Cambyses was probably born about 558, soon after his father’s accession,

and he was his legitimate successor, according to the Persian custom

which assigned the crown to the eldest of the sons born in the purple.

He had been associated, as we have seen, in the Babylonian regal power

immediately after the victory over Nabonidus, and on the eve of his

departure for the fatal campaign against the Massagetse his father,

again in accordance with the Persian law, had appointed him regent. A

later tradition, preserved by Ctesias, relates that on this occasion the

territory had been divided between the two sons: Smerdis, here called

Tanyoxarkes, having received as his share Bactriana, the Khoramnians,

the Parthians, and the Carmanians, under the suzerainty of his brother.

Cambyses, it is clear, inherited the whole empire, but intrigues

gathered round Smerdis, and revolts broke out in the provinces, incited,

so it was said, whether rightly or wrongly, by his partisans.* The new

king was possessed of a violent, merciless temper, and the Persians

subsequently emphasised the fact by saying that Cyrus had been a

father to them, Cambyses a master. The rebellions were repressed with a

vigorous hand, and finally Smerdis disappeared by royal order, and the

secret of his fate was so well kept, that it was believed, even by his

mother and sisters, that he was merely imprisoned in some obscure Median

fortress.**

* Herodotus speaks of peoples subdued by Cambyses in Asia,

and this allusion can only refer to a revolt occurring after

the death of Cyrus, before the Egyptian expedition; these

troubles are explicitly recorded in Xenophon.

** The inscription of Behistun says distinctly that Cambyses

had his brother Bardîya put to death before the Egyptian

expedition; on the other hand, Herodotus makes the murder

occur during the Egyptian expedition and Ctesias after this

expedition. Ctesias’ version of the affair adds that

Cambyses, the better to dissimulate his crime, ordered the

murderer Sphendadates to pass himself off as Tanyoxarkes, as

there was a great resemblance between the two: Sphendadates

--the historian goes on to say--was exiled to Bactriana,

and it was not until five years afterwards that the mother

of the two princes heard of the murder and of the

substitution. These additions to the story are subsequent

developments suggested by the traditional account of the

Pseudo-Smerdis. In recent times several authorities have

expressed the opinion that all that is told us of the murder

of Smerdis and about the Pseudo-Smerdis is merely a legend,

invented by Darius or those about him in order to justify

his usurpation in the eyes of the people: the Pseudo-Smerdis

would be Smerdis himself, who revolted against Cambyses, and

was then, after he had reigned a few months, assassinated by

Darius. Winckler acknowledges “that certainty is impossible

in such a case;” and, in reality, all ancient tradition is

against his hypothesis, and it is best to accept Herodotus’

account, with all its contradictions, until contemporaneous

documents enable us to decide what to accept and what to

reject in it.

The ground being cleared of his rival, and affairs on the Scythian

frontier reduced to order, Cambyses took up the projects against Egypt

at the exact point at which his predecessor had left them. Amasis, who

for ten years had been expecting an attack, had taken every precaution

in his power against it, and had once more patiently begun to make

overtures of alliance with the Hellenic cities; those on the European

continent did not feel themselves so seriously menaced as to consider it

to their interest to furnish him with any assistance, but the Greeks of

the independent islands, with their chief, Poly crates, tyrant of Samos,

received his advances with alacrity. Polycrates had at his disposal

a considerable fleet, the finest hitherto seen in the waters of the

Ægean, and this, combined with the Egyptian navy, was not any too large

a force to protect the coasts of the Delta, now that the Persians had at

their disposition not only the vessels of the Æolian and Ionian cities,

but those of Phoenicia and Cyprus. A treaty was concluded, bringing

about an exchange of presents and amenities between the two princes

which lasted as long as peace prevailed, but was ruptured at the

critical moment by the action of Polycrates, though not actually through

his own fault. The aristocratic party, whose chiefs were always secretly

plotting his overthrow, had given their adherence to the Persians,

and their conduct became so threatening about the time of the death of

Cyras, that Polycrates had to break his engagements with Egypt in order

to avert a catastrophe.*

* Herodotus laid the blame for the breach of the treaty to

the King of Egypt, and attributed to his fear of the

constant good fortune of Polycrates. The lattor’s accession

to power is fixed at about the year 540 by some, by others

in the year 537, or in the year 533-2; his negotiations with

Amasis must be placed somewhere during the last fifteen

years of the Pharaoh.

He made a treaty with the Persian king, and sent a squadron of forty

galleys to join the fleet then being equipped in the Phoenician ports.*

* Herodotus records two opposing traditions: one that the

Samians joined in the Egyptian campaign, the other that they

went only as far as the neighbourhood of Karpathos.

Amasis, therefore, when war at last broke out, found himself left

to face the enemy alone. The struggle was inevitable, and all the

inhabitants of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean had long foreseen

its coming. Without taking into consideration the danger to which the

Persian empire and its Syrian provinces were exposed by the proximity of

a strong and able power such as Egypt, the hardy and warlike character

of Cambyses would naturally have prompted him to make an attempt to

achieve what his predecessors, the warrior-kings of Nineveh and Babylon,

had always failed to accomplish successfully. Policy ruled his line of

action, and was sufficient to explain it, but popular imagination sought

other than the very natural causes which had brought the most ancient

and most recent of the great empires of the world into opposition;

romantic reasons were therefore invented to account for the great drama

which was being enacted, and the details supplied varied considerably,

according as the tradition was current in Asia or Africa. It was said

that a physician lent to Cyrus by Amasis, to treat him for an affection

of the eyes, was the cause of all the evil. The unfortunate man,

detained at Susa and chafing at his exile, was said to have advised

Cambyses to ask for the daughter of Pharaoh in marriage, hoping either

that Amasis would grant the request, and be dishonoured in the eyes

of his subjects for having degraded the solar race by a union with a

barbarian, or that he would boldly refuse, and thus arouse the hatred

of the Persians against himself. Amasis, after a slight hesitation,

substituted Nitêtis, a daughter of Apries, for his own child. It

happened that one day in sport Cambyses addressed the princess by the

name of her supposed father, whereupon she said, “I perceive, O king,

that you have no suspicion of the way in which you have been deceived by

Amasis; he took me, and having dressed me up as his own daughter, sent

me to you. In reality I am the daughter of Apries, who was his lord and

master until the day that he revolted, and, in concert with the rest of

the Egyptians, put his sovereign to death.” The deceit which Cambyses

thus discovered had been put upon him irritated him so greatly as to

induce him to turn his arms against Egypt. So ran the Persian account of

the tale, but on the banks of the Nile matters were explained otherwise.

Here it was said that it was to Cyrus himself that Nitêtis had been

married, and that she had borne Cambyses to him; the conquest had thus

been merely a revenge of the legitimate heirs of Psammetichus upon the

usurper, and Cambyses had ascended the throne less as a conqueror than

as a Pharaoh of the line of Apries. It was by this childish fiction that

the Egyptians in their decadence consoled themselves before the stranger

for their loss of power. Always proud of their ancient prowess, but

incapable of imitating the deeds of their forefathers, they none the

less pretended that they could neither be vanquished nor ruled except

by one of themselves, and the story of Nitêtis afforded complete

satisfaction to their vanity. If Cambyses were born of a solar princess,

Persia could not be said to have imposed a barbarian king upon Egypt,

but, on the contrary, that Egypt had cleverly foisted her Pharaoh upon

Persia, and through Persia upon half the universe.

One obstacle still separated the two foes--the desert and the marshes

of the Delta. The distance between the outposts of Pelusium and the

fortress of Ænysos* on the Syrian frontier was scarcely fifty-six miles,

and could be crossed by an army in less than ten days.** Formerly the

width of this strip of desert had been less, but the Assyrians, and

after them the Chaldæans, had vied with each other in laying waste the

country, and the absence of any settled population now rendered the

transit difficult. Cambyses had his head-quarters at Gaza, at the

extreme limit of his own dominions,*** but he was at a loss how to face

this solitary region without incurring the risk of seeing half his men

buried beneath its sands, and his uncertainty was delaying his departure

when a stroke of fortune relieved him from his difficulty.

* The Ænysos of Herodotus is now Khân Yunes.

** In 1799, Napoleon’s army left Kattiyeh on the 18th of

Pluviôse, and was at Gaza on the 7th of Ventose, after

remaining from the 21st to the 30th of Pluviôse before El-

Arîsh besieging that place.

*** This seems to follow from the tradition, according to

which Cambyses left his treasures at Gaza during the

Egyptian campaign, and the town was thence called _Gaza_,

“the treasury.” The etymology is false, but the fact that

suggested it is probably correct, considering the situation

of Gaza and the part it must necessarily play in an invasion

of Egypt.

Phanes of Halicarnassus, one of the mercenaries in the service of Egypt,

a man of shrewd judgment and an able soldier, fell out with Amasis for

some unknown reason, and left him to offer his services to his rival.

This was a serious loss for Egypt, since Phanes possessed considerable

authority over the mercenaries, and was better versed in Egyptian

affairs than any other person. He was pursued and taken within sight of

the Lycian coast, but he treated his captors to wine and escaped from

them while they were intoxicated. He placed Cambyses in communication

with the shêkh of the scattered tribes between Syria and the Delta. The

Arab undertook to furnish the Persian king with guides, as one of his

predecessors had done in years gone by for Esar-haddon, and to station

relays of camels laden with water along the route that the invading army

was to follow. Having taken these precautions, Cambyses entrusted the

cares of government and the regulation of his household to Oropastes,*

one of the Persian magi, and gave the order to march forward.

* Herodotus calls this individual Patizeithes, and Dionysius

of Miletus, who lived a little before Herodotus, gives

Panzythes as a variant of this name: the variant passed into

the Syncellus as Pauzythes, but the original form

Patikhshâyathiya is a title signifying _viceroy, regent, or

minister_, answering to the modern Persian _Padishah_:

Herodotus, or the author he quotes, has taken the name of

the office for that of the individual. On the other hand,

Pompeius Trogus, who drew his information from good sources,

mentions, side by side with Comètes or Gaumata, his brother

Oropastes, whose name Ahura-upashta is quite correct, and

may mean, _Him whom Ahura helps_. It is generally admitted

that Pompeius Trogus, or rather Justin, has inverted the

parts they played, and that his Comètes is the Pseudo-

Smerdis, and not, as he says, Oropastes; it was, then, the

latter who was the usurper’s brother, and it is his name of

Oropastes which should be substituted for that of the

Patizeithes of Herodotus.

[Illustration: 138.jpg Psammetichus III. ]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the original in the

Louvre.

On arriving at Pelusium, he learned that his adversary no longer

existed. Amasis had died after a short illness, and was succeeded by his

son Psammetichus III.

This change of command, at the most critical moment, was almost in

itself, a disaster. Àmasis, with his consummate experience of men and

things, his intimate knowledge of the resources of Egypt, his talents as

a soldier and a general, his personal prestige, his Hellenic leanings,

commanded the confidence of his own men and the respect of foreigners;

but what could be expected of his unknown successor, and who could say

whether he were equal to the heavy task which fate had assigned to him?

The whole of the Nile valley was a prey to gloomy presentiment.*

* Psammetichus III. has left us very few monuments, which is

accounted for by the extreme shortness of his reign. For the

same reason doubtless several writers of classical times

have ignored his existence, and have made the conquest of

Egypt take place under Amasis. Ctesias calls the Pharaoh

Amyrtseus, and gives the same name to those who rebelled

against the Persians in his own time, and he had an account

of the history of the conquest entirely different from that

of Herodotus.

Egypt was threatened not only, as in the previous century, by the

nations of the Tigris and Euphrates, but all Asia, from the Indus to the

Hellespont, was about to fall on her to crush her. She was destitute

of all human help and allies, and the gods themselves appeared to have

forsaken her. The fellahin, inspired with vague alarm, recognised evil

omens in all around them. Rain is rare in the Thebaid, and storms occur

there only twice or three times in a century: but a few days after the

accession of Psammetichus, a shower of fine rain fell at Thebes, an

event, so it was stated with the exaggeration characteristic of the

bearers of ill news, which had never before occurred.*

* The inhabitants of the Said have, up to our own time,

always considered rain in the valley as an ill-omened event.

They used to say in the beginning of the nineteenth century,

when speaking of Napoleon’s expedition, “We knew that

misfortune threatened us, because it rained at Luxor shortly

before the French came.” Wilkinson assures us that rain is

not so rare at Thebes as Herodotus thought: he speaks of

five or six showers a year, and of a great storm on an

average every ten years. But even he admits that it is

confined to the mountain district, and does not reach the

plain: I never heard of rain at Luxor during the six winters

that I spent in Upper Egypt.

Pharaoh hastened to meet the invader with all the men, chariots, and

native bowmen at his disposal, together with his Libyan and Cyrenoan

auxiliaries, and the Ionians, Carians, and Greeks of the isles and

mainland. The battle took place before Pelusium, and was fought on

both sides with brave desperation, since defeat meant servitude for the

Egyptians, and for the Persians, cut off by the desert from possible

retreat, captivity or annihilation. Phanes had been obliged to leave his

children behind him, and Pharaoh included them in his suite, to serve,

if needful, as hostages. The Carians and Ionians, who felt themselves

disgraced by the defection of their captain, called loudly for them just

before the commencement of the action. They were killed immediately in

front of the lines, their father being a powerless onlooker; their blood

was thrown into a cask half full of wine, and the horrible mixture

was drunk by the soldiers, who then furiously charged the enemy’s

battalions. The issue of the struggle was for a long time doubtful, but

the Egyptians were inferior in numbers; towards evening their lines gave

way and the flight began.* All was not, however, lost, if Psammetichus

had but followed the example of Taharqa, and defended the passage of the

various canals and arms of the river, disputing the ground inch by inch

with the Persians, and gaining time meanwhile to collect a fresh army.

The king lost his presence of mind, and without attempting to rally what

remained of his regiments, he hastened to take refuge within the White

Wall. Cambyses halted a few days to reduce Pelusium,** and in the mean

time sent a vessel of Mitylene to summon Memphis to capitulate: the

infuriated populace, as soon as they got wind of the message, massacred

the herald and the crew, and dragged their bleeding limbs through the

streets.

* According to Herodotus, eighty years later the battle-

field used to be shown covered with bones, and it was said

that the Egyptians could be distinguished from the Persians

by the relative hardness of their skulls.

** Polysenus hands down a story that Cambyses, in order to

paralyse the resistance of the besieged, caused cats, dogs,

ibises, and other sacred animals to march at the head of his

attacking columns: the Egyptians would not venture to use

their arms for fear of wounding or killing some of their

gods.

The city held out for a considerable time; when at length she opened

her gates, the remaining inhabitants of the Said who had hesitated up to

then, hastened to make their submission, and the whole of Egypt as far

as Philae became at one stroke a Persian province. The Libyans did not

wait to be summoned to bring their tribute; Cyrene and Barca followed

their example, but their offerings were so small that the conqueror’s

irritation was aroused, and deeming himself mocked, he gave way to his

anger, and instead of accepting them, he threw them to his soldiers with

his own hand (B.C. 525).*

* The question as to the year in which Egypt was subdued by

Cambyses has long divided historians: I still agree with

those who place the conquest in the spring of 525.

This sudden collapse of a power whose exalted position had defied all

attacks for centuries, and the tragic fate of the king who had received

his crown merely to lose it, filled contemporary beholders with

astonishment and pity. It was said that, ten days after the capitulation

of Memphis, the victorious king desired out of sport to test the

endurance of his prisoner. Psammetichus beheld his daughter and the

daughters of his nobles pass before him, half naked, with jars on their

shoulders, and go down to the Nile to fetch water from the river like

common slaves; his son and two thousand young men of the same age, in

chains and with ropes round their necks, also defiled before him on

their way to die as a revenge for the murder of the Mitylenians; yet he

never for a moment lost his royal imperturbability. But when one of

his former companions in pleasure chanced to pass, begging for alms

and clothed in rags, Psammetichus suddenly broke out into weeping, and

lacerated his face in despair. Cambyses, surprised at this excessive

grief in a man who up till then had exhibited such fortitude, demanded

the reason of his conduct. “Son of Cyrus,” he replied, “the misfortunes

of my house are too unparalleled to weep over, but not the affliction of

my friend. When a man, on the verge of old age, falls from luxury and

abundance into extreme poverty, one may well lament his fate.” When the

speech was reported to Cambyses, he fully recognised the truth of it.

Croesus, who was also present, shed tears, and the Persians round him

were moved with pity. Cambyses, likewise touched, commanded that the

son of the Pharaoh should be saved, but the remission of the sentence

arrived too late. He at all events treated Pharaoh himself with

consideration, and it is possible that he might have replaced him on

the throne, under an oath of vassalage, had he not surprised him in

a conspiracy against his own life. He thereupon obliged him to poison

himself by drinking bulls’ blood, and he confided the government of the

Nile valley to a Persian named Aryandes.

No part of the ancient world now remained unconquered except the

semi-fabulous kingdom of Ethiopia in the far-off south. Cities and

monarchies, all the great actors of early times, had been laid in

the dust one after another--Tyre, Damascus, Carchemish, Urartu, Elam,

Assyria, Jerusalem, Media, the Lydians, Babylon, and finally Egypt; and

the prey they had fought over so fiercely and for so many centuries,

now belonged in its entirety to one master for the first time as far

as memory could reach back into the past. Cambyses, following in the

footsteps of Cyrus, had pursued his victorious way successfully, but

it was another matter to consolidate his conquests and to succeed

in governing within the limits of one empire so many incongruous

elements--the people of the Caucasus and those of the Nile valley, the

Greeks of the Ægean and the Iranians, the Scythians from beyond the Oxus

and the Semites of the banks of the Euphrates or of the Mediterranean

coast; and time alone would show whether this heritage would not fall to

pieces as quickly as it had been built up. The Asiatic elements of the

empire appeared, at all events for the moment, content with their lot,

and Babylon showed herself more than usually resigned; but Egypt

had never accepted the yoke of the stranger willingly, and the most

fortunate of her Assyrian conquerors had never exercised more than a

passing supremacy over her. Cambyses realised that he would never master

her except by governing her himself for a period of several years, and

by making himself as Egyptian as a Persian could be without offending

his own subjects at home. He adopted the titles of the Pharaohs, their

double cartouche, their royal costume, and their solar filiation; as

much to satisfy his own personal animosity as to conciliate the Egyptian

priests, he repaired to Sais, violated the tomb of Amasis, and burnt the

mummy after offering it every insult.*

* Herodotus gives also a second account, which declares that

Cambyses thus treated the body, not of Amasis, but of some

unknown person whom he took for Amasis. The truth of the

story is generally contested, for the deed would have been,

as Herodotus himself remarks, contrary to Persian ideas

about the sanctity of fire. I think that by his cruel

treatment of the mummy, Cambyses wished to satisfy the

hatred of the natives against the Greek-loving king, and so

render himself more acceptable to them. The destruction of

the mummy entailing that of the soul, his act gave the

Saitic population a satisfaction similar to that experienced

by the refined cruelty of those who, a few centuries ago,

killed their enemies when in a state of deadly sin, and so

ensure not only their dismissal from this world, but also

their condemnation in the next.

[Illustration: 145.jpg THE NAOPHOROS STATUETTE OF THE VATICAN]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph: the head and

hands are a restoration of the eighteenth century, in the

most inappropriate Græco-Roman style.

He removed his troops from the temple of Nît, which they had turned into

a barrack to the horror of the faithful, and restored at his own expense

the damage they had done to the building. He condescended so far as

to receive instruction in the local religion, and was initiated in the

worship of the goddess by the priest Uzaharrîsnîti. This was, after

all, a pursuance of the policy employed by his father towards the

Babylonians, and the projects which he had in view necessitated his

gaining the confidence of the people at all costs. Asia having no more

to offer him, two almost untried fields lay open to his ambition--Africa

and Europe--the Greek world and what lay beyond it, the Carthaginian

world and Ethiopia. The necessity of making a final reckoning with Egypt

had at the outset summoned him to Africa, and it was therefore in that

continent that he determined to carry on his conquests. Memphis was

necessarily the base of his operations, the only point from which

he could direct the march of his armies in a westerly or southerly

direction, and at the same time keep in touch with the rest of his

empire, and he would indeed have been imprudent had he neglected

anything which could make him acceptable to its inhabitants. As soon as

he felt he had gained their sympathies, he despatched two expeditions,

one to Carthage and one to Ethiopia. Cyrene had spontaneously offered

him her homage; he now further secured it by sending thither with all

honour Ladikê, the widow of Amasis, and he apparently contemplated

taking advantage of the good will of the Cyrenians to approach Carthage

by sea. The combined fleets of Ionia and Phonicia were without doubt

numerically sufficient for this undertaking, but the Tyrians refused to

serve against their own colonies, and he did not venture to employ the

Greeks alone in waters which were unfamiliar to them. Besides this, the

information which he obtained from those about him convinced him that

the overland route would enable him to reach his destination more surely

if more slowly; it would lead him from the banks of the Nile to the

Oases of the Theban desert, from there to the Ammonians, and thence by

way of the Libyans bordering on the Syrtes and the Liby-phoenicians. He

despatched an advance-guard of fifty thousand men from Thebes to occupy

the Oasis of Ammon and to prepare the various halting-places for

the bulk of the troops. The fate of these men has never been clearly

ascertained. They crossed the Oasis of El-Khargeh and proceeded to

the north-west in the direction of the oracle. The natives afterwards

related that when they had arrived halfway, a sudden storm of wind fell

upon them, and the entire force was buried under mounds of sand during

a halt. Cambyses was forced to take their word; in spite of all his

endeavours, no further news of his troops was forthcoming, except that

they never reached the temple, and that none of the generals or soldiers

ever again saw Egypt (524). The expedition to Ethiopia was not more

successful. Since the retreat of Tanuatamanu, the Pharaohs of Napata had

severed all direct relations with Asia; but on being interfered with

by Psammetichus I. and II., they had repulsed the invaders, and had

maintained their frontier almost within sight of Philæ.* In Nubia proper

they had merely a few outposts stationed in the ruins of the towns of

the Theban period--at Derr, at Pnubsu, at Wady-Halfa, and at Semneh;

the population again becoming dense and the valley fertile to the

south of this spot. Kush, like Egypt, was divided into two regions

--To-Qonusît, with its cities of Danguru,** Napata, Asta-muras, and

Barua; and Alo,*** which extended along the White and the Blue Nile

in the plain of Sennaar: the Asmakh, the descendants of the Mashauasha

emigrants of the time of Psammetichus I., dwelt on the southern border

of Alo.

* The northern boundary of Ethiopia is given us

approximately by the lists of temples in the inscriptions of

Harsiatef and of Nastosenen: Pnubsu is mentioned several

times as receiving gifts from the king, which carries the

permanent dominion of the Ethiopian kings as far as the

second cataract.

** Now Old Dongola.

*** Berua is the Meroê of Strabo, Astaboras the modern Ed-

Dameîr, and Alo the kingdom of Aloah of the mediæval Arab

geographers.

[Illustration: 147.jpg ETHIOPIAN GKOUP]

Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Berghoff.

A number of half-savage tribes, Maditi and Bohrehsa, were settled to

the right and to the left of the territory watered by the Nile, between

Darfur, the mountains of Abyssinia, and the Red Sea; and the

warlike disposition of the Ethiopian kings found in these tribes an

inexhaustible field for obtaining easy victories and abundant spoil.

Many of these sovereigns--Piônkhi, Alaru, Harsiatef, Nastosenen--whose

respective positions in the royal line are still undetermined, specially

distinguished themselves in these struggles, but the few monuments

they have left, though bearing witness to their military enterprise and

ability, betray their utter decadence in everything connected with art,

language, and religion. The ancient Egyptian syllabary, adapted to

the needs of a barbarous tongue, had ended by losing its elegance;

architecture was degenerating, and sculpture slowly growing more and

more clumsy in appearance. Some of the work, however, is not wanting in

a certain rude nobility--as, for instance, the god and goddess carved

side by side in a block of grey granite. Ethiopian worship had become

permeated with strange superstitions, and its creed was degraded,

in spite of the strictness with which the priests supervised

its application and kept watch against every attempt to introduce

innovations. Towards the end of the seventh century some of the families

attached to the temple of Am on at Napata had endeavoured to bring about

a kind of religious reform; among other innovations they adopted the

practice of substituting for the ordinary sacrifice, new rites, the

chief feature of which was the offering of the flesh of the victim raw,

instead of roasted with fire. This custom, which was doubtless borrowed

from the negroes of the Upper Nile, was looked upon as a shameful heresy

by the orthodox. The king repaired in state to the temple of Anion,

seized the priests who professed these seditious beliefs, and burnt them

alive.

[Illustration: 148.jpg Encampment de Bacharis]

The use of raw meat, nevertheless, was not discontinued, and it gained

such ground in the course of ages that even Christianity was unable to

suppress it; up to the present time, the _brindê_, or piece of beef cut

from the living animal and eaten raw, is considered a delicacy by the

Abyssinians.

The isolation of the Ethiopians had rather increased than lowered their

reputation among other nations. Their transitory appearance on the

battle-fields of Asia had left a deep impression on the memories of

their opponents. The tenacity they had displayed during their conflict

with Assyria had effaced the remembrance of their defeat. Popular fancy

delighted to extol the wisdom of Sabaco,* and exalted Taharqa to the

first rank among the conquerors of the old world; now that Kush once

more came within the range of vision, it was invested with a share of

all these virtues, and the inquiries Cambyses made concerning it were

calculated to make him believe that he was about to enter on a struggle

with a nation of demigods rather than of men. He was informed that they

were taller, more beautiful, and more vigorous than all other mortals,

that their age was prolonged to one hundred and twenty years and more,

and that they possessed a marvellous fountain whose waters imparted

perpetual youth to then-bodies. There existed near their capital a

meadow, perpetually furnishing an inexhaustible supply of food and

drink; whoever would might partake of this “Table of the Sun,” and eat

to his fill.**

* The eulogy bestowed on him by Herodotus shows the esteem

in which he was held even in the Saite period; later on he

seems to have become two persons, and so to have given birth

to the good Ethiopian king Aktisanes.

** Pausanias treats it as a traveller’s tale. Heeren thought

that he saw in Herodotus’ account a reference to intercourse

by signs, so frequent in Africa. The “Table of the Sun”

would thus have been a kind of market, whither the natives

would come for their provisions, using exchange to procure

them. I am inclined rather to believe the story to be a

recollection, partly of the actual custom of placing meats,

which the first comer might take, on the tombs in the

necropolis, partly of the mythical “Meadow of Offerings”

mentioned in the funerary texts, to which the souls of the

dead and the gods alike had access. This divine region would

have transferred to our earth by some folk-tale, like the

judgment of the dead, the entrance into the solar bark, and

other similar beliefs.

Gold was so abundant that it was used for common purposes, even for the

chains of their prisoners; but, on the other hand, copper was rare

and much prized. Canibyses despatched some spies chosen from among the

Ichthyophagi of the Bed Sea to explore this region, and acting on the

report they brought back, he left Memphis at the head of an army and

a fleet.* The expedition was partly a success and partly a failure. It

followed the Nile valley as far as Korosko, and then struck across the

desert in the direction of Napata;** but provisions ran short before a

quarter of the march had been achieved, and famine obliged the invaders

to retrace their steps after having endured terrible sufferings.***

* Herodotus’ text speaks of an army only, but the accounts

of the wars between Ethiopia and Egypt show that the army

was always accompanied by the necessary fleet.

** It is usually thought that the expedition marched by the

side of the Nile as far as Napata; to support this theory

the name of a place mentioned in Pliny is quoted, Cambusis

at the third cataract, which is supposed to contain the name

of the conqueror. This town, which is sometimes mentioned by

the classical geographers, is called Kambiusit in the

Ethiopie texts, and the form of the name makes its

connection with the history of Cambyses easy. I think it

follows, from the text of Herodotus, that the Persians left

the grassy land, the river-valley, at a given moment, to

enter the sand, i.e. the desert. Now this is done to-day at

two points--near Korosko to rejoin the Nile at Abu-Hammed,

and near Wady-Halfah to avoid the part of the Nile called

the “Stony belly,” Batn el-Hagar. The Korosko route, being

the only one suitable for the transit of a body of troops,

and also the only route known to Herodotus, seems, I think,

likely to be the one which was followed in the present

instance; at all events, it fits in best with the fact that

Cambyses was obliged to retrace his steps hurriedly, when he

had accomplished hardly a fifth of the journey.

*** Many modern historians are inclined to assume that

Cambyses’ expedition was completely successful, and that its

result was the overthrow of the ancient kingdom of Nepata

and the foundation of that of Meroê. Cambyses would have

given the new town which he built there the name of his

sister Meroê. The traditions concerning Cambusis and Meroê

belong to the Alexandrine era, and rest only on chance

similarities of sound. With regard to the Ethiopian province

of the Persian empire and to the Ethiopian neighbours of

Egypt whom Cambyses subdued, the latter are not necessarily

Ethiopians of Napata. Herodotus himself says that the

Ethiopians dwelt in the country above Elephantine, and that

half of what he calls the island of Takhompsô was inhabited

by Ethiopians: the subjugated Ethiopians and their country

plainly correspond with the Dodekaschênos of the Græco-Roman

era.

Cambyses had to rest content with the acquisition of those portions of

Nubia adjoining the first cataract--the same, in fact, that had been

annexed to Egypt by Psammetichus I. and II. (523). The failure of this

expedition to the south, following so closely on the disaster which

befell that of the west, had a deplorable effect on the mind of

Cambyses. He had been subject, from childhood, to attacks of epilepsy,

during which he became a maniac and had no control over his actions.

These reverses of fortune aggravated the disease, and increased the

frequency and length of the attacks.*

* Recent historians admit neither the reality of the illness

of Cambyses nor the madness resulting from it, but consider

them Egyptian fables, invented out of spite towards the king

who had conquered and persecuted them.

The bull Apis had died shortly before the close of the Ethiopian

campaign, and the Egyptians, after mourning for him during the

prescribed number of weeks, were bringing his successor with rejoicings

into the temple of Phtah, when the remains of the army re-entered

Memphis. Cambyses, finding the city holiday-making, imagined that it was

rejoicing over his misfortunes. He summoned the magistrates before him,

and gave them over to the executioner without deigning to listen to

their explanations. He next caused the priests to be brought to him, and

when they had paraded the Apis before him, he plunged his dagger into

its flank with derisive laughter: “Ah, evil people! So you make for

yourselves divinities of flesh and blood which fear the sword! It is

indeed a fine god that you Egyptians have here; I will have you to know,

however, that you shall not rejoice overmuch at having deceived me!” The

priests were beaten as impostors, and the bull languished from its wound

and died in a few days*1 its priests buried it, and chose another in its

place without the usual ceremonies, so as not to exasperate the anger

of the tyrant,** but the horror evoked by this double sacrilege raised

passions against Cambyses which the ruin of the country had failed to

excite.

* Later historians improved upon the account of Herodotus,

and it is said in the _De Iside_, that Cambyses killed the

Apis and threw him to the dogs. Here there is probably a

confusion between the conduct of Cambyses and that

attributed to the eunuch Bagoas nearly two centuries later,

at the time of the second conquest of Egypt by Ochus.

** Mariette discovered in the Serapseum and sent to the

Louvre fragments of the epitaph of an Apis buried in Epiphi

in the sixth year of Cambyses, which had therefore died a

few months previously. This fact contradicts the inference

from the epitaph of the Apis that died in the fourth year of

Darius, which would have been born in the fifth year of

Cambyses, if we allow that there could not have been two

Apises in Egypt at once. This was, indeed, the usual rule,

but a comparison of the two dates shows that here it was not

followed, and it is therefore simplest, until we have

further evidence, to conclude that at all events in cases of

violence, such as sacrilegious murder, there could have been

two Apises at once, one discharging his functions, and the

other unknown, living still in the midst of the herds.

The manifestations of this antipathy irritated him to such an extent

that he completely changed his policy, and set himself from that time

forward to act counter to the customs and prejudices of the Egyptians.

They consequently regarded his memory with a vindictive hatred. The

people related that the gods had struck him with madness to avenge the

murder of the Apis, and they attributed to him numberless traits of

senseless cruelty, in which we can scarcely distinguish truth from

fiction. It was said that, having entered the temple of Phtah, he had

ridiculed the grotesque figure under which the god was represented,

and had commanded the statues to be burnt. On another occasion he had

ordered the ancient sepulchres to be opened, that he might see what was

the appearance of the mummies. The most faithful members of his family

and household, it was said, did not escape his fury. He killed his own

sister Roxana, whom he had married, by a kick in the abdomen; he slew

the son of Prexaspes with an arrow; he buried alive twelve influential

Persians; he condemned Croesus to death, and then repented, but punished

the officers who had failed to execute the sentence pronounced against

the Lydian king.*

* The whole of this story of Croesus is entirely fabulous.

He had no longer any reason for remaining in Egypt, since he had failed

in his undertakings; yet he did not quit the country, and through

repeated delays his departure was retarded a whole year. Meanwhile his

long sojourn in Africa, the report of his failures, and perhaps whispers

of his insanity, had sown the seeds of discontent in Asia; and as Darius

said in after-years, when recounting these events, “untruth had spread

all over the country, not only in Persia and Media, but in other

provinces.” Cambyses himself felt that a longer absence would be

injurious to his interests; he therefore crossed the isthmus in the

spring of 521, and was making his way through Northern Syria, perhaps

in the neighbourhood of Hamath,* when he learned that a revolution had

broken out, and that its rapid progress threatened the safety of his

throne and life.

* Herodotus calls the place where Cambyses died Agbatana

(Ecbatana). Pliny says that the town of Carmel was thus

named at first; but the place here mentioned cannot well

have been in that direction. It has been identified with

Batansea in the country between the Orontes and the

Euphrates, but the most likely theory is the one suggested

by a passage in Stephen of Byzantium, that the place in

question is the large Syrian city of Hamath. Josephus makes

him die at Damascus.

Tradition asserted that a herald appeared before him and proclaimed

aloud, in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus,

had ceased to reign, and summoned whoever had till that day obeyed him

to acknowledge henceforth Smerdis, son of Cyrus, as their lord. Cambyses

at first believed that his brother had been spared by the assassins, and

now, after years of concealment, had at length declared himself; but he

soon received proofs that his orders had been faithfully accomplished,

and it is said that he wept at the remembrance of the fruitless crime.

The usurper was Gaumâta, one of the Persian Magi, whose resemblance

to Smerdis was so remarkable that even those who were cognisant of it

invariably mistook the one for the other,* and he was brother to that

Oropastes to whom Cambyses had entrusted the administration of his

household before setting out for Egypt.**

* Greek tradition is unanimous on this point, but the

inscription of Behistun does not mention it.

** The inscription of Behistun informs us that the usurper’s

name was Gaumâta. Pompeius Trogus alone, probably following

some author who made use of Charon of Lampsacus, handed down

this name in the form Comètes or Gometes, which his

abbreviator Justin carelessly applied to the second brother.

Ctesias gives the Mage the name Sphendadates, which answers

to the Old Persian Spentôdâta, “he who is given by the Holy

One,” i.e. by Ahura-mazdâ. The supporters of the Mage gave

him this name, as an heroic champion of the Mazdoan faith

who had destroyed such sanctuaries as were illegal, and

identified him with Spentôdâta, son of Wistâspa.

Both of them were aware of the fate of Smerdis; they also knew that the

Persians were ignorant of it, and that every one at court, including

the mother and sisters of the prince, believed that he was still alive.

Gaumâta headed a revolt in the little town of Pasyauvadâ on the 14th

of Viyakhna, in the early days of March, 521, and he was hailed by the

common people from the moment of his appearance. Persia, Media, and the

Iranian provinces pronounced in his favour, and solemnly enthroned him

three months later, on the 9th of Garmapada; Babylon next accepted him,

followed by Elam and the regions of the Tigris. Though astounded at

first by such a widespread defection, Cambyses soon recovered his

presence of mind, and was about to march forward at the head of the

troops who were still loyal to him, when he mysteriously disappeared.

Whether he was the victim of a plot set on foot by those about him, is

not known. The official version of the story given by Darius states

that he died by his own hand, and it seems to insinuate that it was

a voluntary act, but another account affirms that he succumbed to an

accident;* while mounting his horse, the point of his dagger pierced

his thigh in the same spot in which he had stabbed the Apis of the

Egyptians. Feeling himself seriously wounded, he suddenly asked the

name of the place where he was lying, and was told it was “Agbatana”

(Ecbatana). “Now, long before this, the oracle of Buto had predicted

that he should end his days in Agbatana, and he, believing it to be the

Agbatana in Media where were his treasures, understood that he should

die there in his old age; whereas the oracle meant Agbatana in Syria.

When he heard the name, he perceived his error. He understood what the

god intended, and cried, ‘It is here, then, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus,

must perish!’” He expired about three weeks after, leaving no posterity

and having appointed no successor.**

* It has been pointed out, for the purpose of harmonising

the testimony of Herodotus with that of the inscription of

Behistun, that although the latter speaks of the death of

Cambyses by his own hand, it does not say whether that death

was voluntary or accidental.

** The story of a person whose death has been predicted to

take place in some well-known place, and who has died in

some obscure spot of the same name, occurs several times in

different historians, e.g. in the account of the Emperor

Julian, and in that of Henry III. of England, who had been

told that he would die in Jerusalem, and whose death took

place in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. Ctesias has

preserved an altogether different tradition--that Cambyses

on his return from Babylon wounded himself while carving a

piece of wood for his amusement, and died eleven days after

the accident.

What took place in the ensuing months still remains an enigma to us.

The episode of Gaumâta has often been looked on as a national movement,

which momentarily restored to the Medes the supremacy of which Cyrus had

robbed them; but it was nothing of the sort. Gaumâta was not a Mede by

birth: he was a Persian, born in Persia, in the township of Pisyauvadâ,

at the foot of Mount Ara-kadrish, and the Persians recognised and

supported him as much as did the Medes. It has also been thought that

he had attempted to foment a religious revolution,* and, as a matter of

fact, he destroyed several temples in a few months.

* Most of the ancient writers shared this opinion, and have

been followed therein by many modern writers. Rawlinson was

the first to show that Gaumâta’s movement was not Median,

and that he did not in the least alter the position of the

Persians in the empire: but he allows the Magian usurpation

to have been the prelude to a sort of religious reform.

Here, however, the reform touched less upon a question of belief than on

one of fact. The unity of the empire presupposed the unity of the royal

fire, and where-ever that fire was burning another could not be lighted

without sacrilege in the eyes of the faithful. The pyres that Gaumâta

desired to extinguish were, no doubt, those which the feudal families

had maintained for their separate use in defiance of the law, and the

measure which abolished them had a political as well as a religious

side. The little we can glean of the line of action adopted by Smerdis

does not warrant the attribution to him of the vast projects which

some modern writers credit him with. He naturally sought to strengthen

himself on the throne, which by a stroke of good fortune he had

ascended, and whatever he did tended solely to this end. The name and

the character that he had assumed secured him the respect and fidelity

of the Iranians: “there was not one, either among the Medes or the

Persians, nor among the members of the Achæmenian race, who dreamed of

disputing his power” in the early days of his reign. The important thing

in his eyes was, therefore, to maintain among his subjects as long as

possible the error as to his identity. He put to death all, whether

small or great, who had been in any way implicated in the affairs of the

real Smerdis, or whom he suspected of any knowledge of the murder. He

withdrew from public life as far as practicable, and rarely allowed

himself to be seen. Having inherited the harem of his predecessors,

together with their crown, he even went so far as to condemn his wives

to a complete seclusion. He did not venture to hope, nor did those in

his confidence, that the truth would not one day be known, but he hoped

to gain, without loss of time, sufficient popularity to prevent the

revelation of the imposture from damaging his prospects. The seven great

houses which he had dispossessed would, in such a case, refuse to

rally round him, and it was doubtless to lessen their prestige that he

extinguished their pyres; but the people did not trouble themselves as

to the origin of their sovereign, if he showed them his favour and took

proper precautions to secure their good will. He therefore exempted the

provinces from taxes and military service for a period of three years.

He had not time to pursue this policy, and if we may believe tradition,

the very precautions which he took to conceal his identity became the

cause of his misfortunes. In the royal harem there were, together with

the daughters of Cyrus, relatives of all the Persian nobility, and the

order issued to stop all their communications with the outer world had

excited suspicion: the avowals which had escaped Cambyses before the

catastrophe were now called to mind, and it was not long before those

in high places became convinced that they had been the dupes of an

audacious imposture. A conspiracy broke out, under the leadership of the

chiefs of the seven clans, among whom was numbered Darius, the son of

Hystaspes, who was connected, according to a genealogy more or less

authentic, with the family of the Achæmenides:* the conspirators

surprised Gaumâta in his palace of Sikayauvatish, which was situated in

the district of Nisaya, not far from Ecbatana, and assassinated him on

the 10th of Bâgayâdîsh, 521 B.C.

* The passage in the Behistun inscription, in which Darius

sets forth his own genealogy, has received various

interpretations. That of Oppert seems still the most

probable, that the text indicates two parallel branches of

Achæmenides, which nourished side by side until Cambyses

died and Darius ascended the throne. Such a genealogy,

however, appears to be fictitious, invented solely for the

purpose of connecting Darius with the ancient royal line,

with which in reality he could claim no kinship, or only a

very distant connection.

[Illustration: 159.jpg DARIUS, SON OF HYSTASPES]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from M. Dieulafoy.

The exact particulars of this scene were never known, but popular

imagination soon supplied the defect, furnishing a full and complete

account of all that took place. In the first place, Phædimê, daughter

of Otanes, one of the seven, furnished an authentic proof of the fraud

which had been perpetrated. Her father had opportunely recalled the

marvellous resemblance between Smerdis and the Magian, and remembered

at the same time that the latter had been deprived of his ears in

punishment for some misdeed: he therefore sent certain instructions to

Phffidimê, who, when she made the discovery, at the peril of her life,

that her husband had no ears, communicated the information to the

disaffected nobles. The conspirators thereupon resolved to act without

delay; but when they arrived at the palace, they were greeted with an

extraordinary piece of intelligence. The Magi, disquieted by some vague

rumours which were being circulated against them, had besought Prexaspes

to proclaim to the people that the reigning monarch was indeed Smerdis

himself. But Prexaspes, instead of making the desired declaration,

informed the multitude that the son of Cyrus was indeed dead, for he

himself had murdered him at the bidding of Cambyses, and, having

made this confession, he put himself to death, in order to escape

the vengeance of the Magi. This act of Prexaspes was an additional

inducement to the conspirators to execute their purpose. The guard

stationed at the gates of the palace dared not refuse admission to so

noble a company, and when the throne-room was reached and the eunuchs

forbade further advance, the seven boldly drew their swords and forced

their way to the apartment occupied by the two Magi. The usurpers

defended themselves with bravery, but succumbed at length to the

superior number of their opponents, after having wounded two of the

conspirators. Gobryas pinioned Gaumâta with his arms, and in such a way

that Darius hesitated to make the fatal thrust for fear of wounding

his comrade; but the latter bade him strike at all hazards, and by good

fortune the sword did not even graze him. The crime accomplished, the

seven conspirators agreed to choose as king that member of their company

whose horse should first neigh after sunrise: a stratagem of his groom

caused the election to fall on Darius. As soon as he was duly enthroned,

he instituted a festival called the “magophonia,” or “massacre of the

Magi,” in commemoration of the murder which had given him the crown.

His first care was to recompense the nobles to whom he owed his position

by restoring to them the privileges of which they had been deprived by

the pseudo-Smerdis, namely, the right of free access to the king, as

well as the right of each individual to a funeral pyre; but the usurper

had won the affection of the people, and even the inhabitants of those

countries which had been longest subject to the Persian sway did not

receive the new sovereign favourably. Darius found himself, therefore,

under the necessity of conquering his dominions one after the other.*

* The history of the early part of the reign of Darius is

recorded in the great inscription which the king caused to

be cut in three languages on the rocks of Behistun. The

order of the events recorded in it is not always easy to

determine. I have finally adopted, with some modifications,

the arrangement of Marquart, which seems to me to give the

clearest “conspectus” of these confused wars.

The Persian empire, like those of the Chaldæans and Medes, had consisted

hitherto of nothing but a fortuitous collection of provinces under

military rule, of vassal kingdoms, and of semi-independent cities and

tribes; there was no fixed division of authority, and no regular system

of government for the outlying provinces. The governors assigned by

Cyrus and Cambyses to rule the various provinces acquired by conquest,

were actual viceroys, possessing full control of an army, and in some

cases of a fleet as well, having at their disposal considerable revenues

both in money and in kind, and habituated, owing to their distance from

the capital, to settle pressing questions on their own responsibility,

subject only to the necessity of making a report to the sovereign when

the affair was concluded, or when the local resources were insufficient

to bring it to a successful issue. For such free administrators the

temptation must have been irresistible to break the last slender ties

which bound them to the empire, and to set themselves up as independent

monarchs. The two successive revolutions which had taken place in less

than a year, convinced such governors, and the nations over which they

bore rule, that the stately edifice erected by Cyrus and Cambyses was

crumbling to pieces, and that the moment was propitious for each of them

to carve out of its ruins a kingdom for himself; the news of the murder,

rapidly propagated, sowed the seeds of revolt in its course--in Susiana,

at Babylon, in Media, in Parthia, in Margiana, among the Sattagydes,

in Asia Minor, and even in Egypt itself*--which showed itself in

some places in an open and undisguised form, while in others it was

contemptuously veiled under the appearance of neutrality, or the

pretence of waiting to see the issue of events.

* In the _Behistun Inscription_, it is stated that

insurrections broke out in all these countries while Darius

was at Babylon; that is to say, while he was occupied in

besieging that city, as is evident from the order of the

events narrated.

The first to break out into open rebellion were the neighbouring

countries of Elam and Chaldæa: the death of Smerdis took place towards

the end of September, and a fortnight later saw two rebel chiefs

enthroned--a certain Athrîna at Susa, and a Nadinta-bel at Babylon.*

Athrîna, the son of Umbadaranma, was a scion of the dynasty dispossessed

by the successors of Sargon in the preceding century, but nevertheless

he met with but lukewarm assistance from his own countrymen;** he was

taken prisoner before a month had passed, and sent to Darius, who slew

him with his own hand.

* The latest known document of the pseudo-Smerdis is dated

the 1st of Tisri at Babylon, and the first of Nebuchadrezzar

III. are dated the 17th and 20th of the same month. The

revolt of Babylon, then, must be placed between the 1st and

17th of Tisri; that is, either at the end of September or

the beginning of October, 521 B.C.

** The revolt cannot have lasted much more than six weeks,

for on the 26th of Athriyâdiya following, that is to say, at

the beginning of December, Darius had already joined issue

with the Babylonians on the banks of the Tigris.

Babylon was not so easily mastered. Her chosen sovereign claimed to

be the son of Nabonidus, and had, on ascending the throne, assumed the

illustrious name of Nebuchadrezzar; he was not supported, moreover, by

only a few busybodies, but carried the whole population with him. The

Babylonians, who had at first welcomed Cyrus so warmly, and had fondly

imagined that they had made him one of themselves, as they had made

so many of their conquerors for centuries past, soon realised their

mistake. The differences of language, manners, spirit, and religion

between themselves and the Persians were too fundamental to allow of

the naturalisation of the new sovereign, and of the acceptance by

the Achæmenides of that fiction of a double personality to which

Tiglath-pileser III., Shalmaneser, and even Assur-bani-pal had

submitted. Popular fancy grew weary of Cyrus, as it had already grown

weary in turn of all the foreigners it had at first acclaimed--whether

Elamite, Kaldâ, or Assyrian--and by a national reaction the self-styled

son of Nabonidus enjoyed the benefit of a devotion proportionately as

great as the hatred which had been felt twenty years before for his

pretended sire. The situation might become serious if he were given time

to consolidate his power, for the loyalty of the ancient provinces of

the Chaldæan empire was wavering, and there was no security that they

would not feel inclined to follow the example of the capital as soon

as they should receive news of the sedition. Darius, therefore, led

the bulk of his forces to Babylon without a day’s more delay than was

absolutely necessary, and the event proved that he had good reason for

such haste. Nebuchadrezzar III. had taken advantage of the few weeks

which had elapsed since his accession, to garrison the same positions

on the right bank of the Tigris, as Nabonidus had endeavoured to defend

against Cyrus at the northern end of the fortifications erected by his

ancestor. A well-equipped flotilla patrolled the river, and his lines

presented so formidable a front that Darius could not venture on a

direct attack. He arranged his troops in two divisions, which he mounted

partly on horses, partly on camels, and eluding the vigilance of his

adversary by attacking him simultaneously on many sides, succeeded in

gaining the opposite bank of the river. The Chaldæans, striving in vain

to drive him back into the stream, were at length defeated on the 27th

of Athriyâdiya, and they retired in good order on Babylon. Six days

later, on the 2nd of Anâmaka, they fought a second battle at Zazanu,

on the bank of the Euphrates, and were again totally defeated.

Nebuchadrezzar escaped with a handful of cavalry, and hastened to shut

himself up in his city. Darius soon followed him, but if he cherished a

hope that the Babylonians would open their gates to him without further

resistance, as they had done to Cyrus, he met with a disappointment,

for he was compelled to commence a regular siege and suspend all other

operations, and that, too, at a moment when the provinces were breaking

out into open insurrection on every hand.*

* The account given by Darius seems to imply that no

interval of time elapsed between the second defeat of

Nebuchadrezzar III. and the taking of Babylon, so that

several modern historians have rejected the idea of an

obstinate resistance. Herodotus, however, speaks of the long

siege the city sustained, and the discovery of tablets dated

in the first and even the second year of Nebuchadrezzar III.

shows that the siege was prolonged into the second year of

this usurper, at least until the month of Nisân (March-

April), 520 B.C. No evidence can be drawn from the tablets

dated in the reign of Darius, for the oldest yet discovered,

which is dated in the month Sebat (Jan.-Feb.), in the year

of his accession, and consequently prior to the second year

of Nebuchadrezzar, comes from Abu-habba. On the other hand,

the statement that all the revolts broke out while Darius

was “at Babylon” does not allow of the supposition that all

the events recorded before his departure for Media could

have been compressed into the space of three or four months.

It seems, therefore, more probable that the siege lasted

till 519 B.C., as it can well have done if credit be given

to the mention of “twenty-one months at least” by Herodotus;

perhaps the siege was brought to an end in the May of that

year, as calculated by Marquart.

[Illustration: 166.jpg DARIUS PIERCING A REBEL WITH HIS LANCE BEFORE A

GROUP OF FOUR PRISONERS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the impression of an intaglio

at St. Petersburg.

The attempt of the Persian adventurer Martîya to stir up the Susians to

revolt in his rear failed, thanks to the favourable disposition of the

natives, who refused to recognise in him Ummanîsh, the heir of

their national princes. Media, however, yielded unfortunately to the

solicitations of a certain Fravartîsh, who had assumed the personality

of Khshatrita of the race of Cyaxares, and its revolt marked almost the

beginning of a total break-up of the empire. The memory of Astyages and

Cyaxares had not yet faded so completely as to cause the Median nobles

to relinquish the hope of reasserting the supremacy of Media; the

opportunity for accomplishing this aim now seemed all the more

favourable, from the fact that Darius had been obliged to leave this

province almost immediately after the assassination of the Usurper, and

to take from it all the troops that he could muster for the siege of

Babylon. Several of the nomadic tribes still remained faithful to him,

but all the settled inhabitants of Media ranged themselves under the

banner of the pretender, and the spirit of insurrection spread thereupon

into Armenia and Assyria. For one moment there was a fear lest it should

extend to Asia Minor also, where Orcetes, accustomed, in the absence of

Cambyses, to act as an autonomous sovereign, displayed little zeal in

accommodating himself to the new order of things. There was so much

uncertainty as to the leanings of the Persian guard of Orcetes, that

Darius did not venture to degrade the satrap officially, but despatched

Bagseus to Sardes with precise instructions, which enabled him to

accomplish his mission by degrees, so as not to risk a Lydian revolt.

His first act was to show the guard a rescript by which they were

relieved from attendance on Orcetes, and “thereupon they immediately

laid down their spears.” Emboldened by their ready obedience, Bagseus

presented to the secretary a second letter, which contained his

instructions: “The great king commands those Persians who are in Sardes

to kill Orestes.” “Whereupon,” it is recorded, “they drew their swords

and slew him.” *

* The context of Herodotus indicates that the events

narrated took place shortly after the accession of Darius.

Further on Herodotus mentions, as contemporaneous with the

siege of Babylon, events which took place after the death of

Orcetes; it is probable, therefore, that the scene described

by Herodotus occurred in 520 B.C. at the latest.

A revolt in Asia Minor was thus averted, at a time when civil war

continued to rage in the centre of Iran. The situation, however,

continued critical. Darius could not think of abandoning the siege of

Babylon, and of thus both losing the fruits of his victories and seeing

Nebuchadrezzar reappear in Assyria or Susiana. On the other hand, his

army was a small one, and he would incur great risks in detaching any of

his military chiefs for a campaign against the Mede with an insufficient

force. He decided, however, to adopt the latter course, and while he

himself presided over the blockade, he simultaneously despatched two

columns--one to Media, under the command of the Persian Vidarna, one of

the seven; the other to Armenia, under the Armenian Dâdarshîsh. Vidarna,

encountered Khshatrita near Marush, in the mountainous region of the

old Namri, on the 27th of Anâmaka, and gave him battle; but though he

claimed the victory, the result was so indecisive that he halted in

Kambadênê, at the entrance to the gorges of the Zagros mountains, and

was there obliged to await reinforcements before advancing further.

Dâdarshîsh, on his side, gained three victories over the Armenians--one

near Zuzza on the 8th of Thuravâhara, another at Tigra ten days later,

and the third on the 2nd of Thâigarshîsh, at a place not far from

Uhyâma--but he also was compelled to suspend operations and remain

inactive pending the arrival of fresh troops. Half the year was spent in

inaction on either side, for the rebels had not suffered less than their

opponents, and, while endeavouring to reorganise their forces, they

opened negotiations with the provinces of the north-east with the view

of prevailing on them to join their cause. Darius, still detained before

Babylon, was unable to recommence hostilities until the end of 520

B.C. He sent Vaumisa to replace Dâdarshîsh as the head of the army in

Armenia, and the new general distinguished himself at the outset by

winning a decisive victory on the 15th of Anâmaka, near Izitush in

Assyria; but the effect which he hoped to secure from this success was

neutralised almost immediately by grievous defections. Sagartia, in the

first place, rose in rebellion at the call of a pretended descendant

of Oyaxares, named Chitrantakhma; Hyrcania, the province governed by

Hystaspes, the father of Darius, followed suit and took up the cause

of Khshatrita, and soon after Margiana broke out into revolt at the

instigation of a certain Frâda. Even Persia itself deserted Darius, and

chose another king instead of a sovereign whom no one seemed willing to

acknowledge. Many of the mountain tribes could not yet resign themselves

to the belief that the male line of Cyrus had become extinct with the

death of Cambyses. The usurpation of Gaumâta and the accession of Darius

had not quenched their faith in the existence of Smerdis: if the Magian

were an impostor, it did not necessarily follow that Smerdis had been

assassinated, and when a certain Vahyazdâta rose up in the town of

Târavâ in the district of Yautiyâ, and announced himself as the younger

son of Cyrus, they received him with enthusiastic acclamations. A

preliminary success gained by Hystaspes at Vispauzatîsh, in Parthia, on

the 22nd of Viyakhna, 519 B.C., prevented the guerilla bands of Hyrcania

from joining forces with the Medes, and some days later the fall of

Babylon at length set Darius free to utilise his resources to the

utmost. The long resistance of Nebuchadrezzar furnished a fruitful theme

for legend: a fanciful story was soon substituted for the true account

of the memorable siege he had sustained. Half a century later, when

his very name was forgotten, the heroism of his people continued to

be extolled beyond measure. When Darius arrived before the ramparts he

found the country a desert, the banks of the canals cut through, and the

gardens and pleasure-houses destroyed. The crops had been gathered and

the herds driven within the walls of the city, while the garrison had

reduced by a massacre the number of non-combatants, the women having all

been strangled, with the exception of those who were needed to bake the

bread. At the end of twenty months the siege seemed no nearer to its

close than at the outset, and the besiegers were on the point of losing

heart, when at length Zopyrus, one of the seven, sacrificed himself

for the success of the blockading army. Slitting his nose and ears, and

lacerating his back with the lash of a whip, he made his way into the

city as a deserter, and persuaded the garrison to assign him a post of

danger under pretence of avenging the ill-treatment he had received

from his former master. He directed some successful sallies on points

previously agreed upon, and having thus lulled to rest any remaining

feelings of distrust on the part of the garrison, he treacherously

opened to the Persians the two gates of which he was in charge; three

thousand Babylonians were impaled, the walls were razed to the ground,

and the survivors of the struggle were exiled and replaced by strange

colonists.* The only authentic fact about this story is the length of

the siege. Nebuchadrezzar was put to death, and Darius, at length

free to act, hastened to despatch one of his lieutenants, the Persian

Artavardiya, against Vahyazdâta, while he himself marched upon the Medes

with the main body of the royal army.**

* Ctesias places the siege of Babylon forty years later,

under Xerxes I.; according to him, it was Megabysus, son of

Zopyrus, who betrayed the city. Polysenus asserts that the

stratagem of Zopyrus was adopted in imitation of a Sakian

who dwelt beyond the Oxus. Latin writers transferred the

story to Italy, and localised it at Gabii: but the Roman

hero, Sextus Tarquinius, did not carry his devotion to the

point of mutilating himself.

** _Beldstun Inscr_.: “Then I sent the army of the Persians

and Medes which was with me. One named Artavardiya, a

Persian, my servant, I made their general; the rest of the

Persian army went to Media with me.”

The rebels had hitherto been confronted by the local militia, brave

but inexperienced troops, with whom they had been able to contend on a

fairly equal footing: the entry into the field of the veteran regiments

of Cyrus and Cambyses changed the aspect of affairs, and promptly

brought the campaign to a successful issue. Darius entered Media by

the defiles of Kerend, reinforced Vidarna in Kambadçnê, and crushed the

enemy near the town of Kundurush, on the 20th of Adukanîsh, 519 B.C.

Khshatrita fled towards the north with some few horsemen, doubtless

hoping to reach the recesses of Mount Elburz, and to continue there

the struggle; but he was captured at Bagâ and carried to Ecbatana. His

horrible punishment was proportionate to the fear he had inspired: his

nose, ears, and tongue were cut off, and his eyes gouged out, and in

this mutilated condition he was placed in chains at the gate of the

palace, to demonstrate to his former subjects how the Achæmenian’

king could punish an impostor. When the people had laid this lesson

sufficiently to heart, Khshatrita was impaled; many of his principal

adherents were ranged around him and suffered the same fate, while

the rest were decapitated as an example. Babylon and Media being thus

successfully vanquished, the possession of the empire was assured to

Darius, whatever might happen in other parts of his territory, and

henceforth the process of repressing disaffection went on unchecked.

Immediately after the decisive battle of Kundurush, Vaumisa accomplished

the pacification of Armenia by a victory won near Autiyâra, and

Artavardiya defeated Vahyazdâta for the first time at Eakhâ in Persia.

Vahyazdâta had committed the mistake of dividing his forces and sending

a portion of them to Arachosia. Vivâna, the governor of this province,

twice crushed the invaders, and almost at the same time the Persian

Dâdardîsh of Bactriana was triumphing over Frâda and winning Margiana

back to allegiance. For a moment it seemed as if the decisive issue of

the struggle might be prolonged for months, since it was announced that

the appearance of a new pseudo-Smerdis on the scene had been followed

by the advent of a second pseudo-Nebuchadrezzar in Chaldæa. Darius left

only a weak garrison at Babylon when he started to attack Khshatrita:

a certain Arakha, an Armenian by birth, presenting himself to the

Babylonian people as the son of Nabonidus, caused himself to be

proclaimed king in December, 519 B.C.; but the city was still suffering

so severely from the miseries of the long siege, that it was easy for

the Mede Vindafrâ to reduce it promptly to submission after a month or

six weeks of semi-independence. This was the last attempt at revolt.

Chitran-takhma expiated his crimes by being impaled, and Hystaspes

routed the Hyrcanian battalions at Patigrabana in Parthia: Artavardiya

having defeated Vahyazdâta, near Mount Paraga, on the 6th of Garmapada,

618 B.C., besieged him in his fortress of Uvâdeshaya, and was not long

in effecting his capture. The civil war came thus to an end.

It had been severe, but it had brought into such prominence the

qualities of the sovereign that no one henceforth dared to dispute his

possession of the crown. A man of less energetic character and calm

judgment would have lost his head at the beginning of the struggle, when

almost every successive week brought him news of a fresh rebellion--in

Susiana, Babylon, Media, Armenia, Assyria, Margiana, Hyrcania, and even

Persia itself, not to speak of the intrigues in Asia Minor and Egypt;

he would have scattered his forces to meet the dangers on all sides

at once, and would assuredly have either succumbed in the struggle, or

succeeded only by chance after his fate had trembled in the balance for

years. Darius, however, from the very beginning knew how to single out

the important points upon which to deal such vigorous blows as would

ensure him the victory with the least possible delay. He saw that

Babylon, with its numerous population, its immense wealth and prestige,

and its memory of recent supremacy, was the real danger to his empire,

and he never relaxed his hold on it until it was subdued, leaving

his generals to deal with the other nations, the Medes included, and

satisfied if each of them could but hold his adversary in check

without gaining any decided advantage over him. The event justified his

decision. When once Babylon had fallen, the remaining rebels were

no longer a source of fear; to defeat Khshatrita was the work of a

few weeks only, and the submission of the other provinces followed as a

natural consequence on the ruin of Media.*

* Mention of some new wars is made towards the end of the

inscription, but the text here is so mutilated that the

sense can no longer be easily determined.

[Illustration: 174.jpg REBELS BROUGHT TO DARIUS BY AHURA-MAZD] This is

the scene depicted on the rock of Behistun.

After consummating his victories, Darius caused an inscription in

commemoration of them to be carved on the rocks in the pass of Bagistana

[Behistun], one of the most frequented routes leading from the basin of

the Tigris to the tableland of Iran.

[Illustration: 175.jpg THE ROCKS OF BEHISTUN]

Drawn by Boudier, from Flandin and Coste.

There his figure is still to be seen standing, with his foot resting on

the prostrate body of an enemy, and his hand raised in the attitude of

one addressing an audience, while nine figures march in file to meet

him, their arms tied behind their backs, and cords round their

necks, representing all the pretenders whom he had fought and put

to death--Athrîna, Nadinta-bel, Khshatrita, Vahyazdâta, Arakha, and

Chitrantakhma; an inscription, written in the three official languages

of the court, recounts at full length his mighty deeds. The drama did

not, however, come to a close with the punishment of Vahyazdâta, for

though no tribe or chieftain remained now in open revolt, many of those

who had taken no active share in the rebellion had, by their conduct

during the crisis, laid themselves open to grave suspicions, and it

seemed but prudent to place them under strict surveillance or to remove

them from office altogether. Orotes had been summarily despatched, and

his execution did not disturb the peace of Asia Minor; but Aryandes, to

whose rule Cambyses had entrusted the valley of the Nile, displayed no

less marked symptoms of disaffection, and deserved the same fate. Though

he had not ventured to usurp openly the title of king, he had arrogated

to himself all the functions and rights of royalty, and had manifested

as great an independence in his government as if he had been an actual

Pharaoh. The inhabitants of Gyrene did not approve of the eagerness

displayed by their tyrant Arkesilas III. to place himself under the

Persian yoke: after first expelling and then recalling him, they drove

him away a second time, and at length murdered him at Barca, whither

he had fled for refuge. Pheretimô came to Egypt to seek the help of

Aryandes, just as Laarchos had formerly implored the assistance of

Amasis, and represented to him that her son had fallen a victim to his

devotion to his suzerain. It was a good opportunity to put to ransom

one of the wealthiest countries of Africa; so the governor sent to the

Cyrenaica all the men and vessels at his disposal. Barca was the only

city to offer any resistance, and the Persian troops were detained

for nine months motionless before its walls, and the city then only

succumbed through treachery. Some detachments forced their way as far

as the distant town of Euesperides,* and it is possible that Aryandes

dreamt for a moment of realising the designs which Cambyses had formed

against Carthage. Insufficiency of supplies stayed the advance of his

generals; but the riches of their ally, Cyrene, offered them a strong

temptation, and they were deliberating how they might make this wealth

their own before returning to Memphis, and were, perhaps, on the point

of risking the attempt, when they received orders to withdraw. The march

across the desert proved almost fatal to them. The Libyans of Marmarica,

attracted by the spoils with which the Persian troops were laden,

harassed them incessantly, and inflicted on them serious losses; they

succeeded, however, in arriving safely with their prisoners, among whom

were the survivors of the inhabitants of Barca. At this time the tide of

fortune was setting strongly in favour of Darius: Aryandes, anxious to

propitiate that monarch, despatched these wretched captives to Persia as

a trophy of his success, and Darius sent them into Bactriana, where they

founded a new Barca.**

* This is the town which later on under the Lagidæ received

the name of Berenice, and which is now called Benghazi.

** It is doubtless to these acts of personal authority on

the part of Aryandes that Darius alludes in the Behistun

Inscription, when he says, “While I was before Babylon, the

following provinces revolted against me--Persia and Susiana,

the Medes and Assyria, and the Egyptians...”

But this tardy homage availed him nothing. Darius himself visited Egypt

and disembarrassed himself of ‘his troublesome subject by his summary

execution, inflicted, some said, because he had issued coins of a

superior fineness to those of the royal mint,* while, according to

others, it was because he had plundered Egypt and so ill-treated the

Egyptians as to incite them to rebellion.

* It is not certain that Aryandes did actually strike any

coinage in his own name, and perhaps Herodotus has only

repeated a popular story current in Egypt in his days. If

this money actually existed, its coinage was but a pretext

employed by Darius; the true motive of the condemnation of

Aryandes was certainly an armed revolt, or a serious

presumption of revolutionary intentions.

After the suppression of this rival, Darius set himself to win the

affection of his Egyptian province, or, at least, to render its

servitude bearable. With a country so devout and so impressed with its

own superiority over all other nations, the best means of accomplishing

his object was to show profound respect for its national gods and

its past glory. Darius, therefore, proceeded to shower favours on the

priests, who had been subject to persecution ever since the disastrous

campaign in Ethiopia. Cambyses had sent into exile in Elam the chief

priest of Sais--that Uza-harrîsnîti who had initiated him into the

sacred rites; Darius gave permission to this important personage to

return to his native land, and commissioned him to repair the damage

inflicted by the madness of the son of Cyrus. Uzaharrîsnîti, escorted

back with honour to his native city, re-established there the colleges

of sacred scribes, and restored to the temple of Nît the lands and

revenues which had been confiscated. Greek tradition soon improved upon

the national account of this episode, and asserted that Darius took an

interest in the mysteries of Egyptian theology, and studied the sacred

books, and that on his arrival at Memphis in 517 B.C., immediately after

the death of an Apis, he took part publicly in the general mourning,

and promised a reward of a hundred talents of gold to whosoever should

discover the successor of the bull. According to a popular story still

current when Herodotus travelled in Egypt, the king visited the temple

of Pthah before leaving Memphis, and ordered his statue to be erected

there beside that of Sesostris. The priests refused to obey this

command, for, said they, “Darius has not equalled the deeds of

Sesostris: he has not conquered the Scythians, whom Sesostris overcame.”

Darius replied that “he hoped to accomplish as much as Sesostris

had done, if he lived as long as Sesostris,” and so conciliated

the patriotic pride of the priests. The Egyptians, grateful for his

moderation, numbered him among the legislators whose memory they

revered, by the side of Menés, Asykhis, Bocchoris, and Sabaco.

The whole empire was now obedient to the will of one man, but the ordeal

from which it had recently escaped showed how loosely the elements of it

were bound together, and with what facility they could be disintegrated.

The system of government in force hitherto was that introduced

into Assyria by Tiglath-pileser III., which had proved so eminently

successful in the time of Sargon and his descendants; Babylon and

Ecbatana had inherited it from Nineveh, and Persepolis had in turn

adopted it from Ecbatana and Babylon. It had always been open to

objections, of which by no means the least was the great amount of power

and independence accorded by it to the provincial governors; but this

inconvenience had been little felt when the empire was of moderate

dimensions, and when no province permanently annexed to the empire lay

at any very great distance from the capital for the time being. But this

was no longer the case, now that Persian rule extended over nearly the

whole of Asia, from the Indus to the Thracian Bosphorus, and over a

portion of Africa also. It must have seemed far from prudent to set

governors invested with almost regal powers over countries so distant

that a decree despatched from the palace might take several weeks

to reach its destination. The heterogeneity of the elements in each

province was a guarantee of peace in the eyes of the sovereign, and

Darius carefully abstained from any attempt at unification: not only did

he allow vassal republics, and tributary kingdoms and nations to subsist

side by side, but he took care that each should preserve its own local

dynasty, language, writing, customs, religion, and peculiar legislation,

besides the right to coin money stamped with the name of its chief or

its civic symbol. The Greek cities of the coast maintained their own

peculiar constitutions which they had enjoyed under the Mernmadas;

Darius merely required that the chief authority among them should rest

in the hands of the aristocratic party, or in those of an elective or

hereditary tyrant whose personal interest secured his fidelity. The

Carians,* Lycians,** Pamphylians, and Cilicians*** continued under the

rule of their native princes, subject only to the usual obligations.

of the _corvée_, taxation, and military service as in past days; the

majority of the barbarous tribes which inhabited the Taurus and the

mountainous regions in the centre of Asia Minor were even exempted from

all definite taxes, and were merely required to respect the couriers,

caravans, and armies which passed through their territory.

* Herodotus cites among the commanders of the Persian fleet

three Carian dynasts, Histiseus, Pigres, and Damasithymus,

besides the famous Artemisia of Halicarnassus.

** In Herodotus where a dynast named Kyberniskos, son of

Sika, is mentioned among the commanders of the fleet. The

received text of Herodotus needs correction, and we should

read Kybernis, son of Kossika, some of whose coins are still

in existence.

*** The Cilician contingent in the fleet of Xerxes at

Salamis was commanded by Syennesis himself, and Cilicia

never had a satrap until the time of Cyrus the younger.

[Illustration: 181.jpg MAP OF THE ARCHAEMENIAN STRAPIES]

Native magistrates and kings still bore sway in Phoenicia* and Cyprus,

and the shêkhs of the desert preserved their authority over the

marauding and semi-nomadic tribes of Idumasa, Nabatsea, Moab, and Ammon,

and the wandering Bedâwin on the Euphrates and the Khabur. Egypt,

under Darius, remained what she had been under the Saitic and Ethiopian

dynasties, a feudal state governed by a Pharaoh, who, though a

foreigner, was yet reputed to be of the solar race; the land continued

to be divided unequally into diverse principalities, Thebes still

preserving its character as a theocracy under the guidance of the

pallacide of Amon and her priestly counsellors, while the other

districts subsisted under military chieftains. Our information

concerning the organisation of the central and eastern provinces is

incomplete, but it is certain that here also the same system prevailed.

In the years of peace which succeeded the troubled opening of his reign,

that is, from 519 to 515 B.C.,** Darius divided the whole empire into

satrapies, whose number varied at different periods of his reign from

twenty to twenty-three, and even twenty-eight.***

* Three kings, viz. the kings of Sidon, Tyre, and Arvad,

bore commands in the Phoenician fleet of Xerxes.

** Herodotus states that this dividing of the empire into

provinces took place immediately after the accession of

Darius, and this mistake is explained by the fact that he

ignores almost entirely the civil wars which filled the

earliest years of the reign. His enumeration of twenty

satrapies comprises India and omits Thrace, which enables us

to refer the drawing up of his list to a period before the

Scythian campaign, viz. before 514 B.C. Herodotus very

probably copied it from the work of Hecatseus of Miletus,

and consequently it reproduces a document contemporary with

Darius himself.

*** The number twenty is, as has been remarked, that given

by Herodotus, and probably by Hecatæus of Miletus. The great

Behistun Inscription enumerates twenty-three countries, and

the Inscription of Nakhsh-î-Rustem gives twenty-eight.

Persia proper was not included among these, for she had been the cradle

of the reigning house, and the instrument of conquest.*

* In the great Behistun Inscription Darius mentions Persia

first of all the countries in his possession. In the

Inscription E of Persepolis he omits it entirely, and in

that of Nakhsh-î-Rustem he does not include it in the

general catalogue.

The Iranian table-land, and the parts of India or regions

beyond the Oxus which bordered on it, formed twelve important

vice-royalties--Media, Hyrcania, Parthia, Zaranka, Aria, Khorasmia,

Bactriana, Sogdiana, Gandaria, and the country of the Sakae--reaching

from the plains of Tartary almost to the borders of China, the country

of the Thatagus in the upper basin of the Elmend, Arachosia, and the

land of Maka on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Ten satrapies were

reckoned in the west--Uvayâ, Elam, in which lay Susa, one of the

favourite residences of Darius; Babirus (Babylon) and Chaldæa; Athurâ,

the ancient kingdom of Assyria; Arabayâ, stretching from the Khabur to

the Litany, the Jordan, and the Orontes; Egypt, the peoples of the sea,

among whom were reckoned the Phoenicians, Cilicians, and Cypriots, and

the islanders of the Ægean; Yaunâ, which comprised Lycia, Caria, and the

Greek colonies along the coast; Sparda, with Phrygia and Mysia; Armenia;

and lastly, Katpatuka or Cappadocia, which lay on both sides of the

Halys from the Taurus to the Black Sea. If each of these provinces had

been governed, as formerly, by a single individual, who thus became king

in all but name and descent, the empire would have run great risk of a

speedy dissolution. Darius therefore avoided concentrating the civil and

military powers in the same hands. In each province he installed three

officials independent of each other, but each in direct communication

with himself--a satrap, a general, and a secretary of state. The satraps

were chosen from any class in the nation, from among the poor as well as

from among the wealthy, from foreigners as well as from Persians;* but

the most important satrapies were bestowed only on persons allied by

birth** or marriage with the Achæmenids,*** and, by preference, on the

legitimate descendants of the six noble houses. They were not appointed

for any prescribed period, but continued in office during the king’s

pleasure. They exercised absolute authority in all civil matters, and

maintained a court, a body-guard,**** palaces and extensive parks, or

_paradises_, where they indulged in the pleasures of the chase; they

controlled the incidence of taxation,^ administered justice, and

possessed the power of life and death.

* Herodotus mentions a satrap chosen from among the Lydians,

Pactyas, and another satrap of Greek extraction, Xenagoras

of Halicarnassus.

** The most characteristic instance is that of Hystaspes,

who was satrap of Persia under Oambyses, and of Parthia and

Hyrcania under his own son. One of the brothers of Darius,

Artaphernes, was satrap of Sardes, and three of the king’s

sons, Achemenes, Ariabignes, and Masistes, were satraps of

Egypt, Ionia, and Bactriana respectively.

*** To understand how well established was the custom of

bestowing satrapies on those only who were allied by

marriage to the royal house, it is sufficient to recall the

fact that, later on, under Xerxes I., when Pausanias, King

of Sparta, had thoughts of obtaining the position of satrap

in Greece, he asked for the hand of an Achæmenian princess.

**** We know, for example, that Orcotes, satrap of Sardes

under Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius, had a body-guard of 1000

Persians.

^ Thus, Artaphernes, satrap of Sardes, had a cadastral

survey made of the territory of the Ionians, and by the

results of this survey he regulated the imposition of taxes,

“which from that time up to the present day are exacted

according to his ordinance.”

Attached to each satrap was a secretary of state, who ostensibly acted

as his chancellor, but whose real function was to exercise a secret

supervision over his conduct and report upon it to the imperial

ministers.* The Persian troops, native militia and auxiliary forces

quartered in the province, were placed under the orders, moreover, of

a general, who was usually hostile to the satrap and the secretary.**

These three officials counterbalanced each other, and held each other

mutually in check, so that a revolt was rendered very difficult, if not

impossible. All three were kept in constant communication with the

court by relays of regular couriers, who carried their despatches on

horseback or on camels, from one end of Asia to the other, in the space

of a few weeks.***

* The rôle played by the secretary is clearly indicated by

the history of Orotes, satrap of Sardes.

** While Darius appoints his brother Artaphernes satrap of

Lydia, he entrusts the command of the army and the fleet to

Otanes, son of Sisamnes. Similarly several generals are met

with at the side of Artaphernes in the Ionic revolt.

*** Xenophon compares their speed in travelling to the

flight of birds. A good example of the use of the camel for

the postal service is cited by Strabo, on the occasion of

the death of Philotas and the execution of Parmenion under

Alexander.

The most celebrated of the post-roads was that which ran from Sardes

to Susa through Lydia and Phrygia, crossing the Halys, traversing

Cappadocia and Cilicia, and passing through Armenia and across the

Euphrates, until at length, after passing through Matiênê and the

country of the Cossæans, it reached Elam. This main route was divided

into one hundred and eleven stages, which were performed by couriers on

horseback and partly in ferry-boats, in eighty-four days. Other routes,

of which we have no particular information, led to Egypt, Media,

Bactria, and India,* and by their means the imperial officials in the

capital were kept fully informed of all that took place in the most

distant parts of the empire. As an extra precaution, the king sent

out annually certain officers, called his “eyes” or his “ears,” ** who

appeared on the scene when they were least expected, and investigated

the financial or political situation, reformed abuses in the

administration, and reprimanded or even suspended the government

officials; they were accompanied by a body of troops to support their

decisions, whose presence invested their counsels with the strongest

sanction.*** An unfavourable report, a slight irregularity, a mere

suspicion, even, was sufficient to disqualify a satrap. Sometimes he

was deposed, often secretly condemned to death without a trial, and the

execution of the judgment was committed even to his own servants.

* Ctesias at the end of his work describes the route leading

from Ephesus to Bactriana and India. It is probable that the

route described by Isidorus of Charax in his _Stathma

Parthica_ already existed in the times of the Achæmenids,

and was traversed by their postal couriers.

** Mention of the _Eye of the king_ occurs in Herodotus, in

Æschylus, and in Plutarch, of the _Ear_ in Xenophon; cf.

the Persian proverb, according to which “The king has many

eyes and many ears.”

*** Xenophon affirms that these inspections were still held

in his day.

[Illustration: 186.jpg Street Vender of Curios] After the Painting by

Gerome.

A messenger would arrive unexpectedly, and remit to the guards an order

charging them to put their chief to death--an order which was promptly

executed at the mere sight of the royal decree.

This reform in the method of government was displeasing to the Persian

nobles, whose liberty of action it was designed to curtail, and they

took their revenge in sneering at the obedience they could not refuse

to render. Cyrus, they said, had been a father, Cambyses a master,

but Darius was only a pedler greedy of gain. The chief reason for this

division of the empire into provinces was, indeed, fiscal rather than

political: to arrange the incidence of taxation in his province, to

collect the revenue in due time and forward the total amount to the

imperial treasury, formed the fundamental duty of a satrap, to which all

others had to yield. Persia proper was exempt from the payment of any

fixed sum, its inhabitants being merely required to offer presents

to the king whenever he passed through their districts. These

semi-compulsory gifts were proportioned to the fortunes of the

individual contributors; they might consist merely of an ox or a

sheep, a little milk or cheese, some dates, a handful of flour, or some

vegetables. The other provinces, after being subjected to a careful

survey, were assessed partly in money, partly in kind, according to

their natural capacity or wealth. The smallest amount of revenue

raised in any province amounted to 170 talents of silver--the sum, for

instance, collected from Arachosia with its dependencies Gedrosia and

Grandara; while Egypt yielded a revenue of 700 talents, and the amount

furnished by Babylon, the wealthiest province of all, amounted to

1000 talents. The total revenue of the empire reached the enormous sum

of.£3,311,997, estimated by weight of silver, which is equivalent to

over £26,000,000 of modern English money, if the greater value of silver

in antiquity is taken into consideration. In order to facilitate the

collection of the revenue, Darius issued the gold and silver coins which

are named after him. On the obverse side these darics are stamped with a

figure of the sovereign, armed with the bow or javelin. They were coined

on the scale of 3000 gold darics to one talent, each daric weighing

normally.2788 oz. troy, and being worth exactly 20 silver drachmae

or Medic shekels; so that the relative value of the two metals was

approximately 1 to 13 1/2|.

[Illustration: 188.jpg daric of darius, SON OF HYSTASPES]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a specimen in the Bibliothèque

Nationale.

The most ancient type of daric was thick and irregular in shape, and

rudely stamped, but of remarkable fineness, the amount of alloy being

never more than three per cent. The use of this coinage was nowhere

obligatory, and it only became general in the countries bordering on the

Mediterranean, where it met the requirements of international traffic

and political relations, and in the payment of the army and the navy.

In the interior, the medium of exchange used in wholesale and retail

commercial transactions continued to be metals estimated by weight, and

the kings of Persia themselves preferred to store their revenues in the

shape of bullion; as the metal was received at the royal treasury it

was melted and poured into clay moulds, and was minted into money only

gradually, according to the whim or necessity of the moment.*

* Arrian relates that Alexander found 50,000 talents’ weight

of silver in the treasury at Susa; other hoards quite as

rich were contained in the palaces of Persepolis and

Pasargadæ.

Taxes in kind were levied even more largely than in money, but the exact

form they assumed in the different regions of the empire has not yet

been ascertained. The whole empire was divided into districts, which

were charged with the victualling of the army and the court, and Babylon

alone bore a third of the charges under this head. We learn elsewhere

that Egypt was bound to furnish corn for the 120,000 men of the army

of occupation, and that the fisheries of the Fayum yielded the king a

yearly revenue of 240 talents. The Medes furnished similarly 100,000

sheep, 4000 mules, and 3000 horses; the Armenians, 30,000 foals;

the Cilicians, 365 white horses, one for each day in the year; the

Babylonians, 500 youthful eunuchs; and any city or town which produced

or manufactured any valuable commodity was bound to furnish a regular

supply to the sovereign. Thus, Chalybon provided wine; Libya and the

Oases, salt; India, dogs, with whose support four large villages in

Babylonia were charged; the Æolian Assos, cheese; and other places, in

like manner, wool, wines, dyes, medicines, and chemicals. These imperial

taxes, though they seem to us somewhat heavy, were not excessive, but

taken by themselves they give us no idea of the burdens which each

province had to resign itself to bear. The state provided no income for

the satraps; their maintenance and that of their suite were charged on

the province, and they made ample exactions on the natives. The province

of Babylon was required to furnish its satrap daily with an _ardeb_ of

silver; Egypt, India, Media, and Syria each provided a no less generous

allowance for its governor, and the poorest provinces were not less

heavily burdened. The satraps required almost as much to satisfy their

requirements as did the king; but for the most part they fairly earned

their income, and saved more to their subjects than they extorted

from them. They repressed brigandage, piracy, competition between the

various cities, and local wars; while quarrels, which formerly would

have been settled by an appeal to arms, were now composed before their

judgment-seats, and in case of need the rival factions were forcibly

compelled to submit to their decisions. They kept up the roads,

and afforded complete security to travellers by night and day; they

protected industries and agriculture, and, in accordance with the

precepts of their religious code, they accounted it an honourable task

to break up waste land or replant deserted sites. Darius himself did

not disdain to send congratulations to a satrap who had planted trees

in Asia Minor, and laid out one of those wooded parks in which the king

delighted to refresh himself after the fatigues of government, by the

exercise of walking or in the pleasures of the chase. In spite of its

defects, the system of government inaugurated by Darius secured real

prosperity to his subjects, and to himself a power far greater than that

enjoyed by any of his predecessors. It rendered revolts on the part of

the provincial governors extremely difficult, and enabled the court to

draw up a regular budget and provide for its expenses without any undue

pressure on its subjects; in one point only was it defective, but that

point was a cardinal one, namely, in the military organisation. Darius

himself maintained, for his personal protection, a bodyguard recruited

from the Persians and the Medes. It was divided into three corps,

consisting respectively of 2000 cavalry, 2000 infantry of noble birth,

armed with lances whose shafts were ornamented below with apples of gold

or silver--whence their name of _mêlophori_--and under them the 10,000

“immortals,” in ten battalions, the first of which had its lances

ornamented with golden pomegranates. This guard formed the nucleus of

the standing army, which could be reinforced by the first and second

grades of Persian and Median feudal nobility at the first summons.

Forces of varying strength garrisoned the most important fortresses of

the empire, such as Sardes, Memphis, Elephantine, Daphnæ, Babylon, and

many others, to hold the restless natives in check. These were, indeed,

the only regular troops on which the king could always rely. Whenever

a war broke out which demanded no special effort, the satraps of the

provinces directly involved summoned the military contingents of the

cities and vassal states under their control, and by concerted action

endeavoured to bring the affair to a successful issue without the

necessity of an appeal to the central authority. If, on the contrary,

troubles arose which threatened the welfare of the whole empire, and the

sovereign felt called upon to conduct the campaign in person, he would

mobilise his guard, and summon the reserves from several provinces or

even from all of them. Veritable hordes of recruits then poured in, but

these masses of troops, differing from each other in their equipment and

methods of fighting, in disposition and in language, formed a herd

of men rather than an army. They had no cohesion or confidence in

themselves, and their leaders, unaccustomed to command such enormous

numbers, suffered themselves to be led rather than exercise authority

as guides. Any good qualities the troops may have possessed were

neutralised by lack of unity in their methods of action, and their

actual faults exaggerated this defect, so that, in spite of their

splendid powers of endurance and their courage under every ordeal, they

ran the risk of finding themselves in a state of hopeless inferiority

when called upon to meet armies very much smaller, but composed of

homogenous elements, all animated with the same spirit and drilled in

the same school.

By continual conquests, the Persians were now reduced to only two

outlets for their energies, in two opposite directions--in the east

towards India, in the west towards Greece. Everywhere else their advance

was arrested by the sea or other obstacles almost as impassable to their

heavily armed battalions: to the north the empire was bounded by the

Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the Siberian steppes; to

the south, by the Indian Ocean, the sandy table-land of Arabia, and the

African deserts. At one moment, about 512 B.C., it is possible that they

pushed forward towards the east.*

* India is not referred to in the Behistun Inscription, but

is mentioned in one of the Inscriptions of Persepolis, and

in that of Nakhsh-î-Rustem. The campaign in which it was

subjugated must be placed about 512 B.C.

[Illustration: 192.jpg FUNERAL OFFERINGS.]

From the Iranian plateau they beheld from afar the immense plain of the

Hapta Hindu (or the Punjab). Darius invaded this territory, and made

himself master of extensive districts which he formed into a new

satrapy, that of India, but subsequently, renouncing all idea of

pushing eastward as far as the Granges, he turned his steps towards the

southeast. A fleet, constructed at Peukêla and placed under the command

of a Greek admiral, Scylax of Caryanda, descended the Indus by order

of the king;* subjugating the tribes who dwelt along the banks as he

advanced, Scylax at length reached the ocean, on which he ventured

forth, undismayed by the tides, and proceeded in a westerly direction,

exploring, in less than thirty months, the shores of Gedrosia and

Arabia.

* Scylax published an account of his voyage which was still

extant in the time of Aristotle. Hugo Berger questions the

authenticity of the circumnavigation of Arabia, as that of

the circumnavigation of Africa under Necho.

Once on the threshold of India, the Persians saw open before them a

brilliant and lucrative career: the circumstances which prevented them

from following up this preliminary success are unknown--perhaps the

first developments of nascent Buddhism deterred them--but certain it

is that they arrested their steps when they had touched merely the

outskirts of the basin of the Indus, and retreated at once towards the

west. The conquest of Lydia, and subsequently of the Greek cities and

islands along the coast of the Ægean, had doubtless enriched the empire

by the acquisition of active subject populations, whose extraordinary

aptitude in the arts of peace as well as of war might offer incalculable

resources to a sovereign who should know how to render them tractable

and rule them wisely. Not only did they possess the elements of a navy

as enterprising and efficacious as that of the Phoenicians, but the

perfection of their equipment and their discipline on land rendered them

always superior to any Asiatic army, in whatever circumstances, unless

they were crushed by overwhelming numbers. Inquisitive, bold, and

restless, greedy of gain, and inured to the fatigues and dangers of

travel, the Greeks were to be encountered everywhere--in Asia Minor,

Egypt, Syria, Babylon, and even Persia itself; and it was a Greek, we

must remember, whom the great king commissioned to navigate the course

of the Indus and the waters of the Indian Ocean. At the same time, the

very ardour of their temperament, and their consequent pride, their

impatience of all regular control, their habitual proneness to

civic strife, and to sanguinary quarrels with the inhabitants of

the neighbouring cities, rendered them the most dangerous subjects

imaginable to govern, and their loyalty very uncertain. Moreover,

their admission as vassals of the Persian empire had not altered their

relations with European Greece, and commercial transactions between the

opposite shores of the Ægean, inter-marriages, the travels of voyagers,

movements of mercenaries, and political combinations, went on as freely

and frequently under the satraps of Sardes as under the Mermnadas. It

was to Corinth, Sparta, and Athens that the families banished by Cyrus

after his conquest fled for refuge, and every time a change of party

raised a new tyrant to power in one of the Æolian, Ionian, or Doric

communities, the adherents of the deposed ruler rushed in similar manner

to seek shelter among their friends across the sea, sure to repay their

hospitality should occasion ever require it. Plots and counterplots were

formed between the two shores, without any one paying much heed to the

imperial authority of Persia, and the constant support which the subject

Greeks found among their free brethren was bound before long to rouse

the anger of the court at Susa. When Polycrates, foreseeing the fall of

Amasis, placed himself under the suzerainty of Cambyses, the Corinthians

and Spartans came to besiege him in Samos without manifesting any

respect for the great king. They failed in this particular enterprise,*

but later on, after Oroetes had been seized and put to death, it was to

the Spartans that the successor of Polycrates, Maaandrios, applied

for help to assert his claim to the possession of the tyranny against

Syloson, brother of Polycrates and a personal friend of Darius.**

* The date of the death of Polycrates must be placed between

that of the conquest of Egypt and that of the revolt of

Gaumâta, either in 524 or 523 B.C.

** The reinstatement of Syloson may be placed in 516 B.C.,

about the time when Darius was completing the reorganisation

of the empire and preparing to attack Greece.

This constant intervention of the foreigner was in evident contradiction

to the spirit which had inspired the reorganisation of the empire. Just

when efforts were being made to strengthen the imperial power and ensure

more effective obedience from the provincials by the institution of

satrapies, it was impossible to put up with acts of unwarrantable

interference, which would endanger the prestige of the sovereign and the

authority of his officers. Conquest presented the one and only natural

means of escape from the difficulties of the present situation and of

preventing their recurrence; when satraps should rule over the European

as well as over the Asiatic coasts of the Ægean, all these turbulent

Greeks would be forced to live at peace with one another and in awe of

the sovereign, as far as their fickle nature would allow. It was not

then, as is still asserted, the mere caprice of a despot which brought

upon the Greek world the scourge of the Persian wars, but the imperious

necessity of security, which obliges well-organised empires to subjugate

in turn all the tribes and cities which cause constant trouble on its

frontiers. Darius, who was already ruler of a good third of the Hellenic

world, from Trebizond to Barca, saw no other means of keeping what he

already possessed, and of putting a stop to the incessant fomentation of

rebellion in his own territories, than to conquer the mother-country as

he had conquered the colonies, and to reduce to subjection the whole of

European Hellas.