TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the chapters in this HTML version. Obvious errors in punctuation have been silently corrected. Other than that, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.

THE

HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.

FROM THE GERMAN

OF

PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER,

BY

EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., LL.D.,
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

VOL. VI.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1882.

Bungay:

CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

CONTENTS.

BOOK VIII. (CONTINUED.)

THE EMPIRE OF THE MEDES AND
PERSIANS.

EASTERN IRAN.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FALL OF THE LYDIAN EMPIRE.

After the fall of Nineveh, Media, Babylonia, and Lydia had continued to exist side by side in peace and friendship. The successful rebellion of Cyrus altered at one blow the state of Asia. He had not been contented with winning independence for the Persians; he had subjected Media to his power. In the place of a friendly and allied house, the kings of Lydia and Babylonia saw Astyages deprived of his throne, and Media in the hands of a bold and ambitious warrior. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia would hardly have allowed the sovereignty of the table-land of Iran to pass out of the power of a near kinsman into that of Cyrus without offering some resistance; but he was no longer alive to prevent or revenge the overthrow of his brother-in-law. His son Evil-merodach had also come by his death before Astyages succumbed to the arms of Cyrus, and after a short reign Neriglissar left the kingdom to a boy (III. 392). On the other hand, the Lydian empire was in its fullest vigour. We are acquainted with the successes which fell to the lot of Alyattes after his alliance with Media; we saw with what rapidity his son Crœsus brought to a happy conclusion the long struggle against the Greek cities of the coast. His kingdom now embraced the whole of Asia Minor, as far as the Halys; the Lycians alone remained independent in their small mountain canton. Loved and honoured by his people, as Herodotus indicates, Crœsus saw his complete and compact empire in the greatest prosperity; his treasury was full to overflowing; his metropolis was the richest city in Asia after Babylon. The Lydian infantry were excellent and trustworthy; the cavalry were dreaded; in past days they had measured themselves with success against the Medes.[1] Thus in the third or fourth year of his reign, in the pride of his position, surrounded by inexhaustible treasures and the most splendid magnificence, on his lofty citadel at Sardis, Crœsus could declare himself, against the opinion of the Athenian Solon, the man most favoured by fortune (III. 458). Two years afterwards Astyages, whose wife Aryanis was Crœsus' sister, was overthrown. Crœsus had reason enough to take the field for his brother-in-law, and anticipate the danger which might arise for Lydia out of this change in the East. He might hope that his example would set the Babylonians in motion against the usurper of the Median throne, and cause the Medes themselves to revolt against their new master. But he appears to have been afraid of embarking in an uncertain and dangerous war at a great distance from his own borders. It was not clear that victory at the first onset would imply lasting success, and Lydia had no attack to fear so long as Cyrus was occupied in establishing his new dominion in Media, and engaged in conflicts in the East and North. In Sardis it might be assumed that the usurper would find great difficulties in his way. Herodotus represents Sandanis, a distinguished Lydian, as asking Crœsus whether he would take the field against men who clad themselves in leather, and did not eat what they liked, but what they had, and lived in a rugged country—who drank water and not wine, and had not even figs or any other thing that was pleasant? What could the king, if victorious, take from them, when they had nothing? On the other hand, if conquered, he had much to lose, and if the Persians once tasted any of the good things of Lydia, they would never be driven out of the land again.[2] Crœsus hesitated. It was of the greatest importance for Cyrus that Lydia and Babylonia should not interfere in favour of Astyages and the Medes, that they remained inactive during the revolution, and allowed him to establish his dominion in Media without disturbance, to direct his aim unimpeded against the neighbours of Media, and to subjugate without opposition the Parthians, Hyrcanians, and Cadusians.

The manner in which war eventually broke out between Lydia and Persia, the course of the war, and the fortune which overtook Crœsus, are narrated by Herodotus in the following manner: "Solon had scarcely left Crœsus (III. 454, note 3) when the latter saw in a dream the vision which portended the fate of his son. He had two sons: one was deaf and dumb, but the other, Attys, was greatly distinguished above all his companions. The dream told him that he would lose this son by an iron spear-head. In alarm Crœsus found a wife for his son, would not allow him to go out with the army as before, and removed into the armoury all the armour which was in the chambers, that nothing might fall upon him. At the time when Crœsus was occupied with the marriage of Attys, a Phrygian came to Sardis, Adrastus by name, the son of Gordius, the grandson of Midas, who had unintentionally killed his brother, and had been banished by his father, and Crœsus received him. At the same time a great boar appeared on the Mysian Olympus, which ravaged the lands of the Mysians, and as they could not master it, they sent messengers to Crœsus praying him to allow Attys and some chosen youths to come with dogs to set them free from the monster. Crœsus would not let his son go, for he had just been married. But the son complained to his father: Previously he had won great glory in war, and in the chase, now he was kept back from both; how would men look upon him in the market-place?—in what light would he appear to the citizens and his young wife? Crœsus told him the dream, but Attys replied that the boar had no hands, and no iron point: Crœsus therefore allowed him to go, and bade Adrastus accompany his son and watch over him. Adrastus promised to bring back his son uninjured, so far as lay in his power, in return for the kindness which Crœsus had shown him. The boar was surrounded on Olympus, and javelins thrown at it from every side; the spear of Adrastus missed the boar and hit Attys. Thus was the dream of Crœsus fulfilled. Adrastus went with the corpse to Crœsus, and besought him to slay him as a sacrifice to the dead. But Crœsus replied that Adrastus had made recompense enough in condemning himself to death. He had his son buried with proper honours; but Adrastus slew himself on the grave."

"Two years were spent by Crœsus in mourning for his son. Then the destruction of the empire of Astyages by Cyrus, and the growing power of the Persians, put an end to the mourning, and caused him to consider whether he could check the rise of the Persians before they became great. With this thought in his mind, he determined to test the oracles, both those of the Greeks and that in Libya, and ascertain whether they could tell the truth; to the oracle which he found truthful, he would propose the question, whether he should undertake a campaign against the Persians. So he sent to the oracles of the Greeks, to Miletus, Delphi, Abae, and Trophonius, to the sanctuary of Amphiaraus at Thebes, and to Dodona, to the temple of Ammon in Libya, bidding his messengers inquire on the hundredth day after their departure from Sardis, what Crœsus, the son of Alyattes, the king of Lydia, was doing on that day. The answers were to be written down, and brought back to him. What the other oracles said no one has narrated, but when the Lydians came into the temple at Delphi and propounded their question, the priestess answered: 'I know the number of the sand, and the measure of the sea; I understand the dumb, and hear him who speaks not. The scent of the hard-shelled tortoise comes into my nostrils which is being cooked in brass with lamb's flesh; brass is below, and brass is above.' The Lydians wrote this down, and returned to Sardis; and when the other messengers came back, Crœsus opened their letters. He paid no attention to the rest, but when he came to the answer from Delphi he recognised the power of the god, and saw that the Delphic oracle alone had been aware of what he was doing. For on the day appointed he had cooked the flesh of a tortoise and lamb in a brazen vessel, covered with a brazen lid, thinking that it would be impossible to discover or invent such a thing. What answer was brought back from Amphiaraus I cannot say, for it is nowhere recorded, but Crœsus is said to have considered this oracle as truthful. Then Crœsus won the favour of the god of Delphi by great sacrifices. He offered 3000 victims of every kind, and erected a great pile of wood on which he burned couches covered with gold and silver, golden goblets, purple robes and garments, in the hope that he would thereby gain the favour of the god yet more, and bade the Lydians sacrifice to their deity whatever each possessed. And as the sacrifice left behind an enormous mass of molten gold, Crœsus caused bricks to be made, six palms in length, three in breadth, and one in depth; in all there were 117 bricks. Of these, four were of the purest gold, each two and a half talents in weight; and the rest of white gold (i. e. of mingled gold and silver), each two talents in weight. In addition, there was a golden lion which weighed ten talents. When these were finished, Crœsus sent them to Delphi, and added two very large mixing-bowls, one of gold, weighing eight talents and a half and twelve minæ, and one of silver, the work of Theodorus of Samos, as the Delphians say, and I believe it, for it is the work of no ordinary artificer; four silver jars, and two vessels for holy water, one of gold and the other of silver, circular casts of silver, a golden statue of a woman, three cubits high, and the necklace and girdles of his queen. All these things he sent to Delphi, and to Amphiaraus a golden shield and a spear, of which both the stem and the point were of gold."

"Crœsus bade the envoys who carried these gifts ask the oracles, whether he should march against the Persians, or collect allies. The answer of both oracles was to the same effect: they told him, that if he went against Cyrus he would destroy a great empire, and at the same time advised him to find out who were the most powerful among the Greeks, and take them as allies. Crœsus was greatly delighted when he received this answer; in the certainty that he would overthrow the empire of Cyrus, he sent again to Delphi and presented each Delphian with two staters. The Delphians in return bestowed on the Lydians for all future time the right to consult the priestess first, the best seats, freedom from contributions, and the citizenship of Delphi to any Lydian who should wish to become a Delphian. Crœsus inquired of the oracle for the third time: whether his reign would be of long continuance, and the priestess replied: 'When a mule becomes king of the Medes, then, O soft-footed Lydian, fly from the pebbly Hermus; stay not, and take no shame to be a coward.' Then Crœsus was yet more delighted, for he thought that a mule would never rule over the Medes instead of a man, and therefore neither he nor his descendants would lose their power. Then he inquired who were the most mighty among the Hellenes, and when he found that the greatest part of the Peloponnesus was subject to the Lacedæmonians, he sent messengers with presents to Sparta to conclude an alliance. The Lacedæmonians were filled with joy; they knew the oracle which had been given to Crœsus, and made him a friend and ally, as they had previously received many kindnesses at his hands."

"Crœsus now marched to Cappadocia in the hope of crushing Cyrus and the Persians; he also intended to add Cappadocia to his kingdom, but above all he wished to take vengeance on Cyrus, who had defeated his brother-in-law Astyages, and had got him in his power. When he came to the Halys, which was the boundary between the Lydian and the Persian kingdoms, he crossed the river by the bridges, and came into the part of Cappadocia, which is called Pteria (this region, the strongest in the whole country, lies towards Sinope and the Pontus Euxinus). There he pitched his camp, desolated the land, took the city of the Pterians, and enslaved the inhabitants, conquered the neighbouring cities, and drove out the Syrians, who had done him no harm whatever. But Cyrus collected his army, adding to it all the nations in his march, and took up a position against Crœsus. Previous to setting out, he had sent heralds to the Ionians, and requested them to revolt from Crœsus. To this request the Ionians did not listen. Then Cyrus encamped opposite Crœsus, and the two armies tried their strength in the land of Pteria. A fierce battle was fought; many fell on both sides; neither was victorious, and when night came they desisted from the battle. Crœsus found that his force was not strong enough; his army was inferior in numbers to that of the enemy, and when Cyrus did not venture to attack him on the next day, he returned to Sardis. His object was to summon the Egyptians, for he had made a treaty with Amasis the king of Egypt before entering into terms with the Lacedæmonians, to send to the Babylonians—for with them also and their king Labynetus he had made an alliance—and to call on the Lacedæmonians to join him at a fixed time. After uniting these, and collecting all his forces, he intended, as soon as the winter was over, to march out against the Persians. So when he arrived at Sardis he sent heralds to his allies, bidding them assemble in the fifth month at Sardis, and dismissed all the mercenaries in the army which had fought against Cyrus. He did not expect that Cyrus, who had contended in the battle without success, would march against Sardis. When Crœsus retired immediately after the battle in Pteria, and it was discovered that the Lydian forces were to be disbanded, Cyrus saw that it would be much to his advantage to march upon Sardis with all speed, before the Lydian army could be collected a second time. He was so rapid in his movements, that he announced his own arrival to Crœsus."

"Though in great difficulties, inasmuch as things had turned out contrary to his expectations, Crœsus led out the Lydians to battle. And at that time there was no braver and more warlike nation in Asia. They fought on horseback, armed with long lances, and were excellent riders. The armies met in the large open plain before Sardis. The cavalry of Crœsus caused alarm to Cyrus, and on the advice of Harpagus the Mede, he collected all the camels which carried the food and baggage of the army, took off their burdens, and had them mounted by armed men. These he placed before the army, then followed the infantry, and after them the Persian horse. He bade them not to slay Crœsus, even though he should seek to defend himself when taken captive. When the battle broke out, the Lydian horses were alarmed at the sight and smell of the camels, and turned, and so the hopes of Crœsus were destroyed. Yet the Lydians did not lose their courage; they sprang from their horses and met the Persians on foot. At length, when many had fallen on both sides, the Lydians fled; they were driven into the walls, and besieged by the Persians. Crœsus thought that the siege would occupy a long time, and sent fresh messengers to his confederates, and also to the Lacedæmonians, bidding them come as soon as possible. When they arrived at Sparta three hundred Spartans had been slain by the Argives, yet they determined to send assistance; their men were armed and ready to sail, when there came a second message that Sardis was captured, and Crœsus a prisoner."

"Sardis had been invested fourteen days when Cyrus announced to his army that the man who first climbed the walls should receive presents. Attempts were made, but as they failed, they were given up. Nevertheless Hyroeades, a Mardian, determined to climb the citadel at a place where no watch had been set. It was never supposed possible that the city could be taken on this side, for the mountain fell precipitously down towards Mt. Tmolus, and storming was impossible. On the previous day Hyroeades had seen a Lydian, whose helmet had fallen down, descend after it, and then climb back with it. He also ascended, others followed, and when sufficient Persians were on the top, Sardis was taken and the whole city plundered. After the citadel had been captured a Persian rushed at Crœsus, whom he did not know, to cut him down. When the dumb son of Crœsus saw this, through fear and horror he broke out into speech, and cried out: 'Man, do not slay Crœsus.' And ever after he was able to speak."

"The Persians led Crœsus to Cyrus, who caused a great pyre to be built, and Crœsus to be led to it in chains with twice seven Lydian boys; whether it was that he intended to offer the firstlings of the victory to some god, and discharge a vow, or whether he knew that Crœsus was eminent for piety, and wished to see if a god would protect him from being burnt alive. When Crœsus was on the pyre, the words of Solon came into his mind, in his distress, that no one among living men was to be accounted happy. When this occurred to him, he sighed deeply after a long silence, and called out thrice, Solon! On hearing this Cyrus commanded the interpreters to ask Crœsus whom he was calling upon. At first he was silent; on being pressed, he said: 'On him, whose words I count it above great treasures that all rulers should hear.' As what he said was unintelligible, the question was put to him again, and when they insisted on hearing the whole, he told them, while the pyre was being kindled at the outer edge, what Solon the Athenian had said to him. When Cyrus heard this from the interpreters he reflected that he, a man, was condemning to the flames a man of no less power than himself; in fear of vengeance, and considering that there was nothing certain among men, he changed his mind, and gave orders to quench the fire, and bring down Crœsus and those with him. When all attempted in vain to quench the flames, Crœsus, according to the Lydian account, called on Apollo, entreating him to aid him now if he had ever offered pleasant gifts, and save him in his extremity. When Crœsus was praying in tears to the god, the sky, which had been clear and still, was suddenly covered with clouds; a storm burst upon them, and the fire was quenched by torrents of rain. And Cyrus then saw that Crœsus was a man beloved by the gods, and asked him why he had marched against his land, and made him his enemy instead of his friend? Crœsus replied, that he had been induced to do this by his own bad fortune and the good fortune of Cyrus. The god of the Hellenes had urged him to take the field against Cyrus. Then Cyrus caused the fetters to be struck off him, and placed him near himself. When Crœsus saw the Persians plundering the city, he inquired of Cyrus: 'What is all this multitude doing with so much eagerness?' Cyrus answered: 'They are plundering your city and treasures.' He replied: 'They are mine no longer; it is your property which they are plundering and sacking. The Persians, courageous by nature, are poor; if you allow them to plunder and carry off much booty, it may be that the man who gains the most will rebel against you. If it pleases you, do as I advise. Place your body-guard at the gates, and bid them take from the plunderers what they are carrying out, and tell them that a tenth must be offered to Zeus. You will escape their ill-will, and they will gladly obey you.' This advice pleased Cyrus. He followed it, and promised Crœsus to grant him a favour in return."

"The favour which Crœsus asked was this: Cyrus must allow him to send the fetters, which he wore, to the Delphic god, and ask whether it was his manner to deceive those who showed him kindness. Cyrus granted the prayer with a smile, and promised that he would not refuse a further request. So Lydians went with the fetters to Delphi, and asked the god whether he was not ashamed to have urged Crœsus to make war upon Cyrus, who had taken much spoil from him; and at the same time they showed the fetters. The priestess answered, as it is recorded, that even a god could not escape his destiny; Crœsus was paying the penalty for his fifth ancestor, who had seized a throne which did not belong to him. The god had endeavoured to bring it to pass that the punishment should not fall on Crœsus but on his children, but he had only been able to defer the capture of Sardis for three years; let Crœsus know that he had been taken captive three years later than was ordained. Moreover, the god had sent him help when on the pyre. It was announced that he would destroy a great empire if he went against Cyrus, but what empire was not said. Nor had Crœsus understood the response about the mule. Cyrus was the mule, the son of a Persian father and Median mother, a subject and his mistress. When Crœsus heard this, he saw that he and not the god was in fault."

Only a meagre excerpt remains of the account given by Ctesias of the conflict of Cyrus and Crœsus. The king of the Sacæ, Amorges, marched with Cyrus against Crœsus and Sardis. When the Lydians were shut up in the city, Crœsus, deceived by the portents of the gods, gave his son as a hostage to Cyrus, and when he subsequently sought to deceive him in the negotiations, Cyrus caused the son to be slain before the father's eyes. The mother, when she saw the execution of her son, threw herself down from the turrets of the walls. Then Cyrus, on the advice of Oebares, caused wooden figures of Persians to be placed on long poles and laid against the turrets, that the Lydians might be filled with terror at the sight of them. In this way the citadel, and the city itself, was taken. Crœsus fled for refuge into the temple of Apollo, where Cyrus caused him to be placed in chains, but though seals were set on them, and Oebares was commissioned to keep watch, the fetters were three times removed from Crœsus in a miraculous manner. Then those who had been put in chains with him were beheaded, as though they had conspired to liberate their king, and Cyrus brought Crœsus into the palace and caused yet heavier chains to be put upon him; but the fetters again fell to the ground, this time amid thunder and lightning. At length Cyrus liberated Crœsus, showed him great kindness, and presented him with the large city of Barene, near Ecbatana, which had been garrisoned by 5000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry.[3]

Polyaenus relates that Crœsus, after his defeat in Cappadocia by Cyrus, withdrew his troops in the night by a pass. This pass he then filled with a quantity of timber, to which he set fire in order to check the pursuit of the Persians. When the armies met a second time for battle, Cyrus rendered the numerous cavalry of the Lydians, in which they trusted, useless by placing camels opposite them. Thus they were at once put to flight, and trod down the infantry, so that Cyrus was again victorious. At Sardis Crœsus once more tried the fortune of battle. As his Greek allies delayed their coming, he provided the strongest and tallest Lydians with Greek armour. The sight of the strange arms checked the Persians. They were terrified by the sound of the spears striking against the brazen shields, and the glitter of the shields caused their horses to take fright and turn. They retired, and Cyrus concluded a treaty for three days with Crœsus, in which he was to withdraw his forces from Sardis. But as soon as it was night he turned his army again upon Sardis, and attacked the city unexpectedly. The ascent of the walls by scaling ladders was successful, yet Crœsus maintained the citadel and defended it bravely in the deceptive hope that his allies would arrive. Then Cyrus caused the relatives of those who were with Crœsus in the citadel to be seized and bound, and brought before the walls; and he announced to their kinsmen on the towers that if the citadel were given up the captives would be set at liberty, if not they would all be hanged. This induced the Lydians in the citadel to open the gates. But in another passage Polyaenus repeats the version of Ctesias about the capture of the city. Cyrus caused figures in Persian clothing, and wearing beards, with quivers on their shoulders and bows in their hands, to be placed on tall poles of equal length, and in the night these were laid against the walls of the citadel so that the figures rose above the wall. At break of day Cyrus attacked the part of the city underneath the citadel. The attacks were beaten off, but on turning round some Lydians saw the figures above the citadel, and thinking that it had been stormed by the Persians, they fled, and Cyrus took Sardis by storm.[4]

In Xenophon the Persians and Medes are contending against Babylonia. On the representation of the king of Babylon that those two nations would subjugate all the world, unless measures were taken to prevent them, Crœsus marches out to aid the king,[5] with an army of 40,000 horse, and about 150,000 light-armed infantry and bowmen. But the united army of the Lydians and Babylonians, though it reached nearly 60,000 cavalry and more than 200,000 infantry,[6] was defeated. Cyrus turned his steps towards Lydia, and Crœsus collected a new army on the Pactolus of Lydians, Phrygians, Paphlagonians, and Lycaonians, who were joined by the Cilicians and Cappadocians. The Egyptians and Cyprians came on board ship; envoys went to Lacedæmon to ask for troops. With this army Crœsus marched to meet Cyrus at Thymbrara. Here the battle took place. Cyrus had placed two archers on each of the camels; these were ranged opposite the enemy's cavalry, and even from a distance the Lydian horses sought to avoid the camels; some turn round, others rear, and press upon each other. So the Persians succeeded in overthrowing the disorganised cavalry. But the battle had to be fought out with the javelin, lance, and sword; the Persians were not victorious without great bloodshed. Crœsus flies to Sardis, the Lydians alone remain faithful, the rest of his army disperses. Cyrus pursues him on the next morning, and at once invests Sardis. In the very night after the camp was pitched before Sardis, Chaldæans (i. e. Gordyæans, Carduchians)[7], and Persians climb the fortifications where they seem to be steepest. They were led by a Persian, who having formerly been the slave of one on the watch in the citadel, knew the place where the rocks could be climbed from the river. The Lydians abandoned the walls, as soon as they saw the citadel taken. Crœsus shut himself up in his palace, and asked for quarter. Cyrus had him brought into his presence, and said that it was not his intention to abandon to his soldiers the richest city in Asia after Babylon, but they must have some reward for their efforts and dangers which they had undergone. Crœsus replied that the sack of the city would destroy the sources of wealth, the woven stuffs and industry of the place; if it were spared the Lydians would gladly bring the best of what they had, and in a year's time the city would once more be in great prosperity. Then Cyrus asked Crœsus how it came to pass that he who was such a zealous servant of Apollo, and did everything by his direction, had fallen into calamity. Crœsus replied that he had brought upon him the aversion of the god by putting it to the test whether his announcements were true. He believed indeed that he had appeased his wrath by rich presents of gold and silver, and when he lost his youthful son he had further asked how he could most happily pass the rest of his life, and the god had answered, "By knowing thyself, thou wilt live happily." He had regarded this condition of happiness as a very easy one; a man might have some difficulty in learning to know others, but himself he could know quite easily. "But I did not know myself," Crœsus continues in Xenophon, "when I fancied that I was equal to you in war; you are descended from the gods, from a series of kings, and from your youth have been exercised in brave deeds. My ancestor was a slave who became king. Now I know myself." Cyrus allowed him to retain his wife and daughters, gave him servants and entertainment, and took him with him wherever he went, either because he held the advice of Crœsus to be useful, or because this seemed to him the safest thing to do.[8]

Only fragments have come down to us of Diodorus' narrative of the fall of Crœsus; in some respects these agree with the account of Herodotus; more frequently they differ from it. He may have borrowed from Ephorus.[9] Diodorus began with the death of Attys by the javelin of the Phrygian Adrastus. Crœsus at first threatens to have Adrastus burnt alive, but forgives his offence when he offers his own life for it. But he voluntarily slays himself at the tomb of Attys. Diodorus then gives an account of the oracles—the first, which Crœsus received at Delphi before the war on behalf of his dumb son,—Crœsus was foolish in wishing to hear the much-desired voice of his child; he would speak in a day of disaster—the second, about the consequences of crossing the Halys; the third, about the mule. Crœsus sent Eurybatus of Ephesus with gold, apparently to Delphi, but in reality to the Peloponnesus, in order to receive as many Hellenes as possible into his pay; but Eurybatus passed over to Cyrus, and revealed everything to him. This act of treachery was held in such detestation by the Greeks, that to his day a villain was called Eurybatus. When Cyrus had reached the passes of Cappadocia with his united forces he sent heralds to Crœsus, to discover his forces, and to tell him that Cyrus would pardon his former offences and nominate him satrap of Lydia, if he would appear at his gates and there proclaim himself a servant like the rest. Crœsus replied that Cyrus and the Persians would sooner endure to be his slaves, as in former times they had been the servants of the Medes; as regarded himself, he had never obeyed the order of another person. When Crœsus had been taken captive, and the flames of the pyre quenched, Diodorus represents Crœsus putting to Cyrus the question which we find in Herodotus (p. 14), about the sacking of the city; Cyrus puts an end to the plundering, and orders the possessions of the inhabitants to be brought into the palace. We are further told, that as the rain had suddenly come down and quenched the flames, Cyrus regarded Crœsus as a pious man. Moreover, he kept Solon's saying in mind; he held Crœsus in honour, and made him his adviser, regarding one who had associated with so many wise men as being himself prudent and able.[10]

Justin's excerpt from Pompeius Trogus gives a brief account of the fall of the Lydian kingdom. When Cyrus had reduced the greater part of the nations which had previously been subject to the Medes, Crœsus, the king of Lydia, whose power and wealth were then very great, came to the help of the Babylonians. He was conquered and retired into his kingdom. When Cyrus had settled his quarrel with Babylon, he engaged in war with Lydia. He easily put to flight the Lydian army, already dispirited by the previous defeat. Crœsus himself was captured. "But the less the danger of the war, the milder was the use made of the victory. To Crœsus was given his life, portions of his property, and the city of Barka, where he lived a life, which, if not that of a king, approached nearly to royal magnificence."[11]

The end only of the account of Nicolaus of Damascus, containing the story of the intended burning of Crœsus, has come down to us. Cyrus, we are told, had great sympathy with the misfortune of Crœsus, but the Persians insisted that he should be burnt as an enemy. A great pyre was erected at the foot of a hill. Cyrus marched out with all his army; a great multitude of natives and foreigners gathered together. When Crœsus and fourteen Lydians were brought out in chains, all the Lydians broke out into sighs and lamentations, and beat their heads, so that the weeping and wailing of men and women was greater now than it had been at the capture of the city. This showed what affection Crœsus inspired among his subjects. "They tore their garments, and thousands of women ran weeping forward. Crœsus advanced without tears, and with a firm countenance, and when he reached Cyrus he asked with a loud voice that his son might be brought to him. This was done. The son embraced his father, and said with tears: 'Woe is me, my father. Of what avail was your piety; when will the gods help us? Have they granted me speech only to bewail our misfortunes?' Turning to the Persians he said: 'Burn me also; I am no less your enemy than my father.' But Crœsus checked him with these words: 'I alone determined on the war, and no one else of the Lydians; therefore I alone must pay the penalty.' When numerous servants of the Lydian women had brought rich garments and ornaments of every kind to be burned with him, Crœsus kissed his son and the Lydians who were standing by, and ascended the pyre; but the son raised his hands to heaven and cried aloud: 'King Apollo, and all ye gods to whom my father has done honour, come now to our help, that the piety of mankind may not be destroyed with Crœsus.' His friends could hardly restrain him from casting himself on the pyre. But on a sudden Herophile, the sibyl of Ephesus, appeared, and descended from the height, and cried: 'Ye fools, what injustice is this? Supreme Zeus, and Phœbus, and glorious Amphiaraus will not permit it. Obey the truthful sayings of my words, that the god may not visit your frenzy with grievous destruction.' Cyrus caused the oracle to be interpreted to the Persians that they might desist from their purpose, but they set the pile on fire with torches on every side. Then Crœsus called thrice on the name of Solon, and Cyrus wept, that he should be compelled by the Persians to do an unrighteous act, and burn a king who was no less in honour than himself. When the Persians looked on Cyrus and saw his distress, they changed their minds, and the king bade those who were near him put out the fire. But the pile was on fire and no one could quench it. Then Crœsus called on Apollo for help, because his enemies wished to save him and could not. From the morning the day had been cloudy, but without rain, but when Crœsus had prayed, dark clouds rolled up from every side, lightning and thunder followed fast, and the rain poured down in such streams that not only was the pyre quenched but men could hardly withstand the storm. A purple canopy was quickly spread over Crœsus, but the Persians, terrified at the storm, the darkness, and the panic which had come upon the horses owing to the tempest, were seized with fear of the gods. They thought of the saying of the sibyl and the commands of Zoroaster, cast themselves on the earth, and cried for pardon. From this date the rule of Zoroaster, which had existed among the Persians for a long time, not to burn their dead nor pollute fire in any way, was strictly observed. Cyrus led Crœsus into the palace, treated him as a friend, seeing that he was a pious man, and bade him ask without hesitation for any favour that he chose. Crœsus asked that he might send his fetters to Delphi and ask the god, why he had deceived him by his responses and driven him into war, when he had sent him such trophies; the messengers were also to ask whether the gods of the Greeks paid no heed to the gifts which they received. Cyrus granted this request with a smile and said that he would not refuse Crœsus even a greater favour; he made him his friend, and when he left Sardis, restored his wives and children, and took him as a companion. Some say that he would have made him viceroy of Sardis, if he had not been afraid that this would induce the Lydians to revolt."[12]

We have already noticed how deep was the impression made on the Greeks by the greatness and splendour of the Lydian kingdom. Lydia was the power of the East with which they first came into immediate contact, the first Oriental court which they had before their eyes. A king of Lydia had subjugated the great cities of the coast; his wide dominion, power, and wisdom were the admiration of the Greeks; his glory and treasures excited their astonishment; he had shown himself kindly and gracious towards them, and sent the richest gifts to their gods—and this king it was who fell by a sudden overthrow from his splendid position. He succumbed to a foreign and distant nation, whose name up to that time was hardly known to Greece, and his fall brought with it distress and mischief for the Greeks of the west coast of Asia Minor. This sudden fall of Crœsus was a striking event, and most disastrous for the Greeks, the more striking owing to the unexpected and rapid nature of the change. How could so brave, wise, and religious a ruler fall from the summit of fortune into the deepest distress, and come by a mischance which brought disaster not only on himself and his kingdom, but also on the Greek cities? How could this be the result of an undertaking begun on the authority of the god of Delphi? These questions forced themselves on the Greeks of Anatolia, and beyond the sea, and their legends were at pains to solve the problem. In the mind of Herodotus the solution was the punishment which sooner or later overtakes every unrighteous act. Gyges, the ancestor of Crœsus, had robbed the ancient royal family of the Lydians, the race of Sandon, of their throne. It was the vengeance for this crime which overtook Crœsus. It was a widely-spread and favourite story among the Greeks, how Solon of Athens, unmoved by the successes, the prosperity, and splendour of Crœsus, had warned him in his proud citadel at Sardis of the mutability of human things, and preferred to his brilliant position as a sovereign the modest lot of a life well spent in the performance of duty. We have observed (III. 458) that this narrative is not without some basis of fact. Could there be a more impressive illustration of the saying of Solon than the fate which had overtaken Crœsus? The tradition of the Greeks, especially of the Delphian priesthood, was aware of several oracular responses which had been given to Crœsus. Herodotus' point of view led him to believe that no one, though warned by portents, dreams, and oracles, could escape the doom which hung over him. In this fact lay the justification of the Delphian oracle in regard to the prophecies given to Crœsus. It had announced what was correct, but owing to the blindness sent upon him by fate, Crœsus had not been able to understand its meaning.

Guided by these views, Herodotus represents misfortune as coming on Crœsus in one blow upon another immediately after he had displayed the splendour of his empire to Solon, and in foolish vainglory had declared himself to be the most fortunate of men. That Crœsus had two sons, one a youth of promise, the other dumb, and that he lost the former in the bloom of his youth, are facts mentioned by Xenophon as well as Herodotus.[13] A dream indicates to Crœsus the death which is destined for his noble son; and the means which he adopts to avert the death serve to bring it about. Adrastus, who first slays his own brother, then the son of Crœsus, and at length slays himself on the young man's grave, is called a scion of the old Phrygian royal family of Midas and Gordius; hence there is a close connection between the fall of the Phrygian and Lydian houses. The Greeks worshipped Nemesis Adrastea, i. e. the doom which none can escape, on the Granicus, and on a mountain near Cyzicus.[14] In the tradition of the Lydians, Attys was their first king, whom Herodotus calls the son of the god Manes; according to the legend of the Phrygians and Lydians, he had been slain by a boar.[15] As we saw, the Phrygians mourned each year for the death of Attys, who had been carried off in the bloom of youth (I. 532). When death had overtaken this son, Crœsus sent to Delphi to ascertain whether his remaining son should ever receive the gift of speech; and the answer was returned that he would speak on a day of great misfortune. Thus the prescience of the Delphic priestess is brought forward in the most emphatic manner.

The overthrow of Astyages caused Crœsus to examine a whole series of oracles that he might ascertain whether they knew what was hidden from men, before he inquired whether he should march against Cyrus. Before this examination, Crœsus had sought and received many prophecies at Delphi, and now he tests not this oracle only, but many others. The mixture of belief and scepticism which would give rise to such an examination is not in itself incredible, but the manner in which the test is carried out in the narrative of Herodotus, or rather of the Delphian priesthood, is wholly beyond belief. The frivolous question—what was the king of the Lydians doing on a certain day—the drift of which was so obvious, would certainly be left unanswered by any oracle of repute which was believed to receive revelations from the gods. If we consider the nature of the Delphic prophecy, which claimed rather to announce the responses of Apollo than to bring to light the past or the future; the religious solemnity of the ceremonies, which they who would consult the oracle had to perform; the small number of the days on which the priestess spoke, we may be quite sure that the priests would have rejected the question. Herodotus cannot give the answers of the other oracles—not even the answer of Amphiaraus (which is also mentioned in the account of Nicolaus), and yet this oracle must have stood the test no less than Delphi, for Crœsus sent presents to it, and laid before it his second question. To Apollo of Miletus, whose answer to the first question Herodotus does not know, and of whom the second question is not asked, Crœsus dedicates exactly the same gifts as those sent to Apollo of Delphi after he had stood the test. Hence it is quite clear that the supposed examination of the oracles is merely a story invented by the Greeks to glorify the Delphic shrine. Crœsus fell, in spite of the splendid presents he had made to the Delphic god, on whose advice he had acted; in order to maintain the divine wisdom of the oracle against this charge, it must be proved to have knowledge of the most secret things. And it is true that Crœsus had put the oracle to the test, though in another manner, by following up the answer to his question whether he should go against the Persians, with a second question—whether his empire would continue. The story how splendidly Delphi had stood the test then received an apparently certain foundation in the hexameters about the lamb's flesh and tortoise, which was subsequently manufactured in Delphi in the name of the priestess.

The narrative of the campaign in Herodotus is obviously intended to put Crœsus in the wrong, and burden him with guilt of his own in addition to the offence of his ancestor. Sandanis warns him in vain (p. 5). Cyrus has done nothing to injure Crœsus, and therefore Crœsus is the aggressor. He crosses the Halys, invades the territory of Cyrus, in order to conquer Cappadocia and avenge Astyages on Cyrus; he causes the land of the Cappadocians to be desolated; and Herodotus lays stress on the fact that this nation was quite innocent. Guilt is followed by incapacity, after the indecisive battle. Crœsus disbands his army for the singular reason that it "was inferior in numbers to that of Cyrus." He is then surprised in Sardis; the citadel is naturally ascended in the very place where in old days king Meles omitted to carry the lion which was to make the walls of Sardis impregnable, because he thought it unnecessary, the place being inaccessible. (I. 561). Crœsus is saved from instant death, because the deaf and dumb son receives his speech on a day of misfortune, as Delphi had announced. The son can not only speak, but knows how to address his father by name. The favour of the gods, who turn again to Crœsus when he has expiated the guilt of Gyges and himself by his overthrow, is shown in this miracle, and more plainly still on the funeral pyre. The wisdom of the Greeks, and of Solon, is set in the clearest light, when Crœsus in his deepest distress, on the brink of a terrible death, remembers the warning once given him by Solon. If such a recollection forms the most brilliant evidence of the insight of the Greeks, it might also give the motive for the rescue of Crœsus.

The occurrences on and at the pyre partake so strongly of the miraculous that Herodotus himself is puzzled. What reason could Cyrus, whose gentleness Herodotus himself extols, have for condemning Crœsus to a death by fire, and with him fourteen Lydian youths? Herodotus knows that fire is a god in the eyes of the Persians, and that corpses could not be burnt.[16] He says: "Cyrus either wished to offer first-fruits to some god, or to fulfil a vow, or to ascertain whether Apollo would assist the pious Crœsus." When narrating the astonishing incidents which took place on the pyre, he drops the positive tone, and continues the story with "the Lydians say." The pyre is already kindled when the question is asked by the interpreters, What is the meaning of the cry "Solon"? Crœsus is at first obstinately silent, then answers obscurely; and only after long pressure tells of his meeting with Solon, which could not be done very briefly if it was to be made intelligible to Cyrus, and the narrative had to be translated by the interpreters, as Herodotus himself relates. Then Cyrus is seized with remorse for the execution he has commanded, and the attempt is made to quench the pyre. Impossible as all this is, Crœsus at the last moment confesses that Solon is right, and Solon's deep insight moves the heart of the great sovereign of the Persians, and rescues the once prosperous but now fallen king.

In his minute account of the cremation, which, in his rhetorical manner, he connects with the recovery of speech by the deaf and dumb son, Nicolaus of Damascus felt difficulties like those in Herodotus. The law bidding the Persians not to pollute fire, nor to "burn the dead," is well known to him. He removes the contradiction by representing the cremation as taking place against the will of Cyrus, and remarks that after this incident the regulation was more strictly observed. In his story also the change is made by the mention of Solon's name. When Cyrus had ascertained what Solon had said to Crœsus, he began to weep, and saw that he had done wrong, and the pain of their king touches the heart of the Persians. This movement is assisted in Nicolaus by the sibyl of Ephesus; in which no doubt he follows the legend of Ephesus; Crœsus had made large presents to the temple of Artemis in that city (III. 451).

In Herodotus, as in Diodorus and Nicolaus, it is the rain, by which the pyre is quenched, which causes Cyrus to continue his gentle treatment of Crœsus. Moreover, the excellent advice, which Crœsus with immediate prudence gives, for putting an end to the plunder of Sardis, and other matters in Herodotus, in Diodorus, and Xenophon, co-operate in influencing Cyrus to hold such a wise man in respect. Xenophon knows, or at any rate says, nothing of the burning of Crœsus. Ctesias knows nothing of it: in his account miracles of another kind are vouchsafed to the imprisoned Crœsus by Apollo in his temple; the triple loosing of the bonds, and their final removal with thunder and lightning, determine Cyrus to set him at liberty and make provision for him.

Lastly, it was incumbent on Herodotus and the Greek narratives to justify the Delphian oracle with regard to the responses given to Crœsus. In Herodotus and Nicolaus this justification is introduced and pointed by the sending of the fetters, which Crœsus had worn, as the first-fruits of the promised victory to Delphi, and the question whether it was the manner of the Greek gods to deceive those who had done them kindness. Following, no doubt, the legend of the Delphic priesthood, Herodotus then gives the defence of the priestess, that Crœsus had not rightly understood the oracles,—though as we shall see, he had understood them correctly enough. The priestess further tells Crœsus, that he was destined to pay the penalty for the offence, which his ancestor Gyges had committed against Candaules, though the Delphic oracle had sanctioned this crime and carried it out. Then destiny has to bear the blame. No man can escape his doom; the god of Delphi had deferred the fall of Crœsus for three years, and saved him from the flames of the funeral pyre. The god of Delphi had thus announced the truth (to prove this Cyrus is made the son of a Median mother), and had shown his gratitude for the gifts of Crœsus by delaying his overthrow, and rescuing him from the flames, as Crœsus must himself confess. Xenophon dwells yet more on the justification. Crœsus had placed himself in the wrong with the god, by putting it to the test whether he could tell the truth; then he hopes that he has appeased him by rich presents, but he misunderstands the further response of the god, "that he will be happy when he knows himself," for in descent, bravery, and generalship he holds himself the equal of Cyrus. In Herodotus and Nicolaus the gift of speech to the deaf and dumb son, the quenching of the pyre,—in Herodotus also the delay of destiny, and in Ctesias, the miraculous loosing of the fetters,—are proofs that the dedicatory gifts of Crœsus and his piety had not been in vain. They could not avert his doom, but they had alleviated it; the god of the Greeks, whom he serves, has at the last saved him from the most cruel fate, and brought it about that Crœsus ends his days, if not as a ruler, yet in peace and dignity.

In spite of all the national and individual points of view which mark Herodotus' account of the fall of Crœsus, and the legends which he has woven into it, and used for his own purposes—the fanciful colours which stamp it as fabulous—it nevertheless contains a nucleus of historical truth, and we can give it a place before the rest as a narrative of facts. We have seen above how suddenly the successful rebellion of Cyrus put an end to the close relations between Babylonia, Lydia, and Media; how Lydia was touched by this change, how clearly the intervention of Lydia was needed, and what reasons could induce Crœsus to defer it. Crœsus was obviously brought to abandon his delay by the successes which Cyrus achieved in establishing his dominion over the Medes, and extending it to North and South, but above all by his conquests in the West and the advance of the Persian border to the Halys. Herodotus' account shows us very clearly that Cappadocia had become subject to Cyrus. When, on a previous occasion, the Medes reached the Halys, Alyattes, the father of Crœsus, had taken up arms; was he to fall short of this example, in the presence of a power which had grown up more rapidly and threatened greater danger than the Medes? As Herodotus told us, it was his intention to attack Cyrus before he became too powerful. We may conclude with certainty from what Herodotus relates, that Crœsus did not hide from himself the importance and difficulty of the undertaking. Above all he sought to win the favour of Sandon the national deity (I. 564). The Lydians offered large burnt-sacrifices to this deity, their sun-god; on a huge pyre they burnt numerous victims, gold and silver vessels, and costly robes in his honour. Herodotus tells us that Crœsus bade the Lydians sacrifice from their own stores on that occasion; hence the great sacrifice, the gold of which Crœsus dedicated to the god of Miletus and Delphi, was a national offering, which Crœsus presented to Sandon. We have already shown that the Greeks recognised in the sun-god of the Lydians their own Apollo and Hercules, while the Lydians found their solar deity in the Apollo of the Greeks. When Gyges undertook to overthrow the old royal family which claimed to spring from this sun-god, and could not succeed in his attempt, an answer was sought from the sun-god of Delphi. The god of the Greeks then dethroned the descendants of the Lydian deity. In the year 556 B.C.[17] Crœsus had already sent to Delphi, and given dedicatory offerings to the god of Delphi and to the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes; and at the present time, when he had resolved to enter on a severe struggle for his throne and kingdom, he called to mind the god, to whose oracle his house owed its position; he would now receive by his favour both kingdom and crown. So Apollo of Miletus and Delphi received silver and gold which had been consecrated by the fire. The bricks into which it was formed were intended to bear the lion which was also fashioned out of the same gold—the symbol of the burning sun, the image of the Lydian god. The four golden bricks formed the uppermost steps. The total amount of the gold dedicated at Delphi and Miletus reached 270 talents. For the presents at Miletus Crœsus used the property of Sadyattes, which he had confiscated at the beginning of his reign, dedicated, and applied as an offering.[18] When Crœsus sent the gifts to Delphi, he inquired of the oracle, as Gyges had previously done. At this time—about 140 years before Crœsus—the question had been who was to ascend the throne of Lydia; now the question was, whether the descendant of Gyges would maintain it in the conflict against Persia. The answer of the priestess, which Aristotle and Diodorus have preserved in metre,[19]—"That Crœsus by crossing the Halys would destroy a great kingdom"—is genuine, and was certainly given in the meaning that Crœsus should undertake the war and would destroy the kingdom of his opponent. The object of Crœsus in asking the question was to know whether he would be fortunate in his attack on Persia. If it was the object of the priesthood to give a dubious answer to this question, they could not possibly have answered the further question—whether he should take allies to help him,—with the command that he must take the "most powerful of the Hellenes." At that time the Spartans were beyond all question the most powerful of the Hellenes. How could the priests of Delphi, who owing to the close connection in which they stood to Sparta were well aware that the oracle would be a law to that state, send the Spartans to defeat and destruction, if they foresaw such a thing?[20] That at Delphi, owing to the impression made on the Greeks by the power, greatness, and splendour of the Lydian empire, the remote and unknown Persians were underrated is quite probable, and indeed sufficiently proved by the subsequent embassy of the Spartans to Cyrus. The first response did not entirely remove the doubts of Crœsus, so he asked a second time—"whether his dominion would continue long," and this question received a thoroughly satisfactory answer, i. e. an answer which, in the obscure form purposely adopted by oracles, deferred the defeat of the Lydians to distant times, and impossible conditions.

Crœsus had not waited for the oracle to provide himself with sufficient support in his undertaking. Yet it suited him to enter into negotiations with the Spartans, who after a series of successful contests against the Pisatae, Argos, and some cantons of Arcadia, had obtained the foremost place in the Peloponnesus. At an earlier time Crœsus had sent the Spartans a considerable present for the erection of a statue of Apollo, and their grateful feeling towards him would certainly be strengthened by the authority of the Delphian oracle, whose response was known to the Spartans, as Herodotus expressly states (p. 9). Even in Xenophon's account they declared themselves ready to send auxiliary troops to Sardis.[21] Crœsus did not stop here: he sent Eurybatus to obtain yet more troops in Hellas. Herodotus told us that Crœsus was in league with Egypt and Babylonia against Persia before he made the treaty with Sparta. Amasis, king of Egypt, had determined to support Crœsus, perhaps in return for the service which Gyges had once rendered to Psammetichus, when he sent soldiers to aid him against his fellow-princes, the vassals of Assyria (III. 301). The attitude of Babylonia must be decisive. If Lydia and Babylonia, who were both equally threatened by the new power, united in a firm military alliance, they might hope to contend successfully with the prince of the Persians. At Babylon, after the accession of Nabonetus in the year 555 B.C., the royal power was again in strong hands. According to Herodotus, there was a league between Crœsus and Nabonetus against Persia. Xenophon represents Crœsus as coming to the aid of the king of Babylon. Justin states that Cyrus was at war with Babylon when Crœsus attacked him; Cyrus drove him back, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried the war to Lydia. From all this we may assume that Lydia and Babylonia were united, and that they undertook the war against Persia in common.

Crœsus then might consider that careful preparations had been made for his enterprise, when in the year 549 B.C., and as we may pre-suppose with certainty, in the spring of the year, he took the field.[22] He crossed the Halys, and directed his course to the commanding plateau of Pteria, which Herodotus rightly regards as the strongest position in those regions. He took Pteria, and the neighbouring cities, and laid waste the land, with the view no doubt of making it impossible for the Persian army to support itself. There he remained, either because he shrank from going further, and seeking a decisive conflict at a distance from his own borders, or because he expected a diversion on the part of the Babylonians.

The attack of Crœsus was unexpected by Cyrus. He was also engaged with another enemy. These conclusions we may draw from the fact that it was autumn according to Herodotus before the armies stood opposite each other. Herodotus further remarks that Babylon, the Bactrians, and the Sacæ caused Cyrus to return out of Asia Minor.[23] By lingering in Cappadocia Crœsus had given Cyrus time to collect his army and add to it the troops of the countries through which he passed on his march to the West. With his usual circumspection he sought to avail himself of the weak points in his enemy. He sent ambassadors to the Greek cities subject to Crœsus, on the West coast, to urge them to revolt that he might raise up enemies in the rear of the Lydians. Crœsus awaited the attack of the Persians in the neighbourhood of the conquered Pteria. Herodotus tells that the contest was severe. In spite of the considerable superiority of numbers on the Persian side, the Lydians did not give way. The battle was not decided, when night came on. In truth the victory was with the Lydians, whose bravery made such an impression on Cyrus that he would not renew the battle. But the timidity of Crœsus put in his hands all the advantages of a victory. After the bloody day it seemed better to Crœsus, as is the case with men of weaker mould, not to risk everything, but to put off the final decision; he thought it safer to retire, in order to strengthen his army and so fight with equal numbers. Under the supposition that Cyrus would not venture to advance "as the winter was at the gate," he retired to Lydia. He intended to use the winter for collecting the forces of his confederates at Sardis. He requested Nabonetus of Babylon, the Lacedæmonians and the Pharaoh, to embark their forces on the Syrian coast, the Laconian Gulf, and at the mouths of the Nile, in time for them to reach Sardis in the fifth month, i. e. in the early spring. To the want of resolution which had suggested the thought of retreat, Crœsus, when returning, added another great act of folly. He disbanded "the mercenaries" of his army (Alyattes had made use of hired soldiers), bidding them come again to Sardis in the spring, and returned home with the Lydians alone. Such a series of blunders could not go unpunished in the presence of a general like Cyrus. In no case could he remain in the devastated country of the Cappadocians. He must go either forwards or backwards. To choose the latter was voluntarily to abandon the advantages which the retreat of Crœsus offered. Yet he did not content himself with slowly following the unexpected retreat of the Lydians. He appears to have been informed of the plans of Crœsus by Eurybatus of Ephesus, whose treason is not only mentioned by Diodorus after Ephorus, but alluded to by Plato, Demosthenes, and Aeschines.[24] By a rapid march upon the enemy's metropolis Cyrus intended to cripple the Lydian forces, hit Crœsus in the very centre of his power, and bring the war to an end at a blow. He came so quickly, that, as Herodotus says, he announced his own arrival. The sudden appearance of the Persian army in the neighbourhood of Sardis completely startled and terrified Crœsus. He retired in order to be able to place in the field a number of warriors equal to the army of Cyrus, and now he was compelled to shut himself up in the walls of Sardis or fight with far smaller numbers than took the field at Pteria. He chose the latter, and awaited the attack on the plain of the Hermus, which was large enough to provide a field for his excellent cavalry.

Though he had a great advantage in his forces, and in the consciousness of his superiority to his enemy, Cyrus omitted no means for securing the victory. He had experienced at Pteria the attack of the Lydian horse, their superiority to his own cavalry, in spite of the practice in riding which the Persians underwent from their youth up, and the excellence of the Median horse. To render useless the attack of these horsemen, Cyrus caused the camels which carried the baggage and supplies of his army to be mounted, and placed them in the first line. This arrangement is mentioned not only by Herodotus but also by Xenophon. No doubt the Lydian horse would be frightened by the noise and unwonted aspect of these animals. Though robbed of their best arm and mode of fighting, the Lydians nevertheless resolved to dismount and carry on the battle on foot. They pressed courageously on the Persians, and could only be driven into the gates of Sardis after a bloody battle. Crœsus was now limited to the walls of his city, and compelled to defend them. He hoped to be able to hold the city till his confederates should come, to whom on the approach of Cyrus he had sent with appeals for immediate assistance. But on the fourteenth day after the investment of the city, as Herodotus maintains, Cyrus brought matters to a decision. Then the Mardian climbed the steep rock on the Pactolus, on which the citadel lay, at a place where no guard was set, the citadel and city were taken, and Crœsus became a prisoner. A picture at Pompeii exhibits Cyrus before his tent, and Harpagus beside him, at the moment when Crœsus is brought forward.

Herodotus' narrative of the ascent of the citadel of Sardis is confirmed by a precisely analogous incident which took place more than three centuries later. Antiochus III. had besieged his brother-in-law Achæus for more than a year in Sardis, and in vain. All hope of taking the city except by starvation was given up, when Lagoras, a Cretan, observed that the walls must be left without a guard where the citadel and the city met. At this point the walls rose on steep rocks above a cleft into which the besieged threw from the towers their dead along with the carcasses of beasts of burden and horses. As the birds of prey when they had eaten the corpses settled on the walls, Lagoras concluded that no guards were stationed there. By night he examined whether it was quite impossible to climb up and plant scaling-ladders there. When he discovered a ravine by which this seemed practicable, he acquainted the king. The necessary preparations were made; in the night, towards morning, when the moon had set, Lagoras with sixteen companions climbed up the rocks; 2000 men were ready to support him. The spur on which the wall lay was so steep that even when the morning broke a jutting piece of rock prevented the garrison from seeing what was going on, and when Antiochus led his army against the Persian gate the garrison went to meet them. Meanwhile the assailants by means of two ladders scaled the walls close against the citadel and opened the nearest door; the confusion which ensued put the city in the hands of Antiochus after a short struggle. Yet Achæus maintained the citadel; by a secret steep and dangerous path in the rear he was able to keep up a communication with Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt, and finally he attempted to escape by this means, but he was betrayed and fell into the hands of Antiochus (213 B.C.).[25]

Crœsus determined not to survive the great overthrow and sudden disaster which he had brought upon Lydia by his campaign. The Lydians had become the slaves of the Persians, but it might be possible to appease the wrath of Sandon, from whom all this misfortune must have come; it might be that the god would again show favour to his people, turn aside their misfortune and slavery, and raise up the kingdom from the depths. In vain had Crœsus attempted by lavish presents to win the favour of Sandon-Apollo; there still remained the last great sacrifice. So he resolved to offer himself as a peace-offering for his land and people. In this way he might succeed in laying the foundation of the future liberation and rise of Lydia, in conquering by his death his successful opponent. The sacrifice of the heir to the throne and of the king himself in his purple to avert the anger of the sun-god was not unknown in Semitic rites. Zimri of Israel had burnt himself with his citadel in Tirzah; Ahaz of Judah, when defeated by the Damascenes, had sacrificed his son as a burnt-offering; Manasses of Judah "caused his son to pass through the fire in the valley of Ben Hinnom" (III. 43, 209); the last king of Asshur had burnt himself with his palace in the year 607 B.C.; Hamilcar, the son of Hanno, threw himself into the flames of the sacrificial fire in order to turn the battle of Himera. Cyrus had no reason for preventing the death of his opponent, if he chose to die. Though he was offering himself as a sacrifice to his gods, these gods were false in the eyes of the Persians—they were evil spirits or demons. The Persian king could quite understand the resolution of Crœsus not to outlive the fall of a prosperous and mighty kingdom, and to escape a long imprisonment, and would probably look on it as worthy of a brave man. Still less could he object to the wish of a king to die in his royal robes. That the cremation was a sacrifice and not an execution is further proved by the circumstance that Crœsus is accompanied by twice seven youths. It could never have entered the mind of Cyrus to seize and execute fourteen youths, but they might be quite ready to sacrifice themselves with their king. The seventh planet belonged to Adar-Sandon, i. e. to the angry sun-god, and Crœsus had sat on the throne fourteen years. The gifts also which the Lydian women bring or send to the pyre (costly robes and ornaments of every kind, as was customary in the great sacrifices of Sandon), are a distinct proof of a peace-offering. In the picture at Pompeii Crœsus has laurel branches round his head, and a wand of laurel in his right hand, and this marks him out, though in the Greek manner, as dedicated to Sandon; a vase in the Louvre presents him seated on the pyre, in a royal robe, with a crown of laurel on his head. In his left hand he holds a sceptre, with the right he is pouring libations from a goblet, while a servant is sprinkling with water the already burning pyre.[26] But the sun-god would not accept the royal sacrifice and peace-offering. It was no favourable sign that the weather was gloomy (χειμών) on that day, as Nicolaus, who here, no doubt, follows Xanthus the Lydian, tells us, though no rain had fallen. The pyre was kindled; Crœsus prayed that Sandon would graciously accept the offering—the invocation of the god by Crœsus with tears Herodotus gives on the authority of the Lydians[27]—but the prayer is not heard; a storm of rain descends, and the pyre is quenched. This was an unmistakable sign, the clearly-pronounced decision of the god, that he did not and would not accept the sacrifice. Crœsus must abandon his purpose.[28]

At no time can Cyrus have had the intention of doing any further injury to the captive king of the Lvdians. Herodotus told us that before the battle at Sardis he bade his soldiers spare Crœsus. And he would be the more inclined to show favour and grace to a man whose death heaven had openly prevented. As Ctesias told us (p. 16), he allotted to Crœsus the city of Barene, near Ecbatana, as a residence or means of support. Ptolemy mentions the city of Uarna in the neighbourhood of Ragha, and the Avesta speaks of Varena in the same region.[29] After that day Crœsus submitted to his fate; we find him at the court of Cyrus as well as at that of Cambyses in an honourable position; both Cyrus and his successor at times apply to him for advice.

The convulsion which Cyrus had caused in the Median empire might have ended with placing the Persians at the summit instead of the Medes, and establishing the power of Cyrus within the old borders of the Median kingdom. Had Lydia and Babylonia resolved to recognise this change; had they reasons for the assumption that Cyrus would not go beyond these limits, the old relation of the three powers might have been renewed, though it would not have been confirmed by the bonds of alliance. But Lydia no less than Babylonia believed that they were threatened by the advance of Cyrus. At the time when Crœsus attacked him, Cyrus certainly did not intend to proceed to the West beyond the borders of Cappadocia. This is proved by the fact that he kept within the Halys after the conquest of that country. He must establish his power in the East before he could extend his views to the distant West and Asia Minor. It was Babylon which at that time was threatened, if not actually attacked, by Cyrus. The advance of the Persians to the West, which Crœsus intended to prevent by his attack, was really caused by it. He brought on the storm which he sought to allay before it burst upon him. By attempting to check the advance of Cyrus in the midst of Asia he invited him to Sardis. The dominion of the Mermnadæ was at an end; Crœsus had lost it 140 years after his ancestor Gyges had won it. It is seldom that a sovereign is hurled so suddenly as Crœsus from the summit of power and prosperity; that the splendour of a high and glorious position stands in such close and striking proximity to the deepest humiliation. There is hardly any instance of a warlike and brave nation passing so suddenly and utterly into obscurity as the Lydians; and never has so ancient, so flourishing, and powerful a kingdom, while yet in the period of its growth, been so swiftly overthrown, never to rise again.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Herod. 1, 74, 79, 155; Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 2, 11.

[2] Herod. 1, 71; and equally from the Persian point of view, Xenophon, "Cyri inst." 6, 2, 22.

[3] Ctes. "Pers." 4; Fragm. 31, ed. Müller.

[4] Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 6, 3, 19; 7, 8, [Woelfflin].

[5] "Cyri inst." 1, 5, 3.

[6] "Cyri inst." 2, 1, 5, 6.

[7] Xenoph. "Anab." 5, 5, 17. Vol. I. 257.

[8] "Cyri inst." 2, 1, 5; 6, 2, 8, 9; 7, 2, 15 ff.

[9] I draw this conclusion from the story of Eurybatus, which was told by Ephorus; Fragm. 100, ed. Müller.

[10] Excerpt. Vatic, p. 26; "De virtute et vitiis," p. 553. [=9, 31 ff.]

[11] Justin, 1, 7. Lucian ("Contemplat." 9) represents Cyrus as conquering Babylonia and then marching against Lydia.

[12] [Nic. Damasc. Frag. 68, ed. Müller.]

[13] "Cyri inst." 7, 2, 20.

[14] Strabo, p. 575, 587.

[15] Pausan. 7, 17, 9. 10.

[16] Herod. 1, 131; 3, 16.

[17] Marmor Parnium, ep. 41.

[18] Boeckh, "Staatshaushaltung" 1. 10, 11; H. Stein on Herod. 1, 50.

[19] Aristot. "Rhetor." 3, 5; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 25, 26[=9, 31].

[20] Herod. 1, 69.

[21] "Cyri inst." 6, 2, 10, 11.

[22] The Parian marble mentions a mission of Crœsus to Delphi in the year 556. The date of the year for the capture of Sardis is destroyed, and cannot be even approximately restored, as the nearest dates are either mutilated or destroyed. The dates in Eusebius are derived from Apollodorus, who in turn draws from Eratosthenes. Eusebius puts the testing of the oracles in Olymp. 57,3 = 550 B.C., the march of Cyrus against Crœsus in Ol. 57,4 = 549 B.C., the capture of Crœsus in Ol. 58,3 = 546 B.C. Jerome represents Crœsus as beginning the war in Ol. 57,3 = 550 B.C. and puts his capture in Ol. 58,1 = 548 B.C. According to the statement of Syncellus (1,455, ed. Bonn.), Crœsus was defeated in the 14th year of Cyrus, which would give 547 B.C., if with Eusebius, who allows Cyrus to reign 31 years, we put his accession in 560 B.C. (V. p. 381 n.). The interval of three years which Eusebius (549-546) and two years which Jerome (550-548) places between the beginning of the war and the capture of Crœsus, appears to be due to the three years for which, according to Herodotus, Apollo delayed the overthrow of Crœsus; the presents came to Delphi three years before the fall (Herod. 1, 91). According to Herodotus the campaign occupies only one summer and autumn. The temple of Delphi was burned down in 548 B.C. (Ol. 58,1; Pausan. 10, 5, 13), and as Herodotus represents the temple as intact at the time when Crœsus sent to Delphi after his fall, this must have taken place before 548 B.C., and therefore Crœsus must have been conquered by Cyrus in 549 B.C. If the justification of the oracle in Herodotus is merely an invention of the priests, yet in things so well known the existing circumstances could not be left out of sight. It is certain that if the presents of Crœsus had been injured by the burning of the temple before his fall, this evil omen would not have been left out of sight by the legend, or by Herodotus, who himself saw and mentions the lion of Crœsus at Delphi which had been injured by the fire (1, 50). I have therefore no scruple in putting the fall of the Lydian kingdom in the year 549 B.C. Though the reign given by Herodotus for Crœsus, fourteen years and fourteen days, may have arisen out of the fourteen Lydian boys who wished to be sacrificed with their king (p. 12), yet Eusebius, Jerome, and Syncellus put the reign of Crœsus at 15 years. It may therefore be regarded as an established fact that his reign ended in the fifteenth year. According to Herodotus (1, 64, 65), it might seem as though he were of opinion that Crœsus sought allies in Hellas at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant for the third time over Athens. But this would be an error due to Herodotus' habit of anticipation. We can only be concerned with the second tyranny of Pisistratus, which belongs to the years 550 and 549 B.C. Against the argument here used—that the priests could not leave out of sight the actual circumstances in things so widely known, even in their inventions, Büdinger objects: "The chronological relations in Lydian-Persian history were neither various nor generally known, when Herodotus visited Delphi." The objection would be pertinent if the legend of the priests had only been manufactured during Herodotus' stay at Delphi, and for his use. This is not tenable. The fall of Crœsus was an event which deeply moved the Hellenic world, and created the most lively astonishment; the responses of Delphi had allured him to war; the oracle must at once justify itself if it were not to lose considerably in its authority. The justification must, therefore, have been invented at once; in the cities of Anatolia it would be best known at that time how and when the Mede came into the land with the fall of Crœsus (πηλίκος ἦσθ’ ὅθ’ ὁ Μῆδος ἀφίκετο; Xenophanes in Athenaeus, p. 54), and it was also known everywhere how long before the great presents of Crœsus had come to Miletus and Delphi. This must be noticed by the Delphian priests. But, as I have expressly said, I have not laid any great stress on this fact, but on the burning of the temple in 548 B.C., for that is the only certain point which can be gained. It does not seem possible to me to make Xenophon's account of the Lydian and Babylonian wars of Cyrus in the Cyropaedia a reason for placing the overthrow of Crœsus in 541 B.C. and putting back the beginning of the third tyranny of Pisistratus to that date in order to suit this account. There are also reasons of fact against such a date, which are given elsewhere.

[23] Herod. 1, 153.

[24] Plat. "Protagoras," p. 327. Demosth. "De Corona," 24; Aesch. "in Ctesiph." 137, and the Scholia.

[25] Polyb. 7, 15; 8, 22.

[26] Raoul Rochette, "Mémoires de l'institut," 17, 2, p. 278 ff.

[27] Herod. 1, 87.

[28] Büdinger objects to this view that the Lydian tradition, which would be favourable to Crœsus, could not possibly convert the merit of such a sacrifice into an execution. Whether the tradition of the Lydians was favourable or not to Crœsus is not handed down; that the Greeks were favourable to him we know for certain. It is the tradition of the Greek cities—favourable to Crœsus and unfavourable to Cyrus—which we have in the account of Herodotus. The rescue of Crœsus and the wisdom of Solon were the points of view given in the Greek tradition and guiding it. If Nicolaus of Damascus has used Xanthus, and his account rests on a combination of the Greek and Lydian tradition—it is precisely in his account that the sacrifice, and the prevention of it by rain, comes out more clearly than in Herodotus.

[29] Steph. Byzant. Βαρήνη. The Barce of Justin (1, 7) must be the same city. [Barene in Jeep's ed.] Ptolem. 6, 2, 8; "Vend." 1, 68.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SUBJUGATION OF ASIA MINOR.

However unexpected the attack of the Lydians had been by the ruler of the Medes and Persians, however inconvenient the war with them, he had brought it to a rapid and prosperous decision. Though he had entertained no thought of conquests in the distant West before Crœsus took up arms against him, he resolved to maintain the advantage which the war had brought him to such a surprising extent. Great as was the distance between Sardis and Pasargadae, Lydia was to be embodied in his empire, and the Ægean was to form its western boundary. His army took up winter quarters in Lydia; from Sardis he arranged in person the new government of the land, and the fate of the nations which had been subject to the Lydians. We do not know whether the Phrygians, Bithynians, and Paphlagonians submitted to the change of dominion without resistance. Æschylus represents Cyrus as subjugating Phrygia. According to Xenophon, Phrygia was reduced by Cyrus as he returned from Sardis; the Paphlagonians submitted voluntarily, like the Cilicians; this was the reason why no satraps were sent there, yet the fortresses were occupied with Persian garrisons, and the Paphlagonians and Cilicians had to pay tribute and perform service in war.[30] Cilicia had not been subject to the Lydians; ever since the irruption of the Scyths had broken the cohesion of the Assyrian power, her princes were independent, though they had paid tribute to Assurbanipal (III. 166, 178), They bore the standing title of Syennesis. More than sixty years previously Nabopolassar of Babylon and Syennesis of Cilicia had brought about peace and alliance between Cyaxares of Media and Alyattes of Lydia (V. 295). That Cilicia now voluntarily submitted to Cyrus, if it had not done so previously, can be concluded with certainty from the fact that we subsequently find kings named Syennesis at the head of Cilicia, who are bound to pay tribute to the Persian empire and render service in war.[31]

Cyrus met more vigorous resistance in the west of Asia Minor. The Lycians, who maintained their independence against the Lydians in their mountains to the south, were not inclined to submit to the Persians, nor were their neighbours in the south-west, the Carians. The cities of the Greeks, who possessed the entire western coast, hesitated which course to take. After their ancestors had set foot on this coast, 400 years previously, they had succeeded in maintaining their ground for a century and a half against the rising power of the Lydians under the Mermnads; indeed it was during this period that they had extended their trade and colonisation, and risen to be a second naval power beside the Phenicians,—the centre of a commerce, which on the one hand included the Black Sea and the Maeotis, and on the other almost all the Mediterranean—which included in its empire Cyprus and Sicily and Corsica, Egypt and the mouths of the Po and Rhone, and even extended to the banks of the Bætis. Along with the trade and wealth of these cities, poetry had burst into a new bloom, plastic art and architecture were eagerly cultivated, the foundations were laid for Greek science, natural history, geography, history, and philosophy. Life was pleasant and luxurious; no doubt the morals of the Lydians had found their way into the cities, but the old vigour still remained in the inhabitants by sea and land. At last they had succumbed to Crœsus, not because they did not know how to fight, but because they had not followed the advice of Thales of Miletus, who urged them to carry on the war in common, and place at their head a council with dictatorial powers (III. 450). But the supremacy of Crœsus, to which they did not submit for much more than a decade, had not been of an oppressive character. It had left the cities unchanged in their internal trade, and in fact had increased rather than destroyed it. Crœsus had contented himself with yearly tributes from the cities, and we have seen to what a large extent Greek art and manners found protection, favour, and advancement at the court of Crœsus. Now these cities suddenly found themselves in the presence of a power of which they had hardly heard the name, and which had prostrated with a mighty blow the kingdom of Crœsus. As they were not pledged to provide soldiers for the king of the Lydians, they had looked on in irresolute neutrality during the war. And they had paid no heed to the request of Cyrus that they would join his side. Previously it might have been to their interest to weaken the power of Lydia, in order to regain their full independence, but when Cyrus marched upon Sardis it became much more imperative to prevent a stronger power from taking the place of the Lydians. A diversion on the part of the Greek cities when Cyrus was besieging Sardis, would have delayed the fate of the city, and might have rendered possible the arrival of the allies. But they had done nothing, and now found themselves alone in the presence of the conqueror. Their danger prompted them to offer submission to the king of the Persians on the same terms as those on which they had served Crœsus. Cyrus rejected the offer which the ambassadors of the Ionian and Aeolian cities brought to Sardis. Mere recognition of his supremacy and payment of tribute he did not consider sufficient to secure the obedience of cities so remote, and he was strong enough to insist on a more dependent relation without great efforts. But ever cautious and provident, he took means to separate the cities. To Miletus, the strongest, he offered a continuance of the relations in which she had stood to Lydia. When Miletus, "from fear," as Herodotus remarks, accepted these conditions, Cyrus had already won the victory. The cities were divided, robbed of their strongest power and natural head.

Conscious that their submission on the conditions proposed had been refused, the cities of the Ionian tribe took counsel at their old common place of sacrifice on the shore of the sea, opposite Samos, under Mount Mycale. Miletus, it is true, was absent; but among the Ionians there was far too much pride, far too great a sense of freedom, to offer unconditional submission to Cyrus. The defection of Miletus seemed to be compensated when ambassadors of the cities of the Aeolian tribe appeared on the same day as the Ionians, which had never occurred before, and declared their common resolution "to follow the Ionians wherever they led."[32] It was resolved to fortify the cities, to make a resistance to the Persians, and for this object to call as quickly as possible on the mother country for help. A common embassy of the Ionian and Aeolian cities went to Sparta, in order to ask aid of the Dorians there, the leading state in the peninsula. But in vain did Pythermus of Phocaea, the mouthpiece of the embassy, put on his purple robe in order to manifest the importance and wealth of the cities, when the ephors introduced the legation before the common assembly. Though the Spartans at that time were at the height of their power, and had promised help to Crœsus, though the ships had been equipped and the contingent was ready to embark when the news came of the capture of Sardis, Sparta now refused to send aid, regardless of the fate of her countrymen. She merely resolved to despatch ambassadors to Cyrus with the request that he would leave the Greek cities in peace. A ship of fifty oars carried the embassy to Asia, with the real object, as Herodotus supposes, of ascertaining the position of affairs in Ionia and with Cyrus. It landed at Phocaea. Lacrines, the spokesman of the ambassadors, found Cyrus in Sardis, and there warned him in Sparta's name, "to do no harm to any Hellenic city, for Sparta would not allow such conduct to go unpunished." Without the support of an army this warning was an empty and foolish threat, which Cyrus treated as it deserved.[33]

There must have been some urgent necessity which summoned Cyrus to the East before he subjected the Lydians, Carians, and Greeks of the coast. Herodotus tells us that he intended to conquer Babylon, the Bactrian nation, the Sacæ and Egyptians. In the early spring he set out with the bulk of his army to Ecbatana.[34] Crœsus was in his train. He had given the government of Lydia to Tabalus, a Persian, but the management of the revenues to Pactyas, a Lydian.[35] He may have thought that Lydia was more peaceable than it really was, or more reconciled to its fate by his gentle treatment of Crœsus, and the nomination of a Lydian as manager of the taxes. The dominion of the Persians had come upon the Lydians suddenly; they refused to recognise the superior power of their rulers, and could not finally accept the rapid change which had so suddenly overthrown their ancient kingdom and their fame in arms. So far from being subdued, they hardly considered themselves seriously beaten. The rapid and decisive action, in which they had been defeated, might appear to them rather a fortunate surprise, than a victory won by the Persians. It was Pactyas, whom Cyrus had made manager of the revenues, who raised the standard of revolt. He collected the Lydians, and induced the inhabitants of the coast, i. e. the cities of the Greeks, to join him. Tabalus could not resist in the open field the sudden outburst of rebellion. When Pactyas marched against Sardis, he was compelled to shut himself up in the citadel, and was there besieged. While yet on his march Cyrus received the news of the revolt. Yet his presence in upper Asia was so necessary that he did not return in person; he sent Mazares, a Mede, with a part of the army, to bring the Lydians once more to obedience. The rebellion appears to have been undertaken in haste without sufficient preparations, and Pactyas was not the man to lead it with energy. He did not venture to await the arrival of Mazares; the citadel of Sardis was delivered; Tabalus was free; the rebellion was crushed; Pactyas fled to the Greeks on the coast, to Cyme, the leading city of the Aeolians. When Mazares demanded that he should be given up, the oracle of Apollo at Miletus twice ordered the Cymæans, in answer to their repeated inquiry, to surrender him. The priests of that temple, the Branchidæ, well knew that the arrangement which their city had made with Cyrus, pledged her to carry out the wishes of the Persians. The Cymæans did not obey even the second response, but first took Pactyas in safety to Mytilene in Lesbos, and when they found that the Mytileneans were ready to give him up, they took him to Chios. But the Chians, though, like the Lesbians, they had nothing to fear from the Persians in their island, nevertheless surrendered him.[36]

The hopes which the Greek cities might have built upon the rebellion of the Lydians were quickly broken. The mother country had refused any help. Sparta would not come to their assistance, and Athens, torn as she was by internal dissensions, could not. No one in the cantons of the Greek peninsula roused themselves to give aid to an important section of the Greek nation, to the colonies which had outstripped the mother country in their development, or strove to save the most vigorous centres of Greek nationality from subjection to a foreign people, which had come out of the remote part of Asia. If the voice of a common blood and the sense of nationality failed to warn the Greeks beyond the sea against giving over to strangers for plunder such rich and flourishing cities, was there no one in Hellas who foresaw that if the establishment of the Persian dominion on the coasts of Asia Minor were not prevented, and the cities of the coast with their navy were allowed to fall into the hands of the Persians, Greece itself would not be safe from their attack, and they would be able to visit the coasts of Hellas in Greek ships? Yet even without assistance the power of the Hellenic cities would have sufficed for a considerable resistance to the Persians—for the position of affairs in Asia did not allow Cyrus to bring any great force against these distant coasts—if they had been able to understand and take to heart the lessons of their own past. If they had neglected to unite their forces against the Lydians, such union was now doubly necessary. They had learned from experience the evil of delay, and the danger was now greater than ever. The Greek cities were in uncontested possession of the sea,[37] and thus in a position to give help in common to any city which the Persians might attack. An organisation which permitted the whole force of the city to be used for the benefit of each one, would have given a prospect of successful resistance. But no step whatever was taken in this direction. Each city turned its attention to strengthening its own walls, and awaiting the attack of the Persians.

After the subjugation of the Lydians, Mazares, as Herodotus tells us, turned his arms against "those who had besieged Tabalus along with Pactyas." He invested Priene, took the city, and reduced the inhabitants to slavery; then the plain of the Maeander was laid waste, the city of Magnesia taken, and its inhabitants enslaved. After the capture of Magnesia Mazares fell sick and died. Cyrus sent Harpagus the Mede as his successor. He marched northwards from the valley of the Maeander; in the first instance against Phocaea, which appeared to have taken the leading part in resistance, or at any rate had done most to gain the help of Sparta; after Miletus it was the most powerful city of the Ionians. The trade in the Adriatic and the Tyrrhene sea, on the coasts of Gallia and Iberia, was in the hands of the Phocaeans. A strong and magnificent wall, well built of large stones, surrounded the city, the circuit of which, as Herodotus says, reached "not a few stadia." Harpagus invested Phocaea, and threw up works round the walls; he then sent intelligence to the Phocaeans that he should be content if they would pull down but one tower, and solemnly give up to him the possession of one dwelling. The Phocaeans must have thought that they could no longer hold the city or repulse an attack. According to Herodotus, they answered the offer of Harpagus with a request that he would allow them a day for consideration, and for that day would lead his army from the wall. Harpagus replied that he knew very well what their intentions were, but he would give them time for consideration. When Harpagus led his forces from the wall, the Phocaeans drew their ships to the sea, put upon them their wives and children, and everything that they could carry away, even the images of the gods and the votive offerings, and then embarked and sailed to Chios. It was their intention to purchase from the Chians the Oenussæ, islands lying off Chios, and to settle there. But the Chians refused to sell them, fearing that their trade would go there. Then the Phocaeans turned their course back to Phocaea; Harpagus had taken possession of the empty city and left a garrison in it. This the Phocaeans cut down; then they sunk a large mass of iron in the sea, with an oath that they would not return again to the city till the iron should float, and shaped their course to the distant Western sea, for the island of Cyrnus (Corsica), where twenty years previously they had founded the colony of Alalia. Harpagus is said to have burnt Phocaea, thus punishing the houses and temples for the attack on the garrison.[38] After the capture of this city, he besieged Teos, and gained possession of the walls by means of the works which he threw up. The Teians then went on board their ships, one and all, sailed to the north, and settled on the coast of Thrace opposite Thasos, where they founded Abdera.[39] "So all the Ionians," says Herodotus, "with the exception of the Milesians, who had come to terms with Cyrus, fought against Harpagus, and showed themselves brave warriors, each for his own city; but Harpagus took them one after the other by investing them and throwing up works against the walls. Thus conquered they remained in their cities, with the exception of those exiles, and did what they were bid." After the subjugation of the Ionians, Harpagus turned to the North, reduced the cities of the Aeolians, and bade their military forces join his army.

The line of conquest had now reached the Dorian cities of the coast, the Carians and Lycians. The Dorians and Carians made but little resistance.[40] The Greeks of Asia had not only been abandoned by their kinsmen beyond the sea, but also by their gods, or at any rate by their oracles. As Apollo of Miletus had bidden the Cymaeans to give up Pactyas, so Apollo of Delphi bade the Cnidians to desist from making their city impregnable. Cnidus lay on the western edge of a long and narrow promontory. The inhabitants had begun to cut a channel through the land with a view of securing themselves against the attack of the Persians. But though a large number of hands were engaged, the work did not make progress in the hard rock; and as many of the workmen were injured the city sent to Delphi to inquire the cause of their misfortunes. The priestess answered, according to the Cnidian account: "Ye must not fortify the Isthmus, nor cut through it; Zeus would have made it an island if he had wished."[41] The Cnidians desisted, and surrendered without a struggle to Harpagus on his approach. Among the Carians, the Pedasians alone, who had fortified Mount Lida, made a vigorous resistance; it cost Harpagus much trouble to take this fortification. The Lycians, who had never been subject to the kings of the Lydians, marched out against Harpagus. In the open field they fought bravely, though few against many. When conquered and driven into their city Xanthus (Arna, I. 577), they brought their wives and children, their servants, and their goods into the citadel and set them on fire; then they bound themselves by an oath, fell upon the Persian army, and maintained the conflict to the last man. Then the remaining towns of the Lycians, being robbed of their best defenders, submitted. The Caunians alone, as Herodotus tells us, followed almost exactly the example of the city of Xanthus.[42] Even the sea put no limit to the supremacy of the Persians. The Greeks of the islands of Chios and Lesbos voluntarily submitted to them, though, as Herodotus assures us, "they had nothing to fear," "for the Persians were not mariners, and the Phenicians were not their subjects at that time."[43] The two islands would not give up all hope of the possession of the districts on the coasts opposite.

About three years after Cyrus had left Sardis in the spring of the year 548 B.C. his power in Lydia was not only firmly founded, but the whole western coast, with all its harbours and landing-places, together with two considerable islands, was subject to him. As Aeschylus tells us, he had reduced Ionia by force. The East had again overpowered the colonists of the West on its western edge. Asia Minor, beyond the Halys, was subjugated to Cyrus in even greater extent than to Crœsus; in fact it was wholly in his power.[44] He placed two viceroys over it. One, the viceroy of Phrygia, was to govern the north-eastern; the other, the viceroy of Lydia, was to govern the south-western half of this wide region. The first took up his position at Dascyleum, not far from the shore of the Propontis; the other in the citadel at Sardis.[45] Among the cities of the Greeks, Priene and Magnesia on the Maeander had been destroyed, and their inhabitants enslaved; Phocaea had been burned. The rest had not been injured by Harpagus after their capture; he had not placed any Persian governors over them, nor introduced garrisons. It was not intended in any way to destroy their nationality or their religious worship. Their social life, their forms of government, their autonomy remained; even the common sacrifices and assemblies of the Ionian cities at Mycale were permitted to continue. They had only to recognise the supreme authority of the king of the Persians and his viceroys, to pay yearly tribute to the king, the amount of which each city fixed for itself, and furnish a contingent to the army when called upon by the viceroy to do so. When the Ionians again met at the common place of sacrifice for the first time after their subjugation, Bias of Priene, who had escaped the destruction of his country, proposed that all the Ionian cities should follow the example of the Phocaeans and Teians; that there should be a general emigration to Sardinia, in order that all might obtain a new country there. They were then to form one great community; one city was to be founded by all in common. Had this proposal been carried out, the achievements of Cyrus would have exercised a far deeper influence over the distant West, than the mere settlement of the Phocaeans in Alalia, who moreover were not able to maintain themselves in their new settlement. The centre of Hellenic colonisation would have been transplanted from East to West, and the fate of Italy would have been changed; the Greeks would have retired before the supremacy of the East in order to establish a strong insular power among the weak communities of the West. But the Ionians could not rise to the height of such a revolution. Among the Greeks, the attachment to their ancient soil, their homes and temples, was peculiarly strong. If men could and would forget independence, the supremacy of the Persians did not seem very oppressive. It limited the trade of the Greeks as little as it repressed their social life; on the contrary, it rather advanced commerce, which now received the protection of the Persian king throughout the whole of his wide dominions. The ruin of Phocaea also aided the trade of Miletus which had suffered neither war nor siege.

Yet the cities of the Greeks were essentially weakened by the war and their subjugation. In Phocaea, it is true, a community again grew up. Half of the emigrants, in spite of their solemn vow, were seized with a longing for their ancient home; they returned to their desolated city. But for fifty years after this time the new Phocaea would or could furnish no more than three ships of war. In Priene also and Teos sufficient inhabitants gradually assembled to establish small communities.[46] Other circumstances weighed more heavily even than their natural losses. Cyrus knew well that it would not be easy to retain in secure obedience cities so distant in situation, so important in population and military resources. At such a distance isolated garrisons would have been exposed to great danger; yet without them the cities would have closed their gates to the Persians at any moment, manned their walls, and entered into combinations beyond the sea. Every rebellion of this kind made new sieges necessary, and these were the more difficult as Persia had no fleet, and could only use the ships of the Greeks. Situated at the extreme edge of the kingdom, and supported by the opposite shore of the Ægean, each of the larger cities could offer a long resistance. With the unerring political insight which distinguished him, Cyrus saw that he must gain adherents within the cities, and have on his side influential interests of sufficient weight to keep the cities in obedience. Yet he did not aim at supporting one or other of the parties who contended in the Greek cities for the leadership of the community; on the other hand, his favour and that of his viceroys was given to this or that party-leader. His allegiance was to be secured and certain advantages were held out in prospect to the city when led by him. Cyrus intended to govern the cities of the Greeks by Greeks, who were not to be his officers, but to rule the cities as their lords and princes for their own advantage and profit. By their position, which they owed to the favour of Persia, and could only maintain with the help of Persia against their fellow-citizens, by the interested desire to retain this power in their families and bequeath it to their children, by the concentration of the princely authority, as opposed to the republican institutions and republican spirit of their cities—which authority rested on the Persian court, and was closely connected with it—these rulers in union with the viceroys and their troops must be in a position to secure the subjection of the cities. Thus it came to pass that not in Cyme only, the most important city of the Aeolians, but in almost all the towns of the Greeks, men were raised to power by the favour and support of the Persian satraps, who managed the public affairs, and in the place of autonomous communities came despotisms and principalities, in reality if not in name. How correct Cyrus was is proved by the result.[47] He was able to secure the obedience of the Lydians also. He caused the land to be stripped of its arms, even to the extent of taking away the cavalry horses,[48] and so abandoned all thought of forcing the Lydians to serve in his army. The disuse of arms and the lapse of time did their work, aided as they were by a vigorous trade, which in Lydia was due not only to the natural wealth and the gold of the soil, but to a long-established and skilful industry. In these pursuits and a luxurious life the Lydians forgot their old days and ancient deeds. Persia had never again to contend with a rebellion of the Lydians.

The tradition of the Greeks has not omitted to illustrate the important events of the extension and establishment of the Persian dominion in Asia Minor by a series of pointed anecdotes and stories. Among these is the reply which Cyrus is said to have given to the Greek cities, when they offered their submission after the fall of Sardis (p. 50). At that time Cyrus, as Herodotus tells us, narrated the following story with reference to their refusal of his first request:—A flute-player once played to some fishes in the sea in order to entice them out. As they did not come, he took them out with a net, and when they leapt about, he said, Cease dancing now; ye did not dance out of the water when I played. Diodorus puts the transaction later, and with him it is not Cyrus, but Harpagus, who, as we saw, received the command against the cities after Mazares, who told the following apologue to the ambassadors:—He had once asked a maid of her father in marriage, but the father betrothed her to a man of greater importance. When he afterwards found out that the man whom he had despised as a son-in-law was in favour with the king he brought him his daughter, and Harpagus took her not for his wife, but for his concubine. By this Harpagus meant that as the Greeks had not become friends of the Persians when Cyrus wished it, they could not any longer be allies but only servants.[49] When Lacrines brought to Cyrus from the Spartans the command that he must not attack any Greek city, Herodotus represents Cyrus as answering, in the pride of his absolute power, that he had never been afraid of men who met in the market-places and deceived each other by speeches and promises. If he remained in health, they would not have to lament over the sorrows of the Ionians, but over their own.[50] Here also Diodorus gives another version:—To the command of the Spartans that he must not attack the Hellenes in Asia who were their kinsmen, Cyrus answered, that he would acquaint himself with the bravery of the Spartans when he sent one of his servants to subjugate Hellas.[51]

The account which Herodotus gives of the negotiations of Harpagus with the Phocaeans is not historical. If the resistance of the Phocaeans was so difficult to overcome that Harpagus descended to the concession that only one tower need be pulled down and a single habitation given up to him, the Phocaeans had no reason to abandon their city. But if they were in such a condition that they must abandon the defence, the lapse of one day would certainly not suffice for them to get the ships in order, and put on board the whole population with their goods, the images of their gods, and the votive offerings. Still more inconceivable would be the folly of Harpagus in drawing off his army from the city and thus allowing the Phocaeans to destroy his siege works, so that he had to begin them all anew.

The striking change which took place in the Lydian character after the suppression of the rebellion under Pactyas, the contrast between the horse-breeding Lydians of the Homeric poems, between the mounted squadrons which once pressed so heavily on the Greek cities, reduced Asia Minor, and offered such a brave resistance to the Medes and Persians, and the peace-loving, effeminate, submissive Lydians of the fifth century B.C., was explained by the Greek tradition after its own manner. When in his return from Sardis to Ecbatana, Cyrus received the intelligence of the rebellion of the Lydians, he confided to Crœsus, as Herodotus tells us, that it seemed to him the best plan to make all the Lydians slaves. "I have dealt with them," so Herodotus represents Cyrus as saying, "as one who spares the children when he has slain the father. I have captured you who have been more to them than a father, and left them their city, and now I wonder that they rebel." Crœsus replied: "What you say is just, but let your anger pass by; do not destroy an ancient and guiltless city. What took place before was my doing, and the guilt lies on my shoulders; what has happened now is due to Pactyas to whom you yourself entrusted Sardis. Punish him, but spare the Lydians. Forbid them to carry weapons for the future, order them to wear coats under their mantles, shoes with high heels, and to train their boys in playing and singing and in trade. You will soon make them women instead of men, and they will never revolt or be a source of alarm." Crœsus gave this advice with the double object of turning aside the vengeance of Cyrus from the Lydians—for even such a life was better than slavery—and of preserving the Lydians for the future from bringing about their own destruction by new rebellions. Cyrus followed the advice of Crœsus. This story is repeated by Polyaenus. When the Lydians had revolted, Cyrus bade Mazares take away their weapons and horses, and allow them no longer any practice in throwing the spear and riding; on the contrary, he was to compel them to wear women's clothes, to weave, and play the lute. In this way the Lydians became the most unwarlike people, though previously they had been the most warlike.[52] The new dress which Cyrus, on the advice of Crœsus, commanded the Lydians to wear, was the hereditary dress of the Lydians (who are called soft-footed in the response of the Delphic priestess (p. 9), because they wore shoes), and practice in playing and singing were old customs of the Lydians which previously had done no harm to their martial valour. The narrative is invented, though not by Herodotus, to glorify the wisdom of Crœsus and give a reason for the clemency which Cyrus showed after the rebellion—and at the same time to explain the contrast between the Lydians of antiquity and their descendants.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Aesch. "Pers." 770; Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 4, 2; 8, 6, 8.

[31] Herodotus, 9, 107, remarks that Xerxes gave the satrapy of Cilicia to Xenagoras of Halicarnassus; yet even after this date we find a Syennesis at the head of that country, which in the list of Herodotus formed the fourth satrapy.

[32] Herod. 1, 141, 142, 151, 169.

[33] Herod. 1, 152; Diod. Exc. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 36, 1.

[34] Herod. 1, 153. In 1, 157, on the other hand, we find "to the Persians;" cf. 1, 177.

[35] H. Stein on Herod. 1, 153.

[36] Herod. 1, 161. What is brought forward in the treatise "on the unfairness of Herodotus" from Charon of Lampsacus against the historian's statement about the surrender of Pactyas is limited to the naked fact that he came from Chios into the power of Cyrus.

[37] Thucyd. 1, 12, 14.

[38] Herod. 1, 164, 165; Plutarch, "Aristid." c. 25; Pausan. 7, 5, 4.

[39] A party of the emigrant Teians is said to have founded Phanagoria; Scymn. Ch. 886; "Corp. inscrip. Graec." 2, 98.

[40] Herod. 1, 174.

[41] Herod. loc. cit.

[42] The subsequent inhabitants of Xanthus are explained by Herodotus to be foreigners, except eighty families, who were absent at the time. He also mentions Caunians about the year 500 B.C. The name of the city occurs at a later date. On the continuance of the league of the Lycians, vol. I. p. 575.

[43] Herod. 1, 143, 160.

[44] The year 548 B.C. no doubt passed before the revolt of Pactyas. The Greek cities had time to build or strengthen their walls before they were attacked. Phocaea entered into negotiations for this object with the prince of Tartessus after the fall of Crœsus (Herod. 1, 163), and the great wall of the city was finished, with the assistance of money furnished by him owing to the approach of the Medes, when Harpagus attacked it. This attack cannot therefore have taken place before 547 B.C. The sieges of the Ionian and Aeolian cities occupied at least a year; the campaign against the Dorian cities, the Carians and Lycians, must therefore have taken place in 546 B.C., if not a year later. Hieronymus puts the battle of Harpagus against Ionia in Olymp. 58, 3 = 546 B.C.

[45] Oroetes resided at Sardis in the reign of Cambyses and Mithrobates at Dascyleum; Herod. 3, 120.

[46] Herod. 1, 168; Miletus and Samos contended in 440 B.C. for the possession of Priene.

[47] Herod. 5, 37, 38; Heracl. Pont. fragm. 11, 5, ed. Müller.

[48] Justin. 1, 7.

[49] Excerpt. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 35, 1.

[50] Herod. 1, 153.

[51] Diod. Excerpt. Vatic. p. 27 = 9, 36, 1.

[52] Herod. 1, 155, 156; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 6, 4.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FALL OF BABYLON.

When the kingdom of the Lydians had succumbed to the arms of Cyrus, Babylonia alone was left of the three states which had joined in the overthrow of Assyria. It was a region of very considerable extent, reaching from the Tigris to the coasts of Syria, and from the foot of the Armenian and Cilician mountains to the deserts of Arabia; the population was united, and a strong centre was not wanting. As we saw, Nebuchadnezzar had not only greatly increased the agriculture and trade of his kingdom, but had also erected the strongest barriers for the protection of his native land and the metropolis. In this he had only the Median power in view, but owing to the victory of Cyrus over Astyages a stronger power had taken the place of Media, and neither his wisdom nor his energy had descended to his successors. After a reign of two years his son Evilmerodach fell by the hand of his own brother-in-law, Neriglissar, who sat but four years on the throne which he had thus acquired. The boy whom Neriglissar left behind was murdered by the conspirators who in the year 555 B.C. elevated Nabonetus to the throne. Of this king we only know that he did not belong to the race of Nabopolassar. Neriglissar had continued the fortification of the metropolis, and Nabonetus completed the walls which were intended to enclose the two parts of the city of Babylon on the east and west of the Euphrates towards the river. He continued the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar at the temples at Ur (Mugheir), and restored the ancient temple of Bilit (Mylitta) at that place. His inscriptions entreat the god Sin that his works may continue as the heavens, and commend his first-born son Belshazzar (Bil-sarussur) to the favour of the moon-god. To the city of Tyre he gave a new king, Hiram of the race of Ethbaal, in the year 551 B.C.[53]

We cannot ascertain what position Nabonetus took up towards the growing power of Cyrus. According to the statement of Trogus Pompeius, Babylon was at war with Cyrus, when Crœsus went to her aid. Cyrus repelled this attack, came to terms with Babylonia, and carried on war against Asia Minor. Xenophon represents Crœsus as beginning the war against Cyrus at the request of the king of Babylon (p. 17). Herodotus, as has been mentioned above, repeatedly assures us that Crœsus was in league with the king of Babylon, whom he calls Labynetus (p. 20). As we saw, Cyrus left Sardis and Asia Minor in the spring of 548 B.C., before the nations of the western coast, the Carians and Lycians, had been subjugated; and Herodotus remarks that he intended to march against Babylon. For Babylonia there could certainly be no more favourable moment for carrying on the war with the Persians than the time at which Cyrus lay opposite the army of Crœsus at Pteria in Cappadocia, before he advanced upon Sardis. A march of the Babylonian army up the river Euphrates would have cut off the communications of the Persian army with their own home, and compelled Cyrus to abandon the Lydians and to turn upon Babylon. We do not know whether Nabonetus looked idly on at the fall of Crœsus in spite of the league, or whether a second Persian army compelled him to leave events to take their course in Asia Minor, or whether Cyrus, on his return to Ecbatana, after the overthrow of Crœsus, as Herodotus tells us, marched against Nabonetus. All that we know from Herodotus is that Harpagus subdued lower Asia, i. e. Asia Minor, and Cyrus himself upper Asia, passing from one nation to another without any exception.

"The greater part of their achievements," Herodotus continues, "I will omit; I will only narrate that feat which cost the most trouble and is the most worthy of notice. When Cyrus had reduced the whole of the continent he attacked the Assyrians. Now Assyria had many other large cities, but the most famous and strongest of them was Babylon, where their kings dwelt after the destruction of Nineveh. Labynetus was ruler of the Assyrians, and against him Cyrus marched." According to this more exact statement, Cyrus did not march against Babylon directly after the Lydian war, but only "when the whole of upper Asia had been reduced to subjection." That Elam and the land between the lower Tigris and the mountains of Persia was subject to Cyrus before he attacked Babylonia, follows from the statements of a prophet of the Jews.[54] Berosus says quite distinctly: "When Cyrus had subjugated the whole of Asia, he set out with a great power from Persia against Babylon in the seventeenth year of the reign of Nabonetus."[55] We can establish the correctness of this date from other sources, and prove that the war between Babylon and Persia, which Herodotus sets himself to describe in the words quoted, took place ten years after the Lydian war. Yet it remains doubtful whether Babylonia and Persia had already met in arms, before, during, or immediately after the Lydian war. So much only is certain, that if a collision of this kind had previously taken place, it was indecisive. Nor can we make it clear what motives caused Nabonetus to allow Cyrus to attack Babylonia at a time most convenient to himself; whether this attitude was due to the experience of previous failures, or to a feeling of confidence that the natural and artificial barriers of the Babylonian land offered a better prospect of success under any circumstances, than an attack on Persia.

We have already seen how faithfully the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar had transported to Mesopotamia and Babylonia in the year 597 B.C., and again in 586 B.C. when he conquered and destroyed Jerusalem, clung to their God and their religion (III. 395). They cherished the firm hope that the judgment which had fallen on Judah and Jerusalem would come to an end, and Jehovah's anger would turn, when the purification was completed; that the kingdom of David would be restored, and Babylon punished for all that it had done to Jerusalem. Since the times of Hosea and Isaiah, the prophets of the Israelites had always pointed beyond the punishments which Jehovah would send upon the sins of his people to their restoration in a happy future. Thus in the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah had announced that Jehovah would allow the King of Babel to come upon Judah and Jerusalem, but that the servitude of Judah would only continue for a definite period—for seventy years (III. 326); and Ezekiel had definitely and solemnly announced the restoration of the national sanctuary to his people in Mesopotamia (III. 395). Zealously devoted to the worship of the God whose strong hand alone could break their yoke asunder and lead back their weak numbers to their home, the exiles impatiently awaited the fall of Babylon. It was their firm hope that as Assyria had fallen, which had annihilated Israel and brought the severest blows upon Judah, so would the line of destruction reach Babylon also, and vengeance would not be delayed. "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O Zion. We hung up our harps on the willows that are in the land; our conquerors asked us for a melody, and those that troubled us for songs of joy. How can we sing Jehovah's song in a strange land? O daughter of Babylon, thou that makest desolate, blessings be upon him who taketh thy children and throweth them against the rocks."[56] "Why go I sorrowing under the oppression of the enemy? It was not by their sword that they took the land, nor did their arms win the victory, but thou, O Jehovah, wert gracious to them. All this came upon us, and yet we were not faithless, our steps strayed not from thy path. Tears are my food day and night, while they say to me, Where is thy God? I thought how I went with the multitude into the house of God with songs and thanksgiving. Thou art my King, Jehovah (III. 396); send help to Jacob; with thy name we shall tread down our enemies. I put not my trust in my bow, but thou givest us victory over the oppressor. Send thy light and thy truth, that they may bring me to thy holy hill, to the God of my joy, that I may praise thee on the lute. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake. Cast us not away for ever. Our soul is bowed down to the dust, our body pressed to the ground. Save us for thy mercy's sake. I will yet praise him, who is my Saviour and my God."[57]

Even in the last years of Nebuchadnezzar, as they looked on the mighty works with which the destroyer of Jerusalem surrounded his city, the hopes of the Jews rose. From these enormous structures they might conclude how insecure Babylon felt herself against the Medes. Immediately after the death of the great and dreaded prince the Jews began to dream of an attack of the Medes on Babylonia. "Israel was a stray sheep," such are the words of a prophet of this period, "which was in terror of lions. The king of Assyria ate it, and Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, gnawed the bones." "But the God of Israel says, 'I will have vengeance on the king of Babel, as I had vengeance on the king of Assyria, and I will lead Israel back, that he may pasture on Carmel and Bashan, and satisfy himself on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.'"[58] "Bel shall be put to shame, and I will take out of his mouth that which he has swallowed, and Merodach shall be overthrown, their images and idols."[59] "Thou who dwellest on the great waters, thine end is approaching. Though Babylon exalted herself to heaven, and made the height of her fortification so that no one could pass over, the broad walls shall be cast down and the high gates shall be consumed with fire."[60] "Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni (Armenia), and Ashenas; arm against her all the governors of the kings of the Medes, and all the lands of their dominion. Summon against her all who draw the bow; stand round Babylon, ye archers, and spare not the arrows."[61] Similar views gave rise to another prophecy which deduces the imminent fall of Babylon from her pride. "Babylon said in her heart, I will climb up to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and dwell on the hill of assembly in the uttermost north. I will climb to the heights of the clouds, and make myself equal to the Highest. But against them Jehovah arouses the Medes, who regard not silver and have no pleasure in gold.[62] Call aloud to them, wave the hand, that they may enter into the gates of the tyrants. Their bows will destroy her young men, and she laments not for her children. And thus Babylon, the delight of the kingdoms, shall be as Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall be no more inhabited for ever; the Arab shall not pitch his tent there, nor the shepherd feed his flock. Beasts of the field shall dwell there; owls shall inhabit the houses, ostriches shall make their home there, and the satyrs shall dance. Jackals shall howl in her palaces, and foxes in her pleasure-houses. I will make Babylon a dwelling for the hedge-hog, saith Jehovah, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction. The time is at hand, it will come quickly. Thy glory is gone down into hell, and the noise of thy harps. Thy bed is with the worm, and thy covering is corruption. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou beaten to the ground that didst lay low the nations!"[63]

The eager and impatient expectation of the Jews could not but perceive the change which had been made in the relation of the states of Asia by the victory of Cyrus over Astyages and the Medes three years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar. When Cyrus afterwards subjugated the nations to the east and west of Media, and the mighty kingdom of Lydia was shattered by him, so that the fame of his victories filled the East—when it might be expected that his arms would turn against Babylon, the Jews considered their rescue certain. With redoubled zeal they called down the punishment of Jehovah on Babylon, and delighted themselves in advance with the coming vengeance. Cyrus was the instrument which Jehovah had chosen to punish Babylon. As the old prophets had seen in the kings of Assyria, and Jeremiah in Nebuchadnezzar, the servants of Jehovah, who were to carry out his will on the nations, and hold the judgment day of the Lord, so did the Jews now see in Cyrus a man called to a similar mission, their saviour and liberator; he seemed to them the anointed of Jehovah. If the absence of images in the rites of the Persians, the worship of Auramazda, the creator of heaven and earth, were nearer the religion of the Jews than the sacrifices which the Babylonians offered before the images of Bel and Bilit-Istar, Adar, Samas and Sin, Merodach and Nebo, and the worship which they devoted to the ruling powers of the stars, they did not overlook the gulf which divided them; but they were convinced that Jehovah chose Cyrus as the rod of his anger, and the goad of his wrath, to punish the pride and wickedness of Babylon. In this spirit we find a prophet saying, with a definite reference to the announcements of Jeremiah: "Who called him from the East, whom victory meets at every step? Who gives him the nations and subjugates kings to him, and makes their swords as dust, and their bows as chaff? He pursues them and follows safely in the path which his feet have never trodden. I, Jehovah, aroused him from the North (midnight), and he came from the rising sun, who calls upon my name. He passes over the mighty ones as over clay, as a potter breaks a vessel. I summoned him for salvation, and his ways will I make smooth; he shall build my city and release my captives, without ransom and without price. I will speak to Koresh (Cyrus), my shepherd; all my business he shall perform, so that he will say of Jerusalem, It shall be built, and of the temple, It shall be established. And I will speak to Koresh, mine anointed, whom I hold by his right hand to throw down the nations before him, and strip the loins of the kings, and open the gates and doors: I called thee, though thou knewest me not;[64] I will go before thee and make plain the ramparts; I will break in pieces the brazen gates, and the cross bars will I loosen" (the gates of Babylon were of brass);[65] "I will say to the deep, Dry up, and thy streams I will cause to be parched. Hear this, O wanton one, O daughter of the Chaldæans, thou that didst lay thy yoke heavily on my people, on the aged one, saying, I will be a lady for ever; but suddenly on one day thou shalt be childless and widowed. Keep to thy incantations, to the multitude of the charms wherewith thou hast comforted thyself from thy youth up. May the quarters of the sky arise and help thee, which look to the stars, which on the new moons announce what will come upon thee. Bel boweth down, Nebo falleth. No more shalt thou be called mistress of the kingdoms, daughter of the Chaldæans. I will place thee on the earth without a throne, I will plant thee in the dust, and make thee crawl in the darkness, O virgin, daughter of Babylon. Take the mill and grind meal, remove thy veil, lift up thy garment, lay bare the thigh, and pass through the rivers; no more shalt thou be called delicate and tender[66]. Zion said, Jehovah has left me, and my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, and have no pity on the fruit of her womb? Yet though she may forget, yet will not I, Jehovah, forget thee. I have graven thee upon my hands, and thy walls were ever before my eyes[67]. Loose the fetters from thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. Shake off the dust, Jerusalem; rise up, thou that hast drunk the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah[68]. Behold, I take from thy hand the cup of my wrath, that thou mayest drink it no more. I put it into the hand of those who have prepared sorrow for thee. Break forth into singing, ye ruins of Jerusalem; cry aloud, O heaven; rejoice, O earth, for Jehovah has mercy on his people[69]. He called the eagle from the east" (the eagle was the standard of the Achæmenids), "the man of his counsel from the distant land. Jehovah spake and called him; he leads him forth, and he shall accomplish it; he brings to pass the will of Jehovah on Babylon, and his might on the Chaldæans."[70]

Herodotus describes the approach of Cyrus and his war against Babylon in the following manner: "When on his march against Babylon he came to the Gyndes (now the Diala), which falls into the Tigris, and crossed it, one of the sacred white horses was carried away by the stream. Cyrus was angry, and threatened that he would make the river so insignificant that a woman should cross it without wetting her knee. With this view he drew 180 lines on each side of the river, and bade his army dig a channel on every line; and as a great multitude was employed, the work was finished, but it occupied the whole summer, so that Cyrus did not lead his army against Babylon till the second spring. The Babylonians marched out of the city and awaited his attack. When Cyrus came up the Babylonians joined battle; they were defeated, and driven into the walls. They had known for a long time that Cyrus would not remain at rest, for they had seen how he had reduced all nations alike, and therefore they had collected provisions for many years in the city. The siege, therefore, caused them no alarm; but Cyrus was in difficulties, for time passed away, and he made no advance. Afterwards he did as follows, whether it was that some one suggested the plan to him, or whether he discovered it for himself. He placed part of his army where the river flows into the city, and part where it flows out, and bade them enter the city by the river as soon as it could be forded. After he had given them orders, he went with the bulk of his army to the basin, which the queen of the Babylonians had caused to be excavated, and did what she had done with the basin and the river. By leading the river through the opening into this basin, which was a marsh, he made the old bed so that it could be forded. When this had been done, and the water of the river had fallen to such an extent that it reached the middle of a man's thigh, the Persians who had been placed near the city forced their way into Babylon along the bed of the river. Had the Babylonians previously known or suspected what Cyrus intended, the Persians would not have passed unnoticed into the walls; had they closed the gates leading from the city to the river, and mounted the walls which line the banks, they would have caught the Persians in a trap as it were, and they would have perished miserably. But the Persians came quite unexpectedly. The outer parts of the city had been already taken while those in the centre, who, as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the matter, owing to the extent of the city, were dancing and making merry—for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated—until they at length discovered their misfortune."

Xenophon relates that the inhabitants of Babylon laughed at the siege, because the strong and lofty walls could not be taken by storm, and the siege would not hurt them, for they had provisions for more than twenty years. Cyrus also soon convinced himself that the city could not be taken by the means which he was employing, and resolved to draw off the Euphrates, which traverses the city in a stream two stadia (1200 feet) in breadth, and twice the height of a man in depth. For this object he threw a rampart round the whole city, with a very broad and deep trench before it on the side towards the city. This great work was apportioned to the different parts of the army, and the time occupied in it was calculated at a year. Where the trenches approached the river the earth was not excavated, so that the water would not flow into the trenches. When Cyrus perceived that the Babylonians celebrated a festival at a fixed time, at which they feasted for the whole night, he caused the earth which separated the river from the trenches above the city to be cut through by a multitude of men as soon as it was dark; the water at once ran into the trenches, and the river sank so low that it could be forded. The river now opened a way into the city, and Cyrus bade his troops enter by its bed. They would find the inhabitants drunk and asleep, without any organization for resistance, and when they found the enemy in the city they would lose all their courage. If the Babylonians, nevertheless, attempted to hurl down missiles from the roofs, the houses could be burned, and they would take fire readily, as the doors were of palm-wood covered with bitumen. A separate troop of the Persian army, which Gobryas led, had orders to make their way to the palace of the king as quickly as possible. The Persians entered, and cut down the inhabitants whom they found; others saved themselves by flight. The watch of the palace were drinking by a bright fire before the gates, which were closed. They were surprised and cut down. When the noise of the fight was heard inside the palace, the king sent to inquire what was the meaning of the tumult. But as soon as the gate was opened the Persians forced their way into the palace; the king and those around him drew their swords, but succumbed to numbers, and were killed. Meanwhile Cyrus had despatched his cavalry along the streets, sending with them men skilled in the Syrian language, who proclaimed that every one who remained in his house would be uninjured; all who showed themselves in the streets would be put to death. Thus the city quickly passed into the hands of the Persians. The gates of the citadel were opened the next morning, when the dawn of light showed them the Persians in possession of the city.[71]

Polyaenus gives two versions of the taking of Babylon. The Babylonians laughed at the siege, as they had provisions for many years. But Cyrus drew off the Euphrates, which flows through the middle of the city, and turned it into a neighbouring swamp. As the Babylonians were thus cut off from drinking-water, they soon opened their gates to Cyrus. The second version is different. When, in order to take Babylon, Cyrus had made a trench to receive the water of the Euphrates, which flows through the city, he led away the army from the walls. The Babylonians believed that Cyrus had abandoned the siege, and they became negligent in keeping watch on the walls. But after drawing off the water, Cyrus led the Persians through the old bed, and unexpectedly made himself master of the city.

Besides these accounts of the Greeks, proclamations of the Hebrews, which are joined on to the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, give indications on the fall of Babel. "Behold, saith Jehovah, I will dry up their sea and parch their fountains. When they are heated I will prepare a drink for them, and intoxicate them, so that they make merry, that they may sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more. And behold! there came mounted men. The night of my pleasure was turned to horror. The watchman wakes, the table is prepared, there is eating and drinking. Rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield. Their dwellings are set on fire, the bars are broken. One runs to meet another, and messenger to meet messenger, bringing news to the king of Babylon that his city is captured on every side; the channels are taken, the lakes they have burned with fire. Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all her idols are trampled underfoot. The whole earth rests, and is at peace, the lands break forth into joy. The cypresses are glad over thee, the cedars of Lebanon; now that thou art fallen, no one will come to cut us down."[72] The kings of Babylon, like those of Asshur, used the cedars of Lebanon for their palaces; Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us that he caused cedars to be felled in Lebanon for his palace (III. 386). A later book of the Hebrews, the Book of Daniel, which was written in the first century B.C., under Antiochus Epiphanes (176-164 B.C.), about the year 167 B.C., represents Babylon as taken by the Persians during the night of a festival, but Darius, not Cyrus, is the Persian king. Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, is king of Babylon. He gives a great banquet to his thousand mighty men, and, heated by wine, causes the gold and silver vessels to be brought which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from the temple at Jerusalem; and his mighty men, their wives and concubines, drink out of them, and sing songs of praise to their gods of gold and silver, brass, iron, stone, and wood. Then suddenly a hand writes letters on the wall of the palace. The king changes colour; the wise men of Babylon, the Chaldæans, the magicians, and prophets were brought, but they cannot read the writing. Then Daniel was summoned, one of the Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar brought from Babylon, who had already interpreted dreams for Nebuchadnezzar which the wise men of Babylon could not expound, and had remained true to the religion of Jehovah under all temptations. He read the words, which were Hebrew,—Mene, Tekel, Peres,—and explained them: Thy kingdom is "numbered"; thou hast been "weighed" in the balance and found wanting, because thy heart is not humbled, and thou honourest not the God in whose hand is thy breath and all thy fortunes; thy kingdom has been "divided" among the Medes and Persians. Then the king commanded to put the purple robe on Daniel, and the golden chain upon his neck, and proclaim him third in the kingdom. "But in that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldæans slain, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom."[73]

Only a short excerpt has come down to us of the account which Berosus gave of the capture of Babylon. "Cyrus set out from Persia with a strong force against Babylon. When Nabonetus heard of his approach, he went to meet him with his army, and they joined battle. He was defeated, and fled with a few companions into the city of the Borsippeans, where he was besieged. Cyrus took Babylon, and as he had found the city difficult to reduce, and stubborn, he gave orders to throw down the walls outside the city, and then set out against Borsippa in order to get Nabonetus into his power, by bringing the siege to an end. But Nabonetus did not wait for the city to be taken by storm; he surrendered. Cyrus treated him with kindness, and sent him from Babylon to Carmania, which he appointed to be his dwelling-place. There Nabonetus lived for the remainder of his life, and there he died." According to Eusebius, Cyrus gave the vice-royalty of Carmania to Nabonetus, and Darius took it away again.[74]

After all that has been observed above, the attack of Cyrus could not be unexpected by Nabonetus, and we also see from Herodotus that it had been long foreseen, and provisions for many years had been collected in Babylon—according to Xenophon there was sufficient for twenty years. We find, moreover, that the fortifications of the city had been completed; the great extent which Nebuchadnezzar had allowed for the wall of the city must have enclosed a wide breadth of country, or at any rate pastures large enough to maintain numerous herds of cattle. And Nebuchadnezzar had not merely made the metropolis the fortress and strong camp of the kingdom, which could both receive and protect the military forces, he had covered the northern edge of the Babylonian land by a fortification of a hundred feet in height and twenty in thickness, which extended from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Behind this wall were the four great canals which connected the Euphrates and Tigris; and, protected by the great wall, there lay on the Euphrates at Sepharvaim, the reservoirs by which the level of the Euphrates could be raised or lowered, and the canals fed—the basin of which Nebuchadnezzar had availed himself in building his bridge over the Euphrates,—works which Herodotus, we do not know on what authority, but very erroneously ascribes to Nitocris, a queen of Babylon. By this wall, and the canals, which it would be necessary to dam up, any attack on the heart of Babylonia from the direction of Mesopotamia would be rendered almost impossible. The Tigris after leaving the mountains of Armenia, above the ruins of Nineveh, is not difficult to cross in the summer, yet an attack from this side would encounter almost insuperable difficulties, and even if they were overcome the attacking army would be involved in a labyrinth of canals, in which the cavalry of the Persians could be of little use. Hence Babylonia could only be reached by crossing the Tigris and Euphrates below that fortification and the canals,—a difficult task. If Cyrus attempted to cross both rivers above this point, and then march down the western shore till he was below the "Median wall," he would sacrifice altogether his communication with Persia, he would have to march southwards through the Syrian desert, and then force the passage of the Euphrates, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, i. e. in the face of the enemy's power, while he at the same time would find himself in the midst of an extensive system of canals, and of the swamps which lie along the Euphrates between Babylon and the sea (I. 300, III. 359).

Under these circumstances Cyrus could only cross the Tigris from the east, and attempt an attack below the wall which united the two rivers. This was the line which, in fact, he followed. Berosus told us that Cyrus "marched from Persia against Nabonetus," and Herodotus exhibits him as occupied for a whole summer on the Diala. His occupation there, as Herodotus describes it, is very unintelligible; the Diala was punished by being divided into 360 canals, and so made fordable. That Cyrus should punish a river is both unlikely in itself and opposed to the religious conceptions of Iran, which as we know required the greatest respect to be paid to rivers; more improbable still and indeed impossible is it in the midst of the war against Babylon. If we do not assume that the source from which Herodotus drew has wrongly brought a great work of irrigation which Cyrus undertook for the land of the Diala at some other time into connection with this war against Babylon, it must be the passage of the Tigris which is in question. What we know of the military achievements of Cyrus does not allow us to suppose that when once in the field he would give his opponents the respite of a whole summer. If we could assume that the army of Nabonetus had contested the crossing with Cyrus at this point, above the mouth of the Diala, where at a later time the Babylonians attempted to check Darius—and that they had ships of war in the Tigris then, as at the time of Darius—we might then suppose that Cyrus reached the Tigris above the mouth of the Diala, and not being able to force the crossing, attempted to carry off the water of the river into the Diala, above and behind his camp, and at length succeeded in his attempt. Even then the number of the canals is very remarkable. But whether the supposition is right or wrong, in any case we may assume on the basis of the narrative of Herodotus that Cyrus began the war against Babylon in the spring of the year 539 B.C., that he crossed the Tigris in the neighbourhood of the Diala, and that the only result of his first campaign was to effect the passage of the Tigris and retain command of the river. From this point, in the next spring, he led his army, as Herodotus states, in a diagonal across Babylonia towards the city. Nabonetus lost the battle, which, as Herodotus says, was fought in the neighbourhood of Babylon. Of Nabonetus and his fate the historian says not a word; we have therefore no reason to doubt the statement of Berosus, that Nabonetus did not again return to Babylon, but took refuge in Borsippa with a few companions, and was there besieged. It was obviously of great advantage to Cyrus to prevent the Babylonians from entering into their city, to drive away the army or part of it from the city in order to diminish the number of those who could defend the walls. He might accomplish this object by strengthening his right wing and advancing with it. If Nabonetus and a part of the fugitives were thus cut off from Babylon, he could only retire southwards beyond the Euphrates into the city nearest Babylon, i. e. into Borsippa, to seek protection at the great temple of Nebo (I. 291), the god whose name he bore.[75] The command in Babylon then devolved on his eldest son Bil-sar-ussur (p. 67). It follows from the narrative of Berosus that Cyrus quickly followed up the defeated army of the Babylonians, that a part of the Persians, treading on the heels of the fugitives, crossed the Euphrates below the city, to invest Borsippa and the metropolis on the western side. Berosus has told us that Cyrus marched against Babylon with a great force. His army must indeed have been strong enough to enclose the second circuit of the city, 35 or 40 miles (III. 372), to meet the attack of the whole force of the besieged on both sides of the river, and blockade Borsippa.

But the inhabitants "ridiculed the siege," and Cyrus could make no progress—such is the account in Herodotus and Xenophon. Owing to the amount of provisions at the command of the city, an investment could not promise any result, and there was little prospect of storming the city. The broad and deep trenches in front of the walls made it impossible to undermine them; even if these could be filled up under the missiles of the enemy in a few places for the battering-rams to be brought forward, the strength of the walls was so great that they could not be broken. Still less possible was it to mount them. They were so high that the arrows of the besiegers could not reach them with force, and even if the attack was carried successfully over the trenches, no towers or ladders would be at once strong and high enough to bring the storming party to the turrets. According to Herodotus, a long time had elapsed before Cyrus formed his plan. He bethought himself of the basin which Nebuchadnezzar had excavated at Sepharvaim, for the regulation of the inundations of the Euphrates, for feeding and damming up the canals; this work constructed for the benefit and protection of the land he used for the destruction of the capital. The Euphrates was to be led off into this basin till its bed could be forded at Babylon. Then the storming of the city was to be attempted from the river, the walls on the banks being less high and strong. For this object it was necessary to obtain possession of the fortress of Sepharvaim, which guarded the sluices of the basin, to deepen or enlarge the basin itself, so that for a certain period it could receive the whole mass of water; it was also requisite that the canal which led into it should be widened and deepened; and lastly the course of the river beneath the basin, or rather beneath the great canals which led into the Tigris, must be barred by a dam, if the Euphrates was to flow into it. The army of Cyrus must have been so strong, that after leaving behind a sufficient number of men on both sides of the Euphrates to continue the blockade of the city and of Borsippa, it could detach an adequate force of troops and workmen to Sepharvaim. Before these works could be begun, the inundation which in June and July the Euphrates pours over the plain of Babylon must have been over; and before the return of the inundation in the autumn, which would imperil the whole undertaking, Sepharvaim must be captured, the Euphrates drawn off, and Babylon conquered. When Sepharvaim was in the hand of Cyrus, the stream, which had previously been dammed up with the exception of a small passage, must have been rapidly closed, that the Babylonians might not have their suspicions roused by the fall of the water, and guard the walls on the river with redoubled vigilance. The time was short. Pliny has preserved for us the statement that the large city of Agranis, which lay on the Euphrates, where the canal Nahr Malka (III. 359) flowed out of the river, was destroyed by the Persians; the walls of the city of Sepharvaim which had been rendered famous by the wisdom of the Chaldæans (Sippara, I. 245), were also destroyed by the Persians, and Gobares (Gobryas), as some say, had drawn off the Euphrates.[76] To Gobryas Xenophon also allots an important share in the capture of Babylon (p. 78). Even without these statements of Pliny, which support the account of Herodotus, and inform us of the battles which the Persians had to fight on the Euphrates above Babylon in order to establish themselves at the entrance of the Nahr Malka, and get the mouth of the basin into their power—even without the hints of the prophets of the Hebrews about the "drying up of the springs," and "parching of the channels," and the remark of Polyaenus about the drawing off of the Euphrates at a marsh (the basin of Sepharvaim was, when not filled, a marsh), we must reject Xenophon's account of the drawing off of the Euphrates. Conceding the extent of the walls of Babylon, even if limited to one bank of the river, the work could not have been done in a year; and every day the execution of the work under the eyes of the besieged would have made its object more plain.

The plan of Cyrus succeeded. The removal of Agranis and Sepharvaim made the execution possible; the number of hands at his disposal caused all the works to be carried out at the right time, i. e. before the inundation of the autumn. The storming of the city could be attempted by the river-bed both above and below the city.[77] That it took place and was accomplished on the night of a festival, is stated in the narratives of Herodotus and Xenophon, and indicated by the Hebrew prophet in the words "the night of my pleasure was turned to horror," and other phrases (p. 80); and the book of Daniel makes the same assertion. Aristotle is of opinion that even three days after, a third part of the population did not know that the city had been taken.[78] Xenophon represents the division of Gobryas as the first to reach the palace; the king falls when defending himself against their attack. By the palace is here meant one of the two royal citadels, either the older on the western bank, or the more recent on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the palace of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (III. 375), and the king whom he represents as slain there, must have been Bil-sarussur, the son and heir of Nabonetus. As we have observed, the book of Daniel calls the king who lost his throne and life on the night of the festival, Belshazzar. In addition to him, Nabonetus had a second son, named Nebuchadnezzar (see below, chap, xiv.). Besides the palace of the king, Xenophon speaks of citadels of Babylon which surrendered to the conqueror on the following morning.

After the capture of the metropolis, which was followed by the surrender of Borsippa, and the capture of Nabonetus (538 B.C.), Cyrus, so far as we can tell, showed clemency both towards the king, whom he caused to be taken to Carmania, and to the city of Babylon. The kings of Asshur treated besieged princes and conquered cities in a manner very different from that in which Cyrus treated Astyages, Crœsus and Sardis, Nabonetus and Babylon. Babylonia was not oppressed; the city was not destroyed. Cyrus stepped into the place of the native king. The Babylonian tablets after the capture of the city and the fall of the kingdom, date from the years of the reign of Cyrus over Babylonia, the years "of Kurus, king of Babylon, king of the lands."[79] The city of Babylon retained her temples and palaces and her mighty walls. Herodotus tells us expressly that Cyrus did no injury to the walls or the gates of Babylon,[80] and twenty years afterwards we find the city in possession of her impregnable works. Xenophon remarks that Cyrus placed troops in the citadels, set captains over them, left behind a sufficient garrison in the city and charged the inhabitants with the maintenance of it; the arrangements then made for keeping guard were in existence still.[81] If, therefore, the excerpt of Josephus from Berosus tells us that Cyrus destroyed the walls "outside the city," this can only refer to the great wall which Nebuchadnezzar had built from the Euphrates to the Tigris above Sepharvaim, as a protection against an attack from the north. It would have been a heavy task to level with the ground this fortification throughout its entire length of from 60 to 75 miles, the Persians therefore contented themselves with making large breaches in it. The wall was in this condition when Xenophon came with the ten thousand to Babylon.[82]

The fall of the metropolis had decided the fortune of the Babylonian kingdom, and the provinces. The most important of these was Syria, with the great trading places of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean; we remember how many and what severe struggles the subjection of Syria had cost Nebuchadnezzar. At the present moment the approach of the Persians was enough to cause Syria to recognise the supremacy of Cyrus almost without a blow. Herodotus tells us that the Phenicians voluntarily submitted to the Persians; Xenophon mentions that Cyrus had subjugated the Phenicians; Polybius observes that Gaza alone among all the cities of Syria offered resistance; the rest, terrified at the approach of the Persians and the greatness of their power, had surrendered themselves and their lands to them. With the capture of Gaza Cyrus stood on the borders of Egypt. As we have seen, Nebuchadnezzar allowed the states and cities of Syria to retain their native princes, so long as these preserved their fidelity to him; even over the Phenician cities he and his successors placed men of their own royal or priestly families to be at once judges or princes of the cities and viceroys of Babylon. That Tyre surrendered without a struggle, as Herodotus and Polybius tell us of Syria, that Cyrus, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, left the princes who submitted in command, follows from the fact that Hiram, whom Nabonetus had made king of Tyre, continued to reign over the city under Cyrus.[83] If Cyrus felt himself compelled to establish princes in the Greek cities of the coast for the first time, who owed their position to him, and could not maintain it without his aid, the cities of Phœnicia had long been accustomed to receive these princes from distant sovereigns. Cyrus and his successors confined themselves in their choice to the old royal families of the Phenician cities; at any rate we find, even under the Achæmenids, men with the hereditary names at the head of Tyre and Sidon. Yet the relations of the Phenician cities did not remain without change. Cyrus, as it seems, availed himself of the old rivalry between Tyre and Sidon to win a further support for his power. Ever since the foundation of Gades, and the times of the first Hiram of Tyre, the contemporary of Solomon, Sidon had been gradually forced by Tyre into the second place; under the Persian kingdom Sidon again appears as the first city of Phœnicia, and her kings have the precedence of those of Tyre and the other cities.[84] To the population on the whole the change to the Persian dominion would be regarded with indifference if not with pleasure; a connection with the Persian empire opened a far more extensive market for trade, and secured and protected intercourse over a far greater extent of country than the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar.

The ancient kingdom of Babylon, in which the civilisation of the Semitic stock had taken root some fifteen centuries previously, and had attained to such peculiar development, which had struggled so long and stubbornly against the younger kingdom of Assyria, and when it finally succumbed, had been raised to yet greater power than it had ever attained to in old times, under the brilliant reigns of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar—which had united the branches of the Semitic stem from the Tigris to the Mediterranean, from the foot of the Armenian mountains to the deserts of Arabia—had succumbed to the attack of Cyrus after a brief existence, sixty-nine years after the fall of Nineveh. The predominance exercised for so many centuries by Semitic culture and Semitic arms through the old Babylonian, the Assyrian, and the second Babylonian kingdom, passed to a tribe of different character, language, and culture—to the Arians of Iran.

It was this violent change, which brought to a Semitic tribe liberation for its fellow Semites. The hopes of the Jews were at last fulfilled. The fall of Babylon had avenged the fall of Jerusalem, and the subjugation of Syria to the armies of Babylon opened the way for their return. Cyrus did not belie the confidence which the Jews had so eagerly offered him; without hesitation he gave the exiles permission to return and erect again their shrine at Jerusalem. The return of the captives and the foundation of a new state of the Jews was very much to his interest; it might contribute to support his empire in Syria. He did not merely count on the gratitude of the returning exiles, but as any revival of the Babylonian kingdom, or rebellion of the Syrians against the Persian empire, imperilled the existence of this community, which had not only to be established anew, but would never be very strong, it must necessarily oppose any such attempts. Forty-nine years—seven Sabbatical years, instead of the ten announced by Jeremiah—had passed since the destruction of Jerusalem, and more than sixty since Jeremiah had first announced the seventy years of servitude to Babylon. Cyrus commissioned Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, a grandson of Jechoniah, the king who had been carried away captive, and therefore a scion of the ancient royal race, and a descendant of David, to be the leader of the returning exiles, to establish them in their abode, and be the head of the community;[85] he bade his treasurer Mithridates give out to him the sacred vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away as trophies to Babylon, and placed in the temple of Bel; there are said to have been more than 5000 utensils of gold and silver, baskets, goblets, cups, knives, etc. But all the Jews in Babylon did not avail themselves of the permission. Like the Israelites deported by Sargon into Media and Assyria some 180 years previously, many of the Jews brought to Mesopotamia and Babylonia at the time of Jechoniah and Zedekiah, had found there a new home, which they preferred to the land of their fathers. But the priests (to the number of more than 3000[86]), many of the families of the heads of the tribes, all who cared for the sanctuary and the old country, all in whom Jehovah "awoke the spirit," as the Book of Ezra says, began the march over the Euphrates. With Zerubbabel was Joshua, the high priest, the most distinguished among all the Jews, a grandson of the high priest Zeraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed after the capture of Jerusalem. The importance of the priests had increased in the captivity; they had become the natural heads and judges of the Jews, and the people following the guidance of the prophets, had learned to regard Jehovah as their peculiar lord and king. It was a considerable multitude which left the land "beyond the stream," the waters of Babylon, to sit once more under the fig-tree in their ancient home, and build up the city of David and the temple of Jehovah from their ruins; 42,360 freemen, with 7337 Hebrew men-servants and maid-servants; their goods were carried by 435 camels, 736 horses, 250 mules, and 6720 asses (537 B.C.)[87] The exodus of the Jews from Babylon is accompanied by a prophet with cries of joy, and announcements filled with the wildest hopes. Was not the fall of Babylon and the return home a sure pledge that the anger of Jehovah was appeased? Must not the dawn of that brilliant time be come, which the prophets had always pointed out behind the execution of the punishment? Could not the most joyful expectation prevail that Jehovah's grace would be greater henceforth than his anger in the past? Thus, in the spirit, the prophet saw all the scattered members of the people of Israel, who since the time of Tiglath-Pilesar II. had been carried away, or fled for refuge, return from the distant lands, from Egypt and the isles; Jerusalem has put on a new splendour which far exceeds that of old days; and therefore he gives expression to the confident expectation that the people of Jehovah will be the first nation of the earth, and the resurgent Zion will be the centre and the protector of all nations. "Go forth from Babylon," he cries; "fly from the land of the Chaldæans! Proclaim it with shouts of joy, tell it to the end of the earth and say: 'Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob.'"[88] "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth.[89] Up, up, go forth, touch no unclean person; go forth from among them. Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear Jehovah's vessels.[90] Ye shall go forth in joy and be led in peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees shall clap their hands.[91] Jehovah goes before you, and the God of Israel brings up the rear. Was it not Jehovah who made the depths of the sea to be your pathway, so that His redeemed passed through? In the desert through which they passed they thirsted not; He clave the rock and the waters flowed.[92] So shall the ransomed of Jehovah return, and come with singing to Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.[93] O, poor ones, surrounded with misery and comfortless; for a little time Jehovah left thee, but He takes thee up again with greater love, and I will have mercy on thee for ever, saith Jehovah. As I swore that the waters of Noah should not come again upon the earth, so do I swear to be angry with thee no more. The mountains may melt and tremble, but my mercy will leave thee no more. Jehovah calls thee as an outcast sorrowful woman, and thy God speaks to thee as to a bride who has been put away;[94] thy ruins, and deserts, and wasted land, which was destroyed from generation to generation—thy people build up the ruins, and renew the ancient cities.[95] Behold, I will make thy desert like Eden, and thy wilderness like the garden of the Lord; I will lay thy stones with bright lead, and thy foundations with sapphires, and make thy towers of rubies and thy gates of carbuncles.[96] Joy and delight is in them, thanksgiving and the sound of strings. The wealth of the sea shall come to thee, and the treasures of the nations shall be thine;[97] like a stream will I bring salvation upon Israel, and the treasures of the nations like an overflowing river.[98] Thy sons hasten onward; those that laid thee waste go forth from thee.[99] Lift up thine eyes and see; thy sons come from far, and I will gather them to those that are gathered together. The islands and the ships of Tarshish wait to bring thy children from afar, their gold and their silver with them.[100] The land will be too narrow for the inhabitants; widen the place for thy tent, let the carpets of thy habitation be spread—delay not. Draw out the rope; to the right and to the left must thou be widened.[101] I will set up my banner for the nations, that they bring thy sons in their arm, and thy daughters shall be carried on the shoulders. Kings shall be thy guardians, and queens thy nursing-mothers; I will bow them to the earth before thee, and they shall lick the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah, and they who wait patiently for me shall not be put to shame."[102]

Such expectations and hopes were far from being realised. The Edomites had, in the mean-time, extended their borders, and obtained possession of the South of Judah, but the land immediately round Jerusalem was free and no doubt almost depopulated. As the returning exiles contented themselves with the settlement at Jerusalem, the towns to the North, Anathoth, Gebah, Michmash, Kirjath-Jearim, and some others—only Bethlehem is mentioned to the South,[103] they found nothing to impede them. Their first care was the restoration of the worship, according to the law and custom of their fathers, for which object an altar of burnt-offerings was erected on the site of the temple, in order to offer the appointed sacrifice at morning and evening. The priests, minstrels, and Levites were separated according to their families, and those who could not prove their priestly descent were rejected for the sacred service;[104] the attempt was then made to arrange the rest of the exiles according to their families, in order to decide their claims and rights to certain possessions and lands. Then voluntary gifts were collected from all for the rebuilding of the temple; contributions even came in from those who had remained in Babylonia, so that 70,000 pieces of gold and 5000 minæ of silver are said to have been amassed. Tyrian masons were hired, and agreements made with Tyrian carpenters, to fell cedars in Lebanon, and bring them to Joppa, for which Cyrus had given his permission. The foundation of the temple was laid in the second year of the return (536 B.C.). The priests appeared in their robes with trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals, to praise Jehovah; "that He might be gracious, and His mercy be upon Israel for ever." Those of the priests and elders who had seen the old temple are said to have wept aloud; "but many raised their voices in joy so that the echo was heard far off."[105] We have evidence of the grateful and elevated tone which filled the exiles in those days, in songs, where we read: "They pressed upon me in my youth, but they overpowered me not. The ploughers ploughed upon my back and made long furrows. Jehovah is just; he broke the bonds of the wicked. Praised be Jehovah, who did not give us over as prey to their teeth; our soul escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler. When Jehovah turned again the captivity of Zion, our way was filled with joy; and they said among the nations: Jehovah hath done great things for them! Jehovah hath chosen Zion, and taken it to be His abode and resting-place for ever and ever. There He will clothe His priests with salvation, and exalt the power of David, and clothe his enemies with shame."[106]

The fortunate beginning of the restoration of the city and temple soon met with difficulties. The people of Samaria, who were a mixture of the remnant of the Israelites and the strangers whom Sargon had brought there after the capture of Samaria (III. 86), and Esarhaddon at a later date (III. 154), came to meet the exiles in a friendly spirit, and offered them assistance, from which we must conclude that in spite of the foreign admixture the Israelitish blood and the worship of Jehovah were preponderant in Samaria. The new temple would thus have been the common sanctuary of the united people of Israel. But the "sons of captivity" were too proud of the sorrows which they had undergone, and the fidelity which they had preserved to Jehovah, and their pure descent, to accept this offer. Hence the old quarrel between Israel and Judah broke out anew, and the exiles soon felt the result. After their repulse the Samaritans set themselves to hinder the building by force; "they terrified the exiles that they built no more, and hired counsellors to make the attempt vain during the whole of the remainder of the reign of Cyrus."[107] The reasons which these counsellors brought forward before Cyrus against the continuation of the buildings at Jerusalem, would be the same which were afterwards brought before Artaxerxes Longimanus; namely, that when Jerusalem and its walls were finished the city would become rebellious and disobedient, as it was previously under the kings of Babylon.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] The reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Evilmerodach, Neriglissar, and the accession of Nabonetus in 555 B.C., are now fixed not only by the canon of Ptolemy but also by the Babylonian tablets, which give forty-three years for Nebuchadnezzar (604-561), two years for Evilmerodach (561-559), four years for Neriglissar (559-555), seventeen years for Nabonetus, (555-538); "Transactions Bibl. Society," 6, p. 47-53. Oppert (l. c. p. 262) also mentions a tablet of Labasi-marduk (Labasoarchad), who sat on the throne for nine months. Boscawen reads Lakhabasi-Kudur, l. c. p. 78. On the elevation of Hiram in Tyre, vol. III. 394.

[54] Ps. and Isa. xxi. 2.

[55] Fragm. 14, ed. Müller.

[56] Ps. cxxxvii.

[57] Ps. liii., liv.

[58] Jer. 1. 17-19.

[59] Jer. 1. 2; li. 44.

[60] Jer. li. 13, 53, 58.

[61] Jer. 1. 14, 29; li. 27.

[62] V. 314 n.

[63] Deut. Isa. xiii. 17-22; xiv. 4, 11-14. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol. II., Essay xi.]

[64] Deut. Isa. xli. 2, 3; xli. 25; xliv. 28. Kohut, "Antiparsismus in Deut. Yesaias, Z. D. M. G." 1876, 3, 711 ff.

[65] Deut. Isa. xlv. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. 369.

[66] Deut. Isa. xlvii. 1-13.

[67] Deut. Isa. xlix. 14-16.

[68] Deut. Isa. li. 17. Vol. III. 326.

[69] Deut. Isa. xlix. 13.

[70] Deut. Isa. xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.

[71] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 5.

[72] Jer. li. 31, 32, 39; Deut. Isa. xiv. 7-9; xxi. 4-9.

[73] Dan. v. 1-31.

[74] Beros. fragm. 14; Euseb. "Chron." 1. 42, ed. Schöne.

[75] On the site of Borsippa, Vol. I. 291, and on Nebuchadnezzar's buildings at the temple of Nebo, at Borsippa, III. 385.

[76] Pliny, "H. N." 6, 30.

[77] Sir Henry Rawlinson spoke in the Asiatic Society on Nov. 17, 1879, of a Babylonian cylinder brought home by Rassam, which, though broken, is said to give an account in thirty-seven legible lines of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, and to contain a genealogical tree of Cyrus. As yet I have not been able to learn anything further. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol. II., Essay xi.]

[78] "Pol." 3, 1, 12.

[79] Oppert et Ménant, "Docum. Juridiq." p. 266.

[80] Herod. 3, 159.

[81] "Cyri inst." 7, 5, 34, 69, 70.

[82] Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 4. Vol. III. 366.

[83] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 1, 1, 4; 7, 4, 1. On Hiram, above, p. 67; Joseph. "c. Apion," 1, 21; Polybius, 16, 40. The statement of Polybius might be referred to the campaign of Cambyses against Egypt, if the supremacy of Cyrus in Syria were not proved by other evidence, as Ezra iii. 7, and the return of the Jews. Herodotus also would not have omitted the siege of Gaza in his detailed description of the march of Cambyses against Egypt, if it had not taken place until then. The general expression in Herodotus (3, 34) cannot outweigh all these proofs; it only says with the exaggerated tone of flattery that Cambyses first placed a fleet on the sea, and claims the subjugation of Cyprus for him. As a fact Cyrus left the islands of Anatolia, except Chios and Lesbos, which voluntarily submitted, uninjured, and did not call on them for a fleet, for which there were many good reasons from the point of view of a Persian king.

[84] Herod. 3, 19; 5, 104, 110; 7, 96, 98, 128; Xenoph. "Ages." 2, 30; Diod. 16, 41. The rebellion of Sidon in 351 B.C. again reversed the relations.

[85] 1 Chron. iii. 17-19.

[86] Ezra ii. 36-39.

[87] Ezra ch. ii. As Babylon was conquered in the summer of 538, the first year of Cyrus in Babylon reaches to the summer of 537; Ezra i. 1, 3; Beros. fragm. 15, ed. Müller.

[88] Deut. Isa. xlviii. 20.

[89] Deut. Isa. lii. 7.

[90] Deut. Isa. lii. 11.

[91] Deut. Isa. lv. 12.

[92] Deut. Isa. xlviii. 21.

[93] Deut. Isa. li. 11.

[94] Deut. Isa. liv. 6-10.

[95] Deut. Isa. xlix. 19; lviii. 12.

[96] Deut. Isa. liv. 11.

[97] Deut. Isa. lx. 5.

[98] Deut. Isa. lxvi. 12.

[99] Deut. Isa. xlix. 17.

[100] Deut. Isa. lx. 4-9.

[101] Deut. Isa. liv. 2.

[102] Deut. Isa. xlix. 22, 23.

[103] Ewald, "Volk. Israel." 3, 91.

[104] Ezra ii. 59-63.

[105] Ezra iii. 8-13.

[106] Ps. cxxix.-cxxxii.

[107] Ezra iv. 1-5, 24. It is obvious that verse 24 must follow on verse 5 in chap. iv. The verses 6-23 treat of things which happened under Xerxes and Artaxerxes, and they have got into the wrong place.

CHAPTER IX.

THE KINGDOM OF CYRUS.

We were able to prove that Cyrus, soon after his victory over Astyages and the Medes, reduced the Parthians and Hyrcanians beneath his dominion, that the Caducians, the Armenians, and the Cappadocians were his subjects before the Lydian war, that his empire at this period extended to the Halys. How far he had already advanced towards the Bactrians and Sacae must remain uncertain, owing to the contradiction which exists on this point between the summary narrative of Herodotus and the excerpt from Ctesias. Afterwards the Lydian war and its sequel made Cyrus master of the whole of Asia Minor. Between the Lydian and Babylonian wars Herodotus represents him as conquering the whole of upper Asia, one nation after the other, and Berosus as conquering the whole of Asia. When our knowledge is so scanty, it is impossible to fix the campaigns of Cyrus in the East and the West with greater exactness, or even to ascertain clearly what successes he achieved in these regions before and after the Babylonian war. We merely perceive that Elam was subject to Cyrus before the attack on Babylon (p. 83), and if a habitation could be allotted to Nabonetus in Carmania, that country must have been subject before the war which destroyed the Babylonian kingdom; we may also conclude with great probability that Cyrus would not have marched against Babylon before he felt himself secure in the East. Hence we may assume that Iran was subject before the Babylonian war, and the campaigns which resulted in the conquest of the Gandarians and their northern neighbours, the Sogdiani and Chorasmians, must be ascribed to the period after this war. Whether the nations in the north of Armenia, on the isthmus between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Saspeires and Alarodians in the East, and the Colchians and Phasians in the valley of the Phasis, were reduced by Cyrus or his immediate successors remains doubtful. In the East he had conquered the Drangians, Areians, Arachoti, Gedrosians, and Gandarians, to the south of the Cabul on the Indus,[108] and imposed tribute on the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul.[109] In the land of the Arachoti he destroyed, as we are told, the city of Capisa; Darius mentions a city, Kapisakani in Arachosia, and Capisa is also mentioned elsewhere in later writers.[110] Nearchus tells us that Cyrus undertook a campaign against the land of the Indians; on the march thither he lost the greater part of his army in Gedrosia, owing to the desert and the difficulties of the way; according to the account of the natives Cyrus and seven men alone remained out of the whole army.[111] In his account of Alexander of Macedon, Diodorus remarks that after he had encamped at Drangiana (V. 7), he came to the Ariaspi, who were neighbours to the Gedrosians. These Ariaspi (whose abodes we have already discovered in the neighbourhood of the Etymandros) were called "Benefactors" for the following reason. On one of his campaigns, Cyrus was in the desert, and reduced to extreme distress for want of necessaries; famine compelled his men to eat each other; till the Ariaspians brought up 30,000 waggons, filled with provisions. Thus rescued, Cyrus allowed them immunity from contributions, honoured them with other presents, and gave them the name of "Benefactors."[112] Strabo also tells us that the Ariaspians received this name from Cyrus, and so does Arrian, though he gives a different and less appropriate reason for it, saying that they had assisted Cyrus in his campaign against the Scyths.[113] Curtius tells us, as a reason for the name, that the Ariaspi had aided the army of Cyrus when suffering from want of provisions and the cold, with supplies and shelter.[114] Herodotus observes that those who had done a service to the king were called "Orosangians." In Old Bactrian, Huvarezyanha means the doer of a kind action. Other instances are not wanting to prove that the Persian kings followed the example of Cyrus in conferring this title as a distinction.

We may regard it as certain that Cyrus had gone beyond Gedrosia and reduced the Gandarians and the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul; that he afterwards advanced to the Indus, and his army was brought into great distress in the deserts of Gedrosia, as was afterwards the case with Alexander's army on his return from the Indus. The Ariaspians, from the position of their country, could only be in a position to bring aid if Cyrus were returning from the Indus, or if the distress was so great on the outward march that he felt himself compelled to return when in Gedrosia. Megasthenes distinctly states that Cyrus did not cross the Indus or set foot in India.[115] In the north-east he had reduced the Margiani and Bactrians to lasting obedience. As he had gained a good frontier in the east on the Indus, he set himself to obtain a similar frontier in the north-east. The northern neighbours of the Hyrcanians, Parthians and Margiani, the Sacae and the Chorasmians on the lower Oxus, were subject to him. With the conquest of the Sogdiani on the western slope of the Belurdagh Cyrus touched the course of the Jaxartes. There, on a stream running into that river, he built six citadels and a large fortress to secure the border against the nomads of the steppes beyond. These, like the fortress in the land of the Cadusians (V. 388), bore the name of Cyrus. The Greeks call the north-eastern Cyrus, Cyreshata, i. e. the farthest Cyrus (V. 22).

From the mountains of his native land Cyrus had subjugated in thirty years three great kingdoms—Media, Lydia, and Babylonia; he had conquered Asia from the shore of the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from the brook of Egypt to the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas and the banks of the Jaxartes. None of the conquerors before him—no Pharaoh of Egypt—none of the ancient kings of Elam or Babylon, or of the restless sovereigns of Assyria, nor even the Mede Cyaxares—had achieved results which could be distantly compared with the successes of Cyrus. And he had done more than merely subdue this region; he had understood how to maintain his conquests; he was not compelled like the rulers of Assyria to begin each year a new struggle against his defeated opponents; in his unbounded empire he knew how to institute arrangements which ensured an existence of two whole centuries. Hence it would be of great service to know more precisely what his regulations were for the management of his empire. But we are almost entirely without information about them. We can only attempt to draw conclusions from certain hints supplied by tradition as to the form which Cyrus gave to his dominions. We have already remarked that the Greeks ascribed to Cyrus the foundation of excellent institutions, and placed him by the side of Lycurgus; they maintained that at the time of Cyrus the Persians were in a condition midway between slavery and freedom. Arrian observes that the Persians, with whom Cyrus deprived the Medes of the empire and subjugated the remaining nations of Asia partly by arms and partly by voluntary submission, were poor and the inhabitants of a rugged country, and obeyed regulations which made their training like that of the Spartans.[116] We can plainly see that the kingdom rested on the power and devotion of the Persians; they were the ruling tribe beside the sovereign, and in addition to the proud consciousness that they were the lords of the empire Cyrus allowed them to enjoy the fruits and advantages of dominion. The Persians were free from contributions and taxes for the empire, they had only to render military service. Xenophon tells us that in the time of Cyrus the owners of land furnished excellent horsemen, who took the field; the rest served for pay. The garrisons in the fortresses were composed of Persians who were handsomely treated.[117] The Greeks have already told us that Cyrus permitted the Persians to express their opinions freely and openly, and paid honour to those who gave good counsel, and if they assert that no one rewarded services more liberally (V. 390), these rewards would mainly fall into the hands of the Persians. From the Persians were first and chiefly elected the captains of the armies, the commanders of the contingents which the subject nations had to furnish, and the viceroys who governed the conquered provinces. Yet nearer to the king stood the six princes of the Persian tribes (the prince of the Pasargadae was the king), the descendants of those who in union with Achaemenes had once governed the Persian nation. Like the king himself they wore the upright tiara; from their families the king had to choose his legitimate wife, while his daughters were married to the sons of the tribal princes.[118] The wife of Cyrus was the daughter of the tribal prince Pharnaspes. The chiefs of the Persians were the nearest to the throne; they entered into the king's presence unannounced, and no doubt formed with the king the chief council of the kingdom. Besides this chief council there was a supreme court of seven judges. These, as Herodotus tells us, were chosen men, who had to pronounce sentence for the Persians, and explain the customs of the fathers; and "everything was brought before them." They held their office for life, unless convicted of injustice.[119] We also find that the son succeeded the father. But even these judges were subject to the supervision and authority of the king, and if it was proved that any of them had received bribes he inflicted the severest penalties.[120]

"At the time of the Medes," Herodotus tells us, "the nations ruled over each other; the Medes ruled over all, and directly over those nearest to them; these again over their neighbours, who in their turn ruled over those who lay on their borders. In the same way the Persians estimate the value of nations. They consider themselves by far the best of all nations; next in order come those who live nearest to them, and those who are most remote are held in least estimation."[121] If Herodotus has here correctly represented the self-consciousness of the Persians his statement also obviously implies the pride of race, the community of language and religion, which united the Persians with the kindred nations of the Iranian table-land, and most closely with the Medes, and the nations of Western Iran. This feeling presented itself to Cyrus as a valuable political consideration, and he felt himself called upon to win for his kingdom the Medes as the nation nearest akin to the Persians and more numerous. With this view he spared and respected Astyages, took his daughter into his house, and made her his wife, and even in the first decade of his reign had no hesitation in appointing Medes as generals and viceroys; the custom of his successors, to reside for some time in Ecbatana, in order by this means to attach the Medes to the kingdom, must, no doubt, go back to Cyrus.

But even towards the conquered nations of alien race, language, and religion Cyrus conducted himself in a manner very different from the manner of the kings of Asshur before him. Their kings were not executed, their cities were not burnt, and their religion and worship were left uninjured. On the other hand Cyrus did not content himself with the homage of the conquered princes, nor did he, like the Assyrians, allow men of the same nation to take their place. Execution, cruel treatment, imprisonment of the conquered prince, alone or with his family, could only embitter the conquered nation against the conqueror. The continuance of the conquered prince in power only supplied them with the impulse and means to recover their former independence, and princes chosen in their place from the midst of the subjects would soon follow the lead of the national tendencies, and their own ambition. Astyages, Crœsus, and Nabonetus received residences and possessions in distant regions, which allowed them to live in dignity and opulence; and where the throne remained in the families of the native rulers in districts of moderate extent which had submitted voluntarily, as in Cilicia and the cities of the Phenicians, this was not done without certain limitations and safe regulations. Cyrus set viceroys over the parts of his empire, who were supplied with troops in moderate numbers. The chief cities, such as Sardis and Babylon, like the border fortresses, were secured by garrisons of Persian troops. Cyrus did not impose heavy burdens on the conquered nations; he left it to themselves to fix the amount of the yearly contributions which they should pay into his treasury, though it is true that the amount of the favour they had to expect from the king depended on the tribute. The viceroys were subordinate to the king, but with this restriction they exercised supreme authority in the regions over which they presided. Their main duty was to preserve the province in obedience and peace. Whether the command that they were to look after the development of agriculture, and the growth of the population, is traceable to Cyrus (V. 206), we cannot decide, but we see clearly that the various communities and regions managed their own affairs independently, and governed themselves. The local political institutions were not attacked and removed any more than the religious. It was of no importance whether the local organisation was dynastic or republican, though in more important communities such as the Greek cities—the Anatolian, and the Phenician cities on the Syrian coast, Cyrus gave the preference to the dynastic form, inasmuch as the dynasties there were compelled to seek from the king the support necessary for maintaining their power. If princes of the old royal families were set up over the cities of the Phenicians, the rise of party leaders to a princely position was favoured among the Greeks. The local interests of one town were also advanced against those of another, e. g. the interests of Sidon against those of Tyre, and the interests of Miletus against the other cities. The persons thus favoured were by this means closely connected with the kingdom; in the event of a change of dominion they had to fear the loss of the privileges which they had attained. Moreover Cyrus had at hand rewards and distinctions of merit, not for the Persians only, but also for his subjects in other nations. Xenophon lays stress on the liberality of Cyrus towards those who had done him good service as the chief means by which he established and strengthened his empire, and if he tells us that the kings of Persia had continued what Cyrus had begun, we may certainly assume that the magnificent list of distinctions and honours, which we find in use at a later time in the Persian empire, goes back to Cyrus. The merits which whole regions and tribes had done to the king were also rewarded. We have already seen that the title "Benefactors," with which largesses in land were joined,[122] was given not only to distinguished men but also to tribes. "What conqueror except Cyrus," asks Xenophon, "has been called Father by his subjects, a name which is obviously given not to the plunderer but to the Benefactor?" By gentleness and liberality he induced men to prefer him to son, or brother, or father. As he cared for his subjects and treated them as a father, so did they honour him as a father. In this way he was able to reign alone, and rule according to his own will his kingdom which was the greatest and most splendid of all.[123]

Though this description of Xenophon is idealised, though even the more sober statements of the Greeks, the words of Plato already quoted, the statements of Herodotus, that the Persians held no one to be the equal of Cyrus, that they called him father because he had ruled them with a father's gentleness and had provided them with all good things,[124] and the opinion of Aeschylus who speaks of Cyrus as a wise and right-minded man, primarily represent the grateful memory which the Persians cherished of the founder of their kingdom, Cyrus is undoubtedly the least bloody among the conquerors and founders of empires known to the history of the East. His object was not to terrify the conquered nations and hold them in check by arms, but to reconcile them to the new government. In Babylon he simply took the place of the native king; like him, he took measures for the maintenance of the great temples of the land; on a brick found at Senkereh we read: "Kuras, maintainer of Bit-Saggatu" (i. e. of the great temple of Merodach at Babylon) "and Bit-Zida" (the temple of Nebo at Borsippa), "son of Kambuziya, I, the king."[126] Hence he not only left his subjects their religion and rites, but was careful of them. In the same way their administration of justice remained undisturbed, and so far as possible he allowed them to rule themselves. He did not attempt to exhaust their means; on the contrary, agriculture and trade were favoured, and wherever a rebellion was attempted and suppressed, the supression was not followed by any sanguinary punishment. In spite of our defective information we may still recognise some trace of his keen and unerring political insight. The manner in which he organised his empire deserves the higher praise because it is the product of his own mind, and not a copy of any pattern. The grounds for the clemency and moderation by which he was guided, we must seek not only in the religious views of Iran, but to a still greater degree in his character and his political conceptions. That along with the effort to satisfy the Persians and win the hearts of his subjects,—with the clever opposition of interests, and most lavish application of rewards and distinctions,—Cyrus did not neglect real support and means of power, is proved by the care which Xenophon represents him as bestowing on the army, the fortification of Pasargadae, the garrisons in the chief cities of the subject lands, the fortresses on the borders of the kingdom. The commanders in all these places, no less than the "chiliarchs" of the garrisons, were nominated directly by Cyrus, the lists of the garrisons were brought before the king. The arrangement of the Persian army in divisions of ten battalions of a thousand men each, which were again broken up into ten companies, with seven corporals each, is attributed by Xenophon to Cyrus. He put an end to all skirmishing with horsemen cavalry, by clothing cavalry and horses in mail, and supplying each soldier with a javelin only, so that they fought man against man; the infantry he armed with the wicker, leather-covered shield, battle-axe, and knife, also with a view to close fighting.[127] To meet the costs of government and the army, Cyrus collected a large treasure, which he deposited in his palace at Pasargadae. Pliny has preserved the statement that the conquest of Asia yielded to Cyrus 24,000 pounds of gold besides that which had been manufactured, and the golden vessels, and 500,000 talents of silver.[128] Though this statement may be exaggerated, the gold accumulated by Alyattes and Crœsus at Sardis, the treasures of the royal palaces at Ecbatana and Babylon, all of which fell into the hands of Cyrus, were not inconsiderable. In both these latter places the booty of Assyria was collected, and in Babylon the booty of Syria and the tribute of the Phenicians. In any case the treasure which Cyrus deposited at Pasargadae provided abundant means for a long time to satisfy the most extravagant needs of the empire, the court, and the army, and to recompense every deed of merit with gold. The treasures which Alexander, after a long period of decline in Persia, found at Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana, and Pasargadae, are estimated by the Greeks at 180,000 talents, i. e. at more than £40,000,000, and beside this there were the gold and silver ornaments of the citadel (V. 309), and a large amount of manufactured gold and silver. What Alexander left of the latter in Susa alone afterwards provided Antigonus with 15,000 talents.[129]

"Concerning the death of Cyrus," so Herodotus tells us, "there are many narratives, but the most probable in my mind is the following: When he had reduced the Babylonians, he wished to conquer the Massagetæ also. There were many things which impelled him to this: in the first place his birth, by which he considered himself more than human. Then the success which had attended him in all his wars; for whatever the nation against which he directed his army it was unable to withstand him. The Massagetæ were said to be a great and brave nation; some call them Scythians. They dwell beyond the Araxes (Jaxartes: Herodotus confuses this river with the Aras), towards the morning and sunrise. The Caspian Sea is a sea by itself, fifteen days' journey in length and eight in breadth; on the west side of the sea is the Caucasus, but towards the east it is bounded by a plain of unlimited extent. A considerable part of this plain was occupied by the Massagetæ. They wear a dress like that of the Scythians, and resemble them in their mode of life; they fight on horse and on foot, use the bow and the lance, and also carry battle-axes. The points of their lances and arrows and their axes are made of copper, as also are the corslets of the horses. But for their girdles, for the adornment of the head and shoulders, as well as for the bits, cheek-pieces, and curbs of their horses, they use gold. Silver and iron they do not possess, these metals are not found in the country, but gold and copper in abundance. Each man marries one wife, but they have their wives in common, and when any one desires to lie with a woman he hangs his quiver on her waggon, and no attack is made upon him. Those who reach a great age are put to death by their relations, who assemble for that purpose, cooked along with sheep's flesh, and eaten; this they consider the most fortunate lot. Those who die of sickness are not eaten but buried, and they look on it as a misfortune not to be killed. They do not cultivate the soil, but live on their herds and on fish, which the Araxes supplies in large quantities, and drink milk. Of the gods they worship the sun only, and to him they sacrifice horses, because they think that the swiftest animal should be offered to the swiftest deity. At that time a woman, Tomyris by name, was queen of the Massagetæ, her husband being dead. Cyrus sent to her under pretext of an offer of marriage; he wished to make her his wife. But Tomyris perceived that it was not her, but the kingdom of the Massagetæ, that he wanted, and refused the offer. As cunning was of no avail, Cyrus marched openly against the Massagetæ, threw a bridge of boats over the Araxes in order to carry his army across, and caused towers to be built on the merchant-men which were to form a bridge over the river. While he was occupied with this, Tomyris sent him a herald, saying: 'O, king of the Persians, desist from the undertaking which thou hast begun, for thou knowest not whether thou wilt bring it to a good end. Desist, and rule over what is thine, leaving us to govern what is ours. But thou wilt take no heed of these exhortations, but rather do anything than remain at rest. If thou eagerly desirest to make trial of the Massagetæ, desist from making this bridge over the river; enter upon our land; we will retire three days' march from the river; or if thou wouldst rather have us in thy land, do thou the same.' When Cyrus heard this he collected the chiefs of the Persians in order to consult with them what he should do. Their advice was all to one purport; he was to allow Tomyris and her army to come into his land. But Crœsus, the Lydian, who was present, dissented from this advice. 'If we allow the enemy to come into the land,' he said to Cyrus, there will be danger: 'Shouldst thou be defeated, the whole empire will be ruined. The victorious Massagetæ will never retire, but invade thy lands, and shouldst thou be victorious, thou wilt not reap such results as if thou wert to defeat the Massagetæ beyond the river, for then thou couldst advance into the dominion of Tomyris. Besides, it is shameful and disgraceful that the son of Cambyses should retire before a woman. For this reason it seems to me right to cross the river and advance as far as they retire, and there attempt to gain the victory over them. As I am told, the Massagetæ are not acquainted with the luxuries of the Persians; they have no experience of enjoyment. We must prepare a meal for them in our camp, slaying and dressing sheep, and placing at hand goblets of unmixed wine, and various kinds of food; then leave behind the weakest part of the army and retire to the river. If I am not deceived, they will seize upon the provisions when they see them, and we shall be in a position to do great things.' Cyrus decided in favour of the advice of Crœsus, and caused a message to be sent to Tomyris that she should retire; he would advance beyond the river. She retired as she promised. But Cyrus gave his son Cambyses, who would be king after him, to Crœsus, and exhorted him to honour the Lydian king, and treat him kindly if the expedition across the river should turn out badly. Then he sent the two to Persia, and crossed the river with his army. And in the first night which he spent in the land of the Massagetæ he saw in a dream the eldest son of Hystaspes, with wings on his shoulders, one of which overshadowed Asia and the other Europe. The eldest son of Hystaspes was Darius, at that time a youth of about 20 years, who had been left behind in Persia, because he was not old enough to accompany the army. Cyrus summoned Hystaspes, took him aside, and said to him in private: 'Hystaspes, thy son is conceiving evil plots against me and my kingdom. The gods watch over me, and show me the danger which is threatening. Return at once to Persia, and act in such a way that if I succeed in this enterprise and return home, thou mayest bring thy son before me for examination.' Hystaspes answered: 'If the dream shows thee that my son is conceiving a revolt against thee, I will give him over to thee to deal with as thou wilt.' Then Hystaspes went over the Araxes on his way back to Persia, to keep his son under guard for Cyrus. But when he had gone a day's march from the river, Cyrus did as Crœsus had advised; he left the useless men in the camp, and marched with the able-bodied back to the river. A third part of the army of the Massagetæ came to the camp, slew those that were left behind, in spite of their resistance, and as they found the meal prepared, and had conquered the enemy, they feasted, and then fell asleep, gorged with food and wine. When the Persians came up they slew many of them, and took even more prisoners, among them Spargapises, the son of Tomyris, the leader of the Massagetæ. When the queen discovered what had befallen the army and her son, she sent a herald to Cyrus, who said: 'O Cyrus, insatiate of blood, exalt not thyself because that by the fruit of the vine, filled with which ye rage and utter evil words—that by such poison thou hast treacherously got possession of my son, and not by bravery in the battle. Now take my advice, for I counsel thee well. Give me my son back again, and depart out of this land, without punishment for bringing shame on the third part of the army of the Massagetæ. If thou dost not do this, I swear by the sun, the lord of the Massagetæ, that I will satisfy thee with blood, insatiate as thou art.' To this message Cyrus paid no heed. When he had recovered from the effects of the wine, Spargapises discovered into what a calamity he had fallen. He requested Cyrus that he should be freed from his chains. As soon as this was done, and his hands were free, he killed himself. As Cyrus did not obey her, Tomyris collected her whole force, and joined battle with him. I learn that this battle was the most severe ever fought among the barbarians, and it was fought as follows. In the first place, so we are told, they hurled missiles from a distance, and when the missiles were exhausted they fell upon each other, and fought with lances and swords. They maintained the battle a long time, for neither side would fly; but at last the Massagetæ got the upper hand. The greater part of the Persian army perished and Cyrus himself fell, after a reign of 29 years. Tomyris searched for the corpse of Cyrus among the dead, and when she had found it, she plunged the head in a bottle filled with human blood, and said in insult to the dead: 'Though I live and have conquered thee in the battle, thou hast nevertheless made me unhappy, for thou hast taken away my son by treachery. Yet, as I threatened, I will satisfy thee with blood.'"

In a similar way, though not without variations, Diodorus and Trogus narrate the death of Cyrus. The account of Diodorus marks even more strongly the shameful death of the king. He tells us that, after the overthrow of the Babylonians, Cyrus desired to subdue the whole earth. He had reduced the greatest nations and mightiest nations, he was of opinion that no ruler or nation could withstand his power. Like many of those who exercise irresponsible power, Cyrus did not know how to bear prosperity as a man should. He led a strong army to Scythia; but the queen of the Scythians took him prisoner and crucified him. In the excerpt from Pompeius Trogus we are told that when Cyrus had reduced Asia and brought the East into his power, he marched upon the Scythians. But Tomyris, their queen, was not terrified by the approach of the Persians. She might have defended the passage of the Jaxartes against them, but she considered that flight would be more difficult for the enemy if they had the river behind them. So Cyrus crossed the Jaxartes, and pitched his camp when he had advanced some distance into the country of the enemy. On the next day he abandoned it as if in terror and retired, leaving in it a sufficiency of wine and everything that is required for a banquet. The queen, on hearing this, sent her young son to pursue the enemy with a third part of her army. When he reached the camp, the youth, who had no experience of war, gave up all thought of the enemy, and allowed his people to become intoxicated with the wine, to which they were not accustomed. Cyrus returned in the night, and all the Scythians including the queen's son were cut down. In spite of the loss of such an army, and the still greater loss of her only son, Tomyris thought only of revenge, and plotted how she could destroy the victors by treachery. When she was no longer in a condition to give battle she enticed Cyrus by retiring into a pass, after she had placed an ambush in the mountains. So she succeeded in defeating the whole Persian army, 200,000 men, with the king. Not even a messenger escaped to tell of the disaster. She caused the head to be cut off the body of Cyrus, and placed in a bottle filled with human blood, calling out: "Satiate thyself with the blood for which thou didst thirst with an insatiable desire."[130] In regard to this story, which no doubt is to be ascribed to Deinon, Arrian remarks quite briefly: "Whether the defeat of the Persians in Scythia was brought about by the difficulty of the land, or some mistake of Cyrus, or whether the Scythians were better soldiers than the Persians of that date, I cannot determine."[131] Polyaenus must have had stories of a similar kind before him; but in his account the stratagem which Cyrus uses against Tomyris is used by the queen against Cyrus, and this is the reason given for the defeat of the Persian army and the death of the king. When Cyrus approached, Tomyris retreated with her army in pretended flight. The Persians pursued; in the camp of the queen they found a great store of wine, provisions, and cattle, on which they feasted and drank the whole night through as though they had already won the battle. Then, when they could scarcely move, Tomyris attacked them and cut them all down together with Cyrus himself.[132]

The narrative of Herodotus involves glaring contradictions. In opposition to the cunning, ambition, and bloodthirstiness of Cyrus, it presents to us as a model of honour, love of peace, moderation and self-restraint, the queen of a nation of cannibals, who gives Cyrus the wisest lessons before exacting punishment for his insatiable ambition. She perceives the treachery of his intended wooing. When he comes openly with force, she urges him to be content with what he possesses, makes the battle easier for him by allowing him to cross the river without opposition, and then gives him the choice of a field of battle. When Cyrus has made a treacherous use of her honourable and open offers she taunts him with the evil results of the use of wine on the Persians and again offers peace on the most favourable conditions; if Cyrus surrenders her son and retires from her country she will allow the destruction of her army to go unpunished. This moderation remains without any effect; Cyrus goes blindly to his destruction. But the queen of the barbarians has no enjoyment of this success; her sorrow for the loss of her son, who puts an end to his own life in noble shame that he has brought his army to destruction, and become a captive by excess in wine, is greater than her joy at the victory. Hardly less strange is the conduct of Cyrus. The general who has conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, and the nations of Asia, is uncertain how to carry on the campaign against the Massagetæ; he takes counsel with the prince, whom in spite of the bravery of his people he has defeated most rapidly and decisively: he allows this prince to tell him that the son of Cambyses ought not to give way to a woman, and follows his advice against the unanimous opinion of the Persians. At the same time he has evil intimations about the issue of the decision; and sends the heir to the throne back to Persia. He boasts that the gods have announced to him all the misfortunes which threatened him, whereas it is the elevation of Darius which was shown to him in the dream, a danger which did not even remotely threaten him, and not the destruction which was to overtake him in two days.

It need not be proved that this narrative has come from a poetical source. The prominent traits, the long speeches and counter-speeches, the lament of the mother, the bottle of blood, point beyond all mistake to poetry. It is clear that Persian poems would not ascribe to the great founder of their empire, whom they honoured as a father, the part which Herodotus represents him as taking against the queen of a barbarous nation; least of all would they charge Cyrus with an insatiable thirst for blood, and bring him on that account to a shameful end. But the Medes, as they had matched the poems of the Persians on the birth, youth, and rise of Cyrus with other songs about his origin, his fortune, and the fall of Astyages composed from their own point of view, might very well describe after their own manner the death of the king. They could not reverse their own subjugation, but they could have the satisfaction of reprobating the ambition and bloodthirstiness of their conqueror, who called out the Median army for ceaseless service; they could bring the conqueror of Asia to a miserable end, and represent the subduer of the noblest men as finding his master in a woman. And if it was the advice of a conquered and captive king which led Cyrus to destruction,—the trait suits the context and presents an instance of poetical justice. The dream of Cyrus obviously belongs to another context; it is merely inserted here in order to show how Cambyses and Hystaspes escaped the great defeat in the land of the Massagetæ. At a later time the Medes felt heavily enough the power of Darius. The Median poems on the rebellion of Cyrus contained a certain element of fact in the desertion of Harpagus, and the same may have been the case in their poems about Tomyris. Ctesias told us above that Cyrus conquered and took prisoner the king of the Sacae, but was afterwards severely defeated by his wife Sparethra, in which defeat many captives were taken, and among them the most distinguished Medes. Strabo also tells us of a battle which Cyrus lost against the Sacae. Forced to retire, he had abandoned his camp and all that was in it, and when the Sacae were enjoying the booty he fell upon them and cut them down. These events may underlie the story of Tomyris.

From the various narratives, which, as Herodotus informs us, were current about the rise and death of Cyrus, the historian chose that account of both which seemed to him the "most probable," i. e. that which coincided with his own views, and thus appeared to him most credible. It is the firm conviction of Herodotus, the thought which lies at the base of his great history, that every unjust deed, every act of violence, is followed by punishment. Cyrus had considered himself to be more than a man; he had placed no limit, no end to his conquests. Hence retribution overtook him in his conflict with a woman. The description of the barbarous custom of the Massagetæ was obviously wanting in the authority which Herodotus followed about the death of Cyrus; it comes from another source. In this way, though unobserved by Herodotus, a glaring contradiction has crept into his narrative. If we may draw a conclusion from the name Spargapises, i. e. youthful form, the enemies in the poetry which he used were of Arian stock.[133]

According to the account of Ctesias Cyrus fell in war against the Derbiccians. These were said by some to dwell in the neighbourhood of the Margiani; by others they were placed on both sides of the mouth of the Oxus; but as Ctesias mentions the Indians as their allies and represents the Sacae as dwelling at no great distance, we must look for them on the middle course of the Oxus in the neighbourhood of Bactria. According to Strabo's description, the Derbiccians worshipped the earth, to which they sacrificed male creatures, just as they ate none but male animals. The smallest offence was punished with death. The men who had exceeded their seventieth year were slain and eaten by their nearest relatives. The women who came to old age were also killed but not eaten. Curtius states that a part of their warriors were armed with poles hardened in the fire.[134] "Amoraeus," so we are told in the excerpt preserved from Ctesias' "Persian History," "was king of the Derbiccians; against him Cyrus marched, and the Indians aided the Derbiccians in the battle. The elephants which the Derbiccians received from the Indians were placed in the ambush. They caused the Persian cavalry to retreat. Cyrus fell from his horse, and as he lay on the ground an Indian hit him with his javelin under the hip in the thigh. He was lifted up and carried into the Persian camp. In this battle many of the Persians fell, and also many of the Derbiccians—10,000 on either side. Hearing this, Amorges the king of the Sacae came to the help of Cyrus with 20,000 men. When the battle was renewed, the Persians and Sacae fought bravely and conquered. Amoraeus fell and with him his two sons; 30,000 Derbiccians and 9000 Persians were left in the field, and the land of the Derbiccians submitted to Cyrus. But he felt his end approaching. He named his eldest son Cambyses as his successor; and the younger Tanyoxarkes he made lord of the Bactrians, the Chorasmians, Parthians, and Carmanians, with an arrangement that their lands should pay no tribute. To the two sons of Spitamas, Spitaces and Megabernes (V. 383), he gave the satrapies of the Derbiccians and Hyrcanians (Barcanians), and bade them obey their mother (Amytis) in all things. They were also to give their hands to each other and to Amorges in pledge that they would treat him and each other as friends; on him who persisted in kindness to his brother Cyrus invoked blessings, and curses on him who should be the first to begin a quarrel. Thus saying, he died on the third day after his wound."[135]

This narrative also goes back to a poetical source, though it is not directly borrowed any more than the narrative of Herodotus. Meagre as the excerpt is, there can be no doubt about the poetical origin of it. This is proved by the compression of the events into a few days; the rapid and ready assistance given by the king of the Sacae, whom Cyrus had once captured in battle and then made his friend; the gratitude which he reaped for this deed in his last days; the heavy penalty laid upon the Derbiccians for the wound of Cyrus; the fall of their king and his two sons and the submission of the country; the death of Cyrus after great danger in the moment of victory; the appointment of a successor; the recommendation of Amorges; the exhortations to union given by Cyrus when dying to his sons; his blessing on the son who remembered them, and his curse on him who neglected them. Here also, as in the different accounts of Herodotus and Ctesias in the elevation of Cyrus, we find points of agreement in the two versions. Whether the names Tomyris and Amoraeus can be connected we need not inquire. Each story contains the space of three days, the appointment of a successor, the exhortations and the recommendation of a third person—Crœsus in the one, Amorges in the other. As in the story of Ctesias—Nicolaus about the rise of Cyrus, Oebares takes the place of Harpagus in Herodotus, so here the Sacian Amorges takes the place of the Lydian Crœsus; though Crœsus, it is true, gives only ruinous advice, and Amorges renders active and valuable help. As the Persian tradition is preserved in the story of Ctesias about the rise of Cyrus, though the Medes had their discrepant version, so in the story of the fall, as given by this historian, we have no doubt the Persian account. The region which is allotted to the second son, the emphasis laid on the harmony of the sons, the death of Cyrus in victory, no less than the tone which pervades the whole narrative, prove the Persian origin of the story. The aged prince is wounded at the head of his people in a battle on horseback; but his friends avenge him; he dies, as he had lived, in victory and success, surrounded by his sons and stepsons. This glorification of his death was matched by the Medes in the poems from which the narrative of Herodotus has arisen.

Xenophon represents Cyrus as dying at an advanced age in peace, when he has reached Persia for the seventh time after winning the empire. In the palace he had a dream which announced his approaching end. He caused his sons to be brought to him, who had accompanied him to Persia, his friends, and the captains of the Persians. His power, so he told them, had not decayed with age; he had striven for nothing and attempted nothing that he had not obtained, and what he had once obtained he had never lost. Though everything had succeeded according to his wishes, he had never allowed himself to indulge in proud thoughts and excessive rejoicing, for he had ever been attended by the apprehension that evil would come upon him in the future. "Do you now, Cambyses," he continued, "receive the throne, which the gods and I, so far as lies in me, give to you; to you, Tanaoxares, I give the satrapy over the Medes, the Armenians, and the Cadusians. I give you this because I deem it right to leave to the elder the larger dominion and the name of king, but to you a less burdensome fortune." Then he urged both to remain in the closest friendship, for they had been nourished by one mother, and had grown up in one house; neither of them could find a stronger support than his brother. He made them swear by the gods of their fathers that they would hold each other in honour; they could not prove their love for him more truly in any other way. Finally, he reminded them that by showing kindness to friends they would be able to punish their enemies, gave his hand to all, veiled his face and died.[136]

According to the account of the companions of Alexander of Macedon, the corpse of Cyrus rested in the abode of his ancestors, at his metropolis, Pasargadae, in the precincts of the "old citadel." Concerning his tomb we have only the account of Aristobulus, who saw it when Alexander reached Pasargadae, and on the return from India received a commission to restore the sepulchres which had been plundered in the mean time. This account is preserved in two excerpts; the shorter one is given by Strabo, the more circumstantial by Arrian. In the latter we are told: "At Pasargadae in the royal garden (Paradeisus) was the tomb of Cyrus. Round the tomb a grove of trees had been planted of various kinds; the soil was permeated by streams and overgrown with thick grass. The tomb itself was built of square stones in a rectangular form; the upper part was a covered chamber." From Strabo we learn that "the tomb is a tower of no great size, which is massive in the lower part, but in the upper story is a room." "The door which leads into it," Arrian continues, "is so narrow, that a moderately stout man could scarcely enter. In the chamber was a couch with feet of beaten gold, with purple coverlet over which lay carpets of Babylonian pattern. There was also a robe (kandys) and under-garments of Babylonian manufacture, and Median trowsers, garments coloured blue and purple, some of one colour, some of the other, chains, swords, and necklaces of gold and precious stones, and a table (Strabo adds goblets). On the middle of the couch was the coffin with the corpse of Cyrus, covered with a lid. The inscription on the grave, in the Persian language and Persian letters, says: 'O men, I am Cyrus the son of Cambyses, who founded the empire of the Persians and governed Asia; do not grudge me this monument.' Within the outer wall of the sepulchre near the steps which lead to the chamber was a small dwelling for the Magians, who have watched the tomb since the time of Cyrus, the office descending from father to son. Each day they receive a sheep and a fixed amount of corn and wheat, and each month a horse to sacrifice to Cyrus." The corpse itself is said to have been completely preserved after two centuries. Onesicritus tells us that the tower of the sepulchre had ten stories; the inscription was in Persian and Greek written in Persian letters, and said: "Here lie I, Cyrus, king of kings."[137]

Near the modern city of Murghab, on a plain covered with the ruins of walls, not far from a square tower and a platform, built of square blocks of marble to a height of nearly forty feet, on a substructure of seven flats (the sacred number which we meet everywhere) arranged in terraces, rises a plain oblong building constructed of huge stones of the most beautiful white marble, which are closely fitted together, and covered with a flat gable roof; it forms a chamber in which the entrance is through a door four feet in height. The excellent and beautiful proportions, the quiet simple forms of the building, give an impression of solemnity, and appear to mark a consecrated place. Close to this building, and again in a terrace, we find bases, shafts, and pillars, which must have belonged to a large structure, perhaps to a portico, which was in some connection with the stages of the terrace. Three door-posts bear, in three different languages, the inscription: "I, Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenid." Hence there can be no doubt that these remains belong to a structure erected by Cyrus. Before the posts are twelve bases, and before these a pillar of marble fifteen feet in height, formed from a single stone. On this is cut in relief a slim form in profile. It has four wings springing from the shoulders, is clothed in a closely-fitting garment falling to the ancles; on the right side which is visible, and on the lower hem, the garment is furnished with fringes. The form of the uncovered lower arm seems to indicate a commanding attitude. The head is covered with a striped, closely-fitting cap, which reaches down to the neck. Out of the crown of it rise two horns, which extend on either side and bear a tall ornament of peculiarly-formed leaves and feathers. The face is surrounded by a full but short beard, the nose is somewhat rounded at the tip, the line of the profile is straight and well-formed, the expression mild and serene. Over the head, as on the posts, we find written in cuneiform letters: "Adam Kurus Khsayathiya Hakhamanisiya" i. e. "I, Cyrus, the king, Achæmenid."[138] This is, it would seem, a picture of the famous king.

So far as we can tell Cyrus was long in coming to his prime, and did not attain to his full powers till he had reached the years of manhood. Sprung from the royal house of the Persians, grandson of Achæmenes, he grew up at Pasargadae, and rendered service as a vassal to his sovereign. While performing courtly and martial duties at Ecbatana, the extinction of the male line of the house of Deioces, and the rival claims which the death of Astyages would call forth, opened to him the prospect of obtaining independence for himself and the Persians. When once more among his own people, the suspicion of Astyages forces arms into the hands of himself and his father. Astyages penetrates into the mountains of Persia, and Cambyses is slain; only after severe struggles are the Medes beaten back. Cyrus avails himself of his success in order to carry war into Media. About eighty years after Achæmenes had joined Phraortes Cyrus marches victoriously into Ecbatana. He at once aims at a higher object. The dominion of the Medes must pass over to the Persians. Babylon and Lydia give him time to subjugate the Parthians and Hyrcanians, to make war on the Sacae and Bactrians, to reduce the Cadusians, Armenians, and Cappadocians. When yet unprepared or engaged in other conflicts, he is attacked by Crœsus. A brilliant campaign carries him far beyond the defensive; he overthrows the Lydian empire and advances to the shore of the Ægean. While his generals complete the reduction of Asia Minor he turns again to the East; once more Babylon gives him time to establish and extend his empire in the table-land of Iran. Secure on the East and West he proceeds to the decisive struggle with Babylon. In the first campaign he crosses the Tigris and secures the passage; in the second he defeats Nabonetus, captures Sepharvaim, storms Babylon, obtains possession of Borsippa, subjugates Syria, and the Phenician cities. After the annihilation of the Babylonian kingdom, Cyrus extends the borders of his empire still further to the East. The nations on the right bank of the Indus, the Chorasmians and the Sogdiani, are reduced, and the Jaxartes becomes the limit of the kingdom. Thus by unwearied energy, restless effort, and tough endurance, Cyrus achieved a career which has no equal; from being chief of the Persian tribes he became sovereign of Asia. As Xenophon says, his kingdom extended from regions which are rendered uninhabitable by heat, to others which are uninhabitable by reason of the cold. This aim Cyrus had pursued with great determination; he had not been guilty of any wild outbursts. A general, rapid in decision and tenacious in purpose, he had understood how to meet failure and make himself master of the most difficult undertakings. Other military princes of the East have achieved greater conquests in a shorter space of time than Cyrus, but none understood how to preserve the empire he had won, and make it permanent, as Cyrus did. He possessed not only the keen eye of the general, but an unerring political insight, and an unusual power of penetrating into the interests, the motives, the manners and actions of the communities and nations which victory placed in his power. Among the rulers of the East no one is like him, and one alone approaches him, the second successor on the throne which he founded.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] Behist. 1, 6.

[109] Arrian. "Ind." 1, 1.

[110] Plin. "H. N." 6, 25; Ptolem. 6, 18.

[111] Script. Alex. Magni; fragm. 23, ed. Müller.

[112] Diod. 17, 81.

[113] Strabo, p. 724; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 27, 4; 4, 4, 6.

[114] Curtius, 7, 3, 1.

[115] In Strabo, p. 686.

[116] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 5.

[117] Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 6, 6, 9; 8, 8, 20.

[118] E. g. Ctes. "Pers." 43.

[119] Herod. 3, 31; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 6, 4; Esther i. 14.

[120] Herod. 5, 25; 7, 194.

[121] Herod. 1, 134.

[122] Herod. 3, 154; 8, 85.

[123] "Cyri inst." 8, 8, 1; 8, 2, 7.

[124] Herod. 3, 75, 86, 160.

[125] "Persae," 768-770.

[126] "Transact. Bibl. Arch." 2, 148.

[127] "Cyri inst." 8, 6, 9; 8, 8, 22, 23.

[128] Plin. "H. N." 33, 15.

[129] Arrian, "Anab." 3, 16; Curtius, 5, 2, 11; 6, 9, 6, 10; Diod. 17, 66, 71; Strabo, p. 731.

[130] Diod. "Exc. vat." p. 33, 2, 44; Justin, 1, 8; 2, 3; 37, 3.

[131] Arrian, "Anab." 5, 4. A similar story is in Frontin. "Strateg." 2, 5, 5.

[132] Polyaen. "Strateg." 8, 28.

[133] Çparheghapaeça, from çpareg, to shoot, spring, and paeça, piça, shape: Müllenhoff, "Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1866, s. 567.

[134] Strabo, p. 514, 520; Plin. "H. N." 6, 16; Ptolem. 4, 20; Curtius, 3, 2; Diod. 2, 2; Steph. Byz. Δερβίκκαι.

[135] Ctes. "Pers." 6-9.

[136] "Cyri inst." 8, 7.

[137] Ctes. "Pers." 7; Arrian, "Anab." 6, 28; Strabo, p. 730; Plin. "H. N." 6, 29; Plut. "Alex." 69. Curtius (10, 1) asserts after Cleitarchus, that when Alexander visited the tomb of Cyrus on his return from India, he only found the shield of Cyrus, then rotten, two Scythian bows, and a sword in the sepulchre.

[138] In the wings, the clothing, and the peculiar head-dress this portrait (Tenier, "Descript." pl. 84) differs essentially from the representation of Darius and his successors at Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustem. It is not Cyrus but his Fravashi which is here represented. The building at Murghab is somewhat like the description of the tomb of Cyrus given in the text, but the site will not allow us to regard it as the tomb at Pasargadae. It must be a building which one of his successors has dedicated to the memory of the great king. The profile in the relief confirms to some degree Plutarch's statement that Cyrus had an aquiline nose, and the Persians therefore considered beaked noses the most becoming: "Praec. ger. reip." c. 30. The nose of Darius, as we see it in the monuments, appears straighter and longer.

CHAPTER X.

THE FALL OF EGYPT.

After the death of the great king who had founded the Persian empire, Cambyses (Kambujiya), the elder of the two sons whom Cassandane had borne to Cyrus, ascended the throne of the new kingdom in the year 529 B.C. A few years before his death Cyrus had entrusted him with the vice-royalty of Babylonia.[139] Herodotus tells us that "Cambyses again reduced the nations which Cyrus had subjugated, and then marched against Egypt." Egypt was the oldest of the great powers of the ancient East, and, after the fall of Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, it still remained independent beside the kingdom which had risen up so rapidly and brilliantly out of their ruins. A hundred and fifty years previously Egypt had succumbed to the arms of the Assyrians; how could an ambitious ruler of Persia imagine that it could now resist the incomparably greater forces which were at his command?

We know how Psammetichus and his descendants had restored Egypt to her ancient position, the place which they had assigned to the Greeks and Greek civilisation in their state, a place which had not been altered by Amasis, though brought to the throne by a revolution which had removed the house of Psammetichus (570 B.C.). The attempt of Necho to renew the achievements of the Tuthmosis, Amenophis, and Ramses in Syria and on the Euphrates was wrecked by the sudden rise of the Babylonian kingdom under Nebuchadnezzar, and Hophra had in vain attempted to prevent the fall of Jerusalem and the advance of Babylon to the borders of Egypt. The growth of the Persian power threatened to give Egypt a far more dangerous neighbour than she had had in Babylonia. Amasis did not underrate the crisis. Herodotus told us above that he had combined with Lydia against Cyrus, that Crœsus had called upon the Egyptian auxiliaries for the second campaign, and finally for the rescue of Sardis. The rapid progress of the war and the fall of Sardis defeated the aims of Amasis. Then, as we saw, a decade elapsed before Cyrus directed his arms against Babylonia. That Amasis made every attempt to support Nabonetus against the Persians is not told us by tradition, unless indeed we accept as tradition Xenophon's statement, who represents the Lydians and Egyptians as fighting against the Persians with the Babylonians (p. 17). The fall of Babylon was followed directly by the subjugation of Syria, the conquest of Gaza (p. 90), and the advance of the Persian border to the desert. Amasis does not appear to have been wholly inactive in the face of the approaching danger. Herodotus tells us that he took the island of Cyprus and made it tributary, and Diodorus narrates that he subjugated the cities in Cyprus, and adorned many of the temples there with splendid offerings.[140] We may assume that the enterprise of Amasis against Cyprus was intended to provide a counterpoise to the incorporation of Syria in the Persian empire. It may have appeared more desirable to the princes of the Cyprian cities to be vassals of the remote and less powerful Egypt than of the rising and powerful kingdom of Persia. In any case, when he had set foot in Cyprus, Amasis prevented that rich island, with its numerous cities, from falling into the power of the Persians; the ships of the Cyprian cities could assist him in keeping off the fleet of the Phenicians from their coasts, should the Persian monarch call out that fleet against Egypt. That this was the object of the occupation of Cyprus by Amasis is confirmed by the fact that some years after the fall of Babylon he entered into communication with the island of Samos. While Chios and Lesbos, as has been observed, submitted to the Persians without compulsion, Samos had remained independent. Polycrates, the son of Aeaces, who had made himself master of the island in the year 536 B.C., built a splendid fleet of eighty heavy and a hundred light ships, with which he could maintain his independence against the Persians. The fleet of Polycrates could hold the fleet of the Ionians in check if it were called upon by the Persians, just as the Cyprians could restrain the Phenicians. Amasis entered into close and friendly relations with the prince of Samos, who on his part must have gladly accepted the support of Egypt against the Persians. Besides the possession of Cyprus and this union with Samos, Egypt's power of resistance rested essentially on the difficulty of crossing the desert which separates Egypt from Syria with a large army, on the considerable numbers of the warrior caste, in spite of the emigration under Psammetichus, and the fidelity and bravery of the Ionian and Carian mercenaries, to whom Amasis had entrusted his personal protection. The danger of an attack from Persia seemed to have passed over when, after the subjugation of Syria, Cyrus turned towards the distant East, the Indus and Jaxartes; and Amasis may have been careful not to irritate his powerful neighbour. The skill of the physicians of Egypt was in great repute. When Cyrus asked Amasis for the best oculist, the Pharaoh, according to the Persian story, may have acceded to his wish.[141] The death of Cyrus would then bring still greater prospects of power to Amasis, until at last the decisive moment came thirteen years after the fall of Babylon.

"Cambyses," so Herodotus tells us, "sent to Egypt and asked the daughter of Amasis in marriage. Both hating and dreading the power of the Persians, Amasis was uncertain whether to send or refuse her, for he well knew that Cambyses did not intend to take her as his legitimate wife, but as a concubine. So he devised the following plan:—Nitetis, the daughter of the preceding king Hophra was the only member of her family remaining. She was tall and beautiful, and Amasis adorned her with garments and gold and sent her as his own daughter to Persia. But some time after, when Cambyses was embracing Nitetis and calling her by the name of her father, she said: 'O king, thou art deceived by Amasis, who has sent me to thee thus adorned as his daughter, whereas in truth I am the daughter of Hophra, whom, though his lord, Amasis slew together with the Egyptians.' This speech put Cambyses into a violent rage, and for this reason he marched against Egypt. This is the account which the Persians give; but the Egyptians claim Cambyses as their own, maintaining that he was the son of this daughter of Hophra. It was not Cambyses, but Cyrus, who desired the daughter of Hophra. But in this they are wrong. The law of the Persians is not unknown to them (for the Egyptians know the laws of the Persians better than any one else), that the son of the concubine is not made king if there are sons of the queen, and that Cambyses was the son of Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, and not of the Egyptian woman. They invert the transaction because they wish to give themselves out as allied to the house of Amasis. Among the auxiliary troops of Amasis there was a man of Halicarnassus, Phanes by name, of good understanding and mighty in war. Injured by Amasis in some way, he fled by ship out of Egypt, in order to join Cambyses. As he was a man of importance among the auxiliary troops, and most accurately acquainted with Egypt, Amasis was anxious to take him, and sent his most trusty eunuch after him in a trireme. The eunuch caught him up in Lycia, but he did not bring him back to Egypt. Phanes outwitted him, by making his guards intoxicated, and so escaped to Persia. When he came to Cambyses, who, though intending to invade Egypt, was uncertain how to pass through the waterless region, Phanes told him all the affairs of Amasis, and how the march was to be arranged. He advised him to send to the king of the Arabians, and ask him to give him a safe passage. The approach to Egypt is open on this side only. From Phœnicia to the borders of the city of Gaza,[142] which, as it seems to me, is not much smaller than Sardis, the land belongs to the Syrians, who are called Palaestinians (Pelishtim), but from this city to Jenysus the harbours of the sea are subject to the Arabians; from Jenysus to the Serbonian Lake they again belong to the Syrians, and at the Serbonian Lake Egypt begins. The strip between the city of Jenysus and the Serbonian Lake, a journey of three days, is wholly without water. Instructed by the Halicarnassian, Cambyses sent messengers to the Arabian, and received permission for the passage, and when the Arabian had given the envoy of Cambyses a solemn promise with invocation of Urotal and Alilat, and smearing of seven stones with blood (I. 308), he caused bags of camel-skins to be filled with water, loaded all his camels with them, and after marching into the waterless district he there awaited the army of Cambyses. But Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, encamped on the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile. For when Cambyses marched with all over whom he ruled, even with those of the Hellenes who were in his power,[143] against Egypt, he found that Amasis was no longer alive; he had died after a reign of 44 years, without meeting with any great disaster in that time. When the Persians had marched through the waterless region and had pitched their camp opposite the Egyptians for battle, the auxiliaries of the Egyptians, Hellenes and Carians, who were enraged against Phanes because he had brought a foreign army against Egypt, did as follows:—The children of Phanes had remained in Egypt. They brought them into the camp, and then led them between the two camps before the eyes of their father, and slew them one after the other over a vessel. When they were all dead they poured water and wine into the vessel; all the mercenaries drank of the blood and then went to battle. The struggle was severe; when a great number had fallen on both sides the Egyptians were put to flight. And here I observed a very strange phenomenon, my attention being called to it by the natives. The bones of those who fell in the battle were gathered up separately; the Persians are on one side and on the other the Egyptians, and the sculls of the Persians are so thin, that even if a pebble is thrown upon them they break, while those of the Egyptians are so hard that they can hardly be broken with a stone. The Egyptians fled without any order. To those who were shut up in Memphis Cambyses sent a Persian herald in a trireme, to summon them to surrender. But when the Egyptians saw the ship come into Memphis they hastened down from the citadel, destroyed the ship, tore the men in pieces, and carried them to the citadel. Then the Egyptians were besieged and finally surrendered."

"On the tenth day after Cambyses had taken the citadel of Memphis he desired to make trial of Psammenitus, whom he had taken prisoner with the other Egyptians in the city, and who had reigned but six months. He therefore did as follows: He sent his daughter in the dress of a slave with a pitcher, and along with her the daughters of the leading Egyptians, similarly attired, to fetch water. When they passed before their fathers with lamentations and sighs, these also cried and sighed at the sight of their daughters' shame, but when Psammenitus saw what was done he fixed his eyes on the earth. When the maidens had passed with the water, Cambyses caused the son of Psammenitus to be led past with two thousand Egyptians of the same age, with ropes round their necks and in their mouths. They were to be the expiation of the Mytileneans, who were slain on the ship in Memphis; the royal judges of the Persians (p. 105) had decided that for every dead man ten of the leading Egyptians must die. Psammenitus saw the train, and knew that his son was being led out to death, and the Egyptians who sat round him wailed and lamented, but he did as he had done at the sight of his daughter. When they also had passed, it happened that an old man, who had been a guest at the table of the king, but had now lost everything and was as poor as a beggar, and asked alms of the soldiers, passed by Psammenitus and the Egyptians in the suburbs. When Psammenitus saw this he lamented aloud, beat his head, and called on his friend by name. The guards who stood by announced what he had done on each occasion. Cambyses was astonished, and asked Psammenitus, by a messenger, why he had neither lamented nor sighed at the sight of his daughter in her shame, and his son when led out to execution, but had paid this tribute of respect to a beggar with whom Cambyses had discovered he was in no way connected. Psammenitus answered, 'O son of Cyrus, my own misfortune was too great for tears, but the sorrows of my friend called for lamentation, since on the threshold of old age he had fallen from great possessions to the condition of a beggar.' When this was told to Cambyses it seemed to him well said; but as the Egyptians tell the story, Crœsus wept (he had followed Cambyses to Egypt), and the Persians who were present wept, and Cambyses was touched with some degree of compassion. He at once gave orders not to execute the son of Psammenitus, and to fetch Psammenitus from the suburb into his presence. The messengers found the son no longer alive, but they brought Psammenitus himself to Cambyses, who did him no further injury. Had Psammenitus known how to remain quiet, he would certainly have received the government of Egypt; for the Persians are wont to honour the sons of kings, and even though the fathers have revolted, they give the dominion to the son. But when Psammenitus dealt treacherously he received his reward. He was detected in exciting the Egyptians to revolt. When Cambyses discovered this, he compelled him to drink bulls' blood, and he died on the spot. Such was his end."

"But Cambyses came from Memphis to Sais, and when he entered the palace of Amasis, he gave orders to take his body out of the grave; when this was done he caused the corpse to be scourged, the hair to be torn out; he stabbed it and treated it with every kind of indignity. When those who were executing his commands grew weary, for the body being embalmed resisted their blows, and did not come to pieces, he ordered it to be burned. This was a sacrilegious command. The Persians regard fire as a deity, and the burning of the dead is not according to the laws either of the Persians or the Egyptians. The Persians do not consider it right to offer a corpse to a god; the Egyptians regard fire as a living all-consuming animal, and as it is by no means lawful to give up corpses to animals, they embalm them that they may not be consumed by worms. Hence Cambyses had commanded what was not allowed by the law of either nation. But the Egyptians say that it was not Amasis who endured this contumely, but another Egyptian of the same age, whom the Persians outraged under the impression that they were outraging Amasis. Amasis had been informed by an oracle what would happen to him after death; to escape his fate he had buried a man, who died at the time, in the tomb which he had made for himself at the temple of Neith at Sais, near the door, and had commanded his son to bury him in the innermost grave-chamber. In my opinion these arrangements of Amasis about his burial were not carried out, they were mere inventions of the Egyptians."

Ctesias' narrative is as follows: Cambyses fulfilled the last commands of his father that his younger brother Tanyoxarkes should be made lord of the Bactrians, Chorasmians, Parthians, and Carmanians, and in every other respect, and sent his corpse to Persia for burial. Having ascertained that the Egyptian women were more desirable than others, he asked Amasis for one of his daughters, and Amasis sent Nitetis the daughter of Hophra. Cambyses took great delight in her, and loved her much, and when he had learned all her story he acceded to her request that he would avenge the murder of her father. When he had armed against Egypt and Amyrtaeus, the Egyptian king, the eunuch Combaphes, who had great influence with Amyrtaeus, betrayed the passes into Egypt, and all the affairs of the country, in order that he might be viceroy of it. Then Cambyses set out on his march; in the battle 50,000 Egyptians and 20,000 Persians were slain,[144] Amyrtaeus was taken alive, and all Egypt was subjugated. Cambyses did no further harm to Amyrtaeus beyond sending him with 6000 Egyptians of his own choice to Susa; but Combaphes became governor of Egypt as Cambyses had promised first by Izabates, his most trusted eunuch and the cousin of Combaphes, and then by his own mouth.[145]

Herodotus' account is once more dominated by the desire to give prominence to the vengeance for the crime which Amasis committed in betraying Hophra his master and thrusting from the throne the legitimate ruler of Egypt (III. 407). Amasis was spared, but the punishment fell upon the son, who thus suffered for his father's sins. The sources open to Herodotus were the narratives of the Persians, of the Egyptians, and of his own people. The Greeks of Asia Minor had taken part in the campaign of Cambyses against Egypt; Greek mercenaries assisted in the defence; and as we have seen, Greeks were settled in Egypt in considerable numbers. Herodotus himself rejects the story that Cambyses was the son of the daughter of Hophra, as the Egyptians maintained by way of consolation; as well as another story that Cambyses had invaded Egypt in order to avenge the preference which Cyrus showed to the daughter of Hophra over his mother Cassandane. On the other hand, he adopts, though with hesitation, the story of the Persians that Cambyses sought a wife from Amasis, because it agrees with his own idea that ruin was brought upon Amasis by his own treachery and the daughter of the Pharaoh whom he had deposed. Deinon in his Persian History and Lyceas of Naucratis retained both these stories together in the form that Amasis sent Nitetis to Cyrus, and that she was the mother of Cambyses who invaded Egypt to avenge Hophra. The solicitation of Cambyses, and the deception of Amasis, in Herodotus, and in a still more pointed form in Ctesias, the source of which, Herodotus tells us, was the narrative of the Persians, has obviously arisen out of Persian poems about Cambyses, which required some poetical motive for the campaign against Egypt; we saw that the modern version of the poems concerning Cyrus represented the campaign against Tomyris as due to a similar motive. Hophra died in the year 570; when Cambyses ascended the throne, his youngest daughter must have been more than forty years of age. There was no need of any motive of this kind to excite Cambyses against Egypt, as has been shown above; after the fall of Lydia and Babylonia, Egypt was the natural aim for the Persian weapons.

Cambyses did not begin the war against Egypt immediately after his accession. Though Ctesias tells us that he first placed his brother over the Bactrians, Chorasmians, Parthians, and Carmanians, Cyrus, when he entrusted the kingdom of Babylonia to Cambyses, may have given the viceroyalty over the regions of the East to his younger son. We may confidently believe Herodotus that the death of Cyrus gave the subject nations the hope of again throwing off the yoke. After overcoming these rebellions (p. 131), in the fifth year of his reign, Cambyses marched against Egypt. Amasis, as we have observed, had made himself master of the island of Cyprus, and had entered into communication with Polycrates the prince of Samos, in order to cover an attack on Egypt by sea, and provide, in case of necessity, a counterpoise to the naval power of the Greek cities on the coast, and that of the Phenicians. Cyrus had allowed his empire to be bounded by the sea, though he did not refuse the voluntary submission of Chios and Lesbos. Cambyses went further. He wished to procure a fleet for his kingdom; Persia was to rule by sea as well as land. This, it is true, could only be done by forcing arms into the hands of subject tribes and cities, and that on an element on which the Persians could not pursue them. It was a bold conception, and in forming it Cambyses must have felt quite secure of the obedience of the Greek and Phenician cities, and of the allegiance of the old princely houses who ruled in the latter no less than of the new ones who ruled in the former. For the first time the command went forth to the harbour cities of the Syrian and Anatolian coasts, that they were to arm their ships for the king. The fleet was to support the attack of the land army, and then, passing up the Nile, facilitate the movements of the army in Egypt. The ships of the Greeks were to unite with those of the Phenicians in the harbour of Acco to the south of Carmel.[146] This resolution of Cambyses and the assembling of so magnificent a fleet on the coast of Phœnicia at once bore fruit. The princes of the Cyprian cities abandoned Egypt, recognised the supremacy of Persia, and at once prepared their ships for a voyage against Egypt. In return for this sudden and voluntary submission they were allowed to remain at the head of the cities; they were only to pay tribute and furnish contingents in war.[147] On Polycrates of Samos also the naval armament of Cambyses made a most lively impression. When in possession of a strong fleet Cambyses could use it against Samos. Was Polycrates to fight for Egypt whose naval power could not defend him against this fleet, or was he to remain neutral? Polycrates held the latter course to be the worst; neutrality during the war of Cyrus and Crœsus had cost the Greek cities dear enough. He determined to change his front. When the Ionian cities launched their ships, and the vessels of Chios and Lesbos steered towards the Syrian coast, he also offered to place ships at the disposal of the Persian king for use in Egypt. Cambyses accepted the submission of Polycrates, and he sent forty well-manned ships of war.[148]

Thus Cambyses had already deprived the Pharaoh of two important points of support before he had begun the war. Whether Amasis was alive at the defection of the princes of Cyprus, and of Polycrates, is doubtful. It is possible that his death, which elevated to the throne of Egypt his son Psammenitus (Psamtek III.), an untried prince in the place of a proved and experienced leader such as Amasis, was another weight in the scale on the side of defection. There was still another difficulty to remove. The Syrian coast formed a strong wall of protection for Egypt. If the fleet followed the army along the coast it found none but difficult landing-places; at present there are none in that region for the heavier ships of our days. In any case, in a numerous army such as Cambyses no doubt led, care would have to be taken for the horses and camels. It is not true that Cambyses requested a free passage from the king of the Arabians; the men in question were the chiefs of the Arabs in the peninsula of Sinai, the Midianites and Amalekites; and it was the supply of water for the army which these tribes undertook. After completing his preparations Cambyses set out early in the year 525 B.C., in order to march through the desert before the beginning of the hottest weather, and arrive in Egypt sufficiently early before the inundation.[149]

As the desertion of Eurybatus aided Cyrus in the Lydian war (p. 20), so was Cambyses assisted in his preparations for the campaign against Egypt according to the narrative of Herodotus by the advice of Phanes, and according to Ctesias by the advice of Combaphes. We may here give unhesitating confidence to the definite assertion of Herodotus as it concerns his own countryman of Halicarnassus. The departure of Phanes for Egypt must have taken place in the autumn of the year 526 B.C., for it is Amasis who sends his trusted eunuch after him as far as Lycia. For the name of Psammenitus the fragment of Ctesias gives the incorrect name of Amyrtaeus (if this name of the later opponent of Persia on the Nile is not due to the excerpt), it substitutes Combaphes for Phanes, i. e. to all appearances the eunuch who pursues Phanes for Phanes himself. We do not find elsewhere the slightest trace that Combaphes received the vice-royalty of Egypt; on the contrary, the statements of the fragments about the cousinship of the chief eunuch of Pharaoh and the chief eunuch of Cambyses, and the repeated promise of the vice-royalty which is made to Combaphes, point to Persian poems, which had to clothe incidents of this nature in a poetical garb; we have already frequently met with the analogous promises of Arbaces to Belesys, and of Cyrus to the interpreters of dreams at Babylon.

With regard to the course of the war we can only establish the fact, that Psammenitus collected all his forces, i. e. the warrior caste, and his Ionian and Carian troops, which were apparently strengthened by Libyan tribes, and Greeks from Cyrene, and awaited the attack of the Persians at the point where at the present day the caravan road from Gaza reaches Egypt, near Pelusium, the old border fortress, surrounded by the sand of the desert and wide expanses of mud. In regard to this battle we only learn from Ctesias that 50,000 Egyptians and 20,000 Persians fell; whether it be that these numbers are taken from the Persian poems, or whether they belong to the official Persian account. A part of the Egyptian army retired to Pelusium; with another band of fugitives Psammenitus reached Memphis. When the Persians had besieged and captured Pelusium, which made a bold resistance, Egypt lay open to them. Cambyses shaped his course to Memphis. There in past days the empire of the Pharaohs had arisen; there stood the temple of Ptah, the most sacred shrine of the land, which Menes himself was said to have founded, which all his successors, including Amasis, had enlarged and adorned. Memphis closed the approach to the upper river valley, which was barred to the Persians so long as the city held out. Hence it appears to have been the determination of Psammenitus to give up the delta to the Persians, to defend Memphis, and shut himself up in its walls. The city is said to have been twenty miles in circuit (I. 85); it lay on the western bank of the Nile, and Cambyses had the difficult task of crossing the river before he could invest the city. But now it was seen how great was the support afforded by the fleet. The Egyptian ships must have been forced to retire; the union of the Persian army with the fleet was accomplished; one of these ships appeared before the walls of Memphis sooner than the army. According to the account of Herodotus it would seem that it was not the city but only the citadel of Memphis, "the white tower" on the southern dam, which defended itself. If this was the case Cambyses had no doubt to thank the fleet for it. Elsewhere the city must have been defended on the side towards the Nile by the river-dams merely, which the garrison despaired of holding against the attack of numerous ships of war. Thus invested and attacked the citadel must at length have opened the gates; and with the citadel Psammenitus fell into the hands of the Persians.[150] After the fall of Memphis Cambyses does not seem to have found resistance anywhere. It is nevertheless possible that Sais, the residence of Psammetichus and his descendants, as well as of Amasis and Psammenitus, the burial-place of the princes and of Amasis, attempted a defence. In any case the conquest of Sais completed the subjugation of the Egyptian land. An inscription of the Egyptians says: "When the great prince, the lord of the world, Kambathet, marched against Egypt, all nations of the earth were with him. He became lord of the whole land and settled there."[151] In a war of a few months Cambyses had overthrown a kingdom which reckoned by millenniums, and had been the wonder of the world.

What Herodotus tells us of the fate of Psammenitus and the death of his son reminds us in a striking manner of the legend of the Greeks about the distress and the rescue of Crœsus, who also reappears in this narrative. In both Herodotus becomes uncertain towards the end, and changes from direct to indirect narration, from assertion to supposition. When Cyrus commanded Crœsus to be burned, he intended, according to Herodotus, to prove whether a god would come to his aid; Cambyses intends to put the endurance of Psammenitus to the test. Two trials are made with this object; and a third trial also takes place; and if Crœsus calls on Solon three times on the pyre, Psammenitus remains dumb "with horror," as Aristotle says, at the sight of his daughter at her slavish task, and of his son when led out to execution; it is only at the sight of his friend who has become a beggar that he breaks forth into lamentation. Like Cyrus at Sardis, Cambyses at Memphis inquires into the reason of such conduct. But if Cyrus weeps at the pyre, and desires to save Crœsus, who is finally rescued by a god, so in this place, all the Persians who are present weep, and Crœsus weeps, and Cambyses himself is touched by compassion; he wishes to save the son of Psammenitus; and though he cannot do this he releases the father out of captivity and receives him at his court. There is a difference in the stories in the fact that though Cambyses is putting Psammenitus to the test, the son is actually executed, and that the compassion of Cambyses is not aroused by the danger impending over the Egyptian king, but by his conduct. As in the story of Crœsus and Cyrus, so in this, we have obviously a legend of the Greeks—the Greeks in Egypt. The first story has arisen out of the intention of Crœsus not to survive the fall of his kingdom, to offer himself as a sacrifice to the angry god of the Lydians; and the second has no other foundation than the punishment exacted by Cambyses in accordance with the sentence of the seven judges (p. 105), for the murder of his herald who had demanded the surrender of Memphis, and for the massacre of the crew of the ship in which the herald had gone to the city. If the seven judges demand ten Egyptians for every man slain, this sentence, though it fell on the most distinguished families of Egypt, would seem mild enough according to the scale of oriental punishments; as 2000 men were brought out for execution, the ship must have had the usual crew of a Greek trireme. Whether the son of Psammenitus was really put to death for the herald, we must leave to the legend; Ctesias tells us only of the deportation of Psammenitus and 6000 Egyptians to Susa.

Cambyses resolved to treat Psammenitus and Egypt in precisely the same way as Cyrus had treated Crœsus and Lydia, Nabonetus and Babylon. It is not said that any harm was done to the city of Memphis, and Herodotus tells us himself that if Psammenitus had known how to keep quiet, Cambyses would have entrusted him with the governorship of Egypt. Yet the degradation of his daughter and the execution of his son were a strange initiation of such treatment.[152] Still more incredible is the ill-treatment and burning of the corpse of Amasis, for which Cambyses had not the slightest reason, especially as Herodotus states that Cambyses sent Ladice, the widow of Amasis, unharmed back to her own city of Cyrene.[153] The story belongs to the context of the narrative according to which Cambyses sues for the daughter of Amasis, and is deceived by him with the daughter of Hophra, whose desire for vengeance on Amasis he satisfies. As Amasis is no longer alive, vengeance comes upon his son and grandson, and even on his own body. For this reason Herodotus has adopted this story, for he lays great stress on the fact that no misfortune befell Amasis in his life, though he rejects the Egyptian version that Amasis had taken the precaution to substitute the corpse of another person of the same age for his own. If Sais resisted and was taken by storm, the temple of Neith might certainly be injured, the royal sepulchres violated, and the mummies taken from them, without any blame attaching to Cambyses, though on a similar occasion at Memphis he is charged by Herodotus with opening the tombs and disturbing the rest of the dead.[154] The Egyptian inscription informs us that the conduct of Cambyses at Sais and in the temple of Neith, in the portico of which Amasis had built his sepulchre, was widely different from that described by the legend. He removed his soldiers from the temple, purified it, and both here and in other places he showed his regard for the worship of the Egyptians as Cyrus had shown it for the worship of the Babylonians and the Hebrews. From the account of Herodotus, no less than from the later circumstances of Egypt, it is clear that no alteration was made in the government, law, and administration of justice, except that a Persian satrap was placed at the head of the country and Persian garrisons were sent to the citadels of the most important places. Even the Egyptian warrior caste remained unchanged and undiminished; it merely passed from the service of the Pharaohs into that of the Achæmenids; and after repeated rebellions numbered more than 400,000 men in the middle of the fifth century B.C.

FOOTNOTES:

[139] The Babylonian tablets give dates from the first to the ninth year inclusive of "Kuras, king of Babylon," which entirely agree with the dates of the canon of Ptolemy, i. e. with the capture of Babylon by Cyrus 538 B.C., and the death of Cyrus in 529 B.C. On another tablet, No. 877, Br. Mus., we find the "year eleven of Cambyses king of Babylon" (E. Schrader, "Z. Aegypt. Sprach." 1878, s. 40 ff.). It is a fact established by the canon of Ptolemy as well as by Herodotus that Cambyses did not sit on the throne for eight whole years. Tablet 906 explains this eleventh year; it runs as follows: "Babylon month Kislev, day 25, year 1 of Cambyses king of Babylon, at that time Cyrus king of the lands." Hence in Babylon dates were sometimes fixed by the years of Cyrus king of Babylon, and sometimes by the years of the viceroy. If the "year eleven" of Cambyses in Babylon was the year of Cambyses' death, Cyrus must have handed over the government of Babylonia to him in the year 532 B.C., i. e. three years before his own death. This view, which has been developed by E. Schrader, I feel able to adopt against the opinion of T. G. Pinches, who wrongly assumes an abdication of Cyrus. That years were not dated from Cambyses after his death is proved by seventeen other tablets, which do not go beyond the eighth year of his reign, and two others of the 20 Elul and 1 Tisri from the first year of Barziya, i. e. of the Pseudo-Smerdis.

[140] Herod. 2, 182; Diod. 1, 68.

[141] Herod. 3, 1.

[142] Herodotus writes Kadytis after the Egyptian name Kazatu. Vol. I. 132.

[143] Herod. 2, 1; 3, 44.

[144] Bekker reads 7000.

[145] Ctesias, "Pers." 9; Athenaeus, p. 560.

[146] Strabo, p. 758.

[147] In Herod. (3, 19) the voluntary submission of the Cyprians stands in direct connection with their participation in the campaign against Egypt; hence it cannot be placed earlier. If Xenophon ("Inst. Cyri," 1, 1) represents the Cyprians as already subjugated by Cyrus, he maintains the same of Egypt also. On the other hand, the statement of Xenophon that the Cyprians retained their native kings owing to their voluntary submission is amply confirmed by later events ("Inst. 2 Cyri." 7, 4, 2; 8, 6, 8).

[148] Herod. 3, 44.

[149] According to Lepsius, Amasis died in January 525, and hence Memphis fell in July of this year: "Monatsberichte Berl. Akademie," 1854. The Psammenitus of Herodotus is called Psammecherites in Manetho; and Psamtik on the monuments. Rosell. "Monum. storici." 2, 153; 4, 105.

[150] Diod. "Exc. de virtute," p. 557; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 9. In regard to the campaign we may compare the march of Pharnabazus and Iphicrates against Nectanebos in the year 374 B.C., in Diod. 15, 41-43. Aristot. "Rhet." 2, 8, 12.

[151] Herod. 2, 181. De Rougé, "Revue Archeol," 8, 3; Brugsch, "Hist. of Egypt," 2, 294.

[152] Aristot. "Rhet." 2, 8, 12.

[153] Herod. 2, 181.

[154] Herod. 3, 37.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MARCH TO MEROE.

More than two centuries before Cambyses set foot upon its soil, Egypt had experienced the rule of the stranger. The reign of the Ethiopic monarchs of Napata over Egypt (730-672 B.C.) was followed by the more severe dominion of the Assyrians. But Psammetichus had been able to restore the kingdom, and the sovereignty of his house; the reign of Amasis had called into existence a beautiful after-bloom of Egyptian art, had given a lively impulse to trade, and increased the welfare of the land. Now the day of Pelusium and the fall of Memphis had decided the fate of Egypt irrevocably and for all time. The kingdom had been founded from Memphis three thousand years previously, and at Memphis it was now overthrown. Egypt, in spite of repeated and stubborn attempts, was never able to recover from the dominion of the Persians, and even the fall of the Persian empire did not permit the rise of the Egypt of the Egyptians.

The speedy and great success which Cambyses achieved had effects beyond the borders of Egypt. Herodotus narrates that the Libyans in their anxiety about the fortune of Egypt submitted to Cambyses without a battle, promised to pay tribute, and sent presents. The Cyrenaeans also and Barcaeans from similar apprehensions had done the same. The presents of the Libyans were graciously accepted by Cambyses, but the 500 minae which the Cyrenaeans sent, he threw with his own hand among the people because "it was too little."[155] Diodorus explains the anxiety of the Libyans and Cyrenaeans, "after Cambyses had become lord of the whole of Egypt" and the voluntary submission which was the consequence of it, by the fact that the Libyans and Cyrenaeans had fought against Cambyses with the Egyptians. We know from other sources that the princes of Cyrene were in close and friendly connection with Amasis.[156] The subjugation of the Libyans cannot have extended farther than to the tribes adjacent to the Delta, and reaching towards the west perhaps as far as Cyrene. At that time Archelaus III. was the king of Cyrene. More than a century before, Greeks from the island of Thera had founded the city on the well-watered and grassy slopes which run from the table-land of Barca to the sea. Ever since that time the family of Battus and Archelaus had reigned over this settlement, which, owing to its favoured position and lively trade, rose quickly to power and wealth. The attack which Pharaoh-Hophra made upon it in the year 571 B.C. had been successfully repulsed by the Cyrenaeans (III. 405). Subsequently, about the year 545 B.C., Battus III. had been compelled to submit to a constitutional form of government which restricted the monarchy to a hereditary presidentship. Discontented with this position, Archelaus III. attempted to recover the old powers. The attempt failed, Archelaus fled, and found shelter with Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. When he had collected there an army of adventurers he returned at their head, subverted the constitution, and set on foot a cruel persecution against all who had adhered to it. He may have felt the ground insecure under his feet in the city; the fall of Egypt deprived him of the support which he had had in that country, and if he had really sent a contingent to aid Psammenitus he had to fear the vengeance of Cambyses. These were reasons enough for seeking the protection of the Persian king. He recognised the sovereignty of Cambyses, and sent that sum of money as the first proof of his submission.

"Cambyses now proposed to himself a threefold expedition," so Herodotus relates; "one against the Carthaginians, a second against the Ammonians, and a third against the long-lived Ethiopians, who inhabit Libya on the southern sea. It seemed best to send the fleet against the Carthaginians, and a part of the land army against the Ammonians, but to the Ethiopians envoys were first sent. When he had given this command he ordered fish-eaters to be brought from Elephantine (the island on the Nile on the border of Egypt) who were acquainted with the language of the Ethiopians. While these were being brought he ordered the fleet to set out against Carthage. But the Phenicians refused; they were bound by great oaths, and they would be guilty of a crime if they went against their own children. As the Phenicians refused, the rest (i. e. the Greeks) were not strong enough, and so the Carthaginians escaped slavery under the Persians. For Cambyses could not do violence to the Phenicians, because they had voluntarily submitted to the Persians (p. 90), and the whole naval power rested on the Phenicians. When the fish-eaters had come, they were told what they had to say to the Ethiopians, and received the presents which they had to take—a purple robe, a golden necklace and bracelets, a box of alabaster filled with ointment, and a jar of palm-wine. The Ethiopians to whom they were sent were said to be the tallest and most beautiful of men, and as they live under laws which are different from those of other men, they were said to regard the man who is the tallest and strongest among them as the most worthy of the throne."

"When the fish-eaters reached the Ethiopians and gave over their presents to the king, they said: 'Cambyses, the king of the Persians, wishes to be your friend and sends you as presents these things in which he takes most delight himself.' The Ethiopians answered: 'The Persian king has not sent you with these presents because he wishes to be my friend, and ye are not speaking the truth. You have been sent to spy out my kingdom, and he is not a righteous man. If he were righteous he would not have desired another land than his own, nor would he have reduced men to slavery from whom he had suffered no wrong. Give him this bow (the bows of the Ethiopians were of palm-wood and more than four cubits in length),[157] and say to the king of the Persians, that when his people can string a bow of that size he may march against the long-lived Ethiopians with an overwhelming army; till then, he may thank the gods that it has not occurred to the sons of the Ethiopians to conquer another land in addition to their own.' Then he gave them the bow, and he took the purple robe, and asked what it was and how it was made. And when the fish-eaters gave him a true account of the purple and the dyeing, he said that the men were deceivers and their garments deceptive. When he saw the necklace and bracelets, the king laughed, for he imagined that they were fetters; their fetters, he said, were stronger. Then he inquired about the ointment, and when the preparation and use of this were explained, he said the same as about the robes. The wine he drank and it pleased him greatly, and he asked what the king of Persia ate, and what was the greatest age to which the Persians lived. They replied that he ate bread, and explained the nature of wheat; they also put the greatest age to which the Persians lived at eighty years. The king replied that he did not wonder that their years were few, inasmuch as they ate dirt, and they would not live so long as they did, if the drink did not strengthen them—in that matter the Persians had the advantage. Of the Ethiopians most lived to 120 years, and some even longer; their food was cooked flesh, and their drink milk. When the envoys returned and Cambyses received their account, he fell into a passion, and marched against the Ethiopians without taking measures for the supply of provisions or considering that he was about to march to the end of the world, but like one distraught and out of his mind, he set forth on his expedition as soon as he heard the account of the fish-eaters. No Persian was able to draw the bow of the Ethiopians; Smerdis alone, the brother of Cambyses, was able to draw it two finger-breadths.[158] Cambyses bade the Greeks who were with him (i. e. the crews of the Greek ships) to remain in Egypt; but the whole of the rest of the army he took with him. When he came to Thebes, he sent 50,000 men away with orders to enslave the Ammonians and burn the oracle of Zeus; with the rest he marched against the Ethiopians. But before the army had traversed a fifth part of the way all their provisions were consumed, and not long after even the beasts of burden were eaten. If Cambyses when he saw this had given up his intention, and led the army back, he would have shown himself a wise man after his first mistake, but he went recklessly onward. So long as the soldiers found anything growing on the ground, they ate herbs and grass; but when they came to the sand, some of them did a horrid deed; they drew lots for the tenth man and ate him. When Cambyses heard of this, he was distressed that the soldiers should eat each other, abandoned the war against the Ethiopians, marched back, and reached Thebes after losing many men. This was the end of the expedition against the Ethiopians. But with regard to those who were sent against the Ammonians it is only known that they reached the city of Oasis where the Samians dwell, seven days' march distant from Thebes through the desert; in the Greek language this place is called the island of the blessed. To this place the army came; but beyond this no man knows anything except what the Ammonians say. They relate that when they marched from the oasis through the sand and were about midway between the oasis and the Ammonians, and were eating breakfast, a great wind from the south blew up a mass of sand and overwhelmed them, and in this way they perished." Diodorus represents Cambyses as making the attempt to subjugate the Ethiopians with a great host, in which he lost the whole of his army and was in the greatest danger.[159]

If the legend of the Greeks of the fortunes of Psammenitus after his defeat exhibits analogous traits to the legend, also Greek, of the fate of Crœsus after his capture, the account given by Herodotus of the march of Cambyses against the long-lived Ethiopians reminds us of his account of the march of Cyrus against the Massagetæ. In both cases the aim is directed against unknown foreign nations, against whom there is no reason to make war; in both cases good sense, moderation, wisdom, and love of peace are found in the chief of the barbarians; in both envoys are sent under false pretences; in both the conversation on either side is accurately known. In the first case it is a foolish resolution which brings ruin; in the second it is the vexation of Cambyses at the answer of the Ethiopians, and the inability to draw the bow, which causes him to lead his army without any hesitation into destruction. Along with other indications, the test of the bow here, like the bottle in the other legend, points to a poetical source.

We have seen that the ancient Pharaohs, the Sesurtesen and Amenemha, Tuthmosis and Amenophis, and after them Sethos and Ramses II., had extended the dominion of Egypt up the Nile to Semne and Cumne, and subsequently to Mount Barkal. The Egyptian language, worship, and art spread in this direction, and with the decline of the Egyptian power after the time of the Ramessids (from the year 1100 B.C.), an independent state grew up, the metropolis of which was Napata, near the modern Meravi, on Mount Barkal. The princes of this state in their turn, from king Pianchi onwards, had forced their way down the Nile.[160] Sabakon, Sebichos, and Tirhaka had governed Napata and Egypt. After Sabakon had come into conflict with the Assyrians at Raphia in Syria (720 B.C.), and Tirhaka at Altaku (701 B.C.), Tirhaka succumbed in the year 672 B.C. to the arms of Esarhaddon. Repeated attempts of Tirhaka and his son Urdamane upon Egypt were wrecked; Esarhaddon calls himself king of Miluhhi and Cush. Assurbanipal boasts that he pursued Urdamane as far as the land of Cush. But the kingdom of Napata, which the inscriptions of Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal call Miluhhi (Meroe[161])—in the inscriptions on Mount Barkal we find the names Meru and Merua—continued to exist, and maintained itself against the restoration of Egyptian power under Psammetichus and his successors. We cannot doubt that Cambyses wished to penetrate up the Nile at least as far as the army of the Assyrians, that he felt it necessary to secure his dominion in Egypt against attacks from Napata, and to extend his dominion as far up the Nile as the army of the old Pharaohs had reached. That the prince, who, as we saw, made the most careful preparations for the campaign against Egypt, should have thrown himself foolishly and recklessly into this undertaking, as Herodotus represents, is incredible, and the statement must be attributed to special tendencies in the sources used by the historian. So far as Meroe, Herodotus tells us from information collected at Elephantine on the southern border of Egypt, the way lay up and on the Nile. First there were four days' journey from Elephantine (against the stream), then forty days' march along the river, since the rocks made navigation impossible, and then after twelve days' voyage the great city of Meroe was reached, the metropolis of the rest of the Ethiopians. The distance to the place where the Egyptians lived who had emigrated under Psammetichus (III. 307) was not less than the distance from Elephantine to Meroe, and it was a long journey for them to the long-lived Ethiopians. The total of 56 days' journey from the way from Elephantine to Meroe upon or along the Nile points to a place much higher up the river than Napata. The new Meroe is meant, which the princes of Napata, receding before the Persians, had founded before the time of Herodotus.[162] Herodotus' statements that the Ethiopians worshipped Zeus and Dionysus alone among the gods, and worshipped them very zealously, that there was an oracle of Zeus in their country, and that it was only by its command that they went to war, are completely established by the monuments of Napata. They show that the worship of Ammon, the god of Thebes and upper Egypt, and that of Osiris whom the Greeks, as we know, compared with their Dionysus, were zealously prosecuted. From inscriptions and intelligence of other kinds we have also ample information of the influence of the priests, and the importance of the oracle in the kingdom of Napata. The fame of the priesthood at Napata may be the basis of the "pious Ethiopians" of Homer; the same piety, though further removed, is shown in Herodotus' narrative of the long-lived Ethiopians.

When Cambyses, so Strabo tells us, had made himself master of Egypt, he advanced to Meroe (Napata), and it is said that he gave the name to the city in honour of his wife, or his sister, as others say, who was buried there. Diodorus indeed tells us that Cambyses founded the famous city of Meroe, and gave it the name of Meroe after his mother.[163] Josephus also observes that Cambyses changed the name of the royal city of the Ethiopians and called it Meroe.[164] However unfounded may be the assertion that the name of Meroe proceeded from Cambyses—for we find it used two centuries previously by the Assyrians—it is quite clear from these statements that Cambyses did advance as far as the old metropolis of the Ethiopians and brought it into his power; that he conquered and maintained the kingdom of Napata. Indeed Herodotus tells us elsewhere himself that he advanced far beyond Napata to the south. "In his campaign against the long-lived Ethiopians," we are told in this passage, "Cambyses subjugated the Ethiopians who dwell around the sacred Nysa, and hold festivals in honour of Dionysus." The position of the mythical Nysa, we cannot, it is true, define more precisely than that a Homeric hymn puts it above the fountains of the Nile,[165] and Herodotus himself places it above Egypt in Ethiopia;[166] but inasmuch as these Ethiopians of Nysa wore leopard and lion skins, according to Herodotus, and were armed with clubs; as their arrow-heads were made of sharp stones, and their lances of the horns of antelopes; as they painted themselves half red and half white in battle;[167] as they had to pay to the Persians every third year two hundred logs of ebony, twenty large tusks of elephants, five boys, and two chœnixes of unrefined gold,[168] Cambyses must have penetrated into the land of the negroes, the zone of ebony and the elephant. On the middle course of the Nile in Nubia, and above Napata, there were tribes akin to the Egyptians; the land of the negroes began about the union of the White and Blue Nile. The monuments of Egypt comprise both populations under the name Cush, the name of the land of the south, and they exhibit these southern nations as partly red and partly black. The Greeks call the red and black inhabitants of the land of the south, Ethiopians. According to the statements of Artemidorus of Ephesus and of Agatharchides, which have been preserved by Strabo and Diodorus, the land of the elephant-hunters and ostrich-eaters, who fought with the Ethiopians, men armed with the horns of the antelope, began south of the confluence of the Atbara and Bahr-el-Azrek or Blue River, and the Nile.[169] At the present time the region of the ebony-woods and elephants begins in the marsh at the foot of the Abyssinian Alps; elephants are not found elsewhere except in some more northern regions on the Red Sea; and that the Ethiopians did not acquire the elephants' tusks in the way of trade is proved by the small amount of gold which they had to pay as tribute. As we find in the reliefs of Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustem, among the nations of the Persian kingdom, certain figures which are marked out as negroes by their short, curly hair, their snub nose, their bare breast and the animal's skin on the shoulders; as the Ethiopians of Nysa and their neighbours served, according to Herodotus, in the army of Xerxes, and paid the tribute mentioned, as Herodotus expressly tells us, even in his day, the march of Cambyses must have penetrated beyond the mouth of the Atbara, and Napata must have been permanently maintained, otherwise such distant tribes would not have furnished contingents in war fifty years later, and their tribute would have come to an end long before Herodotus.

Hence Cambyses did not, as the account of Herodotus represents, return to Egypt from the upper Nile without success. On the contrary, he penetrated much further than the Assyrians, and his campaign had more lasting results than the conquests of Tuthmosis III. and Ramses II. on the upper Nile. The account given by Herodotus of the distress into which the army fell, the statement that the soldiers ate each other (which is also told of the expedition of Cyrus to the Indus), and that the retreat to Egypt was thus brought about, is hardly compatible with such results and so firmly-established a supremacy. Yet we may suppose that Cambyses wished to penetrate even further than the junction of the White and Blue Nile, and there fell into difficulties. But it is probable that quite another incident lies at the base of the legend of the distress of Cambyses "in the sand." At Premnis on the Nile, Pliny mentions "the market of Cambyses;" in Ptolemy the same place is called "the Magazine of Cambyses." Strabo, when narrating the campaign which Petronius took in the year 24 B.C. against Napata, tells us, that after Petronius had taken Pselchis (140 miles above Elephantine) he came to Premnis (150 miles further up the Nile, below Abu Simbel and the falls of Wadi Halfa), "after he had marched through the sand-heaps in which the army of Cambyses was buried by a sudden wind." Thus, five hundred years after the campaign of Cambyses, the tradition was in existence, that his army had been buried there. Hence when Napata had been conquered, and the negro stems subjugated, when Mount Barkal and the falls of Wadi Halfa were already behind the army on the return journey, it was overtaken by a sand-storm in the neighbourhood of Egypt, and a part of the army, though not the whole, was buried.[170]

Herodotus told us above that Cambyses in his march against the Ethiopians sent a section of his army against the Ammonians, to reduce them to slavery, and burn the oracle of Ammon there. Diodorus repeats the statement of Herodotus almost in the same words. Justin observes, that Cambyses had sent an army for the conquest of the famous temple of Ammon, but it was overwhelmed by a storm and masses of sand. Herodotus' narrative of this campaign cannot have arisen from the source from which he took the striking traits of his account of the march against the long-lived Ethiopians. Had this treated of the march against the Ammonians it would have given some account of the issue of it; but Herodotus expressly tells us that only the Ammonians could give an account of this. His authority therefore was a Greek-Egyptian tradition. The Ammonians inhabited the oasis of Sivah, which lies in the desert to the west of Egypt: the worship of Ammon was carried there by Egyptian settlers and Egyptian influence.[171] We cannot doubt that Cambyses, after Cyrene and the tribes of the Libyans between Egypt and Cyrene had submitted, sent a part of his army to obtain possession of this oasis. The oasis of Ammon was well adapted to keep the Libyans of the coast as well as the Cyrenaeans in subjection; and was at the same time an important station for trade, and a desirable point of support for further undertakings in the West. The command to enslave the inhabitants of the oasis and burn the temple, is part of the conception which represents Cambyses as setting out against the Ethiopians in a moment of reckless passion. According to Herodotus, the expedition to Sivah came in seven days after leaving Thebes to "the Island of the Blest," i. e. to the oasis El Charigeh, which as a fact is seven good days' march from Thebes in the desert.[172] From this point the army had to proceed about 500 miles; at present the caravans go northward from El Charigeh, then to the west from the oasis of Kasr, to Sivah. What happened to the army on one of these routes, no one, Herodotus says, can tell; the Ammonians declared that it was buried half way between El Charigeh and Sivah.