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

Herodotus' narrative of the death of the Magians again points to a poetical source. In the speech of the dying Cambyses, in the curse which he imprecates if the kingdom is not maintained and recovered, and the indication that it must be done by force and treachery, this source introduces the new series of events in an attractive and exciting manner. But the concealment of the truth, the secret murder of his brother, have evil consequences which extend beyond the life of Cambyses. The Persians did not believe him; they thought that when dying he wished to make them the enemies of his brother. It required the penetration of Otanes, the courage and devotion of his daughter, to bring the truth to light. At first Otanes prudently admits two men only into the secret; each of the three then discloses it to a trusty friend, and when Darius comes from Persia to Susa all are agreed to make him a confederate. His high mission has already been indicated in the poem by the dream of Cyrus wherein he saw the son of Hystaspes with wings on his shoulders, one of which overshadowed Asia, the other Europe. Darius urged the confederates to immediate action. The faint justification of the deception which we find in Herodotus shows that in this matter an attempt was made in the poetical source to keep in harmony with the Iranian view of the absolute necessity of telling the truth. The decisive moment approaches nearer and with greater force to the Magians. They have won the throne by treachery, they maintain it by cunning, inasmuch as they demand neither tribute nor soldiers from the subject countries; but at length they suffer for their treachery. They attempt to gain Prexaspes; he is to declare publicly that the Magian is the son of Cyrus. Prexaspes proceeds apparently to do this, but he is resolved to use the freedom of speech which the Magians allow him for their ruin. He reveals the truth before all the people, and throws himself down from the tower. The punishment which the poem has already inflicted on Prexaspes for the murder of Bardiya in the death of his own son (p. 185) is not sufficient. Like the king at whose command he sinned, Prexaspes ends his days by suicide. It is only by this complete revelation of the truth, this voluntary death, and tragic end, that he makes complete atonement for laying his hand on the son of Cyrus. Thus the figure of Prexaspes belongs to the series of faithful Persians, who, like Oebares, knew how to serve not the king only but the prosperity of Persia with complete devotion. While this took place before the citadel, and the Magians in terror deliberated what they should do, now that the proceeding which was to establish their dominion had dashed them to the ground, the conspirators were already on the way. Once more the prudent Otanes hesitates; and once more Darius urges haste. But the princes of the Persians must perform the act alone; they cannot wait for the effect of the revelation of Prexaspes on the people. The gods themselves give them a sign; the seven hawks tear to pieces the two vultures. The poem closes with the death-struggle of the Magians, the readiness of Gobryas to allow himself to be slain with the Magian, i. e. the false king, and the happy restoration of the dominion of the Achæmenids.

The objections which can be made against this poetical account of the matter are obvious. The disbelief of the Persians in the admissions of Cambyses is hardly credible. If they had doubted at the first, they could doubt no longer when the king had sealed his accusation by his despair and death. When Otanes imparts his discovery to Gobryas and Aspathines, they say that "they had already suspected it;" Darius then comes, and when he has been unanimously received into the conspiracy he says: "that he had hitherto believed that he alone knew the secret, and had hastened from Persia in order to slay the Magian." The poem has no doubt inserted this scepticism of the Persians to explain why they did not rise against the usurper immediately after the death of Cambyses. The discovery by the absence of the ears must also belong to the poem; it is a tale of the harem, in the manner of the poetry of the East. The deed of Prexaspes, whose place is taken by Izabates in Ctesias, is quite incredible and impossible in the context of Herodotus. The Magians had no reason whatever to urge Prexaspes to a public explanation; no one among the people had any suspicion; seven men only are acquainted with the truth, and the Magians have no intimation of their knowledge. If Susa was the scene of the deed, the Magians acted still more perversely, and Prexaspes sacrificed himself at any rate without the hope of any immediate effect. The Susians had not the least interest in the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the king. If the Achæmenids were no longer their masters, so much the better, inasmuch as they now enjoyed that mild dominion, which Herodotus himself ascribes to the Magians. In the narrative of the conspiracy two factors are obviously combined. Otanes is the originator, Darius joins the band later, but has already resolved to slay the Magi. Supported by Gobryas he urges immediate action, and indeed forces the conspirators to act by the threat that, if there is any delay, he will himself reveal the conspiracy, while Otanes, both in the deliberation, and on the way to the palace, is in favour of delay. It was obviously the effect of the poem to bring plainly into light the merit which, on the one hand, Otanes and the five conspirators, and on the other Darius, had earned in the great achievement of the overthrow of the Magi, and to apportion a part of it to each section. The eminent position which the poem allots Otanes is explained by the advantages and privileges which the house of Otanes enjoyed in Persia above the other tribal princes, and which were attributed to the part which he took in the removal of the dominion of the Magi.[199 - Herod. 3, 83, 84, and below, p. 221, 222.] According to Herodotus Otanes was the son of Pharnaspes, and his sister Cassandane was the wife of Cyrus, the mother of Cambyses and Smerdis. He was thus the uncle of the king and of Smerdis; and he was also the father-in-law of the king, for his daughter Phaedyme was among the wives of Cambyses. This is the account of Herodotus. But we have convincing evidence that Otanes was not the son of Pharnaspes. As the father-in-law of Cambyses he was sufficiently near the throne to take a leading part in the action. Hystaspes, the father of Darius, had already been sent back by Cyrus from his camp on the Jaxartes (p. 115), according to Herodotus, in order to keep watch over his son Darius. In Herodotus Hystaspes is now overseer of Persia, and his son comes to Susa, to slay the Magians with his own hand. In another passage Herodotus himself relates that Darius was sprung from the family of the Achæmenids; Hystaspes was the son of Arsames, who was the son of Ariaramnes, the brother of Cambyses I. the father of Cyrus.[200 - Herod. 4, 83; 5, 25, 30.]

It is a fact that Darius was sprung from the younger line of the house of Achæmenes. The elder son of Teispes, the son of Achæmenes, was Cambyses I., and the younger son was Ariaramnes. His son was Arsames, who was the father of Hystaspes, the cousin of Cambyses.[201 - Vol. V. 326 n.] When the older line became extinct in Cambyses, the younger should have ascended the throne in the person of their head Hystaspes, but the Magians usurped it. What could be more natural than that Hystaspes and Darius should take the lead in overthrowing the usurper, and winning back the crown which had been taken from them. As the future head of the tribe of the Pasargadae, the future heir to the throne takes the lead, and we may find in his six associates the remaining six tribes of the Persians. We know that they had the privilege of marriage with the house of Achæmenes, and of free entry to the king; the tribal princes also wore the upright kidaris, like the king (V. 328). Hence Darius could say in Herodotus: "Who will refuse entrance to us, the chiefs of the Persians?[202 - Herod. 3, 72, 77.]" And any one who should do so "would at once show himself to be their enemy;" hence, as Herodotus relates, the seven, by divine guidance, arrived at the palace.

Thus far does tradition carry us; but the inscriptions of Darius enable us to go a good step farther. "The dominion, which Gaumata the Magian took from Cambyses, belonged of old to our family," so king Darius tells us. "My father was Vistaçpa, the father of Vistaçpa was Arsama, the father of Arsama was Ariyaramna, the father of Ariyaramna was Chaispis, and the father of Chaispis was Hakhamanis. This Gaumata lied. He said: I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus; I am king. There was no one, either Mede or Persian, or of our family, who had taken the dominion from Gaumata the Magian.[203 - Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 7, "to say;" so Oppert ("Peuple des Mèdes," p. 110) after the Turanian version; on the other hand Mordtmann in "Z. D. M. G." 16, 37 gives, "to undertake."] The people feared him; he put to death many people who had known Bardiya, to prevent its being known that he was not Bardiya the son of Kurus. No one made any attempt against Gaumata the Magian, till I came. Then I called Auramazda to my aid; and Auramazda assisted me. There is a citadel, Çikathauvatis by name, in the land of Niçaya in Media; there with men devoted to me I slew Gaumata the Magian and his chief adherents. This was in the month Bagayadis, on the tenth day. I slew him, and took from him the dominion. By the grace of Auramazda I became king. Auramazda transferred the kingdom to me; I restored the dominion which was taken from our tribe. The places of worship (the houses of the gods in the Babylonian version) which Gaumata the Magian destroyed, these I preserved for the people. I gave back to the families what Gaumata had taken from them. What had been carried away I placed where it had been before. By the grace of Auramazda I did this. I laboured till I placed this race of ours again in its position. As it was before, as though Gaumata the Magian had not robbed our family, so I arranged it again.[204 - Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 81 ff.; Oppert, loc. cit. p. 121.] These are the men who were present at the time when I slew Gaumata the Magian, who called himself Bardiya; these men helped me at that time as my adherents: Vindafrana (Intaphernes in Herodotus), the son of Vayaçpara, a Persian; Utana (Otanes), the son of Thukhra, a Persian; Gaubaruva (Gobryas), the son of Marduniya (Mardonius), a Persian; Vidarna (Hydarnes), the son of Bagabigna, a Persian; Bagabukhsa (Megabyzus), the son of Daduhya, a Persian; Ardumanis, the son of Vahuka (Ochus), a Persian."[205 - Herodotus gives Aspathines or Aspathenes; the inscription on the tomb of Darius mentions Açpachana as holding an honourable office near the person of the king.]

As has been shown, Gaumata had seized the dominion on Persian ground. He had first shown himself to the Persians as their master: "He caused Persia to revolt," is the recapitulation in the inscription of Behistun. The statement of Herodotus that he remitted for a certain period the tribute, which the provinces had to furnish yearly in the form of presents, and announced that for some years to come they need not expect anything from distant wars, cannot be called in question. He had every reason to make his rule acceptable, and the treasures of Cyrus at Pasargadae were no doubt still large enough to enable him to dispense with the tribute for some years.[206 - Herod. 3, 67.] The inscription of Darius and the tablets at Babylon (p. 195), establish the fact that not the satraps only, whom Cyrus and Cambyses had set up, and the population of the subject lands, but even the army of Cambyses which had gone with him to Egypt and returned after his death, recognized the Magian as king. As Herodotus says, Gaumata succeeded so that all nations wished his reign back when he had fallen, except the Persians. Most remarkable is the passage in the inscription of Darius according to which Gaumata had destroyed the places of worship or the houses of the gods. How could a man, who claimed to be the son of Cyrus, begin by attacking the existing mode of worship, which Cyrus had practised and protected, without annihilating himself? Or was it the Magian tendency in him, which sought to bring the stricter forms observed by the priests into universal observance, and establish uniformity of worship? Or does Darius merely mean that Gaumata had allowed the temples of the subject nations to fall into ruin (Cyrus and Darius took them under their care). This is probably the meaning of the obscure passage in the Persian text; the Babylonian version shows that temples of the gods are spoken of, and these the Persians and Medes did not possess.

The murder of Smerdis cannot have remained an entire secret. The murderer or murderers knew it, and the relatives, the members of the house of Achæmenes, the servants and women, cannot have been deceived by the resemblance for any length of time. The narrative of Darius tells us plainly, "that Gaumata put to death many men in order that it might not be known that he was not the son of Cyrus." There is no doubt that Cambyses, when dying, acknowledged his deed, but only to the Achæmenids and the six tribal princes. Darius was with Cambyses in Egypt. From Herodotus we learn that he secretly sent messages to the satraps at the time of the rule of the Magians[207 - Herod. 3, 139, 126, 127.]. Hence he knew of the fact, and, as was fitting, he urged the overthrow of the Magian before all others. Why the younger line of the royal house and the tribal princes of the Persians did not come forward immediately after the death of Cambyses – why they did not call on the Persians to rise against the Magians – on these matters we can only make conjectures, which however are of a suggestive kind. One obvious reason was that the declaration that the throne had been usurped, and the rising of the Persians which would have followed such a declaration, would have thrown the kingdom into the most violent convulsions. This would have given the subject nations the choice of taking up arms for their favourite, the usurper, or for their own independence; it would have given them the right, and the Medes above all, of throwing off the existing rule. Could they venture to renew the dangerous war, which Cyrus had waged against the Medes, which had been so long undecided, and had brought the Persians into the greatest distress, in which they had conquered only after the most severe efforts? Who would guarantee a happy issue to the new conflict? And if the Medes were really conquered for the second time, would not the conflict with them be the signal for the other nations to revolt on their part also? In this way the kingdom of Cyrus would be completely disorganized. Thus Hystaspes and Darius and the princes of the Persians hesitated; and contented themselves with coming to a secret understanding with the satraps. So long as the royal house and the six princes remained silent, the pretended son of Cyrus was compelled to spare the Achæmenids and the tribal princes in order to play his own part, but their silence on the other hand declared the Magian to be the legitimate ruler, and the longer that they were silent the more securely did they establish his throne. This position of affairs was the more difficult for the Achæmenids, because Gaumata, as we are told in the inscription, removed his residence from Persia to Media. He was aware no doubt that his deception could not be long maintained against the Persians and the satraps. In Media, therefore, he was more secure than in Persia, for in Media the Magians formed a numerous and exclusive order. If the Persians rose against him his best support against them was the Medes; if the deception had to be dropped, the rising of the Persians would pass into a war between the Persians and Medes.

From the important position which the authority of Herodotus assigns to Otanes, and the peculiar honours subsequently paid to him and his family, we may perhaps assume that it was he more than any other, who, with the fixed resolution not to endure the dominion of Gaumata, pointed out at the same time the unavoidable consequences of an armed rising of Persia. Instead of shattering the central power with their own hands, he must have advised his confederates to get it into their own power, and with this object in view he proposed the removal of the Magian, the surprise, and assassination in the citadel. There would be time for an open conflict if the assassination failed. Darius, who was then about thirty-five,[208 - See below, p. 229.] was younger and more hasty; he may have insisted on a sudden decision and have been more inclined to use open violence. Finally, the princes of the Persians united with Darius in the attempt to assassinate the king. It is obvious that the consultations and deliberations which led to this resolution took place among few, and in the greatest secrecy. It was necessary to avoid observation and suspicion; they must not go in a company. The son of Hystaspes might take a message from his father to the king, and the chiefs of the Persian tribes might accompany him. They were the chosen councillors of the king, and had the right of free entry to him. Ought they to despair of this because they had not been summoned to the council? If they had had confederates in the palace of Gaumata, as Ctesias suggests, it would have been the most foolish rashness to go to Media in such small numbers. That Darius accomplished the deed with six associates only, as he himself tells us, proves that they could reckon on obtaining an entrance for these seven only, and that the king dared not refuse it to them. His false assertion that he was an Achæmenid, and the king of the Persians, must have been his ruin; it compelled him to admit the seven; at any rate the guards of the palace had no orders to the contrary. The upright tiara, which the Persian kings, the descendants of Achæmenes, and the princes of the remaining six tribes wore, and which Plutarch suggests was the mark of recognition among the conspirators (Polyaenus states this for a fact[209 - Plutarch, "Praec. gerend. reip." c. 27; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 12.]), pointed out Darius and his associates to the body-guard as having the right of free entrance. It was not, as the Greeks thought, a mark of distinction given to the six after the deed, but, as we have seen, a distinction which they possessed, along with others, from the time of Achæmenes, and the arrangement of the Persian constitution. The six princes of the Persians, and at their head the eldest son of the lawful successor to the throne, Hystaspes the prince of the seventh tribe, or Pasargadae, were resolved to attack the pretended king in his palace in Media, and risk their lives to maintain the throne in the hands of the Persians. We must look for the citadel of Çikathauvatis in Niçaya between Kermanshah and Elvend, at the southern foot of the mountain overlooking the pastures of the Nisæan horses. If the attempt failed Darius and his companions could hardly escape. But the father of Darius and two younger brothers (Artabanus and Artaphernes) were alive and in safety. They could avenge the fall of the conspirators, and by taking up the struggle openly, attempt to succeed where craft had failed. In the struggle, as in the previous consultation, the source from which Herodotus has drawn represents Gobryas as the leading person next to Darius. He is the first whom Otanes admits to the secret; he always votes with Darius for immediate action; he seizes one of the two Magians – obviously the king himself – whom Darius then slays. Gobryas was the chief of the Pateischoreans, who dwelt next to the Pasargadae on Lake Bakhtegan, and the father-in-law of Darius, to whom his daughter had already borne three sons.[210 - Herod. 7, 2; Behist. 4, 84; 5, 7, 9. N. R. c.]

The bold resolution to attack the usurper in the midst of Media and cut him down with his adherents in his palace succeeded. If Herodotus tells us that when the princes after the assassination called the Persians together, and showed them the heads of the Magians, the Persians also drew their swords and slew all the Magians who came in their way, the truth is that the only Persians before the citadel of Çikathauvatis in the Median district of Nisaea would be the servants of the Persians who accompanied them there. The question was not the slaughter of the Magi; such a massacre would have been the most foolish thing that could have been done. The Persians who attended the princes had no other duty than to enable their masters to escape from the citadel in case of failure, and in case of success to prevent the servants of Gaumata, who may very likely have been for the most part Magians, from dispersing, and to cut them down, to avail themselves of the overthrow of the guard in order to disarm them. The supposed slaughter of the Magians has arisen from the festival, by which the Persians celebrated the day of the assassination of the Magian, the tenth of Bagayadis.[211 - G. Rawlinson's view, which he gives in an excursus to his Herodotus (2, 548 ff.) – that the Magian was not a Mede, I accept, as I have observed, p. 191. Darius says in the inscription of Behistun that neither a Persian nor a "Mede" had risen against Gaumata, and moreover, that he had recovered the dominion which had been taken "from his tribe" and "race." But in no case was it a question of a religious conflict, but rather to avoid a new struggle between Media and Persia. On the passage 3, 14 in the inscription all that need be said has been given already (p. 216).]

Five days after the death of the Magian the seven took counsel together, as Herodotus relates, on the state of affairs. Otanes was of opinion that the government should be handed over to the whole body of the Persians, that it was not well that one should rule over them. Megabyzus represented oligarchy; the best men should form the best resolutions. Darius spoke in favour of monarchy. In an oligarchy enmities arise, and out of enmities rebellions and struggles, which lead to monarchy. In democracy baseness forces its way in, and the base gather together till a man arises who can reduce them to order; he is then admired by the people and raised to be their ruler. A man had given freedom to the Persians, and it was not well to set aside the laws of the fathers. Then Otanes said: "Fellow-conspirators, it is obvious that one of us will be king, as we are leaving the choice to the Persians either by lot or in some other manner. But I do not seek the throne with you: I wish neither to be a ruler, nor to be ruled over. I leave the dominion to you on the condition that neither I nor my descendants shall be subjects to you." The six agreed, and Otanes remained apart; to this day his family is the only free family in Persia, and is governed only so much as it pleases, provided that it does not transgress the laws of the Persians. The others resolved, that if the monarchy came to one of them, Otanes and his descendants should each year receive a Median robe and the gifts of highest honour usual among the Persians, because he had been the first to entertain the idea and had called them together. For the whole seven they resolved that each should have the right of entering the palace without announcement, whenever he would, and the king should not be allowed to take a wife from any but the families of the conspirators. The throne was to go to the man whose horse, when in the suburbs of the city, should be the first to neigh at the rising of the sun. In the night Oebares, the groom of Darius, led his horse along the road, on which the six would ride in the morning, to a mare which he had previously caused to be brought there. When the princes rode out next morning, as had been agreed upon, the horse of Darius neighed at the place where the mare had been brought to him in the night, and at the same moment there was thunder and lightning in a clear sky. Then the five sprang from their horses and did homage to Darius. And when Darius was established on his throne, he set up a picture in relief on stone representing a man with a horse, and underneath it he engraved the words: "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, by the help of his horse and his groom Oebares, came to be king over the Persians."[212 - Herod. 3, 80-88.]

In Pompeius Trogus we are told: "The conspirators were so equal in valour and noble birth, that it was difficult for the people to elect one of them to be king. But the conspirators themselves devised an expedient which left the decision to religion and good luck. They resolved to ride early in the morning to a particular place before the citadel; and he whose horse was the first to neigh at the rising of the sun, was to be king. For the Persians regarded the sun as the only deity, and horses as sacred to him. Among the conspirators was Darius the son of Hystaspes." After narrating the trick of the groom in the same manner as Herodotus, our excerpt continues: "The moderation of the others was so great that when they had received the sign from the gods (Justin speaks only of the neighing, not of the thunder and lightning), they at once sprang from their horses and greeted Darius as king. The whole people followed the decision of the princes and made him their king. By such a trivial circumstance did the monarchy of the Persians, which was won by the valour of the seven noblest men, come into the hands of one person. It is extraordinary that those who risked their lives to wrest the throne from the Magians, should have resigned it with such readiness, though it is true that in addition to the nobility of form, and the valour, which made Darius worthy of the throne, he was also related by blood to the ancient kings."[213 - Justin. 1, 10.] The excerpt from the account of Ctesias tells us: "Sphendadates (p. 208 ff.) had reigned seven months (i. e. after the death of Cambyses). Of the seven Darius became king because his horse first neighed at the rising of the sun, which was the sign agreed upon among them; but it was induced to neigh by a certain trick and stratagem. Since then the Persians celebrate the slaughter of the Magians on the day on which Sphendadates the Magian was slain."[214 - Ctes. "Pers." 14.]

An election to the throne was not a matter of necessity after the fall of the Magian. The older line of the royal house, the descendants of the elder son of Teispes, had become extinct with Smerdis and Cambyses; the younger line had the right to ascend the throne. The head of this line was Hystaspes. We not only learn from Herodotus, that he was still alive, the inscription of Behistun mentions his achievements after his son ascended the throne. The father gave place to the son, just as the father of Cyrus had given place to his son in the rise of the Persians against Astyages. Hystaspes abandoned the throne in favour of his eldest son. This renunciation, in case of success, must have taken place before Darius set out to Media, when the son went with the princes of the Persians to succeed in the work of liberation or to perish. These princes were in a position to salute Darius as king immediately after the fall of the Magian. A sign from the gods could only be required to show that the son would be accepted in the place of the father. It was more important to prove to the Medians, the inhabitants of Nisaea, that the new ruler who took the place of the murdered prince had done so with the will of the gods, that Darius had seized the crown with the will of Auramazda and Mithra. We know the sacred horses and chariot which the Persians kept for the god of the sun and of light. The lucky neighing with which the horse on which the new king was mounted greeted the rising of the sun on the seventh day after the death of the Magian, put it beyond doubt that the act was just, that the new ruler of Persia was under the protection of the far-seeing Mithra, the god of truth, the destroyer of lies. The narrative of the trick of Oebares is no doubt a Greek invention. In the mind of the Persians it would have deprived the divine signal of any importance. In the narrative of Herodotus it is quite superfluous, for not only does the horse neigh but thunder and lightning occur in a clear sky. The name of the groom, Oebares, does not improve the story or make it more credible; it is merely a repetition of the name of that most faithful and energetic counsellor and helper of Cyrus, who first, himself a fortunate omen, meets him in the foreign country, and carries horsedung towards him, and afterwards assists him to victory and the throne (V. 346). As regards the equestrian picture, which, according to Herodotus, Darius set up in honour of his horse and his groom, Darius had certainly no interest in announcing to the kingdom that he had won the throne by deception. No doubt Darius left splendid monuments behind him. He may also have caused the divine consecration and confirmation of his kingdom to be engraved upon a rock, but the inscription to the picture certainly did not mention the deception, or the inventor of it and his service.

Herodotus represents the conspirators as consulting about the best form of government on the sixth day after the assassination, no doubt because the opinion existed among the Greeks, that the Persians had a custom by which anarchy was allowed to prevail for five days after the death of the king, not as a sign of mourning, but in order to learn by experience what an evil anarchy was.[215 - Sext. Empir. "Adv. Rhet." 33 in Stein, Herod. 3, 80.] The best form of government might be discussed in Hellas, but it could not be discussed in Persia, and least of all in the citadel of Çikathauvatis. Herodotus himself observes, that these speeches were incredible to some of the Greeks, but that nevertheless they were made;[216 - Herod. 6, 43.] he even recurs to the subject, supporting the story on the fact that Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, had removed the tyrants from the cities of the Ionians and set up democracies there. Herodotus exaggerates what was done in the year 493 B.C. in order to support his story of this discussion; if Mardonius established democracies, Otanes may have represented this form of constitution in the council of the seven. At that time tyrannies were not preserved in the Greek cities to the extent that the princes of Miletus, Histiaeus and Aristagoras, raised the sign of rebellion for the Ionians on purely personal grounds. Hence after the rebellion had been crushed, tyrannies were not fully restored in these cities. But the tyrants who remained faithful to Persia, like Aeaces of Lesbos, and Strattis of Chios, were replaced on their thrones. Strattis was ruler of Lesbos in the time of Xerxes. Even after Mardonius had visited the coast of Anatolia, Hippoclus and Aeantides ruled over Lampsacus; the Pisistratidæ in Sigeum; Demaratus obtained Teuthrania, Halisarna, and Pergamum; Gongylus, Gambrion, Myrina, and Gryneum; Theomestor in the reign of Xerxes was tyrant of Samos; in Herodotus' own city the descendants of Lygdamis retained the throne. To renew the tyrannies in their old extent, when they were intended to keep in subjection Greek maritime cities of considerable power without Persian garrisons was not necessary after these cities had been so greatly weakened by the suppression of the rebellion.[217 - The evidence in support of this will be found in the Greek History.]

The legend of the discussion of the seven as to the best form of constitution has grown up out of the privileges of the six tribal princes, who as a fact formed an aristocratic element in the Persian constitution (V. 329), and out of the peculiar immunities enjoyed by the house of Otanes; the Greeks traced both one and the other back to the assassination of the Magians. From the immunities, and supposed self-government of this house, the Greeks concluded that Otanes must at that time have pronounced for the freedom and self-government of the Persians, and Herodotus represents him as consistently democratic, and taking no part in the election to the throne. In the discussion the defence of monarchy was naturally assigned to the future occupant of the throne.

CHAPTER XIV

THE REBELLIONS IN THE PROVINCES

One of the boldest deeds known to history had been accomplished, one of the most marvellous complications had been severed by a remarkable venture. At a distance from their home and people, six Persians, led by a prince of the royal house, had attacked and cut down the pretended son of Cyrus, in his fortified citadel, when surrounded by his adherents, after he had reigned for more than ten months (Spring 521 B.C.[218 - Above, p. 195, n.]). An Achæmenid again sat on the throne of Cyrus. Whether the removal of the usurper and the sudden proclamation of Darius on the soil of Media had really prevented the ruin of the kingdom, as it was intended to do, and whether it would produce the results which the Achæmenids and the princes of the Persians expected from it, was a question, which, in spite of the success, still remained to be settled. It was true that the resumption of the struggle with the Medes for the sovereignty was for the moment avoided, but that the accession of Darius brought the whole kingdom into obedience to his power had still to be shown. Undeniable facts prove that even in the last years of Cambyses the bonds of obedience were relaxed. The satraps of the provinces had been able to rule over their provinces independently. This had been rapidly followed by two violent changes in the succession, which seemed to promise success to further usurpation. The various nations were quite satisfied with the rule of Gaumata. Their favourite chief had been slain; they were now called upon to obey his assassin, whose reign betokened the return of the severer rule. Neither in Media nor in Babylon did men forget the state of affairs before Cyrus; scarcely eighteen years had elapsed since Babylon had been taken by Cyrus. The nations of the kingdom were in agitation.[219 - Herod. 3, 67, 126, 150.]

Elated by the success of his venture, in the full vigour of his life, – according to Herodotus Darius had scarcely reached the thirtieth year, and according to Ctesias the thirty-sixth year of his age,[220 - He was, according to Herodotus, twenty years old at the death of Cyrus. Herod. 1, 209; 3, 139. Ctesias ("Pers." 19) gives Darius a reign of thirty-one years and a life of seventy-two. That the reign of Darius lasted thirty-six years is fixed both by the astronomical canon and Egyptian inscriptions, which mention the thirty-sixth year of Darius; and lastly by the Egibi-tablets of Babylon, which give dates out of thirty-five years (with the single exception of the seventh year). "Transact. Bibl. Arch." 6, 69 ff. According to Ctesias, Darius would be thirty-six years old in the year 521 B.C.]– the new ruler seemed equal even to the heaviest tasks. The boldness of his resolution, the daring nature of the advice which he had given, were favourable indications that he possessed the power to keep the kingdom of Cyrus together. While he could not but direct his gaze in the most eager expectation to the nations of the empire, he found in his immediate proximity, among the associates in the deed of Çikathauvatis, an independent and rebellious spirit. A remarkable indication proved that the princes of the Persian tribes, to whose devotion he owed the throne, who had risked as much as himself, were for that very reason inclined to regard themselves as more on an equality with the new king, and to pay less respect to his authority. Soon after the assassination of the Magian, Intaphernes, one of the six Persian princes, who had lost an eye in the conflict with the Magians, came one day into the palace to speak with the king. But the doorkeepers and servants would not admit him because the king was with one of his wives. Intaphernes thought that this statement was false, and that the new king intended to refuse to the Persian princes the ancient right of free entry; he drew his sword, cut off the ears and noses of each of the two servants, strung them on the reins of his bridle and hung them round their necks. In this act of violence Darius could only see extreme contempt for the royal dignity, and the most severe outrage of it in the persons of his servants; he was convinced that it was the announcement of a rebellion. He did not venture to step in and punish at once; he could hardly assume that Intaphernes would have done such an action without an understanding with the other chieftains; they had intended, no doubt, to humble the king, and now that they had helped him to the throne, they wished to take up a different position towards the ruler whom they had raised from that which they had occupied towards Cyrus and Cambyses. It was not till Darius had questioned each of the princes separately, and ascertained that Intaphernes had acted independently, that he caused him to be thrown into prison with his sons and all his family. He desired, no doubt, on this first opportunity to show the chiefs of the Persians their master, and his intention was naturally carried out with oriental cruelty. Regardless of the services of Intaphernes and the wound which he had received, he was to be executed and all the males of his house with him; the entire stock of this princely family was to be annihilated. The entreaties of the wife of Intaphernes only prevailed so far as to save from death her brother and her eldest son, so that the race could at least be kept in existence.[221 - Herod. (3, 118, 119) puts this event; αὐτίκα μετὰ τὴν ἐπανάστασιν.]

Still more dangerous, though at a greater distance, appeared to be the attitude of a satrap who ruled over wide regions. Oroetes had been made satrap of Lydia and Ionia by Cyrus. In the last year of Cambyses he had enticed Polycrates of Samos to Magnesia into his power, and had caused him to be executed there, in order to bring about the subjugation of Samos. When called upon by Darius to declare against Gaumata he had paid no heed to the command, but had availed himself of the confusion to assassinate Mitrobates the satrap of Phrygia, who resided at Dascyleum, and possess himself of that satrapy. He now ruled from Sardis to the Halys. After the accession of Darius, so far from obeying his commands to appear at the court, he cut down the messenger who brought them. It was obviously his intention to establish an independent kingdom in Asia Minor. It did not appear possible to crush him without an open struggle, and the beginning of this would be a signal of revolt for many others. Darius summoned the chief of the Persians, and asked if any one could remove Oroetes out of the way. In the narrative of Herodotus not one only but thirty offered themselves for the venture. They cast lots, and the lot fell on Bagaeus the son of Artontes. Provided with the necessary letters from the king, he went as an extraordinary commissioner to Sardis. The garrison of the citadel at Sardis in which Oroetes resided consisted of a thousand Persian lance-bearers. Bagaeus caused a communication from Darius to be read to these troops in the presence of Oroetes. They showed respect for the letter and the royal seal, and expressed a willingness to obey the king's commands. As soon as Bagaeus had convinced himself of their feeling, he read an order from Darius in which the lance-bearers were forbidden to obey Oroetes any longer. They at once placed their lances on the ground. Encouraged by this, Bagaeus immediately read the last order, in which Darius bade the Persians at Sardis to put Oroetes to death. This command also was executed on the spot. It was a rapid success, and an extremely fortunate event for Darius. Asia Minor from the Halys to the Aegean was brought under his authority at a single blow.

Herodotus only remarks in passing, that the Medes revolted from Darius, but were conquered in the battle and reduced again to submission.[222 - Herod. 1, 130.] He relates the rebellion of the Babylonians at greater length. Since the accession of the Magian the Babylonians had secretly prepared to throw off the yoke of Persia. They put to death all the women in the city who were not mothers, leaving only a childless wife and another woman in each household, that their provisions might not fail, and when Darius brought up his forces, and invested Babylon, they made merry over the siege and danced behind their towers. A whole year and seven months passed away, and Darius tried every art and invention in vain, including the means by which Cyrus had taken the city and many others, but the Babylonians were strongly on their guard, and it was impossible to take the city. In the twentieth month, Zopyrus the son of Megabyzus, one of the men who had taken part in the assassination of the Magian, appeared before the throne of Darius with his nose and ears cut off, his hair shaved, and his body covered with blows from a whip. Distressed to see one of the most distinguished men in such a condition, the king sprang up and asked who had done him such an irreparable injury. It was intolerable, Zopyrus answered, that the Assyrians should mock the Persians any longer; he had not acquainted the king with his design that he might not prevent him from carrying it out. It was his intention in this plight to seek admittance into the city and to tell the Babylonians that the king of the Persians had treated him thus. He thought that they would believe him, and entrust him with the command over a division. On the tenth day after his reception into the city, Darius was to place a thousand men of the troops which he valued least against the gate of Semiramis; on the seventeenth two thousand against the gate of Ninus; on the thirty-seventh four thousand against the gate of the Chaldæans. If he achieved great successes against these troops the Babylonians would no doubt entrust everything to him, even the keys of their gates. Then Darius was to attack the city on all sides, and place the Persians against the gates of Belus and the gate of the Cissians. "Zopyrus set forth, gave his name at the gate, pretended to be a deserter, and demanded entrance. The guards led him before the council of the city. He lamented the treatment which he had received from Darius because he had advised him to lead away his army, inasmuch as there was no way of taking the city. He could do them the greatest services, and Darius and the Persians the greatest harm, for he knew their plans in every direction. The Babylonians seeing the most distinguished Persian without nose or ears, covered with stripes and blood, listened to his words, and believed that he had come to aid them; and they were ready at his request to allow him the command of a division." At the head of his Babylonian soldiers Zopyrus cut down the three troops on the days agreed upon. "Then Zopyrus was all in all to the Babylonians; they elected him general and keeper of the walls of the city, and when Darius, as had been agreed upon, stormed the city on every side, and the besieged repulsed their opponents in every direction, Zopyrus opened the Cissian gate and the gate of Belus to the Persians and brought them into the city. The Babylonians who saw this fled into the shrine of Belus, but the others fought on in their ranks till they perceived that they had been betrayed. Thus Babylon was recovered, and Darius now did what Cyrus had neglected to do at the time of his conquest; he destroyed the walls, tore down the gates, impaled nearly three thousand of the leading men, and gave the city to the remainder for a habitation. In order that they might have wives and posterity, Darius commanded each of the neighbouring nations to send a number of women to Babylon; in all there were 50,000, and from these the present inhabitants of the city are descended. In the judgment of Darius no one had ever done greater service to the Persians than Zopyrus, with the exception of Cyrus, with whom no Persian could be compared. It is also asserted that Darius was wont to say that he would willingly lose twenty Babylons, if Zopyrus might be restored from his mutilated condition. He held him in great honour, gave him each year the presents which are most honourable among the Persians, conferred on him for his life the government of Babylon free of all tribute to the king, and a great deal besides."[223 - Justin repeats the narrative of Herodotus in a rhetorical form; he incorrectly regards Zopyrus as one of the seven. Diodorus attempts to unite the statements of Herodotus and Ctesias, by maintaining that Zopyrus was also called Megabyzus; the "twenty Babylons" are reduced to ten. (Exc. Vat. p. 34, 35 = 10, 19.) In Herod. (4, 143) Darius wishes when he opens the finest pomegranate that he had as many Megabyzuses (the father of Zopyrus is meant) as the fruit had seeds. Plutarch transfers this to Zopyrus, and represents Darius as saying that he would rather have Zopyrus uninjured than 100 Babylons; "Reg. Apophthegm." 3. In Polyaenus (7, 12), Zopyrus imitates the device which Sirakes, a Sacian, had previously employed against Darius, and opens the gates of Babylon to the Persians by night.]

Megabyzus, the son of Daduhya, who aided Darius in putting the Magian to death, and his descendants, were only too well known to the Greeks, and more especially to the Athenians. Megabyzus conquered Perinthus, and reduced Thracia and Macedonia beneath the Persian rule. The son of this Megabyzus was Zopyrus, to whom Darius, according to the narrative of Herodotus, owed the capture of Babylon; the son of Zopyrus was Megabyzus the younger, who in the year 455 B.C. inflicted on the Athenians in Egypt one of the heaviest defeats which they ever experienced; they lost more than 200 triremes, and nearly the whole of the crews, for those who escaped to Cyrene were few in number.[224 - Thucyd. 1, 104, 109, 110; Diod. 11, 71, 74, 75, 77; 12, 3; Isocr. "De Pace," 82.] From the marriage of this Megabyzus with the daughter of Xerxes and Amestris, the granddaughter of Otanes, sprang the younger Zopyrus, who broke with Artaxerxes I. after the death of his parents, retired to Athens after 440 B.C., and afterwards, when attacking the city of Caunus in Caria with Attic troops – the city belonged to the Attic league but had withdrawn from it, and it was necessary to reduce it – was killed by a stone thrown from the walls.[225 - Ctes. "Pers." 44. The paidagogos of Alcibiades was no doubt named after this Zopyrus. Plutarch, "Lycurg." c. 16; Alcib. c. 1; Kirchhoff, "Enstehungszeit," s. 15.] Hence the achievements of the princely family, who were the forefathers of the deserter – of his father Megabyzus, his grandfather, the elder Zopyrus, and his great-grandfather – were peculiarly interesting to the Greeks. The minute account which Herodotus gives of the greatest act of the older Zopyrus must be derived from information which he obtained in Athens either from the younger Zopyrus or from his retinue, and these would relate what the minstrels of the Persians had sung of the sacrifice made by the elder Zopyrus for the great king and the kingdom. We can trace a poetical source in the mocking of the besiegers, and the saying connected with it. A Babylonian cries to the Persians, "Why do you sit there? Why do you not retire? Ye will take the city when mules bring forth." A mule belonging to Zopyrus does bring forth; this sign, showing that Babylon can be taken, determines Zopyrus to mutilate himself, when he had previously ascertained from Darius that the king attached the greatest importance to the capture of the city. The massacre of the women of the Babylonians must also be poetical. Herodotus himself tells us that the Babylonians had prepared their rebellion for a long time, ever since the Magian had ascended the throne. Thus they had at least a year before the investment of the city in which to furnish it with provisions, and the adjacent country was most fruitful; moreover, the walls of Babylon enclosed a very large extent of arable and pasture land (III. 382). We may conceive of such wholesale massacre as an act of desperation in consequence of a long siege; but in the account of Herodotus it took place before the city was invested, and is one of the preparations of the Babylonians. It is not until he has heard of the massacre of the women that Darius sets out against Babylon. Not less remarkable are the definite numbers of the troops, which Zopyrus with the Babylonians cuts down on the appointed days. The names of the five gates mentioned in the narrative seem to show exact local knowledge. But though a gate in Babylon might be named after Belus, and another "the gate of Elam" (the Cissians); no gate in that city could have been named after the Chaldæans, or Ninus, or Semiramis. So far as the inscriptions of Babylon have been deciphered, the names of the gates were different.[226 - E. g. Ménant, "Babylon," p. 204; Oppert. "Expéd." 1, 187, 223.] As the forms of Ninus and Semiramis and their history do not belong even in the remotest degree to Babylonia and her history, but are rather shown to be inventions of the Medo-Persian Epos, these two gates which are named after them point to the Persian source from which the narrative of Herodotus was derived. More incredible even than the massacre of the women at the beginning of the rebellion is their replacement after the capture by the 50,000 women whom Darius causes the neighbouring nations to send to Babylon. Darius had no reasons for assisting a city which had maintained itself against him for more than twenty months, the walls and gates of which he had broken, and at the same time, as Herodotus himself tells us, had executed the leading men, 3000 in number, by a cruel death. His interests lay in precisely the opposite direction.

Darius himself informs us about the rising of the Babylonians and their subjugation. "When I had slain Gaumata, there was a man Atrina, by name, the son of Upadarma, who rebelled in Susiana. He said to the people: 'I am king in Susiana.' Then the inhabitants in Susiana became rebellious; they went over to Atrina; he was king in Susiana. Moreover there was a man of Babylon, Naditabira by name (Nidintabel in the Babylonian text), the son of Aniri; he rebelled in Babylon. He deceived the people thus: 'I am Nabukadrachara (Nabukudurussur), the son of Nabunita.' Then the people of Babylon went over entirely to Naditabira; he seized the throne in Babylon. After this I sent (an army?) to Susiana; Atrina was brought in fetters before me; I slew him. Then I marched to Babylonia against Naditabira, who called himself Nabukadrachara. The army of Naditabira maintained the Tigris, and occupied the river with ships; his whole power protected the Tigris.[227 - So according to the Babylonian text in Schrader, "Keilinschriften," s. 345.] Auramazda came to my aid; by the grace of Auramazda I crossed the Tigris, and severely defeated the army of Naditabira. On the 26th of the month of Athriyadiya (on the 26th of the month Kislev), then it was, that we gave battle. After this I marched against Babylon. When I went against Babylon, there is a city, by name Zazana on the Euphrates, there this Naditabira, who called himself Nabukadrachara, had come with an army to give me battle. Then we joined battle. Auramazda came to my aid; by the grace of Auramazda I severely defeated the army of Naditabira. The enemy was driven into the water; the water carried him away;[228 - Oppert after the Turanian text: "I slew much people from the army of Nidintabel, and drove others to the river; they were drowned in the river."] on the second day of the month of Anamaka, then we joined battle. Then Naditabira went with a few horse to Babylon, and I went to Babylon. By the grace of Auramazda I took Babylon and captured Naditabira. Then I slew Naditabira at Babylon. While I was in Babylonia these provinces revolted: Persia, Susiana, Media, Assyria, Parthia, Margiana, the Sattagydæ, the Sacæ."[229 - The Turanian version mentions Egypt after Assyria. In the inscription nothing is said of this country; no Egyptians are found in the rows of the conquered rebels.]

The inscription shows that the inhabitants of Elam gave the signal for revolt, that their leader Atrina attempted to raise once more that ancient kingdom 125 years after its fall. Nabonetus (Nabunahed, Nabunita), the last king of Babylon, had been sent by Cyrus to Carmania and had died there (p. 89). A man, who gave himself out to be his younger son, took the lead of the Babylonians, and once more called into existence the revered name of Nebuchadnezzar. He had time to collect an army, and considered himself strong enough to meet the Persians in the open field. On the eastern border of the ancient kingdom, on the Tigris, he awaited the attack of the Persians; he brings armed ships to the place, that they may facilitate his defence of the right bank, and make it difficult for the enemy to cross the river. The Elamites were overpowered, their leader captured and slain. The heavier task of reducing Babylon was undertaken by Darius himself. The army which he led was obviously the same as that which conquered Susiana; it consisted of Persians and Medes, as is shown by the sequel of the inscription. Darius had to open the campaign against the new Nebuchadnezzar in the same manner in which Cyrus nineteen years previously had begun his war against Nabonetus. He had first to cross the Tigris. This was done, and Nebuchadnezzar retired in a slanting direction across Babylonia to the Euphrates, closely pursued by Darius. On the Euphrates he was again defeated, and his people were driven in part into the river, but he was not cut off from the city as Nabonetus had been by Cyrus; he was able to reach the protection of the walls of Babylon. We know their powers of resistance. The Persians had crossed the Tigris at a place where it is not more than 100 miles distant from the Euphrates, i. e. not far below the Median walls; for the battle on the Tigris was fought on the 26th (or 27th) of Athriadiya, and six days after, on the 2nd of Anamaka, the Babylonian army suffered its second defeat on the bank of the Euphrates at Zazana. As Athriadiya coincides with the Kislev (November-December) and Anamaka with the Tebet (December-January) of the Babylonians (p. 195), the rebellion of Babylonia must have taken place in the summer and the investment of the city in the last weeks of the year 521 B.C. The inscriptions tell us nothing of the length of the siege. On the other hand we have five tablets from the reign of the rebel, Nebuchadnezzar III., all dated from Babylon, and bearing the name of the same witness. They date, in the time of this king, from Kislev 20, to the next Tisri and Marchesvan, i. e. from November-December of the year of the battles down to October-November of the next year.[230 - The two Egibi-tablets quoted by Boscawen in "Trans. Bibl. Arch." 6, 68, on Nebuchadnezzar III. have been rightly ascribed by Oppert, relying on the names of the witnesses, to the later rebellion of Arakha.] The inscription of Behistun allows that all the central lands of the kingdom, not excepting Persia, rebelled against Darius during the siege. It follows therefore that success at Babylon was long enough delayed to awake the hope that Darius would be checked before Babylonia, and defeated there. The twenty months of Herodotus would carry us from the end of the year 521 B.C. to the autumn of the year 519 B.C.

The rebellion made head everywhere. In spite of the day of Çikathauvatis, the kingdom was going to ruin. The position of Darius was desperate. The longer the siege, the more fixed the belief that he could not succeed, the greater was the progress of the revolt. If he raised the siege to turn against the rebels, that was a proof that he could not conquer Babylon; the confidence of the rebels in their fortunes would be increased, and the army discouraged with which he had conquered on the Tigris and the Euphrates, with which he stood in personal relations, and which he had drawn into close connection with himself. On this army the kingdom rested; it remained yet loyal in the camp at Babylon. The deed in Nisaea had been best confirmed by the fact that Media recognized Darius as king, that he had been able to summon the Median contingent to the field, and by his successes to connect the Median army with himself. "The Persian and Median army which was with me remained faithful; the Median nations which remained at home, revolted" – so we learn from the inscription.[231 - Cf. Schrader, "Keilinschriften," s. 346.] Darius perceived that he must not weaken the only support which he had in this difficult crisis, or remove it by his own act. He judged the situation correctly, and remained before Babylon in spite of bad news which was brought to him from all sides. But the resistance was not less stubborn than the attack. It seemed as though the new reign of Darius must come to an end before Babylon. Could it continue beside the defection of the Medes, Parthians, Hyrcanians, Margiani, Sagartians and Sattagydæ, the Armenians, Assyrians, and Susiani, the rebellion of the Persians themselves? Was it possible to check the outbreak of the storm of ruin in the face of the indomitable resistance of Babylon? Only in the distant east and west were there glimpses of light. The satraps of Arachosia and Bactria, Vivana and Dadarshis, remained loyal to Darius and kept their lands in obedience. Asia Minor was quiet; if Darius had not succeeded in removing Oroetes at the right moment, these regions also would have taken up arms against Darius either under him or under some native ruler.

The account of Darius allows us to see that the recently-subdued Susiani were the first to rebel when Darius was delayed at Babylon. After them the Medes rebelled, in order to renew the struggle for the sovereignty between Persia and Media; this was followed in the east by the rebellion of the Sattagydæ, the Parthians, the Hyrcanians, the Margiani, the Sacæ; in the west the Armenians and Syrians took up arms. Finally, even the Persians held out a hand to the subject nations for the overthrow of the kingdom and their own dominion. Vahyazdata, a Persian of the tribe of the Utians (V. 323), declared himself to be the legitimate ruler; the brother of Cambyses was alive; he was no other than Bardiya, the son of Cyrus. The Persians believe him; this second pretender finds many adherents.

The inscription is as follows: "There was a man, by name Martiya; he dwelt in the city of Kuganaka in Persia; he revolted in Susiana; and said to the people: 'I am Ymani, king in Susiana.' There was a man, Fravartis (Phraortes) by name, a Mede. He revolted in Media, and said: 'I am Khsathrita of the family of Uvakhshathra' (Cyaxares). The Median nation then became rebellious towards me; they went over to Fravartis; and he was king in Media. Thereupon I sent an army. I made Vidarna, a Persian, my servant, the general, and said to them: 'Go down and smite the Median army which does not call itself mine.' Then Vidarna marched out. When he came to Media, he fought a battle with the Medes at Marus, a city in Media. By the grace of Auramazda the army of Vidarna conquered that rebellious army on the (twenty-seventh) day of the month Anamaka (of the month Tebet).[232 - Schrader, loc. cit. s. 346. The day of the month belongs to the corresponding Babylonian month Tebet.] There was a district Campada (Cambadene) in Media; there my army awaited me. The Parthians and Hyrcanians became rebellious to me, and joined Fravartis. Vistaçpa, my father, was in Parthia; the people left him and revolted. Then Vistaçpa took those who adhered to him and marched against the rebels. On the 22nd day of the month Viyakhna Vistaçpa, by the grace of Auramazda, defeated the rebels near the city of Viçpauvatis in Parthia. I sent my servant, Dadarshis by name, an Armenian, to Armenia. When he came to Armenia, the rebels gathered together and marched against Dadarshis to give battle. By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated the revolted army near Zuza in Armenia, on the 6th day of the month of Thuravahara. The rebels marched against Dadarshis a second time. Near the fortress of Tigra in Armenia on the 18th of Thuravahara my army defeated the rebellious army; they slew 526 of them, and took 520 prisoners.[233 - Mordtmann, loc. cit. s. 75; Schrader, loc. cit. s. 347.] A third time the rebels marched against Dadarshis. Near the fortress of Uhyama in Armenia my army defeated the rebellious army on the 9th day of the month Thaigarshis. There Dadarshis waited till I came to Media. A man, by name Chitratakhma, revolted from me. 'I am king of Sagartia,' he said to the people, 'of the race of Uvakhshathra' (Cyaxares). There is a province Margiana (Margu) by name which revolted from me. They made a man of Margiana, Frada by name, their leader. Against him I sent Dadarshis (Dadarsu) a Persian, my servant, the satrap of Bactria. There was a man, Vahyazdata by name, in the city of Tarava, in the district of Yutiya in Persia; he said to the people: 'I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus.' The Persian nation revolted from me. He was king in Persia. This Vahyazdata, who called himself Bardiya, sent an army to Arachosia against the Persian Vivana, my servant, the satrap of Arachosia."

The rebellion of Phraortes (which took place in the summer of 520 B.C.) was the more dangerous because it was undertaken with the obvious intention of restoring the independence of Media under a scion of the old native royal house, and the name of Cyaxares could not but excite and give new life to national memories among the Medes. Whatever troops Darius could spare, and for this purpose he could only use Persians, he sent under the command of the tribal prince Hydarnes, his associate in the assassination of the Magi, against the Medes, at the same time despatching Dadarshis an Armenian to Armenia, to check the advance of the rebellion there, and mainly, no doubt, to prevent the alliance of the Armenians and the Medes. A whole year after Darius had begun the investment of Babylon, on the 27th day of Anamaka (December-January, 520 B.C.), Hydarnes encountered Phraortes at Marus. He did not obtain any great success. He had to content himself with maintaining against Phraortes the district of Cambadene in the south of Media. In the west of Media, Dadarshis had no better success against his Armenian compatriots. When he had fought two battles, of no great importance, if we are to judge from the losses of the rebels in one, in one month (on the eight and eighteenth), and a third in May (Thaigarshis) of the year 519 B.C., he was compelled to retire to a fortress named Uhyama. In Parthia, to the east of Media, Hystaspes the father of Darius, who was expected to keep these regions of the kingdom in obedience, was not in a position, with the forces at his disposal, to prevent the defection of the Parthians, Hyrcanians, Margiani, and Sacæ. He contented himself with the attempt to prevent the combination of the Parthians and Hyrcanians with Phraortes, and to limit as far as possible the spread of the rebellion. He only succeeded in retaining a part of the Parthians in obedience. The battle at Viçpauvatis (in Viyakhna, i. e. in March, 519), made it possible for him to maintain himself in Parthia, but was far from giving him the control of the land. The troops and generals sent by Darius were not able to prevail against the rebels; in Media and Armenia they were reduced to the defensive, and the same was the case with Hystaspes the father of Darius in Bactria. This collapse of the kingdom and general rebellion was used by a Persian of the tribe of the Utians (Yutiya[234 - Above, Vol. V. 323. The district of Otene belongs no doubt to Armenia. Steph. Byz. sub voce.]) in order to win over the Persians once more with the name of Bardiya, and to wrest them from the rule of Darius. Vahyazdata must have found a considerable following in Persia, and his successes must have been important, since he could attempt to extend his dominion to the east over Carmania and Arachosia, and to send an army to Arachosia in order to win this province also from Darius.

The position of Darius before Babylon was hopeless. The danger increased every day, and there was still no prospect of winning the city. We may certainly believe the narrative of Herodotus that Darius left no means untried to reduce it, that he repeated the device of drawing off the water of the Euphrates into the basin of Sepharvaim, by which Cyrus had attained his object twenty years previously; the Babylonians had been taught by that siege to be on their guard in this direction. The account of Darius does not tell us how the city was finally taken; he does not mention the name of Zopyrus. The pressure of the surrounding dangers was so great, the hope of taking the city by force so small, that the son of a tribal king might feel himself called upon to sacrifice himself for the king and the kingdom, to adopt desperate measures. That Zopyrus did take a prominent part in the capture of Babylon is clear from the fact, which we do not learn from Herodotus only, that the satrapy of Babylon was given to him, and remained in his hands during the whole reign of Darius and afterwards. He is said to have lost his life in a rebellion of the Babylonians in the reign of Xerxes.[235 - What Herodotus relates of Zopyras, Ctesias relates of his son Megabyzus II. in regard to this new rising, of which we have no more accurate knowledge in any other source, but which must not be called in question. Herodotus himself indicates a rebellion under Xerxes, in which the golden image of Belus was taken away from the lower chamber in the great temple (1, 183), and we have Strabo's statement of the destruction of Belus by Xerxes, p. 738. If Darius, as Herodotus tells us, 3, 159, "destroyed the gates of Babylon," it does not follow that he opened the supposed tomb of Nitocris over the main gateway, because it made it impassable, as Herodotus thinks (1, 187).] We cannot doubt that after the capture Darius proceeded with greater severity against Babylon than Cyrus had done, that the gates were broken and large spaces of the walls thrown down (p. 234). The inscription of Behistun merely mentions the execution of the third Nebuchadnezzar.

After a siege of twenty months Babylon fell in the autumn of the year 519 B.C. Darius tells us further: "Thereupon I went up from Babylon, and marched to Media. The Susiani were overcome with fear, they seized upon Martiya (p. 242), who was their general, and put him to death. When I had reached Media, there is a city, Kudurus (Kunduru) by name, in Media, to which Fravartis marched against me with an army. Then they gave me battle. Auramazda came to my aid. By the grace of Auramazda I severely defeated the army of Fravartis on the 26th day of the month of Adukanis. Then Fravartis with a few horsemen withdrew to the district of Raga in Media. Then I sent an army against them; Fravartis was captured and brought to me. I cut off his nose, ears, and tongue. He was kept in chains at my gate; all the people saw him. Then I crucified him at Hangmatana (Ecbatana), and the men who were his principal adherents I imprisoned in the citadel of Hangmatana. Then I sent a Persian army from Raga to Vistaçpa, and when it had reached him, he marched out with it. There is a city Patigrabana[236 - Vol. V. p. 10, n.] in Parthia, there Vistaçpa severely defeated that rebellious army on the 1st day of the month of Garmapada; he slew 6560 of them, and took 4182 captives. Then the land of Parthia was mine. I sent Vaumiça a Persian, my servant, to Armenia; when he came there the rebels collected to give battle to Vaumiça. At Achitu in Assyria my army defeated the rebels on the 15th day of Anamaka, and slew 2024 of them. A second time they gathered together and marched against Vaumiça. There is a district Antiyara (Otiara) by name, in Armenia; there they fought on the last day of the month of Thuravahara (Yiyar 30). By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated the rebels severely; they slew 2045 and took 1559 prisoners. Against Chitratakhma (the leader of the rising of the Sagartians), I sent a part of the Persian and Median army.[237 - Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 133.] I made Takhmaçpada, a Mede, the general. Takhmaçpada fought with Chitratakhma and my army defeated the rebellious army, seized Chitratakhma, and brought him to me. I cut off his nose and ears, he lay in chains at my gate; all the people saw him. Then I crucified him at Arbira (Arbela in Assyria). Dadarshis, a Persian, my servant, the satrap of Bactria, fought a battle with the Margiani (Frada was the leader of the rising here) on the 23rd day of the month of Atriyadiya. By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated the hostile army very severely. Dadarshis slew 4203 of them, and took 6562 prisoners.[238 - Mordtmann, loc. cit. s. 76, 77; Spiegel, "Altpers. Keilinschriften," Bag. 3, 3; Schrader, loc. cit. s. 351.] Then the land was mine. Vahyazdata, who called himself Bardiya, sent an army to Arachosia against the Persian Vivana, my servant, the satrap of Arachosia. 'Go up,' he said to them; 'defeat Vivana and the army, which calls itself the army of king Darius.' There is a fortress, Kapisakani by name; there they fought the battle. By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated the rebellious army on the 13th of Anamaka. For a second time the rebels marched against Vivana. In the district of Gandutava (Ganduvada) on the 7th of the month Viyakhna, my army defeated the rebellious army. Then the general of Vahyazdata withdrew with his faithful warriors to a fortress, Arsada by name, in Arachosia. Vivana followed him with an army. Then he seized him and slew him and the captains who were with him. I sent out a part of the Persian and Median army which was with me; I made Artavardiya, a Persian, my servant, the general of it; Artavardiya marched to Persia; the rest of the army went with me to Media. When Artavardiya was in Persia, there is a city Rakha (Racha); to this Vahyazdata who called himself Bardiya marched to fight against Artavardiya. Auramazda came to my aid; on the 12th of Thuravahara my army defeated the army of Vahyazdata very severely. Then Vahyazdata went to Pisicauvada. From thence he marched against Artavardiya and gave him battle. There is a mountain Paraga (Parga) by name; there they fought on the 6th day of Garmapada. By the grace of Auramazda my army defeated that of Vahyazdata; and they seized Vahyazdata and also his chief adherents. Uvadaidaya is a city in Persia; there I crucified Vahyazdata and the captains who were with him."

The connection between these various battles is no doubt as follows. When Babylon had fallen in the autumn of the year 519 B.C. and the new Nebuchadnezzar had been executed, Darius set out in the spring of the year 518 B.C. Hydarnes maintained himself against Phraortes on the western border of Media, Dadarshis against the rebels in Armenia, and Hystaspes in Parthia. The new pretender to the name of Smerdis ruled in Persia, and his attempt to gain possession of the lands farther to the east and of Arachosia was first checked by the defeat which he suffered from the satrap of Arachosia in a battle fought in December of the year 519 B.C. In all these directions, in Armenia and Parthia, help was needed, and the decision lay in Persia and Media. Darius did not direct his march against Persia, but against Media. There, as he acutely saw, lay the main strength of the rebellion. His approach terrified the Susiani; they slay their chief, their king Martiya, and submit. Arrived at the border of Media and Persia, Darius divides his army. To make use of the mutual jealousy of the Persians and Medes, and to prevent any contact of his Median troops with their rebellious kinsmen, he sends the Persian Artavardiya with the Median troops to Persia against Vahyazdata, and with the Persians he marches against Phraortes to Media. Hydarnes waited for him at Campada; the first object was to unite the troops. The road from Susiana to Ecbatana ran through the district of Cambadene. When united with Hydarnes Darius overcomes Phraortes in the month of Adukanis (perhaps in June) of the year 518 at Kudurus, pursues him to Ragha, and takes him prisoner. Before he executed him in front of the citadel of Deioces, Phraortes, and Cyaxares, he had cut off his nose, ears, and tongue, and in this condition he had publicly exhibited him in chains, in order to convince the Medes that they had nothing to hope from the supposed scion of Cyaxares. The rebellion of the Medes is at an end. Darius can divide his forces. From Ragha he sends aid to his father Hystaspes in Parthia, and with this additional aid Hystaspes is able to defeat the rebellion of the Parthians in Garmapada, i. e. in the summer of 518 B.C. At the same time Dadarshis had received the support in Armenia for which he was waiting, under the protection of the fortress of Uhyama. The Persian Vaumiça, who brought up the reinforcements for Darius, defeats the Armenian rebels in Anamaka, i. e. in December of the year 518 B.C.; a second victory of Vaumiça, in Yiyar (May) of the following year (517 B.C.), puts an end to the rebellion in Armenia. A third army was sent by Darius after the fall of Phraortes against the Sagartians; which overpowered them and took their chief Chitratakhma prisoner. Meanwhile Artavardiya, whom Darius had sent from Susiana, when on his march against Phraortes, to check the rebellion in the native land, had fought with success against Vahyazdata. The latter had weakened his forces by sending a detachment to Arachosia. Vivana, the satrap of Arachosia, had repulsed their attack in December 519 at Kapisakani, and in March (Viyakhna) of the year 518 B.C. he had entirely destroyed them. This failure in the east was followed in the same spring by the attack of Artavardiya from the west. First defeated in Thuravahara (April) at Racha, Vahyazdata succumbed in the summer (in Garmapada) at Mount Paraga, five days after Hystaspes had again become master of the Parthians in the north-east of Iran. The forces of the satrap of Bactria, the second Dadarshis, had sufficed to put an end to the rebellion of the Margians.

That which the deed of Çikathauvatis, the assassination of Gaumata in the spring of the year 521 B.C., was intended to prevent, had nevertheless happened. The whole kingdom was disorganised. In ceaseless conflicts, which extended over four years, from the autumn of 521 B.C. to the spring of 517 B.C., Darius had reconquered it, step by step. He had been compelled to reduce by force of arms even the very foundation of it, the native land of Persia, and to carry on once more the conflict between Persia and Media. It had been necessary to repeat the achievements of Cyrus, if not to their full extent yet in part under far more difficult conditions. The new king had passed with success through the severest crisis, and had reorganised the kingdom. This was the result of his indomitable persistence before Babylon. By this means he had retained the Medes and Persians of his army in their fidelity, and by the final success had filled them with self-confidence. The fear which afterwards preceded his arms, certainly rendered more easy the decisive victory of Kudurus and at Mount Paraga.

Darius had not yet reached the goal; the kingdom was not entirely pacified. The reduction of Babylon and the execution of Nebuchadnezzar III. had not eradicated the strong impulse which the Babylonians felt to regain their independence. They were once more carried away by the charm which the name of Nebuchadnezzar exercised upon them: "When I was in Persia and Media," so Darius relates at the close of the third column of the great inscription of Behistun, "the Babylonians became rebellious for the second time. A man of the name of Arakha, an Armenian, rose up in the city of Dubana (Dubala, Dibleh?) in Babylonia. 'I am Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonetus,' such was his falsehood: he made himself master of the city of Babylon and was king. I sent Intaphernes, my servant, a Mede, with an army against Babylon. Intaphernes took Babylon, and slew much people. On the 22nd of the month Markazana, Arakha with his chief adherents was captured;[239 - Oppert, "Records of the Past," 7, 104. The date of this rebellion cannot be accurately fixed. The passage in the inscription of Behistun which bears upon it stands at the close of the connected narrative; we should therefore have to assume that it took place in the year 517 B.C., for this passage begins with the words, "When I was in Persia and Media," which in the connection can only have the meaning: When I was occupied with the overthrow of Phraortes and Vahyazdata. On the other hand the Egibi-tablets are wanting for the seventh year of Darius only, so that according to this the year 515 B.C. would be the year of the rebellion of Arakha. Above, p. 240, n.] then I ordered them to be crucified in Babylon." No doubt Darius had left sufficient garrisons in the two royal citadels of the city which he had conquered with so much trouble, and, therefore, it is the more remarkable that Arakha, who did not rebel in Babylon itself, was able to make himself master of the city. We may assume that Darius did not give the Babylonians time to fill up the breaches which he had made in the walls of Babylon; this time the Median Intaphernes must have found the task lighter. The second rising of the Babylonians seems to have seduced the Susiani, and to have caused a third rebellion of this land. In a fifth column, subsequently added to the inscription of Behistun, we have information about this rebellion of the Susiani and the reduction of the Sacæ. But this part of the inscription is so greatly injured that only a few words can be read with certainty. All that is clear is that Gaubaruva (Gobryas), the father-in-law of Darius and one of the Seven, was sent against the Susiani and conquered them, that Darius himself marched against the Sacæ, that he fought against the Çaka tigrakhauda, i. e. against the Sacæ with pointed caps, and conquered them on the sea (i. e. on the Caspian), that he captured and slew their chief Çakunka. Polyaenus has preserved a few details of the war against the Sacæ, though they rest on little authority; they prove that it was carried on in the neighbourhood of Bactria, and was a serious struggle.[240 - Polyaen. 7, 27.] Darius recapitulates the narrative of the achievements of the first years of his reign thus: "This is what I accomplished, what I accomplished always with the grace of Auramazda; I have fought nineteen battles, and taken captive nine kings."[241 - Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 158, inserts at the beginning of this fifth column of the inscription of Behistun before thardam: duvadaçamam, so that we get the meaning; "This is what I have done up to the twelfth year." The eleventh year of Darius ends in spring 510. But chronological dates are not to be obtained by merely emending the text. According to the context and the first line of Col. v. Darius said in reference to the four preceding columns: "This I have done up to this or that year." Then follows the narrative of the new rebellion of the Babylonians and the subjugation of the Sacæ. If the rebellion of Arakha took place in the seventh year of Darius, as Oppert himself assumes, we should rather insert astemam before thardam.]

In remembrance of these deeds and achievements, Darius erected a magnificent memorial in that flourishing district of Media which the Medes called Bagistana, i. e. land of the gods. The Choaspes (Kerkha) rises on the southern slope of the Elvend, on the northern slope of which lay Ecbatana. Breaking through the mountain rim of Iran, it flows down a long and narrow valley towards the south into the Lower Tigris. In its upper course the Choaspes traverses an elevated depression, which is now thickly strewn with villages, the chosen summer abode of the shepherd tribes. To the north this depression is bounded by a steep mountain-chain, twenty miles in length, which ends towards the east in a precipitous wall of rock more than 1500 feet high. On this wall, which looks towards the rising sun, over a clear fountain which springs at the foot of the rock, Darius caused a part of the stone 300 feet above the plain to be made smooth with the chisel, polished and cut in relief; the relief is explained by two inscriptions, a shorter one above and a longer one below, in cuneiform letters. At the foot of the rock there was a park (paradisus) twelve stades in the circuit.[242 - Diodor. 2, 13; 17, 110. Suidas Βαγίστανον ὄρος. Ritter, "Erdkunde," 9, 350.] Being placed in Media, this monument was no doubt intended to remind the Medes that any rebellion against the power of the Persians even under the most favourable circumstances would fail. The rock-picture represents Darius, who in size towers over the other figures. He wears a robe which in front falls down over the knee, and behind to the middle of the calf, a crown, a simple fillet with spikes on his head; rings are on his arms, the hair is long, the beard curled. Behind him stand a bow-bearer and a lance-bearer, both with long robes and beards. The king places his right foot on a man lying on the ground. Below this we can read: "This Gaumata, the Magian, lied: he said, 'I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus; I am king.'" Opposite to Darius, bound to each other by a rope round their necks, and their hands tied behind them, stand nine kings with their heads uncovered (the last only has a very tall pointed cap, which marks him as the king of the Çaka tigrakhauda), clothed in various garments. Over the first form, which is clad in a long beautiful robe reaching to the ancles, we read: "This Atrina lied; he said: 'I am king in Susiana'"; and over the second, in a short robe: "This Naditabira lied; he said thus: 'I am Nabukadrachara, the son of Nabunita, I am king of Babylon.'" Near the third figure, also in a short garment, is written: "This Fravartis lied; he said: 'I am Khsathrita, of the race of Uvakhshathra, I am king in Media.'" The fourth wears Persian clothing: "This Martiya lied; he said; 'I am Ymani, king in Susiana.'" Over the fifth form we find: "This Chitratakhma lied; he said: 'I am king in Sagartia, of the race of Uvakshathra.'" Over the sixth, who is clothed as a Persian: "This Vahyazdata lied; he said: 'I am Bardiya, the son of Kurus; I am king.'" Over the seventh prisoner, who is clothed like the second, we read: "This Arakha lied; he said thus: 'I am Nabukadrachara, the son of Nabunita; I am king in Babylon.'" Over the eighth, who wears Persian garments: "This Frada lied; he said thus: 'I am king in Margiana.'" The ninth stands a little further back; the inscription tells us: "This is Çakunka, the Sacian." The picture does not mention the conquest of the Parthians, Hyrcanians, Assyrians, Armenians, and Sattagydae. In the midst, above the whole description, hovers Auramazda, a solemn, aged countenance, with long hair and beard, visible only to the knees, in a winged circle.

Under this picture, at the close of the fourth column, before the account of the new rebellion of the Susiani and the subjugation of the Sacæ, the inscription tells us: "What I have done, I have done by the grace of Auramazda. Auramazda came to my aid, and the other gods, who did so because I was not hostile; because I was not a liar or violent. Thou, who readest these inscriptions, may they tell thee what I have done. Regard them not as lies. These lands which became rebellious to me, the lie made them rebellious. Thou who wilt be king hereafter, guard against the lie. Punish severely the man who is a liar; if thou keepest this mind, my land will be powerful. Thou who seest this tablet hereafter, destroy it not. If thou preservest it as long as thou canst, Auramazda will be favourable to thee; thou wilt have descendants, and live long, and may Auramazda cause that to succeed which thou dost undertake. If thou destroyest this tablet, may Auramazda smite thee, may he give thee no posterity, and what thou doest may he render vain.[243 - Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 31 ff. Oppert in the "Journal Asiatique," S. 4, VOL XVII., 322 ff., and "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 151 ff., Col. iv. 19. Oppert after a Turanian version above the picture here translates as follows: "Et Darius le roi dit: par la grâce d'Ormuzd j'ai fait une collection de textes ailleurs en langue arienne, qui autrefois n'existait pas. Et j'ai fait un texte de la loi et un commentaire de la loi et la bénédiction et les traductions. Et ce fut écrit et je le promulgai en entier, puis je rétablis l'ancien livre dans tous les pays et les peuples le reconnurent."]"

CHAPTER XV

THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF DARIUS ON THE INDUS AND THE DANUBE

Aeschylus represents the Persians as saying, "A great, prosperous, victorious life was granted to us by destiny, when King Darius, the lord of the bow, Susa's beloved captain, governed the land, without fault or failure, like a god. The Persians called him their divine counsellor: he was filled with a godlike wisdom, and wisely did he, the Susa-born god of Persia, lead our army. We were seen in splendid array; there was ready for him the unwearying might of armed men, and troops mingled from all nations, and the return from the wars was glorious. According to his will, he ruled the wealthy populous cities of the Greeks in the land of Ionia, and the wave-beaten islands of the seas, adjacent to that land, Chios, Lesbos and Samos rich in olives, and Lemnos between both shores, and the cities of Cyprus, Paphos, Soli, and Salamis. Many cities he took adjacent to the Thracian borders on the Strymonian Sea: even the walled cities, far from the shore, obeyed him, and the famous cities on the strait of Helle, on the bay of the Propontis, and the mouth of the Pontus. Beloved hero, thy like lies not in the land of Persia."[244 - "Pers." 555, 644, 654, 852 ff. 900.]

The rebellions were crushed, the kingdom of Cyrus was once more established. Darius took precautions to prevent the recurrence of such serious dangers, and to bring the nations into a lasting state of dependence. He created fixed districts for government, strengthened the action of the central power, secured the necessary means for this, and sought to arrange the taxes and tributes of the provinces and settle them at fixed contributions. Along with this improvement in the organization of the kingdom he kept in sight the extension of it; he did not wish to be left behind Cyrus and Cambyses in this respect. We cannot decide whether the northern boundary of the kingdom reached the Caucasus in the time of Cyrus; it is certain that under Darius the nations between the Black and the Caspian Sea, the Colchians, the Tibarenes, Chalybes, Moschians, and Saspeires, were subject to the Persians. Herodotus observes that the Colchians and their neighbours paid the tribute which they had imposed upon themselves – which implies that these nations submitted voluntarily. "The empire of the Persians," Herodotus tells us, "extends to the Caucasus; the territory to the north pays no heed to them."[245 - Herod. 3, 92-94, 97; 7, 78, 79. Xenoph. "Anab." 5, 4; 7, 8. Arrian ("Anab." 3, 11) mentions Albanians in the army of the last Darius.] It was a considerable gain when the kingdom extended as far as the Caucasus, or included the whole range; for by this means it acquired a strong natural border, and at the same time controlled the trading road which ran from the east and the Caspian Sea through the valleys of the Cyrus (Kur) and the Phasis to the Black Sea.

In the East Cyrus, as we saw, had already advanced as far as the Indus; he had conquered the Açvakas on the north of the Cabul, and the Gandaras to the south of that river. Of their neighbours, Bactria and Arachosia had remained true during the great rebellion, though the Sattagydæ (the Gedrosians) had revolted. Darius had himself marched against the Sacæ, and reduced them again to subjection. Herodotus tells us, that he sent out a party to explore the Indus; in which was Scylax, an inhabitant of Caryanda in Caria. They set out from the land of the Pactyes (i. e. from Arachosia), and from the city of Caspatyrus (Cabul) they followed the course of the Indus to the sea. Then they sailed to the west, and in the thirtieth month they arrived at the point from which the Phenicians started, who sailed round Africa at the command of Necho (III. 313), i. e. they did not return to the Persian Gulf but sailed round Arabia, and landed in the north-west corner of the Arabian Gulf at Heroonpolis. After their return Darius made use of this sea, and subjugated the Indians.[246 - Herod. 4, 44.] The extension of the Persian kingdom in the land of the Indus, by Darius, is beyond a doubt. In the inscription which he caused to be engraved on Mount Behistun after the suppression of the rebellions, he enumerates the nations which obey him. We can find but one name of an Indian nation to the right of the Indus – the Gandaras. The inscription of the palace of Persepolis, which Darius built a few years later, mentions the Idhus, i. e. the Indians, besides the Gandarians. Herodotus further informs us that it was the Northern Indians whom Darius had subjugated. They formed the twentieth satrapy of his kingdom, while the Gandarians were united with the Arachoti in the seventh satrapy. The twentieth satrapy of Northern Indians comprised the lands to the north of Cabul, on the right bank of the stream, from the land of the Açvakas as far as the summits of the Himalayas. It paid 360 talents of gold, the highest tax among all the satrapies of the kingdom.[247 - Vol. IV. 384.]

In the west Darius pursued even more extensive plans. If Cambyses had trodden the soil of Africa, his armies were to cross the western sea, and carry the empire of Persia into Europe – a point which none of the great warrior princes of the east had as yet reached. Diodorus tells us, that Darius, filled with eager desire to extend his dominion, master of almost all Asia, and trusting to the magnitude of the Persian power, desired to conquer Europe as his ancestors had defeated the mightiest nations with less forces.[248 - Exc. Vatic. p. 35 = 10, 19, 5.] The first achievement of Darius in this direction was the conquest of Samos, the most powerful and prosperous of the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Oroetes had already prepared the way for this by inviting Polycrates to Magnesia and there putting him to an ignominious death, for when Polycrates was master of Samos and at the head of the splendid naval power which he had created he could contest with Persia the possession of the Ægean (p. 143, 231). Polycrates had left the most trusted of his dependents, Maeandrius, as regent during his absence. On the news of the death of Polycrates, he declared his willingness to lay down his power. But when the nobles of Samos demanded an account of the treasures of Polycrates which were in the hands of Maeandrius, he treacherously seized those who made the demand, threw them into prison, and maintained himself as tyrant. At an earlier time, Polycrates, in close union with his two brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson, had made himself master of Samos: he then removed the former out of his path, and sent the second into banishment. Syloson went to Egypt to amuse himself with the sights of the country. There, according to Herodotus, he was one day seen by Darius, who was then in Egypt with Cambyses, in the market-place of Memphis, clad in a red cloak. The cloak pleased Darius and he wished to purchase it, but Syloson hastened to offer it as a present to the Persian prince. When Darius became king, Syloson went to Susa, as Herodotus relates, placed himself at the gate of the palace, and told the door-keeper that he had done a service to the king. Darius in astonishment at such an assertion from a Greek, caused Syloson to be brought, remembered the cloak, and was prepared to reward the gift by a liberal present of gold and silver. But Syloson urged the king to restore him to the throne of Polycrates, which was now in the hands of a man who had been a slave in his family; the island was to be spared.[249 - Herod. 3, 139, 140.]

Whether this narrative has any real foundation or not (in any case Susa must be struck out) Darius found it advantageous to get Samos into his power; and, as we have seen, it was a maxim from the time of Cyrus to set up princes in the maritime cities and the islands, who owed their power to the Persians, and who could only maintain it with their help. He commanded Otanes, whose service in the assassination of the Magi we know, to cross over into Samos. The Samians had no inclination to fight in the cause of Maeandrius, nor did they venture to resist the Persians. When Otanes landed with the Persian troops, Maeandrius with his dependants retired into the citadel, and sent a message to Otanes that he was prepared to quit the island. When this had been agreed upon, the captains of the Persians waited without suspicion before the citadel for the departure of Maeandrius and his associates, and for the opening of the gates. Then the half-witted brother of Maeandrius, Charilaus, who had been confined in prison in the citadel, burst forth from the open gates with the old mercenaries of Polycrates and fell upon the nearest Persians, who in reliance on the treaty were unprepared for an enemy, and cut the captains down, while Maeandrius passed by a subterranean passage to the sea, and embarked on board ship. The mass of the Persians hastened to the rescue; the mercenaries were driven back into the citadel. Enraged at the treachery, Otanes gave the command to cut down all the Samians who fell into the hands of the Persians both within and without the walls. The city was set on fire, and the flames injured the temple of Hera, which was the largest building in Greece after the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. When the citadel had fallen, Syloson received from the Persians (516 B.C.) the ruined city and the desolate island. He enjoyed the throne but a short time, which he had purchased by the ruin of the flourishing country, and vassalage to the great king.[250 - Herod. 3, 141-149. Paus. 7, 5, 4, ff. Heracl. Pont. Fragm. 10, ed. Müller.] The island recovered from the blow which it received from the Persians. Twenty years after the subjugation it could once more equip and man 60 triremes.

The possession of Samos completed the dominion of Darius over the coasts of Anatolia. It was of greater importance to get into his power the two straits which separate Europe from Asia – the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. If the Greek cities on the Asiatic side were subject, the cities and lands beyond were still to be conquered, and with the conquest of these the Persian empire would set foot in Europe. Perinthus, a colony of the recently-conquered Samos, Selymbria on the northern shore of the Propontis, and Byzantium on the Bosphorus, both colonies of Megara, recognised the dominion of Darius; in Byzantium, the most important of these cities, a tyrant, Ariston by name, soon took the lead.[251 - Herod. 4, 138.] The European shore of the Hellespont, the Thracian Chersonesus, had been for more than forty years under the rule of a princely family, which sprang from Attica. One of the oldest noble families in Attica, which had retired from the country before the usurpation of Pisistratus in 560 B.C. – the Philaidae, had established a principality there, by protecting and securing the Doloncian Thracians in the peninsula against their fellow-countrymen the Apsinthians, who dwelt at the mouth of the Hebrus. The position which the first of these princes, Miltiades II., thus obtained in the Hellespont, filled the city of Lampsacus, which lay opposite, on the Asiatic shore, with jealousy and anxiety for her trade; the question in dispute was the control of the busy strait. Lampsacus waged long and vigorous war against Miltiades and his nephew and successor Stesagoras. The latter was followed by his younger brother, Miltiades III. (about 518 B.C.), who had taken the reins of government tightly in hand. The forces of the little principality did not suffice to offer resistance to the Persians; and the walls of Sestos and Cardia were insufficient. We hear of no resistance, and Miltiades passed into the series of Persian vassal princes. In this way he was secured against Lampsacus and Sigeum also, where Pisistratus, in league with Polycrates of Samos, had placed his younger son Hegesistratus as prince about the year 533 B.C., who became a vassal of Persia when Cambyses demanded ships from the Greek cities, or after the fall of Polycrates, or certainly when Darius extended his sovereignty over Samos.

By the subjugation of Byzantium and the Thracian Chersonesus, Darius was not merely master of the whole of the important trade of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and the cantons of Hellas, with the north shore of the Black Sea, but the path into Europe was in his hand. According to Ctesias, he bade Ariamnes, his satrap in Cappadocia, sail to Scythia and there make prisoners. Ariamnes carried out the command with thirty penteconters, and brought back captives.[252 - Ctes. "Pers." 16.] If the statement is correct, it must refer to an investigation of the north coast of the Black Sea, similar to that made by Darius of the east on the Indus (p. 260), and at a later time of the coasts of Hellas and Magna Graecia.[253 - At a later time Xerxes caused Sataspes to sail round Africa.] Darius contemplated a great expedition; he wished to cross the straits with a large force, but not to pass to the west against Macedonia and the cantons of the Greeks, but to the north beyond the Danube. It must have seemed more important to him to secure himself in the north first; the conquest of the west he regarded as less urgent, and also as a less important undertaking. Herodotus tells us that Darius' object was to avenge the incursion which the Scythians made, at the time of Cyaxares, into Media.[254 - Herod. 4, 1.] It is his manner to connect events by a nexus of guilt and punishment; Darius cared very little for the disaster which had fallen on Media. We shall be more correct in ascribing to him the intention of getting the whole shore of the Black Sea into his power, in order that he might reduce the western and northern coasts, when, the south-west, as far as the Caucasus, being already subjugated, the whole sea would be a Persian lake. On the northern edge lay a district fertile in corn, and flourishing colonies of the Greeks. With this territory and these cities the Persian kingdom would have gained the mouth of the rivers of the north, and the outlet of the trading roads to the nations of the north, as it had already got command of the trading roads which met from the east and west in Colchis. But what really happened to the north of the Danube, so far as we can fix the incidents, does not agree with this plan. The object of the enterprise, unless we assume that Darius only wished to carry his arms to the most remote nations, cannot be made clear, nor can we follow with certainty all the phases in it.

If Cambyses had supported his expedition against Egypt by the navy of the Phenician cities and the Greek cities of Anatolia, Darius had still more urgent need of their sailors to convey him to Europe, across the Danube. To the mariners of the Anatolian coasts and the islands lying off them, the waters of the Black Sea and the mouths of the Danube and Borysthenes were hardly less familiar than the shores of the Ægean. This co-operation was therefore the most essential. Darius called out the navy of the Greek cities of his kingdom, and that navy only; employment was found for the Phenician fleet was another direction. The Greeks had to furnish no less than 600 triremes, i. e. a fleet of which the crews reached the total of 120,000 men. That fleet was intended to convey the land army, the levy of the entire kingdom, across the straits, and it must assemble before the army arrived. The task before it was the transport of 700,000 men, for that, according to Herodotus, was the strength of the army of Darius, with numerous horses, and the enormous train of servants, porters, and beasts of burden to Europe. This involved the embarkation and debarkation of the animals, – a long and difficult operation; it was desirable to lose as little time as possible, and more desirable still to keep and maintain a safe connection with Asia in the rear of the army. Hence Darius considered whether it were possible to bridge over one of the straits. He found a Greek who undertook to carry out this idea, and had no scruples in building a bridge to connect the mighty Persian empire with Europe, and facilitate the subjugation of his own countrymen in their native land. In the island of Samos, so recently conquered by Darius, were the best engineers in Greece. After the construction of the great temple of Hera had been begun, the Samians had found various opportunities of exercising their skill. A long and difficult acqueduct, and breakwaters for the protection of the harbour, had been partly begun and partly carried out before the reign of Polycrates; the building of the palace, the strong fortifications, and, above all, the great docks and harbour-works, which Polycrates set on foot, had given yet further practice to the Samians. From this school came Mandrocles, who undertook the construction of the bridge.

Darius commanded Mandrocles to build a bridge over the Bosphorus, which lay in the direction of his march. This strait was narrower than the Hellespont, but the current which sets through it from north to south was much stronger. Mandrocles began the structure with the crews and materials of the fleet which had been ordered to assemble.[255 - Herod. 4, 85, 87.] Several hundreds of ships, fastened together, were placed in the strait,[256 - 360 triremes and penteconters were used for the bridge of Xerxes. Herod. 7, 36.] and carefully anchored against the north wind and the current. On the coast of Asia, the bridge lay to the north of the city of Chalcedon and in its territory; Herodotus supposes that the European end touched the shore between Byzantium and the temple, which, situated to the north of Byzantium at the mouth of the Pontus, served as a signal to the ships entering the Bosphorus.[257 - Herod. 4, 87.] Polybius remarks that the bridge "was said" to end at the Hermaeum, which lay on the promontory of the European shore.[258 - Polyb. 4, 39.] Strabo places this temple ten stadia to the south of the northern entrance of the Bosphorus.[259 - Strabo, p. 319, 320. Opposite the temple of the Chalcedonians on the mouth of the Pontus, which was sacred to Zeus Urias (now Anadoli Kavak), there lay on the European shore also on the mouth of the Pontus a temple of the Byzantines which later authors call the Serapeum (now Rumili Kavak). Scyl. "Peripl." 67.] Hence we may assume that Mandrocles constructed his bridge across the narrowest part of the strait, about 1000 paces in breadth,[260 - Herodotus allows the Bosphorus a breadth of four stades; Strabo in one passage mentions four, in another five; p. 125, 319. Modern authors do not agree in their measurements (Grote, "Hist. of Greece," 5, 26), but give about 1¼ mile, i. e. above 5000 feet for the narrowest part, and five miles for the widest. For the narrowest place most authorities allow about 3900 feet, i. e. 6½ stades; cp. Kruse, on Herodotus' measurement of the Pontus, s, 41. On the other hand, Moltke ("Briefe," s. 82) gives the following: At the northern mouth between the light-houses, 4166 paces; at Tell Tabia, 1497 paces; between the castles, 958 paces.] and that it lay at the place where the castles of Anadoli Hissari and Rumili Hissari now stand opposite each other.

The army was collected, the bridge was ready, when Darius came to Chalcedon. He inspected the bridge, and was greatly pleased with the construction; he embarked on board ship and proceeded for some distance into the Pontus, then he returned to the temple of Zeus Urius on the shore of Asia, at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and looked out into the sea. Before his wishes and his power, and the skill of his Greek engineer, the impossible had become possible; the Bosphorus was compelled to submit to a bridge. Mandrocles received the most valuable presents. The fleet of the Ionians lay on the Black Sea, when the army, which was the greatest that a Persian sovereign had ever brought together, commenced the passage. The train was interminable which filed before the king over the sea; the rock on which Darius sat was pointed out for a long time afterwards. Even "shepherd Sacæ, of the race of the Scythians, the children of a nomad race," passed over the bridge;[261 - "Anapl. P. E." frag. 35. Choerilus, in Strabo, p. 303.] the nomads of the steppes of the Oxus were led by Darius against the nomads of the steppes to the north of the Pontus. In remembrance of this passage Darius caused two columns of white stone to be erected on the European shore, which recorded the names of all the nations included in the army; the inscription on one side was in the Persian cuneiform (in Assyrian letters, as Herodotus says), and on the other in the Hellenic language and letters. Mandrocles also was proud of his work, and dedicated a picture which represented the bridge, the army crossing it, and Darius sitting on his throne, in the great sanctuary of his city, the temple of Hera at Samos, with the following inscription: "When Mandrocles bridged the fish-teeming Bosphorus, he dedicated this picture to Hera in remembrance of the floating bridge. He obtained the crown, the glory of the Samians, in that he completed the work to the satisfaction of King Darius."[262 - Herod. 4, 88.]

It was in the year 513 B.C. that the armies of Asia trod the soil of Europe.[263 - The chronology of the conquests of Darius is not easy to fix. In Herodotus the campaign against Samos is contemporaneous with the rebellion of the Babylonians (3, 150). If Darius had had armies at his disposal from Samos there, he would not have needed to send Bagaeus. The expedition to Samos must be placed after the end of the rebellion, i. e. at the earliest in the year 517, and it cannot be put later than a year at the least before the Scythian expedition, since the ships of Samos, led by Syloson's son, take part in that expedition, and in addition to Samos the cities of the Bosphorus are in the hands of the Persians before that event. The expedition to investigate the shores of Greece, in which Democedes took part, is placed by Herodotus before the attack upon Scythia. This is improbable, because the experience which Darius gained in the Scythian expedition, and which made it seem desirable to put the command in Persian hands, preceded this expedition. There is nothing to point to it before the expedition; it first becomes intelligible when Darius had resolved to change his plan of conquests in the north for conquests in the west, and had given Megabyzus orders to subjugate the coasts of Thracia on the Ægean, – when Megabyzus had advanced to the Strymon and Macedonia had recognised the sovereignty of Persia. On the other hand, the investigation of the Greek coasts cannot be put much later than 512, since Milo of Crotona, who is still of great influence in that region, as Herodotus himself remarks (3, 137), betroths his daughter to Democedes. This influence Milo retained only as far as the year 510 or 509; for soon after the victory over Sybaris and the destruction of the city, which took place 511 or 510 B.C., the rising against Pythagoras and the aristocracy took place; they were overthrown and expelled. In Herodotus the Scythian expedition comes after the capture of Babylon (4, 1). We have seen from the inscriptions (p. 254), that there were two rebellions of Babylon, and that they cannot have come to an end before the close of the year 517. Now Samos was subjugated before this Scythian expedition; moreover Byzantium and the Chersonese must have been in the hands of the Persians; at least a year must have been occupied with the preparations required to bring 700,000 men to the Bosphorus, and with the preparations for building the bridge (Herod. 3, 83). Hence the campaign cannot have commenced before the year 515 B.C. and it cannot be put later than 510 B.C. Miltiades is already master of the Chersonese when Darius crosses the Danube; according to Herodotus it is the Pisistratids (not Hippias) who sent him there. Hence Miltiades was master of the Chersonese before 514 B.C., the year in which Hipparchus was murdered. Again, when Miltiades has to retire from the Chersonese before the return of Darius, he does not go to Athens, from which it follows that Hippias was still tyrant in Athens. Thucydides tells us that when Hippias, after the murder of Hipparchus, was looking about for alliances he married his daughter to Aeantides, the son of Hippoclus, tyrant of Lampsacus, because he saw that Hippoclus was in great repute with Darius. This influence Hippoclus must have gained in the Scythian expedition; he led the ships of his city to the Danube and voted for remaining there. Hence this expedition must be put some time before 510 B.C. If we allow two years for the battles of Megabyzus in Thrace, and the march of Bubares to Macedonia after the Scythian war, and place, as is natural, the expedition to the coasts of Hellas, which falls in the year 512 B.C., after these acquisitions, we might keep to the year 515 for the Scythian expeditions. But as the Indian conquests precede the Scythian war, the year 513 B.C. seems still better. The expedition to Barca is, in Herodotus, contemporaneous with the conflicts of Megabyzus against those "who were not of Median opinions" (4, 145). This contemporaneous date is supported by the fact that Greek ships only, and not Phenician, are ordered to the Danube, and to support the communications of Megabyzus with Asia, – a circumstance which is best explained by the absence of the Phenicians in the African expedition. Moreover, Justin (19, 1) speaks of an embassy of Darius to Carthage at the time when this city was engaged in a conflict with Doreus of Sicily (Herod. 5, 45-48; 7, 165; Diod. 4, 23). Such an embassy, which could only be sent to demand a recognition of supremacy or union in war against the Greeks, was first suggested when the Persians reached as far as the Euhesperides and Persia became a neighbour of Carthage, i. e. after the expedition to Barca. The colony of Dorieus on the Eryx was planted between 510 and 508; he had previously taken part in the battle on the Traeis in 311 or 510 B.C. The embassy of Darius to Carthage would therefore be subsequent to the campaign to Barca and the expedition of Democedes, and the years 513 and 512 seem most suitable for the first. From the inscriptions of Darius it is clear that the inscription of Persepolis, when compared with the inscription of Behistun, enumerates more subject lands. The former speaks of the Ionians of the continent and the Ionians of the sea (daraya), while the inscription of Behistun merely mentions the Ionians. By the Ionians of the sea we are to understand the newly-subjugated Greeks of Samos, the Greek cities on the Bosphorus and Propontis. Moreover, the inscription of Persepolis, as already mentioned, speaks of Idhus (p. 260), while the inscription of Behistun speaks of Gandaras only. It follows from this that the first undertakings of Darius after crushing the rebellion were the wars in the east, the conquests of Samos and the Greek cities on the straits. This is established by the statement of Herodotus that the Indians were included in the first division into satrapies – which he places soon after the accession of Darius – but the islands and the Thracians were added later on. The palace at Persepolis must therefore have been built about the year 515 B.C. after the war upon the Indians and the expedition to Samos, after the subjugation of the strait, but before the campaigns against Scythia and Barca. The Scythian campaign falls in the year 513, the conquests of Megabyzus and Otanes in 512, the campaign against Barca in 513 and 512, the expedition for the investigation of the Greek coasts in 512 or 511. The inscription on the tomb of Darius does not mention Ionians of the continent and Ionians of the sea, but Ionians merely in one case, and then Yauna takabara, i. e. Ionians who wore locks, by whom may be meant the Greeks of Lemnos and Imbros, the Greek cities of the Thracian coast, and the Macedonians, i. e. the regions which were first subjugated after the Scythian campaign. It will be made clear below that the last names in the inscription on the tomb are to be explained of African tribes, i. e. of the result of the expedition against Barca. By the Çkudra, mentioned on the inscription, we may understand the Thracians; in the place of the Çaka who are mentioned without any addition at Behistun and Persepolis, the sepulchral inscription has three kinds of Çaka: —Çaka humavarka, who must be interpreted to mean the Amyrgian Sacae of Herodotus; Çaka tigrakhauda, i. e. Sacae with pointed caps; and finally Çaka taradaraya, i. e. Sacae beyond the sea, who must be the Scoloti.] The fleet was ordered to sail along the Thracian coast in the Pontus, then to enter the mouth of the Danube, and there prepare means for the army to cross the river, by procuring supplies, and constructing a bridge, no easy task considering the breadth and rapidity of the stream. The sovereigns of the Greek cities, who owed their elevation to the Persian king, commanded their ships in person, as Darius had taken the field in person, or entrusted them to their sons. Thus Histiaeus the son of Lysagoras, the sovereign of Miletus, which was the most powerful of the Greek cities of the coast, commanded his own ships, Laodamas the ships of Phocaea, Aeaces the son of Syloson the ships of Samos, Strattis the ships of Chios, Aristagoras the ships of Cyzicus, Metrodorus those of Proconnesus in the Propontis, Daphnis the ships of Abydus. The ships of Lampsacus were in the charge of Hippoclus, those of Parium in the charge of Herophantus; and lastly, the sovereigns of the recently-conquered districts, Ariston and Miltiades, commanded the ships of Byzantium, of Sestos, and Cardia. While the fleet sailed to the Danube, the land army marched for two days from the coast, to the north, in the direction of the Balkan. At the sources of the Tearus, which no doubt are those of the Simir dere, which near Bunar Hissar send up warm and cold springs – thirty-eight in number according to Herodotus – the army rested three days; Darius caused a monument to be erected with an inscription, which Herodotus gives thus: "The springs of the Tearus supply the best and purest water of all rivers, and to these on his march against the Scyths came the bravest and most handsome of men, Darius the son of Hystaspes, the king of the Persians and of all the mainland."[264 - Herod. 4, 89-91.]

The tribes of the Thracians, through whose districts the expedition marched, submitted without opposition. These were the inhabitants of the region of Salmydessus; the Odrysae in the valley of the Artiscus (i. e. the Teke deresi or Nessowa), the Skyrmiads and Nipsaeans, who dwelt near Apollonia, the Greek city on this coast (a colony of Miletus, now Sizepoli), and Mesembria, now Misivri (a colony of the Greeks, planted soon after the other).[265 - Herod. 4, 90-92. "Geographical Journal," vol. 24, p. 44 ff, where is also to be found the report of General Jochmus on the supposed inscription in cuneiform letters and on the stone-heaps, which, according to Herodotus, the soldiers of Darius piled up at Artiscus.] It was not till the Persians had passed the heights of the Balkan that they found resistance. Between this range and the Danube were the Getae, called by Herodotus the most brave and just of all the Thracians. They offered an obstinate resistance, but were nevertheless at once crushed by overpowering numbers.[266 - Herod. 4, 93, 94; Strabo, p. 305; Thuc. 2, 96.] Meanwhile the fleet had advanced two days' voyage up the river from the mouth, and placed the bridge there, i. e. at the place where the river becomes one stream. By this bridge the Greek army, to use the expression of Herodotus, passed "over the greatest river which we know." Strabo says that the bridge was placed over the lower part of the southern, and largest, of the mouths of the Danube; which was called the sacred mouth. On the further shore began the land of the Scoloti. When the army had crossed the Danube, Darius, as Herodotus relates, wished to destroy the bridge and employ the crews in his army. But on the advice of Coes of Lesbos, who pointed out that he must leave the way open for his return, Darius abandoned his purpose; he then summoned the princes of Ionia, and gave them a thong with 60 knots, bidding them untie a knot each day. If the army did not return to the bridge in these 60 days they were to go home.[267 - Herod. 4, 97, 98.]

The three kings of the Scoloti (III. 236) Idanthyrsus, who inherited the largest dominion, Scopasis and Taxakis – so Herodotus relates – as soon as they received news of the approach of Darius, sent messengers to their neighbours to ask for assistance. The kings of the Agathyrsi (the western neighbours of the Scoloti), the Neuri, the Cannibals and Melanchlæni (who lay to the north), and the kings of the Sarmatians, Geloni, and Budini, who dwelt in the east beyond the Don, assembled for consultation. The kings of the Sarmatians, Geloni, and Budini agreed to send help to the Scoloti, but the rest refused. As the Agathyrsi, Neuri, Cannibals, and Melanchlæni would not help them in the contest, the Scoloti determined to decline battle with the Persians and retire. Their wives and children they placed on chariots together with the rest of their goods, took their slaves and herds and marched to a secure position in the north; only so much cattle was left with the army as was necessary for its support. Then the army was divided into two parts. One under the command of Scopasis was to unite with the Sarmatians and retire straight towards the Don, if the Persians took that direction; it was to keep one or two marches ahead of the Persians, to stop up the springs and fountains, and destroy the pastures; but if Darius turned, it was at once to pursue the Persians. The other part of the army, under Idanthyrsus and Taxakis, was to unite with the Budini and Geloni, and to march in a similar manner to the north as far as the land of the Neuri, the Cannibals, and Melanchlæni, in order to involve them in the war. The army of Scopasis found the Persians already three days' march on their side of the Danube. It retired, and the Persians pursued as far as the Don. When the Scoloti and Sarmatians crossed the river, the Persians crossed it also; in pursuit of the Scythians they marched through the land of the Sarmatians, reached that of the Budini, where they burned the great wooden city of the Geloni, which they found entirely deserted, and at length came to the desert which extended for seven days' journey to the north of the land of the Budini. When Darius reached the desert he abandoned the further pursuit, and encamped his army on the bank of the Oarus (i. e. the Volga). At the same time he built eight great fortresses, at equal distances, each about sixty stades from the other, the remains of which, Herodotus remarks, existed in his day. While Darius was thus occupied, the army of Scopasis in the north marched back into their own land and united with the army of Idanthyrsus. When the Scythians were no more to be seen, Darius left the fortresses unfinished, turned to the west, under the impression that the Scythians would retire in that direction, hastened in rapid marches to the land of the Scoloti, and there found the united army of the Scythians. Again the Scoloti retired, and as Darius did not cease to press them, they passed, as they had resolved, over the northern boundary of their land, into the land of the Melanchlæni, who dwelt beyond the Scoloti, between the Don and the Gerrhus, a tributary of the Dnieper. From the land of the Melanchlæni they proceeded yet further to the west, through the land of the Cannibals into that of the Neuri, who lay above the lake out of which the Dniester flows (III. 231). All these tribes fled before the approach of the Scoloti and the Persians to the north; but when the Scoloti wished to cross the borders of the Agathyrsi, they prepared to defend them, and compelled the Scoloti to return from the land of the Neuri to the south into their own land.

When this went on, and there was no end, Darius sent a horseman to Idanthyrsus with the request that he would either stand and fight, if he had the forces to do so, or send earth and water to him as his master. Idanthyrsus answered that the Scoloti had neither cities nor lands which made it necessary to fight with the Persians in order to defend them; but if Darius was eager for a battle, there were the tombs of their fathers; let him discover these and attack them, he would then see whether the Scoloti dare fight or not. On this the Scoloti sent the part of the army which Scopasis commanded, with the Sarmatians, to the Danube, in order to negotiate with the Ionians at the bridge, but the army of Idanthyrsus was not to retire any longer, but to attack the Persians as soon as they began to prepare the meal after the day's march. This was done, and each time the Persian cavalry were put to flight by the Scoloti; but as soon as the foot soldiers came to the rescue of the cavalry, the Scoloti retired. In this way the Scoloti attacked the Persians by night also. And their kings (Idanthyrsus and Taxakis) sent to Darius a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. Gobryas, the father-in-law of Darius, interpreted these gifts to mean, that the Scythian message was: Unless you become birds and fly into heaven, or mice and creep into the earth, or frogs and leap into the marshes, you will succumb to our arrows. The Scoloti also, who were now armed for battle, drew out with horse and foot; and when they were in line, a hare ran past and the Scoloti chased it, one after the other, as they happened to catch sight of it. Then Darius said, These men hold us in great contempt; Gobryas has correctly interpreted the meaning of the gifts; we must carefully consider how we are to secure our return. Gobryas advised that they should light the camp fires as usual when night came on; that they should leave behind the sick and weak, who could not bear burdens, in the camp, and with the rest set out at once for the Danube before the Scythians reached the river and broke down the bridge, or the Ionians came to some resolution ruinous to the Persians. This advice Darius followed. The sick and exhausted, and all whose loss would be of little importance, were commanded to defend the camp, as the king with the rest of the army wished to make an attack on the Scythians, and as soon as the fires had been lighted Darius began his march to the Danube. On the following morning those who had been left behind perceived that they had been betrayed by Darius, and prayed for quarter to the Scythians. The whole army of the Scythians with the Budini, the Geloni, and Sarmatians, went straight to the Danube, for Scopasis with his division had already retired from the river, after telling the Ionians that they must not allow the bridge to stand after the sixtieth day, and the Ionians had given a promise to that effect. As all the Scythians were mounted they marched far more rapidly than the Persians and could soon have caught up Darius, had not the Persians in ignorance taken a longer route, so that Idanthyrsus with the whole army of the Scythians reached the Danube before Darius arrived. The Scythians now called upon the leaders of the Greeks to break down the bridge, for the appointed time had passed; by that means they would get rid of their master, and might thank the gods and the Scythians for their liberation. As the sixty days during which the fleet was to remain in the Danube, by the command of Darius, were really past, Miltiades of the Chersonnesus urged the captains of the Greek ships to listen to the request of the Scythians, and set the Ionians at liberty. But Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, said that each of them held his power in his city by Darius only; if the king's power were overthrown, he would not be a tyrant in Miletus, nor would any other tyrant keep his throne; every city would prefer democracy to tyranny. When all, with the exception of Miltiades, had agreed to this resolution, they determined to remain, but to prevent the bridge from being used by the Scythians they destroyed it for the length of a bowshot from the northern bank. Thinking that the Greeks were removing the whole bridge, the Scythians returned, to seek out Darius and destroy him. But they missed the Persians yet a second time. They thought that the Persians would seek out the places where the wells had not been stopped up, and the pastures had not been destroyed; but they returned by the way that they came, and their enemies with great difficulty reached the crossing of the Danube. It was night, the bridge could not be found, and the Persians were in great alarm that the Ionians had abandoned them. Then Darius commanded an Egyptian, who had a very loud voice, to come forward to the bank and call for Histiaeus of Miletus. The cry was heard; Histiaeus at once sent all the ships to transfer the troops, and restored the bridge.

Clear and definite as the incidents are which lead Darius to the Danube, the river is no sooner crossed than everything passes into northern mists, into the marvellous and the incredible. Let us first consider the conduct of the Scoloti. The kings of the barbarous north, though far distant from each other – Herodotus gives the land of the Scoloti a length and breath of 500 miles – meet in a great congress. Where the congress was held we are not told. The kings of the Agathyrsi, Neuri, Melanchlæni, and Cannibals find that the matter does not concern them, for they had not invaded Media. But the distant tribes to the east beyond the Don, the Sarmatians, Budini, and Geloni, come a distance of hundreds of miles to assist their neighbours; they carry their public spirit so far as to sacrifice their own lands, regardless of which the Budini and Geloni march with Idanthyrsus first to the north and then to the west; the Sarmatians follow Scopasis far to the north-east. Why the Scythians divided their army in the first instance, why they did not unite to meet Darius, we cannot ascertain. We are not told what Idanthyrsus is doing while Scopasis retires to the Volga; we only know that the two armies again unite, while Darius is building the castles on the Volga. When united the Scythians retire to the west as far as the borders of the Agathyrsi, i. e. to Transylvania, the most foolish thing for their own interests which they could have done, for by this means they brought Darius back into the neighbourhood of the Danube. On the borders of the Agathyrsi Darius summons them to battle. The princes answer that they will fight if he attacks the tombs of their fathers. These tombs we have found in the neighbourhood of the Gerrhus; they are the numerous Kurgans below the rapids of the Dnieper,[268 - Vol. III. 235. Neumann, "Hellenen in Skythenlande," s. 200, 211, 215.] a region which Darius must have traversed on his way north-eastwards to the Volga. Darius does not accede to the request of the Scythians. Nevertheless they determined to attack the Persians, and yet contradict the object of this attack by sending Scopasis with his army and the Sarmatians to the Danube, thus weakening the army. When Scopasis and the Sarmatians are gone, Idanthyrsus offers the battle hitherto so carefully avoided, with cavalry and infantry, though Herodotus remarks that the Scythians have no infantry. Meanwhile Scopasis comes with his army to the Danube, not to fight with the Greeks but to treat with them. What reasons had the Scythians not to treat the Greeks as enemies? If they wished to cut off the return of Darius, they must attack the bridge and destroy it. If they thought that they could not do this, or did not wish to do it, but to treat, they need not have sent half the army with the Sarmatians, but only a few horsemen. The Greeks were able to protect the bridge with a fort, upon which the Scythian cavalry could hardly have made any effectual impression, or if they neglected to do that, they could at any moment, if watchful, bring the bridge to their own side of the river, and then secure it with all their ships till Darius should appear on the farther shore. But the Scythians send Scopasis with his army. He tells the Ionians that he knew that Darius had ordered them to wait sixty days; they were to wait till the time had passed and then sail away. When the Greeks had undertaken to do this Scopasis marches with his army to the north. He joins Idanthyrsus again when Darius has begun his retreat. The united army reaches the bridge long before Darius. A second time we have negotiations with the Ionians. The sixty days are past, and the Scythians entreat the Ionians to sail away now, at any rate. They are satisfied when the Greeks remove a part of the bridge, saying that they have begun to break it up and will now sail home. They do not wait till they see all the ships sailing down the stream. They have cut off Darius; he cannot escape them and reach the Danube. But they turn back into the steppe, and miss him again.