and she told the king, who was much enraged, because he was proved not
to have spoken the truth, and had been deprived of the sweetest part of
his victory; for he wished to persuade all men, Asiatics and Greeks
alike, that in the skirmish when he and his brother met he himself had
been wounded by Cyrus, but had struck him dead. He therefore condemned
Mithridates to the punishment of the boat. This is as follows:--Two
wooden boats are made, which fit together. The criminal is placed on his
back in one of them, and then the other is placed over him, and the two
are fastened so as to leave his head, feet, and hands outside, but
covering all the rest of his body. They give him food, and if he refuses
it, they force him to eat it by pricking his eyes. When he has eaten
they pour a mixture of milk and honey into his mouth and over his face.
They then keep turning his eyes towards the sun, his whole face becomes
completely covered with flies. As all his evacuations are necessarily
contained within the boat, worms and maggots are generated from the
corruption, which eat into his body; for when the man is certainly dead,
they take off the upper boat and find all his flesh eaten away, and
swarms of these animals clinging to his bowels and devouring them. In
this way Mithridates died, after enduring his misery for seventeen days.
XVII. The only remaining object of the vengeance of Parysatis was
Masabates, the king's eunuch who cut off the head and hand of Cyrus. As
he gave no handle against himself, Parysatis devised the following plot
against him. She was naturally a clever woman, and was fond of playing
with the dice. Before the war, she had often played with dice with the
king; and after the war when she became reconciled to him she took part
in his amusements, played at games with him, encouraged his amours, and
altogether permitted Statira to have but very little of his society; for
Parysatis hated Statira more than any one else, and wished to have most
influence with Artaxerxes herself. Finding Artaxerxes one day eager for
amusement, as he had nothing to do, she challenged him to play for a
thousand darics. She purposely allowed her son to win, and paid him the
money: and then pretending to be vexed at her loss, called on him to
cast the dice afresh for a eunuch. Artaxerxes agreed, and they agreed to
play upon the condition that each of them should set apart five of their
most trusty eunuchs, and that the winner was to have his choice of the
rest. On these terms they played; and Parysatis, who gave the closest
attention to her game, and was also favoured by fortune, won, and chose
Masabates, who was not one of the excepted ones. Before the king
suspected her purpose she had Masabates arrested, and delivered him to
the executioners with orders to flay him alive, impale his body sideways
upon three stakes, and hang up his skin separately. This was done; and
as the king was greatly grieved at it and was angry with her, she smiled
and said ironically: "How pleasant and well-mannered you are, to be
angry about a miserable old eunuch, whereas I have lost a thousand
darics at dice and say nothing about it." The king, though he was sorry
to have been so cheated, yet remained quiet; but Statira, who indeed
often on other occasions openly braved Parysatis, was very indignant
with her for so cruelly and unjustly putting the king's faithful eunuch
to death for Cyrus's sake.
XVIII. When Tissaphernes betrayed Klearchus and the other generals,
broke his plighted word, seized them and sent them away in chains,
Ktesias tells us that Klearchus asked him to provide him with a comb.
When Klearchus received it and combed his hair with it, he was so much
pleased that he gave Ktesias his ring, to be a token to all Klearchus's
friends and relatives in Lacedæmon of his friendship for Ktesias. The
device engraved upon the ring was a dance of Karyatides. At first the
soldiers who were imprisoned with Klearchus took away the provisions
which were sent to him and ate them themselves, giving him but a small
part of them. Ktesias says that he remedied this also, by arranging that
a larger portion should be sent to Klearchus, and that a separate
allowance should be given to the soldiers. All these services Ktesias
states that he rendered in consequence of the favour of Parysatis for
the captives, and at her instigation. He says, also, that as he sent
Klearchus a joint of meat daily in addition to his other provisions,
Klearchus begged him and assured him that it was his duty to hide a
small dagger in the meat, and send it to him, and not to allow him to be
cruelly put to death by the king; but he was afraid, and did not dare to
do it. Ktesias says that the king's mother pleaded with him for the life
of Klearchus, and that he agreed to spare him, and even swore to do so,
but that he was again overruled by Statira, and put them all to death
except Menon. It was in consequence of this, according to Ktesias, that
Parysatis began to plot against Statira, and devised the plan for
poisoning her, though it seems very unlikely that it was only for the
sake of Klearchus that she dared to do such wickedness as to murder the
lawful wife of her king, who was the mother of the heirs to the throne.
But clearly all this was written merely for dramatic effect, to do
honour to the memory of Klearchus. Ktesias writes, too, that when the
generals were put to death the remains of the others were thrown away to
be devoured by the dogs and fowls of the air; but that a violent storm
of wind heaped much earth over the body of Klearchus, and that from some
dates which were scattered around there soon sprung up a fair and shady
grove above the place where he lay, so that the king sorely repented of
what he had done, thinking that in Klearchus he had slain one who was a
favourite of the gods.
XIX. Parysatis, who had long been jealous of Statira and hated her, and
who saw that her own power depended merely on the respect with which she
was regarded by the king, who loved and trusted Statira, now determined
to destroy her, though at the most terrible risk to herself. She had a
faithful maid-servant, named Gigis, who was high in her favour, whom
Deinon accuses of having assisted to administer the poison, though
Ktesias says that she was only privy to the plot, and that against her
will. Ktesias says that the man who procured the poison was named
Belitaris, but Deinon calls him Melantas. Now the two queens, leaving
off their former hatred and suspicion, began again to visit one another
and to dine together, but yet mistrusted each other so much that they
only ate the same food from the same dishes. There is in Persia a small
bird, which has no excrements, but all its entrails are filled with
solid fat; it is supposed that it feeds upon air and dew; the name of it
is _rhyntakes_. Ktesias states that Parysatis cut this bird in two with
a small knife, one side of which was smeared over with the poison. As
she cut it, she wiped the poison off the blade on to one piece of the
bird, which she gave to Statira, while she ate the untouched portion
herself. Deinon, however, says that it was not Parysatis, but Melantas,
who cut off the poisoned part of the meat and gave it to Statira. As
Statira perished in dreadful agonies and convulsions, she herself
perceived that she had been poisoned, and directed the suspicions of the
king against his mother, knowing, as he did, her fierce and rancorous
disposition. He at once began to search for the author of the crime,
seized all his mother's servants and the attendants at her table, and
put them to the torture, except Gigis, whom Parysatis kept for a long
time at home with herself, and refused to deliver up, though afterwards,
when Gigis begged to be sent to her own home, the king heard of it, laid
an ambuscade, caught her, and condemned her to death. Poisoners are put
to death in Persia in the following manner: their heads are placed upon
a flat stone, and are then beaten with another stone until the face and
skull is crushed. Gigis perished in this manner; but Artaxerxes said and
did nothing to Parysatis, except that he sent her to Babylon, at her own
request, saying that he himself should not see Babylon as long as she
lived. Such were the domestic troubles of Artaxerxes.
XX. Though the king was as anxious to get the Greek troops, who
accompanied Cyrus, into his power as he had been to conquer Cyrus
himself and to save his throne, yet he could not do so: for though they
had lost their leader, Cyrus, and all their generals, yet they got away
safe after having penetrated almost as far as the king's palace itself,
proving clearly to the world that the Persian empire, in spite of all
its gold and luxury and beautiful women, was mere empty bombast without
any real strength. Upon this all Greece took courage and despised the
Asiatics, while the Lacedæmonians felt that it would be a disgrace to
them not to set free the enslaved Greeks of Asia Minor, and put a stop
to the insolence of the Persians. Their army was at first commanded by
Thimbron, and afterwards by Derkyllidas, but as neither of these
effected anything of importance, they entrusted the conduct of the war
to their king Agesilaus. He crossed over to Asia with the fleet, and at
once began to act with vigour. He gained much glory, defeated
Tissaphernes, and set free the Greek cities from the Persians.
Artaxerxes, upon this, having carefully considered how it would be best
for him to contend with the Greeks, sent Timokrates of Rhodes into
Greece with a large sum of money, and ordered him to corrupt the most
important persons in each city by offering bribes to them, and to stir
up the Greeks to make war against Lacedæmon. Timokrates did so, and as
the greatest states formed a league, and Peloponnesus was in great
confusion, the government ordered Agesilaus to return from Asia. On his
departure on this occasion he is said to have remarked to his friends
that he was being driven out of Asia by the King of Persia with thirty
thousand archers; for the Persian coins bear the device of an archer.
XXI. Artaxerxes also chased the Lacedæmonians from the sea, making use
for this purpose of Konon, the Athenian, as his admiral in conjunction
with Pharnabazus. Konon, after the battle of Ægospotami, had retired to
Cyprus, where he remained, not so much in order to ensure his own safety
as to watch for a favourable opportunity, as one waits for the turn of
the tide. Observing that while he possessed skill without power, the
King of Persia possessed power without an able man to direct it, he
wrote a letter to the king expressing these ideas. He ordered the man
who carried the letter to make it reach the king, if possible, by the
hands of Zeno the Cretan, or of Polykritus of Mende. Of these men, Zeno
was a dancer, and Polykritus a physician. If these men should be absent
he ordered the man to give the letter to Ktesias the physician. It is
said that Ktesias received the letter and that he added to what Konon
had written a paragraph bidding the king send Ktesias to him, as he
would be a useful person to superintend naval operations. Ktesias,
however, says that the king of his own accord appointed him to this
service. Artaxerxes, now, by means of Pharnabazus and Konon, gained the
sea-fight of Knidos, deprived the Lacedæmonians of the empire of the
sea, and established so great an ascendancy over the Greeks that he was
able to conclude with them the celebrated peace which was known as the
peace of Antalkidas. This Antalkidas was a Spartan, the son of Leon; and
he being entirely in the interests of the King of Persia, prevailed upon
the Lacedæmonians to allow him to possess all the Greek cities in Asia,
and all the islands off the coast, as his subjects and tributaries, as
the result of the peace, if that can be called a peace, which was really
an insult and betrayal of Greece to the enemy; for no war could have
ended more disgracefully for the vanquished.
XXII. It follows from this that Artaxerxes, who, we learn from Deinon,
always disliked all other Spartans, and thought them the most insolent
of mankind, when he visited Persia, showed especial favour to
Antalkidas. Once, after dinner, he took a garland of flowers, dipped it
in the most valuable perfume, and sent it to Antalkidas. All men
wondered at this mark of favour; but, it appears, Antalkidas was just
the man to receive such presents, and to be corrupted by the luxury of
the Persians, as he did not scruple to disgrace the memory of Leonidas
and Kalikratidas by his conduct among them. When some one said to
Agesilaus, "Alas for Hellas, when the Lacedæmonians are Medising."
Agesilaus answered "Is it not rather the Medes that are Laconising." Yet
the cleverness of this retort did not take away the disgrace of the
transaction, for, though the Lacedæmonians lost their empire at the
battle of Leuktra by their bad generalship, yet the glory of Sparta was
lost before, by that shameful treaty. While Sparta was the leading state
in Greece, Artaxerxes made Antalkidas his guest, and spoke of him as
his friend; but when after the defeat at Leuktra the Lacedæmonians were
humbled to the dust, and were in such distress for money that they sent
Agesilaus to Egypt to serve for hire, Antalkidas again came to the court
of Artaxerxes to beg him to help the Lacedæmonians. But Artaxerxes
treated him with such neglect, and so contemptuously refused his
request, that Antalkidas, on his return, jeered at by his enemies, and
afraid moreover of the anger of the Ephors, starved himself to death.
There went also to the King of Persia Ismenias of Thebes, and Pelopidas
who had just won the battle of Leuktra. Pelopidas would not disgrace
himself by any show of servility; but Ismenias, when ordered to do
reverence to the king, dropped his ring, and then stooped to pick it up,
so that he appeared to bow to the earth before him. Artaxerxes was so
much pleased with Timagoras of Athens, who gave some secret intelligence
in a letter which he sent by a secretary named Beluris, that he gave him
a thousand darics, and, as he was in weak health and required milk sent
eighty milch cows to accompany him. He also sent him a bed with
bed-clothes and attendants to make it, as though Greeks did not know
how, and bearers to carry him in a litter down to the sea-coast, on
account of his indisposition. When he was at court, also, the king sent
him a magnificent banquet, so that the king's brother, Ostanes, said to
him, "Timagoras, remember this table; for it is not for slight services
that it is so splendidly set out." This he said rather to reproach him
for his treachery than to remind him to be grateful. However, the
Athenians put Timagoras to death for taking bribes from the king.
XXIII. Although many of the acts of Artaxerxes grieved the Greeks, yet
they were delighted with one of them, for he put to death Tissaphernes,
their bitterest enemy. This he did in consequence of an intrigue of
Parysatis; for Artaxerxes did not long continue angry with his mother,
but became reconciled with her, and sent for her to his court, as he
felt that her understanding and spirit would help him to govern, while
there remained no further causes of variance between them. Henceforth
she endeavoured in everything to please the king, and gained great
influence with him by never opposing any of his wishes. She now
perceived that he was violently enamoured of one of his own daughters,
named Atossa, but that, chiefly on his mother's account, he concealed
his love and restrained himself, though some historians state that he
had already had some secret commerce with the girl. When Parysatis
suspected this, she caressed the girl more than ever, and was
continually praising her beauty and good qualities to the king, saying
that she was a noble lady and fit to be a queen. At last she persuaded
him into marrying the girl and proclaiming her as his lawful wife,
disregarding the opinions and customs of the Greeks, and declaring that
he himself was a law to the Persians and able to decide for himself what
was right and wrong. Some writers, however, amongst whom is Herakleides
of Kyme, state that Artaxerxes, besides Atossa, married another of his
daughters, named Amestris, of whom I shall shortly afterwards make
mention. Atossa lived with her father as his wife, and was so much
beloved by him, that when leprosy broke out over her body he was not at
all disgusted with her, but prayed for her to Hera alone of all the
goddesses, prostrating himself in her temple and grasping the earth with
his hands, while he ordered his satraps and friends to send so many
presents to the goddess, that all the space between the palace and the
temple, a distance of sixteen stadia (two English miles) was filled with
gold and silver, and horses, and purple dyed stuffs.
XXIV. He appointed Pharnabazus and Iphikrates to conduct a war against
Egypt,[584] which failed through the dissensions of the generals; and he
himself led an army of three hundred thousand foot and ten thousand
horse against the Kadousians.[585] On this occasion he insensibly placed
himself in a position of great peril as he entered a difficult and foggy
country, which produces no crops that grow from seed, but is inhabited
by a fierce and warlike race of men who feed upon apples, pears, and
other fruits which are found upon trees. No provisions could be found
in this country, nor yet be brought into it from without, and the army
was reduced to slaughtering the beasts of burden, so that an ass's head
sold for more than sixty drachmas. The king's own table was scantily
furnished; and but few of the horses remained alive, all the rest having
been eaten. At this crisis Teribazus, a man who had often made himself
the first man in the state by his bravery, and as often fallen into
disrepute by folly, and who was then in a very humble and despicable
position, saved both the king and his army. The Kadousians had two
kings, each of whom occupied a separate camp. Teribazus, after having
explained to Artaxerxes what he was about to do, himself went to one of
these camps, and sent his son to the other. Each of them deceived the
king to whom he went, by saying that the other king was about to send an
embassy to Artaxerxes, offering to make peace and contract an alliance
with him for himself alone. "If, then, you are wise," said they, "you
will be beforehand with your rival, and I will manage the whole affair
for you." Both of the kings were imposed upon in this manner, and, in
their eagerness to steal a march upon one another, one of them sent
ambassadors to the Persians with Teribazus, and the other with his son.
As Teribazus was a long while absent, Artaxerxes began to suspect his
fidelity, and he fell into a very desponding condition, regretting that
he had trusted Teribazus, and listening to his detractors. When,
however, Teribazus arrived, and his son arrived also, each bringing
ambassadors from the Kadousians, and a treaty of peace was concluded,
Teribazus became again a great and important personage. In this campaign
Artaxerxes proved that cowardice and effeminacy arise only from a
depraved disposition and natural meanness of spirit, not, as the vulgar
imagine, from wealth and luxury; for in spite of the splendid dress and
ornaments, valued at twelve thousand talents, which he always wore, the
king laboured as hard, and suffered as great privations, as any common
soldier, never mounting his horse, but always leading the way on foot up
steep and rugged mountain paths, with his quiver on his shoulder, and
his shield on his left arm, so that all the rest were inspirited and
encouraged by seeing his eagerness and vigour; for he accomplished every
day a march of upwards of two hundred stadia.
XXV. When during cold weather the army, encamped in a royal domain,
which was full of parks and fine trees, while all the rest of the
country was bare and desert, he permitted the soldiers to gather wood
from the royal park, and gave them leave to cut down the trees, without
sparing either fir trees or cypresses. As they hesitated, and wished to
spare the trees because of their size and beauty, he himself took an axe
and cut down the largest and finest tree of all. After this they
provided themselves with wood, lighted many fires, and passed a
comfortable night.
On his return from this campaign he found that he had lost many brave
men, and almost all his horses. He fancied that he was regarded with
contempt because of his failure, and began to view all the great men of
the kingdom with suspicion. Many of them he put to death in anger, but
more because he feared them--for fear makes kings cruel, while cheerful
confidence renders them gentle, merciful, and unsuspicious. For this
reason, the beasts that start at the least noise are the most difficult
to tame, while those which are of a more courageous spirit have more
confidence and do not shrink from men's advances.
XXVI. Artaxerxes, who was now very old, perceived that his sons were
caballing with their friends and with the chief nobles of the kingdom to
secure the succession. The more respectable of these thought that
Artaxerxes ought to leave the crown to his eldest son Darius, as he
himself had inherited it, but Ochus his younger son, who was of a
vehement and fierce disposition, had a very considerable party, who were
ready to support his claims, and hoped to be able to influence his
father by means of Atossa; for he paid her especial attention, and gave
out that he intended to marry her and make her his queen after his
father's death. It was even said that he intrigued with her during his
father's life. Artaxerxes knew nothing of this: but as he wished to cut
off the hopes of Ochus at once, for fear that he might do as Cyrus had
done, and again plunge the kingdom in wars and disorders, he proclaimed
Darius his heir, and allowed him to wear his tiara erect. There is a
custom among the Persians that whoever is declared heir to the throne
may ask for anything that he pleases, and that the king who has
nominated him must, if possible, grant his request. Darius, in
accordance with this custom, asked for Aspasia, the favourite of Cyrus,
who was at that time living in the harem of Artaxerxes. This lady was a
native of the city of Phokæa in Ionia, born of free parents, and
respectably brought up. When she was introduced to Cyrus at supper, with
several other women, the others sat down beside him, permitted him to
touch them and sport with them, and were not offended at his
familiarities, but she stood in silence near the couch on which Cyrus
reclined, and refused to come to him when he called her. When his
chamberlains approached her, meaning to bring her to him by force, she
said, "Whoever lays hands on me shall smart for it." The company thought
her very rude and ill-mannered, but Cyrus was pleased with her spirits,
and said, with a smile, to the man who had brought her, "Do you not see
that this is the only ladylike and respectable one of them all." After
this he became much attached to her, loved her above all other women,
and used to call her "Aspasia the wise." When Cyrus fell and his camp
was plundered she was taken prisoner.