| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12)
Author: Maspero, G. (Gaston), 1846-1916
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12)" ***
[Illustration: Spines]
[Illustration: Cover]
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
[Illustration: 001.jpg Frontispiece] Howling Dervish
[Illustration: Titlepage]
[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
[Illustration: 002.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
_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._
[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
CHAPTER I--THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving in Coste and Flandin.
The vignette, drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a statuette in
terra-cotta, found in Southern Russia, represents a young
Scythian.
_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.
* The name Zarathustra has been interpreted in a score of
different ways. The Greeks sometimes attributed to it the
meaning "worshipper of the stars," probably by reason of the
similarity in sound of the termination "-astres" of
Zoroaster with the word "astron." Among modern writers, H.
Rawlinson derived it from the Assyrian Zîru-Ishtar, "the
seed of Ishtar," but the etymology now most generally
accepted is that of Burnouf, according to which it would
signify "the man with gold-coloured camels," the "possessor
of tawny camels." The ordinary Greek form Zoroaster seems to
be derived from some name quite distinct from Zarathustra.
** This was, as Pliny records, the opinion of Eudoxus; not
Eudoxus of Cnidus, pupil of Plato, as is usually stated, but
a more obscure personage, Eudoxus of Rhodes.
*** This was the statement of Hermodorus.
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.
* The Fravashi (for _fravarti_, from _fra-var_, "to support,
nourish"), or the _frôhar (feruer)_, is, properly speaking,
the nurse, the genius who nurtures. Many of the practices
relating to the conception and cult of the Fravashis seem to
me to go back to the primitive period of the Iranian
religions.
** The haoma is an _Asclepias Sarcostema Viminalis_.
*** The name signifies "He who has many horses."
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.
* This is, under very diverse forms, the version preferred
by Western historians of the post-classical period.
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.***
* The word _Avesta_, in Pehlevi _Apastâk_, whence come the
Persian forms _âvasta, ôstâ_, is derived from the
Achæmenian word _Abasta_, which signifies _law_ in the
inscriptions of Darius. The term Zend-Avesta, commonly used
to designate the sacred book of the Persians, is incorrectly
derived from the expression _Apastâc u Zend_, which in
Pehlevi designates first the law itself, and then the
translation and commentary in more modern language which
conduces to a _knowledge (Zend)_ of the law. The customary
application, therefore, of the name Zend to the language of
the Avesta is incorrect.
** The Dinkart fixes the number of chapters at 1000, and the
Shâh-Nâmak at 1200, written on plates of gold. According to
Masudi, the book itself and the two commentaries formed
12,000 volumes, written in letters of gold, the twenty-one
Nasks each contained 200 pages, and the whole of these
writings had been inscribed on 12,000 cow-hides.
*** The site of Shapîgân or Shaspîgân is unknown. J.
Darmesteter suggests that it ought to be read as _Shizîgân_,
which would permit of the identification of the place with
Shîz, one of the ancient religious centres of Iran, whose
temple was visited by the Sassanids on their accession to
the throne. According to the Ardâ-Vîrâf the law was
preserved at Istakhr, or Persepolis, according to the Shâh-
Nâmak at Samarcand in the temple of the Fire-god.
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.
* Tradition speaks simply of a King Valkash, without
specifying which of the four kings named Vologesus is
intended. James Darmesteter has given good reasons for
believing that this Valkash is Vologesus I. (50-75 A.D.),
the contemporary of Nero.
** This is the tradition reproduced in two versions of the
Dinkart.
*** Darmesteter declares that ancient Zoroastrianism is, in
its main lines, the religion of the Median Magi, even though
he assigns the latest possible date to the composition of
the Avesta as now existing, and thinks he can discern in it
Greek, Jewish, and Christian elements.
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.
* Renan defined the Avesta as "the Code of a very small
religious sect; it is a Talmud, a book of casuistry and
strict observance. I have difficulty in believing that the
great Persian empire, which, at least in religious matters,
professed a certain breadth of ideas, could have had a law
so strict. I think, that had the Persians possessed a sacred
book of this description, the Greeks must have mentioned
it."
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.
[Illustration: 012.jpg THE AHURA-MAZDÂ OF THE BAS-RELIEFS OF PERSEPOLIS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Flandin and Coste.
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.
[Illustration: 012b.jpg HYPOSTYLE OF HALL OF XERXES: DETAIL OF
ENTABLATURE]
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.*
* In a passage of Philo of Byblos the god is described as
having the head of a falcon or an eagle, perhaps by
confusion with one of the genii represented on the walls of
the palaces.
[Illustration: 013.jpg AN IRANIAN GENIUS IN FORM OF A WINGED BULL]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
He was named Ahurô-mazdâo or Ahura-mazdâ, the omniscient lord,*
_Spento-mainyus_, the spirit of good, _Mainyus-spenishtô_** the most
beneficent of spirits.
* _Ahura_ is derived from _Ahu_ = _Lord_: Mazdâo can be
analysed into the component parts, _maz = great_, and _dâo
= he who knows_. At first the two terms were
interchangeable, and even in the Gâthas the form Mazda Ahura
is employed much more often than the form Ahura Mazda. In
the Achsemenian inscriptions, Auramazdâ is only found as a
single word, except in an inscription of Xerxes, where the
two terms are in one passage separated and declined _Aurahya
mazdâha_. The form Ormuzd, Ormazd, usually employed by
Europeans, is that assumed by the name in modern Persian.
** These two names are given to him more especially in
connection with his antagonism to Angrômainyus.
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.*
* Darius styles Ahura-mazdâ, _mathishta bagânâm_, the
greatest of the gods, and Xerxes invokes the protection of
Ahura-mazdâ along with that of the gods. The classical
writers also mention gods alongside of Ahura-mazdâ as
recognised not only among the Achæmenian Persians, but also
among the Parthians. Darmesteter considers that the earliest
Achæmenids worshipped Ahura-mazdâ alone, "placing the other
gods together in a subordinate and anonymous group: May
Ahura-mazdâ and the other gods protect me."
[Illustration: 014.jpg AHURA-MAZDÂ BESTOWING THE TOKENS OF ROYALTY ON AN
IRANIAN KING]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Dieulafoy.
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.**
* All these inferior deities, heroes, and genii who presided
over Persia, the royal family, and the different parts of
the empire, are often mentioned in the most ancient
classical authors that have come down to us.
** The six Amesha-spentas, with their several
characteristics, are enumerated in a passage of the _De
Iside_. This exposition of Persian doctrine is usually
attributed to Theopompus, from which we may deduce the
existence of a belief in the Amesha-spentas in the
Achsemenian period. J. Darmesteter affirms, on the contrary,
that "the author describes the Zoro-astrianism of his own
times (the second century A.D.), and quotes Theopompus for a
special doctrine, that of the periods of the world's life."
Although this last point is correct, the first part of
Darmesteter's theory does not seem to me justified by
investigation. The whole passage of Plutarch is a well-
arranged composition of uniform style, which may be regarded
as an exposition of the system described by Theopompus,
probably in the eighth of his Philippics.
[Illustration: 016a.jpg THE MOON-GOD]
[Illustration: 016b.jpg GOD OF THE WIND]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of King Kanishka,
published by Percy Gardner.
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.
* The image of Asha-vahista is known to us from coins of the
Indo-Scythian kings of Bactriana. Vohu-manô is described as
a young man.
[Illustration: 017a.jpg ATAR THE GOD OF FIRE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of King Kanishka,
published by Percy Gardner.
[Illustration: 017b.jpg AURVATASPA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from coin published by Percy
Gardner.
[Illustration: 017c.jpg MITHRA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of King Huvishka,
published by Percy Gardner.
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."**
* Hara is Haroberezaiti, or Elburz, the mountain over which
the sun rises, "around which many a star revolves, where
there is neither night nor darkness, no wind of cold or
heat, no sickness leading to a thousand kinds of death, nor
infection caused by the Daôvas, and whose summit is never
reached by the clouds."
** This is the Mithra whose religion became so powerful in
Alexandrian and Roman times. His sphere of action is defined
in the Bundehesh.
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 popularity of these two deities was already well
established at the period we are dealing with, for Herodotus
mentions Mithra and confuses him with Anâhita.
** Her name Ardvî-Sûra Anâhita seems to signify _the lofty
and immaculate power_.
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.*
* The legend of the descent of the Fravashis to dwell among
men is narrated in the Bundehesh.
[Illustration: 018.jpg MYLITTA-ANÂHITA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Loftus
[Illustration: 018a.jpg NANA-ANÂHITA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of King Huvishka,
published by Percy Gardner.
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.*
* Spiegel, who at first considered that the Iranian dualism
was derived from polytheism, and was a preliminary stage in
the development of monotheism, held afterwards that a rigid
monotheism had preceded this dualism. The classical writers,
who knew Zoroastrianism at the height of its glory, never
suggested that the two principles might be derived from a
superior principle, nor that they were subject to such a
principle. The Iranian books themselves nowhere definitely
affirm that there existed a single principle distinct from
the two opposing principles.
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."*
* Theopompus was already aware of this alternation of good
and bad periods. According to the tradition enshrined in the
first chapter of the Bundehesh, it was the result of a sort
of compact agreed upon at the beginning by Ahura-mazdâ and
Angrô-mainyus. Ahura-mazdâ, rearing to be overcome if he
entered upon the struggle immediately, but sure of final
victory if he could gain time, proposed to his adversary a
truce of nine thousand years, at the expiration of which the
battle should begin. As soon as the compact was made, Angrô-
mainyus realised that he had been tricked into taking a
false step, but it was not till after three thousand years
that he decided to break the truce and open the conflict.
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.*
* The last five of these spirits are enumerated in the
_Vendidad_, and the first, Akem-manô, is there replaced by
Nasu, the chief spirit of evil.
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.
[Illustration: 022.jpg ONE OF THE BAD GENII, SUBJECT TO ANGRÔ-MAINYUS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken from the
original bas-relief in glazed tiles in the Louvre.
[Illustration: 023.jpg THE KING STRUGGLING AGAINST AN EVIL GENIUS]
Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph in Marcel Dieulafoy.
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 name Aêshma means _anger_. He is the Asmodeus, Aêshmo-
daevô, of Rabbinic legends.
** The name of this demon signifies _He who separates the
bones_.
*** The Greater Bundehesh connects the demon Bûiti with the
Indian Buddha, and J. Darmestefer seems inclined to accept
this interpretation. In this case we must either admit that
the demon Bûiti is of relatively late origin, or that he
has, in the legend of Zoroaster, taken the place of a demon
whose name resembled his own closely enough to admit of the
assimilation.
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.
* The legend ran that they had been conceived in the waters
of the lake Kansu. The name Saoshyant signifies _the useful
one, the saviour_; Ukshyate-reta, _he who malces the good
increase_; Ukshyatnemô, _he who makes prayer increase_.
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.
* The original text says in a more enigmatical fashion, "he
nourishes the religion of Mazdâ as a hundred feet of men and
a thousand breasts of women might do."
** Charity is called in Parsee language, _ashô-dâd_ the
_gift to a pious man_, or the _gift of piety_, and the pious
man, the _ashavan_, is by definition the worshipper of
Ahura-mazdâ alone.
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.
* A passage in the _Vendidad_ even enumerates how many
noisome beasts must be slain to accomplish one full work of
expiation--"to kill 1000 serpents of those who drag
themselves upon the belly, and 2000 of the other species,
1000 land frogs or 2000 water frogs, 1000 ants who steal the
grain," and so on.
** The _Vendidad_ says, "And I tell thee, O Spitama
Zarathustra, the man who has a wife is above him who lives
in continency;" and, as we have seen in the text, one of
these forms of expiation consisted in "marrying to a worthy
man a young girl who has never known a man" (_Vendidad_, 14,
§ 15). Herodotus of old remarked that one of the chief
merits in an Iranian was to have many children: the King of
Persia encouraged fecundity in his realm, and awarded a
prize each year to that one of his subjects who could boast
the most numerous progeny.
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.*
* All this picture of the fate of the soul is taken from the
_Vendidad_, where the fate of the just is described, and in
the _Yasht_, where the condition of faithful and impious
souls respectively is set forth on parallel lines. The
classical authors teach us nothing on this subject, and the
little they actually say only proves that the Persians
believed in the immortality of the soul. The main outlines
of the picture here set forth go back to the times of the
Achæmenids and the Medes, except the abstract conception of
the goddess who leads the soul of the dead as an incarnation
of his good or evil deeds.
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.
[Illustration: 031.jpg THE TWO IRANIAN ALTAKRAT NAKHSH-Î-RUSTEM]
Drawn by Boudier, from a heliogravure in Marcel Dieulafoy.
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.*
* According to Perrot and Chipiez, "it is not impossible
that these altars were older than the great buildings of
Persepolis, and that they were erected for the old Persian
town which Darius raised to the position of capital."
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.
[Illustration: 032.jpg THE TWO IRANIAN ALTARS OF MURGAB]
Drawn by Boudier, from Plandin and Coste.
The sacrificial rites were of long duration, and frequent, and were
rendered very complex by interminable manual acts, ceremonial gestures,
and incantations.
[Illustration: 032b.jpg THE OCCUPATIONS OF ANI IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS]
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.**
* Pausanias, who witnessed the cult as practised at
Hierocæsarsea, remarked the curious colour of the ashes
heaped upon the altar.
* Most modern writers deny the authenticity of Herodotus'
account, because a sacrifice of this kind is opposed to the
spirit of the Magian religion, which is undoubtedly the
case, as far as the latest form of the religion is
concerned; but the testimony of Herodotus is so plain that
the fact itself must be considered as indisputable. We may
note that the passage refers to the foundation of a city;
and if we remember how persistent was the custom of human
sacrifice among ancient races at the foundation of
buildings, we shall be led to the conclusion that the
ceremony described by the Greek historian was a survival of
a very ancient usage, which had not yet fallen entirely into
desuetude at the Achæmenian epoch.
[Illustration: 033.jpg THE SACRED FIRE BURNING ON THE ALTAR]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the impression of a Persian
intaglio.
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.
* A relic of this custom may be discerned in the expiatory
sacrifice decreed in the _Vendidad_: "He shall sacrifice a
thousand head of small cattle, and he shall place their
entrails devoutly on the fire, with libations."
** The number 1000 seems to have had some ritualistic
significance, for it often recurs in the penances imposed on
the faithful as expiation for their sins: thus it was
enjoined to slay 1000 serpents, 1000 frogs, 1000 ants who
steal the grain, 1000 head of small cattle, 1000 swift
horses, 1000 camels, 1000 brown oxen.
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.****
* The drink mentioned by the author of the _De Iside_, which
was extracted from the plant Omômi, and which the Magi
offered to the god of the underworld, is certainly the
haoma. The rite mentioned by the Greek author, which appears
to be an incantation against Ahriman, required, it seems, a
potion in which the blood of a wolf was a necessary
ingredient: this questionable draught was then carried to a
place where the sun's rays never shone, and was there
sprinkled on the ground as a libation.
** Menander speaks of this festival as conducted in his own
times, and tells us that it was called Eurdigan; modern
authorities usually admit that it goes back to the times of
the Achæmenids or even beyond.
*** Agathias says that every worshipper of Ahura-mazdâ is
enjoined to kill the greatest possible number of animals
created by Angrô-mainyus, and bring to the Magi the fruits
of his hunting. Herodotus had already spoken of this
destruction of life as one of the duties incumbent on every
Persian, and this gives probability to the view of modern
writers that the festival went back to the Achæmenian epoch.
**** The festival of the Sakoa is mentioned by Ctesias. It
was also a Babylonian festival, and most modern authorities
conclude from this double use of the name that the festival
was borrowed from the Babylonians by the Persians, but this
point is not so certain as it is made out to be, and at any
rate the borrowing must have taken place very early, for the
festival was already well established in the Achæmenian
period.
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.
* Clement of Alexandria assures us that they were strictly
celibate, but besides the fact that married Magi are
mentioned several times, celibacy is still considered by
Zoroastrians an inferior state to that of marriage.
** In the Greek period, a spurious epitaph of Darius, son of
Hystaspes, was quoted, in which the king says of himself, "I
was the pupil of the Magi."
*** These accusations are nearly all directed against their
incestuous marriages: it seems that the classical writers
took for a refinement of debauchery what really was before
all things a religious practice.
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 original form of the name is Kûru, Kûrush, with a long
_o_, which forces us to reject the proposed connection with
the name of the Indian hero Kuru, in which the _u_ is short.
Numerous etymologies of the name Cyrus have been proposed.
The Persians themselves attributed to it the sense of _the
Sun_.
** We possess two entirely different versions of the history
of the origin of Cyrus, but one, that of Herodotus, has
reached us intact, while that of Ctesias is only known to us
in fragments from extracts made by Nicolas of Damascus, and
by Photius. Spiegel and Duncker thought to recognise in the
tradition followed by Ctesias one of the Persian accounts of
the history of Cyrus, but Bauer refuses to admit this
hypothesis, and prefers to consider it as a romance put
together by the author, according to the taste of his own
times, from facts partly different from those utilised by
Herodotus, and partly borrowed from Herodotus himself: but
it should very probably be regarded as an account of Median
origin, in which the founder of the Persian empire is
portrayed in the most unfavourable light. Or perhaps it may
be regarded as the form of the legend current among the
Pharnaspids who established themselves as satraps of
Dascylium in the time of the Achæmenids, and to whom the
royal house of Cappadocia traced its origin. It is almost
certain that the account given by Herodotus represents a
Median version of the legend, and, considering the important
part played in it by Harpagus, probably that version which
was current among the descendants of that nobleman. The
historian Dinon, as far as we can judge from the extant
fragments of his work, and from the abridgment made by
Trogus Pompeius, adopted the narrative of Ctesias, mingling
with it, however, some details taken from Herodotus and the
romance of Xenophon, the Cyropodia.
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.
* According to one of the historians consulted by Strabo,
Cyrus himself, and not his father, was called Atradates.
[Illustration: 039.jpg A ROYAL HUNTING-PARTY IN HUN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the silver vase in the Museum
of the Hermitage.
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.
* The tradition reproduced by Dinon narrated that Cyrus had
begun by serving among the Kavasses, the three hundred
staff-bearers who accompanied the sovereign when he appeared
in public, and that he passed next into the royal body-
guard, and that once having attained this rank, he passed
rapidly through all the superior grades of the military
profession.
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.
* This OEbaras whom Ctesias makes the accomplice of Cyrus,
seems to be an antedated forestallment of theoebaras whom
the tradition followed by Herodotus knows as master of the
horse under Darius, and to whom that king owed his elevation
to the throne.
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.*
* According to Ctesias, it was a singing-girl who revealed
the existence of the plot to Astyages; according to Dinon,
it was the bard Angarês. Windischmann has compared this name
with that of the Vedic guild of singers, the Angira.
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.**
* The passage in Herodotus leads Marquart to believe that
the murder of Astyages formed part of the primitive legend,
but was possibly attributed to Cambysos, son of Cyrus,
rather than to OEbaras, the companion of the conqueror's
early years.
** This is the legend as told to Herodotus in Asia Minor,
probably by the members of the family of Harpagus, which the
Greek historian tried to render credible by interpreting the
miraculous incidents in a rationalising manner.
[Illustration: 042.jpg REMAINS OF THE PALACE OF ECBATANA]
Drawn by Boudier, from Coste and Flandin.
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.*
* Herodotus asserts that the child's foster-mother was
called in Greek _Kynô_, in Median _Spalcô_, which comes to
the same thing, for _spaha_ means _bitch_ in Median. Further
on he asserts that the parents of the child heard of the
name of his nurse with joy, as being of good augury; "and,
in order that the Persians might think that Cyrus had been
preserved alive by divine agency, _they spread abroad the
report that Cyrus had been suckled by a bitch_. And thus
arose the fable commonly accepted." Trogus Pompeius received
the original story probably through Dinon, and inserted it
in his book.
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 length of Cyrus' reign is fixed at thirty years by
Ctesias, followed by Dinon and Trogus Pompeius, but at
twenty-nine years by Herodotus, whose computation I here
follow. Hitherto the beginning of his reign has been made to
coincide with the fall of Astyages, which was consequently
placed in 569 or 568 B.C., but the discovery of the _Annals
of Nabonidus_ obliges us to place the taking of Ecbatana in
the sixth year of the Babylonian king, which corresponds to
the year 550 B.C., and consequently to hold that Cyrus
reckoned his twenty-nine years from the moment when he
succeeded his father Cambyses.
** The inscription on the _Rassam Cylinder of Abu-Habba_,
seems to make the fall of the Median king, who was suzerain
of the Scythians of Harrân, coincide with the third year of
Nabonidus, or the year 553-2 B.C. But it is only the date of
the commencement of hostilities between Cyrus and Astyages
which is here furnished, and this manner of interpreting the
text agrees with the statement of the Median traditions
handed down by the classical authors, that three combats
took place between Astyages and Cyrus before the final
victory of the Persians.
*** This equality of the two peoples is indicated by the
very terms employed by Darius, whom he speaks of them, in
the _Great Inscription of Behistun_. He says, for example,
in connection with the revolt of the false Smerdis, that
"the deception prevailed greatly in the land, in Persia and
Media as well as in the other provinces," and further on,
that "the whole people rose, and passed over from Cambyses
to him, Persia and Media as well as the other countries." In
the same way he mentions "the army of Persians and Medes
which was with him," and one sees that he considered Medes
and Persians to be on exactly the same footing.
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.*
* All these events are known through the excerpt from
Menander preserved to us by Josephus in his treatise
_Against Apion_.
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.**
* The fragment of Menander does not give the Babylonian
king's name, but a simple chronological calculation proves
him to have been Nergal-sharuzur.
** _Annals of Nabonidus_, where mention is made of a certain
Nabu-makhdan-uzur--but the reading of the name is uncertain
--who seems to be in revolt against the Chaldæans. Floigl has
very ingeniously harmonised the dates of the Annals with
those obtained from the fragment of Menander, and has thence
concluded that the object of the expedition of the third
year was the enthroning of Hirôm which is mentioned in the
fragment, and during whose fourteenth year Cyrus became King
of Babylon.
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.*
* The doings of Alyattes in Troas and in Mysia are vouched
for by the anecdote related by Plutarch concerning this
king's relations with Pittakos. The founding of Adramyttium
is attributed to him by Stephen of Byzantium, after
Aristotle, who made Adramyttios the brother of Croesus.
Radat gives good reasons for believing that Adramyttios was
brother to Alyattes and uncle to Crosus, and the same person
as Adramys, the son of Sadyattes, according to Xanthus of
Lydia. Radet gives the year 584 for the date of these
events.
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.**
* Radet places the operations in Bithynia before the Median
war, towards 594 at the latest. I think that they are more
probably connected with those in Mysia, and that they form
part of the various measures taken after the Median war to
achieve the occupation of the regions west of the Halys.
** A mutilated extract from Xanthus of Lydia in Suidas seems
to carry these events back to the time of the war against
Priênê, towards the beginning of the reign. The united
evidence of the accompanying circumstances proves that they
belong to the time of the old age of Alyattes, and makes it
very likely that they occurred in 566, the date proposed by
Radet for the Carian campaign.
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.
* The fragment of Nicolas of Damascus does not speak of the
result of the war, but it was certainly favourable, for
Herodotus counts the Carians among Croesus' subjects.
** The only one of these monuments, besides that of
Alyattes, which is mentioned by the ancients, belonged to
one of the favourites of Gyges, and was called _the Tomb of
the Courtesan_. Strabo, by a manifest error, has applied
this name _to_ the tomb of Alyattes.
[Illustration: 050.jpg THE TUMULUS OF ALYATTES AND THE ENTRANCE TO THE
PASSAGE]
Drawn by Boudier, from the sketch by Spiegolthal.
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.
* This, at least, seems to be the import of the passage in Clearchus of
Soli, where that historian gives an account of the erection of the _Tomb
of the Courtesan_.
[Illustration: 051.jpg ONE OF THE LYDIAN ORNAMENTS IN THE LOUVRE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
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.
[Illustration: 052.jpg MOULD FOR JEWELLERY OF LYDIAN ORIGIN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
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.
[Illustration: 053.jpg A LYDIAN FUNERY COUCH]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Choisy.
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.****
* The ornaments, of which we have now no specimens, but only
the original moulds cut in serpentine, betray imitation of
Assyria and Chaldæa.
** The custom of clothing themselves in dyed and embroidered
stuffs was one of the effeminate habits with which the poet
Xenophanes reproached the Ionians as having been learned
from their Lydian neighbours.
*** M. Perrot points out that one of the vases discovered by
G. Dennis at Bintépé is an evident imitation of the Egyptian
and Phoenician chevroned glasses. The shape of the vase is
one of those found represented, with the same decoration, on
Egyptian monuments subsequent to the Middle Empire, where
the chevroned lines seem to be derived from the undulations
of ribbon-alabaster.
**** The stone funerary couches which have been discovered
in Lydian tombs are evidently copied from pieces of wooden
furniture similarly arranged and decorated.
[Illustration: 054a.jpg LYDIAN COIN BEARING A RUNNING FOX]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the Cabinet des
Médailles: a stater of electrum weighing 14.19 grammes.
[These illustrations are larger than the original pieces.--Tr.]
[Illustration: 054b.jpg LYDIAN COIN WITH A HARE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the _Cabinet des
Médailles._
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.
[Illustration: 055.jpg LYDIAN COINS WITH A LION AND LION'S HEAD]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des
Médailles.
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.
[Illustration: 056a.jpg COIN BEARING HEAD OF MOUFLON GOAT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des
Médailles.
[Illustration: 056b.jpg MONEY OF CROESUS]
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 best English numismatists do not agree with M.
Babelon's "banker" theory. Cf. Barclay V. Head, _Historia
Nummorum_, p. xxxiv.---Tr.]
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 gold of Gyges is known to us through a passage in
Pollux. Fr. Lenormant attributed to Gyges the coins which
Babelon restores to the banks of Asia Minor. Babelon sees in
the Gygads only "ingots of gold, struck _possibly_ in the
name of Gyges, capable of being used as coin, doubtless
representing a definitely fixed weight, but still lacking
that ultimate perfection which characterises the coinage of
civilised peoples: from the standpoint of circulation in the
market their shape was defective and inconvenient; their
subdivision did not extend to such small fractions as to
make all payments easy; they were too large and too dear for
easy circulation through many hands."
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.
* Lenormant ascribed an issue of coins without inscriptions
to the kings Ardys, Sadyattes, and Alyattes, but this has
since been believed not to have been their work.
** Herodotus mentions the statue of the bread-maker, giving
no reason why Crosus dedicated it. The author quoted by
Plutarch would have it that in revenge he made his half-
brothers eat the poisoned bread.
[Illustration: 059.jpg VIEW OF THE SITE AND RUINS OF EPHESUS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
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.
* The history of Sadyattes and of his part in the conspiracy
results from points of agreement which have been established
between various passages in Herodotus and in Nicolas of
Damascus, where the person is sometimes named and sometimes
not.
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.**
* He treated thus the Ephesians and the Ilians.
** The fragments of columns brought from this temple by Wood
and preserved in the British Museum have on one of the bases
the remains of an inscription confirming the testimony of
Herodotus.
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.*
* He seems to have been deterred from his project by a
sarcastic remark made, as some say, by Pittakos the
Mitylenian, or according to others, by Bias of Priênê.
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.
* Traditions as to Crcesus' relations with Alcrnseon are
preserved by Herodotus. The king compelled the inhabitants of
Lampsacus, his vassals, to release the elder Miltiades, whom
they had taken prisoner, and thus earned the gratitude of
the Eupatridæ.
** Alyattes had been the ally of Periander, as is proved by
an anecdote in Herodotus. This friendship continued under
Crosus, for after the fall of the monarchy, when the special
treasuries of Lydia were suppressed, the ex-voto offerings
of the Lydian kings were deposited in the treasury of
Corinth.
*** According to Theopompus, the Lacedaemonians, wishing to
gild the face of the statue of the Amyclsean, Apollo, and
finding no gold in Greece, consulted the Delphian
prophetess: by her advice they sent to Lydia to buy the
precious metal from Croesus.
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.
* This is proved by the history of the Prince Adrastus in
Herodotus. Herodotus probably alluded to this colonisation
by Crcesus, when he said that the Mysians of Olympus were
descendants of Lydian colonists.
** Strabo merely says that the Kibyrates were descended from
the Lydians who dwelt in Cabalia; since Croesus was, as far
as we know, the only Lydian king who ever possessed this
part of Asia, Radet, with good reason, concludes that Kibyra
was colonised by him.
*** Radet has given good reasons for believing that at least
some of these towns were enlarged and fortified by Croesus.
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.
* Ploigl, who was the first to refer a certain passage in
the _Annals of Nabonidus_ to the expedition against Croesus,
restored Is[parda] as the name of the country mentioned, and
saw even the capture of Sardes in the events of the month
Iyyâr, in direct contradiction to the Greek tradition. The
connection between the campaign beyond the Tigris and the
Lydian war seems to me incontestable, but the Babylonian
chronicler has merely recorded the events which affected
Babylonia. Cyrus' object was both to intimidate Nabonidus
and also to secure possession of the most direct, and at the
same time the easiest, route: by cutting across Mesopotamia,
he avoided the difficult marches in the mountainous
districts of Armenia. Perhaps we should combine, with the
information of the _Annals_, the passage of Xenophon, where
it is said that the Armenians refused tribute and service to
the King of Persia: Cyrus would have punished the rebels on
his way, after crossing the Euphrates.
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.***
* On this point Herodotus tells a current story of his time:
Thaïes had a trench dug behind the army, which was probably
encamped in one of the bends made by the Halys; he then
diverted the stream into this new bed, with the result that
the Lydians found themselves on the right bank of the river
without having had the trouble of crossing it.
** Nicolas of Damascus records that Cyrus, after the capture
of Sardes, for a short time contemplated making Croesus a
vassal king, or at least a satrap of Lydia.
*** We have two very different accounts of this campaign,
viz. that of Herodotus, and that of Polyonus. According to
Herodotus, Croesus gave battle only once in Pteria, with
indecisive result, and on the next day quietly retired to
his kingdom, thinking that Cyrus would not dare to pursue
him. According to Polyonus, Croesus, victorious in a first
engagement owing to a more or less plausible military
stratagem, consented to a truce, but on the day after was
completely defeated, and obliged to return to his kingdom
with a routed army. Herodotus' account of the fall of
Croesus and of Sardes, borrowed partly from a good written
source, Xanthus or Charon of Lampsacus, partly from the
tradition of the Harpagidse, seems to have for its object
the soothing of the vanity both of the Persians and of the
Lydians, since, if the result of the war could not be
contested, the issue of the battle was at least left
uncertain. If he has given a faithful account, no one can
understand why Croesus should have retired and ceded White
Syria to a rival who had never conquered him. The account
given by Polysenus, in spite of the improbability of some of
its details, comes from a well-informed author: the defeat
of the Lydians in the second battle explains the retreat of
Crcesus, who is without excuse in Herodotus' version of the
affair. Pompeius Trogus adopted a version similar to that of
Polysenus.
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.**
* Herodotus makes the attempted corruption of the Ionians to
date from the beginning of the war, even before Cyrus took
the field.
** The author followed by Pompeius Trogus has alone
preserved the record of this treaty. The fact is important
as explaining Croesus' behaviour after his defeat, but
Schubert goes too far when he re-establishes on this ground
an actual campaign of Cyrus against Babylon: Radet has come
back to the right view in seeing only a treaty made with
Nabonidus.
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.*
* Herodotus' mention of the use of camels is confirmed, with
various readings, by Xenophon, by Polysenus, and by Ælian;
their employment does not necessarily belong to a legendary
form of the story, especially if we suppose that the camel,
unknown before in Asia Minor, was first introduced there by
the Persian army. The site of the battle is not precisely
known. According to Herodotus, the fight took place in the
great plain before Sardes, which is crossed by several small
tributaries of the Hermus, amongst others the Hyllus. Radet
recognises that the Hyllus of Herodotus is the whole or part
of the stream now called the Kusu-tchaî, and he places the
scene of action near the township of Adala, which would
correspond with Xenophon's Thymbrara. This continues to be
the most likely hypothesis. After the battle Croesus would
have fled along the Hermus towards Sardes. Xenophon's story
is a pure romance.
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.**
* Radet gives the date of the capture of Sardes as about
November 15, 546; but the number and importance of the
events occurring between the retreat of Croesus and the
decisive catastrophe--the negotiations with Babylon, the
settling into winter quarters, the march of Cyrus across
Phrygia--must have required a longer time than Radet allots
to them in his hypothesis, and I make the date a month
later.
** Ctesias and Xenophon seem to depend on Herodotus, the
former with additional fabulous details concerning his
OEbaras, Cyrus' counsellor, which show the probable origin
of his additions. Polysenus had at his disposal a different
story, the same probably that he used for his account of the
campaign in Cappadocia, for in it can be recognised the wish
to satisfy, within possible limits, the pride of the
Lydians: here again the decisive success is preceded by a
check given to Cyrus and a three months' truce.
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.*
* About three and a half centuries later Sardes was captured
in the same way by one of the generals of Antiochus the
Great.
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 word translated "softly moving eunuch" is here perhaps
a proper name: the slave whose duty it was to kindle the
pyre was called Abrobatas in the version of the story chosen
by Bacchylides, while that adopted by the potter whose work
is reproduced on the opposite page, calls him Euthymos.
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!"
[Illustration: 075.jpg CIMESUS ON HIS PYRE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
the Museum of the Louvre.
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.*
* The story told by Nicolas of Damascus comes down probably
from Xanthus of Lydia, but with many additions borrowed
directly from Herodotus and rhetorical developments by the
author himself. Most other writers who tell the story depend
for their information, either directly or indirectly, on
Herodotus: in later times it was supposed that the Lydian
king was preserved from the flames by the use of some
talisman such as the Ephesian letters.
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.
[Illustration: 078.jpg A PERSIAN KING FIGHTING WITH GREEKS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an intaglio reproduced in the
_Antiquités du Bosphore cimmérien._
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.**
* None of the documents actually say this, but the general
tenor of Herodotus' account seems to show clearly that, with
the exception of the Greek cities of the Carians and
Lycians, all the peoples who had formed part of the Lydian
dominion under Croesus submitted, without any appreciable
resistance, after the taking of Sardes.
** Herodotus mentions a second Syennesis king of Cilicia
forty years later at the time of the Ionian revolt.
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.
[Illustration: 080.jpg THE PRESENT SITE OF MILETUS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
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 tradition followed by Ctesias maintained that the
submission of the eastern peoples was an accomplished fact
when the Lydian war began. That adopted by Herodotus placed
this event after the fall of Croesus; at any rate, it showed
that fear of the Bactrians and the Sakæ, as well as of the
Babylonians and Egyptians was the cause that hastened Cyrus'
retreat.
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.
* A passage which has been preserved of Charon of Lampsacus
sums up in a few words the account given by Herodotus of the
adventures of Paktyas, but without mentioning the treachery
of the islanders: he confines himself to saying Cyrus caught
the fugitive after the latter had successively left Chios
and Mytilene.
** Herodotus attributes the taking of this city to the
Persian Tabules, who is evidently the Tabalos of Herodotus.
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.
[Illustration: 083.jpg A LYCIAN CITY UPON ITS INACCESSIBLE ROCK]
The rock and tombs of Tlôs, drawn by Boudier, from the view
in Fellows.
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.
* Herodotus calls a certain Mitrobates satrap of Daskylion;
he had perhaps been already given this office by Cyrus.
Orcetes had been made governor of Ionia and Lydia by Cyrus.
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.***
* This is the campaign which Ctesias places before the
Lydian war, but which Herodotus relegates to a date after
the capture of Sardes.
** Ctesias must have spoken of the submission of these
peoples, for a few words of a description which he gave of
the Khoramnians have been preserved to us.
*** Tomaschek identifies Kyra or Kyropolis with the present
Ura-Tepe, but distinguishes it from the Kyreskhata of
Ptolemy, to which he assigns a site near Usgent.
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.
* The body of exiles of 597 consisted of ten thousand
persons, of whom seven thousand belonged to the wealthy, and
one thousand to the artisan class, while the remainder
consisted of people attached to the court (2 Kings xxiv. 14-
16). In the body of 587 are reckoned three thousand and
twenty-three inhabitants of Judah, and eight hundred and
thirty-two dwellers in Jerusalem. But the body of exiles of
581 numbers only seven hundred and forty-five persons (Jer.
lii. 30). These numbers are sufficiently moderate to be
possibly exact, but they are far from being certain.
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.**
* Ezek. iii. 15. The Chebar or Kebar has been erroneously
identified with the Khabur; cuneiform documents show that it
was one of the canals near Nipur.
** Cf. the assemblies of these chiefs at the house of
Ezekiel and their action (viii. 1; xiv. 1; xx. 1).
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?"**
* Jer. xxix. 1-7.
** Ps. cxxxvii. 1-4.
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."*
1 Ezek. xx.
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."*
* Ezek. xlvii., xlviii. The image of the river seems to be
borrowed from the _vessel of water_ of Chaldæan mythology.
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.
* An anonymous prophet, about 570, in Isa. xxvi. 17, 20, 21.
** 2 Kings xxv. 27-30; cf. Jer. lii. 31-34.
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."***
* Second Isaiah, in Isa. xlv. 1-4.
** Second Isaiah, in Isa. xlvi. 1, 2.
*** Second Isaiah, in Isa. xlvii. 1-5.
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 seems to follow from the part which he plays in the
final crisis, as told in the _Cylinder of Cyrus_ and in the
_Annals_.
** The chronicler adds that the gods of Sippar, Kutha, and
Borsippa were not taken to Babylon; and indeed, these cities
being included within the lines of defence of the great
city, their gods were as well defended from the enemy as if
they had been in Babylon itself.
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.**
* For the strategic interpretation of the events of this
campaign I have generally adopted the explanations of
Billerbeck. Herodotus' account with regard to the river
Gyndes is probably a reminiscence of alterations made in the
river-courses at the time of the attack in the direction of
Bagdad.
** The _Cylinder of Cyrus_, 1. 17, expressly says so:
"Without combat or battle did Marduk make him enter
Babylon," The _Annals of Nabonidus_ confirm this testimony
of the official account.
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."*
* The table of the last kings of Ptolemy and the monuments,
is given below:--
[Illustration: 105.jpg TABLE OF THE LAST KINGS OF PTOLEMY]
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 name which is written Sheshbazzar in the Hebrew text
of the Book of Ezra (i. 9, 11; v. 14, 16) is rendered
Sasabalassaros in Lucian's recension of the Septuagint, and
this latter form confirms the hypothesis of Hoonacker, which
is now universally accepted, that it corresponds to the
Babylonian Shamash-abaluzur. It is known that Shamash
becomes Shauash in Babylonian; thus Saosdukhînos comes from
Shamash-shumukîn: similarly Shamash-abaluzur has become
Shauash-abaluzur. Imbert has recognised Sheshbazzar,
Shauash-abaluzur in the Shenazzar mentioned in 1 Chron. iii.
8, as being one of the sons of Jeconiah, and this
identification has been accepted by several recent
historians of Israel. It should be remembered that Shauash-
abaluzur and Zerubbabel have long been confounded one with
the other.
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.*
* The history of this first return from captivity is
summarily set forth in Ezra i.; cf. v. 13-17; vi. 3-5, 15.
Its authenticity has been denied: with regard to this point
and the questions relating to Jewish history after the
exile, the modifications which have been imposed on the
original plan of this work have obliged me to suppress much
detail in the text and the whole of the bibliography in the
notes.
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.*
* The presence of Persian troops in Asia Minor is proved by
the passage in Herodotus where he says that Orotes had with
him 1000 Persians as his body-guard.
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.****
* A stele of his forty-fourth year still exists in the
quarries of the Mokattam.
** According to Herodotus, it was from the quarries of
Elephantine that Amasis caused to be brought the largest
blocks which he used in the building of Sais.
*** Her tomb still exists at Deir el-Medineh, and the
sarcophagus, taken from the tomb in 1833, is now in the
British Museum.
**** The most important of these tombs is that of Petenit,
the father of Shashonqu, who was associated with
Ankhnasnofiribri in the government of Thebes.
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.
[Illustration: 111.jpg AN OSIRIS STRETCHED FULL LENGTH ON THE GROUND]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Mariette. The monument is a
statuette measuring only 15 centimetres in length; it has
been reproduced to give an idea of the probable form of the
statue seen by Herodotus.
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.*
* The position occupied by the graffiti on certain portions
of the walls show that in these places in the temple of Seti
there was already a layer of sand varying from one to three
metres in depth.
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.
[Illustration: 112.jpg THE TWO GODDESSES OF LAW; ANI ADORING OSIRIS] THE
TRIAL OF THE CONSCIENCE; TOTH AND THE FEATHER OF THE LAW.
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.
[Illustration: 113.jpg AMASIS IN ADORATION BEFORE THE BULL APIS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken in the
Louvre.
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 exact measurements are 23 1/2 ft. in height, 12 ft. 9
ins. in width, and 10 ft. 6 ins. in depth. The naos of Saft
el-Hinneh must have been smaller, but it is impossible to
determine its exact dimensions.
** It measures 9 ft. 7 ins. in height, 3 ft. 1 in. in width,
and 3 ft. 8 ins.
[Illustration: 114.jpg THE NAOS OF AMASIS AT THMUIS]
Drawn by Boudier, from the sketch of Burton.
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.*
* The measurements given by Herodotus are so different from
those of any naos as yet discovered, that I follow Kenrick
in thinking that Herodotus saw the monument of Amasis lying
on its side, and that he took for the height what was really
the width in depth. It had been erected in the nome of
Athribis, and afterwards taken to Alexandria about the
Ptolemaic era; it was discovered under water in one of the
ports of the town at the beginning of this century, and
Drovetti, who recovered it, gave it to the Museum of the
Louvre in 1825.
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.*
* Herodotus narrates these events without mentioning Amasis,
and Nicolas of Damascus adopted Herodotus' account with
certain modifications taken from other sources. The
intervention of Amasis is mentioned only by Plutarch and by
Polyaanus; but the record of it had been handed down to them
by some more ancient author--perhaps by Akesandros; or
perhaps, in the first instance, by Hellanicos of Lesbos, who
gave a somewhat detailed account of certain points in
Egyptian history. The passage of Herodotus is also found
incorporated in accounts of Cyrenian origin: his informants
were interested in recalling deeds which reflected glory on
their country, like the defeat of Apries at Irasa, but not
in the memory of events so humiliating for them as the
sovereign intervention of Pharaoh only a few years after
this victory. And besides, the merely pacific success which
Amasis achieved was not of a nature to leave a profound mark
on the Egyptian mind. It is thus easy to explain how it was
that Herodotus makes no allusion to the part played by Egypt
in this affair.
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.**
* The very fact of the marriage is considered by Wiedemann
as a pure legend, but there is nothing against its
authenticity; the curious story of the relations of the
woman with Amasis told by the Cyrenian commentators is the
only part which need be rejected.
** The text of Herodotus can only mean a painted panel
similar to those which have been found on the mummies of the
Græco-Roman era in the Fayum.
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.
* It seems that one of these statues is that which, after
being taken to Constantinople, was destroyed in a fire in
476 A.D. Fragments of the corselet still existed in the
first century of our era, but inquisitive persons used to
tear off pieces to see for themselves whether, as Herodotus
assures us, each thread was composed of three hundred and
sixty-five strands, every one visible with the naked eye.
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.
[Illustration: 120.jpg THE PRESENT SITE OF NAUCRATIS]
Reduced by Faucher-Gudin from the plan published by Petrie.
The site of the Hellenion is marked A, the modern Arab
village B, the temenos of Hera and Apollo E, that of the
Dioskuri F, and that of Aphrodite G.
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.**
* The temple of Athene, the Nît of the Saite nome, is as yet
known only by an inscription in Pctrie.
** The site has been rediscovered by Petrie at the southern
extremity of and almost outside the town; the walls were
about 48 feet thick and 39 feet high, and the rectangular
area enclosed by them could easily contain fifty thousand
men.
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.
* In Stephen of Byzantium the name of the town is said to be
derived from that of the Milesian Abydos who founded it,
probably on the testimony of Aristagoras. Letronne has seen
that the historian meant a factory established by the
Milesians probably in the reign of Amasis, at the terminus
of the route leading to the Great Oasis.
** The compiler confines himself to stating that there were
in the Nile islands called Ephesus, Chios, Samos, Lesbos,
Cyprus, and so on; the explanation I have given in the text
accounts for this curious fact quite simply.
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.*
* A similar legend, but later in date, told how Cyrus, when
a hundred years old, asked one day to see his friends. He
was told that his son had had them all put to death: his
grief at the cruelty of Cambyses caused his death in a few
days.
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.
[Illustration: 128.jpg CYRUS THE ACHAEMENIAN]
Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Dieulafoy.
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.
[Illustration: 129.jpg THE TOMB OP CYRUS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the heliogravure of Dieulafoy.
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.***
* The Persian form of the name rendered Kambyses by the
Greeks was Kâbuzîyâ or Kambuzîya. Herodotus calls him the
son of Kassandanê, and the tradition which he has preserved
is certainly authentic. Ctesias has erroneously stated that
his mother was Amytis, the daughter of Astyages, and Dinon,
also erroneously, the Egyptian women Nitêtis; Diodorus
Siculus and Strabo make him the son of Meroê.
** The original form was Bardiya or Barzîya, "the laudable,"
and the first Greek transcript known, in Æschylus, is
Mardos, or, in the scholiasts on the passage, Merdias, which
has been corrupted into Marphios by Hellanikos and into
Merges by Pompeius Trogus. The form Smerdis in Herodotus,
and in the historians who follow him, is the result of a
mistaken assimilation of the Persian name with the purely
Greek one of Smerdis or Smerdies.
*** Herodotus says that Atossa was the daughter of
Kassandanê, and the position which she held during three
reigns shows that she must have been so; Justi, however,
calls her the daughter of Amytis. A second daughter is
mentioned by Herodotus, the one whom Cambyses killed in
Egypt by a kick; he gives her no name, but she is probably
the same as the Roxana who according to Ctesias bore a
headless child. The youngest, Artystonê, was the favourite
wife of Darius. Josephus speaks of a fourth daughter of
Cyrus called Meroê, but without saying who was the mother of
this princess.
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.**
* Herodotus speaks of peoples subdued by Cambyses in Asia,
and this allusion can only refer to a revolt occurring after
the death of Cyrus, before the Egyptian expedition; these
troubles are explicitly recorded in Xenophon.
** The inscription of Behistun says distinctly that Cambyses
had his brother Bardîya put to death before the Egyptian
expedition; on the other hand, Herodotus makes the murder
occur during the Egyptian expedition and Ctesias after this
expedition. Ctesias' version of the affair adds that
Cambyses, the better to dissimulate his crime, ordered the
murderer Sphendadates to pass himself off as Tanyoxarkes, as
there was a great resemblance between the two: Sphendadates
--the historian goes on to say--was exiled to Bactriana,
and it was not until five years afterwards that the mother
of the two princes heard of the murder and of the
substitution. These additions to the story are subsequent
developments suggested by the traditional account of the
Pseudo-Smerdis. In recent times several authorities have
expressed the opinion that all that is told us of the murder
of Smerdis and about the Pseudo-Smerdis is merely a legend,
invented by Darius or those about him in order to justify
his usurpation in the eyes of the people: the Pseudo-Smerdis
would be Smerdis himself, who revolted against Cambyses, and
was then, after he had reigned a few months, assassinated by
Darius. Winckler acknowledges "that certainty is impossible
in such a case;" and, in reality, all ancient tradition is
against his hypothesis, and it is best to accept Herodotus'
account, with all its contradictions, until contemporaneous
documents enable us to decide what to accept and what to
reject in it.
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.*
* Herodotus laid the blame for the breach of the treaty to
the King of Egypt, and attributed to his fear of the
constant good fortune of Polycrates. The lattor's accession
to power is fixed at about the year 540 by some, by others
in the year 537, or in the year 533-2; his negotiations with
Amasis must be placed somewhere during the last fifteen
years of the Pharaoh.
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.*
* Herodotus records two opposing traditions: one that the
Samians joined in the Egyptian campaign, the other that they
went only as far as the neighbourhood of Karpathos.
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.
* The Ænysos of Herodotus is now Khân Yunes.
** In 1799, Napoleon's army left Kattiyeh on the 18th of
Pluviôse, and was at Gaza on the 7th of Ventose, after
remaining from the 21st to the 30th of Pluviôse before El-
Arîsh besieging that place.
*** This seems to follow from the tradition, according to
which Cambyses left his treasures at Gaza during the
Egyptian campaign, and the town was thence called _Gaza_,
"the treasury." The etymology is false, but the fact that
suggested it is probably correct, considering the situation
of Gaza and the part it must necessarily play in an invasion
of Egypt.
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.
* Herodotus calls this individual Patizeithes, and Dionysius
of Miletus, who lived a little before Herodotus, gives
Panzythes as a variant of this name: the variant passed into
the Syncellus as Pauzythes, but the original form
Patikhshâyathiya is a title signifying _viceroy, regent, or
minister_, answering to the modern Persian _Padishah_:
Herodotus, or the author he quotes, has taken the name of
the office for that of the individual. On the other hand,
Pompeius Trogus, who drew his information from good sources,
mentions, side by side with Comètes or Gaumata, his brother
Oropastes, whose name Ahura-upashta is quite correct, and
may mean, _Him whom Ahura helps_. It is generally admitted
that Pompeius Trogus, or rather Justin, has inverted the
parts they played, and that his Comètes is the Pseudo-
Smerdis, and not, as he says, Oropastes; it was, then, the
latter who was the usurper's brother, and it is his name of
Oropastes which should be substituted for that of the
Patizeithes of Herodotus.
[Illustration: 138.jpg Psammetichus III. ]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the
Louvre.
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.*
* Psammetichus III. has left us very few monuments, which is
accounted for by the extreme shortness of his reign. For the
same reason doubtless several writers of classical times
have ignored his existence, and have made the conquest of
Egypt take place under Amasis. Ctesias calls the Pharaoh
Amyrtseus, and gives the same name to those who rebelled
against the Persians in his own time, and he had an account
of the history of the conquest entirely different from that
of Herodotus.
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.*
* The inhabitants of the Said have, up to our own time,
always considered rain in the valley as an ill-omened event.
They used to say in the beginning of the nineteenth century,
when speaking of Napoleon's expedition, "We knew that
misfortune threatened us, because it rained at Luxor shortly
before the French came." Wilkinson assures us that rain is
not so rare at Thebes as Herodotus thought: he speaks of
five or six showers a year, and of a great storm on an
average every ten years. But even he admits that it is
confined to the mountain district, and does not reach the
plain: I never heard of rain at Luxor during the six winters
that I spent in Upper Egypt.
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.
* According to Herodotus, eighty years later the battle-
field used to be shown covered with bones, and it was said
that the Egyptians could be distinguished from the Persians
by the relative hardness of their skulls.
** Polysenus hands down a story that Cambyses, in order to
paralyse the resistance of the besieged, caused cats, dogs,
ibises, and other sacred animals to march at the head of his
attacking columns: the Egyptians would not venture to use
their arms for fear of wounding or killing some of their
gods.
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).*
* The question as to the year in which Egypt was subdued by
Cambyses has long divided historians: I still agree with
those who place the conquest in the spring of 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.*
* Herodotus gives also a second account, which declares that
Cambyses thus treated the body, not of Amasis, but of some
unknown person whom he took for Amasis. The truth of the
story is generally contested, for the deed would have been,
as Herodotus himself remarks, contrary to Persian ideas
about the sanctity of fire. I think that by his cruel
treatment of the mummy, Cambyses wished to satisfy the
hatred of the natives against the Greek-loving king, and so
render himself more acceptable to them. The destruction of
the mummy entailing that of the soul, his act gave the
Saitic population a satisfaction similar to that experienced
by the refined cruelty of those who, a few centuries ago,
killed their enemies when in a state of deadly sin, and so
ensure not only their dismissal from this world, but also
their condemnation in the next.
[Illustration: 145.jpg THE NAOPHOROS STATUETTE OF THE VATICAN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph: the head and
hands are a restoration of the eighteenth century, in the
most inappropriate Græco-Roman style.
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.
* The northern boundary of Ethiopia is given us
approximately by the lists of temples in the inscriptions of
Harsiatef and of Nastosenen: Pnubsu is mentioned several
times as receiving gifts from the king, which carries the
permanent dominion of the Ethiopian kings as far as the
second cataract.
** Now Old Dongola.
*** Berua is the Meroê of Strabo, Astaboras the modern Ed-
Dameîr, and Alo the kingdom of Aloah of the mediæval Arab
geographers.
[Illustration: 147.jpg ETHIOPIAN GKOUP]
Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Berghoff.
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.
[Illustration: 148.jpg Encampment de Bacharis]
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.**
* The eulogy bestowed on him by Herodotus shows the esteem
in which he was held even in the Saite period; later on he
seems to have become two persons, and so to have given birth
to the good Ethiopian king Aktisanes.
** Pausanias treats it as a traveller's tale. Heeren thought
that he saw in Herodotus' account a reference to intercourse
by signs, so frequent in Africa. The "Table of the Sun"
would thus have been a kind of market, whither the natives
would come for their provisions, using exchange to procure
them. I am inclined rather to believe the story to be a
recollection, partly of the actual custom of placing meats,
which the first comer might take, on the tombs in the
necropolis, partly of the mythical "Meadow of Offerings"
mentioned in the funerary texts, to which the souls of the
dead and the gods alike had access. This divine region would
have transferred to our earth by some folk-tale, like the
judgment of the dead, the entrance into the solar bark, and
other similar beliefs.
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.***
* Herodotus' text speaks of an army only, but the accounts
of the wars between Ethiopia and Egypt show that the army
was always accompanied by the necessary fleet.
** It is usually thought that the expedition marched by the
side of the Nile as far as Napata; to support this theory
the name of a place mentioned in Pliny is quoted, Cambusis
at the third cataract, which is supposed to contain the name
of the conqueror. This town, which is sometimes mentioned by
the classical geographers, is called Kambiusit in the
Ethiopie texts, and the form of the name makes its
connection with the history of Cambyses easy. I think it
follows, from the text of Herodotus, that the Persians left
the grassy land, the river-valley, at a given moment, to
enter the sand, i.e. the desert. Now this is done to-day at
two points--near Korosko to rejoin the Nile at Abu-Hammed,
and near Wady-Halfah to avoid the part of the Nile called
the "Stony belly," Batn el-Hagar. The Korosko route, being
the only one suitable for the transit of a body of troops,
and also the only route known to Herodotus, seems, I think,
likely to be the one which was followed in the present
instance; at all events, it fits in best with the fact that
Cambyses was obliged to retrace his steps hurriedly, when he
had accomplished hardly a fifth of the journey.
*** Many modern historians are inclined to assume that
Cambyses' expedition was completely successful, and that its
result was the overthrow of the ancient kingdom of Nepata
and the foundation of that of Meroê. Cambyses would have
given the new town which he built there the name of his
sister Meroê. The traditions concerning Cambusis and Meroê
belong to the Alexandrine era, and rest only on chance
similarities of sound. With regard to the Ethiopian province
of the Persian empire and to the Ethiopian neighbours of
Egypt whom Cambyses subdued, the latter are not necessarily
Ethiopians of Napata. Herodotus himself says that the
Ethiopians dwelt in the country above Elephantine, and that
half of what he calls the island of Takhompsô was inhabited
by Ethiopians: the subjugated Ethiopians and their country
plainly correspond with the Dodekaschênos of the Græco-Roman
era.
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.*
* Recent historians admit neither the reality of the illness
of Cambyses nor the madness resulting from it, but consider
them Egyptian fables, invented out of spite towards the king
who had conquered and persecuted them.
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.
* Later historians improved upon the account of Herodotus,
and it is said in the _De Iside_, that Cambyses killed the
Apis and threw him to the dogs. Here there is probably a
confusion between the conduct of Cambyses and that
attributed to the eunuch Bagoas nearly two centuries later,
at the time of the second conquest of Egypt by Ochus.
** Mariette discovered in the Serapseum and sent to the
Louvre fragments of the epitaph of an Apis buried in Epiphi
in the sixth year of Cambyses, which had therefore died a
few months previously. This fact contradicts the inference
from the epitaph of the Apis that died in the fourth year of
Darius, which would have been born in the fifth year of
Cambyses, if we allow that there could not have been two
Apises in Egypt at once. This was, indeed, the usual rule,
but a comparison of the two dates shows that here it was not
followed, and it is therefore simplest, until we have
further evidence, to conclude that at all events in cases of
violence, such as sacrilegious murder, there could have been
two Apises at once, one discharging his functions, and the
other unknown, living still in the midst of the herds.
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.*
* The whole of this story of Croesus is entirely fabulous.
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.
* Herodotus calls the place where Cambyses died Agbatana
(Ecbatana). Pliny says that the town of Carmel was thus
named at first; but the place here mentioned cannot well
have been in that direction. It has been identified with
Batansea in the country between the Orontes and the
Euphrates, but the most likely theory is the one suggested
by a passage in Stephen of Byzantium, that the place in
question is the large Syrian city of Hamath. Josephus makes
him die at Damascus.
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.**
* Greek tradition is unanimous on this point, but the
inscription of Behistun does not mention it.
** The inscription of Behistun informs us that the usurper's
name was Gaumâta. Pompeius Trogus alone, probably following
some author who made use of Charon of Lampsacus, handed down
this name in the form Comètes or Gometes, which his
abbreviator Justin carelessly applied to the second brother.
Ctesias gives the Mage the name Sphendadates, which answers
to the Old Persian Spentôdâta, "he who is given by the Holy
One," i.e. by Ahura-mazdâ. The supporters of the Mage gave
him this name, as an heroic champion of the Mazdoan faith
who had destroyed such sanctuaries as were illegal, and
identified him with Spentôdâta, son of Wistâspa.
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.**
* It has been pointed out, for the purpose of harmonising
the testimony of Herodotus with that of the inscription of
Behistun, that although the latter speaks of the death of
Cambyses by his own hand, it does not say whether that death
was voluntary or accidental.
** The story of a person whose death has been predicted to
take place in some well-known place, and who has died in
some obscure spot of the same name, occurs several times in
different historians, e.g. in the account of the Emperor
Julian, and in that of Henry III. of England, who had been
told that he would die in Jerusalem, and whose death took
place in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. Ctesias has
preserved an altogether different tradition--that Cambyses
on his return from Babylon wounded himself while carving a
piece of wood for his amusement, and died eleven days after
the accident.
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.
* Most of the ancient writers shared this opinion, and have
been followed therein by many modern writers. Rawlinson was
the first to show that Gaumâta's movement was not Median,
and that he did not in the least alter the position of the
Persians in the empire: but he allows the Magian usurpation
to have been the prelude to a sort of religious reform.
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 passage in the Behistun inscription, in which Darius
sets forth his own genealogy, has received various
interpretations. That of Oppert seems still the most
probable, that the text indicates two parallel branches of
Achæmenides, which nourished side by side until Cambyses
died and Darius ascended the throne. Such a genealogy,
however, appears to be fictitious, invented solely for the
purpose of connecting Darius with the ancient royal line,
with which in reality he could claim no kinship, or only a
very distant connection.
[Illustration: 159.jpg DARIUS, SON OF HYSTASPES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from M. Dieulafoy.
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 history of the early part of the reign of Darius is
recorded in the great inscription which the king caused to
be cut in three languages on the rocks of Behistun. The
order of the events recorded in it is not always easy to
determine. I have finally adopted, with some modifications,
the arrangement of Marquart, which seems to me to give the
clearest "conspectus" of these confused wars.
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.
* In the _Behistun Inscription_, it is stated that
insurrections broke out in all these countries while Darius
was at Babylon; that is to say, while he was occupied in
besieging that city, as is evident from the order of the
events narrated.
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.
* The latest known document of the pseudo-Smerdis is dated
the 1st of Tisri at Babylon, and the first of Nebuchadrezzar
III. are dated the 17th and 20th of the same month. The
revolt of Babylon, then, must be placed between the 1st and
17th of Tisri; that is, either at the end of September or
the beginning of October, 521 B.C.
** The revolt cannot have lasted much more than six weeks,
for on the 26th of Athriyâdiya following, that is to say, at
the beginning of December, Darius had already joined issue
with the Babylonians on the banks of the Tigris.
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 account given by Darius seems to imply that no
interval of time elapsed between the second defeat of
Nebuchadrezzar III. and the taking of Babylon, so that
several modern historians have rejected the idea of an
obstinate resistance. Herodotus, however, speaks of the long
siege the city sustained, and the discovery of tablets dated
in the first and even the second year of Nebuchadrezzar III.
shows that the siege was prolonged into the second year of
this usurper, at least until the month of Nisân (March-
April), 520 B.C. No evidence can be drawn from the tablets
dated in the reign of Darius, for the oldest yet discovered,
which is dated in the month Sebat (Jan.-Feb.), in the year
of his accession, and consequently prior to the second year
of Nebuchadrezzar, comes from Abu-habba. On the other hand,
the statement that all the revolts broke out while Darius
was "at Babylon" does not allow of the supposition that all
the events recorded before his departure for Media could
have been compressed into the space of three or four months.
It seems, therefore, more probable that the siege lasted
till 519 B.C., as it can well have done if credit be given
to the mention of "twenty-one months at least" by Herodotus;
perhaps the siege was brought to an end in the May of that
year, as calculated by Marquart.
[Illustration: 166.jpg DARIUS PIERCING A REBEL WITH HIS LANCE BEFORE A
GROUP OF FOUR PRISONERS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the impression of an intaglio
at St. Petersburg.
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."*
* The context of Herodotus indicates that the events
narrated took place shortly after the accession of Darius.
Further on Herodotus mentions, as contemporaneous with the
siege of Babylon, events which took place after the death of
Orcetes; it is probable, therefore, that the scene described
by Herodotus occurred in 520 B.C. at the latest.
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.**
* Ctesias places the siege of Babylon forty years later,
under Xerxes I.; according to him, it was Megabysus, son of
Zopyrus, who betrayed the city. Polysenus asserts that the
stratagem of Zopyrus was adopted in imitation of a Sakian
who dwelt beyond the Oxus. Latin writers transferred the
story to Italy, and localised it at Gabii: but the Roman
hero, Sextus Tarquinius, did not carry his devotion to the
point of mutilating himself.
** _Beldstun Inscr_.: "Then I sent the army of the Persians
and Medes which was with me. One named Artavardiya, a
Persian, my servant, I made their general; the rest of the
Persian army went to Media with me."
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.*
* Mention of some new wars is made towards the end of the
inscription, but the text here is so mutilated that the
sense can no longer be easily determined.
[Illustration: 174.jpg REBELS BROUGHT TO DARIUS BY AHURA-MAZD] This is
the scene depicted on the rock of Behistun.
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.
[Illustration: 175.jpg THE ROCKS OF BEHISTUN]
Drawn by Boudier, from Flandin and Coste.
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.**
* This is the town which later on under the Lagidæ received
the name of Berenice, and which is now called Benghazi.
** It is doubtless to these acts of personal authority on
the part of Aryandes that Darius alludes in the Behistun
Inscription, when he says, "While I was before Babylon, the
following provinces revolted against me--Persia and Susiana,
the Medes and Assyria, and the Egyptians..."
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.
* It is not certain that Aryandes did actually strike any
coinage in his own name, and perhaps Herodotus has only
repeated a popular story current in Egypt in his days. If
this money actually existed, its coinage was but a pretext
employed by Darius; the true motive of the condemnation of
Aryandes was certainly an armed revolt, or a serious
presumption of revolutionary intentions.
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.
* Herodotus cites among the commanders of the Persian fleet
three Carian dynasts, Histiseus, Pigres, and Damasithymus,
besides the famous Artemisia of Halicarnassus.
** In Herodotus where a dynast named Kyberniskos, son of
Sika, is mentioned among the commanders of the fleet. The
received text of Herodotus needs correction, and we should
read Kybernis, son of Kossika, some of whose coins are still
in existence.
*** The Cilician contingent in the fleet of Xerxes at
Salamis was commanded by Syennesis himself, and Cilicia
never had a satrap until the time of Cyrus the younger.
[Illustration: 181.jpg MAP OF THE ARCHAEMENIAN STRAPIES]
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.***
* Three kings, viz. the kings of Sidon, Tyre, and Arvad,
bore commands in the Phoenician fleet of Xerxes.
** Herodotus states that this dividing of the empire into
provinces took place immediately after the accession of
Darius, and this mistake is explained by the fact that he
ignores almost entirely the civil wars which filled the
earliest years of the reign. His enumeration of twenty
satrapies comprises India and omits Thrace, which enables us
to refer the drawing up of his list to a period before the
Scythian campaign, viz. before 514 B.C. Herodotus very
probably copied it from the work of Hecatseus of Miletus,
and consequently it reproduces a document contemporary with
Darius himself.
*** The number twenty is, as has been remarked, that given
by Herodotus, and probably by Hecatæus of Miletus. The great
Behistun Inscription enumerates twenty-three countries, and
the Inscription of Nakhsh-î-Rustem gives twenty-eight.
Persia proper was not included among these, for she had been the cradle
of the reigning house, and the instrument of conquest.*
* In the great Behistun Inscription Darius mentions Persia
first of all the countries in his possession. In the
Inscription E of Persepolis he omits it entirely, and in
that of Nakhsh-î-Rustem he does not include it in the
general catalogue.
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.
* Herodotus mentions a satrap chosen from among the Lydians,
Pactyas, and another satrap of Greek extraction, Xenagoras
of Halicarnassus.
** The most characteristic instance is that of Hystaspes,
who was satrap of Persia under Oambyses, and of Parthia and
Hyrcania under his own son. One of the brothers of Darius,
Artaphernes, was satrap of Sardes, and three of the king's
sons, Achemenes, Ariabignes, and Masistes, were satraps of
Egypt, Ionia, and Bactriana respectively.
*** To understand how well established was the custom of
bestowing satrapies on those only who were allied by
marriage to the royal house, it is sufficient to recall the
fact that, later on, under Xerxes I., when Pausanias, King
of Sparta, had thoughts of obtaining the position of satrap
in Greece, he asked for the hand of an Achæmenian princess.
**** We know, for example, that Orcotes, satrap of Sardes
under Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius, had a body-guard of 1000
Persians.
^ Thus, Artaphernes, satrap of Sardes, had a cadastral
survey made of the territory of the Ionians, and by the
results of this survey he regulated the imposition of taxes,
"which from that time up to the present day are exacted
according to his ordinance."
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 rôle played by the secretary is clearly indicated by
the history of Orotes, satrap of Sardes.
** While Darius appoints his brother Artaphernes satrap of
Lydia, he entrusts the command of the army and the fleet to
Otanes, son of Sisamnes. Similarly several generals are met
with at the side of Artaphernes in the Ionic revolt.
*** Xenophon compares their speed in travelling to the
flight of birds. A good example of the use of the camel for
the postal service is cited by Strabo, on the occasion of
the death of Philotas and the execution of Parmenion under
Alexander.
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.
* Ctesias at the end of his work describes the route leading
from Ephesus to Bactriana and India. It is probable that the
route described by Isidorus of Charax in his _Stathma
Parthica_ already existed in the times of the Achæmenids,
and was traversed by their postal couriers.
** Mention of the _Eye of the king_ occurs in Herodotus, in
Æschylus, and in Plutarch, of the _Ear_ in Xenophon; cf.
the Persian proverb, according to which "The king has many
eyes and many ears."
*** Xenophon affirms that these inspections were still held
in his day.
[Illustration: 186.jpg Street Vender of Curios] After the Painting by
Gerome.
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|.
[Illustration: 188.jpg daric of darius, SON OF HYSTASPES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the Bibliothèque
Nationale.
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.*
* Arrian relates that Alexander found 50,000 talents' weight
of silver in the treasury at Susa; other hoards quite as
rich were contained in the palaces of Persepolis and
Pasargadæ.
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.*
* India is not referred to in the Behistun Inscription, but
is mentioned in one of the Inscriptions of Persepolis, and
in that of Nakhsh-î-Rustem. The campaign in which it was
subjugated must be placed about 512 B.C.
[Illustration: 192.jpg FUNERAL OFFERINGS.]
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.
* Scylax published an account of his voyage which was still
extant in the time of Aristotle. Hugo Berger questions the
authenticity of the circumnavigation of Arabia, as that of
the circumnavigation of Africa under Necho.
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.**
* The date of the death of Polycrates must be placed between
that of the conquest of Egypt and that of the revolt of
Gaumâta, either in 524 or 523 B.C.
** The reinstatement of Syloson may be placed in 516 B.C.,
about the time when Darius was completing the reorganisation
of the empire and preparing to attack Greece.
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.
CHAPTER II--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._
[Illustration: 199.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
[Page 200 and 201 need to be rescanned]
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._
[Drawn by Boudier, from one of the sarcophagi of Sidon, now
in the Museum of St. Irene. The vignette, which is by
Faucher-Gudin, represents the sitting cyno-cephalus of
Nectanebo I., now in the Egyptian Museum at the Vatican.]
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.***
* The motives imputed to Darius by the ancients for making
this expedition are the desire of avenging the disasters of
the Scythian invasion, or of performing an exploit which
should render him as famous as his predecessors in the eyes
of posterity.
** The reconnaissance of Ariaramnes is intimately connected
with the expedition itself in Ctesias, and could have
preceded it by a few months only. If we take for the date of
the latter the year 514-513, the date given in the Table of
the Capitol, that of the former cannot be earlier than 515.
Ariaramnes was not satrap of Cappadocia, for Cappadocia
belonged then to the satrapy of Daskylion.
*** The supplementary paragraphs of the Inscription of
Behistun speak of an expedition of Darius against the Sako,
which is supposed to have had as its objective either the
sea of Aral or the Tigris. Would it not be possible to
suppose that the sea mentioned is the Pontus Euxinus, and to
take the mutilated text of Behistun to be a description
either of the campaign beyond the Danube, or rather of the
preliminary _reconnaissance_ of Ariaramnes a year before the
expedition itself?
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.*
* Ctesias limits the campaign beyond the Danube to a fifteen
days' march; and Strabo places the crossing of the Danube
near the mouth of that river, at the island of Peukê, and
makes the expedition stop at the Dniester. Neither the line
of direction of the Persian advance nor their farthest point
reached is known. The eight forts which they were said to
have built, the ruins of which were shown on the banks of
the Oaros as late as the time of Herodotus, were probably
tumuli similar to those now met with on the Russian steppes,
the origin of which is ascribed by the people to persons
celebrated in their history or traditions.
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.**
* Herodotus fixes the date at the time when the Athenians
first ostracised the principal partisans of the
Pisistratids, and amongst others Hipparchus, son of Charmes,
i.e. in 507-6.
** Herodotus said that Darius sent spies with the physician
Democedes of Crotona shortly before the Scythian expedition.
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).**
* Herodotus attributes an unlikely act of treachery to
Megabates the Persian, who was commanding the Iranian
contingent attached to the Ionian troops.
** The Dorian cities took no part in the revolt--at least
Herodotus never mentions them among the confederates. The
three Ionian cities of Ephesus, Kolophon, and Lebedos also
seem to have remained aloof, and we know that the Ephesians
were not present at the battle of Ladê.
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.**
* Aristagoras had with him a map of the world engraved on a
bronze plate, which was probably a copy of the chart drawn
up by Hecatseus of Miletus.
** Herodotus says that the Ionians on their return suffered
a serious reverse near Ephesus. The author seems to have
adopted some Lydian or Persian tradition hostile to the
Ionians, for Charon of Lampsacus, who lived nearer to the
time of these events, mentions only the retreat, and hints
at no defeat. If the expedition had really ended in this
disaster, it is not at all likely that the revolt would have
attained the dimensions it did immediately afterwards.
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.*
* The movement in Cyprus must have begun in the winter of
499-498, for Onesilus was already in the field when Darius
heard of the burning of Sardes; and as it lasted for a year,
it must have been quelled in the winter of 498-497.
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.
* In Herodotus the town is not named, but a passage in
Thucydides shows that it was Enneahodoi, afterwards
Amphipolis, and that the death of Aristagoras took place
thirty-two years before the Athenian defeat at Drabeskos,
i.e. probably in 496.
[Illustration: 209.jpg A CYPRIOT CHARIOT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the terra-cotta group in the
New York Museum.
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.*
* The year 497, i.e. three years before the capture of the
town, appears to be an unlikely date for the battle of Ladê:
Miletus must have fallen in the autumn or winter months
following the defeat.
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!"*
* The legend is clearly older than the time of Herodotus,
for in the _Persæ_ of Eschylus the shade of Darius, when
coming out of his tomb, cries to the old men, "Remember
Athens and Greece!"
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.
* Herodotus states that _all_ the island-dwelling Greeks
submitted to the great king. But Herodotus himself says
later on that the people of Naxos, at all events, proved
refractory.
[Illustration: 212a.jpg ALEXANDER I. OF MACEDON]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_.
[Illustration: 212b.jpg A PHOENICIAN GALLEY]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of Byblos in the
_Cabinet des Médailles_.
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.
[Illustration: 214.jpg MAP OF MARATHON]
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.
[Illustration: 215.jpg THE BATTLE-FIELD OF MARATHON]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Amédée Hauvette.
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.
* The Nubian tribes, who are called Ethiopians by Herodotus
and the cuneiform inscriptions, paid no regular tribute, but
were obliged to send annually two chænikes of pure gold, two
hundred pieces of ebony, twenty elephants' tusks, and five
young slaves, all under the name of a free gift.
** Herodotus states that in his own time the Persians, like
the Saite Pharaohs, still had garrisons at Daphnæ and at
Elephantine.
*** Herodotus says that the produce sank to the value of a
third of a talent a day during the six other months.
**** Diodorus Siculus says that the revenue produced by the
fisheries in the Lake had been handed over by Moris to his
wife for the expenses of her toilet.
[Illustration: 219.jpg DARIUS ON THE STELE OF THE ISTHMUS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the _Description de l'Egypte_.
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.*
* Several of the inscriptions engraved on the rocks of the
Wady Hammamât show to what an extent the route was
frequented at certain times during the reign. They bear the
dates of the 26th, 27th, 28th, 30th, and 36th years of
Darius. The country of Saba (Sheba) is mentioned on one of
the stelæ of the isthmus.
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.
[Illustration: 220.jpg WALLS OF THE FORTRESS OF DITSH-EL-QALÂA]
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving by Cailliaud. Dush is
the Kushît of the hieroglyphs, the Kysis of Græco-Roman
times, and is situated on the southern border of the Great
Oasis, about the latitude of Assuân.
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.*
* Herodotus does not give the name of the leader of the
rebellion, but says that it took place in the fourth year
after Marathon. A demotic contract in the Turin Museum bears
the date of the third month of the second season of the
thirty-fifth year of Darius I.: Khabbîsha's rebellion
therefore broke out between June and September, 486. Stern
makes this prince to have been of Libyan origin. From the
form of his name, Révillout has supposed that he was an
Arab, and Birch was inclined to think that he was a Persian
satrap who made a similar attempt to that of Aryandes. But
nothing is really known of him or of his family previous to
his insurrection against Darius.
[Illustration: 221.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OF DARIUS AT HABÎT]
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving by Cailliaud.
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.
[Illustration: 224.jpg Xerxes]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a daric in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_.
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).*
* The only detailed information on this revolt furnished by
the Egyptian monuments is given in the Stele of Ptolemy, the
son of Lagos. An Apis, whose sarcophagus still exists, was
buried by Khabbîsha in the Serapoum in the second year of
his reign, which proves that he was in possession of
Memphis: the White Wall had perhaps been deprived of its
garrison in order to reinforce the army prepared against
Greece, and it was possibly thus that it fell into the hands
of Khabbîsha.
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.
* This Shamasherib is mentioned only on a contract dated
from his accession, which is preserved in the British
Museum.
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.*
* Diodorus, who probably follows Ephorus, is the only writer
who informs us of the place where the fleet was assembled.
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.*
* Herodotus records the epigram to the effect that 3,000,000
men attacked Thermopylæ. Ctesias and Ephorus adopt the same
figures; Iso-crates is contented with 700,000 combatants and
5,000,000 men in all.
[Illustration: 227.jpg A TRIREME IN MOTION]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin: the left portion is a free
reproduction of a photograph of the bas-relief of the
Acropolis; the right, of the picture of Pozzo. The two
partly overlap one another, and give both together the idea
of a trireme going at full speed.
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.*
* Æschylus gives the only contemporaneous account of the
battle, and the one which Herodotus and all the historians
after him have paraphrased, while they also added to it oral
traditions.
[Illustration: 233.jpg PART OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF SALAMIS]
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.
[Illustration: 238.jpg MAP]
[Illustration: 239.jpg THE BATTLE-FIELD OF PLATAEA]
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.
* Artaxerxes is the form commonly adopted by the Greek
historians and by the moderns who follow them, but Ctcsias
and others after him prefer Artoxerxes. The original form of
the Persian name was Artakhshathra.
[Illustration: 247.jpg Artaxerxes]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a daric in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_.
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.*
* Of the two principal accounts, the first is as old as
Ctesias, who was followed in general outline by Ephorus, of
whose account Diodorus Siculus preserves a summary
compilation; the second was circulated by Dinon, and has
come down to us through the abbreviation of Pompeius Trogus.
The remains of a third account are met with in Aristotle.
Ælian knew a fourth in which the murder was ascribed to the
son of Xerxes himself.
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.
* The date 462 is approximate, and is inferred from the fact
that the war in Bactriana is mentioned in Ctesias between
the war against the sons of Artabanus which must have
occupied a part of 463, and the Egyptian rebellion which
broke out about 462, as Diodorus Siculus points out,
doubtless following Ephorus.
** The name of the father of Inaros is given us by the
contemporary testimony of Thucydides.
*** Achomenes is the form given by Herodotus and by Diodorus
Siculus, who make him the son of Darius I., appointed
governor of Egypt after the repression of the revolt of
Khabbîsha. Ctesias calls him Achæmenides, and says that he
was the son of Xerxes.
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.*
* Diodorus Siculus says in so many words that the Athenians
took part in the battle of Papremis; Thucydides and
Herodotus do not speak of their being there, and several
modern historians take this silence as a proof that their
squadron arrived after the battle had been fought.
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 date of 459-8 for the arrival of the Athenians is
concluded from the passage of Thucydides, who gives an
account of the end of the war after the cruise of Tolmides
in 455, in the sixth year of its course.
** Megabyzos opened these negotiations, and his presence at
Sparta during the winter of 457-6 is noticed.
*** Ctesias here introduces the Persian admiral Horiscos,
but Diodorus places Artabazos and Megabyzos side by side, as
was the case later on in the war in Cyprus, one at the head
of the fleet, the other of the army; it is probable that the
historian from whom Diodorus copied, viz. Ephorus,
recognised the same division of leadership in the Egyptian
campaign.
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 accounts of these events given by Ctesias and
Thucydides are complementary, and, in spite of their
brevity, together form a whole which must be sufficiently
near the truth. That of Ephorus, preserved in Diodorus, is
derived from an author who shows partiality to the
Athenians, and who passes by everything not to their honour,
while he seeks to throw the blame for the final disaster on
the cowardice of the Egyptians. The summary of Aristodemus
comes directly from that of Thucydides.
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.*
* These events are known to us only through Ctesias. Their
date is uncertain, but there is no doubt that they occurred
after Cimon's campaign in Cyprus and the conclusion of the
peace of Callias.
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.
[Illustration: 258.jpg VIEW OF THE ACHAEMENIAN RUINS OF ISTAKHR]
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving of Flandin and Coste.
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.*
* The tomb of Darius alone bears an inscription. Darius III.
was also buried there by command of Alexander.
[Illustration: 260.jpg THE TOMB OF DARIUS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the heliogravure by Marcel
Dieulafoy.
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.
[Illustration: 261.jpg THE HILL OF THE ROYAL ACHAEMENIAN TOMBS AT
NAKUSH-I-RUSTEM]
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving of Flandin and Coste.
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.
[Illustration: 262.jpg ONE OF THE CAPITALS FROM SUSA]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken in the Louvre by
Faucher-Gudin.
[Illustration: 262b.jpg FREIZE OF ARCHERS AT SUZA]
[Illustration: 263.jpg GENERAL RUINS OF PERSIPOLIS]
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.
[Illustration: 267.jpg THE PROPYLAEA OF XERXES I. AT PERSEPOLIS]
Drawn by Boudier, from the heliogravure of Marcel Dieulafoy.
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.
[Illustration: 268.jpg BAS-RELIEF OF THE STAIRCASE LEADING TO THE
APADANA OF XERXES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Marcel Dieulafoy.
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.
[Illustration: 269.jpg THE KING ON HIS THRONE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Plandin and Coste.
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.
[Illustration: 270.jpg A VIEW OF THE APADANA OF SUSA, RESTORED]
Drawn by Boudier, from the restoration by Marcel Dieulafoy.
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.*
* Cambyses had had three wives, including his two sisters
Atossa and Roxana. Darius had four wives--two daughters of
Cyrus, Atossa and Artystônê, Parmys daughter of Srnerdis,
and a daughter of Otanes.
The concubines, on the other hand, were chosen from all classes of
society, and were counted by hundreds.
[Illustration: 273.jpg PROCESSIONAL DISPLAY OF TRIBUTE BROUGHT TO THE
KING OF PERSIA]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from plates in Flandin and Coste.
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.*
* Thus Atossa induced Darius to designate Xerxes as his
heir-apparent.
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.
[Illustration: 276.jpg Darius II.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the coins in the
_Cabinet des Médailles._
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.
* Cyrus was certainly not more than seventeen years old in
407 B.C., evening admitting that he was born immediately
after his father's accession in 424-3 B.C.
[Illustration: 279.jpg CYRUS THE YOUNGER]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the coins in the
_Cabinet des Médailles_.
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.
[Illustration: 280.jpg ARTAXERXES MNEMON]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des
Médailles. This coin, which was struck at Mallos, in
Cilicia, bears as a counter-mark the figure of a bull and
the name of the city of Issus.
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.*
* The revolt mentioned by Ctesias has nothing to do with the
insurrection of the satrap of Egypt which is here referred
to, the date of which is furnished by the Syncellus.
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.*
* This is, at any rate, the idea given of him by Egyptian
tradition in the time of the Ptolemies, as results from a
passage in the _Demotic Rhapsody_, where his reign is
mentioned.
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.**
* The length of the reign of Nephorites I. is fixed at six
years by the lists of Manetho; the last-known date of his
reign is that of his fourth year, on a mummy-bandage
preserved in the Louvre.
** This war is alluded to by several ancient authors in
passages which have been brought together and explained by
Judeah; but unfortunately the detailed history of the
events is not known.
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.
[Illustration: 287.jpg HAKORIS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
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.*
* Hakoris reigned thirteen years, from 393 to 381 B.C. The
reigns of the three succeeding kings occupied only two years
and four months between them, from the end of 381 to the
beginning of 378. Muthes or Mutis, who is not mentioned in
all the lists of Manetho, seems to have his counterpart in
the _Demotic Rhapsody_. Wiedemann has inverted the order
usually adopted, and proposed the following series:
Nephorites I., Muthes, Psamuthis, Hakoris, Nephorites II.
The discovery at Karnak of a small temple where Psamuthis
mentions Hakoris as his predecessor shows that on this point
at least Manetho was well informed.
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.*
* Both are mentioned by Strabo; the exact sites of these two
places are not yet identified. Diodorus Siculus, describing
the defensive preparations of Egypt, does not state
expressly that they were the work of Chabrias, but this fact
seems to result from a general consideration of the context.
[Illustration: 291.jpg PHARNABAZUS]
Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_.
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.
* As Kenrick justly observes, "the Persian and Athenian
generals committed the same mistake which led to the defeat
of Saint Louis and the capture of his army in 1249 A.D., and
which Bonaparte avoided in his campaign of 1798." Anyhow, it
seems that the fault must be laid on Pharnabazus alone, and
that Iphicrates was entirely blameless.
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.
[Illustration: 293.jpg ARTAXERXES II.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a silver stater in the _Cabinet
des Médailles_.
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 lists of Manetho assign ten or eighteen years to his
reign. A sarcophagus in Vienna bears the date of his
fifteenth year, and the great inscription of Edfu speaks of
gifts he made to the temple in this town in the eighteenth
year of his reign. The reading eighteen is therefore
preferable to the reading ten in the lists of Manetho; if
the very obscure text of the _Demotic Rhapsody_ really
applies the number nine or ten to the length of the reign,
this reckoning must be explained by some mystic calculations
of the priests of the Ptolemaic epoch.
** The name of this king, written by the Greeks Teôs or
Tachôs, in accordance with the pronunciation of different
Egyptian dialects, has been discovered in hieroglyphic
writing on the external wall of the temple of Khonsu at
Karnak.
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.
[Illustration: 296.jpg DATAMES III.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_.
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.
* The memory of this embassy has been preserved for us by a
decree of the Athenian assembly, unfortunately much
mutilated, which has been assigned to various dates between
362 and 358 B.C. M. Paul Foucart has shown that the date of
the decree must be referred to one of three archon-ships--
the archonship of Callimedes, 360-59; that of Eucharistus,
359-8; or that of Cephisodotus, 358-7^ Without entering into
a discussion of the other evidence on the subject, it seems
to me probable that the embassy may be most conveniently
assigned to the archonship of Callimedes, towards the end of
360 B.C., at the moment when Chabrias had just arrived in
Egypt, and was certain to endeavour to secure the help of
Athens for the king he served.
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.
[Illustration: 299.jpb NECTANEBO I]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.
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.
* Ælian narrates, probably following Dinon, that Tachôs died
of dysentery due to over-indulgence at dinner.
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.**
* Pompeius Trogus asserts that such co-regencies were
contrary to Persian law; we have seen above that, on the
contrary, they were obligatory when the sovereign was
setting out on a campaign.
** This is the version of the story given by Dinon and
accepted by Pompoius Trogus. A chronological calculation
easily demonstrates its unlikelihood. It follows from the
evidence given by Justin himself that Artaxerxes died of
grief soon after the execution of his son; but, on the other
hand, that the battle of Cunaxa took place in 400 B.C.:
Aspasia must then have been fifty or sixty years old when
Darius fell in love with her.
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.
* This is the length attributed by Plutarch to this reign,
and which is generally accepted. It was narrated in after-
days that the king kept the fact of his father's death
hidden for ten months, but it is impossible to tell how much
truth there is in this statement, which was accepted by
Dinon.
** According to the author followed by Pompeius Trogus, the
princesses themselves were involved in this massacre. This
is certainly an exaggeration, for we shall shortly see that
Darius III., the last king of Persia, was accounted to be
the grandson of Darius II.; the massacre can only have
involved the direct heirs of Artaxerxes.
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.).
[Illustration: 305.jpg evagoras ii. of salamis]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_.
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.).*
* The complete history of this war is related by Diodorus
Siculus, who generally follows the narrative of Theopompus.
The chronology is still sufficiently uncertain to leave some
doubt as to the exact date of each event; I have followed
that arrangement which seems to accord best with the general
history of the period. The following table may be drawn up
of the last Egyptian dynasties as far as they can be
restored at present:--
[Illustration: 312.jpg TABLE OF THE LAST EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES]
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.
[Illustration: 313.jpg SMALL TEMPLE OF NECTANEBO, AT THE SOUTHERN
EXTREMITY OF PHILAE]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.
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.
[Illustration: 314.jpg NAOS OF NECTANEBO IN THE TEMPLE AT EDFU]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.
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.
[Illustration: 315.jpg GREAT GATE OF NECTANEBO AT KARNAK]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.
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.
[Illustration: 316.jpg fragment of a Naos of THE time of nectanebo II.
in the Bologna Museum]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Flinders Pétrie.
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 sarcophagus was for a long time preserved near the
mosque of Ibn-Tulun, and was credited with peculiar virtues
by the superstitious inhabitants of Cairo.
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.
[Illustration: 317.jpg ONE OF THE LIONS IN THE VATICAN]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Flinders Pétrie.
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.*
* It seems that a part of the atrocities committed by Ochus
and Bagoas soon came to be referred to the time of the
"Impure" and to that of Cambyses.
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.
[Illustration: 321.jpg MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE]
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.**
* They appear in the history of every epoch as the
irreconcilable foes of the great king, enemies against whom
even the most peacefully disposed sovereigns were compelled
to take the field in person.
** The Sakæ fought at Arbela, but only as allies of the
Persians. The Indians who are mentioned with them came from
the neighbourhood of Cabul; most of the races who had
formerly figured in Darius' satrapy of India had become
independent by the time Alexander penetrated into the basin
of the Indus.
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.
[Illustration: 325.jpg COINS OF THE SATRAPS WITH ARAMAEAN INSCRIPTIONS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from coins in the _Cabinet des
Médailles_
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.
[Illustration: 326.jpg A LYCIAN TOMB]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a woodcut in Bonndorff.
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.
[Illustration: 327b.jpg STATUE OF MAUSOLUS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph of the original in
the British Museum.
[Illustration: 327a.jpg COIN OF A LYCIAN KING]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a silver stater in the _Cabinet
des Médailles._ The king in question was named Deneveles,
and is only known by the coins bearing his superscription.
He flourished about 395 B.C.
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.
[Illustration: 328.jpg LYCIAN SARCOPHAGUS DECORATED WITH GREEK CARVINGS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photogravure published by
Hamdy-Beg and Th. Reinach.
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.***
* This seems to be indicated by a mutilated passage in the
_Cylinder of Gyrus_, where Assur is mentioned in the list of
towns and countries whose inhabitants were sent back to
their homes by Cyrus after the capture of Babylon. Xenophon
calls it Esense, this being, possibly, a translation of the
name given to it by its inhabitants. Nothing could be more
natural than for exiles to call the villages founded by them
on their return "new." The town seems to have been a large
and wealthy one.
** Xenophon calls this country Media, a desert region which
the Ten Thousand took six days to cross.
*** The name Larissa is, possibly, a corruption of some name
similar to that of the city of Larsam in Chaldæa; Mespila
may be a generic term. [Mespila is Muspula, "the low ground"
at the foot of Kouyunjik; Larissa probably Al Resen or
Res-eni, between Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus.--Ed.]
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.*
* Herodotus merely mentions that Xerxes had despoiled the
temple; Strabo tells us that Alexander wished to restore it,
but that it was in such a state of dilapidation that it
would have taken ten thousand men two months merely to
remove the rubbish.
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_.
* The story which asserts that Pythagoras served under
Nergilos, King of Assyria, is probably based on some
similarity of names: thus among the Greek kings of Cyprus,
and in the time of Assur-bani-pal, we find one whose name
would recall that of Pythagoras, if the accuracy of the
reading were beyond question.
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."**
* An anonymous prophet in Isa. lx. 11-16.
** Hagg. i. 6.
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.
[Illustration: 337.jpg CHALDEAN SEAL WITH ARAMAIC INSCRIPTION]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photogravure published in
Menant.
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.*
* Ezra iv.-vi.; the account given by Josephus of the two
expeditions of Zerubbabel seems to have been borrowed partly
from the canonical book, partly from the Apocryphal writing
known as the _1st Book of Esdras_.
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.*
* Kings xvii. 24-40. There do not seem to have been the
continual disputes between the inhabitants of Judaea and
Samaria before the return of Nehemiah, which the compilers
of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah seem to have believed.
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.*
* Nehemiah i., ii.
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.
* Neh. v.
** Neh. xiii. 6: "in the two and thirtieth year of
Artaxerxes, King of Babylon, I went unto the king."
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.
* This is the priestly revision presupposed by recent
critics; here again, in order to keep within the prescribed
limits of space, I have been compelled to omit much that I
should have liked to add in regard to the nature of this
work and the spirit in which it was carried out.
** Ezra, vii.-xi., where the dates given do not form part of
the work as written by Ezra, but have been introduced later
by the editor of the book as it now stands.
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.**
* Neh. viii., ix., with an interpolation in ver. 9 of chap,
viii., inserted in order to identify Nehemiah with the
representative of the Persian government.
** Neh. xiii.
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.
[Illustration: 346.jpg FOUNTAIN AND SCHOOL OF THE MOTHER OF LITTLE
MOHAMAD]
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.*
* In my opinion it is not the festivals of Athyr that are
here referred to, but those of the month of Thoth, when, as
the inscriptions show, it was the practice to _light the new
fire_, according to the ritual, after first extinguishing
the fire of the previous year, not only in the temple of the
god, but in all the houses of the city.
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.
[Illustration: 348.jpg MODERN MOHAMMEDAN SHEKHS TOMBS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gautier.
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.
* Herodotus says that both the goats and the god were named
Mendes in Egyptian, but he is here confusing ordinary goats
with the special goat which was supposed to contain the soul
of Osiris. It was the latter that the Egyptians named after
the god himself, Baînibdîduît, i.e. _the soul of the master
of the city of Diduît_.
** The old explanation of this name as the _City of Hathor_
has been rightly rejected as inconsistent with one of the
elementary rules of hieroglyphic grammar. The name, when
properly divided into its three constituent parts, means
literally _the Castle of horus the Sparrow-hawk, or Hat-har-
baki_
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.
[Illustration: 349.jpg PART OF THE INUNDATION IN A PALM GROVE]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gautier.
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.*
* The god whom the Greeks identified with their Ares was
Anhurît, as is proved by one of the Leyden Papyri. So, too,
in modern times at Cairo, it used to be affirmed that no
Mohammedan who submitted to the dôseh was ever seriously
injured by the hoofs of the horse which trampled over the
bodies extended on the ground.
[Illustration: 350.jpg EPHEMERAL HOVELS OF CLAY OR DRIED BRICKS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Haussoullier.
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.
* It seems, moreover, that this custom was not confined to
the Delta; Herodotus, in contrasting the custom of Bucolicum
with that of the rest of Egypt, was evidently thinking of
Sais, Memphis, and other great cities in which he had
resided, where foreign olive oil obtained from Greece or
Syria was generally used.
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.*
* This list is taken mainly from one of the mutilated
letters found on the back of the _Sallier Papyrus_. The
Phoenician Astarte, called a foreign Aphrodite by Herodotus,
was regarded by the Egyptians as a counterpart of Bastît,
lady of Onkhtoui.
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.
* Some dragomans identified the Helen of the Homeric legend
with the "foreign Aphrodite" who had a temple in the Tyrian
quarter at Memphis, and who was really a Semitic divinity.
[Illustration: 359.jpg THE STEP PYRAMID SEEN FROM THE GROVE OP PALM
TREES TO THE NORTH OF SAQQARAH]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Haussoullier.
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.*
* These are "the quarries in the Arabian Mountain,"
mentioned by Herodotus without indication of the local name.
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.
* Herodotus does not mention it, nor does any other writer
of the Greek period.
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.
* Herodotus fixes twenty days for the voyage from Sais to
Elephantine. This period of time must be probably correct,
since at the present day dahabeahs constantly run from Cairo
to the second cataract and back in two months, including
stoppages of ten days to a fortnight for seeing the
monuments. The twenty days of Herodotus represent the
minimum duration of the voyage, without taking into account
the stoppages and accidents which often delay sailing
vessels on the Nile. Nine days, which Herodotus gives as the
time for reaching Thebes, is not sufficient, if the voyage
is undertaken in the usual way, stopping every evening for
the night; but it would be possible if the navigation were
uninterrupted day and night. This is now rarely done, but it
might have been frequent in ancient times, especially in the
service of the State.
** It would seem clear that Herodotus stopped at Panopolis
and had communications with the people of the town.
[Panopolis or Khemmis is the present Ekhmîm.--Tr.]
[Illustration: 362a.jpg LONG STRINGS OF LADEN VESSELS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gautier.
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.
[Illustration: 302b.jpg THE VAST SHEET OF WATER IN THE MIDDAY HEAT]
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.
[Illustration: 363.jpg the mountains honeycombed with tombs AND
Quarries]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gautier.
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.*
* This indicates a confusion in the minds of the Egyptian
dragomans with the two brooding birds of Osiris, Isis and
Nephthys, considered as _Zarait_, that is to say, as two
birds of a different species, according to the different
traditions either vultures, rooks, or doves.
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.
[Illustration: 367.jpg DARIUS III.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin in the Cabinet des
Médailles.
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.
[Illustration: 368.jpg AN ELEPHANT ARMED FOR WAR]
Drawn by Boudier, from a little terra-cotta group from
Myrrhina now in the Louvre. This object dates from the time
of the kings of Pergamos, and the soldier round whom the
elephant winds his trunk in order to dash him to the ground
is a Gaul of Asia Minor.
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.**
* Plutarch calls the successor of Ochus Oarses, which
recalls the name which Dinon gives to Artaxerxes II.
Diodorus says that Bagoas destroyed the whole family of
Ochus, but he is mistaken. Arrian mentions a son of Ochus
about 330, and several other members of the royal Achæmenian
race are known to have been living in the time of Alexander.
** The body of the enemy thrown to the cats to be devoured
is a detail added by the popular imagination, which crops up
again in the Tale of Satni Khâmois.
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.
[Illustration: 376.jpg THE BATTLEFIELD OF ISSUS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Lortet.
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.
[Illustration: 377.jpg A BAS-RELIEF ON A SIDONIAN SARCOPHAGUS]
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.
[Illustration: 379.jpg THE ISTHMUS OF TYRE AT THE PRESENT DAY]
Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch by Lortet.
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.
[Illustration: 382.jpg THE BATTLE OF ARBELA, FROM THE MOSAIC OF
HERCULANUM]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
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.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12)" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.