the most undying greatness: amongst all the rulers of the East whom we
see conquering, destroying, murdering, and deporting, he is the only
one who raised a downtrodden people from the dust, snatched it from
its brethren’s fate of annihilation, restored it to its existence as a
nation under princes of its own race, to its own peculiar development
and its mission in the history of the world. He saved it, as he did
his own people, which owed to him its consecration to eternal youth in
history; so that, in spite of all the storms which have raged over it,
it has escaped the fate of the thousand tribes which traversed the wide
country of Iran before and after it, and are now vanished and forgotten.
Thus the consequences of his achievements are lasting, though in
the course of thousands of years these achievements themselves have
vanished, like all earthly things. He was not the product and child
of his age, like the son of Philip, the nephew of Marius, the son of
Pepin, or the offspring of the Revolution: but he was its creator and
father, solitary and unique in the world’s history; he took firmer grip
of the wheel of time than any other mortal; in the term of his life he
brought an epoch to its close, snatched the lordship of the earth from
the Semites and Egyptians, and won it for the Aryans for all time.[f]
CAMBYSES
[Sidenote: [529-525 B.C.]]
Cyrus bequeathed the crown to his eldest child, Kambujiya, called
by the Greeks Cambyses, and the government of several provinces to
Bardius (Smerdis), his second son. He thought that this pre-settlement
of the succession would prevent the disputes usually accruing to the
succession of a new king in the East. But this hope was disappointed.
Cambyses had hardly ascended the throne when he murdered his brother:
but the crime was committed with such care and secrecy that it passed
unnoticed by the people, and it was thought by the subjects and court
that Bardius was shut up in some distant palace in Media, from whence
he would shortly reappear.
Freed from a rival who might have been dangerous, Cambyses then gave
his full attention to war. Alone among the great nations of the old
world, Egypt, protected by the desert and the marshes of the Delta,
was able to withstand the power of the Persians, and followed in peace
the course of her development. Since his unfortunate intervention
in Lydia, Aahmes had always avoided any ground for strife with his
neighbours. His ambition went no further than the establishment of
the old suzerainty of Egypt in Cyprus. Thanks to this prudence, he
lived on amicable terms with Cyrus, and profited by twenty-five years
of tranquillity to develop the natural resources of his country.
The course of the canals was repaired and enlarged, agriculture was
encouraged, and commerce extended.
But it was impossible to withstand the hatred of his subjects, and it
compassed his ruin. Cyrus dead, Aahmes resigned himself to war. There
was no lack of serious counts against him: he had made an alliance
with Lydia; he had intrigued with Chaldea; and Cambyses, being young,
was more disposed to excite than to calm the warlike spirit of his
compatriots. According to the Persians, Cambyses asked the daughter of
the old king in marriage, hoping that his refusal would furnish him
with an insult to avenge. But Aahmes substituted Nitetis the daughter
of Uah-ab-Ra for his own daughter. Sometime afterwards, when Cambyses
was with her, he called her by the name of her pretended father;
whereupon she said: “I see, O king! that thou dost not suspect how
thou hast been deceived by Amasis [Aahmes]; he took me, loaded me
with jewels, and sent me to thee as his own daughter. It is true I am
the child of Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] who was his lord and master, until he
rebelled and was put to death with the other Egyptians.” The anger of
Cambyses, son of Cyrus, was thus roused, and he took up arms against
Egypt.
In Egypt the story was different: Nitetis was sent to Cyrus, and
she was the mother of Cambyses, and the conquest was only the
re-establishment of the legitimate family against the usurper Aahmes;
and thus Cambyses ascended the throne, less in the character of a
conqueror, than in that of Uah-ab-Ra’s grandson. It was by an equally
puerile fiction that the Egyptians in their decadence consoled
themselves for their weakness and disgrace. Always proud of their past
glory, but henceforth powerless to conquer, they pretended that they
were only vanquished and governed by themselves. It was not Persia
that imposed her king upon Egypt, but Egypt who loaned hers to Persia
and thence to the rest of the world. The desert and marshes formed
a perfect bulwark for the Delta against the attacks of the Asiatic
princes. There were ninety leagues of distance, which no army could
traverse in less than three weeks, between the last important garrison
of Syria and Lake Serbon, where the Egyptian outposts were encamped. In
times past the stretch of desert was less, but the incursions of the
Assyrians and Chaldeans had depopulated the country and given over to
the nomadic Arabs regions which had been formerly quite accessible. An
unforeseen event, however, showed Cambyses a way out of the difficulty.
Phanes of Halicarnassus, one of the generals of Aahmes, deserted,
and fled to Persia. He was a man of judgment and energy, and fully
acquainted with Egypt. He advised the king to make friends with the
sheikh who governed the coast, and get a passport from him; so the Arab
had camels, loaded with sufficient water for the whole army, stationed
all along the road.
[Sidenote: [525-523 B.C.]]
On arriving at Pelusium, the Persians learned that Aahmes was dead,
and that he had been murdered by Psamthek III. In spite of their
confidence in their gods and themselves, the Egyptians now began
to be alarmed. They were not only threatened by the nations of the
Tigris and Euphrates, but the whole of Asia and the Hellespont also
seemed ready to invade them. The allies upon whom Aahmes had counted,
such as Polycrates of Samos, and old subjects like those of Cyprus,
had abandoned his cause, which now seemed hopeless, and supplied the
Persians with forces. The people, consumed with fear of the invader,
regarded the slightest phenomenon of nature as a bad sign. Rain is
rare in the Thebaïd, and storms rarely come more than once or twice
in a century; so, as some days after the accession of Psamthek, “rain
fell in torrents at Thebes, which was a rare event, the battle before
Pelusium was fought with the bravery of despair.”
Phanes had left his children in Egypt. His old soldiers, the Carians,
and the Ionians in the service of the Pharaoh, killed them before his
eyes, poured their blood into a goblet half full of wine, and after
drinking the mixture, they dashed like madmen into the thickest of
the fight. Towards evening the Egyptian line began to waver, and the
rout began. Instead of rallying the rest of his forces, and defending
the passage of the canals, Psamthek lost his head and took refuge in
Memphis. Cambyses sent to demand his surrender, but the maddened people
killed the envoys. After a siege of some days, the town opened the
gates, and Upper Egypt submitted without further resistance; and the
Libyans and Cyrenians offered a tribute without even waiting for it to
be demanded. It is said that ten days after the surrender of Memphis,
the conqueror wishing to test the imperturbability of his prisoner,
gave orders for his daughter, who was dressed as a slave, his sons,
and the sons of the chief Egyptians to march past him on their way to
their execution. But Psamthek saw the procession without evincing a
sign of emotion; when, however, one of his old boon companions went
by, dressed in rags like a beggar, he burst into tears and struck his
forehead in despair. Cambyses, astonished at this display of despair in
a man who had seemed so self-controlled, sent to ask him the reason of
his grief, whereupon he said: “O son of Cyrus, my personal misfortunes
are too great for tears, but not so with those of my friend. When a man
falls from luxury and plenty into misery on the threshold of old age,
one can but weep for him.” When the messenger repeated these words to
Cambyses, he saw their truth, and Crœsus was moved to tears, for he was
with Cambyses in Egypt, and all the Persians present also began to
weep. So Cambyses, touched with compassion, treated his prisoner like a
king, and would probably have replaced him as a vassal on the throne,
had he not learned that a conspiracy was being formed against him; so
he entrusted the government of Egypt to Aryandes, the Persian.
Thus, for the first time in the memory of man, the Old World was under
one master; but it was impossible to keep the people of the Caucasus
and those of Egypt, the Greeks of Asia Minor and the Iranians of Media,
the Scythians of Bactriana and the Semites of the Euphrates, under one
ruler, so the empire dissolved as quickly as it had been formed.
[Sidenote: [523-522 B.C.]]
At first Cambyses tried to win over his new subjects by complying with
their customs. He adopted the double cartouche, the protocol, and the
royal costume of the Pharaohs; and in the double hope of appeasing
their personal rancour and of conciliating the loyalist party, he
repaired to Saïs, violated the tomb of Aahmes, and burnt his mummy;
and after accomplishing this posthumous act of justice, he treated
Ladike, the widow of the usurper, with deference and sent her back to
her parents. He gave orders for the evacuation of the great temple of
Nit, where Persian troops were installed to the great distress of the
devotees, and repaired the harm they had done at his own expense. His
zeal even led him to receive instruction in the Egyptian religion,
and to be initiated in the mysteries of the goddess, by the priest
Uzaharrasenti. In fact, he acted in Egypt as his father had done
in Babylon, and he had his reasons for this condescension to the
vanquished, for he hoped to make Memphis and the Delta the basis for
his operations in southern Africa. He seemed to care little about the
voluntary submission of Cyrene; at least Dorian tradition maintains
that he scorned the gifts of Arcesilaus III and gave to his soldiers,
in handfuls, the five hundred minas (Egyptian measure) of gold which
the prince had paid him as a tribute. The Greeks of Libya were not
rich enough to arouse interest, but the fame of Carthage, exaggerated
by time and distance, excited his cupidity. Carthage was then at the
height of her grandeur. She commanded the old Phœnician settlements
in Sicily, Africa, and Spain, her navy had unrivalled sway over the
western basin of the Mediterranean, and her merchants penetrated into
the distant fabulous regions of southern Europe and Mauretania.
At first Cambyses wished to attack the city by sea, but the Phœnicians
who manned her fleet declined to act against their colony. Forced
therefore to approach it by land, he sent to Thebes an army of fifty
thousand men to take possession of the oasis of Ammon, and to clear
the road for the rest of the troops. The fate of this _avant-garde_
was never clearly learnt. It crossed the great oasis, and took a
northeasterly course towards the temple of Ammon. The natives relate
that when halfway, it was surprised by a Sudanese storm, and was buried
under the heaps of sand. This story was probably true, for it never
reached the oasis, and never returned to Egypt. The expedition towards
the south promised to be more fortunate, for it seemed that there would
not be great difficulty in reaching the heart of Africa if it went
up the Nile. Cambyses had the country explored by spies, and their
account led him to start off from Memphis at the head of an army. The
expedition was partially a success, and partially a failure. It seems
that the invaders went up the Nile as far as Napata, and then pushed
right across the desert in the direction of Berua; their provisions
were exhausted when they were a quarter of the way there, and famine
forced them to retreat, after having lost several lives. The result of
the expedition was the subjugation of the cantons of Nubia, nearest to
Syene, to the Persian dominion; however, the Egyptian people, always
disposed to believe unfavourable reports of their masters, only took
the failure at Berua into consideration.[30]
Cambyses had from his infancy been subject to epileptic fits, during
which he was quite furious and unconscious of his actions. The failure
of his efforts in Africa increased his illness, and added to the
frequency and length of the attacks; he lost his former political
power, and gave full fling to his naturally violent temper. The Apis
bull had died during his absence, and after the expiration of the
regulation number of days of mourning for the departed, a new Apis had
been installed, when the Persian army returned from Memphis.
Finding the town _en fête_, Cambyses thought it was rejoicing at
his misfortunes, and he sent for the magistrates and priests, and
condemned them to punishment without listening to their explanations.
The ox was brought to him, and he stabbed it with his dagger in the
thigh. The animal expired a few days later, and the sacrilege caused
more excitement amid the devotees, than the ruin of the country. The
rancour of the people was increased when they saw the conqueror now as
active in offending their deities as he had previously been anxious
to conciliate them. He entered the temple of Ptah and mocked at the
grotesque forms under which this god was worshipped. He violated the
ancient tombs so as to examine the mummies. Even the Aryans and the
people of his court were not safe from his rage. He killed his own
sister, whom he had married in spite of the law forbidding marriage
between children of the same father and mother. He killed the son of
Prexaspes [by shooting an arrow into his heart as a proof that his aim
was not the unsteadier for drink[31]], he buried twelve of the Persian
generals alive, ordered the execution of Crœsus, and then, repenting
of his precipitancy, condemned the officers who had not executed the
order, which he regretted having given. The Egyptians maintained that
the gods struck him with madness as a punishment for his sacrilegious
conduct.
[Sidenote: [522 B.C.]]
As there was nothing to detain him longer on the banks of the Nile,
he started on his return to Asia. On arriving at the north of Syria,
he was met by a herald, who proclaimed, within earshot of the whole
army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and Bardius,
son of Cyrus, was now king in his place. Cambyses thought at first that
his orders had not been obeyed, and that his brother’s life had been
spared by the man sent to assassinate him. But he soon learned that
his orders had been only too faithfully fulfilled, and he bemoaned the
useless crime, when he found that the usurper was a certain Gaumata,
or Gometes, so strikingly like Bardius that the people were easily
deceived. This Gaumata had a brother Patizeithes, to whom Cambyses had
entrusted the care of his household. They were both cognisant of the
death of Bardius, but they knew that the majority of the Persians were
still ignorant of his death, and believed that the prince was still
alive.
Gaumata therefore incited the rebellion in the town of Pasargada at
the beginning of March, 522, and after a little hesitation Persia and
Media and the body of the empire declared in his favour and solemnly
accepted him on the 9th Garmapada (July), 522. Utterly overwhelmed
at the turn of affairs, Cambyses took the head of the troops which
had remained faithful to him, but he died in a mysterious way. The
inscription of Behistun seems to intimate that he lost his life by his
own hand in a fit of despair. Herodotus says that as he was mounting
his horse his dagger entered his thigh at the same spot as he had
stabbed the Apis bull.
“Feeling that his death was at hand, he asked the name of the place
where he was, and he was told it was Ecbatana.” Now, some time before
he had been told by the oracle of Buto that he would end his days at
Ecbatana. He had always thought that Ecbatana was in Syria, so when he
heard the name of the place, he recollected the words of the oracle,
and said, “It is here that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, is destined to die”;
and he expired twenty days later without leaving any posterity, or
nominating a successor.[g]
FOOTNOTES
[29] [Or rather, as the latest authorities hold, of Elam.]
[30] [The exact fortunes of the expedition to Ethiopia have always been
a matter of historical dispute. Dr. Prasek has recently made a most
critical examination of all the ancient accounts, and concludes: “There
seems to be no good reason to doubt that Cambyses reached Napata,
and overthrew the old Ethiopian kingdom, which to be sure was later
re-established at Meroë. But, returning through the sandy desert in
the terrible heat of the summer, the Persian army had to endure the
agonies of thirst, and its ranks were decimated.”--_Kambyses und die
Ueberlieferung des Altertums._]
[31] [See Herodotus, Book III, chap. 35.]
[Illustration: RUINS OF DARIUS’ PALACE, PERSEPOLIS]
CHAPTER IV. THE PERSIAN DYNASTY: DARIUS I TO DARIUS III
The rebellion of Gaumata or Gometes has often been considered a sort of
national movement which restored their ancient supremacy to the Medes,
and robbed the Persians for a moment of the empire of Asia. But Gaumata
was not a Mede; he was born in Persia in the little town of Pasargada
near Mount Arakadris. At first he was only accepted by the central and
eastern provinces; but on the death of Cambyses, he was acknowledged by
the rest of the empire. He claimed to be Bardius (Smerdis), and that
was sufficient to gain him the respect and fidelity of the Persians.
Moreover, he lost no time in suppressing all those whom he suspected
of being better informed, and fear shut the mouths of the rest. “So
nobody, amid either Persians, or Medes, or even amid the Achæmenian
race, dreamed of disputing his right.” He exempted the conquered people
from three years’ taxation and military service, so as to win them over
to his side; and he reigned for six months without anybody suspecting
the imposture, and was quite regarded as the legitimate heir to the
throne, and as the son of the great Cyrus, and the brother of Cambyses.
But the public credulity was at last shaken, for certain circumstances
occurred which gave credence to the revelations made by Cambyses
shortly before his death, and which had at the time been imputed to
hatred of his brother. According to the usual custom, Gaumata had
received the harem of his predecessor with the crown; it was known that
the women were sequestered, and could not communicate, either with
each other, or with the outside world, except by secret messengers,
and at the peril of their lives. The report, however, spread from the
harem that the pretended Bardius had had his ears cropped, and this
fact showed he was not the son of Cyrus. Darius, son of Hystaspes, the
satrap of Hyrcania, who claimed relationship with the royal family,
joined with six of the boldest of the highest Persian families, and
surprised and killed Gaumata in his palace of Sikathahnvati in Media,
521.
DARIUS I
[Sidenote: [521-519 B.C.]]
It is said that the seven agreed to elect as sovereign the one amongst
them whose horse should neigh first at sunrise, and by an artifice of
his groom the crown was gained by Darius. Then, after being proclaimed
king, Darius purified the temples which his predecessor had defiled,
and instituted the Feast of the Magophonia in memory of the murder
which had made him king.
Two revolutions in such quick succession had shaken the power of the
Persians. The empire founded by Cyrus differed but little from those of
the Egyptians and Assyrians. It was the same collection of provinces
administered by semi-independent governors, feudal kingdoms, and
half-subjugated towns and tribes. These turbulent subjects hailed with
delight any pretext for revolt. Rebellion broke out first in Susiana,
under the lead of a certain Athrina, a descendant of the last national
dynasty. From Susiana the contagion quickly spread to Babylon, where
Nadintabaira, son of Nabonidus, came forward as a claimant to the
throne, which he ascended under the glorious name of Nebuchadrezzar
[III]. After entrusting his generals with the comparatively easy task
of subjugating Athrina, Darius himself took command of the expedition
to Chaldea. But Nebuchadrezzar III had made good use of the short time
occupied by the Persians in crossing the Assyrian plain. He was already
in possession of the strong positions on the right bank of the Tigris,
and a fleet of armed boats protected his army. Darius, not venturing
to attack him from the front, divided his army into little parties,
some on horseback, and some on camels, and escaping the notice of the
enemy by the multiplicity of his movements, he succeeded in crossing
the river. The Chaldeans tried in vain to cast him back into the water.
They formed up in good order, and six days later engaged in a second
battle at Zazanu on the banks of the Euphrates (December, 521).
Nebuchadrezzar was completely defeated, and escaped with some officers
to Babylon, where he was taken, and executed by the conqueror’s
command (519). Legend was not slow to embellish the events of this
war, and in less than half a century it was reported that when Darius
reached Babylon it was prepared for resistance. The inhabitants had
repaired the walls, cut the canals, filled their magazines and barns,
and relieved themselves of all useless and superfluous mouths by a
general massacre, including all women except those necessary for bread
making. At the end of twenty months the Persians were no further than
at the beginning, when Zopyrus, one of the seven, conceived a plan to
insure them success. After having his nose and ears cut off, and his
body lacerated with whip blows, he presented himself in the city as a
fugitive, commanded some _sorties_ with success, and after thus gaining
the confidence of the besieged, he was able, when on guard, to open
the gates to the enemy. Three thousand Babylonians were crucified, the
walls razed to the ground, and the city was repeopled with foreign
colonists. The treachery of Zopyrus, as reported by Herodotus, was the
admiration of olden times; but is only another of the stories which
have to be eliminated from history.
In the midst of his triumph, Darius learned that the war was not over.
Martiya, a Persian, tried to excite a second rebellion in Susiana, but
it was promptly quelled by the Susians themselves. Media, however, rose
under a certain Fravartish (Phraortes), who claimed to be a descendant
of Cyaxares, and proclaimed himself king under the name of Phraortes
II. Sufficient time had not elapsed since the rule of Astyages in Media
for the Median nobility to renounce hope of recovering the supremacy,
of which they had been robbed by the victory of Cyrus; and they seized
the opportunity to rebel when Darius, after the murder of Gaumata,
left with the flower of his troops for Babylon. Some of the nomadic
tribes remained faithful, but all settled Medians joined the pretender,
and the rebellion extended to Armenia and Assyria; and even where the
authority of Phraortes was not recognised, the example of revolt
was followed. Chitratahma also gave himself out as a descendant of
Cyaxares, and incited Sagartia to rebellion; and Frada headed a revolt
in Magiana. It would have been fatal for Darius if the rebellion had
extended to the western satrapies, but, fortunately, they remained
faithful. Orœtes, governor of Lydia, assumed an independent demeanour
and threatened to become dangerous; and Bagæus conveyed to Sardis the
royal command relieving the governor of his office, upon which all
pikes were immediately lowered. So, encouraged by this success Bagæus
handed a letter to the secretary, in which it was written, “King Darius
orders the Persians at Sardis to kill Orœtes,” so they drew their
swords and slew him.
[Sidenote: [520-518 B.C.]]
Several engagements of his generals with the troops of the pretender
failed to attain any great success; Phraortes kept his position in
Armenia, and his obstinate rebellion encouraged Parthia and Hyrcania to
espouse his cause. Persia herself began to despair of success and to
think of having another king; and many people would not believe that
the line of direct descent from Cyrus had ended with Cambyses.
The usurpation and the fall of Gaumata and the accession of Darius had
not shaken their faith in the existence of Bardius. The imposture of
Gaumata did not necessarily involve the fact of the death of Bardius.
So when a certain Vahyazdata appeared as the youngest son of Cyrus, he
was received with enthusiasm.
The imminence of the danger impelled Darius himself to take the field;
he left Babylon, penetrated Media by the defile of Kerend, and defeated
the enemy near the town of Kundorus (520). Phraortes fled towards the
north, doubtless with the intention of continuing the struggle in the
mountains. He was captured not far from Raga, and taken to Ecbatana.
His punishment was horrible: his nose and ears were cut off, his tongue
cut out, and his eyes taken out, he was chained to the gate of the
palace, and after the people had had enough of that spectacle, he was
impaled; and his chief followers were also either impaled, or beheaded.
Success was just as complete and rapid in Persia itself. Vahyazdata
made the mistake of dividing his troops, and sending one part to
Arachosia; so whilst Artavardija, the conqueror at Racha and then at
Paraga (520), made him prisoner in the castle of Uvadeshaya, the satrap
of Arachosia victoriously repulsed the invasion (519).
But it seemed as if one war engendered another. The ephemeral success
of the second pseudo-Smerdis evoked a second false Nebuchadrezzar, for
Darius had hardly left Babylon, when the Armenian Arakha presented
himself to the people as the son of Nabonidus, but was easily conquered
and was executed. The subjugation of the other provinces was quite
easy. Chitratahma expiated his rebellion on the stake; Hystaspes, the
father of Darius, soon quelled Hyrcania, (519) Dadarshis, the satrap of
Bactriana, easily overcame the resistance of Frada (519); and the wars
were concluded.
_Organisation of Darius’ Empire_
The lesson of these first years was not lost on the conqueror. The
empire of Cyrus had comprised, besides the countries governed by
Persian officers, vassal kingdoms and cities and tributary people who
were under the direct rule of the sovereign, and not under the satraps
of the province which was the seat of their domain. It was the system
of government practised by Tiglathpileser III and adopted by Persia
from Babylon and Ecbatana.
[Sidenote: [515 B.C.]]
Darius did not attempt to subjugate the races that peopled his domains;
on the contrary, he encouraged the people to retain their languages,
customs, and religions, their laws and their particular constitutions.
The Jews received permission to finish the building of the temple; the
Greeks of Asia retained their various governments; Phœnicia kept her
kings and suffets, and Egypt her hereditary nomarchs. But over all
these local powers, there was a single authority, superior to all,
and the same everywhere. The territory was divided into governments,
the number of which varied with the times. There were originally
twenty-three. The number of these governments, or satrapies, was
increased to thirty-one by the conquests of Darius.
If each of these satrapies had been governed by a separate governor
invested with royal power, and sovereign in all but name and title,
the empire would have run the risk of soon being broken up into a
chaotic assembly of principalities, in incessant struggle against
Persia. But Darius avoided uniting civil and military power in one
person. He placed in each government three officers sent directly from
the court and quite independent of each other--the satrap, the royal
secretary, and the general. The satraps were chosen by the king. They
could be taken from any class in the nation, from the poor as well as
the rich, from foreigners as well as Persians; but it was customary
to confer the most important satrapies on persons united by blood or
marriage to the royal family. They were not nominated for any special
time, but remained in office as long as the king pleased. They had full
civil power, with palaces, parks, a court, bodyguards, and well-filled
harems; they imposed taxes as they liked, administered justice, and had
power over life and death.
They had a royal secretary at their disposal, and this personage,
charged ostensibly with the duties of chancellor, was in reality a spy
who watched everybody’s actions and conduct, so as to be able to report
them in the right quarter.
The Persian soldiers, the native troops, and the mercenaries cantoned
in the province were under the command of a general, who was often
inimical to the satrap and secretary. These three rivals, therefore,
equalised and kept each other in check, and thus a revolt was, if not
impossible, at least difficult. They were in perpetual communication
with the court by means of regular couriers, who took their despatches
from one end of the country to the other, in a few weeks. As an
additional precaution Darius sent to the provinces every year
officers whom he called his “_eyes_ and his _ears_” because they were
commissioned to see and hear for him what went on in the most distant
parts of the kingdom. They appeared at the most unexpected moments,
examined the state of affairs, reformed any details of administration,
reprimanded and suspended the satrap, when necessary, and they were
attended by a body of troops to support their decisions and give
weight to their councils, which might otherwise have been wanting. An
unfavourable account, a slight disobedience, or even the mere suspicion
of disobedience, was enough to ruin a satrap, for he was then deposed,
or more often condemned to death without a trial, the people of his
suite being ordered to do the deed. A courier arrived suddenly, the
guard received orders to kill their chief, and they at once fulfilled
the royal decree.
[Sidenote: [515-512 B.C.]]
This administrative reform did not please the Persians, and they tried
to pay off their enforced obedience by scoffing jests at the king’s
expense. “Cyrus,” they said, “had been a father and Cambyses a master,
but Darius was only an innkeeper greedy of gain.” For the division of
the empire was done less for a political object than for financial
profits and the chief duty of the satraps was to assess, collect and
turn over the taxes. Persia proper was exempt from a regular taxation,
and the people were only required to make the king a present every
time he crossed the country. The present was in proportion to the
fortune of the individual, and sometimes merely consisted of an ox, or
a sheep, or even a little milk or cheese, a few dates, a handful of
flour or some vegetables; but the other provinces were taxed according
to their extent and wealth with a tribute payable partly in kind, and
partly in money. The revenue in money went up to 1460 Eubœic talents
or nearly £28,000,000. To facilitate the payments Darius circulated
gold and silver coins named after himself. These darics were stamped
with a figure of the king, bearing a bow, or a javelin. They were
thick, irregular, and clumsy, but of pure metal. The coins were not in
common circulation, but they were used in the payment of the soldiers
and sailors, and were current on the coasts of the Mediterranean. In
the interior of Asia, metals were valued according to their weight
for transactions of commerce and daily life, and kings themselves
preferred to have them in their rough state, for they had them melted
down and put into earthen vases, and coined according to the needs or
the caprice of the moment. The tribute in kind was not less than that
in money. Egypt supplied the corn for the 120,000 military men who
occupied it; the Medians gave annually 100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and
3000 horses; the Armenians 30,000 chickens, the people of Babylon 500
young eunuchs; Cilicia 365 white horses, one for each day of the year.
The royal taxes were not excessive, but the satraps received no salary
from the state, and they and their suites lived and received their
heavy remunerations at the expense of the satrapies. The government of
Babylon alone had to give a full artaba of silver every day. Egypt,
India, Media, and Syria gave not much less; and the poorest provinces
were not those least heavily taxed, for the satraps counted on having
at least as much as the king.
In spite of its drawbacks, this system was preferable to that hitherto
employed in the East, for it gave the king a regular budget, kept the
provinces under his power, and made national revolts very difficult.
The death of each king was no longer followed by insurrections which
took a great part of the following reign to quell. Darius had not only
the glory of organising the Persian empire, but he invented a form of
government which served henceforth as a pattern to the great oriental
states. His fame as an administrator has even obscured his military
renown, for it is often forgotten that he increased his empire while
regulating its administration.
_Later Conquests of Darius_
Darius’ victories left the Persians with only India on the east, and
Greece on the west, in which to expand, as their territory in other
directions extended to the seas, or to obstacles untraversable by the
heavy armies of the period. The empire was bounded on the north by the
Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, and the steppes of
Tartary, and on the south by the Erythræan Sea, the sandy tableland of
Arabia, and the desert of Africa.
About the year 512 the Persians seem to have penetrated farther east.
From the heights of Iran they commanded the immense plains of the
Punjab. Darius invaded and conquered this country, and formed thereof
the satrapy of India. Then, instead of fulfilling his intention of
going beyond the Ganges, he had the southern regions explored. A fleet
constructed at Peukala and placed under the command of a Greek admiral,
Scylax a Carian, descended the Indus to its mouth and subjugated the
tribes who lived on the banks of the river, and when he reached the
sea, he turned to the west and in less than thirty months reached the
coasts of Gedrosia and Arabia.
The Persians might have had a brilliant and lucrative career in India.
It is not known what prevented them from following up their first
success and turned their attention to the West, where Darius planned
to conquer the Greeks of Europe. But before setting out on that
expedition, prudence warned him to conquer, or at least to frighten,
the people who might disturb his course, so he attacked the Scythians.
The first expedition, commanded by Ariaramnes, satrap of Cappadocia,
crossed the Pontus Euxinus, landed some thousands of men on the
opposite coast, and made some prisoners, who furnished the Persian
generals with the information they needed. With this knowledge, Darius
crossed the Bosporus with eight hundred thousand men, subjugated the
eastern coast of Thrace, and crossed the Danube on a bridge of boats,
made by the Greeks of Ionia. The Scythians would not fight, but having
destroyed the fodder, and filled up the wells, they drove off their
cattle and took refuge in the interior, leaving the enemy to fight
against famine, and the impassability of the country.[e]
We cannot pause to dwell upon the details of this campaign. But there
is one incident chronicled by Herodotus that must be transcribed
because of the interesting light it throws upon the relations of the
antagonists.
“The Scythians,” says Herodotus, “discovering that the Persians were
in extreme perplexity, hoped that by detaining them longer in their
country, they should finally reduce them to the utmost distress: with
this view, they occasionally left exposed some of their cattle with
their shepherds, and artfully retired; of these, with much exultation,
the Persians took possession.
“This was again and again repeated; Darius nevertheless became
gradually in want of almost every necessary: the Scythian princes,
knowing this, sent to him a messenger, with a bird, a mouse, a frog,
and five arrows, as a present. The Persians inquired of the bearer,
what these might mean; but the man declared that his orders were only
to deliver them and return: he advised them, however, to exert their
sagacity, and interpret the mystery.
“The Persians accordingly held a consultation on the subject. Darius
was of opinion, that the Scythians intended by this to express
submission to him, and give him the earth and the water which he
required. The mouse, as he explained it, was produced in the earth, and
lived on the same food as man; the frog was a native of the water; the
bird bore great resemblance to a horse; and in giving the arrows, they
intimated the surrender of their power: this was the interpretation of
Darius. Gobryas, however, one of the seven who had dethroned the Magus,
thus interpreted the presents: ‘Men of Persia, unless like birds ye
shall mount into the air, like mice take refuge in the earth, or like
frogs leap into the marshes, these arrows shall prevent the possibility
of your return to the place from whence you came.’ This explanation was
generally accepted.”
This quaint recital suggests that the Persians were in dire straits;
but the result was less disastrous than the Scythians anticipated.
Darius managed to provision his army, and for some weeks he traversed
the steppes, even penetrating, it has been supposed, to the heart of
Russia, burning and sacking all the villages on the road, and then
returning south with no reverses.[a] During his absence, the barbarians
begged the Greeks to destroy their bridge of boats and return to their
own country. Miltiades of Athens, tyrant of the Thracian Chersonesus,
wished to accede to this request, but Histiæus of Miletus opposed the
plan, and his advice was followed. So Darius returned safe and sound
to Asia, after having left Megabazus with an army of eighty thousand
men, with which he subjugated in Thrace one tribe and town after
another, and in 506, the king of Macedonia became a vassal to the
Persian empire.
The Scythian expedition is generally regarded as the caprice of a
despot, but it really was a well-conceived and well-carried out plan.
It gave Persia the additional province of Thrace, and also brought
about a state of peace which was of great consequence. For the
Scythians now held the Persians in such fear that the frontiers were
henceforth quite freed from their incursions, and Darius was at liberty
to pursue his plans of conquest in the West.
[Sidenote: [513-487 B.C.]]
As Thrace and Macedonia were conquered, the Persians were now in
direct contact with Greece proper. The invasion which had been planned
was prevented by a revolt of Asiatic Greece. It is needless to give
the details of the rebellion in Ionia. For the first time since the
accession of Cyrus, the Persian empire met a serious reverse which
threatened its safety. Sardis was burned, Caria, the people of the
Hellespont, and Cyprus shook off the yoke of the Great King, and if
they had been less disunited the Greeks of Asia might probably have
remained free. After their defeat Darius thought of avenging himself
on the Athenians and Eretrians for having taken part in the struggle.
The first expedition under Mardonius came to grief (492), and two years
later Datis and Artaphernes landed in Attica where they were beaten at
Marathon.[32] But the old king did not lose heart, and after devoting
three years to collecting arms, provisions, soldiers, and ships, he
set out on the expedition in 487, when he was stopped by an unexpected
event. Egypt broke out in revolt. The Persians were expelled and a
native ruler, Khabbash, placed on the Egyptian throne, which he managed
to hold for three years.
[Illustration: OLD PERSIAN ALTARS]
_Affairs in Egypt since the Persian Conquest_
In order to understand the situation, we must take a brief backward
glance. Cambyses had entrusted the government of Egypt to Aryandes, the
Persian, and Darius was at first quite satisfied with his predecessor’s
choice, for not only did Aryandes remain faithful to his king, but
he tried to continue the conquest of Libya at the point at which
Cambyses had left it. The Dorians of Cyrene, disapproving of the
easy submission of their king, Arcesilaus III, to the foreign yoke,
banished him from the country, then recalled him, and then banished
him again to Barca, where he was killed. His mother, Pheretima, then
came to Egypt, and related to the satrap how Arcesilaus had fallen a
victim to his friendship with the Persians. So Aryandes seized the
opportunity of enlarging his satrapy at the expense of the Greeks, and
sent all his available ships and men against them. Barca held out for
nine months, and fell at last through treachery, and some detachments
of the advance guard then pushed on to Euesperides. On their return
the generals thought of occupying Cyrene, and they would probably
have done so had not an official order recalled them to Egypt. The
passage across the desert proved nearly fatal, for the nomads of the
Mormarica made continual raids upon them for the sake of spoil, but in
spite of serious losses they succeeded in taking back to Barca some
of the people as prisoners. Aryandes despatched the unhappy creatures
as a trophy to Darius, who had them sent to Bactriana, where they
founded a new Barca. But a prince, who carried out victorious campaigns
on his own account, necessarily incurred the disfavour of such a
jealous man as the Great King, so Aryandes was soon put to death, and
different reports were spread of the reason of his demise. Some said
he was killed for having coined a purer money than that issued by the
royal mint; others maintained that having incurred the hatred of the
Egyptians by his malpractices, Egypt was on the point of revolting when
he was killed.
[Sidenote: [522-487 B.C.]]
After the removal of his rival, Darius did nothing to win the affection
of his Egyptian subjects, or even to render his rule supportable. The
best means of succeeding with a self-sufficient, religious people like
the Egyptians, would have been to manifest a great respect for the
gods and national kings, but, unlike Cambyses, he took the side of the
persecuted priests. Cambyses had exiled the head of the priesthood
of Saïs to Elam, but Darius bade him return and repair the disasters
caused by the folly of his predecessor. So the high priest was escorted
back to his native town, where he founded a college of hierogrammatics,
and restored to the temple of Nit the property and revenues, of which
it had been deprived. Greek tradition exceeds the national tradition,
for it reports that Darius was initiated into the mysteries of Egyptian
theology, and studied the sacred books. It maintains, moreover, that,
when arriving at Memphis, after the death of a sacred bull, he took
part in the universal mourning, and promised one hundred talents to the
discoverer of the new Apis. Before leaving the country, he visited the
temple of Ptah, and commanded his statue to be put up by the side of
that of Sesostris. But the priests refused to do it, saying, “Darius
has not equalled the deeds of Sesostris, he has not conquered the
Scythians that he conquered,” to which Darius replied “that he hoped to
do as much as Sesostris if he lived as long as Sesostris had lived,” so
he submitted to the exclusive pride of his subjects, and the Egyptians
expressed their gratitude by adding him to the six legislators, whose
memory they venerated.
Egypt certainly prospered under the rule of Darius, and with Cyrene
and Barca, she formed the sixth satrapy of the empire, and the Nubian
tribes nearest to the southern frontier were included in this province.
The governor installed at the White Wall, in the old palace of the
Pharaohs, was in command of an army of one hundred and twenty thousand
men occupying the three entrenched camps of the kings of the Saïtes
Nomes, which were Daphne and Memphis on the confines of the Delta, and
Elephantine on the south.
Beyond these great posts, where the authority of the Great King was
in full sway, the ancient organisation of Egypt still continued: the
temples had their property, the vassals were free of the ordinary
charges, and the nobles were as independent in their principalities
and as ready to revolt as they were before. The annual tribute which
was the heaviest next to that of Chaldea and Assyria, was not more
than seven hundred talents of silver. Add to this sum the value of the
fisheries of the Lake Mœris (which, according to Diodorus, were worth a
talent a day the whole year round, and according to Herodotus, during
the six months of high water) the 120,000 medimni of corn for the
subsistence of the army of occupation, and the provision of the palace
with nitre, and water from the Nile, and the whole of the assessment
was far from being disproportionate to the resources of the country.
But they had several advantages to compensate for the expense of the
tribute. For, being now consolidated with an empire stretching into
three continents, regions which had been hitherto inaccessible to them
were now opened up for their industrial exports, and they profited
greatly by the commodities of the Sudan having to pass through their
territory before arriving at the great depots of Babylon or Susa, as
the Isthmus was one of the shortest routes to the districts of the
Mediterranean for merchandise from India or Arabia.
[Sidenote: [486-485 B.C.]]
Darius completed the canal of the Nile to the Gulf of Suez, and
reopened the road from Coptos to the Red Sea. He fortified the oases,
and built in the little town of Hib a grand temple to Ammon, the ruins
of which remain to this day. But gratitude could not extinguish the
Egyptians’ strong desire for liberty. The defeat of the Persians at
Marathon encouraged them to try and shake off the yoke, and, in 486,
they sent off the foreign garrisons and proclaimed as king, Khabbash,
who was probably descended from Psamthek. But Darius did not wish to
stop the invasion of Greece on this account, and he collected a second
army and had made preparations for the two wars, when he died in the
thirty-sixth year of his reign in 485.[e]
For his epitaph we can hardly do better than quote one of his own
inscriptions, that at Behistun, as translated by Sir Henry Rawlinson.
I am Darius, the great King, the King of Kings, the King of Persia, the
King of (the dependent) provinces, the son of Hystaspes, the grandson
of Arsames, the Achæmenian.
Says Darius the King: My father was Hystaspes; of Hystaspes the father
was Arsames; of Arsames the father was Ariaramnes; of Ariaramnes the
father was Teispes; of Teispes the father was Achæmenes.
Says Darius the King: On that account we have been called Achæmenians;
from antiquity we have been unsubdued (or we have descended); from
antiquity those of our race have been Kings.
Says Darius the King: There are eight of my race who have been kings
before me, I am the ninth; for a very long time we have been kings.
Says Darius the King: By the grace of Ormuzd I am (I have become) king;
Ormuzd has granted me the empire.
Says Darius the King: These are the countries which have fallen into
my hands--by the grace of Ormuzd I have become king of them--Persia,
Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt; those which are of the
seas, Sparta and Ionia; Armenia, Cappadocia, Parthia, Zarangia, Aria,
Chorasmia, Bactria, Sogdiana, the Sacæ, the Sattagydes, Arachosia,
and the Mecians, the total amount being twenty-one (twenty-three?)
countries.
Says Darius the King: These are the countries which have come to me; by
the grace of Ormuzd they have become subject to me--they have brought
tribute to me. That which has been said unto them by me, both by night
and by day, it has been performed by them.
Says Darius the King: Within these countries whoever was of the true
faith, him have I cherished and protected; whoever was a heretic, him
have I rooted out entirely. By the grace of Ormuzd these countries,
therefore, being given to me, have rejoiced. As to them it has been
said by me, thus has it been done by them.
Says Darius the King: Ormuzd has granted me the empire. Ormuzd has
brought help to me until I have gained this empire. By the grace of
Ormuzd I hold this empire.[d]
XERXES I
[Sidenote: [484-480 B.C.]]
Before coming to the throne Darius had had three children by his first
wife, the daughter of Gobyras, and Artabazanes, the eldest, had long
been regarded as the heir presumptive, and had probably undertaken the
regency during the Scythian campaign. But at the time of the rebellion
of Khabbash, when Darius had to name his successor, Atossa (daughter of
Cyrus) showed him the advantages of choosing her eldest child Xerxes,
who had been born in the purple and had the blood of Cyrus in his
veins. As the old king was quite under her influence, Atossa’s advice
was followed, and Xerxes ascended the throne without any opposition. He
was then thirty-five years of age, and was considered the handsomest
man of his time, but he was indolent and weak of character.
He at first wished to give up the idea of the campaigns, but his
father’s counsellors showed him that he could not leave the defeat at
Marathon unavenged; and he was wise enough to see that he could do
nothing in Europe until he had restored Egypt to order.
Khabbash had done his best to prepare a hot reception for him: he had
spent two years in fortifying the coast of the Delta, and had placed
strongholds at the mouth of the river to prevent any attack by sea. But
all these precautions were in vain when the moment of action came, and
he was easily conquered by Xerxes. The nomes of the Delta which had
taken part in the rebellion were severely punished, the priests were
freed, and the temple of Buto deprived of its treasures, and Khabbash
disappeared in the midst of the disaster, without anybody knowing
what became of him. Achæmenes, the king’s brother, was then appointed
satrap, and took measures to prevent a second rising, but again nobody
seemed to think of changing the political constitution of the country,
and the nomes remained in the hands of the hereditary princes. Xerxes
does not appear even to have suspected that in respecting the local
dynasties he retained chiefs always ready to take part in future
Egyptian revolts. The defeat and disappearance of Khabbash did not
give Xerxes full power. Classic tradition reports that he shocked the
polemical sentiment of the Chaldeans by ill-judged curiosity, for
he entered the tomb of Belus, but, in spite of his efforts, did not
succeed in filling the vessel therein with oil. If this strange story
be not true, there is no doubt about the rebellion. Megabyzus, the son
of Zopyrus, who was satrap of the province by hereditary right, treated
the town with unusual severity, the temple of Belus was pillaged, the
statue of the god taken away, and its priests massacred, the royal
tombs were violated and sacked, and part of the population was reduced
to slavery.
[Sidenote: [480-464 B.C.]]
At last Xerxes started for Europe at the head of the largest army
ever seen, and we know the result of the expedition. After having
witnessed the destruction of his fleet from the heights of Cape Colias,
he fled precipitately, and returned to Asia Minor without waiting
to see his troops routed on land. It is said that the victories of
Salamis and Platæa saved Europe from barbarism. But this is unjust
to both countries, as the Persians were not barbarians in the usual
acceptation of the word, for, although, in some respects, they were
less cultivated than the Greeks, in others they were superior to them
and their culture was of an utterly different type. Moreover it is not
saying much for the vitality and genius of Greece if its evolution
could have been arrested by defeat and subjugation. The Hellenic race
would have had to be utterly annihilated by the invasion of Asia, for
Hellenic civilisation to have been exterminated. The Persians did not
care about destroying whole nations, they only insisted on tribute and
obedience, and then each country could do as it pleased. If Xerxes
had been victorious, Hellas would have become a satrapy like Syria
and Chaldea, and she would not have lost her characteristics any more
than those countries did, but, like Egypt, she would soon have found
an opportunity to recover her liberty. The Persian conquest would have
changed the political course of Greek history, but it would have been
powerless to arrest the general march of civilisation. The defeat of
Xerxes resulted in his immediate retreat from the Persian frontier, but
some of his garrisons were allowed to remain at Byzantium, till 478,
at Eion, till 477; and at Doriscus till 450 and even later. But this
concession was granted more as a sop to the pride of the Great King,
than from any political or military necessity. Xerxes liked to think
that he still had a foothold in Europe, so that he could recommence
the war at any time, but Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace soon ceased
to recognise his authority and Athenian fleets now sailed menacingly
where Phœnician vessels had hitherto had undisputed course. If Greece
had been less disunited, and followed up her newly won advantages, all
the colonies of Asia Minor would probably have shaken off the Asiatic
yoke. But Sparta had no interest in distant enterprises, and Athens had
enough to do to rebuild her walls and to organise her fleet, so Persia
was spared an invasion.
And during all this time, whilst the fate of his empire hung in the
balance, Xerxes was wasting what little courage and intelligence he
had, in the intrigues and debauches of his harem. The war went on for
twelve years without his attempting to make any effort to invade or
even to prevent an invasion. About 466 an Athenian fleet cruising along
the coasts of Caria and Lycia encountered the fleet of the Great King
anchored at the mouth of the Eurymedon. It was another Mycale--the
vessels were destroyed and the Athenian crews landed and routed the
Persian army hard by. The conqueror then turned to Cyprus, scattered
a second fleet of eighty sailing vessels, and returned to the Piræus
laden with booty. Xerxes did not long survive this humiliation; he was
assassinated by Aspamithres the eunuch and by Artabanus the captain of
the guards in 465.
THE SUCCESSORS OF XERXES
[Sidenote: [464-454 B.C.]]
The same night the murderers went to the younger son, Artaxerxes, and
after accusing another son, Darius, of the crime, they killed him under
pretext of punishing the parricide. They then made an attempt on the
life of Artaxerxes himself, but they were betrayed by one of their
accomplices and executed. Then the sons of Artabanus, wishing to avenge
their father, collected a force together, but they perished arms in
hand. Hystaspes, the rightful heir to the throne, the eldest brother of
the new king, who was in Bactriana at the death of Xerxes, now arrived
at the head of an army to claim his rights, but he and his followers
were defeated in 462 in two bloody battles.
Every incident which threatened the existence or the integrity of the
empire, affected Egypt, and before the generation, which had taken up
arms for Khabbash, had passed away, a fresh generation, weary of the
Persian yoke, rose up against Artaxerxes. Since the fall of the Saïd,
Libya was the most important of the fiefs of the Delta. Being masters
of the Marea, and the fertile districts between the Canopic branch of
the Nile and the mountain and lake of Mareotis, her rulers probably
had suzerainty over the Adyrmachidæ, the Giligammas, the Asbystæ, and
the majority of the nomadic tribes of the desert. Inarus, son of a
Psamthek, who was then in power, declared war against the Persians,
and the population of the Delta, being ill-treated by Achæmenes,
received him warmly, drove off the tax-collectors and flew to arms.
Since their victory on the Eurymedon, the Athenians always kept a
squadron by Cyprus, and its two hundred vessels now had orders to set
sail for Egypt and to remain there at the disposal of the insurgent
chiefs. Artaxerxes then prepared to take personal command of the naval
and military forces, but he finally submitted to the advice of his
counsellors who advised him to let his place be taken by Achæmenes,
his uncle, who had fled to the court in alarm at the first successes
of Inarus. Achæmenes had not much difficulty in thrusting back the
Libyans, but the arrival of the Greeks put quite another face on the
matter; and he was beaten at Papremis, and his army almost entirely
exterminated. Inarus killed him with his own hand in the battle, and
sent the corpse to Artaxerxes perhaps out of bravado, and perhaps
out of respect for the blood of his victim. Some days later the
Athenian squadron under the command of Charitimides encountered the
Phœnician fleet hastening to the succour of the Persians, and sank
thirty ships, and took twenty. The allies then went up the river and
appeared at Memphis, where the rest of the Persians had taken refuge,
as the natives had remained faithful to the Great King. The town soon
surrendered, but the fortress of the White Wall shut its gates and its
resistance gave Artaxerxes time to collect fresh forces.
Before risking his generals in the Delta, the Great King sent his
envoys to Greece to try and buy the Lacedæmonians’ assistance for
the invasion of Attica. But Spartan virtue happened just then to be
proof against the Persian darics, so the troops of the Great King were
assembled in Phœnicia and Cilicia, and the three hundred thousand
foot-soldiers and the fleet of three hundred vessels were placed under
the command of Megabyzus. On the approach of the enemy, the allies
raised the siege of the White Wall, and beaten in a first engagement,
in which Charitimides was killed, and Inarus wounded in the thigh, they
entrenched themselves in the island of Prosopitis, where they sustained
a long siege of eighteen months, which ended by Megabyzus succeeding
in turning off one of the arms of the river, and the Athenian fleet
thus stranded, an opportunity was afforded of storming the place. The
majority of the Greek allies perished in the battle, but some succeeded
in getting back to Cyrene, and returning thence to their country, and
others fled with Inarus, and were forced to give themselves up a little
later. To add to their misfortunes, a reinforcement of fifty ships,
which arrived at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, was more than half
destroyed by the Phœnician fleet. When laying down his arms, Inarus had
stipulated that his life and that of his companions should be saved.
Artaxerxes seemed at first inclined to respect the capitulation, but
five years later he gave over the prisoners to his mother Amestris,
who had Inarus crucified to avenge the death of Achæmenes.
[Illustration: PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS OF DARIUS AND XERXES
(From casts in the British Museum, London.)]
[Sidenote: [454-449 B.C.]]
The victory of Prosopitis concluded the rebellion, and Thannyras, the
son of Inarus, was made king of Libya in his father’s place. But some
bands of refugees retired to the marshes on the seacoast, which had
often been a sanctuary to the people of the Saïd, and having proclaimed
Amyrtæus king, they successfully repelled all the attacks of the
Persians. The integrity of the empire was re-established, but the war
with the Greeks went on.
Six years after their defeat, the Athenians equipped a fleet of two
hundred sail, and put it under the command of Cimon, with orders to
conquer Cyprus or at least occupy several of its towns. Cimon, wishing
to divide the force of the enemy, sent a squadron of sixty ships to
King Amyrtæus, as if he were going to recommence the campaign in Egypt,
and then, with the remaining men and ships, he laid siege to Citium.
He died soon afterwards from a wound, and for want of provisions his
successors were forced to raise the siege; but in sailing past Salamis
they defeated the Phœnician and Cilician fleet, and then landed and
routed a Persian army stationed near the town. Artaxerxes was overcome
by this last reverse, and fearing that the Athenians, if once they had
Cyprus, would take possession of Egypt, which was always disaffected,
he decided to treat for peace at any price. Peace was therefore
concluded on condition of freedom being granted to the Greeks of Asia,
no Persian army was to approach the Ionian coast within a distance of
three days’ journey, no Persian man-of-war was to sail in Greek waters,
which extended from the eastern point of Lycia to the entrance of the
Bosporus.
This treaty in 449 terminated the first war between the Persians
and Greeks, after it had lasted from the burning of Sardis to the
seventeenth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, from 501 to 449.
Eastern empires could not exist without the excitement of constant
wars and victories, and directly they gave up their aggressive policy
they began to go down--they were conquerors, or nothing--and Persia
was no exception to the rule. Darius I had been a very great king,
greater perhaps than Cyrus himself. The vigour and skill with which he
organised armies, conceived plans of campaigns, and chose his officers,
and the promptitude with which he quelled the revolts on his accession
to the throne, show us that he was at least equal to the best generals
of his time, and as a ruler he was superior to the whole line of the
Achæmenidæ.
[Sidenote: [448-405 B.C.]]
Both Darius and Xerxes turned to Europe when their conquests in Asia
had extended their empire to where their frontiers were bounded by
the almost impassable barrier of the deserts of Africa and Arabia,
the mountains of India and the Caucasus, and the steppes of central
Asia; but when the Greek victories obliged them to retire, the day of
Persia’s decadence dawned. Her fall was not so sudden as had been that
of Assyria, Chaldea, and Media, for the administrative organisation
of Darius had been too skilfully adjusted to fall at a single blow,
but the nonchalance and inaptitude of the sovereigns finally destroyed
its action. Several satrapies were now governed by a single satrap,
who commanded the armies and acted as king, and there was not only
an incessant succession of rebellions in the provinces and in Egypt,
where the national sentiment was not attuned to peace, but in Chaldea,
Bactriana, and Asia Minor; and tragedies in the palaces, where the
dagger and poison made havoc in the royal family, were as common as
civil wars between the satraps.
Peace was hardly signed with Greece when Megabyzus, governor of Syria,
discontented with the way the king had treated Inarus after his
victory, raised an army under his command. He defeated two generals,
one after the other, and only disbanded his force after having dictated
the terms of peace.
Some years later his son Zopyrus headed a rebellion in Caria and
Lydia, and the success of the revolt was so fatal to the other satraps
that their fidelity henceforth was only a question of caprice or
circumstance. Artaxerxes died in 424, and the intrigues which had cost
so much blood at the beginning of his reign now recommenced. His eldest
legitimate son, Xerxes II, was assassinated at the end of forty-five
days by Sogdianus, one of his illegitimate brothers; he in his turn was
dethroned and killed after a reign of six months and a half by Ochus,
another bastard of the old king, who, on ascending the throne, took
the name of Darius, and whose life was one long tissue of miseries and
crimes. His reign from the beginning was disturbed by the rebellion of
his brother Arsites and Artyphius, son of Megabyzus, who took up arms
in Asia Minor, enrolled Greek mercenaries, and gained two important
victories. Persian gold now compassed what was beyond Persian bravery,
and the rebels, abandoned by their soldiers, surrendered on condition
that their lives should be spared.
DARIUS II
Darius II had married his aunt Parysatis, one of the cruellest and most
depraved women that ever entered an Eastern harem, and it was by her
advice that he broke his word and Arsites was burnt to death. But this
example did not deter Pissuthenes, the satrap of Lydia, who had been in
office for twenty months, from rebelling; however, he, like Arsites,
fell by treachery; for Tissaphernes having bribed the mercenaries in
his pay to desert him, he was obliged to surrender. Darius had him put
to death, and made his conqueror his successor.
But this was not the last of the troubles in Asia Minor, for Amorges,
the natural son of Pissuthenes excited Caria to revolt, and after
abrogating the title of King, he held out till 412.
It was at this time that the whole of Greece was laid waste by the
Peloponnesian war. Athens had just lost in Sicily the best part of her
fleet and the bravest of her soldiers, and when the news of her defeat
reached the East, Darius saw that it was a favourable time to break
the treaty of 449. He sent orders to the satraps of Mysia and Lydia
to collect the taxes from the Greek towns on the coast and to treat
with the Lacedæmonians. Sparta accepted the alliance offered her, and
henceforth the different Hellenic states were but playthings in the
hands of the Great King and his agents. Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus
tried at first to keep the balance equal between the Dorians and
Athenians, without allowing either of the rival races to deal the
mortal blow; but this equalising policy did not last long. Darius
had two sons, and the second one, named Cyrus after the founder of
the empire, obtained through the influence of Parysatis the supreme
rulership of the provinces of Asia Minor.
Cyrus was ambitious of reigning, and he hoped that his mother would
manage by intrigues to obtain for him the succession which rightfully
belonged to his eldest brother, Arsaces; and in the event of failure by
those means he intended to win the throne by force of arms.
[Sidenote: [405-399 B.C.]]
Athens being a maritime power was not likely to help him in an
expedition against the provinces of Upper Asia, so he turned to Sparta
and supported her so efficaciously that in two years the war ended in
favour of the Peloponnesians, by their decisive victory at Ægospotami
in 405.
ARTAXERXES II
The satraps of Asia Minor seem to have suspected young Cyrus of these
secret intrigues, for Darius summoned his son to Susa. But Cyrus
arrived only in time to be present at the king’s death, and in spite of
the efforts of Parysatis, Arsaces, the new king, ascended the throne
under the royal name of Artaxerxes (Artakhshathra). Cyrus tried to kill
his brother at the foot of the altar during the coronation ceremony,
but Tissaphernes and one of the priests having denounced him, he was
seized and would have been executed had not his mother saved him from
the hands of the executioner.
His pardon being granted after some trouble, Cyrus returned to Asia
Minor, determined to seize the first opportunity for revenge. Having
managed, in spite of the surveillance of Tissaphernes, to collect
under divers pretences 13,000 Greek mercenaries and 100,000 native
soldiers, he suddenly left Sardis (401), crossed Asia Minor, Syria,
and Mesopotamia, without being molested; but encountering the imperial
army at Cunaxa, some miles north of Babylon, he was killed in the
engagement. He was brave, active, ambitious, and endowed with all
the qualities which would have made him a good oriental monarch. His
intercourse with the Greeks had opened his eyes to the weak sides of
his country which he tried to remedy; and if he had been successful he
would probably have momentarily arrested the empire on its downward
course. When he was gone, the native army which had followed him,
immediately dispersed, but the mercenaries did not lose courage and
gained the shores of the Pontus Euxinus by crossing Assyria and
Armenia. The old state of affairs was quite changed when the retreat of
the Ten Thousand showed that a handful of men, treacherously deprived
of their leaders, without guides and without allies, could brave the
empire with impunity and return to Greece without any considerable loss.
Victorious Sparta had now succeeded Athens in her protection of the
Greeks of Ionia, and the death of Cyrus having broken her bonds with
Persia, she had complete liberty of action. She continued the war with
Asia for four years, her king, Agesilaus, even penetrated into the
heart of Phrygia, and would have proceeded in the road taken by the
Ten Thousand if Persian gold had not turned the course of affairs.
For Athens again took up arms, and having united her fleet to that of
Persia, she patrolled the Ægean Sea, the island of Cythera was taken by
Conon, and the long walls were rebuilt at the expense of the Great King.
Whilst Hellas, divided against herself, sought favour in the eyes of
the satraps of Asia Minor, Egypt, united in hatred of the foreigner,
succeeded in expelling him. There had been no serious disturbance since
the defeat of Inarus, and the Persian governors had quietly succeeded
each other in the palace of Memphis, the aged Amyrtæus had disappeared,
and his son Pausiris had been the docile vassal of the Persians. Many
little incidents, however, had shown that the old spirit of rebellion
was only waiting for an opportunity to break out again. The rebellion
of Megabyzus in Syria had shown how easily the Great King could
henceforth be defied, and the rebellions of Zopyrus and Pissuthenes,
following one upon another, sapped the strength of the empire
for several years, and a grandson of Amyrtæus, who bore his name,
proclaimed the independence of Egypt. He did not utterly expel the
Persians, for Artaxerxes still had Egyptian troops in his army in 401,
at the time of the campaign against Cyrus, and he also had to endure
rival princes, for the monuments record that a Psamthek, descendant of
the old family of the Saïtes was his contemporary and bore the title of
“King of the Egyptians.” This feudalism was too strong and turbulent
to permit the sceptre to remain long in one family, so the XXVIIIth
Dynasty only lasted six years, which was the length of the reign of
Amyrtæus [Amen-Rut], and it was followed by the Mendesian dynasty.
Niafaarut I completed the work of deliverance, and under his rule,
Egypt recovered her old activity. Her course was controlled by
circumstances, for the disproportion of the forces of an isolated
province and an empire almost covering the west of Asia was too
apparent for the Pharaohs to think of going to war without outside
help, so they instinctively followed the policy of Psamthek and his
successors. Egypt tried to establish lines of posts along the front
which would bear the brunt of the enemy’s first attack. Then she
intrigued in Syria and Cyprus, hoping to win over the allies, or even
to re-establish the ancient suzerainty of the Theban princes there, and
if beaten on this outlying front of their lines, she would have time to
muster an army, or even a fleet, before the conqueror arrived on the
frontier. All the revolts of the different races, and all the quarrels
of the satraps were to the advantage of Egypt, and as they obliged the
Great King to divide his troops, she assiduously fomented them and
on occasions even provoked them, and managed so well, that for some
time only the weakest part of the Persian armies were stationed in her
country. Mercenaries were now substituted in Greece for troops raised
from the citizens, and war had become a lucrative occupation to those
competent to excel in it. The Pharaohs never hesitated to lavish their
treasures on the purchase of these formidable companies. Iphicrates,
Chabrias, Timotheus, and all the celebrated generals appeared in turn
at the head of the Egyptian or Persian masses, engaged on the banks of
the Nile, sometimes with the consent, and sometimes against the will
of their country. When Niafaarut ascended the throne, Sparta was at
the height of her grandeur and had even declared war against Persia,
and Agesilaus was commanding his campaign in Phrygia; so Niafaarut
concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the Lacedæmonians,
and sent them a fleet laden with arms, corn, and ammunition, but it was
intercepted by Conon, the Athenian, who commanded the Persian squadron.
The recall of Agesilaus and the abandonment of Asia Minor chilled the
good will of the king of Egypt, and the forces which he had seemed
disposed to send to Sparta’s assistance were now probably stationed on
the frontier of Syria to repel the attack which he thought was imminent.
The attack, however, did not come as quickly as was expected. The
retreat of the Lacedæmonians had not terminated the affairs of Asia
Minor, for since the rising of Cyrus the majority of the indigenous
races, such as the Mysians, Pisidians, and the people of the Black
Sea regions and of Paphlagonia, had asserted their independence; so
Artaxerxes sent against them the army which he had meant to despatch to
Egypt, but it was only at Cyprus that much stand was made. The island
was now divided between two races, the Phœnician and the Greek, and
since the Achæans settled there after uniting with the maritime people,
vanquished by Meneptah, the Greek influence had increased. All the
adventurers, in quest of fresh countries to occupy, assembled on this
frontier of the Eastern world.
[Sidenote: [399-387 B.C.]]
As time went on the Semitic constituent decreased still more as the
Phœnicians, driven back slowly but surely, concentrated themselves
around Citium, or Cition, and Amathus. But, albeit diminished, the
number of the Semitic forces was sufficient to prevent the princes
of Soli, or Salamis, uniting the whole island into one state. It had
been successively subjugated, by the Assyrians under Sargon II, the
Babylonians under Nebuchadrezzar, the Egyptians under Aahmes II, and
the Persians under Cyrus and Cambyses, and each of these conquests left
profound traces on the customs and the arts of the country.
But if the external side of civilisation often followed Eastern models,
internally it became more and more Hellenic. The people of Cyprus had
been the earliest among the people of their race to possess the art
of writing. They had adopted, doubtless soon after their arrival, a
particular system of spelling, and they retained it, even when the
Greeks were beginning to use the Cadmean alphabet.
Onasilas, the king of Salamis, in Cyprus, united with Miletus, and,
with the exception of the king of Amathus, all the other princes joined
the alliance, which resisted the forces of the Great King for a year.
But when the rebellion was quelled, Darius made the Greek population
pay for its disaffection; its commerce was stopped, its ports were shut
to the ships coming from Hellas, and in many towns, like Salamis, the
tyrants of the old race were replaced by those of Phœnician descent. In
fact, the Great King now looked to the Semitic race for respect for his
authority. Citium, almost ruined by its vicinity to Salamis, recovered
her old position as the head and chief market of the island; and, in
spite of the intermittent appearance of Athenian fleets on her coasts,
more than a century elapsed before the Cypriotes found an opportunity
of freeing themselves from their crushing bondage.
It was Evagoras who delivered them. He was descended from the old kings
of Salamis, and after having driven away Abdemon, the Tyrian, who was
in command of the town, he took the whole of the island, with the
exception of Citium and Amathus. Artaxerxes soon took umbrage at his
ambition and activity, and not without reason, for in 391 he was in
open war against Evagoras. If he had not been assisted, the struggle
would have been short, but both Greece and Egypt helped him with
both money and arms. Haker had succeeded Niafaarut in 393, and after
protecting his western frontier by making an alliance with the Libyans
at Barca, he made a treaty with Evagoras and the Athenians. He gave
corn, ammunition, vessels, and money to Athens in return for several
thousands of men under Chabrias, one of her best generals; and not only
was the first Persian expedition under Autophradates utterly beaten,
but after taking Citium and Amathus, Evagoras crossed the sea, took
Tyre by assault, and laid waste Phœnicia and Cilicia.
[Sidenote: [387-378 B.C.]]
The princes of Asia Minor then became alarmed, and Hecatomnus of Caria
joined the allies. Sparta, weakened by the war, then made a sudden
treaty with the Persians, and Antalcidas went to Susa to arrange this
Peace, so celebrated in the history of Greece, and thereupon a decree
from Asia notified to all the people of Hellas that hostilities were
to be suspended and the liberty of all sides was henceforth to be
respected; and as no state was in a position to resist the united
kingdoms of Sparta and Persia, the command was obeyed. A little more
than half a century before, Athens by a treaty with an Artaxerxes,
forced him to acknowledge the independence of the Greeks of Asia; and
now Sparta, treating with a second Artaxerxes, gave the Hellenes back
into his power.
The Great King, being now free to turn his whole attention to the
rebellious countries, Evagoras was the one to be first attacked; Cyprus
was in effect a sort of open road to Egypt and the people possessing it
had command of the sea and could intercept an army on its way to the
Delta from Palestine. So Artaxerxes mustered three hundred ships and
three hundred thousand foot-soldiers, and after placing them under the
command of Tiribazus he despatched them to the island. The Cypriote
corsairs intercepted the convoy and reduced it to such a wretched
condition that a mutiny broke out. However, Evagoras was finally beaten
at sea near Citium, and his fleet was destroyed. But still hopeful, he
left his son to find a way out of the difficulty and repaired to Egypt
to implore the help of the Pharaoh (385).
But Haker had enough to do for his own safety without risking the
best part of his forces in a distant expedition; so Evagoras and the
subsidies he brought back from Egypt were very insufficient. Reduced to
an army of three thousand men, he shut himself up in Salamis, where he
was besieged for years. The treachery of one of the Persian generals,
Gaos, son-in-law of Tiribazus, gave him a moment’s hope, for Gaos,
after joining Haker, asked for the help of the Lacedæmonians, but he
died without having done anything, so Evagoras was again alone in the
presence of the enemy. Whilst the officers of the Great King were
engaged in besieging him, Artaxerxes himself nearly lost his life in
an unfortunate campaign against the Cadusians. A brave soldier, but
an incompetent general, his troops, worn out with hunger and fatigue,
would have perished in their march across the mountains by the hand of
an implacable enemy had not Tiribazus cleverly persuaded the barbarians
to sue for peace at the moment of their triumph.
As the defeat of Evagoras showed Haker that the submission of Cyprus
was only a question of time, he went meanwhile to Asia Minor, where
he made a not very advantageous alliance with the Pisidians, who were
then in full revolt. He found more assistance in Greece, for the Peace
of Antalcidas having left a number of mercenaries without employment,
he soon mustered twenty thousand men. The Persians, being still busy
in Cyprus, offered no opposition to the arrival of the reinforcements,
and this was fortunate for Egypt, for as Haker died in 380 and as his
heirs Psamut and Niafaarut II succeeded each other on the throne within
a short time, the settlement of the succession plunged the country into
two years’ warfare.
The turbulence of the great feudal chiefs which had robbed the Saïtes
of their power was equally fatal to the Mendesians, and the prince of
Sebennytus, Nekht-Hor-heb (Nectanebo I), was borne to the throne by the
soldiers. According to Ptolemaic tradition, he was the son of Niafaarut
I, and had been kept from the throne by the jealousy of the gods. But
whatever was his origin, Egypt had no cause to repent his coronation.
Feeling that a continuance of the supplies which had been allowed by
Haker to Evagoras would be waste of money, he stopped them, and the
inevitable fall of the tyrant of Salamis ensued. Although abandoned
by all, and weary of a six years resistance, he would only surrender
on the most advantageous terms. Not only was Artaxerxes to pardon his
rebellion, but he was to retain his title and prerogatives for the
payment of an annual tribute. Nectanebo, now brought in contact with
the Great King, redoubled his activity. The events of the last few
years having proved the talents of Chabrias, the Athenian, Nectanebo
invited him to organise his army. Chabrias accepted the offer, albeit
without his government’s authority, and he soon transformed the Delta
into a regularly fortified camp. The Persians strove to measure their
attack according to the means of the enemy’s defence. Akko, on the
southern coast of Syria, was the only port large enough to harbour the
Persian fleets against tempests and surprises, so Pharnabazus made
it his headquarters and the base of his operations. For three years
it was the place of muster for provisions and ammunition, sailors
and soldiers, and the Phœnician and Greek fleets. The advance of the
enterprise was several times nearly arrested by the rivalries of the
Persian chiefs, Tithraustes, Datames, and Abrocomas, and the intrigues
of the court, but Pharnabazus always succeeded in getting rid of his
rivals; and at the beginning of 373 the expedition was ready to start.
It consisted of 200,000 soldiers, 20,000 mercenaries, 300 picked men,
200 twenty-oared galleys and many transport ships.
[Sidenote: [378-373 B.C.]]
But at the last moment Egypt lost her best commander, for Artaxerxes
asked Athens by what right she authorised Chabrias to serve against him
in the Egyptian ranks; and at the same time he begged his friends, the
Athenians, to lend him their general, Iphicrates, for a time. So the
Athenians ordered the return of Chabrias, and sent Iphicrates to Syria,
where he took command of the Greek auxiliaries; and thus reinforced,
the Persians started in 373.
[Illustration: PERSIAN WARRIOR
(After Du Sommerard)]
On arriving at Pelusium, Iphicrates saw he had but slight chance of
forcing its surrender, for not only had the fortifications of the town
been increased, but the inhabitants had cut the canals, and inundated
the approaches. Iphicrates advised the Persians to take it by surprise.
So three thousand men were secretly despatched to the Mendesian mouth
of the Nile, where they attacked the entrenchments which guarded it.
The garrison, imprudently sallying forth, was beaten and pursued
with such vigour that victors and vanquished entered pell mell into
the fort. The breach being made, the Persians could have promptly
taken possession of the place, but the opportunity was lost through
the dissensions of the generals. Iphicrates having learned from the
prisoners that Memphis was short of soldiers, advised Pharnabazus
quickly to reascend the Nile and take the capital before Nectanebo’s
reinforcements arrived. But Pharnabazus thought the plan too dangerous
and decided to wait for the whole army to rejoin him. Iphicrates
then suggested attempting the venture with his own company; but the
Egyptians, suspicious of his having some secret design upon Egypt,
declined the offer. As these delays gave the enemy time to recover from
the first reverse, Nectanebo again took the offensive, attacked the
Persians, and obtained the victory in several skirmishes.
In the meanwhile summer arrived, the land was inundated, and Iphicrates
and Pharnabazus beat a retreat and returned to Syria, from whence
Iphicrates, weary of the recriminations of his Asiatic colleagues,
secretly fled to Greece, and the remainder of his fleet and army
dispersed soon after his departure; thus Egypt was saved for a quarter
of a century.
[Sidenote: [373-361 B.C.]]
But this failure in no way deflected from the influence exercised by
the Great King over Greece since the Peace of 387; and Sparta, Athens,
and Thebes disputed for his alliance more hotly than ever.
In 372 Antalcidas reappeared at Susa to again beg for the king’s
interposition in Greece, so in 367 Pelopidas and Ismenias obtained a
rescript bidding the Greeks keep the peace; upon which Athens sent
ambassadors to obtain subsidies from Persia. The Great King seems to
have become a sort of supreme arbiter to whom each city came to plead
her cause. But capable as was this arbiter in imposing his will abroad,
he was not master in his own domains, for, kind and easy-going, and
more inclined to give than to exact, Artaxerxes had not the energy
necessary to repress the ambition of the provincial governors.
Ariobarzanes of Pontus was the first to rebel, and Datames and Aspis of
Cappadocia soon followed suit, and defied their sovereign for years.
When these leaders were defeated by treachery, all the satraps of
the western provinces from the frontiers of Egypt to the Hellespont,
entered into an offensive and defensive alliance; and the empire was
in danger of foundering; for Egypt, always on the watch, had profited
by this revolt to exhibit her hatred of Persia, and to add to her own
security. Nectanebo had died in 364 and Tachus, who had succeeded
him, did not hesitate to negotiate with the rebels, who despatched
Rheomithres to him to discuss the terms of the treaty.
Tachus having inherited from Nectanebo a fine fleet and a full
treasury loaned the ambassador five hundred talents of silver, and
fifty ships with which he sailed for Leucas on the coast of Asia
Minor, where his colleagues were waiting for him delighted with the
success of the mission. But not having confidence in the issue of the
struggle, Rheomithres sought an early opportunity of reconciliation
with the Great King, and he had scarcely arrived when he joined with
Orontes in despatching the insurgents to Susa in chains. Tachus had
thus benevolently assisted the Persian king to fill his coffers and
to master his armies, but in spite of this last disappointment the
position of Egypt was so brilliant and that of Persia so wretched that
he decided to take the offensive and invade Syria. In this design he
was supported by Chabrias, whom the reverses of an adventurous life had
again brought back to Egypt; but Tachus had not sufficient funds for a
long campaign in a foreign country, so the Greek pointed out the means
of procuring them.
The Egyptian priesthood was rich, so Chabrias told the king that as the
money disbursed annually for the sacrifices and for the support of the
temples, would be better spent in the service of the state, he advised
him to demolish the majority of the sacerdotal colleges. The priests,
however, retained them at the expense of their personal property, and
after the king had graciously accepted this sacrifice, he told them
that in the future, and during the expedition against the Persians,
he would exact from them nine-tenths of the sacred revenues. This tax
would have sufficed for the needs had it been fully paid, but the
priests doubtless found means to avoid paying the whole sum.
Chabrias then advised the increase of the capitation tax and the tax
on houses, the exaction of an obole on each ardeb of grain sold, the
levying of a tenth on navigation, fabrics, and manual trades. These
charges soon added to the resources, but another difficulty ensued,
which the Greek overcame with equal energy.
Egypt had little coin and the system of exchange was used by the people
in the ordinary transactions of life.
The Greek mercenaries, however, declined to be paid in kind or in
metals uncoined, and they demanded ringing pieces of money as the
price of their blood. So the order was issued that the people should
bring to the treasury all the minted or unminted gold and silver in
their possession with the understanding that they were to be gradually
reimbursed from the taxes of the future.
[Sidenote: [361-352 B.C.]]
If these measures cost Tachus his popularity, they empowered him to
raise 24,000 native soldiers and 10,000 Greeks to equip a fleet of two
hundred sail and to hire the best generals of the period. But he was
too emulative to succeed, he was not contented with Chabrias and the
alliance with Athens, but he also wanted Agesilaus and the alliance of
Sparta. In spite of his infirmities and his eighty years, Agesilaus
was not insensible to gain and flattery; and tempted by the promise of
supreme command, he set out with a thousand soldiers. On his arrival he
was met by a disappointment, for Tachus only gave him the command of
the mercenaries, as he kept the chief leadership for himself and put
the fleet in the hands of Chabrias.
The old hero, after showing his vexation by an exhibition of Spartan
temper, was appeased by the presents he was given, and he consented
to accept the proffered post. However, disputes of a more serious
character soon broke out between him and his allies, for he wished
Tachus to remain in Egypt, and leave the conduct of the operations to
his generals. But the facility with which the captains of the troops
passed from one camp to another was not calculated to inspire the
Egyptian with confidence, so he refused, and after nominating his
brother-in-law, who also bore the name of Tachus, regent, he repaired
to the camp. The Persians were not strong enough to appear in the
open, so Tachus commanded his cousin Nekht-neb-ef (Nectanebo II),
the son of the regent, to besiege them in their fortresses. The war
then dragged along and discontent broke out among the troops, and
treachery lurked in the army. The financial expedient of Chabrias had
exasperated the priests and the common people, and the complaints which
had been stifled by fear of the mercenaries, were voiced as soon as the
expedition had crossed the frontier. The regent, instead of quelling
this discontent, secretly fomented it, and wrote to tell his son to
claim the crown.
Nectanebo soon won over to his side the Egyptians under his command,
but they were insufficient so long as the Greeks had not declared for
him. Chabrias refused to withdraw from his engagements with the king;
but Agesilaus was not so scrupulous. His vanity had been deeply wounded
whilst in Egypt, for not only had he been refused the command to which
he considered he was entitled, but his small figure, his infirmities
and his rough Lacedæmonian ways had been made fun of by the courtiers.
When Tachus begged Agesilaus to take the field against the rebels, he
ironically replied that he had been sent to help the Egyptians, not
to fight against them. However, before finally deciding which side to
take, he consulted the ephores, and, as they permitted him to do his
best to advance the interests of the country, he declared himself for
Nectanebo, in spite of the entreaties of Chabrias.
Tachus, thus abandoned by his allies, took refuge at Sidon, and from
thence he repaired to Artaxerxes, who received him kindly and placed
him at the head of a fresh expedition against Egypt in the year 361.
The news of the king’s application to Persia excited general revolt in
the valley of the Nile, and as the support of the foreigner aroused the
suspicion of the native races, they joined the prince of Mendes.
Nectanebo having abandoned the conquests of his predecessors brought
back his forces to Egypt, and arrived at Pelusium, where he found
himself at the head of a large and resolute army with which, albeit
undisciplined, Agesilaus advised the king to attack the insurgents
before they had time to take the field. But unfortunately the Spartan
was not in favour, for the prince of Mendes had tried to corrupt him,
and although he had on that occasion shown unhoped-for loyalty, he was
not trusted. Nectanebo made Tanis his headquarters, and his enemies
hoped to besiege him there. The circle of ditches encompassing the
town was almost completed, and provisions were getting scarce, when
Agesilaus received orders to attempt a sortie, but he forced the
blockade under shadow of the night, and a few days later, gained a
decisive victory.
Nectanebo would gladly have kept him with him, for he was in fear of
a surprise by the Persians, but the Spartan, being tired of Egypt and
her intrigues, left the country, and died of exhaustion on the coast of
Cyrenaica [probably 360].
The onset soon followed, as Pharaoh had anticipated, but it was weak
and uncertain: Tachus, who was to have led it, died before it began,
and the discords of the royal family prevented the other generals
from acting in concert. The old Artaxerxes had three sons by his wife
Statira--Darius, Ariaspes, and Ochus. Darius the eldest had been
solemnly recognised as heir presumptive, but threatened with seeing
himself supplanted by Ochus, he conspired the death of his father;
however, he was discovered, imprisoned, and executed in his cell. So
Ariaspes became the successor-elect, but Ochus told him that his father
intended to have him put to an ignominious death, and he persuaded him
to commit suicide so as to escape it. Arsames, a bastard son of one of
the harem ladies, still remained as an heir to the throne, but he was
assassinated by Ochus, and Artaxerxes succumbed to this last misfortune
and died of sorrow, after a reign of forty-six years [358].
ARTAXERXES III
Artaxerxes III (Ochus) opened his reign with a massacre of all the
princes of the royal family; then, thus freed from the pretenders who
might have disputed the crown, he continued the war preparations, which
had been interrupted by the death of his father and his own accession.
Never had it been more important to re-establish the Persian dominion
on the banks of the Nile. Egypt had been a source of continual trouble
to the Great King ever since the recovery of her independence sixty
years before.
The first attack of Ochus was repelled with loss. Two adventurers who
commanded the troops of Nectanebo, Diophantes of Athens and Lamius of
Sparta, gained a complete victory over the assailants, and obliged them
to retire with loss.
[Sidenote: [352-340 B.C.]]
The provinces on the coast of the Mediterranean, always unquiet since
the campaign of Tachus and the revolt of Evagoras, took advantage
of the seemingly favourable opportunity, and Artabazus revolted in
Asia Minor, and nine of the little kings of Cyprus proclaimed their
independence. Phœnicia still hesitated, but the satrap’s insolence, the
rapacity of the generals, and the want of discipline of the soldiers
returned from Egypt decided her. At a meeting held at Tripolis the
representatives of the Phœnician cities conferred on Tennes, the prince
of Sidon, the perilous honour of directing the military operations, and
his first act was to destroy the royal park, which the Persians had in
the Lebanon Mountains, and to burn the provisions stored in the ports
for the war in Egypt. At first Ochus thought that his lieutenants would
soon avenge these acts, and, indeed, it was not long before Idrieus,
tyrant of Caria, supported by eight thousand mercenaries, quelled the
Cypriotes. But in Asia Minor, Artabazus, aided by Athens and Thebes,
withstood the troops sent against him, and Tennes gained an important
victory in Syria. He had naturally implored the help of Nectanebo, and
he had sent him four thousand Greeks under his best general, Mentor,
the Rhodian; and Belesys, the satrap of Syria, and Mazæus, the satrap
of Cilicia, were beaten. Then enraged at these reverses Ochus convened
his vanguard and rear-guard of thirty thousand Asiatics and ten
thousand Greeks for a final effort; and the Sidonians, on their side,
surrounded their city with a triple moat, increased the height of their
walls and burnt their ships. Their leader was, unfortunately, wanting
in energy, for Tennes, until the day of revolt, had lived a life of
pleasure, surrounded with dancers and musicians, whom he had brought
from Ionia and Greece at great expense.
The approach of Ochus robbed him of the little courage he possessed,
and he tried by treachery to his subjects to atone for the treason of
which he was guilty to his sovereign. His confidential minister was a
certain Thessalion, and he sent him to the Persian camp and offered to
betray Sidon, and act as a guide to Egypt, in return for the retention
of his life and rank.
Ochus had accepted the conditions of his rebellious vassal when a
moment of pride nearly compromised the affair. For Thessalion asked the
king to give him his right hand on the promise of the fulfilment of the
engagement; and this presumption so enraged Ochus, that he gave orders
for his execution. As they were taking him away, Thessalion cried out
that if the Great King forfeited the proffered assistance of Tennes, he
would fail in his efforts against Phœnicia and Egypt; whereupon, Ochus
granted the request made of him.
When the Persians were only a few days’ march from the city, Thessalion
lured the hundred chief citizens to the camp on the pretext of a
general meeting, and they were put to death by javelin blows. The
Sidonians, although abandoned by their king, still wished to hold
out, but Mentor told them that their mercenaries would bring the
enemy into the place at a moment’s notice; so after deciding to throw
themselves on the mercy of the conqueror, five hundred of them were
sent as deputies with olive branches in their hands. But Ochus was the
cruellest, most blood-thirsty king Persia had ever had, and he treated
the envoys in his usual way. The rest of the population, therefore,
seeing that death was inevitable, shut themselves up in their houses
and set fire to them. Forty thousand persons perished in the fire, and
such was the wealth of the best houses, that the right of extracting
from the ruins the ingots of gold and silver was sold at a high price.
The punishment of the town was followed by the execution of Tennes,
and the other cities, alarmed at his fate, opened their gates without
striking a blow.
After the settlement of Syria, Ochus marched to Egypt without further
delay. The Great King’s victories recalled the vacillating provinces to
submission.
[Sidenote: [340-338 B.C.]]
The army was divided into three parts, each one commanded by a
barbarian and by a Greek. In passing through the marsh lands, several
battalions were lost in the shifting sands; and on arriving at
Pelusium, the enemy was found ready. Nectanebo had fewer men than his
adversary, his force consisting of sixty thousand Egyptians, twenty
thousand Libyans, and as many Greeks, but the recollection of his own
successes and those of his predecessors, in spite of unequal numbers,
inspired him with courage in the issue of the struggle. His squadron
was likewise unequal to the combined fleets of Cyprus and Phœnicia,
but he had sufficient flat-bottomed boats to defend the mouths of the
Nile. The weak points of his position were defended by fortresses or
entrenched camps; in short, all measures were taken for a defensive war.
The imprudent ardour of his Greek auxiliaries, however, spoiled his
plan. Pelusium was occupied by five thousand men, under the command of
Philophron. Some of the Thebans, who had served under Lacrates in the
Persian army, desirous of again justifying their renown for bravery
gained in the campaigns of Epaminondas, crossed a deep canal, which
separated them from the town, and provoked the garrison to an encounter
in the open field. Philophron accepted the challenge, and disputed the
victory till nightfall. The following day Lacrates, having bridged the
canal with a dike, led his company to the attack, and began storming
the town. In a few days a breach was made, but the Egyptians, being as
clever in the use of the pickaxe as the sword, built a new wall crowned
with towers, whilst the old one was being demolished. Nectanebo,
accompanied by thirty thousand native soldiers, five thousand Greeks,
and half of the Libyan contingent, followed the course of the siege
from a distance; and his presence prevented the Persians from
approaching nearer.
Weeks elapsed, and it seemed that the tactics of temporisation would
have their usual result, when an unforeseen incident complicated the
situation. Among the chiefs of companies who fought under Ochus, there
was a certain Nicostratus from Argos, whose personal strength likened
him to Hercules, and who, like the traditional hero, was equipped with
a lion’s skin and a club.
In imitation, doubtless, of the plan formerly proposed by Iphicrates
to Pharnabazus, Nicostratus forced some peasants, whose wives and
children were in his power, to guide him to one of the mouths of the
Nile, which had been left unfortified, and there he landed his body of
troops, and fortified himself in the rear of Nectanebo. The enterprise,
undertaken with too few men, was more than rash, and if the mercenaries
had contented themselves with harassing Nicostratus, without coming to
an open battle, they would have forced him to re-embark or surrender.
But their impatience spoilt everything, for the five thousand men
forming the garrison of the neighbouring town marched under Clinias of
Cos against the Argive and were beaten. The breach was at last made and
the Persians, encouraged by the success of Nicostratus, ran the risk
of being separated from the troops on the eastern frontier and utterly
destroyed, for he had turned back to the Delta. Whilst he was trying
to muster a fresh army at Memphis, Pelusium surrendered to Lacrates;
Mentor took possession of Bubastis, and the strongest cities fearing
the same fate as Sidon opened their gates almost without resistance.
Nectanebo, in despair at these successive defections, fled to Ethiopia
with his treasures, and the successful _coup de main_ of Nicostratus
re-established the empire of the Great King.
Egypt had certainly prospered under the administration of her latter
indigenous kings. From the reign of Amyrtæus to that of Nectanebo,
the sovereigns had conscientiously worked to efface the traces of the
foreign invasions and to restore the kingdom to its old prosperity. The
two capitals Thebes and Memphis, were not forgotten, and the cities of
the Delta, Sebennytus, Bubastis, and Pithom were also embellished. And
in spite of the short time given to the work, the majority of these
works bear no trace of haste or carelessness; and the artists being
quite conversant with the methods of ancient art, knew how to produce
_chefs d’œuvre_ comparable to those of the Saïtic period.
But now the victory of Ochus was a more fatal blow to Egypt than the
invasion of Cambyses had been. Ochus had personal feelings of hate
against his new subjects, and he has been compared to Typhon for
cruelty, and he was dubbed an ass, because it is the animal consecrated
to the god of evil.
Arrived at Memphis, he gave orders for the Apis bull to be roasted for
a banquet, and he enthroned and worshipped an ass in the temple of Ptah.
The goat of Mendes shared the fate of Apis, the temples were sacked,
the sacred books carried off to Persia, the walls of the city razed
to the ground, and the chief partisans of the indigenous royalty were
massacred.
When these acts were over, the Greek mercenaries returned to their
country, laden with booty, and the Great King returned to Susa, leaving
the reconquered satrapy in charge of Pherendates. The success of the
expedition had been mainly due to the eunuch Bagoas and Mentor the
Rhodian; and to them Ochus entrusted the government of the empire.
Bagoas directed the politics of the interior, and Mentor, placed at the
head of the maritime provinces, soon reduced them to order.
Artabazus retired from the struggle and sought refuge with Philip of
Macedon. Some tyrants on the coast of the Ægean Sea willingly submitted
to the new dominion, and others resisting, like Hermias of Atarneus,
the friend of Aristotle, were seized and put to death.
Thus Persia in a few years seemed to regain the widespread power which
she had lost since the accession of Artaxerxes II, and Ochus ranked as
high in the minds of his contemporaries as her great conquerors, Cyrus,
Cambyses, and Darius. But Ochus himself was only an oriental despot
of the common type. His empire still had the appearance of strength,
but the races, strangers to each other, and with difficulty suppressed
by the satraps, inclined more and more to detachment from him, and
already some of the governments of the previous century only existed in
name. In the north towards the sources of the Euphrates, Tigris, and
Halys, there was nothing but a confused mass of kingdoms and tribes,
of which some like the Armenians still recognised the suzerainty of
the Persians, and others, like the Chalybes and the Tibareni retained
their independence. The kings of Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus
still paid tribute in an intermittent fashion; but the Mysians,
Pisidians, Lycaonians, had ceased payment. The countries beyond the
Tigris were in the same disorder. The Cadusians, the Amardians, and
the Tapuri, protected by the mountains of the Caspian Sea, withstood
every effort to dislodge them. India and the Sacæ had passed from the
state of subjects to that of friendly allies, and the savage hordes of
Gedrosia and Paropamisus rebelled against all authority. During the
dismemberment of the empire the order of administration, so cleverly
organised by Darius, was broken by the feebleness of his mercenaries.
Not only had the custom of annually sending inspectors to the provinces
become a mere formality, which was often omitted, but the distinction
between the civil and military power had disappeared. The officer who
commanded the troops nearly always filled the post of governor and
united several satrapies under one rule.
The army and revenue were still, in spite of everything, the greatest
in the world, but, if the darics had retained their value, the
battalions had lost in strength. The old powers of the Persians, Medes,
and Bactrians, and other races of Iran, were doubtless undiminished,
but nobody troubled to make them conversant with the progress made
during the century in military tactics. Their contingents were only
heavy, undisciplined companies, easy to conquer in spite of the
incontestable bravery of the individuals composing them; so, as their
training would have taken a long time, it was better to add to their
ranks mercenaries at a great price.
Since the time of Artaxerxes II the Greeks formed the kernel of the
Persian forces; and the armies of the Great King were commanded by
Hellenic generals of the school of Agesilaus, Iphicrates, Epaminondas,
and the best tacticians of the time.
The fleets were placed under Greek admirals, and the cruel Ochus
entirely owed his victories to this preponderance of European command,
and the fact was so well known beyond the Ægean Sea that the question
was openly discussed there.
If the decadence of the empire was sudden, the fault did not lie with
the people. The Persians had remained as they were at the beginning,
sober, honest, and intrepid, but the dynasty had degenerated to an
irrecoverable degree. The early Achæmenidæ had themselves ruled
all the affairs of the state; then, the campaign in Greece having
disgusted Xerxes with militant royalty, he shut himself up in his
harem and left the perilous honour of fighting to his generals, and
the care of administration to the eunuch Aspamithres. This custom,
once established, was followed by his successors, and the sovereigns
now rarely intervened in the conduct of military operations. Neither
Artaxerxes I nor Darius Nothus appeared on the field of battle, and
Artaxerxes II only took part in two of the wars which embittered his
long reign. Ochus, who had seemed to wish to recover the traditional
power of the founders of the empire, returned to Susa after his
victories in Syria and Egypt, and the life of the princes was passed
in the midst of the intrigues and crimes of the harem. Brought up by
women and eunuchs, and surrounded from infancy with pomp and luxury,
they soon wearied of thinking and acting, and mechanically fell under
the direction of their familiars. The sanguinary Parysatis reigned
under the name of her husband, Darius Nothus, and her son, Artaxerxes
II; and Bagoas influenced Ochus for nearly six years, and his power was
certainly beneficial to the country.
THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE
[Sidenote: [338-330 B.C.]]
Macedonia, which had long remained unconcerned with the general
movement, now began to take part in the Hellenic concert. Bagoas saw
the danger of letting her take the ascendant, and form a union of all
the forces hitherto scattered in Greece. He therefore supported all the
enemies of Philip.
Unfortunately, whilst Bagoas was working to prevent the perils menacing
the empire, his rivals at Susa lowered him in the esteem of his master,
and their intrigues left him no alternative but to strike or die. He
therefore poisoned Ochus, gave the throne to Arses, the youngest son of
the king, and assassinated all the other children. Egypt was delighted
at the news, and saw in the tragic fate of her conqueror a notable
revenge of the gods he had outraged.
Arses was at first only a weak tool in the hands of his master, but
when years gave him a taste for independence he became impatient at his
subjection; so Bagoas sacrificed him to his own safety as he had Ochus.
So many successive murders had so completely exhausted the Achæmenian
family that he was at loss for a moment to know where to find a king;
but he finally decided in favour of one of his friends, Codomannus,
who, according to some, was the great-grandson of Darius II, and
according to others, was not of royal descent. Codomannus took, on his
accession, the name of Darius. Being brave, generous, clement, and
desirous of doing well he was superior to the kings who had preceded
him, and he deserved to have reigned before the empire was so enfeebled.
When Bagoas saw that his protégé intended to reign by himself, he
wished to get rid of him, but, betrayed by one of his people, he was
made to drink the poison he had destined for Darius. However, Darius
did not long enjoy in peace the power which had been so much envied.
Having ascended the throne the same year as Alexander, some days before
the battle of the Chersonesus, he saw the dangers threatening him from
the Macedonian’s ambition, and he was powerless to prevent them.
He was beaten at the Granicus, beaten at Issus, beaten at Arbela,
and then killed in flight by one of his satraps. Alexander then took
possession of his empire, and henceforth the Greek race supplanted the
Persians in the part they had played for two centuries as the ruling
power of the world.[e]
[Sidenote: [330 B.C.]]
Bessus the Satrap of Bactria, who murdered the fleeing Darius, assumed
the royal title and the name of Artaxerxes IV. His adventures and
plans were numerous, but on the farther side of the Oxus he fell into
Alexander’s hands and was speedily put to death.[a]
THE OLD ORIENT AT THE END OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
We have followed the political history of the Old Orient and have now
seen it swallowed up in Alexander’s empire. Before we turn to the new
races that are to demand our attention, let us take a final look at
the countries which were the scene of the history of the early world,
and see what they had become. On the south, on the ancient frontier of
the Semitic races, Elam was divided into the mountainous district, and
the district of the plains, and the history of these two districts was
quite distinct one from another. For the people of the Oxus mountains,
the Elamites and the Kossæans, retained their independence and made
raids on the neighbouring territories from their unassailable haunts,
whilst the people of the plains gladly submitted to the Persian yoke
and readily accepted any ruler that appeared.
The favourable situation of Susa or Shushan had early attracted the
attention of the Achæmenians; and the old palace of the Elamites, built
upon an artificial elevation and cooled in the summer by the mountain
breezes, and warmed in winter by the soft air from the Persian Gulf,
became their favourite residence. Darius, son of Hystaspes, finding
it too small for him, had it rebuilt and it was burnt in the reign of
Artaxerxes I, and restored by Artaxerxes II.
The nations of the tableland of Asia Minor, and the mountains of the
Tigris and Euphrates, those of Urartu and Van, Mushke [Moschi], Tubal,
and the neighbouring peoples of northern Assyria, being decimated by
the Scythian invasions, had submitted to the younger, less tried races.
The Mushke and Tubal nations were divided into two branches, many of
their tribes, with probably the rest of the Cimmerians, remained in
the deep defiles of the Taurus; and the others having pushed towards
the north, dwelt with other tribes at the time of Herodotus, on the
mountains bordering the Black Sea.
When the Median conqueror arrived in those parts which are known
as Cappadocia, he only found there Leuco-Syrians, the rest of the
Hittites, and a new people called Armenians. The Armenians, who had
come from Phrygia towards the end of the seventh century, settled at
first in the districts adjoining their own country, then they gradually
arrived at the source of the Halys, and in the time of Herodotus they
were in possession of the districts on the east of the Euphrates (the
Asia Minor of Roman geographers), and the western side of the Arsanias.
They formed a satrapy of their own (the thirteenth), whilst the people
of Urartu, the Alarodians, were included in the eighteenth. During
the troubles which followed the campaign of Greece, the aspect of the
country changed once more. The Moschi separated themselves from the
Tibareni and joined the Colchians in the basin of the Phasis. The
Alarodians, pushed back towards the north, joined the half savage races
of the Caucasus. The Armenians, driven further to the east, gradually
took possession of the imposing mountainous district between Asia Minor
and the Caspian Sea, and came down into the plains of the Araxes. At
the time of Alexander’s appearance in Asia, they were settled in their
new district, having subjugated, or destroyed all the aborigines who
had not emigrated, and their princes exercised a truly royal authority
under the modest title of satrap.
Cappadocia was divided into two provinces, Cappadocia Proper, and
Pontus, of which the hereditary governors, connected with the
Achæmenian family, only waited an opportunity for declaring themselves
kings. The old dynasties, names and races, and the warlike, barbarous
world that the Assyrian conquerors had known between the plain of
Mesopotamia and the Black Sea were now extinct, and the three kingdoms
evolved from the ruins had even effaced the memory of it. In the domain
proper of the Semitic races, between the coasts of the Mediterranean
and the last abutment of the plain of Iran, the decadence was less
general and apparent. Half of the old races, such as the Ruthennu and
the Hittites, had disappeared with the cities of Carchemish, Arpad, and
Kadesh, and although Batnæ, Hamath, and Damascus, escaped destruction,
they fell into obscurity, and whole districts lapsed into desert land
for want of hands to till them.
Phœnicia, impoverished by the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, had
trouble to repair her losses; all her colonies were gone, and the
little kingdoms of Cyprus with the towns of Citium and Amathus, had
enough to do to defend their independence against the Greeks.
Assyria herself was only a vague memory of the past. The district
between the Tigris and Euphrates was almost deserted. Some places,
as Nisibis, still retained some of their old importance, and existed
as well as they could on their own resources, but towards the south
the numberless cities discovered in former times by the Ninevite
conquerors, as they marched toward Syria, were now only heaps of ruins.
On the banks of the Tigris the people were neither plentiful nor
prosperous. The Assyrian exiles, liberated by Cyrus after the fall of
Babylon, had rebuilt Asshur and enriched themselves by the cultivation
of the land, and by commerce, but the district between the Upper and
Lower Zabs was quite deserted, while Assyria Proper had not recovered
from her ruin.
Calah was inhabited: “Its walls 25 feet wide and 100 long and two
parasangs in circumference, were built of brick upon a substratum of
stone 20 feet high.” The pyramidal tower of the goat temple, still in
existence, “was in stone and one plethrum broad and two high.”
Two hundred years had scarcely elapsed since the death of Saracus
[Sin-shar-ishkun] when Xenophon travelled through the country, and
the people of the neighbouring small towns were already ignorant of
the names of the ruined Calah and Nineveh by which they were living.
They called the first Larissa, and the second Mespila, and the
historians themselves were not much better informed; for the long line
of terrible conquerors, beginning with Tukulti-Ninib and ending with
Asshurbanapal, was summed up under the mythical names of Semiramis and
Sardanapalus. Semiramis was credited with the victories and conquests,
and Sardanapalus with the refined and intellectual qualities of the
race. Everything Assyrian was attributed to one or other of these two.
In Babylonia, Ur was now only an insignificant town, but Erech was the
seat of a school of theology and science, as celebrated throughout
the East as that of Borsippa. Babylon by itself was regarded as the
whole of Chaldea by the majority of travellers. Babylon was in fact
the second capital of the Persian empire. The court resided there
part of the year, as it was the centre of commerce and industry which
was wanting in Susa. The city made several attempts during the first
century after the conquest to restore her national dynasty, but after
she was sacked by Xerxes seems to have submitted to her subjugation.
But even in her abjection the city was a source of many surprises to
the traveller. Unlike Greek cities, it was built on a regular plan, by
which the streets crossed each other at right angles, some parallel,
and others at right angles to the Euphrates; and the latter terminated
at a gate of brass, which opened on to the works of the quay, and gave
access to the river. The street throngs numbered specimens of every
Asiatic race brought hither by the demands of commerce, and the natives
of the place were distinguished by their elegant dress, consisting of a
linen tunic reaching to the feet and surmounted with another tunic made
of wool, with a sort of white tippet.
When the Persian rule succeeded the Chaldean, the Aramæan language did
not lose its importance. It became the official language of all the
western provinces and it is found on the coins of Asia Minor, upon the
papyrus and steles of Egypt, in the edicts and correspondence of the
satraps, and even on those of the Great King.
From Nisibis to Raphia, and along the banks of the Gulf of Persia to
the shores of the Red Sea, it supplanted all languages, Semitic or
otherwise, hitherto in use.
The Phœnician language, however, held its own with some success at
first, and it was used for a long time on the coast and in the island
of Cyprus; but Hebrew, which had begun to fall into disuse during
the captivity, gradually disappeared as it came in contact with the
dialects spoken by the races near Jerusalem. It existed as the “noble
language” of the aristocracy, faithful to the discipline of Judah and
then when Aramæan robbed it of this last service, it remained as the
literary liturgical language.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[32] [We reserve full details of the Persian wars with Greece for the
next volume.]
[Illustration: PERSIAN LION FROM THE PALACE OF DARIUS AT SUSA]
CHAPTER V. PERSIAN CIVILISATION