IV. BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM…

IV. BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM

[b] GEORG WEBER, op. cit.

[c] MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE, op. cit.

[d] JAMES MILL, op. cit.

[e] H. H. WILSON, op. cit.

[f] GUSTAVE LE BON, op. cit.

[g] T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, from the article “Buddhism” in the New Volumes of the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

[h] EUGÈNE BURNOUF, Introduction à l’histoire du bouddhisme indien.

[i] W. W. HUNTER, op. cit.

[j] B. H. HODGSON, Essays on Indian Subjects.

A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INDIAN HISTORY

BASED ON THE WORKS QUOTED, CITED, OR EDITORIALLY CONSULTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THE PRESENT HISTORY

The following bibliography contains in the main only works relating to ancient India, as the bibliography of modern India, and particularly of India under British rule, will be specially treated in a later volume. A few works, however, on modern India are here included, inasmuch as they have a certain bearing on the historical, political, and religious development of ancient India.

It will be observed that a large number of the works here cited have referred to the social and religious conditions, rather than to the history proper. This selection is a very natural outgrowth of the conditions; the obscurity of the history on the one hand, and the fascinating interest that attaches to the customs and the esoteric religion of the Hindu on the other. Reference has already been made to the classical historians, Megasthenes and Arrian. Of modern writers who have interpreted for us the available reminiscences, the earliest was James Mill, the famous author of the Analysis of the Human Mind, who published in the year 1817 the History of India, upon which he had been engaged for twelve years. The philosopher turned historian is no less a philosopher still, and Mill’s History of India, together with the author’s personal efforts in the governmental position to which he was soon called, availed practically to revolutionise the method of governing India. Notwithstanding the almost numberless books on the subject that have since been written, the work of Mill has by no means been superseded.

The next important contribution to the subject was that of Mountstuart Elphinstone. If Mill treated the history of India from the standpoint of a philosopher, Elphinstone viewed it from the point of view of the statesman. His work had the peculiar merit of being written by one who had the fullest first-hand knowledge of his subject, for Elphinstone entered the civil service of the East India Company, when he was hardly more than a boy, and continued to reside in India in one official capacity or another throughout most of his life, having come finally for a good many years to hold the position of governor of Bombay. His history, therefore, was at once recognised as having a peculiar authority, and even now there is no work to which one can turn with greater confidence.

The general histories of Duncker and Heeren should also be consulted by anyone wishing to familiarise himself with the subject. Heeren’s views have a particular interest, because of his advocacy of the theory that the Egyptian race was really of Indian origin. Without professing to be able to demonstrate the truth of this theory, Heeren advances numerous arguments, based partly upon the physiological characteristics of the two races, and partly upon the similarity of their customs and their religions. It may be added that no marked advances in the direction of solving this problem have been made since Heeren wrote; the theory, however, is not advocated by any recent authority. Among other works on the history proper of India that have taken a high rank are the books of Sir W. W. Hunter, and the admirably written works of Le Bon; the latter however, refers rather to the civilisation based on the monuments, than to the political history of the country.

Among older works having to do with the language and religions of India, the writings of Eugène Burnouf and of W. Ward have very high authority; among the more recent works those of Max Müller and Sir Monier-Williams have perhaps been given wider currency and contributed more to the general distribution of the knowledge of Brahmanism and Buddhism than almost any others.

* * * * *

=Adams=, H. D., Episodes of Indian History, London, 1891.--=d’Alviella=, G., Ce que l’Inde doit à la Grèce, Paris, 1898.--=Anquetil-Duperron=, La religion des Indous, Paris, 1823.--=Anquetil-Duperron=, A. H., Recherches historiques et géograph. sur l’Inde, Berlin et Paris, 1876.--=Arrian=, Ἀναβασις Ἀλεξάνδρον to which is added Arrian’s Indian History--Ἰνδικα--(translated by Mr. Rooke), London, 1729.--=Assmann=, W., Handbuch der Allgemeinen Geschichte, Brunswick, 1853.

* * * * *

=Bajnáth=, Lala, Some Problems of Social Reform in Hindu Society, Aligarh, 1891.--=Balfour=, E., Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, Madras, 1857-1858, 2 vols.--=Barth=, A., Les religions de l’Inde, Paris, 1879; The Religions of India, London, 1890.--=Bastian=, A., Die Weltauffassung der Buddhisten, Berlin, 1869; Buddhism als religionsphilosoph. System, Berlin, 1893; Der Buddhismus in seiner Psychologie, Berlin, 1882.--=Beal=, Samuel, Outline of Buddhism from Chinese Sources, London, 1876; The Buddhist Tripitaka as it is known in China and Japan, London, 1876.--=Bell=, J., Compendious View of Universal History and Literature, London, 1820.--=Benfey=, Th., Vedica und Verwandtes, Strassburg, 1887.--=Bergaigne=, A., La religion védique d’après les hymnes du Rig-Véda, Paris, 1878-1883, 3 vols.--=Bettany=, G. T., The Great Indian Religions, London, 1892.--=Beyer=, C., Orientalische Novellen nach den schönsten Sagen aus Indien und Iran, Leipsic, 1890.--=Bhandarkar=, E. G., Early History of the Dekkan, Bombay, 1895.--=Bhattacharyya, Yogenda Nath=, Hindu Castes and Sects, Calcutta, 1896.--=Bhimacharya=, Nyayakosa, or Dictionary of the Technical Terms of the Nyaya Philosophy, Bombay, 1875.--=Bird=, J., On the Historical Geography of Hindustan and the Origin of the Social State among the Hindus (in Journ. Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, Calcutta, 1840).--=Blavatsky=, Helena P., Die Grundlage der indischen Mystik, Leipsic, 1893.--=Bohlen=, P. von, De Buddhaismi origine et ætate definiendis tentamen, Regiomont, 1827; Das alte Indien, Königsberg, 1830, 2 vols.; Das alte Indien mit bes. Rücksicht auf Ægypten, Königsberg, 1830-1831, 2 vols.--=Le Bon=, G., Les civilisations de l’Inde, Paris, 1887; Les monuments de l’Inde, Paris, 1892.--=Brodbeck=, A., Leben und Lehre Buddhas, Zürich, 1895.--=Brosse=, Et., L’Inde inconnue, Lyons, 1898.--=Brunnhofer=, H., Iran und Turan. Histor. geogr. und ethnolog. Untersuchungen über den ältesten Schauplatz der indogerman. Urgeschichte, Leipsic, 1890; Urgeschichte der Arier in Vorder- und Centralasien, Leipsic, 1893, 3 vols.--=Bühler=, G., A Digest of Hindu Law, London, 1867-1869.--=Bühler=, G., and =Kirste=, Indian Studies, Vienna, 1892, 2 vols.--=Burgess=, J., The Ancient Monuments, Temples, and Sculptures of India, London, 1897.--=Burnouf=, E., Essai sur le Pali, Paris, 1826; Vendidad-Sadé, l’un des livres de Zoroastre, Paris, 1830; Commentaires sur le Yaçna, Paris, 1835; Introduction à l’histoire du Bouddhisme indien, Paris, 1844; Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi, Paris, 1852; Essai sur le Véda, ou études sur les religions, la littérature et la constitution sociale de l’Inde, Paris, 1863.--=Burnouf=, E. (in collab. with E. V. S. =Jacquet=), L’Inde française, Paris, 1827-1835, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Caine=, W. S., Picturesque India, London, 1890.--=Caland=, W., Altindischer Ahnencult, Leyden, 1893.--=Carus=, P., Karma, a Story of Early Buddhism; Nirvana, A Story of Buddhist Philosophy.--=Caunter=, J. H. Tableaux pittoresques de l’Inde (trad, de l’anglais par A. Urbain), Paris, 1836, 3 vols.--=Chaboseau=, A., Essai sur la Philosophie Bouddhique, Paris, 1891.--=Colebrooke=, II. T., On the Philosophy of the Hindus (in Miscellaneous Essays), London, 1873; Essay on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindoos, London, 1858.--=Copleston=, B. P., Buddhism, Primitive and Present, in Maghada and Ceylon, London, 1892.--=Cranfurd=, Q., Sketches chiefly relating to the History, Religion, Learning, and Manners of the Hindoos, London, 1791; Researches concerning the Laws, Theology, Learning, Commerce, etc., of Ancient and Modern India, London, 1817, 2 vols.--=Ctesias=, Fragments of Ἰνδικα, his Opera, Frankfort, 1824.--=Cunningham=, Sir A., The Bilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monuments of Central India, London, 1854; The Stupa of Barhut, London, 1879; Coins of Ancient India from the Earliest Times down to the Seventh Century, A.D., London, 1891.

* * * * *

=Dahlmann=, J., Buddha, Ein Culturbild des Ostens, Berlin, 1898; Das altindische Volkstum und seine Bedeutung für die Gesellschaftskunde, Köln, 1899.--=Le Dain=, L’Inde Antique, Paris, 1895.--=Daniell=, T., Oriental Sceneries, Antiquities of India, London, 1795-1808, 4 vols.; Hindoo Excavations in the Mountains of Ellora, London, 1804; A Picturesque Voyage to India by the way of China, London, 1810.--=Davids=, T. W. Rhys, Buddhist Birth Stories, London, 1880; Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Indian Buddhism, London, 1881; Buddhism, London, 1899; Buddhism, article in the New Volumes of the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica; joint-author of Vinaya Texts, 1881-1885; Digaha Nikaya, 1890; Sumangala Vilasini, 1886; Sacred Books of the Buddhists; Dialogues of the Buddha, 1899.--=Deussen=, P., Das System des Vedanta, Leipsic, 1883; Die Sutras des Vedanta, Leipsic, 1884; Philosophie des Veda bis auf die Upanishads, Leipsic, 1894.--=Diestel=, C., Buddhismus und Christentum, Brunswick, 1885.--=Diodorus Siculus=, Βιβλιοθήκη ἱστορική, London, 1700.--=Dosabhai=, Khan B. E., A History of Gujurat from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Ahmedabad, 1884.--=Dows=, Alex., History of Hindostan from the Earliest Account of Time to the Death of Akbar (translated from the Persian of Muhammad Kasim Ferishta), London, 1768; Dissertation concerning the Customs, Manners, Language, Religion, and Philosophy of the Indoos, London, 1773.--=Dubois=, J. A., Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies, London, 1899.--=Dutt=, C. M., The Chronology of India from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1899.--=Dutt=, M. N., Heroines of India, Calcutta, 1893; Prophets of India, Calcutta, 1894.--=Dutt=, R. C., Ancient India, 2000 B.C. to 800 A.D., Calcutta, 1893; A History of Civilisation in Ancient India, based on Sanskrit Literature, Calcutta, 1894; The Civilisation of India, London, 1900.

* * * * *

=Ehni=, J., Der vedische Mythus d. Yama, verglichen mit d. analogen Typen der persischen, griechischen und germanischen Mythologie, Strassburg, 1890.--=Eitel=, E. J., Handbook of Chinese Buddhism, London, 1888.--=Elphinstone=, Mountstuart, The History of India; the Hindoo and Mohammedan Periods, London, 1859, 2 vols.

* * * * *

=Falke=, Robert, Buddha, Mohammed, Christus, Gütersloh, 1897.--=Fergusson=, J., History of India and Eastern Architecture, London, 1891; On the Sakaa and Samvat and Gupta Eras (Journal R. As. Soc., N. S. xii.)--=Fontane=, M., Histoire Universelle, Paris, 1881-1889, 6 vols.--=Frank=, V., Vjasa über Philosophie, Mythologie, Litteratur und Sprache der Hindus, Leipsic and Würzburg, 1826.--=Frazer=, R. W., A Literary History of India, London, 1898.

* * * * *

=Garbe=, R., The Philosophy of Ancient India, Chicago, 1897; Die Samkhya-Philosophie. Eine Darstellung des indischen Rationalismus, Leipsic, 1894.--=Gheyn=, J. van den, Le Panthéisme dans l’Inde, Ghent, 1890.--=Gómara=, F. L. de, La historia general de las Indias, Antwerp, 1554.--=Gomes=, F. L., The Brahmans (translated from the Portuguese by J. de Silva), Bombay, 1889.--=Gough=, A. E., The Philosophy of the Upanishads and Ancient Indian Metaphysics, London, 1882.--=Gribble=, D. B., A History of the Deccan, London, 1895.--=Guyon=, l’Abbé, Histoire des Indes orientales anciennes et modernes, Paris, 1744.

* * * * *

=Haak=, J., Plantenkunde van Indie, Amsterdam, 1892.--=Halévy=, J., Considérations critiques sur quelques points de l’histoire ancienne de l’Inde, Paris, 1899.--=Hall=, Rational Refutation of the Hindu Philosophical Systems, Calcutta, 1862.--=Happel=, J., Die religiösen und philosophischen Grundanschauungen der Inder. Aus den Sanskritquellen vom völkergeschichtlichen Standpunkte des Christentums aus dargestellt und beurteilt, Giessen, 1902.--=Hardy=, E., Manual of Buddhism, London, 1860, 2nd edition; Eastern Monachism, London, 1868; Die vedisch-brahmanische Periode der Religion des alten Indiens, Munich, 1893; Indische Religionsgeschichte, Leipsic, 1898.--=Hearn=, E., Gleanings in Buddha Fields, New York, 1897.--=Hecker=, M. F., Schopenhauer und die indische Philosophie, Köln, 1897.--=Heeren=, A. H. L., Commentatio de Græcorum de India notitia et cum Indis Commerciis, Gottingiæ, 1791; Historical Researches, Oxford, 1834-1846, 5 vols.--=Hillebrandt=, A., Vedische Mythologie, Breslau, 1891; Alt-Indien. Culturgeschichtl. Skizzen, Breslau, 1899.--=Hodges=, William, Travels in India in 1780-1783, London, 1793.--=Hodgson=, B. H., On the Aborigines of India, Calcutta, 1847, 3 vols.--=Holwell=, J. Z., Interesting Historical Events Relative to the Provinces of Bengal and the Empire of Hindustan, London, 1766.--=Hopkins=, E. W., The Religions of India, Boston, 1895.--=Hunter=, W. W., A Brief History of the Indian Peoples, London, 1892; Rulers of India, Oxford, 1890; Atlas of India, London, 1893; India article in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

* * * * *

=Ihering=, R. von, Les Indo-Européens avant l’histoire, Paris, 1895.--=Ith=, J., Sittenlehre der Braminen, oder die Religion der Indier, Bern and Leipsic, 1794.

* * * * *

=Jennings=, H., The Indian Religions; or, Results of the Mysterious Buddhism, London, 1890.--=Jones=, W., and others, Dissertations and Miscellaneous Pieces Relating to the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia, London, 1792-1798, 6 vols.--=Julien=, St., Voyages des pélerins bouddhistes, Paris, 1853-1857, 2 vols; =Justi=, Ferdinand, Geschichte der orientalischen Völker im Alterthum, Berlin, 1884.

* * * * *

=Karageorgevitch=, Prince B., Enchanted India, New York, 1899; Notes sur l’Inde, Paris, 1900.--=Keene=, H. G., History of India from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, London, 1893, 2 vols.--=Kern=, J. H. C., Der Buddhismus und seine Geschichte, Leipsic, 1882-1884, 2 vols.--=Kistner=, Buddha and his Doctrines, London, 1859.--=Klingemann=, C., Buddhismus, Pessimismus und moderne Weltanschauung, Essen, 1898.--=Knight=, A. E., India, from the Aryan Invasion to the Great Sepoy Mutiny, London, 1892.--=Köppen=, C. F., Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung, Berlin, 1857; Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche, Berlin, 1859.--=Kunte=, M. M., The Vicissitudes of Aryan Civilisation in India, Bombay, 1880.

* * * * *

=Lafont=, G. de, Le Bouddhisme, Paris, 1895.--=Lamairesse=, E., L’Inde avant le Bouddha, Paris, 1891; La vie du Bouddha, suivie du Bouddhisme dans l’Indo-Chine, Paris, 1892.--=Lane-Poole=, Stanley, The History of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan, London, 1892.--=Lassen=, C., Zur Geschichte der griechischen und indoskytischen Könige in Baktrien, Kabul und Indien, Bonn, 1838; Indische Alterthumskunde, Bonn, 1844-1861, 4 vols.--=Latif=, Syad Muhammed, History of the Panjab from the Remotest Antiquity to the Present Time, Calcutta, 1891.--=Lefmann=, S., Geschichte des alten Indiens, Berlin, 1890.--=Lethbridge=, Sir R., A Short Manual of the History of India, London, 1881; The Golden Book of India, London, 1893.--=Levi=, S., Le théatre Indien, Paris, 1891.--=Lillie=, A., Buddha and his Parables, London, 1891.--=Lloyd=, A., The Higher Buddhism in the Light of the Nicene Creed, Tokio, 1893; Sketches of Indian Life, London, 1890.--=Lyall=, Sir A., Natural Religion in India, London, 1891.

* * * * *

=Macdonell=, A. A., A History of Sanskrit Literature, London, 1900.--=Macnaghten=, W. H., Principles of Hindu and Mohammedan Law, London, 1884.--=McRindle=, J. W., The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, London, 1893.--=Majer=, Fr., Brahma, oder die Religion der Indier als Brahmismus, Leipsic, 1818.--=Manning=, Mrs. C., Ancient and Mediæval India, London, 1869.--=Mariano=, R., Buddismo e Christianesimo, Napoli, 1890.--=Marrat=, J., The Land of the Ganges, or Sketches of Northern India, London, 1892.--=Marshman=, F. C., Abridgement of the History of India, London, 1893.--=Maurice=, Th., The History of Hindostan, London, 1795.--=Ménant=, D., Les Parsis, Histoire des communautés Zoroastriennes de l’Inde, Paris, 1898.--=Mill=, Jas., History of British India.--=Milloué=, de, Le Bouddhisme dans le monde, Paris, 1893.--=Minayeff=, J. P., Recherches sur le bouddhisme, Paris, 1894.--=Monchoisy=, L’Inde et les Hindous, Basle, 1892.--=Monier-Williams=, M., Brahmanism and Hinduism, London, 1891; Indian Wisdom, London, 1893, 4th edition; Indian Epic Poetry: Substance of Lectures, London, 1863; A Sanskrit Manual, London, 1868; Buddhism in its Connection with Brahmanism and Hinduism, London, 1889.--=Moses=, H., Sketches of India, London, 1850.--=Muir=, J., Original Sanscrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India, their Religion and Institutions, London, 1858-1872, 5 vols.; Religious and Moral Sentiments Metrically rendered from Sanskrit Writers, London, 1875; Natapariksha, or Examination of Religions, Calcutta, 1854.--=Mullens=, Religious Aspects of Hindu Philosophy, London, 1860.--=Müller=, Max, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, London, 1860; India, What can it Teach Us? London, 1883; The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, London, 1899.--=Müller=, N., Glauben, Wissen, und Kunst der alten Hindus, Mainz, 1822.

* * * * *

=Oldenberg=, H., Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde, Berlin, 1890; Die Hymnen des Rigveda, Berlin, 1888; Die Religion des Veda, Berlin, 1894.

* * * * *

=Philostratus=, τὰ ἐς τὸν Τυανέα Ἀφολλώνιον, Venice, 1502.--=Picard=, Ch., Sémites et Aryens, Paris, 1893.--=Pischel=, R., and =Geldner=, K. F., Vedische Studien.--=Polier=, Mythologie des Indous, Rudolstadt et Paris, 1809.--=Poor=, Sanskrit and its Kindred Literatures, London, 1890.--=Pope=, G. M., A Textbook of Indian History, London, 1880.

* * * * *

=Raffles=, Thomas Stamford, The History of Java, London, 1817.--=Rajendralala=, Mitra, Indo-Aryans. Contributions towards the Elucidation of their Ancient and Mediæval History, Calcutta, 1881, 2 vols.--=Rea=, South Indian Buddhist Antiquities, Madras, 1894, and London, 1895.--=Reed=, E. A., Hindu Literature or the Ancient Books of India, Chicago, 1891.--=Reinach=, L’origine des Aryens, Paris, 1892.--=Rickards=, R., India, London, 1829-1832, 2 vols.--=Risley=, The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Calcutta, 1891, 2 vols.; Ethnographic Glossary, Calcutta, 1891.--=Robertson=, W., An Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, London, 1791.--=Robson=, J., Hinduism and its Relation to Christianity, London, 1893.

* * * * *

=Saint-Hilaire=, J. B., The Buddha and his Religion, London, 1895.--=Saizau=, M., Le Bouddha et le Bouddhisme, Paris, 1890.--=Samuelson=, F., India, Past and Present, Histor., Social, and Political, London, 1890.--=Schlegel=, F., Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Inder, Heidelberg, 1808; Indische Bibliothek, Bonn, 1820.--=Schrader=, O., Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, London, 1890.--=Schröder=, L. von, Pythagoras und die Inder, Leipsic, 1884; Indiens Litteratur und Cultur in historischer Entwicklung, Leipsic, 1887; Buddhismus und Christentum, Reval, 1893.--=Scott=, A., Buddhism and Christianity, Edinburgh, 1890.--=Senart=, E., Sur quelques termes buddhisques, Paris, 1877; Les inscriptions de Piyadasi, Paris, 1881-1888, 2 vols.; Essai sur la légende de Buddha, son caractère et ses origines, Paris, 1882; Les castes dans l’Inde, Paris, 1896.--=Sherring=, M. A., Hindu Tribes and Castes, Calcutta, 1881, 3 vols.--=Simon=, R., Beiträge zur Kenntniss der vedischen Schulen, Kiel, 1890.--=Smith=, G., The Conversion of India from Plantænus to Present Time, A.D. 193-1893, London, 1893.--=Strabo=, Geography, London, 1800.--=Strachey=, Sir J., India, London, 1894.--=Strong=, D. M., Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism: a Symphony, London, 1899.

* * * * *

=Tassy=, Garcin de, Histoire de la littérature hindouie et hindoustani, Paris, 1839-1847, 2 vols.; La langue et la littérature hindoustanies, Paris, 1850-1869--=Trotter=, L. J., The History of India from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, London, 1890.

* * * * *

=Ujfalvy=, C. de, Le berceau des Aryas, Paris, 1884; Les Arriens au Nord et au Sud de l’Hindoukouch, Paris, 1897.

* * * * *

=Vallee Poussin=, L. de la, Bouddhisme. Études et matériaux.--=Vicwa Mitra=, Les Chamites. Indes Pré-Aryennes, Paris, 1892.--=Vinson=, J., L’évolution du Bouddhisme, Paris, 1892.

* * * * *

=Waddell=, L. A., The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism, London, 1898.--=Ward=, W., A View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos, including a Minute Description of their Manners and Customs and Translations from their Principal Works, London, 1817-1820, 4 vols.--=Wassiljew=, W., Der Buddhismus, Seine Dogmen, Geschichte und Litteratur, Petersburg, 1860.--=Weber=, A., Indische Litteraturgeschichte, Berlin, 1852; Indische Skizzen, Berlin, 1857; Indische Streifen, Berlin, 1868-1879, 3 vols.; Die Kastenverhältnisse in den Brahmanen und Sutra (in “Indische Studien,” Berlin and Leipsic).--=Weber=, G., Allgemeine Weltgeschichte, Leipsic, 1857-1880.--=Weeks=, G. M., Indian Idyls, London, 1865.--=Westergard=, N. L., Über den ältesten Zeitraum der indischen Geschichte mit Rücksicht auf die Litteratur, Breslau, 1862.--=Wiese=, F. A., Indien oder die Hindus, Leipsic, 1836, 2 vols.--=Wilson=, H. H., Editor of James Mill’s History of British India.--=Wimpffen=, Max von, Kritische Worte über den Buddhismus, Wien, 1890.--=Windisch=, E., Über die Bedeutung des indischen Altertums, Leipsic, 1895.--=Wurm=, Geschichte der indischen Religion, Bâle, 1874.

* * * * *

=Yasuda=, M., Die Bedeutung der allgemeinen Sittenlehre des Buddhismus, Jena, 1893.

* * * * *

=Ziegenbein=, Beschreibung der Religion und Gebräuche der malabrarischen Hindus, Berlin, 1791.--=Zimmermann=, J. Ch., De India antiqua dissertatio historica, Erlangæ, 1811.

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VIII. THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PERSIA

BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES

CTESIAS, A. H. L. HEEREN, HERODOTUS, G. C. C. MASPERO, EDUARD MEYER, THEODOR NÖLDEKE, H. C. RAWLINSON

WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM

THE HOLY BIBLE, BEROSUS, MAX DUNCKER, VICTOR FLOIGL, JAS. MORIER, POLYÆNUS, R. K. PORTER, J. V. PRASEK, R. W. ROGERS, A. H. SAYCE, XANTHUS, XENOPHON

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VIII. ANCIENT PERSIA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PERSIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 559

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V. PERSIAN CIVILISATION 634

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 662

A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PERSIAN HISTORY 663

PERSIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY

THE MEDIAN OR SCYTHIAN EMPIRE

The Scythians or Manda, a people whom the Greeks confused with the Mada or Medes, were a part of the nomadic Indo-Europeans that migrated into Western Asia from southern Russia. They descended upon and quite obliterated the ancient kingdom of Ellipi, east of Assyria and stretching to the Caspian Sea. In the Ellipian capital of Ecbatana they seem to have effected quickly the organisation of a state recognised as a danger to Assyria as far back as the reign of Esarhaddon.

Of the early rulers at Ecbatana we have no accounts except those of Herodotus and Ctesias. From these we must assume:

700 B.C. =Deioces=, the first leader or prince mentioned by the Greeks. He lives at a time of great Assyrian power and seems to have been a vassal of the kingdom, but he was probably the founder of his empire. Apparently he did not rule at Ecbatana, for the kingdom of Ellipi was still in existence.

647 =Phraortes= (=Frawarti=) succeeds. He extends the power of the Manda, and in his reign the kings of Persia and Elam are made his vassals.

625 =Cyaxares= succeeds. About this time the Scythians first invade Assyria. They burn Calah, but are unable to take Nineveh. They sweep over the land as far as the border of Egypt, where Psamthek pays them to turn back.

610 Sin-shar-ishkun, king of Assyria, attacks Nabopolassar of Babylon. The latter calls upon the Manda to help repel the invaders. The Manda immediately respond and attack Nineveh.

607 Fall of Nineveh before the Manda. They take possession of the old kingdom of Assyria as far as the Babylonian frontier, and begin conquest of the countries of the north. Cyaxares makes war on the Lydians, the people of Urartu, Media, Minni, and others.

585 =Ishtuvegu= (=Astyages=) succeeds. His empire extends in the north and west as far as the river Halys.

553 For some reason, not yet clear, Ishtuvegu proceeds against his vassal Cyrus, king of the Elamite province of Anshan.

550 Ishtuvegu is betrayed by his soldiers to Cyrus and made prisoner. The Elamite king takes Ecbatana, and becomes king of the Manda.

End of the Median or Scythian empire.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

The country of Parsua or Persia was first settled by Iranian tribes of Indo-European origin. The leading ones were the Pasagadæ, Maraphians, and Maspians. These lived by agriculture, cattle raising, and horse breeding, but in the mountains and desert steppes there were many nomadic tribes such as the Mardans, Kossæans, and Sagartians. Our earliest knowledge of Persian history is obtained from the Assyrian monuments, and the country seems to have been in vassalage to the mightier conquerors and to have recovered, in a measure at least, its independence whenever a weaker monarch ascended the Ninevite throne. The first historical dynasty, according to Greek historians, is the Achæmenian, and of its origin we know nothing; the founder, Achæmenes, is probably a mythical character.

FIRST PERIOD--THE EARLY ACHÆMENIANS AND THE ELAMITE DYNASTY (730-521 B.C.)

730 The first historic king, =Teispes=, rules about this time. His attainment to power is probably connected with some relaxation of the Assyrian grip. His successors, according to Herodotus, are Cambyses, =Cyrus=, and =Teispes II=. The last seems to have conquered the Elamite province of Anshan, which on his death went to his son Cyrus, and the throne of Persia to =Ariaramnes=. From the latter half of the seventh century B.C. reign, independent of each other, the two lines of the Achæmenians of which Darius speaks--one in Anshan, where by conquest the entire ancient kingdom of Elam was absorbed, the other in Persia. Both houses become vassals of the emperor of Ecbatana. Ariaramnes is succeeded by =Arsaces=, and then by =Hystaspes=, and in Elam, =Cyrus I=, according to the accounts of his grandson, by =Cambyses=, the father of Cyrus the Great.

559 =Cyrus the Great= succeeds Cambyses on the throne of Elam.

553 He is attacked by his suzerain, Ishtuvegu (Astyages).

550 Ishtuvegu is betrayed to Cyrus and made prisoner. The Elamite takes Ecbatana and obtains possession of the Median or Scythian empire.

His career of conquest begins.

549 Cyrus enters Assyria and takes a district belonging to Babylonia.

547 King Crœsus of Lydia, fearful of Cyrus’ power, determines to attack him, and forms a coalition with Aahmes II of Egypt, Nabonidus of Babylon, and the Spartans.

546 Cyrus meets Crœsus in Cappadocia. The latter, defeated in two battles, retreats to Sardis and sends for his allies, who do not appear. Sardis falls in the autumn. Cyrus now calls himself king of Persia. Hystaspes probably remains his vassal, as he had been that of Ishtuvegu.

545 The whole of Asia Minor is in Cyrus’ hands. It is divided into satrapies with strongly organised governments. Greek cities in Asia Minor gradually subjected.

549-539 Cyrus annexes Bactriana, and makes numerous successful expeditions in the East.

539 Cyrus starts for Babylon. He is opposed at Upi, but is victorious and moves southward.

538 Babylon opens her gates to Cyrus. Nabonidus flees. The Syrio-Phœnician provinces submit. Cyrus gives permission to the Hebrew exiles to return. The new territory is reorganised.

529 Death of Cyrus in battle. =Cambyses=, the heir apparent, has his brother Smerdis put to death.

526 Warlike preparations for conquest of Egypt begin. Phœnicia furnishes a fleet.

525 Battle of Pelusium. Defeat of Psamthek III. Egypt becomes a Persian province. Polycrates, of Samos, also submits. Cambyses plans attack on Carthage, but his army is lost in the Libyan desert.

524-523 Expedition against Ethiopia, which seems to have overthrown the kingdom of Napata. The army suffers great loss in the return march. Cambyses, enraged by this, outrages the Egyptian gods and the Apis bull.

522 He starts for home, but in Syria is informed that =Gaumata=, a Magian, has impersonated the murdered Smerdis and seized the throne. Cambyses commits suicide.

521 The Achæmenian, Darius Hystaspes, of Persia, and six other princes form a conspiracy against Gaumata, who is murdered.

SECOND PERIOD--THE PERSIAN DYNASTY (521-331 B.C.)

521 =Darius= made king. The throne now passes to the “second line” of Teispes II’s descendants. Darius marries Atossa, wife of Cambyses, and daughter of Cyrus. The end of the Elamite Dynasty is the signal for revolt in all the provinces. Babylon rebels, and a son of Nabonidus is proclaimed king as Nebuchadrezzar III. Susiana rises. Darius has to begin the reconquest of Cyrus’ empire.

519-518 Babylon besieged, captured, and the usurper put to death. Another usurper is also put to death. The Scythian provinces, Parthia, Hyrcania, Urartu, and Margiana are quieted. Another false Smerdis in Persia is overthrown. Orœtes, in Sardis, becomes too independent, and is put to death. In Egypt, the governor, Aryandes, proves disloyal, and is executed. Darius shows favour to the Egyptian priests.

515 By this date the empire is thoroughly reorganised, divided into satrapies, and taxes regulated. The Asiatic Greeks intrigue with those of Europe. Expedition of Darius into Scythia. He crosses the Bosporus with 800,000 troops, and his generals reduce towns in Thrace and make the king of Macedonia pay tribute.

512 Darius marches to the Indus, subjugating the tribes on the right bank north of the Kabul. The region is formed into a satrapy.

506 The overthrown Athenian tyrant, Hippias, appeals to Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, for restoration. The Athenians refuse to comply with a request for restoration.

499 Aristagoras, satrap of Miletus, revolts, and is supported by the Greeks on the Ægean Sea. The Persians attack Naxos. The Ionians revolt.

498 Sardis burned by Aristagoras. The Ionian war begins.

494 Ionians defeated off Lade. Fall of Miletus and end of the war.

492 Mardonius sets out to reconquer Greece. He captures some towns in the archipelago, but his fleet is wrecked off Athos.

491 Persian forces concentrated in Cilicia for the second attack on Greece.

490 Invasion of Greece under Datis and Artaphernes. Naxos and Eretria taken. Defeat at Marathon. Darius begins collection of another army, but his plans are suddenly 486 stopped for Egypt revolts, the Persians are expelled, and Khabbash placed on the throne.

485 Death of Darius and is succeeded by his son =Xerxes I=.

484 Defeat of Khabbash in a naval battle. Achæmenes, brother of Xerxes, made satrap of Egypt.

481 Revolt in Babylon crushed; her temples pillaged.

480 Invasion of Greece. The Persians victorious at Thermopylæ and Artemisia.

Athens occupied. Battle of Salamis. Defeat of Persians. Athens evacuated.

479 Invasion of Attica under Mardonius. Defeat of Platæa. Persian fleet also defeated at Mycale.

479-478 Ionia and the islands lost to Persia.

476 Persians expelled from Thrace.

470 Fall of Eion.

465 Cimon’s victory over the Persians at the mouth of the Eurymedon. Xerxes is assassinated by Artabanus in league with Artaxerxes, who also puts his elder brother Darius to death.

464 =Artaxerxes I= takes the throne.

462 A rising in Bactria is quelled after two battles.

460 Rebellion in Egypt under Inarus, king of Libya, assisted by the Athenians.

459 Victory of Inarus at Papremis. He besieges the Persians in Memphis.

455-454 Megabyzus with a large army finally subdues Egypt at Prosphitis. Thannyras is made king of Libya in his father’s place. Some Egyptians proclaim Amyrtæus king in the Saïd.

449 Persians attempt to recover Cyprus. Cimon of Athens opposes them. Death of Cimon. Persian fleet and army defeated at Salamis in Cyprus. Callias concludes a treaty of peace between Persia and Athens.

448 Megabyzus, governor of Syria, rebels. He is subdued and pardoned.

424 Death of Artaxerxes. His eldest son =Xerxes II= reigns forty-five days, and is murdered by Artaxerxes’ illegitimate son =Sogdianus=, who after six months’ rule is in turn 423 killed by another bastard son Ochus, who assumes the name of =Darius II= (=Nothus=) and marries his aunt Parysatis.

The king’s brother Arsites, and Artyphius, son of Megabyzus, rebel. They are overcome, and Arsites put to death.

418 Revolt of Pissuthenes, satrap of Lydia. It is put down by Tissaphernes.

412 Amorges, son of Pissuthenes, who has continued the revolt in Caria, is finally overcome. Treaty with Sparta recognising Darius’ suzerainty over Greek cities in Asia Minor. Cities in Ionia and Caria recovered. The Spartans intrigue with Tissaphernes.

408 Cyrus, the king’s son, made satrap of Lydia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia. Tissaphernes retains the coast cities only. Cyrus burns for revenge on the Athenians.

405 Cyrus allies himself with the Spartans and is accused of treason. He aims to procure the throne for himself.

Amyrtæus (Amen-Rut) proclaims the independence of Egypt.

404 Death of Darius. Cyrus attempts to kill Arsaces, the eldest son and heir, but fails. Arsaces ascends the throne as =Artaxerxes II=.

401 Cyrus sets out for Persia with an army, but is met and defeated at Cunaxa by the imperial forces. Cyrus dies in the battle. Retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, his mercenaries.

Alliance of Persia and Athens against Sparta.

399 Amyrtæus (Amen-Rut) in Egypt succeeded by Niafaarut I. Egypt recovers her old-time activity; she intrigues with Syria and Cyprus against Persia.

Artaxerxes is compelled to send an army raised for the suppression of Egypt into Asia Minor.

394 Conon at the head of the Persian fleet defeats the Spartans at Cnidus.

391 Artaxerxes and Evagoras of Cyprus at open war.

387 Peace of Antalcidas. The Asiatic Greeks are given back to the Persian power.

386-385 War between Cyprus and Persia. Defeat of Evagoras. Haker of Egypt allies himself with the Pisidians. Artaxerxes’ campaign against the Cadusians.

383 Surrender of Evagoras to Persia.

378 Nectanebo I ascends throne of Egypt. Chabrias, the Athenian, reorganises the Egyptian army.

374 Failure through mutiny of the mercenaries of the Persian expedition against Nectanebo.

370-365 The satraps of Asia Minor break out in revolt. This weakens the empire greatly.

364 Tachus succeeds Nectanebo I in Egypt.

361 Tachus invades Syria.

359 His nephew Nectanebo II seizes the Egyptian throne and Tachus is obliged to take refuge with the Persians.

358 Death of Artaxerxes II. His son Ochus murders all possible claimants, and takes the throne with the name of =Artaxerxes III=. Defeat of the Persians in Egypt.

352 Revolt of Tennes of Sidon against Persia. Cyprus joins him.

347 Isocrates exhorts Philip of Macedon to attack Persia.

345 Tennes betrays Sidon to Artaxerxes III. The city is cruelly punished. Cyprus subdued.

340 Conquest of Egypt by Artaxerxes.

338 Murder of Artaxerxes by the prime minister, the eunuch Bagoas. =Arses=, the king’s youngest son, placed on the throne.

336 The Macedonian army crosses into Asia. Death of Philip.

335 Bagoas puts Arses and his children to death. Codomannus, great-grandson of Darius II, placed on the throne as =Darius III=. He has Bagoas put to death.

334 Alexander crosses the Hellespont. Battle of the Granicus. Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia submit to the Greeks.

333 Battles of Issus and Amanus. Phrygia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia submit to the Greeks; also the whole of northern Syria.

332 Alexander captures Tyre,--Phœnicia, Judea, and Samaria submit. Egypt goes over to the Greeks. Darius’ attempt to recover Asia Minor is frustrated.

331 Alexander invades Assyria. Battle of Arbela which overthrows the Achæmenian Dynasty. Darius flees into Media. Fall of Babylon and Susa. Pasagarda and Persepolis captured.

330 Bessus, satrap of Bactria, seizes Darius and murders him. He calls himself =Artaxerxes IV=, but finally falls into Alexander’s hands and is put to death.

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I. LAND AND PEOPLE

The Persians were the first Aryans to achieve a great world empire within historic times. With them the Aryan race became dominant in the Western world, and it has so continued to the present time. The Persians themselves maintained first place among the nations only for about two centuries, or from the time of Cyrus until the Asiatic conquests of Alexander the Great. And the sceptre which they laid down was taken up by Western nations akin to them in speech, and passed on from one to another people of the same great Indo-Germanic race throughout the two and a half millenniums which separate the time of Cyrus from our own. But it is not only because of their kinship with European nations that the Persians are of interest. Their history has intrinsic importance. Theirs was unquestionably the mightiest empire the world had seen since secure history began. It extended from India on the east, to the extreme confines of Asia on the west and the northwest, and beyond them to include Egypt. It even threatened at one time, through the subjugation of Greece, to invade Europe as well, and numberless writers have moralised on the great change of destiny that would have fallen to the lot of Western civilisation, had this threat been made effective. All such moralising of course is but guess-work, and it may be questioned whether most of it has any validity whatever. For the truth seems to be that the Persians were much more nearly akin to the European intellect than a study of their descendants of recent generations would lead one to suppose. It is everywhere conceded that they sprang from the same stock, and their most fundamental traits show many points of close resemblance. Thus it is matter of record that the Persians differed widely from the Hamitic or Semitic conquerors, both in their methods of warfare and in their treatment of conquered enemies. The Semites, in particular, were notoriously cruel and unimaginative in their treatment of fallen foes. The word “unimaginative” is here used advisedly, for it would seem as if nothing but curiously defective imagination could permit one human being to treat another in the atrocious manner which characterised the conquerors of the Semitic race--not merely the Babylonians and Assyrians, but the Hebrews as well, as the history of David only too amply illustrates.

The paragraph in which David’s treatment of the people of the conquered city of Rabbah, as recorded, is a fair sample of the usual fortunes of war that fell to the lot of the victims of a Semitic nation.

“And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kilns, and thus he did unto all the children of Ammon.”

But the Persians, on the other hand, be it recorded to their credit, did not as a rule resort to such atrocities. Such rules as this must indeed always be taken with certain qualifications, for there were, unfortunately, cases in which the Persian conqueror inflicted upon an enemy a vengeance almost comparable to the Semitic type. But this was rare, except in the case of rebels; and not usual even with these, and it must be remembered on the other hand, that the records of Western nations are not altogether free from similar charges of cruelty. On the whole, the conduct of such great Persian leaders as Cyrus the Great and Darius I, will perhaps compare favourably with that of any European conqueror.

Another very essential point in which the Persians of the early day bore a close resemblance to Europeans of the later generation, is in regard to their religion. It is admitted on all hands that in its original or uncorrupted form the religion of the Persians was of a very high type. It was embodied in a creed at a very early day, possibly not later than 1000 B.C., by the great prophet Zoroaster. Like the other great religions, it grew by accretion, and came to have linked with it a set of myths and fables that are difficult to ascribe to their particular periods of origin. We are not even sure within perhaps five hundred years of the exact time when Zoroaster lived, but this is of comparatively little consequence when one reflects that a great religion is always a slow growth, and that any particular religious teacher to whom it may be ascribed, after all, has done nothing more than focalise the national tendency, or form a centre about which the ideas and tendencies of an epoch may crystallise.

In the case of the Zoroastrian religion, it was finally given tangible and permanent expression in the pages of the Zendavesta or sacred book of the Persians. The national spirit given expression is, as has been said, in many ways of a high order. It has sometimes been doubted whether any religion in its last analysis is ever otherwise than monotheistic. Be that as it may, it seems quite clear that the early religion of the Persians was almost a pure monotheism, nor did it in its later stages depart more widely from the monotheistic type than has been the case, at some stage of its development, with every other great religion of which we have any knowledge. Thus the Zoroastrian system admits a sun-god, Mithra, who is the creator of the god of Light, Ormuzd, and of the god of Darkness, Ahriman. Here, at first glance, there seems to be clearly a trinity of gods of practically equal power. But when we try to get close to the thought of this creed, we find that Ormuzd is regarded as equal to Mithra, even though created by him, and that, on the other hand, Ahriman is supposed ultimately to be conquered by the God of Light, notwithstanding the ages of time throughout which he wields malevolent power.

If we consider dispassionately the fundamental character of the creeds of Christendom, there must be apparent a strange similarity to this Zoroastrian creed. To a Persian who should attempt to gain an insight into this creed of the Western world, the conception of an omnipotent father creating a son, who, after all, is said to be co-eternal with the father, must seem in closest possible analogy with his own Mithra and Ormuzd, while nothing could be clearer than that a Satan of such godlike power as to be able to combat successfully against the powers of good, age after age, must be no other than Ahriman or his counterpart. To this Zoroastrian investigator, then, it must seem clear,--even though he were to take no note of the third member of the orthodox trinity and of the saints, who must seem minor gods to a foreign intelligence,--that this Western religion is a polytheism closely similar to the creed of Zoroaster, and, like that, despite its galaxy of deities, showing evidence of a basal conception of monotheism. Indeed, in whatever candid view the subject is considered, it must be clear that this early Aryan faith of which we have any present record is closely similar in its fundamentals to the faith which the main body of Aryans of the Western world profess to this day; and this fact, as has been said, furnishes a close link between Persian and European, and gives an added interest to the history of this great people.

RACIAL AND DYNASTIC ORIGINS

As to the origin of the Medo-Persians, nothing need be added beyond what has already been said of the origin of the Indians. There must have been a time, probably at a relatively late period, when the ancestors of the Indians and the ancestors of the Persians formed a single colony or group of colonies, which had its seat, it may reasonably be inferred, somewhere in the region which was afterwards known as Bactria. Thence the tide of migration swept to the southeast, as we have seen, into India, and to the southwest across the tableland of Iran, or, as we more generally term it, Persia. The vast territory of Iran came early to be divided between two peoples of this same stock, of which the one inhabiting the northeastern part of the territory was called by Greek writers the Medes, although recent investigation has tended to establish the fact that the so-called Median nation was really that of the Scythians and not that of the Medes, who lived farther to the west. Nevertheless, it seems advisable to retain the phrase Medo-Persian empire. The other, or the southeastern nation, had the name of Persian. The Scythians first gained world-historic importance and entered the field of secure history by their share in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire, in which enterprise, as we have seen, they were associated with the Babylonians. For a short period after this, the Scythians divided with the Babylonians the honours of world imperialism; then their power was snatched from them by their kindred on the south and west, and the great Medo-Persian empire came into existence.

The builder of this empire was the mighty Cyrus, one of the most powerful, and, if tradition is to be credited, one of the best of the great conquerors of history. He was an Elamite prince, but is more familiar to history as the king of Persia, which land he added to his domains early in his career of conquest. When Cyrus was born, Persia was an insignificant territory, the name of which had not yet impressed itself upon history; and before Cyrus died he had made himself absolute master of all southern Asia west of the Ganges, and the name of the minor border country, Persia, had been given to the greatest empire in the world. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, extended the sway of this empire over Egypt, and his successor and kinsman, Darius, crossed the Hellespont and precipitated that conflict between the East and the West which for two centuries continued to be perhaps the most important factor in world history. But before we turn to the specific incidents of this great drama, we must see something more in detail of this parent land of Aryan civilisation and its gifted people.[a]

THE LAND

The centre of the Iranian tableland consists of a great salt steppe, destitute alike of vegetation and fresh water, torrid and almost impassable by the foot of man in summer. The only spots fit for permanent habitation and agriculture are where the rainfall from lofty mountain ranges collects to form short watercourses, as in the provinces of Kerman and Jezd, and where, in the northeast, the rivers that flow down from the Hindu Kush, the Etymander (Helmund) and many like it, carry life farther into the interior, until they end in the shallow and swampy lake (Zireh or Hamun) in the land of the Drangians. With these exceptions, no more than the borders of Iran are habitable. It is hemmed in by lofty mountain ranges to the north and south, and from the Hindu Kush to the snow-clad heights of Mount Elburz to the south of the Caspian Sea, extends the hill country of Chorasan, in ancient times the abode of the Hyrcanian, Parthian, Aryan, and Drangian tribes. It forms the watershed of numerous rivers, which flow down on either side, making oases in the central desert and the Turanian lowlands, until they succumb in the struggle with the waste of sand. Chorasan constitutes the bridge between the mountain country of Bactria and Sogdiana, in the east, the region about the Oxus and Jaxartes, and Media in the west, where the ranges that run up from the south approach more and more closely to the mountains of the northern frontier, enclosing fertile highlands, rich in lakes and watercourses, where the summer is temperate and the winter severe. Here, in conflict with the Assyrians the Iranians first evolved their political system. From Media the Zagros Mountains run southeast to the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian shores of this arm of the sea present an aspect no less dreary than the Arabian. Navigation is impeded by reefs and shoals, the coast is low, and ill-provided with harbours. Torrid sunshine beats down upon it, making it almost uninhabitable for man and beast; nothing but the palm tree flourishes. In the rainy season the torrent brooks that descend from the highlands merely hurry their more copious supply of water to the sea, and serve no purpose of irrigation or navigation. In the east, on the coast of Mekran, a poverty-stricken fishing population (the Ichthyophagi) ekes out a scanty livelihood, while even the higher land of the interior, Gedrosia, which extends to the regions about the Etymander (Baluchistan) is absolutely desert except for a few well-watered and fertile valleys, and lies so remote from all civilised nations that hardly a single European has trodden it from the time of Alexander to the present century. It is the haunt of nomadic tribes like the Mykians and Parikanians, some of whom are not even of Iranian descent, but are more nearly akin to the earliest inhabitants of India, the progenitors of the Brahuis of to-day, to whom the Greeks sometimes applied the name of Ethiopians.

The west, the land of the Persians, is of a different type. At the distance of a few miles from the coast the spurs of the Zagros Mountains rise one above the other, and the valleys and plains between them, having an elevation of fifteen hundred to two thousand metres above sea-level, enjoy a more temperate climate and a more copious rainfall. “Here a mild climate prevails,” says Nearchus, “the land is rich in herbs and well-watered pastures, it produces abundance of wine and of all other fruits except the olive. Therein are flourishing pleasure grounds; rivers of clear water and lakes, well stocked with water-fowl, irrigate the country. The breeding of horses and beasts of burden prospers; forests full of wild animals are plentiful.” The forests are gone from the mountains; the brooks and rose gardens of Shiraz look wretched enough to the traveller from a more bounteous clime, but the Persian poets are never weary of praising the loveliness of their native land, and King Darius boasts that it is “a fair land of excellent horses and excellent men, which by Ahuramazda’s protection and mine, trembles before no foe.” Persia is bounded on the south by the sea, on the east and north by the desert; the northwest is its only door of communication with other nations. The road leads by mountain passes down to Elam (Susiana) and Babylon; and along the Zagros Mountains lies the way, almost impracticable in the snow-storms of winter, through the rugged highlands of Paretacena (near Ispahan), which already count as a part of Media (Herod. I. 101), to Ecbatana.

THE PEOPLE

The leading tribes of Persia were the Pasargadæ, the Maraphians, and the Maspians, who clustered about the κοιλὴ Πέρσις, that is, the wide and fertile valleys of the Araxes (the Kur or Bendamir) and its principal tributary the Medos or Cyros (Palwar)--a fine and vigorous type of humanity, living by agriculture and cattle rearing and skilled in the use of the spear and bow. Horse breeding, on which the tribes of Iran prided themselves, was assiduously pursued, and hunts in the mountains offered rich gains and hardened the sinews of men for war. Other agricultural tribes were the Panthialæans and the Derusiæans, who probably dwelt farther to the east, the Germanians or Karmanians in the highlands of Kerman. The wilder parts of the mountains and the steppes and deserts of the coast were occupied by predatory nomads, some of them very barbaric, the majority of whom must be ranked under the head of Persians. Such were the Mardans, the neighbours of the Elymæans [Elamites], Uxians (Persian Uvadza, now Chuzistan) and the Kossæans in the Zagros; the Sagartians (Persian Asagarta) in the central desert, the Utians (Persian Jutija) in the Karmanian coast districts, and the Dropicians; the name Dahæ, or “robbers,” is also found here, as in the Turanian steppe. These tribes no more constituted a political unity than did those of Media; divided amongst various districts, the peasants lived in patriarchal conditions under hereditary princes, and were continually at war with the robbers and nomads, while they were protected by the “household gods” who sheltered them from sterility and foes. The influence of Babylonian culture had certainly already penetrated through Susa [Shushan] into the mountain lands of Persia; but that of the kindred race of the Medes was far more powerful. The tribes may have reached their abodes in remote antiquity by the Parætakenian mountain road. By this same route came to them the religion of Zarathustra [Zoroaster], which is the property of all stationary tribes of Iran. In Media the Mazda teaching had already won the mastery as early as the eighth century and perhaps long before; presumably roving priests of the Median priestly caste of the Magi brought it thence to the Persians. Consequently we find the Magian names amongst the Persians in opposition to the “fire kindlers,” (athravan) of the East. In Persia the Magi observed many usages prescribed by the religion which had been borrowed from the Persian people, as the extermination of all unclean beasts and the barbarous custom of allowing corpses to be consumed by dogs and birds of prey. The Persian kings, on the other hand, had their bodies buried.

CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE OF THE ACHÆMENIDES

Our estimate of the significance of the empire of the Achæmenides in the history of the world has been greatly impaired by its being contrasted mainly with Greece and measured by Greek civilisation, not by the earlier and later kingdoms of the East. To this is added the circumstance that our information is often scanty and uncertain, and derived in great part from the period of decadence. An impartial eye cannot fail to perceive that the Persian empire was a great civilised state. This agrees with the profound impression which it made on its contemporaries and enemies like Æschylus, Herodotus, and Xenophon. A sickly despot like Cambyses might allow himself to be carried away by savage whims,--Persian tradition condemns his actions sharply enough, although never forgetting that he was the hereditary sovereign,--but still the Persians always remained faithful to the example of the great founder of the empire. They conducted their wars in an energetic but not blood-thirsty fashion, and although they occasionally dragged conquered foes away from their own countries, yet, down to the time of Artaxerxes III their name was never stained by the annihilation of a great centre of civilisation, though towns like Sardis, Memphis, Babylon, and Shushan repeatedly revolted; the burning of the deserted city of Athens was a political and military necessity, not to be avoided in time of war. The empire of the Achæmenides is distinguished by a breadth of view, a great and humane spirit. Under its rule Anterior Asia was able to enjoy, for more than a century, a peace which was almost undisturbed (save by a few frontier wars like the struggles with the Greeks and the risings in Egypt), a benevolent and just government, and a secure prosperity; and the disintegration of the empire which then began was not brought about by the revolts of subjects but by the quarrels amongst the rulers themselves and the effect of the superior civilisation and military power of the Greeks.

The empire of the Achæmenides is the first of all the states with which history is acquainted, to advance a claim to a universal character. “To be ruler far over this great earth, him the one, to be the lord over many,” “to be king over many lands and tongues,” “over the mountains and plains this side and beyond the sea, this side and beyond the desert,” to this had Ahuramazda, the creator of heaven and earth, appointed the Persian king. He may call himself “the lord of all men from the sunrise to the sunset.” All the nations whose representatives are pictured on the seat of his throne obey him, bring him tribute, and yield him military service.

At the same time it is said that the empire is sensible of being a civilised state. The king has to perform the task which Ahuramazda has laid on him, to exercise justice, to punish injustice and falsehood, to reward friends, to chastise enemies, and “under the shelter of Ahuramazda to impose his laws on the countries.” “King of the countries” (Khshajathija dahjunam, Bab sar matati) is his most characteristic title. Still more usual is “king of kings,” although with the exception of the king of Cilicia, he has no vassals properly so-called; for the town princes and tribal chiefs, of whom there is no lack amongst the subjects of the Persian empire, stand so far below him that they give no true meaning to the title. It may therefore be that the designation which, as is well known, has remained the regular appellation of the Persian king, is not of Median origin at all (the Assyrians and Babylonians were also unacquainted with it); but it would rather seem to express the summit of royalty, like the Greek appellation Basileus without the article, which gives expression to the idea that this conception has only one representative in the world. For this very reason the partition of the empire amongst the sons of a king, so frequent in other ages, could not take place here; and the attempt of Cyrus to give his younger son a position of his own by investing him with several provinces under the suzerainty of the elder, was not again repeated in the same fashion, after its unfortunate results. The universal empire was a united state and knew only one master.

Regarded from the standpoint of the East, universality attained a similar range through the conquests of Cyrus and Cambyses as in the imperial dominion of Rome. If on the borders of the earth there dwelt turbulent peoples at a lower level of civilisation or one which was incomprehensible to that of the East, that was of no more importance to the Persian empire than the independence of the Germans and Getæ or of the Parthian kingdom was to the Roman Orbis terrarum. All the civilised peoples of the East were joined together to form one state. From the time of the restoration of the unity of the empire by Darius the dominion of the Achæmenides ceases to be a conquering state: all that was left to subsequent ages was the task of organising and completing and maintaining what had been acquired.

In the civilised states that they had subdued, the Persian kings had as far as possible preserved the ancient forms which had been consecrated by a tradition preserved for thousands of years. Cyrus in Babylon and Cambyses in Egypt appeared as the divinely appointed successors of the native rulers, and nominally the two kingdoms still continued to exist under their successors. It is true that this was no more than a form; the kingdoms annexed had neither privileges nor a special administration; and Persian governors resided at Babylon and Memphis as in every other province of the empire. In Western Asia there is no trace of a similar spirit of concession nor is there in Lydia. On the other hand much greater consideration was shown to the Medes [Scythians] and the rest of the Iranian peoples. It was through the treachery of Median magnates and by the desertion of the Median army of Astyages that Cyrus’ victory was rendered possible. So in the empire the Medians take rank next to the Persians. “Persia, Media, and the other countries,” so Darius calls his empire; and in Babylon Xerxes is referred to as “King of Persia and Media.”[23]

The kernel of the army consisted of Persians and Medes, the imperial officials were drawn from them, and under Cyrus and Darius the Medes appear in the highest places of trust at the head of the army. The royal apparel and the order of the court was taken by Cyrus from the Medes, and Ecbatana was one of the residences of the Great King. Thus the Median kingdom continues to exist, not like Babylonia and Egypt, as the shadow of a once independent state, but transformed into the Persian empire. Those at a distance were scarcely aware of the internal changes in face of the continued subsistence of a powerful Iranian empire: consequently the Greeks, like other nations, transferred the Median names to the Persian empire.

The other Iranian peoples, who had been in part already subject to the Medes, in part only subdued by Cyrus, were in a similar position to the rest of the Iranian tribes. They were now all united in one kingdom; the rising of the Medes, Sagartians, Parthians, Hyrcanians, Margians, Sattagydes, and of a part of the Persians after the assassination of the Magian, was the last attempt to maintain the ancient independence of the race. All stationary and many nomadic Iranian, or as they call themselves, Aryan tribes, speak the same Aryan language, varying little in dialect, serve the same pure and true god Ahuramazda, “the god of the Aryans,” as the Susan translation of the Behistun inscription calls him.

The list of the subject districts which Darius enumerates, shows how much more his interests were directed to these nations than to his subjects in the west. In the inscription on his tomb he calls himself with pride, not only a Persian but also “an Aryan of Aryan race.” It is remarkable that the Babylonian translation omits this addition while the Susan retains the Persian words: he boasts that he was the first to draw up Aryan inscriptions and to send them into all countries [only retained in the Susan]. Thus the tribal distinctions were not yet abolished, but were repressed; the empire of the Achæmenides was not, like that of the Sassanides, the “empire of Iran and Extra-Iran”; but it had paved the way for the event that the Aryans of Iran, unlike their brothers in India, were to become a united nation.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[23] [See Chap. II.]

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II. THE MEDIAN OR SCYTHIAN EMPIRE

Before taking up the history of Persia proper the story of the Medes must be told. Our account of the Median empire will give the reader an excellent idea of what modern historians have done in co-ordinating and straightening out the accounts of the classical authors. Two of these only wrote about the Medes--Herodotus and Ctesias; and although the latter claims to have founded his Persica,--written to refute Herodotus,--on the royal archives of Persia, modern criticism and the testimony of the monuments have proved his account to be far the less trustworthy of the two.

We begin, therefore, with the ancient account of Herodotus, after which the reader will find a masterly critique of the Father of History by Dr. Theodor Nöldeke, the greatest modern authority on Persian history. That, however, the last word is not yet spoken on the Medes will be seen from the concluding portion of the chapter in which results obtained from recent decipherments of Assyrian and Persian monuments are set forth. So startling and revolutionising is the knowledge thence obtained, so wholly different is the historical aspect thus revealed, that the term “Median empire” is probably destined to disappear from the historian’s phraseology. Indeed, Professor Sayce in his latest writings has already discarded it.[a]

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MEDIAN EMPIRE ACCORDING TO HERODOTUS

[Sidenote: [ca. 700-607 B.C.]]

The Assyrians had been in possession of the Upper Asia for a period of five hundred and twenty years. The Medes first of all revolted from their authority, and contended with such obstinate bravery against their masters, that they were ultimately successful, and exchanged servitude for freedom.[24] Other nations soon followed their example, who, after living for a time under the protection of their own laws, were again deprived of their freedom, upon the following occasion.

There was a man among the Medes, of the name of Deioces, son of Phraortes, of great reputation for his wisdom, whose ambitious views were thus disguised and exercised: The Medes were divided into different districts, and Deioces was distinguished in his own, by his vigilant and impartial distribution of justice. This he practised in opposition to the general depravity and weakness of the government of his country, and conscious that the profligate and the just must ever be at war with each other. The Medes who lived nearest him, to signify their approbation of his integrity, made him their judge. In this situation, having one more elevated in view, he conducted himself with the most rigid equity. His behaviour obtained the highest applauses of his countrymen; and his fame extending to the neighbouring districts, the people contrasted his just and equitable decisions with the irregularity of their own corrupt rulers, and unanimously resorted to his tribunal, not suffering any one else to determine their litigations.

The increasing fame of his integrity and wisdom constantly augmented the number of those who came to consult him. But when Deioces saw the pre-eminence which he was so universally allowed, he appeared no more on his accustomed tribunal, and declared that he should sit as a judge no longer; intimating that it was inconsistent for him to regulate the affairs of others, to the entire neglect and injury of his own. After this, as violence and rapine prevailed more than ever in the different districts of the Medes, they called a public assembly to deliberate on national affairs. As far as I have been able to collect, they who were attached to Deioces delivered sentiments to this effect: “Our present situation is really intolerable, let us therefore elect a king, that we may have the advantage of a regular government, and continue our usual occupations, without any fear or danger of molestation.” In conformity to these sentiments, the Medes determined to have a king.

After some consultation about what person they should choose, Deioces was proposed and elected with universal praise. Upon his elevation he required a palace to be erected for him suitable to his dignity, and to have guards appointed for the security of his person. The Medes, in compliance with his request, built him a strong and magnificent edifice in a situation which he himself chose, and suffered him to appoint his guards from among the whole nation. Deioces, as soon as he possessed the supreme authority, obliged the Medes to build a city, which was to occupy their attention beyond all other places. They obeyed him in this also, and constructed what we now call Ecbatana.[25] Its walls were strong and ample, built in circles one within another, rising each above each by the height of their respective battlements. This mode of building was favoured by the situation of the place, which was a gently rising ground. They did yet more: the city being thus formed of seven circles, the king’s palace and the royal treasury stood within the last. The largest of these walls is nearly equal in extent to the circumference of Athens; this is of a white colour, the next to it is black, the next purple, the fourth blue, the fifth orange: thus the battlements of each were distinguished by a different colour. The two innermost walls are differently ornamented, one having its battlements plated with silver, the other with gold.

Such were the fortifications and the palace which were erected under the direction of Deioces, who commanded the body of the people to fix their habitations beyond the walls which protected his residence. After which, he was the first who instituted that kind of pomp, which forbids access to the royal person, and only admits communication with him by intermediate agents, the king himself being never publicly seen. His edict also signified, that to smile or to spit in the king’s presence, or in the presence of each other, was an act of indecency. His motive for this conduct was the security of his power; thinking, that if he were seen familiarly by those who were educated with him, born with equal pretensions, and not his inferiors in virtue, it might excite their envy, and provoke them to sedition. On the contrary, by his withdrawing himself from observation, he thought their respect for him would be increased.

When Deioces had taken these measures to increase the splendour of his situation and the security of his power, he became extremely rigorous in his administration of justice. They who had causes to determine, sent them to him in writing, by his official servants, which, with the decisions upon each, he regularly returned. This was the form which he observed in judiciary matters. His proceeding with regard to penal offences was thus: Whenever he heard of any injury being perpetrated, and for this purpose he appointed spies and informers in different parts of his dominions, the offender was first brought to his presence, and then punished according to his offence.

Deioces thus collected the Medes into one nation, over which he ruled: they consisted of the Busæ, the Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti, the Budii, and the Magi.

Deioces reigned fifty-three years, and at his decease, his son Phraortes succeeded to the throne. Not satisfied with the government of the Medes alone, he singled out the Persians as the objects of his ambition, and reduced them first of all under the dominion of the Medes. Supreme of these two great and powerful nations, he overran Asia, alternately subduing the people of whom it was composed. He came at length to the Assyrians, and proceeded to attack that part of them which inhabited Nineveh.[26] These were formerly the most powerful nation in Asia: their allies, at this period, had separated from them; but they were still, with regard to their internal strength, respectable. In the twenty-second year of his reign, Phraortes, in an excursion against this people, perished, with the greater part of his army.

He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares, grandson of Deioces. He is reported to have been superior to his ancestors in valour, and was the first who regularly trained the Asiatics to military service, dividing them, who had before been promiscuously embodied, into companies of spearmen, cavalry, and archers. He it was who was carrying on war with the Lydians, when the engagement which happened in the day, was suddenly interrupted by nocturnal darkness. Having formed an amicable connection with the different nations of Asia beyond the Halys, he proceeded with all his forces to the attack of Nineveh, being equally desirous of avenging his father, and becoming master of the city. He vanquished the Assyrians in battle; but when he was engaged in the siege of Nineveh, he was surprised by an army of Scythians, commanded by Madzas, son of Protothyas.[27] Having expelled the Cimmerians from Europe, the Scythians had found their way into Asia, and, continuing to pursue the fugitives, had arrived at the territories of the Medes.

[Sidenote: [ca. 607-585 B.C.]]

After possessing the dominion of Asia for a space of twenty-eight years, the Scythians lost all they had obtained, by their licentiousness and neglect. The extravagance of their public extortions could only be equalled by the rapacity with which they plundered individuals. At a feast, to which they were invited by Cyaxares and the Medes, the greater part of them were cut off when in a state of intoxication. The Medes thus recovered their possessions, and all their ancient importance; after which they took Nineveh; the particulars of which incident we shall hereafter relate. They, moreover, subdued the Assyrians, those only excepted which inhabited the Babylonian district. Cyaxares reigned forty years, and then died; but in this period is to be included the time in which the Scythians possessed the empire.

His son Astyages succeeded to the throne: he had a daughter whom he called Mandane; she, in a dream, appeared to make so great a quantity of water, that not only his principal city, but all Asia, was overflowed. The purport of this vision, when explained in each particular by the magi, the usual interpreters, terrified him exceedingly. Under this impression, he refused to marry his daughter, when she arrived at a suitable age, to any Mede whose rank justified pretensions to her. He chose rather to give her to Cambyses, a Persian, of a respectable family, but of a pacific disposition, though inferior in his estimation to the lowest of the Medes.

The first year after the marriage of his daughter, Astyages saw another vision. A vine appeared to spring from the womb of Mandane, which overspread all Asia. Upon this occasion also he consulted his interpreters: the result was, that he sent for his daughter from Persia, when the time of her delivery approached. On her arrival, he kept a strict watch over her, intending to destroy her child. The magi had declared the vision to intimate that the child of his daughter should supplant him on his throne. Astyages, to guard against this, as soon as Cyrus was born, sent for Harpagus, a person whose intimacy he used, upon whose confidence he depended, and who indeed had the management of all his affairs. He addressed him as follows: “Harpagus, I am about to use you in a business, in which if you either abuse my confidence, or employ others to do what I am anxious you should do yourself, you will infallibly lament the consequence. You must take the boy of whom Mandane has been delivered, remove him to your own house, and put him to death: you will afterwards bury him as you shall think proper.” “Sir,” he replied, “you have hitherto never had occasion to censure my conduct; neither shall my future behaviour give you cause of offence: if the accomplishment of this matter be essential to your peace, it becomes me to be faithful and obedient.”[b]

According to Herodotus, Harpagus realising that as Astyages had no son, Cyrus was his sole male descendant, was fearful of Mandane’s vengeance when the king should be dead. So, resolved not to have the child’s blood on his hands he gave him to a herdsman, Mithridates by name, with the injunction that young Cyrus be exposed to the wild beasts in an unfrequented part of the mountains among which the herdsman lived. Now it so happened that the wife of Mithridates had the day before been delivered of a still-born child, and when the woman saw the beautiful infant and knew its origin, she proposed that her own dead child be exposed on the mountain, and that she keep the one put into her husband’s hands for destruction. Mithridates approved. His own child, “dressed in the other’s costly clothing, was exposed on a desert mountain.” Proof of this was brought to Harpagus, and then “the herdsman’s child was interred: the other, who was afterwards called Cyrus, was brought up carefully by the wife of the herdsman and called by some other name.”

[Sidenote: [ca. 585 B.C.]]

When the boy was ten years old Astyages suspected the deceit that had been practised upon him. Chance threw the child and his foster-father in the king’s way, and a confession was wrung from the terrified Mithridates. Harpagus was sent for, who told what he believed to be the truth. The sequel had best be told in the language of Herodotus.[a]

Harpagus related the fact without prevarication; but Astyages, dissembling the anger which he really felt, informed him of the confession of the herdsman; and finished his narration in these words, “The child is alive, and all is well: I was much afflicted concerning the fate of the boy, and but ill could bear the reproaches of my daughter. But as the matter has turned out well, you must send your son to our young stranger, and attend me yourself at supper. I have determined, in gratitude for the child’s preservation, to celebrate a festival in honour of those deities who interposed to save him.”

Harpagus, on hearing this, made his obeisance to the king, and returned cheerfully to his house, happy in the reflection that he was not only not punished for his disobedience, but honoured by an invitation to the royal festival. As soon as he arrived at his house, he hastily called for his only son, a boy of about thirteen, ordering him to hasten to the palace of Astyages, and to comply with whatever was commanded him. He then related to his wife, with much exultation, all that had happened. As soon as the boy arrived, Astyages commanded him to be cut in pieces, and some part of his flesh to be roasted, another part boiled, and the whole made ready to be served at table. At the hour of supper, among other guests, Harpagus also attended. Before the rest, as well as before Astyages himself, dishes of mutton were placed, but to Harpagus all the body of his son was served, except the head and the extremities, which were kept apart in a covered basket. After he seemed well satisfied with what he had eaten, Astyages asked him how he liked his fare: Harpagus expressing himself greatly delighted, the attendants brought him the basket which contained the head and extremities of his child, and desired him to help himself to what he thought proper. Harpagus complied, uncovered the vessel, and beheld the remains of his son. He continued, however, master of himself, and discovered no unusual emotion. When Astyages inquired if he knew of what flesh and of what wild beast he had eaten, he acknowledged that he did, and that the king’s will was always pleasing to him. Saying this he took the remnants of the body, and returned to his house, meaning, as I should suppose, to bury them together.

[Sidenote: [ca. 555 B.C.]]

As Cyrus grew up, he excelled all the young men in strength and gracefulness of person. Harpagus, who was anxious to be revenged on Astyages, was constantly endeavouring to gain an interest with him, by making him presents. In his own private situation he could have but little hope of obtaining the vengeance he desired; but seeing in Cyrus when a man, one whose fortunes bore some resemblance to his own, he much attached himself to him. He had, some time before, taken the following measure: Astyages having treated the Medes with great asperity, Harpagus took care to communicate with the men of the greatest consequence among them, endeavouring, by his insinuations, to promote the elevation of Cyrus, and the deposition of his master. Having thus prepared the way, he contrived the following method of acquainting Cyrus in Persia with his own private sentiments, and the state of affairs. The communication betwixt the two countries being strictly guarded, he took a hare, opened its paunch, in which he inserted a letter, containing the information he wished to give, and then dexterously sewed it up again. The hare, with some hunting nets, he entrusted to one of his servants of the chase, upon whom he could depend. The man was sent into Persia, and ordered to deliver the hare to Cyrus himself, who was entreated to open it with his own hands, and without witnesses.

The man executed his commission; Cyrus received the hare, which having opened as directed, he found a letter to the following purport: “Son of Cambyses, Heaven evidently favours you, or you never could have risen thus superior to fortune. Astyages meditated your death, and is a just object of your vengeance; he certainly determined that you should perish; the gods and my humanity preserved you. With the incidents of your life I believe you are acquainted, as well as with the injuries which I have received from Astyages, for delivering you to the herdsman, instead of putting you to death. Listen but to me and the authority and dominions of Astyages shall be yours: first prevail upon the Persians to revolt, and then undertake an expedition against the Medes. If I shall be appointed by Astyages the leader of the forces which oppose you, our object will be instantly accomplished, which I may also venture to affirm of each of our first nobility; they are already favourable to your cause, and wait but the opportunity of revolting from Astyages. All things being thus prepared, execute what I advise without delay.”

Cyrus, on receiving this intelligence, revolved in his mind what would be the most effectual means of inducing the Persians to revolt. After much deliberation he determined on the following stratagem: He dictated the terms of a public letter, and called an assembly of his countrymen. Here it was produced and read, and it appeared to contain his appointment by Astyages to be general of the Persians: “And now, O Persians,” he exclaimed, “I must expect each of you to attend me with an hatchet.” There are many tribes of the Persians: certain of these Cyrus assembled, and persuaded to revolt from the Medes. These are they upon which all the other Persians depend, namely, the Pasargadæ, the Maraphii, and the Maspii: Of these, the Pasargadæ are the most considerable; the Achæmenidæ are those from whom the Persian monarchs are descended. The Panthialæi, Derusiæi, and Germanians follow laborious employments; the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, and Sagartians are feeders of cattle.

They all assembled in the manner they were commanded, and Cyrus directed them to clear, in the space of a day, a certain woody enclosure, which was eighteen or twenty furlongs in extent. When they had executed their task, they were desired to attend the following day to feast and make merry. For this purpose Cyrus collected and slew all the goats, sheep, and oxen, which were the property of his father; and further to promote the entertainment of the Persians, he added rich wines and abundance of delicacies. The next day, when they were met, he desired them to recline on the grass and enjoy themselves. When they were satisfied, he inquired of them which day’s fare delighted them the most: They replied, the contrast betwixt the two was strong indeed, as on the first day they had nothing but what was bad, on the second everything that was good. On receiving this answer, Cyrus no longer hesitated to explain the purpose which he had in view: “Men of Persia,” he exclaimed, “your affairs are thus circumstanced; if you obey me, you will enjoy these and greater advantages, without any servile toils: if you refuse what I propose, you must prepare to encounter worse hardships than those of yesterday. By following my advice you will obtain liberty; Providence appears to have reserved me to be the instrument of your prosperity; you are, doubtless, equal to the Medes in everything, and most assuredly are as brave: this being the case, immediately revolt from Astyages.”

The Persians, who had long spurned at the yoke imposed on them by the Medes, were glad of such a leader, and ardently obeyed the call of liberty. Astyages was soon informed of the proceedings of Cyrus, and commanded his attendance. He returned for answer, that he should probably anticipate the wish of Astyages to see him. Astyages upon this collected the Medes, and, urged by some fatal impulse, appointed Harpagus to command his forces, not remembering the injury he formerly had done him. His army was embodied, the Medes met and engaged the Persians; they who were not privy to the plot fought with valour, the rest went over to the Persians; the greater part discovered no inclination to continue the combat, and hastily retreated.

[Sidenote: [ca. 553 B.C.]]

Astyages, hearing of the ignominious defeat of his army, continued to menace Cyrus; and exclaimed that he should still have no reason to exult. The first thing he did was to crucify the magi, the interpreters of dreams, who had prevailed upon him to send Cyrus away. He then armed all his citizens, young and old, without distinction. He led them against the Persians, and was vanquished: he himself was taken prisoner, and the greater part of his army destroyed.

In his captivity, Harpagus was present to insult and reproach him. Among other things, he asked him what was his opinion of that supper, in which he had compelled a father to feed on the flesh of his child, a supper which had reduced him from a monarch to a slave. In reply Astyages requested to know if he imputed to himself the success of Cyrus? He confessed that he did, explained the means, and justified his conduct. Astyages told him that he was then the most foolish and wicked of mankind;--most foolish, in acquiring for another the authority he might have enjoyed himself; most wicked, for reducing his countrymen to servitude, to gratify his private revenge. If he thought a change in the government really necessary, and was still determined not to assume the supreme authority himself, justice should have induced him to have raised a Mede to that honour, rather than a Persian. The Medes, who were certainly not accessory to the provocation given, had exchanged situations with their servants; the Persians, who were formerly the servants, were now the masters.

After a reign of thirty-five years Astyages was thus deposed. To his cruelty of temper the Medes owed the loss of their power, after possessing, for the space of one hundred and twenty-eight years, all that part of Asia which lies beyond the Halys, deducting from this period the short interval of the Scythian dominion. In succeeding times, being dissatisfied with their condition, they took up arms against Darius; their attempt proved unsuccessful, and they were a second time reduced to servitude. From this period the Persians, who, under the conduct of Cyrus, had shaken off the power of the Medes, remained in undisturbed possession of Asia. Cyrus detained Astyages in captivity for the remainder of his life, but in no other instance treated him with severity. Such is the history of the birth, education, and success of Cyrus. He afterwards, as I have before related, subdued Crœsus, who had attacked him unjustly; from which time he remained without a rival, sovereign of Asia.[b]

Such is the picturesque narrative of Herodotus--the narrative on which all subsequent studies of the subject have been largely based. We take up now a critical analysis of this famous story.

THE MEDIAN EMPIRE: A MODERN INTERPRETATION

The series of the great Iranian monarchies begins for us with the Median empire of Ecbatana. According to Herodotus the Medes freed themselves from the Assyrians, and lived for a time without a master till Deioces obtained the kingly power by stratagem. There reigned then

Deioces 53 years } } } 75 years } Phraortes 22 years } } } 150 years. Cyaxares 40 years } } } 75 years } Astyages 35 years } }

The totals show how the figures are arranged on an artificial system. The duration of the kingdom is exactly a century and a half, divided into two exactly equal portions, each of which is occupied by the reigns of two kings. But further, according to Herodotus, the rule of the Medes over Upper Asia, i.e., the land east of the Halys, lasted one hundred and twenty-eight years, save only (πάρεξ) the twenty-eight years during which the Scythians ruled. It is easy to see that “save only” means “minus,” and that thus the foreign supremacy of the Medes is reckoned at exactly one hundred years, or two-thirds of the total duration of the kingdom. Obviously such figures can at most be only approximately correct. But the names of the kings in Herodotus are now all authenticated, directly or indirectly, by the inscriptions lately discovered. Probably, too, the reckoning of the total duration of the empire at a century and a half is about right. Indeed, such chronological systems sometimes correspond better, on the whole, with the facts than their artificiality would lead us to expect.

We have listened to Herodotus’ naïve story of the foundation of the Median kingdom by Deioces, son of Phraortes, a story in which Greek and oriental colours are charmingly blended. We may assume as certain that Deioces possessed a principality, the central point of which was Ecbatana (or Agbatana; old Persian Hagmatana, now Hamadan), a place which for thousands of years has held the rank of a capital. This principality probably never embraced the whole of Media (i.e., nearly the present provinces of Irak Adjemi and Azerbijan with a portion of Turkish Kurdistan), but by his successors it was enlarged into the great Median empire. Of course there was no smooth and formal constitution, no fixed frontier, no exact determination of the prerogatives of different chiefs in the particular districts. From of old the Assyrians had made frequent attempts to subjugate the country of the Medes, but perhaps never quite possessed the whole land with its numerous inaccessible mountains and warlike robber tribes. Nevertheless they made successful expeditions into the interior of Media even down to the time at which Herodotus regards Media as independent. Neither the liberation of Media nor the foundation of the monarchy is an event which can be limited to a particular year, the thing took place gradually. In the period not long before Deioces, according to Herodotus’ reckoning, very many tributary Median chieftains are mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions; this confirms, in some measure at least, the statement that “anarchy” then prevailed. In 715 B.C. there was carried off as prisoner one Daiaukku; this is certainly the same name, perhaps the same person (for his captivity may have been brief), as Daiokes, which appears in Herodotus in the Ionic form Deiokes. We can certainly identify Herodotus’ first king with the prince whose land, called Bit Daiaukku (i.e., land of Daiaukku), King Sargon of Assyria conquered in 713 B.C. The man who thus gave his name to the land must have occupied a high station. The date is not very remote from that assigned by Herodotus to Deioces; for we get from Herodotus as the date of Deioces 709-656, or, if we correct his error in dating the end of the empire, 700-647. Deioces was not a king of kings; he was forced to bow to the Assyrians repeatedly, but he was the founder of the empire. Three kings followed him. It is possible that there were really more, and that in the summary list the shorter reigns are passed over. Nor can we place much reliance on Herodotus’ assertion that each successive ruler was the son of his predecessor.

[Sidenote: [ca. 700-625 B.C.]]

In perfect harmony with the conditions of development of a small state into a great power is the statement of Herodotus that the second king of the Medes, Phraortes (Frawarti; according to Herodotus’ reckoning 656-634 [647-625]), extended his sway beyond the limits of Media, and first of all subjugated Persis, or Persia proper, the secluded mountain-land southeast of Media. During all this time indeed, as we learn from Darius’ great inscription, Persis had kings of its own; but these were simply vassals of the sultan who had his seat in Ecbatana. After conquering the Persians, Phraortes, says Herodotus, subjugated piece after piece of Asia, until he was discomfited and slain in the attempt to conquer the Assyrians in Nineveh, whose empire was by that time completely lost. Allowing for some exaggerations with respect to the extent of the empire, there is nothing in these statements that need excite suspicion. Independent evidence seems to show that towards the middle of the seventh century the Assyrian empire had fallen very low; and that the inhabitants of the cluster of vast cities to which Nineveh belonged were able to repel the first attack of an enemy who could hardly have been their match in the art of siege-warfare is perfectly natural. Besides, the stability of the Median military, political, and court institutions, which were afterwards taken over unaltered by the Persians, must surely have required for its development a longer time than some modern inquirers, following exclusively the cuneiform inscriptions, have assumed for the actual duration of the Median empire.

Phraortes’ successor, Cyaxares (Huwakhshatara; according to Herodotus’ reckoning 634-594 [625-585]), brought the empire to the highest pitch of power. He is said to have introduced fixed tactical arrangements into the army. It was to him that the pretenders whom Darius had to overcome traced their descent, as he tells us himself. Cyaxares, according to Herodotus, took the field successfully against Nineveh, but as he was besieging the city the inroad of the “Scythians” compelled him to forego for a time all the fruits of victory. Who these Scythians were is unknown. Herodotus took them for the people tolerably familiar to the Greeks, whose true name was Scolotæ; but his evidence does not go for much, since he often falls into the popular misuse of the term “Scythian” as a name for all the peoples of the steppes, and brings the inroads of these Scythians into a most unlikely connection with the desolating raids of Thracian tribes (the Trares or Treres, commonly called Cimmerians) in Asia Minor. We must content ourselves with assuming that we have here one of those irruptions of northern barbarians into Iran of which we hear so often in later times. Probably these nomads came, as Herodotus indicates, through the natural gate between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, the pass of Derbend, though it is quite possible that they came from the east of the Caspian, from the steppes of Turkestan. Whether these Scythians are really the same people who made their way as far as Palestine and Egypt is, indeed, far from being as certain as is commonly supposed, nor can the date of the irruption into these countries be determined. At any rate, the barbarians overthrew the Medes and flooded the whole empire. From what we know of the doings of Huns, Khazars, Turks, and Mongols in later times we can infer how these Scythians behaved in Iran. Cyaxares must have come to some sort of terms with them: and at last he rid himself of them in a truly Eastern fashion, by inviting most of them (i.e., of their chiefs) to a feast, where he made them drunk and slew them at their wine. It is not in the least surprising that Cyaxares afterwards had Scythians in his service; savages like these have no steady national feeling, and serve any potentate for pay.

[Sidenote: [ca. 625-600 B.C.]]

With the Scythian disorders we might combine the contests which, according to Ctesias, the Parthians and Sacæ (i.e., the inhabitants of the Turkoman desert, who are also called “Scythians” by the Greeks) waged with Cyaxares, or Astibaras, as Ctesias calls him. But it is not safe to do so, as the whole narrative is only the framework for a pretty romance.

Cyaxares marched a second time against Nineveh and destroyed it about 607. Not only Ctesias but also Berosus asserts that the king of the Medes achieved this great success in league with the king of Babylon. In order to protect himself against his ally, who by the fall of the Assyrian empire had grown too powerful, the Chaldean had recourse to a double precaution: he married his son, afterwards the potent Nebuchadrezzar, to Amyite or Amyitis, daughter of the Median king; but he also erected extensive fortifications. After the fall of Nineveh, Nebuchadrezzar made himself master of Syria and Palestine, and Cyaxares acquired most of the rest of the Assyrian territory. Probably Assyria proper belonged to him also, and we can thus explain Xenophon’s error that the Assyrian cities before their destruction belonged to the Medes (Anab., III, 4, 7-10). When Cyaxares afterwards began the war with the Lydians he was already master of Armenia and Cappadocia, though he probably did not acquire them until after he had got rid of the Scythians and destroyed Nineveh.

[Sidenote: [ca. 600-550 B.C.]]

The pretext for the war was afforded by the flight of some Scythians in Cyaxares’ service to Alyattes, king of Lydia; but the real cause was doubtless thirst of conquest. The war lasted for five years with varying fortune, and was ended by the battle during which the eclipse of the sun, said to have been predicted by Thales, took place. The terrified combatants saw in this a divine warning and hastily concluded peace. An impression so profound could be produced by nothing short of a total eclipse. Now, according to Airy’s calculation, of all the eclipses of that period the only one which was total in the east of Asia Minor (where we must necessarily look for the seat of war) was that of May 28th, 585. The 28th of May 585 B.C. is perhaps the oldest date of a great event which can be fixed with perfect certainty down to the day of the month. The conclusion of peace which followed affords us a remarkable instance of diplomatic mediation in very ancient times. The peace was brought about by Syennesis, prince of Cilicia, and Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon. Astyages, son of Cyaxares, married Aryenis, daughter of Alyattes. But according to Herodotus’ calculation the above date does not fall within the time of Cyaxares; and even with the necessary correction Astyages ascended the throne in this same year. We might suppose that the battle fell in the father’s, the peace in the son’s time. But, as we saw above, the dates of these reigns are not of a sort in which we can place much confidence, and it is more likely that the reign of Astyages did not last so long as tradition asserts. Thus Cyaxares probably died after 585.

Of the reign of his son Astyages (in Ctesias, Astyigas; in a Babylonian inscription Ishtuvegu) we have no particulars. It is not even certain that he was cruel, for Herodotus’ account of him and of the revolt of Cyrus is not impartial, based as it is on the narratives of the descendants of Harpagus, who had an interest in portraying in unfavourable colours the prince whom their ancestor had betrayed. On the other hand, Ctesias’ Median authority (Nicolaus Dam., 64 et seq.), which sets Astyages in a very favourable light, has no better claim to credence on this point.[c]

NEW LIGHT ON THE MEDES

In our account of the capture of Nineveh, mention was made of a philological error of the Greeks which endured until the very end of the nineteenth century. Now that the matter has been cleared up, we are in possession of the somewhat startling fact that Cyaxares was not a Median prince and that the Medes had nothing whatever to do with the tragic end of the Assyrian capital. The Medes were indeed the people whose cities Shalmaneser II laid waste and from whom he exacted tribute; against whom Tiglathpileser III led an expedition in 737; whose princes asked the help of Esarhaddon to repel the nomadic invasion which was threatening their land and the neighbouring kingdom of Urartu; but they were not the nation that came only too willingly to the assistance of Nabopolassar. They were, in fact, closely akin to the very people whom Esarhaddon was implored to drive back, and are known as the Manda.

Thus a readjustment of a very important period of ancient history has been made possible within the last few years; and it is proposed here to orient the reader and to outline what is now regarded as the true state of affairs. It seems inadvisable entirely to discard that universally used phrase “the Median empire,” and to a certain degree its retention is justifiable, but it is equally important that the remarkable results of recent research should be carefully explained and that the ancient misconceptions as to the Medes shall be entirely swept away.

First of all it must be understood that the political situation of Western Asia, even as late as the reign of Esarhaddon, differed very materially from that of the time of Nabonidus, only a little more than a century after. Babylonia was held fast under the Assyrians’ heel. The power of Elam was still a thing of the future. But to the north and east of Assyria there were several countries which, however much they were tributary to the government at Nineveh, were still kingdoms of some power and importance.

Urartu, concerning whose history much has already been told, in the region around Lake Van was one of these, and beyond it, north and east, lay the land known in ancient geography as Media. Its people first appear upon the Assyrian monuments as the Amada, but later and more frequently they are called Mada. “The Mada,” says Professor Sayce, “were the Kurdish tribes who lived eastward of Assyria and whose territory extended as far as the Caspian Sea. They were for the most part Indo-European in language and Aryan in descent, and lived like the Greeks, in small states, each of which obeyed a ‘city lord’ of its own.”

Such was the status of the “true Medes.” There is nothing in their condition or history to distinguish them from many other insignificant peoples whose destiny it was to come in contact with the world-empires of antiquity. Their influence on history has been nothing, and their political condition--that of a number of petty independent principalities--naturally worked against the attainment of any great degree of importance. Such information as we have of the rulers and cities of this land that had no central government and was never completely a portion of the Assyrian empire, comes from the inscriptions of the Ninevite kings. Esarhaddon tells of three, Uppis of Partakka, Sanasana of Partukka, and Ramateya of Urakazabarna, who asked his help against the invading nomads.

Sargon II seems to have had the country under heavy tribute, and we may read how, after a rebellion in the north had been put down, there arrived at the conqueror’s new city of Kar-Sharrukin no less than twenty-eight princes from different parts of Media bringing rich presents. But beyond these and a few other citations there is nothing in the story of Media to attract the attention of even a close student of world-history.

Southeast of Urartu was the little kingdom of Man or Minni, whose people were the Manna of the Assyrian texts. We hear of it at the close of the eighth century B.C. when Iranzu was king, and Rusas, the sovereign of Urartu, attacked it, taking two cities. Sargon II came to the rescue of his small neighbour, and Rusas gave up his spoil. After Iranzu’s death, his son Aza was promptly slain by Rusas, but another son, Ullusunu, who gave oath of fidelity to Assyria, was put on the throne by Sargon. Ullusunu, however, soon broke his vows, and there ensued the bloody conflict whose story has been related in the history of Assyria. The Manna, with the Cimmerians and the people of Urartu, formed a great coalition against Esarhaddon of which the nomad chief Kashtariti was head; but this fell to pieces through internal dissension.

Only one other matter of interest concerning these countries need detain us, and that is the fact that they are the nations which Jeremiah believed would work the vengeance of the Lord upon Babylon. The prophet undoubtedly thought that a period of greatness was in store for these peoples, and he looked to them, and not to Elam and Persia, to fulfil his prophecies.

“Make bright the arrows; gather the shields; the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes.… Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her [Babylon], call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat [Urartu], Minni, and Ashchenaz.[28] … Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, the captains thereof and all the rulers thereof.…” (Jeremiah li. 11, 27, 28.)

It is clear that Jeremiah had the “true Medes” in mind when he uttered these words, since he speaks of the “kings of the Medes,” whereas the Manda, as we shall presently see, had a strongly organised government under one king.

Modern investigation is tending to establish the fact that this prophecy of Jeremiah is one originally uttered against Nineveh and subsequently changed to apply to the capital of Nebuchadrezzar, since the mention of Urartu and Minni with at least a possible future describes conditions that could scarcely have existed at a date much later than the fall of Nineveh. There are other examples of this sort of adaptation in the Bible; for example, Isaiah’s prophecy of Moab’s doom.

We come now to that recently discovered people, of great importance as the first of the Indo-European family to affect the current of world-history in Western Asia, but of whose story the modern world has remained in complete ignorance until the present day.

By the time of Esarhaddon the wave of Indo-European migration had begun to assume threatening proportions to the Semitic nations of Mesopotamia, although from southern Russia the tide had been pouring in for many centuries. Media was populated, and then the nomadic stream parted, one great mass moving westward into Asia Minor, and another to the east, and then south as far as Elam, neither making any disturbance in the Assyrian empire. Nevertheless the Semites soon found themselves surrounded, peacefully but positively, by an alien race.

Northeast of Assyria, and extending to the southern shores of the Caspian, was the ancient kingdom of Ellipi, with its capital at Ecbatana--the Achmetha of the Bible. Of its fortunes we got a glimpse now and then in the course of Assyrian history: Sargon laid it under tribute, and it entered into alliance with Elam in the desperate struggle with Sennacherib--and then the curtain of oblivion falls. We know its fate--the nomads descended upon it. In this region the new-comers seem quickly to have effected the organisation of a new state. To the Assyrians they are known as the Manda, and there is little doubt that they are identical with the Scythians of classical history.

As far back as Esarhaddon’s day there are allusions to this people on the monuments. That monarch perceived the danger threatening his country, and made at least one successful effort to prevent the Scythian or Cimmerian stream from pouring into Mesopotamia. At a battle fought in Cilicia he boasts that he conquered the Cimmerian leader, Teuspa or Teispes, whom he calls a “Manda.” Asshurbanapal, too, in a recently discovered inscription, expresses gratitude to the gods for a victory over “that limb of Satan,” Tuktammu of the Manda. “It is possible,” says Professor Sayce, “that Tuktammu is the Lygdamis of Strabo, who led the Cimmerians into Cilicia, from whence they afterward marched westward and burned Sardis.”

In the course of a single century, therefore, new political conditions had rapidly developed. In the border regions of Assyria “was enacted the same drama which centuries later took place in Italy, as the northern barbarians came southward over the mountains and seized the plains of Lombardy. Rome could only make a feeble resistance, and a little later even the capital went down before them. The parallel goes even that far also, for Nineveh likewise was done to destruction through the help of these same barbarians who now settled in her outlying provinces.”

The first Scythian invasion of Assyria took place in the reign of Asshurbanapal’s successor, Asshur-etil-ili. The Manda burned Calah, and swept on as far as the border of Egypt, when they were turned back only by Psamthek’s gold. The next visit was at the invitation of Nabopolassar, and it is not necessary to repeat here how the Scythian king of Ecbatana, the Cyaxares of the Greeks, came to the help of the king of Babylon, nor indeed how, in the division of the Assyrian empire, the Manda found themselves lords of the land north from the Babylonian frontier. Suffice it to say that the thirst for empire-making was now strong upon them, and we will quote Professor Rogers’ brief account of the short-lived Scythian empire: “To them [the Manda] had fallen in the partition of the Assyrian empire the whole of the old land of Assyria with northern Babylonia. The very ownership of such territory as this was itself a call to the making of an empire. To this the Manda set themselves with extraordinary and rapid success. … As early as 560 B.C. their border had been extended as far west as the river Halys, which served as a boundary between them and the kingdom of Lydia, over which Crœsus, of proverbial memory, was now king (560-546 B.C.). If no violent end came to a victorious people, such as the Manda now were, it could not be long before the rich plains, the wealthy cities, and the great waterways of Babylonia would tempt them southward and the great clash would come. If to such brute force of conquest as they had already abundantly shown they should add gifts for organisation and administration, there was no reason why all their possessions should not be welded again into a great empire.… Their king was now Astyages, or, as the Babylonian inscriptions name him, Ishtuvegu. Our knowledge of him is too scant to admit of a judgment as to his character. A man of war of extraordinary capacity he certainly was, but perhaps little else. However that may be, he was not to accomplish the ruin of Nabonidus.”

Thus we get an idea of the ambitions and achievements of the Manda after the fall of Nineveh. The petty kingdoms in the north--Media, Man, Urartu, and others--were all theirs. The next logical step was “the ruin of Nabonidus.”

To accomplish this, as we know, was the destiny of Cyrus, since in the year 550 B.C., as is told elsewhere, the Scythian empire, called the Median by the Greeks, after less than a century of existence came to an end.

It is, perhaps, worthy of note how this extraordinary confusion of names came about. Professor Sayce thus explains it: “When in the generations which succeeded Darius Hystaspes, Cyrus became the founder of the Persian empire, the Medes and the Manda were confounded one with the other. Astyages, the suzerain of Cyrus, was transformed into a Mede, and the city of Ecbatana into the capital of a Median empire. The illusion has lasted down to our own age. There was no reason for doubting the traditional story; neither in the pages of the writers of Greece and Rome, nor in those of the Old Testament, nor even in the great inscription of Darius at Behistun, did there seem to be anything to cast suspicion upon it. It was not until the discovery of the monuments of Nabonidus and Cyrus that the truth at last came to light, and it was found that the history we had so long believed was founded upon a philological mistake.”[a]

FOOTNOTES

[24] [It is interesting to note that this description tallies very well with what the Assyrian monuments have taught us concerning the Mada or true Medes, whom the Greeks confused so hopelessly with the Manda or Scythians of whom Cyaxares and Astyages were kings.]

[25] [The philological confusion is now complete. Deioces may have been a Median prince, since the political conditions described by Herodotus are precisely those that existed in Media; whereas, so far as we can ascertain from the Babylonian monuments, the Manda had a strong central government ruling at Ecbatana.]

[26] [Professor Sayce in the article “Babylonia and Assyria,” in the New Volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica, says: “Under his [Asshurbanapal’s] successor, Asshur-etil-ilani, the Scythians penetrated into Assyria and made their way as far as the borders of Egypt. Calah was burned, though the strong walls of Nineveh protected the relics of the Assyrian army which had taken refuge behind them.” This occurred about 626 B.C.]

[27] [Of course since the Scythians themselves were besieging Nineveh, this could not be. But it is easy to see how the application of one name to another people could have been responsible for Herodotus’ words.]

[28] Probably the Agusi of the Assyrian texts.

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III. THE EARLY ACHÆMENIANS AND THE ELAMITES, CYRUS AND CAMBYSES

When we speak of the political history of Persia, our thoughts turn naturally enough to Greece also. Yet there was a period of Persian history, which was brilliant, even though brief, in which Greece had no share even as a participant or objective point. And indeed the interest which Greece had for the Persian monarchs during the something more than two hundred years of Persian supremacy has no doubt been exaggerated in the minds of subsequent generations, because the whole picture has been seen through the eyes of Greek and not of Persian historians. The first great profane history that was ever written--the history, namely, of Herodotus--had for its main subject the Græco-Persian war.

The earliest pages of this history gave expression to the then current notion that almost from time immemorial there had existed a deadly feud between Greece and Persia, and the realm even of mythology is invaded in the effort to explain the origin of this feud, and to fix the responsibility for it upon an Asiatic nation. Yet, in point of fact, it is probable that no such widely prevalent feeling of antagonism between the representative nations of Asia and Europe had existed for any very great length of time, before the period at which Herodotus wrote. Indeed it is clear that a feud between the Persians, as such, and the Greeks could not have dated earlier than from about the year 550 B.C., since it was only then that the Persian empire came into existence. Nor is there anything to show that the first two rulers of the empire, namely, Cyrus and Cambyses, had turned their attention particularly to the region beyond the Hellespont. Cyrus indeed invaded Asia Minor, and in so doing necessarily came closely into contact with a Greek civilisation; but the express object of this invasion was the conquest of Lydia, which was accomplished through the overthrow of Crœsus, and Cyrus himself then turned back to conquer Babylonia, and whatever plans he may have had looking to the extension of his power in Asia Minor or beyond the Ægean Sea, he did not live to execute them. The short reign of Cambyses was occupied almost exclusively with the Egyptian conquest. Still it was inevitable that a conquering Asiatic power that had extended its bounds to the very walls of the Greek cities of Asia Minor must go farther in the same direction. It was equally certain that Greece must resent the infringement of its territories and thus the feud between the East and West was at once as inevitable and as bitter as if it had been much more ancient in origin than it really was.

The fullest details of the wars which grew out of this feud we shall have occasion to examine when we turn to Grecian history; nor can we quite disregard them here. Our chief concern for the moment, however, is with the history of the Medo-Persian empire in its Asiatic and African aspects. It is interesting to reflect that this empire was the greatest in mere geographical extent that the world had ever seen, far greater than Egypt, greater than the Assyrian empire at its widest reach, and greater than any empire that was to succeed it until modern times, except for the brief decade when Alexander the Great held the destinies of the East and the West subject to his master will.

It should be remembered, too, that this empire of the Medes and Persians held sway for a much longer period than is sometimes assumed. Cyrus, the founder of the Medo-Persian empire, came into power in the year 550 B.C., and the battle of Platæa, in which the army of Xerxes was completely overthrown and the last Persian force that ever attempted to invade Europe completely shattered, took place less than three-quarters of a century later. One is prone at first thought to date the fall of the Persian empire from this latter event; but to do so is to take a very narrow or European view of history. The Persians did not again invade Greece, it is true, but Persian money became a disturbing influence in Greek political life and continued such for a century and a half, or as long as Greece maintained independent national existence.

So powerful has been the influence of Greece in an intellectual way that one is prone to forget how insignificant a people the Hellenes were in regard to those matters which are usually made the test of national supremacy. Once, and once only, a united Greece became a mighty factor in international warfare; that exceptional time was the all-essential one, when Greece drove back the Persian invaders. But the territory of Greece remained unchanged after this momentous factor, and neither then nor at any subsequent period had the Greeks any thought of making wide conquests until the day of Agesilaus; and the aspirations of that Spartan chief, who at one time seemed likely to anticipate Alexander in a Persian conquest, were cut short by those suicidal internal dissensions which were the bane of the political life of Greece at all periods of her history. Meantime, while Rome was waxing strong in the West, she had not yet reached the horizon of a world-influence, Persia remained, notwithstanding her defeat on Grecian territory, the undisputed mistress of Asia and therefore the most powerful nation in the world, for more than two centuries after the death of Cyrus. And then it was no Greek, but the conqueror of Greece, the Macedonian Alexander, who wrested the sceptre from the Persian hand.

Two centuries and a half of supremacy! That does not seem a long period when one has the thousands of years of Egyptian history in mind or the other thousands when the plain of Mesopotamia was the centre of the Asiatic world. Yet after all in the narrow view it will be apparent that very few times in the world’s history has a single nation maintained supremacy for a much longer period than two or three centuries. Egyptian history is very far from being a record of unbroken power, and the centre of Mesopotamia shifted from south to north and back again at intervals of a few centuries at longest. When, therefore, one considers the two and a half centuries of unbroken Persian power, and reflects how enormously wide was the extent of that dominant influence, it is clear that he has to do with one of the greatest nations of which history has any record.

[Sidenote: [ca. 836-546 B.C.]]

Of the very early history of Persia there is almost nothing known. From the obelisk of Shalmaneser II we learn how after successfully invading the land of Namri, the Assyrian king marched into the territory of Parsua (Persia) and received tribute. This was in the year 836 B.C. Again tribute was collected in 830, and in the following year the country was plundered and ravaged by the Assyrian army. About 813 Shamshi-Adad IV paid an unwelcome visit to his province. From these and other references we may conclude that from the time the Indo-Europeans were fairly settled in the land, Parsua was a dependency of the Assyrian empire, regaining its liberties whenever the fortunes of Assyria were at low ebb, and losing them in a corresponding degree when a strong brain and hand held the reins in the capitals on the Upper Tigris. Then, as we have seen, Persia fell into the hands of the Scythian or Median emperor that ruled at Ecbatana, from whom it was delivered by Cyrus the Great.

[Sidenote: [ca. 730-550 B.C.]]

But before taking up the history of Persia, it is necessary to say something about the kingdom of Elam, for as we shall presently see, that was the land from which Cyrus came. Elam lay to the east and across a mountain range from Babylonia. Of the early fortunes of the country--the time of Chedorlaomer and other Elamite invaders of Babylonia we have now nothing to do; what concerns us is that in the eighth century B.C., Teispes, the king of Persia obtained possession of the Elamite province of Anshan. In all probability the Persian conqueror gave the new territory to his son Cyrus I; for according to Professor Sayce, “While Cyrus I, the great-grandfather of Cyrus the Great, reigned in Anshan, it is probable that Ariaramnes, the great-grandfather of Darius, succeeded his father, Teispes, in Persia. Both Ariaramnes and Cyrus I were sons of Teispes, and since Darius in his inscription at Behistun declares that ‘eight’ of his predecessors had been kings before him ‘in two lines,’ it is clear that both Ariaramnes and his son Arsames must have enjoyed royal power. We must assume, therefore, with Sir Henry Rawlinson, that Teispes was the conqueror of Anshan and that upon his death his kingdom was divided, the newly acquired conquest being assigned to Cyrus I, and his ancestral dominion to Ariaramnes.” (Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 519.)

Thus we see that a piece of the oldest history has become the newest. It must be clearly understood that Cyrus was not originally a king of Persia, but of the Elamite province of Anshan--a district that by his time included Shushan, the old Elamite capital, as well. Three years after the conquest of Astyages, that is in 546 B.C., he first calls himself king of the Parsu (Persians), but not before. How he came to be lord of Persia, we do not know, since this land was a totally different country from Elam, but it is extremely probable that his new title had some connection with the overthrow of the Scythian emperor. It is on the statement of Darius I that Cyrus has gone down in history as a Persian prince. Why this is so seems clear enough. Darius had to reconquer the disintegrated empire of Cyrus and Cambyses, and in doing so he wished to make himself appear the legitimate successor of his two great predecessors; therefore he makes Cyrus, like himself, a Persian prince, and we have seen how far this is true. But from Cyrus to Darius, ought we not to speak of the Elamite empire?

With the reader in possession of these facts, we now turn to an account of the origins of the Achæmenian dynasty and the reign of Cyrus the Great.[a]

Cyrus’ father was, just as Herodotus tells us, Cambyses (Kambujiya), his grandfather Cyrus, his great-grandfather Sispis (i.e., the Persian Chaispi, Greek Teispes). We can combine the contents of a cylinder of his, on the one hand with the list of Darius’ ancestors in Herodotus (VII, 11), and on the other hand with Darius’ own statement in the great Behistun inscription. The last list is shorter by three than that of Herodotus; but, as Darius says that eight of his family were kings, and that they reigned in two lines, while neither he nor his successors in their inscriptions give the title of King to his immediate predecessor, we must assume that the Behistun list of ancestors is somewhat curtailed; and we can with some probability draw out the complete list in exact harmony with Herodotus. We shall indicate the kings by figure and give the names in the ordinary Greek form.

Achæmenes. | 1. Teispes. | 2. Cambyses. | 3. Cyrus. | 4. Teispes. | +--------------+--------------+ | | { 5. Cyrus. Ariaramnes. } { | | } First { 6. Cambyses. Arsames. } Second line. { | | } line. { 7. Cyrus (Great King). Hystaspes. } { | | } { 8. Cambyses (Great King). 9. Darius (Great King). }

Achæmenes (Persian Hakhamani), ancestor of the whole family, is perhaps not an historical personage, but a heros eponymus. According to our calculation Teispes, the first king, flourished about the year 730, therefore somewhat earlier than the foundation of the Median empire, but somewhere about the time which Herodotus assigns for the beginning of the independence of Media. Perhaps the rise of the provincial dynasty is connected with the weakening of the Assyrian power in Iran. Now on the cylinder Cyrus calls himself and his forefathers up to Teispes not kings of Persia but kings “of the city of Anshan.” Similarly on a lately discovered monument of still greater importance, a Babylonian tablet, he is called “king of Anshan,” but also “king of Persia.” It may be that the Achæmenians ruled in a part only of Persis; but we have just as good a right to assume that, as Herodotus and Ctesias assert, Cyrus’ father at least was governor of the whole province. His mother, according to Herodotus, was the daughter of Astyages. This may very well be historical, though the confirmation by the oracle which describes him as a “mule” (Herod., I, 55) does not go for much, since these oracles are tolerably recent forgeries, and it is conceivable that we have here nothing more than an example of the well-known tendency of lords of new empires in the East to claim descent, at least in the female line, from the legitimate dynasty. Ctesias, indeed, tells us that Cyrus afterwards married a daughter of the dethroned Astyages, Amytis (which was also the name of Astyages’ sister, wife of Nebuchadrezzar). Of course this does not absolutely exclude the possibility of Cyrus being the son of another daughter of the king.

[Sidenote: [550-546 B.C.]]

Stripped of its romantic features, Herodotus’ narrative of the rise of Cyrus is in fundamental harmony with the new document which we possess on the subject, in the shape of annals inscribed on a Babylonian tablet. According to Herodotus, Cyrus and the Persians revolted; Harpagus the Mede, who was in league with him, was despatched against him. A part of the Median army fought, but another part went over to Cyrus or fled. In a second battle Astyages was defeated and taken prisoner. Now the tablet tells us among other things: “and against Cyrus king of Anshan, … went and … Ishtuvegu, his army revolted against him and in hands took, to Cyrus they gave him.” Thereupon, it proceeds, Cyrus took Ecbatana and carried off rich booty to Anshan. This summary account of the Babylonian annalist by no means excludes the supposition that Cyrus had fought a previous battle against Astyages. Both accounts say that the treachery and faithlessness of the army procured Cyrus the victory. We might even harmonise the Babylonian document with Ctesias’ narrative that Cyrus was at first hard pressed and driven back as far as Pasargadæ, if there were not other grounds, quite apart from its fabulous embellishments, which render this account improbable.

The date of the overthrow of Astyages and the taking of Ecbatana is, according to the Babylonian tablet, the sixth year; and, as it is in the highest degree probable that the years in this memorial are those of the Babylonian king Nabunaid [Nabonidus] we must place these events in the year 550. Hitherto it has been supposed, following Herodotus, that the reign of Cyrus (559-529) was to be reckoned from the fall of the Median empire, and that accordingly the latter event was to be placed in 559. But now we see that Cyrus numbered his years from the time when he ascended the throne in Persia.[29] Whether the revolt against Astyages began when he ascended the throne, we do not know. We may very well believe Herodotus (I, 330), that Cyrus treated Astyages well, down to his death. On this point Ctesias agrees with Herodotus.

[Sidenote: [550-538 B.C.]]

After the taking of Ecbatana, which made Cyrus the Great King, he must have had enough to do to subdue the lands which had belonged to the Median empire. Little reliance can be placed on Ctesias’ account of these struggles. Herodotus (I, 153) states that the Bactrians, who according to Ctesias were soon subdued, were, like the Sacæ, not subjugated until after the conquest of Babylon.

The next war was against the powerful and wealthy king Crœsus of Lydia, who ruled over nearly the whole western half of Asia Minor. It was a continuation of the war between the Medes and Lydians which had been broken off in 585. Here again the story in Herodotus is embellished with many marvellous incidents, and is employed to exemplify moral doctrines.

If Crœsus really began the war, he assuredly did so not frivolously but deliberately, in order to anticipate the inevitable attack. A fierce struggle seems to have taken place in Cappadocia (Herod., I, 76, and especially Polyænus, VII, 8, 1 et seq.), which already belonged to Cyrus. Crœsus retreated to prepare for another campaign, but Cyrus followed hard after him, routed him when he offered battle, and captured his capital Sardis after a short siege. Not only Herodotus, but also apparently his contemporary Xanthus the Lydian, quite independently of Herodotus, told how Cyrus would have burned Crœsus alive. However, Crœsus was pardoned, after all, perhaps because some external circumstance interposed (because a sudden shower prevented the fire from burning?), or because the conqueror changed his mind before it was too late. The pious and believing saw in the event a direct intervention of Apollo on behalf of the man who had honoured the Delphic shrine so highly.

The date of Crœsus’ fall is not quite certain. It may have been 547 or 546. When Cyrus had marched away, the Lydian Pactyas, whom Cyrus had appointed guardian of the treasures, raised a revolt, but it was speedily put down by the king’s generals. From that time forwards the Lydians never made the slightest attempt to shake off the Persian rule.

But now began that struggle of the Persians with the Greeks which has had so much importance for the history of the world. The Lydian kings had subdued a number of Greek cities in Asia Minor; but even these latter shrank from submitting to the still barbarous Persians, whose rule was far more oppressive, inasmuch as they ruthlessly required military service. But Harpagus, and other Persian leaders, quickly took one Greek town after the other; some, like Priene, were razed to the ground. Some of the Ionians, such as the Teians, and most of the Phocæans, avoided slavery by emigrating. Miletus alone, the most flourishing of all these cities, had early come to an understanding with Cyrus, and the latter pledged himself to lay no heavier burden on it than Crœsus had before him. In most of the cities the Persians seem to have set up tyrants, who gave them a better guarantee of obedience than democratic or aristocratic governments. In other respects they left the Greeks alone, just as they left their other subjects alone, not meddling with their internal affairs so long as they paid the necessary contributions, and supplied men and ships for their wars. Most of the other peoples in the west of Asia Minor submitted without much resistance, except the freedom-loving Lycians. Driven into Xanthus, the capital, they perished in a body rather than surrender. Some Carian cities also defended themselves stoutly. This may have given a Persian here and there an inkling, even then, that the little peoples on the western sea were, after all, harder to manage than the nations of slaves in the interior of Asia. Sardis became and remained the mainstay of the Persian rule in western Asia Minor. The governorship was one of the most influential posts in the empire, and the governor seems to have exercised a certain supremacy over some neighbouring governorships.

Though Cyrus had made, and continued to make, conquests in the interior of Asia, he was still without the true capital of Asia, Babylon, the seat of primeval civilisation, together with the rich country in which it lay, and the wide districts of Mesopotamia, Syria, and the border-lands over which it ruled. Before the capture of the city, in the summer of 539, a great battle took place, in consequence of which Cyrus occupied the capital without any further serious fighting, since the Babylonian troops had mutinied against their king. Late in the autumn of 539 Cyrus marched into Babylon, Nabonidus, the king, having previously surrendered himself. The entrance of Cyrus took place on the 3rd Marsheshwan, which month corresponds nearly to our month of November. If, as the strict rule requires, we make the small remainder of the year after the taking of the city to be the first year of Cyrus’ reign, then the events in the text fall in 538. According to Berosus, Cyrus appointed Nabonidus governor of Karmania, east of Persis; but in the annals inscribed on the tablet it is said to be recorded that Nabunaid died when the city was taken. Cyrus certainly did not put down the Babylonian worship, as the Hebrew prophets expected; he must even have been impressed by the magnificence of the service in the richest city of the world, and by the vast antiquity of the rites. But he was no more an adherent of the Babylonian religion, because the priests said he was, than Cambyses and the Roman emperors were worshippers of the Egyptian gods, because Egyptian monuments represent them as doing reverence to the gods exactly in the style of Egyptian kings. Sayce doubts whether Cyrus could read their documents; we doubt whether Cyrus understood their language at all, and regard it as inconceivable that he learned their complicated writing; indeed, on the strength of all analogies, we may regard it as scarcely probable that he could read and write at all.

[Sidenote: [538-529 B.C.]]

The countries subject to Babylon seem to have submitted without resistance to the Persians. The fortress of Gaza alone, in the land of the Philistines, perhaps defended itself for a time. On the other hand, some of the Phœnician cities, which offered a sturdy resistance to other conquerors, submitted immediately, and remained steadily obedient to the Persians down almost to the end of the empire. It seems, however, that, as the real prop of the naval power of Persia, they were almost always treated with special consideration by the latter. In the very first year of his reign in Babylon (538) Cyrus gave the Jewish exiles in Babylon leave to return home. Comparatively few availed themselves of this permission, but these few formed the starting-point of a development which has been of infinite importance for the history of the world.

How far to the east Cyrus extended his dominion we do not know, but it is probable that all the countries to the east which are mentioned in the older inscriptions of Darius as in subjection or rebellion were already subject in the time of Cyrus. In this case Chorasmia (Kharezm, the modern Khiva) and Sogdiana (Samarcand and Bokhara) belonged to him. Agreeably with this, Alexander found a city of Cyrus (Cyropolis) on the Jaxartes, in the neighbourhood of the modern Khokand. He doubtless ruled also over large portions of the modern Afghanistan, though it is hardly likely that he ever made his way into the land of the Indus. The story of his unsuccessful march on India seems to have been invented by way of contrast to Alexander’s fortunate expedition.

THE DEATH OF CYRUS

[Sidenote: [529 B.C.]]

Different accounts of Cyrus’ death were early current. Herodotus gives the well-known didactic story of the battle with Tomyris, queen of the Massagetæ, as the most probable of many which were told.[b] His account is much too picturesque to be omitted here, notwithstanding its somewhat doubtful authenticity.

“When Cyrus considered the peculiar circumstances of his birth, he believed himself more than human. He reflected also on the prosperity of his arms, and that wherever he had extended his incursions, he had been followed by success and victory.

“The Massagetæ were then governed by a queen, who was a widow, and named Tomyris. Cyrus sent ambassadors to her with overtures of marriage; the queen, concluding that his real object was the possession, not of her person, but her kingdom, forbade his approach. Cyrus, on finding these measures ineffectual, advanced to the Araxes, openly discovering his hostile designs upon the Massagetæ. He then threw a bridge of boats over the river, for the passage of his forces, which he also fortified with turrets.

“Whilst he was engaged in this difficult undertaking, Tomyris sent by her ambassadors this message: ‘Sovereign of the Medes, uncertain as you must be of the event, we advise you to desist from your present purpose. Be satisfied with the dominion of your own kingdom, and let us alone, seeing how we govern our subjects. You will not, however, listen to this salutary counsel, loving anything rather than peace: If, then, you are really impatient to encounter the Massagetæ, give up your present labour of constructing a bridge; we will retire three days’ march into our country, and you shall pass over at your leisure; or, if you had rather receive us in your own territories, do you as much for us.’ On hearing this, Cyrus called a council of his principal officers, and, laying the matter before them, desired their advice how to act. They were unanimously of opinion, that he should retire, and wait for Tomyris in his own dominions.

“Crœsus the Lydian, who assisted at the meeting, was of a different sentiment, which he defended in this manner: ‘I have before remarked, O king! that since Providence has rendered me your captive, it becomes me to exert all my abilities in obviating whatever menaces you with misfortune. I have been instructed in the severe but useful school of adversity. If you were immortal yourself, and commanded an army of immortals, my advice might be justly thought impertinent; but if you confess yourself a human leader, of forces that are human, it becomes you to remember that sublunary events have a circular motion, and that their revolution does not permit the same man always to be fortunate. Upon this present subject of debate I dissent from the majority. If you await the enemy in your own dominions, a defeat may chance to lose you all your empire; the victorious Massagetæ, instead of retreating to their own, will make farther inroad into your territories. If you conquer, you will still be a loser by that interval of time and place which must be necessarily employed in the pursuit. I will suppose that, after victory, you will instantly advance into the dominions of Tomyris; yet can Cyrus the son of Cambyses, without disgrace and infamy, retire one foot of ground from a female adversary? I would therefore recommend, that having passed over with our army, we proceed on our march till we meet the enemy; then let us contend for victory and honour. I have been informed that the Massagetæ lead a life of the meanest poverty, ignorant of Persian fare, and of Persian delicacies. Let these therefore be left behind in our camp: let there be abundance of food prepared, costly viands, and flowing goblets of wine. With these let us leave the less effective of the troops, and with the rest again retire towards the river. If I err not, the foe will be allured by the sight of our luxurious preparations, and afford us a noble occasion of victory and glory.’

“The result of the debate was, that Cyrus preferred the sentiments of Crœsus: he therefore returned for answer to Tomyris, that he would advance the space into her dominions which she had proposed. She was faithful to her engagement, and retired accordingly: Cyrus then formally delegated his authority to his son Cambyses; and above all recommended Crœsus to his care, as one whom, if the projected expedition should fail, it would be his interest to distinguish by every possible mark of reverence and honour. He then dismissed them into Persia, and passed the river with his forces.

“As soon as he had advanced beyond the Araxes into the land of the Massagetæ, he saw in the night this vision: He beheld the eldest son of Hystaspes having wings upon his shoulders; one of which overshadowed Asia, the other Europe. Hystaspes was the son of Arsamis, of the family of the Achæmenides; the name of his eldest son was Darius, a youth of about twenty, who had been left behind in Persia as not yet of age for military service. Cyrus awoke, and revolved the matter in his mind: as it appeared to him of serious importance, he sent for Hystaspes to his presence, and, dismissing his attendants, ‘Hystaspes,’ said the king, ‘I will explain to you my reasons, why I am satisfied beyond all dispute that your son is now engaged in seditious designs against me and my authority. The gods, whose favour I enjoy, disclose to me all those events which menace my security. In the night just passed, I beheld your eldest son having wings upon his shoulders, one of which overshadowed Asia, the other Europe; from which I draw certain conclusions that he is engaged in acts of treachery against me. Do you therefore return instantly to Persia; and take care, that when I return victorious from my present expedition, your son may give me a satisfactory explanation of his conduct.’

“The strong apprehension of the treachery of Darius induced Cyrus thus to address the father; but the vision in reality imported that the death of Cyrus was at hand, and that Darius should succeed to his power. ‘Far be it, O king!’ said Hystaspes in reply, ‘from any man of Persian origin to form conspiracies against his sovereign: if such there be, let immediate death be his portion. You have raised the Persians from slavery to freedom; from subjects, you have made them masters: if a vision has informed you that my son designs anything against you, to you and to your disposal I shall deliver him.’ Hystaspes, after this interview, passed the Araxes on his return to Persia, fully intending to watch over his son, and deliver him to Cyrus.

“Cyrus, advancing a day’s march from the Araxes, followed, in all respects, the counsel of Crœsus; and leaving behind him the troops upon which he had less dependence, he returned with his choicest men towards the Araxes. A detachment of about the third part of the army of the Massagetæ attacked the Persians whom Cyrus had left, and, after a feeble conflict, put them to the sword. When the slaughter ceased, they observed the luxuries which had artfully been prepared; and yielding to the allurement, they indulged themselves in feasting and wine, till drunkenness and sleep overcame them. In this situation the Persians attacked them: several were slain, but the greater part were made prisoners, among whom was Spargapises, their leader, the son of Tomyris.

“As soon as the queen heard of the defeat of her forces, and the capture of her son, she despatched a messenger to Cyrus with these words: ‘Cyrus, insatiable as you are of blood, be not too elate with your recent success. When you yourself are overcome with wine, what follies do you not commit? By entering your bodies, it renders your language more insulting. By this poison you have conquered my son, and neither by your prudence nor your valour. I venture a second time to advise what it will be certainly your interest to follow. Restore my son to liberty, and, satisfied with the disgrace you have put upon a third part of the Massagetæ, depart from these realms unhurt. If you will not do this, I swear by the Sun, the great god of the Massagetæ, that, insatiable as you are of blood, I will give you your fill of it.’

“These words made but little impression upon Cyrus. The son of Tomyris, when, recovering from his inebriated state, he knew the misfortune which had befallen him, entreated Cyrus to release him from his bonds: he obtained his liberty, and immediately destroyed himself.

“On the refusal of Cyrus to listen to her counsel, Tomyris collected all her forces: a battle ensued, and of all the conflicts which ever took place amongst barbarians, this was I believe by far the most obstinately disputed. According to such particulars as I have been able to collect, the engagement began by a shower of arrows poured on both sides, from an interval of some distance; when these were all spent, they fought with their swords and spears, and for a long time neither party gained the smallest advantage: the Massagetæ were at length victorious, the greater part of the Persians were slain, Cyrus himself also fell; and thus terminated a reign of twenty-nine years. When after diligent search his body was found, Tomyris directed his head to be thrown into a vessel filled with human blood, and having insulted and mutilated the dead body, exclaimed, ‘Survivor and conqueror as I am, thou hast ruined my peace by the successful stratagem against my son: but I will give thee now, as I have threatened, thy fill of blood.’--This account of the end of Cyrus seems to me most consistent with probability, although there are many other and different relations.”[c]

If we accept Herodotus’ statements, we must look for the Massagetæ beyond the Jaxartes. In Ctesias Cyrus is mortally wounded in battle with the Derbices, who probably dwelt near the Middle or Upper Oxus. A fragment of Berosus says that Cyrus fell in the land of the Dai (Dahæ), i.e., in the modern Turkoman desert, perhaps in the southern or southwestern portion of it; this account may very well be derived from contemporary Babylonian records. Be that as it may, Cyrus met his death in battle with a savage tribe of the northeast. The battle was probably lost, but the Persians rescued his body, which was buried at Pasargada, in the ancient land of his race. To this day there is to be seen at Murghab, north of Persepolis (on the telegraph line from Abushehr to Teheran), the empty tomb and other remains of the great mausoleum, which Aristobulus, a companion of Alexander, described from his own observation; and on some pillars there the inscription is to be read: “I am Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenian.” Till lately the same inscription was also to be found high on the pillar which bears in bas-relief a winged figure of a king. This figure is furnished with a “pshent,” i.e., such an ornamented crown as is worn by kings and gods on Egyptian monuments. This was no doubt meant by Cambyses as a special mark of honour to his father, whose monument must have required years to finish. It is quite natural that the ancient art of Egypt should have made a deep impression even upon those of its conquerors who in other respects had little liking for Egyptian ways.[b]

CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF CYRUS

Cyrus played too great a part in the world and did too much for the progress of humanity that we should leave him without some account of the character and influence on history of a man of whom even so cynical a historian as Eduard Meyer has said, tersely but in words that demand special emphasis, “To honour and spare an adversary of equal birth, once he had been conquered, remained a privilege of all his successors.” After this we must indeed expect eulogy, but the short extracts given here, the first ancient and the last modern, are both founded on careful and loving study of the man’s character.[a]

Xenophon’s Estimate of Cyrus

The reflection once occurred to me, how many democracies have been dissolved by men who chose to live under some other government rather than a democracy; how many monarchies, and how many oligarchies, have been overthrown by the people; and how many individuals, who have tried to establish tyrannies, have, some of them, been at once entirely destroyed, while others, if they have continued to reign for any length of time, have been admired as wise and fortunate men. I had observed, too, I thought, many masters, in their own private houses, some indeed having many servants, but some only very few, and yet utterly unable to keep those few entirely obedient to their commands. While I was reflecting upon these things, I came to this judgment upon them; that to man, such is his nature, it was easier to rule every other sort of creature than to rule man. But when I considered that there was Cyrus the Persian, who had rendered many men, many cities, and many nations, obedient to him, I was then necessitated to change my opinion, and to think that to rule men is not among the things that are impossible, or even difficult, if a person undertakes it with understanding and skill. I knew that there were some who willingly obeyed Cyrus, that were many days’ journey, and others that were even some months’ journey, distant from him; some, too, who had never seen him, and some who knew very well that they never should see him; and yet they readily submitted to his government; for he so far excelled all other kings, as well those that had received their dominion from their forefathers, as those that had acquired it by their own efforts, that the Scythian, for example, though his people be very numerous, is unable to obtain the dominion over any other nation, but rests satisfied if he can but continue to rule his own; so it is with the Thracian king in regard to the Thracians, and with the Illyrian king in regard to the Illyrians; and so it is with other nations, as many as I have heard of; for the nations of Europe, at least, are said to be independent and detached from each other. But Cyrus, finding, in like manner, the nations of Asia independent, and setting out with a little army of Persians, obtained the dominion over the Medes by their own choice, and over the Hyrcanians in a similar manner; he subdued the Syrians, Assyrians, Arabians, Cappadocians, both the Phrygians, the Lydians, Carians, Phœnicians, and Babylonians; he had under his rule the Bactrians, Indians, and Cilicians, as well as the Sacians, Paphlagonians, and Magadidians, and many other nations of whom we cannot enumerate even the names. He had dominion over the Greeks that were settled in Asia; and, going down to the sea, over the Cyprians and Egyptians. These nations he ruled, though they spoke neither the same language with himself nor with one another; yet he was able to extend the fear of himself over so great a part of the world that he astonished all, and no one attempted anything against him. He was able to inspire all with so great a desire of pleasing him, that they ever desired to be governed by his opinion; and he attached to himself so many nations as it would be a labour to enumerate, which way soever we should commence our course from his palace, whether towards the east, west, north, or south.[d]

A Modern Estimate of the Character and Importance of Cyrus

The giant figure of Cyrus the Great appears all the more splendid in the sunlight [by contrast with the surrounding gloom]. He is fitly called the Great, as belonging to the small number of the immortals to whom humanity cannot deny this highest title. If he be great, it is because he attained unheard-of success with insignificant means. With the assistance of his son and his comrades he founded an empire such as the Assyrians never possessed even in the day of their highest power: an empire which stretched from the Pontus Euxinus to Meroë, from Cyrene to the Oxus and the Indus; the first world-empire, the realm of Alexander before Alexander’s time.

But he was not, like the latter, opposed to a huge and crumbling monarchy, already in the death agony, an easy prey to any leader of mercenaries, and proved to be so by Agesilaus in Asia Minor, and by Amyntas in Egypt; he was not, like Alexander, victorious over a small, dominant nation, which, in recompense for its narrow-minded policy, stood alone in the last decisive struggle, while he himself had an army of better morale and greater skill, with better weapons and superior numbers--a really overwhelming force. On the contrary, he led a handful of Persians against four nations, the largest and most powerful of their time; against the two powers which had overcome the greatest of all military states, the powers which had destroyed Asshur. The two rising kingdoms of Media and Lydia were in the full vigour of their youth, and had hurried from victory to victory, from conquest to conquest; the power and prosperity of the two ancient civilised peoples of the Nile and Euphrates dated from the very beginning of history and had risen anew and more formidable from every defeat; but he flung them all in the dust forever.

He was great, too, if it be great to fight and even to fall for the sake of justice. He is no proconsul, to turn, like a matricide, against the republic the sword with which she had entrusted him; no Albanian chief, Frankish king, or Mongolian khan to fall on foreign countries for the purpose of satisfying the greed for prey and lust of war proper to his race; but a king who, attacked by Media, attacked by the coalition of Lydia with Babylon and Egypt, only draws the sword in defence of the double crown of his ancestors--the most legitimate of all conquerors.

More than this, he was the most humane. His shield is stained by no horrible deeds of blood, of frightful revenge and cruelty, such as disgrace the son of Olympias. He spared, and made gifts to conquered enemies. Even after the second subjugation of the treacherous Lydians, he would not permit them to be destroyed by thousands, as Alexander did in the case of the heroes of Tyre, of the Pasargadæ who were faithful even unto death, of the nobility of Persia, or of the Sogdianians in revenge for their victory, as even the great Roman slaughtered his enemies at Thapsus and the betrayed Usipetii, and as the Franks slew the Saxons at the massacre on the Aller. He did not, like the Macedonian at Persepolis, burn and destroy hostile capitals; he did not mutilate captive kings and leaders, nor drag them round the walls as the latter did Bessus and the lion of Gaza; nor send them to the scaffold as the Roman sent the chivalrous king of the Arvernians; he did not basely murder his own countrymen as the “crazy god,” Alexander, murdered the Branchidæ, Clitus, and the grey-haired Parmenio. Oriental as he was, and belonging to a savage people and a far earlier period, he is still always far more humane.

Thus he was the greatest, far beyond the spirit of his nation and his age, anticipating the remotest future both as man and statesman. Because no wide stream of blood separated him from the vanquished, he found the only possible basis for his giant structure in the raising of conquerors and conquered to equal privileges. With the certainty of victory, the daring trust which belongs to the greatest, he could see and spare the subject in the enemy, raise the conquered at once to the rank of citizen, entrust his army to Mazares the Mede, and to Harpagus the Median grandee, prince, and general; in the newly conquered Lydia he could venture to invest the Lydian dynasts, with the civil power, and to set up as rulers in Ionia the native aristocracy, in Judea the descendant of the ancient kings and high priests.

It was in accordance with his teachings that his son marched in the festive procession of the people in newly conquered Babylon, and after the conquest of Egypt entrusted the civil administration, with the capital Saïs, to an Egyptian, Psamthek’s admiral, Uzahorsem, the son of the high priest of Saïs, who held it as “the king’s cousin,” i.e., viceroy, and on whose withdrawal the Egyptian prince Aahmes was associated with the Persian Aryandes.

Thus Cyrus divided the civil and military administration, a new departure amongst orientals, and long uncomprehended and unimitated. The military power he reserved to his faithful Medes and Persians; the civil he bestowed on native princes, and so arranged an automatic system which created the best bulwark against the loss of the border provinces, a bulwark which all the mistakes and crimes and all the cowardice of his successors destroyed only after the expiration of two hundred years--a result different indeed from the ephemeral creation which Alexander cemented with the blood of whole nations.

But gentleness and mercy constituted also the best policy. For defeating opponents without a battle they were the sharpest of weapons, carried by a commanding personality who not only compelled the admiration of his own people, but also brought his enemies to their knees, and showed his victory in the light of an inevitable decree of fate, thus infusing dejection and treachery into the ranks of the enemy. Who is there that approaches him? He is not only beloved by his own people as a father incomparable in every way, not only does all the splendour of story play round him as round Alexander and Charlemagne, but legends also have clustered about him, and the poetry of Xenophon and Antisthenes glorifies and idealises him. The Median prince and the Egyptian admiral, the nobility and priesthood of Babylon, as well as the Greek captains of the kings of the Lydians and Egyptians, with Eurybates of Ephesus and Phanes of Halicarnassus, throw themselves at his feet voluntarily, and to the betrayal of their own rulers; without a struggle the greatest empires, the two conquerors of Nineveh, surrender to him both themselves and their own kings in chains, as had been done to none other; even Tyre, that proud and mighty city, unconquered and unconquerable, with whose lion courage his predecessor and his successor, Nebuchadrezzar and Alexander alike, wrestled so fiercely and so long, did homage to him of her own free will, as did the sea-king of Samos, which was as far beyond reach as Tyre herself. Above all, the little people of the Jews hailed him at the waters of Babylon as they have done no mortal before or since, as the victor and rescuer, the liberator and saviour, the favoured of God and lord of the earth.

He rewarded them for it and so purchased for himself the most exalted, the most undying greatness: amongst all the rulers of the East whom we see conquering, destroying, murdering, and deporting, he is the only one who raised a downtrodden people from the dust, snatched it from its brethren’s fate of annihilation, restored it to its existence as a nation under princes of its own race, to its own peculiar development and its mission in the history of the world. He saved it, as he did his own people, which owed to him its consecration to eternal youth in history; so that, in spite of all the storms which have raged over it, it has escaped the fate of the thousand tribes which traversed the wide country of Iran before and after it, and are now vanished and forgotten.

Thus the consequences of his achievements are lasting, though in the course of thousands of years these achievements themselves have vanished, like all earthly things. He was not the product and child of his age, like the son of Philip, the nephew of Marius, the son of Pepin, or the offspring of the Revolution: but he was its creator and father, solitary and unique in the world’s history; he took firmer grip of the wheel of time than any other mortal; in the term of his life he brought an epoch to its close, snatched the lordship of the earth from the Semites and Egyptians, and won it for the Aryans for all time.[f]

CAMBYSES

[Sidenote: [529-525 B.C.]]

Cyrus bequeathed the crown to his eldest child, Kambujiya, called by the Greeks Cambyses, and the government of several provinces to Bardius (Smerdis), his second son. He thought that this pre-settlement of the succession would prevent the disputes usually accruing to the succession of a new king in the East. But this hope was disappointed. Cambyses had hardly ascended the throne when he murdered his brother: but the crime was committed with such care and secrecy that it passed unnoticed by the people, and it was thought by the subjects and court that Bardius was shut up in some distant palace in Media, from whence he would shortly reappear.

Freed from a rival who might have been dangerous, Cambyses then gave his full attention to war. Alone among the great nations of the old world, Egypt, protected by the desert and the marshes of the Delta, was able to withstand the power of the Persians, and followed in peace the course of her development. Since his unfortunate intervention in Lydia, Aahmes had always avoided any ground for strife with his neighbours. His ambition went no further than the establishment of the old suzerainty of Egypt in Cyprus. Thanks to this prudence, he lived on amicable terms with Cyrus, and profited by twenty-five years of tranquillity to develop the natural resources of his country. The course of the canals was repaired and enlarged, agriculture was encouraged, and commerce extended.

But it was impossible to withstand the hatred of his subjects, and it compassed his ruin. Cyrus dead, Aahmes resigned himself to war. There was no lack of serious counts against him: he had made an alliance with Lydia; he had intrigued with Chaldea; and Cambyses, being young, was more disposed to excite than to calm the warlike spirit of his compatriots. According to the Persians, Cambyses asked the daughter of the old king in marriage, hoping that his refusal would furnish him with an insult to avenge. But Aahmes substituted Nitetis the daughter of Uah-ab-Ra for his own daughter. Sometime afterwards, when Cambyses was with her, he called her by the name of her pretended father; whereupon she said: “I see, O king! that thou dost not suspect how thou hast been deceived by Amasis [Aahmes]; he took me, loaded me with jewels, and sent me to thee as his own daughter. It is true I am the child of Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] who was his lord and master, until he rebelled and was put to death with the other Egyptians.” The anger of Cambyses, son of Cyrus, was thus roused, and he took up arms against Egypt.

In Egypt the story was different: Nitetis was sent to Cyrus, and she was the mother of Cambyses, and the conquest was only the re-establishment of the legitimate family against the usurper Aahmes; and thus Cambyses ascended the throne, less in the character of a conqueror, than in that of Uah-ab-Ra’s grandson. It was by an equally puerile fiction that the Egyptians in their decadence consoled themselves for their weakness and disgrace. Always proud of their past glory, but henceforth powerless to conquer, they pretended that they were only vanquished and governed by themselves. It was not Persia that imposed her king upon Egypt, but Egypt who loaned hers to Persia and thence to the rest of the world. The desert and marshes formed a perfect bulwark for the Delta against the attacks of the Asiatic princes. There were ninety leagues of distance, which no army could traverse in less than three weeks, between the last important garrison of Syria and Lake Serbon, where the Egyptian outposts were encamped. In times past the stretch of desert was less, but the incursions of the Assyrians and Chaldeans had depopulated the country and given over to the nomadic Arabs regions which had been formerly quite accessible. An unforeseen event, however, showed Cambyses a way out of the difficulty. Phanes of Halicarnassus, one of the generals of Aahmes, deserted, and fled to Persia. He was a man of judgment and energy, and fully acquainted with Egypt. He advised the king to make friends with the sheikh who governed the coast, and get a passport from him; so the Arab had camels, loaded with sufficient water for the whole army, stationed all along the road.

[Sidenote: [525-523 B.C.]]

On arriving at Pelusium, the Persians learned that Aahmes was dead, and that he had been murdered by Psamthek III. In spite of their confidence in their gods and themselves, the Egyptians now began to be alarmed. They were not only threatened by the nations of the Tigris and Euphrates, but the whole of Asia and the Hellespont also seemed ready to invade them. The allies upon whom Aahmes had counted, such as Polycrates of Samos, and old subjects like those of Cyprus, had abandoned his cause, which now seemed hopeless, and supplied the Persians with forces. The people, consumed with fear of the invader, regarded the slightest phenomenon of nature as a bad sign. Rain is rare in the Thebaïd, and storms rarely come more than once or twice in a century; so, as some days after the accession of Psamthek, “rain fell in torrents at Thebes, which was a rare event, the battle before Pelusium was fought with the bravery of despair.”

Phanes had left his children in Egypt. His old soldiers, the Carians, and the Ionians in the service of the Pharaoh, killed them before his eyes, poured their blood into a goblet half full of wine, and after drinking the mixture, they dashed like madmen into the thickest of the fight. Towards evening the Egyptian line began to waver, and the rout began. Instead of rallying the rest of his forces, and defending the passage of the canals, Psamthek lost his head and took refuge in Memphis. Cambyses sent to demand his surrender, but the maddened people killed the envoys. After a siege of some days, the town opened the gates, and Upper Egypt submitted without further resistance; and the Libyans and Cyrenians offered a tribute without even waiting for it to be demanded. It is said that ten days after the surrender of Memphis, the conqueror wishing to test the imperturbability of his prisoner, gave orders for his daughter, who was dressed as a slave, his sons, and the sons of the chief Egyptians to march past him on their way to their execution. But Psamthek saw the procession without evincing a sign of emotion; when, however, one of his old boon companions went by, dressed in rags like a beggar, he burst into tears and struck his forehead in despair. Cambyses, astonished at this display of despair in a man who had seemed so self-controlled, sent to ask him the reason of his grief, whereupon he said: “O son of Cyrus, my personal misfortunes are too great for tears, but not so with those of my friend. When a man falls from luxury and plenty into misery on the threshold of old age, one can but weep for him.” When the messenger repeated these words to Cambyses, he saw their truth, and Crœsus was moved to tears, for he was with Cambyses in Egypt, and all the Persians present also began to weep. So Cambyses, touched with compassion, treated his prisoner like a king, and would probably have replaced him as a vassal on the throne, had he not learned that a conspiracy was being formed against him; so he entrusted the government of Egypt to Aryandes, the Persian.

Thus, for the first time in the memory of man, the Old World was under one master; but it was impossible to keep the people of the Caucasus and those of Egypt, the Greeks of Asia Minor and the Iranians of Media, the Scythians of Bactriana and the Semites of the Euphrates, under one ruler, so the empire dissolved as quickly as it had been formed.

[Sidenote: [523-522 B.C.]]

At first Cambyses tried to win over his new subjects by complying with their customs. He adopted the double cartouche, the protocol, and the royal costume of the Pharaohs; and in the double hope of appeasing their personal rancour and of conciliating the loyalist party, he repaired to Saïs, violated the tomb of Aahmes, and burnt his mummy; and after accomplishing this posthumous act of justice, he treated Ladike, the widow of the usurper, with deference and sent her back to her parents. He gave orders for the evacuation of the great temple of Nit, where Persian troops were installed to the great distress of the devotees, and repaired the harm they had done at his own expense. His zeal even led him to receive instruction in the Egyptian religion, and to be initiated in the mysteries of the goddess, by the priest Uzaharrasenti. In fact, he acted in Egypt as his father had done in Babylon, and he had his reasons for this condescension to the vanquished, for he hoped to make Memphis and the Delta the basis for his operations in southern Africa. He seemed to care little about the voluntary submission of Cyrene; at least Dorian tradition maintains that he scorned the gifts of Arcesilaus III and gave to his soldiers, in handfuls, the five hundred minas (Egyptian measure) of gold which the prince had paid him as a tribute. The Greeks of Libya were not rich enough to arouse interest, but the fame of Carthage, exaggerated by time and distance, excited his cupidity. Carthage was then at the height of her grandeur. She commanded the old Phœnician settlements in Sicily, Africa, and Spain, her navy had unrivalled sway over the western basin of the Mediterranean, and her merchants penetrated into the distant fabulous regions of southern Europe and Mauretania.

At first Cambyses wished to attack the city by sea, but the Phœnicians who manned her fleet declined to act against their colony. Forced therefore to approach it by land, he sent to Thebes an army of fifty thousand men to take possession of the oasis of Ammon, and to clear the road for the rest of the troops. The fate of this avant-garde was never clearly learnt. It crossed the great oasis, and took a northeasterly course towards the temple of Ammon. The natives relate that when halfway, it was surprised by a Sudanese storm, and was buried under the heaps of sand. This story was probably true, for it never reached the oasis, and never returned to Egypt. The expedition towards the south promised to be more fortunate, for it seemed that there would not be great difficulty in reaching the heart of Africa if it went up the Nile. Cambyses had the country explored by spies, and their account led him to start off from Memphis at the head of an army. The expedition was partially a success, and partially a failure. It seems that the invaders went up the Nile as far as Napata, and then pushed right across the desert in the direction of Berua; their provisions were exhausted when they were a quarter of the way there, and famine forced them to retreat, after having lost several lives. The result of the expedition was the subjugation of the cantons of Nubia, nearest to Syene, to the Persian dominion; however, the Egyptian people, always disposed to believe unfavourable reports of their masters, only took the failure at Berua into consideration.[30]

Cambyses had from his infancy been subject to epileptic fits, during which he was quite furious and unconscious of his actions. The failure of his efforts in Africa increased his illness, and added to the frequency and length of the attacks; he lost his former political power, and gave full fling to his naturally violent temper. The Apis bull had died during his absence, and after the expiration of the regulation number of days of mourning for the departed, a new Apis had been installed, when the Persian army returned from Memphis.

Finding the town en fête, Cambyses thought it was rejoicing at his misfortunes, and he sent for the magistrates and priests, and condemned them to punishment without listening to their explanations. The ox was brought to him, and he stabbed it with his dagger in the thigh. The animal expired a few days later, and the sacrilege caused more excitement amid the devotees, than the ruin of the country. The rancour of the people was increased when they saw the conqueror now as active in offending their deities as he had previously been anxious to conciliate them. He entered the temple of Ptah and mocked at the grotesque forms under which this god was worshipped. He violated the ancient tombs so as to examine the mummies. Even the Aryans and the people of his court were not safe from his rage. He killed his own sister, whom he had married in spite of the law forbidding marriage between children of the same father and mother. He killed the son of Prexaspes [by shooting an arrow into his heart as a proof that his aim was not the unsteadier for drink[31]], he buried twelve of the Persian generals alive, ordered the execution of Crœsus, and then, repenting of his precipitancy, condemned the officers who had not executed the order, which he regretted having given. The Egyptians maintained that the gods struck him with madness as a punishment for his sacrilegious conduct.

[Sidenote: [522 B.C.]]

As there was nothing to detain him longer on the banks of the Nile, he started on his return to Asia. On arriving at the north of Syria, he was met by a herald, who proclaimed, within earshot of the whole army, that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, had ceased to reign, and Bardius, son of Cyrus, was now king in his place. Cambyses thought at first that his orders had not been obeyed, and that his brother’s life had been spared by the man sent to assassinate him. But he soon learned that his orders had been only too faithfully fulfilled, and he bemoaned the useless crime, when he found that the usurper was a certain Gaumata, or Gometes, so strikingly like Bardius that the people were easily deceived. This Gaumata had a brother Patizeithes, to whom Cambyses had entrusted the care of his household. They were both cognisant of the death of Bardius, but they knew that the majority of the Persians were still ignorant of his death, and believed that the prince was still alive.

Gaumata therefore incited the rebellion in the town of Pasargada at the beginning of March, 522, and after a little hesitation Persia and Media and the body of the empire declared in his favour and solemnly accepted him on the 9th Garmapada (July), 522. Utterly overwhelmed at the turn of affairs, Cambyses took the head of the troops which had remained faithful to him, but he died in a mysterious way. The inscription of Behistun seems to intimate that he lost his life by his own hand in a fit of despair. Herodotus says that as he was mounting his horse his dagger entered his thigh at the same spot as he had stabbed the Apis bull.

“Feeling that his death was at hand, he asked the name of the place where he was, and he was told it was Ecbatana.” Now, some time before he had been told by the oracle of Buto that he would end his days at Ecbatana. He had always thought that Ecbatana was in Syria, so when he heard the name of the place, he recollected the words of the oracle, and said, “It is here that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, is destined to die”; and he expired twenty days later without leaving any posterity, or nominating a successor.[g]

FOOTNOTES

[29] [Or rather, as the latest authorities hold, of Elam.]

[30] [The exact fortunes of the expedition to Ethiopia have always been a matter of historical dispute. Dr. Prasek has recently made a most critical examination of all the ancient accounts, and concludes: “There seems to be no good reason to doubt that Cambyses reached Napata, and overthrew the old Ethiopian kingdom, which to be sure was later re-established at Meroë. But, returning through the sandy desert in the terrible heat of the summer, the Persian army had to endure the agonies of thirst, and its ranks were decimated.”--Kambyses und die Ueberlieferung des Altertums.]

[31] [See Herodotus, Book III, chap. 35.]

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