SMERDIS THE MAGIAN.
B.C. 520
Usurpation of the magians.--Circumstances favoring it.--Murder of
Smerdis not known.--He is supposed to be alive.--Precautions taken
by Smerdis.--Effect of Cambyses's measures.--Opinion in regard to
Smerdis.--Acquiescence of the people.--Dangerous situation of
Smerdis.--Arrangement with Patizithes.--Smerdis lives in
retirement.--Special grounds of apprehension.--Cambyses's
wives.--Smerdis appropriates them.--Phaedyma.--Measures of
Otanes.--Otanes's communications with his daughter.--Her
replies.--Phaedyma discovers the deception.--Otanes and the six
nobles.--Arrival of Darius.--Secret consultations.--Various
opinions.--Views of Darius.--Apology for a falsehood.--Opinion of
Gobryas.--Uneasiness of the magi.--Situation of Prexaspes.--Measures
of the magi.--An assembly of the people.--Decision of Prexaspes.--His
speech from the tower.--Death of Prexaspes.--The conspirators.--The
omen.--The conspirators enter the palace.--Combat with the
magi.--Flight of Smerdis.--Smerdis is killed.--Exultation of the
conspirators.--General massacre of the magians.
Cambyses and his friends had been right in their conjectures that it
was Smerdis the magian who had usurped the Persian throne. This
Smerdis resembled, it was said, the son of Cyrus in his personal
appearance as well as in name. The other magian who had been
associated with him in the regency when Cambyses set out from Persia
on his Egyptian campaign was his brother. His name was Patizithes.
When Cyrus had been some time absent, these magians, having in the
mean time, perhaps, heard unfavorable accounts of his conduct and
character, and knowing the effect which such wanton tyranny must have
in alienating from him the allegiance of his subjects, conceived the
design of taking possession of the empire in their own name. The great
distance of Cambyses and his army from home, and his long-continued
absence, favored this plan. Their own position, too, as they were
already in possession of the capitals and the fortresses of the
country, aided them; and then the name of Smerdis, being the same
with that of the brother of Cambyses, was a circumstance that greatly
promoted the success of the undertaking. In addition to all these
general advantages, the cruelty of Cambyses was the means of
furnishing them with a most opportune occasion for putting their plans
into execution.
The reader will recollect that, as was related in the last chapter,
Cambyses first sent his brother Smerdis home, and afterward, when
alarmed by his dream, he sent Prexaspes to murder him. Now the return
of Smerdis was publicly and generally known, while his assassination
by Prexaspes was kept a profound secret. Even the Persians connected
with Cambyses's court in Egypt had not heard of the perpetration of
this crime, until Cambyses confessed it on his dying bed, and even
then, as was stated in the last chapter, they did not believe it. It
is not probable that it was known in Media and Persia; so that, after
Prexaspes accomplished his work, and returned to Cambyses with the
report of it, it was probably generally supposed that his brother was
still alive, and was residing somewhere in one or another of the royal
palaces.
Such royal personages were often accustomed to live thus, in a state
of great seclusion, spending their time in effeminate pleasures within
the walls of their palaces, parks, and gardens. When the royal
Smerdis, therefore, secretly and suddenly disappeared, it would be
very easy for the magian Smerdis, with the collusion of a moderate
number of courtiers and attendants, to take his place, especially if
he continued to live in retirement, and exhibited himself as little as
possible to public view. Thus it was that Cambyses himself, by the
very crimes which he committed to shield himself from all danger of a
revolt, opened the way which specially invited it, and almost insured
its success. Every particular step that he took, too, helped to
promote the end. His sending Smerdis home; his waiting an interval,
and then sending Prexaspes to destroy him; his ordering his
assassination to be secret--these, and all the other attendant
circumstances, were only so many preliminary steps, preparing the way
for the success of the revolution which was to accomplish his ruin. He
was, in a word, his own destroyer. Like other wicked men, he found, in
the end, that the schemes of wickedness which he had malignantly aimed
at the destruction of others, had been all the time slowly and surely
working out his own.
The people of Persia, therefore, were prepared by Cambyses's own acts
to believe that the usurper Smerdis was really Cyrus's son, and, next
to Cambyses, the heir to the throne. The army of Cambyses, too, in
Egypt, believed the same. It was natural that they should do so for
they placed no confidence whatever in Cambyses's dying declarations;
and since intelligence, which seemed to be official, came from Susa
declaring that Smerdis was still alive, and that he had actually taken
possession of the throne, there was no apparent reason for doubting
the fact. Besides, Prexaspes, as soon as Cambyses was dead, considered
it safer for him to deny than to confess having murdered the prince.
He therefore declared that Cambyses's story was false, and that he had
no doubt that Smerdis, the monarch in whose name the government was
administered at Susa, was the son of Cyrus, the true and rightful heir
to the throne. Thus all parties throughout the empire acquiesced
peaceably in what they supposed to be the legitimate succession.
In the mean time, the usurper had placed himself in an exceedingly
dizzy and precarious situation, and one which it would require a
great deal of address and skillful management to sustain. The plan
arranged between himself and his brother for a division of the
advantages which they had secured by their joint and common cunning
was, that Smerdis was to enjoy the ease and pleasure, and Patizithes
the substantial power of the royalty which they had so stealthily
seized. This was the safest plan. Smerdis, by living secluded, and
devoting himself to retired and private pleasures, was the more likely
to escape public observation; while Patizithes, acting as his prime
minister of state, could attend councils, issue orders, review troops,
dispatch embassies, and perform all the other outward functions of
supreme command, with safety as well as pleasure. Patizithes seems to
have been, in fact, the soul of the whole plan. He was ambitious and
aspiring in character, and if he could only himself enjoy the actual
exercise of royal power, he was willing that his brother should enjoy
the honor of possessing it. Patizithes, therefore, governed the realm,
acting, however, in all that he did, in Smerdis's name.
Smerdis, on his part, was content to take possession of the palaces,
the parks, and the gardens of Media and Persia, and to live in them
in retired and quiet luxury and splendor. He appeared seldom in
public, and then only under such circumstances as should not expose
him to any close observation on the part of the spectators. His
figure, air, and manner, and the general cast of his countenance, were
very much like those of the prince whom he was attempting to
personate. There was one mark, however, by which he thought that there
was danger that he might be betrayed, and that was, his ears had been
cut off. This had been done many years before, by command of Cyrus, on
account of some offense of which he had been guilty. The marks of the
mutilation could, indeed, on public occasions, be concealed by the
turban, or helmet, or other head-dress which he wore; but in private
there was great danger either that the loss of the ears, or the
studied effort to conceal it, should be observed. Smerdis was,
therefore, very careful to avoid being seen in private, by keeping
himself closely secluded. He shut himself up in the apartments of his
palace at Susa, within the citadel, and never invited the Persian
nobles to visit him there.
Among the other means of luxury and pleasure which Smerdis found in
the royal palaces, and which he appropriated to his own enjoyment,
were Cambyses's wives. In those times, Oriental princes and
potentates--as is, in fact, the case at the present day, in many
Oriental countries--possessed a great number of wives, who were bound
to them by different sorts of matrimonial ties, more or less
permanent, and bringing them into relations more or less intimate with
their husband and sovereign. These wives were in many respects in the
condition of slaves: in one particular they were especially so,
namely, that on the death of a sovereign they descended, like any
other property, to the heir, who added as many of them as he pleased
to his own seraglio. Until this was done, the unfortunate women were
shut up in close seclusion on the death of their lord, like mourners
who retire from the world when suffering any great and severe
bereavement.
The wives of Cambyses were appropriated by Smerdis to himself on his
taking possession of the throne and hearing of Cambyses's death. Among
them was Atossa, who has already been mentioned as the daughter of
Cyrus, and, of course, the sister of Cambyses as well as his wife. In
order to prevent these court ladies from being the means, in any way,
of discovering the imposture which he was practicing, the magian
continued to keep them all closely shut up in their several separate
apartments, only allowing a favored few to visit him, one by one, in
turn, while he prevented their having any communication with one
another.
The name of one of these ladies was Phaedyma. She was the daughter of a
Persian noble of the highest rank and influence, named Otanes. Otanes,
as well as some other nobles of the court, had observed and reflected
upon the extraordinary circumstances connected with the accession of
Smerdis to the throne, and the singular mode of life that he led in
secluding himself, in a manner so extraordinary for a Persian monarch,
from all intercourse with his nobles and his people. The suspicions of
Otanes and his associates were excited, but no one dared to
communicate his thoughts to the others. At length, however, Otanes,
who was a man of great energy as well as sagacity and discretion,
resolved that he would take some measures to ascertain the truth.
He first sent a messenger to Phaedyma, his daughter, asking of her
whether it was really Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, who received her when
she went to visit the king. Phaedyma, in return, sent her father word
that she did not know, for she had never seen Smerdis, the son of
Cyrus, before the death of Cambyses. She therefore could not say, of
her own personal knowledge, whether the king was the genuine Smerdis
or not. Otanes then sent to Phaedyma a second time, requesting her to
ask the queen Atossa. Atossa was the sister of Smerdis the prince, and
had known him from his childhood. Phaedyma sent back word to her father
that she could not speak to Atossa, for she was kept closely shut up
in her own apartments, without the opportunity to communicate with any
one. Otanes then sent a third time to his daughter, telling her that
there was one remaining mode by which she might ascertain the truth,
and that was, the next time that she visited the king, to feel for his
ears when he was asleep. If it was Smerdis the magian, she would find
that he had none. He urged his daughter to do this by saying that, if
the pretended king was really an impostor, the imposture ought to be
made known, and that she, being of noble birth, ought to have the
courage and energy to assist in discovering it. To this Phaedyma
replied that she would do as her father desired, though she knew that
she hazarded her life in the attempt. "If he has no ears," said she,
"and if I awaken him in attempting to feel for them, he will kill me;
I am sure that he will kill me on the spot."
The next time that it came to Phaedyma's turn to visit the king, she
did as her father had requested. She passed her hand very cautiously
beneath the king's turban, and found that his ears had been cut off
close to his head. Early in the morning she communicated the knowledge
of the fact to her father.
[Illustration: PHAEDYMA FEELING FOR SMERDIS'S EARS.]
Otanes immediately made the case known to two of his friends, Persian
nobles, who had, with him, suspected the imposture, and had consulted
together before in respect to the means of detecting it. The question
was, what was now to be done. After some deliberation, it was agreed
that each of them should communicate the discovery which they had
made to one other person, such as each should select from among the
circle of his friends as the one on whose resolution, prudence, and
fidelity he could most implicitly rely. This was done, and the number
admitted to the secret was thus increased to six. At this juncture it
happened that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, the young man who has
already been mentioned as the subject of Cyrus's dream, came to
Susa. Darius was a man of great prominence and popularity. His
father, Hystaspes, was at that time the governor of the province of
Persia, and Darius had been residing with him in that country. As
soon as the six conspirators heard of his arrival, they admitted him
to their councils, and thus their number was increased to seven.
They immediately began to hold secret consultations for the purpose of
determining how it was best to proceed, first binding themselves by
the most solemn oaths never to betray one another, however their
undertaking might end. Darius told them that he had himself discovered
the imposture and usurpation of Smerdis, and that he had come from
Persia for the purpose of slaying him; and that now, since it appeared
that the secret was known to so many, he was of opinion that they
ought to act at once with the utmost decision. He thought there would
be great danger in delay.
Otanes, on the other hand, thought that they were not yet ready for
action. They must first increase their numbers. Seven persons were too
few to attempt to revolutionize an empire. He commended the courage
and resolution which Darius displayed, but he thought that a more
cautious and deliberate policy would be far more likely to conduct
them to a safe result.
Darius replied that the course which Otanes recommended would
certainly ruin them. "If we make many other persons acquainted with
our plans," said he, "there will be some, notwithstanding all our
precautions, who will betray us, for the sake of the immense rewards
which they well know they would receive in that case from the king.
No," he added, "we must act ourselves, and alone. We must do nothing
to excite suspicion, but must go at once into the palace, penetrate
boldly into Smerdis's presence, and slay him before he has time to
suspect our designs."
"But we can not get into his presence," replied Otanes. "There are
guards stationed at every gate and door, who will not allow us to
pass. If we attempt to kill them, a tumult will be immediately raised,
and the alarm given, and all our designs will thus be baffled."
"There will be little difficulty about the guards," said Darius. "They
know us all, and, from deference to our rank and station, they will
let us pass without suspicion, especially if we act boldly and
promptly, and do not give them time to stop and consider what to do.
Besides, I can say that I have just arrived from Persia with
important dispatches for the king, and that I must be admitted
immediately into his presence. If a falsehood must be told, so let it
be. The urgency of the crisis demands and sanctions it."
It may seem strange to the reader, considering the ideas and habits of
the times, that Darius should have even thought it necessary to
apologize to his confederates for his proposal of employing falsehood
in the accomplishment of their plans; and it is, in fact, altogether
probable that the apology which he is made to utter is his
historian's, and not his own.
The other conspirators had remained silent during this discussion
between Darius and Otanes; but now a third, whose name was Gobryas,
expressed his opinion in favor of the course which Darius recommended.
He was aware, he said, that, in attempting to force their way into the
king's presence and kill him by a sudden assault, they exposed
themselves to the most imminent danger; but it was better for them to
die in the manly attempt to bring back the imperial power again into
Persian hands, where it properly belonged, than to acquiesce any
further in its continuance in the possession of the ignoble Median
priests who had so treacherously usurped it.
To this counsel they all finally agreed, and began to make
arrangements for carrying their desperate enterprise into execution.
In the mean time, very extraordinary events were transpiring in
another part of the city. The two magi, Smerdis the king and
Patizithes his brother, had some cause, it seems, to fear that the
nobles about the court, and the officers of the Persian army, were not
without suspicions that the reigning monarch was not the real son of
Cyrus. Rumors that Smerdis had been killed by Prexaspes, at the
command of Cambyses, were in circulation. These rumors were
contradicted, it is true, in private, by Prexaspes, whenever he was
forced to speak of the subject; but he generally avoided it; and he
spoke, when he spoke at all, in that timid and undecided tone which
men usually assume when they are persisting in a lie. In the mean
time, the gloomy recollections of his past life, the memory of his
murdered son, remorse for his own crime in the assassination of
Smerdis, and anxiety on account of the extremely dangerous position in
which he had placed himself by his false denial of it, all conspired
to harass his mind with perpetual restlessness and misery, and to
make life a burden.
In order to do something to quiet the suspicions which the magi feared
were prevailing, they did not know how extensively, they conceived the
plan of inducing Prexaspes to declare in a more public and formal
manner what he had been asserting timidly in private, namely, that
Smerdis had not been killed. They accordingly convened an assembly of
the people in a court-yard of the palace, or perhaps took advantage of
some gathering casually convened, and proposed that Prexaspes should
address them from a neighboring tower. Prexaspes was a man of high
rank and of great influence, and the magi thought that his public
espousal of their cause, and his open and decided contradiction of the
rumor that he had killed Cambyses's brother, would fully convince the
Persians that it was really the rightful monarch that had taken
possession of the throne.
But the strength even of a strong man, when he has a lie to carry,
soon becomes very small. That of Prexaspes was already almost
exhausted and gone. He had been wavering and hesitating before, and
this proposal, that he should commit himself so formally and solemnly,
and in so public a manner, to statements wholly and absolutely
untrue, brought him to a stand. He decided, desperately, in his own
mind, that he would go on in his course of falsehood, remorse, and
wretchedness no longer. He, however, pretended to accede to the
propositions of the magi. He ascended the tower, and began to address
the people. Instead, however, of denying that he had murdered Smerdis,
he fully confessed to the astonished audience that he had really
committed that crime; he openly denounced the reigning Smerdis as an
impostor, and called upon all who heard him to rise at once, destroy
the treacherous usurper, and vindicate the rights of the true Persian
line. As he went on, with vehement voice and gestures, in this speech,
the utterance of which he knew sealed his own destruction, he became
more and more excited and reckless. He denounced his hearers in the
severest language if they failed to obey his injunctions, and
imprecated upon them, in that event, all the curses of Heaven. The
people listened to this strange and sudden phrensy of eloquence in
utter amazement, motionless and silent; and before they or the
officers of the king's household who were present had time even to
consider what to do, Prexaspes, coming abruptly to the conclusion of
his harangue, threw himself headlong from the parapet of the tower,
and came down among them, lifeless and mangled, on the pavement below.
Of course, all was now tumult and commotion in the court-yard, and it
happened to be just at this juncture that the seven conspirators came
from the place of their consultation to the palace, with a view of
executing their plans. They were soon informed of what had taken
place. Otanes was now again disposed to postpone their attempt upon
the life of the king. The event which had occurred changed, he said,
the aspect of the subject, and they must wait until the tumult and
excitement should have somewhat subsided. But Darius was more eager
than ever in favor of instantaneous action. He said that there was not
a moment to be lost; for the magi, so soon as they should be informed
of the declarations and of the death of Prexaspes, would be alarmed,
and would take at once the most effectual precautions to guard against
any sudden assault or surprise.
These arguments, at the very time in which Darius was offering them
with so much vehemence and earnestness, were strengthened by a very
singular sort of confirmation; for while the conspirators stood
undetermined, they saw a flock of birds moving across the sky, which,
on their more attentively regarding them, proved to be seven hawks
pursuing two vultures. This they regarded an omen, intended to signify
to them, by a divine intimation, that they ought to proceed. They
hesitated, therefore, no longer.
They went together to the outer gates of the palace. The action of the
guards who were stationed there was just what Darius had predicted
that it would be. Awed by the imposing spectacle of the approach of
seven nobles of the highest distinction, who were advancing, too, with
an earnest and confident air, as if expecting no obstacle to their
admission, they gave way at once, and allowed them to enter. The
conspirators went on until they came to the inner apartments, where
they found eunuchs in attendance at the doors. The eunuchs resisted,
and demanded angrily why the guards had let the strangers in. "Kill
them," said the conspirators, and immediately began to cut them down.
The magi were within, already in consternation at the disclosures of
Prexaspes, of which they had just been informed. They heard the tumult
and the outcries of the eunuchs at the doors, and seized their arms,
the one a bow and the other a spear. The conspirators rushed in. The
bow was useless in the close combat which ensued, and the magian who
had taken it turned and fled. The other defended himself with his
spear for a moment, and wounded severely two of his assailants. The
wounded conspirators fell. Three others of the number continued the
unequal combat with the armed magian, while Darius and Gobryas rushed
in pursuit of the other.
The flying magian ran from one apartment to another until he reached a
dark room, into which the blind instinct of fear prompted him to rush,
in the vain hope of concealment. Gobryas was foremost; he seized the
wretched fugitive by the waist, and struggled to hold him, while the
magian struggled to get free. Gobryas called upon Darius, who was
close behind him, to strike. Darius, brandishing his sword, looked
earnestly into the obscure retreat, that he might see where to strike.
"Strike!" exclaimed Gobryas. "Why do you not strike?"
"I can not see," said Darius, "and I am afraid of wounding you."
"No matter," said Gobryas, struggling desperately all the time with
his frantic victim. "Strike quick, if you kill us both."
Darius struck. Gobryas loosened his hold, and the magian fell upon the
floor, and there, stabbed again through the heart by Darius's sword,
almost immediately ceased to breathe.
They dragged the body to the light, and cut off the head. They did the
same with the other magian, whom they found that their confederates
had killed when they returned to the apartments where they had left
them contending. The whole body of the conspirators then, except the
two who were wounded, exulting in their success, and wild with the
excitement which such deeds always awaken, went forth into the streets
of the city, bearing the heads upon pikes as the trophies of their
victory. They summoned the Persian soldiers to arms, and announced
every where that they had ascertained that the king was a priest and
an impostor, and not their legitimate sovereign, and that they had
consequently killed him. They called upon the people to kill the
magians wherever they could find them, as if the whole class were
implicated in the guilt of the usurping brothers.
The populace in all countries are easily excited by such denunciations
and appeals as these. The Persians armed themselves, and ran to and
fro every where in pursuit of the unhappy magians, and before night
vast numbers of them were slain.