges either out of pure imagination or by mistake.*
The same must be said of the pieces of money which have been assigned to
his successors, and, even when we find on them traces of writing, we
cannot be sure of their identification; one legend which was considered to
contain the name of Sadyattes has been made out, without producing
conviction, as involving, instead, that of Clazomenæ. There is no
certainty until after the time of Alyattes, that is, in the reign of
Croesus. It is, as a fact, to this prince that we owe the fine gold and
silver coins bearing on the obverse a demi-lion couchant confronting a
bull treated similarly.* The two creatures appear to threaten one another,
and the introduction of the lion recalls a tradition regarding the city of
Sardes; it may represent the actual animal which was alleged to have been
begotten by King Meles of one of his concubines, and which he caused to be
carried solemnly round the city walls to render them impregnable.
Croesus did not succeed to the throne of his father without trouble. His
enemies had not laid down their arms after the Carian campaign, and they
endeavoured to rid themselves of him by all the means in use at Oriental
courts. The Ionian mother of his rival furnished the slave who kneaded the
bread with poison, telling her to mix it with the dough, but the woman
revealed the intended crime to her master, who at once took the necessary
measures to frustrate the plot; later on in life he dedicated in the
temple of Delphi a statue of gold representing the faithful bread-maker.**
The chief of the rival party seems to have been Sadyattes, the banker from
whom Croesus had endeavoured to borrow money at the beginning of his
career, but several of the Lydian nobles, whose exercise of feudal rights
had been restricted by the growing authority of the Mermnado, either
secretly or openly gave their adhesion to Pantaleon, among them being
Glaucias of Sidênê; the Greek cities, always ready to chafe at authority,
were naturally inclined to support a claimant born of a Greek mother, and
Pindarus the tyrant of Ephesus, and grandson of the Melas who had married
the daughter of Gyges, joined the conspirators.
As soon as Alyattes was dead, Crosus, who was kept informed by his spies
of their plans, took action with a rapidity which disconcerted his
adversaries. It is not known what became of Pantaleon, whether he was
executed or fled the country, but his friends were tortured to death or
had to purchase their pardon dearly. Sadyattes was stretched on a rack and
torn with carding combs.* Glaucias, besieged in his fortress of Sidênê,
opened its gates after a desperate resistance; the king demolished the
walls, and pronounced a solemn curse on those who should thereafter
rebuild them. Pindarus, summoned to surrender, refused, but as he had not
sufficient troops to defend the entire city, he evacuated the lower
quarters, and concentrated all his forces on the defence of the citadel;
he refused to open negotiations until after the fall of a tower at the
moment when a practicable breach had been made, and succeeded in obtaining
an honourable capitulation for himself and his people by a ruse.
He dedicated the town to Artemis, and by means of a rope connected the
city walls with the temple, which stood nearly a mile away in the suburbs,
and then entreated for peace in the name of the goddess. Croesus was
amused at the artifice, and granted favourable conditions to the
inhabitants, but insisted on the expulsion of the tyrant. The latter bowed
before the decree, and confiding the care of his children and possessions
to his friend Pasicles, left for the Peloponnesus with his retinue.
Bphesus up to this time had been a kind of allied principality, whose
chiefs, united to the royal family of Lydia by marriages from generation
to generation, recognised the nominal suzerainty of the reigning king
rather than his effective authority. It was in fact a species of
protectorate, which, while furthering the commercial interests of Lydia,
satisfied at the same time the passion of the Greek cities for autonomy.
Croesus, encouraged by his first success, could not rest contented with
such a compromise. He attacked, successively, Miletus and the various
Ionian, Æolian, and Dorian communities of the littoral, and brought them
all under his sway, promising on their capitulation that their local
constitutions should be respected if they became direct dependencies of
his empire. He placed garrisons in such towns as were strategically
important for him to occupy, but everywhere else he razed to the ground
the fortresses and ramparts which might afford protection to his enemies
in case of rebellion, compelling the inhabitants to take up their abode on
the open plain where they could not readily defend themselves.* The
administration of the affairs of each city was entrusted to either a
wealthy citizen, or an hereditary tyrant, or an elected magistrate, who
was held responsible for its loyalty; the administrator paid over the
tribute to the sovereign’s treasurers, levied the specified contingent and
took command of it in time of war, settled any quarrels which might occur,
and was empowered, when necessary, to exile turbulent and ambitious
persons whose words or actions appeared to him to be suspicious. Croesus
treated with generosity those republics which tendered him loyal
obedience, and affected a special devotion to their gods. He gave a large
number of ex-voto offerings to the much-revered sanctuary of Bran-chidse,
in the territory of Miletus; he dedicated some golden heifers at the
Artemision of Ephesus, and erected the greater number of the columns of
that temple at his own expense.**
At one time in his career he appears to have contemplated extending his
dominion over the Greek islands, and planned, as was said, the equipment
of a fleet, but he soon acknowledged the imprudence of such a project, and
confined his efforts to strengthening his advantageous position on the
littoral by contracting alliances with the island populations and with the
nations of Greece proper.*
Following the diplomacy of his ancestors, he began by devoting himself to
the gods of the country, and took every pains to gain the good graces of
Apollo of Delphi. He dispensed his gifts with such liberality that neither
his contemporaries nor subsequent generations grew weary of admiring it.
On one occasion he is said to have sacrificed three thousand animals, and
burnt, moreover, on the pyre the costly contents of a palace—couches
covered with silver and gold, coverlets and robes of purple, and golden
vials. His subjects were commanded to contribute to the offering, and he
caused one hundred and seventeen hollow half-bricks to be cast of the gold
which they brought him for this purpose. These bricks were placed in
regular layers within the treasury at Delphi where the gifts of Lydia from
the time of Alyattes were deposited, and the top of the pile was
surmounted by a lion of fine gold of such a size that the pedestal and
statue together were worth £1,200,000 of our present money. These,
however, formed only a tithe of his gifts; many of the objects dedicated
by him were dispersed half a century (548 B.C.) later when the temple was
burnt, and found their way into the treasuries of the Greek states which
enjoyed the favour of Apollo—among them being an enormous gold cup
sent to Clazomeme, and four barrels of silver and two bowls, one of silver
and one of gold, sent to the Corinthians. The people at Delphi, as well as
their god, participated in the royal largesse, and Croesus distributed to
them the sum of two staters per head. No doubt their gratitude led them by
degrees to exaggerate the total of the benefits showered upon them,
especially as time went on and their recollection of the king became
fainter; but even when we reduce the number of the many gifts which they
attributed to him, we are still obliged to acknowledge that they surpassed
anything hitherto recorded, and that they produced throughout the whole of
Greece the effect that Croesus had desired. The oracle granted to him and
to the Lydians the rights of citizenship in perpetuity, the privilege of
priority in consulting it before all comers, precedence for his legates
over other foreign embassies, and a place of honour at the games and at
all religious ceremonies. It was, in fact, the admission of Lydia into the
Hellenic concert, and the offerings which Croesus showered upon the
sanctuaries of lesser fame—that of Zeus at Dodona, of Amphiaraos at
Oropos, of Trophonios at Lebadsea, on the oracle of Abee in Phocis, and on
the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes—secured a general approval of the act.
Political alliances contracted with the great families of Athens, the
Alcmonidæ and Eupatridæ,* with the Cypselidæ of, Corinth,** and with the
Heraclidæ of Sparta,*** completed the policy of bribery which Croesus had
inaugurated in the sacerdotal republics, with the result that, towards
548, being in the position of uncontested patron of the Greeks of Asia, he
could count upon the sympathetic neutrality of the majority of their
compatriots in Europe, and on the effective support of a smaller number of
them in the event of his being forced into hostilities with one or other
of his Asiatic rivals.
This, however, constituted merely one side of his policy, and the
negotiations which he carried on with his western neighbours were
conducted simultaneously with his wars against those of the east. Alyattes
had asserted his supremacy over the whole of the country on the western
side of the Halys, but it was of a very vague kind, having no definite
form, and devoid of practical results as far as several of the districts
in the interior were concerned. Croesus made it a reality, and in less
than ten years all the peoples contained within it, the Lycians excepted—Mysians,
Phrygians, Mariandynians, Paphlagonians, Thynians, Bithynians, and
Pamphylians—had rendered him homage. In its constitution his empire
in no way differed from those which at that time shared the rule of
Western Asia; the number of districts administered directly by the
sovereign were inconsiderable, and most of the states comprised in it
preserved their autonomy. Phrygia had its own princes, who were
descendants of Midas,* and in the same way Caria and Mysia also retained
theirs; but these vassal lords paid tribute and furnished contingents to
their liege of Sardes, and garrisons lodged in their citadels as well as
military stations or towns founded in strategic positions, such as Prusa**
in Bithynia, Cibyra, Hyda, Grimenothyræ, and Temenothyræ,*** kept strict
watch over them, securing the while free circulation for caravans or
individual merchants throughout the whole country. Croesus had achieved
his conquest just as Media was tottering to its fall under the attacks of
the Persians.
Their victory placed the Lydian king in a position of great perplexity,
since it annulled the treaties concluded after the eclipse of 585, and by
releasing him from the obligations then contracted, afforded him an
opportunity of extending the limits within which his father had confined
himself. Now or never was the time for crossing the Halys in order to
seize those mineral districts with which his subjects had so long had
commercial relations; on the other hand, the unexpected energy of which
the Persians had just given proof, their bravery, their desire for
conquest, and the valour of their leader, all tended to deter him from the
project: should he be victorious, Cyrus would probably not rest contented
with tke annexation of a few unimportant districts or the imposition of a
tribute, but would treat his adversary as he had Astyages, and having
dethroned him, would divide Lydia into departments to be ruled by one or
other of his partisans. Warlike ideas, nevertheless, prevailed at the
court of Sardes, and, taking all into consideration, we cannot deny that
they had reason on their side. The fall of Ecbatana had sealed the fate of
Media proper, and its immediate dependencies had naturally shared the
fortunes of the capital; but the more distant provinces still wavered, and
they would probably attempt to take advantage of the change of rule to
regain their liberty. Cyrus, obliged to take up arms against them, would
no longer have his entire forces at his disposal, and by attacking him at
that juncture it might be possible to check his power before it became
irresistible. Having sketched out his plan of campaign, Croesus prepared
to execute it with all possible celerity. Egypt and Chaldæa, like himself,
doubtless felt themselves menaced; he experienced little difficulty in
persuading them to act in concert with him in face of the common peril,
and he obtained from both Amasis and Nabonidus promises of effective
co-operation. At the same time he had recourse to the Greek oracles, and
that of Delphi was instrumental in obtaining for him a treaty of alliance
and friendship with Sparta. Negotiations had been carried on so rapidly,
that by the end of 548 all was in readiness for a simultaneous movement;
Sparta was equipping a fleet, and merely awaited the return of the
favourable season to embark her contingent; Egypt had already despatched
hers, and her Cypriot vassals were on the point of starting, while bands
of Thracian infantry were marching to reinforce the Lydian army. These
various elements represented so considerable a force of men, that, had
they been ranged on a field of battle, Cyrus would have experienced
considerable difficulty in overcoming them. An unforeseen act of treachery
obliged the Lydians to hasten their preparations and commence hostilities
before the moment agreed on. Eurybatos, an Ephesian, to whom the king had
entrusted large sums of money for the purpose of raising mercenaries in
the Peloponnesus, fled with his gold into Persia, and betrayed the secret
of the coalition. The Achaemenian sovereign did not hesitate to forestall
the attack, and promptly assumed the offensive. The transport of an army
from Ecbatana to the middle course of the Halys would have been a long and
laborious undertaking, even had it kept within the territory of the
empire; it would have necessitated crossing the mountain groups of Armenia
at their greatest width, and that at a time when the snow was still lying
deep upon the ground and the torrents were swollen and unfordable. The
most direct route, which passed through Assyria and the part of
Mesopotamia south of the Masios, lay for the most part in the hands of the
Chaldæans, but their enfeebled condition justified Cyrus’s choice of it,
and he resolved, in the event of their resistance, to cut his way through
sword in hand. He therefore bore down upon Arbela by the gorges of
Rowandîz in the month Nisan, making as though he were bound for
Karduniash; but before the Babylonians had time to recover from their
alarm at this movement, he crossed the river not far from Nineveh and
struck into Mesopotamia. He probably skirted the slopes of the Masios,
overcoming and killing in the month Iyyâr some petty king, probably the
ruler of Armenia,* and debouched into Cappadocia. This province was almost
entirely in the power of the enemy; Nabonidus had despatched couriers by
the shortest route in order to warn his ally, and if necessary to claim
his promised help.
Croesus, when he received them, had with him only the smaller portion of
his army, the Lydian cavalry, the contingents of his Asiatic subjects, and
a few Greek veterans, and it would probably have been wiser to defer the
attack till after the disembarkation of the Lacedaemonians; but hesitation
at so critical a moment might have discouraged his followers, and decided
his fate before any action had taken place. He therefore collected his
troops together, fell upon the right bank of the Halys,* devastated the
country, occupied Pteria and the neighbouring towns, and exiled the
inhabitants to a distance. He had just completed the subjection of the
White Syrians when he was met by an emissary from the Persians; Cyrus
offered him his life, and confirmed his authority on condition of his
pleading for mercy and taking the oath of vassalage.** Croesus sent a
proud refusal, which was followed by a brilliant victory, after which a
truce of three months was concluded between the belligerents.***
Cyrus employed the respite in attempting to win over the Greek cities of
the littoral, which he pictured to himself as nursing a bitter hatred
against the Mermnadæ; but it is to be doubted if his emissaries succeeded
even in wresting a declaration of neutrality from the Milesians; the
remainder, Ionians and Æolians, all continued faithful to their oaths.* On
the resumption of hostilities, the tide of fortune turned, and the Lydians
were crushed by the superior forces of the Persians and the Medes; Crcesus
retired under cover of night, burning the country as he retreated, to
prevent the enemy from following him, and crossed the Halys with the
remains of his battalions. The season was already far advanced; he thought
that the Persians, threatened in the rear by the Babylonian troops, would
shrink from the prospect of a winter campaign, and he fell back upon
Sardes without further lingering in Phrygia. But Nabonidus did not feel
himself called upon to show the same devotion that his ally had evinced
towards him, or perhaps the priests who governed in his name did not
permit him to fulfil his engagements.**
As soon as peace was proposed, he accepted terms, without once considering
the danger to which the Lydians were exposed by his defection. The Persian
king raised his camp as soon as all fear of an attack to rearward was
removed, and, falling upon defenceless Phrygia, pushed forward to Sardes
in spite of the inclemency of the season. No movement could have been
better planned, or have produced such startling results. Croesus had
disbanded the greater part of his feudal contingents, and had kept only
his body-guard about him, the remainder of his army—natives,
mercenaries, and allies—having received orders not to reassemble
till the following spring. The king hastily called together all his
available troops, both Lydians and foreigners, and confronted his enemies
for the second time. Even under these unfavourable conditions he hoped to
gain the advantage, had his cavalry, the finest in the world, been able to
take part in the engagement. But Cyrus had placed in front of his lines a
detachment of camels, and the smell of these animals so frightened the
Lydian horses that they snorted and refused to charge.*
Croesus was again worsted on the confines of the plain of the Hermus, and
taking refuge in the citadel of Sardes, he despatched couriers to his
allies in Greece and Egypt to beg for succour without delay. The
Lacedaemonians hurried on the mobilisation of their troops, and their
vessels were on the point of weighing anchor, when the news arrived that
Sardes had fallen in the early days of December, and that Croesus himself
was a prisoner.* How the town came to be taken, the Greeks themselves
never knew, and their chroniclers have given several different accounts of
the event.**
The least improbable is that found in Herodotus. The blockade had lasted,
so he tells us, fourteen days, when Cyrus announced that he would richly
reward the first man to scale the walls. Many were tempted by his
promises, but were unsuccessful in their efforts, and their failure had
discouraged all further attempts, when a Mardian soldier, named Hyreades,
on duty at the foot of the steep slopes overlooking the Tmolus, saw a
Lydian descend from rock to rock in search of his helmet which he had
lost, and regain the city by the same way without any great difficulty. He
noted carefully the exact spot, and in company with a few comrades climbed
up till he reached the ramparts; others followed, and taking the besieged
unawares, they opened the gates to the main body of the army.*
Croesus could not bear to survive the downfall of his kingdom: he erected
a funeral pyre in the courtyard of his palace, and took up his position on
it, together with his wives, his daughters, and the noblest youths of his
court, surrounded by his most precious possessions. He could cite the
example of more than one vanquished monarch of the ancient Asiatic world
in choosing such an end, and one of the fabulous ancestors of his race,
Sandon-Herakles, had perished after this fashion in the midst of the
flames. Was the sacrifice carried out? Everything leads us to believe that
it was, but popular feeling could not be resigned to the idea that a
prince who had shown such liberality towards the gods in his prosperity
should be abandoned by them in the time of his direst need. They came to
believe that the Lydian monarch had expiated by his own defeat the crime
by the help of which his ancestor Gyges had usurped the throne. Apollo had
endeavoured to delay the punishment till the next generation, that it
might fall on the son of his votary, but he had succeeded in obtaining
from fate a respite of three years only. Even then he had not despaired,
and had warned Croesus by the voice of the oracles. They had foretold him
that, in crossing the Halys, the Lydians ^would destroy a great empire,
and that their power would last till the day when a mule should sit upon
the throne of Media. Croesus, blinded by fate, could not see that Cyrus,
who was of mixed race, Persian by his father and Median by his mother, was
the predicted mule. He therefore crossed the Halys, and a great empire
fell, but it was his own. At all events, the god might have desired to
show that to honour his altars and adorn his temple was in itself, after
all, the best of treasures. “When Sardes, suffering the vengeance of Zeus,
was conquered by the army of the Persians, the god of the golden sword,
Apollo, was the guardian of Croesus. When the day of despair arrived, the
king could not resign himself to tears and servitude; within the
brazen-walled court he erected a funeral pyre, on which, together with his
chaste spouse and his bitterly lamenting daughters of beautiful locks, he
mounted; he raised his hands towards the depths of the ether and cried:
‘Proud fate, where is the gratitude of the gods, where is the prince, the
child of Leto? Where is now the house of Alyattes?… The ancient citadel
of Sardes has fallen, the Pactolus of golden waves runs red with blood;
ignominiously are the women driven from their well-decked chambers! That
which was once my hated foe is now my friend, and the sweetest thing is to
die!’ Thus he spoke, and ordered the softly moving eunuch* to set fire to
the wooden structure.
The maidens shrieked and threw their arms around their mother, for the
death before them was that most hated by mortals. But just when the
sparkling fury of the cruel fire had spread around, Zeus, calling up a
black-flanked cloud, extinguished the yellow flame.
Nothing is incredible of that which the will of the gods has decreed:
Apollo of Delos, seizing the old man, bore him, together with his
daughters of tender feet, into the Hyperborean land as a reward for his
piety, for no mortal had sent richer offerings to the illustrious Pythô!”
This miraculous ending delighted the poets and inspired many fine lines,
but history could with difficulty accommodate itself to such a
materialistic intervention of a divine being, and sought a less fabulous
solution. The legend which appeared most probable to the worthy Herodotus
did not even admit that the Lydian king took his own life; it was Cyrus
who condemned him, either with a view of devoting the first-fruits of his
victory to the immortals, or to test whether the immortals would save the
rival whose piety had been so frequently held up to his admiration. The
edges of the pyre had already taken light, when the Lydian king sighed and
thrice repeated the name of Solon. It was a tardy recollection of a
conversation in which the Athenian sage had stated, without being
believed, that none can be accounted truly happy while they still live.
Cyrus, applying it to himself, was seized with remorse or pity, and
commanded the bystanders to quench the fire, but their efforts were in
vain. Thereupon Croesus implored the pity of Apollo, and suddenly the sky,
which up till then had been serene and clear, became overcast; thick
clouds collected, and rain fell so heavily that the burning pile was at
once extinguished.*
Well treated by his conqueror, the Lydian king is said to have become his
friend and most loyal counsellor; he accepted from him the fief of Barênê
in Media, often accompanied him in his campaigns, and on more than one
occasion was of great service to him by the wise advice which he gave.
We may well ask what would have taken place had he gained the decisive
victory over Cyrus that he hoped. Chaldæa possessed merely the semblance
of her former greatness and power, and if she still maintained her hold
over Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and parts of Arabia, it was because
these provinces, impoverished by the Assyrian conquest, and entirely laid
waste by the Scythians, had lost the most energetic elements of their
populations, and felt themselves too much enfeebled to rise against their
suzerain. Egypt, like Chaldæa, was in a state of decadence, and even
though her Pharaohs attempted to compensate for the inferiority of their
native troops by employing foreign mercenaries, their attempts at Asiatic
rule always issued in defeat, and just as the Babylonian sovereigns were
unable to reduce them to servitude, so they on their part were powerless
to gain an advantage over the sovereigns of Babylon. Hence Lydia, in her
youth and vigour, would have found little difficulty in gaining the
ascendency over her two recent allies, but beyond that she could not hope
to push her success; her restricted territory, sparse population, and
outlying position would always have debarred her from exercising any
durable dominion over them, and though absolute mistress of Asia Minor,
the countries beyond the Taurus were always destined to elude her grasp.
If the Achæmenian, therefore, had confined himself, at all events for the
time being, to the ancient limits of his kingdom, Egypt and Chaldæa would
have continued to vegetate each within their respective area, and the
triumph of Croesus would, on the whole, have caused but little change in
the actual balance of power in the East.
The downfall of Croesus, on the contrary, marked a decisive era in the
world’s history. His army was the only one, from the point of numbers and
organisation, which was a match for that of Cyrus, and from the day of its
dispersion it was evident that neither Egypt nor Chaldæa had any chance of
victory on the battle-field. The subjection of Babylon and Harrân, of
Hamath, Damascus, Tyre and Sidon, of Memphis and Thebes, now became merely
a question of time, and that not far distant; the whole of Asia, and that
part of Africa which had been the oldest cradle of human civilisation,
were now to pass into the hands of one man and form a single empire, for
the benefit of the new race which was issuing forth in irresistible
strength from the recesses of the Iranian table-land. It was destined,
from the very outset, to come into conflict with an older, but no less
vigorous race than itself, that of the Greeks, whose colonists, after
having swarmed along the coasts of the Mediterranean, were now beginning
to quit the seaboard and penetrate wherever they could into the interior.
They had been on friendly terms with that dynasty of the Meramadæ who had
shown reverence for the Hellenic gods; they had, as a whole, disdained to
betray Croesus, or to turn upon him when he was in difficulties beyond the
Halys; and now that he had succumbed to his fate, they considered that the
ties which had bound them to Sardes were broken, and they were determined
to preserve their independence at all costs. This spirit of
insubordination would have to be promptly dealt with and tightly curbed,
if perpetual troubles in the future were to be avoided. The Asianic
peoples soon rallied round their new master—Phrygians, Mysians, the
inhabitants on the shores of the Black Sea, and those of the Pamphylian
coast;* even Cilicia, which had held its own against Chaldæa, Media, and
Lydia, was now brought under the rising power, and its kings were
henceforward obedient to the Persian rule.**
The two leagues of the Ionians and Æolians had at first offered to
recognise Cyrus as their suzerain under the same conditions as those with
which Croesus had been satisfied; but he had consented to accept it only
in the case of Miletus, and had demanded from the rest an unconditional
surrender. This they had refused, and, uniting in a common cause perhaps
for the first time in their existence, they had resolved to take up arms.
As the Persians possessed no fleet, the Creeks had nothing to fear from
the side of the Ægean, and the severity of the winter prevented any attack
being made from the land side till the following spring. They meanwhile
sought the aid of their mother-country, and despatched an embassy to the
Spartans; the latter did not consider it prudent to lend them troops, as
they would have done in the case of Croesus, but they authorised Lakrines,
one of their principal citizens, to demand of the great king that he
should respect the Hellenic cities, under pain of incurring their enmity.
Cyrus was fully occupied with the events then taking place in the eastern
regions of Iran; Babylon had not ventured upon any move after having
learned the news of the fall of Sardes, but the Bactrians and the Sakæ had
been in open revolt during the whole of the year that he had been detained
in the extreme west, and a still longer absence might risk the loss of his
prestige in Media, and even in Persia itself.*
The threat of the Lacedaæmonians had little effect upon him; he inquired
as to what Sparta and Greece were, and having been informed, he ironically
begged the Lacedæmonian envoy to thank his compatriots for the good advice
with which they had honoured him; “but,” he added, “take care that I do
not soon cause you to babble, not of the ills of the Ionians, but of your
own.” He confided the government of Sardes to one of his officers, named
Tabalos, and having entrusted Paktyas, one of the Lydians who had embraced
his cause, with the removal of the treasures of Croesus to Persia, he
hastily set out for Ecbatana. He had scarcely accomplished half of his
journey when a revolt broke out in his rear; Paktyas, instead of obeying
his instructions, intrigued with the Ionians, and, with the mercenaries he
had hired from them, besieged Tabalos in the citadel of Sardes. If the
place capitulated, the entire conquest would have to be repeated;
fortunately it held out, and its resistance gave Cyrus time to send its
governor reinforcements, commanded by Mazares the Median. As soon as they
approached the city, Paktyas, conscious that he had lost the day, took
refuge at Kymê. Its inhabitants, on being summoned to deliver him up,
refused, but helped him to escape to Mytilene, where the inhabitants of
the island attempted to sell him to the enemy for a large sum of money.
The Kymæans saved him a second time, and conveyed him to the temple of
Athene Poliarchos at Chios. The citizens, however, dragged him from his
retreat, and delivered him over to the Median general in exchange for
Atarneus, a district of Mysia, the possession of which they were disputing
with the Lesbians.* Paktyas being a prisoner, the Lydians were soon
recalled to order, and Mazares was able to devote his entire energies to
the reduction of the Greek cities; but he had accomplished merely the sack
of Priênê,** and the devastation of the suburbs of Magnesia on the æander,
when he died from some illness.
The Median Harpagus, to whom tradition assigns so curious a part as
regards Astyages and the infant Cyrus, succeeded him as governor of the
ancient Lydian kingdom, and completed the work which he had begun. The
first two places to be besieged were Phocæa and Teos, but their
inhabitants preferred exile to slavery; the Phocæans sailed away to found
Marseilles in the western regions of the Mediterranean, and the people of
Teos settled along the coast of Thracia, near to the gold-mines of the
Pangseus, and there built Abdera on the site of an ancient Clazomenian
colony. The other Greek towns were either taken by assault or voluntarily
opened their gates, so that ere long both Ionians and Æolians were, with
the exception of the Samians, under Persian rule. The very position of the
latter rendered them safe from attack; without a fleet they could not be
approached, and the only people who could have furnished Cyrus with
vessels were the Phoenicians, who were not as yet under his power. The
rebellion having been suppressed in this quarter, Harpagus made a descent
into Caria; the natives hastened to place themselves under the Persian
yoke, and the Dorian colonies scattered along the coast, Halicarnas-sus,
Cnidos, and the islands of Cos and Rhodes, followed their examples, but
Lycia refused to yield without a struggle.
Its steep mountain chains, its sequestered valleys, its towns and
fortresses perched on inaccessible rocks, all rendered it easy for the
inhabitants to carry on a successful petty warfare against the enemy. The
inhabitants of Xanthos, although very inferior in numbers, issued down
into the plain and disputed the victory with the invaders for a
considerable time; at length their defeat and the capitulation of their
town induced the remainder of the Lycians to lay down arms, and brought
about the final pacification of the peninsula. It was parcelled out into
several governorships, according to its ethnographical affinities; as for
instance, the governorship of Lydia, that of Ionia, that of Phrygia,* and
others whose names are unknown to us. Harpàgus appeared to have resided at
Sardes, and exercised vice-regal functions over the various districts, but
he obtained from the king an extensive property in Lycia and in Caria,
which subsequently caused these two provinces to be regarded as an
appanage of his family.
While thus consolidating his first conquest, Cyrus penetrated into the
unknown regions of the far East. Nothing would have been easier for him
than to have fallen upon Babylon and overthrown, as it were by the way,
the decadent rule of Nabonidus; but the formidable aspect which the empire
still presented, in spite of its enfeebled condition, must have deceived
him, and he was unwilling to come into conflict with it until he had made
a final reckoning with the restless and unsettled peoples between the
Caspian and the slopes on the Indian side of the table-land of Iran. As
far as we are able to judge, they were for the most part of Iranian
extraction, and had the same religion, institutions, and customs as the
Medes and Persians. Tradition had already referred the origin of
Zoroaster, and the scene of his preaching, to Bactriana, that land of
heroes whose exploits formed the theme of Persian epic song. It is not
known, as we have already had occasion to remark, by what ties it was
bound to the empire of Cyaxares, nor indeed if it ever had been actually
attached to it. We do not possess, unfortunately, more than almost
worthless scraps of information on this part of the reign of Cyrus,
perhaps the most important period of it, since then, for the first time,
peoples who had been hitherto strangers to the Asiatic world were brought
within its influence. If Ctesias is to be credited, Bactriana was one of
the first districts to be conquered. Its inhabitants were regarded as
being among the bravest of the East, and furnished the best soldiers. They
at first obtained some successes, but laid down arms on hearing that Cyrus
had married a daughter of Astyages.* This tradition was prevalent at a
time when the Achaemenians were putting forward the theory that they, and
Cyrus before them, were the legitimate successors of the old Median
sovereigns; they welcomed every legend which tended to justify their
pretensions, and this particular one was certain to please them, since it
attributed the submission of Bactriana not to a mere display of brute
force, but to the recognition of an hereditary right. The annexation of
this province entailed, as a matter of course, that of Margiana, of the
Khoramnians,** and of Sogdiana. Cyrus constructed fortresses in all these
districts, the most celebrated being that of Kyropolis, which commanded
one of the principal fords of the Iaxartes.***
The steppes of Siberia arrested his course on the north, but to the east,
in the mountains of Chinese Turkestan, the Sakas, who were renowned for
their wealth and bravery, did not escape his ambitious designs. The
account which has come down to us of his campaigns against them is a mere
romance of love and adventure, in which real history plays a very small
part. He is said to have attacked and defeated them at the first onset,
taking their King Amorges prisoner; but this capture, which Cyrus
considered a decisive advantage, was supposed to have turned the tide of
fortune against him. Sparêthra, the wife of Amorges, rallied the fugitives
round her, defeated the invaders in several engagements, and took so many
of their men captive, that they were glad to restore her husband to her in
exchange for the prisoners she had made. The struggle finally ended,
however, in the subjection of the Sakae; they engaged to pay tribute, and
thenceforward constituted the advance-guard of the Iranians against the
Nomads of the East. Cyrus, before quitting their neighbourhood, again
ascended the table-land, and reduced Ariana, Thatagus, Harauvati, Zaranka,
and the country of Cabul; and we may well ask if he found leisure to turn
southwards beyond Lake Hamun and reach the shores of the Indian Ocean. One
tradition, of little weight, relates that, like Alexander at a later date,
he lost his army in the arid deserts of Gedrosia; the one fact that
remains is that the conquest of Gedrosia was achieved, but the details of
it are lost. The period covered by his campaigns was from five to six
years, from 545 to 539, but Cyrus returned from these expeditions into the
unknown only to plan fresh undertakings. There remained nothing now to
hinder him from marching against the Chaldæans, and the discord prevailing
at Babylon added to his chance of success. Nabonidus’s passion for
archæology had in no way lessened since the opening of his reign. The
temple restorations prompted by it absorbed the bulk of his revenues. He
made excavations in the sub-structures of the most ancient sanctuaries,
such as Larsam, Uruk, Uru, Sippar, and Nipur; and when his digging was
rewarded by the discovery of cylinders placed there by his predecessors,
his delight knew no bounds. Such finds constituted the great events of his
life, in comparison with which the political revolutions of Asia and
Africa diminished in importance day by day. It is difficult to tell
whether this indifference to the weighty affairs of government was as
complete as it appears to us at this distance of time. Certain facts
recorded in the official chronicles of that date go to prove that, except
in name and external pomp, the king was a nonentity. The real power lay in
the hands of the nobles and generals, and Bel-sharuzur, the king’s son,
directed affairs for them in his father’s name. Nabonidus meanwhile
resided in a state of inactivity at his palace of Tima, and it is possible
that his condition may have really been that of a prisoner, for he never
left Tima to go to Babylon, even on the days of great festivals, and his
absence prevented the celebration of the higher rites of the national
religion, with the procession of Bel and its accompanying ceremonies, for
several consecutive years. The people suffered from these quarrels in high
places; not only the native Babylonians or Kaldâ, who were thus deprived
of their accustomed spectacles, and whose piety was scandalised by these
dissensions, but also the foreign races dispersed over Mesopotamia, from
the confluence of the Khabur to the mouths of the Euphrates. Too widely
scattered or too weak to make an open declaration of their independence,
their hopes and their apprehensions were alternately raised by the various
reports of hostilities which reached their ears. The news of the first
victories of the Persians aroused in the exiled Jews the idea of speedy
deliverance, and Cyrus clearly appeared to them as the hero chosen by
Jahveh to reinstate them in the country, of their forefathers.
The number of the Jewish exiles, which perhaps at first had not exceeded
20,000* had largely increased in the half-century of their captivity, and
even if numerically they were of no great importance, their social
condition entitled them to be considered as the élite of all
Israel.
There had at first been the two kings, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, their
families, the aristocracy of Judah, the priests and pontiff of the temple,
the prophets, the most skilled of the artisan class and the soldiery.
Though distributed over Babylon and the neighbouring cities, we know from
authentic sources of only one of their settlements, that of Tell-Abîb on
the Chebar* though many of the Jewish colonies which flourished
thereabouts in Roman times could undoubtedly trace their origin to the
days of the captivity; one legend found in the Talmud affirmed that the
synagogue of Shafyâthîb, near Nehardaa, had been built by King Jehoiachin
with stones brought from the ruins of the temple at Jerusalem. These
communities enjoyed a fairly complete autonomy, and were free to
administer their own affairs as they pleased, provided that they paid
their tribute or performed their appointed labours without complaint. The
shêkhs, or elders of the family or tribe, who had played so important a
part in their native land, still held their respective positions; the
Chaldæans had permitted them to retain all the possessions which they had
been able to bring with them into exile, and recognised them as the rulers
of their people, who were responsible to their conquerors for the
obedience of those under them, leaving them entire liberty to exercise
their authority so long as they maintained order and tranquillity among
their subordinates.**
How the latter existed, and what industries they pursued in order to earn
their daily bread, no writer of the time has left on record. The rich
plain of the Euphrates differed so widely from the soil to which they had
been accustomed in the land of Judah, with its bare or sparsely wooded
hills, slopes cultivated in terraces, narrow and ill-watered wadys, and
tortuous and parched valleys, that they must have felt themselves much out
of their element in their Chaldæan surroundings. They had all of them,
however, whether artisans, labourers, soldiers, gold-workers, or
merchants, to earn their living, and they succeeded in doing so, following
meanwhile the advice of Jeremiah, by taking every precaution that the seed
of Israel should not be diminished.* The imagination of pious writers of a
later date delighted to represent the exiled Jews as giving way to apathy
and vain regrets: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we
wept, when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst thereof we
hanged up our harps. For there they that led us captive required of us
songs, and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one
of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange
land?” **
This was true of the priests and scribes only. A blank had been made in
their existence from the moment when the conqueror had dragged them from
the routine of daily rites which their duties in the temple service
entailed upon them. The hours which had been formerly devoted to their
offices were now expended in bewailing the misfortunes of their nation, in
accusing themselves and others, and in demanding what crime had merited
this punishment, and why Jahveh, who had so often shown clemency to their
forefathers, had not extended His forgiveness to them. It was, however, by
the long-suffering of God that His prophets, and particularly Ezekiel,
were allowed to make known to them the true cause of their downfall. The
more Ezekiel in his retreat meditated upon their lot, the more did the
past appear to him as a lamentable conflict between divine justice and
Jewish iniquity. At the time of their sojourn in Egypt, Jahveh had taken
the house of Jacob under His protection, and in consideration of His help
had merely demanded of them that they should be faithful to Him. “Cast ye
away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves
with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” The children of Israel,
however, had never observed this easy condition, and this was the root of
their ills; even before they were liberated from the yoke of Pharaoh, they
had betrayed their Protector, and He had thought to punish them: “But I
wrought for My name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of
the nations, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto
them…. So I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and
brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them My statutes, and showed
them My judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. Moreover also
I gave them My sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them… but the house
of Israel rebelled against Me.” As they had acted in Egypt, so they acted
at the foot of Sinai, and again Jahveh could not bring Himself to destroy
them; He confined Himself to decreeing that none of those who had offended
Him should enter the Promised Land, and He extended His goodness to their
children. But these again showed themselves no wiser than their fathers;
scarcely had they taken possession of the inheritance which had fallen to
them, “a land flowing with milk and honey… the glory of all lands,” than
when they beheld “every high hill and every thick tree… they offered
there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their
offering, there also they made their sweet savour, and they poured out
there their drink offerings.” Not contented with profaning their altars by
impious ceremonies and offerings, they further bowed the knee to idols,
thinking in their hearts, “We will be as the nations, as the families of
the countries, to serve wood and stone.” “As I live, saith the Lord God,
surely with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury
poured out, will I be King over you.” *
However just the punishment, Bzekiel did not believe that it would last
for ever. The righteousness of God would not permit future generations to
be held responsible for ever for the sins of generations past and present.
“What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel,
saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are
set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion to
use this proverb any more in Israel! Behold, all souls are Mine; as the
soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine; the soul that
sinneth it shall die. But if a man be just… he shall surely live, saith
the Lord God.” Israel, therefore, was master of his own destiny. If he
persisted in erring from the right way, the hour of salvation was still
further removed from him; if he repented and observed the law, the Divine
anger would be turned away. “Therefore… O house of Israel… cast away
from you all your transgressions wherein ye have transgressed; and make
you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth… wherefore turn
yourselves and live.” 1 There were those who objected that it was too late
to dream of regeneration and of hope in the future: “Our bones are dried
up and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.” The prophet replied that
the Lord had carried him in the spirit and set him down in the midst of a
plain strewn with bones. “So I prophesied… and as I prophesied there was
a noise… and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And I beheld,
and lo, there were sinews upon them, and flesh came up and skin covered
them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said (the Lord) unto me,
Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus
saith the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon
these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and
the breath came into them and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an
exceeding great army. Then He said unto me… these bones are the whole
house of Israel…. Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come
up out of your graves, O my people; and I will bring you into the land of
Israel…. And I will put My Spirit in you and ye shall live, and I will
place you in your own land; and ye shall know that I the Lord hath spoken
it and performed it, saith the Lord.”
A people raised from such depths would require a constitution, a new law
to take the place of the old, from the day when the exile should cease.
Ezekiel would willingly have dispensed with the monarchy, as it had been
tried since the time of Samuel with scarcely any good results. For every
Hezekiah or Josiah, how many kings of the type of Ahaz or Manasseh had
there been! The Jews were nevertheless still so sincerely attached to the
house of David, that the prophet judged it inopportune to exclude it from
his plan for their future government. He resolved to tolerate a king, but
a king of greater piety and with less liberty than the compiler of the
Book of Deuteronomy had pictured to himself, a servant of the servants of
God, whose principal function should be to provide the means of worship.
Indeed, the Lord Himself was the only Sovereign whom the prophet fully
accepted, though his concept of Him differed greatly from that of his
predecessors: from that, for instance, of Amos—the Lord God who
would do nothing without revealing “His secret unto His servants the
prophets;” or of Hosea—who desired “mercy, and not sacrifice; and
the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” The Jahveh of Ezekiel no
longer admitted any intercourse with the interpreters of His will. He held
“the son of man” at a distance, and would consent to communicate with him
only by means of angels who were His messengers. The love of His people
was, indeed, acceptable to Him, but He preferred their reverence and fear,
and the smell of the sacrifice offered according to the law was pleasing
to His nostrils. The first care of the returning exiles, therefore, would
be to build Him a house upon the holy mountain. Ezekiel called to mind the
temple of Solomon, in which the far-off years of his youth were spent, and
mentally rebuilt it on the same plan, but larger and more beautiful; first
the outer court, then the inner court and its chambers, and lastly the
sanctuary, the dimensions of which he calculates with scrupulous care:
“And the breadth of the entrance was ten cubits; and the sides of the
entrance were five cubits on the one side and five cubits on the other
side: and he measured the length thereof, forty cubits; and the breadth,
twenty cubits”—and so forth, with a wealth of technical details
often difficult to be understood. And as a building so well proportioned
should be served by a priesthood worthy of it, the sons of Zadok only were
to bear the sacerdotal office, for they alone had preserved their faith
unshaken; the other Lévites were to fill merely secondary posts, for not
only had they shared in the sins of the nation, but they had shown a bad
example in practising idolatry. The duties and prerogatives of each one,
the tithes and offerings, the sacrifices, the solemn festivals, the
preparation of the feasts,—all was foreseen and prearranged with
scrupulous exactitude. Ezekiel was, as we have seen, a priest; the
smallest details were as dear to him as the noblest offices of his
calling, and the minute ceremonial instructions as to the killing and
cooking of the sacrificial animals appeared to him as necessary to the
future prosperity of his people as the moral law. Towards the end,
however, the imagination of the seer soared above the formalism of the
sacrificing priest; he saw in a vision waters issuing out of the very
threshold of the divine house, flowing towards the Dead Sea through a
forest of fruit trees, “whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall the
fruit thereof fail.” The twelve tribes of Israel, alike those of whom a
remnant still existed as well as those which at different times had become
extinct, were to divide the regenerated land by lot among them—Dan
in the extreme north, Reuben and Judah in the south; and they would unite
to found once more, around Mount Sion, that new Jerusalem whose name
henceforth was to be Jahveh-shammah, “The Lord is there.” *
The influence of Ezekiel does not seem to have extended beyond a
restricted circle of admirers. Untouched by his preaching, many of the
exiles still persisted in their worship of the heathen gods; most of these
probably became merged in the bulk of the Chaldæan population, and were
lost, as far as Israel was concerned, as completely as were the earlier
exiles of Ephraim under Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon. The greater
number of the Jews, however, remained faithful to their hopes of future
greatness, and applied themselves to discerning in passing events the
premonitory signs of deliverance. “Like as a woman with child, that
draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her
pangs; so have we been before Thee, O Lord…. Come, my people, enter thou
into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself for a
little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord
cometh forth out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for
their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more
cover her slain.” * The condition of the people improved after the death of
Nebuchadrezzar. Amil-marduk took Jehoiachin out of the prison in which he
had languished for thirty years, and treated him with honour:** this was
not as yet the restoration that had been promised, but it was the end of
the persecution.
A period of court intrigues followed, during which the sceptre of
Nebuchadrezzar changed hands four times in less than seven years; then
came the accession of the peaceful and devout Nabonidus, the fall of
Astyages, and the first victories of Cyrus. Nothing escaped the vigilant
eye of the prophets, and they began to proclaim that the time was at hand,
then to predict the fall of Babylon, and to depict the barbarians in
revolt against her, and Israel released from the yoke by the all-powerful
will of the Persians. “Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him, and I will
loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates
shall not be shut; I will go before thee and make the rugged places plain:
I will break in pieces the doors of brass, rend in sunder the bars of
iron: and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of
secret places, that thou mayest know that I am the Lord which call thee by
thy name, even the God of Israel. For Jacob My servant’s sake, and Israel
My chosen, I have called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though
thou hast not known Me.” * Nothing can stand before the victorious prince
whom Jahveh leads: “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; their idols are upon
the beasts, and upon the cattle: the things that ye carried about are made
a load, a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together;
they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into
captivity.” ** “O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground without a
throne, O daughter of the Chaldæans: for thou shalt no more be called
tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal: remove thy veil,
strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. They
nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen…. Sit thou
silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldæans: for thou
shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.” ***
The task which Cyrus had undertaken was not so difficult as we might
imagine. Not only was he hailed with delight by the strangers who thronged
Babylonia, but the Babylonians themselves were weary of their king, and
the majority of them were ready to welcome the Persian who would rid them
of him, as in old days they hailed the Assyrian kings who delivered them
from their Chaldæan lords. It is possible that towards the end of his
reign Nabonidus partly resumed the supreme power;* but anxious for the
future, and depending but little on human help, he had sought a more
powerful aid at the hands of the gods. He had apparently revived some of
the old forgotten cults, and had applied to their use revenues which
impoverished the endowment of the prevalent worship of his own time. As he
felt the growing danger approach, he remembered those towns of secondary
grade—Uru, Uruk, Larsam, and Eridu—all of which, lying outside
Nebuchadrezzar’s scheme of defence, would be sacrificed in the case of an
invasion: he had therefore brought away from them the most venerated
statues, those in which the spirit of the divinity was more particularly
pleased to dwell, and had shut them up in the capital, within the security
of its triple rampart.**
This attempt to concentrate the divine powers, accentuating as it did the
supremacy of Bel-Marduk over his compeers, was doubtless flattering to his
pride and that of his priests, but was ill received by the rest of the
sacerdotal class and by the populace. All these divine guests had not only
to be lodged, but required to be watched over, decked, fed, and feted,
together with their respective temple retinues; and the prestige and
honour of the local Bel, as well as his revenues, were likely to suffer in
consequence. The clamour of the gods in the celestial heights soon
re-echoed throughout the land; the divinities complained of their sojourn
at Babylon as of a captivity in E-sagilla; they lamented over the
suppression of their daily sacrifices, and Marduk at length took pity on
them. He looked upon the countries of Sumir and Akkad, and saw their
sanctuaries in ruins and their towns lifeless as corpses; “he cast his
eyes over the surrounding regions; he searched them with his glance and
sought out a prince, upright, after his own heart, who should take his
hands. He proclaimed by name Cyrus, King of Anshân, and he called him by
his name to universal sovereignty.” Alike for the people of Babylon and
for the exiled Jew, and also doubtless for other stranger-colonies, Cyrus
appeared as a deliverer chosen by the gods; his speedy approach was
everywhere expected, if not with the same impatience, at least with an
almost joyful resignation. His plans were carried into action in the early
months of 538, and his habitual good fortune did not forsake him at this
decisive moment of his career. The immense citadel raised by
Nebuchadrezzar in the midst of his empire, in anticipation of an attack by
the Medes, was as yet intact, and the walls rising one behind another, the
moats, and the canals and marshes which protected it, had been so well
kept up or restored since his time, that their security was absolutely
complete; a besieging army could do little harm—it needed a whole
nation in revolt to compass its downfall. A whole nation also was required
for its defence, but the Babylonians were not inclined to second the
efforts of their sovereign. Nabonidus concentrated his troops at the point
most threatened, in the angle comprised near Opis between the Medic wall
and the bend of the Tigris, and waited in inaction the commencement of the
attack. It is supposed that Cyrus put two bodies of troops in motion: one
leaving Susa under his own command, took the usual route of all Blamite
invasions in the direction of the confluence of the Tigris and the Dîyala;
the other commanded by Gobryas, the satrap of Gutium, followed the course
of the Adhem or the Dîyala, and brought the northern contingents to the
rallying-place. From what we know of the facts as a whole, it would appear
that the besieging force chose the neighbourhood of the present Bagdad to
make a breach in the fortifications. Taking advantage of the months when
the rivers were at their lowest, they drew off the water from the Dîyala
and the Tigris till they so reduced the level that they were able to cross
on foot; they then cut their way through the ramparts on the left bank,
and rapidly transported the bulk of their forces into the very centre of
the enemy’s position. The principal body of the Chaldæan troops were still
at Opis, cut off from the capital; Cyrus fell upon them, overcame them on
the banks of the Zalzallat in the early days of Tammuz, urging forward
Gobryas meanwhile upon Babylon itself.* On the 14th of Tammuz, Nabonidus
evacuated Sippar, which at once fell into the hands of the Persian
outposts; on the 16th Gobryas entered Babylon without striking a blow, and
Nabonidus surrendered himself a prisoner.**
The victorious army had received orders to avoid all excesses which would
offend the people; they respected the property of the citizens and of the
temples, placed a strong detachment around Ê-sagilla to protect it from
plunder, and no armed soldier was allowed within the enclosure until the
king’ had determined on the fate of the vanquished. Cyrus arrived after a
fortnight had elapsed, on the 3rd of March-esvân, and his first act was
one of clemency. He prohibited all pillage, granted mercy to the
inhabitants, and entrusted the government of the city to Gobryas.
Bel-sharuzur, the son of Nabonidus, remained to be dealt with, and his
energetic nature might have been the cause of serious difficulties had he
been allowed an opportunity of rallying the last partisans of the dynasty
around him. Gobryas set out to attack him, and on the 11th of March-esvân
succeeded in surprising and slaying him. With him perished the last hope
of the Chaldæans, and the nobles and towns, still hesitating on what
course to pursue, now vied with each other in their haste to tender
submission. The means of securing their good will, at all events for the
moment, was clearly at hand, and it was used without any delay: their gods
were at once restored to them. This exodus extended over nearly two
months, during March-esvân and Adar, and on its termination a proclamation
of six days of mourning, up to the 3rd of Nisân, was made for the death of
Bel-sharuzur, and as an atonement for the faults of Nabonidus, after
which, on the 4th of Nisân, the notables of the city were called together
in the temple of Nebo to join in the last expiatory ceremonies. Cyrus did
not hesitate for a moment to act as Tiglath-pileser III. and most of the
Sargonids had done; he “took the hands of Bel,” and proclaimed himself
king of the country, but in order to secure the succession, he associated
his son Cambyses with himself as King of Babylon. Mesopotamia having been
restored to order, the provinces in their turn transferred their
allegiance to Persia; “the kings enthroned in their palaces, from the
Upper Sea to the Lower, those of Syria and those who dwell in tents,
brought their weighty tribute to Babylon and kissed the feet of the
suzerain.” Events had followed one another so quickly, and had entailed so
little bloodshed, that popular imagination was quite disconcerted: it
could not conceive that an empire of such an extent and of so formidable
an appearance should have succumbed almost without a battle, and three
generations had not elapsed before an entire cycle of legends had gathered
round the catastrophe. They related how Cyrus, having set out to make war,
with provisions of all kinds for his household, and especially with his
usual stores of water from the river Choaspes, the only kind of which he
deigned to drink, had reached the banks of the Gyndes. While seeking for a
ford, one of the white horses consecrated to the sun sprang into the
river, and being overturned by the current, was drowned before it could be
rescued. Cyrus regarded this accident as a personal affront, and
interrupted his expedition to avenge it. He employed his army during one
entire summer in digging three hundred and sixty canals, and thus caused
the principal arm of the stream to run dry, and he did not resume his
march upon Babylon till the following spring, when the level of the water
was low enough to permit of a woman crossing from one bank to the other
without wetting her knees. The Babylonians at first attempted to prevent
the blockade of the place, but being repulsed in their sorties,
they retired within the walls, much to Cyrus’s annoyance, for they were
provisioned for several years. He therefore undertook to turn the course
of the Euphrates into the Bahr-î-Nejîf, and having accomplished it, he
crept into the centre of the city by the dry bed of the river. If the
Babylonians had kept proper guard, the Persians would probably have been
surrounded and caught like fish in a net; but on that particular day they
were keeping one of their festivals, and continued their dancing and
singing till they suddenly found the streets alive with the enemy.
Babylon suffered in no way by her servitude, and far from its being a
source of unhappiness to her, she actually rejoiced in it; she was rid of
Nabonidus, whose sacrilegious innovations had scandalised her piety, and
she possessed in Cyrus a legitimate sovereign since he had “taken the
hands of Bel.” It pleased her to believe that she had conquered her victor
rather than been conquered by him, and she accommodated herself to her
Persian dynasty after the same fashion that she had in turn accustomed
herself to Cossæan or Elamite, Ninevite or Chaldæan dynasties in days gone
by. Nothing in or around the city was changed, and she remained what she
had been since the fall of Assyria, the real capital of the regions
situated between the Mediterranean and the Zagros. It seems that none of
her subjects—whether Syrians, Tyrians, Arabs, or Idumæans—attempted
to revolt against their new master, but passively accepted him, and the
Persian dominion extended uncontested as far as the isthmus of Suez;
Cyprus even, and such of the Phoenicians as were still dependencies of
Egypt, did homage to her without further hesitation. The Jews alone
appeared only half satisfied, for the clemency shown by Cyrus to their
oppressors disappointed their hopes and the predictions of their prophets.
They had sung in anticipation of children killed before their fathers’
eyes, of houses pillaged, of women violated, and Babylon, the glory of the
empire and the beauty of Chaldæan pride, utterly destroyed like Sodom and
Gomorrha when overthrown by Jahveh. “It shall never be inhabited, neither
shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the
Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie
down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their
houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell
there, and satyrs shall dance there. And wolves shall cry in their
castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces.” *
Cyrus, however, was seated on the throne, and the city of Nebuchadrezzar,
unlike that of Sargon and Sennacherib, still continued to play her part in
the world’s history. The revenge of Jerusalem had not been as complete as
that of Samaria, and her sons had to content themselves with obtaining the
cessation of their exile. It is impossible to say whether they had
contributed to the downfall of Nabonidus otherwise than by the fervency of
their prayers, or if they had rendered Cyrus some service either in the
course of his preparations or during his short campaign. They may have
contemplated taking up arms in his cause, and have been unable to carry
the project into execution owing to the rapidity with which events took
place. However this may be, he desired to reward them for their good
intentions, and in the same year as his victory, he promulgated a solemn
edict, in which he granted them permission to return to Judah and to
rebuild not only their city, but the temple of their God. The inhabitants
of the places where they were living were charged to furnish them with
silver, gold, materials, and cattle, which would be needed by those among
them who should claim the benefits of the edict; they even had restored to
them, by order of the king, what remained in the Babylonian treasury of
the vessels of gold and silver which had belonged to the sanctuary of
Jahveh. The heads of the community received the favour granted to them
from such high quarters, without any enthusiasm. Now that they were free
to go, they discovered that they were well off at Babylon. They would have
to give up their houses, their fields, their business, their habits of
indifference to politics, and brave the dangers of a caravan journey of
three or four months’ duration, finally encamping in the midst of ruins in
an impoverished country, surrounded by hostile and jealous neighbours;
such a prospect was not likely to find favour with many, and indeed it was
only the priests, the Lévites, and the more ardent of the lower classes
who welcomed the idea of the return with a touching fervour. The first
detachment organised their departure in 536, under the auspices of one of
the princes of the royal house, named Shauash-baluzur (Sheshbazzar), a son
of Jehoiachin.* It comprised only a small number of families, and
contained doubtless a few of the captives of Nebuchadrezzar who in their
childhood had seen the temple standing and had been present at its
destruction.
The returning exiles at first settled in the small towns of Judah and
Benjamin, and it was not until seven months after their arrival that they
summoned courage to clear the sacred area in order to erect in its midst
an altar of sacrifice.*
They formed there, in the land of their fathers, a little colony, almost
lost among the heathen nations of former times—Philistines,
Idumasans, Moabites, Ammonites, and the settlers implanted at various
times in what had been the kingdom of Israel by the sovereigns of Assyria
and Chaldæa. Grouped around the Persian governor, who alone was able to
protect them from the hatred of their rivals, they had no hope of
prospering, or even of maintaining their position, except by exhibiting an
unshaken fidelity to their deliverers. It was on this very feeling that
Cyrus mainly relied when he granted them permission to return to their
native hills, and he was actuated as much by a far-seeing policy as from
the promptings of instinctive generosity. It was with satisfaction that he
saw in that distant province, lying on the frontier of the only enemy yet
left to him in the old world, a small band, devoted perforce to his
interests, and whose very existence depended entirely on that of his
empire. He no doubt extended the same favour to the other exiles in
Chaldæa who demanded it of him, but we do not know how many of them took
advantage of the occasion to return to their native countries, and this
exodus of the Jews still remains, so far as we know, a unique fact. The
administration continued the same as it had been under the Chaldæans;
Aramæan was still the official language in the provincial dependencies,
and the only change effected was the placing of Persians at the head of
public offices, as in Asia Minor, and allowing them a body of troops to
support their authority.*
One great state alone remained of all those who had played a prominent
part in the history of the East. This was Egypt; and the policy which her
rulers had pursued since the development of the Iranian power apparently
rendered a struggle with it inevitable. Amasis had taken part in all the
coalitions which had as their object the perpetuation of the balance of
the powers in Western Asia; he had made a treaty with Croesus, and it is
possible that his contingents had fought in the battles before Sardes;
Lydia having fallen, he did all in his power to encourage Nabonidus in his
resistance. As soon as he found himself face to face with Cyrus, he
understood that a collision was imminent, and did his best in preparing to
meet it. Even if Cyrus had forgotten the support which had been freely
given to his rivals, the wealth of Egypt was in itself sufficient to
attract the Persian hordes to her frontiers.
A century later, the Egyptians, looking back on the past with a melancholy
retrospection, confessed that “never had the valley been more flourishing
or happier than under Amasis; never had the river shown itself more
beneficent to the soil, nor the soil more fertile for mankind, and the
inhabitated towns might be reckoned at 20,000 in number.” The widespread
activity exhibited under Psammetichus II., and Apries, was redoubled under
the usurper, and the quarries of Turah,* Silsileh,** Assuan, and even
those of Hammamât, were worked as in the palmy days of the Theban
dynasties. The island of Philæ, whose position just below the cataract
attracted to it the attention of the military engineers, was carefully
fortified and a temple built upon it, the materials of which were used
later on in the masonry of the sanctuary of Ptolemaic times. Thebes
exhibited a certain outburst of vitality under the impulse given by
Ankhnasnofiribri and by Shashonqu, the governor of her palace;*** two
small chapels, built in the centre of the town, still witness to the
queen’s devotion to Amon, of whom she was the priestess. Wealthy private
individuals did their best to emulate their sovereign’s example, and made
for themselves at Shêkh Abd-el-Gurnah and at Assassif those rock-hewn
tombs which rival those of the best periods in their extent and the beauty
of their bas-reliefs.****
Most of the cities of the Said were in such a state of decadence that it
was no longer possible to restore to them their former prosperity, but
Abydos occupied too important a place in the beliefs connected with the
future world, and attracted too many pilgrims, to permit of its being
neglected. The whole of its ancient necropolis had been rifled by thieves
during the preceding centuries, and the monuments were nearly as much
buried by sand as in our own times.
The dismantled fortress now known as the Shunêt ez-Zebîb served as the
cemetery for the ibises of Thoth, and for the stillborn children of the
sacred singing-women, while the two Memnonia of Seti and Ramses, now
abandoned by their priests, had become mere objects of respectful
curiosity, on which devout Egyptians or passing travellers—Phoenicians,
Aramæans, Cypriots, Carians, and Greeks from Ionia and the isles—came
to carve their names.*
Amasis confided the work of general restoration to one of the principal
personages of his court, Pefzââunît, Prince of Sais, who devoted his
attention chiefly to two buildings—the great sanctuary of Osiris,
which was put into good condition throughout, and the very ancient
necropolis of Omm-el-Graab, where lay hidden the àlquhah, one of
the sepulchres of the god; he restored the naos, the table of offerings,
the barques, and the temple furniture, and provided for the sacred
patrimony by an endowment of fields, vineyards, palm groves, and revenues,
so as to ensure to the sanctuary offerings in perpetuity. It was a
complete architectural resurrection. The nomes of Middle Egypt, which had
suffered considerably during the Ethiopian and Assyrian wars, had some
chance of prosperity now that their lords were relieved from the necessity
of constantly fighting for some fresh pretender. Horu, son of
Psam-metichus, Prince of the Oleander nome, rebuilt the ancient sanctuary
of Harshafaîtu at Heracleopolis, and endowed it with a munificence which
rivalled that of Pefzââunîfc at Abydos. The king himself devoted his
resources chiefly to works at Memphis and in the Delta. He founded a
temple of Isis at Memphis, which Herodotus described as extending over an
immense area and being well worth seeing; unfortunately nothing now
remains of it, nor of the recumbent colossus, sixty feet in length, which
the king placed before the court of Phtah, nor of the two gigantic statues
which he raised in front of the temple, one on each side of the door.
Besides these architectural works, Amasis invested the funerary ceremonies
of the Apis-bulls with a magnificence rarely seen before his time, and the
official stelae which he carved to the memory of the animals who died in
his reign exhibit a perfection of style quite unusual. His labours at
Memphis, however, were eclipsed by the admirable work which he
accomplished at Sais. The propylæ which he added to the temple of Nît
“surpassed most other buildings of the same kind, as much by their height
and extent, as by the size and quality of the materials;” he had,
moreover, embellished them by a fine colonnade, and made an approach to
them by an avenue of sphinxes.
In other parts of the same building were to be seen two superb obelisks, a
recumbent figure similar to that at Memphis, and a monolithic naos of rose
granite brought from the quarries of Elephantine. Amasis had a special
predilection for this kind of monument. That which he erected at Thmuis is
nearly twenty-three feet in height,* and the Louvre contains another
example, which though smaller still excites the admiration of the modern
visitor.**
The naos of Sais, which amazed Herodotus, was much larger than either of
the two already mentioned, or, indeed, than any known example. Tradition
states that it took two thousand boatmen three years to convey it down
from the first cataract. It measured nearly thirty feet high in the
interior, twenty-four feet in depth, and twelve feet in breadth; even when
hollowed out to contain the emblem of the god, it still weighed nearly
500,000 kilograms. It never reached its appointed place in the sanctuary.
The story goes that “the architect, at the moment when the monument had
been moved as far as a certain spot in the temple, heaved a sigh,
oppressed with the thought of the time expended on its transport and weary
of the arduous work. Amasis overheard the sigh, and taking it as an omen,
he commanded that the block should be dragged no further. Others relate
that one of the overseers in charge of the work was crushed to death by
the monument, and for this reason it was left standing on the spot,” where
for centuries succeeding generations came to contemplate it.*
Amasis, in devoting his revenues to such magnificent works, fully shared
the spirit of the older Pharaohs, and his labours were nattering to the
national vanity, even though many lives were sacrificed in their
accomplishment; but the glory which they reflected on Egypt did not have
the effect of removing the unpopularity in which Tie was personally held.
The revolution which overthrew Apries had been provoked by the hatred of
the native party towards the foreigners; he himself had been the
instrument by which it had been accomplished, and it would have been only
natural that, having achieved a triumph in spite of the Greeks and the
mercenaries, he should have wished to be revenged on them, and have
expelled them from his dominions. But, as a fact, nothing of the kind took
place, and Amasis, once crowned, forgot the wrongs he had suffered as an
aspirant to the royal dignity; no sooner was he firmly seated on the
throne, than he recalled the strangers, and showed that he had only
friendly intentions with regard to them. His predecessors had received
them into favour, he, in fact, showed a perfect infatuation for them, and
became as complete a Greek as it was possible for an Egyptian to be. His
first care had been to make a treaty with the Dorians of Oyrene, and he
displayed so much tact in dealing with them, that they forgave him for the
skirmish of Irasa, and invited him to act as arbitrator in their
dissensions. A certain Arkesilas II. had recently succeeded the Battos who
had defeated the Egyptian troops, but his suspicious temper had obliged
his brothers to separate themselves from him, and they had founded further
westwards the independent city of Barca. On his threatening to evict them,
they sent a body of Libyans against him. Fighting ensued, and he was
beaten close to the town of Leukon. He lost 7000 hoplites in the
engagement, and the disaster aroused so much ill-feeling against him that
Laarchos, another of his brothers, strangled him. Laarchos succeeded him
amid the acclamations of the soldiery; but not long after, Eryxô and
Polyarchos, the wife and brother-in-law of his victim, surprised and
assassinated him in his turn. The partisans of Laarchos then had recourse
to the Pharaoh, who showed himself disposed to send them help; but his
preparations were suspended owing to the death of his mother. Polyarchos
repaired to Egypt before the royal mourning was ended, and pleaded his
cause with such urgency that he won over the king to his side; he obtained
the royal investiture for his sister’s child, who was still a minor,
Battos III., the lame, and thus placed Oyrene in a sort of vassalage to
the Egyptian crown.*
The ties which connected the two courts were subsequently drawn closer by
marriage; partly from policy and partly from a whim, Amasis espoused a
Cyrenian woman named Ladikê, the daughter, according to some, of Arkesilas
or of Battos, according to others, of a wealthy private individual named
Kritobulos.* The Greeks of Europe and Asia Minor fared no less to their
own satisfaction at his hand than their compatriots in Africa; following
the example of his ally Croesus, he entered into relations with their
oracles on several occasions, and sent them magnificent presents. The
temple of Delphi having been burnt down in 548, the Athenian family of the
Alcmæonides undertook to rebuild it from the ground for the sum of three
hundred talents, of which one-fourth was to be furnished by the Delphians.
When these, being too poor to pay the sum out of their own resources, made
an appeal to the generosity of other friendly powers, Amasis graciously
offered them a thousand talents of Egyptian alum, then esteemed the most
precious of all others. Alum was employed in dyeing, and was an expensive
commodity in the markets of Europe; the citizens of Delphi were all the
more sensible of Pharaoh’s generosity, since the united Greeks of the Nile
valley contributed only twenty minæ of the same mineral as their
quota. Amasis erected at Cyrene a statue of his wife Ladikê, and another
of the goddess Neît, gilded from head to foot, and to these he added his
own portrait, probably painted on a wooden panel.**
He gave to Athene of Lindos two stone statues and a corselet of linen of
marvellous fineness;* and Hera of Samos received two wooden statues, which
a century later Herodotus found still intact. The Greeks flocked to Egypt
from all quarters of the world in such considerable numbers that the laws
relating to them had to be remodelled in order to avoid conflicts with the
natives.
The townships founded a century earlier along the Pelusiac arm of the Nile
had increased still further since the time of Necho, and to their activity
was attributable the remarkable prosperity of the surrounding region. But
the position which they occupied on the most exposed side of Egypt was
regarded as permanently endangering the security of the country: her
liberty would be imperilled should they revolt during a war with the
neighbouring empire, and hand over the line of defence which was
garrisoned by them to the invader. Amasis therefore dispossessed their
inhabitants, and transferred them to Memphis and its environs. The change
benefited him in two ways, for, while securing himself from possible
treason, he gained a faithful guard for himself in the event of risings
taking place in his turbulent capital. While he thus distributed these
colonists of ancient standing to his best interests, he placed those of
quite recent date in the part of the Delta furthest removed from Asia,
where surveillance was most easy, in the triangle, namely, lying to the
west of Sais, between the Canopic branch of the Nile, the mountains, and
the sea-coast. The Milesians had established here some time previously, on
a canal connected with the main arm of the river, the factory of
Naucratis, which long remained in obscurity, but suddenly developed at the
beginning of the XXVIth dynasty, when Sais became the favourite residence
of the Pharaohs. This town Amasis made over to the Greeks so that they
might make it the commercial and religious centre of their communities in
Egypt.
Temples already existed there, those of Apollo and Aphrodite, together
with all the political and religious institutions indispensable to the
constitution of an Hellenic city; but the influx of immigrants was so
large and rapid, that, after the lapse of a few years, the entire internal
organism and external aspect of the city were metamorphosed. New buildings
rose from the ground with incredible speed—the little temple of the
Dioskuri, the protectors of the sailor, the temple of the Samian Hera,
that of Zeus of Ægina, and that of Athene;* ere long the great temenos,
the Hellenion, was erected at the public expense by nine Æolian, Ionian,
and Dorian towns of Asia Minor, to serve as a place of assembly for their
countrymen, as a storehouse, as a sanctuary, and, if need be, even as a
refuge and fortress, so great was its area and so thick its walls.**
It was not possible for the constitution of Naucratis to be very
homogeneous, when a score of different elements assisted in its
composition. It appears to have been a compromise between the institutions
of the Dorians and those of the Ionians. Its supreme magistrates were
called timuchi, but their length of office and functions are alike unknown
to us. The inspectors of the emporia and markets could be elected only by
the citizens of the nine towns, and it is certain that the chief authority
was not entirely in the hands either of the timuchi or the inspectors;
perhaps each quarter of the town had its council taken from among the
oldest residents. A prytanasum was open to all comers where assemblies and
banquets were held on feast-days; here were celebrated at the public
expense the festivals of Dionysos and Apollo Komasos. Amasis made the city
a free port, accessible at all times to whoever should present themselves
with peaceable intent, and the privileges which he granted naturally
brought about the closing of all the other seaports of Egypt. When a Greek
ship, pursued by pirates, buffeted by storms, or disabled by an accident
at sea, ran ashore at some prohibited spot on the coast, the captain had
to appear before the nearest magistrate, in order to swear that he had not
violated the law wilfully, but from the force of circumstances. If his
excuse appeared reasonable, he was permitted to make his way to the mouth
of the Canopic branch of the Nile; but when the state of the wind or tide
did not allow of his departure, his cargo was transferred to boats of the
locality, and sent to the Hellenic settlement by the canals of the Delta.
This provision of the law brought prosperity to Naucratis; the whole of
the commerce of Egypt with the Greek world passed through her docks, and
in a few years she became one of the wealthiest emporia of the
Mediterranean. The inhabitants soon overflowed the surrounding country,
and covered it with villas and townships. Such merchants as refused to
submit to the rule of their own countrymen found a home in some other part
of the valley which suited them, and even Upper Egypt and the Libyan
desert were subject to their pacific inroads. The Milesians established
depots in the ancient city of Abydos;* the Cypriots and Lesbians, and the
people of Ephesus, Chios, and Samos, were scattered over the islands
formed by the network of canals and arms of the Nile, and delighted in
giving them the names of their respective countries;** Greeks of diverse
origin settled themselves at Neapolis, not far from Panopolis; and the
Samians belonging to the Æschrionian tribe penetrated as far as the Great
Oasis; in fact, there was scarcely a village where Hellenic traders were
not found, like the bakals of to-day, selling wine, perfumes, oil,
and salted provisions to the natives, practising usury in all its forms,
and averse from no means of enriching themselves as rapidly as possible.
Those who returned to their mother-country carried thither strange tales,
which aroused the curiosity and cupidity of their fellow-citizens; and
philosophers, merchants, and soldiers alike set out for the land of
wonders in pursuit of knowledge, wealth, or adventures. Amasis, ever alert
upon his Asiatic frontier, and always anxious to strengthen himself in
that quarter against a Chaldæan or Persian invasion, welcomed them with
open arms: those who remained in the country obtained employment about his
person, while such as left it not to return, carried away with them the
memory of his kindly treatment, and secured for him in Hellas alliances of
which he might one day stand in need. The conduct of Amasis was politic,
but it aroused the ill-feeling of his subjects against him. Like the Jews
under Hezekiah, the Babylonians under Nabonidus, and all other decadent
races threatened by ruin, they attributed their decline, not to their own
vices, but to the machinations of an angry god, and they looked on favours
granted to strangers as a sacrilege. Had not the Greeks brought their
divinities with them? Did they not pervert the simple country-folk, so
that they associated the Greek religion with that of their own country?
Money was scarce; Amasis had been obliged to debit the rations and pay of
his mercenaries to the accounts of the most venerated Egyptian temples—those
of Sais, Heliopolis, Bubastis, and Memphis; and each of these institutions
had to rebate so much per cent. on their annual revenues in favour of the
barbarians, and hand over to them considerable quantities of corn, cattle,
poultry, stuffs, woods, perfumes, and objects of all kinds. The priests
were loud in their indignation, the echo of which still rang in the ears
of the faithful some centuries later, and the lower classes making common
cause with their priests, a spirit of hatred was roused among the populace
as bitter as that which had previously caused the downfall of Apries. As
the fear of the army prevented this feeling from manifesting itself in a
revolt, it found expression in the secret calumnies which were circulated
against the king, and misrepresented the motives of all his actions.
Scores of malicious stories were repeated vilifying his character. It was
stated that before his accession he was much addicted to eating and
drinking, but that, suffering from want of money, he had not hesitated in
procuring what he wished for by all sorts of means, the most honest of
which had been secret theft. When made king, he had several times given
way to intoxication to such an extent as to be incapable of attending to
public business; his ministers were then obliged to relate moral tales to
him to bring him to a state of reason. Many persons having taunted him
with his low extraction, he had caused a statue of a divinity to be made
out of a gold basin in which he was accustomed to wash his feet, and he
had exposed it to the adoration of the faithful. When it had been
worshipped by them for some time, he revealed the origin of the idol, and
added “that it had been with himself as with the foot-pan…. If he were a
private person formerly, yet now he had come to be their king, and so he
bade them honour and reverence him.” Towards the middle and end of his
reign he was as much detested as he had been beloved at the outset.
He had, notwithstanding, so effectively armed Egypt that the Persians had
not ventured to risk a collision with her immediately after their conquest
of Babylon. Cyrus had spent ten years in compassing the downfall of
Nabonidus, and, calculating that that of Amasis would require no less a
period of time, he set methodically to work on the organisation of his
recently acquired territory; the cities of Phoenicia acknowledged him as
their suzerain, and furnished him with what had hitherto been a coveted
acquisition, a fleet. These preliminaries had apparently been already
accomplished, when the movements of the barbarians suddenly made his
presence in the far East imperative. He hurried thither, and was
mysteriously lost to sight (529). Tradition accounts for his death in
several ways. If Xenophon is to be credited, he died peaceably on his bed,
surrounded by his children, and edifying those present by his wisdom and
his almost superhuman resignation.*
Berosus tells us that he was killed in a campaign against the Daliæ;
Ctesias states that, living been wounded in a skirmish with the Æerbikes,
one of the savage tribes of Bactriana, he succumbed to his injuries three
days after the engagement. According to the worthy Herodotus, he asked the
hand of Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetse, in marriage, and was refused
with disdain. He declared war against her to avenge his wounded vanity,
set out to fight with her beyond the Araxes, in the steppes of Turkestan,
defeated the advance-guard of cavalry, and took prisoner the heir to the
crown, Spargapises, who thereupon ran himself through with his sword.
“Then Tomyris collected all the forces of her kingdom, and gave him
(Cyrus) battle.” Of all the combats in which barbarians have engaged among
themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest. The following, as I
understand, was the manner of it:—First, the two armies stood apart
and shot their arrows at each other; then, when their quivers were empty,
they closed and fought hand to hand with lances and daggers; and thus they
continued fighting for a length of time, neither choosing to give ground.
At length the Massagetse prevailed. The greater part of the army of the
Persians was destroyed. Search was made among the slain by order of the
queen for the body of Cyrus; and when it was found, she took a skin, and,
filling it full of human blood, she dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore,
saying, as she thus insulted the corse, “I live and have conquered thee in
fight, and yet by thee am I ruined, for thou tookest my son with guile;
but thus I make good my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood.” The
engagement was not as serious as the legend would have us believe, and the
growth of the Persian power was in no way affected, by it. It cost Cyrus
his life, but his army experienced no serious disaster, and his men took
the king’s body and brought it to Pasargadæ. He had a palace there, the
remains of which can still be seen on the plain of Murgâb. The edifice was
unpretentious, built upon a rectangular plan, with two porches of four
columns on the longer sides, a lateral chamber at each of the four angles,
and a hypostyle hall in the centre, divided lengthways by two rows of
columns which supported the roof. The walls were decorated with
bas-reliefs, and wherever the inscriptions have not been destroyed, we can
read in cuneiform characters in the three languages which thenceforward
formed the official means of communication of the empire—Persian,
Medic, and Chaldæan—the name, title, and family of the royal
occupant. Cyrus himself is represented in a standing posture on the
pilasters, wearing a costume in which Egyptian and Assyrian features are
curiously combined. He is clothed from neck to ankle in the close-fitting
fringed tunic of the Babylonian and Mnevite sovereigns; his feet are
covered with laced boots, while four great wings, emblems of the supreme
power, overshadow his shoulders and loins, two of them raised in the air,
the others pointing to the earth; he wears on his head the Egyptian
skull-cap, from which rises one of the most complicated head-dresses of
the royal wardrobe of the Pharaohs. The monarch raises his right hand with
the gesture of a man speaking to an assembled people, and as if repeating
the legend traced above his image: “I am Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenian.”
He was buried not far off, in the monumental tomb which he had probably
built for himself in a square enclosure, having a portico on three of its
sides; a small chamber, with a ridge roof, rises from a base composed of
six receding steps, so arranged as to appear of unequal height.
The doorway is narrow, and so low that a man of medium statue finds some
difficulty in entering. It is surmounted by a hollow moulding, quite
Egyptian in style, and was closed by a two-leaved stone door. The golden
coffin rested on a couch of the same metal, covered with precious stuffs;
and a circular table, laden with drinking-vessels and ornaments enriched
with precious stones, completed the furniture of the chamber. The body of
the conqueror remained undisturbed on this spot for two centuries under
the care of the priests; but while Alexander was waging war on the Indian
frontier, the Greek officers, to whom he had entrusted the government of
Persia proper, allowed themselves to be tempted by the enormous wealth
which the funerary chapel was supposed to contain.
They opened the coffin, broke the couch and the table, and finding them
too heavy to carry away easily, they contented themselves with stealing
the drinking-vessels and jewels. Alexander on his return visited the
place, and caused the entrance to be closed with a slight wall of masonry;
he intended to restore the monument to its former splendour, but he
himself perished shortly after, and what remained of the contents probably
soon disappeared. After the death of Cyrus, popular imagination, drawing
on the inexhaustible materials furnished by his adventurous career, seemed
to delight in making him the ideal of all a monarch should be; they
attributed to him every virtue—gentleness, bravery, moderation,
justice, and wisdom. There is no reason to doubt that he possessed the
qualities of a good general—activity, energy, and courage, together
with the astuteness and the duplicity so necessary to success in Asiatic
conquest—but he does not appear to have possessed in the same degree
the gifts of a great administrator. He made no changes in the system of
government which from the time of Tiglath-pileser III. onwards had
obtained among all Oriental sovereigns; he placed satraps over the towns
and countries of recent acquisition, at Sardes and Babylon, in Syria and
Palestine, but without clearly defining their functions or subjecting them
to a supervision sufficiently strict to ensure the faithful performance of
their duties. He believed that he was destined to found a single empire in
which all the ancient empires were to be merged, and he all but carried
his task to a successful close: Egypt alone remained to be conquered when
he passed away.
His wife Kassandanê, a daughter of Pharnaspes, and an Achæmenian like
himself, had borne him five children; two sons, Cambyses* and Smerdis,**
and three daughters, Atossa, Roxana, and Artystonê.***
Cambyses was probably born about 558, soon after his father’s accession,
and he was his legitimate successor, according to the Persian custom which
assigned the crown to the eldest of the sons born in the purple. He had
been associated, as we have seen, in the Babylonian regal power
immediately after the victory over Nabonidus, and on the eve of his
departure for the fatal campaign against the Massagetse his father, again
in accordance with the Persian law, had appointed him regent. A later
tradition, preserved by Ctesias, relates that on this occasion the
territory had been divided between the two sons: Smerdis, here called
Tanyoxarkes, having received as his share Bactriana, the Khoramnians, the
Parthians, and the Carmanians, under the suzerainty of his brother.
Cambyses, it is clear, inherited the whole empire, but intrigues gathered
round Smerdis, and revolts broke out in the provinces, incited, so it was
said, whether rightly or wrongly, by his partisans.* The new king was
possessed of a violent, merciless temper, and the Persians subsequently
emphasised the fact by saying that Cyrus had been a father to them,
Cambyses a master. The rebellions were repressed with a vigorous hand, and
finally Smerdis disappeared by royal order, and the secret of his fate was
so well kept, that it was believed, even by his mother and sisters, that
he was merely imprisoned in some obscure Median fortress.**
The ground being cleared of his rival, and affairs on the Scythian
frontier reduced to order, Cambyses took up the projects against Egypt at
the exact point at which his predecessor had left them. Amasis, who for
ten years had been expecting an attack, had taken every precaution in his
power against it, and had once more patiently begun to make overtures of
alliance with the Hellenic cities; those on the European continent did not
feel themselves so seriously menaced as to consider it to their interest
to furnish him with any assistance, but the Greeks of the independent
islands, with their chief, Poly crates, tyrant of Samos, received his
advances with alacrity. Polycrates had at his disposal a considerable
fleet, the finest hitherto seen in the waters of the Ægean, and this,
combined with the Egyptian navy, was not any too large a force to protect
the coasts of the Delta, now that the Persians had at their disposition
not only the vessels of the Æolian and Ionian cities, but those of
Phoenicia and Cyprus. A treaty was concluded, bringing about an exchange
of presents and amenities between the two princes which lasted as long as
peace prevailed, but was ruptured at the critical moment by the action of
Polycrates, though not actually through his own fault. The aristocratic
party, whose chiefs were always secretly plotting his overthrow, had given
their adherence to the Persians, and their conduct became so threatening
about the time of the death of Cyras, that Polycrates had to break his
engagements with Egypt in order to avert a catastrophe.*
He made a treaty with the Persian king, and sent a squadron of forty
galleys to join the fleet then being equipped in the Phoenician ports.*
Amasis, therefore, when war at last broke out, found himself left to face
the enemy alone. The struggle was inevitable, and all the inhabitants of
the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean had long foreseen its coming.
Without taking into consideration the danger to which the Persian empire
and its Syrian provinces were exposed by the proximity of a strong and
able power such as Egypt, the hardy and warlike character of Cambyses
would naturally have prompted him to make an attempt to achieve what his
predecessors, the warrior-kings of Nineveh and Babylon, had always failed
to accomplish successfully. Policy ruled his line of action, and was
sufficient to explain it, but popular imagination sought other than the
very natural causes which had brought the most ancient and most recent of
the great empires of the world into opposition; romantic reasons were
therefore invented to account for the great drama which was being enacted,
and the details supplied varied considerably, according as the tradition
was current in Asia or Africa. It was said that a physician lent to Cyrus
by Amasis, to treat him for an affection of the eyes, was the cause of all
the evil. The unfortunate man, detained at Susa and chafing at his exile,
was said to have advised Cambyses to ask for the daughter of Pharaoh in
marriage, hoping either that Amasis would grant the request, and be
dishonoured in the eyes of his subjects for having degraded the solar race
by a union with a barbarian, or that he would boldly refuse, and thus
arouse the hatred of the Persians against himself. Amasis, after a slight
hesitation, substituted Nitêtis, a daughter of Apries, for his own child.
It happened that one day in sport Cambyses addressed the princess by the
name of her supposed father, whereupon she said, “I perceive, O king, that
you have no suspicion of the way in which you have been deceived by
Amasis; he took me, and having dressed me up as his own daughter, sent me
to you. In reality I am the daughter of Apries, who was his lord and
master until the day that he revolted, and, in concert with the rest of
the Egyptians, put his sovereign to death.” The deceit which Cambyses thus
discovered had been put upon him irritated him so greatly as to induce him
to turn his arms against Egypt. So ran the Persian account of the tale,
but on the banks of the Nile matters were explained otherwise. Here it was
said that it was to Cyrus himself that Nitêtis had been married, and that
she had borne Cambyses to him; the conquest had thus been merely a revenge
of the legitimate heirs of Psammetichus upon the usurper, and Cambyses had
ascended the throne less as a conqueror than as a Pharaoh of the line of
Apries. It was by this childish fiction that the Egyptians in their
decadence consoled themselves before the stranger for their loss of power.
Always proud of their ancient prowess, but incapable of imitating the
deeds of their forefathers, they none the less pretended that they could
neither be vanquished nor ruled except by one of themselves, and the story
of Nitêtis afforded complete satisfaction to their vanity. If Cambyses
were born of a solar princess, Persia could not be said to have imposed a
barbarian king upon Egypt, but, on the contrary, that Egypt had cleverly
foisted her Pharaoh upon Persia, and through Persia upon half the
universe.
One obstacle still separated the two foes—the desert and the marshes
of the Delta. The distance between the outposts of Pelusium and the
fortress of Ænysos* on the Syrian frontier was scarcely fifty-six miles,
and could be crossed by an army in less than ten days.** Formerly the
width of this strip of desert had been less, but the Assyrians, and after
them the Chaldæans, had vied with each other in laying waste the country,
and the absence of any settled population now rendered the transit
difficult. Cambyses had his head-quarters at Gaza, at the extreme limit of
his own dominions,*** but he was at a loss how to face this solitary
region without incurring the risk of seeing half his men buried beneath
its sands, and his uncertainty was delaying his departure when a stroke of
fortune relieved him from his difficulty.
Phanes of Halicarnassus, one of the mercenaries in the service of Egypt, a
man of shrewd judgment and an able soldier, fell out with Amasis for some
unknown reason, and left him to offer his services to his rival. This was
a serious loss for Egypt, since Phanes possessed considerable authority
over the mercenaries, and was better versed in Egyptian affairs than any
other person. He was pursued and taken within sight of the Lycian coast,
but he treated his captors to wine and escaped from them while they were
intoxicated. He placed Cambyses in communication with the shêkh of the
scattered tribes between Syria and the Delta. The Arab undertook to
furnish the Persian king with guides, as one of his predecessors had done
in years gone by for Esar-haddon, and to station relays of camels laden
with water along the route that the invading army was to follow. Having
taken these precautions, Cambyses entrusted the cares of government and
the regulation of his household to Oropastes,* one of the Persian magi,
and gave the order to march forward.
On arriving at Pelusium, he learned that his adversary no longer existed.
Amasis had died after a short illness, and was succeeded by his son
Psammetichus III.
This change of command, at the most critical moment, was almost in itself,
a disaster. Àmasis, with his consummate experience of men and things, his
intimate knowledge of the resources of Egypt, his talents as a soldier and
a general, his personal prestige, his Hellenic leanings, commanded the
confidence of his own men and the respect of foreigners; but what could be
expected of his unknown successor, and who could say whether he were equal
to the heavy task which fate had assigned to him? The whole of the Nile
valley was a prey to gloomy presentiment.*
Egypt was threatened not only, as in the previous century, by the nations
of the Tigris and Euphrates, but all Asia, from the Indus to the
Hellespont, was about to fall on her to crush her. She was destitute of
all human help and allies, and the gods themselves appeared to have
forsaken her. The fellahin, inspired with vague alarm, recognised evil
omens in all around them. Rain is rare in the Thebaid, and storms occur
there only twice or three times in a century: but a few days after the
accession of Psammetichus, a shower of fine rain fell at Thebes, an event,
so it was stated with the exaggeration characteristic of the bearers of
ill news, which had never before occurred.*
Pharaoh hastened to meet the invader with all the men, chariots, and
native bowmen at his disposal, together with his Libyan and Cyrenoan
auxiliaries, and the Ionians, Carians, and Greeks of the isles and
mainland. The battle took place before Pelusium, and was fought on both
sides with brave desperation, since defeat meant servitude for the
Egyptians, and for the Persians, cut off by the desert from possible
retreat, captivity or annihilation. Phanes had been obliged to leave his
children behind him, and Pharaoh included them in his suite, to serve, if
needful, as hostages. The Carians and Ionians, who felt themselves
disgraced by the defection of their captain, called loudly for them just
before the commencement of the action. They were killed immediately in
front of the lines, their father being a powerless onlooker; their blood
was thrown into a cask half full of wine, and the horrible mixture was
drunk by the soldiers, who then furiously charged the enemy’s battalions.
The issue of the struggle was for a long time doubtful, but the Egyptians
were inferior in numbers; towards evening their lines gave way and the
flight began.* All was not, however, lost, if Psammetichus had but
followed the example of Taharqa, and defended the passage of the various
canals and arms of the river, disputing the ground inch by inch with the
Persians, and gaining time meanwhile to collect a fresh army. The king
lost his presence of mind, and without attempting to rally what remained
of his regiments, he hastened to take refuge within the White Wall.
Cambyses halted a few days to reduce Pelusium,** and in the mean time sent
a vessel of Mitylene to summon Memphis to capitulate: the infuriated
populace, as soon as they got wind of the message, massacred the herald
and the crew, and dragged their bleeding limbs through the streets.
The city held out for a considerable time; when at length she opened her
gates, the remaining inhabitants of the Said who had hesitated up to then,
hastened to make their submission, and the whole of Egypt as far as Philae
became at one stroke a Persian province. The Libyans did not wait to be
summoned to bring their tribute; Cyrene and Barca followed their example,
but their offerings were so small that the conqueror’s irritation was
aroused, and deeming himself mocked, he gave way to his anger, and instead
of accepting them, he threw them to his soldiers with his own hand (B.C.
525).*
This sudden collapse of a power whose exalted position had defied all
attacks for centuries, and the tragic fate of the king who had received
his crown merely to lose it, filled contemporary beholders with
astonishment and pity. It was said that, ten days after the capitulation
of Memphis, the victorious king desired out of sport to test the endurance
of his prisoner. Psammetichus beheld his daughter and the daughters of his
nobles pass before him, half naked, with jars on their shoulders, and go
down to the Nile to fetch water from the river like common slaves; his son
and two thousand young men of the same age, in chains and with ropes round
their necks, also defiled before him on their way to die as a revenge for
the murder of the Mitylenians; yet he never for a moment lost his royal
imperturbability. But when one of his former companions in pleasure
chanced to pass, begging for alms and clothed in rags, Psammetichus
suddenly broke out into weeping, and lacerated his face in despair.
Cambyses, surprised at this excessive grief in a man who up till then had
exhibited such fortitude, demanded the reason of his conduct. “Son of
Cyrus,” he replied, “the misfortunes of my house are too unparalleled to
weep over, but not the affliction of my friend. When a man, on the verge
of old age, falls from luxury and abundance into extreme poverty, one may
well lament his fate.” When the speech was reported to Cambyses, he fully
recognised the truth of it. Croesus, who was also present, shed tears, and
the Persians round him were moved with pity. Cambyses, likewise touched,
commanded that the son of the Pharaoh should be saved, but the remission
of the sentence arrived too late. He at all events treated Pharaoh himself
with consideration, and it is possible that he might have replaced him on
the throne, under an oath of vassalage, had he not surprised him in a
conspiracy against his own life. He thereupon obliged him to poison
himself by drinking bulls’ blood, and he confided the government of the
Nile valley to a Persian named Aryandes.
No part of the ancient world now remained unconquered except the
semi-fabulous kingdom of Ethiopia in the far-off south. Cities and
monarchies, all the great actors of early times, had been laid in the dust
one after another—Tyre, Damascus, Carchemish, Urartu, Elam, Assyria,
Jerusalem, Media, the Lydians, Babylon, and finally Egypt; and the prey
they had fought over so fiercely and for so many centuries, now belonged
in its entirety to one master for the first time as far as memory could
reach back into the past. Cambyses, following in the footsteps of Cyrus,
had pursued his victorious way successfully, but it was another matter to
consolidate his conquests and to succeed in governing within the limits of
one empire so many incongruous elements—the people of the Caucasus
and those of the Nile valley, the Greeks of the Ægean and the Iranians,
the Scythians from beyond the Oxus and the Semites of the banks of the
Euphrates or of the Mediterranean coast; and time alone would show whether
this heritage would not fall to pieces as quickly as it had been built up.
The Asiatic elements of the empire appeared, at all events for the moment,
content with their lot, and Babylon showed herself more than usually
resigned; but Egypt had never accepted the yoke of the stranger willingly,
and the most fortunate of her Assyrian conquerors had never exercised more
than a passing supremacy over her. Cambyses realised that he would never
master her except by governing her himself for a period of several years,
and by making himself as Egyptian as a Persian could be without offending
his own subjects at home. He adopted the titles of the Pharaohs, their
double cartouche, their royal costume, and their solar filiation; as much
to satisfy his own personal animosity as to conciliate the Egyptian
priests, he repaired to Sais, violated the tomb of Amasis, and burnt the
mummy after offering it every insult.*
He removed his troops from the temple of Nît, which they had turned into a
barrack to the horror of the faithful, and restored at his own expense the
damage they had done to the building. He condescended so far as to receive
instruction in the local religion, and was initiated in the worship of the
goddess by the priest Uzaharrîsnîti. This was, after all, a pursuance of
the policy employed by his father towards the Babylonians, and the
projects which he had in view necessitated his gaining the confidence of
the people at all costs. Asia having no more to offer him, two almost
untried fields lay open to his ambition—Africa and Europe—the
Greek world and what lay beyond it, the Carthaginian world and Ethiopia.
The necessity of making a final reckoning with Egypt had at the outset
summoned him to Africa, and it was therefore in that continent that he
determined to carry on his conquests. Memphis was necessarily the base of
his operations, the only point from which he could direct the march of his
armies in a westerly or southerly direction, and at the same time keep in
touch with the rest of his empire, and he would indeed have been imprudent
had he neglected anything which could make him acceptable to its
inhabitants. As soon as he felt he had gained their sympathies, he
despatched two expeditions, one to Carthage and one to Ethiopia. Cyrene
had spontaneously offered him her homage; he now further secured it by
sending thither with all honour Ladikê, the widow of Amasis, and he
apparently contemplated taking advantage of the good will of the Cyrenians
to approach Carthage by sea. The combined fleets of Ionia and Phonicia
were without doubt numerically sufficient for this undertaking, but the
Tyrians refused to serve against their own colonies, and he did not
venture to employ the Greeks alone in waters which were unfamiliar to
them. Besides this, the information which he obtained from those about him
convinced him that the overland route would enable him to reach his
destination more surely if more slowly; it would lead him from the banks
of the Nile to the Oases of the Theban desert, from there to the
Ammonians, and thence by way of the Libyans bordering on the Syrtes and
the Liby-phoenicians. He despatched an advance-guard of fifty thousand men
from Thebes to occupy the Oasis of Ammon and to prepare the various
halting-places for the bulk of the troops. The fate of these men has never
been clearly ascertained. They crossed the Oasis of El-Khargeh and
proceeded to the north-west in the direction of the oracle. The natives
afterwards related that when they had arrived halfway, a sudden storm of
wind fell upon them, and the entire force was buried under mounds of sand
during a halt. Cambyses was forced to take their word; in spite of all his
endeavours, no further news of his troops was forthcoming, except that
they never reached the temple, and that none of the generals or soldiers
ever again saw Egypt (524). The expedition to Ethiopia was not more
successful. Since the retreat of Tanuatamanu, the Pharaohs of Napata had
severed all direct relations with Asia; but on being interfered with by
Psammetichus I. and II., they had repulsed the invaders, and had
maintained their frontier almost within sight of Philæ.* In Nubia proper
they had merely a few outposts stationed in the ruins of the towns of the
Theban period—at Derr, at Pnubsu, at Wady-Halfa, and at Semneh; the
population again becoming dense and the valley fertile to the south of
this spot. Kush, like Egypt, was divided into two regions —To-Qonusît,
with its cities of Danguru,** Napata, Asta-muras, and Barua; and Alo,***
which extended along the White and the Blue Nile in the plain of Sennaar:
the Asmakh, the descendants of the Mashauasha emigrants of the time of
Psammetichus I., dwelt on the southern border of Alo.
A number of half-savage tribes, Maditi and Bohrehsa, were settled to the
right and to the left of the territory watered by the Nile, between
Darfur, the mountains of Abyssinia, and the Red Sea; and the warlike
disposition of the Ethiopian kings found in these tribes an inexhaustible
field for obtaining easy victories and abundant spoil. Many of these
sovereigns—Piônkhi, Alaru, Harsiatef, Nastosenen—whose
respective positions in the royal line are still undetermined, specially
distinguished themselves in these struggles, but the few monuments they
have left, though bearing witness to their military enterprise and
ability, betray their utter decadence in everything connected with art,
language, and religion. The ancient Egyptian syllabary, adapted to the
needs of a barbarous tongue, had ended by losing its elegance;
architecture was degenerating, and sculpture slowly growing more and more
clumsy in appearance. Some of the work, however, is not wanting in a
certain rude nobility—as, for instance, the god and goddess carved
side by side in a block of grey granite. Ethiopian worship had become
permeated with strange superstitions, and its creed was degraded, in spite
of the strictness with which the priests supervised its application and
kept watch against every attempt to introduce innovations. Towards the end
of the seventh century some of the families attached to the temple of Am
on at Napata had endeavoured to bring about a kind of religious reform;
among other innovations they adopted the practice of substituting for the
ordinary sacrifice, new rites, the chief feature of which was the offering
of the flesh of the victim raw, instead of roasted with fire. This custom,
which was doubtless borrowed from the negroes of the Upper Nile, was
looked upon as a shameful heresy by the orthodox. The king repaired in
state to the temple of Anion, seized the priests who professed these
seditious beliefs, and burnt them alive.
The use of raw meat, nevertheless, was not discontinued, and it gained
such ground in the course of ages that even Christianity was unable to
suppress it; up to the present time, the brindê, or piece of beef
cut from the living animal and eaten raw, is considered a delicacy by the
Abyssinians.
The isolation of the Ethiopians had rather increased than lowered their
reputation among other nations. Their transitory appearance on the
battle-fields of Asia had left a deep impression on the memories of their
opponents. The tenacity they had displayed during their conflict with
Assyria had effaced the remembrance of their defeat. Popular fancy
delighted to extol the wisdom of Sabaco,* and exalted Taharqa to the first
rank among the conquerors of the old world; now that Kush once more came
within the range of vision, it was invested with a share of all these
virtues, and the inquiries Cambyses made concerning it were calculated to
make him believe that he was about to enter on a struggle with a nation of
demigods rather than of men. He was informed that they were taller, more
beautiful, and more vigorous than all other mortals, that their age was
prolonged to one hundred and twenty years and more, and that they
possessed a marvellous fountain whose waters imparted perpetual youth to
then-bodies. There existed near their capital a meadow, perpetually
furnishing an inexhaustible supply of food and drink; whoever would might
partake of this “Table of the Sun,” and eat to his fill.**
Gold was so abundant that it was used for common purposes, even for the
chains of their prisoners; but, on the other hand, copper was rare and
much prized. Canibyses despatched some spies chosen from among the
Ichthyophagi of the Bed Sea to explore this region, and acting on the
report they brought back, he left Memphis at the head of an army and a
fleet.* The expedition was partly a success and partly a failure. It
followed the Nile valley as far as Korosko, and then struck across the
desert in the direction of Napata;** but provisions ran short before a
quarter of the march had been achieved, and famine obliged the invaders to
retrace their steps after having endured terrible sufferings.***
Cambyses had to rest content with the acquisition of those portions of
Nubia adjoining the first cataract—the same, in fact, that had been
annexed to Egypt by Psammetichus I. and II. (523). The failure of this
expedition to the south, following so closely on the disaster which befell
that of the west, had a deplorable effect on the mind of Cambyses. He had
been subject, from childhood, to attacks of epilepsy, during which he
became a maniac and had no control over his actions. These reverses of
fortune aggravated the disease, and increased the frequency and length of
the attacks.*
The bull Apis had died shortly before the close of the Ethiopian campaign,
and the Egyptians, after mourning for him during the prescribed number of
weeks, were bringing his successor with rejoicings into the temple of
Phtah, when the remains of the army re-entered Memphis. Cambyses, finding
the city holiday-making, imagined that it was rejoicing over his
misfortunes. He summoned the magistrates before him, and gave them over to
the executioner without deigning to listen to their explanations. He next
caused the priests to be brought to him, and when they had paraded the
Apis before him, he plunged his dagger into its flank with derisive
laughter: “Ah, evil people! So you make for yourselves divinities of flesh
and blood which fear the sword! It is indeed a fine god that you Egyptians
have here; I will have you to know, however, that you shall not rejoice
overmuch at having deceived me!” The priests were beaten as impostors, and
the bull languished from its wound and died in a few days*1 its priests
buried it, and chose another in its place without the usual ceremonies, so
as not to exasperate the anger of the tyrant,** but the horror evoked by
this double sacrilege raised passions against Cambyses which the ruin of
the country had failed to excite.
The manifestations of this antipathy irritated him to such an extent that
he completely changed his policy, and set himself from that time forward
to act counter to the customs and prejudices of the Egyptians. They
consequently regarded his memory with a vindictive hatred. The people
related that the gods had struck him with madness to avenge the murder of
the Apis, and they attributed to him numberless traits of senseless
cruelty, in which we can scarcely distinguish truth from fiction. It was
said that, having entered the temple of Phtah, he had ridiculed the
grotesque figure under which the god was represented, and had commanded
the statues to be burnt. On another occasion he had ordered the ancient
sepulchres to be opened, that he might see what was the appearance of the
mummies. The most faithful members of his family and household, it was
said, did not escape his fury. He killed his own sister Roxana, whom he
had married, by a kick in the abdomen; he slew the son of Prexaspes with
an arrow; he buried alive twelve influential Persians; he condemned
Croesus to death, and then repented, but punished the officers who had
failed to execute the sentence pronounced against the Lydian king.*
He had no longer any reason for remaining in Egypt, since he had failed in
his undertakings; yet he did not quit the country, and through repeated
delays his departure was retarded a whole year. Meanwhile his long sojourn
in Africa, the report of his failures, and perhaps whispers of his
insanity, had sown the seeds of discontent in Asia; and as Darius said in
after-years, when recounting these events, “untruth had spread all over
the country, not only in Persia and Media, but in other provinces.”
Cambyses himself felt that a longer absence would be injurious to his
interests; he therefore crossed the isthmus in the spring of 521, and was
making his way through Northern Syria, perhaps in the neighbourhood of
Hamath,* when he learned that a revolution had broken out, and that its
rapid progress threatened the safety of his throne and life.
Tradition asserted that a herald appeared before him and proclaimed aloud,
in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased
to reign, and summoned whoever had till that day obeyed him to acknowledge
henceforth Smerdis, son of Cyrus, as their lord. Cambyses at first
believed that his brother had been spared by the assassins, and now, after
years of concealment, had at length declared himself; but he soon received
proofs that his orders had been faithfully accomplished, and it is said
that he wept at the remembrance of the fruitless crime. The usurper was
Gaumâta, one of the Persian Magi, whose resemblance to Smerdis was so
remarkable that even those who were cognisant of it invariably mistook the
one for the other,* and he was brother to that Oropastes to whom Cambyses
had entrusted the administration of his household before setting out for
Egypt.**
Both of them were aware of the fate of Smerdis; they also knew that the
Persians were ignorant of it, and that every one at court, including the
mother and sisters of the prince, believed that he was still alive.
Gaumâta headed a revolt in the little town of Pasyauvadâ on the 14th of
Viyakhna, in the early days of March, 521, and he was hailed by the common
people from the moment of his appearance. Persia, Media, and the Iranian
provinces pronounced in his favour, and solemnly enthroned him three
months later, on the 9th of Garmapada; Babylon next accepted him, followed
by Elam and the regions of the Tigris. Though astounded at first by such a
widespread defection, Cambyses soon recovered his presence of mind, and
was about to march forward at the head of the troops who were still loyal
to him, when he mysteriously disappeared. Whether he was the victim of a
plot set on foot by those about him, is not known. The official version of
the story given by Darius states that he died by his own hand, and it
seems to insinuate that it was a voluntary act, but another account
affirms that he succumbed to an accident;* while mounting his horse, the
point of his dagger pierced his thigh in the same spot in which he had
stabbed the Apis of the Egyptians. Feeling himself seriously wounded, he
suddenly asked the name of the place where he was lying, and was told it
was “Agbatana” (Ecbatana). “Now, long before this, the oracle of Buto had
predicted that he should end his days in Agbatana, and he, believing it to
be the Agbatana in Media where were his treasures, understood that he
should die there in his old age; whereas the oracle meant Agbatana in
Syria. When he heard the name, he perceived his error. He understood what
the god intended, and cried, ‘It is here, then, that Cambyses, son of
Cyrus, must perish!’” He expired about three weeks after, leaving no
posterity and having appointed no successor.**
What took place in the ensuing months still remains an enigma to us. The
episode of Gaumâta has often been looked on as a national movement, which
momentarily restored to the Medes the supremacy of which Cyrus had robbed
them; but it was nothing of the sort. Gaumâta was not a Mede by birth: he
was a Persian, born in Persia, in the township of Pisyauvadâ, at the foot
of Mount Ara-kadrish, and the Persians recognised and supported him as
much as did the Medes. It has also been thought that he had attempted to
foment a religious revolution,* and, as a matter of fact, he destroyed
several temples in a few months.
Here, however, the reform touched less upon a question of belief than on
one of fact. The unity of the empire presupposed the unity of the royal
fire, and where-ever that fire was burning another could not be lighted
without sacrilege in the eyes of the faithful. The pyres that Gaumâta
desired to extinguish were, no doubt, those which the feudal families had
maintained for their separate use in defiance of the law, and the measure
which abolished them had a political as well as a religious side. The
little we can glean of the line of action adopted by Smerdis does not
warrant the attribution to him of the vast projects which some modern
writers credit him with. He naturally sought to strengthen himself on the
throne, which by a stroke of good fortune he had ascended, and whatever he
did tended solely to this end. The name and the character that he had
assumed secured him the respect and fidelity of the Iranians: “there was
not one, either among the Medes or the Persians, nor among the members of
the Achæmenian race, who dreamed of disputing his power” in the early days
of his reign. The important thing in his eyes was, therefore, to maintain
among his subjects as long as possible the error as to his identity. He
put to death all, whether small or great, who had been in any way
implicated in the affairs of the real Smerdis, or whom he suspected of any
knowledge of the murder. He withdrew from public life as far as
practicable, and rarely allowed himself to be seen. Having inherited the
harem of his predecessors, together with their crown, he even went so far
as to condemn his wives to a complete seclusion. He did not venture to
hope, nor did those in his confidence, that the truth would not one day be
known, but he hoped to gain, without loss of time, sufficient popularity
to prevent the revelation of the imposture from damaging his prospects.
The seven great houses which he had dispossessed would, in such a case,
refuse to rally round him, and it was doubtless to lessen their prestige
that he extinguished their pyres; but the people did not trouble
themselves as to the origin of their sovereign, if he showed them his
favour and took proper precautions to secure their good will. He therefore
exempted the provinces from taxes and military service for a period of
three years. He had not time to pursue this policy, and if we may believe
tradition, the very precautions which he took to conceal his identity
became the cause of his misfortunes. In the royal harem there were,
together with the daughters of Cyrus, relatives of all the Persian
nobility, and the order issued to stop all their communications with the
outer world had excited suspicion: the avowals which had escaped Cambyses
before the catastrophe were now called to mind, and it was not long before
those in high places became convinced that they had been the dupes of an
audacious imposture. A conspiracy broke out, under the leadership of the
chiefs of the seven clans, among whom was numbered Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, who was connected, according to a genealogy more or less
authentic, with the family of the Achæmenides:* the conspirators surprised
Gaumâta in his palace of Sikayauvatish, which was situated in the district
of Nisaya, not far from Ecbatana, and assassinated him on the 10th of
Bâgayâdîsh, 521 B.C.
The exact particulars of this scene were never known, but popular
imagination soon supplied the defect, furnishing a full and complete
account of all that took place. In the first place, Phædimê, daughter of
Otanes, one of the seven, furnished an authentic proof of the fraud which
had been perpetrated. Her father had opportunely recalled the marvellous
resemblance between Smerdis and the Magian, and remembered at the same
time that the latter had been deprived of his ears in punishment for some
misdeed: he therefore sent certain instructions to Phffidimê, who, when
she made the discovery, at the peril of her life, that her husband had no
ears, communicated the information to the disaffected nobles. The
conspirators thereupon resolved to act without delay; but when they
arrived at the palace, they were greeted with an extraordinary piece of
intelligence. The Magi, disquieted by some vague rumours which were being
circulated against them, had besought Prexaspes to proclaim to the people
that the reigning monarch was indeed Smerdis himself. But Prexaspes,
instead of making the desired declaration, informed the multitude that the
son of Cyrus was indeed dead, for he himself had murdered him at the
bidding of Cambyses, and, having made this confession, he put himself to
death, in order to escape the vengeance of the Magi. This act of Prexaspes
was an additional inducement to the conspirators to execute their purpose.
The guard stationed at the gates of the palace dared not refuse admission
to so noble a company, and when the throne-room was reached and the
eunuchs forbade further advance, the seven boldly drew their swords and
forced their way to the apartment occupied by the two Magi. The usurpers
defended themselves with bravery, but succumbed at length to the superior
number of their opponents, after having wounded two of the conspirators.
Gobryas pinioned Gaumâta with his arms, and in such a way that Darius
hesitated to make the fatal thrust for fear of wounding his comrade; but
the latter bade him strike at all hazards, and by good fortune the sword
did not even graze him. The crime accomplished, the seven conspirators
agreed to choose as king that member of their company whose horse should
first neigh after sunrise: a stratagem of his groom caused the election to
fall on Darius. As soon as he was duly enthroned, he instituted a festival
called the “magophonia,” or “massacre of the Magi,” in commemoration of
the murder which had given him the crown.
His first care was to recompense the nobles to whom he owed his position
by restoring to them the privileges of which they had been deprived by the
pseudo-Smerdis, namely, the right of free access to the king, as well as
the right of each individual to a funeral pyre; but the usurper had won
the affection of the people, and even the inhabitants of those countries
which had been longest subject to the Persian sway did not receive the new
sovereign favourably. Darius found himself, therefore, under the necessity
of conquering his dominions one after the other.*
The Persian empire, like those of the Chaldæans and Medes, had consisted
hitherto of nothing but a fortuitous collection of provinces under
military rule, of vassal kingdoms, and of semi-independent cities and
tribes; there was no fixed division of authority, and no regular system of
government for the outlying provinces. The governors assigned by Cyrus and
Cambyses to rule the various provinces acquired by conquest, were actual
viceroys, possessing full control of an army, and in some cases of a fleet
as well, having at their disposal considerable revenues both in money and
in kind, and habituated, owing to their distance from the capital, to
settle pressing questions on their own responsibility, subject only to the
necessity of making a report to the sovereign when the affair was
concluded, or when the local resources were insufficient to bring it to a
successful issue. For such free administrators the temptation must have
been irresistible to break the last slender ties which bound them to the
empire, and to set themselves up as independent monarchs. The two
successive revolutions which had taken place in less than a year,
convinced such governors, and the nations over which they bore rule, that
the stately edifice erected by Cyrus and Cambyses was crumbling to pieces,
and that the moment was propitious for each of them to carve out of its
ruins a kingdom for himself; the news of the murder, rapidly propagated,
sowed the seeds of revolt in its course—in Susiana, at Babylon, in
Media, in Parthia, in Margiana, among the Sattagydes, in Asia Minor, and
even in Egypt itself*—which showed itself in some places in an open
and undisguised form, while in others it was contemptuously veiled under
the appearance of neutrality, or the pretence of waiting to see the issue
of events.
The first to break out into open rebellion were the neighbouring countries
of Elam and Chaldæa: the death of Smerdis took place towards the end of
September, and a fortnight later saw two rebel chiefs enthroned—a
certain Athrîna at Susa, and a Nadinta-bel at Babylon.* Athrîna, the son
of Umbadaranma, was a scion of the dynasty dispossessed by the successors
of Sargon in the preceding century, but nevertheless he met with but
lukewarm assistance from his own countrymen;** he was taken prisoner
before a month had passed, and sent to Darius, who slew him with his own
hand.
Babylon was not so easily mastered. Her chosen sovereign claimed to be the
son of Nabonidus, and had, on ascending the throne, assumed the
illustrious name of Nebuchadrezzar; he was not supported, moreover, by
only a few busybodies, but carried the whole population with him. The
Babylonians, who had at first welcomed Cyrus so warmly, and had fondly
imagined that they had made him one of themselves, as they had made so
many of their conquerors for centuries past, soon realised their mistake.
The differences of language, manners, spirit, and religion between
themselves and the Persians were too fundamental to allow of the
naturalisation of the new sovereign, and of the acceptance by the
Achæmenides of that fiction of a double personality to which
Tiglath-pileser III., Shalmaneser, and even Assur-bani-pal had submitted.
Popular fancy grew weary of Cyrus, as it had already grown weary in turn
of all the foreigners it had at first acclaimed—whether Elamite,
Kaldâ, or Assyrian—and by a national reaction the self-styled son of
Nabonidus enjoyed the benefit of a devotion proportionately as great as
the hatred which had been felt twenty years before for his pretended sire.
The situation might become serious if he were given time to consolidate
his power, for the loyalty of the ancient provinces of the Chaldæan empire
was wavering, and there was no security that they would not feel inclined
to follow the example of the capital as soon as they should receive news
of the sedition. Darius, therefore, led the bulk of his forces to Babylon
without a day’s more delay than was absolutely necessary, and the event
proved that he had good reason for such haste. Nebuchadrezzar III. had
taken advantage of the few weeks which had elapsed since his accession, to
garrison the same positions on the right bank of the Tigris, as Nabonidus
had endeavoured to defend against Cyrus at the northern end of the
fortifications erected by his ancestor. A well-equipped flotilla patrolled
the river, and his lines presented so formidable a front that Darius could
not venture on a direct attack. He arranged his troops in two divisions,
which he mounted partly on horses, partly on camels, and eluding the
vigilance of his adversary by attacking him simultaneously on many sides,
succeeded in gaining the opposite bank of the river. The Chaldæans,
striving in vain to drive him back into the stream, were at length
defeated on the 27th of Athriyâdiya, and they retired in good order on
Babylon. Six days later, on the 2nd of Anâmaka, they fought a second
battle at Zazanu, on the bank of the Euphrates, and were again totally
defeated. Nebuchadrezzar escaped with a handful of cavalry, and hastened
to shut himself up in his city. Darius soon followed him, but if he
cherished a hope that the Babylonians would open their gates to him
without further resistance, as they had done to Cyrus, he met with a
disappointment, for he was compelled to commence a regular siege and
suspend all other operations, and that, too, at a moment when the
provinces were breaking out into open insurrection on every hand.*
The attempt of the Persian adventurer Martîya to stir up the Susians to
revolt in his rear failed, thanks to the favourable disposition of the
natives, who refused to recognise in him Ummanîsh, the heir of their
national princes. Media, however, yielded unfortunately to the
solicitations of a certain Fravartîsh, who had assumed the personality of
Khshatrita of the race of Cyaxares, and its revolt marked almost the
beginning of a total break-up of the empire. The memory of Astyages and
Cyaxares had not yet faded so completely as to cause the Median nobles to
relinquish the hope of reasserting the supremacy of Media; the opportunity
for accomplishing this aim now seemed all the more favourable, from the
fact that Darius had been obliged to leave this province almost
immediately after the assassination of the Usurper, and to take from it
all the troops that he could muster for the siege of Babylon. Several of
the nomadic tribes still remained faithful to him, but all the settled
inhabitants of Media ranged themselves under the banner of the pretender,
and the spirit of insurrection spread thereupon into Armenia and Assyria.
For one moment there was a fear lest it should extend to Asia Minor also,
where Orcetes, accustomed, in the absence of Cambyses, to act as an
autonomous sovereign, displayed little zeal in accommodating himself to
the new order of things. There was so much uncertainty as to the leanings
of the Persian guard of Orcetes, that Darius did not venture to degrade
the satrap officially, but despatched Bagseus to Sardes with precise
instructions, which enabled him to accomplish his mission by degrees, so
as not to risk a Lydian revolt. His first act was to show the guard a
rescript by which they were relieved from attendance on Orcetes, and
“thereupon they immediately laid down their spears.” Emboldened by their
ready obedience, Bagseus presented to the secretary a second letter, which
contained his instructions: “The great king commands those Persians who
are in Sardes to kill Orestes.” “Whereupon,” it is recorded, “they drew
their swords and slew him.” *
A revolt in Asia Minor was thus averted, at a time when civil war
continued to rage in the centre of Iran. The situation, however, continued
critical. Darius could not think of abandoning the siege of Babylon, and
of thus both losing the fruits of his victories and seeing Nebuchadrezzar
reappear in Assyria or Susiana. On the other hand, his army was a small
one, and he would incur great risks in detaching any of his military
chiefs for a campaign against the Mede with an insufficient force. He
decided, however, to adopt the latter course, and while he himself
presided over the blockade, he simultaneously despatched two columns—one
to Media, under the command of the Persian Vidarna, one of the seven; the
other to Armenia, under the Armenian Dâdarshîsh. Vidarna, encountered
Khshatrita near Marush, in the mountainous region of the old Namri, on the
27th of Anâmaka, and gave him battle; but though he claimed the victory,
the result was so indecisive that he halted in Kambadênê, at the entrance
to the gorges of the Zagros mountains, and was there obliged to await
reinforcements before advancing further. Dâdarshîsh, on his side, gained
three victories over the Armenians—one near Zuzza on the 8th of
Thuravâhara, another at Tigra ten days later, and the third on the 2nd of
Thâigarshîsh, at a place not far from Uhyâma—but he also was
compelled to suspend operations and remain inactive pending the arrival of
fresh troops. Half the year was spent in inaction on either side, for the
rebels had not suffered less than their opponents, and, while endeavouring
to reorganise their forces, they opened negotiations with the provinces of
the north-east with the view of prevailing on them to join their cause.
Darius, still detained before Babylon, was unable to recommence
hostilities until the end of 520 B.C. He sent Vaumisa to replace
Dâdarshîsh as the head of the army in Armenia, and the new general
distinguished himself at the outset by winning a decisive victory on the
15th of Anâmaka, near Izitush in Assyria; but the effect which he hoped to
secure from this success was neutralised almost immediately by grievous
defections. Sagartia, in the first place, rose in rebellion at the call of
a pretended descendant of Oyaxares, named Chitrantakhma; Hyrcania, the
province governed by Hystaspes, the father of Darius, followed suit and
took up the cause of Khshatrita, and soon after Margiana broke out into
revolt at the instigation of a certain Frâda. Even Persia itself deserted
Darius, and chose another king instead of a sovereign whom no one seemed
willing to acknowledge. Many of the mountain tribes could not yet resign
themselves to the belief that the male line of Cyrus had become extinct
with the death of Cambyses. The usurpation of Gaumâta and the accession of
Darius had not quenched their faith in the existence of Smerdis: if the
Magian were an impostor, it did not necessarily follow that Smerdis had
been assassinated, and when a certain Vahyazdâta rose up in the town of
Târavâ in the district of Yautiyâ, and announced himself as the younger
son of Cyrus, they received him with enthusiastic acclamations. A
preliminary success gained by Hystaspes at Vispauzatîsh, in Parthia, on
the 22nd of Viyakhna, 519 B.C., prevented the guerilla bands of Hyrcania
from joining forces with the Medes, and some days later the fall of
Babylon at length set Darius free to utilise his resources to the utmost.
The long resistance of Nebuchadrezzar furnished a fruitful theme for
legend: a fanciful story was soon substituted for the true account of the
memorable siege he had sustained. Half a century later, when his very name
was forgotten, the heroism of his people continued to be extolled beyond
measure. When Darius arrived before the ramparts he found the country a
desert, the banks of the canals cut through, and the gardens and
pleasure-houses destroyed. The crops had been gathered and the herds
driven within the walls of the city, while the garrison had reduced by a
massacre the number of non-combatants, the women having all been
strangled, with the exception of those who were needed to bake the bread.
At the end of twenty months the siege seemed no nearer to its close than
at the outset, and the besiegers were on the point of losing heart, when
at length Zopyrus, one of the seven, sacrificed himself for the success of
the blockading army. Slitting his nose and ears, and lacerating his back
with the lash of a whip, he made his way into the city as a deserter, and
persuaded the garrison to assign him a post of danger under pretence of
avenging the ill-treatment he had received from his former master. He
directed some successful sallies on points previously agreed upon, and
having thus lulled to rest any remaining feelings of distrust on the part
of the garrison, he treacherously opened to the Persians the two gates of
which he was in charge; three thousand Babylonians were impaled, the walls
were razed to the ground, and the survivors of the struggle were exiled
and replaced by strange colonists.* The only authentic fact about this
story is the length of the siege. Nebuchadrezzar was put to death, and
Darius, at length free to act, hastened to despatch one of his
lieutenants, the Persian Artavardiya, against Vahyazdâta, while he himself
marched upon the Medes with the main body of the royal army.**
The rebels had hitherto been confronted by the local militia, brave but
inexperienced troops, with whom they had been able to contend on a fairly
equal footing: the entry into the field of the veteran regiments of Cyrus
and Cambyses changed the aspect of affairs, and promptly brought the
campaign to a successful issue. Darius entered Media by the defiles of
Kerend, reinforced Vidarna in Kambadçnê, and crushed the enemy near the
town of Kundurush, on the 20th of Adukanîsh, 519 B.C. Khshatrita fled
towards the north with some few horsemen, doubtless hoping to reach the
recesses of Mount Elburz, and to continue there the struggle; but he was
captured at Bagâ and carried to Ecbatana. His horrible punishment was
proportionate to the fear he had inspired: his nose, ears, and tongue were
cut off, and his eyes gouged out, and in this mutilated condition he was
placed in chains at the gate of the palace, to demonstrate to his former
subjects how the Achæmenian’ king could punish an impostor. When the
people had laid this lesson sufficiently to heart, Khshatrita was impaled;
many of his principal adherents were ranged around him and suffered the
same fate, while the rest were decapitated as an example. Babylon and
Media being thus successfully vanquished, the possession of the empire was
assured to Darius, whatever might happen in other parts of his territory,
and henceforth the process of repressing disaffection went on unchecked.
Immediately after the decisive battle of Kundurush, Vaumisa accomplished
the pacification of Armenia by a victory won near Autiyâra, and
Artavardiya defeated Vahyazdâta for the first time at Eakhâ in Persia.
Vahyazdâta had committed the mistake of dividing his forces and sending a
portion of them to Arachosia. Vivâna, the governor of this province, twice
crushed the invaders, and almost at the same time the Persian Dâdardîsh of
Bactriana was triumphing over Frâda and winning Margiana back to
allegiance. For a moment it seemed as if the decisive issue of the
struggle might be prolonged for months, since it was announced that the
appearance of a new pseudo-Smerdis on the scene had been followed by the
advent of a second pseudo-Nebuchadrezzar in Chaldæa. Darius left only a
weak garrison at Babylon when he started to attack Khshatrita: a certain
Arakha, an Armenian by birth, presenting himself to the Babylonian people
as the son of Nabonidus, caused himself to be proclaimed king in December,
519 B.C.; but the city was still suffering so severely from the miseries
of the long siege, that it was easy for the Mede Vindafrâ to reduce it
promptly to submission after a month or six weeks of semi-independence.
This was the last attempt at revolt. Chitran-takhma expiated his crimes by
being impaled, and Hystaspes routed the Hyrcanian battalions at
Patigrabana in Parthia: Artavardiya having defeated Vahyazdâta, near Mount
Paraga, on the 6th of Garmapada, 618 B.C., besieged him in his fortress of
Uvâdeshaya, and was not long in effecting his capture. The civil war came
thus to an end.
It had been severe, but it had brought into such prominence the qualities
of the sovereign that no one henceforth dared to dispute his possession of
the crown. A man of less energetic character and calm judgment would have
lost his head at the beginning of the struggle, when almost every
successive week brought him news of a fresh rebellion—in Susiana,
Babylon, Media, Armenia, Assyria, Margiana, Hyrcania, and even Persia
itself, not to speak of the intrigues in Asia Minor and Egypt; he would
have scattered his forces to meet the dangers on all sides at once, and
would assuredly have either succumbed in the struggle, or succeeded only
by chance after his fate had trembled in the balance for years. Darius,
however, from the very beginning knew how to single out the important
points upon which to deal such vigorous blows as would ensure him the
victory with the least possible delay. He saw that Babylon, with its
numerous population, its immense wealth and prestige, and its memory of
recent supremacy, was the real danger to his empire, and he never relaxed
his hold on it until it was subdued, leaving his generals to deal with the
other nations, the Medes included, and satisfied if each of them could but
hold his adversary in check without gaining any decided advantage over
him. The event justified his decision. When once Babylon had fallen, the
remaining rebels were no longer a source of fear; to defeat Khshatrita was
the work of a few weeks only, and the submission of the other provinces
followed as a natural consequence on the ruin of Media.*
After consummating his victories, Darius caused an inscription in
commemoration of them to be carved on the rocks in the pass of Bagistana
[Behistun], one of the most frequented routes leading from the basin of
the Tigris to the tableland of Iran.
There his figure is still to be seen standing, with his foot resting on
the prostrate body of an enemy, and his hand raised in the attitude of one
addressing an audience, while nine figures march in file to meet him,
their arms tied behind their backs, and cords round their necks,
representing all the pretenders whom he had fought and put to death—Athrîna,
Nadinta-bel, Khshatrita, Vahyazdâta, Arakha, and Chitrantakhma; an
inscription, written in the three official languages of the court,
recounts at full length his mighty deeds. The drama did not, however, come
to a close with the punishment of Vahyazdâta, for though no tribe or
chieftain remained now in open revolt, many of those who had taken no
active share in the rebellion had, by their conduct during the crisis,
laid themselves open to grave suspicions, and it seemed but prudent to
place them under strict surveillance or to remove them from office
altogether. Orotes had been summarily despatched, and his execution did
not disturb the peace of Asia Minor; but Aryandes, to whose rule Cambyses
had entrusted the valley of the Nile, displayed no less marked symptoms of
disaffection, and deserved the same fate. Though he had not ventured to
usurp openly the title of king, he had arrogated to himself all the
functions and rights of royalty, and had manifested as great an
independence in his government as if he had been an actual Pharaoh. The
inhabitants of Gyrene did not approve of the eagerness displayed by their
tyrant Arkesilas III. to place himself under the Persian yoke: after first
expelling and then recalling him, they drove him away a second time, and
at length murdered him at Barca, whither he had fled for refuge. Pheretimô
came to Egypt to seek the help of Aryandes, just as Laarchos had formerly
implored the assistance of Amasis, and represented to him that her son had
fallen a victim to his devotion to his suzerain. It was a good opportunity
to put to ransom one of the wealthiest countries of Africa; so the
governor sent to the Cyrenaica all the men and vessels at his disposal.
Barca was the only city to offer any resistance, and the Persian troops
were detained for nine months motionless before its walls, and the city
then only succumbed through treachery. Some detachments forced their way
as far as the distant town of Euesperides,* and it is possible that
Aryandes dreamt for a moment of realising the designs which Cambyses had
formed against Carthage. Insufficiency of supplies stayed the advance of
his generals; but the riches of their ally, Cyrene, offered them a strong
temptation, and they were deliberating how they might make this wealth
their own before returning to Memphis, and were, perhaps, on the point of
risking the attempt, when they received orders to withdraw. The march
across the desert proved almost fatal to them. The Libyans of Marmarica,
attracted by the spoils with which the Persian troops were laden, harassed
them incessantly, and inflicted on them serious losses; they succeeded,
however, in arriving safely with their prisoners, among whom were the
survivors of the inhabitants of Barca. At this time the tide of fortune
was setting strongly in favour of Darius: Aryandes, anxious to propitiate
that monarch, despatched these wretched captives to Persia as a trophy of
his success, and Darius sent them into Bactriana, where they founded a new
Barca.**
But this tardy homage availed him nothing. Darius himself visited Egypt
and disembarrassed himself of ‘his troublesome subject by his summary
execution, inflicted, some said, because he had issued coins of a superior
fineness to those of the royal mint,* while, according to others, it was
because he had plundered Egypt and so ill-treated the Egyptians as to
incite them to rebellion.
After the suppression of this rival, Darius set himself to win the
affection of his Egyptian province, or, at least, to render its servitude
bearable. With a country so devout and so impressed with its own
superiority over all other nations, the best means of accomplishing his
object was to show profound respect for its national gods and its past
glory. Darius, therefore, proceeded to shower favours on the priests, who
had been subject to persecution ever since the disastrous campaign in
Ethiopia. Cambyses had sent into exile in Elam the chief priest of Sais—that
Uza-harrîsnîti who had initiated him into the sacred rites; Darius gave
permission to this important personage to return to his native land, and
commissioned him to repair the damage inflicted by the madness of the son
of Cyrus. Uzaharrîsnîti, escorted back with honour to his native city,
re-established there the colleges of sacred scribes, and restored to the
temple of Nît the lands and revenues which had been confiscated. Greek
tradition soon improved upon the national account of this episode, and
asserted that Darius took an interest in the mysteries of Egyptian
theology, and studied the sacred books, and that on his arrival at Memphis
in 517 B.C., immediately after the death of an Apis, he took part publicly
in the general mourning, and promised a reward of a hundred talents of
gold to whosoever should discover the successor of the bull. According to
a popular story still current when Herodotus travelled in Egypt, the king
visited the temple of Pthah before leaving Memphis, and ordered his statue
to be erected there beside that of Sesostris. The priests refused to obey
this command, for, said they, “Darius has not equalled the deeds of
Sesostris: he has not conquered the Scythians, whom Sesostris overcame.”
Darius replied that “he hoped to accomplish as much as Sesostris had done,
if he lived as long as Sesostris,” and so conciliated the patriotic pride
of the priests. The Egyptians, grateful for his moderation, numbered him
among the legislators whose memory they revered, by the side of Menés,
Asykhis, Bocchoris, and Sabaco.
The whole empire was now obedient to the will of one man, but the ordeal
from which it had recently escaped showed how loosely the elements of it
were bound together, and with what facility they could be disintegrated.
The system of government in force hitherto was that introduced into
Assyria by Tiglath-pileser III., which had proved so eminently successful
in the time of Sargon and his descendants; Babylon and Ecbatana had
inherited it from Nineveh, and Persepolis had in turn adopted it from
Ecbatana and Babylon. It had always been open to objections, of which by
no means the least was the great amount of power and independence accorded
by it to the provincial governors; but this inconvenience had been little
felt when the empire was of moderate dimensions, and when no province
permanently annexed to the empire lay at any very great distance from the
capital for the time being. But this was no longer the case, now that
Persian rule extended over nearly the whole of Asia, from the Indus to the
Thracian Bosphorus, and over a portion of Africa also. It must have seemed
far from prudent to set governors invested with almost regal powers over
countries so distant that a decree despatched from the palace might take
several weeks to reach its destination. The heterogeneity of the elements
in each province was a guarantee of peace in the eyes of the sovereign,
and Darius carefully abstained from any attempt at unification: not only
did he allow vassal republics, and tributary kingdoms and nations to
subsist side by side, but he took care that each should preserve its own
local dynasty, language, writing, customs, religion, and peculiar
legislation, besides the right to coin money stamped with the name of its
chief or its civic symbol. The Greek cities of the coast maintained their
own peculiar constitutions which they had enjoyed under the Mernmadas;
Darius merely required that the chief authority among them should rest in
the hands of the aristocratic party, or in those of an elective or
hereditary tyrant whose personal interest secured his fidelity. The
Carians,* Lycians,** Pamphylians, and Cilicians*** continued under the
rule of their native princes, subject only to the usual obligations. of
the corvée, taxation, and military service as in past days; the
majority of the barbarous tribes which inhabited the Taurus and the
mountainous regions in the centre of Asia Minor were even exempted from
all definite taxes, and were merely required to respect the couriers,
caravans, and armies which passed through their territory.
Native magistrates and kings still bore sway in Phoenicia* and Cyprus, and
the shêkhs of the desert preserved their authority over the marauding and
semi-nomadic tribes of Idumasa, Nabatsea, Moab, and Ammon, and the
wandering Bedâwin on the Euphrates and the Khabur. Egypt, under Darius,
remained what she had been under the Saitic and Ethiopian dynasties, a
feudal state governed by a Pharaoh, who, though a foreigner, was yet
reputed to be of the solar race; the land continued to be divided
unequally into diverse principalities, Thebes still preserving its
character as a theocracy under the guidance of the pallacide of Amon and
her priestly counsellors, while the other districts subsisted under
military chieftains. Our information concerning the organisation of the
central and eastern provinces is incomplete, but it is certain that here
also the same system prevailed. In the years of peace which succeeded the
troubled opening of his reign, that is, from 519 to 515 B.C.,** Darius
divided the whole empire into satrapies, whose number varied at different
periods of his reign from twenty to twenty-three, and even
twenty-eight.***
Persia proper was not included among these, for she had been the cradle of
the reigning house, and the instrument of conquest.*
The Iranian table-land, and the parts of India or regions beyond the Oxus
which bordered on it, formed twelve important vice-royalties—Media,
Hyrcania, Parthia, Zaranka, Aria, Khorasmia, Bactriana, Sogdiana,
Gandaria, and the country of the Sakae—reaching from the plains of
Tartary almost to the borders of China, the country of the Thatagus in the
upper basin of the Elmend, Arachosia, and the land of Maka on the shores
of the Indian Ocean. Ten satrapies were reckoned in the west—Uvayâ,
Elam, in which lay Susa, one of the favourite residences of Darius;
Babirus (Babylon) and Chaldæa; Athurâ, the ancient kingdom of Assyria;
Arabayâ, stretching from the Khabur to the Litany, the Jordan, and the
Orontes; Egypt, the peoples of the sea, among whom were reckoned the
Phoenicians, Cilicians, and Cypriots, and the islanders of the Ægean;
Yaunâ, which comprised Lycia, Caria, and the Greek colonies along the
coast; Sparda, with Phrygia and Mysia; Armenia; and lastly, Katpatuka or
Cappadocia, which lay on both sides of the Halys from the Taurus to the
Black Sea. If each of these provinces had been governed, as formerly, by a
single individual, who thus became king in all but name and descent, the
empire would have run great risk of a speedy dissolution. Darius therefore
avoided concentrating the civil and military powers in the same hands. In
each province he installed three officials independent of each other, but
each in direct communication with himself—a satrap, a general, and a
secretary of state. The satraps were chosen from any class in the nation,
from among the poor as well as from among the wealthy, from foreigners as
well as from Persians;* but the most important satrapies were bestowed
only on persons allied by birth** or marriage with the Achæmenids,*** and,
by preference, on the legitimate descendants of the six noble houses. They
were not appointed for any prescribed period, but continued in office
during the king’s pleasure. They exercised absolute authority in all civil
matters, and maintained a court, a body-guard,**** palaces and extensive
parks, or paradises, where they indulged in the pleasures of the
chase; they controlled the incidence of taxation,^ administered justice,
and possessed the power of life and death.
Attached to each satrap was a secretary of state, who ostensibly acted as
his chancellor, but whose real function was to exercise a secret
supervision over his conduct and report upon it to the imperial
ministers.* The Persian troops, native militia and auxiliary forces
quartered in the province, were placed under the orders, moreover, of a
general, who was usually hostile to the satrap and the secretary.** These
three officials counterbalanced each other, and held each other mutually
in check, so that a revolt was rendered very difficult, if not impossible.
All three were kept in constant communication with the court by relays of
regular couriers, who carried their despatches on horseback or on camels,
from one end of Asia to the other, in the space of a few weeks.***
The most celebrated of the post-roads was that which ran from Sardes to
Susa through Lydia and Phrygia, crossing the Halys, traversing Cappadocia
and Cilicia, and passing through Armenia and across the Euphrates, until
at length, after passing through Matiênê and the country of the Cossæans,
it reached Elam. This main route was divided into one hundred and eleven
stages, which were performed by couriers on horseback and partly in
ferry-boats, in eighty-four days. Other routes, of which we have no
particular information, led to Egypt, Media, Bactria, and India,* and by
their means the imperial officials in the capital were kept fully informed
of all that took place in the most distant parts of the empire. As an
extra precaution, the king sent out annually certain officers, called his
“eyes” or his “ears,” ** who appeared on the scene when they were least
expected, and investigated the financial or political situation, reformed
abuses in the administration, and reprimanded or even suspended the
government officials; they were accompanied by a body of troops to support
their decisions, whose presence invested their counsels with the strongest
sanction.*** An unfavourable report, a slight irregularity, a mere
suspicion, even, was sufficient to disqualify a satrap. Sometimes he was
deposed, often secretly condemned to death without a trial, and the
execution of the judgment was committed even to his own servants.
A messenger would arrive unexpectedly, and remit to the guards an order
charging them to put their chief to death—an order which was
promptly executed at the mere sight of the royal decree.
This reform in the method of government was displeasing to the Persian
nobles, whose liberty of action it was designed to curtail, and they took
their revenge in sneering at the obedience they could not refuse to
render. Cyrus, they said, had been a father, Cambyses a master, but Darius
was only a pedler greedy of gain. The chief reason for this division of
the empire into provinces was, indeed, fiscal rather than political: to
arrange the incidence of taxation in his province, to collect the revenue
in due time and forward the total amount to the imperial treasury, formed
the fundamental duty of a satrap, to which all others had to yield. Persia
proper was exempt from the payment of any fixed sum, its inhabitants being
merely required to offer presents to the king whenever he passed through
their districts. These semi-compulsory gifts were proportioned to the
fortunes of the individual contributors; they might consist merely of an
ox or a sheep, a little milk or cheese, some dates, a handful of flour, or
some vegetables. The other provinces, after being subjected to a careful
survey, were assessed partly in money, partly in kind, according to their
natural capacity or wealth. The smallest amount of revenue raised in any
province amounted to 170 talents of silver—the sum, for instance,
collected from Arachosia with its dependencies Gedrosia and Grandara;
while Egypt yielded a revenue of 700 talents, and the amount furnished by
Babylon, the wealthiest province of all, amounted to 1000 talents. The
total revenue of the empire reached the enormous sum of.£3,311,997,
estimated by weight of silver, which is equivalent to over £26,000,000 of
modern English money, if the greater value of silver in antiquity is taken
into consideration. In order to facilitate the collection of the revenue,
Darius issued the gold and silver coins which are named after him. On the
obverse side these darics are stamped with a figure of the sovereign,
armed with the bow or javelin. They were coined on the scale of 3000 gold
darics to one talent, each daric weighing normally.2788 oz. troy, and
being worth exactly 20 silver drachmae or Medic shekels; so that the
relative value of the two metals was approximately 1 to 13 1/2|.
The most ancient type of daric was thick and irregular in shape, and
rudely stamped, but of remarkable fineness, the amount of alloy being
never more than three per cent. The use of this coinage was nowhere
obligatory, and it only became general in the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean, where it met the requirements of international traffic and
political relations, and in the payment of the army and the navy. In the
interior, the medium of exchange used in wholesale and retail commercial
transactions continued to be metals estimated by weight, and the kings of
Persia themselves preferred to store their revenues in the shape of
bullion; as the metal was received at the royal treasury it was melted and
poured into clay moulds, and was minted into money only gradually,
according to the whim or necessity of the moment.*
Taxes in kind were levied even more largely than in money, but the exact
form they assumed in the different regions of the empire has not yet been
ascertained. The whole empire was divided into districts, which were
charged with the victualling of the army and the court, and Babylon alone
bore a third of the charges under this head. We learn elsewhere that Egypt
was bound to furnish corn for the 120,000 men of the army of occupation,
and that the fisheries of the Fayum yielded the king a yearly revenue of
240 talents. The Medes furnished similarly 100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and
3000 horses; the Armenians, 30,000 foals; the Cilicians, 365 white horses,
one for each day in the year; the Babylonians, 500 youthful eunuchs; and
any city or town which produced or manufactured any valuable commodity was
bound to furnish a regular supply to the sovereign. Thus, Chalybon
provided wine; Libya and the Oases, salt; India, dogs, with whose support
four large villages in Babylonia were charged; the Æolian Assos, cheese;
and other places, in like manner, wool, wines, dyes, medicines, and
chemicals. These imperial taxes, though they seem to us somewhat heavy,
were not excessive, but taken by themselves they give us no idea of the
burdens which each province had to resign itself to bear. The state
provided no income for the satraps; their maintenance and that of their
suite were charged on the province, and they made ample exactions on the
natives. The province of Babylon was required to furnish its satrap daily
with an ardeb of silver; Egypt, India, Media, and Syria each
provided a no less generous allowance for its governor, and the poorest
provinces were not less heavily burdened. The satraps required almost as
much to satisfy their requirements as did the king; but for the most part
they fairly earned their income, and saved more to their subjects than
they extorted from them. They repressed brigandage, piracy, competition
between the various cities, and local wars; while quarrels, which formerly
would have been settled by an appeal to arms, were now composed before
their judgment-seats, and in case of need the rival factions were forcibly
compelled to submit to their decisions. They kept up the roads, and
afforded complete security to travellers by night and day; they protected
industries and agriculture, and, in accordance with the precepts of their
religious code, they accounted it an honourable task to break up waste
land or replant deserted sites. Darius himself did not disdain to send
congratulations to a satrap who had planted trees in Asia Minor, and laid
out one of those wooded parks in which the king delighted to refresh
himself after the fatigues of government, by the exercise of walking or in
the pleasures of the chase. In spite of its defects, the system of
government inaugurated by Darius secured real prosperity to his subjects,
and to himself a power far greater than that enjoyed by any of his
predecessors. It rendered revolts on the part of the provincial governors
extremely difficult, and enabled the court to draw up a regular budget and
provide for its expenses without any undue pressure on its subjects; in
one point only was it defective, but that point was a cardinal one,
namely, in the military organisation. Darius himself maintained, for his
personal protection, a bodyguard recruited from the Persians and the
Medes. It was divided into three corps, consisting respectively of 2000
cavalry, 2000 infantry of noble birth, armed with lances whose shafts were
ornamented below with apples of gold or silver—whence their name of
mêlophori—and under them the 10,000 “immortals,” in ten
battalions, the first of which had its lances ornamented with golden
pomegranates. This guard formed the nucleus of the standing army, which
could be reinforced by the first and second grades of Persian and Median
feudal nobility at the first summons. Forces of varying strength
garrisoned the most important fortresses of the empire, such as Sardes,
Memphis, Elephantine, Daphnæ, Babylon, and many others, to hold the
restless natives in check. These were, indeed, the only regular troops on
which the king could always rely. Whenever a war broke out which demanded
no special effort, the satraps of the provinces directly involved summoned
the military contingents of the cities and vassal states under their
control, and by concerted action endeavoured to bring the affair to a
successful issue without the necessity of an appeal to the central
authority. If, on the contrary, troubles arose which threatened the
welfare of the whole empire, and the sovereign felt called upon to conduct
the campaign in person, he would mobilise his guard, and summon the
reserves from several provinces or even from all of them. Veritable hordes
of recruits then poured in, but these masses of troops, differing from
each other in their equipment and methods of fighting, in disposition and
in language, formed a herd of men rather than an army. They had no
cohesion or confidence in themselves, and their leaders, unaccustomed to
command such enormous numbers, suffered themselves to be led rather than
exercise authority as guides. Any good qualities the troops may have
possessed were neutralised by lack of unity in their methods of action,
and their actual faults exaggerated this defect, so that, in spite of
their splendid powers of endurance and their courage under every ordeal,
they ran the risk of finding themselves in a state of hopeless inferiority
when called upon to meet armies very much smaller, but composed of
homogenous elements, all animated with the same spirit and drilled in the
same school.
By continual conquests, the Persians were now reduced to only two outlets
for their energies, in two opposite directions—in the east towards
India, in the west towards Greece. Everywhere else their advance was
arrested by the sea or other obstacles almost as impassable to their
heavily armed battalions: to the north the empire was bounded by the Black
Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the Siberian steppes; to the
south, by the Indian Ocean, the sandy table-land of Arabia, and the
African deserts. At one moment, about 512 B.C., it is possible that they
pushed forward towards the east.*
From the Iranian plateau they beheld from afar the immense plain of the
Hapta Hindu (or the Punjab). Darius invaded this territory, and made
himself master of extensive districts which he formed into a new satrapy,
that of India, but subsequently, renouncing all idea of pushing eastward
as far as the Granges, he turned his steps towards the southeast. A fleet,
constructed at Peukêla and placed under the command of a Greek admiral,
Scylax of Caryanda, descended the Indus by order of the king;* subjugating
the tribes who dwelt along the banks as he advanced, Scylax at length
reached the ocean, on which he ventured forth, undismayed by the tides,
and proceeded in a westerly direction, exploring, in less than thirty
months, the shores of Gedrosia and Arabia.
Once on the threshold of India, the Persians saw open before them a
brilliant and lucrative career: the circumstances which prevented them
from following up this preliminary success are unknown—perhaps the
first developments of nascent Buddhism deterred them—but certain it
is that they arrested their steps when they had touched merely the
outskirts of the basin of the Indus, and retreated at once towards the
west. The conquest of Lydia, and subsequently of the Greek cities and
islands along the coast of the Ægean, had doubtless enriched the empire by
the acquisition of active subject populations, whose extraordinary
aptitude in the arts of peace as well as of war might offer incalculable
resources to a sovereign who should know how to render them tractable and
rule them wisely. Not only did they possess the elements of a navy as
enterprising and efficacious as that of the Phoenicians, but the
perfection of their equipment and their discipline on land rendered them
always superior to any Asiatic army, in whatever circumstances, unless
they were crushed by overwhelming numbers. Inquisitive, bold, and
restless, greedy of gain, and inured to the fatigues and dangers of
travel, the Greeks were to be encountered everywhere—in Asia Minor,
Egypt, Syria, Babylon, and even Persia itself; and it was a Greek, we must
remember, whom the great king commissioned to navigate the course of the
Indus and the waters of the Indian Ocean. At the same time, the very
ardour of their temperament, and their consequent pride, their impatience
of all regular control, their habitual proneness to civic strife, and to
sanguinary quarrels with the inhabitants of the neighbouring cities,
rendered them the most dangerous subjects imaginable to govern, and their
loyalty very uncertain. Moreover, their admission as vassals of the
Persian empire had not altered their relations with European Greece, and
commercial transactions between the opposite shores of the Ægean,
inter-marriages, the travels of voyagers, movements of mercenaries, and
political combinations, went on as freely and frequently under the satraps
of Sardes as under the Mermnadas. It was to Corinth, Sparta, and Athens
that the families banished by Cyrus after his conquest fled for refuge,
and every time a change of party raised a new tyrant to power in one of
the Æolian, Ionian, or Doric communities, the adherents of the deposed
ruler rushed in similar manner to seek shelter among their friends across
the sea, sure to repay their hospitality should occasion ever require it.
Plots and counterplots were formed between the two shores, without any one
paying much heed to the imperial authority of Persia, and the constant
support which the subject Greeks found among their free brethren was bound
before long to rouse the anger of the court at Susa. When Polycrates,
foreseeing the fall of Amasis, placed himself under the suzerainty of
Cambyses, the Corinthians and Spartans came to besiege him in Samos
without manifesting any respect for the great king. They failed in this
particular enterprise,* but later on, after Oroetes had been seized and
put to death, it was to the Spartans that the successor of Polycrates,
Maaandrios, applied for help to assert his claim to the possession of the
tyranny against Syloson, brother of Polycrates and a personal friend of
Darius.**
This constant intervention of the foreigner was in evident contradiction
to the spirit which had inspired the reorganisation of the empire. Just
when efforts were being made to strengthen the imperial power and ensure
more effective obedience from the provincials by the institution of
satrapies, it was impossible to put up with acts of unwarrantable
interference, which would endanger the prestige of the sovereign and the
authority of his officers. Conquest presented the one and only natural
means of escape from the difficulties of the present situation and of
preventing their recurrence; when satraps should rule over the European as
well as over the Asiatic coasts of the Ægean, all these turbulent Greeks
would be forced to live at peace with one another and in awe of the
sovereign, as far as their fickle nature would allow. It was not then, as
is still asserted, the mere caprice of a despot which brought upon the
Greek world the scourge of the Persian wars, but the imperious necessity
of security, which obliges well-organised empires to subjugate in turn all
the tribes and cities which cause constant trouble on its frontiers.
Darius, who was already ruler of a good third of the Hellenic world, from
Trebizond to Barca, saw no other means of keeping what he already
possessed, and of putting a stop to the incessant fomentation of rebellion
in his own territories, than to conquer the mother-country as he had
conquered the colonies, and to reduce to subjection the whole of European
Hellas.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD EASTERN WORLD
THE MEDIAN WAR—THE LAST NATIVE DYNASTIES OF EGYPT—THE
EASTERN WORLD ON THE EVE OP THE MACEDONIAN CONQUEST.
The Persians in 512 B.C.—European Greece and the dangers which
its independence presented to the safety of the empire—The
preliminaries of the Median wars: the Scythian expedition, the conquest of
Thrace and Macedonia—The Ionic revolt, the intervention of Athens
and the taking of Sardes; the battle of Lade—Mardonius in Thrace and
in Macedonia.
The Median wars—The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes: the
taking of Eretria, the battle of Marathon (490)—The revolt of Egypt
under Khabbisha; the death of Darius and the accession of Xerxes I.—The
revolt of Babylon under Shamasherïb—The invasion of Greece:
Artemision, Thermopylæ, the taking of Athens, Salamis—Platsæ and the
final retreat of the Persians: Mycalê—The war carried on by the
Athenians and the league of Delos: Inaros, the campaigns in Cyprus and
Egypt, the peace of Oallias—The death of Xerxes.
Artaxerxes I. (465-424): the revolt of Megabyzos—The palaces of
Pasargadæ. Persepolis, and Susa; Persian architecture and sculpture; court
life, the king and his harem—Revolutions in the palace—Xerxes
I., Sekudianos, Darius II.—Intervention in Greek affairs and the
convention of Miletus; the end of the peace of Gallias—Artaxerxes
II. (404-359) and Gyrus the Younger: the battle of Kunaxa and the retreat
of the ten thousand (401).
Troubles in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt—Amyrtxus and the
XXVIIIth Saite dynasty—The XXIXth Sebennytic dynasty—Nephorites
I, Hakoris, Psammutis, their alliances with Evagoras and with the states
of Continental Greece—The XXXth Mendesian dynasty—Nectanebo I,
Tachôs and the invasion of Syria, the revolt of Nectanebo II.—The
death of Artaxerxes II.—The accession of Ochus (359 B.C.), his
unfortunate wars in the Delta, the conquest of Egypt (342) and the
reconstitution of the empire.
The Eastern world: Elam, Urartu, the Syrian kingdoms, the ancient
Semitic states decayed and decaying—Babylon in its decline—The
Jewish state and its miseries—Nehemiah, Ezra—Egypt in the eyes
of the Greeks: Sais, the Delta, the inhabitants of the marshes—Memphis,
its monuments, its population—Travels in Upper Egypt: the Fayum,
Khemmis, Thebes, Elephantine—The apparent vigour and actual
feebleness of Egypt.
Persia and its powerlessness to resist attack: the rise of Macedonia,
Philippi —Arses (337) and Darius Codomannos (336)—Alexander
the Great—The invasion of Asia—The battle of Granicus and the
conquest of the Asianic peninsula—Issus, the siege of Tyre and of
Gaza, the conquest of Egypt, the foundation of Alexandria—Arbela:
the conquest of Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana—The death of Darius and
the last days of the old Eastern world.
[Page 200 and 201 need to be rescanned DW]
CHAPTER II—THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD EASTERN WORLD
The Median wars—The last native dynasties of Egypt—The
Eastern world on the eve of the Macedonian conquest.
Darius appears to have formed this project of conquest immediately after
his first victories, when his initial attempts to institute satrapies had
taught him not only the condition and needs of Asia Minor, but of the
teaching the Scythians such a lesson as would prevent them from bearing
down upon his right flank during his march, or upon his rear while engaged
in a crucial struggle in the Hellenic peninsula. On the other hand, the
geographical information possessed by the Persians with regard to the
Danubian regions was of so vague a character, that Darius must have
believed the Scythians to have been nearer to his line of operations, and
their country less desolate than was really the case.* A flotilla,
commanded by Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia, ventured across the Black
Sea in 515,** landed a few thousand men upon the opposite shore, and
brought back prisoners who furnished those in command with the information
they required.***
Darius, having learned what he could from these poor wretches, crossed the
Bosphorus in 514, with a body of troops which tradition computed at
800,000, conquered the eastern coast of Thrace, and won his way in a
series of conflicts as far as the Ister. The Ionian sailors built for him
a bridge of boats, which he entrusted to their care, and he then started
forward into the steppes in search of the enemy. The Scythians refused a
pitched battle, but they burnt the pastures before him on every side,
filled up the wells, carried off the cattle, and then slowly retreated
into the interior, leaving Darius to face the vast extent of the steppes
and the terrors of famine. Later tradition stated that he wandered for two
months in these solitudes between the Ister and the Tanais; he had
constructed on the banks of this latter river a series of earthworks, the
remains of which were shown in the time of Herodotus, and had at length
returned to his point of departure with merely the loss of a few sick men.
The barbarians stole a march upon him, and advised the Greeks to destroy
the bridge, retire within their cities, and abandon the Persians to their
fate. The tyrant of the Ohersonnesus, Miltiades the Athenian, was inclined
to follow their advice; but Histiasus, the governor of Miletus, opposed
it, and eventually carried his point. Darius reached the southern bank
without difficulty, and returned to Asia.*
The Greek towns of Thrace thought themselves rid of him, and rose in
revolt; but he left 80,000 men in Europe who, at first under Megabyzos,
and then under Otanes, reduced them to subjection one after another, and
even obliged Amyntas I., the King of Macedonia, to become a tributary of
the empire. The expedition had not only failed to secure the submission of
the Scythians, but apparently provoked reprisals on their part, and
several of their bands penetrated ere long into the Chersonnesus. It
nevertheless was not without solid result, for it showed that Darius, even
if he could not succeed in subjugating the savage Danubian tribes, had but
little to fear from them; it also secured for him a fresh province, that
of Thrace, and, by the possession of Macedonia, brought his frontier into
contact with Northern Greece. The overland route, in any case the more
satisfactory of the two, was now in the hands of the invader.
Revolutions at Athens prevented him from setting out on his expedition as
soon as he had anticipated. Hippias had been overthrown in 510, and having
taken refuge at Sigoum, was seeking on all sides for some one to avenge
him against his fellow-citizens. The satrap of Sardes, Arta-phernes,
declined at first to listen to him, for he hoped that the Athenians
themselves would appeal to him, without his being obliged to have recourse
to their former tyrant. As a matter of fact, they sent him an embassy, and
begged his help against the Spartans. He promised it on condition that
they would yield the traditional homage of earth and water, and their
delegates complied with his demand, though on their return to Athens they
were disowned by the citizens (508). Artaphernes, disappointed in this
direction, now entered into communications with Hippias, and such close
relations soon existed between the two that the Athenians showed signs of
uneasiness. Two years later they again despatched fresh deputies to Sardes
to beg the satrap not to espouse the cause of their former ruler. For a
reply the satrap summoned them to recall the exiles, and, on their
refusing (506),* their city became thenceforward the ostensible objective
of the Persian army and fleet. The partisans of Hippias within the town
were both numerous and active; it was expected that they would rise and
hand over the city as soon as their chief should land on a point of
territory with a force sufficient to intimidate the opposing faction.
Athens in the hands of Hippias, would mean Athens in the hands of the
Persians, and Greece accessible to the Persian hordes at all times by the
shortest route. Darius therefore prepared to make the attempt, and in
order to guard against any mishap, he caused all the countries that he was
about to attack to be explored beforehand. Spies attached to his service
were sent to scour the coasts of the Peloponnesus and take note of all its
features, the state of its ports, the position of the islands and the
fortresses; and they penetrated as far as Italy, if we may believe the
story subsequently told to Herodotus.**
While he thus studied the territory from a distance, he did not neglect
precautions nearer to hand, but ordered the Milesians to occupy in his
name the principal stations of the Ægean between Ionia and Attica.
Histiasus, whose loyalty had stood Darius in such good stead at the bridge
over the Danube, did not, however, appear to him equal to so delicate a
task: the king summoned him to Susa on some slight pretext, loaded him
with honours, and replaced him by his nephew Aristagoras. Aristagoras at
once attempted to justify the confidence placed in him by taking
possession of Naxos; but the surprise that he had prepared ended in
failure, discontent crept in among his men, and after a fruitless siege of
four months he was obliged to withdraw (499).* His failure changed the
tide of affairs. He was afraid that the Persians would regard it as a
crime, and this fear prompted him to risk everything to save his fortune
and his life. He retired from his office as tyrant, exhorted the
Milesians, who were henceforth free to do so, to make war on the
barbarians, and seduced from their allegiance the crews of the vessels
just returned from Naxos, and still lying in the mouths of the Meander;
the tyrants who commanded them were seized, some exiled, and some put to
death. The Æolians soon made common cause with their neighbours the
Ionians, and by the last days of autumn the whole of the Ægean littoral
was under arms (499).**
From the outset Aristagoras realised that they would be promptly overcome
if Asiatic Hellas were not supported by Hellas in Europe. While the Lydian
satrap was demanding reinforcements from his sovereign, Aristagoras
therefore repaired to the Peloponnesus as a suppliant for help. Sparta,
embroiled in one of her periodical quarrels with Argos, gave him an
insolent refusal;* even Athens, where the revolution had for the moment
relieved her from the fear of the Pisistratidaa and the terrors of a
barbarian invasion, granted him merely twenty triremes—enough to
draw down reprisals on her immediately after their defeat, without
sensibly augmenting the rebels’ chances of success; to the Athenian
contingent Bretria added five vessels, and this comprised his whole force.
The leaders of the movement did not hesitate to assume the offensive with
these slender resources. As early as the spring of 498, before Artaphernes
had received reinforcements, they marched suddenly on Sardes. They burnt
the lower town, but, as on many previous occasions, the citadel held out;
after having encamped for several days at the foot of its rock, they
returned to Ephesus laden with the spoil.**
This indeed was a check to their hostilities, and such an abortive attempt
was calculated to convince them of their powerlessness against the foreign
rule. None the less, however, when it was generally known that they had
burnt the capital of Asia Minor, and had with impunity made the
representative of the great king feel in his palace the smoke of the
conflagration, the impression was such as actual victory could have
produced. The cities which had hitherto hesitated to join them, now
espoused their cause—the ports of the Troad and the Hellespont,
Lycia, the Carians, and Cyprus—and their triumph would possibly have
been secured had Greece beyond the Ægean followed the general movement and
joined the coalition. Sparta, however, persisted in her indifference, and
Athens took the opportunity of withdrawing from the struggle. The Asiatic
Greeks made as good a defence as they could, but their resources fell far
short of those of the enemy, and they could do no more than delay the
catastrophe and save their honour by their bravery. Cyprus was the first
to yield during the winter of 498-497. Its vessels, in conjunction with
those of the Ionians, dispersed the fleet of the Phoenicians off Salamis,
but the troops of their princes, still imbued with the old system of
military tactics, could not sustain the charge of the Persian battalions;
they gave way under the walls of Salamis, and their chief, Onesilus, was
killed in a final charge of his chariotry.*
His death effected the ruin of the Ionian cause in Cyprus, which on the
continent suffered at the same time no less serious reverses. The towns of
the Hellespont and of Æolia succumbed one after another; Kymê and
Clazomenæ next opened their gates; the Carians were twice beaten, once
near the White Columns, and again near Labranda, and their victory at
Pedasos suspended merely for an instant the progress of the Persian arms,
so that towards the close of 497 the struggle was almost entirely
concentrated round Miletus. Aristagoras, seeing that his cause was now
desperate, agreed with his partisans that they should expatriate
themselves. He fell fighting against the Edonians of Thrace, attempting to
force the important town of Enneahodoi, near the mouth of the Strymon
(496);* but his defection had not discouraged any one, and Histiseus, who
had been sent to Sardes by the great king to negotiate the submission of
the rebels, failed in his errand. Even when blockaded on the land side,
Miletus could defy an attack so long as communication with the sea was not
cut off.
Darius therefore brought up the Phoenician fleet, reinforced it with the
Cypriot contingents, and despatched the united squadrons to the
Archipelago during the summer of 494. The confederates, even after the
disasters of the preceding years, still possessed 353 vessels, most of
them of 30 to 50 oars; they were, however, completely defeated near the
small island of Ladê, in the latter part of the summer, and Miletus, from
that moment cut off from the rest of the world, capitulated a few weeks
later. A small proportion of its inhabitants continued to dwell in the
ruined city, but the greater number were carried away to Ampê, at the
mouth of the Tigris, in the marshes of the Nâr-Marratum.*
Caria was reconquered during the winter of 494-493, and by the early part
of 493, Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, the cities of the Chersonnesus and of
Propontis—in short, all which yet held out—were reduced to
obedience. Artaphernes reorganised his vanquished states entirely in the
interest of Persia. He did not interfere with the constitutions of the
several republics, but he reinstated the tyrants. He regulated and
augmented the various tributes, prohibited private wars, and gave to the
satrap the right of disposing of all quarrels at his own tribunal. The
measures which he adopted had long after his day the force of law among
the Asiatic Greeks, and it was by them they regulated their relations with
the representatives of the great king.
If Darius had ever entertained doubts as to the necessity for occupying
European Greece to ensure the preservation of peace in her Asiatic
sister-country, the revolt of Ionia must have completely dissipated them.
It was a question whether the cities which had so obstinately defied him
for six long years, would ever resign themselves to servitude as long as
they saw the peoples of their race maintaining their independence on the
opposite shores of the Ægean, and while the misdeeds of which the
contingents of Eretria and Athens had been guilty during the rebellion
remained unpunished. A tradition, which sprang up soon after the event,
related that on hearing of the burning of Sardes, Darius had bent his bow
and let fly an arrow towards the sky, praying Zeus to avenge him on the
Athenians: and at the same time he had commanded one of his slaves to
repeat three times a day before him, at every meal, “Sire, remember the
Athenians!”*
As a matter of fact, the intermeddling of these strangers between the
sovereign and his subjects was at once a serious insult to the Achæmenids
and a cause of anxiety to the empire; to leave it unpunished would have
been an avowal of weakness or timidity, which would not fail to be quickly
punished in Syria, Egypt, Babylon, and on the Scythian frontiers, and
would ere long give rise to similar acts of revolt and interference.
Darius, therefore, resumed his projects, but with greater activity than
before, and with a resolute purpose to make a final reckoning with the
Greeks, whatever it might cost him. The influence of his nephew Mardonius
at first inclined him to adopt the overland route, and he sent him into
Thrace with a force of men and a fleet of galleys sufficient to overcome
all obstacles. Mardonius marched against the Greek colonies and native
tribes which had throw off the yoke during the Ionian war, and reduced
those who had still managed to preserve their independence. The Bryges
opposed him with such determination, that summer was drawing to its close
before he was able to continue his march. He succeeded, however, in laying
hands on Macedonia, and obliged its king, Alexander, to submit to the
conditions accepted by his father Amyntas; but at this juncture half of
his fleet was destroyed by a tempest in the vicinity of Mount Athos, and
the disaster, which took place just as winter was approaching, caused him
to suspend his operations (492). He was recalled on account of his
failure, and the command was transferred to Datis the Mede and to the
Persian Artaphernes. Darius, however, while tentatively using the land
routes through Greece for his expeditions, had left no stone unturned to
secure for himself that much-coveted sea-way which would carry him
straight into the heart of the enemy’s position, and he had opened
negotiations with the republics of Greece proper. Several of them had
consented to tender him earth and water, among them being Ægina,* and
besides this, the state of the various factions in Athens was such, that
he had every reason to believe that he could count on the support of a
large section of the population when the day came for him to disembark his
force on the shores of Attica.
He therefore decided to direct his next expedition against Athens itself,
and he employed the year 491 in concentrating his troops and triremes in
Cilicia, at a sufficient distance from the European coast to ensure their
safety from any sudden attack. In the spring of 490 the army recruited
from among the most warlike nations of the empire—the Persians,
Medes, and Sakse—went aboard the Phoenician fleet, while galleys
built on a special model were used as transports for the cavalry. The
entire convoy sailed safely out of the mouth of the Pyramos to the port of
Samos, coasting the shores of Asia Minor, and then passing through the
Cyclades, from Samos to Naxos, where they met with no opposition from the
inhabitants, headed for Delos, where Datis offered a sacrifice to Apollo,
whom he confounded with his god Mithra; finally they reached Eubæa, where
Eretria and Carystos vainly endeavoured to hold their own against them.
Eretria was reduced to ashes, as Sardes had been, and such of its citizens
as had not fled into the mountains at the enemy’s approach were sent into
exile among the Kissians in the township of Arderikka. Hippias meanwhile
had joined the Persians and had been taken into their confidence. While
awaiting the result of the intrigues of his partisans in Athens, he had
advised Datis to land on the eastern coast of Attica, in the neighbourhood
of Marathon, at the very place from whence his father Pisistratus had set
out forty years before to return to his country after his first exile. The
position was well chosen for the expected engagement.
The bay and the strand which bordered it afforded an excellent station for
the fleet, and the plain, in spite of its marshes and brushwood, was one
of those rare spots where cavalry might be called into play without
serious drawbacks. A few hours on foot would bring the bulk of the
infantry up to the Acropolis by a fairly good road, while by the same time
the fleet would be able to reach the roadstead of Phalerum. All had been
arranged beforehand for concerted action when the expected rising should
take place; but it never did take place, and instead of the friends whom
the Persians expected, an armed force presented itself, commanded by the
polemarch Callimachus and the ten strategi, among whom figured the famous
Miltiades. At the first news of the disembarkation of the enemy, the
republic had despatched the messenger Phidippides to Sparta to beg for
immediate assistance, and in the mean time had sent forward all her
able-bodied troops to meet the invaders. They comprised about 10,000
hoplites, accompanied, as was customary, by nearly as many more light
infantry, who were shortly reinforced by 1000 Platæans. They encamped in
the valley of Avlona, around a small temple of Heracles, in a position
commanding the roads into the interior, and from whence they could watch
the enemy without exposing themselves to an unexpected attack.
The two armies watched each other for a fortnight, Datis expecting a
popular outbreak which would render an engagement unnecessary, Miltiades
waiting patiently till the Lacedaemonians had come up, or till some false
move on the part of his opponent gave him the opportunity of risking a
decisive action. What took place at the end of this time is uncertain.
Whether Datis grew tired of inaction, or whether he suddenly resolved to
send part of his forces by sea, so as to land on the neighbouring shore of
Athens, and Miltiades fell upon his rear when only half his men had got on
board the fleet, is not known. At any rate, Miltiades, with the Platæans
on his left, set his battalions in movement without warning, and charged
the enemy with a rush. The Persians and the Sakæ broke the centre of the
line, but the two wings, after having dispersed the assailants on their
front, wheeled round upon them and overcame them: 6000 barbarians were
left dead upon the field as against some 200 Athenians and Platæans, but
by dint of their valiant efforts the remainder managed to save the fleet
with a loss of only seven galleys. Datis anchored that evening off the
island of Ægilia, and at the same moment the victorious army perceived a
signal hoisted on the heights of Pentelicus apparently to attract his
attention; when he set sail the next morning and, instead of turning
eastwards, proceeded to double Cape Sunion, Miltiades had no longer any
doubt that treachery was at work, and returned to Athens by forced
marches. Datis, on entering the roads of Phalerum, found the shore
defended, and the army that he had left at Marathon encamped upon the
Cynosargê. He cruised about for a few hours in sight of the shore, and
finding no movement made to encourage him to land, he turned his vessels
about and set sail for Ionia.
The material loss to the Persians was inconsiderable, for even the
Cyclades remained under their authority; Miltiades, who endeavoured to
retake them, met with a reverse before Paros, and the Athenians,
disappointed by his unsuccessful attempt, made no further efforts to
regain them. The moral effect of the victory on Greece and the empire was
extraordinary. Up till then the Median soldiers had been believed to be
the only invincible troops in the world; the sight of them alone excited
dread in the bravest hearts, and their name was received everywhere with
reverential awe. But now a handful of hoplites from one of the towns of
the continent, and that not the most renowned for its prowess, without
cavalry or bowmen, had rushed upon and overthrown the most terrible of all
Oriental battalions, the Persians and the Sakæ. Darius could not put up
with such an affront without incurring the risk of losing his prestige
with the people of Asia and Europe, who up till then had believed him
all-powerful, and of thus exposing himself to the possibility of
revolutions in recently subdued countries, such as Egypt, which had always
retained the memory of her past greatness. In the interest of his own
power, as well as to soothe his wounded pride, a renewed attack was
imperative, and this time it must be launched with such dash and vigour
that all resistance would be at once swept before it. Events had shown him
that the influence of the Pisistratidæ had not been strong enough to
secure for him the opening of the gates of Athens, and that the sea route
did not permit of his concentrating an adequate force of cavalry and
infantry on the field of battle; he therefore reverted to the project of
an expedition by the overland route, skirting the coasts of Thrace and
Macedonia. During three years he collected arms, provisions, horses, men,
and vessels, and was ready to commence hostilities in the spring of 487,
when affairs in Egypt prevented him. This country had undeniably prospered
under his suzerainty. It formed, with Cyrene and the coast of Libya, the
sixth of his satrapies, to which were attached the neighbouring Nubian
tribes of the southern frontier.* The Persian satrap, installed at the
White Wall in the ancient palace of the Pharaohs, was supported by an army
of 120,000 men, who occupied the three entrenched camps of the Saites—Daphnæ
and Marea on the confines of the Delta, and Elephantinê in the south.**
Outside these military stations, where the authority of the great king was
exercised in a direct manner, the ancient feudal organisation existed
intact. The temples retained their possessions and their vassals, and the
nobles within their principalities were as independent and as inclined to
insurrection as in past times. The annual tribute, the heaviest paid by
any province with the exception of Cossæa and Assyria, amounted only to
700 talents of silver. To this sum must be added the farming of the
fishing in Lake Moeris, which, according to Herodotus,*** brought in one
talent a day during the six months of the high Nile, but, according to
Diodorus,**** during the whole year, as well as the 120,000 medimni of
wheat required for the army of occupation, and the obligation to furnish
the court of Susa with Libyan nitre and Nile water; the total of these
impositions was far from constituting a burden disproportionate to the
wealth of the Nile valley.
Commerce brought in to it, in fact, at least as much money as the tribute
took out of it. Incorporated with an empire which extended over three
continents, Egypt had access to regions whither the products of her
industry and her soil had never yet been carried. The produce of Ethiopia
and the Sudan passed through her emporia on its way to attract customers
in the markets of Tyre, Sidon, Babylon, and Susa, and the isthmus of Suez
and Kosseir were the nearest ports through which Arabia and India could
reach the Mediterranean. Darius therefore resumed the work of Necho, and
beginning simultaneously at both extremities, he cut afresh the canal
between the Nile and the Gulf of Suez. Trilingual stelæ in Egyptian,
Persian, and Medic were placed at intervals along its banks, and set forth
to all comers the method of procedure by which the sovereign had brought
his work to a successful end. In a similar manner he utilised the Wadys
which wind between Koptos and the Red Sea, and by their means placed the
cities of the Said in communication with the “Ladders of Incense,” Punt
and the Sabæans.*
He extended his favour equally to the commerce which they carried on with
the interior of Africa; indeed, in order to ensure the safety of the
caravans in the desert regions nearest to the Nile, he skilfully fortified
the Great Oasis. He erected at Habît, Kushît, and other places, several of
those rectangular citadels with massive walls of unburnt brick, which
resisted every effort of the nomad tribes to break through them; and as
the temple at Habit, raised in former times by the Theban Pharaohs, had
become ruinous, he rebuilt it from its foundations.
He was generous in his gifts to the gods, and even towns as obscure as
Edfu was then received from him grants of money and lands. The Egyptians
at first were full of gratitude for the favours shown them, but the news
of the defeat at Marathon, and the taxes with which the Susian court
burdened them in order to make provision for the new war with Greece,
aroused a deep-seated discontent, at all events amongst those who, living
in the Delta, had had their patriotism or their interests most affected by
the downfall of the Saite dynasty. It would appear that the priests of
Buto, whose oracles exercised an indisputable influence alike over Greeks
and natives, had energetically incited the people to revolt. The storm
broke in 486, and a certain Khabbisha, who perhaps belonged to the family
of Psammetichus, proclaimed himself king both at Sais and Memphis.*
Darius did not believe the revolt to be of sufficient gravity to delay his
plans for any length of time. He hastily assembled a second army, and was
about to commence hostilities on the banks of the Nile simultaneously with
those on the Hellespont, when he died in 485, in the thirty-sixth year of
his reign. He was one of the great sovereigns of the ancient world—the
greatest without exception of those who had ruled over Persia. Cyrus and
Cambyses had been formidable warriors, and the kingdoms of the Bast had
fallen before their arms, but they were purely military sovereigns, and if
their successor had not possessed other abilities than theirs, their
empire would have shared the fate of that of the Medes and the Chaldæans;
it would have sunk to its former level as rapidly as it had risen, and the
splendour of its opening years would have soon faded from remembrance.
Darius was no less a general by instinct and training than they, as is
proved by the campaigns which procured him his crown; but, after having
conquered, he knew how to organise and build up a solid fabric out of the
materials which his predecessors had left in a state of chaos; if Persia
maintained her rule over the East for two entire centuries, it was due to
him and to him alone. The question of the succession, with its almost
inevitable popular outbreaks, had at once to be dealt with. Darius had had
several wives, and among them, the daughter of Gobryas, who had borne him
three children: Artabazanes, the eldest, had long been regarded as the
heir-presumptive, and had probably filled the office of regent during the
expedition in Scythia. But Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, who had already
been queen under Cambyses and Gaumâta, was indignant at the thought of her
sons bowing down before the child of a woman who was not of Achæmenian
race, and at the moment when affairs in Egypt augured ill for the future,
and when the old king, according to custom, had to appoint his successor,
she intreated him to choose Khshayarsha, the eldest of her children, who
had been borne to the purple, and in whose veins flowed the blood of
Cyrus. Darius acceded to her request, and on his death, a few months
after, Khshayarsha ascended the throne. His brothers offered no
opposition, and the Persian nobles did homage to their new king.
Khshayarsha, whom the Greeks called Xerxes, was at that time thirty-four
years of age. He was tall, vigorous, of an imposing figure and noble
countenance, and he had the reputation of being the handsomest man of his
time, but neither his intelligence nor disposition corresponded to his
outward appearance; he was at once violent and feeble, indolent,
narrow-minded, and sensual, and was easily swayed by his courtiers and
mistresses. The idea of a war had no attractions for him, and he was
inclined to shirk it. His uncle Artabanus exhorted him to follow his
inclination for peace, and he lent a favourable ear to his advice until
his cousin Mardonius remonstrated with him, and begged him not to leave
the disgrace of Marathon unpunished, or he would lower the respect
attached to the name of Persia throughout the world. He wished, at all
events, to bring Egyptian affairs to an issue before involving himself in
a serious European war. Khabbîsha had done his best to prepare a stormy
reception for him. During a period of two years Khabbîsha had worked at
the extension of the entrenchments along the coast and at the mouths of
the Nile, in order to repulse the attack that he foresaw would take place
simultaneously with that on land, but his precautions proved fruitless
when the decisive moment arrived, and he was completely crushed by the
superior numbers of Xerxes.
The nomes of the Delta which had taken a foremost part in the rising were
ruthlessly raided, the priests heavily fined, and the oracle of Buto
deprived of its possessions as a punishment for the encouragement freely
given to the rebels. Khabbîsha disappeared, and his fate is unknown.
Achæmenes, one of the king’s brothers, was made satrap, but, as on
previous occasions, the constitution of the country underwent no
modification. The temples retained their inherited domains, and the nomes
continued in the hands of their hereditary princes, without a suspicion
crossing the mind of Xerxes that his tolerance of the priestly
institutions and the local dynasties was responsible for the maintenance
of a body of chiefs ever in readiness for future insurrection (483).*
Order was once more restored, but he was not yet entirely at liberty to
pursue his own plan of action. Classical tradition tells us, that on the
occasion of his first visit to Babylon he had offended the religious
prejudices of the Chaldæans by a sacrilegious curiosity. He had, in spite
of the entreaties of the priests, forced an entrance into the ancient
burial-place of Bel-Etana, and had beheld the body of the old hero
preserved in oil in a glass sarcophagus, which, however, was not quite
full of the liquid. A notice posted up beside it, threatened the king who
should violate the secret of the tomb with a cruel fate, unless he filled
the sarcophagus to the brim, and Xerxes had attempted to accomplish this
mysterious injunction, but all his efforts had failed. The example set by
Egypt and the change of sovereign are sufficient to account for the
behaviour of the Babylonians; they believed that the accession of a
comparatively young monarch, and the difficulties of the campaign on the
banks of the Nile, afforded them a favourable occasion for throwing off
the yoke. They elected as king a certain Shamasherib, whose antecedents
are unknown; but their independence was of short duration,* for Megabyzos,
son of Zopyrus, who governed the province by hereditary right, forced them
to disarm after a siege of a few months.
It would appear that Xerxes treated them with the greatest severity: he
pillaged the treasury and temple of Bel, appropriated the golden statue
which decorated the great inner hall of the ziggurât, and carried away
many of the people into captivity (581). Babylon never recovered this
final blow: the quarters of the town that had been pillaged remained
uninhabited and fell into ruins; commerce dwindled and industry flagged.
The counsellors of Xerxes had, no doubt, wished to give an object-lesson
to the province by their treatment of Babylon, and thus prevent the
possibility of a revolution taking place in Asia while its ruler was fully
engaged in a struggle with the Greeks. Meanwhile all preparations were
completed, and the contingents of the eastern and southern provinces
concentrated at Kritalla, in Cappadocia, merely awaited the signal to set
out. Xerxes gave the order to advance in the autumn of 481, crossed the
Halys and took up his quarters at Sardes, while his fleet prepared to
winter in the neighbouring ports of Phocæ and Kymê.*
Gathered together in that little corner of the world, were forces such as
no king had ever before united under his command; they comprised 1200
vessels of various build, and probably 120,000 combatants, besides the
rabble of servants, hucksters, and women which followed all the armies of
that period. The Greeks exaggerated the number of the force beyond all
probability. They estimated it variously at 800,000, at 3,000,000, and at
5,283,220 men; 1,700,000 of whom were able-bodied foot-soldiers, and
80,000 of them horsemen.*
The troops which they could bring up to oppose these hordes were, indeed,
so slender in number, when reckoned severally, that all hope of success
seemed impossible. Xerxes once more summoned the Greeks to submit, and
most of the republics appeared inclined to comply; Athens and Sparta alone
refused, but from different motives. Athens knew that, after the burning
of Sardes and the victory of Marathon, they could hope for no pity, and
she was well aware that Persia had decreed her complete destruction; the
Athenians were familiar with the idea of a struggle in which their very
existence was at stake, and they counted on the navy with which
Themistocles had just provided them to enable them to emerge from the
affair with honour. Sparta was not threatened with the same fate, but she
was at that time the first military state in Greece, and the whole of the
Peloponnesus acknowledged her sway; in the event of her recognising the
suzerainty of the barbarians, the latter would not fail to require of her
the renunciation of her hegemony, and she would then be reduced to the
same rank as her former rivals, Tegea and Argos. Athens and Sparta
therefore united to repulse the common enemy, and the advantage that this
alliance afforded them was so patent that none of the other states
ventured to declare openly for the great king. Argos and Crete, the
boldest of them, announced that they would observe neutrality; the
remainder, Thessalians, Boeotians, and people of Corcyra, gave their
support to the national cause, but did so unwillingly.
Xerxes crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 480, by two bridges of
boats thrown across it between Abydos and Sestos; he then formed his force
into three columns, and made his way slowly along the coast, protected on
the left by the whole of his fleet from any possible attack by the
squadrons of the enemy. The Greeks had three lines of defence which they
could hold against him, the natural strength of which nearly compensated
them for the inferiority of their forces; these were Mount Olympus, Mount
OEta, and the isthmus of Corinth. The first, however, was untenable, owing
to the ill will of the Thessalians; as a precautionary measure 10,000
hoplites were encamped upon it, but they evacuated the position as soon as
the enemy’s advance-guard came into sight. The natural barrier of OEta,
less formidable than that of Olympus, was flanked by the Euboean straits
on the extreme right, but the range was of such extent that it did not
require to be guarded with equal vigilance along its whole length. The
Spartans did not at first occupy it, for they intended to accumulate all
the Greek forces, both troops and vessels, around the isthmus. At that
point the neck of land was so narrow, and the sea so shut in, that the
numbers of the invading force proved a drawback to them, and the advantage
almost of necessity lay with that of the two adversaries who should be
best armed and best officered. This plan of the Spartans was a wise one,
but Athens, which was thereby sacrificed to the general good, refused to
adopt it, and as she alone furnished almost half the total number of
vessels, her decision had to be deferred to. A body of about 10,000
hoplites was therefore posted in the pass of Thermopylæ under the command
of Leonidas, while a squadron of 271 vessels disposed themselves near the
promontory of Artemision, off the Euripus, and protected the right flank
of the pass against a diversion from the fleet. Meanwhile Xerxes had been
reinforced in the course of his march by the contingents from Macedonia,
and had received the homage of the cities of Thessaly; having reached the
defiles of the OEta and the Euboea, he began by attacking the Creeks
directly in front, both fleets and armies facing one another. Leonidas
succeeded in withstanding the assault on two successive days, and then the
inevitable took place. A detachment of Persians, guided by the natives of
the country, emerged by a path which had been left unguarded, and bore
down upon the Greeks in the rear; a certain number managed to escape, but
the bulk of the force, along with the 300 Spartans and their king,
succumbed after a desperate resistance. As for the fleet, it had borne
itself bravely, and had retained the ascendency throughout, in spite of
the superiority of the enemy’s numbers; on hearing the news of the
glorious death of Leonidas, they believed their task ended for the time
being, and retired with the Athenians in their wake, ready to sustain the
attack should they come again to close quarters. The victorious side had
suffered considerable losses in men and vessels, but they had forced the
passage, and Central Greece now lay at their mercy. Xerxes received the
submission of the Thebans, the Phocæans, the Locrians, the Dorians, and of
all who appealed to his clemency; then, having razed to the ground Platæa
and Thespisæ, the only two towns which refused to come to terms with him,
he penetrated into Attica by the gorges of the Cithssron. The population
had taken refuge in Salamis, Ægina, and Troezen. The few fanatics who
refused to desist in their defence of the Acropolis, soon perished behind
their ramparts; Xerxes destroyed the temple of Pallas by fire to avenge
the burning of Sardes, and then entrenched his troops on the approaches to
the isthmus, stationing his squadrons in the ports of Munychia, Phalerum,
and the Piræus, and suspended all hostilities while waiting to see what
policy the Greeks would pursue. It is possible that he hoped that a
certain number of them would intreat for mercy, and others being
encouraged by their example to submit, no further serious battle would
have to be fought. When he found that no such request was proffered, he
determined to take advantage of the superiority of his numbers, and, if
possible, destroy at one blow the whole of the Greek naval reserve; he
therefore gave orders to his admirals to assume the offensive. The Greek
fleet lay at anchor across the bay of Salamis. The left squadron of the
Persians, leaving Munychia in the middle of the night, made for the
promontory of Cynosura, landing some troops as it passed on the island of
Psyttalia, on which it was proposed to fall back in case of accident,
while the right division, sailing close to the coast of Attica, closed the
entrance to the straits in the direction of Eleusis; this double movement
was all but completed, when the Greeks were informed by fugitives of what
was taking place, and the engagement was inevitable. They accepted it
fearlessly. Xerxes, enthroned with his Immortals on the slopes of
Ægialeos, could, from his exalted position, see the Athenians attack his
left squadron: the rest of the allies followed them, and from afar these
words were borne upon the breeze: “Go, sons of Greece, deliver your
country, deliver your children, your wives, and the temples of the gods of
your fathers and the tombs of your ancestors. A single battle will decide
the fate of all you possess.” The Persians fought with their accustomed
bravery, “but before long their numberless vessels, packed closely
together in a restricted space, begin to hamper each other’s movements,
and their rams of brass collide; whole rows of oars are broken.” The Greek
vessels, lighter and easier to manoeuvre than those of the Phoenicians,
surround the latter and disable them in detail. “The surface of the sea is
hidden with floating wreckage and corpses; the shore and the rocks are
covered with the dead.” At length, towards evening, the energy of the
barbarians beginning to flag, they slowly fell back upon the Piræus,
closely followed by their adversaries, while Aristides bore down upon
Psyttalia with a handful of Athenians. “Like tunnies, like fish just
caught in a net, with blows from broken oars, with fragments of spars,
they fall upon the Persians, they tear them to pieces. The sea resounds
from afar with groans and cries of lamentation. Night at length unveils
her sombre face” and separates the combatants.*
The advantage lay that day with the Greeks, but hostilities might be
resumed on the morrow, and the resources of the Persians were so
considerable that their chances of victory were not yet exhausted. Xerxes
at first showed signs of wishing to continue the struggle; he repaired the
injured vessels and ordered a dyke to be constructed, which, by uniting
Salamis to the mainland, would enable him to oust the Athenians from their
last retreat. But he had never exhibited much zest for the war; the
inevitable fatigues and dangers of a campaign were irksome to his indolent
nature, and winter was approaching, which he would be obliged to spend far
from Susa, in the midst of a country wasted and trampled underfoot by two
great armies. Mardonius, guessing what was passing in his sovereign’s
mind, advised him to take advantage of the fine autumn weather to return
to Sardes; he proposed to take over from Xerxes the command of the army in
Greece, and to set to work to complete the conquest of the Peloponnesus.
He was probably glad to be rid of a sovereign whose luxurious habits were
a hindrance to his movements. Xerxes accepted his proposal with evident
satisfaction, and summarily despatching his vessels to the Hellespont to
guard the bridges, he set out on his return journey by the overland route.
At the time of his departure the issue of the struggle was as yet
unforeseen. Mardonius evacuated Attica, which was too poor and desolate a
country to support so large an army, and occupied comfortable winter
quarters in the rich plains of Thessaly, where he recruited his strength
for a supreme effort in the spring. He had with him about 60,000 men,
picked troops from all parts of Asia—Medes, Sakæ, Bactrians, and
Indians, besides the regiment of the Immortals and the Egyptian veterans
who had distinguished themselves by their bravery at Salamis; the heavy
hoplites of Thebes and of the Boeotian towns, the Thessalian cavalry, and
the battalions of Macedonia were also in readiness to join him as soon as
called on. The whole of these troops, relieved from the presence of the
useless multitude which had impeded its movements under Xerxes, and
commanded by a bold and active general, were anxious to distinguish
themselves, and the probabilities of their final success were great. The
confederates were aware of the fact, and although resolved to persevere to
the end, their maoeuvres betrayed an unfortunate indecision. Their fleet
followed the Persian squadron bound for the Hellespont for several days,
but on realising that the enemy were not planning a diversion against the
Peloponnesus, they put about and returned to their various ports. The
winter was passed in preparations on both sides. Xerxes, on his return to
Sardes, had got together a fleet of 200 triremes and an army of 60,000
men, and had stationed them at Cape Mycale, opposite Samos, to be ready in
case of an Ionian revolt, or perhaps to bear down upon any given point in
the Peloponnesus when Mardonius had gained some initial advantage. The
Lacædemonians, on their part, seem to have endeavoured to assume the
defensive both by land and sea; while their foot-soldiers were assembling
in the neighbourhood of Corinth, their fleet sailed as far as Delos and
there anchored, as reluctant to venture beyond as if it had been a
question of proceeding to the Pillars of Hercules. Athens, which ran the
risk of falling into the enemy’s hands for the second time through these
hesitations, evinced such marked displeasure that Mardonius momentarily
attempted to take advantage of it. He submitted to the citizens, through
Alexander, King of Macedon, certain conditions, the leniency of which gave
uneasiness to the Spartans; the latter at once promised Athens all she
wanted, and on the strength of their oaths she at once broke off the
negotiations with the Persians. Mardonius immediately resolved on action:
he left his quarters in Thessaly in the early days of May, reached Attica
by a few quick marches, and spread his troops over the country before the
Peloponnesians were prepared to resist. The people again took refuge in
Salamis; the Persians occupied Athens afresh, and once more had recourse
to diplomacy. This time the Spartans were alarmed to good purpose; they
set out to the help of their ally, and from that moment Mardonius showed
no further consideration in his dealing with Athens. He devastated the
surrounding country, razed the city walls to the ground, and demolished
and burnt the remaining houses and temples; he then returned to Boeotia,
the plains of which were more suited to the movements of his squadrons,
and took up a position in an entrenched camp on the right bank of the
Asopos. The Greek army, under the command of Pausanias, King of Sparta,
subsequently followed him there, and at first stationed themselves on the
lower slopes of Mount Cithseron. Their force was composed of about 25,000
hoplites, and about as many more light troops, and was scarcely inferior
in numbers to the enemy, but it had no cavalry of any kind. Several days
passed in skirmishing without definite results, Mardonius fearing to let
his Asiatic troops attack the heights held by the heavy Greek infantry,
and Pausanias alarmed lest his men should be crushed by the Thessalian and
Persian horse if he ventured down into the plains. Want of water at length
obliged the Greeks to move slightly westwards, their right wing descending
as far as the spring of Gargaphia, and their left to the bank of the
Asopos. But this position facing east, exposed them so seriously to the
attacks of the light Asiatic horse, that after enduring it for ten days
they raised their camp and fell back in the night on Platæa. Unaccustomed
to manouvre together, they were unable to preserve their distances; when
day dawned, their lines, instead of presenting a continuous front, were
distributed into three unequal bodies occupying various parts of the
plain. Mardonius unhesitatingly seized his opportunity. He crossed the
Asopos, ordered the Thebans to attack the Athenians, and with the bulk of
his Asiatic troops charged the Spartan contingents. Here, as at Marathon,
the superiority of equipment soon gave the Greeks the advantage: Mardonius
was killed while leading the charge of the Persian guard, and, as is
almost always the case among Orientals, his death decided the issue of the
battle. The Immortals were cut to pieces round his dead body, while the
rest took flight and sought refuge in their camp.
Almost simultaneously the Athenians succeeded in routing the Boeotians.
They took the entrenchments by assault, gained possession of an immense
quantity of spoil, and massacred many of the defenders, but they could not
prevent Artabazus from retiring in perfect order with 40,000 of his best
troops protected by his cavalry. He retired successively from Thessaly,
Macedonia, and Thrace, reached Asia after suffering severe losses, and
European Greece was freed for ever from the presence of the barbarians.
While her fate was being decided at Platsæ, that of Asiatic Greece was
being fought out on the coast of Ionia. The entreaties of the Samians had
at length encouraged Leotychidas and Xanthippus to take the initiative.
The Persian generals, who were not expecting this aggressive movement, had
distributed the greater part of their vessels throughout the Ionian ports,
and had merely a small squadron left at their disposal at Mycale.
Surprised by the unexpected appearance of the enemy, they were compelled
to land, were routed, and their vessels burnt (479). This constituted the
signal for a general revolt: Samos, Chios, and Lesbos affiliated
themselves to the Hellenic confederation, and the cities of the littoral,
which Sparta would have been powerless to protect for want of a fleet,
concluded an alliance with Athens, whose naval superiority had been
demonstrated by recent events. The towns of the Hellespont threw off the
yoke as soon as the triremes of the confederates appeared within their
waters, and Sestos, the only one of them prevented by its Persian garrison
from yielding to the Athenians, succumbed, after a long siege, during the
winter of 479-478. The campaign of 478 completed the deliverance of the
Greeks. A squadron commanded by Pausanias roused the islands of the Carian
coast and Cyprus itself, without encountering any opposition, and then
steering northwards drove the Persians from Byzantium. The following
winter the conduct of operations passed out of the hands of Sparta into
those of Athens—from the greatest military to the greatest naval
power in Greece; and the latter, on assuming command, at once took steps
to procure the means which would enable her to carry, out her task
thoroughly. She brought about the formation of a permanent league between
the Asiatic Greeks and those of the islands. Each city joining it
preserved a complete autonomy as far as its internal affairs were
concerned, but pledged itself to abide by the advice of Athens in
everything connected with the war against the Persian empire, and
contributed a certain quota of vessels, men, and money, calculated
according to its resources, for the furtherance of the national cause. The
centre of the confederation was fixed at Delos; the treasure held in
common was there deposited under the guardianship of the god, and the
delegates from the confederate states met there every year at the solemn
festivals, Athens to audit the accounts of her administration, and the
allies to discuss the interests of the league and to decide on the
measures to be taken against the common enemy.
Oriental empires maintain their existence only on condition of being
always on the alert and always victorious. They can neither restrict
themselves within definite limits nor remain upon the defensive, for from
the day when they desist from extending their area their ruin becomes
inevitable; they must maintain their career of conquest, or they must
cease to exist. This very activity which saves them from downfall depends,
like the control of affairs, entirely on the ruling sovereign; when he
chances to be too indolent or too incapable of government, he retards
progress by his inertness or misdirects it through his want of skill, and
the fate of the people is made thus to depend entirely on the natural
disposition of the prince, since none of his subjects possesses sufficient
authority to correct the mistakes of his master. Having conquered Asia,
the Persian race, finding itself hemmed in by insurmountable obstacles—the
sea, the African and Arabian deserts, the mountains of Turkestan and the
Caucasus, and the steppes of Siberia—had only two outlets for its
energy, Greece and India. Darius had led his army against the Greeks, and,
in spite of the resistance he had encountered from them, he had gained
ground, and was on the point of striking a crucial blow, when death cut
short his career. The impetus that he had given to the militant policy was
so great that Xerxes was at first carried away by it; but he was naturally
averse to war, without individual energy and destitute of military genius,
so that he allowed himself to be beaten where, had he possessed anything
of the instincts of a commander, he would have been able to crush his
adversary with the sheer weight of his ships and battalions. Even after
Salamis, even after Platæa and Mycale, the resources of Hellas, split up
as it was into fifty different republics, could hardly bear comparison
with those of all Asia concentrated in the hands of one man: Xerxes must
have triumphed in the end had he persevered in his undertaking, and
utilised the inexhaustible amount of fresh material with which his empire
could have furnished him. But to do that he would have had to take a
serious view of his duties as a sovereign, as Cyrus and Darius had done,
whereas he appears to have made use of his power merely for the
satisfaction of his luxurious tastes and his capricious affections. During
the winter following his return, and while he was reposing at Sardes after
the fatigues of his campaign in Greece, he fell in love with the wife of
Masistes, one of his brothers, and as she refused to entertain his suit,
he endeavoured to win her by marrying his son Darius to her daughter
Artayntas. He was still amusing himself with this ignoble intrigue during
the year which witnessed the disasters of Platæa and Mycale, when he was
vaguely entertaining the idea of personally conducting a fresh army beyond
the Ægean: but the marriage of his son having taken place, he returned to
Susa in the autumn, accompanied by the entire court, and from
thenceforward he remained shut up in the heart of his empire. After his
departure the war lost its general character, and deteriorated into a
series of local skirmishes between the satraps in the vicinity of the
Mediterranean and the members of the league of Delos. The Phoenician fleet
played the principal part in the naval operations, but the central and
eastern Asiatics—Bactrians, Indians, Parthians, Arians, Arachosians,
Armenians, and the people from Susa and Babylon—scarcely took any
part in the struggle. The Athenians at the outset assumed the offensive
under the intelligent direction of Cimon. They expelled the Persian
garrisons from Eion and Thrace in 476. They placed successively under
their own hegemony all the Greek communities of the Asianic littoral.
Towards 466, they destroyed a fleet anchored within the Gulf of Pamphylia,
close to the mouth of the Eurymedon, and, as at Mycale, they landed and
dispersed the force destined to act in concert with the squadron. Sailing
from thence to Cyprus, they destroyed a second Phoenician fleet of eighty
vessels, and returned to the Piraeus laden with booty. Such exploits were
not devoid of glory and profit for the time being, but they had no
permanent results. All these naval expeditions were indeed successful, and
the islands and towns of the Ægean, and even those of the Black Sea and
the southern coasts of Asia Minor, succeeded without difficulty in freeing
themselves from the Persian yoke under the protection of the Athenian
triremes; but their influence did not penetrate further inland than a few
miles from the shore, beyond which distance they ran the risk of being cut
off from their vessels, and the barbarians of the interior—Lydians,
Phrygians, Mysians, Pamphylians, and even most of the Lycians and Carians—remained
subject to the rule of the satraps. The territory thus liberated formed
but a narrow border along the coast of the peninsula; a border rent and
interrupted at intervals, constantly in peril of seizure by the enemy, and
demanding considerable efforts every year for its defence. Athens was in
danger of exhausting her resources in the performance of this ungrateful
task, unless she could succeed in fomenting some revolution in the vast
possessions of her adversary which should endanger the existence of his
empire, or which, at any rate, should occupy the Persian soldiery in
constantly recurring hostilities against the rebellious provinces. If none
of the countries in the centre of Asia Minor would respond to their call,
and if the interests of their commercial rivals, the Phoenicians, were so
far opposed to their own as to compel them to maintain the conflict to the
very end, Egypt, at any rate, always proud of her past glory and impatient
of servitude, was ever seeking to rid herself of the foreign yoke and
recover her independent existence under, the authority of her Pharaohs. It
was not easy to come to terms with her and give her efficient help from
Athens itself; but Cyprus, with its semi-Greek population hostile to the
Achæmenids, could, if they were to take possession of it, form an
admirable base of operations in that corner of the Mediterranean. The
Athenians were aware of this from the outset, and, after their victory at
the mouth of the Eurymedon, a year never elapsed without their despatching
a more or less numerous fleet into Cypriot waters; by so doing they
protected the Ægean from the piracy of the Phoenicians, and at the same
time, in the event of any movement arising on the banks of the Nile, they
were close enough to the Delta to be promptly informed of it, and to
interfere to their own advantage before any repressive measures could be
taken.
The field of hostilities having shifted, and Greece having now set herself
to attempt the dismemberment of the Persian empire, we may well ask what
has become of Xerxes. The little energy and intelligence he had possessed
at the outset were absorbed by a life of luxury and debauchery. Weary of
his hopeless pursuit of the wife of Masistes, he transferred his
attentions to the Artayntas whom he had given in marriage to his son
Darius, and succeeded in seducing her. The vanity of this unfortunate
woman at length excited the jealously of the queen. Amestris believed
herself threatened by the ascendency of this mistress; she therefore sent
for the girl’s mother, whom she believed guilty of instigating the
intrigue, and, having cut off her breasts, ears, nose, lips, and torn out
her tongue, she sent her back, thus mutilated, to her family. Masistes,
wishing to avenge her, set out for Bactriana, of which district he was
satrap: he could easily have incited the province to rebel, for its losses
in troops during the wars in Europe had been severe, and a secret
discontent was widespread; but Xerxes, warned in time, despatched horsemen
in pursuit, who overtook and killed him. The incapacity of the king, and
the slackness with which he held the reins of government’, were soon so
apparent as to produce intrigues at court: Artabanus, the chief captain of
the guards, was emboldened by the state of affairs to attempt to
substitute his own rule for that of the Achæmenids, and one night he
assassinated Xerxes. His method of procedure was never exactly known, and
several accounts of it were soon afterwards current. One of them related
that he had as his accomplice the eunuch Aspamithres. Having committed the
crime, both of them rushed to the chamber of Artaxerxes,* one of the sons
of the sovereign, but still a child; they accused Darius, the heir to the
throne, of the murder, and having obtained an order to seize him, they
dragged him before his brother and stabbed him, while he loudly protested
his innocence.
Other tales related that Artabanus had taken advantage of the free access
to the palace which his position allowed him, to conceal himself one night
within it, in company with his seven sons. Having murdered Xerxes, he
convinced Artaxerxes of the guilt of his brother, and conducting him to
the latter’s chamber, where he was found asleep, Artabanus stabbed him on
the spot, on the pretence that he was only feigning slumber.*
The murderer at first became the virtual sovereign, and he exercised his
authority so openly that later chronographers inserted his name in the
list of the Achæmenids, between that of his victim and his protégé;
but at the end of six months, when he was planning the murder of the young
prince, he was betrayed by Megabyzos and slain, together with his
accomplices. His sons, fearing a similar fate, escaped into the country
with some of the troops. They perished in a skirmish, sword in hand; but
their prompt defeat, though it helped to establish the new king upon his
throne, did not ensure peace, for the most turbulent provinces at the two
extremes of the empire, Bactriana on the northeast and Egypt in the
south-west, at once rose in arms. The Bactrians were led by Hystaspes, one
of the sons of Xerxes, who, being older than Artaxerxes, claimed the
throne; his pretensions were not supported by the neighbouring provinces,
and two bloody battles soon sealed his fate (462).* The chastisement of
Egypt proved a harder task. Since the downfall of the Saites, the eastern
nomes of the Delta had always constituted a single fief, which the Greeks
called the kingdom of Libya. Lords of Marea and of the fertile districts
extending between the Canopic arm of the Nile, the mountains, and the sea,
its princes probably exercised suzerainty over several of the Libyan
tribes of Marmarica. Inaros, son of Psammetichus,** who was then the
ruling sovereign, defied the Persians openly. The inhabitants of the
Delta, oppressed by the tax-gatherers of Achæmenes,*** welcomed him with
open arms, and he took possession of the country between the two branches
of the Nile, probably aided by the Cyrenians; the Nile valley itself and
Memphis, closely guarded by the Persian garrisons, did not, however, range
themselves on his side.
Meanwhile the satrap, fearing that the troops at his disposal were
insufficient, had gone to beg assistance of his nephew. Artaxerxes had
assembled an army and a fleet, and, in the first moment of enthusiasm, had
intended to assume the command in person; but, by the advice of his
counsellors, he was with little difficulty dissuaded from carrying this
whim into effect, and he delegated the conduct of affairs to Achæmenes.
The latter at first repulsed the Libyans (460), and would probably have
soon driven them back into their deserts, had not the Athenians interfered
in the fray. They gave orders to their fleet at Cyprus to support the
insurgents by every means in their power, and their appearance on the
scene about the autumn of 469 changed the course of affairs. Achæmenes was
overcome at Papremis, and his army almost completely exterminated. Inaros
struck him down with his own hand in the struggle; but the same evening he
caused the body to be recovered, and sent it to the court of Susa, though
whether out of bravado, or from respect to the Achæmenian race, it is
impossible to say.*
His good fortune did not yet forsake him. Some days afterwards, the
Athenian squadron of Charitimides came up by chance with the Phoenician
fleet, which was sailing to the help of the Persians, and had not yet
received the news of the disaster which had befallen them at Papremis. The
Greeks sunk thirty of the enemy’s vessels and took twenty more, and, after
this success, the allies believed that they had merely to show themselves
to bring about a general rising of the fellahîn, and effect the expulsion
of the Persians from the whole of Egypt. They sailed up the river and
forced Memphis after a few days’ siege; but the garrison of the White Wall
refused to surrender, and the allies were obliged to lay siege to it in
the ordinary manner (459):* in the issue this proved their ruin.
Artaxerxes raised a fresh force in Cilicia, and while completing his
preparations, attempted to bring about a diversion in Greece. The strength
of Pharaoh did not so much depend on his Libyan and Egyptian hordes, as on
the little body of hoplites and the crews of the Athenian squadron; and if
the withdrawal of the latter could be effected, the repulse of the others
would be a certainty. Persian agents were therefore employed to beg the
Spartans to invade Attica; but the remembrance of Salamis and Platæa was
as yet too fresh to permit of the Lacedæmonians allying themselves with
the common enemy, and their virtue on this occasion was proof against the
darics of the Orientals.** The Egyptian army was placed in the field early
in the year 456, under the leadership of Megabyzos, the satrap of Syria:
it numbered, so it was said, some 300,000 men, and it was supported by 300
Phoenician vessels commanded by Artabazos.***
The allies raised the blockade of the White Wall as soon as he entered the
Delta, and hastened to attack him; but they had lost their opportunity.
Defeated in a desperate encounter, in which Charitimides was killed and
Inaros wounded in the thigh, they barricaded themselves within the large
island of Prosopitis, about the first fortnight in January of the year
455, and there sustained a regular siege for the space of eighteen months.
At the end of that time Megabyzos succeeded in turning an arm of the
river, which left their fleet high and dry, and, rather than allow it to
fall into his hands, they burned their vessels, whereupon he gave orders
to make the final assault. The bulk of the Athenian auxiliaries perished
in that day’s attack, the remainder withdrew with Inaros into the
fortified town of Byblos, where Megabyzos, unwilling to prolong a struggle
with a desperate enemy, permitted them to capitulate on honourable terms.
Some of them escaped and returned to Cyrene, from whence they took ship to
their own country; but the main body, to the number of 6000, were carried
away to Susa by Megabyzos in order to receive the confirmation of the
treaty which he had concluded. As a crowning stroke of misfortune, a
reinforcement of fifty Athenian triremes, which at this juncture entered
the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, was surrounded by the Phoenician fleet,
and more than half of them destroyed. The fall of Prosopitis brought the
rebellion to an end.*
The nomes of the Delta were restored to order, and, as was often customary
in Oriental kingdoms, the vanquished petty princes or their children were
reinvested in their hereditary fiefs; even Libya was not taken from the
family of Inaros, but was given to his son Thannyras and a certain
Psammetichus. A few bands of fugitives, however, took refuge in the
marshes of the littoral, in the place where the Saites in former times had
sought a safe retreat, and they there proclaimed king a certain Amyrtgeus,
who was possibly connected with the line of Amasis, and successfully
defied the repeated attempts of the Persians to dislodge them.
The Greek league had risked the best of its forces in this rash
undertaking, and had failed in its enterprise. It had cost the allies so
dearly in men and galleys, that if the Persians had at once assumed the
offensive, most of the Asiatic cities would have found themselves in a
most critical situation; and Athens, then launched in a quarrel with the
states of the Peloponnesus, would have experienced the greatest difficulty
in succouring them. The feebleness of Artaxerxes, however, and possibly
the intrigues at court and troubles in various other parts of the empire,
prevented the satraps from pursuing their advantage, and when at length
they meditated taking action, the opportunity had gone by. They
nevertheless attempted to regain the ascendency over Cyprus; Artabazos
with a Sidonian fleet cruised about the island, Megabyzos assembled troops
in Cilicia, and the petty kings of Greek origin raised a cry of alarm.
Athens, which had just concluded a truce with the Peloponnesians, at once
sent two hundred vessels to their assistance under the command of Oimon
(449). Cimon acted as though he were about to reopen the campaign in Egypt
and despatched sixty of his triremes to King Amyrtceus, while he himself
took Marion and blockaded Kition with the rest of his forces. The siege
dragged on; he was perhaps about to abandon it, when he took to his bed
and died. Those who succeeded him in the command were obliged to raise the
blockade for want of provisions, but as they returned and were passing
Salamis, they fell in with the Phoenician vessels which had just been
landing the Cilician troops, and defeated them; they then disembarked,
and, as at Mycale and Eurymedon, they gained a second victory in the open
field, after which they joined the squadron which had been sent to Egypt,
and sailed for Athens with the dead body of their chief. They had once
more averted the danger of an attack on the Ægean, but that was all. The
Athenian statesmen had for some time past realised that it was impossible
for them to sustain a double conflict, and fight the battles of Greece
against the common enemy, while half of the cities whose safety was
secured by their heroic devotion were harassing them on the continent, but
the influence of Cimon had up till now encouraged them to persist; on the
death of Cimon, they gave up the attempt, and Callias, one of their
leaders, repaired in state to Susa for the purpose of opening
negotiations. The peace which was concluded on the occasion of this
embassy might at first sight appear advantageous to their side. The
Persian king, without actually admitting his reverses, accepted their
immediate consequences. He recognised the independence of the Asiatic
Creeks, of those at least who belonged to the league of Delos, and he
promised that his armies on land should never advance further than three
days’ march from the Ægean littoral. On the seas, he forbade his squadrons
to enter Hellenic waters from the Chelidonian to the Cyanæan rocks—that
is, from the eastern point of Lycia to the opening of the Black Sea: this
prohibition did not apply to the merchant vessels of the contracting
parties, and they received permission to traffic freely in each other’s
waters—the Phoenicians in Greece, and the Greeks in Phonicia,
Cilicia, and Egypt. And yet, when we consider the matter, Athens and
Hellas were, of the two, the greater losers by this convention, which
appeared to imply their superiority. Not only did they acknowledge
indirectly that they felt themselves unequal to the task of overthrowing
the empire, but they laid down their arms before they had accomplished the
comparatively restricted task which they had set themselves to perform,
that of freeing all the Greeks from the Iranian yoke: their Egyptian
compatriots still remained Persian tributaries, in company with the cities
of Cyrenaïca, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, and, above all, that island of
Cyprus in which they had gained some of their most signal triumphs. The
Persians, relieved from a war which for a quarter of a century had
consumed their battalions and squadrons, drained their finances, and
excited their subjects to revolt, were now free to regain their former
wealth and perhaps their vigour, could they only find generals to command
their troops and guide their politics. Artaxerxes was incapable of
directing this revival, and his inveterate weakness exposed him
perpetually to the plotting of his satraps or to the intrigues of the
women of his harem. The example of Artabanus, followed by that of
Hystaspes, had shown how easy it was for an ambitious man to get rid
secretly of a monarch or a prince and seriously endanger the crown. The
members of the families who had placed Darius on the throne, possessed by
hereditary right, or something little short of it, the wealthiest and most
populous provinces—Babylonia, Syria, Lydia, Phrygia, and the
countries of the Halys—and they were practically kings in all but
name, in spite of the surveillance which the general and the
secretary were supposed to exercise over their actions. Besides this, the
indifference and incapacity of the ruling sovereigns had already tended to
destroy the order of the administrative system so ably devised by Darius:
the satrap had, as a rule, absorbed the functions of a general within his
own province, and the secretary was too insignificant a personage to
retain authority and independence unless he received the constant support
of the sovereign. The latter, a tool in the hands of women and eunuchs,
usually felt himself powerless to deal with his great vassals. His
toleration went to all lengths if he could thereby avoid a revolt; when
this was inevitable, and the rebels were vanquished, he still continued to
conciliate them, and in most cases their fiefs and rights were preserved
or restored to them, the monarch knowing that he could rid himself of them
treacherously by poison or the dagger in the case of their proving
themselves too troublesome. Megabyzos by his turbulence was a thorn in the
side of Artaxerxes during the half of his reign. He had ended his campaign
in Egypt by engaging to preserve the lives of Inaros and the 6000 Greeks
who had capitulated at Byblos, and, in spite of the anger of the king, he
succeeded in keeping his word for five years, but at the end of that time
the demands of Amestris prevailed. She succeeded in obtaining from him
some fifty Greeks whom she beheaded, besides Inaros himself, whom she
impaled to avenge Achæmenes. Megabyzos, who had not recovered from the
losses he had sustained in his last campaign against Cimon, at first
concealed his anger, but he asked permission to visit his Syrian province,
and no sooner did he reach it, than he resorted to hostilities. He
defeated in succession Usiris and Menostates, the two generals despatched
against him, and when force failed to overcome his obstinate resistance,
the government condescended to treat with him, and swore to forget the
past if he would consent to lay down arms. To this he agreed, and
reappeared at court; but once there, his confidence nearly proved fatal to
him. Having been invited to take part in a hunt, he pierced with his
javelin a lion which threatened to attack the king: Artaxerxes called to
mind an ancient law which punished by death any intervention of that kind,
and he ordered that the culprit should be beheaded. Megabyzos with
difficulty escaped this punishment through the entreaties of Amestris and
of his wife Amytis; but he was deprived of his fiefs, and sent to Kyrta,
on the shores of the Persian Gulf. After five years this exile became
unbearable; he therefore spread the report that he was attacked by
leprosy, and he returned home without any one venturing to hinder him,
from fear of defiling themselves by contact with his person. Amestris and
Amytis brought about his reconciliation with his sovereign; and
thenceforward he regulated his conduct so successfully that the past was
completely forgotten, and when he died, at the age of seventy-six years,
Artaxerxes deeply regretted his loss.*
Peace having been signed with Athens, and the revolt of Megabyzos being at
an end, Artaxerxes was free to enjoy himself without further care for the
future, and to pass his time between his various capitals and palaces.
His choice lay between Susa and Persepolis, between Ecbatana and Babylon,
according as the heat of the summer or the cold of the winter induced him
to pass from the plains to the mountains, or from the latter to the
plains. During his visits to Babylon he occupied one of the old Chaldæan
palaces, but at Ecbatana he possessed merely the ancient residence of the
Median kings, and the seraglio built or restored by Xerxes in the fashion
of the times: at Susa and in Persia proper, the royal buildings were
entirely the work of the Achæmenids, mostly that of Darius and Xerxes. The
memory of Cyrus and of the kings to whom primitive Persia owed her
organisation in the obscure century preceding her career of conquest, was
piously preserved in the rude buildings of Pasargadæ, which was regarded
as a sacred city, whither the sovereigns repaired for coronation as soon
as their predecessors had expired. But its lonely position and simple
appointments no longer suited their luxurious and effeminate habits, and
Darius had in consequence fixed his residence a few miles to the south of
it, near to the village, which after its development became the immense
royal city of Persepolis. He there erected buildings more suited to the
splendour of his court, and found the place so much to his taste during
his lifetime, that he was unwilling to leave it after death. He therefore
caused his tomb to be cut in the steep limestone cliff which borders the
plain about half a mile to the north-west of the town. It is an opening in
the form of a Greek cross, the upper part of which contains a bas-relief
in which the king, standing in front of the altar, implores the help of
Ahura-mazdâ poised with extended wings above him; the platform on which
the king stands is supported by two rows of caryatides in low relief,
whose features and dress are characteristic of Persian vassals, while
other personages, in groups of three on either side, are shown in the
attitude of prayer. Below, in the transverse arms of the cross, is carved
a flat portico with four columns, in the centre of which is the entrance
to the funeral vault. Within the latter, in receptacles hollowed out of
the rock, Darius and eight of his family were successively laid.
Xerxes caused a tomb in every way similar to be cut for himself near that
of Darius, and in the course of years others were added close by.*
Both the tombs and the palace are built in that eclectic style which
characterises the Achæmenian period of Iranian art. The main features are
borrowed from the architecture of those nations which were vassals or
neighbours of the empire—Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece; but these
various elements have been combined and modified in such a manner as to
form a rich and harmonious whole.
The core of the walls was of burnt bricks, similar to those employed in
the Euphrates valley, but these were covered with a facing of enamelled
tiles, disposed as a skirting or a frieze, on which figured those
wonderful processions of archers, and the lions which now adorn the
Louvre, while the pilasters at the angles, the columns, pillars,
window-frames, and staircases were of fine white limestone or of hard
bluish-grey marble.
The doorways are high and narrow; the moulding which frames them is formed
of three Ionic fillets, each projecting beyond the other, surmounted by a
coved Egyptian lintel springing from a row of alternate eggs and disks.
The framing of the doors is bare, but the embrasures are covered with
bas-reliefs representing various scenes in which the king is portrayed
fulfilling his royal functions—engaged in struggles with evil genii
which have the form of lions or fabulous animals, occupied in hunting,
granting audiences, or making an entrance in state, shaded by an umbrella
which is borne by a eunuch behind him. The columns employed in this style
of architecture constitute its most original feature. The base of them
usually consists of two mouldings, resting either on a square pedestal or
on a cylindrical drum, widening out below into a bell-like curve, and
sometimes ornamented with several rows of inverted leaves. The shafts,
which have forty-eight perpendicular ribs cut on their outer surface, are
perhaps rather tall in proportion to their thickness. They terminate in a
group of large leaves, an evident imitation of the Egyptian palm-leaf
capital, from which spring a sort of rectangular fluted die or abacus,
flanked on either side with four rows of volutes curved in opposite
directions, generally two at the base and two at the summit. The heads and
shoulders of two bulls, placed back to back, project above the volutes,
and take the place of the usual abacus of the capital. The dimensions of
these columns, their gracefulness, and the distance at which they were
placed from one another, prove that they supported not a stone architrave,
but enormous beams of wood, which were inserted between the napes of the
bulls’ necks, and upon which the joists of the roof were superimposed. The
palace of Persepolis, built by Darius after he had crushed the revolts
which took place at the outset of his reign, was situated at the foot of a
chain of rugged mountains which skirt the plain on its eastern side, and
was raised on an irregularly shaped platform or terrace, which was
terminated by a wall of enormous polygonal blocks of masonry. The terrace
was reached by a double flight of steps, the lateral walls of which are
covered with bas-reliefs, representing processions of satellites, slaves,
and tributaries, hunting scenes, fantastic episodes of battle, and lions
fighting with and devouring bulls. The area of the raised platform was not
of uniform level, and was laid out in gardens, in the midst of which rose
the pavilions that served as dwelling-places. The reception-rooms were
placed near the top of the flight of steps, and the more important of them
had been built under the two preceding kings. Those nearest to the edge of
the platform were the propylæ of Xerxes—gigantic entrances whose
gateways were guarded on either side by winged bulls of Assyrian type;
beyond these was the apadana, or hall of honour, where the
sovereign presided in state at the ordinary court ceremonies. To the east
of the apadana, and almost in the centre of the raised terrace,
rose the Hall of a Hundred Columns, erected by Darius, and used only on
special occasions. Artaxerxes I. seems to have had a particular affection
for Susa. It had found favour with his predecessors, and they had so
frequently resided there, even after the building of Persepolis, that it
had continued to be regarded as the real capital of the empire by other
nations, whereas the Persian sovereigns themselves had sought to make it
rather an impregnable retreat than a luxurious residence. Artaxerxes built
there an apadana on a vaster scale than any hitherto designed.
It comprised three colonnades, which, taken together, formed a rectangle
measuring 300 feet by 250 feet on the two sides, the area being
approximately that of the courtyard of the Louvre. The central colonnade,
which was the largest of the three, was enclosed by walls on three sides,
but was open to the south. Immense festoons of drapery hung from the
wooden entablature, and curtains, suspended from rods between the first
row of columns, afforded protection from the sun and from the curiosity of
the vulgar.
At the hour appointed for the ceremonies, the great king took his seat in
solitary grandeur on the gilded throne of the Achæmenids; at the extreme
end of the colonnade his eunuchs, nobles, and guards ranged themselves in
silence on either side, each in the place which etiquette assigned to him.
Meanwhile the foreign ambassadors who had been honoured by an invitation
to the audience—Greeks from Thebes, Sparta, or Athens; Sakae from
the regions of the north; Indians, Arabs, nomad chiefs from mysterious
Ethiopia-ascended in procession the flights of steps which led from the
town to the palace, bearing the presents destined for its royal master.
Having reached the terrace, the curtains of the apadana were
suddenly parted, and in the distance, through a vista of columns, they
perceived a motionless figure, resplendent with gold and purple, before
whom they fell prostrate with their faces to the earth. The heralds were
the bearers of their greetings, and brought back to them a gracious or
haughty reply, as the case may be. When they rose from the ground, the
curtains had closed, the kingly vision was eclipsed, and the escort which
had accompanied them into the palace conducted them back to the town,
dazzled with the momentary glimpse of the spectacle vouchsafed to them.
The Achæemenian monarchs were not regarded as gods or as sons of gods,
like the Egyptian Pharaohs, and the Persian religion forbade their ever
becoming so, but the person of the king was hedged round with such
ceremonial respect as in other Oriental nations was paid only to the gods:
this was but natural, for was he not a despot, who with a word or gesture
could abase the noblest of his subjects, and determine the well-being or
misery of his people? His dress differed from that of his nobles only by
the purple dye of its material and the richness of the gold embroideries
with which it was adorned, but he was distinguished from all others by the
peculiar felt cap, or kidaris, which he wore, and the
blue-and-white band which encircled it like a crown; the king is never
represented without his long sceptre with pommelled handle, whether he be
sitting or standing, and wherever he went he was attended by his umbrella-
and fan-bearers. The prescriptions of court etiquette were such as to
convince his subjects and persuade himself that he was sprung from a
nobler race than that of any of his magnates, and that he was outside the
pale of ordinary humanity. The greater part of his time was passed in
privacy, where he was attended only by the eunuchs appointed to receive
his orders; and these orders, once issued, were irrevocable, as was also
the king’s word, however much he might desire to recall a promise once
made. His meals were, as a rule, served to him alone; he might not walk on
foot beyond the precincts of the palace, and he never showed himself in
public except on horseback or in his chariot, surrounded by his servants
and his guards. The male members of the royal family and those belonging
to the six noble houses enjoyed the privilege of approaching the king at
any hour of the day or night, provided he was not in the company of one of
his wives. These privileged persons formed his council, which he convoked
on important occasions, but all ordinary business was transacted by means
of the scribes and inferior officials, on whom devolved the charge of the
various departments of the government. A vigorous ruler, such as Darius
had proved himself, certainly trusted no one but himself to read the
reports sent in by the satraps, the secretaries, and the generals, or to
dictate the answers required by each; but Xerxes and Artaxerxes delegated
the heaviest part of such business to their ministers, and they themselves
only fulfilled such state functions as it was impossible to shirk—the
public administration of justice, receptions of ambassadors or victorious
generals, distributions of awards, annual sacrifices, and state banquets:
they were even obliged, in accordance with an ancient and inviolable
tradition, once a year to set aside their usual sober habits and drink to
excess on the day of the feast of Mithra. Occasionally they would break
through their normal routine of life to conduct in person some expedition
of small importance, directed against one of the semi-independent tribes
of Iran, such as the Cadusians, but their most glorious and frequent
exploits were confined to the chase. They delighted to hunt the bull, the
wild boar, the deer, the wild ass, and the hare, as the Pharaohs or
Assyrian kings of old had done; and they would track the lion to his lair
and engage him single-handed; in fact, they held a strict monopoly in such
conflicts, a law which punished with death any huntsman who had the
impertinence to interpose between the monarch and his prey being only
abolished by Artaxerxes. A crowd of menials, slaves, great nobles, and
priests filled the palace; grooms, stool-bearers, umbrella- and
fan-carriers, havasses, “Immortals,” bakers, perfumers, soldiers,
and artisans formed a retinue so numerous as to require a thousand
bullocks, asses, and stags to be butchered every day for its maintenance;
and when the king made a journey in full state, this enormous train looked
like an army on the march. The women of the royal harem lived in seclusion
in a separate wing of the palace, or in isolated buildings erected in the
centre of the gardens. The legitimate wives of the sovereign were selected
from the ladies of the royal house, the sisters or cousins of the king,
and from the six princely Persian families; but their number were never
very large, usually three or four at most.*
The concubines, on the other hand, were chosen from all classes of
society, and were counted by hundreds.
They sang or played on musical instruments at the state banquets of the
court, they accompanied their master to the battle-field or the chase, and
probably performed the various inferior domestic duties in the interior of
the harem, such as spinning, weaving, making perfumes, and attending to
the confectionery and cooking. Each of the king’s wives had her own
separate suite of apartments and special attendants, and occupied a much
higher position than a mere concubine; but only one was actually queen and
had the right to wear the crown, and this position belonged of right to a
princess of Achæ-menian race. Thus Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, was queen
successively to Cambyses, Gaumâta, and Darius; Amestris to Xerxes; and
Damaspia to Artaxerxes. Besides the influence naturally exerted by the
queen over the mind of her husband, she often acquired boundless authority
in the empire, in spite of her secluded life.*
Her power was still further increased when she became a widow, if the new
king happened to be one of her own sons. In such circumstances she
retained the external attributes of royalty, sitting at the royal table
whenever the king deigned to dine in the women’s apartments, and
everywhere taking precedence of the young queen; she was attended by her
own body of eunuchs, of whom, as well as of her private revenues, she had
absolute control. Those whom the queen-mother took under her protection
escaped punishment, even though they richly deserved it, but the object of
her hatred was doomed to perish in the end, either by poison treacherously
administered, or by some horrible form of torture, being impaled,
suffocated in ashes, tortured in the trough, or flayed alive. Artaxerxes
reigned for forty-two years, spending his time between the pleasures of
the chase and the harem; no serious trouble disturbed his repose after his
suppression of the revolt under Megabyzos, but on his death in 424 B.C.
there was a renewal of the intrigues and ambitious passions which had
stained with bloodshed the opening years of his reign. The legitimate
heir, Xerxes II., was assassinated, after a reign of forty-five days, by
Secudianus (Sogdianus), one of his illegitimate brothers, and the cortège
which was escorting the bodies of his parents conveyed his also to the
royal burying-place at Persepolis. Meanwhile Secudianus became suspicious
of another of his brothers, named Ochus, whom Artaxerxes had caused to
marry Parysatis, one of the daughters of Xerxes, and whom he had set over
the important province of Hyrcania. Ochus received repeated summonses to
appear in his brother’s presence to pay him homage, and at last obeyed the
mandate, but arrived at the head of an army. The Persian nobility rose at
his approach, and one by one the chief persons of the state declared
themselves in his favour: first Arbarius, commander of the cavalry; then
Arxanes, the satrap of Egypt; and lastly, the eunuch Artoxares, the ruler
of Armenia. These three all combined in urging Ochus to assume the Edaris
publicly, which he, with feigned reluctance, consented to do, and
proceeded, at the suggestion of Parysatis, to open negotiations with
Secudianus, offering to divide the regal power with him. Secudianus
accepted the offer, against the advice of his minister Menostanes, and
gave himself up into the hands of the rebels. He was immediately seized
and cast into the ashes, where he perished miserably, after a reign of six
months and fifteen days.
On ascending the throne, Ochus assumed the name of Darius. His
confidential advisers were three eunuchs, who ruled the empire in his name—Artoxares,
who had taken such a prominent part in the campaign which won him the
crown, Artibarzanes, and Athôos; but the guiding spirit of his government
was, in reality, his wife, the detestable Parysatis. She had already borne
him two children before she became queen; a daughter, Amestris, and a son,
Arsaces, who afterwards became king under the name of Artaxerxes. Soon
after the accession of her husband, she bore him a second son, whom she
named Cyrus, in memory of the founder of the empire, and a daughter,
Artostê; several other children were born subsequently, making thirteen in
all, but these all died in childhood, except one named Oxendras. Violent,
false, jealous, and passionately fond of the exercise of power, Parysatis
hesitated at no crime to rid herself of those who thwarted her schemes,
even though they might be members of her own family; and, not content with
putting them out of the way, she delighted in making them taste her hatred
to the full, by subjecting them to the most skilfully graduated
refinements of torture; she deservedly left behind her the reputation of
being one of the most cruel of all the cruel queens, whose memory was a
terror not only to the harems of Persia, but to the whole of the Eastern
world. The numerous revolts which broke out soon after her husband’s
accession, furnished occasions for the revelation of her perfidious
cleverness. All the malcontents of the reign of Artaxerxes, those who had
been implicated in the murder of Xerxes II., or who had sided with
Secudianus, had rallied round a younger brother of Darius, named Arsites,
and one of them, Artyphios, son of Megabyzos, took the field in Asia
Minor. Being supported by a large contingent of Greek mercenaries, he won
two successive victories at the opening of the campaign, but was
subsequently defeated, though his forces still remained formidable. But
Persian gold accomplished what Persian bravery had failed to achieve, and
prevailed over the mercenaries so successfully that all deserted him with
the exception of three Milesians.
Artyphios and Arsites, thus discouraged, committed the imprudence of
capitulating on condition of receiving a promise that their lives should
be spared, and that they should be well treated; but Parysatis persuaded
her husband to break his plighted word, and they perished in the ashes.
Their miserable fate did not discourage the satrap of Lydia, Pissuthnes,
who was of Achæmenian race: he entered the lists in 418 B.C., with the
help of the Athenians. The relations between the Persian empire and Greece
had continued fairly satisfactory since the peace of 449 B.C., and the few
outbreaks which had taken place had not led to any widespread disturbance.
The Athenians, absorbed in their quarrel with Sparta, preferred to close
their eyes to all side issues, lest the Persians should declare war
against them, and the satraps of Asia Minor, fully alive to the situation,
did not hesitate to take advantage of any pretext for recovering a part of
the territory they coveted: it was thus that they had seized Colophon
about 430 B.C., and so secured once more a port on the Ægean. Darius
despatched to oppose Pissuthnes a man of noble birth, named Tissaphernes,
giving him plenary power throughout the whole of the peninsula, and
Tissaphernes endeavoured to obtain by treachery the success he would with
difficulty have won on the field of battle: he corrupted by his darics
Lycon, the commander of the Athenian contingent, and Pissuthnes, suddenly
abandoned by his best auxiliaries, was forced to surrender at discretion.
He also was suffocated in the ashes, and Darius bestowed his office on
Tissaphernes.
But the punishment of Pissuthnes did not put an end to the troubles: his
son Amorges roused Caria to revolt, and with the title of king maintained
his independence for some years longer. While these incidents were taking
place, the news of the disasters in Sicily reached the East: as soon as it
was known in Susa that Athens had lost at Syracuse the best part of her
fleet and the choicest of her citizens, the moment was deemed favourable
to violate the treaty and regain control of the whole of Asia Minor. Two
noteworthy men were at that time set over the western satrapies,
Tissaphernes ruling at Sardes, and Tiribazus over Hellespontine Phrygia.
These satraps opened negotiations with Sparta at the beginning of 412
B.C., and concluded a treaty with her at Miletus itself, by the terms of
which the Peloponnesians recognised the suzerainty of Darius over all the
territory once held by his ancestors in Asia, including the cities since
incorporated into the Athenian league. They hoped shortly to be strong
enough to snatch from him what they now ceded, and to set free once more
the Greeks whom they thus condemned to servitude after half a century of
independence, but their expectations were frustrated. The towns along the
coast fell one after another into the power of Tissaphernes, Amorges was
taken prisoner in lassos, and at the beginning of 411 B.C. there remained
to the Athenians in Ionia and Caria merely the two ports of Halicarnassus
and Notium, and the three islands of Cos, Samos, and Lesbos: from that
time the power of the great king increased from year to year, and weighed
heavily on the destinies of Greece. Meanwhile Darius II. was growing old,
and intrigues with regard to the succession were set on foot. Two of his
sons put forward claims to the throne: Arsaces had seniority in his
favour, but had been born when his father was still a mere satrap; Cyrus,
on the contrary, had been born in the purple, and his mother Parysatis was
passionately devoted to him.* Thanks to her manouvres, he was practically
created viceroy of Asia Minor in 407 B.C., with such abundant resources of
men and money at his disposal, that he was virtually an independent
sovereign. While he was consolidating his power in the west, his mother
endeavoured to secure his accession to the throne by intriguing at the
court of the aged king; if her plans failed, Cyrus was prepared to risk
everything by an appeal to arms.
He realised that the Greeks would prove powerful auxiliaries in such a
contingency; and as soon as he had set up his court at Sardes, he planned
how best to conciliate their favour, or at least to win over those whose
support was likely to be most valuable. Athens, as a maritime power, was
not in a position to support him in an enterprise which especially
required the co-operation of a considerable force of heavily armed
infantry. He therefore deliberately espoused the cause of the
Peloponnesians, and the support he gave them was not without its influence
on the issue of the struggle: the terrible day of Ægos Potamos was a day
of triumph for him as much as for the Lacedaemonians (405 B.C.).
His intimacy with Lysander, however, his constant enlistments of mercenary
troops, and his secret dealings with the neighbouring provinces, had
already aroused suspicion, and the satraps placed under his orders,
especially Tissaphernes, accused him to the king of treason. Darius
summoned him to Susa to explain his conduct (405 B.C.), and he arrived
just in time to be present at his father’s death (404), but too late to
obtain his designation as heir to the throne through the intervention of
his mother, Parysatis; Arsaces inherited the crown, and assumed the name
of Artaxerxes.
Cyrus entered the temple of Pasargadae surreptitiously during the
coronation ceremony, with the intention of killing his brother at the foot
of the altar; but Tissaphernes, warned by one of the priests, denounced
him, and he would have been put to death on the spot, had not his mother
thrown her arms around him and prevented the executioner from fulfilling
his office. Having with difficulty obtained pardon and been sent back to
his province, he collected thirty thousand Greeks and a hundred thousand
native troops, and, hastily leaving Sardes (401 B.C.), he crossed Asia
Minor, Northern Syria, and Mesopotamia, encountered the royal army at
Cunaxa, to the north of Babylon, and rashly met his end at the very moment
of victory. He was a brave, active, and generous prince, endowed with all
the virtues requisite to make a good Oriental monarch, and he had,
moreover, learnt, through contact with the Greeks, to recognise the weak
points of his own nation, and was fully determined to remedy them: his
death, perhaps, was an irreparable misfortune for his country. Had he
survived and supplanted the feeble Artaxerxes, it is quite possible that
he might have confirmed and strengthened the power of Persia, or, at
least, temporarily have arrested its decline. Having lost their leader,
his Asiatic followers at once dispersed; but the mercenaries did not lose
heart, and, crossing Asia and Armenia, gained at length the shores of the
Black Sea. Up to that time the Greeks had looked upon Persia as a compact
state, which they were sufficiently powerful to conquer by sea and hold in
check by land, but which they could not, without imprudence, venture to
attack within its own frontiers. The experience of the Ten Thousand was a
proof to them that a handful of men, deprived of their proper generals,
without guides, money, or provisions, might successfully oppose the
overwhelming forces of the great king, and escape from his clutches
without any serious difficulty. National discords prevented them from at
once utilising the experience they thus acquired, but the lesson was not
lost upon the court of Susa. The success of Lysander had been ensured by
Persian subsidies, and now Sparta hesitated to fulfil the conditions of
the treaty of Miletus; the Lacedæmonians demanded liberty once more for
the former allies of Athens, fostered the war in Asia in order to enforce
their claims, and their king Agesilaus, penetrating to the very heart of
Phrygia, would have pressed still further forward in the tracks of the Ten
Thousand, had not an opportune diversion been created in his rear by the
bribery of the Persians. Athens once more flew to arms: her fleet, in
conjunction with the Phoenicians, took possession of Cythera; the Long
Walls were rebuilt at the expense of the great king, and Sparta, recalled
by these reverses to a realisation of her position, wisely abandoned her
inclination for distant enterprises. Asia Minor was reconquered, and
Persia passed from the position of a national enemy to that of the friend
and arbiter of Greece; but she did so by force of circumstances only, and
not from having merited in any way the supremacy she attained. Her
military energy, indeed, was far from being exhausted; but poor
Artaxerxes, bewildered by the rivalries between his mother and his wives,
did not know how to make the most of the immense resources still at his
disposal, and he met with repeated checks as soon as he came face to face
with a nation and leaders who refused to stoop to treachery. He had no
sooner recovered possession of the Ægean littoral than Egypt was snatched
from his grasp by a new Pharaoh who had arisen in the Nile valley. The
peace had not been seriously disturbed in Egypt during the forty years
which had elapsed since the defeat of Inarus. Satrap had peaceably
succeeded satrap in the fortress of Memphis; the exhaustion of Libya had
pre-vented any movement on the part of Thannyras; the aged Amyrtæus had
passed from the scene, and his son, Pausiris, bent his neck submissively
to the Persian yoke. More than once, however, unexpected outbursts had
shown that the fires of rebellion were still smouldering. A Psammetichus,
who reigned about 445 B.C. in a corner of the Delta, had dared to send
corn and presents to the Athenians, then at war with Artaxerxes I., and
the second year of Darius II. had been troubled by a sanguinary sedition,
which, however, was easily suppressed by the governor then in power;
finally, about 410 B.C., a king of Egypt had, not without some show of
evidence, laid himself open to the charge of sending a piratical
expedition into Phoenician waters, an Arab king having contributed to the
enterprise.*
It was easy to see, moreover, from periodical revolts—such as that
of Megabyzos in Syria, those of Artyphios and Arsites, of Pissuthnes and
Amorges in Asia Minor—with what impunity the wrath of the great king
could be defied: it was not to be wondered at, therefore, that, about 405
B.C., an enemy should appear in the heart of the Delta in the person of a
grandson and namesake of Amyrtæus. He did not at first rouse the whole
country to revolt, for Egyptian troops were still numbered in the army of
Artaxerxes at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C.; but he succeeded in
establishing a regular native government, and struggled so resolutely
against the foreign domination that the historians of the sacred colleges
inscribed his name on the list of the Pharaohs. He is there made to
represent a whole dynasty, the XXVIIIth which lasted six years, coincident
with the six years of his reign. It was due to a Mendesian dynasty,
however, whose founder was Nephorites, that Egypt obtained its entire
freedom, and was raised once more to the rank of a nation. This dynasty
from the very outset adopted the policy which had proved so successful in
the case of the Saites three centuries previously, and employed it with
similar success. Egypt had always been in the position of a besieged
fortress, which needed, for its complete security, that its first lines of
defence should be well in advance of its citadel: she must either possess
Syria or win her as an ally, if she desired to be protected against all
chance of sudden invasion. Nephorites and his successors, therefore,
formed alliances beyond the isthmus, and even on the other side of the
Mediterranean, with Cyprus, Caria, and Greece, in one case to purchase
support, and in another to re-establish the ancient supremacy exercised by
the Theban Pharaohs.*
Every revolt against the Persians, every quarrel among the satraps, helped
forward their cause, since they compelled the great king to suspend his
attacks against Egypt altogether or to prosecute them at wide intervals:
the Egyptians therefore fomented such quarrels, or even, at need, provoked
them, and played their game so well that for a long time they had to
oppose only a fraction of the Persian forces. Like the Saite Pharaohs
before them, they were aware how little reliance could be placed on native
troops, and they recruited their armies at great expense from the European
Greeks. This occurred at the time when mercenary forces were taking the
place of native levies throughout Hellas, and war was developing into a
lucrative trade for those who understood how to conduct it: adventurers,
greedy for booty, flocked to the standards of the generals who enjoyed the
best reputation for kindness or ability, and the generals themselves sold
their services to the highest bidder. The Persian kings took large
advantage of this arrangement to procure troops: the Pharaohs imitated
their example, and in the years which followed, the most experienced
captains, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus, passed from one camp to
another, as often against the will as with the consent of their
fatherland. The power of Sparta was at her zenith when Nephorites ascended
the throne, and she was just preparing for her expedition to Phrygia. The
Pharaoh concluded an alliance with the Lacedomonians, and in 396 B.C. sent
to Agesilaus a fleet laden with arms, corn, and supplies, which, however,
was intercepted by Conon, who was at that moment cruising in the direction
of Rhodes in command of the Persian squadron. This misadventure and the
abrupt retreat of the Spartans from Asia Minor cooled the good will of the
Egyptian king towards his allies. Thinking that they had abandoned him,
and that he was threatened with an imminent attack on the shore of the
Delta, he assembled, probably at Pelusium, the forces he had apparently
intended for a distant enterprise.
Matters took longer to come to a crisis than he had expected. The retreat
of Agesilaus had not pacified the Ægean satrapies; after the disturbance
created by Cyrus the Younger, the greater number of the native tribes—Mysians,
Pisidians, people of Pontus and Paphlagonia—had shaken off the
Persian yoke, and it was a matter of no small difficulty to reduce them
once more to subjection. Their incessant turbulence gave Egypt time to
breathe and to organise new combinations. Cyprus entered readily into her
designs. Since the subjugation of that island in 445 B.C., the Greek
cities had suffered terrible oppression at the hands of the great king.
Artaxerxes I., despairing of reducing them to obedience, depended
exclusively for support on the Phoenician inhabitants of the island, who,
through his favour, regained so much vigour that in the space of less than
two generations they had recovered most of the ground lost during the
preceding centuries: Semitic rulers replaced the Achaean tyrants at
Salamis, and in most of the other cities, and Citium became what it had
been before the rise of Salamis, the principal commercial centre in the
island. Evagoras, a descendant of the ancient kings, endeavoured to
retrieve the Grecian cause: after driving out of Salamis Abdemon, its
Tyrian ruler, he took possession of all the other towns except Citium and
Amathus. This is not the place to recount the brilliant part played by
Evagoras, in conjunction with Conon, during the campaigns against the
Spartans in the Peloponnesian war. The activity he then displayed and the
ambitious designs he revealed soon drew upon him the dislike of the
Persian governors and their sovereign; and from 391 B.C. he was at open
war with Persia. He would have been unable, single-handed, to maintain the
struggle for any length of time, but Egypt and Greece were at his back,
ready to support him with money or arms. Hakoris had succeeded Nephorites
I. in 393 B.C.,* and had repulsed an attack of Artaxerxes between 390 and
386.**
He was not unduly exalted by his success, and had immediately taken wise
precautions in view of a second invasion. After safeguarding his western
frontier by concluding a treaty with the Libyans of Barca, he entered into
an alliance with Evagoras and the Athenians.
He sent lavish gifts of corn to the Cypriots, as well as munitions of war,
ships, and money while Athens sent them several thousand men under the
command of Chabrias; not only did an expedition despatched against them
under Autophradates fail miserably, but Evagoras seized successively
Citium and Amathus, and, actually venturing across the sea, took Tyre by
assault and devastated Phoenicia and Cilicia. The princes of Asia Minor
were already preparing for revolt, and one of them, Hecatomnus of Caria,
had openly joined the allies, when Sparta suddenly opened negotiations
with Persia: Antalcidas presented himself at Susa to pay homage before the
throne of the great king. The treaty of Miletus had brought the efforts of
Athens to naught, and sold the Asiatic Greeks to their oppressors: the
peace obtained by Antalcidas effaced the results of Salamis and Platsæ,
and laid European Greece prostrate at the feet of her previously
vanquished foes. An order issuing from the centre of Persia commanded the
cities of Greece to suspend hostilities and respect each other’s
liberties; the issuing of such an order was equivalent to treating them as
vassals whose quarrels it is the function of the suzerain to repress, but
they nevertheless complied with the command (387 B.C.), Artaxerxes,
relieved from anxiety for the moment, as to affairs on the Ægean, was now
free to send his best generals into the rebel countries, and such was the
course his ministers recommended. Evagoras was naturally the first to be
attacked. Cyprus was, in fact, an outpost of Egypt; commanding as she did
the approach by sea, she was in a position to cut the communications of
any army, which, issuing from Palestine, should march upon the Delta.
Artaxerxes assembled three hundred thousand foot-soldiers and three
hundred triremes under the command of Tiribazus, and directed the whole
force against the island. At first the Cypriot cruisers intercepted the
convoys which were bringing provisions for this large force, and by so
doing reduced the invaders to such straits that sedition broke out in
their camp; but Evagoras was defeated at sea off the promontory of Citium,
and his squadron destroyed. He was not in any way discouraged by this
misfortune, but leaving his son, Pnytagoras, to hold the barbarian forces
in check, he hastened to implore the help of the Pharaoh (385 B.C.). But
Hakoris was too much occupied with securing his own immediate safety to
risk anything in so desperate an enterprise. Evagoras was able to bring
back merely an insufficient subsidy; he shut himself up in Salamis, and
there maintained the conflict for some years longer. Meanwhile Hakoris,
realising that the submission of Cyprus would oppose his flank to attack,
tried to effect a diversion in Asia Minor, and by entering into alliance
with the Pisidians, then in open insurrection, he procured for it a
respite, of which he himself took advantage to prepare for the decisive
struggle. The peace effected by Antalcidas had left most of the mercenary
soldiers of Greece without employment. Hakoris hired twenty thousand of
them, and the Phoenician admirals, still occupied in blockading the ports
of Cyprus, failed to intercept the vessels which brought him these
reinforcements. It was fortunate for Egypt that they did so, for the
Pharaoh died in 381 B.C., and his successors, Psamuthis IL, Mutis, and
Nephorites IL, each occupied the throne for a very short time, and the
whole country was in confusion for rather more than two years (381-379
B.c.) during the settlement of the succession.*
The turbulent disposition of the great feudatory nobles, which had so
frequently brought trouble upon previous Pharaohs during the Assyrian
wars, was no less dangerous in this last century of Egyptian independence;
it caused the fall of the Mendesian dynasty in the very face of the enemy,
and the prince of Sebennytos, Nakht-har-habît, Nectanebo I., was raised to
the throne by the military faction. According to a tradition current in
Ptolemaic times, this sovereign was a son of Nephorites I., who had been
kept out of his heritage by the jealousy of the gods; whatever his origin,
the people had no cause to repent of having accepted him as their king. He
began his reign by suppressing the slender subsidies which Evagoras had
continued to receive from his predecessors, and this measure, if not
generous, was at least politic. For Cyprus was now virtually in the power
of the Persians, and the blockade of a few thousand men in Salamis did not
draught away a sufficiently large proportion of their effective force to
be of any service to Egypt: the money which had hitherto been devoted to
the Cypriots was henceforth reserved for the direct defence of the Nile
valley. Evagoras obtained unexpectedly favourable conditions: Artaxerxes
conceded to him his title of king and the possession of his city (383
B.C.), and turned his whole attention to Nectanebo, the last of his
enemies who still held out.
Nectanebo had spared no pains in preparing effectively to receive his foe.
He chose as his coadjutor the Athenian Chabrias, whose capacity as a
general had been manifested by recent events, and the latter accepted this
office although he had received no instructions from his government to do
so, and had transformed the Delta into an entrenched camp. He had
fortified the most vulnerable points along the coast, had built towers at
each of the mouths of the river to guard the entrance, and had selected
the sites for his garrison fortresses so judiciously that they were kept
up long after his time to protect the country. Two of them are mentioned
by name: one, situated below Pelusium, called the Castle of Chabrias; the
other, not far from Lake Mareotis, which was known as his township.*
The Persian generals endeavoured to make their means of attack
proportionate to the defences of the enemy. Acre was the only port in
Southern Syria large enough to form the rendezvous for a fleet, where it
might be secure from storms and surprises of the enemy. This was chosen as
the Persian headquarters, and formed the base of their operations. During
three years they there accumulated supplies of food and military stores,
Phoenician and Creek vessels, and both foreign and native troops. The
rivalries between the military commanders, Tithraustes, Datâmes, and
Abrocomas, and the intrigues of the court, had on several occasions
threatened the ruin of the enterprise, but Pharnabazus, who from the
outset had held supreme command, succeeded in ridding himself of his
rivals, and in the spring of 374 B.C. was at length ready for the advance.
The expedition consisted of two hundred thousand Asiatic troops, and
twenty thousand Greeks, three hundred triremes, two hundred galleys of
thirty oars, and numerous transports. Superiority of numbers was on the
side of the Persians, and that just at the moment when Nectanebo lost his
most experienced general. Artaxerxes had remonstrated with the Athenians
for permitting one of their generals to serve in Egypt, in spite of their
professed friendship for himself, and, besides insisting on his recall,
had requested for himself the services of the celebrated Iphicrates. The
Athenians complied with his demand, and while summoning Chabrias to return
to Athens, despatched Iphicrates to Syria, where he was placed in command
of the mercenary troops. Pharnabazus ordered a general advance in May, 374
B.C.,* but when he arrived before Pelusium, he perceived that he was not
in a position to take the town by storm; not only had the fortifications
been doubled, but the banks of the canals had been cut and the approaches
inundated. Iphicrates advised him not to persevere in attempting a regular
siege: he contended that it would be more profitable to detach an
expeditionary force towards some less well-protected point on the coast,
and there to make a breach in the system of defence which protected the
enemies’ front.
Three thousand men were despatched with all secrecy to the mouth of the
Mendesian branch of the Nile, and there disembarked unexpectedly before
the forts which guarded the entrance. The garrison, having imprudently
made a sortie in face of the enemy, was put to rout, and pursued so hotly
that victors and vanquished entered pell-mell within the walls.
After this success victory was certain, if the Persians pursued their
advantage promptly and pushed forward straight into the heart of the
Delta; the moment was the more propitious for such a movement, since
Nectanebo had drained Memphis of troops to protect his frontier.
Iphicrates, having obtained this information from one of the prisoners,
advised Pharnabazus to proceed up the Nile with the fleet, and take the
capital by storm before the enemy should have time to garrison it afresh;
the Persian general, however, considered the plan too hazardous, and
preferred to wait until the entire army should have joined him. Iphicrates
offered to risk the adventure with his body of auxiliary troops only, but
was suspected of harbouring some ambitious design, and was refused
permission to advance. Meanwhile these delays had given the Egyptians time
to recover from their first alarm; they boldly took the offensive,
surrounded the position held by Pharnabazus, and were victorious in
several skirmishes. Summer advanced, the Nile rose more rapidly than
usual, and soon the water encroached upon the land; the invaders were
obliged to beat a retreat before it, and fall back towards Syria.
Iphicrates, disgusted at the ineptitude and suspicion of his Asiatic
colleagues, returned secretly to Greece: the remains of the army were soon
after disbanded, and Egypt once more breathed freely. The check received
by the Persian arms, however, was not sufficiently notorious to shake that
species of supremacy which Artaxerxes had exercised in Greece since the
peace of 387. Sparta, Thebes, and Athens vied with each other in obtaining
an alliance with him as keenly as if he had been successful before
Pelusium. Antalcidas reappeared at Susa in 372 B.C. to procure a fresh act
of intervention; Pelopidas and Ismenias, in 367, begged for a rescript
similar to that of Antalcidas; and finally Athens sent a solemn embassy to
entreat for a subsidy. It seemed as if the great king had become a kind of
supreme arbiter for Greece, and that all the states hitherto leagued
against him now came in turn to submit their mutual differences for his
decision. But this arbiter who thus imposed his will on states beyond the
borders of his empire was never fully master within his own domains. Of
gentle nature and pliant disposition, inclined to clemency rather than to
severity, and, moreover, so lacking in judgment as a general that he had
almost succumbed to an attack by the Cadusians on the only occasion that
he had, in a whim of the moment, undertaken the command of an army in
person, Artaxerxes busied himself with greater zeal in religious reforms
than in military projects. He introduced the rites of Mithra and Anâhita
into the established religion of the state, but he had not the energy
necessary to curb the ambitions of his provincial governors. Asia Minor,
whose revolts followed closely on those of Egypt, rose in rebellion
against him immediately after the campaign on the Nile, Ariobarzanes
heading the rebellion in Phrygia, Datâmes and Aspis that in Cilicia and
Cappadocia, and both defying his power for several years. When at length
they succumbed through treachery, the satraps of the Mediterranean
district, from the Hellespont to the isthmus of Suez, formed a coalition
and simultaneously took the field: the break-up of the empire would have
been complete had not Persian darics been lavishly employed once more in
the affair. Meanwhile Nectanebo had died in 361,* and had been succeeded
by Tachôs.**
The new Pharaoh deemed the occasion opportune to make a diversion against
Persia and to further secure his own safety: he therefore offered his
support to the satraps, who sent Eheomitres as a delegate to discuss the
terms of an offensive and defensive alliance. Having inherited from
Nectanebo a large fleet and a full treasury, Tachôs entrusted to the
ambassador 500 talents of silver, and gave him fifty ships, with which he
cruised along the coast of Asia Minor towards Leukê. His accomplices were
awaiting him there, rejoicing at the success of his mission, but he
himself had no confidence in the final issue of the struggle, and merely
sought how he might enter once more into favour with the Persian court; he
therefore secured his safety by betraying his associates. He handed over
the subsidies and the Egyptian squadron to Orontes, the satrap of
Daskylium, and then seizing the insurgent chiefs sent them in chains to
Susa. These acts of treachery changed the complexion of affairs; the
league suddenly dissolved after the imprisonment of its leaders, and
Arta-xerxes re-established his authority over Asia Minor.
Egypt became once more the principal object of attack, and by the irony of
fate Pharaoh had himself contributed to enrich the coffers and reinforce
the fleet of his foes. In spite of this mischance, however, circumstances
were so much in his favour that he ventured to consider whether it would
not be more advantageous to forestall the foe by attacking him, rather
than passively to await an onslaught behind his own lines. He had sought
the friendship of Athens,* and, though it had not been granted in explicit
terms, the republic had, nevertheless, permitted Ghabrias to resume his
former post at his side.
Chabrias exhorted him to execute his project, and as he had not sufficient
money to defray the expenses of a long campaign outside his own borders,
the Athenian general instructed him how he might procure the necessary
funds. He suggested to him that, as the Egyptian priests were wealthy, the
sums of money annually assigned to them for the sacrifices and maintenance
of the temples would be better employed in the service of the state, and
counselled him to reduce or even to suppress most of the sacerdotal
colleges. The priests secured their own safety by abandoning their
personal property, and the king graciously deigned to accept their gifts,
and then declared to them that in future, as long as the struggle against
Persia continued, he should exact from them nine-tenths of their sacred
revenues. This tax would have sufficed for all requirements if it had been
possible to collect it in full, but there is no doubt that very soon the
priests must have discovered means of avoiding part of the payment, for it
was necessary to resort to other expedients. Chabrias advised that the
poll and house taxes should be increased; that one obol should be exacted
for each “ardeb” of corn sold, and a tithe levied on the produce of all
ship-building yards, manufactories, and manual industries. Money now
poured into the treasury, but a difficulty arose which demanded immediate
solution. Egypt possessed very little specie, and the natives still
employed barter in the ordinary transactions of life, while the foreign
mercenaries refused to accept payment in kind or uncoined metal; they
demanded good money as the price of their services. Orders were issued to
the natives to hand over to the royal exchequer all the gold and silver in
their possession, whether wrought or in ingots, the state guaranteeing
gradual repayment through the nomarchs from the future product of the
poll-tax, and the bullion so obtained was converted into specie for the
payment of the auxiliary troops. These measures, though winning some
unpopularity for Tachôs, enabled him to raise eighty thousand native
troops and ten thousand Greeks, to equip a fleet of two hundred vessels,
and to engage the best generals of the period. His eagerness to secure the
latter, however, was injurious to his cause. Having already engaged
Chabrias and obtained the good will of Athens, he desired also to gain the
help of Agesilaus and the favourable opinion of the Lacedaemonians. Though
now eighty years old, Agesilaus was still under the influence of cupidity
and vanity; the promise of being placed in supreme command enticed him,
and he set sail with one thousand hoplites. A disappointment awaited him
at the moment of his disembarkation: Tachôs gave him command of the
mercenary troops only, reserving for himself the general direction of
operations, and placing the whole fleet under the orders of Chabrias. The
aged hero, having vented his indignation by indulging a more than ordinary
display of Spartan rudeness, allowed himself to be appeased by abundant
presents, and assumed the post assigned to him. But soon after a more
serious subject of disagreement arose between him and his ally; Agesilaus
was disposed to think that Tachôs should remain quietly on the banks of
the Nile, and leave to his generals the task of conducting the campaign.
The ease with which mercenary leaders passed from one camp to the other,
according to the fancy of the moment, was not calculated to inspire the
Egyptian Pharaoh with confidence: he refused to comply with the wishes of
Agesilaus, and, entrusting the regency to one of his relatives, proceeded
to invade Syria. He found the Persians unprepared: they shut themselves up
in their strongholds, and the Pharaoh confided to his cousin Nectanebo,
son of the regent, the task of dislodging them. The war dragged on for
some time; discontent crept in among the native levies, and brought
treachery in its train. The fiscal measures which had been adopted had
exasperated the priests and the common people; complaints, at first only
muttered in fear, found bold expression as soon as the expeditionary force
had crossed the frontier.
The regent secretly encouraged the malcontents, and wrote to his son
warning him of what was going on, and advised him to seize the crown.
Nectanebo could easily have won over the Egyptian troops to his cause, but
their support would have proved useless as long as the Greeks did not
pronounce in his favour, and Chabrias refused to break his oaths.
Agesilaus, however, was not troubled by the same scruples. His vanity had
been sorely wounded by the Pharaoh: after being denied the position which
was, he fancied, his by right, his short stature, his ill-health, and
native coarseness had exposed him to the unseemly mockery of the
courtiers. Tachôs, considering his ability had been over-estimated,
applied to him, it is said, the fable of the mountain bringing forth a
mouse; to which he had replied, “When opportunity offers, I will prove to
him that I am the lion.” When Tachôs requested him to bring the rebels to
order, he answered ironically that he was there to help the Egyptians, not
to attack them; and before giving his support to either of the rival
claimants, he should consult the Ephors. The Ephors enjoined him to act in
accordance with the welfare of his country, and he thereupon took the side
of Nectanebo, despite the remonstrances of Chabrias. Tachôs, deserted by
his veterans, fled to Sidon, and thence to Susa, where Artaxerxes received
him hospitably and without reproaching him (359 B.C.); but the news of his
fall was not received on the banks of the Nile with as much rejoicing as
he had anticipated. The people had no faith in any revolution in which the
Greeks whom they detested took the chief part, and the feudal lords
refused to acknowledge a sovereign whom they had not themselves chosen;
they elected one of their number—the prince of Mendes—to
oppose Nectanebo. The latter was obliged to abandon the possessions won by
his predecessor, and return with his army to Egypt: he there encountered
the forces of his enemy, which, though as yet undisciplined, were both
numerous and courageous. Agesilaus counselled an immediate attack before
these troops had time to become experienced in tactics, but he no longer
stood well at court; the prince of Mendes had endeavoured to corrupt him,
and, though he had shown unexpected loyalty, many, nevertheless, suspected
his good faith. Nectanebo set up his headquarters at Tanis, where he was
shortly blockaded by his adversary. It is well known how skilfully the
Egyptians handled the pick-axe, and how rapidly they could construct walls
of great strength; the circle of entrenchments was already near
completion, and provisions were beginning to fail, when Agesilaus received
permission to attempt a sortie. He broke through the besieging lines under
cover of the night, and some days later won a decisive victory (359 B.C.).
Nectanebo would now have gladly kept the Spartan general at his side, for
he was expecting a Persian attack; but Agesilaus, who had had enough of
Egypt and its intrigues, deserted his cause, and shortly afterwards died
of exhaustion on the coast near Cyrene. The anticipated Persian invasion
followed shortly after, but it was conducted without energy or decision.
Artaxerxes had entrusted the conduct of the expedition to Tachôs,
doubtless promising to reinstate him in his former power as satrap or
vassal king of Egypt, but Tachôs died before he could even assume his
post,* and the discords which rent the family of the Persian king
prevented the generals who replaced him from taking any effective action.
The aged Artaxerxes had had, it was reported, one hundred and fifteen sons
by the different women in his harem, but only three of those by his queen
Statira were now living—Darius, Ariaspes, and Ochus. Darius, the
eldest of the three, had been formally recognised as heir-apparent—perhaps
at the time of the disastrous war against the Cadusians* —but the
younger brother, Ochus, who secretly aspired to the throne, had managed to
inspire him with anxiety with regard to the succession, and incited him to
put the aged king out of the way. Contemporary historians, ill informed as
to the intrigues in the palace, whose effects they noted without any
attempt to explore their intricacies, invented several stories to account
for the conduct of the young prince. Some assigned as the reason of his
conspiracy a romantic love-affair. They said that Cyrus the Younger had
had an Ionian mistress named Aspasia, who, after the fatal battle of
Cunaxa, had been taken into the harem of the conqueror, and had captivated
him by her beauty. Darius conceived a violent passion for this damsel, and
his father was at first inclined to give her up to him, but afterwards,
repenting of his complaisance, consecrated her to the service of Mithra, a
cult which imposed on her the obligation of perpetual chastity. Darius,
exasperated by this treatment, began to contemplate measures of vengeance,
but, being betrayed by his brother Ochus, was put to death with his whole
family.**
By the removal of this first obstacle the crafty prince found himself only
one step nearer success, for his brother Ariaspes was acknowledged as
heir-apparent: Ochus therefore persuaded him that their father, convinced
of the complicity of Ariaspes in the plot imputed to Darius, intended to
put him to an ignominious death, and so worked upon him that he committed
suicide to escape the executioner. A bastard named Arsames, who might
possibly have aspired to the crown, was assassinated by Ochus. This last
blow was too much for Artaxerxes, and he died of grief after a reign of
forty-six years (358 B.C.).* Ochus, who immediately assumed the name of
Artaxerxes, began his reign by the customary massacre: he put to death all
the princes of the royal family,** and having thus rid himself of all the
rival claimants to the supreme power, he hastened on preparations for the
war with Egypt which had been interrupted by his father’s death and his
own accession.
The necessity for restoring Persian dominion on the banks of the Nile was
then more urgent than at any previous time. During the half-century which
had elapsed since the recovery of her independence, Egypt had been a
perpetual source of serious embarrassment to the great king. The
contemporaries of Amyrtseus, whether Greeks or barbarians, had at first
thought that his revolt was nothing more than a local rising, like many a
previous one which had lasted but a short time and had been promptly
suppressed. But when it was perceived that the native dynasties had taken
a hold upon the country, and had carried on a successful contest with
Persia, in spite of the immense disproportion in their respective
resources; when not only the bravest soldiers of Asia, but the best
generals of Greece, had miserably failed in their attacks on the frontier
of the Delta, Phoenicia and Syria began to think whether what was possible
in Africa might not also be possible in Asia. From that time forward,
whenever a satrap or vassal prince meditated revolt, it was to Egypt that
he turned as a natural ally, and from Egypt he sought the means to carry
out his project; however needy the Pharaoh of that day might be, he was
always able to procure for such a suitor sufficient money, munitions of
war, ships, and men to enable him to make war against the empire. The
attempt made by Ochus failed, as all previous attempts had done: the two
adventurers who commanded the forces of Nectanebo, the Athenian Diophantes
and Lamius of Sparta, inflicted a disastrous defeat on the imperial
troops, and forced them to beat a hasty retreat. This defeat was all the
more serious in its consequences because of the magnitude of the efforts
which had been made: the king himself was in command of the troops, and
had been obliged to turn his back precipitately on the foe. The Syrian
provinces, which had been in an unsettled condition ever since the
invasion under Tachôs, flew to arms; nine petty kings of Cyprus, including
Evagoras II., nephew of the famous prince of that name, refused to pay
tribute, and Artabazus roused Asia Minor to rebellion. The Phoenicians
still hesitated; but the insolence of their satrap, the rapacity of the
generals who had been repulsed from Egypt, and the lack of discipline in
the Persian army forced them to a decision. In a convention summoned at
Tripoli, the representatives of the Phoenician cities conferred on Tennes,
King of Sidon, the perilous honour of conducting the operations of the
confederate army, and his first act was to destroy the royal villa in the
Lebanon, and his next to burn the provisions which had been accumulated in
various ports in view of the Egyptian war (351-350 B.C.).
Ochus imagined at the outset that his generals would soon suppress these
rebellions, and, in fact, Idrieus, tyrant of Caria, supported by eight
thousand mercenaries under the Athenian Phocion, overcame the petty
tyrants of Cyprus without much difficulty; but in Asia Minor, Artabazus,
supported by Athens and Thebes, held at bay the generals sent to oppose
him, and Tennes won a signal victory in Syria. He turned for support to
Egypt, and Nectanebo, as might be expected, put Greek troops at his
disposal to the number of four thousand, commanded by one of his best
generals, Mentor of Ehodes: Belesys, the satrap of Syria, and Mazseus,
satrap of Cilicia, suffered a total defeat. Ochus, exasperated at their
want of success, called out every available soldier, three hundred
thousand Asiatics and ten thousand Greeks; the Sidonians, on their side,
dug a triple trench round their city, raised their ramparts, and set fire
to their ships, to demonstrate their intention of holding out to the end.
Unfortunately, their king, Tennes, was not a man of firm resolution.
Hitherto he had lived a life of self-indulgence, surrounded by the women
of his harem, whom he had purchased at great cost in Ionia and Greece, and
had made it the chief object of his ambition to surpass in magnificence
the most ostentatious princes of Cyprus, especially Nicocles of Salamis,
son of Evagoras. The approach of Ochus confused his scanty wits; he
endeavoured to wipe out his treachery towards his suzerain by the betrayal
of his own subjects. He secretly despatched his confidential minister, a
certain Thessalion, to the Persian camp, promising to betray Sidon to the
Persian king, and to act as his guide into Egypt on condition of having
his life preserved and his royal rank guaranteed to him. Ochus had already
agreed to these conditions, when an impulse of vanity on his part nearly
ruined the whole arrangement. Thessalion, not unreasonably doubting the
king’s good faith, had demanded that he should swear by his right hand to
fulfil to the letter all the clauses of the treaty; whereupon Ochus, whose
dignity was offended by this insistence, gave orders for the execution of
the ambassador. But as the latter was being dragged away, he cried out
that the king could do as he liked, but that if he disdained the help of
Tennes, he would fail in his attacks both upon Phonicia and Egypt. These
words produced a sudden reaction, and Thessalion obtained all that he
demanded. When the Persians had arrived within a few days’ march of Sidon,
Tennes proclaimed that a general assembly of the Phoenician deputies was
to be held, and under pretext of escorting the hundred leading men of his
city to the appointed place of meeting, led them into the enemy’s camp,
where they were promptly despatched by the javelins of the soldiery. The
Sidonians, deserted by their king, were determined to carry on the
struggle, in the expectation of receiving succour from Egypt; but the
Persian darics had already found their way into the hands of the mercenary
troops, and the general whom Nectanebo had lent them, declared that his
men considered the position desperate, and that he should surrender the
city at the first summons. The Sidonians thereupon found themselves
reduced to the necessity of imploring the mercy of the conqueror, and five
hundred of them set out to meet him as suppliants, carrying olive branches
in their hands. Bub Ochus was the most cruel monarch who had ever reigned
in Persia—the only one, perhaps, who was really bloodthirsty by
nature; he refused to listen to the entreaties of the suppliants, and,
like the preceding hundred delegates, they were all slain. The remaining
citizens, perceiving that they could not hope for pardon, barricaded
themselves in their houses, to which they set fire with their own hands;
forty thousand persons perished in the flames, and so great was the luxury
in the appointments of the private houses, that large sums were paid for
the right to dig for the gold and silver ornaments buried in the ruins.
The destruction of the city was almost as complete as in the days of
Esarhaddon. When Sidon had thus met her fate, the Persians had no further
reason for sparing its king, Tennes, and he was delivered to the
executioner; whereupon the other Phoenician kings, terrified by his fate,
opened their gates without a struggle.
Once more the treachery of a few traitors had disconcerted the plans of
the Pharaoh, and delivered the outposts of Egypt into the hands of the
enemy: but Ochus renewed his preparations with marvellous tenacity, and
resolved to neglect nothing which might contribute to his final success.
His victories had confirmed the cities of the empire in their loyalty, and
they vied with one another in endeavouring to win oblivion for their
former hesitation by their present zeal: “What city, or what nation of
Asia did not send embassies to the sovereign? what wealth did they not
lavish on him, whether the natural products of the soil, or the rare and
precious productions of art? Did he not receive a quantity of tapestry and
woven hangings, some of purple, some of diverse colours, others of pure
white? many gilded pavilions, completely furnished, and containing an
abundant supply of linen and sumptuous beds? chased silver, wrought gold,
cups and bowls, enriched with precious stones, or valuable for the
perfection and richness of their work? He also received untold supplies of
barbarian and Grecian weapons, and still larger numbers of draught cattle
and of sacrificial victims, bushels of preserved fruits, bales and sacks
full of parchments or books, and all kinds of useful articles? So great
was the quantity of salted meats which poured in from all sides, that from
a distance the piles might readily be mistaken for rows of hillocks or
high mounds.” The land-force was divided into three corps, each under a
barbarian and a Greek general. It advanced along the sea coast, following
the ancient route pursued by the armies of the Pharaohs, and as it skirted
the marshes of Sirbonis, some detachments, having imprudently ventured
over the treacherous soil, perished to a man. When the main force arrived
in safety before Pelusium, it found Nectanebo awaiting it behind his
ramparts and marshes. He had fewer men than his adversary, his force
numbering only six thousand Egyptians, twenty thousand Libyans, and the
same number of Greeks; but the remembrance of the successes won by himself
and his predecessors with inferior numbers inspired him with confidence in
the issue of the struggle. His fleet could not have ventured to meet in
battle the combined squadrons of Cyprus and Phoenicia, but, on the other
hand, he had a sufficient number of flat-bottomed boats to prevent any
adversary from entering the mouths of the Nile. The weak points along his
Mediterranean seaboard and eastern frontier were covered by strongholds,
fortifications, and entrenched camps: in short, his plans were
sufficiently well laid to ensure success in a defensive war, if the rash
ardour of his Greek mercenaries had not defeated his plans. Five thousand
of these troops were in occupation of Pelusium, under command of
Philophrôn. Some companies of Thebans, who were serving under Lacrates in
the Persian army, crossed a deep canal which separated them from the city,
and provoked the garrison to risk an encounter in the open field.
Philophrôn, instead of treating their challenge with indifference,
accepted it, and engaged in a combat which lasted till nightfall. On the
following day, Lacrates, having drawn off the waters of the canal and
thrown a dyke across it, led his entire force up to the glacis of the
fortifications, dug some trenches, and brought up a line of
battering-rams. He would soon have effected a breach, but the Egyptians
understood how to use the spade as well as the lance, and while the outer
wall was crumbling, they improvised behind it a second wall, crowned with
wooden turrets. Nectanebo, who had come up with thirty thousand native,
five thousand Greek troops, and half the Libyan contingent, observed the
vicissitudes of the siege from a short distance, and by his presence alone
opposed the advance of the bulk of the Persian army. Weeks passed by, the
time of the inundation was approaching, and it seemed as if this policy of
delay would have its accustomed success, when an unforeseen incident
decided in a moment the fate of Egypt. Among the officers of Ochus was a
certain Nicostratus of Argos, who on account of his prodigious strength
was often compared to Heracles, and who out of vanity dressed himself up
in the traditional costume of that hero, the lion’s skin and the club.
Having imbibed, doubtless, the ideas formerly propounded by Iphicrates,
Nicostratus forced some peasants, whose wives and children he had seized
as hostages, to act as his guides, and made his way up one of the canals
which traverse the marshes of Menzaleh: there he disembarked his men in
the rear of Nectanebo, and took up a very strong position on the border of
the cultivated land. This enterprise, undertaken with a very insufficient
force, was an extremely rash one; if the Egyptian generals had contented
themselves with harassing Nicostratus without venturing on engaging him in
a pitched battle, they would speedily have forced him to re-embark or to
lay down his arms. Unfortunately, however, five thousand mercenaries, who
formed the garrison of one of the neighbouring towns, hastened to attack
him under the command of Clinias of Cos, and suffered a severe defeat. As
a result, the gates of the town were thrown open to the enemy, and if the
Persians, encouraged by the success of this forlorn hope, had followed it
up boldly, Nectanebo would have run the risk of being cut off from his
troops which were around Pelusium, and of being subsequently crushed. He
thought it wiser to retreat towards the apex of the Delta, but this very
act of prudence exposed him to one of those accidental misfortunes which
are wont to occur in armies formed of very diverse elements. While he was
concentrating his reserves at Memphis, the troops of the first line
thought that, by leaving them exposed to the assaults of the great king,
he was deliberately sacrificing them. Pelusium capitulated to Lacrates;
Mentor of Ehodes pushed forward and seized Bubastis, and the other cities
in the eastern portion of the Delta, fearing to bring upon themselves the
fate of Sidon, opened their gates to the Persians after a mere show of
resistance. The forces which had collected at Memphis thereupon disbanded,
and Nectanebo, ruined by these successive disasters, collected his
treasures and fled to Ethiopia. The successful issue of the rash
enterprise of Nicostratus had overthrown the empire of the Pharaohs, and
re-established the Persian empire in its integrity (342 B.C.).*
Egypt had prospered under the strong rule of its last native Pharaohs.
Every one of them, from Amyrtous down to Nectanebo, had done his best to
efface all traces of the Persian invasions and restore to the country the
appearance which it had presented before the days of its servitude; even
kings like Psamutis and Tachôs, whose reign had been of the briefest, had,
like those who ruled for longer periods, constructed or beautified the
monuments of the country. The Thebaid was in this respect a special field
of their labours. The island of Philæ, exposed to the ceaseless attacks of
the Ethiopians, had been reduced to little more than a pile of ruins.
Nectanebo II. erected a magnificent gate there, afterwards incorporated
into the first pylon of the temple built by the Ptolemies, and one at
least of the buildings that still remain, the charming rectangular kiosk,
the pillars of which, with their Hathor capitals, rise above the southern
extremity of the island and mark the spot at which the Ethiopian pilgrims
first set foot on the sacred territory of the bountiful Isis. Nectanebo I.
restored the sanctuaries of Nekhabît at El-Kab, and of Horus at Edfu, in
which latter place he has left an admirable naos which delights the modern
traveller by its severe proportions and simplicity of ornament, while
Nectanebo II. repaired the ancient temple of Mînu at Coptos; in short,
without giving a detailed list of what was accomplished by each of these
later Pharaohs, it may be said that there are few important sites in the
valley of the Nile where some striking evidence of their activity may not
still be discovered even after the lapse of so many centuries.
It will be sufficient to mention Thebes, Memphis, Sebennytos, Bubastis,
Pahabît, Patumu, and Tanis. Nor did the Theban oases, including that of
Amon himself, escape their zeal, for the few Europeans who have visited
them in modern times have observed their cartouches there.
Moreover, in spite of the brief space of time within which they were
carried out, the majority of these works betray no signs of haste or
slipshod execution; the craftsmen employed on them seem to have preserved
in their full integrity all the artistic traditions of earlier times, and
were capable of producing masterpieces which will bear comparison with
those of the golden age. The Eastern gate, erected at Karnak in the time
of Nectanebo II., is in no way inferior either in purity of proportion or
in the beauty of its carvings to what remains of the gates of Amenôthes
III.
The sarcophagus of Nectanebo I. is carved and decorated with a perfection
of skill which had never been surpassed in any age, and elsewhere, on all
the monuments which bear the name of this monarch the hieroglyphics have
been designed and carved with as much care as though each one of them had
been a precious cameo.*
The basalt torso of Nectanebo II., which attracts so much admiration in
the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris for accuracy of proportion and
delicacy of modelling, deserves to rank with the finest statues of the
ancient empire. The men’s heads are veritable portraits, in which such
details as a peculiar conformation of the skull, prominent cheekbones,
deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, or the modelling of the chin, have all been
observed and reproduced with a fidelity and keenness of observation which
we fail to find in such works of the earlier artists as have come down to
us. These later sculptors display the same regard for truth in their
treatment of animals, and their dog-headed divinities; their dogs, lions,
and sphinxes will safely bear comparison with the most lifelike
presentments of these creatures to be found among the remains of the
Memphite or Theban eras. Egypt was thus in the full tide of material
prosperity when it again fell under the Persian yoke, and might have
become a source of inexhaustible wealth to Ochus had he known how to
secure acceptance of his rule, as Darius, son of Hystaspes, had done in
the days of Amasis.
The violence of his temperament, however, impelled him to a course of
pitiless oppression, and his favourite minister, the eunuch Bagoas, seems
to have done his best to stimulate his master’s natural cruelty. In the
days when they felt themselves securely protected from his anger by their
Libyan and Greek troops, the fellahîn had freely indulged in lampoons at
the expense of their Persian suzerain; they had compared him to Typhon on
account of his barbarity, and had nicknamed him “the Ass,” this animal
being in their eyes a type of everything that is vile. On his arrival at
Memphis, Ochus gave orders that an ass should be installed in the temple
of Phtah, and have divine honours paid to it; he next had the bull Apis
slaughtered and served up at a set banquet which he gave to his friends on
taking possession of the White Wall. The sacred goat of Mendes suffered
the same fate as the Apis, and doubtless none of the other sacred animals
were spared. Bagoas looted the temples in the most systematic way,
despatched the sacred books to Persia, razed the walls of the cities to
the ground, and put every avowed partisan of the native dynasty to the
sword. After these punitive measures had been carried out, Ochus disbanded
his mercenaries and returned to Babylon, leaving Pherendates in charge of
the reconquered province.*
The downfall of Egypt struck terror into the rebellious satraps who were
in arms elsewhere. Artabazus, who had kept Asia Minor in a ferment ever
since the time of Artaxerxes II., gave up the struggle of his own accord
and took refuge in Macedonia. The petty kings of the cities on the shores
of the Hellespont and the Ægean submitted themselves in order to regain
favour, or if, like Hermias of Atarnasa, the friend of Aristotle, they
still resisted, they were taken prisoners and condemned to death. The
success of Ochus was a reality, but there was still much to be done before
things were restored to the footing they had occupied before the crisis.
We know enough of the course of events in the western provinces to realise
the pitch of weakness to which the imbecility of Darius II. and his son
Artaxerxes II. had reduced the empire of Darius and Xerxes, but it is
quite certain that the disastrous effects of their misgovernment were not
confined to the shores of the Mediterranean, but were felt no less acutely
in the eastern and central regions of the empire. There, as on the Greek
frontiers, the system built up at the cost of so much ingenuity by Darius
was gradually being broken down with each year that passed, and the
central government could no longer make its power felt at the extremities
of the empire save at irregular intervals, when its mandates were not
intercepted or nullified in transmission. The functions of the “Eyes” and
“Ears” of the king had degenerated into a mere meaningless formality, and
were, more often than not, dispensed with altogether. The line of
demarcation between the military and civil power had been obliterated: not
only had the originally independent offices of satrap, general, and
secretary ceased to exist in each separate province, but, in many
instances, the satrap, after usurping the functions of his two colleagues,
contrived to extend his jurisdiction till it included several provinces,
thus establishing himself as a kind of viceroy. Absorbed in disputes among
themselves, or in conspiracies against the Achsemenian dynasty, these
officials had no time to look after the well-being of the districts under
their control, and the various tribes and cities took advantage of this to
break the ties of vassalage. To take Asia Minor alone, some of the petty
kings of Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and certain districts of Cappadocia or the
mountainous parts of Phrygia still paid their tribute intermittently, and
only when compelled to do so; others, however, such as the Pisidians,
Lycaonians, a part of the Lycians, and some races of Mount Taurus, no
longer dreamed of doing so. The three satrapies on the shores of the
Caspian, which a hundred years before had wedged themselves in between
that sea and the Euxine, were now dissolved, all trace of them being lost
in a confused medley of kingdoms and small states, some of which were
ready enough to acknowledge the supremacy of Persia, while others, such as
the Gordiseans, Taochi, Chalybes, Colchi, Mosynoki, and Tibarenians,
obeyed no rule but their own.
[Click on the Map to enlarge it to full size.]
All along the Caspian, the Cadusians and Amardians, on either side of the
chain of mountains bordering the Iranian plateau, defied all the efforts
made to subdue them.* India and the Sakse had developed from the condition
of subjects into that of friendly allies, and the savage hordes of
Gedrosia and the Paropamisus refused to recognise any authority at all.**
The whole empire needed to be reconquered and reorganised bit by bit if it
was to exercise that influence in the world to which its immense size
entitled it, and the question arose whether the elements of which it
consisted would lend themselves to any permanent reorganisation or
readjustment.
The races of the ancient Eastern world, or, at any rate, that portion of
them which helped to make its history, either existed no longer or had
sunk into their dotage. They had worn each other out in the centuries of
their prime, Chaldæans and Assyrians fighting against Cossæans or
Elamites, Egyptians against Ethiopians and against Hittites, Urartians,
Armæans, the peoples of Lebanon and of Damascus, the Phoenicians,
Canaanites and Jews, until at last, with impoverished blood and flagging
energies, they were thrown into conflict with younger and more vigorous
nations. The Medes had swept away all that still remained of Assyria and
Urartu; the Persians had overthrown the Medes, the Lydians, and the
Chaldæans, till Egypt alone remained and was struck down by them in her
turn. What had become of these conquered nations during the period of
nearly two hundred years that the Achæmenians had ruled over them? First,
as regards Elam, one of the oldest and formerly the most powerful of them
all. She had been rent into two halves, each of them destined to have a
different fate. In the mountains, the Uxians, Mardians, Elymasans, and
Cossæans—tribes who had formerly been the backbone of the nation—had
relapsed into a semi-barbarous condition, or rather, while the rest of the
world had progressed in civilization and refinement, they had remained in
a state of stagnation, adhering obstinately to the customs of their palmy
days: just as they had harried the Chaldæans or Assyrians in the olden
times, so now they harried the Persians; then, taking refuge in their
rocky fastnesses, they lived on the proceeds of their forays, successfully
resisting all attempts made to dislodge them. The people of the plains, on
the other hand, kept in check from the outset by the presence of the court
at Susa, not only promptly resigned themselves to their fate, but even
took pleasure in it, and came to look upon themselves as in some sort the
masters of Asia. Was it not to their country, to the very spot occupied by
the palace of their king, that, for nearly two hundred years, satraps,
vassal kings, the legates of foreign races, ambassadors of Greek republics—in
a word, all the great ones of this world—came every year to render
homage, and had not the treasures which these visitors brought with them
been expended, in part at any rate, on their country? The memory of their
former prosperity paled before the splendours of their new destiny, and
the glory of their ancestors suffered eclipse. The names of the national
kings, the story of their Chaldæan and Syrian conquests, the trophies of
their victories over the great generals of Nineveh, the horrors of their
latest discords and of the final catastrophe were all forgotten; even the
documents which might have helped to recall them lay buried in the heart
of the mound which served as a foundation for the palace of the
Achgernenides. Beyond the vague consciousness of a splendid past, the
memory of the common people was a blank, and when questioned by strangers
they could tell them nothing save legends of the gods or the exploits of
mythical heroes; and from them the Greeks borrowed their Memnon, that son
of Tithonus and Eôs who rushed to the aid of Priam with his band of
Ethiopians, and whose prowess had failed to retard by a single day the
downfall of Troy. Further northwards, the Urartians and peoples of ancient
Naîri, less favoured by fortune, lost ground with each successive
generation, yielding to the steady pressure of the Armenians. In the time
of Herodotus they were still in possession of the upper basins of the
Euphrates and Araxus, and, in conjunction with the Matieni and Saspires,
formed a satrapy—the eighteenth—the boundaries of which
coincided pretty closely with those of the kingdom ruled over by the last
kings of Van in the days of Assur-bani-pal; the Armenians, on their side,
constituted the thirteenth satrapy, between Mount Taurus and the Lower
Arsanias.
The whole face of their country had undergone a profound change since that
time: the Urartians, driven northwards, became intermingled with the
tribes on the slopes of the Caucasus, while the Armenians, carried along
towards the east, as though by some resistless current, were now scaling
the mountainous bulwark of Ararat, and slowly but surely encroaching on
the lower plains of the Araxes. These political changes had been almost
completed by the time of Ochus, and Urartu had disappeared from the scene,
but an Armenia now flourished in the very region where Urartu had once
ruled, and its princes, who were related to the family of the Achæmenides,
wielded an authority little short of regal under the modest name of
satraps. Thanks to their influence, the religions and customs of Iran were
introduced into the eastern borders of Asia Minor. They made their way
into the valleys of the Iris and the Halys, into Cappadocia and the
country round Mount Taurus, and thither they brought with them the
official script of the empire, the Persian and Aramaean cuneiform which
was employed in public documents, in inscriptions, and on coins. The
centre of the peninsula remained very much the same as it had been in the
period of the Phrygian supremacy, but further westward Hellenic influences
gradually made themselves felt.
The arts of Greece, its manners, religious ideals, and modes of thought,
were slowly displacing civilisations of the Asianic type, and even in
places like Lycia, where the language successfully withstood the Greek
invasion, the life of the nations, and especially of their rulers, became
so deeply impregnated with Hellenism as to differ but little from that in
the cities on the Ionic, Æolian, or Doric seaboard. The Lycians still
adhered to the ancient forms which characterised their funerary
architecture, but it was to Greek sculptors, or pupils from the Grecian
schools, that they entrusted the decoration of the sides of their
sarcophagi and of their tombs.
Their kings minted coins many of which are reckoned among the masterpieces
of antique engraving; and if we pass from Lycia to the petty states of
Caria, we come upon one of the greatest triumphs of Greek art—that
huge mausoleum in which the inconsolable Artemisia enclosed the ashes and
erected the statue of her husband. The Asia Minor of Egyptian times, with
its old-world dynasties, its old-world names, and old-world races, had
come to be nothing more than an historic memory; even that martial world,
in which the Assyrian conquerors fought so many battles from the Euphrates
to the Black Sea, was now no more, and its neighbours and enemies of
former days had, for the most part, disappeared from the land of the
living.
The Lotanu were gone, the Khâti were gone, and gone, too, were Carchemish,
Arpad, and Qodshu, much of th§ir domain having been swallowed up again by
the desert for want of hands to water and till it; even Assyria itself
seemed but a shadow half shrouded in the mists of oblivion. Sangara,
Nisibis, Resaina, and Edessa still showed some signs of vigour, but on
quitting the slopes of the Masios and proceeding southwards, piles of
ruins alone marked the sites of those wealthy cities through which the
Ninevite monarchs had passed in their journeyings towards Syria. Here wide
tracts of arid and treeless country were now to be seen covered with
aromatic herbage, where the Scenite Arabs were wont to pursue the lion,
wild ass, ostrich, bustard, antelope, and gazelle; a few abandoned forts,
such as Korsortê, Anatho, and Is (Hit) marked the halting-places of armies
on the banks of the Euphrates. In the region of the Tigris, the
descendants of Assyrian captives who, like the Jews, had been set free by
Cyrus, had rebuilt Assur, and had there grown wealthy by husbandry and
commerce,* but in the district of the Zab solitude reigned supreme.**
Calah and Nineveh were alike deserted, and though their ruins still
littered the sites where they had stood, their names were unknown in the
neighbouring villages. Xenophon, relying on his guides, calls the former
place Larissa, the second Mespila.***
Already there were historians who took the ziggurât at Nineveh to be the
burial-place of Sardanapalus. They declared that Cyrus had pulled it down
in order to strengthen his camp during the siege of the town, and that
formerly it had borne an epitaph afterwards put into verse by the poet
Choerilus of Iassus: “I reigned, and so long as I beheld the light of the
sun, I ate, I drank, I loved, well knowing how brief is the life of man,
and to how many vicissitudes it is liable.” Many writers, remembering the
Assyrian monument at Anchialê in Cilicia, were inclined to place the
king’s tomb there. It was surmounted by the statue of a man—according
to one account, with his hands crossed upon his breast, according to
another, in the act of snapping his fingers—and bore the following
inscription in Chaldaic letters: “I, Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes,
founded Anchialê and Tarsus in one day, but now am dead.” Thus ten
centuries of conquests and massacre had passed away like a vapour, leaving
nothing but a meagre residue of old men’s tales and moral axioms.
In one respect only does the civilisation of the Euphrates seem to have
fairly held its own. Cossæa, though it had lost its independence, had lost
but little of its wealth; its former rebellions had done it no great
injury, and its ancient cities were still left standing, though shorn of
their early splendour. Uru, it is true, numbered but few citizens round
its tottering sanctuaries, but Uruk maintained a school of theologians and
astronomers no less famous throughout the East than those of Borsippa. The
swamps, however, which surrounded it possessed few attractions, and Greek
travellers rarely ventured thither. They generally stopped at Babylon, or
if they ventured off the beaten track, it was only to visit the monuments
of Nebuchadrezzar, or the tombs of the early kings in its immediate
neighbourhood. Babylon was, indeed, one of the capitals of the empire—nay,
for more than half a century, during the closing years of Artaxerxes I.,
in the reign of Darius II., and in the early days of Artaxerxes IL, it had
been the real capital; even under Ochus, the court spent the winter months
there, and resorted thither in quest of those resources of industry and
commerce which Susa lacked. The material benefits due to the presence of
the sovereign seem to have reconciled the city to its subject condition;
there had been no seditious movement there since the ill-starred rising of
Shamasherîb, which Xerxes had quelled with ruthless severity. The Greek
mercenaries or traders who visited it, though prepared for its huge size
by general report, could not repress a feeling of astonishment as they
approached it. First of all there was the triple wall of Nebuchadrezzar,
with its moats, its rows of towers, and its colossal gateways. Unlike the
Greek cities, it had been laid out according to a regular plan, and formed
a perfect square, inside which the streets crossed one another at right
angles, some parallel to the Euphrates, others at right angles to it;
every one of the latter terminated in a brazen gate opening through the
masonry of the quay, and giving access to the river. The passengers who
crowded the streets included representatives of all the Asiatic races, the
native Babylonians being recognisable by their graceful dress, consisting
of a linen tunic falling to the feet, a fringed shawl, round cap, and
heavy staff terminating in a knob. From this ever-changing background
stood out many novel features calculated to stimulate Greek curiosity,
such as the sick persons exposed at street-corners in order that they
might beg the passers-by to prescribe for them, the prostitution of her
votaries within the courts of the goddess Mylitta, and the disposal of
marriageable girls by auction: Herodotus, however, regretted that this
latter custom had fallen into abeyance. And yet to the attentive eye of a
close observer even Babylon must have furnished many unmistakable symptoms
of decay. The huge boundary wall enclosed too large an area for the
population sheltered behind it; whole quarters were crumbling into heaps
of ruins, and the flower and vegetable gardens were steadily encroaching
on spaces formerly covered with houses. Public buildings had suffered
quite as much as private dwellings from the Persian wars. Xerxes had
despoiled the temples, and no restoration had been attempted since his
time. The ziggurât of Bel lay half buried already beneath piles of
rubbish; the golden statues which had once stood within its chambers had
disappeared, and the priests no longer carried on their astronomical
observations on its platform.*
The palaces of the ancient kings were falling to pieces from lack of
repairs, though the famous hanging gardens in the citadel were still shown
to strangers. The guides, of course, gave them out to be a device of
Semiramis, but the well-informed knew that they had been constructed by
Nebuchadrezzar for one of his wives the daughter of Oyaxares, who pined
for the verdure of her native mountains. “They were square in shape, each
side being four hundred feet long; one approached them by steps leading to
terraces placed one above the other, the arrangement of the whole,
resembling that of an amphitheatre. Each terrace rested on pillars which,
gradually increasing in size, supported the weight of the soil and its
produce. The loftiest pillar attained a height of fifty feet; it reached
to the upper part of the garden, its capital being on a level with the
balustrades of the boundary wall. The terraces were covered with a layer
of soil of sufficient depth for the roots of the largest trees; plants of
all kinds that delight the eye by their shape or beauty were grown there.
One of the columns was hollowed from top to bottom; it contained hydraulic
engines which pumped up quantities of water, no part of the mechanism
being visible from the outside.” Many travellers were content to note down
only such marvels as they considered likely to make their narratives more
amusing, but others took pains to collect information of a more solid
character, and before they had carried their researches very far, were at
once astounded and delighted with the glimpses they obtained of Chaldæan
genius. No doubt, they exaggerated when they went so far as to maintain
that all their learning came to them originally from Babylon, and that the
most famous scholars of Greece, Pherecydes of Scyros, Democritus of
Abdera, and Pythagoras,* owed the rudiments of philosophy, mathematics,
physics, and astrology to the school of the Magi.
Yet it is not surprising that they should have believed this to be the
case, when increasing familiarity with the priestly seminaries revealed to
them the existence of those libraries of clay tablets in which, side by
side with theoretic treatises dating from two thousand years back and
more, were to be found examples of applied mechanics, observations,
reckonings, and novel solutions of problems, which generations of scribes
had accumulated in the course of centuries. The Greek astronomers took
full advantage of these documents, but it was their astrologers and
soothsayers who were specially indebted to them. The latter acknowledged
their own inferiority the moment they came into contact with their
Euphratean colleagues, and endeavoured to make good their deficiencies by
taking lessons from the latter or persuading them to migrate to Greece. A
hundred years later saw the Babylonian Berosus opening at Cos a public
school of divination by the stars. From thenceforward “Chaldæan” came to
be synonymous with “astrologer” or “sorcerer,” and Chaldæan magic became
supreme throughout the world at the very moment when Chaldæa itself was in
its death-throes.
Nor was its unquestioned supremacy in the black art the sole legacy that
Chaldæa bequeathed to the coming generations: its language survived, and
reigned for centuries afterwards in the regions subjugated by its arms.
The cultivated tongue employed by the scribes of Nineve and Babylon in the
palmy days of their race, had long become a sort of literary dialect, used
in writings of a lofty character and understood by a select few, but
unintelligible to the common people. The populace in town or country
talked an Aramaic jargon, clumsier and more prolix than Assyrian, but
easier to understand. We know how successfully the Aramæans had managed to
push their way along the Euphrates and into Syria towards the close of the
Hittite supremacy: their successive encroachments had been favoured, first
by the Assyrian, later by the Chaldæan conquests, and now they had become
sole possessors of the ancient Naharaîna, the plains of Cilicia, the basin
of the Orontes, and the country round Damascus; but the true home of the
Aramæans was in Syria rather than in the districts of the Lower Euphrates.
Even in the time of the Sargonids their alphabet had made so much headway
that at Nineveh itself and at Calah it had come into everyday use; when
Chaldæan supremacy gave way to that of the Persians, its triumph—in
the western provinces, at any rate—was complete, and it became the
recognised vehicle of the royal decrees: we come upon it in every
direction, on the coins issued by the satraps of Asia Minor, on the seals
of local governors or dynasts, on inscriptions or stelæ in Egypt, in the
letters of the scribes, and in the rescripts of the great king. From Nisib
to Baphia, between the Tigris and the Mediterranean, it gradually
supplanted most of the other dialects—Semitic or otherwise—which
had hitherto prevailed. Phoenician held its ground in the seaports, but
Hebrew gave way before it, and ended by being restricted to religious
purposes, as a literary and liturgical language. It was in the
neighbourhood of Babylon itself that the Judæan exiles had, during the
Captivity, adopted the Aramaic language, and their return to Canaan failed
to restore either the purity of their own language or the dignity and
independence of their religious life. Their colony at Jerusalem possessed
few resources; the wealthier Hebrews had, for the most part, remained in
Chaldæa, leaving the privilege of repopulating the holy city to those of
their brethren who were less plenteously endowed with this world’s goods.
These latter soon learned to their cost that Zion was not the ideal city
whose “gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor
night; that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the nations;” far from
“sucking the milk of nations and the breast of kings,” * their fields
produced barely sufficient to satisfy the more pressing needs of daily
life. “Ye have sown much, and bring in little,” as Jahveh declared to them
“ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with
drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages
earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” **
They quickly relinquished the work of restoration, finding themselves
forgotten by all—their Babylonian brethren included—in the
midst of the great events which were then agitating the world, the
preparations for the conquest of Egypt, the usurpation of the
pseudo-Smerdis, the accession of Darius, the Babylonian and Median
insurrections. Possibly they believed that the Achæmenides had had their
day, and that a new Chaldæan empire, with a second Nebuchadrezzar at its
head, was about to regain the ascendency. It would seem that the downfall
of Nadintav-bel inspired them with new faith in the future and encouraged
them to complete their task: in the second year of Darius, two prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah, arose in their midst and lifted up their voices.
Zerubbabel, a prince of the royal line, governed Judah in the Persian
interest, and with him was associated the high priest Joshua, who looked
after the spiritual interests of the community: the reproaches of the two
prophets aroused the people from their inaction, and induced them to
resume their interrupted building operations. Darius, duly informed of
what was going on by the governor of Syria, gave orders that they were not
to be interfered with, and four years later the building of the temple was
completed.*
For nearly a century after this the little Jewish republic remained
quiescent. It had slowly developed until it had gradually won back a
portion of the former territories of Benjamin and Judah, but its expansion
southwards was checked by the Idumæans, to whom Nebuchadrezzar had years
before handed over Hebron and Acrabattenê (Akrabbim) as a reward for the
services they had rendered.
On the north its neighbours were the descendants of those Aramaean exiles
whom Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, kings of Assyria, had, on
various occasions, installed around Samaria in Mount Ephraim. At first
these people paid no reverence to the “God of the land,” so that Jahveh,
in order to punish them, sent lions, which spread carnage in their ranks.
Then the King of Assyria allotted them an Israelitish priest from among
his prisoners, who taught them “the law” of Jahveh, and appointed other
priests chosen from the people, and showed them how to offer up sacrifices
on the ancient high places.*
Thus another Israel began to rise up again, and, at first, the new Judah
seems to have been on tolerably friendly terms with it: the two
communities traded and intermarried with one another, the Samaritans took
part in the religious ceremonies, and certain of their leaders occupied a
court in the temple at Jerusalem. The alliance, however, proved dangerous
to the purity of the faith, for the proselytes, while they adopted Jahveh
and gave Him that supreme place in their devotions which was due to “the
God of the land,” had by no means entirely forsworn their national
superstitions, and Adrammelek, Nergal, Tartak, Anammelek, and other
deities still found worshippers among them. Judah, which in the days of
its independence had so often turned aside after the gods of Canaan and
Moab, was in danger of being led away by the idolatrous practices of its
new neighbours; intermarriage with the daughters of Moab and Ammon, of
Philistia and Samaria, was producing a gradual degeneracy: the national
language was giving way before the Aramaean; unless some one could be
found to stem the tide of decadence and help the people to remount the
slope which they were descending, the fate of Judah was certain. A prophet—the
last of those whose predictions have survived to our time—stood
forth amid the general laxity and called the people to account for their
transgressions, in the name of the Eternal, but his single voice, which
seemed but a feeble echo of the great prophets of former ages, did not
meet with a favourable hearing. Salvation came at length from the Jews
outside Judah, the naturalised citizens of Babylon, a well-informed and
wealthy body, occupying high places in the administration of the empire,
and sometimes in the favour of the sovereign also, yet possessed by an
ardent zeal for the religion of their fathers and a steadfast faith in the
vitality of their race. One of these, a certain Nehemiah, was employed as
cupbearer to Artaxerxes II. He was visited at Susa by some men of Judah
whose business had brought them to that city and inquired of them how
matters fared in Jerusalem. Hanani, one of his visitors, replied that “the
remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great
affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and
the gates thereof are burned with fire.” Nehemiah took advantage of a
moment when the king seemed in a jovial mood to describe the wretched
state of his native land in moving terms: he obtained leave to quit Susa
and authority to administer the city in which his fathers had dwelt.*
This took place in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, about 385 B.C.
Nehemiah at once made his way to Jerusalem with such escort as befitted
his dignity, and the news of his mission, and, apparently, the sentiments
of rigid orthodoxy professed by him from the beginning, provoked the
resentment of the neighbouring potentates against him: Sanballat the
Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, chief of the Samaritans, and Geshem the
Bedâwin did their best to thwart him in the execution of his plans. He
baffled their intrigues by his promptitude in rebuilding the walls, and
when once he had rendered himself safe from any sudden attack, he
proceeded with the reforms which he deemed urgent. His tenure of office
lasted twelve years—from 384 to 373 B.C.—and during the whole
of that time he refused to accept any of the dues to which he was
entitled, and which his predecessors had received without scruple. Ever
since their return from exile, the common people had been impoverished and
paralysed by usury. The poor had been compelled to mortgage their fields
and their vineyards in order to pay the king’s taxes; then, when their
land was gone, they had pledged their sons and their daughters; the
moneyed classes of the new Israel thus absorbed the property of their
poorer brethren, and reduced the latter to slavery. Nehemiah called the
usurers before him and severely rebuking them for their covetousness, bade
them surrender the interest and capital of existing debts, and restore the
properties which had fallen into their hands owing to their shameful abuse
of wealth, and release all those of their co-religionists whom they had
enslaved in default of payment of their debts.* His high place in the
royal favour doubtless had its effect on those whose cupidity suffered
from his zeal, and prevented external enemies from too openly interfering
in the affairs of the community: by the time he returned to the court, in
372 B.C., after an absence of twelve years, Jerusalem and its environs had
to some extent regained the material prosperity of former days. The part
played by Nehemiah was, however, mainly political, and the religious
problem remained in very much the same state as before. The high priests,
who alone possessed the power of solving it, had fallen in with the
current that was carrying away the people, and—latterly, at any rate—had
become disqualified through intermarriage with aliens: what was wanted was
a scribe deeply versed in sacred things to direct them in the right way,
and such a man could be found only in Babylonia, the one country in which
the study of the ancient traditions still flourished. A certain Ezra, son
of Seraiah, presented himself in 369 B.C., and, as he was a man of some
standing, Artaxerxes not only authorised him to go himself, but to take
with him a whole company of priests and Lévites and families formerly
attached to the service of the temple.** The books containing the Law of
God and the history of His people had, since the beginning of the
captivity, undergone alterations which had profoundly modified their text
and changed their spirit.
This work of revision, begun under the influence of Ezekiel, and perhaps
by his own followers, had, since his time, been carried on without
interruption, and by mingling the juridical texts with narratives of the
early ages collected from different sources, a lengthy work had been
produced, very similar in composition and wording to the five Books of
Moses and the Book of Joshua as we now possess them.* It was this version
of the Revelation of Jahveh that Ezra brought with him from Babylon in
order to instruct the people of Judah, and the first impressions received
by him at the end of his journey convinced him that his task would be no
light one, for the number of mixed marriages had been so great as to
demoralise not only the common people, but even the priests and leading
nobles as well. Nevertheless, at a general assembly** of the people he
succeeded in persuading them to consent to the repudiation of alien wives.
But this preliminary success would have led to nothing unless he could
secure formal recognition of the rigorous code of which he had constituted
himself the champion, and protracted negotiations were necessary before he
could claim a victory on this point as well as on the other. At length,
about 367 B.C., more than a year after his arrival, he gained his point,
and the covenant between Jahveh and His people was sealed with ceremonies
modelled on those which had attended the promulgation of Deuteronomy in
the time of Josiah. On the first day of the seventh month, a little before
the autumn festival, the people assembled at Jerusalem in “the broad place
which was before the water gate.” Ezra mounted a wooden pulpit, and the
chief among the priests sat beside him. He “opened the book in the sight
of all the people… and… all the people stood up: and Ezra blessed the
Lord, the great God. And all the people answered ‘Amen, amen!’ with the
lifting up of their hands; and they bowed their heads and worshipped the
Lord with their faces to the ground.” Then began the reading of the sacred
text. As each clause was read, the Lévites stationed here and there among
the people interpreted and explained its provisions in the vulgar tongue,
so as to make their meaning clear to all. The prolix enumeration of sins
and their expiation, and threats expressed in certain chapters, produced
among the crowd the same effect of nervous terror as had once before been
called forth by the precepts and maledictions of Deuteronomy. The people
burst into tears, and so vehement were their manifestations of despair,
that all the efforts of Ezra and his colleagues were needed to calm them.
Ezra took advantage of this state of fervour to demand the immediate
application of the divine ordinances. And first of all, it was “found
written in the law, how that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the
children of Israel should dwell in booths.” For, seven days Jerusalem was
decked with leaves; tabernacles of olive, myrtle, and palm branches rose
up on all sides, on the roofs of houses, in courtyards, in the courts of
the temple, at the gates of the city. Then, on the 27th day of the same
month, the people put on mourning in order to confess their own sins and
the sins of their fathers. Finally, to crown the whole, Ezra and his
followers required the assembly to swear a solemn oath that they would
respect “the law of Moses,” and regulate their conduct by it.* After the
first enthusiasm was passed, a reaction speedily set in. Many even among
the priests thought that Ezra had gone too far in forbidding marriage with
strangers, and that the increase of the tithes and sacrifices would lay
too heavy a burden on the nation. The Gentile women reappeared, the
Sabbath was no longer observed either by the Israelites or aliens;
Eliashîb, son of the high priest Joiakim, did not even deprive Tobiah the
Ammonite of the chamber in the temple which he had formerly prepared for
him, and things were almost imperceptibly drifting back into the same
state as before the reformation, when Nehemiah returned from Susa towards
the close of the reign of Artaxerxes. He lost no time in re-establishing
respect for the law, and from henceforward opposition, if it did not
entirely die out, ceased to manifest itself in Jerusalem.**
Elsewhere, however, among the Samaritans, Indumæans, and Philistines, it
continued as keen as ever, and the Jews themselves were imprudent enough
to take part in the political revolutions that were happening around them
in their corner of the empire. Their traditions tell how they were mixed
up in the rising of the Phoenician cities against Ochus, and suffered the
penalty; when Sidon capitulated, they were punished with the other rebels,
the more recalcitrant among them being deported into Hyrcania.
Assyria was nothing more than a name, Babylon and Phoenicia were growing
weaker every day; the Jews, absorbed in questions of religious ethics,
were deficient in material power, and had not as yet attained sufficient
moral authority to exercise an influence over the eastern world: the Egypt
indestructible had alone escaped the general shipwreck, and seemed fated
to survive her rivals for a long time. Of all these ancient nations it was
she who appealed most strongly to the imagination of the Greeks: Greek
traders, mercenaries, scholars, and even tourists wandered freely within
her borders, and accounts of the strange and marvellous things to be found
there were published far and wide in the writings of Hecataeus of Miletus,
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, and Hellanicus of Lesbos. As a rule, they
entered the country from the west, as European tourists and merchants
still do; but Eakôtis, the first port at which they touched, was a mere
village, and its rocky Pharos had no claim to distinction beyond the fact
that it had been mentioned by Homer. From hence they followed the channel
of the Canopic arm, and as they gradually ascended, they had pointed out
to them Anthylla, Arkandrupolis, and Gyna> copolis, townships dependent on
Naucratis, lying along the banks, or situated some distance off on one of
the minor canals; then Naucratis itself, still a flourishing place, in
spite of the rebellions in the Delta and the suppressive measures of the
Persians. All this region seemed to them to be merely an extension of
Greece under the African sky: to their minds the real Egypt began at Sais,
a few miles further eastwards. Sais was full in memories of the XXVIth
dynasty; there they had pointed out to them the tombs of the Pharaohs in
the enclosure of Nit, the audience hall in which Psammetichus II. received
the deputation of the Eleians, the prison where the unfortunate Apries had
languished after his defeat. The gateways of the temple of Nit seemed
colossal to eyes accustomed to the modest dimensions of most Greek
sanctuaries; these were, moreover, the first great monuments that the
strangers had seen since they landed, and the novelty of their appearance
had a good deal to do with the keenness of the impression produced. The
goddess showed herself in hospitable guise to the visitors; she welcomed
them all, Greek or Persian, at her festivals, and initiated them into
several of her minor rites, without demanding from them anything beyond
tolerance on certain points of doctrine.
Her dual attributes as wielder of the bow and shuttle had inspired the
Greeks with the belief that she was identical with that one of their own
goddesses who most nearly combined in her person this complex mingling of
war and industry: in her they Fountain and School of the Mother of Little
Mohammed worshipped the prototype of their own Pallas. On the evening of
the 17th day of Thoth, Herodotus saw the natives, rich and poor, placing
on the fronts of their dwellings large flat lamps filled with a mixture of
salt and oil which they kept alight all night in honour of Osiris and of
the dead.*
He made his way into the dwelling of the ineffable god, and there,
unobserved among the crowd, he witnessed scenes from the divine life
represented by the priests on the lake by the light of torches, episodes
of his passion, mourning, and resurrection. The priests did not disclose
their subtler mysteries before barbarian eyes, nor did they teach the
inner meaning of their dogmas, but the little they did allow him to
discern filled the traveller with respect and wonder, recalling sometimes
by their resemblance to them the mysteries in which he was accustomed to
take part in his own country. Then, as now, but little attention was paid
to the towns in the centre and east of the Delta; travellers endeavoured
to visit one or two of them as types, and collected as much information as
they could about the remainder. Herodotus and his rivals attached little
importance to those details of landscape which possess so much attraction
for the modern tourist. They bestowed no more than a careless glance on
the chapels scattered up and down the country like the Mohammedan shrines
at the present day, and the waters extending on all sides beneath the
acacias and palm trees during the inundation, or the fellahin trotting
along on their little asses beside the pools, did not strike them as being
of sufficient interest to deserve passing mention in an account of their
travels.
They passed by the most picturesque villages with indifference, and it was
only when they reached some great city, or came upon some exceptionally
fine temple or eccentric deity, that their curiosity was aroused. Mendes
worshipped its patron god in the form of a live ram,* and bestowed on all
members of the same species some share of the veneration it lavished on
the divine animal. The inhabitants of Atarbêkhis,** on the island of
Prosopitis, gave themselves up to the worship of the bull.
When one of these animals died in the neighbourhood they buried it,
leaving one horn above the earth in order to mark the spot, and once every
year the boats of Atarbêkhis made a tour round the island to collect the
skeletons or decaying bodies, in order that they might be interred in a
common burying-place.
The people of Busiris patronised a savage type of religion. During the
festival of Isis they gave themselves up to fierce conflicts, their
fanatical fury even infecting strangers who chanced to be present. The
Carians also had hit upon a means of outdoing the extravagance of the
natives themselves: like the Shiite Mohammedans of the present day at the
festival of the Hassanên, they slashed their faces with knives amidst
shrieks and yells. At Paprêmis a pitched battle formed part of the
religious observances: it took place, however, under certain special
conditions. On the evening of the festival of Anhurît, as the sun went
down, a number of priests performed a hasty sacrifice in the temple, while
the remainder of the local priesthood stationed themselves at the gate
armed with heavy cudgels. When the ceremony was over, the celebrants
placed the statue of the god on a four-wheeled car as though about to take
it away to some other locality, but their colleagues at the gate opposed
its departure and barred the way. It was at this juncture that the
faithful intervened; they burst in the door and set upon the priests with
staves, the latter offering a stout resistance. The cudgels were heavy,
the arms that wielded them lusty, and the fight lasted a long time, yet no
one was ever killed in the fray—at least, so the priests averred—and
I am at a loss to understand why Herodotus, who was not a native of
Paprêmis, should have been so unkind as to doubt their testimony.*
It is nearly always in connection with some temple or religious festival
that he refers to the towns of the Delta, and, indeed, in most of the
minor cities of Egypt, just as in those of modern Italy there is little to
interest visitors except the religious monuments or ceremonies. Herodotus
went to Tanis or Mendes as we go to Orvieto or Loretto, to admire the
buildings or pay our devotions at a famous shrine. More often than not the
place was nothing in itself, consisting merely of a fortified enclosure, a
few commonplace houses occupied by the wealthy inhabitants or by
government officials, and on mounds of ancient debris, the
accumulation of centuries, a number of ephemeral hovels built of clay, or
dried bricks, divided into irregular blocks by winding alleys. The whole
local interest was centred in the sanctuary and its inmates, human and
divine. The traveller made his way in as best he could, went into
ecstasies over the objects that were shown to him, and as soon as he had
duly gone the rounds, set out for the next place on his list, deeming
himself lucky if he happened to arrive during one of the annual fairs,
such as that of Bubastis, for instance. Bands of pilgrims flocked in from
all parts of Egypt; the river craft were overflowing with men and women,
who converted the journey into one long carnival. Every time the vessel
put in to land, the women rushed on shore, amid the din of castanets and
flutes, and ran hither and thither challenging the women of the place with
abuse to dance against them with uplifted garments. To the foreigners
there was little to distinguish the festival of Bastît from many other
Egyptian ceremonies of the kind; it consisted of a solemn procession,
accompanied by the singing of hymns and playing of harps, dancing and
sacrifices, but for weeks before and after it the town was transformed
into one vast pleasure-ground. The people of Bubastis took a certain pride
in declaring that more wine was drunk in it during a single day than
during the rest of the whole year. Butô enjoyed exceptional popularity
among the Greeks in Egypt. Its patron goddess, the Isis who took refuge
amid the pools in a moving thicket of reeds and lotus, in order that she
might protect her son Horus from the jealousy of Typhon, reminded them of
the story of Latona and the cycle of the Delian legends; they, visited her
in crowds, and her oracle became to most of them what that of Delos was to
their brethren in Europe. At Butô they found a great temple, similar to
all Egyptian temples, a shrine in which the statues of the goddess
continued her mysterious existence, and, in the midst of the sacred lake,
the little island of Khemmis, which was said to float hither and thither
upon the waters. Herodotus did not venture to deny this absolutely, but
states that he had never seen it change its position or even stir: perhaps
his incredulity may have been quickened by the fact that this miracle had
already been inquired into by Hecatasus of Miletus, an author who was his
pet aversion. The priests of Butô declared that their prophets had
foretold everything that had happened for a long time past, and for each
event they had a version which redounded to the credit of their goddess:
she had shown Pheron how he might recover his sight, had foretold how long
the reign of Mykerinos would last, had informed Psammetichus that he would
be saved by men of brass rising out of the sea, and had revealed to
Cambyses that he should die in a town named Ecbatana. Her priests had
taken an active part in the revolt of Khabbîsha against Darius, and had
lost a goodly portion of their treasure and endowments for their pains.
They still retained their prestige, however, in spite of the underhand
rivalry of the oracle of Zeus Ammon. The notaries of the Libyan deity
could bring forward miracles even more marvellous than those credited to
the Egyptian Latona, and in the case of many of the revolutions which had
taken place on the banks of the Nile, a version of the legend in his
honour was circulated side by side with the legends of Butô. The latter
city lay on the very outskirts of one of those regions which excited the
greatest curiosity among travellers, the almost inaccessible Bucolicum,
where, it was said, no rebel ever failed to find a safe refuge from his
alien pursuers. The Egyptians of the marshes were a very courageous race,
but savage, poor, and ill fed. They drank nothing but beer, and obtained
their oil not from the olive, but from the castor-oil plant,* and having
no corn, lived on the seeds or roots of the lotus, or even on the stalks
of the papyrus, which they roasted or boiled.
Fish was their staple article of food, and this they obtained in
considerable quantity from Lake Menzaleh, the lagoons along the coast, and
the canals or pools left by the inundation. But little was known of their
villages or monuments, and probably they were not worth the trouble of a
visit after those of the cities of the plain: endless stories were told of
feats of brigandage and of the mysterious hiding-places which these
localities offered to every outlaw, one of the most celebrated being the
isle of Elbô, where the blind Anysis defied the power of Ethiopia for
thirty years, and in which the first Amyrtasus found refuge. With the
exception of a few merchants or adventurers who visited them with an eye
to gain, most travellers coming from or returning to Asia avoided their
territory, and followed the military road along the Pelusiac arm of the
Nile from Pehisium to Daphno or Zalu, and from Daphnæ or Zalu to Bubastis.
A little below Kerkasoron, near the apex of the Delta, the pyramids stood
out on the horizon, looking insignificant at first, but afterwards so
lofty that, during the period of inundation, when the whole valley, from
the mountains of Arabia to those of Libya, was nothing but one vast river,
a vessel seemed to sail in their shadow for a long time before it reached
their base. The traveller passed Heliopolis on his left with its temple of
the Sun, next the supposed sources of the Northern Nile, the quarries of
the Red Mountain, and then entering at length the Nile itself, after a
journey of some hours, came to anchor by the quays of Memphis.
To the Greeks of that time, Memphis was very much what Cairo is to us,
viz. the typical Oriental city, the quintessence and chief representative
of ancient Egypt. In spite of the disasters which had overwhelmed it
during the last few centuries, it was still a very beautiful city, ranking
with Babylon as one of the largest in the world. Its religious festivals,
especially those in honour of Apis, attracted numberless pilgrims to it at
certain seasons of the year, and hosts of foreigners, recruited from every
imaginable race of the old continent, resorted to it for purposes of
trade. Most of the nationalities who frequented it had a special quarter,
which was named after them; the Phoenicians occupied the Tyrian Camp,
the Greeks and Carians the Hellenic Wall and Carian Wall, and there
were Oaromemphites or Hellenomemphites side by side with the native
inhabitants. A Persian garrison was stationed within the White Wall, ready
to execute the satrap’s orders in the event of rebellion, and could have
held out for a long time even after the rest of the country had fallen
into the hands of the insurgents. Animals which one would scarcely have
expected to find in the streets of a capital, such as cows, sheep, and
goats, wandered about unheeded in the most crowded thoroughfares; for the
common people, instead of living apart from their beasts, as the Greeks
did, stabled them in their own houses. Nor was this the only custom which
must have seemed strange in the eyes of a newly arrived visitor, for the
Egyptians might almost have been said to make a point of doing everything
differently from other nation’s. The baker, seen at the kneading-trough
inside his shop, worked the dough with his foot; on the other hand, the
mason used no trowel in applying his mortar, and the poorer classes
scraped up handfuls of mud mixed with dung when they had occasion to
repair the walls of their hovels. In Greece, even the very poorest retired
to their houses and ate with closed doors; the Egyptians felt no
repugnance at eating and drinking in the open air, declaring that
unbecoming and improper acts should be performed in secret, but seemly
acts in public. The first blind alley they came to, a recess between two
hovels, the doorstep of a house or temple, any of these seemed to them a
perfectly natural place to dine in. Their bill of fare was not a sumptuous
one. A sort of flat pancake somewhat bitter in taste, and made—not
of corn or barley—but of spelt, a little oil, an onion or a leek,
with an occasional scrap of meat or poultry, washed down by a jug of beer
or wine; there was nothing here to tempt the foreigner, and, besides, it
would not have been thought right for him to invite himself. A Greek who
lived on the flesh of the cow was looked upon as unclean in the highest
degree; no Egyptian would have thought of using the same pot or knife with
him, or of kissing him on the mouth by way of greeting. Moreover, Egyptian
etiquette did not tolerate the same familiarities as the Greek: two
friends on catching sight of one another paused before they met, bowed,
then clasped one another round the knees or pretended to do so. Young
people gave way to an old man, or, if seated, rose to let him pass. The
traveller recalled the fact that the Spartans behaved in the same way, and
approved this mark of deference; but nothing in his home-life had prepared
him for the sight of respectable women coming and going as they pleased,
without escort and unveiled, carrying burdens on their shoulders (whereas
the men carried them on their heads), going to market, keeping stalls or
shops, while their husbands or fathers stayed comfortably at home, wove
cloth, kneaded the potter’s clay or turned the wheel, and worked at their
trades; no wonder that they were ready to believe that the man was the
slave, and the wife the mistress of the family. Some historians traced the
origin of these customs back to Osiris, others only as far as Sesostris:
Sesostris was the last resource of Greek historians when they got into
difficulties. The city was crowded with monuments; there was the temple of
the Phoenician Astarte, in which priests of Syrian descent had celebrated
the mysteries of the great goddess ever since the days of the XVIIIth
dynasty; then there was the temple of Râ, the temple of Amon, the temple
of Tamu, the temple of Bastît, and the temple of Isis.*
The temple of Phtah, as yet intact, provided the visitor with a spectacle
scarcely less admirable than that offered by the temple of the Theban Amon
at Karnak. The kings had modified the original plan as each thought best,
one adding obelisks or colossal statues, another a pylon, a third a
pillared hall. Completed in this way by the labours of a score of
dynasties, it formed, as it were, a microcosm of Egyptian history, in
which each image, inscription and statue, aroused the attention of the
curious. They naturally desired to learn who were the strangely dressed
races shown struggling in a battle scene, the name of the king who had
conquered them, and the reasons which had led him to construct this or
that part of a monument, and there were plenty of busybodies ready to
satisfy, as far as they could, the curiosity of visitors. Interpreters
were at hand who bartered such information as they possessed, and the
modern traveller who has had occasion to employ the services of a dragoman
will have no difficulty in estimating the value of intelligence thus
hawked about in ancient times. Priests of the lower class, doorkeepers and
sacristans were trained to act as ciceroni, and knew the main
outlines of the history of the temple in which they lived. Menés planned
it, Moeris added the northern propylæ, Ehampsinitus those on the west,
Psammetichus the south, Asychis those on the east, the most noteworthy of
them all. A native of Memphis, born at the foot of the pyramids, had been
familiar with the names of Menés and Cheops from childhood; he was
consequently apt to attribute to them everything of importance achieved by
the Pharaohs of the old days. Menés had built the temple, Menés had
founded the city, Menés had created the soil on which the city stood, and
preserved it from floods by his dykes. The thoughtful traveller would
assent, for had he not himself observed the action of the mud; a day’s
journey from the coast one could not let down a plummet without drawing it
up covered with a blackish slime, a clear proof that the Nile continued to
gain upon the sea. Menés, at all events, had really existed; but as to
Asychis, Moris, Proteus, Pheron, and most of the characters glibly
enumerated by Herodotus, it would be labour lost to search for their names
among the inscriptions; they are mere puppets of popular romance, some of
their names, such as Pirâui or Pruti, being nothing more than epithets
employed by the story-tellers to indicate in general terms the heroes of
their tales. We can understand how strangers, placed at the mercy of their
dragoman, were misled by this, and tempted to transform each title into a
man, taking Pruti and Pirâui to be Pharaoh Proteus and Pharaoh Pheron,
each of them celebrated for his fabulous exploits. The guides told
Herodotus, and Herodotus retails to us, as sober historical facts, the
remedy employed by this unhistorical Pheron in order to recover his sight;
the adventures of Paris and Helen at the court of Proteus,* and the droll
tricks played by a thief at the expense of the simple Ehampsinitus.
The excursions made by the Greek traveller in the environs of Memphis were
very similar to those taken by modern visitors to Cairo: on the opposite
bank of the Nile there was Heliopolis with its temple of Râ, then there
were the quarries of Turah, which had been worked from time immemorial,
yet never exhausted, and from which the monuments he had been admiring,
and the very Pyramids themselves had been taken stone by stone.*
The Sphinx probably lay hidden beneath the sand, and the nearest Pyramids,
those at Saqqarah, were held in small esteem by visitors;* they were told
as they passed by that the step Pyramid was the most ancient of all,
having been erected by Uenephes, one of the kings of the first dynasty,
and they asked no further questions.
Their whole curiosity was reserved for the three giants at Gizeh and their
inmates, Cheops, Chephren, Mykerinos, and the fair Nitokris with the rosy
cheeks. Through all the country round, at Heliopolis, and even in the
Fayum itself, they heard the same names that had been dinned into their
ears at Memphis; the whole of the monuments were made to fit into a single
cycle of popular history, and what they learned at one place completed, or
seemed to complete, what they had learned at another.
I cannot tell whether many of them cared to stray much beyond Lake Moris:
the repressive measures of Ochus had, as it would appear, interrupted for
a time the regular trade which, ever since the Saite kings of the XXVIth
dynasty, had been carried on by the Greeks with the Oases, by way of
Abydos. A stranger who ventured as far as the Thebaid would have found
himself in the same plight as a European of the last century who undertook
to reach the first cataract. Their point of departure—Memphis or
Cairo—was very much the same; their destinations—Elephantine
and Assuan—differed but little. They employed the same means of
transport, for, excepting the cut of the sails, the modern dahabeah is an
exact counterpart of the pleasure and passenger boats shown on the
monuments. Lastly, they set out at the same time of year, in November or
December, after the floods had subsided. The same length of time was
required for the trip; it took a month to reach Assuan from Cairo if the
wind-were favourable, and if only such stoppages were made as were
strictly necessary for taking in fresh provisions. Pococke, having left
Cairo on the 6th of December, 1737, about midday, was at Akhmîm by the
17th. He set sail again on the 18th, stayed at Thebes from the 13th of
January, 1738, till the 17th, and finally moored at Assuan on the evening
of January 20th, making in all forty-five days, fourteen of which were
spent at various stopping-places. If the diary of a Greek excursionist or
tourist had come down to us, we should probably find in it entries of a
very similar kind.* The departure from Memphis would take place in
November or December; ten or twelve days later the traveller would find
himself at Panopolis;** from Panopolis to Elephantine, stopping at Coptos
and Thebes, would take about a month, allowing time for a stay at Thebes,
and returning to Memphis in February or March.
The greater part of the time was employed in getting from one point to
another, and the necessity of taking advantage of a favourable wind in
going up the river, often obliged the travellers to neglect more than one
interesting locality.
The Greek was not so keenly alive to the picturesqueness of the scenes
through which he passed as the modern visitor, and in the account of his
travels he took no note of the long lines of laden boats going up or down
stream, nor of the vast sheet of water glowing in the midday sun, nor of
the mountains honeycombed with tombs and quarries, at the foot of which he
would be sailing day after day. What interested him above all things was
information with regard to the sources of the immense river itself, and
the reasons for its periodic inundation, and, according to the mental
attitude impressed on him by his education, he accepted the mythological
solution offered by the natives, or he sought for a more natural one in
the physical lore of his own savants: thus he was told that the
Nile took its rise at Elephantine, between the two rocks called Krôphi and
Môphi, and in showing them to him his informant would add that
Psammetichus I. had attempted to sound the depth of the river at this
point, but had failed to fathom it. At the few places where the pilot of
the barque put in to port, the population showed themselves unfriendly,
and refused to hold any communication with the Greeks.
The interpreters, who were almost all natives of the Delta, were not
always familiar with the people and customs of the Said, and felt almost
as completely foreign at Thebes as did their employers. Their office was
confined to translating the information furnished by the inhabitants when
the latter were sufficiently civilised to hold communication with the
travellers. What most astonished Herodotus at Panopolis was the temple and
the games held in honour, so he believed, of Perseus, the son of Danaë.
These exercises terminated in an attempt to climb a regular “greasy pole”
fixed in the ground, and strengthened right and left by three rows of
stays attached to the mast at different heights; as for Perseus, he was
the ithyphallic god of the locality, Mînu himself, one of whose epithets—Pehresu,
the runner—was confounded by the Greek ear with the name of the
hero. The dragomans, enlarging on this mistaken identity, imagined that
the town was the birthplace of Danaos and Lyncseus; that Perseus,
returning from Libya with the head of Medusa, had gone out of his way to
visit the cradle of his family, and that he had instituted the games in
remembrance of his stay there. Thebes had become the ghost of its former
self; the Persian governors had neglected the city, and its princesses and
their ministers were so impoverished that they were unable to keep up its
temples and palaces. Herodotus scarcely mentions it, and we can hardly
wonder at it: he had visited the still flourishing Memphis, where the
temples were cared for and were filled with worshippers. What had Thebes
to show him in the way of marvels which he had not already seen, and that,
too, in a better state of preservation? His Theban ciceroni also told him
the same stories that he had heard in Lower Egypt, and he states that
their information agreed in the main with that which he had received at
Memphis and Heliopolis, which made it unnecessary to repeat it at length.
Two or three things only appeared to him worthy of mention. His admiration
was first roused by the 360 statues of the high priests of Amon which had
already excited the wonder of his rival Hecataeus; he noted that all these
personages were, without exception, represented as mere men, each the son
of another man, and he took the opportunity of ridiculing the vanity of
his compatriots, who did not hesitate to inscribe the name of a god at the
head of their genealogies, removed by some score of generations only from
their own. On the other hand, the temple servitors related to him how two
Theban priestesses, carried off by the Phoenicians and sold, one in Libya
and the other in Greece, had set up the first oracles known in those two
countries: Herodotus thereupon remembered the story he had heard in Epirus
of two black doves which had flown away from Thebes, one towards the Oasis
of Ammon, the other in the direction of Dodona; the latter had alighted on
an old beech tree, and in a human voice had requested that a temple
consecrated to Zeus should be founded on the spot.*
Herodotus is quite overcome with joy at the thought that Greek divination
could thus be directly traced to that of Egypt, for like most of his
contemporaries, he felt that the Hellenic cult was ennobled by the fact of
its being derived from the Egyptian. The traveller on the Nile had to turn
homewards on reaching Elephantine, as that was the station of the last
Persian garrison. Nubia lay immediately beyond the cataract, and the
Ethiopians at times crossed the frontier and carried their raids as far as
Thebes. Elephantine, like Assuan at the present day, was the centre of a
flourishing trade. Here might be seen Kushites from Napata or Meroë,
negroes from the Upper Nile and the Bahr el-Ghazal, and Ammonians, from
all of whom the curious visitor might glean information while frequenting
the bazaars. The cataract was navigable all the year round, and the
natives in its vicinity enjoyed the privilege of piloting freight boats
through its difficult channel. It took four days to pass through it,
instead of the three, or even two, which suffice at the present day. Above
it, the Nile spread out and resembled a lake dotted over with islands,
several of which, such as Phike and Biggeh, contained celebrated temples,
which were as much frequented by the Ethiopians as by the Egyptians.
Correctly speaking, it was not Egypt herself that the Greeks saw, but her
external artistic aspect and the outward setting of Egyptian civilisation.
The vastness of her monuments, the splendour of her tombs, the pomp of her
ceremonies, the dignity and variety of her religious formulas, attracted
their curiosity and commanded their respect: the wisdom of the Egyptians
had passed into a proverb with them, as it had with the Hebrews. But if
they had penetrated behind the scenes, they would have been obliged to
acknowledge that beneath this attractive exterior there was hopeless
decay. As with all creatures when they have passed their prime, Egypt had
begun to grow old, and was daily losing her elasticity and energy. Her
spirit had sunk into a torpor, she had become unresponsive to her
environment, and could no longer adapt herself to the form she had so
easily acquired in her youth: it was as much as she could do to occupy
fully the narrower limits to which she had been reduced, and to maintain
those limits unbroken. The instinct which made her shrink from the
intrusion of foreign customs and ideas, or even mere contact with nations
of recent growth, was not the mere outcome of vanity. She realised that
she maintained her integrity only by relying on the residue of her former
solidarity and on the force of custom. The slightest disturbance of the
equilibrium established among her members, instead of strengthening her,
would have robbed her of the vigour she still possessed, and brought about
her dissolution.
She owed whatever activity she possessed to impulses imparted to her by
the play of her ancient mechanism—a mechanism so stable in its
action, and so ingeniously constructed, that it had still a reserve of
power within it sufficient to keep the whole in motion for centuries,
provided there was no attempt to introduce new wheels among the old. She
had never been singularly distinguished for her military qualities; not
that she was cowardly, and shrank from facing death, but because she
lacked energy and enthusiasm for warlike enterprise. The tactics and
armaments by which she had won her victories up to her prime, had at
length become fetters which she was no longer inclined to shake off, and
even if she was still able to breed a military caste, she was no longer
able to produce armies fit to win battles without the aid of mercenaries.
In order to be successful in the field, she had to associate with her own
troops recruits from other countries—Libyans, Asiatics, and Greeks,
who served to turn the scale. The Egyptians themselves formed a compact
body in this case, and bearing down upon the enemy already engaged by the
mercenaries, broke through his ranks by their sheer weight, or, if they
could not accomplish this, they stood their ground bravely, taking to
flight only when the vacancies in their ranks showed them that further
resistance was impossible. The machinery of government, like the
organisation of their armies, had become antiquated and degenerate.
The nobility were as turbulent as in former times, and the royal authority
was as powerless now as of old to assert itself in the absence of external
help, or when treason was afoot among the troops. Religion alone
maintained its ascendency, and began to assume to itself the loyalty once
given to the Pharaoh, and the devotion previously consecrated to the
fatherland. The fellahîn had never fully realised the degradation involved
in serving a stranger, and what they detested in the Persian king was not
exactly the fact that he was a Persian. Their national pride, indeed,
always prompted them to devise some means of connecting the foreign
monarch with their own solar line, and to transform an Achæmenian king
into a legitimate Pharaoh. That which was especially odious to them in a
Cambyses or an Ochus was the disdain which such sovereigns displayed for
their religion, and the persecution to which they subjected the immortals.
They accustomed themselves without serious repining to have no longer one
of their own race upon the throne, and to behold their cities administered
by Asiatics, but they could not understand why the foreigner preferred his
own gods, and would not admit Amon, Phtah, Horus, and Râ to the rank of
supreme deities. Ochus had, by his treatment of the Apis and the other
divine animals, put it out of his power ever to win their good will. His
brutality had made an irreconcilable enemy of that state which alone gave
signs of vitality among the nations of the decaying East. This was all the
more to be regretted, since the Persian empire, in spite of the accession
of power which it had just manifested, was far from having regained the
energy which had animated it, not perhaps in the time of Darius, but at
all events under the first Xerxes. The army and the wealth of the country
were doubtless still intact—an army and a revenue which, in spite of
all losses, were still the largest in the world—but the valour of
the troops was not proportionate to their number. The former prowess of
the Persians, Medians, Bactrians, and other tribes of Iran showed no
degeneracy: these nations still produced the same race of brave and hardy
foot-soldiers, the same active and intrepid horsemen; but for a century
past there had not been the improvements either in the armament of the
troops or in the tactics of the generals which were necessary to bring
them up to the standard of excellence of the Greek army. The Persian king
placed great faith in extraordinary military machines. He believed in the
efficacy of chariots armed with scythes; besides this, his relations with
India had shown him what use his Oriental neighbours made of elephants,
and having determined to employ these animals, he had collected a whole
corps of them, from which he. hoped great things. In spite of the addition
of these novel recruits, it was not on the Asiatic contingents that he
chiefly relied in the event of war, but on the mercenaries who’ were hired
at great expense, and who formed the chief support of his power. From the
time of Artaxerxes II. onwards, it was the Greek hoplites and peltasts who
had always decided the issue of the Persian battles. The expeditions both
by land and sea had been under the conduct of Athenian or Spartan generals—Conon,
Chabrias, Iphi-crates, Agesilas, Timotheus, and their pupils; and again
also it was to the Greeks—to the Rhodian Mentor and to, Memnon—that
Ochus had owed his successes. The older nations—Egypt, Syria,
Chaldæa, and Elam—had all had their day of supremacy; they had
declined in the course of centuries, and Assyria had for a short time
united them under her rule. On the downfall of Assyria, the Iranians had
succeeded to her heritage, and they had built up a single empire
comprising all the states which had preceded them in Western Asia; but
decadence had fallen upon them also, and when they had been masters for
scarcely two short centuries, they were in their turn threatened with
destruction. Their rule continued to be universal, not by reason of its
inherent vigour, but on account of the weakness of their subjects and
neighbours, and a determined attack on any of the frontiers of the empire
would doubtless have resulted in its overthrow.
Greece herself was too demoralised to cause Darius any grave anxiety. Not
only had she renounced all intention of attacking the great king in his
own domain, as in the days of the Athenian hegemony, when she could impose
her own conditions of peace, but her perpetual discords had yielded her an
easy prey to Persia, and were likely to do so more and more. The Greek
cities chose the great king as the arbiter in their quarrels; they vied
with each other in obtaining his good will, his subsidies in men and
vessels, and his darics: they armed or disarmed at his command, and the
day seemed at hand when they would become a normal dependency of Persia,
little short of a regular satrapy like Asiatic Hellas. One chance of
escape from such a fate remained to them—if one or other of them, or
some neighbouring state, could acquire such an ascendency as to make it
possible to unite what forces remained to them under one rule. Macedonia
in particular, having hitherto kept aloof from the general stream of
politics, had at this juncture begun to shake off its lethargy, and had
entered with energy into the Hellenic concert under the auspices of its
king, Philip. Bagoas recognised the danger which threatened his people in
the person of this ambitious sovereign, and did not hesitate to give
substantial support to the adversaries of the Macedonian prince;
Chersobleptes of Thrace and the town of Perinthus receiving from him such
succour as enabled them to repulse Philip successfully (340).
Unfortunately, while Bagoas was endeavouring to avert danger in this
quarter, his rivals at court endeavoured to prejudice the mind of the king
against him, and their intrigues were so successful that he found himself
ere long condemned to the alternative of murdering his sovereign or
perishing himself. He therefore poisoned Ochus, to avoid being
assassinated or put to the torture, and placed on the throne Arses, the
youngest of the king’s sons, while he caused the remaining royal children
to be put to death (336).* Egypt hailed this tragic end as a mark of the
vengeance of the gods whom Ochus had outraged. A report was spread that
the eunuch was an Egyptian, that he had taken part in the murder of the
Apis under fear of death, but that when he was sure of his own safety he
had avenged the sacrilege. As soon as the poison had taken effect, it was
said he ate a portion of the dead body and threw the remainder to the
cats: he then collected the bones and made them into whistles and
knife-handles.**
Ochus had astonished his contemporaries by the rapidity with which he had
re-established the integrity of the empire; they were pleased to compare
him with the heroes of his race, with Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius. But to
exalt him to such a level said little for their moral or intellectual
perceptions, since in spite of his victories he was merely a despot of the
ordinary type; his tenacity degenerated into brutal obstinacy, his
severity into cruelty, and if he obtained successes, they were due rather
to his generals and his ministers than to his own ability. His son Arses
was at first content to be a docile instrument in the hands of Bagoas; but
when the desire for independence came to him with the habitual exercise of
power, and he began to chafe at his bonds, the eunuch sacrificed him to
his own personal safety, and took his life as he had done that of his
father in the preceding year (336). So many murders following each other
in rapid succession had considerably reduced the Achsemenian family, and
Bagoas for a moment was puzzled where to find a king: he at length decided
in favour of Codomannos, who according to some was a great-grandson of
Darius II., but according to others was not of the royal line, but had in
his youth been employed as a courier. He had distinguished himself in the
hostilities against the Casduians, and had been nominated satrap of
Armenia by Ochus as a reward for his bravery. He assumed at his accession
the name of Darius; brave, generous, clement, and possessed with an ardent
desire to do right, he was in every way the superior of his immediate
predecessors, and he deserved to have reigned at a time when the empire
was less threatened. Bagoas soon perceived that his new protégé, whose
conduct he had reckoned on directing as he pleased, intended to govern for
himself, and he therefore attempted to get rid of him; Bagoas was,
however, betrayed by his accomplices, and compelled to drink the poison
which he had prepared for Darius. These revolutions had distracted the
attention of the court of Susa from the events which were taking place on
the shores of the Ægean, and Philip had taken advantage of them to carry
into effect the designs against Persia which he had been long meditating.
After having been victorious against the Greeks, he had despatched an army
of ten thousand men into Asia under the command of Parmenion and Attains
(336). We may ask if it were not he who formed the project of universal
conquest which was so soon to be associated with the name of his son
Alexander. He was for the moment content to excite revolt among the cities
of the Ægean littoral, and restore to them that liberty of which they had
been deprived for nearly a century. He himself followed as soon as these
lost children of Greece had established themselves firmly in Asia. The
story of his assassination on the eve of his departure is well known
(336), and of the difficulties which compelled Alexander to suspend the
execution of the plans which his father had made. Darius attempted to make
use of the respite thus afforded him by fortune; he adopted the usual
policy of liberally bribing one part of Greece to take up arms against
Macedonia—a method which was at first successful. While Alexander
was occupied in the destruction of Thebes, the Rhodian general Memnon, to
whom had been entrusted the defence of Asia Minor, forced the invaders to
entrench themselves in the Troad. If the Persian fleet had made its
appearance in good time, and had kept an active watch over the straits,
the advance-guard of the Macedonians would have succumbed to the enemy
before the main body of the troops had succeeded in joining them in Asia,
and it was easy to foretell what would have been the fate of an enterprise
inaugurated by such a disaster. Persia, however, had not yet learnt to
seize the crucial moment for action: her vessels were still arming when
the enemy made their appearance on the European shore of Hellespont, and
Alexander had ample time to embark and disembark the whole of his army
without having to draw his sword from the scabbard. He was accompanied by
about thirty thousand foot soldiers and four thousand five hundred horse;
the finest troops commanded by the best generals of the time—Parmenion,
his two sons Nikanor and Philotas, Crater, Clitos, Antigonus, and others
whose names are familiar to us all; a larger force than Memnon and his
subordinates were able to bring up to oppose him, at all events at the
opening of the campaign, during the preliminary operations which
determined the success of the enterprise.
The first years of the campaign seem like a review of the countries and
nations which in bygone times had played the chief part in Oriental history.
An engagement at the fords of the Granicus, only a few days after the
crossing of the Hellespont, placed Asia Minor at the mercy of the invader
(334). Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia tendered their submission, Miletus
and Halicarnassus being the only towns to offer any resistance. In the
spring of 333, Phrygia followed the general movement, in company with
Cappadocia and Cilicia; these represented the Hittite and Asianic world,
the last representatives of which thus escaped from the influences of the
East and passed under the Hellenic supremacy.
At the foot of the Amanus, Alexander came into conflict not only with the
generals of Darius, but with the great king himself. The Amanus, and the
part of the Taurus which borders on the Euphrates valley, had always
constituted the line of demarcation between the domain of the races of the
Asianic peninsula and that of the Semitic peoples.
A second battle near the Issus, at the entrance to the Cilician gates,
cleared the ground, and gave the conqueror time to receive the homage of
the maritime provinces. Both Northern and Coele-Syria submitted to him
from Samosata to Damascus.
The less important towns of Phonicia, such as Arvad, Byblos, Sidon, and
those of Cyprus, followed their example; but Tyre closed its gates, and
trusted to its insular position for the preservation of its independence,
as it had done of old in the time of Sennacherib and of Nebuchadrezzar. It
was not so much a scrupulous feeling of loyalty which emboldened her to
take this step, as a keen realisation of what her conquest by the
Macedonian would entail. It was entirely-owing to Persia that she had not
succumbed in all parts of the Eastern Mediterranean in that struggle with
Greece which had now lasted for centuries: Persia had not only arrested
the progress of Hellenic colonisation in Cyprus, but had given a fresh
impulse to that of Tyre, and Phoenician influence had regained its
ascendency over a considerable part of the island. The surrender of Tyre,
therefore, would be equivalent to a Greek victory, and would bring about
the decay of the city; hence its inhabitants preferred hostilities, and
they were prolonged in desperation over a period of seven months. At the
end of that time Alexander succeeded in reducing the place by constructing
a dyke or causeway, by means of which he brought his machines of war up to
the foot of the ramparts, and filled in the channel which separated the
town from the mainland; the island thus became a peninsula, and Tyre
henceforth was reduced to the rank of an ordinary town, still able to
maintain her commercial activity, but having lost her power as an
independent state (332). Phoenicia being thus brought into subjection,
Judæa and Samaria yielded to the conqueror without striking a blow, though
the fortress of Gaza followed the example set by Tyre, and for the space
of two months blocked the way to the Delta. Egypt revolted at the approach
of her liberator, and the rising was so unanimous as to dismay the satrap
Mazakes, who capitulated at the first summons. Alexander passed the winter
on the banks of the Nile. Finding that the ancient capitals of the country—Thebes,
Sais, and even Memphis itself—occupied positions which were no
longer suited to the exigencies of the times, he founded opposite to the
island of Pharos, in the township of Eakotis, a city to which he gave his
own name. The rapid growth of the prosperity of Alexandria showed how
happy the founder had been in the choice of its site: in less than half a
century from the date of its foundation, it had eclipsed all the other
capitals of the Eastern Mediterranean, and had become the centre of
African Hellenism. While its construction was in progress, Alexander,
having had opportunities of studying the peculiarities and characteristics
of the Egyptians, had decided to perform the one act which would
conciliate the good feeling of the natives, and secure for him their
fidelity during his wars in the East: he selected from among their gods
the one who was also revered by the Greeks, Zeus-Amnion, and repaired to
the Oasis that he might be adopted by the deity. As a son of the god, he
became a legitimate Pharaoh, an Egyptian like themselves, and on returning
to Memphis he no longer hesitated to adopt the pschent crown with
the accompanying ancient rites. He returned to Asia early in the year 331,
and crossed the Euphrates. Darius had attempted to wrest Asia Minor from
his grasp, but Antigonus, the governor of Phrygia, had dispersed the
troops despatched for this purpose in 332, and Alexander was able to push
forward fearlessly into those regions beyond the Euphrates, where the Ten
Thousand had pursued their victorious march before him. He crossed the
Tigris about the 20th of September, and a week later fell in with his
rival in the very heart of Assyria, not far from, the village of
Gaugamela, where he took up a position which had been previously studied,
and was particularly suited for the evolutions of cavalry.
At the Granicus and near Issus, the Greek element had played an important
part among the forces which contested the field; on this occasion,
however, the great king was accompanied by merely two or three thousand
mercenaries, while, on the other hand, the whole of Asia seemed to have
roused herself for a last effort, and brought forward her most valiant
troops to oppose the disciplined ranks of the Macedonians. Persians,
Susians, Medes, Armenians, Iranians from Bactriana, Sakae, and Indians
were all in readiness to do their best, and were accompanied by every
instrument of military warfare employed in Oriental tactics; chariots
armed with scythes, the last descendants of the chariotry which had
dominated all the battle-fields from the time of the XVIIIth Theban
dynasty down to the latest Sargonids, and, employed side by side with
these relics of a bygone day, were Indian elephants, now for the first
time brought into use against European battalions. These picked troops
sold their lives dearly, but the perfection of the Macedonian arms, and,
above all, the superiority of the tactics employed by their generals,
carried the day; the evening of the 30th of September found Darius in
flight, and the Achæmenian empire crushed by the furious charges of
Alexander’s squadrons. Babylon fell into their hands a few days later,
followed by Susa, and in the spring of 330, Ecbatana; and shortly after
Darius met his end on the way to Media, assassinated by the last of his
generals.
With his death, Persia sank back into the obscurity from which Cyrus had
raised her rather more than two centuries previously. With the exception
of the Medes, none of the nations which had exercised the hegemony of the
East before her time, not even Assyria, had had at their disposal such a
wealth of resources and had left behind them so few traces of their power.
A dozen or so of palaces, as many tombs, a few scattered altars and stelæ,
remains of epics preserved by the Greeks, fragments of religious books,
often remodelled, and issuing in the Avesta—when we have reckoned up
all that remains to us of her, what do we find to compare in interest and
in extent with the monuments and wealth of writings bequeathed to us by
Egypt and Chaldæa? The Iranians received Oriental civilisation at a time
when the latter was in its decline, and caught the spirit of decadence in
their contact with it. In succeeding to the patrimony of the nations they
conquered, they also inherited their weakness; in a few years they had
lost all the vigour of their youth, and were barely able to maintain the
integrity of the empire they had founded. Moreover, the great peoples to
whom they succeeded, although lacking the vigour necessary for the
continuance of their independent existence, had not yet sunk so low as to
acquiesce in their own decay, and resign themselves to allowing their
national life to be absorbed is that of another power: they believed that
they would emerge from the crisis, as they had done from so many others,
with fresh strength, and, as soon as an occasion presented itself, they
renewed the war against their Iranian suzerain. Prom, the first to the
latest of the sovereigns bearing the name of Darius, the history of the
Achæmenids in an almost uninterrupted series of internal wars and
provincial revolts. The Greeks of Ionia, the Egyptians, Chaldæans,
Syrians, and the tribes of Asia Minor, all rose one after another,
sometimes alone, sometimes in concert; some carrying on hostilities for
not more than two or three years; others, like Egypt, maintaining them for
more than half a century. They were not discouraged by the reprisals which
followed each of these rebellions; they again had recourse to arms as soon
as there seemed the least chance of success, and they renewed the struggle
till from sheer exhaustion the sword fell from their hand. Persia was worn
out by this perpetual warfare, in which at the same time each of her
rivals expended the last relics of their vitality, and when Macedonia
entered on the scene, both lords and vassals were reduced to such a state
of prostration, that it was easy to foretell their approaching end. The
old Oriental world was in its death-throes; but before it passed away, the
successful audacity of Alexander had summoned Greece to succeed to its
inheritance.
