It scarcely belongs to the history of Persia to trace in detail the

fortunes of the contending powers during the latter portion of the

Peloponnesian war. We need only observe that the real policy of the

Court of Susa, well understood, and, on the whole, tolerably well

carried out by the satraps, was to preserve the balance of power

between Athens and Sparta, to allow neither to obtain too decided a

preponderance, to help each in turn, and encourage each to waste the

other’s strength, but to draw back whenever the moment came for striking

a decisive blow against either side. This policy skilfully pursued

by Tissaphernes (who had a genius for intrigue and did not require

an Alcibiades to give him lessons in state-craft), more clumsily

by Pharnabazus, whose character was comparatively sincere and

straightforward, prevailed until the younger Cyrus made his appearance

upon the scene, when a disturbing force came into play which had

disastrous effects both on the fortunes of Greece and on those of

Persia. The younger Cyrus had personal views of self-aggrandizement

which conflicted with the true interests of his nation, and was so bent

on paving the way for his own ascent to sovereign power that he did not

greatly care whether he injured his country or no. As the accomplishment

of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a powerful land-force,

he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian alliance; and, having

once made his choice, he lent his ally such effectual aid that in

two years from the time of his coming down to the coast the war was

terminated. Persian gold manned and partly built the fleet which

conquered at AEgos-Potami; perhaps it contributed in a still more

decisive manner to the victory. Cyrus, by placing his stores at the

entire command of Lysander, deserved and acquired the cordial good-will

of Sparta and the Peloponnesians generally--an advantage of which we

shall find him in the sequel making good use.

The gain to Persia from the dominion which she had reacquired over the

Greeks of Asia was more than counter-balanced by a loss of territory in

another quarter, which seems to have occurred during the reign of Darius

Nothus, though in what exact year is doubtful. The revolt of Egypt is

placed by Heeren and Clinton in B.C. 414, by Eusebius in B.C. 411, by

Manetho in the last year of Darius Nothus, or B.C. 405. The earlier

dates depend on the view that the Amyrtseus of Manetho’s twenty-eighth

dynasty was the leader of the rebellion, and had a reign of six years

at this period--a view which is perhaps unsound. Manetho probably

represented Nepherites (Nefaorot) as the leader; and it is quite clear

that he placed the re-establishment of the old throne of the Pharaohs in

the year that Darius Nothus died. As his authority is the best that we

can obtain upon this obscure point, we may regard the last days of

the Persian monarch as clouded by news of a rebellion, which had been

perhaps for some time contemplated, but which did not break out until he

was known to be in a moribund condition.

A few years earlier, B.C. 408 or 409, the Medes had made an unsuccessful

attempt to recover their independence. The circumstances of this revolt,

which is mentioned by no writer but Xenophon, are wholly unknown, but we

may perhaps connect it with the rebellion of Terituchmes, a son-in-law

of the king. The story of Terituchmes, which belongs to this period,

deserves at any rate to be told, as illustrating, in a very remarkable

way, the corruption, cruelty, and dissoluteness of the Persian Court at

the time to which we have now come. Terituchmes was the son of Idernes,

a Persian noble of high rank, probably a descendant of the conspirator

Hydarnes. On the death of his father, he succeeded to his satrapy, as

to a hereditary fief, and being high in favor with Darius Nothus, he

received in marriage that monarch’s daughter, Amestris. Having, however,

after his marriage become enamored of his own half-sister, Roxana, and

having persuaded her to an incestuous commerce, he grew to detest his

wife, and as he could not rid himself of her without making an enemy of

the king, he entered into a conspiracy with 300 others, and planned to

raise a rebellion. The bond of a common crime, cruel and revolting in

its character, was to secure the fidelity of the rebels one to another.

Amestris was to be placed in a sack, and each conspirator in turn was

to plunge his sword into her body. It is not clear whether this intended

murder was executed or no. Hoping to prevent it, Darius commissioned

a certain Udiastes, who was in the service of Terituchmes, to save his

daughter by any means that might be necessary; and Udiastes, collecting

a band, set upon Terituchmes and slew him after a strenuous resistance.

After this, his mother, brothers, and sisters were apprehended by the

order of Parysatis, the queen, who caused Roxana to be hewn in pieces,

and the other unfortunates to be buried alive. It was with great

difficulty that Arsaces, the heir-apparent, afterwards Artaxerxes

Mnemon, preserved his own wife, Statira, from the massacre. It happened

that she was sister to Terituchmes, and, though wholly innocent of his

offence, she would have been involved in the common destruction of her

family had not her husband with tears and entreaties begged her life of

his parents. The son of Terituchmes maintained himself for a while in

his father’s government; but Parysatis succeeded in having him taken off

by poison.

The character of Darius Nothus is seen tolerably clearly in the account

of his reign which has been here given. He was at once weak and wicked.

Contrary to his sworn word, he murdered his brothers, Secydianus and

Arsites. He broke faith with Pissuthnes. He sanctioned the wholesale

execution of Terituchmes’ relatives. Under him the eunuchs of the palace

rose to such power that one of them actually ventured to aspire to the

sovereignty. Parysatis, his wife, one of the most cruel and malignant

even of Oriental women, was in general his chosen guide and counsellor.

His severities cannot, however, in all eases be ascribed to her

influence, for he was anxious that she should put the innocent Statira

to death, and, when she refused, reproached her with being foolishly

lenient. In his administration of the Empire he was unsuccessful; for,

if he gained some tracts of Asia Minor, he lost the entire African

satrapy. Under him we trace a growing relaxation of the checks by which

the great officers of the state were intended to have been held

under restraint. Satraps came to be practically uncontrolled in their

provinces, and the dangerous custom arose of allowing sons to succeed,

almost as a matter of course, to the governments of their fathers.

Powers unduly large were lodged in the hands of a single officer, and

actions, that should have brought down upon their perpetrators sharp

and signal punishment, were timorously or negligently condoned by the

supreme authority. Cunning and treachery were made the weapons wherewith

Persia contended with her enemies. Manly habits were laid aside, and the

nation learned to trust more and more to the swords of mercenaries.

Shortly before the death of Darius there seems to have been a doubt

raised as to the succession. Parysatis, who preferred her second son to

her first-born, imagined that her influence was sufficient to induce her

husband to nominate Cyrus, instead of Arsaces, to succeed him; and Cyrus

is said to have himself expected to be preferred above his brother. He

had the claim, if claim it can be called, that he was the first son

born to his father after he became king; but his main dependence was

doubtless on his mother. Darius, however, proved less facile in his

dying moments than he had been during most of his life, and declined

to set aside the rights of the eldest son on the frivolous pretence

suggested to him. His own feelings may have inclined him towards

Arsaces, who resembled him far more than Cyrus did in character; and

Cyrus, moreover, had recently offended him, and been summoned to court,

to answer a very serious charge. Arsaces, therefore, was nominated, and

took the name of Artaxerxes--as one of a king who had reigned long, and,

on the whole, prosperously.

An incident of ill omen accompanied the commencement of the new reign

(B.C. 405). The inauguration of the monarch was a religious ceremony,

and took place in a temple at Pasargadae, the old capital, to which

a peculiar sanctity was still regarded as attaching. Artaxerxes had

proceeded to this place, and was about to engage in the ceremonies, when

he was interrupted by Tissaphernes, who informed him that his life was

in danger. Cyrus, he said, proposed to hide himself in the temple,

and assassinate him as he changed his dress, a necessary part of the

formalities. One of the officiating priests--a Magus, as it would

seem--confirmed the charge. Cyrus was immediately arrested, and would

have been put to death on the spot, had not his mother interfered, and,

embracing him in her arms, made it impossible for the executioner to

perform his task. With some difficulty she persuaded Artaxerxes to spare

his brother’s life and allow him to return to his government, assuring

him, and perhaps believing, that the charges made against her favorite

were without foundation.

Cyrus returned to Asia Minor with the full determination of attacking

his brother at the earliest opportunity. He immediately began the

collection of a mercenary force, composed wholly of Greeks, on whose

arms he was disposed to place far more reliance than on those of

Orientals. As Tissaphernes had returned to the coast with him, and was

closely watching all his proceedings, it was necessary to exercise great

caution, lest his intentions should become known before he was ready to

put them into execution. He therefore had recourse to three different

devices. Having found a cause of quarrel with Tissaphernes in the

ambiguous terms of their respective commissions, he pressed it on to

an actual war, which enabled him to hire troops openly, as against this

enemy; and in this way he collected from 5000 to 6000 Greeks--chiefly

Peloponnesians. He further gave secret commissions to Greek officers,

whose acquaintance he had made when he was previously in these parts,

to collect men for him, whom they were to employ in their own quarrels

until he needed their services. From 3000 to 4000 troops were gathered

for him by these persons. Finally, when he found himself nearly ready

to commence his march, he discovered a new foe in the Pisidians of

the Western Taurus, and proceeded to levy a force against them, which

amounted to some thousands more. In all, he had in readiness 11,000

heavy-armed and about 2000 light-armed Greeks before his purpose became

so clear that Tissaphernes could no longer mistake it, and therefore

started off to carry his somewhat tardy intelligence to the capital.

The aims of Cyrus were different from those of ordinary rebel satraps;

and we must go back to the times of Darius Hystaspis in order to find a

parallel to them. Instead of seeking to free a province from the Persian

yoke, or to carve out for himself an independent sovereignty in some

remote corner of the Empire, his intention was to dethrone his brother,

and place on his own brows the diadem of his great namesake. It was

necessary for him therefore to assume the offensive. Only by a bold

advance, and by taking his enemy to some extent unprepared, and so at a

disadvantage, could he hope to succeed in his audacious project. It is

not easy to see that he could have had any considerable party among

the Persians, or any ground for expecting to be supported by any of

the subject nations. His following must have been purely personal; and

though it may be true that he was of a character to win more admiration

and affection than his brother, yet Artaxerxes himself was far from

being unpopular with his subjects, whom he pleased by a familiarity and

a good-nature to which they were little accustomed. Cyrus knew that

his principal dependence must be on himself, on his Greeks, and on the

carelessness and dilatoriness of his adversary, who was destitute of

military talent and was even thought to be devoid of personal bravery.

Thus it was important to advance as soon as possible. Cyrus therefore

quitted Sardis before all his troops were collected (B.C. 401), and

marched through Lydia and Phrygia, by the route formally followed in the

reverse direction by the army of Xerxes, as far as Celsense, where

the remainder of his mercenaries joined him. With his Greek force thus

raised to 13,000 men, and with a native army not much short of 100,000,

he proceeded on through Phrygia and Lycaonia to the borders of Cilicia,

having determined on taking the shortest route to Babylon, through the

Cilician and Syrian passes, and then along the course of the Euphrates.

At Caystrupedion he was met by Epyaxa, consort of Syennesis, the

tributary king of Cilicia, who brought him a welcome supply of money,

and probably assured him of the friendly disposition of her husband, who

was anxious to stand well with both sides. In Lycaonia, Cyrus divided

his forces, and sending a small body of troops under Menon to escort

Epyaxa across the mountains and enter Cilicia by the more western of the

two practicable passes he proceeded himself with the bulk of his troops

to the famous Pylae Cilicias, where he probably knew that Syennesis

would only make a feint of resistance. He found the pass occupied; but

it was evacuated the next day, on the receipt of intelligence that Menon

had already entered the country and that the fleet of Cyrus--composed

partly of his own ships, partly of a squadron furnished to him by

Sparta--had appeared off the coast and threatened a landing. Cyrus

thus crossed the most difficult and dangerous of all the passes that

separated him from the heart of the Empire, without the loss of a man.

Thus far it would appear that Cyrus had to a certain extent masked his

plans. The Greek captains must have guessed, if they had not actually

learnt, his intentions; but to the bulk of the soldiery they had been

hitherto absolutely unknown. It was only in Cilicia that the light broke

in upon them, and they began to suspect that they were being marched

into the interior of Asia, there to engage in a contest with the entire

power of the Great King. Something of the horror which is ascribed to

Cleomenes, when it was suggested to him a century earlier that he should

conduct his Spartans the distance of a three months’ journey from the

sea, appears to have taken possession of the minds of the mercenaries

on their awaking to this conviction. They at once refused to proceed. It

was only by the most skilful management on the part of their captains,

joined to a judicious liberality on the part of Cyrus, that they were

induced to forego their intention of returning home at once, and so

breaking up the expedition. A perception of the difficulty of effecting

a retreat, together with an increase of pay, extorted a reluctant assent

to continue the march, of which the real term and object were even now

not distinctly avowed. Cyrus said he proposed to attack the army of

Abrocomas, which he believed to be posted on the Euphrates. If he did

not find it there, a fresh consultation might be held to consider any

further movement.

The march now proceeded rapidly. The gates of Syria--a narrow pass on

the east coast of the Gulf of Issus, shut in, like Thermopylae,

between the mountains and the sea, and strengthened moreover by

fortifications--were left unguarded by Abrocomas; and the army, having

traversed them without loss, crossed the Amanus range by the pass of

Beilan, and in twenty-nine days from Tarsus reached Thapsacus on

the Euphrates. The forces of Artaxerxes had nowhere made their

appearance--Abrocomas, though he had 300,000 men at his disposal, had

weakly or treacherously abandoned all these strong and easily defensible

positions; he does not seem even to have wasted the country; but,

having burnt the boats at Thapsacus, he was content to fall back upon

Phoenicia, and left the way to Babylon and Susa open. At Thapsacus there

was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks, who had no longer the

sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they only stipulated for a

further increase of pay, which was readily promised them by the sanguine

prince, who believed himself on the point of obtaining by their aid the

inexhaustible treasures of the Empire. The river, which happened to be

unusually low for the time of year, was easily forded. Cyrus entered

Mesopotamia, and continued his march down the left bank of the Euphrates

at the quickest rate that it was possible to move a hundred thousand

Orientals. In thirty-three days he had accomplished above 600 miles, and

had approached within 120 miles of Babylon without seeing any traces

of an enemy. His only difficulties were from the nature of the country,

which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting close

along the river. From want of fodder there was a great mortality among

the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to

subsist almost entirely upon meat. At last, when the Babylonian alluvium

was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy

began to be observed. Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings

had finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was

already on his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men

and had sent forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly

to destroy the crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from

benefiting by them. Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the

rate of about fourteen miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a

general engagement before evening came. On the third night, believing

the battle to be imminent, he distributed the commands and laid down a

plan of operations. But morning brought no appearance of the enemy, and

the whole day passed tranquilly. In the course of it, he came upon a

wide and deep trench cut through the plain for a distance of above forty

miles--a recent work, which Artaxerxes had intended as a barrier to stop

the progress of his enemy. But the trench was undefended and incomplete,

a space of twenty feet being left between its termination and the

Euphrates. Cyrus, having passed it, began to be convinced that his

brother would not risk a battle in the plain, but would retreat to the

mountains and make his stand at Persepolis or Ecbatana. He therefore

continued his march negligently. His men piled their arms on the wagons

or laid them, across the beasts of burthen; while he himself exchanged

the horse which he usually rode for a chariot, and proceeded on his way

leisurely, having about his person a small escort, which preserved

their ranks, while all the rest of the troops were allowed to advance in

complete disarray.

Suddenly, as the army was proceeding in this disorderly manner through

the plain, a single horseman was perceived advancing at full gallop from

the opposite quarter, his steed all flecked with foam. As he drew near,

he shouted aloud to those whom he met, addressing some in Greek, others

in Persian, and warning them that the Great King, with his whole force,

was close at hand, and rapidly approaching in order of battle. The news

took every one by surprise, and at first all was hurry and confusion.

The Greeks, however, who were on the right, rapidly marshalled their

line, resting it upon the river; while Cyrus put on his armor, mounted

his horse, and arranged the ranks of his Asiatics. Ample time was given

for completing all the necessary dispositions; since three hours, at the

least, must have elapsed from the announcement of the enemy’s approach

before he actually appeared. Then a white cloud of dust arose towards

the verge of the horizon, below which a part of the plain began soon to

darken; presently gleams of light were seen to flash out from the dense

mass which was advancing, the serried lines of spears came into view,

and the component parts of the huge army grew to be discernible. On the

extreme left was a body of horsemen with white cuirasses, commanded by

Tissaphernes; next came infantry, carrying the long wicker shield, or

_gerrhum_ then a solid square of Egyptians, heavily armed, and bearing

wooden shields that reached to the feet; then the contingents of many

different nations, some on foot, some on horseback, armed with bows

and other weapons. The line stretched away to the east further than the

Greeks, who were stationed on the right, could see, extending (as it

would seem) more than twice the distance which was covered by the

army of Cyrus. Artaxerxes was in the centre of his line, on horseback,

surrounded by a mounted guard of 6000 Persians. In front of the line,

towards the river, were drawn up at wide intervals a hundred and fifty

scythed chariots, which were designed to carry terror and confusion into

the ranks of the Greeks.

On the other side, Cyrus had upon the extreme right a thousand

Paphlagonian cavalry with the more lightly armed of the Greeks;

next, the Greek heavy-armed, under Clearchus; and then his Asiatics,

stretching in a line to about the middle of his adversary’s army, his

own special command being in the centre; and his left wing being led

by the satrap, Ariaeus. With Ariseus was posted the great mass of the

cavalry; but a band of six hundred, clad in complete armor, with their

horses also partially armed, waited on Cyrus himself, and accompanied

him wherever he went. As the enemy drew near, and Cyrus saw how much he

was outflanked upon the left, he made an attempt to remedy the evil by

ordering Clearchus to move with his troops from the extreme right to

the extreme left of the line, where he would be opposite to Artaxerxes

himself. This, no doubt, would have been a hazardous movement to make in

the face of a superior enemy; and Clearchus, feeling this, and regarding

the execution of the order as left to his discretion, declined to move

away from the river. Cyrus, who trusted much to the Greek general’s

judgment, did not any further press the change, but prepared to fight

the battle as he stood.

The combat began upon the right. When the enemy had approached within

six or seven hundred yards, the impatience of the Greeks to engage could

not be restrained. They sang the paean and started forwards at a pace

which in a short time became a run. The Persians did not await their

charge. The drivers leaped from their chariots, the line of battle

behind them wavered, and then turned and fled without striking a blow.

One Greek only was wounded by an arrow. As for the scythed chariots,

they damaged their own side more than the Greeks; for the frightened

horses in many cases, carried the vehicles into the thick of the

fugitives, while the Greeks opened their ranks and gave passage to such

as charged in an opposite direction. Moderating their pace so as to

preserve their tactical arrangement, but still advancing with great

rapidity, the Greeks pressed on the flying enemy, and pursued him a

distance of two or three miles, never giving a thought to Cyrus, who,

they supposed, would conquer those opposed to him with as much ease as

themselves.

But the prince meanwhile was in difficulties. Finding himself

outnumbered and outflanked, and fearing that his whole army would be

surrounded, and even the victorious Greeks attacked in the rear, he set

all upon one desperate cast and charged with his Six Hundred against

the six thousand horse who protected his brother. Artagerses, their

commander, who met him with a Homeric invective, he slew with his own

hand. The six thousand were routed and took to flight; the person of the

king was exposed to view; and Cyrus, transported at the sight, rushed

forward shouting, “I see the man,” and hurling his javelin, struck him

straight upon the breast, with such force that the cuirass was pierced

and a slight flesh-wound inflicted. The king fell from his horse; but at

the same moment Cyrus received a wound beneath the eye from the javelin

of a Persian, and in the melee which followed he was slain with eight of

his followers. The Six Hundred could lend no effectual aid, because they

had rashly dispersed in pursuit of the flying enemy.

As the whole contest was a personal one, the victory was now decided.

Fighting, however, continued till nightfall. On learning the death of

their leader, the Asiatic troops under Ariseus fled--first to their

camp, and then, when Artaxerxes attacked them there, to the last night’s

station. The Grecian camp was assaulted by Tissaphernes, who at the

beginning of the battle had charged through the Greek light-armed,

without however, inflicting on them any loss, and had then pressed on,

thinking to capture the Grecian baggage. But the guard defended their

camp with success, and slew many of the assailants. Tissaphernes and

the king drew off after a while, and retraced their steps, in order to

complete the victory by routing the troops of Clearchus. Clearchus was

at the same time returning from his pursuit, having heard that his camp

was in danger, and as the two bodies of troops approached, he found

his right threatened by the entire host of the enemy, which might have

lapped round it and attacked it in front, in flank, and in rear. To

escape this peril he was about to wheel his line and make it rest

alone its whole extent upon the river, when the Persians passed him and

resumed the position which they had occupied at the beginning of the

battle. They were then about to attack, when once more the Greeks

anticipated them and charged. The effect was again ludicrous. The

Persians would not abide the onset, but fled faster than before. The

Greeks pursued them to a village, close by which was a knoll or mound,

whither the fugitives had betaken themselves. Again the Greeks made a

movement in advance, and immediately the flight recommenced. The last

rays of the setting sun fell on scattered masses of Persian horse and

foot flying in all directions over the plain from the little band of

Greeks.

The battle of Cunaxa was a double blow to the Persian power. By the

death of Cyrus there was lost the sole chance that existed of such a

re-invigoration of the Empire as might have enabled it to start again

on a new lease of life, with ability to held its own, and strength to

resume once more the aggressive attitude of former times. The talents of

Cyrus have perhaps been overrated, but he was certainly very superior

to most Orientals; and there can be no doubt that the Empire would have

greatly gained by the substitution of his rule for that of his brother.

He was active, energetic, prompt indeed, ready in speech, faithful in

the observance of his engagements, brave, liberal--he had more foresight

and more self-contro than most Asiatics; he knew how to deal with

different classes of men; he had a great power of inspiring affection

and retaining it; he was free from the folly of national prejudice,

and could appreciate as they deserved both the character and the

institutions of foreigners. It is likely that he would have proved a

better administrator and ruler than any king of Persia since Darius

Hystaspis. He would, therefore, undoubtedly have raised his country

to some extent. Whether he could really have arrested its decline, and

enabled it to avenge the humiliations of Marathon, Salamis, and the

peace of Callias, is, however, exceedingly doubtful. For Cyrus, though

he had considerable merits, was not without great and grievous defects.

As the Tartar is said always to underlie the Russ, so the true Oriental

underlay that coating of Grecian manners and modes of thought and act,

with which a real admiration of the Hellenic race induced Cyrus to

conceal his native barbarism. When he slew his cousins for an act which

he chose to construe as disrespect, and when he executed Orontes for

contemplated desertion, secretly and silently, so that no one knew

his fate, when transported with jealous rage he rushed madly upon his

brother, exposing to hazard the success of all his carefully formed

plans, and in fact ruining his cause, the acquired habits of the

Phil-Hellene gave way, and the native ferocity of the Asiatic came

to the surface. We see Cyrus under favorable circumstances, while

conciliation, tact, and self-restraint were necessities of his position,

without which he could not possibly gain his ends--we do not know what

effect success and the possession of supreme power might have had upon

his temper and conduct; but from the acts above-mentioned we may at any

rate suspect that the result would have been very injurious.

Again, intellectually, Cyrus is only great for an Asiatic. He has more

method, more foresight, more power of combination, more breadth of mind

than the other Asiatics of his day, or than the vast mass of Asiatics of

any day. But he is not entitled to the praise of a great administrator

or of a great general. His three years’ administration of Asia Minor

was chiefly marked by a barbarous severity towards criminals, and by a

lavish expenditure of the resources of his government, which left him in

actual want at the moment when he was about to commence his expedition.

His generalship failed signally at the battle of Cunaxa, for the loss of

which he is far more to be blamed than Clearchus. As he well knew that

Artaxerxes was sure to occupy the centre of his line of battle, he

should have placed his Greeks in the middle of his own line, not at

one extremity. When he saw how much his adversary outflanked him on the

left--a contingency which was so probable that it ought to have occurred

to him beforehand--he should have deployed his line in that direction,

instead of ordering such a movement as Clearchus, not unwisely, declined

to execute. He might have trusted the Greeks to fight in line, as they

had fought at Marathon; and by expanding their ranks, and moving off

his Asiatics to the left, he might, have avoided the danger of being

outflanked and surrounded. But his capital error was the wildness

and abandon of his charge with the Six Hundred--a charge which it was

probably right to make under the circumstances, but which required a

combination of coolness and courage that the Persian prince evidently

did not possess when his feelings were excited. Had he kept his

Six Hundred well in hand, checked their pursuit, and abstained from

thrusting his own person into unnecessary danger, he might have joined

the Greeks as they returned from their first victory and participated

in their final triumph. At the same time, Clearchus cannot but be blamed

for pushing his suit too far. If, when the enemy in his front fled, he

had at once turned against those who were engaging Cyrus, taking them

on their left flank, which must have been completely uncovered, he might

have been in time to prevent the fatal results of the rash charge made

by his leader.

Thus the death of Cyrus, though a calamity to Persia, was scarcely the

great loss which it has been represented. A far worse result of the

Cyreian expedition was the revelation which it made of the weakness of

Persia, and of the facility with which a Greek force might penetrate

to the very midst of the Empire, defeat the largest army that could be

brought against it, and remain, or return, as it might think proper.

Hitherto Babylon and Susa had been, even to the mind of a Greek

statesman, remote localities, which it would be the extreme of rashness

to attempt to reach by force of arms, and from which it would be

utter folly to suppose that a single man could return alive except by

permission of the Great King. Henceforth these towns were looked upon

as prizes quite within the legitimate scope of Greek ambition, and their

conquest came to be viewed as little more than a question of time. The

opinion of inaccessibility, which had been Persia’s safeguard hitherto,

was gone, and in its stead grew up a conviction that the heart of the

Empire might be reached with very little difficulty.

It required, however, for the production of this whole change, not

merely that the advance to Cunaxa should have been safely made, and the

immeasurable superiority of Greek to Asiatic soldiers there exhibited,

but also that the retreat should have been effected, as it was effected,

without disaster. Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the

Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the

snows of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been

strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to

Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King

in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the

sea without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an

evidence of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of

which all could feel the force. Hence the retreat was as important as

the battle. If in late autumn and mid-winter a small Greek army, without

maps or guides, could make its way for a thousand miles through Asia,

and encounter no foe over whom it could not easily triumph, it was clear

that the fabric of Persian power was rotten, and would collapse on the

first serious attack.

Still, it will not be necessary to trace in detail the steps of the

retreat. It was the fact of the return, rather than the mode of its

accomplishment, which importantly affected the subsequent history of

Persia. We need only note that the retreat was successfully conducted in

spite, not merely of the military power of the Empire, but of the most

barefaced and cruel treachery--a fact which showed clearly the strong

desire that there was to hinder the invaders’ escape. Persia did not

set much store by her honor at this period; but she would scarcely have

pledged her word and broken it, without the slightest shadow of excuse,

unless she had regarded the object to be accomplished as one of vast

importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the

desired result. Her failure, despite the success of her treachery,

places her military weakness in the strongest possible light. The

Greeks, though deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and

hemmed in by superior numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices,

and snows, forced their way by sheer dogged perseverance through all

obstacles, and reached Trebizond with the loss of not one fourth of

their original number.

There was also another discovery made during the return which partly

indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for

it. The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between

the Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the

Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound

together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of

which were wielded by a single arm. They now found that even towards the

heart of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed

independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while

towards the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly

held in subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and

succeeded in establishing their freedom. The nineteenth satrapy of

Herodotus existed no more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and

autonomous tribes--Chalybes, Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians,

Colchians, Mosynoecians, Tibarenians--whose services, if he needed them,

the King of Persia had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards

him was one of distrust and hostility. Judging of the unknown from the

known, the Greeks might reasonably conclude that in all parts of

the Empire similar defections had occurred, and that thus both

the dimensions and the resources of the state had suffered serious

diminution, and fell far below the conception which they had been

accustomed to form of them.

The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture

between Persia and Sparta. Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus

provoked the hostility of the Great King. She was not inclined to

apologize or to recede. On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances

of the expedition strong grounds for anticipating great advantages

to herself from a war with so weak an antagonist. Having, therefore,

secured the services of the returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the

protection of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia, and carried on a war

upon the continent against the satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the

space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C. 394). The disorganization of the

Persian Empire became very manifest during this period. So jealous were

the two satraps of each other, that either was willing at any time

to make a truce with the Spartans on condition that they proceeded to

attack the other; and, on one occasion, as much as thirty silver talents

was paid by a satrap on the condition that the war should be transferred

from his own government to that, of his rival. At the same time the

native tribes were becoming more and more inclined to rebel. The Mysians

and Pisidians had for a long time been practically independent. Now the

Bithynians showed a disposition to shake off the Persian yoke, while

in Paphlagonia the native monarchs boldly renounced their allegiance.

Agesilaus, who carried on the war in Asia Minor for three years, knew

well how to avail himself of all these advantageous circumstances;

and it is not unlikely that he would have effected the separation

from Persia of the entire peninsula, had he been able to continue the

struggle a few years longer. But the league between Argos, Thebes, and

Corinth, which jealousy of Sparta caused and Persian gold promoted,

proved so formidable, that Agesilaus had to be summoned home: and

after his departure, Conon, in alliance with Pharnabazus, recovered the

supremacy of the sea for Athens, and greatly weakened Spartan influence

in Asia. Not content with this result, the two friends, in the year B.C.

393, sailed across the Egean, and the portentous spectacle of a Persian

fleet in Greek waters was once more seen--this time in alliance with

Athens! Descents were made upon the coasts of the Peloponnese, and the

island of Cythera was seized and occupied. The long walls of Athens were

rebuilt with Persian money, and all the enemies of Sparta were richly

subsidized. Sparta was made to feel that if she had been able at one

time to make the Great King tremble for his provinces, or even for

his throne, the King could at another reach her across the Egean, and

approach Sparta as nearly as she had, with the Cyreians, approached

Babylon.

The lesson of the year B.C. 393 was not thrown away on the Spartan

government. The leading men became convinced that unless they could

secure the neutrality of the Persians, Sparta must succumb to the

hostility of her Hellenic enemies. Under these circumstances they

devised, with much skill, a scheme likely to be acceptable to the

Persians, which would weaken their chief rivals in Greece--Athens and

Thebes--while it would leave untouched their own power. They proposed

a general peace, the conditions of which should be the entire

relinquishment of Asia to the Persians, and the complete autonomy of all

the Greek States in Europe. The first attempt to procure the acceptance

of these terms failed (B.C. 393); but six years later, after Antalcidas

had explained them at the Persian Court, Artaxerxes sent down an

ultimatum to the disputants, modifying the terms slightly as regarded

Athens, extending them as regarded himself so as to include the islands

of Clazomenae and Cyprus, and requiring their acceptance by all the

belligerents, on pain of their incurring his hostility. To this threat

all yielded. A Persian king may be excused if he felt it a proud

achievement thus to dictate a peace to the Greeks--a peace, moreover,

which annulled the treaty of Callias, and gave back absolutely into

his hands a province which had ceased to belong to his Empire more than

sixty years previously.

It was the more important to Artaxerxes that his relations with the

European Greeks should be put upon a peaceful footing, since all the

resources of the Empire were wanted for the repression of disturbances

which had some years previously broken out in Cyprus. The exact date

of the Cyprian revolt under Evagoras, the Greek tyrant of Salamis, is

uncertain; but there is evidence that, at least as early as B.C. 391, he

was at open war with the power of Persia, and had made an alliance

with the Athenians, who both in that year and in B.C. 388 sent him aid.

Assisted also by Achoris, independent monarch of Egypt, and Hecatomnus,

vassal king of Caria, he was able to take the offensive, to conquer

Tyre, and extend his revolt into Cilicia and Idumaea. An expedition

undertaken against him by Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, seems to have

failed. It was the first object of the Persians, after concluding the

“Peace of Antalcidas,” to crush Evagoras. They collected 300 vessels,

partly from the Greeks of Asia, and brought together an army of 300,000

men. The fleet of Evagoras numbered 200 triremes, and with these he

ventured on an attack, but was completely defeated by Tiribazus, who

shut him up in Salamis, and, after a struggle which continued for at

least six years, compelled him to submit to terms (B.C. 380 or 379).

More fortunate than former rebels, he obtained not merely a promise of

pardon, which would probably have been violated, but a recognition of

his title, and permission to remain in his government, with the single

obligation of furnishing to the Great King a certain annual tribute.

During the continuance of this war, Artaxerxes was personally engaged in

military operations in another part of his dominions. The Cadusians,

who inhabited the low and fertile tract between the Elburz range and the

Caspian, having revolted against his authority, Artaxerxes invaded their

territory at the head of an army which is estimated at 300,000 foot and

10,000 horse. The land was little cultivated, rugged, and covered with

constant fogs; the men were brave and warlike, and having admitted him

into their country, seem to have waylaid and intercepted his convoys.

His army was soon reduced to great straits, and forced to subsist on the

cavalry horses and the baggage-animals. A most disastrous result must

have followed, had not Tiribazus, who had been recalled from Cyprus

on charges preferred against him by the commander of the land force,

Orontes, contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their

submission. Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country

without serious disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he

possessed the qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient in

those of a general.

A time of comparative tranquillity seems to have followed the Cadusian

campaign. Artaxerxes strengthened his hold upon the Asiatic Greeks by

razing some of their towns and placing garrisons in others. His satraps

even ventured to commence the absorption of the islands off the coast;

and there is evidence that Sanaos, at any rate, was reduced and added

to the Empire. Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Idumaea were doubtless recovered

soon after the great defeat of Evagoras. There remained only one

province in this quarter which still maintained its revolt, and enjoyed,

under native monarchs, the advantages of independence. This was Egypt,

which had now continued free for above thirty years, since it shook off

the yoke of Darius Nothus. Artaxerxes, anxious to recover this portion

of his ancestral dominions, applied in B.C. 375 to Athens for the

services of her great general, Iphicrates. His request was granted, and

in the next year a vast armament was assembled at Acre under Iphicrates

and Pharnabazus, which effected a successful landing in the Delta at the

Mendesian mouth of the Nile, stormed the town commanding this branch of

the river, and might have taken Memphis, could the energetic advice of

the Athenian have stirred to action the sluggish temper of his Persian

colleague. But Pharnabazus declined to be hurried, and preferred to

proceed leisurely and according to rule. The result was that the season

for hostilities passed and nothing had been done. The Nile rose as the

summer drew on, and flooded most of the Delta; the expedition could

effect nothing, and had to return. Pharnabazus and Iphicrates parted

amid mutual recriminations; and the reduction of Egypt was deferred for

above a quarter of a century.

In Greece, however, the Great King still retained that position of

supreme arbiter with which he had been invested at the “Peace of

Antalcidas.” In B.C. 372 Antalcidas was sent by Sparta a second time up

to Susa, for the purpose of obtaining an imperial rescript, prescribing

the terms on which the then existing hostilities among the Greeks should

cease. In B.C. 367 Pelopidas and Ismenias proceeded with the same object

from Thebes to the Persian capital. In the following year a rescript,

more in their favor than former ones, was obtained by Athens. Thus every

one of the leading powers of Greece applied in turn to the Great King

for his royal mandate, so erecting him by common consent into a sort of

superior, whose decision was to be final in all cases of Greek quarrel.

But this external acknowledgment of the imperial greatness of Persia

did not, and could not, check the internal decay and tendency to

disintegration, which was gradually gaining head, and threatening the

speedy dissolution of the Empire. The long reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon

was now verging towards its close. He was advanced in years, and

enfeebled in mind and body, suspicious of his sons and of his nobles,

especially of such as showed more than common ability. Under these

circumstances, revolts on the part of satraps grew frequent. First

Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance (B.C. 366),

and defended himself with success against Autophradates, satrap of

Lydia, and Mausolus, native king of Caria under Persia, to whom the

task of reducing him had been entrusted. Then Aspis, who held a part

of Cappadocia, revolted and maintained himself by the help of the

Pisidians, until he was overpowered by Datames. Next Datames himself,

satrap of the rest of Cappadocia, understanding that Artaxerxes’ mind

was poisoned against him, made a treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed

an independent attitude in his own province. In this position he

resisted all the efforts of Autophradates to reduce him to obedience;

and Artaxerxes condescended first to make terms with him and then to

remove him by treachery. Finally (B.C. 362), there seems to have been

something like a general revolt of the western provinces, in which the

satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus, prince of Caria, and the

people of Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia participated.

Tachos, king of Egypt, fomented the disturbances, which were also

secretly encouraged by the Spartans. A terrible conflict appeared to be

imminent; but it was avoided by the ordinary resources of bribery and

treachery. Orontes, satrap of Phrygia, and Rheomithras, one of the

revolted generals, yielding to the attractions of Persian gold, deserted

and betrayed their confederates. The insurrection was in this way

quelled, but it had raised hopes in Egypt, which did not at once

subside. Tachos, the native king, having secured the services of

Agesilaus as general, and of Chabrias, the Athenian, as admiral of his

fleet, boldly advanced into Syria, was well received by the Phoenicians,

and commenced the siege of some of the Syrian cities. Persia might

have suffered considerable loss in this quarter, had not the internal

quarrels of the Egyptians among themselves proved a better protection to

her than her own armies. Two pretenders to the throne sprang up as soon

as Tachos had quitted the country, and he was compelled to return to

Egypt in order to resist them. The force intended to strike a vigorous

blow against the power of Artaxerxes was dissipated in civil conflicts;

and Persia had once more to congratulate herself on the intestine

divisions of her adversaries. A few years after this, Artaxerxes died,

having reigned forty-six years, and lived, if we may trust Plutarch,

ninety-four. Like most of the later Persian kings, he was unfortunate

in his domestic relations. To his original queen, Statira, he was indeed

fondly attached; and she appears to have merited and returned his love,

but in all other respects his private life was unhappy. Its chief curse

was Parysatis, the queen-mother. This monster of cruelty held Artaxerxes

in a species of bondage during almost the whole of his long reign, and

acted as if she were the real sovereign of the country. She encouraged

Cyrus in his treason, and brought to most horrible ends all those who

had been prominent in frustrating it. She poisoned Statira out of hatred

and jealousy, because she had a certain degree of influence over her

husband. She encouraged Artaxerxes to contract an incestuous marriage

with his daughter Atossa, a marriage which proved a fertile source

of further calamities. Artaxerxes had three sons by Statira--Darius,

Ariaspes, and Ochus. Of these Darius, as the eldest, was formally

declared the heir. But Ochus, ambitious of reigning, intrigued with

Atossa, and sought to obtain the succession by her aid. So good seemed

to Darius the chances of his brother’s success that he took the rash

step of conspiring against the life of his father, as the only way of

securing the throne. His conspiracy was detected, and he was seized and

executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming the eldest son, and so the natural

heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes that he had offended his father,

and was about to be put to a cruel and ignominious death, whereupon that

prince in despair committed suicide. His elder brothers thus removed,

there still remained one rival, whom Ochus feared. This was Arsames, one

of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, who stood high

in his favor. Assassination was the weapon employed to get rid of this

rival. It is said that this last blow was too much for the aged and

unhappy king, who died of grief on receiving intelligence of the murder.

Artaxerxes was about the weakest of all the Persian monarchs. He was

mild in temperament, affable in demeanor, goodnatured, affectionate

and well-meaning. But, possessing no strength of will, he allowed the

commission of the most atrocious acts, the most horrible cruelties, by

those about him, who were bolder and more resolute than himself. The

wife and son, whom he fondly loved, were plotted against before his

eyes; and he had neither the skill to prevent nor the courage to avenge

their fate. Incapable of resisting entreaty and importunity, he granted

boons which he ought to have refused, and condoned offences which it

would have been proper to punish. He could not maintain long the most

just resentment, but remitted punishments even when they were far milder

than the crime deserved. He was fairly successful in the management

of his relations with foreign countries, and in the suppression of

disturbances within his own dominions; but he was quite incapable

of anything like a strenuous and prolonged effort to renovate and

re-invigorate the Empire. If he held together the territories which he

inherited, and bequeathed them to his successor augmented rather than

diminished, it is to be attributed more to his good fortune than to his

merits, and to the mistakes of his opponents than to his own prudence or

sagacity.

Ochus, who obtained the crown in the manner related above, was the most

cruel and sanguinary of all the Persian kings. He is indeed the only

monarch of the Achaemenian line who appears to have been bloodthirsty

by temperament. His first act on finding himself acknowledged king (B.C.

359) was to destroy, so far as he could, all the princes of the blood

royal, in order that he might have no rival to fear. He even, if we may

believe Justin, involved in this destruction a number of the princesses,

whom any but the most ruthless of despots would have spared. Having

taken these measures for his own security, he proceeded to show himself

more active and enterprising than any monarch since Longimanus. It was

now nearly half a century since one of the important provinces of the

Empire--Egypt--had successfully asserted its independence and restored

the throne of its native kings. General after general had been employed

in vain attempts to reduce the rebels to obedience. Ochus determined

to attempt the recovery of the revolted province in person. Though

a rebellion had broken out in Asia Minor, which being supported by

Thebes, threatened to become serious, he declined to be diverted from

his enterprise. Levying a vast army, he marched into Egypt, and engaged

Noctanebo, the king, in a contest for existence. Nectanebo, however,

having obtained the services of two Greek generals, Diophantus, an

Athenian, and Lamius, a citizen of Sparta, boldly met his enemy in the

field, defeated him, and completely repulsed his expedition. Hereupon

the contagion of revolt spread. Phoenicia assumed independence under the

leadership of Sidon, expelled or massacred the Persian garrisons, which

held her cities, and formed an alliance with Egypt. Her example was

followed by Cyprus, where the kings of the nine principal towns assumed

each a separate sovereignty.

The chronology of this period is somewhat involved; but it seems

probable that the attack and failure of Ochus took place about B.C. 351;

that the revolts occurred in the next year, B.C. 350; while it was not

till B.C. 346, or four years later, that Ochus undertook his second

expedition into these regions. He had, however, in the meanwhile,

directed his generals or feudatories, to attack the rebels, and bring

them into subjection. The Cyprian war he had committed to Idrieus,

prince of Caria, who employed on the service a body of 8000 Greek

mercenaries, commanded by Phocion, the Athenian, and Evagoras, son of

the former Evagoras, the Cyprian monarch; while he had committed to

Belesys, satrap of Syria, and Mezseus, satrap of Cilicia, the task of

keeping the Phoenicians in check. Idrieus succeeded in reducing Cyprus;

but the two satraps suffered a single defeat at the hands of Tennes, the

Sidonian king, who was aided by 40,000 Greek mercenaries, sent him by

Nectanebo, and commanded by Mentor the Rhodian. The Persian forces were

driven out of Phoenicia; and Sidon had ample time to strengthen its

defences and make preparations for a desperate resistance. The approach,

however, of Ochus, at the head of an army of 330,000 men, shook the

resolution of the Phoenician monarch, who endeavored to purchase his

own pardon by treacherously delivering up a hundred of the principal

citizens of Sidon into the hands of the Persian king, and then admitting

him within the defences of the town. Ochus, with the savage cruelty

which was his chief characteristic, caused the hundred citizens to be

transfixed with javelins, and when 500 more came out as suppliants to

entreat his mercy, relentlessly consigned them to the same fate. Nor did

the traitor Tennes derive any advantage from his guilty bargain.

Ochus, having obtained from him all he needed, instead of rewarding his

desertion, punished his rebellion with death. Hereupon the Sidonians,

understanding that they had nothing to hope from submission, formed the

dreadful resolution of destroying themselves and their town. They had

previously, to prevent the desertion of any of their number, burnt their

ships. Now they shut themselves up in their houses, and set fire each

to his own dwelling. Forty thousand persons lost their lives in the

conflagration; and the city was reduced to a heap of ruins, which Ochus

sold for a large sum. Thus ended the Phoenician revolt. Among its most

important results was the transfer of his services to the Persian king

on the part of Mentor the Rhodian, who appears to have been the ablest

of the mercenary leaders of whom Greece at this time produced so many.

The reduction of Sidon was followed closely by the invasion of

Egypt. Ochus, besides his 330,000 Asiatics, had now a force of 14,000

Greeks--6000 furnished by the Greek cities of Asia Minor; 4000 under

Mentor, consisting of the troops which he had brought to the aid of

Tennes from Egypt; 3000 sent by Argos; and 1000 from Thebes. He divided

his numerous armament into three bodies, and placed at the head of

each two generals--one Persian and one Greek. The Greek commanders were

Lacrates of Thebes, Mentor of Rhodes, and Nicostratus of Argos, a man

of enormous strength, who regarded himself as a second Hercules, and

adopted the traditional costume of that hero--a club and a lion’s skin.

The Persians were Rhossaces, Aristazanes, and Bagoas, the chief of the

eunuchs. Nectanebo was only able to oppose to this vast array an army

less than one third of the size. Twenty thousand, however, out of the

100,000 troops at his disposal were Greeks; he occupied the Nile and

its various branches with a numerous navy the character of the country,

intersected by numerous canals, and full of strongly fortified towns,

was in his favor; and he might have been expected to make a prolonged,

if not even a successful, resistance. But he was deficient in generals,

and over-confident in his own powers of command: the Greek captains

out-manoeuvred him; and no sooner did he find one line of his defences

forced than his ill-founded confidence was exchanged for an alarm

as little reasonable. He hastily fell back upon Memphis, leaving the

fortified towns to the defence of their garrisons. These consisted of

mixed troops, partly Greek and partly Egyptian; between whom jealousies

and suspicions were easily sown by the Persian leaders, who by these

means rapidly reduced the secondary cities of Lower Egypt, and were

advancing upon Memphis, when Nectanebo in despair quitted the country

and fled southwards to Ethiopia. All Egypt submitted to Ochus, who

demolished the walls of the cities, plundered the temples, and after

amply rewarding his mercenaries, returned to his own capital with an

immense booty, and with the glory of having successfully carried through

a most difficult and important enterprise.

It has been well observed that “the reconquest of Egypt by Ochus must

have been one of the most impressive events of the age,” and that it

“exalted the Persian Empire in force and credit to a point nearly as

high as it had ever occupied before.” Ochus not only redeemed by means

of it his former failure, but elevated himself in the opinions of men to

a pitch of glory such as no previous Persian king had reached, excepting

Cyrus, Cambyses, and the first Darius. Henceforth we hear of no more

revolts or rebellions. Mentor and Bagoas, the two generals who had most

distinguished themselves in the Egyptian campaign, were advanced by the

gratitude of Ochus to posts of the highest importance, in which their

vigor and energy found ample room to display themselves. Mentor, who was

governor of the entire Asiatic sea-board, exerted himself successfully

to reduce to subjection the many chiefs who during the recent troubles

had assumed an independent authority, and in the course of a few

years brought once more the whole coast into complete submission and

dependence. Bagoas, carried with him by Ochus to the capital, became

the soul of the internal administration, and maintained tranquillity

throughout the rest of the Empire. The last six years of the reign of

Ochus form an exceptional period of vigorous and successful government,

such as occurs nowhere else in the history of the later Persian

monarchy. The credit of bringing about such a state of things may be due

especially to the king’s officers, Bagoas and Mentor; but a portion of

it must reflect upon himself, as the person who selected them, assigned

them their respective tasks, and permanently maintained them in office.

It was during this period of vigor and renewed life, when the Persian

monarchy seemed to have recovered almost its pristine force and

strength, that the attention of its rulers was called to a small cloud

on the distant horizon, which some were wise enough to see portended

storm and tempest. The growing power of Macedon, against which

Demosthenes was at this time in vain warning the careless Athenians,

attracted the consideration of Ochus or of his counsellors; and orders

went forth from the Court that Persian influence was to be used to check

and depress the rising kingdom. A force was consequently despatched to

assist the Thracian prince, Cersobleptes, to maintain his independence;

and such effectual aid was given to the city of Perinthus that the

numerous and well-appointed army with which Philip had commenced its

siege was completely baffled and compelled to give up the attempt (B.C.

340). The battle of Chseroneia had not yet been fought, and Macedonia

was still but one of the many states which disputed for supremacy over

Greece; but it is evident that she had already awakened the suspicions

of Persia, which saw a rival and a possible assailant in the rapidly

growing monarchy.

Greater and more systematic efforts might possibly have been made, and

the power of Macedon might perhaps have been kept within bounds, had not

the inveterate evil of conspiracy and revolution once more shown itself

at the Court, and paralyzed for a time the action of the Empire on

communities beyond its borders. Ochus, while he was a vigorous ruler

and administrator, was harsh and sanguinary. His violence and cruelty

rendered him hateful to his subjects; and it is not unlikely that they

caused even those who stood highest in his favor to feel insecure.

Bagoas may have feared that sooner or later he would himself be one

of the monarch’s victims, and have been induced by a genuine alarm

to remove the source of his terrors. In the year B.C. 338 he poisoned

Ochus, and placed upon the throne his youngest son, Arses, at the same

time assassinating all the brothers of the new monarch. It was evidently

his aim to exercise the supreme power himself, as counsellor to a prince

who owed his position to him, and who was moreover little more than a

boy. But Arses, though subservient for a year or two, began, as he grew

older, to show that he had a will of his own, and was even heard to

utter threats against his benefactor whereupon Bagoas, accustomed now to

crime, secured himself by a fresh series of murders. He caused Arses and

his infant children to be assassinated, and selected one of his friends,

Codomannus, the son of Arsanes, to fill the vacant throne. About the

same time (B.C. 336), Philip of Macedon was assassinated by the incensed

Pausanias; and the two new monarchs--Codomannus, who took the name

of Darius, and Alexander the Great--assumed their respective sceptres

almost simultaneously.

Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings, might with some reason have

complained, like Plato, that nature had brought him in the world too

late. Personally brave, as he proved himself into the Cadusian war,

tall and strikingly handsome, amiable in temper, capable of considerable

exertion, and not altogether devoid of military capacity, he would have

been a fairly good ruler in ordinary times, and might, had he fallen

upon such times, have held an honorable place among the Persian

monarchs. But he was unequal to the difficulties of such a position as

that in which he found himself. Raised to the throne after the victory

of Chaeroneia had placed Philip at the head of Greece, and when a

portion of the Macedonian forces had already passed into Asia, he was

called upon to grapple at once with a danger of the most formidable

kind, and had but little time for preparation. It is true that Philip’s

death soon after his own accession gave him a short breathing-space:

but at the same time it threw him off his guard. The military talents of

Alexander were untried, and of course unknown; the perils which he had

to encounter were patent. Codomannus may be excused if for some months

after Alexander’s accession he slackened his preparations for defence,

uncertain whether the new monarch would maintain himself, whether

he would overpower the combinations which were formed against him in

Greece, whether he would inherit his father’s genius for war, or adopt

his ambitious projects. It would have been wiser, no doubt, as the event

proved, to have joined heart and soul with Alexander’s European enemies,

and to have carried the war at once to the other side of the Egean. But

no great blame attaches to the Persian monarch for his brief inaction.

As soon as the Macedonian prince had shown by his campaigns in Thrace,

Illyria, and Boeotia that he was a person to be dreaded, Darius

Codomannus renewed the preparations which he had discontinued, and

pushed them forward with all the speed that was possible. A fleet was

rapidly got ready: the satraps of Asia Minor were reinforced with troops

of good quality from the interior of the Empire, and were ordered to

raise a strong force of mercenaries; money was sent into Greece to the

Lacedaemonians and others in order to induce them to create disturbances

in Europe; above all, Memnon the Rhodian, a brother of Mentor, and a

commander of approved skill, was sent to the Hellespont, at the head of

a body of Greeks in Persian pay, with an authority co-ordinate to that

of the satraps.

A certain amount of success at first attended these measures. Memnon

was able to act on the offensive in North-Western Asia. He marched upon

Cyzicus and was within a little of surprising it, obtaining from the

lands and villas without the walls an immense booty. He forced Parmenio

to raise the seige of Pitane; and when Callas, one of the Macedonian

leaders, endeavored to improve the condition of things by meeting the

Persian forces in the open field, he suffered a defeat and was compelled

to throw himself into Rhoeteum.

These advantages, however, were detrimental rather than serviceable to

the Persian cause; since they encouraged the Persian satraps to regard

the Macedonians as an enemy no more formidable than the various tribes

of Greeks with whom they had now carried on war in Asia Minor for

considerably more than a century. The intended invasion of Alexander

seemed to them a matter of no great moment--to be classed with

expeditions like those of Thimbron and Agesilaus, not to need, as it

really did, to be placed in a category of its own. Accordingly, they

made no efforts to dispute the passage of the Hellespont, or to oppose

the landing of the expedition on the Asiatic shore. Alexander was

allowed to transport a force of 30,000 foot and 4000 or 5000 horse from

the Chersonese to Mysia without the slightest interference on the part

of the enemy, notwithstanding that his naval power was weak and that

of the Persians very considerable. This is one of those pieces of

remissness in the Persian conduct of military matters, whereof we have

already had to note signal instances, and which constantly caused the

failure of very elaborate and judicious preparations to meet a danger.

Great efforts had been made to collect and equip a numerous fleet, and

a few weeks later it was all-powerful in the Egean. But it was absent

exactly at the time when it was wanted. Alexander’s passage and landing

were unopposed, and the Persians thus admitted within the Empire without

a struggle the enemy who was fated to destroy it.

When the Persian commanders heard that Alexander was in Asia, they

were anxious to give him battle. One alone, the Rhodian Greek, Memnon,

proposed and urged a wholly different plan of operations. Memnon advised

that a general engagement should be avoided, that the entire country

should be laid waste, and even the cities burnt, while the army

should retire, cut off stragglers, and seek to bring the enemy into

difficulties. At the same time he recommended that the fleet should be

brought up, a strong land force embarked on board it, and an effort made

to transfer the war into Europe. But Memnon’s colleagues, the satraps

and commandants of the north-western portion of Asia Minor, could not

bring themselves to see that circumstances required a line of action

which they regarded as ignominious. It is not necessary to attribute to

them personal or selfish motives. They probably thought honestly that

they were a match for Alexander with the troops at their disposal, and

viewed retreat before an enemy numerically weaker than themselves as

a disgrace not to be endured unless its necessity was palpable.

Accordingly they determined to give the invader battle. Supposing that

Alexander, having crossed into Asia at Abydos, would proceed to attack

Dascyleium, the nearest satrapial capital, they took post on the

Granicus, and prepared to dispute the further advance of the Macedonian

army. They had collected a force of 20,000 cavalry of the best quality

that the Empire afforded, and nearly the same number of infantry,

who were chiefly, if not solely, Greek mercenaries. With these

they determined to defend the passage of the small stream above

mentioned--one of the many which flow from the northern flank of Ida

into the Propontis.

The battle thus offered was eagerly accepted by the Macedonian. If he

could not defeat with ease a Persian force not greatly exceeding his

own, he had miscalculated the relative goodness of the soldiers on

either side, and might as well desist from the expedition. Accordingly,

he no sooner came to the bank of the river, and saw the enemy drawn up

on the other side, than, rejecting the advice of Parmenio to wait till

the next day, he gave orders that the whole army should enter the stream

and advance across it. The Granicus was in most places fordable; but

there were occasional deeper parts, which had to be avoided; and there

was thus some difficulty in reaching the opposite bank in line. That

bank itself was generally steep and precipitous, but offered also

several gentle slopes where a landing was comparatively easy. The

Persians had drawn up their cavalry along the line of the river close to

the water’s edge, and had placed their infantry in the rear. Alexander

consequently attacked with his cavalry. The engagement began upon the

right. Amytas and Ptolemy, who were the first to reach the opposite

bank, met with a strenuous resistance and were driven back into the

stream by the forces of Memnon and his sons. The battle, however, on

this side was restored by Alexander himself, who gradually forced the

Persians back after a long hand-to-hand fight, in which he received

a slight wound, and slew with his own hand several noble Persians.

Elsewhere the resistance was less determined. Parmenio crossed on the

left with comparative ease, by his advance relieving Alexander. The

Persians found the long spears of the Macedonians and their intermixture

of light-armed foot with heavy-armed cavalry irresistible. The

Macedonians seem to have received orders to strike at their adversaries’

faces--a style of warfare which was as unpleasant to the Persians as it

was to the soldiers of Pompey at Pharsalia. Their line was broken

where it was opposed to Alexander and his immediate companions; but the

contagion of disorder rapidly spread, and the whole body of the cavalry

shortly quitted the field, after having lost a thousand of their number.

Only the infantry now remained. Against these the Macedonian phalanx was

brought up in front, while the cavalry made repeated charges on

either flank with overwhelming effect. Deserted by their horse, vastly

outnumbered, and attacked on all sides, the brave mercenaries stood

firm, fought with desperation, and were mostly slaughtered where they

stood. Two thousand out of the 20,000--probably wounded men--were made

prisoners. The rest perished, except a few who lay concealed among the

heaps of slain.

The Persians lost by the battle 20,000 of their best footmen, and one or

two thousand horse. Among their slain the proportion of men of rank

was unusually large. The list included Spithridates, satrap of Lydia,

Mithrobarzanes, governor of Cappadocia, Pharnaces, a brother-in-law, and

Mithridates, a son-in-law of Darius, Arbupales, a grandson of Artaxerxes

Mnemon, Omares, the commander of the mercenaries, Niphates, Petines,

and Ehoesaces, generals. The Greek loss is said to have been exceedingly

small. Aristobulus made the total number of the slain thirty-four;

Arrian gives it as one hundred and fifteen, or a little over. It has

been suspected that even the latter estimate is below the truth; but the

analogy furnished by the other great victories of the Greeks over the

Persians tends rather to confirm Arrian’s statement.

The battle of the Granicus threw open to Alexander the whole of Asia

Minor. There was no force left in the entire country that could venture

to resist him, unless protected by walls. Accordingly, the Macedonian

operations for the next twelve months, or during nearly the whole

space that intervened between the battles of the Granicus and of Issus,

consist of little more than a series of marches and sieges. The reader

of Persian history will scarcely wish for an account of these operations

in detail. Suffice it to say that Alexander rapidly overran Lydia,

Ionia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia, besieged and took

Miletus, Halicarnassus, Marmareis, and Sagalassus, and received the

submission of Dascyleium, Sardis, Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, the Lycian

Telmisseis, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, Phaselis, Side, Aspendus, Celaenee,

and Gordium. This last city was the capital of Phrygia; and there the

conqueror for the first time since his landing gave himself and his army

a few months’ rest during the latter part of the winter.

With the first breath of spring his forces were again in motion.

Hitherto anxious with respect to the state of things on the coast and in

Greece, he had remained in the western half of Asia Minor, within call

of his friends in Macedonia, at no time distant more than about 200

miles from the sea. Now intelligence reached him which made him feel at

liberty to advance into the interior of Asia. Memnon the Rhodian fell

sick and died in the early spring of B.C. 333. It is strange that so

much should have depended on a single life; but it certainly seems that

there was no one in the Persian service who, on Memnon’s death, could

replace him--no one fitted for the difficult task of uniting Greeks and

Asiatics together, capable of influencing and managing the one while he

preserved the confidence of the other. Memnon’s death disconcerted all

the plans of the Great King, who till it occurred had fully intended to

carry the war into his enemy’s country. It induced Darius even to give

up the notion of maintaining a powerful fleet, and to transfer to the

land service the most efficient of his naval forces. At the same time it

set Alexander free to march wherever he liked, liberating him from the

keen anxiety, which he had previously felt, as to the maintenance of the

Macedonian power in Europe.

It now became the object of the Persian king to confront the daring

invader of his Western provinces with an army worthy of the Persian

name and proportionate to the vastness of the Empire. He had long been

collecting troops from many of the most warlike nations, and had got

together a force of several hundred thousand men. Forgetting the lessons

of his country’s previous history, he flattered himself that the host

which he had brought together was irresistible, and became anxious to

hurry on a general engagement. Starting from Babylon, probably about the

time that Alexander left Gordium in Phrygia, he marched up the valley of

the Euphrates, and took up a position at Sochi, which was situated in

a large open plain, not far from the modern Lake of Antioch. On his

arrival there he heard that Alexander was in Cilicia at no great

distance; and the Greeks in his service assured him that it would not

be long before the Macedonian monarch would seek him out and accept his

offer of battle. But a severe attack of illness detained Alexander at

Tarsus, and when he was a little recovered, troubles in Western Cilicia,

threatening his communications with Greece, required his presence;

so that Darius grew impatient, and, believing that his enemy had no

intention of advancing further than Cilicia, resolved to seek him in

that country. Quitting the open plain of Sochi, he marched northwards,

having the range of Amanus on his left, almost as far as the

thirty-seventh parallel, when turning sharply to the west, he crossed

the chain, and descended upon Issus, in the inner recess of the gulf

which bore the same name. Here he came upon Alexander’s hospitals, and

found himself to his surprise in the rear of his adversary, who, while

Darius was proceeding northwards along the eastern flank of Amanus, had

been marching southwards between the western flank of the same range and

the sea. Alexander had crossed the Pylse, or narrowest portion of the

pass, and had reached Myriandrus--a little beyond Iskonderum--when news

reached him that Darius had occupied Issus in his rear, and had put

to death all the sick and wounded Macedonians whom he had found in the

town. At first he could not credit the intelligence; but when it was

confirmed by scouts, whom he sent out, he prepared instantly to retrace

his steps, and to fight his first great battle with the Persian king

under circumstances which he felt to be favorable beyond anything that

he could have hoped. The tract of flat land between the base of the

mountains and the sea on the borders of the Gulf of Issus was nowhere

broader than about a mile and a half. The range of Amanus on the

east rose up with rugged and broken hills, so that on this side the

operations of cavalry were impracticable. It would be impossible to

form a line of battle containing in the front rank more than about 4000

men,1048 and difficult for either party to bring into action as many as

30,000 of their soldiers. Thus the vast superiority of numbers on the

Persian side became in such a position absolutely useless, and even

Alexander had more troops than he could well employ. No wonder that the

Macedonian should exclaim, that “God had declared Himself on the Grecian

side by putting it into the heart of Darius to execute such a movement.”

It may be that Alexander’s superior generalship would have made him

victorious even on the open plain of Sochi; but in the defile of Issus

success was certain, and generalship superfluous.

Darius had started from Issus in pursuit of his adversary, and had

reached the banks of the Pinarus, a small stream flowing westward from

Amanus into the Mediterranean, when he heard that Alexander had hastened

to retrace his stops, and was coming to meet him. Immediately he

prepared for battle. Passing a force of horse and foot across the stream

in his front, to keep his adversary in check if he advanced too rapidly,

he drew up his best troops along the line of the river in a continuous

solid mass, the ranks of which must have been at least twenty deep.

Thirty thousand Greek mercenaries formed the centre of the line, while

on either side of them were an equal number of Asiatic “braves”--picked

probably from the mass of the army. Twenty thousand troops of a lighter

and inferior class were placed upon the rough hills on the left, the

outskirts of the Amanian range, where the nature of the ground allowed

them to encircle the Macedonian right, which, to preserve its ranks

unbroken, kept the plain. The cavalry, to the number of 30,000, was

massed upon the other wing, near the sea.

The battle began by certain movements of Alexander against the flank

force which menaced his right. These troops, assailed by the Macedonian

light-armed, retreated at once to higher ground, and by their manifest

cowardice freed Alexander from all anxiety on their account. Leaving 300

horse to keep the 20,000 in check, he moved on his whole line at a slow

pace towards the Pinarus till it came within bow-shot of the enemy, when

he gave the order to proceed at a run. The line advanced as commanded;

but before it could reach the river, the Persian horse on the extreme

right, unable to restrain themselves any longer, dashed across the

shallow stream, and assailed Alexander’s left, where they engaged in a

fierce battle with the Thessalian cavalry, in which neither attained any

decided advantage. The infantry, meanwhile, came into conflict along

the rest of the line. Alexander himself, with the right and the

right-centre, charged the Asiatic troops on Darius’s left, who, like

their brethren at Cunaxa, instantly broke and fled. Parmenio, with the

left-centre, was less successful. The north bank of the Pinarus was in

this part steep and defended by stakes in places; the Greek mercenaries

were as brave as the Macedonians, and fought valiantly. It was not till

the troops which had routed the Persian right began, to act against

their centre, assailing it upon the flank, while it was at the same time

engaged in front, that the mercenaries were overpowered and gave way.

Seeing their defeat, the horse likewise fled, and thus the rout became

general.

It is not quite clear what part Darius took in the battle, or how far

he was answerable for its untoward result. According to Arrian, he was

struck with a sudden panic on beholding the flight of his left wing, and

gave orders to his charioteer instantly to quit the field. But Curtius

and Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against

Alexander himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of

falling into the enemy’s hands. Justin goes further, and states that

he was actually wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier

years makes it improbable that he would under any circumstances have

exhibited personal cowardice. On the whole it would seem to be most

probable that the flight of the Persian monarch occurred, not when the

left wing fled, but when the Greek mercenaries among whom he had placed

himself began to give way before the irresistible phalanx and the

impetuous charges of Alexander. Darius, not unwisely, accepted the

defeat of his best troops as the loss of the battle, and hastily retired

across Amanus by the pass which had brought him to Issus, whence

he hurried on through Sochi to the Euphrates, anxious to place that

obstacle between himself and his victorious enemy. His multitudinous

host, entangled in the defiles of the mountains, suffered by its own

weight and size, the stronger fugitives treading down the weaker, while

at the same time it was ruthlessly slaughtered by the pursuing enemy,

so long as the waning light allowed. As many as 100,000--90,000 foot and

10,000 horse--are said to have fallen. The ravines were in places choked

with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related that in one

instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this kind.

Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of high

rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders

at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made. The whole of the

Persian camp and camp-equipage fell into the enemy’s hands, who found in

the royal pavilion the mother, wife, and sister of the king, an

infant son, two daughters, and a number of female attendants, wives of

noblemen. The treasure captured amounted to 3000 silver talents. Among

the trophies of victory were the chariot, bow, shield, and robe of the

king, which he had abandoned in his hurried flight.

The loss on the side of the Macedonians was trivial. The highest

estimate places it at 450 killed, the lowest at 182. Besides these,

504 were wounded. Thus Alexander had less than 1000 men placed hors de

combat. He himself received a slight wound in the thigh from a sword,

which, used a little more resolutely, might have changed the fortunes of

the world.

The defeat of the Persians at Issus seems to have been due simply to the

fact that, practically, the two adversaries engaged with almost equal

numbers, and that the troops of Alexander were of vastly superior

quality to those of Darhis. The Asiatic infantry--notwithstanding their

proud title of “braves”--proved to be worthless; the Greek mercenaries

were personally courageous, but their inferior arms and training

rendered them incapable of coping with the Macedonian phalanx. The

cavalry was the only arm in which the Persians were not greatly at a

disadvantage; and cavalry alone cannot gain, or even save a battle.

When Darius put himself into a position where he lost all the advantages

derivable from superiority of numbers, he made his own defeat and his

adversary’s triumph certain.

It remained, therefore, before the Empire could be considered as

entirely lost, that this error should be corrected, this false step

retrieved. All hope for Persia was not gone, so long as her full force

had not been met and defeated in a fair and open field. When Darius fled

from Issus, it was not simply to preserve for a few months longer his

own wretched life; it was to make an effort to redeem the past--to give

his country that last chance of maintaining her independence which she

had a right to claim at his hands--to try what the award of battle

would be under the circumstances which he had fair grounds for

regarding as the most favorable possible to his own side and the most

disadvantageous to his adversary. Before the heart of the Empire

could be reached from the West, the wide Mesopotamian plain had to be

traversed--there, in those vast flats, across which the enemy must come,

a position might be chosen where there would be room for the largest

numbers that even his enormous Empire could furnish--where cavalry and

even chariots would be everywhere free to act--where consequently he

might engage the puny force of his antagonist to the greatest advantage,

outflank it, envelop it, and perhaps destroy it. Darius would have

been inexcusable had he given up the contest without trying this last

chance--the chance of a battle in the open field with the full collected

force of Persia.

His adversary gave him ample time to prepare for this final struggle.

The battle of Issus was fought in November, B.C. 333. It was not till

the summer of B.C. 331, twenty months later that the Macedonian forces

were set in motion towards the interior of the Empire. More than a year

and a half was consumed in the reduction of Phoenicia, the siege of

Gaza, and the occupation of Egypt. Alexander, apparently, was confident

of defeating Darius in a pitched battle, whenever and under whatever

circumstances they should again meet; and regarded as the only

serious dangers which threatened him, a possible interruption of his

communications with Greece, and the employment of Persian gold and

Persian naval force in the raising of troubles on the European side of

the Egean. He was therefore determined, before he plunged into the depth

of the Asiatic continent, to isolate Persia from Greece, to destroy her

naval power, and to cripple her pecuniary resources. The event showed

that his decision was a wise one. By detaching from Persia and bringing

under his own sway the important countries of Syria, Phoenicia,

Palestine, Idumsea, and Egypt, he wholly deprived Persia of her navy,

and transferred to himself the complete supremacy of the sea, he greatly

increased his own resources while he diminished those of the enemy, and

he shut out Persia altogether from communication with Greece, excepting

through his territories. He could therefore commence his march into the

interior with a feeling of entire security as to his communications and

his rear. No foe was left on the coast capable of causing him a moment’s

uneasiness. Athens and Sparta might chafe and even intrigue; but without

the Persian “archers,” it was impossible that any force should be raised

which could in the slightest degree imperil his European dominions.

From Babylon, whither Darius proceeded straight from Issus, he appears

to have made two ineffectual attempts at negotiating with his enemy. The

first embassy was despatched soon after his arrival, and, according

to Arrian, was instructed merely to make proposals for peace, and to

request the restitution of the Queen, the Queen-mother, Sisygambis, the

infant prince, and the two princesses, captured by Alexander. To this

Alexander replied, in haughty and contemptuous terms, that if Darius

would acknowledge him as Lord of Asia, and deliver himself into his

power, he should receive back his relatives: if he intended still to

dispute the sovereignty, he ought to come and fight out the contest, and

not run away.

The second embassy was sent six or eight months later, while Alexander

was engaged in the siege of Tyre. Darius now offered, as a ransom for

the members of his family held in captivity by Alexander, the large sum

of ten thousand talents (L240,000.), and was willing to purchase peace

by the cession of all the provinces lying west of the Euphrates, several

of which were not yet in Alexander’s possession. At the same time he

proposed that Alexander should marry his daughter, Statira, in order

that the cession of territory might be represented as the bestowal of a

dowry. The reply of Alexander was, if possible, ruder and haughtier than

before. “What did Darius mean by offering money and territory? All his

treasure and all his territory were Alexander’s already. As for the

proposed marriage, if he (Alexander) liked to marry a daughter of

Darius, he should of course do so, whether her father consented or not.

If Darius wanted merciful treatment, he had better come and deliver

himself up at once.”

The terms of this reply rendered further negotiation impossible.

Darius had probably not hoped much from his pacific overtures, and was

therefore not greatly concerned at their rejection. He knew that the

members of his family were honorably and even kindly treated by their

captor, and that, so far at any rate, Alexander had proved himself a

magnanimous conqueror. He can scarcely have thought that a lasting peace

was possible between himself and his young antagonist, who had only just

fleshed his maiden sword, and was naturally eager to pursue his career

of conquest. Indeed, he seems from the moment of his defeat at Issus to

have looked forward to another battle as inevitable, and to have been

unremitting in his efforts to collect and arm a force which might

contend, with a good hope of victory, against the Macedonians. He

replaced the panoplies lost at Issus with fresh ones; he armed his

forces anew with swords and spears longer than the Persians had been

previously accustomed to employ, on account of the great length of the

Macedonian weapons; he caused to be constructed 200 scythed chariots; he

prepared spiked balls to use against his enemy’s cavalry; above all, he

laid under contribution for the supply of troops all the provinces,

even the most remote, of his extensive Empire, and asked and obtained

important aid from allies situated beyond his borders. The forces which

he collected for the final struggle comprised--besides Persians, Medes,

Babylonians, and Susianians from the centre of the Empire--Syrians from

the banks of the Orontes, Armenians from the neighborhood of Ararat,

Cappadocians and Albanians from the regions bordering on the Euxine,

Cadusians from the Caspian, Bactrians from the Upper Oxus, Sogdians from

the Jaxartes, Arachosians from Cabul, Arians from Herat, Indians from

Punjab, and even Sacse from the country about Kashgar and Yarkand, on

the borders of the Great Desert of Gobi. Twenty-five nations followed

the standard of the Great King, and swelled the ranks of his vast army,

which amounted (according to the best authorities) to above a million of

men. Every available resource that the Empire possessed was brought

into play. Besides the three arms of cavalry, infantry, and chariots,

elephants were, for perhaps the first time in the history of military

science, marshalled in the battle-field, to which they added an unwonted

element of grotesqueness and savagery.

The field of battle was likewise selected with great care, and

artificially prepared for the encounter. Darius, it would seem, had

at last become convinced that his enemy would seek him out wherever he

might happen to be, and that consequently the choice of ground rested

wholly with himself. Leaving, therefore, the direct road to Babylon

by the line of the Euphrates undefended, he selected a position which

possessed all the advantages of the Mesopotamian plain, being open,

level, fertile, and well supplied with water, while its vicinity to the

eastern and northern provinces, made it convenient for a rendezvous.

This position was on the left or east bank of the Tigris, in the heart

of the ancient Assyria, not more than thirty miles from the site of

Nineveh. Here, in the region called by the Greeks Adiabene, extended

between the Tigris and the river Zab or Lycus, a vast plain broken by

scarcely any elevations, and wholly bare of both shrubs and trees. The

few natural inequalities which presented themselves were levelled by

order of Darius, who made the entire plain in his front practicable not

only for cavalry but for chariots. At the same time he planted, in the

places where Alexander’s cavalry was likely to charge, spiked balls to

damage the feet of the horses.

Meanwhile, Alexander had quitted Egypt, and after delaying some months

in Syria while his preparations were being completed, had crossed the

Euphrates at Thapsacus and marched through northern Mesopotamia along

the southern flank of the Mons Masius, a district in which provisions,

water, and forage were abundant, to the Tigris, which he must have

reached in about lat. 36° 30’, thirty or forty miles above the site of

Nineveh. No resistance was made to his advance; even the passage of

the great rivers was unopposed. Arrived on the east bank of the Tigris,

Alexander found himself in Assyria Proper, with the stream upon his

right and the mountains of Gordyene Kurdistan at no great distance upon

his left. But the plain widened as he advanced, and became, as he drew

near the position of his enemy, a vast level, nowhere less than thirty

miles in breadth, between the outlying ranges of hills and the great

river. Darius, whose headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab,

on learning Alexander’s approach, had crossed that stream and taken post

on the prepared ground to the north, in the neighborhood of a small town

or village called Gaugamela. Here he drew up his forces in the order

which he thought best, placing the scythed chariots in front, with

supports of horse--Scythian, Bactrian, Armenian, and Cappadocian--near

to them; then, the main line of battle, divided into a centre and two

wings, and composed of horse and foot intermixed; and finally a reserve

of Babylonians. Sitaceni, and others, massed in heavy column in the

rear. His own post was, according to invariable Persian custom, in

the centre; and about him were grouped the best troops--the Household

brigade, the Melophori or Persian foot-guards, the Mardian archers, some

Albanians and Carians, the entire body of Greek mercenaries, and the

Indians with their elephants.

Alexander, on his side, determined to leave nothing to chance. Advancing

leisurely, resting his troops at intervals, carefully feeling his way by

means of scouts, and gradually learning from the prisoners whom he

took, and the deserters who came over to him, all the dispositions and

preparations of the enemy, he arrived opposite the position of Darius on

the ninth day after his passage of the Tigris. His officers were eager

to attack at once; but with great judgment he restrained them, gave his

troops a night’s rest, and obtained time to reconnoitre completely the

whole position of the enemy and the arrangement which he had made of his

forces. He then formed his own dispositions. The army with which he

was to attack above a million of men consisted of 40,300 foot and 7000

horse. Alexander drew them up in three lines:

The first consisted of light-armed troops, horse and foot, of good

quality, which were especially intended to act against the enemy’s

chariots. The next was the main line of battle, and contained the

phalanx with the rest of the heavy infantry in the centre, the heavy

cavalry upon the two wings. The third line consisted of light troops,

chiefly horse, and was instructed to act against such of the Persians as

should outflank the Macedonian main line and so threaten their rear.

As at Issus, Alexander took the command of the right wing himself, and

assigned the left to Parmenio.

As the two armies drew near, Alexander, who found himself greatly

outflanked on both wings, and saw in front of him smooth ground

carefully prepared for the operations of chariots and cavalry, began a

diagonal movement towards the right, which tended at once to place him

beyond the levelled ground, and to bring him in contact with his enemy’s

left wing rather than with his direct front. The movement greatly

disconcerted his adversary, who sought to prevent it by extending and

advancing his own left, which was soon engaged with Alexander’s right

in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. Alexander still pressed his slanting

movement, and in resisting it Darius’s left became separated from his

centre, while at the same time he was forced to give the signal for

launching the chariots against the foe sooner than he had intended, and

under circumstances that were not favorable. The effect of the operation

was much the same as at Cunaxa. Received by the Macedonian light-armed,

the chariots were mostly disabled before the enemy’s main line was

reached; the drivers were dragged from the chariot-boards; and the

horses were cut to pieces. Such as escaped this fate and charged the

Macedonian line, were allowed to pass through the ranks, which opened to

receive them, and were then dealt with by grooms and others in the rear

of the army.

No sooner had the chariot attack failed, and the space between the two

lines of battle become clear, than Alexander, with the quick eye of a

true general, saw his opportunity: to resist his flank movement, the

Bactrians and Sacae with the greater part of the left wing had broken

off from the main Persian line, and in pressing towards the left

had made a gap between their ranks and the centre. Into this gap the

Macedonian king, at the head of the “Companion” cavalry and a portion of

the phalanx, plunged. Here he found himself in the near neighborhood

of Darius, whereupon he redoubled the vigor of his assault, knowing the

great importance of any success gained in this quarter. The Companions

rushed on with loud cries, pressing with all their weight, and thrusting

their spears into the faces of their antagonists--the phalanx, bristling

with its thick array of lances, bore them down. Alexander found himself

sufficiently near Darius to hurl a spear at him, which transfixed his

charioteer. The cry arose that the king had fallen, and the ranks at

once grew unsteady. The more timid instantly began to break and fly;

the contagion of fear spread; and Darius was in a little while almost

denuded of protection on one side. Seeing this, and regarding the battle

as lost, since his line was broken, his centre and left wing defeated,

while only his right wing remained firm, the Persian monarch yielded to

his alarm, and hastily quitting the field, made his way to Arbela. The

centre and left fled with him. The right, which was under the command

of the Syrian satrap, Mazseus, made a firmer stand. On this side the

chariots had done some damage, and the horse was more than a match for

the Thessalian cavalry. Parmenio found himself in difficulties about the

time when the Persian king fled. His messengers detained a part of the

phalanx, which was about to engage in the pursuit, and even recalled

Alexander, who was hastening upon the track of Darius. The careful

prince turned back, but before he could make his way through the crowd

of fugitives to the side of his lieutenant, victory had declared in

favor of the Macedonians in this part of the field also. Mazseus and his

troops, learning that the king was fled, regarded further resistance as

useless, and quitted the field. The Persian army hurriedly recrossed

the Zab, pursued by the remorseless conquerors, who slew the unresisting

fugitives till they were weary of slaughter. Arrian says that 300,000

fell, while a still larger number were taken prisoners. Other writers

make the loss considerably less. All, however, agree that the army was

completely routed and dispersed, that it made no attempt to rally, and

gave no further trouble to the conqueror.

The conduct of Darius in this--the crisis of his fate--cannot be

approved; but it admits of palliation, and does not compel us to

withdraw from him that respectful compassion which we commonly accord

to great misfortunes. After Issus, it was his duty to make at least one

more effort against the invader. To this object he addressed himself

with earnestness and diligence. The number and quality of the troops

collected at Arbela attests at once the zeal and success of his

endeavors. His choice and careful preparation of the field of battle

are commendable; in his disposition of his forces there is nothing with

which to find fault. Every arm of the service had full room to act; all

were brought into play; if Alexander conquered, it was because he was a

consummate general, while at the same time he commanded the best troops

in the world. Arbela was not, like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was

the leader’s victory, rather than the soldiers. Alexander’s diagonal

advance, the confusion which it caused, the break in the Persian line,

and its prompt occupation by some of the best cavalry and a portion

of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the engagement. All the

rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much importance has been

assigned to Darius’s flight, which was the effect rather than the cause

of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so deeply penetrated

that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near attendants begin

to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not--indeed he could not--“set

the example of flight.” Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not

until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed

him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate

himself from the melee.

No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian

monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians

was over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had

he died in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded

him. But, because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and

commanders, the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to

his memory the stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like

Napoleon, he yielded in the crisis of his fate to the instinct of

self-preservation. He fled from the field where he had lost his crown,

not to organize a new army, not to renew the contest, but to prolong for

a few weeks a life which had ceased to have any public value.

It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire.

The fatal blow was struck at Arbela--all the rest was but the long

death-agony. At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian;

the Fifth Monarchy came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn

between his eyes, had come from the west to the ram which had two horns,

and had run into him with the fury of his power. He had come close to

him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two

horns--there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he had

cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him--and there was none to

deliver the ram out of his hand.