The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6)

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

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 - 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.]

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 - Ps. and Isa. xxi. 2.] 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 - Fragm. 14, ed. Müller.] 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 - Ps. cxxxvii.] "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 - Ps. liii., liv.]

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 - Jer. 1. 17-19.] "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 - Jer. 1. 2; li. 44.] "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 - Jer. li. 13, 53, 58.] "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 - Jer. 1. 14, 29; li. 27.] 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 - V. 314 n.] 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 - Deut. Isa. xiii. 17-22; xiv. 4, 11-14. [Cf. Cheyne, "Isaiah," Vol. II., Essay xi.]]

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 - Deut. Isa. xli. 2, 3; xli. 25; xliv. 28. Kohut, "Antiparsismus in Deut. Yesaias, Z. D. M. G." 1876, 3, 711 ff.] 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 - Deut. Isa. xlv. 1, 2, 3. Vol. III. 369.] "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 - Deut. Isa. xlvii. 1-13.]. 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 - Deut. Isa. xlix. 14-16.]. 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 - Deut. Isa. li. 17. Vol. III. 326.]. 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 - Deut. Isa. xlix. 13.]. 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 - Deut. Isa. xlvi. 11; xlviii. 14, 15.]

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 - Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 7, 5.]

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 - Jer. li. 31, 32, 39; Deut. Isa. xiv. 7-9; xxi. 4-9.] 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 - Dan. v. 1-31.]

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

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 - On the site of Borsippa, Vol. I. 291, and on Nebuchadnezzar's buildings at the temple of Nebo, at Borsippa, III. 385.] 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 - Pliny, "H. N." 6, 30.] 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 - 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.]] 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 - "Pol." 3, 1, 12.] 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 - Oppert et Ménant, "Docum. Juridiq." p. 266.] 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 - Herod. 3, 159.] 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 - "Cyri inst." 7, 5, 34, 69, 70.] 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 - Xenoph. "Anab." 2, 4. Vol. III. 366.]

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 - 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.] 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 - 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.] 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 - 1 Chron. iii. 17-19.] 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 - Ezra ii. 36-39.]), 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 - 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.] 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 - Deut. Isa. xlviii. 20.] "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 - Deut. Isa. lii. 7.] Up, up, go forth, touch no unclean person; go forth from among them. Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear Jehovah's vessels.[90 - Deut. Isa. lii. 11.] 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 - Deut. Isa. lv. 12.] 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 - Deut. Isa. xlviii. 21.] 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 - Deut. Isa. li. 11.] 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 - Deut. Isa. liv. 6-10.] 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 - Deut. Isa. xlix. 19; lviii. 12.] 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 - Deut. Isa. liv. 11.] 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 - Deut. Isa. lx. 5.] like a stream will I bring salvation upon Israel, and the treasures of the nations like an overflowing river.[98 - Deut. Isa. lxvi. 12.] Thy sons hasten onward; those that laid thee waste go forth from thee.[99 - Deut. Isa. xlix. 17.] 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 - Deut. Isa. lx. 4-9.] 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 - Deut. Isa. liv. 2.] 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 - Deut. Isa. xlix. 22, 23.]

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 - Ewald, "Volk. Israel." 3, 91.] 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 - Ezra ii. 59-63.] 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 - Ezra iii. 8-13.] 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 - Ps. cxxix. – cxxxii.]

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 - 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.] 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.

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 - Behist. 1, 6.] and imposed tribute on the Açvakas to the north of the Cabul.[109 - Arrian. "Ind." 1, 1.] 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 - Plin. "H. N." 6, 25; Ptolem. 6, 18.] 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 - Script. Alex. Magni; fragm. 23, ed. Müller.] 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 - Diod. 17, 81.] 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 - Strabo, p. 724; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 27, 4; 4, 4, 6.] 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 - Curtius, 7, 3, 1.] 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 Strabo, p. 686.] 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 - Arrian, "Anab." 4, 5.] 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 - Xenoph. "Cyri inst." 6, 6, 9; 8, 8, 20.] 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 - E. g. Ctes. "Pers." 43.] 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 - Herod. 3, 31; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 6, 4; Esther i. 14.] 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 - Herod. 5, 25; 7, 194.]

"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 - Herod. 1, 134.] 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 - Herod. 3, 154; 8, 85.] 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 - "Cyri inst." 8, 8, 1; 8, 2, 7.]

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 - Herod. 3, 75, 86, 160.] 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."[125 - [125] "Persae," 768-770. "Transact. Bibl. Arch." 2, 148.] 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.[126 - "Cyri inst." 8, 6, 9; 8, 8, 22, 23.] 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.[127 - Plin. "H. N." 33, 15.] 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.[128 - Arrian, "Anab." 3, 16; Curtius, 5, 2, 11; 6, 9, 6, 10; Diod. 17, 66, 71; Strabo, p. 731.]

"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."[129 - Diod. "Exc. vat." p. 33, 2, 44; Justin, 1, 8; 2, 3; 37, 3.] 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."[130 - Arrian, "Anab." 5, 4. A similar story is in Frontin. "Strateg." 2, 5, 5.] 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.[131 - Polyaen. "Strateg." 8, 28.]

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

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.[133 - Strabo, p. 514, 520; Plin. "H. N." 6, 16; Ptolem. 4, 20; Curtius, 3, 2; Diod. 2, 2; Steph. Byz. Δερβίκκαι.] "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."[134 - Ctes. "Pers." 6-9.]

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.[135 - "Cyri inst." 8, 7.]

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."[136 - 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.]

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."[137 - 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.] 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.

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.[138 - 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.] 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.[139 - Herod. 2, 182; Diod. 1, 68.] 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.[140 - Herod. 3, 1.] 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,[141 - Herodotus writes Kadytis after the Egyptian name Kazatu. Vol. I. 132.] 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,[142 - Herod. 2, 1; 3, 44.] 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."