THE DEATH OF DARIUS.
B.C. 490-485
The Persian fleet sails southward.--Fate of Hippias.--Omens.--The
dream and the sneeze.--Hippias falls in battle.--Movements of the
Persian fleet.--The Persian fleet returns to Asia.--Anxiety of
Datis.--Datis finds a stolen statue.--Island of Delos.--Account of
the sacred island.--Its present condition.--Disposition of the
army.--Darius's reception of Datis.--Subsequent history of
Miltiades.--His great popularity.--Miltiades's influence
at Athens.--His ambitious designs.--Island and city of
Paros.--Appearance of the modern town.--Miltiades's proposition to
the Athenians.--They accept it.--Miltiades marches against
Paros.--Its resistance.--Miltiades is discouraged.--The captive
priestess.--Miltiades's interview with the priestess.--Her
instructions.--Miltiades attempts to enter the temple of Ceres.--He
dislocates a limb.--Miltiades returns to Athens.--He is
impeached.--Miltiades is condemned.--He dies of his wound.--The fine
paid.--Proposed punishment of Timo.--Timo saved by the Delphic
oracle.--Another expedition against Greece.--Preparations.--Necessity
for settling the succession.--Darius's two sons.--Their claims to the
throne.--Xerxes declared heir.--Death of Darius.--Character of
Darius.--Ground of his renown.
The city of Athens and the plain of Marathon are situated upon a
peninsula. The principal port by which the city was ordinarily
approached was on the southern shore of the peninsula, though the
Persians had landed on the northern side. Of course, in their retreat
from the field of battle, they fled to the north. When they were
beyond the reach of their enemies and fairly at sea, they were at
first somewhat perplexed to determine what to do. Datis was extremely
unwilling to return to Darius with the news of such a defeat. On the
other hand, there seemed but little hope of any other result if he
were to attempt a second landing.
Hippias, their Greek guide, was killed in the battle. He expected to
be killed, for his mind, on the morning of the battle, was in a state
of great despondency and dejection. Until that time he had felt a
strong and confident expectation of success, but his feelings had then
been very suddenly changed. His confidence had arisen from the
influence of a dream, his dejection from a cause more frivolous still;
so that he was equally irrational in his hope and in his despair.
The omen which seemed to him to portend success to the enterprise in
which he had undertaken to act as guide, was merely that he dreamed
one night that he saw, and spent some time in company with, his
mother. In attempting to interpret this dream in the morning, it
seemed to him that Athens, his native city, was represented by his
mother, and that the vision denoted that he was about to be restored
to Athens again. He was extremely elated at this supernatural
confirmation of his hopes, and would have gone into the battle certain
of victory, had it not been that another circumstance occurred at the
time of the landing to blast his hopes. He had, himself, the general
charge of the disembarkation. He stationed the ships at their proper
places near the shore, and formed the men upon the beach as they
landed. While he was thus engaged, standing on the sand, he suddenly
sneezed. He was an old man, and his teeth--those that remained--were
loose. One of them was thrown out in the act of sneezing, and it fell
into the sand. Hippias was alarmed at this occurrence, considering it
a bad omen. He looked a long time for the tooth in vain, and then
exclaimed that all was over. The joining of his tooth to his mother
earth was the event to which his dream referred, and there was now no
hope of any further fulfillment of it. He went on mechanically, after
this, in marshaling his men and preparing for battle, but his mind was
oppressed with gloomy forebodings. He acted, in consequence, feebly
and with indecision; and when the Greeks explored the field on the
morning after the battle, his body was found among the other mutilated
and ghastly remains which covered the ground.
As the Persian fleet moved, therefore, along the coast of Attica, they
had no longer their former guide. They were still, however, very
reluctant to leave the country. They followed the shore of the
peninsula until they came to the promontory of Sunium, which forms the
southeastern extremity of it. They doubled this cape, and then
followed the southern shore of the peninsula until they arrived at the
point opposite to Athens on that side. In the mean time, however, the
Spartan troops which had been sent for to aid the Athenians in the
contest, but which had not arrived in time to take part in the
battle, reached the ground; and the indications which the Persians
observed, from the decks of their galleys, that the country was
thoroughly aroused, and was every where ready to receive them,
deterred them from making any further attempts to land. After
lingering, therefore, a short time near the shore, the fleet directed
its course again toward the coasts of Asia.
The mind of Datis was necessarily very ill at ease. He dreaded the
wrath of Darius; for despots are very prone to consider military
failures as the worst of crimes. The expedition had not, however, been
entirely a failure. Datis had conquered many of the Greek islands, and
he had with him, on board his galleys, great numbers of prisoners, and
a vast amount of plunder which he had obtained from them. Still, the
greatest and most important of the objects which Darius had
commissioned him to accomplish had been entirely defeated, and he
felt, accordingly, no little anxiety in respect to the reception which
he was to expect at Susa.
One night he had a dream which greatly disturbed him. He awoke in the
morning with an impression upon his mind, which he had derived from
the dream, that some temple had been robbed by his soldiers in the
course of his expedition, and that the sacrilegious booty which had
been obtained was concealed somewhere in the fleet. He immediately
ordered a careful search to be instituted, in which every ship was
examined. At length they found, concealed in one of the galleys, a
golden statue of Apollo. Datis inquired what city it had been taken
from. They answered from Delium. Delium was on the coast of Attica,
near the place where the Persians had landed, at the time of their
advance on Marathon. Datis could not safely or conveniently go back
there to restore it to its place. He determined, therefore, to deposit
it at Delos for safe keeping, until it could be returned to its proper
home.
Delos was a small but very celebrated island near the center of the
AEgean Sea, and but a short distance from the spot where the Persian
fleet was lying when Datis made this discovery. It was a sacred
island, devoted to religious rites, and all contention, and violence,
and, so far as was possible, all suffering and death, were excluded
from it. The sick were removed from it; the dead were not buried
there; armed ships and armed men laid aside their hostility to each
other when they approached it. Belligerent fleets rode at anchor,
side by side, in peace, upon the smooth waters of its little port, and
an enchanting picture of peace, tranquillity, and happiness was seen
upon its shores. A large natural fountain, or spring, thirty feet in
diameter, and inclosed partly by natural rocks and partly by an
artificial wall, issued from the ground in the center of the island,
and sent forth a beautiful and fertilizing rill into a rich and happy
valley, through which it meandered, deviously, for several miles,
seeking the sea. There was a large and populous city near the port,
and the whole island was adorned with temples, palaces, colonnades,
and other splendid architectural structures, which made it the
admiration of all mankind. All this magnificence and beauty have,
however, long since passed away. The island is now silent, deserted,
and desolate, a dreary pasture, where cattle browse and feed, with
stupid indifference, among the ancient ruins. Nothing living remains
of the ancient scene of grandeur and beauty but the fountain. That
still continues to pour up its clear and pellucid waters with a
ceaseless and eternal flow.
It was to this Delos that Datis determined to restore the golden
statue. He took it on board his own galley, and proceeded with it,
himself, to the sacred island. He deposited it in the great temple of
Apollo, charging the priests to convey it, as soon as a convenient
opportunity should occur, to its proper destination at Delium.
The Persian fleet, after this business was disposed of, set sail
again, and pursued its course toward the coasts of Asia, where at
length the expedition landed in safety.
The various divisions of the army were then distributed in the
different provinces where they respectively belonged, and Datis
commenced his march with the Persian portion of the troops, and with
his prisoners and plunder, for Susa, feeling, however, very uncertain
how he should be received on his arrival there. Despotic power is
always capricious; and the character of Darius, which seems to have
been naturally generous and kind, and was rendered cruel and
tyrannical only through the influence of the position in which he had
been placed, was continually presenting the most opposite and
contradictory phases. The generous elements of it, fortunately for
Datis, seemed to be in the ascendency when the remnant of the Persian
army arrived at Susa. Darius received the returning general without
anger, and even treated the prisoners with humanity.
Before finally leaving the subject of this celebrated invasion, which
was brought to an end in so remarkable a manner by the great battle of
Marathon, it may be well to relate the extraordinary circumstances
which attended the subsequent history of Miltiades, the great
commander in that battle on the Greek side. Before the conflict, he
seems to have had no official superiority over the other generals,
but, by the resolute decision with which he urged the plan of giving
the Persians battle, and the confidence and courage which he
manifested in expressing his readiness to take the responsibility of
the measure, he placed himself virtually at the head of the Greek
command. The rest of the officers acquiesced in his pre-eminence, and,
waiving their claims to an equal share of the authority, they allowed
him to go forward and direct the operations of the day. If the day had
been lost, Miltiades, even though he had escaped death upon the field,
would have been totally and irretrievably ruined; but as it was won,
the result of the transaction was that he was raised to the highest
pinnacle of glory and renown.
And yet in this, as in all similar cases, the question of success or
of failure depended upon causes wholly beyond the reach of human
foresight or control. The military commander who acts in such
contingencies is compelled to stake every thing dear to him on results
which are often as purely hazardous as the casting of a die.
The influence of Miltiades in Athens after the Persian troops were
withdrawn was paramount and supreme. Finding himself in possession of
this ascendency, he began to form plans for other military
undertakings. It proved, in the end, that it would have been far
better for him to have been satisfied with the fame which he had
already acquired.
Some of the islands in the AEgean Sea he considered as having taken
part with the Persians in the invasion, to such an extent, at least,
as to furnish him with a pretext for making war upon them. The one
which he had specially in view, in the first instance, was Paros.
Paros is a large and important island situated near the center of the
southern portion of the AEgean Sea. It is of an oval form, and is about
twelve miles long. The surface of the land is beautifully diversified
and very picturesque, while, at the same time, the soil is very
fertile. In the days of Miltiades, it was very wealthy and populous,
and there was a large city, called also Paros, on the western coast of
the island, near the sea. There is a modern town built upon the site
of the former city, which presents a very extraordinary appearance, as
the dwellings are formed, in a great measure, of materials obtained
from the ancient ruins. Marble columns, sculptured capitals, and
fragments of what were once magnificent entablatures, have been used
to construct plain walls, or laid in obscure and neglected
pavements--all, however, still retaining, notwithstanding their
present degradation, unequivocal marks of the nobleness of their
origin. The quarries where the ancient Parian marble was obtained were
situated on this island, not very far from the town. They remain to
the present day in the same state in which the ancient workmen left
them.
In the time of Miltiades the island and the city of Paros were both
very wealthy and very powerful. Miltiades conceived the design of
making a descent upon the island, and levying an immense contribution
upon the people, in the form of a fine, for what he considered their
treason in taking part with the enemies of their countrymen. In order
to prevent the people of Paros from preparing for defense, Miltiades
intended to keep the object of his expedition secret for a time. He
therefore simply proposed to the Athenians that they should equip a
fleet and put it under his command. He had an enterprise in view, he
said, the nature of which he could not particularly explain, but he
was very confident of its success, and, if successful, he should
return, in a short time, laden with spoils which would enrich the
city, and amply reimburse the people for the expenses they would have
incurred. The force which he asked for was a fleet of seventy vessels.
So great was the popularity and influence which Miltiades had acquired
by his victory at Marathon, that this somewhat extraordinary
proposition was readily complied with. The fleet was equipped, and
crews were provided, and the whole armament was placed under
Miltiades's command. The men themselves who were embarked on board of
the galleys did not know whither they were going. Miltiades promised
them victory and an abundance of gold as their reward; for the rest,
they must trust, he said, to him, as he could not explain the actual
destination of the enterprise without endangering its success. The
men were all satisfied with these conditions, and the fleet set sail.
When it arrived on the coast of Paros, the Parians were, of course,
taken by surprise, but they made immediate preparations for a very
vigorous resistance. Miltiades commenced a siege, and sent a herald to
the city, demanding of them, as the price of their ransom, an immense
sum of money, saying, at the same time, that, unless they delivered up
that sum, or, at least, gave security for the payment of it, he would
not leave the place until the city was captured, and, when captured,
it should be wholly destroyed. The Parians rejected the demand, and
engaged energetically in the work of completing and strengthening
their defenses. They organized companies of workmen to labor during
the night, when their operations would not be observed, in building
new walls, and re-enforcing every weak or unguarded point in the line
of the fortifications. It soon appeared that the Parians were making
far more rapid progress in securing their position than Miltiades was
in his assaults upon it. Miltiades found that an attack upon a
fortified island in the AEgean Sea was a different thing from
encountering the undisciplined hordes of Persians on the open plains
of Marathon. There it was a contest between concentrated courage and
discipline on the one hand, and a vast expansion of pomp and parade on
the other; whereas now he found that the courage and discipline on his
part were met by an equally indomitable resolution on the part of his
opponents, guided, too, by an equally well-trained experience and
skill. In a word, it was Greek against Greek at Paros, and Miltiades
began at length to perceive that his prospect of success was growing
very doubtful and dim.
This state of things, of course, filled the mind of Miltiades with
great anxiety and distress; for, after the promises which he had made
to the Athenians, and the blind confidence which he had asked of them
in proposing that they should commit the fleet so unconditionally to
his command, he could not return discomfited to Athens without
involving himself in the most absolute disgrace. While he was in this
perplexity, it happened that some of his soldiers took captive a
Parian female, one day, among other prisoners. She proved to be a
priestess, from one of the Parian temples. Her name was Timo. The
thought occurred to Miltiades that, since all human means at his
command had proved inadequate to accomplish his end, he might,
perhaps, through this captive priestess, obtain some superhuman aid.
As she had been in the service of a Parian temple, she would naturally
have an influence with the divinities of the place, or, at least, she
would be acquainted with the proper means of propitiating their favor.
Miltiades, accordingly, held a private interview with Timo, and asked
her what he should do to propitiate the divinities of Paros so far as
to enable him to gain possession of the city. She replied that she
could easily point out the way, if he would but follow her
instructions. Miltiades, overjoyed, promised readily that he would do
so. She then gave him her instructions secretly. What they were is not
known, except so far as they were revealed by the occurrences that
followed.
There was a temple consecrated to the goddess Ceres near to the city,
and so connected with it, it seems, as to be in some measure included
within the defenses. The approach to this temple was guarded by a
palisade. There were, however, gates which afforded access, except
when they were fastened from within. Miltiades, in obedience to Timo's
instructions, went privately, in the night, perhaps, and with very
few attendants, to this temple. He attempted to enter by the gates,
which he had expected, it seems, to find open. They were, however,
fastened against him. He then undertook to scale the palisade. He
succeeded in doing this, not, however, without difficulty, and then
advanced toward the temple, in obedience to the instructions which he
had received from Timo. The account states that the act, whatever it
was, that Timo had directed him to perform, instead of being, as he
supposed, a means of propitiating the favor of the divinity, was
sacrilegious and impious; and Miltiades, as he approached the temple,
was struck suddenly with a mysterious and dreadful horror of mind,
which wholly overwhelmed him. Rendered almost insane by this
supernatural remorse and terror, he turned to fly. He reached the
palisade, and, in endeavoring to climb over it, his precipitation and
haste caused him to fall. His attendants ran to take him up. He was
helpless and in great pain. They found he had dislocated a joint in
one of his limbs. He received, of course, every possible attention;
but, instead of recovering from the injury, he found that the
consequences of it became more and more serious every day. In a word,
the great conqueror of the Persians was now wholly overthrown, and lay
moaning on his couch as helpless as a child.
He soon determined to abandon the siege of Paros and return to Athens.
He had been about a month upon the island, and had laid waste the
rural districts, but, as the city had made good its defense against
him, he returned without any of the rich spoil which he had promised.
The disappointment which the people of Athens experienced on his
arrival, turned soon into a feeling of hostility against the author of
the calamity. Miltiades found that the fame and honor which he had
gained at Marathon were gone. They had been lost almost as suddenly as
they had been acquired. The rivals and enemies who had been silenced
by his former success were now brought out and made clamorous against
him by his present failure. They attributed the failure to his own
mismanagement of the expedition, and one orator, at length, advanced
articles of impeachment against him, on a charge of having been bribed
by the Persians to make his siege of Paros only a feint. Miltiades
could not defend himself from these criminations, for he was lying, at
the time, in utter helplessness, upon his couch of pain. The
dislocation of the limb had ended in an open wound, which at length,
having resisted all the attempts of the physicians to stop its
progress, had begun to mortify, and the life of the sufferer was fast
ebbing away. His son Cimon did all in his power to save his father
from both the dangers that threatened him. He defended his character
in the public tribunals, and he watched over his person in the cell in
the prison. These filial efforts were, however, in both cases
unavailing. Miltiades was condemned by the tribunal, and he died of
his wound.
The penalty exacted of him by the sentence was a very heavy fine. The
sum demanded was the amount which the expedition to Paros had cost the
city, and which, as it had been lost through the agency of Miltiades,
it was adjudged that he should refund. This sentence, as well as the
treatment in general which Miltiades received from his countrymen, has
been since considered by mankind as very unjust and cruel. It was,
however, only following out, somewhat rigidly, it is true, the
essential terms and conditions of a military career. It results from
principles inherent in the very nature of war, that we are never to
look for the ascendency of justice and humanity in any thing
pertaining to it. It is always power, and not right, that determines
possession; it is success, not merit, that gains honors and rewards;
and they who assent to the genius and spirit of military rule thus
far, must not complain if they find that, on the same principle, it is
failure and not crime which brings condemnation and destruction.
When Miltiades was dead, Cimon found that he could not receive his
father's body for honorable interment unless he paid the fine. He had
no means, himself, of doing this. He succeeded, however, at length, in
raising the amount, by soliciting contributions from the family
friends of his father. He paid the fine into the city treasury, and
then the body of the hero was deposited in its long home.
The Parians were at first greatly incensed against the priestess Timo,
as it seemed to them that she had intended to betray the city to
Miltiades. They wished to put her to death, but they did not dare to
do it. It might be considered an impious sacrilege to punish a
priestess. They accordingly sent to the oracle at Delphi to state the
circumstances of the case, and to inquire if they might lawfully put
the priestess to death. She had been guilty, they said, of pointing
out to an enemy the mode by which he might gain possession of their
city; and, what was worse, she had, in doing so, attempted to admit
him to those solemn scenes and mysteries in the temple which it was
not lawful for any man to behold. The oracle replied that the
priestess must not be punished, for she had done no wrong. It had been
decreed by the gods that Miltiades should be destroyed, and Timo had
been employed by them as the involuntary instrument of conducting him
to his fate. The people of Paros acquiesced in this decision, and Timo
was set free.
* * * * *
But to return to Darius. His desire to subdue the Greeks and to add
their country to his dominions, and his determination to accomplish
his purpose, were increased and strengthened, not diminished, by the
repulse which his army had met with at the first invasion. He was
greatly incensed against the Athenians, as if he considered their
courage and energy in defending their country an audacious outrage
against himself, and a crime. He resolved to organize a new
expedition, still greater and more powerful than the other. Of this
armament he determined to take the command himself in person, and to
make the preparations for it on a scale of such magnitude as that the
expedition should be worthy to be led by the great sovereign of half
the world. He accordingly transmitted orders to all the peoples,
nations, languages, and realms, in all his dominions, to raise their
respective quotas of troops, horses, ships, and munitions of war, and
prepare to assemble at such place of rendezvous as he should designate
when all should be ready.
Some years elapsed before these arrangements were matured, and when at
last the time seemed to have arrived for carrying his plans into
effect, he deemed it necessary, before he commenced his march, to
settle the succession of his kingdom; for he had several sons, who
might each claim the throne, and involve the empire in disastrous
civil wars in attempting to enforce their claims, in case he should
never return. The historians say that there was a law of Persia
forbidding the sovereign to leave the realm without previously fixing
upon a successor. It is difficult to see, however, by what power or
authority such a law could have been enacted, or to believe that
monarchs like Darius would recognize an abstract obligation to law of
any kind, in respect to their own political action. There is a
species of law regulating the ordinary dealings between man and man,
that springs up in all communities, whether savage or civilized, from
custom, and from the action of judicial tribunals, which the most
despotic and absolute sovereigns feel themselves bound, so far as
relates to the private affairs of their subjects, to respect and
uphold; but, in regard to their own personal and governmental acts and
measures, they very seldom know any other authority than the impulses
of their own sovereign will.
Darius had several sons, among whom there were two who claimed the
right to succeed their father on the throne. One was the oldest son of
a wife whom Darius had married before he became king. His name was
Artobazanes. The other was the son of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus,
whom Darius had married _after_ his accession to the throne. His name
was Xerxes. Artobazanes claimed that he was entitled to be his
father's heir, since he was his oldest son. Xerxes, on the other hand,
maintained that, at the period of the birth of Artobazanes, Darius was
not a king. He was then in a private station, and sons could properly
inherit only what their fathers possessed at the time when they were
born. He himself, on the other hand, was the oldest son which his
father had had, _being a king_, and he was, consequently, the true
inheritor of the kingdom. Besides, being the son of Atossa, he was the
grandson of Cyrus, and the hereditary rights, therefore, of that great
founder of the empire had descended to him.
Darius decided the question in favor of Xerxes, and then made
arrangements for commencing his march, with a mind full of the elation
and pride which were awakened by the grandeur of his position and the
magnificence of his schemes. These schemes, however, he did not live
to execute. He suddenly fell sick and died, just as he was ready to
set out upon his expedition, and Xerxes, his son, reigned in his
stead.
Xerxes immediately took command of the vast preparations which his
father had made, and went on with the prosecution of the enterprise.
The expedition which followed deserves, probably, in respect to the
numbers engaged in it, the distance which it traversed, the
immenseness of the expenses involved, and the magnitude of its
results, to be considered the greatest military undertaking which
human ambition and power have ever attempted to effect. The narrative,
however, both of its splendid adventures and of its ultimate fate,
belongs to the history of Xerxes.
The greatness of Darius was the greatness of position and not of
character. He was the absolute sovereign of nearly half the world,
and, as such, was held up very conspicuously to the attention of
mankind, who gaze with a strong feeling of admiration and awe upon
these vast elevations of power, as they do upon the summits of
mountains, simply because they are high. Darius performed no great
exploit, and he accomplished no great object while he lived; and he
did not even leave behind him any strong impressions of personal
character. There is in his history, and in the position which he
occupies in the minds of men, greatness without dignity, success
without merit, vast and long-continued power without effects
accomplished or objects gained, and universal and perpetual renown
without honor or applause. The world admire Caesar, Hannibal,
Alexander, Alfred, and Napoleon for the deeds which they performed.
They admire Darius only on account of the elevation on which he stood.
In the same lofty position, they would have admired, probably, just as
much, the very horse whose neighing placed him there.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and to
ensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the original book.
2. The chapter summaries in this text were originally published as
banners in the page headers, and have been moved to beginning of the
chapter for the reader's convenience.