of the Persian nobles, and in some points different in color, was on the
whole remarkably like that of the upper class of his subjects. It
was, however, most important that his dress should possess some
distinguishing feature, and that that feature should be one of
very marked prominency. In an absolute monarchy the king must be
unmistakable, at almost any distance, and almost in any light.
Consequences of the gravest kind may follow from any mistake of the
royal identity; and it is therefore essential to the comfort both of
prince and subject that some very conspicuous badge shall mark and
notify the monarch’s presence. Accordingly, it appears that the Persian
ruler was to be known by his headdress, which was peculiar alike
in shape and in color, and was calculated to catch the eye in both
respects. It bore the name _kitaris_ or _hidaris_, and was a tall stiff
cap, slightly swelling as it ascended, flat at top, and terminating in a
ring or circle which projected beyond the lines of the sides. Round
it, probably near the bottom, was worn a fillet or band--the diadem
proper--which was blue, spotted with white.
As the other Persians wore either simple fillets round their heads, or
soft, rounded, and comparatively low caps, with no band round them, the
king’s headdress, which would tower above theirs and attract attention
by its color, could readily be distinguished even in the most crowded
Court.
It has been asserted that the _kidaris_, or tiara of the Persian kings,
was “commonly adorned with gold and jewelry;” and this may possibly have
been the case, but there is no evidence that it was so. Its material
was probably either cloth or felt, and it was always of a bright color,
though not (apparently) always of the same color. Its distinguishing
features were its height, its stiffness, and the blue and white fillet
which encircled it.
Among other certain indications of the royal presence may be mentioned
the golden sceptre, and the parasol. The sceptre, which is seen
frequently in the king’s hands, was a plain rod, about five feet in
length, ornamented with a ball, or apple, at its upper end, and at its
lower tapering nearly to a point. The king held it in his right hand,
grasping it near, but not at, the thick end, and rested the thin end on
the ground in his front. When he walked, he planted it upright before
him, as a spearman would plant his spear. When he sate, he sloped it
outwards, still, however, touching the ground with its point.
The parasol, which has always been in the East a mark of dignity, seems
in Persia, as in Assyria, to have been confined, either by law or usage,
to the king. The Persian implement resembled the later Assyrian, except
that it was not tasselled, and had no curtain or flap. It had the same
tent-like shape, the same long thick stem, and the same ornament at the
top. It only differed in being somewhat shallower, and in having the
supports, which kept it open, curved instead of straight. It was held
over the king’s head on state occasions by an attendant who walked
immediately behind him. [PLATE XXXII., Fig. 3.]
The throne of the monarch was an elevated seat, with a high back, but
without arms, cushioned, and ornamented with a fringe, and with moldings
or carvings along the back and legs. The ornamentation consisted chiefly
of balls and broad rings, and contained little that was artistic or
elaborate. The legs, however, terminated in lions’ feet, resting upon
half balls, which were ribbed or fluted. The sides of the chair
below the seat appear to have been panelled, like the thrones of the
Assyrians, but were not adorned with any carving. The seat of the throne
was very high from the ground, and without a rest the legs would have
dangled. A footstool consequently was provided, which was plain, like
the throne, but was supported on legs terminating in the feet of bulls.
Thus the lion and the bull, so frequent in the symbolism of the East,
were here again brought together, being represented as the supports of
the throne.
With respect to the material whereof the throne was composed, there
can be no doubt that it was something splendid and costly. Late writers
describe it as made of pure gold; but, as we hear of its having silver
feet, we may presume that parts at least were of the less precious
metal. Ivory is not said to have been used in its composition. We may,
perhaps, conjecture, that the frame of the throne was wood, and that
this was overlaid with plates of gold or silver, whereby the whole of
the woodwork was concealed from view, and an appearance of solid metal
presented.
The person of the king was adorned with golden ornaments. He had
earrings of gold in his ears, often inlaid with jewels he wore golden
bracelets upon his wrists; and he had a chain or collar of gold about
his neck. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 1.] In his girdle, which was also of
gold, he carried a short sword, the sheath of which was formed of a
single precious stone. The monuments, unfortunately, throw little light
on the character and workmanship of these portions of the royal costume.
We may gather from them, perhaps, that the bracelets had a large jewel
set in their centre, and that the collars were of twisted work, worn
loosely around the neck. The sword seems to have differed little from
that of the ordinary Persians. It had a short straight blade, a mere
crossbar for a guard, and a handle almost devoid of ornament. This
plainness was compensated, if we may trust Curtius, by the magnificence
of the sheath, which was, perhaps, of jasper, agate, or lapis lazuli.
[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.]
The officers in most close attendance on the monarch’s person were,
in war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his
quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan bearer, who
was also privileged to carry what has been termed “the royal
pocket-handkerchief.”
The royal charioteer is seemingly unarmed. His head is protected merely
by a fillet. He sits in front of his master, and both his hands are
fully occupied with the management of the reins. He has no whip, and
seems to urge his horses forward simply by leaning forward himself, and
slackening or shaking the reins over them. He was, no doubt, in every
case a Persian of the highest rank, such near proximity to the Royal
person being a privilege to which none but the very noblest could
aspire. [PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 2.]
The office of the stool-bearer, was to assist the king as he mounted his
chariot or dismounted from it. He carried a golden stool, and followed
the royal chariot closely, in order that he might be at hand whenever
his master felt disposed to alight. On a march, the king was wont to
vary the manner of his travelling, exchanging, when the inclination took
him, his chariot for a litter, and riding in that more luxurious vehicle
till he was tired of it, after which he returned to his chariot for
a space. The services of the stool-bearer were thus in constant
requisition, since it was deemed quite impossible that his Majesty could
ascend or descend his somewhat lofty war-car without such aid.
The rank of the bow-bearer was probably nearly as great as that of the
driver of the chariot. He was privileged to stand immediately behind the
monarch on grand occasions, so carrying in his left hand the weapon from
which he derived his appellation. The quiver-bearer had the next place.
Both wore the Median costume--the _candys_, or flowing robe, the girdle,
the high shoe, and the stiff fluted cap, or, perhaps, occasionally the
simple fillet. Sometimes the two offices would seem to have been held
by the same person, unless we are to attribute this appearance, where
it occurs, to the economy of the artist, who may have wished to save
himself the trouble of drawing two separate figures. [PLATE XXXIII.,
Fig. 5.]
The parasol-bearer was attired as the bow and quiver bearers,
except that he was wholly unarmed, and had the fillet for his proper
head-dress. Though not a military officer, he accompanied the monarch in
his expeditions, since in the midst of war there might be occasions of
state when his presence would be convenient. The officer who bore the
royal fan and handkerchief had generally the same costume; but sometimes
his head was enveloped in a curious kind of cowl or muffler, which
covered the whole of it except the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the
mouth, and the upper portion of the cheeks. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 1.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.]
The fan, or fly-chaser, had a long straight handle, ornamented with
a sort of beading, which held a brush of some springy fibrous matter.
[PLATE XXXIII., Fig. 4.] The bearer, whose place was directly behind the
monarch, held his implement, which bent forward gracefully, nearly at
arm’s length over his master’s head.
It would seem that occasionally the bearer of the handkerchief
laid aside his fly-chaser, and assumed in lieu of it a small bottle
containing perfumery. [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 4.] In a sculptured tablet at
Persepolis, given by Ker Porter, an attendant in the Median robe, with a
fillet upon his head, who bears the handkerchief in the usual way in his
left hand, carries in the palm of his right what seems to be a bottle,
not-unlike the scent-bottle of a modern lady. It has always been an
Oriental custom to wash the hands before meals, and the rich commonly
mix some perfumery or other with the water. We may presume that this
was the practice at the Persian Court, and that the Great King therefore
took care to have an officer, who should at all times be ready to
provide his guests, or himself, with the scent which was most rare or
most fashionable.
The Persians seem to have been connoisseurs in scents. We are told that,
when the royal tiara was not in wear, it was laid up carefully with a
mixture of myrrh and _labyzus_, to give it an agreeable odor. Unguents
were thought to have been a Persian invention, and at any rate were most
abundantly used by the upper classes of the nation. The monarch applied
to his own person an ointment composed of the fat of lions, palm wine,
saffron, and the herb helianthes, which was considered to increase the
beauty of the complexion. He carried with him, even when he went to the
wars, a case of choice unguents; and such a treasure fell into the hands
of Alexander, with the rest of Darius’s camp equipage, at Arbela. It may
be suspected that the “royal ointment” of the Parthian kings, composed
of cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh, cassia, gum styrax, saffron, cardamum,
wine, honey, and sixteen other ingredients, was adopted from the
Persians, who were far more likely than the rude Parthians to have
invented so recondite a mixture. Nor were scents used only in this form
by the ingenious people of whom we are speaking. Arabia was required
to furnish annually to the Persian crown a thousand talents’ weight of
frankincense; and there is reason to believe that this rare spice was
largely employed about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have
several representations of censers, which are sometimes carried in
the hands of an attendant, while sometimes they stand on the ground
immediately in front of the Great King.321 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 2.]
The box or vase in which the Persians commonly kept their unguents was
of alabaster. This stone, which abounded in the country, was regarded as
peculiarly suited for holding ointments, not only by the Persians, but
also by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and (probably) the Assyrians. The
Egyptian variety of stone seems to have been especially valued; and
vases appear to have been manufactured in that country for the use of
the Persian monarch, which were transmitted to the Court, and became
part of the toilet furniture of the palace.330 [PLATE XXXIV., Fig. 3.]
Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of
the monarch than those above enumerated, may be mentioned the steward
of the household; the groom or master of the horse; the chief eunuch,
or keeper of the women; the king’s “eyes” and “ears,” persons whose
business it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance;
his scribes or secretaries, who wrote his letters and his edicts; his
messengers, who went his errands; his ushers, who introduced strangers
to him; his “tasters,” who tried the various dishes set before him lest
they should be poisoned; his cupbearers who handed him his wine, and
tasted it; his chamberlains, who assisted him to bed; and his musicians,
who amused him with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised
various classes of guards, and also doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms,
cooks, and other domestic servants in great abundance, together with
a vast multitude of visitors and guests, princes, nobles, captives of
rank, foreign refugees, ambassadors, travellers. We are assured that
the king fed daily within the precincts of his palace as many as fifteen
thousand persons, and that the cost of each day’s food was four hundred
talents. A thousand beasts were slaughtered for each repast, besides
abundance of feathered game and poultry. The beasts included not only
sheep, goats, and oxen, but also stags, asses, horses, and camels. Among
the feathered delicacies were poultry, geese, and ostriches.
The monarch himself rarely dined with his guests. For the most part he
was served alone. Sometimes he admitted to his table the queen and two
or three of his children. Sometimes, at a “banquet of wine,” a certain
number of privileged boon companions were received, who drank in the
royal presence, not, however, of the same wine, nor on the same terms.
The monarch reclined on a couch with golden feet, and sipped the rich
wine of Helbon; the guests drank an inferior beverage, seated upon the
floor. At a great banquet, it was usual to divide the guests into two
classes. Those of lower degree were entertained in an outer court or
chamber to which the public had access, while such as were of higher
rank entered the private apartments, and drew near to the king. Here
they were feasted in a chamber opposite to the king’s chamber, which had
a curtain drawn across the door, concealing him from their gaze, but not
so thick as to hide them from their entertainer. Occasionally, on some
very special occasion, as, perhaps, on the Royal birthday, or other
great festival, the king presided openly at the banquet, drinking and
discoursing with his lords, and allowing the light of his countenance to
shine freely upon a large number of guests, whom, on these occasions,
he treated as if they were of the same flesh and blood with himself.
Couches of gold and silver were spread for all, and “royal wine in
abundance” was served to them in golden goblets. On these, and, indeed,
on all occasions, the guests, if they liked, carried away any portion
of the food set before them which they did not consume at the time,
conveying it to their homes, where it served to support their families.
The architecture of the royal palace will be discussed in another
chapter; but a few words may be said in this place with respect to its
furniture and general appearance. The pillared courts and halls of
the vast edifices which the Achaemenian monarchs raised at Susa and
Persepolis would have had a somewhat bare and cold aspect, if it had not
been for their internal fittings. The floors were paved with stones
of various hues, blue, white, black, and red, arranged doubtless into
patterns, and besides were covered in places with carpeting. The spaces
between the pillars were filled with magnificent hangings, white green,
and violet, which were fastened with cords of fine linen (?) and purple
to silver rings and pillars of marble, screening the guests from sight,
while they did not too much exclude the balmy summer breeze. The walls
of the apartments were covered with plates of gold. All the furniture
was rich and costly. The golden throne of the monarch stood under an
embroidered canopy or awning supported by four pillars of gold inlaid
with precious stones. [PLATE XXXV.] Couches resplendent with silver and
gold filled the rooms. The private chamber of the monarch was adorned
with a number of objects, not only rich and splendid, but valuable as
productions of high art. Here, impending over the royal bed, was the
golden vine, the work of Theodore of Samos, where the grapes were
imitated by means of precious stones, each of enormous value. Here,
probably, was the golden plane-tree, a worthy companion to the
vine, though an uncourtly Greek declared it was too small to shade a
grasshopper. Here, finally, was a bowl of solid gold, another work
of the great Samian metallurgist, more precious for its artistic
workmanship than even for its material.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.]
Nothing has hitherto been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which,
however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately
preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the
early times, it would appear that the Persian kings were content with
three or four wives, and a moderate number of concubines. Of the wives
there was always one who held the most exalted place, to whom alone
appertained the title of “Queen,” and who was regarded as “wife” in a
different sense from the others. Such was Atossa to Darius Hystaspis,
Amestris to Xerxes, Statira to Darius Codomannus. Such, too, were Vashti
and Esther to the prince, whoever he was, whose deeds are recorded in
Scripture under the name of Ahasuerus. The chief wife, or Queen-Consort,
was privileged to wear on her head a royal tiara or crown. She was
the acknowledged head of the female apartments or Gynaeceum, and the
concubines recognized her dignity by actual prostration. On great
occasions, when the king entertained the male part of the Court, she
feasted all the females in her own part of the palace. She had a
large revenue of her own, assigned her, not so much by the will of her
husband, as by an established law or custom. Her dress was splendid,
and she was able to indulge freely that love of ornament of which few
Oriental women are devoid. Though legally subject to her husband as much
as the meanest of his slaves, she could venture on liberties which would
have been fatal to almost any one else, and often, by her influence over
the monarch, possessed a very considerable share of power.
The status of the other wives was very inferior to this; and it is
difficult to see how such persons were really in a position much
superior to that of the concubines. As daughters of the chief
nobles--for the king could only choose a wife within a narrow
circle--they had, of course, a rank and dignity independent of that
acquired by marriage; but otherwise they must have been almost on a par
with those fair inmates of the Gynaeceum who had no claim even to
the name of consort. Each wife had probably a suite of apartments to
herself, and a certain number of attendants--eunuchs, and tirewomen--at
her disposal; but the inferior wives saw little of the king, being only
summoned each in their turn to share his apartment, and had none of the
privileges which made the position of chief wife so important.
The concubines seem to have occupied a distinct part of the Gynaeceum,
called “the second house of the women.” They were in the special charge
of one of the eunuchs, and were no doubt kept under strict surveillance.
The Empire was continually searched for beautiful damsels to fill the
harem, a constant succession being required, as none shared the royal
couch more than once, unless she attracted the monarch’s regard very
particularly. In the later times of the Empire, the number of the
concubines became enormous, amounting (according to one authority) to
three hundred and twenty-nine, (according to another) to three hundred
and sixty. They accompanied the king both in his wars and in his hunting
expeditions. It was a part of their duty to sing and play for the royal
delectation; and this task, according to one author, they had to perform
during the whole of each night. It is a more probable statement that
they entertained the king and queen with music while they dined, one of
them leading, and the others singing and playing in concert.
The Gynaeceum--in the Susa palace, at any rate--was a building distinct
from the general edifice, separated from the “king’s house” by a court.
It was itself composed of at least three sets of apartments--viz.
apartments for the virgins who had not yet gone into the king,
apartments for the concubines, and apartments for the Queen-Consort and
the other wives. These different portions were under the supervision
of different persons. Two eunuchs of distinction had the charge
respectively of the “first” and of the “second house of the women.” The
Queen-Consort was, at any rate nominally, paramount in the third, her
authority extending over all its inmates, male and female.
Sometimes there was in the Gynaeceum a personage even more exalted than
any which have as yet been mentioned. The mother of the reigning prince,
if she outlived his father, held a position at the Court of her son
beyond that even of his Chief Wife. She kept the ensigns of royalty
which she had worn during the reign of her husband; and wielded, as
Queen-Mother, a far weightier and more domineering authority than she
ever exercised as Queen-Consort. The habits of reverence and obedience,
in which the boy had been reared, retained commonly their power over the
man; and the monarch who in public ruled despotically over millions
of men, succumbed, within the walls of the seraglio, to the yoke of a
woman, whose influence he was too weak to throw off. The Queen-Mother
had her seat at the royal table whenever the king dined with his wife;
and, while the wife sat below, she sat above the monarch. She had a
suite of eunuchs distinct from those of her son. Ample revenues were
secured to her, and were completely at her disposal. She practically
exercised--though she could not perhaps legally claim--a power of life
and death. She screened offenders from punishment, procuring for them
the royal pardon, or sheltering them in her own apartments; and she
poisoned, or openly executed, those who provoked her jealousy or
resentment.
The service of the harem, so far as it could not be fitly performed by
women, was committed to eunuchs. Each legitimate wife--as well as the
Queen-Mother--had a number of these unfortunates among her attendants;
and the king intrusted the house of the concubines, and also that of the
virgins, to the same class of persons. His own attendants seem likewise
to have been chiefly eunuchs. In the later times, the eunuchs acquired
a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all the chief
offices of state. They were the king’s advisers in the palace, and his
generals in the field. They superintended the education of the young
princes, and found it easy to make them their tools. The plots and
conspiracies, the executions and assassinations, which disfigure the
later portion of the Persian annals, maybe traced chiefly to their
intrigues and ambition. But the early Persian annals are free from these
horrors; and it is clear that the power of the eunuchs was, during this
period, kept within narrow bounds. We hear little of them in authentic
history till the reign of Xerxes. It is remarkable that the Persepolitan
sculptures, abounding as they do in representations of Court life, of
the officers and attendants who approached at all closely to the person
of the monarch, contain not a single figure of a eunuch in their entire
range. We may gather from this that there was at any rate a marked
difference between the Assyrian and the early Persian Court in the
position which eunuchs occupied at them respectively: we should not,
however, be justified in going further and questioning altogether the
employment of eunuchs by the Persian monarchs during the early period,
since their absence from the sculptures may be accounted for on other
grounds.
It is peculiarly noticeable in the Persian sculptures and inscriptions
that they carry to excess that reserve which Orientals have always
maintained with regard to women. The inscriptions are wholly devoid
of all reference to the softer sex, and the sculptures give us no
representation of a female. In Persia, at the present day, it is
regarded as a gross indecorum to ask a man after his wife; and anciently
it would seem that the whole sex fell under a law of taboo, which
required that, whatever the real power and influence of women, all
public mention of them, as well as all representations of the female
form, should be avoided. If this were so, it must of course still more
have been the rule that the women--or, at any rate, those of the upper
classes--should not be publicly seen. Hence the indignant refusal of
Vashti to obey the command of King Aha-suerus to show herself to his
Court. Hence, too, the law which made it a capital offence to address or
touch one of the royal concubines or even to pass their litters upon
the road. The litters of women were always curtained; and when the Queen
Statira rode in hers with the curtains drawn, it was a novelty which
attracted general attention, as a relaxation of the ordinary etiquette,
though only females were allowed to come near her. Married women
might not even see their nearest male relatives, as their fathers and
brothers; the unmarried had, it is probable, a little more liberty.
As the employment of eunuchs at the Persian Court was mainly in the
harem, and in offices connected therewith, it is no wonder that
they shared, to some extent, in the law of taboo, which forbade the
representation of women. Their proper place was in the female courts and
apartments, or in close attendance upon the litters, when members of
the seraglio travelled, or took the air--not in the throne-room, or the
antechambers, or the outer courts of the palace, which alone furnished
the scenes regarded as suitable for representation.
Of right, the position at the Persian Court immediately below that of
the king belonged to the members of certain privileged families. Besides
the royal family itself--or clan of the Achaemenidae--there were
six great houses which had a rank superior to that of all the other
grandees. According to Herodotus these houses derived their special
dignity from the accident that their heads had been fellow-conspirators
with Darius Hystaspis; but there is reason to suspect that the rank
of the families was precedent to the conspiracy in question, certain
families conspiring because they were great, and not becoming great
because they conspired. At any rate, from the time of Darius I.,
there seem to have been seven great families, including that of the
Achaemenidae, whose chiefs had the privilege of free communication
with the monarch, and from which he was legally bound to choose his
legitimate wives. The chiefs appear to have been known as “the Seven
Princes,” or “the Seven Counsellors,” of the king. They sat next to him
at public festivals; they were privileged to tender him their advice,
whenever they pleased; they recommended important measures of state, and
were, in part, responsible for them; they could demand admission to the
monarch’s presence at any time, unless he were in the female apartments;
they had precedence on all great occasions of ceremony, and enjoyed
a rank altogether independent of office. Sometimes--perhaps most
commonly--they held office; but they rather conferred a lustre on the
position which they consented to fill, than derived any additional
splendor from it.
It does not appear that the chiefs of the seven great families had any
peculiar insignia. Officers of the Court, on the contrary, seem to have
always carried, as badges marking their position, either wands about
three feet in length, or an ornament resembling a lotos blossom, which
is sometimes seen in the hands of the monarch himself. Such officers
wore, at their pleasure, either the long Median robe and the fluted cap,
or the close-fitting Persian tunic and trousers, with the loose felt
[Greek name]. All had girdles, in which sometimes a dagger was placed;
and all had collars of gold about their necks, and earrings of gold in
their ears. The Median robes were of various colors--scarlet, purple,
crimson, dark gray, etc. Over the Persian tunic a sleeved cloak, or
great coat, reaching to the ankles, was sometimes worn; this garment was
fastened by strings in front, and descended loosely from the shoulders,
no use being commonly made of the sleeves, which hung empty at the
wearer’s side. [PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 1.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.]
An elaborate Court ceremonial was the natural accompaniment of the ideas
with respect to royalty embodied in the Persian system. Excepting
the “Seven Princes,” no one could approach the royal person unless
introduced by a Court usher, Prostration--the attitude of worship--was
required of all as they entered the presence. The hands of the persons
introduced had to be hidden in their sleeves so long as their audience
lasted. In crossing the Palace Courts it was necessary to abstain
carefully from touching the carpet which was laid for the king to walk
on. Coming into the king’s presence unsummoned was a capital crime,
punished by the attendants with instant death, unless the monarch
himself, as a sign that he pardoned the intrusion, held out towards the
culprit the golden sceptre which he bore in his hands. It was also a
capital offence to sit down, even unknowingly, upon the royal throne;
and it was a grave misdemeanor to wear one of the king’s cast-off
dresses. Etiquette was almost as severe on the monarch himself as on
his subjects. He was required to live chiefly in seclusion; to eat his
meals, for the most part, alone; never to go on foot beyond the palace
walls; never to revoke an order once given, however much he might regret
it; never to draw back from a promise, whatever ill results he might
anticipate from its performance. To maintain the quasi-divine character
which attached to him it was necessary that he should seem infallible,
immutable, and wholly free from the weakness of repentance.
As some compensation for the restrictions laid upon him, the Persian
king had the sole enjoyment of certain luxuries. The wheat of Assos was
sent to the Court to furnish him with bread, and the vines of Helbon
were cultivated for the special purpose of supplying him with wine.
Water was conveyed to Susa for his use from distant streams regarded as
specially sweet and pure; and in his expeditions he was accompanied, by
a train of wagons, which were laden with silver flasks, filled from the
clear stream of the Choaspes. The oasis of Ammon contributed the salt
with which he seasoned his food. All the delicacies that the Empire
anywhere produced were accumulated on his board, for the supply of which
each province was proud to send its best and choicest products.
The chief amusements in which the Great King indulged were hunting and
playing at dice. Darius Hystaspis, who followed the chase with such
ardor as on one occasion to dislocate his ankle in the pursuit of a wild
beast, had himself represented on his signet-cylinder as engaged in a
lion-hunt. From this representation, we learn that the Persian monarchs,
like the Assyrian, pursued the king of beasts in their chariots, and
generally despatched him by means of arrows. Seated in a light car,
and attended by a single unarmed charioteer, they invaded the haunts of
these fiercest of brutes, rousing them from their lairs--probably with
Indian hounds, and chasing them at full speed if they fled, or, if they
faced the danger, attacking them with arrows or with the javelin. [PLATE
XXXVI., Fig. 2.] Occasionally the monarch might indulge in this sport
alone; but generally he was (it seems) accompanied by some of his
courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the
condition that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he
had discharged his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable
to capital punishment, and might esteem themselves fortunate if they
escaped with exile.
Besides lions, the Persian monarch chased, it is probable, stages,
antelopes, wild asses, wild boars, bears, wild sheep, and leopards.
[PLATE XXXVI., Fig. 3.] These animals all abounded in the neighborhood
of the royal palaces, and they are enumerated by Xenophon among the
beasts hunted by Cyrus. The mode of chasing the wild ass was for the
horsemen to scatter themselves over the plain, and to pursue the
animal in turns, one taking up the chase when the horse of another was
exhausted. The speed of the creature is so great that no horse with
a rider on his back can long keep pace with him; and thus relays were
necessary to tire him out, and enable the hunters to bring him within
the range of their weapons.
When game was scarce in the open country, or when the kings were
too indolent to seek it in its native haunts, they indulged their
inclination for sport by chasing the animals which they kept in their
own “paradises.” These were walled enclosures of a large size, well
wooded, and watered with sparkling streams, in which were bred or kept
wild beasts of various kinds, chiefly of the more harmless sorts, as
stags, antelopes, and wild sheep. These the kings pursued and shot with
arrows, or brought down with the javelin; but the sport was regarded as
tame, and not to be compared with hunting in the open field.
Within the palace the Persian monarchs are said to have amused
themselves with dice. They played, it is probable, chiefly with their
near relatives, as their wives, or the Queen-Mother. The stakes, as was
to be expected, ran high, as much as a thousand darics (nearly L 1100.)
being sometimes set on a single throw. Occasionally they played for the
persons of their slaves, eunuchs, and others, who, when lost, became the
absolute property of the winner.
Another favorite royal amusement was carving or planing wood. According
to AElian, the Persian king, when he took a journey, always employed
himself, as he sat in his carriage, in this way; and Ctesias speaks of
the occupation as pursued also within the walls of the palace. Manual
work of this kind has often been the refuge of those rulers, who, sated
with pleasure and devoid of literary tastes, have found time hang heavy
upon their hands.
In literature a Persian king seems rarely to have taken any pleasure at
all. Occasionally, to beguile the weary hours, a monarch may have had
the “Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media” read
before him; but the kings themselves never opened a book, or studied any
branch of science or learning. The letters, edicts, and probably even
the inscriptions, of the monarch were the composition of the Court
scribes, who took their orders from the king or his ministers, and
clothed them in their own language. They did not even call upon their
master to sign his name to a parchment; his seal, on which his name was
engraved, sufficiently authenticated all proclamations and edicts.
Among the more serious occupations of the monarch were the holding of
councils, the reviewing of troops, the hearing of complaints, and the
granting or refusing of redress, the assignment of rewards, perhaps, in
some cases, the trying of causes, and, above all, the general direction
of the civil administration and government of the Empire. An energetic
king probably took care to hear all the reports which were sent up to
the Court by the various officials employed in the actual government of
the numerous provinces, as well as those sent in by the persons who from
time to time inspected, on the part of the Crown, the condition of this
or that satrapy. Having heard and considered these reports, and perhaps
taken advice upon them, such a monarch would give clear directions as
to the answers to be sent, which would be embodied in despatches by his
secretaries, and then read over to him, before he affixed his seal to
them. The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have
given ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch
who was determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian
sovereigns there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and
self-denial to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of
their office. Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved
upon some favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted
by the monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he
might give himself up to sensual pleasures, to the sports of the field,
or to light and frivolous amusements.
The passion for building, which we have found so strong in Assyria and
Babylonia, possessed, but in a minor degree, a certain number of the
Persian monarchs. The simplicity of their worship giving little scope
for architectural grandeur in the buildings devoted to religion, they
concentrated their main efforts upon the construction of palaces and
tombs. The architectural character of these works will be considered in
a later chapter. It is sufficient to note here that a good deal of the
time and attention of many monarchs were directed to these objects; and
particularly it is interesting to remark, that, notwithstanding their
worldly greatness, and the flattering voices of their subjects, which
were continually bidding them “live for ever,” the Persian kings were
quite aware of the frail tenure by which man holds his life, and, while
they were still in vigorous health, constructed their own tombs.
It was an important principle of the Magian religion that the body
should not after death be allowed to mingle with, and so pollute, any
one of the four elements. Either from a regard for this superstition, or
from the mere instinctive desire to preserve the lifeless clay as long
as possible, the Persians entombed their kings in the following way.
The body was placed in a golden coffin, which was covered with a
close-fitting lid, and deposited either in a massive building erected to
serve at once as a tomb and a monument, or in a chamber cut out of some
great mass of solid rock, at a considerable elevation above its base. In
either case, the entrance into the tomb was carefully closed, after the
body had been deposited in it, by a block or blocks of stone. [PLATE
XXXVII., Fig. 1.] Inside the tomb were placed, together with the coffin,
a number of objects, designed apparently for the king’s use in the other
world, as rich cloaks and tunics, trousers, purple robes, collars of
gold, earrings of gold, set with gems, daggers, carpets, goblets,
and hangings. Generally the tomb was ornamented with sculptures, and
sometimes, though rarely, it had an inscription (or inscriptions) upon
it, containing the name and titles of the monarch whose remains reposed
within.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.]
If the tomb were a building, and not rock-hewn, the ground in the
vicinity was formed into a park or garden, which was planted with all
manner of trees. Within the park, at some little distance from the
tomb, was a house, which formed the residence of a body of priests, who
watched over the safety of the sepulchre.
The Greeks seem to have believed that divine honors were sometimes paid
to a monarch after his decease; but the spirit of the Persian religion
was so entirely opposed to any such observance that it is most probable
the Greeks were mistaken. Observing that sacrifices were offered once a
month in the vicinity of some of the royal tombs, they assumed that
the object of the cult was the monarch himself, whereas it was no doubt
really addressed either to Ormazd or to Mithras. The Persians cannot
rightly be accused of the worship of dead men, a superstition from which
both the Zoroastrian and the Magian systems were entirely free.
From this account of the Persian monarchs and their Court, we may
now turn to a subject which moderns regard as one of much greater
interest--the general condition, manners, and customs of the Persian
people. Our information on these points is unfortunately far less full
than on the subject which we have been recently discussing, but still it
is perhaps sufficient to give us a tolerably complete notion of the real
character of the nation.
The Persians, according to Herodotus, were divided into ten tribes, of
which four were nomadic and three agricultural. The nomadic were the
Dai, the Mardi, the Dropici, and the Sagartii; the agricultural were
the Panthilaei, the Derusisei, and the Germanii, or Carmanians. What the
occupation of the other three tribes was Herodotus does not state;
but, as one of them--the Pasargadae--was evidently the ruling class,
consisting, therefore (it is probable), of land owners, who did not
themselves till the soil, we may perhaps assume that all three occupied
this position, standing in Persia somewhat--as the three tribes of
Dorians stood to the other Greeks in the Peloponnese. If this were the
case, the population would have been really divided broadly into the two
classes of settled and nomade, whereof the former class was subdivided
into those who were the lords of the soil, and those who cultivated it,
either as farmers or as laborers, under them.
The ordinary dress of the poorer class, whether agricultural or nomade,
was probably the tunic and trousers of leather which have been already
mentioned as the true national costume of the people. The costume was
completed by a loose felt cap upon the head, a strap or belt round the
waist, and a pair of high shoes upon the feet, tied in front with a
string. [PLATE XXXVIII., Fig. 2.] In later times a linen or muslin rag
replaced the felt cap, and the tunic was lengthened so as to reach half
way between the knee and the ankle.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.]
The richer classes seem generally to have adopted the Median costume
which was so prevalent at the Court. They wore long purple or flowered
robes with loose hanging sleeves, flowered tunics reaching to the knee,
also sleeved, embroidered trousers, tiaras, and shoes of a more elegant
shape than the ordinary Persian. Nor was this the whole of their dress.
Under their trousers they wore drawers, under their tunics shirts, on
their hands gloves, and under their shoes socks or stockings--luxuries
these, one and all, little known in the ancient world. The Persians
were also, like most Orientals, extremely fond of ornaments. Men of rank
carried, almost as a matter of course, massive chains or collars of gold
about their necks, and bracelets of gold upon their arms. The sheaths
and handles of their swords and daggers were generally of gold,
sometimes, perhaps, studded with gems. Many of them wore earrings. Great
expense was lavished on the trappings of the horses which they rode or
drove; the bridle, or at least the bit, was often of solid gold, and the
rest of the equipment was costly. Among the gems which were especially
affected, the pearl held the first place. Besides being set in the
ordinary way, it was bored and strung, in order that it might be used
for necklaces, bracelets, and ankles. Even children had sometimes golden
ornaments, which were preferred when the gold was of a reddish color.
Very costly and rich too was the furniture of the better class of
houses. The tables were plated or inlaid with silver and gold. Splendid
couches, spread with gorgeous coverlets, invited the inmates to repose
at their ease; and, the better to insure their comfort, the legs of the
couches were made to rest upon carpets, which were sufficiently elastic
to act as a sort of spring, rendering the couches softer and more
luxurious than they would otherwise have been. Gold and silver plate,
especially in the shape of drinking-cups, was largely displayed in all
the wealthy mansions, each household priding itself on the show which it
could make of the precious metals.
In respect of eating and drinking, the Persians, even better sort, were
in the earlier times noted for their temperance and sobriety. Their
ordinary food was wheaten bread, barley-cakes, and meat simply roasted
or boiled, which they seasoned with salt and with bruised cress-seed, a
substitute for mustard. The sole drink in which they indulged was water.
Moreover, it was their habit to take one meal only each day. The poorer
kind of people were contented with even a simpler diet, supporting
themselves, to a great extent, on the natural products of the soil, as
dates, figs, wild pears, acorns, and the fruit of the terebinth-tree.
But these abstemious habits were soon laid aside, and replaced by luxury
and self-indulgence, when the success of their arms had put it in their
power to have the full and free gratification of all their desires and
propensities. Then, although the custom of having but one meal in the
day was kept up, the character of the custom was entirely altered by
beginning the meal early and making it last till night. Not many sorts
of meat were placed on the board, unless the occasion was a grand one;
but course after course of the lighter kinds of food flowed on in
an almost endless succession, intervals of some length being allowed
between the courses to enable the guests to recover their appetites.
Instead of water, wine became the usual beverage; each man prided
himself on the quantity he could drink; and the natural result followed
that most banquets terminated in general intoxication. Drunkenness even
came to be a sort of institution. Once a year, at the feast of Mithras,
the king of Persia, according to Duris, was bound to be drunk. A general
practice arose of deliberating on all important affairs under the
influence of wine, so that, in every household, when a family crisis
impended, intoxication was a duty.
The Persians ate, not only the meats which we are in the habit of
consuming, but also the flesh of goats, horses, asses, and camels. The
hump of the last-named animal is considered, even at the present day, a
delicacy in many parts of the East; but in ancient Persia it would seem
that the entire animal was regarded as fairly palatable. The horse
and ass, which no one would touch in modern Persia, were thought,
apparently, quite as good eating as the ox; and goats, which were far
commoner than sheep, appeared, it is probable, oftener at table. The
dietery of a grand house was further varied by the admission into it
of poultry and game--the game including wild boars, stags, antelopes,
bustards, and probably partridges; the poultry consisting of geese
and chickens. Oysters and other fish were used largely as food by the
inhabitants of the coast-region.
Grades of society were strongly marked among the Persians; and the
etiquette of the Court travelled down to the lowest ranks of the people.
Well-known rules determined how each man was to salute his equal,
his inferior, or his superior; and the observance of these rules was
universal. Inferiors on meeting a decided superior prostrated themselves
on the ground; equals kissed each other on the lips; persons nearly but
not quite equals kissed each other’s cheeks. The usual Oriental rules
prevailed as to the intercourse of the sexes. Wives lived in strict
seclusion within the walls of the Gynaeceum, or went abroad in litters,
seeing no males except their sons, their husbands, and their husbands’
eunuchs. Concubines had somewhat more freedom, appearing sometimes at
banquets, when they danced, sang, and played to amuse the guests of
their master.
The Persian was allowed to marry several wives, and might maintain in
addition as many concubines as he thought proper. Most of the richer
class had a multitude of each, since every Persian prided himself on the
number of his sons, and it is even said that an annual prize was given
by the monarch to the Persian who could show most sons living. The
concubines were not unfrequently Greeks, if we may judge by the case of
the younger Cyrus, who took two Greek concubines with him when he made
his expedition against his brother. It would seem that wives did
not ordinarily accompany their husbands, when these went on military
expeditions, but that concubines were taken to the wars by most Persians
of consideration. Every such person had a litter at her disposal, and a
number of female attendants, whose business it was to wait upon her and
execute her orders.
All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by
the Persians--or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans--in the
education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy
remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his
father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised
with other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with
the bow, and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and
soon afterwards he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included,
not only the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping
on and off his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow
and throwing the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at
full gallop. The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at
forming by its means in the youths committed to their charge all the
qualities needed in war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat
and cold, to perform long marches, to cross rivers without wetting their
weapons, to sleep in the open air at night, to be content with a single
meal in two days, and to support themselves occasionally on the wild
products of the country, acorns, wild pears, and the fruit of the
terebinth-tree. On days when there was no hunting they passed their
mornings in athletic exercises, and contests with the bow or the
javelin, after which they dined simply on the plain food mentioned above
as that of the men in the early times, and then employed themselves
during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not illiberal--for
instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting, digging for roots,
and the like, or in the construction of arms and hunting implements,
such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits being secured
by this training, the point of morals on which their preceptors mainly
insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of intellectual education
they had but little. It seems to have been no part of the regular
training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read. He was given
religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by means of
legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set before
him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and
afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate,
to give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the
age of twenty.
The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent
soldier and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood
to pass the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so
much at home as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he
pursued the stag, the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear
or the lion, and shot his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his
javelin at them with deadly aim, never pausing for a moment in his
career. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 2.] Only when the brute turned on his
pursuers, and stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they
would sometimes descend from their coursers, and receive the attack,
or deal the _coup de grace_ on foot, using for the purpose a short
but strong hunting-spear. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.] The chase was the
principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as the ancient
manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the bolder
spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the advance
of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the nation.
At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those
of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed
the garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen
or fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did
not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court
and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants,
ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained
in the country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits
which the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree
honorable. But the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great
conquests, have passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries
under the Empire, in garrison duty in the provinces. The entire
population of Persia Proper can scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not
more than one fourth of this number would be males between the ages
of fifteen and fifty. This body of 500,000 men, besides supplying the
official class at the Court and throughout the provinces, and also
furnishing to Persia Proper those who did the work of its cultivation,
had to supply to the whole Empire those large and numerous garrisons on
whose presence depended the maintenance of the Persian dominion in every
province that had been conquered. According to Herodotus, the single
country of Egypt contained, in his day, a standing army of 120,000
Persians; and, although this was no doubt an exceptional case, Egypt
being more prone to revolt than any other satrapy, yet there is abundant
evidence that elsewhere, in almost every part of the Empire, large
bodies of troops were regularly maintained; troops which are always
characterized as “Persians.” We may suspect that under the name were
included the kindred nation of the Medes, and perhaps some other Arian
races, as the Hyrcanians, and the Bactrians, for it is difficult to
conceive that such a country as Persia Proper could alone have kept up
the military force which the Empire required for its preservation;
but to whatever extent the standing army was supplemented from these
sources, Persia must still have furnished the bulk of it; and the
demands of this service must have absorbed, at the very least, one third
if not one half of the adult male population.
For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme
contempt. The richer classes made it their boast that they neither
bought nor sold, being supplied (we must suppose) from their estates,
and by their slaves and dependents, with all that they needed for the
common purposes of life. Persians of the middle rank would condescend to
buy, but considered it beneath them to sell; while only the very lowest
and poorest were actual artisans and traders. Shops were banished
from the more public parts of the towns; and thus such commercial
transactions as took place were veiled in what was regarded as a decent
obscurity. The reason assigned for this low estimation of trade was that
shopping and bargaining involved the necessity of falsehood.
According to Quintus Curtius, the Persian ladies had the same objection
to soil their hands with work that the men had to dirty theirs with
commerce. The labors of the loom, which no Grecian princess regarded
as unbecoming her rank, were despised by all Persian women except the
lowest; and we may conclude that the same idle and frivolous gossip
which resounds all day in the harems of modern Iran formed the main
occupation of the Persian ladies in the time of the Empire.
With the general advance of luxury under Xerxes and his successors, of
which something has been already said, there were introduced into the
Empire a number of customs of an effeminate and demoralizing character.
From the earliest times the Persians seem to have been very careful of
their beards and hair, arranging the latter in a vast number of short
crisp curls, and partly curling the former, partly training it to hang
straight from the chin. After a while, not content with this degree
of care for their personal appearance, they proceeded to improve it by
wearing false hair in addition to the locks which nature had given them,
by the use of cosmetics to increase the delicacy of their complexions,
and by the application of a coloring matter to the upper and lower
eyelids, for the purpose of giving to the eye an appearance of greater
size and beauty. They employed a special class of servants to perform
these operations of the toilet, whom the Greeks called “adorners”. Their
furniture increased, not merely in splendor, but in softness; their
floors were covered with carpets, their beds with numerous and delicate
coverlets; they could not sit upon the ground unless a cloth was first
spread upon it; they would not mount a horse until he was so caparisoned
that the seat on his back was softer even than their couches. At the
same time they largely augmented the number and variety of their viands
and of their sauces, always seeking after novel delicacies, and offering
rewards to the inventors of “new pleasures.” A useless multitude of lazy
menials was maintained in all rich households, each servant confining
himself rigidly to a single duty, and porters, bread-makers, cooks,
cup-bearers, water-bearers, waiters at table, chamberlains, “awakers,”
“adorners,” all distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion,
helping forward the general demoralization. It was probably at this
comparatively late period that certain foreign customs of a sadly
lowering character were adopted by this plastic and impressible people,
who learnt the vice of paederasty from the Greeks, and adopted from the
Assyrians the worship of Beltis, with its accompaniment of religious
prostitution.
On the whole the Persians may seem to have enjoyed an existence free
from care, and only too prosperous to result in the formation of a high
and noble character. They were the foremost Asiatic people of their
time, and were fully conscious of their pre-eminency. A small ruling
class in a vast Empire, they enjoyed almost a monopoly of office, and
were able gradually to draw to themselves much of the wealth of the
provinces. Allowed the use of arms, and accustomed to lord it over the
provincials, they themselves maintained their self-respect, and showed,
even towards the close of their Empire, a spirit and an energy seldom
exhibited by any but a free people. But there was nevertheless a dark
side to the picture--a lurking danger which must have thrown a shadow
over the lives of all the nobler and richer of the nation, unless
they were utterly thoughtless. The irresponsible authority and cruel
dispositions of the kings, joined to the recklessness with which they
delegated the power of life and death to their favorites, made it
impossible for any person of eminence in the whole Empire to feel sure
that he might not any day be seized and accused of a crime, or even
without the form of an accusation be taken and put to death, after
suffering the most excruciating tortures. To produce this result, it was
enough to have failed through any cause whatever in the performance of
a set task, or to have offended, even by doing him too great a service,
the monarch or one of his favorites. Nay, it was enough to have
provoked, through a relation or a connection, the anger or jealousy of
one in favor at Court; for the caprice of an Oriental would sometimes
pass over the real culprit and exact vengeance from one quite
guiltless--even, it may be, unconscious--of the offence given.
Theoretically, the Persian was never to be put to death for a single
crime; or at least he was not to suffer until the king had formally
considered the whole tenor of his life, and struck a balance between his
good and his evil deeds to see which outweighed the other. Practically,
the monarch slew with his own hand any one whom he chose, or, if
he preferred it, ordered him to instant execution, without trial
or inquiry. His wife and his mother indulged themselves in the same
pleasing liberty of slaughter, sometimes obtaining his tacit consent to
their proceedings, sometimes without consulting him. It may be said
that the sufferers could at no time be very many in number, and that
therefore no very wide-spread alarm can have been commonly felt; but
the horrible nature of many of the punishments, and the impossibility
of conjecturing on whom they might next fall, must be set against their
infrequency; and it must be remembered that an awful horror, from which
no precautions can save a man, though it happen to few, is more terrible
than a score of minor perils, against which it is possible to guard.
Noble Persians were liable to be beheaded, to be stoned to death, to be
suffocated with ashes, to have their tongues torn out by the roots, to
be buried alive, to be shot in mere wantonness, to be flayed and then
crucified, to be buried all but the head, and to perish by the lingering
agony of “the boat.” If they escaped these modes of execution, they
might be secretly poisoned, or they might be exiled, or transported for
life. Their wives and daughters might be seized and horribly mutilated,
or buried alive, or cut into a number of fragments. With these perils
constantly impending over their heads, the happiness of the nobles can
scarcely have been more real than that of Damocles upon the throne of
Dionysius.
In conclusion, we may notice as a blot upon the Persian character and
system, the cruelty and barbarity which was exhibited, not only in these
abnormal acts of tyranny and violence, but also in the regular and legal
punishments which were assigned to crimes and offences. The criminal
code, which--rightly enough--made death the penalty of murder, rape,
treason, and rebellion, instead of stopping at this point, proceeded
to visit with a like severity even such offences as deciding a cause
wrongfully on account of a bribe, intruding without permission on the
king’s privacy, approaching near to one of his concubines, seating
oneself, even accidentally, on the throne, and the like. The modes of
execution were also, for the most part, unnecessarily cruel. Poisoners
were punished by having their heads placed upon a broad stone, and then
having their faces crushed, and their brains beaten out by repeated
blows with another stone. Ravishers and rebels were put to death by
crucifixion. The horrible punishment of “the boat” seems to have been no
individual tyrant’s cruel conception, but a recognized and legal form of
execution. The same may be said also of burying alive. Again the Persian
secondary punishments were for the most part exceedingly barbarous.
Xenophon tells us, as a proof of the good government maintained by the
younger Cyrus, in his satrapy, that under his sway it was common to see
along all the most frequented roads numbers of persons who had had
their hands or feet cut off, or their eyes put out, as a punishment
for thieving and rascality. And other writers relate that similar
mutilations were inflicted on rebels, and even on prisoners of war.
It would seem, indeed, that mutilation and scourging were the ordinary
forms of secondary punishment used by the Persians, who employed
imprisonment solely for the safe custody of an accused person between
his arrest and his execution, while they had recourse to transportation
and exile only in the case of political offenders.