Silver Daric of Darius I, enlarged one-half.
Silver Daric of Darius I, enlarged one-half.
40.Rather angered than dismayed by these failures, Darius prepared to lead in person a still greater expedition against the Greeks. But a revolt in Egypt first diverted his attention, and his death, in the following year, gave the free states of Europe time to complete their preparations for defense. B. C. 486.
41.Many works and trophies of Darius remain in various parts of his empire. He was the first king who coined money in Persia. The golden and silverdaricscirculated not only throughout the empire but in Greece. The most interesting memorials are the two records in his own words of the events of his reign, engraven upon his tomb at Nakshi-rus´tam, and upon the great rock-tablet of Behistûn´. The latter is of the greater length; it consists of five columns, each containing from sixteen to nineteen paragraphs, written in three languages, Persian, Babylonian, and Scythic, or Tartar. These trilingual inscriptions, embracing the three great families of human speech, Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian, almost justify the claim made by Darius to universal empire.
Note.—A specimen of the style of the great king may be of interest to the scholar. It should be stated that the Behistûn cliff forms part of the Zagros mountain range between Babylon and Ecbatana. This great natural table of stone, which seems to have been expressly fitted for enduring records, is 1,700 feet in perpendicular height, and bears four sets of sculptures, one of which is ascribed to Semiramis. The inscription of Darius is most important. It has been deciphered within a few years, with wonderful learning, industry, and patience, by Col. Sir Henry Rawlinson, of the British army. For many years after its existence was known, it was considered inaccessible, as it was 300 feet from the foot of the perpendicular wall, and it was necessary for the explorer to be drawn up with ropes by a windlass placed at the summit. Even when a copy was thus made, with great risk and inconvenience, the work was only begun, for the arrow-headed (cuneiform) characters in which the Persian language was written were as yet but partly understood. These difficulties have now been surmounted, and the common student can read the words of “Darius the King.” The whole inscription, in Persian and English, may be found in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Vol. II, Appendix. A few of the shorter paragraphs are here subjoined:I. 8. “Says Darius the King: Within these countries the man who was good, him have I right well cherished. Whoever was evil, him have I utterly rooted out. By the grace of Ormazd, these are the countries by which my laws have been observed.”…I. 11. “Says Darius the King: Afterward there was a man, a Magian, named Gomates.… He thus lied to the state: ‘I am Bardes, the son of Cyrus, the brother of Cambyses.’ Then the whole state became rebellious.… He seized the empire. Afterward Cambyses, unable to endure, died.”I. 13. “Says Darius the King: There was not a man, neither Persian nor Median, nor any one of our family, who would dispossess that Gomates the Magian of the crown. The state feared him exceedingly. He slew many people who had known the old Bardes; for that reason he slew them, ‘lest they should recognize me that I am not Bardes, the son of Cyrus.’ No one dared say any thing concerning Gomates the Magian until I arrived. Then I prayed to Ormazd; Ormazd brought help to me. On the 10th day of the month Bagayadish, then it was, with the help of my faithful men, that I slew that Gomates the Magian and those who were his chief followers. The fort named Sictachotes, in the district of Media called Nisæa, there I slew him. I dispossessed him of the empire; I became king. Ormazd granted me the scepter.”I. 14. “Says Darius the King: The empire which had been taken away from our family, that I recovered. I established it in its place. As it was before, so I made it. The temples which Gomates the Magian had destroyed I rebuilt. Thesacred offices of the state, both the religious chants and the worship, I restored to the people, which Gomates the Magian had deprived them of.… By the grace of Ormazd I did this.”
Note.—A specimen of the style of the great king may be of interest to the scholar. It should be stated that the Behistûn cliff forms part of the Zagros mountain range between Babylon and Ecbatana. This great natural table of stone, which seems to have been expressly fitted for enduring records, is 1,700 feet in perpendicular height, and bears four sets of sculptures, one of which is ascribed to Semiramis. The inscription of Darius is most important. It has been deciphered within a few years, with wonderful learning, industry, and patience, by Col. Sir Henry Rawlinson, of the British army. For many years after its existence was known, it was considered inaccessible, as it was 300 feet from the foot of the perpendicular wall, and it was necessary for the explorer to be drawn up with ropes by a windlass placed at the summit. Even when a copy was thus made, with great risk and inconvenience, the work was only begun, for the arrow-headed (cuneiform) characters in which the Persian language was written were as yet but partly understood. These difficulties have now been surmounted, and the common student can read the words of “Darius the King.” The whole inscription, in Persian and English, may be found in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Vol. II, Appendix. A few of the shorter paragraphs are here subjoined:
I. 8. “Says Darius the King: Within these countries the man who was good, him have I right well cherished. Whoever was evil, him have I utterly rooted out. By the grace of Ormazd, these are the countries by which my laws have been observed.”…
I. 11. “Says Darius the King: Afterward there was a man, a Magian, named Gomates.… He thus lied to the state: ‘I am Bardes, the son of Cyrus, the brother of Cambyses.’ Then the whole state became rebellious.… He seized the empire. Afterward Cambyses, unable to endure, died.”
I. 13. “Says Darius the King: There was not a man, neither Persian nor Median, nor any one of our family, who would dispossess that Gomates the Magian of the crown. The state feared him exceedingly. He slew many people who had known the old Bardes; for that reason he slew them, ‘lest they should recognize me that I am not Bardes, the son of Cyrus.’ No one dared say any thing concerning Gomates the Magian until I arrived. Then I prayed to Ormazd; Ormazd brought help to me. On the 10th day of the month Bagayadish, then it was, with the help of my faithful men, that I slew that Gomates the Magian and those who were his chief followers. The fort named Sictachotes, in the district of Media called Nisæa, there I slew him. I dispossessed him of the empire; I became king. Ormazd granted me the scepter.”
I. 14. “Says Darius the King: The empire which had been taken away from our family, that I recovered. I established it in its place. As it was before, so I made it. The temples which Gomates the Magian had destroyed I rebuilt. Thesacred offices of the state, both the religious chants and the worship, I restored to the people, which Gomates the Magian had deprived them of.… By the grace of Ormazd I did this.”
RECAPITULATION.Persian monotheism differed essentially from the Nature-worship of the Hindus and the element-worship of the Medes; but under Darius and his successors the Magi gained exclusive control of religious rites, and luxury destroyed the manly virtues of the people. Darius conquered western India, and invaded European Scythia, but without result. His detention of Histiæus led to a six years’ revolt of all the Greeks of Asia Minor, aided by the Athenians and Eretrians. He failed in his first retaliatory enterprise against the European Greeks; and, in the second, the great decisive battle of Marathon ended in the overthrow of the Persians. The death of Darius postponed the Grecian wars.
Persian monotheism differed essentially from the Nature-worship of the Hindus and the element-worship of the Medes; but under Darius and his successors the Magi gained exclusive control of religious rites, and luxury destroyed the manly virtues of the people. Darius conquered western India, and invaded European Scythia, but without result. His detention of Histiæus led to a six years’ revolt of all the Greeks of Asia Minor, aided by the Athenians and Eretrians. He failed in his first retaliatory enterprise against the European Greeks; and, in the second, the great decisive battle of Marathon ended in the overthrow of the Persians. The death of Darius postponed the Grecian wars.
B. C. 486-465.
42.Xer´xes, the Ahasue´rus of the Book of Esther, succeeded to his father’s dominions, instead of Artabaza´nes, his elder brother, who had been born before Darius’s accession to the throne. His first care was the crushing of the Egyptian revolt. This was accomplished in the second year of his reign; a severer servitude was imposed, and his brother Achæ´menes remained as his viceroy in the Valley of the Nile. The Babylonians attempted an insurrection, but dearly paid for their rashness with all the treasure of their temples.
43.In the third year of his reign,[29]the king convened his satraps and generals, “the nobles and princes of the provinces,” at Susa, to deliberate concerning the invasion of Greece. In their presence he detailed the motives of ambition and revenge which urged him against a people which had dared to defy his power, and declared his intention to march through Europe, from one end to the other, and make of all its lands one country. He believed that, the Greeks once conquered, no people in the world could stand against him, and thus the sun would no longer shine upon any land beyond his own. He concluded by commanding each general to make ready his forces, assuring them that he who appeared upon the appointed day with the most effective troop should receive the rewards most precious to every Persian.
44.During four years all Asia, from the docks of Sidon and Tyre to the banks of the Indus, rang with notes of preparation. All races and tribes of the vast empire sent men and material. The maritime nations furnished the largest fleet which the Mediterranean had yet seen. The Phœnicians and Egyptians were charged with the construction of a double bridge of boats over the Hellespont, from Aby´dus, on the Asiatic, to a point between Sestus and Mad´ytus, on the European side of the strait.After this work was completed, a violent storm broke it to pieces and threw the shattered fragments upon the shore. The king, unused to being thwarted in any of his designs, caused the engineers to be beheaded, the sea scourged, and a pair of fetters, as a hint of the required submission, thrown into the offending waters. A new bridge, or, rather, pair of bridges, was now formed with still greater care. Two lines of ships, anchored at stem and stern, were united each by six great cables, which reached from shore to shore. They supported a platform of wood, which was covered with earth and protected by a balustrade.
45.Another body of men, working under the lash of Persian overseers, were employed three years in cutting a canal from the Strymonic to the Singitic Bay, to sever Mount Athos from the mainland, and thus enable the fleet to avoid the strong and shifting currents and high seas which prevailed around the peninsula. Immense stores of provisions, collected from all parts of the empire, were deposited at suitable intervals along the line of march.
46.The rendezvous of the troops was at Crital´la, in Cappadocia, whence they were moved forward to Sardis. In the autumn of 481 B. C., Xerxes arrived at the latter capital, and early in the following spring set his vast army in motion toward the Hellespont. Near the person of the king were the ten thousand Immortals, whose entire armor glittered with gold. He was preceded by the Chariot of the Sun, in which no mortal dared seat himself, drawn by eight snow-white horses.
47.At Abydus the king surveyed, from his throne of white marble elevated upon a hill, the countless multitudes which thronged the plain, and the myriads of sails that studded the Hellespont. The momentary pride that swelled his breast, with the consciousness that he was supreme lord of all that host, gave way to a more worthy emotion as he reflected that the whole life of those myriads upon earth was almost as transitory as their passage of the bridge, which lay before him, connecting the known with the unknown continent. Early the next morning perfumes were burnt and myrtle boughs strewn upon the bridges, while the army awaited in silence the rising of the sun. When it appeared, Xerxes, with head uncovered—excelling, not only in rank, but in strength, stature, and beauty, all his host—poured a libation into the sea, praying, meanwhile, with his face toward the rising orb, that no disaster might befall his arms until he had penetrated to the uttermost boundaries of Europe. Haying prayed, he cast the golden cup and a Persian cimeter into the sea, and gave a signal for the army to march.
48.So numerous was the host that, marching day and night without intermission, and goaded by the whip, it occupied seven days in crossing the straits by the two bridges. On the Thracian plain of Doris´cus, near the sea, the army was drawn up for a final review. The land force consistedof forty-six nations. According to Herodotus, who gathered his information by most careful inquiry of persons who were present, the foot soldiers numbered 1,700,000; the war-chariots and camels, 20,000; the horse, 80,000. The fleet consisted of 1,207 triremes, and 3,000 smaller vessels, carrying in all 517,610 men. Beside this actual fighting force, we must suppose an equal number of slaves, attendants, and the crews of provision ships, making a total of more than five millions of human beings.
49.Several rivers were dried in giving drink to this multitude, while their food, even the scanty allowance of Asiatic slaves, amounted to 662,000 bushels of flour each day; but the excellent commissariat of Xerxes, which had been organizing for seven years, was not at fault. On the march from Doriscus toward Greece, the king, still within his own empire, received further accessions from Thracian, Macedonian, and other European tribes, so that his fighting force at Thermop´ylæ amounted to 2,640,000 men. Various cities along the route had been commanded to furnish each one meal for the army; and although they had spent years in preparation, some were ruined by the expense.[30]
50.Meanwhile the Greeks had not been idle. The ten years since the battle of Marathon had been employed in active drilling of forces, by sea and land. Each state furnished its quota; and though but a handful compared with the myriads of invaders, they had the strength, derived from patriotism and high discipline, to oppose the mere material mass and weight of the Persian host. It was mind against matter.
B. C. 480.
51.Abandoning the defense of Thessaly, which was open by too many avenues to the Persians, the little army of Leon´idas, king of Sparta, had made a resolute stand at Thermopylæ, a narrow pass between Mount Œta and the sea. The whole force amounted to only 6,000 men, of whom but 300 were Spartans. Xerxes waited several days upon the Trachinian plain, expecting that this little band would melt away from mere terror at the sight of his vast numbers. At length he sent the Median cavalry to force a passage. They were repulsed with loss. The Immortals made the same attempt with no better success. At this point, Ephial´tes, a Malian, offered for a large reward to show the invaders a mountain-path by which they could reach the rear of the Spartan camp. The Phocian guards of this path were overpowered. Leonidas learned that he was betrayed, and declaring that he and his Spartans must remain at their post, dismissed all the rest of his army except the Thespians and Thebans. Then, before the body of Persians who were crossing the mountain, under lead of the traitor, could attack him from behind, he threw himself upon the enemy in front, resolving to exact as dear a vengeanceas possible. Many of the Persian host fell beneath the Spartan swords, many were trodden to death by their own multitudes, and many were forced into the sea. Leonidas soon fell, and the contest for his body inspired his men with new fury. Having recovered it, they placed their backs against a wall of stone and fought until every man was slain.
52.During the same days several battles were fought at sea between the Greek and Persian fleets. No decisive advantage was gained by either side, but the result was most disheartening to the Persians, who had been most confident of success. The elements, too, had neither been scourged nor scolded into good behavior; a terrible hurricane raged three days and nights upon the coast of Thessaly, tearing the ships from their moorings and dashing them against the cliffs. At least four hundred ships of war were thus destroyed, beside a countless number of transports with their stores and treasures. Another squadron of two hundred vessels, which had been sent around Eubœa to cut off the retreat of the Greeks, perished, in a sudden tempest, upon the rocks. The Grecian commanders were unable to profit by these advantages, for the defeat at Thermopylæ compelled them to withdraw from Artemis´ium to provide for the safety of Attica and the Peloponnesus.
53.By the death of the Spartan three hundred, the gates of Greece were thrown open, and the hosts of Asia poured through, wasting the country with fire and sword. At Pano´peus a detachment was sent to plunder the temple of Apollo at Delphi, while Xerxes led his main army through Bœo´tia. On the march he received the submission of all the people except the Platæans and Thespians, who, rather than yield to an invader, abandoned their cities to be burnt. Before his arrival at Athens, the chief object of his revenge, the king heard of the total defeat of his Delphian expedition. According to Greek tradition, no mortal hand turned back the invaders, but Apollo himself hurled down great rocks and crags upon their heads, in the dark ravines of Parnassus, and thus defended his sanctuary.
B. C. 480.
54.Athens was a deserted city. All the fighting men were with the fleet, while women, children, and infirm persons had been removed to Salamis, Ægi´na, or Trœze´ne. The conqueror stormed the citadel, plundered and burnt the temples, and sent word to Susa that Athens had shared the fate of Sardis.
55.Xerxes now resolved upon a decisive naval battle in the Saronic Gulf. The Grecian fleet had assembled off Salamis, to the number of 378 vessels, while the Persians numbered 1,200. A throne was erected on the mainland, upon the slope of Mount Ægaleos, from which the great king beheld the struggle which was to end his dreams of conquest. The Persian fleet occupied the channel between Salamis and the coast of Attica. Their vast numbers, crowded into so narrow a space, were a fatal disadvantageto themselves, for they could only come near the Greeks by small detachments; while the latter, more accustomed to those waters, drove their brazen-pointed prows into the sides of the Persians, advancing and retiring with wonderful dexterity and surety of aim. Feeling the eye of their king upon them, the Persians fought with desperate bravery. The battle lasted all day; when night fell, Xerxes saw his forces scattered or destroyed, and instead of renewing the battle, resolved to seek his own safety in retreat.
56.Mardonius engaged to complete the conquest of Greece with 300,000 men. The fleet was ordered to the Hellespont, and the king with the remainder of his forces set out for home. His magazines had been exhausted, and during this forced retreat many died of hunger. Forty-five days after his departure from Attica he arrived at the Hellespont, and finding his second bridge of boats destroyed, returned to Asia by ship. He entered Sardis at the end of the year 480, humbled and depressed, only eight months from the time when he left it full of vain hopes of subduing the western world.
57.The operations of Mardonius will be more fully detailed in the History of Greece;[31]a mere outline is here presented. Wintering in Thessaly, he sought by magnificent promises to detach the Athenians from the Greek interests. Diplomacy failing, his army was at once poured into Attica, filling Athens, whose inhabitants had taken refuge again at Salamis. He destroyed the beautiful city by fire, completing the destruction which Xerxes had begun. Then finding that the Greeks were concentrating their forces at the Isthmus, he retired into Bœotia, where, in September, 479, the great battle of Platæ´a was fought. Mardonius was slain and his forces routed with terrible carnage. The last remnant of the Persian fleet was similarly routed at Myc´ale, on the opposite side of the Ægean, and the deliverance of Europe was complete. No Persian army henceforth trod the soil of European Greece, and for twelve years no Persian sail appeared in the Ægean.
58.Having spent his own best strength and that of his empire in this disastrous war, Xerxes made no further effort for military glory, but gave himself up to luxurious indolence. The highest rewards were offered to him who could invent a new pleasure. His subjects followed the example of their king; the empire was weakened by licentiousness and distracted by violence. It was only a fitting close to such a reign, when, at the end of twenty years, Xerxes was murdered by Artaba´nus, the captain of his guard, and Aspami´tres, his chamberlain.
59.Reign of Artaxerxes I.B. C. 465-425. The assassins placed upon the throne the youngest son of their victim, Artaxerxes Longimanus,or the Long-Handed. The eldest son, Darius, was executed on a false charge of having murdered his father. The second, Hystas´pes, claimed the crown, but was defeated and slain in battle. The crimes of the real assassins were proved against them, and they were punished with death. Artaxerxes enjoyed an undisputed reign of forty years, during which the power of the empire declined, notwithstanding his beneficent efforts to promote the interests of his people.
B. C. 460.
B. C. 455.
60.Egyptian Revolt.In the early part of his reign Egypt revolted under I´narus, son of Psammet´ichus, who was aided by the Athenians. Achaemenes, brother of the king, was sent with a great army to punish the rebellion; but he was defeated and slain by the hand of Inarus in the battle of Papre´mis, and a vast number of Persians perished. The remainder of the army were shut up in the White Castle at Memphis, and suffered a siege of three years. A new force, led by Megaby´zus, was more successful: Memphis was relieved, Inarus taken, and the Athenian fleet destroyed. Amyrtæ´us, the ally of Inarus, held out six years longer in the marshes of the Delta, until, by the intervention of Athens, peace was made. The Persians were defeated with great loss off Salamis, in Cyprus, and consented to very humiliating terms. They engaged not to visit with fleet or army the western shores of Asia Minor, but to respect the independence of the Asiatic Greeks. Even the leader of the revolt was punished only by the loss of his principality.
61.Contrary to the solemn agreement of Megabyzus, Inarus, after five years at the Persian court, was given up, with fifty Athenian companions, to the vengeance of the queen-mother, and suffered a barbarous death for having slain Achaemenes. Disgusted by this violation of his honor, Megabyzus stirred up a revolt in his province of Syria. He was the greatest general in the empire, and the success of his operations against the forces sent to subdue him, so alarmed his master that he was permitted to dictate his own terms of peace. The intercessions of his wife, Am´ytis, sister of the king, aided much in his reconciliation; but the example was ruinous to the strict organization of the provinces which Darius had introduced. The tendencies to decay now acted with greater and greater rapidity.
62.In the seventh year of Artaxerxes’ reign, a new migration of Jews was led from Babylon by Ezra, a man of priestly lineage and high in favor at the Persian court. Laden with contributions from the Jews of Babylonia, he arrived in Jerusalem with great treasures for the completion of the temple, and for the reëstablishment of civil government throughout the country. He found that the people had allied themselves with the neighboring tribes by marriage, and insisted on the immediate dismissal of all heathen members from Jewish households.
63.The defeat of the Persians at Cyprus, 449 B. C., operated to a certain degree in favor of the Jews; for all the maritime ports of the empire havingbeen ceded, the natural fortress of Zion, commanding the roads between Egypt and the capital, became of great importance. Hitherto the Persian monarchs had forbidden Jerusalem to be fortified, but in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes’ reign, Nehemi´ah, the Jewish cup-bearer of the great king, received a commission to rebuild its walls. He moved with great celerity and secrecy, for the neighboring Samaritans, Ammonites, and Arabians, no longer awed, as formerly, by a decree of the empire, violently opposed the work. Laboring by night, with tools in one hand and weapons in the other, the Jews of every rank gave themselves so zealously to the task, that in fifty-two days Jerusalem was inclosed by walls and towers strong enough to defy her foes. (Nehemiah i-v: 16.)
Meanwhile Ezra, relieved from the civil command, labored at his great work, the collection and editing of the Sacred Books. During the captivity many writings had been lost, among them the Book of Jasher, that of “The Wars of the Lord,” the writings of Gad and Iddo, the prophets, and the works of Solomon on Natural History. The sacred books which remained were arranged in three great divisions: the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa; the latter including Job, the Psalms, and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Ruth, Daniel, and the Chronicles. The Books of Malachi, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther were afterward added, and the canon closed.
64.On the departure of Nehemiah the old disorders returned. Ezra died; the high priest allied himself with the deadliest enemy of the Jewish faith, Tobi´ah the Ammonite, to whom he gave lodgings in the temple. The Sabbath was broken; Tyrian traders sold their merchandise in the gates of Jerusalem on the Holy Day. Nehemiah returned with the power of a satrap, and with his usual skill reformed these abuses. He expelled Manasseh, who had now become high priest, because he had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. The pagan father-in-law hereupon built a rival temple on the summit of Mount Gerizim, of which Manasseh became high priest. The bitter hatred arising from this schism continued for centuries, and did not cease even with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, A. D. 70. “The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.” From the time of the division there was no more intermingling of pagan elements in the religion and customs of Judæa. The Hebrews became not only the most rigidly monotheistic, but, in spite of their later wanderings, the most nearly isolated of all the nations.
65.Xerxes II.Artaxerxes died B. C. 425, and was succeeded by his son, Xerxes II. After a reign of only forty-five days, the young king was assassinated by his half-brother, Sogdia´nus; and the funeral train of his father was overtaken, on its way to the royal tombs at Persepolis, by his own.
66.Sogdianus.B. C. 425, 424. The murderer enjoyed the fruits of his crime but little more than half a year. Another half-brother, O´chus, revolted with the satraps of Egypt and Armenia and the general of the royal cavalry. Sogdianus was deposed and put to death.
67.Darius II.B. C. 424-405. Ochus, ascending the throne, took the name of Darius, to which the Greeks added the contemptuous surname No´thus. This prince spent the nineteen years of his reign under the control of his wife, Parysa´tis, who surpassed her mother, Amas´tris, in wickedness and cruelty. The empire, meanwhile, was shaken by continual revolts, and the means that were taken to quell them compromised instead of confirming the integrity of the nation. Promises were made which were never intended to be kept, for the purpose of leading on the rebellious satraps to their destruction; and the tools of these falsehoods, instead of resenting, like Megabyzus, the loss of their honor, gladly accepted the spoils of their victims. The precautions of Darius I were disregarded; civil and military powers were combined in the same person, and two or three countries were often united under the rule of one satrap. These great governments, descending often from father to son, became more like independent kingdoms than provinces of the empire.
68.The Medes, after more than a century of submission to Persian rule, attempted to free themselves, B. C. 408, but were defeated. The Egyptians, being more distant, were more successful. Always the most discontented of the Persian provinces, their opposition was even more a matter of religion than of patriotism, and was constantly fomented by the priests. Under two successive dynasties of native kings, they were now able to maintain their independence nearly sixty years. B. C. 405-346.
69.While the empire was undergoing these losses, it gained a great advantage in the recovery of the Greek cities of Asia Minor. The Athenians and Spartans had been wasting their forces against each other in the Peloponnesian war (B. C. 431-404), which, more than any regard to their engagements, had interrupted their hostile attempts against Persia. The power of Athens was now broken by disasters in Sicily; and the Lydian satrap, Tissapher´nes, seized the occasion to cultivate the alliance of Sparta, and aid the Athenian colonies, Lesbos, Chios, and Erythræ, in their intended revolt. Pharnaba´zus, satrap of the Hellespontine provinces, pursued the same course; and through the rivalry of the two Greek states, their ancient enemy gained undisputed possession of “all Asia.”
Cyrus, the younger son of the king, becoming satrap of Phrygia, Lydia, and Cappadocia, used his wealth and power without reserve to aid the Lacedemonians and humble the Athenians. He declared to Lysan´der, the Spartan admiral, that if it were needful he would sell his very throne, or coin it into money, to meet the expenses of the war. This liberality had another cause than friendship. The Spartans were esteemed the best soldiers in the world, and Cyrus was preparing for a bold and difficult movement in which he wanted their assistance.
70.This young prince had been “born in the purple,” while his elder brother had been born before their father’s accession to the throne. With this pretext, which had availed in the case of Xerxes I, his mother, Parysatis, whose favorite he was, strove in vain to persuade Darius to name him his successor in the empire. Cyrus assumed royal state in his province; and though naturally haughty and cruel, he managed to gain the affection of his courtiers by his amiable manners, while his more brilliant qualities commanded their admiration. Darius, alarmed by his son’s unbounded ambition, recalled him to the capital, which he reached only in time to witness his father’s death and his brother’s accession to the throne.
71.B. C. 405-359.Artaxerxes IIwas called Mnemon, for his wonderful memory. His first royal act was to cast his brother into prison, upon a report, probably too well founded, that he was plotting against the life of the king. Cyrus was condemned to die, but his mother, who had instigated the plot, plead for him with such effect, that Artaxerxes not only spared his life, but sent him back to his satrapy. If Cyrus was ambitious and rebellious before, he had now the additional motive of revenge urging him to dethrone his brother and reign in his stead. He raised an army of Greek mercenaries, for a pretended expedition against the robbers of Pisid´ia, and set out from Sardis in the spring of 401.
B. C. 401.
Artaxerxes was informed of his movements by Tissaphernes, and was well prepared to meet him. The Greeks learned the real object of their march too late to draw back. The army passed through Phrygia and Cilicia, entered Syria by the mountain-passes near Issus, crossed the Euphrates at Thap´sacus, and advanced to the plain of Cunax´a, about fifty-seven miles from Babylon. Here he encountered a royal army at least four times as numerous as his own. The Greeks sustained their ancient renown by utterly routing the Asiatics who were opposed to them; but Cyrus, rashly penetrating to the Persian center, where his brother commanded in person, was stricken down by one of the royal guard. He had already wounded the king. Artaxerxes commanded his head and traitorous right hand to be cut off, and his fate ended the battle.
EMPIRE of the PERSIANS.
EMPIRE of the PERSIANS.
72.The Grecian auxiliaries who had been entrapped into the war by Cyrus now found themselves in a perilous position. Their Persian allies were scattered; they were in the heart of an unknown and hostile country, two thousand miles from home, and surrounded by the victorious army of Artaxerxes. The wily Tissaphernes, who had been rewarded with the dominions of Cyrus, detained them nearly a month by false pretenses of negotiation; and having led them as far as the head-waters of the Tigris, gained possession of all their officers, whom he caused to be put to death. At this crisis, the Athenian Xen´ophon, who had accompanied the army of Cyrus, though not as a soldier, called together the principal Greeks at midnight, and urged the election of new officers who should lead them back to their native land. The suggestion was adopted; five generals were chosen, of whom Xenophon was one, and by break of day the army had been mustered for its homeward march.
Here began the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, celebrated in the annals of war as, perhaps, the most remarkable instance of an enterprise conducted against prodigious obstacles, with perfect coolness, valor, and success. Tissaphernes with his army hung upon their rear, hostile barbarians were in front, and to the fatigues of the march were added the perils of frequent battles. Their course lay over the table-lands of Armenia, where many perished in the freezing north winds, or were blinded by the unusual glare of snow. The survivors pressed on with indomitable spirit, until, ascending a mountain south of Tra´pezus, they beheld, far away to the north-west, the dark waters of the Euxine. Their greatest perils were now over; a joyous cry, “The sea! the sea!” arose from the front rank and was quickly caught up by those behind. Officers and soldiers embraced each other with tears of joy; and all united to erect upon this happy lookout a monument of the trophies collected during their wearisome journey.
B. C. 387.
73.By their part in the rebellion of Cyrus, however involuntary, the Spartans had given unpardonable offense to Artaxerxes, and they resolved to be the first movers in the war which must ensue. Securing the services of the Ten Thousand, they attacked the Persians in Asia Minor with a success which promised a speedy end to their dominion. But Persia had grown wiser since the days of Xerxes, and fought the Greeks not so much with her unwieldy masses of troops as with subtle intrigue. By means of skillful emissaries well supplied with gold, she brought about a league between the secondary states of Greece—Argos, Corinth, Athens, and Thebes—which at once overbalanced the power of Sparta. Persian ships had part in the battle of Cnidus, by which the confederates gained the dominion of the sea. B. C. 394. Sparta was reduced to accepting the humiliating peace of Antal´cidas, by which the Asiatic Greeks were left under the control of Persia, and the great king gained an authoritative voice in all quarrels between the Grecian states.
74.Artaxerxes was haunted by the desire to restore the empire to its greatest extent under Darius Hystaspes. He reöccupied Samos, which he intended as a stepping-stone to the rest of the Greek islands; and sent a great expedition into Egypt under the joint command of Iphic´rates, an Athenian, and Pharnabazus, a Persian general. This enterprise failed, partly through the jealousies of the two commanders; and the failure hastened a revolt in the western satrapies, which came near to overturn the empire. Egypt now retaliated, and attempted to revive her ancientglories by the conquest of Syria and Phœnicia. But these movements were defeated by management and gold, and Artaxerxes left his dominion with nearly the same boundaries which it had at the beginning of his reign.
75.Reign of Artaxerxes III.B. C. 359-338. The death of Artaxerxes II was followed by the usual crimes and atrocities which attended a change upon the Persian throne. His youngest son, Ochus, seized the crown after the murder of his eldest and the suicide of his second brother. He assumed the name of Artaxerxes III, and by his energy and spirit did much to retrieve the failing prosperity of the empire. He did not, however, abate the inherent sources of its weakness in the corruptions of the court. Family affection had been replaced by jealousy and hatred. The first act of Ochus was the extermination of his own royal race, in order that no rival might remain to dispute his throne. His more ambitious enterprises were delayed by a revolt of Artabazus in Asia Minor, which was abetted by Athens and Thebes. The defeated satrap fled to Philip of Macedon, whose ready protection and Ochus’s retaliatory measures led to the most important results. These will be detailed in Book IV.
76.About B. C. 351, Ochus was ready to attempt the subjugation of Egypt. He was defeated in his first campaign, and retired into Persia to recruit his forces. This retreat was the signal for innumerable revolts. Phœnicia placed herself under the independent government of the king of Sidon; Cyprus set up nine native sovereigns; in Asia Minor a dozen separate kingdoms were asserted, if not established. But the spirit of Artaxerxes III was equal to the occasion. He raised a second armament, hired ten thousand Greek mercenaries, and proceeded in person to war against Phœnicia and Egypt. Sidon was taken and Phœnicia subdued. Mentor the Rhodian, who, in the service of the king of Egypt was aiding the Sidonians, went over to the Persians with four thousand Greeks. Egypt was then invaded with more success. Nectanebo was defeated and expelled, and his country again reduced to a Persian satrapy.
77.Most of the later victories of Artaxerxes were due to the valor of his Greek auxiliaries, or to the treachery or incapacity of his opponents. After the reëstablishment of his government, he abandoned himself to the pleasures of his palace, while the control of affairs rested exclusively with Bago´as, his minister, and Mentor, his general. The people were only reminded from time to time of his existence by some unusually bloody mandate. Whatever hope might have been inspired by his really great abilities, was disappointed at once by his unscrupulous violence and indolent self-indulgence. He died of poison by the hand of Bagoas, B. C. 338.
78.Arses.B. C. 338-336. The perfidious minister destroyed not merely the king himself, but all the royal princes except Ar´ses, the youngest, whom he placed upon the throne, believing that, as a mere boy, he wouldbe subservient to his control. After two years he was alarmed by some signs of independent character in his pupil, and added Arses to the number of his victims. He now conferred the sovereignty upon Darius Codoman´nus, a grandson of Darius II, whom he regarded as a friend, but who commenced his reign by an act of summary justice, in the execution of the wretch to whom he owed his crown. B. C. 336.
79.Reign of Darius III.B. C. 336-331. As has often happened in the world’s history, one of the best of the Persian kings had to bear the results of the tyrannies of his predecessors. Darius was not more distinguished for his personal beauty than for the uprightness and benevolence of his character; and as satrap of Armenia, before his accession to the throne, he had won great applause both for his bravery as a soldier and his skill as a general. But the Greeks, whose reasons for hostility against the Persians had been two hundred years accumulating, had now, at last, a leader more ambitious than Xerxes, and more able than Cyrus. Already, before Darius had mounted the throne, Alexander the Great had succeeded his father in Macedon, had been appointed general-in-chief of all the Greek forces, and had commenced his movement against Asia.
80.The Persian monarch despised the presumption of an inexperienced boy, and made no effort, by aiding the European enemies of Alexander, to crush the new foe in his cradle. The satraps and generals shared the confidence of their master, and though a large force was collected in Mysia, no serious opposition was made to his passage of the Hellespont. In B. C. 334, Alexander with his 35,000 Greeks crossed the strait which had been passed by Xerxes, with his five millions, less than 150 years before. The Greek army was scarcely more inferior to the Persian in number than superior in efficiency. It was composed of veteran troops in the highest possible state of equipment and discipline, and every man was filled with enthusiastic devotion to his leader and confidence of success.
Memnon, a brother of Mentor the Rhodian, with the satraps Spithrida´tes and Arsi´tes, commanded the Persians in Asia Minor. Their first collision with Alexander was in the attempt to prevent his passage of the Grani´cus, a little Mysian river which flows into the Propon´tis. They were totally defeated, and Alexander, advancing southward, subdued, or rather liberated all the cities of the western coast without long delay. Halicarnas´sus, under the command of Memnon, made an obstinate resistance, and it was only at the end of autumn that it surrendered. Memnon then resolved to carry the war into Greece. He gathered a large fleet and captured many islands in the Ægean; but his death at Mytile´ne relieved Alexander of the most able of his opponents.
81.The king of Macedon wintered at Gor´dium, where he cut or untied the celebrated knot, which an ancient prophecy had declared could never be loosened except by the conqueror of Asia. With fresh reinforcementsfrom Greece, he commenced his second campaign, in the spring of 333, by marching through Cappadocia and Cilicia to the gates of Syria. Darius met him, in the narrow plain of Issus, with an army of half a million men. Hemmed in between the mountains, the river, and the sea, the Persian horsemen could not act, and their immense numbers were rather an incumbrance than an advantage. Darius was defeated and fled across the Euphrates. His mother, wife, and children fell into the hands of the conqueror, who treated them with the utmost delicacy and respect.
82.B. C. 333-331. The conquests of Syria, Phœnicia, and Egypt, which Alexander now accomplished in less than two years, will be described in the Macedonian history. In the spring of 331, he retraced his triumphant march through Syria, crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus, traversed Mesopotamia, and met Darius again on the great Assyrian plain east of the Tigris. The Persian king had spent the twenty months which had intervened since the battle of Issus in mustering the entire force of his empire. The ground was carefully selected as most favorable to the movements of cavalry, and as giving him the full advantage of his superior numbers. A large space was leveled and hardened with rollers for the evolutions of the scythe-armed chariots. An important part of the infantry was formed of the brave and hardy mountaineers of Afghanistan, Bokhara, Khiva, and Thibet; and the cavalry, of the ancestors of the modern Kurds and Turcomans, a race always distinguished for bold and skillful horsemanship. A brigade of Greek auxiliaries was alone considered able to withstand the charge of Alexander’s phalanx. Altogether the forces of Darius numbered more than a million of men, and they surpassed all former general levies of the Persians in the efficient discipline which enabled them to act together as one body.
83.The Macedonian phalanx, which formed the center of Alexander’s army, was the most effective body of heavy-armed troops known to ancient tactics. The men were placed sixteen deep, armed with thesarissa, or long pike, twenty-four feet in length. When set for action, the spear-heads of the first six ranks projected from the front. In receiving a charge, the shield of each man, held over the head with the left arm, overlapped that of his neighbor; so that the entire body resembled a monster clothed in the shell of a tortoise and the bristles of a porcupine. So long as it held together, the phalanx was invincible. Whether it advanced its vast weight upon an enemy like a solid wall of steel bristling with spear-points, or, kneeling, with each pike planted in the ground, awaited the attack, few dared to encounter it.
84.Battle of Arbela.On the morning of the 1st of October, B. C. 331, the two great forces met upon the plain of Gaugame´la. Alexander fought at the head of his cavalry, on the right of his army. Darius, in the Persian center, animated his men both by word and example. Bothsides fought with wonderful bravery, but the perfect discipline of the Macedonians gained at length a complete victory. The Persian war-chariots, which, with long scythes extending from their wheels, were intended to make great havoc among the Greek horse, were rendered useless by a detachment of light-armed troops trained for the purpose, who, first wounding horses and drivers with their javelins, ran beside the horses and cut the traces or seized the reins, while the few which reached the Macedonian front were allowed to pass between files which opened to receive them, and were easily captured in the rear. Five brigades of the phalanx bore down the Greek mercenaries who were opposed to them, and penetrated to the Persian center, where Darius commanded in person. The king’s charioteer was killed by a javelin; he himself mounted a fleet horse and galloped from the field.
Elsewhere the issue of the day was much more doubtful for Alexander; but the news of Darius’s flight disheartened his officers, and spurred the Macedonians, who were outnumbered and almost overpowered, to fresh exertions. A party of Persian and Indian horsemen, who were plundering the Macedonian camp, were put to flight by a reserve corps of the phalanx. The fugitive king, followed at length by his whole army, directed his course to the city of Arbe´la, twenty miles distant, where his military treasures were deposited. The river Ly´cus lay in their way, crossed only by a narrow bridge, and the number of Persians drowned in this rapid stream exceeded even those who had perished upon the battle-field.
85.The next day Alexander arrived at Arbela and took possession of its treasures. The Persian king, unhappily for himself, had escaped a generous conqueror only to fall into the hands of his treacherous satrap Bes´sus. This man had led a division of the Persian army in the battle of Arbela, but finding his master’s fortunes ruined, had plotted with some fellow-officers to seize his person, and either put him to death or deliver him to Alexander, hoping thus to gain for themselves important commands. Loaded with chains, the unhappy king was carried away by his servants in their flight toward Hyrca´nia; but Alexander’s troops pressed them closely, and finding escape impossible, they mortally wounded their captive and left him by the road-side to die.
The former lord of Asia was indebted to a Macedonian soldier, who brought him a cup of cold water, for the last act of attendance. He assured the man that his inability to reward this service added bitterness to his dying moments; but commended him to Alexander, whose generosity he himself had proved, and who would not fail to honor this his last request. The conqueror came up while the lifeless remains of Darius still lay by the road-side. Deeply moved, he threw his own royal mantle over the body of his foe, and ordered that a magnificent procession should convey the last of the Persian kings to the tomb of his fathers. In the battle of Arbela thePersian empire fell. The reduction of the provinces occupied the few remaining years of Alexander’s life; but their submission was certain from the moment when the forces of Asia were put to flight and their monarch was a captive.