CHAPTER XXXIII

.

GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.

In the preceding chapter an account has been given, the best which we can pick out from Herodotus, of the steps by which the Asiatic Greeks became subject to Persia. And if his narrative is meagre, on a matter which vitally concerned not only so many of his brother Greeks, but even his own native city, we can hardly expect that he should tell us much respecting the other conquests of Cyrus. He seems to withhold intentionally various details which had come to his knowledge, and merely intimates in general terms that while Harpagus was engaged on the coast of the Ægean, Cyrus himself assailed and subdued all the nations of Upper Asia, “not omitting any one of them.”[366] He alludes to the Baktrians and the Sakæ,[367] who are also named by Ktêsias as having become subject partly by force, partly by capitulation; but he deems only two of the exploits of Cyrus worthy of special notice,—the conquest of Babylon, and the final expedition against the Massagetæ. In the short abstract which we now possess of the lost work of Ktêsias, no mention appears of the important conquest of Babylon; but his narrative, as far as the abstract enables us to follow it, diverges materially from that of Herodotus, and must have been founded on data altogether different.

[366] Herodot. i, 177.

[367] Herodot. i, 153.

“I shall mention (says Herodotus)[368] those conquests which gave Cyrus most trouble, and are most memorable: after he had subdued all the rest of the continent, he attacked the Assyrians.” Those who recollect the description of Babylon and its surrounding territory, as given in a former chapter, will not be surprised to learn that the capture of it gave the Persian aggressor much trouble: their only surprise will be, how it could ever have been taken at all,—or, indeed, how a hostile army could have even reached it. Herodotus informs us that the Babylonian queen Nitôkris—mother of that very Labynêtus who was king when Cyrus attacked the place—had been apprehensive of invasion from the Medes after their capture of Nineveh, and had executed many laborious works near the Euphratês for the purpose of obstructing their approach. Moreover, there existed what was called the wall of Media (probably built by her, but certainly built prior to the Persian conquest), one hundred feet high and twenty feet thick,[369] across the entire space of seventy-five miles which joined the Tigris with one of the canals of the Euphratês. And the canals themselves, as we may see by the march of the Ten Thousand Greeks after the battle of Kunaxa, presented means of defence altogether insuperable by a rude army such as that of the Persians. On the east, the territory of Babylonia was defended by the Tigris, which cannot be forded lower than the ancient Nineveh or the modern Mosul.[370] In addition to these ramparts, natural as well as artificial, to protect the territory,—populous, cultivated, productive, and offering every motive to its inhabitants to resist even the entrance of an enemy,—we are told that the Babylonians were so thoroughly prepared for the inroad of Cyrus that they had accumulated a store of provisions within the city walls for many years.

[368] Herodot. i, 177. τὰ δὲ οἱ πάρεσχε πόνον τε πλεῖστον, καὶ ἀξιαπηγητότατά ἐστι, τούτων ἐπιμνήσομαι.

[369] See Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 15; ii, 4, 12. For the inextricable difficulties in which the Ten Thousand Greeks were involved, after the battle of Kunaxa, and the insurmountable obstacles which impeded their march, assuming any resisting force whatever, see Xenoph. Anab. ii, 1, 11; ii, 2, 3; ii, 3, 10; ii, 4, 12-13. These obstacles, doubtless, served as a protection to them against attack, not less than as an impediment to their advance; and the well-supplied villages enabled them to obtain plenty of provisions: hence the anxiety of the Great King to help them across the Tigris out of Babylonia. But it is not easy to see how, in the face of such difficulties, any invading army could reach Babylon.

Ritter represents the wall of Media as having reached across from the Euphratês to the Tigris at the point where they come nearest together, about two hundred stadia or twenty-five miles across. But it is nowhere stated, so far as I can find, that this wall reached to the Euphratês,—still less that its length was two hundred stadia, for the passages of Strabo cited by Ritter do not prove either point (ii, 80; xi, 529). And Xenophon (ii, 4, 12) gives the length of the wall as I have stated it in the text, = 20 parasangs = 600 stadia = 75 miles.

The passage of the Anabasis (i, 7, 15) seems to connect the Median wall with the canals, and not with the river Euphratês. The narrative of Herodotus, as I have remarked in a former chapter, leads us to suppose that he descended that river to Babylon; and if we suppose that the wall did not reach the Euphratês, this would afford some reason why he makes no mention of it. See Ritter, West Asien, b. iii, Abtheilung iii, Abschn. i, sect. 29, pp. 19-22.

[370] Ὁ Τίγρης μέγας τε καὶ οὐδαμοῦ διαβατὸς ἔς τε ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκβολὴν (Arrian, vii, 7, 7). By which he means, that it is not fordable below the ancient Nineveh, or Mosul; for a little above that spot, Alexander himself forded it with his army, a few days before the battle of Arbêla—not without very great difficulty (Arrian, iii, 7, 8; Diodor. xvii, 55).

Strange as it may seem, we must suppose that the king of Babylon, after all the cost and labor spent in providing defences for the territory, voluntarily neglected to avail himself of them, suffered the invader to tread down the fertile Babylonia without resistance, and merely drew out the citizens to oppose him when he arrived under the walls of the city,—if the statement of Herodotus is correct.[371] And we may illustrate this unaccountable omission by that which we know to have happened in the march of the younger Cyrus to Kunaxa against his brother Artaxerxês Mnêmon. The latter had caused to be dug, expressly in preparation for this invasion, a broad and deep ditch, thirty feet wide and eight feet deep, from the wall of Media to the river Euphratês, a distance of twelve parasangs, or forty-live English miles, leaving only a passage of twenty feet broad close alongside of the river. Yet when the invading army arrived at this important pass, they found not a man there to defend it, and all of them marched without resistance through the narrow inlet. Cyrus the younger, who had up to that moment felt assured that his brother would fight, now supposed that he had given up the idea of defending Babylon:[372] instead of which, two days afterwards, Artaxerxês attacked him on an open plain of ground, where there was no advantage of position on either side; though the invaders were taken rather unawares in consequence of their extreme confidence, arising from recent unopposed entrance within the artificial ditch.

[371] Herodot. i, 190. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐγένετο ἐλαύνων ἀγχοῦ τῆς πόλιος, συνέβαλόν τε οἱ Βαβυλώνιοι, καὶ ἑσσωθέντες τῇ μάχῃ, κατειλήθησαν ἐς τὸ ἄστυ.

Just as if Babylon was as easy to be approached as Sardis,—οἷά τε ἐπιστάμενοι ἔτι πρότερον τὸν Κῦρον οὐκ ἀτρεμίζοντα, ἀλλ᾽ ὁρέοντες αὐτὸν παντὶ ὁμοίως ἔθνεϊ ἐπιχειρέοντα, προεσάξαντο σίτια ἐτέων κάρτα πολλῶν.

[372] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 14-20; Diodor. xiv, 22; Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 7. I follow Xenophon without hesitation, where he differs from these two latter.

This anecdote is the more valuable as an illustration, because all its circumstances are transmitted to us by a discerning eye-witness. And both the two incidents here brought into comparison demonstrate the recklessness, changefulness, and incapacity of calculation, belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day,—as well as the great command of hands possessed by these kings, and their prodigal waste of human labor.[373] We shall see, as we advance in this history, farther evidences of the same attributes, which it is essential to bear in mind, for the purpose of appreciating both Grecian dealing with Asiatics, and the comparative absence of such defects in the Grecian character. Vast walls and deep ditches are an inestimable aid to a brave and well commanded garrison; but they cannot be made entirely to supply the want of bravery and intelligence.

[373] Xenophon, Cyropæd. iii, 3, 26, about the πολυχειρία of the barbaric kings.

In whatever manner the difficulties of approaching Babylon may have been overcome, the fact that they were overcome by Cyrus is certain. On first setting out for this conquest, he was about to cross the river Gyndês (one of the affluents from the East which joins the Tigris near the modern Bagdad, and along which lay the high road crossing the pass of Mount Zagros from Babylon to Ekbatana), when one of the sacred white horses, which accompanied him, insulted the river[374] so far as to march in and try to cross it by himself. The Gyndês resented this insult, and the horse was drowned: upon which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so break the strength of the river as that women in future should pass it without wetting their knees. Accordingly, he employed his entire army, during the whole summer season, in digging three hundred and sixty artificial channels to disseminate the unity of the stream. Such, according to Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year the fall of the great Babylon; but in the next spring Cyrus and his army were before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the population who came out to fight. But the walls were artificial mountains (three hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied attack, and even blockade, having previously stored up several years’ provision. Through the midst of these walls, however, flowed the Euphratês; and this river, which had been so laboriously trained to serve for protection, trade, and sustenance to the Babylonians, was now made the avenue of their ruin. Having left a detachment of his army at the two points where the Euphratês enters and quits the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to the higher part of its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had prepared one of the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of need the superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a decree that it became not above the height of a man’s thigh. The period chosen was that of a great Babylonian festival, when the whole population were engaged in amusement and revelry; and the Persian troops left near the town, watching their opportunity, entered from both sides along the bed of the river, and took it by surprise with scarcely any resistance. At no other time, except during a festival, could they have done this, says Herodotus, had the river been ever so low; for both banks throughout the whole length of the town were provided with quays, with continuous walls, and with gates at the end of every street which led down to the river at right angles: so that if the population had not been disqualified by the influences of the moment, they would have caught the assailants in the bed of the river “as a trap,” and overwhelmed them from the walls alongside. Within a square of fifteen miles to each side, we are not surprised to hear that both the extremities were already in the power of the besiegers before the central population heard of it, and while they were yet absorbed in unconscious festivity.[375]

[374] Herodot. i, 189-202. ἐνθαῦτά οἱ τῶν τις ἱρῶν ἵππων τῶν λευκῶν ὑπὸ ὕβριος ἐσβὰς ἐς τὸν ποταμὸν, διαβαίνειν ἐπειρᾶτο.... Κάρτα τε δὴ ἐχαλέπαινε τῷ ποταμῷ ὁ Κῦρος τοῦτο ὑβρίσαντι, etc.

[375] Herodot. i, 191. This latter portion of the story, if we may judge from the expression of Herodotus, seems to excite more doubt in his mind than all the rest, for he thinks it necessary to add, “as the residents at Babylon say,” ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ τῶν ταύτῃ οἰκημένων. Yet if we assume the size of the place to be what he has affirmed, there seems nothing remarkable in the fact that the people in the centre did not at once hear of the capture; for the first business of the assailants would be to possess themselves of the walls and gates. It is a lively illustration of prodigious magnitude, and as such it is given by Aristotle (Polit. iii, 1, 12); who, however, exaggerates it by giving as a report that the inhabitants in the centre did not hear of the capture until the third day. No such exaggeration as this appears in Herodotus.

Xenophon, in the Cyropædia (vii, 5, 7-18), following the story that Cyrus drained off the Euphratês, represents it as effected in a manner differing from Herodotus. According to him, Cyrus dug two vast and deep ditches, one on each side round the town, from the river above the town to the river below it: watching the opportunity of a festival day in Babylon, he let the water into both of these side ditches, which fell into the main stream again below the town: hence the main stream in its passage through the town became nearly dry. The narrative of Xenophon, however, betrays itself, as not having been written from information received on the spot, like that of Herodotus; for he talks of αἱ ἄκραι of Babylon, just as he speaks of the ἄκραι of the hill-towns of Karia (compare Cyropædia, vii, 4, 1, 7, with vii, 5, 34). There were no ἄκραι on the dead flat of Babylon.

Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which placed Babylon—the greatest city of western Asia—in the power of the Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was incorrect, or exaggerated, we cannot now decide; but the way in which the city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition cannot have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus comes into the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with their whole territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the richest satrapy in the empire; but we do not hear that the people were otherwise ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the Parthian empire; and very different also from the way in which Babylon itself was treated twenty years afterwards by Darius, when reconquered after a revolt.

The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms of civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full development, gives an interest even to the half-authenticated stories respecting its capture; but the other exploits ascribed to Cyrus,—his invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia,[376]—and his attack upon the Massagetæ, nomads ruled by queen Tomyris, and greatly resembling the Scythians, across the mysterious river which Herodotus calls Araxês,—are too little known to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he is said to have perished, his army being defeated in a bloody battle.[377] He was buried at Pasargadæ, in his native province of Persis proper, where his tomb was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire,[378] while his memory was held in profound veneration among the Persians.

[376] Arrian, vi, 24, 4.

[377] Herodot. i, 205-214; Arrian, v, 4, 14; Justin, i, 8; Strabo, xi, p. 512.

According to Ktêsias, Cyrus was slain in an expedition against the Derbikes, a people in the Caucasian regions,—though his army afterwards prove victorious and conquer the country (Ktesiæ Persica, c. 8-9),—see the comment of Bähr on the passage, in his edition of Ktêsias.

[378] Strabo, xv, pp. 730, 731; Arrian, vi, 29.

Of his real exploits, we know little except their results; but in what we read respecting him there seems, though amidst constant fighting, very little cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as the subject of a moral romance, which for a long time was cited as authentic history, and which even now serves as an authority, expressed or implied, for disputable and even incorrect conclusions. His extraordinary activity and conquests admit of no doubt. He left the Persian empire[379] extending from Sogdiana and the rivers Jaxartês and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the Syrian coast westward, and his successors made no permanent addition to it except that of Egypt. Phenicia and Judæa were dependencies of Babylon, at the time when he conquered it, with their princes and grandees in Babylonian captivity. They seem to have yielded to him, and become his tributaries,[380] without difficulty; and the restoration of their captives was conceded to them. It was from Cyrus that the habits of the Persian kings took commencement, to dwell at Susa in the winter, and Ekbatana during the summer; the primitive territory of Persis, with its two towns of Persepolis and Pasargadæ, being reserved for the burial-place of the kings and the religious sanctuary of the empire. How or when the conquest of Susiana was made, we are not informed; it lay eastward of the Tigris, between Babylonia and Persis proper, and its people, the Kissians, as far as we can discern, were of Assyrian and not of Arian race. The river Choaspês, near Susa, was supposed to furnish the only water fit for the palate of the Great King, and is said to have been carried about with him wherever he went.[381]

[379] The town Kyra, or Kyropolis, on the river Sihon, or Jaxartês, was said to have been founded by Cyrus,—it was destroyed by Alexander (Strabo, xi, pp. 517, 518; Arrian, iv, 2, 2; Curtius, vii, 6, 16).

[380] Herodot. iii, 19.

[381] Herodot. i, 188; Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 3; Diodor. xvii, 71.

While the conquests of Cyrus contributed to assimilate the distinct types of civilization in western Asia,—not by elevating the worse, but by degrading the better,—upon the native Persians themselves they operated as an extraordinary stimulus, provoking alike their pride, ambition, cupidity, and warlike propensities. Not only did the territory of Persis proper pay no tribute to Susa or Ekbatana,—being the only district so exempted between the Jaxartês and the Mediterranean,—but the vast tributes received from the remaining empire were distributed to a great degree among its inhabitants. Empire to them meant,—for the great men, lucrative satrapies, or pachalics, with powers altogether unlimited, pomp inferior only to that of the Great King, and standing armies which they employed at their own discretion, sometimes against each other,[382]—for the common soldiers, drawn from their fields or flocks, constant plunder, abundant maintenance, and an unrestrained license, either in the suite of one of the satraps, or in the large permanent troop which moved from Susa to Ekbatana with the Great King. And if the entire population of Persis proper did not migrate from their abodes to occupy some of those more inviting spots which the immensity of the imperial dominion furnished,—a dominion extending (to use the language of Cyrus the younger, before the battle of Kunaxa)[383] from the region of insupportable heat to that of insupportable cold,—this was only because the early kings discouraged such a movement, in order that the nation might maintain its military hardihood,[384] and be in a situation to furnish undiminished supplies of soldiers.

[382] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 1, 8.

[383] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 6; Cyropæd. viii, 6, 19.

[384] Herodot. ix, 122.

The self-esteem and arrogance of the Persians was no less remarkable than their avidity for sensual enjoyment. They were fond of wine to excess; their wives and their concubines were both numerous; and they adopted eagerly from foreign nations new fashions of luxury as well as of ornament. Even to novelties in religion, they were not strongly averse; for though they were disciples of Zoroaster, with magi as their priests, and as indispensable companions of their sacrifices, worshipping Sun, Moon, Earth, Fire, etc., and recognizing neither image, temple, nor altar,—yet they had adopted the voluptuous worship of the goddess Mylitta from the Assyrians and Arabians. A numerous male offspring was the Persian’s boast, and his warlike character and consciousness of force were displayed in the education of these youths, who were taught, from five years old to twenty, only three things,—to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth.[385] To owe money, or even to buy and sell, was accounted among the Persians disgraceful,—a sentiment which they defended by saying, that both the one and the other imposed the necessity of telling falsehood. To exact tribute from subjects, to receive pay or presents from the king, and to give away without forethought whatever was not immediately wanted, was their mode of dealing with money. Industrious pursuits were left to the conquered, who were fortunate if by paying a fixed contribution, and sending a military contingent when required, they could purchase undisturbed immunity for their remaining concerns.[386] They could not thus purchase safety for the family hearth, since we find instances of noble Grecian maidens torn from their parents for the harem of the satrap.[387]

[385] The modern Persians at this day exhibit almost matchless skill in shooting with the firelock, as well as with the bow, on horseback. See Sir John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, ch. xvii, p. 201; see also Kinneir, Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, p. 32.

[386] About the attributes of the Persian character, see Herodot. i, 131-140: compare i, 153.

He expresses himself very strongly as to the facility with which the Persians imbibed foreign customs, and especially foreign luxuries (i, 135),—ξεινικὰ δὲ νόμαια Πέρσαι προσίενται ἀνδρῶν μάλιστα,—καὶ εὐπαθείας τε παντοδαπὰς πυνθανόμενοι ἐπιτηδεύουσι.

That rigid tenacity of customs and exclusiveness of tastes, which mark the modern Orientals, appear to be of the growth of Mohammedanism, and to distinguish them greatly from the old Zoroastrian Persians.

[387] Herodot. ix, 76; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 26.

To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political society went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a conqueror like Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm of which they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them masters; he was the first and greatest of national benefactors,[388] as well as the most forward of leaders in the field; they followed him from one conquest to another, during the thirty years of his reign, their love of empire growing with the empire itself. And this impulse of aggrandizement continued unabated during the reigns of his three next successors,—Kambysês, Darius, and Xerxês,—until it was at length violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Platæa and Salamis; after which the Persians became content with defending themselves at home, and playing a secondary game. But at the time when Kambysês son of Cyrus succeeded to his father’s sceptre, Persian spirit was at its highest point, and he was not long in fixing upon a prey both richer and less hazardous than the Massagetæ, at the opposite extremity of the empire. Phenicia and Judæa being already subject to him, he resolved to invade Egypt, then highly flourishing under the long and prosperous reign of Amasis. Not much pretence was needed to color the aggression, and the various stories which Herodotus mentions as causes of the war, are only interesting inasmuch as they imply a vein of Egyptian party feeling,—affirming that the invasion was brought upon Amasis by a daughter of Apriês, and was thus a judgment upon him for having deposed the latter. As to the manner in which she had produced this effect, indeed, the most contradictory stories were circulated.[389]

[388] Herodot. i, 210; iii, 159.

[389] Herodot. iii, 1-4.

Kambysês summoned the forces of his empire for this new enterprise, and among them both the Phenicians and the Asiatic Greeks, Æolic as well as Ionic,[390] insular as well as continental,—nearly all the maritime force and skill of the Ægean sea. He was apprized by a Greek deserter from the mercenaries in Egypt, named Phanês, of the difficulties of the march, and the best method of surmounting them; especially the three days of sandy desert, altogether without water, which lay between Egypt and Judæa. By the aid of the neighboring Arabians,—with whom he concluded a treaty, and who were requited for this service with the title of equal allies, free from all tribute,—he was enabled to surmount this serious difficulty, and to reach Pelusium at the eastern mouth of the Nile, where the Ionian and Karian troops in the Egyptian service, as well as the Egyptian military, were assembled to oppose him.[391]

[390] Herodot. iii, 1, 19, 44.

[391] The narrative of Ktêsias is, in respect both to the Egyptian expedition and to the other incidents of Persian history, quite different in its details from that of Herodotus, agreeing only in the main events (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 7). To blend the two together is impossible.

Tacitus (Histor. i, 11) notes the difficulty of approach for an invading army to Egypt: “Egyptum, provinciam aditu difficilem, annonæ fecundam, superstitione ac lasciviâ discordem et mobilem,” etc.

Fortunately for himself, the Egyptian king Amasis had died during the interval of the Persian preparations, a few months before the expedition took place,—after forty-four years of unabated prosperity. His death, at this critical moment, was probably the main cause of the easy conquest which followed; his son Psammenitus succeeding to his crown, but neither to his abilities nor his influence. The result of the invasion was foreshadowed, as usual, by a menacing prodigy,—rain falling at Thebes in Upper Egypt; and was brought about by a single victory, though bravely disputed, at Pelusium,—followed by the capture of Memphis, with the person of king Psammenitus, after a siege of some duration. Kambysês had sent forward a Mitylenæan ship to Memphis, with heralds to summon the city; but the Egyptians, in a paroxysm of fury, rushed out of the walls, destroyed the vessel, and tore the crew into pieces,—a savage proceeding, which drew upon them severe retribution after the capture. Psammenitus, after being at first treated with harshness and insult, was at length released, and even allowed to retain his regal dignity as a dependent of Persia. But being soon detected, or at least believed to be concerned, in raising revolt against the conquerors, he was put to death, and Egypt was placed under a satrap.[392]

[392] Herodot. iii, 10-16. About the Arabians, between Judæa and Egypt, see iii, c. 5, 88-91.

There yet lay beyond Egypt territories for Kambysês to conquer,—though Kyrênê and Barka, the Greek colonies near the coast of Libya, placed themselves at once out of the reach of danger by sending to him tribute and submission at Memphis. He projected three new enterprises: one against Carthage, by sea; the other two, by land, against the Ethiopians, far to the southward up the course of the Nile, and against the oracle and oasis of Zeus Ammon, amidst the deserts of Libya. Towards Ethiopia he himself conducted his troops, but was compelled to bring them back without reaching it, since they were on the point of perishing with famine; while the division which he sent against the temple of Ammon is said to have been overwhelmed by a sand-storm in the desert. The expedition against Carthage was given up, for a reason which well deserves to be commemorated. The Phenicians, who formed the most efficient part of his navy, refused to serve against their kinsmen and colonists, pleading the sanctity of mutual oaths as well as the ties both of relationship and traffic.[393] Even the frantic Kambysês was compelled to accept, and perhaps to respect, this honorable refusal, which was not imitated by the Ionic Greeks when Darius and Xerxês demanded the aid of their ships against Athens,—we must add, however, that they were then in a situation much more exposed and helpless than that in which the Phenicians stood before Kambysês.

[393] Herodot. iii, 19.

Among the sacred animals so numerous and so different throughout the various nomes of Egypt, the most venerated of all was the bull Apis. Yet such peculiar conditions were required by the Egyptian religion as to the birth, the age, and the marks of this animal, that, when he died, it was difficult to find a new calf properly qualified to succeed him. Much time was sometimes spent in the search, and when an unexceptionable successor was at last found, the demonstrations of joy in Memphis were extravagant and universal. At the moment when Kambysês returned to Memphis from his Ethiopian expedition, full of humiliation for the result, it so happened that a new Apis was just discovered; and as the population of the city gave vent to their usual festival pomp and delight, he construed it into an intentional insult towards his own recent misfortunes. In vain did the priests and magistrates explain to him the real cause of these popular manifestations; he persisted in his belief, punished some of them with death and others with stripes, and commanded every man seen in holiday attire to be slain. Furthermore,—to carry his outrage against Egyptian feeling to the uttermost pitch,—he sent for the newly-discovered Apis, and plunged his dagger into the side of the animal, who shortly afterwards died of the wound.[394]

[394] Herodot. iii, 29.

After this brutal deed,—calculated to efface in the minds of the Egyptian priests the enormities of Cheops and Chephrên, and doubtless unparalleled in all the twenty-four thousand years of their anterior history,—Kambysês lost every spark of reason which yet remained to him, and the Egyptians found in this visitation a new proof of the avenging interference of their gods. Not only did he commit every variety of studied outrage against the conquered people among whom he was tarrying, as well as their temples and their sepulchres,—but he also dealt his blows against his Persian friends and even his nearest blood-relations. Among these revolting atrocities, one of the greatest deserves peculiar notice, because the fate of the empire was afterwards materially affected by it. His younger brother Smerdis had accompanied him into Egypt, but had been sent back to Susa, because the king became jealous of the admiration which his personal strength and qualities called forth.[395] That jealousy was aggravated into alarm and hatred by a dream, portending dominion and conquest to Smerdis; so that the frantic Kambysês sent to Susa secretly a confidential Persian, Prexaspês, with express orders to get rid of his brother. Prexaspês fulfilled his commission effectively, burying the slain prince with his own hands,[396] and keeping the deed concealed from all except a few of the chiefs at the regal residence.

[395] Ktêsias calls the brother Tanyoxarkês, and says that Cyrus had left him satrap, without tribute, of Baktria and the neighboring regions (Persica, c. 8). Xenophon, in the Cyropædia, also calls him Tanyoxarkês, but gives him a different satrapy (Cyropæd. viii, 7, 11).

[396] Herodot. iii, 30-62.

Among these few chiefs, however, there was one, the Median Patizeithês, belonging to the order of the Magi, who saw in it a convenient stepping-stone for his own personal ambition, and made use of it as a means of covertly supplanting the dynasty of the great Cyrus. Enjoying the full confidence of Kambysês, he had been left by that prince, on departing for Egypt, in the entire management of the palace and treasures, with extensive authority.[397] Moreover, he happened to have a brother extremely resembling in person the deceased Smerdis; and as the open and dangerous madness of Kambysês contributed to alienate from him the minds of the Persians, he resolved to proclaim this brother king in his room, as if it were the younger son of Cyrus succeeding to the disqualified elder. On one important point, the false Smerdis differed from the true. He had lost his ears, which Cyrus himself had caused to be cut off for an offence; but the personal resemblance, after all, was of little importance, since he was seldom or never allowed to show himself to the people.[398] Kambysês, having heard of this revolt in Syria on his return from Egypt, was mounting his horse in haste for the purpose of going to suppress it, when an accident from his sword put an end to his life. Herodotus tells us that, before his death, he summoned the Persians around him, confessed that he had been guilty of putting his brother to death, and apprized them that the reigning Smerdis was only a Median pretender,—conjuring them at the same time not to submit to the disgrace of being ruled by any other than a Persian and an Achæmenid. But if it be true that he ever made known the facts, no one believed him. For Prexaspês, on his part, was compelled by regard to his own safety, to deny that he had imbrued his hands in the blood of a son of Cyrus;[399] and thus the opportune death of Kambysês placed the false Smerdis without opposition at the head of the Persians, who all, or for the most part, believed themselves to be ruled by a genuine son of Cyrus. Kambysês had reigned for seven years and five months.

[397] Herodot. iii, 61-63.

[398] Herodot. iii, 68-69.—“Auribus decisis vivere jubet,” says Tacitus, about a case under the Parthian government (Annal. xii, 14),—nor have the Turkish authorities given up the infliction of it at the present moment, or at least down to a very recent period.

[399] Herodot. iii, 64-66.

For seven months did Smerdis reign without opposition, seconded by his brother Patizeithês; and if he manifested his distrust of the haughty Persians around him, by neither inviting them into his palace nor showing himself out of it, he at the same time studiously conciliated the favor of the subject provinces, by remission of tribute and of military service for three years.[400] Such a departure from the Persian principle of government was in itself sufficient to disgust the warlike and rapacious Achæmenids at Susa. But it seems that their suspicions as to his genuine character had never been entirely set at rest, and in the eighth month those suspicions were converted into certainty. According to what seems to have been the Persian usage, he had taken to himself the entire harem of his predecessor, among whose wives was numbered Phædymê, daughter of a distinguished Persian, named Otanês. At the instance of her father, Phædymê undertook the dangerous task of feeling the head of Smerdis while he slept, and thus detected the absence of ears.[401] Otanês, possessed of the decisive information, lost no time in concerting, with five other noble Achæmenids, means for ridding themselves of a king who was at once a Mede, a Magian, and a man without ears;[402] Darius, son of Hystaspês, the satrap of Persis proper, arriving just in time to join the conspiracy as the seventh. How these seven noblemen slew Smerdis in his palace at Susa,—how they subsequently debated among themselves whether they should establish in Persia a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy,—how, after the first of the three had been resolved upon, it was determined that the future king, whichever he might be, should be bound to take his wives only from the families of the seven conspirators,—how Darius became king, from the circumstance of his horse being the first to neigh among those of the conspirators at a given spot, by the stratagem of the groom Œbarês,—how Otanês, standing aside beforehand from this lottery for the throne, reserved for himself as well as for his descendants perfect freedom and exemption from the rule of the future king, whichsoever might draw the prize,—all these incidents may be found recounted by Herodotus with his usual vivacity, but with no small addition of Hellenic ideas as well as of dramatic ornament.

[400] Herodot. iii, 67.

[401] Herodot. iii, 68-69.

[402] Herodot. iii, 69-73. ἀρχόμεθα μὲν ἐόντες Πέρσαι, ὑπὸ Μήδου ἀνδρὸς μάγου, καὶ τούτου ὦτα οὐκ ἔχοντος.

Compare the description of the insupportable repugnance of the Greeks of Kyrênê to be governed by the _lame_ Battus (Herodot. iv, 161).

It was thus that the upright tiara, the privileged head-dress of the Persian kings,[403] passed away from the lineage of Cyrus, yet without departing from the great phratry of the Achæmenidæ,—to which Darius and his father Hystaspês, as well as Cyrus, belonged. That important fact is unquestionable, and probably the acts ascribed to the seven conspirators are in the main true, apart from their discussions and intentions. But on this as well as on other occasions, we must guard ourselves against an illusion which the historical manner of Herodotus is apt to create. He presents to us with so much descriptive force the personal narrative,—individual

## action and speech, with all its accompanying hopes, fears, doubts,

and passions,—that our attention is distracted from the political bearing of what is going on; which we are compelled often to gather up from hints in the speeches of performers, or from consequences afterwards indirectly noticed. When we put together all the incidental notices which he lets drop, it will be found that the change of sceptre from Smerdis to Darius was a far larger political event than his direct narrative would seem to announce. Smerdis represents preponderance to the Medes over the Persians, and comparative degradation to the latter; who, by the installation of Darius, are again placed in the ascendent. The Medes and the Magians are in this case identical; for the Magians, though indispensable in the capacity of priests to the Persians, were essentially one of the seven Median tribes.[404] It thus appears that though Smerdis ruled as a son of the great Cyrus, yet he ruled by means of Medes and Magians, depriving the Persians of that supreme privilege and predominance to which they had become accustomed.[405] We see this by what followed immediately after the assassination of Smerdis and his brother in the palace. The seven conspirators, exhibiting the bloody heads of both these victims as an evidence of their deed, instigated the Persians in Susa to a general massacre of the Magians, many of whom were actually slain, and the rest only escaped by flight, concealment, or the hour of night. And the anniversary of this day was celebrated afterwards among the Persians by a solemnity and festival, called the Magophonia; no Magian being ever allowed on that day to appear in public.[406] The descendants of the Seven maintained a privileged name and rank,[407] even down to the extinction of the monarchy by Alexander the Great.

[403] Compare Aristophan. Aves, 487, with the Scholia, and Herodot. vii, 61; Arrian, iv, 6, 29. The cap of the Persians generally was loose, low, clinging about the head in folds; that of the king was high and erect above the head. See the notes of Wesseling and Schweighaüser, upon πῖλοι ἀπαγέες in Herodot. _l. c._

[404] Herodot. i, 101-120.

[405] In the speech which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Kambysês on his deathbed, addressed to the Persians around him in a strain of prophetic adjuration (iii, 65), he says: Καὶ δὴ ὑμῖν τάδε ἐπισκήπτω, θεοὺς τοὺς βασιληΐους ἐπικαλέων, καὶ πᾶσιν ὑμῖν καὶ μάλιστα Ἀχαιμενιδέων τοῖσι παρεοῦσι, μὴ περιϊδεῖν τὴν ἡγεμονίην αὖτις ἐς Μήδους περιελθοῦσαν· ἀλλ᾽ εἴτε δόλῳ ἔχουσι αὐτὴν κτησάμενοι (the personification of the deceased son of Cyrus), δόλῳ ἀπαιρεθῆναι ὑπὸ ὑμέων· εἴτε καὶ σθένεϊ τεῷ κατεργασάμενοι, σθένεϊ κατὰ τὸ κάρτερον ἀνασώσασθαι (the forcible opposition of the Medes to Darius, which he put down by superior force on the Persian side): compare the speech of Gobryas, one of the seven Persian conspirators (iii, 73), and that of Prexaspês (iii, 75); also Plato, Legg. iii, 12, p. 695.

Heeren has taken a correct view of the reign of Smerdis the Magian, and its political character (Ideen über den Verkehr, etc., der Alten Welt, part i, abth. i, p. 431).

[406] Herodot. iii, 79. Σπασάμενοι δὲ τὰ ἐγχειρίδια, ἔκτεινον ὅκου τινὰ μάγον εὕρισκον· εἰ δὲ μὴ νὺξ ἐπελθοῦσα ἔσχε, ἔλιπον ἂν οὐδένα μάγον. Ταύτην τὴν ἡμέρην θεραπεύουσι Πέρσαι κοινῇ μάλιστα τῶν ἡμερέων· καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ ὁρτὴν μεγάλην ἀνάγουσι, ἣ κέκληται ὑπὸ Περσέων Μαγοφόνια.

The periodical celebration of the Magophonia is attested by Ktêsias,—one of the few points of complete agreement with Herodotus. He farther agrees in saying that a Magian usurped the throne, through likeness of person to the deceased son of Cyrus, whom Kambysês had slain,—but all his other statements differ from Herodotus (Ktêsias, 10-14).

[407] Even at the battle of Arbela,—“Summæ Orsines præerat, a septem Persis oriundus, ad Cyrum quoque, nobilissimum regem, originem sui referens.” (Quintus Curtius, iv, 12, 7, or iv, 45, 7, Zumpt.): compare Strabo, xi, p. 531; Florus, iii, 5, 1.

Furthermore, it appears that the authority of Darius was not readily acknowledged throughout the empire, and that an interval of confusion ensued before it became so.[408] The Medes actually revolted, and tried to maintain themselves by force against Darius, who however found means to subdue them: though, when he convoked his troops from the various provinces, he did not receive from the satraps universal obedience. The powerful Orœtês, especially, who had been appointed by Cyrus satrap of Lydia and Ionia, not only sent no troops to the aid of Darius against the Medes,[409] but even took advantage of the disturbed state of the government to put to death his private enemy Mitrobatês satrap of Phrygia, and appropriate that satrapy in addition to his own. Aryandês also, the satrap nominated by Kambysês in Egypt, comported himself as the equal of Darius rather than as his subject.[410] The subject provinces generally, to whom Smerdis had granted remission of tribute and military service for the space of three years, were grateful and attached to his memory, and noway pleased with the new dynasty; moreover, the revolt of the Babylonians, conceived a year or two before it was executed, took its rise from the feelings of this time.[411] But the renewal of the old conflict between the two principal sections of the empire, Medes and Persians, is doubtless the most important feature in this political revolution. The false Smerdis with his brother, both of them Medes and Magians, had revived the Median nationality to a state of supremacy over the Persian, recalling the memory of what it had been under Astyagês; while Darius,—a pure Persian, and not (like the mule Cyrus) half Mede and half Persian,—replaced the Persian nationality in its ascendent condition, though not without the necessity of suppressing by force a rebellion of the Medes.[412]

[408] Herodot. iii, 127. Δαρεῖος—ἅτε οἰδεόντων οἱ ἔτι τῶν πρηγμάτων, etc.,—mention of the ταραχή (iii, 126, 150).

[409] Herodot. iii, 126. Μετὰ γὰρ τὸν Καμβύσεω θάνατον, καὶ τῶν Μάγων τὴν βασιληΐην, μένων ἐν τῇσι Σάρδισι Ὀροίτης, ὠφέλει μὲν οὐδὲν Πέρσας, ~ὑπὸ Μήδων ἀπαραιρημένους τὴν ἀρχήν~· ὁ δὲ ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ταραχῇ κατὰ μὲν ἔκτεινε Μιτροβάτεα ... ἄλλα τε ἐξύβρισε παντοῖα, etc.

[410] Herodot. iv, 166. Ὁ δὲ Ἀρυάνδης ἦν οὗτος τῆς Αἰγύπτου ὕπαρχος ὑπὸ Καμβύσεω κατεστεώς· ὃς ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ παρισεύμενος Δαρείῳ διεφθάρη.

[411] Herodot. iii, 67-150.

[412] Herodot. i, 130. Ἀστυάγης μέν νυν βασιλεύσας ἐπ᾽ ἔτεα πέντε καὶ τριήκοντα, οὕτω τῆς ἀρχῆς κατεπαύσθη. Μῆδοι δὲ ὑπέκυψαν Πέρσῃσι διὰ τὴν τούτου πικρότητα.... Ὑστέρῳ μέντοι χρόνῳ μετεμέλησέ τέ σφι ταῦτα ποιήσασι, καὶ ἀπέστησαν ἀπὸ Δαρείου· ἀποστάντες δὲ, ὀπίσω κατεστράφθησαν, μάχῃ νικηθέντες· τότε δὲ, ἐπὶ Ἀστυάγεος, οἱ Πέρσαι τε καὶ ὁ Κῦρος ἐπαναστάντες τοῖσι Μήδοισι, ἦρχον τὸ ἀπὸ τούτου τῆς Ἀσίης.

This passage—asserting that the Medes, some time after the deposition of Astyagês and the acquisition of Persian supremacy by Cyrus, repented of having suffered their discontent against Astyagês to place this supremacy in the hands of the Persians, revolted from Darius, and were reconquered after a contest—appears to me to have been misunderstood by chronologists. Dodwell, Larcher, and Mr. Fynes Clinton (indeed, most, if not all, of the chronologists) explain it as alluding to a revolt of the Medes against the Persian king Darius Nothus, mentioned in the Hellenica of Xenophon (i, 2, 12), and belonging to the year 408 B. C. See Larcher ad Herodot. i, 130, and his Vie d’Hérodote, prefixed to his translation (p. lxxxix); also Mr. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 408 and 455, and his Appendix, c, 18, p. 316.

The revolt of the Medes alluded to by Herodotus is, in my judgment, completely distinct from the revolt mentioned by Xenophon: to identify the two, as these eminent chronologists do, is an hypothesis not only having nothing to recommend it, but open to grave objection. The revolt mentioned by Herodotus was against Darius son of Hystaspês, not against Darius Nothus; and I have set forth with peculiar care the circumstances connected with the conspiracy and accession of the former, for the purpose of showing that they all decidedly imply that conflict between Median and Persian supremacy, which Herodotus directly announces in the passage now before us.

1. When Herodotus speaks of Darius, without any adjective designation, why should we imagine that he means any other than Darius the son of Hystaspês, on whom he dwells so copiously in his narrative? Once only in the course of his history (ix, 108) another Darius (the young prince, son of Xerxês the First) is mentioned; but with this exception, Darius son of Hystaspês is uniformly, throughout the work, spoken of under his simple name: Darius Nothus is never alluded to at all.

2. The deposition of Astyagês took place in 559 B. C.; the beginning of the reign of Darius occurred in 520 B. C.; now repentance on the part of the Medes, for what they had done at the former of those two epochs, might naturally prompt them to try to repair it in the latter. But between the deposition of Astyagês in 559 B. C., and the revolt mentioned by Xenophon against Darius Nothus in 408 B. C., the interval is more than one hundred and fifty years. To ascribe a revolt which took place in 408 B. C., to repentance for something which had occurred one hundred and fifty years before, is unnatural and far-fetched, if not positively inadmissible.

The preceding arguments go to show that the natural construction of the passage in Herodotus points to Darius son of Hystaspês, and not to Darius Nothus; but this is not all. There are yet stronger reasons why the reference to Darius Nothus should be discarded.

The supposed mention, in Herodotus, of a fact so late as 408 B. C., perplexes the whole chronology of his life and authorship. According to the usual statement of his biography, which every one admits, and which there is no reason to call in question, he was born in 484 B. C. Here, then, is an event alluded to in his history, which occurred when the historian was seventy-six years old, and the allusion to which he must be presumed to have written when about eighty years old, if not more; for his mention of the fact by no means implies that it was particularly recent. Those who adopt this view, do not imagine that he wrote his whole history at that age; but they maintain that he made later additions, of which they contend that this is one. I do not say that this is impossible: we know that Isokratês composed his Panathenaic oration at the age of ninety-four; but it must be admitted to be highly improbable,—a supposition which ought not to be advanced without some cogent proof to support it. But here no proof whatever is produced. Herodotus mentions a revolt of the Medes against Darius,—Xenophon also mentions a revolt of the Medes against Darius; hence, chronologists have taken it as a matter of course, that both authors must allude to the same event; though the supposition is unnatural as regards the text, and still more unnatural as regards the biography, of Herodotus.

In respect to that biography, Mr. Clinton appears to me to have adopted another erroneous opinion; in which, however, both Larcher and Wesseling are against him, though Dahlmann and Heyse agree with him. He maintains that the passage in Herodotus (iii, 15), wherein it is stated that Pausiris succeeded his father Amyrtæus by consent of the Persians in the government of Egypt, is to be referred to a fact which happened subsequent to the year 414 B. C., or the tenth year of Darius Nothus; since it was in that year that Amyrtæus acquired the government of Egypt. But this opinion rests altogether upon the assumption that a certain Amyrtæus, whose name and date occur in Manetho (see Eusebius, Chronicon), is the same person as the Amyrtæus mentioned in Herodotus; which identity is not only not proved, but is extremely improbable, since Mr. Clinton himself admits (F. H. Appendix, p. 317), while maintaining the identity: “He (Amyrtæus) had conducted a war against the Persian government _more than fifty years before_.” This, though not impossible, is surely very improbable; it is at least equally probable that the Amyrtæus of Manetho was a different person from (perhaps even the _grandson_ of) that Amyrtæus in Herodotus, who had carried on war against the Persians more than fifty wars before; it appears to me, indeed, that this is the more reasonable hypothesis of the two.

I have permitted myself to prolong this note to an unusual length, because the supposed mention of such recent events in the history of Herodotus, as those in the reign of Darius Nothus, has introduced very gratuitous assumptions as to the time and manner in which that history was composed. It cannot be shown that there is a single event of precise and ascertained date, alluded to in his history, later than the capture of the Lacedæmonian heralds in the year 430 B. C. (Herodot. vii, 137: see Larcher, Vie d’Hérodote, p. lxxxix); and this renders the composition of his history as an entire work much more smooth and intelligible.

It may be worth while to add, that whoever reads attentively Herodotus, vi, 98,—and reflects at the same time that the destruction of the Athenian armament at Syracuse (the greatest of all Hellenic disasters, hardly inferior, for its time, to the Russian campaign of Napoleon, and especially impressive to one living at Thurii, as may be seen by the life of Lysias, Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p. 835) happened during the reign of Darius Nothus in 413 B. C.,—will not readily admit the hypothesis of additions made to the history during the reign of the latter, or so late as 408 B. C. Herodotus would hardly have dwelt so expressly and emphatically upon mischief done by Greeks to each other in the reigns of Darius son of Hystaspês, Xerxês, and Artaxerxês, if he had lived to witness the greater mischiefs so inflicted during the reign of Darius Nothus, and had kept his history before him for the purpose of inserting new events. The destruction of the Athenians before Syracuse would have been a thousand times more striking to his imagination than the revolt of the Medes against Darius Nothus, and would have impelled him with much greater force to alter or enlarge the