THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR.
To
MY WINTER-FRIEND
HENRY FRANCIS PELHAM.
THE
GREAT PERSIAN WAR
AND ITS PRELIMINARIES;
A STUDY OF THE EVIDENCE, LITERARY
AND TOPOGRAPHICAL.
BY G. B. GRUNDY, M.A.,
LECTURER AT BRASENOSE COLLEGE, AND UNIVERSITY LECTURER
IN CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY, OXFORD.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1901.
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
PREFACE.
The publication of a version of an old old story which has been retold
in modern times by famous writers, demands an apology even at this
day of the making of many books. It can only be justified in case the
writer has become possessed of new evidence on the history of the
period with which the story is concerned, or has cause to think that
the treatment of pre-existing evidence is not altogether satisfactory
from a historical point of view.
I think I can justify my work on the first of these grounds; and I hope
I shall be able to do so on the second.
Within the last half-century modern criticism of great ability has
been brought to bear on the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides.
Much of it has been of a destructive nature, and has tended to raise
serious doubts as to the credibility of large and important parts of
the narratives of those authors. I venture to think that, while some of
this criticism must be accepted as sound by every careful student, much
of it demands reconsideration.
A large part of it has been based upon topographical evidence. Of the
nature of that evidence I should like to say a few words.
Until ten years ago the only military site of first-rate importance in
Greek history which had been surveyed was the Strait of Salamis, which
the Hydrographic Department of the English Admiralty had included in
the field of its world-wide activity. A chart of Pylos made by the same
department was also available, but was quite inadequate for the
historical purpose.
Since that time Marathon has been included in the survey of Attica made
by the German Staff Officers for the German Archæological Institute.
The surveys of Thermopylæ, Platæa, and Pylos, I have myself made at
different times between 1892 and 1899. Pylos does not come within the
scope of the present volume.
In the absence of these surveys, this side of Herodotean criticism was
founded upon such sketches as Leake and other travellers had made of
important historical sites, and upon the verbal description of them
contained in their works.
It is superfluous to praise the labours of such inquirers. No amount
of later investigation in Greek topography can ever supplant much that
they have done. But I am quite certain that Leake would have been the
last to claim any scientific accuracy for the sketch-maps which he
made; and I think it will be agreed that maps without accuracy cannot
be used for the historical criticism of highly elaborate narratives.
The present volume, deals exclusively with the Græco-Persian wars up to
the end of 479 B.C. I propose to deal with the Hellenic warfare of the
remainder of the fifth century in a separate volume.
Some of my conclusions are not in accord with the commonly accepted
versions of the history of this period. But, when the circumstances
of the work are considered, it will, I think, be conceded that such a
result was almost inevitable.
I have supported my conclusions, especially in such cases as I believe
them to be in disagreement with accepted views, by arguments taken from
the evidence. Where those arguments are in my opinion likely to be of
interest to the general reader, I have inserted them in the actual
text; where they are of a very specialist character, I have put them in
the form of notes.
I have but little more to say with regard to my own work in general. In
the form in which I have presented it in this volume I have tried
to make it constructive rather than destructive. I have, I believe,
confined my destructive criticism to passages in which I found myself
in conflict with accepted authorities on the subject who had presumably
enjoyed equal opportunities with myself of becoming acquainted with the
facts. I have purposely avoided criticism of those who, not having had
the opportunity of visiting the scenes of action, but yet having made
the best use of the evidence available at the time at which they wrote,
have, in my opinion, been led into error by the defectiveness of the
evidence they were obliged to use.
Early in the course of my inquiries, the results of investigation
suggested to me that Herodotus’ evidence as an historian differs
greatly in value, according as he is relating facts, or seeking to give
the motives or causes lying behind them. Further investigation has
tended to confirm this view. My conclusions on these two points will be
made sufficiently clear in the course of this work.
In his purely military history Herodotus is dealing with a subject
about which he seems to have possessed little, if any, special
knowledge, and hardly any official information. The plan or design
which lay behind the events which he relates can, therefore, only be
arrived at, in the majority of instances, by means of an induction
from the facts he mentions. This will, I think, adequately define and
account for the method I have adopted in treating his evidence.
The necessity of employing various words indicating probability rather
than certainty does not add adornment to style, but is inevitable under
circumstances where the evidence is of the nature of that which is
presented to any one who attempts to write the history of any part of
the fifth century before Christ.
The spelling of Greek names is a difficulty at the present day. Many of
the conventional forms are absolutely wrong. I do not, however, think
that the time has yet come when it is convenient to write Sikelia,
Athenai, Kerkura, etc. I have therefore used the conventional forms for
well-known names, but have adopted the more correct forms for names
less known, with one or two literal changes, such as “y” for _upsilon_,
where the change is calculated to make the English pronunciation
of the name approximate more closely to that of the original Greek.
As one who is from force of present circumstances laying aside, not
without regret, a department of work which has been of infinite
interest to him, and whose necessary discontinuance causes him the
greatest regret, I may perhaps be allowed to speak briefly of my own
experience to those Englishmen who contemplate work in Greece.
Firstly, as to motive: If you wish to take up such work because you
have an enthusiasm for it, and because you feel that you possess
certain knowledge and qualifications, take it up by all means; you
will never regret having done so. It will give you that invaluable
blessing,—a keen intellectual interest, lasting all your life.
But if your motive be to acquire thereby a commercial asset which may
forward your future prospects, leave the work alone. You will, in the
present state of feeling in England, forward those prospects much more
effectively by other means.
In all work in Greece malaria is a factor which has to be very
seriously reckoned with. There has been much both of exaggeration and
of understatement current upon the subject. It so happens that many
of the most interesting sites in Greece are in localities notoriously
unhealthy —Pylos and Thermopylæ are examples in point. Of the rare
visitors to Pylos, two have died there since I was at the place in
August, 1895; and of the population of about two hundred fisher-folk
living near the lagoon in that year, not one was over the age of forty.
The malaria fiend claims them in the end, and the end comes soon.
At Thermopylæ, in this last summer, I escaped the fever, but caught
ophthalmia in the marshes. An Englishman who was with me, and also our
Greek servant, had bad attacks of fever.
On the whole, I prefer the spring as the season for work. The
summer may be very hot. During the four weeks I was at Navarino the
thermometer never fell below 93° Fahrenheit, night or day, and rose
to 110° or 112° in the absolute darkness of a closed house at midday.
What it was in the sun at this time, I do not know. I tried it
with my thermometer, forgetting that it only registered to 140°, with
disastrous results to the thermometer.
At Thermopylæ in 1899 the nights were, in July and August, invariably
cool, though the heat at midday was very great; so much so that you
could not, without using a glove, handle metal which had been exposed
to it.
The winter is, I think, a bad time for exploration,—in Northern Greece
at any rate. Rain and snow may make work impossible, and the mud on the
tracks in the plain must be experienced in order to be appreciated.
Snow, moreover, may render the passes untraversable.
To one who undertakes survey work in circumstances similar to those
in which I have been placed, the expense of travelling in Greece
is considerable. Survey instruments are cumbrous, if not heavy
paraphernalia. Moreover, as I have been obliged to do the work within
the limits of Oxford vacations, and as the journey to Greece absorbs
much time, it has been necessary for me to labour at somewhat high
pressure while in the country. Twelve hours’ work a day under a Greek
sun, with four hours’ work besides, demands that the doer should be in
the best of condition. One is therefore obliged to engage a servant to
act as cook and purveyor, since the native food and cooking are not
of a kind to support a Western European in a healthy bodily state for
any length of time. In case of survey, moreover, it is just as well
to choose a servant who knows personally some of the people of the
district in which the work is carried on, as suspicions are much more
easy to arouse than to allay, and original research may connect itself
in the native mind with an increase of the land-tax.
There are very few parts of Greece where it is dangerous to travel
without an escort. Since the recent war with Turkey, the North has been
a little disturbed, and brigandage has never been quite stamped out
in the Œta and Othrys region. But it is not the organized brigandage
of old times; nor, I believe, in the vast majority of cases, are the
crimes committed by the resident population. The Vlach shepherds, who
come over from Turkish Epirus in the summer with their flocks,
are usually the offenders. Throughout nine-tenths of the area of the
country an Englishman may travel with just as much personal security as
in his own land.
The Greeks are a kindly, hospitable race. The Greek peasant is a
gentleman; and, if you treat him as such, he will go far out of his way
to help you. If you do not, there may be disagreeables.
I cannot acknowledge all the written sources of assistance to which I
have had recourse in compiling this volume, because I cannot recall the
whole of a course of reading which has extended over a period of ten
years.
Of Greek histories I have used especially those of Curtius, Busolt,
Grote and Holm; of editions of Herodotus those of Stein and Macan. Of
special books, I have largely used the French edition of Maspero’s
“Passing of the Empires,” and Rawlinson’s “Herodotus.” I have read
Hauvette’s exhaustive work on “Hérodote, Historien des Guerres
Médiques.” I have not, however, been able to use it largely, as I find
that my method of dealing with the evidence differs very considerably
from his.
Where I have consciously used special papers taken from learned
serials, I have acknowledged them in the text.
Many of my conclusions on minor as well as major questions are founded
on a fairly intimate knowledge of the theatre of war.[1]
I have dealt with the war as a whole, as well as with the major
incidents of it, because it is a subject of great interest to one who,
like myself, has, in the course of professional teaching, had to deal
with the campaigns of modern times.
I cannot close this Preface without expressing my gratitude for the
help which has been given me at various stages of my work.
Mr. Douglas Freshfield, himself a worker in historical research, and
Mr. Scott Keltie gave me invaluable assistance at the time of my first
visit to Greece, when I was holding the Oxford Travelling Studentship
of the Royal Geographical Society.
My own college of Brasenose generously aided me with a grant in
1895, which was renewed last year.
In reckoning up the debt of gratitude, large items in it are due to my
friends Mr. Pelham and Mr. Macan. As Professor of Ancient History, Mr.
Pelham is ever ready to aid and encourage those who are willing to work
in his department, and I am only one of many whom he has thus assisted.
Such grants as I have obtained from the Craven Fund have been obtained
by his advocacy, and he has often by his kindly encouragement cheered
the despondency of a worker whose work can only be rewarded by the
satisfaction of having done it,—a reward of which he is at times, when
malarial fever is upon him, inclined to under-estimate the value.
I owe much to that personal help which Mr. Macan so kindly gives to
younger workers in the same field as his own. He has also been kind
enough to read through the first three chapters of this book. Though he
has suggested certain amendments which I have adopted, he is in no way
responsible for the conclusions at which I have arrived.
To Canon Church, of Wells, I am deeply indebted for those illustrations
which have been made from the beautiful collection of Edward Lear’s
water-colour sketches of Greece which he possesses.
My father, George Frederick Grundy, Vicar of Aspull, Lancashire, has
read through all my proofs, and has done his best to make the rough
places smooth. I have every reason to be grateful for this labour
undertaken with fatherly love, and, I may add, with parental candour.
The chapters in this volume which deal with the warfare of 480–479 were
awarded the Conington Prize at Oxford, given in the year 1900.
G. B. GRUNDY.
Brasenose College, Oxford,
_October_, 1901.
NOTE.
Note.—After nearly a year spent in learning the principles and
practice of surveying, I went to Greece in the winter of 1892–93, and
made
1. A survey of the field of Platæa;
2. A survey of the town of Platæa;
3. A survey of the field of Leuctra.
I also examined
1. The western passes of the Kithæron range;
2. The roads leading to them from Attica by way
of Eleusis and Phyle respectively;
3. The great route from Thebes northward, west of
Kopais, as far as Lebadeia and Orchomenos.
In the summer of 1895 I revisited Greece.
During that visit I did the following work:—
1. A survey of Pylos and Sphakteria;
2. An examination of the great military route from
Corinth to Argos, and from Argos, by way of
Hysiæ, to Tegea;
3. An examination of the military ways from the
Arcadian plain into the Eurotas valley;
4. I also followed and examined the great route
from the Arcadian plain to Megalopolis, and
thence to the Messenian plain;
5. An examination of the site of Ithome.
In the recent summer of 1899 I did further work abroad in reference to
Greek as well as Roman history. The Greek portion consisted of:—
1. A visit to the site of and museums of Carthage,
with a view to ascertaining the traceable effects
of Greek trade and Greek influence in the
Phœnician city;
2. A detailed examination, lasting ten days, of the
region and site of Syracuse;
3. An examination of the field of Marathon, which
I had previously visited, though under adverse
circumstances of weather, in January, 1893;
4. A very careful examination of Salamis strait;
5. A voyage up the Euripus, and such examination
of the strait at Artemisium as was necessary;
6. A survey of the pass of Thermopylæ;
7. A detailed examination of the path of the
Anopæa;
8. An examination of the Asopos ravine and the
site and neighbourhood of Heraklea Trachinia;
9. An examination of the route southward from
Thermopylæ, through the Dorian plain, past
Kytinion and Amphissa to Delphi;
10. A second examination of Platæa and the passes
of Kithæron.
Other parts of Greece known to me, though not visited with the
intention of, or, it may be, under circumstances permitting, historical
inquiry are:—
1. Thessaly, going
(_a_) From Volo to Thaumaki, _viâ_ Pharsalos;
(_b_) From Volo to Kalabaka (Æginion) and
the pass of Lakmon;
(_c_) From Volo to Tempe, _viâ_ Larissa;
2. The great route from Delphi to Lebadeia by the
Schiste;
3. The route up the west coast of Peloponnese from
Pylos, through Triphylia and Elis to Patras;
4. The neighbourhood of Missolonghi;
5. Corfu and Thera (Santorin).
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Greek and Persian 1
II. Persian and Greek in Asia. The Scythian Expedition 29
III. The Ionian Revolt 79
IV. Persian Operations in Europe: B.C. 493–490. Marathon 145
V. The Entr’acte: B.C. 490–480 195
VI. The March of the Persian Army. Preparations in Greece 213
VII. Thermopylæ 257
VIII. Artemisium 318
IX. Salamis 344
X. From Salamis to Platæa 408
XI. The Campaign of Platæa 436
XII. Mykale and Sestos 522
XIII. The War as a Whole 534
XIV. Herodotus as the Historian of the Great War 556
INDEX 581
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TO FACE PAGE
Marathon: from the “Soros,” looking towards Little Marsh 163
The “Soros” at Marathon 165
Marathon from the “Soros” 187
The Vale of Tempe 231
The Harbour of Corcyra 241
Mountains of Thermopylæ, from Phalara 257
Mount Œta and Plain of Malis 259
Asopos Ravine 261
The Gorge of the Asopos 261
Thermopylæ, from Bridge of Alamana 263
View from Thermopylæ, looking towards Artemisium 264
Channel of Artemisium, from 1600 Feet above Thermopylæ 264
On Thermopylæ-Elatæa Road (_viâ_ Modern Boudenitza) 265
Thermopylæ between Middle and East Gate 290
The East Gate of Thermopylæ 291
Summit of Anopæa, looking East 301
Coast at Middle Gate of Thermopylæ in 480 310
Thermopylæ 311
Thermopylæ: the Middle Gate 311
First and Second Mounds, Middle Gate, Thermopylæ 312
Plain of Eubœa 321
The Narrows at Chalkis 323
Salamis, looking South from Mount Ægaleos, with the Island
of Psyttaleia in the Centre 392
Plain of Thebes and Mount Kithæron 436
Plain of Kopais, from Thebes 452
Plain of Platæa and Kithæron 454
The First Position at Platæa 460
Platæa: “Island,” from Side of Kithæron 480
Bœotian Plain, from Platæa-Megara Pass 482
Platæa—West Side of Νῆσος 482
Platæa: Panorama from Scene of Last Fight 502
MAPS.
Battle of Marathon 166
Region of Thermopylæ and Malian Gulf 266
Isthmus of Corinth and West Attica 368
Salamis 384
Thermopylæ _At end_
Platæa _At end_
CHAPTER I.
GREEK AND PERSIAN.
The sharp, fierce struggle between Greek and Persian which was fought
out on land and sea in the years 480–479, was regarded by those who
were contemporary with it, and has ever since been looked upon as
the great crisis in the history of the two races. It was a struggle
whose results were decisive in the history of the world. From a purely
military point of view, it is true, the fighting in those two years
was not final. The loser did not issue from it in a condition so
crippled that he could not continue the contest. So far from this being
the case, Persia, for more than a century after Salamis was fought,
continued not merely to show a bold front to Greece, but to maintain
the preponderance of her power in the lands east of the Ægean, and to
be a cause of dread to the Hellene of Europe. Athens did, in the period
succeeding these great years of the war, wrest from Persia most of the
Hellenic or semi-Hellenic Islands and coast towns in the Eastern Ægean;
but her tenure of many of them was brief, and of all, precarious.
The city States on the mainland slip rapidly from her grasp, and the
measure of the independence from Persia in the case of some of those
who remain on the tribute lists is at least open to discussion. It was
long before the Greek world discovered that decay of the great Empire
which is so apparent to the student of history who has the story of the
fifth and fourth centuries before him. It set in soon after 479;
but how far it was caused by the festering of the wounds inflicted in
that year cannot now be said. The mischief was internal: it was situate
far away in the depths of Asia, beyond the ken of the Greek of the
fifth century, and it is not strange that he never appreciated the full
extent of the malady.
And yet there is even a military point of view, from which the warfare
of these years _was_, in a sense, decisive. From that time forward
Persia was the assailed and not the assailant. The Great King either
was not, or did not feel himself in a position to assume the offensive
beyond the waters which separated Asia from Europe.
In reckoning up the results of a great war it is instructive to
appreciate what was: it is impossible to ignore what might have been.
Of the issues, military, political, and social, of this Græco-Persian
war, the military issue is perhaps the least important from the point
of view of world-history. It did, indeed, teach a great lesson, in that
it brought into prominence for the first time the strength and weakness
of the East and West when brought into contact with one another; but
the most extraordinary feature about this special aspect of the matter
is that those who had tried the tremendous experiment were all but
utterly unconscious of the true bearing of its results; and it was left
to the fourth generation from them to appreciate a truth which their
forefathers had proved but never realized.
The possible results from a political and social point of view which
might have ensued, had the war ended otherwise than it did, have formed
the subject of many a surmise for those who have written the history
of these years. If Herodotus can be taken as representative of the
views and sentiments of men of his time,—the men, that is to say, of
the half century which succeeded the critical phase of the long warfare
with Persia,—it is evident that those who regarded the great series
of events from a near perspective were supremely conscious of the
political, and but little, if at all, conscious of the social issue.
#THE ISSUES AT STAKE IN THE WAR.# It was perhaps the very intensity
of the love of freedom with the Greek that blinded him to all save
the fact of the preservation of that freedom. Doubtless that feeling
was largely bound up with the social question of the preservation of
Hellenic civilization, and with the consciousness of the peril to which
any social system must be exposed under a political system alien to
it. It is nevertheless strange that, if the peril had been regarded in
this instance as a very real one, a historian like Herodotus, whose
wide experience of other social systems seems to have had the effect
of making him a peculiarly ardent Hellenist, should have failed to
notice it. It is perhaps possible to suggest a reason for an omission
so remarkable. Herodotus himself had been brought up in one of the
Dorian cities of Asia, at a time when it was in a state of vassalage to
Persia. He had personal experience of the position of the Greeks under
Persian rule. He must furthermore have been intimately acquainted with
the life in the great Ionian cities which were subject to the Empire.
From the Greek point of view, their political position was the reverse
of ideal; but even a Greek could hardly have denied that their position
might have been much worse than it actually was. The most objectionable
feature,—the Greek tyrant governing in the Persian interest,—had been
to a great extent removed before his time; and after the deposition
of tyranny the cities seem to have enjoyed a large measure of local
independence under Persian suzerainty. Whatever the extent or nature
of the tie which bound them to the sovereign government, it certainly
does not seem to have been such as to crush social and intellectual
development on Hellenic lines; in fact, with regard to intellectual
development, these very cities seem to have been first in the field,
and to have been infinitely more prominent under Persian than under
Athenian rule. Whatever the cause, whether fear or policy, or both,
it is plain, on the evidence of the Greeks themselves, that the
Persian Government was extraordinarily lenient and liberal in its
treatment of subject Greeks. The Hellenism of the fifth century, social
and intellectual, was, moreover, no tender plant requiring careful
political nurture. It had struck its roots deep into the very being
of the race; and it may be doubted whether Persia could, even if she
would, have eradicated so strong a growth.
It is therefore possible to exaggerate the consequences which might
have resulted to Greek civilization had the issue of the great war
been favourable to the Persian. The inherent probabilities of the case
do not warrant the assertion that such a victory would have brought
about the substitution of an Eastern for a Western civilization in
South European lands. It is, moreover, extremely doubtful whether the
Great King could have maintained his hold upon European Greece for any
prolonged period after the initial conquest; and any attempt to crush
the Hellenism of the land would certainly have led to insurrection in
a country designed by nature to be the home of communal and individual
freedom.
Speculation upon what “might have been” is ever open to the charge of
idleness. It is, indeed, futile to attempt it in detail, by reason of
the infinity of the factors which modify human action. But, inasmuch
as what has been already said with regard to the possible results of
the war might leave a wrong impression as to the legitimate deductions
to be drawn from the main factors of a possible though imaginary
situation, it is necessary to carry the speculation one step farther.
That a Persian victory, even if only temporary, would have immensely
modified the political development of Greece in the last three quarters
of the fifth century, goes without saying; and such a modification
could not but have seriously affected the genius of Hellenism. The
splendour of the life and literature of the last half of the century
was largely due to the elaboration at Athens of a political and social
system, the counterpart of which the world has never seen. Never
before, and never since, has existed a community so large in which so
great a proportion of its members has had time to think out their own
salvation, and to work it out upon their own lines of thought. #EASTERN
AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION.# Salvation may seem a strange word to use of
a system which produced the pitiful record of the fourth century; and
yet, from amid all the evil, failure, and folly of the time there
emerged a social order which was infinitely better than anything of
the kind which had preceded it, and which was destined to form the
foundation of the edifice of civilization in the western world at the
present day. A Persian victory at Salamis, or even at Platæa, must have
postponed the realization of those ideals which are the glory of the
Greek people, and on which rests the claim of their race to the highest
place in the history of the nations; and postponement might have made
the full realization impossible.
The catastrophe of 480 had been long in maturing. The march of events
in South-eastern Europe and Western Asia had been slow. Still, the
two paths of development tended in opposite directions; and it was
inevitable that those who followed them should meet in a collision, the
shock of which would be proportionate to the forces of propulsion. The
moral strength of those forces was enormous. The ancient civilization
of the East, ages old, strong in development, the one ideal of the
millions of Western Asia, came into contact through its most western
off-shoot with a civilization which, whatever its origin, and whatever
the influences to which it had been exposed, was in striking contrast
to it. On the eastern shores of the Ægean the two first met.
It is impossible to say on the one hand what was the level of the
civilization attained by the Greeks at the time they first settled on
these coasts, more than 1000 years before Christ; and it is still less
possible to say what was the state of the peoples they found there at
the time of their settlement. Whether Lydia at this early age of its
development had as yet come into contact with, and been influenced by,
the civilization of the lands east and south of Taurus must also be
matter of doubt. It is, on the whole, probable that it had; for the
number and rapid development of the Greek trading towns on the East
Ægean coast point to a considerable and valuable overland trade, whose
roots would, in all probability, be in the lands of Mesopotamia, if not
still farther east. The caravans from that rich plain would be sure to
carry the infection of its civilization to the lands they traversed.
But, in any case, neither the Greek nor this most westerly off-shoot
of the Asiatic civilization can have passed beyond an early stage of
development, nor, in so far as is known, did the representatives of
either seek to inflict their own form of life upon the representatives
of the other. Neither side seems to have been strong enough to conquer
the other, even if either had been disposed to try. The Greek was
content to trade; the various native races were without union, and
cannot have been equal to the conquest of a people whose original
settlements they had apparently been unable to prevent.
The great Phrygian kingdom which flourished in Asia Minor for several
centuries had probably passed the zenith of its greatness when the
Greeks first established themselves on the coast; and the Lydian
monarchy, still in its infancy, had not developed into the greatness
it attained in after-time. In the obscure and uncertain traditions
of the Asian Greeks which Herodotus has preserved, this monarchy is
represented as having had an existence extending far into the past,
under various dynasties; but of its earliest history nothing is really
known, and the little that can be conjectured rests on the uncertain
foundation of mythical story. The Atyadæ or Herakleidæ of the earlier
dynasties are mere shadow-kings in history. A recurrent theme in
Phrygian and Lydian story alike is the fabulous wealth of certain of
those rulers. They seem to have afforded the Greek his first glimpse of
the splendour of the East.
Though, doubtless, the Greek trader traversed the Western Asian
peninsula through and through in his trading journeys, the populations
with whom he came in contact remained uninfluenced by a civilization
they did not appreciate, and probably could not understand. The Lydians
alone afforded an exception to this rule, because their position was
exceptional. They were brought into close contact with the Greek, and
seem to have implanted on a civilization of an Oriental type certain
characteristics derived from Greek social life. #RISE OF THE LYDIAN
KINGDOM.# It is doubtful whether such features of this civilization as
are known to the modern world were characteristic of the Lydian race
as a whole in early days; it is more probable that the mass of the
people remained in a comparatively low state of social development,
and that the quasi-feudal ruling families of the land evolved for
themselves a civilization copied from foreign lands, and were
influenced especially by the reports which reached them of the life and
glories of the great cities of the Euphrates plain.
The rise of Lydia to greatness seems to date from the early years
of the eighth century before Christ. A feudal family established a
precarious supremacy over the other feudal families of the land.
Nevertheless, the kingdom seems to have acquired a stable unity which
it hitherto had lacked; and the westernmost region of the West Asian
peninsula gradually developed into a dominion more splendid, if not
more powerful, than any which had hitherto existed among the strangely
diverse populations of that part of the world.
Geographical convention has assigned this peninsula to Asia; and,
under the influence of name-association, it has come to be regarded
as being in every sense an integral portion of that great continent.
In point of fact, however, it was at this time a borderland between
Orient and Occident, approximating ethnographically rather to West
than to East; though, in so far as it was influenced by the outside
world, affected rather by the preponderant power and splendour of the
East than by the comparative weakness and insignificance of the West.
The true historical western frontier of Asia has varied at different
periods of history between the Hellespont and the Taurus, according as
this debateable land has been in possession of an eastern or a western
power. But in the earlier days of the Lydian kingdom the region was
politically centred within itself, or, rather, was an aggregation of
political circles, and not, as in later times, a mere segment of a
great circle, whose centre lay far beyond its borders. Those who know
by experience the character of the barrier which, in the shape of Mount
Taurus, separates this region from the adjacent East, are most emphatic
in insisting upon the formidable nature of that wall of separation. It
is not difficult to demonstrate that Taurus has been in the past one
of the most decisive physical features in the history of the world.
The great systems of civilization have had one of two origins. Either
they have sprung up in those great plains of the world whose climate is
favourable to ease of existence; or they have been developed by nations
whose circumstances have been favourable to wide intercourse with, and
experience of, the peoples around them. Egypt, the Euphrates plain,
India, and China, are examples of the first; Greece and Great Britain
are the most prominent examples of the latter class. As, however, the
“civilizations of intercourse” must be largely dependent on navigation,
which can itself be alone developed by long experience, it is plain
that they must be of later development than the “civilizations of ease
of existence.” Thus it is that, many centuries before any system of
civilization of high development existed in Europe, the plains of the
Euphrates basin had given birth to one which, had nature allowed it
unimpeded expansion, must have spread to a great distance from its
centre. The all but blank, impassable wall of Taurus prevented the
West Asian peninsula from being thoroughly orientalized. Thus that
civilization which was springing up beyond the Ægean was allowed to
develop on its own lines, hardly affected by those pale rays of the
glowing life of the East which the narrow passes of Taurus allowed
to penetrate to the lands of the West. It was the Taurus, too, which
protected the earlier stages of the growth of the Lydian kingdom.
East of the chain the Assyrian empire was living out a life of stormy
magnificence. The records of its kings,—a wearisome tale of murder,
conquest, tribute, and torture,—give, it may be, only one side of
its history, and that not the best. Their exploits have as little
perspective as their presentment of them. The immediate object is all
that is sought; the past is dead; the present alone is living; the
future is of no account. A land is conquered; its population is either
decimated, wiped out, or removed elsewhere. Its wealth is plundered;
and, if there is anything left on which tribute can be laid, tribute
is laid upon it. Such is the record of one year. #ASSYRIA.# A few
years later, even in the case of lands previously reported as left
desolate, the same process is repeated. There is no rest for the ruling
race. For some inscrutable reason, its kings seem not to have had
foresight enough to establish a strong system of administration for the
conquered provinces. These are merely treated as sources of revenue,
doomed to tribute,—a heavy burden indeed, but, at least in the case of
regions not bordering immediately on Assyria proper, the only burden
laid upon them.
Of the great empires which arose at different periods in this part of
the world, Assyria seems to have been the least enlightened. Its real
field of operation was bounded by the great mountain-systems on the
north and east, by the Great Sea on the west and the desert on the
south. Any operations undertaken outside these well-defined limits seem
to have been of the nature of punitive expeditions directed against
mountain tribes who had raided within these boundaries. Their lands
were too poor to excite the cupidity of this brigand empire. If they
remained quiet, Assyria left them alone, and devoted its energies to
the exaction of tribute from the richer lands of the plain or of the
Syrian coast. There are few records of expeditions west of the Taurus;
and, though some lands are asserted to have paid tribute, there is
no evidence whatever of anything like permanent conquest. The great
mountain chain acted as a groyne which diverted the flood of invasion
from the Euphrates region southward along the Syrian coast Thus it was
that the growing kingdom of Lydia never came into hostile contact with
the great empire. Yet the commercial intercourse between them must
have been carried on upon a large scale; and, indeed, the prosperity
of Lydia and of the Greek colonies on the Asian coast was due to their
acting as middlemen in the commerce between East and West which passed
along that route which formed in later Persian times the line of the
royal road to Susa. It was an interruption of this intercourse, and a
threatened diversion of this route, which brought about the opening of
diplomatic relations between the two realms.
In the latter half of the eighth century before Christ, the plains
of Asia and East Europe were disturbed by one of those movements
of thrust which are ever recurrent in their history; and a tide of
migration was set up which was destined to have many more remarkable
counterparts in later story. Under pressure of a race which may with a
certain amount of probability be identified with the Massagetæ of after
times, those mysterious peoples, the Cimmerians and Scythians, were
driven from their homes in the northern plains and invaded in whole or
in part the West Asian peninsula. Of the two, the Cimmerians settled
in the region of the North bordering on the Euxine, and by continual
raids made life a burden to the Phrygians and White Syrians of those
parts. Some thirty unhappy years seem to have passed thus. The Phrygian
kingdom was gradually broken up, and by 670 B.C. the Cimmerians found
themselves on the north borders of Lydia, which had just taken a new
lease of life under Gyges, one of the ablest and most energetic of its
successive rulers. The possibility of invasion was only part of the
danger which threatened Lydia. That Gyges could and did ward off in
a fierce struggle with the northern hordes; but his resources were,
unaided, not equal to the task of reopening the great trade route to
the East which passed through the lands of which these hordes were in
possession. He began negotiations with the mighty Empire of the East
which, under the energetic rule of Assur-bani-pal, was at the height
of its power. He sought to get aid in the heavy task which lay before
him. There were difficulties about the interpretation of the message
which his envoys carried to Nineveh; but these were overcome, and he
received fair words in answer to his request. More than this he did not
get. Assur-bani-pal had his hands full nearer home. He and his line
seem to have been past-masters of the art of creating difficulties to
be overcome; but the king seems to have had no desire to interfere in
the affairs of a land whose geographical position was vaguely known to
him as being near the “crossing of the sea.” He had enough self-created
troubles at his very gates without going abroad to find them.
#LYDIA AND THE GREEKS.#
So Gyges got no help from Nineveh, and was obliged to content
himself with having successfully warded off the invasion of his own
territories. For some years at any rate the great route eastward must
have been difficult, if not actually impassable. This interruption of
commercial relations by land with the East may well have led to that
development of Lydian intercourse with Egypt of which the Assyrian
records afford evidence.
The history of the Lydian kingdom, except in so far as it affects the
fortunes of the Greeks in Asia and Europe, forms no part of the design
of the present volume.
In the reign of Gyges, however, the relations between Lydian and Greek
entered upon a new stage. The Lydian rulers had hitherto lived on
friendly terms with most of the Hellenic towns on the adjacent coasts.
Gyges went still further, and by assiduous cultivation of the Delphic
oracle attracted the attention and regard of the Greeks of Europe,
who thus for the first time became intimate with one of the great
monarchies of the East.
For the new relations with Egypt, the Greek trader formed the
connecting link. It was almost inevitable that an energetic ruler
like Gyges should seek to get direct control of the main, if not the
only, means of communication with an ally whose alliance flattered
his vanity, and with a country whose wealth could not fail to benefit
Lydian trade. It is evident, however, that he did not feel himself
strong enough to attempt an overt attack on the Greek cities. That
could only have resulted in a formidable resistance on the part of
those centres of liberty and wealth. He devised a better plan, slow
working but terribly effective, and destined in later days to lead to
the undoing of the liberties of Greece.
Gyges has the distinction of being the first barbarian in history who
saw his way to profit by the fierce political dissensions common to
all Greek communities. By allying himself with factions in the various
cities he acquired in many of them a preponderating influence, while
he reduced others to subjection. Kolophon shared this latter fate; so
did the smaller Magnesia near Sardes. With others he entered into close
relations of friendship favourable to himself, since the continuance of
the pressure from the side of the Cimmerians made persistence in
the policy of absorption impossible. The pressure increased instead of
diminishing; and it was from this quarter that the final catastrophe
came. A combination between the Cimmerians and other tribes of Asia
Minor proved too strong for Gyges. He perished in a great battle.
Lydia was overrun and devastated; and during the stormy days of the
commencement of the reign of his successor, Ardys, the Asian Greeks
found it necessary to join the Lydians in their death struggle. The
Greek towns, though none save Magnesia appear to have been actually
captured, suffered severe losses, which were but partially compensated
for by successes won by Greek hoplites. Ardys, like his father,
appealed to Assyria; and this time the Lydian appeal did not remain
without effect, for the Cimmerians had turned east and were threatening
the Assyrian border. Assailed by the Assyrians in the passes of Taurus,
they were so terribly defeated that they ceased thereafter to be the
formidable power they had been in West Asia during the previous half
century. In the years which followed Lydia gradually acquired all that
northern part of the peninsula which had been in Cimmerian hands.
Lydia was now a considerable power, extending to the Halys on the east;
and as such it presented itself to the European Greek of the later
years of the seventh century. To Lydia accordingly turned the thoughts
of Aristomenes, the hero of the Messenian wars of independence against
Sparta, when as a refugee he sought safety across the Ægean. ◆Paus.
iv. 24. 2, 3.◆ Death overtook him before he had time to carry out his
intention of appealing to Ardys for help.
Having attained a frontier on the east beyond which further attempts
at expansion were dangerous, Ardys’ attention was naturally directed
westward, where the thickly dotted line of Greek colonies practically
cut Lydia off from communication with the Ægean littoral. They held
the natural exits of that overland trade to which the prosperity of
Ardys’ kingdom must have been largely due, and must have absorbed
a large proportion of those trade profits which the Lydian might
not unreasonably regard as his own. #STRATEGIC POSITIONS OF ASIATIC
GREEKS.# Moreover, the relations of Lydia with the great trading
towns of Smyrna, Kolophon, Klazomenæ, Miletus, and Priene, were no
longer of the friendly character of former days. The policy of Ardys
consequently aimed specially at the reduction or absorption of these
towns.
The inevitable was about to happen. The very nature of the peninsula
made it all but certain that whenever a great State acquired command of
the upper part of the great valleys of the Hermus, Mæander, and other
streams, the towns which stood on their western exits must succumb to
that State.
A glance at the map of Western Asia will show this.
The main physical characteristics of the country from the Halys to
the Ægean are, (1) a great interior plateau; (2) a series of parallel
mountain chains running from east to west, between which rivers,
following the same direction, run down towards the Ægean, so that their
valleys form a series of natural lines of communication between the
plateau and the coast. There is no cross-chain running north and south,
at the head of these valleys, to form a natural barrier towards the
east. Access to them is unimpeded from that direction.
This physical conformation of the land was alike a curse and a blessing
to the Greek trading towns of the coast. The valleys formed, on the
one hand, natural routes for commerce of immense value to those who
held their exits; but they also afforded natural highways for attack to
any power coming from the interior which assailed the holders of those
exits.
The disadvantage had not been so apparent while Lydia was still a
comparatively weak State; but it was sure to come into prominence
so soon as she attained to any degree of power. The weakness of the
strategic position of those Greek cities is not less striking than the
advantages of their positions from a commercial point of view. Their
territories, besides being this void of any line of defence towards the
east, were separated from one another by the ranges which divided the
river valleys; and intercommunication by sea was rendered difficult
by the long projecting promontories which separate the deep gulfs at
the head of which most of the cities were situated. From the point
of view of joint action this was a very serious drawback. Nature had
been doubly unkind to them in this respect. Not content with having
made a base of combination on land impossible, she had made combination
on sea difficult. Prosperity without liberty was the natural birthright
of these Asian towns. Even when backed up by all the naval strength of
the Athenian empire, their independence of the power on the mainland
seems to have been in most cases partial, and in all precarious; and
even independence gave them little more or better than a change of
masters.
◆H. i. 15.◆
Priene was taken by Ardys somewhere about the year 620. Miletus was
next attacked; but this greatest of the cities proved no easy prey.
The war dragged on after Ardys’ death, through the short reign of his
successor, Sadyattes; ◆H. i. 17.◆ and under Alyattes took the form of
annual raids, designed to wear out the patience of the citizens. At
last, mainly on the advice of the oracle at Delphi, a compromise was
effected about B.C. 604, by which each side granted commercial
concessions to the other, though matters remained politically _in statu
quo_.
The comparative failure at Miletus did not discourage Alyattes in his
enterprises against the towns. Kolophon, which had regained or
reassumed its independence at the time of the Cimmerian trouble, was
brought into subjection once more; ◆H. i. 16.◆ Smyrna, as a town, was
destroyed, and its inhabitants forced to take up their abode in
unwalled settlements. Klazomenæ well-nigh experienced the same fate.
Alliances were made with other cities, such as Ephesus and Kyme.
Alyattes would doubtless have prosecuted further his designs against
the Greek cities, had not his attention been at this moment called away
to the eastern frontier of his kingdom.
It was not from Assyria that the trouble threatened. That great empire
had come to an end some years before, under circumstances of which the
details do not directly affect the Greeks. A Scythian incursion, so
prolonged that it seemed likely to terminate in permanent settlement,
had broken it. #MEDO-LYDIAN WAR.# The final death-blow had been
inflicted by two peoples—the Medes, who inhabited the mountainous
uplands beyond the Zagros chain which bounds the plain of the Tigris on
the east and north-east, and the Babylonians, who had ever chafed under
Assyrian rule.
Within a short period the Medes had pushed their frontier westward
beyond the Taurus, and had reduced to subjection the country between
that range and the Halys, a region which at times came within the
sphere of Assyrian influence, but cannot be said to have formed part of
that empire.
With all the vigour inspired by recent success, the Mede sought to push
his way westward; and a fierce frontier war seems to have been waged
for several years upon the Halys between Alyattes and Cyaxares, the
Median king.
Pteria, a town whose position renders it the chief strategic point in
the Halys region, commanding, as it does, the middle portion of the
cleft-like valley through which the river flows, formed the _point
d’appui_ of the Lydian defence, and was the immediate object of the
Median attack.
Of the war itself but little is known, except the important fact that
it came to an end in a remarkable way. The opposing armies were drawn
up for a battle, when an eclipse of the sun took place, which caused
both sides to shrink from the engagement. It is calculated that such
eclipses took place in Asia Minor in the years 610 and 585, of which
the latter seems to be the more probable date of this unfought fight.
◆H. i. 74.◆ A peace was concluded through the mediation of a Babylonian
whose name Herodotus gives as Labynetos; but in what capacity he acted
as mediator is not known. The celebrated Nebuchadrezzar was ruling in
Babylon at the time. Lydia apparently sacrificed Pteria and the region
east of Halys, and that river became the definite frontier between the
two States.
The story of this Median kingdom has come down to posterity in a form
so imperfect that it is difficult to extract the small historical from
the large mythical element contained in it. Its chief importance in
history is that its kings are the first of that series of Iranian
dynasties which, whether Median, Persian, or Parthian, were paramount
in the eastern world for many centuries. From this time forward the
Iranian took the place of the Semite as the suzerain of the East; for
the Babylonian realm of Nebuchadrezzar was but of comparatively brief
splendour, and was soon absorbed by the less civilized but more virile
power which became heir to its partner in the destruction of Assyria.
The Median king Cyaxares, who had warred with the Lydians on the Halys,
lived but one year after the close of the campaign, and was succeeded
by his son Astyages, whose chief claim to fame is that he was the
last of the brief line of Median kings. Little is known of him. For
the Greek the truth concerning him and his was lost in that mirage
of legends which accumulated round the personality of the man who
overthrew him, Cyrus the Great.
The myths, fables, and legends which the ever lively imagination of
the East invented with regard to the founder of the Persian dynasty,
have crowded the greater part of the real story of his life out of
the pages of history. Their adoption by Greek historians was all but
complete; though some, like Herodotus, sought to rationalize a few
of the incidents reported. Did there exist no other records of his
life than those which have survived in the Greek historians, it would
be difficult to assert with confidence which of the reported details
are true. Comparatively recent discoveries in the East have brought
to light, however, certain annals of a Babylonian king, Nabonidus, a
successor of Nebuchadrezzar, and a contemporary of Cyrus. From these
records it is possible to reconstruct the story of some of the main
events of what must have been a very stirring time in that part of the
world.
Astyages the Mede had reigned a quarter of a century, when Cambyses,
the prince of one of the vassal principalities of the Median empire,
died, and was succeeded by his son Kurush, the Cyrus of the Greeks.
This was about the year 559. The name of the principality appears in
the records as Anshan. Its inhabitants were the Persians of history.
#MEDE AND PERSIAN.#
This people, which was destined to play so great a part in the two
following centuries, were of the same race as the Medes. The only
possible deduction to be drawn from subsequent events is that the
connection between the two nations was very close. Its exact nature
can only be guessed at. Any difference between the two must have been
rather nominal than real; for the supremacy of the one race does not
appear to imply the subjection of the other; and when, somewhere about
552, Cyrus revolted, and defeated Astyages, the Median army came over
immediately to his side. It is hardly credible that such a thing should
have taken place, had not the Medes regarded Cyrus and his family as
being in some very real sense a part of themselves, and as possessed
of some title to be their rulers. Both races were certainly Iranian.
They were alike in religion and very near akin in language. It may
even have been that the Persian was a tribesman of the nation to which
the name Mede was given. Their nearest neighbours, the Babylonians,
recorded the change of ruler, but not in language which could lead to
the supposition that they regarded it as an event of great magnitude.
They seem to have looked upon it as more or less of a domestic matter,
an internal revolution.
The Persian empire was indeed the empire of the Mede under a new name;
stronger and more vigorous than its forerunner, because the helm of
government passed into abler hands. The Greeks themselves hardly
recognized the distinction between the two, and used the names Mede and
Persian in a general sense as synonymous terms. Nor has the perspective
of centuries sensibly altered the nature of the picture as it presented
itself to those who regarded it from a nearer point of view. The two
nations, one in religion, one in civilization, one in social system,
appear as one in the making of the history of the three centuries
during which they played the foremost part in Western Asia.
During the thirty years of Astyages’ rule in Media, the Lydian kingdom
enjoyed a continuous career of expansion. Whether owing to troubles at
home, or to the severity of the check administered in the campaign on
the Halys before 585, Astyages made no attempt to extend the Median
frontier towards the West. It is probable that he had his hands full
with the work of consolidating the wide dominion which his race had so
recently won, and the revolt of Cyrus may have been but the last of a
series of insurrections on the part of his subordinate rulers. Be that
as it may, Lydia was given a breathing space from attack, which, under
the energetic rule of Alyattes, she used to the full.
The renewal of the assault on the liberties of the Greek towns of the
Ægean coast followed immediately upon the close of the fighting with
the Medes. Before five years had elapsed, the Troad and Mysia, with
the Æolian Greek cities of the Hellespontine region, had been reduced.
Even Bithynia seems to have been invaded about this time, and part of
it secured by strongholds built at important strategical points. In the
south-west Caria proved a harder conquest. Its population, from which
the earliest professional soldiery in the Levant had been drawn, did
not give up the struggle until about the year 566, well-nigh at the
close of Alyattes’ reign. The Dorian cities on the coast seem to have
shared its fate. On this occasion, at any rate, they were partners in
its adversity.
It was in this campaign that Crœsus, that figure of pathetic
magnificence, destined later to cast both light and shadow on the
historical records of the Greek, first came into prominence. The
mingled admiration and commiseration of after-time exaggerated his
personality into the very type of human fortune and misfortune; and
the picture of his life as drawn by Herodotus is probably no more than
a truthful reproduction of the impression of him which prevailed a
century after his death. Nevertheless the thread of fact runs unbroken
through the maze of fiction, and it is possible to reconstruct his
history with more reliability than can be claimed for the records of
his predecessors.
#CRŒUS. LYDIAN CIVILIZATION.#
As a youth he had incurred the displeasure of his father Alyattes by
his extravagance, and had imperilled his chances of succession by the
distrust which his conduct excited among an influential section of
the population, composed probably of staid merchants, who would
be unlikely to sympathize with irresponsible and expensive frivolity.
The danger brought him to his senses; and he apparently made up his
mind that the Carian war afforded him an opportunity of winning a good
opinion he had never tried to earn. How he succeeded is not known. He
did succeed; for the fortunate issue of the war was largely attributed
to his exertions and ability. He was just in time to save the situation
for himself, since the years of his father’s life were numbered. About
B.C. 561,[2] Alyattes died, not before he had raised the Lydian kingdom
to a greatness beyond what it hitherto had known.
It stood, indeed, on the same level as the great contemporary
monarchies of the East, while as yet the Mede had not succeeded to
the full heritage of that Assyria which he had helped to destroy. It
absorbed for the time the attention of the Greek, when he gave his
attention to anything beyond his home affairs. Its very splendour
became a barrier of light which the Greek eye could not pierce so far
as to see clearly what was going on in the region beyond, so that even
the great Cyrus came not within the field of Hellenic vision until he
had emerged from the comparative darkness of the lands beyond the Halys.
Archæological discovery within Lydia itself has done far more than
the meagre records of contemporary history towards disclosing the
characteristics of the civilization which was thus brought into strong
contrast with that of the Hellenic lands and cities. It would be out
of place in a work of this kind to enter into details with regard to
it; yet the possibilities of the future were at the moment of Crœsus’
accession so significant, and of such world-wide importance, that it is
impossible to pass over in silence the main features of a social system
whose influence upon the Hellenic world must have been very great,
and might have been much greater.
The Lydians, a people of undeniable genius, seem to have built upon
an indigenous foundation a composite civilization, made up largely
of elements drawn from foreign lands. Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt
all contributed to its formation; and the influence of the Greek of
the Asian coast and of Europe is unmistakable, especially in the last
years of its independent existence. It was, indeed, in the main a
“civilization of intercourse,” due to the important trading relations
of the kingdom with the various nations which lay within its reach.
Its main characteristics in the sixth century are Oriental, though the
tendency towards its hellenization, fostered greatly by its rulers,
is strikingly apparent. It must, indeed, on the other hand, have
influenced the social life of the Greek cities within the borders of
the kingdom; and it is difficult to say how far this influence might
have affected the civilization of the West, had not the process of
infiltration been brought to a sudden standstill.
It was, as might be expected from the variety of its origin, a strange
compound of good and evil. From his very vocation the Lydian trader
evolved a system of cosmopolitan humanity, rare in those ages, rare,
indeed, in any age in eastern lands. Living at ease himself, he was
naturally inclined to live and let live. The width of his trade
connections, and the necessity of securing safe passage through foreign
countries, would tend to make him cultivate friendly relations with
the people around him. One thing that he evolved from the necessities
of his mode of life has had as much influence upon the history of the
world as any single invention of man before or since. The awkwardness
of exchange and barter to a merchant whose trade had distant roots, and
who had to make long overland journeys in the course of his business,
led him to invent and gradually adopt one medium of exchange, which
all peoples, however various their home products, would appreciate.
#LYDIAN INFLUENCE ON THE GREEKS.# It required but little education in
taste to make even the rudest of races set value on the most beautiful
of all the metals; and the gold and silver which Lydia produced so
freely was stamped into the first currency of which there is record in
history. Greek and Persian alike lost but little time in adopting so
magnificent an invention.
The Lydian works of art which have survived show that the nation had
attained to considerable skill in that respect.
But if the virtues of this civilization were great, its vices were
equally so. The grossest form of immorality, that pest which the East
seems to inherit like a moral leprosy, was prevalent. Certain tales in
Herodotus show this to have been the case. The Greek did not escape the
disease, and it may be that it was from the Lydian that he first caught
it. Wholesale immorality of another kind was not merely prevalent,
but received a religious sanction in the guise of that Aphrodite
worship which in various forms sapped the vigour of the East. The town
populations of Greece, especially those which, like the Corinthians,
had closest intercourse with the Asian coast, caught this infection
also.
It would have been contrary to the very nature of things had the
Greeks,—a race peculiarly apt to learn both evil and good,—escaped
altogether the influence of this Oriental social system at their doors.
It is fortunate for posterity that its influence was short-lived.
The very excellence of the general relations between the Lydia of
Crœsus and the Greeks as a body made the Lydian influence the more
dangerous. It was the bitter hostility which sprang up in after times
between the Greeks and the representatives of that new Orientalism
which was superimposed upon the Lydian form, which saved the Greek
civilization from becoming itself orientalized. The danger which
Greece ran in the great war of 480–479 was as nothing compared with
the danger Hellenism would have run had the war never taken place. The
bitter, lasting hostility which it roused was far less dangerous than
friendly intercourse with a great empire, the heir of all the ages of a
world-old civilization, which might have made a moral conquest of the
Hellene, had it refrained from attempting a physical one. It was the
war itself, rather than its issue, which proved the salvation of Greece.
Crœsus’ succession to the great dominion which Alyattes had left
was not undisputed. But the son had inherited the vigour of his father.
He anticipated the plans of his rival. The pretender disappeared,—how
or whither is not known; and his supporters, who were largely drawn
from the feudal nobility of the land, met death in many grievous forms.
Some of the Greek cities had more than sympathized with his antagonist,
so to these he now turned his attention. All of them, Æolian, Ionian,
and Dorian alike, were reduced to the position of Lydian dependencies,
though in matters purely local they remained autonomous, if the name of
autonomy can be given to a form of government in which a local tyrant
played the part of administrator and political agent. Yet unpromising
as was their position from the point of view of theoretical politics,
they were in actual fact treated with marked consideration by Crœsus.
It is impossible at the present day to sound the motives which underlay
the attitude which this extraordinary man adopted to the Greeks alike
of Asia and of Europe. It may have been from pure self-interest; it may
have been because Hellenism had cast over him the glamour which it cast
over other barbarian monarchs. Whatever the cause, the fact remains
that, when once he had reduced the Greek cities to that position of
dependence which was necessary for the political homogeneity of his
empire, he seems to have lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself in
the eyes of his Greek subjects and of their kinsmen beyond the seas. At
Branchidæ and at Ephesus he enriched the Greek temples with splendid
offerings; and the wealth of the gifts he gave to Delphi excited the
admiration of centuries. If contemporary report be not exaggerated,
the value of his dedications to the great Hellenic shrine amounted to
considerably more than a million pounds sterling of the money of the
present day. Gifts of great value were also sent to the lesser Greek
oracles.
#DESIGNS OF CRŒUS.#
The authorities at Delphi would have been exceptional among similar
societies in all ages of the world, had they not shown appreciation of
a devotee so wealthy and so willing. He was made a citizen; to his
embassies were given a precedence over all others.
It is difficult to imagine that Crœsus should have expended such
enormous sums on the cultivation of friendly relations with the Greeks
of Europe for purely sentimental reasons. The oracles were not the
only recipients of his gifts. The friendship of prominent and powerful
families in various States, such as the Alkmæonidæ of Athens, was
bought with a price.
Perhaps the explanation maybe sought and found in the previous and
later policy of the king. He had subjugated the Greek cities of the
coast, and by so doing had advanced his kingdom to its extreme limits
on the west. Unless he converted Lydia into a naval power, further
expansion on this side was impossible. So he turned his eyes towards
the East, where nature and the circumstances of the time offered what
must have seemed a favourable opportunity for the extension of his
empire.
It must, however, have been quite evident to him that any policy of
expansion eastward could only be carried out with safety in case his
rear was secured from attack, where danger lay, not merely in the
recently subdued Greek cities, but also in the possibility of any
movement on their part being supported by help from their kinsmen in
Europe.
Considerations such as these must have had a large influence upon his
policy.
The story of his operations in the East has survived in history in what
is manifestly a very mutilated form. It is fortunate that Strabo has
preserved some reliable details which Herodotus does not mention in
his somewhat legendary account of the last days of the rule of Crœsus.
The Lydian frontier had been extended to the Halys; but the motley
collection of races and states included within the dominion was in some
cases bound to the ruler of Sardes by comparatively loose ties. These
ties Crœsus strengthened.
Affairs in Asia beyond the Halys were at the moment, when Crœsus
brought his plans to maturity, about the year 548, in a condition
which made all certain calculation as to their issue impossible.
The Median dynasty had come to an end some four years before, and with
it the treaty concluded by Lydia with the Mede in 585 had come to an
end also. Cyrus must have been an unknown factor to the Lydian, though
doubtless the merchant travellers had brought back from the East many
a tale of his energy and success. He was certainly a danger: and the
question probably suggested itself to Crœsus whether he were not a
danger which it would be wise to forestall, by pushing forward the
Lydian frontier to that mass of mountains formed by the meeting of
Taurus with the Armenian chains. Such a precautionary measure would
be rendered the more attractive to the Lydian trader by the fact that
it would lead to the inclusion within the empire of that rich mineral
district on the south shore of the Euxine wherein the famed Chalybes
dwelt.
Crœsus was wise enough not to enter upon this venture single-handed.
It is evident that the comparative indifference with which Nabonidus
and the Babylonians had originally regarded the change of rulers in
Median empire, had by this time given place to a feeling of uneasiness,
if not of actual alarm. The easy-going, peace-loving antiquarian
of Babylon might well be apprehensive as to what might be the next
object of the uncomfortable enterprise of his energetic neighbour.
Even then the faint outlines of the writing on the wall were well-nigh
decipherable.
Amasis of Egypt had far less grounds for alarm; but even he seems to
have caught the infection of fear.
◆H. i. 77.◆
With these two states Crœsus entered into negotiations, which resulted
in the formation of a grand alliance, having for its object the
suppression of the power which was so rapidly developing in the East.
The negotiations of Crœsus were not confined to the great powers.
He sought and obtained allies in European Greece. The Lydian kings
had had a long experience of the value of the Greek heavy-armed
infantryman. Greek hoplites had fought many a time both with and
against them. #LYDIA AND SPARTA.# The addition of a contingent of them
to the grand army which the king was now gathering together would be
of inestimable value. There was evidently a difficulty about his
obtaining such a force from the Greek cities of Asia; nor can there
be any reasonable doubt as to where that difficulty lay. These cities
had within the last few years been robbed of much of that measure of
autonomy which they had up to that time enjoyed, and upon which they
had set a value out of proportion, doubtless, to its real worth. The
vivid discontent which such a loss must have aroused in Greek minds,
a discontent the depth of which the experience of ages would enable
the Lydian to gauge, would inevitably render them dangerous elements
in a Lydian army. The cities did, indeed, with one exception, remain
proof against Cyrus’ attempts to tamper with their loyalty; but
their attitude at the time was probably as much due to caution as to
fidelity. Their geographical position would not allow them to accept
risks against Lydia.
It was, therefore, to Greece itself that Crœsus turned. The relations
which he had so assiduously cultivated with Delphi enabled him to
obtain its assistance in the negotiations. ◆H. i. 69.◆ The outcome was,
so Herodotus says, that Sparta, partly persuaded by the oracle, partly
flattered by the Lydian embassy, consented to give aid in the war.
Moreover, the way to this alliance had been previously paved with
Lydian gold.
It is true that this contingent never reached Lydia. Ere it had
actually started, Sardes had fallen and Crœsus was either dead or a
prisoner. Whether the delay in despatching it was intentional or not,
the satisfactorily attested fact of such an alliance having been made
is evidence that the Lydia of that day exercised a very real influence
in Greece. Of the danger to which Hellenic civilization was exposed by
Lydian friendship, enough has been already said.
That friendship was genuine and unaffected on the side, at any rate,
of the Greeks. The relations of Crœsus with Delphi must have been
largely instrumental in forming it; but what happened in relation to
this very war showed clearly that the feeling of Greece towards Crœsus
was built upon wider foundations. The Greeks had come to regard
him as a distinguished convert to that Hellenism they so much loved.
The impression may have been false, but it was powerful. “He loveth
our nation” is an article in a national creed whose possibilities can
be hardly exaggerated. That the feeling had become independent of the
relations with Delphi is conspicuously shown in the present instance by
the fact that it was Delphi which administered to it a shock which the
Greek world took long to forget. The remembrance of it was evidently
vivid a hundred years later in the time of Herodotus.
It came about as follows. Anxious as to the issue of the great venture
upon which he was entering, Crœsus sought to fortify or defeat his own
resolution by inquiring of the oracles as to what the future had in
store for him.
◆H. i. 53.◆
Two of the oracles consulted, of which Delphi was one, answered that
“if he warred with the Persians he would overthrow a mighty empire.”
The response was capable of two interpretations, of which Crœsus
seized upon the most obvious; and was thus, so the Greeks thought, led
to his undoing. Despite the pious faith with which Herodotus regards
the utterances of the Delphic oracle, he is unable to conceal the
tremendous shock which this apparent deception caused to Hellenic
sentiment all the world over. To the Greek it appeared as though
the oracle had betrayed its best friend and his also. Even in the
cities of Asia, chafing though they were under recent subjugation,
this feeling must have found some echo, whose resonance lasted till
Herodotus’ own time. It is unlikely that he would ever have disclosed
its existence had not the feeling been very widespread in the Hellenic
world he loved. ◆H. i. 90.◆ The legendary story which he relates of the
conversation between Crœsus and Cyrus, expresses evidently a feeling
entertained by many besides Crœsus himself; and in the chapter which
follows upon this tale, he shows that the Delphic oracle was forced by
public opinion to attempt to explain away the apparent deception it had
practised. #FALL OF THE LYDIAN KINGDOM.# The true explanation, which
would have relieved it of a large part of the burden of the moral
guilt, was one it dare not give in view of the prophetic character
which it had to maintain before the eyes of the world. Prophecy founded
upon intimate knowledge of Greek affairs was very far from being the
mere guesswork, wrapped in enigma, of its utterances relative to
matters deep in Asia, of which it can have had no real ken.
The account of the campaign given by Herodotus is full of
inconsistencies; but by comparison of his story with other incidental
references to it in various sources, it is possible to arrive at an
understanding of the main outlines of what took place.
The great coalition might have taken Cyrus by surprise, had not the
plans of Crœsus been divulged to him by an Ephesian traitor, if a tale
preserved by Diodorus is to be believed. The mere fact that he was
able to anticipate the designs of Crœsus renders it probable that some
disclosure of the kind did take place.
Forewarned and forearmed, Cyrus executed a rapid and adventurous march
through the northern territories of the Babylonian kingdom, and must
have been already near the Taurus before Crœsus received from his ally
Nabonidus news of the coming attack. He was but half-prepared; but the
danger was so imminent that he had to take the field with the force
he had with him, while he sent urgent messages to his allies to come
with all speed to help him. ◆H. i. 75.◆ He crossed the Halys into the
district of Pteria, which he laid waste as a defensive measure. The
historians, Herodotus and Polyænus, are hopelessly at variance as to
what happened in the actual fighting that ensued. A great battle did
take place: that is certain. It is also certain that after the battle
Crœsus retired through Phrygia to Sardes; but whether he did so because
he had been defeated, or because he had inflicted a severe check on
Cyrus, and expected that a diversion on the part of the Babylonians
would make it impossible for him to advance towards Sardes in the
winter, is unknown. In any case, Nabonidus did not move, and Cyrus
surprised Crœsus in Lydia. Crœsus, caught unprepared, made a desperate
defence with such forces as he could collect; but he was shut up in
Sardes. Of the real history of the siege the Greeks seem to have known
little or nothing; their chroniclers give the most contradictory
accounts of it. But the town fell within a short time—taken, it would
seem, by escalade. What became of Crœsus is not known. ◆Bakchylides
III. 23 _ff_.◆ It is probable that he immolated himself upon a burning
pyre. The tale was too shocking for Greek ears, and was softened down
by a legendary addition to the effect that he was saved from the flames
by divine intervention.
The sudden collapse of Lydia is one of the most remarkable incidents in
history.
It fell in a moment, as it were, never to rise again; and it fell,
not in the decadence of age, but at the very height of its young and
vigorous life. To the Greek the spectacle was bewildering: nor is
it strange that a catastrophe so sudden and complete, unparalleled,
indeed, in the history of the world, should have so dazed the senses of
those who were spectators of it, that they were never able to give a
rational account of how it came to pass.