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

It was the opinion of Darius that the crown ought to possess the means for the largest outlay that could be demanded. The treasury of Cyrus was not perhaps exhausted, but no doubt it was seriously diminished by the campaigns of Cambyses, the Magian, the rising of Vahyazdata, and the suppression of the rebellions. The object to be attained was that the yearly income should considerably surpass the yearly expenditure; the excess could then be collected in the treasury, which would thus be in a position to pay and support for years the largest armies that could be required. The care which Darius bestowed on the currency and taxation astonished the Persians, who no doubt remembered the magnanimous conduct of Cyrus, to whom such things were of little moment; as Herodotus tells us, they called him the "retail-dealer" in contrast to Cyrus.[371 - Herod. 3, 89; Xenoph. "Hellen." 3, 4, 25.] The measure, by which Darius imposed on all his lands the taxes which they had to pay year by year, was the produce of their soil. If the tax which was thus laid on the soil of the provinces on a fixed ratio was not excessive, they were nevertheless subject to services, and the crown could with certainty reckon on the payment of the contributions. The whole amount of arable land in the provinces was measured by parasangs (each of 30 stades); and according to the extent, when thus ascertained, and the quality of the soil, as Herodotus states, the taxes of the provinces were fixed in the royal currency. Within each province the various countries and cantons, which formed a political unit, whether under dynasts or chieftains, or some other form of constitution, were burdened with a fixed share of the contribution of the whole – as we may see from the statement that the overseers of the cantons and countries were responsible for the payment of the taxes. After exhausting wars, new measurements were made with a view to further valuations.[372 - Herod. 6, 42.] The lowest contribution of land-tax was made by the satrapy of the Arachoti (the Pactyans of Herodotus), and the Gedrosians (the Sattagydae of Herodotus), to which belonged also the Gandarians to the south of Cabul; it amounted to 170 talents of silver (about £50,000); the next lowest amount was 200 talents, (about £57,000), which was paid by two satrapies, the Saspeires and Alarodians in the valley of the Araxes, and the Caspians, i. e. the Cadusians, the Mardians, the Tapurians, and Hyrcanians. The satrapy of the Sacians paid 250 talents (£70,000). Four satrapies paid 300 talents (£85,000), the satrapy of the Parthians, Areians, Chorasmians and Sogdiani, of the Moschians and Tibarenes, of the Ionians and of the Susiani. The satrapy of Syria with Phœnicia and Cyprus paid 350 talents (£100,000); the satrapies of Bactria and Phrygia with Cappadocia paid 360 talents each (£103,000); Armenia, and the satrapy of the Paricanians and Ethiopians in Asia, paid 400 talents each (£115,000); Media had to pay 450 talents (£130,000); the satrapies of Lydia and Cilicia 500 each (£145,000); Drangiana (the Sarangians and Sagartians) paid 600 talents (£170,000); Egypt with Cyrene, Barca, and the tribes of the Libyans, 700 talents (£200,000); the satrapy of Babylon, i. e. the region to the south of the Armenian mountains between the Euphrates and the Tigris as far as the mouth of the rivers, paid 1000 talents (i. e. £290,000). This was the highest tax imposed on any satrapy; from this assessment, as well as from other evidence, we may conclude that Babylonia was the best cultivated and most fruitful province in the whole kingdom. The entire income from this satrapy is put by Herodotus at an artabè of silver daily, and the Persian artabè was larger by three choenixes than the Attic medimnus. The artabè, therefore, was about equal to a Prussian bushel, i. e. to a measure of 2770 cubic inches.[373 - Herod. 1, 192; Böckh, "Staatshaush." 12, 130.]

Darius thus received every year from the land-tax of the provinces, 7600 talents of silver in the royal standard, i. e. in round figures £2,500,000. To this has to be added the large amount of gold-dust, which the twentieth, or Indian satrapy, paid yearly to the king. This amount, 360 talents according to Herodotus, was not the land-tax of the province; it was obtained from the gold-sands of the Himalayas. This raised the net income of the treasury to a total of about £3,000,000, and to this again have to be added the taxes imposed on Lemnos and Imbros, on the Thracians and the Greek towns on the Thracian coast, with the Macedonians, after the campaign to the Danube, and the tribute in kind paid by the subject tribes among the Arabians (1000 talents of frankincense every year), and the negroes (ivory and ebony), and the tribute in slaves paid by the Colchians (100 boys and 100 virgins every fifth year).

More important than these contributions of the Arabians, negroes, and Colchians, was the income in money which the crown derived from local sources, within the empire, and the proceeds of royal privileges – more important still the produce in kind which the provinces had to pay every year in addition to the land-tax. In the satrapy of the Parthians and Areians a large sum was paid every year for the opening of the sluices of the Ares (no doubt an affluent of the Margus, V. 9), without which the fields were in that district dried up in the summer. In Egypt the fishery on the canal, which connected the lake of Amenemhat with the Nile, brought the king every year 240 talents.[374 - Herod. 3, 117; 2, 149.] In what way the contributions in kind were divided and imposed upon the provinces, it is not easy to see. Herodotus only tells us that the whole kingdom was divided into cantons for the support of the king and army; a full third of this burden fell upon the satrapy of Babylon.[375 - Herod. 1, 192.] We know that Cappadocia, i. e. Phrygia and Cappadocia, the third satrapy of Herodotus, provided each year, in addition to the land-tax of £103,000, 1500 horses, 2000 mules, and 50,000 sheep; Media in addition to her land-tax provided double this amount of animals.[376 - Strabo, p. 525.] Armenia provided 10,000 foals each year in addition to the tax of £115,000.[377 - Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 5, 34 ff.] Cilicia furnished 360 grey horses each year. Besides these contributions in animals, there were payments in corn for the garrisons in the provinces. The Persians who formed the garrison of the White Fortress in Memphis received yearly from Egypt 120,000 bushels of wheat, an amount which would abundantly supply the wants of 8000 men. As wheat was cheap in Egypt this contribution would represent a value of about £8500.[378 - Herod. 3, 91; Böckh, "Staatshaush." 12, 135.] Each province sent its best products to the court; and nothing but the best was brought to court or received there; there all that was splendid in the empire was to be collected.[379 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 6, 23; Athenaeus, p. 145, 146.] Babylon sent every year 500 eunuch-boys for service at the court, and Colchis sent male and female slaves of Caucasian race. Chalybon (Helbon) in Syria furnished wine for the court; wheat came from the cities of the Aeolians and the Anatolian coast, salt from the Libyans and the oasis of Siwah.[380 - Strabo, p. 735.]

"From ancient times," Theopompus of Chios informs us, "the taxes and the entertainment of the king were imposed on the cities according to their size."[381 - In Athenaeus, p. 145.] Ctesias and Deinon maintain that the table of the king of Persia, i. e. the entertainment of the entire court, cost 400 talents daily. This is grossly exaggerated. From Herodotus we see that the support of Xerxes and his train, the officers, and all the necessary accompaniments, the tents and plate, and moreover the feeding of the entire army for one day cost the city of Abdera 300 talents, and the island of Thasos 400 talents (£85,000). Theopompus also tells us that when the king visited a city it cost them 20, and sometimes 30, talents to entertain him, and others spent even larger sums.[382 - Loc. cit. in Athenaeus.] These expenses were increased by the fact that the servants took away with them the plate used at table.[383 - Herod. 7, 118; Plut. "Artax." c. 4, 5.] The support of the king, and apparently of the satraps, officers, and generals when travelling, the maintenance of troops on the march, were extraordinary burdens, but the contributions for the table of the king were ordinary and regular. The daily maintenance of the court was expensive, because it included the support of a body-guard. "Every day," Heraclides of Cyme relates, "a thousand animals were slaughtered; among them horses, camels, oxen, asses, and deer, but chiefly sheep. Many birds were eaten, and Arabian ostriches among them. The greater part of this and of the other food was brought to court for the body-guard, and the overseers gave out meat and bread in equal portions; for as the mercenaries in Hellas receive money, so do these soldiers receive their maintenance from the king."[384 - In Athenaeus, p. 146.] Fifteen thousand men are said to have been fed at the court every day; and as the body-guard may be put at 10,000 men, this statement does not seem exaggerated.

Beside the contributions in kind for the equipment of the army, the support of garrisons and the court, there were burdens of another kind. The kings of Persia kept great studs for the court and army. We have already mentioned the stud in Nisaea in Media; 150,000 or 160,000 horses are said to have pastured there. The royal studs in Babylonia contained in breeding horses, 800 horses and 16,000 mares – "besides the horses for war," as Herodotus expressly adds. The Indian dogs which were kept by Darius or his successors were so numerous, that four great villages in Babylonia had to contribute exclusively to their maintenance.[385 - Herod. 1, 192.] As Herodotus observes that these villages were free from other burdens, we may assume that all the places, on which contributions in kind were imposed for special objects, were exempted from the large contributions for the court and army in horses, beasts of burden, cattle for slaughter, corn, etc. Elsewhere we find places burdened with special services to members of the royal house, or favourites. Certain districts and cities had to pay for the girdle of the queen, others for her veil; one place paid for the head-band, another for the necklace, a third for the hair ornaments of the queen.[386 - Herod. 9, 109; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 4, 9; 2, 4, 27; Plato, "Alcib. I." p. 123; Cic. "In Verrem," 3, 33.] Xenophon tells us that the favourites of the king of Persia received horses and servants in the various provinces, and transmitted them to their descendants.[387 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 6, 5.] When Demaratus, king of Sparta, after losing his throne, sought protection with Darius in Persia, the city of Halisarna and the district of Teuthrania were allotted to him. Gongylus of Eretria received from Darius Gambrium, Myrina, and Gryneum. At a later time Magnesia on the Maeander was assigned to Themistocles – a city, which, recovering from the destruction by Mazares (p. 54), paid, according to Thucydides, a yearly contribution of 50 talents (more than £10,000) for bread, Lampsacus, which was famous for its cultivation of the vine, for wine, and Myus for relishes. In this way, in accordance with the system of Cyrus and Darius, Demaratus was made prince of Halisarna, Gongylus became prince of Gambrium, Themistocles prince of Magnesia; the latter also received contributions in produce from other cities. Demaratus and Gongylus left their thrones to their descendants.[388 - Xenoph. "Hellen." 3, 1, 6; "Anab." 2, 1, 3; 7, 8, 8; Thucyd. 1, 138; Plutarch, "Themist." 29 ff. That Themistocles was prince of Magnesia is the less doubtful because a silver stater of this city, 8,56 grammes in weight, with the square, and the name of Themistocles, is in existence: Mommsen. "Rom. Münzwesen," s. 65; Brandis, "Münzwesen in Vorderasien," s. 459, proves a second coin of Themistocles, 5.85 grammes in weight.] As the places which had to provide contributions in kind for special purposes or individuals were freed from the contributions of the provinces to the army and court – the land-tax of the places presented to favoured persons were no doubt taken out of the land-tax of the province.

We are not in a position to fix even approximately the amount of the net income of the treasury of Darius which came in every year over and above the land-tax of the provinces and the tolls. Nor can we say how high the yearly contributions in kind paid by the provinces for the court and army ran. If we set aside the extraordinary burdens of supporting the king on a journey, or a satrap, or officer, and the maintenance of troops on a march, and follow Theopompus in assuming that the average daily expense of the whole court amounted to 30 Babylonian talents, a total of 11,000 talents of the royal standard, i. e. more than £3,000,000, would be required for this purpose, a sum in excess of the land-tax of the provinces. If we further assume that the maintenance of the army imposed on the provinces a burden equal to the maintenance of the court, the provinces would have to pay for the state, in ordinary burdens, without regard to their own requirements, three times the amount of the land-tax. Egypt, which, with Cyrene and Barca, had to pay 700 talents in tax, would thus pay 2100 talents of royal money every year, i. e. more than £600,000. At a later time we find that Ptolemy II. received each year from Egypt 14,800 Attic talents, i. e. about £3,000,000, and 1,500,000 artabès of corn, and Ptolemy Auletes received 6000, and, according to Cicero's statement, 12,500 Attic talents.[389 - Droysen, "Hellenismus," 2, 44; Diod. 17, 52; Strabo, p. 798.] The income of the empire of the Sassanids under Chosru Parviz is put at nearly £14,000,000.[390 - Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 364 ff.]

Thus the burdens which the subject lands had to pay to the king do not seem extraordinarily heavy, and, on the other hand, the rule of the Persians certainly tended to promote their welfare. We have observed that the satraps were commanded to take care for the agriculture and the forests of their provinces, and that special attention was paid to this in the visitation of the provinces. In his palaces and wherever he went the king caused the most beautiful gardens to be made and planted with excellent trees,[391 - "Oecon." 4, 11, ff.] and the satraps did the same at their residences. The parks at the residence of the satrap of Phrygia-Cappadocia, near Dascyleum, were of great extent, consisting in part of an enclosure for game, in part of open hunting-ground. When Agesilaus of Sparta had laid them waste, the satrap Pharnabazus said to him: "All that my father left to me, beautiful buildings, gardens full of trees and game, which were the delight of my heart, I now see cut down and burnt."[392 - Xenoph. "Hellen." 4, 1, 33.] At Sardis the satraps of Lydia-Mysia had made several parks of this kind; the most beautiful was adorned with water and meadows, with places for recreation and shade, in a most extraordinary and royal manner.[393 - Plut. "Alcib." 24.] The younger Cyrus enlarged this by a new park. When he showed it to Lysander, the Greek marvelled at the beauty of the trees, the evenness of their growth, the straight rows and well-chosen angles in which they stood and cut each other, the various and delightful odours which met those who walked in it, and declared that he admired yet more the man who had measured out and arranged the whole. The prince replied that he had measured it out and arranged it himself, and had even planted some with his own hands. And when Lysander, looking at the splendid clothes of the prince, his chains and amulets and ornaments and perfumes, seemed to doubt this, Cyrus replied: "I swear by Mithra, that I never take food till I have heated myself into a sweat by martial exercises or garden work."[394 - "Oecon." 4, 20-24; Aelian, "Hist. Anim." 1, 59.]

The trade of the empire must have been very greatly promoted by the roads which Darius made through it in every direction. Merchandise passed from one end of the empire to another on paved roads, which were provided with excellent inns and secured by numerous guard-posts. Moreover, by his royal currency, Darius had created money which passed from the Hellespont and the Nile to the Indus, and thus the merchants had everywhere at hand a fixed measure of value. The raw products which were required by the manufacturing lands, could be bartered in safety, on the upper Nile, in Libya and Arabia, and on the Indus; the wide market which the extent of the Persian kingdom opened to the harbour cities of Asia Minor and Syria, to the industry of the Lydians and Phenicians, the Egyptians and Babylonians, could be used in the readiest and most profitable manner. Ramses II. of Egypt had conceived the idea of a direct communication by water between the Nile and the Red Sea in order to facilitate the trade with South Arabia. For this object he had caused a canal to be taken from the Nile at Bubastis, but he had only carried it as far as the Lake of Crocodiles. Pharaoh Necho more than 700 years later had again taken up the work and carried the canal as far as the Bitter Lakes. From this point the canal was to abandon the direction towards the east and turn almost at a right angle to the south and the Red Sea. Necho failed to effect the communication between the Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea; and the canal remained unfinished. Herodotus, who knew nothing of the attempt of Ramses II., says: "Darius carried a canal from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf."[395 - Herod. 4, 39.] "Necho was the first to attempt a canal leading into the Red Sea, and Darius accomplished what he began. The length of the voyage is four days, and the canal is broad enough to allow two triremes when rowing to pass one another (i. e. more than 100 feet). The water of the Nile flows into it a little above Bubastis, and empties into the Red Sea. For the first part it is excavated in the plain of Egypt, which lies towards Arabia, under the mountains opposite Memphis, in which are the stone quarries. At the foot of the mountain the canal runs away to the east, and then through a cleft in the range to the south, and southward, into the Arabian Gulf. The distance from the northern sea – the Mediterranean – to the Red Sea by the shortest route from Pelusium[396 - Herod. 4, 41.] is 1000 stades (105 miles); but the canal is much longer, owing to bends in it."[397 - Herod. 2, 158.] In the bed of this canal, the direction of which can still be traced in part, three stones were discovered at Saluf El Terraba, on the Crocodile Lake, not far from the southern ridge of the Bitter Lakes. They have recently been much injured by the workmen at the Suez canal. On the front is seen the form of Darius with the tall tiara on his head (the upper part of one of the monuments is preserved); and beside the figure of the king we find the name and title in hieroglyphics. Beneath are the titles and inscriptions in Persian, Turanian, and Babylonian; on the back is an inscription in hieroglyphics which has been destroyed with the exception of a word; but of the Persian and Turanian version we can still read a part: "Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands, the king of this wide earth, the son of Hystaspes, the Achæmenid. Darius the king says: 'I, the Persian, have governed Egypt; I have caused a canal to be dug from the river which flows in Egypt to the sea which reaches to Persia.'" Darius did not, like Ramses and Necho, think only of a direct communication by water with South Arabia, but rather of a communication with Persia, and not only with the coasts of Persia but even with the mouths of the Indus. His expedition to explore the Indus did not sail back to the Persian Gulf, but coasted Arabia and returned to the Red Sea; and Herodotus tells us that Darius, after that expedition, made use of the southern sea.[398 - Herod. 4, 44. On the monuments of Darius, see Lepsius, "Chronol." s. 354, and "Monatsberichte B. A." 1866, s. 288; Oppert, "Mémoires prs. à l'Acad. des Inscrip." 1, 8 (1869), p. 646 ff. In opposition to the definite and detailed assertion of Herodotus, given in the text, the assertion in Strabo (p. 804) and Diodorus (1, 33) that Darius nearly finished the canal but did not quite finish it, cannot be accepted. Herodotus was in Egypt not much more than 30 years after the death of Darius (about 450 B.C.). Diodorus and Strabo accept the tradition of the times of the Ptolemies, which sought to claim for them the glory of completing the work, though they did no more than reopen the canal which had become silted up. To support this tradition Oppert has supplemented the decisive word of which no more than the syllable ta remains, according to his transcription, in such a way that the meaning extracted is that Darius filled up his own canal. I do not see why this ta should not be a part of uçtaka, i. e. to excavate, as well as of vikata, i. e. to make level. We cannot assume without further evidence that Darius set up a monument over the failure of his undertaking or its destruction. The Turanian version, which Oppert has since published ("Peuple des Mèdes," p. 214) does not help us to a decision, for it is only preserved as far as the place in question.] After opening a road by water into the Red Sea, Darius could, if he thought fit, order the ships of the Ionians and Phenicians to the coast of Arabia, the Persian Gulf, or the Indus, and send the ships of Babylon to the Mediterranean. Traders made a constant use of the canal; the ships of Sidon and Tyre could sail from the Nile to the shores of Arabia Felix, a voyage which the Phenicians at the time of Solomon, and Uzziah of Judah, attempted to make from Elath with the permission and assistance of those princes. From Arabia they could visit the mouth of the Indus, as their ships had done nearly 500 years before at the time of Solomon.

However active the wearer of the crown and his immediate supporters might be in the government of the kingdom, however speedily their commands were made known in the provinces – in spite of the severity with which the satraps were watched and controlled, and the impulse given to their ambition and emulation, – in spite of the excellent management of the state income and the abundance of the means at disposal, and the sums of gold and silver, the gold and silver ornaments, the splendid furniture in the royal citadels, which were in existence for nearly 200 years after this time, attest the success of Darius – the kingdom rested in the last resort on the fidelity and bravery of the army. In his body-guards and in the garrisons of the fortresses and guard-posts scattered up and down the whole kingdom, Darius had a considerable standing army formed of Persians.[399 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 7, 5, 66.] In case of war this standing army was strengthened by the levy of the larger landed proprietors in Persia, who had to furnish cavalry, and the subject lands.[400 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 20-22.] Though the fortified places were numerous, the amount of troops in the various forts was not necessarily great, and the complement of a Persian battalion, 1000 men, seems rarely to have been exceeded. The garrison of the oldest city in the empire, the White Fortress at Memphis, was much stronger, and so, no doubt, were the garrisons of the two citadels of Babylon and of Ecbatana. In the west Dascyleum on the Propontis, and Sardis, the citadel of which was held by 1000 men, were the extreme points; in the interior there were so many garrisons at Celaenae, on the bridge over the Halys, and at other places west of the Halys, that a considerable army could be formed for service in the field.[401 - Herod. 3, 127; 5, 102; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 2; Diod. 11, 34; Arrian, "Anab." 1, 29.] East of the Halys, in Cilicia, there was the garrison of the two forts on the borders of Cilicia and Cappadocia, and in addition a body of cavalry which it cost 140 talents (£40,000) a year to support. The citadels and fortresses which the inscriptions of Darius mention in Armenia, Media, Persia, and Arachosia, show that there was a certain number of fortified places in those regions. In Armenia Tigra and Uhyama are mentioned; in Media Ecbatana and Çikathauvatis; in Arachosia Kapisakanis (Kapisa) and Arsada. The chief points in the royal road from Susa to Sardis at the most important divisions in the country were closed by fortresses, and the same was the case on the other military roads; we cannot therefore doubt that the military arrangements in the eastern provinces were the same as in the west, though the Greeks can only tell us of the west. Lastly, there was a number of fortresses at the extreme borders of the kingdom. In Egypt, in addition to Memphis, Daphne and Elephantine were fortified;[402 - Herod. 2, 30.] in the country of the Cadusians Cyrus had already founded the city on the Jaxartes known as Ultima Cyrus, and in the neighbourhood were several citadels to protect the borders (p. 103). Besides the garrisons, the amount of troops was fixed which the satraps had to keep under arms, to support their authority, to carry out executions, and to secure the provinces.[403 - Xenoph. "Oecon." 4, 5.] Like the garrisons, the troops of the satraps, in case of necessity, could fall back on the assistance of the reserve corps of larger districts, such as the Cilician cavalry. The troops stationed in the provinces were reviewed yearly, as Xenophon tells us. For this object they were gathered together at a fixed place in the provinces, with the exception of the garrisons of the fortresses. For the more western districts the place of assembly was Thymbrara on the Pactolus,[404 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 6, 2, 11.] where also, in time of war, the levy of the province was assembled. The troops which were nearer the residence of the king, were, according to Xenophon, inspected by the king in person; those at a greater distance by men in his confidence. The satraps, chiliarchs, and commandants, who brought up the prescribed number of troops provided with excellent weapons and horses, were rewarded by presents and marks of distinction; those who neglected their troops or made money out of them were severely punished and removed from their office.[405 - "Oecon." 4, 5.]

From Herodotus we learn that the guard of the king consisted of 2000 selected Persian horsemen and 2000 lance-bearers on foot, whose lances were adorned at the lower end with apples of gold and silver, and also of a division of 10,000 infantry, whom the Persians call the immortals, because their number is always the same. But the name of the corps may be formed from the Amesha Çpenta Ameretat (V. 156, 164). Xenophon ascribes this institution to Cyrus.[406 - Herod. 7, 40, 41, 83; 8, 113; Heraclid. Cuman. fragm. 1, ed. Müller; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 7, 5, 68.] Nine thousand of them had silver pomegranates on their lances, but a thousand who were selected from the whole corps to form the first battalion had their pomegranates of gold. On the monuments they carry lances taller than the height of a man, and oval shields of half a man's height. This troop was distinguished as the body-guard of the king by golden necklaces and other ornaments; it was better furnished than other troops with beasts of burden and camels to carry the baggage and the provisions. Later writers speak only of these 10,000 infantry as forming the guard. They inform us that the corps was always about the king, keeping watch in the palace day and night, where they had a court to themselves; they accompanied the king on his journeys, when they camped in a circle round the king's tent.[407 - Curtius, 3, 3, 13; Xenoph. loc. cit.] The amount of the whole army cannot even be approximately fixed. Darius led the levy of the empire over the Bosphorus to the amount of 700,000 men; from the subject lands so many soldiers would be required as would be necessary.[408 - It is true that the population between the Euphrates and the Indus is now rated at 18,000,000 only. Kenneir, "Geograph. Memoir of Persia," p. 44-47. But the numbers of the prisoners and the slain in the inscriptions of Behistun allow us to conclude that the population of Iran was far greater. Under the Ptolemies Egypt, consisting of about 30,000 communities, counted 7,000,000 inhabitants; Diod. 1, 31. That Asia Minor was not less populous is proved, for certain districts, by the statements of Xenophon; the budget of Darius, the numbers of his army, and more especially of the army of Xerxes, the mass of troops which the younger Cyrus collects in Asia Minor and Artaxerxes in the Eastern provinces, are evidence of a tolerably dense population.] It was more difficult to organize this vast mass. The strength of the army, like that of the kingdom, rested on the military skill and superiority of the Persians. With the Persians, as with the Indians, the chief weapon was the bow, and the Persian arrows like the Indian were of reed. Aeschylus praises "the mighty with the bow, the strength of the Persian land," and Atossa, the queen of Darius, is represented as asking whether "the bow-driven arrow adorns the hand" of the Hellenes.[409 - "Pers.," 239, 926.] The Persians preferred to fight on horseback. The rider placed a coat of mail over the short shirt, and beside the bow and a short javelin carried a crooked and not very long sabre on the right hip;[410 - Herod. 7, 61.] the head was protected by the tiara. But there were also large divisions of heavy armed cavalry among the troops of the Persians in which the men wore brass or iron helmets and strong harness, while their horses were armed with frontlets and breast-pieces.[411 - Herod. 7, 85; 8, 113; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 8, 7; "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 22; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 13.] The infantry carried long rectangular shields of wicker-work, under which hung the quiver with the javelin and sabre, but as a rule they were without coats of mail.[412 - Herod. 5, 49; 9, 62; Strabo, p. 734.] The leading men and officers were adorned in battle with their best purple robes, neck-chains, and armlets; over the coat of mail they threw the glittering kandys; on the hip hung a sabre with a golden handle and a golden sheath. Thus they mounted their war-horses, Nisaean greys, with golden trappings, the wildness of which sometimes caused the death of the rider. Aeschylus speaks of them as "horsemen mighty with the bow, dreadful to behold, and terrible in the venturous courage of their hearts."[413 - Herod. 9, 20, 22, 63, 80; Plut. "Artax." 9; Aeschyl. "Pers." 26-28.] In military skill the Persians regarded the Medes as next to themselves; then followed the Sacae, the Bactrians, the Indians, and the other Arian tribes. Next to the Medes the Sacae were the most trustworthy troops.[414 - Herod. 1, 134; Polyaen. "Strat." 7, 11. According to Herodotus the Sacae were in the centre at Marathon. Mardonius retains them in Thessaly with the Bactrians and Indians: Herod. 8, 113; 9, 31. In the battle at Arbela they were among the bravest: Arrian, "Anab." 3, 13.] The contingents of the provinces were governed by Persian generals, who were mainly taken from the members of the royal family, the "kinsmen" of the king, and the tribal princes.[415 - Herod. 7, 64 ff.] Like the Persian troops, these contingents were arranged in divisions of 10,000 men. Each division was subdivided into ten battalions of 1000 men, and the battalions into ten companies of 100 men; the company was made up of groups, which, according to Xenophon, consisted of seven men among the Persians, and according to Herodotus of ten in the contingents.[416 - Herod. 7, 82, 83; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 14.] The commander of the entire contingent of a province had the nomination of the officers of divisions and the leaders of battalions; the officers of divisions, as Herodotus says, nominated the captains of companies, and the leaders of the groups.[417 - Herod. 7, 81.] The native dynasts as a rule marched out with their troops and ships, but they were subject to the commanders of the contingents.[418 - Herod. 7, 96.]

The king reviewed the army from his war-chariot, surrounded by scribes, who wrote down everything worthy of notice. When parading before the king, the horsemen dismounted, stood by their horses, and concealed their hands in the sleeves of their kandys. The camp was always pitched in a particular order; the tent of the king was on the eastern side, for the abode of the gods was in the east. The large and splendid tent of the king was surrounded by the tents of the guard; the cavalry, the infantry, and the baggage had special places assigned to them.[419 - Herod. 7, 100; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 5, 1-16.] They understood how to fortify the camp;[420 - Herod. 9, 15.] an open camp was always at a certain distance, about seven miles, from the enemy in order to avoid surprises as far as possible. The Persian cavalry required a considerable time, especially at night, for preparation. Their spirited horses had not only to be tethered, but even tied by the feet to prevent their running away. The unfettering, saddling and bridling of the horses, and putting on the harness, took up much time, and could not be done at night without disorder and confusion.[421 - Xenoph. "Anab." 3, 4, 35.] When there was danger of a surprise the troops had to remain at night under arms. The signal for marching was given from the royal tent with the trumpet, but never before daybreak,[422 - Curtius, 3, 3, 8.] "before the glittering Mithra mounted, and in golden shape seized the beautiful summits," the army of the Persians was not to move. In the same way the march ended at the latest at sunset.[423 - Brisson, loc. cit. 3, c. 89.] In battle the king occupied the centre of the position, surrounded by the Achæmenids, the "kinsmen" and "companions," several hundred in number,[424 - Curtius, 3, 3, 14, 15; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 9, 31.] and the body-guard, the cavalry of which usually stood in the first ranks before the king; next to them in the centre came the best troops in the army.[425 - Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 8; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 11.] According to ancient custom the king generally fought from a chariot drawn by Nisaean horses,[426 - Artaxerxes is on horseback in the battle of Cunaxa; Plutarch, "Artax." 10, 11, but the general custom is given in c. 6.] with his bow in his hand, in which manner, at an earlier period, the princes of the Indians had fought, and the kings of the east, the Pharaohs, the rulers of Assyria, and the princes of the Syrians. The king also, when in battle, wore all his royal ornaments, the purple kaftan over his armour, and the royal tiara. Near him was the ensign of the empire, the golden eagle on a tall pole.[427 - Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 10, 12. Vol. V. 172.] The mass of the cavalry was generally placed on the wings; between these and the centre were the contingents of the subject nations, each according to its divisions, which were drawn up separately in solid squares.[428 - Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 8.] The battle was begun by the cavalry and infantry with a thick shower of arrows. With this an attempt was made to ward off the attacks of the enemy, and it was kept up till the enemy seemed to be thrown into confusion. Then the troops were brought closer; javelins were hurled and sabres drawn.[429 - Herod. 7, 218, 226; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 22, 23.] The Persian and Sacian cavalry was most dreaded; as it consisted to a great extent of archers it was difficult to approach it. If the cavalry marched to the attack with arms in rest, the onset was made first with separate squadrons, and then in entire masses.[430 - Herod. 9, 20, 23, 49.] The Medes and Persians had learned the art of siege from the Assyrians. The cities were enclosed by ramparts, and on these works were carried forward, under the protection of which battering-rams were brought to bear against the trenches and walls. The Persians were also well acquainted with mining. Passages were carried under-ground, both to make breaches in the walls by excavations, and to provide a way into the city. In order to recapture Chalcedon, which had rebelled against Darius when he crossed the Danube against the Scythians, together with the cities of the Propontis and Hellespont, an under-ground passage of more than 15 stades in length was carried, after the king's return, under the walls of the city to the market-place, and the Chalcedonians had no suspicion of its existence, till the Persians appeared in the city.[431 - Above, p. 303. Herod. 1, 162, 168; 4, 200; 5, 115; Polyaen. "Strateg." 7, 2, 5.]

CHAPTER XIX

THE COURT OF DARIUS

Along with the new arrangement of the administration of the empire Darius had transferred the centre of it into a province, which had thrice rebelled against him, to Susa,[432 - The name in Hebrew is Shushan, among the Assyrians, Shusan, hodie, Shush.] the ancient metropolis of Elam, which Assurbanipal had conquered, plundered, and destroyed 130 years previously. Since that time the city had risen from its ruins. We have seen what motives determined Darius to take this step. The position of the city, which was not far removed from his native territory, and at the same time brought the stubborn resistance of the Babylonians under the close pressure of the royal residence, offered the requisite security. Out of Media, from the southern foot of the Mount Elvend (Orontes), the Kerkha, or Choaspes, flows down the heights which bound Iran on the west, towards the south-west; and then breaks through them in order to fall into the Tigris. Further to the east is the Dizful. Rising more to the south than the Kerkha it reaches the plains of Elam in a course parallel to that stream and then falls also into the Tigris. Between these two rivers there rises in the mountain edge the Shapur, a river of a short and narrow course, but with a deep channel. For a time it flows in the same direction with the others, then it turns to the east, and falls into the Dizful, or rather into the Karun, as the Dizful is now called in its lower course, after the affluent which falls into it from the east. At the point where the Kerkha and Dizful approach within two or three leagues of each other, – though lower down they separate more and more widely, – about half a league from the east bank of the Kerkha, and on the eastern side of the Shapur, is the city of Susa. The approach from the west was barred by the Kerkha, and from the east by the Dizful and its affluents. If an enemy came from the west or the east, he had to cross considerable rivers. The great road which ran from the west from Sardis to Susa, came to an end opposite Susa on the west bank of the Kerkha. According to Herodotus the city could only be reached by a ferry across the river. This was no doubt an arrangement for security. An approaching enemy was not to find bridges either on the Kerkha or the Dizful.[433 - Loftus, "Travels in Susiana," p. 425 ff. Nöldeke ("Göttingen G. G." 1874, s. 173 ff.) has treated exhaustively of the various names of ancient Elam, as Susiana is invariably called among the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hebrews. He proves that the name Κισσίη which is in use among the older Greeks, Aeschylus, Hecataeus, and Herodotus, must be derived from the Kossaeans, a tribe who inhabited the northern and higher part of Susiana, and the mountainous edge towards Iran. Of later writers Polybius only uses the name Cissians, who also uses the name Matieni in the sense of Herodotus. Uwaya, the name common among the Persians for Susiana, is taken from the Uxians, who were the eastern neighbours of Persia, i. e. the tribe in Susiana which dwelt nearest to Persia; it is retained in the new Persian Chuz and Chusistan. Among the Greeks the name Elymaeans is first used by the companions of Alexander as the name for a tribe, and then in the second century B.C. as the name of a new kingdom which restored the ancient Elam. Yet to this tribe which inhabited the plain and the hills of Susa and Shuster was due the foundation and government of the kingdom which once ruled in the valley of the Euphrates, which so long resisted the Assyrians, but was entirely unknown to the Greeks. The rivers of Susiana are difficult to fix, as both Persian and native names are indifferently used. The name Choaspes, which contains açpa, is plainly Persian; it is no doubt the Kerkha. On the Eulaeus, Koprates, and Pasitigris, see Droysen, "Hellenismus," 12, 266 n.] Thus irrigated by three rivers, the land round the city was extraordinarily fruitful and blooming.

The Greeks were right in calling Susa "the ancient great city." Though it was not, as they imagined, at one time the abode of Memnon, the son of the morning, who had come to the help of the Trojans, we have made acquaintance with the ancient kingdom of Elam, the beginnings of which we had to place about the year 2500 B.C. We saw that the princes of this kingdom could make war upon Babylonia, and reduce it to dependence in the last centuries of the third millennium B.C., and that its armies must have reached Syria. Then Elam had withstood the Assyrians for a long time with very great stubbornness, until at length after brave struggles it succumbed to the arms of Assurbanipal. A relief in the palace of Assurbanipal exhibited Susa before its capture, in the year 645 B.C., stretching along between two rivers (the Shapur and the Dizful), and surrounded by high walls and numerous towers. The new Susa also, the Susa of Darius and his successors, extended, according to the evidence of Strabo, between the two rivers; according to his statement the city had a circuit of 120 stades, and according to Diodorus of 200 stades, i. e. of 15 or 20 miles – an extent which does not leave it far behind the fallen cities of the Assyrians, and Babylon.[434 - Aesch. "Pers." 16, 120; Athen. p. 513; Strabo, p. 728, 731, 739; Diod. 17, 65.] But Susa, which in spite of its numerous population was inhabited only to a small extent by Persians, required to be fortified even less than Ecbatana. The royal citadel must keep the city in check, and afford the most complete security to the palace. We are expressly told that this citadel was protected by strong works, which would indeed be necessary for the position of affairs and the object of Darius.[435 - Polyb. 5, 48.] According to the statement of Pliny, the citadel was surrounded by the Eulaeus, the name which he gives to the Choaspes; the Book of Daniel also represents the Ulai as flowing round the castle of Susa.[436 - Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 31; Daniel viii. 2, 16.] The ruins prove that the palace lay on the Shapur. Within the protecting walls of the fortress was the "golden dwelling," "the gold-adorned chambers of Darius" as Aeschylus calls them,[437 - "Pers." 3, 4, 159, 160.] the "far-famed palace" in the language of Diodorus. According to Aelian Darius took a pride in the buildings which he had erected at Susa; it was he who had erected the famous works there.[438 - Ael. "Hist. An." 1, 59.]

The ruins of Susa are now surrounded by a wilderness, inhabited only by lions and hyænas. The soil is still productive of grass, and the remains of numerous canals attest the ancient cultivation. Steep mounds of débris and heaps of ruins rise thickly on the left bank of the Shapur, in appearance closely resembling the remains of Babylon and Nineveh. The highest mound is nearest the river; it rises 120 feet above the level of the water, is 3000 feet in circumference, and appears to have supported a part of the citadel; the mound abutting on the north only rises 80 or 90 feet, and forms a square, the sides of which measure 1000 or 1200 feet. On this the remains of a large building have been discovered. Further to the east is an extensive platform, the circumference of which far surpasses that of the two first put together; the height on the south side reaches 70 feet and on the east and north about 50 feet. On the east of these three heaps are mounds of a smaller size. These may be remains of the city, while the others represent the citadel. The entire circuit of the ruins is about 7½ miles. They confirm the statement of Strabo that Susa was built of brick, inasmuch as they present masses of bricks, partly burnt, partly dried in the sun. But even the palaces in the citadels were built of bricks in the outer walls only; they did not contain those narrow long porticoes, which formed the royal palaces of Nineveh, but were rather large square halls, resting on huge terraces. The bases and remains of the northern hill allow us to trace three magnificent porticoes. The interior of the building was formed by a large hall with pillars, the roof of which was supported by 36 pillars ranged in six rows; the pillars were of stone, slight and tall, the capitals were formed by the fore-quarters of kneeling horses. Round three sides of this hall, the north, east, and west, were placed porticoes, 50 feet in breadth, the roofs of which were supported by 12 pillars in two rows. Four pillars of the chief hall bear the same inscription in cuneiform letters, and, as always, in the Persian, Babylonian, and Turanian languages. In this Artaxerxes Mnemon (405-359 B.C.) relates that his great-great-grandfather (apanyaka) Darius had erected this building and that he had restored it. He entreats Auramazda, Anahita, and Mithra, to protect him and his work. On some pillars we find the inscription: "I, Artaxerxes, the great king, the king of kings, son of the king Darius" (i. e. Darius Ochus).[439 - Ménant, "Achaemenides," p. 140, 141; Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 229.]

Though Darius elevated Susa to be his chief residence, the native land of the empire, and the nucleus of it, his own home, was to receive a proper share of the splendour and glory of the court. After the conquests on the Indus Darius built a new residence in the land of the Persians, to the north-west of Pasargadae, which Cyrus had made a fortified city, and where he had erected his palace and deposited the spoil of his previous victories. At the confluence of the Pulwar and the Kum-i-Firuz the mountains retire on either side, and leave a space for the most delightful plain in Persia, which is still covered with villages, – the plain of Merdasht. Four thousand feet above the sea, surrounded on every side by lofty mountains, which on the west are covered with snow, the climate is mild and salubrious. Curtius considers it the most healthy district in Asia.[440 - Curtius, 5, 4.] From the mountain-range on the west, a block of mountains now called Kuh Istachr advances into the plain, and gradually falls away to the Pulwar; opposite to this, the eastern range also advances with a mighty summit, called Rachmed, a spur of which, at no great height, forms a broad terrace commanding the plain. On both sides the heights extend a little further to the river, so that the terrace forms the retiring level of a natural semicircle. This terrace was chosen by Darius for the site of his new palace, by the walls of which a city was to rise. The Greeks call this city of Darius, Persepolis; i. e. city of the Persians. Diodorus tells us: "The citadel of Persepolis was surrounded by three walls, of which the first was 16 cubits in height and surrounded by turrets, adorned with costly ornamentation. The second wall had similar ornaments, but was twice as high. The third wall formed a square, and was 60 cubits in height; it consisted of hard stones, well fitted together, so as to last for ever. On each side was a gate of brass, and near it poles of brass, 20 cubits in height; the first for security, the second to strike terror. In the citadel were several richly-adorned buildings for the reception of the king and the generals, and treasuries built for the reception of revenues. To the east of the citadel, at a distance of four plethra, lies a mountain, called the "royal mountain," in which are the tombs of the kings. The rock was excavated, and had several chambers in the middle, which served to receive the corpses. But they were without any means of access; the corpses were raised by machines and lowered into the tombs.[441 - Diod. 17, 71.]"

The remains of Persepolis show that the terrace was surrounded on the west, north, and south by a wall; and that by removing the earth or filling it in it was changed into a surface measuring about 1800 feet in length from north to south, and about 500 feet in breadth from west to east, towards the heights of Rachmed. On the edge of the terrace rose a wall, the third wall of Diodorus, which surrounded it on the north, west, and south. According to the description of Diodorus, the eastern side, towards Rachmed, was also surrounded by this wall. At the present day we only find remains of the three sides mentioned, consisting of blocks of marble from four to six feet in thickness, which in some places rise to a height of 40 feet above the level of the terrace. If we reckon in the height of the terrace, those walls had certainly the elevation of 60 cubits which Diodorus gives them. The two other walls were on the plain, and barred the approach to the palace; of these there are no remains. Within the third wall, on the terrace, rise the buildings of the palace. An inscription on the wall of the terrace in the Turanian language tells us: "Darius the king says: On this place a fortress is founded; previously there was no fortress. By the grace of Auramazda I have founded this fortress, strong, beautiful, and complete. May Auramazda and all the gods protect me and this fortress and all that is in it."[442 - Oppert, "Peuple des Mèdes," 196.] On the western side of the terrace towards the northern edge, two flights of steps, receding into the terrace, and joining at the top, lead up to the surface and the gate of the palace. They consist of 200 broad steps of large blocks of marble, ten or fifteen steps being sometimes formed out of one block. Ten horsemen could easily ride up together on each side. On the top of the terrace behind the landing of the steps, there was a gate in the wall, the place of which can be found by a break in the ruins; through this was the entrance into the citadel.

Not far from the western edge of the terrace, about equally removed from the northern and southern walls, on an elevated platform, rose a structure, 170 feet in length, and 90 feet in breadth; only a few fragments of the walls, door-posts, and window-cases remain, with the bases of the pillars in the hall (24 in number) which formed the centre of the building. On the window-ledges of the building is an inscription in three languages, in which we read: "Darius (Darayavus), the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands, the son of Hystaspes, an Achæmenid, has erected this house."[443 - Oppert, loc. cit. 19, 148; Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 49; Schrader, "Assyr. Babyl. Keilinschriften," s. 363.] On a pilaster in the south-west corner we find an inscription of Xerxes which tells us: "Under the protection of Auramazda, Darius, my father, erected this house." The relief of one of the two posts of the door, which forms the entrance to the central hall on the north, exhibits Darius himself. The figure is 7½ feet high. The king is dressed in a garment which falls down to the ancles; the sleeves are very wide; he has high shoes, and wears the tiara; in his left hand he holds a long sceptre, and in the right a cup-shaped vessel. The beard is long, the hair comes out in strong locks under the tiara; the face is so injured that little more can be recognized beyond the long profile, the straight outline of the nose, and the quiet dignity of expression. Both the lines of the face and the expression correspond to the head of the king preserved on the memorial stone of the canal (p. 358). Over the king in a winged circle hovers Auramazda, whose figure from the knees upward projects from the circle beneath which the long robe of the god runs out in feathers. He wears a tiara like the king and in the left hand bears a ring. The countenance is aged and solemn; the hair and beard are like those of the king. The figure of the deity is obviously copied from the Asshur which hovers over the kings of Assyria. Behind the king, in similar clothing, but with much smaller and lower tiaras on the head, are the bearer of the royal parasol, which he holds over the head of the king, and the bearer of the fan.

The largest structure lies to the east, near the height of Rachmed. It forms a regular square of more than 200 (227) feet on each side, on which, on the north side, abutted a portico formed of two rows of pillars. The outer walls of the square consist of blocks of marble neatly fitted together, and more than ten feet in thickness. Eight gates, two towards each quarter, on the posts of which stand two lance-bearers face to face, led into a large hall the roof of which was supported by 100 pillars, ten in ten rows.[444 - Texier, "Description," pl. 100.] At the north entrance to the portico, in the two western doors of the hall, the king is represented in conflict with monsters. In these reliefs he is shown with only a narrow band round the brow, or he wears a low cap; his robe is short, his arms are bare. He raises a lion with his right hand and presses the throat, while in his left he holds a dagger; he seizes a winged one-horned monster with the jaws of a wolf and the legs of a bird by the horn, and rips up the belly;[445 - Impressions of seals which have been discovered in the palace of Sennacherib at Kuyundshik, represent the king of Assyria in precisely the same position. – Layard, "Nineveh and Babylon," p. 154, 161.] the third monster has the head and the claws of an eagle; the fourth is a four-footed animal standing up, with a horn in the forehead, which the king seizes, while with his left hand he has already thrust the sword into the body. These pictures are, no doubt, like the human-headed bulls which Xerxes subsequently set up at Persepolis, imitations of Semitic symbols. The overpowering or slaughter of the lion was, among the Assyrians, Cilicians, and Lydians, an ancient mode of representing the greatest achievement of Melkart-Sandon – the conquest of the fierce heat. This victory over evil was easily and naturally transferred to the office of the ruler, and could be accepted, even among the Iranians, as the religion of the Avesta rests in its principles on the resistance to the evil spirits of Angromainyu and the contest with his savage and harmful creatures, and requires this contest. The great hall of 100 pillars was, as the sculptures of the walls and posts show, the royal hall of audience. The throne was between the two central rows of pillars, opposite the two doors of the north, on the southern wall of the hall. Here, on days of reception and festivity, the whole splendour of the Persian empire was displayed. Then, as the book of Esther says; "golden and silver cushions were laid on the floor of marble and alabaster, of pearls and tortoise-shell"; and "between the pillars hung white and purple curtains, on rings of silver, and linen and purple strings," and "wine was poured in abundance from golden vessels."[446 - Esther i. 6, 7.] The walls of this room, and the beams of the roof, would not be without that ornamentation of gold and silver plates, which covered the walls, pillars, and beams of the chambers of the palace of Ecbatana (V. 309). The metal bolts which are found here and there on the inner side of the walls, can hardly have had any other purpose than to support plates of this kind. In both the northern gates two reliefs exhibit Darius sitting on the throne, on a lofty chair with a still higher back. The feet of the king rest on a stool; he wears the tiara, and has the sceptre in his right hand, a goblet in his left. Behind him is the bearer of the fan with a covered mouth, that his impure breath might not touch the king, then the bow-bearer without the Paitidana (V. 190), and at a greater distance one of the body-guard. A foreign emissary approaches the throne, clad in a tight coat with sleeves, and trousers joined to it, with a rounded cap. He holds his hand before his mouth while speaking to the king; behind him stands another figure with veiled mouth. This group of figures rests on a pediment which is formed by four rows of ten guards placed one over the other. These are armed partly with bows and lances, and partly with shields and lances. Their clothing exhibits two types; which often recur on the monuments of Persepolis. In the three lower rows one half of the men have wide coats reaching down to the ancles, with large sleeves, and high angular tiaras; the other half have coats with tight sleeves, reaching to the knee only, trowsers joined to them, and a low round covering for the head. This appears to be the Persian dress, the other is the dress of the Medes. Over the throne of the king a canopy with hanging fringes encloses the whole picture; except that in the middle, two winged circles are seen; beside the lower rows of figures on each side are four dogs (the animals of Auramazda); and beside the upper four bulls may be seen on each side. This picture of the enthroned king is repeated on the pilasters of the two southern gates; but on the third relief we find only Darius on the throne, with the fan-bearer behind; and the throne is not supported by the rows of guards, but on fourteen figures of another shape which are arranged in three rows; in the highest row are four figures, in the two lower five; in the last figure on the lowest row towards the west, there is an unmistakable negro. They bear the throne of the king with raised arms; above the two winged rings is the picture of Auramazda. On the fourth relief is some dignitary of the empire, or a prince of the house, behind the throne of the king, which is here supported in the same way by twenty-nine figures arranged in three rows. Here also Auramazda hovers over the two winged circles.

These figures are intended to present a picture of the government of Darius as resting in the one case on the fidelity and bravery of the army, and in the other, on the obedience of the subject nations. The supporting figures of the southern doors are all clothed differently, in the various dresses of the empire. Between these doors we find the following inscription: "The great Auramazda, who is the greatest of gods, has made Darius king. He has given him the kingdom; by the grace of Auramazda Darius is king. Darius the king speaks: 'This land of Persia, which Auramazda has given to me, which is beautiful, rich in horses and men, fears no enemy by the protection of Auramazda, and of me, King Darius. May Auramazda stand beside me with the gods of the land, and protect this region against war, blight, and the lie. May no enemy come to this region, no army, no blight, no lie. For this favour I entreat Auramazda, and all the gods. May Auramazda grant me this with all the gods.'" On the same wall we are told: "I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of these numerous lands, the son of Hystaspes, an Achæmenid. Darius the king says: 'By the grace of Auramazda these are the lands which I rule over with this Persian army, which are in fear of me, and bring me tribute: the Susians, the Medes, the Babylonians, the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Armenians, the Cappadocians, the inhabitants of Sardis, the Ionians of the mainland, and those of the sea. And in the east the Sagartians, the Parthians, the Sarangians, the Areians, the Bactrians, the Sogdiani, the Chorasmians, the Gedrosians, the Arachoti, the Indians, the Gandarians, the Sacae, the Macians. If thou thinkest: May I tremble before no enemy, then protect this Persian army; if the Persian army is protected, prosperity will remain unbroken to the most distant days.'"[447 - Inscriptions H. and J. Oppert, "Journal Asiatique," 19, 141; Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 49. Oppert now translates aniya not by "enemy" but literally by "the other;" by which Angromainyu would be meant: "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 199.]

The successors of Darius extended the palace of Persepolis. Directly behind the gate to which the great staircase on the terrace leads, King Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, erected a portico. From the two front pilasters which form the entrance to this court from the west, two horses are hewn out in high relief; their heads and fore-feet project in front, their bodies and hinder quarters stand out from the pilasters in the entrance. These horses are 18 feet in length. From the four pillars which support the roof of the portico behind this entrance, two are still standing, 24 feet in height. Corresponding to the two guards of the front entrances, we find at the exit of the hall towards the interior of the citadel, i. e. towards the east, two winged bulls with human heads, projecting from the pilasters. About 20 feet in length, these bulls are precisely similar to the human-headed bulls of Nineveh, but the wings of the bulls are not thrown back so far, and the solemn bearded head is not surmounted here by a round cap, but by the Persian tiara; these tiaras, like the caps at Nineveh, are surrounded by four united horns. The horse, the animal of Mithra, which occurs repeatedly on the ruins of Persepolis, was no doubt the peculiar symbol of the Persians; the human-headed winged bulls belong, as has been observed, to Babylon and Assyria. Between this portico and the smaller building of his father, on the western edge of the terrace, Xerxes constructed a magnificent building. Three porticoes, of twelve pillars each, surrounded on the north, west, and south, a hall, formed of 36 pillars of black marble, 67 feet in height, and placed closely to each other in six rows; 14 are still standing. The building rose upon a walled platform, paved with blocks of marble. This appears to have been a kind of vestibule in which the court, the foreign ambassadors, the emissaries of the provinces, who brought tribute, assembled. The inscription calls it a reception-house,[448 - Viçadahyaus; Spiegel, loc. cit. s. 57; Benfey, "Keilinschriften," s. 63-65; Schrader, loc. cit. s. 364.] and the reliefs with which the front wall of the platform, ten feet in height, is ornamented, indicate that it was a vestibule. Two flights of steps lead up to this platform, and in the middle they form a projecting landing, on the front of which, on either side of an inscription, stand the seven guardians of the kingdom, three on one side and four on the other, in Median garments, with an upright spear in the hand. On the external walls of the steps we see a lion on either side, which attacks a horned horse from behind; the horse turns to defend itself. On the wall of the platform reliefs on either side of the steps exhibit three rows of figures one above the other. On the west side are the nations bringing tribute, on the eastern, which is more honourable, the body-guard and the court of the king. In each row here 22 soldiers of the body-guard advance to the steps; then the people of the court follow, partly in Median and partly in Persian dress; most of them have a dagger at the side; some are in conversation and take each other by the hand; others have suspended the bow in a belt over the shoulder; others carry cups, others staves which end in an apple in their hands. On the west side of the steps the figures are arranged in 20 sections, each containing six men (with one exception, which contains eight). The first figure always carries a staff, which marks him out as introducing strangers. The staff-bearer holds the nearest man by the hand; this second figure and the four which follow are differently clad in each section; the last four carry various objects, garments, jars containing different articles, etc., or lead camels, horses, humped oxen, cattle, rams, mules, and other animals. These are the 20 satrapies of the kingdom who are brought before the king by the officers, and present their tribute. A second building, which Xerxes erected to the south-west of the smaller structure of Darius, consists of a portico of 12 pillars, and a hall of 36 pillars, on which abut four chambers on the east and west. This seems to have been his dwelling-house at Persepolis; at any rate we see in the sculptures of the hall six servants, who are carrying dishes with food, and a wine-skin. In addition to these, in four other places on the terrace, there are remains of less extensive buildings, one of which, lying in the south-west angle, was built by Artaxerxes III. Numerous ruins before the royal citadel, reaching from the foot of the terrace to the Pulwar, and the ruins of a wall, which ran along the river, confirm the statements of the Greeks, that a city of considerable size lay adjacent to the palace, just as the remains of canals and aqueducts show that the valley in front of the citadel was carefully cultivated.

Near the new citadel and city, which Darius added to his home a few years later, he caused the place to be marked out in which his corpse should rest or be exposed. Two leagues to the north-west from the ruins of the citadel of Persepolis, on the further shore of the Pulwar, lies a steep wall of white marble, now called Naksh-i-Rustem, i. e. pictures of Rustem. At an elevation of 60 or 70 feet above the ground this wall is hewn and wrought. The lowest part of this work is a plain surface, which forms the basis for a façade of four pillars, which are cut out of the rock. The capitals, like those in the palaces of Persepolis, are formed of the fore-quarters of two kneeling horses united at the middle. Between the two central pillars is the case of a door. The heavy moulding which these pillars support passes into a toothed plinth, on which rises a sort of catafalque, where are two rows of men, each containing fourteen, in different dresses (among them are three negroes), who support a beam with upraised arms, on which a few steps lead up to a platform. On this stands Darius before an altar, the fire on which is flaming. The left hand rests on the bow which is planted on the platform, the right is raised in prayer. In the centre above the king hovers Auramazda in a winged circle; to the right the sun's disc is visible. The door of the façade does not seem to have been an entrance; but now the lower part of it is opened, and leads behind the façade into a long chamber, and three smaller ones, which are cut out of the mountain. Any one who wishes to have a near view of the façade must be drawn up, as Ctesias says that the parents of Darius were; the corpses also must have been drawn up, as we are told by Diodorus. On the façade under the form of the king we find the following inscription: "I, Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands of all tongues, the king of the great and wide earth, the son of Hystaspes, the Achæmenid, the Persian, the son of a Persian, Ariya, scion of Ariya (in the Babylonia text we have only, a Persian, son of a Persian). Darius the king says: 'By the grace of Auramazda these are the lands which I governed beyond Persia; I ruled over them: they brought me tribute, they did what I commanded them: they obeyed my law: the Medes, Susians, Parthians, Areans, Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, Sarangians, Arachoti, Gedrosians, Gandarians, Indians, Amyrgian-Sacæ, Sacæ with pointed caps, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, Cappadocia, the inhabitants of Sardis, the Ionians, the Sacæ beyond the sea, the Çkudra (the Thracians?) the Ionians who wear knots,[449 - Above, p. 272 n.] the Putiya, the Kushiya, the Machiya, the Karka (p. 307). Auramazda gave me these lands when he saw them in rebellion, and granted to me the rule over them; by the grace of Auramazda I have again reduced them to order; what I told them, that was done, because it was my will. If thou thinkest: How many were the lands which Darius ruled? look on the picture of those who bear my throne, in order to know them. Then wilt thou know that the lance of the Persian penetrated far, that the Persian fought battles far from Persia. What I have done, I have accomplished by the grace of Auramazda: Auramazda came to my help, till I accomplished it; may Auramazda protect me, my house and my land. May Auramazda grant me that for which I pray. O man, resist not the command of Auramazda; leave not the right path; sin not.'"[450 - Oppert. "Z. D. M. G." 11, 133 ff.; Mordtmann, loc. cit. 16, 109 ff.; Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 52; Schrader, loc. cit. s. 361.] The mention of the "Knot-bearing" Ionians, and the Putiya (i. e. the Libyans), and the Sacæ beyond the sea on this inscription shows that it was engraved after the campaigns to the Danube and Barca, the subjection of Lemnos and Miletus, and the Greek cities on the coast of Thracia, i. e. after the year 512 B.C.; it was after this year that Darius caused his tomb to be constructed.[451 - Above, p. 272 n., 307.] On the frame of the façade, over the pillared portal, we find on each side three figures in long robes placed over each other. These are the six princes of the Persian tribes, the six chiefs of the empire after the king. Above the highest figure on the left of the king we read: "Gaubaruva (Gobryas) the Pateischorean, the lance-bearer of King Darius;"[452 - So the Babylonian text.] over the second "Açpachana (Aspathines), the bow-bearer of King Darius."[453 - It is merely a guess that saraçtibara means bow-bearer; Spiegel, "Keilinschriften," s. 106. Oppert translates: bearer of the commands of the king; "Peuple des Mèdes," p. 213.]

The ruins of Susa and Persepolis, the only remains of ancient west Iranian architecture which have come down to us, show that it was indeed founded upon Babylonian and Assyrian patterns, but that it was by no means mere imitation. Neither in Ecbatana nor in Persepolis was the use of brick necessary; stone was at hand; and even in Susa, at a distance of 50 miles from the mountains, stone was used. The ruins give evidence of a skill in smoothing and fitting the stones, which can only have been attained by long practice. If the platform, on which the buildings rest, belongs to the Babylonian and Assyrian style, the ruins of Persepolis and Susa nevertheless exhibit a perfectly independent style, which seems to have arisen out of an earlier practice of building in wood, and a peculiar manner of treating the ornamentation. We have seen that the plan of the palace at Ecbatana presupposed the use of wood, that the pillars there were wooden posts covered with precious metals. In Persepolis stone took the place of wood. The outer walls of the building are strong, the blocks and mouldings over the windows and doors are high and massive, but along with this massiveness, strength, and permanence, the buildings show a tendency to run into great height. The pillars are slender, reminding us of tent-posts; though of more than 60 feet in height they have a diameter of only four feet, and the inter-columniations are often more than 30 feet. The socles and capitals (which are either the fore-quarters of horses or bulls or inverted cups) are high and delicate. The socles do not project far, the capitals are slender; the buildings, which were covered by roofs of beams, overlaid no doubt with plates of gold and silver, thus acquired, along with their solidity, the impression of imposing elevation and delicate lightness. The sculptures also are distinguished from those of Babylon and Assyria, not merely by the fact that they are carried out in harder material, but they have also greater repose in the expression, the figures are less compressed, the muscles less prominent, the development of the forms more noble and free, the fall of the folds simple and natural. Animals are represented with extraordinary vigour and life. The execution in detail is careful, but flatter and duller than at Nineveh. The expression of the heads does not possess the energy and life which the sculptures of Assyria present; even in the most excited action it is ceremonious. It is solemn, massive, earnest, dignified, and restrained, but wanting in character. Beside the sculptures which symbolically represent the dignity, business, or deeds of the officers of the empire, the remaining reliefs of Persepolis give no chronicle of the reign of Darius and Xerxes; we find neither battles nor sieges; they merely glorify the splendour and greatness of the monarchy; they exhibit the throne of the king which the subject nations carry, surrounded by the princes of the kingdom, and protected by the body-guard. We see the subject nations bringing tribute, and thus we have a picture of established power, and secure majesty, but not of the individual acts and victories of the king. The only historical sculpture which is at present known, is the inscription of Darius at Behistun. The style is simple and severe, the treatment far less minute than on the reliefs of Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustem, but naïve and vigorous.

Susa, so Strabo tells us, was adorned more than other cities by the kings of the Persians; each built a separate dwelling there as a memorial of his reign; after Susa they honoured the palaces of Persepolis and Pasargadae; at Gabae also in upper Persia and at Taoke on the coast they had castles.[454 - Strabo, p. 728, 735.] From Xenophon we learn that "the kings of Persia, it is said, pass the spring and the summer in Susa and Ecbatana."[455 - "Anab." 3, 5, 15.] We may conclude from these statements, and from the fact that the Achæmenids not only preserved but multiplied the gold and silver ornaments of the citadel of Ecbatana, as well as the buildings of the palace (V. 315), that Susa remained the ordinary residence even under the successors of Darius, but that in the height of summer – in order to avoid the heat of the plains of Elam – the court sought the cooler air of the ancient residence of Phraortes and Cyaxares – a change advisable on political grounds also. Even a short residence in Ecbatana showed that Media did not occupy the last place in the kingdom. The Persian kings also resided at times in Babylon. The Sassanids pursued the same course. Ardeshir built Shahabad in Elam, his successors resided in Madain, but during the summer in Hamadan.[456 - Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 353. Xenophon's statements about the residences in the "Anabasis" (loc. cit.) cannot be outweighed by the systematized arrangement in the "Cyropaedia" that Cyrus spent three months at Susa, two at Ecbatana, and seven months at Babylon, which Plutarch ("De Exilio," c. 12) repeats in the form, that the Persian kings passed the spring at Susa, the summer in Media, and the winter in Babylon. With Aeschylus and Herodotus Susa is a fixed residence, and so also in the treatise "De Mundo," p. 398, and the Hebrews, e. g. Nehemiah i. 1. Joseph. "Antiq." 10, 11, 7. Athenaeus, p. 513, thinks that Persepolis was the residence for the autumn. In the winter of the year 396-395 Conon finds Artaxerxes II. at Babylon; the same king says in Plutarch ("Artax." c. 19) to Parysatis, that he will never see Babylon as long as she lives.] The palaces in the mother country were visited by Darius and his successors from time to time, who like himself caused their sepulchres to be cut either in the rocks of Naksh-i-Rustem, or on Mount Rachmed, immediately to the east of the citadel. There are three sepulchres by the side of that of Darius, and three on Mount Rachmed.

The size and splendour of the palaces at Susa, Ecbatana, Persepolis, and Pasargadae were matched by the numbers and brilliance of the court. The ceremonies and the arrangement of the service were taken from the pattern of the Median court, but not without considerable variations, and the Medes, in turn, had imitated the style of the Assyrian and Babylonian court. The prominent position of the six tribal princes, the supreme judges, the "kinsmen and table companions of the king," were without a parallel among the Medes; it was they who immediately surrounded the king next to the occupants of the great offices of state or honour. It was the opinion of Cyrus, Xenophon tells us, that the ruler should not only be superior to his subjects in valour, but he must exert a charm over them also. Thus he accustomed both himself and his officers to give commands with dignity, and for himself and for them he adopted the Median dress, as being more imposing and majestic. On solemn occasions the king appeared in a long purple robe, bordered with white – such as no one but himself might wear,[457 - Plut. "Artax." c. 5.] a Kaftan (Kandys) of brilliant purple was thrown over it.[458 - Diod. 17, 77.] The embroidery exhibited falcons and hawks, the birds of the good god, which dwell in the pure air nearest to heaven. This garment was held together by a golden girdle, in which was a sabre adorned with precious stones. The trowsers were of purple; the shoes of the colour of saffron.[459 - Aeschyl. "Pers." 660.] The head was covered by the upright tiara or kidaris,[460 - Plut. "Artax." c. 26.] of a white and blue colour, or by a band of the same colours, and also by a crown, as we see from the picture of Darius on a seal at Behistun.[461 - Diod. 17, 77; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 3, 13.] Plutarch tells us that the king's attire was valued at 12,000 talents (nearly £3,000,000); his ornaments and attire on solemn occasions are no doubt meant.[462 - Plutarch ("Artax." c. 24) maintains, it is true, that this is the value of the garments which the king habitually wore. Arrian treats of this subject, "Anab." 4, 7, and Curtius, 3, 3, 17-19; 6, 6, 4. With respect to the royal colours, cf. Esther i. 6.] If the royal court of the Sassanids was arranged after that of the Achæmenids, the attire of the king was even more extravagant. As the Greeks inform us, the king of the Persians was a sight seldom seen by the Persians.[463 - Phan. Eres. Fragm. 9, ed. Müller; Plut. "Artax." c. 20, 23; Strabo, p. 525.] Only the six tribal princes could enter without being announced. The attempt in any other person would be punished with death, unless the king forgave the offence.[464 - Esther iv. 11. Cf. Herod. 3, 118, 119.] It required time and trouble, and even special favour, to make way through the troops of body-guards, servants, eunuchs, under-officers, and court nobles; and when this was done it was necessary to be announced by the officers who introduced strangers, or by the chief door-keeper. The king sat on a golden throne when he gave audience. Over this was stretched a baldachino of vari-coloured purple, supported by four golden pillars adorned with precious stones.[465 - Heracl. Cum. fragm. 1, ed. Müller; Esther v. 4.] It was the custom among the Persians for the lower to bow to the earth before the more honourable,[466 - Herod. 1, 134; Strabo, p. 734.] no one approached the king without falling in the dust before him.[467 - Arrian, "Anab." 4, 11.] Any one who spoke to the king was compelled to keep his hands hidden in the long sleeves of his upper garment, in order to show that he neither could nor would use them.[468 - Xenoph. "Hellen." 2, 1; 8.]

According to Xenophon the king of the Persians at day-break praised the powers of heaven, sacrificed daily to the gods, whom the Magians indicated. Plutarch tells us that he was awaked daily by a chamberlain with the words: "Arise, O king, and think of the things which Auramazda has given thee to think of."[469 - Herod. 7, 54; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 23, 24, with the addition that this was the custom in his day. Plut. "Ad princ. ineruditum," 3.] At table the queen-mother and the queen sat beside him. The first sat above him, the second below, the king was in the middle of the table.[470 - Plutarch, "Artax." c. 5; "Conjug. praecepta," c. 16; "Quaest. Conviv." 1, 3, 1.] Like all the Persians, he ate but one meal a day, but this lasted a long time. The princes, the "kinsmen" and "table companions" of the king, as a rule, ate in an ante-chamber, but at banquets they were in the same hall with him, in their proper order, the king on a rich divan with a golden frame, the companions on pillows or carpets on the floor,[471 - Heracl. Cum. fragm. 2; Xenoph. "Hellen." 4, 1, 30.] so arranged that those whom the king trusted most were on his left, the others on his right; "because the king," as Xenophon says, "could in case of need defend himself better with his right hand."[472 - "Cyri Inst." 8, 4, 2, 3.] Before it was brought to the king the food was tested by tasters; and before handing the goblet to the king, the butler drank a few drops out of it with a spoon, to prove that it was not poisoned.[473 - Suidas, Ἐδέατρος.] Many kinds of food were set on the table, but only a moderate portion of each was placed before every person. Xenophon praises the abstinence of the well-bred Persians at table; they regarded it as low and brutish to show desire for food or drink.[474 - "Cyri Inst." 5, 2, 17.] Plutarch says: "Not only the friends, and commanders, and body-guard of the king had portions from his table, but also what the slaves and dogs ate was put upon the board, so that the kings of the Persians made all who were in their service the companions of their table and their hearth."[475 - Plut. "Quaest. Conviv." 7, 4, 5.] What was left from the table of the king was carried into the courts and distributed in equal portions among the body-guard and the servants.[476 - Athenaeus, p. 145. Above, p. 352.] If the meal was followed by any drinking, the queen-mother and the queen retired, before the concubines entered to play and sing.[477 - Plut. "Quaest. Conviv." 1, 1, 1; "Conjug. praecepta," 16.] The table-companions might not look at the concubines, and the eunuchs, who brought the women into the hall, took care that they should not. Even at night, when the king retired to rest, the concubines played and sang by the light of burning lamps.[478 - Heracl. Cum. fragm. 2; Diod. 17, 77.] On the festival of Mithra, the king was allowed to dance in Persian fashion, and to be intoxicated;[479 - Ctesias and Darius, in Athenaeus, p. 434.] on his birthday he gave a great banquet, which, as Herodotus tells us, was called among the Persians the perfect banquet. On this day the king gave presents to the Persians (i. e. they received a largess of money), and at the banquet, in which the women took part, he could not refuse any petition.[480 - Herod. 9, 110, 111; Esther ii. 18.] In accordance with the doctrine of the Avesta the king celebrated the day which had called him into life, and, as Plato tells us, all Asia celebrated with sacrifices and feasts the day which had given them their ruler.[481 - "Alcib. I." p. 121.]

No one ever saw the king on foot; if he passed through the courts of the palace carpets of Sardis were spread before him, on which no other foot might step.[482 - Heracl. Cum. fragm. 1, ed. Müller.] Outside the palace the king was sometimes seen on horseback, but more frequently in his chariot. It was a much-envied distinction among the princes of Persia to be allowed to assist the king to his horse.[483 - Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 4, 4.] If he descended from his chariot, no one might reach out his hand to support him; it was the duty of the bearer of the royal stool to place a golden stool for him to descend. At solemn processions, the roads on which the royal train passed were cleansed, as in India, strewn with myrtle and made odorous with frankincense; a string of guards and whip-bearers were placed along the way to prevent any one from coming forward to the chariot of the king.[484 - Herod. 7, 54; Curtius, 5, 1, 20.] The body-guard in their golden ornaments with crowned tiaras led the way and brought up the rear. The chariot of Mithra, yoked with eight Nisaean greys, went before the king; the sacred fire was carried before him by the Magians; and beside the chariot of the king, which was drawn by six or four Nisaean horses, marched staff-bearers. The chiefs of the tribes, the Achæmenids, the great officers of the court, the "kinsmen and table companions" of the king followed. In the train in the rear no doubt the royal horses, two or four hundred in number, were, no doubt, led in splendid trappings.[485 - Herod. 7, 40, 41; 54, 55; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 3, 5-10; Curtius, 3, 3, 21.]

Darius was married before he ascended the throne of the Magian. His wife was the daughter of Gobryas, the chief of the Pateischoreans. She had borne him three sons before he came to the throne: Artabazanes, Arsamenes, and Ariabignes.[486 - Herod. 7, 2, 97; 8, 89. Herodotus (7, 68) calls Arsamenes the son of Darius, and (7, 69) Arsames the son of Darius and Artystone. Artabazanes is called by Justin (2, 10) Artamenes.] When he had acquired the throne, he made Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, his queen, i. e. his legitimate wife; the younger line of Achæmenes was thus yet more closely united with the elder. The daughter of Gobryas fell into the rank of the second wives; Atossa took the place which Cassandane had held beside Cyrus, and which she herself had previously occupied with Cambyses. The second daughter of Cyrus, Artystone, and Parmys the only daughter whom Smerdis had left, passed into the harem of Darius. Atossa bore him four sons: Xerxes, Hystaspes, Masistes, and Achæmenes; Artystone bore Arsames and Gobryas, and Parmys Ariomardus. Darius had also sons by other women, as Phratagune, the daughter of his brother, Artanes; "he had many sons," is the remark of Justin.[487 - Herod. 7, 224; Justin, 2, 10.] The secondary wives of the king ranked above the concubines. The number of the latter was, at any rate under the successors of Darius, very considerable; it is given at 300, 350, and 360. After the battle of Issus, 329 concubines of the last Darius were discovered among the captives.[488 - Diod. 17, 77; Athenaeus, p. 557.] These women, as Diodorus informs us, were sought out from the most beautiful maidens in Asia; for the new-comers, according to the book of Esther, a year's preparation was necessary. This went on in a special department of the seraglio, and consisted in the use of ointments, spices, and perfumes.[489 - Esther ii. 7-17; v. 2; viii. 4.] They were so far beneath the queen, that they were compelled to prostrate themselves before her when she looked at them;[490 - Deinon in Athenaeus, p. 557.] at no time, except at the table of the king, could they be seen by men. If they accompanied the king on the chase or on journeys, and, as became usual at a later time, to the field, they were always in closed conveyances. Any one who touched one of the concubines was put to death, and even any one who approached their waggons, or passed through the train.[491 - Heracl. Cum. fragm. 1, ed. Müller; Plut. "Artax." c. 27.] The queen enjoyed greater liberty. We are told of Stateira, the consort of Artaxerxes II., that she always travelled with her hangings drawn back, and allowed the women of the people to come up to her car and greet her.[492 - Plut. "Artax." 5.]

We have mentioned already how numerous were the persons about the court. The Greeks call attention to the splendid attire of the servants, and remark that the preparation of the king's table and the waiting gave them a great deal of trouble: in fact half the day was taken up with this. Each of the great court officers had a large number of subordinates. The chief door-keeper had at his disposal a number of eunuchs, who watched over the inner courts of the palace and the harem, waited on the women and carried messages. The degrading use of castration was unknown to the nations of the Arians, and contrary to their religion, which put so high a value on life, and the preservation of the germs of life. It was from the princes of the Semites, the Assyrian and Babylonian court, that the use of eunuchs for guarding the harem, for waiting on the king and his women, and service in the inner chambers, was borrowed by the Median kings. In addition to other burdens, Babylonia supplied each year 500 mutilated boys to Darius. Eunuchs were never employed in the Persian army for commanders, or for officers of state, as was the case in Assyria and Babylonia; but personal attendance on the king, which even in the time of Cyrus devolved on eunuchs, brought some of them into favour and influence under him, and subsequently under Cambyses.[493 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 7, 5, 58.] Beside the chief door-keeper and his eunuchs, was the chief staff-bearer with his subordinates. It was his duty to introduce strangers and those who came to ask for assistance; the envoys from countries and cities; to preserve order in the palaces, to superintend and punish the servants. The chief butler was at the head of a large number of butlers and waiters. The chamberlains, the valets of the king with their subordinates, the spreaders of pillows and carpets, the carvers and table-dressers, the cooks and bakers, the preparers of ointment, the weavers of crowns, the lamp-lighters and palace-sweepers formed a considerable body. In addition there was the chief groom with his subordinates, the master of the hunt, the hunters and dog-keepers. Physicians also were at hand, chiefly from Egypt, who had the greatest reputation in the east; then came the Greeks.[494 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 9; 8, 8, 20; Plut. "Artax." c. 19; Nicol. Damasc. fragm. 66, ed. Müller. On the physicians, above, p. 134, 313.]

Long caravans, surrounded by the body-guard, conducted the court, when a change of residence was made, from Susa to the palaces of Persia or Ecbatana. A large amount of splendid furniture, cattle for slaughter, food and drink of special quality, were taken with them. Herodotus tells us that the king of Persia drank only the water of the Choaspes, i. e. the Kerkha, which was boiled and carried in silver vessels on four-wheeled cars both into the field, and on journeys.[495 - Herod. (1, 188) ascribes this custom to Cyrus, though the reference to Susa which he adds shows that it can only have come into existence after Susa became a residence.] Beside numerous waggons the conveyance of the court required 1200 camels.[496 - Demosth. "Symmor." p. 185.] Along with the military equipage of the last Darius 277 cooks, 29 pastry-cooks, 13 preparers of milk diet, 17 preparers of liquors, 70 cellarmen, 40 preparers of ointment, and 41 chaplet-makers were captured.[497 - Athenaeus, p. 608.]

CHAPTER XX

RETROSPECT

The arrangement which Darius had given to his vast empire allowed the character, laws, manners, and religion of the subject nations to remain as far as possible unchanged, and only interfered, exceptionally, in the hereditary local customs of the provinces. Adequate provision for the maintenance of the central government, the establishment of rapid combinations, care for the training of the generals and officers, ample and obvious rewards for service, a system of taxation far removed from extortion, regulations for the advancement of agriculture, development of the trade on the southern sea, or by land, since the caravans could pass unharmed and even protected from Miletus to Susa, from Cyrene to the Indus, seemed to give a solid foundation, an adequate support, and abiding power to the empire of Cyrus and Darius. Yet for the security and continuance of it, it was of the first importance, whether the national feeling of the subject peoples, in spite of or owing to the tolerance of the empire, was still sufficiently vigorous and strong to create in them the desire to rise from the subjection in which they were, to win back their independence, and develop their national existence; whether the controlling power of the ruling people was sufficient to maintain itself for a length of time over such wide regions; whether, in fine, the ruling house would preserve, amid the splendour of its new palaces, and the brilliance of extraordinary success, the vigour and force required to sustain the heavy task of administering the empire in the manner of Darius.

Under his sceptre the national civilizations of Asia which had hitherto been separated were united into a great whole. Beside the ancient civilization of Babylon stood the yet more ancient civilization of Egypt; beside the Lydians and Syrians, and the Hellenes of the Anatolian coast, stood the forms of life existing on the Indus, all united in equal rights; above these, and yet owing to the formation of this empire, side by side with them, was the characteristic civilization of the Bactrians, Medes, and Persians. The ancient communities of Egypt, Babylonia, and Phoenicia were able, it is true, to make attempts, and even stubborn attempts, at resistance, but they did not succeed in effecting a new departure. On the contrary, the various forms of civilization united together began by degrees to exercise a mutual influence, and each wore down the other. Only the religious feeling of that Syrian tribe, whose states had been crushed beneath the armies of the kings of Asshur and Babylon, remained free from this assimilation, and self-secluded; in the native soil, which Cyrus had once more allowed the exiles to occupy, they struck new and deeper roots, which promised the noblest fruits from the old sturdy stock.

The Persians, and especially the upper orders, could not remain uninfluenced by the privileged position of the ruling people and reigning class in such a wide empire, and by the pattern of the court. The fruits of dominion flowed in upon them; their lives were opulent and full of enjoyment. The Greeks can tell us a great deal of the splendour and luxury of the Persians, which were introduced in the time of Darius and subsequently. They inform us that the Persians adopted a richer style of dress. Like the Indians, the Medes and the Persians after them delighted to adorn themselves; but according to the Greeks the Persians were even more anxious to give themselves a dignified and imposing appearance. They wore the loose dress of the Medes, in blue and red purple; they also followed the Medes in wearing chains, and armlets, and earrings of gold.[498 - Plut. "Artax." c. 13; Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 1, 40; "Anab." 1, 5, 8; Strabo, p. 734.] The hair and beard received careful attention. In summer the parasol-bearers were always at hand, in winter gloves were worn.[499 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 17.] The houses were adorned with costly carpets; the Persians lay on beds with golden feet, and soft cushions; and on the tables of the higher classes glittered goblets, bowls, and pitchers of gold and silver. The servants were numerous, trained butlers, bakers, and cooks were kept.[500 - Aeschyl. "Pers." 543; Xenophon, "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 16.] The table of the Persians, as the Greeks tell us, presented but few kinds of farinaceous food, but whole animals were served up, and the dessert was plentiful and in various courses.[501 - Herod. 1, 133; Heracleides of Cyme (Fragm. 2, ed. Müller) contests the excess of the king at table as well as of the officers and generals. Cf. Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 5, 2, 17; 8, 8, 10; Strabo, p. 733, 734.] The hereditary moderation in wine was not observed. Herodotus tells us that: "The Persians readily accept foreign customs. They wear the Median dress because they consider it more beautiful, and in war they use Egyptian coats of mail. They adopt any customs which please them, and in addition to a large number of wives, they have many concubines."[502 - Herod. 1, 135.] About the year 500 B.C. the Persians were so accustomed to convenience in their domestic economy, that they took even into the field of battle their servants together with their cooks and maid-servants, their entire harem with costly furniture, partly in closed waggons and partly on camels; even the men of the guard were followed by their women and furniture. The nobles encamped under tents splendidly wrought with gold and silver.[503 - Herod. 7, 83, 187; 9, 76, 80, 81, 82; Xenoph. "Anab." 4, 4.] But in spite of this luxury, self-control and military vigour were never eradicated in the Persians. They were always seen in a becoming attitude. They were never observed to eat or drink greedily; they never laughed loud, or quarrelled, or gave way to passion.[504 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 8 ff.] The education which the sons of the nobles received under the eye of the king and the satraps, and the rich rewards in store for eminent valour, kept up a manly spirit. We have more than one instance of acts of rare devotion to the king and the empire. The remembrance of the conflicts of Cyrus, of the wars which Darius carried on, the consciousness of great successes, the proud feeling that they governed the nations of Asia, formed strong counterpoises to the advance of effeminacy. Even those who lived most delicately at home eagerly joined in the chase, in the prescribed extirpation of the animals of Angromainyu, and the princes did not disdain to do garden-work with their own hands day by day. At that time, as Xenophon observes, the old Persian sobriety and force existed beside the Median dress and luxury, and Heracleides of Pontus tells us that the Persians and Medes, who loved luxury and excess above others, were also the bravest and most magnanimous of the barbarians.[505 - Xenoph. "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 15; Heracl. Pont. ap. Athenaeum, p. 512.] Artaxerxes Mnemon, in spite of his golden ornaments and purple kaftan, dismounted from his horse, and marched on foot, shield on arm and quiver on shoulder, day by day at the head of his soldiers, through the roughest and steepest mountain paths, though the day's march reached 25 miles or more. In spite of armlets and purple hose the leading Persians long after the time of Darius leapt from their horses into the mud, in order to extricate a baggage-cart, which prevented the march of the army; and the common soldier, even when frozen with cold, hesitated to lay the axe to beautiful trees which would be consumed merely to warm him by his watch-fire. The prescripts of religion were not without effect. The kings kept their word when given; every Persian regarded it as shameful to break the pledge of plighted hands, to refuse reverence to his parents – his mother especially – to speak falsely, and to seek for gains by trade. Thucydides says of them that they liked better to give than to receive.[506 - Plut. "Artax." 24, 25; Xenoph. "Anab." 1, 5; "Cyri Inst." 8, 8, 2; Thuc. 2, 17.] The pride of the Persians preferred to serve the king with arms and receive favour and presents from him, than to carry on any kind of trade. A great number of the Persians were constantly under arms in the standing army; the rest tended their flocks and cultivated their fields in the hereditary way. They kept to the old Persian dress, the close and short garment of leather; their coats reached only half way down the thigh, and instead of the tiara they wore a low band round the head. Along with their dress and mode of life, they kept true to the manners and moderation of their forefathers, and practised the old arts of riding and archery.

More serious for the future of the kingdom than any splendour or magnificence on the part of eminent Persians, was the influence, which in the composition of the court was unavoidable, of his personal servants on the king and on his resolutions – and the danger that court intrigues might override the interest of the empire; above all, the still more unavoidable influence of the harem. If the position of the queen-mother, who, in accordance with the doctrines of Zarathrustra, enjoyed a position of great respect at court, and her relations to the queen or first wife gave occasion for jealous rivalry, each secondary wife had still stronger motives to seek or maintain influence with the king, to disparage the queen and the other wives before him, and make provision for her sons if she could not aspire to gain the succession to the throne. Thus a door was opened to ambition and intrigue, and the eunuchs of the wives found in this occupation only too good an opportunity for gaining importance and weight. If such evils were a little matter under a ruler of the determination and wisdom of Darius, it was impossible to count on the fact that he would be followed by a series of kings like himself, and equally great. But if the court outgrew the state, and the fortunes of the empire were decided in the seraglio, the empire itself might be thrown into danger with a change in the succession. The education given to the princes, and especially to the heir to the throne, has been mentioned already, as well as their instruction in the wisdom of the Magi. The crown descended to the eldest son of the legitimate wife or queen. Whenever the king took the field, in order to prevent contention he nominated his successor. Even about the successor of Darius a difficulty might arise. His first wife, the daughter of Gobryas, had borne him three sons before he came to the throne; when king, he had made Atossa his queen, and had four sons by her (p. 394). Which was the legitimate heir, the eldest of the first family, or of the second? – Artabazanes or Xerxes?

At the death of the king, as Diodorus tells us, the sacred fire in the royal palace, and in all the houses of the Persians, was put out.[507 - Diod. 17, 114. Cf. Curtius, 3, 3, 9.] We remember the prescript of the Avesta that the fire of the hearth must be removed from the house of the dead, together with all the sacred vessels, the pestle, the cup, the bundle of rods and the Haoma, and that the fire could not be kindled again till the ninth or thirtieth day after the death (V. 215). The heir to the throne repaired to Pasargadae, to receive consecration from the Magi there. "In that city," says Plutarch, "there is the shrine of a warlike goddess who may, perhaps, be compared with Athene; to this the prince who is to be consecrated goes, and there lays his robe aside, in order to put on the garment which Cyrus wore before he became king: then he eats a cake of dried figs, bites a terebinth, and drinks a cup of sour milk (no doubt in remembrance of the old life of the Persians). Whether he has anything to do beyond this is unknown."[508 - Plut. "Artax." 3.] We are told elsewhere that the new king put the royal kidaris on his head; and no doubt the act would be accompanied with invocations by the Magi. The shrine of the goddess mentioned by Plutarch must have been a place of sacrifice to Anahita; the heroes and kings of the Avesta sacrifice to this goddess in order to attain the splendour of majesty, the supreme dominion.[509 - Vol. V. 32, 37. "Aban Yasht," 22, 25, 46, 50.]

The Arian tribes of the table-land of Iran have preserved the original character of their family more truly than their kinsmen who settled on the Indus and the Ganges, and filled the Deccan with their civilization. Placed in a less tempestuous region, in a land where there were sharp contrasts of climate, of hill and plain, of fertility and desolation, of snow and sand storms, the life of the Arians in Iran was more vigorous and manly than life in India. The tribes in the north-east attained to civic life and intellectual progress before the tribes of west Iran. The contrast in which the former stood to the hordes of the neighbouring steppes, and the repulsion of their attacks, led the Bactrians to a larger state, and the formation of a military monarchy, which arose from the midst of an armed nobility, while the weight of the ancient and powerful states of the Semites in the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, repressed the independent development of the tribes of western Iran. The foundations of the religious views of the Arians were the same to the east and west of the Indus. With the Arians of the Panjab, the Arians of Iran shared the belief in the power of the spirits of light which gave life and blessing, in the destructive power of the black spirits, and the struggle of the spirits of light against the spirits of darkness. The peculiar intensity of the contrasts in nature and in the conditions of life in the north-east, gave an impulse to the development of religious views there, which led to the systematic opposition of the hosts of heaven and of hell, and the union of these groups under two supreme spirits, and to deeper ideas of their nature. It was a transformation of the old conceptions which at the same time carried with it a change and increase in the ethical demands made upon men. While the development of conceptions beyond the Indus tended to set man free from all sensuality, and sought to bring him back to his divine origin, by crushing the body and quenching the individuality, the doctrine of Zarathrustra excludes only the harmful side of nature, and demands the increase of the useful side; it pledges every man to take a part in the conflict of the good spirits against the evil, demands that by his work, his activity, and the purity of his soul, he enlarge the kingdom of the good and light spirits to the best of his ability, and thus forms sound and practical aims for the conduct of men. When this doctrine had penetrated to the nations of west Iran, and struck deep roots among them, the Medes succeeded in combining their tribes, and repelling the supremacy of the Assyrians. In no long time the borders of their dominion extended, in the west to the Halys, and in the east over the whole table-land of Iran; in union with Babylon they overthrew the remnant of Assyria, and shared with that city the empire over Hither Asia. What the Medes had begun, the Persians finished, when they had taken the place of the Medes. One after another the ancient kingdoms of Hither Asia fell before them – the Lydian empire, which had finally united under its sway the tribes and cities of the western half of Asia Minor, ancient Babylon, which had once more united the valley of the two streams, the states of Syria, and the cities of the Phenicians, and at length even primeval Egypt.

Arian life and Arian culture were now dominant through the whole breadth of Asia, from the pearl-banks and coral-reefs of the Indian Ocean to the Hellespont. At the time when the first Arian settlers were landing far in the east on Tamraparni (Ceylon) the cities of the Hellenes on the western coast of Anatolia and the strand of the Aegean were compelled to bow before the arms of Cyrus. The world had never seen before such an empire as that of Darius, the borders of which reached from the Libyans, the plateau of Barca, the Nubians and negroes beyond Egypt, the tribes of the Arabian desert to the summits of the Caucasus, the remote city of Cyrus on the Jaxartes, and the gold-land of the Daradas in the lofty Himalayas. And not contented with this range Darius aspired to extend yet further the limits of his empire.

Beyond the Aegean Sea a branch of the Arian stock had developed an independent civilization and civic life in small mountain cantons surrounded by the sea. The eye of the potentate of Asia looked no doubt with contempt on these unimportant communities, whose colonies in Asia and Africa had long been subject to him; on states of which each could put in the field no more than a few thousand warriors. The sea, which separated the Persian kingdom from the cantons of the Greeks, had already been crossed; the Persians had seen the mouths of the Danube; the straits of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont were in the power of Darius, the coasts of Thrace and the Greek states were subject to him; he had already planted a firm foot at the mouths of the Hebrus and the Strymon, and the prince of Macedonia paid him tribute. At his command Phenicians and Persians had investigated the coasts of the Aegean Sea, and of Hellas.

Was it possible that these small cantons, without political union or common interests, living in perpetual strife and feud, excited and torn by internal party contests in which there were almost as many views as men, whose exiles made their way to the lofty gates of the Persian monarch, whose princes were at pains to secure their dominions by vassalage to the great king, and join in leagues with him against their countrymen – was it possible that these cantons, in this position, would maintain their independence against Persia, and resist the attack of this universal empire, – the onset of Asia? Would the Greeks be bold enough to venture on such a hopeless struggle, to oppose the Persians, whose name was a terror to all their neighbours, and even to the Hellenes? Few, Herodotus tells us, could even bear the sight of the Persian cavalry, and Plato remarks that the minds of the Greeks were already enslaved to the Persians.

It was a question of decisive importance for the civilization and development of humanity; whether the new principle of communal government, which had been carried out in the Hellenic cantons, should be maintained, or pass into the vast limits of the Persian empire, and succumb to the authority of the king: state power and civic life, absolute authority and the will of the majority, abject obedience and conscious self-control, the masses and the individual – these were ranged opposite each other, and the balance was already turning in favour of overwhelming material force.

THE END

notes

1

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

2

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

3