PERSIAN AND GREEK IN ASIA. THE SCYTHIAN EXPEDITION.
Despite the great catastrophe which had just taken place before their
eyes, the Greek cities had no mind to make an unconditional surrender
to the power which had vanquished their old master. It was unfortunate
that, after coming to such a decision, they did not combine in a common
resistance. The inherent weakness of their strategical position,
together with the incompleteness of the sympathy between Æolian,
Ionian, and Dorian Greek, made such united action difficult. There is a
terrible sameness in the drama of history as played upon this coast of
the Ægean. The scenery admitted of but one plot, of which the leading
motive was disunion. In the present, as in other instances, the Dorian
states of the Carian coast went their own way. They threw in their
lot with their Carian neighbours. The Æolians and Ionians were not
altogether blameless in the matter. They did not at first show a bold
front to the Persian, but offered to submit to him on the terms on
which they had submitted to Crœsus.
Save in the case of Miletus, the largest and most formidable of the
towns, Cyrus would not hear of terms; and so the cities prepared to
fight for their liberty.
It was the beginning of the winter; and, as the Persians did not
possess the means for assaulting the cities from the side of the sea,
the latter had a few months’ respite wherein to make preparations.
They appealed to Sparta for help. That cautious government, which was
probably congratulating itself on having escaped from involving its
citizens in the Lydian _débâcle_, refused active assistance, but sent
an embassy to Cyrus to warn him against interference. Cyrus, whose
notions as to the geography of this part of the world may well have
been vague, asked who the ambassadors were, and whence they came. ◆H.
i. 153.◆ On being told, he warned them that, all well, he would give
them cause to talk about their own woes and not those of the Ionians.
This rough humour must have seemed in great contrast to the politeness
with which Crœsus had addressed the foremost race in Greece.
Cyrus was obliged to entrust the completion of the conquest of the
Lydian kingdom to one of his lieutenants. The news of the fall of
Sardes had scared Babylon into inactivity; but the Baktrians and
Sakæ on the extreme eastern borders of his dominion had seized the
opportunity afforded by the western campaign to rise in revolt.
He had not proceeded far on his homeward march before news reached
him of a rising in Lydia. Paktyas, a renegade Lydian who had embraced
his cause, and to whom the conqueror had entrusted the care of the
transport of the spoils, had intrigued with the Ionian Greeks; and,
having ample funds at his disposal, had hired mercenaries from them.
Tabalos, the Persian lieutenant whom Cyrus had left behind him, was
besieged in the citadel of Sardes; and there was every prospect that,
if the place fell, all the work of the late campaign would have to be
done again. There was no time to be lost: nor was Cyrus the man to
lose time. He despatched an army under Mazares the Mede to rescue the
besieged, and Sardes was saved. Paktyas fled to Kyme, and thence to the
islands. He neither deserved nor received sympathy, and, after various
adventures, was handed over by the Chians to the Median commander.
With the flight of Paktyas the insurrection in Lydia came to an end; in
fact, in so far as extant records go, the Lydians themselves played but
little part in it. The passive and entire submission of this people,
their acceptance, once and for all, of the yoke laid upon them, is
one of the most extraordinary features of this extraordinary time.
#CONQUEST OF IONIA BY PERSIA.# It might well have been expected that a
nation with a past so recent and so glorious would have seized the
first and every opportunity of attempting to regain the freedom, if not
the dominion they had lost. But nothing of the kind took place; and
even the great effort of the Ionian revolt failed to rouse them from
the apathy of defeat.
The circumstances of Paktyas’ rebellion showed Mazares that the
Greek cities of the coast could no longer be left in a position to
be the instruments of trouble in the newly-won territory. To them,
accordingly, he immediately turned his attention. He first attacked
Priene and sacked it; but, before he had completed the reduction of
Magnesia on the Mæander, he died, and Harpagos, who succeeded him as
governor, took up the task of reduction. Phokæa and Teos were besieged.
Ere they fell, the mass of their inhabitants went into voluntary
exile—the Phokæans to Corsica in the farthest west, the Teans to the
near coast of Thrace.
There can be little doubt that the departure of these peoples was
a disaster of the first magnitude to the Greek towns of Asia. It
is hardly possible to realize at the present day the strength of
resolution which prompted the Phokæans to undertake their long and
perilous journey. They are the New Englanders of the sixth century
before Christ. Their presence fifty years later, at the time of the
revolt, might have given the Ionian resistance that “stiffening” which
it seems to have lacked; indeed, a member of the remnant they left
behind them, that dare-devil old pirate Dionysius, is the one prominent
person on the Greek side in that distressful time whom later historians
consented to praise. One by one the other Ionian and Æolian cities
fell into Persian power. There does not appear to have been any real
combined resistance. Nature had made them units without unity. The
islanders of Samos alone escaped subjection.
Caria was next attacked. It yielded practically without a blow, and the
Dorian colonies fell with it into Persian hands—a fate in their case
not wholly undeserved. Lycia fought for its liberty, but in vain; and
with its subjection the establishment of Persian rule on the continent
of West Asia was complete.
The rest of the career of Cyrus, important though it is, has little
influence on Greek history. His campaign in the East was a prolonged
one. He seems to have extended the borders of his empire to the
Thian-Shan and Suleiman ranges, if not into the plains of India itself.
His aim can hardly have been the mere acquisition of these enormous
areas of comparatively unproductive territory. The reason lying behind
his policy was, in all probability, the fact that the races of this
region were near akin to his own, and that he wished to advance against
the Semitic peoples at the head of a forced coalition of the Iranian
races.
The turn of Babylon for attack was soon to come. Nabonidus’ antiquarian
researches absorbed more and more of his time, and the real conduct
of the government seems to have passed into the hands of his son
Bel-sharuzar, the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel. In the final
struggle, indeed, Nabonidus seems to have come to the front again.
By 538 Cyrus was ready. He made great preparations for the invasion,
probably in anticipation of a much harder task than it actually proved.
The collapse seems to have been rapid, so that within a short time
Babylon was taken, Nabonidus a prisoner, and the brief revival of
the Chaldæan empire at an end. The whole of the Babylonian dominions
submitted to the conqueror, and the empire of Cyrus now stretched
unbroken from the Ægean and Mediterranean on the west to the borders of
India on the east.
Of the three rival kingdoms, Egypt alone survived. Doubtless Cyrus had
designs upon it; but after the fall of Babylon in 538, he seems to have
wisely devoted himself to the task of consolidating the empire he had
won so rapidly in the previous fourteen years. Before his plans were
ripe for an expedition beyond the Isthmus of Suez, disturbances in the
far east called him thither. There he died, probably in a great battle
about the year 529. The halo of legend which rapidly formed about his
great personality concealed not merely the real man, but even his
real history. #THE PERSIAN CIVILIZATION.# Four versions of the story
of his death, each differing wholly from the other, were known to
the Greeks. But whatever fate he met, his body was brought to his
home-land, where the remains of his tomb may be seen at the present
day. “I am Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenian,” is the only part of his
epitaph which survives. It would be too little for a lesser man. It is
sufficient for him even now that he has been twenty-five centuries dead.
The new Orientalism with which the Asian Greek was brought into
contact by the conquest of Lydia was, in many respects, of a different
character to that which had preceded it in Western Asia. As years
rolled on, and the specially Persian characteristics of it became more
and more merged in the general Oriental type, the difference tended
to disappear; but even until quite late times the hardy races from
the mountains of Iran had many national customs which were in strong
contrast to the typical civilization of the Euphrates plain. Though far
from ideal, there were certain grand elements in it which struck the
imagination of some of the finer minds of Greece, and which, through
them, must have influenced Greek life, though in ways which it is not
possible now to trace. Had the Greek come much under its influence,
that influence, though it would have been disastrous in many respects,
would not have tended wholly for evil.
The civilization was indeed essentially of an Eastern type. It
is unnecessary to point out the significance of such a general
characteristic. The Mede and Persian had been for centuries next-door
neighbours of the population of the great plains, and it was inevitable
that they should have borrowed from their brilliant life. Yet, despite
their nearness, there was a triple gulf between the two, which the
intercourse even of centuries could not bridge. Difference of race,
difference of habitat, and, above all, difference of religion sundered
them. The Iranian and Semite regarded the world and life in it from
different points of view. The struggle for existence presented
itself in wholly different aspects to the mountaineer and the man
of the plain. The monotheist could have but little sympathy with a
polytheistic creed.
The Medo-Persian was a strange product for an Asiatic soil. He
was an Asian apart. His religious belief was alone calculated to
make him remarkable among his contemporaries. The Asiatic of this
time had a natural tendency towards polytheism. The monotheism of
even the Israelites was spasmodic. But with the Persian monotheism
was the set religion of the race. It had a legendary origin in the
teachings of Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, as he appears in Western
history. Ahura-mazda was the one god. There were, indeed, other objects
of worship,—the stars, the sun, the moon, and fire, beautiful and
incomprehensible works of Ahura-mazda; but he was god alone. Other
spiritual beings there were too, represented as deified virtues and
blessings—Good Thought, Perfect Holiness, Good Government, Meek Piety,
Health, and Immortality; and these stood nearest to Ahura-mazda’s
throne.
The national religion had not, indeed, wholly escaped the contamination
of the less spiritual cults of the neighbouring peoples. The animalism
of the worship of the Babylonian goddess Mylitta had been introduced
into the land under the guise of the adoration of the nymph Anahita.
Nevertheless, with the Persian the deification of the various forms
of nature took a special form. The deities themselves were treated
as demi-gods, rather than gods; creations of the great spirit of
Ahura-mazda. One power alone, the power of evil, seemed to contest his
supremacy. In opposition, therefore, to the god of that light which
he looked upon as the visible embodiment of the Good, the Persian
conceived the existence of a god of darkness, a god of evil, a god of
the under-world, a god of death. This god, Angro-mainyus, possessed,
indeed, the attributes both of Satan and of Pluto. There was no hope
for the complete triumph of good over evil in this life. “Choose ye
this day whom ye will serve,”—in that lay the whole alternative, the
ultimate possibility for good or evil, in so far as the world of the
present was concerned. Only in an after-life could the final triumph
of the good be looked for,—in a life after that resurrection of the
dead which the prophets, the sons of Zoroaster, awaking from their long
sleep, should bring to pass.
#POLYKRATES OF SAMOS.#
It seems at first strange that the Persian creed never captured
the imagination of the Greek. It may, indeed, be doubted whether
it was ever presented to him in its highest and purest form. The
ideal was, perhaps, too elevated for the ordinary devotee, and its
full appreciation confined to the initiated few. The Greek learnt
indeed in after times to admire certain of the virtues which the
Persian displayed; but never grasped, apparently, the spiritual and
intellectual basis which underlay them. It was long, too, ere the
bitter hostility to the barbarian allowed the Greek to view him and his
ways with unprejudiced eyes; and in that lapse of time the barbarian
had deteriorated, and his life had become more and more tainted with
the baser side of Oriental civilization, which could only excite
contempt in the Hellenic mind.
Of the history of the Asiatic Greeks during the later years of Cyrus
and the brief reign of his successor, Cambyses, but little is known.
Samos alone, as has been said, retained its independence. During the
last years of Cyrus, somewhere about 533, a certain Polykrates made
himself tyrant of the island, and under his rule the Samians enjoyed
a short period of prosperity, so great that it remained proverbial in
after-history. Polykrates used to the full the opportunity afforded
him by Cyrus’ detention in the East. Separated as he was by only a few
miles of sea from the great empire, he could not but recognize the
danger of his position, a danger which was rendered far greater by the
fact that the acquisition of Phœnicia had given the Persians that arm
they had up to that time lacked, a fleet. The great prosperity of the
island, due, no doubt, in a great measure to its being the only Greek
trading community on the Asiatic side which was not under the Persian
dominion, enabled him to raise and maintain a large body of mercenaries
as well as a fleet of a hundred fifty-oared war-ships. He furthermore
entered into negotiations with Egypt, with a view to mutual defence.
At home in the Ægean, he played a many-sided part. Piracy, trade,
engineering, and territorial acquisition were all included in the
field of his manifold activity. The piracy was probably carried on
at the expense of those traders who did not use Samos as an entrepôt
between East and West. It involved him in many a quarrel with the
Asiatic Greek towns, whose anomalous position at the time is shown by
the recorded fact that Polykrates actually took possession of parts of
their territory on the mainland, although they were under the Persian
dominion. This somewhat wild career was interrupted, if not positively
checked, by events which were preparing on the far side of the Levant.
Cambyses had made up his mind to complete by the conquest of Egypt
the work which his father had done. With a view to so doing, he was
collecting a great armament, in which a powerful fleet was to play a
part. This method of invasion, thus adopted for the first time, served
as a precedent for all the great Persian expeditions of after years.
The fact that it was Cambyses who conceived the design is sufficient to
stamp the picture which Herodotus draws of him as a copy of a somewhat
clumsy Egyptian caricature, even if other evidence did not tend the
same way.
Ships were levied from Phœnicia, and the Greeks of Cyprus had also to
contribute to the fleet. ◆H. iii. 19.◆ The latter, after the fall of
Assyria, to which they had been in a position of nominal subordination,
had enjoyed a short period of absolute liberty. Amasis of Egypt had
reduced them to subjection; but, on the establishment of the Persian
power in the Syrian region, they had thrown off their allegiance to
Egypt and tendered their submission to the new empire.
Polykrates began to reconsider his position. A Greek legend, which
Herodotus has preserved, represents him as having been thrown over
by Amasis out of superstitious apprehension. His hitherto unvarying
success, so thought the Egyptian king, must end in some terrible
disaster proportionate in greatness. Herodotus could not resist a tale
which so entirely harmonized with his views of life.
In actual fact, the reverse seems to have been the case. #SAMOS ANNEXED
BY PERSIA.# Polykrates broke off the alliance with Amasis; and not
merely did so, but actually despatched forty ships to aid the
Persian expedition. He tried, indeed, to kill two birds with one stone,
and missed both; for he manned these vessels with Samian suspects, who
had no mind to lend their bodies for this experiment in diplomacy, and
forthwith turned Polykrates’ own weapons against himself by sailing
back with the fleet and making an attack on Samos. Failing in that,
they sailed away to Laconia, with a view to getting help of Sparta.
Polykrates’ great bid for Persian favour had miscarried.
What followed is peculiarly interesting as being the first example
of the way in which Corinth could, and did, force the hand of the
Lacedæmonians in matters of policy.
The Lacedæmonians had indeed grievances against the Samians; but it is
unlikely that they would have undertaken the expedition, had they not
been urged thereto by Corinth. The grievance on the side of Corinth was
of a kind that was fated to reappear on many momentous occasions in
the course of the next century. Corinthian trade had been interfered
with by the Samians. The piratical enterprise of Polykrates was sure
to be directed against the trade of a state which had broken off its
old commercial relations with Samos and transferred its connection to
Miletus.
The expedition took place about 524. It failed. After a fruitless siege
of forty days the Lacedæmonians returned to Peloponnese.
Soon afterwards Polykrates met his end. He was enticed to Magnesia on
the Mæander by Orœtes, Satrap of Sardes, and there put to death.
His secretary, Mæandrios, carried on the tyranny for some years;
but about the year 516 a Persian force invaded the island, ◆H. iii.
139–149.◆ and established Syloson, a brother of Polykrates who had won
the favour of Darius, as tyrant in the Persian interest. A brother of
Mæandrios made one vigorous but vain attempt to win the island back.
The acquisition of Samos completed the Persian conquest of the Asian
coast.
It is significant that Sparta, when appealed to by Mæandrios for help,
not merely refused it, but dismissed him from the Peloponnese, lest
he should bring about political complications. Sparta’s policy on this
occasion, and her attitude at the time of the Ionian revolt, show that
the fear of experience had taken the place with her of that courage of
ignorance which she had shown in her alliance with Lydia.
Cambyses’ short reign came to an end in 522. He had added to his
dominions Egypt and the Libyan coast as far as the Greater Syrtis, and
had even made an expedition up the Nile into Ethiopia. The Greeks in
Egypt had been involved in the disaster which fell upon their adopted
home.
On the other hand, Persian enterprise in the West was for the time
being at a standstill; and the Asiatic Greeks, with the exception of
the Samians, seem to have passed seven uneventful years of submission
to their new ruler.
The last few months of Cambyses’ life had been troubled by the plots
of a Magian named Gaumata, who is said to have borne a remarkable
resemblance to Smerdis, a brother whom Cambyses had caused to be
murdered. The rising was no doubt encouraged by the state of Cambyses’
health. He had certainly suffered from serious illness in Egypt; there
is, indeed, reason to suspect that he was an epileptic.
The story of this false Smerdis is one of the unsolved mysteries of the
period. But few reliable details of it survive, and these are for the
most part contained in the great inscription of Darius on the rocks at
Behistun.
The usurpation was certainly popular in the home provinces of the
empire, if the rapid spread of the insurrection be any criterion. On
his way home from Egypt to suppress it, Cambyses died,—a violent death,
it seems certain, though historians are not in agreement as to its
exact form.
For some years the pseudo-Smerdis concealed his identity, and
maintained his power; but at last the suspected deception was
discovered by some of the great Persian nobles, among whom was Darius,
who claimed descent from the Achæmenid family. #DARIUS.# Of the events
that followed, nothing is known for certain, save that these nobles
assassinated the pretender, and Darius succeeded to the supreme power.
He seems to have been at first a king without a kingdom; for the great
satraps of the provinces, whose position placed at their disposal large
resources of men and money, revolted with well-nigh one consent. The
province in Asia Minor was one of the few which did not join in the
rising. ◆H. iii. 126, 128.◆ If a tale preserved in Herodotus be true,
its governor Orœtes meditated insurrection; but before he could carry
his plans into action, he was assassinated by his own bodyguard, in
obedience to written orders sent by Darius.
The whole of the work of Cyrus seemed undone. The conquest of the great
Empire had to be carried out again, as it were, from the beginning. How
Darius carried it out is no real part of the present story. Suffice
it to say that he did the work, and that he seems to have done it
thoroughly.
This formidable upheaval showed Darius the necessity of giving the
empire a new organization, under which its recurrence would be
difficult or impossible. The time of Cyrus had been fully taken up with
the military acquisition and maintenance of the great realm. Cambyses
had been similarly occupied during his short reign; though it may also
be doubted whether he possessed the capacity required for carrying
out so huge a scheme. Under these two rulers the old Assyrian method,
or want of method, of administration had largely prevailed, a system
which seems to have been admirably designed for goading the subject
populations into rebellion, but which provided no machinery by which
insurrection could be rendered difficult or be nipped in the bud. The
central power was ever kept on the strain by repeated revolts in the
provinces, if the term “province” can be applied to regions which
were not in any real sense “areas of administration,” but were merely
regarded as lands to be exploited for the benefit of the conquerors.
There are two important reasons why, in dealing with the history of
the relations between Greek and Persian, prominence should be given to
this organization of the empire under Darius. It was, in the first
place, destined to be the permanent political system of the Persian
dominion for all the ages during which that empire continued to be the
neighbour of the Greek of Europe and of Asia. In the second place, it
is impossible to realize the ability of the Persian race at its highest
point of development, and the enlightened character of some, at least,
of its rulers, without fully appreciating the main details of the great
scheme of imperial and provincial government which Darius promulgated.
In certain respects, indeed, its methods may seem rude when compared
with those of later ages; but in judging of them it must be borne in
mind that it was designed for the government of peoples most of whom
recognized no law save that of the strong hand, and furthermore, that
its creators were creators in a very literal sense of the term, in that
their work was so far in advance of anything on the same scale which
had preceded it, that its originality is beyond question. The decay of
the empire for whose government it was formed was not due to faults
in the scheme itself, but to the rapid deterioration of those who
administered it. It erred perhaps on the side of centralization; but
then the East does not understand, and never has understood, anything
but centralization in government. Still, this feature was, owing to
special circumstances, destined to prove fatal to it; for it was at the
centre of the empire, in the reigning family itself, that the decay set
in which corrupted the whole.
The first danger to be provided against by the new scheme was caused by
the isolation and comparative independence of the provincial governors,
especially in the remoter provinces of the empire. It is a form of
danger common to all great empires at all ages of the world, one
against which the central government must ever make provision. Darius’
solution of the difficulty was conceived on much the same lines as
were followed in later days by the Cæsars in dealing with the Cæsarean
provinces of the Roman empire. #ORGANIZATION OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.#
Not merely was the area of administration of the governor limited
within the province, but also his actions were placed under immediate
observation by the appointment of high officials, with special
departments of their own, who were not under his control, but
were directly responsible to the head of the empire. The plan had its
disadvantages from the point of view of the governed; and there were
doubtless many instances in which the subjects of the Great King, like
the Roman provincial of later days, complained that ◆Tac Agric. 15.◆
“discord and harmony between those set over them were alike disastrous
to those they ruled.” For the end for which it was devised, however,
the method seems to have been effective.
The empire was divided into satrapies, whose number varied from twenty
to twenty-eight at different periods of Darius’ reign.[3] Persia proper
was alone excluded, receiving special treatment as the home of the
ruling race.
The civil and military powers in these satrapies or provinces were
divided. Three independent officials, with separate departments of
administration, were appointed to each. In the case of important
provinces the satraps were generally drawn from great families
connected with the Achæmenids; but in the case of the others the field
of choice seems to have been practically unlimited, and governors were
selected from among the comparatively poor as well as from the wealthy,
from the subject races as well as from the Persians. The instances in
which persons not of Persian or Medic extraction were appointed to
these important posts seem, however, to have been rare and exceptional.
There was no set period for the tenure of the office. The duration of
the governor’s administration depended on the pleasure of the Great
King.
In all civil matters the governor had absolute authority. He controlled
the administration of the taxes and the dispensation of justice; he
possessed the power of life and death. As viceroy, representing the
king, he was allowed to maintain a court and bodyguard, with other
minor attributes of regal power. Under ordinary circumstances he
neither commanded nor even controlled the military forces in his
province; in fact, a common policy of the central government seems to
have been to place a personal enemy of the governor in command of
the troops, whose relations with the king were, of course, direct. It
may be that under exceptional circumstances,—as, for instance, when
Artaphernes was satrap of Sardes at the time of the Ionian revolt,—the
supreme direction of military operations was entrusted to a governor of
peculiarly high distinction.
The secretary of state within the province was a third official who had
immediate relations to the king. Though nominally the chief assistant
of the governor, he was in reality appointed to watch his conduct, and
to report irregularities or suspicious circumstances to the central
government at Susa.
In his general relations with the subject populations and vassal
kingdoms, the Persian seems to have followed a policy of forbearance
and liberality which is extraordinary at that period. The language,
customs, religion, and local laws of the various peoples were
respected; even their rulers were in many cases allowed to remain
in power, provided always that their rule was in conformity with
Persian interests. The Greek cities of Asia are an instance in point.
They were allowed to retain such local self-government as they had
possessed under their Lydian suzerain, with the exception that, for
any democracies which had existed in them, either an aristocracy,
or a Greek tyrant ruling in the Persian interest, was substituted.
Such was the case, at any rate, before the Ionian revolt Motives of
self-interest obviously contributed to this policy. The maintenance
of local institutions in the empire, and the avoidance of complete
unification, were eminently calculated to keep the various populations
separate, and to prevent the spread of any rebellion over a wide area.
To use a modern simile, the provinces were converted, in so far as
possible, into compartments fireproof against the flame of insurrection.
There can be no question that, throughout the vast area of the empire
as a whole, the condition of the population generally was greatly
ameliorated in comparison with its life in the past. Precautions were
taken to safeguard the subject from oppression by high officials.
Apart from the check which the triple division of direct
responsibility placed on the arbitrary exercise of power, a special
body of officers, known to the Greeks as the king’s “eyes” or “ears,”
went on annual circuits through the empire, and reported any case of
abuse in the administration. The intention, at any rate, was good;
though it may be doubted whether the system could guarantee the
provincial from acts of oppression on the part of officials who had a
mind to act in arbitrary fashion.
But there was another most important side to the policy of the
government. The ordinary conditions of daily life within the empire
were certainly made much better than they had been before its
establishment. It was to the interest of the government to preserve
peace, an inestimable blessing to a continent which only knew the peace
of exhaustion. Petty states were no longer allowed to wage war on one
another. Life became more secure. The highways of the land and sea were
rendered safe by the suppression of brigandage and piracy. The great
roads were improved in character, to the benefit of internal trade.
Moreover, to facilitate trade, and for the convenience of the revenue,
Darius instituted a system of currency, whose coins were notorious for
the purity of their metal. The gold Daric became, indeed, the sovereign
of the ancient trading world; for the Greeks had not command of a
sufficient supply of the precious metal to introduce a gold standard
into their coinage system. The encouragement of agriculture, and the
bringing of waste lands into cultivation, was not merely a part of the
policy of the government; it was actually inculcated by the Persian
religion.
The revenue and taxation of the empire was conducted on business-like
principles during the days of Darius; and though the burdens imposed
on the subject populations were not light, yet, on the whole, they
received a fair return for their contributions in the shape of that
prosperity which followed upon the greater security they enjoyed. The
financial levy was either in money or in kind, or in both, according to
the nature and products of a province. The great defect of the system
was, however, that the satraps, after handing over the provincial
quota to the imperial treasury, had thereafter to raise from the
province the expenses of themselves and their following. Given a strong
central government and a good satrap, the system was probably as free
from abuse as such a system could be; but if, as must too often have
been the case, either of these circumstances were unfavourable, much
evil must have resulted to the subject populations, and many of the
outbreaks which took place must be assigned to such a cause.
In all probability, however, the heaviest burden laid upon the
provincial population was the obligation to furnish contingents for the
army of the empire. Considering the nature of the monarchy, the actual
standing army seems to have been curiously small, little more, in
fact, than what was necessary for the maintenance of peace within the
frontiers. In case, therefore, of external war, unsparing levies of the
subject population were inevitable. The burden seems also to have been
unevenly distributed: it would naturally fall most heavily on those
peoples who made the most effective soldiers. From a military point of
view, this feature of the imperial system was a mistake. An army formed
of heterogeneous elements deficient in military training cannot under
such a system have been welded into one harmonious whole. Only its
multitude could be strikingly formidable.
But in every other respect the new empire with which the Greeks had
been brought into contact was not a mere aggregation of barbarism, but
a highly organized piece of machinery, controlled by a people who, in
certain sides of their civilization, compared not unfavourably with the
Greeks themselves.
This great scheme of organization was in all probability not carried
out in one piece, though the greater part of it must be attributed to
the years which followed the completion of the re-conquest.
After securing the empire from disturbance from within, the next step
was to secure it against disturbance from without; and it was in
carrying out this policy that Darius came into conflict with the Greek
in Europe.
#THE GREEKS OF ASIA.#
An examination of the map will show that the weakest part of the whole
frontier, with the exception, perhaps, of that portion immediately east
of the Caspian, lay along the shores of the Ægean and the Propontis.
But whereas on the eastern frontier the races on either side of the
boundary were probably alien and hostile to one another, on the western
border the peoples on either side of the narrow seas were akin, and in
close sympathy. The Thracian races of North-west Asia Minor were within
sight of the lands of their free brethren in Europe; the Greek of the
Ionian coast was within an easy and safe voyage of twenty-four hours of
his mother country. Blood was thicker than water even towards the close
of the sixth century before Christ; and the sympathy of kindred races
so near at hand must have seemed to Darius and the Persians a standing
menace to this extremity of the empire. The possibility of its taking
an active form in case of a revolt was also an obvious danger.
Had the Greeks of Asia been different from what they were, had, indeed,
they not been Greeks, it is possible that Darius would not have
considered it necessary to take action.
The character of this branch of the Hellenic race at this period of its
history is difficult to realize. The extant evidence on the question,
with the exception of a few fragments of the writings of historians
most of whose works have perished, is demonstrably hostile to the
Ionian Greek, and not merely that, but demonstrably unfair. Herodotus,
as will be shown in dealing with his account of the Ionian revolt,
is largely responsible for the mistaken impression of the nature of
this people which has been handed down to after-time. His whole view
of the Ionian Greek was coloured by the belief that he was originally
responsible for all the trouble which fell upon European Hellas in the
years succeeding the revolt; that he imperilled the very existence
of that Hellenic liberty which was destined to produce the greatness
of that after-time under whose influence he wrote. He looked upon
the revolt as having been from beginning to end a colossal mistake.
Begun in culpable ignorance, it was carried out with contemptible
pusillanimity,—so he thought. Its authors were a people of whom the
Hellenic race was ashamed. Even their nearest relations among the
Greeks were loth to claim relationship with them.
Apart from the facts which Herodotus himself gives tending to an
opposite conclusion, the previous history of this branch of the Greek
race, and especially of the Ionian section of it, tends in every way to
deductions which are irreconcilable with the views of the historian.
These Ionians were the descendants of men who had been conspicuous for
ages as the boldest navigators of their time; who had planted colonies
in almost every part of the Mediterranean, making voyages to lands
previously unknown to the Greek, undeterred by the partly fabulous,
partly real, perils of such enterprises. The Ionian Greek had been
accustomed for centuries to take his life in his hands, facing all the
manifold dangers incident to early navigation, to intercourse with
barbarous tribes and life among them. And though by the end of the
sixth century custom and experience must have diminished the perils
attached to such adventurous existence, yet even then the Ionian had
only one rival, the Phœnician, in the boldness of his seamanship. The
dangerous trade route with Egypt across the expanse of the Levant was
in his hands; the corn trade with the stormy Euxine was still for the
most part under his control.
Such a mode of life, in which a large portion of the population of the
Asiatic Greek towns must have shared, was not calculated to produce a
people lacking in courage or, indeed, in perseverance. It is true that
by the time that Darius’ organization of the empire had been brought
to something like completion, the race had been for more than half a
century under a foreign yoke. Judged by the standard of those days, the
yoke had been a light one; it could hardly have been accounted heavy at
any period of history. It might easily have been much heavier. It would
have been to the advantage of the conqueror to have made it so, had the
subject cities displayed the temper of passive submission.
#THE ASIATIC GREEKS.#
Little is known of the history of these cities during the half century
which intervened between the fall of Crœsus and the outbreak of the
revolt. If they tamely submitted to their fate during this period,
the revolt itself becomes incomprehensible. There is absolutely no
adequate _immediate_ cause for it; and Herodotus’ own account of its
beginning shows by certain significant phrases which he uses that,
though the actual outbreak was premature, the design had existed before
ever Aristagoras made his failure at Naxos. There is no record of an
actual change of attitude on the part of Persia towards the towns
during the years which immediately preceded it, which could lead to
the supposition that the relations between them had become suddenly
embittered.
The cause which lay behind the whole of the history of Darius’ dealings
with the West is the feeling with which the Greek regarded the very
idea of subjection. He must have been at the period the most restless
subject that ever empire had. Darius seems to have recognized from the
very first that the presence of this wayward, bold, intriguing race on
the western fringe of his dominions constituted an ever-present danger.
The intensity of the political feeling within the cities themselves
with regard to their internal affairs, which is known to have existed
within them at this time, indicates the intensity of the feeling with
which they regarded the foreign yoke. Democrat, aristocrat, and tyrant
did not fight their fierce battles with one another to win the prize of
pre-eminence in servitude. The opponents would seek, too, for external
support; and the satraps of the West must have been continually worried
by appeals for assistance from whatever side assumed for the time being
the philo-Persian _rôle_; and must have known, too, that the opposite
side would seek for help elsewhere. And what was “elsewhere” likely
to mean, save beyond the narrow seas, in European Greece? Nor can the
intense desire for freedom in the mass of the populations of the Greek
cities have remained in any way a secret from the Persian governors.
There were plenty of people in every city whose interest it would be to
tell tales of their neighbours, and it is perhaps the blackest blot
on the character of the Greek that he was but too ready to betray his
fellow-countrymen.
The problem which presented itself to Darius in the sixth century
before Christ on the west coast of Asia must have been very similar to
that which presented itself to Cæsar five and a half centuries later in
North-west Gaul. Just as the Gaul of that period was likely to remain a
restless subject of Rome so long as kinsmen beyond the Channel remained
free, and so long as he might look to them for support in case of
revolt, so was the Greek of Asia likely to be restive, even under the
lightest yoke, so long as his kin beyond the Ægean remained unsubdued,
and so long as their aid might be hoped for whenever he made up his
mind to strike a blow for freedom.
The policy thus, in a way, forced upon Darius, was carried out in three
steps, of which the second came near to being a retrograde one, and
formed no part of the original programme, while the third was certainly
not one of advance.
These are:—
(1) The Scythian Expedition;
(2) The Suppression of the Ionian Revolt;
(3) The Expeditions of 492 and 490.
It may seem strange to include the so-called Scythian Expedition in any
design for the settlement of affairs in Western Asia. The name commonly
attributed to it, for which Herodotus is mainly responsible, is,
however, misleading. Neither he nor, in all probability, those Greeks
who were contemporary with it, or even took part in it, were likely to
understand its object. The Persian Government had the most overwhelming
interest in concealing that object from the Greeks.
Greek imagination, however, could not resist the attractions of a
subject so unknown and so vast and absolutely ran riot in dealing
with it. Herodotus reproduces in detail the fantastic legend. It is
not necessary to reproduce it here. The first aim must be to try and
discover any solid facts in the story of the expedition. #THE PERSIAN
ARMY.# The next, in view of the mass of modern literature which has
sprung up with regard to it, must be to show what the expedition
was _not_. Lastly, it will be necessary to point out the most
reasonable hypothesis as to what it was, and to show its connection
with such designs as Darius had upon Greece.
The very date of the expedition is a matter of extreme uncertainty.
Dates ranging from 515 to 508 before Christ have been suggested by
various authorities.[4] On the whole, it is most probable that it took
place in 512.
A twofold _tête-du-pont_ had already been acquired in Europe by the
reduction of Byzantion and of the Thracian Chersonese, over the latter
of which Miltiades, son of Kimon, who was destined to become famous at
Marathon, bore rule.
The standing army of the Empire seems to have been singularly small,
little more, indeed, than what was requisite for police duties at
home and in the provinces. It was therefore necessary, when any great
expedition was contemplated, to call for levies from the subject
races. There were several reasons for this peculiar policy in military
matters. It was manifestly an economy in time of peace. It made it
unnecessary to entrust large bodies of troops, save under exceptional
circumstances, to commanders in the remote provinces. The levy system
was also an effective one when dealing with such enemies, within and
without, as the Empire would have to meet in Asia, and this had been
satisfactorily proved in many years of campaigning. It never really
failed until brought face to face with an infinitely better armed foe,
the Greek of Europe.
In the present instance, the force collected is reported by tradition
to have amounted to seven hundred thousand men.[5] Here let it be said,
as will frequently have to be said in the course of the history of
these wars, that the numbers which the Greeks attributed to the Persian
armies in various campaigns are, without doubt, invariably exaggerated.
There is no fixed ratio in the exaggeration. Sometimes it is manifold;
sometimes it is not. The real meaning of the Greek estimate of numbers
is that the forces which Persia could put into the field when occasion
demanded were of infinitely greater magnitude than any of which the
Greek had experience. Even the myriad stood with him for a countless
number.
In the present instance the force must indeed have been a large one,
for the undertaking was great; and the Persian, unless he is much
misrepresented in history, preferred on all occasions to have a large
numerical margin of safety. Possibly he thought Ahura-mazda was “on the
side of the big battalions.”
◆H. iv. 87.◆
The crossing into Europe was affected by throwing a bridge over the
Bosphorus in the neighbourhood of Kalchedon.[6]
#THE ADVANCE TO THE ISTER.#
◆H. iv. 89.◆
After crossing into Europe, Darius commanded the Ionians, Æolians,
and Hellospontines, who conducted the fleet, to sail to the Ister,
and while waiting for him there, to build a bridge over the river.
They went two days’ sail up the stream, and constructed one at or
near the head of the Delta.[7] The first point indicated in the route
taken by the army is the source or sources of the Tearos. This was a
subtributary of the Agrianes (the modern Ergene), which was itself a
tributary of the Hebrus.[8] The Arteskos river, which is the next point
mentioned, is not capable of certain identification at the present day.
◆H. iv. 93.◆
The tribes of the coast of the modern East Rumelia or South Bulgaria
yielded without a blow. The Getæ, between the Hæmus (Balkans) and the
Ister, were the first to offer any resistance; but they were subdued.
So far the tale is comprehensible. The army must have passed near to
the Greek colonies, Salmydessos, Apollonia, and Mesembria, which are
indeed mentioned in relation to the tribes south of the Hæmus. From
these, probably, vague tales of this part of the expedition arrived in
Greece.
From this point onwards the story is full of inconsistencies and
improbabilities.
Arrived at the Ister, Darius, a commander of great and manifold
experience, is represented as having ordered the Ionian Greeks to
break down the bridge over the river after he had passed it, and to
follow him into the unknown north. No reason is either given or
is conceivable for such a suicidal plan. The ships, moreover, are to
remain in the Ister. He was dissuaded from this by the advice of Koës,
the Greek tyrant of Mytilene. He then gave orders that the Greeks
should remain at the river sixty days, and if he did not return in that
time, should loose the bridge and sail away.
No advantage can possibly be gained by treating this as serious
history. It is inconceivable that any general of experience should
either propose to deliberately cut his own line of communications when
about to enter an unknown region, or even that he should have appointed
a set limit of time, and that not very long, after which it might be
cut.
The story is in all probability merely a peg whereon to hang an
indictment of the Greek tyrants of the Asian coast, and is designed for
the glorification of the part played by Miltiades in the subsequent
debate on the advisability of leaving Darius to his fate.
The truth it contains may amount to no more than that the fleet did not
go farther than the Ister, and that Darius did not intend to remain
north of the river for any length of time.
The tale of the actual campaigning in Scythia is more extraordinary
still. The Persians are represented as having penetrated beyond the
river Tanais (Don) to the Oarus, (probably the Volga), on which
they built a series of forts. They then returned to the Ister by a
circuitous route, and, as might indeed be expected, the sixty days had
elapsed before their arrival. Such is Herodotus’ story.
◆Strabo vii. 305.◆
A reference to this campaign in the works of the geographer Strabo
shows that Herodotus’ version of its history was not the only one
current among the Greeks. He says that the king and his army, when
between the Ister and the Tyras (Dniester), were compelled to turn back
under stress of thirst.
Ktesias, a Greek who spent a large part of his life at the Persian
Court, and who, though unreliable, is not likely to understate Persian
exploits, ◆Ktes. Pers. 17.◆ says that the king only penetrated fifteen
days’ march beyond the Ister.
#CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE.#
The impossibilities of Herodotus’ story are so manifest that it is
hardly necessary to point them out. How could the commissariat of a
large force have been provided for on a march of that length through
a hostile country where the natives, according to the historian’s own
account, destroyed all local food supplies in advance of the army? How
could the army and the transport required for it have been carried
across such rivers as would have to be passed ere the Volga was
reached,—the Sereth, the Pruth, the Dniester, Dnieper, Boug, and Don,
not to mention numerous minor unfordable streams? If this long march
was undertaken, why did not Darius employ the fleet for commissariat
purposes, as was the custom in Persian campaigns of this age, where the
fleet could possibly be employed?
If the fleet did remain at the Ister, which seems to be one of the few
absolutely reliable statements in the story, the fact itself is strong
presumptive evidence that Darius did not intend to go far beyond that
river. Ktesias says he only proceeded fifteen days’ march. Strabo
implies that he never reached the Dniester.
Inasmuch as the reliability of Herodotus as an historian is in
question, it is important to make an attempt to surmise, in so far as
possible, what was the source or sources of this extraordinary tale
which he has preserved.
It must be remembered, in the first place, that at the time at which he
wrote, anything of the nature of reliable information with regard to
events before the war of 480 must have been very difficult to obtain.
The palpable gaps in the story of the Ionian Revolt, the confusion in
the account of the relations between Athens and Ægina, the meagreness
of the story of Marathon, are striking proofs that such was the case;
and if he experienced such manifest difficulty in arriving at a
detailed knowledge of the great events of the beginning of the fifth
century, in which Greeks played a foremost part, how much greater
difficulty must he have experienced in gaining information as to the
events of the later years of the sixth century, in which the part
played by the Greeks was but secondary?
It seems probable that his sources of information in the present
instance were two in number:—
(1) A tale current in the Athens of his own day, which had come
thither by way of the principality of Miltiades in the Thracian
Chersonese.
(2) Reports collected by the historian himself, either in the course of
a journey to the Greek colonies on the north coast of the Euxine, or
from persons who were natives of those parts, or had visited them.
To the first of these must be attributed the account which he gives of
the events on the Danube, and especially the celebrated tale of the
proposal of Miltiades to break down the bridge and leave Darius to his
fate.
The story is one of the most famous in Greek History. Twice, it is
said, did the Scythians, while Darius with his army was still far
north of the river, ride down to the Ister and call upon the Greeks to
break down the bridge. ◆H. iv. 133, 136.◆ On the first occasion the
Ionians promised to do so. The tale seems to imply that the promise
was merely made with a view to getting rid of the Scythians. On the
second occasion the Scythians made much the same appeal, calling on the
Ionians to strike one grand, effective blow for their freedom.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the minor difficulties of the tale, how,
for instance, it came about that the Scythians knew of Darius’ orders
that the bridge should be loosed after the expiration of sixty days.
◆H. iv. 137.◆
After this second appeal the Ionians held a consultation.
“It was the opinion of Miltiades—the Athenian who commanded, and was
tyrant of the Hellespontine Chersonesites—that they should listen to
the advice of the Scythians and give liberty to Ionia. His views were
opposed by Histiæus the Milesian. The argument of the latter was that
the tyrants individually owed their position to Darius, and that, if
Darius’ power were destroyed, neither would he himself be able to rule
in Miletus, nor any of the rest to rule elsewhere, for all the states
would prefer a democracy to a tyranny. After this statement of opinion
by Histiæus, all of them forthwith went over to it, though they had
previously assented to that of Miltiades.”
A list, intended doubtless as a black list, of these tyrants is given.
#TALE OF THE ISTER BRIDGE.#
To prevent the Scythians seizing the bridge, and to give them the
impression that they were going to follow their advice, the northern
end of the bridge was removed for the space of a bow shot. The
Scythians accordingly withdrew. Some time afterwards Darius and his
army returned, and were alarmed to find the bridge apparently removed.
They soon discovered their mistake. ◆H. iv. 141, 142.◆ The bridge was
restored by Histiæus. “Thus the Persians escaped.” The Scythians’
judgment of the Ionians, as reported by Herodotus, is not without its
significance in the story: ◆H. iv. 142.◆ “Their cowardice as free men
was only equalled by their fidelity as slaves.”
Herodotus himself would be naturally inclined to seize upon a tale
which so strikingly confirmed his own estimate of the Ionians.
But is the story true?
The historian Thirlwall suggested that, in its existing form, it is
an excerpt from the defence made by Miltiades in answering the charge
of “tyranny” brought against him at Athens about the year 493. Such
stories are, however, very rarely pure fabrications from beginning to
end; and, in accordance with general probability, it is more likely
than unlikely that it contains a considerable element of truth. There
are, furthermore, certain considerations deducible from evidence
outside the story itself which tend to support the view.
Herodotus regards the expedition as the one great disaster of Darius’
career. Regarded as evidence, this is not of itself very important. The
story as he told it was intended to point the great moral which runs
throughout his history,—that special phase of the great Hellenic idea
of the “tragedy” of life in which he most firmly believed. The career
of Darius, without this great disaster, would have formed too startling
an exception to that divine and natural law of the incontinuity of
human fortune which he had so consciously and conspicuously illustrated
in his account of the lives of Cambyses, Crœsus, and Polykrates of
Samos.
But there are other reasons for supposing that the expedition was not
without disaster, rumours of which,—probably, too, emanating from
the Greeks at the Ister,—reached the cities of the Propontis.
◆Ktes. Pers. 16 (Justin, ii. 5).◆ Ktesias states Darius’ losses to have
been 80,000 men. Even if the actual number stated be untrustworthy, it
shows that this historian, who would be naturally inclined to minimize
them, had reason to regard them as serious.
But, furthermore, it is evident that during Darius’ absence north of
the Danube, ◆Cf. H. v. 26.◆ a large number of the Hellespontine cities
had seized the opportunity for revolt. Byzantion, Kalchedon, Antandros,
and Lamponion were among the number. This caused Darius to return to
Asia by way of Sestos. It is inconceivable that these towns should
have chosen this time of all others, when a large portion of the levy
of the Empire was actually under arms, for insurrection, had they not
some reason to believe that it had gone whence it could never return
their way. They must have received, either from the Greek colonies on
the North Euxine, or, more probably, from the Greeks on the Ister, some
tidings of a great disaster.
Even if the Greeks on the Ister were not the authors of such tidings,
it is unlikely that reports which came to the towns of the Propontis
failed to reach them.
May it not then be that the fictitious element in the report of the
discussion on the desertion of Darius, in so far as the general details
of the lines which the discussion itself followed are concerned, is
confined to the part which Miltiades is alleged to have played in it?
It is not necessary on this assumption to further assume the veracity
of the tale of the orders given by Darius to the guardians of the
bridge. That tale simply served to heighten the colouring of the
picture of the treason of those Asiatic Hellenes to Hellenic freedom,
in that it robbed them of the excuse of fidelity to a trust imposed
upon them.
It is quite possible, then, that some report of disaster did lead to
the formation of a plot in which all the tyrants were more or less
implicated, but which for some unknown reason never came to a head.
If it had been a one-man plot, in which Miltiades had played a solo
part, surely his design must have become known to Darius. #ORIGIN OF
THE LEGEND.# And yet on return to Asia Darius passed through Miltiades’
dominions, the only part, apparently, of the Hellespontine region
to which the infection of rebellion had not spread. If Miltiades had
taken part in the plot, and if any judgment can be formed from the
general practice of Persian kings, it can hardly be supposed that he
would have lived to fight at Marathon.
It now remains to consider briefly how the extraordinary story of the
march beyond the Ister can possibly have originated.
Doubtless the Greeks in the cities on the north coast had many a
tale brought to them by the native traders from the interior of the
commotion caused by the sudden appearance of this strange army within
the Scythian borders.
These tales, probably wild exaggerations even in their original form,
would not, it may be certain, lose aught in the course of their
evolution. An element common to all of them would be that somewhere in
the Hinterland this army had appeared; and it may well be that within a
comparatively short period the most easterly of the Greek cities came
to regard their own Hinterland as the scene of its operations. This
would bring the imaginary march of the army to the neighbourhood of the
Don and the Volga.
In actual fact, however, it is impossible to suppose that the most
extreme point ever reached by Darius was far north of the Ister. It is
in the highest degree improbable that he ever passed the well-defined
boundaries set by the Carpathians and the Pruth.
With regard to the motives of the expedition, Herodotus declares that
it was intended as a retaliation for the Scythian invasion of Western
Asia, which spread desolation through part of the continent, and was
about synchronous with, and largely the cause of, the fall of the
Assyrian Empire. Apart from the improbability of Darius cherishing
resentment for occurrences of such ancient date, or for injuries of
which he was in no real sense heir, he was probably aware, though
Herodotus was not, that the people who lived to the north of the Euxine
were wholly distinct from the Sakæ, whom Herodotus calls Scyths, who
had troubled the continent more than a century before this time.
The unreliability and vagueness of the story of the campaign have led
to the formation in modern times of many conjectures as to the object
with which it was undertaken.
It has been represented as an attempt to make the Euxine a Persian
lake. Such a theory must assume that Darius carried his operations far
beyond the Ister. On this point sufficient has been said. But apart
from this the theory is met by two other difficulties. What object
could be gained by success in so bald a design? And if such a design
existed, why was the fleet left at the Ister?
Again, it has been ascribed to mere lust of conquest. That is, indeed,
not an uncommon characteristic with Eastern rulers. But Darius was not
an Eastern ruler of the ordinary type. His wars, in so far as their
history is known, are not waged from mere irrational land-hunger,
but in obedience to rational policy, whose main lines are even now
distinguishable. That he intended in this campaign to conquer something
is obvious. But did he intend to make conquests in Scythia? Had he,
too, no other conceivable motive than mere land-hunger behind the
intention of conquest?
A more attractive theory which has been put forward in explanation of
the object of the expedition is that, in accordance with his commercial
policy, he attempted to open up, possibly to acquire, the rich region
north of the Euxine. In that case it would certainly have been expected
that he would have made one of the Greek harbours on the north coast
of that sea the base of his operations, and have transferred his fleet
thither. He could have got plenty of information on the subject from
his Asiatic Greek vassals.
A theory which has been recently put forward is that his real object
was to get hold of that gold region in the land of the Agathyrsi, a
tribe mentioned in Herodotus’ account of the campaign. #THE INTENT OF
THE CAMPAIGN.# This gold-bearing region must be identified with that on
the western border of the modern province of Transylvania, which was
included in the Roman province of Dacia. It is, however, impossible
to say that there is even presumptive evidence of such an intention on
Darius’ part.
It must be confessed that the evidence is not of such a nature that
any theory as to the object of the campaign can be put forward with
confidence. There are, however, two questions which must be taken into
account in any theory on the subject which is to have the merit of
plausibility:—
(1) What were the net results of the campaign?
(2) Did the acts of Darius in any way declare his intentions?
The net results of the campaign were the submission of the Thracian
tribes on the Euxine coast south of Hæmus, and the conquest and
apparent submission of the Getæ between Hæmus and the Ister.
The intention of Darius to cross the Ister existed apparently from
the beginning of the campaign. He sent the fleet thither with orders
to prepare a bridge; but the intention not to proceed far beyond that
river is almost equally clearly shown by his leaving his fleet at
the point of crossing. Whether this second intention was part of the
original design is another question. The tale of the countermanding of
the orders given to the Greeks at the river, absurd though it is, may
rest on a remote foundation of fact; and the fact may have been that
Darius did actually modify his original plans on his arrival at the
Ister.
The expedition north of that point seems to have been either of the
nature of a reconnaissance in force, on the results of which the king
decided against further advance and attempt at conquest, or a display
intended to strike awe into the tribes beyond the newly won territory.
Whether any attempt at conquest in these northern regions formed part
of the original programme may be doubted: one thing is certain, that
the expedition in the form it was made was not anything of the kind.
It is noticeable that at this period the great river formed a very
marked and striking ethnographical boundary between the tribes of
Thracian stock and the Scyths of Europe. It has already been
pointed out that Darius had within his dominions in Asia Minor—mainly
in the region of Bithynia—people of Thracian origin. May he not have
undertaken the expedition with intent to minimize the chances of
disturbance on the weak imperial frontier formed by the Propontis and
its two straits by subduing the free kinsmen of his Thracian subjects?
It is a precaution such as the rulers of empires at every time in
history and in every part of the world have frequently had to take. It
may be, then, that Darius was in search of an ethnic frontier, and when
he had found it on the Ister he sought not for further conquest, but
confined himself to measures intended to secure what he had won.
_The Ethnic Frontier._
It is perhaps unnecessary to insist on the importance of an ethnic
frontier. It is, of course, frequently coincident with a physical
frontier. Where such a coincidence exists, a “scientific” frontier is
attained. But in cases where the two are not coincident, history has
shown again and again that the ethnic is the more “scientific” of the
two.
Regarding the question from another point of view,—it is infinitely
more dangerous for a state to have on its borders a race who have kin
immediately beyond the border in the enjoyment of a form of government
which assures them their independence, or in which they are paramount,
than to have on its frontier a race alien to their neighbours beyond
the border.
The first of these alternatives is an almost inevitable source of
trouble and danger to the state in which the circumstances exist. The
danger is twofold. It may arise from the desire of those within the
frontier to attain to the position enjoyed by their kinsmen outside it,
or from the sympathy of the latter with those of their race who are in
subjection to aliens.
Such considerations are not the mere abstractions of political
philosophy, but are plain, practical questions which have called
for practical solution from men to whom the very idea of political
philosophy may never have been presented. They appear in actual
history in a concrete form, and are therefore hard to recognize amid
the numerous factors which are involved in the complicity of human
action. #ETHNIC FRONTIERS.# The very use of such modern terms as
“scientific” or “ethnic” frontier in reference to policies of
ancient date has a tendency to create the idea that the person using
them is mistakenly attributing to the past conceptions which are
essentially of modern date. But are such conceptions of modern date? Is
it not rather the form in which they are expressed which is of recent
creation? The very creation of such a form of expression indicates,
indeed, that the conception itself has become clearer in course of
time; it rarely, if ever, indicates the actual birth of the conception.
It is quite possible to grossly exaggerate the difference between the
nature of the problems presented to the rulers of empire in the sixth
century before Christ, and those which call for solution at the present
time.
It is not difficult to illustrate from both ancient and modern history:—
(1) The dangers of a frontier which is not ethnic;
(2) The appreciation of this practical fact by those who have had to
face the circumstances.
The circumstances present themselves in a complex form, consequently
the traceable motive which induces those in power to deal with them
is never simple. It is necessary therefore for the student of history
to abstract from the complex motive that part with which he wishes
specially to deal; and that must be done in the present as in every
other instance in which human motive is in question.
The problem of the ethnic frontier was one which presented itself at
every stage of the making of the Roman Empire. It was perhaps most
strikingly illustrated in the relations with the Gauls and Germans.
The original Gallic province had indeed a marked physical frontier in
that elevated region of Auvergne and the Cevennes, together with those
ranges which come from the Alps to meet the Gallic mountain system
on the middle Rhone. It was, however, bordered on two sides by the
lands of the free Gauls. So long as this continued its history was
a stormy one. The Gauls of the province were ever restive under the
Roman yoke. Every commotion outside the province was echoed within it.
The haphazard provincial policy of the last century of the Republic
ignored, in so far as possible, discomforts which it had not the energy
to remedy. It was not until Cæsar became governor that the work was
undertaken by the conquest of the Gauls who remained free.
But while solving one ethnic problem, Cæsar found himself face
to face with another. Germans had made their way into Gaul, and
showed every disposition to go farther. He invented a new solution.
He converted the German settlements along the river into a military
frontier, allowing the immigrants to retain their lands on condition
that they prevented their kinsmen from crossing the Rhine. He sought to
create an antipathy of interests where there existed no antipathy of
race. The plan was but partially successful, and in the end the Roman
legionary had to do the work that the German provincial was intended
to do. Cæsar evidently aimed in his Gallic wars at the establishment
of a physical frontier in the shape of the Rhine. The same policy
has been tried again and again since his day. It has invariably been
unsuccessful in modern times, simply because the Rhine is not an
ethnic boundary. Cæsar left the problem unsolved, and his successors
had to take it up where he left it. Under Augustus the policy of
advance was first tried. Its failure was due to various causes,—some
of them, perhaps, preventible; but one, and perhaps the major, reason
for failure was the impossibility of reaching the far borders of the
Germanic races. The problem presented itself on the Elbe in a still
more difficult form even than on the Rhine, in that the new-sought
frontier was farther from the Roman base.
After the disaster to Varus in A.D. 9, the policy of advance was given
up. The apparently natural, but really artificial, frontier of the
Rhine was definitely decided upon. The maintenance of it, owing to
its artificiality, absorbed for well nigh a century a large part of
the military resources of the empire. But the denationalization and
romanization of the Germans within the border created in course of time
an ethnic boundary where none had previously existed, and with its
creation the problem was for the time being solved. Here, as elsewhere,
Roman Imperial policy created an ethnic boundary where it found none.
Britain furnishes at least two prominent examples of the problem.
Reference has been already made to the motive underlying the expedition
of Julius Cæsar. Agricola, the greatest and the most humane of the
governors of the province in the early years of its existence,
found himself dragged ever farther northwards by sheer necessity of
conquest. By his time, moreover, the problem had taken a more or less
definite shape in men’s mind. ◆Tac. Germ. 1.◆ Tacitus, his biographer,
recognized at least one side of it. “Germania,” he says, “a Sarmatis
Dacisque mutuo metu aut montibus separatur”—an ethnic or physical
frontier. He reports, too, a significant remark of Agricola in reference
to the possibility of the conquest of Ireland: “Idque etiam adversus
Britanniam profuturum, si Romana ubique arma et velut e conspectu
libertas tolleretur.” The practical ethnic question was evidently in
Tacitus’ time in process of becoming crystallized into a political
theory.
It would require too much space to recount in detail all the examples
of the ethnic problem which have been conspicuous in mediæval and
modern history. It has cropped up again and again within the memory of
the living generation.
Austria had to face it in Italy in 1859–60. She has to face it now in
the Sclav provinces of the North.
Denmark’s attempted solution of the problem in Schleswig-Holstein cost
her those provinces in 1864.
The demand for the cession of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 would hardly have
been made by Germany had not the problem in these regions presented
itself to her in a seemingly favourable form.
The Turkish Empire presents, and has presented, numerous examples of
the problem—Servia in 1876; Bulgaria in 1878; the Greek populations of
the Ægean coast at the present day.
In South Africa Great Britain has been within the last year forced to
solve the problem in the special phase in which it presented itself to
her there.
To sum up, the circumstances which give rise to the ethnic problem are,
stated briefly, of the following nature—
(1) The existence within but on the borders of a state of a race alien
to the ruling race, but akin to the race beyond the frontier.
(2) The real or fancied inferiority in respect to liberty of the aliens
within the state to their kinsmen outside it.
(3) The consequent setting up of two currents of feeling, one from the
outside to the inside, and another from the inside to the outside of
the state. These are usually coexistent, though in exceptional cases
one may exist without the other.
(4) The dangers to the state arising from the existence of circumstance
(3).
The various solutions which have been tried by different states at
different periods of history have taken one of two main forms of policy—
Either (1) the pushing forward of the borders by conquest to the ethnic
frontier;
Or (2) the denationalization of the alien race within the border.
Of these the second requires time. Any attempts to bring it about
rapidly must end in failure, and may end in disaster; witness the case
of Denmark in 1864.
Rome under the early Principate adopted, by the precept of Augustus,
the policy of denationalization as against that of conquest. Augustus
had tried both policies, but had deliberately laid aside the latter in
A.D. 9.
But there was a vast difference between the Rome of Augustus and the
Persia of Darius. Two centuries of past existence as the greatest
power in the world made the Roman regard the future with a confidence
with which Darius, heir to the maker of a new empire, and himself its
re-maker, can never have regarded it. The Roman speculated in eternity,
the Persian in time; hence the latter was naturally led to adopt
methods which promised to bear fruit in the immediate future.
The question whether this is the sole motive which can be suggested for
the expedition remains for consideration.
The evidence as to the real drift of the policy of Darius during the
last fifteen years of the sixth century is so obscure and uncertain,
that there has been much debate among historians as to whether this
expedition was the first deliberate step in a large scheme of conquest
in Europe. In order to form a judgment on this question it is necessary
to take into consideration not only the immediate sequel of the
expedition, but also the history, in so far as it is known, of the
years which intervened between it and the outbreak of the Ionian revolt.
◆H. iv. 143; H. v. 1.◆
Darius took back with him to Asia the greater part of the great army
which he had employed in the Scythian expedition; but he left his
general Megabazos in Europe with a considerable force to complete the
work of conquest which he had begun in Thrace, and, presumably, to
suppress the revolt of the Greek cities in the neighbourhood of the
Propontis. This force is reported by Herodotus to have amounted to
80,000 men.
◆H. iv. 144.◆
Megabazos proceeded, says the historian, to reduce “the Hellespontians
who had not medized.” Who are these Hellespontians? They are certainly
in Europe. #CAMPAIGN OF MEGABAZOS.# They are also not the
populations of the revolted cities,[9] for he expressly states that
these were subsequently reduced by Otanes. They must be some small
places in the neighbourhood of Miltiades’ principality in the Thracian
Chersonese.
◆H. v. 1, 2.◆
Of the history of this campaign Herodotus gives no detail, save that he
says that Perinthos was taken; and this incident is obviously mentioned
in order to introduce a story which has but a very remote connection
with the circumstances of the time.
After the capture of this town “Megabazos marched his army through
Thrace, reducing every state and race of those parts to subjection to
the king; for Darius had ordered the reduction of Thrace.”
This is a very remarkable statement. The coast districts of the Euxine
had submitted to Darius on his advance to the Danube. It may be doubted
whether this submission was very real or permanent.
◆H. v. 10.◆
But now Megabazos appears to be represented as having reduced the whole
of Thrace, of which region Herodotus takes the opportunity of giving a
comprehensive description. Bearing in mind the language of the sentence
which suggested the description, it is somewhat startling to read in
the closing sentence of it the words, “Megabazos then reduced the coast
regions (of Thrace) to subjection to the Persians.”
These two apparently conflicting statements form one of the many
examples of the highly composite character of the sources from which
Herodotus drew his history of these obscure years. It is impossible
to say that the one is true and the other false. It is probably the
case that here, as in some other similar instances in Herodotus’
history where two irreconcilable accounts of the same thing are either
deliberately or inadvertently given, that either both are true in a
sense, or that both contain elements of the truth. May it not
be that this is an instance of the first of these two alternatives,
and that the assertion with regard to the whole of Thrace refers to
a position of weak dependence, whereas that with regard to the coast
region refers to actual subjection?
It will be seen later that this matter is not unimportant in its
bearing upon the conclusions which must be drawn as to the history of
the years which follow.
The hypothesis is supported by the fact that though in those thirty
years the coast region does appear to be, save during the interval of
the Ionian revolt, under Persian rule, there is no evidence of the real
subjection of the hinterland.
Herodotus next recounts two incidents, the first of which is connected
indirectly, the second directly with this campaign.
These are (1) the grant of Myrkinos to Histiæus;
(2) The removal of the Pæonians to Asia.
Of the prominent Greeks who had accompanied the king to the Danube,
Koës the Mytilenian, and Histiæus the Milesian were singled out for
special rewards. To Koës was given the tyranny of Mytilene. ◆H. v. 11.◆
Histiæus was already tyrant of Miletus, and he asked not for further
tyranny, but requested the grant of Myrkinos on the Strymon. This
Darius gave him.
There can be no question that he knew for what he was asking. This
place, which stood within a short distance of the site of Amphipolis
of later days, was the key of the North Ægean lands. It commanded not
merely the great coast route from east to west, but the trade route
which ran up the Strymon valley towards mid-Europe. It may well be
that it was the latter circumstance, together with its nearness to the
Thracian gold region, which made its value known to the tyrant of the
great trading city.
◆H. v. 12, 13.◆
The sequel to this story is in all probability not unconnected with the
policy which led to the removal of the Pæonians to Asia. #THE LOWER
STRYMON.# It is evident that Herodotus had no idea of the reasons
which induced Darius to adopt a measure which, though not uncommon
in the previous history of the Eastern empires, was an unusual one
with him. The tale which he tells in order to account for it was
doubtless a commonplace among the stories of his time, and one which
was told in relation to more than one event in the history of the past.
It is unnecessary to reproduce it here, and still more unnecessary to
point out the inadequacy of the motive which it suggests.
The strategic importance of the country occupied by this people is
amply sufficient to account for the policy which Darius adopted with
regard to them. They commanded the short stretch of the Strymon river
between Lake Prasias[10] and the sea, and were thus in a position whose
natural strength was again and again demonstrated in later history, and
whose importance lay in the fact, already pointed out in the case of
Myrkinos, that it commanded not merely the trade-route north, but also
the great route westward from Eastern Thrace and the Hellespont region.
The substantial details in the account of the incident indicate that
it must have taken place during, not after, that conquest of the coast
districts of Thrace of which Herodotus has already spoken.
The story is told as follows:—
◆H. v. 14.◆
“Then Darius wrote letters to Megabazos, whom he had left in command
in Thrace, ordering him to remove the Pæonians from their homes,
and to bring them, their children and wives, to him. A horseman
immediately hurried off to the Hellespont bearing the message, and,
having crossed over, handed the despatch to Megabazos. After reading
it, Megabazos took guides from Thrace and marched against Pæonia.”
From the last detail it must be presumed that he had not as yet been
campaigning in the Pæonian region.
“The Pæonians, on hearing that the Persians were coming against them,
collected their forces on the side towards the sea; thinking that the
Persians would attempt the invasion at that point”
The Persians, however, turned the position by taking the inland road.
◆H. v. 16.◆
The Pæonians between Lake Praslas and the sea immediately surrendered
and were removed to Asia. Herodotus then adds that those about Mount
Pangæus were “not substantially” subdued by Megabazos.[11]
If this were indeed the case, it is evident that the assertion which
he has previously made to the effect that Megabazos reduced the “coast
districts” of Thrace must be understood in a restricted sense in so far
as this part of the country is concerned.
The net result of this part of the campaign seems to have been that
Megabazos got possession of the most critical point of the coast road.
◆H. v. 17.◆
In accordance, it may be presumed, with his instructions, Megabazos
next sent seven Persians of high rank to the neighbouring kingdom of
Macedonia to demand the earth and water of submission from Amyntas,
its then ruler. The extraordinary tale of this embassy,[12]—how it
came to Amyntas; how he agreed to give earth and water; how the envoys
were murdered at a banquet at the instigation of his son Alexander;
how the murder was hushed up:—contains what are evidently elements
of fact combined with a large amount of fiction whose intent is to
glorify Alexander in the sight of the Greeks.[13] That such a murder
could, if it ever took place, be hushed up, is incredible. ◆H. v. 21,
_ad fin._◆ The parts of the story which appear to be true, are (1)
that Macedonia did in some way tender submission to Persia; (2) that a
Persian, Bubares, probably the son of the general Megabazos, did marry
a Macedonian princess. It is, however, a doubtful question whether the
submission was very real.
After the negotiations with Macedon, Megabazos went to the Hellespont
and thence to Sardes, taking the Pæonians with him.
#HISTIÆUS AND MYRKINOS.#
◆H. v. 23.◆
On arriving there he heard, says Herodotus, of the grant of Myrkinos to
Histiæus; and that the latter was fortifying the place. If this be
true, it must be presumed that he had not marched direct from Pæonia to
the Hellespont and Sardes, otherwise he would have known all about the
proceedings of Histiæus at Myrkinos. It is, however, much more probable
that Darius first heard from him the measures which Histiæus was taking
to secure his new possession. Megabazos was evidently alarmed at the
idea of this Greek tyrant holding a position which commanded the North
Ægean route; and, if the matter of his representations to the king be
truly reported, he pointed out to Darius the possibility of Histiæus
establishing Myrkinos as a rallying centre for the Thracians, which
might become the nucleus of a powerful state.
The subsequent history of Histiæus shows conclusively that the great
Persian officials had the deepest distrust of this scheming Greek.
Megabazos’ representations had their effect. Histiæus was recalled to
Sardes, and when, later, Darius went up to Susa, he took him with him,
an honoured but unwilling guest.
◆H. v. 25, 26.◆
Before departing for Susa, Xerxes appointed Artaphernes satrap of
Sardes, and Otanes to succeed Megabazos in the command in Thrace.
◆H. v. 26.◆
Otanes proceeded to take Byzantion and Kalchedon. He also took
Antandros in the Troad, and Lamponion. Then, by means of ships obtained
from Lesbos, he reduced the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. That,
according to Herodotus, was the sum of his exploits.
There follow words, one at least of which has got corrupted in the
text; but there seems little cause to doubt that Herodotus wrote
either: “After this there was a respite from troubles, though not a
long one:” or, “After no long time there was a renewal of troubles.”[14]
He then enters upon the description of that affair at Naxos which
immediately preceded the Ionian revolt.
The story of these operations in Thrace which are subsequent to and
the direct outcome of the so-called Scythian expedition, is one of the
most obscure chapters in Herodotus’ history. He had manifestly the
greatest difficulty in obtaining information with regard to the events
of the time. That which he did get he got from various sources, whose
discrepancies he only partially succeeded in reconciling.
The modern writer is obliged to face the historical situation with the
courage alike of necessity and despair; of necessity, inasmuch as the
history of these years is of the utmost importance in the story of
the Persian relations with Europe, and, consequently, with Greece; of
despair, in that he must feel that detailed criticism of such material
must border on mere eclecticism. On the main outlines the question it
is, however, possible to arrive at conclusions which have some sound
foundation in evidence.
It seems quite clear that these campaigns of Megabazos and Otanes
aimed at the reduction of the Thracian races in Europe. In ordering
them Darius was probably pursuing the policy which had underlain the
so-called Scythian expedition. His stay at Sardes, for what cannot have
been less than the better part of a year after his return from that
expedition, indicates certainly that he considered that the affairs of
the westernmost extremity of his empire demanded his personal attention
more imperatively than affairs elsewhere, and may well imply that
they were of a nature to cause him some anxiety. There had certainly
been some disaster in the Scythian expedition. It had been followed
by the revolt, not merely of the towns on the European side of the
Propontis, but of places like Antandros in the Troad, which Otanes had
subsequently to reduce.
The strategic policy observed in the campaign of Megabazos is striking
in that the revolted cities are practically ignored. Its results are
in many respects uncertain. Herodotus describes them in a descending
scale;—first, as having consisted of the subjugation of all the
Thracians; secondly, as being confined to the conquest of the coast
regions; thirdly, as leaving even the conquest of these regions
incomplete in the neighbourhood of Mount Pangæus. #DESIGNS OF DARIUS IN
EUROPE.# It has been pointed out that the first two statements may be
reconciled as implying subjugation in two different degrees; but
the third constitutes, in whatever way it be regarded, a significant
exception.
As far as the revolted cities are concerned, it is possible that Darius
thought he could bide his time for dealing with them, and that the
larger Thracian policy first demanded his attention. The cities were
not powerful enough to do any active damage meanwhile.
How far was Megabazos successful in carrying out this larger policy? If
any conclusion is to be drawn from the fact that Darius before leaving
Sardes put Otanes in command in place of him, it is that the king was
not satisfied with what he had achieved. Nevertheless, the success of
his operations seems to have been sufficient to convince the Macedonian
king Amyntas of the advisability of submitting to Persian suzerainty.
What Megabazos certainly did was to open up the coast road to the West;
and this, if the tale of the Pæonians is to be regarded as significant,
he seems to have done by the express orders of the king. In any case
the advance along this line is certainly a significant fact.
The objects, then, of Megabazos’ campaign appear to have been—
(1) To complete the reduction of Thrace;
(2) To open up the route westwards.
Of these the first seems to have been but half accomplished; and though
more success had been attained with the second, the failure to fully
accomplish the first made it impossible for Darius to avail himself for
the time being of the advantages won along that western route. He had
found the Thracians, as others found them in later days, a much more
difficult conquest than he had in all probability anticipated.
It is now possible to consider whether the attempt to arrive at
an ethnic frontier is the only object which may be suggested as
guiding the policy with regard to Thrace. Despite the obscurity of
the evidence, it seems clear that Darius intended the conquest of
Thrace to be a prelude to further conquest westwards, and that, in
pursuance of this design, European Greece was to be the next object of
attack. Whether the conquest of Greece was to be merely a second
stage in a great scheme of conquest along the northern shores of the
Mediterranean, or whether it was merely designed for the purpose of
securing the western borders of the empire by subjugating the free
kinsmen of the most western subjects of the empire, cannot now be said,
inasmuch as there is no evidence which throws light upon the question.
It now remains to consider the evidence,—
(1) As to Darius’ design of conquest westward;
(2) As to the reasons why the attempts to carry it out was postponed
for many years.
The operations of Megabazos on the Strymon, followed by the demand for
the submission of Macedonia, are certainly strong indications, if not
conclusive evidence of, the design to get hold of the coast route to
Northern Greece.
For the carrying out of operations on the scale requisite for an
expedition aiming at the reduction of Greece as a whole, the command
of a land route was necessary. The carrying capacity of a ship of
those days was so small that it would have been very difficult, if not
impossible, to transport a force of the magnitude required _across_ the
Ægean. The expedition of 490 represents in all probability the utmost
that Persia could accomplish by sea transport, and that was merely
directed against Athens and Eretria, and had as its _declared_ object
the punishment of the only two states of European Greece which had
interfered in the Ionian revolt.
But the results of Megabazos’ campaign, if unsupported by other facts,
would afford very inadequate evidence of a design on Greece.
◆H. iii. 138.◆
There is, however, a tale in Herodotus, the very telling of which by
that historian argues strongly for its general truth. It is the story
of Demokedes, the famous physician of Kroton, who, having been in the
service of Polykrates of Samos, was captured by the Persians at the
time of his murder, and after a series of adventures became court
physician at Susa. #PERSIANS EXPLORE THE GREEK COAST.# About the time
when Darius was starting for the Scythian expedition, this Demokedes
had rendered a great service to Atossa, the wife of Darius, who,
instructed by him, persuaded Darius to send him with an expedition
to explore the coasts of Greece, with a view to the subsequent invasion
of the country. ◆H. iii. 136.◆ Accompanied by some prominent Persians,
Demokedes went down to Sidon in Phœnicia, where the expedition embarked
on two triremes and set sail for Greece. They circumnavigated the land,
keeping close to the shore, surveying the coasts, and making notes
thereof in writing. “At length, having examined the greatest part of
it, they proceeded to Tarentum in Italy.” What happened thereafter is
not so important. Suffice it to say that, with the aid of the tyrant
of Tarentum, Demokedes made his escape, and went to Kroton, whither
the Persians followed. The Krotonians refused to surrender him. The
Persians accordingly sailed back to Asia, but, “not having their
guide, they did not attempt to explore Greece any further.” It is not
necessary to recount the rest of their adventures. ◆H. iii. 129–138.◆
Herodotus closes the tale by remarking that they were the first
Persians who came from Asia to Greece, and that they were spies.
This tale, like other tales of the time, did not lose in the telling.
It manifestly contains fanciful elements. But there do not, on the
other hand, exist any grounds whatever for disbelieving its main
details,—namely, that such an expedition was actually sent with a view
to explore the lands of Greece, and in accordance with an intention to
invade the country when the necessary steps for such an invasion had
been taken.
Megabazos’ campaign in Thrace was such a step. But when this is said,
it must not be supposed that the remark is intended to convey the
impression that this was the sole or even the main motive of that
campaign. Sole motives are, as it has been said, rare in the history of
policies. The design on Greece was the corollary to the problem to be
solved in Thrace. It was not necessarily regarded as either superior or
inferior in importance to the Thracian problem.
It is possible that the designs on both Thrace and Greece were parts of
a larger design which aimed at a simultaneous advance of the Persian
frontier along both sides of the Mediterranean. It is, at any
rate, noticeable that at the time of these operations in Europe, if
Herodotus’ rough chronology is to be accepted, Aryandes, the Persian
satrap in Egypt, was engaged in a campaign in Cyrene. ◆H. iii. 13;
iv. 165.◆ Cyrene had been tributary to Persia for some time past;
but troubles had arisen there which called for Persian interference;
and this resulted in the Persian frontier being advanced as far as
Euesperides.
There still remains what is, owing to the lack of evidence, the very
difficult question as to the reasons which prevented or dissuaded
Darius from carrying out his designs on Greece in the years which
intervened between the campaign of Megabazos and the outbreak of the
Ionian revolt. That may be calculated to have actually broken out in
499. But what is the date of the end of Megabazos’ campaign?
◆H. v. 23.◆
It certainly took place some time before Darius left Sardes. Megabazos
finds him there on his return; and Histiæus is subsequently recalled to
Sardes before Darius leaves the place.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to fix the date of Darius’ departure
from Sardes.
◆H. v. 73.◆
He had certainly gone to Susa before the arrival of the Athenian
embassy which appealed to Persia for aid against Spartan aggression,
because it is to Artaphernes that the appeal is addressed. But even if
the date of Hippias’ expulsion be taken as fixed, who is to say what
time elapsed between that and the sending of this embassy? ◆H. v. 66,
70, 72, 73.◆ Much happened at Athens during the interval—the political
struggle between Kleisthenes and Isagoras; the demand of Kleomenes of
Sparta for the expulsion of Kleisthenes; the retirement of Kleisthenes;
the disastrous expedition of Kleomenes, ending in his own defeat, and
in disaster to the party of Isagoras; the return of Kleisthenes, and
the carrying out of the reforms which bear his name.
All these things must have taken a considerable time; but in so far as
the history of Persian affairs in Asia is concerned, the conclusion to
be drawn from them is but vague. #POSTPONEMENT OF DESIGNS ON GREECE.#
It comes to no more than this,—that Artaphernes was acting alone in
Sardes some years after the expulsion of Hippias, at a date which
can hardly be later than B.C. 507, and that therefore Darius had gone
up to Susa before that time; but, on the other hand, it is quite
impossible to say how long before that time his departure had taken
place.
Darius’ departure seems to indicate clearly that he had for the time
being given up all idea of the immediate prosecution of large designs
in the West.
There are several reasons which may be suggested for the temporary
abandonment of his plans.
There can, in the first place, be little doubt that the campaign in
Thrace had not ended in anything resembling the complete subjugation
of that difficult country. Disaster in the Scythian expedition had
seriously shaken Persian prestige, not merely on the European, but also
on the Asiatic side of the Propontis; and though Megabazos’ campaign
may have staved off actual danger, its positive results appear to have
been but partial, and not such as to warrant further advance.
By the time that campaign came to an end Darius must have been absent
from Susa for a space of well-nigh two years; and so prolonged an
absence in one remote corner of the empire, far away from the real
centre of government, must have had its inconveniences, if not its
dangers, in a dominion so wide and so recently reduced to obedience.
The postponement of success in Thrace was the first cause of the
postponement of the designs on Greece.
During the years between the departure of Darius from Sardes and the
occurrence of those incidents which led to the outbreak of the Ionian
revolt Persian history is almost a blank. Darius, the central figure
of the whole drama, vanishes from the stage for a long interval of
years. Had he, like the Nebuchadnezzar of the Book of Daniel, been
driven forth among the beasts of the field, his effacement from written
record could hardly have been more complete. ◆H. ii. 110.◆ There is an
incidental tale in Herodotus’ Egyptian history which refers to a visit
of Darius to Egypt, made possibly during this time. If the tale be
true, the incident certainly occurred after the Scythian expedition;
and the campaign in Cyrene, or the settlement of affairs after it,
may have called for his presence in that part of the empire.
Otherwise, in so far as is known, he spent these years at Susa, where
he appears to have been at the time of the outbreak of the Ionian
revolt.
Otanes, Megabazos’ successor, is engaged in a campaign against the
revolted Greek cities of the Hellespontine region, which are once more
brought into subjection; but there is no means of judging how long the
campaign lasted.
Did he carry on the operations in Thrace? Probable though the
conjecture may be, there is no evidence that he did so, ◆H. v. 116.◆
save the very indecisive fact that he is still in Asia Minor at the
time of the revolt.
Artaphernes is satrap at Sardes throughout the interval, and during his
tenure of office there is a distinct and striking development of the
relations between Persia and European Greece. It is remarkable that
it is from the side of Greece,—from Athens, above all,—that the first
advances are made.
That state had been for some years past in the throes of a revolution,
in which the Spartan king, Kleomenes, had played various parts. After
being instrumental in expelling Hippias in 511 B.C., he had discovered
that by so doing he had placed the power in the hands of the democratic
party at Athens. He sought to remedy the mistake by espousing the cause
of Isagoras and the oligarchs. His interference was disastrous to
himself and fatal to them. In spite of his failure, his action caused
great alarm at Athens, and an idea sprang up there that he aimed at
making the country subservient to Sparta. There was no power in Greece
itself to which Athens could turn for protection against Sparta,
◆H. v. 73.◆ and in her perplexity she cast her eyes over sea to the
great empire on the eastern side of the Ægean, and sent an embassy to
Artaphernes asking for his assistance.
#AFFAIRS AT ATHENS.#
It is on the face of it a very remarkable fact that Artaphernes
abstained from making full use of the opportunity thus offered him for
interference in the affairs of Greece; but the fact, remarkable as it
is, is in accord with such other indications as exist of the position
of affairs at this time in the West Asian satrapies. It is probable
that Artaphernes had his hands full with the maintenance of the
dominion which Persia had won in that region, and that he had at the
time neither the will nor the power to spare such resources as he had
at his disposal on the direct acquisition of further territory. He made
a pretence,—his ignorance can hardly have been real,—of not knowing
who the Athenians were. On being informed, he offered them alliance
on condition they gave earth and water, an offer which the Athenian
ambassadors took upon themselves to accept. When, however, they
returned to Athens their conduct in so doing was strongly condemned,
and the terms were repudiated.
Shortly after this the storm which the Athenians had foreseen broke
upon them. ◆H. v. 74.◆ Kleomenes collected a formidable army from
Peloponnesus and invaded Attica, while the Bœotians and the Chalkidians
of Eubœa prepared to attack from the north. The main danger was averted
by the disruption of Kleomenes’ army. The defection not merely of the
Corinthians, but also of Demaratos, Kleomenes’ partner in the dual
kingship of Sparta, brought the expedition to a premature close after
it had actually entered upon Attic territory. This was disastrous
for the northern allies. The Bœotians and the Chalkidians were both
defeated. In the case of the latter the disaster was irreparable.
Their great city, foremost in early Greek trade and colonization, lost
its independence, and its lands were occupied by Athenian settlers.
Athens had acquired one of the great strategic positions of Greece; and
Corinth had made the first of those fatal mistakes of policy which were
to have such momentous consequences in the next century.
The Bœotians did not accept defeat. Left in the lurch by their
Peloponnesian allies, ◆H. v. 89.◆ they sought and obtained aid from
Ægina, which great trading state seized the opportunity of inflicting
damage on an old enemy and growing rival in commerce, and harried the
Attic coast with piratical raids.
Meanwhile events were preparing for a second interference of Persia in
Athenian affairs. ◆H. v. 90.◆ The Lacedæmonians had discovered the fact
that they had been tricked by the Delphic Oracle, which, bribed
by the Alkmæonidæ, had urged them to aid in the expulsion of Hippias
from Athens. Seeking to amend this mistake, they recalled Hippias
from Sigeon in the Troad, to which principality he had retired after
his expulsion, and where he must have been living for some years as
a vassal prince of Persia. Their intention was to reinstate him in
the tyranny at Athens. It was again the Corinthians who wrecked the
plan. At a conference of the Peloponnesian League called to consider
the question, they bitterly opposed the proposal, and carried the
other allies with them. Hippias, having had his journey for nothing,
returned to Asia more than ever embittered in feeling against Athens
and Greece alike; and he seems to have moved heaven and earth to induce
Artaphernes to reinstate him in his tyranny. In the end he prevailed
so far that Artaphernes called upon the Athenians to receive him back.
Whether he intended to take action in case of their refusal will never
be known, but events were imminent in Asia, even if they had not
already occurred, which rendered all idea of his active interference
out of the question; for, if Herodotus’ chronology be correct, this
demand was made by him either immediately before or after the first
actual step had been taken in the great revolt. ◆H. v. 96, 97.◆ The
demand, says Herodotus, convinced the Athenians that thereafter there
could only be open enmity with Persia; and while they were in this mind
Aristagoras came to Athens.