RETROSPECT.
The arrangement which Darius had given to his vast empire allowed the
character, laws, manners, and religion of the subject nations to remain
as far as possible unchanged, and only interfered, exceptionally, in the
hereditary local customs of the provinces. Adequate provision for the
maintenance of the central government, the establishment of rapid
combinations, care for the training of the generals and officers, ample
and obvious rewards for service, a system of taxation far removed from
extortion, regulations for the advancement of agriculture, development
of the trade on the southern sea, or by land, since the caravans could
pass unharmed and even protected from Miletus to Susa, from Cyrene to
the Indus, seemed to give a solid foundation, an adequate support, and
abiding power to the empire of Cyrus and Darius. Yet for the security
and continuance of it, it was of the first importance, whether the
national feeling of the subject peoples, in spite of or owing to the
tolerance of the empire, was still sufficiently vigorous and strong to
create in them the desire to rise from the subjection in which they
were, to win back their independence, and develop their national
existence; whether the controlling power of the ruling people was
sufficient to maintain itself for a length of time over such wide
regions; whether, in fine, the ruling house would preserve, amid the
splendour of its new palaces, and the brilliance of extraordinary
success, the vigour and force required to sustain the heavy task of
administering the empire in the manner of Darius.
Under his sceptre the national civilizations of Asia which had hitherto
been separated were united into a great whole. Beside the ancient
civilization of Babylon stood the yet more ancient civilization of
Egypt; beside the Lydians and Syrians, and the Hellenes of the Anatolian
coast, stood the forms of life existing on the Indus, all united in
equal rights; above these, and yet owing to the formation of this
empire, side by side with them, was the characteristic civilization of
the Bactrians, Medes, and Persians. The ancient communities of Egypt,
Babylonia, and Phoenicia were able, it is true, to make attempts, and
even stubborn attempts, at resistance, but they did not succeed in
effecting a new departure. On the contrary, the various forms of
civilization united together began by degrees to exercise a mutual
influence, and each wore down the other. Only the religious feeling of
that Syrian tribe, whose states had been crushed beneath the armies of
the kings of Asshur and Babylon, remained free from this assimilation,
and self-secluded; in the native soil, which Cyrus had once more allowed
the exiles to occupy, they struck new and deeper roots, which promised
the noblest fruits from the old sturdy stock.
The Persians, and especially the upper orders, could not remain
uninfluenced by the privileged position of the ruling people and
reigning class in such a wide empire, and by the pattern of the court.
The fruits of dominion flowed in upon them; their lives were opulent
and full of enjoyment. The Greeks can tell us a great deal of the
splendour and luxury of the Persians, which were introduced in the time
of Darius and subsequently. They inform us that the Persians adopted a
richer style of dress. Like the Indians, the Medes and the Persians
after them delighted to adorn themselves; but according to the Greeks
the Persians were even more anxious to give themselves a dignified and
imposing appearance. They wore the loose dress of the Medes, in blue and
red purple; they also followed the Medes in wearing chains, and armlets,
and earrings of gold.[499] The hair and beard received careful
attention. In summer the parasol-bearers were always at hand, in winter
gloves were worn.[500] The houses were adorned with costly carpets; the
Persians lay on beds with golden feet, and soft cushions; and on the
tables of the higher classes glittered goblets, bowls, and pitchers of
gold and silver. The servants were numerous, trained butlers, bakers,
and cooks were kept.[501] The table of the Persians, as the Greeks tell
us, presented but few kinds of farinaceous food, but whole animals were
served up, and the dessert was plentiful and in various courses.[502]
The hereditary moderation in wine was not observed. Herodotus tells us
that: "The Persians readily accept foreign customs. They wear the Median
dress because they consider it more beautiful, and in war they use
Egyptian coats of mail. They adopt any customs which please them, and
in addition to a large number of wives, they have many concubines."[503]
About the year 500 B.C. the Persians were so accustomed to convenience
in their domestic economy, that they took even into the field of battle
their servants together with their cooks and maid-servants, their entire
harem with costly furniture, partly in closed waggons and partly on
camels; even the men of the guard were followed by their women and
furniture. The nobles encamped under tents splendidly wrought with gold
and silver.[504] But in spite of this luxury, self-control and military
vigour were never eradicated in the Persians. They were always seen in a
becoming attitude. They were never observed to eat or drink greedily;
they never laughed loud, or quarrelled, or gave way to passion.[505] The
education which the sons of the nobles received under the eye of the
king and the satraps, and the rich rewards in store for eminent valour,
kept up a manly spirit. We have more than one instance of acts of rare
devotion to the king and the empire. The remembrance of the conflicts of
Cyrus, of the wars which Darius carried on, the consciousness of great
successes, the proud feeling that they governed the nations of Asia,
formed strong counterpoises to the advance of effeminacy. Even those who
lived most delicately at home eagerly joined in the chase, in the
prescribed extirpation of the animals of Angromainyu, and the princes
did not disdain to do garden-work with their own hands day by day. At
that time, as Xenophon observes, the old Persian sobriety and force
existed beside the Median dress and luxury, and Heracleides of Pontus
tells us that the Persians and Medes, who loved luxury and excess above
others, were also the bravest and most magnanimous of the
barbarians.[506] Artaxerxes Mnemon, in spite of his golden ornaments and
purple kaftan, dismounted from his horse, and marched on foot, shield on
arm and quiver on shoulder, day by day at the head of his soldiers,
through the roughest and steepest mountain paths, though the day's march
reached 25 miles or more. In spite of armlets and purple hose the
leading Persians long after the time of Darius leapt from their horses
into the mud, in order to extricate a baggage-cart, which prevented the
march of the army; and the common soldier, even when frozen with cold,
hesitated to lay the axe to beautiful trees which would be consumed
merely to warm him by his watch-fire. The prescripts of religion were
not without effect. The kings kept their word when given; every Persian
regarded it as shameful to break the pledge of plighted hands, to refuse
reverence to his parents--his mother especially--to speak falsely, and
to seek for gains by trade. Thucydides says of them that they liked
better to give than to receive.[507] The pride of the Persians preferred
to serve the king with arms and receive favour and presents from him,
than to carry on any kind of trade. A great number of the Persians were
constantly under arms in the standing army; the rest tended their flocks
and cultivated their fields in the hereditary way. They kept to the old
Persian dress, the close and short garment of leather; their coats
reached only half way down the thigh, and instead of the tiara they wore
a low band round the head. Along with their dress and mode of life,
they kept true to the manners and moderation of their forefathers, and
practised the old arts of riding and archery.
More serious for the future of the kingdom than any splendour or
magnificence on the part of eminent Persians, was the influence, which
in the composition of the court was unavoidable, of his personal
servants on the king and on his resolutions--and the danger that court
intrigues might override the interest of the empire; above all, the
still more unavoidable influence of the harem. If the position of the
queen-mother, who, in accordance with the doctrines of Zarathrustra,
enjoyed a position of great respect at court, and her relations to the
queen or first wife gave occasion for jealous rivalry, each secondary
wife had still stronger motives to seek or maintain influence with the
king, to disparage the queen and the other wives before him, and make
provision for her sons if she could not aspire to gain the succession to
the throne. Thus a door was opened to ambition and intrigue, and the
eunuchs of the wives found in this occupation only too good an
opportunity for gaining importance and weight. If such evils were a
little matter under a ruler of the determination and wisdom of Darius,
it was impossible to count on the fact that he would be followed by a
series of kings like himself, and equally great. But if the court
outgrew the state, and the fortunes of the empire were decided in the
seraglio, the empire itself might be thrown into danger with a change in
the succession. The education given to the princes, and especially to
the heir to the throne, has been mentioned already, as well as their
instruction in the wisdom of the Magi. The crown descended to the eldest
son of the legitimate wife or queen. Whenever the king took the field,
in order to prevent contention he nominated his successor. Even about
the successor of Darius a difficulty might arise. His first wife, the
daughter of Gobryas, had borne him three sons before he came to the
throne; when king, he had made Atossa his queen, and had four sons by
her (p. 394). Which was the legitimate heir, the eldest of the first
family, or of the second?--Artabazanes or Xerxes?
At the death of the king, as Diodorus tells us, the sacred fire in the
royal palace, and in all the houses of the Persians, was put out.[508]
We remember the prescript of the Avesta that the fire of the hearth must
be removed from the house of the dead, together with all the sacred
vessels, the pestle, the cup, the bundle of rods and the Haoma, and that
the fire could not be kindled again till the ninth or thirtieth day
after the death (V. 215). The heir to the throne repaired to Pasargadae,
to receive consecration from the Magi there. "In that city," says
Plutarch, "there is the shrine of a warlike goddess who may, perhaps, be
compared with Athene; to this the prince who is to be consecrated goes,
and there lays his robe aside, in order to put on the garment which
Cyrus wore before he became king: then he eats a cake of dried figs,
bites a terebinth, and drinks a cup of sour milk (no doubt in
remembrance of the old life of the Persians). Whether he has anything to
do beyond this is unknown."[509] We are told elsewhere that the new king
put the royal _kidaris_ on his head; and no doubt the act would be
accompanied with invocations by the Magi. The shrine of the goddess
mentioned by Plutarch must have been a place of sacrifice to Anahita;
the heroes and kings of the Avesta sacrifice to this goddess in order
to attain the splendour of majesty, the supreme dominion.[510]
The Arian tribes of the table-land of Iran have preserved the original
character of their family more truly than their kinsmen who settled on
the Indus and the Ganges, and filled the Deccan with their civilization.
Placed in a less tempestuous region, in a land where there were sharp
contrasts of climate, of hill and plain, of fertility and desolation, of
snow and sand storms, the life of the Arians in Iran was more vigorous
and manly than life in India. The tribes in the north-east attained to
civic life and intellectual progress before the tribes of west Iran. The
contrast in which the former stood to the hordes of the neighbouring
steppes, and the repulsion of their attacks, led the Bactrians to a
larger state, and the formation of a military monarchy, which arose from
the midst of an armed nobility, while the weight of the ancient and
powerful states of the Semites in the valley of the Euphrates and the
Tigris, repressed the independent development of the tribes of western
Iran. The foundations of the religious views of the Arians were the same
to the east and west of the Indus. With the Arians of the Panjab, the
Arians of Iran shared the belief in the power of the spirits of light
which gave life and blessing, in the destructive power of the black
spirits, and the struggle of the spirits of light against the spirits of
darkness. The peculiar intensity of the contrasts in nature and in the
conditions of life in the north-east, gave an impulse to the development
of religious views there, which led to the systematic opposition of the
hosts of heaven and of hell, and the union of these groups under two
supreme spirits, and to deeper ideas of their nature. It was a
transformation of the old conceptions which at the same time carried
with it a change and increase in the ethical demands made upon men.
While the development of conceptions beyond the Indus tended to set man
free from all sensuality, and sought to bring him back to his divine
origin, by crushing the body and quenching the individuality, the
doctrine of Zarathrustra excludes only the harmful side of nature, and
demands the increase of the useful side; it pledges every man to take a
part in the conflict of the good spirits against the evil, demands that
by his work, his activity, and the purity of his soul, he enlarge the
kingdom of the good and light spirits to the best of his ability, and
thus forms sound and practical aims for the conduct of men. When this
doctrine had penetrated to the nations of west Iran, and struck deep
roots among them, the Medes succeeded in combining their tribes, and
repelling the supremacy of the Assyrians. In no long time the borders of
their dominion extended, in the west to the Halys, and in the east over
the whole table-land of Iran; in union with Babylon they overthrew the
remnant of Assyria, and shared with that city the empire over Hither
Asia. What the Medes had begun, the Persians finished, when they had
taken the place of the Medes. One after another the ancient kingdoms of
Hither Asia fell before them--the Lydian empire, which had finally
united under its sway the tribes and cities of the western half of Asia
Minor, ancient Babylon, which had once more united the valley of the two
streams, the states of Syria, and the cities of the Phenicians, and at
length even primeval Egypt.
Arian life and Arian culture were now dominant through the whole breadth
of Asia, from the pearl-banks and coral-reefs of the Indian Ocean to
the Hellespont. At the time when the first Arian settlers were landing
far in the east on Tamraparni (Ceylon) the cities of the Hellenes on the
western coast of Anatolia and the strand of the Aegean were compelled to
bow before the arms of Cyrus. The world had never seen before such an
empire as that of Darius, the borders of which reached from the Libyans,
the plateau of Barca, the Nubians and negroes beyond Egypt, the tribes
of the Arabian desert to the summits of the Caucasus, the remote city of
Cyrus on the Jaxartes, and the gold-land of the Daradas in the lofty
Himalayas. And not contented with this range Darius aspired to extend
yet further the limits of his empire.
Beyond the Aegean Sea a branch of the Arian stock had developed an
independent civilization and civic life in small mountain cantons
surrounded by the sea. The eye of the potentate of Asia looked no doubt
with contempt on these unimportant communities, whose colonies in Asia
and Africa had long been subject to him; on states of which each could
put in the field no more than a few thousand warriors. The sea, which
separated the Persian kingdom from the cantons of the Greeks, had
already been crossed; the Persians had seen the mouths of the Danube;
the straits of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont were in the power of
Darius, the coasts of Thrace and the Greek states were subject to him;
he had already planted a firm foot at the mouths of the Hebrus and the
Strymon, and the prince of Macedonia paid him tribute. At his command
Phenicians and Persians had investigated the coasts of the Aegean Sea,
and of Hellas.
Was it possible that these small cantons, without political union or
common interests, living in perpetual strife and feud, excited and torn
by internal party contests in which there were almost as many views as
men, whose exiles made their way to the lofty gates of the Persian
monarch, whose princes were at pains to secure their dominions by
vassalage to the great king, and join in leagues with him against their
countrymen--was it possible that these cantons, in this position, would
maintain their independence against Persia, and resist the attack of
this universal empire,--the onset of Asia? Would the Greeks be bold
enough to venture on such a hopeless struggle, to oppose the Persians,
whose name was a terror to all their neighbours, and even to the
Hellenes? Few, Herodotus tells us, could even bear the sight of the
Persian cavalry, and Plato remarks that the minds of the Greeks were
already enslaved to the Persians.
It was a question of decisive importance for the civilization and
development of humanity; whether the new principle of communal
government, which had been carried out in the Hellenic cantons, should
be maintained, or pass into the vast limits of the Persian empire, and
succumb to the authority of the king: state power and civic life,
absolute authority and the will of the majority, abject obedience and
conscious self-control, the masses and the individual--these were ranged
opposite each other, and the balance was already turning in favour of
overwhelming material force.
FOOTNOTES:
[499] Plut. "Artax." c. 13; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 40; "Anab." 1, 5,
8; Strabo, p. 734.
[500] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 17.
[501] Aeschyl. "Pers." 543; Xenophon, "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 16.
[502] Herod. 1, 133; Heracleides of Cyme (Fragm. 2, ed. Mueller) contests
the excess of the king at table as well as of the officers and generals.
Cf. Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 5, 2, 17; 8, 8, 10; Strabo, p. 733, 734.
[503] Herod. 1, 135.
[504] Herod. 7, 83, 187; 9, 76, 80, 81, 82; Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 4.
[505] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 8 ff.
[506] Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 15; Heracl. Pont. ap. Athenaeum, p.
512.
[507] Plut. "Artax." 24, 25; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 5; "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 2;
Thuc. 2, 17.
[508] Diod. 17, 114. Cf. Curtius, 3, 3, 9.
[509] Plut. "Artax." 3.
[510] Vol. V. 32, 37. "Aban Yasht," 22, 25, 46, 50.
THE END.
BUNGAY: CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
_J. D. & Co._
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