_Reign of Artaxerxes I. Stories told of him. Most probable account of
his Descent, Rank, and Parentage. His Contest with Artabanus. First War
with Chosroes of Armenia. Contest with Alexander Severus. Second War
with Chosroes and conquest of Armenia. Religious Reforms. Internal
Administration and Government. Art. Coinage. Inscriptions._
Around the cradle of an Oriental sovereign who founds a dynasty there
cluster commonly a number of traditions, which have, more or less, a
mythical character. The tales told of the Great, which even Herodotus
set aside as incredible, have their parallels in narratives that were
current within one or two centuries with respect to the founder of the
Second Persian Empire, which would not have disgraced the mythologers
of Achaemenian times. Artaxerxes, according to some, was the son of a
common soldier who had an illicit connection with the wife of a Persian
cobbler and astrologer, a certain Babek or Papak, an inhabitant of the
Cadusian country and a man of the lowest class. Papak, knowing by his
art that the soldier’s son would attain a lofty position, voluntarily
ceded his rights as husband to the favorite of fortune, and bred up as
his own the issue of this illegitimate commerce, who, when he attained
to manhood, justified Papak’s foresight by successfully revolting from
Artabanus and establishing the new Persian monarchy. Others said that
the founder of the new kingdom was a Parthian satrap, the son of a
noble, and that, having long meditated revolt, he took the final plunge
in consequence of a prophecy uttered by Artabanus, who was well skilled
in magical arts, and saw in the stars that the Parthian empire was
threatened with destruction. Artabanus, on a certain occasion, when he
communicated this prophetic knowledge to his wife, was overheard by one
of her attendants, a noble damsel named Artaducta, already affianced to
Artaxerxes and a sharer in his secret counsels. At her instigation
he hastened his plans, raised the standard of revolt, and upon the
successful issue of his enterprise made her his queen. Miraculous
circumstances were freely interwoven with these narratives, and a result
was produced which staggered the faith even of such a writer as Moses of
Chorene, who, desiring to confine himself to what was strictly true and
certain, could find no more to say of Artaxerxes’s birth and origin
than that he was the son of a certain Sasan, and a native of Istakr, or
Persepolis.
Even, however, the two facts thus selected as beyond criticism by Moses
are far from being entitled to implicit credence. Artaxerxes, the son
of Sasan according to Agathangelus and Moses, is the same as Papak
(or Babek) in his own and his son’s inscriptions. The Persian writers
generally take the same view, and declare that Sasan was a remoter
ancestor of Artaxerxes, the acknowledged founder of the family, and not
Artaxerxes’ father. In the extant records of the new Persian Kingdom,
the coins and the inscriptions, neither Sasan nor the gentilitial term
derived from it, Sasanidae, has any place; and though it would perhaps
be rash to question on this account the employment of the term Sasanidae
by the dynasty, yet we may regard it as really “certain” that the father
of Artaxerxes was named, not Sasan, but Papak; and that, if the term
Sasanian was in reality a patronymic, it was derived, like the term
“Achaemenian,” from some remote progenitor whom the royal family of the
new empire believed to have been their founder.
The native country of Artaxerxes is also variously stated by the
authorities. Agathangelus calls him an Assyrian, and makes the Assyrians
play an important part in his rebellion. Agathias says that he was born
in the Cadusian country, or the low tract south-west of the Caspian,
which belonged to Media rather than to Assyria or Persia. Dio Cassius,
and Herodian, the contemporaries of Artaxerxes, call him a Persian;
and there can be no reasonable doubt that they are correct in so doing.
Agathangelus allows the predominantly Persian character of his revolt,
and Agathias is apparently unaware that the Cadusian country was no part
of Persia. The statement that he was a native of Persepolis (Istakr) is
first found in Moses of Chorene. It may be true, but it is uncertain;
for it may have grown out of the earlier statement of Agathangelus, that
he held the government of the province of Istakr. We can only affirm
with confidence that the founder of the new Persian monarchy was a
genuine Persian, without attempting to determine positively what Persian
city or province had the honor of producing him.
A more interesting question, and one which will be found perhaps to
admit of a more definite answer, is that of the rank and station in
which Artaxerxes was born. We have seen that Agathias (writing ab. A.D.
580) called him the supposititious son of a cobbler. Others spoke of
him as the child of a shepherd; while some said that his father was “an
inferior officer in the service of the government.” But on the other
hand, in the inscriptions which Artaxerxes himself setup in the
neighborhood of Persepolis, he gives his father, Papak, the title of
“King.” Agathangelus calls him a “noble” and “satrap of Persepolitan
government;” while Herodian seems to speak of him as “king of the
Persians,” before his victories over Artabanus. On the whole, it is
perhaps most probable that, like Cyrus, he was the hereditary monarch
of the subject kingdom of Persia, which had always its own princes under
the Parthians, and that thus he naturally and without effort took the
leadership of the revolt when circumstances induced his nation to rebel
and seek to establish its independence. The stories told of his humble
origin, which are contradictory and improbable, are to be paralleled
with those which made Cyrus the son of a Persian of moderate rank, and
the foster-child of a herdsman. There is always in the East a tendency
towards romance and exaggeration; and when a great monarch emerges from
a comparatively humble position, the humility and obscurity of his first
condition are intensified, to make the contrast more striking between
his original low estate and his ultimate splendor and dignity.
The circumstances of the struggle between Artaxerxes and. Artabanus are
briefly sketched by Dio Cassius and Agathangelus, while they are related
more at large by the Persian writers. It is probable that the contest
occupied a space of four or five years. At first, we are told, Artabanus
neglected to arouse himself, and took no steps towards crushing the
rebellion, which was limited to an assertion of the independence of
Persia Proper, or the province of Fars. After a time the revolted
vassal, finding himself unmolested, was induced to raise his thoughts
higher, and commenced a career of conquest. Turning his arms eastward,
he attacked Kerman (Carmania), and easily succeeded in reducing that
scantily-peopled tract under his dominion. He then proceeded to menace
the north, and, making war in that quarter, overran and attached to
his kingdom some of the outlying provinces of Media. Roused by these
aggressions, the Parthian monarch at length took the field, collected
an army consisting in part of Parthians, in part of the Persians who
continued faithful to him, against his vassal, and, invading Persia,
soon brought his adversary to a battle. A long and bloody contest
followed, both sides suffering great losses; but victory finally
declared itself in favor of Artaxerxes, through the desertion to him,
during the engagement, of a portion of his enemy’s forces. A second
conflict ensued within a short period, in which the insurgents were even
more completely successful; the carnage on the side of the Parthians
was great, the loss of the Persians small; and the great king fled
precipitately from the field. Still the resources of Parthia were equal
to a third trial of arms. After a brief pause, Artabanus made a final
effort to reduce his revolted vassal; and a last engagement took place
in the plain of Hormuz, which was a portion of the Jerahi valley, in the
beautiful country between Bebahan and Shuster. Here, after a desperate
conflict, the Parthian monarch suffered a third and signal defeat;
his army was scattered; and he himself lost his life in the combat.
According to some, his death was the result of a hand-to-hand conflict
with his great antagonist, who, pretending to fly, drew him on, and then
pierced his heart with an arrow.
The victory of Hormuz gave to Artaxerxes the dominion of the East; but
it did not secure him this result at once, or without further struggle.
Artabanus had left sons; and both in Bactria and Armenia there were
powerful branches of the Arsacid family, which could not see unmoved the
downfall of their kindred in Parthia. Chosroes, the Armenian monarch,
was a prince of considerable ability, and is said to have been set
upon his throne by Artabanus, whose brother he was, according to
some writers. At any rate he was an Arsacid; and he felt keenly the
diminution of his own influence involved in the transfer to an alien
race of the sovereignty wielded for five centuries by the descendants
of the first Arsaces. He had set his forces in motion, while the contest
between Artabanus and Artaxerxes was still in progress, in the hope of
affording substantial help to his relative. But the march of events was
too rapid for him; and, ere he could strike a blow, he found that the
time for effectual action had gone by, that Artabanus was no more,
and that the dominion of Artaxerxes was established over most of the
countries which had previously formed portions of the Parthian Empire.
Still, he resolved to continue the struggle; he was on friendly terms
with Rome, and might count on an imperial contingent; he had some hope
that the Bactrian Arsacidae would join him; at the worst, he regarded
his own power as firmly fixed and as sufficient to enable him to
maintain an equal contest with the new monarchy. Accordingly he took the
Parthian Arsacids under his protection, and gave them a refuge in the
Armenian territory. At the same time he negotiated with both Balkh and
Rome, made arrangements with the barbarians upon his northern frontier
to lend him aid, and, having collected a large army, invaded the new
kingdom on the north-west, and gained certain not unimportant successes.
According to the Armenian historians, Artaxerxes lost Assyria and the
adjacent regions; Bactria wavered; and, after the struggle had continued
for a year or two, the founder of the second Persian empire was obliged
to fly ignominiously to India! But this entire narrative seems to be
deeply tinged with the vitiating stain of intense national vanity, a
fault which markedly characterizes the Armenian writers, and renders
them, when unconfirmed by other authorities, almost worthless. The
general course of events, and the position which Artaxerxes takes in
his dealings with Rome (A.D. 229-230), sufficiently indicate that any
reverses which he sustained at this time in his struggle with Chosroes
and the unsubmitted Arsacidae must have been trivial, and that they
certainly had no greater result than to establish the independence
of Armenia, which, by dint of leaning upon Rome, was able to maintain
itself against the Persian monarch and to check the advance of the
Persians in North-Western Asia.
Artaxerxes, however, resisted in this quarter, and unable to overcome
the resistance, which he may have regarded as deriving its effectiveness
(in part at least) from the support lent it by Rome, determined (ab.
A.D. 229) to challenge the empire to an encounter. Aware that Artabanus,
his late rival, against whom he had measured himself, and whose power he
had completely overthrown, had been successful in his war with Macrinus,
had gained the great battle of Nisibis, and forced the Imperial State to
purchase an ignominious peace by a payment equal to nearly two millions
of our money, he may naturally have thought that a facile triumph was
open to his arms in this direction. Alexander Severus, the occupant of
the imperial throne, was a young man of a weak character, controlled
in a great measure by his mother, Julia Mamaea, and as yet quite
undistinguished as a general. The Roman forces in the East were known
to be licentious and insubordinate; corrupted by the softness of the
climate and the seductions of Oriental manners, they disregarded the
restraints of discipline, indulged in the vices which at once enervate
the frame and lower the moral character, had scant respect for their
leaders, and seemed a defence which it would be easy to overpower
and sweep away. Artaxerxes, like other founders of great empires,
entertained lofty views of his abilities and his destinies; the monarchy
which he had built up in the space of some five or six years was far
from contenting him; well read in the ancient history of his nation, he
sighed after the glorious days of Cyrus the Great and Darius Hystaspis,
when all Western Asia from the shores of the AEgean to the Indian
desert, and portions of Europe and Africa, had acknowledged the sway
of the Persian king. The territories which these princes had ruled he
regarded as his own by right of inheritance; and we are told that he
not only entertained, but boldly published, these views. His emissaries
everywhere declared that their master claimed the dominion of Asia as
far as the AEgean Sea and the Propontis. It was his duty and his
mission to recover to the Persians their pristine empire. What Cyrus
had conquered, what the Persian kings had held from that time until the
defeat of Codomannus by Alexander, was his by indefeasible right, and he
was about to take possession of it.
Nor were these brave words a mere _brutum fulmen_. Simultaneously with
the putting forth of such lofty pretensions the troops of the Persian
monarch crossed the Tigris and spread themselves over the entire Roman
province of Mesopotamia, which was rapidly overrun and offered scarcely
any resistance. Severus learned at the same moment the demands of his
adversary and the loss of one of his best provinces. He heard that his
strong posts upon the Euphrates, the old defences of the empire in this
quarter, were being attacked, and that Syria daily expected the passage
of the invaders. The crisis was one requiring prompt action; but the
weak and inexperienced youth was content to meet it with diplomacy, and,
instead of sending an army to the East, despatched ambassadors to his
rival with a letter. “Artaxerxes,” he said, “ought to confine himself to
his own territories and not seek to revolutionize Asia; it was unsafe,
on the strength of mere unsubstantial hopes, to commence a great
war. Every one should be content with keeping what belonged to him.
Artaxerxes would find war with Rome a very different thing from the
contests in which he had been hitherto engaged with barbarous races like
his own. He should call to mind the successes of Augustus and Trajan,
and the trophies carried off from the East by Lucius Verus and by
Septimius Severus.”
The counsels of moderation have rarely much effect in restraining
princely ambition. Artaxerxes replied by an embassy in which he
ostentatiously displayed the wealth and magnificence of Persia; but,
so far from making any deduction from his original demands, he now
distinctly formulated them, and required their immediate acceptance.
“Artaxerxes, the Great King,” he said, “ordered the Romans and their
ruler to take their departure forthwith from Syria and the rest of
Western Asia, and to allow the Persians to exercise dominion over Ionia
and Caria and the other countries within the AEgean and the Euxine,
since these countries belonged to Persia by right of inheritance.” A
Roman emperor had seldom received such a message; and Alexander,
mild and gentle as he was by nature, seems to have had his equanimity
disturbed by the insolence of the mandate. Disregarding the sacredness
of the ambassadorial character, he stripped the envoys of their
splendid apparel, treated them as prisoners of war, and settled them as
agricultural colonists in Phrygia. If we may believe Herodian, he even
took credit to himself for sparing their lives, which he regarded as
justly forfeit to the offended majesty of the empire.
Meantime the angry prince, convinced at last against his will that
negotiations with such an enemy were futile, collected an army and began
his march towards the East. Taking troops from the various provinces
through which he passed, he conducted to Antioch, in the autumn of A.D.
231, a considerable force, which was there augmented by the legions of
the East and by troops drawn from Egypt and other quarters. Artaxerxes,
on his part, was not idle. According to Soverus himself, the army
brought into the field by the Persian monarch consisted of one hundred
and twenty thousand mailed horsemen, of eighteen hundred scythed
chariots, and of seven hundred trained elephants, bearing on their backs
towers filled with archers; and though this pretended host has been
truly characterized as one “the like of which is not to be found in
Eastern history, and has scarcely been imagined in Eastern romance,”
yet, allowing much for exaggeration, we may still safely conclude that
great exertions had been made on the Persian side, that their forces
consisted of the three arms mentioned, and that the numbers of each
were large beyond ordinary precedent. The two adversaries were thus not
ill-matched; each brought the flower of his troops to the conflict; each
commanded the army, on which his dependence was placed, in person;
each looked to obtain from the contest not only an increase of military
glory, but substantial fruits of victory in the shape of plunder or
territory.
It might have been expected that the Persian monarch, after the high
tone which he had taken, would have maintained an aggressive attitude,
have crossed the Euphrates, and spread the hordes at his disposal over
Syria, Cappadocia, and Asia Minor. But it seems to be certain that he
did not do so, and that the initiative was taken by the other side.
Probably the Persian arms, as inefficient in sieges as the Parthian,
were unable to overcome the resistance offered by the Roman forts upon
the great river; and Artaxerxes was too good a general to throw his
forces into the heart of an enemy’s country without having first secured
a safe retreat. The Euphrates was therefore crossed by his adversary
in the spring of A.D. 232; the Roman province of Mesopotamia was easily
recovered; and arrangements were made by which it was hoped to deal the
new monarchy a heavy blow, if not actually to crush and conquer it.
Alexander divided his troops into three bodies. One division was to
act towards the north, to take advantage of the friendly disposition
of Chosroes, king of Armenia, and, traversing his strong mountain
territory, to direct its attack upon Media, into which Armenia gave a
ready entrance. Another was to take a southern line, and to threaten
Persia Proper from the marshy tract about the junction of the Euphrates
with the Tigris, a portion of the Babylonian territory. The third and
main division, which was to be commanded by the emperor in person, was
to act on a line intermediate between the other two, which would conduct
it to the very heart of the enemy’s territory, and at the same time
allow of its giving effective support to either of the two other
divisions if they should need it.
The plan of operations appears to have been judiciously constructed,
and should perhaps be ascribed rather to the friends whom the youthful
emperor consulted than to his own unassisted wisdom. But the best
designed plans may be frustrated by unskilfulness or timidity in the
execution; and it was here, if we may trust the author who alone
gives us any detailed account of the campaign, that the weakness of
Alexander’s character showed itself. The northern army successfully
traversed Armenia, and, invading Media, proved itself in numerous small
actions superior to the Persian force opposed to it, and was able to
plunder and ravage the entire country at its pleasure. The southern
division crossed Mesopotamia in safety, and threatened to invade Persia
Proper. Had Alexander with the third and main division kept faith
with the two secondary armies, had he marched briskly and combined his
movements with theirs, the triumph of the Roman arms would have been
assured. But, either from personal timidity or from an amiable regard
for the anxieties of his mother Mamsea, he hung back while his right and
left wings made their advance, and so allowed the enemy to concentrate
their efforts on these two isolated bodies. The army in Media, favored
by the rugged character of the country, was able to maintain its ground
without much difficulty; but that which had advanced by the line of the
Euphrates and Tigris, and which was still marching through the boundless
plains of the great alluvium, found itself suddenly beset by a countless
host, commanded by Artaxerxes in person, and, though it struggled
gallantly, was overwhelmed and utterly destroyed by the arrows of the
terrible Persian bowmen. Herodian says, no doubt with some exaggeration,
that this was the greatest calamity which had ever befallen the Romans.
It certainly cannot compare with Cannae, with the disaster of Varus, or
even with the similar defeat of Crassus in a not very distant region.
But it was (if rightly represented by Herodian) a terrible blow. It
absolutely determined the campaign. A Caesar or a Trajan might have
retrieved such a loss. An Alexander Severus was not likely even to make
an attempt to do so. Already weakened in body by the heat of the climate
and the unwonted fatigues of war, he was utterly prostrated in spirit by
the intelligence when it reached him. The signal was at once given for
retreat. Orders were sent to the _corps d’ armee_ which occupied Media
to evacuate its conquests and to retire forthwith upon the Euphrates.
These orders were executed, but with difficulty. Winter had already set
in throughout the high regions; and in its retreat the army of Media
suffered great losses through the inclemency of the climate, so that
those who reached Syria were but a small proportion of the original
force. Alexander himself, and the army which he led, experienced less
difficulty; but disease dogged the steps of this division, and when its
columns reached Antioch it was found to be greatly reduced in numbers by
sickness, though it had never confronted an enemy. The three armies
of Severus suffered not indeed equally, but still in every case
considerably, from three distinct causes--sickness, severe weather, and
marked inferiority to the enemy. The last-named cause had annihilated
the southern division; the northern had succumbed to climate; the main
army, led by Severus himself, was (comparatively speaking) intact, but
even this had been decimated by sickness, and was not in a condition to
carry on the war with vigor. The result of the campaign had thus
been altogether favorable to the Persians, but yet it had convinced
Artaxerxes that Rome was more powerful than he had thought. It had shown
him that in imagining the time had arrived when they might be easily
driven out of Asia--he had made a mistake. The imperial power had proved
itself strong enough to penetrate deeply within his territory, to ravage
some of his best provinces, and to threaten his capital. The grand
ideas with which he had entered upon the contest had consequently to be
abandoned; and it had to be recognized that the struggle with Rome was
one in which the two parties were very evenly matched, one in which
it was not to be supposed that either side would very soon obtain any
decided preponderance. Under these circumstances the grand ideas were
quietly dropped; the army which had been gathered together to enforce
them was allowed to disperse, and was not required within any given time
to reassemble; it is not unlikely that (as Niebuhr conjectures) a peace
was made, though whether Rome ceded any of her territory by its terms is
exceedingly doubtful. Probably the general principle of the arrangement
was a return to the _status quo ante bellum_, or, in other words, the
acceptance by either side, as the true territorial limits between Rome
and Persia, of those boundaries which had been previously held to divide
the imperial possessions from the dominions of the Arsacidse.
The issue of the struggle was no doubt disappointing to Artaxerxes; but
if, on the one hand, it dispelled some illusions and proved to him
that the Roman State, though verging to its decline, nevertheless still
possessed a vigor and a life which he had been far from anticipating,
on the other hand it left him free to concentrate his efforts on the
reduction of Armenia, which was really of more importance to him,
from Armenia being the great stronghold of the Arsacid power, than the
nominal attachment to the empire of half-a-dozen Roman provinces. So
long as Arsacidae maintained themselves in a position of independence
and substantial power so near the Persian borders, and in a country of
such extent and such vast natural strength as Armenia, there could not
but be a danger of reaction, of the nations again reverting to the yoke
whereto they had by long use become accustomed, and of the star of
the Sasanidae paling before that of the former masters of Asia. It was
essential to the consolidation of the new Persian Empire that Armenia
should be subjugated, or at any rate that Arsacidae should cease to
govern it; and the fact that the peace which appears to have been made
between Rome and Persia, A.D. 232, set Artaxerxes at liberty to direct
all his endeavors to the establishment of such relations between his own
state and Armenia as he deemed required by public policy and necessary
for the security of his own power, must be regarded as one of paramount
importance, and as probably one of the causes mainly actuating him in
the negotiations and inclining him to consent to peace on any fair
and equitable terms. Consequently, the immediate result of hostilities
ceasing between Persia and Rome was their renewal between Persia and
Armenia. The war had indeed, in one sense, never ceased; for Chosroes
had been an ally of the Romans during the campaign of Severus, and had
no doubt played a part in the invasion and devastation of Media which
have been described above. But, the Romans having withdrawn, he was left
wholly dependent on his own resources; and the entire strength of Persia
was now doubtless brought into the field against him. Still he defended
himself with such success, and caused Artaxerxes so much alarm, that
after a time that monarch began to despair of ever conquering his
adversary by fair means, and cast about for some other mode of
accomplishing his purpose. Summoning an assembly of all the vassal
kings, the governors, and the commandants throughout the empire, he
besought them to find some cure for the existing distress, at the same
time promising a rich reward to the man who should contrive an effectual
remedy. The second place in the kingdom should be his; he should have
dominion over one half of the Arians; nay, he should share the Persian
throne with Artaxerxes himself, and hold a rank and dignity only
slightly inferior. We are told that these offers prevailed with a noble
of the empire, named Anak, a man who had Arsacid blood in his veins, and
belonged to that one of the three branches of the old royal stock
which had long been settled at Bactria (Balkh), and that he was induced
thereby to come forward and undertake the assassination of Chosroes, who
was his near relative and would not be likely to suspect him of an ill
intent. Artaxerxes warmly encouraged him in his design, and in a little
time it was successfully carried out. Anak, with his wife, his children,
his brother, and a train of attendants, pretended to take refuge in
Armenia from the threatened vengeance of his sovereign, who caused his
troops to pursue him, as a rebel and deserter, to the very borders of
Armenia. Unsuspicious of any evil design, Ohosroes received the exiles
with favor, discussed with them his plans for the subjugation of Persia,
and, having sheltered them during the whole of the autumn and winter,
proposed to them in the spring that they should accompany him and
take part in the year’s campaign. Anak, forced by this proposal to
precipitate his designs, contrived a meeting between himself, his
brother, and Chosroes, without attendants, on the pretext of discussing
plans of attack, and, having thus got the Armenian monarch at a
disadvantage, drew sword upon him, together with his brother, and
easily put him to death. The crime which he had undertaken was thus
accomplished; but he did not live to receive the reward promised him
for it. Armenia rose in arms on learning the foul deed wrought upon its
king; the bridges and the few practicable outlets by which the capital
could be quitted were occupied by armed men; and the murderers, driven
to desperation, lost their lives in an attempt to make their escape by
swimming the river Araxes. Thus Artaxerxes obtained his object without
having to pay the price that he had agreed upon; his dreaded rival was
removed; Armenia lay at his mercy; and he had not to weaken his power at
home by sharing it with an Arsacid partner.
The Persian monarch allowed the Armenians no time to recover from the
blow which he had treacherously dealt them. His armies at once entered
their territory and carried everything before them. Chosroes seems to
have had no son of sufficient age to succeed him, and the defence of the
country fell upon the satraps, or governors of the several provinces.
These chiefs implored the aid of the Roman emperor, and received a
contingent; but neither were their own exertions nor was the valor of
their allies of any avail. Artaxerxes easily defeated the confederate
army, and forced the satraps to take refuge in Roman territory. Armenia
submitted to his arms, and became an integral portion of his empire.
It probably did not greatly trouble him that Artavasdes, one of the
satraps, succeeded in carrying off one of the sons of Chosroes, a
boy named Tiridates, whom he conveyed to Rome, and placed under the
protection of the reigning emperor.
Such were the chief military successes of Artaxerxes. The greatest of
our historians, Gibbon, ventures indeed to assign to him, in addition,
“some easy victories over the wild Scythians and the effeminate
Indians.” But there is no good authority for this statement; and on the
whole it is unlikely that he came into contact with either nation. His
coins are not found in Afghanistan; and it may be doubted whether he
ever made any eastern expedition. His reign was not long; and it
was sufficiently occupied by the Roman and Armenian wars, and by the
greatest of all his works, the reformation of religion.
The religious aspect of the insurrection which transferred the headship
of Western Asia from the Parthians to the Persians, from Artabanus to
Artaxerxes, has been already noticed; but we have now to trace, so far
as we can, the steps by which the religious revolution was accomplished,
and the faith of Zoroaster, or what was believed to be such, established
as the religion of the State throughout the new empire. Artaxerxes,
himself (if we may believe Agathias) a Magus, was resolved from the
first that, if his efforts to shake off the Parthian yoke succeeded,
he would use his best endeavors to overthrow the Parthian idolatry
and install in its stead the ancestral religion of the Persians.
This religion consisted of a combination of Dualism with a qualified
creature-worship, and a special reverence for the elements, earth,
air, water, and fire. Zoroastrianism, in the earliest form which is
historically known to us, postulated two independent and contending
principles--a principle of good, Ahura-Mazda, and a principle of evil,
Angro-Mainyus. These beings, who were coeternal and coequal, were
engaged in a perpetual struggle for supremacy; and the world was the
battle-field wherein the strife was carried on. Each had called into
existence numerous inferior beings, through whose agency they waged
their interminable conflict. Ahura-Mazda (Oromazdos, Ormazd) had created
thousands of angelic beings to perform his will and fight on his side
against the Evil One; and Alngro-Mainyus (Arimanius, Ahriman) had
equally on his part called into being thousands of malignant spirits to
be his emissaries in the world, to do his work, and fight his battles.
The greater of the powers called into being by Ahura-Mazda were proper
objects of the worship of man, though, of course, his main worship was
to be given to Ahura-Mazda. Angro-Mainyus was not to be worshipped, but
to be hated and feared. With this dualistic belief had been combined,
at a time not much later than that of Darius Hystaspis, an entirely
separate system, the worship of the elements. Fire, air, earth, and
water were regarded as essentially holy, and to pollute any of them
was a crime. Fire was especially to be held in honor; and it became an
essential part of the Persian religion to maintain perpetually upon the
fire-altars the sacred flame, supposed to have been originally kindled
from heaven, and to see that it never went out. Together with this
elemental worship was introduced into the religion a profound regard for
an order of priests called Magians, who interposed themselves between
the deity and the worshipper, and claimed to possess prophetic powers.
This Magian order was a priest-caste, and exercised vast influence,
being internally organized into a hierarchy containing many ranks, and
claiming a sanctity far above that of the best laymen.
Artaxerxes found the Magian order depressed by the systematic action
of the later Parthian princes, who had practically fallen away from the
Zoroastrian faith and become mere idolaters. He found the fire-altars in
ruins, the sacred flame extinguished, the most essential of the Magian
ceremonies and practices disregarded. Everywhere, except perhaps in his
own province of Persia Proper, he found idolatry established. Temples of
the sun abounded, where images of Mithra were the object of worship, and
the Mithraic cult was carried out with a variety of imposing ceremonies.
Similar temples to the moon existed in many places; and the images of
the Arsacidae were associated with those of the sun and moon gods,
in the sanctuaries dedicated to them. The precepts of Zoroaster were
forgotten. The sacred compositions which bore that sage’s name, and had
been handed down from a remote antiquity, were still indeed preserved,
if not in a written form, yet in the memory of the faithful few who
clung to the old creed; but they had ceased to be regarded as binding
upon their consciences by the great mass of the Western Asiatics.
Western Asia was a seething-pot, in which were mixed up a score of
contradictory creeds, old and new, rational and irrational, Sabaism,
Magism, Zoroastrianism, Grecian polytheism, teraphim-worship, Judaism,
Chaldae mysticism, Christianity. Artaxerxes conceived it to be his
mission to evoke order out of this confusion, to establish in lieu of
this extreme diversity an absolute uniformity of religion.
The steps which he took to effect his purpose seem to have been the
following. He put down idolatry by a general destruction of the images,
which he overthrew and broke to pieces. He raised the Magian hierarchy
to a position of honor and dignity such as they had scarcely enjoyed
even under the later Achaemenian princes, securing them in a condition
of pecuniary independence by assignments of lands, and also by
allowing their title to claim from the faithful the tithe of all their
possessions. He caused the sacred fire to be rekindled on the altars
where it was extinguished, and assigned to certain bodies of priests the
charge of maintaining the fire in each locality. He then proceeded to
collect the supposed precepts of Zoroaster into a volume, in order
to establish a standard of orthodoxy whereto he might require all to
conform. He found the Zoroastrians themselves divided into a number
of sects. Among these he established uniformity by means of a “general
council,” which was attended by Magi from all parts of the empire, and
which settled what was to be regarded as the true Zoroastrian faith.
According to the Oriental writers, this was effected in the following
way: Forty thousand, or, according to others, eighty thousand Magi
having assembled, they were successively reduced by their own act to
four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and finally to seven, the most
highly respected for their piety and learning. Of these seven there was
one, a young but holy priest, whom the universal consent of his brethren
recognized as pre-eminent. His name was Arda-Viraf. “Having passed
through the strictest ablutions, and drunk a powerful opiate, he was
covered with a white linen and laid to sleep. Watched by seven of the
nobles, including the king, he slept for seven days and nights; and, on
his reawaking, the whole nation listened with believing wonder to his
exposition of the faith of Ormazd, which was carefully written down by
an attendant scribe for the benefit of posterity.”
The result, however brought about, which must always remain doubtful,
was the authoritative issue of a volume which the learned of Europe have
now possessed for some quarter of a century, and which has recently been
made accessible to the general reader by the labors of Spiegel. This
work, the Zendavesta, while it may contain fragments of a very ancient
literature, took its present shape in the time of Artaxerxes, and was
probably then first collected from the mouths of the Zoroastrian priests
and published by Arda-Viraf. Certain additions may since have been made
to it; but we are assured that “their number is small,” and that we
“have no reason to doubt” that the text of the Avesta, in the days
of Arda-Viraf, was on the whole exactly the same as at present. The
religious system of the new Persian monarchy is thus completely known
to us, and will be described minutely in a later chapter. At present we
have to consider, not what the exact tenets of the Zoroastrians were,
but only the mode in which Artaxerxes imposed them upon his subjects.
The next step, after settling the true text of the sacred volume, was to
agree upon its interpretation. The language of the Avesta, though pure
Persian, was of so archaic a type that none but the most learned of the
Magi understood it; to the common people, even to the ordinary priest,
it was a dead letter. Artaxerxes seems to have recognized the necessity
of accompanying the Zend text with a translation and a commentary in the
language of his own time, the Pehlevi or Huzvaresh. Such a translation
and commentary exist; and though in part belonging to later Sassanian
times, they reach back probably in their earlier portions to the era
of Artaxerxes, who may fairly be credited with the desire to make the
sacred book “understanded of the people.”
Further, it was necessary, in order to secure permanent uniformity of
belief, to give to the Magian priesthood, the keepers and interpreters
of the sacred book, very extensive powers. The Magian hierarchy
was therefore associated with the monarch in the government and
administration of the State. It was declared that the altar and the
throne were inseparable, and must always sustain each other. The Magi
were made to form the great council of the nation. While they lent their
support to the crown, the crown upheld them against all impugners,
and enforced by pains and penalties their decisions. Persecution was
adopted and asserted as a principle of action without any disguise. By
an edict of Artaxerxes, all places of worship were closed except the
temples of the fire-worshippers. If no violent outbreak of fanaticism
followed, it was because the various sectaries and schismatics succumbed
to the decree without resistance. Christian, and Jew, and Greek, and
Parthian, and Arab allowed their sanctuaries to be closed without
striking a blow to prevent it; and the non-Zoroastrians of the empire,
the votaries of foreign religions, were shortly reckoned at the
insignificant number of 80,000.
Of the internal administration and government of his extensive empire
by Artaxerxes, but little is known. That little seems, however, to
show that while in general type and character it conformed to the usual
Oriental model, in its practical working it was such as to obtain the
approval of the bulk of his subjects. Artaxerxes governed his provinces
either through native kings, or else through Persian satraps. At the
same time, like the Achaemenian monarchs, he kept the armed force
under his own control by the appointment of “generals” or “commandants”
distinct from the satraps. Discarding the Parthian plan of intrusting
the military defence of the empire and the preservation of domestic
order to a mere militia, he maintained on a war footing a considerable
force, regularly paid and drilled. “There can be no power,” he remarked,
“without an army, no army without money, no money without agriculture,
and no agriculture without justice.” To administer strict justice was
therefore among his chief endeavors. Daily reports were made to him of
all that passed not only in his capital, but in every province of his
vast empire; and his knowledge extended even to the private actions of
his subjects. It was his earnest desire that all well-deposed persons
should feel an absolute assurance of security with respect to their
lives, their property, and their honor. At the same time he punished
crimes with severity, and even visited upon entire families the
transgression of one of their members. It is said to have been one of
his maxims, that “kings should never use the sword where the cane would
answer;” but, if the Armenian historians are to be trusted, in practice
he certainly did not err on the side of clemency.
Artaxerxes was, of course, an absolute monarch, having the entire power
of life or death, and entitled, if he chose, to decide all matters at
his own mere will and pleasure. But, in practice, he, like most Oriental
despots, was wont to summon and take the advice of counsellors. It is
perhaps doubtful whether any regular “Council of State” existed under
him. Such an institution had prevailed under the Parthians, where the
monarchs were elected and might be deposed by the Megistanes; but there
is no evidence that Artaxerxes continued it, or did more than call on
each occasion for the advice of such persons among his subjects as he
thought most capable. In matters affecting his relations towards
foreign powers he consulted with the subject kings, the satraps, and the
generals; in religious affairs he no doubt took counsel with the chief
Magi. The general principles which guided his conduct both in religious
and other matters may perhaps be best gathered from the words of that
“testament,” or “dying speech,” which he is said to have addressed to
his son Sapor. “Never forget,” he said, “that, as a king, you are at
once the protector of religion and of your country. Consider the altar
and the throne as inseparable; they must always sustain each other. A
sovereign without religion is a tyrant; and a people who have none
may be deemed the most monstrous of all societies. Religion may exist
without a state; but a state cannot exist without religion; and it is by
holy laws that a political association can alone be bound. You should be
to your people an example of piety and of virtue, but without pride or
ostentation.... Remember, my son, that it is the prosperity or adversity
of the ruler which forms the happiness or misery of his subjects, and
that the fate of the nation depends on the conduct of the individual who
fills the throne. The world is exposed to constant vicissitudes; learn,
therefore, to meet the frowns of fortune with courage and fortitude,
and to receive her smiles with moderation and wisdom. To sum up all--may
your administration be such as to bring, at a future day, the blessings
of those whom God has confided to our parental care upon both your
memory and mine!”
There is reason to believe that Artaxerxes, some short time before
his death, invested Sapor with the emblems of sovereignty, and either
associated him in the empire, or wholly ceded to him his own place. The
Arabian writer, Macoudi, declares that, sated with glory and with
power, he withdrew altogether from the government, and, making over
the administration of affairs to his favorite son, devoted himself to
religious contemplation. Tabari knows nothing of the religious motive,
but relates that towards the close of his life Artaxerxes “made Sapor
regent, appointed him formally to be his successor, and with his own
hands placed the .crown on his head.” [PLATE XII.] These notices would,
by themselves, have been of small importance; but force is lent to them
by the facts that Artaxerxes is found to have placed the effigy of Sapor
on his later coins, and that in one of his bas-reliefs he seems to be
represented as investing Sapor with the diadem. This tablet, which is
at Takht-i-Bostan, has been variously explained, and, as it is
unaccompanied by any inscription, no certain account can be given of it;
but, on the whole the opinion of those most competent to judge seems
to be that the intention of the artist was to represent Artaxerxes
(who wears the cap and inflated ball) as handing the diadem to
Sapor--distinguished by the mural crown of his own tablets and
coins--while Ormazd, marked by his customary _baton_, and further
indicated by a halo of glory around his head, looks on, sanctioning and
approving the transaction. A prostrate figure under the feet of the
two Sassanian kings represents either Artabanus or the extinct Parthian
monarchy, probably the former; while the sunflower upon which Ormazd
stands, together with the rays that stream from his head, denote an
intention to present him under a Mithraitic aspect, suggestive to the
beholder of a real latent identity between the two great objects of
Persian worship.
[Illustration: PLATE 12.]
The coins of Artaxerxes present five different types. [PLATE XI., Fig.
1.] In the earliest his effigy appears on the obverse, front-faced, with
the simple legend AETaHsnaTE (Artaxerxes), or sometimes with the longer
one, BaGi ARTaiiSHaTR MaLKA, “Divine Artaxerxes, King;” while the
reverse bears the profile of his father, Papak, looking to the left,
with the legend BaGi PAPaKi MaLKA, “Divine Papak, King;” or BaBl BaGi
PAPaKi MaLKA, “Son of Divine Papak, King.” Both heads wear the ordinary
Parthian diadem and tiara; and the head of Artaxerxes much resembles
that of Volagases V., one of the later Parthian kings. The coins of the
next period have a head on one side only. This is in profile, looking
to the right, and bears a highly ornamental tiara, exactly like that
of Mithridates I. of Parthia, the great conqueror. It is usually
accompanied by the legend MaZDiSN BaGi ARTaHSHaTR MaLKA (or MaLKAN
MaLKA) aiean, i.e. “The Ormazd-worshipping Divine Artaxerxes, King of
Iran,” or “King of the Kings of Iran.” The reverse of these coins bears
a fire-altar, with the legend ARTaHSHaTR nuvazi, a phrase of doubtful
import. In the third period, while the reverse remains unchanged, on the
obverse the Parthian costume is entirely given up; and the king takes,
instead of the Parthian tiara, a low cap surmounted by the inflated
ball, which thenceforth becomes the almost universal badge of a
Sassanian monarch. The legend is now longer, being commonly MaZDiSN
BaGi ARTaiisi-iaTR MaLKAN MaLKA airanMiNUCHiTRi iniN YazDAN, or “The
Ormazd-worshipping Divine Artaxerxes, King of the Kings of Iran,
heaven-descended of (the race of) the Gods.” The fourth period is
marked by the assumption of the mural crown, which in the sculptures of
Artaxerxes is given only to Ormazd, but which was afterwards adopted by
Sapor I. and many later kings, in combination with the ball, as their
usual head-dress. The legend on these coins remains as in the third
period, and the reverse is likewise unchanged. Finally, there are a few
coins of Artaxerxes, belonging to the very close of his reign, where he
is represented with the tiara of the third period, looking to the right;
while in front of him, and looking towards him, is another profile, that
of a boy, in whom numismatists recognize his eldest son and successor,
Sapor. [PLATE XV., Fig. 1].
[Illustration: PLATE 15.]
It is remarkable that with the accession of Artaxerxes there is at
once a revival of art. Art had sunk under the Parthians, despite their
Grecian leanings, to the lowest ebb which it had known in Western Asia
since the accession of Asshur-izir-pal to the throne of Assyria (B.C.
886). Parthian attempts at art were few and far between, and when made
were unhappy, not to say ridiculous. The coins of Artaxerxes, compared
with those of the later Parthian monarchs, show at once a renaissance.
The head is well cut; the features have individuality and expression;
the epigraph is sufficiently legible. Still more is his sculpture
calculated to surprise us. Artaxerxes represents himself as receiving
the Persian diadem from the hands of Ormazd; both he and the god are
mounted upon chargers of a stout breed, which are spiritedly portrayed;
Artabanus lies prostrate under the feet of the king’s steed, while under
those of the deity’s we observe the form of Ahriman, also prostrate,
and indeed seemingly dead. Though the tablet has not really any great
artistic merit, it is far better than anything that remains to us of
the Parthians; it has energy and vigor; the physiognomies are carefully
rendered; and the only flagrant fault is a certain over-robustness in
the figures, which has an effect that is not altogether pleasing. Still,
we cannot but see in the new Persian art--even at its very beginning--a
movement towards life after a long period of stagnation; an evidence
of that general stir of mind which the downfall of Tartar oppression
rendered possible; a token that Aryan intelligence was beginning to
recover and reassert itself in all the various fields in which it had
formerly won its triumphs.
The coinage of Artaxerxes, and of the other Sassanian monarchs, is
based, in part upon Roman, in part upon Parthian, models. The Roman
aureus furnishes the type which is reproduced in the Sassanian gold
coins, while the silver coins follow the standard long established
in Western Asia, first under the Seleucid, and then under the Arsacid
princes. This standard is based upon the Attic drachm, which was adopted
by Alexander as the basis of his monetary system. The curious occurrence
of a completely different standard for gold and silver in Persia during
this period is accounted for by the circumstances of the time at which
the coinage took its rise. The Arsacidae had employed no gold coins,
but had been content with a silver currency; any gold coin that may
have been in use among their subjects for purposes of trade during
the continuance of their empire must have been foreign money--Roman,
Bactrian, or Indian; but the quantity had probably for the most part
been very small. But, about ten years before the accession of Artaxerxes
there had been a sudden influx into Western Asia of Roman gold, in
consequence of the terms of the treaty concluded between Artabanus
and Macrinus (A.D. 217), whereby Rome undertook to pay to Parthia an
indemnity of above a million and a half of our money. It is probable
that the payment was mostly made in aurei. Artaxerxes thus found current
in the countries, which he overran and formed into an empire, two
coinages--a gold and a silver--coming from different sources and
possessing no common measure. It was simpler and easier to retain what
existed, and what had sufficiently adjusted itself through the working
of commercial needs, than to invent something new; and hence the
anomalous character of the New Persian monetary system.
The remarkable bas-relief of Artaxerxes described above and figured
below in the chapter on the Art of the Sassanians, is accompanied by
a bilingual inscription, or perhaps we should say by two bilingual
inscriptions, which possess much antiquarian and some historic interest.
The longer of the two runs as follows:--“Pathkar zani mazdisn bagi
Artahshatr, malkan malka Airan, minuchitri min Ydztan, bari bagi Pap-aki
malka;” while the Greek version of it is--
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION, PAGE 278]
The inscriptions are interesting, first, as proving the continued use
of the Greek character and language by a dynasty that was intensely
national and that wished to drive the Greeks out of Asia. Secondly, they
are interesting as showing the character of the native language, and
letters, employed by the Persians, when they came suddenly into notice
as the ruling people of Western Asia. Thirdly, they have an historic
interest in what they tell us of the relationship of Artaxerxes to Babek
(Papak), of the rank of Babek, and of the religious sympathies of the
Sassanians. In this last respect they do indeed, in themselves, little
but confirm the evidence of the coins and the general voice of antiquity
on the subject. Coupled, however, with the reliefs to which they are
appended, they do more. They prove to us that the Persians of the
earliest Sassanian times were not averse to exhibiting the great
personages of their theology in sculptured forms; nay, they reveal to us
the actual forms then considered appropriate to Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and
Angro-Mainyus (Ahriman); for we can scarcely be mistaken in regarding
the prostrate figure under the hoofs of Ahura-Mazda’s steed as the
antagonist Spirit of Evil. Finally, the inscriptions show that, from
the commencement of their sovereignty, the Sassanian princes claimed
for themselves a qualified divinity, assuming the title of BAG and
ALHA, “god,” and taking, in the Greek version of their legends, the
correspondent epithet of _OEOE_