the Osortasidæ, arose at Thebes, and became one of the most powerful
tribes of native rulers. They obtained paramount authority over the
kingdoms of Elephantine and Heracleopolis, held the Sinaitic Peninsula,
and extended their victorious arms into Arabia and Ethiopia. Sesortasen I
ruled all Upper Egypt. Under the second and third sovereigns of that name
the kingdom reached its highest prosperity. The third Sesortasen enriched
the country by many canals, and left monuments of his power at Senneh,
near the southern border of the empire, which still excite the wonder of
travelers. The largest edifice and the most useful work in Egypt were
executed by his successor, Ammenemes III. The first was the Labyrinth
in the Faioom, which Herodotus visited, and declared that it surpassed
all human works. It contained three thousand rooms; fifteen hundred of
these were under ground, and contained the mummies of kings and of the
sacred crocodiles. The walls of the fifteen hundred upper apartments
were of solid stone, entirely covered with sculpture. The other work of
Ammenemes was the Lake Moëris. This was a natural reservoir formed near a
bend of the Nile; but he so improved it by art as to retain and carefully
distribute the gifts of the river, and thus insure the fruitfulness of
the province.
=141.= A weaker race succeeded, and the calamities of Lower Egypt were
now extended throughout the land. The Hyksos advanced to the southward,
and the fugitive kings of Thebes sought refuge in Ethiopia. With the
exception of the Xoites, intrenched in the marshes of the Delta, all
Egypt became for a time subject to the Shepherds. They burned cities,
destroyed temples, and made slaves of all the people whom they did
not put to death. Two native dynasties reigned at Memphis, and one at
Heracleopolis, but they were tributary to the conquerors.
=142.= Some have supposed that the Pyramids were erected by these
Shepherd Kings. But the best authorities describe the race as rude,
ignorant, and destitute of arts, as compared with the Egyptians, either
before or after their invasion; and after the long deluge of barbarism
was swept back, we find religion, language, and art—kept, doubtless,
and cultivated in seclusion by the learned class—precisely as they were
before the interruption. The absence of records during this period
would alone prove the lack of learning in the ruling race. Baron Bunsen
supposes the Hyksos to have been identical with the Philistines of
Palestine. Some of them took refuge in Crete when they were driven out
of Egypt, and re-appeared in Palestine from the west about the same time
that the Israelites entered it from the east. In any case, a gap of
nearly four hundred years occurs in Egyptian history between the old and
the new empires, during which the Holy City of Thebes was in the hands of
barbarians, the annals ceased, and the names of the kings, either native
or foreign, are for the most part unknown.
=143.= THIRD PERIOD. B. C. 1525-525. After their long humiliation, the
people of Egypt rallied for a great national revolt, under the Theban
king Amo´sis, and drove the invaders, after a hard-fought contest, from
their soil. Now came the brightest period of Egyptian history. Amosis
was rewarded with the undivided sovereignty, and became the founder of
the Eighteenth Dynasty. Memphis was made the imperial capital. Many
temples were repaired, as we may learn from memoranda preserved in the
quarries of Syene and the Upper Nile. Aahmes, the wife of Amosis, bears
the surname Nefru-ari, “the good, glorious woman,” and seems to have been
held in the highest honor ever ascribed to a queen. She was a Theban
princess of Ethiopian blood, and probably had many provinces for her
dowry. Amosis died B. C. 1499.
=144.= For eight hundred years Egypt continued a single, consolidated
kingdom. During this time art obtained its highest perfection; the great
temple-palaces of Thebes were built; numerous obelisks, “fingers of the
sun,” pointed heavenward; and the people, who had long groaned under a
cruel servitude, enjoyed, under the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth
Dynasties, the protection of a mild and well-organized government.
=145.= It may be feared that the Egyptians wreaked upon a captive nation
within their own borders their resentment against their late oppressors.
The Hebrews grew and multiplied in Egypt, and their lives were made
bitter with hard bondage. Many of the vast brick constructions of the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties may have been erected by the captive
Hebrews, who are expressly said to have built the two treasure cities,
Pithom and Raamses.
=146.= Royal women were treated with higher respect in Egypt than in any
other ancient monarchy. Thothmes I, the third king of the Eighteenth
Dynasty, was succeeded by his daughter, Mesphra or Amen-set, who reigned
as regent for her younger brother, Thothmes II. He died a minor, and she
held the same office, or, perhaps, reigned jointly with her next younger
brother, Thothmes III; but not with his cordial consent, for when she,
too, died, after a regency of twenty-two years, he caused her name and
image to be effaced from all the sculptures in which they had appeared
together.
=147.= B. C. 1461-1414. This king, Thothmes III, is distinguished not
more for his foreign wars than for the magnificent palaces and temples
which he built at Karnac, Thebes, Memphis, Heliopolis, Coptos, and other
places. Hardly an ancient city in Egypt or Nubia is unmarked by remains
of his edifices. The history of his twelve successive campaigns is
recorded in sculpture upon the walls of his palace at Thebes. He drove
the Hyksos from their last stronghold, Ava´ris, where they had been
shut up since the days of his father. The two obelisks near Alexandria,
which some Roman wit called Cleopa´tra’s Needles, bear the name of this
king. His military expeditions extended both to the north and south;
inscriptions on his monuments declare that he took tribute from Nineveh,
Hit (or Is), and Babylon.
[Sidenote: B. C. 1400-1364.]
=148.= His grandson, Thothmes IV, caused the carving of the great Sphinx
near the Pyramids. Amunoph III, his successor, was a great and powerful
monarch. He adorned the country by magnificent buildings, and improved
its agriculture by the construction of tanks or reservoirs to regulate
irrigation. The two _Colossi_ near Thebes, one of which is known as the
vocal Memnon, date from his reign; but the Amenophe´um, of which they
were ornaments, is now in ruins. Amunoph maintained the warlike fame of
his ancestors by expeditions into all the countries invaded by Thothmes
III. He is styled upon his monuments, “Pacificator of Egypt and Tamer of
the Libyan Shepherds.” He built the gorgeous palace of Luxor, which he
connected with the temple at Karnac by an avenue of a thousand sphinxes.
He made a similar avenue also at Thebes, lined with colossal sitting
statues of the cat-headed goddess Pasht (Bubastis).
[Sidenote: B. C. 1327-1324.]
=149.= B. C. 1364-1327. In the reign of Horus, his son, the nation was
distracted by many claimants for the crown, most of whom were princes or
princesses of the blood royal. Horus outlived his rivals and destroyed
their monuments. He had successful foreign wars in Africa, and made
additions to the palaces at Karnac and Luxor. With the next king,
Rathotis (or Resitot), the Eighteenth Dynasty ended.
=150.= B. C. 1324-1322. Rameses I, founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty,
was descended from the first two kings of the eighteenth. His son,
Seti, inherited all the national hatred toward the Syrian invaders, and
“avenged the shame of Egypt on Asia.” He reconquered Syria, which had
revolted some forty years earlier, and carried his victorious arms as
far as the borders of Cilicia and the banks of the Euphrates. He built
the great Hall at Karnac—in which the whole Cathedral of Notre Dame, at
Paris, could stand without touching either walls or ceiling—and his tomb
is the most beautiful of all the sepulchers of the kings.
=151.= B. C. 1311-1245. Rameses II, the Great, reigned sixty-six years;
and his achievements in war and peace fill a large space in the records
of his time, in which fact and fiction are often intermingled by his
flatterers. During his father’s life-time, he began his military career
by subduing both Libya and Arabia. His ambition being thus inflamed, he
had no sooner succeeded to the throne than he resolved upon the conquest
of the world. He provided for the security of his kingdom during his
absence, by re-dividing the country into thirty-six nomes and appointing
a governor for each. He then equipped an immense army, which is said to
have included 600,000 foot, 24,000 horse, and 27,000 war chariots. Having
conquered Ethiopia, Rameses made a fleet of four hundred vessels, the
first which any Egyptian king had possessed, and sailing down the Red Sea
to the Arabian, continued his voyage as far as India. He returned only to
make fresh preparations, and lead another great army eastward beyond the
Ganges, and onward till he reached a new ocean. Columns were every-where
erected recording the victories of the monarch, and lauding the courage
or shaming the cowardice of those who had encountered him.
[Illustration: FIGURE OF AMUNOPH III, NEAR THEBES.
_Called by the Greeks the Vocal Memnon. It was 47 feet in height, or 53
feet including the pedestal._]
=152.= Returning from his Asiatic conquests, Rameses entered Europe and
subdued the Thracians; then, after nine years absence, during which he
had covered himself with the glory of innumerable easy victories, he
reëntered Egypt. He brought with him a long train of captives, whom he
intended to employ upon the architectural works which he had already
projected. Among the most celebrated are the Rock Temples of Ipsambul,
in Nubia, whose sides are covered with bas-reliefs representing the
victories of Sesostris; the Ramesse´um, or Memnonium, at Thebes; and
additions to the palace at Karnac. He built, also, a wall near the
eastern frontier of Egypt, from Pelusium to Heliopolis, and, perhaps,
even as far as Sye´ne, to prevent future invasions from Arabia. More
monuments exist of Rameses II than of any other Pharaoh; but the strength
of the New Empire was exhausted by these extraordinary efforts in war and
building. The king tormented both his subjects and his captives, using
them merely as instruments of his passion for military and architectural
display. It was this king who drove the Israelites to desperation by his
inhuman oppressions, especially by commanding every male child to be
drowned in the Nile. (Exodus i: 8-14, 22.)
=153.= In the great hall of Abydus, or This, Rameses is represented as
offering sacrifice to fifty-two kings of his own race, he himself, in
a glorified form, being of the number. The sculpture is explained by
an inscription: “A libation to the Lords of the West, by the offerings
of their son, the king Rameses, in his abode.” The reply of the royal
divinities is as follows: “The speech of the Lords of the West, to their
son the Creator and Avenger, the Lord of the World, the Sun who conquers
in truth. We ourselves elevate our arms to receive thy offerings, and all
other good and pure things in thy palace. We are renewed and perpetuated
in the paintings of thy house,” etc.
=154.= The son of Rameses II, Menephthah, or Amenephthes, was the
Pharaoh of the Exodus. The escaping Israelites passed along the bank
of the canal made by the Great King, and thus were supplied with water
for their multitude both of men and beasts. By the dates always found
upon Egyptian buildings, we learn that architectural labors ceased
for twenty years; and this contrast to the former activity affords an
interesting coincidence with the Scriptural narrative. Josephus,[16]
also, quotes from Manetho a tradition, that the son of the great Rameses
was overthrown by a revolt, under Osarsiph (Moses), of a race of lepers
who had been grievously oppressed by him; and that he fled into Ethiopia
with his son, then only five years old, who, thirteen years later,
recovered the kingdom as Sethos II. To express their contempt for their
former captives, the Egyptian historians always refer to the Israelites
as lepers. With Seti, or Sethos II, the house of the great Rameses became
extinct.
=155.= B. C. 1219. Rameses III, the first of the Twentieth Dynasty,
maintained extensive wars, both by sea and land. His four sons all bore
his name and came successively to the throne, but there are no great
events to signalize their reigns. Six or seven kings of the same name
followed, and the family ended about B. C. 1085.
=156.= During this period Egypt rapidly declined, as well in intellectual
as military power. Her foreign enterprises ceased; no additions were made
to the magnificent buildings of former ages; and sculpture and painting,
instead of deriving new life from the study of Nature, were compelled
to copy the old set forms or confine themselves to dull and meaningless
imitations.
=157.= The Twenty-first Dynasty was a priestly race, whose capital was
Ta´nis, or Zo´an, in Lower Egypt, but who were supreme throughout the
country. They wore sacerdotal robes, and called themselves High Priests
of Amun. One of them gave his daughter in marriage to Solomon. (1 Kings
iii: 1; ix: 16.) The seven kings of this dynasty had usually short
reigns, marked by few events. B. C. 1085-990.
[Sidenote: B. C. 972.]
[Sidenote: B. C. 956-933.]
=158.= B. C. 993-972. Sheshonk, or Shishak, the founder of the
Twenty-second Dynasty, revived the military power of the nation. He
married the daughter of Pisham II, the last king of the Tanite race, and
took upon himself, also, the title of High Priest of Amun, but beyond
this there are no signs of priesthood in this line. Bubastis, in the
Delta, was the seat of his government. It was to him that Jerobo´am fled
when plotting to make himself king of Israel; and Shishak afterward made
an expedition against Judæa for the purpose of confirming Jeroboam on his
throne. He plundered Jerusalem and received the submission of Rehoboam.
Osorkon II, the fourth king of this dynasty, and an Ethiopian prince, was
probably the Zerah of Scripture, who invaded Syria, and was defeated by
Asa, king of Judah, in the battle of Mareshah. (2 Chron. xiv: 9-14.)
=159.= At the expiration of this line in the person of Takelot II, about
B. C. 847, a rival family sprang up at Tanis, forming the Twenty-third
Dynasty. It comprised only four kings, none of whom were famous. B. C.
847-758.
[Sidenote: B. C. 730.]
=160.= B. C. 758-714. The Twenty-fourth Dynasty consisted of one king,
Boccho´ris. He fixed the government at Sa´ïs, another city of the Delta,
and was widely famed for the wisdom and justice of his administration.
In the latter half of this period, Sabaco, the Ethiopian, overran the
country and reduced the Saïte monarch to a mere vassal. Bocchoris,
attempting to revolt, was captured and burned to death, after a reign of
forty-four years.
[Sidenote: B. C. 690-665.]
=161.= Sabaco I, having subdued Egypt, established the Twenty-fifth
Dynasty. He fought with the king of Assyria for the dominion of western
Asia, but was defeated by Sargon in the battle of Raphia, B. C. 718.
Assyrian influence became predominant in the Delta, while the power of
the Ethiopian was undisturbed only in Upper Egypt. The second king of
this family was also named Sabaco. The third and last, Tir´hakeh, was
the greatest of the line. He maintained war successively with three
Assyrian monarchs. The first, Sennacherib, was overthrown[17] B. C. 698.
His son, Esarhaddon, was successful for a time in breaking Lower Egypt
into a number of tributary provinces. Tirhakeh recovered his power and
reunited his kingdom; but after two years’ war with Asshur-bani-pal, the
next king of Assyria, he was obliged to abdicate in favor of his son.
The son was expelled, and Egypt was divided for thirty years into many
petty kingdoms, which remained subject to Assyria until the death of the
conqueror.
=162.= For the Egyptians this was merely a change of foreign rulers.
Their patriotism had long been declining, and their native army had lost
its fame and valor from the time when the kings of the Twenty-second
Dynasty intrusted the national defense to foreigners. The military caste
became degraded, and the crown even attempted to deprive the soldiers
of their lands. Egypt had become in some degree a naval power, and a
commercial class had arisen to rival the soldiers and farmers.
=163.= About 630 B. C., the Assyrians had to concentrate their forces
at home in resistance to the Scythians; and Psammet´ichus, one of the
native viceroys whom they had set up in Egypt, seized the opportunity to
throw off their yoke. The great Assyrian Empire was now falling under the
Median and Babylonian revolt, and its power ceased to be felt in distant
provinces. Psammetichus gained victories over his brother viceroys,
and established the Twenty-sixth Dynasty over all Egypt. He was an
enlightened monarch, and during his reign art and science received a new
impulse.
=164.= Having overcome the dodecarchy by means of his Greek and Tyrian
auxiliaries, he settled these foreign troops in permanent camps, the
latter near Memphis, the former near the Pelusiac branch of the Nile.
His native soldiery were so incensed by being thus superseded by foreign
mercenaries, that many deserted and took up their residence in Ethiopia.
So many foreigners of all classes now flocked to the ports of Egypt, that
a new caste of dragomans, or interpreters, arose. Psammetichus caused his
own son to be instructed in Greek learning, a sure sign that the barriers
which had hitherto separated the intellectual life of Egypt from the rest
of the world were now broken down.
=165.= Those northern barbarians who had terrified the Assyrians had now
overrun Palestine and threatened an invasion of Egypt; but the messengers
of Psammetichus met them at Ascalon with bribes which induced them to
return.
[Sidenote: B. C. 605.]
=166.= B. C. 610-594. In the reign of Necho, son of Psammetichus, the
navy and commerce of Egypt were greatly increased, and Africa was for the
first time circumnavigated by an Egyptian fleet. This expedition sailed
by way of the Red Sea. Twice the seamen landed, encamped, sowed grain,
and waited for a harvest. Having reaped their crop, they again set sail,
and in the third year arrived in Egypt by way of the Mediterranean. The
foreign conquests of Necho may even be compared with those of the great
Rameses, for he enlarged his dominions by all the country between Egypt
and the Euphrates. But he met a stronger foe in Nebuchadnezzar, and when
he fled from the field of Car´chemish all his Asiatic conquests fell into
the hands of the great Babylonian.
[Sidenote: B. C. 569-525.]
=167.= B. C. 588-569. His grandson, Apries, the Pharaoh-hophra of
Scripture, resumed the warlike schemes of Necho. He besieged Sidon,
fought a naval battle with Tyre, and made an unsuccessful alliance with
Zedekiah, king of Judah, against Nebuchadnezzar. He was deposed, and
his successor, Ama´sis, held his crown at first as a tributary to the
Babylonian. He afterward made himself independent; and many monuments
throughout Egypt bear witness to his liberal encouragement of the arts,
while his foreign policy enriched the country. He was on friendly terms
with Greece and her colonies, and many Greek merchants settled in Egypt.
=168.= Alarmed by the increasing power of Persia, he sought to strengthen
himself by alliances with Crœsus of Lydia, and Polycrates of Samos. The
precaution was ineffectual, but Amasis did not live to see the ruin
of his country. Cambyses, king of Persia, was already on his march at
the head of a great army, when Psammen´itus, son of Amasis, succeeded
to the throne of Egypt. The new king hastened to meet the invader at
Pelusium, but was defeated and compelled to shut himself up in Memphis,
his capital, where the Persians now advanced to besiege him. The city
was taken and its king made captive, after a reign of only six months.
A little later he was put to death; and the Kingdom of Egypt, after a
thousand years of independent existence, became a mere province of the
Persian Empire, B. C. 525.
RECAPITULATION.
At a very early period Egypt was highly civilized, but not
united, for it consisted of many independent nomes governed by
priests. Menes built Memphis, and founded the Empire of Upper
and Lower Egypt, which was ruled by twenty-six dynasties before
the Persian Conquest. Sesorcheres founded the Third Dynasty;
Sesonchosis patronized all the arts, and his son improved the
laws and worship. The Fourth Dynasty built many pyramids,
while the Second and Fifth reigned as dependents in This and
Elephantine. Egypt was afterward divided into five kingdoms,
and became subject to the Hyksos from Asia, who enslaved the
people, and after a time subdued the whole country, except Xois
in the Delta. During the early part of their invasion, the
Twelfth Dynasty reigned at Thebes in great power and splendor.
B. C. 1525, Amosis led a revolt which expelled the Hyksos, and
founded the Eighteenth Dynasty at Memphis. Several queens were
highly honored. The people were prosperous, but the captive
Hebrews were oppressed. Thothmes III built many palaces;
Seti re-conquered Syria; and his son, Rameses the Great,
gained victories in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the reign of
Menephthah, the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses.
Under the Twentieth Dynasty, the art, enterprise, and power
of Egypt declined. The Twenty-first Dynasty was composed of
priests; the Twenty-second, of soldiers. The Twenty-fourth
was overthrown by Sabaco the Ethiopian; the Twenty-fifth,
which he founded, was, in turn, reduced by the Assyrians.
After thirty years’ subjection, Egypt was delivered and united
by Psammetichus, with the aid of foreign troops. Necho, his
son, was successful in many naval and military enterprises,
but was defeated at last by Nebuchadnezzar, in the battle
of Carchemish. Apries was deposed by the same king, and
Amasis came to the throne as a viceroy of Babylon. His son,
Psammenitus, was conquered by Cambyses, and Egypt became a
Persian province.
RELIGION OF EGYPT.
=169.= The religion of the ancient Egyptians was a perplexing mixture
of grand conceptions and degrading superstitions. No other ancient
people had so firm an assurance of immortality, or felt its motives
so intimately affecting their daily life; yet no other carried its
idolatries to so debasing and ridiculous an extreme. The contradiction
is partly solved if we remember two distinctions: the first applying
chiefly to the ancient and heathen world, between the religion of priests
and people; the second every-where existing, even in the One True Faith,
between theory and practice—between ideal teaching and the personal
character of those who receive it.
=170.= The sacred books of the Egyptians contained the system adopted
by the priests. Their fundamental doctrine was that God is one,
unrepresented, invisible. But as God acts upon the world, his various
attributes or modes of manifestation were represented in various forms.
As the Creator, he was Phtha; as the Revealer, he was Am´un; as the
Benefactor and the Judge of men, he was Osiris; and so on through an
endless list of primary, secondary, and tertiary characters, which to
the uneducated became so many separate divinities. Some portion of his
divine life was even supposed to reside in plants and animals, which were
accordingly cherished and worshiped by the ignorant. For what to the wise
were merely symbols, to the people became distinct objects of adoration;
and the Egyptian priests, like all other heathen philosophers, disdained
to spread abroad the light which they possessed. They despised the common
people, whom they judged incapable of apprehending the sacred mysteries,
and taught them only those convenient doctrines which would render them
submissive to kingly and priestly authority.
=171.= The people, then, believed in eight gods of the first order,
twelve of the second, and seven of the third; but each of these was
worshiped under many titles, or as connected with different places. Isis
was, therefore, surnamed Myriônyma, or “with ten thousand names.” The sun
and the moon were admitted to their worship; the former as representing
the life-giving power of the deity, the latter as the regulator of time
and the messenger of heaven. The moon was figured as the Ibis-headed
Thoth, who corresponds to the Greek Hermes, the god of letters and
recorder of all human actions.
=172.= A principle of evil was worshiped, in very early times, under
the name of Seth, the Satan of Egyptian mythology. He was figured on a
monument as instructing a king in the use of a bow. Sin is elsewhere
represented as a great serpent, the enemy of gods and men, slain by the
spear of Horus, the child of Isis. It seems impossible to doubt that the
Egyptians had preserved some traditions of the promises made to Eve. At
a later period the worship of the evil principle was abolished, and the
square-eared images of Seth were chiseled off from the monuments.
=173.= The most interesting article of Egyptian mythology is the
appearance of Osiris on earth for the benefit of mankind, under the title
of Manifestor of Goodness and Truth; his death by the malice of the evil
one; his burial and resurrection, and his office as judge of the dead. In
every part of Egypt, and during all periods of its history, Osiris was
regarded as the great arbiter of the future state.
=174.= In the earliest times human sacrifices were practiced, as is
proved by the Sacrificial Seal which was accustomed to be affixed to
the victim, and copies of which are frequently found in the tombs. It
represents a kneeling human figure, bound, and awaiting the descent of
the knife which glitters in the hand of a priest. But the practice was
abolished by Amosis (B. C. 1525-1499), who ordered an equal number of
waxen effigies to be offered instead of the human victims.
=175.= The worship of animals was the most revolting feature of Egyptian
ceremonies. Throughout Egypt the ox, dog, cat, ibis, hawk, and the fishes
lepidotus and oxyrrynchus were held sacred. Beside these there were
innumerable local idolatries. Men´des worshiped the goat; Heracleop´olis,
the ichneumon; Cynop´olis, the dog; Lycop´olis, the wolf; A´thribis,
the shrew-mouse; Sa´ïs and Thebes, the sheep; Babylon near Memphis, the
ape, etc. Still more honored were the bull Apis, at Memphis; the calf
Mne´vis, at Heliopolis; and the crocodiles of Om´bos and Arsin´oë. These
were tended in their stalls by priests, and worshiped by the people
with profound reverence. Apis, the living symbol of Osiris, passed his
days in an Apeum attached to the Serapeum at Memphis. When he died he
was embalmed, and buried in so magnificent a manner that the persons in
charge of the ceremony were often ruined by the expense. He was supposed
to be the son of the moon, and was known by a white triangle or square on
his black forehead, the figure of a vulture on his back, and of a beetle
under his tongue. He was never allowed to live more than twenty-five
years. If he seemed likely to survive this period, he was drowned in
the sacred fountain, and another Apis was sought. The chemistry of the
priests had already produced the required white spots in the black hair
of some young calf, and the candidate was never sought in vain. At the
annual rising of the Nile, a seven-days’ feast was held in honor of
Osiris.
=176.= Difference of worship sometimes led to bitter enmities between
the several nomes. Thus, at Ombos the crocodile was worshiped, while at
Ten´tyra it was hunted and abhorred; the ram-headed Am´un was an object
of adoration at Thebes, and the sheep was a sacred animal, while the goat
was killed for food; in Men´des the goat was worshiped and the sheep was
eaten. The Lycopol´ites also ate mutton in compliment to the wolves,
which they venerated.
=177.= If we turn from the trivial rites to the moral effects of the
Egyptian faith, we find more to respect. The rewards and punishments of
a future life were powerful incitements to right dealing in the present.
At death all became equal: the king or the highest pontiff equally with
the lowest swine-herd must be acquitted by the judges before his body was
permitted to pass the sacred lake and be buried with his fathers. Every
nome had its sacred lake, across which all funeral processions passed on
their way to the city of the dead. On the side nearest the abodes of the
living, have been found the remains of multitudes who failed to pass the
ordeal, and whose bodies were ignominiously returned to their friends, to
be disposed of in the speediest manner.
=178.= Beside the earthly tribunal of forty-two judges, who decided the
fate of the body, it was believed that the soul must pass before the
divine judgment-seat before it could enter the abodes of the blessed. The
Book of the Dead—the only one yet discovered of the forty-two sacred
books of the Egyptians—contains a description of the trial of a departed
soul. It is represented on its long journey as occupied with prayers and
confessions. Forty-two gods occupy the judgment-seat. Osiris presides;
and before him are the scales, in one of which the statue of perfect
Justice is placed; in the other, the heart of the deceased. The soul of
the dead stands watching the balance, while Horus examines the plummet
indicating which way the beam preponderates; and Thoth, the Justifier,
records the sentence. If this is favorable, the soul receives a mark or
seal, “Justified.”
=179.= The temples of Egypt are the grandest architectural monuments
in the world. That of Am´un, in a rich oasis twenty days’ journey from
Thebes, was one of the most famous of ancient oracles. Near it, in
a grove of palms, rose a hot spring, the Fountain of the Sun, whose
bubbling and smoking were supposed to be tokens of the divine presence.
The oasis was a resting-place for caravans which passed between Egypt and
the interior regions of Nigritia or Soudan; and many rich offerings were
placed in the temple by merchants, thankful to have so nearly escaped
the perils of the desert, or anxious to gain the favor of Amun for their
journey just begun.
=180.= The Egyptians were divided into castes, or ranks, distinguished by
occupations. These have been variously numbered from three to seven. The
priests stood highest, the soldiers next; below these were husbandmen,
who may be divided into gardeners, boatmen, artisans of various kinds,
and shepherds, the latter including goat-herds and swine-herds, which
last were considered lowest of all.
=181.= The land, at least under the new empire, belonged exclusively to
the king, the priests, and the soldiers. In the time when Joseph the
Hebrew was prime minister, all other proprietors surrendered their lands
to the crown,[18] retaining possession of them only on condition of
paying a yearly rent of one-fifth of the produce.
=182.= The king was the representative of deity, and thus the head not
only of the government but of the religion of the state. His title, Phrah
(Pharaoh), signifying the Sun, pronounced him the emblem of the god of
light. It was his right and office to preside over the sacrifice and pour
out libations to the gods.
=183.= On account of his great responsibilities, the king of Egypt was
allowed less freedom in personal habits than the meanest of his subjects.
The sacred books contained minute regulations for his food, drink, and
dress, and the employment of his time. No indulgence of any kind was
permitted to be carried to excess. No slave or hireling was allowed
to hold office about his person, lest he should imbibe ideas unworthy
of a prince; but noblemen of the highest rank were alone privileged to
attend him. The ritual of every morning’s worship chanted the virtues
of former kings, and reminded him of his own duties. After death his
body was placed in an open court, where all his subjects might come with
accusations; and if his conduct in life was proved to have been unworthy
his high station, he was forever excluded from the sepulcher of his
fathers.
=184.= The priestly order possessed great power in the state, and, so far
as the sovereign was concerned, we can not deny that they used it well.
They were remarkable for their simple and temperate habits of living.
So careful were they that the body should “sit lightly upon the soul,”
that they took food only of the plainest quality and limited amount,
abstaining from many articles, such as fish, mutton, swine’s flesh,
beans, peas, garlic, leeks, and onions, which were in use among the
common people. They bathed twice a day and twice during the night—some
of the more strict, in water that had been tasted by their sacred bird,
the ibis, that they might have undoubted evidence of its cleanliness.
By this example of abstinence, purity, and humility, as well as by
their reputation for learning, the Egyptian priests established almost
unlimited control over the people. Their knowledge of physical science
enabled them, by optical illusions and other tricks, to excite the terror
and superstitious awe of their ignorant spectators. Nor did their reputed
power end with this life, for they could refuse to any man the passport
to the “outer world,” which alone could secure his eternal happiness.
=185.= The science of medicine was cultivated by the priests in even
the remotest ages. The universal practice of embalming was exercised
by physicians, and this enabled them to study the effects of various
diseases, by examination of the body after death. Asiatic monarchs sent
to Egypt for their physicians, and the prolific soil of the Nile Valley
supplied drugs for all the world. To this day, the characters used by
apothecaries to denote drams and grains are Egyptian ciphers as adopted
by the Arabs.
=186.= The soldiers, when not engaged in service either in foreign
wars, in garrisons, or at court, were settled on their own lands. These
were situated chiefly east of the Nile or in the Delta, since it was in
these quarters that the country was most exposed to hostile invasions.
Each soldier was allotted about six acres of land, free from all tax or
tribute. From its proceeds he defrayed the expense of his own arms and
equipment.
=187.= Upon the walls of their tombs are found vivid delineations of the
daily life of the Egyptians. Their industries, such as glass-blowing,
linen-weaving, rope-making, etc., as well as their common recreations
of hunting, fishing, ball-playing, wrestling, and domestic scenes, as
in the entertainment of company, are all represented in sculpture or
paintings upon the walls of Thebes or Beni-hassan. Dolls and other toys
of children are found in the tombs; and it is evident that the Egyptians
had so familiarized the idea of death as to have rid themselves of the
gloomy and painful associations with which it is often surrounded. The
body, after being prepared for the tomb, was returned to the house of
its abode, where it was kept never less than thirty days, and sometimes
even a year, feasts being given in its honor, and it being always present
in the company of guests. From the moment when the forty-two judges
had pronounced their favorable verdict on the border of the lake, the
lamentations of the funeral train were changed into songs of triumph, and
the deceased was congratulated on his admission to the glorified company
of the friends of Osiris.
CARTHAGE.
=188.= About 850 B. C., Dido, sister of Pygmalion, king of Tyre, having
been cruelly wronged by her brother in the murder of her husband,
Acer´bas, resolved to escape from his dominions and establish a new
empire. Accompanied by some Tyrian nobles who were dissatisfied with the
rule of Pygmalion, she sailed in a fleet laden with the treasures of her
husband, and came to anchor at length in a bay on the northern coast of
Africa, about six miles north of the modern Tunis.
=189.= The Libyan natives, who knew the value of commerce and the wealth
of Phœnician colonies, were inclined to be friendly; but their first
transaction with the new settlers promised advantages only to one side.
Dido proposed to lease from them as much land as could be covered with a
bullock’s hide. The yearly ground-rent being settled, she then ordered
the hide to be cut into the thinnest possible strips, and thus surrounded
a large portion of land, on which she built the fortress of Byr´sa. The
colony prospered, however, and was strengthened by the alliance of Utica
and other Tyrian settlements on the same coast. By similar arrangements
with the Libyans, the queen obtained permission to build the town of
CARTHAGE, which became the seat of a great commercial empire.
=190.= As the New City[19] rose to a high degree of power and wealth,
Hiar´bas, a neighboring king, sent to demand a marriage with Dido,
threatening war in case of refusal. The queen seemed to consent for the
benefit of her state; but at the end of three months’ preparation, she
ascended a funeral pile upon which sacrifices had been offered to the
shades of Acer´bas, and declaring to her people, that she was going to
her husband, as they had desired, plunged a sword into her breast. Dido
continued to be worshiped as a divinity in Carthage as long as the city
existed.
[Sidenote: B. C. 585.]
=191.= So far our story is mixed with fable, though containing,
doubtless, a large proportion of truth. What we certainly know is, that
the latest colony of Tyre soon became the most powerful; that it grew by
the alliance and immigration of the neighboring Libyans, as well as of
its sister colonies; and that it gained in wealth by the destruction[20]
of its parent city in the Babylonian wars. While the Levantine commerce
of Tyre fell to the Greeks, that of the West was naturally inherited by
the Carthaginians.
=192.= The African tribes, to whom the colonists were at first compelled
to pay tribute for the slight foot-hold they possessed, became at
length totally subjugated. They cultivated their lands for the benefit
of Carthage, and might at any time be forced to contribute half their
movable wealth to her treasury, and all their young men to her armies.
The Phœnician settlements gradually formed themselves into a confederacy,
of which Carthage was the head, though she possessed no authority beyond
the natural leadership of the most powerful. Her dominions extended
westward to the Pillars of Hercules, and down the African coast to the
end of the Atlas range; on the east her boundaries were fixed, after a
long contest with the Greek city of Cyre´ne, at the bottom of the Great
Syrtis, or gulf, which indents the northern shore.
=193.= Not content with her continental domains, Carthage gained
possession of most of the islands of the western Mediterranean. The coast
of Sicily was already dotted with Phœnician trading stations. These came
under the control of Carthage; and though out-rivaled in prosperity by
the free cities of the Greeks, especially Agrigen´tum and Syr´acuse,
the western portion of the island long remained a valuable possession.
The Balearic Islands were occupied by Carthaginian troops. Sardinia was
conquered by a long and severe conflict, and became a most important
station for the trade with Western Europe. Settlements were established
in Corsica and Spain, while, in the Atlantic, the islands of Madeira and
the Canaries were early subdued.
=194.= These conquests were made chiefly by means of foreign mercenaries
drawn both from Europe and Africa. South and west of Carthage were the
barbarous but usually friendly tribes of Numid´ia and Mauritania; and her
merchants in their journeys had frequent dealings with the warlike races
of Spain, Gaul, and northern Italy. It is said that the Carthaginians
mingled these various nations in their armies in such a manner that
difference of language might prevent their plotting together.
=195.= The navy of Carthage was of great importance in protecting her
commerce from the swarms of pirates which infested the Mediterranean. The
galleys were propelled by oars in the hands of slaves, but the officers
and sailors were usually native Carthaginians. With these land and naval
forces, Carthage became for several centuries undisputed mistress of the
central and western Mediterranean.
[Sidenote: B. C. 509.]
=196.= Toward the middle of the sixth century B. C., a great commercial
rival appeared in the western waters. The Greeks had begun their system
of colonization; had opened a trade with Tartes´sus, multiplied their
settlements in Sicily and Corsica, and built Massil´ia near the mouth
of the Rhone. Near the close of our First Period, the two powers came
into fierce collision, and the Grecian fleet was destroyed by that of
Carthage, aided by her Etruscan allies. At the same time Rome, which
had grown powerful under her kings, became free by their expulsion; and
the Carthaginians, hitherto on friendly terms with the Italians, made a
treaty of alliance with the new Republic which was to prove their most
unrelenting foe.
=197.= The government of Carthage, under the forms of a republic,
was really an aristocracy of wealth. The two chief officers were the
Suffe´tes, who at first, like the Hebrew rulers from Joshua to Samuel,
led the people in war and judged them in peace. In later times their
office became exclusively civil, and generals were appointed for military
command. The Suffetes were elected only from certain families, and
probably for life.
=198.= Next came the Council of several hundreds of citizens, from which
committees of five were chosen to administer the various departments of
state. At a later period, when the house of Mago had risen to a degree of
military power which was thought to endanger the public safety, a Council
of One Hundred was added to these, before which all generals returning
from war were obliged to present themselves and render an account of
their actions. So severe were the judgments of this tribunal, that an
unsuccessful general often preferred suicide upon the field of battle to
meeting their awards. With the two judges and the two high priests, this
council constituted the Supreme Court of the Republic.
=199.= The larger Council, or Senate, received foreign embassadors,
deliberated upon all matters of state, and decided questions of war or
peace, with a certain deference to the authority of the Suffetes. If the
judges and the senate could not agree, appeal was made to the people.
=200.= The religion of Carthage was the same as that of Tyre, with
the addition of the worship of two or three Grecian divinities, whom
the Carthaginians thought it necessary to appease by sacrifices after
destroying their temples in Sicily. Every army was accompanied by a
prophet or diviner, without whose direction nothing could be done.
Generals frequently offered sacrifices, even during the progress of a
battle. There was no hereditary priesthood, as in Egypt, but the priestly
offices were filled by the highest persons in the state, sometimes even
by the sons of the kings or judges. In every new settlement a sanctuary
was erected, that the religion of the mother country might grow together
with her government and commerce. Every year a fleet left Carthage,
laden with rich offerings and bearing a solemn embassy to the shrine of
the Tyrian Hercules. The human sacrifices and other hideous rites of
Phœnician worship prevailed at Carthage; and though these features were
somewhat softened by advancing civilization, we shall find traces enough,
in future pages of her history, of that cruelty which makes so dark a
blemish in the character of the whole race.
=201.= The trade of Carthage was carried on both by land and sea.
Her caravans crossed the Great Desert by routes still traveled, and
exchanged the products of northern countries for those of Upper Egypt,
Ethiopia, Fezzan, and, perhaps, the far interior regions of Nigri´tia.
The manufactures of Carthage included fine cloths, hardware, pottery,
and harness of leather; but beside the exchange of her own products, she
possessed almost exclusively the carrying-trade between the nations of
Africa and western Europe.
=202.= The ships of Carthage penetrated all the then known seas; and
though confined to coast navigation, they explored the Atlantic from
Norway to the Cape of Good Hope. Hanno, the son of Hamil´car, conducted
sixty ships bearing 30,000 colonists to the western shores of Africa,
where he planted a chain of six colonies between the Straits and the
island of Cer´ne. He then went southward with some of his ships as
far as the River Gambia, and visited the Gold Coast, with which his
countrymen thenceforth carried on a regular traffic. On his return he
placed an inscription, commemorative of this voyage, on a brazen tablet
in the temple of Kro´nos, at Carthage. Himilco, his brother, led another
expedition the same year to the western coast of Europe, but of this the
history is lost.
=203.= These extensive voyages in the interest of trade brought the
products of the world into the Carthaginian markets. There might be seen
muslins from Malta; oil and wine from Italy; wax and honey from Corsica;
iron from Elba; gold, silver, and iron from Spain; tin from Cornwall and
the Scilly Isles; amber from the Baltic; gold, ivory, and slaves from
Senegam´bia.
=204.= While commerce was so abundant a source of wealth, agriculture
was the favorite pursuit of nobles and people. The fertile soil of Libya
yielded a hundred-fold to the farmer. So fond were wealthy Carthaginians
of the healthful toils of the field, that one of their great men wrote a
work, in twenty-eight volumes, on methods of husbandry; and this alone,
of all the treasures of their literature, was thought by their Roman
conquerors worthy of preservation.
=205.= We have slightly anticipated the course of events, in order to
present a connected account of the government, religion, and trade of
Carthage. Of her wars with the Sicilian Greeks, from the disastrous
defeat of Hamilcar at Him´era, B. C. 480, to the peace of B. C. 304, we
have no space for the details. The final period of Carthaginian history,
comprising the Roman wars and the destruction of the city, will be found
in Book V.
RECAPITULATION.
Carthage, a colony of Tyre, became sovereign of the shores
and islands of the western Mediterranean, a rival of Greece,
and an ally of Rome. Her army and navy were largely composed
of European and African mercenaries. Her government was
republican, with two judges at its head, foreign affairs being
transacted by a council of citizens. Religious ceremonies
claimed a large share of attention, both in war and peace.
Commerce extended by land to the interior of Africa; by sea,
from the Baltic to the Indian Ocean; and products of all the
world filled the Carthaginian markets. Agriculture was a
favorite employment with nobles and common people.
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW.
Book I.—Part II.
1. What is remarkable in the early history of Egypt? §§ 126-128.
2. Describe the first monarch of the united empire. 129.
3. His successors in the same dynasty. 130.
4. How many dynasties before the Persian Conquest? 163.
5. Describe the kings of the Third Dynasty. 131, 132.
6. The Pyramid-builders. 133-135.
7. What dynasties were subject to the fourth? 136.
8. Describe the divisions of Egypt and their consequences. 138, 139.
9. The monuments of the Twelfth Dynasty. 140.
10. The dominion and character of the Hyksos. 141, 142.
11. The rise of the New Empire. 143.
12. The family of Thothmes I. 146, 147.
13. Name the remaining kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. 148, 149.
14. Who founded the Nineteenth Dynasty? 150.
15. Describe its second and third kings. 150-152.
16. The Exodus of the Hebrews. 154.
17. Egypt under the Twentieth Dynasty. 155, 156.
18. What connections of Egyptian and Hebrew history under the
Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasties? 157, 158.
19. Who constituted the Twenty-fourth Dynasty? 160.
20. Tell the history of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. 161.
21. What was the condition of Egypt after the fall of Tirhakeh? 162.
22. What led to the rise of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty? 163.
23. What was the foreign policy of Psammetichus? 164.
24. What naval enterprise in the reign of Necho? 166.
25. Describe the reigns of Apries and Amasis. 167.
26. The theory and practice of Egyptian religion. 169, 170.
27. What were the objects of worship? 171, 172, 175.
28. Describe the twofold judgment of the dead. 177, 178.
29. Into what ranks were Egyptians divided? 180.
30. Who owned the land? 181.
31. Describe the dignities and duties of the king. 182, 183.
32. The life and power of the priests. 184.
33. Their medical practice. 185.
34. The tombs, and honors paid to the dead. 187.
35. Give the traditional account of the founding of Carthage 188, 189.
36. Describe the causes of its prosperity. 191.
37. The extent of its dominion. 192, 193.
38. Its army and navy. 194, 195.
39. What war and what alliance in the sixth century? 196.
40. Describe the government of Carthage. 197-199.
41. Its religion. 200.
42. Its trade by land and sea. 201-203.
43. What was the favorite pursuit of the Carthaginians? 204.
BOOK II.
THE PERSIAN EMPIRE FROM THE RISE OF CYRUS TO THE FALL OF DARIUS.
B. C. 558-330.
=1.= About 650 B. C., a warlike people, from the highlands east of the
Caspian, took possession of the hilly country north of the Persian Gulf.
They belonged, like the Medes, to the Aryan or Indo-Germanic family, and
were distinguished by a more hardy, simple, and virtuous character, and a
purer faith, from the luxurious inhabitants of the Babylonian plains. The
nation, as it soon became constituted, consisted of ten tribes, of whom
four continued nomadic, three settled to the cultivation of the soil, and
three bore arms for the general defense. Of these the Pasar´gadæ were
preëminent, and formed the nobility of Persia, holding all high offices
in the army and about the court.
=2.= The first king, Achæ´menes, was a Pasargadian, and from him all
subsequent Persian kings were descended. For the first hundred years
of its history, Persia was dependent upon the neighboring kingdom of
Media. But a little after the middle of the sixth century before Christ,
a revolution under Cy´rus reversed the relations of the Medo-Persian
monarchy, and prepared the foundations of a great empire which was to
reach beyond the Nile and the Hellespont on the west, and the Indus on
the east.
=3.= Cyrus spent many of his early years at the court of Asty´ages,
his maternal grandfather, in the seven-walled city of Ecbat´ana.[21]
The brave, athletic youth, accustomed to hardy sports and simple fare,
despised the wine and dainty food, the painted faces and silken garments
of the Median nobles. He saw that their strength was wasted by luxury,
and that in case of a collision they would be no match for his warlike
countrymen. At the same time, a party of the younger Medes gathered
around Cyrus, preferring his manly virtues to the effeminate pomp and
cruel tyranny of their king, and impatient for the time when he should be
their ruler.
[Sidenote: B. C. 558.]
=4.= When all was ready, the Persian prince rallied his countrymen and
persuaded them to become independent of the Medes. Astyages raised an
army to quell the revolt, but when the two forces met at Pasar´gadæ, the
greater part of the Medes went over to the Persian side. In a second
battle Astyages was made prisoner, and the sovereignty of Media remained
to the conqueror.
[Sidenote: B. C. 546.]
=5.= The reign of Cyrus was full of warlike enterprises. By the time he
had subdued the Median cities, Crœsus,[22] king of Lydia, had become
alarmed by his rapidly increasing power, and had stirred up Egypt,
Babylon, and the Greeks to oppose it. He crossed the Ha´lys, and
encountered the army of Cyrus near Sino´pe, in Cappado´cia. Neither party
gained a victory; but Crœsus, finding his numbers inferior, drew back
toward his capital, thinking to spend the winter in renewed preparations.
Cyrus pursued him to the gates of Sardis, and defeated him in a decisive
battle. The city was taken, and Crœsus owed his life to the mercy of his
conqueror. His kingdom, which comprised all Asia Minor west of the Halys,
was added to the Persian Empire.
=6.= The monarchs of Asia had three methods of maintaining their dominion
over the countries they had conquered: 1. A large standing army was kept
upon the soil, at the cost of the vanquished. 2. In case of revolt,
whole nations were sometimes transported over a distance of thousands of
miles, usually to the islands of the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean,
while their places were filled by emigrants whose loyalty was assured.
3. A more injurious, though apparently more indulgent policy, compelled
a warlike people to adopt luxurious and effeminate manners. Such was the
treatment of the Lydians, by the advice of their captive king. Crœsus
was now the trusted counselor of Cyrus. With a view to save his people
from the miseries of transportation, he suggested that they should be
deprived of their arms, compelled to clothe themselves in soft apparel,
and to train their youth in habits of gaming and drinking, thus rendering
them forever incapable of disturbing the dominion of their conquerors.
From a brave, warlike, and industrious race, the Lydians were transformed
into indolent pleasure-seekers, and their country remained a submissive
province of the empire of Cyrus.
=7.= CAPTURE OF BABYLON. Leaving Harpagus to complete the conquest of
the Asiatic Greeks, Cyrus turned to the east, where he aimed at the
greater glory of subduing Assyria. Nabonadius,[23] the Babylonian king,
believed that the walls of his capital were proof against assault; but
he was defeated, and the great city became the prey of the conqueror.
The writings of Daniel, who was resident at the court of Nabonadius, and
a witness of the overthrow of his kingdom, inform us that Dari´us the
Median took Babylon, being about sixty-two years old. It is probable that
Darius was another name of Astyages himself, who, being deprived of his
own kingdom, was compensated by the government of the most magnificent
city of the East. His arbitrary decrees concerning Daniel and his
accusers accord well with the character of Astyages.
=8.= RETURN OF THE JEWS. It will be remembered that the Jews were now
captives in Babylonia, where they had remained seventy years, since the
destruction of their Holy City by Nebuchadnez´zar. Cyrus, who, like
the Hebrews, was a believer in One God, found their pure religion an
agreeable contrast to the corrupt and degrading rites of the Babylonians.
He may have been moved by the prophecies of Isaiah, uttered nearly two
centuries before, and those of Jeremiah at the time of the Captivity.
(Isaiah xliv: 28, and xlv: 1-5; Jeremiah xxv: 12, and xxviii: 11.) He
may also have had more selfish motives for favoring the Jews, in his
designs upon Egypt, thinking it an advantage to have a friendly people
established in the fortresses of Judah. In any case, he fulfilled the
prophecies by giving orders for the return of the Israelites to their own
land, and for the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem. The 5,400 golden
and silver vessels of the House of the Lord were brought forth from the
Babylonian treasury and delivered to the prince of Judah, who received
the Persian title Sheshbaz´zar, corresponding to the modern Pasha´.
Few of the original captives had survived, like Daniel, to witness the
return; but a company of fifty thousand, men, women, and children, were
soon collected from their settlements on the Euphrates and the Persian
Gulf, and moving toward their own land. (Read Ezra i, and ii: 1, 64, 65,
68-70.) On their arrival, the altar was immediately set up, the great
festivals reëstablished, a grant of cedars from the forests of Lebanon
obtained, and preparations made for rebuilding the Temple.
=9.= Cyrus never accomplished in person his designs upon Egypt. He
extended his conquests westward to the borders of Macedonia, and eastward
to the Indus. Some of the conquered countries were left under the
control of their native kings; some received Persian rulers. All were
made tributary, but the proportion of their tribute was not fixed. The
organization of this vast dominion was left to the successors of Cyrus.
[Sidenote: B. C. 529.]
=10.= His last expedition was against the Massa´getæ, a tribe which dwelt
east of the Sea of Aral. The barbarians who roamed over these great
northern plains had become formidable foes to the civilized empires
of the south, but they were so thoroughly subdued by Cyrus that they
troubled Persia no more for two hundred years. The victor, however, lost
his life in a battle with Tom´yris, their queen, and the government and
extension of his empire were left to the care of his son Camby´ses.
=11.= In departing for his Scythian campaign, Cyrus had left his young
cousin Dari´us in Persia, the satrapy of his father, Hystas´pes. The
night after crossing the Arax´es, he dreamed that he saw Darius with
wings on his shoulders, the one overshadowing Asia, and the other
Europe. The time and the region were fruitful in dreams, and this had a
remarkable fulfillment.
=12.= REIGN OF CAMBYSES. B. C. 529-522. Without the ability of his
father, Cambyses inherited his warlike ambition, and soon proceeded to
execute the plans of African conquest long cherished by Cyrus. He was a
man of violent passions, which his unlimited power left without their
just restraint, and many of his acts are more like those of a willful and
ignorant child than of a reasonable man.
=13.= Egypt, now governed by Ama´sis, was the only part of the Babylonian
dominion which had not yielded to Cyrus. Amasis had begun his reign as
viceroy of Nebuchadnezzar, but during the decline of the empire he had
become independent. Cambyses prepared for his Egyptian campaign by the
conquest of Phœnicia and Cyprus, the two naval powers of western Asia. He
then marched into Egypt with a great force of Persians and Greeks. Amasis
had recently died, but his son Psammen´itus awaited the invader near the
Pelusiac mouth of the Nile. A single battle decided the fate of Egypt.
Psammenitus was defeated, and with his surviving followers shut himself
up in Memphis. The siege was short, and at its termination all Egypt
submitted to Cambyses, who assumed the full dignity of the Pharaohs as
“Lord of the Upper and Lower Countries.” The neighboring Libyans and the
two Greek cities, Cyre´ne and Barca, also sent in their submission and
offered gifts.
=14.= Cambyses now meditated three expeditions: one by sea against the
great commercial empire of Carthage; one against the Ammonians of the
desert; and a third against the long-lived Ethiopians,[24] whose country
was reputed to be rich in gold. The first was abandoned, because the
Phœnicians refused to serve against one of their own colonies. To the
last-named people Cambyses sent an embassy of the Ich´thyoph´agi, who
lived upon the borders of the Red Sea and understood their language.
These were charged to carry presents to the Macrobian king, and assure
him that the Persian monarch desired his friendship. The Ethiopian
replied in plain terms: “Neither has the king of Persia sent you because
he valued my alliance, nor do you speak the truth, for you are come
as spies of my kingdom. Nor is he a just man; for if he were just, he
would not desire any land but his own, nor would he reduce people to
servitude who have done him no harm. However, give him this bow, and say
these words to him: The king of the Ethiopians advises the king of the
Persians, when his Persians can thus easily draw a bow of this size, then
to make war upon the long-lived Ethiopians with a more numerous army; but
until that time let him thank the gods, who have not inspired the sons of
the Ethiopians with a desire of adding another land to their own.”
=15.= When Cambyses heard the reply of the Ethiopian he was enraged, and
without the usual military forethought to provide magazines of food,
he instantly put his army in motion. Arriving at Thebes, he sent off a
detachment of 50,000 men to destroy the temple and oracle of Amun[25]
in the Oasis. This army was buried in the sands of the desert, without
even beholding Ammo´nium. The main army of Cambyses was almost equally
unfortunate. Before a fifth part of its journey was completed its
provisions were spent. The beasts of burden were then eaten, and life was
supported a little longer by herbs gathered from the soil. But when they
reached the desert, both food and water failed, and the wretched men were
reduced to eating certain of their comrades chosen by lot. By this time
even the rage of the king was exhausted, and he consented to turn back;
but he arrived at Memphis with a small portion of the host which had gone
forth with him upon this ill-concerted enterprise.
=16.= He found the Memphians keeping a joyous festival in honor of the
god Apis, who had just reappeared.[26] The Persian was in ill humor
from his recent disasters, and chose to believe that the Egyptians were
rejoicing in his misfortunes. He ordered the new Apis to be brought into
his presence. When the animal appeared, he drew his dagger and pierced
it in the thigh; then, laughing loudly, exclaimed: “Ye blockheads, are
there such gods as this, consisting of blood and flesh, and sensible of
steel? This, truly, is a god worthy of the Egyptians!” He commanded his
officers to scourge the priests and kill all the people who were found
feasting. The Egyptians believed that Cambyses was instantly smitten with
insanity as a punishment for this sacrilege. A reason may be found for
his contemptuous treatment of Apis in that Persian hatred of idolatry
which led him to shatter even the colossal images of the kings before
many temples, and caused him to be regarded by ancient travelers as the
great iconoclast of Egypt.
=17.= The mad career of Cambyses was near its end. Before leaving Persia,
he had caused the secret assassination of his younger brother, Bar´des,
or, as the Greek historians called him, Smerdis, to whom their father had
left the government of several provinces. He was about to leave Egypt,
when a report arrived that Smerdis had revolted against him. The king now
suspected that he had been betrayed by the too faithful messenger whom
he had sent to kill his brother. The leader of the revolt, however, was
neither of royal nor Persian blood. Goma´tes, a Magian, had been left by
Cambyses steward of his palace at Susa. This man conspired with his order
throughout the empire for a rising of the Medes against the Persians, and
for the suppression of the reformed religion which the latter had brought
in. Happening to resemble the younger son of Cyrus, he boldly announced
to the people that Smerdis, brother of Cambyses, claimed their obedience.
The story appeared credible, for the death of the prince had purposely
been kept secret, so that nearly all the world, except Praxas´pes and his
master, supposed him to be still alive.
=18.= Cambyses was already in Syria when he received a herald who
demanded the obedience of the army to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. Caught in
his own toils, the king lamented in vain that for foolish jealousy he had
murdered the only man who could have exposed the fraud, and who might
have been the best support and defender of his throne. Overcome with
grief and shame, he sprang on horseback to begin his journey to Persia,
but in the act his sword was unsheathed and entered his side, inflicting
a mortal wound. He lingered three weeks, during which time he showed more
reason than in all his life before. He confessed and bewailed the murder
of his brother, and besought the Persian nobles to conquer the deceitful
Magus and bestow the kingdom on one more worthy. He had neither son nor
brother to succeed him. He had reigned seven years and five months.
=19.= REIGN OF THE PSEUDO-SMERDIS. B. C. 522-521. As it is the just
punishment of liars not to be believed even when they speak the truth,
Cambyses’ last confession was commonly supposed to be the most artful
transaction of his life. The nobles, who had no knowledge of the death
of Smerdis, believed that it was he indeed who was reigning at Susa,
and that his brother had invented the story of the Magus to make his
dethronement more certain. The pretended king lived in great seclusion,
never quitting his palace, and permitting the various members of his
household no intercourse with their relations. All orders were issued
by his prime minister. He closed the Zoroastrian temples, restored the
Magian priesthood, and ordered the discontinuance of the rebuilding
at Jerusalem. (Read Ezra iv: 17-24.) These religious changes, such as
no Achæmenian prince could have favored, began to awaken suspicions.
Seven great princes of the royal race, having learned by a spy within
the palace that the pretended monarch was only a Magian whom Cyrus had
deprived of his ears, formed a league to dethrone him. Their bold attack
was successful; the Magus was pursued into Media, and slain after a
reign of eight months; and Dar´ius Hystas´pes,[27] one of the seven
conspirators, was eventually chosen to be king.
=20.= REIGN OF DARIUS I. B. C. 521-486. The first years of Darius were
disturbed by rebellions which shook his throne to its foundation. No
fewer than eleven satrapies were successively in revolt. The most
important was that of Babylon, which for twenty months defied all the
efforts of the great king to reduce it. At length Zop´yrus, son of one
of the conspirators who had raised Darius to the throne, invented an
ingenious though revolting scheme. He cut off his own nose and ears,
applied the scourge to his shoulders until they were stained with blood,
and having agreed with the king upon his further conduct, deserted to
the Babylonians. To them he represented that the king had treated him
with such cruel indignity that he burned for revenge. His wounds added
plausibility to his story; he was received into the confidence of the
rebels, and on the tenth day he was intrusted with the command of a
sallying party which was to repulse an attack of the Persians.
Darius had been advised to send to the Semi´ramis Gate a body of those
troops whom he could best spare: a thousand of them were cut to pieces.
In a second sortie led by Zopyrus, two thousand Persians were slain;
in a third, four thousand. This slaughter of seven thousand of his
countrymen removed from the minds of the Babylonians all doubt of the
truth of Zopyrus. The keys of the city were committed to his care, and
the preparation for his treachery was now complete. During a concerted
assault by the Persians, he opened the gates to Darius, who proceeded to
take signal vengeance for the long defiance of his power. The reckless
sacrifice of human life in this transaction shows how the habit of
unlimited power had impaired the disposition of Darius, which was
naturally merciful.
=21.= To guard against future disturbances, Darius now endeavored to give
a more thorough and efficient organization to the great empire, which
Cyrus and Cambyses had built up. He divided the whole territory into
twenty satrapies, or provinces, and imposed upon each a tribute according
to its wealth. The native kings whom Cyrus had left upon their thrones
were all swept away, and a Persian governor, usually connected by blood
or marriage with the great king, was placed over each province. Order
within and safety from without were secured by standing armies of Medes
or Persians, posted at convenient stations throughout the empire. Royal
roads were constructed and a system of couriers arranged, by which the
court received constant and swift intelligence of all that occurred in
the provinces.
=22.= To prevent revolt, an elaborate system of checks was instituted,
which left the satrap little power of independent action. In this earlier
and stronger period of the consolidated empire, the satrap exercised
only the civil government, the military being wielded by generals and
commandants of garrisons, while, in Persia at least, the judicial
power resided in judges appointed directly by the king. Beside these
constitutional checks upon the satrap, there were in every province the
“king’s eyes” and the “king’s ears,” in the persons of royal secretaries
attached to his court, whose duty it was to communicate secretly and
constantly with the sovereign, and to keep him informed of every
occurrence within their respective districts.
The slightest suspicion of revolt communicated to the king by these
spies, was sufficient to bring an order for the death of the satrap.
This order was addressed to his guards, who instantly executed it by
hewing him down with their sabers. Each province, moreover, was liable
every moment to a sudden visit from the king or his commissioner, who
examined the satrap’s accounts, heard the grievances of his subjects, and
either deprived an unjust ruler of his place, or noted a wise, upright,
and beneficent one for promotion to greater honor. The satrap, on a
smaller scale, affected the same magnificence of living as the great
king himself. Each had his “paradises,” or pleasure-gardens, attached to
numerous palaces. The satrap of Babylon had a daily revenue of nearly
two bushels of coined silver; his stables contained nearly seventeen
thousand steeds, and the income from four towns barely sufficed for the
maintenance of his dogs.
=23.= The court of Susa surpassed all this display of wealth as much
as the sun surpasses the planets. Fifteen thousand persons fed daily
at the king’s tables. The royal journeys were of necessity confined to
the wealthier portion of the empire, for in the poorer provinces such
a visitation would have produced a famine. The king seldom appeared in
public, and the approach to his presence was guarded by long lines of
officers, each of whom had his appointed station, from the ministers of
highest rank who stood in the audience-chamber, to the humblest attendant
who waited at the gate.
=24.= The royal retinue included a numerous army, divided according to
its nationalities into corps of 10,000 each. Of these the most celebrated
were the Persian “Immortals,” so called because their number was always
exactly maintained. If an “Immortal” died, a well-trained member of a
reserve-corps was ready to take his place. They were chosen from all the
nation for their strength, stature, and fine personal appearance. Their
armor was resplendent with silver and gold, and on the march or in battle
they were always near the person of the king. The royal secretaries, or
scribes, formed another important part of the retinue of the court. They
wrote down every word that fell from the monarch’s lips, especially his
commands, which, once uttered, could never be recalled. (Esther viii: 8;
Daniel vi: 8, 12, 15.)
[Illustration: FIGURE OF A GOOD ANGEL—PERHAPS SRAOSHA.]
RECAPITULATION.
Persia, having been for a century subject to the Medes,
became independent under Cyrus, who also conquered Lydia and
Babylonia, liberated the Jews, and founded a great empire
reaching from Macedonia to India. He died in war with the
Scythians, and the African expedition was left to Cambyses,
his son. This king conquered Egypt, but his attempts against
Ethiopia and the temple of Amun resulted only in disaster. His
contempt for Egyptian idolatry was, according to the priests,
punished with madness. A revolt in the name of Smerdis, whom
he had murdered, placed a Magian upon the throne, and effected
a reaction against the Persian reformation. The Magian was
dethroned by Darius Hystaspes, who became the great organizer
of the empire of Cyrus. Twenty satrapies took the place of the
conquered kingdoms. A system of royal roads, couriers, and
spies kept the whole dominion within the reach and beneath the
eye of the king, who was surrounded by a multitude of officials
and protected by a numerous army, the Persian Immortals having
precedence in rank.
PERSIAN RELIGION.
=25.= The Persians held the reformed religion taught by Zo´roas´ter, a
great law-giver and prophet, who appeared in the Medo-Bactrian kingdom
long before[28] the birth of Cyrus. In every part of the East, the
belief in One God, and the pure and simple worship which the human
family had learned in its original home, had become overlaid by false
mythologies and superstitious rites. The teachings of Zoroaster divided
the Aryan family into its two Asiatic branches, which have ever since
remained distinct. The Hindus retained their sensuous Nature-worship,
of which In´dra (storm and thunder), Mith´ra (sunlight), Va´yu (wind),
Agni (fire), Arama´ti (earth), and Soma (the intoxicating principle in
liquids), were the chief objects. Zoroaster was led, either by reason or
divine revelation, to a purer faith. He taught the supremacy of a Living
Creator, a person, and not merely a power, whom he called Ahu´rô-Mazdâo,
or Or´mazd. The name has been differently rendered, the Divine
Much-Giving, the Creator of Life, or the Living Creator of All. Ormazd
was believed to bestow not merely earthly good, but the most precious
spiritual gifts—truth, devotion, the “good mind,” and everlasting joy.
=26.= It has been seen that Cyrus regarded the God of the Hebrews as
the object of his own worship (Ezra i: 1-4); and the Jewish prophets
recognize the same identity in their description of Cyrus (Isaiah xlv:
1-5). Both nations had a profound hatred of idolatry. No image of any
kind was seen in the Persian temples. Both believed in the ministration
of angels. The throne of Ormazd was surrounded by six princes of light,
and beneath them were innumerable hosts of warriors and messengers, who
passed to and fro defending the right and exterminating wrong. Chief of
these was Serosh, or Srao´sha, “the serene, the strong,” general-in-chief
of the armies of Ormazd. He never slept, but continually guarded the
earth with his drawn sword, especially after sunset, when demons had
greatest power. At their death, he conducted the souls of the just to the
presence of Ormazd, assisting them to pass the narrow bridge, from which
the wicked fell into the abyss below.
=27.= A later development of the doctrines of Zoroaster was that dualism
which divided the universe into a Kingdom of Light and a Kingdom of
Darkness. The latter was ruled by Ahriman´, the source of all impurity
and pain, assisted by his seven superior _devas_, or princes of evil;
and the whole world was a battle-ground between the two armies of
spirits, good and bad. If Ormazd created a paradise, Ahriman sent into
it a venomous serpent. All poisonous plants, reptiles, and insects, all
sickness, poverty, plague, war, famine, and earthquakes, all unbelief,
witchcraft, and deadly sins were the work of Ahriman; and the world,
which should have been “very good,” was thus made the scene of suffering.
Every object, living or inanimate, belonged to one or the other kingdom;
and it was the duty of the servant of Ormazd to foster every thing holy
and destroy every thing evil and impure. Agriculture was especially
favored by Zoroaster, as promoting beautiful and healthful growths, and
conquering blight, mildew, famine, and all destructive influences. It was
the firm belief of all devout Zoroastrians that the Kingdom of Darkness
would at length be overthrown, and the Kingdom of Light fill the universe.
=28.= RELIGION OF THE MEDES. The Magianism of the Medes, at the time
of their conquest by Cyrus, was a third form of Aryan belief, modified
by contact with the barbarous Scythians. It was a peculiar form of
Nature-worship, of which the four physical elements (so regarded), fire,
air, earth, and water, were the objects. Fire, as the most energetic,
was the chief. This system was wholly dependent on priest-craft; the
Magi, or priestly caste, one of the seven Median tribes, were alone
permitted to offer prayers and sacrifices. The Zoroastrians abhorred this
doctrine as the work of devas, to supplant the pure principles which
the race had received, in the beginning, from Ormazd himself. Darius
in his inscriptions describes the usurpation of Goma´tes the Magian as
the period when “the lie” prevailed. During the Magophonia, or yearly
festival, which celebrated the suppression of this revolt, no Magian
dared stir abroad for fear of death.
But with increased power and luxury came a change in the national
religion. The showy ceremonies of Magianism were better suited to the
pomp of an Eastern court than the simple and spiritual worship of the
Zoroastrians. A reconciliation was probably begun in the reign of Darius,
and completed in that of Artaxerx´es Longim´anus. The Magians accepted
the essential doctrines of Zoroaster, and were permitted, in turn, to
introduce a part of their own symbolism and priestly rites into the
national worship. They kept the sacred fire in the temples, fed it with
costly woods, and never suffered it to be blown with human breath. At
the rising of the sun they chanted sacred hymns to the Lord and Giver of
Light. One of them waked the king each morning with the words, “Rise,
sire, and think upon the duties which Ormazd has commanded you to
perform.” The whole religious ceremonial of the court was committed to
their care. They alone possessed the sacred liturgies by which Ormazd
was to be addressed; and it was believed that through them God revealed
his will, either in the interpretation of dreams or by the motion of the
stars.
=29.= Except that of the Hebrews, the Persian faith was the purest
monotheism of the East. But its benefits were chiefly confined to the
princely and noble caste, while with them its influence was neutralized
in a great measure by the corruptions of the court. Polygamy was the
fatal weakness of the Persian as of all other Eastern monarchies. The
furious enmities of rival princesses filled the palace with discord, and
often stained it with the darkest crimes. The hardy Persian mountaineers
who had won the victories of Cyrus, whose simple but noble education
taught them only “to ride the horse, to draw the bow, and to speak the
truth,” adopted the slavish manners of the races they had conquered,
learned to dissemble and prostrate themselves before the face of a
mortal, and became the splendid but often useless ornaments of an
extravagant court.
=30.= INDIAN CONQUESTS. The first great expedition of Darius was against
the Punjab´, or Five Rivers of Western India. The imperial revenues were
increased one-third by the acquisition of this rich gold-tract, and a
lucrative commerce now sprang up between the banks of the Indus and the
shores of the Persian Gulf.
=31.= SCYTHIAN CAMPAIGN. The next enterprise of Darius was against
the Scythians of Central Europe, between the Don and the Danube. His
design was to avenge the Scythian devastations of Media and Upper Asia a
century before, and to terrify the barbarians into future good behavior
by a display of his power; perhaps also to open a way into Greece by
the conquest of the Thracian tribes. The whole army and navy of the
empire, consisting of not less than 700,000 land soldiers and 600 ships,
assembled at the Thracian Bosphorus, which they crossed by a bridge of
boats constructed by Ionian engineers. The naval force was furnished
wholly by the Greeks of the Ægean.
=32.= Sending his fleet through the Euxine Sea into the Danube, with
orders to make a bridge of boats two days’ journey from its mouth, Darius
marched through Thrace, receiving or compelling the submission of its
tribes, and adding their young men to his army. Arriving at the Danube,
he crossed the bridge and gave orders to the Greeks to remain and guard
it sixty days; if in that time he did not return, they might conclude
that he had gone to Media by another route. The details of the great
king’s operations north of the Danube are unknown to history. There were
no great cities to take; the wandering Scythians destroyed their scanty
harvests, stopped their wells, removed their families northward to places
of security, and drew the invader after them into the depths of their
forests or uninhabited deserts.
Unable to bring his enemy to battle, and seeing his army reduced to great
distress for want of food and water, Darius was compelled to retreat
by the way he had come. The sixty days were more than elapsed when a
Scythian force, which had been watching his movements, hastened to the
Danube by a shorter route, urging the Ionians, who were still on guard,
to destroy the bridge and leave Darius to perish, like Cyrus, in the
northern deserts. The Greeks of Asia might thus have gained their freedom
without a blow; but the tyrants who commanded the fleet had interests
of their own quite separate from those of their people. Histiæ´us of
Mile´tus urged upon his fellow-despots that their power must fall with
that of Darius, being sustained by him against the popular will. His
arguments prevailed, and the great king, arriving in the darkness of
midnight, closely pursued by the Scythians, was able to repass the river
in safety.
=33.= Histiæus was rewarded by a grant of land on the river Stry´mon,
including the town of Myrci´nus, for the site of a colony. With its
fertile soil, ample forests, convenience for commerce, and neighboring
mines of gold and silver, this new domain immediately attracted settlers
and became an important maritime station. Its rapid growth, indeed,
excited the fears of Darius, lest its owner might become too powerful for
a vassal, and interpose a barrier between himself and the Greeks. He sent
for Histiæus, whom he treated with every mark of respect, and pretending
that he could not do without his valuable counsels, kept him constantly
within reach at the court of Susa. Histiæus, resolved to break his golden
chains at any cost, sent a singular epistle to his cousin, Aristag´oras,
whom he had left as his lieutenant at Miletus, commanding him to stir up
a revolt among the Asiatic Greeks.
=34.= The Ionian cities, extending ninety miles along the coast in an
almost unbroken line of magnificent quays, warehouses, and dwellings,
were so important to the empire, on account of the fleets which they
could furnish, that they had been left in greater freedom than any other
conquered territory. Instead of satraps, they were governed by their own
magistrates—either a single tyrant in each city or a council of nobles,
called an oligarchy—but always in the Persian interest. The European
Greeks were stirred by a desire to liberate their brethren in Asia,
and this afforded a constant pretext for a Persian war. The forces of
Athens and Ere´tria were now added to those of Aristagoras, who had,
moreover, strengthened his cause by abdicating his tyranny, and aiding
the other cities to assume the same free and popular government which he
established at Miletus. The tyrants were every-where expelled, and the
people sprang to arms.
From Eph´esus the united forces marched up the valley of the Cay´ster,
and swiftly crossing the mountains, took Sardis by surprise. The city
was easily captured, but Ar´tapher´nes, the satrap, retired with a
strong garrison to the castle, which, from its inaccessible rock, defied
assault. A spark falling on the light reeds which formed the roofs of
Sardis set fire to the town, and the invaders were compelled to retire.
They were pursued and defeated with great loss by Artaphernes, in the
battle of Ephesus. The Athenians now withdrew, but the war went on with
undiminished spirit. The inhabitants of Cyprus, the Carians and Caunians
of the south-western corner of the peninsula made common cause with the
Ionian, Æo´lian, and Hellespontine Greeks; Byzantium was taken, and the
whole coast from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Gulf of Issus was for
the moment free from Persian dominion. The brave Carians, though twice
defeated with great loss, were victorious in a third battle, where a
son-in-law of Darius was slain. But the power of the great king was at
length triumphant. The fleet of the Ionians was defeated near Miletus,
and the vengeance of the Persians was concentrated on this devoted city,
the leader of the rebellion. After a long blockade, it was taken by storm
in the sixth year of the revolt.
=35.= The honor of the great king was now engaged to the punishment
of those European Greeks who had intermeddled between himself and his
subjects. It was the first time that the Athenians had come to the notice
of Darius. He inquired who and what sort of men they were, and being
told, he seized his bow and shot an arrow into the air, crying aloud, “O
Supreme God, grant that I may avenge myself on the Athenians!” From that
time a servant was instructed to say to him three times every day as he
sat at table, “Sire, remember the Athenians!”
=36.= In the spring of 492 B. C., a great force was intrusted for this
purpose to Mardo´nius, son-in-law of Darius. Its immediate design failed,
for the fleet was shattered at Mount Athos, and the army nearly destroyed
by the Brygians, a Thracian tribe. Thasos, however, was captured, and
Macedonia was subjected to Persia.
=37.= B. C. 490. A second great expedition, two years later, was
conducted by Datis, accompanied by Artaphernes, son of the former satrap
of that name, and nephew of the king. Having passed the sea, they fell
first upon Eretria, which was taken by treachery, its temples burnt, and
its inhabitants bound in chains for transportation to Asia. The first
decisive trial of strength between Persia and the western Greeks took
place at Mar´athon, in Attica. The Persians numbered 100,000 men, the
Greeks but little more than 10,000. The Medo-Persian troops had hitherto
been considered invincible; but that magnificent soldiery was now, to a
certain extent, replaced by unwilling conscripts from conquered tribes,
who marched, dug, or fought under the lash of overseers. Miltiades, who,
as prince of the Chersonesus, had served in the Persian armies, well
knew this element of weakness, and it was with just confidence in the
superiority of his free Athenians that he gave orders for the battle.
=38.= In the center, where the native Persians fought, they gained
the advantage, and pursued the Athenians up one or two of the valleys
which surround the base of Mount Kotro´ni; but, at the same time, both
the right and left of the Asiatics were defeated by the Greeks, who,
instead of pursuing, united their forces on the field to the relief of
their center, and thus gained a complete victory. The Persians fled
to their ships, now fiercely followed by the Greeks, and a still more
furious contest ensued at the water’s edge. The Athenians sought to fire
the fleet, but seven galleys only were destroyed; the rest, with the
shattered remains of the army, made good their escape.
=39.= The Persian commander did not lose his spirit in defeat. Encouraged
by a preconcerted signal of the partisans of Hip´pias, he sailed
immediately around Attica, hoping to surprise Athens in the absence of
its defenders. But Miltiades, too, had seen the glittering shield raised
upon a mountain-top, and guessed its meaning. Leaving Aristi´des with one
tribe to guard the spoils of the battle-field, he led his army by a rapid
night-march across the country to Athens. When Datis, the next morning,
having doubled the point of Su´nium, sailed up the Athenian harbor, he
saw upon the heights above the city the same victorious troops from whom
his men had fled the evening before. He made no attempt to land, but
sailed away with his Eretrian prisoners to the coasts of Asia.
[Illustration: Silver Daric of Darius I, enlarged one-half.]
=40.= Rather angered than dismayed by these failures, Darius prepared
to lead in person a still greater expedition against the Greeks. But
a revolt in Egypt first diverted his attention, and his death, in the
following year, gave the free states of Europe time to complete their
preparations for defense. B. C. 486.
=41.= Many works and trophies of Darius remain in various parts of his
empire. He was the first king who coined money in Persia. The golden and
silver _darics_ circulated not only throughout the empire but in Greece.
The most interesting memorials are the two records in his own words of
the events of his reign, engraven upon his tomb at Nakshi-rus´tam, and
upon the great rock-tablet of Behistûn´. The latter is of the greater
length; it consists of five columns, each containing from sixteen to
nineteen paragraphs, written in three languages, Persian, Babylonian, and
Scythic, or Tartar. These trilingual inscriptions, embracing the three
great families of human speech, Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian, almost
justify the claim made by Darius to universal empire.
NOTE.—A specimen of the style of the great king may be of
interest to the scholar. It should be stated that the Behistûn
cliff forms part of the Zagros mountain range between Babylon
and Ecbatana. This great natural table of stone, which seems to
have been expressly fitted for enduring records, is 1,700 feet
in perpendicular height, and bears four sets of sculptures, one
of which is ascribed to Semiramis. The inscription of Darius
is most important. It has been deciphered within a few years,
with wonderful learning, industry, and patience, by Col. Sir
Henry Rawlinson, of the British army. For many years after its
existence was known, it was considered inaccessible, as it
was 300 feet from the foot of the perpendicular wall, and it
was necessary for the explorer to be drawn up with ropes by a
windlass placed at the summit. Even when a copy was thus made,
with great risk and inconvenience, the work was only begun, for
the arrow-headed (cuneiform) characters in which the Persian
language was written were as yet but partly understood. These
difficulties have now been surmounted, and the common student
can read the words of “Darius the King.” The whole inscription,
in Persian and English, may be found in Rawlinson’s Herodotus,
Vol. II, Appendix. A few of the shorter paragraphs are here
subjoined:
I. 8. “Says Darius the King: Within these countries the man who
was good, him have I right well cherished. Whoever was evil,
him have I utterly rooted out. By the grace of Ormazd, these
are the countries by which my laws have been observed.”…
I. 11. “Says Darius the King: Afterward there was a man, a
Magian, named Gomates.… He thus lied to the state: ‘I am
Bardes, the son of Cyrus, the brother of Cambyses.’ Then the
whole state became rebellious.… He seized the empire. Afterward
Cambyses, unable to endure, died.”
I. 13. “Says Darius the King: There was not a man, neither
Persian nor Median, nor any one of our family, who would
dispossess that Gomates the Magian of the crown. The state
feared him exceedingly. He slew many people who had known the
old Bardes; for that reason he slew them, ‘lest they should
recognize me that I am not Bardes, the son of Cyrus.’ No one
dared say any thing concerning Gomates the Magian until I
arrived. Then I prayed to Ormazd; Ormazd brought help to me.
On the 10th day of the month Bagayadish, then it was, with
the help of my faithful men, that I slew that Gomates the
Magian and those who were his chief followers. The fort named
Sictachotes, in the district of Media called Nisæa, there I
slew him. I dispossessed him of the empire; I became king.
Ormazd granted me the scepter.”
I. 14. “Says Darius the King: The empire which had been taken
away from our family, that I recovered. I established it in
its place. As it was before, so I made it. The temples which
Gomates the Magian had destroyed I rebuilt. The sacred offices
of the state, both the religious chants and the worship, I
restored to the people, which Gomates the Magian had deprived
them of.… By the grace of Ormazd I did this.”
RECAPITULATION.
Persian monotheism differed essentially from the Nature-worship
of the Hindus and the element-worship of the Medes; but under
Darius and his successors the Magi gained exclusive control of
religious rites, and luxury destroyed the manly virtues of the
people. Darius conquered western India, and invaded European
Scythia, but without result. His detention of Histiæus led to
a six years’ revolt of all the Greeks of Asia Minor, aided by
the Athenians and Eretrians. He failed in his first retaliatory
enterprise against the European Greeks; and, in the second, the
great decisive battle of Marathon ended in the overthrow of the
Persians. The death of Darius postponed the Grecian wars.
REIGN OF XERXES I.
[Sidenote: B. C. 486-465.]
=42.= Xer´xes, the Ahasue´rus of the Book of Esther, succeeded to his
father’s dominions, instead of Artabaza´nes, his elder brother, who had
been born before Darius’s accession to the throne. His first care was the
crushing of the Egyptian revolt. This was accomplished in the second year
of his reign; a severer servitude was imposed, and his brother Achæ´menes
remained as his viceroy in the Valley of the Nile. The Babylonians
attempted an insurrection, but dearly paid for their rashness with all
the treasure of their temples.
=43.= In the third year of his reign,[29] the king convened his satraps
and generals, “the nobles and princes of the provinces,” at Susa, to
deliberate concerning the invasion of Greece. In their presence he
detailed the motives of ambition and revenge which urged him against a
people which had dared to defy his power, and declared his intention
to march through Europe, from one end to the other, and make of all
its lands one country. He believed that, the Greeks once conquered, no
people in the world could stand against him, and thus the sun would no
longer shine upon any land beyond his own. He concluded by commanding
each general to make ready his forces, assuring them that he who appeared
upon the appointed day with the most effective troop should receive the
rewards most precious to every Persian.
=44.= During four years all Asia, from the docks of Sidon and Tyre to the
banks of the Indus, rang with notes of preparation. All races and tribes
of the vast empire sent men and material. The maritime nations furnished
the largest fleet which the Mediterranean had yet seen. The Phœnicians
and Egyptians were charged with the construction of a double bridge of
boats over the Hellespont, from Aby´dus, on the Asiatic, to a point
between Sestus and Mad´ytus, on the European side of the strait. After
this work was completed, a violent storm broke it to pieces and threw the
shattered fragments upon the shore. The king, unused to being thwarted
in any of his designs, caused the engineers to be beheaded, the sea
scourged, and a pair of fetters, as a hint of the required submission,
thrown into the offending waters. A new bridge, or, rather, pair of
bridges, was now formed with still greater care. Two lines of ships,
anchored at stem and stern, were united each by six great cables, which
reached from shore to shore. They supported a platform of wood, which was
covered with earth and protected by a balustrade.
=45.= Another body of men, working under the lash of Persian overseers,
were employed three years in cutting a canal from the Strymonic to the
Singitic Bay, to sever Mount Athos from the mainland, and thus enable
the fleet to avoid the strong and shifting currents and high seas which
prevailed around the peninsula. Immense stores of provisions, collected
from all parts of the empire, were deposited at suitable intervals along
the line of march.
=46.= The rendezvous of the troops was at Crital´la, in Cappadocia,
whence they were moved forward to Sardis. In the autumn of 481 B. C.,
Xerxes arrived at the latter capital, and early in the following spring
set his vast army in motion toward the Hellespont. Near the person of the
king were the ten thousand Immortals, whose entire armor glittered with
gold. He was preceded by the Chariot of the Sun, in which no mortal dared
seat himself, drawn by eight snow-white horses.
=47.= At Abydus the king surveyed, from his throne of white marble
elevated upon a hill, the countless multitudes which thronged the plain,
and the myriads of sails that studded the Hellespont. The momentary pride
that swelled his breast, with the consciousness that he was supreme lord
of all that host, gave way to a more worthy emotion as he reflected that
the whole life of those myriads upon earth was almost as transitory
as their passage of the bridge, which lay before him, connecting the
known with the unknown continent. Early the next morning perfumes were
burnt and myrtle boughs strewn upon the bridges, while the army awaited
in silence the rising of the sun. When it appeared, Xerxes, with head
uncovered—excelling, not only in rank, but in strength, stature, and
beauty, all his host—poured a libation into the sea, praying, meanwhile,
with his face toward the rising orb, that no disaster might befall his
arms until he had penetrated to the uttermost boundaries of Europe.
Haying prayed, he cast the golden cup and a Persian cimeter into the sea,
and gave a signal for the army to march.
=48.= So numerous was the host that, marching day and night without
intermission, and goaded by the whip, it occupied seven days in crossing
the straits by the two bridges. On the Thracian plain of Doris´cus,
near the sea, the army was drawn up for a final review. The land force
consisted of forty-six nations. According to Herodotus, who gathered his
information by most careful inquiry of persons who were present, the foot
soldiers numbered 1,700,000; the war-chariots and camels, 20,000; the
horse, 80,000. The fleet consisted of 1,207 triremes, and 3,000 smaller
vessels, carrying in all 517,610 men. Beside this actual fighting force,
we must suppose an equal number of slaves, attendants, and the crews
of provision ships, making a total of more than five millions of human
beings.
=49.= Several rivers were dried in giving drink to this multitude, while
their food, even the scanty allowance of Asiatic slaves, amounted to
662,000 bushels of flour each day; but the excellent commissariat of
Xerxes, which had been organizing for seven years, was not at fault. On
the march from Doriscus toward Greece, the king, still within his own
empire, received further accessions from Thracian, Macedonian, and other
European tribes, so that his fighting force at Thermop´ylæ amounted to
2,640,000 men. Various cities along the route had been commanded to
furnish each one meal for the army; and although they had spent years in
preparation, some were ruined by the expense.[30]
=50.= Meanwhile the Greeks had not been idle. The ten years since the
battle of Marathon had been employed in active drilling of forces, by
sea and land. Each state furnished its quota; and though but a handful
compared with the myriads of invaders, they had the strength, derived
from patriotism and high discipline, to oppose the mere material mass and
weight of the Persian host. It was mind against matter.
[Sidenote: B. C. 480.]
=51.= Abandoning the defense of Thessaly, which was open by too many
avenues to the Persians, the little army of Leon´idas, king of Sparta,
had made a resolute stand at Thermopylæ, a narrow pass between Mount
Œta and the sea. The whole force amounted to only 6,000 men, of whom
but 300 were Spartans. Xerxes waited several days upon the Trachinian
plain, expecting that this little band would melt away from mere terror
at the sight of his vast numbers. At length he sent the Median cavalry
to force a passage. They were repulsed with loss. The Immortals made the
same attempt with no better success. At this point, Ephial´tes, a Malian,
offered for a large reward to show the invaders a mountain-path by which
they could reach the rear of the Spartan camp. The Phocian guards of
this path were overpowered. Leonidas learned that he was betrayed, and
declaring that he and his Spartans must remain at their post, dismissed
all the rest of his army except the Thespians and Thebans. Then, before
the body of Persians who were crossing the mountain, under lead of the
traitor, could attack him from behind, he threw himself upon the enemy in
front, resolving to exact as dear a vengeance as possible. Many of the
Persian host fell beneath the Spartan swords, many were trodden to death
by their own multitudes, and many were forced into the sea. Leonidas soon
fell, and the contest for his body inspired his men with new fury. Having
recovered it, they placed their backs against a wall of stone and fought
until every man was slain.
=52.= During the same days several battles were fought at sea between
the Greek and Persian fleets. No decisive advantage was gained by either
side, but the result was most disheartening to the Persians, who had been
most confident of success. The elements, too, had neither been scourged
nor scolded into good behavior; a terrible hurricane raged three days and
nights upon the coast of Thessaly, tearing the ships from their moorings
and dashing them against the cliffs. At least four hundred ships of war
were thus destroyed, beside a countless number of transports with their
stores and treasures. Another squadron of two hundred vessels, which had
been sent around Eubœa to cut off the retreat of the Greeks, perished, in
a sudden tempest, upon the rocks. The Grecian commanders were unable to
profit by these advantages, for the defeat at Thermopylæ compelled them
to withdraw from Artemis´ium to provide for the safety of Attica and the
Peloponnesus.
=53.= By the death of the Spartan three hundred, the gates of Greece were
thrown open, and the hosts of Asia poured through, wasting the country
with fire and sword. At Pano´peus a detachment was sent to plunder the
temple of Apollo at Delphi, while Xerxes led his main army through
Bœo´tia. On the march he received the submission of all the people
except the Platæans and Thespians, who, rather than yield to an invader,
abandoned their cities to be burnt. Before his arrival at Athens, the
chief object of his revenge, the king heard of the total defeat of his
Delphian expedition. According to Greek tradition, no mortal hand turned
back the invaders, but Apollo himself hurled down great rocks and crags
upon their heads, in the dark ravines of Parnassus, and thus defended his
sanctuary.
[Sidenote: B. C. 480.]
=54.= Athens was a deserted city. All the fighting men were with the
fleet, while women, children, and infirm persons had been removed
to Salamis, Ægi´na, or Trœze´ne. The conqueror stormed the citadel,
plundered and burnt the temples, and sent word to Susa that Athens had
shared the fate of Sardis.
=55.= Xerxes now resolved upon a decisive naval battle in the Saronic
Gulf. The Grecian fleet had assembled off Salamis, to the number of 378
vessels, while the Persians numbered 1,200. A throne was erected on the
mainland, upon the slope of Mount Ægaleos, from which the great king
beheld the struggle which was to end his dreams of conquest. The Persian
fleet occupied the channel between Salamis and the coast of Attica. Their
vast numbers, crowded into so narrow a space, were a fatal disadvantage
to themselves, for they could only come near the Greeks by small
detachments; while the latter, more accustomed to those waters, drove
their brazen-pointed prows into the sides of the Persians, advancing and
retiring with wonderful dexterity and surety of aim. Feeling the eye of
their king upon them, the Persians fought with desperate bravery. The
battle lasted all day; when night fell, Xerxes saw his forces scattered
or destroyed, and instead of renewing the battle, resolved to seek his
own safety in retreat.
=56.= Mardonius engaged to complete the conquest of Greece with 300,000
men. The fleet was ordered to the Hellespont, and the king with the
remainder of his forces set out for home. His magazines had been
exhausted, and during this forced retreat many died of hunger. Forty-five
days after his departure from Attica he arrived at the Hellespont, and
finding his second bridge of boats destroyed, returned to Asia by ship.
He entered Sardis at the end of the year 480, humbled and depressed, only
eight months from the time when he left it full of vain hopes of subduing
the western world.
=57.= The operations of Mardonius will be more fully detailed in the
History of Greece;[31] a mere outline is here presented. Wintering in
Thessaly, he sought by magnificent promises to detach the Athenians from
the Greek interests. Diplomacy failing, his army was at once poured
into Attica, filling Athens, whose inhabitants had taken refuge again
at Salamis. He destroyed the beautiful city by fire, completing the
destruction which Xerxes had begun. Then finding that the Greeks were
concentrating their forces at the Isthmus, he retired into Bœotia, where,
in September, 479, the great battle of Platæ´a was fought. Mardonius was
slain and his forces routed with terrible carnage. The last remnant of
the Persian fleet was similarly routed at Myc´ale, on the opposite side
of the Ægean, and the deliverance of Europe was complete. No Persian army
henceforth trod the soil of European Greece, and for twelve years no
Persian sail appeared in the Ægean.
=58.= Having spent his own best strength and that of his empire in this
disastrous war, Xerxes made no further effort for military glory, but
gave himself up to luxurious indolence. The highest rewards were offered
to him who could invent a new pleasure. His subjects followed the example
of their king; the empire was weakened by licentiousness and distracted
by violence. It was only a fitting close to such a reign, when, at the
end of twenty years, Xerxes was murdered by Artaba´nus, the captain of
his guard, and Aspami´tres, his chamberlain.
=59.= REIGN OF ARTAXERXES I. B. C. 465-425. The assassins placed upon the
throne the youngest son of their victim, Artaxerxes Longimanus, or the
Long-Handed. The eldest son, Darius, was executed on a false charge of
having murdered his father. The second, Hystas´pes, claimed the crown,
but was defeated and slain in battle. The crimes of the real assassins
were proved against them, and they were punished with death. Artaxerxes
enjoyed an undisputed reign of forty years, during which the power of the
empire declined, notwithstanding his beneficent efforts to promote the
interests of his people.
[Sidenote: B. C. 460.]
[Sidenote: B. C. 455.]
=60.= EGYPTIAN REVOLT. In the early part of his reign Egypt revolted
under I´narus, son of Psammet´ichus, who was aided by the Athenians.
Achaemenes, brother of the king, was sent with a great army to punish
the rebellion; but he was defeated and slain by the hand of Inarus in
the battle of Papre´mis, and a vast number of Persians perished. The
remainder of the army were shut up in the White Castle at Memphis, and
suffered a siege of three years. A new force, led by Megaby´zus, was more
successful: Memphis was relieved, Inarus taken, and the Athenian fleet
destroyed. Amyrtæ´us, the ally of Inarus, held out six years longer in
the marshes of the Delta, until, by the intervention of Athens, peace
was made. The Persians were defeated with great loss off Salamis, in
Cyprus, and consented to very humiliating terms. They engaged not to
visit with fleet or army the western shores of Asia Minor, but to respect
the independence of the Asiatic Greeks. Even the leader of the revolt was
punished only by the loss of his principality.
=61.= Contrary to the solemn agreement of Megabyzus, Inarus, after five
years at the Persian court, was given up, with fifty Athenian companions,
to the vengeance of the queen-mother, and suffered a barbarous death
for having slain Achaemenes. Disgusted by this violation of his honor,
Megabyzus stirred up a revolt in his province of Syria. He was the
greatest general in the empire, and the success of his operations
against the forces sent to subdue him, so alarmed his master that he was
permitted to dictate his own terms of peace. The intercessions of his
wife, Am´ytis, sister of the king, aided much in his reconciliation; but
the example was ruinous to the strict organization of the provinces which
Darius had introduced. The tendencies to decay now acted with greater and
greater rapidity.
=62.= In the seventh year of Artaxerxes’ reign, a new migration of
Jews was led from Babylon by Ezra, a man of priestly lineage and high
in favor at the Persian court. Laden with contributions from the Jews
of Babylonia, he arrived in Jerusalem with great treasures for the
completion of the temple, and for the reëstablishment of civil government
throughout the country. He found that the people had allied themselves
with the neighboring tribes by marriage, and insisted on the immediate
dismissal of all heathen members from Jewish households.
=63.= The defeat of the Persians at Cyprus, 449 B. C., operated to a
certain degree in favor of the Jews; for all the maritime ports of the
empire having been ceded, the natural fortress of Zion, commanding the
roads between Egypt and the capital, became of great importance. Hitherto
the Persian monarchs had forbidden Jerusalem to be fortified, but in the
twentieth year of Artaxerxes’ reign, Nehemi´ah, the Jewish cup-bearer of
the great king, received a commission to rebuild its walls. He moved with
great celerity and secrecy, for the neighboring Samaritans, Ammonites,
and Arabians, no longer awed, as formerly, by a decree of the empire,
violently opposed the work. Laboring by night, with tools in one hand and
weapons in the other, the Jews of every rank gave themselves so zealously
to the task, that in fifty-two days Jerusalem was inclosed by walls and
towers strong enough to defy her foes. (Nehemiah i-v: 16.)
Meanwhile Ezra, relieved from the civil command, labored at his great
work, the collection and editing of the Sacred Books. During the
captivity many writings had been lost, among them the Book of Jasher,
that of “The Wars of the Lord,” the writings of Gad and Iddo, the
prophets, and the works of Solomon on Natural History. The sacred books
which remained were arranged in three great divisions: the Law, the
Prophets, and the Hagiographa; the latter including Job, the Psalms, and
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Ruth, Daniel, and the Chronicles. The
Books of Malachi, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther were afterward added, and
the canon closed.
=64.= On the departure of Nehemiah the old disorders returned. Ezra
died; the high priest allied himself with the deadliest enemy of the
Jewish faith, Tobi´ah the Ammonite, to whom he gave lodgings in the
temple. The Sabbath was broken; Tyrian traders sold their merchandise
in the gates of Jerusalem on the Holy Day. Nehemiah returned with the
power of a satrap, and with his usual skill reformed these abuses. He
expelled Manasseh, who had now become high priest, because he had married
a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. The pagan father-in-law hereupon
built a rival temple on the summit of Mount Gerizim, of which Manasseh
became high priest. The bitter hatred arising from this schism continued
for centuries, and did not cease even with the destruction of the temple
at Jerusalem, A. D. 70. “The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.”
From the time of the division there was no more intermingling of pagan
elements in the religion and customs of Judæa. The Hebrews became
not only the most rigidly monotheistic, but, in spite of their later
wanderings, the most nearly isolated of all the nations.
=65.= XERXES II. Artaxerxes died B. C. 425, and was succeeded by his son,
Xerxes II. After a reign of only forty-five days, the young king was
assassinated by his half-brother, Sogdia´nus; and the funeral train of
his father was overtaken, on its way to the royal tombs at Persepolis, by
his own.
=66.= SOGDIANUS. B. C. 425, 424. The murderer enjoyed the fruits of his
crime but little more than half a year. Another half-brother, O´chus,
revolted with the satraps of Egypt and Armenia and the general of the
royal cavalry. Sogdianus was deposed and put to death.
=67.= DARIUS II. B. C. 424-405. Ochus, ascending the throne, took the
name of Darius, to which the Greeks added the contemptuous surname
No´thus. This prince spent the nineteen years of his reign under the
control of his wife, Parysa´tis, who surpassed her mother, Amas´tris, in
wickedness and cruelty. The empire, meanwhile, was shaken by continual
revolts, and the means that were taken to quell them compromised instead
of confirming the integrity of the nation. Promises were made which were
never intended to be kept, for the purpose of leading on the rebellious
satraps to their destruction; and the tools of these falsehoods,
instead of resenting, like Megabyzus, the loss of their honor, gladly
accepted the spoils of their victims. The precautions of Darius I were
disregarded; civil and military powers were combined in the same person,
and two or three countries were often united under the rule of one
satrap. These great governments, descending often from father to son,
became more like independent kingdoms than provinces of the empire.
=68.= The Medes, after more than a century of submission to Persian
rule, attempted to free themselves, B. C. 408, but were defeated. The
Egyptians, being more distant, were more successful. Always the most
discontented of the Persian provinces, their opposition was even more a
matter of religion than of patriotism, and was constantly fomented by the
priests. Under two successive dynasties of native kings, they were now
able to maintain their independence nearly sixty years. B. C. 405-346.
=69.= While the empire was undergoing these losses, it gained a great
advantage in the recovery of the Greek cities of Asia Minor. The
Athenians and Spartans had been wasting their forces against each other
in the Peloponnesian war (B. C. 431-404), which, more than any regard to
their engagements, had interrupted their hostile attempts against Persia.
The power of Athens was now broken by disasters in Sicily; and the Lydian
satrap, Tissapher´nes, seized the occasion to cultivate the alliance
of Sparta, and aid the Athenian colonies, Lesbos, Chios, and Erythræ,
in their intended revolt. Pharnaba´zus, satrap of the Hellespontine
provinces, pursued the same course; and through the rivalry of the two
Greek states, their ancient enemy gained undisputed possession of “all
Asia.”
Cyrus, the younger son of the king, becoming satrap of Phrygia, Lydia,
and Cappadocia, used his wealth and power without reserve to aid the
Lacedemonians and humble the Athenians. He declared to Lysan´der, the
Spartan admiral, that if it were needful he would sell his very throne,
or coin it into money, to meet the expenses of the war. This liberality
had another cause than friendship. The Spartans were esteemed the best
soldiers in the world, and Cyrus was preparing for a bold and difficult
movement in which he wanted their assistance.
=70.= This young prince had been “born in the purple,” while his elder
brother had been born before their father’s accession to the throne. With
this pretext, which had availed in the case of Xerxes I, his mother,
Parysatis, whose favorite he was, strove in vain to persuade Darius to
name him his successor in the empire. Cyrus assumed royal state in his
province; and though naturally haughty and cruel, he managed to gain
the affection of his courtiers by his amiable manners, while his more
brilliant qualities commanded their admiration. Darius, alarmed by his
son’s unbounded ambition, recalled him to the capital, which he reached
only in time to witness his father’s death and his brother’s accession to
the throne.
=71.= B. C. 405-359. ARTAXERXES II was called Mnemon, for his wonderful
memory. His first royal act was to cast his brother into prison, upon
a report, probably too well founded, that he was plotting against the
life of the king. Cyrus was condemned to die, but his mother, who had
instigated the plot, plead for him with such effect, that Artaxerxes not
only spared his life, but sent him back to his satrapy. If Cyrus was
ambitious and rebellious before, he had now the additional motive of
revenge urging him to dethrone his brother and reign in his stead. He
raised an army of Greek mercenaries, for a pretended expedition against
the robbers of Pisid´ia, and set out from Sardis in the spring of 401.
[Sidenote: B. C. 401.]
Artaxerxes was informed of his movements by Tissaphernes, and was well
prepared to meet him. The Greeks learned the real object of their march
too late to draw back. The army passed through Phrygia and Cilicia,
entered Syria by the mountain-passes near Issus, crossed the Euphrates
at Thap´sacus, and advanced to the plain of Cunax´a, about fifty-seven
miles from Babylon. Here he encountered a royal army at least four times
as numerous as his own. The Greeks sustained their ancient renown by
utterly routing the Asiatics who were opposed to them; but Cyrus, rashly
penetrating to the Persian center, where his brother commanded in person,
was stricken down by one of the royal guard. He had already wounded the
king. Artaxerxes commanded his head and traitorous right hand to be cut
off, and his fate ended the battle.
[Illustration: EMPIRE of the PERSIANS.]
=72.= The Grecian auxiliaries who had been entrapped into the war by
Cyrus now found themselves in a perilous position. Their Persian allies
were scattered; they were in the heart of an unknown and hostile country,
two thousand miles from home, and surrounded by the victorious army
of Artaxerxes. The wily Tissaphernes, who had been rewarded with the
dominions of Cyrus, detained them nearly a month by false pretenses of
negotiation; and having led them as far as the head-waters of the Tigris,
gained possession of all their officers, whom he caused to be put to
death. At this crisis, the Athenian Xen´ophon, who had accompanied the
army of Cyrus, though not as a soldier, called together the principal
Greeks at midnight, and urged the election of new officers who should
lead them back to their native land. The suggestion was adopted; five
generals were chosen, of whom Xenophon was one, and by break of day the
army had been mustered for its homeward march.
Here began the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, celebrated in the annals of
war as, perhaps, the most remarkable instance of an enterprise conducted
against prodigious obstacles, with perfect coolness, valor, and success.
Tissaphernes with his army hung upon their rear, hostile barbarians were
in front, and to the fatigues of the march were added the perils of
frequent battles. Their course lay over the table-lands of Armenia, where
many perished in the freezing north winds, or were blinded by the unusual
glare of snow. The survivors pressed on with indomitable spirit, until,
ascending a mountain south of Tra´pezus, they beheld, far away to the
north-west, the dark waters of the Euxine. Their greatest perils were now
over; a joyous cry, “The sea! the sea!” arose from the front rank and was
quickly caught up by those behind. Officers and soldiers embraced each
other with tears of joy; and all united to erect upon this happy lookout
a monument of the trophies collected during their wearisome journey.
[Sidenote: B. C. 387.]
=73.= By their part in the rebellion of Cyrus, however involuntary, the
Spartans had given unpardonable offense to Artaxerxes, and they resolved
to be the first movers in the war which must ensue. Securing the services
of the Ten Thousand, they attacked the Persians in Asia Minor with a
success which promised a speedy end to their dominion. But Persia had
grown wiser since the days of Xerxes, and fought the Greeks not so much
with her unwieldy masses of troops as with subtle intrigue. By means
of skillful emissaries well supplied with gold, she brought about a
league between the secondary states of Greece—Argos, Corinth, Athens,
and Thebes—which at once overbalanced the power of Sparta. Persian ships
had part in the battle of Cnidus, by which the confederates gained the
dominion of the sea. B. C. 394. Sparta was reduced to accepting the
humiliating peace of Antal´cidas, by which the Asiatic Greeks were left
under the control of Persia, and the great king gained an authoritative
voice in all quarrels between the Grecian states.
=74.= Artaxerxes was haunted by the desire to restore the empire to its
greatest extent under Darius Hystaspes. He reöccupied Samos, which he
intended as a stepping-stone to the rest of the Greek islands; and sent
a great expedition into Egypt under the joint command of Iphic´rates, an
Athenian, and Pharnabazus, a Persian general. This enterprise failed,
partly through the jealousies of the two commanders; and the failure
hastened a revolt in the western satrapies, which came near to overturn
the empire. Egypt now retaliated, and attempted to revive her ancient
glories by the conquest of Syria and Phœnicia. But these movements were
defeated by management and gold, and Artaxerxes left his dominion with
nearly the same boundaries which it had at the beginning of his reign.
=75.= REIGN OF ARTAXERXES III. B. C. 359-338. The death of Artaxerxes
II was followed by the usual crimes and atrocities which attended a
change upon the Persian throne. His youngest son, Ochus, seized the crown
after the murder of his eldest and the suicide of his second brother. He
assumed the name of Artaxerxes III, and by his energy and spirit did much
to retrieve the failing prosperity of the empire. He did not, however,
abate the inherent sources of its weakness in the corruptions of the
court. Family affection had been replaced by jealousy and hatred. The
first act of Ochus was the extermination of his own royal race, in order
that no rival might remain to dispute his throne. His more ambitious
enterprises were delayed by a revolt of Artabazus in Asia Minor, which
was abetted by Athens and Thebes. The defeated satrap fled to Philip of
Macedon, whose ready protection and Ochus’s retaliatory measures led to
the most important results. These will be detailed in Book IV.
=76.= About B. C. 351, Ochus was ready to attempt the subjugation of
Egypt. He was defeated in his first campaign, and retired into Persia to
recruit his forces. This retreat was the signal for innumerable revolts.
Phœnicia placed herself under the independent government of the king
of Sidon; Cyprus set up nine native sovereigns; in Asia Minor a dozen
separate kingdoms were asserted, if not established. But the spirit of
Artaxerxes III was equal to the occasion. He raised a second armament,
hired ten thousand Greek mercenaries, and proceeded in person to war
against Phœnicia and Egypt. Sidon was taken and Phœnicia subdued. Mentor
the Rhodian, who, in the service of the king of Egypt was aiding the
Sidonians, went over to the Persians with four thousand Greeks. Egypt was
then invaded with more success. Nectanebo was defeated and expelled, and
his country again reduced to a Persian satrapy.
=77.= Most of the later victories of Artaxerxes were due to the valor
of his Greek auxiliaries, or to the treachery or incapacity of his
opponents. After the reëstablishment of his government, he abandoned
himself to the pleasures of his palace, while the control of affairs
rested exclusively with Bago´as, his minister, and Mentor, his general.
The people were only reminded from time to time of his existence by some
unusually bloody mandate. Whatever hope might have been inspired by his
really great abilities, was disappointed at once by his unscrupulous
violence and indolent self-indulgence. He died of poison by the hand of
Bagoas, B. C. 338.
=78.= ARSES. B. C. 338-336. The perfidious minister destroyed not merely
the king himself, but all the royal princes except Ar´ses, the youngest,
whom he placed upon the throne, believing that, as a mere boy, he would
be subservient to his control. After two years he was alarmed by some
signs of independent character in his pupil, and added Arses to the
number of his victims. He now conferred the sovereignty upon Darius
Codoman´nus, a grandson of Darius II, whom he regarded as a friend, but
who commenced his reign by an act of summary justice, in the execution of
the wretch to whom he owed his crown. B. C. 336.
=79.= REIGN OF DARIUS III. B. C. 336-331. As has often happened in
the world’s history, one of the best of the Persian kings had to bear
the results of the tyrannies of his predecessors. Darius was not
more distinguished for his personal beauty than for the uprightness
and benevolence of his character; and as satrap of Armenia, before
his accession to the throne, he had won great applause both for his
bravery as a soldier and his skill as a general. But the Greeks, whose
reasons for hostility against the Persians had been two hundred years
accumulating, had now, at last, a leader more ambitious than Xerxes, and
more able than Cyrus. Already, before Darius had mounted the throne,
Alexander the Great had succeeded his father in Macedon, had been
appointed general-in-chief of all the Greek forces, and had commenced his
movement against Asia.
=80.= The Persian monarch despised the presumption of an inexperienced
boy, and made no effort, by aiding the European enemies of Alexander,
to crush the new foe in his cradle. The satraps and generals shared the
confidence of their master, and though a large force was collected in
Mysia, no serious opposition was made to his passage of the Hellespont.
In B. C. 334, Alexander with his 35,000 Greeks crossed the strait which
had been passed by Xerxes, with his five millions, less than 150 years
before. The Greek army was scarcely more inferior to the Persian in
number than superior in efficiency. It was composed of veteran troops in
the highest possible state of equipment and discipline, and every man was
filled with enthusiastic devotion to his leader and confidence of success.
Memnon, a brother of Mentor the Rhodian, with the satraps Spithrida´tes
and Arsi´tes, commanded the Persians in Asia Minor. Their first
collision with Alexander was in the attempt to prevent his passage of
the Grani´cus, a little Mysian river which flows into the Propon´tis.
They were totally defeated, and Alexander, advancing southward, subdued,
or rather liberated all the cities of the western coast without long
delay. Halicarnas´sus, under the command of Memnon, made an obstinate
resistance, and it was only at the end of autumn that it surrendered.
Memnon then resolved to carry the war into Greece. He gathered a large
fleet and captured many islands in the Ægean; but his death at Mytile´ne
relieved Alexander of the most able of his opponents.
=81.= The king of Macedon wintered at Gor´dium, where he cut or untied
the celebrated knot, which an ancient prophecy had declared could never
be loosened except by the conqueror of Asia. With fresh reinforcements
from Greece, he commenced his second campaign, in the spring of 333, by
marching through Cappadocia and Cilicia to the gates of Syria. Darius
met him, in the narrow plain of Issus, with an army of half a million
men. Hemmed in between the mountains, the river, and the sea, the
Persian horsemen could not act, and their immense numbers were rather
an incumbrance than an advantage. Darius was defeated and fled across
the Euphrates. His mother, wife, and children fell into the hands of the
conqueror, who treated them with the utmost delicacy and respect.
=82.= B. C. 333-331. The conquests of Syria, Phœnicia, and Egypt, which
Alexander now accomplished in less than two years, will be described in
the Macedonian history. In the spring of 331, he retraced his triumphant
march through Syria, crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus, traversed
Mesopotamia, and met Darius again on the great Assyrian plain east of the
Tigris. The Persian king had spent the twenty months which had intervened
since the battle of Issus in mustering the entire force of his empire.
The ground was carefully selected as most favorable to the movements of
cavalry, and as giving him the full advantage of his superior numbers.
A large space was leveled and hardened with rollers for the evolutions
of the scythe-armed chariots. An important part of the infantry was
formed of the brave and hardy mountaineers of Afghanistan, Bokhara,
Khiva, and Thibet; and the cavalry, of the ancestors of the modern
Kurds and Turcomans, a race always distinguished for bold and skillful
horsemanship. A brigade of Greek auxiliaries was alone considered able
to withstand the charge of Alexander’s phalanx. Altogether the forces of
Darius numbered more than a million of men, and they surpassed all former
general levies of the Persians in the efficient discipline which enabled
them to act together as one body.
=83.= The Macedonian phalanx, which formed the center of Alexander’s
army, was the most effective body of heavy-armed troops known to ancient
tactics. The men were placed sixteen deep, armed with the _sarissa_,
or long pike, twenty-four feet in length. When set for action, the
spear-heads of the first six ranks projected from the front. In receiving
a charge, the shield of each man, held over the head with the left arm,
overlapped that of his neighbor; so that the entire body resembled
a monster clothed in the shell of a tortoise and the bristles of a
porcupine. So long as it held together, the phalanx was invincible.
Whether it advanced its vast weight upon an enemy like a solid wall of
steel bristling with spear-points, or, kneeling, with each pike planted
in the ground, awaited the attack, few dared to encounter it.
=84.= BATTLE OF ARBELA. On the morning of the 1st of October, B. C.
331, the two great forces met upon the plain of Gaugame´la. Alexander
fought at the head of his cavalry, on the right of his army. Darius,
in the Persian center, animated his men both by word and example.
Both sides fought with wonderful bravery, but the perfect discipline
of the Macedonians gained at length a complete victory. The Persian
war-chariots, which, with long scythes extending from their wheels, were
intended to make great havoc among the Greek horse, were rendered useless
by a detachment of light-armed troops trained for the purpose, who, first
wounding horses and drivers with their javelins, ran beside the horses
and cut the traces or seized the reins, while the few which reached the
Macedonian front were allowed to pass between files which opened to
receive them, and were easily captured in the rear. Five brigades of the
phalanx bore down the Greek mercenaries who were opposed to them, and
penetrated to the Persian center, where Darius commanded in person. The
king’s charioteer was killed by a javelin; he himself mounted a fleet
horse and galloped from the field.
Elsewhere the issue of the day was much more doubtful for Alexander;
but the news of Darius’s flight disheartened his officers, and spurred
the Macedonians, who were outnumbered and almost overpowered, to fresh
exertions. A party of Persian and Indian horsemen, who were plundering
the Macedonian camp, were put to flight by a reserve corps of the
phalanx. The fugitive king, followed at length by his whole army,
directed his course to the city of Arbe´la, twenty miles distant, where
his military treasures were deposited. The river Ly´cus lay in their
way, crossed only by a narrow bridge, and the number of Persians drowned
in this rapid stream exceeded even those who had perished upon the
battle-field.
=85.= The next day Alexander arrived at Arbela and took possession of
its treasures. The Persian king, unhappily for himself, had escaped a
generous conqueror only to fall into the hands of his treacherous satrap
Bes´sus. This man had led a division of the Persian army in the battle
of Arbela, but finding his master’s fortunes ruined, had plotted with
some fellow-officers to seize his person, and either put him to death or
deliver him to Alexander, hoping thus to gain for themselves important
commands. Loaded with chains, the unhappy king was carried away by his
servants in their flight toward Hyrca´nia; but Alexander’s troops pressed
them closely, and finding escape impossible, they mortally wounded their
captive and left him by the road-side to die.
The former lord of Asia was indebted to a Macedonian soldier, who brought
him a cup of cold water, for the last act of attendance. He assured
the man that his inability to reward this service added bitterness to
his dying moments; but commended him to Alexander, whose generosity
he himself had proved, and who would not fail to honor this his last
request. The conqueror came up while the lifeless remains of Darius
still lay by the road-side. Deeply moved, he threw his own royal mantle
over the body of his foe, and ordered that a magnificent procession
should convey the last of the Persian kings to the tomb of his fathers.
In the battle of Arbela the Persian empire fell. The reduction of the
provinces occupied the few remaining years of Alexander’s life; but their
submission was certain from the moment when the forces of Asia were put
to flight and their monarch was a captive.
RECAPITULATION.
Xerxes, having re-conquered Egypt, and laid all his empire
under contribution, led into Europe the largest army which the
world has seen. He gained the pass of Thermopylæ by treachery,
but his fleet was shattered by storms and utterly defeated at
Salamis. The war ended, the following year, in the overthrow
of Mardonius at Platæa, and the destruction of a Persian fleet
and army at Mycale. The forty years’ reign of Artaxerxes
Longimanus began the decline of the empire. A fresh immigration
of liberated Jews re-fortified Jerusalem, and the books of the
Old Testament were for the first time collected and arranged.
The feud with the Samaritans was perpetuated by their building
a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. In the reign of Darius II many
provinces revolted, and Egypt remained independent sixty years.
Upon the death of Darius, his younger son Cyrus, with the
aid of 10,000 Spartan mercenaries, made war upon his brother
Artaxerxes Mnemon, but he was defeated and slain at Cunaxa.
A general war followed, in which Sparta was humbled by the
combined forces of Persia and the minor states of Greece, and
the treaty of Antalcidas made the great king arbiter in Grecian
affairs. Artaxerxes III, having murdered all his kindred,
re-conquered Syria, Phœnicia, and Egypt. He was destroyed, with
all his children, by Bagoas, his minister, who conferred the
sovereignty on Darius Codomannus. This last of the Achaemenidæ
was defeated by Alexander the Great at Issus, and finally at
Arbela; and all the dominions of Persia became parts of the
Macedonian Empire.
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW.
BOOK II.