THE PROVINCES.
B.C. 520
Intaphernes.--He is denied admittance to Darius.--Intaphernes's cruelty
to the two guards.--Darius's apprehensions.--Intaphernes and family
arrested.--They are condemned to die.--Alternative offered to
Intaphernes's wife.--Her strange decision.--Death of Intaphernes.--The
provinces.--The governors.--Their independence.--Power of the
governors.--Oretes, governor of Sardis.--Conversation between Oretes
and Mitrobates.--Polycrates.--Dominion of Polycrates.--Letter of
Amasis.--Suggestion of Amasis.--Adopted by Polycrates.--Polycrates
throws away his ring.--Its singular recovery.--Predictions of
Amasis.--Their fulfillment.--Letter of Oretes.--His hypocrisy.--The
pretended treasure.--Fears of Polycrates's daughter.--Oretes murders
Polycrates.--He commits other murders.--Oretes destroys Darius's
messenger.--Darius is incensed.--Plan of Darius for punishing
Oretes.--His proposal.--Commission of Bagaeus.--His plan.--Oretes
beheaded.--Divisions of Darius's empire.--Tribute of the satrapies.--The
white horses.--The gold of India.--Mode of gathering it.--The wonderful
ants.--Their prodigious size.
Several of the events and incidents which occurred immediately after
the accession of Darius to the throne, illustrate in a striking manner
the degree in which the princes and potentates of ancient days were
governed by caprice and passionate impulse even in their public acts.
One of the most remarkable of these was the case of Intaphernes.
Intaphernes was one of the seven conspirators who combined to depose
the magian and place Darius on the throne. By the agreement which they
made with each other before it was decided which should be the king,
each of them was to have free access to the king's presence at all
times. One evening, soon after Darius became established on his
throne, Intaphernes went to the palace, and was proceeding to enter
the apartment of the king without ceremony, when he was stopped by two
officers, who told him that the king had retired. Intaphernes was
incensed at the officers' insolence, as he called it. He drew his
sword, and cut off their noses and their ears. Then he took the bridle
off from his horse at the palace gate, and tied the officers together;
and then, leaving them in this helpless and miserable condition, he
went away.
The officers immediately repaired to the king, and presented
themselves to him, a frightful spectacle, wounded and bleeding, and
complaining bitterly of Intaphernes as the author of the injuries
which they had received. The king was at first alarmed for his own
safety. He feared that the conspirators had all combined together to
rebel against his authority, and that this daring insult offered to
his personal attendants, in his very palace, was the first outbreak of
it. He accordingly sent for the conspirators one by one, to ask of
them whether they approved of what Intaphernes had done. They promptly
disavowed all connection with Intaphernes in the act, and all approval
of it, and declared their determination to adhere to the decision that
they had made, by which Darius had been placed on the throne.
Darius then, after taking proper precautions to guard against any
possible attempts at resistance, sent soldiers to seize Intaphernes,
and also his son, and all of his family, relatives, and friends who
were capable of bearing arms; for he suspected that Intaphernes had
meditated a rebellion, and he thought that, if so, these men would
most probably be his accomplices. The prisoners were brought before
him. There was, indeed, no proof that they were engaged in any plan of
rebellion, nor even that any plan of rebellion whatever had been
formed; but this circumstance afforded them no protection. The
liberties and the lives of all subjects were at the supreme and
absolute disposal of these ancient kings. Darius thought it possible
that the prisoners had entertained, or might entertain, some
treasonable designs, and he conceived that he should, accordingly,
feel safer if they were removed out of the way. He decreed, therefore,
that they must all die.
While the preparations were making for the execution, the wife of
Intaphernes came continually to the palace of Darius, begging for an
audience, that she might intercede for the lives of her friends.
Darius was informed of this, and at last, pretending to be moved with
compassion for her distress, he sent her word that he would pardon one
of the criminals for her sake, and that she might decide which one it
should be. His real motive in making this proposal seems to have been
to enjoy the perplexity and anguish which the heart of a woman must
suffer in being compelled thus to decide, in a question of life and
death, between a husband and a son.
The wife of Intaphernes did not decide in favor of either of these.
She gave the preference, on the other hand, to a brother. Darius was
very much surprised at this result, and sent a messenger to her to
inquire how it happened that she could pass over and abandon to their
fate her husband and her son, in order to save the life of her
brother, who was certainly to be presumed less near and dear to her.
To which she gave this extraordinary reply, that the loss of her
husband and her son might perhaps be repaired, since it was not
impossible that she might be married again, and that she might have
another son; but that, inasmuch as both her father and mother were
dead, she could never have another brother. The death of her present
brother would, therefore, be an irreparable loss.
The king was so much pleased with the novelty and unexpectedness of
this turn of thought, that he gave her the life of her son in addition
to that of her brother. All the rest of the family circle of
relatives and friends, together with Intaphernes himself, he ordered
to be slain.
Darius had occasion to be so much displeased, too, shortly after his
accession to the throne, with the governor of one of his provinces,
that he was induced to order him to be put to death. The circumstances
connected with this governor's crime, and the manner of his execution,
illustrate very forcibly the kind of government which was administered
by these military despots in ancient times. It must be premised that
great empires, like that over which Darius had been called to rule,
were generally divided into provinces. The inhabitants of these
provinces, each community within its own borders, went on, from year
to year, in their various pursuits of peaceful industry, governed
mainly, in their relations to each other, by the natural sense of
justice instinctive in man, and by those thousand local institutions
and usages which are always springing up in all human communities
under the influence of this principle. There were governors stationed
over these provinces, whose main duty it was to collect and remit to
the king the tribute which the province was required to furnish him.
These governors were, of course, also to suppress any domestic
outbreak of violence, and to repel any foreign invasion which might
occur. A sufficient military force was placed at their disposal to
enable them to fulfill these functions. They paid these troops, of
course, from sums which they collected in their provinces under the
same system by which they collected the tribute. This made them, in a
great measure, independent of the king in the maintenance of their
armies. They thus intrenched themselves in their various capitals at
the head of these troops, and reigned over their respective dominions
almost as if they were kings themselves. They had, in fact, very
little connection with the supreme monarch, except to send him the
annual tribute which they had collected from their people, and to
furnish, also, their quota of troops in case of a national war. In the
time of our Savior, Pilate was such a governor, intrusted by the
Romans with the charge of Judea, and Matthew was one of the tax
gatherers employed to collect the tribute.
Of course, the governors of such provinces, as we have already said,
were, in a great measure, independent of the king. He had, ordinarily,
no officers of justice whose jurisdiction could control, peacefully,
such powerful vassals. The only remedy in most cases, when they were
disobedient and rebellious, was to raise an army and go forth to make
war upon them, as in the case of any foreign state. This was attended
with great expense, and trouble, and hazard. The governors, when
ambitious and aspiring, sometimes managed their resources with so much
energy and military skill as to get the victory over their sovereign
in the contests in which they engaged with them, and then they would
gain vast accessions to the privileges and powers which they exercised
in their own departments; and they would sometimes overthrow their
discomfited sovereign entirely, and take possession of his throne
themselves in his stead.
Oretes was the name of one of these governors in the time of Darius.
He had been placed by Cyrus, some years before, in charge of one of
the provinces into which the kingdom of Lydia had been divided. The
seat of government was Sardis.[D] He was a capricious and cruel
tyrant, as, in fact, almost all such governors were. We will relate
an account of one of the deeds which he performed some time before
Darius ascended the throne, and which sufficiently illustrates his
character.
[Footnote D: For the position of Sardis, and of other places mentioned
in this chapter, see the map at the commencement of the volume, and
also that at the commencement of chapter xi.]
He was one day sitting at the gates of his palace in Sardis, in
conversation with the governor of a neighboring territory who had come
to visit him. The name of this guest was Mitrobates. As the two
friends were boasting to one another, as such warriors are accustomed
to do, of the deeds of valor and prowess which they had respectively
performed, Mitrobates said that Oretes could not make any great
pretensions to enterprise and bravery so long as he allowed the Greek
island of Samos, which was situate at a short distance from the Lydian
coast, to remain independent, when it would be so easy to annex it to
the Persian empire. "You are afraid of Polycrates, I suppose," said
he. Polycrates was the king of Samos.
Oretes was stung by this taunt, but, instead of revenging himself on
Mitrobates, the author of it, he resolved on destroying Polycrates,
though he had no reason other than this for any feeling of enmity
toward him.
Polycrates, although the seat of his dominion was a small island in
the AEgean Sea, was a very wealthy, and powerful, and prosperous
prince. All his plans and enterprises had been remarkably successful.
He had built and equipped a powerful fleet, and had conquered many
islands in the neighborhood of his own. He was projecting still wider
schemes of conquests, and hoped, in fact, to make himself the master
of all the seas.
A very curious incident is related of Polycrates, which illustrates
very strikingly the childish superstition which governed the minds of
men in those ancient days. It seems that in the midst of his
prosperity, his friend and ally, the King of Egypt--for these events,
though narrated here, occurred before the invasion of Egypt by
Cambyses--sent to him a letter, of which the following is the purport.
"_Amasis, king of Egypt, to Polycrates._
"It always gives me great satisfaction and pleasure to hear
of the prosperity of a friend and ally, unless it is too
absolutely continuous and uninterrupted. Something like an
alternation of good and ill fortune is best for man; I have
never known an instance of a very long-continued course of
unmingled and uninterrupted success that did not end, at
last, in overwhelming and terrible calamity. I am anxious,
therefore, for you, and my anxiety will greatly increase if
this extraordinary and unbroken prosperity should continue
much longer. I counsel you, therefore, to break the current
yourself, if fortune will not break it. Bring upon yourself
some calamity, or loss, or suffering, as a means of averting
the heavier evils which will otherwise inevitably befall
you. It is a general and substantial welfare only that can
be permanent and final."
Polycrates seemed to think there was good sense in this suggestion. He
began to look around him to see in what way he could bring upon
himself some moderate calamity or loss, and at length decided on the
destruction of a very valuable signet ring which he kept among his
treasures. The ring was made with very costly jewels set in gold, and
was much celebrated both for its exquisite workmanship and also for
its intrinsic value. The loss of this ring would be, he thought, a
sufficient calamity to break the evil charm of an excessive and
unvaried current of good fortune. Polycrates, therefore, ordered one
of the largest vessels in his navy, a fifty-oared galley, to be
equipped and manned, and, embarking in it with a large company of
attendants, he put to sea. When he was at some distance from the
island, he took the ring, and in the presence of all his attendants,
he threw it forth into the water, and saw it sink, to rise, as he
supposed, no more.
But Fortune, it seems, was not to be thus outgeneraled. A few days
after Polycrates had returned, a certain fisherman on the coast took,
in his nets, a fish of very extraordinary size and beauty; so
extraordinary, in fact, that he felt it incumbent on him to make a
present of it to the king. The servants of Polycrates, on opening the
fish for the purpose of preparing it for the table, to their great
astonishment and gratification, found the ring within. The king was
overjoyed at thus recovering his lost treasure; he had, in fact,
repented of his rashness in throwing it away, and had been bitterly
lamenting its loss. His satisfaction and pleasure were, therefore,
very great in regaining it; and he immediately sent to Amasis an
account of the whole transaction, expecting that Amasis would share in
his joy.
Amasis, however, sent word back to him in reply, that he considered
the return of the ring in that almost miraculous manner as an
extremely unfavorable omen. "I fear," said he, "that it is decreed by
the Fates that you must be overwhelmed, at last, by some dreadful
calamity, and that no measures of precaution which you can adopt will
avail to avert it. It seems to me, too," he added, "that it is
incumbent on me to withdraw from all alliance and connection with you,
lest I should also, at last, be involved in your destined
destruction."
Whether this extraordinary story was true, or whether it was all
fabricated after the fall of Polycrates, as a dramatic embellishment
of his history, we can not now know. The result, however, corresponded
with these predictions of Amasis, if they were really made; for it was
soon after these events that the conversation took place at Sardis
between Oretes and Mitrobates, at the gates of the palace, which led
Oretes to determine on effecting Polycrates's destruction.
In executing the plans which he thus formed, Oretes had not the
courage and energy necessary for an open attack on Polycrates, and he
consequently resolved on attempting to accomplish his end by treachery
and stratagem.
The plan which he devised was this: He sent a messenger to Polycrates
with a letter of the following purport:
"_Oretes, governor of Sardis, to Polycrates of Samos._
"I am aware, sire, of the plans which you have long been
entertaining for extending your power among the islands and
over the waters of the Mediterranean, until you shall have
acquired the supreme and absolute dominion of the seas. I
should like to join you in this enterprise. You have ships
and men, and I have money. Let us enter into an alliance
with each other. I have accumulated in my treasuries a large
supply of gold and silver, which I will furnish for the
expenses of the undertaking. If you have any doubt of my
sincerity in making these offers, and of my ability to
fulfill them, send some messenger in whom you have
confidence, and I will lay the evidence before him."
Polycrates was much pleased at the prospect of a large accession to
his funds, and he sent the messenger, as Oretes had proposed. Oretes
prepared to receive him by filling a large number of boxes nearly full
with heavy stones, and then placing a shallow layer of gold or silver
coin at the top. These boxes were then suitably covered and secured,
with the fastenings usually adopted in those days, and placed away in
the royal treasuries. When the messenger arrived, the boxes were
brought out and opened, and were seen by the messenger to be full, as
he supposed, of gold and silver treasure. The messenger went back to
Polycrates, and reported that all which Oretes had said was true; and
Polycrates then determined to go to the main land himself to pay
Oretes a visit, that they might mature together their plans for the
intended campaigns. He ordered a fifty-oared galley to be prepared to
convey him.
His daughter felt a presentiment, it seems, that some calamity was
impending. She earnestly entreated her father not to go. She had had a
dream, she said, about him, which had frightened her excessively, and
which she was convinced portended some terrible danger. Polycrates
paid no attention to his daughter's warnings. She urged them more and
more earnestly, until, at last, she made her father angry, and then
she desisted. Polycrates then embarked on board his splendid galley,
and sailed away. As soon as he landed in the dominions of Oretes, the
monster seized him and put him to death, and then ordered his body to
be nailed to a cross, for exhibition to all passers by, as a public
spectacle. The train of attendants and servants that accompanied
Polycrates on this expedition were all made slaves, except a few
persons of distinction, who were sent home in a shameful and
disgraceful manner. Among the attendants who were detained in
captivity by Oretes was a celebrated family physician, named
Democedes, whose remarkable and romantic adventures will be the
subject of the next chapter.
Oretes committed several other murders and assassinations in this
treacherous manner, without any just ground for provocation. In these
deeds of violence and cruelty, he seems to have acted purely under the
influence of that wanton and capricious malignity which the possession
of absolute and irresponsible power so often engenders in the minds of
bad men. It is doubtful, however, whether these cruelties and crimes
would have particularly attracted the attention of Darius, so long as
he was not himself directly affected by them. The central government,
in these ancient empires, generally interested itself very little in
the contentions and quarrels of the governors of the provinces,
provided that the tribute was efficiently collected and regularly
paid.
A case, however, soon occurred, in Oretes's treacherous and bloody
career, which arrested the attention of Darius and aroused his ire.
Darius had sent a messenger to Oretes, with certain orders, which, it
seems, Oretes did not like to obey. After delivering his dispatches
the bearer set out on his return, and was never afterward heard of.
Darius ascertained, to his own satisfaction at least, that Oretes had
caused his messenger to be waylaid and killed, and that the bodies
both of horse and rider had been buried, secretly, in the solitudes of
the mountains, in order to conceal the evidences of the deed.
Darius determined on punishing this crime. Some consideration was,
however, required, in order to determine in what way his object could
best be effected. The province of Oretes was at a great distance from
Susa, and Oretes was strongly established there, at the head of a
great force. His guards were bound, it is true, to obey the orders of
Darius, but it was questionable whether they would do so. To raise an
army and march against the rebellious governor would be an expensive
and hazardous undertaking, and perhaps, too, it would prove that such
a measure was not necessary. All things considered, Darius determined
to try the experiment of acting, by his own direct orders, upon the
troops and guards in Oretes's capital, with the intention of resorting
subsequently to an armed force of his own, if that should be at last
required.
He accordingly called together a number of his officers and nobles,
selecting those on whose resolution and fidelity he could most
confidently rely, and made the following address to them:
"I have an enterprise which I wish to commit to the charge of some one
of your number who is willing to undertake it, which requires no
military force, and no violent measures of any kind, but only wisdom,
sagacity, and courage. I wish to have Oretes, the governor of Sardis,
brought to me, dead or alive. He has perpetrated innumerable crimes,
and now, in addition to all his other deeds of treacherous violence,
he has had the intolerable insolence to put to death one of my
messengers. Which of you will volunteer to bring him, dead or alive,
to me?"
This proposal awakened a great enthusiasm among the nobles to whom it
was addressed. Nearly thirty of them volunteered their services to
execute the order. Darius concluded to decide between these
competitors by lot. The lot fell upon a certain man named Bagaeus, and
he immediately began to form his plans and make his arrangements for
the expedition.
He caused a number of different orders to be prepared, beginning with
directions of little moment, and proceeding to commands of more and
more weighty importance, all addressed to the officers of Oretes's
army and to his guards. These orders were all drawn up in writing with
great formality, and were signed by the name of Darius, and sealed
with his seal; they, moreover, named Bagaeus as the officer selected by
the king to superintend the execution of them. Provided with these
documents, Bagaeus proceeded to Sardis, and presented himself at the
court of Oretes. He presented his own personal credentials, and with
them some of his most insignificant orders. Neither Oretes nor his
guards felt any disposition to disobey them. Bagaeus, being thus
received and recognized as the envoy of the king, continued to present
new decrees and edicts, from time to time, as occasions occurred in
which he thought the guards would be ready to obey them, until he
found the habit, on their part, of looking to him as the
representative of the supreme power sufficiently established; for
their disposition to obey him was not merely tested, it was
strengthened by every new act of obedience. When he found, at length,
that his hold upon the guards was sufficiently strong, he produced his
two final decrees, one ordering the guards to depose Oretes from his
power, and the other to behead him. Both the commands were obeyed.
The events and incidents which have been described in this chapter
were of no great importance in themselves, but they illustrate, more
forcibly than any general description would do the nature and the
operation of the government exercised by Darius throughout the vast
empire over which he found himself presiding.
Such personal and individual contests and transactions were not all
that occupied his attention. He devoted a great deal of thought and of
time to the work of arranging, in a distinct and systematic manner,
the division of his dominions into provinces, and to regulating
precisely the amount of tribute to be required of each, and the modes
of collecting it. He divided his empire into twenty great districts,
each of which was governed by a ruler called a _satrap_. He fixed the
amount of tribute which each of these districts was to pay, making it
greater or less as the soil and the productions of the country varied
in fertility and abundance. In some cases this tribute was to be paid
in gold, in others in silver, and in others in peculiar commodities,
natural to the country of which they were required. For example, one
satrapy, which comprised a country famous for its horses, was obliged
to furnish one white horse for every day in the year. This made three
hundred and sixty annually, that being the number of days in the
Persian year. Such a supply, furnished yearly, enabled the king soon
to have a very large troop of white horses; and as the horses were
beautifully caparisoned, and the riders magnificently armed, the body
of cavalry thus formed was one of the most splendid in the world.
The satrapies were numbered from the west toward the east. The western
portion of Asia Minor constituted the first, and the East Indian
nations the twelfth and last. The East Indians had to pay their
tribute in ingots of gold. Their country produced gold.
As it is now forever too late to separate the facts from the fiction
of ancient history, and determine what is to be rejected as false and
what received as true, our only resource is to tell the whole story
just as it comes down to us, leaving it to each reader to decide for
himself what he will believe. In this view of the subject, we will
conclude this chapter by relating the manner in which it was said in
ancient times that these Indian nations obtained their gold.
The gold country was situated in remote and dreary deserts, inhabited
only by wild beasts and vermin, among which last there was, it seems,
a species of ants, which were of enormous size, and wonderful
fierceness and voracity, and which could run faster than the fleetest
horse or camel. These ants, in making their excavations, would bring
up from beneath the surface of the ground all the particles of gold
which came in their way, and throw them out around their hills. The
Indians then would penetrate into these deserts, mounted on the
fleetest camels that they could procure, and leading other camels, not
so fleet, by their sides. They were provided, also, with bags for
containing the golden sands. When they arrived at the ant hills, they
would dismount, and, gathering up the gold which the ants had
discarded, would fill their bags with the utmost possible dispatch,
and then mount their camels and ride away. The ants, in the mean time,
would take the alarm, and begin to assemble to attack them; but as
their instinct prompted them to wait until considerable numbers were
collected before they commenced their attack, the Indians had time to
fill their bags and begin their flight before their enemies were
ready. Then commenced the chase, the camels running at their full
speed, and the swarms of ants following, and gradually drawing nearer
and nearer. At length, when nearly overtaken, the Indians would
abandon the camels that they were leading, and fly on, more swiftly,
upon those which they rode. While the ants were busy in devouring the
victims thus given up to them, the authors of all the mischief would
make good their escape, and thus carry off their gold to a place of
safety. These famous ants were bigger than foxes!
[Illustration: THE INDIAN GOLD HUNTER.]