CHAPTER VII. CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY.

“I saw the man pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so

that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could

deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became

great.”--Daniel, viii. 4.

The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by

Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present

inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as

in most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing

monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians

kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt

possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can

scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as

to the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder

contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of

princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in

this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to

cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and

to collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the

Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted

the general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing

achievements under the great Cyrus.

The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly

noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia

or the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people

themselves, is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance

of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings,

which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C.

At this time Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where

they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem

to have been wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same

region, they owned no subjection to a single head, but were under the

government of numerous petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town

or of a small mountain district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took

tribute from twenty-five such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were

paid also to his son and grandson. After this the Assyrian records are

silent as to the Persians for nearly a century, and it is not until the

reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact

with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of

their reappearance they are no longer in Armenia, but have descended the

line of Zagros and reached the districts which lie north and north-east

of Susiana, or that part of the Bakhtiyari chain which, if it is not

actually within Persia Proper, at any rate immediately adjoins upon it.

Arrived thus far, it was easy for them to occupy the region to which

they have given permanent name; for the Bakhtiyari mountains command it

and give a ready access to its valleys and plains.

The Persians would thus appear not to have completed their migrations

till near the close of the Assyrian period, and it is probable that

they did not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of

Nineveh. At any rate we hear of no Persian ruler of note or name in the

Assyrian records, and the reign of petty chiefs would seem therefore to

have continued at least to the time of Asshur-bani-pal, up to which date

we have ample records. The establishment, however, about the year

B.C. 660, or a little later, of a powerful monarchy in the kindred and

neighboring Media, could not fail to attract attention, and might well

provoke imitation in Persia; and the native tradition appears to have

been that about this time. Persian royalty began in the person of a

certain Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), from whom all their later monarchs,

with one possible exception, were proud to trace their descent.

The name Achaemenes cannot fail to arouse some suspicion. The Greek

genealogies render us so familiar with heroes eponymi--imaginary

personages, who owe their origin to the mere fact of the existence

of certain tribe or race names, to account for which they were

invented--that whenever, even in the history of other nations, we

happen upon a name professedly personal, which stands evidently in close

connection with a tribal designation, we are apt at once to suspect it

of being fictitious. But in the East tribal and even ethnic names

were certainly sometimes derived from actual persons; and it may be

questioned whether the Persians, or the Iranic stock generally, had the

notion of inventing personal eponyms. The name Achaemenes, therefore,

in spite of its connection with the royal clan name of Achaemenidae, may

stand as perhaps that of a real Persian king, and, if so, as probably

that of the first king, the original founder of the monarchy, who united

the scattered tribes in one, and thus raised Persia into a power of

considerable importance.

The immediate successor of Achaemenes appears to have been his son,

Teispes. Of him and of the next three monarchs, the information that

we possess is exceedingly scanty. The very names of one or two in the

series are uncertain. One tradition assigns either to the second or the

fourth king of the list the establishment of friendly relations with

a certain Pharnaces, King of Cappadocia, by an intermarriage between a

Persian princess, Atossa, and the Cappadocian monarch. The existence

of communication at this time between petty countries politically

unconnected, and placed at such a distance from one another as

Cappadocia and Persia, is certainly what we should not have expected;

but our knowledge of the general condition of Western Asia at the period

is too slight to justify us in a positive rejection of the story, which

indicates, if it be true, that even during this time of comparative

obscurity, the Persian monarchs were widely known, and that their

alliance was thought a matter of importance.

The political condition of Persia under these early monarchs is a more

interesting question than either the names of the kings or the foreign

alliances which they attracted. According to Herodotus, that condition

was one of absolute and unqualified subjection to the sway of the Medes,

who conquered Persia and imposed their yoke upon the people before

the year B.C. 634. The native records, however, and the accounts which

Xenophon preferred, represent Persia as being at this time a separate

and powerful state, either wholly independent of Media, or, at any

rate, held in light bonds of little more than nominal dependence. On the

whole, it appears most probable that the true condition of the country

was that which this last phrase expresses. It maybe doubted whether

there had ever been a conquest; but the weaker and less developed of

the two kindred states owned the suzerainty of the stronger, and though

quite unshackled in her internal administration, and perhaps not very

much interfered with in her relations towards foreign countries, was,

formally, a sort of Median fief, standing nearly in the position in

which Egypt now stands to Turkey. The position was irksome to the

sovereigns rather than unpleasant to the people. It detracted from the

dignity of the Persian monarchs, and injured their self-respect; it

probably caused them occasional inconvenience, since from time to time

they would have to pay their court to their suzerain; and it seems

towards the close of the Median period to have involved an obligation

which must have been felt, if not as degrading, at any rate as very

disagreeable. The monarch appears to have been required to send his

eldest son as a sort of hostage to the Court of his superior, where he

was held in a species of honorable captivity, not being allowed to

quit the Court and return home without leave, but being otherwise well

treated. The fidelity of the father was probably supposed to be in this

way secured while it might be hoped that the son would be conciliated,

and made an attached and willing dependent.

When Persian history first fairly opens upon us in the pages of Xenophon

and of Nicolaus Damascenus, this is the condition of things which we

find existing. Cambyses, the father of Cyrus the Great--called Atradates

by the Syrian writer--is ruler of Persia, and resides in his native

country, while his son Cyrus is permanently, or at any rate usually,

resident at the Median Court, where he is in high favor with the

reigning monarch, Astyages. According to Xenophon, who has here the

support of Herodotus, he is Astyages’ grandson, his father, Cambyses,

being married to Mandane, that monarch’s daughter. According to

Nicolaus, who in this agrees with Ctesias, he is no way related to

Astyages, who retains him at his court because he is personally attached

to him. In the narrative of the latter writer, which has already been

preferred in these volumes, the young prince, while at the Court,

conceives the idea of freeing his own country by a revolt, and enters

into secret communication with his father for the furtherance of his

object. His father somewhat reluctantly assents, and preparations are

made, which lead to the escape of Cyrus and the commencement of a war

of independence. The details of the struggle, as they are related by

Nicolaus, have been already given. After repeated defeats, the Persians

finally make a stand at Pasargadae, their capital, where in two great

battles they destroy the power of Astyages, who himself remains a

prisoner in the hands of his adversary.

In the course of the struggle the father of Cyrus had fallen, and its

close, therefore, presented Cyrus himself before the eyes of the Western

Asiatics as the undisputed lord of the great Arian Empire which had

established itself on the ruins of the Semitic. Transfers of sovereignty

are easily made in the East, where independence is little valued,

and each new conqueror is hailed with acclamations from millions. It

mattered nothing to the bulk of Astyages’ subjects whether they were

ruled from Ecbatana or Pasargadae, by Median or Persian masters. Fate

had settled that a single lord was to bear sway over the tribes and

nations dwelling between the Persian Gulf and the Euxine; and the

arbitrament of the sword had now decided that this single lord should be

Cyrus. We may readily believe the statement of Nicolaus that the nations

previously subject to the Medes vied with each other in the celerity

and zeal with which they made their submission to the Persian conqueror.

Cyrus succeeded at once to the full inheritance of which he had

dispossessed Astyages, and was recognized as king by all the tribes

between the Halys and the desert of Khorassan.

He was at this time, if we may trust Dino, exactly forty years of age,

and was thus at that happy period in life when the bodily powers

have not yet begun to decay, while the mental are just reaching their

perfection. Though we may not be able to trust implicitly the details of

the war of independence which have come down to us, yet there can be no

doubt that he had displayed in its course very remarkable courage and

conduct. He had intended, probably, no more than to free his country

from the Median yoke; by the force of circumstances he had been led on

to the destruction of the Median power, and to the establishment of a

Persian Empire in its stead. With empire had come an enormous accession

of wealth. The accumulated stores of ages, the riches of the Ninevite

kings--the “gold,” the “silver,” and the “pleasant furniture” of those

mighty potentates, of which there was “none end”--together with all the

additions made to these stores by the Median monarchs, had fallen into

his hands, and from comparative poverty he had come per saltum into the

position of one of the wealthiest--if not of the very wealthiest--of

princes. An ordinary Oriental would have been content with such a

result, and have declined to tempt fortune any more. But Cyrus was

no ordinary Oriental. Confident in his own powers, active, not to say

restless, and of an ambition that nothing could satiate, he viewed,

the position which he had won simply as a means of advancing himself to

higher eminence. According to Ctesias, he was scarcely seated upon the

throne, when he led an expedition to the far north-east against the

renowned Bactrians and Sacans; and at any rate, whether this be true or

no--and most probably it is an anticipation of later occurrences--it

is certain that, instead of folding his hands, Cyrus proceeded with

scarcely a pause on a long career of conquest, devoting his whole life

to the carrying out of his plans of aggression, and leaving a portion

of his schemes, which were too extensive for one life to realize, as a

legacy to his successor. The quarter to which he really first turned

his attention seems to have been the north-west. There, in the somewhat

narrow but most fertile tract between the river Halys and the Egean Sea,

was a state which seemed likely to give him trouble--a state which had

successfully resisted all the efforts of the Medes to reduce it, and

which recently, under a warlike prince, had shown a remarkable power

of expansion. An instinct of danger warned the scarce firmly-settled

monarch to fix his eye at once upon Lydia; in the wealthy and successful

Croesus, the Lydian king, he saw one whom dynastic interests might

naturally lead to espouse the quarrel of the conquered Mede, and whose

power and personal qualities rendered him a really formidable rival.

The Lydian monarch, on his side, did not scruple to challenge a contest.

The long strife which his father had waged with the great Cyaxares

had terminated in a close alliance, cemented by a marriage, which made

Croesus and Astyages brothers. The friendship of the great power of

Western Asia, secured by this union, had set Lydia free to pursue

a policy of self-aggrandizement in her own immediate, neighborhood.

Rapidly, one after another, the kingdoms of Asia Minor had been reduced;

and, excepting the mountain districts of Lycia and Cilicia, all Asia

within the Halys now owned the sway of the Lydian king. Contented with

his successes, and satisfied that the tie of relationship secured him

from attack on the part of the only power which he had need to fear,

Croesus had for some years given himself up to the enjoyment of his

gains and to an ostentatious display of his magnificence. It was a rude

shock to the indolent and self-complacent dreams of a sanguine optimism,

which looked that “to-morrow should be as to-day, only much more

abundant,” when tidings came that revolution had raised its head in the

far south-east, and that an energetic prince, in the full vigor of life,

and untrammelled by dynastic ties, had thrust the aged Astyages from

his throne, and girt his own brows with the Imperial diadem. Croesus,

according to the story, was still in deep grief on account of the

untimely death of his eldest son, when the intelligence reached

him. Instantly rousing himself from his despair, he set about his

preparations for the struggle, which his sagacity saw to be inevitable.

After consultation of the oracles of Greece, he allied himself with the

Grecian community, which appeared to him on the whole to be the most

powerful. At the same time he sent ambassadors to Babylon and Memphis,

to the courts of Labynetus and Amasis, with proposals for an alliance

offensive and defensive between the three secondary powers of the

Eastern world against that leading power whose superior strength and

resources were felt to constitute a common danger. His representations

were effectual. The kings of Babylon and Egypt, alive to their own

peril, accepted his proposals; and a joint league was formed between the

three monarchs and the republic of Sparta for the purpose of resisting

the presumed aggressive spirit of the Medo-Persians.

Cyrus, meanwhile, was not idle. Suspecting that a weak point in his

adversary’s harness would be the disaffection of some of his more

recently conquered subjects, he sent emissaries into Asia Minor to sound

the dispositions of the natives. These emissaries particularly addressed

themselves to the Asiatic Greeks, who, coming of a freedom-loving stock,

and having been only very lately subdued, would it was thought, be

likely to catch at an opportunity of shaking off the yoke of their

conqueror. But, reasonable as such hopes must have seemed, they were in

this instance doomed to disappointment. The Ionians, instead of hailing

Cyrus as a liberator, received his overtures with suspicion. They

probably thought that they were sure not to gain, and that they might

possibly lose, by a change of masters. The yoke of Croesus had not,

perhaps, been very oppressive; at any rate it seemed to them preferable

to “bear the ills they had,” rather than “fly to others” which might

turn out less tolerable.

Disappointed in this quarter, the Persian prince directed his efforts to

the concentration of a large army, and its rapid advance into a position

where it would be excellently placed both for defence and attack. The

frontier province of Cappadocia, which was only separated from the

dominions of the Lydian monarch by a stream of moderate size, the

Halys, was a most defensible country, extremely fertile and productive,

abounding in natural fastnesses, and inhabited by a brave and warlike

population. Into this district Cyrus pushed forward his army with all

speed, taking, as it would seem, not the short route through Diarbekr,

Malatiyah, and Gurun, along which the “Royal Road” afterwards ran,

but the more circuitous one by Erzerum, which brought him into Northern

Cappadocia, or Pontus, as it was called by the Romans. Here, in a

district named Pteria, which cannot have been very far from the coast,

he found his adversary, who had crossed the Halys, and taken several

Cappadocian towns, among which was the chief city of the Pterians.

Perceiving that his troops considerably outnumbered those of Crcesus, he

lost no time in giving him battle. The action was fought in the Pterian

country, and was stoutly contested, terminating at nightfall without any

decisive advantage to either party. The next day neither side made any

movement; and Crcesus, concluding from his enemy’s inaction that, though

he had not been able to conquer him, he had nothing to fear from

his desire of vengeance or his spirit of enterprise, determined on

a retreat. He laid the blame of his failure, we are told, on the

insufficient number of his troops, and purposed to call for the

contingents of his allies, and renew the war with largely augmented

forces in the ensuing spring.

Cyrus, on his part, allowed the Lydians to retire unmolested, thus

confirming his adversary in the mistaken estimate which he had formed of

Persian courage and daring. Anticipating the course which Croesus would

adopt under the circumstances, he kept his army well in hand, and, as

soon as the Lydians were clean gone, he crossed the Halys, and marched

straight upon Sardis. Croesus, deeming himself safe from molestation,

had no sooner reached his capital than he had dismissed the bulk of

his troops to their homes for the winter, merely giving them orders to

return in the spring, when he hoped to have received auxiliaries

from Sparta, Babylon, and Egypt. Left thus almost without defence, he

suddenly heard that his audacious foe had followed on his steps, had

ventured into the heart of his dominions, and was but a short distance

from the capital. In this crisis he showed a spirit well worthy of

admiration. Putting himself at the head of such an army of native

Lydians as he could collect at a few hours’ notice, he met the advancing

foe in the rich plain a little to the east of Sardis, and gave him

battle immediately. It is possible that even under these disadvantageous

circumstances he might in fair fight have been victorious, for the

Lydian cavalry were at this time excellent, and decidedly superior

to the Persian. But Cyrus, aware of their merits, had recourse to

stratagem, and by forming his camels in front, so frightened the Lydian

horses that they fled from the field. The riders dismounted and fought

on foot, but their gallantry was unavailing. After a prolonged and

bloody combat the Lydian army was defeated, and forced to take refuge

behind the walls of the capital.

Croesus now in hot haste sent off fresh messengers to his allies,

begging them to come at once to his assistance. He had still a good hope

of maintaining himself till their arrival, for his city was defended

by walls, and was regarded by the natives as impregnable. An attempt to

storm the defences failed; and the siege must have been turned into

a blockade but for an accidental discovery. A Persian soldier had

approached to reconnoitre the citadel on the side where it was strongest

by nature, and therefore guarded with least care, when he observed one

of the garrison descend the rock after his helmet, which had fallen from

his head, pick it up, and return with it. Being an expert climber, he

attempted the track thus pointed out to him, and succeeded in reaching

the summit. Several of his comrades followed in his steps; the citadel

was surprised, and the town taken and plundered.

Thus fell the greatest city of Asia Minor after a siege of fourteen

days. The Lydian monarch, it is said, narrowly escaped with his life

from the confusion of the sack; but, being fortunately recognized

in time, was made prisoner, and brought before Cyrus. Cyrus at first

treated him with some harshness, but soon relented, and, with that

clemency which was a common characteristic of the earlier Persian kings,

assigned him a territory for his maintenance, and gave him an honorable

position at Court, where he passed at least thirty years, in high favor,

first with Cyrus, and then with Cambyses. Lydia itself was absorbed at

once into the Persian Empire, together with most of its dependencies,

which submitted as soon as the fall of Sardis was known. There still,

however, remained a certain amount of subjugation to be effected. The

Greeks of the coast, who had offended the Great King by their refusal of

his overtures, were not to be allowed to pass quietly into the condition

of tributaries; and there were certain native races in the south-western

corner of Asia Minor which declined to submit without a struggle to

the new conqueror. But these matters were not regarded by Cyrus as

of sufficient importance to require his own personal superintendence.

Having remained at Sardis for a few weeks, during which time he received

an insulting message from Sparta, whereto he made a menacing reply, and

having arranged for the government of the newly-conquered province and

the transmission of its treasures to Ecbatana, he quitted Lydia for

the interior, taking Croesus with him, and proceeded towards the

Median capital. He was bent on prosecuting without delay his schemes

of conquest in other quarters--schemes of a grandeur and a

comprehensiveness unknown to any previous monarch.

Scarcely, however, was he departed when Sardis became the scene of an

insurrection. Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty

of conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to

Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town,

and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries,

principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his

hands, made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the

citadel. The news reached Cyrus while he was upon his march; but,

estimating the degree of its importance aright, he did not suffer it to

interfere with his plans. He judged it enough to send a general with

a strong body of troops to put down the revolt, and continued his own

journey eastward. Mazares, a Mede, was the officer selected for

the service. On arriving before Sardis, he found that Pactyas had

relinquished his enterprise and fled to the coast, and that the revolt

was consequently at an end. It only remained to exact vengeance. The

rebellious Lydians were disarmed. Pactyas was pursued with unrelenting

hostility, and demanded, in succession, of the Cymaeans, the

Mytilenseans, and the Chians, of whom the last-mentioned surrendered

him. The Greek cities which had furnished Pactyas with auxiliaries were

then attacked, and the inhabitants of the first which fell, Priene, were

one and all sold as slaves.

Mazares soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by Ha-pagus, another

Mede, who adopted a somewhat milder policy towards the unfortunate

Greeks. Besieging their cities one by one, and taking them by means

of banks or mounds piled up against the walls, he, in some instances,

connived at the inhabitants escaping in their ships, while, in others,

he allowed them to take up the ordinary position of Persian subjects,

liable to tribute and military service, but not otherwise molested. So

little irksome were such terms to the Ionians of this period that even

those who dwelt in the islands off the coast, with the single exception

of the Samians--though they ran no risk of subjugation, since the

Persians did not possess a fleet--accepted voluntarily the same

position, and enrolled themselves among the subjects of Cyrus.

One Greek continental town alone suffered nothing during this time of

trouble. When Cyrus refused the offers of submission, which reached him

from the Ionian and AEolian Greeks after his capture of Sardis, he made

an exception in favor of Miletus, the most important of all the Grecian

cities in Asia. Prudence, it is probable, rather than clemency, dictated

this course, since to detach from the Grecian cause the most powerful

and influential of the states was the readiest way of weakening the

resistance they would be able to make. Miletus singly had defied the

arms of four successive Lydian kings, and had only succumbed at last

to the efforts of the fifth, Croesus. If her submission had been now

rejected, and she had been obliged to take counsel of her despair, the

struggle between the Greek cities and the Persian generals might have

assumed a different character.

Still more different might have been the result, if the cities

generally had had the wisdom to follow a piece of advice which the great

philosopher and statesman of the time, Thales, the Milesian, is said

to have given them. Thales suggested that the Ionians should form

themselves into a confederation, to be governed by a congress which

should meet at Teos, the several cities retaining their own laws and

internal independence, but being united for military purposes into a

single community. Judged by the light which later events, the great

Ionian revolt especially, throw upon it, this advice is seen to have

been of the greatest importance. It is difficult to say what check, or

even reverse, the arms of Persia might not have at this time sustained,

if the spirit of Thales had animated his Asiatic countrymen generally;

if the loose Ionic Amphictyony, which in reality left each state in

the hour of danger to its own resources, had been superseded by a

true federal union, and the combined efforts of the thirteen Ionian

communities had been directed to a steady resistance of Persian

aggression and a determined maintenance of their own independence.

Mazares and Harpagus would almost certainly have been baffled, and the

Great King himself would probably have been called off from his eastern

conquests to undertake in person a task which after all he might have

failed to accomplish.

The fall of the last Ionian town left Harpagus free to turn his

attention to the tribes of the south-west which had not yet made their

submission--the Carians, the Dorian Greeks, the Caunians, and the people

of Lycia. Impressing the services of the newly-conquered Ionians and

AEolians, he marched first against Caria, which offered but a feeble

resistance. The Dorians of the continent, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and

Cnidians. submitted still more tamely, without any struggle at all; but

the Caunians and Lycians showed a different spirit. These tribes, which

were ethnically allied, and of a very peculiar type, had never yet, it

would seem, been subdued by any conqueror. Prizing highly the liberty

they had enjoyed so long, they defended themselves with desperation.

When they were defeated in the field they shut themselves up within

the walls of their chief cities, Caunus and Xanthus, where, finding

resistance impossible, they set fire to the two places with their own

hands, burned their wives, children, slaves, and valuables, and then

sallying forth, sword in hand, fell on the besiegers’ lines, and fought

till they were all slain.

Meanwhile Cyrus was pursuing a career of conquest in the far east. It

was now, according to Herodotus, who is, beyond all question, a better

authority than Ctesias for the reign of Cyrus, that the reduction of the

Bactrians and the Sacans, the chief nations of what is called by moderns

Central Asia, took place. Bactria was a country which enjoyed the

reputation of having been great and glorious at a very early date. In

one of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated

as “Bahhdi eredhwo-drafsha,” or “Bactria” with the lofty banner; and

traditions not wholly to be despised made it the native country of

Zoroaster. There is good reason to believe that, up to the date of

Cyras, it had maintained its independence, or at any rate that it had

been untouched by the great monarchies which for above seven hundred

years had borne sway in the western parts of Asia. Its people were

of the Iranic stock, and retained in their remote and somewhat savage

country the simple and primitive habits of the race. Though their arms

were of indifferent character, they were among the best soldiers to

be found in the East, and always showed themselves a formidable enemy.

According to Ctesias, when Cyrus invaded them, they fought a pitched

battle with his army, in which the victory was with neither party.

They were not, he said, reduced by force of arms at all, but submitted

voluntarily when they found that Cyrus had married a Median princess.

Herodotus, on the contrary, seems to include the Bactrians among the

nations which Cyrus subdued, and probability is strongly in favor of

this view of the matter. So warlike a nation is not likely to have

submitted unless to force; nor is there any ground to believe that a

Median marriage, had Cyrus contracted one, would have made him any the

more acceptable to the Bactrians.

On the conquest of Bactria followed, we may be tolerably sure, an attack

upon the Sacae. This people, who must certainly have bordered on the

Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high

plain of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range--the modern districts

of Kashgar and Yarkand. They were reckoned excellent soldiers. They

fought with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally

formidable on horseback and on foot. In race they were probably Tatars

or Turanians, and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen

in the modern inhabitants of these regions. According to Ctesias, their

women took the field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the

mixed army which resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half

a million. The king who commanded them was a certain Amorges, who was

married to a wife called Sparethra. In an engagement with the Persians

he fell into the enemy’s hands, whereupon Sparethra put herself at the

head of the Sacan forces, defeated Cyrus, and took so many prisoners

of importance that the Persian monarch was glad to release Amorges in

exchange for them. The Sacse, however, notwithstanding this success,

were reduced, and became subjects and tributaries of Persia.

Among other countries subdued by Cyrus in this neighborhood, probably

about the same period, may be named Hyrcania, Parthia, Chorasmia,

Sogdiana, Aria (or Herat), Drangiana, Arachosia, Sattagydia, and

Gandaria. The brief epitome which we possess of Ctesias omits to make

any mention of these minor conquests, while Herodotus sums them all

up in a single line; but there is reason to believe that the Cnidian

historian gave a methodized account of their accomplishment, of which

scattered notices have come down to us in various writers. Arrian

relates that there was a city called Cyropolis, situated on the

Jaxartes, a place of great strength defended by very lofty walls, which

had been founded by the Great Cyrus. This city belonged to Sogdiana.

Pliny states that Capisa, the chief city of Capisene, which lay not far

from the upper Indus, was destroyed by Cyrus. This place is probably

Kafshan, a little to the north of Kabul. Several authors tell us that

the Ariaspse, a people of Drangiana, assisted Cyrus with provisions when

he was warring in their neighborhood, and received from him in return a

new name, which the Greeks rendered by “Euergetse”--“Benefactors.” The

Ariaspae must have dwelt near the Hamoon, or Lake of Seistan. We have

thus traces of the conqueror’s presence in the extreme north on the

Jaxartes, in the extreme east in Affghanistan, and towards the south as

far as Seistan and the Helmend; nor can there be any reasonable doubt

that he overran and reduced to subjection the whole of that vast tract

which lies between the Caspian on the west, the Indus valley and the

desert of Tartary towards the east, the Jaxartes or Sir Deria on the

north, and towards the south the Great Deserts of Seistan and Khorassan.

More uncertainty attaches to the reduction of the tract lying south

of these deserts. Tradition said that Cyrus had once penetrated into

Gedrosia on an expedition against the Indians, and had lost his entire

army in the waterless and trackless desert; but there is no evidence at

all that he reduced the country. It appears to have been a portion of

the Empire in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, but whether that monarch,

or Cambyses, or the great founder of the Persian power conquered it,

cannot at present be determined.

The conquest of the vast tract lying between the Caspian and the

Indus, inhabited (as it was) by a numerous, valiant, and freedom-loving

population, may well have occupied Cyrus for thirteen or fourteen years.

Alexander the Great spent in the reduction of this region, after the

inhabitants had in a great measure lost their warlike qualities, as

much as five years, or half the time occupied by his whole series of

conquests. Cyrus could not have ventured on prosecuting his enterprises,

as did the Macedonian prince, continuously and without interruption,

marching straight from one country to another without once revisiting

his capital. He must from time to time have returned to Ecbatana or

Pasargadae; and it is on the whole most probable that, like the Assyrian

monarchs, he marched out from home on a fresh expedition almost every

year. Thus it need cause us no surprise that fourteen years were

consumed in the subjugation of the tribes and nations beyond the Iranic

desert to the north and the north-east, and that it was not till B.C.

539, when he was nearly sixty years of age, that the Persian monarch

felt himself free to turn his attention to the great kingdom of the

south.

The expedition of Cyrus against Babylon has been described already.

Its success added to the Empire the rich and valuable provinces of

Babylonia, Susiana, Syria, and Palestine, thus augmenting its size by

about 240,000 or 250,000 square miles. Far more important, however,

than this geographical increase was the removal of the last formidable

rival--the complete destruction of a power which represented to the

Asiatics the old Semitic civilization, which with reason claimed to be

the heir and the successor of Assyria, and had a history stretching back

for a space of nearly two thousand years. So long as Babylon, “the

glory of kingdoms,” “the praise of the whole earth,” retained her

independence, with her vast buildings, her prestige of antiquity, her

wealth, her learning, her ancient and grand religious system, she could

scarcely fail to be in the eyes of her neighbors the first power in the

world, if not in mere strength, yet in honor, dignity, and reputation.

Haughty and contemptuous herself to the very last, she naturally imposed

on men’s minds, alike by her past history and her present pretensions;

nor was it possible for the Persian monarch to feel that he stood before

his subjects as indisputably the foremost man upon the earth until he

had humbled in the dust the pride and arrogance of Babylon. But, with

the fall of the Great City, the whole fabric of Semetic greatness was

shattered. Babylon became “an astonishment and a hissing”--all her

prestige vanished--and Persia stepped manifestly into the place, which

Assyria had occupied for so many centuries, of absolute and unrivalled

mistress of Western Asia.

The fall of Babylon was also the fall of an ancient, widely spread,

and deeply venerated religious system. Not of course, that the religion

suddenly disappeared or ceased to have votaries, but that, from a

dominant system, supported by all the resources of the state, and

enforced by the civil power over a wide extent of territory, it became

simply one of many tolerated beliefs, exposed to frequent rebuffs and

insults, and at all times overshadowed by a new and rival system--the

comparatively pure creed of Zoroastrianism, The conquest of Babylon by

Persia was, practically, if not a death-blow, at least a severe wound,

to that sensuous idol-worship which had for more than twenty centuries

been the almost universal religion in the countries between the

Mediterranean and the Zagros mountain range. The religion never

recovered itself--was never reinstated. It survived, a longer or a

shorter time, in places. To a slight extent it corrupted Zoroastrianism;

but, on the whole, from the date of the fall of Babylon it declined.

“Bel bowed down; Nebo stooped;” “Merodach was broken in pieces.”

Judgment was done upon the Babylonian graven images; and the system, of

which they formed a necessary part, having once fallen from its proud

pre-eminence, gradually decayed and vanished.

Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance

of its direct antithesis, pure spiritual Monotheism. The same blow which

laid the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from

Judaism. Purified and refined by the precious discipline of adversity,

the Jewish system, which Cyrus, feeling towards it a natural sympathy,

protected, upheld, and replaced in its proper locality, advanced from

this time in influence and importance, leavening little by little the

foul mass of superstition and impurity which came in contact with it.

Proselytism grew more common. The Jews spread themselves wider. The

return from, the captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately

after the capture of Babylon, is the starting point from which we may

trace a gradual enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination

of Jewish beliefs and practices--such dissemination being greatly helped

by the high estimation in which the Jewish system was held by the civil

authority, both while the empire of the Persians lasted, and when power

passed to the Macedonians.

On the fall of Babylon its dependencies seem to have submitted to

the conqueror, with a single exception. Phoenicia, which had never

acquiesced contentedly either in Assyrian or in Babylonian rule, saw,

apparently, in the fresh convulsion that was now shaking the East, an

opportunity for recovering autonomy. It was nearly half a century since

her last struggle to free herself had terminated unsuccessfully. A new

generation had grown up since that time--a generation which had seen

nothing of war, and imperfectly appreciated its perils. Perhaps some

reliance was placed on the countenance and support of Egypt, which, it

must have been felt, would view with satisfaction any obstacle to the

advance of a power wherewith she was sure, sooner or later, to come into

collision. At any rate, it was resolved to make the venture. Phoenicia,

on the destruction of her distant suzerain, quietly resumed her freedom;

abstained from making any act of submission to the conqueror; while,

however, at the same time, she established friendly relations for

commercial purposes with one of the conqueror’s vassals, the prince who

had been sent into Palestine to re-establish the Jews at Jerusalem.

It might have been expected that Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon,

would have immediately proceeded towards the south-west. The reduction

of Egypt had, according to Herodotus, been embraced in the designs which

he formed fifteen years earlier. The non-submission of Phoenicia

must have been regarded as an act of defiance which deserved signal

chastisement. It has been suspected that the restoration of the Jews was

prompted, at least in part, by political motives, and that Cyrus, when

he re-established them in their country, looked to finding them of use

to him in the attack which he was meditating upon Egypt. At any rate it

is evident that their presence would have facilitated his march through

Palestine, and given him a _point d’appui_, which could not but have

been of value. These considerations make it probable that an Egyptian

expedition would have been determined on, had not circumstances occurred

to prevent it.

What the exact circumstances were, it is impossible to determine.

According to Herodotus, a sudden desire seized Cyrus to attack the

Massagetae, who bordered his Empire to the north-east. He led his troops

across the Araxes (Jaxartes?), defeated the Massagetae by stratagem in

a great battle, but was afterwards himself defeated and slain, his body

falling into the enemy’s hands, who treated it with gross indignity.

According to Ctesias, the people against whom he made his expedition

were the Derbices, a nation bordering upon India, Assisted by Indian

allies, who lent them a number of elephants, this people engaged Cyrus,

and defeated him in a battle, wherein he received a mortal wound.

Reinforced, however, by a body of Sacae, the Persians renewed the

struggle, and gained a complete victory, which was followed by the

submission of the nation. Cyrus, however, died of his wound on the third

day after the first battle.

This conflict of testimony clouds with uncertainty the entire closing

scene of the life of Cyrus. All that we can lay down as tolerably well

established is, that instead of carrying out his designs against Egypt,

he engaged in hostilities with one of the nations on his north-eastern

frontier, that he conducted the war with less than his usual success,

and in the course of it received a wound of which he died (B.C. 529),

after he had reigned nine-and-twenty years. That his body did not fall

into the enemy’s hands appears, however, to be certain from the fact

that it was conveyed into Persia Proper, and buried at Pasargadae.

It may be suspected that this expedition, which proved so disastrous to

the Persian monarch, was not the mere wanton act which it appears to be

in the pages of our authorities. The nations of the north-east were at

all times turbulent and irritable, with difficulty held in check by the

civilized power that bore rule in the south and west. The expedition

of Cyrus, whether directed against the Massagetae or the Derbices, was

probably intended to strike terror into the barbarians of these regions,

and was analogous to those invasions which were undertaken under the

wisest of the Roman Emperors, across the Rhine and Danube, against

Germans, Goths, and Sarmatae. The object of such inroads was not to

conquer, but to alarm--it was hoped by an imposing display of organized

military force to deter the undisciplined hordes of the prolific North

from venturing across the frontier and carrying desolation through large

tracts of the Empire. Defensive warfare has often an aggressive look. It

may have been solely with the object of protecting his own territories

from attack that Cyrus made his last expedition across the Jaxertes, or

towards the upper Indus.

The character of Cyrus, as represented to us by the Greeks, is the

most favorable that we possess of any early Oriental monarch. Active,

energetic, brave, fertile in stratagems, he has all the qualities

required to form a successful military chief. He conciliates his people

by friendly and familiar treatment, but declines to spoil them by

yielding to their inclinations when they are adverse to their true

interests. He has a ready humor, which shows itself in smart sayings and

repartees, that take occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable

or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into

his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He

has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on

terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the

Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory

in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection for

his person to make his type of countenance their standard of physical

beauty.

The genius of Cyrus was essentially that of a conqueror, not of an

administrator. There is no trace of his having adopted anything like a

uniform system for the government of the provinces which he subdued.

In Lydia he set up a Persian governor, but assigned certain important

functions to a native; in Babylon he gave the entire direction of

affairs into the hands of a Mede, to whom he allowed the title and style

of king; in Judaea he appointed a native, but made him merely “governor”

or “deputy;” in Sacia he maintained as tributary king the monarch who

had resisted his arms. Policy may have dictated the course pursued

in each instance, which may have been suited to the condition of the

several provinces; but the variety allowed was fatal to consolidation,

and the monarchy, as Cyrus left it, had as little cohesion as any of

those by which it was preceded.

Though originally a rude mountain-chief, Cyrus, after he succeeded to

empire, showed himself quite able to appreciate the dignity and value

of art. In his constructions at Pasargadae he combined massiveness

with elegance, and manifested a taste at once simple and refined. He

ornamented his buildings with reliefs of an ideal character. It is

probably to him that we owe the conception of the light tapering stone

shaft, which is the glory of Persian architecture. If the more massive

of the Persepolitan buildings are to be ascribed to him, we must regard

him as haying fixed the whole plan and arrangement which was afterwards

followed in all Persian palatial edifices.

In his domestic affairs Cyrus appears to have shown the same moderation

and simplicity which we observe in his general conduct. He married, as

it would seem, one wife only, Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes,

who was a member of the royal family. By her he had issue two sons

and at least three daughters. The sons were Cambyses and Smerdis;

the daughters Atossa, Artystone, and one whose name is unknown to us.

Cassandane died before her husband, and was deeply mourned by him.

Shortly before his own death he took the precaution formally to settle

the succession. Leaving the general inheritance of his vast dominions to

his elder son, Cambyses, he declared it to be his will that the younger

should be entrusted with the actual government of several large and

important provinces. He thought by this plan to secure the well-being of

both the youths, never suspecting that he was in reality consigning

both to untimely ends, and even preparing the way for an extraordinary

revolution.

The ill effect of the unfortunate arrangement thus made appeared almost

immediately. Cambyses was scarcely settled upon the throne before he

grew jealous of his brother, and ordered him to be privately put to

death. His cruel orders were obeyed, and with so much secrecy that

neither the mode of the death, nor even the fact, was known to more than

a few. Smerdis was generally believed to be still alive; and thus an

opportunity was presented for personation--a form of imposture very

congenial to Orientals, and one which has often had very disastrous

consequences. We shall find in the sequel this opportunity embraced, and

results follow of a most stirring and exciting character.

It required time, however, to bring to maturity the fruits of the crime

so rashly committed. Cambyses, in the meanwhile, quite unconscious of

danger, turned his attention to military matters, and determined on

endeavoring to complete his father’s scheme of conquest by the reduction

of Egypt. Desirous of obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated

than the alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and

Croesus, he demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent

to him as a secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel

named Nitetis, who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her

arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel

was thus secured, which might be put forward when it suited his purpose;

and meanwhile every nerve was being strained to prepare effectually

for the expedition. The difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her

inaccessibility. She was protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and,

for a successful advance upon her from the direction of Asia, it was

desirable both to obtain a quiet passage for a large army through the

desert of El-Tij, and also to have the support of a powerful fleet in

the Mediterranean. This latter was the paramount consideration. An army

well supplied with camels might carry its provisions and water through

the desert, and might intimidate or overpower the few Arab tribes which

inhabited it; but, unless the command of the sea was gained and the

navigation of the Nile closed, Memphis might successfully resist

attack. Cambyses appears to have perceived with sufficient clearness

the conditions on which victory depended, and to have applied himself at

once to securing them. He made a treaty with the Arab Sheikh who had the

chief influence over the tribes of the desert; and at the same time

he set to work to procure the services of a powerful naval force. By

menaces or negotiations he prevailed upon the Phoenicians to submit

themselves to his yoke, and having thus obtained a fleet superior to

that of Egypt, he commenced hostilities by robbing her of a dependency

which possessed considerable naval strength, in this way still further

increasing the disparity between his own fleet and that of his enemy.

Against the combined ships of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia, and AEolis,

Egypt was powerless, and her fleets seem to have quietly yielded the

command of the sea. Cambyses was thus able to give his army the support

of a naval force, as it marched along the coast, from Carmel probably

to Pelusium; and when, having defeated the Egyptians at the last-named

place, he proceeded against Memphis, he was able to take possession of

the Nile, and to blockade the Egyptian capital both by land and water.

It appears that four years were consumed by the Persian monarch in his

preparations for his Egyptian expedition. It was not until B.C. 525 that

he entered Egypt at the head of his troops, and fought the great battle

which decided the fate of the country. The struggle was long and bloody.

Psammenitus, who had succeeded his father Amasis, had the services, not

only of his Egyptian subjects, but a large body of mercenaries besides,

Greeks and Carians. These allies were zealous in his cause, and are said

to have given him a horrible proof of their attachment. One of

their body had deserted to the Persians some little time before the

expedition, and was believed to have given important advice to the

invader. He had left his children behind in Egypt; and these his former

comrades now seized, and led out in front of their lines, where they

slew them before their father’s eyes, and, having so done, mixed their

blood in a bowl with water and wine, and drank, one and all, of the

mixture. The battle followed immediately after; but, in spite of their

courage and fanaticism, the Egyptian army was completely defeated.

According to Ctesias, fifty thousand fell on the vanquished side, while

the victors lost no more than seven thousand. Psammenitus, after his

defeat, threw himself into Memphis, but, being blockaded by land

and prevented from receiving supplies from the sea, after a stout

resistance, he surrendered. The captive monarch received the respectful

treatment which Persian clemency usually accorded to fallen sovereigns.

Herodotus even goes so far as to intimate that, if he had abstained from

conspiracy, he would probably have been allowed to continue ruler

of Egypt, exchanging, of course, his independent sovereignty for a

delegated kingship held at the pleasure of the Lord of Asia.

The conquest of Egypt was immediately followed by the submission of the

neighboring tribes. The Libyans of the desert tract which borders the

Nile valley to the west, and even the Greeks of the more remote Barca

and Cyrene, sent gifts to the conqueror and consented to become his

tributaries. But Cambyses placed little value on such petty accessions

to his power. Inheriting the grandeur of view which had characterized

his father, he was no sooner master of Egypt than he conceived the idea

of a magnificent series of conquests in this quarter, whereby he hoped

to become Lord of Africa no less than of Asia, or at any rate to leave

himself without a rival of any importance on the vast continent which

his victorious arms had now opened to him. Apart from Egypt, Africa

possessed but two powers capable, by their political organization and

their military strength, of offering him serious resistance. These were

Ethiopia and Carthage--the one the great power of the South, the equal,

if not even the superior, of Egypt--the other the great power of the

West--remote, little known, but looming larger for, the obscurity in

which she was shrouded, and attractive from her reputed wealth. The

views of Cambyses comprised the reduction of both these powers, and

also the conquest of the oasis of Ammon. As a good Zoroastrian, he was

naturally anxious to exhibit the superiority of Ormazd to all the

“gods of the nations;” and, as the temple of Ammon in the oasis had the

greatest repute of all the African shrines, this design would be best

accomplished by its pillage and destruction. It is probable that he

further looked to the subjugation of all the tribes on the north coast

between the Nile valley and the Carthaginian territory; for he would

undoubtedly have sent an army along the shore to act in concert with his

fleet, had he decided ultimately on making the expedition. An unexpected

obstacle, however, arose to prevent him. The Phoenicians, who formed

the main strength of his navy, declined to take any part in an attack

on Carthage, since the Carthaginians were their colonists, and the

relations between the two people had always been friendly. Cambyses

did not like to force their inclinations, on account of their recent

voluntary submission; and as, without their aid, his navy was manifestly

unequal to the proposed service, he felt obliged to desist from the

undertaking.

While the Carthaginian scheme was thus nipped in the bud, the

enterprises which Cambyses attempted to carry out led to nothing but

disaster. An army, fifty thousand strong, despatched from Thebes against

Ammon, perished to a man amid the sands of the Libyan desert. A still

more numerous force, led by Cambyses himself towards the Ethiopian

frontier, found itself short of supplies on its march across Nubia, and

was forced to return, without glory, after suffering considerable loss.

It became evident that the abilities of the Persian monarch were

not equal to his ambition--that he insufficiently appreciated the

difficulties and dangers of enterprises--while a fatal obstinacy

prevented him from acknowledging and retrieving an error while retrieval

was possible. The Persians, we may be sure, grew dispirited under such

a leader; and the Egyptians naturally took heart. It seems to have

been shortly after the return of Cambyses from his abortive expedition

against Ethiopia that symptoms of an intention to revolt began to

manifest themselves in Egypt. The priests declared an incarnation of

Apis, and the whole country burst out into rejoicings. It was probably

now that Psammenitus, who had hitherto been kindly treated by his

captor, was detected in treasonable intrigues, condemned to death, and

executed. At the same time, the native officers who had been left in

charge of the city of Memphis were apprehended and capitally punished.

Such stringent measures had all the effect that was expected from them;

they wholly crushed the nascent rebellion; they left, however, behind

them a soreness, felt alike by the conqueror and the conquered, which

prevented the establishment of a good understanding between the Great

King and his new subjects. Cambyses knew that he had been severe, and

that his severity had made him many enemies; he suspected the people,

and still more suspected the priests, their natural leaders; he soon

persuaded himself that policy required in Egypt a departure from the

principles of toleration which were ordinarily observed towards their

subjects by the Persians, and a sustained effort on the part of the

civil power to bring the religion, and its priests, into contempt.

Accordingly, he commenced a serious of acts calculated to have this

effect. He stabbed the sacred calf, believed to be incarnate Apis; he

ordered the body of priests who had the animal in charge to be publicly

scourged; he stopped the Apis festival by making participation in it a

capital offence; he opened the receptacles of the dead, and curiously

examined the bodies contained in them, he intruded himself into the

chief sanctuary at Memphis, and publicly scoffed at the grotesque

image of Phtha; finally, not content with outraging in the same way the

inviolable temple of the Cabeiri, he wound up his insults by ordering

that their images should be burnt. These injuries and indignities

rankled in the minds of the Egyptians, and probably had a large share in

producing that bitter hatred of the Persian yoke which shows itself in

the later history on so many occasions; but for the time the policy was

successful: crushed beneath the iron heel of the conqueror--their faith

in the power of their gods shaken, their spirits cowed, their hopes

shattered--the Egyptian subjects of Cambyses made up their minds to

submission. The Oriental will generally kiss the hand that smites him,

if it only smite hard enough. Egypt became now for a full generation the

obsequious slave of Persia, and gave no more trouble to her subjugator

than the weakest or the most contented of the provinces.

The work of subjection completed, Cambyses, having been absent from his

capital longer than was at all prudent, prepared to return home. He had

proceeded on his way as far as Syria, when intelligence reached him of

a most unexpected nature. A herald suddenly entered his camp and

proclaimed, in the hearing of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of

Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and that the allegiance of all Persian

subjects was henceforth to be paid to Smerdis, son of Cyrus. At first,

it is said, Cambyses thought that his instrument had played him false,

and that his brother was alive and had actually seized the throne; but

the assurances of the suspected person, and a suggestion which he made,

convinced him of the contrary, and gave him a clue to the real solution

of the mystery. Prexaspes, the nobleman inculpated, knew that the

so-called Smerdis must be an impostor, and suggested his identity with

a certain Magus, whose brother had been intrusted by Cambyses with the

general direction of his household and the care of the palace. He was

probably led to make the suggestion by his knowledge of the resemblance

borne by this person to the murdered prince, which was sufficiently

close to make personation possible. Cambyses was thus enabled to

appreciate the gravity of the crisis, and to consider whether he could

successfully contend with it or no. Apparently, he decided in the

negative. Believing that he could not triumph over the conspiracy

which had decreed his downfall, and unwilling to descend to a private

station--perhaps even uncertain whether his enemies would spare his

life--he resolved to fly to the last refuge of a dethroned king, and

to end all by suicide. Drawing his short sword from its sheath, he gave

himself a wound, of which he died in a few days.

It is certainly surprising that the king formed this resolution. He

was at the head of an army, returning from an expedition, which, if

not wholly successful, had at any rate added to the empire an important

province. His father’s name was a tower of strength; and if he could

only have exposed the imposture that had been practised on them,

he might have counted confidently on rallying the great mass of the

Persians to his cause. How was it that he did not advance on the

capital, and at least strike one blow for empire? No clear and decided

response can be made to this inquiry; but we may indistinctly discern

a number of causes which may have combined to produce in the monarch’s

mind the feeling of despondency whereto he gave way. Although he

returned from Egypt a substantial conqueror, his laurel wreath was

tarnished by ill-success; his army, weakened by its losses, and

dispirited by its failures, was out of heart; it had no trust in

his capacity as a commander, and could not be expected to fight with

enthusiasm on his behalf. There is also reason to believe that he was

generally unpopular on account of his haughty and tyrannical temper,

and his contempt of law and usage, where they interfered with the

gratification of his desires. Though we should do wrong to accept as

true all the crimes laid to his charge by the Egyptians, who detested

his memory, we cannot doubt the fact of his incestuous marriage with his

sister, Atossa, which was wholly repugnant to the religious feelings of

his nation. Nor can we well imagine that there was no foundation at

all for the stories of the escape of Croesus, the murder of the son

of Prexaspes, and the execution in Egypt on a trivial charge of twelve

noble Persians. His own people called Cambyses a “despot” or “master,”

in contrast with Cyrus, whom they regarded as a “father,” because, as

Herodotus says, he was “harsh and reckless,” whereas his father was

mild and beneficent. Further, there was the religious aspect of the

revolution, which had taken place, in the background. Cambyses may have

known that in the ranks of his army there was much sympathy with Magism,

and may have doubted whether, if the whole conspiracy were laid bare,

he could count on anything like a general adhesion of his troops to the

Zoroastrian cause. These various grounds, taken together, go far

towards accounting for a suicide which at first sight strikes us as

extraordinary, and is indeed almost unparalleled.

Of the general character of Cambyses little more need be said. He

was brave, active, and energetic, like his father: but he lacked his

father’s strategic genius, his prudence, and his fertility in resources.

Born in the purple, he was proud and haughty, careless of the feelings

of others, and impatient of admonition or remonstrance. His pride made

him obstinate in error; and his contempt of others led on naturally

to harshness, and perhaps even to cruelty. He is accused of “habitual

drunkenness,” and was probably not free from the intemperance which

was a common Persian failing; but there is not sufficient ground for

believing that his indulgence was excessive, much less that it proceeded

to the extent of affecting his reason. The “madness of Cambyses,”

reported to and believed in by Herodotus, was a fiction of the Egyptian

priests, who wished it to be thought that their gods had in this way

punished his impiety. The Persians had no such tradition, but merely

regarded him as unduly severe and selfish. A dispassionate consideration

of all the evidence on the subject leads to the conclusion that Cambyses

lived and died in the possession of his reason, having neither destroyed

it through inebriety nor lost it by the judgment of Heaven.

The death of Cambyses (B.C. 522) left the conspirators, who had

possession of the capital, at liberty to develop their projects, and

to take such steps as they thought best for the consolidation and

perpetuation of their power. The position which they occupied was one

of peculiar delicacy. On the one hand, the impostor had to guard against

acting in any way which would throw suspicion on his being really

Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. On the other, he had to satisfy the Magian

priests, to whom he was well known, and on whom he mainly depended for

support, if his imposture should be detected. These priests must have

desired a change of the national religion, and to effect this must have

been the true aim and object of the revolution. But it was necessary to

proceed with the utmost caution. An open proclamation that Magism was

to supersede Zoroastrianism would have seemed a strange act in an

Achaemenian prince, and could scarcely have failed to arouse doubts

which might easily terminate in discovery. The Magian brothers shrank

from affronting this peril, and resolved, before approaching it, to

obtain for the new government an amount of general popularity which

would make its overthrow in fair fight difficult. Accordingly the new

reign was inaugurated by a general remission of tribute and military

service for the space of three years--a measure which was certain to

give satisfaction to all the tribes and nations of the Empire, except

the Persians. Persia Proper was at all times exempt from tribute, and

was thus, so far, unaffected by the boon granted, while military service

was no doubt popular with the ruling nation, for whose benefit the

various conquests were effected. Still Persia could scarcely take

umbrage at an inactivity which was to last only three years, while

to the rest of the Empire the twofold grace accorded must have been

thoroughly acceptable.

Further to confirm his uncertain hold upon the throne, the

Pseudo-Smerdis took to wife all the widows of his predecessor. This is

a practice common in the East; and there can be no doubt that it gives a

new monarch a certain prestige in the eyes of his people. In the present

case, however, it involved a danger. The wives of the late king were

likely to be acquainted with the person of the king’s brother; Atossa,

at any rate, could not fail to know him intimately. If the Magus allowed

them to associate together freely, according to the ordinary practice,

they would detect his imposture and probably find a way to divulge it.

He therefore introduced a new system into the seraglio. Instead of the

free intercourse one with another which the royal consorts had enjoyed

previously, he established at once the principle of complete isolation.

Each wife was assigned her own portion of the palace; and no visiting

of one wife by another was permitted. Access to them from without was

altogether forbidden, even to their nearest relations; and the wives

were thus cut off wholly from the external world, unless they could

manage to communicate with it by means of secret messages. But

precautions of this kind, though necessary, were in themselves

suspicious; they naturally suggested an inquiry into their cause and

object. It was a possible explanation of them that they proceeded from

an extreme and morbid jealousy; but the thought could not fail to occur

to some that they might be occasioned by the fear of detection.

However, as time went on, and no discovery was actually made, the Magus

grew bolder, and ventured to commence that reformation of religion which

he and his order had so much at heart. He destroyed the Zoroastrian

temples in various places, and seems to have put down the old worship,

with its hymns in praise of the Zoroastrian deities. He instituted

Magian rites in lieu of the old ceremonies, and established his

brother Magians as the priest-caste of the Persian nation. The changes

introduced were no doubt satisfactory to the Medes, and to many of

the subject races throughout the Empire. They were even agreeable to a

portion of the Persian people, who leant towards a more material worship

and a more gorgeous ceremonial than had contented their ancestors. If

the faithful worshippers of Ormazd saw them with dismay, they were too

timid to resist, and tacitly acquiesced in the religious revolution.

In one remote province the change gave a fresh impulse to a religious

struggle which was there going on, adding strength to the side of

intolerance. The Jews had now been engaged for fifteen or sixteen years

in the restoration of their temple, according to the permission granted

them by Cyrus. Their enterprise was distasteful to the neighboring

Samaritans, who strained every nerve to prevent its being brought to a

successful issue, and as each new king mounted the Persian throne,

made a fresh effort to have the work stopped by authority. Their

representations had had no effect upon Cambyses; but when they were

repeated on the accession of the Pseudo-Smerdis, the result was

different. An edict was at once sent down to Palestine, reversing the

decree of Cyrus, and authorizing the inhabitants of Samaria to interfere

forcibly in the matter, and compel the Jews to desist from building.

Armed with this decree, the Samaritan authorities hastened to Jerusalem,

and “made the Jews to cease by force and power.”

These revelations of a leaning towards a creed diverse from that of the

Achaemenian princes, combined with the system of seclusion adopted in

the palace--a system not limited to the seraglio, but extending also

to the person of the monarch, who neither quitted the palace precincts

himself, nor allowed any of the Persian nobles to enter them--must have

turned the suspicions previously existing into a general belief and

conviction that the monarch seated on the throne was not Smerdis the son

of Cyrus, but an impostor. Yet still there was for a while no outbreak.

It mattered nothing to the provincials who ruled them, provided that

order was maintained, and that the boons granted them at the opening of

the new reign were not revoked or modified. Their wishes were no doubt

in favor of the prince who had remitted their burthens; and in Media a

peculiar sympathy would exist towards one who had exalted Magism. Such

discontent as was felt would be confined to Persia, or to Persia and a

few provinces of the north-east, where the Zoroastrian faith may have

maintained itself.

At last, among the chief Persians, rumors began to arise. These were

sternly repressed at the outset, and a reign of terror was established,

during which men remained silent through fear. But at length some of

the principal nobles, convinced of the imposture, held secret council

together, and discussed the measures proper to be adopted under the

circumstances. Nothing, however, was done until the arrival at the

capital of a personage felt by all to be the proper leader of the nation

in the existing crisis. This was Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a

prince of the blood royal who probably stood in the direct line of the

succession, failing the issue of Cyrus. At the early age of twenty he

had attracted the attention of that monarch, who suspected him even then

of a design to seize the throne. He was now about twenty-eight years

of age, and therefore at a time of life suited for vigorous enterprise;

which was probably the reason why his father, Hystaspes, who was still

alive, sent him to the capital, instead of proceeding thither in person.

Youth and vigor were necessary qualifications for success in a struggle

against the holders of power; and Hystaspes no longer possessed those

advantages. He therefore yielded to his son that headship of the

movement to which his position would have entitled him; and, with the

leadership in danger, he yielded necessarily his claim to the first

place, when the time of peril should be past and the rewards of victory

should come to be apportioned.

Darius, on his arrival at the capital, was at once accepted as head of

the conspiracy, and with prudent boldness determined on pushing matters

to an immediate decision. Overruling the timidity of a party among the

conspirators, who urged delay, he armed his partisans, and proceeded,

without a moment’s pause, to the attack. According to the Greek

historians, he and his friends entered the palace in a body, and

surprised the Magus in his private apartments, where they slew him

after a brief struggle. But the authority of Darius discredits the Greek

accounts, and shows us, though with provoking brevity, that the course

of events must have been very different. The Magus was not slain in the

privacy of his palace, at Susa or Ecbatana, but met his death in a small

and insignificant fort in the part of Media called “the Maesan plain,”

or, more briefly, “Nisaea,” whither he appears to have fled with a band

of followers. Whether he was first attacked in the capital, and escaping

threw himself into this stronghold, or receiving timely warning of his

danger withdrew to it before the outbreak occurred, or merely happened

to be at the spot when the conspirators decided to make their attempt,

we have no means of determining. We only know that the scene of the

last struggle was Sictachotes, in Media; that Darius made the attack

accompanied by six Persian nobles of high rank; and that the contest

terminated in the slaughter of the Magus and of a number of his

adherents, who were involved in the fall of their master.

Nor did the vengeance of the successful conspirators stop here.

Speeding to the capital, with the head of the Magus in their hands, and

exhibiting everywhere this proof at once of the death of the late king

and of his imposture, they proceeded to authorize and aid in carrying

out, a general massacre of the Magian priests, the abettors of the later

usurpation. Every Magus who could be found was poniarded by the enraged

Persians; and the caste would have been well-nigh exterminated, if it

had not been for the approach of night. Darkness brought the carnage

to an end; and the sword, once sheathed, was not again drawn. Only, to

complete the punishment of the ambitious religionists who had insulted

and deceived the nation, the day of the massacre was appointed to be

kept annually as a solemn festival, under the name of the Magophonia;

and a law was passed that on that day no Magus should leave his house.

The accession of Darius to the vacant throne now took place (Jan. 1,

B.C. 521). According to Herodotus it was preceded by a period of debate

and irresolution, during which the royal authority was, as it were, in

commission among the Seven; and in this interval he places not only the

choice of a king, but an actual discussion on the subject of the proper

form of government to be established. Even his contemporaries, however,

could see that this last story was unworthy of credit and it may be

questioned whether any more reliance ought to be placed on the remainder

of the narrative. Probably the true account of the matter is, that,

having come to a knowledge of the facts of the case, the heads of the

seven great Persian clans or families met together in secret conclave

and arranged all their proceedings beforehand. No government but the

monarchical could be thought of for a moment, and no one could assert

any claim to be king but Darius. Darius went into the conspiracy as a

pretender to the throne: the other six were simply his “faithful men,”

his friends and well-wishers. While, however, the six were far from

disputing Darius’s right, they required and received for themselves a

guarantee of certain privileges, which may either have belonged to them

previously, by law or custom, as the heads of the great clans, or may

have been now for the first time conceded. The king-bound himself to

choose his wives from among the families of the conspirators only, and

sanctioned their claim to have free access to his person at all times

without asking his permission. One of their number, Otanes, demanded and

obtained even more. He and his house were to remain “free,” and were to

receive yearly a magnificent kaftan, or royal present. Thus, something

like a check on unbridled despotism was formally and regularly

established; an hereditary nobility was acknowledged; the king became

to some extent dependent on his grandees; he could not regard himself as

the sole fountain of honor; six great nobles stood round the throne

as its supports; but their position was so near the monarch that they

detracted somewhat from his prestige and dignity.

The guarantee of these privileges was, we may be sure, given, and the

choice of Darius as king made, before the attack upon the. Magus began.

It would have been madness to allow an interval of anarchy. When

Darius reached the capital, with the head of the Pseudo-Smerdis in his

possession, he no doubt proceeded at once to the palace and took his

seat upon the vacant throne. No opposition was offered to him. The

Persians gladly saw a scion of their old royal stock installed in power.

The provincials were too far off to interfere. Such malcontents as

might be present would be cowed by the massacre that was going on in the

streets. The friends and intimates of the fallen monarch would be only

anxious to escape notice. The reign of the new king no doubt commenced

amid those acclamations which are never wanting in the East when a

sovereign first shows himself to his subjects.

The measures with which the new monarch inaugurated his reign had for

their object the re-establishment of the old worship. He rebuilt the

Zoroastrian temples which the Magus had destroyed, and probably restored

the use of the sacred chants and the other accustomed ceremonies. It may

be suspected that his religious zeal proceeded often to the length of

persecution, and that the Magian priests were not the only persons who,

under the orders which he issued, felt the weight of the secular arm.

His Zoroastrian zeal was soon known through the provinces; and the Jews

forthwith resumed the building of their temple, trusting that their

conduct would be consonant with his wishes. This trust was not

misplaced: for, when the Samaritans once more interfered and tried to

induce the new king to put a stop to the work, the only result was

a fresh edict, confirming the old decree of Cyrus, forbidding

interference, and assigning a further grant of money, cattle,

corn, etc., from the royal stores, for the furtherance of the pious

undertaking. Its accomplishment was declared to be for the advantage of

the king and his house, since, when the temple was finished, sacrifices

would be offered in it to “the God of Heaven,” and prayer would be made

“for the life of the king and of his sons.” Such was the sympathy which

still united pure Zoroastrianism with the worship of Jehovah. But the

reign, which, so far, might have seemed to be auspiciously begun,

was destined ere long to meet opposition, and even to encounter armed

hostility, in various quarters. In the loosely organized empires of

the early type, a change of sovereign, especially if accompanied

by revolutionary violence, is always regarded as an opportunity for

rebellion. Doubt as to the condition of the capital paralyzes the

imperial authority in the provinces; and bold men, taking advantage

of the moment of weakness, start up in various places, asserting

independence, and seeking to obtain for themselves kingdoms out of

the chaos which they see around them. The more remote provinces are

especially liable to be thus affected, and often revolt successfully on

such an occasion. It appears that the circumstances under which Darius

obtained the throne were more than usually provocative of the spirit

of disaffection and rebellion. Not only did the governors of remote

countries, like Egypt and Lydia, assume an attitude incompatible with

their duty as subjects, but everywhere, even in the very heart of the

Empire, insurrection raised its head; and for six long years the new

king was constantly employed in reducing one province after another to

obedience. Susiana, Babylonia, Persia itself, Media, Assyria, Armenia,

Hyrcania, Parthia, Margiana, Sagartia, and Sacia, all revolted during

this space, and were successively chastised and recovered. It may

be suspected that the religious element entered into some of these

struggles, and that the unusual number of the revolts and the obstinate

character of many of them were connected with the downfall of Magism and

the restoration of the pure Zoroastrian faith, which Darius was bent on

effecting. But this explanation can only be applied partially. We must

suppose, besides, a sort of contagion of rebellion--an awakening of

hopes, far and wide, among the subject nations, as the rumor that

serious troubles had broken out reached them, and a resolution to take

advantage of the critical state of things, spreading rapidly from one

people to another.

A brief sketch of these various revolts must now be given. They

commenced with a rising in Susiana, where a certain Atrines assumed

the name and state of king, and was supported by the people. Almost

simultaneously a pretender appeared in Babylon, who gave out that he was

the son of the late king, Nabonidus, and bore the world-renowned name

of Nebuchadnezzar. Darius, regarding this second revolt as the more

important of the two, while he dispatched a force to punish the

Susianians, proceeded in person against the Babylonian pretender. The

rivals met at the river Tigris, which the Babylonians held with a naval

force, while their army was posted on the right bank, ready to dispute

the passage. Darius, however, crossed the river in their dispute, and,

defeating the troops of his antagonist, pressed forward against the

capital. He had nearly reached it, when the pretender gave him battle

for the second time at a small town on the banks of the Euphrates.

Fortune again declared in favor of the Persians, who drove the host of

their enemy into the water and destroyed great numbers. The soi-disant

Nebuchadnezzar escaped with a few horsemen and threw himself into

Babylon; but the city was ill prepared for a siege, and was soon taken,

the pretender falling into the hands of his enemy, who caused him to be

executed.

Meanwhile, in Susiana, Atrines, the original leader of the rebellion,

had been made prisoner by the troops sent against him, and, being

brought to Darius while he was on his march against Babylon, was put to

death. But this severity had little effect. A fresh leader appeared in

the person of a certain Martes, a Persian who, taking example from the

Babylonian rebel, assumed a name which connected him with the old kings

of the country, and probably claimed to be their descendant, but the

hands of Darius were now free by the termination of the Babylonian

contest, and he was able to proceed towards Susiana himself. This

movement, apparently, was unexpected; for when the Susianians heard of

it they were so alarmed that they laid hands on the pretender and slew

him.

A more important rebellion followed. Three of the chief provinces of

the empire, Media, Armenia, and Assyria, revolted in concert. A Median

monarch was set up, who called himself Xathrites, and claimed descent

from the great Oyaxares; and it would seem that the three countries

immediately acknowledged his sway. Darius, seeing how formidable the

revolt was, determined to act with caution. Settling himself at the

newly-conquered city of Babylon, he resolved to employ his generals

against the rebels, and in this way to gauge the strength of the

outbreak, before adventuring his own person into the fray. Hydarnes,

one of the Seven conspirators, was sent into Media with an army, while

Dadarses, an Armenian, was dispatched into Armenia, and Vomises, a

Persian, was ordered to march through Assyria into the same country.

All three generals were met by the forces of the pretender, and several

battles were fought, with results that seem not to have been very

decisive. Darius claims the victory on each occasion for his own

generals; but it is evident that his arms made little progress, and

that, in spite of several small defeats, the rebellion maintained a bold

front, and was thought not unlikely to be successful. So strong was

this feeling that two of the eastern provinces, Hyrcania and Parthia,

deserted the Persian cause in the midst of the struggle, and placed

themselves under the rule of Xathrites. Either this circumstance, or the

general position of affairs, induced Darius at length to take the field

in person. Quitting Babylon, he marched into Media, and being met by the

pretender near a town called Kudrus, he defeated him in a great battle.

This is no doubt the engagement of which Herodotus speaks, and which he

rightly regards as decisive. The battle of Kudrus gave Ecbatana into the

hands of Darius, and made the Median prince an outcast and a fugitive.

He fled towards the East, probably intending to join his partisans in

Hyrcania and Parthia, but was overtaken in the district of Rhages and

made prisoner by the troops of Darius. The king treated his captive with

extreme severity. Having cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, he kept

him for some time chained to the door of his palace, in order that there

might be no doubt of his capture. When this object had been sufficiently

secured, the wretched sufferer was allowed to end his miserable

existence. He was crucified in his capital city, Ecbatana, before the

eyes of those who had seen his former glory.

The rebellion was thus crushed in its original seat, but it had still to

be put down in the countries whereto it had extended itself. Parthia

and Hyrcania, which had embraced the cause of the pretender, were still

maintaining a conflict with their former governor, Hystaspes, Darius’s

father. Darius marched as far as Rhages to his father’s assistance, and

dispatched from that point a body of Persian troops to reinforce him.

With this important aid Hystaspes once more gave the rebels battle, and

succeeded in defeating them so entirely that they presently made their

submission.

Troubles, meanwhile, had broken out in Sagartia. A native chief, moved

probably by the success which had for a while attended the Median rebel

who claimed to rule as the descendant and representative of Cyaxares,

came forward with similar pretensions, and was accepted by the

Sargartians as their monarch. This revolt, however, proved unimportant.

Darius suppressed it with the utmost facility by means of a mixed

army of Persians and Medes, whom he placed under a Median leader,

Tachamaspates. The pretender was captured and treated almost exactly

in the same way as the Mede whose example he had followed. His nose and

ears were cut off; he was chained for a while at the palace door; and

finally he was crucified at Arbela.

Another trifling revolt occurred about the same time in Margiana. The

Margians rebelled and set up a certain Phraates, a native, to be their

king. But the satrap of Bactria, within whose province Margiana lay,

quelled the revolt almost immediately.

Hitherto, however thickly troubles had come upon him, Darius could have

the satisfaction of feeling that he was contending with foreigners,

and that his own nation at any rate was faithful and true. But now

this consolation was to be taken from him. During his absence in

the provinces of the north-east Persia itself revolted against his

authority, and acknowledged for king an impostor, who, undeterred by the

fate of Gomates, and relying on the obscurity which still hung over

the end of the real Smerdis, assumed his name, and claimed to be the

legitimate occupant of the throne. The Persians at home were either

deceived a second time, or were willing to try a change of ruler; but

the army of Darius, composed of Persians and Medes, adhered to the

banner under which they had so often marched to victory, and enabled

Darius, after a struggle of some duration, to re-establish his sway.

The impostor suffered two defeats at the hands of Artabardes, one

of Darius’s generals, while a force which he had detached to excite

rebellion in Arachosia was engaged by the satrap of that province and

completely routed. The so-called Smerdis was himself captured, and

suffered the usual penalty of unsuccessful revolt, crucifixion.

Before, however, these results were accomplished--while the fortune of

war still hung in the balance--a fresh danger threatened. Encouraged

by the disaffection which appeared to be so general, and which had at

length reached the very citadel of the Empire, Babylon revolted for the

second time. A man, named Aracus, an Armenian by descent, but settled

in Babylonia, headed the insurrection, and, adopting the practice

of personation so usual at the time, assumed the name and style of

“Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabonidus.” Less alarmed on this occasion than

at the time of the first revolt, the king was content to send a

Median general against the new pretender. This officer, who is called

Intaphres, speedily chastised the rebels, capturing Babylon, and taking

Aracus prisoner. Crucifixion was again the punishment awarded to the

rebel leader.

A season of comparative tranquillity seems now to have set in; and it

may have been in this interval that Darius found time to chastise

the remoter governors, who without formally declaring themselves

independent, or assuming the title of king, had done acts savoring of

rebellion. Oroetes, the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself

strangely even under Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to

death an ally of that monarch’s, Polycrates of Samos, had from the

time of the Magian revolution assumed an attitude quite above that of a

subject. Having a quarrel with Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring

province, he murdered him and annexed his territory. When Darius sent a

courier to him with a message the purport of which he disliked, he set

men to waylay and assassinate him. It was impossible to overlook such

acts; and Darius must have sent an army into Asia Minor, if one of

his nobles had not undertaken to remove Oroetes in another way. Arming

himself with several written orders bearing the king’s seal, he went

to Sardis, and gradually tried the temper of the guard which the satrap

kept round his person. When he found them full of respect for the royal

authority and ready to do whatever the king commanded, he produced

an order for the governor’s execution, which they carried into effect

immediately.

The governor of Egypt, Aryandes, had shown a guilty ambition in a more

covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of

remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the

king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to

believe that he even placed his name upon his coins; an act which to

the Oriental mind distinctly implied a claim of independent sovereignty.

Darius taxed him with a design to revolt, and put him to death on the

charge, apparently without exciting any disturbance.

Still, however, the Empire was not wholly tranquillized. A revolt in

Susiana, suppressed by the conspirator Gobryas, and another among the

Sacse of the Tigris, quelled by Darius in person, are recorded on the

rock of Behistun, in a supplementary portion of the Inscription. We

cannot date, unless it be by approximation, these various troubles; but

there is reason to believe that they were almost all contained within

a space not exceeding five or six years. The date of the Behistun

Inscription is fixed by internal evidence to about B.C. 516-515--in

other words, to the fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius. Its

erection seems to mark the termination of the first period of the reign,

or that of disturbance, and the commencement of the second period, or

that of tranquillity, internal progress, and patronage of the fine arts

by the monarch.

It was natural that Darius, having with so much effort and difficulty

reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, should proceed to consider

within himself how the recurrence of such a time of trouble might be

prevented. His experience had shown him how weak were the ties which had

hitherto been thought sufficient to hold the Empire together, and how

slight an obstacle they opposed to the tendency, which all great empires

have, to disruption. But, however natural it might be to desire a remedy

for the evils which afflicted the State, it was not easy to devise one.

Great empires had existed in Western Asia for above seven hundred years,

and had all suffered more or less from the same inherent weakness; but

no one had as yet invented a cure, or even (so far as appears) conceived

the idea of improving on the rude system of imperial sway which the

first conqueror had instituted. It remained for Darius, not only to

desire, but to design--not only to design, but to bring into action--an

entirely new form and type of government. He has been well called “the

true founder of the Persian state.” He found the Empire a crude and

heterogeneous mass of ill-assorted elements, hanging loosely together by

the single tie of subjection to a common head; he left it a compact

and regularly organized body, united on a single well-ordered system,

permanently established everywhere.

On the nature and details of this system it will be necessary to speak

at some length. It was the first, and probably the best, instance of

that form of government which, taking its name from the Persian word

for provincial ruler, is known generally as the system of “satrapial”

administration. Its main principles were, in the first place, the

reduction of the whole Empire to a quasi-uniformity by the substitution

of one mode of governing for several; secondly, the substitution of

fixed and definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable and

uncertain calls; and thirdly, the establishment of a variety of checks

and counterpoises among the officials to whom it was necessary that the

crown should delegate its powers, which tended greatly to the security

of the monarch and the stability of the kingdom. A consideration of the

modes in which these three principles were applied will bring before us

in a convenient form the chief points of the system.

Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the

abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental

machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of

the satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or

assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which

it is extended. On the contrary, it allows, and indeed encourages, the

several nations to retain their languages, habits, manners, religion,

laws, and modes of local government. Only it takes care to place above

all these things a paramount state authority, which is one and the same

everywhere, whereon the unity of the kingdom is dependent. The authority

instituted by Darius was that of his satraps. He divided the whole

empire into a number of separate governments--a number which must have

varied at different times, but which seems never to have fallen short

of twenty. Over each government he placed a satrap, or supreme civil

governor, charged with the collection and transmission of the revenue,

the administration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the general

supervision of the territory. These satraps were nominated by the king

at his pleasure from any class of his subjects, and held office for no

definite term, but simply until recalled, being liable to deprivation

or death at any moment, without other formality than the presentation

of the royal firman. While, however, they remained in office they were

despotic--they represented the Great King, and were clothed with a

portion of his majesty--they had palaces, Courts, body-guards, parks

or “paradises,” vast trains of eunuchs and attendants, well-filled,

seraglios. They wielded the power of life and death. They assessed the

tribute on the several towns and villages within their jurisdiction

at their pleasure, and appointed deputies--called sometimes, like

themselves, satraps--over cities or districts within their province,

whose office was regarded as one of great dignity. They exacted from

the provincials, for their own support and that of their Court, over and

above the tribute due to the crown, whatever sum they regarded them as

capable of furnishing. Favors, and even justice, had to be purchased

from them by gifts. They were sometimes guilty of gross outrages on the

persons and honor of their subjects. Nothing restrained their tyranny

but such sense of right as they might happen to possess, and the fear of

removal or execution if the voice of complaint reached the monarch.

Besides this uniform civil administration, the Empire was pervaded

throughout by one and the same military system. The services of the

subject nations as soldiers were, as a general rule, declined, unless

upon rare and exceptional cases. Order was maintained by large and

numerous garrisons of foreign troops--Persians and Medes--quartered

on the inhabitants, who had little sympathy with those among whom they

lived, and would be sure to repress sternly any outbreak. All places of

much strength were occupied in this way; and special watch was kept upon

the great capitals, which were likely to be centres of disaffection.

Thus a great standing army, belonging to the conquering race, stood

everywhere on guard throughout the Empire, offending the provincials no

doubt by their pride, their violence, and their contemptuous bearing,

but rendering a native revolt under ordinary circumstances hopeless.

Some exceptions to the general uniformity had almost of necessity to be

made in so vast and heterogeneous an empire as the Persian. Occasionally

it was thought wise to allow the continuance of a native dynasty in a

province; and the satrap had in such a case to share with the native

prince a divided authority. This was certainly the case in Cilicia, and

probably in Paphlagonia and Phoenicia. Tribes also, included within

the geographical limits of a satrapy, were sometimes recognized as

independent; and petty wars were carried on between these hordes and

their neighbors. Robber bands in many places infested the mountains,

owing no allegiance to any one, and defied alike the satrap and the

standing army.

The condition of Persia Proper was also purely exceptional. Persia paid

no tribute, and was not counted as a satrapy. Its inhabitants were,

however, bound, when the king passed through their country, to bring him

gifts according to their means. This burthen may have been felt sensibly

by the rich, but it pressed very lightly on the poor, who, if they could

not afford an ox or a sheep, might bring a little milk or cheese, a

few dates, or a handful of wild fruit. On the other hand, the king was

bound, whenever he visited Pasargadae, to present to each Persian woman

who appeared before him a sum equal to twenty Attic drachmas, or about

sixteen shillings of our money. This custom commemorated the service

rendered by the sex in the battle wherein Cyrus first repulsed the

forces of Astyages.

The substitution of definite burthens on the subject in lieu of variable

and uncertain charges was aimed at, rather than effected, by the new

arrangement of the revenue which is associated with the name of Darius.

This arrangement consisted in fixing everywhere the amount of tribute

in money and in kind which each satrapy was to furnish to the crown. A

definite money payment, varying, in ordinary satrapies, from 170 to

1000 Babylonian silver talents,330 or from L42,000. to L250,000. of our

money, and amounting, in the exceptional case of the Indian satrapy, to

above a million sterling, was required annually by the sovereign,

and had to be remitted by the satrap to the capital. Besides this, a

payment, the nature and amount of which was also fixed, had to be made

in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or

those commodities, for which it was most celebrated. This latter burthen

must have pressed very unequally on different portions of the Empire,

if the statement of Herodotus be true that Babylonia and Assyria paid

one-third of it. The payment seems to have been very considerable

in amount. Egypt had to supply grain sufficient for the nutriment of

120,000 Persian troops quartered in the country. Media had to contribute

100,000 sheep, 4000 mules, and 3000 horses; Cappadocia, half the above

number of each kind of animal; Armenia furnished 20,000 colts; Cilicia

gave 360 white horses and a sum of 140 talents (L35,000.) in lieu

of further tribute in kind. Babylonia, besides corn, was required to

furnish 500 boy eunuchs. These charges, however, were all fixed by the

crown, and may have been taken into consideration in assessing the money

payment, the main object of the whole arrangement evidently being to

make the taxation of each province proportionate to its wealth and

resources.